##VIDEO ID:04jTiUHUOkE## for it being Clos order on November 4th 2024 Jeff here Brian here as well Kathy here is here is here he's here okay the first item on the agenda is public comments on non-agenda items is there anyone online no with a hand up yet okay yes sir please state your name and address yes um I think everybody knows me I'm Jim starky 13 F Point Road um I've been deeply involved in the harbor since about 1980 maybe 79 former chairman of the harbor advisory committee and the former chairman of the dreading committee there are some things I would like to this is non-agenda items right sit down Mr starky I shut up okay um there is no Chairman's report and now we review the action items so I had um we had an action item ways back that kind of fell off I think because we thought it was year in completion and it has to do with the wayfinding signs we approved signs back in June I I don't see any new signs and it's November so I I don't know what the status is but I'd like it to be on this action item list until there are actual signs in the downtown they've got bogged down with so uh John can speak to this I can I don't know if this is the appropriate time but I I know what's going on please continue okay so it came up with the historic district commission and that's not all of the signs just uh I know you know there are several signs but it's only the signs in the commission which is one at the end of school street at the end of Pine Street and the two signs that come in Church Street and by Seaside one to say parking is back here and there was some concern about the size of the signs and I think more critically a concern about well how can you consolidate the sign information that is already at these points at the end of Pine Street at the end of school street there's a lot of information that's get disseminated and the historic commission did not want to add more sign posts necessarily could some of this information be Consolidated into the signs that were proposed and I think what we had looked at we didn't look at this from an informational perspective we looked at it in terms of design how does it look but I'm not sure that the information on the signs that we approved when was it three months ago necessarily was final but there are some there are some other pieces of information that are on other signs of those locations that could be Consolidated onto these sides um the other comment that was made is that artistically it looks great but from a practical perspective when you devote so much space to Graphics your sign of necessity must become larger so that the copy that you're going to put on the sign can be read so the signs of necessity are larger and they probably should have done something to make the graphically smaller but we can live with that so um we have asked the uh wayf finding committee to come back and say how can you consolidate some of the information on signs that are already there so that we're not putting another Post in the ground and some of these signs are like finding committee is being re rein just say yes and they are going to well I'm assuming that at the next uh historic commission they will come by and say okay this is what we think so it's really just kind of integrating some of the information that might be there I'd still like to see it on the action item list so that it doesn't fall through uh pretty soon November 14 I think it's a week from Thursday okay could we hear from you back on December second yes also uh and speaking with Ruth uh P was coming way over budget shopping uh Bru said that uh Roots had put out to bid as far as pricing it was coming way over budget oh the signs yeah no I think she was looking at 10 I think we allowed we offer $6,000 and she was coming in around $10,000 they have family in that industry if um the prices are coming too high I'll gladly see if I can find uh additional suppliers for you to add to your list of you know bids these signs at the end of pine in school are like 4 feet by 4 feet which are pretty pretty good size although if you walk up to some of these signs that say 127 it's biger you think it is it really is when you walk up and take a tape measure I think there was some talk about getting rid of some signs yeah so the downtown Improvement committee um was interested because this was a sub Committee of downtown Improvement um I asked them to come to us with their recommendations and um they have not come forth with so when do they meet next um I'm not sure but I will make sure to bring that up again okay yep great I think we understand why there aren't signs yes okay um is there anything else that you should have on the okay the um next item on the agenda which is listed as moreing maren's regulations I think in fact would be better labeled um Manchester Harbor boring and Waterway regulations because I think that's what we're going to be talking about um and um packet um water regulations and bear with me um the change is in the um of specifics of temporary War um which allows um temporary Wars um to be taken off the warning um for me and and those temporary warnings can include warnings that are rented by uh the BS for the the most serious consideration um is that is bottom warnings this is does not apply to slips slips are under a whole different set of R options bottom GRS are supposed to be distributed fairly and equitably um and in some places in the past of um Moorings were given over to um Marine Enterprises to be rented and the renters were chosen based on their use of that facil that facility so the first thing that concerns me is the possibility of um the wars being used to reward people who have large fills with the now this regulation says that um the proposed regulation says that moing will be um assigned from the moing W it doesn't say that they'll be signed from the moing list in order of the moing list so if when we consider these after the HC has has looked at it I would like to see that very specifically um Moorings are assigned in order of the moing list and and that maybe some language that suggests that the the whoever renting them can't say well this is a 28t boat and this is a 40ft slip so I'm not going to take a 28t boat um um well they're not they're not charging per foot right I have no idea the there isn't the regulations include the um that that the um Boatyard um be able to charge for ancillary um but it doesn't address and and I think there's a suggestion that the use of the um float and and the tackle that holds the Flo in place should reasonably charged to the the rent um but I think we need to have a reasonable charge for that and not just whatever because once you get into whatever the marina wants to charge you're saying rich people get to jump the line are you suggesting just for clarification are you suggesting that uh the reasonable charge would cover maintenance cost but not necessarily generate a profit or are you suggesting that the Boatyard could generate a small profit from that I'm really not suggesting anything except that I don't want to see the profit to be so significant that it changes the um dynamics of the business and and I I have a concern as well um that this is being proposed as a way of strengthening the bo CHS and and reducing the chances that they will be um converted to condos with captive slips um and what the among the things that this would do if they were allowed to make a profit on it is make the suar storage of boats a bigger part of their economics which I think would make them more attractive as a takeover rather than less um and I will continue to blither for another few minutes um so the HC is meeting on Wednesday to discuss this again and I suggest that um we put together our recommendations for what we would like to see different in in this proposal um the comments that I had um I like the idea of making sure we take care of the people on the weight list first so I'm very much in favor of that I agree with an it should be based on the order of those on the weight list and I had a question is as to how would the people on the weight list find out about these so if we're saying that these Moorings are under the purview of the marinas excuse me the boat yards um then I would expect them to um fairly communicate to all those on the weit list that these are you know how would that work I the harbor the Harbor Master I think is the person who gives them out but um I want to see some um tracking of that and I think saying that it has to so the hyber master would be so in order for these um Moorings to be uh rented so to speak a sublet if it was Department i' be talking about sublet here right okay so a sublet um all of that would go through the Harbor Master correct okay so I would also agree I'd want to see it based on the order of those in the wait list but I'm wondering how we would communicate to those people to assess their interest you can answer that in a minute the other thing I noticed was um there was some uh line 372 talks about um allowing people to maintain the wars um themselves if they are what is language used here um have the expertise I forget what language is qualif if qualified I felt that language was much too subjective um so uh you know it begs the question from a policy standpoint writing a policy if there's some sort of expertise or if you are the Arbiter of that you know the Harbor Master I'd expect it just be a little bit clearer maybe um um approved by the harbor man master or um just something it's just a little too vague for me um and then it I was curious as to whether or not there was a a conflict between that um item allowing individuals qualified individuals to maintain the Moorings with line 935 I'm sorry not L 35 um 363 which says only companies can maintain Mings so there seemed to be a little bit of conflicting language around um the maintenance of the moing line numbers please um line 372 on page 10 was too subjective and may conflict with line 363 on the same page that was my comment 32 and 363 3 372 and 363 so I well it says Town approved moing service providers and then below it says and then below it says Ming further up there was mention of companies and I just I feel like if we're talking about individuals um we need to clarify what that means it's a little bit um just from a policy only authorized moing companies may serve that's that's 363 36 364 says only authoriz more in companies um I would just suggest rephrasing that um change companies to Providers providers providers just listed people that's right and then um whatever qualifications you you know how are you going to judge if someone's qualified that that's so maybe it should just say something that um it should be the gear placement to be inspected by the harber master or something like there's plenty of people that can put Wars in themselves understand it's not it's not Rockets I get it but I'm just saying there's there must have been something in your mind around how you would assess if someone's qualified or whatever I think just from a policy how do you write a policy standpoint I just feel that Lang is is does pound approved mean you approved it Mayan yes I guess okay and why don't you just put a line others as other other service PRI providers as approved by because somebody could come up with somebody at D or I don't know Danvers who who may be quite qualified it's just that they're a person's brother-in-law or something and then you know based on your that happens that happens and that's not an unreasonable situation thing need to do is see the tackle yeah inspect chain inspect the shackles ECT wire used line theim okay so I had a I I had a couple of questions so essentially we're talking I mean before all of this happened I guess there were 10 Moorings that were used by Manchester marine and five by Crockers that were essentially service Moorings and also doubled as transient Moorings in the summer and now the number of Moorings is doubled and they've gone and said okay we're just renting these Moorings out um I like the idea of going down the down the list in terms of what the charges for that of course all both firms have invested money in floats so that's not covered by I mean how they going to get a return on this if we say look this is the way you've got to go it seems that floats have to be built in there as a cost somehow I don't know what that number is we don't have to worry about that I think right now but it seems to me that that's part of the mix um and was there any concern that those 10 original Moorings which are now you know half of a half of a float moing um do those get rented out for say I don't know July and August assuming that June June and before and September and after are service service time so they can't do that but are they going to rent them out if it's just a short summer I mean a short months we don't know correct correct you know and I don't know how much transient business they get that they say no we got to hold on to them because we got a lot of calls for people that want to pull in for two or three days the other the other question says 14 days for those Moorings with regard to trents is 14 days total 14 days any single stretch what is 14 days 14 days of course the season uh it's no different than the rule where uh you can and let someone use your morning up to 14 days and then they have to leave the harbor can I charge for them can I Char for it that's against the law uhhuh I won't say anything it's against state law for private warnings to be rented it's not against state law for commercial Wars to be rented it's in it's in paperwork okay yeah I so they I mean they they charge TR Trans in some number I guess right trans there's a charge for that absolutely a matter of fact Manchester Marine us do just as we do okay okay but you're saying they can only do that 14 total days for a specific vessel oh for a vessel so somebody wants to visit Manchester for two weeks fine want to do it three weeks that's the problem but you could do two weeks then somebody two days it could go okay all right that's kind of a clarification for me and for all of the what did they pay Manchester this year in terms of Waterway fees so Manchester Marine paid um what they paid the town 10 or 20 slips they paid for 10 okay because there was no clarification by the board for the summer my intention was that once the select board decided what the rule was going to be what uh how this was uh going to change and be approved then I would go ahead and charge the voters in the spots that were assigned seasonally the water W Fe for their vessel I have to capture their registration their documentation all that has to go into the database so that it's recorded and saved annually none of that got done none of that got done so those 10 Lings because there was no ruling okay understood I can't I can't enforce a rule exist that's not on box in fact the rule was that they could not rent them seasonally that's right in April when this when the H advisory committee first brought this up and came up with let me finish when I first came up with uh the uh change to the rule for the language the HC brought it up and then failed to put it in the minutes which I didn't know about until we came here and Jim pointed out then it was on the agenda Excuse me yes sorry it was on the agenda as a matter of fact because I have the agenda right here I'll email it to you okay no I'm just clarifying I'm clarifying right now we're talking about how we are going to go forward right well it it was put to me that i' taken a misstep which I did I did I admitted that I admitted it in my office in front of the two of you I really want to get recommendations to the haror committee har advisory committee which is meeting in two days so um we can hash out who fault it was I don't just not we want lay go back no no no we're just want to let's let's determine what's the best course of action going forward we've learned by it whatever if they want to call them mistakes or whatever happen happened and it's it's a part of the learning curve let's go forward okay another question okay I should finish so H and I understanding that it never made it into the minutes the rule change vote it was put on the agenda for two nights from now there'll be a recommendation okay actually thought this should have waited until after that vote but the proposal is you see it being discussed on Wednesday will be for the town to collect the Waterway fee for any boat that's in the harbor correct regardless of what type of moing they're on correct there'll be a process to assess any boat that's here for the season on the Waring owned by a board fair and Equitable fee is not the fee that's very an equivalency assignment okay yeah the fee should also be but yeah so we can't solve the fee tonight well I had a question when you're when buy On's done I'm done okay you were talking about the fees are you asking do we have any um recommendations on the fees I know you said you were concerned about them being too high or whatever I was just looking at their website moing 40 foot Max nightly is 120 transient parking doesn't say if that's a slip I don't know if transient Park sounds like a slip as opposed to a moing but um daily $60 weekend two-day pass is $100 so I mean we're talking in that rough range for um Manchester Marine 20 2024 2025 seasonal rate card what it says so do we have any recommendations or do we have any um jurisdiction or Au you know do we have any right to tell Manchester Marine what they can charge or not I don't they're a private business you know but I just wanted to this is what the website says so I just thought I'd mention it does the website say anything about long term it says um seasonal May 15th to October 15 I mean obviously they have $325 a you know it's a foot Loa and uh dingy doc space so I mean there's Moorings and slips they're kind of in the same section but they're not really distinguishing in the language clearly between a moing and a slip in my estimation here but they have a they have a rate sheet it's right on their website has all the rates out there I mean it's very trans transparent okay so summer storage trailer storage I it's all there um would you I don't have it in front of me and it would be interested to know what the seasonal which is May 15th May 15th to October 15th 30 foot minimum charge that's for a slip seasonal says 325 uh for Loa nightly is 8 325 times L yeah okay thank you that's what I'm saying that's that's for a slip right for a slip right so moing would be moring is 40 foot Max nightly is $120 and then there's a section here says transient parking it doesn't say slip or moing so I don't know what it's referring to $60 a day or um $100 for two-day weekend pass but it doesn't say if that's a slip or a moing or both that's an extremely low rate I suspect that's parking in the parking lot parking trans parking okay so car parking in the parking lot okay I could be wrong but yeah that sounds that sounds done a good job of calling it slips more rings and now parking yeah cars it's in the moing they want so then a moring 40 foot Max it says $120 a night that's what it says that's the only thing it has under moing so that's a transient number yeah I would guess nightly yep that's a Transit did you have um I just wondered have they spoken to you at all about the number of slips that they need to be service SL SL Trent I mean they've had 10 for a long time I don't know if they're scrambling if they could dump into this category of rent for the season they put more than 10 in there I don't know um but when we come out with a policy along these lines they may start to push that 10 number around depending upon how they see the math working well if if the board chooses to set a firm number for the number of seasonal warnings and I think is this enough Direction at this point for the HC you know what we want we want we want to see uh an equitable coming from the town as far as uh people on the list and not because you bought a boat from them you get a Waring uh and I agree with that and then just fees I guess so yeah I think this is it's going to wind up being fee driven you'll go down a list and the fee is going to be a certain number and there's some people say fine and other people say I don't know but in my opinion not an equitable distribution of the use of the harbor bottom if you say that people who have their own Wars pay one fee but if you happen to be a able to pay $20 a day $120 a day personally I I see both sides of this because I do agree I want people to be able to afford to do this but these are spots that were made out of thin air I mean they're not spots that we would have had it didn't take away from our Mings that we already have so I I don't know how you I don't know how you're going to control what you know they have money in floats they have money in servicing in every year they've yeah so there's got to be some money to be made I mean these guys are a business but but that's on the order of what's the order I'm talking about I'm not talking several thousand I'm talking hundreds okay but where do you you know so you got to take what's costing them and then they got to make something but what do we have control over that number I don't know I just don't think for a private business we have any say how much they charge I I just legally but I agree with the the moing weight l situation if we can Implement that then it's going to give people a chance that there there's there's it's space that we couldn't have [Music] made and it's space that somebody off the weight list is going to get to use it's not a perfect situation obviously and I would what about like to see some control over the number but I don't know that we really have the authority to do that the question I have is if you're on a weit list and the first available weight list is a Manchester Marine at more than what a town morine is do you automatically get knocked at the bottom or can you just or you just stay in that the list of that same spot you just pass over the opportunity to spend a lot more money right but you're still way at the top okay that's what I want to make sure so so both models are out there so there are communities that allow commercial operators of and who have a signed more to charge whatever they want that model's out there that hasn't been challenged from the from the state there are other communities that that say no it's it's just as if um it's a it's a town Mooring and if you want other services it's your choice to buy those other services from their Marena but for the basic moing you charge the same Waterway fee as anybody else and you don't have to pay any more for that more plus some maintenance for the tackle that is that is a typical model so those are those both models both work but in this but in this instance you're getting a moing with a float right which is not which is not on the list and you have to assign it's an upgrade from a standard I don't know what these floats cost you probably know Buy on and when when when these guys say I'm getting a float it cost X dollar they put it in the water they're splitting it between two guys but what's the amortization for that I don't know just one more question um this past season when we had people not on the weit list using these moins um the Boatyard not these people was it because they bought a boat from them uh I don't Manchester Mar doesn't sell boats okay cers does cers does cers does so I'm just wonder because there is you know I have seen the model where because when I was looking for a new boat you know they said I can help part of the reason some people don't buy boats is they have no place to put them right so it is common for a Boatyard to say I can help you out that first season by providing you with a moing or slip so that would include Crockers from being able to do that right if they did it this there were Seaborn on those BS the ones that I saw were names that I'd seen in previous years okay I I don't I I don't get involved it's I'm not supposed to get involved in business right I just think I I can't I can't state for a fact that he did not yeah I'm just thinking it's it's part of it's another model that's out there you have to be able to help people who buy their first boat they need a place to put so that would not be allowed for for more more for slips slips is another right okay I know that I think Crockett does that with usually yeah yeah I mean I I think we do a lot of stuff it you know we spend a lot of time thinking about businesses and we deal with parking and all these other things and we don't really do a lot for the marinas I don't think that yeah these 10 moing is going to make a break no I mean I think that's a little unrealistic but but that aside you know if it if it we can make it work for everybody why not and it has I one point I will make is that having those docs in there and the way it's set up has made the harbor a lot better and I would hate to see it go back the way it once it is a lot easier to get in and out of here way it is now is it 10 um Waring that they think that you think they would r or is it 20 I think 10 I think that they would keep 50% but let's say the original 10 spots would be kept for service and TRS and business I think that they would rent the other 10 I ask them to be sure but I I think that that would be and you can stipulate I that's that's your purview to decide the number is there was also a question about um you know the the warnings if these places ever sold that they would enhance the value of the property that in fact is not true if those properties ever sell they may not sell they can sell the tackle they can sell the floats the spot that those Ms are on are not for sale if either of those properties sold those Mings would be reassigned pass along so if somebody buys the business they can't absorb that they cannot absorb they can absorb the tackle but they don't own the bottom so it just starts over it correct they have a license to have pilings and floats for their marines that can be that can go with the property and those slips could become private slips for Pondo owners no Public Access at all whether you have money or not there'd be no Public Access but those Ming spots would go back into the pool and be reassigned Mr Mr starky yes you've given us your introduction you don't need to do that you remember who I am um I would like to point out that Manchester Marine does not own seab bottom under their Moorings the town of Manchester does not own those that seab botom the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not own the sea bottom nobody owns the sea bottom it is held in trust doctrine of public trust by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and chapter 91 and the division of waterways have a large number of regulations that say how this is to be administered and the primary principle is that it has to be fair and it has to be Equitable has to be fair to allc comers and there are many protections that are built in for people who have more or uh that do not seem to be addressed in what I've seen so far for example a morian permit is good for one year and if you apply for a renewal and you turn down you can appeal back to the state and if it was done arbitrarily then the state will reverse it so there's there's protection here so somebody has a vat they're going to bring it here and suddenly they're without no place to put it and everybody recognizes that that's a terrible thing now the program that this latches on to is one that was very is a program that was set up for somebody who's going to be gone for a year they could turn their moing over to the Harbor Master who could rent it out for one season to one person with the acknowledgement that the owner was going to come back the following year because they didn't come back the following year they lose the morning complet L if somebody on the wedding list is going to get a moing they have to know that they can continue to use that Moine because everybody who's on that list has a boat someplace and if they bring it here they have to give up the whever it is and if they bring it here and they get bounced off after a year for no particular reason now they're stuck with a boat and no place to put it because they've given up their other Ming so we are obliged under you know obligations to be fair and Equitable to say that once some gets amorin under this temporary under you know the uh weight lless this whole program they be able to keep that until they even voluntarily give it up or something else radically changes so that that's an important protection you know another is Harbor Master suicide yes Kathy has a question yeah I thought we were talking about Transit Moorings which I use Transit Moorings all the time and I don't have to give up I'm just confused this this is the idea that Manchester Marine is renting these by the season but it's transient okay so are we concerned that by renting it by the season it's no longer Falls in it no longer falls in the transient category it's temporary that's what our rules call it it's temporary transient is days so there's a def there's a a real definition around the word transient and it's 14 days yeah okay temporary temporary program okay with no expectation that it's a permanent cor right so those people probably would be people with trailers and they just been putting the boat in as they kind of go because to make a decision and take it out of someplace else is a major decision as Jim says the temporary program adopted by Manchester and my recommendation because we used it in King it gives folks who are on the weight list as they move up the weight list the higher you are more likely it is that uh you be offered one get you a chance to have a moing maybe a couple of years before your permanent assignment comes up um but there's zero expectation that that your permanent Ming I guess the question though is I'm trying to clarify the point Jim's trying to make here if someone takes advantage of that seasonal temporary moing are they obliged to give up what they already have somewhere else so they would you mean in Manchester no I'm saying some other Town my boat's in winthrip let's say I get one of the I take advantage of do I have to give up my Ming and wiri for one year so if wiri allows you to leave your M vacant for a season other than that we have you know right yeah it it does I can't imagine if somebody came to Manchester went from Manchester a Marvel head for a year and said I'm leaving my vacant every other year back by the rule they can do that as a matter of fact we have some you're allowed to have your moing empty for a year yeah a season I guess but you'd also have to be at the top near the top of the weight list do it depends on what they're charging yes no you can you skipped off the well I mean I don't I mean I hate to say this but I don't think you know money is going to be a factor for some people but you're not going to get too far down that list before you fill that so I guess the other question is you're on a temporary U moing but then a permanent moing becomes available while you're on that temporary you can you can move off the temporary and go on the absolutely you haven't lost your you haven't lost anything well is Manchester Marine going to expect the fee for the full season because you that's them they sign contract maybe they are oated Mr starky yes um as I was saying if somebody gets into this program they move a boat from someplace else they need to be fair and Equitable they need to be able and if it makes sense if you're signing people to Temporary to rental Mings from the top of the waiting list so they qualified one year why would you take it away from them but that needs to be part of the regulation otherwise it's completely utterly unfair another on the temporary morning program it doesn't say it has to come from the waiting list it says primarily from the waiting list and it doesn't say it comes from the top it does say primarily the new one that we were looking at I so the way it's the way it's written right now if they want to rent to somebody a moing to somebody who's prepared to pay him $10,000 is say okay we can do that all you need to do is go to town hall pay $10 to put on the waiting list you're at the bottom but we can rent to you so I think that is the point that's the point that the select board is making tonight is we want the waiting list taken in order of those people the only thing that is fair yes yes we're all in agreement there has to be if we're going to assign people to mors there have to be you know consumer protections things that don't apply to people with private mores so for example if if somebody signs up for a rental M for Manchester Marine they go away for the weekend they come back find that Manchester Marine has rented that to a transient what happens right now nothing they they they have no recourse whatsoever so there really has to be some a great deal more protection here doesn't that become an issue between marine and it's a it's it's a civil issue between uh the person who's renting that war and man to Marine that happened through a private war and yes it happens from time to time that people pick up other people's warnings then the Harvard Master would interview and perhaps one of the things we have to think about is if somebody has a complaint [Music] without some issue with Manchester Marine they should be able to appeal first to the harbard master and then God help us to us should also be some sort of protection where even though you insert at the top of the wait list you don't go all the way to the bottom because if somebody says okay I'm willing to pay $110,000 and you offer everybody at the top of the waiting list you know you want to for $10,000 and you get down to the guy at the bottom and he says okay we're golden well that doesn't work either we put in something like you're not eligible to be in this until you've been on the waiting list for 3 years no that would take care of that 20 years long yeah 4 it's 20 over 20 years5 names if we go down through the first seven and the Seven take it and then 350 refuse it and we get to the 358 and they say I'll take it and the 359 as long as you start at the top and go from one two in order all the way down okay that's I would argue that having some requirement for having been on the weight list for some period of time would avoid the way of doing corruption where and Manchester Marine is not this kind of a company this is not this kind of a town but I worry about things like this happening Manchester Marine says we can give you a place to put your boat it's going to be $25,000 a season somebody sticks somebody puts his name on the bottom of the waiting list nobody says $25,000 he gets the morning man says hey we'll put we'll put half of that towards your yard I don't know how that could happen if I'm the one who's making sure that the list is being observed so that would mean but you know that would mean that there is somebody who's on the waiting list he's at the bottom he's been on it for three days they charge something exorbitant and then to deliberately um disincentivize people from saying yes yes very nefarious I have an evil mind the voting World being nefarious wow that's why I have a convertible really things things like this do can happen and and I would like some yeah I mean I'm fine with that but I I think realistically me you have a waiting list that's 20 years long even if you said five years you're going to still be near the bottom of the list but you can't be somebody who's just been put on I I suppose so what you're saying is someone come in and do a deal and say hey you you decide you're going to charge $100,000 for this slip for this moing everyone's going to pass over and then yeah it gets to his then it gets this guy and this guy is buying 100,000 it's God spend awful lot of time on Netflix Happ well would would the check and balance be that we could ask that they report either Manchester marine or the voters what the fee is going to be for that season in advance if we know in advance what they're charging uh for this war so they somebody says uh yeah no I paid 50,000 100 whatever the numbers are that that would be a pretty big red flag that U I think you got look at administer okay be reasonable and customary in order to time right yeah and they have slips in the harbor I mean we know what the slips in the harbor are I mean they can't go crazy we have to we have to rely on the Harbor Master right um this hyber master is great we have had hyber Masters in the past for we can play that game we can play that game with anyone you know as far as Ox rers just assume not have a place in the harb where you could buy the police new set of uniforms and suddenly you got fours and that did happen I I think it's reasonable I mean I can't remember exactly other scenarios where I've encountered what you're proposing but I I I think that's a reasonable assertion you know some we don't want someone who just got on the waiting list right so some whether it's one two even one year you know two years you know I I think that's a reasonable thing for the HC to chew over um and come back to us and come back to us with their recommendation I don't think we need to yes one other thing I want to touch on and that is after our last Mor in Scandal um where weren't here we went three years without anybody coming off the waiting list but the number of Mor didn't go down um the town passed this bylaw Harbor bylaw which I hope you have all read and it requires that documentation be posted on the website in the town hall this has not been honored J but anyway going forward if we're going to have a rental program that has to be transparent there has to be a list of the people who've got these Ms there has to be seen okay I've seen the list through the chair I've been online and I've personally looked at the list myself this is this theing list theist or the transaction list transactions what's the transaction when a moing changes hand madam there you see that year the year that Waring changed hands read the bylaw Bion we are we are tired there has to be transparency agreed there has to be a list there has to be just stickers um transparency is we can we can request that the harbor advisory committee come up with a regulation that is transparent I don't think it's up to us right now to decide what color the stickers are um I think the committee is done with this subject I think JC's got enough info I move that we move on to the next agenda item anyone like to second that okay okay um the next one is Ocean Street op um so you're after that great so as I think all of you know we were're working on um Grant application we submitted a Grant application for pretty extensive review of options of public input process getting on board Engineers to help us understand what um is likely to be permittable to the state Etc um it's roughly $200,000 effort um 80% of that was paid for Grant so the grants that we uh have applied for to date have not been awarded and we return down we will hear um on Wednesday we'll have a chance to talk talk to the the grantour to hear what we could have done to make our application a little more competitive and hopefully we'll get some insights on on that um to reapply which is certainly an option to do there's some additional grant opportunities that will be coming you know this uh this winter and into spring which we certainly can appy again um we could as an alternative we look at sort of breaking pieces of this out for example um there's an opportunity to team up with um MPC through their what they call the district local technical assistance grants the LTA um that we could perhaps do some sort of public dialogue at least just to get people talking about different uh concerns and issues and and possibilities obviously that's not going to get us the in piece um there's a ability to uh maybe just get an opinion um more of a letter review either from most likely from a Consulting engineer to focus on what's the likelihood of of different scenarios being permitted um that would obviously not be that full $200,000 cost so maybe there's a way to get some opinions and some more data to help us have those discussions with the public um so we have a range of next steps um we could try to break it into pieces and try to get some of those pieces funded it underway we can reapply the whole original application and just resubmit that to um upcoming Grant funds you can look at putting some Town dollars into this we were looking at a 20% match um so in that $20,000 range is what we were anticipating um you know putting in the full 200,000 on on Town capital budget that would be a a challenge to do and something we have to give something else would have to give in order to make that work um but it's you as I always like to say budgets are about choices so that's that's another choice that is possible but um anyway those are the range of of choices that I see before us right now so if we do nothing how much do we spend a year to maintain ption well that's probably a good guess for Chuck to chime in on um you know it's in the you know10 to $20,000 range perhaps that was higher um am I low on that Chuck was it higher than that no I was I was gonna say 10 to 20 I mean you know certainly there's you know potential of more catastrophic D danger with all of the storms but you know we're generally in a respond and repair type thing and I think 10 to 20 is pretty pretty [Music] accurate but the sidewalk there is yeah well I mean mother nature wants yeah right sidewalks in pretty bad  I I I would think we could maybe spend a little more and and have the sidewalk be passable that is a big walking area yeah you come around the corner and and and people will I have to walk in the street but okay that's still not going to take it up to no no I'm thinking about myself yeah I I like your idea Greg of splitting my frustration with the Ocean Street situation is when did we start this discussion I me it was before I was on the board it goes back quite a few years quite a few years so I think what personally I'd like to see is what are those options we it feels like we we we discount some options because we're afraid they may not be permitted but we don't necessarily have hard evidence of that so I I think I heard you say one first step might be um you say an engineer spent $20,000 not an engineer but um design choice I forget how you just phrased it um we could we could seek an engineering firm to give us um an overview of the options and their permability okay all right that's a good I I think that it may be hard for them to do that without I I I don't know what they would charge for that I we have to ask I think that's worth asking personally just because um there is the potential that we can't keep it the way it is uh there's also the potential that keeping it the way it is might be viable if the town is willing to spend the money to do it we we don't know but I just feel like really clarifying the options is something that the residents have been asking for and I think we owed them at least that um that's one piece of feedback the other piece of feedback is um we've tried multiple times to go after grants it sounds like and we haven't been successful on any of them um definitely am looking forward to that feedback that you get on Wednesday but at some point you know the old saying if if you're if you the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result sure um the previous application for a grant we withdrew our application it was not that was turned down so there was only one other submission and we withdrew it um well we we had years ago we had this citt that was successful but because of its too heavy emphasis on Retreat basically it was it was turn down turned down okay um I'm trying to I think there was another one between that one and this one that we just submitted by so I guess my not sure yeah I'm not sure either I have to double Che I think that you know certainly getting the feedback from the grantor and why our submission submission was not accepted is is valuable um but I also think we need to kind of have a plan B here um and the first step is understanding what our options are and then one option for funding any of those Solutions is a grant but there must be other options for funding as well and I I'd like to see us work things in parallel as opposed to serial you know wait till we see the results of the Grant and then let's figure out what we're going to do I I think we can have parallel plans and um do a little more walking and chewing of gun at the same time that's kind of my feedback could we be creative yeah say and say something that the walkway everything Scenic and uh open space absolutely and go for some CPA I was going to ask this question lots of different options all right I mean there's there's got to because of the location right and how many people enjoy just walking along that's right uh maybe that falls into the purview that we can tap some money over yeah are we spending too much money worrying about cars like there's different ways different different ways of solving the problem to give residents what they're asking for and and and letting nature do more than it's doing today you know so I just very nature likee it's I just think we really need those that something we talk to Mr bur about or something we yeah we can we can have that conversation so I got a question so that road goes way back to the I've seen it on maps even in the 1700s have we ever looked into having it deemed a historic way and is there is there more opportunities for Grants around that or I'm not sure um I mean there was an original um public launch right back in the I think 1700s I think yeah I don't know if it goes back about that far anyways right there's a long history because I mean Manchester actually started down there okay it wasn't even up here so I'm just wondering maybe there's an Avenue to explore there creative creative let's look at our options quick pass through what are the options right and then that can tell us what we might want to delve deeper in you know by talking with the residents and getting input from uh you know the residents where we might want to dig deeper but I just feel like we've been trying to go one go down One path and I I agree with you C when you say let's stop thinking about cars and let's if we can start thinking about a walkway and open space that allows us some other opportunities oh people like to drive their cast through I do all I do I do all the time right so I don't know are there uh are there Grant cycles that just keep on going that every year there's an opportunity or something so million days are on an annual or semiannual basis okay and there are big grants than there are little grants right and if you go after a little Grant maybe it's easier than a big Grant but you don't necessarily get all the answers you want I mean we need scenarios here we need scenarios from from professional from from professional people yeah you know something that you can put down you get your hands around and say okay what do we think The Regulators are going to think about but I think what you're saying is very important John and we we need those scenarios ASAP because people have been waiting years for this and I I it feels like we're the tail is wagging the dog we're waiting for the grants to come up with the scenarios I say we figure out what it's going to cost to get the scenarios just a first pass of creative high level like we did for the Tunda you know and then decide where we want to spend the bigger money to delve deeper um on a subset of those scenarios you know once we get the resident inut we we've got to get even if it's 10 10 wild scenarios let's get something on you know if you break it up into you know three or four different projects each one's a separate scenario something can the town 50k to go do this you know then maybe sour CPC might be that's a great suggestion I I just think we should that's that's creative you know let's not worry about the grants so much Jack has a dog in this fight too yeah that's right good point has has right so I mean I I guess you know we have done some of these things I don't feel like we've just gone for Grants like I've I've talked to several engineers and I think the the problem with just like you know having them give us a you know likely scenario with the permit like I think they that's reasonable we can do that but the the part that is really you know the heavy lifting is the coastal zone management analysis of the wave inundation and the climate you know the sea level rise and the uh storm surge impacts and like that's the level of professionalism that we don't have to speak to these problems and it's not just the barrier Beach issue or the roadway issue with the whole ecosystem behind the marsh and the connectivity under the Culvert Greg that was the other grant that we did go at was looking at the Culvert which would have lent itself to the you know sidewalk as it approaches the Culvert and going around there we've also done uh Dune Restoration in that area we've looked at that so like I feel like we have done I think we're selling it a little bit short I mean I I wouldn't call myself a coastal engineer you know expert however I have talked to quite a few and and the you know just talking to them the feedback that I always get is that you know walls are not permittable raising the road is not necessarily permittable let alone very expensive so like we we do have that level and you know I feel like that's you know worth mentioning now I will say I I do like the idea of you know making it more pedestrian you know friendly and protected the the reason you know we we have strived to keep the sidewalk that is there because it's not a full sidewalk the entire way but the sidewalk that is there to keep it passable I I think it is passable it we use the den grad cherone the reason we have not paved it is because that does not address the issue that's causing the degradation to the sidewalk which is the rubble wall and the uh subbase material underneath that that gets hit with waves you know twice a day with the tide cycle so like there are some things that it's not it's not quite as easy as it might seem to address which is why it hasn't been addressed um and I I do think that you know with the Surge and the you know the storms that we see on a regular basis now the 10 to $20,000 reconstruction if if I I'll get a price I'll I'll take a look I'm not a afraid of it but like you know if if we get into doing the subbase and the pop coat on that sidewalk every year like that's a that's a fairly significant expense on an annual basis so that makes that 10,000 to $20,000 number go up so you know like you can't like I I know it you know we would like to be able to wave Magic one but there there is no you know substitute for some of the stuff that we're talking about can I ask you this Chuck so to to patch that wall up enough to slow this situation down what what's that look like so we don't have a good uh I I don't have a good answer for how much it costs the the problem is we don't know the extent of the Void behind the wall and so and then to kind of take on this you know I do think there may be a path forward where you take on a certain linear footage every every year or certain you know if it's 10,000 20,000 30,000 like we could do some sort of annual contract to you know do that maintenance um however we don't really know what the extent is so we don't know if that you know pick a number 10 to 20,000 we don't know whether that's going to address you know 30 square you know linear feet of wall or 100 linear feet of wall and that's kind of the issue when you try to you know get into the details here um and and then you know we also have the permitting requirements which you know that would definitely be permittable to uh restore that you know that wall as is however that might not solve the long-term issue or won't solve the long-term issue so you know we're coming you know kind of like what's the return on investment so you know I'm not saying that we can't look harder at that I'm just saying like these are some of the you know reasons why we haven't been able to get a good solid footing on it I'm not saying as a forever situation but as a you know 203 year fix or 20year fix maybe that gets us by for a while well so again like that's the engineering that has done not worth it well that's the engineering that we haven't paid for right like you know if you told me what the you wave inundation on a regular basis and what the you know we literally did this when we had to repair the seaw wall over on um on uh sinky Beach was you know we had to do like a a wave analysis like there you know there's engineering that actually goes into this that you know is well beyond my expertise and so that's you know that's the that's what we haven't paid for yet I mean I can get a scope and do that I mean we we have looked at other Scopes um you know with Engineers I think it was more kind of again the longterm planning level not necessarily the short-term repairs so like you know that's definitely a Next Step that you know I can track down on you know on a shortterm basis you know very quickly yeah so great that'd be something might be interesting to seeing anyway for sure so so Greg I think part of the issue is Chuck is Right a lot of stuff has been done but it's been done over such a long period of time that you know sometimes people aren't aware of it because because they maybe they didn't even live here right so I just think when we I I really like the way we approach the Rotunda I mean we we came up with some options wound up being four one of them I think wound up being not viable but we had a public form what do you want this to look like what do you want this to be we took it in chunks right but it it felt more compressed so we could make a real decision without dragging it out for so long that people forget what happened and what we learned I mean it's just been dragging on for so long I just like to see some urgency around options and decisions we don't I agree with that but I think we need a shortterm maybe a little better solution and then a longterm solution but I think that's that that's to me those are options right right and and it's just there's a lot been a lot of work done you know behind the scenes I don't think we've presented everything to the town in a condensed way that's easy for people to absorb and understand I I certainly have trou keeping up to date it just they want to accumulate everything we've done so far and take a look at it all that would be a good first step but I I I think there are probably like you just came up with some other options tonight that maybe have not been considered before so I think that's all part of laying out what those options are including what work has already been done maybe we had to Discount some op options because of of some reasons but it's not easy to figure all this out if you're just a resident looking for information it's it's all over the place you might find out there is no long-term option I don't know I the information is part of it's in Chuck's brains some of it's in old documents I mean it's just all over the place would it make sense as one of us St options to approach an engineering company and get a price for that doesn't doesn't and and then we can figure out how we're going to pay for it exactly instead of might be a $50,000 uh price tag for engineering and maybe we find other ways of finding that money without going for a grant without it hurting our uh a budgetary process item right yeah absolutely okay makes sense and I I mean most of these grants we've gone Greg have been the czm figger type grants is that a fair statement or have we gone for little ones the P that was a smaller ask I just think smaller is easier the CGM wasn't huge was some is capital money but Madam chairman I've had my hand raised for 10 minutes may I speak um I didn't I'm sorry I I just saw it now okay yes you may Chuck furong 19 Ocean Street Brendon and I have lived here for 30 years so we have a lot of history with the road a lot of history with the Town Administrator and a lot of history with the DPW nothing has happened in that 30 years not even minimal maintenance has occurred now we've reached the crisis point and I immediately challenged Mr Dam's statement that no seaw wall is permittable all he has to do is go to Essex and he can find one along the Essex River he can simply go to Endicott College and find the revetment that was permitted there within the past two years he can go to winr and he can find a seaw wall that was permitted there so let's put that out of the thinking it's poppycock it's not true so let's get to facts and let's also talk about the value of the grants the grant that was proposed 2018 by Mr federspiel was a $26,000 Grant and its sole articulated purpose was to abandon Ocean Street and make it a barrier Beach $26,000 the current one before the czm was $182,000 and I had the pleasure of speaking with a coordinator who is responsible for all of the coast from Riv to Salsbury today and the bottom line is we did not have a competitive proposal in a $182,000 bid so I encourage you to do some fresh thinking and to be much more candid about what's happened over the past 10 to 15 years thank you okay um let's get let's make sure let's make sure that um the company that includes studying or understanding how other communities have been able to put up barriers yeah and I just think the takeaway here is focus on finding Solutions Focus Less on getting the grant money Focus first on let's do what we need to do to identify Solutions and then we'll figure out how we pay for it is it with grants or taxation I just think we're we need to change our perspective a little bit well I the grant that was submitted would have given us a very comprehensive would have given you what you needed yes yes understand funded we would have been in good shape here um and we're going to find out why they didn't right couple days couple days we'll find out why it was and then we can tweak it if we have to but you can extract out of that something that's corre Focus there's some pieces not like you got to reinvent anything here you can go and and focus and go to an engineering firm we need a scenario for this okay I would like to hear from Mr D Mr Dam um I will I will keep it brief and and I will I will be respectful of everybody's time but also not not not calling each other names and things like that I'm not gonna call anybody game but I I will just say to the board I have no incentive to lie about my conversations with Regulators or other Engineers or anything else if you think that's what I'm all about then you haven't been paying attention and I would just say that for everybody in town on all of our projects I am more open and honest with everything that I do and everything my department does than anyone else I can imagine so like I will not have my character questioned about something so trivial as a seaw wall when I have had these conversations and I have done this work uh and then I would also say I am an engineer and if you put a seaw wall in front of all of that roadway you have a uh salt marsh behind it where does that go water has to go in both directions so I will not be talked to like that by anybody and I just want that to be very clear and I I will tell you I have a $70,000 study in the C I will send it to everybody tomorrow I think I've shared it with the neighborhood association that I reach out to regularly and I ask for input regularly so I I just want that to be very clear and I will send it tomorrow morning for everybody to look at and we can fund it as much as we want but it's not going to change the bottom line or the things that I have been told from people that I trust and are more knowledgeable about this than me and I'll leave it at that and I thank you for the time I understand your feeling Mr D thank you is there another hand up Mr V mench has his I'm really to all to say much of relevance but uh I've studied ocean seed for a long time at I live on Crow Island and uh well the problems is it used to be the main road from Manchester to Cluster and Roosevelt in U 19 say 35 he built 12 127 and since then I think there's been no money spent on Ocean Street and one of the things is that the uh the infrastructure is just gone and u a lot of cement was use that is not uh uh able to resist the ocean uh saltness the salt uh stuff from the ocean but I suggest I just write a little memo to Mr Dam who really knows what's happening and um give my view and I think Chuck Furlong he's watching it like a h too and U the issue is U do we abandon Ocean streat or not that's the main issue and U I was counting on uh getting grants to to kick it down the road till I'm gone I'm 84 and um but these grants are drying up and I think we have to face the music ourselves and uh this I'll leave it at that and I'll send a message to Chuck them and uh Chuck Fong and let them look at it thank you thank you is there anyone else Chuck Dam do you you have your hand up again or is that from last time sorry that that was last time I'm not I'm must be tired I think what where we have come from this is we should get a quote from an engineering company considering a variety of possibilities someone should see if there's a way that it's either historic or natural or both or both and and could Poss some some work could be done on CBC money um but there is an enormous amount of engineering Mone that has to go into this after we've gone through I this is a much bigger projecta absolutely but you got to start somewhere right got to start somewhere and then I I do think we need public feedback from you know let's see what the first set of options are let's get some public feedback so we're not spending money let's say they come back with five options we may not want to spend thatone all F you got to prioritize I think it's important to get the public input y before we do that the the other isue hear is I don't want to keep on asking a question till we get the answer we want to hear right all right there might be something that no one's going to hear that everyone comes across and says the same thing and it's it's it's the least favorable answer but I don't want to keep on just going back let's go find another engineering firm that's going to tell us something we need facts exactly and I just and we have to rep but we have to maintain at least one side out of that road to Crow Island absolutely like can abandon the whole en Ro and that's again we have that's that that goes what I'm saying so then it's how much you saving by giving up half a road that's fine don't right no I know but I'm just that's that is exactly what some of the options are that we need that's what we need we need the options and we need the public input to prioritize them okay so the action is to come back the December 2nd or the December December 16th meeting um with um an idea of a quote that the town could fund to um look at the possibilities Mr Gilbert has his hand up Mr Gilbert good evening thank you um could you just clarify for the record um I remember being at the planning board meeting I don't know eight years ago or something when they were discussing getting grant money to do what I thought would it was described to me as an open-ended study to see what our options our engineering options were I heard it tonight characterized as a study proposal to close the road off and I never thought that was the case and I'd like that clarified because obvious it seems obvious to me what we need is an open-ended honest um objective study is of what our options are um to an old we eight years ago eight years ago Mr Mr F referred to that that as he said it was a very modest amount um it had a focus on whether or not on on the possibility of abandoning the short stretch along White Beach um it did have some additional studies included that wasn't the only option but that was one of the um primary focuses of that effort it wasn't the exclusive effort but that became um a very strong lightning rod so um the decision was to to not move forward with that and here we are so when you say abandon the road close it or just make it a dead end in other words no longer a horseshoe no longer question that the stretch on white Beach so you go to White Beach that's it make a U-turn turn around correct and if you want to go black Beach yeah it goes out to Crow Island and that's okay no walkway across the top yeah there was talk about but that we didn't get that far okay we didn't get that far it's not really worth going into the details okay just in general that was the concept anyway I think it's helpful I just we it's much bigger than the Rotunda it was very nice to see all of the options all at once laid out so we could figure out what we want to do but the peac meal information is just not helping us move forward is that 2018 study in the uh website somewhere or something it was a proposal it never never was just a proposal never took okay all right okay I think we have an action I think we've talked about this a lot I think we have input from some of the neighbors and from the town engineer move to close the public heing okay the next item on our agenda is a land purchase proposal and Greg is given us a Greg you want to introduce this and and then I think we could probably hear from Mr Miller sure um Mr Miller approached approached me and asked the question about whether or not what what would be the process for pursuing the possibility of purchasing a piece of town land and um I indicated that it's fairly lengthy process that involved lots of steps um and suggested that as a first step test the water so to speak with the board of with the select board to see if there's any interest in in having it go beyond this initial conversation um so that's what brings us here tonight um the process as I say if to go through it is is is fairly involved that um the requires town meeting to to authorize sale of land any sale of town public lands has to go through a public bidding process um and uh so there there's multiple steps that that have to be gone through um you would want to get the input from various boards and committees planning board um Conservation Commission open space um so there's lots of lots of um opinions to uh to solicit and um and the different process to undertake but nonetheless I thought this would be a starting point with the discussion to see if it wants to go further or not so I think Mr Miller is uh is on online here in zoo and can perhaps um give a short overview of what his what his thinking has been yeah thank you very much you can hear me hopefully okay um yes thank you for your time uh Greg great introduction uh great summary uh I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you uh I know your time is valuable um I'm a third generation Manchester resident um uh looking at uh family members who are going to be fourth generation uh I've lived in uh West Manchester pretty much all my life uh built a house in the woods um behind Brookwood School in uh 2008 U my my grandfather bought the land in 1940 something um the parcel in question abuts a piece of property that we own uh it's also surrounded on three sides by um by uh conservation land um property in question is of extreme interest to me uh simply because I've lived next to it for a very long time uh it's got characteristics that are very appealing it's got incredible uh sort of rockface uh detail it's got a stone wall that is straight as an arrow uh runs 500 ft in the middle of nowhere it's just a very interesting piece of property that I would love to see um preserved um it's I believe this piece of property has been in town possession since 1955 um the piece of property is also appears on very very old Maps I think it's The Heirs of the obber family or something like that but it's uh it goes way back um again I think the Town took it over in 55 and uh and it's it's been great it's been it's been great to have next to our property um but uh I would be very interested in um you know for future generations of my family uh as long as well as uh the Manchester Essex conservation trust in possibly acquiring the the property giving a good chunk of it maybe 50% to the Manchester Essex conservation trust holding on to the other half uh for my family um we've lived there uh for quite a while we have two houses on 20 acres overall so I think we have a high reverence for the for the for that part of town um we're very interested in preserving the character of that part of town but that probably means nothing you know I understand that that uh this has to go through um you know an extensive process and I'm willing to begin that process just wanted to explain my interest in uh in obtaining the property um and hoping that you can help me kind of understand what the next steps might be and uh hopefully starting on that path questions from the board first yeah yeah I I I can start with a a couple um so it it sounds like your motivation is that um you want to kind of keep the keep the property the way it is I'm not sure that that Chang is its situation right now I mean it's own by the town but it really is landlocked I I I don't foresee anything changing in that for quite a long time it really is surrounded by conservation land and really kind of becomes conservation land just because of its environment is there something beyond that you TR just want to you know what's what's behind the acquisition other than it changes uh ownership yeah um good question um you know uh it is true that on three sides it's it's conservation land the uh Southern border is owned by my family um longterm and again you know this was kind of the vision if we're going to get sort of I'm G to get sort of sentimental here uh my that my grandfather had when he purchased the property in the 1940s that hey this might be of interest of value to Future Generations in the family um that is that's the motivation that um half of of the property I think would continue to would be moralized uh in conservation lands and then half would would be part of uh my family's you know Holdings there um for future Generations so I we have no specific plans as you if you look on the map it's it's pretty isolated um be very hard to you know do any kind of development but in the future who knows um you know I've got daughters who I think would be interested in maybe or or their children might get interested but answering your question um no specific plans but simply to um expand possibilities in that part of town for my family again I think we've been very judicious in our um use of the land in terms of you know house putting houses on the property and that would continue okay well I just I have a couple of concerns one that the uh Town doesn't have enough property to be honest in terms of things that we want to do and I'm not saying that this particular piece of property is something that we look at to do anything with but just in general I get concerned about when we unload property when we're always looking for other places for new places to do things and second um Greg had mentioned that there's some sort of an auction process that puts everything in Jeopardy because I don't know who else is out there but and I understand for the you know for the for the public you really have to get the best deal that you can and um an auction certainly exposes uh exposes uh that that land to perhaps somebody else who's got other plans yeah uh definitely um I I hear that concern I share that concern um you know um I I think to your point um opening that up for any ort of use that would be unappealing um would be extremely difficult uh building when we built our house back there we um had to contend with Brookwood School uh they have a stake in that part of town um uh there are access restrictions uh that are uh so contingent on Brookwood Road and the Very Old Brookwood Road and access rights which um if I understand correctly um are controlled by um family members who are on that on that street so it would be very difficult for an outsider or somebody um you know to sort of take that land and do some uh sort of exotic things with it I think um to be honest I think the the options are uh her you know sort of in uh sort of put that into conservation land um or um you know um sort of merge it with the other land there to potentially you know have one house on there at some point in the future I don't think it you know by opening up I I understand I understand your fear and and it's it's completely valid um it is a risk but I I think the the legal barriers to doing anything other and this is this is permanent this this is not ex this would not expire so 100 years from now there's going to still be these restrictions on doing anything in that land other than maybe uh you know single family home um anything else would be prohibitive the the the school would fight it my family would fight it um and um I don't think it would succeed without I just don't think it would succeed so I hear your concerns sir um I Echo U John's concern we we talk of I want to have land back I want to have land that we can trade uh conservation land so we can take other land out ofation we have to so I can't could you speak up a little bit I'm sorry to sorry to John's Point uh as we don't have enough land to bter with okay we we the town we the town okay uh an example being if we were to uh try to expand a flot of housing over Newport Park would have to look into uh swapping out conservation land around Newport Park and I believe it's the ratio is 3 to one we have to give back three acres of land for ACR of land and as long as this piece of property is not in a conservation trust we can do that with this I see okay you know we are we are s lacking in housing affordable housing and here's an opportunity if at some point we decide we want to expand Newport Park we can take this land and put it into conservation trust and that's my big concern I would also wonder what is there really a property tax advantage by selling it how much money do the town C and I think that we're better off in John's case holding on to the land for future use or future opportunities that's my opin yeah I agree yeah actually that's a question for Greg um so I know that a town can only purchase a piece of land um it has to be within whatever that value is is like 10% or something right typically 10% plus or minus of Praise value what happens if a town sells a piece of link and Sky limit or is there anything um so you can't you can't sell it for less than it's worth than it's than the praise but you can if there's a willing buyer you can sell it for more right so say if you put up an auction you could put a Reserve at yes whatever you wanted right and you you and you can put other conditions you know if if the if the buyer is willing to accept those conditions and that is something that that communities do sometimes yeah so they they you know maybe maybe put a development restriction on the property so that's that is an option I guess my problem with it is you know the assessed value is 20,000 by the time we spin our wield and deal with auctioneers I mean you know what I mean we got to be making considerably more than that to make it worth our while I would say I'm I'm kind of in these guys camp but I'm not against looking at it again down the road I think that's a good way of saying it Jeff I I feel like we we don't have a good strategy right now I think there are some other people before we decide what we're doing no no I'm just there are yeah yeah I just feel like I just want to I was very brief I'm never brief so sorry I just wanted to um I I I feel like we don't have a a strategy for our land uh utilization and I would feel more comfortable if we made some decisions around our facilities where we're going to you know let's work that issue get a better understanding of what we really need the land four and then we make decisions about okay here's our inventory of land what do we want to do with it I feel like we have to work through some of these facilities issues first um before we get a good handle on swapping what what happens in the situation of a swap so if somebody had a piece of land in town they wanted to swap us would it still have to go through some kind of process yes I mean size Town meeeting yes yeah okay is there Jeff I assume you're here for this I would like to hear from you okay my name is Jeff b m Turner I live on School Street um I'm a member of the Conservation Commission um but I'm not here as a representative of the Conservation Commission tonight um I have I have a number of questions um when was the last time that the town sold land to a private party sold it not swapped it sold it I don't know certainly not my tenure anybody on the board where with that the old story high school was sold well I don't know whether we took the school down first or the land but the land's in private hands now the land is in private okay and that was 70 years ago oh easy um you didn't go there it' be tough don't go there I'm glad you I'm glad you shared that Madam chair because she knows she just wasn't admitting I'm going to uh SE yeah um from the tenor of the conversation so far um my second question may be less relevant but has this parcel or any other parcel in the western Woods been declared Surplus which would be a condition for selling it no and given that the parcel has no known RightWay access is there any other private entity which be able to participate in competitive bidding as required by law what Mr Miller didn't say um is that there are three he said that there are three pieces of conservation land owned by uh Manchester tics conservation trust that surround the property and the other AB butter is Mr Miller um it's unlikely that Mr Miller is going to sell access to that property to anyone that does not allow for a competitive bidding process and the price that you were talking about trying to get Mr D um I'm I asked Greg this question about week ago um whether there is any Town policy or procedure presently for the disposal of land other than the state procedures state of Massachusetts doesn't allow the town to sell land the state of Massachusetts has to approve through the legislature any sale of town land is that true well that's my understanding if it's if it's unrestricted land certainly if it's restricted land that is true but if it's unrestricted I'm not aware of it yeah because I know somebody who just went through this in town with restricted land but I've never heard it the other way around but you've never heard of anybody selling the town selling to any private party other than in an's recollection story F I mean here but I'm I'm sure it's happened in other towns in Massachusetts okay yeah I I would suspect you know I let's pass on whether we need to go to the legislature um and and continue please my understanding from uh past conversations with this board um within other boards in the town is that um the intent of the land in the western Woods is to preserve it to the greatest degree POS and um my concern is selling land parties takes it out of the town's hands we lose all control over the disposition of the and what portion of the land gets put into to conservation um once the private party owns it um and what portion of the land is retained privately and whether it's built on or not is outside of control of the Town other than through the boards who would have control over um such as the Conservation Commission so I'm I'm not sure it seems like there's a lot of ducks that need to be researched here again um to have an understanding about how this or why this kind of sale should go is there anyone online I I don't see any hands up now Steve gang is his hand up okay Mr gang thank you uh Madam chair and select members um I think selling this land is a terrible idea but I think you'd come to that conclusion soon enough if you put any study to it and of course we haven't discussed it in concom I'm speaking as an individual not as chair nor as co-chair of the open space and Recreation committee but but it's land that has been wooded since forever um is surrounded by conservation has no significant property value and no therefore no Revenue value to the town and and no value to any private party except um Mr Miller and his family and I should say I have a lot of respect for his family his sister was my neighbor for decades in Beverly Farms but despite that I cannot see any possible argument for converting land that anybody who steps on would realize is most valuable as conservation as part of the western Woods as part of the overall at least implicit program as part of the master plan from 2019 that called for that land to be assessed and and uh see if there are uses that the town could put it to um which I don't think has ever been done in any event that's that's all I have to say I I don't think this I think this dog don't hunt thank you Mr Miller a quick comment um so again I completely respect all the opinions here and um I completely understand people's perspective on this uh I would be thrilled to see that property go into conservation so I'm not I would not be opposed to that at all um I think part of this was maybe some concern that a town somebody might do something other than my family obtaining it or going into conservation so I'll just leave it at that this has been very informative and I hope it's been informative to other members of the committee and the participants here um and uh I've learned a lot and if the the result the the conclusion is that the sale of this to a private individual is really not a good idea not advisable for the town not good for the town that's a great conclusion and I next would be I'd love to see this go into conservation and remain the way it is for as long as we can so thank you thank you okay I think we've heard we have no desire to put in conservation immediately but we have no desire to put it anywhere else either I think we should not put this on our action list but should just say should conditions change we will hear about it again but for the time being I think we're not interested in pursuing a s yeah I'll just make the observation that part of this was is that um I guess Debbie found a town policy of I switch for the disposition of public land now I'm interest I'm not interested in putting either a policy along those lines because I never us having to do that yeah I I but I I read it seemed a little short it just I I also read it and and I think given the frequency with which this sort of thing comes up 70 years not perhaps rather than developing a policy that everyone will forget about yeah we should just take it up when it comes up yeah it see can I make one other comment yes of course uh it was mentioned that um in the development and changes to Newport Park um and I'm aware of this um for land uh behind I think it's the D Building I the building next to it um might be used which is now does as conservation land and there would need to be a swap um and Brian you mentioned having a land bank um has there been any uh proposal from the board the select port to um identify Parcels that would be um prioritized for conservation if such a land swap were necessary I think we're very preliminary in these discussions I've brought it up a couple of times but it's just been passing we don't have a I think the answer to your question is no is no and that's do we have a record of what other than the gis map of what property the town owns yes okay um I think the last open space plan listed all those okay yeah I found a it was in a report this is in fact the map of the land and all the yellow spots are owned by the town that's the inventory inventory have inventory but not a strategy how to use the how to disposition the land that's what's missing is you have the inventory which is a great start but but we have no one's made any decisions about what to do about no that's correct and that that would be this discussion just came up uh at least started to percolate with me when the affordable housing trust came to us and started discussing their options and uh some of the constraints with that Newport Park and that's how that that's where my mind started to go what organization or okay my my first reaction is let's not take on a problem before we have it um we we know what the properties are they may not be completely accurate but when we have a case where we need property we can look we we have a place to start rather than assigning somebody the task of of trying to figure out well so I agree with that however I do think the affordable housing trust or the Manchester housing trust has an a need right they they've said land is the issue is that can they take it upon themselves to work with concom or maybe that's not the right venue but open source open source open space excuse me open space committee and work that issue amongst themselves I'm not sure why we would need to get involved at all until the end stage but I see no reason why two boards can't work together um outside of this venue and some Creative Solutions because then becomes a little uh with that information that they have in hand right when they sit down they put on RFP uh okay but yes to Cathy's point we don't have to get we don't have to get in the middle of it no we don't and I think uh well Chuck sent around the facilities plan report of a year or so ago and I remember them delivering that to us and early on they said we looked at everything the town owned and I don't know how much detail they went into do but that's a starting point because they had to go down the list and say where can you put you know where is access where you might be able but that's a good point they looked at it from where could we put facilities but no one has really looked at it from a what could we swap St no I'm not sure I could be I'm telling right now I'm not sure Sweeny Park the expansion of Sweeney Park the the uh right through the uh softball fields are there was discussion about expanding that but I don't know if it was wetlands conservation landun say itation commission has already been out on site say it was just conservation land then that becomes an opportunity to expand the playing fields if it wasn't if there wasn't the wetlands issue was just conation so I just like to have some opportunities I I think we're not by by by putting this aside at the moment suggesting that yeah absolutely two committees get together and and good things look for land to swap great I think we ought to stop talking yes I agree so well I want to thank Mr Miller for initiating the conversation because I think the result may not have been what you had uh desired or intended but we wound up having a very substantive discussion so thank you thank you thank you thanks and I think you may be reasonably assured that this that land is not going going to be turned into you'll be able to look at that wall for a long time on the DW list you should check it out it's pretty cool okay thank you thank you thank you thank you Jeff thank you okay put any times next to anything these days smart lady um the the Town Administrator screening committee and I so typically um hiring process often consist going forward with a recruiter typically that recruiter with them some will uh you know hopefully you know a couple dozen names um and then ridle that down to maybe 6 to8 that a a preliminary screening committee then would review and that preliminary screening committee um can do that confidentially which is helpful to the candidates um people are can be a little gunshi to put their name in if they know that from the get-go their name is public that just makes it difficult they are in continuing their current work um if they you know before they know if they're a f list or not um so it's helpful to have a preliminary screening committee to do that work with the recruiter and then that committee then would recommend say three finalists for you and then you would again working with the recruiting consultant um go through a process of vetting those SLE finalists and making a decision um so it it it's helpful to solicit names for those who might be interested in serving on such a committee you know five or seven members would be a typical size um consisting of some committee members perhaps maybe a citizen or two at large you can debate having a current staff member I think that is sometimes helpful um but some people sometimes are uncomfortable with that so that's something to discuss so when John and I met with you in the recruiting firm where I think we left the conversation was um we talked about possible m members they recommended were someone from fincom someone from the planning board someone representing the schools um we talked about a former select board member who has already gone through this process and uh at large residents so we could limit it to five or we could expand it to more but my recollection is when we discussed staff people um participating on the screening uh that was frowned upon um especially if there could be an internal candidate um number one and number two they're going to go through an interview process to interview all of Greg's direct reports and that's how they would get feedback from the staff and the process um and and we we did have staff people on the um uh screening or I should say the interviewing committee for the um for Jake mcneel's role the fire chief and that was very uncomfortable I will just say that I I really feel strongly I think that was very UNC very uncomfortable I really would not recommend having um Greg staff on the screening committee is that did I capture everything I think you you captured the key issues here I didn't remember all of the staff folks but I didn't I mean all of the committee folks but I do know that staff was not a popular yeah an alternative um process I've gone through personally is um sometimes the recruiter will have a round table an hour with staff to have that collect information there yeah just to have a conversation and then people give some feedback based on that Round Table conversation has your experience been seven people or five people or you're kind of agnostic as to whether what the count is yeah yeah I I don't know if I'd go higher than seven oh no I wouldn't I'm just kind of wavering between five and seven Seven's workable yeah workable so I I listed out five that we had discussed and the question would be who were the other two that you would add would you add more at llarge residents or would you add someone from a different committee like Library trustees or Board of Health or um concom I don't know um what you hand planning board bom planning board school and then the former select board former select board and at large at large that's five maybe do two at large and then yeah and I'm not saying that you know if you go if you go to seven you can always pick up say another select board person who might serve as the at the at large I'm just looking at the select board in the past and there are a lot of people a lot of experience yeah the past say 20 years and uh yeah so maybe two fast select board and to out I would I would put in the library instead Library I'm kind of you know yeah it's it's a part of the town and not quite part of a town and okay no I'm just okay no I'm just uh if they have budgeting yeah I suppose yeah I'm looking at like uh and I'm just discounting the library and I apologize but you know I F fully on board with the fincom playing board yeah just looking after all the Committees at Board of Health there's um [Music] I think the pcom planning board I me that's those are the big ones school you know those are the those are the three I think I think and then go three and then if we do uh two past select board members is five and then if you want to add at large res to at large residents yeah and then you written send out a letter of you know they have to a letter of interest yeah so for the for three boards committees we asked them to pick some pick somebody themselves yeah and then you would U yeah that LGE you would get on the general solicitation as well as reach out to General solicitation to all past select board members in might who makes the select does this board select so we would pick the two former select board members and the two at large [Music] residents okay I think you're making a motion yeah I'm trying to remember all the stuff that's going on um we include members of the planning board planning board finance committee the school to be elected by their own committees plus two former um select board members who've gone through the process selected by and two at large members to be um selected by the select board those latter positions to be advertised right that's correct those are those are those are advertised and then so the last four positions would be determined by us yes sir what she said are you seconding okay Top Got It Is there further discussion John yes and says yes Kathy Brian and Jeff yes okay one got in an hour how about that um um review of a special CR meeting article so this was really be quick just wanted to review the four four articles um make sure people are comfortable with what they are about and um just so he's on deck to speak to each one U so number one article one is the request to authorize 250,000 from Community preservation funds to contribute to the um so-called dormy land conservation project was uh to be moved by Steve y right does he know that no we will confirm yes I believe he's been talking to to about that and yeah and my notes are I'm seconding that I guess yes okay so article two then is the proposal to um simplify the general bylaw that addresses storm water management and U replace it when I say with a simpler shorter version and putting the sort of complex and technical details um to the gpw to to formulate the regulations which are um in keeping with state and federal requirements so they they they dictate a lot here when it's needed um so those regulations would be developed by DPW but approved by you after a public hearing so it takes it um takes away from the the burden of of Voters at town meeting having to always update a pretty complex set of regulations and so the The Substitute regulations will certainly spell out all the parameters and and and the scope of those regulations and that they must follow the state and federal guidelines at a minimum obviously they can go further than that but they can't go any lower or they can't be less restrictive than what those requirements would would have us have um and as I say that would then be able to be developed by DPW updated regularly and then have you approved them at a at a public hearing so that people still have that input but we just don't have to go to town meeting every time with a 25 page or so set of regulations so that is article two believe I'm moving uh you are and Jeff is second step can he's back I'm going to have actually I'm going to sit down with Chuck yeah either that or I'll just have ai I don't know yeah certainly answer the talk to so that's article two and then article three is the U asked fiscal year bill that needs voter approval so it's just just shy of $9,900 um and these are for past Consulting Services related to the zba's review of the proposed 40b the bill that fell through the cracks and so we need to go through this process which we don't have too many of these but we 90% we do have this one 90% you said was for this oh a 9/10 vote Yes Yes it requires a 9/10 vote a of state law okay and then finally we have article four which is the MBTA 3A zoning and there been Apple discussions on that there'll be another here public forum on on the topic this coming Thursday at 7 o'clock that'll be the last uh the last formal presentation um I think there's a couple of other meetings I think there's a rotary presentation the following week there might be a :30 in the morning yeah 7:30 in the morning there breakfast breakfast that's real actually I'm not a member of the a I got tired of being chased for money for services I rendered I've been chased by many creditors for services I've accepted I've never been chased to pay my dues for services I rendered so those are the four articles uh now meeting is the 18th of November 6:30 at the Middle High School we'll be gathering in the gymnasium um if necessary overflow would be into the auditorium hoping that we can all fit in the JY I think we will but if if need be we we do have the capability of spilling over into the auditorium and having simal cast basically between the two last time so we encourage people to um to arrive early we do expect a pretty good Crow so we don't Tak a little time opening it at 5:30 opening up at 5:30 get your seat get your popcorn and relax special ping I get something yourself would be a good is there anything else we need to do about that no I don't play so there'll be a u pre meeting session Saturday the Saturday before the 16 from Saturday week from Saturday yeah week from Saturday the 16th n o'clock it'll be by Zoom I think I think he's planning to do it 100% virtual and again that's just to go over sort of logistics who's who's on first for each one that type of thing why 26 budget so 26 budget process um you've had some discussion on in capital um staff were working on their operating budgets we have have those ready to present to you um at your second meeting in December December 16th and if you have some thoughts on the presentation and how you would like to improve upon what have been presented in the past I would welcome those comments don't have to do it tonight but just let me know what you would find helpful um and are again I I keep asking that you know are there particular areas of concern or areas of interest that you want to have a deeper dive that um that you think would be valuable I'm again all ears for that um we as I say we' had some conversations about the capital and Facilities planning in particular Chuck was able to provide you some of those past reports um so I don't know if you have some thoughts on what you would like to do as sort of a next step for for that process I'd be interested in another alternative of financing that doesn't have such big chunks of cash so we talked about that at the last finance committee meeting Bond what's a band again Bond B anticipation notes Bond anticipation note yeah Bond anticipation not I couldn't remember what the a was for yeah so so you can U do banss these Bond anticipation notes you're only paying interest only you're not paying any principles so you can lessen the blow you can sort of feather it out a little bit doing it that way and we can take a harder look at when we need the full amount of the bond and monies so Andrew and Chuck and I will sit down to look at some options to lessen that hit and spread out the pain a so I'm just want and I I don't know how this works but if a lender says okay I give you $10 million is there a window of time where you can say I'll take 2 million now oh in 18 months I'll take five or do they have to have certain times because they have to make plan for their cash results in other words we put together a budget but frankly we're not sure when all of these things are going to hit right so so you can you can do you can say no I just need two million now and in two years so now I'm going to need another three million and and if it's 10 million I need 2 million I don't get charge for the other eight corre until I take it I think the conversation we had at fincom is really separate which makes a lot of sense separating out the authorization of the project from the optimization of the the fin okay two separate decisions and separating those will help us a lot more we got know we'll work on more details on information I have a question about the interest rates are they fixed or how does that work so yes when we issue bonds we get a fixed rate for that but I mean they it may we'll know what the rate is each year the rate may vary a little bit from year to year but we we will know that when we sign the note it's not a variable rate that floats so each each time we write a portion of that money we'll know what that portion the money is going to cost us true but we can't refinance that if the rate goes down um there are callable bonds yes and so if you have a callable Bond then you can you can basically replace it with a less expensive Bond okay so that is an option we we've done that a few times the school has done that a lot yes school has done that to to the advantage of everyone yeah well that means your initial rate might be what a couple of tents higher or something because you have to pay for that privilege or something that's callable yes okay but typically well at least in the school case you couldn't call it immediately you could call it you have to five or six years oh that's a long time well well sometimes 10 years I mean just it all depends okay yeah I mean these are typically 30-year bonds so well yeah so in the whole scheme of things it's 15 or 30 typically what we're doing so the bands in my experience on school projects is they have been much lower interest than than we expect for the final B typically yes there a shorter window of time yeah shortterm so I guess only other feedback initially right now I have I think I voiced it before I would really would like us we spend a lot of time talking about two and a half what fits into the two and a I don't care two and a half is a means of Det determining how you get a budget approved what I'd like us to make sure we understand is what were our expenses you know the past you know let's just go back three years and how much did the budget increase over that period of time you know um and I also think we need a a window of how much the tax bills you know went went up over a period of time so including your your your bonds right I'd like us to make sure we're looking at the numbers in terms of the absolutes as opposed to what we squeezed into two and a half because prop two and a half includes increasing you know the threshold based on property values which have you know skyrocketed so it's it's not it's we like you know like last year we we we uh increased the operational budget by what 7% or something like that I'm sensitive to the fact we we probably shouldn't be doing that every year so I just want to make make sure we're looking at the the budgets you know operational and including you know the debt but um before we have real discussions around what fits into the two and a half um boundaries one other thing I'm sorry one other thing came up um just in just some ancillary thing um when people have been approaching me over the past you know few weeks just asking about the the the NBTA zoning and and how the grants figure into that I I really feel I've heard this from almost everybody that people are not understanding the discussion we're having on the facilities um planning that we're doing with you know the committee I feel like that there is a large gap of knowledge I I feel like the residents don't understand we're trying to work through that long-term Financial Planning and and will'll need grants for that it feels like just a black hole of communication or information I just have noticed that in the past couple of weeks because when people ask me about the NBTA zoning and they're saying well what grants are we going to lose they keep saying well we don't we don't need that many grants that it's like they just don't understand we're talking about some significant future ex investments in facilities it's like it's just not registering with people so I think that was covered pretty good at the last uh at the hearing I heard it's still from someone today you know it's just it's coming up constantly so I feel like we're because they're getting battered from the from other group saying that the grants are insignificant no it this was this was a discussion I had on a completely different topic and the person just I consider the person a well-informed resident and they really didn't I said you know we could have you know hundred million doar worth of facilities expensive expenses in the next 20 years and they were what what are you talking about I I can see that you know and so we haven't we haven't talked about it out hav put it out on the street great detail yeah and and so that absence of understanding I think is contributing to people not understanding why the severity of the grant you know the decision I just feel it's a big gap no maybe you just gave me my article for tomorrow you go okay I can certainly spend a little time the other the other ISO here with people are feeling is that I've read and I'm spending a lot of time on social media uh well we don't need the money you know just tax will you you know tax tax payers we can use tax income from this but what that does is that's going to raise up it's it's going to the adverse effect of that is as property taxes go up it becomes even less affordable to this town not only the upside to the town right now is that yeah our property values might be high but our tax rate is low but you add if you end up with the an tics tax rate okay which is highly possible all right uh which basically I think they're probably paying double of what uh an average homeowner is paying here that just lends becomes even more unaffordable so we've got we've got to you know get that word out too the idea of just we'll just raise out taxes I've heard a couple people this is even before NBTA zoning one guy was complaining about uh a Monday after a nice warm weekend and Reed Pac was full of trash all right well you know they got to get out there well I we why don't we have someone cleaning out on on Sundays a it's a budget item I'd be willing to pay more taxes to have it cleaned up I said you might be but someone else might not be Sarah Mish M yes please Sarah yeah I was going to say that I plan to speak at the town meeting with respect to the the financial analysis I'm also working on a summary of it to just give the bottom line and I'm going to hone on hone into why we don't feel it will increase the school expenses and to hone in on the grants and the long-term um Capital needs so I hope to and I'll do that in the summary also soon I don't know if this is in the same this is appropriate for this discussion when is the uh when were we planning on raising the Rotunda um this coming season or yes this coming season I don't know if it'll get done I don't know if that we'll be able to get it done in the in the springtime for the summer or do we wait until the fall okay but it's the next 20 12 months yes during 25 okay and that that grant money could conceivably go away right so that's one of the funding mean that subject to you I'm talking with uh and Bion where're you know the the reality here is the rotend could very easily be condemned this year oh yeah we could lose it this win you know we were lucky not to lose it last talking about the charm and character of the community yeah I think that's really important I think we we just need to really connect these dots very tightly I know we started with a budget conversation but this is about the budget and the potential impact on the budget and when I talk to people all the time well that's one of the first things I start with is the Rotunda yeah because that's going to be off the table immediately right they understand that the most you can't start with Sawmill Brooke there a brid there you want to go with something you can sell you know yeah not it's ajor be we're going to have some serious big sales there are people out there too they just do not want to believe the grant situation is real too I see that too so I was reading today there's no grants a guarantee well guess what I can tell you I can guarantee you what's not going I can't guarantee you people aren't going to build under the C with the new zoning but I can guarantee you what we will lose and I don't want to I don't want to govern with you know with subjective or rather with uh just get what if this this is real and again to your point we rely heavily on grants to balance our budget so they they would take back money unless the check's written just because it's granted that's that's no solace in that correct if the if the check has been written it's too late the money's gone from the bank but right if it's been granted but you haven't spent it yet okay you're you're I think that what they just mentioned that would be great to go in your article here's here's some things that are on the table right now that we would lose and and have to increase our budget by X in order to got them right now because there are people that make distinctions between well this is what we've applied for well people apply for a lot of stuff but we've got stuff that we have an award yes I don't I'll have to double check I don't think anything that's in the works is subject to recision double check double check that we haven't started right yeah definitely want to double check I mean the the massworks Grant I guess I shouldn't say that in other words the money we have the contract but we don't have all of that money in hand this is the money that's going out to CST for the pipes for the pipes we spent some of that we yeah but we have not spent all of it we're in the process of spending it that's an interesting you could say all of a sudden sewer isn't going to get done until spring is it right so so they they they could pull that back well it doesn't matter because CST ought to spend it out pay for well sorry but if if that's true then I think we owe it to the residents to be very plain they should know same so we're we we're in the in the middle of a drudging grant 200,000 just over 200,000 and again we haven't spent all that money that's in process so that again that technically is is at risk okay I know um S B has put together a list for the yes I find her list confusing so her list is all all the grants were received in 2024 two of two of which were definitely on the state law uh and then she has projections for 25 and the two big ones there the runda and the dredging were the two big ones on that or for no I I think when it comes to the authoritative source that would be fincom though right for resents [Music] to so the finances I'm talking about the finances but the fincom doesn't apply for Grants no no I just didn't know just we were talking budgets so okay um right so but again if if you look at the past 10 years um grand total is a little north of 20 million the the total that is um subject to the guidelines plus the law is just North of 8 million the grants that were subject to just what was in the law is just over six million so those are I don't mean to give any numbers but I'm already lost but can we come up with like a percentage of saying 5% or 10% of our of our annual expenditures is grant money but it's operating I think when it comes to the finances woring about what has been in the past is not well not terribly beneficial though because of our financial projections moving forward are significantly different than the past so I would rather because I and I think it's a more compelling story I I started this conversation because I really feel the residents are unfamiliar with what's a he what what's ahead specifically those big facilities and infrastructure investment they they're not aware and that's my concern yeah yeah we just haven't spent much time talking about that publicly yet sorry I think it'd be great if your next article had at least I know what I'm doing tomorrow you're welcome okay next subject we buds around for a long time um I think not hanging around um the Chris molm was appointed um for as it interim I think fill out a term fill out a term and needed to be reappointed so this is just administrative housekeeping housekeeping I hope she hasn't been wai good you like a motion yes that's me I uh I make a motion to appoint Chris molm excuse me uh C uh Council uh for term to expire on June 30th 2025 second further discussion Jeff yes Brian yes Kathy yes an says yes John yes right um Le on updates I have a couple um I think at our last meeting I mentioned that the Board of Health was having the public forum they did approve a significant change on the restriction for tobacco purchases in Manchester no person firm Corporation establishment or agency shall sell tobacco or nicotine products to any anyone born on or after January 1 2004 and that will take effect in 2025 so basically there it's not about how old you are it's about when you are born and other towns have adopted the same restriction um so basically they're trying to phase out the usage of tobacco and nicotine for a generation I forget what the phrasing is Generation restriction whatever um I expressed before they voted I expressed concern because the vast majority of people on the call were not from Manchester they were not residents they were Outsiders um special interest groups promoting this um but if I understand the board of Health's perspective they felt that because the residents did not attend the meeting they were not concerned so they felt comfortable approving the Restriction so they approved it did iate anything Greg I know you on there call no so um about a dozen special people there in special interest groups from all of oh really yeah yeah is there yep on a vendetta I think I got two emails from people opposed to that also from have yeah them to the my concern is this was implemented in I I I mean they appropriately posted the meeting about whether or not people didn't understand what was really going to happen or they truly just don't don't think it affects them but um the the only you know the businesses who do sell the tobacco products were on the call made their case and was enough so anyway turn it to Cambridge by the sea or Brook by the Sea Brookline by the BR by the Sea they've already ad so that doesn't have to go through us to implement Board of Health is an independent board yeah they're independent of us now a citizen petition can overturn that yes 10 people but if no one's aware so I just bring it up because I felt yeah I I just anyway when they're implemented ail I believe that no um was it April 1st or I'm I'm wondering if we had a Citizens petition it would have to go to a town meeting I assume right and it be nice if people knew but if they implemented on April 1 it's too late well it can always be res is too late to resend it at the annual time meeting notor I'm hearing that you can be resend you can resend it in effect what people won't be aware of it until it happens oh I see what you said until someone goes to buy a pair of at the corner store and they're denied that's when people might wake up it's beig process on this but it's start for 2004 so we're we're yeah what what is the age of tobacco purchase 21 so it's not affecting anybody yet really for the first year so it could take a year for people to be affected okay okay that was so we're not trying to say that but you know someone new moves into town and in their Old Town they could buy smokes and in their new town they can't buy smokes people beer are going to go somewhere else and get it right I mean so anyway I just wanted to bring that up has enough problems keeping their businesses exactly um all right so I think that was it the only other thing I want to mention regarding leison was on and fincom um uh finom meeting we did review the q1 financials I think the only anomaly they found was the police overtime um so that there was a discussion around when there um and that was due to the July 4th um event so there was some discussion about well we have these really big events maybe we need to budget them a little bit differently so that we're not um skewing the the police operational you know budget data um so that I think that's a good Todd has said that he's he's chewed through a lot of his overtime budget just on the fourth of July well I mean they can put it under the July 4th committee that's what they discussed which I think personally is more appropriate um but they'll they'll um you know work through that and then uh they reviewed the Harbor launch financials I think that was um well received and then um they did start discussing Financial approaches for the DPW building including like you suggested you know John can we advance the design options you know bite off a little piece of the elephant maybe you know a toe or two and then and then figure out what we're going to do just the garage door exactly and so they started those discussions that was it I got nothing basketball STS I'm done forever or just um well planning board had their MBTA hearing I'm sure you don't want to hear more about that and hyri advisory meets Tom uh Wednesday speaking I'm sorry I knew you said something and I I grasped onto it lost it um the finance committee may be pleased with the launch revenues but I'm a little concerned because after you added in the $10,000 for insurance they broke even with about $5,000 and that's awfully close yeah I mean there wasn't any big discussion I would you know on the haror launch but I think Bion still has an action to come back to us does so well the regulations include the exact fees yeah and and perhaps we could add a note to them that um there's concern that that $5,000 is a fairly close margin I mean it's fairly close and I get what you're saying but I mean for first year to not lose money I think is good but if we go back to the original plan we kind of plan to lose like 10% I think the first year and so I I do think and's bringing up a good point though some of what was in the business plan should be codified in the in the regulations for example um what we discuss about uh their budgeting for their fees has to be projected to cover all of the operational costs you know so some of that language it's in the business plan should really they're yeahi they're they're not touching their Capital um no whatever the Surplus is I get just dumped to that the other thing that was a great summer it was beautiful weather we we throw in a couple of bad weekends or a bad month and that it was the transmission it was the transmission that was unexpected true that was but you know those things happened and we were blessed with a good summer have a good summer absorb that we were able to absorb it the thing is there was a fair amount of of non praid traffic that made it work right so maybe as the word gets out they should consider the annual fee you know just take 45 bucks right right yeah sorry because that's guaranteed regardless of the weather right exactly yeah that that annual fee has to the season pass is what he called it that has to be projected to cover all of the operational costs yeah I think that's gravy $100,000 for more and you can spend $25 for a grve right to it okay sorry so anything further um at some point I'm going to have an S6 Tech update because uh there's some things going on around admissions legislature but I don't want to get too to far into it because I have a meeting next week up there and I'm hoping to um have some more information it's kind of an ongoing thing it's been going on for like 10 years but all of a sudden it's picking up speed so when I know more mission right yeah just I was talking Lisa Martinez up at she's a g yeah I just talked to her the other night and she was talking about how the stage really well now they're starting to pull the grant money situ you know this is their car they play seems like the government is now using grant money for to take away if you don't do what we're going to do be the carrot and the stick it's always working but it's going to hurt and I'm GNA be honest with you it if it goes to a lottery it's going to hurt us here it's going to hurt the small towns so um but we'll talk about it more they're running out of space oh they've been out of space since day one subscri but uh yeah we can dive into it more on sometime when it's that quarter after yeah exactly so anyway that's it for me um Greg I guess I might ask seniors have asked purchase and sale for the senior center you heard anything from the attorneys um we're trying to set up a meeting for the two attorneys to meet that's the next step so we're getting okay we're getting closer withing the eyes they beat on me weekly yeah y the goal is to certainly close before the end of the year that that in particular so okay all right let's that's that's good to hear BPW uh things are going along I guess okay we heard about the ocean Street the flag project is in process and I did speak with Nate about that today and I think he's got a flag pole lined up he he thinks he will have everything more or less organized maybe done by the end of the year I don't know who's going to try and shoot before try for before they put the uh they light up the tree I don't think that's going to happen but he could start that afterward the one thing he doesn't want to do and I agree is you don't want to have a construction zone in that corner when we'll light the so I think he's automatically looking to the day after he had to line up uh a flag pole and some other things orders order some things is it something they can do during the [Music] winter well I I don't think I would if it but you know anytime before before the end of the year I think it's okay it doesn't get super cold once you get into January it's that's lot spring we'll see they can do a better planting and better uh landscaping around at that point but that's hey you know they know better than I okay um he did say it's going to be about a 25t pole so it's not going to be as big as he it needed to be the key issue with the the flags and the American flag is the American flag has to be the highest I don't care what poll it's on it just has to be the highest so it may be that the honor roll flag pole will be a little bit higher even though it sits a little bit lower because the why is lied to a 25t pole well he can have different choices but the smaller the pole the easier it is to put in that's all there's some concern um he was talking to a few landscape architect types who felt that a very large pole that close to the street would be overpowering would be overpower yeah little concerned about that interesting to see how it looks okay some feedback from yeah that was uh yes from I think I heard that yeah different conversation same topic right that's it is working on putting together a packet for meeting and braing for another forum the intention of taking out the tables and making it friendlier and more approachable I'm not sure one that's okay um so um the school committee um probably about to go well we really need three budgets um minimal maintenance desirable don't believe they did anything else that's basically that just reminded me that Finance commun is penly set to meet with Essence Finance what's the Wednesday [Music] 20 18 19 20 I think the 20th 20th 21st I'm forgetting if it's Wednesday or Thursday we can let you know 18th is Monday so so we'll let you give you posted on there here or there uh I think here Sarah Sarah's gonna fir that up with item is [Music] the move the board approved the meeting minutes of October 21st 2024 second commission John yes answers yes yes uh just a couple of things um one we have another round with some of the Harvard researchers so this coming Friday and the focus this time around is on financial impacts climate change in terms of how it might affect Municipal operation and how do you recover um so two very interesting person of this um um Jesse Keenan is quoted all the time in the in the New York Times and various channels and media channels as coming he's served on a lot of presidential commissions on financial impacts of storms Etc very interesting Gentlemen The rachal Melt has done a lot of work on recovery post post disasters and what she has observed helps to SS to recover more quickly what they have done ahead of time to help them recover more quickly um so if you have time um it's 2 to 3:30 this coming Friday back up at St John's Episcopal um if if you're able to make it I'm happy to give you more details um but um it's some good information and just it's kicking off their their studies so that's that operational audit hopefully gets underway this week with capital strategic Solutions working on that um and uh yeah tomorrow's election day so if you haven't voted vote cot early vote often it's dangerous to say these days people believe that so uh yeah that's fine for now do you have a number for the people who voted already uh shy of 2000 did I hear that we have over 4,000 registered voters in town yes yeah wow I thought we only how many how many residents we have 5200 like yeah 52 5300 they're like 800ch kids kids 700 and a very involved electorate I guess oh that's impressive yeah Y and yeah it's um only 1500 show up to any Town election if we're lucky we'll see more of that tomorrow by the end of tomorrow so yeah we've already passed that number make I say that I don't know if we hit 2,000 yet no I don't think she it's in the high 15 to 1700 so 2500 is not the question that's impressive TR you could you could hit 3,000 I just be very excited to not see any more commercials for the New Hampshire Governor's oh we were talking about that at work today the joys of living in New England cross over from all the other states well you never hear anything about Maine it's all New Hampshire yeah or close enough there I have seen more New Hampshire than I see well I think I've seen one looking for motion to [Music] no I just