good evening and welcome to the select board meeting for Tuesday February 18th 2025 we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United stes States of America the Republic stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty in Justice for All okay 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 a link posted in this
meeting's agenda this meeting is being recorded item number two public for residents are invited to share ideas opinions or ask questions regarding their town government with an approximate time limit of 3 minutes please anyone Mr Weiss
ma sir please thank you Sam doich at Erica Drive uh tonight I'm speaking on behalf of the ccil on Aging board I'm a member of the board and the secretary and we wanted to read a letter that the board crafted and
submitted to the select board today I know I've gotten one uh very thoughtful reply so thank you very much and I'm sure we'll get some others hopkington is a wonderful town to live live in its residents appreciate and value many aspects of the Town such
as a small town feel and convenient location its neighborly atmosphere and its closeness to family and friends hopkington like most of Massachusetts is also an aging community in 2020 19% of the population was aged 60 and older by
2030 in less than 5 years the percentage of Hoppington residents age 60 and older will grow the 20 will grow by 27 grow to 27% a 42% increase to 2024 Aging in Hoppington a community needs assessment report
documented some of the concerns and challenges facing seniors who live in town and want to age in place three of them Financial insecurity driven largely by taxes cost of living and housing limited Transportation options for those who do not drive and
lastly inability to adapt current housing downsize or attain excess housing the report also show that while programs and services offered by senior services are valued there are recommendations to expand programs and services to reach a broader segment of
hopkington residents the demand for programs and services such as Outreach assistance meals and transportation are expected to dramatically increase in the coming years a larger senior population require more support to age in place and
remain in the town that they love this will create challenges which will require additional resources staff and Innovative programs to meet the current and future needs of older hopkington adults hopkington is very focused on
maintaining the quality of its school system and expanding its physical plan to accommodate a rapidly growing number of students we ask the select board to also keep the needs of seniors as a priority while children will be in school for 13 years at the most many
seniors will age in place for over 25 years meeting the needs of seniors is just as important as meeting the needs of hopkinson's children the new school construction property tax assistant program for seniors is a great example of addressing
the financial challenges of seniors we asked the select board to put in place realistic asset and income eligibility requirements so the seniors who need property tax assistance can qualify for it a review of the eligibility require re Ms for all Town
assistant programs for seniors should take place income and asset criteria that were reasonable over the past 40 years should be reexamined taking into account the impact on seniors of inflation and the increased cost of living in hopkington on behalf of the
ccil on Aging board I'd like to thank you in advance for your consideration and support thank you Sam this is Paula hos of 19 Mount Auburn Street Apartment 2 I'm Vice chair of the Hopkinson Council on Aging board but
tonight I'm speaking as an individual I've had younger a younger Hopkin resident tell me that they moved to Hopkinton only for the schools and that they plan to leave hopkington as soon as their last kid graduates because
it's just too expensive to live here and even if they did want to live here there's a shortage of affordable housing if they sold their house and wanted to live somewhere else in hopkington So and I've had other people tell me they've heard the same thing from other
Hopkinton residents that this is just you know they're going to be here until they can get out and go somewhere else what will this mean for Hopkinson well one concern I have is that it means
that the warm feeling of being a community will change when people see Hopkinton as a temporary stop in addition if older people sell their homes and younger people buy them and have more there are more children and
they number of children continues to increase and increase and increase then there's going to be need for even bigger schools more services at the library more recreational opportunities and so on and so forth to me the best thing is
to have a nice balance of older folks and families with children it gives it a good feel to the community so I would ask the select board to please keep the needs of senior citizens as a priority thank you for listening to my thoughts great thank
you anyone else Vice May Ken Weiss Manel 145 as stre today the water subject is unaccountable water one of my favorite subjects unaccountable water is defined as the
water pumped at a well or purchased from Ashland minus the water that you sell to all your customers unaccountable water can come from many areas such as leaks and pipes or meters that do not read correctly or
main flushing that is not measured correctly the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conservation standard is that unaccountable water should be less than 10% unaccountable water is used by mass de and the Water Resources Commission
for water management withdrawal permits and interbase and transfers such as the proposed MW connection would be un accountable water measures the efficiency of a water
department our history from the mass D website 2017 14% 18 2018 16% 2019
23% 2020 25% 2021 27% and then we have an anomaly which the D thinks that somebody fudged the numbers of 3% in
2022 and in 20123 after doing a water uh M36 water audit it was 16% uh every October the DP gr grants
free M36 water Audits and the best ones uh best water systems do them annually because it tells you a lot about the efficiency of the system Hopkin did not apply for a free audit this last
October considering your considering operating budgets are due up soon the operating budget should include the yearly M36 water audit it should include leak detection leaks are hard to find we do a lot of that but we haven't found
much and it's best done in winter in the middle of the night when nobody there's no outside water use and and most most people are asleep and the washing machines aren't running find a leak you reduce operating cost we do this but we haven't found a big leak water meter
replacement water meters read low over time change out your meters increase your Revenue change out at least 10% of the meters every year or you're going to be doing 100% on the year or two following an interbase and transfer
approval all these are likely to be conditions of an interbase and transfer uh approved by the Water Resources Commission Hopkinton should make real improvements to reduce our unaccountable water to less than 10% if you are running a business that's
wasting at least 16% and you rais prices in 40 by 40% in one year how long would your boss keep you in charge the water department is a business the select board is are acting as water Commissioners for the town and
you guys are in charge thank you thank you anybody else from The Forum I don't know if I can get through clear hello hi my name is Warren Carter I live at 250 Wood Street and I am the
vice chair of the library Board of Trustees and I'm here tonight to offer a short statement on behalf of their budget proposal for 2026 I suspect that everyone in this room tonight and watching around to town is well aware of the Myriad of wonderful
Services the library offers its citizens throughout the town so um I won't give you a laundry list of all of those things but I'm here to to try to uh in advance of the of the budget offered in
tonight um give you the real a real reason why a dollars and cents reason why approving the budget makes sound financial uh sense if you look in your in Nancy Hills report you'll come across something
called a value benefit analysis and if you take a look at it you'll see how supercharged our spending can be using accepted auditing standards throughout and throughout the state um
and using an average visit per event the average cost per event per per Patron you'll find that the value total total value of the library services to Hopkinson represents about $23 million a
year it's a staggering figure or $3,500 per average household and that's a return of investment of $241 per. so in the vernacular of my generation that to me is a no-brainer
thank you thank you very much ma'am please hi my name is Linda Clancy 10 Farm Road hopkington and I am here to support the library tonight I'm on the friends of
the hopkington library um and I have to say that the library in this town is just one of the gems of this town it is the only place in town where you can go and everything is free and they are as
helpful can be I went back to school this year at my age and the reference Librarians are amazing they're helpful um the library is also the only place in town that from zero to the end of your
life you can participate there's so many programs it's so welcoming to new people with English English language Learners and other programs that they have and it's just a gem and I really feel that
all of us in town need to support the library and keep it open both Saturdays and Sundays because a lot of people can only access the library on weekends and it really should be available to everyone in town and not just the people
that have the luxury of going during the week um thank you so much I hope you all appreciate and I hope you all use the library a lot thank you great thank you anyone else please I'm IRAs Deckler at 91 South mil
Street and oh firstly I'd like to thank the board because I was nominated and accepted the position on the Commission on Aging last month so um so I've been associated with the senior center for about a little over a year and I don't
know the specifics of the senior senator budget that Amy Beck has submitted but I'm just here to state that um what I've observed and been participating in all the programs are very well appreciated even my wife who um started to go to
attend all their events or many of their events and myself as well so um I would just just here to state that I'm in support of what Amy Beck has proposed for the budget for the senior center great thank
you anyone else okay we will move ahead there's one hand on Zoom I'm sorry one hand on Zoom please yeah it's Punky draw I think hi Punky can you hear us she muted or no she shec okay now can you hear me there you go now I can hear
you fine thanks okay good um Nancy draw uh 13 Davis Road I am the chairperson on the council and aging board but I'm speaking to you tonight um as a private citizen so I've been involved with the senior center since
the new building opened the in October of 2006 first as a volunteer in many capacities and I've and also enjoying their daily lunches as well as many of their programs and activities I am now in my third term on the council and
aging board but um during this time I made many long lasting friendships e i even connected with someone I went to Junior High School with so it's been an amazing 19 years so what I want to do is
reiterate what Sam Read in the council and aging board's letter sent to you today quote the demand for programs such as Outreach assistance meals and transportation are expected to dramatically increase in the coming years end quote so please let's keep the
funding that we need so the upcoming generation of seniors will be able to enjoy all the services and programs that we do now thank you great thank you Punky my hand okay anybody
else anyone else no okay great all right with that we will move ahead to the third item on the agenda which is the consent agenda and there's a fair bit here I'll just kind of intro the topics without getting into too much detail we have some minutes from February 4th we
have a new employee uh R retia Reka Batel as the town's procurement and grants manager uh resignations the board will consider accepting resignations of Suzanne green and Patrick Fagen from the hopkington historic district commission
parade permit applications the select board will consider approving the following parade permit applications a parade permit for the Sharon timler Memorial 5K race to cure ALS a parade permit for the Little League opening day parade a parade permit for the dick and
Rick hoit Memorial yes you can walk run a parade permit application for the 100 yard dash and a parade permit application for the class of 2025 senior Car Parade does anybody want to break out any items from the consent
agenda I just wanted to generally ask all they've um they have all the permiting team comments are positive or they're taken care of yes they are okay so all the applications are complete as is with Public Safety and all that that's correct okay you good yep any other questions anyone let's start with
a breakout any want to break anything out from the consent agenda seeing none the chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as submitted so move second okay now to the motion does anyone have any questions comments about the consent agenda motion to approve I think just that we always like
to thank the people who have served who are re resigning so yeah we did we'll do that for sure right okay anything else all those in favor please say I I any opposed Shan so carries item number four employee introduction we are going to
actually table this L correct correct so we're going to table this item for the evening um for no other reason than we just couldn't get it organized uh in time as I understand it item number five uh 2025 quarter 2 deposit
investment report now this sounds exciting Elaine please if you want to introduce the topic I want to introduce uh CJ pette Town collector and Kyla laier a CFO to talk about the second quarter deposit investment report
perfect great welcome hello everybody all right so we're not going to bore you with all of the details of the report um I just have some bullet points I figured I'd go over um so this report covers the period of October 1st uh to December 31st of
24 we earned roughly 87 $70,000 in interest this period interest rates on accounts have declined slowly um we expect them to be pretty stable at the moment um Investments had a poor quarter
due to uncertainty in the markets um although it's notable to comment that the calendar year for 2024 was up as a whole we do expect quarter 3 will improve um it seems the markets are
calming down at this moment for now but obviously we can't forecast that indefinitely um January as we've seen so far was a better month um we earned $484,000 in interest for J January that
includes trust stabilization opep and general funds um so we are already seeing it kind of bounce back up which is a good thing um the town's arpa account was closed in December um as all arpa funds were spent or appropriated um so you'll
notice on the report it had a very small number of interest for December um and that was just the final interest for the account um so I wanted to note that we did have our semiannual review on investments um for calendar year 2024
today actually so this is a good timing um Investments are broken up into three buckets so we have three separate accounts stabilization CPA opep trust and then trust funds um so just to give you kind of an
overview of what 2024 brought us um stabilization and CPA had a port portfolio return of 4.65% for 2024 uh annualized since Inception the return is
3.04% opep had a portfolio return of 11.28% for 2024 annualized sense Inception the return is 6.6 6.46% trust funds had a portfolio report a return of
7.01% for 24 uh annualized since Inception the return was 3.92 so as you can tell 2024 is a great year for Investments we earn more percentage wise than we have on average historically um so it was a good year for all of the Investments hopefully we
see the same you know for 25 um and we also have the prudent investor legislation that will be at the town meeting um so that should hopefully increase um some of our numbers as
well great sounds pretty good yeah thank you you're very welcome Mr Manan questions comments no this is great I think this is the highest in many years I have heard so keep up the good work and hopefully we'll see that going thank you
horrific Amy yeah I just that um you'll put this on the website or maybe it is already so the public can look through it if they want to see the detail and and The Prudent investment thing for town meeting you'll have some slides for town meeting I presume to explain that CU people won't know what that is yeah so as we've mentioned before it was
actually approved at a town meeting um a while ago but then it had to go to the state house um and it got lost somewhere there so the easier way to get it done is to take a vote on it again um it does not have to go to the state level
anymore oh so it's a town decision now it's up to the town um so instead of fighting the legalities of trying to figure out what happened to it um taking another vote will will make it easier thank you y good obviously the taxpayers money is in
good hands thank you very much for your hard work and making it happen of course great set all right thank you thank you both well done all right and we don't have to there's nothing there's no action for us
there other than the update got okay and the CFO is staying with us um item number six we're a little early for everyone's here everybody's here let's go all right elain take it
away right so uh tonight we continue uh Department presentations of budgets um and so tonight they'll be accounting procurement and grants Public Library Youth and Family Services and Senior Services so first uh Cindy Johnson with accounting and procurement and grants so
what we've been doing so far with these budgets and Kyle has seen this and maybe you not seen some of this um we do about 10 minutes per department and we try to stick to the very high level stuff and talk mostly about personnel and making sure we can take care of our folks and the services the great Services they
provide we're not in the count the pencils here tonight you know that's what everybody else can figure out but we want to make sure that you get enough time we don't want this to carry on cuz we got to get through several others so it's not just directed at you it's at everybody but you just happen to be the first one sitting there okay so please
everybody bear with us but let's try and keep it moving and hit the high level stuff go right ahead are they going to show the slides y it's up okay good um so the department of accounting procurement and grants um our functions
uh basically fall under three categories obviously the most important is financial reporting accounts payable and procurement and grants our FY 25 budget was 315,000 um in
salaries uh we have three full-time employees it's myself as a senior accounting manager Town accountant um I'm responsible for the financial reporting assistant Town accountant handles the accounts payable which is paying the invoices and then our new
employee will uh retika will be the procurement and grants manager um so in the salaries budget we did have a decrease of 4.25% and that was due to new staff
hires um hiring at a lower uh salary than the exiting employees and then in the expense budget um there's actually a large decrease and that was solely because in Prior
years um there were outside consultant and accounting assistance um that needed to be secured because of the vacancies and um learning curves of the
new staff and with our staff in place uh with myself and the assistant Town accountant we no longer need those Services um so we're able to recognize uh a huge uh decrease in what we need
for our expense budget and lastly the accounting department does not have any Capital requests great thank you very much for that overview um this is BR yeah so even though it's a decrease it sounds like you'll be maintaining the same level of
Staffing that's needed okay absolutely and the expenses being so low you're maybe it's in a different budget but you I'm sure you have software renewals and things that you have to do but that doesn't didn't make your expenses so the software cost is in the it budget okay
and the biggest cost for financial report is the audit which is 47,000 and that is located in your fixed in general budget that's not in my department budget okay thank
you who the front of here I think everything's going well downstairs thank you what that Mr Manan yeah no thanks for the work through looks like the cost went down so that's good news yes I was curious what was the
breakdown for the expenses to go down is it it was uh in two areas they prior years they needed to hire assistance in doing the accounting
and also another um consultant to help out with the auding preparation you picked that up thank you yes I think it's a great example of when we can reduce our budget expense in a
certain Department without being punitive or you know Moving services you know in the wrong direction backing off you just laid out the numbers as they came in based on changes in the department it makes sense to go sort of in a negative direction of 8.6% and you're good with this I assume
yes great thank you very much well done than you appreciate your time is a broken window uh no the window's not broken it just blows in cold air and like that my my fingers are bone white up
here elae our next uh guest be the Public Library Public Library Nancy Hill Library director hi Nancy hi thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening about the library's proposed budget for FY
26 um the libraries uh budget in FY 25 was $991,000 92 excuse me $991,000
our recommended budget from the town manager um this for FY 26 is $1,149,000 500 8673 that's a 5.1% in increase over FY 25 and represents level a level serviced
budget the library budget only makes up8 83% of the town's overall budget Staffing accounts for 92% of our budget um the other major line items that we get through the town uh is part of our
materials budget uh due to State requirements and based on our population size we're required to spend 15% of our overall budget on materials um the town has always given us uh a little bit less than a third of that and we make up the
difference with other sources such as the McGovern fund and some other trusts that we have um originally we had planned to ask for more in that line item this this time around because those
other sources are starting to become depleted um but based on the fact that we're we were asked to kind of keep things level serviced um we are we have cut from our materials
budget ask this year and will'll once again try to make up those other funds from other sources um the other major uh line item that we have this year is uh $24,000 which goes to our CW Mars
membership CW Mar's membership gives us access to 7.6 million items provides access to databases and allows the library to access substantial discounts for databases and software without CW Mar's membership we wouldn't even have
the uh software to circulate items and Outsourcing that or um purchasing a standalone module would far exceed the $224,000 so as I mentioned it's a level serviced budget the only change is we are now
asking the town to pick up the $244,000 for the CW Mars membership uh 4% um of the overall Staffing budget line growth is due to cost of living and Merit increases and
um Equity uh among positions we have been doing all that we tend to be efficient um we fulfilled our promise to the town's people to open on Saturdays and Sundays without any additional cost to the town or any additional
Staffing um the library has significantly reduced costs on processing materials through internal efficiencies reduced the ask for conferences and am eliminated from this budget any nice to haves requesting only
the Necessities as presented um we have no capital requests other than we will be a part of um the uh historic commission's Capital request uh for the flooring in the Ellsworth
room uh but they're doing that and we're just sort of uh signing on with them and then on my third slide is just some information for you I'm not even going to go over it it has nothing to do with the budget but um I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have
great thank you very much for the overview you Mrs rder Bush y so it sounds like you'll be able to maintain uh the same level of Staffing this year going forward okay yes and then um dwindling trusts so that's something we're going have to plan for for next year if these continue
to dwindle they'll still have to be some point we're going to have to really seriously look about at the fact that the other sources of income that we have are not going to sustain us um keeping up the level that's required in order to be become
certified to stay certified people could participate in the fundraisers for the I guess the library foundation and the friends to that helps yes um the but the friends in the foundation don't pay for any um they don't pay for any
materials uh primarily they're paying for programming which we don't get any funding from the town for programming um so that's primarily what they what they sponsor okay and then we had an inquiry from a resident about um the AV Equipment and in the in the big room that you rent and that it's getting it's
aging and not working well I assume that's not in the budget cuz that's probably a it's not in the budget um it would have to be something that came from its's budget um and I have not spoken with them about that I will say in response to that though that it's a very
large cavernous room and no matter what equipment we have we're going to have some feedback issues because of the size it's very echoey I know okay um but is that something that the friends or the foundation might donate for or they're usually doing programming not things
they're usually doing programming um you know we looked at we did just have um we got a as you know a $20,000 Grant through the board of Library Commissioners and part of that allowed us to get a hearing system for folks
with hearing issues um but that was more on their end rather than than projecting um so at this point we have not looked at that it is something that we are aware of um and we
will be discussing with it um and pursuing other avenues but at this point right I think that's where we are thank you I'm up it misser well I think I'm all set with the library Mr Manan yeah
no I'm glad that your level service um is is there any um impact I'm just checking on the weekend hours or any of the other events and anything I know we discussed it in one of the meetings yes originally uh when we were told to
adhere to a 1.3% budget increase the only place we had to go was salaries because that's really the majority of what the town funds and so we were looking at have to having to cut our substitute line budget
budget line um which would have resulted in having to close on the weekends because we wouldn't have had the the staff to stay open um but with this recommended 5.8% there's no change to there will be no change to weekend glad to hear that and I'm very happy to see the service
that you provide the value that you bring so keep up the good work and I'm glad you're going to be able to continue that thank you thank you everybody good MH great job thank you very much GL it's going to get worked out thank you have a good
evening next up Lane Youth and Family Services on elcott Miller director welcome oh thank you for having me um just waiting on the slides that's great so um on the surface
it looks like a nice story to tell that we are asking for less than we asked for last year by .1% a te te tiny amount so and and so and and we were
writing um happily on that front um but as you know if we've been paying attention to the news Grant funds um from federal sources are being reviewed right now so we are really in a state of uncertainty as far as knowing what what
the future looks like for our grant funds um I just met with um samsa today our contact there and they didn't have any more information to give us either just said to continue to do a great job and that we have great teams in
hopkington doing great work and that um and that's all that's all I could you know nothing on the finance front but um I'll go through it with you anyway uh the um on the next slide you can see
that our total Personnel cost is 4 $5,595 and about half of it is funded um by federal grants so we have two staff that are um funded through prevention grants and those they're completely
funded um by Federal grant money and then we have three staff that the town pays for so that would be myself um and it's actually like a piece of each of us is p paid for by the mhat grant so
there's like a percentage of each of us in there so there would be the program coordinator but that's been vacant for several months we haven't been able to rehire um that position we've interviewed we've not we've made offers and we've been turned down so um and
then we have the resource counselor case manager position and so and then there's the hourly staff which is the case management um and social worker position of 30 hours a week so the town technically pays for that but it's being
offset by $77,000 of another Federal grant which is the mental health awareness training Grant so all that we needed to ask you for um is the 241,000 and I'm doing a lot more work and I'm worth more so my percentage of my my my
budget um takes a little bit more money out of that Grant so that's how um we've been able to do that but that's a big number that's Grant funded it's a scary number that's why it's in red and um and we don't we don't have
great answers about that um we're the only Department I think that is this heavily Grant funded and that came about through our strategic plan plan that we did in 2020 um and and those decisions were made at that time our operations costs have not gone up that's on the next
slide um Although our contracts have gone up we've just kind of robbed Peter to pay paal to keep it kind of even um and I want to just point out the project just because we have a small Grant with them um and it has not increased in 10
years um it's $25,000 and it provides emergency food for residents um and I know their costs are going up and and they've never asked for more um but we cover Sharp's disposal at the
fire department through our our budget we cover the interface referral service and their costs go up and they get passed on to us as more residents utilize them um so our costs there are stable for this year but everything is edging up because everything just seems
to cost more um and so my concerns if Federal grant funding is discontinued we'll lose two youth substance use prevention staff and will not have the funds to fill the program coordinator clinician position that's been vacant since October
2023 um we're not scoring well on that front anyway because what we're offering is too low and and so folks are not um willing to take the position for what we have to pay um and so also at stake is youth substance use
prevention um Mental Health promotion mental health training programs and our youth internship program so we have three youth interns that are paid through um federal grants as well so it so what seemed to be like this really happy story when I prepared my budget
got really depressing um and also the terms at which we accepted the money may change um and so that's also on our minds and um not knowing you know what that may look like
in the future as well so what are your questions okay thank you the last Slide the last slide just kind of goes over more what the grants provide so I I I don't have to go into to all of that um they talks about
when they Sunset if if we keep them so okay uh Mrs rsh yeah um thank you presenting for presenting this so clearly um that is a really a stressful situation to be in knowing so we might have to let people go if um if we don't get the grants um
either that or find another way to fund them find another way to fund them which we don't have any extra money right now and I would think if people see that their job could disappear they might be looking for another job so that is really a really hard position for us to be in um yeah so I appreciate you laying
it all out very clearly and I hope that um the grants will come back soon but it's a very unpredictable situation right now they're funded and right now we're told just to you know drive forward as as we are um but we're just
we're just very you know it's it's a lot of uncertainty the drug free communities grants have had the favor of all the presidents before including our current president so I'm hopeful that because these grants work and they're evidence-based they'll keep them um but it's hard to tell okay thank
you m frer well I just want to thank you uh and thank the Youth and Family Services I notice you have the pamphlet on grieving downstairs which I did read and and has uh help helped me through a situation and I see the children after
school and the in the downstairs of the Town Hall here in the various activities that you've been a promoting for them and um I I just want to thank you very much for the work that you've been doing
thank you yeah same I think uh you provide a wonderful service to the town and to the especially the youth Community I had two questions one is how did you manage to save $27 oh it's just I because of what I
could ask for percentage wise from the grant for salaries so um through one of through the mhack grant yeah that's great so but any M it it's important to note that $77,000 is offset like right now and so in the future like when that
Grant sunsets we go back to what we were approved for before and so well it looks like think there's some years that are are lower um you know that things will will rise
back up again um that was the second question actually so do you have a timeline or yes on that last slide um or the there is a timeline on everything um the drug- free communities Grant we are applying we intend to apply for year 6
through 10 we're right now in year 4 headed into year five um in September and so it's in year five that you begin the preparation for year 6 through 10 um so we're hopeful if if that Grant continues as it has for a long long time
um that we would qualify for year 6 through 10 um the mhat grant the mental health awareness training grant that goes away in September of 2026 we we will have had it for years um what that Grant did was cross Trin Personnel
across the town to deliver Mental Health Training so there are six First Responders trained to deliver non-violent Crisis Intervention with Advanced Physical skills to each other and then to town employees that just happened um we are trained to deliver
Suicide Prevention curriculum throughout the town and we're train we will be trained in this next year in um the mental health collaboratives mental health literacy model so so we'll all have the training to deliver the training so that cost like we we
sustained the purpose of the grant um by having um Personnel across the town trained to deliver those trainings um but that money goes away and there are no other grants that are like it um to continue that funding um and then um the
Massachusetts collaborative for Action leadership and learning the mass call 3B that is a past through Grant from samsa to dph that passes it to Bas which passes it to us and um that that goes
through June 30th of 2029 as of right now if that funding holds secure so if I heard you correctly and obviously that's a concern and we need to be creative or think how to resolve it but right now for the upcoming fiscal year you are okay but the following year September
onwards you anticipate impact we're not sure if we're okay if the federal funding goes away it goes away like boom gone like ripped right out from underneath this from what I understand so that scares me a little bit um we we had a bit of a panic when
it was announced that everything was frozen um and we just thought we'll freeze all our spending and and hold on to people as long as we can from every other part like no pencils no no staplers no nothing and then then that
was released you know but but I believe all that's being looked at again so it's just impossible for us to know um where we stand um you know the what I gave you you know on that last page is what
Congress had approved and um and that was those those end dates were what Congress had approved and committed to us but grant funding is fickle it always is like you know it's a risk but not to burden the taxpayer we were willing to take that risk to bring in Innovative
programs things that we know drive down youth substance use things that we know incre increase people's you know mental health and and these were good opportunities at the time so we're hoping they stay good opportunities um and we're able to complete that
work thank you no other questions Al set well you bring a uh a tremendous service to the town of hopkington to its youth um it's really unfortunate that you're in the position you're in that we are in the position that we are in we are not alone in this this is a nationwide
problem caused by a bunch of um stuff in DC um but with that I think we just press on and we assume it all gets worked out right we cannot let our world get dictated by that nonsense uh we just
got to press on and we will deal with the facts as they come to us so charge ahead uh you guys do great work and we're here to support you any way we can and if things change and we're all going to raise some holy hell about it so hang in there with us all right well thank you very much thank you thank you can we
get not for Don directly but have we compiled a possible um or a compiled a list of possible issues for the town around all this stuff going on in Washington we can we should probably get
ahead of that a little bit not to alarm anybody but just to understand the magnitude of what's going on again I don't think I think this is a lot of just posturing and yes myself but um yeah I think that's a very good point we probably
want to know immediately what are the immediate impact that we see with all the nuts that already has happened and what do we anticipate or fear might happen and uh we hope it doesn't happen and we have a you know good
um resistance somehow legally and others but hope is not a strategy so we want to also be prepared as as much as we can yeah this is the only Department uh that has staff supported by grants directly like that directly yes but there's other kinds of things that go on that trickle
down yeah from the state okay all right great uh thanks again Don uh next item or next uh Department please Lan uh senior services and be back this evening hi am me good evening um thank you for
the opportunity to talk about our budget for Senior Services um as I've mentioned in the past we envision hopkington as a community which values and respects its seniors and that hopkington should be a place for seniors to continue to have active and independent lives and where
they can continue to live in their homes safely for as long as they choose after all if you aren't already a senior you're a senior in training and I would imagine we all want to continue to thrive where we live so um looking at our budget um the
increase um that we are having is into is in our salary line which is due primarily to Cola and Merit increases uh we have not added any staffing this year however we do heavily rely as wonderful as our staff is and they are amazing we
do heavily rely on volunteers to fill in where the paid staff uh cannot um our overall expense budget sees a slight decrease of about $825 partially due due to um HR taking up the cost of some professional
development this year or next year um overall that leaves us with an operating budget that has a 5.79% increase uh Senior Services is able to do a lot with a little um and we always find ways to make it work uh next
slide going forward though uh there is one area of concern for us and it would be it would be our postage line looking at fiscal year 26 um our original request request to level service postage for 26 was
22,500 um that increase takes into account we have 10 mailings um of our newsletter um each year and our postage needs another postage needs throughout the year those um those I said I I guess the expected
cost for postage in 25 is going to be about $21,000 for the newsletter Alone um the increases do primarily to the seever the stamp increases that we all had over this past year um but just so you know we mail over um we have about
2500 newsletters we mail each month um and that's for 10 issues and we have over 350 individuals who receive the newsletter via email um so that is over 25,000 newsletters each year which in turn means that we've had over 25,000
points of contact with our seniors each year and that's just on the newsletter Alone um while I understand there's limitations to the budget this year and we will make do and we'll find a way to do it um I would love to see if we could add more to our postage line this
year do you have any other questions you all set for now I think so great thank you very much for the overview Mrs R so for the postage difference did you say some people do subscribe by email but not what was the breakdown uh so we get about 2500 new
newsletters um each month that we mail out um we have about 354 individuals who take it by Emil um by email 300 T so that's growing um but you have to understand a lot of our seniors either are not techsavvy have no interest in it and they really and I don't blame them I
like having something I can hold so I was just going to say I I work for the town of Welsley and um I can I send this send the school committee newsletter and I can also see the Council on agent newsletter they have really ramped up they have 3,000 email subscribers now um they' really kind of switched over I'm sure some do still get it mailed but I
don't know if people knowing that the budget short well if they could be willing to switch to email only but yeah we do publicize that each month that's in our newsletter saying if people want to make the switch they're more than welcome to all they have to do is make a call but we are in the process of adding to our newsletter list um we get the
census every whenever and we can start adding seniors and so a number of us have aged up and we are now in that category so maybe when they start getting it they will decide to go with uh an email yeah
okay I absolutely love the newsletter I must pick it up at least every other day looking up something and it's just great I mean if it's from the menus or or activities and things that
are going on and times and things like that and I really uh would like to see the newsletter continued as it is it's one wonderful thank you they work hard on it I will say thank you I think you're doing a wonderful job
and the senior center certainly we have a very active senior community and thanks to the activities driven by the senior center and a great place to um be active and be engaged uh now I saw the letter from the Council of Aging and um
I empathize with all the uh I think challenges we are seeing coming and we do need to support uh look at the affordability issue I we talked to our affordability um chair board chair last
week last meeting and I brought it up as well that how can we provide better um some of the uh advantages potentially through affordable housing and similar goes with other services that you have
and uh one thing I also caught my eye is that currently the 19 % of the population is senior citizens and projected to grow by 42% in just 5 years to almost 30% so we definitely need to plan for that how can we augment the
services how can we keep up with the growth in this and uh make sure we don't lose the value that you all have created and continue on that so um with this one is you know fairly simple it's five grand but um in the coming years I think
we'll need to get our heads together to plan for that and also accommodate and support that great thank you thanks I do receive the letter and I do flip through it I don't read everything in there uh sometimes I'm like resisting it you know
like I don't know if everyone read to read all this stuff but uh I don't recall seeing where I can sign up for it via email so I believe it's on the last page I don't have one in front of me right now where the news um I'm sorry where your um address label is on there's a line underneath it that says
if you're interested in having it by email you can sign up maybe maybe a couple other spots throughout as people are kind of flipping through it might remind them you know advertise getting off the the paper version if you will um but I think you guys do great work for the town and I'm glad the budget's
working out so this $5,000 though what do we what do we do about that we is it an issue or is it not an issue or is it well I think you know they say they're going to you know try to make doe but when we look at the budget as a whole at the end of all these presentations we'll we'll see if we can move some things
around so you're saying you have a $5,000 Gap right now we have about a $5,000 Gap yeah and who knows depending on our new uh names going in our new seniors who are coming up um whether that'll change unless they start getting it by email but again we don't even know
whether there'll be increases in Postage and I think they are threatening it so that I you know that that could change things for us as well I mean $5,000 to communicate effectively with all our seniors we should be able to
figure that out some way one way or the other so we'll come back to you on this one great thank you for sure yeah good all right great thank you very much we appreciate your input I I'd like to say something to the
Council on Aging people and that letter um there are things that we do not have jurisdiction over and I went to a meeting not too long ago and I did ask you please forward things like that letter on to your
legislators uh because a lot of exemptions are definitely governed by Massachusetts General law and they can't be changed you can't just up the income level and these things they they're not
arbitrary but uh things like Outreach Transportation meals we we can take a look at uh but please if you have a letter like this and and you're asking for a change in in uh exemption policy or a change in state policy please
forward it to the state legislation all right great thank you I think we are good with item number six right we'll move on to item number seven the senior tax credit work hours Miss Lazarus so this is one of the items
from the future agenda items list uh following up on a conversation we had I think several months ago uh regarding a change to uh the way uh people have been contributing their hours uh namely working for the friends of seniors um
which is a a private nonprofit so we did have to comply with the law and it turns out that um anyone seeking those tax credit hours has to perform work for the town and not for a nonprofit so uh since then we've been able to uh provide uh working opportunities for everyone who
needs it um and that's where we are today so people can still volunteer for the friends unfortunately we can't give them a tax deduction for that they can volunteer they can we can't reduce their taxes correct correct but they can so
they can perform work for the town and and earn that that ta they can get paid for that reduction in tax it's a tax credit okay it's a tax credit so there is a tax credit available yes yes and I I will say that um as soon as the letter went out we were already reaching out to the
12 15 people that it affected within a month they were either made the decision to continue and find a different position where they could also they would stay with the friends and still work in the thrift store or whatever was needed but they did have positions when we found them for people who wanted them
so I'd say at least if it was 15 at least 12 of them took us up on that and are now back on the program earning for that so all right so that's good news yes and we're very happy we have some seniors doing some work here town hall and it's great great yeah and I will say
we I mentioned at senior leader meetings that you know if you have a need in your department to reach out to us um tell us the skills that you need what you're looking for and we do our best to to fill that need so comments questions on this topic Mr Manan um no nothing
further I think um we need to support this and um seems like we're accommodating with some of the efforts that you mentioned let's continue to do that great no I don't I've been asking about this
and uh talking to people about it and and I have learned that one of the things that we did not understand in the beginning was that uh one of the jobs was for the friends and not for the town
so that's why the discrepancy happened and uh and now we have people working in other areas and that's it's great we're solving the problem and I and we did it very very quickly so again it was waiting for people to get back to us to
tell us what they wanted to do so okay thank you all set all set well that's great I'm glad to see we moved in a positive direction there um does this now conclude our discussion around a senior tax credit hours and our future agenda items for now yeah is everybody
good with that taking it off the list great thank you Amy thank you thank you all right we'll take that so we can eliminate that one from the list okay we do want to chip away at those great okay uh next up is you uh Project funding agreement
with the msba for charleswood school the select would would consider authorizing select board chair to sign the Project funding agreement between the town of Hoppington and massachusett school building authority for the new charleswood school so these are the the documents that are required for the town to participate in the msba process um and
Council has reviewed them and indicated that it's okay for the board to to proceed with with executing the document and authorizing the chair to sign so it signs us up to participate in this program and to receive reimbursements as described in the document so if the
building was about 190 million all in then these documents by signing these we get access to about 50 million of that I don't know the dollar amount somewhere that R there's a significant re I think the numbers have gone down quite a bit um from 190 million and right now the
state of things is that um we are almost 90% done with the construction design document and that's when we could apply for the permitting and all the other requirements to get the msba engaged and start to get reimbursement so with this sign off and our vote and U Mr chair
sign off we should be able to start getting the reimbursement and um the reimbursement actually should have started um or we are ible since we passed the town vote so the in between
uh whatever reimbursement was not uh couldn't be claimed because we didn't have the agreement will be to be determined how we are going to get that but we're going to get that regardless and good news is after the construction design completion we are able to uh
fine-tune the budget uh the cost and now it's 8 million less than what was anticipated before now the entire 8 million is may not be the town saving because msba um um savings also will go down a little bit but it'll be it'll be
significant 5 6 million or more we'll determine that in the coming days now uh if you remember the last time when it was passed the town's part of the uh cost is under 100 million I forgot the ex number between 90 and 100 so now
it'll be even less than that by another 5 six million so which which are all good news so the project is tracking well the committee is working doing a great job and the next big item is hiring the general contractor which will also start to happen as soon as we get
this uh cleared out okay great thank you uh anything else on this topic we do have a motion I believe for this one yeah I'll make it I moveed to enter into and execute the Project funding agreement for the new charleswood school and the auth and
to authorize the chair to sign the project funding agreement between the town of hoofington and the msba second we have a motion and a second on the table any further discussion on the motion all in favor please say I I any
opposed it's unanimous and so carries okay we will sign that at the conclusion of the meeting okay uh item number nine uh the May 2025 annual town meeting the select board will consider reviewing the list
of articles for the town meeting so in the packet there was a list of articles are there 51 total I believe um hopefully the number will come down a little bit um and uh so we've indicated what those are we'll have the draft warrant
for you at the next meeting to review all the article language um and then tonight um in addition to that uh we have some draft uh bylaws and so forth for you to review regarding the economic development articles that the board had submitted so
those were also in the packet for you to review okay um 51 did you say that doesn't sound too me too bad it's been more before for sure there been a lot more right 80s and 90s a couple of times maybe
60 so 50 is still a lot then yeah it's Hefty but are any of them Financial well you've seen the capital so it's mostly the capital that you've seen and then there's a couple um that were um outside the capital process one is to
uh fund a land purchase the open space preservation commission submitted something uh no land identified or purchase price identified yet uh and then there's a Citizens petition to fund a legal review of the transfer of open space at Legacy Farms to the Hopkinton
area land trust so those are two that are outside the the budget Capital process they don't have a funding source identified for that no no is someone walking that citizens petition through the process so that we don't spend 15 minutes explaining to them at town meeting
they're not ready for town meeting we'll work with them m y I think we have to make sure we do that if we let them just do it on their own we'll waste 15 or 20 minutes of town meeting and nothing will happen either way so okay all right so what would you like us to do this evening then I'm not clear exactly what
to ask is so if you would review the three uh draft um Economic Development items uh the first being um minor change to the home rule petition and then two draft bylaw changes where would I find them in this
massive amount of paperwork I have well you do that could I go back to there's one other citizen too with no money attached to it right a a bylaw change proposal there is another citizens petition it is the um sorry where is that I think it's the break L the L
breaking the braking uh trucks yes the uh air brakes yeah okay Pro on the use of uh compression braking okay and so since it's a general byw we would have to have a hearing on that the select board uh holding a hearing um is optional oh okay
required we've done that in the past for um visibility for for people who are proposing bylaw changes okay there's an article for no Jake breaks is that what corre I'm hearing so we're we're going to have an article through town meeting to put up a sign that no one's going to
listen to no pay attention yeah a bylaw a bylaw adopting fous but that's just reality right where is the sign where is the issue from it's a Citizens petition do we know where in town or just all over town it's a townwide I think it I don't
think the application specified a specific area I'm I'm fine with the process but it's the reality is not the same right okay yeah I just I do think it would be better to have a hearing so people couldn't hear all these
in person or and understand whether maybe it's not enforceable even if we have it I'm just trying to find these in the packet why can't I find yeah I couldn't find either what are you looking for the is it a separate attachment and it follows a list of tell
meeting articles follows the Project funding agreement for charleswood school and and then starts at page 144 of the PDF oh you don't have a what page sorry you 144 141 is anyone really familiar with this
stack physical stack here not yet yeah I don't see it in here either okay it's near the end it's near the after the budget there uh why don't you introduce the first one for Seline all right so um
the board had submitted a Ral petition to direct the um meals tax revenue into an economic development special revenue account and um shadu had had some uh possible um changes uh regarding additional items that maybe should be
included in that so I did um look at the two languages uh side by side and pulled out a couple of things and added them into this particular um draft to make sure that we mentioned all of the same projects and so forth so we capture
hopefully everything that was is needed into one article um so we added uh reference to Economic Development projects including those that stimulate economic growth attract and retain businesses and improve infrastructure but it seemed like
everything else was was included in there do you think the article is an order or the the warrant in order maybe not we're not talking motions here so yeah I think this would be so this would establish an account which covers a lot of the
economic development activities and projects that the town would would consider undertaking over the years this particular one is fine and is this tied to the legislation also trying to direct that economic this is the this would be the legislation is the legisl so it would say what kinds of things we
would use it for okay so that's what we've all covered before I think we've all been in agreement with that before and it makes sense to proceed to put that the establishing of the account the account in front of town meting right right M okay yeah I like the barard that
been reconciled yeah that's good everybody good and this is in line with what you've been working on right okay good okay so we're all good there do we need to vote that I don't think so no yeah okay next up uh next one uh is to an a draft article that would create an
economic Dev development Advisory Board um so um the idea was to um adopt um or have a t meeting article that would accomplish this um it turns out it has to be by a bylaw so we drafted something
in bylaw format uh to accomplish the creation of an economic development Advisory Board have not identified you know uh the membership and so forth but it's a it's a place to start um I did note um on uh this one that there's
three ways to create new boards and committees one of them is through General bylaw one of them is an administrative order under the town Charter and the other is just by select board vote so we have aou of boards um and I indicated what kinds of boards we have created in the past uh under each
of those those circumstances in this case it's an Advisory board so I don't know that needs to be a bylaw um it could be adopted in a different way as well through the chair a little more uh color to it so um if you remember I had
uh proposed The Advisory Board some few weeks or a few months back and we wanted to get together again and review and hopefully get that set up in some shape or form so um now I am in favor of that
than the uh actually Town article because as El mentioned even though they all these are possible ways to create it uh this is least flexible so I would prefer that but my uh kind of reason for putting it as a placeholder is that I
think this is a kind of critical time that we do all these together we are setting up the excise tax setting up the account now we need real guidance and Leadership how to you know spend it how to oversee it and all that so what I would um appreciate and we talked about
it in a couple other meetings is that maybe we put in an agenda before the town meeting among us to resolve it and hopefully set up that advisory committee and then this can go away but right now I wanted to keep I like your tactics timeline it a little placeold
good strategy I like that I that okay so you're not advocating for the article per se as much as creating The Advisory Board and we know how we could do it because we just did one recently we can do it right okay that's fair I get it good tactician over there all right
uh anything else want to share that be yeah do the friend here any thoughts on this one no I think that's great it's all good for the town y so I think the home real petition to have create the fund where we can collect the money is a great idea and the creation of the um of
the advisory committee I think it would be much cleaner to do it as a select board committee that way we could more flexible in changing it if just like we did with a water and sewer Advisory Board we didn't get that many members so we had to change it and we wouldn't want to have to wait a whole another year to go back to town meeting if we need to change this one but I think we should commit to getting it done because I
think it would help pass that home rule petition if people understood that we plan but did we say we're getting there were three of them total one was the creation of an economic development office did we say that we haven't got to that one yet oh you haven't got to that one I was going in order almost okay uh
Elaine your thoughts on on the article as proposed at the moment and also the broader you know suggestion of maybe how we can get this done in advance yes so I think it's it does offer more flexibility to have the board appoint uh a a um an economic development Advisory
Board that's not a bylaw so I think that offers more flexibility so we can um flush out the language of what that board might be and see that forward um within the next month or so I like that idea okay I applaud the
approach well done um and let's see let's see if we get it done okay and then the third one is the draft article that would create an economic development office um and this would also have to be done by bylaw um under the charter um can establish
uh different offices and departments by bylaw um it is unusual to do that though um we only have one and that's a department of Municipal inspections which is actually housed within the land use uh Department through that administrative order um so this would
create an office um and the draft bylaw describes what the office would do um but there again uh the town can create an office or a department at any time with funding um and establish those duties and hire
Personnel it doesn't need to be a bylaw change um and when you do create it it is there for inflexible as well uh so we do have to think about that um so it doesn't need T meeting approval to establish an office or a position you
know it's not um usual to do that although we could so can't say I'm super excited about it because it also says that it it shall be created and it it that means it always has to be there
forever unless something happens so even if there is no funding or if there's no need to do that work 20 years from now that office would still exist but I thought the state um law that we're working on or
the home R petition whatever it is uh to allow us to do this and create that account also just says that that account will then fund an economic development position it doesn't say that it just says it will fund the
work the work in the activities it doesn't indicate how that would be accomplished so it didn't go as I thought we were trying to do it that way no um that was the intent but it wasn't included there because of the complexity so what we can do when we discuss the
Advisory Board uh topic we can either add that as a you know ask to The Advisory Board as well to work on building and set up that through us uh or you know we can do the town warrant again the warrant is makes it a little
more inflexible even though I don't see it you know kind of the need going away anytime soon or in future it should only grow from there but uh I like the flexibility so if we can resolve it with our resolution either making it as part
of the advisory body's um agenda that would be probably a little more ideal okay all right that makes sense uh so any other thoughts or comments uh no I think that's that's pretty much it this is again I mentioned it so many times
that as we are feeling more and more pressure on the tax uh we need to look for alternate uh revenues and certainly with the downtown Corridor completion coming up soon not good and uh uh our growth that we have experienced this is
a great time to promote our small businesses as well as large ones we are also Platinum certified now on uh biotech so uh this office will be a great addition we have the now funding to also promote it support it this is a great time to do all these activities
and this is sewing the seed for future we we can't expect something in 6 months or even 10 months if we are lucky we'll see some but this is going to give us the results in the coming years and help us remediate a lot of the challenges we are facing with budget and other tax
issues so all for you okay anyone else thoughts com yeah I've always been a big proponent of Economic Development I had been on an econ Economic Development task force in the town of Franklin and
uh and I have a friend who is an economic development uh person and I I really think that that the town is growing to the point of where we really need to back our uh businesses of all
sizes and shapes and and everything that we've got and add and to find places and to add business to the town it's it's extremely important that all right and then I was going to say I'm not really in favor of creating the economic development office
via a bylaw and at this town meeting because I would really like us to get our ducks in a row with creating the committee and then creating the fund and then based on their recommendations then we could craft the development office we may not need it at all the committee strong we don't need a by yeah and and we'll no better idea how much money we
might be bringing in to the fund too but just to add it it can be created anytime it doesn't need a by lot to be created okay right we don't have any budget to fund it though right now that's the problem it's coming I know but so could we even fund it in the fall if we decide to or no we have to wait for the
legislature to approve the home RO petion okay just to add to that uh I to give the perspective so we are already collecting it since January 1 and by end of the year we are projected to collect about 100 150k so if we do the setup as
we are planning with the advisory with the economic development office by the time we hire someone we will have the funding and there will be a good time to kick it off with proper support proper stat Staffing and all that that's why we want to start planning ahead a little
bit and uh get the you know structural and Logistics done and be prepared for that that was the thinking behind that just to clarify good yep everybody good you good for feedback yes okay anything else you want to cover oh I have one
more Tom meeting question okay I noticed an article I had not expected but about an an article to potentially change the day and time of town meeting so I wanted to make sure the public was aware of that and I'll forward an email um to to town staff about this because I attended a um MMA Workshop about forms of
government a while ago and I was really surprised they couldn't provide me with any data for um you know what is the best day and time for town meeting how do you get more people to come um anyway so I would love to get more stats on that if we can find them before town meeting we could vote on that I'll talk to the town clerk too um on which days
people hold town meeting on well I guess we have these statistics of who attends our town meeting I mean 90% of people never attend and um it's not a very diverse group that attends Town meetings so if having it on a Saturday brings you a more diverse group I think that would be good to know or if it um doesn't or
or even a survey to the public would be more likely to attend on a weekday versus a weekend I just like to get that data I can just say for myself um like my kids are out of school now but when my kids were in school like the first Saturday in May which is what it's proposed there was always recital and
the Middle School play and having to miss your kids play and recital to go to town meeting I don't know know whereas to me for me that's just for me though other people may feel differently I'd rather go I know what I do yeah yeah I hear you totally do
yeah okay all set for now let's move to item 10 Town manager report M Lazarus thank you uh so for the town manager report this evening uh the first item is um diversity Equity inclusion and belonging um at the last select
board meeting as you know a resident requested that board members confirm a commitment to the pledge principles and actions on systemic racism in our community and other communities that the select board adopted by unanimous vote at a meeting on December 8th 2020 uh so
this is a vote on record and it remains a board commitment um it's in effect and there haven't been any changes to that to date um I did want to also note that uh we have um the preamble to the town Charter um which uh states that the town
of hopkington welcomes residents of already races ethnicities religions abilities gender identifications and sexual orientations the town of hopkington further is committed to providing a climate of safety and acceptance to all residents the town of hopkington will actively address and
resist acts of discrimination bullying or intimidation so this is in our Charter this is what um as a government entity we adhere to every day um also uh Massachusetts laws and everything else um that we that we use on a daily basis
so I just wanted to to put those out there um that that pledge that the board adopted is on the website it's still active um as is the the town Charter okay let's take him one at a time Mrs rid Bush any thoughts on that topic yeah thank you for bringing that back up I think it is helpful for the
people to see it and um I certainly you know I was there at town meeting when we voted on the welcoming statement and we did the Pledge back in 2020 and I certainly be happy to reaffirm that for myself and um yeah I know people in town are feeling vulnerable especially our trans and lb to community and I think it
means a lot to them to hear from us that we still support um the welcoming statement and and the pledge and you know we have a lot of um immigrants who are here legally but may now still be frightened because of the idea of ending Birthright citizenship so for their children so I don't yeah so anyway I
think it's important that we reaffirm M frer well I remember when we uh we brought the pledge forward and we took it and Mrs rter Bush Mr her and myself were on the board at the time and have taken the pledge um and it's available
if anybody else wants to look at it and and uh repeat it uh but uh We've we've done it so this board has has done it thank you Mr Manan yeah now I'm fully
committed and uh pledging for the uh commitment to support diversity equity and inclusion obviously our town has always um stood up for what is right and we have seen it time and time again and u i I know there are you know
some awkward R going in some places around Dei and others but we as a town stand strong and uh together to support this and this has been our Mantra and we'll continue to do that absolutely great uh yeah I was there when we signed
the pledge uh back in 2020 uh and was happy to do so so then uh and certainly was around during the development of the Town Charter uh and then the town Charter review and then the town meeting vote to put the Preamble into all that
uh so I support those words 100% nothing has changed okay next item please uh Main Street corter project um regarding the new ornamental street lights and pedestrian lights um being functional I
did see them on once I don't know if they've been on was than one I just the one even they were on was not a Christmas tree so it wasn't insane I thought it was going to be we can turn them up actually they were kind of low I thought but it was nice and it was good to have it while crossing the street
that evening just good to see one night um eversource has completed all of its overhead and underground work um they started to remove their old overhead lines um and did see them coming down in front of town hall last week which was nice to see oh that's excellent I didn't see that um and
Comcast has started to install lines in their new underground infrastructure and once completed they'll start pulling lines to the building so that they can schedule their cut over of services if you if you walk downtown now and you look up you will see like there's a pole right there and it's all
the way up and there's wires going all the way down the police station but from that pole that way it's 2/3 of what it was and the top wires are gone the power lines are gone and so they're just gradually going to come down as each utility makes their move and then they go away so it's starting to happen it's
going to be it's pretty pretty going to be cool when it's done anything else in the Main Street Corridor project nothing no anyone else thoughts questions I I've just been um working downstairs this week and uh two days in a row they came in the downtown
the project after we had started they a little later than than we are and they said who owns this car and this car parked in the front of the Town Hall well one moved fairly quickly but the other one was there forever and they they had to go into the businesses and
all along Main Street is there some way we can just kind of cordon off the front of the building early morning till they get started um maybe if we knew when they were coming we could do that okay anything else Mr Manan uh no
nothing else up great next item please uh Town Department position vacancy um didn't have any in my memo but there was something that came up today and that is um opon Parks and Recreation uh posting of Summer seasonal positions um
so there'll be posting um a director um an assistant director of the sports so for sports clinics uh be directors coaches head counselors and counselors and then seasonal sum are playground group positions of
counselors and um program coordinator and then the positions at Sandy Beach uh the beach supervisor parking lot attendant lifeguard and head lifeguards uh head lifeguard and those are the the beach ones are funded through the general fund and the others are funded
through the revolving fund for parks and rec so they would like to proceed with with their summer hiring none are real increases in Staffing it's just bringing them back for the summer correct okay so uh I think for questions comments
um no I think this is within our budget and plan right so yes that's every year and uh don't have a motion in the document for this but we would chair entertain a motion to approve the posting and filling of those positions for the parks and recck for summer
seasonal some move second second any discussion on the motion all those in favor please say I I I any opposed unanimous and so carries the aison reports board invites Mr
Manan um I think the esbc report I talked about that school uh the new school so very excited about that um other than that the library and um nothing nothing else at this time okay thank you Mr Fier I have no report this
time okay this R Bush um don't really think I have much I will just put a little plug in for the historic just commission we've lost uh some several members in quick succession here we really we don't I don't think we can meet because we only have two people right now so if anyone it's interested in learning more about that committee I
really advise them to get in touch with Town Hall um we do need a realtor we need a architect and we need a resident of the district and we have one at large position so the sometimes are hard to fill I think one of them is a nominee of the Historical Society oh right yes
that's right yeah so we've reached out that's it we've reached out okay and I reached out to them too separately but um okay but we if we have any applications we I we won't be able to review them right because we only have two people we have an application but the person doesn't fall into any of these categories yet yeah okay but we if
we I mean if we had an application for a certificate could we meet to approve it with just two members we'll have to we have to figure that out okay so please apply anyone who's listening who is interested okay all good uh all right um next item on the agenda is item number
12 which is future board agenda items on number one we discussed this evening as we talked about the various articles from potential articles uh or work we'll do before town meeting for economic development uh item two is still an outstanding item with an oversight of
the LNG plant um we really we got to raise that one up on the list Lane okay that one I think we've been a little bit behind on three we've been working along the way here for uh some redacted documents we
haven't completely closed that out with Town Council have we did we get the final redacted the redaction policy wasn't put it on policy you did right and you'll be reviewing it again in the summer to see how it's worked okay yeah cuz we're going to come back to it one more time okay we're going to leave this here then until we do that just remind
me we're going to come back to it uh Town Council we're going to talk about uh senior tax credit which we resolved this evening uh the commission on disability um Mr Man this was from back in October um yeah can you remind me on
this one please because we've not acted on this I don't think they formed the um committee I think two years now wanted to um hear from them what are the updates progress and how we can help or if there is any other direction setting
or collaboration we need to do an update okay so get an update from them gotcha sorry I did reach out to the chair and she's trying to find a good date for that okay so ela's on that one shair I'm on that Comm commission I will say we don't really have much to report right now so I think this could be put off
another couple months uh okay uh number seven is we just covered number eight is the MW connection um you know that is The Advisory Board now working that uh I want to just go public this evening that
recently my firm where I work where I get paid to work uh recently landed a letter of intent to enter into a negotiation to possibly do a contract on behalf of the MW given that that
letter of intent came in and was officially signed I will no longer speak about the MW as a member of this board so this is the last time I will speak of it okay I will be recusing myself going forward of having nothing to do with
okay uh number nine continued conversation with Public Safety and schools regarding preparedness and response we're going to come back to that I know in another month or so L we're going to have them come back in uh the redactions policy just talked about select board goals that I know you brought up recently I would like to
discuss that before town meeting if possible because it usually goes in the annual Town report we can put that on a agenda item here PRI not the next meeting the next meeting is much we we have to postpone the meeting next week so we're going to
March 4th now right we do not have a meeting next week we do have one scheduled for the fourth and we're going to condense we're going to be busy that night uh but we're going to do both in the same night we can't do it that night but we could do it maybe the week after that or two weeks after that she's saying the 25th is canceled so we're not
meeting on the 25th 25th is off off okay that is fresh off the press today fourth and the 11th 4th and the 11th we have is that what we have in March 4th the 11th the 18th oh in the
18th okay if needed so we'll we'll get that into one of those okay for select board goals okay uh water T Advisory Board tied to that other topic that I don't want to mention so they got to do their thing there um could we combine those two
since into one item I'm sorry which if we could combine number eight MW with the water and sewer that would reduce one number gotcha okay I love I like that 8 and 12 combined okay and then uh item number
13 our commitment to diversity Equity inclusion and belonging uh just talked about that recently a minute ago okay anybody have any other future board agenda items they would like to add to the list we did make some progress this
week nothing had to say Amy marel no shid I have um no I take the same okay under board invites though um the farmers market we are going to try to do one in March right is March 9th
March 9th and hopefully we'll have better weather than the February one we tried to do okay Elaine and Sor it's March 2nd March second do you have anything you want us to be looking at here coming up on the agenda from the town managers
perspective uh at some point um some toage your goals for the remainder of I think it's been six months for us so six months goals okay think about that so board goals and town manager goals the same time I probably well
organized okay all right uh with that the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn the meeting second there's a motion and second any discussion all those in favor please say I I any opposed so carries good night
everyone thank you thank you good night