it was nothing last week where should we BR that up it was the we didn't have a meeting last two weeks ago you mean two weeks the revenue turn policy business I don't know what that is cuz I didn't proper I mean so that I know just all right yeah it two weeks ago this is not going to be on there all right good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting the lunberg select board today is Tuesday April the 23rd 2024 please stand for the pledge allegiance I I pledge to the flag 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 though 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 we'll be uploaded to the lber access YouTube Channel after the meeting the agenda list all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law we're to begin this evening with public comments do we have any public comments from the board Mr chair I just want to say that uh it is this Friday that the 10th anniversary are you smarter than a sixth grader fundraiser uh I am very honored and privileged to be hosting for the 10th year and I did notice as I thought about this that uh the first one we we missed two because of covid so the first year we did this the kids who are sixth graders either were like one year old or weren't even born so that's scary to me to think about in those terms but we wish everybody had come out to the high school it starts at 7 doors open at 6:30 it clearly it's it's free to attend we need all the enthusiasm we can get and of course it is a fundraiser so I'd be remissed to say it you know there are ways online through the Boys and Girls Club of luneberg's uh Facebook page and web page to donate and we look forward to seeing everybody there and have a very successful event as we had uh in the past years thank you uh I'm going to do this this is a public announcement as well um so Eagle house supporters uh which is the nonprofit that ra raises funds to support uh Eagle house that that is the adult Activity Center it supports programming uh purchase of equipment um Furniture Etc they are uh searching for they are in search of a president and Treasurer that's two different people not one person saving th uh serving those two roles they have asked Jamie tol of supportive business alternatives to assist with uh Recruitment and coordination of uh filling those roles and if anyone is interested I'm sure there's going to be more on this on on uh the the various Facebook pages uh the message will get out there via a flyer Jamie will be pushing that out uh but you can in if you are interested reach out to jam toll at uh Jamie jam.com uh or his number is 617 365 4612 thank you all right and uh my com public comment I would like to end a very happy birthday to the town manager you didn't have to do that wish the happy part of the birthday party and he promises we will be out of here by 11: thank you all right and um yeah mine's at the end of the week all right and any public comments from the public I think I heard from uh Mr Bowen on the way up that he has one so Mr Bowen thank you [Music] hi John Bowen 162 Island stream G Marie price she's with me um I'm just going to go in real quick I have an email to read uh Mr Jeff I just might need an extra minute um I'm here to discuss the chat provision of article 3 3-5 A and B as a redundancy and a conflict with the power and duties of the Town manager making that portion of this Charter severable under the severability Clause of the charter I've mentioned this before I have a letter here from attorney general uh of a response from Adam Costa on behalf of the town on behalf of you uh Miss Town manager for an action of buing the buac brothers by the commission from working in the cemetery it is clear from this letter the cemetery commission is a redundency which hasn't any powers or duties but all work is done by the DPW by the direction of the Town Mania I'm going to read that email this is uh an email from Adam Costa to attorney poke at the Attorney General's office it says I am Town Council for the town of lunenberg as you know I responded to another inquiry of yours on Thursday I am in receipt of your further email below sent to cemetery commission chairperson Nancy Fasco I have since consulted with the town to gain a better understanding of the facts and circumstances underlining the complaint you have received below is the information reported to me uh with my legal citations were appro to assist I won't read the legal citations he just cited a u the ecode 360 uh regarding the commission's alleged borrowing of buac brothers from performing future work in the North and South cemeteries be advised that legally the commission has no such Authority first pursuant to the town chter the day-to-day care and maintenance of the cemetery shall be under the supervision of the Town manager cited in code second and again pursuant to the chat of the Town manager not the commission has full jurisdiction over the use of all Town facilities and property except property under the control of the school committee and the Conservation Commission so cited third yet again per the CH of the Town manager is the town's Chief procurement officer and as such is responsible for procuring all services supplies material and equipment for all departments and activities of the town in the manner provided in general laws so cited in ecode thus it is the town manager not the commission who would vet and select from prospective biders on a public contract to complete Landscaping work whether under general laws Chapter 30 section 39m or general laws chapter 30b the commission has no authority to solicit select or terminate vendors with respect to buac Brothers the town manager has not barred and I thank you for that the or blacklisted the company from any future bidding process regarding potential construction of a cemetery wall there is no bidding process underway uh on the particular project there has been no request for proposals issued and there is no contract being awarded rather there has been some discussion about a wall by the commission and the commission performed preliminary work to identify the anticipated cost of construction of a stone wall I.E in compliance with prevailing wage law so the commission may pursue advocate for funding at present however no funding has been appropriated or allocated let me know if you require further information does somebody see the contradiction the town manager is in charge but they said that the cemetery commission is doing the work of the Town manager and this is the problem if I may um the as a result of this uh Miss Town manager I am asking you that you need to get reimbursed uh pursuant to sections 15- 25 of chapter 114 of all monies that this town has paid in tax for the care of the cemetery since 2001 that's a substantial amount of money that money is in the treasury presently that is in ezekiel's control um the DPW is responsible for all that work through the cemetery superintendent as I have mentioned before through the collective baring agreement which you signed because you are the procurement officer you're are also the chief Collective bargainer for that okay and you need to really take charge of the operations and stop sitting back and tell people in this town you are not to do that you are to do this and stop sitting there saying why can't we all just get along this is a mantra that this town doesn't need it needs debate it needs Challenge and Mr Franco raised that at the caucus why are there not enough challenges well if you want to write my name in for Cemetery commission I promise to dissolve it my name is John Bowen 162 Highland Street thank you thank you Mr Bowen do we have any other public comments from the public this evening Mr Burton George buron 39 you have to just repeat it after the microphone George Burton 39 Courtland Circle just wanted to address the January 9th meeting that you had and um couple more things that kind I want to address there um last meeting I asked you Mr Jeff about an attorney that you might use at your homeowners associate um property um management company I was wondering if you could tell us if you can't tell us who it is it wasn't the one that I named maybe you can tell us who it is this is a public comment Mr will not answer right but you answered last time and saying it wasn't yours so you did answer that question um but it's just interesting that sometimes you will answer sometimes you will not that is correct sometimes I will answer your questions Mr buron and most of the time I will not you will not because it probably you know puts you in some bad light right it becomes a back and forth between it becomes a bad light why don't you just answer who who the attorney is for your your your property management I'm here as a be public right you don't want to tell me because I think it's involvement Mr um Franco you wanted to give me a litness test which we understand honestly but we want to go over a situation you you told us at that meeting you said at that meeting that the the town has no authority over our HOA right our homo Association where I'm being build everybody $20,000 for violations seems a little outrageous but um we we'll take care of that issue but Mr Jeff you mentioned that that town has no no authority over that Association however we have 100 acres approximately 100 acres in a conservation um area that's been set aside by by the the town we have a trustee that has not given us the books and records for over 10 years that we've asked for we have a trustee that took an eth of an acre of our common land took the buffer out of the the took the buffer out of the the the around the the HOA and made it his own land what do you guys going to do about that nothing Mr B that's a planning Mr Burton we've offered for you to come here and talk with us you have de you continue to make a came here and you you chose when I was not here to persecute me you chose to persecute me and my family and it's not right Mr Jeff we have a lot of issues and you know what they are and you're going to say you have no issues about our HOA where we have a trustee that has chopped down and and and ruined our common land that is a buffer to the outside property that the the the town has has put that planning special planning law in in place are you protecting this individual because you are you the town manager in the town will not give me videotape from the library where this this gentleman has lied on a 911 call about my family and put my family in a safety and and safety issue created a hostile and a safety issue and you guys refuse to give me that tape to to show that that can prove the issue why why would you do that and then you protect this individual and and you protect him why I'd love to know that why I don't even know who you're talking about Mr B you don't know who I'm talking about I have no idea talking abouta no okay you have no idea huh I think I've said it three times want going to say it a fourth time I have no idea who you're talking about Mr you have no idea about the whole situation that's going on in our HOA no I'm aware of what you've advised me of Mr Burton and again if you want to talk about it now cons government is with the consent of the government so if you can point to any bylaw any provision in the charter that says that the select board has authority over HOAs in town you are describing a civil matter which we've discussed to you several times do not have authority over the your Comics the conservation land in our HOA answer that question Mr Burton I've already said do you no authority over that conservation land do you have any other comments this evening no I don't but you can't even answer that question thank you do we have any other public comments from the public tonight all right seeing none we're going to go to announcements any announcements this evening no all right so Communications from other the boards I see we have a representative from the Water District [Applause] how you doing Mark bur Tony Buttonwood Place commissioner for lonberg water district uh they the we had a big long update but I'm going to just keep it short and sweet um as part of our public education for the P Outreach to to the community uh we have a planned community meeting coming up this Thursday we've already had a couple of them we've had some with the town boards and we had another one uh with uh residents from the Hickory Hills area and the townwide one is this Thursday April 25th uh at 6:30 at the high school it will be televised I encourage anybody that can attend to at least watch the meeting after the fact it's going to have some new updated information uh which we've been working very hard at uh trying to come up with the most coste effective comprehensive way to treat pasas uh along with the community meetings we've developed a newsletter we have over 1300 subscribers uh the district has issued its first newsletter yesterday containing educational information about pasas and how pasas infiltrates the water and what the district plans to do about pasas and the public drinking water supply the district will continue to utilize the social media and traditional media to share information about pasas anybody that wants to sign up for this uh newsletter can go to our website lunenberg water.com real tough one lunenberg water.com and I believe there's a popup now that you can sign in your email and you'll automatically get these newsletters um that's about all I got for you guys tonight uh I am I am going to be looking for it some point where where you're the highest board in town and all the town buildings use Town water um I would think that the select board might want to weigh in on what the water district is is doing and and give their opinion whether they support or don't support it uh I would assume that the a lot of the residents in town would be looking to you as the elected officials and and value your opinion um whether you like what we're doing as the water district and our plan or not so again I'd uh like to see I hope to see all of you on uh Thursday I know you have very busy schedules uh but it it should be a very good information informational meeting uh the goal is to get as much out at this meeting and and answer as many questions as we can so that when it comes to our meeting scheduled for May 16th May 16th that we don't have a long drawn out meeting with a lot of the same questions so the goal is to answer as many questions as we can this Thursday um feel free uh I know that some residents have been contacting the superintendent directly uh we've received letters we've answered those letters we encourage people that that have questions to reach out and we'll do our best to answer those questions uh it's a a very big item it's a lot of money and um based on now the um government the EPA has now dropped the allowable limit to four parts per trillion the de which is the mass regulatory Authority will have to adopt that and then we're look at about 5 years maybe 6 years to where we're are going to have to respond to that our current plan has us responding in about four years so we're ahead of the game right now we've done a lot of work to try to make this as affordable as we can to the residents again this is going to be a mandate so it's something that we have to take care of thank you and hope to see you guys step away Mr bur sir um what time is the meeting on the 16th because this is a meeting and a vote this is a meeting and a vote I believe it'll be 6:30 as well yeah 6:30 as well that will be a meeting and a vote it'll be a vote on a specific on accepting the srf funding which is still kind of a moving Target we're working on on uh how much will be available to us and what we can apply it to um and it it it won't be on the entire master plan because we are going to have to go through another round of applying for funding another round of another vote for to continue the plan so it's not when people look at um it's about a 42 455 million um budget it's pretty big but we're looking at about 32 will be this vote is the approximate value so um hope to see everybody there any other quick questions I can answer is that the only question on the warrant for that meeting the that's going to be the only question on the on the warrant is going to be I believe right now currently we are just voting on one scenario we aren't we aren't trying to do two scenarios we haven't finalized the warrant yet for that meeting but the I believe the goal and what we're thinking of right now is just one question without any options and do you have information um about the average cost per uh customer yes we'll have all of that on Thursday I don't have it handy uh we do have it broken down by quarter uh I believe our best option is to go for 30 years uh to stretch this out to to reduce the impact to the public um so that's kind of you know I realize the cost is a is a is a big issue okay so thank you thank you very much chair yeah you're okay and I might I might come back you know once we have the meeting Thursday I definitely we be back before we have our meeting I I encourage the board to reach out uh to the superintendent with any questions I would like to so some come to some point where the board either supports what we're doing or or doesn't I think that um in order for us to weigh in on it we'll have to get us you know basically your whole information packet y if you can for that over to the board and I'm sure that if you can remind us what are the additional dates of of the public education component so you have this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. and that and other than that we will have uh public comment and some discussion probably at our regular meetings but we have few and far between that and then we will have the the meeting in May and then lunenberg water.com and lunenberg water.com yep uh the meeting on Thursday will be recorded So I encourage people to watch that meeting I will uh talk with the superintendent and have him forward you the um informational packet that goes along with that meeting any questions he's he's there and he's he's been talking about this a lot so he's ready if you have any questions all right right thank you very much have a good even you to so Mr chair with the request I mean it's not often that we get a request to weigh in on the lunenberg Water District events but I I think we should probably schedule something you know I I would probably say no later than after the the our next meeting after town meeting to that'll give it two weeks lead time to their meeting and invite the Commissioners and the and the superintendent to discuss this if they're honestly looking for our opinion and since it does affect Town buildings and lots of residents not every resident but lots of residents so all right um we can discuss that and figure out a date that would work I I can think that that Tuesday right after town meeting I know that I'm not going to be here but um I'll see if the Tuesday before the election Mr frink's unfortunate last meeting with us if that would be an opportunity time okay any other Communications from other boards all right we're going to go to our um let's see I'm going to jump here we're to go to appointments reappointments and resignations ratification Town maners appointment uh of police officer Joel Ortega thank you I'll ask the chief to come forward to read his letter please all appreciate it um thank you thank you for having us again tonight uh this is an exciting night for us uh just a quick Shameless plug We are the champions of um are you smarter than the sixth grader just want to let that know we will have a team there on Friday I do have a couple Representatives here that were on that team all right um uh thank you again for having us as you're aware Devon O'Brien has accepted a position with the Massachusetts State Police his resignation was effective April 19th of 2024 we are fortunate to have somebody ready to go a Reserve officer who has completed the Bridge Academy which uh brings him up to the training of a full-time officer um he completed that within a relatively short period of time and completed the hours that were required I am pleased to recommend uh Reserve officer Joelle Ortega for an appointment to the position of a full-time officer officer Orga has completed all the training requirements um in accordance with Department Poli policy uh the Massachusetts uh Municipal police training committee uh the peace officer standards and training commission um and the Bridge Academy like I I stated earlier he has received a waiver from the nptc which exempts him from attending the requirements of attending a basic recruit Academy officer T has successfully completed a background investigation pre-employment physical and the psychological examination he has also completed the Departments required 250 hours of field train training um AA has been with us um since 2021 when he was a Reserve officer and we appointed them back then he is commitment is evident as he continues to take Cruiser shifts test shifts prison watches and details when they're offered to him um he often volunteers his time uh to the department and to the community uh recent events as the the senior barbecue at the Eagle house uh the annual Memorial Day services and Rec recently the Earth Day cleanup uh he was part of the cleanup crew officer OA is a resident of fitzburg and graduated in 2013 from lmsa high school school Center of uh technical education and Innovation he is also a 2018 graduate of mausa Community College where we obtained a degree in an associates degree in criminal justice um I'm going to start using this first name Joelle is uh fluent in two languages English and Spanish um as previously stated when I appointed him as or had him appointed as a Reserve officer he was well thought of um he was it was stated that he was one of the best human beings on the planet I I would have to attest to these statements um working with them and seeing them at scenes and dealing with the public it is just outstanding um he's a great fit with our department um and I would be remissed if you didn't see that infectious smile when he walks in the door and it just makes brightens everybody's day um we had offered him a full-time position about a year and a half ago and it just didn't work out for him family situation um I am ecstatic that he's able to take this position now and accept the um an offer of a full-time position um I'm pleased to present Joel thank you chief for those kind words um put it nice and quick thank you for this opportunity um completely blessed to be here have this awesome step forward in this career uh couldn't do it without my wife there big support there from the family and my local staff the chief Lieutenant my colleagues here to support me thank you thank you so much as well as you guys thank you thank you do I have any questions or comments from the board just have a comment that it's you know as people leave to go to other places as with who you're replacing it's nice to see The Reserve officer troop being so ready and for people like yourself being prepared uh to step in so quickly I'm glad the second opportunity came for you and again it's a testament to the hiring practices of the police department wish you good luck thank you no questions but I will second what Mr Alonzo said and just glad that you were ready to jump in so I just want to thank you for the service you've already rendered to the town and and for stepping you know being able to step into this role now U so thank you here here I have full confidence that you will uh you're already a good part of the team I have full confidence that you will thrive in this role so I moved to ratify the town Manor's appointment of Joel Ortega to the position of uh full-time police officer second any other discussion all right this is always an exciting opportunity in people's lives that's usually a comment I make during these uh during these moments but I know that we had the chance with you in your initial appointment to kind of to go through it all so I know that for your family this is a a definitely a memorable day uh and and well deserved so uh this going to be all in favor please say I I I those oppose no congratulations thank you thank you all right thank you and please to Mrs ortego don't feel obliged to stick around for the whole meeting if you don't want to thank you [Music] all right and chief my only request is uh if you look at the three guys who were on that team last year maybe one or two of them are going to be off this Friday so we can have a chance them have to work all right we're going to go to our uh 7:15 appointment this is an update from uh our DPW director Bill Bernard and uh chapter 90 funding and Road drainage projects good to see you Mr Bernard glad to be here right in the way move it a little bit so I can actually see all right you have the slide so I put together a slideshow so we'll start with what is chapter 90 so chapter 90 is monies that the uh the state gives us um under the Mass General Law chapter 90 surprise um it provides funding to municipalities to uh do Capital Improvements on roadways and every city and town gets a portion of it so the funding levels are established by the Massachusetts legislature every year um and it's distributed again to all 351 municipalities um it hasn't changed it's been $200 million per since 2012 been rather flat there's um been a big Push by cities and towns to have that increase but um so far no not yet well I think the state's telling you that road costs have been flat for the last 12 years obviously all right so how much do we receive so they have a formula based on road miles and population and employment so in fiscal 20 we had 456,000 21 was 415,000 22 was 44 almost 15,000 23 was um 420,000 more or less uh 24 this year we got 418 but I think because of that Push by the cities and towns they came up with a couple of new programs one was called the fair share program and another one was Royal roadways program so we did get a little more funding there and talk about those programs a little bit so again this year we got the the regular allotment which was 418,000 and we got 240,000 from fair share and almost 22,000 from the rural roads program so the fair share was an amendment to the State Constitution that provided resources for education and Transportation uh through additional taxes on uh people who make over a million dollar per year and then the rollal roads program uh was another Act of the legislation that uh to support construction and reconstruction of Municipal ways mostly on rural rural communities but it was shared to all communities and that those funds can be used for any chapter 90 program any any project so how much do we have right now so between the F fy20 and and now we've spent $890,000 but we do have $2 million to spend right now so what can chapter 90 funding be used for it's uh quite the list so anything basically anything related related to roads and um you know drainage and uh anything on a road guard rails shoulder sidewalks and any kind of road maintenance if you're Paving or crack sailing um anything to do with traffic so pavement markings um signs traffic signals it can also be used for uh Bridges and coverts and there's a few other um you know right away Acquisitions towards um building a new road say or or building a a new bridge something like that and you can use it for Street lighting and tree planting we can also use it to purchase certain equipment so again big list um you know anything from back hoses air compressors concrete mixers excavators generators um larger trucks sweepers basically anything that you use to uh construct or maintain a road it can also be used for um hiring design Engineers for to design projects to improve your roads or build New Roads and it can be used for uh planning purposes and can also be used for uh um garages to to house your road building equipment and a few other things so fig coulded talk about how chapter 90 works so U mot is uh takes the um they handle the money so they provide guidance and assistance they manage uh contracts and accounts with the towns and they Supply pre-qualification for bidding and they distribute the uh reimbursements for the work that we do so what the town has to do we have to plan and prioritize our projects we have to submit that project to Mard for their approval before we go ahead with it uh we have to hire consultants and contractors to do the work and we have to oversee the work and then once the work's done we have to submit a a request for reimbursement for the work so I I just touched on that a little bit again um we have to put in a project request now we have to make sure if we're using the chapter 90 money that the contractors that are doing the work are pre-qualified by mass do and then we do the work we oversee it and then we ask for reimbursement all right so the next bunch of slides are how I propose we're going to spend the money so fiscal year 24 which is what we're in now I've put in a request for just over $700,000 to do the milling and Paving on lemons Shirley Road uh and Pioneer Drive in Fort Point Fort Pond Road which that work started last night and it's it's again tonight and tomorrow night the Milling portions and then we have to do some drainage work uh next week and then the first week in May at night we'll be Paving so just a heads up to Residence if you can avoid that area while we're working it's it's it's best we we'll get you through but you might be delayed uh also in Fisco 24 um want to purchase an air compressor and then you know Jackhammer and other implements to go with that I've got enough a few quotes on that so I'm close to doing that and would spend some money on the engineering for sidewalk improvements in uh new sidewalks that the uh school committee had requested on Chestnut Street to get the kids from the high school over to Marshall Park safely all right fiscal 25 H so every year we get it on July 1st or give or take we get new money so I've conservatively just put 415,000 because that's about what we've been getting so I've plugged that in uh to every year for the next five years hopefully it's more but um so next year um proposing to spend some money on the our payment management plan um and for drainage improvements at a at least three locations and then hopefully by then we have a contract put together to start the sidewalk repairs and the new sidewalks so the right I said we're going to use some for the pavment management but we do have our own money for payment management so um in fisal 25 it would be $550,000 and every year it goes up by $50,000 with the goal of reaching a million dollar so this uh graph shows in fisal 25 will will need chapter 90 money uh $699,000 um that's based on estimate put together by our consultant that did our um pavement management plan they estimated how much we're going to spend each year so you can see we we need our regular money our operational money and it needs to grow and we need need to supplement it with the chapter 90 funds all right fisal 26 so I have uh drainage repairs into a bridge and covert repairs so right now we have a consultant working for us putting together a bridge cover repair um plan uh they were in town last week I went out looked at a bunch of the bridges and covers and a lot of them need help and some of them need replacement so we're going to need the chapter 90 funding there we'll probably need more money maybe Capital funds so it that remains to be seen but that'd be my best guess and we're also in Fisco 26 looking to spend some chapter 90 money on pavment management as shown in that previous slide and then um like I said we could buy equipment so looking to purchase a mini excavator with a trailer um you'll see a lot all the next slides every Everything has drainage repairs I get calls at least once a week for different problems with training so I think this uh mini excavator that would help us do a lot some of the work inh house instead of hiring out try to save some money that way fiscal 27 again uh drainage repairs and pavement management same for 28 the drainage repairs and or Bridge repairs and payment management and 29 the same and and 30 the same I hope I didn't go too fast no such thing are you at the question slide I am at the question slide you have any questions from the board I do so I have a couple of questions first of all and these are in no particular order so how did we get to accumulate $2 million which would mean that four years or so of chapter 90 money was unspent right I think it's because of the transition in DPW directors you know it took me a little time to get my feet wet and figure out you know what it needed to be done the previous director was here only a short time and I think that's part of the reason why we haven't spent a whole lot of it in the last few years second question is is there any benefit two-part question first of all do do the monies that are in acrude because we don't get the money right it's just on an account with mass do right does that expire at any point it does not okay and so the the second part of that question along the same lines is is there any benefit to not spending it to zero at any point that would be one to you and maybe maybe even through the chair to the town manager I don't know I I want to I want to pose it as a potential uh as a potential benefit that is unforeseen to me but I just want to know I guess one benefit it's you know if we kept some if something major happened would have a little bit of money to take care of that on the other hand construction costs go up every year so better spend it now than spend a dollar now than $2 later right okay then my last question is oh I was just going to add on to your first question that you had of um why we've accumulated up to the $2 million so part of that was the additional money that was unanticipated with the fair share funding and the rural roads so that's about 260,000 of that amount as well as we were spending down the debt exclusion amounts during those years as we were completing the pavement the prior pavement management plan so um that was um that was the plan at that point in time to spend down those funds and the budget funds before touching chapter 90 funds okay and that leads me to my last question as changing my hat to chair of the capital planning committee and I don't mean this to sound critical although it may sound critical and it's wording but there were a list of things and some of them on your list now that you came to the capital planning with tools and things that you didn't even need to come to us with that if they were funded would have taken away from other projects that don't have $2 million in chapter 90 funding I'm just wondering I mean that that's a hard thing for me to look at and say and not comment on it certainly looks suspect let's put put it that way agreed again it wasn't on it wasn't on purpose that's for sure um I think it's just again me getting my feet wet finding out what our needs were um you know when I put that Capital list together I was thinking just equipment equipment right a lot um and I wasn't thinking about using it here at chapter 90 it's just can I add to that as well um there's going to be more needs than there is money so even with using chapter 90 funding pavement management funding other grant funding that we received there and once we have the bridge and Culvert plan you're the town will see how many dollars are needed to keep all these drainage projects going all our bridges and culverts repaired it's gonna exceed what we have available and with all those resources well I mean so my response to that is yes of course being involved in government as long as I have I I know that I know that there's always going to be more projects than are pricing all I'm all I'm meant to highlight or underline in this case is that you know it just we have X amount of capital funds and given the tax abatements of last year even less than usual and we're vying for things that didn't need to be on the list and so again I'd be remiss in my job if I didn't point it out this is not you know put out your put out your hand let's hit it with a yard stick that's not the point the point is I want people to recognize that that looks it has a bad Optics to it that's all I'm saying I'm not saying I'm not no trying to project any ill intentions on anybody but we have to be cognizant of how things look is my point if I can I was just going to add on to that as well the DPW director and I had talked about that we needed to put a plan in place for chapter 90 because there hasn't been one um so at that time the capital planning process this was not even in draft form as well conceptually what things um could be done with it so at that point in time as well that wasn't in place appr I want to add on to Mr Alonzo's comments um because that was the first thing that um when I when I saw that this was discussed at the finance committee meeting that was kind of my first gut reaction as well I think we understood that there was money sitting there I don't I don't know if I and I understood it was more than a million dollar I don't know if I understood it was two and you know when when the capital planning committee goes through their process um and then allocates funding for equipment right that and as Mr L was saying other entities don't have a pot of $2 million sitting there and so as they're doing their assessments of what is the pressing and urgent need you know it's kind of like um you helpful information that that somehow wasn't mentioned um but I want to just continue in that thought process about arpa because one of the restrictions on arpa was that we can't save it and that we're not allowed to save the arpa money and we're not allowed to um not expend money that we were already planning to expend right in other words we can't say well now we're going to fund this through our bun so we're going to save other money that we had already previously planned to spend so you know I think this is a larger question which is not really for you but it's for the board and the town manager which is we may now need a legal opinion on whether or not the arpa funds that went uh in the direction of DPW uh whether or not they need to be whether or not they were appropriately allocated U because the last thing we want is to find ourselves in a situation where something's being clawed back because we were pocketing uh $400,000 a year in money that could have been spent on things that we chose to spend oura money on my other comment is as I look at your plan and Bill I mean I want to be uh you know you you you can count on me to be straightforward I think that everything after basically July 1st of 25 I think I'm correct yes nope so July 1st of 25 6 it's kind of cut and paste same one and the same um in which you're saying we're going to have $415,000 of anticipated costs do you have the actual plan for I know that typically as we've heard reports from you uh in the past and other DPW directors it was kind of a long range plan on roads based on conditions of Roads what was being prioritized do you have that to kind of match up to what you're expecting funds to be expended on over the coming 5 years six years yeah for for um payment management say it's slide 14 yeah uh okay with the graph y was that this large graph that we saw as far as what they actually are as far as what's going to be worked so in other words as we look at fiscal year 26 and it says $415,000 anticipated chapter 90 funding what is that going to be used for with specific roadways yeah I have that plan yeah okay yeah so I think and that's kind of why I'm getting at I think it would be helpful in this presentation if if that information was added to it because I'm sure that you're going to need to give this to other you know the finance committee I'm sure has been pounding uh you about this so I'm sure they're going to want to know in a greater level of detail as would I kind of what what are we working on every year because as Mr Lonzo has identified you know we're now four or five years of not really spending the money right our roads are generally in good condition yep so I have the payment management plan if it's not already on the website I'll make sure it gets up there so everybody can see it I believe it is on the website Mr chair if I may just say the slide that the DPW is talking about it's not like we haven't spent money it just hasn't come from it just hasn't come from chapter 90 right obviously they're spending $600 plus thousand a year on pavement management it's just come from you know the right the capital exclusion so thank you thank you for correcting that comment I think my comment here though about the plan that you have for the buildings whether it's on the website uh or not I think that as you're presenting a chapter 90 where is the money going I think it's helpful to have a little more detail here Beyond anticipated chapter 90 funding but I I mean I think you guys have done as you know Bill I think highly of you and I think you've done a great job at the DPW Department so I know we've already had that presentation I know that that level of detail already exists I I think they might want to be married yep no that's a good comment and I would just ask for us to be kind of quiet in the gallery today please um but thank you so Mr Alonzo's questions checked off three of mine off my list so I understand the program that there are State funds we don't have them it's reimbursement based but I'm still not exactly sure specifically how it works so do we have to allocate funds and actually pay for these projects first in order to get reimbursed that's what a reimbursement is right we expend um get the project submitted approved to the state expend those funds and then get reimbursed within that same fiscal year so it's a deficit until we're reimbursed for those funds so are these like capital projects that we decide to get reimbursed for or things that we allocate they've typically been road projects okay so that project submitt form goes to mot for certain roads they um approve the project and then we move forward with the project and then request reimbursement once U those invoices are in okay if I can add on to your question I think what Mr I think that what Caesar's getting at is where does the money come from in the first instance right before we're reimbursed by the state from the town from the town to outut the money and then gets reimbursed for that within and we uh was time it so we make sure wein the fiscal year before the year closes out so we would have to allocate money and pay for all these projects first and then get reimbursed is really just what I wanted like explicit clarification on there is no there's no allocating right there's no allocating so it's through the finance department there's no there's no request but I do for safety sake just in case people want to do risk mitigation we get the project approved before we start it so they've already approved it and then we just have to work with the finance department about when will we have the money to pay for it before we get the reimbursement so that has to be coordinated with you know with the town manager and the finance director so that we know we have the money M all right thank you and we want to time it with the end of the fiscal year because we don't want to expend those funds within that fiscal year and not get a reimbursement within that time period too because then we would have to it would come off our balance sheet as far as it would be added into the the next fiscal year well all my questions were answered from Mr Alonzo's question so I'm just going to say I like this I like that we're actually utilizing These funds that we have like a comprehensive multi-year plan these projects seem good addresses you know like drainage issues and all that so thank you you're welcome well one of the advantages of being fifth of five is that you pretty much covered it for me so uh and also thank you for presenting this because that has been a little bit of a mystery for me too it's like what is going on with this pot of money that's sitting there so now there there's a sort of a road map as to how it's going to be expended and I get it and um uh thank you for all the questions and the follow-ups because you cleared it up and we can always count on Mr Alonzo for a good a good grilling a good cross-examination I got all my questions answered so uh Mr chair I just just two more final comments number one one um to your question about ARA I I I I don't think that what we've allocated with this board's vote to the DPW arpa fits into the category that you define what you weren't allowed to do is have a project that was already funded in another way and then pull that funding away and put arpa in that's what I think you weren't allowed supposedly to do the fact that we gave it to the we voted to give it to projects already you know otherwise every town they would tell you what deplete all your all your uh you know your funds in all different cases all stabilization funds otherwise you wouldn't be able to use anything because of course towns have money in reserve but that wasn't the effect at least to my knowledge uh second although I I again I didn't want to be overly hard I will now end on a better note which is when when this came to light in the finance committee and people were talking about it and buzzing about it all all different you know Corners I did indicate to somebody you know finding out that you have $2 million that you know you had is a whole lot better than the reverse okay not having 2 million dollar that you thought you had so this is a good problem not a bad problem it's good that it was brought to light it's good that it's out there in the open so we know you know what the funding is from this board and the town's people Etc but you know it it was a pleasant surprise not a horrible surprise about oh no what are we going to do and thank you you're welcome I know I attacked one to Mr lonzo's Question so my comments remain um you know I just think there's a level of specificity that you may want to just contribute to this you know I think when you know Mr and Mrs Joe public um you know sometimes have have challenges navigating multiple things to get a concept of a plan uh so sometimes it's just helpful to marry agree yeah sometimes I just get caught up in the lingo and forget that everybody doesn't know milingo right yeah yeah no but otherwise as always Bill thank you for your time do you have any uh thank you as always for your time you're welcome thanks thank you Bill you're welcome all right we're running a little behind here we're going to meet with our finance director Ezekiel uh Ayala and uh fire chief Patrick Sullivan on a batement of ambulance [Applause] receivables good to see you Chief good evening so uh basically what this is is a request to clear up the uncollectibles out of the ambulance receipts that we've had over several years uh the vast majority of this when when we bill out for the ambulance we bill out at our rate anywhere from 60 to 65% of our patients that we transport are on Medicare Medicaid which means we have to accept Federal the federal amount for that which is currently about 64% of what we actually bill out that that balance is uncollectible that's called an adjustment um so we're looking to get that off the books from a few years back also in there are ones that the person may have passed away uh person didn't leave a folding address the bill is still tied up with a motor vehicle accident uh any number of different reasons why we may not have seen the money after a point we're writing these off other than the adjustments these do go to a collection agency and we still try to chase them down but I think Ezekiel can explain a little bit better on this is just getting these numbers off of our books as a negative oh yes so um going through the numbers this year trying to clean up some old balances that's gone back uh back to 2019 so the reconciliation has brought the abatement amount off to $464,950 I believe the board received the Aging detail which involves everything but not all of those are uncollectible can you give us that total one more time sure it's uh $464,950 55 you're asking us to R right off $464,000 of debt all right so let me start with all the questions cuz I'm already a no so let me get to a yes um are is anyone anyone on this list a current uh resident of lunenberg and a property owner I am not aware of any has it been scrubbed against current property owners I do not know on that fact all right so the first my first thought is uh we we do go through if they can't find addresses we help them you know the building company find addresses try to track these people down as far as how many of them actually are still residents or some of them maybe it's going to an estate at this point so I mean why not put leans against the estate I mean if someone has if they're a resident in town why not put a lean against their property so can do that with a medical I don't believe we can I don't believe you can I I don't quote me 100% on that but I believe when you get into medical billing I don't believe you can I don't think medical bill applies to those types of okay are we 100% sure of that or are we 99% sure 99.5 I'm believeing R buffer but I'm pretty sure medical same thing for bankruptcy I mean you can go bankruptcy um medical bills it just applies I would suspect the the the vast majority of that number is those adjustments that's that's probably three quarters of that or what adjustments the the adjustments ofic 60 to 65% of our transports are Medicare Medicaid patients we have to accept what the federal government pays for that which is only about 64% of what our bill is so that other part doesn't get paid we can't chase the resident or the person for that money so that ends up just getting written off yeah yeah off yeah offset adjustment yeah so the conversation um all right let me just keep going down the list so medic Medicare adjustments so there's there's possibly 05% chance that there's other people on that that we're confident that we can't um put leans against people's properties uh related to medical bills uh I would like to get to 100% on that one um the other the other thing is of the Medicare Justin I get that understand it completely on board with it um you know what I'm having what I'm trying to visualize here is the conversation with with um Mrs resident who just got a 30% increase in her tax bill who says you guys just wrote off $464,000 of debt um and did you verify that everyone on the list currently doesn't you know were you sure that you couldn't put a lean against their property are you sure that they don't still live in town are you sure that they don't have an estate that's willing to pay it you know those are kind of the main things that I would be concerned about um cuz we're talking half a million dollars um so it's it's a lot of money I want to be 100% that everyone on the list that there's no way to collect from them or their estate if they've passed away you know I understand that that happens but if they left property behind and we can get our value back out of that property uh then I I would rush much prefer for us to try unless we can't if we're forbidden from it we're forbidden it is you know and I can't give you that 5% right now but these are not just ignored after a while they the billing company CH spends quite a bit of time chasing these down tracking them down yeah and that then they eventually they go to collection okay and they're there so and that's part of what they're being written we're not Lo eventually going to lose out in the money but it's being written off as a financial function the bill you know the collection agency is still chasing these people and that when we see something out of them that's tough even though we've written them off If eventually they can collect we still get the funds for those right it goes to a third party Bill uh collection agency vers Financial so is it easy to separate from this list the Medicare from the non-medicare is that an easy task to do um like a column in a spreadsheet to sort the list I currently have I do not but I can go back probably request that but is it easy like I'm not I I don't it's not our report comes from so we have to ask them we would have to ask them if they can break that out that way okay so that's all I have and I apologize to the board for jumping in immediately and we I try to go last uh you know as you can tell I I wanted to get move from a no to a yes I'm still a no but I think that I can get to a yes um without you guys having to come back and appear once you get the rest of the information to me it's easy it's easy B since he started in that way let's just go in the other way that way you can be second not fourth uh so over what well first of all I you you do raise another question I mean as a practical matter if we say no what happens I mean like like as a practical matter we would have the debt stays on the books stays on the books as debt make a lot of expan will say you need to write it off right I mean all it sounds like it's going to wind up in the same place eventually right so uh over what period of time were this many of these accumulated it's going back to 2002 I believe wow okay okay the impression that we'd cleaned up a lot of those in 2019 2019 but were some going back we did something like this once before but 2019 was the last 2019 we've done it yeah I mean like while I was here but okay okay the plan had been to do it a lot more often Co kind of threw that off to the kilter and on my end I've been much more focused on the front end of the operation with the paramedics yeah in this end of it the problem I I mean like as a PR like going after these things it's like it's a million like it's literally hundreds it looks like of you know two3 $500 and you know the effort to go after it's not like one lump sum for 20 grand that somebody owes you where it's worth it to like you know put some Firepower behind it and like go through the tedium of trying to collect it it's it's like a bunch of little Annoying debts and and uh I don't know it's really more of a comment I mean yeah why not be 100% on that on that question you have open but so um it's really just questions I have nothing nothing at the moment like in terms of pointing Us in any any direction to offer it's just collecting information so so it doesn't really seem like it's practical to do anything other than collections which is what we're doing now um about all you can do unfortunately yeah exactly and you know it's a lot of money but I'm also like sensitive to the fact that these are medical debts so you know I don't really know how much I would be willing to like punish someone for not paying a medical debt that maybe they can't so you know I that's sort of where I'm at right now so we do have the abatement process for some people that are very financially strapped but unfortunately we don't see that you folks sign off on them and we only get a couple of those a year us and like you said even if we write it off we can still collect the money if it's s still out there if if it happens and it comes back we still do see it so effectively it doesn't really change anything we can still collect the money if it's sent in you know we're just wrri the balance sheet clearing the books but isn't there a limit on that isn't that like 7 years or something like that from when the debt was incurred to how long you can collect on it is that governed by the federal law of seven years I don't believe so I don't don't know but I thought debts expired at some point oh no no yeah they they do expire when you die I know there are certain rules around medical death they just not your problem then right right well your deaths expired when die they just become somebody else yeah so I mean I'm supportive of it I was initially then I sort of on the fence for a second and then I thought about it a little more I don't think I really support doing anything beyond collections for this and it's probably not practical so uh just a couple questions so I'm assuming I know the answer to this is probably privacy laws but we don't have the I understand the patient name but we don't have the call dates which is why we had to ask on the call dates on our sheet it's not there so we didn't know how far back these go yeah okay that I mean I don't know if we could if in the future if we could what you had the call dates initially I put in an aging report um that had Cates but it had the wrong total at the bottom so I didn't want to confuse the issue because we didn't have that breakdown with the 4 um 64095 well I wouldn't want to see the call Dat because again it's Privacy Law I'm sure so what what what in the future if we could break this down by year by fiscal year that these are from so you said some of these go down 200 2 the one question I have I mean we're talk it I agree with the chair it's a large number but it's also over now you're telling me it's over 22 years so I don't know how much the real question is how much do we do in Billing a year I want to get a scope of is this $400 plus thousand is this is this 2% of what we Bild 5% of what we build I mean it'd be interesting to note how much we build since 20 02 and how much we being asked to write off I don't have the number off the top of my head but again 60 to 65% of our total transports fall into Medicare Medicaid so you're you're going to lose out on 30 basically almost 40% of whatever we buil out for that then there's the other ones that again they're a small fraction of that that they may end up going to collection down the road but it's it's the adjustments that kill us and complain to Washington unfortunately that's a whole another story that's that's swinging way too far up I can't even swing I can't even swing at Boston with school funding so the chance of me getting anything happen at a federal level probably nothing uh as for a practical matter I know that this is going to just be FL if we say no it's just going to get flagged on the audit it's going to it's going to be something for you know uh the finance director and the town manager to have to deal with until we eventually do what we're being asked to do tonight so of course I'm I'm going forward we're planning on doing it on a set schedule so when you hear this it's going to be a lot smaller number right but you'll be hearing us from us more often do let me ask you this I mean and I don't even know if I'm supposed to say this out loud but I'm going to say this out loud I mean I'm assuming since we know what our costs of running the ambulance are and we know what the reimbursement rates are for the large percentage of our our uh trips that we're making I'm assuming that those are all calculated into the cost of doing business it's we don't make money at this no no I understand that but I don't want to lose money doing it we we offset our we offset the cost of the service and that that's a conversation about increasing the rates that we haven't done for a long time for another day that you'll hear from me again in down the road a little bit on that because we haven't gone up in quite a while right and again but with the with the Medicare Medicaid it's not going to be this huge jump cuz the Medicare rates don't change we'll charge more but they're just going to write off more on that end so there is some increase that will help offset the cost CU we've added people we've gone to the paramedic level but the rest of it is covered as an emergency service by the town you know we're just trying to offset some of our cost all right so um I think it would be helpful as Mr Lono just noted you know I would consider that any money received from someone a Medicare patient that you know partial payments a payment and I'm really more interested in you know the percent completely the percent uncollected of of the total amount of people that got ambulance uh assistance the percentage uh that remains that just didn't pay anything and how much we're riding off of that because if that percentage is high uh then and and we can put leans against people's houses then I'm going to be all in favor of it uh I hear you know I understand that you know there A lot of times as as uh Mr newo just noted that when people have medical bills they can at least afford it but if you own a home in lunenberg and you've own it for more than four years unless you've been heavily borrowing against it you probably have some Equity um and you probably have Equity more than 700 bucks and so a lean to me would be quite appropriate if it's legally allowed I don't want to question anyone's professionalism here tonight I think it's pretty clear that everyone here is a professional that the information we received is good it's solid um I want to get more information on the percent uncollected I want to get more information on um I want to get more information on separating out from this the Medicare recipients versus the non U Medicare recipients and you know if the advice is you know we have to say yes there's no option to say no then we shouldn't even be having this conversation to begin with and we need to write a policy that gives you the ability to write these things off so that way we're not taking our time in these meetings to do something that you know you clearly think needs to happen anyway so to me there's kind of two paths forward change the rules that way we don't have to take the time to do this anymore U or you know maybe a little more information on on what the stuff is but I'll leave up to my colleagues in terms of what they want to do for tonight I don't think you guys need to come back but I think it would be helpful to get a little more information but I'll leave it to my colleagues for what my colleagues would like to do well based on how it all went it I was the only one that was sounding undecided previously but based on how the discussion is unfolded and what the Practical reality is and where we're going to wind up anyway I'm supporting just writing it off too is there a motion uh I move to write off the uh am ambulance debts uh in the amount of 464,000 uh 9555 as presented second any additional discussion I'm going to vote now however I do support writing off the overwhelming majority if not all of this debt I want to be 100% sure to the other voters at home and residents at home that we can't put leans against people's properties so in that absence 99.5% is usually okay with me um usually like 95 is okay with me but tonight on this one I want to be 100 so I will respect the decision of my colleagues I trust the professionalism in the room and uh and we'll have we have a motion in a second any additional discussion yeah just one comment just to your comment Mr chair I'm I support the information you're asking for so I will I will vote Yes on this motion but I will support the idea that it would be good information to have that breakdown anyway so that we have it in the future and then to ask that it be placed on any further abatements you say it's going to be regular whenever that is that that that kind of breakdown be made at the time uh so yeah I would I would support that all right all right all in favor please say I I those opposed no no the motion passes all right thank you thank you thank you all right and then I think there was a general update that you were going to do Mr AAL is that correct and then there was all right uh let's see here and thank you chief for being here so late into the evening yes all right thank you bye Karen this is intimidating or anything so just going to get right into it so um today tonight I'm um presenting the quarterly financial report as of December 31st 2023 or quarter 2 uh we're currently in the process of closing quarter 3 um so this table of contents so right into the revenues for the totals for fiscal year by comparison so total revenue collected through December 31st 2023 or quarter 2 for I24 were 23,4 199 no 23, 499,00 5702 revenues collected through the same time period last fiscal year were 25 million $2,773 that's a total of 6.9% less uh than collected during the same time period last FIS school year there's a variance of uh 1,526 uh $37.39 um there's um reasons for that and I'll get into the um upcoming slides but there's also the MS uh CBA reimbursement we're no longer receiving uh the amount of $474,999 there's also um other other funds um use of free cast transfers to uh from Enterprise funds transfers to the a um artificial turf fund for a total of $719 8786 um additionally I want to mention as an FYI FY 23 the real estate abatement um at the end of FY 23 was 1,37 $1 uh $1,692 so there's an offset there which is pretty close on this a $200,000 Gap but uh you can see where the trend is going uh with that being said uh for the first two quarters of the fiscal year the pr uh preliminary billing rate is based on the prior year tax rate so for FY 23 the preliminary tax rate was $7 $17.19 which was the fy22 actual uh for FY 24 the preliminary tax rate was $14.62 which based on the FY 23 actual the total estimated tax levy based on the prior year tax rate um net of overlay was 31,49 3, 89049 oops sorry I skipped the slide here um due December 31st total received uh was 14,499 $294 67 compared to quarter 2 totals for fi23 um fi23 uh quarter 2 property taxes uh collected was1 18, 277,000 um sorry the personal property tax sorry um collected was $18,200 cents higher and the quarter two Quarter Two of last year I need to slow down so the real estate taxes uh were $264,700 lower than FY uh 23 turns our quter two uh total local receipts collected were 4404 per of annual estimates or 1,417 $568 um that's $ 26,45 n72 less than collected during the same period uh last year uh and there's a table with the summary um again local receipts continued compared to uh quarter to quarter two totals from FY 23 uh the follow C categories uh are below prior year totals fory 24 um Department of Revenue for the schools $3,462 79 licenses and permits 58,000 uh $97.99 motor vehicle excise tax $ 62,6 18177 now um there's also a note typically the motor vehicle excise tax revenue is collected at the end of um in within the fourth quarter of the fiscal year that's when most of the revenue is collected uh special assessments uh $ 4,824 penalties and interest 8,689 um the miscellaneous now recurring curring um Revenue which has for example supplemental tax for new constructions um Medicare records from Mass rehab have sale of tent equipment net meteor and credits for the solar and there's other miscellaneous Revenue um that was $822 4638 um lower when compared to last year um the next slide is the state aid um state aid Collective were 48.28% of annual estimates or 5,139 $242 um this is $844 19643 less less than FY 23 during the same period last year and then there's the summary chart for you to review um I also want to know um the 4ds funds it's not it's not in here but it's not typically colle collected in Quarter Two usually that comes within the last two months of the last F schal year so that's 30 42,000 um was collected during the um last May that should come within less uh mayor hopefully will not come will not not this year all right so any questions before I move on to expenditures yes no I went pretty quick so do we have any I mean everything is lower except for what it was personal property tax was higher so any indications why everything is everything is off considerably from last year Q2 um there's the motor vehicle excise tax which is typically collected later on um I don't really know what happened during the last year's quarter quarter two I've been here a few months uh could be uh I really don't have an answer as to why okay you I don't want to I mean even the motor even the motor vehicle excise STX given your note yeah it it's saying that okay most of it's going to be collected in Q4 but what we're comparing is up to Q2 of FY 23 and up to Q2 of FY 24 so that wouldn't even necessarily matter at that point right because it's I mean what what are we talking about like close to I'm just ballparking it close to $400,000 less M okay that was my only question okay anyse no move on to the expenditures uh total expenditures through December 31st 2023 um FY 24 uh two were 2,743 6885 or 44 45.5 4555 of the total budget expenditures through the same period last fiscal year were 22,6 44,990 or for 4% less than expense during the same time oh that's a good thing all right Le we offset it yeah so there's a trend there it's it's on both end I'm wondering the you said around 400,000 that's what it ballpark that's for Revenue yeah um that might be attributed to the msba reimbursement that we receive for Revenue that's okay said on yeah that went away but that doesn't come I just added up all the deficits that he said so they were all from all different categories right so but the fact that we're spending less is good so so expenditure is continued um if I may interrupt the expenditures uh that you're identifying as being less uh as you are these actuals or these encumbered these are actuals there are no encumbrances within the within the numbers so um within the FY 24 next slide um you'll notice the retiring retiring of old debt um which attributes to excuse me um a total of 14% less than less than last year um as we move on further down you notice the um group health insurance um the budget for FY 24 was much higher but we had um vacancies which will have an offset and um we'll have an overage in the healthcare line we anticipate anyway um for fy4 so we may need to offset tap into that overage for all the line items as we move closer to the end of the fiscal year z um let's see total General government spend ending was 5832 and compared to last year uh Which is $117,000 less than last year or 2% um difference um police was 52. 62% spent of their total budget and which was uh 10% more than last year or $96,000 96763 uh moving on to fire total percent of the budget spent 56. 76% um which was 5% less than last year or $ 38,9 2 uh radio watch 16% 16.8% or 10,000 um which last year was 4 uh which is $1,353 sorry $1,395 34 cents more than last year or 4% so Total Protection um which includes fire police uh total spent through the FIS uh first quarter uh first two quarters fiscal year was 51 97% or 3% more than last year $ 67,8 3225 total DPW you notice on General Highway um that's we were just talking about the payment management um of that total Highway uh the General Highway expense line there was $191,700 120 um part of the payment management F spent out of that so total DPW was 61. 36% and compared to last year it's 16% more or $3,729 44 all right uh facilities totals percent spent of 66,000 uh 6 sorry 66.9 4% which was uh 23% uh less than last year or $95,500 59.46% of their budget has been spent um compared to last year it's actually 4% more $414,500 increase in the total school budget on their operator line which is that first line um number 79 school department then um Library we have 60.3% of their budget spent uh compared to last year it's 11% more or $2,245 so total Omni BR budget this total operating budget uh total actuals [Applause] 17,508 5,552 128 which is 59.0% of the budget compared to last year during the same time period it's uh 3% more or $443,500 6 and then the last slide here we have um other light items the state assessments we have 58 8.34% uh compared to last year 6% less uh 28,9 uh $37 um tax title uh 30% less than last year or $3,662 32 uh with County Regional retirement was $228,800 U more or 14% um there were no prior expenses paid to quarter 2 um transferred to trust was $717 5050 7175962708 was on transferred to Capital which were was 1,49 sorry 1, 49,5 of7 uh which was 58% last per less than last year or 1,435 7132 which I believe there were less capital projects this fiscal year grand total uh spent was 21, 74368 185 um that's including the omnus which was 54.4% of the budget which is actually uh overall 4% less than last year um which 4% less than last year or 9 9,865 7 do I have any questions one question sure Total Health and sanit it looks like we prepaid or paid much earlier this year the nooba Board of Health and nooba nursing which we didn't pay at this point last year is that they changed their billing cycle I think that was when their bills came in last year okay because that's the only one that looks totally out of whack from everything else 269 per difference so any thing that raises any Flags to you I realize this is your first time through this so it may be a premature question but I'm no um the only question I have is the timing of the payments um could be earlier could be later depending on the activity I have been here through quarter two so I don't know the actual activity that happened during the time period um that's my only fair enough yeah I also was going to ask if anything jumped out at you as concerning but that has been I'm going to have to you can go first Sometimes no that's okay we don't do this all the time it's fine thanks for walking us through it I don't have any questions no questions thank you thank you how do I do you good call me I can give you some pointers just to make it easier on you I will like like you don't have to talk about the sense like you can you can you can round you can round things up the numbers are there and so just round things up to make them easier to say okay it's the counting in them I know I know right just the highlights thank you you aie all right I always know it's nerve-wracking when you have a you know new role in a public presentation and oh sure it definitely takes a while uh to get used to as people think I I uh that I naturally was a uh was born a good speaker and it definitely was a lot of work over a lot of years so all right um so let's see next on our agenda we have an update from uh agcom uh so we uh and I'm not sure if we're going to receive an update tonight I I see that Mr Allison is here with us um so last week we U Mr Allison posted a meeting for the agricultural commission for last Thursday um and my my intent was to go there Mr Allison I spoke I was going to go and try to uh understand uh some concerns um and and so the meeting was posted uh everyone from the commission was emailed when it was posted uh the chair sent everyone the at the same time around the same time a text reminder that the meeting would be posted um when Mr Allison and I I showed up at the at the Ritter building Mr Allison was there we sat in the car no one showed up uh and so uh several minutes after the posted meeting time uh we both left so again for this evening we sent a communication out to um the entire membership of the Agricultural commission to request their attendance um uh and uh again just to confirm with the town manager we heard from the chair is that correct Annie I think only heard from one other member okay and uh we did hear that one member is unable to attend and so I don't know um how much of a conversation we're going to be able to have tonight I think that um you know there seems to be some uh there seems to be some growing pains on the agricultural commission um you know that's a without them being here that's probably as much as I want to say publicly but there seems to be some Growing Pains uh several members uh presented um sever M members presented frustrations uh we ask them to I asked for them to sort it out within their meeting uh that that no one came to uh or to meet with us that no one's here at the chair of course was here last week or at our last meeting he was at the Adcom meeting and he's again tonight uh he gave us an update last week I don't know Mr Allison if this is an appropriate time to address anything else uh or if it makes sense for you to continue to attempt to reach out to your members and to try to reschedule a meeting with them I don't know if you can there we go good evening thank you um yeah I'm not sure the um it's been two meetings that we haven't had anybody show up to um we don't have an application for the farmers market there's concern has been expressed for that not happening and um as well I share that concern um it it's a group thing it's if we don't meet we can't we can't do anything so um I I'm I'm it hasn't been made very clear here why we've been requested and it hasn't been at my request so I I as you said Mr chair I I'm not quite sure uh what we can accomplish here yeah I don't I don't know if we can accomplish anything here tonight all right thank you thank you Mr Allison uh this is a board that we appoint um that is not uh members have not attended now two meetings and they're not responding to Communications from our off so at a certain point I I have a lot to say on this even though I have no idea what's going on but I guess I'm just curious I won't say it um what can we do if people just don't show up are we able to remove people from the boards at yeah that's an extreme option though but yes um we can choose to not reappoint I I mean I think that you know I I think it's appropriate that you know clearly some some members have reached out to the office they've contacted me individually they' maybe contacted other members of the board um the feedback is that they need to meet they need to meet they have to talk about whatever um concerns they have and and just and work through them that our role here is is you know the intent tonight was certainly not to have a airing of grievances but to get a better understanding of you know what can we do to be I sent them a list of questions what can we do to be helpful um you know generally you know what's the plan for the farmers market this year and the answer right now is that there's no plan for a farmers market this year year uh understanding why they need to meet to designate people they haven't been able to meet to designate um Market managers I think it's called they haven't meant to be able to designate the market managers for the so I don't fully understand the details again I I mean you know we've I've communicated directly with the chair and with a couple of members of the commission um so I I my intent tonight was to get an update from them on what's going with the farmers market anything we can do to be helpful and then whatever organizational things that they have that that would be handled at their meeting uh in terms of any personal that doesn't need to be aired with us in my opinion I think that they need to in the first instance try to resolve whatever concerns they have or members may feel or may think that they should attempt to resolve that amongst each other first yeah I hear you and I completely agree but you know it is concerning that a board can't function right now if people aren't showing up and they're not able to deal with those differences or conflicts you know um so I don't know or there's not I mean also we don't know availability I mean I don't know if people generally read their Town emails I mean there's a lot of other you know what I mean like there's yeah so we just don't have a clear picture on what the issue is other than they're not meeting do they meet monthly yes so this is like every third or something Thursday of the month so they met they've missed two in a row if I they missed April they missed March and several members left in February but they were there to begin with okay so so they weren't able to have one sixth of their meetings already correct if they missed this we next coming month it'll be one quarter of their meetings right if my elementary school math is correct so it is our role to make sure that commissions that are duly established by the town meeting are functioning and doing their roles M so I I barring anybody not telling us why they're not showing up we need to actively try to figure that out but in the end it's our responsibility to make sure we have a functioning agricultural commission yeah and anything is nothing is off the table as far as I'm concerned to get it to be a functioning commission y so I don't want to I I agree with you Mr chair I I certainly don't want to have public airing of grievance but if there are behind the scene grievances they should reach out to you or the town manager or the rest of the board and tell people privately what needs to happen but at the end of the day I think Mr noo was correct that we need a functioning board and it's alarming that we don't have that and now you know one of the among the many things they do is the the most publicly visible one is the farmers market and if that's not something that's going to happen because they can't have forms and applications put together that's not a good outward facing perspective of the Commission in the town y yeah I mean I'm just going to add to this uh you can't just like abdicate your responsibilities you're either if you're serving on the board then you need to show up and and figure out I don't even I have no idea what's going on either I have zero idea I I uh but you just you just can't not function um you know you need to show up and work out whatever differences you have if you feel like you can't do that then you resign but it's a state of limbo right now we've got people that aren't resigning and uh not showing up either so that it can't go on in perpetuity I mean um so you know at some point I think we are going to have to reach the remedy that uh Mr noo has suggested maybe maybe we're not there quite yet but Mr Alonzo makes the point we got to it's our we we have to functioning commissions and and Boards he just so I have no idea what the issue is but if somebody wants to call me uh I'm you know I'm I'm I'll listen uh but I um something has to happen you can't just hang back and say hey I'm just not going to show up anymore and I'm going to go radio silent you know I agree so so I did bring it up but I want to say that it's not something that I want us to do if it gets to that point you know then of course you know we will'll have to consider it but again I have no idea what's going on but people disagree and conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing so if you have disagreements and there are things that are truly bothering you voice those concerns do it as a board and if you still can't figure it out then you know do it publicly do it here you know there I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that again having absolutely no visibility into what's going on and if you can't do that resign you know and I don't mean to like sound you know callous or you know whatever um resign and protest put it all out there like just say what you have to say you know air your grievances um just not showing up just it's not a good situation so I'm not a fan of resignation protest but I'm neither am I but I and I think that the members on the on this Commission in particular you know represent the farming community so this is not this is one of those groups of people that are hard to replace that if you lose the farmers for being on the agricultural commission you know who who replaces them that you know again I I have no idea what's going on but it seems like you know there are couple options here figure out what you need to do so that you can show up and work as a board or step aside all right how many people are on that uh the top of my head I don't recall I believe five it was they have a couple alternates right yeah and just for clarity when you say in February a couple of people um left do you mean left the meeting that was happening in February in or just left the commission left the meeting left the meeting they lost their quum in the in the middle of the meeting five regular two Associates all right let's go to our interviews o appointments and reappointments resignations so um so we have two for the town manager um for facilities custodian um well more than two Beach director and seasonal lifeguard okay thank you Mr chair I'm asking the board to ratify first appointment for the facility's custodian Alan Smith Allan began his career as a self-employed Carpenter for 8 years and then he moved on to become a maintenance mechanic with digital corpor ation after digital he worked in HVAC for different companies for the last 25 years he brings with him a skill set in carpentry light plumbing and electrical small engine repair Grounds Maintenance snow removal General Building Maintenance and years of installation of HVAC systems Allan attended the HVAC program at the Peterson trade school his references described him as very reliable having a strong work ethic and he'll be an asset to the town so I'm asking the board to ratify his appointment tonight any comments or questions to the town manager and if not is there a motion I move that we ratify the appointment of the facili custodian Alan Smith as presented by the town manager second any additional discussion all right as many as are in favor of the motion please say I I I those oppos no all right congratulations to Allen and back to the town man manager okay these next three are easy they're all returning um staff Liz Simeone as for the beach director position and Mason Bowser and Paige gangler all right for Life guards move that we ratify the town manager appointments of the beach director Elizabeth Simeone and seasonal lifeguards Mason Bowser and Paige gangler second any additional discussion I I heard that second from Mr Franco any additional discussion closer that's that's be why additional discussion all right as many as are in favor please say I those oppos no all right congratulations to Liz uh to Mason and to Paige all right no T manager report today there is oh I miss that in the drive yes oh look at that want me to go ahead okay for meetings events and other announcements the annual ual town meeting is Saturday May 4th at 9:00 a.m. at the middle school high school auditorium the annual Town election is Saturday May 18th 700 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the DC pasos building the yard was St have resumed they every Saturday from until May 18th 8:00 a.m. until 400 p.m. at 27 Young's road which is behind the TR toown buildings the lunenberg Cub Scouts will be hosting their annual plant sale on May 11th 8:45 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. on the Ritter uh building memorial lawn for board committee commission vacancies we have the following positions one vacancy on the architectural preservation District commission one vacancy on the Council on Aging two associate vacancies on green communities committee one member at large vacancy on the open space committee and one vacan and the Personnel committee anyone interested in any of these positions they can find the volunteer applications on the town website complete them and return them to the select board's office if you have any questions on the rules and responsibilities you can call the office at 978 582 4130 extension 144 for employment opportunities we have the following positions a land use director position for 40 hours a week planning board Administrative Assistant for 30 36 hours a week seasonal Cemetery laborers and seasonal lifeguard positions information on each of these positions can be found on the website under job opportunities and um and how to apply the two seasonal lifeguards we just made is that take that off or they still need more no they still would need more positions and we're waiting um to see if some additional ones would return from last year an update on the flat hill drainage um overall project per the last selectboard meeting the town is working with mccardy engineering on work to be done to the detention Basin and their surveyors were on site yesterday um working on that survey for the Basin funding for flat hill Culvert project different part of flat hill after speaking with mot about the flat hill Culver project and Poss POS additional State funding for that project we submitted a letter requesting an additional 100,000 in funding which we were notified last week that we will be receiving we currently have $500,000 from a small Bridge Grant and remaining $375,900 $130 so this additional $100,000 from Mass do will help pay for the higher than estimated construction costs including any contingency funding project oversight from our engineering firm utility relocation and imminent domain expenses so that was good news um that they excellent news received another $100,000 for that project rural roads funding that the DPW director talked tonight about just a little bit more about what that is that's uh was a also a surprise pleasant surprise that we received although not significant it is does add to our chapter 90 total the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced that 25 million in supplemental funding included in a fiscal 24 Transportation Bond bill is now available to municipalities for Road and Bridge repair and construction by Statute the rural roadway funding program is to be distributed to all communities through a formula that favors rural communities with a portion spased 20% on road miles 20% on population and 60% on whether a community is considered rural for this program rural communities are defined as having population of less than 10,000 and a population density a fewer than 500 people per square mile on April 9th M doot said apportionments have been added to each City and Town's chapter 90 account and the funding must be spent according to chapter 90 rules and procedures with no spending deadline Lunen BG's apportionment is 2,979 an update on request for proposals an invitation for bids an invitation for bids for landscaping at Town facilities and Parks is due on June 11th and we are rebidding the remov of solid waste at the Woodruff property which is 104 Fair viiew Road bids are due on June 12th we receed no bids the last time we put that out to bid sry this one is out for so long four weeks yes uh to give enough notice an update on TCP and relocating the public access Studio on Friday April 12th there was another major leak into the public access Studio at the TC pasos building due to the ongoing leaks in that area and potential damage to their equipment the facility instructor and I agreed we would move them to the back wing of the building where there have not been any leaks the facility structor is handling getting the necessary electricity cabling and sealing the floors done before moving the studio which will occur after town meeting and just a a further note on that building um speaking weekly with the facilities director about that building and the consistent and more frequent issues that are occurring at that building um you're going to hear more and more about the expenses that we're having to incur for that building and uh what we need to plan to do um is becoming more and more obvious yeah obvious and um an immediate need the senior means tested property tax exemption good news um representative Scarsdale notified us at the end of last week that the Senate engross House Bill 3911 and which is the home rule petition for the means tested um senior citizen property tax exemption and it made it to the governor's desk yesterday so we're just waiting for final sign off by the governor employee highlights I wanted to give a shout out to our it network administrator Dan neski for always being so responsive to all of our employees it troubleshooting needs and Dan has also been spearheading all the efforts with getting ready for Tom meeting and working with the um what we need for it what working with Public Access working with the Town Clerk and the vendor that we use for the voting um equipment for that and with myself and making sure that we're going to be well prepared for a town meeting to give a little bit of an update on that um we've started communicating u a group of us that involved meeting the town moderator and the public access uh manager and um it staff the school everyone who wouldn't have immediate U knowledge of what's needed to get um prepared for overflow rooms so we are prepping to have the gym and the cafeteria both equipped for overflow so the capacity in the auditorium is about 600 people we'll fill that to capacity first before doing overflow in the other two rooms we have 600 uh remote clickers that are town-owned those will be distributed first for the auditorium and then 200 were borrowing from the water district the the same equipment as us um our vendor was out today testing out all the um clickers and making sure everything works properly cuz we're going to need um also um receptacles to make sure that the um clickers work remotely from different locations I also wanted to thank everyone who participated in the Earth Day events that were put on was put on by the park commission and Conservation Commission which included our police chief and staff from his Department including Sergeant Zarate officer Monroe officer artega Kennedy Jackson and Amanda Moore and officer lechance also provided traffic assistance for all of those events as well so thank you to all all right thank you for the town maners report welcome thank you for pulling it together after coming off of vacation uh so quickly any questions to the town manager no questions but I want to Echo her shouting out of Dan a rescue I've dealt with Dan for many years in many different capacities and he is excellent to work with uh really knows his stuff always responsive always professional and he really is intent on doing an excellent job all the time so I I couldn't I couldn't agree more all right so next on our agenda we have the uh draft turnover policy so uh hopefully all members have had the opportunity to review this so let's just go ahead and pull it up it's called the draft Revenue turnover policy in our Google drive there any comments to the town manager related to this policy any suggested Corrections [Music] changes at the risk of I mean this probably obvious but does the town manager have any suggestions or are you fine this is what I'm recommending I've worked with is your recommendation yes my again for people coming in in the middle so yeah I mean I read it through and I don't I mean I'm not in tune with all the internal Finance Collections and if anybody is certainly uh the town manager has has the finance director reviewed this too I worked with the finance director and the treasure collector to draft this policy so they is fine with them and until such time as the audits change from the annual audits from from our auditing company I trust the finance team of the town they have earned it same I don't have any questions or comments as compelling as it was to read I'm comfortable with what um what has been done so I think there's a couple minor things I can bring up to the town manager I noted them in a in a couple different sections um uh and they dis language things I was not intending on us voting on this tonight so uh I'll offer a couple reasons why uh the first is I don't think that turnover policy to the public gives a reasonable idea of what we're actually talking about uh and that's my error for not being more detailed before we posted the agenda when I think turnover I think the average person at home who looks at the agenda with thinks that we're talking about staff coming and going I think the next thought would be equipment I don't think that there's a natural process that people would automatically assume that we're talking about money and receipts and revenue so I I do think that we would need to be a little clearer um and and this is on me because again you know the town manager was had already sent me the agenda before she went on vacation I had that thought and I didn't make the correction on the agenda on the draft agenda before posting which I would have added additional language so I'm a little concerned about did we give the public enough information about it but the other part of it is um I do my opinion is because there's reference to departments um and and a lot of these are staff you know staff driven um but there is some implication when it comes to the library that you have Library trustees that that may want to review this in wayona when it comes to the cemetery with their different um with their different f they they may want to weigh on it and the parks may want to weigh on it I don't expect that there's this is this is an internal process and I don't expect that there's going to be any substant substantial feedback given but I would also suspect that those commissions would be in the best position to identify some unintended effect of what is being codified by you know and to me this is a lot of normal practices already it's just formalizing them so I I I think that they may be in the best position to formalize so what I would recommend is that we repost um that we um that we were supposed to pass this somewhere around miday to give boards and um because not everyone meets next week give everyone a couple weeks uh and if there's no impact in terms of it sounds like this process already occurs um that we then implement it uh in miday the week before the election a meeting before the election but I can I just yeah of course ask you for your thoughts on this one I stand turnover May mean different things to different people it's in my vernacular so it's it's a term that I'm familiar with um this is the second time it's been on the agenda because we did discuss it once more and it was asked to be reviewed until tonight correct the reason the whole impetus this we have a lot of Staff turnover this year it's good to have things in writing without having something written that's policy um it's based on verbal communication of what the process and procedure is this is to safeguard the town's funds that are coming in it's not about spending These funds it's how they're received and turned over to the treasure for safeguarding so it protects the town it protects the employees protects process to make sure they're handling funds they're receiving um safely and limiting the liability of the town and those assets um there's this is being handled by staff not by there's no time that a trustee or a cemetery commission should be accepting funds um it would be going through the department and being turned over to the charer collector yep no Heather I think I don't disagree with you on the necessity of it I don't disagree with the policy I think that in my view you know Wise policy making is incorporating um all people who could potentially have an opinion or be impacted seeking their opinions or comments even if for the most part we expect that there won't be any um and you know miday is two and a half three weeks away so it's three three meetings for me and I think that you know I'm aware that there have been um some concerns specifically from the cemetery Department about some funds and I know that they you know and and I believe and I didn't review this with them or give it to them um but I think it I would expect that they're going to have an opinion about it uh given that you know there were some some challenges and then working with the library um I know that they like to be in the loop before things were implemented that affect their staff so I don't I don't see harm in in in US Town manager advising your staff that this is the draft policy that you guys are that we're considering to implement or approve and to practice it I mean aren't you guys already is aren is it correct to believe that staff are currently implementing what's already written here there's nothing in writing it's just not in writing it's is verbal communication right but yeah there's a danger to that there is so um regarding the cemetery what you're referring to that's about expenditure of those accounts that's not about receipt of of funds I I would expect that and I don't know where it's in here that that there may be um there may be some questions about how information is provided related to revenue and when we talk about scope we also I mean to be clear we are noting the school department fully in this um you know it specifically says all departments boards and commissions uh are involved in the collection and receipt of town funds uh so I mean I think that there's an implication to boards and commissions that I think in Wise policymaking it would be good for us to just send a copy uh to our board members and perhaps the 13th or whatever date I have in mind is too late perhap perhaps the better one is the seventh um but I think there needs to be a fair opportunity for the public and other boards and commissions to even know what we're talking about and then comment on it and when someone reached out to me and said with the turnover policy I'm like I don't know what you're talking about cuz I I didn't remember that I was called the turnover policy um so I think it's so given that I was in the meeting two weeks ago and I forgot the name and I work on the agenda I think it's reasonable that a member of the public wouldn't understand what we're talking about well I think the last time anybody of the member of the public gave any input on a policy I I I can't even recall where that has ever happened so I'm not worried about the public now the the goal about the staff and on people under other boards I I certainly certainly can understand that uh I guess my only comment would be since we had this two weeks ago it would have been great to bring that up then so we could have distributed it then and cuzz now it just looks like we're just delaying it for some reason I mean I I again I'm not attributing any ill intentions but it just seems like we're delaying it for delaying it I mean the town manager brings up a good point it's the second time it's been the first time was oh you didn't have it okay so yeah everybody wanted to read it but we should have known okay well this should be distributed accordingly uh yeah I don't recall if it was even on the agenda but maybe I'm I'm wrong that yeah it was on the agenda it was on the agenda um did you have y I'm done no I I don't feel strongly honestly either way um well I I you you have me part of the way toward not taking the vote and that and it's actually kind of for the op not the opposite concern but the other concern that you brought up is that you know there's been a little uptick and there there's a trigger for open meeting law call outs um uh and I do think that somebody could seize upon this being inadequate notice on this thing and and I just you know we don't need that problem so um is I mean like I know you want to get this implemented is there a major problem delaying it for a week no um so I mean I can definitely go along with the Ling in for week mostly because of the posting issue I I will say if I may Mr chair to the to the point of posting the town manager and the F the real question is if you ask people in in that Loop what is the policy called anywhere else if the answer to that is it's called a turnover policy then that's what it's called then we're not making up a word so the fact that the public may not know what that is if it's a term that's used within within the Departments you know and it's a regular term from municipality to municipality you know there are lots of things like that I mean there are lots of things like that that happen people hear you know you know all acronyms all the time and different words mean different things in different you know careers so I don't think anybody would have a legitimate reason well not the the agenda is to tell you what you're talking about not to necessarily explain what it is yeah there is some kind of there is some of responsibility from the public if you're reading it to know what that is we we haven't hidden what the policy is so I don't think we're in any Jeopardy of the op now to extend it to next week we we get one good thing is that we get a five member board and then you know Miss MK can weigh on it too so I I'm for delaying it for a week for that but not Beyond a week I mean and it's a policy and it's a policy that lays with us so Committees of other elected bodies and appointed bodies have objection they can bring it to us and we can certainly amend it but I think this town management makes a good Safeguard uh argument that it would be good to have something in place and if we have to tweak it even if it's a month after we adopt it at least it's in place and anything we do is going to be a tweak it's not going to be a wholesale rewriting so I'm fine with delaying it for a week but not like three weeks yeah I mean I don't think that most boards are going to have time to respond to it in a week because that's what I'm you know that's what I think is necessary I mean I think that you know we had if I go back in time here I mean I presented some environmental policies in around October of 2022 and have provided the town manager with about a year and a half of time for staff to respond and haven't seen anything back so those are all all their comments they in the drive I haven't seen them then they're in the there's yeah and so but I haven't seen those comments I my point is if we give staff opportunity to give feedback I did see them from some boards and commissions and I'm not saying the town manager didn't do anything I know that she sent amount to get feedback back I just didn't see the response but if I think if we as practice try to be thorough and try to go through the process of making sure that all voices are heard I mean as I I think it's equally important for other boards and commissions especially if we write policies no matter what it is that it's to me especially something that that makes reference to boards and commissions and the school department that we give a fair opportunity for them to meet review and pass if there's nothing to to pass on uh and then the other point being the public issue I I hear you Mr Alonzo I think it's reasonable that if staff know what it's about but I don't translate open meeting law to be do staff understand agenda I translate it to be does the general public understand what's being discussed reasonably and and I think if I would have included the word Revenue turnover policy which is what's actually written on the policy I think my concern would be resolved because I think people could Google what is a revenue turnover policy and they would be fully informed but I think the absence of that critical word here I I don't the public was reasonably informed and that was my mistake yeah that's what I'm saying and I'm fine with delaying it for a week and that that could be remedied in the next agenda I guess so is a rest of the board in favor I mean I want mid May but is a rest of the board in favor of next week my P all right so let's add this to next week and if we can just distribute it in case anyone wants to show up next week that'd be helpful certainly all right all right my pin just fell apart oh I was going to say I feel like putting together something putting the spring of your pen on I always like mess with the cap and I I somehow put the cap on I got the whole top fell off with it so I couldn't I remember being shair once and I had one of those clickers and I clicked it and eventually it's my hand slipped off and the whole clicker pot like all right uh any discussion on fiscal year 24 budget 25 budget Capital plan 10 annual town meeting warrant consent calendar is in a draft is in the Google drive thank you wel so for the consent calendar you want me to walk through this or would you like to I can um so I've put together uh so consent calendar for the public is a grouping of articles that are non-controversial to be voted as a block every every motion is read allinone and at each article after it's read There's an opportunity for a hold to be pulled out of the consent calendar this starts at the the beginning of the town meeting so the articles that I've put on the draft consent calendar uh for consideration are article one and that's dependent on whether were there are any regular reports to be heard by any words I asked the chair and didn't believe there were um because Municipal Building design is not giving a report there may be a report but I don't I don't think it's going to happen in time okay given given how lengthy this meeting is potentially going to be I don't think there's going to be time okay um and there can always be an opportunity if they had a handout it can be on a table with handouts there will likely be a handout okay article two is the reauthor ization of the revolving funds that have already been established I did not include article 3 which is the new revolving fund that's referenced in the bylaw for the wetlands protection account article four is the prior year tax uh sorry prior year expense it's $1,944 55 that's for details that were not paid out for road projects at the end of the fiscal year here that came to light article 12 is the stabilization fund to transfer 100,000 from free cash into that fund Article 13 is to transfer 250,000 from free cash into the special purpose stabilization fund article 14 is the OPB trust fund so to transfer 18761 um and from um Town funds and and 1,500 from sewer retained earnings to the opep trust fund this is voted every year article 16 is to transfer 35,000 from the sewer capital reserve stabilization fund from sewer Enterprise retained earnings article 17 is the solid waste Enterprise budget and that's uh 398,000 from um anticipated revenues and 2,000 from the solid waste disposal retained earnings for a total 500,000 for fiscal 25 article 18 is the water um it's Department water Enterprise it's really not a water department we don't really have a water department so that's um so it's those um 5 to seven accounts that we receive bills from Fitchburg that we have to then build those customers for that's 45,000 Article 19 is the public access budget article and article 20 is the sale of cemetery lots article for $10,000 and article 25 is the water protection supply District which they voted last night at the planning board to pass over at town meeting so again well at least they didn't have an hour of discussion before we do that again this is like the third time this has been on here wow but I think they had substantive um changes and things that people brought up so they decided to table it to the fall to to vote to pass over it at this town meeting are there any questions or anything that anyone thinks is should not be included cuz this once the board decides I would pass it on to the finance committee to discuss at their meeting on Thursday so agreement 25 is the article 20 there's only 25 articles right yes wow so this cend hav cuts that in half okay now I mean if you want to throw the override article it's not get pulled out thought about saying that too I I will I will point out I always I always get a little bit concerned about the consent calendar with the prior year expens even at the price it is because it causes the whole thing to need 9/10 vote not that I don't think it's going to get it I just point that out and for doing one article alone for 9/10 vote which would take literally less than four minutes uh I always that well just I mean we put it in last year and it passed and you know the worst that'll happen is that if we vote the consent talend are down for some reason it doesn't reach 910th then we got to go through each of the Articles right so right and I think it may that may be diverted anyways by people pulling out the things that you know they're going to vote no on right um so cuz that is the way the consent calendar works right if you if if there's a hold to pull no a hold we know but if if you if we go to vote on it and it fails it doesn't make every it doesn't it just means that we vote on it again or do all those articles fail they we would then re go through them and vote so you'd get a second shot at the Apple is the point that was my understanding that's that's what I think too but I just I don't know that it's written anywhere like that so it'd be good to know and explain somewhere and for future reference for the if we're going to hand out a hand out we should say that a no on the consent C doesn't mean that the articles are defeated it means they just get voted on in their order otherwise so we should make that clear never came up CU I never thought we had we never even had a close vote no I'd rather not be starting any kind of new trend this year yeah and that's why we try to yeah make sure there there's nothing controversial about any of these everyone kind of agrees that' be a good head start start to that meeting halfway down all right so everyone's comfortable with what's being proposed for the consent calendar no one pulling anything out no all right okay thank you okay was there anything else on that that you wanted to hit um no okay um we don't have any we do have some minutes um we have minutes from October the 10th um did anyone have the opportunity to provide any feedback I read through earlier I I was absent for that meeting [Music] so yeah I read through them earlier I think that um I think that Annie is doing a really good job in how she summarizes um the comments the only feedback and I didn't give it to her previously and I figured we were going to vote on it but going forward it would be helpful if she can put in bold uh the motions and the votes and that's really it but I thought she did a great job U pulling them together and uh yeah is there a motion to approve the minutes I move to approve the minutes from October 10th second any additional discussion all in favor please say I I I those oppos no any extensions abstain all right the motion passes all right um warrants I don't see any warrants tonight oh there they go we should be signing something soon there there's so many that needed their own chair not you probably good on this right oh thank you all right so first we have a uh accounts let me just look at it I got thank you thank you thank you all right all right so we have an accounts payable warrant the amount of $361,500 we have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of $836,000 of oh it's a little lower today $9 9,598 and4 cents have any action items all right I we'll start with two so the first is to the town manager um and it is it would be helpful going through the presentations tonight and I made this I I made this comment earlier today to myself and I meant to reach out to you but um it would be helpful if we had a standard template for presentations um I think with a minimum font size I think that the presentations we received tonight I know that you know some residents have complained at home that they can't read them but I think it would be helpful if we figured out what is the minimum font that's readable um on most televisions and and let's make that the minimum uh cuz I think a lot of the fine print um you know I I know that Finance reports are not the most interesting reports to people um but I think you know using that as an example um I think it sometimes is helpful if people at home could follow along because they can read numbers better than they can hear numbers um and then going through the the U plan that was presented by Mr Bernard seeing it here I mean it was fine but I just worry that the folks at home can't follow along so that that's my only comment it would be helpful we had a standard template with some minimum font sizes and then the second one is not for the town manager but it's for the board and uh to decide if we want to put we can talk about this to the extent permitted by open meeting law we had a request coming from the PTO uh and the request is for us to do it's in our Google Drive and I uh and the request is pretty straightforward it's asking if we will consider creating a uh experience prize uh for I'll just go ahead and read the note uh so we have a a a note from um Miss Gilman uh and it says you know to select board members and and to the town manager um Miss Lemieux I'm writing in um let me just get to the point in the last few years the biggest hits for prizes this is related to PTO they're having um a raffle during Cruise Night on May the 22nd uh which we had previously approved uh and then so their note is in the last few years the biggest hit for prizes included a ride to school in the firetruck principal for the day and a tour of the state house and is it possible the select board could honor a student at select board member of the day or town manager for the day um it could be as creative as you'd like and wouldn't have to actually include the whole day you could present an award to the student at school or have them come to a meeting uh let me know if you'd like to chat about this further so I figured I would get this to us it seems like a pretty cool thing I think that um I did have a couple questions about age limits like what are the ages for this and uh man's response was that we could we could pick that ourselves that we could say hey this prize is good for kids aged you know 12 through whatever we can say it's great for 5 through 10 so we could put restrictions on age on it ourselves and then also for us to just discuss I am not creative I well I am to a point but this is not my thing and I don't know I don't have any idea what kids enjoy so I'm sitting here looking at Caesar wow not no you know that didn't come out right I'm looking at Caesar because in our interactions I find Caesar to be very creative and and thoughtful about about things and that you know you might be in a better position certainly better than I and I think Mr Lonzo would as well given the work you do with the boys and girls club you might have a better idea than I of what would something good look like cuz to me I don't think coming to a meeting for two hours is being fun for a kid yeah I thought that too honestly like looking at this email my first impression was actually I think like riding to school in a fir truck would be more fun than being like a select board member or town manager for the day but like Al like compared to um well select board member of the day I mean we're volunteers so like really the only thing that that would entail is coming to a meeting and I don't know if anyone really would want to spend their Tuesday night with us until like want to subject the kids to that I mean you know Town manager for a day like maybe that could be like a fun thing when do I have time I know I know um it would need to be developed a little more and I don't really know if I'm the right person for that but I know I'm the wrong I don't it honestly like my honest opinion is that in the last few years like what you guys have already done are better than like what you're trying to do um but I don't know I guess fire trucks are more exciting than government maybe wow for a kid you think you think like like has bro makes fire Tru toys there's no municipal government set there's no board game called I do genuinely like select board I don't have any ideas i' I've thought about this and I'm like I don't have any ideas at all for what a kid may find well I like the idea of her of being asked and I so I'll give it some more thought I did read it when it came in but I'll give it some more thought if we could come up with anything I mean it's it really I mean it would take and I don't mean this in any bad way it would really take a special kind of kid to appreciate or want to do anything municipal government Orient like be chair of Select board for a day or town manager for a day you know I don't even that that doesn't even thrill the select Board of the Town manager I so so we have to do something a little more exciting yeah uh kid appropriate all right so that gets to mine mine was going to be Facebook comment screener for a day yours would yours would be named that Colonial that Colonial founding father that's what be yours all right so this is something we can take up on a our next agenda and to can hopefully everyone's going to put on their creative juices I'm not coming with any ideas I'm just I thought about this heavily and I just I I even talked about it at home and I couldn't I couldn't think of anything fun I don't think I'm a fun person I think there is one thing that maybe I'm just thinking it off top of my head so like we give people commendations and citations we could we could recognize with a citation somebody being the citizen of the day or you know whatever we could we could have some kind of you know a formal presentation and we can invite the police and fire here to you know their members CU they're very they really love doing that kind of community thing of the schools and present them with the award with their family that would be kind of an interesting idea or do it during the school day right I mean that would probably be the I think coming I mean I think there's something about coming to a meeting just they don't have to stay for the whole meeting just like be there and you know yeah 7:05 public comments after this yes yes yeah we we would do that right off the start right can come up an idea for like a fun award like that that we can do as you know any sort of citation that we do I think that's probably like realistically all that we can actually do all right so so next week we'll talk about a town hall that's I was thinking that I didn't say there you go that's a great idea see oh what was that one like a fake key to tell oh you know give the key to the city yeah yeah I thought of that but I don't I don't know it's so you can teach how clock hey that that's see there you go that could be something there right and Winder yeah yeah that'd be good that'd be good a tour of a tour of town hall including the that would be a cool idea like that so I did have something in in there plus I was going to say even before that comment that you're selling yourself short there have been one or two occasions over the last three years when I had found you to be fun especially as these meetings get to like and this is why people need to watch the whole meeting stuff happens at the end exactly all all right any other action of my items this evening oh any other actional items this evening no all right committee reports fincom meets on Thursday they're going to talk about their finance committee report for a handout to town meeting because it didn't make the printed report okay and then they'll they have some agenda it items for the budget just like we do for the budget for the override etc etc yep any other planning board met last night um they finally continued the public hearing for 255 Sunny Hill Road um one of the Lots is um especially problematic for conservation so it's still being reviewed um they discussed for a while allowing the other Lots I think there's three other lots that they wanted to build on to move forward um they decided not to so they're going to continue the public hearing again on June 10th um we already discussed the water protection bylaw I w't really get into the discussion but they're still working with the public um it's still being worked on so they decided not to um have it be voted on at town meeting and that's pretty much it okay Economic Development Committee will meet 6: PM Thursday at Ritter all right Library met last week um and I already gave the note about agcom and okay upcoming meetings we have April 30th so we're meeting next week and then we're meeting uh we have town meeting coming up on May the 4th that's Saturday uh at the lenberg middle school high school auditorium and overflow as announced tonight uh in the gymnasium and potential potentially in the gymnasium and potentially in the cafeteria and then we are meeting on um we have the 7th 14th and 21st so it looks like we're meeting straight through um until um the end of the month end of May all right and you Mr chair are not here the SE the fourth and the 7th is that correct I am not here on the fourth or the 7th Mr um Franco will be chairing on the 7th we have any other absences coming up that we're aware of all right public comments any public comments this evening from the town manager none for me all right any public comments from the public we're going to start with Mr pel we're we're going to call anyone in the room Mr pasos thank you very much Dave Paso 56 W Street speaking as a citizen of the town of lenberg and nothing to do with any of my fire seats or pres seats involved in municipal government um I have to put this you might not notice that I'm going to blame you guys if we do not have a farmers market this summer uh there's at least one member in the committee who is very much aware of what the issues are with the Aton uh eight points that need to be uh vetted are the circumstances of the February meeting uh take a look at the agendas for the last two years uh that gives you a good picture of something that's been going on or not going on and a lack of reorganization extion in a very very long time uh as I said there is at least one member of your committee that is aware of what the issues are and the way you guys are dancing around it uh there won't be Market this summer because it's not going to get resolved thank you thank you Mr pasos and I think you're referring to me I'm very aware of the concerns of the members of the Agricultural commission uh I think you know I I don't think it was appropriate for me to mention it in their absence this evening um certainly I think the approach I've taken is to try to meet with the agricultural commission and to invite the membership to come here to meet with us as well but I am I am very aware yeah the other comment I wanted to make is half the town is very much aware what the problem is I can't believe you guys are not thank you all right any other public comments yes good to see you this evening good to see you this evening it's good to see you too all my name is j Duffy I live at 684 flat Hill Road um and speaking on my heal myself and not on behalf of the atcom just for clarity I think that I agree that there's been efforts to try to arrange a meeting between Adcom as a quorum and the select board to discuss issues such as the farmers market and the Adcom in general um from my communications I can see that on the 9th there was a select board meeting and there was no Quorum of the Adcom able to be met because there was not a meeting posted for that day and we were invited to have an invitation for the same topics of tonight as that day and hopes to meet a quorum for that day um I Heard earlier that you'd only heard back from the chair and one other member saying that they were unable to attend just like to clarify that I sent two emails saying that I would be available tonight and request that we could have communication on if there would be a quorum available and have a meeting for the Adcom posted for this evening so that Adcom could be here in Quorum and meet with the select board and not just myself as an individual person so those emails were sent on April 9th and April 16th requesting that AUM to be made for today um I'm sorry that Michael R Jeffy that you came to the meeting last Thursday and that no one showed up to the meeting I would like to say that the members of Adcom outside of the chair not aware that you would be in attendance to have a discussion with the Adcom that day and also that two members of the Adcom did respond that they would not be able to make that meeting in advance of the meeting so it should have been known that at least two of the five members of atcom had declined for the day so there chances of having a court on that day were minimal I was only aware of Mary Ray being out of town yeah but our chair was aware that two people had declined and I feel that should have been passed on to you before you came to the meeting to to be there or or that we could have been had an agenda with your topic on there that we would be discussing some things I thought it was on the posted agenda the meeting with the chair of the select board I'm not sure but um anyways my understanding was that we were meeting tonight but we didn't have a meeting posted for adom for today so I do think we could have a little bit more communication to have a meeting set up with Adcom whether that's here or at a separate ad hoc meeting um I think that Adcom is willing to meet but we just need to have Clarity on who's going to be where and what is the the case do you mind if while you're here we I engage with you because this is a public comment so technically you comment and we don't have to respond but you mind if I you can speak um it it may be helpful um if if the members of the Agricultural Commission can uh see if there's an opportunity to meet um outside of the normal meeting schedule and and preferably you know sooner than later uh and as soon as possible uh and I don't know how to get that communication going I don't know if you have I think I was told that you guys have a text thread that you guys are all on with one another um and for the purpose of coordinating meetings it is acceptable to be able to text one another to say Hey when's the next available opportunity for people to meet um and for the most part part um you know I'm I'm aside from select board meetings and given the cycle that we're in I'm I'm pretty available I know I I you know we can certainly meet with the full board I know I wanted to have the opportunity to meet with you guys as well because I my thought was that out most of your meetings are at britter excuse me most of your meetings are at Brit at britter I'm aware that they're not they're minutes but they're not always televised and so there's no real record of any previous meetings and and sometimes that in person Forum creates an opportunity for people to speak more frankly um and so I think it would be helpful if the commission could meet uh as a commission uh and then talk through some of the challenges that are having and figure out what the next steps are yep I would agree with that I think that would be great um I think as previous public comment said I don't think anyone looks a lot at the Adcom Jenna because it's been the same for quite some time so so between you know I can reach out certainly to Mr Alison I know he's still with us and to you but I would encourage that there be that communication you know amongst each other to kind of get that next date down I know I'm going to be away from roughly the 2nd through the 7th but it doesn't have to be me could be anyone but I will be back so I'm away from the 2nd through the 7th of May um but certainly I know that um any member of this board is qualified and capable uh you know to be able to meet with you guys and talk through I think um I would specific Ty Ally prefer um that Mr Alonzo or Mr Franco um given their experience on the board and experience with challenging Municipal kind of dynamics that can exist that that that um you can certainly pick whoever you want Mr um Mr newo you know is a you know officer in the Army he's a trained leader he certainly knows how to work with people um but it may be helpful I know that you know I've leaned on Mr Alonzo a lot for guidance on how to move forward things uh so it may be helpful that if it's not me it's someone else but you think that you guys can work on that you have contact for the other members um yes could it be possible to propose somebody to propose a time and a date and we can addc or maybe two dates and we can find which one works that works with the member of the select board are you do you know if the members have email and access to email on the commission uh yes okay so they are getting the emails okay I think I mean as far as I know the majority of the members have access to the email maybe one or two don't but I'm not sure okay all right well I have your number Jen so it may be helpful for us to talk and kind of work through a potential date and then also of course the town manager I mean you know part of the function of the Town manager is to assist um you know boards in certain areas uh I'm not gonna say that the town manager is jumping up and down because this may be a political um um issue um but okay so we'll have maybe two dates proposed and we can find one that works for Adcom and post a meeting I'm going to throw a lot more than two at you I think less options is better are there okay so I think what we can do as next steps is we can I can reach out to Mr Alice and I can reach out to you we can figure out dates that we know work for the two of you guys and then hopefully you guys can communicate that with your membership to get us to a better Point great yeah I'm pretty available we want a farmers market so we know it's probably uh getting less likely by the day here so okay thank you thank thank you for coming tonight and speaking to us you have any other public comments from the public no one on Zoom all right any other public coms in the board just everybody come out to the boys and girls club fundraiser Frid night 7:00 and I assume Mr chair you have a team ready we do all right and and The Gauntlet was thrown down by the uh a little a little bit of uh hype talk from the police department on the as the defending champ so uh come out and see the Sparks Fly it's a lot of fun it's a lot of fun I highly recommend it all right any other public comments from the uh from the board all right oh okay motion to adjourn second any additional discussion all right all in favor please say I I those oppose no time is 9:43 the select repard is adjourned and again we will be meeting next week and look forward to seeing you then