all right good evening everyone welcome to the select board and wage and Personnel Board uh meeting of Monday March 31st uh 5:45 p.m. Lake cam is recording is there anybody else here recording the meeting
no okay um and we are here at the Lakeville police station um okay so if we could please um rise for a pledge of allegiance I Ali to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well thank you and happy March 30 31st and the first
quarter getting into April Manana so I have a few select board announcements so bear with me here all right the town will be holding its annual rabies clinic on April 5th at
the DPW Barn the cost is $10 dogs will be vaccinated from 1: to 3:00 p.m. and must be on leashes cats will be vaccinated from 3:00 to 3:30 and must be in carriers the town clerk's
office will be present to issue dog licenses for an additional fee and please make sure your dog or cat is at least 3 months old to receive a vaccination the animal shelter will also be open for adoptions all right so that's on April
5th our Town's annual um election will take place on Monday April 7th from 12: to 8:00 p.m. at the lon Pond Lodge at Ted Williams camp on April 19th at 10:00 a.m. the Lakeville Lions
will be holding their annual Easter egg hunt at their clubhouse at 170 Main Street and the public is invited to attend our annual town meeting will be held on June 9th at 700 p.m. at aonic
quit high school and on March 28th the Lakeville um Council on Aging celebrated its very first digital literacy graduation ceremony the digital literacy program
started as a dream of our uh director and it came to fruition with a $10,000 Grant awarded from Senator Michael Rodricks um this is from the empowerment fund through the South Coast Community Foundation in 2023 and with this Grant and the
assistance of Bob MCN our it um professional um the COA was able to purchase and set up six laptops um to use for this literacy class let's see here on Friday they
recognized the first uh course of graduates and they each received a completion certificate signed by the ca director um the instructor jennnifer sh shellcross and Senator Mike
Rodricks also present um representative oral Town Administrator Andrew sufor uh select board um myself and member Fabian Leah Fabian and we thank them all for um this
wonderful little ceremony and they will be scheduling part two and I believe the class will just roll into that and when talking with the COA director I had asked if they would be holding in the first session again and I believe they're going to try to you know work
that in but it was very successful and um the seniors were pretty um I guess they're pretty impressed with the fact that they were able to learn something new especially when it came down to the security of of their
system okay moving on uh our Lakeville police department has established a tip line via telephone and email and the department encourages anyone with information regarding criminal or suspicious activities to reach out the
department has committed to thoroughly investigating all citizen tips within the community tips can be sent Anon anonymously if preferred so if you do see something um you can email
tips at Lakeville ma.org or call 508 94688 15 Chief Perkins would like to mention that the tip line is not monitored 24/7 and it is for non-emergencies emergency
crimes in emergencies crimes in progress or suspicious activity in progress should be reported directly using 911 or you can call the other line at 8947 4422 all right artwork created by
students at the Freetown Lakeville middle school will be on display March 29th through April 3rd at the great ponds Gallery at the Lakeville Public Library during the opening hours so um if you're in the library just take a scroll through and and check out their
work it's pretty impressive um we do have current committee commission vacancies um which include two lar two members at large for the economic development committee and the deadline to apply for that would be April 10th so if you can get those into
uh um our office uh we are looking for two at large members for the communications committee we're looking for an associate member for the zoning board of appeals uh Board of registar member two vacancies for the cable TV
advisory committee and one vacancy for the Conservation Commission and one vacancy for the agricultural commission so as you know April you know we have our election on April 7th um so I think everybody is energized and and ready for
um something new so if you're interested and I know you have been thinking about it please submit your letter of interest would love to have you on board also there are some elected positions that no one pulled papers for three spots on the park commission and one spot on the finance committee so if
you are interested um in writing or running a wrin candidate please contact UM the town clerk via email um and just let her know that you're um thinking of running a uh writing
campaign and lastly I have a fun fact for years the board of Selectmen wore many hats and acting as Selectmen the Board of Health assessors and Welfare and in 1968 the state took over the welfare
office the selectman decided that the assessors needed to be its own board so members agreed that when their terms expired they would run for either selectman or assessor and in 1973 Abraham van Linton was the first member elected as an
assessor and Richard ficker was the first member elected as a selectman the complete separation of the two BO boards occurred in 1975 and the board of selectman continued to act as the Board of Health per Mass General law and as you know
today we do not act as the Board of Health put them that all right that's enough for me um anybody else from the select board have anything they'd like to add to the announcements um just want to say thank
you to Brena you're welcome last last day really appreciative of the time you spent with the board and hopefully you think about running again yeah thank you it's been a trip no seriously it's been nice it's
been a good thing lorine what did you say it's a blast a blast yes it's a blast and then what did you always say is a it's a It's oddly rewarding yeah that one um no it's been nice and it was been nice to meet people and get out of the house a bit um I might come back um
I might not but we'll see thank you so thank you thank you very much BR it's been nice having you here agreed yep I tell you what props to people who do it for a while cuz I am tired we just drink a lot of coffee before we get to the meetings thought you were
going to say drink all right with that um I'd like to turn this over to our Town Administrator for their report thank you thank you just a few quick updates um we posted the town plan position um this past week recruitment efforts are ongoing um I met
with Frank Mon and Erica karea to talk about credit cards at the transfer station um our hope is to be totally cashless by this spring um hopefully by the end of April um and then it's not part of the report but
something over the weekend we've gotten quite a few complaints about noise from the trains um I think the board discussed this back in 2018 originally um I reached out to Gan Fox to kind of see what we could do obviously it leads to the quiet zones um
which is an expense um so the C we have to do obviously the town would be responsible for the capital upgrade um which is in the ballpark of 1 to 2 million um we would take on the liability if those do not work or they're broking um we would
take on the maintenance cost of if anything happens electronically we got to fix it ourselves um and that's per Crossing too isn't it that's per Crossing yeah um and then there's there's obviously two just over the line in Berkeley so that would be we could fix our issue and the noise
could carry just a few hundred yards away um so obviously there's a huge Federal Railroad um component to it it's really a federal issue so we Gan Fox did give me a contact with the federal agency if the board is inclined to pursue the quiet
Zone in the future but clarification quiet zone or or silent Crossing I think they kind of reference it as the same okay cuz kind of thing I thought they were two different things I thought the quiet Zone had a a reduction
and then the quiet Crossing meant no hitting the horn but I know there was push back on the um silent Crossing um back in 2018 2019 um for safety reasons um you know people getting hit by trains
and all of that but um I got the same calls as everyone probably did in the last couple days and it's the same thing it's um it it's not during the day that's the problem it's it's the the 1: in the morning the 4 the 4:4 5 um those
ones are really the the most problematic and people were saying um they didn't necessarily want silence they just didn't know why it had to be that loud as it is yeah there is I think the first couple weeks they kind of doing a whole
new route obviously and so I think they kind of lay on the whole more than they normally would and they might quiet him down as they get used to everything but there's no guarantee did fine there's I think there's only one community in the common that actually has more than one Crossing and that's Beverly I believe
thought hangam had them no they do I think just in one one Crossing we I think we have three in total so I started reading those federal regulations and like it says like every time they have to blow the horn they're actually blowing it four times it's like
two long a short and a long or something along those lines so it's I'm sure it could add up but um I don't know I mean I I'd say let's live with it for a little while and see if it just becomes background noise like a lot of the stuff can but I don't live on the tracks so
it's affecting me differently um Madam chair if I may so um because I sit with the MBTA Advisory Board I did reach out to Brian Kane um who runs the whole MBTA advisory thing
um and um he and I are going to work with transitioning Andrew just um the The Advisory Board is still represented by mostly elected folks but still um where we have the train here now um I think it's a great contact for
Andrew to have most of the time it's just been budget oversight but now that we're involved and he's he's a really good contact so we're going to try to make that connection for him and that'll be somebody else that he can reach out
to that'll be helpful yep so for sure um and just the last one I I've tried to create a list as best I can on the special and annual um obviously the kind of put it down there but the placeholders are the ones I'm still trying to work on getting stuff ready um
some of the other ones are either just ones we do every year or ones we've kind of talked about and I definitely want to go forward with I'll update that every week I forgot the date when when did we close the hearing I forgot um
April 16th 14 say it's the 14th 14th believe it's the 14th okay so there's still time for submittals yes did that change I thought tonight was the night we were going to review them and then send them to Town Council
after tonight that's because we wanted them like reviewed Before The Next Step I thought Tracy would know she was sheing can I just ask generally what 61a
awareness is yeah so the David zonis the Open Space Chair he wanted to pursue some sort of funding from the CPA to basically send kind of like a informational packet of information to
anyone that owns a 61 a orb property to kind of inform them of what their um I guess their rights or what they're what they're um able to do with their property so it was kind of like a mailer to those people okay but he was waiting on
information from somebody so it's just a placehold right now really okay the March 31st date was the first draft one that we did um it's now April 14th the warrant closes at 400 p.m. okay and then you will be looking at articles on May
5th to make recommendations to be placed on the warrant okay and um along those lines um Madam town clerk suggested that at your next meeting you schedule this town meeting the special oh make a note can you make a
note for that um because the timeline's a little different for that but um we could squeeze that in on the eth before we start the department head um the nth the nth the is it the
ninth yeah okay all right maybe we can just and then we can just open it or schedule it so she has at least that information all right one clarifying question article 9 recall provision
that's school committee right that's not a change to government right it's for the school one okay at least they're not 29 um I am exess Equity can you refresh my member yeah we have to adopt something some sort of provision before we can uh
basically handle the updated guidance from the state all right anybody else good um I just actually have one more um and it was on the um 12 and 14 um we have it called out
specifically on some of the bylaws but I don't see where we strengthened the wording of the bylaw for the Civil fines that would be article 7 okay but you have it just listed under
one instead of multiple yeah it's going to be that's just like a reminder for myself yeah it's going to be across multiple ones all right thank you y good memory all right tic uh agenda item
number four um we have a set of minutes from March 10th 2025 in front of us um did everybody get a chance to review right with that I'll entertain a motion to the select board meeting minutes of March 10th 2025 I'm sorry
wait I did have one thing I should have spoken up I'm sorry well we can do that during the discussion oh okay detain a motion so moved second with discussion motion and a second in discussion right um I think it's on oh okay page five
it's the last paragraph um remember Don Hugh said to clean up the property it will cost about 2 million that was a misspeak on my part I was just trying to explain to Mr Kiki the situation I wasn't saying it's going to cost 2 million to clean up and I just wanted to clarify
that is there a way that you'd like to have it worded differently in this hypothetical situation it would cost 2 million I guess okay well they were asking for 2 mil from the state Rhino was right I just didn't want it to be interpreted as
that's all it's going to cost got it I wish it was too L I know any more no that's it I have one M chair uh page five last paragraph member
candido said that is why we don't have an opportunity to do a bond um I think I just said that's why we haven't had the opportunity that is why we haven't had the opportunity okay all right ran see
you all right right and roll please baby and I joh Hugh I carbon I okay um agenda item number five uh discuss and possible vote on the approval of assessor candidate um wages
and benefits and at this point I'd like to turn it over to Andrew okay so I would say the assessor search has been pretty long arduous not very easy um it's taken a few different stages um as you guys know we went out
for an RFP initially as well as a posting we've posted the RFP three times um only one company has ever put in ourg um after the third RFB they've sense declared that they're not going to be able to provide the
Services um so that's kind of one of the initial backgrounds um we did a search at the very as I've said at the very start um we found a couple candidates um but none that the board of assessors was comfortable with picking um and so we
got lucky I think with the candidate we ended up getting um just as in as side when I was in Taunton the assessor there who had worked in has worked for the state for 40 years he had always told me the best assessor in the state was this
guy the guy that is before us um and when I came to Lakeville I had called Rick and I had said like who could possibly take this job and he said no one for the salary I said well we're going to try eventually luckily Rick
convinced this guy to apply for us um so fast track we interviewed um maybe 3 weeks ago now at least at least a couple weeks uh it was me John olivary and um Michael Ellis the town accountant um we found somebody um finally Board of
assessors finally agreed to it um so I think he's he's very well qualified um the issue before us tonight is that we're going to in order to land land him we would have to offer something higher than what we posted for the job originally um I'm aware it kind of set a
bad precedent um probably paying more than we'd like but I think it's probably lower than what the candidate would like on um but um as the wage and Personnel Board the select board would have to agree to um some of
these points that are in the memo for you um I can run through them quickly so he's looking for a starting salary of 95,000 um effective May 14th and then on July 1st it would be
100,000 um 35 hours per week and then um four weeks of vacation um so that's CL ification yep he's considered a department head correct so the four weeks would be a
standard I thought it was two weeks for all our department heads Now isn't it isn't it three weeks we changed it it's two weeks and then we never changed it and then after so many years then it we add the next week but I think that that was something that we were going to look
to try to create some parody the board and so I think a few of us internally would like to bring everyone kind of up with a class and comp study um unfortunately we couldn't do it with the original one so
we're going to be doing that um unfortunately we can't fix them all right this moment so I think um our thought was to do this and then kind of come back and look at every Union and non-union position and bring them up to some sort of equity I think it's a good
lever when we don't have money to give time if you know some people find it equally as valuable to have time um I I know we're in a in a bad uh position financially um so but I do want to make
sure because a lot of times these hires when we are hiring from outside and we're offering uh probably something that seems slightly sweeter than our existing people have it creates division it creates you know a feeling of not being valued and that
couldn't be further from the truth it's uh it's it's where we are with the market it's where uh we are with uh specifically this role which if you go on the MMA website it's littered with roles for assessors right now um it's
very difficult position to fill so scarcity of resources uh and all that yeah we definitely found that in the search does not me qualified people out there um I also think Robbie would um make up for it with what he's
going to find us and new new growth and just personal property that was a question I had on for Mr Al before we get start just for the record I just want to say that John ol our chair of our Board of assesses is joining us at the the table so thank you for coming T
so um now that now that we have we're having a fulltime is this 5 days with for the 35 or is it four long days all right so we're having full coverage basically in the office compared to the day or the day and a half that was being covered before with our other system um
so that being said um are we creating um some redundancies where we can save money uh regarding some of the things we've out serviced before great question and I was going to touch on that so although we are and for those of you who
remember the last time I was here one of the issues that the board had was that the candidates we had had outside of um the contract that we had in place with RG we knew we were going to have to Outsource a lot of additional items the only item right now that we know we're
going to have to Outsource um would be uh commercial and Industrial um and we've already made inquiries in that coupled with this 95 eventually 100,000 is still going to be significantly less than what we would have had to had we
brought in a more green um candidate um and to piggy back on what Andrew said I mean this this this guy is very impressive especially the longevity and the roles too yeah I mean he's he's been doing this for you know 25 30 years um
and I will comment on the vacation time I understand um and to your point Mor it doesn't mean that the other folks in town hall ar ar valued but the way I always look at it is just because you're changing jobs doesn't mean you haven't put the time in during the the three or the four weeks that
you've had and um I think the tradeoff from getting him although we're going to pay a little more than what initially it looks like we wanted to um to your point I think we're going to Save A Lot in the end and giving him that four weeks probably has a lot to do with him saying
yeah I can do it for the 95 initially and then the 100 as opposed to 125 130 type of deal not to mention three extra days of coverage in the office and available on Fridays I mean we made that clear that you know even though you're not literally going to be here on Fridays um if he needs to be here
perfect meetings phone calls whatever the case may be and to touch on one last thing he's been a data collector as like private contractor so he does have that skill set he's not just an office guy he can go on the field fantastic that was my next question so that's great
yeah it seems like from I don't know if I was talking to Andrew or John like it seemed like 110 was the number where like people wouldn't even come out of the woodwork to look at this position and if you do the math 35 hours that rate if you were to carry it to 40 gets you it would have been about 108 or so
so it looks like he's kind of working with us to say okay move down to drop down the time a little bit and I'm still kind of getting the rate I would want to we're close yeah I think like Andrew said I mean we just we're kind of lucking out here we're getting the perfect candidate
at the perfect time for him um I'm not so sure if this was 5 years ago he would have been interested in entertaining it so Le um yeah so it just goes to show you the struggle is real for us in this
in smaller rural towns because inip assessors of this caliber have to drive through how many towns to get here so to me it's worth you know and I I definitely see um him coming
into the office and streamlining some process and everything else so um it's exciting yeah it is y and I mean that's the same reason why how many years ago John we outsourced because we couldn't raise the salary high enough so we did
the next best thing which was to Outsource at the time so um we have to we have to do it I appreciate it I appreciate your pushing and and like you know helping along the process too I
think we got to a a good spot y from everyone working together on it yep I'm really excited there's also one thing hidden on the resume I just I don't know him but he lives in the same town as I do and he's the chair of the finance committee there and I've gone to a few Community meetings because I'm
kind of not engaged but I I'm interested in different things and he's very smart I've seen him get up and defend debt exclusions and everything else so I think with some of the stuff we're going to be dealing with in town the next few years he's someone that second nature to him that was one of the key components
to in the board for the record uh Board of assessors voted unanimously to point him to the position um but the fact that as Andrew said I mean he serves in his town too so not only does he get the technical aspect of being an assessor he gets the I know political component is
the right way to put it but he understands there's a lot of moving parts and it's not just about coming in crunching numbers and and and leaving the office at the end of the day so so um I know you mentioned his name and I'm looking at the memo I didn't see the the
the individual's name in the memo um Robert Al so it's Robert Robert Alfred Alfred okay goes by Robbie okay you had said something and I what is talking about I thought maybe it was somebody at the stage that you were
buddy with okay no all Rober alard all right well and I guess um I'll entertain a motion um to approve the recommendation from the Town Administrator
and um Human Resources as well as our Board of assessors to appoint Robert Alfred to the assessor position so move second a motion a second any discussion
um this isn't to speak against the individual or the candidate I just want to point out his resume I like that he spent about four years at each place but the bullet points are all identical and um I just hope it go
well I think the job's pretty much the same at all yeah I was going to say that's one thing there's a lot of creativity Variety in that there's no Variety in what they do okay do that make sense I guess okay very good no but it's an
interesting point yeah that's why there's five gave up working the taxpayers after Norr he must have learned as much yes done oh all right I have a motion in a second um roll please baby and I Johnny I
Carboni I Ando i y right and so we'll call him Robert um will start on May 14th is that it okay right welcome to the team thank John you're
welc schedu finally got there a little while we can um invite him to our select board meeting and make a proper introduction we will make sure one of your meetings within the first few weeks of them being here all right thank you you're welcome thank you thank
you okay uh it's a little after 6:15 um I'd like to invite Mr Robert Marshall to the table so we're on to agenda item number six um and Robert Marshall is here uh to
talk to us about a concern regarding our local access stations and I'm going to ask for you to leave the conversation thank you um as a matter of fact I sent another letter to Andrew uh this afternoon
from our the president of Lake cam I don't know whether you folks got it or not but it's it's pretty much the same type of thing the concern is this presently and for a long long time we've had uh chapter 166a the uh the president
cable law that provides Lake cam with the funding to have uh you know the uh folks you know record all the meetings and and any other programs and so forth and that's
up to a uh maximum of 5% of gross annual revenues for the cable company for the town and at present there is no such law that would uh govern if the programming were
streaming and as people go to look for more reasonable rates as I found myself in that situation about a month ago um my uh bill went up uh
14% about $40 and I said whoa what is going on here so I as usual I I called and said you know we got to work out another deal that's more reasonable and they said there are no more deals well excuse me that's after I went through a
Litany of uh um you know waiting and switching and back and people I couldn't understand and what have you and finally after about 45 5 minutes to an hour I said enough already I'm going over to Rainham to the store and I spoke to a very nice gentleman who basically told
me that concast is no longer a cable company they're a streaming company and they have just they would just ass soon although he didn't say this I think this was his implication uh they would just assum uh get rid of you know cable and cable
funding and so forth and go to streaming because they don't have to pay the town uh up to whatever percent there's no law existing that governs that so as we've already experienced uh a slight decline
uh at um you know at Lake Camp uh in cable funding of about uh 2 to 3% over the last uh couple of years but in other places sometimes as much as 30% from
what I've read um so if looks like the technology and the industry is moving in that direction and we don't have a law that would help us fund Lake Camp and as the
funding drops our ability to hire people keep them train them keep them uh drops and the services that we people have come to expect are going to be pretty hard uh to come by uh so we come to you
tonight uh excuse me my my initial letter I was coming here tonight and then because of the timing of Liam's meetings uh John didn't have a Time have the time to write a letter so he he got one in and asked me to present
it uh we're asking could you folks as a board please sorry about that I figured they could hear me down at the park it's just not gotcha um
you know we're asking can you contact uh representative oral and Senator rodri's office them and ask them number one can they find out where this bill is and uh last conversation I had that Jose was he
thought it was in committee uh which is a good thing I think because the the house bill that I read I didn't see the percentage included but the Senate bill I did so I think there's got to be some uh work done there so could could you
ask where this thing sits and would they please uh strongly support it because if if the cable funding keeps dropping uh we're going to be uh in a financial difficulty did I miss did you already
say what the bill number was uh I did not but I can okay you got it there hang on it's uh in the Senate yeah Senate 41 and house 106 according to uh Jonathan's
letter um I think in my initial email to Andrew I might have said um it used to be like last year house 74 but I I wasn't aware that they had uh updated it yet uh and put one into uh into the
House and Senate yet so apparently there's been some work done on it but this is something that I think needs a little push from all of the communities it isn't just Lakefield that's going to be impacted by this it's going to be all of the communities the way I understand
it mam chair did did they indicate timing wise as to when they were looking to I mean if that's where they're looking to go obviously there's you mean yes gosh I wouldn't pretend to know
what's going on in the minds of concast and Verizon well I just want to know because we've entered into in agreement with them um you know if but if there's no funding it doesn't matter no I'm not I'm not saying just with Lake cam but I'm talking about our residents too that
um you know if they're doing away with cable that's going to be it's going to be a broad issue I was told what I was told that they're just uh they're not going to be and this was only Comcast I spoke to uh at at the office and I don't
know how informed this gentleman want he seemed to be I was told that they are uh simply looking to become an internet company which I think means streaming instead of cable because there's a cable law that says they have to reimburse the
towns whereas with streaming there is no such law as far as I know um and and that's what I think we have to get put into place ASAP CH to your point um there is nothing um Comcast has put forward nor
Ron is put forward saying that they are um terminating anything doesn't mean that's not true just means they haven't put forward things um I do knew know progress um on putting in structural uh uh cable or or Fiber has slowed down
significantly in the last three or four years and they're not doing it in Boston at all in for Verizon where they were they did have a a project and they stopped doing that so to Bob's point it's obviously something that they're trying to convert
to for ease and you know not having to do physical um stuff uh the fee that is collected is a pass through fee so it doesn't really impact them per se they're collecting a fee from each of the subscribers and they're passing it
through and then it's going to cable but to Bob's Point there's nothing to protect us for when it goes streaming I know Mass access had been putting lots of legislation forward and moving forward and I I do believe um
as a board that we should uh support this because it supports uh we won't have cable access in the future it'll just disappear because uh we only get a portion of the fees if there's no fees there's no cable access um what I would say and this is just my personal opinion
is Lake cam has a really great opportunity to use their platform in order to educate people before meetings on what could happen if they don't reach out and support we we as a board have a voice for sure but having all the subscribers have a voice and and be able
to weigh in uh you know has some weight to it as well um I would recommend if uh if it's something an Avenue that's available to you that well folks you hear that that you know you have before every meeting do you do you enjoy having cable
access well I I we we generally although we've been meeting far more regular ly of late um we look to meet quarterly uh to deal with budget and what have you and you know other things
programming Etc uh so I'm not sure that's enough and this is a I don't know how timely an issue this has to be I mean I don't know when if this is in committee by when does it have to be
decided when will it go for a vote uh and so forth so yeah it's a gray area for the second it goes into commit if we can get more people and you know anyone to reach out to the um I
would also recommend creating a letter um that people can just put their name to um in order to push that forward well we have two samples right here that we could uh certainly use y I'll speak to Jose about that that's an interesting point yeah um I I think you know the
more the merrier for the process um but yes it's been something that's an ongoing trend for like the last 10 years where uh we're losing cable to subscriptions um because of costs um
there's an added um stressor for Massachusetts a couple weeks ago uh and they she they amended it do and morah Hy announced that they were going to tax cable boxes uh what yes I I do not kid
you they announced they were I had heard that yes individual cable boxes so they were going to put a tax on the individual cable boxes aimed at the companies or the subscribers aimed at the at the subscribers so the subscribers were going to have to pay an
additional tax on a rented cable box so it I believe it has died at this point but if they revamped it at some point it would drive people right over oh sure because why are you going to pay an extra percent 6% tax on a cable box
instead of go that way so um I sent some letters and I had some other people send some letters to do um for the comment uh portion about what are you doing do you even know how this works uh so it sometimes you really
wonder what's going through folks Minds yeah so they have something in committee and all of a sudden they're trying to do a separate thing um as a cash grab to shore up their their accounts um so just to let you know if you w aware of that issue I was not shame on me no shame so
much going on is this board I was just going to throw my own experience in here so like I've tried my best to partially read some of the federal and state laws on this which is you know just enough to make it dangerous not good I mean I got rid of my cable sub subscription from
Verizon a few months ago kept the internet got rid of the cable so now I no longer pay my I just look at a $555 peg fee because even though I still used use Verizon I no longer buy cable access which is really weird um but like they're still using the public way it's
just that now I'm not using the service that they have the franchise agreement with us exactly it goes poll to pole as opposed to over the line so that's the distinction that I'm just saying Comcast and variz are the only two we have the franchise agreements with right so this the only two that right you could get
the peg from so if you had like tmlp or something you probably and I I must say that it is uh I think most folks would be amazed at how expensive it is to run even a small cable Studio as we have y I mean it is
expensive um which is why I think uh Comcast and Verizon I'm not sure Verizon was ever into it but concast had we shared a studio with Middleboro and I think that's part of the reason why they got out of the um cable Studio business
I remember back in oh gosh it was yeah it was 2012 when we were told that we're not going to be in that business anymore so that's that's how Lake cam came to be uh and it was boy it was that
fast so I think one thing we all probably need cautious of too those like I don't know about other households but it the streaming stuff turns into like death by a Thousand Cuts right you've got Netflix and YouTube and Disney plus and all these other ones so like are we going to go from paying one smaller Peg
fee to Verizon to paying a bunch to a bunch of different places and now I'm suddenly paying $40 a month instead of five like how do they figure that out percent wouldn't make a difference though if you're doing if I'm paying 4% on top of seven different Services then that's going to be more out of my pocket
good for Lake cam but something to keep in mind as we go down this path agreed right well is there anate the board a motion to make a motion to submit a letter
um to our legislatures um regarding the um the Senate Bill 41 and the house bill 106 um in support of getting something done yeah always in support of getting
something done uh so moved if I didn't hear one sorry I so moved if you want second all right any further discussion all right roll please baby and I Donny you I carbon I away yeah Mr Marshall thank you very
much thank you very much fingers pred every time I see you I learn something new well and tonight I learned something new I didn't want to learn it but I learned it you can't unlearn it now that's true okay it is
6:32 um we have a public hearing right now um and let's see what we have here so it's agenda item number seven it's a poll hearing and that was poll p o l e hearing for nine cross street so I will
entertain a motion to open the poll hearing for middleb gas and electric and Verizon New England Inc regarding service at 9 cross street at 6:32 p.m.
so moved second Motion in a second um roll Fabi and i t i carbon ey okay you going to say something L yeah do you have to
read uh y okay okay um let's see here so there was a just want to make sure I got to read the right thing here chair I the notice to the abuts
okay all right so there was a notice that had gone out to the abutters dated March 10th 2025 and the letter reads deer butter at 6:30 p.m. on Monday March 31st 2025 the Lakeville select board will hold a
public hearing at the Lakeville police Poli station 232 Bedford Street Lakeville Mass to consider the petition of Middleboro Gas and Electric department and Verizon New England Inc requesting permission to locate eight new polls on cross street
identified as polls 33 through 40 to service the property located at 9 cross street I have enclosed a copy of the plan showing proposed location of the polls for your review if you have any questions please do not hesitate to
contact Tracy Craig McGee at 508 94688 3 extension 4 then one or by email at T Craig umen McGee Lakeville ma.org
okay so this went out um to the abutters and C seed on this was Middleboro Gas and Electric Department Verizon New England r o o investment realy at arches way in Acushnet Ocean Spray cranberries Inc at One Ocean Spray Drive
Tracy Capone at 68 Taunton Street Judith Hannah and William bordon at 70 Taunton Street Robert and Linda hanel at 74 Taunton Street and Keith and Elizabeth Jud goodro at 4052 Kush Avenue in
Bedford okay um let's see so we have a little map in front of us um is there somebody here representing Middleboro Gas and Electric if you wouldn't mind come on up state your name I'd be glad to record uh Zack Kersey middle Gas and Electric U re
electric division manager so this is a basic um pole line for to feed number nine cross street it's going to be eight poles um staked out you'll see it it goes kind of jogs back and forth uh we try to minimize uh tree trimming and that sort so we try to go back and forth as best we can um and this is just a
basic um 40 foot poles I'm going to run primary and put a Transformer at the last Pole to feed uh number nine cross street does the board have a I'm sorry uh Zach yep um Madam chair through you um does this mean that the
Ocean Spray property and the goodro property currently don't have any power they they are fed a different way there are actually yeah there are actually no polls on that entire section of cross street okay so do you have to change them or can they not have any
interruption in service or it will not affect anybody else it will just be a branding line to feed uh across street and if more development comes down the line we'll be it to feed them as well okay thank you are there any residents here um
if you wouldn't mind if you could come up to the to the table and state your name I had one quick question if I going I was just going to ask mg there's a lot of other homes just pass that is there already infrastructure there there is coming down we felt that this was the best best way to feed it coming up the
other way are you going are you going to get like a new Loop out of this or are they going to be separate uh they'll still be separate they will still be separate all right thank youate hi I'm Keith goodro on five cross street uh I guess my question is going to be we're looking to eventually be
building property will we have access to this poll in the future uh yeah yeah do you have to do any massive work so on five so it's basically going to uh we're going to be going right past this property so uh yes you will have access to electricity uh you know single phase
I'm assuming versus three phase I got no clue what okay so this is a regular so this is for a regular like residential 12240 a house service St residential when you're saying there's going to be a transer Transformer on the last one I just want to make sure that it wouldn't affect nope we could absolutely feed you as well cool thank
you okay anybody else here to speak all right and the select board anybody else have anything on this and we're still putting up holes you sure are all
right so I guess what I'll do at this point is I will entertain a motion um to close well do I have to do motions here before I close you have to close the he before we go into the others right so I'll
entertain a motion um to close the hearing at 6:38 p.m so moved second roll please B and I carbon iy all right um and with that I will entertain
a motion to Grant permission to Middleboro gas electric and Verizon New England Inc to locate eight new polls identified as polls 33 through 40 on cross street to service the property located at nine cross street so moved with discussion second Motion in a
second and discussion so that's kind of where I was going with my question was to be sure that if someone else comes in they'll be able to connect yeah it's not yep it right now it's specifically for that customer but if others come in the infrastructure
will already be there okay yep build for the future so and years ago um when folks were off the beaten path they had to pay for like their own polls that's not the case anymore right in the public way no okay no if if you
go onto your private property several polls yes but not in the public way okay thank you anybody else for discussion all right hearing none roll please baby and I joh who I carbon I I
okay Carry On thank you so much yes um let me see here yes because we have a 700 p.m. all right um at this time I would like to take a 5 minute recess um Lake cam if you can stop recording
for us it's 6:40 so we'll we'll come back about four up hey welcome back everyone uh for a brief meeting it is now um 650 p.m. so we have a 7:00 U meeting with our finance committee uh for a
presentation of our FY 26 budget um so in the meantime we still have 10 minutes I'm going to go through uh a few of these other agenda items that we can check off so we're not here until April 4th um that's what one of the members
said with you tomorrow all right so if we can get down to agenda item number 11 so I had asked um Andrew um to put this on the agenda um even though I did set the agenda but I did
ask him to put this on here so with a lot of discussions amongst this particular board about activity happening down 105 uh the planning board the zoning board um conservation I thought it might be a good idea for us to entertain the
possibility of establishing a route 105 uh Main Street traffic flow taskforce so I know that we are concerned with the developments that are coming in they're going to be staggered
so they're not all happening at once we had the discussion with the concerns of Bridge Street um you know way back in the day we had talked about having a light there but then um one of the other developments across the street from Bridge Street
talked about an opening that was not directly across from Bridge Street which was down a little bit which would have been um I guess a little off from that light should there have been a light but maybe there's other options um I know
that mass do would need to be engaged um so it's just I just wanted to throw it out there because I know that it's been a topic of conversation amongst a lot of other boards committees as well so Madam
chair yes can we make this part of the economic development committee could it be part of their charge I mean it all flows right I mean uh all of these things are are growth related um I would just see
that maybe it would have a home in the in with the same people that would be making some of the economic development decisions it's slight maybe a slight stretch but um I think it would be kind
of like the same type of well group I I absolutely see your point I know the economic development committee is under the open meeting law um because it is a a a subcommittee versus this would was just a task you know a traffic flow task
force um you know but again it's just open for for discussion so can can I ask like um what would you hope to get out of a task force or who would be there let's say that wouldn't be
staff I guess well I I guess the way I envisioned I mean we we have a lot um on our town administrator's plate right now um although we could add some more things too but I'm just trying to be kind I I
guess because there's so much happening I see that the boards committees and commissions that would have um you know like the planning board obviously because they're you know dealing with the developers um and then having those
conversations um you know there's the conversations I think maybe with mot would have to be there um what about what about master plan would it fall under master plan I'm
just trying to think of a way not to add like cuz we are adding and we're already having trouble filling um roles so I'm trying to extend as opposed to right or but not necessarily you know I mean if the Town Administrator if we direct the
Town Administrator to you know put a a working group together to you know come up with I guess I mean I don't dislike the idea and I think if there was such a thing then it would stay on point but I think
Andrew's been on point on a lot of stuff he's done since he's gotten here so um would it be like the planner the DPW director and the police chief and the Town Administrator and the Town Administrator yeah you're just a given
do we want any elected officials but only if you need political back end I mean it's going to need like 105 is a state road so um at some point I just don't want I want you know maybe it starts from a certain point to
another point you know on 105 Main Street you know this is where you know there's the the largest opportunity for development this is the T about that years ago that 105 and 18 are our only real corridors of
opportunity and development right and we already have projects in the the making right now that are happening with no resolution to what the impacts are going to be on 105 I don't know when the last time Mass doot did a
study um you know on 105 probably the warehouse um yeah it was uh 2022 traffic study again I don't dislike the idea at all I think there's actually you know um I think Andrew could possibly get some
help from other staff members to work on this but it is a state road I can see the point for you know having um you know one of a one of us on the board but I don't know if we just again only because there's an election next week
just maybe delay it till the like Marin said maybe the economic development committee gets established and then um well not established filled I think that's like I feel like it's a road to nowhere where it's a
state road like then you know if they said okay we might be interested then we got to get on to what is at the tip which is as we've seen with 79 years out years right um I mean I don't know if this is a you how do we tie this into EDC is this something that could be part of an
EDC study that we can have you know with the community compact I can't remember now the names of the grants lately one stops one stop thank you like to say like hey here's our corridors what do we do I mean I have to probably wrongly assume that dot has already Mass
do has already been involved in all these major projects there since that's their road that budget down um obviously that's a big variable I don't know where that's going to stand um on our side we really can't provide any more funding so that's it's a little
concerning um and so we're going to obviously meet with the departments on April 9th 10th and uh 15th to ask more questions um I think a big thing going forward with whatever plan we choose is a lot of communication and Outreach um I haven't quite talked this
to with Mike yet but I'd like to have probably some sort of open houses to kind of go over the budget I don't know if that's necessarily been done in the past but maybe a weekend or a night or two to kind of have people show up and Grill us on questions on um because
people um it's really bud budget is complicated there's a lot of moving factors and um even before I got into this I I couldn't tell you how to balance a budget you know and so when you go when you really go over it with somebody they can really understand where the money comes from the limitations of the town and everything
else so I'll go over some of the revenue estimates um first the tax levy as Andrew mentioned um $727,000 n which is simply our prior year Levy limit times 2 and a half% um unfortunately you'll see state
aid is down um smart growth was down over $400,000 um that was a huge Factor we're hoping to get that back um you're going to see local receipts increase 492,000 however um we de Enterprise the transfer station so we are just inheriting their
revenue but as you'll see further in the presentation we're inheriting their expenses as well so this is basically going to be a net zero um some of the other increases to local receipts we went up 25,000 in EMS uh motor vehicle excise we went up 55,000 and we increased investment
income 30,000 but about half of that again is transfer station investment income that we will now take in in the general fund um you know Andrew mentioned unfortunately we had to use free cash as a plug to B the budget it's not ideal uh we tried to squeeze every bit
of Revenue we could New Growth estimates were 210 to 250 we maxed out at 250 sorry it's on this slide um and then Deb exclusion these are obviously covered on the tax recap 85,000 of our 1.2 million in debt so
about 400,000 is paid for out of the operating budget the 805 is raised on the recap and then the debt exclusion for the schools is also raised on the recap that's 135,00 which is built into the uh annual
assessment um as shown here in the last uh bullet you know total revenues uh went up about 3.34% from fy2 which uh you know is fairly consistent with years past so this is just uh kind of a pie chart
overview of the percentages from fiscal 25 and fiscal 26 not much has changed 83% of our Revenue base is our tax levy um the only change you see is local receipts and state aid plusus 1% and it's really just the drop
in smart growth and the increase in the transfer station Revenue that we'll take into the general fund so this is our new growth projection for this year um it's a little bit of an optimistic number I mean there are things that'll be built in 26 um but it's not going to be like
we like you see in 24 and 3 and then 22 was a high number um so really new growth is it's subject it's it's the subject that's to taxation For the First Time new construction uh personal property um you can get to the next
slide um and so this is really the big um we kind of get into it um the thing that's concerned me most about Rhino's presentation is that they may not go forward with it for a couple years and when that's the case it's G to take about three years to build out and
so we're not going to see that new growth for probably four or five years um Rocky Woods kind of the same case it's still in permitting phase um really not even at that point and so those are that's those are two huge probably the biggest projects in town um we're not
going to see for a few years there's 19 Main um in the Harden Street property those are commercial in nature those are the ones that are probably going to come and be built fairly quick Ally um but there's a whole lot of 40 BS in the system and when that's the case really
the increases in New Growth get really zeroed out by resulting Services whether it's education police fire um and so what I've I've been kind of trying to do behind the scenes you guys maybe not didn't realize it when I was presenting this stuff originally was
I um reconvene the economic development committee um I'm trying to put an application in for an e iomic development strategy these are things that you might not see a difference for a few years um but just trying to hold
on until some of this stuff comes on the books more or less um so this is really the big one um we've seen a net decrease of state aid of 325,000 um the average smart growth the previous
8 years has been 477,000 um our number this year is 246,000 um and so it's it's a very diff that this is pretty much we were notified this early on in the budget process and it's really kind of been biting us every turn um we
keep finding ourselves behind the eight ball with this number um essentially what has happened is uh Lakeville and ludenberg Massachusetts have been the only really two smart growth applicants the prior 20 years um I guess the secrets has gotten out um and there's
been I think five or six towns um coming to the table this year now the state only um budgets 1.5 million so when you have six towns as opposed to two the Apple gets a lot smaller um and so that is that's really what the the decrease
has been um I've called Senator Rodricks maybe a dozen times um trying to get this number back up he seems hopeful but he can't guarantee it and we're not likely to find out until mid to late May uh which is obviously very late in the
budget process um I mean it just kind of kind of is what it is um when if we do get it back we'll have to have a serious conversation with what we're going to do with it um for certain so this next slide just kind of
dives into a fiveyear uh review of local receipts um as you can see we we increased motor vehicle to a number that we felt comfortable with as well as EMS and investment income um you know again investment income we're going to take in about 15 to 20,000 now from the transfer
station that was uh recorded as Revenue in the Enterprise fund um you know these are really conservative estimates and they have to be um they're based off fiscal 24s actuals and really the last thing you want to do is overshoot your estimates as the year goes on question
sure um for the investment income um are we not including um the $5 million for uh what was it the tower um what was the other income that stays with the stabilization fund this is just general
fund Revenue okay so just general yeah yeah um but yeah so conservative local receipt estimates um as I mentioned you know you really don't want to estimate higher than your actuals in the prior year because as the year go goes on if you don't meet those marks you have to
have a budget amendment in the wrong direction um which you want to avoid you want to have to have vineer Cuts so sorry another question on EMS so every time I look at a presentation for Ems for the ambulance I see an increase in
ambulance calls increase in ambulance calls year over-ear um I know in 2021 2022 uh there was a strategy change where uh we were no longer providing as much Mutual Aid as we were there was a
strategy change if we're having so many more EMS calls why don't I see that reflected in the EMS revenues there's a few variables um really depends on the call I guess where the revenue comes from whether it's
Medicare or just the average person I think there's different reimbursement rates that the town gets so there might be more calls but maybe less Revenue um the fire chief can definitely dive into that a lot better than I can can we get a breakdown of that so we can can we get aren we do a a rap change too has we
changed we Chang 2019 and then what was it 2022 yeah so yeah my next slide gets into that a little sorry to be like that no no problem you got through 12 slides and no questions good so these are the
opportunities we um Mike Mike and I and Lacy to an extent um basically just try to think how can we possibly raise revenue in Lakeville um obviously one is EMS fees um that is likely to come to the board in April um I know the Board
of Health is also looking to change fees potentially in the future so those are the easiest ones the meals tax which I don't think Lakeville has ever adopted maybe he hasn't even really brought up maybe in
201 um brought it up it was shut down um because they're like oh we don't have any restaurants in town but restaurants are actually things like convenience store foods and Dunkin Donuts and all of those so just to let everyone know all the neighbor in towns have them where
probably back then there not all the neighboring towns had them but now we're I I think it was us and Berkeley that that didn't opt for it everywhere else did but now I think Berkeley did uh about two years ago too so right
so um we have the option to I think the state is is putting together a municipal empowerment um bill that will raise I think from 75 to maybe 1% on top of the sales tax um unfortunately it's not quite a Golden Goose um I don't think it
would bring in maybe more than 25 to 50,000 in a year that's which I mean it's it's money but it's what it's it's a balancing act whether you want to do that to local businesses or not so we did a study on it and 70,000 because convenience store the
subway um dun get donuts dun get donuts um all of that but uh I can see if I still have that but yeah that was that was the number back then so I know we haven't had a lot of
growth since then of new uh new places to eat but prices have gone up what's that prices have gone up definitely have gone up but it was things that we when we first started looking at it that we didn't know that like you know anything in the gas station um they were it would
be eligible right primarily we didn't town meeting voted it down because they didn't want the few folks that we had here to be to lose business to other towns yeah but now but now not even right it's everywhere so
yep and so that that could be a conversation the board has I don't know before this town meeting or maybe the fall um and the other one that we could think of was a short-term rental tax this is kind of a new thing in the Airbnb world or post post Airbnb World
um as you can see only 37 communities in the Commonwealth have this um I went through the list it's mostly birkshire towns Cape towns and Boston towns um we're not quite any of those um not that we're not a draw we just don't have as
many airbnbs you know how how many we have I'd be guessing maybe 10 I was going to say a few years ago it was maybe 10 that you know so we know yeah so um it fluctuated because obviously everything wasn't on the
market um it was always 10 but there was in the summer was 40 to 60 um around the ponds so what happens is state law um they're allowed 2 weeks to rent without any of these fees and then anything
after 2 weeks um you're recurring the fees so I don't know how much do you know what I mean of that number how much would would be able to be available so quite a bit of towns um are starting to putting the bylaws into place to register them follow process
but you times the amount of police calls iount calls those type of things right you we'll just be chasing um septic get into it as well um so it's it's it's going to it's a long process it's I I don't want to say it's not a Golden Goose but it's just one of those things
that it it takes some time to set up and it's not a short-term solution unfortunately so this just a quick free cash analysis um free cash was certified um after fiscal 24 in the amount of
$1,422 um only 16,00 $369 has been used that was at the fall town meeting to cover unpaid bills from the prior year um if everything that's currently presented before you tonight stands we'll use Excuse me
362857 for the operating budget a transfer of 150,000 to opep and 470,000 to cover Capital expenses leaving an available balance from that free cash certification of $422,400 so that does include some of the capital
expenses yes uh we have 470,000 Capital expenses covered under free cash and the remainder uh mostly Capital stabilization and some other funds so that fiscal 24 number you see that's so large that's from the the radio tower MH
um so that number I think was about 2 million or so that went that went straight to Capital stabilization and just for everyone here it it's Tak out of operation so it would been what 60,000 a year into the
operation budget that we removed by putting it in there so it became a deficit as and lorine and I did say I have to give us credit lorine we're going to miss this someday today someday today is someday yeah it was about 45
just a little over 45,000 a year um that we were pulling in for the revenue for that but that was the old contract the new contract it would have been about 60 something um kind of playing off that wasn't part of the presentation just today someone notified us that they want
to put another radio tower on Town land so that's might have another chance at it so um obviously a lot of variables on that we have to talk about that cuz I know a new build coming up that I know these one yep that that too
definitely um so this is what we're going to use for free cash this year um the first one I'm not I still haven't decided whether it's going to be a fall or the spring um compensated absences article um so a lot of communities do this so when um someone retires
typically you're faced with a huge payout and so our thought was to put some seed money into this in order to pay out somebody when they retire um otherwise you take it out of their line item and runs into deficits eventually at the end of the year um so this could
be a fall item it could be a spring item it could be not item um really depends where we stand um we're going to spend about $470,000 on the capital plan um as Mike had mentioned we're going to take a couple bites out of the capital
stabilization account um but I think this is probably one of the last years we're going to be able to reasonably put into Capital out of free cash um we're going to put 150,000 into the opep trust generally
what the town is done is put 310,000 into that account this year it's just very difficult to do that um without going negative free cash um and unfortunately we are unable to put anything into the stabilization or the
capital stabilization accounts so stabilization funds it's essentially um a Special Reserve fund where monies can be appropriated out of uh somewhat of a rainy day fund um currently our general stabilization as of today has 2,686 th000 in it that number May differ
from what's on the presentation just due to interest um the gfoa in state recommends having anywhere between 5 and 7% of your general fund operating budget in your stabilization fund and we currently are just a touch over 7% so we're right
where the state and gfoa would recommend us to be um Capital stabilization balance again as of today with interest is 2,898 so about 7,000 higher than what's presented and um if we were to utilize
uh that for Capital um it would be reduced down to about $25,000 we have about $890,000 or so in capital requests that would come out of capital stabilization this is one of the good news of the night um a lot of small
towns like us do not have quite these healthy Reserve accounts um a lot of people would borrow as opposed to use St U use Capital um so I think we're in a good spot with that especially when we're about to borrow on a a large
Capital project like the fire station um you generally do a ratings call beforehand um we have a strong um borrowing um rating or a double A Plus which is very very good um it's better than most of the surrounding communities
when did we hit a A plus maybe 2 years ago yeah it's been a couple years um and so it's a it's a goal um Mike will attach to it how much of a um how to put this it's like a exclusive
Club to get into AAA is very very tough to get into it's almost impossible to get thrown out uh once you get in there and so every single finest person I've ever worked with is like like Bob noones die to be Triple A he could never get there
and so I think if we got there all the difference in the borrowing it doesn't we could do an analysis on it but you save hundreds of thousands of dollars um potentially a million dollars on a a fire station so yeah we had bonus and all all sorts of awesome things at just
doua back in 2019 for our borrowing there like 1% yeah borrowing for the fire station because of our rating so when I put the on the TA report that we're researching um Financial um policies that's one thing that the
Credit Agencies look at they want to see how your policies are what what your stabilization accounts are how you're handling your money um so we're working behind the scenes to try to throw a Hail Mary to get AAA before that fire station gets borrowed so this this slide is uh
another paragraph um the other one you saw was Revenue uh this one is our Appropriations or potential expenditures by function um again very consistent from FY 25 to FY 26 just kind of seeing a small up uh decrease in general
government um fixed cost stayed the same Public Safety went down a percent um the school went up 1% um which doesn't sound like much but when you're dealing with just a $39 million budget that could be a few hundred, but overall very consistent um there's really you know
nothing special no new initiatives in this budget um and that's kind of how we've been uh approaching this budget season so um so this is what has really probably stressed Mike and I out the most about this budget um at the very
start I was optimistic of uh our fixed costs I think it's probably how everyone is when they start the process out and then we get hit with just bad news after bad news after bad news um start with the one good news our debt is going down um but everything else is going up
almost double digits um which retirement has gone up 10% the possible good news is with that is that um we might get fully funded in a few years so our um assessment might go down pretty significantly you have your question on that yep um I think I read in the budget
that it's gone up 30% in the last three years that sounds correct um so they're trying to ply fund for 2028 correct correct why would they just move the goal poost a little instead of crushing the town I'm not sure I think they probably want
to get there as quick as they can and get that the of the towns like this I know I mean I I don't I don't know what the numbers would be like in Lakeville but I have seen towns that pay millions and they go down to like 100,000 so we could see some relief in a few years I
just don't know the exact numbers yet and then obviously the health insurance which is the biggest piece of the pie up there um has gone up 8% this year eight 8 8.6 8.7 um we're part of the Gateway Health
Group which is going to be defunct in June of 2026 so we will be trying to find a new place um and this is where um kind of the numbers come in 9% um it's a big number off of
2,413 th000 um you can kind of see who is on the health plan um we kind of put the number in there I know it's a a topic later tonight um the total cost of boards and committees is
$3,998 40 that includes the buyout and everything else um in a in like the worst possible world if everyone took a family plan we would be hit with a $255,000 bill now you never know what
what that could happen next year we just we have no idea um but that's something that it could re its head at some point in the future um a recommendation is really to seek an alternative health insurance group for fiscal fiscal year 27 Lacy
behind the scenes is working like hell to find a new one um there's four or five really good options and um we're working with the uh IAC to find the best possible fit um this is the retirement SL I kind of
mentioned we'd be funded by 2028 um unfortunately it's a 10% increase um so when you see the number 1,796 th000 that number could drop fairly significantly in
2028 um I think I personally would like to have Plymouth County Retirement Board representative come in and explain all our options um because that number is just it's just unsustainable 10% every year it's just kills
us so just a quick breakdown of our debt 1,248 62 will be um our debt appropriation for fiscal 26 however 85,000 of that is uh exempt debt so we appropriate for it in the budget but we
automatically raise that dollar value on the recap so it's a a net zero um the difference 4 4362 is uh the ASO opset windows and doors project some State uh revolving sewer programs and the septic program um that is regular debt we have to
appropriate for it as a operational cost in the budget um and find a funding source for it like any other appropriation so here's where we get into the different um groups of um across the towns side um some of the
increases are all pretty much all contractual for personnel and services um I've put in a 3% placeholder for Department head/ nonunion Personnel that would also have to be approved by the select board at some point um some of
the decreases um I took $52,000 out of the facilities manager's maintenance line um as you see in the capital plan we kind of tried to get created with the free cash and make it an article and take that out of the operating to go somewhere else um it's kind of a new
tactic some communities are starting to use to get money out of their operating accounts um then I've also taken out um defunded the completely the assistant to the TA position I'm in an Ideal World um
it's obviously needed I just I can't possibly um go forward when we're cutting potentially 13 to 20 people across the entire Community um for someone not to be in that position right now I'm not cutting any anybody's and so I
rationalize it as it's just we can come back to it in the fall if we our revenues come in better than they are um and then Mike and I like we said have gone through line by line in every single budget and tried to find
any sort of cuts we could I think we made what 200,000 yeah we have a full list we can provide yeah it's a pretty long list but yeah probably quart of a million dollarss in cuts um so we've started to
cut really into the bone um of departments um well it's starting to hurt question that those cuts get you to the deficit of the the free cash that you need to use so without those cuts it would have been even more that's correct so um Public Safety side for the
police this has the placeholder for the dispatchers Union increase um of $2,095 um that agreement is not completely finalized so that is still obviously subject to change um but we feel pretty good about it current
Staffing is maintained and it hits all the contractual increases um unfortunately for the fire at this time I'm uh recommending the elimination of the four positions that were funded through the American Rescue plan act um and then as a result we've kind of
padded the unemployment line to offset this if there's any sort of um delay in those um fire Personnel getting new jobs otherwise we hit contractual increases and I kind of want to just put
in their kind of the the the real need across Public Safety to fund a lot of their positions um so obviously I took the four fire FES that were eliminated and put it under the enhancement section and then the police want at least least three personnel of their own um so it
kind of shows and it's not just these departments it's across the town um I hear this a lot every department wants three or four people and it's just impossible to do um but what's the timeline for the saf for
Grant and have has it already started has all the process going to try to fund those firefighters with safe Grant um I don't know um at my understanding for the safer program if they're funded right now it doesn't look good if you're going to apply for it but I don't know
I'd have to check um Andrew what is the difference between what we short for the four firefighters and the um increase in the unemployment and potential increase to
overtime because we have been saving some overtime because of the extra firefighter on each shift right I can get you the number but it's it's around I'd be making it up but it's around 140 that would be added a difference of 140 mhm so for
$140,000 we can have four firefighters more which could also help Revenue cuz the revenue is actually at 1.2 this year is that correct no it's at 1,50 Oh you mean like revenue for fiscal 25 yeah yeah so we're ahead of so technically
the revenue is right there too if we were to project the revenue a little bit higher yeah you could cover the cost of the firefighters yeah it's a little bit of a dangerous game I know yeah but and then obviously the free cash is going to
have to go up kind of as a result um it really just buys us another year and I think next year the the house might come crashing down just to be honest and so when we try to hold off the free cash number we're trying to prepare really for fisal 27
question on the salaries for the firefighters I think my Math's wrong how much is it for the salary for the for the four firefighters it's about 240 I believe so
when I was looking at Bob's number on what the arpa funds would cover M and how long those funds covered I thought we had them for longer yeah when I when I first came in uh Todd
did an analysis and he thought we could get through the end of uh calendar 20 25 and and we couldn't because I think the Personnel that recovered under ARA just weren't the correct ones and so
some of the higher funded firefighters were under there so right now we're kind of going probably through July 25th is our current projection of one would run out is that the intent if I remember it was new firefighters were supposed to be
is that so how did the higher firefighters get covered and put us in this position I don't know it happened prior I think it was a little bit prior than probably one of my first few weeks
yeah we can get we can get into that in uh budget here yeah I was say when we get into the budget for the fire department I'm GNA I'm going to just say right now this extremely important to me and I know other select board members have expressed wanting to fund the the
four firefighters and I would also add that um the call backs just to run the ambulance sometimes are the higher paid firefighters so versus if you had four
non-officers working a shift or I don't know how they do maybe there's one officer on each shift so I just see a little bit of leeway and I am absolutely respecting that you're throwing a huge
caution to us um on you know manipulating the revenue number but um there's nothing else in stabilization we can take out to fund those firefighter positions and hope at least
do the paperwork at town meeting and if the money comes in but what would that we fund it at would we fund it at the 240 or would we fund it at the 326 that it ended up being funded at I
just like to to your point like if if we're saying for firefighters cost X it should cost X and this looks like X Plus 20% if I remember right when Le and I voted to put the arpa money through the
concept was let's get analysis on what overtime would really look like yep get morale up in the department because they were burning out and also we thought it was going to last through calendar 25 to get another shot at the safer Grant right but if the money was mis I don't want to say misused but if it was paying
the wrong people then we it's G ourselves in the foot that's a problem and there's the unknown we've had 12 fires in the last 2 months with full
recall I mean but that overtime is never going to change for a fire no and I saw that the overtime line absolutely did moveed down when um when you moved to the for fire firefight no it didn't it shouldn't have cuz we asked him to move it down he said no it's too soon I don't
know the numbers the act the actual requested right but the the the allocated did not yes no but the act the actuals it actualized not as ambitiously as we hoped but it it did still actualize um
but yeah like I would really love a just a the like to see a lot of numbers yeah I'd love the chief to come and and when he's coming to present his version of the budget to tell us tell us the story of how it went from one number to
another um and you know his overtime um and how that ended up working out for him but and also if we could have those numbers isn't that on the first day of budget yeah APR would be great may also be
interesting to see like how often was he able to staff those four positions in each shift or how often did somebody call out and have to pull in somebody for overtime or like no if you remember I I watched the meeting his his um speech to the board was he was he
was not going to replace that extra position like if if there's vacation or something he doesn't have to back did it happen because every time you're at Town Hall a call comes in there's plenty of vehicles going out yes so I feel like we're
running just as many with what we have and you know definitely what does mutual Aid look like I mean are we still focusing more of our energy which I don't think we are um haven't heard middle bar thing come up
lately wasn't that who it was that was yes run us yeah it was because uh the town was supporting what's the name of that company Brewster Brewster yeah Brewster ambulance and it was having a lot of times where they weren't available to Residents we also have an
aging population and I would expect that number to to go up the calls numbers and so forth should continue to go up reflecting our older need you know the needs of older people um I just have to make a general statement and forgive me this is only my first year um second
round through this on us on finance committee but anytime we're filling a position for any job to me it shouldn't come out of any savings like I don't go to my retirement account and pull money out of there to pay for my kids tuition I either can afford my tuition I put
less money in the retirement so as as we look forward I mean that's something that to me these four people have committed to working for this town they passed up other opportunities that if they were to switch job jobs now and those other those other communities are have to make cuts which we eventually
may as well I just find it troubling to to say to somebody well we hope you're going to be here for a year I mean my son's a police officer so it troubles me to think of him having to go and say well we refunded your position with grant money so but that's exactly what
the this was arpa money I understand but I I think especially now with all the cuts coming around those of us that are approving this stuff really need to have a good idea of where that money is coming from if it's grant money where is it coming from and what it's going to use to pay for and you know frankly if
we had four people on there that needed to be on there why isn't that part of our general I know we're trying to balance things I'm not criticizing just I agree with your statements if you go back and watch the select board meetings from that time which I'm sure everybody would loveing go do we said this is bad fiscal
precedence and we told the chief that and we said when this money runs out it's gone this is an experiment show us how we can fund a four-person shift without this money because there was policy changes in the department that he said he could make There Was You Know Savings in the the overtime
so the Wall's here we knew this was coming yeah what did it what did the experiment show us right but I'm still not ready to like give up on it because I do know that it's been at least I think 18 months almost two years since we've had a rate change and
Medicare I think has a rate change coming a higher reimbursement so and these are the things that we need to see but you're absolutely right Barbara but you know what sometimes this job is personal and when you see the call volume the the
call volume isn't like this the call volume is like that see I mean there's an estimate that they are going to the Urgent Care at least every other day mhm sometimes multiple times a day and Leah
that's why it's so weird to see the ambulance receipts be flat if indeed we are going and having these calls at for the entire time I've lived in the town those have been two lines that run in a parallel path yeah but I more calls more
I would to know when he if he does give a presentation what percentage of our fees is come are coming from Medicare and that's a huge vulnerability for us right now and I think we need to understand that yep and and the problem is even though in my opinion I don't I
don't think it's an option I I think just like you I if I can't pay for it I don't buy it I don't go if it's something frivolous I don't go to my savings account you know and say oh we're just going to you know it's not in our budget we're going to blow it that's not the way but we're talking
firefighters here we're talking and now they've got institutional knowledge now they know what streets they have to get to you know okay yeah yeah all right so we'll bring all that back for conversation with the department so um and then on the next
page so just touch on the Public Works function um so the transfer station was uh the Enterprise fund was rescinded in the fall it's operating as an Enterprise fund through June 30th 2025 um effective July 1 fiscal 26 it
will be part of the public works and we will inherit all of their fees for disposal of solid waste CND stickers bags but with that we will also inherit all of their expenses so it as I mentioned earlier is essentially a net
zero um Franklin did a great job at trying to find that sweet spot like if he had money in his normal Highway budget and now he has the Enterprise fund budget that's going to be combined he was able to find you know savings and he did a great job doing so um and then
we under Public Works we also have uh snow and ice which is level funded at 135,000 um you never really lower your snow and ice uh cuz you can legally deficit spend it um and we have uh multiple Capital
requests both to maintain um and increase services in town um and I know maybe it's just me but with a whole new building coming online for DPW to take care
of we may not need a whole new position in public works but maybe Maybe by 2027 isn't that the estimate Lorraine for when it's going to be in the fall well if anyone can do it Franklin can he makes a dollar into 10 every time we at
some point Frank just Frank taught me the first lesson I ever learned in this job he said to me Leah if you want us to do it you have to give us the resources so we're going to have a whole new
building and I know he could use more people anyways so in casee I'm not here in 2027 please find a new position I mean that does speak too though for a new building coming online what are the operational costs of that
going to be that's probably what FY 28 at that point that's going to probably be cuz we're not getting rid of a building we're just adding one oh for the fire department it's going to be about $300,000 so that's another chunk of Chang with 10 different municipalities um minimum and that
doesn't include um contracts like service contracts for for things so that's a big one we're sit on my iPad at night and look at service cont for to I've been part of a few uh big builds in my previous town and it's very expensive
operational wise in the new footprint yeah maren you and line probably remember when the the when this building came online we were approaching really good days with tons of new growth so so yes even though we didn't fully fund a whole
operational um building that year we certainly was were able to do it but we didn't uh we get some savings from not having to have trailers out back for the police officers to be in from if you remember the old police station we had to rent trailers cuz it was uh unusable
they couldn't use the the water to even wash their hands um yeah we use falls apart here rooms were blocked off the black mold yeah yeah yeah this one is straight pretty straightforward um we level expensed and
did contractual increases across the board um for all three departments oh culture and recreation um we added the park Enterprise under this function as well um so you know Library contractual increases uh level expenses
or level service um there's several important Capital facility improvements you'll see going forward um and then the uh Park Enterprise fund has a retained earnings balance of 4,203 which they plan on utilizing um we've worked with them on
some opportunities to uh increase revenues and uh we did for fiscal 26 remove the $17,500 subsidy which they uh were able to balance their budget without it so good so question Mike yes the ask the
unpopular question what is your plan now for direct and indirect costs uh well we talked about it around January I think um and we did kind of a draft of what it could potentially look like and then we kind of got into budget
season it stalled out a little bit but um it's a great point because I think that there's a lot of cost a lot of you know money that could come to the general fund based off what employees in town hall are doing it's just a matter of are we going to uh Short change the
park Enterprise fund if we uh you know Bill them for every everything we're doing on the town side so I know there's a small indirect that Todd and arri and previous uh employees had built in but it's it's not reflective of what a true
indirect cost should be so I mean I feel like you know not following the state law practices on that are causing us to probably cut more from the general side than we would have to whether it's a position or services or whatever it might be yeah exactly I mean it I think our
estimate was somewhere in the neighborhood of $90,000 that would definitely fund a position or to if it was coming into the general fund right um and you know it's a funny it's a funny concept right when I first started here four months ago you're giving a 175 subsidy and then you're taking in a $5,700 indirect cost so you're kind of
like giving them a bailout and then asking them for money but it's you're kind of checking the indirect cost box so I understand why it was being done cuz if someone asked you you're charging an indirect you can technically say say yes but it's not where it should be um so and you can't get blood from Stone
either you know they were running into the red so like getting any indirect costs is difficult in a situation now it is it is would fix it then um so this is uh it's been touched upon 50% of our
budget um I can't figure out the minimum contribution changes but um I'm sure someone can in the state but it's killing us really um so you see we went down 13 students from Old Colony and our initial increase was a
$75,000 increase um I don't know how that really jives um but it does um luckily we came down to 22,000 for Old Colony um Bristol County has gone up five students um which is a $75,000 increase luckily Northfork went up a
very small amount but there is a possible new student um so that runs about 30,000 y um so that's that's more yeah what about the that was the first thing
I like do you remember the $775,000 transportation there may be I mean it we have to see but those students are getting older might be able to drive shortly um I think one's going to be a senior or a junior so there's a chance that my person might be able to drive
and it's a sibling Duo well I certainly wouldn't want to take the loser Cruiser if I could some good news some good news some bad news um and then obviously the big one is free Lake their initial increase ask
was 1.6 I think it's come down to about 1.2 or so um and that's mostly because of insurance increases and um the teacher negotiations um just for reference last year um it was an increase of 661 th000 which took
off about close to 400,000 this year off the 1.6 we took off close to 900,000 we are now sitting at 7266 49 um so we took a lot a lot out of the
schools this year unfortunately um but we gave our entire 2 and a half% there's also declining enrollment declining enrollment um but the counter argument they've kind of given us is there's increased needs for the students they do
have special education wise so I don't know where the balance is on that we'll have to see where the numbers fall on that they also had three teachers that were funded through the Esser the Esser funds which we as to look at for this current budget we asked them not to wait
till well should we do that again because we know we're going to have additional Cuts coming for next year you're talking about us having a really rough year for 26 27 yeah they're cutting those positions cuz they're not funded by Esser this year no I know what you're saying but I mean for example IEP
funding right those those kind of costs could come up for the next year if not this year in the middle of the Year correct um can we get some idea of what exposure that might be yeah I asked the question but I don't know they don't know yeah and and it's hard because you
could get a new student in over the summer that need special schooling and everything so I'm talking more about our money the source of funds where the money's coming from okay because I know there's a lot of budget changes going on all over the place but it's hard to make sense of how
it's going to affect us and our local taxes I think they're still digging out on you know how that formula is going to work out did we ever get a total count of of students for free Lake I know we've asked for it a couple times we did get um you did send something not too
long but that's just 40s that was just no the 4S count they gave for that's they're just giving the count of the ones affected for the bonus I think Chris might have it because he's got the budget book just the amount of
students yeah the total the total students the total student count I only I don't they have a graph I don't have the exact number I can infer that it's maybe around I don't have an exact number cuz cuz I'm trying to read off of a graph that doesn't have very good detail but do you have that
assessment sheet Jackie gave us at the last meeting is it was at the top was and this is the enrollment as now were they looking at 101 25 you're yep you're yes uh I was the question as compared to
20 I I can tell you the enrollment the budget is based off of 2620 do we know what the year before was cuzz he didn't give that specific information yeah I again I I can look at his graph here but I can't it's hard to kind of you know he doesn't have the
details I can't get the exact numbers off that we can certainly down we can get it certainly but so we have been not really notified but right now they potentially would lose 13 to 20 teachers with this number so that number that
they said was 13 to 20 but uh eight of it was uh they were going to they're not being removed these are people that are retiring no yeah they had some that were retiring they had three that were the
Sesser funded and the other ones were retiring I of one retirement okay or that there wasn't a need for their position because of the change in the demographics I don't know about that can't say that exactly but I don't yeah
I don't recall I don't know I don't remember the number though yeah can't say that exactly they um mostly what they're saying is that due to declining enrollment there is a certain no right and the contract still isn't isn't decided
so right that's a that's a huge unknown is negotiated they this budget assumes a 3 3% 33 on average right so if anything higher
my guess is additional they'll have to do additional reductions I think would ja tell us every percent is about 220,000 so if they came in at like four they go conflict another 220 or something like that I think every percent is closer to a million I think
every percent is a quarter of a million quarter I I don't know I believe every percent above three is a quarter of a million that sounds good right so here are some of the capital um that we have are going to recommend um it's about a total of 1.4
million um the one I'm most excited about is the town website possibility um we have a pretty terrible website right now um and the message is always to get communication increased through there and it's just almost impossible just with the limitations of
the website any transfer Grant on that or an ADA type of Grant the accessibility factors we are going to have an ADA component to it um but I doubt they would cover something like the
website um you can just slap an ADA tool on top of what we already have without redoing the whole thing I don't think the state knows that now they do um the the big one is the library roof uh needs to be replaced hasn't been
touched since it was installed about 20 something years ago um not 30-year roof I guess I think something happened to the warranty you wants to spray some cork up
there um so yeah we can get to the next slide um tening General in the past Frank has asked for about 375,000 in additional money on top of the chapter 90 unfortunately we only are going to recommend 100,000 some of the better news is that
um chapter 90 for Lakeville has gone up pretty significantly due to the millionaires tax I think it's generally around 400,000 we're going to get about close to 7even so pretty big sizeable increase um so we'll be able to do quite a few roads next
year is there any way to accelerate this Bud permit removal is there any brown Fields type grants youw of just sick of seeing that mountain um we can try um it's just an expensive we could
put millions and millions into it and yeah not make a dent just be nice to see it gone yeah we can certainly research that I'm just afraid like the cost for tonnage or whatever is going to go up every the year slows and slows it does yep um the three you see on the left the
compactor the LED light replacement and Facilities repairs at the transfer station those are going to be recommended to be used with retained earnings um which would come at the special before the annual town meeting so that would pretty much run out the
retained earnings in that account um so that would stay out of the free cash and capital stabilization components um and then the big future dver uh budget drivers um as we've said the fixed costs are going up
significantly um it's also been on the new fire station will have a very big operating price tag um I think it will need a new guy um but I think is kind of what you've seen in the presentation we don't have the money for a new guy um and I don't think we will over the next
two years either um the Old Colony Regional Vocational School Vote is coming up on November 18th right now and that'll be a one-day election um the thing that is good and bad is that there'll be more students that can
attend that school I think it's going to be about 775 students I think right now we're about 550 um when you do the math out we'd get maybe 30 or 40 new kids there they're going to phase that in um so you're not going to see
all extra 250 kids coming to the school at the same time um but when that is a fully built out we're going to have to cover the the assessment of potentially 30 or 40 new kids um obviously we're going to have to cover the debt exclusion potentially
which is in the region of 30 to 40 million as well um that's a big chunk of change um right on back of the fire station and so um as we'll get into the next slide um an override it's going to
be very difficult um go back to the prior one sorry um and then obviously the the Fel Lake School District came up with a facility master plan they haven't had any Capital the last few years um we're just waiting for that to hit us um
so that's it's I don't know what that amount is going to be right now but it could be a huge chunk of change as well um and as you see all these projects getting funded we're going to start running into um debt limit concerns um so you not might not even be able to
afford some of this stuff um and then our collective bargaining agreements all of them will expire next June so I don't I'm not aware of any major price tags to those but you never quite know until you get in the room with different people um and the big slide um so
obviously as we've kind of demonstrated there's a huge budget sustainability issue in Lakeville um I think there's going to have to be a serious conversation of an operational override next year or the year after
unless serious um considerations are made to limit spending and potentially cuts to avoid an override um Mike will always remind me that just because you propose an override doesn't mean it passes so we could propose one and if it
fails then it's obviously major major issues um so we might be forced to make cuts um and so it's it's kind of a double-edged sword um another thing we could do um is potentially a spending freeze for
non-essential spending um in the grand scheme of things it's not a huge budget saver but I think every dollar is going to count what was that a spending freeze of non-essential spending and so it's not a huge savings but and I think every dollar will count in fisal
27 um so i' like to save any dollar I can now for later um so there like it's been kind of mentioned we could use more free cash or this or that but eventually that money runs out it gets compounded every year um that's why I'm trying to
make the cut to my position uh the cut to different things now cuz next year that position might get cut anyways um so plus we get an override which I can get the stat I think it's only 17% of
overrides pass um a lot of local towns are trying to propose them Handover Hansen the big one that's kind of scared people is duckberry they put in for like a $6 million one and it failed now they're cutting 40 positions um so just because we
potentially propose one doesn't mean it's going to pass um but I yep I was just going to ask I mean and that's not something you're doing to just get us through one year I'm assuming you guys are forecasting if we do it it needs to be sustainable yeah they they definitely
recommend you only do one maybe every 5 to 10 years um some towns they run into trouble they'll get a big influx of cash and then they spend it um and then they're back for an override in two years overrides are obviously more expensive than debt
exclusions um so there has to be a balance of what you do and how much money you go for um there's also the potential Public Safety override a schools override you can be targeted with them um but they're very complicated to do
um generally I think the do Department of Revenue recommends 8 to 12 months of planning before you do it um a lot of Outreach has to go into it demonstrate the importance to the community um we're just a little bit in a tough situation with some of the Deb exclusions lately
to then come back for an override it's just we'll do it it's just we have did last time we had the override last time so um I I initiated the override last time as a citizen um and and then Sarah uh kuseno actually picked up the mantle
and it was a Grassroots initiative um and it ended everyone said oh no one's going to have an override in Lakeville guess what they had an override in Lakeville um for the 3 four years previous there was what you would probably call austerity that had happened um where they had had four
years of 00000000 Z for the schools and they had cut how many positions back in 2009 like something 40 something positions so it was a it was a flip on that and that had
happened but it was a Grassroots initiative it was not um right but you know it's it's a different it's a different it's a different scene here I mean over the last you know 3 four years the select board has brought forward you know the warehouse which would have been
again no one wants a warehouse the reason why you know so select boards and whatever support them are because we know we have to bring income in years ago living in a rural community was cheap living in a rural community now is not cheap because we have to pay for
everything out of our taxes so and I know everyone here really wants to work on some economic development but we know there's only so many storefronts there's only so many yeah small business is not is not going
to move the needle for right you know we need right you know we've been saying that for the last few years if you want to be a better Community then you have to bear the burden on your shoulders MH right and that's why if next year right it gets to the point where we have to
Institute a local tax there's again another you know place where we're going to get tax people for living in this community and I mean it just it's painful it it it's it's it's very pain it is because I don't want to price someone out who's been living here
for 40 years and you also don't want to be the lowest for safety you don't want to be the lowest you know for funding we're in the bottom 10% of all of Massachusetts for per pupil spending it's not something anyone you know
should be proud of we're in the top 50 for the Boston area for Quality so we're spending it well we're spending it um but you know there there is that component that we had spent so many years being so Ultra conservative that
you know maybe Ultra conservative isn't always the right thing to do when at the end of the the Rope it ends up you know fighting you in the butt but um I know everyone here is committed to the the least amount of impact on the taxpayer right this board has you know made a
commitment to putting together economic development committee and I think you know we have a Town Administrator and a an accountant who can you know stay with with it and you know Steer steer the ship so to speak and it's going to have to be done and the folks are going to
have to come out and tell us what they want I don't know if folks are aware some of the research I've done um Lakeville is in the bottom 15% for our tax rate for prop tax I think uh and the
average family tax bill we're in the bottom 40% but what that doesn't take consideration is we don't have services so we don't have trash we don't have water um we don't have a lot of the services that other towns have water would not be part of real estate taxes
in other towns you are right sorry I just have but we don't have a lot of the services that some other towns do so even though we do have a lower rate we kind of deliver a little bit less as well no services so true
that mhm I think the bottom line is that we're going to have to meet and and make tough decisions um I think if you see my budget I kind of ripped it apart um pains me to do it um I think it's needed um I think we put together a pretty
topnotch um Finance team with Mike um Robbie Alfred Erica carea Lacy Marshall um so I think we're going to be meeting on how to find a solution before you guys even tell us so what we stress ourselves out about it so I think we're going to keep doing that to put
ourselves in a good spot cuz Fisco 26 people thought we were going to need an override um kind of staved it away at least another year um so maybe we can do it again but we'll have to find
Solutions I have a super unpopular question yes um I know you you guys went to the well and you're you're looking at positions have we looked at the entire town and what our staffing needs are of the town has it changed will it change
with the new improvements we've made uh you know will it change with anything that we're we're doing in the next year or so for Staffing like is there a possibility that we're we're bloated anywhere and in town like it's super
unpopular but at the same time it's a necessary conversation my hope is class incom study will kind of tell us that question um I kind of think we're probably going to be told that we don't pay any one enough um but it might tell us also that we have too many too many
bodies in certain departments to properly plan potential for an override even if at the end of the day we say we don't want to propose it is that all done in house or do you need resources from do like do we have to figure in any funding for that kind of Investigation if necessary it'd be at
all hands- on deck for the next few months or in general but um I think do would stand by yeah it was part of one override in my previous municipality in 2015 that failed by 18 votes so yeah people were
laid off the very next morning so um yeah you're going to bring do in do um even reach out to other towns to see what their approach was like you know comparable towns to our size and demographics yeah it'll definitely be all hands on deck if year I think my
concern about the override is that we don't really know where our budgetary is going to end up at the end of this year we may have a better idea of what's going to be happening as far as state and federal funding if we go in front of the town today and say we want an override for whatever reason I think that's problematic to try and go back a
year later just throwing it out there it's a very uncertain time that's why they generally recommend 8 to 12 months because you don't want to screw it up and it can be um you're making a lot of assumptions on different lines and services and to do it in a few months is very tough cuz like I said you want to
do it for like 5 to 10 years and yeah if the next 3 and 3/4 years are as turbulent as the last 3 months have been I don't know that we'll ever know things are steady honestly that's the they recommend when you do an override don't really hire
anyone right um because then you overspend and then you're like oh we ran out of money already yeah no and they also recommend you can't do any building projects so there's that too yes we're also in this like treading
water phase for the last few years of all been like level Services level Services even though the town has exploded population wise and we're probably still a little shallow in some departments yeah departments aren't shy telling us yeah so like you know we always focus on Public Safety Public
Safety but like what about the other areas this pressure well we are not there's one office that has three people the treasurer's office otherwise where a department head and one fulltime in almost every other office there
definitely a lot of burnout concerns and people told me that but I believe it it's no real solution unfortunately I wanted to ask the finance committee last year we did a budget recap after we did all the department um you know after the budget presentation and the department
discussions is that something you'd like to entertain again this year yes I would say yes okay all right so I think that would be a good thing and then you know we can have these discussions and at that time I guess we can vote the budget and you know what
we're going to do so and then that money tree that you planted and and put the you know that what is it Miracle Grow will be ready by then so by may we should see some more green that would be
lovely but um I have to say that Andrew Michael Lacy um you did a really bang up job uh putting this together I've sat through quite a few budget presentations in my career and I have to say I
probably understood this one the best it's very clear nice job when you see it from 20 ft away you see some errors you made too so don't worry you I've been writing them down we're very hypercritical so I think what you see here is just a base
of what you're going to see in the next few years I appreciate how conservative you've been I think the town has prided ourselves on our low tax rate and our you know very frugal spending and it's clear that you've embraced that because you've only been with us a year now
no months a really nice job Andrew thank you Mike's been here even less yeah Comin haven't even been here a year I stop both of you all right um if there's no other business on culture Recreations numbers missing from the P yeah it's because the
I know we'll be digging more and more at'll f um from our department heads but I guess I'd like to say that if there's any because now that you've had a chance to review uh budget you know books on your own or you will continue to review them
that's a good idea if there's anything that you'd like to see from the departmental level would you please let Andrew um know so that he can alert the um the department heads to be prepared to speak to it um so that you know we're
not having three-hour meeting you know on each night at least they can get prepared and be able to respond to some of the questions you may have yeah and I think for me just the biggest one was the the fire department and ambulance receipts um I just want to understand not just the numbers but the numbers
behind the numbers and Andrew we had talked about it before but my concern was trying to understand you know I knew about the firemen and the arpa funds but what other what other uh grant money or and what are the sources of that funds and what are they're going to pay for for each department because because I
have no idea what you guys have done so much to bring everything together with all these pieces but I think we need to understand what a vulnerabilities are cuz if we were had to step up and pay for this ourselves should at least have some idea of where we're going just off hand I don't think we're too exposed
good um but the issue is and I always ask Senator Rodricks like how's the budget looking he's like yeah ask me tomorrow yeah um cuz they they get new Direction every day from up top and yeah it's they're going to have to do a little cutting that's unfortunate for us too
so potentially they're not cutting where we want them to cut yeah I mean I think I heard Mass health is probably their biggest concern which doesn't really affect us but does for the residents I think down street Revenue
okay all right I'm going yeah I'll in motion to join and bler ey thank you thank really good to we'll see you on I heard today radio the state there's these houses children small for children
really mental health issues I have another girlfriend has one of those L child started having major behavioral issues you know what I mean now you got to put those all back right yeah were you here for that discussion you come after
that oh he was that's yeah that's yeah that's so they they there legislation I'm I know we're not actually a lot of time right everybody is still in
session get out she have fun with all that I am very rude right now because yeah we have we still have like a ton of agenda good night all right it was
really good to see you see thank you where are we going next to the old flippy chart we are on agenda item number nine um so I'd like to invite you up to the uh to the table please thank you so
um our office received a request from um Twisted Growers one of um our current HCA uh businesses uh to do a brief presentation um on a suggestion or
request from this board so if you wouldn't mind um if you could just you state your name for the record sure uh I'm Phil silverin I'm an attorney for uh the company it's actually two companies it's twisted Growers and then there's a separate affiliate called TG delivery
it's a separate delivery company um and you are hi good evening everyone I'm Bethany serota um from the company no we'll get to them um there was some materials that I sent over I don't did anybody get those regarding this yes oh
that's correct okay if anybody needs one I I can provide it but um all right um pull this out so again I'm Phil Silverman and what what we're here to talk about is two separate items I'm
going to start with um the delivery company um what we're seeking to do uh is operate a marijuana what's called a delivery Courier and delivery operator company at 45 15 Millennium Drive uh
that's currently the site where there's a a cultivation and product manufacturing facility that's operating uh by Twisted Growers um and so this is a partnership uh under Massachusetts law delivery companies have to be social
Equity companies so Bethany's a 51% owner of this company along with uh the owner of the Twisted Growers uh operation as well and the two companies sort of work hand inand um you know the pro a lot of the product that that Bethany's delivery company would deliver
and sell uh is going to be produced by Twisted Growers and twisted Growers gain sort of a distribution Outlet uh as a result of having this company which is important and I'll sort of get to that but just brief history uh about three years ago the town put out a request for
proposals for marijuana companies and this was one of the ones that we submitted uh a request and I think what happened is I think the town was having some issues uh and concerns about marijuana facilities especially I think on Kenneth Welch Drive and parking and and water
usage and those sorts of things and so when I was sort of inquiring what what about our submission I think there was a desire to take a little pause um but I think you know maybe now having seen what's happened in the industry's changed a little this was a good time to sort of try to get back before you and
talk about this company so I I remember both of you very well I was there that um it was also um to do with all the changes with the host Community agreements by the legislates so here we
were ready to sort of say hey welcome to Lakeville and then all of a sudden short I I believe it was shortly after that that came out that you know um that the host Community Agreements are all going to be different and we had so many and I
think you were both part of it at some point point that we were trying to figure out what to do with all the existing you're not alone and it makes sense and in fact they changed again you know about a year ago so uh there's been a lot of change but we're seeing hope
hopefully some stability now in terms of going forward so this is probably a decent time to to revisit um just so we remember you know what a delivery Courier a delivery Courier is kind of like door Dash you go and you know a retailer gets a an order to be delivered
and this company would go pick up the order and deliver it to a consumer a delivery operator is a little different they buy their own product they have a website people order from them they Warehouse it it would be over a 415 Millennium Drive um and then you know
it's delivered uh to the consumer that way so there there's two different models and this company would be looking to do both um I I not it's probably a good time to let Bethany introduce herself and and uh and just tell you a little bit about herself and what her her plans are
great thank you thank you all for um having us my name is Bethany soda I am an attorney by trade um but I work in healthcare administration I think this is a great opportunity especially in this region for a delivery company I've done a bit of research and I know that
um this is a great opportunity zone for that so um very excited about working with dom and Bill a Growers thank you uh in terms of the facility um you know there's already already uh you know as I mentioned the cultivation facility this
would take up a separate 2500 ft space within that facility um probably use you know three or four parking spaces at the facility um and it's really pretty minimal impact in terms of you might see a delivery vehicle coming and going
three or four times a day um is it possible that if you know the delivery aspect picked up a lot you might see more yeah maybe five or six times a day six or seven times a day hard to believe it would be a lot more than that um usually if there's going to be deliveries they're sort of packaged
together the vehicle goes out once and Carries about you know 10 to 15 deliveries and so there's not going to be back and forth back and forth all day um it's as I said it's fairly low impact in terms of um you know the site um all
of the uh you know the the requirements that you used to seeing in a marijuana facility are present here the same types of security um you know the same types of uh the cameras that you're used to seeing the there's GPS tracking systems
and the vehicles here so it's really pretty well done it hasn't been an enormous uh security issue as this has rolled out in Massachusetts Over The Last 5 Years um the other benefit I think you know that I wanted to mention
for the town um is this is a business that can generate revenue and it doesn't just take revenue from your existing retail um you know right now there's deliveries that are going on in Lakeville Massachusetts um by and large
they're probably from uh delivery companies that are hosting hosted by communities outside of Lakeville and so when they make a sale in Lakeville the 3% sales tax goes to those other communities okay this is a company I'm sure they'll want to be doing deliveries
in Lakeville but they're also going to want to expand to Southeastern Massachusetts and there's not a lot of other delivery companies in this area so the hope is that this expands to other communities surrounding Lakeville and you're taking in 3% tax revenue on those deliveries from the other communities so
I think there's an opportunity there uh you know for some for significant Revenue growth um so that that's TG delivery maybe I should just take questions on that one first is that yeah um the first thing that comes to mind is
I know you have a um the permitting authori is of zba um and they've already gone through and approved obviously Twisted Growers facility in the capacity that it's operating now y um I guess my question is now you're changing usage of the
building so there's going to have to be another visit I'm assuming no question I I think it's probably a separate special permit but we'll certainly abide by what the board prefers whether it's an amendment it it is a separate company so I think it probably has to be a separate permit so basically
you're asking us um to enter into a host host Community agreement um for the purposes of this particular uh service that's in front of us this evening yep you still have to go through what you need to go through with the state to be
awarded a license or that's correct okay it it you the host Community agreement as it's always been is sort of the gate the gateway to the state process you can't get a state license so we would be doing the state proc process and the local permiting process both at the same
time okay question if I made yes um this is new to me right this is the first one we've had so apologize these are silly questions but yeah what's the benefit to TG delivery for looking for both a corer and operator license if they're actually planning on being in the same facility
as Twisted Growers where production is happening yeah it it's you know it just it's two different sources there there's going to be some uh there's obviously some overlap I get it you know the the two companies going to sort of work out you know it's it's in
uh TG delivery's interest in some ways to do a lot of delivery operator because you know it's all of their revenue uh as opposed to um you know doing Courier which is just a small delivery fee but that's something they're going to be working out with Twisted Growers because
you know they they have their own needs and they're going to want to you know but and and twisted Growers can't do delivery on its own because it has to be a social Equity company so there's some bargaining leverage there between the two companies would it also maybe not since twister Growers as I understand is
a 49% holder in TG delivery would that allow TG delivery to say we have our Twisted Growers line but we can also buy product from others if they're going to it's you you know PE the the average consumer likes a lot of different types of products and twisted Growers only you
know uh cultivates and manufactures a certain number of them so going to want to be so they could house those different lines than if they have the operator license that's correct okay thank you appreciate it um I know at when we had met three years ago there
was a you know potential sales that you're predicting any idea so um I hesitate because if I think back to what we were thinking before y I think those numbers you know they were
all over the place in a lot of ways um you know I I view this as probably uh a $3 million a year something along those lines you know so that that's probably $90,000 in Revenue if if it works out to that so that's
combined or just the delivery that that's just the delivery okay we're going to get to the retail piece in a minute um but I you know I'll I'll try to be conservative and say 2 to three million yeah and then just for the benefit of the rest of the board last
time we had a lot of questions about um Safety and Security and we spent a lot of time talking about that and I mean it seems like a lot of that is being answered just by the pairing up with yeah facilities you've got a secure
facility as it is the CCC has been pretty successful in terms of keeping these all of these places safe and secure you don't see a lot of security issues at any of them so um and and the history now that we've seen delivery is not new to Massachusetts at this point
it's been around for four four years I think so you know it it it really I there's been very few uh negative incidents any else at the moment okay all right we'll go to the other one then
okay so uh this is regarding retail um in 2021 when we first came before the board uh we were proposing to do cultivation Manufacturing in the facility at 415 Millennium and we were going to do a retail at 200 Millennium
and uh the town actually gave us separate host Community agreements to do both of those um and then time has gone on and you know the the Twisted Growers has sort of been in a in a position of trying to sort of see where the market went as it was building out its
cultivation facility and what they figured out was they don't need uh the amount of cultivation space they were originally thinking they were going to need uh the industry there's just there a lot of cultivators and we've seen cultivators going out of business unfortunately at a fairly rapid Pace um
so this company has actually done pretty well they've developed a lot of wholesale relationships out there so far but it's really it you know it would really be beneficial to have a distribution Outlet in addition to the delivery company having a retail would
be you know very beneficial to this company and so but the company is looking at it and saying why why do I want to operate two different facilities right near each other there probably a lot of benefits to consolidating this all at 415 Millennium and so that's what
we're really asking for today is to try to gain a bit of efficiency uh by having it all at 415 Millennium again this is something that is going to have to go back to the planning board um because I think it raises you know you know this parking and and there's going to there
is ample parking or space to create parking space on this site so that's not going to be an issue but that's something we're going to have to talk to the planning board about uh undoubtedly um so uh or no it's not is it the zv zv
apologies um so you know those issues are going to have to be worked out as well um but again this is a situation where we don't think that we are sort of cannibalizing your other retails here um we actually think there's a separate
Market here um that isn't being served right now there's a um you know the other places are on Kenneth Welch this is up near Route 44 and uh we don't have any other retail nothing you did no no never open it was
originally at 310 um a spot for retail but then that never happened it never happened there is stand corrected well I just want bigger piece of the P we're not cannibalizing anybody then bigger piece of the pie and and and again
that's why no no it's actually an easy adjustment that's why we had done the um the request for the proposals so yeah because we were potentially but then they just didn't didn't materialize didn't realize that all right so
basically what you have going on right now then is uh there's a place up on 44 in middleb called Panacea yep okay it's taking all of your Revenue yes okay um it's there's a a swath from there over
to Rum ROM doesn't have retail either uh that there's a lot of consumers there and obviously now as you tell me in Lakeville who are going elsewhere and so the idea is that you know we want to proably basically start up this this benefits Twisted Growers obviously as a
distribution outlet but we think there's quite a bit of Revenue there and before you ask it I'm going to tell yeah I think that's probably you know because I think it's an underserved Market I think it's another $3 to4 million probably that well there is a new one that's just
open I'm not sure if you know right on the Berkeley okay but that's I don't even know if that one's open yet but there's it's next to my Dunkin Donut yes next to your dunin okay but I'm I'm just sort of thinking in my the map in my head I'm
not sure it really even uh you know gets in the way of the market that I'm thinking of I mean maybe some some people will go there but I think I think there's an opportunity for the town here yeah in case it doesn't show I was always a fan but then with the whole change uh for the retail but then with
the whole changes in the hcas and we had so many to address we sort of got a little overwhelmed with all that I think the Good News by the way is because I represent some other companies that do
business in Lakeville uh that worked out with your Council an HCA that's going to be acceptable uh to the CCC I hope uh because that hasn't been the easiest thing over time I couldn't have put it better I to
ask you um is this a a an adult use or medical this is adult use okay yeah medical is a tough I mean yeah it's a tough Market it's a tough Market yeah all right so this will be doubt use okay I should introduce uh Nicole castano
from K evening room you know I looked over and I saw you sitting there like oh hi sorry about that I think I've only ever seen you via zoom and we all look different via Zoom Nicole and I know each other very
well we do this all over the state so um so we have two requests in front of us this evening so we could vote to approve the recommend you excuse me just vote to move forward with these with these
agreements in which case um we would be drafting the hcas to support each of those um business types correct and then the rest of it would fall into play is that pretty much how it would roll if we were just so the the board could vote
tonight but I would recommend that the board defer its vote and just maybe get a sense of what you're feeling as we are still navigating some issues with the other HCS until we're able to finalize those and see how they play out also um there are three different types of
establishments that have been discussed tonight you have retail delivery Courier and delivery operator to be clear um there is a retail sales tax that does attach to the the uh brick and mortar retail store right um the delivery
operator model uh as um you you've just heard it's really a warehouse model so that's I I say think of Amazon when you're thinking of a delivery operator they purchase wholesale they warehouse at the facility and they deliver out so Lakeville would be the point of sale so you would um see
the retail sales tax for the delivery operator the delivery Courier model however again that is more of an Uber eat scrubhub model and so the municipality that would see the the retail sales tax is going to be the the municipality that houses the retail
store right so if you're um just having the delivery Courier locate here but the um Courier isn't picking up from a store that's sold in Lakeville Lakeville won't see that excise tax uh that'll be at you know um the the community that housed
that retail store so there are three different models um different things for the board to consider and again I I do know that you are still navigating some other issues with your host Community agreement so I would just recommend to to get a sense of the board's feeling
and then just toer a vote until we're able to negotiate those other host Community agreements and craft something that um works for the town works for uh the commission and then you can decide um how best to proceed for the town I think that's a good
recommendation um does the board have anything else that they wanted to bring up are we talking about our sense at least tonight or like if we're talking talking about our sents where else would we talk about our sense besides here
so I mean I always thought this town should have focused on retail in the first place but a lot of people are scared of oh marijuana is going to be in our borders it doesn't stop at the Town Line just like it never made sense so yeah I would like to explore forever plus a thousand yeah um like I said I've
been you know as soon as we got word that the changes were coming for our existing host Community agreement ments you know I've always wanted retail sales because as you heard us talking before
um we need economic development in this town um and I I think we need to pursue it but I'm also very happy to see you back I'm glad you um stuck it out um yeah cuz it was I
believe I still have all the presentation materials from the last time um seems like yeah solid solid information solid people are you operating somewhere else I'm not so this would be your your sole place okay I've been looking at property around here too
so that matters um just curiosity I mean I know you know we're working we've been working with Michelle on a couple of these hcas here given that uh there is already an
HCA for the retail it's just at a different location does that create any ability to move that along a little faster I mean we're obviously I'm I'm here you know for two companies um I would like to see them both mve forward
and be able to start negotiating the HCA but I do understand the desire to sort of get all of these hcas together but is is there any sort of more ability to move at least forward on the retail side I thought the HCA was tied to the location
it is so you you do have um a separate host Community agreement for the retail host for the host Community agreement for the retail establishment that's at 200 Millennium Circle um there there may be some other issues with that host Community agreement as well with just
simply amending it to change the address so again I do recommend that the board um just defer its votes so that we can address those and make sure that everything um runs smoothly to the extent that you do want to have a new
HCA I can say that um you know the board has been not aggressive but we've been pretty assertive making sure that you know we're addressing you know anything that's been kind of lingering so you know we'll be revisiting I'm sure okay
okay I mean we meet every two weeks that's great for six hours that's great seen that oh that's great we appreciate that so all right no I think it was some good information and um
we're always um you know interested in meing new people that are interested in opening businesses in in town so awesome great good to see you again too thank thank you all very much appreciate it thank you thanks are you going to stick around too
if you'd like me to oh that's okay what you want to do it for free yeah it was nice meeting you in person though it was very nice to come out in person it's so different than being you know on a screen yeah very nice I hope
you don't live too too far so you can enjoy your nice little ride home so not a far trip have a good evening everyone thank you okay so I'm wondering um I know Mr Smith is here from the parks um can we jump down to
14 we entertain that okay on up if you want turn theat down it is it should be down I did I turned it down to 70 there
chicken's hatching what they're not no you supposed to have the doors open open meeting at least one door at least one door yeah that door's open door to nowhere okay so agenda item number 14 um
discuss impossible vote to approve and sign the license agreement with Lakeville uh Martial Arts Club so with our packet this evening we have a a memo from The Parks Commission regarding the proposed license agreement for the Lakeville martial arts um there was a
question that I had asked um Andrew to you know look in how long has um the Lakeville Martial Arts Club been located you know at that it's 15 years which is oh yeah he's been and
then before Lon Pond he was in that building so I moved here in 2000 he's still been here um just a couple things up front it just understand that we didn't negotiate this with him we haven't even discussed it with him but
at the parks we had a meeting and uh came up with a number that we're comfortable with we think it's fair and it fits our budget so just to give you a little uh History Two contracts ago
which we say 6 years uh we were getting 475 a month which was 5100 a year the last contract was 725 which was 8,700 a year and for this one we're going to
three-step it so the first year is 835 which is 105 a year then the next year is 925 for 111 final year 975 which is 116 um just some another background is
uh obviously I think everyone knows who he is he's just an outstanding person uh great benefactor of the parks he's done a lot for us um he will lock the bathrooms at night when he's there we're generally they're there because our
bathrooms are open and for criminal purposes we like to keep it locked he will go in if it runs out of toilet paper go in there and fill up so we've always had a great relationship it's also only about 600 square ft
um we will look to see um it's only it's half of the maintenance building it could be seven I'm just throwing it out there um it should get some work inside it should
you need some upgrade and painting and and things like that M chair how much have we spent in the last 15 years on that building as Town zero correct if I we don't yeah generally that's not accurate well I'm
saying if if no no no on the building for him by repairs you mean yeah by repairs or additions to the building just sent out an update this afternoon that said at least $10,000 where did we get that from well it's not like necessarily like upgrades
it's more like I think you guys um pumped out the sewage or the septic yeah I mean more than handful of times we we we take care of I mean it's the town's building but the parks is responsible for it so um we had issues
with our septic last year we had to get a pumped we got to get a camera because septics been there since Ted Williams has been playing down there so that needed work wait am I I might be wrong isn't the the general entrance to the septic in that
building too is the septic is the toilets the the public toilets on the outside of his building not yeah well it's yeah it's it is on the outside of the building but it's still but most of the problem with the
septic wasn't the use of the MMA using the bathroom is the public they would yeah that's the S field they would they would uh throw rocks down there and dirt and jam it with everything they have so yeah the filters got clogged the filters
got clogged so that's just a normal maintenance thing we would have to do but really has nothing to do with him um he does have a bathroom in there but the uh our employee over there shares it
um the roof seems to be in pretty good shape the boiler we checked out we did have a problem with the thermostat this year so that had to be replaced but as far as upkeep for him for that side of the building there's
really a lot because a lot of the other stuff was we upgraded the electric and the lighting and the maintenance bar portion of it we did that this year too cuz it needed it um so I mean I'm not saying that there's not going to be no I
just I I don't ever remember spending any money on the actual inside for that building or specifically for the studio as a landlord I remember all yeah all the
money was spent in the garage side and the irrigation and and the and on the outside bathrooms that serve the public that are not his bathrooms it's very small Trimark but yeah yeah I mean I've been there may three years
and I haven't spent a penny in there I'm just saying that so um so I think you know looking at this um we decide we we think this it's still
a significant increase um it's an extra two grand year for this year coming up then as I said it steps up pays on time I don't see anyone else going in that building if we decided to say
it's you're not paying enough and you die to leave there's nobody that I can think of who would want to go in there in its condition or or what they would use it for that's just my opinion um
so you know we we just think that being the neighbor he has been we're doing increases uh it used to be a a one price for three years so I decided to do well let's do it every year because you know things could happen and things go up you
know I'm not even he'll accept this maybe he can't maybe he will but this is what we're willing to accept or we're we're not we're not willing to accept anything less than this so that's why I I brought this to
you uh the only thing we can do is go up but that's for this discussion tonight so it's the town of Lakeville license agreement so it is the select board um
who oversees this and I know we've gone through some changes um in our office but I want to make sure and maybe this Falls with whatever system you put in place I don't want to miss a deadline
like this again this was February 28th 2025 um and I know it wasn't up to you know the the parks I mean because it's it's under us but um you know we should be talking talking about these kind of things 60
days you know prior to expiration and then you know working out anything cuz now it's we've got a a whole month right now that's already been in operation so we got I just wanted to make sure cuz I know we talked about that when you first came on how important it was to make
sure that all those little moving parts were kind of captured yeah soor going forward well something like LOM Pond would have to be done a year before cuz there's rfps to go out and previous booking so
right so all right um but is it up to the parks to look at the license agreement with the the cost and this is well you understand it's our Revenue Town's Revenue so I think how
you consider it being the town's Revenue being that we take care of the building and the revenue comes to us we need to stop thinking that the Enterprise fund is a separate Town budget it is a separate accounting line the town's money Parks is not a
different town so to my recollection I think the last time we were the ones that increased it to the 725 because we felt as though that just wasn't sufficient
okay and just want to go to Brian say I I listen I'm I'm not an Enterprise fun guy I think we should de Enterprise it you talk for a town meeting did you hear me at the last meeting when you and Michael came when I was fighting with the group do matter
okay well whatever I'm not going to have to deal with um you got to outline what the Enterprise fund and what it is in because we're responsible for the expenses on the parks everything right so this when we have receive the um the
payments is that tracked under the um does it come into the town and go into the general fund believe it goes into the Enterprise right no it goes to the Enterprise it goes into the Enterprise okay um but with regards to license agreements that is up to the select board so you're just making a
recommendation this is just a recommendation to okay it's obviously your decision but we did this being with the history and what we know and what fits into our budget that's it all right so I've got several
comments Madam chair when you're ready sure I mean one this seems like it should be a lease agreement not a license agreement I'm not sure why it's a license agreement it was a license agreement the last time around so it's probably just been carried forward um this feels not allowed to have lease
than one year in a row then we should make one term saying lesser to less he instead of license license he so then well I think I mean I mean the town of mbar just entered a 99 year least with the old um police station so I mean it's it's like
a technicality but does it fall under different procurement law yes okay um I feel like this is so far under market rate it's not even funny I mean similar 1,200 squ foot Studio commercial in Lakeville goes for
like 1,800 bucks but it's not it's not 1,200 usable I got one person told me it's 1,800 another person told me it's 18886 so the whole build the whole building is the whole building the license well have you ever been the actual studio is is is less than this
yeah this is not 1,800 Square ft this is not 18 this is way bigger than 1800 ft isn't it well yeah but well it goes from about there to probably where you're sitting then somebody's got to get us an accurate square footage no no I I'm not
debating I do believe who was on the board in 22 you and I were right mhm and I think rich was I was gone 22 23 24 yeah and I think we had gone through a lot of the how how many square feet is it I I don't have those notes in front
of me but I'm sure we can get them all and I agree with you Brian I mean you know retail SPAC is at a premium I've also been told in the past that this is a community type of an organization it's
for kids um but that's what bites Us in the ass I know and the other thing is it is a difficult location to rent because it's not a storefront got no windows I totally agree with you and at the time I thought there was another one closer to
compare to I mean if there's any Department that we should be making sure get every nickel this is the one and I know you know they had another request which thankfully I watched the meeting and they turned it down where lomon laod wanted to discount on rent cuz trifest was coming like no we can't
do these things we don't do that this just looks absurdly low to me and maybe I'm just completely off my rocker how much you think a 600 square well no one said if it's 600 for sure yet well I can tell you it's not 1,800 has a garage I think we all just looked it up last time
average retail includes heat includes electricity it's probably at least 1,500 bucks at least okay well what retail store would move into a place that it's going to need a lot of money it doesn't have Windows the bathroom is going to have to be all redone if they want to do
it and uh there's no signs so you're gonna have to put a sign out here saying that there's actually a store here so that's another issue store no that works they have no signage they just have a sign on the no I'm talking about if I owned a retail store there how are people going to know it's there I never
said retail well it could be industrial well you just said retail space what else would you put in there where would you is it Zone commercial space that's Z it's recreational It could only Recreation but I think it is own business actually I think the whole parcel if I'm not
mistaken if I if I go back into my C you pull it up I think that this whole area was for example I looked up not retail space I looked up industrial was the closest if it is 600 square ft that's like
$10,200 a year so you know what Brian I I agree I we and that's probably without utilities this includes electric and heat which might be tougher for us to split due to the way the building set up a problem we could do things to fix that M right so I think that you know and you
know what last time this fell through the cracks too again we were doing it I think after the the date so my advice is knowing that it was going to come to this point is just do a one-year lease do a study let him stay where he is get
the new rate figure out how many square feet figure out what you would like to do with it cuz it's proba it's not fair to kick him out now but uh I think that's the proper way because there's still too many questions need to be answered here Barbara makovsky was still
here ask I would ask her and I would ask her what's the rate of uh vacancies for uh for these type of spaces at this point what's the average value that we'd have to put into it how long would it take us to recoup any monies that we put
into it so the other thing is this contract would come up to $33,600 if it was 35 it would have to go out to bid it's so why aren't we anyways before that close say that again so the three years
added together come out to about $33,600 but if it was a lease that had a value value of 35,000 which were just about there you'd have to have competitive bid why did we hire him so so when you call it a procurement skills so when you
call it a license you kind of like disregard the procurement law on it um if it was a lease you take the value of the the length of the contract which would be here 3 years um generally the assessor does like a like a rate what we could get for it it's over 35,000 you
got to do an RFP for it yeah but we only usually do one year at a time this is uh three years I I'm not saying we should do that it's just no I mean am I wrong in just ex standing it for a year and then do your research and
figure out how many square foot how much Capital you're going to have to put into it could be 30 50 Grand I think we should fix this once and for all is what I think the other thing is if my understanding is correct Parks have been looking for more office space and there was a thought about a potential
Fieldhouse for a capital plan a what Brian a field house for what parks oh I didn't know that well there's the roof right move for the office oh we only need a small office
yeah yeah then I think when when we're going to come back at some point and do the whole building no we we scoop the bathroom you scoop that tot forget the bathroom because we use Lon Pond we just need to fix a leak and put a new roof in that's all it needs because I look at
that building as perfect for their needs so I was told a few months ago they were looking for a whole new Fieldhouse but if that's changed well ideally if you said hey Michael here's 120 Grand put septic in we wouldn't turn it down but there's no way we could even consider
that I mean I think that a one year is we're not throwing him out and he has been good I mean during Co when we couldn't use the bathrooms and there were porta potties out there he cleaned the porta potties okay so I have no problem with what's there
no no I know but right it's just but I'm just saying he's always been good and I don't want to like just no cuz we still have no idea the actual value all right so we can do one or two things we can um set
the determination for the license agreement for you know for what one year um at at a rate and put it into effect as of February 28th 2025 um so that's one option the other
option is do nothing and just bring it back to the next meeting did you February 28th you would put it backd backd back well you'd have to backdate it to March 1st yeah that's when I don't think you can legally back dat uh anything like that I think I would I
would call a lawyer if that's where you wanted to go on that well he's still paying I'm just saying that um still paying the same rate so I no no I think and again I may not be here but I think I would feel better just bringing it
back to the next meeting after Andrew has some time to just collect all that information so at the very least we should be 6 months before like like something like this if if we're even considering not
renewing that then that's someone's livelihood right yeah I I would say 6 months prior to anything going we should have a full determination of and might I add it consistently this has been late yeah
how did this even come up did they did they bring it up did we bring it no no I got a note saying hey Mike the the MMA is coming up and then we looked at the contract and so they didn't even bring it up they all missed it no they didn't so who was your note from Andrew no it
was from uh John was it from probably from John right and then I think you came in and told me about okay got yeah we kind of got working on so I don't know what it says in here but I know that um you know so the rate would just remain the same so it doesn't say anything that
I can find that because we missed the date that it's going to be continued no if we miss the date we actually own all his property that's what it says the surrender Clause so that's a little weird we should not miss this going
forward Andrew you have a calendar right he has a whiteboard in his room that I like poor Andrew I love the white board in his room this is a pretty solid surrender Clause that's in here that's crazy but um I don't
remember seing that before it's on page five but page five number 19 take the last half that paragraph So as go ahead I'll make you make a decision but my question is as far as going
forward are we sticking if you decide to wait another two weeks uh we have to collect rent for this month are we just going to collect you can only collect what was that's what I'm saying so we're we're going to continue to do that until
you come up with a solution well do you want more money now Brian or I mean would you ever say no to that I I just I know but what we base it on y I want to know you know exact
square footage that we're talking about um I think we need to you know have some rough idea of what that what the utilities cost because giving that away could be hundreds of dollars a month the other the other suggestion I would have to the board is we insert the um the background check Clause from the
loom Pon Lodge contract into here as well since it is a child establishment on to property Cory they've never done that and I've asked a Millions times back time can we clarify who because it's not
just John on he has he has people go in there that are adults for the for there and they help out and I think they do it for free I think it's like a you know yeah it's I'm not sure how to put that one on there um at least the manager but then if you have you know people coming
in to get certain classes I don't know where limited so all adults I think all adults over 18 what do we do for the B like all the leagues the leagues usually leagues take care of all that yeah but
any working people or people volunteering over 18 should be subject to the quaries for even if you're a volunteer but you're over the age of 18 yeah so they're basically supposed to every time they hire someone or every quarter they're supposed to pass in Cory
FS yeah but for the last three years according to the agreement we're supposed to send someone from accounting and audit their sales tax because well now we don't have to worry it because we're paying rent but in previous years we got a percentage of food and beverage
but nobody would Ed it oh sorry we got oh yeah I lost one I'm like I'm like what are you talking about they're serving beverages fastic um Andrew can we get Lacy to um reach out uh and and let them know that
our Corey policy is extended out to anyone that was my thought I but that's just that's just policy that we have yeah will we do it for the employees that work for us everywhere the lifeguards all of that they have to
pass a COR um but I'm sure whatever you do if it goes up 15 grand a month of course he deserves a a pretty good um notice yes cuz his business has been down here for 25 years and you know so
to be fair with him no I agree I agree so we're going to move this to the 14th and bring it back on the 14th square footage and comps utility costs but how are you going to do
utility costs I'm thinking the building is $1,400 a month for I was going to say depending on the square footage but they use use but what's the heated area is it just their side or is it the garage no no the garage side we have the fans the gares heated too the garage is heated
and that's actually used a lot and that goes with electric it's only used maybe there's some sort of formula we do a sub panel with a huh only two hours pretty Savvy accountant no no I'm
just you're saying like Okay well the garage for8 hours um thank you and I want to thank this whole board for their support for the three years have been especially arpa you guys just knocked it out of the park we finished all of our Opera
projects a park pun oh God okay that's great what was that he said he knocked it out the he said we knocked it out of the parine humor I have to comment see that uh but no I mean you've been behind all of that and I'm glad we got everything done and I know there's more
things to come they're going to be putting a parking lot there and hopefully uh I'm on the capital expenditures committee and we're going to see if we can put a fence around Clear Pond not this year but next or worker too you did a lot of work the
fence is down no I know but you have done a lot of work making these projects come no problem come come true so so I enjoyed the banter back and forth Brian I'll still vote for you okay cuz then I know when I
leave you just want to keep this pain on that's all you got that right well thanks guys I appreciate it thank you Mike for all you've done too thank you Andrew I'll see you tomorrow sounds good be around all right so let's go back to
10 F yeah we have back track in here did I do that I 15 I had them in a cheat sheet here I don't know if we got mixed up while we were sitting next to each other oh you had a paper to 14 uh no for
number 10 I had printed out and I put some notes on it but now it's disappeared so I either 15 it at home went up in Flames okay so agenda item number 10 did you flip your flippies over there no we're in 14 still
um so discuss AOSS vote to eliminate health insurance for elected officials and whether to submit an article for the annual town meeting um I know that this has come up in the past um it was just a single but years ago so Brian I know you
requested to put this on on the agenda um and through our presentation from Our Town Administrator uh this evening when we were at that page there was I think it was currently um it can be as low as what
27,500 and that's like a family plan right for for somebody taking the family plan an employee um and if all elected officials were to that currently
get um the health benefit it could be a liability of $265,000 roughly s great okay so right now um the for elected officials we have the select board we
have the board of assessors we have the board of health and we have our town clerk so those are our elected officials who are eligible for health insurance what about the school committee school they are not for whatever reason I've
never understood the explanation so yeah that's interesting because the the way originally we had talked about it is that anyone that received a stien was eligible for it they must have voted that they were not eligible for it but
they could change that vote at any time so like when we're talking about possible you you might want to extrapolate like in extra info on the Lakeville membership to say that three
members because uh we were offered it on the finance committee back the same time and the finance committee declined having a stipended um or so we were not eligible for any insurance but it was
the stien that created the eligibility another thing about the insurance we could not get a different Insurance than everyone else had um 2017 um it was brought up oh could they get a different plan you know and make it only you know
the high deductible plan for elected officials and they said no and if they're a Municipal Employee or a special Municipal Employee it has to be the same so throw that out for everybody my turn mm all right never
never um so thank you for putting this on the agenda honestly this all started as soon as I saw Andrew's early drafts on the budget presentation I saw that he was taken away as assistant so that's where this started so where I started digging um my thought
is this seems like an Antiquated benefit offered to only three boards at this time I don't know why we would still have assessors help health and select board getting this when we have plenty of other boards and commissions that do tons of work yet don't receive a stipend I can weigh some information in on that
um I know like Board of Health used to have employees but those have been transferred under the care and custody of inspectional services um but it still just seems very um strange in my mind and given the potential swing right now we're costing 104,000 it could be up to 260 something
Lord knows if we added another 60 grand for school committee if they were to suddenly get it that's a pretty big swing depending on who gets elected every year um so my thought was to eliminate it I mean these are not the kind of benefits people should be running for positions to get and with everybody else
making Cuts I feel like it's a cut we should consider as well because even if we don't take the insurance we still get an opt out payment right so the way that is calculated is if I did take the health insurance plan if I would take an
individual plan but I choose not to I would get 2500 a year if I was going to take an insurance plan and I was eligible for a family plan then I'm given $5,000 per year right so all of us well I shouldn't say all of but I know my select board pay du um as massive as
it is every payub is $414 I get for not taking Insurance because I have insurance through my employer and to me that's just ridiculous like why am I getting money for not taking something when all all these other cuts are happening
so there's 11 positions that still get it I think we really should consider getting rid of it and if we wanted to phase that in to say sorry Leah since you're running but like if we phas it in with the next election or whatever like if you're already taking the health insurance then
fine you can keep getting it for the rest of your current term but then if you run again and get reelected again it's gone and I don't like you know can we get rid of these opt out payments as well it's just it's a huge cost that I don't think the town should be
expending I have I have feelings on it I have feelings on it and I'll say that last time I spoke at town meeting I gave the reasons why I think it's always been here and the
reasons why the particular boards have it um and I will also say that I do understand the financial implication um you're right I'm up for reelection and I
don't I will say right now I don't take the insurance I do take the buyout the first thing I'll talk about is the buyout that buyout has actually swung a few people to take a job here because it's a lot more of a buyout than they
would get somewhere else so for them that was a nice little boost in their pay that but I'm just speaking about boards though not employees right but I'm talking about the buyout so you know you could say something like let's reduce the buyout well we can but then
some folks only come over because it's a $4,000 whatever it is per year um despite all the benefits we don't qualify for what do we do Oprah I think which is for non um retirement other
people post employment benefits I think yeah yeah uh not OP I think it's obra it's not opab right yeah it's if you don't qualify for anything they take that money out cuz they're still trying to force you to save some money if
someone gets that that would still happen anyways out of the stien um but I think it's all or nothing I will say this there's nothing easy about that certification exam to be an assessor I mean you have to stay
current um there's nothing easy about sitting here for 5 hours 10 hours a week we do 10 hours worth of work and that doesn't even include one phone call one email I know lots of folks who think it's you know worthwhile um I do know
that the board of assessors also manage their payroll their office um now Board of Health I know turned over a lot of their management responsibilities to um inspectional
services but they still have to maintain some sort of certification because in the absence of the health inspector they have the ability to go out and approve septic T during Co they were out approving septic tanks and so while I
know it costs money honestly Brian I've talked to people on both sides they're like I think if you have it who knows maybe the vibe has changed but last time it was brought forward by two pretty
influential people in town and it didn't pass it was right yeah yeah and doing away with it didn't pass I've always wanted to know the answer why the school committee gets a stien
but yet doesn't qualify for this because the check gets cut from the town because I believe they voted not to do it but I think that is again right but to vote we could vote if that's the case then we should be able to vote to do away with
health insurance but still keep the stien and the buyout so you know so I mean and then one of my other thoughts Brian is what you had said a couple of meeting I think the last meeting where
just because we don't like something doesn't mean we shouldn't give it to the voter to decide but but from what I understand and I'm not sure we've got a clear answer yet it sounds like this vote was a select board vote not a town meeting vote so I can't insurance I can only
tell you the history behind what I've been told for probably 20 years why the however many years the benefits have been around but um I know that it did go to town meeting to do away with the
benefits and it failed 1997 not 9 no 2017 it failed it failed 1997 I was still an assessor so so 93 last time it came into a vot vote was it was it 93 Tracy that Rita said like she
doesn't even remember at that when I spoke to r g a Town Administrator she said it was in effect when she started with the town in 1993 um I started going back to minutes I started in 1963
and um I've gotten I want to say 20 25 years done and I have not found any votes yet or any mention of this in the minutes I did not ask her to go through
30 30 years could you could be working on the uh she's Park plan um so 93 is when Rita Rita started in '93 and she said it was in effect when she started okay so I'm
wondering because I know that there was limited boards at one point in time where like the select board covered the assessing the welfare and um you know Board of Health and then you know became their own board so I'm wondering if they
received a sty back in the day and then just add parlayed yeah because each you know if you look at that all three of those so thank you for the fun fact because yeah that is a really good fun fact yeah um what do you see the next one oh
boy the doozy oh I'm sure this one was good though but you think about it it was all three offices were covered by one one three member board mhm and then they separated so maybe the benefit went with
them health insurance wasn't back in the day but and it didn't cost what it does now no it doesn't no exactly so I guess the question needs to be asked can the stiens still remain and do away with the health
insurance and if it's decided that it should go to the voter I think it should be grandfathered into whoever is already eligible I agree I I do not believe in taking people's Health
Care away I didn't suggest that I'm just throwing that out there clarification it was not said about taking it away but uh but I could see a pathway forward to say anyone elected newly elected after 2027
is no longer eligible because it's not something that's sustainable why that far out uh you can't do uh 2026 cuz we will be you talking FY or calendar sorry uh I'm talking FY okay yeah yeah yeah FY
because of the way we have town meeting versus election we would be back dating it I don't I yeah that that's just a it's a deeply personal thing and if someone is you know has that expectation
and taking away um I think that's a pretty difficult conversation to have but if someone doesn't have the expectation of it and they never have the expectation of it I didn't even know until it was elected the first time that it was a thing I didn't either I was I
was an assessor for how long and Rita's like you haven't done your paperwork I'm like what paperwork she's like you have to go upstairs to payroll I'm like for what yeah so yeah I I think in this day and age it's just for we're talking about 11 people like why doesn't
planning have it look at all the work that they do or zva even though they're appointed there's so many other boards that could make an argument to say whoa who who whoa absolutely and I think most of them voted that they didn't want it in in 1980 like recently no but I know if it
was offered to finance cuz that's the board that I was on at the time I don't know if it was offered to other boards as well there's got to be history of that somewhere then like a finance minutes or something it would have been
2017 2018 when uh when the school committee got it okay I mean personally I I stand by I think we should phase it out get rid of the fluctuation it's we're talking about 11 positions and I'm on board we're getting rid of all of our
stiens too everybody else is making sacrifices I want to make sure that the the exemption for the elected officials is the town clerk that has to be built into the language CU that is a full-time position yeah sorry will no no no trust
me that question was asked as soon as that agenda came out and they said oh no no no we're talking about the three boards but I want to make sure that we don't sometimes we go with tunnel vision and we don't spend enough time to think about you know the rickle effects so
just want to make sure that we have that on there so I'm hearing no interest but we don't know if it's oser town meeting say that again I said I'm hearing no interest in this room that changing this but we also don't know if it's town meeting or not it would have
to be toing well like the question was you know can you still get a stapen without the insurance right yeah can my my sense is if it was brought to town meeting in 2017 then
maybe legal council said they had to bring it to town meeting find those that warrant article now little yeah 2017 yeah that was it I was in a cessor 20 uh elected in 2015 through 2019 so it
was probably 17 yeah yeah so I'm not I'm not opposed to you know any newly elected officials after you know whatever whether it's you know should by elction by the election or when they get voted out you know what I mean like when
you Grandfather at the annual 2017 say I'm saying when when you grandfather people in I would probably say grandfather people in that already are getting it but that's me on softy when it comes to but is it is it by their election like the next election
they come up they lose or I don't know I'm just well that's something that needs to be discussed because are you B ask like if they win again do they keep their right but for example for example your grandfathered in to your health
insurance split from the time you're elected no matter how many times you're like an like any other employee so so whether it's 50/50 6 whatever technically also how can you
how can you stop somebody's Insurance health insurance on a hard date without having Cobra or you can't so because they would have to pick up Cobra which is outrageous if if I if I am suddenly
not elected though my my insurance is gone so maybe there's a cobra payment period but right right right but whoever that person is so if that had been me I would have been already investigating knowing my
insurance was you know depending on an election so you know I mean just to be clear at the moment as the presentation I think showed three out of 11 actually take it right now and I don't who they are I
don't know if they're one year away from election three years 5 years Well it can't be five that's I'm planning but like you know maybe next year it's eight we'll be sitting here going oh that cost a lot more money this year now so that's why I I would rather act sooner than
later but I don't know what the path is so maybe election 2027 um and date not to exceed like if someone gets elected in 2026 than there three
years so what I couldn't so if you get elected a fall town meeting you could have it there right yeah you still have to figure out the date to wait the date it have to be for the next year whatever the next ail yeah is yeah and then it
would start at that juncture a couple months in yeah save not add okay so but this number could change in the middle of aist here what do we have left on
this memorandum of understanding because some of the stuff we we can move but um I mean we we' still to have three members to to carry on I me I I'll try to stay for the next let's go yeah if we
can go in order um so there's a we going to there's a placeholder for this on the annual town meeting but this questions that Andrew
is going to have answered and I guess you'll bring it back on the 14th April 14th when the warrant closes but we are the select board we can extend the um the warrant article
closing date with we show so Cho so all right so we're good I just didn't want to SK and not make sure we circled on that okay um so number 13
please uh this is the memorandum of understanding with the Massachusetts Health offices Association Inc for the development and implementation of sustain sustain aable tobacco control program and vote to appoint as the
tobacco agent so there's a memorandum of understanding between the town of Lakeville and the Massachusetts Health Officers Association which for short is MOA um for the development and implementation of a sustainable tobacco
control program um it has been signed but Town Council um has asked that the select board would need to vote to approve the Moi mou um it's been wait can you explain
that it's been signed but um by signed by the health right no me so I I when this came in to my office I thought it was in my authority to sign it um we then kind of ran after the fact through the Town Council and they
said theou is fine but then you just have to like ratify it essentially by the select board Andrew wants to be the tobacco Zar yeah so it's I mean in the past I think they've used it out of their budget to to basically hire somebody this time they've gotten a grant to do
it and so this this group has kind of done it for a lot of different towns so any liability to the town anything fall back on the town um so we that was one of the that was like the one thing I Chris Chris so we got a uh additional
inare so okay so basically we just have to vote vot it yeah right officially all right is this new they've always done random checks but this is new through this
organization okay this is almost like a um like the assessors one like Kathy Castell it's like the health agents ah Association and they I never remember doing this before yeah so they yeah they've hired it in the past they got a
to do this for free um it used to be the police used to do it back in the day for the um I was the underage person that would go into businesses because I looked like a fetus when I was young um but yeah I remember it used to
be under the police um to do tobacco all right so I'll entertain a motion um to approve theou which is the memorandum of understanding between the town of Lakeville and the Massachusetts Health offices Association for the development
and implementation of a sustainable tobacco control program um the term of this would be April 1st 2025 through March 31st 2026 so moved second motion and the second any
discussion don't smoke kids y hearing none roll please fa and I carbon I Madam chair yes the board also has to appoint the MH OA as the tobacco agent for the town
of lakeo so yeah I think yeah I didn't put it on the cover sheet but um if you look at the Board of Health memo they're requesting that the board appoint them as the tobacco agent I make a motion to appoint the Massachusetts health Officers
Association as the tobacco agent for the town of Lakeville from the term of April 1st 2025 through March 31st 2026 second Motion in a second any discussion hearing none roll sorry um it just says just
discuss theou on the agenda item it says and vote to Appo and there it is I see it yep no discussion okay roll please baby and I Caron
i m can I ask who made the first motion and second I made the first thank you and Marin seconded Brian made the motion second second okay um we have a water connection for ten Harding Street agenda
item number 15 um okay so this is um um pable water for 6,000 um gallons uh maximum per day 10 Harding Street realy
trust okay this was a little weird cuz it like they don't know what's going there yet um I know we've kicked them back when we don't know what's going in there yep just it says commercial facility and fire suppression what kind
of Comm facility 6,000 gallons so the message from the planning board that you know um they didn't know um what the use isn't the building are so I mean we can certainly say is a SPEC Building no I'm
just yeah as far as I know I believe it's just a SPEC Building yeah it's not built yet obviously I don't think they can tell you when they haven't sold it to anyone and no one's rented it cuz whatever reason the the dot shows up up here at Millennium it's
down here all right do we have our to if if we voted this it brings our level down a little more yep yep I think right now we have two I mean I think it's
215,000 allocated out of the 300 okay we have to come back and do that IMA anyways right yeah all right well I'll entertain a motion um to approve the Totton water connection application
for 10 Harding Street for 6 6,000 um gallons per day motion who who so moved it Oh I thought you said I said oh she said she'll entertain the motion I still really would like I know what's going there oh
sorry we don't have a second do we have a second um we don't have a mo we have a second have a motion so moved okay there you go there you go Brian seconded huh I did I mean I'm kind of with you like six thousands not the
smallest number but still a you know what is it for so how do we ask people what's it for when it's a spect I don't know cuz like houses are easy how many bathrooms and whatnot right per person whatever and be like what are you what are you planning to do there I'm
planning to sell it to someone that's going to use it and and then of course let's say they really need 20,000 right then they'll have to come back and then they have to come back but then yeah they only use 2,000 they won't come back
right they should but we don't have a water police yeah we don't water boy it's not in my purview yet might be in five minutes yeah but I I have no
guidance on that for like you know if we don't know what it is we don't I know and it really does seem like you know the response that Tracy got was that it was just a guesstimate right and and the
thing is sometimes you can't have move forward with a project and you can't get funding for a project unless you have infrastructure so if they know that the water's coming um then it makes it comes up there you know more a more viable
option so it's still going through the planing board process too obviously and okay I think we people on people from the town of asked like the fire chief's asked and no answer all right so um we can vote not to accept or
someone could withdraw their motion I could but is there a second do we do that was you I guess I guess the question I I'd like to answer before I withdraw it
is do we need to know what the building is to approve it and if it is a SPEC Building then we must have had spec buildings before like do we not approve spec buildings for water and
lale so my my concern is they need 50,000 gallons cuz it's don't know yeah I mean I don't know I don't I mean I would be content right now with the Building Commissioner telling us what the average for an
industrial building per person would be phal Buzz I are you check your uh message it's getting late I mean doesn't it seem like they should be a little further along with planning that come say like here's what
we need this is what we're doing I don't know I mean you know you do have to start somewhere like lorine said but I feel like this one just a little too vague for me yeah if you withdrew your your motion that can always come back and refile I
will withdraw my motion under the rest you can't say that no I'll withdraw my motion but I I do have to say that if we are going to deny water permits based on the fact that it's a
SPEC Building I don't know that that's a good policy I think um I agree I mean this this is an area where like we need to come back every year or whatever and be like would they actually use it these places well right well don't forget we just did the hospital and how much water
did we um allocate charge should be 70 I think 70,000 yeah yeah that but that was for way back when and then now that the use had changed and more and more we know that these people are going to want water
they know they're going to want water so I I wouldn't withdraw I would just I'll be happy to have take back my motion but at the same time email we should probably okay make it make make the call are you
withdrawing your Mone I'm withdrawing it we can wait until we can find more information but if we don't find more information I really don't and Kathy's note was from like two weeks ago maybe they'll have some more information sure so can we put this back on the can we
put this on the 14th everyone's sleeping no one not one of us got including Andrew nothing nothing nothing all right so the 16 um agenda item 16 um this is for a request from Jamie
Binet to connect to to Middleboro water for two main street now this is a little different um if the select board in Lakeville approves this then it goes to middleb town meeting boat um for the connections so um and it they hoping
that it gets on the April 28th middleb town meeting warrant so um I'll entertain a motion to approve the request from Jamie Binet to connect to middleb water for two Main Street so
moved second motion is second any discussion hearing non roll Fabian I carbon Iain St I okay all right is
there what else do we got we got updates and that's it can we get through it sub commmittee updates yes nothing significant no so there's two um under the select board
policy subcommittee there were two policies that we had a first read second digest and now it's back in front of us for a boat much easier to read for everybody which I found that and you know
sometimes you know when you when you move something from like one platform to the next and it gets distorted and the fonts go you know bazon or if you cheap and don't have word on your own computer I thought maybe it it went wonky what
what does it say when you had word on your own computer for a year and didn't know it because you paid the membership I was like oh it's to expensive it's called four three and a half 4 and 1/2 hours into a meeting is what that's called okay so the first one
is Select board policy on utilization of Town Council um so we did have some significant um discussion It's seems like you um had a chance to whittle this down some so I did so just um again most
of um what I did I I paired it down significantly based on conversations with both Leah and Brian to uh some of their concerns about the language and some of the issues that it brought up uh
did anyone have a chance to read it give me 30 more seconds okay um so I did read it and um I know you want to call it a policy but and I'm I promise it's two lines three lines right in the first
sentence you write this policy establishes guidelines that's why I keep saying this should be guidelines for select board but now what are guidelines like compared to a policy the difference right the difference is punishment and
then I still think and maren you and I have talked about your recordkeeping idea we talked about that five years ago six years ago however if it's part of a policy if for some reason the Town Administrator has an inaccurate log book
I wouldn't want any future select board to say you're not keeping that very well cuz things change quickly so that's like my biggest and you know what again a lot of these things confidentiality cost management all this other stuff Falls
for me under um ethics um and the um uh conflict of interest that we that we do but the recordkeeping while I do understand and I
think it's a great idea it was a great idea 6 years ago it never stopped being a great idea I just don't that should be like a suggested practice maybe for the Town Administrator versus a policy well I
appreciate your opinions and I try to incorporate what you had said in the last meeting and I paired it down to make it less cumbersome yep um just based on you know the critique y so I'd love to put it to a
vote okay put to a vote with a full compliment yeah do you want to wait for the new board is what you're saying I have no objections if if that's what we want to do but if it's a policy for us be nice to
have the whole is is there anything else while we're sitting here that is a a for me it really is like the record keeping thing cuz I know what you want to see there we've talked about it so many times the best way back when years and
years and years ago but I just I I mean it would almost require every single opinion the Town Administrator gets goes into a book but then it has to be I I just find it cumbersome that to me you know
but I feel like too there's not just us there many other people things boards committees and towns that utilize Council like how we make sure they all FN through the one place I think they should do the same well that's all that's all well
said like how do we make sure they go through Andrew since he's sitting here right now to say like hey do we have an opinion on this already and how old is it like do we need to refresh it or not instead of just you know we get a bill and it's I'm not going to pick on any board right it's the circus Council oh
we got a big bill for them but to to that point had we had record of what they had asked we know the opinion there's existing you know we don't have to reinvent the wheel as it is we can even see even an opinion
that's crazy and oh that looks really out to date you actually narrow down what you're going to ask the next time to counsel um Andrew I hate to put you on the spot but do you have do do you have the book the old book in your
office of all the opinions did it survive the I'm sure I do I just don't know where exactly the upturn but as a Town Administrator would you find that of value sorry Andrew yeah yeah yeah cuz there's like
issues that come up and I'm like but it would only be of value if it's updated properly yeah well I mean our policy book probably shimming a des in your office it's probably somewhere that makes me sad this just a like so I'm
going to move these two things um to the 14th now I know that this is I think this is my last meeting chairing the this five fantastic member board um but I will open the meeting on the 9th and
then we'll do the reorganization at that point so um loading up cuz the next person the election is Monday 7 holy moly it just seems like flying now but there is a couple of budget meetings that you could potentially
someone because oh that's kind of a problem because there's you're still acting chair until we reorganized so you'll have to do the agendas for the budget meetings right enjoy so yeah and Andrew so you can put some of that stuff I can slide it in
there we can start a little earlier you know or something but the reor I think I do we have to buy our bylaw to first meeting after the the election so we'll be doing that be the nth yep is the do we know if the 14th is looking like
another Mega meeting like can we slide a couple things on the 9th and 10th or whatever they are there might be opportuni so I'm not going to because when I set the agendas for those um with Andrew and Tracy there might be a couple of things we can put at the beginning
before we convene with everybody so okay but you're right cuz so I think the first meeting I ever had was 4 hours and 5 minutes and then the last meeting is five 4 hours 4 and a half hours so what what are you known
for L Marathon meeting Lorraine Carboni but why not my fault because you're too generous as a chair well I was called RW tonight which is fine cuz when I said to yeah when I said
it was more of a a comical wow that was rude because I said we're still in session Tracy heard it um that's why I right yeah all right so anyways um new
business old business fire station in Old Colony and all that stuff well Old Colony I don't have anything new Andrew already p on most of it from earlier their next meeting is also the 14th so like you miss that too is also meeting April 15th uh is that one of the work gr meetings yeah they want to go over how
the election is going to be kind of structured oh right right yep I so Brian did you say you're missing Old Colony or this um I'm probably going to have to miss Old Colony again so there'll be like two or three meetings in a row um I don't have much to report on the fire station building other than the
really in-depth um going through there uh pre-qual um I have a question as long as I'm still sitting here yeah so who is involved now in all these
stages so are there independent Bill bidding I mean um business meetings all different groups does that subcommittee work so we as a fire station building committee
um we have from there like working groups they're not like designated subcommittees but they're like working groups where um Pomroy um and hosio will work with the fire chief on like right like for one example was
design like they met with a designer from the team to talk about colors and you know space and you know so that was like one little thing um there was a another group that met for mechan it and
they met with mechanical go Plumbing I mean yeah can you like pick and choose what meeting you want to go to do you have to go to all of them as the Town Administrator I haven't gone to those um it's really like technical stuff like it's really up to the chief to decide
what he wants to put right but it all comes back to the board you know to the main body um and then we we review it and then you know but we really haven't had much other than like some design stuff that we kind of talked about but
of stuff way over my head I attended some of those in Taunton and I was like window dress like I was just like you don't need to know every do the smaller you know groups it's just curious yeah it's pretty interesting they um but the prequal right
now uh it's Pomroy it's some members of our board um to kind of go through a checkl yeah and the pre-qualification date was on the um schedule y so they're going to
be um you know kind of breaking that down CU it's a little bit more in tune because of the project cost um so I should have something you know more for the maybe the 14th
so um it uh next meeting would be the second Tuesday in April so that's the 8th um I think we're going to potentially ask GRE erous to give us an update on your progress on the cyber security task list see how that's going
along um if there's anything you'd like me to bring to them to ask questions on let me guess let me guess AI minutes um Civic minutes is a specific one um um I think that could save us some significant dollars um over the course
of um recording all the meetings uh but more important than that um I I still fail to find planning board zba meetings for like 6 months at a time there are still minutes
yeah 6 months a year like that's crazy to me that that's still an issue with with this it's instant and you know the person only has to have someone just skim it make sure there's not some weirdness that happens but Civic minutes
um I I tested it out on some of my work um for their summaries and topics and they put it in the agenda form they put everything it's off Civic plus um I don't know if they're related but it's called Civic minutes I think that's a widget offered by the
website and that whole proposal they kind of be in there yeah um I'm not to put anybody in the spot but does does Kathy do planning's minutes typically or somebody else yes yes Kath she does planning board and zba she said like every meeting are they just not approve them uh they're approving them they're
just not getting up on the website I can I see they're they're going over the the minutes in the meetings that's weird yeah so and but more important it's those small boards that that the individual board members are covering right now that we could really get
coverage on and it would be really exciting to to have that as look at me I'm such a dork that' be exciting but yes that would be really exciting and the the price compared to having a person do it is a significant
savings the other thing I would love um your board to look at is going through um I I see a significant a constant and significant amounts on the software we're using for assessing um I've looked at it in other
towns and we see much higher than other towns our same size on the assing software on the assessing software but I don't know if it's because they have it under under a tech budget or or they haven't broken it out but I'm talking
like double I think the new assessor guy will probably have something to say about that on it like currently the gis contract is under assessing yeah so like you know maybe that's one part of what it looks like yeah so I don't know if it's like they have other towns have it
under it years ago I'm just not seeing it yeah many years ago there wasn't a whole lot of shopping around for y nope it wasn't an area where there's like one or two options yeah yeah yeah but I I figure it might be a really good place
cuz we're talking $30,000 a year like so um that would be real savings if we could get software that was not crazy town expensive because I know the the package Andrew was looking at for the website comes with like 12 15 different
modules or what not so take a look it might already be in there take a look good times yeah but those two that would be great all right so nothing on the communications um Citizens Academy we that um meeting has been rescheduled
that we were um looking to um attend with the MMA and um so Tracy sent us the reminder I forgot when it's scheduled but it's April so we'll have something to bring back for that any new
business old business okay so I'm just going to announce select board meetings so our next regular meetings are April 14th and the 28th at 5:45 here in the police station the budget meetings are as follows um April 9th April 10th April
15th um and they'll begin at 5:45 p.m. and those will also be held here so no correspondence and I will entertain a motion to adjourn at 10:05 so move roll baby and I thank you very much