##VIDEO ID:3ypjegFFdP4## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 6: PM I'm going to call the board of Selectmen meeting uh to order for January 28th 2025 and we do have um Tyler bushard um remotely so we're going to do a roll call um uh attendance Eric here Kim here Don here shoot Missy here Tyler here all right and we'll start with the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation indivisible andice for all all right this meeting is uh recorded by the local scene anyone intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting should notify the chair at this time I'm seeing nobody um financial assistance applications are available on the town's website or by calling the selectman's office um we say this every every meeting but uh for anyone interested in volunteering there are several vacancies on various committees and boards to see a complete list of the openings please visit our website at Kingston ma.gov also check the website for additional events or notices um again at www. Kingston MA .gv um some important dates coming up we have our town meeting April 26th of 25 and the town election will be uh May 17th um at this point any other announcements from the board members um all right at this uh time we'll we'll go to open Forum so if anybody wanted to speak uh just raise your hand Elaine please youan for yours 360 Cole Street just a resident um with your budget discussion tonight I ask you to take the following facts into consideration in FY 24 new growth was1 1, 7,000 700,000 almost double the usual amount direct result of B business initiatives from prior years coming online in fy20 just few years ago the debt was 2 mil4 5 years later the debt has rolled off to 175,00 a savings of 2 mil3 the excess Levy capacity has been drained from 1.7 million in fy20 to 637000 to cover operating expenses this translates to 1 million 1.1 million in additional spending with the new growth amount the death R debt rolling off and the excess Levy being spent $5.1 million of additional Revenue has been absorbed into the operating budgets based on the facts that I outlined the town spending has increased by 5.1 million with no end in sight wage and personnel's agenda last night included three items that would increase the budget reclass the position of human resource manager to human resource director add a new position for FY 201026 Public Works director reclass the position of administrative assistant in the selectman's office office to Administrative Assistant bitr why any time is being spent on new positions our reclassifications is surprising over $5 million has been spent in the past 5 years with no thoughts of sustainability if and that's a big if in override is recommended and is successful what are you going to do next year and the year after there is no plan from one year to the next never mind a 5-year plan a 4 and a half% budget each increase each year is not sustainable the sukman and the Town Administrator are the ones to make the reductions needed to present a budget that is sustainable for all the property owners in Kingston Town management needs to put forth a fiscally responsible and sustainable budget leaving that task to the residents at town meeting will be pitting one group against another I'll close by repeating a comment from a resident at the town meeting last year you can't get blood from a stone I know these are difficult times we've had difficult times in the past but some hard decisions need to be made before the budget gets to town meeting thank you thank you anybody Carl good evening l ladies and gentlemen kle Pike from U sh drive I'm the chairman of the finance committee but I'm here representing myself more so than just the finance committee I I want to give you some numbers to kind of continue on with what Elaine said she said some of the things that I intended to say so that I don't need to repeat those but let let's look at the total budget the total budget for Kingston back in FY 22 was $48 million fy2 3 years later is $58 million an increase of $10 million we like to always blame the schools for everything that increase of $10 million is made up of 5.6 million from education to schools and 4.4 million from other other departments now I will acknowledge that a big piece of that for 4.4 million is um the cost of medical insurance and the cost of Pensions I think you've heard me say it before um one of the things that needs to be looked at in the long run is the continuance of retiree medical insurance and the continuance of normal routine pensions they will bankrupt the town as fast as the school budgets will these increases amounted to a total of 38.4% over three years um about 22% for the schools 20% for all other okay the schools number that we we hear over and over again from the public that we need to fund the schools of course we do and we funded them to the tune of a one .4 million increase in FY 23 to a $1.9 million increase in FY 24 to a $2.3 million increase in fy2 that's three years of $5.6 million or the 22% that I just uh acknowledged and that that number includes both the assessment from Silver Lake and the local school RS now one of the things that I would suggest and I think you may see it in your latest budget uh updates from the Town Administrator is that the state aid for education has been increased by almost $500,000 this year if we were to take that $500,000 and add it to the 4% um budget increase that we would like to see from education we would be seeing their total budget for Education increasing by about a million 7 or about five and a half percent so I will put that out there tonight if anybody from the school committees are here and listening the I would suggest that a beginning compromise is that you know perhaps we can all agree with this $500,000 increase and go from there I also want to talk just a bit about the fire budget and the police budget okay we increased the fire budget $300,000 in FY 25 we increased it another $300,000 in FY 26 or in the proposed budget okay that that that the two years approximately 8% so again we are funding the fire budget we approved four additional firemen the police budget we increased that budget $600,000 last year with a new police chief coming into town 14% we for current budget we would propose increasing it probably another $500,000 or another 10% so that's a million one that we are suggesting is reasonable to go into the police budget at this time so between those two dep departments we will have funded them an increase of 1.6 million over two years about 21% so that is uh the the reason why I'm standing here as an individual saying that I will not support a proposition two and a half override and I believe that the finance committee is uh probably 5050 whether as a total they would begin to support it the last thing that I will say is that in making your decisions concerning uh budget increases for this year I encourage you to REM to look forward sometimes I think we worry too much about the current year but looking forward I would expect that the town is going to have to spend somewhere between five and10 million to replace the two School roofs one of the school roofs has already been approved um and by the time we get done I suspect that it'll be at least 5 million for those two School roofs will be Kingston's share the police station if we build a new police station it's going to be somewhere upwards of $20 million if we add an big addition to the fire station I would guess that would be another $5 million or more with Silver Lake continues to talk about a new admin building uh that would probably provide another $5 million or so of debt so the long and short of it is we could very easily be putting $40 million worth of debt onto our balance sheet over the next two or three years that $40 million even if you pay it off over 30 years will cost the town approximately $80 million that will add another five or $600 to every res presidential taxpayers bill every single year the current budget that you're looking at including the $500,000 for additional um uh education that I think you're going to look at would probably increase the average uh taxpayers budget taxpayer bill by another $400 okay so that's before you're looking at any proposition two and a half override so depending on the size of any proposition two and a half override we could be looking at increasing residential tax bills by another $1,000 before we even get to the debt increases that we're going to see over the next few years so I encourage this board to uh strongly consider these numbers when looking at U the budget the last thing I do would say is I know I don't have to remind you but I'm going to you are all elected to represent all citizens in the town of Kingston not just school students not just the elderly not just the middle-aged people like myself but all residents of Kingston I encourage you to remember that and keep that in mind thank you for listening to me thank you Carl did we have somebody online did you say pine pine okay fine if you if you'd like to speak I'll wait I'll wait till a better time for you guys you go ahead with your uh your decisions was there anybody else here in the room that wanted to speak no okay all right um our first uh appointment is going to be a discussion on proposed changes to the aquaculture regulations recommended by the shellfish God say that shellfish Constable uh Dan civan and Dan Dan's here if you wanted to stand up and speak to this and we all have copies of this in in our um packets that were mailed out yeah uh Dan civan 39 Rocky Nook AV shelfish Constable last month when we met we uh excuse me oh nothing oh okay last last month we decided that we were going to allow for additional names to be added to the aquaculture grants and I've added language to the rules and regulations to provide for that and um basically that's just up for vote I guess tonight yeah if you guys can see it's just it's just some added language it says the town of Kingston shall allow additional immediate family members names added to any existing or future grant for the purpose of carrying on a family business provided that the family member resides and will continue to reside in the town of Kingston and that was um the language that was added um anything else you wanted to add to that before or anybody has any questions for our Constable I know there was discussion at a prior meeting from seleman buard about some other potential changes to the shelfish regulations is that something we're working on for a future discussion or well that has nothing to do with the aquaculture so um I it's part of the same regulations I understand it's not the thing that we talked about at the last meeting but I wasn't sure if if that was something we were going to be talking about in an upcoming meeting or just hold off for now Tyler did you want to weigh in on that I know you brought up that we should look at those regulations again yeah hey everybody um sorry I can't be there in person just uh sick kids turn the parents sick as well so here I am um yeah me and had a conversation a few weeks ago um about looking at other towns to see what um they have for regulations as far as um if you don't you know if you don't if you don't Farm your lease you know what would be the um stipulations to um will be the stipulations for you to lose that lease so if if if if for instance you haven't you haven't fished you haven't farmed that lease that aquaculture lease in two years or a year or you haven't met some type of a certain quota um what will we have in place to then remove that lease from some said person I mean I think it's more of just like like I making sure we're um it's something we had um talked about with our previous shelfish Constable um we didn't get to that part but um when I brought it up to Dan a while ago I I I didn't follow up with him very directly about it but I I will now um so if we can get this maybe maybe going in the next month that's something we can either look at or adopt it just makes sense to have a minimum amount of quotes I don't know what that is yet um you know uh for for Shell fishing for for oysters but we want to have some type of a a way to measure that if if a whole season goes by we want to know why that isn't being um farmed uh because there's only three leases in the ENT you know in in the town and so if somebody isn't um we'd like to know why how and then what kind of in my opinion I think what kind of um tools we'd have to um to move on to somebody on the next in the list so I feel it's just a decent housekeeping thing um that we can probably you know probably take some language from some other towns well actually uh we have a change we have three leases out there and two of them current lease soers are here in the building and they've been doing it for 15 years I don't see any foreseeable changes in their status the third um man I spoke to him this afternoon he's giving his up so we're going to what I'm going to do is offer it to the next person on the list who's been waiting 15 years for it so with that said I I can't I can't imagine that somebody just coming in would be subject to those kind of restrictions or or rules that just getting started and the two that have been doing it for so long they know what they're doing and they they're not going anywhere well we can certainly talk about it at a at a future meeting too I think the intention of having a minimum quota was that so that people understood we expect you to use this lease otherwise you have to have a good reason to have some sort of a waiver to that well that's something to consider which I haven't at this point I'm I'm pretty new to this position so no problem yeah yeah if I could wait just real quick Dan I think the whole thing is is if we have to revisit this in two three four five 10 years we just at least have it um on the books you know what I mean so um but we can I can talk to you some more about it and we can we can go from there but I think it's something that just to kind of tighten up our regulations in the future but doesn't have to be done today okay sounds good I had no questions about the change proposed yeah um any does anybody else have a any questions and if not does someone want to make a motion I move the board of selectman accept the agriculture regulations as presented second all right all those in favor it's got to be roll call Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler I we want to hear the echo Tyler I Tyler I no we don't we had a meeting a couple months ago where there was some a issues and he just kept echoing and Tyler eye Tyler ey anyways that's been resolved so that's good uh next item and if you just want to stay there um this is also uh recommendations from uh the shellfish Constable for shellfish fees and regulations um we're looking at at proposed increases for fees um Dan did you want to address this yeah we looked at that and um after some careful consideration it hasn't increased in a number of years so I decided to go $10 increase across the board including those who got it for free last year um they'll now be paying $10 I have some questions on it go ahead first thing is can this be something that's I guess kind of cleaned up in the sense that it's a discount to veterans and it discounts to 62 and older so like my proposal would be something like $50 62 and older is a $15 discount discount and Veteran is another $10 discount so if you're 62 and older and a veteran you would have a $25 discount but it just seems a little cleaner than this so I had a similar idea too yeah can you repeat so you're saying 50 $50 so right now we have residents 70 and older 62 to 69 oh I get 14 to 61 I'm saying a single discount to 62 and older and a single discount to veterans or a single discount to both which is what we do with Grace Beach right so they they have like a resident sticker price a non-resident sticker price and then a discount for seniors and Veterans yeah yeah something a little more straightforward I did find the chart itself a little overwhelming there's a lot going on here um I agree I think we could simplify it but I don't I don't know what the right numbers are I guess so they range from $10 to $110 right I mean I would say keep non-residents as is right um at the recomend recommended price of 110 yeah 110 and then again I just threw those numbers out there but that would be 50 it would be 35 I guess for a 62 and older based on the numbers I just threw out there and then could you just do a $15 off whether you're a senior or a veteran yeah I I didn't know if we wanted to have both so you could stack if you're 62 and older and also a veteran then you have a stacked discount but it well they don't stack it now right or they do they do well so confusing actually I don't know probably not CU it's probably no retan resident be 10 well it is discounted though so what you're saying technically yeah a resident veteran would would be $20 under your thing because you're just to simplify 110 for non-resident for a resident it's $50 but you get a $15 discount for being um either over 62 or 15 for being a a veteran that's what I was proposing but you can have both and those are just random numbers yeah that would be my that was my recommendation I guess we can obviously play with the numbers though Dan does this make sense to you I mean I'm having a h time hearing you oh sorry so so what I guess I was proposing is kind of cleaning up the chart itself and having a we'll stay with residents 14 to 61 which is $50 and then anyone 62 or older would be a discount and any veteran would be a discount yeah gotcha resident 50 which is what I have right and then nonr 110 nonresident 110 so it ends up being a little bit and 10 it ends up being a little bit higher than what he's proposing from the 50 so it would be 35 and Don was suggesting if you're a veteran and 62 it would be 30 off instead of just the 15 does that make sense yeah yeah yeah um honestly it's I mean it's Tyler is more but it's also yeah just clean up this chart Tyler did you kind of get this do you have any questions no I'm fine with the simplification of it that's fine okay um any other questions and if not um well hold on is there anything else here on the back no it's just more information um if there no other questions do you guys want to make someone want to make a motion any issues that you foresee that we're missing by changing it like this I just have a question yeah residents is one fee non-residents another and then the discount is only for residents right now we're not doing nonr non-residents currently a non-resident veteran gets a discount no they don't well they it same same pay schedule as residents so if you are a same pay as a resident okay yeah yeah sorry sorry okay so with with what you're saying then residents 62 to 69 be 35 instead of 25 cuz they get a $15 discount is that right yeah that's what he's saying yeah so then I would say non-resident veterans just get the same discount so $15 off only a veteran not a not someone over 62 right because we didn't have a discount for that before well if we're going to do that can we change the residents 70 and old to a free again leave leave them free we can do anything I mean that's the point of voting on this discussing it Keith has com hold on so what so can I ask one question so what would be the proposed for the non-resident veteran because before it was um how much was it for a non-resident veteran before this says the same pay schedule as residents you would pay whatever it was as a resident would pay from 14 to 61 or 62 to 69 70 would be free okay and so we're proposing so are we going to leave that now well I was just saying they would get the same discount which was I guess $15 is we were discussing it's a big jump for them and we do they're non residents currently we have 32 non-residents we have uh 46 residents between 14 and 61 then we have 55 who are either resident veterans or uh residents over 62 yeah so 32 non-residents um I don't know I I either way makes sense to me if if we want to allow non-residents to to get the $15 discount of being a veteran I think that's fine seems fair yeah it does seem fine I'd like to keep the non-resident veteran discount in place the non-resident veteran discount in place that gave them the same schedule as the residents Tyler that's not what we're that's not what we're posing right now right no no I just want to make sure that that's what not what you were saying right I'm fine with it scaling with what I want to make sure they're getting they're still getting they're still getting the discount okay so we're talking about Resident $50 non-resident 110 if you are a resident 62 o or over or a veteran you get a $15 discount and nonresident Veterans also get a $15 discount okay so you're saying not stackable though which is I I'm trying just confusing so my my thought was if you stack it that kind of brings the prices back to the proposed Fe we do have a question I'll I'll I'll allow it you just go up there I don't know I was trying to get this less confusing and I don't think it's working would be once it's written down I'm over 70 and you know what that's a huge jump that you're proposing so You' be time D clams and Kingston 10 finally hit the the magic number yeah so it's it's going to be 25 bucks instead of free be 10 no it would be it would be it would be 35 it be 35 7 be 35 per per year though right it ought to be free so it would be 35 but it's per year license right it is so it's going it's going from free go ahead a 350% increase at $35 okay going from free to something is yes yeah yeah so when do you get a break in this town uh well we've got you've just made huge huge increases correct we haven't voted on anything discussing it right I'm just fighting for the old timers who still go claming yeah Fair who can still do a day's work right all right any thoughts thanks thank you I mean so are so so on the so on the on the veteran nonresident I'm sorry I'm sorry to be redundant and not the smartest one in the group here what would be the what what would they pay right now if PR changing a non-resident veteran would pay how much so a non-resident the base pay the base fee is 110 what we're saying no his question was what do they pay now anywhere between it would be it would be based on their age fre and $40 anywhere between free and $40 yeah I I I that's that's a group of people I'm not I'm I think that's a huge increase for that group of people in particular I mean that seems a little aggressive so do you want to just put it at the resident schedule so I'm fine with I'm fine with leaving the Veterans as resident schedule as well non-resident and Resident unless there's an argument against it I don't know seems like it's a small group of people that we're then trying to get decent amount of money out of I'm not sure that the the jump is where I'm focused I'm more focused on trying to make this simpler yeah so if it's the dollar amount that the where we have the issue then then fine that's fine I'm just trying to make it clearer I think we have to keep in mind too that it's 6 months and it's obviously tied dependent so it's not like they're using this every day so I think just thoughtful on that it's not it's a year license but they can't use it obviously all year so I 70 over free then to address his concern about going from free to $35 um what are our thought we're not talking about a massive amount of money we don't have that many um permits but we've also had lots of people here talk about our budget going through the roof um you know and and and we also don't want to tax people to death and this is a tax um well our user fee right right right can we just run down all the numbers that we've got on the page here and yeah tell me what you're proposing because I'm out in left field here now I was typing it up right now just so we can put it on the board but okay um truly I was trying to create less categories yeah perhaps this is still L problem yeah these have been the categories all along I just basically added $10 to all of them y you know what Dan I think maybe what you were proposing was easier than whatever this was so it's just less money what we were proposing is is I was it easier right but we also increased it so I guess um there are no free in The Proposal here there's nothing free anymore um but what Dan was proposing is going from for each the ones that were free to $10 hey if people haven't had an issue with this chart in the past if any any broke maybe we shouldn't try to fix it who's selling the is it too just just so people that was what I was discussing I can make it bigger yeah hold I feel like the suman's office has I still know if it's less confusing which was my goal all right whatever just go with Dan recommendation all right I guess not worth fighting about the bot when we're dealing with a $60 million budget and we're haggling over $15 I just well no I'm just saying I'm happy with the proposed be do it all right all right so we're just going going back to Dan's recommendation which is $10 for 70 and older 25 for 62 to 69 50 for residents 14 to 61 resident veteran 7 over is 10 resident veteran 62 to 69 is 10 um resident veteran 14 to 61 25 non-residents 11 10 although we probably don't have many Resident veterans at 14 unless we count Boy Scouts who knows um true story so we good move to approve okay the recommendation from the shelfish consal for the 2025 shellfish licenses as he presented them do I have a second second all right all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy ey Tyler ey all right sorry Dan thank you didn't mean to make it confusing it's all right I also have a new shellfish map that I um I don't know if you've seen that we did see it in the packet yeah we've been using the same map for a long time and last summer I had so many people ask me where's the flag pole where's the the boat ramp where's this where's that so I thought I'd uh I thought I'd clean it up a little bit hopefully this will make it a little more legible yeah this is great no this looks great and and to be clear even though you can shellfish here you can't park anywhere here to access that shell fishing right correct except for Grey's Beach uh Grace's Beach what about Grace's Beach is that Grace's Beach is the only parking area to access well those who are outside the town have to pay a $40 parking fee and anybody in the town should be able to park there right if they have a sticker right they a sticker right right I just wanted to make sure there isn't any other place for parking right it's just it's all residential right right yep okay you just got to run real you just got to run real fast Park real quick dig and Bun got it all right anything else for us Dan no I don't think so all right thank thank you very much thank you uh next item is discussion of removal and trimming of two trees in the front of the atom Center um we have uh facilities manager Robert Coco requesting a discussion regarding the two large trees in front of the atom Center both trees are diseased and should be taken down um they've hired an arborist who is recommending the removal of the tree on the right side of the building walkway looking at the building from the road and the arborist has suggested that the tree on the left could be significantly trimmed trimmed back but there's a 50/50 chance of the tree surviving um we have additional information in in in our um packet to to review um Keith anything to yeah so we we wanted to bring this forward it could be potentially a um an issue that some people aren't going to be happy with the removal of trees it's a it's a maintenance safety issue right now very candidly um the idea is we would replant some obviously much smaller trees in the spring um but we we tried to you know Rob um identified an issue we brought an in because it was the right thing to do to make sure that those trees as old as they are uh can't be saved um we can certainly trim back and we tried very uh um without without you know just color covering over some of the some of the branches that would have to be cut back on the other tree that could potentially be saved it would be significantly cut back if you look at the picture um with only a 50% chance of of uh surviving so uh we're just looking for the board's uh decision on whether they want to remove both trees or remove just one and cut the other one way back um and we had on the agenda in case anybody wanted to come in and speak and it was was aware what was happening and why be happy to try to answer any questions any questions just looking at the report from the arborist it looks like they don't recommend getting rid of one of the trees but they recommend pruning it you can prune it back and and they're saying it's a 50 50% chance of of survival and if it if it doesn't survive we'll have to you know expend the additional additional money to um take it down um the thought was if we replace them both if the board wants to do that um they'll both be able to grow simultaneously like the existing ones have and um maybe look a little more appropriate um as they grow out where's this money coming from the uh the um M this budget okay any other questions from the board any concerns from conservation we didn't ask him no there there I mean again I think everybody understands that it's it's really a safety issue um we we wish it was a way to try to save these trees they obviously have been there for quite some time um and really fit the area very very nicely but we don't want to see anybody get injured either walking down the sidewalk or walking uh near the building so um we did the due diligence to make sure that the removal was um could be supported and uh we bring that forward tonight for any thoughts you have have any other questions or someone want to make a motion well it's sad but I understand it it's just they're big beautiful trees big there's no question we hate to do it but so we need to decide whether we're going to remove both trees or we're going to try to save one but obviously um they're sort of sister trees though if you look at the building and you look the pictures in the report they're the same size they're what feet difference right next to each other mhm so if you're if we're going to plant replacement trees we're better off planting them at the same time or to grow yeah yeah it would I think it's going to aesthetically be significant if we take one and plant something different it's going to look it's going to look funky mhm sad yeah we'll go ahead and make that making decisions on trees here on the of Selman I will make a motion I move the bard of selectman approve the removal of both of the trees um and plant new saplings in the spring to replace the good ones make I mean make them better ones what are The Replacements going to look like I should have asked before my replacement cost ask are they trees your we'll try to replace them with the same trees are they now okay yeah that would be a bigger discussion okay discuss something netive right Miss made do I have a second second all right all those in favor Eric I I mean I but I want to say no but I don I miss I Tyler I I am not excited just on a real quick on on another note with with regards to the atam center again we found some significant rotting on the pillars uh in the front door uh the building has been deemed historic so we're going to have to go through a much more significant uh process to identify and replace which will be much more expensive because it's the building's been deemed historical so um Rob has reached out to the historical commission to see if he have any interest in participating uh and we will move forward with addressing those uh repairs as quickly as we can just to make sure everybody's aware all right uh next item is approval of manager change for Pisano's restaurant uh we had an application received from pizanos to change the manager's name to Carla uh Nunes Hanner Piper did I pronounce that correctly okay good evening uh David Lawler I'm the attorney for the restaurant and uh I've known uh Sylvio and and Carla uh I'm actually from Barnstable but they're they have another restaurant in barnable that has been in uh existence for about five years now um and we had a prior manager who moved on she was wonderful Maria but um the uh having Carla I have to be very careful my Boston accent with that um the uh we decided it's best to have an owner in charge where there won't be any more change coming in um the uh she has you know significant experience in the other restaurant in all aspects as the owner that's why I put down as owner we all know when you're the owner of the restaurant you uh you know Chief cooking bottle water washer as they say um the uh she's uh I have a form that I'll be handling handing in she is tips trained just received her tips training which I'll uh provide you for your file uh again uh between her and her husband uh she will be primarily focused up here in Kingston he's he'll be he's back and forth he's 50-50 but he'll you know between hyas but Carlo will be primarily in uh and responsible gone over with her the various uh requirements of lcog especially you know the issue of um you know miners uh in the five years I've known them and barnable and I'm sure Kingston is as well is very strict uh in their enforcement and they have had no issues in the past and we strongly recommend that you approve her as a manager Posas and we also hope that if it gets approved you guys come by for dinner the food's fantastic do we have any questions from the board Keith is there anything that we need to add no everybody has reviewed and approved the uh the transfer so it's uh the boards if they're comfortable can approve the request all right any any questions no Tyler do you have any questions no no I'll set thank you all right would anybody like to make a a motion I move the board of selectman approve the change in manager at Pisano's restaurant to Carla Nunes H Hanner Piper second all right all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler all right we're good thank you we will be by I haven't been there yet for dinner Fant it really is get the chicken farm it's unbelievable right and David it's good to meet you in person you did my mom's estate I talked to you a lot last summer I was like wait a minute I know this guy absolutely yeah thank you I don't want to shake your hand I'm sick yeah that's close all right um additional items um we're skipping over to number two okay um recommendation from Recreation Commission for 2025 Beach stickers um the commission uh voted at their January 13th meeting to recommend that beach sticker rates remain the same uh beach sticker sales will begin on April 1st below the fees um resident $20 non-residents $40 seniors and Veterans a $5 fee reduction um is there anything um is Rec commission here I can't yeah and and I was stretching but yes yeah so if anybody wants to speak to this so I can speak to um when we voted this in some of the conversation that came up was when was the last time that we voted in increase and at the time we thought it was a year ago but after looking it up it was 2 years yeah so that since we made that um recommendation and then the other thought was a collective conversation about increas and water and sewer at the time we didn't want to tax our residents with more fees so that was the conversation and you said something about how there's a we're not allowed to raise non-resident higher than double yeah so when we when we renovated and Sue can help me with this if I don't say it properly but when we renovated Grace beach with the grants that we received there was a rule in there regulation that we needed to go byy for sticker prices we couldn't double A non resident sticker more than more than double the non-resident is that accurate okay can ask question yeah absolutely we sell out of these right the grace Beach stickers only the non-resident stickers we did one year because we literally ran out of stickers but we have since then purchased I hope plenty and how many stickers do we typically sell in a season is doesn't have to be EXA sorry how many stickers did 2 A Thousand between resident and okay but is that also including the dump stickers no that's just the gra Beach stick gra Beach un unpopular suggestion probably but when we think about um user fees so when we think about the services that the town provides and we think about user fees we'll be talking about this later with Transportation stickers I guess I'm leaning more toward we should be looking at increasing sticker fees so that people who use the service are the ones paying for the service so it the money that comes in from the stickers goes into the general fund right no where does it go it does goes to general fund it goes to the general fund and then that money will show up on the revenues as Recreation collected correct it's not Recreation I no I know that so we get a nice little sheet in our budget that shows how much money we're getting back in Revenue sources from various departments so it would be it would show us that like recreation's giving the general fund X number of dollars so my thinking was is well I appreciate that people don't want to increase the burden on residents my my thinking was we should increase the burden on the residents that are using specific services so if for example if my kids go to summer camp maybe we pay a little more for summer camp if I want a Grace beach sticker maybe I pay a little more for a Gra beach sticker I'm not I'm not looking at you know millions of dollars here obviously but I'm thinking maybe we should consider resident I don't know 50 bucks and non-resident 100 it's not going to be a showstopper in someone's personal budget but it puts more of the the cost of some of these services on the people using the services and that's where my mind has been as we've been approaching this budget this year I think we we talked about a little bit last year too but we didn't do it what were you saying about doubling the the it just mean the non residents have to be equal it can't be more than double the res I got it I got it okay it was one of the regulations that we were given so we can't just go up in non-residents we have to the residents to in order to be able to up and those are convers yeah exactly part of the conversation we had um and I think we also have keep in mind too that there's a playground there mhm and people like to use that um but the transfer stickers absolutely do the same thing yep and the shell fishing as well needs a sticker and you could do the $15 discount just like we did for the we talked about we didn't do it I guess for the shellfish instead of five instead of five make it 15 I don't know just a proposal I know the rec Commissioners didn't talk about it at their meeting so it's a sort of I know their recommendation was 20 and 40 my comment to that though is only that I actually fully support that idea but we didn't just do it to the shellfish so now we're basically saying W people you should go up we did go up we went up $10 cross the board 20% you could go 30 and you know and 50 if you want to stay with that yeah we're 30 and I should prob what it is it should probably be if we're pushing burdens on to those who use it should probably be a it should be a same percentage Equitable percentage percent at least to sure um well I wrote down this idea before we had our debate about the shellfish stickers so I I would recommend maybe even a little bit higher but you know 35 and 70 or something someone's just got to make a motion and we to see if it sticks I I think beat based on the fact that the Recreation Commission didn't want to increase it I think increasing it that significantly is is a big jump this year I think it's something we could take back to the table next year yeah but I would be in favor of increasing it 3060 I think that's fair um and keeping the $5 fee reduction the same um for seniors 62 and over in veterans um and see how it plays out we're also t dependent so that's you know you're not using it during those tide hours too so that's something to keep in mind so does someone want to make a motion with do you want to make that motion dollar I move the board of selectman approve the 2025 beach sticker fee schedule as followed residents 30 non-residents 60 keeping the seniors and Veterans to a $5 fee reduction do I have a second second all those in favor Eric ey um yeah I'm a no oh you could have just skipped yourself I know yeah good point did you not vote I was waiting for the Nay no sorry yeah but I'll say no now that's fine Tyler hold on Miss did you vote Yes yes sorry I'm behind here sorry yeah I'm a yes okay so that's a three two yeah Don and I opposed that's fine are you opposed because you didn't want to raise it or you want to raise it no I'm still going with my we need to put the the user so you continue to we need to continue to increase user fees so that we can fair enough support our fair enough all right next item is appointment of interim tree Warden uh due to the retirement of the superintendent of streets tree and Parks the position of tree Warden is vacant um the interim superintend of streets trees and parks is willing to be appointed as the interim tree we should have probably asked do done that one first and then ask him about the trees yeah no kidding any any any any anything to add any questions if not any concerns oh sorry no okay thank you for stepping up as always I move the board of selectman appoint Sean Turner as interm tree Warden effective immediately through June 30th 2026 second all right all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy ey Tyler I all right congrats and thank you yeah just add that into your resume [Laughter] right oh boy all right and now we have an appointment of uh the central Plymouth County Water District commission member currently the Kingston seat on the central Plymouth County Water District commission is vacant she Leon was the previous member for Kingston Commissioners are appointed by an Advisory Board which is composed of representatives from each of the eight communities in the district Brockton East Bridgewater Halifax Hansen Kingston Penbrook Plimpton and Whitman the law requires that The Advisory Board consists of a member of the board of Selectmen or other person designated by the board of Selectmen for each of the towns in the district the mayor of the city of Brock Brockton or his designate and a member of the city council of said City to be appointed by the mayor um Advisory board members serve without compensation oh that's a bummer right um meetings are held two to three times per year so um this can be somebody from the select board or it can be somebody that we appoint Matt Matt so conservation agent Matt Panella has expressed his interest if you guys are interested in considering him sounds good to me that's a great idea I move the board of selectman appoint Matt Panella as the Kingston representative on the central Plymouth County Water District commissioner commission Advisory Board member that's a long second that that's impressive did I get a second second all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler I thanks Matt no all right next we have uh an appointment of public health nurse due to resignation the appointment of Public Health position is vacant after completing the recruitment process the health agent is recommending um the hiring of Patricia AFR if I said that correctly to the position wag and Personnel are meeting on Monday February 27th to review and the position is budgeted for 15 hours uh for 15 hours a week so the wage and Personnel committee uh Mets last night and uh approved as presented okay oh they did at a step T okay yes any questions or I just had a question just really just because I couldn't find it um does this position go in homes or is this just like educating the public Joyce is on there oh Joyce is on here if you want ask hi Joyce yeah is this is this position like an inhome care position at times or is she generally just not at not at the moment it is predominantly to service the maven that's required by the state the tracking system as as well as we do Outreach with on the COA we are working on establishing um work with the Outreach person in the COA so that if we do need to uh go out and assist that that's a you down the road that's something we're looking at but given that it's 15 hours a week um yeah kind of limit as to what I can do yeah agreed thank you that was my only question go ahead where does this position reside in the budget no but I have that nice page you gave us that's updated I'm just wondering where in the he so it's uh it's in the clerical uh line I believe okay ke the position is in wage and personnel and the budget yes thank you oh interesting any other questions I just the budget that's here doesn't seem to have it so that's why I guess I'll have questions during the budget discussion is it not in the wage and Personnel the second line but if the Town Administrator bud is 98,000 and the department request is 126,000 so I guess I'm not sure yeah yeah yeah sorry I just want to make sure iated so the wage of person the the uh the clerical the clerical uh budget of 78,3 40 includes the 15-hour week part-time nurse and the full-time admin okay thank you oh I see it yep yep got it appreciate it all right I move unless you go ahead I move the board of selectman appoint Patricia o IFR thank you IFR to the position of public health nurse of grade six step 10 less than part-time position within wage and personnel with an anticipated start date of February 3rd 2025 consistent with the terms of the offer letter second all right all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler I all right next item uh we have an appointment of three Civil Service permanent intermittent police off officers that's a long title uh a permanent intermittent is a civil service appointed part-time police officer Kingston has historically had them in the past so there would be no need to ask town meeting or other governing body for authorization other than appointing authority Board of selectman um in the most recent years police department has not used these um positions Chief take it away good evening thank you Mr chairman honorable members M Tucker uh permanent intermittent is uh part-time police position similar to that of a special police officer uh the only difference is that you're giving that candidate um part-time status under civil service so uh what we would end up doing is if I was to call for a list of candidates right now uh it's taken from the open and competitive Civil Service certification for police officer uh once you take a candidate from that certification and make him a permanent intermittent I can no longer ask for a list of open and competitive candidates uh until the list of Pi has been exhausted the pi come from the same certification and open competitive exam what's the reason I'm asking is because we have a candidate who is very unique in that he is a full-time sheriff for the suffer County Sheriff's department and he's completed uh The Bridge Academy which was required by chapter 32 e the post statute uh so he'd be able to come in work details um some of the people on the department will be able to get to know him um he'd get to know some of us uh and if a vacancy occurs for full-time position we've preserved that candidate some associated with it are no different than that for intake of a a new full-time employee U medical uh medical examination physical abilities tests uh psychological it's all the same and and we already we budgeted for those positions um if the person has an opportunity to go to the full-time Academy and become a full-time permanent employee you don't have to redo the psychological the physical exam uh and the pat again you have to go to the police academy but we we're already budgeted for these for the hours that would be required for these we have a line in there for pis but it's really for calling part-time police officers in at straight time if we have a critical incident yes um so there's there's no cost the only thing the person's going to be doing is working police details uh and then the additional cost for any kind of medical exams we already have that in our budget psychological medical and P that's that's a cost to uh to us got it um same question where does this live in the budget do you know so there's a line item for pis is $5,000 that's in there is that right Serv yeah these budgets it's so tough because they only give you like seven characters and then they just cut off the category and you have to figure out the other 1 12200 is that we said yes okay okay any other questions from the board so again um I would just to go back to like if we if we if we get authorization to me um the candidate would have to jump through all those hoops and I'd bring them back here and introduce candidate to you uh the motion that I put in there suggested motion is up two three because if I have a repeat of somebody who falls into this category and I don't want to lose this favorable candidate I would do the same thing again and repeat the process bring the candidate back to you right but just to be clear this is not increasing the the officers meaning what we talked about last week this isn't adding the three I just want to make sure everyone understands this is a different no it just it gives the person uh Civil Service standing uh to basically have the opportunity to become a full-timer without having to take the exam again get put on the list again get put on a merriage list is a favorable candidate um there was an interview panel of myself a lieutenant a sergeant and a patrolman uh and the entire uh interview panel unanimously agreed we want to save this spot for this guy motion from anybody or any other questions uh I move the board of slman authorize the police chief to appoint up to three Civil Service permanent intermittent police officers second all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler I thank you sir all right we're all done for the night I'm just kidding budget so discuss and possible vote on board of Selectmen recommended FY 26 operating budget before we get started Keith I just want to ask a couple questions um to set expectations so um a we have the municipal budget outside of schools we have that pretty well um in touch I know you've made some changes there's some um additional revenues that and and will be there'll be some changes to the fire and the police budget so that there's no um reduction in staff um there's also we're also aware of additional Chapter 70 funds going to Kingston schools about a half million dollar that Carl um uh mentioned early on um that that could be added but what we don't have are School budgets the elementary and the Regional Schools they're having Public public they're required by law public budget hearings the first week of February we're really hoping that the school committees will turn around and give us um budgets as soon as possible after those public uh budget hearings if not the same night hopefully very soon after that um there could potentially be overrides we're also going to be discussing we we can discuss tonight the only override that that would be required nons schools would be the request from the police department for for additional positions and we have to dis have a discuss I think we should have a discussion tonight about um what we would support this year or not um and what amount whether it's the entire amount that he asked for um some sub amount um and whatnot the schools again I don't think we should be and this is just me I don't think we should be discussing whether we will well we can discuss an override in general but we don't have any numbers from the school so we have no idea what those numbers could potentially be but just correct me if I'm wrong we don't we don't need to vote on a number tonight we can and we can even vote on a number just the non-school portion of it am I right you are so we don't have to take a vote on our budget tonight you don't have to there's nothing there's not a there's not a a bylaw that that provides a timeline um as I think the chair and I had a conversation this afternoon and the fincom has already begun reviewing budgets so so holding up some are all the budget votes this evening will not slow down I don't believe and Mr F would be happy to correct me I'm sure um will not slow down the finc coms um review of the fiscal 26 budget um the school committee is meeting I think on February 2nd if I'm not mistaken or sometime early in February the Kingston school committee where I know they're going to be discussing the budget whether whether or not they're able to come to a final number there or not um I don't know that right um but it's it's the it's it's the board has the board has as much or as little uh rope as they want tonight on whether on what they want to vote on what they don't want to vote on this evening I mean we could vote a whole number just assign the number to the schools but in the end once we get the numbers from the schools we're going to want to review it anyways to see if we want to make a change to the number that we voted so we could be rev voting again you know in in in a couple of weeks or or up to a month away well um we could be voting right up to town meeting things do change so right right so I'd like to provide the public and the finance committee with our thoughts on the budget as soon as possible just so that they know where we are and where we're starting from okay uh Keith also what's our um or anybody else what's our timeline if we were to vote yay or nay on an override it has to be is it six weeks ahead of like if we were trying to if we were trying to fit that into the annual Town election is it is it six weeks out that we have to make that determination it's 35 days uh 35 clear days from the date of the election so I haven't I haven't counted back dat of the election yes sir okay so I haven't dated I haven't counted backwards from May yeah um you know but it's there's some time there certainly some time there um to you know let's just say April 1st uh very very conservatively would would probably be the timeline to still be able to have a proposition 2 and a half over I vote on the same Ballot or on the same day as as the uh local elections what day is the election 17th May 17th so we have time I guess that's that's the point with the override although you know to to Keith's point he brought this he's brought this up multiple times if we if we're going to do an override we need to do it sooner rather than later um April 12th yeah plenty of so he said April 1 which is yeah better even better yeah so again yeah I'm I'm really hoping that the schools will give us a final budget by mid-February um because we need the time um this year to to review and and discuss that luckily the Kingston schools got an extra half million but we can Chapter 70 but we could theoretically provide them with a number that we they should be at they might be a lot higher they come in at but right what they may but we've already done that we told them 4% different right we've we've given them numbers they they know that um well the the only way that would make it more clear is if we voted down override in said that's a I mean that that's very clear yeah so start to be blunt I'm just saying that would be that'd be the most clear that'd be the clearest way of doing it is uh is to I'm not saying yes or nay yeah or nay on either side of it the clear the clearest way to throw up a FL on not one is to vote down on an override and say well there there you go so say I'm not saying that needs to happen tonight I'm just throwing it out there right um at at this point um Keith why don't I turn it over to you um yeah so I'm handing out um you go the latest and greatest Consolidated if we want there I'm there is an extra one so love to give one to actually I think we already got these did but I think it's been tweaked just a little bit give him another so I just one page right I hope so yes sir one page I only took one oh I see so um just to try to go over what the changes are in general um for for the board when we met last week there was an interest uh interest in trying to uh increase estimated revenues uh and true up the um estimated revenues from the from the Cher sheet from the governor's budget so um Kathleen Barrett has done that so if I can just go through this really quickly there's some highlighted lines I don't have the highlighted lines but that's all right um we have um this is I apologize I want to make sure I'm talking talking to the right one here all right we're ready I apologize um so what we've what Kathleen has done is this we have kept the levy limit calculation the same there's no change there there's no change in the in the Deb exclusion um section on the top either we've modified state aid receips to the $ 7.78 million which is what is on the cherry sheet now now it also and and it does include the just under $500,000 increase in Chapter 70 Revenue that um is used typically to offset the schools [Music] um I'm just a quick question I'm actually seeing 7.36 on the state aid all right receipts on FY 26 I me let me and the old one that we had was 7.3 this just added I apolog let me just make a copy of this a copy of the wrong one I apologize can we two minute break yeah absolutely so we'll just take a two minute break throw those away I like is this updated today yes oh e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e back to order here um we all have the the the right budget document here um so Keith you were you were mentioning that the state aid receipts went up to 7.8 million and we have the version we have now says that um so what what were you saying after that so I apologize for the confusion um so um so included in the revenues is the uh cherry sheet revenues yep um we also modified some of the local receipts to allow for the uh the funding that was discussed last week to retain a a patrolman to retain to retain a dispatcher and to reinstate the 170 plus or minus th000 in uh fire department sick leave overtime um so that provides us a new total of of 61 460,000 in in estimated revenues in our expenditures uh we increased education from 15 uh 15,1 100,000 uh for local education to 15, 596 which is the addition of um the new cherry sheet number we've increased uh the public safety budget to reflect the items I just mentioned and we also updated the uh in the bottom section uh under uh state state aid charges the the cherry sheet charges C ask a quick question I wish you would can you do is this do you have this digitally can you email it to me so I can put it up on the screen I don't but I know somebody who does um I don't think I have it digitally and I can just hold it up at the camera just kidding um you can it'll be on the website in our meeting materials maybe some point not not this one will be it will be so if for for folks who want to take a look at it it will be included in the on the website okay just send it there yeah so so what this has done frankly is is it's a again address the public safety uh comments that were made by the board it also um for lack of better term reduces the amount of money which was about $1.7 million that the school Local Schools needed to be level service when you apply the just under $500,000 that drops to let's just say for argument sake $1.25 to $3 million yeah um there's also that's that's the that's where we are right now so that was the big change from from our last meeting uh last week so we have additional revenues so police and fire are taken care of um Chief did you uh Chief Holmes did you say you wanted to make a comment one yeah guys don't forget to put a big X threeyear old just something to consider and um I haven't even broached this with uh Mr hicky M uh Barrett but um one way to get to those three positions the three Patrol officers positions is this is a consideration for the board uh is the use of Chapter 70 money for some or all of the funding for the full-time SRO um at the middle uh I know the money comes to the town of Kingston um I don't know how it would work for everybody to get that funding to the silver league Regional School District it's it's still kind of an anomaly to me uh I just wanted to throw it out there because I know that you know you're working your way towards the approval uh maybe tonight or at some point in the near future about the municipal side budget um can I ask a question um because you made me think of something is there any talk um at any level about either federal or state funding school resource officers not just like one time grants to get it started but but sort of funding to help us get going and make maintain it yeah uh unfortunately the latest headlines is a step in the wrong direction from Washington DC to scrap funding for local cities and town but I I don't know I'm just speculating that that it's going to be reworked um and the priorities will probably change due to the new Administration so uh the most recent news is that I think the cops grants are off the table because all funding has been frozen right okay thank you all right thank you so right now Keith just to to clarify the total um the new budget or the one that we had two weeks ago with 60 million oh wait a minute am I wrong last week our budget correct me if I'm wrong was 61 M92 th000 and now we're at 61,2 61 million 61 million thank you 61,000 I feel like we're shutting some things down that's correct yeah okay so um I know we had talked about transfer stations now what we we don't have that actually on our agenda so I don't know how much we can talk about transfer station if I if I could maybe just address that y um so there I think budgetarily you talk about whether or not you want to um modify the decal rates um to um be more self-support had to have the transfer station be more self-supporting than what's been discussed so the Don just do that I did you're amazing I was just trying to you anyway so that's the sheet that that that select manber had asked for um so thank you for that um in the a couple of things that are not included in the um in the the budget doc document that you have in front of you this evening that I think the board may want to think about um the debating one way or another that is that is there's two items one uh the easy one um there was some discussion I think last week Chief um Douglas mentioned at that meeting that he wanted to reach out to the uh kind of the experts in the field as far as the ambulance billing goes to see if there was any wiggle room uh to adjust ambulance rates in one form or another um Chief Douglas did that they're uh finalizing what the actual rates will be and I'd like to have it on the board agenda for two weeks from now uh but what they have said is they would increase rates for the als1 and als2 calls that the fire department Advanced life support um the fire department responds to on uh most of the time that would equate to a very conservative Revenue increase of about $60,000 so that $60,000 is not included in the figures that are on the screen that are in front of you this evening that could be um the based on the the board's directions tonight we the the chief is ready to present a Bo the board with revised uh charges for ambulance services at your meeting on February 11th the other thing that's not included in the board the board materials is uh the transfer station decals we talked last week about having the transfer station decals and the other other revenues that we collect um fully offset potentially fully offset the cost of the transfer station those those Revenue figures are not in here as well so if if the board for example wanted to increase transfer station decals and other charges of transfer station to have that transfer station be self-supportive uh by doing that uh they would the the the board would increase revenues by $7,000 um the $197,000 and the $60,000 I just mentioned about ambulance fees could be used and and and retained as excess tax levy capacity uh or could be uh reallocated to um one or more departments to address um funding requirements or requests in in one or more one or or two of the Departments including the schools um so there's some you know I think the board has to make some policy decisions on the on the transfer station decals again depending on the direction you give tonight if if you're ready to do so uh on the decals we would bring those decal charges charge the recommended charges for decals back to the board at year February 11th meeting for um for your consideration so we correct me if I'm wrong it's not on the specifically on the agenda so can we even deliberate this I think we can because I think it's budget falls under budget but I do think there are some factors to consider when we think about again moving toward the notion of having people pay for the services that they want right as opposed to subsidizing B from the overall government budget um transfer station sticker sales for regular stickers have gone down every year um second stickers have gone up not price but actual quantity sold and the seniors 66 and above have gone up every year so I think I can see that being the as folks age into the senior group they're moving from regular sticker to senior sticker but we're not getting significantly more every year from new people moving to town and whatnot so there is something to be considered when we think about this and maybe we want to think about it and over the the next week or two um I can send you the information that Sean was kind enough to provide I asked for some numbers and Sean and Lynn put these together we want to be careful I think we have to be careful about how quickly we increase the fees we discussed this earlier with the shellfish stickers we talked about it with the grace Beach stickers people are getting hit with water and sewer and I understand that I want to eventually get to the point where the transfer station pays for itself right I don't know that we can do that in one year but I think there are ways that we can look at this Sean had mentioned looking at the tonnage the the weight um yes the CN and how much we charge the the contractors when they weigh what they bring um maybe increasing that a couple of cents per ton and that that kind of increase will help so I think this is a worthwhile conversation to have I don't know that I have the exact number that I would recommend at this point for those but I I think it's worth for me I mean I I since we did talk about this before I I just personally think that the the regular decal should not go higher than 290 in the first year and that's just sort of an arbitrary number um yeah I don't think it should go more than what we just raised anything else percentage well you're talking about percentage yes see I I don't necessarily agree I think this is a bigger a bigger item than than the um shellfish so we and beat stickers too yeah and this cost us money you know the the the shellfish doesn't cost us money this is you know paying for a service so you know and the other the other issue is your your curbside delivery has gone gone up through the roof but we haven't raised the rates on on the decals as much as the curbside delivery has gone up I think we raised it $40 last year and like I said curbside delivery has gone from $400 a year to I'm paying almost double that do we have the surrounding towns or I know Plymouth is like 190 so we can you know we can certainly do that some of the towns that are surrounding us also do pay as you throw um so that's you know that's going to um you know skew those those uh transfer station fees but we can certainly gather that information if that's what you'd like us to do I'm a big no with pay as you throw and that's a good slogan I'm a big no with pay as you throw that's I'm going to put that on a sign um but and again we don't need to to do to vote on this tonight so I think this is something we need to continue to to think about um and try to get some feedback from the public on this but um certainly covering more and more of the cost of the services provided I think is is a smart thing to do um you know Elaine had mentioned earlier that we don't have we're not doing more long-term planning and I think by covering the cost of operating these things by through user fees is certainly a good long-term um plan well and as we as we look at the budget and we think about this year I I said the same thing last year we can't just think about this year we need to think about next year and the reason I voted no on the budget last year was because I knew we would be in this position if the budget passed and it did and now we're facing these very difficult decisions and and transfer station stickers raising the price is not one of those difficult decisions I'm talking about whether or not we have to start thinking about eliminating staff and I don't want to do that right so I agree we need to be thinking further into the future and I think we need to start thinking differently about the budget yeah and I think you know we people are saying we're always blaming education but um you know the cost for Education over the past couple of years has just gone through the roof um and there's lots of reasons for that um and we need to look at the state that's not going to be a short-term fix but the state needs to to meet its commitments and it's not I mean you know they're paying we have this millionaires tax and again I know you guys have all heard this I'm just saying it again this millionaires tax was supposed to save education and transportation it's not it's not paying for anything for Education hasn't gone to anything related to K through 12 public education it's going to free lunch and free breakfast but that's not paying for teachers so these kids are going to have free lunch and free breakfast who don't need it kids who've always needed it have always gotten it because there's money from the federal government for it and kids qualify financially and nobody knows who they are nobody knows and it's covered through um the USDA if I remember correctly um dur during Co we got fed uh the federal government paid for free lunch and breakfast for everybody including grab and go people could they were teaching their kids at home they can come pick up Meals bring them home which was great that stopped under this new millionaires tax they wanted to continue it for all kids there's a benefit kids are getting better meals there's no question but we're looking at 35 40 kids in our classroom we need to look at our priorities again so we need help from our our State reps or state senators the governor they need to you know stop with the they need to prioritize better and they're not and then we've been hit with special ed costs we need to figure out are we going above and beyond what we're required to do and then there's English as a language learn English language Learners that we've had the issue with Baymont and other placements at at apartments by the state so back in 2015 there was one English language Learner in K through KES to a kis and then it has just gone up through the roof so last year it was something like 60 between the two schools and this this year it's up to 100 we're looking at 10% of the student body that are that don't speak English and that's costing us and we've asked the schools to provide us total cost for sped so that we know because we we know what we're spending per regular student what we don't know is what we're spending on IEPs that we we don't we're not getting that information we've asked for it um we know we're getting you know what the expenditure is for the special education but we don't know who it's applying to so the students who've been put here by the state and the FEDS we're getting some reimbursement from the state to pay for things but now 10% of the student body isn't speaking English that's that's hitting beyond what they're providing for us in in funding um and my big thing at the meeting with with the school committee um was it last week last week um was that that we need to know what the actual costs are so that we can go back to the state and make sure that they're paying 100% And we don't know that um so there's a lot of things that we have to try to fix um and these are are not things you can plan for I mean we want to plan for next year and and to Kim's point last last year we knew this was going to happen again didn't matter if we made Cuts last year we'd have the same increases again this year whether we made the cuts last year or not I don't know that i' agree with that but special ed cost went up well again we're not on school committee so I appreciate where you're coming from but at the same time if we had had a more conservative budget across the board we wouldn't be in this exact position right now it's no one's fault it is just it is what it is that's a budget that passed to meeting right so but and so part of the problem is with the schools we we can say to the schools hey you only have X amount of money this is what you get but then the problem becomes Kingston used to spend the top of the at the top near the top of the State per student right now we're near the bottom of the state for regular students but we're also way at the top of the state in terms of what we're spending on special education top five what's that we're in the top five top five so people are moving here to get that and it's killing us and we can't stop them from moving here so this is one of the problems that we're have and and if we say you only have X amount of dollars well the more that they're spending on special ed they're just cutting regular day so that's a problem so send their kids to Charter Schools and then the problem only increases right right and because the charter private schools are fine because the money doesn't follow them um the town doesn't have to contribute to that but if a kid goes to Charter School the town has to pay the tuition that does follow them so encourage people to go to private school that's fine charter school no um sorry I'm losing my voice which is probably a good thing um so any other comments questions can I just add one thing that I forgot to mention and and if you need more explanation I'm sure Chief Holmes or Laura could provide it to you um Chief found out earlier this week or late last week that there was uh a a file server in the uh in the police department that is in that's on its last leg it's about a $15,000 um cost I would ask the board um if we could increase either the it budget or the police budget by the amount needed to purchase that server so we don't have uh some sort of a failure over there and we're reacting to that so uh as you as the board considers whether it be tonight or some other evening uh for where they want to be for a fiscal 26 budget um there isn't there is a a last minute need that i' ask the board to at least consider so the just to be clear the last one that we got here uh the last budget it's 61460 194 so what you're asking is to add 15,000 to that okay so it' be 1475 I didn't bring my magnifying glass 194 that's not an emergency that needs to be funded now I can wait until July 1 I'm just asking because not an emergency yet it's not an emergency yet okay what's actually happening to it yeah sorry yeah sorry we need one over there I know handh we need a mic Runner yeah oh but the lights on so that means they can hear me me correct okay so the server that we have is approaching I think more than 5 years so it's at its end of its useful life and it's our records management server so it handles all of our files all our police records management um CES I believe is stored on that somebody help me with that no okay it's not IMC just IMC um and our Lieutenant Kelly was Our IT specialist and came to visit and he had said we need to get our server sooner more than later we thought we were going to get another two years from it and he said try to get one as soon as you can because it's just going to die on us is there any backup of that data yes there is a cloud storage okay and so it's more so it's time down if it yes we will have no computers if that sort of crashes time down yes okay and just to to add to that so you know and well you know if if if they went to AWS or you know you're going to be paying I know my company just for a simple server we're spending about 1,700 a month yeah noely we would not be able to when if we had calls for service to look up somebody's information we won't have any of that we' actually probably have to go use duxberry am I correct saying that to help us out to look up Carver yes these servers under do we have or do we just have our uh it Consultants maintain are these under maintenance so we're trying so this this particular server is out of warranty um as I think Laura started to mention um we're transition we're kind of transitioning the police department in the past used to have their own staff and outside consultant to oversee the um it Network where uh Chief Holmes and I have have had a couple of conversations and we've we've included our um consultant now MX to try to get a number there to try to make sure that um their computer network is operating properly uh and is reliable for the the work that they're doing over there so we're we're kind of frankly in transition uh but we expect to get there pretty quickly no I mean the biggest thing is if it's out of Maintenance that's so that's when your downtime goes from if it fails a couple hours to weeks yes while you wait yeah and that was going to be my question about the it consultant firm that we use was whether they were weighing in on yeah I think that they they agree that this needs to be addressed sooner rather than later um so it's we apologize for the the 11th Hour ask but um wanted to bring It Forward before anything was finalized to uh see if the board would consider something like that any discussion on that just that $15,000 uh file server are folks okay just to ask the question that probably shouldn't ask is are there any other Mission critical servers that are out of Maintenance and for the most part the munice and whatnot is cloud yeah there so we have a couple of servers um that are on our Capital plan to be replaced in fiscal 26 in in this building in this building meaning not police or Fire and Fire you guys have servers as well one at the police station one back up at fire okay one at the police station one back up at fire he said thank you and those are still in maintenance right that they're still under maintenance like as in their warranty or whatever and the chief said they are still under maintenance I'm just speaking for him in the oh yeah sorry um so right now are the budget is presented on the page that Keith passed out was 61 4601 94 this would bring it to um 6 61475 194 right is there um does that number include any increases to staff for any Department okay so we don't need to vote on this number but this is the number that includes this includes 4% in general for the schools this number includes 4% Plus the 500 or 500 Plus th000 or five just under 500,000 from uh Chapter 70 so it's this so the school the the the local school right now has a 7.1% budget increase right but it's offset by that additional Revenue so the net increase to the school is four is 4% okay so the just also to be clear and and Carl you may need to chime in as well but the regional school committee is about 2.1 million over what they were trying to get at but they weren't trying to get to 4% they were trying to get to 2% correct so four we're we're already if if it requires an override I'm just making this number up 1.1 assessment to Kingston 2% will be deducted from that number we wouldn't need 1.1 in an override because we're already assuming my quick urity is that oh yeah you might need to go to mic I'm sorry Carl just going to get knocked on from the window my quick and dirty uh assessment calculation based upon where the Silver Lake uh total cost budget is I would say that we would have about $800,000 above and beyond the 4% that we are targeting okay that that that kind of makes sense so really what we're looking at is the region and I'm sure they're going to come up with cuts they haven't they haven't cut anything yet so I'm I I'm positive they're going to make Cuts uh Kingston I'm not I'm not positive I I I don't know uh but right now Kingston's at 1.7 that's eight so that would be 2.5 we can't control schools so I don't think we should even really talk much about it right now but the other um issue that is uh before us um police chief asked us last week for new positions he did ask for that so remember he's looking for um God I thought I had the list right in front of me um three additional Patrol a deputy chief and a full-time dispatcher and when we asked him to prioritize he had said and correct me if I'm wrong Chief Patrol first cops on the street a dispatch dispatcher and the no the deputy chief and then the dispatcher okay so again that would be and correct me if I'm wrong that's a $ 1.1 million ask so is there I know we talked earlier about an override this would have to be an override unless we find funds that we can apply to it underneath it now obviously if we if we talk about the transfer station increasing sticker um we might get some additional funds there that could either go to the schools or towards police for new positions um I think I already know the answer but I think it would be good for us to kind of deliberate about this right now whether we would want to rec it doesn't mean we'd have to recom support it but would we recommend putting an override before town meeting for any public safety positions that the police chief is asking for um and it doesn't have to be for the full amount it could be for a subset of these I mean I've said from the beginning I I don't support an override I will vote against an override but I won't prevent the people of this town from voting on something okay but that's me and we don't have to vote on this tonight they can what about you guys yeah you can go no you can go I just well I just have a question about the process of it so if we if we decide that we don't want to put forward an override just saying that and something comes up at the floor of the town meeting and that something is just for the schools what happens that was going to be actually one of my questions as well in terms of process so what you're saying is like let's say we say no override but somebody changes the school budget on the floor and it passes and it's a higher thing I don't know the answer to that so what would happen is the the motion on the floor would need to include language uh to have it be contingent Upon A positive ballot Vote or an affirmative ballot affirmative vote of the ballot um because it wouldn't be the 35 days in that's well so we so we would have we would we would we would have to have a special election because it wouldn't meet the 35 day requirement as the chair just mentioned so we would have a um a special election just for so and now that I'm thinking out loud i' have to talk to the clerk I guess you could push the town election back I guess potentially to Mid June and have one election but you'd have to beet the 35 day threshold so 35 days from you know from April 20 27th is you know June mid June somewhere so um there still could be one election but it would have to be later than than the election you have scheduled now and then we would have to roll the I mean I know it's not a significant amount but I think it's what it's like $30,000 for an election no it's less that but I I want to say it was a discussion about that I think I think the clerk mentioned it was about $10,000 this morning um so yeah um just Eric getting back to I guess you'd kind of spoken Kim had kind of spoken a little bit too about it um yeah I mean not even speaking directly to police because I mean I'm I would love to be a i want to be able to bring the services to the town and vote to be able to bring the services to the town that that the police department needs with that said um I'm lumping everything into one category Lee you know um anything that requires an override at this point I'm a no on because if we don't have the revenue I I see it kind of simp I know this is not simple because this affects everybody's lives like this is very very very this is a very big thing for our town um but if we don't have the revenue projected to cover this for next year we're going to be in the same spot or worse I just I think it's fiscally irresponsible for us to put forward something um that we can't cover on our back you know on our you know I I wouldn't do it in my own in my own business nor would I do it without my own family finances so it's it's very it's difficult but I just I can see us in the next two to three years I think there's going to be chances for us to have Revenue that are going to be coming down the pipeline but until those are said and done until water you know water starts the water department starts um allowing us to explore other options for commercial you know this is this is the things we're going to need to be able to move forward and we don't have those things to move forward right now um we're a little bit hog TI because of that because of commercial growth and yeah I just don't I don't see the revenue there for it and therefore right now I'm I'm I'm a no on override so you know one thing I just want to add is um town meeting makes decisions a lot and we pass things and then we don't support what is inevitable based on those decisions those apartments were put in at the mall and they're they're hitting fire EMP police you know what I mean it's it's and and then we just approved MBTA zoning to allow tripling the apartments which is even more police more fire but then so I understand what both you and Kim are saying but I'm also annoyed the town meeting passes these articles that allow things to happen that then cause increased expenses so then it's it's a difference of how you're looking at it you're looking at it as the NBTA passing the npta um zoning law as a net loss for for us if that I I voted for it to be a net positive because we were going to lose all of our grant funding so it's a that's that's a perspective that's not a that's not a red that's not a black and white thing to be said Eric no but I mean we we allowed the apartment buildings and correct me if I'm wrong I'm trying to remember what we did with zoning to allow the apartment we did do that yeah yeah so I mean that passed to allow the apartments to be built which caused increased services which costs money but then we're not ponying up to pay for those increased services do you see what I'm saying I think yeah no I do I think if we had one or two of these things that have hit at once we may be at a place where we could you know we can float everything but we're not we're getting hit with inflation we're getting hit with yeah no I I get it you know it's kind buy no new growth it's kind of like everything it's kind of like you know everything's hit in the fan at once so right and and that that's the issue that we're de with this we're dealing with a multifaceted situation where we're having five or six multiple things hitting at once including including Baymont hotel with immigrants coming including with um the Water Resources not being to have projected growth including with yes growth that we have that maybe we couldn't sustain you know there's there I think it's all of that happening at once Plus cost of living Plus cost of doing business plus let's not talk about something that we can't I mean plus unions I mean unions make things go up in our town and they do we have we have requirements that make everybody get a certain amount of pay grade every you know or pay increase every single year we have retirement that is compounded that frankly I don't think people 30 years ago knew was going to happen so we're dealing with massive ramifications from not just the past one or two years those things have happened but also I think from I think projected loss of revenue from decisions that were made a long time ago as well so we're kind of just sitting here in a you know trying to make I mean everybody's trying to make the best out of what is a very crappy sit situation but um Let me let me take a step back and ask this question a different way um and again this is just to get towards and just dealing with police not not schools so there are some items here it the full package would be quite a bit and probably wouldn't pass we'd probably have to um narrow down this list a little bit would you be willing to put it forward to town meeting or do you want to make the decision for the town as you know we had people asking us to do not even allow it go to go to town meeting um because then it's a war of who shows up and then obviously it would also have to go to the ballot where everybody gets to vote so it's a multi-level process first we have to agree to put it on the town meeting warrant it would have to pass there and then it would have to pass the ballot but we also have the ability to say no we're not even going to put it on the town meeting I mean that's the five of us making that decision for the entire town so how and again we don't have to vote on it but I'm just curious what everybody thinks of that Kim you already said you wouldn't stop it um but would you like would you support sending it to the town meeting warrant I think I answered that similar to the we had an article before that someone came forth asked for something to be on town meeting warrant we all voted in favor of putting it on the warrant and then we all voted against it yeah okay I think a prop two and a half is a little bit different I I have a different Theory I'm prop two and a half okay I think we are making we I think we are making a systematic decision that like if somebody comes with a article art all all these articles can come up to us but when it comes to prop two and a half I think we have a unique position to say yes or no to it because I think it's us giving a much clearer Pathway to get to that position so we are essentially saying here is a very easy path to get into prop two and a half when potentially we don't actually agree with it like maybe we do I don't know how I don't know how the vote would shake out and so I see that as if you want to prop two and a half override let's just say we vote against it we say no prop two and half override because we do not see it as fiscally responsible for this town beyond beyond an article that comes up you know here and there every year that we don't support ones that we still put forward this is like a large systematic change that we're asking for for this year I think I think it's completely in our perview to say no if we feel that way and then allow people in town to put forward either citizen petitions or make um motions on the floor to change it and then go from there but I don't necess if we don't agree with this and we think this is going to make it absolutely difficult for the town to be able to pay their own bills and their own taxes I think we have I think it's in our purview I I guess what I'm saying it's not a rubber stamp like I would see normally right A lot of times we rub stamp stuff to go to town meeting because it's like okay you know this should go before the body to vote on I I think prop two and a half is a little different and you see different towns that have voted that in the past I think the the only thing I would say to that too is uh what you said makes sense but if we put it Forward on town meeting warrant we could specify a lower number I mean they could still override it town meeting um my argument against Tyler I appreciate where you're coming from and I and I understand and and agree conceptually the issue I have is that room will be stacked regardless with people who will vote in favor of that Amendment they will come prepared to stack the room and the override the the nonpr two and a half override on the town meeting floor will likely pass all that will do with is force a special election two or three weeks after the regular annual election so my fear is by taking a strong stance by not putting it on the warrant for the existing body to vote on we're forcing $10,000 for a special election that'd be my concern that was why I asked that question because I really didn't know how that would play out but that's my concern my concern of if we don't that could happen and then regarding the override what is the situation or what's the impact if it goes with we go with an override the the Kingston votes Regional down other two towns don't we're on the hook and then that is coming out of directly Kingston well our elementary right or is it all Town budget I guess whatever that difference is just because we have to in other words if we if we vote down override the other two say yes to at the regional level I I we have to fund that just to take a practical step back yeah not in a million years would we vote down a reg override and the and halifa would vote it I get I'm just saying that it is a possibility right so it's something that we have to plan for car Carl Carl's ready Carl has had the scenario through his head many times i' just like to clear up the question a bit about the U override for the schools you've got to remember that the local schools and the Silver Lake are assessment a totally separate so that the local schools if we decide or you decide to go for an override you know that's stands by itself Silver Lake assessment might come in to Kingston at 4% or less so then there might not need to be an override for Silver Lake but in any case if there was okay and Kingston voted against the override for Silver Lake and the other two towns voted for it which I agree with that Eric it's probably never going to happen but if that happened then Kingston has to live with whatever the budget was that silver leg created my last comment I promise for tonight I listen to um the the comments from dawn from um the rest of the board here and the one thing I would say is to me this is probably the most important opportunity for the board of Selectmen to exhibit leadership leadership is the word that I'm using in this situation that I believe in a lot of cases you're asked to manage but this is a situation where I believe you have to represent the town and be the leadership for the town whether you want to vote Yes or No for a proposition two and a half you need to be the leaders thanks and I just want to add I think um Keith I don't have it up in front of me but for every half million dollars on a $500,000 house I think what was it I can put it it was like $200 percentage though it would be easier cuz percent what what's the percentage increase meaning well you could figure it out if you because it there was a in terms of for the for folks at home it's easier I think when you think of it that way as opposed to we we could figure it out but I think it was it's right there it's on the screen yeah so it's you know oh I can't see you know I made some assumptions right so uh for a million dollar override based on the taxable value we have in town now yeah it would increase a tax rate by 29 just over 29 cents on a $500,000 house 29 cents time 500,000 divided by a th000 because it's per th is $146 46 so a million doll override is $146 if you have a $500,000 house so again but the but again the concern is there's no end in sight to this no and it's not solving it with a onetime override no it just it just saved at this at least at the school level that might be slightly different with the police so right now we could be looking at a 1.2 for for elementary and then maybe 800,000 by Silver Lake but I think they're going to make Cuts because Halifax and climton both want Cuts everybody told them nobody's nobody wants an override I I think they're going to make cuts um I don't think they'll cut at all I think there'll be an override but I think it it'll be smaller and I and I really hope that Kingston Elementary can can make some Cuts so you know if if they do that if they keep it under a million and this is just me um then you're talking about 146 if you have a million dollar home then you're talking about $290 MH a year MH so it's about 75 a quarter and I and just just I guess maybe to Echo what Mr Pike mentioned the the board has to decide whether they want an override this the fincom can't do that they can't put on the warrant they can certainly can potentially be a citizen petition to put something on a war if they wanted to do that right um but honestly I don't know that if the board of selectman decides to put a a POS proposition two and a half override on the warrant on an article and then doesn't support it yeah why you're putting it on to begin with because it's going to show there's no support and kind of kind of uh answers the question pretty quickly for people no I mean personally at this point I don't support putting an over item about but I'm a warrant oh yeah sorry sorry yeah see this is where I'm having a hard time with I do understand uh why people don't want an override my difficulty is making that decision for the entire town and I totally understand Carl saying this is leadership but this is also again again this is why I would really like the schools to to to make the cuts that that they know that they can live with and I know that there are cuts that they can make um and they also got the I call it a bonus um more Chapter 70 money but we really need extra money from the state to cover the um soaring cost that that that that we're seeing for special ed and for uh the Baymont um you know this is it it's not sustainable we need help I don't think we're going to get it so I think it's it's going to be up to us and I don't have kids in the schools anymore but if I did I certainly wouldn't want them in you know classroom with 35 kids or whatever the numbers are I me I'm making numbers up but you know what I'm saying so again we don't have to make this decision tonight um but any other comments about any other parts of the budget that that we want to take a look at are there any other departments that we want to take a look at um Kim was there anything else you wanted to to ask about do we oh sorry I have some questions um just looking at the police budget related to training and overtime because we had added funds at for training and overtime and the my questions were answered in that the reason there's an a large increase is a is sort of assuming that the additional folks added to the team so should the board not support that request of adding three patrolman a deputy chief and a dispatcher those numbers would be different so I guess my concern when we look at sorry my mic was off that whole time hope everyone could hear me um my concern when we're looking at the budget going forward is we need to have a budget that stays under the levy limit if if we do a profit two and a half and it fails we need to have something that we can function with right so I need budgets that show us what it is with no staff added which I believe is what the town administrator's recommendation is versus the budget from the department head which includes those additional staff so when we're looking at typically we don't have those two things to look at at the same time we're trying to find a consensus but should the board proceed with giving the option of an override we would have to have the town administrator's recommended budget kind of in one bucket and then whatever that additional cost is in that override amount so I just want to make sure everybody's clear about that if they're looking at the spreadsheets at home or if you're looking at it in your binder you need to keep those things in mind um I don't think I had any other questions we we reviewed a lot of the questions last week I think we went through everything so I only had a question about the Board of Health budget which we already talked about um and just if I could while you're looking the the bud the document that we handed out this evening that addressed the additional funding for police and fire and the school is stays under the proposition 2 and a half override so what I would suggest to your point I think is if if there was a desire to put a proposition 2 and a half override on the warrant you may want to add a third column so specifically says what departments are being funded and for what amount if a proposition to override was proposed and approved Chief you want to say something I just had a quick question for Keith while you're going up there um can do we have can you provide uh at least to me for my for the newsletter but for everyone a list of the highle big items that I know we're not this isn't dropping staff but what is being changed or what's being proposed to Chang can you do that for tomorrow at some point so I can post the absolutely okay I'll do first thing just for the high level yeah I'll do first thing in the morning so I'll just what I'll address is you know the number of of brush cutting at the at the transfer station the closing of station on uh Monday Monday evenings um you know a couple of other small things if that's what you're looking for yeah yeah no problem okay yeah I can email it to you so you don't have to retype it sorry Chief thanks um I'm going to be brief you talked about a lot there's a lot to consider we provided a Litany of information for the board to consider last week uh obviously we thought that you'd want to have that information um out of all of that the most glaring piece of information is the lack of growth uh in the Kingston Police Department and I think that presents an officer safety issue uh pre presents a public safety issue nobody knows what the future holds in terms of what the demands of police are going to be particularly in the change in the administration in Washington DC um you know there was mention of Labor units um we're fortunate enough for the working people that we live in a labor friendly state so this is me saying it's not the Union's fault uh the labor friendly State makes it so that you have to engage in uh fair and uh reasonable collective bargaining uh a lot of that stuff is regulated by uh State Department of Labor relation uh regulations um so you have to engage in good faith bargaining the other thing that's at risk is when when you look at um what's around us for police departments um I'm not shy about talking about how good the workforce is uh how good the culture is right now but that's at risk if you start cutting you make the place less desirable to work um in certain ways in so many ways the board has provided the Kingston Police Department hope uh and and that is the hope of um growth that is the hope of a better way of doing things um you know it's that's at risk um so you mentioned um a reduction of the three one and one uh if the board decides to give Mr hickey a number we'll work within it uh myself Laura uh Keith and Kathleen have crunched numbers as recently as today just to make sure that we're all on the same page like I mentioned last week uh so if you if you give us a number we will uh work within that number one police officer is not going to do it uh we have three shifts there's been zero growth since uh as far back as what we mentioned last week 1998 um I I don't know what it's going to take to disrupt the cycle of how we're doing business and I recognize the financial challenges but when I say disrupt the cycle I mean uh finding ways to work just within the budget without there being any growth of any substantial U me uh manner within the police department the job has changed you saw other numbers if you need more if you need me to look at it in different ways we'll do that and I appreciate the no votes you don't represent me you don't represent just the 261 members of the Kingston Police Department you represent 15,000 people so I can appreciate the deliberations and the things that you've talked about um I mean it is very challenging like I said if you if you come up with a number up I one's not going to cut it I mean like I said we have three different shifts um when we added a police officer um early in my time here um the determination was that we wanted that to be an officer U traffic safety officer and we're going to be we're going to be doing that when we get the the officer out of the academy and on the street so we'll have an extra body so I said it last week I work for you uh we all work for you and if you provide a number whether it's you know I don't know whatever it is we'll work within it but any questions just want to thank you and I appreciate the detail that you've provided us and I just want you to know that despite my lean toward no it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate how much value you all add and I just want you to know that I'm thankful so well um yeah thank you for saying that February 8th 2024 In This Very Room um you actually told me you just tell us what you need and I know that there is financial challenges to go with that um I'm I'm not me I we my the group of people that are working together as a team we're presenting a statistical justification for for what it is that we need so again if you if you provide a number we'll work within that thank you thank you all right any other questions about uh the budget or comments we've gone through a lot uh we don't have numbers from the schools I'm I'm optimistic that they're going to come back with um more reasonable numbers I'm not optimistic that they're they're going to be under the 4% um but and then then obviously we're going to have a decision to make once they do that and I'm I'm hoping that the schools come back with their numbers um you know with as early as possible um right after their public budget hearings um if possible um and if there's no other questions or comments about the budget then we'll move on all right um and I'm assuming nobody wants to make a a motion tonight you can if you want to move on the proposed BOS budget right I'm suggesting that we don't but if somebody wants to make a motion um it can feel free and actually we didn't really discuss whether we all agreed to the $155,000 file server to be added oh right I don't think we need to vote that we can vote that when we actually vote the budget right but just keep in mind I guess does it does it change anything for finance committee does it change anything for for the Town Administrator if we vote now versus in two weeks I don't think it does Carl and I have had a couple of conversations today um just to make sure that when we when I presented to the board this evening I wasn't speaking on a turn the finance committee has met um either two or three times now to review different departmental budgets they meet again uh a week from tomorrow night uh so whether the board votes tonight or the board votes uh at your next meeting I don't think it slows the the finance committee down at all no but I you know the other thing is I think it also it it would send a strong message that this is this is our number now this number includes a 4% increase um for both both well 4 point whatever it is um for both of the schools um so we could vote that number and then obviously once schools do their thing if we want to amend yeah you know we we can but that would be pushing an override now if we if we don't want to do an override then we would never amend that number but again conceptually we tell the schools and the the town departments how much money we have to be able to spend then that would be that number y i yeah so if you want to make if you want to saying that that well I still don't like the number but I don't have many suggestions on how to fix it um but if you're going to do it I this is the number because if you add the plus 15,000 well that includes the 15 assuming you're I am but I just two comments the finance committee as keep as indicated your mic's not on apparently the finance committee is continuing to review the budgets as they were presented uh we will have been making adjustments as they come in this $115,000 that was just discussed We'll add that in when we review the police budget and the other thing is I don't want to discourage enourage anybody but I'm also somewhat of a realist I would be very surprised if you had any kind of a real school budget both local and Silver Lake assessment before the 1st of March and that's probably being optimistic I'm always The Optimist I'm saying mid-February I think Carl will probably win this bet yeah probably wow so uh does somebody want to make a motion or do we want to hold off he needs the he would need the number if he's going to do it got add 15,000 to the 61,000 it's 61 million I mean 61 million no 61,7 5,194 so moved so move move to move favor move to support the town administrator's recommendation before us this evening for that 61,7 1094 does that work yes so do I have a second second all right um all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy ey Tyler I all right so we have a a budget but like I said before our recommendation at this stage right right we could we can change it at our next meeting we can do what we need to do but now at least we've set a budget number to change right always does there you go probably by next week with dump discussions week it's uh Town administrator's report so I forgot to include Town administrator's report in the in the document so I apologize for that um we know you've been busy with the budget yeah so you know right now the the department head team has been working together to to try to identify and meet the budget goals of the board we were also have been meeting every other week with the finance committee uh and the off Wednesdays from the finance committee we have the distinct pleasure of meeting the capital planning committee so um those those meetings I think overall are going well um we're providing and answering questions to the fincon in the capital planning committee uh with the expectation of both committees finalizing uh their recommendations sometime I would assume in March um beyond that uh I'm not sure what's going on to be quite honest with you so I apologize for that but um I want to thank you know the department heads and and everybody who's been supporting us to uh to get us where we are tonight it's been it's been a challenge we'll continue to try to address whatever questions you have and uh thank you for the direction you given us so I have a a comment um a lot of folks in town know that uh the mall was purchased what a year and a half ago um the new owners had a open house that was co-sponsored by the kba uh King uh Kingston Business Association was over at the mall yesterday afternoon I I went Kim Kim went um we had a few folks from from town hall who showed up there were a lot of um uh shop owners from the mall who were there because they want to know what's going on they're just in the dark and very worried about their businesses um but it was a good meeting it was um it wasn't a presentation it was really just an open house they talked very briefly about um sort of their Vision in terms of what what's worked in other parts of the country um but really they wanted to get feedback from from folks and um uh which I thought was good I reiterated that the MBTA zoning did pass but it was passed under duress it's not like we all want 500 more apartments up there at the mall um they they took note of that and said that basically they're not in the um uh apartment or condo business they're in retail um but that's just a subplot of what's going on they did talk about um sort of town centers and where I grew up in Virginia there Town centers are are quite popular there's like rest in town center this company actually has built one down in Richmond Virginia that's a town center it's similar to what um Hanover or Legacy Place they said but I haven't been to Legacy Place so I can't um Talk speak to that that um but it's built in such a way that it's sort of a town within a town there's lots of greenery a lot of grass um bushes trees you can walk lots of benches restaurant not like Handover then that's pretty much so Handover is open you can walk there sidewalks and whatnot um but it's when I say it's similar to Handover in terms of a lot of outdoor but they also talked about indoor and and maybe even a combination of outdoor indoor um but regardless I mean they're talking to a lot of big companies they're talking to um there's some discussion about grocery stores but I I think there's a limit because of Target being there that they can't bring in a grocery store it's also that Aldi and Market Basket are very popular and active and I'm not sure there are that many grocery stores that want to be that close to asking for Trader Trader Joe's Whole Foods um I put in a request for a Cheesecake Factory so you're welcome [Laughter] um I also said you know like higher end restaurants like Capital grow would be great like they seemed really receptive to everyone's ideas and there were a lot of really interesting ideas and people had Post-its and they put their Post-it ideas all over the pictures and it was it was a really good conversation and I think they're really interested in what the community is looking for and what else is sort of missing right so they're they were I thought it was a good conversation the interesting thing is they there were people who were there who were pushing back on outdoor and sort of a a a town center but they reiterated that they've done this in Chicago they have two places in Chicago and they said Chicago is much colder and windier than it is here and they're doing really well in Chicago uh the interesting thing is Colony Place is like a wind tunnel to me like when you go to go into Panera the door almost goes flying off um at Kingston collection I don't notice the wind being nearly as bad as it is over although it is at one of the higher points in town so yeah it is it's interesting but why the difference I don't know but anyways they they basically said that some sort of outdoor element um is very popular even in very um inclement areas like like like Chicago so did they mention anything about when they actually want to Kickstart a process or they may already be in some internal discussions but they're involving the community they're trying to get feedback so and they're trying not to they'll be keeping us up to date they don't want to disturb current uh Shoppers or tenants like as they do things so they're trying to do it in a way I don't know what that means I mean they said it they could be shuffling some of the stores around while they're building out another area okay so I don't know but there's lots of good ideas um I think the important thing for the public to know is they're going to be holding these open houses quite a bit over the next few months so keep an eye on Facebook um I guess if we if we get wind of something and also kba Kingston Business Association but we should put more on our website and I think they were talking about potentially putting something in the the local paper righta Kingston Express so the point is that they're trying some public Outreach and and folks should be um give some feedback two two things first I I can't agree more uh the the new owners of of the mall have been fantastic to work with we look forward to working with them in the future uh bad news that we get we received today the uh the local three town paper is closing oh so that's too bad um that will no longer be delivered to people's homes sorry to say it's unfortunate all right any other any other select comments I had a question actually um we talked a while back about the putting some signage up on the Landing Road and working with Duxbury do we have any updates on that I you know it's funny I was thinking about that last week I don't and I will look into it I know that we were working with uh Old Colony planning um and we'll see what where they are with that okay thank you I will'll look at that that was the only thing I had any other comments Don do you got anything no I mean the only thing I guess I would mention is I do plan on working with Keith on looking into our websites newsletter feed to can of spice set up but the reality is it's probably going to be after the yeah um town meeting yeah our our website does does support a newsletter and and Trish and I looked at it a bit um a few months ago and you know frankly just didn't hasn't risen to the top of the pilot so we'll we'll work on it but I look forward to any help you can provide to us all right Missy Tyler anything that you want to say no no just want to say thanks everybody for a uh for dealing with tough issues together and we're going to get through it we will get through it all right uh if the our next meeting is February 11th uh just before Valentine's Day so yeah uh would anybody like to make a motion motion to adjourn second all right all those in favor Eric I Kim I don I Missy I Tyler I all right thank you all e