to notice this ship the envelope open the envelope marty opens up the envelope and a note comes out that reads "As soon as you land find the two buttons labeled M and Mini punch those buttons at the exact same time
then run you will have 10 seconds to get out of the ship once out please return the ship to me thanks Margaret." Marty and Beth push the buttons as they do the alien wakes up and lunges at
them they duck under his grasp and sprint for the door as soon as they clear the hatch the ship starts to glow and vibrate suddenly it shrinks to the size of a toy oh how cool is that now that ship can
hide in plain sight on display at the National Air and Space Museum i wonder what other stories our artifacts tell we have a meeting to get to and a ship to return we hope you enjoyed this episode and learned a little bit about graphic novels and how important they are are
you reading a graphic novel we'd love to add it to our reading list drop the title in the comments and if you like this show be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to the National Air and Space Museum's YouTube channel thanks for watching beth while we're
still cartoons I've got an idea mass gave us a couple of jetpacks let's go hi my name is Meline and my favorite graphic novel is Allergic allergic is my favorite graphic novel because she's allergic to so many pets but she still
finds one she can have hello my name is Waverly and my favorite graphic novel is Frizzy because it's about a girl my age struggle with hair problems and I can relate to that [Music]
hi my name's Blaze and my favorite graphic novel book is Messenger because or I like Messenger because it's a book by about Muhammad Ali and it's a boxing v uh book hi my name's Alexi and this is my
favorite graphic novel Squished this is my favorite graphic novel because it's kind of like my family and we're all really loving but chaotic and it was really fun to read this and I hope that if you decide to read this you enjoy it
[Music] [Music] hi I'm John Green director of education and training for Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts and I'd like to introduce to you my two friends Lashant Petroski Ackley lashant is a social
worker with the VA and Pierre Solomon pierre is a combat veteran for the US Army and owner of Solomon Firearms Training and Overwatch Security we are involved with the governor's challenge to prevent suicides and we're going to be talking about a very important aspect
of firearm safety today and that is suicide [Music] prevention pierre can you start us off and tell us why this issue is so important to you yes suicide prevention
became important to me through my 12 years of military service when I was in I learned about the difficulties that service members were dealing when they were away from their family as well as the issues veterans were facing when they were returning back into civilian life so that made me think about who that affected and it was people close to
me so my family my friends my co-workers students employees and so then it became very personal for me absolutely i tell you I was really surprised to learn the statistics uh with regard to suicide you know we talk often about ways to mitigate unintentional or accidental
discharges on the range when we're carrying firearms but we don't often talk about suicide awareness but my demographic group a white male in Massachusetts 88% of firearms deaths are in fact suicides yeah it makes you
realize that protecting yourself and your family involves more than just keeping them safe from accidents or any attacks for most families in Massachusetts suicide is a greater danger than homicide lant what are some ways that we can keep our friends and
family safe from suicide risk that's a great question i think the best thing that we can do is be aware of some of the signs of suicidal thinking so some of those can be if someone's talking a lot about death or dying they have a sense of hopelessness or they perceive
themselves to be a burden to their loved ones you may notice an increase in alcohol or drug use some reckless behavior selfisolation an increase in anxiety or any type of mood swings this is especially true if they're struggling
with any type of mental health issue along with a personal crisis such as a relationship breakup a recent arrest or any major life transition anything that puts them in a place where they feel desperate or trapped so if we notice a
serious issue what can we do to help the best thing that you can do is just to be there for your loved one be able to talk with them know that they're present and let them know that you really care about them you do not have to solve the problem that they're struggling with just being there to listen can be a
great help another basic thing that gun owners can do is keep in mind that putting distance and time between a suicidal person and a firearm can save a life so let's say somebody in your household is going through a really rough time that may be an opportunity for you to re-evaluate your storage
strategy another thing you can do is reach out to another licensed gun owner who you can trust and they can hold on to your firearm they may even clean your guns for you that'd be nice yeah and then the other option you have is you can ask your local gun store if they can store it for you basically you want to
look for somebody that you can count and depend on to hold on to your firearm all great ideas and if you are licensed you could consider changing the trigger locks or cable locks on the individual guns you could change the combination on the gun safe but ultimately whether you're licensed or you're not licensed
you could certainly take an integral part of the gun and store that off site all of my personal friends that I know they own a ton of guns so I would have It's not like "Hey bring one gun." It'd be like "Hey bring your But at that point right you're taking pieces of of guns." That's a great way of being able
to take pieces of it and then if you guys are going to a fire range later because this is a integral part of the community and really helping with that withdrawal piece right i don't want people to not partake in things that they really enjoy we talk about it i
mean our community it's the competition it's the recreation it's the ability to sit in that treeand and and watch all great things from mother nature so I love the fact that we've discussed this idea of okay listen you're going through a rough patch but we know that you love to hunt so let's go hunting or if we're
going to go to the range and we're going to do some recreational shooting good let's have a wonderful day grab lunch afterwards and then I'll take the gear home from that and part of that conversation should also be about when do you give the guns back right so part of this isn't to
remove the guns permanently this is just while you're going through the stressful event they have to be involved in this planning the gun owner is the essential part of this and we need to respect their their liberties their freedoms and so having them be part of this plan and
then if they are engaged in mental health bring in their mental health provider as you had previously said and if not at the very least you can even bring in 988 crisis line to say how do we talk through this help them create the dialogue so everyone involved in the
situation can feel safe about when it is removed and when it's returned so what if down the road it's you going through the rough patch what then yeah if you're noticing that things are spiraling out of control you want to take action before it's too late so one thing you can do is you can store the firearm
outside of the home or you can field strip the gun and then you can keep the slide or barrel outside of the home one of the things that we know that building in that delay can save a life yes it can in one study they found that 48% of
people who attempted suicide said that they first thought about attempting suicide only within 10 minutes of actually making an attempt that doesn't mean that these thoughts came out of the blue often times people have been struggling for a while who've been
thinking about killing themselves but that escalation from distress to suicidal thoughts to a suicide attempt can happen pretty quickly if you have a gun on hand you're more likely to die by suicide than if you use anything else
what about the idea if they don't die today eventually they will i get that perspective but someone who's actively suicidal in the moment people sometimes think that they're going to be the same way tomorrow next week or even next
month but often they're not there's been many studies on this that 90% of people who have a suicide attempt don't go on later to die by suicide so a life saved in the short term is most often a life saved absolutely sometimes what we need
is time and space other times we may need to make a life-changing behavior or even seek mental health treatment what if treatment's not working treatment is not always a quick fix if you have a loved one who's engaged in treatment and
they feel like it's not helping encourage them to switch it up maybe find a new provider or a different course of treatment encourage them to keep going until they find something that helps i get it offering to to you know store somebody's guns get them off
site that's an awkward subject to broach but ultimately it's about keeping our friends and our family safe and it's a great way to say "Listen I've got your back." So one of the things that's important for anyone entering the gun community to really think about is
safety planning ahead of time and so it's important to get loved ones involved and and talk through if I'm in a distressing situation what can we do who does this go to what part of the firearm can be removed am I okay with my
firearms leaving the home and often if we can plan for that when people are not in a crisis it goes better for everyone involved because I know what to do i know what my friend would want me to do yeah it's like helping out a friend any other time it's like assigning a
designated driver when you guys are going out or holding on to your friend's keys if they've had too much to drink and they need to sober up these weren't things that were normal before but they are now and we can take the same approach to suicide prevention as members of the firearms community we
have a duty to protect our friends family and loved ones from suicide by firearms i want to thank you for listening today and remember anybody can prevent a suicide
[Music] Stand by in five 4 3 2 1 welcome to the April 7th 2025 meeting of the Long Meadow Select Board this is Select Board Chair
Veneathy i will be confirming that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative dan Sorco here andrew Lamb here mark Gold here josh Lavine here staff when I call your name please respond in the affirmative
lynn Simmons here mike Barbie here welcome back thank you this open meeting of the Long Select Board is convened in person and via Zoom webinar as posted on the agenda and town's website identifying how the public may join there's no chat or Q&A function all the materials for this meeting are available
on the agenda posted on long meadowmma.gov the public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise this meeting will feature resident comment for residents attending the meeting in person please raise your hand when we get to the comment section of the meeting and I will call on you to approach the microphone for residents
participating in the meeting via Zoom webinar format please use the raise hand icon at the bottom of the screen the meeting moderator will promote you to panelist unmute you and give you permission to speak if you join the webinar by phone please dial uh uh sorry dial star9 to raise your hand and star
six to mute unmute residents who wish to speak will identify their names and addresses only each individual is afforded three minutes for comments please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking if anyone in
attendance is recording this meeting please announce yourself now great uh and now we will start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right select board announcements are next the annual town meeting is set for May 13th in the Long Meadow High School gym the final warrant will be available on
April 14th and will be delivered to each household including optouts via the reminder on April 24th for additional information and resources please visit long meadow mma.gov/town meeting the annual town election is set for Tuesday June 3rd polls will be open from 7:00
a.m to 8:00 p.m at the Long Meadow Community House for additional information and a list of important dates and reminders please visit long memma.gov/elections long Meadow Public Schools is excited to invite community members to an interactive event designed to engage and inform the public about the district's proposed new middle
school building project the event will take place on Thursday April 10th at 7 p.m in the Williams Middle School gym this informal event will provide attendees with the unique opportunity to explore key aspects of the middle school project through a series of interactive stations each station will focus on a
different element of the project to learn more please visit long meadow ma.gov/civic alerts and finally the town of Long Meadow Municipal offices will be closed on on Monday April 21st for Patriots Day okay uh and with that we
will move into resident comments do we have anyone here for resident comment yes sir all right name address and three minutes at least I don't have one for you sorry yes those are thank you
tom Shay 81 Green Meadow Drive tonight you will be discuss a projected significant $530,000 shortfall in the 2025 water and sewer operations should also be discussing the
important $69,000 deficiency in the board policy of water and sewer retained earnings i'm a CPA and a CFA with almost 40 years of experience in accounting and finance i ask that you give me a few extra minutes of t or time it'll be worth
it in July of 2024 the select board unanimously voted to have the fourth quarter water and sewer build at the previously approved budget rate for fiscal 2024 this was different than the original
recommendation of billing it at the fiscal 2025 rates for the fisc for the audited financial statements page 49 says water and sewer funds are on the acrruel method of accounting that means revenue
are recorded as earned and expenses are recorded as incurred the revenue derived from usage April 30th through July 5th was earned at the rate for fourth quarter 2024 august 12th was the rate setting
for fiscal 2025 see pages 3 to 5 we took the net operating budget divided by the number of units that was for fiscal 2025 had nothing to do with what happened fourth quarter 2024 as an aside I would suggest
that when you approve rates this year you get a full budget just like you do for every other department line item budget you can't just do a single numerator denominator the shortfall memo
I disagree with the assertion that there was a warning of budget shortfalls review the Long Meadow TV broadcast of July 15th at the 256 mark mr gold and Dr lamb asked a series of
questions my interpretation and what actually happened is the difference in revenue was for the fourth quarter of 2024 there was some uncertainty but the conclusion was the rate would not impact the
2025 budget you've got my notes there shortfall analysis the combined shortfall is 530,000 29,000 was mentioned as the revenue difference that leaves 321,000
unidentified where'd that come from i believe you need further analysis the shortfall analysis needs to be redone see page two of 10 my advice is take no action until this is done all
right thank you Mr she oh you're killing me uh any other resident comments we have anyone online Mike uh no no great all right thank you and we can move into select board comments um I
just have a quick select board comment the uh just an update on the fiber uh work at the beginning of March the uh our contractor Fiber Spring they finished all of their walkouts it was a very difficult winter with a lot of snow and you know a lot of bad weather but it
took them about a month to do that um this actually required them to go to every single pole in the town and um assess it so they walked over I think 93 miles in doing this uh but that is completed and they are now well into the
design engineering phase so that's just a update on what's going on with uh the Viper projects um anyone else josh uh just a brief one i was out last week at uh my son's head soccer practice at Turner Park uh behind the baseball
stadium one of the soccer fields and I know we I just want to commend the DPW and Parks and Wreck on the plan to not use that field for a while it has really come back this is a big something we hear we all hear about all the time and something
that we need to be very cognizant of going forward is usage and uh it really dubtales well I think with the uh discussion about the turf versus grass fields um because our fields just are
get overworked and and need time to recover and you can see it looking at Turner Park great thank you and Dan you have something yeah thanks excuse me um over the weekend I I attended the Earth Day cleanup um I think it was
on I think it was on Saturday um I was down at the Meadows we had a large group there was about 15 of us um I was a team captain again this year and just wanted to say thank you to um Arlene Miller uh Liz Bone Andrea Chason and really um
like close to probably hundred volunteers across the town again I was down in the meadows and it's just it always amazes me just how much trash is actually down there and it's just tires uh cans a t a ton of different items but we
managed to pull out like 20 bags of trash which that like I said that was just my group so I know there are groups across the town but um every year you know look forward to that event it's a it's a great event put on by um those who I had mentioned previously and just wanted to thank everyone for for coming
out and lending a hand and then also Josh mentioned the the uh turf study uh last week I had attended the the turf study um unfortunately there was only about 15 people and you know I've been in town for a long time and that's
pretty consistent unfortunately when we have these types of forums but uh it was tape recorded I believe Lynn and uh so you can you can grab it online and and get some more information but this is certainly not going to be uh solved overnight there's going to be a lot of discussion a lot of passionate
discussion if you're at the uh at the forum so uh look forward to um the conversation as we uh move forward great thank you Mark yeah just a couple updates on meetings and organizations you know the P the Scanic Valley Health
Trust is continues to meet they're on target for their finances and which means that the 4% increase that that we have for next year is looking pretty solid and there no plans on changing that uh and their projections for what
that would do to their budget this year have pretty much been right on so kudos to that group and officers who's their treasurer to takes care of it the other thing is just I want to just issue another reminder to everybody in town that the PVTA runs buses for free and we
should be taking advant There's not a whole lot of buses that go through Long Meadow but we should be taking buses to the extent that we can it is free and it's actually your tax dollars at work because it's being subsidized by the state and ultimately I guess the federal government great thank you okay uh and
so we can move forward to the town manager report thank you do have a long one tonight so I will try to be quick an update on the Long Meadow Street L project and waterline replacement the advertisement date for Massock construction project has been pushed back to June the project bid needs to
advertise for 90 days this pushes the project award and possibly construction start date back and then the waterline work that's coming in front of this work uh has started back up again for the spring construction includes installation of a 12-in 12-in ductile water line centered
on Converse Street and will run to the Converse Street Laurel Street intersection and this work is expected to take a few weeks from there the work will shift to waterline replacement on Llewellen Street water main installation on Llewellen should take two weeks night work in the intersections of Long Meadow
Street Forest Glenn Western Drive intersection is tenatively scheduled to take place in about a month as with any construction project the schedules are tentative and subject to change long Meadow Street Route 5 resurfacing this is called phase one at
the March 10th meeting I announced the Mass Dot public hearing for another phase of Long Meadow Street the Route 5 work i mistakenly referred to it as phase two as if the Long Meadow Street L project was phase one this is actually considered phase one phase two is not
scheduled yet and encompasses the area from the end of phase one to the Enfield line um as previously mentioned the L project is not considered a phase in this work the design public hearing for phase 1 is scheduled for May 8th at 6:30 p.m at Greenwood Center the flyer for
the project has been attached to my report and um we'll be uh we we're working on notice to the affected area uh in advance of that May 8th meeting and just as a reminder this covers Converse Street to Bernie
Road um I have a notable DPW retirement to inform you on on Friday April 4th DPW Grounds foreman Steve Guzo retired mr guzzo began working for the town in May of 2020 May of 2014 as a skilled labor and equipment operator he was then
promoted to grounds foreman in 2017 thank you to Mr guzzo for your 11 years of service to the town and we wish you well in your retirement an update on the status of the 2024 audit much has been going on in the background related to the preparation for the town's 2020 fiscal
year 2024 audit i asked the town's finance director to prepare a status report because there's been a lot of mu move movement in the last few days uh meeting last week uh and so this is the update provided to me by finance director Ian Codington uh he's providing
an update on the status of the FY24 audit and as of April 2nd 2025 CBIZ the town's auditing firm now has everything they need to complete the audit just as a reminder on Monday December 16th 2024 the select board voted to approve an extension of CBiz as their audit
contract was set to expire on December 31st at that time CBID CBiz had finished test its testing and was waiting for Hampton County retirement systems statements to complete the town's audit this was not available as of the December meeting for the next four
months my Lynn myself and Ian communicated with Tanya Campbell the audit partner and Nadia Shodka the audit manager i don't know if I'm pronouncing her last name right um about the delay and any updates uh Ian had also reached out to other
communities and to the executive director of the Hampton County Retirement System to inquire about the delay finally at the end of March I reached out to the Hampton County Retirement Director to press for a date when the town would receive the necessary information to complete its
audit um between that time I'm adding this in here but between that time between um end of December and end of March there had been very little updates provided um and we were we just kept getting told that they're working on it they're working on it uh and
so um uh at when I reached out the end of March to press for an actual date um they said they would provide an update soon but that she did not have a date that it would be done um this year the audit has been unique and as historically the select board has
approved the audit in December on April 2nd 2025 the Hampton County Retirement Board voted to approve the actuarial valuation for 112024 and the 123123 Government Accounting Standards Board statements 67 and 68 ian was able
to confirm with Erica Lours the assistant director of Hamen County Retirement on April 3rd 2025 that these votes took place these documents are required to complete our annual audit and they pro as they provide the town a financial provide the town a financial reporting of our pension plan and
updated actuarial estimates of our net pension liability our future contribution requirements and other pertinent information this is after this comes after months of being on hold as the Hampton County retirement system was going through a system conversion that delayed their audit this delay has held
up the town from completing its FY24 audit in term in turn holding us up from issuing new debt and acquiring shity bonds to allow us to move forward with our fiber pole applications we were not alone in our frustration with Hamen County retirement as all communities participating in the
system have anxiously been awaiting the report's completion ian wants to thank Tanya Campbell Nadia Shodka and their audit team for help working through this progress as we needed to file multiple extensions she would also like he would also like to thank Brienne Susil from
Unib financial adviser who helped keep the town in compliance with our reporting requirements for our issued debt while we waited for the financial statements to be finalized all of that information has been provided to our auditing firm and they are close to completing our FY24 audit an update on road resurfacing and
potholes as we know spring's not kind to uh New England roads and I had provided an update on February 24th on the status of pothole work and um the road resurfacing bond and this report tonight is meant to update that February 24th
report asphalt plants recently opened on March 24th dpw is now obtaining hot mix and patching every day the weather allows they do keep a priority list of roads which is loosely Long Meadow Street Converse Street Bliss Road Williams and Shaker that theme with
priority roads are main roads and ambulance routes uh as a reminder all potholes should be reported to public works at long meadow ma.gov and um just to provide some context here a pothole patching crew consists of three to four people as well
as police details as needed the crew ideally is out every day now that the asphalt plants are open however this is also the same crew that handles catch basin repairs down trees repairs to dirt roads hydrant repairs sewer backups bank stabilization picking up roadkill as well as responding to a variety of other
daily complaints from residents additionally there are vacation days illnesses and weather challenges that impact this 3 to four person crew um there is a claim process if you are um unfortunately struck by a pothole or a pothole strikes you um and you receive
damage to your vehicle you can file a claim and um it'll go through the town's insurance company an update to the road resurfacing bid um bids were put out on um March 5th with a due date of March 26th the low bidder was Caracus
Construction at $4.7 million as a reminder town meeting authorized borrowing of 5.1 million so that bid came in at $47,000 less than we anticipated the bid award is being prepared and a contract is being readied we have not gone out to bond yet until
we sign the contract and have a pre-construction meeting with the selected contractor we won't know the schedule of work or the timing once the schedule's developed another update will be provided and I do provide a list here of the streets that were targeted to be done uh in that warrant article and also
during my February 24th update that list of streets has not changed and um as was previously mentioned we held a public presentation on natural grass versus versus artificial turf this was the study that was recently completed by Tom Irwin Associates for the town a copy of
the slide deck and the Zoom recording are available on the town manager page of the Long Meadow website great concludes my report happy to answer any questions you have thank you Lyn um anything Mark yeah I have a couple of questions how what are we going to do to try to
get residents to that DOT hearing of on phase one it was you know we we heard people come in and say "Nobody ever told me about you know the L project kind." How do Dan kind of said it you know 12 people show up kind of thing but how we
got to do something different I would think is there any thought given to that uh in terms of whether it's different or not than what was done in the prior round I'm not sure because I wasn't here for that notification period uh what we're uh internally working on now are is potentially a code red notification
to that locus area uh and possibly um flying or going doortodoor although that'll depend on the amount of staff we have available um but the traffic and roads advisory group is meeting in the next few weeks and I've asked them to look that look at this issue to figure out ways that we can try to provide
notice to people um but I will caution that no matter what effort we go to people will still come to us in three to seven years whenever this project is ready to break ground that they did not know about it so we could take every step possible and that will still happen
um properties will transfer during that time frame and um you know that's a lot of time to go by between a design public hearing and then actually breaking construction so people do lose sight of the fact that we did public notice on something years prior okay how how do we
Thank you another topic how do we use the problems that Hampton County retirement board this is a I don't know six month delay or something like that in their in their actuarial report how do we use that to to demonstrate to the people who need to i mean I'm you know
at least to you and me and a few of us we kind of recognize what they How do we use that to our advantage to recognize that something's got to be done you know to to either get them on the stick or get them out of there and let us do something is there any thought at all of how we can do that
i don't have any specific ideas at this point but um I have made several contacts to perk about the delays and the impacts it caused the town even if Perrick was to go to the because there is legislation out there somewhere that may
or may not get heard this year that that requires a reform of the retirement board it would be wonderful if Parrot could say "Yeah they're really got problems and this this reform would really help." But anyway I you know I'd love to see us contact Representative
Ash and Senator Olivivera or somebody to because it this has just been you know the whole town in 36 towns and communities has been a mess so and I know you know that the last question I have is we indicated that that the paving went to a company called Caracus
have they done any work in Long Meadow or other surrounding town that's a name I've never heard before uh it's a name that's familiar to me uh I'm not entirely sure if they've done work in town before uh but I I do know of the construction company all right thanks uh
anything else from the board okay thank you Glenn we can uh then move into old business we are going to skip over approving meeting minutes we'll get to a bunch of those at our next meeting and then we will next uh talk about our
FY2025 water and sewer rate discussion so we have a memo attached to the agenda that was prepared by Ian and Lisa lisa if you can move up the microphone thank you um and
this basically is about the uh change in our the way that we build um our our water or the way that we did the water rates um and that we knew that there was going to be a shortfall that was going to be coming this year and so um this is to kind of
address that so uh Ian and Lisa I'll kind of kick it over to you all to go through the memo and um and talk about your recommendation sure um members of the select board good evening uh my name is Eton i'm the finance director i'm going to go over with you guys today the
water sewer enterprise rates the history of last year's recommendation where we are today and steps that we can take in order to deal with the current shortfall and retained earnings deficit so in July of 24 the select board voted to set the
water and sewer rates as well as the storm water rates the new rates went into effect in July and were applied during the first billing cycle during the year which applies to October November 24 so just as a historical note
um this was a long discussion that took place over let's see three to four select board meetings the discussion about the water sewer rates began in April 1st um that we discussed during the fiscal year budget we discussed the
impact of uh higher than expected water and sewer rates on the residents and I put together a memo for presentation at the June 3rd 2024 select board meeting to go over the current status at that time and where next year was looking what followed was a long discussion that
took place including a meeting with the Springfield Water Sewer Commission as one of the main components of our increase from last year was a large um increase in our w Springfield springfield water sewer rates ultimately the rate proposals were voted on
accepted at the July 15th meeting i would like to show the accepted FY25 proposal for water which includes the updated Springfield water sewer rate and the expenses related to debt service on the water main improvements bond that were taken out during
2024 thanks Mike might have to Yeah so this gives us a projected rate of $4.52 and um this shows uh 1.9 million of
Springfield water sewer charges 796,000 of expenses uh 500,000 of salaries and then 952,000 of debt service related to the Long Meadow Water Main Improvements Project this was bonded in 2024 this all
agrees to what was set at our annual budget meeting for FY2025 which drives our rates i would also like to note that this includes the base rate distribution charge where we increased it slightly from year to year as well as the increase in interest
revenue due to positive effects in the market i'd like to note that as part of our monthly reports that I submit to the select board I complete the estimated receipts which gives a month-to-month look at local receipts property taxes
state revenues and most importantly enterprise funds i also meet with Shawn Van Dusen and Lisa on a monthly basis to discuss any upcoming expenses for DPW and discuss the revenue outlook this is something that we have been monitoring and it's something that we
feel is pertinent enough to bring to your attention at this point at this time based upon usage projections the water division is projecting a $400,000 shortfall and the sewer division is projecting 130,000 shortfall additional
revenue is needed to cover the sewer and water operating budgets and today at this meeting we have presented some possibilities option one is to completely liquidate the enterprise fund
retained earnings for water of 273,000 reduce the water operating budget by 50,000 uh increase the unit rate from $4.52 that was approved last year to $510 which is a 12.85% a 5% increase and
increase the meter rate by 20% across all different meter sizes each meter would see a 20% increase in rate this would generate an additional $58,842 in revenues
um to increase the water unit rate and for the water meter rate this would generate additional 10,000 we also have the option to only increase the water meter rates a flat fee of $70
uh across all existing rates this would generate 400,000 of meter fees which would completely cover our shortfall or the third option that we presented is increase the water unit rate from
$4.52 to $8.38 per unit or 85% increase in the rate this would generate 392,000 in revenue as a note January to March usage averages about 101,000 over the past three years in
order to fund the enterprise fund deficit pursuer we would look to do one of three options use the enterprise fund retained earnings there's 130,000 which would reduce the balance to 43,000
uh use a portion of the sewer enterprise fund retained earnings uh about half 70,000 and increase the sewer unit rate from $3.51 to $4.20 20 cents per unit or about 20% increase which would generate
about 66,000 in additional revenue or simply increase the unit rate without touching the retained earnings to move it from $3.51 to 490 per unit or 40% increase which would generate 134,000 additional
revenues as an additional note January to March averages about 96,000 units over the past three years with this in mind I give you the following recommendations liquidate the water enterprise fund retained earnings
reduce the water operating budget specifically the water division salary line by 50,000 increase the water unit rate from $4.52 to $510 or 12.85% increase and increase the water meter rate by 20% as
shown for the sewer use a portion of the sewer enterprise fund retained earnings of 70,000 and increase the sewer unit rate from $3.51 to $4.20 to generate 66,000 of additional revenues
the question that might come up first is why would we liquidate the water enterprise fund given the fact that the policy states that we want to keep a minimum of 500,000 in the retained
earnings one of the reasons that we talked about liquidating the retained earnings is that by increasing the unit rate that directly applies to our residents so if there are residents that use more water than others this would
impact them but this would also impact residents that don't use as much water who might be um more severely impacted by a rate increase i felt that it would be better served to use our retained
earnings instead of given a larger than expected increase especially on one quarter of revenues this applies to the same thought for sewer where we had enough sewer enterprise fund retained earnings where we did not need to
deplete the balance in order to cover this deficit the idea in mind that upon our discussion in the coming months we would look to increase the water and sewer rates based on the study given by
Thai bond whereas we would be able to supplement this retain earnings going forward and build back our balance ultimately this will take a few years for us to build back a balance of our minimum but we can start making progress towards it now
thank you um and Ian I think you kind of touched on it ju just now but um you know you presented us with these different options and then made a recommendation do you want to maybe speak to at all why you think that you know that that option that recommendation is better than the other
options sure so again I'll kind of emphasize that our goal is to minimize the rate impact felt by residents because not all of our residents have the disposable income to harbor such a large increase so the goal would be to
minimize the impact that they're felt the two options that were presented to you now I feel generate the least amount of impact on all of our residents whether or not they have the disposable income to harbor a larger increase great
thank you and uh Lisa I know you'll probably get some questions but if is there anything you want to add at this stage um no Ian did pretty good at covering it um certainly you know it's not a increase that we want to give to the residents but it's something that we're going to have to do to balance the budget this year
great thank you all right uh Josh uh I got a few things one one just generally I think our meter rate is still way too low because I and I this is a very modest increase and I I think just generally I've been banging on the drum
a bit everyone's connected everyone we all need this it's all that I think that should be spread out more on that i also I think that people on fixed income I I don't think they use a lot of water anyway the rate increase isn't going to matter and my third point is I I think
no matter what we do with the rates there's going to be people who are going to use a lot of water um so all that being said um I've been thinking a lot about this uh I the retained earnings there I'm a little squeamish
about dispersing that um one I I want your take on what our policies are on this our selectoral policies and uh two I know that Tai and Bond is going to recommend that we up our retained our reserve funds up to a million dollars
each so I would like your thought on how if it's a good idea for us to start us at zero rather than at a couple hundred,000 if we're trying to get to a million and uh whatever my first question was I forgot as I was
talking sure um I certainly don't want to deplete the enterprise funds retained earnings i guess my plan was to offer this as the recommendation and I figured there would be discussion about if there were if that was not felt to be the best
course that I would have the ability to run numbers to determine if there were a better solution felt by the select board i think that ultimately I agree in the sense that if the reserve balance minimum were to change to a million dollars starting at zero would not be
the best case especially given the fact that we know that water maintenance has been deferred for many years and we are one accident away from having major water breakages and that can really impact the town as a whole so I
recognize that depleting the retained earnings isn't always the best option but I certainly don't want the residents to feel the impact and I think that that's where my mind is comfortable with oh you want one more um
we know we all know the rates are going to go up we've been talking about it for years and time bond will certainly recommend that to us my I would like to see us ramp up as slow as possible even though like I said I don't think it it's going to change actions as much but to the extent that we can tell this is why
we made this change in the first place people know what's coming and if we can plan it out and game it out so uh it's a it's a slope rather than going straight up I I think that that's ideal um
and so I I think there may be a hybrid approach that we can take somewhere in the at all using less retained earnings although that like the water fund that if a water man break what is this two water man breaks and if it's a major
issue that's not going to cover anything um so I I would like to see us find some middle ground which I option one is a middle ground I think but if if there was a way and if the other I don't know what the other members are thinking but
if we can keep some money in water retained I would feel more comfortable and maybe raise the the meter rate i think yeah um so one of the things that I was believe it or not looking forward to was the actual study itself
to to kind of justify which we understand there's going to be a lot of costs that are going to be involved and rates are going to increase but I just have a difficult time falling on a number when I don't know exactly um you know the projects that we have in front
of us or or what this report and study is actually going to show us so I guess my question one of them at least is what's the impact of of not doing anything today and and waiting until the study comes forward just so we at least
know that we're voting on something that is tangible that we're going to see results based on upcoming projects and and needs for the town sure so in terms of the impact if we did not take any
action today so if I'm if I'm correct Lynn we're getting the wave study on the 7th on May 7th May 5th May 5th and that's looking that's a study looking forward yes so I know uh in my last discussion with Sean and Lisa um water
and sewer spending has been paused in in in an effect to kind of limit the amount of damage that is done by having such a huge shortfall so in terms of spending that means that right now we are kind of
mitigating that potential to be more but at the same time the risk is that something could pop up without us being able to address it quickly on the other side of it the longer we wait to increase the rates the more residents
will feel that well I shouldn't say feel that but the more we will be essentially setting the rates after the residents have used um the water and sewer so this is something that we talked about in the past avoiding because we don't want to
retroactively change rates after residents have used the services because then you know how can you justify increasing rates after I've already used them and I certainly don't want that to be a sticking point so in terms of
impact one we have mitigating the potential spend for going forward for the next um for the last quarter of the year but two um we can certainly not take any action tonight but the longer we wait um the more it's a retroactive
payment so we would be seeing more where we are at in another month if we generate more revenues but that's Could I add to that sure um so right now we're talking about the billing that will be going out in May to hopefully get the revenue in in this fiscal year um the
presentation at time bond is more looking at FY26 rates so that next year's budget is balanced um so this is trying to balance this year um and increase the rate for the next billing thank you and and the other question or
the other question that I had was for the meter rate so when we talk about potentially it's option two so 5700 plus users um you know $70 is that $70 meter fee is that over just
in the next billing cycle are we talking about or is it spread out that was to just do an even share of every user paid the same amount extra to cover the cost so that's sort of like the extreme of it was $70 per user and what is that
i'm trying to gather the the impact from some of the users on the the high end and the low end and what that $70 so like a regular user might be getting a charge of 725 per quarter right now it would have jumped it to 7725 in this last bill
for a one this is a one time one time only type of this then brings us to the 400,000 yes the shortfall and then then we have the tie and bond study looking forward for next year based on additional rates and these rates would
stay the same for option two it would just be the I think this would be a one time it wouldn't stay that high so the rates would the the actual rates themselves wouldn't change this would just be a water meter rate at $70 to get us the 400 and then we fast forward we
go through the study and then we would actually be able to adjust those rates based on needs and and the study that's shown and we have a better idea of what what that might look like and of course we could adjust the we could also adjust
the meter rate maybe we at that time we adjust the meter rate back as well so thank you i I just wanted to kind of wrap my hands around some of the options here andrew thank you for this um I I agree
that this is there are many ways to kind of handle this it's interesting that we're only talking about one time basically to get this fiscal year um balanced um I kind of agree with Josh in the sense uh in two in two components i'm not really excited about taking the
retained earnings down to zero um I also think that the water meter rate is not only low but we it's going to go much higher in the future right so it's $7.25 which is so low basically you you only pay multiply that out by four
quarters $32 to have the the privilege of having a water hookup in our town you know I I looked at the $70 wa that's that's a little bit steep you know um so I was interested in maybe kind of doing a hybrid but also just doing a little
tinkering here so I mean I was wondering if Ian could consider like what if we said "Let's try to keep $50 or $100,000 in the retained earnings fund raise the water meter rate by not $70 but $30 and then see what that does to the
water rate." The benefit of doing a hybrid is this if you just did the water meter going up this that's like this is like the debate whether we're communist or or a capitalist kind of town to fix this situation right so if you raise everyone 70 bucks we can fix this and
it's communist everyone's paying the same no matter how much water you use but if you just do the water rate increase 85% increase in water rate to $8.38 which is astronomical then it's really purely based on what water you used you know so I think that finding a
middle ground is is a good idea i'd like to take your poly class uh Mark yeah I like to take a minute and kind of go back this is more for the people at home who are listening to this for the first time than hopefully than
the people on a select board but the old school says that you know people are calling it the retained earnings fund whatever it I always knew it is called the water stabilization fund you know why because for people who
don't know the the way the water department works is unlike the rest of our departments for our town we have our CFO and our town manager and others say "This is what we think the revenue is going to be now let's set expenses to to
make sure that we don't overspend the revenue." The water department sewer department flipped that what we say is here's what the you know here's what our expenses are going to be okay and now let's set the revenue to match the expenses that's a very big flip on what
we generally do for budgets so what do we have for expenses in the water department we buy water from the city of Springfield everybody knows that we run a water department everybody knows that we also have uh capital costs which is the cost of putting bonding for all the
water projects we do and we also have used in the past adjustments to the stabilization fund when the stabilization fund had been very very high we'd say let's pull a little bit out of that as revenue back to the the the rate payers and that's what we do
for our how how we set our uh expenses excuse me what we do is we say we've got to adjust for the stabilization fund so if the stabilization fund is low we say look we need to add $100,000 to the stabilization fund so we've got to bring in more revenue for that as well so we
we'll have maybe those four sources of or we've got to you know got to meet and then how do we set the revenue well we say the revenue consists of of really only two things maybe three two thing a fixed charge which we've all talked about here it's a meter charge okay and
then there's the variable charge now there's also a charge because that of revenue that we can take money out of the stabilization fund or in the case of this past year when we had some borrowing that we took Ian we talked about that one point there's excess
interest coming that goes back to the water department right so hopefully that's in there okay and then we say that's how much money we need to raise because we need to raise that as revenue to match the expenses we already sat and here's the key point we then estimate we
guesstimate we guess we've taken a process where we use the average of the last three years running average of water purchased and we say we're going to take the amount of money we need divide it by the units of water and
that's the rate so the rate is really established based on our guess i went through this because I think it's important for the people at home to understand why we are where we are okay last year last year the the select board
decided that we would bill for the last quarter of 2024 at 2024 rates even though the revenue came in 2025 when we did that we were told you
know there'll be a shortfall you know there'll be a difference because if you build it at the new rate you get more money we said we know that and frankly I think the number you said today was $200,000 or something like that ian hey in my opinion it's my opinion only if
the water stabilization fund had been at its targeted rate and the difference had only been $200,000 or been as much as $200,000 I would have said that's what the stabilization fund is for we'll suck down the stabilization fund a little bit
and we'll pay the extra money okay but we also had and I don't know Mike if you want to put up a graph we get a chart every month from the water department mike is that something you can put up the chart i think it's on this agenda actually okay it's it's on the agenda
okay because I think it's important for people to see see that the chart no it's the water purchased one it's the one below that right above that one mike YTG he's a little rusty he's been
usually they're compiled but that's it there it is okay so the the it's the bottom graph that's important to all of us because once we can see that what we'll see is on the far right April May and June the blue line represented last year
which was what we used to pay for this year notice how low that is relative to the other lines and then move to the left side the orange line okay is this year's usage so the the conclusion you can draw from
this is that you know water usage in 2025 fiscal 2025 is at a I won't say historic but it's much lower than our three-year running projection that we used and so
remember I went back to say the way we came up with the rate is we said there we need to raise this much money and we divided it by the usage we used the value of 825,000 units and that's how we came up with our $4.80 or whatever we came up with what we should have done
but we didn't know is say it wasn't going to be 825,000 units the number was going to be something more like 750,000 or maybe 730,000 units and if we had done that we wouldn't have set the rate at $4.80 we would have had to set the rate
something higher maybe 510 512 something like that the reason I bring this up is because in my op and and oh by the way and if we'd had that shortfall and only that shortfall the water stabilization fund
probably could have should have and would have absorbed that difference as well because that's what it's there for because we never know precisely what amount of water will be used by the residents we were always estimating and we use this three-year running average but we're never right on the
money the problem is this year this past year it's kind of been a confluence of two issues there's that first quarter issue that was $200,000 which again had it been one and by itself we would have said "Okay that's fine." And then but then there's the rest of the year where
our revenue came in below what it should have come in had we been using 825,000 units together those values exceed what is in our water st water water stabilization
fund same thing applies everything I said for water applies for sewer and the the funds exceeded my concern here is that we can talk about what's coming down the road what tying bonds going to
do what is going to happen 2026 through 2029 and all the pro but the dollar figure we've gotten today is a 2025 problem consisting of those two elements we we chose to not bill the first
quarter at the at the old rates or at the new rates we build it at the old rates we chose to do that we knew it was a 200 it was going to be a shortfall and it was or difference but the water usage was low so what's my my suggested answer
in a perfect world and this isn't right now you go back to everybody and say you know that $480 we charged you all this past year we really should have been charging you 510 and we're going to go back and charge you $510 for all the water you used because
it is a rate per unit difference that occurred that's what happened it was a rate per unit there we just we didn't make a mistake we just used a number that turned out that mother nature fooled us mother nature made it a much wetter year than we thought water usage
was down and therefore we didn't use 825,000 units so my solution is let's fix the problem that we have for 2025 don't worry about 2026 when we set the rates for 2026 we're going to get smarter why because
this three-year running average is going to have this low number in it now from 2025 so we'll have much lower units i suspect next year's units will go way below 825,000 as they should so what what would my suggestion be Ian you know
in a perfect world again we go back to everybody and we rebuild them i talked to Lisa today this isn't a perfect world that isn't going to happen what the alternative is is say we ought to have a water stabilization fund and a sewer stabilization fund that can absorb this
shock from a very wet year and then we go about our business of making it right next year where we add to the revenue next year the cost of of water we buy from Springfield the capital costs we buy and
we add in money to build back up the stabilization fund for next year and so my suggestion is we take we go out and we actually ban borrow money to for the water and sewer stabilization funds
charge that to the water and stabilization fund and the source stabilization fund because they are enterprise funds they are truly you you know uniquely encapsulated and then we build back in because a ban is exactly what this is for short-term borrowing
and we build back in the repayment of that ban and the rebuilding of our stabilization fund into the rates for 2026 and that way the money and the cost of doing that gets distributed appropriately to people to but based on
their use and yes we can add in a different rate for the meter meter connection if we want to because whatever we want to do that's our authority to do but we the problem is a 2025 problem and people have already
used the water it's very very difficult to say you know Ian you had said you know we don't want to charge people in the future for water they already use but yet we need to make this correction in this fiscal year and so you know if
we build them now okay they've already used the water January through March so by your own admission it's not something we want to do if we bill them in July it's the next fiscal year so we've got to come up with a solution that gets
money into this fiscal year to pay for these components and it's strictly in my opinion mother nature did us dirt by having a wet year we used less water and we didn't have sufficient stabilization fund money to pay for it so let's put in
that stabilization fund money pay for it and then move forward uh Dan thank you um well one of the things I want to say first not using a lot of water is a that's a good thing so so that that's that's a positive um but
I think when we when to your point Mark um one of the I think one of the things that we didn't mention was part of the reason why we did we voted that way or was because we were we're using we didn't want to bill folks on rates like
ethically i just personally I'm not saying we change that i agree so I I mean I think that's what people should understand we didn't the reason why we did it this way knowing there was going to be a deficit was because we did not want to build people at a higher rate on water that they already consumed that's
like I just but I just want to be clear to I appreciate Dan the purpose of my comment is that we didn't screw up this was we planned on the first difference because just as you said we didn't want to build people for water they have used
and then mother nature gave us a threw us a curve for the rest of it but this wasn't because we screwed up this is because we just didn't have the $500,000 to cover this difference it's Oh yeah go just one last point so when we're talking about the meter rate you know we
we're not we're not always in control of course of of of what's happening with the water situation so whether we're we have a lot of rain or whether residents are using more water or less water but if we have if we look at the meter rate
that at least every year we know we have x amount of dollars and that is something that I think to Andrew's point I think Josh made it earlier I think that's something that a lot that most of us probably agree on that if we have known
um I guess income from water sewer based on a set meter rate we always know every year that we're going to have x amount of dollars and we won't have as many big swings in either direction and I think that's important when we're talking about budgeting to
actually know what we have coming in on a regular basis and you know this is this is not a problem that just happened in 2024 this has been going on for years and every year we have the same conversation so I am looking forward to the the rate study uh and time bond
study but I do think we need to look at the meter rate itself because that is something that we're we're going to be able to it's not going to fluctuate up and down and that's going to help us can I just answer answer that can you make a quick okay i agree with you my my you know in a perfect world and we're not
you know the capital costs should be split among meter rates but our capital costs are like 700,000 and we have I think 170,000 we raise for meter but you're absolutely right Dan absolutely right meter rates should pay for our fixed costs i have no and and they're
woefully low last year if you remember we finally moved from 1550 up to and and added $70,000 which was absolutely right Josh um just uh I I think part of what our issue was and Mark I appreciate the uh
history lesson i I think we heard it last year but I just looked at it with a different eye this year the problem with our our policy books and this that was my question that didn't get answered before how does this fit into our policy the problem with the policy is we have
our water enterprise fund policy mentions rate reserves we have a retained earnings policy that we can use retained earnings to offset rates but the retain
the water enterprise fund policy and storm water and sewer do not mention retained earnings they mention reserves and also our policies also say that our fees are a fixed meter charge based on
the meter size plus a fixed amount of rate reserve which would build up the stabilization fund which I agree is a good idea and plus a consumption rate so are we not are we charging a rate reserve or are we considering that as part of our
uh our meter rate we have not added a line item for increasing rate reserves the last couple years Josh but we but we could have and we probably should have we should have and we Yeah but the bigger problem is
just that that that that fund has been co-opted that's a polite word and we've used it for things like buying trucks and buying plows and it it ha it isn't a water stabilization water rate stabilization
fund or sewer rate it is a water slush fund right and and and that's part of the I mean if you look at where that money's gone over the last few years we haven't used it to adjust for shortages we've used it to buy capital items and
that's that's where the money's all gone you know I remember last year we asked Ian to account for the water stabilization fund or enterprise fund or whatever you call and it was all capital capital capital very little if any of it was transferred into to compensate for
rates so that's our fault for allowing but we started that process when the water stabilization fund had 750 800 $900,000 in it in fact at one point we actually did a water project in town and we said "Don't bond it just take it out
of the fund because it's already there." I think that's the problem with having the select board and the water and sewer commissioners be the same people because we we know that there's a pot there yeah but even when they were separate they were doing it um so I the ban idea
is interesting and it makes sense because you put that you fill in that hole here that you can fill in going forward i'm just you know concerned about cost going forward how that much would how that would affect us and um
just the expenses bond anticipation um uh I was just going to say that I I um when I looked at this I'm more in line with what Josh and Andrew talking about was doing this hybrid approach um I
don't like the idea either of dwindling the water enterprise fund all the way down to zero um I think Andrew had said you know maybe lowering it to 50 or 100 something like that um I think 50 basically if it's 50 might as well be zero uh so at least at least having a 100,000 in there because I think we've
at least in my time on the select board we've had water main breaks where the costs have been 70,000 to 100,000 uh you know it obviously depends on the brakes but there have been some breaks um in that range and you know this could potentially cover that um so doing
something where we draw the enterprise fund down to 100,000 because this tigen bond study is coming this is a much bigger discussion that we have to fix this whole approach um I think for the time being and from now until probably
July 1st when the new fiscal year starts to draw that down to around 100,000 um I think makes sense to just fill help fill this uh shortfall um and then um I I did like the idea as well with the water
meter um that needs to see a big increase and to increase that halfway I think as as Andrew proposed to $35 you know that that gets us there um and then as well as the $50,000 uh cut
from the um the salary um if we do those kind of those three things right we could get to about $400,000 and so that is I think for me the kind of approach that makes the most sense i I don't think that this needs to be over complicated i think that we knew that
this was coming this is a one-time thing where we'll have to do a mid-year rate adjustment and we have these you know funding sources here that we can go to to meet this this one-time um you know occurrence and I think we should I think that's the that's the approach we should
take would $35 per meter it would that would be $200,000 yeah can you do that in this p in this bill and sorry can you do it in
this fiscal year can I make a couple observations yeah oh yeah yeah very quickly I agree i think it I think that we should try to solve this um expeditiously i appreciate everything you said Mark i understand everything you said i I don't like things being too complicated i think the
idea of getting a loan to kind of like make it fairer is a little overly complicated dan made a very good point that makes me realize that any increase in the water rate that we use for this is retroact is doing exactly what we philosophically said we didn't really
want to do which is you know we're basically going to charge people a higher rate based on what they used in January and March already essentially so I think that the steps are to basically choose what we want the retained earnings account to have what's maybe
$100,000 then decide what we want the water meter rate to like to increase $35 and then take the $50,000 from the salary line and see where we're at if our goal is to have no uh water rate increase because we philosophically don't want to charge people water for that they already use
and that's what we do yeah and I think uh I'm not uh you know math isn't my forte but I think if we draw the water enterprise fund down to 100,000 that's you know 173,000 we're putting towards this the water meter if we put that up to $35 that's $200,000 and then plus you
know $50,000 from the um from the salary um you know that gets us to $423,000 so there's still you know about 23,000ish there um right that we can work with in terms of either the
enterprise fund or the water meter to make that work so if I take the if we do 100,000 of retained earnings usage and then keep the I'm sorry just to clarify I think he means retain $100,000 in the account yes so therefore you're actually
using $173,000 perfect so then yes we would be then we would be there yeah so if we kept if we retained 100,000 in the account uh we use $173,000 of retained
earnings if we increase the water meter rate by $35 that would generate $200,165 and then reduce the water budget by the salary line under 50,000 we would be able to cover our shortfall in the water enterprise fund okay in
actuality it's more than you need yes so so you could reduce so and I think based you know kind of what you Dan and Andrew were saying about you know retroactively um billing folks you know that avoids that that avoids that completely and then also you know with the water meter
rate you know that is in some way doing that so if we need to adjust that water rate you know lower than $35 so that kind of get closer to Yeah I think that would make the most sense i I'd like a little bit more detail on
that water meter rate to $35 i I I don't I don't follow what it is because this is a quarterly billing this is a one quarter rate is this a permanent increase to $35 a quarter no
just one it's just a one so then we can we will decide what is appropriate thereafter it's it's so it's it's one time is it according to the policy is it proportional to is it going to be a proportional increase or just everybody goes up $35 it would be a fixed $35
everyone it's kind of that's not what the policy says policy says the fixed rate is proportional that's what Josh just read no no it says proportional to the size of it says uh right it says proportional to the size of the meter exactly Andrew
that's what it says but I mean based upon the meter side that fix the are you saying that the small ones go up to $35 but the No it's still proportional because what you're talking about $35 plus what their existing rate is so the larger meters
will still be paying more it's just it's basically take a look at his option two these rates are all different in the right column they're just all gone up the same amount not everyone's not going to be paying $35 exactly it's $35 more than their current rate their current rates are all
different it is spread a bit more which is very which is I mean it's a way to do it it's a different but it's different from the meter that's the meter bas it would be far more complicated to just calculate okay here's how much money we want to raise from the getting the meter rate and then let's not complicate at
all there's a spreadsheet that's true i mean Ian's got a spreadsheet that does it and then you proportionally just proportionally does it i mean it's probably going to be because of the numbers it's going to be $33 or $32 of handling this onetime problem and
and not proverating on it yeah I I see what you're saying Mark it's not um I am curious how it would look because we have 15 users that have bigger meters
um that theirs would go up probably $45 and everyone else would go down a bit or something like that but I I do wonder if we just calculated it that way if those would go up much higher just because of the uh how few there are but I I don't
know we'd have to look at that i guess what I would want from the select board is to know what what dollar changes you're looking for for each of the different um sizes because I can right now I just have it set as a $35 increase for each
of the different ones but I could certainly tweak it where um you know the larger users go up to $50 a $50 change and the smaller users go up to $20 ian the the numbers we have are that the
retained earnings will give us about $173,000 to move into the operation budget right yeah and the water department salary reduction or adjustment gives us 50 yeah so that's $225,000 so whatever the difference is between
what we need and that 225 in my opinion is what we bring out of water meter so the 167,000 what whatever whatever that is that's clear okay so So you said how much does the select board want to raise that's
the number and then that just goes into the spreadsheet and it it calculates what eachbody each person's meter charges no he's saying he was simply saying if we're not going to do a blanket communistic $35 to everybody then he wants to know Mark according to
your idea how much you want each of these to go up like $504 i'll I'll I can put it on the spreadsheet andrew the question is what do you have to do for meter rates to to raiseund whatever Andrew said or Ian
said the number was right i personally understand the rationale for that many many ideas that we've talked about tonight have good rationale but I think that personally I think simplicity is beneficial yeah I was talking myself into it but I I think
we are it is still proportional i think the bigger meters are paying more so I think if we add 35 for one quarter each is 16 and Josh I just want to give you the the rationale behind the other step is that the people with the bigger
meters or the accounts with the bigger meters generally not people but used more water and therefore they would have had we had the right the the proper rate paid a proportional amount more of this
difference i'm not even going to call it a shortfall because it's not it's a difference and that would be the reason why instead of $35 maybe they should be charged $45 and everybody else should be charged 30 or whatever the number that's what my reasoning would be behind and
and it is so straightforward to do i mean we've got a he's got a spreadsheet all he's got to do is put in the number we got to raise and it pops up what each meter gets charged so it's not like you know we've got six I you if you want to I can do it before the the next two
minutes are up i mean we don't have to spend you know we're not investing hundreds of hours of labor for somebody to calculate each meter it's there if we could do it I I'm fine with it i I see I'm not an Excel but that's I know but that's but that's the rational the
rationale is the bigger meter people people use more of the water and therefore should be paying more of the shortfall that's all all right um if I mean uh Ian is that something that we don't have to do that on the
spot right now but but something you can do yes okay if we if we make a motion for you all to do that yes okay just to just to understand it one second Ian are you basically planning to proportionally just get the X that's how much money you need and then proportionally based on
the current existing rates okay yes that makes sense yes that's essentially what if you're okay um 01% of the rates you'll pay 1.01% of that difference so then 400,000 is the
target number right yes okay all right so you got you know what to do you got it okay okay if I could suggest Yeah um Yeah go ahead maybe letting them have some time not in the hot seat and then maybe deal with the one day liquor licenses because I think we have some we need to make this
decision tonight lynn no well I think that there is an issue with with actually sending out bills right that if we don't make a decision tonight that folks will get a shorter amount of time with their bill we could probably wait till the last next meeting it will just make the bill
a week late but they still be due before the end of the fiscal year i mean a directive basically and they can calculate it yeah that's kind of what I was thinking so let's um here I'll make a motion here and then we'll we'll figure as the same group that took four meetings last year like this is a miracle i think uh I'm going to make a
motion here um so um I move that the um that I move that we liquidate $173,000 from the water enterprise fund that we reduce the water operating budget specifically the water division
salary salary line by $50,000 and we increase the water meter rate proportionally to make up the difference between um what yeah to make up a difference to
meet uh $400,000 second okay uh any further discussion just real real quick because I know we're gonna we're going to talk more about this in the future but I'm just trying to figure out where we fall in line with that meter rate at $35
compared to other other towns in in the area question for one quarter though yeah sure well but we're beneath this is for the billing period for April right that's the only the first quarter of this I
mean the the third quarter of this year no it's the January to March the the the third quarter of the fiscal year water use but it's the last billing period in this fiscal year sorry go ahead Lisa will you just clarify what billing
cycles they're making adjustments for i would say you could vote to just make it for this billing that's coming out in May so it's your January February March usage and then I'm assuming when we see tie and bond and stuff we're going to be making a decision to whatever we want to
build the through June that's good because that would be a relatively lower bill anyway yes yes yeah right okay that's correct yeah all right anything else any further discussion all right uh all those in favor
all right great need to do this oh that's true yep um All right um so any thoughts um do the same thing for sewer that we just did for water sorry I just lost my place here
okay uh so for the sewer enterprise fund um reduce it down to 100,000 so we're using 70ish thousand and
then Well no so can I just speak yeah yeah yeah so I I think the difference between the water and the sewer is that there's no $50,000 you can just drop out of the salary line and there's no meter obviously rate there's a there's a water
fixed rate the fixed rate okay mhm so then you can do something very similar okay you can't You're right you don't have a $2,000 component this also should have a rate reserve just just the guy in the corner
mentioning that um yeah I I I agree i think we should do the same thing um we can Yeah and then we're keeping if we use $70,000 of the sewer
enterprise fund that gets us about 103 and then use our fixed sewer rate to make up the difference which is what he recommended no no that was increasing the uh unit rate okay yeah so this is the fixed the
fixed sewer rate okay okay so I I'll move that we use $70,000 of the sewer enterprise fund retain earnings i'll liquidate that portion of the earnings and uh for the
60,000 oh I'm sorry oh yeah i sorry i I was looking at option one and then um for the remaining $60,000 uh use a proportional increase on the
sewer fixed rate did you get that Mike sort of but if Yeah we you want to repeat it 130,000 yes um so I liquidate $70,000 of the sewer enterprise fund retained earnings
and for the remaining $60,000 uh have a proportional increase on the fixed sewer meter rate that's about 12 bucks per
house which is probably reasonable Josh yeah all right um I second any further discussion all right all those in favor all right great all right uh now
Sorry she can't leave now yeah thank you thank you Lisa thank you again um okay uh next up we've got our road paving memo um so this memo was uh put together by Ian
um so Ian I can turn it over to you to to discuss this so as part of our capital planning discussions we had discussed using part of the capital plan
to bond roads so at this fall special town meeting the town voted to approve a borrowing authorization of 5.19 million to pay for the cost of several of these projects um this is a culmination of
back in 2023 Bay Engineering gave a presentation on the pavement management plan to show the overall state of the Long Meadow Roads and what different levels of funding would do to improve road health what came of this presentation was a review um where the
town was and a plan to move forward annually we fund about 480,000 a year of chapter 90 and additional capital improvement funds which range from 340 to 740,000 a year now unfortunately this
does not meet where we need to be in terms of funding for completing these road projects to make headway on this backlog of work uh the DPW and select board developed a plan which was voted on that fall special town meeting to
address the following roads shaker Emerson Kulie Drive Twin Hills Long Meadow Street which is Bliss to Wheel Meadow Belair Canterbury Grassy Gutter and Pawnside and other streets as funding permits i had our financial advisor run two scenarios which are
attached within the memo one at 5.195 million with a 15-year term and one at 4,7879 with a 15-year term 15 years is the longest term that you were able to bond for a road resurfacing project um I
also spoke with our financial adviser about running 10-year projections and she will provide me that at another point uh initially when we had discussed uh when I discussed this with our financial advisor the 10-year she recommended would be a too aggressive of
a pay term payback term so I looked at a 15-year for the presentation today uh in the fall of 24 when we originally discussed um this project I reviews estimates which showed a annual debt service of 350,000 which is what we
based our capital project funding on ultimately the estimates that I shared with the board did not show 350,000 as a to debt service but that was the principle so with this in mind I reached back out to our financial adviser and structured the payments in such a way
that the first payment when we went out for bonding would be 350,000 to meet our capital request uh the results of those two uh bonds is presented below um in the first year of
bonding um once we were to use all the proceeds and we need to repay it the fiscal total for FY26 if we were to expend in FY25 would be 343,500
if we took out the full 5.1 million and if we went with the reduced 4.7 million the total principal interest would be 345,4582 now as you can see this would require subsequent payments to be much larger and if we were to continue to
fund this out of capital this would mean that we would have less funds available going forward for other projects if the select board wanted to pursue the original borrowing the FY26 debt service would be
531,000 and 490,000 for 5.1 million and4,787,000 note respectively so with a restructuring of the payment that allows us to now be able to afford this bond this bond
proposal one of the options presented above as you can see is the 5.1 million a question might be asked um if we were awarded a contract at the reduced amount why would we borrow for the full 5.1 million uh the two things that come to
mind are contingencies and additional road work the pending award does not take into account any change orders or delays having contingency built into the project prevents additional borrowings or supplemental free cash required to cover this shortfall and if the project
was able to be completed within budget and on time a rarity I know but the town would have additional funds for uh road resurfacing projects which the DPW would provide options to the select board and how to proceed with this the idea initially presented was to piggyback
chapter 90 funds with these additional funds to tackle lower priority projects that were not addressed in the initial borrowing for the town to go forward with this borrowing we would need the directive of the select board to proceed with one of the following options once given I'll work with our financial
advisor to review other upcoming borrowings begin the process with bond counsel to prepare a bond sale great yeah thank you and um and um thank you for looking into this after our last meeting and it you know although I when
we originally talked about this I thought we would be putting more uh each year towards this um and have a shorter bond term you know I think that you've done a good job explaining why you know it makes the most sense to do a 15-year term um and really it looks like from my
vantage point that we're just deciding between these two options of either doing a 15-year bond term for 4.7 million or 5.1 million um and and and again I think we in my time on the select board we have seen the what can
happen with construction projects and the and you gave examples of change orders and delays and I think it makes sense to have that cushion of uh 5.1 million um and you know like you outlined in your memo if everything goes
perfectly then you know we would have you know funds to actually pay more roads um at the end so um based off of you know your memo and what you explained and having time to think about this further from our last meeting I'd be in favor of doing the uh 15-year term
for the 5.1 uh million dollar bond um anyone else Josh uh so I I think I I generally agree with that my only tweak would be I think we should pay more this year uh to try to even out
through the rest of the term um because we have I think we have a little bit to play with from our capital plan this year we have the interest and which uh from looking at the warrant I think we had 400 something thousand towards the
police department and I spoke with Lynn today and she said that there may be a delay on that work anyway we have to do a study on um what is going to be done um and we so it may not cost all that it may not all get done this year so I
would suggest we up our payment this year take that from the police project which will still us around the 300,000 what that the um permanent building committee recommended and even us out through the rest of the
term and not hamstring us on capital projects going forward okay sorry so just to clarify putting the $400,000 from interest towards No 100,000 whatever it would take to even us out on subsequent payments and
then leaving the 300,000 for the police right okay got it thank you um anyone else Mark i mean it's a classic case of you know we think we're spending $350,000 a
year but we're obligating the town to $440,000 10 10 12 years down the road i don't think we can do that i you know I don't know where the money is going to come from and it's nice to say we're just going to make this a general obligation bond but I think we said
we're going to pay for this out of capital our capital expenditure i mean I I I could see us saying we're going to take $350,000 and escalate that at 2 and a half% a year because that's what we expect our you know tax revenue to go up
at and our you know that that share of it but to go with with this repayment schedule I don't know how you can how how we're going to afford that and how we can commit future select boards in the town to that that money
andrew um I may not feel quite as strongly as Mark on it but I I think if I were to to have to make a choice I think on balance I'd probably be a little bit more inclined to do the 4.7 million only because it's significantly I mean
obviously we all know that there will be good uses for the money on the roads like that'll be helpful but at the same time it's 15 years of $100,000 that we are going to have to like that's going to hurt our other capital projects that
might come up essentially i don't feel I mean when Vene was saying we should do the higher one I was starting to think well you know maybe yeah we'll spend it on the roads but at the same time you know we don't know what's we're definitely hamstringing people in the future by locking ourselves into this
for 15 years and we know that you know based on the you know we made him a commitment to the town to do these roads that the the bid is this is this amount so we should be able to accomplish what we committed to i'd like to ask Lyn a question what What
have we heard anything more from the state about this chapter 90 bump that they said that we were going to go from $470,000 up to like 800 something do we believe that to happen or is it going to happen this year it's in the governor's transportation bill um it remains to be
seen whether it stays that way or not i because that that's potentially an additional $400,000 of road money that we have to spend you can't use it for bonding but we can certainly use it for roads and
you know we talked about 5.1 million 4.7 million you know $400,000 makes a dent on that on that difference if it comes $400,000 is what half a mile it doesn't really get us all that much which is why
we're taking this big swing my The reason I think we should go higher i I don't know if anyone's watched the news everything is incredibly uncertain i don't know what the turmoil is going to do on our road prices i I just who knows
and I think if we if we can build in I don't even know if we're building in enough uncertainty but I think we should uh because I don't want us not only being obligated on this but going back to the town and saying we're half a million dollars short on this
project because of uh rising costs and if we can if we can build in a little bit of a cushion I think that's what we should do didn't Lynn just report that we got a a firm bid on this yeah
but yeah I I just that might may not be how it works you know there's no guarantees at all but I mean when you when we come up with 4.7 million it's not based on a pie in the sky number it was based on a bid i I hear you Josh and I and I understand what you're saying but I'm just I'm
equally concerned about the uncertainty of committing the town to a $400,000 bond obligation 10 years down the road yeah yeah to Mark's I mean to Mark's point I mean that's something that we you know hindsight's 2020 but we should
have addressed this years ago and now here we are like many other projects we're in this seat and we have all this all of these issues with with water sewer with our roads and we made an obligation to actually make positive
change and try to fix some of the the previous mistakes over the the past uh decades so I don't want to be spending millions of dollars on on roads but we we have to our roads are in disrepair and we did a very poor job over the past
several decades of of addressing our roads and now here we are and to Josh's point this these excess funds would be very helpful with with road projects we understand there's going to be other capital projects that we have to address
but I wish we had $10 million to spend on our roads we don't but again this is a a band-aid a large band-aid that we're uh addressing on previous um years of neglect to our roads and
here we are so I think we have to spend the the the larger amount i'm glad that we decided to uh bring this forward um several months ago and and we've actually been able to save the town uh some money in terms of getting um a
better a better number that we're that we're going to be uh leveraging so I think even though we're very reactive from years of neglect I think we need to dedicate these funds to making a positive difference when it comes to our
roads now and in the future so I support the the the larger number um and I also support uh Josh's point as so long as Ian uh if if we're paying more upfront in the first year as well so yeah I mean
I I think as Ian said in his memo if there are change orders and delays that balloons the cost of this project I would hate to have to go back to the town and say we need additional money to
complete this $4.7 million project that we you know that we already borrowed for um I think it's just better to do it at once um so we don't have to go back to the town and ask for additional funds ian is it possible that if we use a significant amount of that interest from the operational stabilization fund that
we could actually get the annual amount closer to 350 that we anticipated if just ballparking it if you're like I don't see why not i mean I can certainly what what I could do is I can go back to Brienne and say here's what we are looking to do for initial
outlay what would that look like for our subsequent bond or our subsequent debt service payments and see where it shakes up so if I had an idea that we were going to put a h 100,000 extra towards the bond payment in the first year see
how that flows through the rest of the period i don't know but I'm actually thinking gosh you know interest rates might be going down in the near future and if we you never can control these things we're
going to get it for the time what we're going to get but like if if we find out that right now this is going to be a higher interest rate than we're going to see in the future years it would be nice to have made a bit decent down payment and then not hamstring future select board as much as possible so So are you
comfortable with the 100,000 or are you saying that we should be using more than 100,000 from the I was actually wondering if he could calculate what it would take my first question was was even enough to be possible but it all depends on what we want to use that interest for the police department was
one thing but maybe if it's not going to happen this year it's a this is an excellent use for it it actually is related to the whole point of what we were saying with capital projects as well essentially I mean kind of roads the police department project will get more expensive that is But can we do it
now well we can was it this i think we can do it this fiscal year is the idea just it would be or do we have to do the study and then it may not happen until next year at all right okay and we'll have the interest for it then you know next year's interest potentially okay so but the amount is
you know we can choose or arbitrary at this point is really which number we're going for well so if interest rates go down then our future theoretical income from the operational operational
stabilization hits both ways goes down yeah full of good news to this yeah yeah um Okay well I mean I I do think that talking about the you know the police department building or other uses
for that fund is obviously going to inform this decision um if we cannot do that project until next year anyways then I would be more inclined to use more of the operate operated and stabilization fund interest uh to put
down towards down payment do we need do we need money for the study for the police department no that's already that was a capital item in FY25 okay ian do you need it directed from us entirely right now or is it enough to tell you we want to go for the 5.1 and then the
actual terms of the bond and how much we take we could you can come back to us i can do that yeah that's fine so just to clarify though the budget for 26 is based on the
$350,000 in capital for the debt service on the road borrowing additionally within the articles we have a article for use of the stabilization fund for the police project so we would have to modify that as well to your point Lyn
we're good because based on just Ian's proposal right here it's under the 350 so if we were to vote for the 5.1 that's okay right because it's under the 350 ian's point about the that article that's true that that might have to get amended but I think it sounds like if
the police department can go forward this year then we'll use the money for that and do maybe not be able to take our you know annual outlay for this down to 350 we'll just use as much money as left but if it's not going to happen then maybe the article needs to change
anyway um yes to all of that but um I would just add you can change the however you want the um bonding schedule to be with Ian's input you just have to know that
the you have to figure out where the rest of that funding source is coming from meaning you can use that interest from the operating stabilization fund to help lower um that that to to help spread it out more evenly if you want
but just recognize that there's other actions that you have to take in order to do that because the budget is balanced right with it like this the the other question is I think we because some of us going to be here what
are we going to do for $493,000 next year because it's not 350 it's going to be four 493 that's very close that's in spinning distance of 500,000 all of a sudden that puts a
really big hurt on our capital our capital you know counties well that's why I would like to raise our payment this year to get that down that's that's fine Josh but that means
we need a different SK we need to look at a different schedule right i mean we made a commitment that this would come out of the capital budget basically you know that whe every year or barely you know so I think that this is definitely worth
discussing um yes um the police department sounds like a lot is riding on that because if the police department proposal goes forward then you have an article already set up and we can just you could use the money for that then whatever is left over if
there is any can go towards a down payment and then we have to be comfortable with basically taking more out of future capital budgets to pay for this debt service essentially in principle alternatively if you actually believe that the police department isn't
going to happen this year or only part of it or something then we have more money to do and use this and it's clearly going to be benefit in the future if we can make the biggest down payment as possible yes I I'm comfortable with that um we also have a lot more going into OPED than we originally thought that's an avenue for
you to if you wanted to move some money around too it's still below your policy but it is more than we thought we were going to be able to do yeah I'm in the same place as as you Andrew i mean ultimately Ian let's say
Josh's scenario works instead of borrowing 1.595 million we borrow $5 million because we the best use of the capital is to not borrow it and not just use it as a payment just don't borrow that
right that's actually correct I think yeah i mean I that's a great point that makes sense right sorry say that again Mark so so so I mean if we're going to use more money from our capital fund for road
paving we borrow less and put that directly in i mean it it it makes sense why borrow $100,000 at 3.5% when we can just spend that $100,000 and never borrow that much money so put another way if we had the
$400,000 from the oper interest from the operational stabilization fund instead of borrowing 5.1 million we'll just pay borrow 4.7 million and that would be very bad and still spend 5.1 million and still the project still gets 5.1 million but but but the beauty of that Andrew is
if you don't have any upsets you you've only borrowed $4.7 million and now you still got the plenty of extra money the the extra money which you didn't necessarily move into the the fund for for roads but was available for funds for roads because we we held it in that
capital fund unspent so Josh that that's a way of kind of hedging our bets both ways yeah borrow the lower amount but know that we've got additional money if we need it and it's the best use of that additional money yeah that makes sense so can we get more
clarity on the police station thing for next meeting we don't have time you you have to close your warrant tonight um but in terms of the police station so the original request came in um a year and a half ago for the FY25 capital plan
it at that time estimated $300,000 in repairs we could not get uh all of that into the FY25 capital budget and knowing that we would need um design and um you know plans first before they moved ahead
with actual construction uh money was put in for a for um development of those designs so it was $30,000 for FY25 dpw has not moved on that yet they haven't had capacity within the department to actually take
that project on yet so that's why I was saying I felt comfortable um taking you what we had projected for operation stab operating stabilization interest from that earmarked project to use towards this because in all actuality we're
probably at least a year out from um DPW moving forward on construction there so I'm just looking at the article for the police station um it's uh decorative repairs and then repairs
to the roof system is the roof you know that's obviously more serious is that that's also delayed and is that is that urgent is that going to be something that are we leaking is it are we worried about that it's not leaking um it definitely needs to be addressed
what article number is this by the way 12 thank you it's growing urgent but it's not urgent yet lyn if we were to use the money from Article 12 for roads where's the money going to come
from next year to do the police department it'll be a capital request again but there's no guarantee that it other than us liking the project because it almost didn't get funded this year other than the the interest from the right
stabilization fund right it all depends on the priorities in the plan and and what we absolutely have to fund and what is urgent essentially it's being put back into the pool of capital projects that may your hopefully will be but no
guarantee on funded but if the project isn't happening this year and by doing you're right John i mean it's still going to put money aside if it's No but I'm saying we are but we're freeing up by making a bigger payment this year or borrowing less we're freeing up more money for capital for stuff like this
dpw does have operating funds in their standard budget for repairs for maintenance it's not like nothing's going to happen there it's just that it's not going to be a large project they're not going to rip a hole in the roof to to try to repair something that they don't have funding to deal with if
it's a bigger problem i mean if we can get to a point where the debt service and principal payown on this loan for 15 years is $100,000 less that we could use for other things like I think that's the immediate
benefit right now maybe we can repair the police station keep it going and then next year we have the same interest maybe not as high but you know it's it gets back in there and we know it's a high priority project the problem Andrew is if you look at the
schedule that the that the bond council has put together you know we've got annual payments of 335 give or take,000 going up to $370,000 so it's the it's the principal that's forget about the interest we're
just going to repay $5.1 million $5 million over 15 years that comes up to three three and a half $350,000 a year i guess what I'm just to be Yeah i mean I guess from what I'm hearing it seems I'm le like you know I'm not wedded to any
of this obviously it's whatever we collectively decide but I see the benefit in making a huge down payment as big a one as possible so that we can reduce the amount of money spent on this the principal and income and interest
every year going forward that's just my opinion obviously so okay um it so it seems like now we're leaning towards the $4.7 million bond over the 15-year term
um and then do we also so we can provide that directive we also need to probably provide some directive too about the interest i think that would be on the warrant okay could could the interest in the
warrant be put into like capital project and been used for the police if possible or or do we have to specify it has to be like tonight I know it's necessary to do the warrant but can we move it to a place where there's flexibility put in
the capital stabilization capital um fund yeah you could do that um but to trans to use it out of that town meeting do it in the fall
and then then we can decide whether to put it towards roads or like the reality is like this project can get done there might be overages like we discussed and then whatever how many years from now we'll have to pay for it i mean this $400,000 from the interest on the
operational stabilization fund will theoretically be in there you know because we didn't spend it and if we find out that the police station can be done we could do that with it you know it seems to give us the most flexibility okay so let's maybe tackle that when
we're talk about our warrant and right now we can um so I'll make a motion to direct the finance director uh to proceed with the $4.7 um or
4,787,99 bond uh over a 15-year term second any further discussion my my only point I know I I know we're talking about the 51 number the 47 my only concern is
that we're not going to focus on these these road projects and and the needs of the roads outside of the the money at 4.7 that we're going to put towards them so because that I just want to every year is different when you have new
select board members and just right now I just I just feel like we should I know there's a cost involved but there's also a cost of not of not doing anything and not going bigger and I see there be a cost savings but other projects are going to come up
and I and the the purpose of this was really for our roads so I just want to I mean the the select board is going to change over time and I just want to make sure that you know we're we we have the commitment to the roads because we have so much catching up to do from the lack
of the the previous years so that's just my only concern really i mean I think the idea behind this was that this was supplemental that we would always have you know chapter 90 funds every year to put towards roads but this was kind of like a bigger borrowing that we put you know to to to just be able to tackle
more roads in a given year so I think you know every year we will still be paving roads um but this is just a bigger project kind of on top of that i als I also think that there's no way we're not going to end up getting this project done and if there's contingencies we're going to pay for
those like we're going to get the money to do that so I I don't think like there's a bid for 4.7 if there's some changes we're paying for it it's getting done um which I think was one of the main arguments for like going going higher so I'm confident this is going to
get done no matter who's sitting in this seat famous last words in our seats okay um any further discussion okay all those in favor all those opposed all right let's move on to I believe the
annual town meeting warrant is next and we have our madam moderator joining us and thank you for uh being here tonight and you know for joining us always before these town meetings um to kind of talk about what's uh ahead and some of
the issues maybe that are you know coming up so um you know I'll give the floor over to you to make any kind of remarks uh that you'd like thank you very much really appreciate the opportunity to speak before you uh the as you had mentioned earlier at the top of the meeting town meeting is on
Tuesday May 13th 2025 7 p.m long Meadow High School always the second Tuesday in May for the annual town meeting and this particular year in addition to next year is pretty special because it is the this
year is the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution the February 9th of 1775 british Parliament voted that Massachusetts Bay was in rebellion and of course in April uh there's the anniversary of the Battle of
Lexington and Conquered uh the um the role that town meeting played in sparking the revolution is one that is a truly historic one very important one and one that moderators throughout the commonwealth are celebrating and I will
be uh celebrating this as poss um the principles that we fought the revolution for are more pertinent than ever and so it's important that we commemorate what those princip principles are what town meetings and uh
valiant citizens fought for so I'll be offering a statement uh at town meeting uh the historical society will also have a table outside town meeting um we are encouraging uh folks to
participate in commemoration uh there's a small group so far of organizing for uh broader efforts for Long Meadow to commemorate the American Revolution and so I I obviously invite your your partnership in that
um so that's uh first of all the the commemoration event uh you see on before me a different book than I usually bring this is town meeting time fourth edition it has been updated uh
with all of the laws that have changed since the third edition was published it's a much improved version there is also an online version to um for available for anyone to purchase as well um but we will be using the newest town
meeting time as per our bylaw requirement uh for that uh finally um the well actually last second to last the warrant has 38 articles i I believe that'll be the same when you you go
through it um five of them are of course citizen petitioners citizen petition articles note that one is on commercial vehicle parking two are on noise and two are on solar panels i want to just remind folks that we vote on
motions not on articles so if you see an article in any anywhere there's a reminder that there will be someone making a specific motion on an article so there's a citizen
petition article that is rather vague and so we will be voting on whatever motion that citizen petitioner makes at town meeting and I'm of course going to recommend a consent agenda and looking forward to
working with you all on that we like those they do uh speed things up and then finally uh for new participants in town meeting uh there will be a um town meeting 101 session on April 15th at 6
PM at stores library so you're welcome to sign up for that and encourage anybody to come to that i've also produced an infographic uh that uh Lynn is going to have caused to put on the the town website uh I'm happy to talk with you about any other uh items
related to town meeting i do encourage everyone to come children are of course welcome and I look forward to seeing you all there great thank you so much uh any questions from the board any comments um there are a number of citizen
petitions um in this town on this town warrant um I know in the past we we have placed those some citizen petitions higher that seem to have you know greater interest um I you know I don't know if you have any thoughts about the
placement of those citizen petitions u articles and on this particular town warrant or not i do note that the issue of commercial vehicle parking has been one that the board has been trying to wrestle with for many years and it is a uh
contentious issue so it's likely to draw a great deal of uh insight from participants at town meeting if there's the possibility of moving that to an earlier place great because it would allow for those people
who uh you know do have that keen interest in that issue to move forward um but I I of course defer to the select board and when um if it's not possible to move that forward citizens always do have the
right to propose changing the order and they would do so with a twothirds vote great thank you yeah i mean I think that um that is also what I have seen so far too is that there is a lot of interest in that uh system petition yeah thank you uh Josh
is there anything different for the new addition time meeting time you think we'll notice in the meeting anything we should keep an eye out for probably not it's a long book i was wondering i mean yeah no um there's a really handy chart
at the very end of the book that identifies what's new compared to uh the other one the old one didn't have anything on consent agendas for example um I I should note that I played a role in this um so I did review some of the
chapters uh and there are some footnotes that are regarding Long Meadows town meeting that we know that's unique to us so thank you Mark yeah so the the draft warrant we have shows article 34 citizen
petition says commercial vehicle parking that's all it says and and the copy that we got of the petition pardon me for saying this is pretty sparse mhm because all it says is remove and replace the bylaws you know around commercial
[Music] vehic I mean does is the petitioner get to submit the motion to go into the warrant or is my my sense was the motion or the warrant comes off of the petition so how do we deal how do you
deal with that how do we deal with that how's the town deal sure well first keep in mind that the the the purpose of the warrant is to warn uh voters about the subjects upon which they will be deliberating and voting it's not required to have
everything spelled out completely so there's some wiggle room there now between not having everything spelled out completely and being overly vague there's a big big uh chasm
there i will be speaking with the citizen petitioner again to ask that a motion be prepared in advance so that it gets to be placed on the town's warrant the mo motion
sheet and so that and I'm I'm not sure when that will be published this year but it's in advance of the meeting itself and so having that motion crafted and placed on the motion sheet with all
of the select boards motions will allow voters to see that at the very least where do they see the motion sheet it it is sometimes handed out at town meeting is it not it has never been handed out it has never been published on the town website i believe it has been published
but the motion the warrant is but not the motion sheet had been published on the town's website to my knowledge maybe once or twice but not every year yeah okay we should do it this year it's a big year and you know I mean you
know my my concern Rebecca obviously is the select board the town manager the town administr we've struggled over this whole issue of and and it seems to me very strange that some petitioner is going to figure it out and I hope they do but figure it out to
the to to the you know ability of Secretary of State or anybody else to accept the what they figured out because we certainly haven't been able to and we've had town council will help us i misspoke the motions have never been posted it's been the consent agendas
that have been posted prior so that people are aware as to where they may call it yeah thank you the um the select board has at times crafted motions that are different than what the warrant says so the
practice of having a motion shared on the fly is not new i think the the challenge is the subject is so um broad in the
article and it's also not the select board doing this it's a citizen petitioner doing this it's my understanding that the citizen petitioner is working with the planning board in crafting something that they have reached out to the select board as well correct me if I'm mistaken on that
yeah that's correct okay so it's not as if this uh person is doing this all on his own um and it's also his right i'm fine i'm I'm not saying it's not and
I'm just y hate to go through a lot of motions to find or a lot of activity and and consternation to find out that you know what what comes up isn't you know doesn't pass muster with whoever it needs to pass muster with down the road that's I guess always a risk of a
citizen petition yep anything else I just wanted to say thank you um I think you know everyone probably feels the same way but I feel like we have the best moderator in Massachusetts and you do a phenomenal job and like we're all at different events and people are
complimenting you for for what you do and how you handle yourself um you're really a role model for other moderators across the Commonwealth so I don't know about that but I I do appreciate the compliment you do a great job thank you and I I it's a a real honor to be in
this role for for voters in Long Meadow it's a wonderful community i'm glad to be part of it thank you so much yeah well said Dan well thank you so much for joining us um and we will now get started on talking about the art uh the warrant thank you so much sure
all right um so I think the best way to go about this is you know hopefully you all have had a chance to take a look at the warrant and flag anything that you think needs to be discussed or changed we can just kind of go through article by article and I can just pause for a second just to see if anyone has
anything to um edit or comment on and then uh we can go through it that way josh did you No I'll move we place article one on the line perfect second any further discussion all those in
favor i'll move we place article two on the warrant second any further discussion all those in favor uh sorry can I just tell you one thing um just to be clear this is we're still working on some of the explanations and so what
you're seeing here tonight is still a draft and you it may change uh but the the fundamentals of the article will not but for example the explanations may change or articles the explanations okay great so we can still vote on
accepting them oh we need you to i just wanted to be clear that I just wanted to be clear that what you're voting now we're going to spend the next two days honing this into everything we think it needs to be before it goes to the printer on Wednesday afternoon yeah and
and actually technically the um descriptions under the warrant articles can be changed up to two weeks prior to the meeting okay i just learned that is that just for printing purposes it's for printing purposes that we try to get it as concrete as possible but actually the bylaw says two weeks prior to the
meeting we shall provide residents with descriptions of each warrant article so actually technically just to be don't get tempted well just because they do some things do change new information comes about and if it's provides public education to people on on the warrant it's in my
opinion okay okay i'll move we uh accept uh place article 3 on the warrant did I do two already yes okay i'm sorry do we know that article 3 number isn't going to change
right correct that's correct like if it snows tonight right that's that's the problem is is we don't we do not have any precipitation forecasted that that's fine i've just been here where where the numbers had to change that's okay that's fine i didn't take
the gas out of my snowblower yet okay so uh we got a second any further discussion um all those in favor all right um I move that Yeah you're right we didn't vote on two yes I thought we made it was motion made i was worried about that i didn't want to have to come and have another extra Zoom
meeting for number two okay i don't remember raising my hand for number two that's all that's all I remember so we we had a second and I second it okay all right so uh can we just can we go back to that and vote on that well I place we
uh All right i'll move we accept article two onto the warrant second okay any further discussion okay all those in favor okay so we've done the first three and now I'll move we place article four on the warrant
second um any further i have a question on this one uh Lyn just just to make sure we're clear so it's $150,000 to get the pool up to date but there's $125,000 for other stuff but I'm assuming that can be done while in operation is that kind of the implication yeah they're going to phase it in we We just don't
have enough funding to do it all so they're going to phase what's absolutely critical to get the pool back up and running that's perfect thanks um any further discussion okay all those in favor i'll move we place article five on the
warrant second any further discussion all those Can I Can I just Yep lynn what do you mean or what does this mean by available funds in the treasury is that free cash yes thank you any further discussion all those in
favor great we'll move we place article six on the warrant second any further discussion all those in favor i'll move we place article 7 on the warrant second any further discussion
yeah I I just want to go through this for a second okay transfer from funds to the operating stabilization fund yeah so I can explain this if you want yeah why do that so in in no in the
fall when we had the um mold issues at a couple buildings we took money from the operating stabilization fund at Falltown meeting to pay for the remediation with the commitment that we would replenish the operating stabilization fund with
free cash we This is the operating stabilization fund that's controlled by the finance committee no no this is your fund so this not not your fund but it falls under your policy um which is which is in excess of what the policy limits are
but I'm bringing this here to you because we did make the commitment when you voted on it that this is what you were going to do you could decide you don't want to do that because the fund is over the threshold that the policy says or we could make a good faith
attempt at giving back what is available from free cash after these other uses have claimed the rest of the free cash i mean putting money back into the operating stabilization fund just so we can take it out for something else because it's got more than 7 and a half%
in there seems Well it see it presumably gets a higher interest rate right Ian i'm sure it I'm sure that's probably true money is funible we don't invest if I if I remember correctly by the way taking this money out in the first place which is
and since we did say we would take it out I I agree with you Mark but it's a small amount you know if we were talking about putting in back in 300,000 I think we'd have be having a different conversation right okay okay anything else on this one um okay any
further I'm getting all No we had a second discussion uh all those in favor great all right moving on to article eight we place article eight on the warrant second any further discussion yeah how
do we know that water enterprise and sewer enterprise funds are now accurate given what we just talked about earlier tonight so this is this is the FY26 U budget so this would reflect the
expenses needed to fund the FY26 budget but it's the operating budget so it wouldn't it's built based on what they're projecting for rates for 26 which will all likely change after you
actually have a rate presentation and set rates right so it'll all change that's my point okay but no isn't this this budget set and we're our rates will change based on what our projected uses is that
right yeah we're saying that remember expenses and revenue are two different systems right like I said for for water and sewer we set you know we we set the the expenses first and then we match the
revenue to those expenses yeah so we're setting our expenses now yes but and that's based on a presumed amount of water we buy plus a presumed amount of cost of running the department yes and and capital costs yes but it doesn't include expenses to put
money back into the correct the stabilization fund correct and it does not include capital projects that have not yet come to you meaning you're going to get a presentation in a few weeks that talks about needs and and growing
the um enterprise uh fund so will we be adjusting these numbers based on those should we be adjusting these numbers based on um potentially but that's a conversation for that would be a fall town meeting situation so if we're
raising our rates commensurate with what our presentation is on what we should be doing we could amend in the fall correct that's what we did this current year is we amended the budget in the fall okay anything else on this
one okay all those in favor right um I move that we place article 9 on the annual town warrant second so this is the one where we won't may want to um Do you want to ask for discussion yeah any further discussion
yeah um so this is where we may want to amend this uh road paving amount um article 12 is where no well that's taking that would be taking a changing where the interest from the operation
stabilization is going well what's so you're you're right but our bond payment so the way Ian has it set up now is it's going to be 350 is what he assumed we could have available to pay so we kind of made it to make sure the first year was 350 so and then we may pay more in
the fall correct okay correct just trying to make sure I got it right wait do I have it right now you can technically leave this article the way it is um we're going to amend that road paving line to say road paving debt service payment or road so it's clear
it's for debt service but that 350 is what's coming out of capital if you want to pay more out of a different funding source that will be a different article all right yeah if we want to do that now but we we had a discussion on that right so when we get there
um Okay any anything else this one okay all those in favor okay um I I think that I would be So I I would be in favor of moving the commercial vehicle petition up because I think that there has been a lot of
interest in that one um and I think we've generally said that this is kind of the area where we kind of put higher interest articles so I think putting that citizen petition article as article 10 um it's something that I think would
make sense and would would speak to you know the interest that the that the uh town seems to have in this article but for the purposes of going through this maybe we can just stick with these numbers and then at the end say we're going to insert it and move them all
down okay i agree otherwise that's the whole reason why the citizen petitions only list out citizen petition in the name brief description so that the formatting didn't get messed up if we had to move them around okay vinnie the only thing I would say is we
generally try to keep things together and I think the like article 11 um goes into it relates to article 9 because of the the bond payment or I'm
sorry the um they're all capital the chiller yeah it's all capital mhm and so I I would just say maybe put it after that yes that makes sense after after 11 after maybe 12 well maybe 11 should
probably be where 10 is and then then I think you could so put 11 where 10 is and then 11 could be the citizen petition and then 10 could be 12 and then go on got it i thought you were
going to make it complicated and then it was even more following yeah flip 11 and 10 and so so article 11 becomes article 10 and you said put the petition where article would be the new article 11 is that right no no 12 is 12 is 11 oh okay
12 also moves up okay but we'll do this at the end 11 is 13 and the citizen petition is 12 yep so do all the capital yep then the citizen petition but rearrange at the end of this whole exercise okay yep all right so just
remember that till the end Josh and then you want the storm water after the um citizen petition yep yep okay so what did we So we need to approve article 10 i'll uh I'll move that we put article 10
on the warrant second any further discussion yeah I'm just I I see this i read it i understand it was this on a list somewhere that the Yep dpw W was doing yeah it's on the It was
on the capital plan and we we could not fund it there's not um um storm water only had enough to fund partial of it and the rest is coming from the operating budget how long would it be go ahead but so
there's $200,000 in the operating budget to do this already yes we've been trying to in the literally a budget line item for the not for Raspberry Book but for Culvert replace repair and replacement yeah so we're going to take half of it out of the operating budget and
supplement that from this storm water retained earning and what does that do to the storm water retained earnings fund uh pretty much brings it takes it down to very Yep okay just are we getting to the same
place with storm water durings that we are we've already been there because it's subsidized by the general fund no the current storm water balance is 655904 with a 200,000 hit we'd be at 455904 so right above right below the
policy of 500,000 okay thank you all right anything else all right all those in favor i'll move we place article 11 on the warrant second any further discussion
all those in favor move we place article 12 on the warrant second any further discussion so yeah do we want to amend this completely to
maybe moving places on the warrant wasn't didn't make sense but do we want to change this to moving the uh the operation stabilization fund the sum of 44,67918 to the capital stabilization fund
that's what we said and is that what Yeah that gives us the flexibility so I I uh resend my motion the only flexibility it gives is taking it out of operating stabilization and into usable yeah it won't be usable till fall town meeting until we tell it where it needs
to go but it'll take it will take out the majority vote not a two-thirds vote no it still it still takes two takes two in and out okay um is there any reason financial wise to have it in one place or the other
not nec I mean not necessarily it's just You're transferring it within capital so it would be specifically for capital requests i mean interest wise oh no josh you're saying leave it where it is and then move it either to roads or to
the police i guess it doesn't matter he want to make sure there wasn't get a lower interest rate by just moving it but we definitely are earmarking it for for capital why why don't we put into the capital i think we should know that yeah um okay so
uh all right is this a motion i move that we amend article 12 to read uh to see if the town will vote to transfer from the operation operating stabilization fund the sum of 44,67918 or greater or lesser sum to the
capitalization sorry to the capital stabilization fund or take any other action relative there too second okay uh any further discussion so we're taking out for the purpose of
paying the building repairs correct yeah okay um all right all those in favor all right and then we have to and then an explanation just generally that uh there's a new policy that we can use the operating stabilization fund
interest uh and the intent is for us to use it for a capital project to be identified perfect and so we made a motion to amend this article but we still need to make a motion to place the article on the warrant there was a motion then
discussion but then Oh I rescended that that was rescended okay yeah I missed that thing good job i moved to place you're you're more alert than most of us good job i move to place the uh amended article 12 as amended on the warrant
second any further discussion all those in favor uh Mike on the explanation just keep in that the principal is in touch yes great um I move to place article 13 on the warrant
any further discussion all those in favor i move to place article 14 on the warrant second lind do we always have the question of you know is
this sufficiently cloistered into what we whatever you want to do for for wage wages this this is future wage settlements the collective bargaining yes the cola not quite but we'll see
what we can do okay okay anything else all those in favor uh I I move that we place article 15 on the town warrant second any further discussion
all those in favor technically I'm not sure you have to vote these no and I think you or you could vote them as a group because you really as a group you have done that for them cpc reservation we have we could change the uh description slightly but not the
content okay we don't have the right to take these off i mean it's just the point is it's out of our it's our jurisdiction not our jurisdiction so those uh so articles 16 and 17 we could do together you can do 15 through 15 through 22
okay so I move that we place articles 16 through 22 on the top warrant so second further discussion okay all those in
favor great all right uh I move that we place article 23 on the town warrant second any further discussion i just want to read a P40 on it actually I want Lynn just what was what's the reason for this
again I'm sorry for forgetting this is standard i think it has to happen every so revolving funds are required to set an expenditure limit um as part of Mass General law so we are just stating um what the fund can be
expended up to so it can't go you don't want to be too high like that's all okay fine we've shifted this number up right over the past couple years if Right right anything else okay
all those in favor i move to place article 24 on the town warrant second yeah any further discussion so little uh I don't Yeah I don't think we'll get that high good luck we're doing better
than we did last year 250 bucks a pop field of dreams uh anything else okay all those in favor all right uh I move to place article 25 on the town warrant second any further discussion yeah there what
what's the I I presume this is the the veterans Yes program is there I just there needs to be a explanation yes some I mean because reading it there's there's not the word veterans doesn't appear so I plugged this in Friday afternoon once I realized that we
already had the language now I just need to go back okay i'm just saying that the way it reads this was just to make sure you were paying attention this is I mean 25 and 26 need a lot um of work on the explanations because we know that people
need that so we just haven't we haven't had a chance to do it yet 26 is also they're wonderful they both are yeah i'm not sure maybe Rebecca knows adopting national law provisions simple majority
i believe so we'll look at that we'll look into that okay uh anything else on this one are you doing both of them together um I only made the motion for 25 okay yeah um Okay all those in favor okay uh I move
that we place uh article 26 on the town warrant second any further discussion okay all those in favor okay um article 27 um this was uh in relation to getting the select board
to act as the municipal life plant board i think Lynn sent around the language offered by town council this kind of ended up kind of going in a different direction than we originally discussed um from discussions with town council it
seemed to be that actually having a you know or going about this process so that the municipal life plan board could be elected actually ended up being a more cumbersome process and so you know originally we had all talked about
wanting to potentially appoint the MLP board after the select board um serves as the MLP board um for the first three four years or however we see fit and so town council came back and said that actually doing a charter change would be
um the best way to go about this that would not involve multiple steps and so they sent around the article language for that um so this is also just kind of you know
developed not too long ago uh you know from from this meeting and so this is you know something kind of newly to digest and this article language was just sent over this was sent over today how did this not come up before when we were talking about this yeah I I don't
know exactly what happened with the guidance that we were receiving but um because originally when we had this discussion we thought that there would be we could have an an article at town meeting and then have a ballot question
in the fall so that the select board could to appoint to serve as the select board i mean because to serve as the municipal life plan board and then you know years down the road we could turn into an elected uh board um but it seems
like upon further review that a vote would have had to take a vote would have needed to take place preceding annual town meeting um and so because of that this whole process would have been kicked out until at least next
year and that would have been the earliest that a municipal plan board could have been seated well I got the impression like this wasn't possible at all like the getting a board appointed was or getting a separate board is going to be the worst way of all yeah and that's what we were originally told at
first as well um but I think upon further review and then they Yeah basically looking into this more that this seemed actually like the the more doable option this Yeah this seems ideal so we don't have to appoint a board we can right
yep and then so we can serve as the municipal life plant board and then when we decide to um appoint a board we can we can do so okay we can do charter changes at town meeting mhm you start the process there
you have to well you don't have to but right we start the process there but it that doesn't change the charter right it's the first step okay so I assume don't we have to at some point like petition the the legislature or
something like to accept the charter this is a special act to to petition to change the charter yeah right motion I heard earlier it's a motion then so so I guess my question is you
No the until this is accepted by the the special act we aren't the municipal light board so we do we do have certain capacity to act as the municipal life plant board um
which is you know why we were able to appropriate the funds for the fall special town meeting um and so we do have certain authority and town council has said so that they can provide more guidance on that if we need to but we also do have time here because there's
really no action for the municipal lifeline board to take you know for months still uh until this kind of all gets figured out yeah my my thought process beneath was two step one is to confirm that we're the municipal light
board and the other is to enact a charter change that then says and you have the right to appoint the municipal light board down the road um I'm not no sorry um we we couldn't do that didn't our town meeting in the fall
had we voted we had an article or motion that uh gave us the powers or or it created a municipal life board oh but it didn't say who would and then we have a formal opinion from town
council that you are the you can act in that capacity that's what it was yeah um and so you as Venice was saying there isn't a lot of um business to transact right now so if you want to wait um we can town council wasn't available
tonight i did ask that they come to speak to this because I knew there were going to be questions um they weren't available tonight this is a time of year where they're services are in demand everywhere um and we do have time to wait until the fall if you do want to have some more time to digest this and
answer ask questions of town council we could wait yeah i mean I I think this actually ended up being the avenue that seemed like we were most in favor of anyways that we would we would like to appoint
an MLP board but have the ability to serve as MLP board until we decided to do that and so I think this actually ended up kind of working out and aligning with what um our discussion was absolutely plus it's going to take a long time
probably for a home ruled petition to potentially pass in the in the legislature too so yeah and and sometimes they go in and they come out looking very different and they go in and they come out saying you need a ballot vote so who knows what happens when we submit it but it is the first
step i mean you've probably dealt with this a lot Dan yeah and and that's why I also think it's probably better just get this moving i'll move we place article 27 on the war second is it 26 or 27 27 I'm sorry okay any
further discussion all those in favor all right and then article 28 um right glenn did you send that around yes yes as well yeah so um this is one um
related to the special act acceptance in 1998 1988 that created preliminary elections um there had been attempt an attempt some years after that was adopted to resend it it was not successful haven't been able to figure
out exactly why um we are one of the only communities in the Commonwealth that has this I think we're one of two um it creates many many challenges um not one of not the least of which is that the time period of 28 days between
the elections is so compressed that it's almost impossible to get ballots in time um so uh town council has looked at this i raised the question about um whether our charter superseded it because our charter is newer than the 88 article um
that is definitely defensible but the cleanest way to deal with this is to uh rescend it at a town meeting I guess I I don't understand what we're rescending are we rescending the the preliminary election we prelim
rescending nonpartisanship we No you're rescending the adoption of preliminary elections so that means this town going forward would not have preliminary elections that was a question that we had last time does it default back to Oh no okay we asked if it defaults back to But
I mean that that opens to me a a whole question of in theory then you get people elected with less than a majority of the votes i mean you have three people running for one seat somebody can have 34% and win
yes yes plurality right and and that's different from where we are today which the town adopted uh preliminary election so that whoever got elected got a majority of
the votes cast in the final election so it's a significant change to not just the process but to the what the town is and how the town can elect people yeah so two two things that come to mind one is this is also
one that can wait till the fall if you want to um because by the time we we won't have a preliminary uh by this would not be in place to have an impact by the time we have a preliminary um second
secondarily better or worse we have not had a preliminary in many years so right it's almost self policing but it it may not be and then the third point I have is if we're going to keep preliminaries we need to change this
time frame it cannot be 28 days this is it's it's unattainable didn't we have I saw your face like three preliminaries that was a preliminary for a special election was called that's the only Yeah yeah um I mean the other thing we could do
was change change to a which the dates were not followed for I don't know why but the dates have not been um consistently followed should the results my my purpose of this is that
there's been a group of people around who I haven't been involved with but I like the fact that there's a talk about Massachusetts going to rank choice voting and that then addresses both the issues we talked about this a few years
ago i think we did and I don't I don't know where we ended up going yeah but my eyes were spinning there's a lot of home rule petitions pending a lot of communities are going that trying to go that route right to to a rank choice which to me then makes sure that whoever
is elected you know theoretically has the most people majority of people looking for them but it also can eliminate preliminary elections well you could still get elected without a majority in rank choice voting you can No no but under our current system if the second place comes three people
running for two spots three people running for two spots everyone goes in and votes 90% of the vote and the next two people get like you know much lower i think that happened to me that's why right but that but that's that's because of the way people vote not necessarily because of
the construction of the election yeah yeah as opposed to if you have three people running for one spot you're almost the you've constructed a an election that you know even if people
vote for one person somebody can get elected with Yeah and the only way my sense would be to to defer this if we could but I'm personally in favor of getting rid of the preliminary elections i think it's ownorous expensive and stressful and I
think that the town can choose who they want with a plurality that's my opinion it'd be nice to get it over with i think we have to get rid of this it's And we I don't think we wouldn't amend this we would have to amend the charter right so
I I'm if we want to push it off that's fine but I I we have to get rid of this regardless i also preliminaries I tend to agree it's seven grand and a lot of manh hours and um there are downsides to getting rid of
them for sure and Mark is is right that it could lead to some funky results but um we have to get rid of this at least if we do it now we're doing the fall it doesn't I don't care but you mean the timing
yes exactly Yeah i mean I I I Oh sorry go ahead i was going to say just reference on the total number that we've had since enact since the acted six since 1988 yeah and I think you know at least in my preliminary and then I think the year
before me there was um in 2022 there was school committee preliminary i think the results basically of the preliminary mirrored the right the you know the election itself and um and I think to Mike's point too with how infrequently this happens it did happen i guess now
that you're talking about it they did have happen a little bit frequently over the last You could have won this election yeah exactly um but but but I I I mean I and I think just kind of even going through the logistics and how we were talking about it the amount that it
would cost uh and even if it's not 28 days it's going to be you know maybe like a month month and a halfish apart it just does not seem historically would always fall on the date of our annual town meeting that's just how it would line up yeah and and I completely agree
that you know a talk around rank choice voting or something is something that we should have but I think for the time being at least we should resent this and you know what it might not even pass it's not it's not up to us here is this twothirds
yeah I think so there was adopting an MG charter change i don't remember if we ran this part by town council or not the fact that it may have been a ballot vote but I don't think they said it was right it was it was okay but to rescend it is doesn't
have to be a valid vote i'll move we place article 28 on the warrant second any further discussion all those in favor all those opposed all right um I move that we
place article 29 on the town warrant second any further discussion this is the This is the wording that we adopted earlier I assume right yep that's right um
anything else all right all those in favor all right scroll down a bit i move that we place article 30 on the town warrant second any further discussion mark this is
this resends or modifies the prohibition of the finance committee from serving on any other right this is in tandem with the with article 29 it just I haven't put an explanation in yet but but if there's
another part of the charter that says the finance committee no member of the finance committee shall sit on any other board or committee this is amending that this just says the finance committee shall appoint one member to serve on the town's capital planning and building
committee it's adding a section D um if you go to the charter uh I am definitely open to suggestions on how you want it worded but this was what I came up with my only point Lyn is it should probably say other than what shows up above you
know we're or they're appointed to capital planning and building committee but no other you know somehow it's got to acknowledge the other restrictions c C all C C says no officer or member of any other board commission shall be a member of the finance committee so that
could see has to have except as uh right that's what I'm saying as in section D below right that you somehow you've got to so then you'll have another you we'll add another article to address that unless I why don't we modify
chapter 2 section 10 with two two you know change can you change two change C and then add yeah yes yes I will do that right 30 Josh thank you that's what I was thinking right this is actually quite important so it's
really good to get this right because like when I was a finance committee this kind of thing would come up multiple times like can I be a liaison no that's not allowed so this is good to clarify so at the end of they can't be the le anywhere except for this so at the end of 210 C it would say except as set out
in subsections D below Okay mhm yep okay josh do you want to make the motion uh I I lost my place i um I move that we
place article 30 30 as amended on the warrant second any further discussion all those in favor and Lyn you will be adding in X i assume
uh I move that we place article 31 on the Tom Warrant second any further discussion all those in favor uh I move that we place article 32 on the town warrant second any further
discussion so I didn't think we had the authority authority to do to do anything with ADUs and more importantly is isn't the is the planning board or the zoning committee or Yeah we we can place we're
just placing on a warrant planning board hearing on it so the the law they did Yeah the law says you can you can't restrict you can have reasonable restrictions on ADUs essentially and you can't go beyond what the the state law is but we so we can put this at do we
run this by council yeah planning board has so this allows whatever the restrictions are allowed yeah because basically what you have to do you can put an ADU on it has to follow your It can't be any more restrictive than your single family guidelines
anything else okay all those in favor recommendation was voted by the planning board on that and the following article two perfect okay article 33 is the flood plane one um I move that we place
article 33 on the town warrant second any further discussion on this all those in favor yeah and then is there 34 is that when we start getting 34 move to 11 all right
so Josh do you want to Did you remember all that you said earlier no mro um I article 34 to11 everything else gets pushed back right oh that's way easier than it sounded earlier i move we place
article 34 on the warrant as article 11 second any further discussion all right all those in favor um We probably move 30 i I move that we place 3 articles 35 you don't get to do that
place them on you don't get to they're on the warrant because of petition oh true yeah yeah i think all that's uh you could discuss re uh reordering if you wanted to but you can't discuss putting them up anything else with the reordering that was it that was the one
change we need to make right but these all went to planning board right so commercial vehicle parking front yard solar sideyard solar all go to PAP uh planning board they voted on all three to not recommend all three of those articles um so sorry which three uh
commercial vehicle 34 3738 yeah power equipment and unnecessary noise and trucks and unnecessary noise does not require planning board those are general bylaws general okay and they voted to not recommend 34 3738 yep so okay okay
um and and that was it for the reordering there was nothing else well we we reordered the other things but the blueberry chiller is going to go after the capital plan i don't I don't think we really need to move that's clerical
that's more clerical yeah we have to place them on okay great all right um then I move to close the 2025 annual top warrant second all right uh any further
discussion all those in favor all right great all right what do we got next um next up we have an update from the bottle shop on their annual liquor license uh renewal um a letter was provided by the owner James Thomas um
one thing that I um I wanted to just kind of point out in here is I think that he actually made a mistake in identifying where he was beginning uh lease negotiations he he said it was the Trading Post Plaza which is actually the plaza with Frankies and one way but it's
actually it's not Armada that's Armada's plaza oh I thought I thought Trading Post puzzle was Frankie but I think I thought he just I thought he just um wrote the wrong thing here just actually I was
wrong okay yeah that's I've never seen it called that but that's what it is okay oh where Armadas is called the It is the Trading Post Plaza yes apparently yeah i just Trading Post drugstore and it got one i remember when there was an So Gas station at the corner nobody else
does movie shops well that everybody remembers the um Yeah that's that actually is our modus okay okay um yeah so I think same same result but yeah I heard I heard death differently but same result this this makes more it makes more sense yeah because there's no
making spaces in that other plaza um so I was very confused by what was going on here um so I if I remember correctly right we had given uh Mr thomas until the end of March yeah 90 days from January 1st
would have been April 1st you sure you didn't mean to say Trader Joe's plasma gosh who else is Was it was our decision that Okay now we got to let just let it ride technically
the vote was a signed lease agreement or a intent to purchase sale so yeah and and what he's offered here is that there's been a delay in hearing back from the landlords and that's why this hasn't progressed as far as it should have but now it seems like he's
got you know whatever in place to to move it forward so it's really up to us on whether we want to give him more time um or not at this point what's the stat he owns the liquor i mean he's paid the liquor license and only year that it was
we we waved was the first year right yes i I'm very frustrated by all this i I think we've been more than generous and I I also but I am sympathetic to what Jim is trying to
do here and trying to negotiate with the the landlords um that being said and I I don't want to speak for anybody I would I would be comfortable saying you have until our next meeting to show us a lease and
that's it yeah that's kind of where I was at too now Josh I hate that you notched it we're what that we the license is back return to the town now what I here's
where I I will say my hesitation places a lot of power on the uh the landlords and right who may but we're there's not a lot of other places to go and I get that so I I I feel like we're in a bit
of a bind but we it burned down four and a half years ago and I it's I think we got to do something about it i agree i mean our next meeting is May 5th it gives them another month to come back with something
but but Josh's point about it it it turns the dynamics of the negotiation a lot though and I'm not sure that it's our it's our role to insert ourselves in that negotiation no but I mean what else
can we do it's our role to to make sure that the town is adequately served by the licenses we have available and you can't keep a pocket license forever and there is there are other places it's not
that's not the only place in town where it can go it's the most obvious logical but there are other places so I guess my question is for is for Mike are there other people who've come in and said "Hey use that." So there are people probably a dozen or so over the last two
years yeah 100% yeah it's very valuable and so the other thing I will say that can uh not to uh shift any dynamics elsewhere uh let me modify what I would think a signed lease or a signed
purchase and sale agreement that is contingent on finding a lease somewhere um that I wouldn't want that to go on forever either but if we get that then we can talk about timelines and I these things can I just got a license just at
a closing it took a year and a half from uh for a number of reasons but one of the reasons is the location changed um so I I think that if we by May 5th we either get a signed lease at the current
location or a signed p or a signed lease somewhere to move the license or a signed purchase and sale agreement for the license yeah that all sounds good to me want to make that motion um and just one or our
last we we only renewed through the end of March right so are we I guess we're extending it now which is um All right so I move that we uh ex approve the Bottle Shops
uh the Bottle Shop Incorporated Inc uh license through uh May 6 2025 pending a uh submission of a signed lease
agreement or signed purchase and sale agreement second uh any further discussion yeah Mark I'm just uncomfortable with the this dynamic and I Josh I I understand and I recognize the the dilemma and and you
know you're kind of the expert on our liquor licenses here doing it for a living but but I I I just wish there was some other way that we could compel some kind of a indication that there's progress as opposed to signing the lease or turn it
turn it back in well or sell it to someone else right well but as opposed to you know I I am actively negotiating or here's a whatever it is and I expect to have the negotiations completed by such and such that I feel like we've done
we've given a lot of chances what I'm I haven't run into this but I feel like we are eventually at risk of getting sued by somebody who wants this license to compel us to to get to get it
back because you can't there's lots of case law on this you just can't have a pocket license you can't keep these things forever and I don't know I don't know if that's possible theoretically it is and uh and I I'm very very sympathetic and I
wish um I wish there was a different way to go about this i wish we had a a bunch of commercial spaces he could take his pick but um we we got to do something i agree and and I'd also I know Mike if you are in communication with him between now and then you know he reaches
out i'd also encourage him to be more communicative with us because I don't think we've really heard much you know besides this letter in a very long time um and so if there is meaningful progress or something maybe that's just short or maybe on the one yard line he needs to maybe come to our next meeting
or something and and communicate that we Yeah we you're right we have shown that we're very understanding we're trying we're really trying here yeah is it crazy for him to show like evidence of the communications and I mean I just don't like I don't want I don't know if we want to insert oursel that far but
I'm just wondering is that something that he could could do in this situation from a balls in his court to do that how about have him show up here instead of sending us letters
could you could make a request that he comes to the next meeting if you want how often has he been has he been in contact with you Mike or um we spoke once prior in four and a half years no a few times during annual license renewal
and then I think it got to the point where we brought we brought it to the board I think this past year to to just get a sense of what you're looking to do going forward uh but a few times I've I've had some interactions with him either by phone or in the office just kind of asking for updates and then when
I went out that's when actually the letter came in at least negotiation probably wasn't even possible until last year sometime we're just seeing things open again yeah josh Josh how about the I'm just trying to say you know get us a
signed lease by the next next meeting or show up here and tell us why we shouldn't resend it i'd be okay with that yeah I've said from the beginning I this is not something I want to do i I I I get I'm just trying to maybe because
when you're doing this all by you know by emails and whatever you don't get the and and and maybe Pun Realy wants to show up and say hey you know we don't we're not he's not going to sign the lease so you might as well take it back i don't know what they want to do but
and I mean I I mean I think that the motion is okay the way it is right now and it's going to be on the next agenda and he can he can come but but it it implies show us a signed lease or you lose the license as opposed to show up a signed lease or show up and tell us why we shouldn't be taking the license away
and then put it on the agenda that if he's got no no progress we're going to take the license away while he's sitting here yeah I mean I can I can amend it through a signed lease assigned purchase and sale or come to the meeting and
explain status it's more than status explain why we shouldn't be taking away your license that's what you want right well that's what we want i mean we could just make a decision at the next meeting to make a new motion to extend it further if he comes shows up that's why I was saying it's the motion seems fine the way it
was okay if you'd like me to add in the correspondence to to Mr thomas that the board requests to meet with him at the next meeting I could do that no I Mike the problem with that to me is that just says you don't have to worry about anything just show up the next
meeting right as opposed to send us a signed lease or you better show up the next meeting to defend why you haven't signed it because you're likely to lose the license right i understand yeah i think it's a different I just think flag something Josh's original motion just has I think the teeth necessary um at
this stage so what is Josh's original motion sign lease or purchase and sale agreement by the next meeting any So there's already been a second on this um yeah I just I just don't
understand the if the or is implied and not stated we should state it where that means nothing yeah that that's fine but I don't because it's not going to change what we do we are either going to get a
letter saying I I I have a sign a lease in hand that's not signed or show open saying it's not going well here's my other options um so we could also say all right it's not
good enough and we're taking the license back so I I think there's no harm in adding to to So he doesn't if he all he sees is the minutes of the meeting out that's tough so um I mean we already got the second
we can vote i I'm happy to amend it too um yeah I I think I don't feel that strongly i think we just need to vote on this so if we want to amend it so yeah so move forward assign so uh move that the Bottle Shop Bank Inc bring uh submit a signed lease assigned purchase and
sale or attend the next meeting to explain why the company should keep its b its liquor license by the May for the May 5th meeting second any further
discussion okay all those in favor all right uh next up we are now moving to new business at 10:02 p.m um at the first um item is the 2025 Arbor Day proclamation i move we declare Arbor Day
is requested in the proclamation second any further discussion right all those in favor and Mike do you need us to sign this um I usually use the um electronic signatures for this one but perfect that sounds great and then I would be remiss
if I say we didn't have Kathern Kab here chair of the tree committee so thank you very much oh thank you so much yeah uh this was an easy vote for us yes tonight it was well thank you so
much for joining us appreciate it um and then next we have the seasonal liquor license renewal i move we approve the renew the seasonal liquor license for the clubhouse cafe uh at Franconia Golf Course second any further discussion all
right all those in favor that's all blank on the agenda i thought I saw what a um I just clicked on it i was able to get to it but which uh Oh the seasonal certification is blank sorry okay oh
yeah so that if we didn't renew I would fill it in either way we have to send it back just with our town's name on it but other than that if we approved them all everything's blank all right yep great sorry and all taxes fees due to the town are up to date everything's in good
standing perfect okay um I move that we uh approve St mary's Guild uh one uh two one-day liquor licenses for events to be held at St mary's Paris Center on April 24th from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m and May 21st
uh from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m second okay any further discussion all those in favor great and then I move that we approve St mary's Parish for their one-day liquor license application for an event to be held at the St mary's
Academy Gymnasium on June 3rd um from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m second okay um all those in favor and Josh I know that this ABCC has a limit to the number of one day liquor licenses on an annual basis
don't they also have it on a over a given period of time and and the and therefore the question is is St mary's Guild and St mary's Parish and these are all separate entities they're all separate okay that's correct look at it's 50 anyway it's no over the year but
I thought over a month there was a Oh yeah if these were all the same entity we would be running into an issue i think month that's what I thought but we could probably look into that for the future but these are these are these are all separate entities correct yeah okay um I move that we approve uh the Knights
of Columbus Council 5406 um and their one-day liquor license application for an event to be held at St mary's Parish on April 26th from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m second okay any further discussion spelling sign out spelling
all those in favor gets difficult towards 9:00 right um I move that we approve the Long Meadow Adult Center Community Funds liquor license one day liquor license applications for events to be
held on April 24th May 1st and May 6th second okay any further discussion all those in favor all those opposed and the street closure application um I move that we uh approve
the Metobrook Roadblock party application for an event to be held from Long Meadow Street to Warren Terrace on May 3rd from 1:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m second okay any further discussion all right all those in favor all right
move we adjourn second um all those in favor all right thank you all so much thank you thank you