we're going to open the uh s commission's meeting tonight it's Tuesday February 11th um Bill Watson I Brian Don ele running late work we should be zooming in Sharing at the moment
so what do we have it's uh if we want to do the commitments yep um the first one is a real estate transac should be 843 okay and what um okay want to start with that one left all right so 843 the first one
got four of them to do so I'll make a motion that we [Music] complete this um fin sount 83 yeah real estate transaction make that motion to accept
it okay I I I'll second that all those fa say I hi hi um second one Genie is the baitman of $145 that's a 43 onshore Drive okay we had already made a motion on that but then Stacy just sent me the paperwork so
I just okay you okay with that we yes oh so that one's all set y I'm just okay just clarify okay the the third bullet the vement for 135 that um
is actually for your 53 name okay and um that we already made a motion on that it was just that's fine uh number four um real estate transaction of $125 make a motion okay
that we accept the real estate transaction for $125 for is it 25-32 yes okay uh second that all those in favor say I
I just one little Amendment we won't be speaking on the American Legion I haven't received any information from okay that's fine um what go down to leeching field updates maybe or or Dave do you want to
give you a report um yeah either way um I guess I can do my information I'm gonna hold on the financials until L here she didn't call in so so uh let's see couple announcements
so last week uh all the staff that we have currently at the plant went for a combin space training uh that was provided to us through our insurance company Maya group that was done over at the police station in duckberry I
thought very informative being through these multiple multiple times um it was good just you know every couple years ni to go for a refresher for everyone so we all did that last I believe it was last Wednesday or Thursday it was Wednesday
um let's see Indian Pond Country Club I think it might be attached in your packets I just happen to find something around no gra it that's okay I can just hand out the copy that
um again I was poking around the plant and I found something since 200 three it's not in there remember this okay um it was just a record from
2003 showing which properties on Indian Pond the yellow hookup Club are hooked up yeah okay and jeie just kind of did an exercise just kind of find out who is and who is not connected to make sure everything's all right I think she's either close to completing or complete
not close to yeah several of those un connected to water there's no Utility Billing just if they're yellow they are hooked up so it means there's a stub there even though it's a vac lot Genie is going to confirm all that okay so I'm
looking at the ones towards our leing field they don't have yellow I would imagine there still a stub that's you going to check that that's it's weird that there's no yellow one side speak there is the other yeah and that was generated from the water department back in 2003 so I imagine they
it's hard to say without confirmation but I imagine they sent it saying these people have water and they're being built for sewage well would be there a long time between then then and now yeah so just to confir just want to confirm the accuracy of it now that I found do
ACC that that would help just you know the other thing is what you found we looking at before the way that the developer did some of the they put the sewer line right on the sidewalk right I did notice that yeah there a man not in the street so that's why it
jumped out of me if you had they may have intentionally they built the roads put the sewer down one side to connect to that house and not put the stub across the street knowing it would be repaired in at some point in the future still future but you know what I'm saying yeah
so that's why that's kind of important is that if they're not this I mean this like 20 I think there are 20 blind spaces right there there's 20 potential hook us mhm and something to consider too is the road coming in off of Brook Street yeah coming up back in the day
when they developed some of those units on the right and left hand side I imagine we had no room at the plant for more development so I imagine they're all on septic down in this area coming up into that and they should be that's right directly but as those systems fail
we we'll have to look at you know how we trans to a hook up in here and I believe all the manholes running down country clubway to Brook Street are all buried I have not seen any s man holes in that stretch of road so that's
unfortunately true for other places something to kind of keep in mind that's really good so you don't you don't even really know if those people are hooked up at all Jeanie's going through an exercise and check the other Road he's here
I believe they're all septic okay I suppose cross reference to the Board of Health as well because if they have septic systems on the properties then they would show up they would have you know as built and with the permit to right right and if they don't have any
septic systems on that proper those properties are there then that means they tied it to the sewer system yes talked about doing smoke test at some point to things going on there the smoke test would solve that problem real test smoking two two ways of referencing that
they could go and see if there's a disos say that the pan my Jo is you're not coming in yeah and other than that we did have a slip and fall injury for one of our operators
during the snowstorm um stepped out on a what was under the snow as a patch of ice right landed on his shoulder so um he went to his primary care physici yesterday for a
followup from the fall last week and uh he's going to be out for a week at this point so right now we're down a laborer and we're down an operator so we're down to a fourman crew until further noce hopefully they'll come back and it will just be a
physical therapy and short time out but we won't know until some of his followup visits get the ice on the ground it's unbelievable the way it was set up and under the snow you can't see it you know he stepped out of the vehicle and the next thing you know the feet went up and
the shoulder went down so um other than that we are uh just rolling through and I did go up to I think I included you on the email went up to the leeching field the other day confirmed all the depths for the uh the wells and at this point I
sent that information back to CDM they may have to send someone out to do a survey to find the final elevation of the tops of the whals this a question let ask you all those Wells you you did are all in the area of the field except for one that's
in the woods the new one we did that one too is there any other spot out the that we have to tell you 114 was the one that was that was found out in the woods it was an older well yeah um I did the sampling there too not the sampling but
the check the well Heights I have my own Transit intercept see where the cross is going to be because I can do with you and okay somebody half an hour on the field yeah there's one well there's two off the field it's cost
$10,000 or $5,000 we can do it in a half an hour an hour or two okay and nothing doing in house you time I I'll follow up with that on that make that if it BEC slowing this down getting this Pro me nothing yeah
yeah the expense yeah yeah that's all I have to uh announce at this point uh we've just been going through some numbers budget things typical uh week at at the plant and up here at Town Hall Genie and I have been going through some things
and uh that's all I have to report good job of plowing on sh drive like a one of your guys yeah yeah that was uh Jordan I yeah good job I thought and he was driving 30 miles an
hour and not 60 which we sometimes have yep no he's good he's he's very uh the highway department even called afterwards said how good of a job he did you filled in for someone on the highway
well after hours if they need someone to plow at the highway department may ask if we can provide someone so Jordan volunteer to step up and then we called in the next morning we still have our guys doing the rounds of the plant so we called someone
else in so one could plow one could shovel out the stations they get everything sorted out by midday that's um anything on the leeching fields and plan expansion or you just cover most of that or you have any updates on leeching
field I just want to make sure keep it on the agenda because as's the snow melts and we start getting into the erosion and problems we're going to definitely have this year with the the pro the the front the ground is Frozen a good seven8 10 Ines in and I predict based on that we get the kind of warming
we're going to start getting it's going to rain tomorrow what happens is that top 2 in THS out the the bottom six in stays Frozen and you get a heavy rain and everything goes the flats all that seed all that tops go yeah which is you like trying to
get the roots going when we did try but you know it's just the way it is there not much you can do they're they're they're on the hook the contract wasn't hook to replace it all there are few washed out areas in that but um like Brian says as the weather clears up they'll tend to
address some of those and hopefully the seed will pick up uh the Le the plant upgrade they're looking at closing out that loan I believe the end of February so they working on some details at CDM they'll be interacting with jeie and
finance department accounting department to to square all those ends out I'm sure El will be in on those emails do we need to I dropped this call only because so many things going on with financing stuff with Michelle and I talked to Tom
and a week ago and tend to have him on the maybe if I can get you but just there's so many things in state level I think I mentioned they're pulling back any money that's not spent they're they're pulling it back to put
it into the bank for you know for everything whenever I hear the tax revenues in January fell below expectations it doesn't
look that's what the stay uh mun the mun conference I have the paperwork there but I didn't know if we want to wait berlan for Lane um but the cost if we early bird the sessions is like
$1,200 round Tri there is 326 and then there's a list of hotel rooms from like 150 to $260 how many days is that May 10th to the 14th okay and Dave do we have money
in the budget to cover that we do have a category listed as other okay so we could take it from that and use that accordingly there is a just going through the last nine months
through un stuff it's Genie's done some online training and picked up a lot of Knowledge from it but there's obviously more that could help her with her and she'd be our only representative going yeah unless unless a lame wanteded
to get involved in it but I don't think townwide she wouldn't really have access to muns anyway so it would just benefit Genie maybe somebody un Department want to go there may be other other employees that are going to go other departments I've mentioned it
to the accounting Department yeah um into the assessors I I wouldn't have a problem sending sending yeah I'll I'll make that motion that we uh allocate the amount of money looks like about
$1,500 plus any miscellaneous expenses for team to go to this conference M I'll second that a discussion I think it would be fantastic for us to have that firsthand knowledge in our in our our you know our staff so so in in the
past the water department Representatives have gone down very very good and from what I see the genie using this as as a tool almost daily yeah probably daily multiple times
a day so closer to 2500 to have a hotel and everything yeah because it's a 150 to 260 and I wouldn't pick like the most expensive place to [Music] so we we can work some
details details get fin standard budget number together yeah yeah if we if we have it in our budget for further education I'm I'm all for that so yeah we make we've got a motion discussion it all those in favor say why don't I do this just to
amend my motion to be 2500 to cover um what I'm looking at the uh registration fee I didn't include the hotel I thought that was in here so $2,500 is a better number than
i200 all right all those in favor say I hi hi keep your receipts all right yeah um the only thing is the only thing left is financials I want to wait for the lane to show up on because
she's see how far out she is we could take a recess as well if it's going to be a specific amount of time can I ask you a financial question as a the finance committee that I just wanted
to verifi given um the budget right now we don't typically like the other boards go for the finance commit they did this for out his budget but um question is the
ongoing first phase the first phase that has been paid every year is that still as far as the budget of the town going to be being paid
through well it's being paid technically by a town but it doesn't come through the general fund at all there there's nothing in the even your you know departmental budget is not in the general fund so that you know when we do
when we're talking budget we're usually talking are we're talking everything except Water and Sewer okay and I've always felt that we like to have water and sewer come before the finance committee just kind of as a
courtesy as a you know another set of years but when you hear us talking about um excess Levy capacity or pre cash it excludes everything from G I guess my question was as as wom been
getting into the budget you know all of our Direction show that was picking up um that original agreement 132 that was being picked up all show that so that is still being paid tax L yes that's a line
item in the budget itself we shouldn't have to worry as far as I know we shouldn't have to worry about that for that first phase at Le correct yeah okay the question I just asked some you and I were talking about earlier that um about that existing first P budget that's on
its way to termination yeah I just ask understanding was that's going to continue to be paid out of tax that it is for how long it is that until well let's see okay that's a question um we've gone through everything except for financing turn the chair to over to you
if that's okay sure Genie just put on that a lot of emails come back of course today with legal counsel on whether or not we can use the 1.6 million um haven't gotten a definitive answer on that yet um the thought
process is leaning towards the fact that we can't utilize it as we um see for any shfs we may have to just draw down $54,000 a year for the remaining life of the term that's still I've there's
plenty of emails that have gone out I've sent to jeie um that's the last talking point for that um Jay did say we uh can charge a special assessment to existing customers if that's a option we want to
talk about at another time uh I think tonight the only thing we can really talk about financially until we know the answer definitively for the 1.6 is the operating budget's going forward and you've got those balanced for for this
year and next year is that so this year um we we can cover our operating budget some of it's going to be either a use of uh a reserve cash or an
article and um with only a half a year of the rate increase applying to this year that's where we're going to need that money to offset that operating budget deficit so that'll be covered um when our full FY 26 budget
rolls in and we're get the full four quarters for the rate increase that will cover our operating budget so fy2 FY 26 operating budget is is covered
uh it's just the debt piece that we have to piece together right and uh options for for how to pay for just some options uh special assessment to existing customers selling the capacity we have in the fourth tank to um properties that
already have water service that don't need to have the well-being issue um looking at uh free cash septage to get us through the hurdle um I don't you probably talked about it briefly um the
analysis that uh Jeanie and Erin are doing they have did you talk about a couple of the there was a couple of discrepancies that popped up I'll let jeie speak to just briefly so what we found is um we feel like the best way to
attack this is to go to the binders that have all the leans and the contracts in them because it goes map and lot address by address um and in doing so we found that some of the MPP and lots are incorrect or the wrong address is
attached to the contract um we've found going through munice that there have been some issues with interest not being applied over the full term of the vment that
it's only there for like a four-year period um I haven't done extensive but I've looked up multiple properties and I've found them on several um there's also been a a couple that have been
found that I have you know it being signed off the original owner um there's no historical data because in munus all of that historical data transfers with that property doesn't matter who the owner is and on some of them there's no
historical data showing um a betterment being applied in in the software and no payments and where that was rooted to to um and and I'm talking we going back 20
20 years or so um so there's a lot of information a lot of different things going out um we've already eron has gotten through one book and we've put like tabs on it and then we're going to go through each
book and say okay these are the problems on this um Aon has found that there's like 350 properties that the vs have been paid off on um and we have a spreadsheet
and um I feel very comfortable um with the process it's going to be a lot of work because of a lot of information I've gone to the accountant and asked um to give Aon um permissions to look at
special Assessments in Unis um and it's just a variety of different little things when the contracts was signed if there was a credit given um just going to use this as an example
it was 11,222 there was less a credit of 1232 when I'm pulling like if someone wants to pay a betterment off or asking me how much is left I find that there
were three credits given for 900 and it's missing one for the 308 and I make those notes to The Collector but me being in the sewer I have no Avenue on how to correct that to make sure that the historical data is there and put a note and say this 308
credit wasn't applied and what what the circumstance was and the good thing is that since day one there's been spreadsheets and you you you're aware of them from um Suzanne put them all together with every single
property map lot everything how many eus were assigned to that particular property what the betterment was what the betterment code is so all that historical data we have now it's being compared to munice and that's where the
discrepancies are coming up so uh to to Jeanie's point to find out the discrepancies the pattern and then go from there on uh how to rectify whatever we fund so we have very good detailed
records to start with so we have to correct those that's the good thing right and how many books do you mentioned one book how many books are there left probably seven not 5,000 yeah so I mean it's a it's a great um effort and I
really have to say Aon has um you know really dug in and she's gone to different departments to try and get information so that we can manipulate it and um this week she's working Monday Wednesday and Friday um and I did speak
to her about working maybe some extra hours so we can kind of get ahead of the curve yeah that's such a crucial number for all of us my little Community I can't I I don't know what I'm looking for you the whole idea was that how do we solve a problem and the problem isn't
it's all over the place changes every day well that's it and you run run reports here and they don't match over here so trying to do things on a high level just it it it was you just weren't getting to the details so this is
definitely what I use the term bug dust detail process you got to get down the bug dust how many prop say every property that Sue it that has a betterment so you say there's like
1600 how many books 1,700 but people have multiple properties so but as far as the amount of books you said there's what there's probably roughly 10 books down there books and it's like sometimes like if it isn't in
the contract book I'mma go into the leans and cross referencing so because contracts weren't were the big part of phase one they weren't utilized as much in phase two so it's
it's kind of like a detective game you're going from one place to another trying to gather the information and make sure it's solid and verifying it to munis and then what we're going to do is take that the
two and merge them together and see what we come out with and having that going forward we have not make the same I use a term mistake or miscalculation or miscounting whatever the right term is we'll have set it up so that everything
else we correct now we go forward because there's another 500 I think another 500 potential hookups out there they maybe one giant one or two giant ones but they're equivalent of that
yeah the bigger they are the easier is for us to do on this end and then the other thing that I'm working on is um with CDM about the reimbursements um and Lauren has left so Tom is working on that and he's also
helping me with Gathering some older invoices that are needed for the treatment plan so that be good so right now it's stay tuned again we know based on what Dave said the operating budget is paid
for uh this year next year and it should be the year after as well uh but at least definitely this year next year and then it's the debt issue when we get a concrete answer um last email that went out um Kathleen said she's asked do and
the Auditors for their input on utilizing how to utilize the 1.6 million so I mean it was set up originally the love sum to stall anything we needed to do with tying in them all and as far as I'm
concerned whatever's left over from the pump stations the undergrounds all that stuff can be utilized by this board anyway we I it's in our it's in our till when you read the email Trails I have
um said that and it my my position on it was the 3.2 3.2 million was to pay for the was to pay for the ban we paid the ban 1.6 million what was remaining is
Surplus and if if after paying a if some they want to classify it as a betterment after paying a betterment any surplus then goes into retained earnings to be spent by the Enterprise fund um I'm being told because the agreement didn't
say that the uh 3.2 million would be P would be used towards the ban then that uh talking point is not valid that it said that it was to be used for construction services and then I counted with
well the ban was for construction services and for the plant so there's a um CH chains of email that I was forwarding to Al so if you you can see the talking points and then if anybody
has any other uh input then we can certainly put that forward as another I'll make one right now just put on table y it's our decision to make it's an Enterprise account the
money's in an Enterprise account it's our decision as a selected Sewer Commission to take care of our bills on an ongoing basis period that's in the law so the conflict in some of these laws our law we're elected we have to
take care of our customers our customers are not the town of Kingston in this particular C ofst it's happens to be three people in this room just so happens to be but that and not me but that's our responsibility under an Enterprise account and why I'm such a
big proponent of not to the extent we can ever not touch omm to pay better pay the debt we should never be doing that the fact we have to reach out a little bit this year is a problem for me but that's what we're going to do but it's our decision it's in our law if the law
is conflict we still going to take care of our debt period just like the other people have take care of thatt this is our debt well and to that point if if we don't take care of it in that fashion it it
rolls over to the tax base for all the all the town of Kingston and that is not what our intent is for this particular instance anyway so we got a lot of things to cash out right it's going to take some
time initially thought right we will be meeting next week I would say so which is our regular schedule yeah and if you had used the full 3.2 to reduce the freaking level of the debt right there was nothing anybody could do about it
know like it's ridiculous to not say hey take care of it the 1.2 the 1.6 do what you need to do I would agree because all uh in the the emails I just I said we can utilize it for a couple of years
till and not that it's going to take two years for our analysis to be done but I'm hard pressed to charge anybody additional money if there's a possibility we're not collecting all the revenue that we we should be that's not
um a good approach just just go back for a second I'm looking at the this is the model Water Commission administrator government that's it's chapter 40 and Section 8 we hav brought this up at all but I'm reading section 8 and our
responsibility as the commission elected that is to apply for receive accept administer spend and comply with the conditions or obligations requirements respecting Any Grant gift loan blah blah blah blah on and on to pay the debt
that's a that's section chapter 4 it's the powers of the Ste commission and it goes on to read you know we we have the power to sell lease markets exchange transfer otherwise dispos of anything we have grants whatever we on and on and on and on and
on it couldn't be more clear and I don't think that Jay has had the benefit of having this in front of them yet agreed okay so um final but it's both section eight and nine are both very specific on that stuff so just to add to the okay
intellectual discussion okay then and then our you know our uniform p with the ER other p and I guess the fin Point everything this I mentioned this we talked about briefly Pinkston is very very unique in
the state of Massachusetts in that I try to look into if I can find any other example there's not another town that started off with nothing built a sewage treatment plant and a collection system and pump stations from
scratch after like 1970 something you know so mean I can show coass put in a little Dicky treatment plan they've been fighting them DPS and fighting them forever clouth had it thing they expanded it but that they had an Ultra Ball that you never do now
because it was pre predated all that rules um situ the same way mro the same way they all had a s treatment plant that goes back 50 60 years 40 50 60 years to solve the same problem we did right on the coast all the about crappy you know fieldst and all the other Brant
Rock um we were unique in being late and but we have every because of the way we did it everything we have done uniquely also in financial we're always looking ahead we had to project we had nothing no revenu that except the few grants and
things we had we had a big loan and we had to look forward to project all those people who are going to hopefully hook up and as I mentioned we had a law which is unusual um where we had a law that if people the bylaw did not hook up immediately
and get that better on the books for us we took them to court and who shows up in court knucklehead who got to go to court and do 30 or 40 people a week who are neighbors of mine you know but I went through that for a year almost a year getting to make sure that the
betterment money got put into our account and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and watch it all go away so that's my political point for tonight it's it's real no it's very real I I am on the same
page I you and just speak to the choir informational uh tomorrow morning we have um Dave jeie and I a meeting with the assessors and Kathleen about the process for a special assessment if we
decide to do one you know what's the timeline when do they need to know to get it on the July bills but just to get that because there's a lot of um questions on that end that just needs to
be put together so other than that I think we're good a motion to adjourn second all in favor