Now, can you >> I mean, that's good enough. really interesting footage breakdown. >> That's what I was looking at. >> Are you guys ready? >> Yep. >> All right. Stand by. >> Five, four, three, two, one.
>> Good evening. Welcome to the November 17, 2025 uh regular meeting of the Long Meadow Select Board. I'll start with my script. Oops. This is Select Board Chair Josh Lavine. I will be confirming that all members and
persons anticipating the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond on the affirmative. Dan Workco >> here. >> Beneath Mavaty >> here. >> Andrew Lamb >> here. Shelley Mayor Duel >> here. >> Staff, when I call your name, please respond on the affirmative. Lynn Simmons >> here.
>> Mike Barbieieri >> here. >> Peggy Sheldon >> here. >> 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 is no chat or Q&A function. All the materials for this meeting are available on the agenda
posted on longm.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 comments 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 greeting the meeting moderator will promote you to panelist unmute you and give you permission to speak. If you join the webinar by phone, 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 in attendance is recording this meeting, please
announce yourself now. Okay. And now for the pledge of >> 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. Start with announcements. 1117 2025 select board regular meeting announcements. Water and sewer bill update. Residents regularly received their water and sewer bills. I'm sorry. recently received their water and sewer
bills, which reflect the new rates that were announced, including in previous building statements. We understand some residents are noticing an increase and have questions about their usage. For questions, please email public works at long metal ma.gov. Please be sure to include the address of where the water and sewer usage occurred so that the DPW
can run historical usage report and verify accuracy of the meter readings. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to maintain and invest in Long Meadows water and sewer systems. Fall 2025 Leaf program. Special Town of Long Metal Leaf Bags are on sale at Longmet Big Y. The Leaf site
on West Road is open through Sunday, December 7th, seven days a week, 8 am to 5:00 p.m. Curbside collection of special leaf town leaf bags will occur on Saturday, November 22nd and Saturday, December 6. Please ensure that leaf leaf sorry please ensure that bags are to the
curb by 7 a.m. on days of collection. For additional information, please visit long meadowmma.gov/leaf program. Fiscal year 2026 tax classification hearing. On Monday, December 1st, 2025 at 7:30m, the Long Meadow Select Board will conduct the annual tax
classification hearing in accordance with MGL chapter 40 section 56 to determine the percentage share of the tax levy to be born by each class of property relative to setting the fiscal year 2026 tax rates or rate. The hearing will be held at 231 Maple Road in the
Greenwood conference room. To for additional information, please visit long meadow mma.gov/ GV/Civic Alerts Long Meadow Community Electric Electricity Enrollment Letters were sent on November 7th to newly eligible Eversource account holders in Long Meadow to notify them about the town's
electricity program, Long Meadow Community Electricity. New account holders will soon be automatically enrolled in the group purchasing program that helps manage electricity costs and increase renewable energy use. The optout deadline is December 10th, 2025. For additional information on the program or to make changes to your
enrollment, please visit long meadow communityelelectric.com. All right. Now we move on to resident comment. Anybody would like to speak. Tom Shay, 81 Green Meadow Drive. In our town meeting form of government, voters
are the budgetary approval body. Select board ex executes the voter mandates. At the May 13th town meeting, the town budget was approved and appropriated as were the water and sewer enterprise budgets with increases of 8.6 and 1.6%
respectively. Springfield increased it charges to Long Meadow by 8 and a half and zero for fiscal 2026. At the June 16th select board meeting, you set the water and sewer rates based on increase water and sewer budgets by a combined 2.1 million, which was not approved by
voters. They then voted to increase water and sewer rates by 44 and 47% respectively and fixed charges by 150%. Select board has no statutory authority to increase the town or water and sewer enterprise fund budgets. You violated
your own policies and Mass General law 44 section 53F. Both require water and sewer rates to be based on an improved and appropriated budget as Long Meadow is done every year except the last two. Believe the rates you said are invalid and my conclusion is supported by two
very experienced chief financial officers municipalities other than Long Meadow. You say what you have done is proper and you have a town council opinion. Release the opinion and make sure it references MGL chapter 44 and explains how you can set rates on a
basis other than a town meeting approved budget. This is a municipal accounting and finance issue. Fairly certain mass do be reviewing the town's tax rate, enterprise funds, and rate setting issues within the next 30 days. I believe you violated the town charter
select board policies at MGL. What you have done is taxation without representation. You had four water and sewer budget meetings last year and five this year, including one for a still unexplained $500,000
shortfall. You violated your own financial policies nine times in the last year, including the debt limitation, blowing through these likely like they do not exist. Select board and town management needs to have a townwide meeting to explain what has happened
with the water and sewer weights and the western drive project since you circumvented and bypass the citizens budgetary rights. Significant portion of 11 million western dive project is for major road reconstruction is being paid for with water and sewer funds
which has never been done before. This is what caused the significant increase in water and sewer rates. Road construction is done with general fund money from chapter 90 capital funds or bonding. You never discussed in your meeting why you were violating your own
policy in any alternatives. There was a viable alternative. Also, can someone explain why there's an $80,000 tree allowance in the bid documents? Surely over a hundred trees will not be cut down. Sorry, >> that's three minutes.
>> I had three seconds, but thank you. Anyone else like to speak? >> Uh Katie Fragus, 19 Robin Road. Um I'm not as prepared as um the gentleman before us, but I do just have a few
questions. Um I am only 27 years old. This is my first house and I just think it's absolutely insane that a lot of young individuals that want to join and live in this town feel like within just a few years we're already being pushed out because of all of these crazy prices
just being jacked up. Um I don't understand the 8% or any of these percentages because our bill quite literally went up more than 100%. Um, I know that we run a sprinkler system, but even our most expensive bills for
summertime, um, would only average around 5 to 600. So, I'm not quite sure as to why our bill was almost $1,400. Um, I speak on the behalf of other neighbors that are also young and couldn't be here because they have
families and I just I just don't think it's fair that how all of this is just going on in regards to pricing these increases just out of nowhere. Um, with quite literally no representation of anything. Um, I
don't really have too much more to say about that, but just an individual who um feel like we're being pushed out of the town when we've only been here for three years. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else? >> Danielle Aldridge, 175 Pleasant View A.
Um, so I did email the DPW like you suggested and I also spoke with them on the phone last week and my concern is not necessarily with the rates although that is a concern but most importantly with the usage. So our usage jumped
almost 30% in the quarter. Um, my family was not in Long Meadow for the summer. So I there was no explanation why our usage went up so much. When I spoke with the DPW, they suggested that we might have a sprinkler leak, which is not
possible. Um, we know we don't have a sprinkler leak, but it doesn't seem like there's any resolution like we're taking the steps that you're suggesting that we do, but we get roadblocked. There's no further discussion with the DPW on what
the solution could be, but it doesn't make any sense. So, I mean, we've lived in our house for 11 years. I know what the average water bill is. Our um habits haven't changed. We have our sprinkler and a timer. And we do own a second
home. We were not here at all this summer. It doesn't make any sense. So, I just am looking for an explanation like what the next step is for us if we can't get a resolution from the DPW. Thank you. Any else for resident comment?
>> Okay, Peggy, do we have anybody online? >> Did you want to make a comment? >> So, I'm Susan D. Ox. I live at 145 Massachusetts Avenue. I'm here because several of my neighbors said that they were going to come and, you know, they're not here. Um, I opened up my
water bill and it was $768. And I've never had a water bill that high. And I looked at my water bill from last year this time. And yes, I have a sprinkler system. And I used it less this year because we had a lot of rain. I used it more last year. My water bill
last year was $450. So I'm not sure why there's such a significant increase in water sewer usage. So, um I don't know if this is something that can be um discussed at a selectman's meeting or a town meeting,
but I'm just concerned because that's a pretty significant um increase um in a water bill and I'm a senior citizen and I was planning on retiring. So,
um, and I know, and I don't know how to say this, but I know a couple of my neighbors called the town, and the responses that they got from the town were pretty disparaging. Um, so >> well, oh, one person told my neighbor she should maybe get a part-time job.
So, I'm not sure who um that is or was, but so um that's why I'm here is because I'm concerned about the water rates. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Looks like there's somebody else.
Oh yeah, Mudro state your name and address and then you can speak. Should be able to speak. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Um my name is Lee Budro. I live at 132 Maple Road. Um I just had a comment about
um you know the notification and notice period that residents were given regarding this this matter. I understand that um the water sewer rate increases were subject to a long series of discussions
um which were referenced in several agendas that were you know are listed um on on the town's website on the select board website. Um, my concern is that there was really no, you know, I I know that these public meetings are that are
open to the public. Um, but I don't really know how a reasonable resident looking at any of the agendas leading up to this decision being made in June would be aware that um, the select board was considering
such a significant and consequential increase. Um, and I really think that the the inclusion on on the agendas was really lacking specificity and and would make it kind of impossible for the average lay person to know that this was
a matter that they needed to be paying attention to. Um, I also noticed that there was no indication that a vote was being taken on this at a select board meeting in June. Um, so you know, the select board has said that they've given
notice to us. Um, but I don't really think there was sufficient notice in any of the agendas that were posted. Um, that would have made clear to residents that we should be paying attention and and getting involved in these discussions. So, um, that's really my comment. Um it's really about the the
transparency in in you know this very consequential matter as obviously this is evidently this is very clearly impacting a lot of residents and the affordability of our town. So and it's something that impacts every resident of of the town along with us. So um thank
you for for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else online? Okay, thank you. Uh, moving on to interviews and appointments. Do we have
I had a note on my desk. Are our Mr. Greenberg or Dr. Greenberg will not be joining us? >> Is not available. Okay. >> All is not. >> Okay. >> So, u Leah is and Mr. Glenn is here. as well. >> Leah, thank you.
>> Okay. Um, so our first interview will be uh Leah Far for the Conservation Commission. >> You can have a seat or stand, whatever more comfortable with. >> Oh, at the microphone. Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, so you're a new applicant. Can
you tell us your interest in the conservation commission? >> Sure. I have about a decade experience working with uh parks and wreck and uh mitigation and stream restoration in both North Carolina and recently in Massachusetts. Um so I'm very interested
in the conservation world and the just being a part of this community. This is one way that I thought that would be my best interest to be, you know, non- voting member and learn from the conservation commission. Um, and hopefully further my knowledge within
what the ability of the conservation commission does because it is very different from my background knowledge. Um, and I just wanted to be a part of that and learn from them. >> Okay. And I think Gohan's non- voting uh term is a good idea. Have you attended
any meetings or talked to any of the current members? >> I have attended a few meetings um and I have b kind of briefly talked to the members during the meetings. Um and talked to the conservation agent as well. >> Great. Thank you. Um thank you for your interest. Any questions from the rest of
the board? >> Anything? No, I just want to say I know I know you just mentioned that uh your experience doesn't necessarily relate directly to the conservation commission, but from looking at your application looks like it related enough and it seemed like a good fit to me. So, thank you so much for uh applying for this position.
>> Thank you. Yeah, I do um work kind of indirectly with conservation commissions in the Birkshire. So, it was something I wanted to be a part of down here as well. >> Great. Thank you. Um so, we vote on vote at the next meeting. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Great. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> How do we have Mr. Glenn to be for the Council on Aging Board of Directors? >> Okay. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. Uh thank you for coming in. You have a I I didn't have a way to do it. Um if you introduce yourself,
name and address. >> John Glenn, 50 Mweather Drive. >> Okay. And uh what's your interest in the Council on Aging Board of Directors? Well, uh, I absolutely qualify as a senior citizen here. I've lived in Long Meadow for about 46 years. Um, I I think my experience both personally and
professionally practice law, including human resources, for about 40 years. I think that gives me the ability to advocate effectively on behalf of senior citizens regarding programmatic and and service needs. And I've always believed that uh if you live in a community, you
should volunteer and provide services. and I've done that uh to nonprofits both in Long Meadow and in the greater Springfield area for the past 40 years. >> Well, thank you for your interest. Um we have a very active council on aging as you know. I do. Are you involved with them at all now? Do have you met the
members? >> Uh I know I've talked to several members extensively and and in fact both of them suggested that I get on board. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. >> Any questions from the board? >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. And then we have uh two
applicants for the historic district commission. >> She's online. Okay. >> Hi. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes, >> we can hear you. We >> Hi. Yes. >> Okay. Do we are they both on?
>> Is it just Samantha on? Sorry, we're uh we're not seeing any video. >> Okay. >> Hey, why don't you come up? We Is she going to talk? Does she need to talk? >> We We can both do it all at once. >> I can go first. >> Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Let me figure this. >> I'm up for reappoint. I'm the registered
architect and they need a registered architect on the commission. So, >> I'm staying on. >> I remember when you uh applied the first time. Thank you for reapplying. >> So, they need they just need someone with my credentials. Yeah. Oh, and how's the work going?
>> I'm happy to stay there. >> Yeah. How's the work going for you? >> It's fine. It's good. Yeah, we just got a new head, so it's kind of changed a little bit, but it's good. >> Okay. >> Good. Uh, anything we always ask when people are here for reappoint, anything you want to bring to our attention,
anything we should know about? >> Nope. >> Okay. >> Everything's going pretty well, I think. >> Well, thank you for your continued interest. >> You're welcome. >> Uh, Samantha. >> Hi. Yes, sir. Can you say your name and address? >> Sure. Um, I'm Samantha Gendro. My
address is 15 Parkside Street. >> Okay. What uh why are you applying for the historic district commission? >> Um, well, I have lived in Long Meadow my entire life, over 30 years. Um, the
historical homes in this town really matter to me and I live in one myself and it's just important for me I think to be on this committee and just keep that going. This historical district in Long
Meadow is um beautiful and we have so much rich history and I just want to make that preserve that be a part of that. >> Great. Thank you for your interest. Um, have you had as an owner of a historic
home, have you had any dealings with the commission? >> Um, I have I have, but I'm right outside the historic district. So, I've applied for stuff, but I didn't need to um because I'm just right on the other side of the
cemetery, which is I guess technically right outside of the historic district. Um, but I I have spoken with Sarah. She's a friend of mine. I've worked with her a little bit. Um, and I'm also um worked in the contracting world um as
an interior painter and exterior painter. So, I have that um as my background as well. And I've done a lot of historic homes, not necessarily in this town, but in other towns. >> Okay. Very good. Uh any questions from this
board? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you for your interest and again we'll vote on you at a future meeting. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And then uh we have one appointment. >> Uh Mike, did you want to speak to this?
>> Yeah. So this is a um reappointment to the uh casino mitigation fund um community mitigation fund local advisory committee. Luke Cornett has served on the board since 2020. um he's done an excellent job of updating us on current
funding initiatives for the state um and all things related to advocating for grant money for Western Massachusetts. So, it's our recommendation that we reappoint Mr. Cornet to the committee for a 5-year term. >> And this funding is changing. >> It is changing. It's it's dropping
significantly. We were I think on average we were funded about 300,000 a year in the past. It's going down to about 80,000. >> Right. So, um I wonder if we could get Mr. Cornet in soon to discuss that and >> yeah, >> have a conversation about what what we
should do going forward. >> Certainly. >> Okay. Do we have a motion? >> Yeah. I'll just uh just echo real quickly that Mr. Cornet is doing a great job in this. Every time I see him, he's got an update. He's this is something that he's really passionate about and takes this role very seriously. So, um
this is I think a no-brainer to reappoint him to this. So, having said that, I'll make a motion to uh reappoint L Cornet to the uh local casino mitigation advisory committee. >> Second. >> Oh, I think you got you. >> I know.
>> Uh All right. Anything further? And Peggy, these will have to all be rolled votes today. >> Josh, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Andrew, >> yes. >> Thank you.
Okay. Um, so moving on to public comments. Uh, I'll go first if everyone doesn't mind. Uh, I don't know the final score, but the girls soccer team are on their way to the state championship. They won tonight. Uh, very proud of their run. Whole town is rooting for them later this week to take it down. Um, I also want to congratulate the boys
soccer team on an incredible season. Western Mass champs and they were on the brink of the final four after a thrilling game late last week. Uh, played their hearts out to the end. So, great job to both our teams. very very happy for them and their success. Uh I would also like to address the uh water
and sewer bill situation and uh I know people are upset about their bills and I I get that. I've explained in many private conversations over the last week the reasons why the rates went up but I don't think it's really made it out to the masses. Uh the fact is our public water and sewer infrastructure is old, incredibly old.
Many of our pipes are 100 years old, more than half are 60 years old, and we just can't wait for catastrophe to strike or keep patching problem spots. That costs money that we can't budget for, and it takes up the time of our DPW, which has a lot of other important things to do. And we have trouble staffing.
Uh the widespread deferred maintenance, which is a term that I really have grown to loathe in my time in office, is not something I can easily pinpoint the reasons for, but I can tell you it's absolutely tied to our history of pretty minimal rate increases and relative to other towns that buy Springfield water
right near the bottom of the pack. Uh the DPW, at least in my time on the board, started ringing the alarm bell last three years. And it's no mystery to anyone paying attention that we have water main breaks, covert collapses, sewer issues constantly. Uh even knowing all this, the select board was hesitant
to jump in until the off delayed tying bond study arrived this year. If you go back and watch our meetings from April through June, you can see how much we wrestled with the idea of raising rates. Uh but we were alarmed by how dire things were in a large swath of the town. I stand by what we did and because
we were told there's a problem with our infrastructure and we can't be complacent and save it for the next board or the one after when things will be even more expensive and the rate increases even worse. And let's not forget the infrastructure spend is on top of rate increases for our water from Springfield which is starting a new
plant is building a new plant to make our water safer hopefully and they're not going down anytime soon. The fact is, we can either have infrastructure that works or we can have artificially low rates and then scramble to put band-aids on pipes when things break only for them to break again. You
can't have it both ways. And to say that we lack transper transparency on this topic is I I think wrong. There were five publicly noticed hearings that anyone could watch live or on YouTube. Uh and just that we got a question about our agenda. The agenda says set water
rates. I get that. But if you look underneath, it also has the recommended water rates. They were linked on there, the tying bond study. It was all on there. You have to dig a bit, but it was there. It was covered in the reminder four times in the headlines. We sent out a mailer in August with the last water
bill and members, including me, did social media posts that rates were going up. I don't expect everyone to watch our meetings, of course, but the intention, the information was put out there in other ways. Now, does that mean we did the water the roll out perfectly? Uh given the reaction we've gotten, I I
would say no. Um but I truly maybe naively thought that what we do at these meetings twice a month makes it out to the public in any of the ways I I mentioned above. And maybe pe people vaguely knew that a water rate increase was coming but didn't realize the end effect. But information was out there
and we've held information sessions on other similar topics and we're lucky if 15 people show up. It's usually a handful of people or like for our stretch code session we just had, no one showed up. Uh the only thing I can really think of is a reverse 911 call
which people do not like receiving. Uh it should be only used sparingly so it doesn't become background noise and as we learned from the trash bin change trash bin change roll out. It still doesn't reach every resident. Now I think there are some lessons we can learn as a board here. Um but I think
there's a lesson for residents to to know that we are making decisions here that matter and you can be involved while it's happening. Uh finally, I want to touch on the accusations that we did something illegal. Uh that is 100% wrong. I'm going to read a letter from our town council on this.
Uh this is from J. Jason R. Talerman uh from me and Terman and Costa. Uh address to the select board and Lynn Simmons on sewer and water rates dated today. Uh to Lyn and members of the select board, you have requested our opinion with respect
to the above reference matter. Specifically, you have asked about the scope of the select board's authority acting as sewer and water commissioners to impose water sewer and water rates beyond those that were contemplated under the enterprise fund budgets approved by the annual town meeting. In my opinion, the select board is not constrained by the town meeting vote
when later determining to raise rates subject to other safeguards that may be applicable. As a threshold matter, the select board acting as acting as the town's water and sewer commissioners has the authority under Mass General Laws chapter 41 section 69B and Mass General
Laws chapter 83 section 16 for the imposition of user fees to cover the expenses of operating the town's water and sewer departments. As the town has adopted enterprise fund accounting, C general law chapter 44 section 53F and a half for its water and sewer
departments. That's enough. Excuse me. The select board is also charged with the authority to develop a budget for the enterprise which is presented to the town meeting for its review and approval. Furthermore, it is elemental that the user fees for water and sewer may include fees to accommodate
potential capital needs. This is underscored in section 3.1 of the town's water regulations. Although the setting of water and sewer rates is related to the enterprise budget, it is a separate process that is not addressing the enterprise fund statutory process. Stated differently, while the develop of
an enterprise fund budget requires contemplation of expected revenues, it does not prescribe the method of setting such rates or the timing thereof. Nor are there any cases that tie the processes together in any binding manner. Accordingly, while the select board is charged with estimating revenues for the development of an
enterprise fund budget, which is due by March 1st of every year, there's nothing in such statutory frame framework that precludes the select board from subsequently incre increasing user fees based upon the needs of the water or sewer department. While DOR requires reporting of any significant increases
in revenue and while all fee increases must reasonably relate to the operational operational or capital needs of the enterprise, it is our opinion that the select board may choose to raise you user fees in its annual rate setting process which I understand is traditionally held after the date of town meeting. In any event, any fees
that may be collected in excess of the operating expenses approved by town meeting are subject to appropriation should capital projects be contemplated. It is also noteworthy that while do suggests that a town may choose to set user fees at the same time as the but that the budget is being developed for
presentation at town meeting the relevant statutes do not require that such processes be synchronized. I hope this memorandum is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further questions that you may have and signed by our council. Um I'm going to post what I said tonight on the long
Facebook long open forum which I am loathed to go to. Um, and Lynn worked with town staff on creating an infographic that she's going to put on town websites and socials. Uh, after review by the board, uh, people were going to be upset by the rate changes regardless, and I understand that. Uh,
but I want the curious to know how we got here. Any else want to fill the air here? >> Um, well, thank you. I mean, I feel like that was pretty comprehensive and thank you for making that comment, but I also just wanted to add my two cents as well. Um, I know that the Well, first of all,
I want to thank everyone that came here tonight and made a comment and that has reached out to us and sent an email and everything. Um, even if you knew that these water rates were coming, I understand getting that bill and seeing that increase is extremely frustrating. It can be extremely distressing and I completely
understand that. I mean, I think we had a resident talk about, you know, the pressures on young families financially these days and also our senior citizens. you know, I'm a father with a kindergartener and a preschooler and with child care costs and student loan debt and all these different things. Um,
you know, I feel it too and I know um that this is a really difficult u thing for for to have h have to have happened. Um, you know, we started this process about two years ago when we first started talking about this. So, u you know, at that I think over the course of
that time we've had nine meetings where we specifically had this on the agenda and talked about it. This has also been an ongoing conversation that has come up as we've talked about so many different things and it's been an ongoing conversation for two years. Two years ago, it would have been impossible for us to project, you know, what the
economy in November of 2025 would look like. And I know that right now we're seeing utility rates increase. We're seeing grocery prices increase. We're seeing everything increased. And so this is a really difficult time for water rates to also be increasing. I also know
though that we as a select board were backed into a corner here. Um, and people have presented or put up theories for why these water rate increases happened that you know that they're because of road repairs that they're uh
because we're trying to make up for 20 to 30 years of inaction in one fell swoop. But it's really not even that complicated. it's that we are going from completely neglecting and doing nothing on a whole sector of our infrastructure
to now doing something. Um before you know the idea that we weren't using water rates to patch up roads that was never even a problem before because we weren't even replacing water manes. We didn't even have roads to patch up before. Um and we are not trying to make
up for 20 or 30 years of inaction in in this one uh this you know this one rate increase. This is us moving from doing absolutely nothing to us basically going into triage mode where we're just trying to address our infrastructure little by
little here. And there has been a real cost to us not taking care of our infrastructure. Half of you know I think Josh um you know he he shared some of the statistics. We have over half of our water infrastructure blinking red right now. That's in critical need of repairs.
We're seeing water main breaks happen left or right, which is extremely obviously disruptive to our homeowners who all of a sudden don't have access to water for hours on end. Um it's extremely disruptive to our DPW who then have to stop what they're doing to take
care of a water mane break. Um and it's and it's also just financially inefficient that uh you know we are spending so much money on patching up water manes when we should have been taking care of them all along. Um and this is a change in philosophy for the
select board. Uh because before the select board was prioritizing keeping water rates low at the cost of everything else at the cost of our crumbling infrastructure. Um, there were times when actually our reserves for our water enterprise fund had money in it
that they could have been using to address our infrastructure, but instead they used that money to keep water rates low. Uh, which is a practice that's not really used in any other municipality and which when we'd go out and talk to people about this, people are shocked that we were doing this. Um, so they had opportunities to do this and they did
not. And now we have, you know, we are basically in a position where we have to start addressing this. This eight or, you know, $9 million project that we uh approved for at fall special town meeting, that project, if we wait another five or 10 years, is going to be
that much more expensive. Um, if this project had actually been taken care of 20 years ago and it was supposed to be, it would have been that much cheaper. Um, and that is, you know, what we're wrestling with here and when we're making these decisions because we're all homeowners here, too. We are also
impacted uh by these uh rates. But I think all of us feel that we have to be a select board that is now actually taking care of what we have in our town, that we're actually maintaining what we have, that we're not letting things crumble and break to the point of no return. Um, and that is a huge
philosophical change since I've been on the select board. Um and and you know when we first got this study in 2023 I you know I'll remember this. I was you know and we heard about how bad our infrastructure was and how it had been
neglected for 20 or 30 years. I said at the time you know how shocked I was and that we had to start addressing this. and a former member of the select board who was sitting here with me. He said, "You know, Veneath, I know that's right and that's the right thing to do, but if we do this, none of us will be sitting
here after our next election." And that was the thinking before was to take votes because they didn't want folks mad at them. They didn't want folks uh to come here and make comments or to send emails. Um, but I think all of us
understood that eventually someone has to do what's right for the town and needs to start taking care of uh, you know, what we have. And I felt, you know, what I answered, you know, to that was I felt that if I was doing what was right for the town that I should be able to go out and explain it to folks and that I should be able to communicate
that to folks and that the people of T that the people of Long Meadow um, you know, need to be treated like adults and need to be told the truth. And so um you know that's that's really what this change kind of the background of all this um has been and I know that this is
extremely difficult and everyone has a right to feel um you know angry about this but you know that is the perspective of you know why we did this and why these rates have occurred. >> Question yeah you can send an email or something after
Nobody responds to us. >> I got we got a lot of emails if send us an email. >> Okay. So there's no more questions after you guys. >> Okay. >> I guess it's hard to know what to comment at the beginning of this.
>> I agree. >> Yes. Our first one. same >> just over the process. I guess >> I will just add you know I think Josh and Ben every literally I was prepared to say a lot of pretty much everything you said. So I appreciate both of you sharing your perspective and I think
that the only thing I'd add is if you look back at the many hours of discussion we had on this each of us was very cleareyed about the incredible backlog of infrastructure that we needed to face. We're all very sober and
serious about how to address it and there was pretty much consensus on doing this. You know, we deliberated, we discussed it, but it was not a difficult decision because,
you know, it for better or worse, we know what's happening. It we've discussed how people don't take the time to watch our our meetings and and come to the meetings and things like that. the five of us know what's happening and
when you have a general consensus like we did, I I I agree. Oh my god, we we did the right thing for the town. That does not mean that all of us disliked getting the bills. There's no question about that. But I do want everyone to
know that it was very seriously deliberated and discussed and we thought very hard about it. I mean, there's there's plenty of evidence and reason to consider. No one's going to want to hear this, but like there was there's clear arguments to do
much more than we did. And we don't want to we don't want to burden people more than we need to, of course. But I think it would have been a mistake to just push this under the rug and wait for someone else to do in the future. And to be honest, I I don't, you know, I don't really blame past select boards in the
sense that I honestly think everyone who sits in these seats is doing their very best to allocate scarce resources that we have. There were many things in our town that we did over the last 15 years that many people appreciate. Everything from free kindergarten to an adult center that everybody loves and uses. So
whatever we we have a you know we have a limited amount of resources and we have as a town have to decide how to use them and you know if we and of course it's nice you know there's a benefit to having lower water rates but the fact that we had such a huge backlog the fact
that we were so far below the average water rates in the region and still remain below average I think that were very important factors in our decision- making. So I think that Josh made a good point. We obviously don't do things perfectly
and when we look back in retrospect we could have and should have in retrospect done a lot more communication any possible way we could have but I also think the town's people can meet us
halfway and try to pay attention more watch a meeting learn how the system works and I know it's we're all very busy but we I think the whole community will benefit if people know more and we'll do our best in the future, I'm
sure, to communicate as much as we can. >> And just on that point, Andrew, I our meetings, we have four-hour meetings. Sometimes it's it's dull. There's a lot that people don't want to hear about, and I I understand that we are very lucky that we have a free paper that
gets thrown at everyone's door >> where this issue came up and this exact rate was put in there. And so it was not A lot of towns aren't that lucky to have free local journalism. That is that we
get that. And so I I know some people don't get it or some a previous homeowner canceled the service, but I I think that the fact that that's out there, it's a great resource that I wish people would take advantage of. Um, and I think that's a great way to meet us
halfway. You don't want to watch the meetings. I get that. But read read the article that there's one page on Long Meadow every week. It's Austin school committee planning board. That's it. So it's it's worth a read. >> Just add one quick comment. Um I know
I'm newest to the select board. This was one of the first topics I had to get up to speed with um when I first joined and it's it is fairly complex and and I appreciate the way all of my colleagues just articulated some of the process and some of some of the thought and
decision-m that went into it. Um, had I voted and been on there, I would have voted to increase based on what I learned and what I what I talked through. I'm a homeowner as well. I knew these would go up. I do agree with my select board colleagues that this was the right decision for the town,
although difficult. And I can honestly say it was taken a lot of different factors and and information was taken into account. I appreciate the way Josh laid it out and beneath some of the history and and Andrew with the history because I think that's helpful. Um I
just wanted to say that this was one of the topics. It was highly complex. It was one of the first things I had to get up learn about. Um and even after learning it and understanding what those increases would be, I I would have voted yes to increase this. Um and so I know
it's not a popular decision. I know it's was not an easy decision, but it is a decision that's going to help our town in the long run. >> I think part of the problem is that it's a very it's an abstract thing. We could knock on every door and say your water rate per unit is going to be $6.73 or whatever it was. People would say, "Oh,
okay. It's it's hard to conceptualize unless you look at your past bills and realize what that means." And that's >> we don't take public comment. Thank you. >> I have a question. How come you guys don't take comments back and forth that this is a discussion? >> Because we would we would it's not a
discussion. We would go all night if that was the case. >> It's the form of the way our town the the meeting regulations and laws are the way the towns run. I I know I was getting up to speed on them too and how they go. There's certain processes and procedures and so public comment and and
so that that's why there's not the back and forth. It's not meant to be like um to shut people down. It's just the way our our regulations are and the procedures for select board meetings. >> Okay. Um, so if we do send emails, what's the time frame of you guys responding back? Just out of curiosity because I don't want to sit here all
night if my breath isn't going to >> matter and I can't go back and forth. >> Um, so do you actually answer your emails or no? Because I >> Yes. >> Feel like when I even called the DPW I couldn't get a hold of anybody. >> Yes. And so so for so for us for the select board, yes, we do. You'd either
get a response from someone on the select board or a town manager would respond for us. And we do try to do that within the time frame between meetings. Keep me honest if any of I'm not accurate. >> If it comes from one of the departments and you're not getting a response, that's where I would then say Mike and Lynn would then help step in and ensure
you get the responses. They're just separate. >> They're just separate departments other than the select board. So, I can understand how frustrating that would be and you are not the only one to say that you haven't got a response from some. So that is something that I do know Lynn and Mike will be taking back to the departments to get that. But for a
select board, you can always do that and we usually address them at the next meeting when when we get the email itself. It's on the list in the agenda. >> If you look at the agenda today, there's a number of emails. >> There's a lot of and we know we have four that have even come in >> since then. So they'll most likely be on
the list for the next meeting as well. >> Okay. So, um, would I email you guys or in regards to questions that I came to mind after? >> If you go to the website, you go to the select board or town manager page, there's like generic emails, town manager at llomma.gov, selectboard.gov,
public works, CC, all three of those accounts, multiple people were able to see those accounts. Yep. >> Just one more thing before for those in the room who did speak and share your concerns. I think something that we're all struggling with on the board that you can hear is we have these vehicles
to communicate with everyone as residents and we know that everyone receives information differently and everyone's lives are really different. If you have ideas of suggestions on ways with which the select board could reach more residents or would be more helpful or more productive way to communicate,
we're really open to that. I think we're you you heard we're using the vehicles we have as elected officials right now, but if there are other ways and as a resident, look, I get it. It's just we would be open to hearing what those are and then we can take that back and start to leverage those suggestions and and
and and even bring that to one of the next meetings to talk about what that would look like. I think we're open to that feedback. >> And the reason it's not normally a conversation, this is not the norm, I will tell you. Um it's not not and I think it's fine, Shel. Was that wasn't chastising? >> No, no, thanks.
>> Um because we have a lot of other the rest of the agenda. We have a lot of business to get through that we do every week. I And so to take emailing us is the best time to to get through. >> Um All right. Anybody else?
Okay. All right. Uh moving on to uh we have no applications tonight. Moving on to presentations and guest speakers. We have Fuss and O'Neal to talk about the town hall community house and old town hall building study. >> Brought a couple extra hard copies. Do
you need them? >> Sure. Great. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Pull up his presentation. Do you have a >> what order are you going in? >> Uh would you like to do the properties uh report assessments first and the staffing last?
>> William Street or >> uh yeah, we'll do um we'll do the the common house. >> Okay. >> And then uh William Street and then 417 Long Meadow Street. >> Okay. >> And then we can do facilities, staffing,
and budget last. >> This a common house, >> community house one. >> Community house. What's up guys? >> Sorry. >> You definitely don't have to stay, but you can. >> I'm actually >> We're not used to an audience. >> I believe it's one report. Is it?
>> Yeah, that's fine. >> These are each Oh, these are each individual reports. Yeah. So, here's >> So, we need the old the old town hall. Old town hall. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I'll pass it up. >> This one's easier. >> Yeah, that works.
>> You guys Thank you. >> There's no There's two, right? There's no >> Thank you so much. >> We're looking for old 47. >> Thank you. properties total. >> Yep. >> Working on this side.
>> I promise you. >> Thanks. >> We're starting with Third, >> just let me know when you're ready. >> Yeah, please go ahead. >> Okay. Uh Mike Nelson from Fusset O'Neal. We're an engineering consulting firm that uh works with the town of Long
Meadow. Uh we have uh four reports in front of you tonight. Three of them mimic each other. They are property condition reports uh for the community house, the old town hall, and 417 Long Meadow Street. These are townowned
buildings. Um we were approached during the summer um by um the town manager in DPW. They were seeking engineers to do a condition assessment of these buildings. In addition, they were also seeking
input on the facilities department, how it is staffed, um how it's budgeted, and how it uh specifically how it's organized. Um I think the town had had solicited um you know RFQS for these things and and got no responses. Um we
got involved. We broke the studies in into two pieces. So the property condition reports was was like task one and the facilities budget and staffing was like task two. So for the condition reports we paired with an architect uh a
mentor Emma who I believe has done work in town before and we walked the buildings we walked the properties with town staff from multiple departments to do an assessment of what would it take to get these buildings up to code. what
would it take to get these buildings restored um from a maintenance perspective and and capital investment perspective? And what I want to do tonight is give you the highlights of the three condition reports. Um it's
written by mechanical uh and HVAC engineers and architects. It's not bad, but it's very specific. The door knobs are not compliant with current code. So, we will not be going over the door knobs tonight. Uh, but I want to give you sort
of the upshot of of the three condition assessment reports and then we'll move on. Okay. Um, so I've just highlighted a couple passages to report out. The first property is the community house at 735 Long Meadow Street. It was built in 1920.
It's uh just over 24,000 square feet. Um, as you can see, it's a large uh brick masonry building with like Greek revival style uh columns. It's very prominent on the on the wall on the metal greenway. Uh for all of these studies, the scope
was mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection systems. So MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing. Uh the roof, the building envelope, site, civil, and then interior interior building systems.
Each report is laid out in the same fashion uh listing the elements of the building and what the findings were. Um so it's heavy on observations and at the end of each section are recommendations. So a couple of recommendations that stand out uh for the community house. I
should also mention before we get there that the most interesting part that everyone wants to see are is the costs which is in appendix F at the end. So, if you want to skip right to the costs, you can rip them out like I did and bring them right to the front. Great.
And I will walk you through the narrative. Um, so the community house has a slate tile roof, which is very nice, but is old and requires maintenance. The good news is the Koopa was in decent shape, but roof repairs are required. Um
the roof repairs um that were able to be inspected visually were around $100,000 is the cost estimate. The architect uh Amena Emma actually had professional cost estimating services for these. So these are not based on recent bid costs
or in town projects. Um these are based on um like RS means and Timberline which are cost estimating softwares which are used in the vertical construction world. So, sorry for the aside. Um, so the roof does need repairs. It was estimated to
be about $100,000. The building envelope was in um fair condition. Uh windows were in fair condition. They recommended reglazing. Uh but the big item for the building envelope was the porch columns and the brick repointing. It's a
lot of brick. It does need to be repointed. uh those those improvements were uh almost a million dollars, about $800,000 and change just for that building envelope improvements. So, that is a large um ticket item. Uh on the
building interior, uh the bathrooms are in need of basically top to bottom renovation. Um and the carpets and flooring to be expected are in need of re renovation. um as are some of the walls and a lot of
the ceramic tile and the the wall surfaces are in need of renovation. Um the total for the building envelope, roof and and the repointing was about $1.5 million for this building. There
were some short-term uh recommendations that were about $400,000 for this building for all the miscellaneous repairs. One thing to note for this building and others is that if there is a change in
use, one of the directives we were given by the town was what would we do with this building if we kept it a town building? And for all of the floors um and the and the weights of the building, you need a structural engineer to just make sure that the future use is
appropriate. Right now it's it was mostly office building, so similar use is probably appropriate. But if you wanted to turn it into a indoor basketball court, you might have to have someone look at it. Um, but overall it was in fair condition. Um, access and uh
ADA Americans with Disabilities Act, uh, was an issue at every building. Um, some of them are more prominent. Um, the community house does need an elevator. Um, all of the door hardware is not compliant. Um there is one toilet that
is accessible on the ground floor. Um there are no other accessible bathrooms. Um there is some utility piping that causes pinch points in the corridors that does not meet ADA. Um things like stair handrails and stair widths and
tread tread arrangements do not uh meet ADA. So for a public building the ADA um upgrades would be a significant cost as well. All the buildings we looked at were uh powered by natural gas, which is a nice cheap source of energy. Um, this
particular building had a gas fire steam boiler. It has cast iron radiators, which are lovely, but old. Uh, one leak was detected. Um, not serious. Um, there is an abandoned heating fuel oil tank in the basement
which will need to be removed properly. Um, there were several rooms such as the kitchen and the dance hall studio with no ventilation other than the windows. So, some HVAC upgrades were necessary. Building is not sprinklered,
which could be an issue for a public building of that size. U, that could be a significant upgrade. For electrical, the major takeaway was that there is knob and tube wiring, which is badly outdated. The wiring systems work, the building systems work,
but the wiring system is very antiquated and probably needs to be redone. Fire alarm system was found to be in fair condition. Smoke detector coverage and condition was fair. Um it's really the sprinkling of the building that
would be the major cost there. We move on to site conditions. One thing that is noteworthy, uh kind of unrelated to this study, but none of these parcels would meet current parking regulations in Long Meadow. So by your own parking
zoning, um the combined property of the community house in Oldtown Hall would need like 107 parking spots, which you could not fit there. Um, so I found that interesting. On the parking minimums, um, there were some ADA accessible uh,
issues outside of the building on sidewalks and ramps, but they were much less significant than the interior of the building. And lighting really had no high value um, overhaul items. So what we've done is we've split each building's cost
estimate into uh their major elements. So architectural elements, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, MEP elements and some site civil elements. We give two tables for each uh category,
immediate needs and short-term needs. uh we were not looking at you know long-term hundred-year solutions because I think the town is going to in take this input and decide what you know the fate of these buildings may be. Um so
for architectural it was just less than $2 million added up for this building. mechanical electrical plumbing was just shy of 350,000. I'm sorry, plus uh 93. So, it's actually
450,000 for both tables together. and the heating systems, the HVAC, specifically heating systems had two um HVAC and fire had two large ticket items. Replacement of the heating elements and
all of the controls was $724,000 and the other large ticket item was the code compliant fire protection system including design would be about $480,000. So, you are well north of $3 million in
um required improvements for all of these these code issues for this building. This is by far the largest building of the three. >> But the uh smoke alarms are okay. >> But the smoke alarms are okay. >> The building itself, the envelope and everything is in fair condition um like
to to restore it. But the problem is the like the ADA, the electrical, the HVAC, these systems are old in need of replacement and it would be a significant investment. >> Quick questions. >> Was sprinkler putting a sprinkler system
in not included in this in any of these estimates? That's an addition. >> No. Uh the sprinkler system was $480,000 found on the last page. So, if you added up all of these all of these together, I had just happened to do it off the cuff
and it was like five million. Is that correct or was I off? >> Yeah, it's it's close to $5 million >> because I was just adding up the thousands places and I was just like just to get a ballpark idea. So, if you added it all up, that's what you get you're getting >> between 3.5 million to $5 million.
>> Literally everything listed if you if all the recommendations are assumed it was over five million >> if you do every single recommendation. Yeah. But a lot of the major elements are like already exceeding 3 million. >> Understood. >> So Lyn, what are we currently using the building for? >> Community house. >> Yeah.
>> Um there's a dance studio on the second floor. That's the primary use right now. >> And elections. >> And then elections. Yeah. >> There's no offices, nothing else in there now, not being used. Are we I mean I I think we probably could have
gleaned some of this just from walking around the building, but are there things that we should do now for those uses that we are leaving ourselves liable by not doing or endangering our residents? >> Um I my biggest concern has always been
ADA access. Uh so that that is, you know, something that certainly should be addressed if we're going to continue to allow the public in there. >> Okay. >> I mean, to be honest, it seems to me that it's very possible we have
additional space elsewhere in town that these such activities could be done like, you know, so like there's a gym right across the courtyard here um for a dance class or things like that. So, I think if it came down to like investing in um stop gaps to like allow
those activities to continue, it would be far more efficient just move those activities and let's decide exactly what we're going to do long term with this building essentially. >> I don't know if this is in the scope of Mike's presentation, but we're going to get to it shortly, but people people don't want this to leave our hands. And
so, it's it's good to know, I think, especially on this one this building, how much it's going to cost us and what we really need to do and also >> while we're doing it, we don't just want to code, we probably want to >> make it better >> and but it is it's very expensive.
>> That was the intent of this. The original scope had, you know, public meetings for input for future uses, what could be there, meeting with all the departments to figure out what space they were deficient on. Um, and all of that got stripped away to meet the budget. And we asked our like we had a
conversation what is the most important thing to understand right now and what we decided was what does it take to get up to code what is it going to take to do the deferred maintenance list and any capital improvements related to the building systems. So that was 90% of our
scope >> okay >> was doing that. >> I know we did our own cheapo survey but it was still useful. So >> I mean I agree with you Josh in the sense that like the the survey that we did it shows that of these three buildings there is likely a strong
feeling that the town should retain this building. So then the question is we need a use for it that's worthy of five plus million dollars >> and I think that that is the missing piece. I think we all want it to be used
and useful. >> Um, but I don't think anybody thinks we should, especially in this climate that we've just been experiencing with the middle school and and people being, you know, frustrated with the expenses of living in our town. We need to have a
real good reason that can be a message and a purpose that everybody can get behind. And maybe we don't, and I've thought about this a great deal, and maybe we don't have that right this second. Um, the other buildings that people feel far less attached to. I
mean, I think people do want to preserve these buildings historically, but we also recognize the opportunity cost of not allowing them to be used, not only for our community, but also lack of, you know, losing on our property tax benefits as well and the cost of maintaining them. But I think maybe we
need to start having a very robust community discussion about ideas about what it could be for our town. >> Um, we know now how much it will cost. >> That's an important part. >> That's first step. Um, anything else in the community house? Rest of the board.
>> Mike, you want to move on? >> Okay. Okay. This report is formatted in a similar way. each of those building elements that we just went through um repeats for 20 William Street. Um again, the uh cost estimates related to
intermediate and immediate um or I'm sorry, immediate and short-term uh cost recommendations are found in the back. Um and I will walk you through it. So again, uh 20 William Street is located uh very close proximity to the last property. Um it again is a masonry style
like colonial or federal style building. Um and it presents similar challenges. It has all the challenges of maintaining a historic building with the challenges of it being retrofitted with municipal infrastructure over the years um that
need upgrades. So, diving right in, 20 William Street is located on 94 acres of land between William Street and Long Meadow Street. It is 6,634 square ft of living area uh area on
three floors. The roof is again uh slate tile. Repairs are recommended. It was in fair condition. Um and we have pictures of some of the specific repairs. Um standing water was not noted at the building's edge, meaning that there's also drainage issues uh with the
downspouts, possibly some pump and um sight grading. Um the standing water at the edge of the building has um resulted in some damage along the edges of the building envelope. Again, windows are in fair condition. Reglazing was recommended for thermal
considerations. All of the windows are old um but in fair condition. Brick repointing is again um recommended this time also by uh replacing all the exterior trim um between the roof and the masonry
building envelope actually was pretty good with a short list of recommendations. Um, it was found that there is a small deflection in the roof line on the second floor that could be looked at, but other than that, they were minor issues. Moving to
accessibility, um, it is an issue with this building if it were going to be a public use. Um, the main door does have an exit ramp. None of the other entrances are compliant. Um, the staircase is central to the building, right? So, very typical of like a New
England style uh, home. Um, and because of that, the layout of the other rooms in the hallways is very limiting for what you can get in terms of ADA accessibility, and it would be limited to the first floor. Um, and I don't believe that this building is appropriate or has an appropriate spot
for an elevator. Community House is much larger. Again, it's heated by natural gas. It has a boiler, uh, which is in excellent condition. Replaced in 2012, which was was a plus. We did find that there are older pieces of equipment. Many of these
buildings had several heating and HVAC systems. So they might have a boiler and split systems. Uh this particular property has offices retrofit into it. So there were several um heating systems like four different office spaces. Um in general there were some pumps that
needed to be replacing, some controls that needed replacing, but at least the the larger units were in better shape. Um, there is a chiller, two and a half ton carrier chiller for HVAC that does need to be replaced. It is in poor condition. Um, unclear if it is in
working condition. That was one of the larger ticket items on this building, the air conditioning. Um, mechanical ventilation for the office areas was very similar to the last building that not every space was ventilated. Uh I had mentioned the
pumps, heaters, controls, um and the chiller. Once again for fire suppression, this building is not sprinklered, which would be another significant investment. Uh unique situation for this building is it does not have its own electrical
power supply. The power supply comes from the police station. So that will be another consideration uh in its future use. So it does not have its own dedicated meter or supply, but because it is fed by the police station, it has robust emergency power. Excellent. >> On the first floor.
>> Yes, it is on the first floor. >> On the first floor, >> not the rest of the building. >> Excellent. >> Yeah, it is on the first floor. Conveniently located, not conveniently located. Uh but has 50 kilowatts of generator and an automatic transfer switch. Um which essentially is serving
the police station, right? uh summary from the electrical system and fire upgrade the fire system was the largest of those items. Once again, not zoning compliant for parking.
Um dimminimous ADA access issues uh in the site outside the building compared to the inside. Moving to the cost estimate for the architectural evaluation, we had two large line items. Um, if you decided elevator access to
the floors would be needed, um, we have an estimate of $380,000 for that. Um, to try to fit that in. Um, repointing of the brick is again expensive. Um, I can personally attest to that. uh that came in at about 515,000 for the repointing of the the exterior of the ent and
that's the entire building. Altogether the architectural um elements of this building upgrades is just shy of $2 million. The MEP portion mechanical electrical plumbing um
came to $487,000 which is substantially less than the community house. And the large ticket item there being the um the HVAC replacement, which I just lost my hand on.
$189,000. >> No, that's the for the sprinklers. >> It's 137. >> Thank you. Yeah. No, I think that's Sorry, I was searching for the the chiller replacement, but we have a total cost for the recommended improvements.
Everything on the list was $2.7 million. So, it's less than half, but it is a much smaller building, but a lot of the elements are the same. It's ADA access. It's electrical. Um, and it's repointing and the and the roof, right? The historic elements of the building.
>> So, I'm not an ADA expert by any means. If this was say not you keep saying public building, but you mean where the public can go, that's if it's a business, that's anything be beyond a personal or residence. >> Yeah. if it if it were a town office or
if there were a town um department that resided there that needed to interact with the public. >> What if it was a business that had people >> like a professional office building for example? You'd still have to have the same >> you still have to have ADA compliance. >> Does it change I guess what my question
is does it that >> is there different guidelines for a business versus a town? >> That's not an area I'm an expert in. >> I don't believe there is. >> I don't Yeah. I believe businesses are required to have the same but the sprinkling is yeah the
requirements are the same but the cost is far less because of you're not a private developer would use not prevailing wage and it would just be a lot less expensive in some ways. >> That's correct. >> But the requirements would be the same. >> Yep. >> Private housing would not have those
requirements. Public housing would. And um one of the details in the ADX ADA section of the report, it's not only like um what is and is not accessible, but like how much is accessible based on like the the occupancy of the building.
So is one ADA accessible bathroom on the first floor enough for what's happening in that building. Gotcha. Okay. >> Okay. Last uh property assessment report. We'll move on to facilities. The smallest of the properties, 417 Long
Meadow Street. Um, I am not going to give you the exact same speech I did for the last one. Um, we will go to the cost estimate and we will highlight those same items. So again for the architectural evaluation this is the building envelope
the roof. Well I should I should first start by saying that this building is different. Yes it still is a masonry front. Um it it still has uh an architectural roof. Uh it is not in the same location as the other two buildings is down long Meadow Street. Um it is much smaller than the other two
buildings. Uh again brick repointing is recommended. um $150,000 uh much less uh surface area. Um there was some foundation repair noted
which the other buildings did not note foundation repairs. Um we have an estimate of $67,000. That is an allowance, but we do recommend like structural evaluation of that. We did not like do a full structural evaluation during the site visit. We had representatives from each trade. Um so
on this one is a note that the foundation might have um moderate issues. The total for the architectural uh building envelope and roof um is $185,000 uh which is significantly less than the
other buildings. Likewise, the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems of this building are uh much more simplified and less um robust than the first two buildings. We do have a laundry list of upgrades for fire suppression, electrical, power
distribution um and HVAC, but combined they are less than $200,000. Uh the largest line item on this list is the um non-compliant uh fire sprinklers once again at $45,000.
Um upgrading the um fire suppression system. Um electrical power distribution was less than $12,000 which is a good sign compared to like the community house which was an order of magnitude higher than that. site civil was estimated at less than
$50,000, $47,000 uh related to um accessibility ramps for sidewalks, access to the building um and building envelope um or not building envelope around the building, accessibility before you get into the building. Um so that was much less than
in the other cases. Um, so for this building, you're definitely looking at less than a million dollars in recommended upgrades, which makes sense at 6,000 square feet. >> When's the last time this building was
used? >> About two years ago. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. >> What was happening in there? >> Um, we discovered that we had some issues with the flooring. Um it was sagging and there was some structural integrity concerns so we halted programming in there. >> Oh what pro? I didn't know there was any
>> uh karate. >> Oh okay. >> Quick followup. So um like uh so when I add so the necess I see now this the immediate stuff is like the stuff that you think absolutely needs to be done. That's like a million. If I added up all
the numbers in this report it's essentially like 2.8 million. So is the everything else the the short term that's all just suggested? It's not required. >> Yes. So it's not required. Yeah. So basically like what do you need to get up the code and then what would you need
to restore to essentially >> to make it publicly available by our town? All the short-term stuff is still optional or do you may by restore do you mean we'd have to do it all? >> I don't know if all uh but several of
them. Like you you may choose to go through and say, "Well, we're not going to spend money on that slate roof. We're gonna put asphalt shingle roof on that." >> I see. >> Which, you know, which is like a co value engineer that you could add. >> So basically what >> rewiring the building would be necessary.
>> Absolutely. So if so, >> right, if you want to do a perfect job, >> add it all up and it I added these all up and it's almost 12 million for all three buildings. But it doesn't have to be is what you're saying. >> That's correct. Okay. There's plenty of room to value engineer these things. If
it helps, we can issue uh we can rename the tables to like code required. >> Sure. Yeah. Okay. >> Well, or you could just tell us like well obviously the immediate stuff is without a doubt unequivocally we got to
do that if it's going to and then the short-term stuff is the real question. How much of that is discretionary? How much of that would the town need to do if the town wanted to use it again? Essentially, that's the question. What are the short-term things are required for that? >> Would you need to versus
>> Yeah. >> versus uh >> need versus want. So, >> yeah, >> even the wants seem pretty important though. >> Yeah. I mean, I I mean, I think if the town's going to do this for any of these buildings, we want to last 100 years. We want to do a good job. Costs are going up.
>> I mean, I think we should just assume >> everything on this list is probably worth doing. Do you think that's not correct? Yeah, we could give an um we could give another table that says um opportunities for value engineer um like like an alternate. So we have a we have
a cost for the slate roof. We could give a cost for like the architectural roof. >> Well, the reality is not all three the destiny of each of these buildings may be different. >> That's Yeah. >> And so the town's the needs as much information as possible probably to make to provide it to the public about how we decide you
know what. Yeah, we we can break him into those bins. >> Yeah, I think you should just be guided by what would be necessary for the town to use this building. >> Yeah. Yeah, I can relay that to the
architectural and MVP teams and we can um reformat those tables to be more clear on those costs. Other questions on the buildings? I guess when I when I look at when I was reading these, I was thinking of them in the line of if, as Andrew alluded to a
bit, if these aren't if we're not taking this on, if we either sell the buildings or lease them out and somebody else does the work, they'll probably have it with a different goal in mind of revamping the
use, but their their costs would not necessarily follow ours. Are we talking a significant drop, you think, or? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. >> If you were a private contractor, not paying prevailing wage, you could save
20% on that alone. >> Not only that, but if you are in the business of doing these renovations >> um with a history of doing so without having to do public bid, I would think that that would be >> um more economically viable for someone to make use out of the existing
building. Yeah. Save the building. this I really great locations for all three of these really and I that's just what I'm >> with an eye towards is that I want to know how trying to think how attractive it would be to a developer
that would be the logical next step in the evaluation is what are we going to do with these now that we know the costs um which which I leave up to you I would I would say that all three of these buildings are very attractive architectural buildings um that could find a suitable use. Um, the question
that I would ask of the town itself, what do you need them for? What are you going to put there? And and that I would I would have that drive where the investment goes. >> Yeah. >> What do you not have space for? >> Um,
>> well, that's the problem. The problem is we don't we have buildings, but we we're lucky. We have plenty of space. We have plenty of buildings, plenty of meeting spaces, plenty of auditoriums. So we don't really need we don't have an immediate need. Now there's a chance someday in the distant future like the
the community house the the town hall would be very valuable to us decades from now. We don't know why right now. And I think there's a lot of opportunity cost in those years that we're wasting and they're they're basically abandoned
or underused. So, I I think it's, you know, we've read the survey, some people watching might not have, but the survey makes very clear that there's not the same affinity for the old town hall across from CVS as
there is for the community house. So, I I think it's very important to treat each of these buildings totally individually. And that's a building that is less attractive to a developer in the sense that like let's say professional offices which is what was done at the
Young Mansion. Um it's a very good use because it's very stable um income and can self- sustain itself, you know, and a goal of many people is to preserve these buildings historically the way they appear, which is good, but there's not a lot of rental space in the old
town hall. And to be quite honest, it's hard to, you know, based on the square footage and putting in a million or $2 million into it, that's going to be difficult for a developer to find that to be economically viable. So then the question becomes, what does the town
sell it for? There are times, I'm sure you've seen, where towns give things away. Yeah. >> Because that's the only way it's economically viable. But what does the town get for it? The town gets a usable building and property taxes indefinitely. Right. So to be quite
honest, I think that that is a very possible route for this building. >> The town hall, you know, we're struggling to find a purpose for the community house. So, I think the town hall, frankly, we should as a town consider allowing proposals
for professional offices. Um, because it's a to me it's a great it's a great building for that. And I want Lynn to actually Lynn and I have spoken a little bit about her obst obstacles to that. And I I want to just, you know, we we should give you an
opportunity to to share that because we're just kind of starting the conversation now. >> Sure. Do you want to hear from Dan first before you hear from me or >> Okay. Um All right. Well, >> it's up to you, >> Dan. What do you think? You mind hearing Lindsay answer? >> Dan, you can hear
>> your hand previously, but go ahead. I can ask my question after. >> Sorry, Dan. I was looking that way. >> Um, so are you asking just specifically about town hall or old? Yeah, I I I want to give you an opportunity to talk about so I I
>> um when the conversation has come up about could the town hall which is on William Street, the one I'm talking about be developed privately. Um obviously everything depends on a developer actually thinking it's viable and attractive. You you've expressed some um reservations about that because
of the future needs of the town perhaps on the location that it's at correct with a police station. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about >> Yeah. So, um, town hall and community house share a lot. It It's one parcel, right? >> Correct. >> Um, so I I would need to look at frontage and and figure out whether you
could carve that out or if we're not talking about us actually relinquishing ownership, we're just going to do some lease arrangement. That would be a different story. Um, my hesitation with wanting to or with considering not having the town own and maintain it for
the future is we just don't know what our needs would be. We don't have a lot of land to work with. Um, and I do think, um, whether it's us sitting here or the people that come after us, there are needs for police and fire. And at some point, we may want to have a
conversation about, um, whether it makes sense to maintain two separate buildings or should we look at a public safety complex. And I'm not saying that now. We're doing something now. I don't want people to panic. But, you know, in 10 or 15 or 20 years, if we don't have that parcel anymore, did we, you know, make a
big mistake. Um, so I think we need to both think short term, but also long term at the same time. And I've appreciated Lynn's um perspective on that. But to follow on my initial thoughts, I'm sure many share them are if you're thinking about a
future need for a police and fire complex, we I think there's I think we want to make sure to be honest that we want to preserve this building as it is. And I think some people who consider making a complex might actually believe that we
might take the building down. And so that's one point to that people may feel differently about. Um but you know if we make a complex of all buildings you know it's that's kind of where that goes I think and um
you know because the current building isn't probably suitable for a lot of things that the police and the fire would want obviously. Um a second thing police and fire I lost my train of thought, but I'm sure it'll come back to me.
>> Uh Dan, >> Dan, >> thank you. Um appreciate the presentation. Very um very thorough. Um one of one of the the questions that I just had probably really for the select board, but also Lynn. Um obviously this
this is going to be a huge issue in town. We're really starting to just kind of look at the results and and dig into things and and yet again we have another price tag over $10 million whether it's trees, infrastructure needs, roads, what have you um that we're dealing with, but I'm
just I just feel like this is such an important decision for the town that that we are going to want to have a lot more public input. I know we talk about we have agendas and people can show up, but the reality is folks don't. But I think this is this is literally shaping
our community in the future of what Long Meadow is going to look like and how we're going to operate um you know things in these buildings. So, my my thought was I I I didn't know if anyone else was interested in maybe doing like a a task force, like a building task
force for this project to take a look at and get more public input or have forums on this because my fear is that we're going to make, you know, some decisions that people might be upset, others might appreciate it, but this is really a huge
undertaking for the town and decision that we're going to make. So, I just wanted to kind of get everyone's thoughts on getting additional public input and then see what Lynn thinks about that as well. >> I think that's a great idea. I mean, I think that's a logical next step. I remember now what I was going to say.
I'm sorry. Um, with regard to like the if with regard to the town owning it, which uh and maybe leasing it, the problem with the benefit of that is the town owns it in case we someday want to do something with it. The problem with that is the cost of the town renovating
is much higher than just a private developer doing it. So there's a bit of an inefficiency there. And I wonder, you know, what I don't personally want to see is that this nothing happens for a decade because we're frozen or because we want to keep it for a future town
use, but we don't know what that is. I mean, in an in a dire situation 50 years from now, if we really needed the building, you could always, not that it's easy, do an eminent domain situation where you could just take it essentially. But right now, and if you wanted to make a fire and police
department, you could add on to those buildings and and make that complex in that significant space that's still between the buildings, for example. So, I just wanted to throw those ideas back out there. >> Yeah. Um, just back back to Dan's point, I think that that is something we can talk about just right when we get to our
next agenda point, but I I think that that is absolutely the way to go. Um, this is uh more brains the better on this, but also we we got pretty good survey results here and we know that there's people are interested in this, which is good. Um,
but I I think that now we can get it a bit more concrete. Um but while while we have Mike here, why don't we move on to the the uh final part of our presentation? >> Yeah, I'll conclude the building property assessment by saying I think you know you have the laundry list of of
items from an architect and and a team of engineers on everything that's wrong. um you may want to go in the direction of consulting with a developer or someone who is less on
the engineering and architectural side and more on the economically viable side. Right? So, it might be an opportunity to like bring in another partner for your public engagement with with what it could be, what it could be economically viable for or what your
options would be for municipal land leases or anything like that in the future because now you've got your your costs. Okay. Uh task two, we'll go through this one quicker. Uh I wrote this report uh so I'm much more um familiar with all of
the details on it. Uh this task we worked with uh Nick the uh director of the facilities department and the goal of this task was we were um looking to compare how Long Meadow runs its facilities department to similar
entities in Massachusetts. So what we did was we interviewed um three other towns and Bay Path University um as it is located here in Long Meadow and has a good reputation for their facilities. Um so we
interviewed these facilities directors. We obtained as much as their budget information as we could to do a direct comparison with Long Meadow. So this was very much an exercise in benchmarking your practices, your organization, um, and and the the staffing and the budget
levels. Okay. Um, so we talked to East Long Meadow uh, for obvious geographic reasons. Uh, very very um, similar makeup. Uh, we talked to Bruce Feny. Uh, we talked to Danvers. Um, Rob Dever is the director of operations there. Um, we
had access to a lot of their um, uh, budget information. They gave us more than any other community in terms of like granular budget information. We talked to Bayath uh, University Michael Giann Pietro. Apologies if I got that
wrong. Uh, and finally, South Hadley Scott Moore. So, the challenge with this task was that um, the data that we took in was highly varied. So, first of all, there were plenty of holes in the data. The biggest example I
can give you is when we would talk to a DPW facilities department, they would say, "Half the data you're looking for, I don't have access to. It's the school department." We would try to go chase it for the school department and we didn't get 100% of the data. Um or um the
participants were very gracious with their time. I want to thank them uh for their interview time. um but we struggled to get information on specific things afterwards. So what we did is we took the information as a whole and we boiled it down to what we had common
information for. We looked at practices, structure, staffing levels and we tried to put some benchmarking in there. So that was that was the extent of this study. Um, so a couple of key findings that uh me and the and the team that
worked on this found. Um, on page two, table one is your summary of your buildings um and your staff. So things to take away, Long Meadow has a lot of square footage of buildings that you
maintain. A lot. Um, Danvers is by far the biggest uh community in the study. Um and you are just behind them in total square footage. Um one of the outliers in this data uh table was that you have 271,000 square feet of town buildings,
non-school buildings. So compared to East Long Meadow, that's they have 70,000. It's an order of magnitude larger. Um same with South Hadley. South Hadley was the smallest community um in in this project. Um but again they have like 93,000 um square feet of town
buildings where their school square footage um was at least closer in line with your school square footage. So you are maintaining a lot of square footage of town buildings. Um if you look below the blue line you'll see your staffing requirements. Your staffing uh was
pretty in line is is is sort of the takeaway on staffing is that the the positions are there. Um there are pockets of places that you're struggling to maintain or hire um or keep people
engaged for long periods of time. But in terms of the total numbers um that was you were not an outlier. Okay. All right. So the next section is just a little bit about the Long Meadow Facilities Department, what they maintain, how much they maintain, how much staff they have. I don't need to go
through that for um the audience. Um but it is basically describing your facilities department and how they operate. Um the section that that leads into is budgeting practices. On page three, there's one highlight that I want to
share with you is that we found that the school department budget and the staffing are somewhat co-mingled with the facilities department. And I give some examples at the end of the study. uh the table was too big to embed in the text is your facilities department
budget. So if you want to flip to the last page, there's a color-coded table. We simply took the line item annual budget, right? So the the department's budget and we looked at is this a town building expense, is this a school
building expense, or is this expense shared between town and school buildings? So you'll see that school building expenses are in blue. Town building expenses are in yellow and the split expenses are in green. So first of all, there are many line items that are
going to both buckets. Um the majority is going to school school buildings. So one of the takeaways from the budgeting practices is that you are not an outlier keeping your custodians in the school department. that actually was
the norm that school custodians are part of school uh department. In fact, it was only Danvers that had all staff, everyone maintaining schools or town building under DPW. They were the only ones that do it that way. But the other
participants in the in the study did a better job of putting those expenses into more defined buckets. These are the line items that it takes to maintain and keep the schools clean. These are the line items that it takes
to maintain and keep the town buildings clean. There there is some room for improvement there. I give an example on page four of what Damas does, which is they have a sub code, right? So you have a line item code, a department code, and they have a sub code and one is for town buildings and one is for schools. Um,
and I think that has added great clarity to, you know, where where's the money being spent? What what are our major expenses? Um, the next item is snow and ice budgets. Uh, why would that be included? Uh, because it is a major um it is the major
factor that can kind of blow your budget specifically um with facilities where there's a lot of labor involved. Um, typically the majority of our respondents said that their snow and ice budget would live like in the street department. There were some respondents that said
that each department had their own snow and ice budget. But one thing that was clear was weather related snow and ice can kill your overtime and it also has some significant m uh materials expenses. So ice melt and things like
that. Um, one big takeaway that I did not expect to have in the report that every respondent said that we're moving to level funding our snow and ice budget for budgeting reasons. Um, so if you level fund that line item, it is easier to take care of the wild swings. Uh,
there were a lot of towns that were doing like five-year rolling averages that just said we're just going to level fund it um for accounting reasons. Um, what you're able to do at the end of the year for overruns, things like that. Um, another takeaway was getting the custodians involved. Um, several of the
respondents um had the custodians come throughout the storm on overtime and clear walks and sideway and sidewalks around the buildings, all the crosswalks around the buildings, make sure it was accessible for school to open. Um, not all respondents had that. It varied from
we take care of the doorway to we are part of the entire DPW snow removal team. Um, so we made some notes on on roles and responsibilities. Stopping your questions. Keep going. >> Keep going. >> Cool. All right. Staffing and budget
statistics. So, we have a section where we threw a lot of tables at you. Uh, I promised Lynn that this would be a four-page memo with like eight tables that told the story, but the problem is we had so many holes in the data that it ended up being a longer memo to describe
best practices and then have a lot of smaller tables or else it would have been a giant table with a bunch of info missing. So, in this section, uh, we start by talking about shift schedule. Uh, this was something that the facilities director, Nick, really wanted to look at in this uh, study. Um what we
found is that almost all respondents run multiple shifts specifically for custodial staff and many times specifically for school custodial staff. Every respondent had some sort of multiple shifts. Um Long Meadow has multiple shifts. They are a little
different than some of the other respondents. You have a middle shift 10 a.m. to 6:00 p p.m. So you have a first shift 7 a.m. to 3. Second shift is 3 to 11. and then you have a middle shift. Um so that w that is a good thing that
there was overwhelming response. Uh table six or table two on page six shows what each entity uh that we interviewed runs for shifts. Couple of takeaways. Second shift is key. It is much easier
to clean and maintain a school building when there are no students in it. So second shift is key. Um all respondents resp um responded that way. Long Meadow has three floating custodians. This was also a theme in the respondents that we saw. Uh custodians that move from
building to building taking caring of issues. We identified that these three Roving custodians are often um redirected to cover routine daily shifts because of vacancies. So you have roving
custodians, but they're not being deployed effectively because they're covering for vacancies. And that is absolutely contributing to deferred maintenance and level of service. So if we're able to address those vacancies and get those floating custodians back to what the issues of the day are, um we
feel like that would have a high impact. Maintenance shift or the maintenance workers currently do not have a second shift. And I should point out that that is common. None of none of the other municipal entities that were interviewed had a second shift for maintenance. But one one item that
shown through very clearly in these interviews is that the maintenance staff in Long Meadow are not keeping up. They are overwhelmed. Um and and the deferred maintenance list is actually having a ripple effect on the capital plan as uh machinery breaks down, doesn't live its
full service life, um or is constantly being repaired. that is having an effect on the capital budget. >> Before you move on from shift, um the just to a couple distinctions um the
um second and third shift that's only for the schools. The DPW does not um have multiple shifts for custodial. >> Um and then the the floating custodians, it's primarily for the schools. The DPW
itself has four custodians. Um, and I guess you could refer to them as floating, but really they're just responsible for all the buildings, >> multiple build each on the town side, they're each responsible for multiple buildings, which is similar, but slightly different to than the floating positions.
>> Um, but we've made some recommendations in the shift section about reviewing the shift schedules. So, and we try to give examples and noteworthy practices from the other respondents. And so, for example, um you want to have an early shift to open buildings before people
get to work. You want to check for problems. You want to see if a pipe burst overnight or anything before people get to work. Um Dambridge just has one person do that instead of the whole shift coming in early because one theme that that came out in the shifts is that for specifically town buildings,
those custodians are starting early to open the buildings, but then they leave early. And a lot of times they're being called back to take care of issues and they're being called back on overtime or on premium time. >> Um, so you could review your shifts and say, "Well, maybe we only need one
custodian in early and push everybody back so we can reduce overtime." Um, or how many custodians are overlapping at the school during the day. Could some of those be shift more towards the night to work more effectively in teams when the building is empty? Okay, so on to the tables that I
promised. Um, we did look at some benchmarking. So, we found the National Center for Education Statistics, NCES, gives a guideline for how many custodians you should have per square foot in schools and things like that. They have levels of service. So the
punch line is is that schools should aim for a level three cleanliness level which among other things says that you should have one custodian for every 28,000 to 31,000 square feet of floor
space. Right? So that's the range to achieve level three and you are in that range. So again your um FTEES your positions that you have available does not seem to be the driving issue. it is more the vacancies that you are dealing
with. Um so that's what table three shows is that you are at 29,163 square feet per custodian for schools which is squarely in that range. And you can see how the other respondents um land in that range. I will say some of
them are slightly above the range. Uh but we think that's accounted for because they as you'll see in a minute we have some some pretty good preventative maintenance practices that they're practicing. Also, um this is for in-house staff and some of the other
respondents are relying much heav much much more heavily on contracted services. Um we did the same thing for uh custodial staff for the town buildings and I want to point this out that Long Meadow is an outlier. Um so while that
um NCES level three cleanliness is specific to schools um when compared to the other uh communities the town building custodial staff is more than double what other square footages are being taken care of
in other towns. So that's table four. you'll see that um town custodians in Long Meadow are responsible for over 67,000 square feet of building to clean whereas in some of the other communities it's in the 20s and low 30,000. So you are they're taking care of more than double the square footage of space for
the staff that you have in house. All right, more than halfway through. One big takeaway, one crystalclear takeaway is hiring trades. Long Meadow is struggling to staff
trades. What I'm talking about is carpenters, electricians, plumbers, things of that nature. There are vacancies in Long Meadow. We point them out that we looked at the annual budget um where it stood in September and for electrician HVAC salaries, it was like
0.0 spent. They're obviously vacant. You are not alone. Table five basically says that every single entity that we interviewed is struggling to staff these trades. We've given some suggestions. Um part-time work. So there are a couple of
towns that have advertised part-time positions for plumbers, electricians, HVATC's technicians. So these are people that have a job in the private sector and can give you x amount of hours per week. Another way to do that is through on call service contracts. So, you can put out a service contract that says,
"I'm going to need access to electrician 10 hours a week, right? And we'll tell you which 10." Um, or you can have explicit contract services for um typical duties. So, you shall be um responsible for maintaining the the air
conditioning chillers at the high school. Um so, different ways to do that. Um you can supplement with contract services. So, you don't need to contract the whole thing out. You can look for um part-time uh managers or middle managers. So part-time head
custoonian that could oversee contract services or things like that. But specifically you sorry you are not alone in struggling to hire trades people and I would pivot. I wouldn't even try. I would either go part-time contract
services, but you are competing with private industry, and unless you can come up with creative benefits, they're going to continue to remain vacant, and you're going to use that that salary and wages line item on contract services anyway. Um, that is shown in the two tables below. It's how much do you spend in
contract services per square foot and what percent of your budget is contract services? And you can see that Long Meadow is low. So you take pride in doing these things inhouse. You've historically done these things inhouse and it shows in your budget that
you are on the low end when compared to your peers on spending money on contract services. Moving on to page nine. Um table eight, nine and 10 are the same table. We have total square footage just school
buildings and just town buildings. So this is basically the facilities department is custodial plus maintenance. So those two things combined. What are you spending per square foot? Um you will notice that Long Meadow is on the um lower end. It's
actually very much in line with East Long Meadow. Please note that each one of these tables does have asterisks with caveats that say this is not included. So salaries and wages were not included. some salaries and wages were not available. Um, but what you're looking for is is is who is an outlier in how
much money we are spending. So, for example, Danvers, which has pivoted to contract services quite hard, is spending the same amount um that the university is, Bay Path University is right in the second table, you can see that Long
Meadow is more in line with like what East Long Meadow is spending. All right. So, moving on. We looked at overtime as an indicator for things like preventative maintenance and and deferred maintenance. Kind of running into the capital budget issues. Um what
we found is that um you are pretty much in in line with your peers on percent of the overall budget that you're spending on overtime. You're not an outlier. You're not spending incredible amounts of time on overtime. But what we did find was that East Long Meadow is an
outlier. They are spending significantly less percent of their annual budget on overtime. And we asked them why and we got a very robust answer from Bruce. It is their preventative maintenance program paying dividends. They have put
an extraordinary amount of effort into their um CMMS uh their their work order ticketing system by populating it with preventative maintenance activities and keeping a spreadsheet and empowering a lot of the people that are in these
buildings such as custodians to do that work. Now, I should mention that Long Meadow custodians do a great job with with uh taking on maintenance responsibilities, routine maintenance. So something that a homeowner would do, changing the filter on the air conditioning unit, right? Like something
you might do in your home. Custodians are doing that, but what East Long Meadow has done is they've really taken it to another level and they took great pride in showing us their systems and what they're tracking. Um, and it is it is clearly showing up in the numbers because they're spending half of what
everyone else is spending in overtime. So that is what the next section talked about. uh what are you using for a ticketing system? So the takeaway here is that pretty much nobody liked their CMMS system, their work order system. Uh but you're using a popular one. Brightly
is is what you have and a lot of communities are using it. Um and it it seems to be um you know a business that isn't going to go out of business that your peers are using um that you can get training on and plugins and updates to. So it seems to be a fine choice. Um they
are expensive. Um, but the big takeaway that we got from many of these facilities managers is you get into it or you get out of it what you put into it. Um, and if you're embracing it as a tool, you'll get different results than if it is a burden to you, something you
have to do. Okay, getting to the very end now. Vacancies, you are very much in line with your peers struggling with vacancies. They are around 20%. 20% is a lot that is going to show up in your level of service. Um,
why do you have vacancies? So, we looked at salaries. So, table 15 is wage comparisons. The good news is we were able to create sort of a master list of positions that you had. So, we used your
uh union contracts to get the salaries um and took everybody else's union contracts and we tried to make it a range because there are steps and ranges in these union positions. The good news is there's a tight correlation. There really weren't a ton of outliers. It was
it was very um cohesive in in what these pay rates were. The bad news is that Long Meadow was on the low end for almost every category for be for beginning salary. So, so for each range there's, you know, the bottom of the range and the top of the range and you
are low on the bottom of the range pretty much across the board and that's and that's what table 15 is showing. Um, so notable takeaways here. Um, one thing we noticed is that school and town
custodians are in different um, unions and they have different pay rates. So you might be competing with yourself on vacancies there. So if I was a custodian in one system and there was an opening in in town building, say, why
wouldn't I just move there and and make slightly more money per hour? Um so that could be cleaned up. Uh we already talked about the low end being low. Um longevity amplifiers. So we heard from a couple of participants that they have
increased ranges. So they've added a top range. So if you top out at range 17, they added a range 18. And they have increased the numbers of steps between each range. Almost every participant had a longevity multiplier. So if you've been with the town 10 years, you get an extra 500 bucks. You know, 15 years, you
get an extra thousand bucks. Um these are all uh under the category of creative fringe benefits. Um it is hard to raise salaries because you get into an arms race with the the towns around you. So um one suggestion is adjust
often, right? I think we're moving into an inflation environment that is not going to relent. Um and so I think you just need to adjust and keep pace. You don't need to outpace because the community next to you is just going to
raise it. But you can't fall behind. I think one thing that is analogous to the um presentation at the beginning of the meeting is if you adjust these rates often, it's better. Um the best example of a creative fringe benefit was clearly from Bay Path. If
you work for Bay Path, your children can go there tuition free. Now, I know that Long Meadow can't offer that, but you really should think about what you can offer. And I don't have what those answers are. I think they should come from within. But creative fringe
benefits, you know, maybe it's a 35 hour work week instead of a 40h hour work week or, you know, you've got a lot of beautiful pools in town. Maybe the families have access to the pools. I don't know what they are, but you will need them if you want to keep these in house. Um, the last recommendation on
this section for staffing is take a very hard look at what is important to you to keep inhouse and what you can use contract services for. Even if that means adding more middle
managers or or um supervisors in a part-time role to essentially micromanage those contract services. um it might be a more effective way to get rid of these vacancies. I think the vacancies are a problem for all of these
municipalities. Um and it I don't see that getting better without more creative thinking. Um so we ended the memo with six numbered recommendations to briefly uh go over
them. Um there is improvements that could be made to the budgeting process to make it specific to see where you are spending that money and where you are underfunded. Um or at least the demarcation line between school and town buildings um to
separate those level of services. Um consider a level funded comprehensive and unified snow and ice budget. Uh review the shift schedules is a big one. Um second shift is very important and reviewing that middle shift and and and early shifts. um
clearly underst staffed at the custodial level on town buildings in terms of square footages. That could be an opportunity for contract services. It was mentioned to us several times that there have been negative negative experiences with contract services in the past. I would encourage you to reach out to some of
these participants to ask them how they are managing it. Um, a lot of them are adding shift supervisors or foremen um to essentially be like a team captain for contract services. Pivot away from in-house trade work or
consider part-time um or on call contracts. Develop a comprehensive preventive maintenance program. You have a lot of square footage here to maintain. There's a lot of mechanical equipment to maintain and
um taking the most professional approach you possibly could to standardizing some of these um standardized operating procedures some might call it in DPW world uh to get the most out of this equipment is going to add up fast. It is
not easy. It is not an easy undertaking but it pays dividends for for a long time. Um, and thinking about fringe benefits, what absolutely has to stay in house and how you could structure cont contracts to get what you want out of your contract
services. Um, I would recommend multi-year contracts that have escalators in them with options to renew or not renew because another thing is you don't want procurement to hold you back as well, right? So, you should really consider multi-year contracts with um either escalators or options to
renew. I know that was a lot. I know I've been sitting at this table for a long time. We just went through three buildings and an entire department. Um if you have specific questions that you can remember, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you for entertaining the
explanation of my work here. >> Thank you very much. I really my this is pretty granular for us. Um but I I wonder if the town would want to speak on what how this is going to be incorporated into staffing if uh I'm
sure Nick is aware of this and and Sean. So can you tell us how uh we are how we're using this? >> So um full disclosure we we just got it um like what two days ago maybe roughly late last week. Yeah. Friday. So Sean
and I haven't connected yet. Um I will say that uh I think a lot of this was kind of validating to what they've been experiencing. Um but it was eyeopening to me to see the square footage comparison. Um that that number is
staggering. And then the other thing I I had to read it a few times because the numbers can be a little deceiving because we're co-mingling schools in it and the school custodians are entirely separate. They're in their own union. They fall under the school budget. They
do not ever set foot in a town building for any sort of custodial. Um, and they are predominantly just inside their building at, um, at their school location. So, um, there was a lot of really interesting
tidbits to take out of here. Um, and so I need to get time with Sean and Nick and figure out what does this mean for us and what changes can we make sooner than later and um what are more long-term and the um the work order
system and the preventative maintenance stuff. I know they have done some of that work but we're nowhere near what we should be for that software and uh we need to come up with a plan on how to get there. >> Yeah. To add to that, you know, we we had um
South Hadley, East Long Meadow, Danvers, Bay Path University. We would go through these points one by one and four out of the five would say, "We're struggling with the same things. We are trying we are trying to get this done and one would have a solution." So that's kind
of why we did the notable takeaways in each section is we were just trying to take the best idea from each other each respondent for each category. Um, I can say one bit of good news is that we did we have been trying to hire
trades and be a little bit more creative with that and we just hired an electrician 20 hours a week benefits um starting in the new year. So that was one positive but we still have vacancies in plumbing and HVAC.
>> How much of our 270,000 square feet of building are the three we discussed today? Oh, of the town buildings. >> Yeah, >> good question. >> I don't I know six is the old town hall. I don't remember the other two numbers.
>> Community house is 24,000 ft. >> So, it probably ballpark like 40,000 35,000 So >> I can email you that. >> Town hall is also 6,000 I said it's in our head. I mean that's >> a little under 40,000.
>> Town hall 6,000. >> Well, it says 6,000 livable space. >> So it's in the low 30s >> cuz community house is 24,000. If town hall is six, that's 30 and then the other one's a little bit more. So low 30s. >> Y.
>> So it's a little it's more than 10% of the town's square footage. What is the rest? >> The adult center, this building, it's 11%. Yeah, >> DPW, adult center, stores, library, this building. >> Um, the old DPW
>> grounds. I'm assuming it's anything with a roof, right? >> Pump stations. >> Pump stations, sewer treatment plant. >> I'm just trying to think how long Meadow has so little. >> We have buildings, >> I guess. Yeah, clearly. Yeah, you have
17 municipal facilities, seven major town buildings, six schools, all park buildings, including camps, pool houses, concession stands. >> Does Elon Meadow have a pool? Like a community pool? >> No. >> No.
>> I don't have I don't know. Um, but I do know that they a lot of their offices have always been consolidated. They done they weren't, you know, parcled out through multiple buildings. It's >> Oh, now they're in up on North M. >> Yeah. But even before that, you know
where where they were. >> Yeah. The buildings are physically separated. They're on opposite ends of town. >> Yeah. >> Um it wouldn't be easy to send a janitor from here to DPW. >> Great. >> Yeah. Which one is it? >> Um All right. Well, this >> very eye opening. Um that's why we do
these things. So, yeah. Sorry it was long. >> No, that's okay. That's good. Just to clarify, it's about 40,000 ft² cuz the town hall is 9,500 ft, not 6,000. >> Oh, okay. >> And town halls, I think. >> Old town hall is much smaller, I think.
Okay. So, it's closer to like 40, >> substantial. >> All right. Anybody else from the rest of the board? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate your time. Um and we can um issue the property condition reports uh
revised um for the more specific buckets. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mike. >> All right. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Mike. >> All right, why don't we move on to our survey results? Uh Lynn, would you like to present this? >> Yeah, I'm actually gonna kick that over
to our mic uh who ran point on that. >> Two mics in a row. >> Yeah. >> Um Peg, if you don't mind just pulling up that presentation. Um, so at the same time that Fuss O'Neal was working on assessing the general building improvement needs for these facilities, the town launched a community input
survey forformational purposes only, survey was open from June 1st through July 17th with a primary purpose of receiving feedback um to guide planning efforts and ensure spaces met the needs of the community. We received nearly 800 responses on the survey and around 475
participants actually signed up to be notified as the study of the facilities progresses. >> Mike, I I did this and I don't remember how I got to it. How would how did you put this out there? >> Oh yeah. So this was launched on social media. The link was directly to our uh link tree. So you were able to easily
access the link >> um right from either Instagram or Facebook. It was on the homepage. was put out in the town manager newsletter which reach reaches probably about 2,000 people 3,000 people. >> Yeah, it's just it's such a great uh amount of people. I'm very happy to
see it and it and compared to some of our other surveys, it blows them out of the water. So, >> I agree. We've we've done I think two or three surveys in the last two years. One was for the turf study which we got a tremendous um feedback on as well as this one and I there was one other that
we also got off the top of my head I can't remember we got good feedback on >> the middle school we didn't get good feedback on and there was another one that I can't remember that we really struggled to get >> it may have been municipal aggregation >> there's another one I don't >> the open space and wreck plan is never >> yeah that one
but the active wreck study did get pretty good amount >> that's what it was active wreck was about the same >> turf study active wreck and the building use all received pretty good feedback. Um, so with that, with the 475 participants that signed up to be
notified, our plan is to create an email list to follow up with interested participants and plan to build out a web page to host this presentation from Mike Nelson tonight. Um, as well as the results in a summarized form from this presentation here. Um, so first off, I'll just generally summarize the
results. Next slide, Peggy. um the f familiarity with the buildings. About 80 roughly 86% of survey participants were familiar with all three buildings. Most people obviously familiar with community house and town hall and less familiar with old town hall. Um a lot of people
in the generic responses we got at the end um indicated that they didn't even know old town hall existed. >> Uh you can go to the next slide please. For types of uses for the vacated town hall, 20 William Street, the results indicated that an arts and cultural center, educational workshops or
classes, a restaurant or cafe, space for recreational programs were the most desired. Uh people also considered co-working business space as well as a community meeting space as the next tier of options. U next slide, please. for Old Town Hall. Um similar options, but a
restaurant or cafe was one of the top choices, as well as uh an art center, space for recreational programs, and um one option that wasn't considered for the vacated zone hall was a historical archive um center for the community
house. Recreational programs, art center. You can go to the next slide. Sorry. Um recreational programs, art center, and space for community meetings were at the top of the selections. People were also interested in specific programs related to senior or youth uh seniors or
youth um but you did not see the option of a restaurant or cafe come through for the community house um which we can touch on later. So for important factors to consider um according to the survey the most important factors were u preserving historical features creating
new tax revenue for the town uh a space to serve a broad range of residents as was discussed earlier the cost to renovate or maintain um yeah the cost to renovate or maintain the buildings as is um and a community gathering or
recreational space. people value the idea of creating new businesses um but are less concerned about accessibility and environmental sustainability which are important as we know from Mike's presentation um in terms of importance of the town
continuing to own and operate the facilities for 20 William Street the margin was close um with the preference of town ownership only slightly edging out the option of town not owning but on the other hand for old town hall 417 along Meadow Street participants were
more receptive to the town not owning this facility. As indicated before, a lot did not even know what that building was or the intent of that building. And then for the community house, 735 Lin Street, there was an overwhelming number of survey participants who expressed the importance of the town continuing to own
and operate this facility far more than the other options. Um yeah and as we move into owning or operating um >> yeah open to private open to private ownership or development um more participants were open to private
development of old town hall and the vacated town hall and less of the community house which is no surprise. Um and that's what the results yielded in the ownership question. But uh most people stated they are in favor of private ownership to generate new property taxes for the town um or
private development to bring more businesses to the community. They were also still open to the town maintaining ownership but indicated that if the costs were too high to renovate, they would be open to private development or ownership. So if the costs were too high to maintain, a lot of people said, "We understand that. Let's move forward and
figure out what private development looks like." Um you can go to the next slide. So then to generally summarize some of the um uh additional thoughts that people gave um we received just under 200 unique responses detailing ideas for the future. That's that little
section at the bottom of the server where you can say >> would you like to know more? Do you have any other feedback? Uh many resident residents emphasized the importance of preserving the historical integrity and charm of the buildings. Um they advocated for continued town ownership and opposed uh privatization or
demolition especially for the community house. For um uh for the remainder of the buildings including uh community house numerous responses suggest using the buildings for community focused activities such as youth centers, teen nights, programming, dance and theater spaces and public gathering spots would
be desired. Several of the comments propose options for generating revenue, including private development for retail, cafes, restaurants, professional offices, or housing, um especially senior affordable housing, um or through long-term leases while the town retains
ownership. Um other residents suggested highlighting the need to increase the town's tax base and view private development as a means to achieve this. Um while others expressed concern about the financial burden um of renovations if the town maintains ownership. And lastly, there's a rec recognized need
for necessary improvements including ADA compliance. Um, modernizing the interiors and addressing the parking challenges as Mike suggested to earlier as well. Um, and I pretty much covered most of the stuff in the analyzing the results section when we went through the
slides, but um, just to summarize generally, most people were familiar with all three buildings, less with old town hall. Um they stressed the importance of the town continuing to own and operate certain facilities and others um there was not a strong
preference for. Um and then some of the most important factors to consider again were preserving the historical features, creating new tax revenue and serving a broad range of residents and of course the cost to rehab, renovate or maintain the facilities. So, um, just want to say
thank you to everyone who participated because as we discussed at the beginning, very good, uh, response rate and we're not used to seeing that, so you have to kind of take that and run with it a little bit. So, >> thank you, Mike. I thought this was, uh,
the survey was well done and I I wouldn't say it was uh, kind of got along to the thoughts that I already had and so I wasn't surprised by any of the results. Um, which is good because now we can put a number on it
and and know just how uh people are feeling. I think on a a lot of them I would if you know or don't care on whether we own or operate a building, I would kind of lump that together and really even if if you do that, people really don't want people want community
house to stay in the town. And that's and I get that it's central. It's a a community hub. It's in the name. Um, and then the other two buildings, uh, you know, I I venture a lot of people may have popped into the old town hall once or twice and never got farther than the
clerk's office. >> And, um, I went upstairs once and it was, uh, and I was in that building a decent amount and I wouldn't go back up there necessarily. Um, but yeah, so I I don't think people have a strong attachment to that. It's a beautiful
building, but it's not a building I think that is important to us. And I and I'm glad you Andrew and Lynn brought up uh future considerations, but we we just had a this all obviously put this together uh
intentionally, but we know that we have buildings that are need a lot of work. We know that we have problem staffing and we know that we have uh buildings that we don't necessarily need or have a a good use for. So I guess my first question is
what do what is the carrying cost for these three buildings if we could estimate that? >> I'd have to get back to you with that. >> Yeah, I think that that's an important I imagine it's not an incredible amount, but it's not nothing. and the the income that the community
house is bringing in is not is not great and it could be we could house that somewhere else. It would people would not like if we moved elections certainly, but it's tough to have a building just for that and the the book sale. Yeah,
>> but you know, if we can keep that building and find a way to offset the cost for that with our other buildings uh by offloading them or finding private developers, leasing them out, uh I think that's something that we
should think about very strongly uh and think about what we what we value and what we cherish and how we can keep that and not hold on to things just because we have them. >> Anybody else?
>> I'll say that I I agree with what Dan said probably about an hour ago now that uh it feels like a task force is what we need here. I mean, this feels very much like our conversation at the beginning when we're talking about municipal fiber. There are I I have a million questions and there are a million threshold questions that need to be
answered and so much that needs to be looked into. And I think the task force, somebody like a group that is dedicated to this um and can work on this and look into all these different issues and questions is what we need because we are not going to be able to do that um as a
select board during select board time. Um you know, I also think that this task force should be charged with not only looking at these three buildings that we discussed tonight, but also with Glenbrook, um also with um our property
in Academy Road. Um, I think it's time for us to be assessing these uh, you know, properties and figuring out what we can do with them. And like Lynn said, the police station is I feel like that's something that's hanging there. That's a big concern for me because that police
station does not fit the needs of a police force in 2025. And it is something that we are going to have to reckon with eventually. And this would be a great time to cons be considering that as well while we're looking at all these different buildings. Um, and then
you one, you know, one other thing that we did when we decided to move town offices to Greenwood was we did get some correspondents, people reaching out to us from the building committee, um, and other groups asking whether we would
ever consider, you know, being here temporarily, but then moving town offices back to that area of town permanently. Um, and I think that we owe an answer to that. We owe um our residents an answer to that and that's
something that we should look into and we should um we should have an analysis and and a and you know an answer for that. Um because I think we that's something that we told our residents we would look into and we should uh we should answer that. Um, and then you
know there there are just like so many different things here where you know I would like to know whether we put uh a restaurant in Old Town Hall versus a store or something else like what is the revenue projection for the town. You know all those different things um
are you need to be looked at. And so I hope like the task force for municipal fiber that we can get a group of folks in town that are experts in it that can start working on this quickly and have you know bring a good amount of knowledge to it. Uh but I also hope like
the task force that this task force could work quickly um and that this is not something that is going to last forever that there is a identified goal and that there's a time frame and it's something that you know they can complete like in a year or so. Uh but to do that I do think that we should you
know start this process. I think we should be sending out applications. We should be interviewing folks and we should get moving on this. >> My only question on that is and I I totally agree. I but I wonder if we want Glenn Brook as part of that or
is Glenn Brook because >> task force. >> Yeah. separate task force because that is to me such a massive undertaking and potentially a transformative thing in the town. Do we want that alto
together? And maybe, you know, if we're asking people to volunteer, maybe it's a lot to ask two groups of people to volunteer. So maybe it is maybe those are the best. If we get the best of the best, we want them on both. Maybe. So it's just a question. >> That's a good question. I can see I can
see that there's I'm trying to think of the the ven diagrams of these two pro of these two basic projects and they are different they are >> you know and I can >> right and you don't want to be over you
want to get a good answer with dedicated thought and effort for both and I can see there could be value in having two separate task forces and there could the same people on both. I know it would be a lot of time, but I I can see how they're different enough that to get the
best answer for the town might require dividing it. >> Well, no, maybe they're not that different because one of the questions is is Glen Brookke, does it need to be knocked down? Could you reuse the space? I I don't know. Go ahead. >> Yeah, I mean um I mean I think that is I think the they are different. I think we
could do different task forces for each one and then it would kind of be up to us to make sure that we're kind of coordinating whatever they you know recommend or decide or whatever that we're the ones that you know eventually say okay >> doing that with Glen Brook makes sense
with what you guys are proposing to do with over here. >> I do I see that it does make it a little more complicated. Um, >> not to overcome, but you you could probably have one committee, but have like a subcommittee, one that focuses on the Glen because then you're at least getting that kind of strategic overview of of like the building versus the land
use together within one committee kind of >> and get our smartest town members, right? Removes us from that >> linking it together. Whereas that committee could actually that could be part of their task. You could just break the committee into two like to two subsections. one that focuses on these
here and one that focuses on the school and academy drive because those are kind of linked. >> Yeah, I I can see the benefit of that as well. I mean, we definitely want to move as quickly as possible on both of these. >> Yeah. >> Lynn, what do you think? Do have you >> um so I think that there are it's
distinctly different projects. Um the Glen Brook parcel is 20 acres. It's open space and a building. Um, so I I wouldn't want to throw so much at a volunteer committee that it's too much and they can't get enough traction. Um,
but that being said, I think we start slow with the three buildings just or not slow but maybe smaller the three buildings, see what comes of that and then um you could always extend their their term um and and give them
Glenbrook or um or we could decide, you know, maybe there's a different approach to take. I just don't think we have enough information on Glen Brook yet. like we we don't have to some extent we have some of it from the Collier's reports that have been done but um I
just um I don't know that we're able to move as quick with the Glen Brookke as we would be with these three meaning like a deep dive into what do we do next? >> Yeah, I I there I agree with that. Uh but Andrew and I were talking about this the other day that that could we don't want Glen Brook to
sneak up on us, right? >> Yeah. And so >> Yep. Um, I I'm not ready to like give you a ton of information about this, but I did do a outreach to all the managers in Massachusetts um who have had town or school buildings um be repurposed or go
through a process. And so I got a lot of great feedback. Haven't had a chance to kind of combine it all um to give you something back, but it was primarily for the Glen Brook parcel, not so much for these other three buildings. I think that um you make a good point like literally the Glen Brookke nothing
we want to it's a lot of work we're going to move on that but we're literally can't do anything with it until the the the new middle school is built for these three buildings we're literally every month that goes by there's opportunity cost of property taxes of community not being able to use and enjoy these buildings. So maybe
getting right on doing a task force for these three buildings and yeah like if it's going well then maybe and it seems to work out that they can be take on the task of Glen Brook like in a year after we've gotten some of the logistics done with like the school committee
relinquishing it then that makes sense and maybe if it doesn't make sense then we just create a new task force then your hand >> yeah I was just going to say that we should be hearing back also from the attorney general's office on the capital planning and building committee as well. And my assumption would be is they would
also either make recommendations or play a pretty heavy role working alongside the task force potentially once that's reformed. And you'll be interviewing people for that as well. So if they're not considered for for the task force, they may want to consider this is a plug I guess for some of the vacancies that
we may have. Yeah. And I also think that sometimes some of these questions can be answered just by who applies and once we take a look at how many people apply, what kind of expertise they bring. It might make sense to do, you know, one big group with subcommittees or just say, okay, let's start off small with uh the three
buildings and then, you know, transition over to Glenbrook. uh you know I mean I think even with the I remember with the fiber task force I think again originally we had only wanted uh you know five folks or something on the task force but then nine people applied that were all really qualified and we decided okay let's do nine you know um and so um
yeah so some of that it might just be answered by who applies and shows interest >> right okay um so unless we have anything else I I would say if you can come back to us with uh >> we'll have a future agenda item and make a listing for what we're looking for
>> um and do we do we have a a task force makeup that we've had that would be you could use for guidance you think here >> I think we could >> okay >> we'll bring you back a recommendation >> um it could be as early as your next
meeting >> yeah because I's right time time is money on this on these >> okay um all right nothing else on that. Uh we will move on to Lynn's very brief town manager report.
>> Uh I had already announced that we um had success in hiring an electrician. So we're very excited about that. Uh Long Meadow Street South End Resurfacing Palmer Paving was the low bidder on that. This is from Crescent to the Connecticut line. Um bid came in at
921,000 and we had been planning on using 1.2 million in chapter 90 funds to cover that work. So it's great that it came in lower. That work's going to kick off in the spring. Uh municipal aggregation that was covered during um announcements, so I don't need to repeat
that again, but this was regarding new accounts. Uh Kvest site and design for the Red Fern um Williams parcel. The planning board held a meeting in November. They have another meeting scheduled for December 3rd. So for those people that are interested in seeing how
that progress is um going, you know, definitely tune in to those planning board meetings. There's a lot of really interesting conversation about it. Uh and then last week uh I attended the fire academy legislator day along with select board member uh Shelley Maynard Dwolf. It was a really interesting uh
morning. We were there with uh fire chief Riggnney. It was the first time the event was held in Western Mass. It's usually in Stow. Um we had an opportunity to go through different demo sessions on equipment and apparatus and
um fire demonstrations. Uh and then they also talked about some pending legislation for removal of PAS from turnout gear and um other things that may have a financial impact on the town in the future. And then just an update on the status of
the recycling barrel swap outs. Uh the um if you recall in October we had set the deadline for October 17th for people to make their final choice on um recycling cart size. Um with that an additional 147 146 carts were requested
during that time from early October to October 17th. Uh and so now with those final numbers, it did double the amount of carts needing to be purchased. Uh to purchase the carts and the lids, um it's a total of $22,572. There's a waiting period of 6 to 8 weeks
for those to come in. And the DPW has started to reach out to residents whose cart is currently in stock. And that's um the whole process though is going to take uh several weeks before we can say we're fully implemented. >> That concludes my report.
>> Um are you getting any feedback from waste management on the recycling carts or uh since they've switched to the automated? >> Um yeah, Lisa's the one that directly interfaces with them. Um, I do know that they had both been working together on
leaf litting when things were not right, uh, to try to educate residents to make sure they were putting it with the bar facing out, not having things overflowing, they were not picking up extra boxes on the side of stuff. Um, but if there's something specific, I can bring it back and ask her.
>> Well, I I somebody told me that their bins are ending up way down the street or on the other side of the street, which I I don't know what I did I did see I did hear that feedback too that some some streets are their bins are getting put back on the other side of
the street so they're lined up on one side of the street versus not being put at the end of their >> seemed like that would help in >> I don't even know that how that would happen but um I did I did see that and was told that >> and I think I what I was wondering about
I I know that uh if anybody should know how these were going to work it was us but I was surprised to know we had to put them three feet And but I I was looking out my window one morning and I saw there's somebody walking ahead of the truck pulling them farther out.
>> Oh. >> And I and mine because I know they have to be apart. So I've been doing that, but I don't know. Are we not doing it enough? >> I can ask. >> So yeah, that's something because that seems like an inefficiency to have somebody walking ahead. >> Yeah, they may be training new drivers.
Um there could be a lot of reasons for it. So I'll find out. >> Okay. Yeah, you're not so great at grasping it. So, let's make it a little easier for you and when you get better, you'll >> maybe >> there's that's a whole world I don't know a lot about. So, happy to bring it back. >> Yeah, just pass that on because if
there's anything that people need to know and that's what the leaf lighting is for, but if there's any bigger communications that need to be done. >> Yep. >> Lynn, one question about the the recycling. Are we still having a problem with the cardboard and the the filling
as fast as we were and maybe potential just non-residents using it or >> um I haven't had a report on that. Okay. In a couple weeks, so I will check on that as well. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> The Long Meadow Street South and resurfacing. Uh glad to hear that the
bid came in lower than we were projecting. Um, I know that this section of Long Meadow Street is on the, you know, it's on the schedule for a tip, uh, for tip money. Is this also, are we, I mean, are we doing a skim coat patch
here on the south end? Um, similar to what we did between Wheel Meadow and Bliss because that's also on the TIP project list. >> Yeah, I can get the the right terminology, but it's not um, obviously not full in-depth um, reconstruction.
Um, but it may be more than just a skim coat. >> Okay. >> So, I'll find out. It might be mill and overlay, but I'll I'll find out. >> Okay. Um, and then I So, I had asked this question earlier about uh when we did this over the summer and we um did kind of like a skim code over um you
know on between Will Meadow and Bliss and that's actually part of the Long Meadow Phase One project. So, I'd asked why we were doing this when we were getting state money for it, you know, next couple of years. Um, and the answer was was that this these roads had been uh were in such bad condition that they were deteriorated so badly that they
were basically damaging our snow plows and there was, you know, danger for us to even go one more winter with the roads in that condition. And so this is just going to be a kind of like a band-aid on there until we get the state money to actually reconstruct the road.
>> Okay. And finally, we're a little late on monthly reports. Yeah, there's actually a few people that were out of the office over the last week or so, so we'll post them to the >> next agenda. >> Thank you. Just showing I'm paying attention.
>> Yeah, absolutely. >> All right. Anything else uh uh for the town manager or on the monthly reports? >> No. >> Um All right. Moving on to correspondence. We have uh covered that pretty extensively. Anybody else? Okay.
Uh moving on, we have November. I'm sorry. Just on the correspondence, um I just wanted to address that a couple of the residents did make mention that they had not received a response back. So I did speak with some of them and clarified that they sent directly to the select board email, which is the one
that shows up only on select board. So we'll work internally in the office about putting something on the website that says if you use this email address, it'll show up at select board meeting. Um you might not get an immediate response, that type of thing, just so people don't think it didn't go anywhere. That's a good idea because it
always is an extra when it gets forwarded to us, it's we don't know if somebody's already responded and it's it takes a couple extra steps. So, >> so we'll work on cleaning that up. >> That's a good idea. Okay. >> And some of them did clarify that that some of it was to our department the town departments, but they hadn't got it back to. So,
>> Yep. Okay. >> Okay. >> Uh thank you, man. Um All right. Moving on to old business. November 3rd, 2025 meeting minutes. >> All right. I move to approve the November 3rd, 2025 meeting minutes. >> Second. >> All right. Anything further? I don't
think uh all those in favor. Uh roll. >> Roll call. Peggy, >> I'm sorry. >> Roll call, please. >> Uh Josh, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Uh Andy, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh moving on to mobile food
vendors on town property policy. Mike. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, this came up I believe in August we first discussed it. Maybe actually No, maybe it was September. I might be thinking of the track policy. Um, we took this back. There weren't a lot of suggested um amendments that we
had to make to this. We just kind of clarified some of the sections um for um mobile food vendor. The difference between mobile food and and be in and beverage. Um that's all under the um mobile food vendor as defined in the board of health regulations. So, food
and beverage, we can retitle it as food and beverage, but it all falls into mobile food vendor, whether it's a cart, booth, a truck, um, and so on. Um, we did receive some good feedback actually, um, last week on the Barnard part
parcel, the Bark Hall turnoff, which was one of the areas of question. public safety, town engineer, um fire, um mostly did not have an issue with that site. If there was no active construction staging in that area, there's going to be some gas work um
some paving work going on where it's likely that parcel is going to be used for storing some uh construction equipment. Um, as well as if there were mult if this became a popular site and there were multiple trucks, multiple carts, which I don't believe is our intent at this time is I think it's just regulating kind of locations and
figuring out how how to have something put put on paper so that we have um kind of more a more grasp on what's going on. Um, so with that said, uh, traffic concerns with if there was, um, parking limitations in there and somebody actually needed to pull off for
emergency reasons to make a U-turn for public safety. There may be some concerns with that area for that. With that said, I made the suggestion of doing it on an as needed basis, whereas they would have to request permission or not request permission, but get an outlook of current projects from public safety to see if there is a time frame
in which they would be able to use it. It's it seems like the Barnard parcel over the next year might not be applicable because of the active construction zone that it's going to be in. So, >> did we approve what co coffee roasters? >> We said contingent upon this
recommendation right here that we're giving. They haven't operated out of it yet. >> I don't think they I haven't seen them anywhere yet. >> Um they've been at I think either the park or um we'll swap one or the other. I think so. Um, but with that said, we should just probably maybe take that out of the policy for now and then add it or
make it clear that um the person would need to coordinate with public safety prior to their event to make sure that there's no >> Yeah. >> uh traffic or construction issues. I think that's probably the >> we're getting to the end of outdoor vending season. So, that's something we should definitely keep in mind. >> Yep.
>> Um >> but I do just add one more thing. I do think this is timely because we have received two more requests that could possibly come forward in the spring. So, >> yeah. So, I do think it's really good to have something. >> That's why you put a policy out. >> Yep. >> Um, >> so I my questions were less I I think
that this is uh I think this is good and I it worked in what we talked about last time. My like any policy, I think we have to see how it works in practice before uh to see if there's any holes in it. Um, but one of the things I I noticed the sign and I I go to poor
things a lot. They have a sign that they normally put up by the street. Is that is that in their permit now? >> No, technically that's not allowed and that's against the bylaw. So, that has been reported to um code enforcement in the past and I think they may have had
conversations with them in the past. >> So, but we can we can authorize that. >> Yes. has a special um under your objects on the tree belt policy. You can authorize that when they have events, >> they're authorized to put those signs on. >> So, I think my takeaway for that and
like the umbrellas and tables and chairs for people who are applying, they should take a very close look at this and be very specific on what they want because there's a lot of things that say you can't have it unless we say so. So, make
sure you're asking for what you want. And maybe when I don't know if our permit now says, "Have you reviewed the bylaws?" But >> it it it references all of the applicable bylaws. And then >> sorry, the policy. We should say, "Have you >> reviewed our policy?"
>> Yeah, that's a good point. >> I don't think >> um I think I brought Oh, sorry, Mike. >> No, no, I'm sorry. Um I think I brought up this brought this up last time, but I think 3.2 too, I I still think needs to be rewarded because to me it sounds like um you know a mobile food vendor is if
we allow it then they you know can operate at all of these different places and I think it needs to be rewarded to get rid of the shall um and maybe say something like you know the select board may approve mobile food vendors to operate at the following locations uh or
other locations as requested by the mobile food vendor. Uh because I if I looked at this I would say okay then these are definitely all the places that I can operate. Um >> upon you still want it to be upon request of those locations. >> I think you said instead of maybe shall
may or I think you're saying so it doesn't just lock them into all of those. Right. >> Right. >> Right. That's what I'm I think that's what I'm trying to say. So that when they apply for their annual permit they're specifically marking down which location. Didn't we decide that they these are the only places in town we would give permits for?
>> I think so. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I think we don't need it unless So, >> well, I mean like with Soal, we didn't app we didn't approve them for all of these places. >> No, that's what I'm saying. So, these are the only thing you could do. So >> right, >> instead of rather than unless specifically approved by the select board, it would be mobile food vendors
may only operate at the following locations and end as permitted by the select board. >> Yeah, something like that. >> Okay, I see what you're saying. >> Or may only apply for even because it's
Yeah, like you said, we don't want anybody thinking I have a permit. I can do what any of these places. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But besides what you said about the signs and the tables, that was the only other thing that stuck out to me. I think everything else looked great. >> Actually, I think we might need to reward this completely, that section
>> 3.2, >> because right now the way I still read it is >> if you apply for it, you these are the blanket locations. Yeah. >> So, I think we need to make it clear that um when you submit an application for a permit, you have to specify which
applications, which you operate out of, and then the select board can decide whether or not >> to grant that or to give them additional locations. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, I can rework that one. I >> Yep. Yeah, that sounds good. >> All right. Um well, we're still working on it. I guess
we don't need to vote on it tonight and nobody else is applying until the spring. So, >> y >> why don't we just have this come up one more time uh with that change. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Anybody else uh on that
before we move on? I move on to the traffic and roads policy. I can touch on that one as well. So, we met as a group with the traffic and roads advisory group last week or the week prior. um talked about some of the
amendments that first came forward to the select board a few months back. Um one of the changes was the implementation of the complete streets bylaw um which we've had since uh 2017 for the priorit prioritization plan since has been updated in either 2023 or
2024. Um so there is now a um disclaimer in the policy that acknowledges the complete streets bylaw and you could also link directly to the prioritation prioritization plan as well. Um additionally we have now added
a section where it says upon review of an application or on its own track has a discretion to deploy the following measures without input from the select board with the exception of projects listed on the complete streets prioritization plan. So we just added that with the exception of the projects listed on the complete streets prioritiz
prioritization plan. And then lastly we added a section for active construction um which is highlighted in blue and the construction zone is defined as an area on the public right of way where construction repair, maintenance or
survey work is actively being performed by authorized personnel or contractors. And this is pretty much saying that trafficcoming applications in areas currently undergoing road construction will be temporarily halted um until road
construction is complete so that we can re-engage this scenario and see what other mitigation factors may be applicable. Those are the only changes that were requesting. I I don't object to the referencing the
complete streets bylaw just this is a policy and that doesn't read as part of the policy I guess but it is important to reference it because it comes up later but I don't know this comes back to when we
first started working on the tra on this policy how much of it do we want it to be prescriptions versus kind of a laying out the the philosophy and
I don't really have a problem with it. Um but uh so that's all I'll say about that. But um I think that adding the active construction is a good idea. Uh because you know like Converse Street already
you can't get you can't petition TRAG for it anyway. But, uh, a street like that that is having active use, like Western Avenue, uh, it's good to cut it off now that if we have issues later, we can talk about it, but not while in active construction. I think that's a
good idea. And, um, I will just give a um, applaud it to the to track. This might have predated Tre, but the since the the speed signs have gone on Ellington and Farmington, I I do think
they've made a difference. And uh it's it's interesting that a little thing like that can affect the way people uh affect the way they act. And so, you know, this is it's something that's that's what TRA's for. And if people want to interact with this, I think it's
it can do good things for your neighborhood. Anybody else? >> No. >> All right. Ian just can't wait to to go. >> Uh, >> he's been waiting a long time.
>> Has Jim been waiting? Is he on Oh, boy. >> All right. Well, we'll move on to uh the real estate tax abatement. >> Do you Do you want me to make any amendments? >> No. Do we uh we can vote on it for y'all? I'm sorry.
Do we have a a motion to vote on the updated traffic and roads amended policy? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. Anything further? Seeing nothing. All those in favor? >> Roll call. >> Roll.
>> Okay. Josh, >> yes. >> Ben, >> yes. >> Shel, >> yes. >> Andrew, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you. that. >> All right, Jim, we don't pay you enough to go through this, but
>> no problem. Thanks for having me. >> All right. Uh, so this was we changed this last year. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. So, uh, Jim, please, uh, go ahead and present. >> Yeah. So, I pres I provided the, um, 2026 real estate tax abatement program
for everybody to review. And there's um really no changes from last year. Um if we have 30 participants coming up for 2026, that'll be the um the up to about there wouldn't be any
that would exceed the 30. And um you know, we're getting the applications ready after tonight. We'll have them ready for the public shortly after and then we'll um we will start. >> We're getting camera access. >> There we go. >> There we go.
>> Oh, okay. >> Sorry, Jim. >> Oh, no problem. >> Did you hear any of that? >> We did. >> I heard there's Yeah, >> up to 30 volunteers, I think. or you're preparing the paperwork. Go ahead. >> Yeah. And um yeah, I mean the program
has been very successful over the past year. Uh this year we in 2025 we had 28 total people, 20 seniors, eight veterans, and the impact and the importance of these roles continues to grow. Um we have a lot of volunteers that help out in the adult center. We
have other volunteers that are helping out in other departments such as the library, veterans department, town manager's office, town clerk. So, um the the impact throughout the community for the volunteers to help out in certain areas is continues to be um be a big
program and people look forward to participating here. We have some of our core members at the adult center that have um reapplied year after year for this program to get the rebate. So, we think it's a win-win for everybody involved. >> All right. Thanks, Jim. Yeah, this is a
fantastic program. And uh so, you're just about at capacity. Are you turning away any seniors? >> Uh we no we haven't turned anybody away. Um the only times we turn people away is if they reach out to us um after we've already selected the volunteers for the
year or have already had people place. Sometimes that can happen like a couple months after the fact. If they hear about the program then unfortunately we ask them to reapply after the following year. But usually we get um around the same amount of people depending, you know, uh a little bit more at times, but
it's usually right around that 30 range. Uh a little bit higher, a little bit less sometimes, but you know, we've gotten a lot of great support from town departments over the years, which has made the the placements a lot easier going forward. >> Okay, that's great. Um anybody want to
speak on this before we vote? Beneath. >> Yeah, thanks Jim. Um would it help um for us to increase the cap of 30? >> I think 30 is the uh perfect number right now. We've increased it over the years. It was at 20, then I think it went to 25. I think 30 is the sweet spot
right now. >> Okay, great. Yeah. And then um I just I did notice um I think a typo uh under the first section eligibility uh just the third line it says I think the comma's in the wrong place for the amount for veterans. Um, so I don't know
if we can just edit that. So >> the comments is in the right place. There's extra zero >> or just extra zero. Yeah, either way. Um, oh yeah. Yeah, sorry. Um, yeah. So if we just edit that. >> Lawyers, I tell you. >> You going to send him a bill to
>> you might bill us for how long he's been waiting. Um, all right. Uh, all right. If there's seeing nothing else, uh, if we have a motion to adopt the 20 26 real estate tax abatement program. >> If I can just ask for the board to
specify the amount and indicate what earnings are going to be received by both senior and veterans. The reason I asked for this specifically is it's part of our overlay and the assessor will need the amounts in order to estimate
what our overlay hit will be with these um veterans seniors. >> Thank you. >> Sounds like an job. >> Jeez. >> All right. Wait, so what did you need? You needed uh so 2,000 for seniors, 1500 for veterans, and then what else? >> Yes. >> Is that it? >> Do you need that or you don't need the
breakdown? >> I I would need the total. So that's 2,000 and the >> it's my fault >> the 7 the 1875 and the 1500 I would need you to tell me how many of each and then the amounts if I could have that in the
minutes we can specify the overlay hit. >> Sorry. So do you mean so if you add them here? >> So in section five um underneath senior volunteer and veteran volunteer it specifies the total f taxable earnings per participant
>> um and I would need to you to tell me how many participants for each and then the approved amount um for both. So the 20 3862 for seniors and the 163090 for veterans.
16 390 for veterans. Okay. >> Do you need this them broken into specific buckets? >> Yes. Because the reason the reason we need them broken into specific buckets is if we have a veteran who can apply as
a senior that is a larger hit to the overlay and versus the opposite. >> So with so are you um sorry I just want to make sure I'm understanding this. So within the 30 spots, do we have to say like 20 are for seniors, 10 are for veterans?
>> It's helpful if that is specified within the minutes. >> Okay. Um >> it's something that we've done prior to this year. We did not do it this year and it creates a little um kurfuffle with the abatements. So I just want to make sure that that's specified.
>> Okay. >> Okay. And um so Jim, you did say there were 20 seniors and eight veterans this last time around, right? That's under >> per year. Correct. >> Okay. So, so doing 20 seniors, 10 veterans sounds good. >> That's reasonable. Yeah. >> Okay. Great.
>> Yeah. We spoke to Ian about this and we got some flexibility in the language. If there was um it went high underneath the category, I think as long as it balances out budget wise for Ian, then the 20 and 10 number makes makes sense all around. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. Uh all right.
So, I will uh I will make a motion to approve the senior veteran volunteer services program um the volunteer abatement program guidelines and application with um seniors uh being set at $2,000, veterans
being set at $1,500 with 20 spots uh for seniors. Uh 10 spots for veterans. And you also need me to add the tax, don't you? No, that's that's fine. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Second.
>> See anything further? Seeing nothing. >> Go ahead. >> I beat you, Dan. Sorry. >> Josh, >> yes. >> Shel, >> yes. >> Andrew, >> yes. >> Ben, >> yes. >> Dan, >> yes. >> Thank you. I apologize for the
confusion. >> All right. Thank you, Jim. >> Okay. Thanks for having >> Thanks, Jim. Thank you. >> All right, Ian, it's your time to shine. >> All right. >> Fiveyear financial outl. >> All right. Um, do you want to pull it
up, Peggy? I'll kind of just touch over it real quick while you do that. Everyone's fresh and well. >> I I do I do wonder I mean I hate to say you've been here the whole time but we we have a lot coming up on our agenda but I wonder if we want to table this until we are listening fresh.
>> That's totally that's totally fine. I'm if if you want to table >> you don't feel like you wasted your entire >> No, I mean I I totally understand like >> we couldn't have made the last motion without Ian here. >> All right. Strike lights. >> I I just you know this is an
>> important conversation. Yeah. And I I don't want to give a short shift and I know you put a lot of work into it and I'd rather us not my you know my eyes are spinning right now. Um so if if you're if you don't mind >> I don't mind if I could ask though if
you guys have specific questions as you've gone through the report that you have for me. If you could give them to me that would be awesome. That way I can kind of add them into the discussion when we next meet. That would be super helpful. Just one real quick question that I was going to ask you about was uh when
you're looking at debt service, if we could get the breakdown of what debt service is tied to enterprise. >> Sure. >> Versus not enterprise. I think that'd be really helpful. >> I can do that. >> That's a good idea. >> Yeah. I didn't know if that was something that the board would want to see or if they want to see it as a
whole. So happy to break that. >> I mean, for me, I I I feel like at least enterprise funds that's whole different >> Yeah. of course. Just so you guys know, I had spoken to Ian earlier today about and suggested at least commenting if not making a slide for future upcoming borrowing in the
next five years that we can anticipate um and how that might affect >> Yeah. >> the debt service and stuff like that. So, >> uh so our next meeting is um the joint meeting, the budget kickoff meeting >> six o'clock starts. >> Yeah. Um, so we start with the
>> You sure you went >> budget kickoff with school committee and select um and finance committee. >> Is that's an argument to do it then or not do it then and do it now? >> No, I'm I'm just putting it on your radar. >> You're starting it at six. So that gives us really four hours >> to meet.
>> I'm I'm okay to listen to this if it's if the next meeting is too long. Is that what you're >> No, no, no, no. I think that fits in well. >> Well, it's good. Okay, fine. I think it will loop into the budget kit. >> Okay, perfect. So, >> yeah. >> And it saves Ian from presenting to finance committee on his own twice. >> Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.
>> All right. So, it made it it'll make it worth it that he came in. >> Knock out the financ. >> I honestly don't think we've ever tabled something. Can we How do we uh do we need a motion? >> It's a pleasure of the board. >> Continue discussion. >> All we're going to table this to the next meeting. Sorry. Thank you very
much. >> No, that's fine. >> Sorry. It's Hey, I appreciate your I appreciate Now you told me it's an option. >> I appreciate your focus. So, you know, this is something I'm happy to wait on. >> Yeah, I know you you have put a lot of
work into it and uh so definitely want to make sure that we are giving it our full attention. >> Yeah. >> Um All right. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn then. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have to say anything all I have to say
anything else? No. No. All right. Go ahead. Yes. Todd. >> Uh, yes. >> Yes. >> Shel. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you.