here we're giving money back right got to be all right good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Lunberg Select Board today is Tuesday April 1st just wait for that to be muted please stand for the pledge of allegiance
i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg Access YouTube channel after the meeting the agenda
lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law we're going to
begin with public comment are there any public comments from the board nope you have any public Oh sorry no all right are there any public comments from the public thanks for letting me speak my name is Daryl Plant and I live
at 490 Lancaster A i stand in opposition to an override for funding our schools i have a fifth grader currently at Turkey Hill and so you might ask what gives my son and I moved here from Lemonster about 8 years ago my son and
wife moved here about eight years ago because the schools were highly rated and they stood close to Graten Nishoba Westford and others overall the Lunberg community seemed like a good fit at the time the school committee had just hired a new
superintendent for the last 3 to four years my wife and I participated in many school committee meetings in order to convey our concerns about the direction the schools were going in we were lone soldiers and our concerns fell on deaf ears we came to realize the
superintendent was an ideological warrior for diversity equity and inclusion and it was her mission to infuse DEI into every aspect of Lunberg public schools some example include the hiring of consultants to provide teachers with professional development training on
topics such as DEI and critical race theory they spent $30,000 on an equity audit followed by the creation of an equity committee and the restructuring of schedules for all students to include a mandatory social emotional learning
class after asking the superintendent and other school committee members numerous times to share their definition of equity the superintendent finally presented this picture and their school and the school committee gave their full support with
the explanation at the next comm committee meeting I told them just how wrong and immoral it was to take away the support from a high achiever and give it to a low achiever and that all students should be appropriately challenged
i further advised this would lead to an overall decline in academic performance today's students who are in the upper one-third are languishing and their futures have been altered forever this is sick lunberg is now one of the worst performing districts in the
region about a year and a half ago we came to the realization that the superintendent and school committee members were like-minded nothing was going to change so we stopped participating in the school committee meetings for the last few months we've heard about potential layoffs and the
cutting of AP courses and programs like music art as well as increasing user fees for sports and imposing new fees for busing this has all been done deliberately to shape opinion and gain votes there is a cancer in our schools
and until it is removed the patient will not get better giving more money to this institution will only prolong the inevitable in the past our senior citizens could proudly say "Yes our taxes are high but I'm willing to
sacrifice because we have very good schools." Unfortunately this is no longer true thank you thank you Mr plant are there any other public comments from the public mr bowen hi uh this is like for tall people
sorry um I want to speak about John Bowen 162 Highland Street i want to speak about free speech in a public meeting before a public board specifically speaking the cemetery commission's attempt to grade speech on March 27th 2025 claiming publicly in
their official capacity that somehow I was providing disinformation which we know was a false statement of fact and they open the door for debate the first amendment prohibits government officials from silencing speakers based on their point of view silencing is claiming my
statements are disinformation this is called viewpoint discrimination in First Amendment law when the government discriminates against viewpoints it is distorting the marketplace of ideas and impeding free trade and ideas by allowing the expression of some ideas but not others sometimes government
officials camouflage viewpoint discrimination by contending there is simply protecting the public from offensive or disruptive speech but as the US Supreme Court made clear in Mattel versus TAM in 2017 giving offense is a viewpoint the court elaborated on
this point two years later in Ayanku versus Brunetti in 2019 explaining that the judgment of whether speech is immoral scandalous or otherwise offenses distinguishes between two opposed sets of ideas those aligned with conventional moral standards and those hostile to
them those inducing societal nods of approval and those provoking offense and condemnation to respond to a citizen that their speech is disinformation would take the public comment to debate this isn't the first time this commissioner has made accusation as such
they did at a town meeting last year if you remember clearly I believe that not only was my conduct equal to the conduct of the commission what may appear as disruptive behavior in its purview my engagement was equal speech for equal speech wherein if the commission raises their
voice to subjugate the speech or basically calling me a liar then raising a voices in debate of the issue is the equal and equitable response basically if speech is yelling or if commenting is debate then equally yelling and commenting in return is free speech and
it cannot be considered disruptive speech i just want to be clear speech is protected regardless of its manner i would be glad to highlight additional SCOTUS opinions of what a citizen is allowed to say that could be covered by political speech as if I was a candidate
for office however I believe we know political speech is granted at an even greater latitude for a candidate of public office than it would be protected okay and the courts would look upon with more strict scrutiny conveniently I happened to have a conversation with the
chief Tibido who was waiting to meet with the town manager at her office on a separate matter while I was in a meeting with the town manager that she called about this very matter and upon my own inquiry to him about the matter he said they do not remove people from public meetings for first amendment speech but
use deescalation techniques to allow the free flow of speech and forums like that well I guess calling the police on me would not have worked because no one was coming to put a black bag over anyone's head zip ties on them and removed them from a public meeting in the town of Lunberg touche to the
chief what was the issue dd214 social security numbers cause of death contained in a cloud program belonging to a contracted company known as Raymaker Corporation of which is used as a management tool by the DBW to legally operate the cemetery these documents are
protected one by HIPPA two by Military Records uh the Military Records Act and under the Privacy Act of 1974 bowen you're at three minutes if you want to just get to the conclusion well I'd like you if the chair would just all lot me probably another minute and a half would that be suffice just Thank you sir go
through really quickly does anyone want the information of how their loved one died in the hands of board members who could change hands every 3 years by election or by every appointment what about accessing in a cloud a private server of this information not a government computer what happens if this is leaked well your cemetery commission
is not interested in this as well as other matters which are so numerous I would need about an hour to tell you i have a couple of emails about this the first one Nancy Yasco demanded for password access which she was told she could not have access by the DPW director and Heather the Mule a former town manager for these exact privacy
reasons however she demanded Brandon an employee of Ray Maker to give her a password i have the email here if you'd like to see it which he acquired in March of 2024 against the direction of the town manager and DPW director as well as I have an email here from Bill Bernard about the cemetery commission
overstepping their boundary and involving themselves in day-to-day operation which is under the purview of the DPW and town manager highlighting section 35 the cemetery commission in the charter all right Mr bowen I promise I will not stop you're over four minutes please we have a lot on the agenda
tonight i'm just I only have about that much left we need to continue with the meeting we know that there's public comment at the end of the meeting you can finish it then i would greatly appreciate that and thank you very much but the records issue is a serious issue and Miss uh uh Lori Tran is actually
spearheading through her own office okay the revamping of this to make sure that public records are not disseminated thank you Mr thank you thank you Mr chair any other public comments from the public seeing none on Zoom we're going to move on to announcements and I do have a
couple dog licenses applications for 2025 dog licenses were due today if you submitted a registration slip your tags are ready to be picked up at the town clerk's office dog tags must be picked up to be considered licensed so if you haven't done so yet go to the town
clerk's office to pick up your dog tags changes in trash pickup routes take effect next week some Monday pickup roads are switching to Wednesday and some Thursday roads are switching to Friday so if you get your trash picked up on Monday or Thursday and you haven't
done so yet check that list to verify if your day is changing or not uh it should have been mailed to you i received mine my pickup day is changing you can find the full list on the town's website Facebook page or reach out to our office or the DPW we can help you verify as
well and finally the all vendor fair this is the event that Josie Gilchrist gave a presentation on it'll be on May 10th from 11:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m at TC Pacios it's going to be a great community event there's going to be over 60 vendors a hayride live music food
trucks a dunk tank and even medieval sword fighting so I will be there and I hope you will be attending as well all right communications from other boards i'm not seeing any so we'll move on to our 705 public hearing for flammable storage license
for keeping and storing of four 1,00galon propane tanks for DEO gas company on behalf of the owner Sunshine Nominee Trust at 181 Kilburn Street so I will invite the applicant up to give us a general overview of the application and I'll also ask the clerk to read the
public hearing notice give me just one second the licensing authority authority will hold a public hearing on Tuesday April 1st 2025 at 7:05 p.m at Lunberg Town Hall 17 Main Street Lunberg on an application from Dio Gas Company on behalf of owner Sunshine Nominee Trust
for a license for keeping and storage of four 1,000galon tanks of propane to be located at the property at 181 Kilburn Street the property is used as a greenhouse family farm all right hello how are you my name is Brian Sora i'm with Dio Gas and I'm here
as well with uh well I'm here on behalf of and and with Sunshine Nominee Trust for the license that we have in front of you for the keeping and storage of four 1,00 gallon propane tanks to be located at over at 181 Kilburn Street uh this is
going to be used for a greenhouse and family farm we've come before you in the past on a on a separate greenhouse and are hoping to increase our capacity at that location for a separate greenhouse and be able to power the greenhouse with its own propane storage tanks um a good
distance away from the existing one that we have on site right now and um I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have um we have gone we have had communications with the fire department um but the owner of my company has spoken with lieutenant and I apologize
ahead of time leaditis um close enough perfect and um it by their account you know everything looks good in terms of the plan of course they would go and do a final inspection should we receive approval and would need to uh confirm all NFPA codes are being followed um one
thing that they did mention was that they would like to see crash protection on site around the tanks just in case you know any sort of fields being plowed that there's protection there uh and we have already ready to go on site 14 Jersey barriers that we prepare to use
for that crash protection around the propane tanks as well so um happy to answer any questions that you all have or anybody you know any members um that are here as well all right thank you i'll open it up to the board with any questions how Oh sorry Rene go ahead um how close
is this to the other set of tanks is it on the plot plane somewhere so the one that I have and I'm not sure if this was the screenshot that you all had received but it it's it's it is not on this map it's a good distance away i don't have
the exact footage but um this kind of provides a scale this is at least 25 ft from that greenhouse there so again without the exact measurement you know we're talking quite a few hundred feet away okay i only ask if it's close by is it going to be essentially like having eight tanks got it understood and it it
would be actually if the fire chief isn't concerned about the location can I address that yeah just coming up to the podium there might be a little bit of Excuse me there might be a little bit of confusion on that the four actually we came before
the board last year right for our site at Northfield Road and we had four tanks set up at 647 Northfield Road and then at 677 Northfield Road but this would be a site that we farm on Lancaster A and we have an entrance on Gooditch Street
as well so it's miles away okay oh yeah okay i remember last year and I didn't remember the exact location okay and the farm name would be Dicks Market Gardens okay and sorry I should have brought this up can you just state your name and address for the record um my name is Steven Violet 677 Northfield Road
Lutenberg okay thank you Tom do you have any questions i do not have any questions just looks like everything is all set i see the email from the chief as well all set as long as there's no concerns I have no further questions michael Ray so looking at our policy on this um it says
that an application for the use of land for um inflammables shall be accompanied by the following tax certification form a plot plan showing the location of the storage tank for crude petroleum or any of its products location of any building or structure for any other flammables
inflammables location of septic systems location of well etc can you just direct me in your application for where we can see that at uh so I was not the person who submitted the application i don't have that i was just given an over over
an aerial view here to present to you also i apologize in advance i don't have that on me in terms of submitted material here maybe we can talk through it um as you look at the plan that you have are you aware of where the septic system is on this property uh I couldn't have Steve speak on this but this is a
greenhouse with a barn but I'll let Stephen um so the site actually is an APR site um and we're quite a distance off of Lancaster app there's no septic systems on site uh as far as flammable storage
uh we would have one diesel tank on site but that would be probably 4,000 ft away from where this tank would be and it would be on a separate uh parcel of land that's not 181 but would be 554 Lancaster A okay so the next question is
on you know related to the abutters so the map that we see doesn't really show us where the abutters are in relation to them it's a little challenging um but we do have you know the abutters list so could you just help um I guess as best you can since we
don't have the plan could you just kind of help orient us to how close this is to um the next residential property line yeah so um it would be the closest house that would be would be um on Lancaster A
on the corner of Lancaster A and Kilborn and would be the house I would see um right there kind of on the map i don't know if you have a map like this at all on the Abutters map then we're Yeah I was just looking at the Abutters map to
try to figure it out um cuz we don't see Lancaster A on this so it's hard to tell yeah we don't see it on the butters either but there are a lot the closest house to the proximity would be I'm going to take a stab at it but would be
um I'm going to say 3,000 ft so just looking at the two maps it looks like the tank you can kind of see Kilburn on the bottom right it looks like there's a little curve so it looks like it's located basically in the middle of this lot right here there's only four
Lancaster addresses on the list so it's got to be one of those lancaster A so the property might be a little bit of confusion on it we're actually entering a lot of times we enter the site from 554 Lancaster A and then the site is 181 and then there's an additional access on
Kilborn Street which we kind of go over with the bridge that we are just Michael R are you still looking to be oriented to where exactly the tanks are going on that Abutters yeah so okay so can I just show you this cuz I don't know if you've seen this do you mind just like pointing it so we can just generally see
yeah that's fine okay um so it would be 21 I would believe would be the closest house right here okay all right so let me go back to the Thank you Steve i'll come back to any
questions thank you all right i don't have any questions this is a public hearing so we can open it up to the public if anyone wants to comment or make any uh ask any questions i do see someone on Zoom that has their hand raised uh Devin
and just state your name and address devin Shay 612 Lancaster A i believe we So we are the house on the corner of Kilborn and Lancaster that was referenced i believe that we are the closest abuing neighbor um and just
curious is are the is the plan for the tanks that they're going to be dropped in the ground and buried or are they above ground through the chair if I can answer that those will be above ground above ground okay um where in so like
from our backyard like we can see the big greenhouse where in relation from the greenhouse and our house are those tanks going to be they're going to be about 25 ft further into where the clearings are where the pasture are so
away from the woodland and away from where Kilburn Street actually is it would be further into the farmland fur so be like past the greenhouse kind of um do you know the existing greenhouse that's already there yes so it would be
in between the existing greenhouse and the new greenhouse but still set back another uh 30 it's 35 ft from the new construction and also the tanks would be going further from where your house is
uh towards the wood line but it would be if you needed a reference point or a reference point would be kind of um if you brought the furthest edge of the greenhouse that's existing straight across the field and then took uh 30 ft
from the existing greenhouse that's where they would be gotcha okay does that make sense or Yes we're sharing the map so maybe I might be able to see it now for those on Zoom
are the tanks are the tanks enclosed by uh a fencing or something they're going to have jersey barriers surrounding them on all four sides so that's for the crash protection and uh they're already on site
mr plant uh come up just come up to the podium name and address again um uh Daryl Plant 490 Lancaster F i'm his neighbor and a butter um simple question
last year they read re um redrrew the lines on the new on the water protection districts you now clearly uh do fall within zone two i know you're a farm how does this line up in terms of those new rags and what your what's required
of you thank you yeah I can speak to the to the propane storage portion of it so anytime that a tank is to be buried in the ground if there's wetlands or anything involving water we will generally put tie downs on that and anchor it down with concrete
pads so that they don't dip overflow if there's any flooding in the case of above ground tanks um we don't really run into that issue there wouldn't be a need for it i will point out that propane is non-toxic it's a non-contaminant so in terms of in contact with water it does not
contaminate water at all it's it's a clean burning fuel source and so um you know in a situation where it came into contact of it it would just dissipate um there would be no contamination to any water i hope that answers the question does that line up with the Rex the new
Rex that were drawn in terms of allowable uses do you want to list them repeat that question if you don't want to come up so you're asking if it Come on up to the podium there's a whole Last year when they passed this right at town meet
start at the podium yeah last year when they passed this at town meet it gave a whole list of dos and don'ts within that district does it line up that's all with the rags i don't know i can't speak to it i don't know if you can yeah as we understand it that there is not uh we
are in front of you all for a special permit because of the capacity here so we're certainly north of what the propane capacity is by right um which is why we're seeking the approval for the special permit so on in that instance we're not which is why we're here um and the reason for the increased storage is
to eliminate the need for vehicles diesel trucks to be constantly commuting in and out of that neighborhood area um these these green houses those heating units that are inside of those have such a high BTU rate that we need the additional capacity in order for that
to efficiently run and run for a length enough time that you're not having diesel trucks backing in and out of there and disrupting the neighborhood so frequently so I understand your reasoning but I don't think you answer answered the the citizens question so
have you checked with zone 2 what a district you know allow what's allowed in that area or do you need to check with you know either the water district or the conservation commission about it that's I think what the question is we've had
we've had no indication that this was I mean I don't have the bylaw in front of me but planning fire has not indicated that we're in any sort of obstruction to what that district allows for yeah it wouldn't be under fire so just just meeting all the boards and committees that we've gone in front of
um the conservation commission our engineers go through that and make sure that if there's any like we we do have to go in front of conservation commissions all the time with different projects that we do this did not by all accounts there was no indications that we needed to go in front of conservation again I don't have the bylaw to source
it myself that's why I just don't want to speak out of context massive question and I would say through the chair too you could with your approval condition it that it is conditioned to be approved you know under the condition that it adheres to that district right did you
check with conservation first i have not we have not had any indication but what has led to the lack of indication well our we hire engineers to go through and read the bylaws and everything and that they're the ones that would have indicated if if there was an issue with it so the map that that I'm looking So I
I went to Google Maps on this one um because you know the plan that you provided you know it's a little different than I think what the policy says but you know these things can be overcome but the um as I look at the Google map it looks as if the greenhouse itself is pretty close to a large
wetland system that's part of the I never say it right uh katakuna bat katakunamug brook um and so all of this is kind of in that general area um you know and it's pretty close from what we
can see in the map as I'm looking at it now from what I can determine to be a wetland system um you know it would be Can I answer to that sure so we did I did contact you know did have some meetings with the
conservation and we did have a hired out a conservation consultant too Tommy Christopher so we went over it and we did speak and we brought the the greenhouse actually further into the field that was already in sight of what we were already into production and his
feeling was that we were outside any of the limits or buffer zones of the brook okay did they were they did they provide you any statement or email to that effect uh no we were going with our consultants you were on that site visit with them uh with the with the
consultant yes how far where you moved it to now how far is it from the brook i would say it's 200 f feet okay we took that into consideration okay so if we want to get a clear opinion on whether or not it falls in either of the
zones for the wetland protection bylaw we could continue the public hearing and have the building commissioner who's the zoning enforcement officer weigh in so that is an option um but Rondaissio go ahead rondaissia 181 Reservoir Road it's
my recollection and understanding that the water district protection area is designated by the D not conservation not the water district
so that's my comment thank Yeah it doesn't seem like conservation of the water district would really weigh in here on this it seems like it would be our building commissioner who would who would know about that so I yeah I don't know if the building I'm not sure the building commissioner all I would say is that the offer and that was going to be
my my t as well was to condition it but whoever has to give us approval that in a zone 2 water protection area I mean we could get our own conservation to talk about the katakuna mug issue and we should but for the zone 2 water
protection area we need to go to the authority on that and I don't know who that is whether it's directly mass D or whether it's the water district themselves that could say it but we need something jen are you do you know who would have the best you this bylaw isn't
even on the general code online so um I I can't see it to refer to it to planning board has it because that's what we passed so all right Rhonda go ahead ron Delissio 181 Reservoir Road again um in Isn't
there also a right to farm bylaw or something in this town we're not stopping them from farming well what I'm saying is I think it allows for certain things that wouldn't normally be allowed by conservation well
that might be true i mean but they're coming to us for a special permit so there's a lot of different factors that we have to balance and and you know approve i don't disagree with you i just we'd want to make sure that all the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed here and and I certainly appreciate you all's
due diligence by no means am I you know I would ask that if you had no other issues with this that you offer an approval with that condition that there's you know um conservation says that there's new we're happy to go in front of conservation by all means answer any questions and triple check to
make sure that you know we adhere to any issues there um again I'll just speak to the propane itself it's non-toxic we you know we do follow all codes regulations everything we'll pass any inspections that that are there whether it's NFPA and again happy to to to go through any
other boards or committees i would just ask if there was no other um issues that you all had and by all means if you have more questions I'm happy to answer more go ahead Renee i would add in addition to conservation I mean I'm looking at the GIS map and it's it's definitely in
a zone two which is that's where the water comes in and feeds into the water supply so I don't know if that's the water district and or D because D sets the guidelines but water district can make them more strict but I think I don't think the water to
be as I'm thinking about it I think the water district doesn't have jurisdiction because the town it's a town land and so the town makes the districts if anything mass has the overarching authority on what happens in a zone two I don't know what's allow I mean because it's propane
I I don't know yeah and again it's it's It's it's a non-contaminant so we generally don't ever run into issues with DP the the other alternatives here would be diesel which is a byite you know under the circum burn rates which is a much higher greenhouse gas emitter and it's you know would be a contaminant
if spilled those types of fuel sources have you know um contain fuel spill containment systems that are needed which is usually when you run into D EPA regulations that we need to adhere to but propane is an EPA certified clean
alternative fuel which is generally why it doesn't need to go to that extent um with these types of systems michael Ray so um broadly speaking you know uh Steven and his family have run a really good business here in town um no questions about you know no question
about that at all um and I think that it's pretty clear that this would be um supportive to the business and so broadly speaking you know I support the request i'm a little hesitant though with the conditional approval you're requesting today i you know my mindset is more Can I cut you off before you go
in because I just read the that bylaw and it says right in it that in the the prohibited uses in zone 2 it talks about fuel and then it says except for liqufied petroleum gas which is what this is so it clearly is stated it's not prohibited yes okay in the bylaw i mean
I didn't mean to cut you off i just say it before you kept going thank you Amanda so what would be helpful to me thank you Amanda for that as well what would be helpful to me is um is to get some confirmation that there's no impact on conservation i mean you know we could certainly do a conditional but I mean
you know if the response is that there needs to be modifications to the plan you're back in front of us anyway um to be able to get you know something modified and to get approval again so it just seems in my opinion as a member um you know I certainly support it don't
really see much conflict i think in the course of like a week or two you know a dot could be uh crossed and a T could you know T could be crossed a dot could be I I could be dotted and then then we don't have any of these questions and then that way we could just get a clean approval for the whole thing that's you
know my inclination but I don't have any concerns for what you've presented here today uh aside from you know in the future I know that when you came across for Northfield one of the things that was really important was seeing that site plan that shows you know all these different features that the policy
requires so that way you know you don't get hit you know this could be a fivem minute kind of request here um but the questions are because we don't have all that data but certainly I think you've been a clearly you guys have done a great job in the past we've had no issues with the other tank that was installed and again I don't have any
major concerns I just don't want to step on someone else's toes Yeah and just respectfully back the reason why I I would I'm suggesting go that way is just because we don't know if there's any reason for us to go in front of conservation and and like um Madam Moore had said that it
specifically states that propane's not prohibited so I'm just offering that as as an olive branch to continue on and gladly meet with people despite it not being something that we need to but not have a provider hurdle if it's not necessary and not something that we would be required to do anyways so I'll
ask the board do we want them to go before the Conservation Commission i I don't know if they need to go before them as much as just meet with the agent get an email that says not applicable or feedback from the Conservation Commission feedback yes yes from the agent yeah
okay so it sounds like we're all sort of in agreement with that but um do we want to approve the license with that condition that the conservation agent provides positive feedback
i'm okay with that I'm okay with I don't have strong feelings in either way i could see it go either way yeah I I support the board my feelings aren't that strong it's just a preference all right so Amanda I could be getting confused i'm still just looking at the
that what passed the last town meeting and it says the special permit appointing of um approval authorities the planning board is that something separate that has to be something separate yeah it's definitely not for this okay i I would
be happy to approve it with the condition um in that case I mean I think there's a license requirement here right which is what we're doing and then there is the site plan requirement which is totally separate yes uh have you gone through the planning board and gotten
site plan approval for any of this uh we have not yet as far as I understand this was just for the license for the uh additional propane storage capacity of north of 2,000 gallons so that kind of complicates a little more i mean doesn't
My concern here is you know typically right I mean what you would I used to be on the planning board typically you'd you'd get you know site plan approval make sure everything's good that makes the second approval for the license easier because it's like hey someone's already looked at this they've already reviewed it everything's good to go here
you go here's a license it all complies but what we're doing essentially is a little backwards where we're going to give a license for something that's conditional on other people's approval that you know they may make some changes and modifications in my experience and and we do this you
know it's it's oftentimes we do this for temporary heat farmlands um for our own propane storage because our tanks are in excess of 30,000 gallons it's generally viewed as two different conversations so for you all it's a fundamental question of if you're okay with propane storage
capacity north of 2,000 gallons and so as we've always interpreted it whether it's board of selection first planning board second or or vice versa we have two separate conversations to make so I don't think it I mean that kind of just is I guess we're we're essentially posing that question to you without it
needing to be a planning board because it's um I guess it's it's questions that need to go to each of you individually and all be it to to I don't think you're hearing any opposition to the size um you know I can't speak for my colleagues but I don't know anyone's commented on the size or concerns about it but is
that what we're is that all we're being asked yeah that's the license just for the capacity so my opinion hasn't changed at all you know I I mean even in terms of conservation it's fine if we want to have that conditional approval i don't
mind that at all but all right it sounds like we're maybe talking a little more than we need to here i think we're all sort of on the same page so is there a motion first close the public hearing oh okay my apologies all right is there a motion to close the public hearing so moved
second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the public hearing is now closed all right is there a motion on the license application move that we conditionally approve the license for the flammable storage
license for the four 1,00galon propane tanks for DO Gas Company on behalf of Sunshine Nominee Trust at 181 Kilbrurn Street uh pertain uh on the approval of conservation
uh agent agent thank you yep second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those opposed no motion passes unanimously thank you for coming in tonight both appreciate the time and I just want to note for both of you and also the board uh there was a typo on
the license so we're going to have to reprint it and then sign it at a later date uh so needs to be conditioned anyways so yeah true and that means Okay i didn't realize that you put that on oh what you're saying is that you didn't give it out anyway correct so okay my bad never mind
i appreciate the the ability to answer your questions thank you all right thank you very much all right ambulance writeoff request by fire chief and finance director hello everybody greetings so we're here
with our quarterly uh write off our ambulance uncollectible receipts um the current total is $19,546.36 um Chief if you want to add anything oh that's those are the ones that will be they're still going out to collection or
they're just being this is a financial thing to write them off as a liability off the town's books uh for the future we've discussed with the town manager we'll probably go to semianually instead of quarterly on this not to take up you guys' time more often than needed it's
probably easier just to do it twice a year any questions all right what is the just just I do have one question not to belabor this but what is our collection success rate
on this as for percentage do we get 10% of what we try to collect 20 none um I could get the number for you I just don't have it in front of me but yeah again the challenge is about 60 about twothirds of what we bill out is fixed
rate Medicare Medicaid mass health I understand yeah I understand I'm just knowing what we Yeah it's two different things i figured since you're going to bring up every time it's still going to collections I would bring up how much are we successful at it yeah I can pull some statistics for you whenever than I
do i'd say we're on par with most communities like us that doesn't sound anywhere near number but okay great we're on par i feel better now any other questions all right and make a motion that we
uh approve or accept the ambulance writeoff request as presented by Chief Sullivan as fire chief and Ezekiel Ayala as the finance director second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes
unanimously thank you both for coming to Niku thank you all right up next we have the state of the organization presentation so it's a review of recent employee separations and exit interviews by the assistant town manager
one step Julie we're good to go okay well hello so there's actually two presentations you're doing the state of the organization and then you're also doing the SAP back to back as well where do you want to start you want to start with
the state organization okay we'll start there in 10 good to see you Julie hey how are you hey it's sharing it's up we're good okay hello good evening so before I begin I
just want to acknowledge your patience as I provide this update the request for the 5 years worth of state of the organization was made in August of 2024 and while there was initial confusion as what to what the actual request was the intermager eventually clarified that the
focus was on vacancy data including reasons for employee departures the duration of open positions and other contributing factors compiling this information required extensive time and effort to review personnel files position records and determine what
details of the exit interviews could be shared publicly with the departure of the town manager and the onboarding of an interim town manager the organization experienced rapid transitions and a heavier daily workload which included the preparation of additions and
revisions to the SAP for special town meeting simultaneously we worked on nearly three dozen procurement re uh projects requiring IFBs RFPs andor RFQS and contracts this includes ARPA which you know had to be committed by December
31st of 2024 all while continuing recruitment efforts which took precedence given these pressing priorities the request was temporarily deprioritized while I acknowledge the delay I trust the circumstances are understood
back in December I pulled the HR list serve and asked other communities specifically in North Central Mass if they were experiencing higher than usual turnover employee morale issues and recruitment challenges the limited responses
received said that staff turnover is higher due to increased workloads competition with private sector jobs employees seeking better pay flexibility andor less public abuse they also said that morale has declined with rise in
public hostility being a key reason to address this the community increased pay introduced signon bonuses and offered unique benefits like healthcare opt out and child care vouchers another community said that they were not experiencing higher than normal turnover
but typical turnover they also said that morale had bounced back after CO and they're working in this area to keep the culture strong as for recruitment constantly reviewing compensation and making adjustments has been successful for them overall our community is not alone in
the retention of employees as requested below is an overview or on the screen um of the employee departures over the past two years an analysis of key contributing factors and what our plan is to address them so for employee departures over the
past two years there were 38 total departures this consists of five call fire positions 21 full-time of which six were retirements 12 part-time positions of which two were retirements the primary reasons for departure again
eight were retirement in total one termination two career changes going to the Mass State Police or just choosing to do a different line of work one was not a good fit for them um two were non-responsive which is typically with
call fire if they're not responding to the um work then we we have to replace them and then two moved the biggest category was 22 and personal personal/new job so the comments shared
through exit interviews and in no specific order were commission expectations other summer commitment second job leads to long days conflict with supervisor lack of comm communication with upper management
and/or conflict lack of tools town politics wages focus on education external working conditions influences from boards or committees resulting in town management decisions that were not necessarily in the best
interest of the town need for more hours health issues munice issues lack of understanding from boards and committees so the findings through exit interviews as you may know exit interviews are conducted with myself as the assistant town manager and HR
director with the employee this is where the exiting employee exiting employee and I go through the exit interview questionnaire and discuss their experience while working for the town we start off with the first question being what influenced you to leave most will answer new job but this question goes
deeper what caused them to look for a new job most common responses are need more hours or career change/growth wages can play a part but if employees are happy they would tend to stay unfortunately sometimes
employees are just unhappy and resign other questions asked during the interviews focus on the work environment their supervisor and/or department head advancement opportunities and whether they would recommend the town as a place to work and of course their comments and
suggestions commonly the response to would you recommend the town as a place to work is yes it's a great place to work the people but the wages could be better less common were morale or conflict exit interviews are shared with the town
manager and if appropriate I will discuss the interview with the department head to seek clarification and work on improvement unfortunately whether a position vacated is 10 hours or 40 hours the departments feel the impact
especially in those departments that are twoerson department upon written resignation the vacant positions appropriately posted most common are on our internal bulletin boards in each building our town website social media
the Lunberg ledger Indeed and if applicable also on association pages MMA Handshake Chamber of Commerce and or Mass Hire we recently started a town LinkedIn page so this will be added to the list soon there is strong effort to
fill a position immediately however the pool of candidates is often slim especially for those more specialized positions with this said sometimes the crucial position to the town remains vacant for months finding qualified candidates in these specialized positions is becoming more and more
sparse and we're also competing with area communities that are also recruiting for the same position providing the candidate options based on location and rate of pay using the land director land use director position as an example as this was one of the
longest vacancies in my time here this position was attracting planners with no experience in overseeing building or conservation this position is responsible for overseeing those operations and therefore it is crucial that the candidate have knowledge in these areas another reason this position
remained vacant for so long was that it was rumored that the town is not a good place to work due to politics and planners just want to be planners and not have supervisory responsibility of overseeing building and conservation and lastly the rate of pay those in planning positions are already making a similar
salary to what we were offering without the responsibilities of a land use director each position in its own is unique and some fill quicker than others those p positions that take longer is not due to a lack of effort on myself or
the department heads but for the reasons that I've just explained in addition positions position postings are frequently updated and reposted there have been times that I've had to reach out to my network andor other communities to try to attract
employees from other communities potent is not something that we love to do but sometimes you have to get creative when you're hiring from a limited pool so the resolution to mitigate turnover and improve employee retention we have or will be implementing the following
strategies number one retention and engagement initiatives this contains salary reviews in-house trainings professional development employee listening sessions employee lunchons goal setting and last year we implemented employee service awards
which were given at an employee lunchon number two recruitment and hiring adjustments at the special town meeting the SAP added part-time employee benefits such as holiday pay vacation and sick time benefits which is not the
norm for part-time positions and merit awards a wider and more competitive salary range for positions would vastly improve the recruitment of quality candidates and retain the quality employees that the town already employs number three workplace enhancements most
departments work Monday through Thursday which offers an attractive work life balance we're working more strategically on succession planning and providing employee opportunities for career growth we're working on ways to bring not only departments but buildings together and
decrease the current feel of segregate segregation through group activities such as the employee listening sessions lunchons group trainings we implemented an employee newsletter one year ago this month with the goal of increasing communication highlighting the work of
our departments and employees as well as a way to introduce new hires and a way to get to know your fellow employees to name a few we recognize the importance of employer retention are and are committed to strengthening our workforce we will continue to monitor these
efforts and provide periodic updates if requested however there's nothing unusual with what we've experienced in the past two years all right thank you Julie i'll open it up to questions or comments on this one before we move to the SAP since I went there already yeah no I
Julie thank you for coming in this is a great presentation and what you put together it was a was a you know long time coming well as you know I was a staffer i sat with you during this interview i think you did a good job capturing um at least my knowledge of some of the comments i I think I've
heard and I've seen some positive changes in our environment here in town and our culture so I hope um you know we continue moving in that path so I appreciate you coming in and making presentation thank you all right want to move on to that then it's really dry just give me one second
to get this we can I know I got a pass okay and thank you for that Julie i'm sorry thank you thank you oh I think while we're pulling the next one up thank you that was a really good presentation um you know I mean obviously you know we
hear things as members you know of the select board and you know sometimes staff ask to meet with us and they grumble and then we refer them back over to uh you know departments but sometimes you hear things that are really concerning um you know I think that um
you know much of what you've kind of highlighted here uh are things that we have heard uh I think some of the you know I know that there have been a couple of occasions where we knew like job postings would expire over a weekend or something like that of course as elected members most of our time is the
weekend so we're pulling things up on a Saturday and you're like it just expired on Friday um so you know but definitely I would just want to comment that um we're definitely moving in a in the right direction so thank you for your all of your contributions on that thank you all right it's up whenever you want
to start okay all right so this presentation is an update on an overview of the FY26 salary schedule for the salary administration plan also known as the SAP for short and the process conducted so the goal is to ensure
fairness competitiveness and transparency and employee compensation while maintaining fiscal responsibility the process began with a salary survey that was sent to all 23 competitive communities that were approved by the select board in December of 2024 of
these 23 communities 14 responded even after numerous email attempts to gather this information the purpose of conducting the surveys is not only to gather data but also highlights any mclassifications in our classification schedule as well
as visually show our market competitiveness conducting salary surveys is a process that is used when evaluating all units in town and it ensures alignment with economic conditions and industry standards it should be noted that surveys are driven
by data and not employees wants or needs the data collected from the survey shows that there are some positions uh below market competitive competitiveness which would require reclassification some that are correctly classified and some that are above
market in order to correct this a full compensation and classification study should be done we've attempted to do this twice once with a consultant and once in house with the personnel board unfortunately both were not advanced process for the salary
adjustments number one is a salary review so each year or each time that a salary or contract is expiring in this case the salary schedule is reviewed to assess the cost of living adjustments the cola and market comparability by
comparing salaries in comparable communities to maintain competitiveness number two the budget considerations adjustments are subject to budget constraints and approval during the annual budgeting process number three the approval process any
proposed changes to the salary schedule historically have been reviewed by the personnel board in the absence of the personnel board and per town bylaws the town manager acts as the personnel board both the finance director and town manager have reviewed this data data
before tonight's presentation we received some feedback from the SAP employees so after the March 19th select board meeting several SAP employees reached out to the town manager on the proposed FY26 2 and a
half% cola the town manager and I held an SAP um meeting with the employees on March 25th to discuss the proposed FY26 salary schedule the concerns shared from the group were identified as lack of parity between the SAP and clerical
union who is going to be receiving a 5 a 12% increase as well as internal equity the town manager explained that adjusting the cola is not likely a long-term fix but an intermediary measure until a classification and compensation study is conducted and
implemented through the town meeting process employees expressed a strong desire for the town manager to consider 3% cola in lie of the 2 and a.5% while this meeting was focused on the FY26 schedule employees raised concerns about the lack of a personnel board and the
process in the absence of the board the town manager explained that she has an employee working group put forward recommendations on the future of the personnel board to the select board in the coming months additionally employees were in favor of having professional classification and compensation study
done in FY27 i'll agree that current position classifications need to be revised so my recommendations number one I am recommending a 3% COLA for FY26
the cost of a 3% COLA is roughly $43,46 which is an approximate increase just shy of $7,300 compared to the cost of a 2.5% COLA this is for about 44 employees continue conducting regular
salary surveys to ensure competitiveness hire a consultant to redo our classification and compensation plan for FY27 and allocate budgetary provisions to accommodate necessary necessary salary adjustments for FY27 while
ensuring fiscal uh sustainability in conclusion a well ststructured salary schedule and process are essential for attracting and retaining qualified employees while adherent to budgets i'm here to ask for the select board's approval on the
proposed FY26 schedule of 3% COLA for SAP employees although results of the survey indicate that we are competitive in some positions and not in others an extra half a percent will help boost the employee morale while remaining fiscally conservative in addition this process
made it apparent that restructuring is vital in maintaining an effective and equitable hiring and retainage salary schedule one position highlighted over the recent past studies and continues to be well below benchmark to address this a separate article has been put forward
to reclassify the DPW director from grade 16 to 17 also within the same article we're creating a new position entitled communications and IT manager this position is not intended to add headcount but will take on more outreach
communications and serve as the liaison before between our IT consultant and the town in the coming months I will begin the process to conduct a classification and compensation study through an external consultant and we'll keep the board informed of this process through the town manager thank you all right
thank you Julie open it up to questions and comments again i do have two so I'll just jump to the conclusion part so I support 3% COLA because I think that the input from the SAP employees is
accurate that it is below regional averages so I think this is something we can do uh even at the 71 or $7,200 uh I do have two questions you say that the communications and IT manager won't add headcount but do we
have one now this would be an expansion on a position that we have so since we had the interimm manager the administrative assistant for IT has taken on the responsibility so it's a reclassification essentially with a new
title okay all right the last one is the DPW director who I in looking at salaries and averages in the area i agree is extremely below benchmark and I'm I'm questioning whether one grade is sufficient i mean
if you're going to use the word extremely and you're going to bump bump up somebody one grade that seems hardly to address the fact that it's extremely below benchmark i think this is the first step and then having the consultant come in and identify because the ultimate goal is well number one we
have way too many paygrades we don't need 20 we have 40 employees in the SAP 40 active positions so that's way too many grades for that that number of positions so I think giving them this boost to 17 right now and then re
looking at the salary schedule condensing some positions and making it more equitable across the board would help and maybe it will go higher but at this time I think this is the right move yeah I mean I I will piggyback this th
this particular thing with your prior report which is if we're looking to not lose people and DPW skills are you know highly sought I would hate to lose a DPW director who I think is excellent
because we didn't pay him not once but twice now because we didn't get the raise that we did last time i mean this is the time to address it and so I again I question I what is the difference in scale that the pay rate from 16 to 17
Ezie do yeah I have the salary I just need to know where he's at in 16 right now so if we're looking at the 3% chart so we go with the 3% cola compared to I
don't have where we are now but looking at the 3% the range would be $4879 to $601 for grade 16 which is where this position is currently classified booenum to grade 17 that range goes from 5320 to
6543 i believe he falls somewhere around so they're all about $5 an $5 i'm sorry it's a $5 an hour increase from 16 to 17 that's what I'm saying depending where he falls yeah for each step you're
not talking about changing step same ch step just going to grade 17ish yeah okay knowing the hourly rate doesn't I mean I don't think in hourly rate I think in salary rate 10 uh for 40 hours $5
increase is $10,400 increase I I will say while uh in response if I may um in response to your observation that it's still low I think you're probably accurate um I think my concern here is that there's
other folks um who are also potentially low just not as low and I'm concerned about a disparit treatment of those individuals and we're saying that we are planning to look at this holistically and do a classification compensation study i don't I I'd be concerned if we
jump two steps and and don't at the same time now bring in other folks that may be below grade he was extremely below grade but I hear for retention as well that there's a cons you know again I'm just reading the words of the report
that were written i didn't write the report yep all I'm saying is that if somebody's going to indicate to me that they're extremely low and their response is they're going to move them up one grade that's they're low or they're you know relatively low i didn't use the word extremely it's in the report
so I'm only using that that's all I'm saying amanda go ahead i have a lot of thoughts on the SAP um so I'll try to be as brief as I can um but first can we see the data the survey when did you do that
survey you said you got 14 responses can be shared with us i can share it with you um I'd like to know you know where they actually land so I can look at it you know I think many people know I've been I have p I pay attention to this very closely um I'd like to know what was presented to the employees as well
as what the financial impact this is probably more for for you uh Jen um you know is this included these increases are these included in your budget already that you've proposed to us so the way that this the way that this rolled out was that I had said the 2.5%
increase at the last meeting right and that was included in the budget and when the employees heard that that's when they requested a meeting to come in and have a conversation about you know really they were asking for a whole scale classification compensation but
that's not reality um or just to simply say um the clerical union is getting 5.5% increases therefore we should get 5.5 increases that was not what yeah but that was not justified by the data that we were seeing at the time right so um
so uh in terms that's that was the conversation with the employees um hearing basically hearing their concerns um and then going back and looking at the math in terms of um the the 7,000 we have salary reserves
set aside it doesn't encompass that additional 7,000 but between people who will be coming and going within the organization people who are leaving I'm sure I'm not concerned about absorbing that within the budget that small amount so I I appreciate that and I appreciate
that you're willing to work with the employees i would just like to see it you know what the comparables were because to before I agree with three you know is it enough i think that was one of the things that um Tom was just talking about um you know should it be 3.5 should it be four maybe three is
great i would just like to be able to make my own opinion by looking at at the comparables and what the financial impact actually is um just to make sure i totally understand we can't just we can't we can't give can't give away things we don't have and and we we need to do a full analysis but I just would
like to see it myself mhm um and then that communications position I think you already touched on this but that's something that you did include already in the expanded hours for the IT position in your budget yes okay um and then have you been talking to the DPW director about this change in his salary
i have not i think this was kind of already underway in advance yeah okay and he's amendable to it or does he have thoughts on or or just sort of seeing where i think there's more thoughts okay i think he's happy i think um start it's
a start okay yes yep understood um I think that is all I have for now all right michael Ray yeah i first um always appreciate your questions they they're really you know you you come with such a good perspective so I
really appreciate it amanda um a couple things for you um one of the things that was highlighted a few years ago and really over the course of the last year was the difference in um benefits and I'm kind of asking a broad question when
it comes to time off benefits for and parents time off benefits for staff you know I think that we hired a department head and only put two weeks in a contract for them when of course it's like what what is this um and then you have others who get five weeks or more
so you know just kind of big picture it seems that you know um part of the reason why people form unions is because they don't think their employer is listening to them and being responsive to them um you know and it seems as if we can proactively look at
the treatment across the unions and comparing it to SAP to try to equalize what that benefit package is for every employee doesn't matter what department they work in um so you know maybe it's more of a comment than a question here u
which is I think it would be helpful for us to move in that direction where we have a standard benefit package that goes to all employees and not just some employees u because you know as we as we can look at the reasons why you know people leave town and highlighting this and highlighting that but I mean it's a
it's a big difference depending on what department you work in um you know so that would be helpful one of the questions uh and it may be question more comment which is you know of that percentage of employees uh or the you know the 22 out of I think the 38 that
you identified who had moved on you have a percentage of who went to um market roles versus municipal roles meaning um you know non-municipal versus public kind of entities I I may or may not I mean it's going to
go off basically recol recollection if I looked back at you know those 22 employees whether they stayed within municipal or exited to private yeah so I mean I I I recognize that of all the positions that need to grow it's
probably in yours um and that you know you're working you know you have a 32-hour work week you're doing procurement you're doing HR you're doing all hiring and it's just a lot right and then here we are asking for even more and it's just becomes you know a certain point you can you only get you only
squeeze so much prioritization yes um priority exactly exactly but of course you know when people run for elected office and you know it becomes challenging when because of priorities you can't get information for eight or nine months um so one of the things that
would be helpful is understanding that percentage that is leaving to non-municipal services because if our market analysis is only looking at municipal but we're losing people to the private sector at some point we got to see well what is it in the private sector and and how different are we i get it it's two different worlds we're
not we can't compete but it just would be helpful to know if we're funneling people or becoming feeders for certain uh industries um and in my last two comments and I know this has to do with bandwidth um something that I've personally done is is I've participated
in internships every every year and I've hired two of my interns um because no better way to you know fill someone out than have them do an internship with you and it seems that this is a missed opportunity for us um that I interns are a lot of work um that is you can't just
say "I want an intern." And they show up and they file papers um but it would be helpful if if I know that there's work in progress but the internship program would be helpful and then also you know we have all these uh students in the high school um that are graduating and
we all want them to do great things um but certainly I think you know more can be done to inform them of what some of these municipal roles actually are um so that way as they go into like I recognize in asset management there's very few colleges that teach kids asset
management and so I started targeting like financial analysts people who had some interest in real estate uh to bring them over into kind of what I do cuz that's such a critical thing so the student initiative thing it's a bigger thing and I know again it's bandwidth but it would be helpful if we can get to that point where maybe we're tapping
into Fitsburg State you know the college right down the street for some of the internship and tapping into some of our seniors going to a career fair cuz you know that one day to tell people what's what you know maybe that's the inspiration they need to get in a career path which then provides more future applicants i agree i have attended two
um college fairs before so I was I know you have I know you have the police department does the internship program through Fitchwork State as well as high school um unfortunately Fitchway State doesn't have you know a a CPA course they don't have people that are taking
you know government as as their as their role so it would be great I think and I think colleges that do have you know those those degrees would we might open up more internship availability but I'm not sure how we would having been working with the internship program at Fitchburg State where that would be
applicable for us so um if you notice Julie and I kind of smiling at each other during this internship conversation um internships came um up in another board recently and I said "Julie I recall when I worked previously with attorney Terry he there were some
rules for municipal internships and we just emailed him on Monday to say what are those rules?" And because we do want to you know if we can take advantage of the summer and get a few folks in place to do some research projects or help out wherever but I I if I recall and this is
what I wanted to see that I believe what it was is that municipalities cannot offer unpaid internships that we have to do it for credit and so working that out for credit is just the one one kind of housekeeping item that we have to make sure we can handle before and Fitsburg State does do a great job with that
program you know maybe there is opportunities there maybe an HR maybe there's there's things to pursue i mean I think the same thing with the high school just letting them know it's a lot of work having person that manages manage the intern program at the PD that sometimes is is more work than you have
the bandwidth for so you have some interns that are fantastic and then we hire them and you have some that are Yeah yeah not the right fit so I mean in our current structure I mean obviously we need more resources to be able to do this even I as I just speak to how great I think interns are i opted out this
year because I don't have the bandwidth for them first year I've opted out of them um but I I do get it but you know having that in motion is helpful you know it's hard you know when we go into talk to kids you know if they don't if they don't know what the job is they don't know to even be interested you know and it's just putting that bug in
the air early enough um to make it interesting agree thank you i just have one question so we've done outside consultant previously we did we're going to do it again what went wrong the first time and what can we do differently to be
sure we get an outcome successful outcome this time the outcome of the external consultant and I I don't have the exact figures in my head but I can say you know I know where I fall in the salary schedule and when I looked at
where I was and where I was going it was like 20 bucks an hour more so that obviously we were comparing to places like Foxboro um wherever the data could come from so it's like oh well you know my position is one of them that's not
common in our comparable communities so you might get one position out of the 23 so in this case the consultant was reaching for wherever she could to get this data i don't think we compared to Foxboro so I don't think that was a fair assessment specifically for my position
um but I can tell you step one was our current step eight at the time so you're dropping seven steps so it was that there was the the job description review um that wasn't horrible the job description piece but
as for the salary just it there was issues with some deliverables and time frames as well I believe so what do we do differently hold on i think again there's a lot of questions tonight that just don't get direct answer i think the answer was what went wrong and what you're telling me if I can put
words in your mouth from what you've just said what went wrong is the consultant yes so we're going to hire another consultant so I think I think Miss's question is why would it go better this time cuz it'd be a different consultant but I I think also that understanding
um kind of what having gone through the process folks that have gone through it what we can put forward differently on the front end of the request for proposals and make it very clear what we're looking for and setting out those expectations on the front end perhaps we might get a different result with the
vendor it would seem to me as somebody who doesn't do employment you know and personnel recruitment so job descriptions and that of the like but it seems like doing something that compares you to other towns needs a statistical
analyst you just got to look at the data and says "Okay if I want to be in the middle what is everybody else doing?" And then becomes a mathematical problem doesn't become a stat it doesn't become a job personnel problem because for the most part every town has the same employees that you know that's the
problem is that you don't and and I found that in multiple communities cuz you know I was on the negotiating team I was active in the personnel committee I work in conquer and we actually conquer just did a comp and class study a year and a half ago um the titles and the responsibilities and the amount of people doing the jobs are amazingly
different in every community it is very very hard to find the comparables which you wouldn't think would be that hard well but I mean everybody has police officers fire they have you know clerical i understand but you could still find out what they're do what
they're getting right okay that's all I'm saying i mean to see if you're paying something that's comparable to a field that you would just get those i mean I'm not saying there's not nuance to it obviously there's nuance to it but but but in the broad brush like what Julie just said that the the
the consultant came back with something that was like $20 an hour more like so what are they even looking at at this point unfortunately I think that was a low bid type situation where we didn't get a good work product so I'm wondering cuz I'm I don't want to have no outcome
that again this would be three mhm so is there some kind of intermediate check-in that you can set up to to make sure things are on track i don't know i mean I think a well put together class and comp plan would give you those
milestones of where they're at and I would als like like the deliverables just don't wait till I guess my suggestion is don't wait till the very end to see get the final product and say "Well this is garbage." It all needs to be on the front end
yeah it needs to be needs to be in the contract it needs to be laid out and then it needs to be the follow through of making sure the deliverables are being met and there's not a whole host of people um that do this work in municipal i can think of under 10 that maybe even under five that are in the
practicing in this field um you know it is it is town by town and you need somebody we could probably do this oursel with unlimited time right because you're reaching out wasn't that attempt too yeah no you're reaching out and you're comparing but we wouldn't have
the time to maintain core functions of the office but for an easy example where does employee benefits and payroll live is from town to town different some treasur collector's office some HR
office some finance office it's that really just that one job function and who's supervising payroll and benefits can be in three different offices and that greatly changes what perhap a treasurer collector that's overseeing HR and benefits is going to be compensated
at a much higher rate than one that's not typically and to the town manager this is in the budget this no this is not bud a study is not budgeted so this is she's presenting the plan that we need to do I do not have funding for
Okay class 27 yeah so this would be probably a town meeting funding request in the fall um and potentially a community compact of best practices grant application and other other types of ways to get this funded i don't know
do you recall off the top of your head Julie around 40,000 is that That's not what we paid okay ours is way less okay maybe that's why it's I don't know i can find out all right do
anyone have any other questions no all right you should come to our meetings more often Julie fun thank you though i appreciate what you're doing i know Carter had you working very hard so the fact that you guys had those listening sessions on you were able to implement that with Warren
articles at special town meeting i think we're moving in the right direction we're not there yet so yeah you definitely have to come back more often thank you yeah of course julie have a good night you too all right we're going to move on appointments ratifications and
resignations so we do have the ratification of the town manager's appointment of Inspector of Animals Kathy Ko 806 West Street term to expire May 1st 2025 or excuse me term May 1st 2025 to April 30th 2026 the reason that
we're doing this is because we received a form from the state that is requesting um the next year's appointment and I know that we normally have done this during our annual appointments in June so I don't know what we've done if that's a new form that we're getting but we want this specifically to for this
position yes it's it's not new this is Okay okay so we would like to do this correctly by doing the appointment and then filling out the form and sending it to the state so that's why this is here well I say that Kathy Ko's been doing this for a long time i think she does an
excellent job and she's done so lots with her own resources and her own time and in in cases of historical fact to the detriment of family members health who I hope is doing fine but uh I would
wholeheartedly support her ratification [Music] do you want to make a motion a motion i didn't know if anybody else wanted to say it i I'll make that a motion to to ratify the town manager's appointment of the inspector of animals Kathy Ko second
all right any additional discussion yes and I had a question just uh to the town manager the nominating authority on this form you will change yes yep so I already have the hand giving in changing the name to Heather from Heather to me oh yes good i I just want to second all
of Mr alonzo's comments about Kathy her contribution to the community um you know her family's contribution to the community i think Kathy represents you know some of the best among us and uh I'm really grateful that she's willing to uh continue in this service i agree
all right all those in favor say I i those opposed no motion passes unanimously we will send that off to the state probably tomorrow cuz the deadline was I think it was like today or something but we'll send it tomorrow because the deadline was today that sounds perfect yeah yeah hey at least we're responding and doing
this right in the correct order this year um all right moving on old Oh Tom manager report okay all right so thank you Mr chairman um the first update through you to the public is that last Friday uh the
governor signed the legislation to extend remote meeting participation that was set to expire yesterday and so now the new extension runs through June 30 2027 and we'll probably be facing this about a month beforehand before June 30
2027 next time okay uh local receipts so uh with the complete now that we have completed March we're three quarters through the fiscal year today the finance director ran our local receipts report and we have collected 2,18,9767 the projected figure so the
target that we are aiming for is 3,361,988.50 there's a difference of a little um over 1.3 million or 60 or 60% collected this is similar to the trend last year at this time in March where it was 60.9 cents um I had here that the
finance director is conducting further analysis on receipts but basically on in looking at the unreconciled receipts uh for motor vehicle excise we are right on target so I have no concerns at this time um but if there are any concerns or irregularities with receipts I will
bring those forward the town has been notified that UMass Memorial Health has submitted an application for a satellite emergency facility to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health um this is to address the closure of Nishoba obviously uh the
proposed site is in Grten and it is to provide region uh the region with access to emergency physicians clinicians 24 hours a day 7 days a week um in addition to qualified emergency staff um they would also provide radiology imaging and laboratory services and uh have
ambulance bays to accept um patients brought by ambulance so um I'm not sure if the board would like to consider supporting uh sending a letter of support at a future meeting but I just wanted to let folks know that something is happening although I don't I don't think that this is going to be a quick
resolution okay uh last Monday I attended the joint committee on ways and means FY26 budget hearing focusing on local aid at UMass Amherst also in attendance were the superintendent and several members of the school committee the hearing was standing room only with
hundreds of people gathered outside um following the hearing I did speak with Representative Scarsdale and I reiterated one of the u one of the pieces of testimony that was given by the executive director of the Mass Municipal Association uh which was um as soon as the
legislature can arrive at a consensus figure around unrestricted government aid or UGGA and Chapter 70 the better um there's obviously a lot that the legislature will need to work out with the budget process but if they can arrive at those figures before town
meeting season it may greatly impact town meetings including ours um also following up um with the state budget season underway Representative Scarsdale has reached out to obtain requests for local earmarks uh she
provided a funding target of approximately she was looking for projects um under the $50,000 range so I provided her four potential earmarks from the FY26 capital plan that fell within that target so it was the security system upgrades for uh the
public schools uh management and eradication of invasive weeds at Marshall Pond design and engineering for the Lunber Primary School and interior improvements at the adult activity center and so she has decided to move forward with the request for security system upgrades which is the servers uh
for the security camera systems at the school department um as the ear mark request for Lunenburgg this year uh I I understand that the chair of um the cemetery commission has also been in touch with Representative Kushar's office and has renewed a prior request
for $38,000 to fund monument restoration for both South and North cemeteries um so I haven't heard from Senates usually in a couple weeks after i haven't heard from Senator Cronin's office but I anticipate that um I'll be hearing a similar
request from him my strategy tends to be that I don't want two different projects um living one in the House budget one in the Senate budget and then have neither come out of conference committee so I tend to just ask the Senate um to
support if something prevails in the House budget to support that request otherwise if the House budget is not supported then submit a new request on the Senate side um Mr chair may I ask a question or comment so thank you first um I think
that it's you know every year typically the select board provides to the state delegation uh a list of priorities for ear marks uh I think that that is a very important tradition uh for this board to be able to receive those requests from
you know the school committee from other areas in town and then speak in a unified voice to our elected officials our state delegation for what we'd like to see um so you know while I don't disagree uh with anything that you've put forward I do think uh in the future
that the tradition we have here um it would be um that we should maintain that and and just to respond to that I totally hear that you're going to need to do that in January because you get a call from the legislative delegation and you have less than 24 hours to give a response we usually do do it in January
okay okay excellent so just as long as we get that on the calendar because when that call comes they it's usually they have scheduled a a meeting with ways and means chair and and they don't we can't convene a meeting right so yep all right
um the finance committee public hearing is uh this Thursday April 3rd at 7 p.m and lastly is uh MRPC Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission has applied to the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness MVP grant program to fund a
project that will survey small local farmers to understand the impact of climate change on their operations and allow for an examination of zoning and general bylaws to evaluate potential changes that would support regional agriculture the local agricultural commission and I uh signed on to a
letter in support of MRPC's application so if they receive that grant funding I will report back okay project updates um the first update is on the Flatill Bridge project i'm sure folks have seen
some activity starting over there and the road was shut down and now have seen equipment being pulled out so Kennifect Corporation uh who is our contractor closed the roadway on Friday March 7th 2025 however the level of the lake had
risen by three plus feet kfk's water control plan was likely inadequate for this level of water and therefore no work had been done they did submit a request to the DPW requ director requesting an additional year um
extension citing their inability to control the water at this time the DPW director has responded this week to that request formally denying the extension legal council has been advised of the situation and is working with the town on the next steps kipc has now moved
most of their equipment from the site uh the DPW director did ask Masdot to come out and inspect the bridge before reopening it to vehicular traffic um they were out today and they did not see any large changes um since their last
inspection 3 months ago however um their underwater bridge inspection team will be coming out this week to inspect before opening it up to traffic or next week I'm sorry the inspector also thought it may be a good idea to impose a weight posting on the bridge um the
thought is that a six ton limit would be good as school buses would be able to cross um but big trucks would not so um we have to resolve the contractual issue um before we can move forward with this project uh I I did have an update on the um the
cleaning contract that now is under contract about three hours ago so um we had a little bit of difficulty with our low bidder our parent low bidder getting all the information that we needed for the cleaning of municipal buildings but it seems as though everything is in order now and I did execute that
contract um so I'm not going to read the rest of my update on that item uh we are putting out an IFB tomorrow for road roadway maintenance fog seal and crack seal the due date will be April 23rd with an anticipated start date of June 2nd the total anticipated
cost is $233,000 and it is 9.52 miles of fog seal and 6.99 miles of crack seal uh town hall roof replacement is nearly complete and the project is proceeding as expected
uh work is ongoing with the adult activity center kitchen renovation the subs slab cast iron pipe has been repaired with epoxy and the plumbing work has now been inspected and the next step will be to pour the concrete and landscapers contractors have begun
spring cleanups the softball field and power field at Marshall Park have been completed uh vacancies we have executive assistant to the town manager and select board at 36 hours per week we have an offer pending uh for the sew part-time
sewer business manager position we're still waiting on lifeguard and beach directors uh cemetery seasonal laborers the two individuals from last season it appears are returning and so that is great um the administrative assistant
10-hour a week position in conservation there's an offer pending and the library page position that had been posted has now been filled um and current vacancies uh I'll just read these quick agricultural Commission 1 APDC 1 Board of Health 1 Cultural
Council 1 Green Communities 2 their associates Historical Commission 2 Personnel Committee 5 PAC 1 Sewer 1 Storm Water 1 ZBA 1 and that concludes my report all right thank you Jen any other uh questions for the town manager
i have a couple questions specific and maybe you can't answer this um Flatill with the bridge it's the water has risen 3 ft in what time frame uh it so when they when they first started putting their equipment out it was before the
thaw and it was about a week so is as everything they didn't plan for this it does not appear that their water control um plan was adequate for the that level of potential changing conditions i have
to claim ignorance on how the Shirley Dam functions in in comparison to the Hickory Hills dam function because I am more familiar with Hickory Hills but can we not control the the level of the lake with the Shirley Dam as we can with Hickory Hills i don't believe so okay those are just questions and then uh fog
seal crack seal in I know in previous years we've bid that separately and we have also bid it with in the paving contract is that not included in our current paving contract oh I I'll have to check on that any other questions all
right thank you Jen moving on to old business discussion and potential votes to recommend approval on annual town meeting articles so we are going to follow the same process as last time um one thing to note here there are a few uh moving
pieces still uh which we'll talk about when we go through them so it looks like that we will have to send the booklet to the printer next Wednesday instead of uh next Monday and that's also because of the election warrant as well um I know the ballot questions for Marshall Park
for example are still being reviewed by town council um so just as an FYI and Jen did speak to the uh printer and they're aware of that and we don't really anticipate any issues with that so as an FYI all right so let's start we'll just
go through all of them so article one authorization to hear and or accept the reports of officers and committees of the town we voted to recommend approval article two authorization to borrow and anticipation of revenue and to enter into a compensating balance agreement with the bank
we recommended approval oh double-sided article three authorization to expend funds in anticipation of reimbursements of state highway assistance aid we voted to recommend approval article four revolving funds i
don't believe we voted to recommend approval on this one where's the vote it's above we did not all right but we did add it to the warrant right which is why it's green here okay all right i'll I'll ask is there a motion to recommend approval
move to recommend approval second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those opposed no motion passes unanimously all right article five authorization to pay expenses from a prior fiscal year we did not recommend approval there are no
known pri prior fiscal year expenses um has that changed at all doesn't look like it has nope no okay i think officially Mr chair um we may want to defer right so I move to defer a recommendation article five second any additional discussion those in favor say
I i i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously we have deferred article six fiscal year 2025 budget adjustments none here as well so this probably will be deferred as well is there a motion to defer uh Mr chair I move to defer article six second any additional
discussion those in favor say I i I those opposed no the motion passes unanimously article 7 fiscal year 2025 closeouts jen go ahead um so the this used to have the car's act grant for the
36,000 and change um the finance director has want has requested that we maybe deal with that in the fall he wants to do a little bit more work and see if that really is the full amount if if we need to clear that full amount or if it could possibly be less so it is a
smaller article than originally presented i do want to make the note here that in the summary um I have that uh the amount printed in the warrant article are best estimates at the time of printing and may be altered under the motion at town meeting
um the school department may be looking to absorb some of the 50,000 within their budget if they can and I think that the snow and ice might be a little shy of the 415 so I just wanted to note that publicly okay defer yeah is there a
motion to defer uh Mr chair I move to defer article 7 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no motion passes unanimously sorry I'm delayed tonight that's okay that's fine article 8 fiscal year 2026 capital
program do you want to just speak to some of the comments here yes so um there's a comment from council here um that that this is somewhat different than what has been done in the past um for two reasons one is that um there was
language in the kind of precursor to the chart that said as generally illustrated below based on town council's comments i've taken out the that phrase generally illustrated below but more so that the typical way I believe that um capital
plan is referenced within the warrant article is by saying as included in the capital planning committee's report to town meeting um and so I I believe that that's what he's getting to here by listing the full grid in the warrant and
not referring to the capital planning committee's report to town meeting as I understand the capital planning committee is not planning on providing a written report to town meeting in the book so all right and nothing has changed nothing has changed with this so it's
just the inclusion of the table that that he's objecting to he's not objecting to he's just stating that it's different okay but it's different because we used to be able to point to something that we're not going to be able to point to this year and I think he was just also saying that
that capital planning in general has had some level of controversy for a variety of reasons so the table hasn't changed but in the plan funding sources have from the last version that we got
uh dated March 18th the amounts of the certified free cash and the raise so those were the RNA was changed the reason appropriate was changed to offset the restoration of the pavement management plan this was one of the
spots that adjusted okay i just want to make sure that was y intentional yes i would move that we recommend approval second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those opposed no the
motion passes unanimously all right article 9 Lunberg Middle School track and field complex so I never watched that capital planning meeting tom was this discussed during that meeting at all or well I was only at a half an hour of that meeting and it was discussed yes
yes it so it was discussed um the the chair um stated how the thought at the time was essentially that this could perhaps be funded with free cash um but that perhaps all things considered maybe
the school committee wouldn't be moving forward with this i think at this point this article is not funded and there is no this is north of a $100,000 article my recommendation to the select board would not include this article on the town meeting warrant so and I and I
don't disagree i I will say I did watch the meeting after you know on on you know the recording the next day and it was indicated that cuz I I couldn't remember if we voted on it or not and it turned out that it was pulled by the
school department midway through the capital planning process that they pulled it so we never ranked it okay and therefore my and there was discussion my initial position was that because it wasn't ranked by the capital planning commission i mean this we should take a
position on a specific article that goes outside of our scope that was not universally agreed to i mean there were some people who agreed with that some people who didn't but in total we didn't take any vote that said we supported or didn't support it it was just a
discussion and it was left at that right all right so do we want to pull it out of the the warrant then yes I would yes all right is there a motion then i'd move that we remove really i move that
we remove the article 9 Lunberg Middle High School track and field complex from the warrant second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no motion passes unanimously all right article 10 authorization to
fund special projects again Mr chairman there has been a change here from um what you saw last time so uh it's largely the same except for item B um which uh was a cemetery
road network repair at my presentation last Thursday to the finance committee there was um substantial discussion on uh the grant writer position or grant writer services being removed and there was a suggestion made that um that
perhaps the the road network repair within the cemetery um be replaced with the grant writer services um I have since had discussions with the DPW director as well as the chair of the cemetery commission um
stating that it was going to be my intent to swap out this um in in hearing the arguments for and against i it it did weigh that the grant writing services let's try the pilot program with uh one-time funds and see if it
works let's see let's see if we if we really launch a pilot program what's the ROI um and that um further that the the road request that was submitted to the capital planning committee for the cemetery
um was not the same exact request as the repair so so that hadn't fully been considered by the capital planning committee because it was actually a different project same same area same roads but different project mr chair just want to point out to the town
manager that those three items don't total that total from my math it's 152,000 it looks like oh and 500 good catch yes you yep that's right okay good catch thank you and I have that we voted
on this last time voted to include it we voted to include it i have my notes approve it says right here we voted to approve it too okay well sure so but we should probably revote it with the new number yeah sure and with the new the new item the new item mhm so I would
move that we re-recommend approval for article 10 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those voted no motion passes unanimously and had been re-recommended all right article 11
fiscal year 2026 omnibus budget we did vote to include this one we did not vote to recommend it so all right are you you're going to fill in numbers here yeah in the in the summary right yep okay yep what else is
there to do here nothing the budget has not changed since last presented to the board okay are we willing to vote to recommend approval on this tonight well I would find it I would just offer a commentary that I would find it hard
to imagine at this point a scenario where the board of selectman wouldn't approve the town manager's budget after we've been talking about it for weeks that would be seem an odd thing to do so yes I would be willing to vote on it there won't be any You don't anticipate
any more changes oh there'll probably be changes so I mean that's the only thing do we wait to just catch the changes or do we I don't anticipate any changes between now and next meeting um I think if there
were to be any changes it would be closer to town meeting mhm so you it would have to take something that is not foreseen at this time to make that change right i mean I am willing to recommend approval on it today y as am I
all right is there a motion i would move that we recommend approval of article 11 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously article 12 citizens petition and this is the override petition
[Applause] there is a reference from council saying comment as above i've I've reordered I've reordered these and put the citizens petition for the budget right under the omnibus budget so the comment
let me just read the comment to the board on I'm assuming it's AC9 somewhere it is um on article 33 note that I've made no adjustments to or recommendations concerning the article which must be printed in the exact form
received from the citizen petitioners where that's on article 33 on the cemetery corporation um citizens petition all the way towards the end so when he says same as above he was referring to that comment about um the
cemetery so is this the final order do you know well that the board would set the final order okay cuz it's okay it's different than last week correct yeah we'll we'll get there um all right so basically you're saying that we cannot modify the language of a petitioned
article that's correct okay all right so where are we at on this do we article So this citizens petition just uh to state it this is the override this is the override yep and then article 13 is essentially an override placeholder coming from the
select board that's correct oh wait let me supplemental no no it's not this is the free cash got it got it the o the override placeholder i'm not moving forward with an override placeholder it's been removed yeah we'll get there when we get there i don't know where no it's not here it's I've Oh I see okay all
right so do we want to defer do we want to take a vote i have a question um so coming up on the agenda is discussion of potential vote to include proposition to enact ballot yes question both of those
no I mean I don't think so um but I mean just to be clear so the only um the only pet uh warrant and how we're proposing the only article for an override would be the article submitted by the citizens
petition yes okay thank you i don't know if members want to wait school committee meeting tomorrow a number of comments came out at the last finance committee meeting yeah and I believe they're going to be addressed um by the school committee tomorrow
i don't know if members want to wait what from from the presentation you're talking about at this point last finance committee the questions around the line budget versus the supporting material they were budget questions not necessarily or yeah but I mean if it changes the bottom line does it
change the override amount well the citizens petition doesn't can't be changed it can't be changed right that's the number right the citizens petition well if the gap is smaller than the citizens petition does that change your mind you see what I'm saying but they can't you
can't change it but does it change how you would vote on actually actually if it's brought up on town on the floor it could be amended can be amended yeah it can only be amended lower by the way so it's um it's the election ballot right yeah right
so therefore yeah if there was to be a valid question that would that would lock it in right so I mean we still have next week it's not going to the printer until Wednesday would we prefer to vote on it next week i think I'm ready to
vote i'm ready to vote on it i mean I I'll say my little statement that I prepared it's probably not going to be wellliked um I want to start by saying this clear or saying this clearly i support our schools um not just in words but personally i have two I have one
child that already graduated from Lunberg schools i graduated from Lunberg i have two currently in the district um I definitely understand what's at stake but I also have a responsibility as a member of this board to look at the needs of the entire town and to make sure any override we bring forward is a balanced sustainable and ready i'll be
voting no on placing the citizens petition on the ballot not because the schools don't need support but because this proposal only addresses one piece of a much larger problem we're in a year of major transition a new town manager new members of the schools schools and towns finance teams a new superintendent
coming in after the school year and new members on both the school committee and this board this is the first full budget cycle for many of our key leaders and there are still unresolved questions in the budget identified by the finance committee this isn't about delaying for the sake of it it's about doing what's right we need more time to build a comprehensive plan that reflects the
needs of both our schools and our municipal departments i know this decision won't be popular with everyone but it's the one I feel is most responsible when we go to the voters with an override we owe them a clear complete and credible proposal not a piece no one i had a lot to say as well i planned it
for you know the next agenda item not right now i'm going to save it though um I think bottom line for me it's kind of hard to vote to recommend a school only override when the school committee themselves we all got in this room together and none of them recommended it
this year so for me like I cannot recommend the override putting on the ballots different in my opinion it's just hard for me to recommend it when the elected body that's in charge of the school budget could not actually say "Yes we want an override that's what we're recommending." We had a joint
meeting with them the feedback was pretty unanimous none of them said that they wanted an override so that's where it's at for me at least for me as I've said on previous meetings and I you know a lot of my sentiments
were stated by uh by Miss Moore and I concur with most if not all of them i would add to that that you know the leadership positions that school committee and this board are charged with especially in something as serious
as you know a million dollars last year or just shy of a million dollars last year and $2 million this year is proper planning and without a plan and without a a without a a townwide plan and without a multi-year plan so we can when
people ask they did at last town meeting last annual town meeting when they asked will this cover next year and there was like well we don't know but now people say well we said we we we knew we'd be back when they didn't say that they said
they don't know we need to know if we're going to ask people to have this we need to have a plan and I will not support one at this point I I did it last year because it was said just like we're talking about using free cash this year it's a bad practice doing what we did
without a plan last year was a bad practice ractice but it was an emergency situation and we said "Okay this tides us over but I can't do another this tides us over now we're just getting into bad practice and therefore without a plan I cannot vote in good conscience
to put it on the ballot." So I concur with with Miss Moore and with you Mr chair renee I have nothing more to add a lot of the same i mean we discussed this um whenever we met down there two weeks ago was that two weeks ago it was yeah
um Uh yeah so I have nothing more to add all right michael Ray i don't have anything to add all right well was there a motion then well about what that the petition or because it sounds like we talked about
the ballot too we could do unless you want to wait till agenda item well we can talk if we're going to talk about the ballot I can call it okay go ahead go ahead go ahead um you know I've I've wavered on this one so you know my general opinion is I really hoped that
this um being on in front of the town would trigger um some people to um re-evaluate it um you know I hoped that the school committee um even this board um would be supportive and understanding
you know the impact of a $2 million cut which I think I'm hearing is over 20 teachers um and you know understanding that impact to the families and the residents um I will say that the emails that I've received over the last uh week
and a half have been more dissuasive than persuasive um you know it I I really think that after you um after six years almost of being here I really would have hoped that we would have um people volunteering to be part of the
solution and not just fingerpointing and and and blaming you know we have a lot of vacancies we have a personnel committee we haven't been able to fill in over a year and and I'm frustrated um that our concerned citizens can't uh volunteer um to help out and so you know
I definitely support this um being in front of the voters however you know I mean there's two parts to this which is the ballot right and that's where I probably struggle the most um because you know just because a citizens petition comes forward if it
triggers a ballot that it doesn't you know I've had the consistent opinion that anything that comes before this board that we have the ability to decide if it makes it or doesn't make it we have discretion and we're supposed to exercise it i know that some colleagues in the past not current colleagues but
past colleagues have disagreed and and felt strongly that everything should get in front of the voters but you know I'm not 2 weeks ago I was ready to vote to put this on the ballot and uh you know I've changed my mind um so I I no longer
support this being in front of the ballot therefore um I cannot recommend approval of the petition if I can piggyback on that that last comment because I know there's been a lot of you know you're taking away our voice just let the voters decide and I
just wanted to add um piggybacking what you said just Michael Ray was um putting something on the ballot that hasn't been fully vetted or coordinated in my opinion sets a dangerous precedent our job here is to ensure what we put forward is complete and responsible not
necessarily just what's popular yeah i think I've struggled with how much uh you know I've struggled with the rationale and trying to understand why the school committee last year couldn't weather a million dollars but this year can weather a $2 million cut but you know
when you're kind of digging into the numbers you know the school department budget has I think the last thing I saw that it's increased by about 13% over the last two years or so um you know and we're not 13% and we're still not out of this and we're not even close to it and
I think the real concern for me and and this is why I was more inclined to support it this year is I think that a a $2 million override has a better chance of passing than a $4 million override in my opinion um you know but you know I think asking the voters to add a 2004 400 bucks to their tax bill is a very
different conversation than asking voters to add 800 1,200 bucks to their tax bill i think that's almost a guaranteed no um but you know I don't I'm not a you know I don't know the future uh I think next year will be challenging to get a significant if if we have to add two million plus the
impact um it's going to be challenging to get a $5 million override through and and I will be voting no on that um so I would much prefer that we have an option for a much lower dollar amount uh so that way something can so that way the situation isn't so
bad but again I'm not on the school committee and the school committee is unanimous so and that's where I'm at as well i have serious concerns about what's going to happen if next year we end up presenting a multi-year override i mean I don't even know what that number is going to be but my fear is
that voters will look at that and immediately say "No that is way too much money." And then we'll be in an even bigger hole than we're in now so that's where I was at too if this made it on the ballot and it was on the warrant personally as a resident I would have voted for it i think recommending to
approve in this role is a little different especially when you have a elected committee not recommending it to you it's just harder to do but it is a real concern of mine because next year if that's what happens and the way things are going now then we're going to be looking at serious cuts so I also
looked at it as $2 million maybe it's a little more realistic to pass and it's better than nothing but I also understand that we would probably be in the same situation next year so maybe this multi-year approach is the way to go i don't know i don't have the answers to that so one of the differences next
year I think is that there will be you will know exactly what you're getting there will be a plan laid out it will be had be vetted there will be a runway to educate the public there are people who saw a joint meeting was like "No override this here all right I'm done i don't have to pay attention i'm not even going to go to town meeting." They have
no idea what we're talking about right now mhm that piece was is important to me because that's that is you know I know that there was a an override that passed in some place south of here just a couple last week or
the week before and the article stated that they had you know many public hearings and people were prepared people could organize we don't have a plan for what this looks like all this looks like is that we need to raise money we don't know where it's going for past this year
it's just we know we're going forward this year and then we have to scramble to make sure how we're going to use this i mean this is just again this is not the way to do it and and people would not be fully alerted to it with enough time to get to hear engage ask questions
up until the time of the thing it's 6 weeks is just absolutely not enough time and we had the fire union before us saying you know as much as they are hurting now they need that fourth shift they are willing to forego another year
to have a more you know expand a townwide override next year right and there are those needs on the town side too absolutely we don't have any departments that are bleeding the way the school budget is i don't Yeah they definitely need consideration as
well which is what I'm getting at sorry C it's okay i mean I think you know we're going to have an omnimous budget in front of the town for 40 something million dollars and people are only going to have three four weeks to decide on it right i mean I you know I don't want to be I I don't want to be
confrontational i just want to offer this opinion that I think that the format that we go through with articles I think it is reasonable time for voters to be informed uh I do think that it's enough time for voters to make an informed decision on the override but I recognize that if you want an override
to pass that the most successful pathway is by having as much runway as possible um and the the longer the runway the better the education can be the better that you can help get it to pass but whether or not I think it's enough time to people make a decision i I do think
it is you know we're obviously you know this bleeds into what's going to happen next year you know whether or not we are thought this you know the board after I'm off is thoughtful and spends a lot of time i think you know I honestly would say that I don't think most people frankly care about the level of detail
what they care about is the impact to them and if if any board you know goes to the voters and said "We need a thousand dollars 800 bucks anything close to that I think it is a guaranteed no unless you have a you know the sky is falling and here's how we're not going
to you know how we're going to avoid this parade of horribles." But you know something that makes me just I don't want to take too much time a key point here is I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in town you know senior uh friend of mine who bought their house for like
$26,000 and you know recently a good friend of mine was in from Wisconsin and I asked his parents you know how much they paid for their house you know 40 years ago when they bought it and it was about hundred grand um you know and other some of my other friends that live in Lunenburgg the point is you know
there are many people who live in town that bought a house for 80 90 $100,000 and when they retired in you know 2000 they didn't have the salaries of today they retired when at60,000 $55,000 a year you know the people who were buying homes in in the last 3 years
in Lunenburgg you're buying in at 400,000 plus and most people are buying in at $600,000 so it's just it's a it's a different conversation when it's about affordability for the entire town because we can't just look at you know
the people who have bought a $600,000 house we have to think about all the people who bought a $100,000 house and that are paying taxes and can they afford a,000 $800 even a 400 cuz we're only talking 400 bucks can they can they
stomach can they weather a $400 increase and literally get nothing personally out of it other than the assurance that their property value is going to go up which they frankly don't care about cuz they're not selling anyway um so it it it that's where I probably struggle the
most is recognizing across the board impact uh I wish we had the ability to have a voluntary who wants to contribute you know uh well people always can voluntarily contribute their tax dollars um but I I do wish we had a way to more targeted get a targeted way to kind of
raise these funds and I I support the parents but I also can't not think about the 30% of our town that's retired right all right i think we've all said our piece here is there a motion to recommend approval motion to recommend disapproval on
article 13 on article 12 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously and then we'll flip that for the booklet mhm all right article 13 supplement to the
Lunberg public schools fiscal year 2026 operating [Applause] budget so this is the transfer of 500,000 from certified free cash to the schools i think we've discussed this nothing much has changed about this right the only thing that's changed on
this is that council instead of adding it in the motion um put the contingency language right in the main body of the article um so that it is said transfer uh to occur only if voters fail to
approve a proposition 2 and half override and goes on so so it makes it very clear that this is if override passes this transfer doesn't go forward right in the article as opposed to the motion okay all right well is there a motion to add
this to the warrant i I have a question on this so in I mean anticipating that our next vote is going to be not to um include an override on a ballot um there's not a path ahead right
which would be after the after the election after the organization of a new board if this passes at town meeting then there could be a conversation about do we revisit this mhm we could call a special town special town meeting y special election special election oh that's what I meant if they wanted if
for some reason the override passes at town meeting and we wanted to then allow the new board could vote to put it on the ballot at a leaving this language in still protects us in there's still the possibility so it's why we were someone on the floor of town meeting can just
remove that requirement they could sure and we could vote it down and then and then I think the motion would change right the the position would change if if that requ if that contingency was to be removed at town meeting i think that that would greatly change the debate on town meeting floor at that
time got it so as writed in the warrant second any additional discussion those in favor say I i no motion move that we recommend approval second any additional
discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously all right article 14 amendments to the salary administrative plan SAP position titles and grades so it looks like we did vote to include it this is green i know the rest of it's red because of the
comment i couldn't I couldn't agree more with the town council's comment which in the comment is shorter than the two pages of the article most of which is already not changing anything so I think we should word it i agree
yeah that's okay it's probably easier to read i'd like to see that data that I requested earlier before I made a motion or before I recommended approval on it we did already include it did we already recommend approval we added it to the warrant we didn't vote to recommend
approval if if I may Mr chair I think uh I hear you um however I think my opinion is that when it comes to SAP and improving um pay for staff or positions um it's I think that it's really um
advantageous for the board to not defer to town meeting these oh I don't want to defer to next week we have next week i would just like to make sure that you know we had the presentation but I we don't have the data behind it i can see that before which one okay are you talking about the classifications 14
yeah because we talked about um the DW next week yeah so we can hold off on this for next week that's fine i agree though that we should have a recommendation oh yeah i do as well is that same going to apply to 15 yes one would think
one would think yep yeah one more week all right that's just my personal opinion yep so we add it to the warrant and then we'll hold off on voting to recommend until next week article 16 holiday pay for call firefighters we recommended approval 17 appropriate free cash to the stabilization fund we did
not vote on this one we don't have a dollar amount do we know the number yet there is no dollar this is one is no dollar amount so there's no transfer to any of the stabilization accounts so could could I remove both of these like in advance of today sure but my thought
here is that to keep these on the warrant with the explanation of what they are yes and as well that due to the so the sec due to the plan transfer of free cash to the Lunberg public schools for FY26 under article whatever uh the plan motion is to pass over this article
at annual town meeting i want to make it abundantly clear where that free cash came from and what we are foregoing this year in order to transfer to the schools so that's my recommendation of why this stays on the warrant but the motion would be to pass over the article I tell
so for tonight the recommendation Mr chair would this be no action or Well I mean it just makes no direct financial no well that's Tom i was going to say financial income what do we do in cases like this what have we done i've only seen We've never done this but I
agree with the town manager's reason for doing it okay um but I didn't think I didn't think we I mean I knew the stabilization fund we were zeroing out i didn't think the special purpose especially we we zero out that one those two and we kept OP op 222,000 212,000
12,000 oh so what is our official stance here i That's a good question well the question is what are we going to do when we come up with it are we going to pass this over what motion to pass over yeah the motion is to pass over the motion would be to pass over and so it would probably be handled within the consent agenda I would think um I wouldn't make
the point but Okay fair do we vote for anything here to fill in i mean is there a recommendation that we can make on this i think I understand where they're
telling me is coming from but we're literally putting Do these summaries go into the booklet correct well then it should be part of the summary that there's no recommendation because we're not there's no financial impact we shouldn't have we there's no need to take a vote on anything that's what I was I think it should be part of the
summary why there's no recommendation no recommendation yeah yeah well explain in the summary because there's no financial impact there was no select board recommendation yeah all right all right i guess I would argue that there's no financial impact i think Right no I'm
saying there is financial impact i don't want to I don't want to take over the financial the financ terminology for votes no I was saying I think that by not doing this there is a financial effect but Oh oh you Yeah i don't I don't think that
there's no financial saying to this what you're getting at yeah i think there there is we're we already have clearly stated this is not best practice this is a financial article right so we don't say there's no financial right i don't think we say that because there is we defer and then
pass over till meeting or our recommendations to take no action yeah i I think no recommendation is good no i I wouldn't support saying no financial impact is there a motion to recommend that town meeting take no action on this article yeah it's a new it's a new one
that we've never used but why not uh I move for article 17 for the select board to recommend taking no action on articles 17 and 18 do you want to just Okay thank you second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those no motion passes unanimously all right
so that brings us to 19 appropriate free cash to the OPED trust fund we recommended approval you were right on the 222 not 22 yeah I know i was going to say memory was serving you better yeah that's all right article 20 establish a reserve fund for future payment of acred liabilities for
compensated absences yes we recommended approval article 21 appropriation to the compensated absence reserve fund oh we did not vote on this one but we voted on the other one okay so we have the number it's 10,000 but are you going to make a motion yep i move to recommend approve of article 21
second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously all right article 22 transfer funds to the OPED sewer trust fund we voted to recommend approval 23 FY2026 Sewer Enterprise voted to recommend
approval 24 Sewer Inflow Infiltration Stabilization Fund voted to recommend approval 25 Sewer Reserve Capacity Stabilization Fund voted to recommend approval article 26 Solid Waste Disposal Program Enterprise Fund we did not vote on this one we don't have a dollar okay
you do you do now 500,000 500,000 it's in the summary yep the planned are we going to move that into the um into the language here then no it doesn't go in the actual Yeah okay all right is there a motion i would move I would recommend we I I move that the select
board recommend approval wow second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those no the motion passes unanimously all right article 27 water enterprise fund we did not vote on this one either yeah we didn't yeah last week we didn't have it i move to recommend
approval of article 27 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously 28 public educational government PEG access enterprise fund is there a motion to recommend approval
move that we recommend approval of article 28 second any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously 29 flood plane map update i believe we did vote on this one five to zero all
right oh this is God and then article 30 ADU bylaw update did we yep we voted on that one too yep so that brings us to Okay uh we we voted to recommend approval on these ones but we should probably uh discuss
this so 31 amending clauses 17D E and F relative to tax exemptions uh so this is the one or I guess the two articles that the language is really still being worked out by town council so this is
this is uh through you to the board this is the reason why the biggest reason why we can't be approving the warrant this evening so I received these comments back from town council last evening um essentially he's not sure exactly what the board of assessors is aiming to
accomplish within the article so I have discussed with Brian Lefond uh today the the questions and asked council and Brian to coordinate over the course of the next week so we are very clear on what the actual goal is and that we make sure that we're accomplishing it within
the text and so that is that is the delay all right i know we already voted but you don't have the 500 on Oh thank you did both thank you yeah there's there's a couple so we just have to Yeah all right
article 33 citizens petition this is the one relative to cemeteries this is uh article citizens petition 33 [Applause] who was that that was a loud yawn i'm
sorry know if that was a yawn a sneeze I think do we want to vote on this one tonight i don't know is anybody going to change their opinion next week no no all right is there a motion
i'm just rereading it quickly i'm move that the the select would recommend disapproval of 33 second any additional discussion those in favor i just I just want to because because the proponent is in the audience I just want to say that I think that it's very hard
to follow number one so the format is very difficult to know at the end what exactly people are voting on but also some of the content of changing how uh an elected body can run things under their purview that
is clearly stated in both mass general law and our charter i am not in favor of especially you know the rules and regulations of the cemeteries number four I completely disagree with that change that alone would make me vote
disapproval of it i think there are some bits in here that that you know could be salvaged at a later date but in its entirety since it's citizen petition and we cannot really modify it as written I would recommend disapproval yeah I agree i think I think this as
presented directly conflicts with the charter and the charter is the um superior document all right those in favor say I i those opposed no the motion passes unanimously another one will have to flip article 34
Marshall Park Design debt [Applause] exclusion so before we discuss this and I know this is not the final order but I'm assuming this is potentially the final order are we going to wait for these two articles to
the very end of the meeting do you think it's beneficial to do it earlier on well I think you're going to have a lot fewer people there or you're going to get a lot of really I think people I my thought Mr chair it's late i'm sorry my thought Mr
alonzo through the chair is that I heard from residents that there were substantial complaints about or some complaints I won't necessarily say substantial about town meeting last year and that folks came in for part of the meeting and then a large amount of folks
exited shortly thereafter so I originally had these two debt exclusions placed closer to the monetary section the thought here was that okay if you want to weigh in sit with us for the day i fully support these at the end yeah me
too for those reasons i That's a good reason i just wanted to know i don't know that it'll have that effect it's going to be interesting to see if it has that effect yeah yeah i think this highlights that I still owe Izzy a summary apparently and Oh yeah looks
like it does so I need to hurry and get that over to him so let's if we can just hold off on 35 till next week until summary sure we're on 34 right now still Marshall Park design exclusion i move recommend approve of article 34
i'll second that is there any additional discussion so in this this one and the following one it basically follows my thought as it pertains to our talk on the override which is you know does it have a plan does it have a uh a plan I
first of all does it have a plan does it have a plan I can support that would say to me that it really goes up to the voters and the ballot would be so the money part of it would be up to the voters for those criteria i will vote yes on this okay i'm not sure
personally if I will vote yes on this but it is something that is planned that people can point to and say this is what you are getting this is the amount you tell us if it's that this is worth it to you and I think as a board supporting
another board I would I will vote in favor of it on that criteria yeah I feel I feel the same way on that they they have a very clear defined plan the only thing I'm looking for here this
is for the whole project because I know they talked about there could be a motion on the floor for a lesser that will be part of their presentation I assume at town meeting okay probably i don't know i haven't talked to them about that but so my understanding is that they have the main motion for the
roughly $13.8 million project and they will be prepared for a motion for the lower amount um when we get to the election warrant that's where it becomes interesting yeah but the this is probably I I don't think I'd change the kind of the way this is
printed because that's a kind of a fall back as opposed to the primary request of the I actually wonder in in the interest of keeping town meeting trying to keep town meeting moving as quickly as possible if having that um that
motion for the the smaller project already written ready for someone to Okay so they don't we don't have to wait for them to write it out that takes a long time i didn't think I I mean I must have misunderstood cuz I didn't think they were going for the whole project 13
million yes yeah oh wow okay well okay um before I forget and if it's not the right time to answer that's fine but I know they're going to apply for grants how does that impact if you borrow 14 million and they get a million dollar
grant how does that play out in terms of you don't have to raise everything that Yeah if we get money in and don't we don't but we've already borrowed x amount no you can borrow it it I think it would depend on the timing of when the grant is received versus what if
it's after the borrowing's done so I think my understanding is meeting with bond is that you don't necessarily borrow the money right away that throughout the process you're keep continue to bonds yeah right so it can it can reduce the taxpayers the the
impact to the Okay cuz I because that's I mean that's what happened with the middle school high school they came in like I'm just saying they came in like three or4 million under what was allotted by town meeting for various reasons but yeah yeah it's not like you go out and get a loan for 14 million now
because they they talked they were approved for 18 years I think is what the the guidance was okay all right so the motion's been made and seconded right is there any additional discussion all right those in favor say I i i those opposed no motion passes unanimously all
right and that brings us to article 35 municipal building design i'm sorry i couldn't turn what do you What I said I I mentioned I need to give a summary and Oh that's right my apologies yes all right we're going to wait until next week on that okay thank you sorry you threw me off guard 35
articles all right and that was the entire war no we took one off there's no number there one of them came off so now there's 34 i guess next week we should probably think about how many can be consented okay ready for next week
okay probably two come on all right let me just myself to the agenda here and that brings us to discussion potential vote to include prop 2 and a half override ballot question on annual town election warrant
we did not vote on this uh previously so is there a motion i will make a motion that we do not put a Prop 2 and a half override ballot question on the ballot second any additional discussion those in favor say I i i those opposed no
motion passes unanimously all right i left this here discussion on FY2025 budget FY2026 budget capital plan and annual town meeting warrant articles any other budget capital plan warrant related discussion that we want to have tonight i just have one question about
what was printed out for us the budget there doesn't seem to be a total budget like it just stops at intergovernmental assessments because the columns on Excel you have to embed a separate table but that will be in the
book so okay it just the the column widths line up with the above and then it so we're doing it like like Dickens wrote tell two cities this is an installment plan next week after the end of the budget okay got it i'll be fully left in suspense well I mean we have the
we have the end number but it just needs to get printed on there yeah um you could have told me that so I didn't say that i didn't mean to embarrass anybody um and then I I will say on that print out um I did hear some feedback from some folks so I'm going to it's going to
take a fair amount of work to show that in an alternate way but um there is an alternative to this way to show it if I could just talk about that for a moment what I was trying to do here this is not easy for folks to understand but under
for example under the FY21 expended columns the totals are matching what was printed in the book for years and so the issue with that is that that's not the
you can't total the impact so one one thing has to be disconnected either we're disconnecting from the history of the books or we're disconnecting from the lines so I'm going to show that alternative way uh to the board next
week and basically choose between two options for how to how to show it to the voters what we're doing so this was what I thought but I think that that could be maybe when it's done more clear so I I don't know i I mean I had a
suggestion not for this meeting but I'll call you okay and talk to you about it because I think I suggested something or maybe I didn't maybe I dreamt I suggested something to you but I do have an idea about it how to bring the historical data forward because it's
important not to lose that if you lose that then it becomes then this format becomes hard to read and then it becomes almost meaningless yes and by the way I like this format so I can read a left to right for the last you know four years i think that including this year like five years I
think that's excellent and I I think too recognizing that we have to fit this in a book it is small so I am going to have at town meeting some separate handouts that just have the first two columns and
the last four columns for folks who need a little larger font so I what I would re what I suggest I I can make this suggestion i I don't think the people in town I think you should put what's this on the website but for
the booklet for that very reason I don't think you have to go back five years so I think if you go back three years and eliminate three columns okay I mean at least you give somebody a perspective but if you want to see if somebody wants to dig in that kind of detail then they're probably the kind of person who can get it off the off the website
every now and then I hear that New York accent come out when I when I get when I get tired I uh Yeah off the website there we go anything else i'll I'll I'll I'll pay close attention
any other budget discussion tonight no all right current business approval of May 17 2025 annual town election warrant we are not ready for this tonight uh we are still working through the language of the Marshall Park
questions so I don't know are there any questions for the town manager i I'd like to comment Mr chairman sure the Yeah so the the issue here is that we don't know what is going to be approved for Marshall Park at town meeting whether it's the $13 million project or
the lesser project so bond council has provided two separate articles or two separate um questions um that don't have the monetary amount in them and explain the the two projects in talking to town
council yesterday um I think we're going to switch that up and so there can be um the two questions really contained within one so if you vote yes for the $13 million project by that vote of yes you're also voting yes
for the lower project but if you don't vote yes for the $13 million project and you only vote yes for the $5 million project then that's all that your vote would count for so it wouldn't count towards if a $13 million project were approved if you vote no then it's
obviously So that's kind of like an override menu exactly exactly but it's the I will say I understand the rationale of the parks commission of why they're taking this approach but it does complicate the election warrant
my only comment about the election ballot is as as the current version's written which sounds like it's going to be changed you have to know the details and read through and know what's included i think seeing the dollar amount Mhm will call out people will know what project they're voting for
because you really have to read through and you know okay does this have the field you have to understand and I'm not sure everyone will fully understand the difference between the two projects cost they will Mhm all right anything else on that tonight
all right we will review it next week then all right what's next slightboard report to annual town meeting on the Brooks House all right so as a result of the Warren article that we voted on at the
special town meeting we are well there's a lot of things that we have been asked to do um but one of them is giving a report at the annual town meeting on the progress of the plan i'm not going to go through all of it i think a lot of us remember what we voted on um we ended up
allowing the municipal building design committee to uh take charge of that and they were a little preoccupied and I don't think we really uh got too far on that so Michael Ray I just wanted to ask you what discussions have you guys had do you have any coming up planned about
the Brooks House yeah so we have a we did have to cancel our last meeting due on St patrick's Day yes and uh and not being able to maintain Cor so I did reach out to all the members to try to see if we can get one rescheduled prior to next week which was to be the normal
schedule next Monday and we were not able to find consensus um so you know I'm expecting that we're going to come back to the board with our original recommendation on this which is you know that the building should likely be demolished um but you know the board has
the committee has discussed it um minimally u we were planning on we thought this was about a month and a half of work really it's not a lot um you know to come up with a generalized there's no funding associated with this so you can't really come up with a site
plan without money um so I mean you can come up with a you know a sketch essentially of what it could be but it kind of triggers a lot of other things that I think the board needs to answer which is do we really want to parcel off land right there at the entrance to the school I think you know I was have been
vocal on my concerns with this request to begin with y um but you know there's just unfortunately You know I think that we will be meeting i do expect that we will have somewhat of an update for the board prior to town meeting um but nowhere near uh what's expected and and
just again without money you cannot develop site plans for properties no one on the board we do have a civil engineer on the board um but no one is going to do that you know that's a career that's a profession um so some of this is unattainable without fun so I finally
went into the Brooks house and I have a little more context now that I've actually been inside the building i don't know what I was expecting uh but it is even worse than what was I was expecting which was already pretty low um and I just I don't find what we've
been asked the the path that we've been asked to go down uh really feasible uh and especially with the parking going through the library like that I just don't I don't know i'm not um too sure that I think this is the right path forward so part of why I also added this
on here is so that we can just have this conversation now generally speaking about the disposition of the building as well so I just wanted to see where members are at on that too well I mean one of the things that I've said several times I would support at
least putting it out see if anybody and again it the chance of this happening are very low but if somebody wanted to move the house somewhere to save it fine i I don't see how it continues in its
location and what you can do with it and everything I've heard about what you can do with it there is way too many restrictions both physical and uh infrastructure restrictions it's it's on
the retention pond on the one side it's the you the school and the driveway to the school on the other two sides it's you know it needs it's not really large enough to really have a home and it would need tons of work
so you know unlike the Jones house which was much more salvageable especially since it didn't have to be moved so people who bought it put in the money I don't see that happening there because even if somebody decided to repair it I don't think there's ways to carve this
out it's not that the zoning won't allow it because the village district allows you to put something on a postage stamp if you want but it's just not going to be anything that's going to be able to work well didn't the town try to sell it in the past move it here you can have it
for a dollar take it no I don't think we ever posted it if we did we posted it in you know maybe somewhere that wasn't really doesn't have a lot of visibility right and we did we do have authorization already to sell the building and I thought that um you know
the previous permanent town manager did put it out for a period of time to see if there were any takers and there were none you know I I mean you know I I work in the space of managing um you know properties overseeing redevelopment of buildings most of which are historic um
and I I I don't shy away from demolition i know that some people do but you know the market is the market and there just there's a finite dollar amount that someone is willing to spend on a building to rehabilitate it um versus building something new or doing it down
the street and you know although you know historical properties such as this are you know they they get to fall into a different section of the new energy code which just got updated at the end of February um but they do get to fall into a different section of it so you won't have all that rigid energy code stuff but I mean you have foundation
issues you have interior issues you're basically doing a full gut with no parking limited access you have municipal all around you i just don't understand who's who this appeals to you know what person with deep pockets is going to be interested in this when they
can just go down the street anywhere else and do it so much cheaper you know I I think Well I think people who would be interested in it and I don't mean to interrupt but would be people who are interested in historical buildings yeah the problem I have with it is that people who who they know they're going to be spending more money because they
could go to someplace else they would want it in a historical area surrounded by other historical buildings not surrounded by a new library and a busy road and new houses across the street or newer than it and at the risk of at the
risk of irritating the historical commission because I've said this over the years I get that it was built a long time ago but it has been pieced together and sawed up so many times that that the actual building is not the building
anymore and that's the so the historical value of it has been changed so much as to diminish the historical quality and and provenance provenence of it and that's so I agree that I don't know that there'd be anybody out there now of
course things can be done I mean and nothing really is impossible you know with buildings the the limitation is money um and how much someone's willing to expend right and having you know typically you need that kind of personal connection to the property exactly what you're saying that personal connection
that opportunity to to turn stuff into something new but you know you're you can't a lot of property and and site limitations i mean imagine if you know you spend you know a million dollars trying to let's just let's let me be a more generous number let's not less generous let's say you spend $400,000
trying to rehabilitate this you can't even have people over where are they going to park right i mean so who does that appeal to you know so you think the municipal building design committee will be able to discuss this more before town meeting
i mean I think that you know we've discussed it i think you know the the architectural preservation district representative that we have um you know had a different viewpoint than the rest of the committee on this and so you know town meeting said that this board needs to take a different approach so I do
think you know it's a non-binding decision um you know I think the hardship of where we were in November was you know my opinion was that it was you know this board isn't made up of property professionals and so it's going to be really hard to attack this without any money um like how do you do this
without any money and so you know on the municipal building design you know you have you know three of us at least four of us that are property professionals that could reasonably address this um but you know I think with more time it could be addressed by the municipal building
design committee but I mean I think the consistent opinion here is the consistent opinion which is how much money do you want to throw at this building not a lot no all right so do we want to give a report at annual town meeting does it really make sense to
make a report i mean it's not really much i think even just giving Yeah an update that's ongoing we can give a report because we were asked to do it sure all right fair enough any other discussion on this tonight all right moving on letter to congressional
delegation regarding funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services so this is a request that we got from our library director um the president signed an executive order uh quote continuing the reduction in the elements of the federal
bureaucracy that the president has deemed are unnecessary uh and this time that funding is for libraries and museums the mayor of Worcester has drafted the letter for our congressional delegation speaking to the importance of libraries in this funding and sent it
out to municipalities to sign on to and mirror would like us to do so so I'll go ahead and read it dear members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation on behalf of mayors and city officials across Massachusetts we thank you for your leadership in representing the needs of
our communities we are writing to express our deep concern over an executive order signed March 14th 2025 that would target federal funding to libraries and museums through the Institute of Museum and Library Services imls is the single largest source of critical federal funding for libraries
however it only accounts for 0.003% 003% of the federal budget in Massachusetts the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners MBLC received 3.6 million from IMLS's grants to states programs this money funds several statewide
services for everyone including the full and partial salaries for MBLC staff statewide research databases summer reading and statewide ebook program statewide trainings for librarians to increase access for people with vision loss early literacy development and
grade level reading programs and interl loan it is also critical to note that IMLS funding also supports museums in our communities libraries offer the opportunity for members of the public to access materials at no cost or low cost to them for individuals with visual impairments
or other disabilities it can be difficult to sustain a need or desire for reading materials that are usable for their needs most importantly interl loan offers the chance for library patrons to obtain materials that are not a part of their home libraries collection in towns that have smaller
collections interl loan offers a gateway to materials through the Commonwealth as elected officials on the front lines we know that libraries are more than spaces to hold reading materials libraries also serve as spaces that offer connections to social services and resources support
for small business owners and entrepreneurs and they can serve as a space for community since their creation American libraries have served to keep and circulate knowledge they've remained dedicated to promoting intellectual freedom in our democracy we urge the Massachusetts congressional delegation
to work together across party lines to protect IMLS funding from harmful cuts and policy changes as local leaders we are directly accountable to the residents we've served thank you for your continued leadership and commitment to protecting the well-being of all residents so are we interested in
signing on to this letter no yes michael Carrie so it was a strong no i know i'm really no uh you know let me look at the time so I can try to keep this short you
know i get it right i mean half the country didn't vote for Trump okay um and that's just reality but we don't take these meetings and you know I don't comment on on the on the genocide we're funding in Israel against the Palestinians you know I don't comment on a lot of things that the federal
government does because it's just not our purview um you know and I think that you know a lot of half the country is going to be pissed off every time President Trump opens his mouth and the other half is going to be you know jumping for joy maybe I'm being you know a bit exaggerating on the half part we
live in Massachusetts right we didn't most people here didn't vote for him most people are never going to vote for him and you know and and and half the people at the top of this list are clearly not going to have any sway over what President Trump actually does um you know Congress has the authority of
the purse they should exercise it they have full control over where every single federal dollar should go the president doesn't have line item veto authority but if they want to sit back and let them do it that's their choice um but they have the power to stop the stuff that they already see going on
that's probably not too legal so you know uh we got four more years there's going to be a lot more stuff that we're not going to like and not you know there's a lot more stuff that people aren't going to like and aren't going to agree with i support the library heavily i definitely don't disagree with what
they're trying to say here but I don't think this letter is going to do one thing so it's it's it's not worth the paper and the stamp so I don't support it i Yeah I don't So I don't vote for this as
a as any kind of protest vote against the president i couldn't care less uh this affects Lunberg and it affects Massachusetts and it affects those who need these services most and as we are elected to protect
and represent the the the citizens and our library being caught up in this uh this removable of this removal of funds uh is well attended and well supported
by this community and as such I support the continued use of that and they are losing they will lose funds and those funds will remove services from our libraries so I am writing this in support to the congressional delegation
or our our congresswoman in this case and our senators I assume this will go to as well um as that I mean it it it'll have will it have an effect i mean no I they don't have the majority but at least they'll have the voice of people saying that it
didn't go unnoticed that this was removed and we don't approve of it being removed i have no illusions of how the levers of power work uh but I will not be silent as things that are important to myself or my community are removed
without voicing disagreement or dissent and that's what I feel this vote is for me yeah i I don't think saying that the letter won't do any good is not a valid reason to not submit the letter our voice should be heard this is one
mechanism to do it i mean that's I agree we're standing up for Lunenburgg i know DC feels really far away but decisions that are made there impact us in the same way that decisions that are made on Beacon Hill affect us just a
couple weeks ago we sent a heated letter with demands for Lunenburgg um to our state delegation right i know we're we live in a hyperartisan era so anything that comes across as criticizing one side or the other
especially at the federal level it is taken out of context in the sense that we are just being political and partisan i don't see it like that so I support signing on to this letter i don't know it's going to do much uh but at the same time I also don't really know that our
letters to our state delegation are going to do much we sent a letter to the governor she didn't even respond to us nor did she address what she asked us to do exactly so I am uh fully supportive of signing on to this as requested by our library um and if it's just a
statement of our values then so be it and as such I I mean well I'll I have a note on the motion but go ahead my only thoughts here are I'm not going to give a political statement on on either one way one way or the other but I think that you know our library director asked
us to to support this um the letter and because of that I will support our staff's request yeah exactly he asked us to uh step up and stand uh stand up for him and so I'm willing to do so as well all right so one thing about the motion
um the city of Worcester is collecting signitories um through a page on their website through a form so for the motion I would ask you to authorize me to digitally sign on to this letter well I will make the motion that we sign on to
the congressional delegation letter as read by the chair and authorize the chair to sign uh digitally as provided by uh the city of Worcester [Music] [Applause]
second all right any additional discussion those in favor say I i those opposed no no all right the motion passes 4 to one all right up next minutes warrants and action items we have minutes for January
23rd 2024 and March 11th 2025 march 11th you just got in your package right that's right okay i had a note unless it's changed since earlier today um Mr alonzo's name is spelled wrong throughout the entire day of that set of minutes thank you alanzo alanzo i was
like why does that look weird took me a second okay thank you it's just to find and replace yeah yeah that should be a relatively easy thing to fix otherwise I was not on the board i did look That was actually going to be my chosen name in my witness protection program
no I know exactly boiled again oh was your name tag that was your name tag right need it you know it okay um do we want to hold off on voting on these then why don't we get them corrected for you yeah let's get them corrected and then
March uh 11th I None of us I don't think have reviewed those i don't know all right warrants we do have some warrants tonight thank you whoa that is actually a lot heavier than they normally are are they AP
what just Oh um yes they are okay I'm going to recuse myself all right we have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of $77 how long does this last until she submits her final oh okay in the amount of 17 oh she's still working i'll throw them off now she's going to next gota all right let's hold on we
have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of $717,38623 and this is all that one warrant committee reports um I can't remember school committee met since our last meeting um but they are meeting tomorrow night and
I did learn they hired a facilities director his first day is tomorrow oh it's good uh I meet with the subcommittee of the board of assessors on the senior tax writeoff we are finalizing the form uh
the applications and then the board of assessors has to have to decide and vote on uh home value limits and income limits that's the last part but that's them so by tomorrow evening we should have approved and I don't know if the
it'll be in its final visual form but contentwise it should be finalized uh and then finet I I saw one hour of the 4hour meeting i I saw the the presentation by uh Miss Lockwood and uh and I know that
their public hearing is two two days from now this coming Thursday economic Development Committee met on the 27th i have was not able to be there i have not had a chance to review that meeting yet and master plan steering committee is scheduled to meet i believe
it's April 9th next week um hopefully we'll have a quorum and that can meet that's all I have zone out are you zoned out or you don't no no no no no i was waiting for more um sorry the um municipal building and design committee uh as we heard our
meeting um we have a meeting coming up on Monday um and you know we're looking to have some open houses that will coordinate with the um with Chris Ruth and the town manager um the other thing is um I u conservation commission we are uh I in my personal capacity am trying
to support um them with their tenant uh they and working with Chris Ruth just to get into a um to perform a capital needs assessment of the property that uh they have and so I will be um we are scheduled to do that inspection it was
rescheduled so now it's rescheduled to this Friday morning um that's really all I have i don't have much okay well while I was taking a break from this board I was spending time with the superintendent screening committee uh last week we met on Monday Thursday
Friday and we met last night on Monday as well and we have successfully interviewed and screened uh candidates so we voted on a slate of finalists to send to the school committee and they will be announcing that tomorrow night so that's all I'll say excellent thank you and I went out of order here going
back to action items are there any action items nope okay upcoming meetings we're meeting next Tuesday April 8th and the following Tuesday April 15th any public comments from the town manager no any
public comments from the public mr bowen while he's coming up I think it's great that we're meeting on April Fool's Day and tax day in the same season yeah well why not that's a Oh yeah sure thank you hi everyone uh
John Bowen 162 Highland Street um I just wanted to uh uh make a statement uh about the citizen petition warrant article that you kind of said that and I'm I heard everything you said but when a citizen puts in a citizen's petition
it's because he does not expect the elected palist to be able to step up and agree particularly when it has to do with reigning in an elected board so and that's what the warrant article has to do with is the reigning in of a rogue board i'm going to continue my statement
from earlier that I did not finish which conveniently I stopped at the area where I was going to mention this look at that it worked out yeah it's perfect you guys were great you said exactly what I expected you to say it went like this in rehearsals right oh please i swear to God it was almost like we met before
this and we were like you know stage left stage right hey I felt like I was in college again so parliamentarily speaking you have a warrant article regarding the powers and duties of individuals here and concerned which is
the cemetery commission okay but they also include the town manager and DPW director right who are actually able to exercise their authority but are failing to under the charter as that check and balance now within this parliamentary
process we the people have the final say how a board in this town or an elected official operates financially or otherwise our town meeting is our Senate floor for debate and I encourage all citizens to consider the actions of the cemetery
commission over the last 3 years twice they have tried to use the police to remove me and twice that has failed i'm not quite happy about how um sorry uh because they're not the ones that are happy and I'm not happy with how they
want to handle it okay but how they were told by me they were told that they were wrong and this is what happens this is why we have the parliamentary process i did not expect this board to agree that reigning in an elected official by an
elected official would work and that's why we bring it to the floor so I am right again what has been accomplished was this board and what has been wasted money over $15,000 in 2 and 1/2 years i I reiterated that the records issue is
another issue this is a serious issue which I mentioned that Lori Tran's office is spearheading rewriting the privacy act of 1974 i I say as citizens that we can stand and we can write these wrongs where it's not being done by the check
and balance in town and we can enforce it by voting at town meeting removing access to people to have access to personal information they're not supposed to have to begin with and also to monitor and maintain their actions and behavior as a committee not only
that we can compel them to have a plan for our cemeteries which today they have none above all the dead have a right to privacy as well do you really want to have a board or a commission to know the manner and
death of your family member whether they committed suicide drug overdose natural causes car accident lost the whole top half of their body at war all this is public record if you allow elected officials who pop in and pop out every 3
years or are appointed are available to see this is privacy that needs to be protected i will not stop until this privacy is corrected i will not stop until this commission puts together a plan for these cemeteries which in its
current state like I said it doesn't have one they have had years to get things together they have failed they have failed miserably in the last four but they're more interested in asking for money from the taxpayer attacking
town employees and violating the rights of its citizens this appears to be exactly the direction that this board has taken themselves in the last four years i thank you for your time all right thanks Mr rowan all right Mr mloud
good evening glenn Mloud 436 Reservoir Road uh I just wanted to make a a few quick comments um I was encouraged to hear about the UMass Emergency Center i have seen that you know uh celebrated by our our delegation but I do also think it's important to realize that we are
still down a full functioning hospital so although that is good news there's still a big void and I would also like to commend you on the on the the uh vote and discussions on the citizens citizens petitions as it relates to the the
override for the schools i think you were spot on and I I appreciate the uh the vote and the and the comments i think you did a great job in in my opinion and I also was very happy to hear the discussion relative to the Brooks House i'm I'm a firm believer
that in no circumstances should the town lose the property they should control that the dirt i'm open to you know open mind for every other use beyond that but um you know as the the little bit of research I've done it does seem as
though it is just an old house like it doesn't have specific um you know historical value in fact the farm you know that once was there is now schools so I I I loved your conversation great job i I like the direction that that
that that's heading um and That also leads into my you know one of my many concerns with the municipal um building designs plans for for the town hall is the lack of a real uh road map for dealing with the town's buildings
and I think that's an excellent start by immediately dealing with the Brooks House and show the town's people that we have a plan for the town's property and the and the the buildings within the envelope because as as stated before and I can't remember it was specifically
here but um there's really nothing about the municipal building design plan uh that I support other than the hard work and dedication of of the members of that of that committee and their heartfelt and a lot of you know experts that have
have weighed in on that project and uh with the you know outstanding leadership of m Mr jeff it's just in my my sole opinion is there's you know and and I realize there's still a month or so to go before a final decision is made but um I'll stop now otherwise I'll keep
rambling but thank you very much all right thank you all right any other public comments from the public any on Zoom all right not seeing any any public comments from the board yes um I just want to take this opportunity
to encourage um people at home uh to volunteer uh I know that simply saying it doesn't always do much so I won't dwell on it too much um but we do have some critical vacancies uh especially on the personnel committee you know it's really challenging um to be able to do
all the great things that our community expects us to do um when we can't find five people willing to step up and support the staff who they expect to do it um so we really need to um get this personnel committee filled uh and I just want to encourage anyone at home who's
been paying attention um to to help support that and then also for anyone uh that may still be tuned in um you know related to other requests that were on our agenda this evening you know it's it's always good to be an advocate um but it's it's even better to have a seat
at the table and so I just want to encourage those uh at home who may be frustrated with their local government um to run for some of these seats uh we still have many open seats that are elected uh and we have a lot of open seats that are appointed and so I just
want to encourage that sense of volunteerism um in order to help us you know to be part of the solution um to be part of the solution thank you all right any other public comments from the board all right is there a motion to adjurnn so moved second any additional
discussion those in favor say I i those no the motion passes unanimously it is 10:04 p.m and the select board is adjourned we will see you all again next week have a good night