##VIDEO ID:v18j2B4LD3M## thank you uh good evening everyone and welcome to the select board meeting for Tuesday November 19th 2024 uh we will not have all members uh present this evening Mr Clark is traveling on business but all the other members will be here so then we don't have to do roll calls correct uh the so all members are in the meeting room that will be here except for Mr Manan who will be here in a minute all members participating in the meeting are pres present in the meeting H 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 with that we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the FL flag of the United States of America to the repu stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty okay uh item number two on the agenda is public forum residents are invited to share ideas opinions or ask questions regarding their town government is anybody here Mr Weiss Manel please good evening Ken Weissman 145 a street five very quick points clean up of the unregistered vehicles on Fruit Street after the fire department training looks very good but really hasn't the town learned a lesson about Fire Department training Upstream of the wells why did the town violate the Water Resource protection by law for over a year in storing Vehicles there Zone one and two of the wells are mapped for a very good reason second item the first item you need to do to get permission for an interbase and transfer to connect to the mwa system is to submit a meepa request the meepa approval for the Fruit Street uh area had a condition that the Old Pine office building now housing the IT department was to be removed from the Zone one of the wells really is the town ready to ask meepa for an additional approval after the town did not follow the conditions of the last Meep approval by the way the removal of that building could be funded by CPA funds item number three CPC has oh no continue on that last one last night I heard from one speaker at town meeting that they were worried about missing out on a mass work grant for the MW connection I remind the select board that it's an average of three years from the time a meepa request is submitted to the Water Resources Commission to a decision by that Commission on whether whether or not it's going to be granted so it's a long time it's a big long process number three CPC has requested a meeting with the select board regarding CPA borrowing for Center School rehab we'll be joined by the chair of the permanent building committee uh if CPC borrowing for the construction phase is not supported by the select board which would be in a couple of years or a year or two then CP would not support funding the architectural costs at this annual town meeting so we're looking for your input on what we're going to do with Center School and we request a meeting fairly quickly because we want to meet the budget timeline that the select board has set for this and so we request to be on your next agenda please four there's a flaw in the town's purchasing system one reciprocate of a CPA Grant contracted for work that was 50% higher than the amount proved by town meeting CPC did not pay the amount above what was authorized because we check every invoice to ensure it's within the budget authorized by town meeting however the the town's procurement system didn't stop that from happening I think that's a a a procedure that needs to be implemented to make sure that people have budget before they contract for things for the town and lastly I'd like to make a plug for an hcam show that our state representative held uh his guests were Chief dhy shadu and myself and we talked very interestingly about pest for about 27 minutes I thought it was a pretty interesting presentation uh and uh I encourage people to see it thank you thank you so we have an agenda item led to catch that about CPC he that mhm thank you okay uh anyone else for public comment please please join us if you would share your name and address please good evening uh Jessica Miller go by Jack though and I'm am 111 Main Street and I'm also one of your public Librarians um I just wanted to make a comment and pass out to our latest class of Select board members um these are what we have and what we give to our kindergarteners when they are coming up in from kindergarten into first grade um from the library and we give them to them as recognition of being becoming part of a new class of hopkington residents and hopkington citizens and as part of engaged citizen citizenry of hackington um and we do this because they've graduated in a way to become truly engaged and be able to get their own library cards and become kind of part of the minds of hopkington right and so I have one for each of you and I know that a lot of you have your library cards and everything like that and that's wonderful I know I've seen Amy um often in the library it's great it's wonderful I've seen Elaine everybody Pops in but I just want to give each of you one of these because they have a library card application in them um they have some information about our library they have a pencil which is pretty cool they have an eraser um because sometimes we all make mistakes and we need to occasionally make a little erase uh mark on there but the pencil is to then give us a way to write things back in um but it also reminds us that the library is part of our community and that we can get all the information and support and love that we need there um and so I just wanted to welcome you guys as our select board once you've had time to settle in cuz some of you are members of the slack board that have been here a while some are new but coming back um and then of course one of our members isn't here tonight except you know he's a newer member and so now that you've had a moment to settle in we just wanted to make sure that everyone feels welcome and loved and supported from our library and just like our kindergarteners when they have settled in for a while we give them these and so now that you all have had a chance to settle in for a while everybody gets theirs um and so even though you have one member who's not here I'll Amy I'll give you an extra so you can pass it along um but just want to pass these out to you all and thank you for your time and effort for the library and if you do need a library card you do have an application and we do have a children's want in here as well in case they need it as well so thank you all for your time and effort great thank you very much it's very kind thank you you thank you thank you so much thank you so much that's great thanks a lot love it okay uh anyone else here for public comment this evening all right seeing none we'll move to item number three which is the consent agenda there are one two three four items there's minutes from SE October 1st 15 and 29th 2024 uh the echo Trail Reser conservation restriction the select board will consider approving the grant of a conservation restriction to the hopkington area land trust on two Parcels of land comprising 5.29 Acres off Granite Street commonly known as Echo Trail the parcels were purchased by the town in 2015 with Community preservation funds new employees the select board will consider confirming the town manager's appointment of Ken copac as a part-time van driver for the senior center great and resignations the select board will consider accepting resignations of Gail Leone from the Council on Aging effective December 31 2024 and Stacy spies from the historical commission and the Hopkinson historic district commission okay does anybody want to break anything out on the consent agenda everybody good the chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as written mov second any discussion all those in favor please say I I any oppose it's I just want to make sure that we thank those Stacy spies uh and Gail Le only for their uh contribution to the town and congratulations to uh Leo copek oh yeah I know the senior center really needs him okay everybody good uh so we took the vote right so we're all good there so that's all set good uh I'm going to pass over item number four just for a few minutes to make sure everybody's here we're a little bit early I think we'll pass on five for right now make sure everybody's here um the q1 deposit investment report could we do that now in a couple of minutes you want to do that it's okay so we'll ask our financial professionals to join us and walk us through item number six elain do you have anything on item six you want to introduce no just introducing uh Kyla laier CFO and um CJ pette Treasurer collector great and through the chair can we do six and seven together because they're linked we'll do six and we'll do seven together right after six yeah perfect all right hello everybody hello all right so first we're going to talk about the deposit investment report um so just like usual uh the report in your packet is for quarter end 9:30 the general fund deposit balance as of the report date was 78,2 182,780 the interest income for the third quarter month was third third quarter month sorry was $973,000 there was a slight decrease from the previous quarter due to decreases in interest rates in money market accounts that's pretty standard through throughout the board right now we're seeing that um the general fund balance increased by 1.24% in quarter 1 of fiscal year 25 and by 5.05% on an annual basis the town's largest cash account mmdt decreased this quarter but still accounted for $62,400 of the total interest earned over the quarter deposits outside the general fund include trust funds perform performance bonds and Student Activities in the amount of 4,992 624 in line with the current market Trend the town Investments Ander experienced gains in the first quarter trust funds were up 2.56% stabilization and CPA were up 3.76% and OPB was up 5.63% in total Investments were all up 3.69% for the quarter and 15.6 1% annually all of the general fund deposits trust funds bonds Student Activities and Investments resulted in a positive gain of 1.56 5 million for the quarter and a total amount on deposit of 99 uh a little over $99 million with interest rates declining as I mentioned before we are seeing the same from our bank Partners so as Prime decreas decreases obviously money market rates are decreasing while all of our returns were positive the income is not as high as we've seen in the past we've made our stabilization in OPB transfers as approved at town meeting in July we closed our uni bank CD account and transferred the money to a money market account since there was a change in uni bank's Deposit Insurance all funds in uni bank are insured through the iny sweeps account we continue to monitor interest rates and keep in contact with our different banks to make sure we are getting the best rates possible we kind of let them compete a little bit so that was the deposit investment report does anybody have questions before we move on anything else for that piece of the puzzle this is six we're talking about right yes okay any other thoughts comments good Elaine any thoughts questions no I'll set anyone on the board thoughts or questions just one quick question the 5% how sustainable is it looking going forward it's going to go down right yeah we've been getting calls from the banks already to decrease the rate that they are giving to us so definitely decreasing so next quarter we might expect less than this thank you it's not going to decrease dramatically I think it'll be a slow decrease you know Prime rat's been falling slowly so interest rates are also falling kind of slowly with that so I think it'll be kind of an overtime situation we on 3 month CD or the CD was a 7-Day CD so it have renewed every week which G gave us the flexibility to withdraw whenever we needed um but the money market in the CD were earning the same interest rate so there's really no need to have two accounts that were getting the same rate thank you what set anybody else I don't think I have any questions but I appreciate you coming and presenting the information of course the gains do they have to go through do to be certified or do they go through free cash or they just sit in that account the account itself is certified and ready and we can keep it all there and we have full access to it right away yes got it okay all right great next topic please all right so the next topic is the investment in Bank report which we promised back when we did our last quarter investment review um so at F first we're going to go through bank accounts that are not the investment Banks so the non-investment bank accounts so this was a request from you all um back in August or September to review our Investment Portfolio in totality and come back to you with um not necessarily a recommendation but how the performance was specifically at the Investment Bank so this is our summary of it okay we won't go word for word of the report it's pretty lengthy but we just wanted to kind of do a few bullet points for you um so uni bank is our Full Service Bank we've banked with them since 1997 our payroll account AP accounts uh unipay which is our online payment processing system money markets debit cards trust interest allocation easy who we use for borrowing and other services this is obviously the most complex relationship we have um we are lucky that uni bank has a dedicated team of professionals who are reliable and ready to assist at any time the nice thing about uni bank is there's Professionals in each of those departments easi has their own team of professionals um the bank itself has their own team of government professionals and uni has their own professional so we have direct contacts to each one of those that we can call at any time um and it's nice to know that there is a person there we don't typically have to wait on hold um or wait long for a response which is important Eastern Bank is our lockbox depository um so we have a lockbox with them they process payments for us and a money market account those have been open since 2016 and 2018 middle sex Savings Bank is a small account we have there um we use them for school and town since 2015 a majority of what we use middle sex for is Student Activities accounts we do use them kind of as a general depository because of how close they are the convenience of running right next door with a deposit a video bank is a small account we have that was open in 2016 mmdt is a variety of money market accounts that started in 1979 you weren't even born and then and Country Bank which is our newest relationship has 20 million in a money market which started this year we talked about that again we had a really large deposit in mmdt that was not insured so we moved a little bit of that not a little bit you know a significant amount of that to Country Bank which gave us a really good interest rate and it's insured so it's nice to have that peace of mind that that money is safe that is it for the non-investment banks obviously they have many different bank accounts within them but those are the different banks we use got so barthol is our investment Bank as we all know they manage over 2.6 billion in assets for over 300 government and institutional clients within the Commonwealth their independent investor advisor is based out of Worcester so they're local which is nice and they are partnered with the largest broker in the country County Commonwealth Financial network based methan oh sorry wam the town's funds are held at National fin Financial Services of sub subsidary of fidelity they manage three separate accounts for Hopkinton trust funds stabilization and CPA and OPB they're broken up into three separate uh buckets if you want to call it trust funds trust funds follow the legal list of Investments with 30% in stocks and 70% in bonds This legal list is very restrictive both with investment sectors and types of bonds if and when we are able to pass the prudent investor rule at next town meeting we would be able to diversify the Investments to talk a little bit about um The Prudent invest legislation back in I believe it was 2021 um hopkington had started to look into prudent investor it has been stuck in legislation since then so we were never able to get pass that line to to get to prudent investor the regulations have changed now and it can be adopted at a town meeting vote so our legal opinions that we've gotten from both barthol um and legal is that we we go ahead and just talk about it at town meeting again take a vote and see what happens there it's a little easier to to do that than to see why it's held up um and that will allow us to diversify outside of the legal list of Investments and give us more um let's say control over the investment so we're not so restricted to what is it 20 21 or 22 stocks stabilization and CPA follow the legal list of Investments and does not qualify for prudent investor rule rule these Investments are more conservative with only 10% in equity that again is a Mass General law so we obvious we follow Mass General law for all of the accounts um but that one cannot be prudently invested so we have to follow what the state is telling us to do for that one OPB this is eligible for prudent investor status which means barthol can invest in anything since it's the long-term Outlook the current allocation is made up of mutual funds and passive index based efts for the legal list of accounts which we talked about stock selection is limited by state law aiming to avoid concentration Risk by balancing sectors similar to the S&P 500 though there may be an occasional over underweight based on Research there is an option to remove specific stocks such as McDonald's tobacco or pepsy but that would lead to a higher concentration Lisk so we would if we decided we want to invest in McDonald's or we didn't want to invest in tobacco it would shrink our list and that could potentially hurt the town so CJ and I have received some comments from residents asking why we have specific investments in things that the town doesn't promote and that's the reason why we continue to invest in all 22 stocks is so we're not so restrictive and we have concentration risk and there's an ongoing review or scrub of the those Investments you know on annual basis or semiannual monthly companies come and go in favor and good you know right yeah so the state's legal list um really has not changed significantly in a very long time um but barthol does look at the the Investments monthly Bond selection is also limited by state law based on factors like credit rating duration and yield to maturity within the constraints of the legal list for when we have prudent investor accounts the portfolio was constructed with a focus on long-term performance across major asset classes utilizing both passive and active strategies active risk is minimized to attempt to achieve stable risk adjusted returns asset allocation targets are managed to minimize tracking errors hopefully resulting in predictable returns regardless of market conditions in addition to the investment policies we took the time to review the stock selection monitoring and replacement process with barthol we feel confident that when Starks are selected and reviewed it is based on credit rating duration yield to maturity and other factors within the confines of the legal list the Starks are reviewed with the portfolio managers on a Min a minimum of a monthly basis unless Market changes if there's something you know out of the ordinary that they see they will obviously take time to review it quicker than their monthly you know scheduled meetings so in summary barthol Works within the parameters of Mass General law for those funds bar Bound by the legal list adding value where they are able and for when we have prudent in accounts follow a disciplined process of selecting monitoring and adjusting Investments to ensure long-term performance minimize risk and make timely adjustments when necessary we are acting in accordance with Mass General law and the town's invested funds are placed at the highest possible rate of interest reasonably available taking in account the acceptable levels of safety liquidity and yield great anything else no thank you uh do we have an investment Committee in town hall not yet do not we looking at it I think if we were to accept um The Prudent investor legislation at that point we could discuss it but right now with such a limited market of where we can invest um according to the you know to our state safe list we don't really think that it would make a difference right right now those decisions lie with you two folks right okay in barthol yeah okay all right Elaine anything to add no all right questions comments from the board um I have couple one is um the distribution of our deposit accounts mmdt for you know organic growth and I think natural allocation perspective has the highest um has there been thoughts about building more balanced portfolio across the banks for risk management or you don't think that is an issue the reason why mmdt has such a high um account balance it's the massachus its Municipal depositary trust so it's only for municipalities um it's kind of the outlier in the banks in that it doesn't function like a normal bank it's basically a pooled fund of money from municipalities in the state it's backed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts um so they have their you know they they're overseeing the process um so that's why we've always kind of had a really high balance with them um and they have no other services than just the money market accounts okay that helps understand so the risk is not the same as putting it all in one bank right or one commercial right it's it's by the Massachusetts corre state government right up to what the full amount or limit it is not technically insured but the state backs it um and there hasn't been any you know default since the the 70s when it was open no yeah yes thank you that makes sense anybody else well I just I know said this before and I me again and going over this at home uh I'm impressed with the diversity of the accounts years ago we really had you know boom boom and I'm amazed at how many places now that that we can put our funds um and uh just a personal comment I think you two have spot on together what a really good team we have we appreciate it very much a great job you both do that's it m thank you yeah I just had a couple minor questions that I hear from residents sometimes um um in your online payment system or we have look like four different online payment systems one for unipay one citizen self- serve and dog license plus the schools have their own I know which has to be compatible with the school soft but um and then as a resident when we pay our bills some of them allow you to pres schedule your payments and some don't specifically made for Town clerks um hopkinton's actually lucky to have citizens selfs serve not a lot of communities do it's an extra um and what that does is allow the public to go and research their bills online most towns just have a unipay link you can pay your bill but that's it um so you can't see history of when payments was made um how much you owe what your valuations are um so it's nice to have that tool there but citizens selfs serve does not take motor vehicle so that has to be done through unip okay that's the one um bill that we cannot have in citizens selfs serve and that mostly is for security motor vehicle is highly regulated by the state um you cannot access that unless you have a bill number um whereas the rest is public information so once you log in citizen selfs serve you could look at anybody's business and and that's totally acceptable that's it's public information okay motor vehicle is not so it has to be kind of separated okay and the other question is about do we have a way to take on-site payments by credit card or debit card yeah we do and that's through the same systems it's through unipay yes we have a swipe um in our office you know obviously we do warn residents that the cost of doing that is extremely high um the town obviously does not pay for the processing fees so what uni unipay does is add that total to whatever your bill is so say it's $11,000 you may have a $20 processing fee from your credit card that's so that the town doesn't lose that that money because if everybody was paying by card um we would be losing a sign significant amount of money oh understood I just heard some talk in the community a while ago and I don't know if it's been resolved about the um the students in the uh 18 to 22 program at the the high school have a shop but they can't apparently take credit cards but but we have a system that takes credit cards but so I can't speak for the school's payment system they have their own softwares um so we do reconcile their accounts but we're not involved in how their payment softwares are set up okay I think yeah I think those were all my questions thank you y I do have one just a followup and I know the numbers are all there but for the residents and general understanding and education can you briefly just State the amount of um deposits we have in each areas and where do we stand in terms of our median and targets so OPB the two stabilizations CPA um let me see if I all the numbers are there I saw those but I thought it' be good to Baseline those yeah summary understanding so stabilization and CPA on our graph is broken down um stabilization School stabilization Capital stabilization and then Community preservation so as you can see there the total balance uh was eight I have the do you have sorry I think I have the wrong one one the op bet 2.45 change that um so the stabilization and CPA total is the 8,343 80519 OPB which is just one account is uh 7,459 92871 um and then the trust accounts all together is 3,551 7461 thank you yep do you have the CP by CPA you mean the CPC or it's PA Community preservation is broken down on its own right right and that that that total is 1,41 21555 thank you yep question I'm sorry okay we're almost there okay close about the debit cards I'm was wondering how I see we have a debit card for the council and aging and the and I just to write General one too but those do still go through the PO process right are they used for small purchases we don't use POS at all you don't so how how do you people can just use a debit card so the debit card is locked with us with the exception of the senior center um theirs is with them and the fire department has an emergency use only debit card but they have to request their transactions uh before so we have a spreadsheet that notifies me when somebody's requested the debit card I look at what the transaction is approve it and then give them a call hey you're all set to use the card okay so you match it up with their budget line at yes yeah so we look at their accounts we look at the vendors make sure that they're safe um we have a lot of protection in place with debit cards for example it's its own bank account that has a very low balance and it's not set to overdraw so if there was fraud It could only be fraud in a very small amount um and uni bank has a great system um of of watching for fraud alert um alerts we get them we get them texted to our to our phones um sometimes transactions that we've approved get flagged which is you know normal but we appreciate that they're they look at it so closely okay thank you that's one of our biggest concerns obviously and one thing that we look at very closely okay okay great thank you our money is in good hands we appreciate it very much you're very welcome thanks for the update okay with that we're going to venture back to item number four which is for a new police officer uh I see a couple of folks here this evening is Lucille here with us this evening is she is welcome please join us maybe grab a chair too if others want to come [Applause] up welcome Lucille Chief benett uh through the chair good evening and uh thanks for again carving out some time to support the department as we spoke of last time I was here uh we're we're moving forward we had a strong Recruitment and tonight you'll I'm going to introduce you to Lucille and uh from my position I just wanted to begin with thanking the human resource department and Lieutenant van ralton and everybody that does the work to get a candidate here between screening the applicants doing the initial interviews backgrounds coordinating with all the medical exams and uh and getting quality candidates in front of you and I think you'll see as you meet Lucille that we we have another one here and going forward I anticipate us having more in December and uh build finishing building out the department so uh with that uh Lieutenant vanal good evening thank you for your time this one not working it's dire okay uh so thank you for your time um super excited this evening uh for Lucille uh she comes to us with experience uh she is a uh born and raised in Milford went to school of Westfield State and um upon graduating was hired by South Burlington Vermont attended the Vermont Academy and spent a year uh with South Burlington PD uh we had uh attempted to get her certifications transferred to Massachusetts uh however we were unsuccessful because of a uh a 2-year minimum of full-time Service uh upon that we explained that she would have to attend our academy uh which is 22 weeks and um to my surprise she was actually jumping at the opportunity uh to attend our academy uh so we have her signed up for hoio and she starts uh or slated to start December 9th uh if uh the board uh approves her appointment but I'll let uh let her speak and uh get to know the town and the board excellent please go ahead hi so yeah a little bit about me um I'm from Milford so I'm kind of local to the area uh went to Westfield State and graduated there in the spring of 2023 and then immediately after that moved up to Vermont and uh was working as a full-time patrol officer uh for about a year um my experience there was positive I've gained a lot of experience and a lot of great training and uh I'm just very excited to be here tonight were you able to keep those UVM kids in line up there as best as I could yes I was right near uh the University of Vermont and we had the medical center there so it was a good experience up there for sure great well welcome thanks for coming this evening uh the agenda item says the select board will interview and consider appointing Lucille Creed to the academy as a candidate for or Academy candidate to for police officer uh the word interviews a bit much for these things so don't worry about that uh but I'll certainly turn it over to my colleagues if they have any questions or thoughts start with Mrs ritterbush I don't not sure if I well I will ask a question then I guess would you tell us a little bit about your experience in in Vermont I know you um obviously like Mr H said there's a it's a college town area but um do you have experience with older adults and dementia awareness training and uh things like that um yeah so I actually do have experience of kind of uh a large demographic of uh classes all the way down from college kids to um high school kids all the way up to some folks that were in their older years um a couple experiences come to mind that um a older woman that I interacted with she did have dementia and um luckily I was with a great Department that understood and uh the fire department was there as well that understood taking your time and you know not rushing situations like those um trying to get the best outcome for uh that individual and um their family was really the the goal at the end of the day and uh we ended up achieving that and um the family was was happy with with the U reason that they called us for to get resolved okay yeah thank you and welcome thank you anything else y m the frer I'm just going to ask you the question that everybody does is why hopkington yeah absolutely what is it about hopkington that made you want to come in yeah um so growing up in Milford hopton's always been a place that I've uh visited uh pretty frequently it's always been a community that uh I've admired from you know the great school systems that the town offers to uh great businesses a lot of small businesses and lots of uh recreational activities that the town offers its residents and I think overall the the quality of life that this town provides for its residents is really um above some of the other areas around so I would just be honored to be a part of uh protecting and preserving everything that kind of makes this town so great well said Thank you Mr Man yeah no no particular question but um welcome thank you for your interest and um joining the force the wonderful police force that we have and welcome congratulations thank you very much I think it's a great opportunity for the town we continue to hire new officers I think this fills the roster now if I remember correctly or we have another one coming through the chair you will have more coming we have a lateral transfer coming in and two more that we're going to send to the academy and I hope to get them before you in December they're identified and identified and moving through the process most of that's done right okay great y uh and I always ask this question has nothing to do with the candidate but I just want for the public to understand this position is in the budget and the funds are available and it's not going to put any strain on anything correct yes sir great okay Lucille thank you so much for coming in this evening we're excited to have you join the force uh good luck at the academy uh I know a couple of the folks have gone through the academy recently and um it sounds like it's pretty uh fun so thank you very much I'll leave it at that based on what I've heard uh but uh administratively after when when would it be the academy completion date the 22 weeks starts uh starts uh December 9th and I think anticipate a graduation dat of May graduation in May May 16th as a tenative one depending on snow and things of that nature put my spreadsheet I have a list of everybody we approve and when they're going to come online yeah December 6th we'll have two more coming in starting December 9th when she starts at the Academy they'll be starting down the street nice with all that Chief maybe you mentioned it uh where are we in terms of Staffing Target versus actual if if the people that have offers make it through the background and screening process we are fully staffed awesome that's probably first time in long time a long long time congratulations that's thank you this is all great news thank you very much again for coming in uh the chairl entertain a motion to appoint Lucille cedon as an AC Academy candidate for police officer sove yeah we have a let's do the motion if we would please sorry I moveed to conditionally offer Lucille cedon a position of police officer for the town of Hoppington subject to the successful completion of Academy training second okay we have a motion and a second on the table any further discussion on the motion all those in favor please say I I any oppos it is unanimous and so carries congratulations Lucio and welcome much we're going to do a quick pick Grill yeah let's get all the op this picture come on in here we got to make it look real official family MERS here [Music] down right next to Lucille come right on you go right there in Center [Applause] we thank you great thank you [Applause] congratulations oh yes thank you have a good night I was surprised you want to do the financial ones first because I knew that would take a long time I didn't yeah I didn't plan on that my my uh my my Miss okay but now they're done yes all right we'll move to item eight please uh no I'm sorry item five board and committee appointments the select board will consider appointing laa kalpana and Jacqueline Murphy and Dave Roberts to the sustainable green committee to a term three-year term expiring June 30th 2027 and change Thomas donah Hugh's term to a one-year uh youth term ending June of 2025 and M lrer this Pearl just rolled onto my agenda so SAA is on Zoom okay we have one on zoom and do we have the others uh here this evening is Jacqueline or Dave Roberts here Dave Roberts great to see you Jacqueline great to see you why don't you guys join us up here real quick and then we'll come out to the zoom candidate uh so if you folks wouldn't mind introducing yourselves one at a time and share your interest in the sustainable green committee please sure um so I'm not Dave I'm Jacqueline um and I've lived in hopkington for just over a year um but I've been bumping into the sustainable green committee basically since I got here so um finally applied and I'm excited to be here and learn from them and um hopefully be involved in some of the projects that they're working on great thank you for coming in I am Dave Roberts uh 29 Hayden row uh I've been in town I know 26 27 years you you lose track uh two kids through the high school great town uh better than I ever anticipated when I bought uh I'm very concerned about our environmental future so this is uh uh I'm trying to help out at the local level because I'm concerned about the federal level for the next four years great well thank you both for coming in this evening and uh if we could have M perhaps our yep she's participant Jo hi good evening I'm sorry I'm sick so I'm calling in kalala welcome thank you so laa um can you just share a little bit about your background or and or your interest in the sustainable green committee please oh absolutely um I am an engineerable profession I have some experience in Environmental Management Systems I'm passionate about uh sustainability and preserving uh nature and you know the climate the impact of uh our actions on the climate and so I've been part of this uh sustainable green committee uh through uh some of the focus group efforts that uh Julia at DPW has been doing and really want to engage and do more so I would be uh very excited and honored to be part of the SGC great thank you uh Elaine do we have three positions open at this time we do and this includes removing or not removing but changing Thomas's uh cuz we when he came in I think we did a full three-year term as a full member correct Y and as a high school term is there um actually thought that the one year was better though moving there makes sense yeah it probably does just give might go off so does this create one of these positions for the three by doing this with Thomas or is that I'm not sure if there's an additional vacancy or if this makes it a full this all works with what we're doing tonight and Thomas did not join us this evening correct I don't see him on Zoom okay all right so um questions comments anyone from the board Mr Man um no particular question in general what if um selected would be your goal um for the sustainable green committee What would would you like to see as our goal and with your contribution happening I go for okay um so uh I think you all probably know that they have different subcommittees um so there's like a climate action committee Transportation committee Etc um so I've joined the transportation committee and I think I also joined the Outreach committee um it was kind of a whirlwind um but I'm really excited about the work that the transportation committee or subcommittee is doing um to get um electric vehicle Chargers more widely available in town um especially at places that are like evidencebased we know people spend a lot of time there if they're like bathrooms food playgrounds schools like all of those things that are available um so I think that's one area of growth um that the committee is already working on and then um I've talked with with the other members of this Transportation subcommittee also about um like active Transportation opportunities so walkability bikability things like that um and just in general I think that the sustainability um or SGC um does a nice job being a voice for environment um obviously in government as you all know there are a lot of different interests to balance um and being a voice for the environment and Health um kind of broadens the conversation I think it keeps it more interesting awesome thank you thank you for sharing all right so I'll probably be a little shorter um I'm primarily on it for the Outreach committee uh it's one of the sub communties I'm also part of the environmental sustainability piece um but from Outreach my goal would be I kind of want to create a resource for the residents of the town uh to know what's available as green Alternatives businesses in the town uh that they can partner with uh and just provide more resources for people I've had discussions with with some of my neighbors you know then never quite clear can I recycle this pizza box or should it be trash I I think there's a lot more education we can do to make Greener Alternatives easy for all the residents of town and you know every every ton of trash that doesn't end up in the landfill saves us all some money in the budget so my goal is to kind of make the town more efficient I uh and a nicer place to be great exciting thank you bring yeah I'm sorry yeah please go ahead L thank you thank you um I'm passionate about uh preserving the environment and especially clean air clean water and I've enjoyed working with the I mean I haven't been officially on the board yet but I've joined the last two meetings and and I plan to be uh contributing in the subcommittees as the climate Action Group and More in policymaking what kind of decisions and plans we can make to reduce our um environmental impact and make a positive change for the climate Action Group thank you okay great thank you thank you any other questions Mr Manan uh no I think we have wonderful um energetic and great vision through our candidates looking forward to that I don't have any this is I'm just so happy to see people stepping up to the plate and good Al set I just had a administrative question for alen I know the sustainable green committee has some strict rules for joining the committee everybody's met their strict rules okay reviewed by by the chair all right well welcome everyone okay yeah I can definitely feel the energy and the enthusiasm for the candidates to get involved and help out and I think you're right there's a bazillion things that we have to balance uh and so sometimes we're not the best voice for something that needs a really loud voice uh in our world today so uh welcome to all three of you and uh we're excited to have you on the team um with that so much I'll move on motion to change the term of the sustainable green Committee Member Thomas Donahue to oneyear uh youth term expiring on 63025 and to appoint laa kelana Jacqueline Murphy and Dave Roberts to the sustainable green committee for the term expiring 630 2027 second we have a motion and a second any further discussion on the motion all those in favor please say I I any opposed it's unanimous and so carries welcome thank you for joining and we look forward to all the work very much thank you so much have a good evening byebye okay let's move to item I think we're back on our regular numbers now item number eight the town manager report so um since the meeting last week no update on Main Street Carter project uh nothing new since last week um we do have uh two Town Department position vacancies this evening um and I detailed them in my memo the first is um an impending retirement at the library administrative assistant Sarah Hunter will be um retiring at the end of the year um so there'll be a vacancy there um she uh this position is the only administrative assistant at the library so serves the entire operation um and also assists patrons um in addition to doing the administrative and clerical work uh assist the library director in developing and monitoring the budget uh processing invoices um and all the administrative um tasks that goes with with the financial aspects uh assistant processing books and other materials and filling in at the front desk administering the administering the museum pass program the meeting room bookings and uh other uh reference and children's desks as required so uh the importance to the town uh basically is assuring that the libraries invoices are paid promptly and accurately uh monitoring the library budgets and assisting the supervisors in developing and tracking individual budget lines providing desk coverage at the main desk assisting and processing library books and other materials to ensure that they're released to the public in a timely manner um and um the hiring range for the position is um uh 46293 31 to 65 55162 um uh per year um and so while this position uh is unfilled after January 1st if it's not filled by then these tasks will fall to the director and the assistant director um which could result in the reduction of Grant income reduced bandwidth for management tasks and so forth uh reduction in the ability to Liaison with outside entities including Town departments and nonprofits and tasks being handled further down the chain of command uh as those get put on uh due to lack of time and also accounting and budget management uh would need to be outsourced uh with this work is approximately 20 hours a week to the position um and freelance accountants in this regard are paid between 222 and $65 an hour um in other cost and workload so in the absence of the position the work would fall on the circulation of Technical Services Supervisor and her reports and would include the workloads of this department and so the position becomes vacant January 1st and if we uh post soon the is to have someone in place uh when that retirement occurs okay let's do them one at a time um this is a full-time position the fulltime position 40 hours a week yes okay is there overtime involved uh if authorized by the super supervisor and in the budget potentially but not as a matter of course got it okay is it hourly or Sal salary I believe it's hourly hourly but that the range is what average hourly range here yeah okay okay all right um great thank you questions comments from anybody Mrs Rush um yeah like I was I didn't believe we really need to do this step so I I'm have no objection to hiring either of the positions okay anything oh it just it seems like it we're constantly adding to the library but are we are we going to get to full staff or every time I turn around we're hiring somebody for the library this is a one to one replacement though huh it's a one to one replacement one person leaving is the library fully staffed right now today it's fully staffed today it's fully staffed this person leaves were down one got it okay how many people work at the library in total I don't have that number that's fair that's okay so in other words if we're losing one then this position is is already budgeted for it's budgeted yes okay all right I'll accept that the person is retiring so Mr Manan anything uh no I think that Library um being fully staffed is very important for for our town I see a lot of uh great things happening there great programs and um U definitely huge utilization more than I've seen many other places so I can fully appreciate their staff and the work uh and this is not additional this is replacement so I'm good good with that chair a motion to approve authorizing the the posting for the administrative assistant at the public library move we have a motion in a second motion by Mr Manan second by Mary Joe any discussion on the motion all those in favor please say I I any opposed I'm going to abstain since I I don't I feel like this is micromanagement to to have to vote on one to one Replacements okay um next up Elaine so next is the uh procurement and grants manager and this position um is available uh starting this week um the position uh directs the um day-to-day operations of the town's procurement and Grant operations um the person assists Department directors with procurement needs including preparation of bid documents advertisements conducting bid openings reviewing bids contract development and preparation of all required contract documents it ensures that all town procurements are in accordance with federal state and local regulations and requirements and it actively seeks grant opportunities for all town Department purchases and assist Department directors with grant writing and application process the person also attracts the grants that the town is receiving from all sources as well so it helps out in that regard so the necessity of the position um it's the best interest of the town to employ a full-time procurement and grants manager to ensure that all federal state and local regulations are met to prevent a loss of Grant Awards loss of federal and state funding and potential procurement lawsuits and through the aggressive promotion of grant opportunities Any Grant Awards received would lessen the financial burden on taxpayers um and so um the person uh did leave but is available to help us through the transition period part- time um and in addition um Joyce Emery at the fire department who was recently certified procurement will also be assisting um and there is a cost to that transition period uh to uh fund those individuals helping out in this regard okay anything else no questions I do recommend that we fail the sorry I recommend that we fill the position okay questions comments around the procurement and grants manager Mr man just quick question so this is an upgrade I mean first of all this is a critical position in my view because it's definitely something that adds to our grants our budget our financial capabilities but I was thinking you mentioned about manager was it a manager position before and we are upgrading it or it's one to one replacement no it's just a um it works in the accounting department uh so the position doesn't have any direct reports okay and manages all the grant AC procurement yes that's it the FR no I've been waiting to see this position so okay questions comments no it's a budgeted one to one replacement seems that sorry okay the chairel entertain a motion to approve uh posting the procurement and grants manager position so second a motion and a second on the table for that position uh any discussion on on the motion all those in favor please say I I any opposed I will and one abstention okay great thank you all set there Lan yes and thank you very much you're very welcome okay item number nine liaison reports board invites uh Mrs RoR you want to go first yeah I think the only one oh no it's more of a future agenda item I guess it's not a not a no it's not a board inviter Le in sorry I'll wait till number 10 uh um I thought I was going to have an MWI report but they moved the meeting for two more weeks so uh but I do want to say that the senior holiday sale is this Saturday and Sunday uh it's only like Sunday till noon but it's it's Saturday all day 9 at 9:00 uh and that the on the on December 5th is the uh police senor here dinner so if people want to go they have to sign up now okay Mr Manan anything um I think Weck update or through emails I've also learned so I wanted to share the municipal aggregation plan uh the sustainable green committee is working on it and we had queries from residents so um I heard from the chair that it'll be formalized or formulated in in the next couple of months so looking forward to that I think there'll be a huge value add for our utility bills and options uh second one is esbc is going full frare full grown in their works tonight is actually they're their meeting for the second layer of executions and budget approvals they do it incrementally with executions uh but I'm not there yet so I'll get the report soon okay but it's progressing well and dedicated volunteers working on this the only thing I want to point out um and I spoke to uh only other thing spoke to elae about it is for the um water and sewer advisory committee um I heard we had one candidate so far and uh we also know that there are some pending projects and work that are waiting and we really needed that advisory or group of um information group of people giving us the information and Analysis and recommendations so we can make intelligent and educated decisions on those I don't want to delay the project but it looks like it's taking a little bit longer so I wanted to bring up if there is anything we can do is it um loosening up the requirements a little bit or is it going back to our uh one thing I proposed was um representative from various stakeholder bodies would that help EXP it initially and then we continue to look for Resident participation uh I think it might be worth discussing that and exploring other options as well I had the same thought that we should put this in the future agenda items because we've been delayed six months already we stopped negotiating with Southboro so and like Mr W Manel pointed out it'll be it could be three years after we get that application in okay any else be yes I just uh wanted to say that I think it's Thursday at 7:30 our library is sponsoring a legislative breakfast and uh I know James Arena D roer is going to be there but I don't know who else but uh it's at 7:30 in the morning all right thank you uh I was able to attend the Veterans Day celebration uh the one at 11: a.m. uh at the senior center Our Town manager was there as as well as others uh it was a really nice ceremony I thought this year and uh it was the room was full it was really nice to see so many people in there honoring our veterans so that was pretty cool uh and last night as we know anyway uh we had a town meeting uh it went reasonbly well as Town meetings go I thought and um you know the Articles passed that were submitted by the various entities uh we didn't spend any money per se last night which is a rare Occurrence at this town meeting I think we got some money back actually um but uh thanks to all those that did come out and support uh you know local government and participate uh with that let's close item number nine and move on to item number 10 which is future board agenda items Mrs ritterbush yeah just the same that Shel mentioned I think we need to bring the MW discussion back since we haven't had applicants for the board that was um created the Char charge for um and I don't think we should be delaying on that any further okay and then I just want to give a shout out to the planning board too for their work on the MBTA communities act I thought their slideshow presentation was very good they answered all the questions and um it was evident how much work they in the principal planner did great thank you anything else budget sessions do we have we talked about having the listening sessions we do we have a list yet or we I know you brought a potential list last time and so uh tomorrow we'll be sending out a list of possible dates when you could be the farmers market okay see what works for each okay perfect thank you and I think that's all I had all set anything for future agenda items you want to discuss uh nothing entirely new I think I mentioned earlier uh we wanted to have the commission on disability yeah and uh also with the affordable housing I don't know if we have it on the list um we may want to get some better understanding on where we stand and what are the action plan for affordable housing now that we are at threshold level so that was one uh so so that one has not been on the list I don't think to date is that correct Lane we sent the invitation and so they will let us know when they're ready to come okay but we haven't we haven't been tracking that no as an future agenda item so let's add that as a future agenda item which is affordable housing update okay is that all right thank you I think okay um and yes we got to find a way to fill this uh Water and Sewer Commission uh those vacancies um I don't know what the answer is to that directly but you would think there's some folks in town that would want to get engaged and maybe find some of their friends to get engaged and help us but maybe not um okay but we can't let it languish forever so I agree with you on that point uh and then the others you know we've kind of taken a little bit of a pause and trying to check to to check some of these off and address some of these as we did the town meeting and a couple other things but uh we'll try and get back into this now a little bit more aggressively going forward uh and I think that's it for future board agenda items everybody good sir is the senior tax credit hour St be resolved that they were it is resolved but we haven't discussed it we can put it on an agenda okay I don't know if we could remove it if it's resolved um and it's resolved reasonably uh everyone's okay then we can take it off but if we haven't had a chance to process it and some folks are still frustrated and I think we should just talk it through I think it's good to talk about it yeah I would agree senior number six yeah cuz there was still some left opening things okay all right we good uh so with that the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn I move a motion to adj is there a second all those in favor please say I I we are adjourned thank you all very much have a great evening thank you