Tonight's meeting of the Lunberg Select Board. Today is Tuesday, May 20th. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law, please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg public access channel on Facebook live on the
public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg Access YouTube channel after the meeting. The agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair. Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not
listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law. We're going to begin with public comments. Are there any public comments from the board? My only comment is, you know, welcome to our two new members and looking forward to starting off this new year. Thank you.
Nothing. Nothing. Welcome. Thank you for for volunteering and uh congratulations and yeah, looking forward to the the new season, year, whatever we're going to call it. I also would like to congratulate both Brian
and Glenn on winning their election and joining the select board. And I'd also like to congratulate everyone else that was on the ballot this past Saturday. I'd also would like to thank the town clerk and all the election volunteers for making that election possible as well. Any public comments from the
public? All right, not seeing any on Zoom. We are going to move on to reorganization of the select board. So process-wise, how this is going to work, we are going to go through each of the three seats. So chair, vice chair, and
clerk. For each one, I will ask if there are any nominations. A nomination will have to be made and seconded. Uh once I hear no more nominations, I'll close nominations. We will have discussion if there is any and then we will vote on each of the nominations in the order in
which they were made. Any questions on that? All right. So let's start with chair. I will now open it up for nominations for chair. Mr. Chair, I nominate Caesar Nolo for chair. Second. All right. Are there any other
nominations for chair? All right, hearing none, I will close nominations. Is there any discussion? All right, we will now vote. The first nomination is for me for chair. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes
unanimously. We will now move on to vice chair. I will open it up to nominations for vice chair and I will nominate Amanda Moore. Second. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, I will close nominations for vice chair. Is there any
discussion? All right, we will now vote on the nomination for Amanda Moore for vice chair. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. I will now open it up to nominations for clerk.
I nominate Renee Mi for clerk. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Are there any other nominations? All right. Hearing none, I will move on to discussion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we will now
vote on the nomination for Renee Mi for clerk. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those votes, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. So, I think uh we need to play musical chairs now. Madam clerk, when it comes time Oh, yes. Here's a public hearing notice. I got to
work already. You do. We have a public hearing tonight. Don't stumble over my words when I have to read now. All right. So, we're going to get in our correct seats and we'll start right back up in not too long, but Oh, you have to
unless it's stretch. You guys are going to have to get the name tags as well. name tags, too. There you go. Okay. And then you guys will be an alpha. All right. That was Oh, I got my seat.
[Music] You get to meet the middle. Yeah. [Music] All right. I believe we are all in our seats now. We're settling back in and we're going to resume with the meeting. Moving on to announcements. And I do
have a couple. Let me pull them up. Tomorrow night is the classic cruise night from 4 to 8:00 p.m. on Memorial Drive down to TC Pacios. It is hosted by the Lunberg Community Food Pantry, Lions Club, PTO, and the Club Teen Center.
It's a free event with music, food, games, and prizes. And there is a rain. Hopefully the weather works out. Uh but the rain date will be the following Wednesday, May 28th. The annual Memorial Day ceremony is going to be on Memorial Day next
Monday, May 26 at 10 a.m. at Veterans Memorial Park on Massav. And there is one more yard waste day. It's not this Saturday because of Memorial Day. So it's the following Saturday, the 31st. So if you still have yard waste like I do, uh you have one more day to bring it
down to the landfill. And one more. The Friends of the Library book and bake sale is going to be on Saturday, June 7th from 9:00 am to 2 pm. It's going to be open to all. And on the
uh on Friday, June 6th from 2 to 6:00 p.m. Sorry, the day before that, there's going to be a special preview sale for members of the Friends. And anyone is eligible to pay the $25 annual membership to join the Friends and partake in the preview period. Several
hundred people are currently members of the Friends of the Lunberg Public Library, about 10 times as many in most towns. All proceeds go to the 501c3, Friends of the Lunberg Public Library, which gives the library four to 40 to $50,000 each year. Dozens of volunteer
bakers donate delicious baked goods, and the friends have been collecting donated books since last fall, and we hope to see hundreds of people there. Any other announcements? I do have an announcement, Mr. Chairman. Um, so on June 14th from 2:00 to 5:00 pm, the
artisans of Hickory Hills will be holding a symphony of art auction. Um, this is an auction which uh the proceeds will benefit both the Hickory Hills Lake Restoration and the Lun Lunenberg High School Art Department. So that's a great event. Um, at the so the silent the
auction itself is June 14th from 2:00 to 5:00, but folks can go to the library from June 4th to June 13th, view the items. We have original paintings, photography, wood sculpture, jewelry, textiles, quilts, and more. Um, so you can view that at the public library and
submit bids from June 4th to June 13th. And then the final announcement will be on the 14th from 2:00 to 5:00. Cool. Thank you very much. All right. Communications from other boards. I'm not seeing anyone here. And scheduled meetings. We have a
7:10 p.m. public hearing for a special event license and one day all alcohol license for St. Bonafice on June 22nd from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Tim Murphy from St. Bonafice and Tom Bodkin. Oh, my apologies. I have
to ask the clerk to read the public hearing notice. Oh, okay. She's knew it. She didn't realize she had I thought it was, but yeah. Um, the Lunberg Licensing Authority will hold a public hearing on May 20th, 2025 at 7:10 p.m. in the town hall, 17 Main Street,
second floor, Lunberg, Massachusetts on the application submitted by St. Bonafice for a special event permit for the Sounds of Jubilee 75-year Diamond Jubilee on June 22nd, 2025 from noon to 8:00 p.m. All right, thank you. All right, back to
you guys. Thanks, Tim Murphy. Tom Bodkin, we're from St. Bonafice. Um, and imagine 75 years ago. Right here on that stage is where St. Bonafice had their first mass. And so 75 years later, we want to
celebrate, have a jubilee, the diamond jubilee, uh, to celebrate, you know, our beginnings. He was an alter boy. But I do hear from people. when I was talking to Lisa Normandon when we got our permit for the tent, she said her
mother remembers going to church here uh back in the day. So uh so the the idea is to have a big celebration. Um we have a huge tent that was going to set in the back of the church and we've invited uh all of the parishioners to come free of charge. Now you see on the brochure it
says that they're going to be charged. And when we first started it, we thought, yeah, you know, everybody can pay a commensurate amount for getting a meal from illornos and live music. But people didn't buy the tickets right away. And we started getting very
nervous. So, we decided last week, it's going to be free. People can make a free will donation. We hope that they'll come. We just want to have a party. And we've set aside enough money to make sure that that can happen. So, the event will be from noon to 8. Uh and we have a
number of musical uh guests that are coming. Most importantly, we have a musical group called the Mopai Sisters. They're a triplets. There were actually four of them that were born. One of them passed away, but there's three of them that are remaining triplets from Nairobi, Nigeria. And so when we were
first putting the event together, we had a little difficulty finding enough musical groups that were going to be attractive. And father said that he knew of this group. Claire um knees, formerly Clare Gity that some of you may know. Uh she reached out to them. Turns out that their business manager is from Fitsburg,
went to St. Bernard's and so when we reached out to them, he went, "Oh, we'd love to do it." Gave us a fantastic price. Uh so they will be here as the as the uh the featured speakers, the featured musicians. So uh it's going to be a wonderful event. It's going to be
catered, as I said, for meos. Uh and we're very excited. So, so far now that we've decided tickets are free, um tickets um have skyrocketed. So, now we have well over 200 people that are coming and we have the capacity to do as many as 400 people. It's a huge tent. I
don't think we'll get to 400. Um but we do have the capacity to do that if it turns out to be that way. Uh so, we're excited. We got a one day, we're asking for a one-day liquor license, just beer and wine. Uh Tom F knows a place to get all the beer and wine. He's good at that. He's done it before. And of
course, we've been running October Fest festivities at St. Bonafice for a number of years now. So, we kind of have a good sense of how to run these events. So, just asking for your permission to have an event and asking your permission to have a one-day liquor license for beer and wine. And to the town manager, is
everything in the application good? It is. All right. Great. I will now open it up to questions from the board if there are any. I don't have any questions. My usual question you already asked is, you know, everything in order. So I think you know you guys have done this once or twice. Not this Julie. This is a great event.
It's a little different event but yes we've done it several times. Y especially with alcohol like this what you're doing with that. So I hope you have a successful event. It looks like a great event. Do how do you feel about the parking? So the parking we have parking at the church. We've already got parking from Conrads. So that should be
the backup first backup. And then we also have the parking. We have permission to park down at the uh funeral home. I spoke to the people that own it now that are building there. Um, and he said absolutely, you know, use it. I mean, they need a little goodwill down there. So, they're hoping to garner
a little goodwill by offering to let us park. I don't know that we'll need that parking. Uh, but we should be able to accommodate as many people as we could possibly have. Good. Any other questions from the board? Okay. This is a public hearing, so I'm going to open it up to the public. I do see quite a few people on
Zoom. Does anyone on Zoom want to speak to the public hearing for this special event license? All right. I'm not seeing any. So to the board, is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those
in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. The public hearing is now closed. You should note that Tom Bodkin is an attorney that didn't say a word, which is really odd. Saving my best for last, Tim. Okay. All right. You got something to say? You don't have to you don't have to be a
parishioner. Okay. So, good point. Good point. Great. All uh all are welcome and as long as tickets last and no negotiation on the price though. We're at our bottom dollar. Tickets. How do you get tickets? Yeah. So, at each
mass last weekend and this coming weekend, we're handing them out to people at the door. So, if that's one way that particularly dad could make sure that he got a ticket, and maybe he already did. Uh if not then um if you contact the office we may do it a third
weekend but if you contact the parish office just show up because we're not going to sell out. I mean we've got capacity positive famous last get a hold of us too. We'll see what we can do. Let me know. Okay. Dad knows how to It was more for right. Good
luck and congratulations to all. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you for stepping up. What a difference that we can make. Yeah. Really thanks for stepping up guys. We have we still have to vote officially. Oh, you got to vote. They didn't vote. Yeah, we haven't voted yet. Sorry. I was just having a sideline with the town manager over here. Skip that.
Yeah. All right. Is there a motion to approve the special event license and the all alcohol license? Yep. Or so special event license for the Sounds of Jubilee on June 22nd from 12:00 to 8 and the one day special license for beer and wine for the same date and time. That's
what I got. So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you much. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck. Yeah, it said all alcohol here. So, yeah. Okay. All
right. Moving on to appointments. We have a couple. So, we have the ratification of the town manager appointment of Peter Schmidt as seasonal cemetery laborer. So, this is uh Peter's second summer returning and excited to have him back. He'll be here once school is completed. Great. Any questions for
the town manager? Is there a motion to approve the town manager's appointment of Peter Schmidt as seasonal cemetery laborer? Some moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? No. The motion passes unanimously. Ratification of the town manager's appointment of
Andrea Matson as seasonal lifeguard. Do you want to do Mr. Did you want? Do you want to do both of them together? Okay. Andrea Matson and Olivia Corinella as seasonal lifeguards. So these are two new lifeguards. Um so this is uh exciting to getting new people in. And this is we're almost through
appointments of all the summer help. We have one more lifeguard in the queue, but we're almost there. Awesome. Any questions? Are they giving swim lessons? I thought I heard they are going they are parks commission is planning to go forward with swim
lessons. Yeah, there was a little concern about the water safety instructor, but that has been resolved. That has been resolved. Good. All right. Is there a motion? I move to ratify the appointment of Andrea Matson and Olivia Cornella as
seasonal lifeguards. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. And we also want to acknowledge the resignation of Brandon Kibby from the Open Space Committee. And oh, did you have the letter or anything? Uh, it's in the
packet. essentially he just um felt as though he couldn't give the time that he he loved serving and he just can't give the time that he feels is needed at this point. Right. So I want to thank Brandon for your time on the committee and uh thank you for volunteering.
I think he served for quite a few years. Chosen eight I believe. So thank you for his many years of service. All right. And that's it for appointments. And up next is the town manager report. Okay. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I have two um grant like
announcements tonight. Excuse me. The first is that we have been awarded $99,335 through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund program which is funded through the Mass Clean Water Trust. These funds will be coupled with a local match of
$59,565 to fund the asset management, inventory, and planning of our storm water systems. So um this is an extension of uh work that we that we have completed under a grant that we received in fiscal year 23 uh where we
did asset management of the storm water system and um set up a framework to track the inspections that we need to do under the MS4 permit. So this funding um will be used to continue um analyzing the assets that we have documentating
documenting their conditions um and uh providing a web-based analysis of the storm water system. So, uh, this is all work that I'm sure member MK has heard a lot about, but in compliance with the MS4 permitting and storm water
requirements, um, that we are pursuing, and I thank the DPW director for continuing to go after these funds. Uh, the next item is that the cultural council has been awarded $9,200 for this year. I have emailed the chair of the council to schedule a
meeting so that I can understand the council's local priorities um and also assist in advertising when they are getting their grants out. I'm not sure how we've done it in the past, but sometimes cultural councils just need a little help letting people know that they have funds and if you have a
project, they can be funded if it meets the local um the local priorities. Uh reminder, tomorrow the Munas financial system will be undergoing a scheduled upgrade as we migrate to the cloud. So online financial transactions uh will be
available during this time, but there will be no uh in-person financial transactions tomorrow at town hall. Um services should resume as normal on Tuesday and messaging has been put out on the website and social media. So tomorrow and Thursday, I'm sorry,
tomorrow is only Wednesday. It is only on Thursday. Okay. Okay. It is Thursday, not tomorrow. So, there's one more day if you'd like to pay in person. Friday. Well, Friday, still it it will be migrating
still on Friday, right? Um so, uh with the uh election coming to a conclusion and upcoming appointed terms coming to a conclusion, we're working with our IT vendor to wind down um existing email accounts and to create new accounts for folks. And we will also be updating the
website accordingly. This is a process. We have only so many licenses and we need to take the licenses from some store their information and reapportion it or reallocate it to another user and um we're doing this priority based and
also as um as boards are meeting and whatnot. So um it's a process um and we're not doing it before people are sworn in either. So, um, next is that we are beginning to start the process of
getting all of the select board licensing onto Open Gov. I have a meeting next week with Brian Gingris, who's going to be helping with that process. Um, and so the plan is to have all of our licensing fully online by the fall renewal season. So, that is
fantastic. That is so exciting. It is so exciting. Will that sorry can I ask a question before you move to the next thing? Will that include updating our forms and everything that we have or is that going to be a secondary or well the forms become embedded as like a web form. So it's Right. So it's we're not
updating the whole the whole thing. Yeah. So no old like documents that look like they've been scanned and photocopied several times over. Yeah. Great. Very exciting. And hopefully I mean we have a lot of our businesses are
local but there's you know we have corporate entities that have a franchise here in town and that can be exceedingly difficult for them when they have to come in and renew their licenses through the paper process. So all right project updates. Uh the work on Ritter Roof is
going um as anticipated. The slate has been completed as I reported last week. Um and they're really working on the trim now but there's no surprises so far. Oh, okay. Um, and we are starting to plan for the partial uh decommissioning
of the TC Pacios building. So, facilities director Chris Ruth is spearheading these efforts. Um, department heads, if you're watching this, you're getting a highlight at what's at the meeting next week. Uh, department heads are give going to be given the target um of June 30th to
purge all their old files. um anything that can be purged, get rid of it, and then to label and organize what will be retained because all of that is moving. Those four rooms of files have to move out of that old section. Uh the school department will be vacating the building
over the summer months. Um then after that occurs, um the rooms that PAC will be going into, their electrical system needs to be upgraded for their needs. That will be done. And then Chris is setting up um the other uh shutdown of
the electrical system in the portion of the building that will be decommissioned, shutting down the water, uh the sprinkler system, and installing a firewall and door um firewall and fire door. The goal is to complete the decommissioning of that portion of the
building um prior to the heating season. Where is pack moving to? Where's their new room? Well, this so school's moving, right? all there. So, he showed me the diagram. It's in uh they they viewed and they picked a couple of rooms and there's two rooms that they have picked
that don't have any water yet or what? Like water leaking? Yeah. No. No. I said yet. Yeah, she did. Yeah. Well, the other about TC Pacios and you bringing this up um this is something that we discussed a little bit during um kind of
the capital planning process and a little bit in the budget, but there was funding um I don't think I discussed it with this board. So, there was funding at uh previous at the fall special town meeting for repairs to TC Pacio's roof and that was very specifically for the
portion of the building that we're decommissioning. Mhm. Um so you can anticipate to see a future warrant article uh that's brought to the town meeting to move those funds to the portion of the building that remains.
It was clearly identified in the art. It was very clearly identified and in the presentation made at town meeting it was very clearly identified that it was for that portion of the building. So was it like so in in full transparency to voters we'll bring it back for
another vote. Um but So, there's funding there for roof repair if voters approve it to be moved. Mhm. It was like 300,000. Yeah. Over three. Yeah. Okay. What? How many was that approved at? I don't I think the fall special. Yeah. I thought it was even further. I thought
it was when Heather was still here originally. Maybe. I don't know. We'd have to look. But it I thought it was the fall special, but yeah, regardless regardless. So that that's the goal is to shore up that part of the building that there's potential long-term use of
that part of the building and putting in a firewall is enough. I mean, I know nothing about fire safety, but that's enough according to code and everything else to decommission the building to turn the sprinkler systems off and everything. Sprinkler systems and all the electric. And Chris has been working
closely with the fire chief to understand all of what the requirements will be. Okay. Yeah. So, this is a absolutely coordinated effort. Um, anything else on TCP? Okay. So, there's going to be a lot of movement over there. There's a lot of
moving around. Um, there's a lot of designs for what we could do with the space. We're trying to do the the core movements first and then let's see where the dust settles. Once you have that done, you know where the movements are going to be. Can we have some sort of a diagram or have something brought forward so that we can we can see it but
also show the people, you know, what's what it's going to look like, what it what it is now and what it's going to look like. Sure. Yeah, good idea. All right. And uh we had funding from uh prior capital for um Wallace Park Courts
resurfacing. Uh the facilities director is preparing that scope of services now so that we can get that bid out. Um we're hoping to get that project completed before um the fall so that we can do it this year. Otherwise, we can't do resurfacing in in um once the weather
gets cold. And lastly for project updates, the assistant town manager is starting to work with department heads now who had capital projects approved at the annual town meeting in getting ready for when we can go out to bid. So the goal here is to be proactive that we're
ready to hit the street on July 1st for as many bids as possible and hopefully be a little bit ahead of others who also just went through their town meeting and have projects hitting the street. Right. So that is up that is the update on uh projects recruitment. We have uh the
administrative assistant for planning. That's Logan's position. 36 hours per week that's posted. Applications are starting to come in. Anticipated start date for that position is July 1st. Uh we held interviews yesterday for the 10-hour a week uh conservation position.
That's good. And um I believe we will be checking references this week and and sending out an offer if the references are good. Um recording clerk and secretaries for various boards and committees. We have a whole host of
folks scheduled for interviews um for a number of different boards and committees that um need recording clerks. Um when we when we interview people this week for this position, there is um a small amount of money and a small amount of time in
specifically in the select board budget due to the vacancy that we have there um that I'm going to see if folks are interested in working in in addition to this more permanent recording clerk position, working on a contractual basis to assist the select board in catching
up on some of our minutes, paying by the set of minutes, not by not as a on a contract as a 1099 employee to do or 1099 vendor to do minutes. If they have interest in doing both, that's great. Um, we only have a small window to do it
because we we only have until June 30. Um, that position is going to be filled as of July 1st. So, that would be So, if anybody's listening wants to do sets of minutes temporarily, please do. Please submit an application. Uh, dietary aid is posted at 9 hours per
week and applications are starting to come in for that position. Okay. Land use director position. This has not been posted. Um, here's why. So the way that this position is currently configured is that this
individual is primarily a planner and director of economic development who also has oversight over all other land use functions over the building commissioner over conservation and well planner and ZBA
typically go together but really over conservation and building commissioner that is not it's not that it's doesn't occur that does that setup does occur. It's not typical. Um, and so we have had some internal discussions about how that
position may look before we take it out and we're going to continue those discussions. I'm bringing the chair of the planning board into them this week. Um, the thought is that folks who are really interested in planning and economic development are not typically
the folks that are overseeing these other departments. they're really doing the planning and the economic development and supervising whatever their staff is. Of course, interfacing with the other departments. It's a little odd to not have a direct line between the building commissioner and
the town manager or town administrator. There's usually not anybody in between there. Um I don't necessarily see why there would need to be. And so that's what we are kind of discussing. I want to put this out in a way that we are
attractive This is potentially a difficult position to fill. It was a difficult position to fill in the in uh the past, especially where we are one of the fastest growing communities in the Commonwealth. I don't think that it would be in Lunenburgg's
best interest to get somebody who is inexperienced in this area. So, I want to make sure that we have the right job description to attract the right person for what Lunberg's needs are. So, more to come. It's going to take a couple w couple weeks before we get there. So what are we doing in the interim? So
Matt Runner has been wonderful as planning board chair sitting over there um every day pretty much. Um as I understand that's going to be coming to an end soon. Uh we had a couple of leads
on interim planners. Uh those have not panned out. There is one more lead that Matt is exploring for an interim planner. If that lead doesn't work out, we're going to post for an interim and whether it's a contract
person or however that looks is however that looks, but post an interim to get us through. Any questions on that on that? Do we have to post for an interim? No. If we're going to get an interim, we don't have not necessarily. No, depends on how much they're working on if
they're working not as an employee as as a vendor on a 1099 contract. Okay. I have a question. How does this work? This is an SAP position. We don't have a personnel committee. Yep. So, how does that work? If we have if you're going to change the job description, are you going to be looking at changing the pay
rate at all or does that have to be accepted? Well, so so probably the pay rate would fall outside of SAP under the provision of the SAP that the position could be contracted. Okay. I would imagine that this position could be contracted. Okay. Um, in terms of
changing the job description, I believe uh that in the absence of a personnel board, that just lands with the town manager. Yeah. Okay. So, there's a lot of dialogue. We during our first conversation, we were
kind of all going in different directions and then we broke and we said, let's come back to this. So, now we're going to bring Matt into that kind of discussion and see where we come to. And did you say that Matt has been in the office helping out? Is that I said that Matt has not only been in the office helping out, he has been in the office helping out every single day.
Okay. Well, I didn't know that was happening. So, thank you, Mr. Brener, for stepping in and helping that way. Um, that's just great to hear. So, thank you. He has been an absolute godsend and he is wonderful to work with. and he has really but the the whole team in the
Ritter building has been keeping the wheels on the bus and everybody has really been like just totally supporting one another and showing up and helping as they can and I really appreciate that. So um and then seasonal lifeguards we have
one candidate that's still in processing. So that's it for recruitment. All right, board and committee vacancies. So, the select board policy is that folks had until the 15th to reapply if they were interested
in continuing to serve or to submit their applications. I am chasing a couple people to to see if they um really are not interested. I haven't heard back from and it's coming back a little mixed in that area. Um but
I do have several boards. We've received applications from new people, which is wonderful, who are interested in joining, but I do have several boards that nobody submitted applications for. Okay. So, I didn't know if the board wanted to extend the May 15th deadline
out to May 30th and kind of do one more, let me look through and see who I really have nobody for for the vacancies and specifically target those. One more sweep of getting volunteers. What is the board's thoughts? I think we definitely should do that. Um, we have until the
first and second week of June until we make these reappoints. So, if we are doing any last stitch effort to recruit people and see if, you know, maybe there are people who would like to be reappointed that we just haven't gotten in touch with or if we can try to identify even more people to uh sign up,
then we definitely should. And it sounds like we need to. So, yeah, if we can get it shared on social media, too, I think that would be helpful. Yeah, we have been. Yeah, it's been it they're they seem to be coming in a little bit from everywhere. So, some are coming in in hand and there are folks that definitely
are word of mouth and some are coming in online. So, I would imagine those are maybe social media. Do you think we have time and or the budget to put an ad in the ledger? Oh, we definitely have the budget. Um, do we have the time? So, today's I forget when I forget when the customer is usually Tuesday. And I think
one thing that we could probably do is maybe like a little more of like a personalized Facebook post to the groups. Um so like I could like share for example or someone on the board could share u one of the town Facebook page uh post that has all the vacancies
and kind of like a individual members sharing the post that's already there. And we can try it. What do you guys think? Do you think that'll maybe get a little more interest? It can hurt but but not everyone's on Facebook so I don't want to rely just I know I thought and I think maybe this is what town manager was just thinking you were going
like maybe if there is a board that you've identified that we don't have any maybe we can do something like hey join the this is what the XYZ committee does maybe that kind of target do you have do you know which ones those are do you feel comfortable sharing them now I know
at least uh hold on one second give me a sec I know concom for I have not seen any applications for the conservation commission and they have a couple of vacancies. Are they going to be able to do they have a quorum? They have a quorum. Mhm. But just a quorum
pretty much. Yeah. What am I doing? And maybe we can use pack to get the word out too. Oh, just heard a yes from the Thank you. Where is that? Uh I'm just looking for that volunteer. I'm trying to think of our earlier.
That's another one, right? Yeah. because that just some people that Yeah, it's not on social media. Yeah, I think between the ledger and Facebook, we get, you know, all the people who would probably be interested. I I actually somebody is watching this meeting, emailing me right now about a committee
assignment. It just came through. Literally, I saw that. That's funny. Um I know an ad on channel 8 or whatever. On the scroll. Yeah, on the scroll. Yeah. doesn't have to be a live
uh show. Cultural council. There's two there's two terms that are expiring that I haven't heard back from either member. I did email them again and the chair. So, that's there's a potential there that if those folks aren't interested that those
are also two vacancies. Um it's really concom that I'm concerned about. Yeah, I figured that was it. Yeah. Sure. for better if things go well. Yeah. So, we are going to be meeting on Thursday to appoint I think
two people now. Is that confirmed? If if that's the will of the board. Yes. There are potential two candidates. Yes. Okay. Which is good. Yes. Very good. So, at least they'll have a quorum for their next They'll have a quorum. One is an individual for the sewer commission that was their term was expiring and they're
planning to move out of state and so or out of town and um so they're willing to continue on just to help with the quorum until they actually move. Right. Okay. And then yeah there is a new person. So more to come on those on Thursday. Yes. Mhm. But I'm glad that that worked out
though especially after this election and yes, you know failing to elect. I was kind of hopeful because I saw that there was a good amount of writeins. I was hoping that um we were be will we be able to elect someone through the writeins but there's also a failure to elect on the board of assessors. Yes,
they just don't have the same issue. So there is a failure to elect on board of assessors. So the select board and board of assessors can follow a similar process if there's folks that are interested in meeting jointly to appoint somebody to that position as well. Nice.
So, so there are those elected positions also that normally you would have to be elected, but if you're interested in serving on the sewer commission or the board of assessors in an appointed capacity, there is a path forward for those as well, right? Yeah. Thank you. The the planning board has an open spot.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. All right. Any other questions for the town manager? Okay. Thank you very much, Jen. Thank you. All right, we're moving on to old uh new business, excuse me. So, first we
have review letter of support for the establishment of a chapter 70 commission to review the foundation budget and local contribution formulas. So, there is a bill that is currently with the joint committee on education and all it's doing is establishing a
commission, right? It's establishing a commission to really look into chapter 70. I read through it. I think it sounds pretty comprehensive. Um, but I think it's the important first step to actually changing chapter 70. And I really do think that all this advocacy
that has been going on has been helpful. Um, in the drive. I am just realizing it's not. I saw your reaction. Let me drop it in real quick. Um, but yep, that's the context for it. Um, hold on one second. Thank you. Yeah, sorry. I forgot to put this in.
Okay, I just added it. So you'll see it there now. Chapter 70, letter of support. And I believe the school committee is going to be writing something as well. So it's just going to be submitted as written testimony. Um but I'll go ahead and read it. So it's addressed to Senator Lewis,
Representative Gordon, and members of the Joint Committee on Education. We, the Lunberg Select Board, write in strong support of Senate Bill 400, an act to ensure adequate and equitable funding for public education. Massachusetts has long prided itself on being a national leader in public
education. This is reflected in the Massachusetts Constitution, which has guaranteed every child in the Commonwealth the right to highquality public education since 1780. The current reality, however, is that many municipalities like ours are making devastating cuts because the chapter 70
formula and the underlying foundation budget no longer reflect the realities of modern education, such as special education or school transportation, or take into account the fiscal constraints that municipalities are subjected to, such as inflation and Prop 2 and a half.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that it is the responsibility of the Commonwealth to ensure the constitutional right to adequate public education is provided. However, due to state's inaction and structural flaws in the chapter 70 formulas, this responsibility has largely fallen on
municipalities to bear. As a result, the quality of public education the Commonwealth is at risk. S400 is a critical step is a critical first step in addressing these issues. The foundation budget needs to be updated to include the various requirements of education in the 21st century. To reduce
the burden placed on municipalities, the inflation cap needs to be removed and the local contribution cap needs to be lowered. It is time for the legislature to act with urgency to modernize chapter 70. We implore the committee to ensure the recommendations of the commission improve funding for public education as
much as possible and additionally to ensure that they are enacted as soon as possible. What do you guys think? I have one just super nitpicky as I'm still reading again. But can paragraph two can it be proposition instead of prop two and a half? Oh, sure. That's
just I don't really nitpicky. I thought about that too and I was like paragraph two is one sentence. That is a very long sentence. Pro is it a run-on sentence? I don't know. It's the whole it's
um but the last one I think you're miss it's missing commas in between like ensure recommendations commission improve funding wait to ensure the re improve funding for public as much as possible. Maybe it was just the the
pace. It sounded like it was a list but yeah it might have just been how I read it. Um where are you again? Can you say it again? Just the last sentence. The last sentence we implore Yeah, we implore the committee to Brian. I'm curious if you have thoughts
coming from the school committee on the It is. Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to continue to advocate for the the chapter 70 funding formula to change because it isn't working. And I think this is a a good step. I think it yeah it involves all the stakeholders of
the town but also getting other towns involved in doing it too. It can't be just us right. Sure. Do we know that the changes that need to be done are the removal of the inflation cap and local contribution cap. I don't know
enough about the chapter 70 formula to know what needs to be changed other than I think those two are really sadly I think the politicians don't know how to formula either. So, I brought up these three things because I think it's really important, right? There's the foundation
budget which obviously needs to be modernized, right? Can I speak to the details of that? No, I really can't. Um, the inflation cap needs to be removed. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. And the other thing is that the local contribution cap, if you didn't know this, it's like
82.5%. Right. So, I did not know that. Yeah, it's it's kind of absurd, right? So, I think that needs to be lowered, too. Those are just things that stand out to me. Those were um pretty top in the list of things that were mentioned in the bill to actually charge this
commission with looking into. Um maybe that sort of, you know, speaks to the importance. I don't know. Um but I'm open to suggestions too if we want to include other things that, you know, maybe we want to state that chapter 70 should change. Do we have a time that
this has to get sent? Can we wait? Um, I don't know what the public hearing schedule is. Give me a second. I'll Yeah. Because if not, I think this is great and I really appreciate you putting it through, but if we have the time, I wouldn't mind looking into it more. Just looking into the to the bill to see if there's anything else we wanted to add. But otherwise, Sure.
Go to them. Yeah. If these things are called out specifically in the bill, I think it's good to mention them. Yeah. And I would I mean I'm working with a limited understanding of chapter 72, but I am slowly learning more as I draft more of these letters and do research
for them. Um I think those are like kind of the key things that need to be addressed, right? Yeah. All right. So the hearing Senate Bill 400. Yeah. Yeah. And act No, that's not it. It must be a house bill. Yeah, it's Senate. It's I
actually have that page up. I didn't know what you were looking for, but I have it up now. Do you want to look at this this hearing? Um, so they just had one. Yeah. And it we were informed though that it's totally okay to still submit written test. They're taking late. Okay. Yeah.
So if they already had it, we probably should send it sooner rather than later. I would I would think I would think so. I don't know if more. So I'm I'm comfortable Yeah. with it as is. Okay. Personally, the process is you want to get it in now because they're going to vote before it goes. It'll either live
in this committee and die in this committee or they'll vote it affirmatively out of committee and it bounces to the next committee that it has to go to. Okay. Okay. So, do we want to vote on this tonight with um Yeah. I I think what's the the last sentence? See what everyone thinks. We implore the
committee to ensure that the recommendations of the commission. Hold on. Now I can't find the document. Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It is one sentence. No, no, no. But it's the last ensure that the recommendations of the commission improve funure the
recommendations to ensure oh that is that yeah that's okay that's better yeah that's fine pro and then maybe after possible before and comma and would that make it flow better to ensure that the recommendation of the
commission improve funding for public education as much as possible and additional and additionally to ensure that supposed to be or am I so You're getting to the list thing that I was getting. Yeah, you were. I felt like But yeah, I added a comma.
Yeah, I don't It does break it up. So, I think it makes it a little better. Okay. Yeah, I don't think it needs a comma there. All right, let me let me think what what do we It's an and I I don't know. I mean, I thought comma and and that with when you have like three things that's Oxford comma you're
thinking of. So, maybe I don't know. No, it's okay. It's still it still makes it a little easier to read. So I changed prop 2 and 1/2 to proposition 2 and a half. I added that after the word ensure in the last paragraph and then I added a comma after um improve funding for
public education as much as possible. And additionally anything else great. We don't really need to vote on it. I think we can just print it out and sign it, right? Or do you want us Do you think we should vote? Yeah, we should vote. Most of the time we vote on these things anyway. Is there a motion
to um approve the letter of support for S400 as amended? So moved. Second. All right. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed,
no. The motion passes unanimously. So, um could probably print it out and Oh, look at that. Oh, wow. Wow. Right when I said that, I heard the printer go off. All right. Um, this says 17 Maine, not 17 Main Street. I don't know how it's going to print out. No, I think it's
just the formatting of this. I have to make sure. See how it Oh, yeah. It did went the street went over the logo. Yeah. Oh, mine's It doesn't look like that on mine. Mine looks good. We might just need a I think it's a thing. Maybe. I think we got it, guys. It's all right.
All right. So, we'll move on now. What's next? Oh, vote to delegate the select board's noncriminal disposition enforcement authority of chapter 232, unregistered vehicles, to the building commissioner. And Jen, I will have you introduce this. Wonderful. So, our
bylaws um in chapter 232 um speak to unregistered motor vehicles and that no person in the town may keep more than one unregistered motor vehicle unless they obtain a special permit
through the select board. So, I'm not um asking the select board to change anything about specifically about chapter 232. However, in our bylaws un in an earlier section under section 1-3 about noncriminal disposition, there's a
overall section that talks about the enforcement author and that's in your folder. So the enforcement authority under the bylaw is under various sections and so this one the enforcement authority is the select board. So what does that mean? So, basically, as it
stands now, if there's a complaint that comes in or somebody notices that there's more than one unregistered vehicle, um there's if we want to do anything about that and and I want to say first, in my opinion, the goal of
enforcement is always compliance, right? So, we want to get people to come in to compliance with the bylaw. It's not about ticketing folks or raising revenue. It's really about getting down to only one unregistered car. Okay. So,
that's that's the kind of philosophy that I think folks approach enforcement with in general. However, sometimes you cannot achieve compliance and sometimes you have to start issuing tickets. So, the
noncriminal disposition section of the town's bylaw is what allows us to issue tickets under various sections. Um, so as this stands now, the select board, if there was a complaint about unregistered
motor vehicles, you would have to investigate the complaint. You would have to meet as a board to decide what to do. You would have to meet as a board to decide whether or not to issue tickets. And you would be issuing tickets. And sometimes, not always, but
occasionally, these cases don't resolve. You don't get the compliance. and we're in the district court asking the court for compliance. In my opinion and in the building commissioner's opinion, this better lives under the building
commissioner. So we rather than change the whole bylaw, the select board could tonight delegate their authority under the bylaw to the building commissioner. At any point in the future, this select board or another select board could unring that bell and take that back with
just a vote of this board. So, um, the building commissioner and I have talked. He has done this in other communities. He believes that this is where this should live. Um, we actually have a complaint right now, which is why this is happening. I was like, why? Coincidence. Yeah. Okay. And so, when I
had the when the complaint came in, it's like, okay, so what do we do with it? And, oh, it's the select board. Okay. That's not going to probably be great, right? I'm fully supportive of this. I don't think it's appropriate or proper for the select board to be discussing or
voting to fine or penalize our uh constituents in any way in a meeting. It just is not something I want to do. I don't think we should be doing it. So, I would actually really prefer for this to be delegated to Brian, the building commissioner. I think it makes a lot
more sense. I agree. Would it look like the one right above or two above that where it says DPW director or designated agent? Would it say select board or designated agent or would it say So we're not changing the bylaw, right? Because the that that's in the
bylaw. So you can only change that at town meeting. You by a vote of this board, you're delegating the authority that's vested in you through the bylaw to another individual. Okay. And you can take it back. Yeah. I mean,
I think it makes more sense. I'm comfortable doing it. And like the town manager said, if we ever want to take it back for whatever reason, uh, we can. And I I think more permanently to that point, we have the bylaw review committee. Yeah. I was I would say that this section of the bylaw is ripe for
review. Yeah. Mhm. I think the select there's one other thing that select board is enforcing under there's three boats and voting and recreational vehicles. The boats. Yeah. We're not doing that. Like let's just be real. So all right. So what do you guys think?
Anyone opposed to this? Do we want more time to think about it? I'm fine with it. I'm fine with that. All right. Is there a motion then to delegate the select board's noncriminal disposition enforcement authority of chapter 232 unregistered vehicles to the
building commissioner. So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. Up next, we have a vote to declare surplus property, and this is for some furnishings in the adult activity
center. Um, Jen, do you just want to speak to what it means to declare something surplus property for the the board and the public? Sure. So, um, under the under the state procurement laws, which mostly deal with about how we're getting things, it also deals with
how we get rid of things. So um for future discussion we could have a conversation about property of a dimminimous value not having to go through a formal vote of the select board but we but we don't have that. So in order to uh to get rid of anything
the formal process to get rid of it even if if we're throwing it in if it has no value and it's junk value only is that the select board has to vote to declare it surplus. So, um Deb Goodsell at the uh adult activity center has sent over
an email um that is shows um many chairs. It's mostly chairs and I think there was like one bench a wooden bench and there's also one upright piano. Oh, I didn't even see that piano. That's the only one that she's Oh, is it that piano in the I can't remember. I want to say
there's another one. Is it Is there Is there a black organ? I don't want to speak out of place here, but I feel like there is I feel like there's another one in there. Oh, there's a grand piano in there. Yeah, there's a grand piano in there. Okay. Right. Oh, right. There's a grand piano right when you walk in. Yeah. So, this is the one that's in the
kitchen. Yeah. Or another No, it's right next to the grand piano, I think. Isn't it in the function where that whatever that room? Yes, it's in the back of that function room. Yes. So, um so I would be looking for the board to declare the
surplus. Um, some of these other departments may pick up. Some of these might end up on municip likely is that these are going these are headed to municip where they'll be auctioned for whatever that yields. So, if the board was so inclined to um
authorize that the items detailed in the May 6, 2025 email from the uh adult activity director Deb Goodsell as surplus. That would be great. Any questions? I think it's pretty straightforward, right?
All right. Is there is there a motion to declare all of the various items listed in this email from the Council on Aging Director as surplus property? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I.
Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right. What do we have up next? Select board liaison and committee assignments. Okay, so Brian and Glenn, both of you have been on boards before, so I think you're probably familiar with how our liaison
work. Um, pretty much you just become the point person for the select board for any given board or committee. Um, the expectation isn't that you attend every meeting, although you certainly can if you want to. if you want to speak
to the chair and get updates that way uh for what is going on with that board and committee, you can do that as well. Um but it's really um for a couple reasons, right? You're the person for the select board that sort of has that relationship with the board and committee to foster
that communication. Uh and also to give committee reports, uh which I've learned are actually very helpful when we make committee reports at select board meetings. Um so that's essentially what a liaison is. I don't know if you guys have any questions just about that. Okay. Um, so there's a spreadsheet
in here that has all of them. What we normally do is go through one by one and just see who is interested. Anyone can express interest and we just sort of talk through it. Um, and it would be nice if we could go through. Sometimes it takes a couple meetings to get all
these. Um, but if we really could like make sure that at least Michael Ray and Tom's are sort of replaced, um, that would be good. So we can just go through it and do a first pass. So the first is the agricultural commission. So anyone want to be the liazison for the adcom?
[Music] Do we know when they meet? I was just going to say it would be nice if we had like Sure. They meet on I'm pretty sure it's like every third Thursday. Let me look. Yeah, every third Thursday of the month. I got that right.
in the Ritter building. We actually meet on Mondays now. Oh, you meet on Mondays now. Oh, well, we need to update. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. There's Miss Duffy over there answering the question. Thank you. Are the meetings in the evening? They are.
Yes. 6:30 or 7 usually. We should add a column to the spreadsheet. Yeah, actually, I really like that idea. That's a really good idea. when they meet. I was also looking at, you know, the ones that you're actually a member I feel like require more of a lift oftent times than the ones that you're
not. Not all the time. Yeah. But that can be important. You know, like capital planning committee that was, you know, historically Mr. Alonzo, that one that's a that's a liftecially that's not watching meetings. That's that's being in attendance, being engaged in them. I I just want to jump
in on that to I I know on the school committee's uh designate to capital planning there is a request that the member who was in that seat continues in that seat and that there is precedent for that that it can be a designate so just kind of in general but it made me
capital planning made me think of this these don't have to be just the five of you these can be people that you are appointing on your behalf yes we're going to leave Tom on there then that's what I'm I sold the highest credit.
Well, I mean, I think we should do that judiciously. Like, I wouldn't say that for anyone. And right and that Thomas never expressed interest in doing that. So, I don't think I would Was that just an example? So, that was Rene's example of lead on there, but it
was it was horrifically coming up there because Peter Bmore has expressed an interest that he continues on the capital planning. I I'm I'm good with But is that for the school committee to just It is just using that as it may come in other appointments. Okay. It
may. Yeah. I I know and we'll get there. Good to know. Mr. Chair, can I ask maybe make a suggestion instead of going down the list? Could we maybe go through the ones that we know? Like I I have an interest in keeping master plan steering committee because I've been involved. I'm trying really hard to get that
moving. Maybe if there's ones that we specifically have an interest in, maybe going that and then seeing what's left. Okay. So, do you want to have members express interest in the ones that they would like to keep? I also really want to like make sure that we replace, you
know, Tom and Michael Ray here as well. Um, but okay. Well, Amanda, which ones you you mentioned master plan steering committee. I expected that you wanted to keep that. Um, let's see. What else are you on here for? Economic development committee. Well, we don't have to go through all of mine. I mean, I only have
I only have two right now. Yeah. Um I just was I don't know. It's kind of I don't I don't want to volunteer for you know four other ones as we go down the list and then feel like I don't have enough capacity to actually give what I would need to give to the committees is all I was okay like I would love to be able to say I want to do adcom but I'm
not sure that I have another idea too we've done this at the school committee level is have uh two columns. You could have the 20 2024 member and then the 2025 member on another column just so we as we fill in we know which ones we miss. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. We can do
that. So I'll create a new column here if we're going to go out of order. I know. Yeah. Typically go down one by one. Um so we can come back to adcom. Uh if we want to figure out schedulewise
um okay so American with Disabilities Act Commission. Renee I also have to ask you do they meet is what? No. Okay. Oh I like that one. I don't Yeah. Okay. Do I'm just wondering if this is
like something to have revive it or I don't think it's met even before I was on the board. I don't know the last time it met. We can look into that. I'll just make a note of it. Um, do they meet? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, we'll leave that
there. All right. Board of Assessors. Oops. This is one of the ones where like Yeah, they meet. They meet um they meet at 6:30 on Mondays. Is it month is it every other Monday or monthly? I forget that. I'm not sure.
Let me see. But they're recorded now. Their meetings are recorded. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they meet twice a month. Twice a month. Okay, we'll come back to it. Capital planning. This is something that I am very interested in. Um, if
anyone's opposed to it, though, that is okay. Um, someone else can take it, but I I do really want to do this. Can't say no. I've had experience doing it. I I think if you haven't done it yet, I would definitely do it then. Yeah, you should do it. Okay.
All right, Council on Aging. I can continue doing this. They meet during the day. Um, I enjoy going to their meetings very much, I have to say. Um, so I can continue on that. Economic Development Committee. Amanda, do you want to stay
on with them? I haven't had too much interaction with them. I do watch their meetings. I'm happy to stay on unless someone else has, you know, a passion for it. Otherwise, happy to happy to stay on. Okay. It might pair up good with the master plan steering committee. That's where there was it seems like it does. Hoping
to have some overlap. Yeah. There. Okay. Finance committee. I can do that. I'd be interested in that. Okay. Yeah. And the in the appointing committee as well. Sure. Okay. Library trustees. How often do they meet? Do we know? And
we're going to keep asking you that question. I know. I can pull it up, too. I didn't look at their schedule. I also I've never been to one of their meetings either, so I don't know. They meet. Oh, it looks likece once a month
and it is on Thursday at night. I'm willing. You can you can put me in for either a com as well as the library if nobody else's. Okay. For those
is adcom recorded. No, I don't think I've seen it. No, it's not. You can put me down for a board of assessors. Board of assessors. Okay. And it's jumping ahead a little bit, but I'm currently on the or was on the open
space. Open space. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Glenn Mloud. Uh Glenn, do you want to do planning board as well? Oh, yeah. Of course. I'd love to, actually. Ryan, you want to do school? Yeah. Yeah, I could do school committee. Yep. You want to do school committee? Okay. I mean, unless somebody does want to interact with the
planning board. I mean, I think Yeah. I mean, Mr. Brener is uh fun to work with. Yes. Yeah. He's been great on the master plan steering committee, too. All right, let's continue here. So, I have MART and MMO. Um, they don't meet
that often. I am more than willing to continue doing it. Although, I have to be honest, I haven't attended a meeting in quite some time. Um, there isn't really too much to bring back. Every now and then there is. It's more so just having exposure into what's going on regionally. Sometimes it affects
Lunberg, sometimes it doesn't. It so M not but MMP. Yeah. Um if if we have a road project that we're trying to get on the tip. Yeah. Right. Because that's a multi-year project to try to get on the tip. MNO or
MRPC. MNO is a sub of MRPC. Right. MNO does the tip direct. But it's a sub of it's like a sidearm or sub of MRPC. Yes. Yeah. Right. So MNO is for the tip. So engagement matters if we have a
project that we're trying to get funded through the tip. If we don't engagement's important, but it it's not so like educational and visibility into the region. Y um if anyone wants if anyone's interested in doing that, you can take it. Um MART is
you know it's interesting that we have a seat on that board, right? Um, and yeah, we just talked about MNPO, but uh, MART meets every other month, and I think MMO does as well. They're typically at like 100 PM on uh, Tuesday. Yeah, I know that
doesn't work for Yeah, probably everyone other than Glenn and myself. Are you interested in this at all, Glenn? What is that again? Um, MART and MMO. What does MMO actually stand for? Montichus, uh, Metropolitan Planning Organization.
It it is under MRP. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a sub. I know that because at one point my mom was on these representatives when she was on the board. So I just those acronyms floating in my head. Amanda on planning board is that is liaison for those. She gives she does
MRPC. So the planning board typically does MRPC and then select board does MMPL. She gives good um reports. Yeah. Their meetings, but it doesn't sound like they meet. They they miss a lot of meetings. It sounds like for whatever reason. So, I guess you're still waiting an answer from me. Yeah.
Do you want to do it? I mean, if you're if you're unloading it, I suppose I'd take the hit. I like I have a full-time job now, so it's really challenging for me to do it. Um, so I know it's probably easier for you during the day. Fine. Yeah. Do you want to do it? Okay. Because it would be good to have that
information and I don't feel like I'm um doing a good job with that right now for these two. So, you can put me for master plan steering committee unless someone I thought I did already. I guess not. No, you didn't. Oh, I did it before I made this new column. Okay, so MJTC, MRPC, those are the ones that we have planning
board do because it makes more sense for them to uh be there. So, I'm just going to Caesar. Also, you had said you were interested in capital planning. You can put your name in there. Oh, sure. Thank you. We're almost there. We
are. And then I guess I'll just copy Renee over here. Um, okay. Uh, storm water task force. Renee, do you want to continue that? Yeah, I'll stay with that. Yeah. Okay. And here's the one that I think you were getting
at. Um, municipal building design committee. What do we want to do with that? Is anyone interested in what is going to happen with I was going to say is Mr. Jeffrey still? I've served on the Yeah, we have someone who's been on that committee for quite some time now. Yeah.
Since the start. Um, I don't know. Uh, I don't really know how to best move forward. Something that I want honestly is feedback. Like maybe I'm thinking we should do like a survey or something. I would really like to have like some data and opinions from the public about how the public thinks we should move
forward. You mean with the committee in and of itself or with the represent? No, not that neither with the project. Oh, I just got really confused because I thought we were No, I was just saying that just to say um I plan to bring that up when we got to this. Um, but as for who as for who
does it, um, you know, I I think we need to just have the discussion if any one of us is interested. Brian, if you're interested because you've been on the committee for so long and you're on the select board now as our, you know, liaison and representative. Makes sense. Yeah, I would be still interested. Yep.
[Music] Okay. And then middle high school classes. So, I've been doing this u with Michael Ray. Um, honestly, it's been one of my favorite things that I've done as a select board member. Um, but we do typically like to do it in pairs. Um, so
I would like for someone else to do it with me. What does it involve? So, it mostly involves um talking through logistics for the civics projects um their groups.
So, you'll meet with them or you'll email back and forth and they'll pitch an idea to you and say, "Hey, like we're trying to do a p, you know, trash cleanup and you have to make sure that they're identifying all the approvals they need, all the like potential issues
and kind of just walking them through and helping them understand the process. Um, that's a big thing. I think this year it's also going to it's also going to be really important to make sure that there's a better timeline. Um, so whether it's communicating to us a
little more early about what their ideas are and working a little more collaboratively with department heads and the town manager to make sure that um any sort of uh approval is, you know, not putting any undue burden or stress on our department heads. Um, I think
that's something that we have to do. Um, so just making it a little more organized and having a better timeline. I'm happy to to step in on that one. You know, I miss I miss being there. I used to teach the self-defense class to seniors when I was in the police department. So, I unless you know, anyone else wants to step in, I'm happy
to work with you on that. It it is probably the most fun one. Yeah, I think so, too. Um I know um in the past Lou Franco and Michael Ray did it two years ago, and they did actually go in and
speak to some classes. It's not something I've done, um but it's possible to as well. It's great going in there and working with them. Yeah, I haven't done it yet, but who knows? Maybe we can do it this year, Amanda. All right. And then the 300th
committee. I can stay on this. I've been attending their meetings since um like last September, I believe. Unless anyone else wants it. This is a fun one, too. Yeah, you could happy to have you keep it. I'm planning on attending as just
because I'm interested in it as well. Okay. But all right. Not going to try to steal it from you, Caesar. Oh, that's I'm It's not stealing. You're more than welcome to have it. Okay. All right. So, we can come back to this. I know we sort of we made it
through and, you know, maybe we did a little quickly. If we want to do a second pass at this, we can. Um, but yeah, looks like we uh have everything assigned here that we need to. I could probably just remove these two, but anyway, there's a side note. All right. Any um other discussion on
liaison for tonight? All right. Thank you very much. Mr. W, did you just say remove the MRPC? No. MJTC and MRPC because those we have planning board members. You don't need a second. You don't need a alternate from
the select board for MRPC for MRPC. Um yeah, like planning board's the primary. I I'm comparing this to CMRPC to be fair. So I know they had like the the planning board member was the primary and there was a select board member alternate. I don't know if MRPC is similar. Yeah, I know it's like come to
both of us before about attendance. Um I remember now every year it has been blank. So that that's why I just remember that. Um we probably could. Um I mean Glenn, do you want to go down as the alternate on this one too? They
don't meet that frequently. Yeah, sure. Okay. And it's also um you know you were on the planning board so all things planning to the table. Exactly. I think it's actually really helpful. I mean we have Brian here right with the school committee now Glenn with
the planning board. So okay I can't figure out how to center it because the toolbar is missing. So I'll just skip that for now. But all right moving on to old business. First we had the discussion on the sick leave bank policy. And Jen, I'm going to let you introduce this because I know you
have an update for it as well. Yes. So, um, recognizing that there's two new members on the board and you haven't heard much about the sick leave bank policy. Just a brief intro. Um, at the special town meeting, um, there was adopted as part of the SAP, the salary
administrative plan, a personnel bylaw. two things uh the sick leave bank and the merit policy that by their incorporation into the SAP apply only to those employees who are not members of other bargaining
units. I in in realizing that that's not going to be the way that works. Oh, this is a policy to expand upon that personnel bylaw to take the sick leave bank and ex apply it over all employees in all
bargaining units. So that's the goal here. The board inclusive or exclusive of the schools which says you said exclusive of the schools and exclusive of intermittent or seasonal employees. um because they're not benefit eligible. But um so when we first discussed this
uh it was maybe four weeks ago was before tell me about four weeks ago. Um there's a lot of conversation about reorganizing the kind of structure of this policy putting the definition section up front working on language. I'm not going to change this a whole heck of a lot of times until I substantive substantively change it
once. So those comments have been heard. Um I did reach out to all employees and sent this to them to get their feedback. I had one employee provide feedback. So uh today actually there was a meeting.
Uh then after that we've met with the benefits administrator to understand her concerns about application. Today we met with um all bargaining unit um presidents and that was a very fruitful conversation. They have to bring
specifically about this specifically about this. They have to bring some of this back to their units. But here's one thing that is pretty universal coming out of that meeting today. There was discussion about what what about my day is not your day. Your hours
are sick days. Should we have separate banks for the separate bargaining units? It was universal that they believed that we should have one bank that applies to everybody and whatever the whatever your day is as defined in the SAP or your
contract whatever it is your day is your day. So some people are contributing 6 hours some people are contributing 24 but you're contributing a day. They were they were unanimous on that. So then they would be pulling out the same thing. They were pulling out a day. So
they pull out a day. So if you put in 24 hours, put in 24, you pull out 24. So no hours. Um the other thing that we had um pretty consistently um is that once
you enroll, they they do want that to be irrevocable. That's they are bringing that one back though to their I said bring this one back to your members because really interesting. The conversation here was that once you're in, you're in. But I said this one's going to be this is probably the most
controversial thing about this policy is whether it's irrevocable or not. So they're going to bring that back to their members. There was the way it was written was that it is irrevocable. We had some discussion well maybe people would want to come out and go back in but they were pretty firm on that. Okay.
Um they also um so you have to work for the town for one year. At the end of the year you can enroll in the sick leave bank. That's the way we have this currently designed. Um, we had that then you had to wait for
another 6 months, I believe, another 6 months before you could utilize the bank. They said, "No, we've waited a year to get in the bank. We're in the bank. We're in the bank. Get rid of that." However, for those folks who at time of
employment, they chose not to enroll in the sick leave bank and chose later to enroll in an open enrollment period because that there could be a little um possibility of folks only enrolling
for personal reason. They did say for that if you're not enrolling at time of hire, you have to wait a year to use it. They so roll if got it. So we're not saying it's only the one time to enroll and that's it. And right so you can you can enroll anytime at open enrollment
which would be every year at the end of the fiscal for the beginning of the new fiscal you can enroll and then um but if you want to use it and you are you're you're late you've worked here for 5 years and now you want to enroll you have to wait for a full year. Mhm.
Um full year based on your employment date or wouldn't it be? Okay. So let me let me give two so Renee is hired on July 1st and Amanda is hired on July 1st. Renee decides I'm going to enroll
in the sick leave bank as soon as I'm eligible. She is you're both eligible after one year of employment. So Renee I'm going to do it right away. She enrolls. Amanda says eh I'm not going to enroll. I don't need a sick leave bank. Amanda waits four, five, ten years.
Amanda decides to now enroll later in the sick leave bank. From the time she can enroll anytime in open enrollment, but once she's in, she has to wait a year to use benefits. So on my 10th year, I enroll, then I have to wait until my 11th year before I can use it. So the date the
date that you enroll, so that July 1st would become the one-year date before you can use it. Yep. And that's only if you didn't do it at time of hire or at time of first eligibility. I was I was thinking more situations where people their employment starts say July 2nd,
August 1st. Oh, what what constitutes because open enrollment? We did talk about this today and they were like a year is a year and I'm sorry if your year is July second you're going to So you have to wait another open to wait
more than a year for the next open enrollment. No, no, no. You don't have to wait for open enrollment if you're it's your first year. So your anniversary date. So you're hired not on July 1st, you're hired on February, August 1st, then you can enroll because you have worked here for a year. So now you can enroll in the bank. If you
choose not to enroll at the bank in your one at your one-year anniversary, now you're in the situation where if you enroll during open enrollment only, you have to wait a year to utilize bank question on that. Do you enroll I understand the year, but would
that be during like your hiring process or would it be would you get a reminder at that year mark? Because I wouldn't want people to lose. Nope. The sick leave bank committee would be tasked with notifying people that they are eligible to enroll in the program. Okay.
That would be I'd be concerned if if it was they will be notifying them. We talked about they'll have one month from notification to enroll. So you became eligible, you have one month to enroll, enroll or don't. Um let me see. There was also discussion about um at time of
separation. Sometimes people are leaving a whole heck of a lot of sick time on the table. We couldn't have people donating all of their sick time because that would be a huge liability. But there was a desire to be able to donate some time. I
believe in my opinion two days at separation is reasonable that you can donate at your exit from the town and an additional two days to the bank. That just helps the bank. Um it is a minimum two days to enroll. Correct. It's so to enroll you have to your first year is
two two days. Uh your second year is two days and then you are one uh day for every year thereafter until the bank reaches a threshold which we have 300. Uh they
would like to see that increase to 365. Okay. So um and then they also want to see the floor of 50 be increased as well. So that and and for so we we are we are giving two two
days our first year two days our second year one year one day every year thereafter until we reach whatever the cap is 300 365. There's language in here though if the bank dips below 50 that now everybody is now going to be
assessed at that 2-day again until we get back up. Mhm. They want to make that 50 higher so that it's it's not dropping as low as 50 and it's less work to get it back up. That makes sense. Well, yeah, unless you're the one giving two.
Unless you're the one giving two days. We'll see. Um there was a little bit of discussion on did folks want the sick leave bank committee one of the comments that that did come in from one staff member was I don't
want a group of my peers knowing about my medical condition in the discussion that came around that and in the discussion that made came around the sick leave bank committee makeup as well as adding a grievance policy. So these two things go together.
Removing a select board, remove the select board member from the sick leave bank committee. Now the sick leave bank committee is comprised of either myself or the assistant town manager and then you have bargaining unit representatives. They already have
confidential information of all types about their employees. Mhm. So everybody is kind of already in that confidential place as as a union president then to have with having no select board
on there. Then if there is an appeal, the appeal process would come to the select board in executive session. If we can do it in executive session, which I think we probably can. I got to figure that out. Yeah. But hopefully otherwise we had a lot of discussion about the makeup of this and who it should be and
They were pretty pretty firm that they wanted it to be their bargaining unit representatives. Is there any conflict there though? No, because it's all it's a majority of all of the groups.
So DPW, clerical, fire, police, SAP SAP has uh how would that be? One representative of the non-union. How that's a good question. How do we pick the SAP? That's a good question. Yeah, we did talk about that. How do we pick the SAP? Yeah, I don't remember what we
we didn't come to we didn't come up to anything but we did discuss it for a bit. I mean it could be applications and then let's talk about that more. Let me talk about that with the staff. Um uh the 15 days of sick leave that you are going to the bank 15 days at a time.
They did not like that. Wait, what? I don't remember. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, I know I'm just kind of going stream of consciousness here. It's on the last page, number six. No more than 15 days may be granted to any one applicant at any time. They would like that increased to 30. Okay. Yeah. I wasn't thrilled
with that either. Yeah. And I think that that's where we got to today. So, did you can I ask a question? Did you talk about the the use that we've you know, because we talked about Yes. So that's so that's the so 100% everybody understands that it's for the
employee and the employee only. It's it's not for others. Um I did ask them to bring back to their bargaining units. There were two specific things that I said bring back. One was the irrevocability of it and the second was number four on page three and that's to
be eligible for program benefits the applicant must have a medical condition verified and documented by a physician which requires here's the key language which requires a prolonged period of recuperation andor absence from work resulting in the exhaustion of all earned sick vacation personal or any
other pain leave. There is an understanding that this is not for your broken arm that this is for serious diagnosis. I've asked them to bring it back to their members to say what do you think about this language and how do you feel that this should be okay but what
about covering you know caring for a family member no not under a sick leave bank this is for the employee okay that's they won't they I I don't think you'll have participation and so the goal here to have a robust sick leave bank is we want maximum participation
right I'm surprised it's You're in. You're in. There's no out. There's no way out. You Yeah, I think they're viewing it as So there was a fair amount of discussion about even the folks, we had a fair amount of
discussion today about whether you could opt in after if you didn't opt in at the beginning. And so I think that there's a lot of fairness and equity that's coming into things like this. Like if you have from the members perspective, if you have worked for the town and been a member of this bank for 15 years and you
have somebody else that's I'm enrolling, I'm unenrolling. I'm enrolling 5 years from now and unenrolling. They don't want they you're either in or you're not in. And we discuss that a lot too. And it sounds like that was just their way of dealing with this. Not being able to get out feels weird. I mean I get I get
getting in but what like like even if it's after five years if you want out you know something not not you can't do a hoke pokey in out in so this remember so we had a conversation with presidents so we had five people in a room who now are bringing it back to 50 people I
wouldn't be opposed to saying like if you get out you can't get back in but I I don't know that we should say you can't get out. I mean is there any any other any other benefits that we have that you can't be removed from once you've I mean any other insuranceances you know you can always leave opt out
yeah you have a qualifying event you know open right you might so there was some discussion about that um I I wouldn't I mean this is a staff policy that we're trying to do for the staff so I will defer personally I feel
like I'll defer to them on that but um I can see you know once you're out you get back in. I just I would have a hard time. I'm worried that that would make people not want to enroll. Yeah. And so I'm already hearing that folks especially who are near the end of their
careers are just not interested in enrolling at all. And so we really want to make sure that we are going to have to do some education about what a sick leave bank is too, right? Like what are the benefits? What are the detriments?
What does this look like? Um it's it's so this I don't know how to word where my thoughts are. You know a staff the staff as a community in the couple of times where we've had this happen prior to
having a sick leave bank. There was an overwhelming amount of support for people that wanted to donate informally. the informal informally when this was when this has happened there was some problems which has caused a lot of issues but we're working through that right
so in that event by having this policy that no longer could or would happen correct oh there would be no more informal right so it would be this is it so there would definitely need to be education because heaven forbid somebody has you know a really terrible cancer
diagnosis and now all these people want to donate but they weren't before there's going to have to be I would say a lot of education we don't want to. We're trying to do this to help, not hurt, right? Um or if they have a child that gets seriously ill, that's not covered either. That's covered under
FMLA. So, they have job protection. So, they are eligible for FMLA. I I thought not PML, not paid. It's just job protection under FMLA. Wow. Um, but it's the paid. I don't Well, I don't think you're going to get people to say, "I'm
giving two days to you to the bank so that somebody's fill-in- thelank relative can utilize it." Is that addressed in any other policies? I know we've talked about this a lot, but in any of the other town policies that we looked at, the relie,
the sick time. Yeah. Uh so so sick time is inconsistent um between the SAP and the various bargaining. Sorry. No, I don't mean I don't mean the I'm well aware of that. I I mean when you were looking at the different other towns sick bank policies is it usually
exclusive to the the employees or do other towns? Yes, universally. Universally universally for the employee and universally for I mean we're not talking about compound fractures. We're talking about cancer, heart attack,
stroke, but there aren't other towns that at least the ones we've looked at that allow it for, you know, their child family members or I didn't think so. I would also recommend looking at the the school the school contract as well, the teacher contract. I've served on the the sick bank committee in the schools. Um
specific language there can I think assist us. I do have concerns with uh some of the language. the the first section um differs a lot by what the schools uh have. Um the the program shall
administer be administered by the sick leave bank committee at a minimum. That that concerns me that there's no maximum. There's no set number. uh you find in a lot of teacher contracts especially it's actually four uh four members and it's typically two that are
on the administrative side and two on the employee side uh and they can be just design too that would be the language that I would support I think this language is a a very um worker friendly employee friendly language that if you have one
representative from each of the participating collective bargaining units you could definitely definitely be outnumbered. Um I would support a two and a two. I think that would make more sense. I'm not sure that we'd have ch having
served on, you know, like say the PEC where we have a member from each unit. Yes. I think we would have a problem getting the staff on board with eliminating. I feel like that the union presidents feel very strongly that they represent their members. And I think if we try to say, you know, you can only
have two of, you know, the however five units there are, I think we would have I see what you're saying, but I think because we have so many different units, you know, like the police department's going to want to represent the police department and then if you pick say it's police and clerical that get chosen as
have them fire and I think that that would be opening a can of worms. Personally, I don't think we'd have staff support. Oh, I don't think they'd enroll. I don't think they'd enroll. I don't Yeah, we did have a lot of discussion about how this program would be administered and
what the committee would look like. You know, I'd have to go back and watch that meeting. We definitely talked about this a lot with myself and Julie. I I had expressed during that meeting. I was not interested in living with only Julie and I. The staff expressed very clearly
today that they also shared that opinion that they did not want it to live only with management. Um they are looking for for fairness, equity. Um, I think that everybody was pretty realistic in the discussions. I think that our union presidents are very realistic
about about being fair to the town as well. Um, and I don't think that they're they would be looking because at the end of the day their time is in this bank too. Mhm. They don't want to get they don't want
to give away time in the bank un unfettered and un like with no discretion because they might need it. They might need it. They have a vested interest to watch the pot. In the what 12 years I was 12, 14, however many years I was here, uh we had three three
cases three cases where this was this would have been used or where we did it informally. And that's that was just my tenure of the town. Um that's correct. There's three. There were three in the Yeah. I'm curious about the using days versus hours discussion.
What was the thought on that? Oh, I mean they want they settled on days. Oh, they they were like they didn't care. They said they said I mean it was very much he works a 24, she works an eight, I work a I work a 12. It's all good. Okay.
My day is my day. And did you bring that back? I know our payroll benefits coordinator is retiring, but did you bring that back to her because I know so she's she was on she's on vacation this week. So we talked last week, so she wasn't with us. So the way that this was left is that everybody's bringing it
back to their bargaining units and um and that we are going to regroup when NY's back and so that would be the first week in June. So we'll regroup. So probably you're not going to see any updates for the first week of June. Um but I think we'll we might be close. Now the other thing is the SAP said that
this is to be in place by July 1, right? We had a conversation that the the staff is more interested in having this done correctly than having something in place for July 1. And and again July 1 is really only as it applies to the SAP
employees because that's the only people that were covered by the article. Glenn, did you still have something? Yeah. If the cap is do you anticipate this cap running at at max most of the time? So the the 300 is not
a cap the 300 because if new members are enrolling or if people are donating there may be more than 300. Okay, that was my question. If it was if it just stopped if you stopped collecting from the employees would we stop collecting from the employ the the existing enroles
who have already helped get the cap to 300. But anybody new that's coming in, they still have to give their two. Is that clear? I feel like that's Is it clear now? Okay. Yeah, we discussed that quite a bit too and and the whole committee process really seems complex.
I didn't know if there was a way that, you know, it could go within the department and a department head could chime in and basically approve each case forward to the town manager because, and I don't specifically remember how we did it, but
it was it must have been informal because it didn't happen much. And what we would do is the word would go out like so and so is looking for sick days and we'd go on. But what I liked about that is that it had a a built-in checks and balances where people were like they
knew that person abused sick time so they wouldn't donate. But someone like me that would uh there was a lot of us that were at max so we're like yeah sure have have have the time no problem. So I I kind of like the the informal aspect. It sounds like you guys have had problems with that in the past, which
does not shock me, but I I do I do like the, you know, maybe a hybrid of that, like the the uh informal um but with the the the the uh department head or manager supervisor kind of approves the the the the case forward to maybe a
smaller committee or something. So the idea so because it's it's so if we were did stood it up like where we had the one policy and we had different bargaining units had their own pools I
think that that would make sense but this is one pool. Right. Right. So who gatekeeps the one pool? It shouldn't be that department head. Mhm. So, Glenn, are you saying if someone abuses their sick
time and something, you know, awful happens and they need a lot of sick time that they shouldn't be eligible to withdraw from the bank? Is that what you No, I wouldn't go that. I mean that that I mean it gets so hard to regulate you know those type of issues that the I think that's one of the advantages that
an informal system has is um there's kind of an automatic checks and balances in the process because there's historically employees that would if they got a sick day they'd use a sick day. Not a lot. Now, I hear I know those types of cases, but the issues that we
had here in town with it being informal was that it it felt to a lot of employees that it was if you know, if you were liked or if you know this person, then you got approved and if you weren't and you didn't, it became there was some huge issues as well as procedurally, you know, could one, you
know, somebody from the the police union donate to this DPW union. Yeah. it it it's become glaringly obvious that we need a policy in order to allow this to happen because sometimes it's being denied because there does a policy doesn't exist or it has historically not that it's happening right now. Um but I
think this definitely has stemmed out of situations that we need to fix. So would it be possible to have these type of policies for each department head or supervisor to follow? So we could have a policy if we split it up by the bargaining unit members and the
non-bargaining unit members. We could set it up that way that it was it's really individualized in that manner. So that would be again police um fire DPW clerical and then SAP. Um the concern from the members is that the pools in
that case might be small. Yeah. And and there are, like I said, in those three cases that happened, there are members from other units that want to donate to other employees. Yeah. And if we do that, then that eliminates, at least, unless there's some work around that I'm not aware of, that eliminates that. You know, you have the clerical union, which
is what 12 members versus, you know, the police department that's larger. So, I think, you know, we're not school the teachers that have, you know, that many employees. If we do it separately per unit, we're really limiting that. There there was no interest in
going in alone. I was surprised, frankly. I thought that there was I thought that there was going to be a little bit of the well, my day isn't your day conversation. That was absent from the conversation entirely. This has been a conversation with staff for
years of wanting to do this. [Music] So TVD. Yeah. June conversations ongoing. Conversations ongoing. I'm sure there's bargaining unit members watching here. Oh, there certainly are. But thank you, though. I'm really glad
that they're we're really making progress on this. I really like that you're working collaboratively with everyone, too. So, thank you for uh all the work that you've put into getting this moving forward. Um to Brian's point, do we have the schools I'm just curious to read the language. Did we
already get it? No, I don't think so. I don't have a contract. I wonder if we You could probably get it. I'm just curious what the email compare. Yeah, I am too, actually. So, yeah, because they have one that's already working. So, it's it's see if there's things to reference. You might want to that.
Yeah, if you want to just send that. Yeah, I'll send that right now. Jen, if you want to look at that, too. All right. Thank you. Discussion on acceptance of gift policy. So the reason why we are doing this uh for a little bit of context, the select board has to
vote to accept all gifts that are donated to the town. And while we have to do that statutoily, we never had a policy in place. And that caused some confusion for both the public uh and staff as well. So this policy really is
just a guide uh a public-f facing guide and an internal guide for staff to follow when we do get gifts that are donated to the town. And I mean, what else is there to really say about that? No, I think this one's more straightforward. I I would suggest that just the new members just read through
it. Just take a read and if you have any questions or want language suggestions, right? So, I don't think we need to discuss it tonight. I was just looking for our new members to just start looking at this and then we can bring it up at another meeting. Um, I don't think there was really anything that we left
that you you're still looking into. It was just tweaking of language, but nothing nothing like substantial. Something to run by town council. Yeah, I don't remember what that was. Can you remind me what that was? Yeah, it's office hours tomorrow. So, um about um solicitation. Oh, that's right. Okay.
About active solicitation of funds and how that looks. Sure. Okay. So, you'll get an answer from town council. Great. Okay. So, yeah, if you can just read into that and we can pick it back up in June and um have more of a conversation then.
Okay, moving on. Tax investigation report. So, unfortunately, this was never approved and it is on us at this point to accept the investigation report as it was
submitted to us. Um, we're at a point now where there are no members of this board that were on that investigation subcommittee. Um, so at least for me, I don't feel as though we should really be modifying this. Um, I personally believe
pretty strongly that we should just vote to accept it as it was submitted to us by the um, investigation subcommittee. What do you guys think? I agree with you. Um, I think I've said this in a couple
of meetings while I while I watched this and followed it as a as a resident. Um, I was not here. I wasn't on the board. I wasn't privy to it. I mean, I've I've read through the very very lengthy report. Um, but I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending
changes to it. Renee, what do you think? I haven't read the final report. Okay. In its entirety. Okay. So, we can hold off on Has it changed? Uh, no, it hasn't changed really. It's probably the same. Yeah, it is. Um, no, I um member M
wasn't here last. So there were a couple changes between Yeah, there was only in the report or in the executive summary there was a few changes in both I think both. There was something about the mailing. Yes, the mailing and then there was um Tom had asked for some clar uh
some different language in the summary I thought and that and Michael Ray had done that. Yeah, Michael Ray made a few changes and he did go through it at the last meeting. I Yeah, one was definitely the mailing. I have to watch it. I recall the mailing. I know that there was this other um the spreadsheet of
additional data that was included. I thought it was just those two things. I could be wrong. Um we can we can go back and look. Um but Jen, I know that you've read through this and you're you know having conversations about it and do you want to speak to what you're taking away
from this? So my takeaway is this was just first of all this was just a horrible circumstance of events that seem to all have collided. And what is wonderful about this report coming to a conclusion is that it's very clear that there was no malicious intent. There was
no mal intent. That this was just a variety of factors. That said, I want to make sure that this never happens again. Right? So, um with the final report, I have a meeting already scheduled with our assessor and finance director to go through the report jointly with them.
and and there are some specific ways and manners in which this process went off the rails in the past to make sure that we have systems in place that this can't happen again and that's probably going to be a process right but we're going to start that but I would assume we have to
accept that this in order no I think I think that I think that regardless of that it's these are best practices things right so make sure that we're doing our best practices and that we're because nobody on the burnt board or the principal assessor was here when this
started or the town management Brian I know Brian and Sarah came in and kind of writed the ship but right and that's why none of the assessing staff and the finance director this is which is why I would not absolutely not feel comfortable making adjustments
making any modifications to it understand so I would just like to read it yeah I know this last week Renee we can give you a chance to read through it and then we can pick it up at our next Okay, Brian or Glenn, anything you want to say about this? No, I've just started reading it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, read
through it as well. We can we can discuss it. Um, but I I don't think I'd want to make modifications once this is accepted. I know that, you know, the community has wanted to see this. Will this be online? We'll post it on the on the website. I think it's important to have this open and out there and move
forward and also to identify maybe what you're doing to make sure this doesn't happen again might be helpful. Sure. Just sure. Yeah. I mean, we definitely have to do this. People have been waiting for a very long time. Yeah. So, it has to go out to the public and you know, it's unfortunate that it took this
long, but it looks like some of these things are incomplete. Actually, just scrolling through here, there's a sentence that's just the capital T on what page. Okay. Well, it's weird. Page 13. Oh, look. Is that my Mac again? Hold on. Page 13. Mhm. I'm wondering if that
was something because he made a couple adjustments while we were here. You see just the word 'the' where the end of the first paragraph however over the course of 24 months but
okay I will get clarification on that obviously things like that yes we'll have to fix so page 13 maybe maybe there's another version or the T I will changes didn't accept all changes or something yeah I will find out thank you for catching that all right so we do
need to give this a second look. All right. So, we will do that and we will pick it back up in June. 56 car a sell or hold. So, this is a property uh that we have that we have to determine if we want to sell or hold. It's currently in uh tax title. And Jen,
would you like to talk to the board and the public about tax title, what that means, and what the process is? I would love to. So for many many many years um in Massachusetts when somebody had not paid
um their property taxes the town can initiate a tax title taking we still can. So that's still the same under that under the old process. What would happen is at the end of going through about a year and a half of the
courts and doing the title research, the town has possession now of the property. We get a judgment, we have possession. What do we do once we have the property? A lot of times we don't want it, right? These we want it. The goal is to get it back on the tax roles. So, um, we would
auction it and or sell it and the the proceeds from that sale would just turn over to the general fund. Um there was a Supreme Court case um state uh not state a federal Supreme
Court case um that basically there's a couple of states that had similar makeups of or a similar uh statutory schemes. It was Minnesota that that um they would receive the benefits of that sale. This the Supreme Court said no,
you can't do that. So there's now the legislature has uh stepped in enacted legislation um for what happens during the process and what happens with those funds. So first of all if we sell a property we
don't get to retain any of the funds any longer. we get to retain are what was originally owed, um any of the interest and penalties that ran and any of our associated court costs or any of our legal fees. Any other surplus, if there is any other surplus at the time after
the auction gets returned to the original owner of the property. Um, however, sometimes the town doesn't want to sell the property. Some towns the town says actually it just so happens that we may have another use for
this property in which case they want to hold the property. They want to retain the property. However, because of that that provision being removed that we can't retain the value of the monetary value of the sale, we also can't retain the
value without compensating folks for the value. So now we have to get an appraisal if we're interested in selling the property. So that's kind of like a a very succinct um state of the land of tax title. 56
karav is a property that's in tax title. Um there has been some interest that the town may have some interest in retaining this property. So uh the select board had voted
February. Yeah, I was going to say a couple months ago that they would like an appraisal done on the property. So, we have hired or in the process of hiring an appraiser, we were told it was going to be $500. Turns out it's $2,000. Um, to conduct an appraisal of 56 car,
they have to it's the highest and best value of the land. So, what is that worth? Highest and best whatever could happen to it. So, um, so that's going to happen. What's the timeline for the appraisal? So the con he was supposed So uh I would say
within the next week. Okay. Oh, cool. So yes, pretty soon. Yes. No more than a month though. The contracts being written to not to exceed one month. So um one other thing I was going to ask the board too. Um we wanted an appraisal so we could understand if we wanted to potentially hold on to it. Um but at
least for me, I know it would be really helpful if we organized a site visit. So I wanted to know if other members of the board would be interested in actually going to that property. Is that something that we would want to do? I would love to. Yeah. Okay. So, we can try to organize that. We could do as a
board. Yeah. As a board in a meeting. Yep. So, it would have to be a meeting, right? Unless we wanted to do it like individually, which I'd rather a lot of work. So, I'd rather go together and be able to talk about it. Yeah. Okay. Cool. All right. So, we'll try to organize a site visit for that. I do want to raise one other point, Mr. Chair, if I can use
this agenda item to kind of talk about this. I just got an email from um Representative Scarsdale. Um there is a bill uh House bill being proposed by the House minority minority leader. I mentioned that it's by the House
minority leader because he actually has traction to potentially get some things done. Right. So um that speaks to the tax title process in Massachusetts. They um the legis I don't have the number of the legislation
representative was reaching out to see what we thought as town administrators of it. They're thinking of doing a taxed amnesty program. They tried a taxed amnesty program. I I forget when, but maybe 2014. And it didn't work well
because towns at that time could sell the property for and get the full value get the full value after the after the auction. The the because that's off the table now. They're talking about
doing a temporary amnesty program that would be very limited in duration that municipalities could be opt into that people, the municipality would have a lot of flexibility. You'd have to pay the original taxes that are owed, but the municipality would have flexibility.
Could you wave penalties? Could you wave interest? You could go down to just the original tax. In my opinion, and what I shared with the representative is again like enforce enforcement, the goal is compliance in tax title and is the goal is to get the
property back on the tax roles, right? And so I think in my opinion, I'd rather have the property back on the tax roles than worry about the penalties and interest. So that could be interesting if that goes somewhere. We might want to pay attention to that legislation and
see if it passes if we want to opt in. Yeah, sure. Can you um can you send the t the bill over? I'm curious about that. I'd like to read through it. Okay. Well, thank you though. It looks like uh we have a lot of movement here as well. Glad the appraisal is happening and we can um figure out a site visit. Uh so
we'll try to coordinate sometime when the weather's nice. Once we have a site visit, we have the appraisal. Is there a time? Is there any other timeline? I know once we file there's there's 14 days. Yeah. Once once we make a decision, that timer starts.
We have pretty much however much time we want until you have forever. Yeah. literally forever. You don't have to do anything. Yeah. We never have to go to judgment, right? But it's once we And now if we we're getting this appraisal for informationational purposes. If we go to judgment and we want to keep it,
we're going to need another appraisal because there's time there's indexing of the appraisal with the time of the judgment. I see. Okay. But this is we we need this information for you to make a decision to do. So Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Any other discussion on that tonight? All
right. Minutes. So, we don't have any tonight. Warrants. Do we have any warrants? No. Nope. No warrants. Action items. Oh, I guess I'll use this opportunity to uh direct our new members to our action item tracker. Um, so if you go to documents, right, exit out
from 2025 meetings and just go to documents and then scroll down once you get past all the year meetings. Uh, you'll see a folder called action items. And then in there we have a spreadsheet. And this is pretty much just where we track them for now or
we're trying to start tracking them. Um so I guess we can probably clear this out and start it over. Um like tax investigation report. We might as well just like remove that. We're doing that now. Um let's see. We're going to want to go through the share drive, but that'll be
after July once we have an executive assistant. Um the state of the organization. Um, we got the presentation from Julie, but we still needed um I believe what was requested was the org chart. Yeah, I don't see probably the assistant manager being
able to do an org chart until after July either. I can only imagine that's a lot of work to create an org chart. As much as I'm really interested in seeing it, um it's not the priority. Um so I think some of these we can probably just start over. Um but I just wanted to u make you
aware that this is here if you wanted to look at it. and we do usually go off of this. So, with all that said, are there any action items tonight? When do we do goals? Yeah, so I was going to bring that up once we got to upcoming meetings because I know that we have some vacation time.
Um, I guess we can just talk about it now. Um, so Brian and Glenn, I think both of you have time in early June where you won't be here. Is that correct? Correct. Uh, I will be at a work conference from June 10th to the
17th, but I should have the evenings available that I could jump in on Zoom. Jump in. Okay, cool. All right, let me write this down. Mr. Chairman, are you contemplating this as a workshop um style that this is probably the only agenda item unless there's emergencies?
I was going to discuss that too if we wanted to do it like that as well. I absolutely think we should. I think we it's very helpful to do it that It's hard to have these meetings that start running toward 11 p.m. when you're trying to accomplish things. So, if we want to spec, you know, focus on goals. That workshop that we had, I feel like
we did a lot. It was very productive. Yeah. I think from my perspective as well, I think it would be helpful if the board if we did on that same night, you do your goals and objectives and then you set my goals and objectives. But
like on that same night that this is not too this is not a bifurcated process. No, it's it's united and that was a goal that we had and which is why we wanted to do that policy. We didn't get to it. We will after we go through this process. Um but yes, we will do the select word and the town manager goals in the same night. I do want to have a
workshop. One thing I was considering with um all this time. We could just hold off and schedule one workshop or we could do it. What we've done in the past is we sort of have members sort of present what they want for goals and then we compile it all and do the workshop. If we want to just have one
workshop, we could do that. So, I think we should just have one workshop. Okay. As long as we're planning it and we're all prepared for it, I think that's totally fine. You might want to consider a Saturday. You might want to consider a Saturday. I just if it's June, every single Saturday
for me is booked. Okay. Saturdays are really difficult. I have I have four weddings in June. Oh, well, congratulations. Well, let's go back. It's not It's not me. I'm not getting married. Let's go back to um the absences first. So Glenn, when will you not be here? Um specifically for
Tuesdays. The third. The third. Yep. Okay. So the first week. Yeah. Correct. Um Renee or Amanda, any absences in June? So it can't be the third. Um we could we could schedule it
for well the 24th is the last that Tuesday of the month. So no that week I am away I I think the earlier so remember the goal the goal flows right so select board goals become town manager goals become department head
goals so there's a lot once these goals are set there's a lot of trickle down effect that has to happen so I understand it has to happen as early as possible trying to make sure and preferably everyone would be here in person um so what we could do is do it on the 10th and um cuz then Brian you
would be able to attend remotely No I will be away Okay. The 17th. Flying on the 10th. Oh, the 17th. Uh, I believe the 9th. The 9th. Yeah. Can we do have a meeting on the 10th? I Monday the 9th. Be back until the 18th.
What about Monday, June 9th? Would we want to do it on a Monday before Brian leaves? And then no meeting on the 10th. And then no meeting on the 10th. Should work for me. Works for me. Rene,
does that work for you? Uh, hold on. I'm checking my other calendar. I think that's okay. Um, and still the same time. Could we do We could do earlier if that works for everyone. I could do six. I don't know what other
Yeah, I think six is the earliest I can do. That's fine. All right. So, we'll do that. Thank you. Great idea. Monday, um, June 9th at 6 p.m. And we're going to cancel the 10th. Yes. Two meetings in a row does not work. We've tried it before and it was
terrible. Um 6 PM and then we're going to prepare our thoughts on this as well, right? So come prepared to have a list of what you think our goals should be and what the town manager's goals should be. Obviously they should be connected in
some way. Um and then we will compile it all. Um going back to what I was asking, one benefit of doing it sort of in two steps is that we can compile it and save time for that workshop. But so I have a question. Sure.
We did this last year, you know, my first year on the board different. We didn't set time manager goals. I know we had a we had a weird year. We set goals for oursel. It took us time. We did in the fall, right? Um with barely set goals for Carter. No, but you did. You wouldn't. But yeah, but you set goals in
the fall. Yeah, with one of our goals to evaluate the goal setting process, which we haven't done, which we talked about revising this. Um, but I would say we don't want to not have goals. So, maybe at least for we have one meeting before that meeting. Maybe we can at least pull some
prior examples of what they look like because I've never set town manager goals. Oh, sure. Yeah. Not really familiar with how they look, how town manager goals. Maybe we can still have this as an agenda item to start talking about, you know, not what the specific goals might be, but what kind of things we should be I
can tell you I've read a lot of town manager goals. I mean, I've read a lot and so some are as simple as three bullets on a page and some are as extensive as 50 bullets under 10 bullets. We're somewhere in the middle. And
so it really is all I was just thinking maybe we just we talk about it the process a bit. Yes. on the first weekend of the first week of June whatever date that is third. Yeah, we can do that. I just for me personally that would be just to go over the context of it. Okay.
Even if we just look at if we don't I don't really know what we look at but just some I don't know some of Heather's previous goals. I don't know. Okay. Any other action items? We talked about what's going to happen
with the municipal building committee. Are they? Let's be specific. What do we mean? Does it exist? Yes, it does exist. Yeah. Is Michael Ray still going to be Well, does how would that work? Well, we
he said we made our leazison. Our liaison. Brian's going to be our liaison. Right now, the vice chair is David Blat. So he would likely run the next meeting and cuz Michael Ray said he would be willing to stay on if the select board had okay appointed him as
representative. Oh as a representative. Oh, so that's so there's a vacancy because I know who on who there has who has who let me pull up the uh hold on Matt Allison I think Greg Roy I think
action what's the action item she's well she's trying to get my I want to know what the path forward is here for municipal building the whole the plan yeah my my personal opinion is I think they need to meet and discuss the
results and talk about we can have a meeting with them and maybe it's going back to the select board and saying this is what we're thinking. Who did you say was coming off? You said there was a vacancy. Well, Michael Ray. So, Michael Ray and then also myself, the lady representative, right? So, well,
no, we're members. We're members, but I meant but but from members from a specific committee. So, at large is David Blat and Greg Roy and Christina Midas. So, all they're all staying. So, then there's Yeah. Planning board Matthew Allison will be
there. Yeah. All right. Any other action items? Committee reports. Renee, Amanda, do you have committee reports tonight? I have none. Neither do I. All right. Upcoming meetings. We are meeting this Thursday. We have a joint
meeting with the sewer commission at 700 p.m. on Thursday remotely via Zoom to appoint some new commissioners. And then after that we have a meeting on June 3rd. Public comment. Any public comments from the public. Seeing none on Zoom.
Any public comments from the town manager? No. Any public comments from the board? Nope. None. All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Any additional discussion? Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. Motion
passes unanimously. It is 9:09 p.m. and the select board is adjourned. We will see you all in June. Have a good night.