Yeah, sorry. Oh, I didn't New Hampshire. I mean, I have two adults that are All right. Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Lunberg Select Board. Today is Tuesday, May 6th. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law, please be advised
that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg Public Access channel on Facebook Live on the Public Access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg Access YouTube channel after the meeting. The agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those
reasonably anticipated by the chair. Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for the discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law. We're going to begin tonight with public comment. Are there any public comments from the
board? No. I will just thank everybody who came out to the annual town meeting and es to everyone who came but especially those who stayed the whole time all eight hours. It was great Sunday afternoon programming and uh I'm glad we got
through the through the uh the warrant and had good discussions on many articles. Thank you. You're here. I also would like to thank everyone who attended town meeting on Saturday for participating in the democratic process. I'd also like to
thank Jen, Julie, and Carara uh for all the work that they put into preparing for town meeting because they did a truly great job and it was a flawless execution. So, they truly deserve commendation for that. Um I'd also like to take a moment to recognize one of our
residents, uh Charles Sanderson. Mr. Sanderson is a 10y year one-year-old World War II veteran who was recognized yesterday at the Lunberg Adult Activity Center with the Boston Post Cane, becoming a member of the Century Club
and also receiving a quilt of valor. I'd like to congratulate Mr. Sanderson and his family and friends on the remarkable achievement of 101 years of life and thank him once again for his service to our country as a veteran of World War II. It was truly an honor to have the
opportunity to congratulate him and to thank him for his service yesterday. And just as a reminder, pancake breakfasts are back at the Lunberg Adult Activity Center. They are the second Wednesday of each month, which means that there's going to be one next Wednesday, uh, May
14th from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Any public comments from the public? Mrs. Bzowski? Thanks. I got a school committee meeting I got to get to. Um, so Laura Broski, 21 Francis A. I am here not as a school
committee member, but as a citizen and a mother of three children. Uh, they're not voters yet, but they are your constituents. So, I'm here tonight to ask you to take one of two actions. One is immediate and one is a compromise. Option one is to vote
immediately to put the FY26 override on the ballot tonight. If you can't act tonight, you can post a meeting for Friday. Urgency is crucial. The fiscal year ends June 30 off. June 30th and staff layoffs are imminent. Option two, excuse me. If
you're not ready to act immediately, commit to working through the summer and bring an FY27 override to November special town meeting. This gives stability for next year and six months for departments to prepare. For option one, planning for the school year next year has already started. It's
not as simple as adding back high school teachers once the school year starts. Students will already be in classes and can't be disrupted. The high school schedule is being worked on now. Almost 10% of the staff is being laid off June 30th. We will have to pay out unemployment, which is coming out of the
school budget. Many of our staff will find employment elsewhere, and we will lose them forever. We need action now. Class placements in younger grades are based on staffing levels. We can't change class placements after the school year starts. The school year begins in
August, less than four months away. We need to maximize the impact of potential fiscal year 26 override money. The earlier the override, the more useful and impactful the money will be. But for option two, if you're not
prepared to act immediately, this is an excellent compromise. I know it seems difficult, but you guys can do it. Work through the summer. Add extra meetings. I am on my way now to my to the school committee meeting. It is the second of three meetings I have this week because
we have a job to get done. The budget task force has already done much of the work of gathering the necessary data. You have on your board someone who is fantastically skilled at analyzing data and drawing useful conclusions. If the timing seems difficult, I'll
remind you that you heard the budget task force recommendations in March of this year, which would have left you very little time to act for this year. An FY27 override in November would provide stability going into the budget season. All the department heads would know what they're facing when developing
their budgets for FY27, and it would save considerable time for them if they don't have to create multiple budget scenarios. for the schools. It would be good for our employees who will otherwise face a third consecutive year of uncertainty
and stress. I cannot emphasize enough how difficult this is for our staff every year. We have lost quality teachers and staff. Staff have been deciding midyear to leave to go to districts who have better stability. This is actively harming morale. It's making it difficult for us to attract
and retain quality staff. We're losing great teachers. These positions are real people. People who are being harmed by continued inaction. My kids, all the kids in this town deserve a quality
education. This situation is urgent and requires immediate action. Hold additional meetings. Make the hard decisions. Please do your job. Choose an option. vote this week to immediately have a special election for the FY26 override or commit to a comprehensive
effort towards an override in November for FY27. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments? Mrs. Lincoln. Microphone for midgets. We're Pete and Debbie Lincoln,
46 Hemlock Drive. And unfortunately, we can't be here next week because we're going to have another post op patient. So, this is for next week. We just want to say thank you to the two outgoing board members who have been here through
thick and thin, who have given us so much service, so much knowledge, so much dedication through some really, really tough times. We cannot say thank you enough to Michael Ray and Tom for their
knowledge, dedication. I I can't even imagine what this town would be like without both of you. And we have a little thank you. But because we have read our rules, what's inside cannot be used
until after May 17th. So, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Lincoln. Tom, we salute you. Thank you. Michael, we love you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. And goodbye. Thank you. Oh, and um it's not goodbye, right? Because No, it's not. You're Yeah, cuz you're going to stick around and help out. And um we hope that we haven't the town has lost you as select board members but not
as contributors. I hope and I hope we have not lost you as friends. Of course not. Thank you. Thank you both. As I say in the movie Nomad Land will catch down the road a piece. All right, Mr. Beardmore. Good evening. Peter Beardmore, 282
Pleasant Street, speaking tonight on behalf of myself. Uh, everything that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln said goes for me, too. But I did not bring a gift. Um, I'm here I came in uh during Laura's comments, and I I suspect that I echo much of what she had to say.
Um I I need to get out of the business of predicting what our voters are going to do because until the vote was taken at town meeting, I frankly did not expect uh that citizens petition to go the way that it did. And obviously our discussions uh between the school
committee and the the select board um a couple of months ago, you know, I I definitely would not have predicted the outcome that that we saw this past week. That being said, um I think that a special election is an inevitability at this point. Um it's going to be demanded
by the people who voted for it and um you heard a little bit about it tonight and if it is not acted upon, I think that that that uh position uh will be amplified considerably uh in the coming weeks. Um, the longer this takes, the
longer it takes to get to clarity in terms of what the actual budget is for the next school year, the more negative impact that it's going to have. We've already informed people that are going to be affected that they're affected. They're looking for jobs. And um, I
suspect that some amount of them, maybe most of them, will find jobs. And in the event that that funding comes around, they will need to be replaced. and that is additional disruption on the school department and the administration and and whatnot. Um either way depend you
know and I I I have my own opinion with respect to whether this should pass or not. Um but but I think we can all agree that we want to minimize the disruption um that our administrators and educators uh as a whole face going into what is
going to be a challenging year no matter what. And so I think that one way that we can do that is to move forward very quickly uh and get this uh issue resolved through a special election at at our earliest availability. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Beardmore. Any
other public comments from the public? Any on Zoom? All right, not seeing any there either. We'll move on to announcements. I actually have several tonight. Are you smarter than our sixth graders? The 11th annual is that correct, Mr.
Lonzo? 11th annual Are You Smarter Than Our Sixth Graders is happening this Friday at 700 p.m. Doors open at 6:30. The live game show and fundraiser hosted by the club, the Lunberg Teen Center again will be this Friday at 7 p.m. at
the Middle High School Auditorium. It's one of the most fun events out of the year in my opinion. I encourage everyone to attend. There will be a 50-50 raffle and the select board will be there competing this year. The all vendor fair is this Saturday organized by the Lunberg Business Association in the
parks department. There will be vendor vendor tables with local artisans, farmers, crafts people, as well as face painting, a bouncy house, a bedding zoo, a dunk tank, and more. It will be from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at TC Pacios.
Yardway Stays. The landfill at 27 Young's Road is only going to be open for three more Saturdays. So that's going to be this Saturday, the 10th. The following Saturday, the 17th, it'll be closed Memorial Day weekend and then reopened the following Saturday on May
31st. Classic Cruise Night is on May 21st from 4 to 8:00 p.m. on Memorial Drive down to TC Pacios. It'll be a free event with music, food, games, and prizes. It's hosted by the Lunberg Community Food Pantry, the Lions Club,
the PTO, and the Teen Center. And the rain date for that is May 28th. From the town clerk's office, 2025 census forms and dog licenses are still straggling. So, if you haven't sent in your census form or picked up your dog
license, please do so as soon as possible. If you have any questions, reach out to the town clerk's office. Vote by mail and absentee ballots for the May 17th annual town election are now available. You can go to the town clerk's office or email the town clerk's
office at town clerk at lunbergmma.gov to request a ballot to be mailed. And as a reminder, the annual town election is Saturday, May 17th at tcasios. Mr. Chair, yes. the town fair, which the
weather looks very questionable. Is there a rain date for that or is there not? There was. I believe it's the following Sunday. I like Right. I believe you're correct. Yes. I'm pretty sure it's the following Sunday. The next day. Oh, not the following Sunday. Like the
next day. The next day. Yes. Let me just pull it up because that's supposed that'd be Mother's Day. It is Mother's Day, actually. Yes. And that's supposed to be a beautiful day. Well, 67 when Saturday did it. Oh, okay. Good. Oh, okay. That's not what I Well, it
sounds like the forecast for Saturday actually is pretty good. So, that's good. And when I left the office, that wasn't what it was. So, that's it'll change 50 times between now and then. So, well, we'll see. Who knows? But yeah, the rain is the following Sunday, Mother's Day. Okay. Communications from
other boards. I don't see any here. And now we'll move on to our 710 meeting, a use agreement for the temporary use of four classrooms at TC Pacios by the Shapiro Educational and Behavioral Consultants. And we do have Mr. Shapiro here tonight. Uh so I will
invite him up to the podium to give him the opportunity to introduce himself and talk about the services he provides and the program that he'll be running this summer. Thank you. I wasn't expecting that. Uh Rob Shapiro, uh 144 Northfield Road and
also 39 Main Street. Uh so for those of you who don't know, we uh we run an agency that provides support for children and young adults with autism spectrum disorders. Uh we support about 200 families throughout North Central Massachusetts. um a small proportion of
which come to our Lunberg location um for support um either uh during the school day typically for little ones uh and then after school and on weekends for social skills groups for children that are uh that are typically of school age. Um when summer hits, uh many of the
families that we support, the children don't have the structure and support that they have in their current public school setting. um and they're they're looking for that support and for something to be able to do. So, uh typically over the summer, we um we run summer programming um where those children can come during uh what would
normally be their school day um and get support that extends beyond what's typically a five or six week partial day summer program that most school districts offer for those um for those students. Um last year we were able to successfully provide support for um for
all of the families that that wanted it, which amounted to about 60 families. Uh this summer we have closer to 90 families that are looking for this kind of support. Um and uh I'd be lying if I
uh if I said that I was um that I wasn't surprised. We are out of space already in that building over there to support that number of families. Um, and so we are uh we're hoping to be able to access uh a few of the classrooms over at TCP to be able to provide that support to
these families. Thank you, Mr. Shapiro. My pleasure. Any questions from the board? I have no questions except if have the details been hammered out by the town manager? Yes. So, uh, Mr. Chairman, through you, um, I worked with town
council for them to draft the license agreement. um the licenses from uh June 1st through August 31st for the use of four classrooms at the rate of $500 per classroom per month. Um I have asked uh
Mr. Shapiro and our facilities director Chris Ruth to just identify those four classrooms so that we can nail that down in the license agreement. Um, and then so what I am asking uh for of the select board tonight is to authorize the town
manager to execute the license agreement once I get that information about the floor classrooms on behalf of the board with Mr. Shapiro. So I would say that the the work that that Mr. Shapiro is doing is excellent and obviously that's really reflected by the number of families and the increasing number of
families that he has just indicated he's supporting. So, I fully support the request uh and have no problem authorizing the town manager through town council to set up a licensing agreement to do such for the summer program.
I support the the agreement as well. I just have a question. What's a temperature control in those classrooms like in the summertime? I know the food pantry has had issues keeping it cool in there in the summer and if we don't know like some I
don't know portable air something it summertime it's going to be hot. Um we would be very comfortable and would like to be able to put portable air conditioners in those classrooms assuming that the circuitry will be able to accommodate it in the building. We
understand that it might not be able to that it's possible those circuits would blow. But if the if if uh if the rooms will accommodate it, we'll do it. And if not, we'll um we we've we've run summer camp before in locations that didn't have AC. And we um it's not ideal, but
we we make it work. It's just something that to check with facilities with with Chris Ruth about. We can work with uh Mr. Ruth on that and see what we can do to be as accommodating as possible. Wonderful. Thank you. I don't know any additional questions. I
appreciate the work that you that you do. You know, um it's so important. You know, many many parents you you know this, but many parents um you know, struggle when they have children with uh special um behavioral needs, you know,
that that and so it's so wonderful that I think that you provide this service. I think it's wonderful that it's here in Lunenburgg. Um, you know, and I I'd be remiss to not highlight that, you know, organizations such as yours need community space. Uh, it is important for
the community to have the space available in order to support the families that need it. Um, you know, I think it's wonderful that we have the building there available, but it would be even better if we had more space available that was conditioned, that was
ADA compliant. um because these kinds of uh needs come up and they're sometimes temporary. Um so I just want to just highlight that I think the work you've done down the hall down the street at uh at form Andrew Hall I think has been phenomenal. Uh so just want to thank you for the uh the work you're doing for the
community. I know the parents uh support I one of my uh nieces uh has autism uh and it's been you know it's been challenging uh for the family. It's been challenging for u my brother and his now ex-wife um because I mean you see it
every day but I think for many people who aren't exposed to um you know some of the u behavioral challenges that kids have you know it's parents need a lot of support um and so do the kids and there's a huge impact when you have that early intervention you know when you're
working with kids young I mean just the outcomes go through the roof and you already know this I'm just saying it really for the public at large uh for how vital these kinds of services are and I just want to appreciate it uh that you're doing this here in town. Thank you. Thank you. And I I wanted to take a moment just in response to say first of
all it's my pleasure. It's it's um it's joyful work. We we love uh doing it. Everybody that's over there loves the work that they're doing. Um and I also wanted to acknowledge the um the community at large that has been incredibly um accepting and encouraging
of us. And you'd like to think that that would be the case. Um, but I think that uh we have to be realists and and recognize that it's not always the case that people are open o open and accepting of of people with disabilities, people who are different
than they are. And so it's um it's been wonderful to see um the way the community has embraced us. Thank you. Thank you for the work you do, Mr. Shapiro. It's so important. Um, and I'm glad that we can offer a space even though if it's, you know, not the best
and most comfortable space in town to offer you, I'm glad that we're able to support the work that you do in some way. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Is there a motion to authorize the town manager to execute the use agreement on behalf of the select board? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those
in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. So again, thank you and thanks for coming in tonight. Great. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Up next, we have a public hearing for an alteration to license premises for the on premises alcohol
license for Jung Dunlow, Inc. doing business as Asian Imperial located at 5 Electric Avenue. And it is a public hearing. So, I'll ask the clerk to read the public hearing notice and invite the applicant up. Do you need it? Yeah. The Lunberg Licensing Authority will hold a
public hearing on May 6th, 2025 at 7:20 in Town Hall 17 Main Street, second floor, Lunberg, Massachusetts on the application submitted by Jin Janlu, Inc. DBA Asian Imperial for an alteration to licensed for an alteration to license premises for the section 12 on premises
alcohol license located at 5 Electric Avenue, Lunberg, Mass. The alteration is is the addition of an exterior 8x5 stone patio and wall to provide outdoor table service. Thank you. Welcome back. Hi. Yes. Hi. I'm happy to be here. So, do Jennifer,
do you have the updated the plan sty? We have everything. Okay. So, and everything's looking good to you. Everything is in order. Okay. Any questions from the board? about the application. Oh, I think last time you were concerned about the
building uh inspector the um some codec coded, right? Like a handicap accessibility and I I remember last time you had a couple questions. I think I addressed those. Okay. I believe those were addressed. Yeah, addressed. Yeah.
Okay. So, there's nothing outstanding, right? Nope. Okay. I'm just looking. Yeah, I'm just double checking the documentation here. And did this have to go to conservation commission? Yes. Says yes, we're filed. We're waiting for the site visit. Yeah, I think Sophia's out. So, we're waiting
for someone to come down. Yeah, we are in the agenda this evening. We'll be getting to somebody to cover the conservation office. And this has got to go eventually the whole plan goes to planning anyway, right? Isn't that we we discussed,
right? Okay. Yeah. So, so this is again for the license. I want to rehab everything in the past. Just for the license part. Yeah. Yep. The building part will be the building. All right. Thank you. I have no concerns as long as the emails from the building commissioner and the
fire and police chief are followed. Okay. I'm fine with it. Same. the the restaurant has been a a good business in town. Oh, thank you. Never any complaints. Very popular. So, thank you. I just I have one question for Kim.
Hey, Kim. I just want to make sure as I look at the uh Yeah, I see it here. That you did not remove the takeout parking spaces. Oh, I fought for when I was in the planning. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Um, this
is a public hearing. Uh, so I do see someone with their hand raised on Zoom. So, um, Mr. Graham, if you'd like to speak to this, you may. Hi. Hi there. Um, Alan Graham, 13 Electric A. Um, I
just wanted to like put our support into it. Uh, Kim has always been a great neighbor. Anything that's ever had been a problem, she's taken care of immediately. Um, and like we're fully in support of this. The only thing is that we're sad that this is going to be the
other side because we are uh habitual people watchers. So, we're not going to get to see what happens on the patio. Uh, but yeah, we're in fully support of this. All right. Great. Thank you for letting us know, Mr. Graham. All right. Is there any other members of the public who would like to speak in the public
hearing? All right. I'm not seeing any. So, is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. The public hearing is now closed. Is there a motion to
approve the alteration to license premises for the alcohol license for Jung Duanlow Inc. doing business as Asian Imperial as presented? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. Good
luck. Yeah. Thanks again for coming in, Kim, and looking forward to it until it's built. Yeah. Good night. All right, moving on to appointments, ratifications, and resignations. We have three tonight. Uh so first is the ratification of the town manager's
appointment of Owen Snder as a lifeguard. So Mr. Snyder is uh new to the town of Lunenburgg as a lifeguard. This will be his first year in the position. Um but he does have the certifications and is ready to go. Great. Any questions?
All right. Is there a motion to ratify the town manager's appointment of Owen Snider as lifeguard? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. The motion passes unanimously. What's next? Ratification of the town manager's appointment of Susan Sullivan as
assistant to the sewer business manager. Uh so Miss Sullivan um has extensive experience in um accounting and uh bookkeeping and accounts payable and receivable. She is new to municipal um but I think that uh we have seen success
with folks new to municipal in this role in the past and I'm looking forward to her joining us. Great. Any questions? Is there a motion to ratify the town manager's appointment of Susan Sullivan as assistant to the sewer business manager? So moved. Second. Any
additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. And last but not least, the ratification of the town manager's appointment of Hurland Jamie Jamie as acting conservation agent. Yes. So, uh, Miss Jamie is Fitchburg, the
town of Fitchburg's conservation agent. Uh, we have an illness in the office that, um, might take a little bit of time before we can u get Sophie back with us. So, uh, Miss Jamie has agreed to come on and help us out, uh, up to 10 hours a week just to make sure that, uh,
applications are still being processed and, um, and that we are getting the work done in Sophie's absence. And we wish her a speedy recover recovery, but I thank uh, Herurlin for being willing to step up and help us out. Yes. Thank you. Any questions on this one? All
right. Is there a motion to ratify the town manager's appointment of Herurlland Jamie as acting conservation agent? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Up next, tell me your report. You You don't have I do not
have a report this evening. All right. Understandable. Yeah. What did you do all weekend? All the time we had on Sunday. Crazy. All right. We'll move on to new business. Perfect segue. Post town meeting discussion. So, I have a couple
items uh that I want to bring up. Uh so, we can go through those. The first is logistics. Like I said, my public comment, I really I think it was perfect. I think the setup and uh the execution of it really was flawless. Uh congratulations, Jen. I think you did a great job. You're deserving of um all
the commenation on that. Um any discussion on any of the logistics of town meeting? No, I would echo what you said. I think that I think under any circumstances that I think the town manager and the staff did an incredible job. There really was not one hitch in
the whole thing. Everything was fully well explained. It was a very thorough motion sheet. Everybody was well prepared. The fact that it was done with the town manager coming on in February is pretty herculean and I know it doesn't happen overnight. I'm sure there
were plenty and plenty and plenty of hours that were put into that. But I all of that has led me to believe very clearly that we made a very good and solid decision in the town manager position. So thank you. Thank you. Here here I agree. I also want to thank the
town manager as well for all the work you've done. And I I want to uh you know I we you and I have talked one to one so so um you know this is me just saying it publicly. I also want to acknowledge you know the work from PAC. uh they really I think uh did a phenomenal job and as
well as the town clerk uh the amount of work and hours you know the whole team uh is just you know getting into town hall with the improvements uh over the last several years the voting process is much quicker the check-in process is quicker uh and as the colleagues have
said the entire just format of the meeting you know certainly a credit to Tim Murphy but obviously huge credit to you and I know you and I were talking a lot throughout this so I know how late you were up uh so I just want to acknowledge that as well. Thank you. And if I can just comment too, I mean, you know, this is not my first town meeting.
I've had several in several communities and uh I will say that this was my easiest uh to set up and that's because the staff knows what they're doing. And that's um from the pack staff to the IT
contractor to the IT staff at the schools to the town clerk to the vendor that came in for the voting machines. I mean everything was as smooth as one could possibly want. And then in prep preparing all the materials, everybody,
you know, department heads were revising things, double-checking things, um looking at all the materials. It was really a great process and I think I commented to you that I think that Lunenburgg although has a long town meeting has a very nice town meeting. I
think it was a great opportunity to really see a different cross-section of the community um that I don't see in these meetings and um and I think that I was really impressed by the the residents participation and their engagement and I thank the residents for
coming out and hanging out through the process all day because it's how we do our business for the remainder of the year and we can't do it without that partnership and so just thank you. All right. Thank you. Anything on logistics that we need to discuss? No.
Anna Lockwood said she wants healthier snack options. Okay. Well, we'll keep that in mind for November. I I just want to echo healthier snack options as an addition, not in substitute form.
Correct. Take away the right sandwich. For the next people, you want to have you need the burst of energy and the sugar that on it. All right. Well, thank you very much, Jen. Um, next thing is the Brooks House. So, now that we have the report from the
municipal building design committee, uh, the board can discuss it. So, that'll be coming up at a future meeting. Any discussion on the Brooks House after that presentation? Okay. Up next is the Prop 2 and a half
override. So, uh, if you were not at town meeting for members of the public or you haven't watched the recording or heard yet, the citizens petition for the Prop 2 and a half override passed at town meeting. Uh, 76 to 74, I believe.
96 to 94. Thank you. So, I know it was two votes. Uh, so it was fairly close, but Prop 2 and half overrides only need a simple majority at both the town meeting and at the ballot to pass. So now that it's passed, we did decide not to put the override on the annual town
election warrant. So it's not going to be on the ballot. So it's our decision now whether or not we want to call a special election. So what do you guys think? Do you think we should be holding a special election for the override?
I can go first, I guess. I mean, my opinion hasn't changed. Okay. Was no. I'm still a no. I can give reasons why if we want to get into a discussion, but yeah, I would say the same. I mean, it wasn't
it wasn't even split boards. It was unanimous for this board, the finance committee, and the school committee not to do this. That not being on the ballot potentially influenced people who may have voted against it at town meeting
not to go. And it did not overwhelmingly pass. It passed by two votes of 190 people out of a voting population of 7,500. So I don't see anything that has
influenced my decision to change it. I'm only here for another today and next week, but I I don't see any reason why I would change my vote on it. No. My opinion has also not changed for the reasons as stated. Um, two votes to me is not an overwhelming majority. I do
understand it's a simple majority for for the citizen petition for the override. Um, but I, you know, I've had, I didn't bring my prepared statements. You know, I'm sure this conversations can go on and on, but I've I've publicly stated my reasons why many, many times. That doesn't mean I don't support the schools. Again, I have I have two
children still in the school system. Um but a as um member Lonzo just said, every single board and committee in town voted unanimously not to do this at this time. I think we absolutely actively need to pursue this for the future because it needs to happen and I I do
feel terrible that there are people that are being impacted by this. Um but I think it's going to put the town in a very difficult position if we do it now. And I think there will be longlasting implications that have not been fully vetted because this was not properly vetted at this time. So, for that reason, I will still be voting no and I
will not be I would vote no to put on a special election. Okay. Um I do support uh calling a special election. However, however, uh I want to acknowledge the comments uh from my colleagues because, you know, it's
it's correct. Um you know, our role on the select board is everything basically but schools. Um, and you know, I know that when I was on the planning board as a member, you know, I felt a little unsupported by the select board uh when we had a uh an issue. And you know, I
think that part of being here, the role, as I ultimately said when I voted not to put this on the uh before the voters, our role here is to support the other boards. And it's really hard for the select board to come in uh you know, after the fact after a school committee who has responsibility over the budget.
It's really hard for the select board to come in after the fact and say, "Well, we know better and so we're just going to go ahead and do it anyway." Uh, I think that that's a little problematic. Um, additionally, you know, at town meeting, if one person had have voted differently, I know it passed by two, but if one person had have voted
differently, it wouldn't have passed. I agree with Mr. Alonzo's comments, uh, that, you know, the fact that it wasn't, uh, before, um, on the ballot, I think maybe did disincentivize some people to show up. Um, you know, but you know, ultimately where I land is, you know, I
I where I land on this is I I just I think I feel and it's probably a little more emotional than I normally am, you know. So, let me say we have to address the fact that a department regardless, you know, a department that is more than
half the budget must continue to grow at 12% a year or continue to make some substantial cuts. like it is a formula that is problematic. Um that must be addressed. I didn't hear any comments in the floor of town meeting that even spoke to how much this is going to cost
the average taxpayer that even spoke to the structural things that are underlying this that spoke to what is going to be done to fix this. I mean I know that we had two members of the school committee in front of us today. I mean but ultimately you know I think that they've had you know they've been aware of these kind of challenges now
for almost two years. Uh and and I don't I just don't understand um why the select board is is in the position consistently um to try to resolve something that we in effect don't really have much say over. Nonetheless, um you know, I also have said several times
that I respect that this board has the decision to put things on the warrant or not. Um but you know, I think I I I'm still kind of in the position I was in before, but I'm just a little more inclined today than not um to put this before the voters. You know, I I don't I
do think many people will come out and and you know, adding $600 to everyone's tax bill from the override last year, potentially from one this year. You know, I feel badly again for the senior community uh and the people who just can't afford it. Um but, you know, I do I do think it may be a question that
should be before the voters. I agree. I also would be in support of calling a special election. I think at the time I didn't want to put it on the ballot because it didn't make sense to put it on the ballot having conversations with the school committee.
Um but now town meeting which is the legislature of the town has spoken and they voted in favor of it and I don't think it's really our role as the executive to gatekeep public decisions. So I think we should respect the will of voters at town meeting and just give
them the option to vote on it. Um, but sounds like I'm solidly in the minority on this one here and it doesn't sound like anyone's really willing to uh change their opinion. Rene, so I can just just add some additional commentary from what I've said in the past. Um, I
don't think it's fiscally responsible thing to do. Um and why I say that is the you know simply just you know taking a budget that wasn't fully vetted by the school committee doing a
subtraction and that's the amount. Um there's you know last year override passed um it was a stop gap. Okay. If you saw, you know, been paying attention to recent school committee meetings, there
were a number of line item transfers to cover shortcomings and deficits in in the budget, which is not unusual to, you know, do line item transfer. Some of these were kind of big. Um, and I think most of them revolve, oh, no pun intended, around the athletic uh
revolving fund. comments have been made that basically you know the there were certain line items certain expenses that were brought forward to the town needed an increase that's why override
was brought forward and now I'll quote a member of the school school committee who said through bad budgeting they are now zeroing out some of those lines So, you know, that's that's that's doing
it again this year with stop gap. We need a we need, you know, a three-year plan, something we have we need a plan, not just the delta and this is what we need to get through next year. I mean, and I think giving 500,000 of free cash is is
kind of, you know, what we can do to to minimize I I know I know it's going to hurt. I know it sucks. It's not easy, but I think, you know, the the fiscally responsible thing to do for the entire town is to not put it on the ballot this
year. Um, and doing the right thing is not always easy. Um, the 500,000 of free cash hopefully will help mitigate that pain. I feel bad for people losing their jobs. Been there. It's not fun.
Um, so I am committed to do whatever I am asked to do to to try to come up with work with whoever to come up with a a plan. You know, the firefighters have been waiting for a fourth shift for two
years at least. Um, we have other, you know, the whole consolidation of efficiencies through consolidating services and whatnot between school town, whatever. I mean, we talked about it, but didn't weren't able to dive deep
into it at the budget task force. Um, Jen is here now. We've got our town manager who is, you know, the way you got up to speed on the budget that you're, you can hit the ground running now with next year's the
superintendent. Boy, I hope they can get up to speed that quick because that's going to be a challenge. Um, I just I I just I can't get there. Um, I can't I I I just feel like
it's it's repeating um it's it's not the best way forward. It's not ideal. And I think it's been said a number of times it's the least bad bad option. Um, but I think it's I think it's the
right thing to do and I think it's our job to to have the whole town the best interest of the whole town in mind. And that's kind of I've spent many um sleepless hours tossing
this around trying, you know, to to see it from every angle and and I keep landing at the same spot. All right. Thank you. Any other discussion on that tonight? Um I would encourage, you know, um I know um first
I think the the comments from my colleagues are well thought out and and I'm I'm agree with 99% of it. So, you know, I'm right there with them. I I do think nonetheless that um it may be a wise
idea to re-engage this after the election. Uh I don't know if the election is going to have any impact on this board uh at all. Um but I do think um you know it may be a wise course of action just to see if there's a change and uh thought process in two weeks. Um
but you know I think that what my what everyone on the board is saying is correct which is you know the select board as a board. I just want to say this again. You know, we have a school committee uh that did not ask for an override that very specifically met with us, understood it all and chose not to
uh pursue it at all. A finance committee that that didn't support it, not even a little bit. And and it is a bad financial I want to just double down on what uh Seleman Nimky said. It is a bad financial plan to have a department that needs to grow at 12% a year. Um and and
that more needs to be done to figure out the most effective efficient way to educate children within the confines of the budget. Um you know and and unfortunately income goes up generally by 2.5% plus a little bit extra. We'll say about 2.7 2.8%. You know there's not
enough wiggle room for half of the budget 55 54% of the budget to need to grow um by four times that amount. There's just there's just no room uh five times that amount. there's just no room. Uh so something must be done differently and it's not from this
board. But you know I I may and and maybe part of why I you know this should be before the voters is so the voters can speak with a clear voice. Um you know and I want to be clear. I would not vote at the ballot in favor of an override. Um but that is a different
question than whether or not it should be in front of All right. Well, I'm not looking on any action on this tonight anyway. I don't want to make votes on Prop 2 and a half overrides, whether we're voting for it or against it during uh this agenda item. So, can I offer
some good news maybe? Sure. A little silver lining. I don't know if if folks got the MMA email that I got today about the um what the ways and means budget that the numbers, the chapter 70 numbers, I mean, these still are not final numbers, but things are moving
like in a positive direction. So maybe all of this, if the numbers stay as they are, close to what they are, maybe all of the um advocacy and and speaking out that everyone's been doing, maybe it's
actually helping. Maybe it's doing something. Well, it has helped for sure. Um, one of the things that I heard from Representative Scarsdale is that the per pupil funding level was increased. We asked for it to be increased to $150 per
pupil. It was increased by $150 per pupil. Uh there are some other funding. That's not what I read. That's exactly what I was told. That's not what was in the article. No, it increased today, right? Cuz I don't think I Yeah, but on DLS now has a preliminary FY26 cherry
sheet. Yeah. Um as well and uh smart growth. We're getting smart growth back which remember last year? Yes. Well, that was like two somewhat thousand. Would you mind sharing those numbers publicly, Renee? Those preliminary numbers on the deal from the deal. Yeah. Just just so that way it sounds I mean
this is on the receipt. I mean the these are totals 50. I I'll I'll show the article the article. Yeah. Um I still have it open. Uh so chapter 70. The bill would leverage fairshare sir tax revenue in order to increase minimum new aid from
$30 per student to $150 which would benefit 77% of school districts 245 out of 318 that were set to receive an increase of less than 150. And what was our 75 preliminary 75? Yeah. Um we still didn't get busing only
regional. That's a that's the Well, that was another thing that I was told. I misspoke on the other thing, but um I did hear that they are looking at both um regional and um comprehensive transportation funding as well. Regional
got increased, but we should receive something as well. The cherry sheet still has zero. Yep. Well, I mean the state incentivizes communities to regionalize and do you save a lot of money and you know we were in conversations about this many many
years ago and decided to go it alone and so now we are seeing you know the cost of it you know well in the regional transportation they encouraged people to regionalize it and then they penalize them by never funding the regional transportation. So you you got you you
did not get helped by doing it even though they incentivized you to do it which was always a kind of paradox the state loves to do. So if they start putting money into regional first I I'm glad I mean even though it doesn't affect us because they really they really went back on a promise of people
who regionalize to address this. Well, they yeah they obviously if you regionalize the busing costs and the distances are way greater than if you have a local system and the special ed circuit breaker I don't understand that well enough to know the numbers but
there's that was also impacted. All right. Any other discussion on town meeting items question? Um I think for the town manager, can you just review the process because the debt exclusion articles are
on the ballot? Correct. So So and and they still mean something on the ballot. Is that I mean just to That's correct. educate the public what happens. I think that um the let me do municipal building
first because that one's a little bit easier with the way that that one went on the ballot. So if the municipal building project were to pass at the ballot, um the it could the appropriation could occur at town
meeting within a reasonable amount of time. That's the standard is reasonable. Um, I would argue that special town meeting is likely a reasonable amount of time. So, we could if it if the municipal building design passes, um, we
could bring back that up at the special. I'm not so sure because of the way that we had drafted the ballot question for the Marshall Park project because we were anticipating the possibility of two
different outcomes. If you recall that we we wanted to draft that ballot question in a way that regardless of which motion may be approved at town meeting either would pass. So it references back to the vote. So I I
don't know that the same is true for that one. Okay. Because of that but if it is then it would also okay be a reasonable amount of time. And a followup now the grant writing services
um assuming won't be used. So uh I have on my calendar to have a discussion with uh the chair of parks commission next week. Um I don't know if they're still going to pursue the park grant or not. Um, separate from the park grant though, I know that the school has expressed
some interest uh in using the some of those funds uh to help get a project a different project to the finish line. So, okay, trying to use them if we can before the end of the fiscal. Mr. Chair, if I may, I just want to comment because I probably should have said it earlier that the municipal building design
project um it came down to based on the numbers, I think it was six votes essentially. If six votes had have been different, it would have passed. Uh I think it had 62 to 63%. Not quite 63, a little less. Um but that's substantial. Um 62 63% support. You know, I mean, if
it was the Senate confirmed, um but here we need overwhelming support. So, um yeah, I definitely think there's a path ahead and it's worth to pursue. I absolutely agree with that. I think that both of these projects had really strong
foundations that were laid and um at town meeting and I think that the messaging different you know different folks heard about the projects and maybe weren't ready to get to yes on Saturday but I'm hopeful that we can work jointly
to get to a yes going forward. Well, the town I will say this uh I mean the parks this is the first time a vote of this nature came up and and they put a lot of work into their planning as well but from the municipal standpoint now this is now going on 13 years or
something of that nature and to the town's people is something I mean this is what happens over the course of 18 years you just wind up saying the same thing I mean the town has to make a decision you can't on the one hand complain that the buildings are nobody's addressing the deficiency in the
buildings and then decide that we're not going to build anything new either. But then when you go to put an $800,000 roof on TC Pasio, we're like, why are we doing that if we're thinking about tearing it down? It's like, well, you know, you we need people to come together and decide. Somebody said it,
and I couldn't agree more with them at town meeting, which is, yeah, the the plan isn't perfect, but if you wait around for perfect, you'll never build anything. We've already been waiting for perfect and here we are 20 years later, right? You know, and and you know,
because I'm a big lover of movies, I just remember the line from Braveheart when he said when he goes to meet with the nobles and they say, "It's a trap. Why are you doing that?" He says, "You know what's going to happen if we don't go?" Nothing. Mhm. And that's what's going to happen again. That's now we're going to be it. If it passes at at the
ballot, then we're in the same position with the citizen petition override. Then you're going to be forced to hold another one or hold it in the middle. it just gets really messy. But if that doesn't happen, then we're looking at a couple years again because again, then the prices go up. So you can't just bring things forward. So you got to have
it recosted. That cost somebody to hire to do that. And we just get caught in this neverending cycle. Luckily, the cost estimate that we had did account for potentially sub uh November town meeting. So, uh, we did we
did, uh, that was why we had such a substantial contingency in there and that escalator was if we needed if it needed to be another vote in November, you know, uh, it was kind of built into the price. Well, what I will say just so people don't not go cuz we said maybe
people didn't go on the citizen petition override to everybody listening, the ballot is active. Those are active questions. They don't we didn't take the ballot and throw it in the garbage because and exit out on everybody. you're still going to vote on it. So vote on it because if a a vote is
overwhelming in one direction or another, that gives direction if we get a few thousand people voting as opposed to 190. So again, don't not go and let a few people decide this and then we have to try to you read the tea
leaves or somebody else on this board has to read the tea leaves about what does that mean? If only on a typical town election, you know, 500 people vote, how you supposed to ascertain, what you're supposed to do if it it's very close. Yep.
Any other town meeting discussion? All right, we'll move on. Vote to declare various IT items as surplus property. So, this is a result of the ongoing cleanout of TC Pacios, right? Well, we're cleaning out a little bit of
everything. Uh, so I expect a lot of surplus votes coming to the select board. So, but all this was stuff and this one this is all old IT stuff that uh is no longer in use. So, that is being stored at uh TC Pacios. There's
approximately 65 to 70 monitors, 26 desktop towers, 5 to seven printers, eight switches, and five 10x10 boxes of various keyboards and cords. Asking the board to declare these items surplus
this evening uh so that we may have an e-waste company come and take them away. This is like the 12 days of Christmas. I was waiting when you how long you were going to go here. Any questions for the town manager? Makes sense. No. Is there a motion to declare all these IT items as surplus
property? Some moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? No. Motion passes unanimously. Up next, we have a vote to accept gift of holiday decorations from Dave McDonald. So, Mr. Chairman, now we are actually
talking about Christmas. I know. Um, so Mr. McDonald, I think folks know, has been decorating the town common uh for a number of years, and those decorations have historically been stored at the DPW, and now he is donating them to the
town officially. So, it's to accept that donation. And so, this is nothing new. It's all of the decorations that we have been using. We're just Okay. We're just formally accepting them and thanking Mr. McDonald for his donation. Understood. Any questions? Is there a vote to I think the email
says he's he did some addition some new Okay. Right. There's new things. There's new things. So, I think it's a combination of existing and new stuff. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they've been as things have broken, he's replaced them over the years. So,
they're all various ages. Yes. Right. But as far as last year when they were thing was put away, they were working. Right. Okay. That's the important part. Is there a motion to accept the gift of holiday decorations from Dave McDonald? So moved with our thanks. Second. Any
additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. I. Sorry, I was saying I not. That's okay. My brain is delayed. All right. The motion passes unanimously. On to old business. First, we have the discussion on sick leave
bank policy. So, the town manager and HR director have been looking at other sick leave bank policies. There's a bunch of them in here in the drive. There's also a spreadsheet comparing them. I know I'm going to need some time to look over it. I'm sure other members are going to as well, so not really looking to discuss
this too much or make any decisions tonight, but Jen, I know there are also ongoing conversations. You want to just give an update? Sure. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, uh, we had a meeting with, uh, the benefits administrator to talk about some of the mechanics and what she
sees and what she's seen over time. Um, she's been here for a number of years, about 14 years. And just so the board is aware, in the 14 years that she's been here, she's aware of four people who have benefited from the unofficial sick
leave donations. uh two of those were for periods of time um longer than a year. Uh so that's sometimes the time period that we're looking at is is longer than a year. We had uh conversations around um the efficiency
of administering the bank and uh the belief is that we should have something that in here that there's a minimum amount of request requested time. So if you only needed one day or one week that it's not worth necessarily the sick
leave bank convening. Um so we had a discussion around 2 weeks or more of time. Uh we did talk about um one of the one of the things as we've thought about this since the discussion here before the board that's very I
think going to be one of the challenges for success is that we have members of different bargaining units who have very different days. What's a day to a firefighter versus a day to a sixh hour
a day employee? So, next week we're going to have a meeting meeting with um hopefully next week with all of the union reps. And I did put this out for feedback. I didn't get feedback other than from one person. So, we're going to
directly engage with union reps about how does this actually work. So, there's it would be easier to administer a bank that had the same set of rules, but we had different banks for the different bargaining units. That's certainly easier. The concern is though that then
there's not a lot of time in any of the individual banks. So, let's see where that goes with the union. Um, one of the things that uh was brought up though was that we shouldn't have or that we talked about not
allowing this to be intermittent at all. So, it would be blocks of time um just because if it was intermittent it would be too difficult to administer. And I think that's kind of where we are right now. Um the 300 days in looking at
the other communities, it it doesn't seem the the number of days in the bag seems to be arbitrary based on their sizes as well. um a little concerning
that the the two out of the four were both over a year when we're talking about 300 days. But um alternatively, if we go higher than the 300 days, it that is where we kick into the
automatic if the bank dips down. I I don't want people having to give all their time, you know, just because we're trying to get it to 400 days or 500 days. So, I think we have some more work to do um on this. I want this roll out
to be right as opposed to quick. Any questions? Um I think this is great so far. I'm impressed with the amount of work you guys have already had time. I don't know how you've found the time when we're prepping for town meeting to put all this together, but my only ask, not
really a question, is can the Excel sheets be put in the drive, too? Oh, sure. Um, instead of just PDFs. Yeah, absolutely. I just like to sort and filter data. Yep, I agree. And I did put it So, uh, the results that we got there were from the MM HR list sererve. I put
it out to my list serve. I didn't get any results. So, um I think though with the I I don't really want to go and find too too many more. I think we have a good variety there. Um but it's really the mechanics of how this is going to operate that I think which is one of the things I had brought
up when we talked about it before how we want it to want it to work, but how does it work? Yeah. Right. Any other questions or comments on this tonight? No, I I mean to me the tricky part is two parts I brought up last time which
was you know what happens if there is not enough by chance and then somebody's like well like the one time I needed it I put in for five years you know my sick time and then one time I needed it there's not enough so how does that work and then of course the hourly you know the day what is a day and can you do it
by hours instead of days and people take it out in that regard I mean that's another way of doing it because everybody works hours so you don't take out the days that you work. So if you only work six hours a day, then you take out six hours as opposed to something else. That's another way of doing it.
But that I think is critical to working equitably. Otherwise, I mean, I think the comparison chart is very helpful. Uh, one thing that I did neglect to say is that there was a thought of and I think it's a good idea that upon separation that employees may donate an
additional up to two days or whatever it is. Not we don't want them to donate all their time because then we have a big liability there. But up to two a lot of employees are carrying sick time and to donate up to two on their way out the door. Cool.
All right. Anything else on this tonight? All right. Move on to discussion on acceptance of gift policy. So, there were a couple of things that we made notes of here that we can just do a second pass
at. So, let's look at the town manager's comments because she captured them all. So, the first one is trust funds. We don't have to do anything on that. That's just a comment. Second one's about what do you guys have it open? Tom's screen looks like my screen looked like bubbles. Yeah, there was Yeah,
there was just a I just had my whole screen turned into symbols and before the document came up. I saw a lot of gesticulation. I wasn't sure. Yeah, cuz I didn't know what I was looking at. I was waiting for one more bar to spin around. Yeah, it looked like a bunch of emojis and weird. Yeah. All right. So,
the first thing of substance here is under gift acceptance authority. I remember we had a conversation about this. So, where where are you looking? What what number? This is on the first page. So, if you go down to I got it. Authorities. Yep. Um, this one right
here, any border officer. We discussed if we wanted to just put select board there. I think it should just be the select board in my opinion. Yeah. Well, don't we have to exclude does the school have their own gift acceptance? I think we have to exclude schools probably because
we're definitely not accepting their gifts, right? select board and school unless it says in the unless it says in the preamble that it's just for the town. I think that the if I recall correctly uh the school was interested in adopting once
we adopt this policy a very similar policy potentially for the but maybe maybe on number one under purpose and application we we should say this policy establishes procedures accept the town of Lunberg all departments of the town of Lunberg except including schools.
Mhm. Yeah, we could make That'd be good. Do you want me to type this stuff while I'm No. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then make that change to select board. Mhm. Okay. All right. And then the next
thing, there's no comment here, but I don't think we actually decided if we like this limit here. The $500 below, the town manager can accept the gift and if it's above $500 and it comes before the select board.
Yeah, I you know the only my I maybe it's addressed somewhere that I haven't seen it. So, for example, um you know, my personal will uh I donate 10% of my estate to the town of Lunenburgg. Now, granted, if Ezra is willing to do it, um
but nonetheless, um it just seems kind of wild that if someone leaves something to the town in the form of a will, um that the town would still maybe deny it. I How does that cuz doesn't that kind of become more Anyway, I don't I don't know enough about estate planning in in terms
of what happens if something doesn't go where it goes, but if someone passes and leaves property or leaves money, I mean, is the town really going to say no? I think it depends, right? Like let's say down house or Exactly. You know, a contaminated piece
of property, no thank you. Yeah. Thanks, but no thanks. But if it's money, but then again, I All right, you just you just talked me out of it because then it's a value. I get it. Yep. Great. Thanks. Well, yeah. I mean, if somebody says, "Here's my old
barn full of old equipment, old farm equipment that hasn't worked in 20 years. Good luck. Have fun." You know, you can't just give that. They should be required to accept that. And I'm using a very absurd example, but you know, yeah, the town should have the right to deny a gift. Yes.
Okay. So, are we okay with this limit? $500. It seems a little low. I would say I would if anything boost it to a,000, right? I mean, that seems like a round number concur. Yeah. Because I think especially now that we're doing this, I think we're going to get a lot of these
requests coming before us. So, Okay. So, increase that to a thousand. It's good for me. All right. Let's see what else. I think there was one other thing, right? I haven't checked with town council yet on that one piece. And then it was the anonymous confidential donations tweak.
I don't remember why we wanted to tweak this. Does anyone remember? Which one? Anonymous/confidential donations just says tweak. And I don't remember why. And I don't look had brought that up.
I can't remember exactly why right now. Somewhere earlier in the policy it says they have to give their name and then I was like but then they could do it anonymously. So it would kind of conflicted. Um and the question is if we do this is it is it fall into the public records or
not? I mean, it's okay not to publicize it. To to accept something anonymously seems an odd thing that a public entity like a town would do, right? I will say that uh in my last community, somebody made a substantial gift to the
police department and they did it. The condition of the gift was that they wanted it to be anonymous um because they didn't want other folks not. Right. Right. Yeah. I'm not opposed to it. I just I think that was why I'll have to go back and review the conversation. Yeah, cuz I did
have points on it, but Okay. I I because this paragraph gives us flexibility to do it and doesn't require it one way or another. I guess we can leave it to discretion and ask people why they would want to do it and or and
even how that would happen. I mean I mean eventually there's got to be some track if they giving you something. Somebody has a trace of something where it came from. Mhm. And it does seem so in the language here. In certain situations, a donor may prefer to make a confidential or anonymous donation to the town. The town
manager may evaluate this type of gift and is authorized to accept it on behalf of the town without public notification of the donor's name as long as all other requirements are satisfied to the extent permitted by law. So, I wonder now in this case where the anonymous donation is over $1,000,
um then it would still just be handled by the town manager, it seems like, by this language. So, it wouldn't even come before the select board. So, No, I don't think that would be true. We would probably just do it in an executive session. Okay, maybe we should clarify that. Yeah, if the uh in the anonymous
refer to the limits mentioned earlier, refer to the limits and if over let me see if over a thousand in executive session if allowable. Right. I'd have to look at the reasons to see if that really falls under one. Probably
doesn't. Okay, that was it though. There's really no other uh lingering questions here for this. So, let's see. In terms of changes of substance, we changed that to select
board. We changed that to a thousand. And then we're okay. We still have to run this by town. At the very top, we change we excluded the school committee or the school department. School. Oh, yes. That's right. Okay. Well, it seems like we're not ready to approve this
anyway because we still need town council to weigh in on this part. So, yeah. So, I'm thinking just with timing that it would be back before maybe the May 20th meeting to get it back from council. Yeah, probably.
Sounds right. Okay. All right. Any other discussion on this tonight? Nope. All right. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Discussion on selectware and town manager goal setting process. I think we might just revisit this with the new board after we go through this process and it's fresh on
our minds. How's that sound? Makes sense. Sounds good to me. Okay. One thing I would urge that the board addresses both goals at the same time. Well, yes. Yes. Like early. All right. Tax investigation report. So,
I know that um I sent a I when I was sitting here uh if you can add it to the drive. Did you email it? I did. I emailed it to you. Do you have it open? I can. Okay. Can you drop it in? I don't have my email. Uh I don't I don't know if I added Jen. Let me put it to her. So, as as we do this, let me just add
Jen to it. Yeah. I first, you know, uh need to fully take responsibility uh for how long this has taken. Um, you know, I think it in in some ways um has been a disservice. Uh, at the end of the day, you know, what our bylaws require is for
us to provide the town with a summary uh in in an annual report. So, you know, we've talked about the tax investigation and uh while we pull this up, you know, I want to just kind of refer back to the executive summary and uh hit a couple of
highlights. So, you know, ultimately, um, I think, you know, no matter how we look at the data, I, you know, I think, and I'm just going to get to this part of it. You know, there's no question that what occurred in 2023 was
incorrect. And now, technically, um, you know, I think that what we learned in the process was several things. Um, and and I I am going to read here, but we learned several things, but I mean, let's let's just be real about just the whole thing. Um, number one is, you
know, no taxpayer should ever get a bill that says that their taxes went up by $3,500 and had no indication that it was coming or on the horizon or even possible. And they didn't make any substantial improvement to their house. It was just one year to the next. On the
surface, that seemed incorrect. I think that most people who came before us, that seemed incorrect. I kind of took the position early on that I wouldn't evaluate whether or not it was incorrect because I didn't know enough about how the assessors did it and I I took the approach of trying to be as neutral as
possible. But certainly there was no question that you know it it looked quite wrong. Digging into it I think we uncovered a lot of things. Um, you know, number one being that the Department of Revenue provides really strict rules for
how you're supposed to go through evaluation process. And I think that we had several members of the community, um, Carl Luck, um, you know, Jack Rabbit, who are really digging into those regulations about how you're supposed to evaluate. And come to find
out, no one that does the assessments even follows those regulations. They all do it in software. Um, and the software is a is a whole different system and so there really isn't a lot of comparison there. Um, but in many ways it was a
perfect storm. So, you know, I I want to just highlight this executive summary and and just walk through it. 2023 started off on a bad footing uh for the overwhelming majority of property owners with homes that abut Lake Wham, Hickory Hills Lake, and Lake Shirley. um when
those 429 property owners learned that their average tax bill increased by $3,590.64 while the 3,159 non lakefront property owners received an average 82 tax increase. The
select board uh conducted an investigation to identify the causation of the substantial tax increases on water property owners. The approximate causes for the situation are as follows. One, while the work that the principal assessor and board of assessors
conducted to identify property values for fiscal year 2023 was technically allowable by department of revenue standards. It was incorrect. The pandemic of 2020 through 2022 dramatically changed the way that
people in Massachusetts conduct business and immediately turn many homes into workspaces and offices. The ability for most professionals to work from anywhere with an internet connection uh led to many people choosing to leave urban communities to more suburban or rural
communities. A critical part of the spread of CO 19 uh has been proximity to others as it's a contagious disease spread through germs in the air. As a result, many people purchased homes outside of cities. The principal assessor and board of assessors in
Lunenburgg should have upon identifying a48 assessment to sales ratio uh for lakefront properties conducted more analysis to verify the accuracy of the information. They should have maximized the allowable time range to better
consider that home sales during the peak of the pandemic were anomalous. They did not. And to highlight here, you know, they used essentially 1.3% of that's how many homes turned over. There was roughly 1.3% and they
took that and extrapolated it to 100% of the homeowners. I think most people say not enough sales data to be able to do that. Two, the assessor's office was plagued in the view of many assessors by years of bad data. And this came out of the
interviewing process. They had 27 uh a 27-year business relationship with RRG. And let me pause there. It is a bad business practice to have a for any municipal agency, any state agency, any government entity to have a contract
with a vendor for 27 years. um and you know looking through you know trying to identify the competitive bidding process whether or not that was accurately followed lack of data on our end to be able to even verify that we
properly went out to bid on this. So they had a 27-year business relationship with RRG an outside vendor that provided assessment of services in or around 2015. Assessors began to question how well data was being collected and
whether homes were being evaluated following building permits uh and sales. Assessors questioned whether or not commercial and personal property taxes were being done correctly by RRG. Assessors questioned whether cyclical
inspections uh were actually occurring and generally assessors believed that the quality of services rendered had dramatically decreased. When the board of assessors hired a different company to provide personal property tax assessments, they realized a substantial
increase in revenue, further reinforcing that they needed to change direction. And I believe, and I have it u uh somewhere in here, I think that that generated over 100% increase. The board of assessors believed that hiring a
staff assessor rather than a company would result in better data collection and they worked with the town manager to create a new staff role. The town parted ways with RRG in 2020 and hired Sue Burns who worked from July 2020 to
September 2021. Christine Kumar worked from early September 2021 to December 2021. Reena worked from December 2021 to March 2022 and CJ Carroll was hired in March 2022. Within the span of 2 and a
half years, the town had five different principal or interim principal assessors. Three, CJ Carroll was qualified to perform the job that he was hired to perform. And let me pause there. The only qualification to be an
assessor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is to pass DOR course 101. That's it. That's a very low bar. CJ was qualified to perform the job he was hired to perform. Uh but there were inadequate supervisory controls in place
to verify that the work he was doing was correct and informed by experience. Um I comment here that young adults need jobs and they have to get experience somewhere. It is acceptable for a town to hire someone with growth potential within the community. And
given the tight labor market, hiring someone who hadn't worked as a principal assessor was not in and of itself problematic. However, aside from monitoring deadlines, the town manager did not have nor was expected to have relevant related experience and trusted
without a more formal mentorship program in place that CJ was being adequately mentored. more could have been done to retain a qualified assessor to provide oversight during CJ's first year of employment as that would have set the employee up for success. Some members of
the select board questioned the supervisor controls in place. Let me pause there and comment. I asked I asked the town manager if the if CJ had a mentor when he was hired and I was told yes. So I comment here uh that some
members of the select board questioned the supervisor controls in place when CIA was hired and was advised by the town manager that he had a mentor. This investigation identified that his mentor was his father-in-law. Neither human resources nor the town manager nor any member of
the board of assessors identified the need for more professional oversight. comment here being if we just would have spent six grand hiring someone to verify the quality of the work a lot of this wouldn't have happened. Four, the board of assessors
had two members that were in their first year of service and who had no relevant professional experience and one long-term member with family responsibilities that limited his engagement on the board of assessors. The members of the of the board of assessors fully trusted the principal
assessor to do his job correctly and provided minimal oversight. While they asked probing questions, they did not perceive themselves as being more or equally capable as the principal assessor. And this came out in the interviews with uh the assessors that they didn't realize that they could
override the principal assessor. They didn't they thought that. Anyway, number five, the board of assessors did not have protocols in place to catch anomalies or significant variances in data. Had the board of known how dramatic the tax implication would have
been, they likely could have paused the process to confirm an error in data and or not approved the assessed values as provided. However, with little fuss or question, they accepted the values provided to them and they didn't understand that their signature on the
final documentation was confirmatory rather than compulsory. And then six, the fix to the problem highlights what the source of the problem ultimately was. Bad data. The index map that groups similar properties together into like
neighborhoods had not been updated in at least 15 years. it should have been updated every 5 years. The recognition that not all property in index 1 are alike and that there are in fact three tiers of property within that index one
greatly contributed to homeowners receiving incorrect tax valuations for fiscal year 23. Specifically, homes with sandy beachfront were initially provided equivalent valuations as homes with rocky or steep waterfront. The quality of the waterfront has a market impact on
the value of the property and that was not adequately considered. In summary, the town hired an inexperienced principal assessor that had familiarity with the town but was new to performing many functions of the job. The assessor was not adequately
supervised by the town manager and the data he provided to generate property values was inadequately reviewed and scrutinized by the inexperienced board of assessors. With the anomaly of hyperinflation due to the CO9 pandemic and the inflexibility of retracting
submissions from the department of revenue after they were accepted by them created the perfect storm of many homeowners receiving excessive and significant property valuations and resulting tax assessments. None of the 427 homeowners that filed for abatements
filed subsequent appeals to their valuations after they were modified. While this isn't a conclusive indicator in and of itself, as it should be assumed that many homeowners were fatigued by the process, the lack of further appeals by virtually everyone
affected does not uh does indicate that the correction resulted in a property valuation that most if not all homeowners were reasonably comfortable with. So, you know, as we go through this and I do think that, you know, that it would be beneficial for the members
to, you know, review this next week. Let's really spend some time. You know, I still have and I apologize that I didn't attach them to this, but we have it all. We have all the charts that came from CJ and there's spreadsheets that identify how he evaluated every single
index that came up with the the sales ratios. We have the report that came from MSR, which is the company that we hired. And they themselves provided an executive summary that really kind of indicated that some of this was was, you know, related to the bad data. You know,
ultimately I think that, you know, my own opinion of all of this um is is I I you know, the controls must be in place. You know, the timeline must be sooner. Um if you know, Tom Selectman Alonzo asked the question at the meeting if
anyone was going in any neighborhood was going to have data or have their tax increase disproportionately. And the answer was no. And the answer should have been, I don't know. Because it was abundantly clear that day that the assessor actually didn't know. And in
the interview process, it came out that there was not when that question was asked and and answered, there had not actually been an evaluation of what the tax implications were. And then the other thing that I don't note in the report because I think it's personal, but I think it's certainly worth noting
publicly is, you know, we had an assessor who was who had their first child at the end of December. I mean, anyone who goes through their first child knows that those last couple of months especially. It's exciting, but you're also distracted. um you're building a room, you know, for your kid,
like you're really making a lot of plans and and there was a reasonable amount of time off that occurred, you know, in the principal assessor world. A lot of these deadlines are happen in the fall, they happen in October, they happen in November, they happen in December, and
you know, people having kids should be supported. Um but there was just nothing kind of done to help. So, I'm not trying to point fingers and throw, you know, uh, anyone in a supervisory role under the bus as much as it's just critical in
highlighting how critical it is that if any of this had have been done, if any if any of those kind of checkpoints had have been done, none of it would have occurred. And so, it seems to me to be a combination of multiple factors that contributed to the problem. Um, but the
problem was self-evident. It was abundantly clear. uh I in in my opinion from day one uh of what the issue was. Um and and you know and and I think the real challenge was how do we undo it? And I know that you know we spent time trying to figure out how do we undo it?
It seemed pretty clear that there wasn't a way to undo it. Um and the task at hand was you know in order to make better decisions here you have to get better evaluations. And I'm glad that the town did a lot of stuff hiring MSR. That was wonderful, you know, but ultimately I think that that's the
executive summary of what happened. Uh I wish it didn't, but I I think the executive summary really summarizes what occurred and why it occurred. All right, I'll open it up for discussion. When
the tax investigation was opened, one of the things I think that town's people were hoping for was well, twofold. First of all, in the end, what turned
out to be the town who just passed an override last year and, you know, used free cash, the town lost $1.5 million in revenue. And I think the tax people, especially the the lakefront owners who
were the burden of that, whose abatements caused that $ 1.5 million loss and the rest of the town should have been asking, you know, we can't afford that. We were lucky that we were in a financial position to afford that. But they wanted to know two things. First of
all, someone's name or some group had to be in somebody's briefcase because this was caused by someone. This was not accidental. there were people responsible for this. And the second point is we need to identify what processes and procedures were not in
place or were in place to to allow this to happen and to close those gaps so they wouldn't happen again. If I address the second one first, that would require that we come up with a report earlier than two years
later. So, we're already well beyond the point where any of these things will have any reasonable impact because the new board of assessors and I thank them publicly for coming in at a
time when the house was on fire and like like firefighters who go in, they came to that board and and put out fires in the middle of heat of doing all this that they've addressed most of the things and many of things don't even exist in the
report. Okay. The second thing is who is who are the responsible parties. Uh I think I don't I don't I really I I've talked about this before. I really don't
want my last two meetings to go into these things again. Okay. But I will say that I find this report what the vice chair just read substantially similar I would say identical except for the
last two paragraphs that what we've seen in a draft many many years ago or many many months ago I'm sorry. So uh I think it's wholly inadequate. It does not it it for somebody who says it doesn't want to put blame on people. He blames people. I don't think he blames the
right people. Uh, and some things aren't even addressed at all. You know, in the in the heat in the heat of this happening, imagine, again, I don't want people to have nightmares and relive it, but imagine opening your mail somewhere in the middle of January and find out that
on February 1st, what you thought would be a normal tax bill is now $3,500 higher, and you have till February 1st to pay it. You have two weeks to come up with an enormous amount of money.
And as it turned out, the people who sent out the bills, who were in question to begin with, didn't send them out in time, as it turned out. Now, some members of the town knew that they weren't sent out in time and yet accepted a a very fake
affidavit from the the uh bulk mailing company that could have saved people three months. It would have given them three months more time to get the money together. And the one thing that the town could have done,
they didn't do. and they didn't do not because it wasn't found later on. It's because the the data was suppressed that I eventually found out later on. Okay, that did not help the situation at all. Some of the things that I think are missing from the report. First of
all, all of the things that the bad data and and using a company that we had a relationship with for for 27 years, while they may not be a good practice, RRG never lost town $1.5 million. In the end, it's the board of assessors who as
an elected body needs to oversee whether it's a regional assessor, contracted assessor, or an in-house assessor oversee them. And for many, many years, all they did was rubber stamp. It was very clear that they just rubber stamped things and they didn't evaluate what was
the data that was going before them. That was the beginning of a lax procedure that allowed this to happen. coupled on the fact that we hired for the first time. We thought it would be better to have an in-house assessor. And that may or may not be
true, but it took a long time to fill that position because of the job market. And we chose somebody who again just by the data was not up to the task. It turned out to be a very complex year that a very experienced assessor was
needed. And while I necessarily don't blame the inexperience of somebody, there was I I certainly don't think it's the town manager who didn't oversee them. And the town manager's job is not to do lead assessing. So, you know, it was his inexperience
that did it. And to be very honest, it was his it was his reluctance to believe that anything he did might have been a mistake which made it even worse cuz he really entrenched himself early that no I did not make a mistake. I that the
data was the data the data doesn't lie and this was the way it was supposed to be. And then he pointed to the the years of bad data that the assess the assessment of lakefront property wasn't wasn't adequately over the years raised to the right level of the
sales ratio level. But there were five two different five-year evaluations that the board of assessors had to sign off on that this must have been accurate otherwise the do wouldn't have accepted it. So again I I don't buy that that was the problem. some things that weren't in
the report at all. You know, we found out that the board of assessors or the town, nobody had data backups of our data. We relied on the states on the state's CAMA system, which they took offline and we didn't have any hard copy. So when it came to the time to do
evaluations of what was our tax history and people who know data in this town and are good with spreadsheet had zero data except for two years to go by and everything beyond that was on PDFs and printed print not PDFs printed documents that they would had to enter manually
over 5,000 properties that wasn't going to happen. So we had no evaluation tools. There was no strong policy in determining the tax bill mailing dates. There was no comprehensive review of the tax bills by the town or the board of assessors as a whole to pick out large
changes. When we hired MFS to do the evaluation, one of the conversations I had with the owner of that company and the person who led the uh the secondary abatements and the and secondary assessments I should say was that any
seasoned assessor would before they present to the board of assessors and certainly before they uh present to the tax rate would look at sample properties and say what is this doing to these properties? And that would have been
noted well in advance and anybody would have brought to the board of assessors saying I these are the numbers that I'm going to present to you and these properties X category are going to be extremely high. You should know about it. Maybe we should review them. That wasn't
done. Coupled on to that was after people were getting their mailings late. The assessor's map property cards were woefully behind. Some of them were like two years behind. you go to the assessor the GIS map and the assessor's map of the uh property data the CI map I think
it's called and you know people were seeing their properties from 2021 you know those have to be updated and again the board of assessors has worked very hard with our company and with vision to get that done all of these things should have been in the report a year ago all
of them should have been addressed then and you know I I'll just leave it at that I mean I I I think in the And you know, I think we did the town a great the the town as a board and certainly the tax investigation team of which I
was a part did a a a poor job of protecting people who were vulnerable. Many people not many several people lost their homes. Many people had incredible anxiety about what was going to happen. And you know
again we need to put things in place to avoid this. And the way to do that is to annotate what they were and a year later than it should have come out. I don't know that we're doing that. So, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr.
Alonzo. Renee, Amanda, do you have anything you'd like to say or ask? No, my only comments are that, you know, I wasn't on the board during this time, although I was following it. Um, and then I'll need I'll need to take some
more time and read it. And that's all I have at this time. Right. I do too. So, do you want us to put this on the agenda again next week? Said that you wanted to additional stuff. You know, I think that some of what Mr. Lonzo said is recorded at a different portion of it. It's not in the executive summary. It's before
it. Okay. Um, and so, you know, we basically had, you know, that's the So, we basically had kind of core questions that we were trying to answer throughout this. And uh I think some of what Mr. Alonzo indicated, you know, should make it into the executive summary. I think the mailing date conversation um comes
in and and kind of how that was decided. Um you know, I think the note about um you know, data I think could be expanded upon to note the uh the property cards. So, you know, I there's a couple of additions, but you know, I'll make sure that uh taken care of because you know,
and I again, I I I don't want to disagree at all with Mr. Alonzo, uh, you know, I I think that, you know, this is one of the rare times where I will concede that, uh, Tom is completely correct. Um, that, you know, this should have happened sooner. Um, and you know,
I'm not going to make any excuses on my own life. I know that I did have to kind of step back from this quite a bit. Um, you know, and I think that we also saw some of the good work that was coming out of the board of assessors in which they very quickly kind of set up policies and and controls. um you know
so I think on the compilation side you know I do agree um with Tom's feedback here uh to expand upon that summary um and I'll make sure I take care of that so that way it's plenty of time for everyone materials are due by Thursday so I'll make sure I comply uh with the
policy this is my last uh week and a half here uh so I've been a push push push and I'll make sure that I comply with our policy so that everyone has time to review um and so that That way next week we can come with those kinds of additions. Thank you. All right,
sounds good. All right, moving on. What else do we have on the agenda? 56 car out seller hold. Have we um have we picked an No, we're just working on picking an assessor from appraiser from a variety of two and then we'll get uh that person
going. All right. Fantastic. And maybe in the next few weeks it'll stop raining so people can actually go. Oh yeah. All right. Thanks, Jen. And then discussion on budget task force charge. Where we left this off, we were discussing membership. I don't know if there's anything else anyone else wants to
discuss about the charge. Um, but membership is one that I wanted to have a conversation on again tonight. Where does is this in here again or I don't think I put it in. My apologies. Don't worry about it. So, if you go back to April,
I can drag it and drop it. Okay. Thank you. I think it was 15th. Yes. Okay, cop the folder. Okay, let's refresh folder. There you go. Okay, thank you. All right, it's here. budget task force folder and then the
charge it's in the PDF. Okay. So remember when we discussed this we talked about the possibility of making staff non- voting members and then potentially adding more representation
whether it's from additional seats from re represented boards and committees or um representatives at large. I just want to see where members are at on that. Again, if I remember the last time, Mr. Chair, if I remember the last time we brought
this up, that I think what was highlighted was that it it's very technical um and that uh unlike some other roles that we have across the town that this is one that really does require um a little more experienced membership base um a little more
intimate knowledge of how the finances work. Um so you know I I do think that maybe between the um select you know although we have one representative from the select board, one from school committee,
one from finance, I do think there maybe should be opportunity uh to create another seat or two for additional members from the school committee, select board and finance committee to join uh maybe one minimum uh two max. Um and that allows for there's availability
in everyone else's schedule. Um but then again, you know, select when MK, you know, worked on this and I think we all know that when you get the larger the committee gets, uh the harder it is to actually find time to meet, the harder it is to accommodate everyone's schedules and sometimes the quality of
the discussions decreases. Um so I'm going to defer to I think quorum could be a challenge. I think we've seen it with other committees in town. Um, I know when we talked about this last year, you know, knowing
that this group is is unique in the sense of having, you know, four employees, um, you know, I'm I'm sensitive to taking their time, but they are critical members of this. They have the the information. They they do the
forecasting. they you know I think other members ask questions it's it's different they you know provide different perspectives and can ask questions but it's really you know the finance director and
superintendent and town manager that have the information and the experience so I I don't know how best to um to balance that.
Max, do you think I mean given that I think a lot of what we were initially trying to resolve was you know existing budgetary concerns within the school department and upcoming and foreseeable budgetary concerns and all other
departments. Do you think it would be beneficial uh to increase membership from the school committee to two or do you know I'm I have nothing against that. Um I mean it's good keep I know school committee members have a lot
of other subcommittees and the entire task force. So I mean the the school department makes up more than half of the budget and it's going to be a new superintendent and I don't know is there going to be a new business manager? I I don't know at this
point. Um but man. Yeah, we need they're going to Yeah, it's it's a big part. I think my point when I brought this up last time was that of course the town manager, superintendent,
finance director, school director of finance are those are where the data is going to come from. It's a matter of do they need to should they be voting members? They're not members of the of the community as far as residents and you know obviously we cannot the task
force could not do their job without their that data so they have to be involved in the committee that the really question is should they be core members that are voting members and that's what I would say I'm trying to think what do we vote on recommend on a
recommendation hope you vote on a lot of things you know recommend the vote is is a recommendation you vote on recommendations It doesn't it's not like a vote here enforces a pol you know implements a policy or something. No, but votes on the task force are you know substantial.
I think voting on recommendations like that I think it is important to get to get um town manager and superintendent input. I I don't disagree with getting their input. I No, as a vote as a vote. I think it's well I mean the same way that
the school superintendent doesn't vote at the school committee you know board votes I mean there there is advisory to give data and they can have strong opinions they may not have strong opinions but eventually it's the so if they don't if they're not voting members they don't attend the meetings no right
okay good so I certainly don't think the town manager necessarily needs a vote because ultimately the budget is the town manager so it becomes a little circular in that way um I peeling out the town manager's vote though than if
if other parties are voting causes a little internal inequity. Um but I so I think it should be all or nothing one way or the other. But um I I just so the board is clear. I do not have really an opinion on this. Whatever the pleasure
of the board would be, I think that either would work. What if the approach here was um support from town managers, superintendent, finance director, uh director of admin
and finance, uh or yeah, and then actual membership being two members of the select board, two members of the school committee, one member of the finance committee, and then allowing for alternates. And that way you have a five member board, you have support staff who can do it, you have alternates in case
someone can't make it um that can jump in. Um but you know, I've heard so many people stand up and say that you know, we said we were going to do X, Y, and Z tax force. I'm over here like I never said any of that stuff cuz I never signed up to be a part of this. But I think it might be helpful
given the seriousness of it. And then, you know, and I don't know where we would fit this in, but I think it's going to continuously or continually rather be difficult to come before voters without making some
progress on some revenue stuff here. Um, you know, I I mean, I look at these parking lots and I see great sunlight hitting them all day long and no solar panels on them. And I know we have an electric bill on all this stuff and solar panels will offset it. I mean, I I
think there has to be some good faith that comes along with this beyond just the ideation portion. But, you know, if we're going to be asking voters for more money, I think we have to demonstrate and here's what we can do, capital plan, etc. that is reducing operational cost
to provide more capacity within existing budgets. You know, I I would like to see this charge be a little stronger in the sense that like I think there has to not just ideas, but I think there has to just be some and I don't know how to do it, but there has to be some progress made cuz I mean this task force was
created a year ago. We identified certain things. School committee is the one that has the biggest budget shortfall and no progress on any way to make revenue, you know, and and I don't understand it. Well, minimal progress. I know they've increased sports fees. That is upsense to parents. But in terms of built-in
revenue, um I think if we're going to increase representation from committees, I would I would support having two members of finance committee. Yeah. Then you have a I mean that's that's Well, I'd have a I'd have a citizen at
large, too. I mean the the the success or failure of this task force is going to be the quality of the people who are on it and their ability to deal with financial data. These are all trends. You you you need to see trend lines. You
need to see both like as as the vice chair said, you need to see revenue trend lines. You need to see expense trend lines. You need to see three-year projections. You need to see 8 to 10 year retrospective and graph those. And you can show people look this is what
inflation does. This is what co did with the inflation after co like this is where things are happening and show people where the increases are. You know it's one thing to hear yes health insurance went up 12%. And next year we expect it to go up 12%. But when you see
it on a graph, it's a whole lot more impact than if you just say the number. Because you know, if you come to the are you smarter than a sixth grader, there'll be a percent question. And people don't do well on those when you just give them the the words. They do better when you see them on graphs.
Yeah. And then to know what questions to ask, to know what to ask the town manager and the superintendent and the finance directors of both what data do you need to create those? That's important. All right. So, I'm just writing down here so I can actually see what we've
discussed with the membership. Um, we've had two proposals here. So, you said two Michael Ray, you said two select board members, two school committee members, one finance committee members. Renee said one select board member, two school committee. Do we need an oddity? Do we
need an odd number? I I would. Yes. So, I mean, two finance, two school, and then one member at large. Well, I have somebody from the select board. Well, there's one. Well, you can do one from select board. Yeah. And nobody no member at large. If you do two from select
board, then you have a member at large to make it an odd number, right? And then the question is how do you select a member at large? How moderate? The select board. Choose. Yeah. The select board. Yeah. Should I would argue they can submit a
talent bank form. There's a box for other. Then we're getting into a huge committee that we're going to have for seven. That's more than seven if we do. Well, that's seven voting. So, four for a quorum. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I have a migraine. So, I'm a little No. Keeping
in mind that school committee has to be on building committee. School committee member has finance committee. Select member also has to sit on a building. It is kind of overtasking the same core. school committee has a they have a lot of other if I were to take a shot I
would say that the the the select board member you need one they represent the town the town excluding the school one school committee member who represents the school two finance committee members who don't have a department to protect so they're there as finance and one citizen at large that would be the my
recommendation agree and yeah I I think that's good actually that's five I like five yeah that's why we were trying to keep it at five So, all right. So, one one and you have some very good finance committee members. How would we handle the staff the
staffers that are on the list? Would they be members just not voting members or would they just be asked to be they wouldn't be members so much as they would be required to attend when necessary? Just like the just like the town manager goes to the finance committee meeting. They're not required. They're not part of the finance
committee, but clearly they're very much involved. They don't have to go to every meeting. Generally, they're at 90% of Okay. So, yep. I like this idea. So, what what did we say? One select board, one school committee, two finance committee, one at large. Yeah, I think
that's good. Yeah, I think that's good. All right. So, sounds like we're going to settle on that for the membership. And then let's see what else here. Timeline is one thing that I wanted to talk about. Do we want it to operate in the same way? Do we really want to change section one general here
too much other than the timeline? Renee, what do you think? I haven't read this. Uh, yeah, I haven't put too much thought in this. I wasn't really prepared to go into it in detail tonight with the timeline as far as
forecast or what's Well, last year we had the recommendation no later than December 30th. Oh, December 31st. Yeah. Um I think it would be nice to have more regular updates just maybe not to every committee um all
the time maybe wrote to the select board maybe every other month or so I don't know you to not wait just like regular reports though. Yeah. Okay. Good to have the final report just for transparency final makes
sense as December the final for the end of the year something at special town meeting I mean we're going to start right away right we somebody well not you not you's hiding um
it's all yours Renee it's all yours Um, Amanda has a master plan challenge. So, I know. Oh, yeah. That's part of this. Um. Mhm. This doesn't have to be finalized tonight. I know we're just coming out of
town meeting, so we need to kind of transition. But election is in two weeks. And I think the meeting after the election, I would urge all committees that are going to be participating this to um identify their representative. Oh,
for sure. So, if I could make a suggestion, Mr. chairman allow folks little time to read what this is come to the next meeting with final plans of what we're going to do and then I can message that out to the other committees and we can advertise about the one
opening at large and then we'll be ready to maybe consider people at the meet first meeting after the election but at least we'll have some communications going after next week maybe this will be actually an opening that we can fill I think it will be there's a lot of trust
already. So if I may, Mr. the one thing I would ask uh I won't be here is I think it would be helpful, you know, something I'm thinking of something Jack Rabbit says uh which I've said several times, but that you need energy behind ideas to bring them to reality. And you
know, I think that what happened in the last report was a lot of really good ideas. Um but I it would be helpful if we can drill down on like action plans for some of this stuff. So that way it's not like who's going to pick this up and what's the timeline of them picking it up and how are they going to implement
it because I do think it will be a mistake you know with some of those revenue generating things I've talked about some of them I think it will be a mistake for them not to make it to the capital plan in the next couple of months and for them to not be in front of voters next year because asking people for money without exploring
revenue uh to me is it's is it's it's a non-starter. I have a question and maybe I'm just missing it again. Um, can we or should we consider putting in here as one of their tasks is to evaluate
like explicitly evaluate the the override and maybe I know it says it says looking at it, but I'm just wondering if we we make it more explicit explicit in terms of what we're looking at. Well, it does say it explicitly in the in the general. I think what what I
personally would like to see out of this is both maybe a one-time and a multi-year and evaluating what those would look like. That's what I would like to see in this next coming budget season to evaluate. Right? So, I'm not sure if that's something that we could or should consider putting in here,
right? Instead of saying that the fiscal plan shall consider as an example, Prop 2 and a half, etc. to actually say that one of the products that the task force produces this year is an override plan, a multi-year plan. I'm not I don't a
recommendation on on a Prop 2 and a half override. I I want to uh repeat something that I have heard at least one member of finance committee say and that there's a little bit of concern about talking about an override as if it's a
foregone conclusion. Right. I agree. Um Well, that's I'm not saying that the recommendation might be no, we can't do it after they do this full evaluation. I'm not saying that it should be yes or no. I'm just saying I think that I would like to see okay, what might that look like? And I think you've already
committed to doing that anyway, but I'm just not sure if it should be explicitly stated in here. I think as as as one of the two lame ducks on this board and potential citizen at large member, keep dreaming. I I will I will take the thing is that
yes an override question is to my knowledge undoubtedly on the on the ballot next year. I don't see how you could go into a million and then a $2 million deficit year one gets addressed the other one
doesn't and all all the accelerators that we're talking about like health insurance or anything are still on the table. How we don't get there. The real question is, and this to answer uh your question, uh Miss Moore, is that to have a multi-year plan is
exactly what's needed for an override, which is why I'm watch why I said earlier in the meeting, I'm not for on the ballot because we don't have that. You need to see where things are going to know what you need to do. And so they're all tied in together. Now, you
could put emphasis on them. I I for my say they're all listed here and they're each listed equally. I don't want to I don't want to tilt the task force unless you're going to call it an override task force one way or the other. But I would argue that you can't get to a Prop 2 and
a half solution without having to do all the other stuff that they're talking about here, which is a 5-year sustainable fiscal plan. A fiscal plan that shows the forecast as far as revenue and expenditures. You can't get to a product without doing
that. I think five years is really I forget I saw an interview with someone and said three years is if you can do a threeyear that's like the best you can hope for is three. They're like weather forecasts. I mean you can you can pretty
accurately do three days. Five days gets squishy, right? Year four and five start to get squishy. Squishy. I like squishy. You can do it, but it's just not as reliable. Well, they right. I mean, the margin of error grows exponentially the further you get away. Um, and the other
thing, you know, that I was thinking about was, okay, this is this is what the town would look like, like kind of a a tiered kind of a do you want the the silver, the gold, the bronze, what level, you know, to get to to get the town to this point, this is how much
you're looking at to get to the town to this point, it would be this amount. I don't think it's a single I agree 100%. That is an excellent point. Yeah, they need options. I think I just I I am sure there are going to be a lot of angry especially parents based on at
least what this current makeup of this board is. Three of us just said, you know, no, we're not closing a special election. I know that isn't going to be very popular. Um I wanted to just reiterate the commitment that we have that we have that we have made to
bringing this forward. I think everyone is sort of already here. So, you know, as long as it's it's we continue that commitment, we do the work. Um, I just want to reiterate the commitment and what I would like to see happen. So, I agree in terms of language, everything is pretty much captured here. Is there
anything else that we want to discuss changing for the charge at least tonight? I I think that and I don't know how to do it, but I think that one thing that would be really helpful is comparative analysis. Um, you know, when we talk, you know, by department with
other communities, like when you talk about, you know, impact of the school department, I want to know like, has it become normal for other school departments to have 28 kids in a classroom? Like, you know, what is everyone else doing? Like how how many other like how is everyone else structured? I think that there has to be
some compar. Same thing with police department, same thing with the fire department, same thing with DPW. like I think we need to do some form of analysis here when you come to the voters that says this is where everyone else is and this is where we are. Um cuz without that it feels like you're
shooting in the dark here. Well, we did a lot of that last year and in hindsight I we probably spent too much time doing that last year. Um we did a lot we collected a lot of the data. We you know across departments spent different I mean that's how this uh non-recurring I
forget that category that's how that came about. the data is lagging. It's like two years old what we can get. Um and so last year, you know, that 2-year-old data was just coming out of co it it
wasn't so this year we'll have one more year, but it's it's lagging. It's not it's not going to look at current day and I don't know how to get that because I look at Desi and DLS. I think that's all everybody has access to. Um, but I want to be careful because I I don't I
mean we can use what we got last year. Um, maybe Evan will come back. Um, and but I don't want to I I don't want to spend too much time going back and doing that. I want to I want to go forward. I want to have okay, we have
some data. I don't know what we can learn by doing that again that would influence where how we go forward. I think the community at large wants to know what they're getting. I mean, if we're going down the path of formulating an override or seeing what the three-year plan is. I
think that we I think they want to know what they're getting at the end of it and how does it stack with everyone else. And I think if if we as an example, I know this isn't true, uh, but if we identify that we have more police officers per person than every other town in Massachusetts, which we know is not a fact. We know that that's very
much so not true, you know, but we have a plan that's adding more police officers. Someone's going to say, "Well, why are we doing that?" I think we're rare that our fire department doesn't have a fourth shift. Oh, I know. Yeah, we know that. We know that. But I think some of that data that's that's one piece of I mean that kind So, okay,
maybe you've already collected the data and it's just a matter of being able to present it in a way that informs the voting population. You know, how this what are we getting at the end of this? If we go down this road, what do we get? I just I don't want to become victim of
paralysis by analysis here. Yeah. I think, you know, there's a good foundation for what the task force already did. I'm hoping that we can take that and just can, you know, now that we have now we have a town manager, what what does a staffing you can already tell where our
staffing needs are? What does that look like? Can we really seriously explore doing some kind of consolidation between town and school services of any kind? it uh you know mowing I anything because
that that's keeps coming up. Well, there's no savings there. How do we know that? And you know and capital effects. I we just approved you know a new heat pump air conditioning system. Their electric bills are going to go up. Yeah. And they're going to go
up quite a bit and I don't know if their budget reflects how much their electric bills are about to go up, you know. So I think some of it may be recommendations into the budgeting process as well that you know how do you when you make a capital request that you're demonstrate. So the I'm I'm probably too weedy here but these are things that I think would
be helpful. It does get into the weeds. Picking back off of what uh Mr. Jeffrey's just said one of the very clear requests from finance committee this year is they are looking for a standardization of the way materials are
presented to them so that all departmental budgets come in on the same forms and have the same types of backup and have the same data. Same thing with capital. So um I think you know having budget task force weigh in in that area
about what is best for standardization. So it's coming a little bit from a neutral as opposed to finance committee wants or capital planning committee wants but no we really looked in these are the best ways to present this data for a reason. Yeah that would be also the best way to present it to
the public too and any sort of doing any sort of statistical analysis on any data you need the data to be cohesive. There isn't a capital planning rep on here. That's okay. That's I mean a a because that was that that committee was also supposed to Well, because of all it
doesn't really matter because the capital planning committee except for the one member at large is a member of all the other committees anyway. So you'd be pulling from the same pool or so there's a select board member, finance committee member. So there's so those you don't they're all turning over
there's only going to be two three. No. Yeah. you're losing two members on capital. I mean, I think one of the things that's obvious and should be stated very clearly is that it's an aggressive. If we're going to do it by the end of the year, if this task force is going to do, it's an aggressive and it's all going to be hinged on two
things I believe. First of all, the membership. They have to have members who are willing to do the work and meet. And if you can't, if people are like, well, I got vacation, I got this, I got my kids, you know, that's going to be crazy. And second thing is to set in the first two meetings set a solid framework
that this is when this is what we're doing. This is how much time we have to do this and follow that aggressively. That means I think comparisons to other towns are critical. But that can't take the whole 6 months and you can't take 6 months to just look at revenue or I mean you got to say we're going to look at
this and you got to divide the work and not everything come from the town manager and the superintendent. You people have to get their own work as well. they have to look at other towns budgets or get to you know desi or get to DLS and pull data and find out what is the data that's important because if
you're going to depend on I'll just choose something that's a small if you're going to look at veterans benefits well that's a such a fraction of a town budget you don't have to do that right you got to look at schools and you got to look at DPW and you got to look at public safety and you know maybe even go down so far as library
which is also not a huge budgetary thing contracts that are coming out focus Oh, health insurance, that's a huge one. You know, salaries of course is a huge one, of course. And you know, so those are like 10 topics that you
choose, not you because you're not on I understand. And and salary comparisons, you know, between departments. Yeah. And that's where we can use again, we can use our HR person who did a salary range and we should ask them to assist it. just because they're not on the approved
employee list. We should pull as many people as we can for data as long as we don't overload any one of them. It and I've made it clear to department heads that, you know, a week or so to relax and then we're getting going on this. So, um, there that expectation has been
set that they're going to start really early and looking at everything. And this this is a great opportunity because there's a fresh budget that's just set and I can actually watch it in real time and see where where we can make some tweaks and
adjustments. But I think that they they are on board for this endeavor. Good. Yeah. cuz we're going to need them to for forecast where do they need to go, what what employee needs do they have, what project needs they have that that they don't have, what equipment needs they have that they don't that they see
in the next 5 years. So, right. All right. Moving on. Minutes. We do have one set March 11th. Have we had a chance to review these? It looks like it was just dropped in the drive. So, these were the I think they were dropped in over the weekend or last week, I think.
I just I made a change to there was a name change. Oh, I see. Okay. So, there was an update about a couple hours ago. Um, this is the set of minutes that was really difficult and these have been revised by the assistant town manager. Yeah, these are the ones from the joint
meeting, but folks haven't had time to review them. I have not I haven't reviewed them. Yeah, I did cuz they were in early enough. Things got added today I didn't get to. But this these I did. says it was modified 35 minutes ago. So that threw me off. I don't know about
35, but I added that it was a name of one of the registars of voters was just an X and her name is Karen Kemp. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Do we want to hold off on this one then? Fine with me. I'm fine with it.
I'm good. Ready to go. All right. Is there a motion then? I move that we approve the minutes of March 11th, 2025. Second. Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. Any abstensions? I.
The motion passes for with 4 Z with one abstension. All right. Warrants. Do we have any tonight? No. No. No warrants. Action items. So, I moved the action item tracker over and I also reformatted it so that it fits SharePoint instead of
Google Drive. So if you go to documents, I created a folder action items just so it's a little higher and easier to find. And then the tracker is there. So not in the meeting folder but in documents. Yes. And then you said what
was the next folder? Action items. So this is here. I don't know if we want to review it. I really just wanted to point your attention to it. Um, are there any new action items that we have tonight? I think we can take off the meter room
temperature. Yeah, it was completed. Oh, yeah. I think state of the organization was presented. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Are we Do we get um Oh, we didn't get an or chart. Yeah, that's why I left. Oh, yes. Yeah, we need that. Yeah. And then taxa investigation report. I guess we can close that out
next week. And then the other two things is the purge or the share drive that'll happen uh probably over the summer. That's a summer activity. Uh and then board specific handbooks which maybe we could discuss and maybe create a goal for that in the coming year. Uh because
that will require a lot of work. Um so we can discuss that a little more before we just start doing that. Um but yeah, any other action items? All right, committee reports.
School committee is uh so they had two superintendent candidate interviews last week. One last night and the fourth is tonight and they'll be meeting tomorrow and I believe hope to have a decision tomorrow night. Oh, for the superintendent. Did I What did I say? Did I not say you said super I think I I
just saying I know you checked out already. So Wow. It's my last meeting with you. All right, I'll give you some slack. Um, yeah. So, I think that's and storm
water will be meeting uh couple week after next. Storm board is meeting right now. You have a lot of storm water this week. Yes. I have no reports. I also have no reports. No reports. I
think I made them all at town meeting. I don't either other than uh the Boston Post came yesterday uh which I have already mentioned. All right, upcoming meetings. So, we have a bunch of events. Just a reminder, uh this Friday is Are you smarter than
our sixth graders? And this Saturday is the all vendor fair and then we're meeting next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that. And I'll also add that the annual town election is on May 17th, Saturday, May 17th. Any public comments
from the town manager? Uh, no. Any public comments from the public? Mr. Mlap. No. Thought you were going to come out for a second. Uh, Mr. Lachlan. Thank you. Uh, TJ Laughlin, 207 Rolling Acres Road. Uh, first quick
question. Mr. Alonzo, you said 1.5 million was lost um before the assessors. Does this mean that Lunberg's tax levy went up by $1.5 million after that change? I was a little confused on how that works.
Um my understanding is the town can only draw up to that levy. Um so even if the property values change, you can't go more than that, right? So I'm curious how the town gained. So, I'll just I'll just answer that real quickly. No, it didn't impact the tax levy at all. The
$1.5 million that Mr. Alonzo was talking about came out of free cash for the most part, I believe. Oh, no. It was it was taxes that were abated, therefore not therefore not collected. Oh, I see. So, it doesn't affect the levy, but because
the abatements were successful, those property owners, that money that their taxes got abated did not get assigned to anyone else. And so, it just was not collected for that year. Gotcha. So the the change in taxes was the abatements. I gotcha. Okay. Um so
now the the fun one I guess um the decision, you know, not to put on the ballot and for the reasons I think that you guys decided not to put on the ballot. Um may maybe I'm wrong in this, but my understanding is you guys are the
executive body of the town. Um, you know, in my understanding is that means you execute the will of the citizens. You don't execute the will of the select board. Um, I I think you're supposed to ensure
that what we decide as citizens at town meeting is carried out throughout the year. Um, it seems like that's not what we're doing here. uh that you know secondly the finance committee makes recommendations they don't make
decisions right this the citizens make decisions we pass the budget it's our legal decision to do that so I know the boards didn't agree but it doesn't mean those were
decisions legally um and the other half I think of of what I heard is it passed by only two votes. Really interesting statement there. Um what is the purpose of town meeting? What does that phrase say about
town meeting? That our votes don't matter unless unless we get 2/3 votes. Unless we get 10% more than the required legal limit. So if you need 2/3, you need to get 10% more than 2/3. If you need 50% or more than 50%, you need to
get 10% more than 50%. Like what does that mean to say it's only two votes? If only the ballot matters, which is what I heard today because we don't have the right citizens there at town meeting, then why should
citizens waste any time at town meeting? Why should we go waste 8 hours if we're saying those those votes don't matter? Do we act as a town and as a select board leadership? Do we act only on the
things that pass that align with the select board's will? Is that what this is that what this means? And and the citizens can't even change the capital plan. What we heard
was don't lower the weed bill or the wheat project by $50,000 because the boards could still choose to fund those projects because there's no control from the citizens
to actually affect which capital projects we fund. So, I'm a little concerned, I think, by the decision that quote town meeting didn't change anything for the select
board. It's an overstep, I think, of authority. Uh, and I've never said those words ever in my life, and I never thought I'd have to, but that's what it seems like. And if I'm wrong, I'm happy to adjust my
opinion, but I'm not sure it's wrong. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lachlin. Uh, Miss Long. Hi, everybody. Um, thank you for the opportunity to comment. I He just took the words out of my mouth.
Um, I think that when you have 96 people at town meeting, being present for that many hours and investing their time into the
town, however they participated, they voted. They wanted that override put in a special election. And when you guys are talking about it, I don't think you made any official ruling about it tonight. But I listened to you select board members, the few of you who said
that the vote and the town meeting didn't sway you. It felt not good listening to you guys say that. It felt tyrannical in a way. Not to be dramatic, but it's like you're saying, "Yeah, just two votes. those 96
people, let's just ignore them. That's like saying don't bother to show up where I'm looking at it as the town is in such a predicament financially. And I know that our town cannot be successful unless we get more
town involvement, more people interested in what's going on. It's so easy to be distracted by our lives and to ignore and just let people, the officials, just make decisions willy-nilly without That's not what I want to say. You guys are not making decisions willy-nilly.
What I'm saying is you can make these decisions and while there isn't many people participating, you're not really hearing the voice of the town and what they want, but now you're starting to hear it. People show up, they show a passion, there's things that are important to
them, they vote on them, and then you can just go ahead and make these comments that, yeah, no, that didn't sway me. No, I'm going to stand by how I feel. Doesn't matter. I think that what you guys really should do is use your
positions of power to just get the override on the ballot for a special election so that people know they have a choice. It's not saying override's going to pass. And if you guys are scared that it will, it's like saying, "Well, we
don't want the community to make that choice. We don't want them to have their voice. We want what we want because we feel like we've got a better idea of what we're going to do." But guess what? Your way is not fast enough for the schools. If it is fast enough, then plenty of people will show up and vote
on the way you want them to vote. But you're not working fast enough for us. Okay? like too many staff members are going to get dismissed and the schools are just going to get worse and worse and we're going to be that town with many other Massachusetts towns that can
sit there and say, "I'm sorry. Like, our schools aren't very good right now." And you know what? They're just going to keep getting worse. You guys just do your job. Do what the people asked. They showed up. They used their right to vote and they are showing that they want the
opportunity. That's what I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Long. Mr. Bowen. Hi. How's everybody doing? Uh, John Bowen, 162 Highland Street. Uh, everybody hear me clear enough? We can. Thank you. Um, Miss Long and Mr.
Laughlin. Um, I'd like to hearken uh the same sentiment. So, I don't know if you uh really understand uh the process of how some things work in this town. So, um, the select board could have taken your citizen petition and asked for a
vote of the town for a passover. And I don't know if you know what that is, but um, I sure do because it almost happened and it's the particular motion that I presented that it was going to be presented by the select board to pass over um, the warrant article which I, as
a citizen presented. And this is what um I was saying about when is it that the people in the town of Lunenburgg are going to be the ones to make the decisions for the people by the people. If not, then why is it that we have not turned ourselves over to a government
with a city council and warrants and actually we actually have the numbers to be able to put a vote together to be able to do that. And then we would have to ask for representation from our particular ward uh elected officials to do that. And like I said, and I'll say
it again, that it's the people that control the money in Lunenburgg, but the select board has some discretion, which they gave themselves to be able to take those things away from the citizens. And if you read through the rules, policies,
and things like that, you'll see that there's a lot of that that's going on. And what ends up happening is exactly what's happening now. The two of you are quite dismayed, Miss Long and Mr. Laughlin. I'm not. I seen it coming. I've been watching it for 5 years. And I
can tell you that when the people start to speak and want to speak, you will be suppressed by the current direction and policy of this government. And we need to have our say for it is for the people, by the people. Not for the
people, by the select board to change what the people want. Majority vote is 94 96. That's majority. And that means that the select board has a duty to be able to honor what the people ask. And if they choose not to, then that's why
we have elections. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bowen. Mr. Pacios, I see you have your hand risen. Yes. Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. I've had a little trouble with internet up here. Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. Uh first of all, Dave
Pacios of uh Jefferson, New Hampshire, previously Whiting Street Loenberg. Um but still a citizen of the United States, thankfully. Um first of all, there's been shout outs or many shout
outs early in the meeting here as to the people that made town meeting work as well as it did. Uh, I want to put an additional uh, shout out to the cafeteria staff. The layout that they put out for the
citizens to uh, help get them through the day uh, at least through part of the 8 hours uh, nourished uh, was fantastic. I I feel they did a really good job. I've never had such a fresh salad in my life. U, anyway, I I won't extend the
night any longer on that issue. Um I'd like to make a comment that you know in your conversations about u the committee the task force to uh go forward from uh after elections
uh there was a lot of we need this information we need that uh they need to do this they need to do that. My personal feeling and I think you heard it at town meeting. The expectation of the citizens was that the select board
would do this work last year that now needs to be done this coming year. You're the executive branch. between the executive branch, the financial uh paid employees of the town and the
school department um school board and their finance people. I think those are the people that should be bringing um a budget and budget outlook for the next 5 years forward.
And you should be able to, and I've talked to other people that uh are in budgetary industries, you should be able to put a basic budget together by June 1. Yeah, it won't be up to date with
changes that may come along along the way, but you can put the basic budget together and extrapolate it out a number of years based on contract so on and so forth and estimated increase in cost uh so on and so forth. So then you have
your base budget. You can make the calculations on what 2 and a half is going to give you for additional revenues. um new growth. We always play with that number and we never get it right. We always uh estimate it low. So, you know,
just estimate it the same with a small increase every year. Uh this should not be passed off on to uh an appointed committee. This is your job to bring the town forward. And I
tasked you last year over uh right after elections to number one get over your differences and bring the town forward out of the hole we were in. You only brought us partway out of the hole. You didn't deal with the financial piece of
it. And I think it's your responsibility and our finance department, our department heads. Those are the people that have the data available that you keep talking about this ad hoc committee is going to need to get their hands on. Those people already have all that
information. Why does there need to be a handoff of it? uh if you want to put a committee together, some of the complaints I've also heard from the previous speakers was how the town operates and we've talked about that or many of us have talked about it for a
number of years that the charter of this running the town of Lunenburgg has multiple issues. If you want to see the committee, see the committee that is going to start looking at the revisions of the charter that's going to be needed
to bring about the reorganization of the town so it runs the way it should. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Pasios. All right. Any public comments from the board? I do. This is my last I won't be here next
week, so it's my last meeting with Mike Ray and Tom. Um, so I will save my thank yous and goodbye, I guess. I'm sure you guys uh aren't going to disappear. Um,
but seriously, I want to I want to thank um both of you for the time on this board and several other boards, committees, commissions. Um, I know how much time both of you have put in and Tom I think is it 20
years? 18. Okay. 18 over 20. Almost two decades. Um, that's a it's a it's a lot of time and I I know the work it takes. I know the sacrifices you and and friends and family have to
make to to give up um some time. So, um I just I want to say thank you both and um expecting to see you probably out there or at the podium or
some other committee or toll booth in town. Um but seriously, thank you for for all your time and your effort and your commitment to the town. Thank you. Any other public comments from the
board? I do have one. Um I just have another comment that I've been thinking about about about the um the vote at town meeting on the override that I wanted to say. Um we heard tonight from multiple speakers, you talking about the citizens. I just want to remind everyone that we are also citizens of this town.
Um that we're volunteers that we're here on our own and I know that we are all trying our trying our best. Um town meet town meeting is really important. I respect that. Um, but I still believe a vote on a non-binding article doesn't replace the due diligence that the voters expect from this select board
before we place a before we place a permanent tax increase on the ballot. I still believe that we need more time um and stronger coordination across all departments to do this right. So when we do ask for an override, which I do believe we should, um that we have a plan that the whole community can rally
around. I know emotions are high and I'm sure we're going to continue to have um these discussions, but the decision that I made was made with care and not disregard or disrespect. Um just like at the state level, citizens can advocate for legislation, but they can't place it on a ballot without following a
structured process of support from elected bodies and officials. The same principle applies locally. Um the select board is elected to review proposals, weigh townwide impacts, and ensure fully vetted and financially responsible things move forward. Um, a citizens petition alone doesn't
bypass that process. It starts a conversation, but it doesn't guarantee a ballot question. That's not undemocratic or overstepping in my opinion. It's just our government and how it works. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I that was the only uh
comment I wanted to make as well was just I know that we you know I don't want without getting to the content just to inform um that you know based on how we um how we are structured the ballot uh just the warrant is approved by the
select board. The ballot is also approved by the select board. There is an expectation that there's some supervision over that process, some analysis that goes into it. Um but as um my colleague just stated um a citizen's petition does not have the ability to do
in and of itself a prop two and a half override or a debt exclusion or anything else that requires a ballot question that it is, you know, part of when people go out and vote and they vote for members to be on the select board. What they're voting for is for the members of
the board to execute a certain level of judgment and part of that judgment is what makes it to the warrant and what makes it to the ballot. We've had some members express the opinion in the past that anything that comes before them is getting on the warrant and getting on the ballot. Um, I have never held that
position and I have actively discouraged people from holding that position because I think the level of oversight this board needs to provide uh is is builtin and critical. I also want to acknowledge a comment from Mr. Pacios uh which is that the next time the charter is reviewed, the charter identifies how
we operate as a community. Uh, and it would be great to get some community engagement because clearly what we're hearing from some members of the of the community is that they want more um um control as a resident, as a member of the legislature. Uh, that the
legislature wants more control over uh what happens and some of the authority and power that's been given to the select board and to the town manager. And the charter review process is the way to change that power balance. Um and so there is a way to correct it um if
people think a correction is needed. But I just want to highlight and educate that that's just you know it is the way we're structured. Again we respect the legislative body. Um but we are you know separate but equal in certain ways. Um and and the separate part you know and
the equal part is there is a level of uh judgment that this board can employ uh when it comes to these questions and that is wholly within the authority of the board. All right. Thank you very much. So, we do have an executive session. So, I'm going to make a motion to enter executive session. We won't be
re-entering open session. So, I just want to thank everyone for tuning in tonight. We will be back next week. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your night. And with that, I move to enter into executive session and not re-enter open session after exiting executive session pursuant to MGL chapter 30 section
21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on a litigating position of the public body. And this is with respect to the national prescription opiate litigation. Second. Any additional discussion? This will be a roll call vote.
Renee I. Tom I. Amanda I. Michael Ray. Hi. And an I for myself. We are now in executive session.