##VIDEO ID:GMZcjwXstTQ## e e e e e days and that was my problem thank you uh good evening everyone and welcome to the select board meeting for Tuesday October 29th 2024 I call the meeting to order all me members of are in the meeting room 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 can you tell I ran up the steps to get here I'm out of breath uh first item on the agenda we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance please 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 okay first item this evening item number two anyway public forum residents are invited to share ideas opinions or ask questions regarding their town government Mr Mr Weiss Manel I believe you live on Ash Street uh Ken Weiss Manel 145 Ash Street I have several points to cover today first speaking as chair of the community preservation committee I'd like to make an observation that no funding request had been made to CPC by any Trails organization this year this is the first time in many years that we have no new uh Pro Trail projects going on as you are very aware both Comm Trail committees were disbanded due to perceived inefficiency I would like to point out that you had 20 volunteers working for free and inefficiency might not have been one of my priorities CPC is concerned that any new Trail committee uh needs to pursue the trail projects that have already been approved by town meeting and some are partially done uh we asked that uh the select board uh establish the new trails committee as soon as possible and that you ask potential new members whether they would support approved projects as part of the selection process no invoices lately have been received lately so obviously no paid work is going uh on on the trails CPC has been funded uh has been requested to fund architectural fees for the ReUse of Center School we have the money this year to probably pay that out of our reserves however in a year or two they'd be asking for about $6 million in construction funds this is beyond what our reserves and our anticipated funding would be able to provide so CPC would probably be proposing to borrow that money in a couple of years and I understand that borrowing comes out of the same borrowing cap that the town has even though it's a separate Revenue source so the CPC would like to have input from the select board uh maybe at another meeting call agenda item called for this thing to discuss whether or not borrowing money for the ReUse of Center School is a good idea in November we're going to have to make a decision whether we go forward with like $600,000 worth of architectural fees we do not want to buy architectural fees if the building is not going to be reused because we can't borrow money for it so we'd like to have your input sooner than than possible next I am speaking as a private citizen not a member of CPC the special town meeting warrant that you have to approve today that's on your agenda uh to sign did not specify any wording or maps for the zoning overlay all it says is there in your last article is insert a paragraph in in between somewhere else I have never seen that it's a departure from everything we've done on zoning articles in the last 40 years that I've been going to town meeting the Town members need to have specific as to what they're going to vote on and what they're expected to vote on planning board has got to make up their mind present an option and put or or options whatever in put an article that's there going to their meeting last night there's a lot of Education that's going to go on I would guess from my political judgment that if it goes on with something they vote on next Monday it'll fail at town meeting and it might be one I might be voting for it because I think they're coming around on some of the points that I could go for but politically I think you're setting yourself up for failure if you rush the process and then we get no further along in that process so think hard about whether you sign the warrant with with nothing there a couple weeks might be the right thing to do and and get things going and if I have a couple other things as a citizen but do I'm kind of begging my allowance of time at this point so it's up to you Mr chairman if not I'll be back at the next meeting I think if you came back to the next meeting that would be ideal we want to be consistent thank you okay anybody else okay seeing none we'll move to item number three on the agenda the farmers market licenses uh hopkington winter Farmers Market the select board will consider approving Mass General Law chapter 138 section 15f Farmers Mark and licenses for uh Aon app sellers LLC of Westford Mass lamalo Wine sellers of ashin mass and I think those are the two there Lazarus you want to walk us through this a little bit sure uh this year um for the first time they'll be a winter Farmers Market at Western Nurseries uh and uh part of that will be um selling uh alcohol uh that's produced in Massachusetts and the surrounding area um and so these applications are complete they've been reviewed by our permitting team um and everything seems uh good to go with in this regard and it will comply with the law regarding uh sales and uh tastings at farmers markets okay thank you does anybody have any questions or comments regarding the farmers market licenses do you want to do them one at a time or do you want to do them together I was just going to add it's actually not the first time they've had it indoors uh the last couple years but maybe no alcohol I don't know maybe everything seems to be in order we can do together do it together everybody good fine AG with that we both sent everything I could possibly send them okay and Public Safety is good okay so the chair will entertain a motion as where we got it here should say the to approve the farm market licenses rather than the consent agenda yeah so the chair ENT entertain a motion to approve the farmers market licenses as printed in the agenda so moved second we have a motion and a second uh any discussion on the motion all those in favor please say I I any opposed all set done thank you so one of yours great market manager and anyone has questions or comments great thanks J thank you okay item number four on the agenda is the November 18th 2024 special town meeting warrant uh the select board will consider signing the November 18 2024 special town meeting warrant Elaine you want to walk us through this so these are the articles that have been submitted uh while the warrant is open um and the first three are from the board of assess one is to reauthorize the means tested senior property tax exemption for another 3 years and the second two are to take advantage of new uh veterans tax exemptions that were voted by the legislature in the last session uh the fourth uh article is to adopt a local meals ex which the for submit um the fifth is one that um I trans I uh put on there on behalf of the open space preservation commission to transfer control of the hou Farm Parcels to to that Commission um and the next is to resend authorized but unissued debt uh a little more than a million dollars uh and the seventh is to establish a Board of Health revolving fund that would begin the next fiscal year and the eighth is the uh the final article on the warrant and that's to adopt the MBTA community's zoning bylaw and as Ken mentioned the format is different than we've ever done before uh and that it doesn't have all of the the language but Town Council has said that it complies with the law and provides enough of a warning to Residents we'll start working on the Motions tomorrow and the Motions will include that additional language and if the planning board hasn't made a decision uh we will put them all in there and then they'll have to figure out which motion they're going to make will those motions be available in advance of town meetings so people can see the information contained in the motion the draft should be available next week okay and all right through the chair all the um abuts and property owners have been notified already so they won't be able to add new properties that's correct we're not noticed the public hearing that the planning board has they have to notify all of the abutters so it would be the only the parcels that people have been notified of already so there's no time to hold an additional hearing with additional Parcels okay to the chair So the plan is to publish it next week then would we be able to or the residents be able to amend it during the meeting I assume so right just like any other town meeting it's just that for the zoning um you won't be able to add any land that hasn't already been part of that advertised public hearing with notification thank you and I had through the chair another question about the excise tax it doesn't have any amount is that going to be open and determined to be determined later uh the amount is set by law so it's the 75 that we it's a percent yeah okay any other questions comments on the warrant um if I could through the chair I was just going to add that there was a a hearing last night that the planning board did that was on zoom and you can watch it on hcam and YouTube if you didn't watch it and they continued it until next week so that would be another opportunity to watch or listen at 7 p.m. on November 4th um and I thought it might be a good idea to reach out to our legislators to see if they could come or send someone too cuz people were asking questions about the law yeah to the CH I think once the Motions are out there needs to be some kind of simplified form of um lifl or something for the town meetings so people can process it there's too short of time so anyway we can help communicate better and help provide the information at hand and we'll start posting uh things on the website so um if planning board or others um other boards committees who have um articles here uh want to send start sending things we can put them up okay sounds good and I really appreciated you shared with us the list of Grants last time um has the superintendent shared a list of school um sort of grants that that we might would lose out on not okay I might email herbody else um for the meals tax I believe the chamber wanted to like sponsor that is that matter should we get that ch on the Morant how the select board right now is that because we voted it on right so uh the chamber doesn't have the ability to submit articles um except as a citizen petition so the board has done it okay any of the wordss but they can be one of yeah okay okay uh no spending articles on here right that's good um but certainly I think article number eight which is the MBTA Community zoning bylaw I know the planning board's been hard at work and others uh over the last several months since last town meeting trying to figure out the way forward uh and for those that pay attention to local government they're aware of it as well but the average residents in hopkington likely are not so I I'm concerned about the time frame uh between now and the actual town meeting which is just a couple of weeks weeks and getting ready for the holidays and things like that that some folks may be frustrated that didn't know this was coming so I think the more advertising the more we talk about this across town government the better off we'll be okay uh so with that uh the chair will entertain a motion to sign the November 18th 2024 special town meeting warrant so we have a motion by the Vice chair and a second by Mr Manan any further discussion on the motion the chair one quick correction it says warrant but it's multiple right so what uh I don't know I think the warrant is the document is the warrant just the just one or all is it warrant singular or warrant plural it's the warrant warrant those articles multiple articles multiple articles one warrant okay good question thank you anything else on the motion I just want to note too I think the public might want more information about the Board of Health one is that because of when they um give vaccines they get reimbursed they need to place an account to I think that's part of it it's a way to uh to work the revenue stream better okay so I think that the public might be a little surprised on that one too set all those in favor please say I I any opposed it's unanimous and so carries okay we will sign the warrant uh at the end of this meeting with that I believe we have accomplished the agenda for this evening y the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn so moveed second Motion in second all those in favor please say I I and oppose we are adjourned thank you very much