##VIDEO ID:W8EuCS_I4qo## I think I saw it in there right here uh that I don't know but you talking about the draft from Mark I sent you last week no one I sent you all right it looks like we are on air good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the lunenberg select board today is Tuesday January 21st first 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 that doesn't matter everybody else here has it 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 lunenberg Public Access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lunenberg 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 go into an executive session in a second but before I do that and while I have everyone at the beginning of the meeting I do have an announcement from the board of assessors the board of assessors is sponsoring a senior conference on February 3rd at the senior center from 1: to 3:00 p.m. as part of their Outreach efforts as you might be aware this past year has seen a significant number of exemption changes and expansion of benefits available to our citizens and as the numbers clearly indicate we have an unprecedented opportunity to help a great number of the seniors little known fact did you know more than 9 million Americans likely qualify for property tax relief but only 8% apply for it 8.3% of all lunenberg residents live below the poverty line lunenberg has a senior population of 2010 people a total of 261 seniors of lunenberg live below the poverty line the benefits extend far beyond the poverty line next week the boa will provide the select board a brief outline of the conference on February 3rd and if you have friends who were over 65 please urge them to watch and if it's not for them at least tell a friend all right I move to enter into executive session and re-enter Open Session After exiting executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 30 section 21 A3 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 chairs so declares second all right this will be a roll call vote Renee hi Tom hi hi Amanda hi Michael Ray hi and an i for myself we are now in executive session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e that glass all right let's just turn our microphones on all right we are back in Open session just going to let people into the zoom room thing it's done yeah am I crazy are you guys hearing that yeah I hear some to the booth there's some uh feedback that we're hearing maybe we have too many microphones I'm just like turn one off they're too close together maybe all right we're going to begin tonight with public comment are there any public comments from the board yes um I have a wow that's loud in here um I have a public comment to make so um I want to just Express that um between last week and this week I've had the opportunity uh to meet with um our new upcoming hopefully New Town manager and you know at our last meeting I vocalized uh a couple of different concerns and And to clarify um you know in our process you know we have a steering committee uh appropriately so the the going on in that steuding committee are are handled in executive sessions so uh some of the information that that you know we received coming out of that is just the qualified candidates but um a little more limited but I want to just stress that you know at last week's meeting I I had vocalized some concerns uh I had a wonderful conversation with Jen uh she went over many of those concerns and I just want to publicly Express that uh they've been fully resolved uh I think that um you know there there's potential here in the future um perhaps to um if we evaluate the process we went I recognized that an error on my part um was you know the window of time um between the interview and the selection um that in that time period you know I vocalize concerns that uh I acknowledge and accept um could have been resolved uh with more conversations uh in an interim time without needing to publicly State them um but you know I again meeting with Jen I have no question about her competence I have no question about her uh Integrity her ability to perform the job to the standard uh I respect the decision of the board and I just want to encourage the public to join me in welcoming Jen into our community uh to give her our full support uh and you know it's in our best interest everyone's best interest to uh do all that we can to support uh the town manager of our community I think Jen will thrive in that role uh so again I just want to uh State publicly that the concerns that I expressed last week um um I I no longer have them and I and again I fully support the selection of Jen to be our next town manager thank you all right any other public comments from the board I do have one make it at the end but I'll just do it now since we have public comment um am I in the microphone you should be an announcement from the lunberg snow Riders I'd like to make on their behalf um the lunenberg snow Riders was contacted by the Snowmobile Association of mass alerting us to an ongoing direed need of many victims of the North Carolina hurricane Helen flood there was a specific request for heavy winter clothing sleeping bags and bedding for families to living in tense and temporary housing the snow Riders reached out via our snow Riders Facebook page and the local buy nothing pages and had an enormous outpouring of donations from lunberg and Townson there was approximately 500 to 700 lbs of cold weather clothing and bedding donated over the 7-Day Calla donations included snowmobile jackets insulated pants and boots Bas layers fleeces huge piles of sweaters gloves hats and many heavy comforters snow Riders made an initial drop off of 30 bags on Monday January 13th and was dropping off the remainder on Friday the 17th these thoughtful donations will be in the hands of the North Carolina NGO agencies for local distribution by Monday evening uh the 20th starting Tuesday many North Carolina moms dads and children will be clothed in the warmth and love donated by lunber and towns and families so just wanted to share that you know good little Kudos from our community thanks any other public comments from the board yes Mr chair so um I just want to note that as elected bodies of the executive uh body of this town one of our most consequential responsibilities is the oversight of the Town manager or interim Town manager in this case um and the selection of a new one which doesn't happen often but when it does it's at a very important job nothing is more important than the selection of who will be the employee leader of the Town even if the board is the policy leader of the town that comes up with a huge responsibility and one of the things that I think that this board is responsible for is creating an environment that makes it attractive to qual for qualified people to want to apply uh and to make it a welcoming Community uh not that we don't have our differences of course we do but that we are cautious in how we approach uh Affairs especially when it comes to people's reputation I'm very glad that my colleague made the comment that he did however I would be remiss if I didn't say that the comments made directly impune someone's reputation publicly on TV with baseless allegations that somebody actually lied on their resume or didn't have or I don't know where they got the skills they got this creates in my mind a a less than Optimum scenario that somebody would want to come and join the town somebody that we desperately need and in a way not only is it corrosive in that way it actually and luckily didn't in this case but it could have jeopardized all the candidates because if our candidate that was chosen by four members of the board had decided this ain't the place for me and we would had to go to somebody else I think it might have tainted everybody so while the apology is accepted and and recognized it really is on us not to be in a position where we have to roll things back and that we cautiously move forward even with concerns we have concerns are one thing raiding people people as we all know is uncomfortable especially when you have to do it publicly it's uncomfortable for the candidates but it's still the job but you can disagree you could say I'm not voting because I don't believe this is the best candidate but what we heard last week wasn't that it was like specific reasons that cast a shadow that didn't need to be cast so we really need to do better this is on top of how many times I've heard in the past 6 months how the town is a Terri employer that doesn't help attract people of any level you know we need to do better we need to put a positive I'm not saying go around and tell people that you know lunberg is a Utopia but we certainly don't want it to be something that people are afraid to go to when in all of my years being here it has never been that and I don't believe it is that now there are always improvements we can make but we as a board need to put a body forward I need to put a front forward that attracts people doesn't discourage people thank you Mr chair thank you Tom I have one as well um I too I'm glad Mr Jeff you you apologize you had a chance to speak with Jennifer and um resolve the the questions you had um I found the the comments last week very upsetting personally um I thought it was um inappropriate the question at that time um my philosoph my belief in in hiring um and I feel like I've been doing it non-stop for the last 12 months at work but I feel the hiring manager which is five of us in the case of a town manager hire have a responsibility to research the candidate prior to the interview now what does research mean doesn't mean looking up what they put on Facebook but at a minimum it means reading the material you're given so in our case we were given their cover letter uh the resume and reference comments um and the point of reviewing all that is to have questions if anything is in doubt if you want to research to look into it and you still don't have the right answer you're not sure you just want to flat out ask the candidate without researching that's the point of the interview that's the time to ask questions um and give the the candidate a chance to address the concerns um what upset me was not just asking the question but assuming the answer which was a negative um the most negative assumption you could make that that that it was a lie um I could think of and I've encountered this as well that a position you have six years ago the titles change I mean it was a joke at my old one of my old companies the HR changed our titles every two years because it was job security for them because they had to update everybody in the directory and all the systems and everybody ordered new business cards um or simply the position is is um done away with is just you know changed and no longer exists so there's there's other op but I wouldn't even want to propose those as possible answers I would want the to give the candidate I think it's only fair for the candidate to have the ability to answer those questions um and as I was sitting last week listening to the comments some of the stories about uh possibly overstepping Authority and things like that sounded familiar cuz cuz I did I spent most of my day Sunday before the interview watching a lot of recordings um because they're out there select board meetings previous interviews why did I do that two reasons one I wanted to look for consistency in their answers so a lot of the questions are the same from interview to interview I want to know what they answered in the past we hear the same thing and also do their answers align with their actions and behaviors in the job um so that was that was my motivation and my reason for I don't have the luxury of looking up recordings when I'm hiring in in my job um so this is this whole public interview thing is really um still kind of bizarre to me but um so I too I was I was worried of what Miss uh Warren Diamond's reaction would be cuz I I putting myself in her shoes I would not feel good um so I was very happy to hear that she remains interested and excited about this opportunity and we'll be engaging in um contract negotiations with us and I'm glad you were able to speak with her and she's satisfied um you know your questions um it's it would be nice you know if that had been done during the interview in a public forum but um nevertheless I look forward to a successful outcome of these negotiations and uh moving moving on thanks Renee and I didn't prepare a public comment on this but since we're all talking about it um I truly share the sentiment that you both have expressed tonight I think other than that one incident um it just seemed like we really took the responsibility of going through the interview process and considering the candidates very seriously I think we all shared very good feedback and opinions on the candidate so other than that I think the process went very well and very professionally all right any public comment from the public Mr Bowen good evening can everybody hear me okay we can hear you very good uh John Bowen 162 Highland Street um I just wanted to uh touch base on a recent communication that I made with the town manager town clerk uh the town uh veteran uh representative Miss derky as well as Communications that I have with the Department of Vital Records uh the secretary of the commonwealths office of uh public records and this is in regard to a access that I have not heard back yet from the town's position on um of the cemetery commission Nancy yasco acquiring fraudulently password some sort to be able to access the ray maker program which is a database of Vital Records of which Kathy herck had no idea existed in its form that there were social security numbers personal telephone numbers personal family information as well as dd214s and death certificates which highlight uh an individual's cause of death I also spoke with um some federal uh Representatives as well in regard to this and I still have no answer from the town particularly when it comes to the law that says in the event by Statute okay this is chapter 46 section 32 Mass general laws it says in the event that the keeper of the record that would be Carter Teran zini and the uh town clerk in the event that there is reasonable cause to believe through fraud this information has been procured by any person they to report that to the Department of Vital Records who happens to be the register and then the vital records department has a requirement under State Statute to be able to to file okay um a freeze of all access to that and an investigation be had including referring it to local authorities i s sent the extensive letter and I have not heard back from that letter um and the local authorities would be not the police department the local authorities would be obviously you know uh who would be responsible for these records in that I have received no response from the town no response from the town clerk no response from the town manager interim Town manager okay with regard to these violations this fraud and access this is private information particularly the military records which even the department even uh Miss derky said that nobody can acquire a DD214 a family member and they're only limited to what they can and they have to provide identification to be able to view that Cemetery commission's purpose for the access to the record there is no purpose there is no reason she's an elected official she's not protected by Insurance like a person who would be a dispatcher for the police department would see private personal information the town has covered insurance-wise if that employee had violated that and the only people that have ever had access to this program from my understanding have been the two Grave Diggers the present one who happens to be Todd Holman and the one before that that was Greg bham and and it has also been told to the cemetery commissioner by Heather Lemieux okay Miss Miss yasco was told you do not have right to access I have emails that say that it's also on the public record that Miss uh Lemieux has clearly stated that she is not allowed to have this access but went ahead and got herself access anyways I'd like to know the position of this select board on an investigation of their own executive office for which you have power over okay which would be the Town Clerk and the town manager in regard to their handling of this now you could choose just to ignore this but I think that 2400 views on Facebook on the last Cemetery commission meeting if you go there you'll be able to on the uh lunenberg Public Access Channel you'll be able to see that obviously that this was a grave concern for the community and I'm just asking what the steps are and what steps are going to be taken because a vote went through on November 21st which obviously didn't go through because they violated the open meeting law they reheard that on January 9th and they asked for a license they voted themselves to have a license they voted themselves to have a license even though they have already acquired access fraudulently now that being said I'd just like to know the direction about what this town plans to do with that fraudulent access because that information is protected information in my letter I highlighted a number of different laws and statutes but I haven't heard anybody say oh let's go talk to the lawyer now I mentioned this at the last meeting of the semetary commission and the lawyer Adam Coster was present lawyer Adam Coster as a matter of fact ran that meeting if anybody watches it it was 20 minutes it's quite quick to look at and you'll be able to see okay exactly how inapt our cery commission is and how far that the individuals who are on that Cemetery commission are willing to go to defy executive direction from an executive officer in this town and i' just like to know what the answer is to my letter and if anybody intends on answering that thank you thank you Mr Bowen all right we're going to jump right into our annual climate survey policy Workshop now so thank you Amanda for putting together this draft it looks great I haven't had the time really to go through all of it yet we'll do that now today as a group but it looks incredibly thorough is there anything you want to say on it before we just jump right in just that I wanted to have something for this discussion I wish I had got it out to you guys sooner but at least we have something to kind of go off of um it's based on my own notes obviously any changes we want to make work through as a group but thought it might be helpful to have something to work off of for tonight yeah unfortunately Zoom is saying I'm restricted from sharing my screen which is UN fortunate so looks like I'm not going to be able to share it and get it up on the screen all right do you have your computer can you get on the zoom I can try yeah normally it lets me share this yeah this is a concurring this is recurring this is a town computer it is can we get somebody to look at this absolutely this is the same laptop that I always use well the last time you couldn't do it either yeah I wonder if it's one of the Rene Maybe yeah it's what I said I wonder if it's how the zoom is set up in particular because we don't always have this problem right well the fact that the host can't share the screen and a guest I couldn't share but yeah something's wrong there oh okay all right I see Renee let me um okay you're gonna have to tell me what to share though I know um it's the in the drive if you go to the drive and open let me turn my mic off too hold on where and then go to town of Berg annual climate survey policy draft yeah it's the last document alphabetically in the drive don't want to join with audio okay sorry I wasn't listening to anything that you were saying CU I was trying to mute the microphone that's okay I feel like I'm at home I uh the last one what town of lunberg annual climate survey policy draft okay all right and you can delete my initials off the top and Sh is it just me or is this room like 60° it's freezing I'm fine I I have like thermals on and winter socks Renee is it letting you share yep okay oh yeah look at that all right all right thank you Renee it looks like you're just going to have to capture the edits as we make them since you're sharing the screen um but yeah let's just wait I'm typing too I up for all of this too late you're you're eligible for a bonus in your evaluations don't work all right that's recorded double your salary of zero 0 time 10,000 right all right so let's just jump right in uh so what first is the purpose statement the purpose of this policy is to establish a structured and consistent approach to conducting the annual climate survey to gather employee feedback on job satisfaction workplace environment and communication with management the feedback collected will inform strategic improvements to recruitment retention and the overall work environment the Mr chair if I make one suggestion yeah so no one at any point looks at the title and by some chance thinks it's about climate change of the environment can we not call it a climate survey can we call it a workplace survey or a workplace I mean just so the climate isn't by itself that it looks like wait why isn't the conservation commissioner yeah that's fair and a workplace climate workpl climate workplace climate or it's an engagement survey so in the in the government world it's called a climate survey but in the civilian world it's usually called an engagement survey I've also heard it called a voice of the employee kind of that kind of language something that gives it that yeah that people when they look at the title know what it is so it's like staff engagement yeah that's fine right or workplace just adding workplace in front of it I don't feel strongly either way what do you guys think I think workplace as we go along might be appropriate because we talk about like the the town as a whole and I address the select board so maybe workplace is appropriate okay workplace climate yeah both I'm good with that too we could always adjust it after we go all the way through it cuz you guys haven't seen this yet um by the way does this auto save anybody it should yeah cuz it's right in Google Docs is that have a I mean it's stupid question I don't ever use Google Docs you have something in a Google Drive and then edit it is that yeah it automatically saves is that what Google do says I don't know I mean I made it in word and then not I always Google doc is a Google doc is a shared document so yes you multiple people can edit it simultaneous thank you but the formatting is sometimes all right um anything we want to change in that purpose statement I think it's pretty good uh I think it's really good I think that in the um where it says the um I don't I'm too close to something here I'm micone maybe your pH put your phone on the other side thanks I'm microphone number two over here I'm just a little loud the um where was it at I just had it um job satisfaction workplace environment Communications manage management um what comes to mind and I don't know the phraseology here but like career progression I think staff development I think that that's a critical thing here so um maybe it fits into one of these other categories but I think something here is Staff Development as well that we're trying to gauge to think so so that's in your uh purpose statement yeah I know I just I know I address that someplace in here but yeah I mean I have no all right um I just don't know realistically you know can we commit to not that we don't want to develop our staff but I don't know what that looks like yet well I think some of the questions that going to come out of this um you know I I as I think of having done these in the past one of the questions usually you're asked is like do you feel feel supported by your manager right U do you feel as if do you think that your manager um is guiding you for career progression those kind and that's kind of Developmental related questions and I do think it's important that we train and develop our Junior people to be in higher levels of responsibility and I think we are trying to gauge that not just you know job satisfaction environment but I think it's also that so where would you add that um comma uh rtion in the overall work environment yeah somewhere after job satisfaction a workplace environment um you career support career progression development uh staff development yeah something like that I'm fine with that yeah I'm fine with any of that so to gather employee feedback on job satisfaction workplace employ environment staff development staff development yeah and communication with management yeah I'm fine with that thank you Renee for making those edits yeah all right cool anything else on the purpose statement I mean it was very thorough so all right scope this policy applies to all town of lunenberg employees across all departments question on this would this be school or is it just be town this is just town I'm pretty sure we just did Town side when we did it in 2023 and I'm assuming that we would probably continue that right I think only Town employees are under technically the end of our priew is that correct yes yeah so I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that yes the school department could employ such a something comparable on the school side but we can't yeah Y how libraries like the one employee that's not not one but it's one of the employees that's not hired by the town manager they're hired by an elected board but I think it should cover them they were covered last one yeah I think they should be covered so okay so does all departments is that clear enough and you in I think so yeah I think it just implied that it doesn't include the schools so all right responsibilities you could put excluding schools in parenthesis if you wanted to I don't really care too much I might be overthinking things at this point I think so I think a select word policy generally does not apply to schools yeah okay all right responsibility so we'll start with the select board first establishes policies and strategic goals to support a productive and positive work environment review survey findings and collab operates with the town manager to guide policy improvements and ensures oversight and accountability in the implementation of action plans informed by survey results anything we want to change add remove there no I think no matter what we go through today though we are going to for sure have to sit on this because I think some things are going to come back for sure afterwards so these are the responsibilities in response to the survey is that what your your intent is or I just wanted to clearly Define what everyone's roles would be within this process this cuz like the first one is just independent of any survey right right yes mostly just kind of saying you know I was trying to clarify the roles you know like we're not dayto day we're policy right we're trying to you know inform policies in the direction of the town but we're not day to-day so I was trying to clarify who each you know what each body or person's role was within you know and how this would fit in is what I was yeah I right it's clear to me yeah I think it's accurate right so policies and strategic goals to support uh reviews survey findings collaborates with Town manager to guide policy improvements right and then ensures oversight and accountability and the implementation of action plans I mean yeah it's accurate yep no I think it's fine yeah all right so we'll move move on to town manager and assistant Town managerhr director oversee the implementation and continuous Improvement of the annual climate survey and we'll probably just want to add workplace in front of there ensure survey data informs policy and operational decisions provide regular reports to the select board on key findings and action plans C go ahead no no all right communicate the purpose and impact of the survey to employees and encourage participation through transparent engagement all right how about this section so the third bullet um provide regular reports to the select board and ke findings and action PL can you just talk me through what what you mean by this so I think it might make a little bit more sense as we go through the rest of it because I've got like a top set out I'll come back um but essentially I just want to make sure that we're Del delineating what the expectations are and also I do know we might get some push back from some employees on this because of how the last one rolled out and I think we're doing a great job trying to improve this process but I just want them to say like okay we are expecting this to be reported back in part of the process okay I'll come back to this one okay anything else we want to touch on that one now this is a great way to start Amanda good work yeah thank you all right department heads and supervisors encourage staff participation in the survey by fostering a culture of open communication serve as a liaison between staff and management by relaying submitted questions and concerns to the town manager and assistant Town managerhr director help Implement and communicate follow-up actions based on survey results sounds like we're all thinking here is there anything I have nothing to add yes okay and you might have more to add you know after we go through it things you want to tweak but Renee anything for this section M all right Michael Ray NOP I'll speak up all right employees employees are encouraged to participate in the survey to provide valuable insights that contribute to continuous Improvement employees May submit proposed questions for consideration through their department heads by the established deadline participation is voluntary and all feedback will remain anonymous and confidential employees can expect transparency and how survey results are communicated and utilized to improve the workplace environment I'm just making a note on the second bullet but I'll come back to it well we're out of the section so that was I know yeah but I think it will make more sense as we go through the ler what I'm talking about there I can kind of so in the first section my only comment in the first section is that there seems to be an omission of the Personnel Committee in they I'm assuming they have some role in this somewhere I don't know where that might be certainly not the select board role not department heads or employees so either they have their own section or they're part of the section with the town manager and assistant Town manager section but they need to be noted here somewhere what were their um I mean as Personnel is only uh what would their what do you see their role as being well if we're talking about in this purpose that job satisfaction workplace environment you know they play a role I mean it's not they don't make workplace rules but they deal with benefits and salaries and steps and so it has a direct impact on those salary admin um Personnel that are not covered by unions so even though they don't deal with workplace policies they have an impact to be honest with you I just that didn't factor in my mind it should have um I don't know how we would where or when they would come into to play would you see them developing the survey and or more so just reviewing it and not I mean no I don't see them developing this I mean they should have an input on it I guess but I guess they're going to be part of the actions because if people say that you know the benefits in the town are not up to par uh for their for for the sap or you know salaries are not consistent with Union salaries and things like that that's where that has to be addressed now does that get address from the town manager and the uh HR Director I probably so maybe they belong in that section somewhere but it sounds like what you're saying if we had a Personnel committee well we are going to have a personel Comm at some point again we will have one again right um but it sounds like what you're describing is really like what we have listed as a select Board responsibility here right implementing I mean select board I think I think it seems like it shares that sort of responsibility in reviewing you know the sap and bringing forth articles to town meeting if anything I would say it fits like the third bullet under Town manager and assistant Town manager so provide regular report they don't provide reports but act on key findings and action plans from the town manager and assistant Town manager or HR Director so what if we have sorry I didn't mean to cut you off no no a very similar bullet but provide regular reports to the Personnel committee something like that for for them for yeah exactly for action plans and key findings under their purview something like that sure because ultimately their role doesn't have to be overstressed I just don't want it to be eliminated no no I agree and their charge I don't know if this is an official charge but it says it's the mission of the Personnel committee to promote and maintain consistent and Equitable standards in the administration of the town's Personnel bylaw called the sap in conjunction with the town manager and represent the interests of both taxpayers and town employes so I think if we put another bullet underneath the town manager an assistant Town manager that says provide regular reports to the Personnel committee what did you how did you just raise the second half of that provide regular reports to the select board and personal committee yeah on key findings and action plans under their purview yeah just adding to that b perfect yep all right do you think it's necessary to have a section for the Personnel committee no it can be added to the end of the that heading so Town manager you know comma assistant Town manager HR Director comma personel personel committee okay you can see I'm not behind my head I can't I can you have to turn around I can see it by looking like this a lot easier you didn't grow eyes in the back I have not my mom only my mom only moms right only moms have that ability had the same thought and okay and teachers Renee that that last part we were just going to add personal committee to that header right there so it would be Town manager assistant Town manager HR director and personal that though doesn't that mean that they're going to oversee the implementation and the improve oh yeah we'll probably it down a little bit so just leave it like that that's I mean the personal committee already has their charge and so I mean this kind of fumbles them with information think if they're mentioned like that I think that's F okay good call so Zip Zip Zip all right so we wrapped up the employee section M you have a note that we're going to come back to at some point once we get to the timeline um all right so survey Administration so first is frequency the town will conduct the survey annually with distribution occurring during the first quarter of the fiscal year their survey will address employee experiences from the previous fiscal year so the only thing I'll comment here I'm jumping ahead to the next section is that the timeline of the next section is the last quarter of the fiscal year not the first quarter of the next fiscal year so My process well sorry you're fine I'm just saying that they don't match so if you going to distribute the survey collection window June 1st that's not the beginning of oh you're right I change so I changed this timeline multiple times as I was thinking one I didn't want things to happen in May because of annual town meeting but I didn't want to wait too long because if we're going to as a board if we're going to try to take action it should be completed early in the fiscal year to capture the prior FIS fiscal year so before before your defense of that I had no problem with the timeline I just think that the comment and the frequency reflect the timeline that's I actually do have a concern about timeline I know we're about to get into it um you know having when we get into the March through May period really mid-march through miday it is really hard uh given that we have town it's really hard to add another task to the plate I mean I know we were talking about um I can't say that I was going to make a reference to Executive session um but I think that the my opinion is is I like what you've put here I would push this forward in the calendar year a little bit more because I to me when by the time we sit down come April 1st April 15th to work on the town manager evaluation in my opinion we should have these results in hand so that's my opinion what if we do it so the results would be maybe due end of calendar year so I think it would be the um we're writing Town manager reports in the April May time frame correct so yeah I would push this closer to the I tried to go backwards so if we're talking about having the results ultimately we're looking at that August 15th date right if we're trying that's like the completion before we're talking about an action plan if so if that's the end of the calendar year December 31st and then backing things up that way does that make ises that kind of capturing what you're it does or um given your time I this can probably go out till January or even February uh February 28th instead of July 31st um because essentially if if it's February 28th that's March 15th um would be based on this timeline March 15th is when everything's public and then you know the implementation of the action plan would really kick off in June there would probably be a longer period of time between the communication results and the implementation of the action plan and there may be a need for money or budget but if we're further enough if we're far enough out in advance it could be put into a budget for action in the new fiscal year so the whole thing is a six-month process according to this right March yeah I mean I was trying to not be unreasonable with expectations so I didn't really know what to do in terms of timeline I mean to I guess it all depends on what makes the best use of the final results right and how quickly they can be implemented I mean so I don't you know sorry Tom I don't mean to keep talking over you my brain is going really fast this evening but I think it also depends on whether we're utilizing a company to do this survey or whether it's being done internally because that's a bigger lift on the staff yeah you know whether we obviously if we have the funds to utilize a company which I do kind of reference later in here that's great but we might not always so I didn't want to put too much of a burden on you know the staff members that are actually implementing the survey and might have to create the so I wanted to give enough room depending on how it goes yeah so regardless of how it gets implemented the question is is there a better time of year or not to get the results of the survey that would give room to implement a plan within the certain period for instance and and this totally hypothetical maybe part of the plan requires a town meeting article so when is the best time to get the results is it to get it you know in the middle of the summer so that you're not going to do it until you know the possibly the special or can you get them right before Thanksgiving so it'll be part of the annual I mean I I'm just throwing out ideas here I've never done any of these so I don't know Carter has thoughts your microphone is not on Carter um I would suggest to you that having the results uh on about November 1st would fit into uh preparation of budget for your following fiscal year would uh tie into uh any bylaw or sap changes or other changes you need and also although it would not occur every year uh might provide you some baseline information that you want to work with going into your collective bargaining yeah uh cycle um so if it was me I would try to tie myself to November 1 if it was my my thinking was along those lines too that getting it get getting the results before the holidays gives a lot more planning time and also with this time frame if you just switched everything to that you would dial March 1st that means you would not start until June 1st to ask questions and I don't see any problem with that yeah yeah I'm fine with pushing it back to that timeline I concur I think that's fair does that make sense all right so we're going to try to adjust all these dates now yeah so implementation of action going backwards so based on what Carter said survey analysis and reporting to select board by November one that's my yeah that's no but that's that means everything here on on Amanda's list would be three months three months later so this is September wait are we trying to have implementation or communication of the results by two months I'm sorry not three months two months yeah I don't think June is late enough I think actually it was in July the the communication of she's doing it behind you the screen uh results to the select board and the employees suggesting and I think what you have right now is implementation of action plan occurring 15 days after these results are committed maybe that's the start of the development of the action plan y um yeah that's a that's yeah yeah so what it looks like December 1 I thought we said November no she has November November November 1 survey analysis and reporting to select board oh my apologies I see okay the first date sure but did we want the communication of the results to the employees to be November 1st or is nov I don't think it makes that much of a difference at that point you have them two weeks apart of course I want to know what's going on I do too it's very distracting um we think that's I just I just scaled you yeah no no I two weeks I don't know you think it's I think so because at that point the results are being reported it's already done it's already done exactly they they yeah and then if we I know we're kind of backwards planning this but if we start from the front um does it take a month department heads to pull together questions well not only that I'm looking a lot of these now yeah we can adjust them at okay one yeah yeah you were just pulling something out for us to talk yeah these are good talk my thought process even just talking about the if we look take our minds off the dates themselves if we just look at the whole process to make sure that you guys all agree with what I'm saying here I wanted the staff to be able to submit questions to their department heads and the department heads to be able to submit them to the town manager I also further in this policy I think we need to have core questions which I sort of outlined which obviously we need to go through for every single year that we can address and as a board but then I think that there should be the ability for staff and managers and the town manager to add them additional ones you know depending on the things that are happening in town so that was my thought process on the staff and the department had involvement there MH I think if we're going to be doing a survey and August my experience doing climate surveys is that the development of the questions takes like four to six weeks um because typically you know if you're are hiring a company they're going to say hey what is it that you're testing what do what do you really want to know more about and they're going to give you a bunch of sample questions to review um you know there's never a great time because I mean whether it's hitting a town meeting or starting of a fiscal year it's always something um but I think if we're targeting August knowing that a lot of people are on vacation the last week of of June first week of July um that you kind of have like that two We Dead period there um I think you might be right with how you're proposing this in June I would just adjust that may date I don't know if you're staff know this is coming do they really need a home off we're looking in between June and August the reason that there's a huge gap there is because on my plan that was May for Town meetings we need to make some adjustments there too I don't know that we need you know whatever that is can't math in my head month and a half for steps too so maybe we need I mean we're putting in a timeline for staff submissions but really staff's submissions should be this is a deadline you should be able a deadline this is a deadline so they can submit anytime up right I mean they should be encouraged as they come up with them there should be a place for them to give them all year yeah yeah maybe we just need to digest the timeline but I know it's the first time we've all seen it yeah but we're we're closer to what we're thinking yeah okay all right cool so let's move on it's after timeline survey design the survey will be developed in collaboration with external Consultants or internal resources as determined by the select board considering Financial feasibility and the need for impartiality I'm just going to read through have a but the survey will include a set of mandatory core questions addressing job satisfaction workplace environment and community communication Effectiveness C attachment a additional questions may be proposed by employees through their department heads and submitted to the town manager and assistant Town managerhr director for consideration the final selection will be approved by the select board all right any feedback on this one U what's attachment okay I do sorry goe oh good attach I'm saying is the questions okay yeah so I was just thinking as as you're reading this out loud would the whether we use an external or internal be the board or should that be the town manager I was going to say probably Town manager and decide H HR Director really yeah doing this staff is really what I meaning it because this is going to cost you $1,500 really if you hire that's how much it cost for I was going to ask I know it's been years since we did this well I know a new company that's starting this year to do this we just I like can we just use Survey Monkey that's why so that's why I put it this way if if I might please and then I'm going no please turn your on your insights we've already talked at some length about the job of being Personnel or HR director and procurement is too much for one person yes and we're struggling with how to get all of that work done now now granted some of that was under the Limelight of arpa uh and a substantial amount of procurement that you would not do in the norm uh but but I think that's a real issue you need to think about so if we assume that you need to you as a consultant you really probably should think in terms of 125 now my suggestion to you is frankly one of frequency if you do it on a biannual basis you can put 6,500 in the budget and just keep it consistent the other issue that I suggest you consider a biannual basis is that by the time we're not a corporation we can't turn it on a dime so when you get your results in November you may not be Implement them until post the annual town meeting and those changes will really have not hit home to most people at which point you're asking them to do it all over again plus you don't have a lot of churn in your organization so you'll be asking the majority of people the same questions over and over and over again so a 2-year wind I think um has some budgetary sense if you're thinking about hiring a consultant it has the ability for some of your changes to take effect before you ask folks again and it has a little bit more timeline for I I I don't mean the term turn to be derogatory but turnover on your staff for a few more Fresh Faces to be in the mix so with that um I zip it well with that I will I I will say first of all I totally support what you just said for several reasons first of all let's just address internally or externally to me if impartiality and and uh an anonymity of the employees is of critical importance which it is I don't care how you do it internally it's going to be hard for a certain SE sector of the employees a certain fraction of the employees not to think that they're going to know who did this so I'm not going to be honest so I think you have to do it externally because of that and because of your reasoning I think it's very sound that not for the budgetary reason although that's helpful but the fact that in order to implement something if you're going to ask them the next year how well you did and you haven't even implemented some of the things to make it different all you're going to do is get people maybe inadvertently more frustrated CU you're asking me I'm like I didn't see any difference I didn't see any difference so I I agree with what Carter said I I actually would be okay with three every three years I I don't want to just to give more of a run for anything that is implemented to get more of an accurate read of it was that On Target is that having the effect we wanted cuz you do run the risk to of survey fatigue yeah I think I like I I like the idea of two years because it sort of offsets when the different collective bargaining agreements might expire since they don't all expire at the same time um plus I think the follow through is important right at least right now and I think we could address it personally we could address it in the future for like okay we did this and it feels like it turned around way way too quickly we could always address the policy but I definitely agree with two years I think three might be stretching it person and for a personal opinion I agree that two years makes a lot of sense but you know what what I also think is important is that um maybe this is something that we um will add in is that you have some kind of so really what these surveys help do is they help catch toxic leaders uh toxic leader is generally going to smile up and bark down um you know something I shared with uh Heather was a story and I'll share it with you guys um of you know a climate server that I experienced at Fort Drum uh Fort Drum is Upstate New York it's the 10th Mountain division which is a lot of soldiers that are there um and we did a climate survey um and it was one of the uh on paper it was the best company Commander at Fort Drum on paper in terms of every metric in which the military uses to evaluate uh units unit Readiness in terms of uh medical readiness all that stuff PT scores weapons qualifications just all the things that makes a unit you know Deployable ready for the combat zone um this guy was by far number one did a climate survey uh result of the climate survey was this guy got sent us to prison um but what came out of the climate survey was you know we were integrating women into the military guy was adamantly opposed to it uh if you didn't score military standard with 70% on the PT test if you didn't score 90% was taking your weekends from you uh if you weren't qualifying expert you had to come out of pocket to pay for remedial training for yourself certainly not the standard um some really racist sexist things that were being said they were caught in a climate survey on paper guy looks great when you do a survey like this you realize that this guy is toxic to the core what I'm saying is something that that I appreciated about the military was what triggered climate surveys was every 18 months or 6 months after the change of a new command so some something that may be helpful here is that if you have a is that we may want to create within this biannual basis some kind of catch within perhaps 6 months of new department heads to do some kind of survey because toxicity um you can identify that right away but if you wait two years if you're the employee who's stuck underneath that toxic manager two years is too long um and I think two yeah 2 years is too long so maybe that's not something we're going to hit today but I do think that there's going to be value within the section that as this survey gets gets pulled out that there may be a small section that's given to a department um when there's a six months after change of department head that makes sense to me uh with that I mean so this is where I say what I usually say when we do policies it's like we need to get it off the ground because it's a new policy y it's a living policy so we could start two years and if it's two Too Short we can go to three years and we can try to include that I I agree with you in that if somebody if we're doing it every 2 years and there's a department head that starts a week after the last one you're going to be two years you're not going to know this person doing so there should be a trigger that you could do a mini one yeah Department dep yeah and I think that makes all the sense in the world yeah I really agree with that as well so do you want me a can you write that up please it up real quick take take annual out or is buy annual every other year or twice a year this is always exactly it'sing I think I think it's probably well by by annual is both you should say it can be interpreted both ways I guess I'm going by the New Hampshire budget which is years well and yeah and pay periods are bi-weekly every other week um I can just take annual out yeah and just Define the term it doesn't have to be defined in the where are you looking here well it's under frequ probably probably it's on the page it's right above the timeline just say every two years and maybe we got to be specific and say OD or evens that way we know which if we're in the two years well we did the last one in 2023 so if we want to start this I don't know if it will be too late to start it this year but no we can just say every other no later than every other year that's you know but anyway we'll address it as far as what Michael Ray said about triggering it I think we'll have to have an exceptions area that you know in another section that says exceptions okay I'm just putting this here just so we know change um of the previous so it won't be the previous fiscal year yeah I know um so they're filling it out in August it's previous 12 months I mean right we could just previous actually two years because this is happening every two years since the last survey yeah yeah all right so on survey design we were going to change it is that going to be the select board that's what we just said based on Carter's yeah I was going to go back to that um I'm fine with that notal banial Bal is every right sorry it's a common debate no but but by annual I I've looked this up means both Believe It or Not which is it gets confusing you're scheduling meetings so for the first bullet point under survey design do we want to keep that to be determined by the select board I think that was what Carter's gu Carter's recommendation right well you are the policy makers on it right yeah so this is your survey I think you need to be the final as to whether or not it is meeting uh the test of why you're doing it right no other group can do that yes I I agree that we I mean obviously if we're doing our job we're going to do this all in conjunction with the HR Director yeah and the town manager but it should be our final decision okay so it's good for that bullet point was there anything else on these other two so the second one is the survey will include a set of mandatory core questions addressing job satisfaction workplace environment and communication Effectiveness did we want to add yeah was added at the beginning St development staff development and then third bullet point additional questions may be proposed by employees through their department heads and submit it to the town manager an assistant town manager/ a jar director for consideration the final selection will be approved by the select board so that was specific to any additional questions we wanted to add to our core questions for each survey I'm okay with that it's good Tom or Michael right yeah that's fine yeah I was just I'm sorry I oh you're reading through the previous ones okay these do not match up with what we were the summary we' got anyways all right well let's just continue on for now um all right distribution and collection the survey will be distributed electronically via the town's internal communication channels no paper copies will be provided responses will remain anonymous and confidential the survey window will be open for a minimum of 4 weeks so my only comment is on bullet one distributed electronically I I don't I mean we should leave that open it should be distributed electronically in a means determined by you know this select board and in and outside vendor or whatever I mean yeah you don't necessarily have to email it you could just point people to a a link us usually it's a link outside website um so aside we just say El yeah just distributed electronic because if it's an yeah if it's an outside V they have right and it's and I think you can delete that second sentence the no paper copies will be provided yeah okay no no I think we should keep that you think you should keep that yeah yeah okay so the survey will we distributed electronically period and then no paper copies will be provided suggested changes right people just take screenshots I just I just didn't want to have to the requirement of you know people filling it out and I feel like that eliminates some of the confidentiality oh the survey itself not uning the results survey itself you know whatever the collection method is that is collection method yeah I was just going to say that as well all right M anything else for distribution and collection I don't know if this applies to anybody but we have to be sensitive to ADA requirements so if anybody has eyesight issues or anything we have to be able to come up with a way for them to take the survey hopefully the application is five away compliant that they send out right I'm just saying but that's something we need to be sensitive that's something to ask the vendor yep right yep if assuming we go that route do we want to add something if you know reasonable accommodations will be met for any accessibility needs probably wouldn't be a bad idea to add that in yeah at the end of the sentence with distributed electronically I I mean that's okay or another sentence at the end of it and then just saying reasonable accommodations will be made made for we need to add that you think I don't know I I mean I would hope that companies that do this work would just do this automatically I don't feel strongly that we need to add it I don't think it has to be documented I just REM we have to do it right we just have to make sure to check yeah it should be standard I would think for any company that does this right and if we ever really like have that need we definitely could I mean if we wanted to say the survey will be distributed electronically and we'll meet all ADA requirements yeah that's good beautiful okay anything else for that part all right data analysis and Reporting the results will be analyzed by an independent third party or internal team as deemed appropriate a summary of findings and recommended actions will be shared with the select board and employees and key trends and actionable insights will be identified to address concerns and improve the work environment is the first bullet would be decided by the select board rather than as deemed appropriate yes it should be by this yep since we're deciding how to admin Minister the survey I think this part you know there maybe we need to have a little bit more further discussions about what we actually happens here um simply because of how the last one went you know you just referenced that last survey do we need to delineate what the employees will actually have access to is it just going to be a summary that became a problem last year or is it you know what are what is it that we're sharing what information is being sent out what do we see what do they see what is it do we need to talk about well I mean I think I mean again I think we should I mean I just looked through three different departments here and one of the questions was confidence that anything's going to happen as a result of this survey was one of it was one of the lowest ones oh it's 0% 0% well I think it was 0% on N I think it was two of them that I just saw at least um and they were correct that since we're just now seeing this now and this was two years ago yeah um you know on to I'm sorry to get to get back to the question I I think um the analysis I think we should provide the full survey results I mean these things are hard to stomach the first time they come out right the first one is always going to be a little negative um it's always going to capture people's gut feelings and you can ask a 100 people you know you can put ,000 in 100 people's hands and and and some people are going to say it was an awful experience I mean it's just G to it's just going to be that way but I think that the full results of climate survey should be public I think that that you know the taxpayer has a right to you know they're paying for so I I mean I know that there's some analysis that needs to happen but really it's it's the full I I'm opposed there's going to be a summary page no matter what so when you have the third party company do this they give you that summary page of like you and basically as we look through these powerp points that were created um off of that the first couple of pages essentially are the summaries um but it does go the detail is question by question of how much and I don't know if we need to give you know all that but but timely it's public record anyway so we need to be careful about how the questions are addressed so that the answers aren't in a way that would identify employees correct but I just wanted to make sure we're all the same so the numeric score is I have no problem Distributing to everybody yeah it's when comments that we cannot because comments people can discern from people's writing styles from people's vocabulary from people's phrasing and that's exactly what you don't want to do that's the problem with I mean surveys so the surveys you have to keep them to numbers and and if you do want extra comments they have to be bulleted so you can just circle them and not actually write them because otherwise you start giving away who you are yep yeah that I agree that writing styles yeah so then we're going to have to for sure address the questions as we keep going just so you know okay because I didn't have that in my brain was I was doing this okay all right follow-up actions action planning based on survey results and action plan will be developed to address key areas of improvement regular updates will be provided on the implementation of improvements that was reasonable all right do we need to say who is developing the action plan I was to say that manager ultimately it's probably us to then guide the town manager to implement and then for I think it would be report back to us yeah I think it would be okay for the HR Director and town manager to develop the plan just so you know Town manager I'm talking about both of them same and what about Personnel committee oh yeah well only if it's things that are addressed by the salary admin plan so which which again are numerous they're not none they're not zero but they're not everything either so it's you know that has to do with Benefits Bay scale steps okay developed by the appropriate group Town manager assistant Town manager HR Director Personnel committee I mean any one or all of them could be appropriate well I think out of all of that like the town manager and HR Director are definitely going to be leading that effort for sure so as they do in legal documents I will offer something here so you may want to Define at the beginning of this what the ser survey team is so that would be like the select board Town manager assistant Town manager PR and then Personnel committee and then just refer to them the survey team will do that's a great idea yeah that way you don't have to keep saying it over and over and over yeah so we could probably add something like that up at the beginning like where there's purpose scope and underneath scope we could probably add you know survey definition or something yeah I'm just going to make a note so who would be on that survey team probably all of us right Town managerr director select board Personnel committee it's probably all four of us right and then we can just say based on the Sur results and then act will be developed by the survey team to Improvement yeah that makes it it's much simpler MH okay all right I'm just putting that there's a placeholder yep that looks good where we so developed by the survey team yes okay can't type anymore because you're being broadcasted for getting out of all right so that was action planning right all right I think everything else there is fine right all right communication of results a summary of survey findings and planned actions will be communicated to employees through townwide meetings emails and internal portals we have to be so specific yeah I would say I would say we'll be communicated to employees through a variety of means such as and then just name a couple or including or something do we also want to make note here because the issue that we ran into is that the only thing that was communicated was that summary and not like the actual result well and it wasn't I mean looking at this I will clarify it was not the summary it was an extract of the summary we were it was I mean some of this I mean again I for whatever reason um I did not see this prior to tonight M and I'm sitting here kind of horrified um you know I mean to to read that you know these low percentages um from some of these results so you know it's this type of information needs to be public mhm you know you have 25% of our town not thinking that there's good career opportunities that the leaders have a vision that motivates them I mean this stuff is really disturbing part of the issue with that survey you know having that a person that took the survey was it wasn't clear who the leaders were so as we go through our core questions it needs to be delineated who these questions are targeted it needs to be specific is this the town manager and the HR Director is this the select board is this your direct manager and I go through that obviously we're going have to make some adjustments but I think that was a a failure of that survey because it's who is a survey talking about right and if you look at those results it looks like it was supposed to be talking about managers but that was not communicated in the survey and there's a lot of variety with these questions so I I do think as we go through them you know given that I've been on the front end of some of these things you can pick the questions and you can specify you know and sometimes the word leader is very broad um you know it's unfortunate that word was chosen instead of specific managers that could have been substituted um yeah that's too broad anyway I will I will say that seeing and I I am seeing I am seeing these survey results for the first time too in the last couple days U I feel fairly confident saying that I don't think the survey was a well planned uh both in and of itself and then what to do with the results it was poorly handled if handled at all yeah uh so we should be not looking to this as gaining anything other than hey we did something once and now we're going to build something that's a little more concrete I agree because I don't find anything terribly useful and yes I agree with Mr Jeff I think there's a lot of stuff that's really potentially discouraging that doesn't boil off the top as a you know in my previous job uh I begged for employee reviews so that I would know as a global director in my position how I was doing because people very rarely are going to tell you to your face and couldn't get my company to do one so if they're important to a degree I mean I don't want to over you know too because some people no matter what happens in the world the world's a terrible place to them yeah uh I want to be able to address things that are trend not LLY that some people but anyway I went astray I think that this format and then using that as a really don't do that right well yeah yeah as as like a just to put it in Pottery terms as a failed pot okay we did this once it really didn't come out well maybe we need to structure this a little better yeah I mean I think it'll still serve as a useful Baseline right but you know definitely we can improve on how we actually administer and do these questions all right monitoring progress the progress of initiatives resulting from survey feedback will be tracked and reported to the select board so who does who does a tracking the survey team we're on the survey team yeah yeah I know exactly um well since it's reported to the select board everybody but the select board on the surve team really the town maner and HR director really but yeah I think that's mostly an internal well I guess it's it's personal too if it's changes to the sap I mean in my mind again and not withstanding Carter's comment about putting too many tasks on one person okay if we take that aside in an organizational structure this would all be an HR person's thing to do mhm yeah and whether if we don't have a full HR person then then I would say that we better put that on our organizational wish list soon and get that done because we're not the town's not getting smaller if you're using an independent consultant I think that the oversight of procuring that consultant uh working with that consultant to solicit All Those Questions uh cify them all put them in front of the board I I think that's well within the realm of uh capacity of an HR Director um it's the actual carrying out and combining um and Reporting in a a useful way the results of the survey that I think would be Beyond The Daily capacity of an agent well I mean so so I hear you and I think my comment back would be I don't disagree but I but that person has has to be the point person and go to the Departments and say department heads and say Hey listen I need to generate this report and this data has to come from you I'm not going to you know be in the police department or the DPW or you know in town clerk or the board of assessors sitting there watching you do stuff I need the information from you but they would be the the traffic cop directing all that and I think the select board should be I mean even as we're again looking at this we we've asked for the full survey to be provided to us and this is not the full survey this is a summary the full survey is in there it's a um it's a Miss it's not easy to look at but it's all there it's all the data but it's in a very raw form so it's hard to parse but it is there I haven't spent a ton of time looking at that I saw it I opened it but I open it and then the questions don't fit in the columns yeah so I didn't and you can't look at it on this at all it's not going to work on the iPad I high I have to say I I you know let me not make assumptions here you know company hire to do a job I would assume that they're going to provide a work product that's readable and so what is that readable work product um that you know it I would assume that they must have provided it if we cut them a check and said they did the job then we must have got a work product out of them that wasn't this hard that's to be aware of because as we want the results we want to be able to read them we don't want that CSV file and some we want yeah the full results in a readable format that is something that we need to I I say some of this cuz I was hesitant coming in here about whether or not we should take this fully on ourselves how much we should share but you know after seeing the quality of information that's being provided um I think we absolutely should take this on ourselves and I think that we have to work directly with this company um so that way we don't get five slide summaries and impossible to read Excel FS I think when we interview potential candidates do this for us you start with I want to see your end product not I want to see your start product right where do you actually want to see show me a report that you provided somebody and then tell us about how you got to this report how much that cost because you're right I mean I want to know that I'm going to get something at the end and it's going to work I mean I don't go to my car mechanic and I don't want to know the digital output of my computer I want to know that you told me what the problem was and that you fixed it right in like English terms that I can understand and culture builds themselves the company that was used for this one as providing you know a really good work product so the question is where those power points were really good so I'm assuming that they also produce a PDF has anyone reached out to them specifically if we can't find it internally do we know has has um they have uh I've been told that they have been um because of changes they've had it there and been difficult uh to really communicate with but I will follow up on that in the morning war and and get you a better answer yeah because I think we need to push that especially because if we paid $112,000 I don't know what we actually paid for this but if we paid a substantial amount of money they we need that work product right I'm sure it was substantial so and I think especially as we get into this next section um I mean you completed the survey as I remember discussing with the town manager I thought there was like a 100 questions on that o I think it was like 45 maybe I mean it was two it was over 2 years ago now I can't remember and it also was you know one should be on that spreadsheet right yeah I mean that spreadsheet should have well I don't think the Excel spreadsheets those presentations I don't think it has all the questions no no no it doesn't even have a fraction of them there was many more but again sections that came up and it said like there was a lot of overlap and it again it wasn't clear who you were talking about and it almost was same repetitive but it didn't say like Oh and it said like managers but I guess that wasn't really about your direct manager it was more about town management or people were answering it too subjectively so it needs to be very clear on the front end I I'm aware that culture an provided the town manager office with a series of questions to pick from um and you can also tailor in combin so you know the questions that were decided were decided um from a pallet and and that's I think what we need to make sure doesn't get so muddy going forward that you know leader can mean too many things you know anyway and I I I may be jumping ahead a little bit cuz I was looking through some of these questions I think it in order for me to really be informed about what you have listed here as attachment a I would like to really compare it to the questions that were previously asked or even if we have the template of questions that they initially provided and said here are the questions that are options yeah as we go further I think that last part which we still had two sections before them but I think that that the questions we need to really think about and digest and I think that's an important an important piece I tried to put some know something a baseline in here but I definitely think we're going to need to work on those especially if those are going to be our core questions that we use every year um I think that'll be important and I'm looking at that CSV and I don't think it has everything because if you look it only has it only has 14 columns and it says lunberg if you look at the top row lunberg 9 8 10 28 one of them is like 52 so there's at least 52 questions 53 so I do think we need those as we continue to go that's just notes here all right so two more sections here so review and evaluation this policy will be reviewed annually to ensure it meets the evolving needs of the town and its employees adjustments will be made as necessary based on survey insights and organizational priorities what do we think about that one makes sense yeah that's good I like leaving it annually even if we're conducting the surveys you know by what did we just say by annually is that how on um because that way if we decide hey know this is we need to change it or increase it or whatever I think at least putting our eyes on it especially as the board evolves yeah I think that's fine all right policy compliance the town manager and assistant Town managerhr director are responsible for ensuring the annual climate survey not annual anymore is conducted each year by annually failure to do so may result in a review by the select board and recommendations for corrective actions uh do we need that second S no okay take it out okay all right now on to the attachments all right so let's just read through them so attachment a is the climate survey questions so section one is Select board leadership and then I'll just read them do you feel the select board establishes clear strategic goals that support the town's overall operations yes no unsure with space for comments on a scale of 1 through 10 how well do you believe the select board provides provides effective policy oversight to support the work environment do you believe select board policies support the operational effectiveness of your department what suggestions do you have for how the select board can enhance its policy setting and oversight functions to support employees can we if I may ask you know this board is um elected by the voters we're answerable to the voters um and sometimes what the voters want isn't necessarily what staff want um obviously I support staff um but to me what we're evaluating is the effective administration of government uh not commentary on elected officials so I'm not so much in favor of even having section one as presented but I do think everything else that you've provided is relevant but I also haven't been an employee of the town and so I don't you know I can't gauge but you know if an employee tells us that you know um for example if an employee says that um how well do you believe the SB provides effective policy oversight to support the work environment I I know a lot of Staff watch our meetings but I don't know if we should be working or marching to the it's harder for the public to provide this kind of input to us without directly coming to a meeting there's no Anonymous way for them to do it um I'm just a little concerned about the voice I guess I I hear that concern as a as a staffer which is where my head was as a was thinking about this there was no connection between the board and town staff uh so I was trying to put another level level of connection maybe it's just one question or two or maybe we adjust it but I think it is important um there was I believe and I could be misremembering I thought that the select board was referenced at least in one or two questions on the previous survey but again I could be misremembering um I mean we do we are the policy board in the you know of the entire town so I do think it's important for for them to have that you know our feedback is always going down but there should be able to come all the way up yeah even if it's not informing our actions I don't know I notwithstanding the fact that I think what you said is correct I don't think that their feeling about being supported from the town at least on the first two questions because we do set goals for the town manager we've agreed when we set our goals even this year that our goals are to be disseminated through the town manager and the rest of the body well if if the employees don't think that we're even setting good goals that's important for us to know I think and it and and since this is going to be a public record not just released to the employees but to the general public I think it would be good for the public to know that so questions one and two I think address that questions three and four you know suggestions well you know come to a select board meeting or put an anonymous I think especially if we're trying to just keep it numbers or yes or no and not SP for comments I think we need to adjust those things too so I think one and two at least as far as it affects their like I think number two provides effective policy oversight I mean that's what we do we we do policy so if they feel like there are policies that we're not addressing that affect the workplace I think it's a fair criticism um question three I think think gets more into what the town as a whole town meeting decides to fund um and for what suggestions again I'm I'm not a big for what suggestions person at least not in this kind of format yep all right so you think we should keep one and two and just get rid of three four my personal feel all right what do you guys think Renee yeah I definitely think four should go two and three I see some over L I can so eliminating three I'm not sure we lose out on anything really if we keep two yeah I'd agree with that cuz I mean policies to support the work environment policies support operational effective effectiveness of the department I mean you could even combine them yeah right and and three doesn't it's a yes or no it's not on a scale you know like generally surveys are on you know do you agree it's you know some this statement strongly disagree strongly agree all those you know the five with the 37 the 37 circles in the middle somewhat agree five doe pick one somewhat strong yes by the end this survey that we've did that's when you just get you start click click click click get through it I mean kind of that's why you have to be you right I think that's also important there's an art to these right to designing the questions and and the potential answers to get honest to get feedback one participation and honest feedback like there's a people do this right I will say right I will say and like seven possible choices too many I will be the first to say this is not anywhere near the questions themselves now nowhere near my wheelhouse nowhere near my interest okay and yet if you're going to have something it's effective you need somebody who can thread a needle between getting people to want to voluntarily address it and if you put 150 questions n no one's going to finish and if you put three questions you're not going to get a lot of information so there somewhere in between yeah and that's going to be important to design mhm and and it is a profession to design these um I think for me to be able to app Pine much more and I think again reading through them I think this is a great start but maybe for our Fallout Workshop it would be helpful to get again the plethora of questions that were provided from the company on the front end for um the town manager to pick from and I think that once we have that we can see okay what were the ones that were looking for leadership and then we can tailor this language a little bit more because again these companies do this professionally they know how to extract that information and so I would use that as a guide for these and they leave even put a question in worded slightly differently but targeted to get the same there's there's nuances to this right that that's not yeah that's not my right I agree maybe we're backing it up a little bit maybe when we're talking about our core questions maybe we say you know these are the core questions or something similar you know something to allow allow a little bit of wiggle room in the language if the company says MH like what I imagine is kind of a collaborative effort with whoever's going to do this like look this is the these are the our goals for this like what we want to get out of it what we want to hear about and and work with them to design the questions to get that information and I also just want to make sure we have consistency or you know say we do you know three surveys over however many whatever year six years we should my thought on having the core questions was so we can look at the trends because if they change every year we're only targeting the specific areas there's that balance of like being able to adjust the questions versus also keeping consistency to be and any employes should have the opportunity to answer those core questions you know as well if they miss the first survey and they coming in you want to capture them I mean core questions help provide consistency but I think what I'm what I'm really hearing is the topics as well that we care about evaluation on some scale of Select board I I don't know about leadership select board policymaking um that we you know I I think your subject headers here are good the only one that I would add in is the um where was it um staff velopment right but I think they're the right subjects which is yeah I think I had comments about staff development underneath the direct manager but I think happy to yeah that was the professional goals once but we can so if I may add so first I want to say this is an excellent framework to start so excellent here um that being said I would say the attachment is probably something we a want to review separate and we want to review with like this would be something we'll need to get some consultant in even to get to this point yes because again I wouldn't have anything I wouldn't have anything to go on and we need the pros I don't have the experience I mean agree I I will also be upfront and saying that probably I don't know where everybody else stands on this I'm not a I don't put a lot of stocking what comes because it's voluntary so you don't get 100% participation some people have access to grind so you know I mean even advertisers and companies who spend lots of money get questionable results so I want to do it because I want to give people the opportunity maybe something will come up out of it um but I wouldn't know what questions to no I agree so maybe we can just adjust it you know and we just say you know a list of core questions to be determined or developed by you know in conj with the survey team and we can go back right we can adopt the framework and then add the addendum and I think on the framework what you're saying is is we're in the same I think we're saying the same thing here which is maybe tonight we don't have the the skill set to go through the questions but we can pick the subjects um right of what we're looking to test and and I agree with them the only one I would add is Staff develop but I think even like as I go down you can see they start getting shorter because my brain was like I don't know what I'm doing here I'm trying um I think I have a lot of room for open-ended things which I think agree doesn't make sense in the way we're framing this it really needs to be quantifiable data um so I think a lot of them as as I did list them out would have to change I think it's appropriate to kind of were you thinking that these attachments would be included in the policy or these would be separate that we would then maintain as like the core questions I guess I was assuming it would be an attachment to the policy but I don't I don't know I don't know that I mean so the again this is not my area so I don't know if you would change the core questions or maybe you'd have a list of 50 core questions at every survey you would choose and you'd have more than enough for each survey so every time around you would swap up which ones you included so I mean it could be potentially done in a lot of different ways yeah but like you said that's where we get the guidance from right I would be okay with pulling them out of the policy and then including language in the policy that says you know the survey team will will maintain a set of core questions that will be included so it's also easier to change right without having to update our policy you know um but we would still have it and maintain it but I do think this policy should extract these subject areas we're looking for I would agree that yes the core questions will be in these subject are and that's going back to the purpose right it goes based off of like the four areas that we said that we're going to be conducting the survey for so right y and ultimately we would have final approval on what the survey would look like yeah which I just want to make sure that we being the board not we as individuals yeah um again that there's you know consistency that we can look at Trends over time and it so I think that's appropriate okay all right cool so we can keep going through these I think maybe it'll be beneficial for us to just have more time to read through it and then we can talk about it another time but it sounds like we might pull this out of the policy anyway right mhm y yeah I would think so at least again like Mr said maybe just keep a framework of what subjects will be core questions will be asked of in these major topic areas yeah I agree with that um we could add that let's see I feel like my brain is a little fried at this point looking at this I'm not sure I would be able to be like okay these are all I like them but so the section that I think it would probably go under survey Administration right the frequency survey timeline and Survey design so maybe we could add a bullet point under survey design which say there will be a core set of questions with the following categories or something like that oh instead of just saying addressing job satisfaction we would say you know select board policy whatever we just said policym Town manager assist Town manager leadership director supervisor leadership I don't know well I think it's your second bullet right so your second bullet says a survey will include a set of mandatory core questions addressing um and somehow we I think we just rework that second bullet to incorporate I think it would have a sub bullet with the list of essentially the section headers but however we want to include them yeah and I would just modify select board leadership to selectboard policymaking that's my suggestion Rene I'm trying to figure out where you're adding that bullet point over distribution and collection okay um yeah I was looking at um so whether the yeah so it's having four set of questions is a separate bullet or put it under here I would put it under there and instead of so where it says the survey will include a set of mandatory cord questions addressing and then I would put a an ellipsis and then a sub bullet and list out the Ellipsis what's the ellip Ellipsis is three dot what is the two colon I need to go to bed not in Ellipsis what is she talking about I'm still here okay it's all right we've all had yeah 12-hour day 13 and yeah that's what I would do and I would list our section headers so select board policy making okay hold on um yeah guys make me nervous when you say it's a long day it's like 9:00 I mean I feel like I'm at the geriatric Club when people start saying at 9:00 oh my God it's so late until I got up at 4:30 I get up at 7 I'm sorry I apologize there's 3 hours no it's mentally cuz yeah yeah you come straight here after working eyes are get it my alarm went off at select board policy making what what else what was the other one town manager and assistant Town manager HR Director leadership was my second one I don't know y I think that's perfect drink managers supervisor manager God director uh leadership leadership and then section three is direct manager SLS supervisor and then we want to add one right for staff development is that leadership to a direct manager supervisor or just leave it as doesn't say just say direct manager super and staff development Y and then the last one is job satisfaction there was three there's a weird space there sorry there workplace job satisfaction there's workplace environment I'm adding these to yes we don't have to if you guys think again job I mean we'll digest it all right this is the first we're going to put them in for now and we'll go back and think about it m iron next communication and feedback yeah probably oh no that's not right because I think seven is really open-ended so I'm not sure we can and that sort of stuff will be covered a survey question of what is the town doing well listen it got a little bit Yeah thin at the end you were getting them in yeah last question how are you holding up how are you strongly disagree yeah is that sometimes that that's good some would agree all right all right so I think that's it for tonight so thank you again Amanda has a comment yes that was go ahead I have a question that ties into budget uh if I can find 6,000 in this year's budget that pays for half and then I would put 6,000 in next year's budget that gives you results based upon your timeline uh at some point in November of 25 if we put the first half of the money in FY 26 and the second half in FY 27 and this is similar to I understand how you budget your OPB you basic study you basically break it into the two years you would not have results till November of 26 which way would you like me to develop the budget I would like to see it sooner rather than later personally okay I'm fine with that mhm I agree all right anything else you want to cover on this tonight I want to acknowledge Amanda's good work on this um you know I I've said this I I've said this privately to Amanda but I going to say it publicly you know I sitting next to you I am always so impressed with how prepared you are for all of our meetings the notes you have typed up the questions you know for different topics you're you're you're you're very prepared and so you know this is certainly keeping in that order where you know something that you haven't addressed before but you did a lot of research you pulled this together in a way to really facilitate a good conversation so I appreciate that Amanda I appreciate you being on this board and your contribution to the two thank you you're here yep I second that all right cool moving on current business New Town manager update so uh well we we had some discussion about this earlier but so I after our last Wednesday meeting I spoke with the uh at the request of the board uh spoke with the candidate that we had chosen set up meetings I sent an email to all of you that you should have spoken with her hopefully everybody has and I am meeting tomorrow with her at the library at 6 with the know the the template contract that we reviewed in an executive session and I will report back uh on that I understand I will be doing this and I think it make it easier just one-on-one with her so um I will report back if everything if nothing comes back to be rediscussed I will let the board know that I'll let the chair know that we should have an executive session to accept uh if there is something to discuss I'll I'll notify the chair if we need to have a quick meeting somehow before because I think it's all of our best interest and probably we all have it on our mind to get this sign right signed as quickly as possible and get a hand off from from Carter to the new town manager so that is the update agreed awesome thank you any questions yes so what's the if the if negotiations everything's agreed as is tomorrow uh no I think that we could see something early as early as uh I don't know end of January that would be the end of next week I mean again I don't want to I don't want to get it the the the cart in front of the horse that's what I'd like so maybe that's wishful thinking MH and we do have a meeting next week right 10 yeah right mhm okay kely is that an if and only if we're signing a contract or yeah if it's only if it's necessary for I thought we were going to do next week and then not do the fourth I might we we did toy that to that idea doesn't matter me which we do just let me know we have the um the fourth is the date that we have uh contracted with the Architects to provide a presentation to the select Bo oh that's Oh I thought that was so then we said possibly not the 11th I was I was thinking it was opposite I thought it was just the municipal building design so you weren't going to be here and Rene wasn't going to be here that's why but I just confused that in my brain no it's just so yeah if there's won be here on the 11th I won't be on the 11th right yeah all right anything else on that wait so are we having a meeting or are we not I don't think we've decided no we don't know at this so what are you talking about in February no no no next week next week I it depends on how the conversation is go I'll let I'll let I'll let the chair know tomorrow yep all right was that a strongly disagree or that's are you okay minimally agree all right it's it's objectives objectives are well are well set out and easy to determine yeah it is that hour of the night all right all right let's move on so discussion on community preservation act Next Step so it's later in the evening that I thought it would be at this point um we are going to have something on the agenda to go through all the recommendations of the budget task force recommendations um but I did take this one out for this Workshop uh to be considered separately uh because it seemed like there was a lot of disc discussion and um you know I think out of all the recommendations this one probably would require the most work if we decided to move forward with it um so I just wanted to have that discussion to see if there is any interest moving forward with this one this year for me the answer to that would be determined upon what is the payback at the state at this point in the past it was 100% now if we're getting to the point where it's 10% or 15% I don't know that is worth them we just might as well save the money ourselves sure it really varies from what I've seen it really varies yeah I think the lowest I've seen was a 40% and I think the common is 60% right now it's not that low well then it's not so bad but in order to really make that money you really have to go to the maximum 3% which is what we done in the past the rub again maybe the demographics I mean the the override was different than I had it it was what I wanted but it's not not what I predicted sure so it's what I predict maybe maybe it's not by mod Ian it's very close thing so maybe this would pass this time I don't know I think I was just I mean do you think we could on our own save and and get a 14% return consistently no no so not in Municipal right right cuz not in Municipal Investments with the laws in place and that's lower than realistically what we would be getting Carter the issue is you don't have room within the tax cap to be raising the equivalent to whatever the CPA might get you so 14% of zero is zero mm whereas the CPA is outside of the tax cap right it's a that's that's the real challenge I think that you know for the discussion of next steps um I think one thing is we need to identify what the average homeowner see and an increase in their tax bill if it's voted for so I think that you know we we've talked about this 3% that's when you maximize what does that mean to seone at home um I think that that's one thing for Next Step another question is um how long do you need to be a committee that's in CPA before you can get any benefits from it so you know we have you know this building project that we seem to be moving forward with this year it would be awful if we go forward with like this and then try to do it 3% I you know what whatever that means and then find that this product is is not included and you know and this is a pretty significant product to not be included so I think that that's a question that we need a clear answer to so it's my understanding how it works let's say that it's before town meeting it passes it goes to the ballot it passes then a community preservation committee is then formed and there the ones that decide which projects ultimately the funds are going to go towards but they don't decide right they sort of act advisory in that sense it then goes to town meeting right the legislative body who then approves that plan that's correct so so if it that would be this year it would have to be at least probably next year by the time we would get any funds from it if it passes this year there's no there's no like you know sophomore year or weighin period once you're in it any money you get you can use M the community preservation committee is the only one who can bring article just like the select board is the only body that can bring an override the capital planning the the the community preservation committee is the only committee that could bring the use of those funds to town meeting but town meeting has the final say but you can't have a you know a citizen petition to say I want to use this that's not allowed right as far as the 3% or whatever percent you choose it's on that it's a percentage of what your tax bill would be so if your average tax bill is $5,000 if your tax bill is $5,000 and we chose 3% then you pay $150 more it's it's on your assess value and there are exemptions you can put in place like you could exempt the first 100,000 of your value right and that I would app and there's other there's other exemptions age income there's all kinds of so but that all that can be calculated up front for sure I I think the other next step is you know there's other components to this like the affordable housing piece and I think there's even the conservation piece there's if I remember correctly there's open space preservation there's historical preservation there's housing and then I forget what the fourth one is actually I probably have yeah yeah ational use is the fourth one yeah open space and recreation use like together and I'll also point out there's state law determines the makeup of the community preservation committee right so there has to be someone from the Conservation Commission there's to be someone from historical um commission uh I don't remember all the other ones uh but all those all those uses right all those three uses or four uses have they have we do have the ability to add additional seats too okay yeah I think I what so I think that that's where I think we need to have just a little more information is the impact in those other areas especially like the affordable housing like what does that mean does that yeah what does that mean well Rene rental assistance is also in scope same question R rental assistance is in qualifies for that category MH I was just going to say the same thing that I think Caesar sorry cut you off um on the budget task force you know was there a general opinion I know it was brought forward as an idea but was there a general you know feeling of whether I think there was General support because it's it's it's money on the table right and and with Marshall Park especially it's a big project that would be right eligible um and the buildings right R historic buildings well historic buildings but the timing is in question that's the that's the the issue there but um it's worth looking at I mean some towns do have their money sitting there for a long time so and then sometimes that's intentional they build it up build it up to get you know like $2 million or something and then they trigger a project there's a there's a new fund that representative Scarsdale made reference to and I don't know where we're at if it's been approved I know she had proposed it but a new fund that that you know i' had been on their case about how you know the schools get up to 50% and times reimbursement that municipalities especially these towns that you know we need some help for buildings in particular s for building buildings and she had mentioned that she had proposed osed this um program that would essentially create like a 25% um reimbursement or fund so I I'd like to know I can reach out to her but that's another component because we already have a mechanism that provides 25% of funding and you know that then I think then we need to do the math and see what what the benefit is to the taxpayer for doing the CPA rout all right Carter uh just to give you a quick and dirty number uh the average tax bill uh thanks to the affordability ratio uh table I was able to pull up right here uh is 6,800 bucks if you exempt the first um $100,000 of value you're exempting 1,500 which leaves you with $5,300 a 1% SAR charge is $53 a 3% S charge would be 150 obviously that would have a a very very broad spectrum but just just a give you a very quick giv the average number right the one thing that people and the people are listening to this what the one thing the 3% or the 2% or the 1% isn't isn't an addition to the tax rate it has nothing to do with the tax right I have to say that 3% number is actually a lot lower than I thought it would be so yeah I mean but the hard as we know you know the once this gets implemented if it gets implemented it's you know maintaining it is one thing but it's that first year hit um right that that that's the question where you have you know a 3% increase in your tax bill you know income doesn't go up by that much if you're on a set income you know I was say I would want to look at you know all the exemptions which I know we looked at briefly but I think it's important to make sure we're taking those into considerations it seems like the next step is really like digging into the exemptions and getting those numbers well I think it's a lot of things that we just said including that but yeah all right any other discussion on that tonight all right moving on to Old business seller hold 55 car Avenue Carter I think you had some updated information on that uh so moving from what you were initially told by the uh collector hold oh is that what oh I'm like yeah the boo um the uh memorandum in Drive I think is called lunenberg new tax title process um and moving beyond what we were initially told by The Collector I uh put together um uh The Collector uh Izzy uh and arranged a uh Zoom or teams meeting with David Capa who is councel for all of your tax title issues um all the discussion I'm going to give you is related to properties that were foreclosed closed on after November 1 of 2024 with one exception uh that exception excuse me is that if you had a property owner who was foreclosed upon between May 25 of 2021 which was the effective date of the Supreme Court case uh and the statute which was effective November 1 2024 uh if you'd sold or retained any properties in that time those Property Owners uh have 12 months uh from November 1 uh of um 2024 to appeal uh the manner in which you dealt with their properties I I don't know that you did uh but they have that so this uh this issue of within the 14 days of the Foreclosure judgment being issued you must notify the property owner of your decision to retain or to sell um you'll find a footnote on there because this is one portion of the statute that doesn't comport to other sections of the statute because it relates to uh it being triggered by the 30-day appeal period so when you're told 14 days it's really 44 days and the footnote I think will help explain that a little bit better um with relation to Mr Alonzo's question um I've tried to capture it here that um you know uh could you in instead of retaining the property but still having some desire over controlling how it might be used in the future uh could you uh simply um put deed restrictions on it and then sell it in a restricted uh fashion uh Council strongly recommends um against this course of action there's a footnote explaining what his thoughts were uh and also an alternative approach I'll speak to uh in a minute so within 120 days of the Foreclosure judgment being issued let's say that you've decided to sell it or to retain it you must obtain an appraisal for the land at its highest and best use and submit the same to the property owner so you want to retain it that is um you uh go and you get this appraisal and it has to be completed by 120 days uh the appraiser must be independent of the town so you can't ask the tax assessor to do it for you uh and it must be procured in compliance with 40b uh so um then in that instance if you're going to retain the property uh you can uh tally up uh what you are owed for uh taxes principal and interest but that is only through the date of the Judgment or foreclosure it doesn't keep tolling on um you can also uh charge other related costs as you CL can today cleanup property protection attorneys filing uh and the like you then take that appraisal at its highest in best use and you deduct all of those expenses and if you are still owed money it's your property you don't have to pay anything out but if there is a surplus you have to pay that out uh within 30 days so you need to have whether you keep a sufficiently large enough uh contingency fund or Reserve fund with your finance committee or you have a special Expendable trust fund or you you you know deal with it however you think you need to deal with it of the money need needs to be ready available now the good news here um is if you uh don't have someone to pay the money over 2 and 30 days uh you have 18 months to turn the money over to the state Treasures division of unclaimed property uh so uh if you're going to retain the property slightly different timeline you have 120 days to retain a licensed real estate agent and offer the proper property for sale on a MLS or equivalent listing at a price equivalent to that determined to be its highest and best use uh in this instance there's no separate appraisal required you can accept the word of the real estate agent as to what it should be put on the market for you must then offer it for sale for 12 months and um if you get any off offers within that 12 months there are at least 2/3 of the appraised value you you can sell it uh you don't have to wait the full 12 months if you don't get any uh offers within the 12 months that are at that 2/3 value you can go to auction actually you have to go to auction you can no longer use the old sealed bid process and in this instance uh you have to a licensed Auctioneer carry it out for you um then again uh if there's any proceeds same issue you um tally it up you determine uh what's balanced and you have to send the proceeds out within 30 days and you have the 18 months to turn it over to the unclaimed uh property division of the treasure state treasur so uh kind of a supplementals and I think going back to those fo footnotes will be helpful to you um supplemental issues and questions we talked about uh keeping an appraiser in a real estate broker and maybe even a title examiner uh on retainer uh might be in your best interest you do it once you do it for a three-year contract now you're all set you don't have to keep churning and you don't want to be doing this for every property uh I'm told that the Massachusetts uh treasure collectors associ ation uh is in the process of looking at a boilerplate solit solicitation for those services so I'd suggest you wait and see what comes out of their um spring conference which I think will be in May or June um if you don't pay the property owner out with um um uh within one year of the notice they have the right to redeem the tax judgment and repossess the property so you tell them you're going to um put it up for sale by now the clock's been moving you don't have any offers within the total 12 month period you haven't paid them out they can come in and say yeah the Foreclosure judgment's nice but we're going to redeem the property so now it becomes a statutory right not the action you had to go through the other night or a few nights ago uh I'm told that uh the land cords taking 9 to 12 months if it's fairly clean title and the town has followed all of the correct procedures I'd love to tell you that that is always the case but it is unfortunately not uh for those of you who remember or have worked with the land of little value process no changes to that um and just current policy will need a total review and rewrite with respect to making a decision as to whether or not to take a property to foreclosure please remember you don't ever have to take the property to foreclosure so council's advice is when in doubt do nothing uh so that's really the best uh oh the last thing I kind of want to talk about is the do diligence of finding the property owner who do you give that notice to who do you try to give the money back to uh Council says that in the normal filing of uh action for foreclosure uh they have either done enough research to be comfortable and have a mailing address or they do notice by publication so there is little if any additional due diligence on our part uh with respect to contacting these people sending them their money so uh that is I I I hope that's of some usefulness to you um that's I can tell you today you might I only we had the meeting on Wednesday so I just got a chance to write this late this afternoon uh so you might want to wait till the next meeting if you think there's enough here and what you've heard you could make that decision tonight um as I say a little little different than what we uh originally thought all right any questions or comments on all of that first no I appreciate that's a lot of info and thanks and answer a lot of questions okay I agree very informative thank you Carter so just to ask at this point is anyone interested in retaining this property I'm interested in not making a decision tonight yeah same all right and again council did um give you that work around yep um for your consideration yeah it's kind of interesting they work around so going to consider it all right any other discussion on this tonight all right Carter do you want to go into the town manager report um if you don't mind um we've actually um been quite busy I think and have some good news on the horizon here for you um obviously uh as we discussed we met Finance team with tax councel uh DPW director and I met with Shan Sons to review their uh experiences to date uh in implementing the uh uh MSW Municipal Solid Waste uh and recycling contract uh and at our end Bill reports it as being seamless and virtually Problem free got few if well he's gotten a few but very very few complaints uh far fewer than he thought they came on the holiday on Monday and they were there as I was leaving my house at 8:30 so it was uh the only thing that they did bring to our attention is a disparity in the tonnage they're collecting on the different routes um and it's tonage and especially recycling that really wears on the truck so they've asked spoken to us about some route changes and what we've said to them is get them all prettied up we'll make a presentation of the select board which lets us present to the town we'll do a flyer to everybody um and then within a reasonable period of time after that you know thinking more like April 1 um we could Implement those those changes uh that'll make their life simpler and frankly if they like our relationship that makes our life simpler uh the DPW facilities is and Enterprise funds team met to review a potential realignment of administrative support functions to more effectively meet the needs of the various units uh contained within that team for instance the town manager's office bills out the water bills I'm not at all sure why um and there's a split of responsibilities uh with the DPW staff but also supporting facilities they're physically separated so I have put them together and said I don't have any more money to give you so often a better way to deal with things is to look first and foremost at a realignment of Duties you know the I know the first solution for many people is give me more money and I'll have more people and that's kind of where I try to arrive at last you know let's look at the structure and the way we do things first uh we had a similar meeting with Finance uh Administration in it uh we've talked about uh HR we've talked about procurement we've talked about I think you know not having the best grants management system we don't have a good contract management system um so we've put them together also and asked them to have a similar overview uh I met with facilities director relative to developing a plan to decommission portions of TC pasos we can't continue to manage 100% of the building uh so just as a very very quick heads up uh the idea is the southern portion which is not at this point I guess scheduled for demolition in the long range can we pull back into that um maybe have uh you know facilities and Parks over there which would free up some space in uh uh the reer building um so uh I spoke with the The Building Commissioner this morning and the fire uh Chief uh and have asked him and the them and the facilities director to get to to as you know get get to this ASAP it's not as simple as just cutting off a few pipes and if we are going to do it we want to make sure that it makes some sense going out into the future not just for fiscal 26 but fiscal 26 and Beyond perhaps uh I've had initial budget hearings with Finance land use uh and Public Safety teams and then striving my best uh to have a pile of well wouldn't be a pile if it was electronic but to to have a a plethora of material uh depending upon the entry of your incoming uh Town manager so we have a draft uh warrant working and we have a draft we have the concept of a budget uh and uh we are saying um I don't know if I can say prayers but we're we're certainly hopeful on a daily basis that when the cherry sheet is released tomorrow it is supposed to be released well the governor's budget has to be released tomorrow so sometimes it takes do an extra day to to get it all up we're hoping that um there'll be this massive infusion of money that will help meet all of our needs so uh you know just just by way of example uh your retirement went up $325,000 you're all all your new revenues for the towns side of the house will probably be on the $650 to $700,000 and your retirement went up roughly half of that so please say good thoughts for the document being released tomorrow uh on our project updates the DPW projects the roof and the garage floor are at substantial completion without any significant contingency being needed uh we await warranty removal of some equipment there's a lift down there for the roof uh and final invoicing to be able to call them complete uh so that has has come along to closure nicely I think um the town hall roof replacement and chimney restoration began last week tough time of year to begin had great weather last week I don't think we're going to see them out there this week um we have had to temporarily uh reduce the occupancy for this room to 49 persons in my time with you we've never exceeded that uh and the reason is I have to close the exit door and at 50 people I need two exits so the Building Commissioner uh simply reduced the occupancy load for now to 49 to get us through that uh Ritter building roof and gutter repair has been awarded we're waiting a start date and the library teen room should begin in early February uh teen room room will be temporarily closed um Chris is working via State bid pricing uh to uh expend the Council on agent kitchen monies fiscal year 21 I'd love to have one year that's all closed up before I leave that's why been pushing them for January 30 to get that done uh and this counsil on agent HVAC units so um we're trying to get all those bids in by next um next Friday so we can post that up uh with respect to uh your um recruitment of personnel uh we have a uh pack videographer uh pending background check right now so it' be nice to get that one off off the list uh the assistant to the Sewer business manager remains open but as I mentioned we're looking at some possible realignment uh of um of Duties to see how that might be affected uh police officer I'm pleased to tell you that we have a candidate awaiting their physical and background check uh to replace the uh gent that went back to wus Vermont uh and we have three candidates uh in the wings which all things going well uh will uh fill in for uh officer tosi's resignation uh and then someone that we expect going to the the state police uh and um uh if we can keep hold of all these people and get everything through the Hoops as we hope you would have candidates sufficient through Labor day of this year excellent which would be uh and and it works out based upon their uh their plans also one of the folks is uh at fitzburg State College um uh degree program and so they have their recruitment Academy to go through so this this could I'm being very optimistic this could really line up very nicely um so the only new new one that's kind of a little bit out there in the breeze for the moment is we do have the assistant me site manager that is cropped up recently uh I'm going to given the hour uh not restate all of the vacancies of the ABS and commissions but I do want to really hit in on two of them we have two vacancies I'm my understanding on the finance committee the town manager is scheduled to release to this board on February 11 uh and to the finance committee on February 13 the budget there is no better time to learn uh how government works um how it funds itself and truthfully no more critical time for this board to be inure of its regular meeting quum so if you have an interest in you know how government works in this town and why it works and why we pay for this or how we get these numbers or you just plain want to make sure there's a budget ready for you when you get to the annual town meeting it is a great time to be volunteering for this board the other one that I want to pump a little bit is the storm water task force I know it's only one vacancy um and I know that they still have work ahead of them I don't know exactly where that's Landing but I can tell you there's a $200,000 Capital item for a catch Basin cleaner this year there will be a $300,000 street sweeper coming to you at some point in the near future there are drainage collections to rebuild on a regular basis uh this is a good heavy bite out of your annual operating budget uh and the work of this group is been not only to deal with that to ponder about that and to think about other ways to finance it um doesn't require an override but there are issues there and this would be another place to think about global uh policy development and how that happens so with that um I will thank you for the opportunity to brief the board any questions or comments I I did have one that I I think you kind of lost over and that's the police chief so I see a comment oh oh yes my apologies I'm sorry my only question is it says here that you've been asked to find a way to include select board comments on the finalists which we have never done and I'm just wondering where that request is from because again the select board has never been involved with the selection or the interviewing or anything of a police chief it's always been Town manager and uh a committee that I think you've already outlined who is going to be in that committee yes the the screening committee and we've given you a timeline and this is one if I leave uh your assistant Town manager with nothing else is the idea of developing a countdown ahead of time not waiting until you're knee deep in the process sure uh the screening uh committee uh consists of U uh the school superintendent or their design whomever uh the um representative of the Council on aging uh because of the involvement to a great degree with the the senior set of the community uh the fire chief again that coordination with EMS and all the fire Services uh it includes uh Mark Hadad who is the town manager of the town of gron who I've worked with and have some considerable respect for to get sort of that just general management oversight thought process uh and then a um sub subject matter expert for lack of a better term a police chief uh Michael Bennett um who's been Chief out there I think now for about 9 years 10 years I've been through the FBI U Academy not not the FBI agent Academy but that supplemental 13we uh the lead of training yep y um uh very active uh on the um uh State Firearm Standards Board boards and others uh so I think that's a good round now the question um has been uh before they're presented with a single name would a me would members of the select board have a chance to weigh in um I personally I think have a bit more of a collaborative approach I've tried to involve Council and aging in hiring the senior center director and similar kinds of Sewer Commission in hiring the sewer businessman manager um so I didn't think it unreasonable request uh I'm not exactly sure how that would would function I've asked Julie to to think about that that could range from um we've used an assessment center uh in one community and one member of the select board was delegated to sit in on the um Assessment Center fly on the wall in the back and just report to the select board what they thought of the project process did it seem to make sense did the report seem to make sense um is what the town manager telling them what he actually said in the meetings um so there's a variety of different ways to do it I I don't know um whether or not to involve the public in some fashion either uh but I think I want to flesh something out and leave that in the hands of your incoming uh Town manager I think that who will be part of the team obviously oh absolutely I just I didn't hear that anywhere so make sure yeah AB absolutely okay absolutely all right I have a question um you mention that we mail water bills and I just want to get some clarity so this board is also the water department um for the 23 to $30,000 in water bills but the water district is separate now is your comment related to that 23 to 30,000 or are you referring to the water distance I'm referring to the 23 to 30,000 whatever it is that this town bills directly uh I think you have a line coming in from what lemonster fburg yeah and then you rebuild that you rebuild that out no no the water district is the No No right oh no I think the answer is because we're the water right yes and um and the other thing I noted you know I had I had raised in the past um my thoughts about uh the HR uh procurement assistant Town manager role um and you know with it being 28 hours a week and even though you know I I have a high opinion of jewelry I think the you know the concern is that you know is have we evaluated whether HR is a full-time function and then my observation was that we're you know very behind a lot of the capital stuff as you know you spend a significant amount of time working on them and it's 28 hours enough for both roles um your predecessor um you know assured me that it was um and and I raised this several times and I was asked to stop saying it publicly but now that you're saying it publicly I'm guessing that this has been rehashed and you've come to a different opinion or assessment on this well we were going for a new model new new seal in one town and I suggested we put in the the Town Diner in the center and the model could be where we rehash the hash um so first let me say so that's somewhat agree maybe almost I think maybe I somewhat agree yes uh first I I think I have been fairly on point in budget task force and other meetings that you do not have sufficient resources to perform your administrative and financial functions MH full stop um and so is 28 hours a week enough in my view it is not but I am viewing it through the lens and the manner in which I work which quite frankly involves a little more work because I try to do these collaborative things as we talked about and I a little more Outreach and such um so I think that position should be I I think all of your administrative support function should be at least 36 hours a week and if you had money I'd push you to make them all 40 or 372 or some higher number uh secondly with respect to the capital projects I I don't want to oversimplify it but I think it's real simple the town manager sets aside one hour a week with the facilities director and you know if you've got PW whoever else has projects and a lovely little spreadsheet that Izzy will now be able to prepare once he recharts the accounts and says where are we why isn't this done yet what are the timelines and building out timelines for things to be done similar to the countdown sheet that I gave you on the police chief screening so I don't want to oversimplify it but I think there was an approach of well the department heads have the money they they'll get they'll get it done I'm not quite as trusting uh lastly you appropriated uh 50, thousands of dollars to hire a grants writer to pay a consultant to be a grants writer um I can send you a three p the quarterly report of a grants riter in another Community where we hired someone $60,000 a year I I think you need to do a better job at applying for Grants and then managing them and tracking them you don't you don't keep contract books you don't have contract registers I don't have contract files that go from A to Z you know when was the RFP issued when was the addendum issued when was the contract issued when was the change order issued when were the payroll reports filed where are the payroll reports when was the certificate of substantial completion and again you work with bigger projects but whether it's a $25,000 contract or it's a two and a half the basic the same paperwork's the same where's the warranty you know so what I've said to the team is for the budget that I'm going to leave on that desk on my way out the door that $50,000 I believe can be put to better use and that's why I've tasked uh Administration finance and I added um Chris Riley because where I come from Grants is often done in the development services land use Department um I hit everything you did and I appreciate I appreciate that answer so you know as when I looked into this previously most communities have multiple Community have multiple procurement Specialists um who assist with these or they have a procurement manager that's not necessarily the town manager I have thoughts too and and and a clear process so in my other community every department head is responsible for developing the scope of work M providing that in this case to the Town Administrator and all I do is send it to my the executive assistant say smash it all together and it's that one office even for State bids that one office controls the placement of all contracts above $10,000 y it's just it's much more the amount of money or I I don't know the right phrase but the amount of money that we're expending in a year it just makes sense to have a separate person that's just focused on procurement because it's a lot of procurement I mean I think that when we think procurement often times we think Capital but it's everything it's the paper it's it's it's every single thing that we buy uh it has falls under some kind of procurement policy and and in my role my professional job I mean it's a paper trail because you have to demonstrate that you followed the law and that you you know so anyway I don't want to focus I just want to say I I don't want to lose sight of it is my firm belief that the first p path and I've always worked in well up until up North and then boxboro I've always worked in tax capped communities so my first path has always had to be what realignment of Staff makes sense to help improve things and what changes in workflow can improve things and only after we've exhausted those two examining those two paths have I supported putting additional people in place or additional hours in place thank you I have a few things for you too Carter first I just wanted to say thank you for all the time that you put in here I think you you know gotten us across a lot of you know projects and and things that have you made a lot a positive impact in my mind so appreciate your work survey before they forget yeah um but just to address those things that we were just talking about um one of the things that I've seen a lot and I think Rene has brought it up a couple of times about an HR Director mentioning no towns that didn't have one up until what five or six years ago lunberg didn't have one and ours is a part-time person who is filling two roles I think that's in my opinion that's not sufficient oh three really I think yeah I think that's a lot especially for someone that's not full-time I know money isn't endless but I think that's something it needs to be looked at I mean I think we need a procurement specialist for the amount of money that we're talking about and maybe that needs to be a part-time person and then we need we need a dedicated HR person in my opinion I mean we can't have one person that's an assistant Town manager and the procurement specialist and an HR Director I mean that's in my it's just it's not enough but that's that one particular person um when you talk about the realignment of staff duties I assume you know unions are involved in those discussions as well for the union positions unions will be involved if and should any changes be triggered that need to be collected bar and they informed of oh buy hell why do you keep turning it off you done cuz I keep thinking I'm done sorry I have more should should there be any collective bargaining issues involved we will of course talk with them should it just be the need for a simple conversation we will be having that conversation um change does not always trigger required collective bargaining I just know with with you know when we're talking about DPW and the staff down there they are under staffed they have been for years I mean I think that's a you you've identified that's an a problem administratively townwide just being aware of the long history of that position and the challenges there especially with the split happened with facilities in DPW I just hope that that you know is handled carefully and I appreciate that you're bringing the insight and looking at it and how things can be approved um knowing there is a lengthy history in that instance the staff member that's involved is also a DPW or a Union steward yes um and they were going to you know going to call a union rep well right for what we don't even know what we're talking about yet you know could could we wait till we know what we're talking about and I think that goes unfortunately to the history of where things have been with especially that particular staff member and the relationship that we as town are trying to rebuild that reaction is because of the history of the relationship and the way things have been handled previously well under the direction of this board plus my own unique personality I I think we've made a lot of progress on that in the last 6 months and I'm uh most hopeful that the uh person you've selected will continue on a great deal of that that path uh the only thing that I just want to be crystal clear on uh is that changes are not always uh the subject subject of collective bargaining and even if they are they're not always required to be approved by the union no I understand and I I wasn't trying to be I hope I didn't come across as as confrontational or anything appreciate I think that you're doing a great job and bringing that up and looking at how we can realign I think that ultimately benefits our staff as well because well I think I think the fact that I have you know I I went into one town where we were going to make a change and somebody said oh you're going to go talk with the DPW director and I said hell no I'm going to go talk with the clerk cuz they're the one that do the work so just so you'll know we had um uh we had Samantha Julie Andrew yep new SE business manager bill um Chris Ruth good uh involved in that conversation this wasn't just you know me to person X we tried to tackle things as teams uh and involve people with the stakeholders in that discussion like that approach thanks Carter all right thank you Amanda thank you Carter minutes warrants and action items we do have minutes for January 9th 2024 and December 17th 2024 have we had an opportunity to review them yes I did I had one thing on the 17th I'm not sure we declared it sority day I know we did that with Tom but didn't we didn't you declare it something else no it was yeah it was not sority day remember what you actually what the Declaration said it was Golden Age day yeah Golden Age so that to celebrate her and the seniors of the town of lunberg so good catch on that which one is this uh the 17th underneath the December 17th yeah of the because the only thing I caught on that same thing is that somehow there were five of us there but only when we adjourned this is something totally Petty but when we adjourned what was unanimous that it was four to Z to zero so somehow we somebody disappeared in the middle of this meeting okay yeah that should be five other than that I had nothing on either of the two I'm really appreciative that we had the two in there to you and overall I think formatting is improved significantly yeah all right so is there a motion to approve the minutes with those two changes so moved as amended second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppos no the motion passes unanimously all right what's next warrants we do have a warrant here um before we get to warrants under action items I just want to come back to this um we've been um we're we've I think we've made a request now several times to see the full engagement survey um so I will again make that request and I think we're adding to it today and asking also to be able to see the uh draft questions that way we can better revise this policy that were initially presented by the company uh to the town and if I may piggyback on that I requested a report from the HR Director when Carter started so that's 6 months ago so still have not seen that I'd like to see all right any other action item I have three reminders too um the cold building we' brought up I mean I'm sure there's a building automation system in here if we could get the heat to be on throughout the duration of our Tuesday meetings I mean I'm wearing my winter jacket I have winter socks and two pairs of pants on and I'm freezing maybe I'm being a baby but it's really cold yeah I get it um it's cold air blowing on us too and we brought that several times the public records request I still I know that that's being worked on rively in town but if we could get some sort of an update or report at our next meeting in terms of what we're doing can provide that for you because of the sensitivity of uh some of the requesting parties uh and the potential legal issues surround those would the board object if I briefed you one onone y I'm fine with that I will I will reach out over the next few days to get that done and lastly the one drive um why can't I think of the word migration is that the right instead of Drive migration um yeah moving from the Google to one drive I know Annie um had talked about November as an implementation of that I didn't know if we can get that back on the agenda all right are we good to move on to warrants now any other action items we have an accounts payable warrant the amount of $ 34,41 18 I have I am going to recuse myself from signing off on AP I have blue I have a black here M thank you not about my nose being cold he's like I've been shivering all night so I'm not the only one that is cold uh all right committee reports I have uh one from the school committee it's a maybe a bit outdated but it's from January 8th they are meeting tomorrow night um the big news which I think everyone knows by now is that Dr Burnham announced that she will be retiring at the end of the school year um Carol Areno and Brian Leon are on the superintendent search um committee subcommittee um they are still still looking um for a director of facilities they had a lot of discussion on the scope of the job um they also brought up um house doctor Services um they're looking into what that includes and that may be a way to address higher level the non- day-to-day parts of the uh director of facilities job what is going on paper um they also discussed athletic fee structure and they will continue those disc discussions as well as other fees at Future meetings um the transportation contract surprisingly they received one bid uh debus so they at that meeting they were it's probably I assume worked out by now um working on spreading out the impact of the increase over the span of the contract which was 3 years with an option for two more years um discussion on revolve ing funds that are seeing less Revenue uh in recent years specifically the school choice uh fund some project updates as part of the facilities and grounds report the fire alarm upgrade at Turkey Hill the contract of signed Award of bid posted project is scheduled to be completed by August 15th the doors at Turkey Hill that project came in much higher than expected so there's not enough um money to do all the doors so they're looking at phases there was also an msba webinar for superintendent on accelerated repair projects I think that was scheduled for today so they were waiting for that webinar to see if um maybe they wanted to take that route if they could for the um for at least some of the door projects the safety film at Middle High School scheduled to be completed that night the 8th so that should be done the utility pickup truck with plow is being built now with uh delivery expected in mid to late spring this was a long meeting uh the 911 upgrades they are on track to be completed today uh the 21st there was um discussion on the proposed um latest plan from the architect from the municipal building design on the school department space in the Ritter uh there was a lot of discussion and feedback on those plans and there was also a lot of discussion about the lag and funds showing up in munice at one time it was 3 month lag for the funds to show up now it's about 7 weeks and there was a comment that the Chapter 70 70 money that we voted on at the fall toown meeting still hadn't as of January 8th hadn't appeared in the salary Reserve account so that was um that delay in in funds showing up makes it a challenge when it comes to you know budgeting and planning and like I said they meet tomorrow night again uh Capital planning as Carter said uh that they're trying to schedule a meeting for next Wednesday I don't know if how many responses the chair has gotten but that is scheduled for then uh generally they're at the Ritter building tomorrow tomorrow not tomorrow uh the board yeah tomorrow Board of assessors meet and one of the things they're going to be doing now that the governor has signed the senior tax write off leg special legislation that they're going to formulating a team I think L and I and the and one of the members of the board of assessors and the lead assessor will form a team about making an implementation plan about how to implement that so that I think will happen in the next uh that the formation of the team will happen tomorrow and I think that our charge is to do it in six weeks or so that's it economic development committee is supposed to be meeting on Thursday they haven't met in quite a while um and then same thing with the master plan steering committee have not met since November um I know I think I said this quite a few weeks ago but the planning board chair of the planning board was talking about bringing it to their board but you know potential REM make of the of the committee um I think I need to reach out to him to see if you know where we're at if they've had any discussions I have not watched their meetings so I'm not sure if there's been any discussion um about that but that needs to that needs to happen so they have not met yet either um I have um well I have a comment related to the school committee report so I think um I I I I think this would be a really good opportunity for the um school department uh to meet with the town manager to discuss um that facility role that they're continue to struggle to hire uh I think that there's opportunity for Synergy um with Chris Ruth's role to provide some of those higher level functions as I read their role as a property professional um they would they would be it would be beneficial for them to craft that job with property professionals the role that they've created in my opinion is a big expansive for the salary range um and some of that higher level um support that Chris Ruth already provides to the town I do think it would be beneficial to our entire Community if we followed the lead of of towns such as air um you know cities like Gardener places that have decent facilities in which they combine uh as one entity kind of that that large facility role and then within that they create like the school facility superintendent you know the town superintendent so that way you get that big picture um thought as it goes into um all facilities not just one side um but the role that they've that they're posting for uh I I I again I I think they benefit from some revisions there it's going to be hard to hire uh how they've described that role uh given the salary range uh the municipal building design committee meets uh tomorrow uh with the AR uh with the architectural team uh we're on track to uh have our price estimate um by if not by the end of this week for sure by the time that we have the presentation uh to the select board there's been a lot of especially as of late now that we have some uh drawings and renderings uh there's been some good public participation uh in these meetings a lot of um Community feedback you know I will advise you know it's a process um and you know I I think you know you ask 100 people what they want to see you get 100 different opinions maybe you might get 95 different opinions um but it's it's a lot of different viewpoints and the challenge is always um taking account for all of those different views all those those different wants um and pulling together a um a product a solution that addresses as many needs as possible um so the committee's meeting tomorrow 5:30 uh it will be another uh leafy uh meeting due to the presentations I encourage anyone from the public to attend uh it is one of the few meetings that we have in town where members of the public can participate generally at almost any time um I know that at our last meeting and when we get to those points where we have to make decisions or give guidance that that we do limit when we have a lot of community engagement we do limit some of it just so that way we can be clear to the vendors on what the next steps are but we do encourage public participation uh throughout the meeting and again tomorrow via Zoom uh 5:30 p.m. Library trustees um I don't have an update for their meeting um but I will um report that take some notes and get that out for our next meeting all right and I do not have a committee report tonight public comment is there any public comment from the interim time manager none is there any public comment from the public all right seeing none any public comment from the board I do have one because I've been informed that for whatever reason my announcement at the beginning of the meeting was cut off so I'm going to make it again the board of assessors is sponsoring a senior conference on February 3rd at the senior center from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. as part of their Outreach efforts as you might be aware this past year has seen a significant number of exemption changes in expansion and benefits available to our citizens and as the numbers clearly indicate we have an unprecedented opportunity to help a great number of the seniors couple of facts more than 9 million Americans likely qualify for property tax relief but only 8% apply for it 88.3% of all lunenberg residents live below the poverty line lunenberg has a senior population of 2010 people a total of 261 seniors of lunenberg live below the poverty line but the benefits extend far beyond the parvy line next week the board of assessors will provide the select Board of a brief outline of the conference on February 3rd if you have any friends who are over 65 urge them to watch and if it's not for them at least tell a friend thank you uh from the board of assessors all right is there a motion to adjourn we move second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppos no the motion passes unanimously it is 9:52 p.m. the select board is adjourned thank you everyone for tuning in to our Workshop tonight and we will maybe see you again next week probably not uh but we will see you in February