Cleveland uh good evening everyone welcome to the select board meeting for Monday March 10th uh we'll start with the pledge pledge Alle to the flag of the United States America and the for stands one nation under God
indivisible and justice for all uh so um we have reading in the mail um um so the one I have online is different than this which is it was two two versions online one
I'm in the right spot sorry give me one second you're at the end it makes a big difference um we're going to hear from our legislative delegation we have a 7:00 public hearing um on a liquor
license for Energy North uh and we'll have public input select board discussions about uh three articles for the disability commission discussing Orchard leas and IMA with Acton for public health nurse and talk
about mapc and the magic organizations uh we'll talk then we'll go into 8:15 we'll do town meeting update uh Human Resources bylaw uh a discussion on 37 shadik Street and the general town meeting 8:30 we'll do
minutes and we'll journ promptly at 8:35 so you want to start with a mail uh please hold for this this hour losing sleep it's really getting everybody so sorry want going to jump in speakes on Town
boards what's up vacancies on Town boards it's usual um was it oh sorry okay current vacancies for uh for the for the for the board agricultural commission conservation cultural Council Economic Development Committee historical
commission master plan implementation committee permanent Municipal Building committee zoning board of appeals and one appointment by the school committee on for their finance committee for the finance committee rather sign up to receive public notifications for the town of
Littleton um www . Littleton ma.org slss subscribe Community impacts Public Safety activity town meeting changes Transportation issues public health concerns town events stay informed uh we have a gift acceptance
form um off the gift offering from low5 for $1,500 to EHS COA for the tread fund tax relief for the elderly and disabled fund thank you low five and another one from
L five uh to pox and wreck uh pox and wreck uh Community Education uh the same amount of $1,500 uh as a donation to the youth scholarship fund um here we have a uh a thank you
note uh email from the very first recipient of the grant for the uh the the the small the small grant that will help that helps people up to $7,500 uh to help uh on some emergency
things and here as you can see this one was a result of a um deteriorating furnace and AC after performing manual R Maintenance so it was fantastic they were able to help help out and and the woman just wanted to express her sincere
appreciation and recognizing the Fantastic Team we have at EHS um Littleton robotics they had a heck of a weekend they were able to bring another Banner home uh and uh they and with uh with that more importantly
the students and the coaches were in a great headp space and teamwork camaraderie smiles and positive energy uh seem to be working right that night which is absolutely fantastic so much appreciated and they've got uh a few very impressive some very look at the
crowd I mean the crowd is enormous and uh very impressive uh things that occurred and there is the uh the winning machine I think they're running out of wall space for the banners not by now aren't they yeah yeah no kidding huh that's
right and uh that's okay uh it's a good that's a good problem to have here is a not here is a notice uh for a public hearing for the uh for the Middle School uh tennis courts and the Wickam baseball field and this is up for the planning
board uh for a public hearing on Thursday March 13th at 7:00 p.m. room 103 on shadik Street town offices and we have another gift acceptance to EHS Council and aging uh very another very generous offer by the
Rotary Club of Littleton in the amount of $110,000 uh naming of a conference room in the new building to go to the new building gift fund room naming outstanding very appreciative and there we are Mr chairman thank you thank
you uh so I'd like to turn it over to our uh Senator and representative to give a legislative update and thank you for coming great thank you sure yeah so thank you so much to
the chair to the select board to the Town Administrator and assistant Town Administrator for having us uh great to see s great to see you all nice annual tradition and um I was just saying to parero that uh Saturday morning I had my
green advisory council meeting at the uh in the conference room just down the hall so it's just such such a beautiful library and and uh people really love this space Not only in Littleton but people come from from all over um often with you know remote work and things so great to be here and um it was great to
see the senior center making a lot of progress and um thanks to uh Ryan ferero updating me about the um progress on the solar panels um which uh reper had secured that earmark last year so that's really encouraging um and um I know uh
Town Mr Jim dougen is also uh given us the timeline around the groundbreaking uh for 550 King Street and really great to see the progress uh made on that um and just wanted to give a a few
snapshots on the budget front is um uh the governor of course has has proposed her budget and so just so you have a sense of of the in the proposed increases though I I usually the legislature does better than the governor's numbers but um for FY 25 so
last year what Littleton got for Chapter 70 was 5,960 um and the governor's proposal is $ 5,139 175 so fairly modest increase I would say probably for communities like
Littleton really the the biggest difference that can be made around the schools is uh minimum Aid per pupil so uh her budget uh that part of reason there's that increase is $75 per pupil so that's you know across the board for
any school district so U my understanding is the MMA um and many obviously Municipal officials are pushing for $150 per pupil revenues are generally uh good but not great so I hope we can get get to that
and then on the unrestricted General government Aid AO uh last year the town received $875,000 and the governor's proposal is $894,000 respect to the budget and I think that's about all I have I think there was a question that we both got about uh
remote meetings which which that law does expire later this month so I I do feel confident we will extend it my guess is that we will um continue um to allow for the hybrid
option so so it could be iners and remote but we won't make it man atory because some of the smaller communities or communities have just said look we've got you know and Littleton is is one of them we've got 50 committees you know we
can't guarantee that each one would be would have the technology to be both remote and in person so my guess is we'll continue the current law which allows it to be an option of hybrid and in person but not to make it mandatory but the bottom line is we need to
continue it and I know with the scheduling the towns have you know we really need to do it soon so thanks for the question on that and looking forward to other questions after my friend and colleague's presentation thank you Senator and to sort of jump off on what the senator was talking about as well so in January the
governor uh filed her 56 billion budget um now we are anticipating um April 16th for our budget to be released in the house which I always say you know at the beginning of the process um very often the executive is going to put sort of
more of a I'm not going to say a political spin but it's usually a direction of where the executive branch is looking to do and how they're going to fund that but the house and the Senate certainly will be you know the the kind of final say on things moving forward couple of very um important pieces to talk about when it comes to
the economy because I understand certainly Municipal budgets it's it's been difficult inflation has been something that everybody's dealing with with goods and services but certainly we've I I know there was failed overrides in a lot of the regions I know towns that I represent um try to have that but our revenues are looking
stronger this last two months the senator touched on that um and we're about 6% better than we were on a benchmark in February than than last fiscal year so things are moving in the right direction um certainly when it gets a little bit closer I always ask
the the select board before the house um budget does come out additional priorities on the smaller end ear marks that we've been successful with over the last uh well over the last decade that we've been working together uh and a few i' like to to bring uh your attention to Once is congratulations uh uh to
Littleton um for the the million dooll Housing Works grant that you are able to get uh for King Street um that's going to go very far um as we've seen um a lot of Investments of the town uh as well as the state into that project moving
forward um so we're very happy with that and the senator and I um were very uh intimately involved in that uh through that process is as well uh to to make sure it was came into fruition secondly um Shaker Lane Elementary School um the
senator and I uh lended our support um to that to the the the the school building authority um and as you've kind of been um uh informed as well uh it was proved by the the the preferred School design so we're moving forward in the right direction um another few things is
I think some things to announce to the town of Littleton is the senator and I have changed committees um um uh I'm now going to be chairing the transportation committee on the house which um is very intimidating I I will say U four years
ago 119 need your help that's over yeah thank you uh and uh and so four years ago during the the pandemic I I became the housing chair and that was um I I I feel is going to be similar to transportation and drinking from a fire hose with information but we do
anticipate um an 8.2 billion Transportation bond this session um and that's going to make uh huge Investments over 10 years um with obviously the commuter rail mea but regional transit
authorities um as well as roads and Bridge repair across the state um on top of that the chapter 90 Bond Bill we we're most likely going to be um voting on uh usually in the beginning of April um that's about I think that's 1.8
billion I think I put that down and that will change too but the initial um the initial investment is about 1 Point um 1.5 billion and um in that will be um obviously um local ways roads and Bridge
repair locally uh for the cities and towns uh across the state as well as sidewalks and and other uh Municipal improvements and um you know enhancements that we we have looking forward so the municipal empowerment act I think is something the senator touched
on a little bit um that is something that uh the Governor had filed uh to allow cities and towns to find ways to make ends meet um I know there'll be a debate on hotels and meals tax to be able to have um you know Town meetings and Municipal boards weigh in and change
that for whatever Investments or um you know investments in the community you're looking to do um but we're we feel as though that's that's really going to take shape as we move forward in this legislative session um the MMA has supported been very supportive of it and has a number of briefings on it but um
we anticipate I believe would be Municipal Affairs or local local Affairs that would be um hearing that bill and I I I'm sure that the the emails and MMA and and municipal government folks and leaders are going to be weighing in on that as it gets
closer and I was going to add the revenue committee might hear some of that too that's now I'm serving as that was my segue there you go Senator didn't take it but uh here he is and the senator is going to be dealing on Revenue issues so y they're all making a stop at the Senator's committee at some
point congratulations so much yeah congratulations thank you good what is the deal with the legislative audit like what is going on uh well so there's a ballot initiative 72% of the
people voted for it um and what we had before us and I know the house and the senate had a a couple of serious questions one is um legally right constitutionally the separation of powers issue so what the house did and the senate had a different approach but
I think it's kind of getting at the same thing is we said 72% of the the people in Massachusetts voted for this we support the audit however what we felt because of some of the politics that's played out in the newspapers and uh and
you know blogs Etc social media platforms as the speaker and a unanimous vote by legislators um was to allow the auditor to pick an independent audit to audit the legislature so as of
right now it doesn't play well politically but we're audited every year by an independent auditor the legislature is um so we said okay we understand this is getting somewhat political and we want to respect the voters so we will allow that's the order
that was passed as part of our rules package in the house was to allow the auditor to audit the legislature to pick an independent auditor to perform that task that's where we're at and the senate had a little bit of a different approach but but the Constitutional
issues I think were are very ever present as well right I think that I think the the thing matter is that you know I think most people when they think of an audit you know think of a financial audit which I do think the legislature is comfortable with the question is to to what representative
arer said is that um the con the Constitution con issues not only a separation of powers but what actually you know how would you audit the legislative decisions to you know will put out a certain bill or why someone gets a certain committee it's really
kind of impossible um the auditor while I do support her effort to do a financial audit I she has said at different times that she wanted to go further than that and audit other aspects of the legislature that really get into legislative you know decision
making so I think that is the concern from a constitutional separation of powers point of view and I think our Point has always been that you know since we've been members of the legislature I've been a member of the legislature for 17 years we're a you know we're audited independently every
year all of our numbers um are on the website um and there are ways to do that if it is truly you know and we understand that and things can change in morph as they move forward but um I think we we've both been supportive of the financial audit and have questions
about uh the constitutionality of them as well as the separation of powers as our attorney general has had the same questions and and and um you know concerns so there was no information anywhere that I that I recall seeing even in the ballot question that it was not anything but a financial audit this
is the first time hearing about that uh yeah it's so that that's that was like not clear I think to the voters that it was I just assumed it was a financial audit right yeah I think it was part of it I think that I think the issue is it was part of it and I think to the
Senator's Point um I think the speaker and the Senate President have both said how can you audit my decision making on what I'm thinking and why people have committees they're going to have to audit why we have the chairmanships we do and and uh could be in trouble uh but
uh no but ultimately we we um we both agree on the financial piece but as legislators you know we do have an obligation to uphold the Constitution so we certainly can't move forward on things like that with without getting some clear and concise understanding of
what we're doing y so I I think you said something Saturday about some changes in the transparency rules that might go oh yeah do you want to yeah please yeah that's really where it appears the you know that the House and Senate uh largely agree on things um the house uh
as is the case for you know really any sort of Bill passing you know the house passes a version the Senate passes now it's in conference committee but uh where we are in agreement is that all uh committee votes by by committees by legislative committees would would be
public um and I think also that um the house or senate members could report out bills to the house or Senate of house or Senate bills so I I think the House and Senate are both in agreement on that right um there there's I think there's
some difference of opinion about like um attendant taking attendance on committees and when when there would be a deadline for report out bills but I do I I will say I think there is a sense from the legislature that we do need to take action on more bills uh every
session and and have them during the the formal session and not you know past the typical end of the July 31st deadline and that was one of the sort of criticisms of legislature over the years were not transparent because you couldn't see the bills online um and you know obviously we do the best we can but
we can always be better right um and so these were huge strides that that the that the rules um that the rules packages we we passed in both branches um also to report out bills within 60 days that is something that very often as chairs um when you're sort of triaging so many bills and you're not
able to debate and and bring up every one of them at once um they're they're parked in committees for a period of time until you move them out that's not going to happen we're going to have more of a a sort of a free flowing if you will of legislation moving that forward into committees to do a better assessment of their lifespan um and
secondly I think we we we had the other question about rules was attendance too and I think um to ensure that that you know we preserve the Integrity of the institution but also return uh you know have the respect to our constituents to understand that we will be attending the
hearings you can find out we're there and you can find out the bills we vote on because that's just Basics um any updates on the shova valley and um the request for additional funding from the governor or do you have a sense of how much longer we'll be waiting
on that yeah we had uh the the legislative delegation including the two of us had a meeting with the governor's Senior Team because I think if there was to be any money uh just first the operating money that would be in the FY 26 budget so um so we're you know we're
wait still waiting to see the governor's response you know obviously the the House and Senate could take action in our upcoming budgets so that's something I know we've been advocating for um no just speaking on the Senate side no commitments yet but we we did have a good uh I had a good meeting with
Sherman Rodricks to discuss it um and then there's really I mean I I think it's I really do think it's pretty close but I I do really think that UMass Memorial is interested to bring back a hospital to to to buy the building in the shova Valley Medical Center and not
just the the r ER facility that they proposed uh the the question is the the cost and and will the he jisco administration work with um Memorial to make that financially possible and the the challenge has been is that as as bad
as uh steart Healthcare was you know the owner now of that property and a is the Apollo medical properties and they're apparently you know just as bad as far as what they're asking for for the money for it so I think the question is and and we are working on a letter asking
the governor to take more aggressive action is you know can the state just as they did quite honestly with other hospitals you know provide some some Capital funding to make this deal work so that's where we're at right now and uh I think I don't know about I can't speak obviously for this select Bo but I
think other Town select boards are now sending letters in to that effect uh to the governor and shout out to Steele mcer too fire chief who has kind of led the charge in this region um we had uh that recent meeting and and of course I think for the edification of people I
think we're talking about the $9 million that we were talking about 9.6 so um and that money would go to sort of helping the uh Staffing and and uh you know the sort of all the repercussions of having to to to bring people for healthcare a little bit farther and longer and more
work and um the pieces that go to that um yeah thank you and congratulations on your appointments I think think right we think too the just back to the uh the longterm PL is there a long-term plan for the the hybrid
option I I know we keep doing the extensions it makes sense but I'm assuming it's a somewhere in here there'll have to be a budget to help a lot of the communities don't have the the bandwidth no intended or uh to help and other communities like us to want to
get want to do more but we we're limited as well by a lot of the uh right I mean my my my prediction is that what will become permanent is that it's it's it's permanent that a city or town can offer
you know uh hybrid you know that a meeting can be in person and remote um or just in person because there are especially as you go further west communities are saying we can't realistically provide hybrid I'd like to
say you know there'd be money for technology for all the towns but even if there was some of these Western M towns don't even have internet yet right well I you know and to that point um I think everybody here knows like especially if
you were you know elected or you worked in the public space during the pandemic there are best practices that you guys have seen that work better certainly in in the other towns I represent and you feel the same way um there's probably been the most support and the most
momentum to do something in this in this space in a long time well I'm going to say a long time the last couple of years we've kind of kicked it down the road and we've extended it a little bit but I I think this time more than ever um the municipal empowerment act that the governor supports um it might even be
beneficial to members of this board to testify on that on that bill and things that you've seen that work and I think it's all very important and we can you know share with you those dates when they come closer the the bill is um house stock at 4360 in case you want to know what that bill and take a look at
it um and be happy to send the MMA has a really good analysis of it as well um that's on their website talks a lot about stuff and that stuff's going to change you know that um but it's it's all part of that conversation so to your point Gary and and uh I I I agree with
the senator I think there there going to be some sort of a version of that the only other thing I have was on your committee did complete streets come out of your committee you and now where did that originate well the grant program I I think the administration administered
it um but it was a it was a program it was in a budget it wasn't it wasn't um like a bill okay per se it could have been in the past um but that would be administered through the administration through a grant program and I will pass to you
on one last uh well if there's one last thing I wanted to to touch base on it was something the senator and I were talking about before we came in here and on the economic development Bill we got a couple of earmarks in there that um might get a
little you know it gets a little you know certainly when you have a 5year econom ecomic development Bond bill um the money has to be released by the administration in order for that to happen um my staff recently met with the economic development team um in the
governor's office and we're kind of directed to a diff a couple of different options so just so we know here we have the the senator and I secured the pest mitigation and Remediation in Littleton for $2 million um that's an earmark in the economic development bill that we that
we received and also $60,000 for the Littleton Commonwealth revitalization road map update and um so those two pieces were were things that we got in the economic development bill but we're actively trying to find other avenues to
release that money because sometimes a lot of this stuff bottlenecks when you have 160 reps and 40 Senators that all want their ear marks out so we we're going to currently look to figure out different Avenues to get some of these in as possible through
grants thank you um everybody's pretty much touched on everything again congratulations but um something I was going to bring up during our Open session was um relative to Veterans and gym because you're just
coming out of that I you still going to be have any responsibility or any any input with the veterans I am actually it's funny you say that because because uh this year Scott heider um um who has done a lot of
work as a nonprofit dealing with disabled veterans um he came to me about the high rate of Veteran suicide um and one of these sort of small things it does it seems kind of small but it's actually large is um having call numbers
and hotlines on Bridges it's worked in other states to try to you know to to to try to obviously um prevent deaths and suicides um I'm going to be working with him on on roads and bridges on especially
bridges on that space this particular legislative session but every year Chuck we're going to have um a veterans Omnibus Bill that usually looks to you know number one we have the the most um generous services for for
veterans three times more than any other state um so sometimes it's never enough to do that work but sometimes we have to look back back and see how things have worked best practices uh what needs to be invested in and enhanced and uh the second part of this legislative session
will have another bill but in terms of Transportation that's what I'm looking at and it just sort of worked that way because I filed the bill with Scott heider so all right that's great I appreciate that I mean there's a whole lot of War memorials and you know those
kinds of things but this grants the state the historical side the historical commission I guess has been uh generous in the past and might be tapping you guys just for a little little help that yeah update that and if I could add appreciate your question around the
support for veterans and and Jim really has been one of the leaders in the house on on supporting veterans is um something we both worked on together from a regional uh uh perspective is uh in devans and uh probably already
familiar with it but there's the new nonprofit or relatively new nonprofit clear path for veterans New England um a lot of towns a lot of uh volunteers have supported it uh they're probably within a matter of weeks of finally completing uh housing uh basically some of the old
uh Bungalows for for officers or for soldiers uh to to rehabilitate the Bungalows uh for uh housing for homeless veterans so that should be done very soon and a really impressive effort that had you know some funding including from Mass development and then we've provided
some State Support over the years too so that should be done very soon that's great good organization thank you thank you so uh what's killing the budgets this year is the increase in health care costs
so I think our number was in the 19.9 huh 19.9 so almost 20% increase in healthcare so I know you filed a bill to uh do state funded or state provid Universal healthare Universal so yeah
yeah anything we can do to help um move that along or like I said the the healthc care costs are going up astronomically um for everyone not just Littleton it's Universal well can I add one thing to that is that our budget
which is 56 billion so 2third of this budget is obligatory spending it's either by MBTA court case uh bonding and 42% is Healthcare yeah so just puts that in perspective half which is from the Fed so yeah and that's another thing to
add is that you know with uncertain times regardless of what side of the aisle you're on uncertain times we have in the federal government um some of the budget cuts that have been proposed would end up being about 16 I have 16 billion of the state budget if we're to move forward with every cut they want to
do in the federal government so our just to put in perspective our rainy day fund is 8.8 billion so sometimes in the last you know four or five years regardless uh if a federal program was successful or not or the state was interested in
carrying forward that program um there's tremendous costs tremendous costs that we don't even think about that have really trickled down to our budget and again it goes back to the 40% and Medicaid and so and the other comment I I mean uh the governor and uh the legislator keeps
pushing more and more housing project and housing bills through which I think is a great thing I fully support that we need more housing but a community like Littleton we don't have the infrastructure to support all of this I mean we're building a new sewer system but it's basically going to be at
capacity as soon as we build it and we yeah so and it's I mean I'm read in the paper L's getting ready to put 300 million into a sewer system right communities aren't going to be able to build the housing without help on the
infrastructure I totally agree um so when I chaired this committee it's $5.2 billion that that we ended up voting for on the final uh um housing bill it was a production bill it was to it was to build 200 units by 2030 um how are we going to build 230
units and successfully put more than 125 of the 177 mbda communities in if you don't have proper infrastructure um there was a criticism of that about proper infrastructure before MBT communities passed now that passed okay so did so it did a bond bill that is
going to invest you know with the housing authorities and and I understand that that could be a question too they're getting $2 billion to deal with all of um things that we've seen during the pandemic um in terms of modernization New Heating pumps 50 years
of of of lack of investment in construction so we're going to see that in that space But ultimately I couldn't agree more I I say it to anybody who who will hear me talk about housing and I always say how are we going to do all this in the next uh in the next five or six years without the proper
infrastructure but that's that's part of where the Housing Works which you know obviously great that Littleton got the $1 million that is specifically designed to help support infrastructure but we've both talked about the need for a large infrastructure bill because that's what's going to have to happen yeah yeah
so anyone that's great thank you do you have any questions for us we don't just keep in touch you know um I would say just before we leave um additional priorities uh Mr chairman uh if you know through conversation with
with the membership if you you know additional things that Senator and I can fight for in the budget that comes up quicker than you think and um you know obviously grant opportunities and we want to work with you on some of the economic development ear marks we talked about um so a lot of exciting things going in Littleton and it's been you
know it's been a lot of change in the last couple years but you look at Littleton in particular Acton and Westford and we become model towns for the state when it comes to moving forward with smart growth and planning and having uh you know uh uh really
zoning that people can can look as a blueprint for their Community as well so we're we're a great model for the state well thank you thank you very much thank you very much thank you so much good see you uh our public hearing to read anything does
do we have to read something open no public hearing it's a brand new public hearing so we should we um basically I I don't have anything basically we have the notice we could read the public hearing for what was in the uh um that's all we over
read okay I have that here from adverti notice should we open it now yeah the Littleton select board will conduct a public hearing on Monday March 10th 2025 at 7:00 p.m. in the starts room Ruben wh Library 35 shat Street little Mass to act on the request for
approval of a wine and malt off premises license under Mass General Law chapter 138 section 15 submitted by charbel D did I get it right okay manager Energy North Incorporated 256 Air Road Littleton Mass days and hours of
operation Monday through Saturday 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. alcohol sales 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Sunday 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. ALC alcohol sales 10:00 a.m. to 11: p.m. a copy of the application may be seen at the select board Town administrator's office room 306 at 37
shat Street Littleton Mass comments thereon may be submitted in writing to selectboard Littleton ma.org or to the selectboard town administrator's office 37 shatex Street Littleton Mass 01460 by noon on Wednesday March 5th 2025 or in person at the
hearing thank you okay um so you want to talk about the sure thank you very much good evening uh Harley racer for Energy North Incorporated and with me tonight it's Jeff hanning director of operations and
the applicant shell dagger um Energy North was here last fall seeking an a license for uh off- premise malt and wine cells for their 25 King Street Road I think everybody remembers that and it was denied due to the proximity to a
school and there was uh quite a bit of opposition to it at that meeting I wasn't here but I did view it um and the board did say that they would probably be more supportive of the location 2 miles down the road and so we're here tonight with that location 2 miles down
the road at 256 Air Road um this uh Energy North has other license they're experienced and they are knowledgeable about how to um Carry Out the cells in a safe uh manner um we have submitted the
application and the floor plan um happy to show you the floor plan if you want to to look at that just to show where this would go and you you you did mention that the hours of operation would be Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. um and here's
the floor plan the red X's indicate where there will be cameras uh the front register shows where the cashier will be and they will be able to see um where the wine and the beer will be located
there the current plans are uh the two islands there that say take home chips and the nuts will be uh pallets platforms for beer and wine and then the um first four first four coolers correct
yeah first four coolers to the right of the walk-in cooler will be for beer cells um and that's how it would initially be uh set up if if this license does go forward um to to the right meaning the register or away from uh starting at the starting at the
storage those next four to the to the left yeah to the left okay thank you um and um and that's that's basically what I have to tell you I'm happy to answer any questions and and have uh Mr charbell and Mr hanning here to answer any questions as
well um well thank you guys for coming out um I I did have a question I know there been talk um with um you're going to be hooking up to air sewer sewer correct is that still in play and is what's the future I guess of
this building I mean I from what I saw it looked like you guys are going to expand and have potentially a whole another building there is that in the cards in the works or something the future is going to bring like or we just going to keep this footprint for that uh nothing set in stone at this point in
time we have we have talked about uh a rais and rebuild at that location so we're we're still weighing our options on that front yeah something with an all Town feel would be nice are you getting a donut place pack
no but maybe another if we raise and rebuild there could be another qsr of some sort yeah this is kind of what we expected um last time so I don't have is the police I'm I'm assuming fire everything's in here they both approved it in the packet
this is the existing footprint that's correct and and are there plans to to raise it and rebuild or or not no formal time other than discussions okay Bo travels fast in a small
town well they were in front of the planning board asking for and we signed on the IMA for the sewers um I had a question um I noticed that um the 88 a.m. start time or no sorry yeah 8: a.m. during the week
um seemed a little earlier than at least the other businesses that I looked up um I just wanted to make the fellow members aware um One Stop starts at 9:00 a.m. during the week and 10:00 a.m. on Sundays uh common convenience starts at
9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. um I didn't get a chance to look up everybody but 8 a.m. I think donalan say open at 8 eight8 or 7 but are they selling alcohol I don't know that's a good question are you at 24-hour operation outside of that
no it's uh 5 5:00 a.m. to 11: p.m. Monday through Saturday 5:00 a.m. on Sundays Karen Comon convenience doesn't sell before 9: or 10 no common convenience is um license is uh 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and then 10:00 a.m.
to 11:00 p.m. on Sundays okay just a sus I mean I've never tried to buy I'm not even sure I have an issue with it um but other than we should probably expect that um we might be getting this an early you know
a request to start earlier from the other holders I think the nine and 10 sounds like are reasonable yeah the only the only argument that I'd make on their behalf is that um Shaker Hills and and red tail people going by to go to those and sometimes people wa to throw up a
cooler on their way mhm you know for earlier tea times good point I I don't have any problem with them opening at 8 to they're going to be theying at 8:00 the El so yeah there's not going to yeah ex there's not going
to be any difference in the safety or observation of what's what's going on that time so it's good to be aware of though yeah public comment any public comment okay so we close the hearing move that we close the hearing is that a roll call
Vote or yes no second by Matthew second by Chuck all those in favor all that's a roll call I think you said it wasn't well it doesn't yeah you're only CL you're only closing and I think your final vote a roll call I'm still yeah I
I I I okay okay so the hearing's closed do any further discussion are we ready to I'm I'm in I think this is a better location I think they've done their diligence I think we should approve it and I appreciate them yes coming back y
yeah and serving that side of town which is kind of a void right now of some condoning yeah right I mean St to shake blind once he gets past back blind he's like a drink okay okay move that the select
board vote to approve the application of energy North Inc for a wine and Malt Beverages off premises alcohol license requested under Mass General Law chapter 138 section 15 submitted by Energy North Inc 256 Air Road Littleton Mass with alcohol sales Monday through Saturday
8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and Sunday 10: a.m. to 11:00 p.m. issuance of license is subject to abcc approval second move by Matthew second by Karen we'll do a roll call Chu I Gary I Matthew I Karen I
and marks and I so thank you thank you thanks for doing business in time thanks for coming back thank you public input don't jump at ones I have something to say about the orchard come on
hi everybody uh Kristen kazok six cage way um I would like to say um uh just what do I want to say here please don't sign the lease to John
bransfield tonight first off um second um I do have some concerns about the management plan that he set forth um and a lot of his permaculture plantings
along the border of the property um along the roadside his intention is to block the view of the farm operations and I'm concerned about the stone walls because the stone walls along with the road um are part of the
historical bylaw um and so right now the stone walls have invasive species on them in order for those to be cared for and maintained I think there should be some sort of setback that can be agreed upon that whatever planting that he does
is set back away from those stone walls so that there can be access whether it's the town itself is maintaining those walls or that um the invasive species also don't spread into whatever he's planting it also because of the curves
on the those roads um having a setback would allow visibility um not only to the vistas and the farm which I think we all want I don't think although I'm not looking forward to um Acres of landscape fabric
um I just think that overall having some sort of setback um at least you know and also for any reason if there needs to be vehicles to get on site for emergency or or anything like that
um and then the other part I wanted to bring up is regardless of whatever the future of the orchard um I really thought that the collaborative effort of the orchard
working group was successful and that moving forward that some sort of mechanism with the parties of our town that are involved because the care of this Orchard we want to do it
differently than our last lease right and for you as the select board it's a lot to navigate with everything else that you're trying to do in town which um so I'm proposing or suggesting or
hoping that maybe there is a group that is kind of the overseers of what's going on so that if folks in town have issues with the orchard they can go to them not to whomever's leasing it um that there
might be a representative from conservation a representative from the a commission from the select board um from the folks that live in that neighborhood I would I would like to see the um a representative of the nooba
praying Indians invited to that table so that they can um address any concerns that might relate that they may have or that they could see that we in town don't have because they've got a different perspective of that land um
and I would really like to have them be a part of the conversation of the stewardship of that land regardless if they're the ones that are you know heading the stewardship n or um or not I'm not sure how this is all going to
play out but I really think it's important for us as a town to let them have a presence in the stewardship of this land um so I think that's it um so I can
answer most of those so we're not going to sign the lease tonight okay great um I will talk to John about the management plan about a setback I don't think he it makes sense and I but I but I'm going to be clear I don't think he has any plans to put hedr up at the edge of the property everything he said so far has
been I want to leave the edge of the property so that it looks like an orchard yeah I got so I don't I don't know where that's coming from but um in there's a line where he says that he wants to do permanent trees um along the edge of the road to
calm traffic and that then he goes on to say that he doesn't want it to block the vistas so I'll clarify that with him I I can't imagine that that will be a problem okay um as far as the you know a special group I believe that as it
stands now the select board has care custody and control of the orchard so if there is an issue with the Le C with the management plan anyone should come to the select board um and that would be the the body that would be that would address those issues in in my opinion
that's the correct way to go instead of adding another layer of of people who are appointed and may or may not be there to follow through on it like we have we have a we have a system in place for that um we are you know as you were
there on Thursday we're going to commit to a professional review of it to make sure that longterm doesn't happen but I think for day-to-day issues I don't think that any you know there's more accountability for him because the select board is overseeing the lease
than for any of the other farms in town so I I guess I believe that should be sufficient and we we can debate that like right we haven't talked with they but you know whether it's a yearly or a biannual or something update yeah or whether we walking the Farm once a year
twice a year okay so I think we can we can talk about that at the update when I'm going to go over later yeah yeah right and then the last one is John is has is trying to reach out to the tribe to talk to them because he has spoke he said up to me several times he's very
interested in getting them involved and finding you know places for them to help and to work with them well he hasn't signed the lease yet so it you know I it's one of those things is I would think it's actually the town that should
be reaching out to the nishoba to offering them a place at the table of this conversation or a place on the land versus John bransfield who at this point doesn't have a legal option to do so um it would just
be some so in my eyes I would think and if I was going to be putting my Blood Sweat and Tears into that land I would want to have my legal obligation directly with the town not through another Lei because then I'm going to be
held whatever he does what if he screws up what if he doesn't pay his rent and then all of a sudden I lose out and I'm not sure that's the type of relationship that we want to establish with the noova so so what's what John is talking about
is land that he is leasing he would work with the tribe on that Land There are there are plenty of additional land that he's not leasing that are inside the orchard that we have control of or kcom has control of that we can talk about to find to work with the tribe on getting
them on that land okay yeah and um just to I don't know if John has um reached out to the tribe in other avenues but he's used me and I've just passed a message along so I don't know if he's used any other avos he has I know he has
okay cuz I'm not a representative understand that's why he he reached out to them directly okay all right wonderful okay thank you robs 25 Juniper Road I want to thank select board for the meeting with John bransfield I thought that was very very
positive also the meeting with map led by mapc the other night also very positive want to pick up with regard to the other night the professional review view that you just mentioned and I think you and I had a little uh discussion you mentioned having it on an annual basis I
certainly at the beginning I I think that's appropriate and then you also identified a public hearing with regard to the content of that I I think that's terrific as well um John was so open with regard to his speaking that I think
addressing some of the things I heard the other night with regard to concerns with regard to the removal of the blighted trees and so forth and concerns expressed with regard to the soil as being yes they're blighted but they're still providing some retention some
aspect of holding the soil Etc and doing some positive things and so I find myself hoping that either John can volunteer or you folks as you're finalizing the lease can get into some aspect of some awareness for the public
with regard to what is taking place with that soil with regard to runoff concerns and things of that nature that I felt was heard the other night that's all I had thank you anyone else okay um um members updates going to start CH
sure um attended the veterans breakfast a couple weeks ago that Police Department put on and um I'm glad I did it's always a good conversation and um and speaking with some of the veterans
there's there's different issues which one of the I brought up tonight um but one of the issues that was repeated was the memorials in town and specifically the uh Memorial on the common um needing to
be fixed essentially there's a lot of names missing there's some names on there that perhaps spell and a lot of things yeah so this um needs to be Revisited um and we we'll have to work with it maybe it's something that we
with John on his way out lame duck veterans agent maybe it'll be something that we could we could task the the new veterans agent with but it's definitely something that um I want to be able to go back to the next veterans breakfast and say we're brought it up we're looking at it and there there's a
a plan to go forward um yeah that was really yeah know the major updates um same I went to the veterans practice as well I I did listen to that we've also had some other discussions
relative to um senior tax workof program and how our season is very short for the right it's a little different than some of the other communities and I was trying to get some uh answers on why and I'll be sharing that back with the individuals that asked but it was more
of um our season kind of ends in March I believe he for a senior tax workup so anyone that works for polls sure please anybody that works for the clerk's office they get an extension of
those out okay that's the exception that's I but the anyone else that does anything for the town is basically volunteering on their time so I was trying to find out if there was a way uh to just do a full Year's work where individuals can continue um still more
to come on that um we kicked off the charter committee uh so that was great success um nine members um eight showed up and one one zoomed in so we had a full full committee Colin sen was there Jim was
there for the kickoff um there will be a virtual component going forward there will be ones that they need to be in person obviously for some of the stuff but um we wanted to make sure that everybody had was able to participate if they could not make it they they had that option so um a lot of great
questions and I think they're going to do some great things for us watch to look forward to there um yeah the robotics I was going to bring up but he already had that and we had some great sports teams I I don't want to um I might miss but I know basketball and hockey I personally attended and they
they both uh won the first round of their state t um state tournament and they um both lost the second second round we start to face some of the unfair competition I'll say um no they had great seasons and it was really really really enjoyable to watch that's
about it well I'm sorry just we also had the um the sen tax relief yeah we had met and just still trying to find ways to get to let people know what we do have um we're still discussing how to put
something forward um with repres with our legislators to find ways to offer additional relief potentially so I went to the MMA uh breakfast legislative breakfast and there's a act authorizing
the establishment of a means tested senior citizen property tax exemption that's going through it oh they're putting on the uh that mma's um encouraging people to something to reach out to yeah a picture of it there is an increase in in the
programs that Littleton does have um from all the advertising efforts that have pushed forward in some of the presentations at the launchs and things so that's that's a good story but I think we can do a lot more so more to come I think that committee still has some purpose we were we were going to
discuss what what now I think we have some pass forward that we're going to continue okay um the MPC held the first of two public meetings about the orchard um it was it was in this room there's probably 30 35 people there so it's
quite well attended I thought it went very well it was well run by the map C it was really focused primarily on collecting information from the public on what the public wanted to see for goals and and criteria for the or of the
future and um you know and a little bit of history of where how we got where we are but they're going to come back they have another meeting on April 14th where they're going to synthesize all the things that they heard and sort of present it back to us to talk about ways of uh making sure we don't get into this
position again where we're scrambling try to find someone to take care of the land and then and um a representative from the tribe read a statement from uh the chief Quiet Storm which was which was very nice and I'm glad that that was there and I think at the end there was a
a good question and answer I thought it was overall like a very positive and constructive discussion so um kudos to the mapc for doing their job they they really did do a good job of of facilitating um lots of behind the
scenes stuff but um up front and public facing was the um podcast continues every we're settled into about every other Thursday uh last Thursday we had um a deep dive into the into the uh the
um micro grants from housing so help folks understand who's eligible and and um for what um if anybody has recommendations for future um episodes I'd be glad to hear
them any of you um if anybody wants to ever come on stev on Le and potholes because get a lot of calls right now this time of year probably take vacation we're getting multimedia presentations on Pooles now yeah uh but yeah not a
good time you got to do that don't well I mean maybe it is communication's good right well I mean yeah yeah it's it's a thoughtful we can reach there some some bad roads yeah yeah but um yeah the maybe select an open
invitation right select boxing maybe boxing not not a great audio that's all from me um like I U mentioned I went to the MMA legislative breakfast in marbor on Friday um a lot of the same stuff that
was presented earlier was shared there was a lot of people there very worried about whether or not the uh remote meeting laws was going to pass and when and how soon because it's going to affect how meetings are scheduled very
soon um I also attended um uh Senator Eldridge and I have seen each other quite a bit lately because he was there and I was at his green advisory committee meeting on um Saturday in the library um he had someone a representative from the Sierra Club um come and talk about about their
legislative agenda and um and what they're it was a very good talk um Matthew and I were at the affordable housing trust meeting uh where MHP was there to talk about um a help us develop a plan uh for developing the derky
property as affordable housing um I think we're meeting again in early April to get more information and work on generating an RFP um and then I wanted to remind everyone that mini golf is in the Library Friday um I think it's 6:00 to9
Friday and 10: to 3 on Saturday so get your tickets and green beer huh green beer for the durable will be having beer I don't know if it'll be green but um and watch what your bti on because there's certain things I want
so you just enticed me yeah um updates yes uh I had shared with the select board a communication from the air select uh from the air select board to to the governor's office and uh I don't know if it's coincidence
or anything but uh Chief mcgerty uh let me know um early early this morning that uh he received an inquiry at 8:30 last night from um Administration and finance from ANF requesting information uh some
Financial backup information on the on the $9.1 million request in which uh he had previously submitted so they uh but they have it again good sign no better than no yeah no
absolutely and um also uh so 550 King Street development we have uh there was a conversation uh just this late this afternoon uh confirmed from the governor's office the groundbreaking will take place middle to
the end of April but it will be in the April time frame and that that date will be firmed up within the next uh five or six business days uh and then I will make sure that the select board uh knows that and we are on um we're on schedule
or lwd is on schedule for the town sewer project for that to be for that to be completed uh for June 30th uh which is uh which is which which would be imperative uh so it would be great have anything um Center in shat streets
nearing substantial completion um I think technically U there's the that date is actually tomorrow but uh there's still some more work that they have going on in the exterior of the building um is which will take some time uh we're also looking um to bring in uh to in
front of the planning board the boundaries for 31 shat Street that's going to was supposed to happen this month we got pushed back a month um so um and we're also adding work to the scope uh to bring uh 31 shat Street up to code for um so that we can then sell
it when uh when ready and uh hooked up to an active sewer system right now you can't use water or flush in the in the building uh and uh May 16th at 1 p.m. is the scheduled ribbon cutting time so uh for that is is what we're targeting
right now this is for the center on shadik street for thei so we doing a ribbon cutting for King I mean I mean it's 36 King it is kind of a uh if a 36 king um we could we weren't planning necessarily open house or something an
open house or something yeah we should yeah we'll do something I think for 36 King CU I think it when when that's ready that's going to be you know it's going to be something nice that really the whole Community should see so that's a a lot of tax pay your money went into it yes a great suggestion um so and that 36 King is coming along we're doing a
lot of patching and painting uh working on you know a lot of some of the Ag and getting that up now but uh that's come along and and as far as Shaker Lan goes we had our first sustainability uh subcommittee meeting last week it was successful there'll be another follow-up meeting from that and uh we're on target
to uh provide a presentation at 6 p.m. um before the annual town meeting in the cafeteria be a 15-minute presentation and opening up through 35 to 40 minutes of questions after that so project s
disability commission good evening and thank you for having me Diane Cy uh chairman of the disability commission um the disability commission is in the process of applying for a grant in the spring and have been in
contact with Jeffrey Dugan no relation that's right he doesn't pronounce his name correctly that's I was goinging assistant director of the for Community Services Massachusetts office of of disability in which he has stated to the
town they have specific administrative requirements to first and foremost complete to qualify one was to name an ADA coordinator which you've already done to get that information onto um our website
which we have also done and that took place earlier about 6 weeks ago I believe and that information is readily available and you can find it on the um it says Ada coordinator as well as um he is the um M
fac oh sorry facilities director um the next administrative requirement is for documents on the following notice of non-discrimination and a grievance procedure those two uh notices are in front of you or were in your packet the
notice of non-discrimination um basically states that the town of Littleton advises employees and the public they do not discriminate it's a simple um notice that we took actually off the state all we did was change the
state information to town of Littleton so it's a basic notice and we actually put Eric's information on the bottom um it's simple and easy to read and easy for anybody to we if you accept it we
would put put it on Eric's um website the second information is if somebody is looking to uh file a complaint of violation again we took the information from the state took the state information off of there and added the
town of Littleton and the Ada coordinator for Littleton on here it's a single page document we added Eric's information on there as the first person to write to Second information is our
excellent assistant Town Administrator Ryan information and then it goes to the state so these two documents have to be accepted by this board if you accept it that's just one more step forward for
the disabilities commission to be able to apply for a grant so I'm asking evening for you to accept these two documents so that we can go forward again I'm I'm on the commission and I I approve for this okay I move that the
select board vote to approve should I say the disability commission's 2025 non-discrimination policy second by Matthew SEC M Karen all those in favor I and any comment on the any comment on
the grievance actually do you want to have Eric's information on the grievance as well or is it just Ryan uh both information because the first one um Eric would um be the one that they would grieve against so he would give their his um G
they would grieve against him but then he would they would have to give it in writing to him as well and then he would give give it his comments back to them in writing um even though he he has already turned them down it still has to be in writing so then the second grievance would go to
Ryan and then going forward I think Chuck's point is that it's not it's not on the document that we have oh it it talks about how to file a if if Eric if the Ada coordinator doesn't respond satisfactory how to contact Ryan
but it doesn't actually have his name have the ad oh well mine does sorry I don't know why your does no it has Ryan's name it doesn't have Eric's name they must the wrong document must have gotten uploaded Eric's doc Eric's information is online okay so as long as
we I can give you mine to up I'll just check and make sure it's really Eric derba is on here so move at the select board vote to approve the 2025 Americans with Disabilities Act grievance process as provided by town clerk Diane C
second move by Matthew second by Karen all those in favor I I and the next information is um on January 10th the disabilities commission held its duly posted meeting with zoom and the following vote was taken um the
commission chairman attended a meeting as well as created a that the commission chairman attended a meeting which I am here this evening as well as create a letter to the select board and explained our request regarding um Luigi a
iakov aovo sorry and ask the select board to uphold our vote to have him removed and create a vacancy as he has been unable to attend a meeting for well over a year this would allow us to enable another Resident the opportunity
to join our commission as you are the um members you this board is the members that actually vote on this we are we have to come back to you and ask you to do do this um I know that it's a difficult decision for us to have to come to you and I know it's a difficult
decision for you to have to make but there's been um at least um four different times that we've had to cancel a meeting because we haven't haven't had a quorum and so um we're asking and we do have two other people that are interested in the board
so asking you to take this vot as difficult as it is okay I think it's a health issue move that the select board votes to approve the request of the disability commission to uphold the vote of the commission on January 10th 2025 to remove member Luigi iakov vello from the
disability commission second L by Matthew second by Karen all those in favor I I thank you thank you one Diane one quick question on those grievance policies we approved them for 2025 do we have to approve them annually or are they good no um it can stay up for as
long as you want unless you decide that you want to make Chang on them um it's they're good for every I guess the only change be Eric's name if yeah ER leaves or right and I think you're right it did say 2025 but maybe that's the kickoff dat but because that's need to be you're
right it's just didn't probably need to be rewarded that that's that would be the only changes that you know okay person change thank you thank you uh SEL for discussions the orchard leaks so Mark and I met with John
bransfield last Friday and went over the final what I think are probably the final round of changes so we have a version of the lease in here and I'm going to outline a few minor changes that we're that we
will still make but substantively it's not going to change um from what you have in front of you um the first thing is we did settle on rent um the final numbers are um 1,500 per month for the first two years years and then
8475 per sorry 1,500 per quarter for the first two years and 8475 per quarter for years 3 through 20 and that's based on an average um rent of 2500 for the structures and 100 2500 per month for
the structures and 100 per month for the land with the intent of putting this into a stabilization fund for the or we that's not in the leasing that's not in the lease obviously it doesn't need no but that's just right so we have that created already meting we did last this
meeting y this town meeting so Matthew and I came up with those numbers by basically looking at the um PL uh Eric put together a cost estimate for maintaining the barn over the next 20 years and based on the cost of
maintaining that we amortize that over the 20-year lease and that's how we came up with effectively the what we decided was a reasonable uh a cost um for the structure and John will have to pay for
the the property taxes as well which is I think around 7,500 a year without the house um we are going to remove the lower barn and the cottage from the lease um John is okay with that he it's not necess it's not you know critical or
necessary for his operation um I asked I asked him to do that um because I am um trying to bring a bunch of people to the table to discuss ways of getting the nooba pring Indians involved on the land and um they have stated an interest in a
structure so we're not committed to anything but it does give us the opportunity to do that in the future um we are going to remove the self-help land which is uh across the road from the lower Barn from the lease
I mean that shouldn't be in the lease anyway because it's not APR land but we're it but it was included I believe so we need to exclude it um the final one is we want to add a parag a section that gives us the right to reassign
portions if uh those Parcels are mutually agreeable to both parties so again when we spoke with John he stated that some of the APR portions are not going to be especially useful for him um tip uh specifically it was the the APR
that's across the road from the lower barn and he had no specific objection to us reassigning a parcel for example to the tribe or someone else if if both the select board and he agrees to it so we're going to add a just language in
there that says we can do this if both parties agree but let's not have conversations with any parties unless we're doing it as a board correct yeah um so that you're this is we're not talking about a suble situation in this regard this would be US Direct opening
up I mean yeah we're not talking about doing anything right now we're just saying if we want to do that in the future we want to make sure that we can without having to do a whole new lease but just makeing sure without it affecting the monthly the quarterly payment correct that's correct yeah because this would be a mutually agreed
upon that's it would be mutually agreed upon so I would I would say it would it would it would not affect the payment because this would be portions of the land that he isn't going to be using for active active um Arbor culture
okay and then the last one that that is not part of the not part of the lease but should be part of the management plan was and I think we discussed this an annual inspection by a professional paid for by the revolving fund followed by a presentation to the select board
and I think you know public comment and like essentially a public hearing to allow people to discuss what they think about it issues that they have with it and we should have John come in as well to have him discuss what he did in the last year and what he's going to do in the next year yeah great no it's great
should should have happened last least agreed yeah so so that's it actually that's where we're at did I do you think did I miss anything is that yeah so town of Stow doesn't have an e on it town of Stow what doesn't have an e on it that's the the ski resort
does interesting oh yeah St last first paragraph theeast oh remove the E and Stow I I'll tell Jenny she's a skar she put the E on I want I want to
hear from the contract lawyer yeah um and this has been vetted already Jenny Jenny has drafted everything and she's this is language like she basically John had for example um a request to change the termination clause which was very
one-sided on the towns and he said can we just make it Mutual Mutual and Jenny say yeah that's fine so we now have language that says if we want to terminate for convenience it has to be mutually agreed upon okay um but we still have the power to terminate yeah there's there's tons of
defaults I thought from it looked like we still had power to ter yeah um okay so the only issue would be do we have to do anything Tom meeting wise
with with it lower barn or is the low control right now the L being removed from the lease that's all the lower Barn is on on land owned by us that's not under APR or conservation okay so the only thing on the town meeting would be the breaking off the smaller piece that
we P we passed on we don't have to do anything for town meeting yeah there's nothing for the orcher for town meeting no but there is for conservation yeah yeah yeah but that's separate yes um the only thing for town meeting is to create the revolving fund okay
um so this would this doesn't even go in Fr the town meeting no once once we sign it that's ex no it's it's a lease it's not so the intention would be I would like to sign at the next meeting on the 24th and I obviously we can have a final version of the lease it has to have we
have to have a map and a list of parcels and so forth but you know make sure all the eyes are dotted and te's or cross but I would like to sign it because John is already like I'm I'm already late on this season so I want to get him on there as soon as
possible okay any con I mean do you guys have any concerns I mean I mean I can think of a million after the 20 years we just put up with but so I would add to your um Master list of what you're adding um a clause
um probably in B section one one c 2 mhm um we've already got assurances
that he won't move or remove or sell any of the Rocks we might as well throw in a line about not disturbing the walls okay sure I'm sure it won't have a problem with that we the inventory of all the of equipment that's probably something that
needs to be done then what's that the an inventory of present current equipment I don't there isn't any I don't think there is any so all that all the the working stuff for the mo that all went back to DPW no there there was no working stuff when Charlie left no we
bought we bought kabas and stuff that's not going to be okay I understand there's no there's going to be nothing left for John okay to to take over he he did ask us to remove trash so we are talking about how to work that out although it may be we pulled a lot out
of there but there still lot but there's still more so we we need to we'll we'll figure something out with him to Karen's point about the protection of the walls and like the Mish property up on Grimes Lane Mr Mish Mo about a 10 15 6 to 10 15
whatever pretty wide area for him to be able to maintain the walls and to keep invasives invasives from uh and it is to get vehicles through too emergency vehicles are po but just we don't know what the future of the orchard is and to have that separation I think it's going
to be critical for us to get in and out of there just to do anything so I believe his plan is to start removing invasives immediately and I would assume that that would include all the poison ivy on the walls so um I can clarify that with him I I really I don't I would
be very surprised if he has any issue with language saying the walls must not be disturbed and um you know I know that he has a plan for moving in basis and he had a plan in the in the management plan was like putting walking trails around the perimeter and things so yeah that so
we can make sure I mean if we have requirements on how wide they should be or something we can probably talk to them about that too um I had some suggestions for maybe moving around um the section 14 a little
bit but it's just rearranging the deck chairs do you want to do you want to send them to me and I'll give them to Jenny yeah or you can send them to me and Jenny and Mark and yeah yeah okay more structurally than more structurally yeah cont I I
think we could probably cut down on his on what how many things he needs to submit to us by pulling a couple things into that annual report um and I think we should probably based on prior experience
um require him if he's not going to we for example we ask for a copy of um pesticide applications reports um but if he doesn't have any then I think we need him to affirmatively state that yeah so that we
don't yeah so that we know what we're not that we're not missing anything that's good yeah will you email here yeah yeah that'd be great thank you anything else on the orchard thank you both yeah yeah I know a lot of
work yep he's you know it's um I mean Lessons Learned hope it's been much much smoother than the last time we did this yeah it's gone much better that's great and I think I think he's a good fit for the orchard too well and it
keeps the land yeah as well and who knows what the future is going to bring with that piece of just night nice to have it as part of the town's inventory such a beautiful property so that's y this is this is good okay
okay IMA with uh active this is uh Mr chairman members of the select board this is something i' uh we've been keeping you um up to date on uh this is uh it has been um as you can remember uh one of the reports back uh a couple
meetings ago there were um changes to this compared to the town's version in which uh they have acknowledge recognizing the changes and and accept the changes according to our Town Council and uh we make that request
before you to signed this evening this will not start till July 1st uh and that is because uh we're still paying for noober through through June 30th okay so just to to let you know um who who put this together uh Town
Council put put uh your behalf to the Board of Health mine so just for my own edification what's the difference in cost between what we're doing with active versus what we're doing with Miss CH I don't have that off the top of my head I'm sorry
okay it seems like a lot more but I wasn't positive on that yeah I think you're talking about I think roughly speaking probably an additional 20,000 as far as is 20 35 we're 15 roughly speaking so but it makes sense because you're not you know
it's sharing it amongst two communities and you're going to probably get a lot more value out of this in terms of what this will what this will provide for the town so it's definitely an upgrade in service in terms of what we can expect where are we putting the public nurse when they're in town
well Ryan has done a great job scoping out he's he's he's looking on in every closet and everything get a go with this raka garage I think is right now yeah we we'll we'll have this it's
Maple Seas garage is off limits well I think but he or she has her has their pick of Tesla to sit in um okay oh yeah just there's no more there was no res Personnel resourcing request Beyond this for next fiscal year
uh from the showa for for our from our health our Board of Health or our our health department excuse me Beyond then correct beyond what the the conversation that Ryan and I had with them of uh
wanting to reach a plateau of double digit employees uh and then we would have to based upon revenue for the next year make that determination in the next budget what it what it can support there's still not a good backup plan
though no I know I know um the other thing was the rates I know we had talked about this offline um there's no select selectwood has no governing authority over the rates R oh they set them uh it's doesn't have
to okay it would be a courtesy thing to the select board the way the way it's structured right now yeah yeah it was already I we've already we've seen it Shar it with us right exactly right so um I I will I will bet
they will not even come close to the revenue they're claiming not even close I means we're really healthy if that's so I'm sorry that means we're really healthy sure I'll go with that that's that
move that the select board vote to approve the intermunicipal agreement IMA between the town of Acton and town of Littleton for a shared public health nurse second move by Matthew second by Karen all those in favor thank
you uh so it came to my attention that we don't actually have Representatives or oh I don't think we have a representative to Magic right correct and Ryan has been the representative to the mapc but um hasn't been attending able
to attend most of the meetings um and it seems like something we should probably be participating in a little more uh regularly so that we're know what's going on in the area and can actually um um yeah get I think there's
a lot of resources and expertise we're missing out on by not into these so uh for mapc I believe there are two representatives from Littleton one appointed by the select board and one from the planning board and Magic we
have one or do I have it backwards so um I think that's that sounds right yeah um so the the planning board will at some point in the not too distant future be appointing their representative which is currently vacant
so um um so we found out uh what you said that uh mapc meets four times a year Magic meets about 10 times a year Tuesday Mornings so I don't know who if anyone is
interested in being our rep or if we want to open this up and to the public to have them select a you know we can open this up and have someone generally apply I think for mapc they prefer having a select board member but I'm not
100% positive so I don't know what people think anyone wants to volunteer I mean I guess is it select board members that are on these we don't want to put somebody out there that's not if that's Keith was Keith was our
representative for both I believe in the past has been here for a couple years well I think people from conquer can still represent them right he actually is representing conquer yes he is maybe Litt to and conquered regionalize it s he'd love
that does there anyone have interest in it we could ask Tim G what's Magic um he got right here cuz I had to ask the same question what is I don't know what is Magic I think it's like a smaller component metropolitan area
planning minute minute man Advisory Group went into local coordination it's under um sub group within it yeah so this will be one person it doesn't have to be the same person to do both no Ken to further answer your question it involves for
this sub Region 13 communities Acton Bedford Bolton boxboro car conquer Hudson Lexington Lincoln Littleton mayard Stow without any and subber read their chge just real quick what do you want wants to say that they actually do
establishes a growth management Committee in 1984 magic has become a respective voice of regional decision-making magic consists of planning and select board representatives from all 13 communities or or their designate um focuses on Transportation the environment energy open space
affordable housing economic and Community Development and legislative issues if there's a passionate person that really wants to do this I I I would say have add it to somebody I mean outside of our board some that we since we do have the appoint according to this we do have the authority to do that I'm
not going to point at you unless you really chomping up the bit to do neither one of us are okay I'll do it great yeah the only the only person in town that I would think of um that's was part of not magic actually no
Carl is part of magic Tim was the town manager of car so I would say if he's looking for something to do in his re schedule other than Town meetings might not be a bad representative
M um so make ation if he says no Then we we make a mtion becomes Charter committee review also he's on the charter committee yes yeah um you so you unless do you want to do it or do you
you want to do it or do you well we'll do it I guess I'm is it this is it the same person are we appointing one person for MC and one person for magic we could we could do either okay I I don't think I can do both what was the meeting schedule again MPC meets
approximately four times a year and Magic meets 10 times a year okay so 14c I've got so many subcommittees yeah um Magic meets at 10:00 a.m. on the first Tuesday of the month mapc I have no idea what their
time is Tuesday morning the magic is Tuesday Mornings that's a retired position too we don't have a couple of members that are retired yeah I can do it um either one you want to do an alternate as well can we put an alternate in can we you know
yeah sure so if you want to do it and I'll be an alternate for you let's we said we were going to do that going for well can reach out to Tim too yeah good idea so that's for mapc or magic or both
both both okay move the select Bo oh sorry Karen did you say yes to both no I did not say I was like wait a minute what is happening here almost Happ um which one you I got you Karen I'll take uh I'll take
MPC okay see if Tim Can Do Magic Magic's for what tell you know Magic Magic 10 times Magic's 10 times yes okay so we'll Point Karen to mapc we reach out to 101 magic and if Tim won't do it I'll do it move that the
select board vote in accordance with Massachusetts General Law chapter 40b section 24 to appoint Karen Morrison as the town's representative to the metropolitan area planning Council and replace the current member set appointment is for a three-year term from this
date second Matthew second by Gary all those in favor I I and we're going to hold off on the other one right yeah we can reach out we we'll reach out the 10 thank you oh we could appoint you and amend it we we could say you or your
designate we reach out to 10 okay St it at the next meeting great okay I've gone this long without that yeah uh town meeting Human Resources Director um if I can if I can just uh do
a do a slight introduction this is something that uh Michelle HR has been has been working on in uh pretty pretty aggressively and intensely there's uh the Amendments that are before you uh that will be a town meeting there's
almost 400 uh amendments made uh to that in which uh organizing the the language consolidate different concepts clarify roles uh address current uh Recruitment and Retention needs and uh the
preparation of adoption of a new classic comp plan so uh uh job well done hard work and uh take it away thank you thank you Michelle vibert Human Resources Director thank you for having me tonight
um as Jim mentioned the this has been extensive work done in the human resources department um I know um a few of you have expressed uh the select board policies and procedures and the goals is to go through all of the policies and procedures and see what is
consistent and what is not one of the items we started with was the personal bylaw and with that I just wanted to explain what a personal bylaw is versus an employee handbook because we have two governing documents so a personal bylaw just to
give a brief introduction of it is it's really the legal framework it's the overarching policy that governs not only the HR department but it it's how we interact with all other departments um for our policies and procedures and really that's aimed at all of the
decision makers this document cannot be changed outside of town meeting vote whereas the employee handbook more speaks to day-to-day operations and that is more um really for employees it it encompasses anything from vacation language to longevity to again those
day-to-day operations that document we do have the ability to change by the select board vote slide please so just to give a brief history um in 2021 the town did a comprehensive review of the Personnel
bylaw it was about an 80-page document um at that time they decided to remove the Personnel Board dissolve the board and create a Personnel advisory committee in place of that board um also what occurred was the content from the Personnel bylaw um we cut it down to
about seven pages that were left over which we'll talk about in a few minutes and then a lot of that content that was cut out of that bylaw was moved um to an employee handbook which was created at that time that employee handbook still exists today and it encompasses again
like I said before our day-to-day policies vacation language longevity um it's sexual harassment policy discrimination policies all of those really intricate day-to-day policies and procedures so let's take a to today um
2025 what we have done as Jim stated earlier is in doing comprehensive review to this bylaw we realized that there was a lot of language that was repetitive there was a lot of Concepts that were spoken to in one section and then it
would speak to it again in another section um so really going through and just consolidating those Concepts clarifying the roles of not only the select board and the personal advisory committee but the town administrators as well and the HR Director but mainly the Personnel
advisory committee um a lot of their role at one point I believe it's said in the byw they approve where they don't approve they just advise on these topics so that was um something that we focused on we do need to address um current Recruitment and Retention needs this is
an effort that I've come in front of the board before to speak about there's many different ways to do it um there's a few Concepts in here that do assist with this bullet point and prepare for adoption of a new class and comp plan um at any point you know we do a review of
our comp and class plan and you need to be able to have flexibility to keep up with job market internal Equity external equity and everything that goes on so you need to be prepared to make possible changes to Those comp plans whether that be changing steps um changing the way
things are graded or classified next slide please so overall I didn't want to review all 396 changes with the board so I gave you a highlight slide um that really focuses on the big changes the
major substance of the edits um you know the edits all of them really clarify roles go through the concepts that I just spoke about but these ones are are stand out alone in particular so one thing that the select board had done was approved the Personnel advisory
committee to increase from 3 to five members um that was never reflect Ed in the Personnel bylaw itself so that document does need to go to town meeting for that approval to correct the membership we also included there is a statement in there to address a
potential conflict of interest we mentioned that employees current employees and um immediate family of former employees um should not be allowed to be a member on the Personnel advisory committee um this could cause a conflict of interest it also could cause
um issues with open meeting when anyone is potentially discussing um items outside of of a meeting um the next section which was 339 which was a major highlight and 3311 uh both of these really hit home to
really clarify language for midyear and temporary increases or temporary um Compensation Plan amendments so this is really when we've come before the board we have an amended job description we want to reclassify that position this is really clarifying that process
and how it does operate 3312 does speak to step increases we added some new language which does address Recruitment and Retention needs giving a little bit more flexibility to um meet those needs to how we
reclassify employees where they land on the scale potentially our current employees and for new hires in 3315 um we added some new language over the last several years one of the major um you know laws that we
have to um keep in compliance with is the Equal Pay Act and basically what we do is we have anyone that is hired or reclassified um in a new position basically we have to review what there's
a lot of laws and just the basic gist of it is that we have to make sure that in comparable positions per the law we're keeping up with making making sure we're in compliance with how that law states you can hire and um state where their
salary is at and attracting and retaining Talent um I spoke about before and then there is a new provision to add about a personal rate provision and just to give you an idea of what this is if a position is reclassified um sometimes
what happens is that um incumbent may be at a Max salary that the the position gets you know regraded and that Max salary is lower than their current salary we're not going to make them lose money so we keep that incumbent at the
salary they're at they don't lose money but they don't gain money either and when that incumbent does leave that position or it becomes vacant um the new person would come in at the the current scale range that is all I have for the
board I I did have a question like I know I I help with this document but I I was just thinking the PAC The Authority given to the personal advisory committee I thought came from the select board not by vote of town
because it was an advisory you saying that now there's going to be some Authority that the personal advisor committee has over which P so so you're saying that's go to Tom meeting to change it from three to five members when it's a board that the the bylaw so the bylaw so
this is is part of the issue is that we find conflicting language in these two documents yeah so the bylaw itself any language in the bylaw can only be changed by a town meeting vote the handbook can be changed by a select board vote and so what happens is there's language in the bylaw that
speaks to the number of members you can have on the PAC so why don't we take to Gary's point then why don't we take that out of the bylaw and make it a select board policy so then it's something that the select board can change on their own without going to a town meeting vote just because you want to have Flex I'm
just saying HR policy and I could have said this before I know I'm sorry I just thought it we were sitting here but yeah being able to address HR concerns on within the year is so critical to retention and hiring
that having to wait to town meeting potentially to uh I think we should I think the vote at Tom meeting should be to remove that from the bylaw as it was I don't think that was ever the intent we that's that was why the
Personnel Board went away CU that had a lot of authority to with it we're I think we're just advising you Jim and the select board so we can do that um to speak to your point I I do want to mention to the board that this is still a working document um I have sent it to
council for review they've sent back a few com um comments this is why I'm taking it to the board we'll also be circulating it with staff um for feedback like this okay that's I mean I've V at the rest it's a lot in there yeah yeah I
personally I think we don't want any more in a bylaw than we have to have because it really limits us incs us yeah um and it would be better to have it as a policy somewhere else that we could then change so I don't know what we
legally have to have in the bylaw versus not if there is anything or if we can get rid of the bylaw together and just make it a policy right that would you're nodding well I mean it's um I mean at
some point whether or not you know having Personnel bylaws you know come from an earlier time and you know I think that's one of the things that the charter committee is going to be looking at too to do things more efficiently because having it in a handbook um and and and having say the town manager or
the select board have the right to make those changes is a much more flexible and probably more appropriate way to um address dayto day yeah the day-to-day management of of it and as Michelle highlighted there's a lot of complexities and things that we we we could be lagging on you know um pay
Equity things of that nature that we probably should be getting on right away but it's a little harder for us to do that if we're always waiting six months before the next town meeting so so I I mean I I think what we have in
the this document is good generally I mean I need to go through it with a little more detail myself but it's just a matter where it ends up right and I don't know if that's something we should be asking like the charter commission or Callin Center or something now before we
go forward and make more work for the charter committee right yeah I mean I don't think this is being addressed right out of the gate for the charter commit but yeah somewhere but we're just giving if we're we're updating this and then saying okay 18th
right so so if we're if it's something we're changing now that we say we potentially don't need then why do we leave it for something for them to look at MH yeah can I speak to that a little bit so the structure right now is is an issue right so when we come to which
policy do we use if there is conflicting language that can become a problem and so to wait that 18 months that would be extremely I'm not suggesting we don't do anything for the next 18 months I'm suggesting maybe a town meeting we revoke the bylaw Al together and make it
a policy of the select board right not leave it you know not leave it as something um that's that's in limbo or out of whack right yeah but if we're going to be changing it why do we want
to change it now and then again in just a few months if there's a solution that we can reach now that would be good long term there is by Statute some things that have to be in the bya so that's the other part that you we'd have to pull out of there if you if we wanted
to go fully with policy just policy I'm just I'm just throwing that out is if that's the way we should be going right and put the minimum in and then move the rest to something else this goes to print well it's already going to
be on the um warrant regardless so we have time I guess so we review it and give that idea if that's something that can be done I I I'm just trying to think if the authority of the select
board um should should that be all-encompassing of all of these things that's what I don't know I haven't looked at the parts that this because if you're saying this entire Personnel bylaw changes to a Personnel policy right
well I mean I mean maybe maybe the bylaw says we have to have a personal advisory committee right but it doesn't have to outline anything beyond that right right it did say that and that was because re removing the Personnel Board
was it was a big deal right at that time um and there was a lot of people that didn't agree with it and so the I think the personal advisory committee putting that into a bylaw codified it saying we will have help you know it won't just disappear people are going to have a
place where they can go we can still do help help HR do different um functions classification and things so it needed to be in the bylaw and maybe that piece stays um the creation of the personal advisory committee and the extension of making it five members
but I think we really got to dig into that's something that no one's even mentioned changing this to just policy no in other communities have you seen no um so yeah the thing is too Michelle could you know knowing hearing this maybe we
could talk to Town Council about what our options might be and then report back to you talking about this again it might be a simple you can't do that right right but as you said Gary you probably do need to keep some components in so what what Michelle's proposing is basically within the parameters of what
of the model we currently have to and this is what you have to do to to make those changes so when and when you're talking about something a little different than that but we can do some research and is this one of the things that was charged to the yes it will be with the charter Review Committee yeah yes yes this is
going to be one of the issues it might work itself out that way too yeah but toan and Michelle's point it's a problem right now right now oh we have to address a lot of this because the duplicity of stuff is extremely confusing for new employees and staff and everybody El well my impression was
that the the problem that is occurring right now goes beyond that right so I'm I'm in favor of um bringing this down to tap you know cutting this back to Bare
Bones um if the charter commission wants to add they can certainly recommend that but I think we need to I think we need to focus on having a functional document and with all the minimum requirements with the minimum requirements exactly
yeah I think uh some of the language in here um it was forly for Equity purposes um because there is a fine line in the state obviously has some serious guidelines on how when you hire somebody just bringing them on and giving them
step nine or it m well what's to stop any selectboard from just doing that you know without even looking at all the other members on that team that have been here for 10 15 years there there could be an issue there so you want to make sure that um it's I
guess as a policy it would be it would hold I mean if that's one of the bones that qualifies as Bare Bones then you know so be it yeah okay I think maybe the approach would be um rather than you know focusing on what
um what needs to stay rather than what can come out if that makes sense I'm just looking at like some of these like the Personnel advisory should committee should mayed quarterly fine meet jointly with the Cy board and finance committee at least annually well
I don't remember that really happening that they're going to issue a report or they're going to meet with the select board by January 1st to discuss any changes in the comp plan for the 4th coming year I don't think that's ever happened so those are things that are
codifying in a bylaw right yeah and and the finance committee has a lot to do with that as well with the compl so are those things that should be in a bylaw right that's you're saying they should be into policy they I mean those seem more like
policy things than bylaws yeah um so in your time when you going through this um was there any mention of that that where it should fall what was the what was your driving
factor of this goes to the bylaw is it you use what already existed in the bylaw and cleaned it up or did you just say this belongs the bylaw this belongs in the Personnel policies of the select board both a little bit of bill so there was mention of um cleaning it up and
then what was there and then the L too I mean this spells it out a lot of the stuff that we when we're talking about step increases and within grade stuff with employees any select board could be all over the place with it right where this kind of locks it in a little bit
this is how you would promote somebody you would move them in here and when they get promoted they move up a couple steps and then it's all defined in the book what but my question is does it have to be a bylaw or can that just be
Personnel policy so um gu it doesn't affect the vot I mean we're going to have this going to be a warrant article I think it's just on on whether this really gets changed um and pushed into Personnel policy and this part of the bylaw just
goes away and becomes personel policy or do we just keep it defined in these two locations um whatever is simple I mean you said it's more about efficiency I mean I'm not I mean I'm I'm
kind of inclined not to re to upend everything at this point I mean Gary's point about having it at the whim of the select board is is valid and rather than having someone go through this again and decide which things to pull out into a policy and which not to perhaps we
should just move forward with this which has been drafted and and approved by Town Council as a bylaw I understand the concerns but also is it I'm not sure it's more efficient to move it to be a polic to move some of it to be a policy
not well because we would have to debate what whether it's that whether it's a better approach to move it to be a policy given that it becomes something that select board can change if they if
they feel they need to instead of having it be set by HR and Town Council I mean it's certainly helps with the recruitment side and retention things having flexibility has proven to be enormously important
throughout the year I mean and and not completely restricted by a bylaw that says we're sorry we can't hire you because we can't do this or we can't we can't meet a salary or we can't especially in today's day and age right um but that's really speaking more
towards what Mark said out that that's totally valid and I guess I'm saying you know are we going to ask someone to go and review this again and decide which things to pull out I think we are well I mean I think we go to Town Council ask them what are the necessary components
of a Personnel bylaw and from there we can decide whether we want to add anything to a certain extent I think the conversation is a little premature because we don't know what we're deciding between um true we don't know what that minimalist um approach looks
like um so I guess your biggest concern here when you were looking at this was to to clarify make it easier for well a new anyone new that comes in new employees but also um
HR to have clear direction as opposed to conflicting information um and I think that that this solves that for sure you it's cleaned up so I I mean I not questioning what we've done here I think it's much it's very clear it is um
there's still a lot of things that are open like promotion policies and things right so I'm not sure if that's not in this bylaw then it must be in some policy somewhere so if we already have a policy for those things somewhere then
why what's the point of the redundancy between these two what what falls in the bylaw what falls in the policy right it's that's that's more my question and I would favor putting more things in policy rather than bylaw just because
they're easier to change M more flexibility so but I do want to thank you for all the work you've done on this I think it's it's a huge Improvement it's much easier to read sure and clear so and if
we can get some more efficiency into it for you to make things easier yeah 3345 does easier for all of us reclassification new appointments things like that through promotion transfer demotions for other actions 33
3345 45 3315 sorry my eyes did you know is it 336 was after it okay yeah so what are you after tonight I guess that's why we're here
approved um no this was just to give you a a introduction to the Warren article because it is a lot um so I wanted the board to have the background for it and when do you when this fall when do we have to have final so we're going to our our plan is to we have a meeting two
weeks from now um we may be doing it as a joint meeting with the F finance committee really going through but that point we'll have U you know a relatively fully fleshed out draft that You' be then approved um you know then recommendation on the Articles and but you know in the interm
again we can get a little bit more information for you whether we stick with what you know we currently have or you know get some other information about whether we wanted to you know so edits to this is really what goes to print because we are going to have an article uh yes so all
right so we've just got to get some more recommendations I guess just to so there is one one something that's different here in the B so I I'm reading that pay upon appointment or
reclassification it says select Fort approval of a pay rate is required if it exceeds the midpoint of the position's pay rate pay range now it used to be step three step three so we're moving it to step five yeah or step six since there's an even number of steps the
midpoint is between five and six anything beyond five was the was the idea there the midpoint because now you're you're getting into like the seniority people that have been here so people so appointing authorities can do up to step five now instead of Step the top administrator really well
in most cases well it's whoever the appointing authority is Right correct so okay it's just a change and we're putting the authority in the bylaw so
yeah okay thank you thank you thank you thanks Mich Michelle HR stuff yeah 37 Shad street thank you Mr chairman is this something that the select board wanted
to have a uh a deeper discussion on um so it has been uh for as long as I've been here uh and I know that the the conversation happened years ago and uh in regards to uh looking at this particular
building to be deeply affordable senior rental housing uh but it that desire has was supported by a report I believe was approximately 10 years ago that came out that identified two things that Littleton needed one was a new
Senior Center and then the other was to have uh deeply affordable senior rental housing so uh in in conversations uh there have been there have been a lot of uh conversations uh leading up to the
upcoming uh groundbreaking as as the development of 550 gets to closer to fruition and and and starting that process um there is the conversation uh I know that the planning board had looked at uh the senior
affordable housing component the level of affordability for the entire project and um it has uh often been discussed with uh having this this building as as part of that uh
development of affordable of affordable housing and the uh and potentially so the developer and I had met a week ago today as a matter of fact that you are all aware of and uh um a a conversation
that had included uh previously to that requesting uh the phase one that he would be that a development of 300 units of 550 King Street would be at the uh
according to the um the r the the ruling by planning board that would be uh 80 to 120% Ami with I believe still so many units or percentage of those units above that um above that 120% Ami that were
high Market uh rate units and then you had your component of a deeply affordable 30 to 60 Ami then you had 80% affordable as a component so uh uh the the team got the request from
the developer to uh push the development of affordable housing uh postpone that out of the first phase from those 300 units into a later phase uh and that is something that we would not agree to and
we would not agree to that uh because I think that the great expectation uh for one of the most important deliverables uh that can happen is the creation of affordable housing as we all know the crisis is
going on and then we uh we we uh Express to uh the developer if uh if there is an opportunity to get more aggressive with the schedule for developing 37 shat Street into the deeply affordable from a
later phase as we know this project it's going to be seven eight years long of of a different phase every single year has that potential um but uh to increase that to get that more aggressive to make it part of phase
one and uh with that you would look at having approximately 40 units uh whether it's using the existing structure or demolish that structure uh it is been confirmed that the historical commission would not uh um put up a
um it would not prohibit that building from being knocked down to stop the uh the important uh uh creation of the Senor affordable deeply affordable housing and we are uh so what we uh in talking with Town Council we have an
internal team we've got uh Town planner Ryan uh uh we also have Town Council as as the internal working team and we have an outside consultant uh by the name of Judy Barrett in which Vice chairwoman
Morrison uh helped us interview uh two candidates to take on the role of uh messaging uh coordinating uh having input with in regards to a creation of
affordable housing and uh Miss Barrett uh with her experience and her her deep knowledge of senior affordable housing low-income housing tax credits and projects of that uh we uh unanimous unanimously selected uh Miss Barrett and
we continue through the process and last Thursday had a a zoom meeting with uh certain members on the U on on uh other chair chairpersons of certain boards and committees and that would consist of the select board the planning board the
affordable housing trust uh the council and aging and um Finance planning board did I say planning finance committee finance committee thank you and uh of which uh there was a a good conversation a lot of
questions uh I did forward a list of deliverables that we are preparing uh as we get closer to town meeting that would include an appraisal report report an engineering plan which shows the lot lines uh for this the costs of uh moving
to a temporary location uh the potential cost of annual rent for that location and also looking at uh the our final destination of a permanent location and what that would be financially and that will be a working
meeting uh as uh we will go make this conversation with the finance committee tomorrow um at tomorrow evening's meeting I had the conversation with Council on Aging today and uh updated them in a in a more detailed way let
everyone ask questions I am scheduled to go to the planning board on Thursday and to affordable housing Trust on March 19th uh to uh answer any questions uh that they may have and talk in in in
Greater detail and um it's an opportunity and I know and I know that uh uh it's it's a little it's a little fast not expecting this to come along fast but we saw you know the opportunity that affordable units need
to be need to be done we know that it has been a a great need for the deeply affordable ones and here is the opportunity um of of helping us get to there one of the things that I know that all of this is going to be done uh
through Council would be drafting is would be drafting the RFP to uh move forward uh after it's uh declared Surplus thinking optimistically in in May and we can then uh move forward with
uh trying to um uh create the opportunity for this to be developed for Senor we've done this in the past we did this we got three bids on this exact we they weren't bids they were just propos oh it wasn't just ri
right so this will give us the so there I mean yeah I mean I remember looking at those and it was definitely feasible could be done um but go ahead continue so though so it's and and then there was
a uh a you know a deeper conversation about exactly I mean is it 40 units or is it more and uh clearly if the if there's no um historical significance of the building there is not going to be any um uh any prohibiting of that by
historical commission to to raise the structure you can maximize lot lines and potentially look at that of the parcel being subdivided so you can have multiple you could have two projects next to each other uh whether one is the
deeply affordable of those 40 and then another 20 to 40 affordable or go for another 20 to 40 deeply affordable but you have that option uh and we have that option or is the developer the developer would have that option and any developer
that would uh that would U be awarded uh the project would absolutely have to have the experience of uh if not the direct experience then partnering with a uh afford a nonprofit
affordable housing developer with a clearly a successful track record that has worked with low-income housing tax credits the application for low income housing tax credits and I have been involved in one of these in in community other communities it's a three- ring
binder and it's literally this thick and uh extremely intensive and they look to a partner so the the state would would be a partner along with the developer and they would look for a local a local affordable housing trust to also be a partner and uh make an investment in it
not a not not a huge investment but just having be part of the um of the partnership with the town and um it's some I we think it's it's an exciting project and it's uh and
so much could uh could really uh can take off from from this and uh the the development of 550 King Street is very exciting and there's there's a lot of there's a lot of super things that would potentially go on there but the topic right now I'm sorry if I'm digressing is
um the the priority of it's been identified the need to create senior affordable housing and we have that opportunity now to uh to capitalize on that has anyone talked to
Nick Nick Lawler yeah yes and he signed off on the ability to do this because there's not the sewer capacity right where's the sewer capacity for I can't have I don't have that answer right now but that's a fair question we need to get them to sign off that this can be
done or when it could be done but and that's but good point and that's been a a conversation part of the conversation that I was having last Monday and that I filled the team in on when I had the conversation uh with the owner 550 just
in capacity in general so identifying another parcel for that capacity as just to let everyone know as you know um congresswoman Tran has a little over a million dollars for an earmark for us to help us purchase a piece of property uh
for that uh but that's helping committee and with the new Administration but uh I have a regular conversation with Nick on identifying another site and they have they are evaluating a site now you're talking of 20 rpu minimum there right
for 40 units it's like a half rpu each is that for one bedroom probably yeah so 20 rpu but I mean it's not necessarily going to increase the count of units at 550 although it could if we if we go with the plan that does more than 40
units but my understanding would be if he's using that building for 40 units they would supplant 40 affordable units that would have gone into 550 I don't think his per I don't think he has an agreement that he can put any of his units off site sure commiss no but but
okay that's fine but I'm saying from a capacity perspective it doesn't change anything like he's not adding more more capacity than he already than he already is signed up for it would no he does cuz because the his I believe his special
permit allowed him to do the 40 deeply affordable units off site correct already there was no requirement that they had to be onsite no I'm I'm saying and so his permit must include those it for the sewer no it doesn't okay we're talking about a developer exists but if
you're going to put on RFP you you can get two three four five other developers that have a potentially a better plan for this sure they could potentially you know absolutely and and Town Council uh Jenny and Tom are part of the process
that um absolutely 100% they have they have expressed that same thing and I guess that's that's the concern and that's the open we have to be open like that but the concern is if that happens it puts us in a different a tougher
situation I mean uh It's Tricky so so I I see where you're I mean I think I have some deep concerns about you know how's the town going to spend money on Town Hall like we're we're rushing to get this Surplus but we don't have three or four steps down the road to replace that
building and all the infrastructure that we need well that's part and that's part of the conversation that's going to be in and start in Greater detail tomorrow night and continue with with fin with fincom because once we're able to identify the approximate cost it would
be to forever for for for permanent location then then it's a working document with with the finance committee because it is our it is our intent to not to go to the taxpayer to pay for that it is intent for that to fall with
with an unlet and that's going to be a matter of timing and when that could be so that temporary space could be 2 years 3 years 5 years we don't know and I'm not going to speculate what it is because we we don't we haven't finished uh uh getting all the numbers
together if if it's five years you know I would worry that the the location that we select and the money we allocate for that isn't available in 5 years because something else happens in the meantime and now we're stuck renting for town
hall with no place to go right so I'm just saying like we need to have all our ducks in a row before we start this process that that's my concern no and that's and that would be part of shaping the draft RFP and we will identify all of these obstacles and uh and working
with the team and and and really looking at trying to have a reasonable solution to move forward uh with a a comfort level I mean can you RFP without declaring the property exess no you have to declare a surplus and get permission to sell it essentially at
town meeting that's like the safety blanket that well that's that's exactly what we we had to do with the orchard so so we can't issue an RFP unless we have that permission which is why we did ourly so there's a lot of what this is
going to be the plan is for this to be in the Maytown meeting yes sir right which the books basically go into the print in two-ish weeks time what information will we have available to put in the book and what are we planning on handing out at the
floor we are the team is working that out to make sure that we have the necessary information um regly available uh in time for town meeting if not sooner what I'm saying is if it's not in the book people are going to have a hard
time yeah with it what um talk to me about when we declare property of excess Surplus Sur keep saying it it's excess never excess um Surplus what's how do you put that back in the
bag if this whole thing fell apart and we couldn't we cannot find a location that makes sense we cannot we need we're not obligated to do anything it can be Surplus but I mean you could put it back into you take it out of surplus if you had to later on well I mean I don't know
if that's ever happened I'm just my worry I'm just trying to find protections for us if so many things go sideways SE sewer um we can declare it but it's we don't have to act on it if it if it falls
apart we just don't have to act on it but it's you know it would still be it would still be going we would have gone through that process of but the T Town let's say that it fell apart can the town resend the Surplus or just the
SLI board has the right in perpetuity I think it's check said you can have the building for Surplus forever if you wanted to I understand that's we don't know we don't know that exact answer which which way so if yeah okay so we could you know if the town let's just say they declared the orchard Surplus
and we didn't find anyone we liked we could in 10 years go and sell the Orchard and the town wouldn't be able to stop us right because they've already declared a surplus so that's to your point Gary on the once it's Surplus it stay I is there a way to unsur plusus it
that's where I was going yeah that's all I well I'm sure it have to be another time meeting but I don't know how that would work legally either what's the struggle I just the um the time the timeline
um and I guess I guess there's no no danger in making it Surplus we still have control of it right up to the point where we right does select Port has control over it right the town no longer has control over it so it's what's our comfort level
to pull the trigger on the next step looking at the r you know the RFP which one Rises to the top and then saying okay let's well based upon the uh uh based upon the criteria that's set forth in the RFP you you you judge it
according to not advantageous advantageous highly advantageous and that's and the best the best and the goal here is to create what we need to do is create the senior affordable housing so now is as good a time as any
we've got the the building next door that that will be finished no I agree that I just it's the cost analysis of it too which I like having I'd like having that in front of me because it's okay the cost of we have to move out yep
um and now you're talking I mean lctv I mean that's a whole another part of this yep complex space town I and then let alone the town clerk's offices with all the weight parameters and structural stuff but right safes and stuff so it's
that cost and also building out somewhere where we're going to rent how much do that cost us versus what the heck does it class to renovate this entire that entire building well we saw it when the library was going in cuz it was a conversation
and I know it was like 16 million at that time so was probably more to renovate 37 Shad Town Hall yeah but that wouldn't be our that was that was just for the library component right but to to renovate it for what use when we when
are we doing the feasibility when are we doing the deeply affordable senior housing the where do we do that well when we're saying that the deeply affordable where you're saying that we we not have to do that part that's our developers have to do their deeply
affordable housing absolutely but you know here we here we are we have the opportunity to to increase the you know the aggressiv absolutely location is amazing a senior center I I it's just um
the it's the financial piece to it that I would like to see 100% what is this rental at least the back what's the average rental price that we would need you know how much space we need already correct right so right what does that look like I mean I remember when we did it with the fire department you did it
you guys right um I don't know what that cost was but but even even that you know let's say we know how much it costs a rent but what how do we get out of the rent into a real building like the RFP is just a little tiny part that happens right after we declare it Surplus and
move out but there are four more steps down the road to get us into a new town hall that right right but it's like it's like the financial planning we're doing for for Shaker Lane you know we we've identified it it's the fact that okay we
put so much money in in into into the into the account the stabilization account then we'll be able to reduce that that debt okay so it's financial planning is so we will be able to say the back of the envelope says it's going to be x amount of million dollar
so it's going to take us 5 years to get there with this process meanwhile we have the 550 King Street which if we if we want to you've got a development schedule for uh for commercial for
commercial and for residential there you have different independent pads that uh properties that uh in the conversations with uh Mr Loli and his team I cannot I can't share the uh the anchors that are
there are quite impressive uh one of which is a Bo a high-end boutique hotel right which I knew you knew but now they've so there's a big difference between this and the other projects so if we look at like the fire station the library the senior center right and and
this project when we did them we we were doing it with a known cost right we had to go to town meeting and say we want to borrow money for this building building and we know how much it's going to cost this one you're asking us to declare something Surplus that we can then act
on to commit the town to potential future cost that they haven't yet approved we have to go back to town meeting to get approval for we we're going to have to go back to town meeting to get approval for any for a new town hall for appro where we no longer have a town hall right you do have a town hall
we have a temporary rented space right well it's it's still declared as a town hall right so you're giving up a town hall to move to something temporary without a definitive plan to move there are some municipalities that are in rented space it's not
unprecedent so what's the so once the authority ships over I mean you we keep saying deep deeply affordable housing what's that who's the control me we lose control at that point no no the RFP would would State specifically what like what the management company would charge
and it would be in the deed and planning take that would all be that would all be set out and irrevocable all right well that's a comfort level yeah and they deed restricted well they're not right but we know how when you get into 60 80
Ami 30 to 60 it's not really affordable that starts getting up 30 I mean it's 30 certainly and that's what that's what 37 shadik Street will be is 30 to 60 Ami and uh I mean there's a lot of
there's there continues to be a lot of moving Parts I I understand that but uh we are working hard of trying to fulfill that and as a matter of fact um one of the things that chairman Racha had
requested uh during that meeting on Thursday uh he wanted he wanted a list of deliverables which I emailed to everyone this evening uh and the select board was on that as a whole as a whole body
uh an appraisal of uh of 37 Shad Street engineering plan depicting the lot lines for for 37 Shad parking this we don't want to and there's there's ways to you know to identify the parking and how the
new construction whether it's uh uh you park underneath not like subground but ground level I mean there's there's a number of different ways to uh uh to identify that um uh the cost to move to
Temporary space uh then the potential monthly cost that would come out of the that would come out of the general operating budget for the temporary location square footage and cost to build out a permanent location uh and the time frame uh that we can
potentially absorb the the cost for permanent space under the levy and uh one thing that I did forget to put in here was Plan B if it's no yeah well and the I mean convincing the finance committee on the
the under the levy piece whatever that number looks like right yeah oh I mean ABS absolutely and uh this is I mean it whether it's it's now or or later on
down the road I think we would still be looking for the for the same answers we'd still be in the same situation of issuing the RFP to identify uh to to identify a a potential you know a long-term permanent home and we would
be doing cost estimates based on the same as we're doing now well my qu my immediate question that's why I asked because my concern was that why not November you know gives us time but that was kind of answered with the you have to you can't put out an RFP unless we
already declared excess so right Surplus stop correcting them yeah just stop can we just change the language and the sure we'll just you know we'll just change the master of law yeah uh I know a lot of moving Parts I
hate giving away land it's uh it's but not when you get something in return no that's the key but it's unknown and just if I can just request the the select board we you know the team hears you loud and clear it just G give us the opportunity to
um uh to get the information and uh and see how we can best make it make it work I mean I'm comfortable with your list that you created or you guys that's sign off by if we get answers lwd
in that piece okay great point and I'll uh Nick is going to be at finance committee tomorrow and I'll talk to him tomorrow morning OS so um but I appreciate all the the questions and the concerns it only makes
our our ability to be prepared better thank you to in naming the naming the property access okay moving on um so uh next item is to provide an
update on the annual town meeting uh and uh uh whether to vote to add articles to the town meeting warrant so uh if I could start uh from this list this is uh in the packet um the highlighted items are items that have changed or have been
added uh from uh your last meeting on February 24th um item number three which is highlighted uh basically gives uh gives the town permission for ny25 uh to make transfers at the year year end um to make up for any
shortfalls it's it's really administrative in nature but gives us the um uh permission to do that um article 12 is um get bring this up is an article to um uh to reallocate Prior
articles funded through free cash to support funding of the town of littleton's portion of the Littleton common sewer system betterment uh you may recall um when um I think it was uh our second meeting in December where we had talked about a plan to use our arpa
funds and how we would reallocate all of that these um what this is is really just a reaffirmation of that but we need to be able to take money that we had um allocated to other uh uses to uh then
allow us to then reallocate it to the betterment so it's just basically following up on that um it's also includes Article 13 which is to allocate interest generated through Opera Pro for the Opera program uh also toward our uh Town's sewer vment so really these are
all it's all part of that same plan but this is basically following through on that and and making those changes for uh town meeting that couldn't be one 12 and 13 couldn't be one article potentially potentially I think these are conversations to um I've uh I've shared
this list with the town moderator ultimately it's really up to the town Town moderator and and Town Council as to what we think we might be able to do some of that I'm just goal setting for you guys oh no no I I want fewer articles I mean I I'm still I'm think I'm still suffering from Karen's evil eye from the last one last meeting about
how many of the it was 30 last meeting that was 35 yeah so yeah the idea is to try where where we can consolidate we will try to um so um article 14 um was uh this is a request from the treasury
collector's office to allow for the um you know sewer betterment we we basically have people on different payback periods from the sewer betterment but our loan is one period so this is somewhat technical in nature but we need to get uh approval to allow for
um essentially the fact that people will be making paybacks at different paying back at different periods some everybody will be some people will be paying back all up front some people will be paying back over 10 years right Finance nightmare yeah so this just basically
gives us permission to do that um uh item 15 is an item that was uh relatively new uh where um and this came up in my conversation with uh the board of assessors well our town assessor where um it was a anr for development
behind um the the cemetery and article 14 right uh what's that article 14 yeah I'm sorry if I didn't yes article 14 thank you uh well no wait no 15 sorry our list is different oh okay well yeah actually let's use this list then I think this this may have may have been
updated uh cuz there always oh I see yeah you stuck in three so um so basically uh there was a anr plan for development that happened behind the cemetery and there was a parcel within that that uh expressed their intention to give it to the cemetery commission
that has yet to actually happen so uh and the town has to well the semetary commission has to First Express its desire to accept this piece of property uh and then uh then from that once we have that recommendation from the cemetery commission it would be coming back to meeting to accept it I think
it's like about two acres a lot of it is there's a pond on on it um so that's a good yeah yeah so but there may be a capacity to um well if if the cemetery owns it to really incorporate it into their overall
envelope and so we think it'd be a good thing to own but we just need permission on that um and uh item 16 here is uh this was from Steve yanley um if you remember um I think we did um a few is
it not at the last town meeting may may actually the last time meeting we had uh RightWay takings um um up near Foster Street Foster Street thank you um right near the train station so this is RightWay takings on Russell Street so uh
Steve's you working with Steve on this and um trying to find the right language and this for expansion new sidewalks and all the right right so um exactly so uh and everything else that um these are again the highlighted ones are the new
ones that you have not seen uh but wanted to give you a quick um highlight of that so uh we're in the process of working on drafting these articles so we're working with Town Council as well as um the parties for whom we have specific responsibilities so Russell
Street that's Steve yanley working with Steve working with Town Council to get the right language for that uh Marin has the two planning articles so it's just to remind you the two um planning board articles are uh zoning bylaw amendments to um as it relates to adult use
marijuana establishments and amending the wetlands flood plane uh so they they intend and would like to come um at on the meeting of the 24th to present both articles to you even though the board might not necessarily be taking a formal position on they out of courtesy wanted
to come in and provide that presentation to you and of course um the other pieces that Michelle touched on which are Personnel related uh the first being changes to the Personnel bylaw which she talked about earlier tonight as well as
our general uh change which is article 17 here in the list before you which is the update to the compensation grid and all of the uh components within that so there's a lot of work to be able to to get to this piece place but um and again we're working with Town Council on draft
and once we have something that we feel comfortable in Sharing we'll get that back to you so our goal on the 24th is to we propose that it would be a joint meeting with the finance committee um at that meeting again the planning board would like to come and present uh what
is now and will change probably articles 35 and 36 uh so um they would be making that presentation and uh some of the feedback um from the board which you do not have to get back to me tonight on but things that maybe you're seeing here that you'd
also like to see further information on U article 34 say for example is uh the care and control of lot 107a so that was a request to the Conservation Commission you've seen that was at the last town meeting
we we we we pulled that at last minute there and uh so we um you know so that's uh that's still here and um you know so and and I know Chase came and made that presentation so um I I think we're in a
good place with that I can't remember if there was anything else outstanding that you wanted to see as it relates to that article um they covered all the well they were still working out the plan with the water department I thought they still as I understand they're having
that conversation so um you know whether that would change the article uh and and what that would be I think that's something we'll follow up on but um at least in terms of you know where things are at you have heard about that and you
know what that is um article 32 Jim talked about earlier the um authorization of surplus Town Hall so um a lot of these you've seen um and are familiar with so but I would encourage you to um look at the list again if you
have questions please reach out to me uh and Jim and um again we' we've got a lot of work to do to actually flesh these things out but this is at a higher level what we're looking to do so in the meeting on the 24th uh the things that the select board would be uh asked to do
uh first is article order I know the board has had some opinions about where you want things to be it does you know it's a very important thing as it relates to the pacing of town meeting and what you want to see so I know in the P past cycle you that the board has really wanted to change things around
and make you know which is absolutely fine so think about that what you uh you know how you uh would want to um well you got to get really get in a pulse of what we think is is the hot button articles get them up front and that might be you know we we we may be taking
that perspective I we can we can we can do that I mean a 35 36 article might you don't want a very complex article to go at 36 I mean people waiting for it you know if it has something to do with neot for instance very fair point I even recommend like we
can talk 34 the some that I think we could put off to the fall or even if it was the the Surplus I think this something that we could no maybe not well you know that's
and so just for the things to vote on would be the order um whether or not you be wanted to remove any of the Articles because this is our proposed list of what we have and then and then finally uh making recommendations on the article so sort of like what you did last time
where you meeting joying with the fincom and you say okay we just reviewed article seven okay we hear a board recommendation on that yet you know and then same thing pcom you get it done at one time and you're both hearing the same things which I think has worked pretty efficiently for us so that's a
charger on the 24th so um we haven't got any petition articles have we no petition articles so I think the shade tree committee isn't going to have the bylaw ready if my understanding is correctly is that is that right that was I believe
that's true but yeah looking that way okay and I don't Matthew I don't think we're having any we want any articles for the orchard except the revolving fund at this point no so that one can so I think well in the excess land so it's the only other article we
have regarding the Ard I guess the lower lot yeah the conservation there yeah all right so 22 and 23 I think go away how long do we leave the police Union on there for U oh that's next meeting we're going
to have a yeah we have executive session next meeting right put that in the tickler so we'll have that and then we decide whether to keep it on or not at that meeting or I mean probably yep probably yeah
okay right um and uh do we trying to remember where we where we put the um revolving fund for the orchard yeah uh that's 24 yeah so we you know Matthew had spoken earlier about
the receipt of of of the you know from revenue from the rent that would go there and then you know for the inspection say how do you pay the inspection you pay for it out of that although I will say anything we take in Matthew for taxes that would of
course T offers right so um yeah so basically that's this is the list that we're looking at you've uh the 24th really becomes a key meeting and I want to be able to try to provide at least a more a fleshed out sense of what those articles would look like but there's a
lot of pieces in here that really aren't you know um you know are really uh Evergreen articles that continue to come back every every year so um you know there's some new ones establishing revolving funds um especially where we have a new um uh new center in shat
Street Building um so we may be able to combine that into one article It's relatively non-controversial sure it be this is this list has been sent to um the town moderator and uh the finance uh committee chair so they've seen this kind have a they'll have a good sense of
what what's what's coming as well for them so so the tax the orchard tax from cannnot go into it has to go into the general fund tax has to go tax revenue has to go f it's a l what we could do is have a budget item for the orchard that
basically was trans but it has to be an annual we'd have to add it every year we could make it a revolving fund yeah more money we can put in that the better so we're never in a situation like we were it would be worth it I mean that's easy to explain to the population the
town too yeah well be able to do other things at the meeting um you know we talked about uh collective bargaining like we probably have a better sense than also bills of Prior years which we might just carry and pull the night of who knows if
I I'd hate to Hate to take it out find a bill week or two before which has happened so um you know this it looks um it looks daunting but it's actually you know
fairly you know this is actually not not that bad comp you know in terms of what we have to do and you know with the use of the consent agenda which thankfully is is a huge Advantage for us uh working with the town monor and that that'll help us a lot um you know like you take
for example you know like article 11 adding funds back into the special injury lead Indemnity fund we've had to hit that fund a little bit uh and and so as such the total fund has gone down and so what this would be proposed just to bring it back to its prior level really
simple more administrative in nature but um so you know something like that might you know reach to the consent agenda as well so um and and then you know I think too if the board if you what you're saying is you want to bring you know we bring the more controversial items to
the front I think that worked pretty well last I'm just I'm just thinking of residents that um sure the consent agen is a consent agen and knock it out a lot but I think then the very next ones should be the ones that um yeah know that we have to figure we get
that just talking to our neighbors what you know I have daycare what's you know what are the important they're all important to us but you know I would say that was something that the board was really strong on the last annual and I think it worked well because it really kind of
hit a lot of things right at the top that you know we were able to um to focus on so and then just address it right in the front um this about the orchard so we talked about the tax he'll be taxed
to something I didn't I don't know if it was in the the lease or not did we discuss the schedule obviously for assessed value go changes over the next 20 years or so that's so it won't always be 8,000 whatever it could no but I mean it's he has to pay the tax is that
understood I just want to make sure if we put a solid number there though well we we have estimated from last year in the as an example in the lease and he's he understands he'll have to pay the property tax on that and and the individual would prospectively be getting a discount because it is under
agricultural preservation so that was all conscious about that effort about wanting to I can tell just by the number that Kathy said that it was at the very lowest rate right that's and that's the intent and that's the intent because the uses of the favorable use so um so pretty much that's where we are um I
would I would say in terms of the budget um you know we we're you know we've gone through with the team we met Friday morning with gy and the finance team to go over where we were um so I think we're um we're close to presenting something on that there've been some you
know some ads with as we mentioned earlier the 19.9% health care which is unfortunate news uh but you know we've we've counted that with some other changes and other updates but we you know have every confidence we'll be able to present a balanced budget and um you
know we um you you know we feel like that's in a that's in a good place so um so if the board doesn't have any other questions we'll just prepare for the 24th uh again propose it as a joint meeting with the fincom and um you know again if you see something in here that
you have questions about or um you know uh just please please reach out um so we can we can discuss so if it's a joint meeting we're going to do it here and not over any one other three that's that's probably because we need the
extra real estate to make that happen I think that might be better if it's okay with you yeah okay do we need a motion to add these new articles um I I I think you're I think you could
probably we'll probably do everything together in the 24th I say because it might be some other things that then drop off I appreciate that though Matthew I think we can do we can add you know add them um discuss the order remove anything that needs to be done and then of course make the
recommendations and and again I like the I think what to work well and please correct me but I think having the finance committee here and then both parties hearing the same information I can I can tell tell you from my conversations with the chair he's he's been appreciative of that too it's been a pretty efficient way to do things U so
he likes that model as well and just for clarity you're going to try and combine the EHS resolving F articles into one um maybe I got I have to I have to check to see whether or not you know because the the risk is if you have if someone if there's three if there's three revolving
funds and for whatever reason town meeting doesn't like one does that kill the whole article so and then thus the counter Amendment the counter would be potentially you you know you just put it on consent and approve because I I don't think that would be a really
controversial thing either too so any so that's that's where things stand um for the May 6th annual Town Meeting thank you that's the biggest I've seen if it stays like that 36 yeah I don't know you
want to add a few more no it's got two nights right all over and I've never seen a two night and again Gary remember three of them are for adding revolving fun three four revolving funds so right crazy it's happened to all the
business minutes I'm good yeah move with the selectboard vote to approve the meeting minutes from a joint select board meeting with fincom on February 1st 2025 and the select board meetings on February 3rd 2025 and
February 24th 2025 second by Matthew second by Karen all those in favor I motion to adjourn second second move by Matthew second by Gary all those in favor I thank you see
everyone on the 24th good night little