or Brian. Yeah, we can. Yeah, that's good point. I don't really care. I just, you know. So, these two you saw not on there. All right. Oh, good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Lunberg Select
Board. Today is Tuesday, June 17th. 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. I don't think it's me. It's you. Okay. 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 tonight with announcements. The Lunberg Historical Society will be hosting a book launch and author signing for their new book, Images of America:
Waym Park, on Wednesday, July 2nd, from 1 to 3:00 p.m. and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Lunberg Public Library. In it, you will learn how the park received its name, who were the early developers of the Englishstyle garden park, and how trolley cars eventually brought throngs
of people to what had developed into the popular amusement park we all remember. The book is available through the Lunberg Historical Society, local bookstores,armacies, and superstores. Tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m., there will be the second public information
session regarding the MBTA Communities Act. The MBTA Communities Act requires towns with a certain proximity to MBTA stations to zone part of their community to allow for multifamily housing by right. Attend the public information session if you're interested in learning the potential paths forward for Lunberg
as we consider plans for compliance with the law. On July 23rd, the planning board will vote on which option to choose to bring to special town meeting in the fall. The Lunberg Town Band concerts are back. The first one will be on July 7th from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at TC
Pacios. And the Lunberg Farmers Markets are taking place every month. The next one is July 11th at 400 p.m. Any other announcements? All right. Public comment. Are there any public comments from the board?
I just have one just to uh piggyback on the announcement of the uh information session for the MBTA Communities Act. Um I want to thank Matthew Brener who ran last night's um session. It was really informative and it was recorded so it will be available um on PAC YouTube
channel um shortly. Um and I think you know um Mr. Brener was encouraging folks to submit questions, thoughts, opinions, ideas. Um, and so if you're not able to go in person, I encourage you to send an email to um Matt at and you can find his
email address on the town website or any member of the planning board. All right. Any public comments from the public? Good evening. My name is John Bowen Jr. on 62 Highland Street. I come before you tonight not only as a proud member of this community, but as someone preparing
to dedicate my life to the service of this great nation as a future United States Marine to the United States Naval Academy. Just days ago, on June 14th, 2025, I had the privilege of watching the United States Army's 250th birthday parade. A powerful reminder of the
strength, sacrifice, and legacy of our armed forces. It was not just a celebration of history, but a clear statement that the United States remains a global force built on merit, discipline, and unity under one flag, the American flag. It reminded me of what it means to be an American patriot,
someone who upholds the Constitution, believes in the principles of liberty, and understands that success and opportunity in this country are meant to be based on merit, effort, responsibility, and character, not race, gender, or identity. That's why I stand here tonight concerned about the
decision to fly the pride flag or what is now being referred to as a progressive flag on a flag pole that also bears the American flag in the center of our town. While I understand the town under the United States flag code is allowed to fly a pride flag in this manner, it sends a message. A message that does not reflect unity
under one nation, but one of division by group identity. I want to be clear. I believe every American should be treated with dignity and respect regardless of who they are. But the government, even at the local level, should not be endorsing political or social symbols, especially on public property. The
American flag is the only flag that represents all of us equally. When flown together with flags that represent specific groups, it risks blurring the line between public representation and private advocacy. The month of June on the federal level is recognized as Title 9 month, a celebration of uh equality in
education and athletics rooted in law and merit. Title 9 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. It ensures equal opportunities for all students regardless of their gender in areas like athletics, academics, and
extracurricular activities. While private citizens and businesses have every right to express their values on their property, government institutions should remain neutral and center for all people equally, not symbolically endorse one viewpoint over another. To those who say this is about
inclusion, I ask you, what's more inclusive than the American flag? The very flag under which every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine fights? The flag that covers the caskets of heroes of every background, race, and belief who gave their lives for this nation. When I look around and see flags flown
by government or town authorities that aren't the American flag, it makes me question whether we as a town still believe in what has made our country strong. personal responsibility, equal opportunity through merit, and unity as Americans. I know I am not alone in believing this way. There are others in our community
who feel deeply uncomfortable with this decision, and they deserve to be heard and not silenced or dismissed as intolerant for holding a different view. Let us return to the one flag that binds us all. Let us celebrate our differences as individuals, but let us do it under the shared banner of the stars and
stripes, not under separate symbols that highlight what divides us. Had this been a specific group's request, as Michael Ray Jeff intended this to be, I only stand before you because the request was from the Democrat Town Committee. Is there not a group which is not a political entity that wanted to fly a
flag here? Clearly, there wasn't. In factually, to call this a progressive flag, speaks to a political ideology, not an exercise of individual rights. But I will reiterate, flying a mixed Mexican-American flag, as we have seen on the news, or a mixed pride American
flag is divisive and does not join us, but divides us. And as a public entity, in the interest of equality, no flag other than the American flag should ever be flown on the same post outside of what is federally stipulated. This is uh this is the prudent thing to do, and
this town should uh enact such an ordinance to engage in joining us together, not dividing us. We see around the country what dividing us has done. Do we want to participate in that? I think not. Fitchburg is doing it today. How long before the cancer spreads? When
free speech collides with political ideology, is it really free speech or is it the parody of a political ideology? Thank you for your time. May God bless this town and God bless the United States of America. Any other public comments from the public?
Good evening on a lock with 91 Main Street. Um so I came here for one reason but you know as often happens sometimes I come here with one reason and I end up speaking about Gobble. Um the you know I I quickly Googled when was the US flag
created and it was uh the star stars and stripes was created in June 14, 1777 close to 100 years before we abolish humans owning other humans. So I think the evolution what the
American flag has stood for has just like language has been something evolving and um and I really hope that one day the US flag it is truly representative of us all with equal opportunity and justice for all and um
that's all I'm going to say about it but thank you for having that flag for uh flying ahead of you know in front of this building or a little to the right. Um but I came here because I know you guys have a a couple appointments um a lot several appointments which is you
know big part of your job and one that I you guys should value. And um first of all I want to thank every you know person who has um volunteered their time and is willing to sign up for some you know volunteer job that no one will
thank you for. But hey, I'll apolog um but and um in particular right now I'm on serving with the Council on Aging and you're going to have three candidates. Um I don't know one of the candidates so I'm going to speak for the two that I know. Uh one is being Mr.
Jack Rabbit and another one Mr. Lou Franco. Um, so if there are two people in this town who have done the most to help seniors stay in their home, they are these two gentlemen. Um, so Lou Franco when he first started as a
serving in the Slack board, he took it on to write a bylaw that would be accepted by the state and he did a lot of work for that. And that bylaw now offers it was finally signed into law by the governor this year I think within
the year 25. And that is another benefit that another discount if we will. It has a lot of restrictions but another benefit trying to help seniors that have been living in town for a long time to stay in their homes. Uh Jack Rabbit
served uh when all chaos was breaking loose with the borders of assessors and tax and uh you know lakefront a lot of division in town. Jack Rabbit sign up for one of the most the job that no one wanted to sign up for. And um he got us through that phase of the abatements and
got all that settled. And afterward he has taken an interest in you know helping seniors stay in their home. And often time he got the feedback from fellow members from the board of assessors that the job of the assessors
was to properly assess homes and you know helping seniors to stay in their home are was not within their perview which that's a fair feedback. So here we have Jack trying to serve on the council on age which is where that job exists.
He you know he has done an amazing job on on updating some some of the assessors uh rebates. I I I don't know what those things are called. Yeah. and um and also expanding information that
unfortunately is not on the assessor's job to actually give out and educate citizens on what they can do in order to get these rebates, these abatements into into their of their property taxes. And Jack alone has taken that job and he
has, you know, had multiple meetings at the council on aging and we have expanded the number of seniors that are now applying for some of those. He has worked really hard on making the uh uh the tax deferral very common knowledge
and how that's something that can be you know worked like oneonone with our seniors and our assessors and and that is the right place for Jack um to come to the council on aging and help us continue in making the life of our seniors you know affordable and able to
stay here. So I I I don't know the gentleman the other gentleman that has applied. He came to our last meeting. Um I appreciate his help his his effort on wanting to volunteer. I hope he will volunteer. I hope there's many other boards in town that needs people. I hope
he will stay. Um, I just hope that you will vote for to nominate Lou Franco and Jack Rabbit because they those two gentlemans have done the most to help our seniors stay at their homes and make Lunberg affordable and welcoming to our
seniors. So that's my request. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Lockwood. Are there any other public comments from the public? All right, Mr. Skoleny. Good evening. uh Tony Skellenbr from uh Five Valley Road and I'm here to bring up uh an issue that's been uh kind of
bouncing around for uh a couple of months. Uh I'm a member of the master plan steering uh master plan steering committee and we've been really struggling to have meetings and I think one of the principal problems is that the uh that the quorum is just way too
great. when I looked at the town's website and there are 34 boards and committees that draw volunteers to do time business and uh of those 34 the master plan steering committee has the very largest number of members which in
turn has driven a very large quorum number. In fact, of the 34 committees that we have, uh, 28 committees, total membership by committee is less than or equal to is for the master plan steering
committee. I've been a member of the committee since March 10th. Um, but I've been monitoring the work of the committee since its first meeting back in 2023. And I'm here to tell you that the quorum issue has has to be something that needs
to get changed. And I I'm going to ask that maybe there be a recommendation uh embraced that would have uh a meeting with the planning board and the select board to see if this problem can get resolved. um we had a number of
opportunities to have meetings in May and we missed those opportunities because we couldn't meet the quorum number and uh so I think that it's it's a serious issue. Um we have a contractor who uh has um you know he's his time has
ended um but we really can't blame the uh the consultant because there have been so missed meetings on the part of the master plan steering committee. Um, and then the other thing that I I want to bring up is that I watched the uh the planning board meeting um where uh Kim
Duffy, who represents the master plan steering committee, she she came to the meeting, she tried to get the the planning board to deal with the quorum issues and um it wasn't on the agenda and which was pretty hard to believe given the amount of back and forth that
we had uh during the month of May about trying to get the issue of quorum addressed by the planning board. And then the last thing that happened in that meeting that just really mystifies me is one of the members of the planning board said, "Well, you know, the master plan steering committee only has a
couple meetings before they can wrap up their business and the plan has been pretty much finished." And if that's the case, someone needs to tell us, you know, so I would recommend that that the uh select board invite the planning board and have a discussion about this
really critical time plan. Um, I'm an engineer. I love plants. That's the way you get things done. Thank you very much, Mr. Colen. I know you've been working on this. Do you want to just respond real quick? Well, I guess I'll I'll respond to say that Mr. Scholenrini, I'm surprised as you are with your last statement. Um, as a
member of the select board that is on the committee, as am I. Uh, so I I would reject that that's accurate. I will say I was asked about the quorum issue and um in researching that actually in researching something else I came across the answer and the answer is that the
quorum is a majority unless the the authorizing body whatever that is determines it to be something different. So here the planning board has authorized the uh master plan steering committee they could set the queret something less than the majority of
members. All right. Thank you, madam town manager. Any other public comments from the public this evening? Good evening. My name is Theodor Ducet. Uh you can call me Teddy. I live at 318 Howard Street. Um excuse me if my voice shakes. I'm a bit nervous to be up here
for the first time. Um I just wanted I wasn't sure if this is the time that I come up, but I applied for the environmental commission. Yeah, the conservation conservation. We'll get there. So, this is just public comment. It's a forum to say whatever you want. We'll actually have a part in our agenda later on where we go through actual
appointments. Excellent. We can call you back up, but I'm glad you're here, though. Excellent. I I do want to just respond to something that I heard earlier. Um I do not believe that the pride flag being present uh next to a government building is um indicative of a cancer spreading. I think it is that a I I do believe it is a progressive
symbol that shows people that they are included, especially a group of people that has been marginalized and um persecuted throughout history. And I think it is time that we need to show
people that they are welcome. Especially in our town of Lutenberg where I have met many people at the library who from like all walks of life who I I think share my my view that everyone is welcome here and everyone is
deserving of respect and inclusivity. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Det. All right. All right. Moving on from public comment. Any communications from other boards? Not seeing any tonight. All right. So, we have a meeting to discuss the Hometown Heroes Banner Program with
Richard McGrath, the chair of the historical commission. So, I will invite up anyone who wants to uh speak to this program. Hello, Richard McGra, chairman of the Ludenberg Historical Commission. Um, J Anderson, member. Um, we were proposing
to have a hometown heroes banner program. Um, it's like what you see in a lot of communities around where there's a a veterans uh pictures and information on uh telephone polls going through the town. Um, so we were proposing to have
that for Lunenburgg. Um the historical commission has voted unanimously to uh promote this um endeavor and also to uh add funding to it from our budget. Um
the majority of the uh project would be in the APD. So, the architectural preservation district which encompasses the center of town and um I'm also a uh the appointee to the uh
historical commission appointee to the architectural preservation district commission and the uh architectural preservation district commission has also unanimously promoted this um project. Um, Miss um, Sanderson is um,
has been heading this up and doing the work on it. So, I will let her tell you how it's going to go. Okay. I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the program. Um, shamefully, we are one of the few towns left in Massachusetts who
are not participating. In 2021, more than 500 communities had signed up and enrolled and enjoyed success with it. So, I think that we need to get on this. Um, I think it's wonderful that the historical commission is volunteering to submit our budget to get it off the
ground. It requires 10 um 10 orders to get it started. Um, I do need permission from the utility companies to hang the banners. Um, the hardware comes with them. Most communities find that people are willing to donate um a ladder truck
or a bucket truck to um to put them up. Like I said, we'll pay for the first 10. Families and communities tend to want to remember their families. Um, obviously, all you have to do is drive through any town and you'll see how they mushroom. I
predict that it would actually extend beyond the APDC. Um, at some point, um, I have quite a few veterans of my own that will want to be on polls. And um obviously this town is is founded on uh men of service and I would love to see
them from all all eras um not just current or you know recent history but all the way back right behind you those mar those marble tablets say a lot uh something we shouldn't forget. So that's my plan. We need permission. That's it's
not going to cost you guys a dime. Uh we'll fund it. um you know, even the advertising, they're willing to help with that. So, all right. Well, thank you, Mr. McGrath and Miss Anderson for bringing this request and for being willing to uh, you know, take this on. I think it would be great for us to
participate. I am going to open it up to questions from the board members. I believe the town manager is probably going to Yeah, I'll see if board members have any questions. So, I have a couple questions. Don't we own the polls now? Mhm. So, would we still need permission from the We do still need permission from the electric company.
That was one. And then if they're going to be soliciting, how does that work as a town entity? You know, do they need to be can they can we do that? If we're soliciting donations, do they have to do a permit or an application or what's the process? First, fully support this project. I think it's fantastic. Sorry, I should start with that.
Logistics of it. The historical commission um cannot solicit cash donations. Mhm. You could certainly solicit in kind donations or product, but if you're advertising that families have an opportunity to buy one, that
would not be a solicitation. Okay? Because that's usually how it works. Usually the individual families pay for because they're paying for the actual banner. And what if someone wanted to give a donation? Would it come to the town with a with like a by line, you know, that it's for this project? would
have to set up a donation account if folks wanted to I could see specific for this but if people wanted to donate if you know what if people can afford it or I also want to coordinate with the veterans affairs I I I mean this is something that would be beyond one
person managing I think so we want to get it off the ground but we're also welcome to input from other organizations um to promote it and and make it succeed Oh, I have one more question. Is this the program that you're working on? Is
Hometown Heroes the banner program? Like, do they make the banners? Is this a company? Is there like a separate solicitation or procurement that we would need to do or is this is this we can just go through them and it's accepted? Okay. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I fully support
it. I've spent a lot of time driving 117 through Bolton and it's just lined with these banners. Um, so I there's probably, you know, some details and logistics to work out, but thank you for bringing it forward. Um, it's my
pleasure. Um, it's so worth it. Yeah. I think I have no doubt it's going to be very successful. You'll have a lot of Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Don't go just yet. Yes. I also echo the support expressed. I do think it's an an excellent program and um have So, have
you coordinated with the veteran affairs? Uh, not yet. Um, it's been a question of timing. I needed to get permission. Um, I kind of my representative with Hometown Heroes was kind of waiting for me to get permission. I didn't want to go ahead and do anything until we had permission.
Um, so it's everything's been in a standstill. Um, I didn't want to get hopes up or plans made and then have enough go through. So, all right. Great. There's no other discussion. Is there a mot? I do have some questions. Yeah, I
do have some questions. Um, so in the other you said communities use bucket trucks. So that's typically communities that have municipal power, which we do not have. So have there been any conversations with the fire department about being able to use the ladder? None
whatsoever. Without permission from the town, I did not want to go ahead and start anything um that I would have to back out of. Okay. So if if they can't for some reason hopefully Unatil could if not Unatil I am more than I I know of
multiple tree companies landscapers anyone with a veteran in their family or in their circle I don't foresee it being a problem. Um this is something that people aren't they're not going to be stingy about I think with their time. Can I add we we get a volunteer to put
the lights a bucket truck to put the Christmas lights up and maybe the same volunteer. I can be persuasive, too. Great. Any other questions? All right. Well, is there a motion to approve the town of Lunberg's uh participation in
the hometown heroes banner program? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you both for coming in tonight and again really thank you for taking this on. Thank you so much.
Have a good night. You too. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we're going to jump down to annual select board appointments. So, we have two uh contested um boards and committees that we have to do. Um one thing to note
here, I'll just go through them. So, for the Conservation Commission, we have three terms that are expiring June 30th, 2025. And hold on one second. Pull this up. And we have four candidates for those three positions. Um, two new applicants,
Andrea Bernap, Teddy Ducet, and then two uh current commissioners that are looking to be reappointed, Peter Stella and Mary Wilson. So, we'll interview all of them and uh potentially make a decision tonight. Uh for Council on Aging, there are four seats and five
candidates. And I know one of the candidates who's looking to be reappointed, unfortunately, uh something came up and was no longer able to come in tonight. That's Susan. U so we can continue on with the interviews. Uh but we may not end up actually making these appointments because we want to be able
to interview everyone. So, we'll get there when we get there, though. Uh so all right let's start with conservation. So what we'll do is we'll invite up the candidates one by one. We'll ask you to introduce yourself, talk about your professional experience or um your
tenure on the actual commission uh and speak to why you either want to volunteer on the commission or be reappointed to the commission. So we'll start with Andrea Burnout. Hi. Um, I'm Andrea Bernap and I live at 158 Northfield Road. Um, it's also where
I grew up and where I lived until I left for college in um, 1975. I moved to Florida in 1980 and I lived there until last year when I returned to Lunenburgg. Um, I did kind of keep up over the the 40
plus years cuz I came home to visit mom and dad and um, you know, they filled me on on what was going on, some of some of the news anyway. And um, so I wanted to um, offer my help because I've seen the
letters asking for volunteers and more participation. Um, as far as my professional experience, I guess, um, I I did work at a native plant nursery for about 10 years down in Florida, and I've
always had a a lifelong interest in conservation. Um, I volunteered at a nature preserve, and I was a, um, also did work as a member of the native plant society in Florida. Um, so, um,
I know I have a lot to learn about the the process. Um, but, um, I would look forward to that and, um, I'd be happy to help if I can. All right. Thank you, Andrea. Hold on one second. We might have questions for you. I'll open it up to the board with
any questions. Okay. Thank you. Um, thanks everyone for coming forward. Um, just a couple of questions that actually I'm going to ask all of the uh the applicants for the conservation commission in particular because I know there's a lot I I watch a
lot of their meetings. Um, I know there's a lot of regulations and rules and things that you need to know. There's key decisions that are made. Um, and that takes time to learn those things. So, are you you're aware of the time commitment to to Yeah, I had a good
talk with Jenny. Oh, good. Okay. Jenny's on. She filled me in on on all of that and um it did look like a lot but she kind of assured me that you know she thought I could handle it and um I just want to make sure you're aware you going in eyes wide open um because I know and
speaking to some current commissioners how much of a time commitment it can be. Um okay I think that's my my main question. I don't have anything I don't have any. It sounds like you're a great fit. you're really interested in
conservation. So, yeah, it seems like you would be a good fit. So, thank you for your interest in volunteering for the town. Okay. All right. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you. All right. Up next is Teddy Ducet. Hello again, Teddy Ducet, 318 Howard Street. Um I have a bachelor's degree in
preveterary sciences. Um during my undergrad I did a lot of um studying about sustainability and environmentalism. I've written papers on the impacts of
single-use plastics and uh pas per per and poly floral alkal chemicals that are pervading our water sources especially in Massachusetts. Um, if you go online, you can see what water sources in Massachusetts are affected.
Um, I have I'm dedicating my life to lifelong learning on a one health perspective. Um, that includes society's health as well as the environment around us. Um, I think now
more than ever it is important for us to come together as a community to combat climate change and the um harsh chemicals that are affecting our communities. Um, I've also talked to Jenny about the
time commitment. Um, I look forward to training and learning more. Um, do you have any questions for me? Any questions? I forgot to say their meetings can be really long. Yeah, I I heard. Have you watched any of them? I have not yet. Um uh my current Wednesday
night um commitment is with the Sierra Club, but I can change that to a different day. Okay, cool. Any other questions from the board? No. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. All right, up next is Peter Stella.
I'm beaten Stella. I live at 31 Chase Road. Lived here all my life. Um, last year in September or so, I guess they had a meeting for uh
that planning committee, you know, looking into the future. And I decided to attend it just to see, you know, what people were thinking about doing in the town. And I was surprised. Some woman piped up. She said, "Oh, uh, we should look into,
uh, making sure that, you know, when a farm comes up for sale or a piece of property comes for sale, we jump on that." There was a farm down, I know the one she was talking about. It's down near where the property where the lane is and probably over on Flat Hill where they built uh, Courtland and some of
those houses. I'm pretty sure that's a piece of property she was talking about. And I said, I didn't mean to be too rude, maybe it was, cuz it's the way I am. I said to her, "Well, um, why didn't you, uh, buy that piece of property?" I kind of was being sarcastic.
And I said, and then I looked at the people that are supposed to be planning what we're supposed to do for the next 20 years, and I said, "Well, how much property does the town have in like conservation does the town own?"
And I was kind of surprised because I've worked for a lot of companies prior to working and being on the conservation commission. I've worked and traveled all around the world. Literally, I've gone to Brazil to do work, Mexico, done a ton of work. I drive in Mexico. So, uh,
when I went somewhere and I was charged with doing something, I was cognizant, very aware. I mean, I was this guy that you would call up to fix your problem and I on the phone tell you right off the bat, this is what you got to do. Bang. I've told people, "No, I shouldn't jump on a plane to fly to uh Mississippi
to fix your problem because when I get there, it's not my equipment, it's the other equipment." And then I wind up going to the same place a while later and the guy goes, "I think I recognize you." At any rate, I kind of I was very knowledgeable. Now, I got on the
conservation commission and I was surprised to uh hear about certain rules that they have in the conservation commission because, you know, at first I just took it a little bit of a, you know, learning. I was reading uh different things. I mean,
I knew about the wetlands protection act and uh interestingly, they have a rule, it's a 30foot no touch. Like, okay. So, I thought this indicated I I I read the definition of the no touch and I had a hard time finding the
actual rule and how it's expressed, but it's literally a 30ft no touch. It's 30 ft no touch from wherever the delineation of of any wetland. They treat it like any wetland, any wetland.
and they talked to me like I don't last meeting we're at one of the members said to me he said um I don't know if this is where you belong being on the conservation commission I didn't say anything back to him I thought about it over last couple of
weeks and um I read a few things and I also happened to look at some work I do a lot of things for work and like I said they treat a piece of property like a no touch you care a look at this. I got several copies. I'll take a look.
That's on a project. That's on a project that's less than 30 mi from here. It's within 800 ft of the second largest river in Massachusetts. So, what it says on that piece of paper,
it says it's a non-judicial wetland. In other words, it's a wet land that is not declared as being under the purview of the uh Army Corps of Engineers, I guess. So, what they're saying is it's a wetland, no big deal. And you might note
on the side of the wetland, it says to be filled. That wetland is going to become a parking lot basically. And I perviewed or looked at the entire drawing. You know, I got a big D-sized drawing and nowhere on the drawing does it say
anything about replication. If you lived in Lunberg your entire life ex Mr. Chair, is this relevant to the Yeah, it is. It's okay. We can Is this even in Lunberg? What you handed us? Is this It's in the state of Massachusetts, but it's not in Lunberg. I I just don't
understand the It's okay. It's We can let him go through with this. Can I just ask you when was this project from? I don't know. started it. Well, it's l Massachusetts uh near Drake recently though. Uh yeah. Okay. It's a current project. We'll just go ahead. So going I
think I can cut to the chase a little bit here. Uh first of all, when you read Massachusetts law regarding wetlands and wetland protection acts and people that have something to do with it that talks about a lot of things and it has verbiage like the following. No person shall remove, fill, dredge, alter any
bank, riverfront, fresh water, etc. into wetlands, coastal wetlands. And then the same type of verbiage and inland waterlings and all this other stuff. This is our town's wetlands regulation that you're getting that from even in our town regulations. Uh the point is that
it doesn't say you shall not fill. It doesn't say you shall not dredge. It doesn't say you. It says before. In other words, the wetland itself you can do certain things in it. And there are wetlands that are protected and
nonprotected wetlands. The conservation commission in the town of Lunenburgg treats every body of water as if it must be protected and it can't be touched. and uh is another part of Massachusetts law
and it's regarding the concept the commissioner of environmental protection and uh starts out you know the commission environmental protection blah blah blah and then you get down several paragraphs and it states that any person having ownership interest any leie holding a
lease of 25 years of length or more any mortgageer having an interest and I can cut to the chase a little bit and skip over it just goes on. It's talking about property. Uh um oh actually it's kind of right off the bat. Any major having an interest in
land affected by any such order, speaking about orders by the uh conservation commissioner, um may within 90 days of receiving a notice thereof, petition the superior court to determine whether such order so restricts the use of the property as to
deprive him of the practical uses thereof and is therefore an unreasonable exercise of the police power. because that order constitutes uh the equivalent of a taking without compensation.
And then it goes on it the it gets it's quite lengthy. It's a paragraph cuz it talks about well the court may order that the restriction be invalid and the rest of it talks about you can't apply that you can't apply that order to another place on the same property or it
can't be applied by I if I get that order for me for a certain series of conditions the commissioner of environmental you know and the same thing as we would have we'd still have the opportunity to you can't just you know apply say oh my
neighbor did that and I get the same piece of water in my backyard. You still have to go in front of the powers, the authority having jurisdiction if you want to call it, the commission to apply for your particular case. And if the commission makes the same ruling,
but the point is that uh the I think the commission and even the bylaw I mean you can leave the bylaw on the books, but the bylaw really should be altered at some point. to allow a, you know, us to have a
really a control over it, but not be telling people that they can't do something with property that they own. Even you're talking about a That's a question. Well, 30 ft. Well, that's my point is there are people that want to get on this conservation commission for the sole purpose of they want to protect
every little flower in everybody's backyard. And that's not what it's about. It's about protecting bodies of water, rivers, lakes, streams, marshes, all that stuff that if we affected it in a way, it
would, you know, be detrimental. A person who has, you know, 40 acres and has a pool of water in there, maybe not a pool of water, that's probably not a great example, but a marsh or wet, not even a marsh, that's probably bad. Just a wet area that might be considered a
bordering vegetated wetland, for instance. Sometimes you have to consider, well, the guy wants to put a driveway through, you know. Where do you draw the line? And and obviously I'm saying, hold on, hold on one second. Where do you draw the line your personal opinions about our I have two questions.
Where do you draw the line in your personal opinions on wetland regulations and enforcement? So if I had wetland in my backyard and I just wanted to completely fill it in, do you believe that I should have the authority? It would it would really depend on whether or not that wetland is like
something substantial, you know, something that you doing that is going to substantially affect a species or or a habitat. Another thing is, is it a habitat? Most of the time we don't have I don't think there's a problem with it. I think we're just being a little bit
too restrictive of people's personal property rights and it results in, you know, and it inhibits people and also delays them getting the project done. We're we're looking at it like, you know, we should just maybe just move that project
on a little quicker and, you know, concentrate on bigger issues. I mean, I can tell you I can almost guarantee I was thinking about this the other day. You've got like Keadings and uh all that whole area down there. I think there's I don't know if the Lafarge is in in uh
Shirley or not. I think they might be in Shirley. That whole area when you drive by the water is like this weird green color. It's probably set up a certain way and they're doing their thing. They're they're down there right next to a wetland.
They're not, you know, they're not it's they're not polluting Lake Shirley. the water's not running down a river. I mean, but when we get to these little like a person that's building one little house and they have a little wet spot now, I mean, I'm not I've looked at things and
I can see there are other just all the things I've looked at in the last 6 months or so, roughly 6 months, there are people like they want to put a septic in there. We I don't want to speak to any particular because it kind of maybe that wouldn't be the right
thing to do where you've got a really really wet area and it's like right across the street there's a stream and all this other stuff. That's another issue. That's like yeah, if we don't like restrict what's going on on that particular construction site or that
septic install, we want to make sure they do the right thing. That's an issue. But if someone has a little wet spot in their backyard or somebody I don't want to, like I said, I don't want to speak to anything specifically, but if it's not what they're going to
do, like if they're going to cut down a few trees or if they want to turn their a bunch of trees that's particularly not even in the wetland into a a grassy area next to their house, I think we got to say, well, that's your property. You have a right to do that. So, let's be very restrictive in when you take those trees down. make sure you're not going
to damage uh you're not going to rip the roots out and now you're going to have uh erosion and have your your dirt and whatever it is going off into a lake or into a wetland. So, if you're reappointed to the conservation commission and there's something in
front of you that maybe you disagree with the wetland regulations that are actually on the books, are you going to enforce them as a conservation commissioner or are you going to go with what you believe those regulations should be? At this point, I I I would enforce the no touch restriction, but I
would greatly think the town should consider altering the no touch to just a restrictive zone where we get really greater purview over that cuz it's in the buffer. We are we have a 100t buffer where we can tell them anywhere than 100 ft, you got to do what you want. But we've created this 30 foot no touch rule
that I don't think first of all serves any purpose. It's kind of like an extension. And if you look at wetland protection, you can even in a marsh, okay, or coastal, any type of wetland, you can go do something in there. There
are things people do. A good example of this, uh I've seen it on the conquered river. I happened to go to this house to do a job one time and I don't know who this guy was. He had a lot of money and he had it was a really awesome house. He had a toilet seat. You push a button, it goes up and down. So huge amount of
money. He had driven piles all the way through a marsh so that he could put his little rowboat or his little uh whatever it is into the conquered river. So he's going right through what you would think of that is that he's in the
wetland. And this thing was done and I'm sure when it was done it was done with a great deal of oversight cuz it was in car I think it was a car mass. I'm pretty sure it was Carlile conquered river. I think it was a conquered river. I'm pretty sure it was Carl Mass. So,
you can do people can do certain things. You could It's very common down by uh you know, Salsbury Beach or down by the Cape where someone will have a boat, a lobster boat, and it's out there. They have a dock. Let's just get back on track here. So, simple question. Yes, I
wouldn't enforce it, but I I I feel I feel that, you know, we should really be considering changing that. That's that's a real a real I think that that that law was written I think that law can get us into a situation where by enforcing it
we wind up someone taking us to court and wasting a lot of time. Whereas if we just were more reasonable about realizing that people do have this property and it is their right to use that property and as long as they don't affect the natural resource. I'm going to open it up for questions from the
other board members. There's a lot. So, we'll ask the same similar question. You've been on the board now or commission for about 6 months. I think just before January, December somewhere maybe. Might have to Yeah, I think it was maybe. Yeah, I think it was a meeting actually. I I missed. I think it
was in February. But, um, have you completed the training, the courses? A lot of it. I've read some things. I got to I got to get a little bit more into some of the other things that uh uh I had done. Uh, I forget what it was. The one you you have to do.
And I, uh, yeah, I' I've got a little bit more into the training. I've read through the Wetland Protection Act. It's basically the same same kind of thing. I got to get more into some of the uh, there's like 300 I don't know if it's 300 pages. It's 200 pages of uh I don't
know really how much you have to know to be uh on the board cuz it has a lot to do with things get presented before you you know you have to you're none of us are wetland protection experts right so you rely upon a person that has you know that does it all the time they go out
and they assess wetlands so where does the wetland go kind of thing and then you might have when you have a question because you get it from an engineer you're going to take you're going to take you have the opportunity if you think that perhaps what has been presented to the board is not correct.
You ask to have a second person assess it and we charge the uh applicant a fee if we believe that we need to have someone looked at peer review. So I mean I've done some of the training and so I don't what's like I believe the
I believe when you join the board I think the commission has put together a packet of you know recommended I've looked at the packet I read I read through what she sent to me and um so of the the links I've read every bit of everything
but you know Miss Emy's asking you a question. Yeah. Yeah. Let her let her ask her a question. Please answer it. Of the list of links and recommended trainings and information that was suggested for you to read and become familiar with, what percentage have you completed?
Maybe half of it or a little bit over half. Some of it peru some of the reading I've kind of it's lengthy. You know, I've read it. I've read the some of the state law and I've read what's on uh I was just reading it a little bit tonight to look for that. I was going to
print that part because as I was trying to find the part that I found that it's hard to find that has to do with the uh 30 foot restriction. I don't know why it is. It's like you got to click the right link to get to it. I had a hard time finding it the first time cuz that's why I didn't even like I don't understand. I found a
definition of the 30oot restriction but then it gets into this into some specifics of what is allowed and not allowed and I think it's a little bit you know. Okay. So, let me follow up with another unrelated question to the training. How how do you feel about the
the amount of wetlands that we have in town? To be 100% honest, we have well, there's 2,000 acres approximate. I'm not I'm guessing about that. That is actually either under conservation
commission like it's actually conservation. Some of it might have been when I kind of looked around on a property map. It's about 2,000 acres. The town's only, I think, 17,000 acres and a great percentage of that is wetland. On top of that, you have
private property like you have several lakes, two lakes that are about 300 acres. That's wetland. Um, you have Hooton's Mill Pond, which until I mean there's wetlands everywhere. There's more than enough wetlands. I mean, if you were going to say to me, uh, do you
read that as as a we have an overwhelming amount of wetlands? What do do you think that's a benefit and a nice uh actually no? Why? It's a swamp. Wetland has a habit. It has a purpose. It's necessary
environmentally, but it we have excessive amounts of wetland. I would question whether Hooton's Mill Pond, which was created, should perhaps be less. I I was uh driving I was actually on a customer's property and I was
surprised that both sides of her driveway are water all the way down. It's probably 200 300t long driveway and behind her house she isn't she's a little bit of far from Hooton's Mill Pond. It's all water all the way down to Hooton's Mill Pond which runs right down into becomes
part of Lake Shirley. And then on the opposite side of Reservoir Road, it's it's tons of wetland. Some of it's, you know, obviously that you wouldn't want to be and that's that's a place you it's right near we have wells. I mean, you wouldn't want to allow people to
do anything detrimental to a wetland anyway, but there are places there are certainly places in town where if someone came and you had a wetland delineation and they wanted to convert it into a drier spot. And a great example of this is if they wanted to turn it back into farmland and they
wanted to put what's called field tile in which is what they do is they basically dig a trench, they put a drainage pipe in and they drain off the water so they can use it for farmland. So let me just see if I get this correct. You believe that there are a lot of wetlands in Lunenburgg which may
be good, maybe bad, but you believe that property owners should be allowed to fill in those wetlands because there's so many of them. No, I wouldn't say fill in a That's kind of what I'm hearing. I wouldn't say fill in a wetland. I'm saying convert a uh more of a uh what
what can be called a wetland by the fact that there's more of like a bordering vegetated wetland, a place that's kind of wet. It has certain species of wetland variety things. It has the soil. It has all the conditions of that, but it might not even be naturally a
wetland. I mean, you can talk to the engineers over here. People do something. They do a little something here or there. They put a road in and all of a sudden it's holding back water. Now that becomes a wet land. Beavers make wetland distinction between land that is wet and wetland. It's declared a
wetland. But you don't understand. We have people all the time that have to fight with the conservation commission over property that became wetland that became wetland because of drainage became wetland because a beaver built a
beaver dam. You know, if you Google enough, you'll find that the uh both Department of Environmental Protection and Board of Health put out a letter regarding beavers and muskrats. Why? Because they create wetlands and that's
a problem. Do you have any other questions with Senki? You know, they had a they had a house. Hold on one second, M. Mr. Mloud. Yeah. So, I I I love the concept of putting someone on the on the commission or any other board that has a different voice and can bring a different
perspective, but could you convince me that it's you're stepping into like advocacy? Do you think maybe convince me your your position wouldn't be better outside of the commission and advocating for changes and you you could petition
the commission or the board? There are advocates sometimes there are advocates that only look at one angle. They have a they they're driven by this idea that uh and it's environmental activism, you know, like a religion. They they
consider they don't consider they don't use reason and logic. It's all you know I have to do this I have to do this I have to protect the wetland kind of a thing. I firmly believe in protecting you know a wetland
specifically if it has an there's something going on in there this you know this could be plants or animal species that we want to preserve. We don't want to completely eliminate it. But when you have so much of it, you have to ask a question. You know, a person who owns a piece of property.
There's there are pieces of property. We own it now. I think there's a there's a piece of property down here by the cemetery that you can tell if you look at it on maps. It was once a farm. A beaver probably built a dam down there. Now, it's a wetland. So, I'm not saying we should go around
draining wetlands. We should go around indiscriminately filling wetlands. We should let people do whatever they want. But when a person comes before the board and they or the commission and they want to do something on their property, it's not, you know, our property, it's their property. We
should consider that they have a right to do so. I mean, uh, we had an example where this guy, he engineered his driveway to avoid being even close to the wetland. He could have been closer to the wetland. He's going
to cut down a whole bunch of trees. You know, I would have liked to have said, "Well, would you?" He already had the design, so it's like, "Okay, fine. I would like if I could have if it was me, I would have probably presented like, hey, would you what if we just built it like right over here and we kept these
huge oak trees, you know? So, there's there's there's other ways of looking at I'm not saying we should allow anybody to do, you know, pollute or damage or destroy something, but it is their land. they do have a right to do what they want to do or they could say to us,
well, if it's, you know, they could, there's the argument that they they could actually take this town to court and say, buy my land, pay me for it, give me your, if you want to rule over me in that way. I think there might be even some people on the board that think
that way. I mean, they would like people to turn there. Somebody told me that there was a guy, Mr. Stella, sorry. got a lot to say which is good. You know, you're you're passionate about this. You're doing a lot of research, but do you have any other questions? All right,
Miss Moore. I um I think a lot of my questions have already been asked. I think I I definitely have some concerns. Um you know, being on the commission and, you know, the thoughts that you have about, you know, potentially not wanting to enforce or not agreeing with our current
bylaws. Um, I always appreciate volunteers, but you know, it almost seems like maybe an economic development committee or something that is is more in terms of it sounds like you're more interested in development based on what I'm hearing versus conserving wetlands. Um, I, you
know, I I I don't really care one way or another. I've, you know, I I have a business. I got to really make money and do my thing. M but um you're I I really think that that bylaw should be altered to just not to tell
people that uh you can do whatever you want but to you're literally when you look at conservationism the whole idea it's to protect a wetland. Mhm. Once you get beyond where the wetland is delineated or the edge of your lake,
that's definitely your property. And even like a lake's a great example because you can put a dock in the lake. You can put your boats in the lake. The conservation commission makes some rulings on that. That's really almost where the person would probably more likely get in trouble would be like with the lake association. You put a dock in
the lake, you want to have too many docks. Well, now you're using up other people's rights to use the water, let's say. But, um, I don't really care. I mean, I do care. Uh, but I'm not going to, you know, you've got three positions open. I find
it kind of interesting that prior to something, all of a sudden, you know, a couple people show up and they've talked to Jenny. like you know the conservation people on the conservation commission have a very uh I think they have a very I don't know about every one of them I can't speak
maybe not everyone I think several of them have that view that you know if there's a piece of if there's a puddle of water in somebody's backyard that's a wetland and they can't touch it you know I I really think the replication too I don't know I think that's definitely
from what I can understand more of a it may be the way the Lunberg looks of things. I don't think replication is always necessary when we have so much. Uh but that's something you know that I think might be flexible as a commissioner member and it's something that should be looked at you know going
forward. Maybe not forcing people to replicate all the time in a developer I could see a developer being forced to replicate but not not an individual maybe it's it's kind of pricey and costly and maybe not necessary. I think we got a good idea of uh you know where
you stand on the conservation commission and our regulation. So, thank you, Mr. Stella. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. I think we have one more. Let me just check. Yep. And up next, we have Mary Wilson. Mary Wilson, uh 138 Whiting Street. I'm
a current uh conservation commissioner, former chair. Uh and for those of you that don't know me, I am a u electrical engineer. I have a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State University in electrical engineering. I have 30 years of experience. Uh I work for a Fortune
500 company that uh is international. Uh my area of expertise is technical regulations that affect how our product designs products, how our company designs products and places them on the market. Um these technical regulations
are EMC or uh radio frequency uh uh intentional and unintentional radiator licensing um regulations, product safety regulations, and sustainability regulations. Uh my role for our corporation is to read those
regulations, interpret them and tell our development teams how to develop products so that they are legal and compliant to the jurisdictions where we place those products on the market. Um the leverable skills that I have are reading and interpreting regulations.
Sometimes regulations are complex, sometimes they are shades of gray. uh and at the end of the day uh we have to come up with um decisions that allow us to proceed and proceed uh in a compliant nature. Um so those are completely
leverable skills. I have taken a number of MACC classes. That's a Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissioners. I hold a certificate uh for fundamentals um and I have approximately 38 hours of training through MACC
um which I consider makes me a novice because I have a lot to learn. I'm eager to learn, right? And I approach all of um all of our meetings, all of our dialogue um particularly with the engineers that practice in this area, you know, as an opportunity to learn
more and to do better moving forward. Um I uh also collateral to what I do on the conservation commission. I have coordinated Earth Days events every April uh and uh you know rally volunteers across the community to come
in and help improve our conservation lands. In years past we've partnered with parks um and have brought in thousands of hours of uh volunteers to help with our our town properties. I also wrote um two successful grants uh
that have benefited the um conservation commission. Uh wrote one of those as a sitting conservation commissioner. Uh which is currently uh in the works. Uh it is to uh do the planning for um some parking areas that we're looking to make
our conservation areas more accessible to people. Um that uh grant is worth approximately $48,000 in value um coming back to the town. Um yeah and so those are my qualifications.
Please ask me whatever questions you want to ask me. Sure. Any questions from the board? No, not not really a question, but I have watched most of the recent meetings with the exception of the most recent. Unfortunately, I think I would have found that helpful, but yeah, I certainly wouldn't uh think of you as a
novice, but uh very impressive in the in the meetings. Yeah, thank you for your contributions to this point and thank you for um signing up again for another term. Yep. And thanks for answering my
training questions ahead. Oh, yeah. Sure. I know your your commitment to, you know, all of the organizations that you volunteer and um appreciate you you being here again. Thank you. When you mentioned the Earth Day events that you've helped to coordinate, I remember that I met you at one of those. That's
right. And we actually talked about how you wanted to make the conservation area the trails more accessible. So, it's great to hear that you're, you know, actually seeing that through and working on that. So, you know, I think your dedication is self-evident and I'm really glad that you are are looking to be reappointed. So, thank you, Mary.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. So, I will open it up to discussion for uh the board now and see if there are three candidates here that we would like to appoint tonight. Do you want them one at a time or Yeah.
How do we want to? Um if we want to do it that way, that's fine. I was just looking for a discussion, but if we want to just start I just lost my thing. Hold on. I would um nominate Mary Wilson. Appoint. I move to move to appoint
Mary Wilson for a uh conservation commission term to expire June 30th, 208. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously.
All right. Any other motions or discussion? If we want want to just do motions, that's fine. But so we have two openings left. Two more. There are. Yes. Um I really hate to, you know, discourage
anyone from from volunteering. um having three people in two openings, there will be someone left out and I would encourage whoever that is to look at other opportunities that are available in town. Um
I have to say that I have concerns, Mr. Stella. um not only my concerns, but I've been um received feedback from members of the community not on the conservation commission um who uh have expressed some
concerns as well. Um and I think to as Mr. Mloud said, "Avocate for any change you want to the bylaws." Um, that is not dependent on being a conservation commission. And if that's something you feel strongly about, I
would encourage you to to follow through on that. Um, so my own opinion is I I would um be looking to um appoint um the Theodore
Teddy uh Mr. and uh Andrea Bernup, I share your opinions. Um you know, Mr. Stella, I just I just want to thank you for volunteering for the town. Um and I think tonight we saw that you were very passionate and opinionated about things
and I think that's always a good thing. There was no point tonight where I thought, "Wow, this guy's a jerk." Um you know, he's come across as a great guy. I just I'm really concerned because I think our wetlands in town are a cherished res resource and I don't think that we should make it easier at all for
people to modify them in any way. Uh you know, I don't pretend to be an expert in our wetlands regulations cuz I'm not I can't really speak to them that eloquently. Um but I just just strongly disagree with some of the opinions that you have. Uh, and
for that reason, I don't think I could support appointing you again to the Conservation Commission. So, with that said, are there any other motions? I can make the motion. Yep. I move to appoint Andrea Bernap and Teddy T Ducet to the Conservation Commission term to
expire June 30th, 2028. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. So, congratulations uh to those that were appointed tonight and Mr. Stella, thank you again for volunteering on the
conservation commission. For the new members, you will have to get sworn in. Uh so, you can do that in this building uh during the day. Just go see the town clerk. When you walk in the building, she's the first office right on the left and uh Jenny can help you guys on board and prepare for your first meeting. So,
thanks for coming in tonight and congratulations. Thanks. All right. So we can move on to the Council on Aging. I see that Susan is here. So we have all the applicants now. Uh so what we can do is follow the same process. We'll invite the applicants up,
have you introduce yourself, talk about why you're interested in either volunteering on the Council on Aging or being reappointed to the Council on Aging, and answer any questions that the board may have. And we'll start tonight with Jane Rabbit. Uh Jane Rabbit and I live at 314 Townsen
Harbor Road right next door to Amanda. Um I've been on the Council on Aging or for a few years now, several. And I've seen a lot of exciting changes over that
time. Um I don't know if it's because of the uh aging baby boomers, which I am one of. Um but there's a lot of interest and there's a lot going on there. Um and
so I've really enjoyed being on, you know, the um Council on Aging or the Lunberg Adult Activity Center. Um I have a hard time getting used to that. Um, and I just see
a lot of really good things happening. I I think that um it's just exciting and a lot of fun to be on there and and I've contributed, I believe, and I' I'd like to continue. Any questions?
Any questions from the board? No, I I do appreciate you calling it the Lunberg Adult Activity Center because I do go there. We we want younger people and I enjoy it. You great job. Thank you. Yeah. And I'm happy to hear that you're interested
in in keeping and signing up again and keep going. Thank you. As I said with Mary, I fully support um and appreciate all of your volunteerism. Thank you. Ditto. Great to see you, Jane. And I'm glad
that you're interested in being reappointed. So, thank you. Okay, up next, uh, Susan, if you want to come up. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Susan Osullivan. I live at 34 Hemlock Drive and I've been a resident of
Lunenburgg for 39 years. Um, I'm a retired physical therapy prof professor and I taught for 38 years at the University of Massachusetts lol and Boston University. I'm a graduate of Boston University and I have degrees in
physical therapy and a doctorate in human development. Uh, this I've completed two terms on the board and I find it um really engaging and and very rewarding. Um, I've been active on a number of activities and one of the
activities that we're currently going to sponsor is a series of workshops for seniors in the fall. Uh, helping them to deal with the skills for caregiving, advocacy, and interacting with the health care system. Uh, topics which I'm well familiar with. Uh, so if you have
any questions for me, any questions for Susan? Standard thank yous and a good job. Yeah, thank you for your interested interest in returning and I appreciate your service. Okay. And I'll just say like I worked pretty closely with both Susan and Jane actually. Um for example,
we worked on drafting an advocacy letter that we ended up um sending to Mart. Um so, you know, I've seen firsthand how much they actually work for seniors. So, I appreciate both of you again. And Susan, thank you. Thank you. All right. Up next, I'll invite John
Sili. [Applause] Good evening. Uh I am John Silme. I live at for Iris Court here in Lunenburgg. Been here for a little over four years now, about four and a half years. Um my
experience uh leading up to this time was uh as an electrical engineer initially uh from uh Villanova University. um been through ownership of uh a few
businesses over the years, including a manufacturing business um on Long Island. Uh and have served on a number of boards, uh church board, uh was one of
the trustees. Um uh I I've been on what was a a home rule commission uh in uh Texas, our first stop after retirement. And um so got uh you know an idea of
what government is like beyond the church or an organization. Uh and um uh I'm currently um one of the trustees on the board of trustees um with the
Woodlands. Um that's relatively recent just the past couple of months that uh since I was elected. Um but I I think I have um gained enough experience in different areas that are related to being on a board to understand what it
takes to make things happen to be willing to compromise to look for to be clear about what the objectives are uh and keep personalities out of it as much as humanly possible. Um and uh I've I've
been a um a regular participant in activities uh at the um uh I guess we have a number of different names. I Eagle House, the senior center, adult center. Um and uh I've really enjoyed
the atmosphere there. Uh I've uh especially enjoyed uh in recent months um uh Deb Goodsell's uh uh influence on uh the way the the place is run. Uh I
think that she's got some good ideas and I I I think that she's got a lot of support because she's been able to manifest those ideas and I'd like to um make my contribution whatever that may
be. Uh it that remains to be seen of course but um I will show up uh I will do the work that's necessary as it it um is presents itself. Um well that's my
story. All right. Thank you Mr. Sili. Any questions for Mr. Sili? No questions. So I'm happy to see you volunteer for something in town. um and should you not um
be um appointed that you would consider one of the other openings but um thank you for for submitting your application stepping forward. Thank you. I had this I had the same question because we know we have more applicants than we have positions and I always appreciate new
volunteers. Um but is this the only commission or or committee that you'd be interested in volunteering for if you weren't appointed? I have not considered others, but I might be open to them. Okay. I think that was my only my only question. And if you're not appointed tonight, would you be interested if a
vacancy pops up to apply again? Sure. Okay. Great. Mhm. Just curious. Okay. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you, Mr. Sil. You're welcome. Thank you. [Music] All right, Jack Rabbit.
Well, my name my real name is John Rabbit, by the way. I know, but I gave that up a long time ago. Uh, it's Jack Rabbit, 314 Thompson Harbor Road. I've been a resident here almost 40 years now. And, uh, I've served on a number of committees. And by the way, every one of
them, you learn something. You learn, you know, it's stimulating, mentally stimulating. uh I've last assignment was on the essentially the board of assessors and uh there was an opportunity to
because of uh other people making statements about we need help on the senior end of it. So you kind of we we as a team started trying to see how we can lower ages and create returns and things like that and create a better environment for our city's seniors. uh
the opportunity turned out that uh one of our members was going to have to sign up for three years and they didn't really want to but we really need him. He's really good a great member member and so we kind of said let's let's I'm going to go over and help the seniors
and uh because what I was doing was kind of at the edge in terms of what you can do and not get yourself in trouble and said no I can move we can move a lot faster and we can do a lot more. So essentially, I opted out and I'm
petitioning to come over and serve as an advocate for folks in the area of the taxation, property taxes. And uh we've got the we've talked about the deferral program. We've got one family actively coming along. I've been driving to the
banks and talking to folks as that advocate. Uh it's working. We're getting really, really close. And hopefully if the US post office comes through, we'll have our first. It'll be a history for the town with the first time we've ever been able to get a deferral program where seniors
won't have to pay taxes, property taxes. They will eventually, but either case, that's my big program and that's what I'm after to to see how many I can do. And I think I can get about 40 families that taken care of that keep them from losing their families. And there's a lot of other little projects out there, but
honestly, I'm I'm going to say the same thing. Deb Goodsell is doing a great job and she seems to work really well with our town manager and uh and and she's creating a happy place. It's kind of like a a boys and girls club. Would that be a fair statement? You know, except
for old boys and girls and uh there was just adults, excuse me, adults, but there's so many other good things. Pauline is is is helping people with their, you know, their insurance policies and things. This is a real vital piece of town and uh I whatever
I'm I'd be honored to be able to join it. And uh I promised Jane I wouldn't say more than five sentences. I'm well over that. And by the way, she's given the members other members the permission to kick me under the table if I say anything dumb and stupid. And uh so no
one's kicked me yet, but I haven't been seated yet. So we'll see what happens. Hey, thank you so much and certainly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, M. Hold on. What about running? I'm running. Any questions? So, you're clearly an incredible asset to this town
and have been for years. And me myself, I've only been here for for two years. And you as well and and and it's it's clear the the uh the dedication and impact you have on on this town now. If where this is a contested uh seat, uh you know, that's a wonderful opportunity
for the town to really choose uh you know, the best candidates for for these positions. And this this is a a wonderful problem because obviously everyone here is, you know, well well qualified in your clear advocacy. Do you
think um this this will aid your advocacy or could you still do your advocacy outside of being on the board? if you can open doors more by being on a board. And so when I was on the board of assesses, we drove down, we talked to a
certain bank and we were able to say and you're speaking with a from a position of authority. You also have an email address in the town. And so it does help you to be a member, but honestly, if I'm not appointed, I'm not going away. I'm
not going away. Never. And so I would I would help as much as I can for those people. And Pauline and I have already created a little bit of a relationship in terms of who what handoffs we're going to have. I'm not going away. But if I don't get
it, so what? I'm going to help these people. That's that's all there is to it. And thank you for putting us in in this difficult position because, you know, it is it's that the the town can only only win. And it's just, you know, internally where I would struggle is with the with a new farm league and
having the opportunity to bring somebody in into the fold and, you know, see the work you've you've done and that you would continue to do. So that that that would be the internal struggle like clearly you you're a a no-brainer for any any assignment in town, but that's
the appreciate you making this a difficult decision. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn. My my only question was the same thing that uh that Glenn asked was how being on the council or not would impact your your work with the tax program and and I assume that you would still remain an
advocate. I would try to be you've already answered. Yeah. But would I be as effective? I don't think as I would. So there's an advantage for me, but it isn't going to stop me. One way or another, we're going to help him. And the most important question though, is Jane okay with it?
Yes. Yes, that is the most important question. Uh, every board, you know, it's work. It's a lot of work and if you know you, but you see what you can do for people and you can see the impact that they have in their lives and uh, it
it really is amazing. And having been on the board of assessors, you get a chance to look different, see things differently, and you realize that yes, we do have a a an opportunity to get better with our seniors, and uh that's
that's where we got to be going. You know, senior housing, you you saw me ask those questions. Uh what are we doing? How how can we help that? How can we accelerate that? And uh yeah, I'm all that's what I'm for, you know, one of those people. And and one of one of your
fellow the the dynamic trio is Mr. Franco as it goes. My buddy Lou. We're not there yet. We're almost there. He's up next. You would have you would have Oh, Lou and I have a great He's He was an assessor, by the way, but he won't admit it.
No, I'm only kidding. Thanks for blowing my coat. Yeah, that's good. I don't have any additional questions other than it hasn't been 40 years yet because I'm not 40 yet. No, that's true. I'm 39. 39 years. No, no, not less than that.
I'm only 37. I knew her when she was really small and uh we lived next door to each other. I watched her grow up to be a wonderful young young lady. Jokes aside, I appreciate all of your service, Jack. U and it definitely is hard when you have new volunteers coming in, but I think that you've got a targeted goal
that can really help and um I appreciate you stepping forward as always. Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. I do as well. It's so obvious how much you care and you are such a hard worker. So, thank you for all the advocacy that for our seniors, Mr. Rabbit. Thank you very
much. Okay, I can run now. Yes, you can. All right, Mr. Franco. Good evening, Lou Franco, 250 Harbor Street. Uh, good to see all of you. Uh, Caesar and Renee, I served with both of you. Good to see you. Select board looks
good on you so far. Uh so uh I just want to take 20 seconds to say I don't mo some of you who know me that uh know that uh I'm a history lunatic and uh each day I actually wake up and think about what happened that day. Now I don't cheat. I don't use
calendars and I remember conservatively 800 dates historical events. I mean even right back to the Battle of Hastings on October 14th 1066. Uh but uh today is the 250th anniversary
of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Uh and uh I'm also uh John and Abigail Adams are personal heroes of mine. They have been since I was a kid. And I've read almost all of the letters in and not originals, but uh that passed between John and
Abigail Adams. And there's a uh a captivating description of the Battle of Bunker Hill written by Abigail Adams who witnessed it from Penn's Hill in uh on today and she wrote a description of it to John Adams in Philadelphia while he
was at the Continental Congress and he relayed Did that go off? He relayed to the Continental Congress sort of the horror of that and which was very instrumental in uh convincing uh the rebellion or
bringing about the rebellion. So anyway, that's totally unrelated to what are we going uh so uh most many of you I mean you all know who I am. Many people in town know who I am. I served on the select board between 2021 and 2024.
Before that, I served on the uh board of assessors in town here for 11 years. As far as other board experience, I actually served on a conservation commission for four years in South Bridge, Massachusetts in the mid 1990s. So, uh that was a heavy lift. Lot a lot
of dense material there. Uh and by way of of other board experience, I have been a member of the board of trustees of Apple Wild School uh since 2013. Uh so um I uh
you know when I ran for select board in 2021, I had a three or four point um sort of platform, a platform and one piece of that platform was doing something for seniors, doing something about senior tax relief. And I went into the job and I know that that was an
effort that had been talked about for a decade at least before. And so I kind of made it a mission and I I I came on and I said if that were the one thing I did while I was on the board of the select board uh then my term would will have been a success
and we did other things uh when we were on the board together. Um, but Tom, in I'm happy to, you know, convey the history of this. Tom Alonzo and I co-authored uh so I take only half partial credit for this. Uh but still
that's a lot of credit cuz it was a heavy lift. Uh we co-authored what became article uh warrant article 21 for the May 6th, 2023 town meeting. By the way, that's the uh anniversary of the
Hindenburg disaster. Just 1937. All right. Uh nothing to do with the uh warrant article. The artic warrant article passed and that was basically uh to ask the town's permission to petition our legislature
under our home rule charter to uh pass legislation uh regarding senior tax relief. Uh you know, means tested senior tax relief. You don't just get it just by qualifying by age. And that became uh Massachusetts Acts
20ou of 2024 chapter 333. That is the Lunenburgg senior tax relief legislation which was signed into law in January of this year. And um so uh when I you know that that is what I regard as my major accomplishment. Also
when I was on the select board I was the liaison from the select board to the council on aging. And I said many times during the time I was on the select board and I still say that that was my favorite part of the job. And so now after a year of rest uh at least in town
government uh and and some therapy uh mention uh I'd like to come back in this capacity and and I'm asking for your support and to be appointed to the Council on Aging. And I I see the role as somewhat differently because when I was on the select board, I don't need to
tell you, you are thinking about all of the moving parts. You need to be thinking when uh when you're budgeting and certainly when we did the ARPA allocations, uh if I uh if I give something to this, I need to take
something from that. uh well uh you know if I'm there in that capacity and I'm sort of I kind of see myself as sort of liazing from the other direction I can be more focused on that and be more of an advocate for for for that uh cause
than I really could be on here because I don't have to think about as many moving parts that will be your problem but I can uh I can I can come here in that capacity so that is my motivation uh and uh I ask for your support uh an appointment, but I also entertain any
questions. Uh, very impressive. Um, do you recall always saying that you embraced uh contested elections? Say again. Do you remember always saying you uh Yes, I do. Every I I my my my
philosophy is that every seat at every level should be contested every time. And that that voice was in my head as this last election played out. So jury is out. All right. Well, thank you for that. Um,
so Lou, good to see you. Good to see you. Um, I guess I have two questions. One, I think you're the only one of the three who are not retired. Unless you've retired. Am I retired? No, I am not retired. I am actually according to uh
uh adult activity center and council on aging guidelines I am in my eighth year of adulthood. Uh I'm all grown up now. So as am I. Um the reason no the reason I ask is the time commitment. Um how do you feel? I know
that was obviously select board takes a lot of time and I know that played into part of your decision to not run again. Yeah. Um how how are you feeling after a year? I uh Good. Uh I I I I feel like this is uh
appropriate. This would be an appropriate commitment. Um uh you know, the select board is uh a much heavier lift, but this is no less important a lift as I see it. You know, there's again again I don't need to tell you
there's work between meetings. It's not just about showing up at a meeting once a month, but it's going to be lighter for sure. And I feel like I can do you're okay. Yeah, you've recovered after I have almost recovered. It takes that long. Let's put it this way. I've
become stronger. Well, it doesn't kill us. Yes. Um so, um can you speak to are you planning like the tax program, the furrow program? Are you are you still like is that an important part of your decision?
And can you speak to the impact of whether you're on the council or not as to um like like Jack did? Yeah. The deferral program is Jack's. Oh, by the way, I will say that if I am appointed and Jack's appointed, I will help keep him under control. Uh, you'll be the one
picking him. Um, uh, so the deferral program is or his Oh, you mean the senior tax relief? Sorry. Yes. Okay. Yes. I I I have not walked away from that. As a matter of fact, I have been helping with that
behind the scenes. We had a little um ad hoc uh Tom and I, Tom Lonzo since he co-authored Jack uh and uh Linda McUade, you know, getting together to sort of okay, we wrote the legislation and the legislation is out there at the at the
30,000 foot level. Now, how do how does it get implemented where the rubber meets the road? So, I've been in involved in that uh effort as well, sort of behind the scenes, you know. So yes, I would continue with that and especially this will really be upcoming here the first year that people are applying for it and it gets implemented
and they're going to be kinks to get out for the first year or two, I'm sure. So do you see any pros cons to being on the council with respect to the um No, I I I I I mean I would still help with that in any I don't see it
negatively or positively impacting uh in either way. So it won't y I don't have any additional questions, Lou, other than just thanking you for your continued service and for braving to come back to us. So, you know, it's different.
I just will tell you it's something to look forward to. It's a lot more light and airy on this side of the day. So, good to see you, Lou. Good to see you. All right. Thank you. Thanks. All right. So, those were all five of the candidates. And as a reminder, we
have four terms that are expiring June 30th, 2025. So I will open it up to discussion from the board now. Um I think I would my suggestion would be to as we did with conservation um
address the the returning members maybe and then discuss okay but that's just my opinion. So, I am fully in support of reappointing Susan and Jane tonight. I've, like I said, I've actually worked with both of them on things and their
commitment is outstanding and they're always participating in Council on Aging meetings and I think they are key members of the council. Um, so I will move to appoint Jane Rabbit and Susan O. Sullivan to the Council on Aging term to
expire June 30th, 2028. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. So, we have two more vacancies or terms that are expiring and we have three
candidates. A nice problem to happen on the last problem. But I mean, I think all three are great. It's um I don't know what I don't know. Yeah, I
think it's a it's it doesn't feel good to not appoint someone that wants to be appointed in any in any situation. I think my personal opinion here, you know, it's always it's always good to have new people coming on. Um but I do think, you know, Mr. Franco and Mr. Rabbit have have put in a lot of time
for a specific need that we have in town right now. So for that reason um I I would be supportive of appointing um Mr. Franco and Mr. Rabbit. Yes, I would I would essentially echo those comments. I was really hoping and
looking forward to you know taking John Sumi up on his offer to to volunteer. I think it would be a great opportunity to to to bring him into the fold. And I think, you know, I really do appreciate everybody, all all volunteers who come up here and share the insights,
you know, of their their personal life. And we find it very interesting and learn something new each time. And I do thank each and every one of you for again putting us in this this difficult situation. Um, and I know I know the the
few times I have met uh John at the at the uh Lunber Lunberg Adult Activity Center, as I prefer. Um, he he he's a a a great asset to to the town, but I think that the timing is just to go up against two people in town, Jack Brabbit
and Lou Franco is that's a a um a mighty task in particularly where they're both in the middle of very important work. And uh Mr. Rabbit's point about having the the the town email is you know a very important point and just knowing
both or the again the the the trio I know there's two two different initiatives here but with Mr. Alonzo as well that it's near and dear to your hearts and you know there's a lot of people that will will benefit from that and it's I think it's important to see that see that through. So again, that's
I would I yeah, I do echo the email comments, especially for some of our seniors. Um they are often targets of fraud um types of things. So having having a town email that you're communicating can be a good thing to have that that cohesion and consistency.
And I and I commit to to work working with John to figure out a a good assuming that's the way it goes, a good fit for moving forward. So, I don't think we can go wrong um with any two of these these three gentlemen. Um I would say Jack made a
really good point about having, you know, being on the council and that helping him continue the the work. Um John I know because he's my neighbor. Um and Lou I know cuz he sat here and here.
Um I can I'm I'm looking for things. I'm looking for reasons, right? And so I can I can see both sides of the coin. I can see um the fact that John is spent a lot of time at the senior center is more in tune touch. Maybe I can see Lou's work
um with the the senior um the tax I'm going to mess it up so I'm not even going to say it. Um, so I'm I'm yeah, I'm trying to decide between John and Lou, and I I don't have a
a strong feeling really, honestly. It's hard to split that hair. So, I think bringing the work that Mr. Rabbit is doing right now into the fold officially of the Council on Aging will
really help that effort. And I think Lou Franco and all of the connections that he made when he was the liaison for the council on aging and his understanding of how the council actually works leads me to think that they are the front runners and I would prefer appointing
them right now. That being said, Mr. Si, I think you are an incredible candidate for being appointed to the Council on Aging and should there be another vacancy, I absolutely will support it. I I guess I would just like to say I've been here tonight and experienced all
the others. So if you'd like you can come up to the podium voting the same way right now. We can't hear you but I'll just say what he said which is if he was up here he would be voting that way as well. Okay. Uh well thank you Mr. Si um for your
interest and you know I hope there's a vacancy at some point that we can appoint you to because I'm sure you'll do great work there. So, all right. Well, is there a motion? I can do it. Okay. Go ahead. I move to appoint Lou Franco and John Rabbit to the Council on Aging terms to expire
June 30th, 2028. Yep. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you all for applying and coming in tonight. I hope you all have a good night. Lou, Jack, make sure you go get
sworn in. And Mr. Si, I I really hope that we see you again and we find somewhere to appoint you to. I'll work on them. Good. All right, take care everyone. Have a good night. Have a good night. All right, we have one more. We have Brian Vu here. So, I'd like to
welcome you up to the podium. I know we had a chance to talk to you, what was that? Two weeks ago now. Y um so I believe you may have looked into PAC. May maybe you've spoken to some members of the committee. Mhm. Okay. I looked at the minutes and got an idea of what PAC
does and what exactly their uh their goals are. Um but just to start, hello. I'm Brian Vienno and I live on 570 Townsen Harbor Road. I've lived here my entire life. Um after a long fight with a chronic pain condition, I'm looking for a way to reconnect with my community. um in serving on the public
access committee looks to be a great way to achieve that. Um before I fell ill, I worked at the TJX companies uh providing technical support for all the stores as well as being the team lead for several uh network replacements after a hacking incident um back in the late as today. I'm
currently working on getting my cyber security certificate certificate certification I can talk I swear at Mount Wusit and I got my A+ certification last year so I'm really starting to shake off that rust. Um, and while I'm not too familiar in the video creation side of public access, I'm very
familiar with the logistical side, like all the communications, all the storage needs. So, I kind of do feel my hope is I can help you guys uh navigate the quickly advancing technical uh field. Um, any questions?
Anyone have any questions? No. I think we we spoke what, a couple weeks ago? We did. Yep. So, storm water's off the table, huh? Admittedly doesn't fit my skill set all that well. Okay. Thank you, though. Thank you for very
welcome. So, you met with with folks from PAC. I didn't get a chance to, but I did I did get to talk with Steve briefly over email and I did take a look at all the minutes just to see what they deal with on a week on a week or monthly basis. And a lot of this stuff looks like stuff that I work very similarly at TJX, like working with other people,
making sure we're all following the same procedures, making sure we're all following the same plan and ideals. Um, the only thing that I feel I lack with the uh public access is I don't really too know too much about how TV works itself, but I am willing to obviously
learn and adapt. Okay, great. All right. Well, thank you. Um, do you have any questions? I don't have any additional questions other than thank you for stepping forward and doing your research and we appreciate all your all of your efforts and looking forward to having you serve. Yeah, same here. It looks like it aligns really well with
your interest and it would be a good opportunity for you and I'm sure you'll, you know, do some good work on the public access cable committee. Thank you. So, is there a motion? Um, I move to appoint Brian Vienno. Vienno. Yep. Good. uh to pack for term
to expire June 30th, 2028. Yes. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Congratulations, Brian. So, you'll have to get sworn in. Um, same spiel. Just come in during the day, go to the town clerk's office. When you walk in to the
building, it's the first office right on the left. Okay. Sounds good. Take care. Very much. All right. And those are all of our appointments tonight. I just want to comment that it's I I've been not corresponding with the candidates, but it is so exciting to have been
announcing all of the vacancies for months to see such a robust turnout. So, it it's really great to see these and we still have more too. So, we do have more. There were a few people who weren't able to come in tonight and I believe there was additional applicants. So, uh we definitely have more uh
appointments to consider in the coming weeks. Um all right, and that's it for tonight, though. Can we just make sure that Mr. Pru is not online? Yeah, I was looking. He's not. Um, I can check again. Yeah, it's not.
All right. So, up next we have the fiscal year 2025 quarter 3 financial report presented by Ezekiel Ayala, our finance director. Do you want me to run the slideshow for you? Okay. Hi, everyone. Time for me to put
everybody to sleep. Yeah. All right. So, this is quarter 3 through March 31st. I know this is late. I submitted this quite a while ago, but vacations, town meeting, this is timing has been right. So,
that being said, um, next slide. Yeah. So, we'll go over the revenues, fiscal year comparisons, year-to- date revenue by car category, uh, state aid, local receipts, miscellaneous, not recurring. Um, I
included Bartholomew, Q3 trust fund reports only for the board's uh, view. I won't go over them in detail. Um, we'll go over revenues by category. again local receipt state aid um in particular expenditures overview fiscal year
summary uh total remaining and yearto-year comparison budget versus actuals by department next slide is the revenues overview total revenue collected was 39,160,000 78% of the total projected revenue for
the fiscal year investment income uh seems to be continue to um be a an outlier. Um we'll see how that happens in the near future, but um a total investment income collected was 40 430,6440,
which is 344 12% above the estimated revenue. Can we interrupt? Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. Can you speak to that? Um I think the investment income over year, we had talked about it during this budget
season, we have um estimated conservatively. M throughout the year, but there's been um obviously the political political landscape um with the um election and things like that, the investments have been skyrocketing.
We don't know how long that will last, but we have the new prudent investment rule. We we put in a special town meeting. So that diversifies our trust fund portfolio to um the 60/40 allocation where um before it was more
conservative. So I think we may it's hard to say where things will land with the current administration. And if I could just jump in here, too. So when we're seeing 344% increase over one of our revenue sources and we know we're having budgetary
challenges. Some people might be asking why don't you increase your revenue estimate. First of all, this is very unpredictable revenue stream. But second of all, there are other as he goes along, there's other uh receipts that maybe aren't doing quite as well, but
this helps us get to the overall estimate of our revenue. Okay. Well, the reason I asked was because of the prudent invest investment rule. So, when did that change when did those investments change? So, um the official
documentation the official documentation came from the state the the the approvals. So from the town clerk so as of April 1st it's a new prudent investment press investment will go in. So the last that I mean this is the this
is through quarter 3 quarter four we'll see the impact on that. Okay so this is not from No. Okay. This is what I was wondering. Okay. So this is market. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully. Okay. Any questions before I move on?
Okay. Um this is a quarter three comparison to prior year quarter 3es. Um just so the board can see the comparisons where we're at where we lie year to year. Um we're pretty much in line. Um a little
higher than last year but um it seems that um I think the investments again are um making that impact. Slide is the quarter three revenues by category. You'll see each category on the left. Um original estimated if there
were any um adjustments made. Um and this is um a report directly out of Munice. It's not any data that I manipulated. This is the actual numbers. Um next slide.
This is uh just uh the next slide is just an overview. Um, state aid collected was 75.3% of annual estimate or 8 million. Stateowned land is 74.8%. Chapter 70 school aid is 75%. Chart
chartered tuition reimbursement is 35 12 and unrestricted unrestricted general government aid is at 74.8%. So we're basically right on line for quarter 3. Um here you'll see the detail for the
state aid. You'll have um state own veterans abatements um things like um chapter 70 school aid charter tuition reimbursement. So again we're at 75.3%. For our state
next slide is the local receipts overview. Um total local receipts collected were 106.4% of annual estimate or 3.5 million. Uh department of revenue um departmental
revenue for the schools 197%. Licenses and permits 84%. Um investment income again 344 1.5%. Motor vehicle exercise uh 97 1.5%. Uh
special assessments 190% penalties and interest 50% miscellaneous not recurring 92.5%. The school I think this 197% over Q3 last year. Oh no this isn't over
Q3. This is as of the estimated uh revenue for the current fiscal year only. This isn't the comparison. This is just the overview just this fiscal year. So, can you comment on why we're like twofold
overestimate? Um, I don't have the detail behind me, but I can certainly provide that for you. Okay. I'm just curious. No, I can I can certainly provide it after. I think we're also only talking about
when I go to the next slide actually. Is is it just the It's like a $11,000 item. 11. So we got 22,000. 22,000. So it depends on Yeah, I got it. Okay, I can give you the details. No, that's a that's detail.
Um the local receipts to quarter 3. Um here are the details. Um the previous slide was just an overview. This is the actual detail if you need to look up. Mhm. Next slide. Understanding miscellaneous non-recurring revenues. I think this had
come up many times through the budget task force select for I think I pulled this slide together just as kind of a definition. Um miscellaneous is revenues outside of our regular sources um one time or infrequent unreliable or future
budgets. Examples, sale of town lands, insurance of legal settle set settlements, unexpected gains or refunds, um and borrowing proceeds other bonds or and um bands and things like that.
Um best practices is um use for one-time expenses, capital projects, stabilization fund deposits. Um do not fund ongoing salaries or operations out of this. Um it's unreliable. Um there's certainly risk of mis misuse.
Um you can create structural deficits if you depend on this this type of revenue. Um can lead to future tax increases and service cuts if um for some reason we have a a drop in the next fiscal year. Um key rule match onetime revenues to
onetime expenses. Any questions? Next slide. is the miscellaneous not recurring. Um where we're at as of this year is 92.5%. It's the details. Our net meteor meteor credits is our solar credits.
It's not actual cash. It's um credits we receive on our um on our electric bill. So that is essentially a savings, but you recognize it as revenue. Next slide is the trust fun reports. Like I said, I don't plan on going into
this on detail. It's just for the board. And it continues. And here's the opid balances as well. All right, that was pretty quick. Like I said, I put everybody to sleep. So, no, that was good. Now, that was good. Um,
any questions before we move on to expenditures? I don't have any. Okay. Total expenditures. Okay. Um total expenditures for the fiscal year through quarter 3 were 33 million um or 70.6%
of the total budget. Um again his revenue comparison. I don't know what happened with my line there but um you'll see the bars. Um so we're pretty much in line as every year.
Um, next is a budget versus actuals by department. Um, this is for the board to review. Um, I don't see any um thing as I review these monthtomonth. I don't see anything that pops out that's a outlier or an
issue. Um, we're pretty much our um our controls are in place to keep the budgets in line as they should be. And next slide, it just continues on. And that's pretty much it. That's all I have for expenditures.
So, no outliers or no outliers. I mean, the snow deficit is constant. We just made a whole town meeting. Um, I don't see any outliers. We um the elections um line was over, but that's a because we had the election this year was the
big one. We receive a state reimbursement this year to offset that. Oh. So, um that's basically back at normal. Any other questions? When is this um year-to- date report from this is this is from the end of Q3?
Yep. This is the end of Q3 through March 31st. Okay. And are we still trending okay as we are now? Have we done I mean I know we're I'm I'm into the future now but we're trying we are definitely in the end of June and you can tell there is a we are in the famine stages
of the annual budget and uh July 1st can't come soon enough but we are doing okay I've lived it still living it any other questions thank you for putting this together absolutely yeah thank you Ezekiel just wish I could have come sooner or it's
just the timing. That's okay. I understand. No, and thank you for being here so late. All right. See you again soon. Thank you. Good night. All right. Time manager report. Okay. All right. So, um I was going to talk
about uh the planning MBTA event last evening, but that was announced. Um I just want to add a few more details to that. So there is again the the discussion the session tomorrow morning at 9:30 at the adult activity center.
The planning board is currently considering four different options for zoning. And so um they are going to be meeting on July 20 June 23rd which is next Monday to decide which plan they're going forward with. I
think it's important if folks really feel a certain way about a particular plan or not that they do provide that feedback because once the planning board commits to a plan, um the consultant is is only going to draft the bylaw around
that plan. So once we get to town meeting in the fall, um it's really an up or down vote, not a this or that vote. Uh paving has been completed on Malpus Road and Eastern Avenue. uh paving the reservoir road uh the small
section was mil um and paving is uh scheduled for next week. Departments are actively working on closing out their FY25 accounts and requesting necessary incumbrances. Um I do want to point out that the financial offices although the fiscal
year closes June 30, um they remain incredibly busy throughout the summer months closing everything out. Um, so just if folks are relying on the finance director for information, um, just be mindful that it it might take a little bit of time because his top priority is
closing out FY25. Um, at the last meeting of the select board, I informed the board that the town had received notification that the owners of 222 West Townsen Road are intending to sell their property, which is in chapter 61B status, recreational land, and that we had sent out
notification to various boards for input. Um, I'm actually received a lot of that input back already, but uh, town council deemed the notice insufficient. So, they are going to I did talk to, uh, the realtor who's working with the family. they're going to be resubmitting
in the next couple weeks or so. Um I will be reaching out back to those boards. I don't think they're going to need another vote unless things change substantially. But um just a little update on that. Last week I held a training uh for staff on records retention and destruction. The training
was held primarily because staff is working on cleaning out all of the three rooms of documents at TC Pacios. Um staff was provided on information on how to review and purge their records in accordance with state law. And tomorrow, um, the finance director is holding an accounts payable training for all staff
that processes payables. Uh, we are planning on having more of these types of things regularly, um, and making them available, uh, to employees going forward. Um, I think training is great and I can't say enough good things about training. Uh, the adult activity center
director and the fire chief met last week to discuss the sand for seniors program. Uh folks may recall this came up in the winter when the grant funds ex ran out and we weren't able to continue providing buckets. So um they are going to be kind of repromoting the program,
putting a flyer together that discusses the intent of the program, advertise it in the fall. Um, and just as a reminder, the SAN for Seniors program is a program for Ludenberg residents aged 60 60 or older who are frail or disabled residents who may be under 60 that find
it difficult to transport buckets of sand. It is under the safe grant program. So, the fire department also uses it as an opportunity to just check out the basic safety of folks homes when they deliver them. Um, but this is not um a a a program for able-bodied folks
who want delivery, nor is it a program under which we clear your snow. Um, so just to be clear on that, um, it's a program which we provide buckets of sand to the house. But even though it's warm and we're just starting summer, we're already starting to think about winter
and the sand. Uh, town offices are going to be closed on Thursday, June 19th, uh, in recognition of Junth. for project updates. No, no updates of significance this week. Departments are really transitioning out of current projects and prepping for their FY26
capital projects. Uh the administrative assistant for planning position and offer was just accepted today. Um so I'm very excited about that. We still have the dietary aid position. Uh the land use director position last we spoke uh
we're talking about reconfiguring that position. I hadn't at that point met with all of the stakeholders. I've I had only met with the planning board chair. Since then, I've met with the chairs of ZBA and conservation commission and building commissioner has been involved through the whole process. And thus far,
everybody has been supportive of the proposal. I have um now I am waiting for labor council to get back to me on the method by which we can revise this job description. Uh this one might be a little bit different. I just need to touch that base first and
um and we'll go from there and hopefully we can get that position posted quickly. Uh as a reminder, we do have a temporary person who is working fully remote um as our interim planner. Uh communications and IT manager internal posting expired
today. Um, and then vacancies. We know we have a one additional vacancy on the APDC, but we have two vacancies that I have not seen anybody. Maybe they've gone to other boards, but I haven't seen anybody applying for. So, the board of assessors has a vacancy uh because
that's an elected position. It will be a joint appointment of the select board and board of assessors. And the planning board, which is also elected position, has a vacancy due to Glenn's joining us on the select board. So um so that is a joint appointment for the select board and planning board. Those those two
boards are very important as folks know. So um if folks were maybe thinking about it and didn't run but want to apply the the process now is that you would apply to be on those boards. Um and that concludes my management report. Oh,
Storm Water Task Force is forgotten. Forgotten. No, never forgotten. Um, one any questions? Yeah, I do have one. Um, the 222 West Towns and Road. Yes. What
um boards did you reach out to? Conservation, open space, agriculture, uh, the land trust. Did you reach out to parks? I did not reach out to parks. Not
on the list. Well, it was mentioned at one their recent meeting only because it's recreational land. I don't know. That's a good idea. I will I will make sure that parks is seeing I think that I think it came up at maybe I don't know their last meeting a
recent meeting. Okay. I'll have to renotice it anyways when the new one comes. So I'll make sure to Yes. Thank you. I'll make sure to send it to parks. Okay. Any other questions? No questions other
than I still firmly believe that the end of the year and the start of the year shouldn't be next to each other. there should be a break in between to allow staff to close things out. Um, and also really happy to hear about the staff training. That's fantastic. I think it's good for all staff to be involved, you know, to have those little opportunities
when with their niches come up. So, great job and thank you. [Music] Mr. Mloud, any questions? Nope. No. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Moving on. What do we have? new business license agreement for um 21
Main Street between the town of Lunberg and Henry and Jacob Realy LLC at 21 Main Street in Lunenburgg and to the town manager I'll have you uh speak to the history of why we're doing this. Sure. So included in your meeting folders and I don't know actually maybe for the
public this is actually worthwhile to take a minute and share this if you just give me just a second. Let me pull the document up. Are we sharing the agreement? Is that what you're pulling out? Not the agreement, the map that's on the back of the agreement. Oh, got it. So, let me
just share. It's interesting. It was discussed at town meeting. So, what an opportunity. Um, okay. All right. So folks can see um on the screen now the
big rectangle um which is the subject parcel 21 Main Street which is located directly next door to this building and then you will see on the bottom part of the design or the the plan you will see Lunenburgg
Town Hall and what you see crossing over the line of Town Hall into the parcel at 21 Main Street is our uh deck our accessible ramp on the side of the building. So, um there is an encroachment. Um so, that is what we are
talking about is that that land that's in the shaded area, existing deck, um where our ramp is on our neighboring property. So, I'm going to stop the share now. So, ultimately, the owners of 21 Main Street are looking to sell this property
eventually, and this is an issue that they're going to need to clear up to clear title before they move forward. Um, I would anticipate that this is going to be a warrant article at the fall special town meeting for the town to acquire a permanent easement. But in order for them to proceed at this point,
um, there's a license agreement. And so the license is for $1. Um and it is uh for the purposes of installing, maintaining, repairing, replacing and anything incidental there to the deck ramp and walkway in the licensed
premises for access and egress to the town hall. So um other than that's the really the main part of the license, but I'm happy to answer any questions that I can. Do members have an opportunity to uh read through it? Are there any questions? I read through it and have no questions.
Yep. As have I. Yeah, I mean this is outside of of my realm of of knowledge other than reading through it. I would assume you know you've done all your due diligence and has gone through council and all that stuff. So, yep, we have worked with our town council on this and uh we haven't
drafted yet the u the language for the easement, but we will. Um but yes, council has been working right along with this one. Yep. And I am appreciative of our neighbor neighbors that they are willing to do this to work with us on this. All right. Well, if that's the case, is there a motion to I
guess authorize myself to sign the license agreement on behalf of the select board? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right, that was it for new business. So,
we're going to fly through old business now. So, FY2026, select board and town manager goal setting. I think we should wait until we have the full board to discuss and finalize this. Is that okay? Mhm. Okay. Sorry. No, that's okay. No issues at all. Discussion on sick leave
bank policy. Um, so Jen is still collecting feedback from the unions. There's one thing um that we should at least start thinking about for when we pick this up, which is um uh how whether or not and if so, how we would like to implement an appeals process. Um so it's
something that the select board could potentially do in executive session. That's one option. Um so start thinking about that and then when we have the full board we can um discuss that. Any other discussion points on that tonight? And I just want to say that the unions
have been great and um so far all the PE feedback has been generally positive with some minor tweaks and twists there here and there but and there is I I guess I'll point out I'm sure members know that um the town manager did update the draft. Uh, so those tweaks are there
and it's up to date and I don't know if you've if members have had a chance to look through it. I have. Uh, so it is up to date. Uh, so review that as well for the next time that we uh, pick this up. Yeah, I looked I have one question only cuz maybe I missed it. When we first discussed this, I thought there was um,
a condition where if you withdrew from the bank, you had to wait three years to get back in. Well, originally there was no option to get back in at all. If I remember there was an option there were two options I believe. So yeah the um
the way that it was kind of discussed after that is that and I just lost my document. Come on. Is that um there was originally presented there was an option that you could never get out or that you could get out but then you had to have a waiting period to get back
in. Um, folks did kind of come to consensus that the option to never come out is a bit too draconian, but once out, you're out. They did not want people ping ponging in and out. Yeah. Okay. I didn't Is that I didn't capture that. That was the only thing. Oh, I see
what you mean. Um, I didn't I didn't I saw that when I read through it, but I accepted all changes. Are you looking at the red line? Oh, okay. I accepted all the changes. Oh, so you're not going to be able to see it now? Yeah. I did look at the red line and saw the comments. But
wait, if you accepted it, does that mean it accepted it for all of us? No, no, no, no. Actually, there's a PDF of the final, right? We're looking at the final one now. Yeah, I don't think they have other questions, but I'll wait till we have the full discussion. But that was one thing that's I was like, well, that's missing,
isn't it? Well, do you want to just go through them now so we can maybe just know what they are and maybe make progress if there's Yeah, if you want to. Yeah. One of my questions too. Um, so one was could we run into a situation when
you withdraw more days than needed. You think, you know, I'm going to be out for 3 weeks, but I heal really fast and I'm back in two. Um, I think that's an easy. you just give the the days back, but that needs to be captured. Okay. Um I
had the appeals process and hold on cuz I made notes on here. Um this does not include school employees, correct? Correct. Do we need to call that out? I don't think so. Oh, okay. Um
number 10 under the sick leave bank committee section it says that the select board will be um given a report with at a minimum accounting number of members blah blah. I think that should also go to program participants.
Okay. Um I think there's one more maybe two two I think. Um so under benefit eligibility number three members who enrolled after initial program eligibility in parenthesis during open enrollment
um but their program initial program eligibility could be outside of the open enrollment period right a year from their start date. So this is what we were trying to capture in this one and if the language doesn't do it it's good to know. Well, didn't it didn't do it for me, but so
that if you if you enroll at the initial time you're eligible, so that one year mark that you can immediately start using the bank if you if you needed to, but that if they wanted to have some language in there to protect
against people enrolling in the bank just to use it. So that if you don't sign up initially and you decide later several years into employment, you would sign up during the open enrollment period and you would have to wait a full
year before utilizing the benefit. So maybe I need to adjust that language if come across. Okay, the first chance that you're eligible to enroll if you don't take that whether it's outside of the open enroll it's you know after 12 12 months in position or it's during
open enrollment. Yeah. Um that you have to wait a a year. It wasn't clear to me. You you can It's just the language she I know what you're trying to say, but it it didn't to me. It didn't read that way. Oh, I see. Which one is that changes one? Um
working document for modification. Thank you. And then same section number eight. It talks about you know no less than two weeks two work weeks of time can be requested with a maximum at 30 at any one time. Um
can it be intermittent or does it need to be consecutive days? So the the thought was that it was consecutive and the reason why there was a minimum put on is because the administrative effort to convene a sick leave bank meeting
should be for more than one or two days that you need. Right? So, I'm imagining a scenario of you take x number of days off. I need x number of sick days, but I don't need them. I'm I'm going to have a treatment and I know I'm going to be out for a couple of days and then a month
later I have another treatment. I've I've seen people go through, you know, chemotherapy where they are able. You don't want to take you're going to have 6 months of treatment. You don't, you know, if you're able I've I know people who came back at, you know, light duty
or something. Mhm. Let me bring back. Yeah. [Music] Um, okay. Sorry. But the last one, and I think this could be a me problem. Um, number one of that section, I was confused what I think the language, uh,
to utilize program, you have to ad exhausted all your, you know, time blah blah and any other paid leave within the next 3 months. Yeah, that I I was confused by that, too. Okay. So the language the way we had it originally it says you must have exhausted your time
but then we say that you we said that you could apply in advance. Okay. So it's just basically trying to capture that you can apply in advance of something. So if you're going to run out in the next 3 months you can apply in advance. Okay. I think the language
could be made because because you're they're giving all their sick time upfront, right? It's not. We don't have the acrruel. Or do we have an acrruel? Because then I'm going have another question. Well, not yet. I know. Not yet. I know. Not yet.
Um, but it's possible. So, this would be written based on the current situation where you're given all your sick time up front. So, you know when you're going to exhaust it. The acrruel is a little I'm going to exhaust my acrruel by the time I'm going to have this procedure.
Um, but I'm going to be a pick up resume acrual after because my question about the acrruel is do you acrewue time while you're on leave. So, and we can address it when we get to that point. But yes, that's it.
These were really great. So, if folks have other initial thoughts, it's actually helpful to hear them before I go back. I have meetings scheduled tomorrow. So, all right. Any other discussion on this tonight?
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Tax investigation report. I have not received it. Um I'm going to try to hopefully receive that so we can review it at our meeting
on July 1st. If we don't, maybe we should just consider approving what was submitted to us. I don't know if we want to keep going meeting to meeting to meeting like this, but well, I will say that on the July 1st meeting, I do have the assessor preparing a presentation on
not a reaction to the report, but really what the do directives were and what the office has been doing to address things already or what their plans are to do. So, I think we should at least maybe keep it on for one more and maybe we'll get some. Yep. For one more. One more.
All right. 56 car a um any update on the appraisal? No, but if anybody knows an appraiser, they're proving to actually be quite difficult. So, okay. Well, actually I Yeah, actually I'll send you something. Okay.
All right. Minutes. Here we go. Um have we started reviewing these minutes? I before we go there, I did send an email with my notes. I don't know town manager got to it or not. So I I got some revisions from one member that I made
those revisions because they were all technical. Okay. I got revisions from another member that are all technical. So I would be making those revisions. Mhm. So um I I think that we could we could say so
uh let's see. Amanda Moore had revisions in her email of 4:39 p.m. today, which are all technical in nature. So, we could reference in a motion to approve subject
to these corrections in her email from this afternoon. Are we ready to approve all of these? Do we still need more time to review some of them? That's No, I'm good. I reviewed them. Yeah. Yeah. December 3rd and December 10th. We don't have yet. and we so you have everything
on this list except December 3rd and December 10th and then there's up up to the board uh there is an April 9th set of minutes um Mhm. And that was in the drive that were in the drive that folks have reviewed that um were not listed
specifically on the agenda but they are ready if we wanted to approve them. No new minutes since last was it last night? No new minutes since Okay. No. So that was April 9th, 2024. Correct. All right. So, I'll just make the motion here. Um, I move to accept the minutes
for January 16th, 2024, February 13, 2024, March 12th, 2024, March 26, 2024, April 2nd, 2024, April 30th, 2024, May 21st, 2024, June 11th, 2024, March 19th,
2025, May 22nd, 2025, April 9th, 2024, with all revisions that have been submitted to the town manager. Second. Any additional discussion? I'll just abstain from No, you can vote for it if you reviewed them. No, I haven't reviewed them. It's up to you. I'll
abain. Okay. They're really excited. Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? No. Abstensions? I. Motion passes. Uh 301. So, how far behind are we now? Well, we just took a a pretty big dent in it. So,
well, do you know? I do. If you give me one second. So, I have while you look that up, my little team drafting minutes. Thank you so much that you that you've made so far. This is fantastic news. To all the minute writers, I met one at the uh the farmers market,
which I can imagine it's especially hard doing minutes if you're not familiar with all the players. Oh, and they're they're coming from all over the Commonwealth to draft fees. Um, so let me just see. I have a spreadsheet, so for minutes that have not been assigned
whatsoever, including executive session minutes. We have 19, which is a substantial reduction. And many of those are executive session
minutes. Okay. Wow. We're almost there. That's great news. We're getting there. Yeah. We are getting there. We are getting there. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. I just I I have funds through June 30th. And I am I'm hoping that we can continue to
utilize them. Well, I have hope. Thank you. All right. Warrants. Do we have any warrants tonight? No. No. Okay. action items. Um, we talked about and I think because we
don't have a whole board tonight, but doing a sitewalk of 56 car. Yeah, that's why I didn't ask. We're trying to still schedule that. Yes. Okay. And my I know Ezie's busy, but if we can get a readout on the ARPA. Yeah. So, I I asked him to do that for the April uh
April July 1st, maybe. Great. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Any other action items? Okay. Committee reports. I have one. You have one or I have none. None. I
have one. Uh Fincom met the 12th last Thursday. Mhm. Um so town manager presented the tri board proposed calendar which uh we'll be discussing next month
I guess or are we talking about it tonight? I don't know. Um but I was going to add it to the agenda. So we have a meeting before it. So I was going to add it there. Um overall the consensus was that it was a good idea um to do. Uh they also talked about
reviewing the financial policy. They will begin doing doing that. Um and uh Miss Lockwood presented on the um school staff and student enrollment data that she um was given by the school
department and looked at trends over the past I think seven maybe I think it was seven years. Um and their next meeting is July 10th. That's it. Yes. So, the I have not attended an agricultural committee um meeting yet.
However, I have been speaking with or emailing um the chair. Uh they did have a their first farmers market this past Friday, the 13th. Um it was well organized and had a a a great um
attendance of vendors, a good mix of, you know, typical farms as well as um other farms. So, it was a good a good mix. It wasn't just vegetables. I mean, there was a few crafts, but they were still um farm related, but it was really well organized and it's, you know, from my perspective, it seemed like it was
very well very well attended and they could not have could not have asked for a uh a better weather day. Yeah. Um and so they will continue to have the farmers markets on um July 11th, August 8th, and September 12th. Uh it looks
like that works out to be the second Friday of the of the month uh July, August, September. Uh the planning board did hold as was alluded to earlier a dual um meeting with the open space committee and that they spoke about the
uh 22 West towns and road and uh yeah did not express any interest in it at that point. We'll see what their second vote will be. Um and of course the um the plan the planning board also discussed a little bit about the uh MBTA communities act
and the upcoming up upcoming information sessions that were already referenced. Um I think it is important at this point to again reiterate that they are looking for a fifth member having having uh served one year there before moving to this position. I do highly recommend it
and it is you know the pleas the importance of pleas for assistance on those boards cannot be underestimated. They they are effective. We saw the results of that tonight. So if anyone has any questions uh certainly reach out to the chair or any member of
the the planning board uh or myself would be happy to to to facilitate any questions or interactions you want to have with them is a simple first step would be to attend a meeting and just just watch. That's that's what happened to me. Uh so I also am the uh library
board of trustees uh liaison which is um a a a a tough undertaking following in the footsteps of Michael Ray Jeff. He is uh as beloved there as he seems to be everywhere and I certainly hope to uh not disappoint in my my role there. It's
a a fabulous group of people that I was better for having met um everyone everyone there. Um, it ended up being pretty long because it was actually a reception. So, I I had, you know, dessert and all kinds of treats. So, uh, after that we had had a, uh, so that
reception was for acknowledgement of the the long time long-term service of, um, and I'll apologize for the names, but Donna Seiya Sia Saya and Dick Mayu Meu Mayu M A I L L O U X. Maybe I get that
right. I don't know how to pronounce Mayu. Mayu Dick. Everyone called them Dick. So, uh, very impressive people and clearly had a a a big impact on on the library. And they did also welcome two members, um, Robin and Stephanie.
Um, and also had the opportunity to meet many members of the uh, Friends of the Library, which is a very important important group for them. And, uh, I think that's about it. I I I keep meaning to ask you about the other assignment I have for Mart. Yeah. Um so
I I don't know if they have any meetings coming up soon. Um I'm gonna I can get you on those email. Yeah, I've been remiss on that one. I keep Yeah, that's okay. Let me make a note. I'll do that. So Martin and MMO.
All right. Thank you for reminding me about that. All right. upcoming meetings July 1st to July 8th which is going to be our first um joint budget session with the select board school committee and finance committee and then July 15th regularly scheduled select board meeting public
comment is there any public comment from the public I believe that's Mr. Rogers. I don't know if I'm right. Let's see. You're muted, though. It's on the phone. He has to press a star. What does he have to press?
Oh, hold on. Let me see if I ask to unmute. Star nine. Star nine. Hello. Oh, hello. Hi. We can hear you. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right. Great. Technology is great. Dave Rogers, 82
Highland Street. Uh, two things. Uh, you passed over the first um opportunity for public uh comment um right after the uh financial uh presentation uh which was unfortunate, but that's
fine. I got on uh on this. Uh Mr. Rogers, if I may just mention, I actually brought it up a little bit on the um agenda. So, I did it after announcements and then I did the scheduled meetings after that. Uh so, I know it was posted on the agenda like that, but I did move it around. So, we
did do that. All right, that's fine. It's not a big deal, but I just wanted to part of it is my lack of technology. Anyway, uh I'm calling uh about uh a quick update on the uh sewer department.
uh as a frame of reference, uh we had a a real Donny Brook with the uh uh uh vendor that took care of all of the the billing for us. And um the bottom line is or was that we were unable to send
out bills and and that sort of thing. So, I was looking for an update on that because I I would think it's a substantial amount of money and I just was wondering uh how we're doing on collections, etc. Uh for that uh department
[Music] can I can I just Mr. Chair just Mr. Rogers is your question about what our collection rate is on this recent round of sewer bills? Well, uh, kind of not not not this current one, but we we were really
behind because we couldn't send the bills out. And I my specific question is, how is that has that been rectified? Are we able to send the bills out? And more importantly, are we receiving money uh for the sewer bills so that we don't
run into uh cash flow problems and and financial problems with the with the sewer department? I can't answer off the cuff that that question. I can but I can provide you a response to that at a future meeting. What I can say is that since we did the
upgrade with our billing vendor which is Munice, we have not had a round of sewer billing since we've done the most re the upgrade to the cloud system. So So the Q3 bills happened before the upgrade. Yeah. All right.
So what does that mean in layman's terms? I couldn't uh layman's terms um the software that we use for the billing uh we changed the the we updated the software. So it's the same vendor but we
got a better version of it. And since we since that conversion happened and we're running on the better version of the software, um we have not had a round of sewer bills to go out. So I can't say if all the we anticipate that all the problems
have been rectified, but until we test it with the new system, we won't know yet. How is that for layman's terms? That's good. But I'm I'm troubled because uh this uh has has gone on for a
long time and and I I have no idea how much money is is in limbo, but I my gut tells me it's substantial because we haven't been able to send out uh bills uh to the uh to the folks that that are
using the the sewer. So uh sometimes uh maybe you know by the next meeting or something you know if you could give us an update uh and also you know just as a frame of reference we should know what what's what's the status of that because
at the end of the day um you know the town will be liable. So that's all I have. Mr. Rogers I do believe the the bills have been going out. there just was a problem where we there was a much more manual process we had to do in order to reconcile some of
them and I and I do believe that process has gotten better but the bills have been going out they have been going out correct when well that's fine if I don't want to belabor the point but I've not heard anything about it and I was just
curious because uh I'm sure it's a it's a bunch of money but if that could be checked on and uh that would be great thank you so much and Sewer Commission meets a week from today. All right. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. All right. You have a good night. Thank you. You, too.
Any other public comment from the public? All right. Seeing none, any public comments from the town manager? No, Mr. Chairman. Any public comments from the board? None. Nope. I just want to acknowledge how hard the town manager is
working. Oh, I think a lot of people in the public know that our executive session um departed recently and session ex I'm sorry I'm thinking ahead because we have an executive session tonight. Our executive assistant um departed recently and there are a lot of times
where the town manager is in the office by herself and she is just a onewoman show a lot of this time. Um you know we went through all of these minutes. Uh she has done a lot of them herselves. some um I'm not going to take credit for those. Uh she's out in the community. Uh
I think it was last weekend or the weekend before that. On Saturday, she attended the high school graduation. She was at the progress flag raising. On Sunday, she was at the police and fire memorial. So, she spent an entire weekend with us in the community as
well. Uh and her hard work and dedication to this community truly needs to be noted. So, thank you so much, Jen, for how dedicated you are to you're here. Thank you. I And you know, just this has been a little difficult. Um, and I appreciate the public's patience
because sometimes my turnaround on emails or correspondence isn't what I expected to be. Um, but I'm doing my best. Thank you. And we appreciate the hard work, Jen. All right. With that, I move to enter into executive session and not re-enter open session after exiting
executive session pursuant to MGL chapter 30 section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares and this is for the New England Police Benevolent Association Local 353. Second. Any
additional discussion? This be a roll call vote. Mr. McCloud I. Miss Em. I. Miss Moore I and an I for myself. Have a good night everyone. We are officially in executive session. Recording stopped.
And they both commercial break really are. And uh I've seen numbers I saw