6:30 apple meeting by order Jeff here Kathy yes and is here Brian is here and John is here is
there okay um the first thing on the agenda is public comments on non-agenda items is there anyone here for that Mr starky would you give us your name and address
uh my name is Jim starky 13 tux Point Road thank you okay in 2011 after three years without a Moran assignment from the waiting list over 200 people stayed until
11:45 at night at town meeting to pass a harbor bylaw by about a 2 to1 margin over the unanimous opposition from the board of Selectmen the bylaw among other things mated transparency and Waring changes and after approval by the Attorney
General had the force of law the bylaw was in full effect when our Harbor Master was hired nevertheless from his start date to today the Harbor Master has refused to comply with the bylaw specifically to maintain and publish a log of Waring
changes with the provisional warning program we now know the market value of a Manchester warning Manchester Marine is getting $250 per foot which is $10,000 for a 40ft boat per season while a morning fee for an ordinary moing is
$15 or $600 for the same 40 foot boat applying the $10,000 per moing over 10 year gives an approximate value of a Manchester Mo at a minimum of $100,000 it also puts the monetary value
of the 10 under the table moing that harbard Master gave to Manchester at a cool $1 billion so why would a Harbor Master want to keep morning changes secret is there something to hide unfortunately yes there is a lot to hide
first there are the 10 more inform I just I just need to interject here for a minute yes if we are making accusations about a staff member that is not an appropriate venue to be doing this excuse me excuse me you see to be implying some
malfeasance by one of our staff am I misunderstanding what you're saying my statement sir no but I just want to interrupt before you do that because this is would not be the appropriate form to do so okay Madam chairman I object to being stopped and I'm going to stop my
statement right here I will send it to Debbie and she can send you I'm sorry okay um the next item on the agenda is public
his um the Chairman's report um I have a report um and then we go on AC okay is there anything that we have as an action item not being able to see at our February 18th um meeting we
took up question of the more assignments of the rental Ms for Manchester Marine but did not come to a conclusion um I suggest that we put that on our next agenda anything
else where did we leave the um situation on the parking we had talked about implementing you know painting the lines Etc because I noticed the the cones in front of Seaside wand
have been removed so I thought we had some agreement on should be back out I'll have to see about the um the plowing and putting them back out okay I think I think some some may be being moved a chief actually has his hand up
okay yes uh good evening the D I've working with the DPW that as soon as the weather breaks they going to make a permanent uh permanent lines will be painted and there'll be a permanent signs put in we already added one sign
on the outbound side uh next to the uh uh Street Pole or the or the on the light pole uh but need to do some work on the other side but it is in in in process so when the weather gets warmer are we targeting than April maybe we're
targeting as soon as the DPW will give us to go ahead to do it so thank you very much Chief so I'm just wondering if we can just put it on our action item list to close it out you know in April make sure things have been implemented according to the decisions that we
made you know number of weeks ago because I certainly don't want to forget thank you that was it okay um our next item on the agenda
is a license that's you yeah I'm here to answer any questions U happy to talk about it anything you guys want written the cover letter so we're a small collector car company and this is
sort of the next um s iteration of the businesses to be able to better facilitate the processes and efficiencies through are excuse me should the gentleman um I'm sorry oh yes sty 5
street so from a from a licensing perspective everything seems to be in order and and um I don't see big issues um the one question that arises is is a zoning question um and and I think uh
bill um Paul Orlando was wanting to talk to Town Council and just do a little more homework based on our bylaws our bylaws um are silent in terms of the table of uses but it does talk about car
dealership and boat dealerships in the parking section so it there seems to be an Omission in the use table grant that was a dealer years ago would that be Grant bu in well but it's been something in between oh okay so so
it lost that always commercial G District so as far as I could tell we couldn't do any better than what we have in town right so happy to and I had emailed Mr Orlando but I haven't yeah I think he's trying to
connect with the Council on it gotta so um so my recommendation is that um you can grant approval but it's contingent on resolving any zoning questions me there wasn't there didn't we Grant a used car dealership to
someone else a couple years ago yes yes I think we do that there yeah we yeah online right okay well since John isn't here and doesn't have sheet of paper yeah um I moveed at the for approve a used car
dealers license for STM Castle on mot llc at 50 Summer Street contingent on the resolution any zoning issues second um Jeff yes Kathy yes andn says yes yes and John yeah
great thank you thank you you good luck you too s my car okay um the next thing is some uh organization that have asked for board representation um Ken
transportations of and Greg has suggested that John would be good for this but if somebody wants to steal it away from him I think the seniors probably have the biggest interest in this initiative and I interact with them so I'm I'm I'm
okay with this uh I guess Greg I asked is this interface is this like what monthly meetings and anything else that comes up or what is it or you don't know yeah um at most monthly okay maybe more like every six week or
so that's that's doable from my perspective question um On a related topic since we're looking for a rep for this board do we still have a and we're moving money away from the NBTA do we
still have representation on the MBTA set of committees there somehow I know at one point we were looking for representation there I thought I don't know Ann if that was you and whatever happened with that I get their emails I look at them I put them in the safe
place it's the MB Advisory Board yes and and it seemed to me that there were an awful lot of people there who knew an awful lot more about NBTA than yeah you know it's um okay our our engagement with
that isn't that critical not there's not so many issues that affect they're not making very many changes out this way that sort of question is should they so I guess um I I'm totally fine with John being on the kada board but if you want
any relief on the nbpa I would be happy let yeah send it to you and and send something to them saying that they should talk to you okay that's great and the final one is um the the
update of the hazard mitigation plan and no the next one is the water meter vendor review and again um John was on the um that was our representative on
the water task force um and if he's willing I think he should yeah I'm I'm willing and I'm somewhat familiar with two of the bids who were were primary uh had primary consideration when we were looking at the uh the modern or the
up-to-date water meter concept uh that was presented to the DPW I don't know when was that eight eight months ago or maybe it was a year ago I can't remember but yes this is fine um and
the next is the hazard mitigation Plan update um it looks like it maybe a bit more lifting not much but somewhat more lifting and i' kind of like to do that um we have now 18 minutes or so um what
can take up the consent agenda are there any items on agenda that we want to um pull out I guess I had some questions on the
naming policy for the fields I just there was something different than what we had previously discussed I was having trouble understanding why we different I think were there any change your
decision so I think their their sort of response back to you was that they felt that the concerns or questions that you were raising were best rais sort of on an individual basis Case by case and didn't need to be in the policy
itself um so they recommended staying with the language that they originally proposed it's it's your call one of your concerns Kathy was that it might be nice to have um some indication in the name
where you might find the field yes to that point SMY Park people find it okay Coach Fields field they find allenfield they find no I know it was more just around you know you got to be careful when naming after a person and I
just want to make sure um that whatever um Parks we have certainly that we have are very easy to find on the website or whatever we it's a problem when you're shuffling kids around um I thought there were some other issues and
I'm just can't if the if the uh right the select board is making the ultimate decision rightel board is making the ultimate decision and and if the interactive mapping
that yeah that would be a great tool assum that they're willing to put in you know the name of the field and and a pin and maybe someplace um on the website um
saying Parks and Rec somewhere Tiffany or someone could put a list of the playing fields how to them can they add that to the I mean I think I think my concern is stuff doesn't get done unless we put it in
writing um so is there some way we can just add in here that um you know once approved or whatever the you know website will be updated whatever I just didn't see that I could be missing it at appologize but I didn't see that
in you the you know the website is kind of inconsistently updated so something like this that people need to find it needs to be part of the procedure that they get it
done you want to pull that out with a specific recommendation that they um cause the website to be updated when a new field is added or the field name is changed a couple of weeks in the the
approval yeah um so we have to pull that out pull that out and then vote onent agenda vote on the consent agenda and then come back and okay give some specific language to picture that okay is there a move to accept the
consent agenda I move the board approve the consent agenda minus the naming policy which we'll vote on later further discussion no
yes answerers yes John yes ran yes okay that um language be added to the naming policy say saying that new or renamed Fields should be posted on Parks
and Rec section of the town website with directions to the location prob Amendment within two weeks after the name is approved six months later that's not very helpful
okay so mve second further discussion okay Brian John yes and says yes Kathy yes
and Jeff yes okay um 12 minutes days on updates ones John do you have anything
uh no nothing properly except I can see Russia from here but you stay with Sarah Kaya at least from the top floor of the hotel anyway um no other updates from Alaska or
otherwise yeah I don't really have anything I get to see plan for I another um just on the downtown Improvement um you know we did our last meeting and I know it's on the action items we're
going to have a discussion on the public bathroom some decision on that they're really pulling for that they also just prioritized since we couldn't afford the way finding signs that were planned they did send a prioritized list to DPW for the top three so at least we could get
those done under this year's budget and the remainder can get done under next year's budget so I don't know where that stands but uh DPW should have had that in their hands at least last week not the week before and I miss Spike and ped because
we they it was a conc meeting with the select board uh Fox and wck winter basketball is finally over as of last night uh summer play playground registration has opened as of today uh the summer interviews will
start next week for uh Staffing program uh and Beach tag to go on sale April 1 that's all I got just me it's getting
warm I didn't have and I well and then obviously it's some Point pickle ball quotes will open up so we can start that round all over again positives you know I don't want to leave you how is the mitigation measures going
on that I think it's gone very well my no one's complaining in the last two months he meets tomorrow who has an interesting meeting of the
nonprion group got a problem scheduling it again before the 18th because everybody is elsewhere hither or Y yeah yeah hither and Y um there seem to be somewhat different
goals I thought um Jake Foster who is on the school committee finance committee seems to think that there is a way of putting together a budget that will let us go forward for three years um and we've all taken our
spreadsheets on and they're trying to figure out what that solution is um but I am sure we will get together sometime before they make their decision on their budget when do they have to have their budget well they should have it in now I
know deadline um they have they have said that they will have it by the on the 18th and that's inconvenient for the finance committee and the finance committee has agreed to make some change to put in some information in their report at kind of the last minute to
make that work since the reports doing the 19 plan to be up late on the 18th don't drink heav on the 17th um we talk a little bit about the articles I don't think we'll get through it
but that's fine so the the um as we discussed at your last meeting there'll be um four to six planning board zoning amendments to consider as
part of the warrant next next Monday week from tonight will be an important meeting for them as they work through potential changes and we we'll know more after that meeting which ones may be advancing
and which ones may be may be uh back to the drawing board on that um there are three petition articles that were received by the deadline last week's deadline um one is
a vote it'll be a non-binding vote but it's a vote on the um tobacco sale prohibition for anyone born after 2004 I believe
204 um that was approved by the Board of Health and the article six to um ask whether or not people want to would prefer not to see that in place ultimately it is a Board of Health decision but obviously the vote one way
or the other would have influence we would we would assume a second article is for prohibition on certain rendo sides plats of Rend size that tend to
accumulate in other animals if they eat rodents that have adjusted the poison so there's a desire efforts in many communities to to remove these from the environment so this is an article to do so here in
town There's a third we have to do it in two stages because there is a state law that says that towns can't have more rigorous standards than the state does and so we will have we're initially voting on an U home rule petition to
allow us to adopt more stringent standards and then assuming that that passes um the actual uh regulations would be in is there a list somewhere of the chemicals that are
involved I'll find that um Mass Autobon has it they got a lot of information this I get it I'll just dist yeah i' like to see than you the third article third petition
article is a proposal to amend our current U heavy construction time frame and noise bylaw The Proposal seeks to expand the definition of
construction and impose um much higher fines for violations of the bylaw so the the proposed violations would be $500 for the first offense th for a second 1,500 for a third um onto a
fifth and then after a fifth violation cease and assist order would be required if the bylaw would be approved this would 23 right I'm sorry the two3 vote no because it's just a it's just a general bylaw
it would be just a majority vote and it' be wav us that and someone apply for a waiver the there bylaw allows for exceptions for emergency
projects so it changes the exceptions um and the exceptions are limited to emergency vehicles and emergency repairs to utility I had a question on whether the intent is there an intent to for this to apply
to uh leaf blowers and stuff or is it you know anything loud or is it just construct no because it it applies to anything that requires a building permit so not apply the home and ref flowers next that's interesting because you
don't need a building permit to excavate or whole Ram so it did right it did boy it did include site work and excavation the definition of construction well uh Greg will the will
the article also include what the current bylaw how the current bylaw reads yeah I think what we'll do is put the the whole bylaw in and show Strike throughs and bold strike throughs for what's being deleted and bold for what would be
do okay I I think you're right John I think people need to see yeah I don't have perspective yeah people want to see the whole context what the current language is I actually have a question on the
first one the um tobacco sale prohibition removal um so even though that's nonbinding um should it be approved at you meeting but the Board of Health takes no
action um is there a way for us to put it on the ballot and have it be a binding vote at an election of some sort no there there
really isn't um just so it's so um state law gives Boards of Health the authority to adopt various types of regulations this is one of them so they do have that Authority so um so there's no real
opportunity to to override that Authority mtion no okay well I think that any Cathy you were on that hearing right it wasn't a lot of public import right I just um I was disappointed to find out
it was completely non-binding so I'm curious as to what the recourse I hope that you know if I mean the residents may want to leave it in place and if so that's that's their choice that's their choice but if the residents voice tells us that they want
something different I I would hope the board of heal would take that into consideration and if and if not then we've we've got to have a discussion on that okay yeah okay clarify I think it's 7 o' I think we
have handled much of the US um at 7 o' on Monday March 3 um finance committee meeting to with
[Music] means pet de okay um the first item that we were going to talk about is a presentation of the uh operational audit and is
here so yeah Bill Keegan is here from Capital strategic Solutions the consulting firm put together an operational audit and we of you have met with Bill and we're able to give some good input and
so he's here this evening to give us an overview of that report and to engage in a discussion with both you and and the finance committee let me get my screen shared here all right good evening everyone and uh
thank you for having me back to to Manchester um I prefer to come him in the summertime as opposed to the winter time um but quite honestly just a beautiful place as it is and and uh we have a beautiful Community um I'm getting a little bit I was having Tremors before the meeting started
because I haven't been in front of a selectman in the firest committee in two years and when I retired as Town manager U Back In in Fox World a couple years ago but um so those of you who don't know me my name is Bill Keegan I'm actually a senior project manager for Capital strategic
Solutions um I've been uh in public service for 42 years um have been doing these types of studies literally all over the country um so and I and I I appreciate the opportunity to work back in my own area of Massachusetts I still
live in seon mass and the past 26 years so uh love to get up in the NorthShore whenever I can because it's just thank you for having me back so um we have concluded our results the results of our findings uh I thought I would spend a few minutes with you just
going through some of those findings tonight what I'm going to give you is a snapshot of our findings not all of them the details are actually included in the report which we're able to provide for you um this evening a binded copy of the report um and also we'll put this up on
on the website for you uh as soon as we do it we saw a couple minor fixes that we have to we have to we probably had six people read this report and of course somebody always find something at the very end so that's how that typically works so we're going to fix that and get to you um but we're very uh
it was interest it was an interesting report interesting uh study and Analysis that we that we came across uh we're going to cover a number of different areas and uh maybe we can go the next SL for so tonight's tonight's report will cover a number of different things
purpose of the audit the scope and methodology Comm review existing conditions Department interviews T Department findings structural insights ex existing organizational design improv organizational structure communication is Strat strategic planning operational
uses of Technology key challenges and capital needs and recommendations and action steps um I I want to tell you that um that you have a terrific uh uh number of of Staff members that work for this town they're very dedicated um it's
um it's I find that their uh their work interest and ethic is is is all about this community which is really something that you should be proud of because you you selected these people and you should be proud of what they what they do and I first I want to say before I start is
that I appreciate all the work that you all do because um this this community wouldn't function without the volunteerism the E and the time you all place to doing this work so I appreciate that so thank you next slide please so the purpose of the audit was
was to assess operational efficiencies and Effectiveness um evaluate Staffing levels and succession planning review technology utilization recommended recommend enhancements provide strategic guidance for the future governance uh we
we embarked upon this study for a couple of reasons one is the fact that it's been a while since the since the community has actually looked at this type of thing uh if maybe if ever for that matter uh because the organization has been structured in such a way that it's been it's been functioning like
that for many many years um the board of selectman and the Town Administrator uh felt this would be an opportunity time to do this because you're you're you're looking at a change of the administration uh this provides the new person who's whoever that might be with a new road map of of how the
organization might function into the future um one of the things that we'll see is is that the organization is is relatively flat uh which means that there's a lot of people reporting to one person uh the namely the Town Administrator which makes that job much more difficult and sort of limits the
ability to do strategic planning and having strategic discussions because all the time is being spent dealing with the day-to-day issues and challenges that that come across any community in Massachusetts or any Community next slide
please so the the scope and methodology was conducted by by interviewing key stakeholders uh department heads board members uh review We review the existing documents of studies that were done uh analysis we an have analysis of organizational structure and
communication flows to see how uh the organization communicates with itself and then and how you communicate out outside the organization as well and then we recom and then recommendations were based on the best practices in local government today um we found that
uh organizations that are structured similarly to what you are structured right now is is very common it's it's actually more common than you think unfortunately um organizations today everybody wants information within a minute you know so it's and and built
upon the current structure of government in general it's very difficult to generate that kind of response time given given the number of people that they reporting to one individual next SL so just a brief overview of the
community uh Manchester B city is Comm Coastal Community with a population of about 5,500 people known for its Scenic be in VI in vibrant Harbor um it was a trans transitional Community from fishing the fishing industry to furniture making and then onto a
residential more of a tourism Community as it is right now um You Face you face infrastructure and environmental challenges due to your postal location I wasn't here more than 10 minutes and I could see that there were challenges as soon as I pull the pocket lot because
the because the the tide was actually almost even with a pocket lot the first time I came here and I said well that's going to be a problem and and it wasn't and it wasn't a storm going on either it was it was quite quite interesting to see that so um yeah that that's something we're going to have to talk about a little bit as we
get through the study today the next slide please so the parment interviews we met with all the major departments major operating departments in the town and we identified many of the operational strengths and weaknesses uh what we
found is that is that generally speaking everybody focuses on their work uh individually as opposed to collaboratively and I think that of itself is a challenge because the best decisions come out of collaboration they don't come from Individual U Silo
approaches that which is typically what happens in many communities um we found that through our studies and through our our our our actions that the ones that have reduced the number of direct reports and and and have further departments further division reporting
through one Department that you have a much better collaboration for for results and find that the Strategic discussions become much more intense and much more much more solution oriented uh We've identified we we GA rather we gathered the insights of the
Staffing we found we looked at the technology and communication uh my colleague Mike Gallagher who is's not was actually away but just returned literally this morning um is I did did a lot of the technology evaluation for us
Mike was uh was also a Town Administrator himself but also was came from the private sector and worked in in technology for uh I think 30 years before he actually transitioned into the public sector so he has both the public sector and private sector experience
which I think was was an action which uh a preference that the board had wanted when they when he started it was a there are heightened needs for improved collaboration and resource sharing which is something I just uh touched upon uh we want to make sure that everybody is is talking with
each other internally as well as externally and we'll talk about the external mechanisms uh as we get to that later on next slide please um some of the findings that we that we determined were that there are
Staffing shortages which impact Service delivery um what we have found strangely enough and you know sometimes when we do these studies we say yeah we can actually move this position to do this this function and we might be able to to uh to share a function with
across the hall from someone else so that we actually can can achieve some uh some efficiencies in that respect what we found here though is that we actually have shortages of staff and to the point where and I use this term a lot we're efficient to the point of inefficiency
and I worry about that because you have some exposures here where if certain individuals become sick or or are out indefinitely for whatever reason you your certain functions in your town will not function very well at all there'll be no back there's no backup for that
for those situations at all so I think that's exposure which I think you have to address and and I and I put that in the report in a way which which hopefully I I can be addressed in the short term as well as in the long term I recognize that adding staff is always a
challenge in every single Community across the country so I I I recognize that and I've never been a never been known to be an Empire Builder in any organization I've ever work in but there are actually key positions that need to be backed up in order to properly
support the the the work that you actually do um there's an inconsistent use of technology for efficiency purposes in other words you have a lot of Technology that's that's really uh that's good technology in fact the the findings that we had is that you're using the right
equipment using the right software but there is but there is enough training involved and there is enough support involved in in the organization to to help get the best use out of that that technology so we think that with meta support and better um and better
understanding of what that what those systems can do for you I think we think we can get have a better much better result from the from the workforce um but we are we are pleased to find that that a lot of the things that you've chosen is actually very good use and it's actually indust industry standard in many cases so we we're pleased to see
that those don't require significant change but we need to do a better job of how we utilize there a there's a better need for staff and plan succession planning there needs to be a strategic staff plan in the in the organization which doesn't
exist now I think positions get filled when they when when PE people leave but is there a conversation that occurs about what's the best thing we can do with that position before we refill it I let have the conversation about is is is there is there u a better equipped uh
job description a better use of that position before it gets filled and beyond that is there a succession plan so in the event that that someone uh does leave the organization is there somebody to back that person up and back up that that function when it when it happens that's Strategic Staffing uh
Staffing coordination which has to happen in any any organization being successful one of the things that that I that I really um noticed about about Manchester is that everybody wants to do their right thing but there just there just isn't enough enough support to do
it um the the the communication challenges within the the in between the Departments that occurs primarily because the way the organization is structured there's again it's a flat organization everybody's channeling through back through the central position which the Town Administrator
which makes it difficult for the Town Administrator to do the job as well as for everybody to get the answer that they want for their questions to be answered and into coordinate efforts throughout throughout the day so that's that's something we'll we'll try to address as far as this so we did interview the board
members um and there were a number of areas where there was agreement and the report actually highlights that but I we picked out a couple of these uh the key points uh there was support uh universally for for uh reorganization and and more efficiency uh concerns uh
were there were concerns about Capital needs and funding challenges no question that's that's one of the biggest ticket items that you have to deal with um there's a desire for improved communication and transparency making sure that that we're getting um that that that the communication internally
internally is is resulting in a in a good um a good dialogue for to develop a more strategic solution for things that we do that leads internal communication leads to good ex uh ex external communication if you will um which by the way you did something which I
haven't seen too many communities but it's something which I'm really glad you did is that you you hired a communications director which is something that is really the way with we're instructing communities to do going forward because there's no more local newspapers there's no more local
local dialogue about how other than than social media and quite honestly social media is very limiting because it's not always truthful and it's not always the most the mo it's not always the most uh way best way to get information out we we we prefer to see that information coming from a central Source from the
town so we can actually correct information when it gets out there incorrectly um there has to be an emphasis on sustainability and Environ environmental resilience that speaks to the issue of where you're located you're you're a Coastal Community um the
significance of of being a Coastal Community particularly in this particular town is that you have a lot of high-end expensive properties located right near the near the ocean which by the way will imp impact your your tax space in case anything significant
happens moreover your your particular your your public facilities are located near the water and if any major major storm event occurs you could be left without major services and uh to be offer to the community so that you of itself is is a major concern that we
want we would like to see you address we can't for you do anything but we we certainly recommend that you address that next slide this so this is the existing organization this is sort of high yes would you to get questions at the
end of the talk or this seemed like it's sort of a natural break yeah which is why I've interrupted you sure if you if you I mean I I like to wait to the end only because I can get all the words in then and then I can I'm happy to answer any question you want it's so because I don't think there's there's only a few
more slides anyways i' I've got about 16 17 slides total so super I'm sorry no it's quite all right it's it's a fair question this is the existing organizational design you can see interesting enough this was actually taken from one of your your pre one of
the previous Town budgets I think it was the 24 budget if I'm not mistaken um where it shows the the organization and quite honestly you have the key organizational organizational departments listed across in the green across the the middle part of the
organization but they don't really function like that I mean they function though all those different positions the the the blue positions I believe it is are all ones that are are ones that report effectively through the Town Administrator and some of the clear ones as well so that makes it difficult for
for that work to be done in a coordinated way uh there's not that many elected boards which is interesting to me um because in many in some of these other communities that I worked in there are a lot more elected boards which uh which actually makes it even more
challenging because then you then you they have separate Charters and responsibilities that they that they fulfill makes not always coordination is even more challenging when that happens um so there there was it's a flat organization 18 direct reports to
the Town Administrator lack of there's a lack of Department integration and strategic communication and plan and plan execution that occurs because of that it causes that that level of challenge uh The Limited cross functional collaboration uh and Team
Dynamics is is one which actually is difficult for the for the employees themselves uh one of the things that I learned from meeting with the different department heads is that they would love to have more collaboration and and cross cross discussions on issues on major issues um so that they can actually help
participate in in in the solution process again that that's not a slight on on Greg because Greg I have a lot of respect for Greg's work but the challenge is that it's difficult for him to make you know provide that level of support when he when he's dealing with
an organization structure like this next that's what happens when you piss them off we may have a break this say did it free Beau too bad we have any cross training or may why he's doing it you want you
want to take a couple questions if you'd like to do that so we can uh that's you yeah um I'm happy to have everybody look at Greg and make him nervous you only get a few more months to do that by the way so you might as well take advantage of the opportunity
right does anyone have questions I have just one question the towns that you look at and the things you're seeing are we are we sort of fitting into that model of size and complexity or are you typically looking
at to say two or three times our population with these same issues I'm just sort of like from a peer group point of view how do we line up on that um from this size organ this size Community your organization is very similar in many ways uh there's a lot of
communities that are structured like this in especially Massachusetts um I'm just most recently did a study up in New Hampshire which was a Comm that was probably three times the size of of mansion just but I will say that they
had the same kind of issues and it's interesting to note that uh I did that study a year ago um and because I this was this these these two communities were so close in terms of your know issues that I want to
use that as a good good comparison I did that study a year ago and they were thrilled with the result that that that came out of there they actually called me back and they were actually going to phase two now because they said that that the the re the new structure works so well that it actually
improved the capital improvement process and actually improved the decision- making process and and the pment heads didn't feel like they were on an island anymore they felt like they were part of a team and so now they're functioning more like a team as opposed to the individuals and uh they get much better
responses the Selectmen are very very happy with result of that um and the finance committee couldn't have been happier either which is you know from your perspective because now they're all understanding the significance of making decisions collectively and and supporting each other in that process
because before it was more individual oriented it made it difficult for you to make decisions amongst them now they're making decisions effectively collectively together and then bringing it to you and say this is what we've agreed on you know what do you think you know and then make and try and make that
happen so I think that's a much better process it's wor well I have a question um so you mentioned you know your strategic areas technology and that's that's my background so a special area of interest um um
what how would you assess our use of Technology specifically in the area of f our financial areas and the to areas of compliance Finance town clerk how does that compare with other towns in Massachusetts or outside of Massachusetts that you're aware of so
one of the good news is that you're using COV right as a technology B up is actually the industry standard in many way in terms of how you build budgets and how you communicate that information to the public one of the things that we observed though was that it's not being
utilized to its fullest extent because it has stuff like you know um they have capabilities that if we had the right expertise to help coach the team they could do like Robotics and that kind of stuff well it has it has algorith rythms in it that actually actually can measure
you against other and how you do things I'm I'm I'm making note of because of the data entry like the the additional staff that might be required for data entry that always gets my attention up because that seems um counterintuitive to where we're be going so I'm just
wondering when you say we're using the right tools um if they don't have the right capabilities and we're just at the same level of mediocrity as everybody else that's not necessarily where we want to be so what I'm trying to understand is um do you know of anybody
that's really uh any town or city that's really I do that we could that we could use as a benchmark there are other communities that use this information really really well I mean I can tell you from the where I just came from foxb uses that system really really well it's
clear go um uh from the very beginning we use it as a tool to actually educate the public on it which is really really what it's intended to be um you know we hear so often that you know your the budgets are being built behind closed doors well that's not the case with clear go you
get to see it from the beginning to the end as to how it's being done so I think the more we can do that the more we can actually provide confidence as organ as you as a town as to how you're making those decisions so when when you say that but there has to be people that can
enter that information into the system that's the other side of that necessarily that's the challenge necessarily that's my point so I get and I think I think what I'm getting at is um as as we look to enhance you know some of the recommendations here are
focused on potential um structural changes we could make in the finance areas in any organization that should be the most highly automated area and and that includes data entry and stuff like that so what I was trying to do is just kind of s I know in the private sector what's
done I'm trying to understand if there's a a benchmark in the in the public domain that we could leverage um if not we'll have to take some other TCT but it should should be the most highly automated area in in the organization
well I can I can I can only tell you that there are a number of communities that that actually I believe have really high standards when it comes to doing the budgeting process and so that's budgeting but there's a whole other area well this also the finance piece of it as well so so I think that all ties into
that um I mean I can the town of Needum comes tomorrow even town clerk you know or deeds you know things like that you have places in the Midwest are doing all sorts of really cool stuff and I'm curious as to if anybody locally is doing that I'm not seing a lot in Massachusetts
do and I I will tell you what is what is such a significant difference in Massachusetts because T Massachusetts tends to be very prant I mean we tend to do things we all want to do things on our own right and also that in the Midwest and places in the South
particularly centralized government is is a much bigger a much more common thing yeah where this the organization structured in such a way it's structured more like a business right as opposed to the way it is right now in many communities because it's been structured that way historically for years that you
know I'm just beginning my my quest to try and fix that if you will I because that's why I'm doing these studies to cities for cities and towns across the country is to fix this kind of structure because it really is something that's needs so bad um there is a lot of redundancy on
in all these towns doing their own thing I was wondering if you are like looking to transition things more to County government type things is that like one of the big it's interesting to say that because Massachusetts has been getting away from K and uh but yet if you go if you go to
Florida it's all bu right right and if you go to California it's about right so um I actually think that we missed a boat with cs here in Massachusetts we we've gotten away from it to the point now it'd be difficult get it back however regionalization is a different
story all right regionalizing functions where cities and towns working together on on different functions and I right one of the things I've been working on recently is the regionalization of dispatch and I'm actually running a regional center right now in my PARTA
I'm supposed to be retired by the way I'm really retired if you will but I'm not really really doing a very good job of that but but I I love doing the regional stuff because I think um you can't continue on we can't continue on as cities and towns thinking we can do it on it's just too expensive it's it
doesn't make sense it's not a good use of of resources it's not a good reuse and by the way you can't get the people to do the work that's the that's the other challenge so I think regionalization it may not be countywide but regionalization is becoming much more uh
an accepted practice nowadays than it has been so so might that be something we pursue though through the relation ships we already have for example like that it collaborative because a lot of what um you know service um
regionalization or shared services some you have to do physically others can be done through technology and those types of partnership so you can eliminate a lot of the individual you know U manual work by collaborating on technology that
might be too expensive for one little town to afford but you have eight cities or towns working together it becomes much more affordable and doable well well you actually you have that model in place now right it seems very basic but it is basic it's not it's not one which
be done it seems like it should be done at a much higher level exactly okay and I agree with that okay I think that one of the biggest outcomes of the discussion was that we found that there is just isn't enough support for letting people teaching people how to use these
systems and and if we had that it it would help take care of itself I mean it really would so it's it's no question it's uh it's something that should be expanded the example I'll use is payroll when I started my career I worked for a company that had you know a dozen different locations and they all had
their own payroll office right okay over time you know one no now they Outsource it to ADP but yeah you know you you do just through technology you didn't have to consolidate the people in one location use technology to perform the function for everybody right and
everybody has a town clerk that does the same stuff you know and and finance is basically the same you know there are there's a lot of commonality there's a lot of common areas I me you can say that about public health you could say it about so that's what I'm asking say it about different different functions and tools that already exist in EX in
cities and towns but there there it what we're finding is that there's been more of an open discussion these days with cities and towns that are that are connected to each other to to perform certain functions because they can't find the people number one is more out
of out of lack of resources as opposed to the actual technology itself that's forcing it so what driving that is is the people right now more than anything let you go back thank you but it was a good it was a good little in inter intersection um so this is the improved
organizational structure and you can see that I I actually didn't change the main the main players but what I did was actually structured those depart those divisions underneath those departments so now you have effectively eight operating departments instead of
18 um you have the the town all now reporting to the Town Administrator but we took some of the functions even in the the town administrator's office and rewrote the the work and recommended the rewriting of the work of the two assistants that are in the office so they actually have oversight of certain
functions as well um so the reason we did that was because those functions need to be connected to the Town Administrator because they're critical issues right but so they need to be close to the Town Ministry but the Departments you'll see
that that having those departments all together is a huge collaboration opportunity huge collaboration every one of those functions are all connected to each other in some way shape or form whereas you know in in for instance in when we looked at Assessors for instance
assessors had building department GIS uh in um and I think there was it was all three right cesses building building and assessing those three things those three aren't really connected they're they're three different functions so assessing
should be with Finance because that's a that's a financial consideration GIS should be either with planning or DPW I recommended to go to planning because uh because it's it's you know it could be it could be could be here and then it could be used in the in the town hall um
the other thing is that um is with the building department that should be with plan in land use so they're all connected as is so one land use Department could actually handle conservation building building inspection and planning all on in economic development for that matter
under the same roof so I think those are those are all families you basically built a family of oper operations uh with which is down limited to eight people eight operations instead of instead of 18 now if you take
this organization and you put that those folks around this table and you have a Town Administrator and you have a you have an operations team meeting guess what happens it turns into a strategic discussion because we're not just talking about what we're doing individually now we're talking
about what's good for the town and that's that's how that that's why I recommended and and it's later listed in the report that we do operational team meetings once a week and the reason I say that is because it's it's a it's an hourlong meeting uh it could last and it
could be done virtually it could be done or it could done here I recommend that you initially do it in person so everybody develops a relationship with each other and and the funny thing about that when you put those people in the room together initially I mean I'm just seeing it's actually it's an interesting
human Dynamic I I've actually seen this happen where I I walked into a meeting the first time I created a similar type of structure and everybody was s looking at each other say okay what do we do right and three meetings later I had I had to
actually stop them from talking because they they because we got to get the work but they already developed those working relationships almost right out of the day and I think that's critically important for us to to develop that relationship so we get so we can get work done next slide please
thank you very much for coming it's been a pleasure John Al's bringing that up one more question on land use sure um did you notice any things that we do either better or
not as well as other towns in terms of compliance you know um we do get some complaints from residents around so and so wasn't supposed to be doing that that wasn't in their you know special permit or you know the and and you know right
now we seem to rely on what I call the tattling yeah um approach for for you know keeping people in compliance and I was wondering if other we didn't do that level of of audit and we did more of a structural audit of the organization as
opposed to the individual tasks if you will of what they do now I will say that I want to just complement the Landry's Department that currently exists the plane department and also the town for getting 3A legislation passed the way
you did That's a classic example of how you collaborated with the public on that and you made it happen and so so there's collaboration that occurs on many levels when we develop a new structure like this what happens is that you develop it internally and then you bring it out
external and by having that that you use that same Dynamic to to to invite the public into the discussion and I I strongly recommend when we have these kind of forums of public discussions is that you don't go to the meeting with an answer you go to the meeting with an
issue say look this is the challenge we're facing how do you suggest that we fix it and we've got some suggestions here but we don't have the answers we need the answers to help you need to help us get the answers thank you great um we'll get
through this I promise uh communication and strategic planning establish a communication framework for consistency that's by by having the week the weekly operations team meetings uh we want to Foster the internal and external communication
alignment so when we have good internal communication we then take that information and channel it through the communications director who then provides information to the public as to what we're doing internally and also to all of you at the same time so everybody
stays informed and better informed about how how we handle things uh Implement strategic planning with long-term goals um this is you know clearly an issue where there hasn't been a lot of time to focus on long-term goals it's been yeah
we have them we know we have we'd have to deal with them but has it how much time have we been able to really spend on them focus on them because the organization wasn't really built that way to do that um and then monitoring adjust strategies for dynamic community community needs um we can the systems
everything we do has to be dynamic in how we operate because things can change overnight as we've seen um we see all the time actually this there's so many different factors that come into local government so many different decision points that have to be considered but I think what if you're in a position where
the organization is is is better suited is is better armed with um the information needs to get things done um you'll actually be in a better position to respond to the public as as things come on and get asked on a regular basis
so the internal communication will be Implement replay operations meetings will Foster a teen Dynamic and cross collaboration uh improve strategic Communication in decision making uh because that's really a Fallout of that of that process and it supports a more
collegial work environment so you want everybody who a department head to be not only working with people on a regular basis working with their their colleagues around the table but then you also take that same Dynamic and bring it back into their individual divisions or or operating departments so then they
become more collegial at that level as well but you start that that that discussion internally and then they then the department heads come back to armed with the information that they need to be be to be very um influential if you will during the conversations uh to
solve problems at the in the external Communications again you I want to compliment you on on developing the the uh the the director of communications uh that's that's a critical position in today's environment um you want to enhance Community engagement transparency like you've
already done with the 3A the 3A process is something you need to document and actually continue to duplicate and in dealing with difficult challenges along the way I I would recommend to use that same approach and dealing with your with your your uh your your capital capital
capital planning process use that same approach utilize consistent me messaging across platforms so that everybody knows that it's coming from the town and everybody knows knows when to expect that information and when it will be coming so and people can rely on it just
like they do with newspapers so that information's coming to them on a regular basis so they see it and then you can address uh concerns through the public proactively we always want to be able to do that you don't just be reactive all the time you want to be able to say these are the things that we're dealing right now with with these
are challenges where we're faced with this is how we this is how we're dealing with them right now organizationally if you have concerns let us know resp but I think by providing them information that you that you've come with a way of addressing those concerns proactively
you'll be in a much better position to to deal with those concerns right uh next is so here's the technology piece so we we we recognize that first of all as I said before you're actually using the right
industry standards but you want to leverage cloud-based solutions for operational efficiency more more effectively more aggressively so I think we we we have the tools but we're not utilizing them the way we should be using them in some instances uh we want to en enhance it support for daily
operation strategic growth not having a person who can be here to fix a computer or to or to do training on a regular basis I think is a challenge for the staff I think the staff is there eager to learn I think the staff is wants to do more but they can't because it just
isn't a resource that's available on a regular basis you want to maximize the use of existing software tools for improve productivity for instance the classic example given to me was was uh was clear Garden which you know it can be used more proactively than it
currently is right now um and of course cyber security is is a main stay of every organization right now and it's actually one which has to be we have to pay close attention to particular in areas of water and sewer because there are these are there are
there is cyber concerns about how that's impacting uh cities and towns across the country either from from some of the players across across the the pond or actually from the across across the world looking to to find ways to to
impact us locally so I think we have to be plac very very close attention to that something that uh has to be paid PA attention to from From danver's perspective if they they look at all they oversee many of our major systems some of the key challenges and
capital needs uh we we want to address the environmental impacts of postal plane I'm pleased to see you've done some really good studies with that by the way um you know the the uh report and the tetr tech report were all critical studies which I think contain
very good information about where you're at currently uh looking at the title uh search issue and looking at ways in which that has to be signed to impact you and in based upon what I read in those studies you probably get about a 25 year window to address many of the
many of the significant structural issues that you have locally um you want to balance the the short and longine term capital investment needs uh you need to continue to fund ways to to just maintain your roads and maintain
your your your infrastructure Capital infrastructure and also balance that against the needs of infrastructure needs as well and I think you've done a good job of identifying all your needs but now you have to prioritize you have to be able to say and you have to have the conversation
with any kind of school project that's that's in the discussion as well that has to be done collectively can't be done on separate on separate levels should be done as one one Collective group Staffing shortage and sucession planning is is a is a key area that I mentioned earlier that has to be
addressed in a way that makes the most sense to you uh financially as well as organizationally I think having I I the reason for succession planning is so important nowadays is because you can't find those people once those people leave like for instance if an assessor
leaves or a finance director leaves or even a Town Administrator it's not easy to find people to fill those roles when when they budget constraints and prioritizing cap capital projects is something I just mentioned you've got to uh you you know what your needs are you now you have to prioritize you have to come up with a
financial plan to make it work and what you can do is you can time that with some of the things that may be rolling off for instance Greg and I talked about for instance that you've got you know your pension system roll roll off and your opep roll off coming within the next 10 years or so or maybe five years
right in some ways five six years um if that that that holds firm um that gives you an opportunity to use existing dollars within the budget which will be less impactful to the to the taxpayers in the community itself next slide
please so the what I do recommend is in some of the action steps that we recommend is that we initiate organizational restructuring for efficiency and Implement weekly operations meetings as soon as possible now not all those organizational changes will be able to be done right away
because some of them are practical and some are not as practical because you may have to wait for the person to leave before some of those departments can be restructured um expanding HR Support and improv succession planning right now there's very little HR Support in the
organization and I will tell you that I'm a former HR director and as well as being a town manager so um but HR I was actually asked to do to be become an interim HR Director recently for a city in Pentucket rhod Island and it was difficult at best because there so many
changes that occurred since the last time I was an HR director in probably one of the largest cities in Florida so it's become a very very challenging world and it's even challenging at this level so I I I recommend that you do a better job of supporting that if you can
financially because it's really an important aspect of how we operate today um I would prioritize the jaes as I mentioned earlier enhanced communication and Technology integration uh utilizing your existing technology
and then also in in in building upon your your commun the built-in communication director that you already have uh utilizing um those tools that you already have you can use the the website which has been updated recently fairly recently so it's actually a good
tool right now you want that you want your communication threat to be using that on a regular basis the communicate putting information out to the public and find ways to connect the public to you through that system utilizing that that have people subscribe to it so that
they can actually get updated information on a regular basis whenever it's available again have thank you we need an IT fix here there it goes I that was it so thank you
after all that so thank you um so I Happ to take any questions M chair you on how you want to proceed up you throw the floor open as we look to replace the Town Administrator uh what's your
thought on not being a town manager so thank you for for bringing that because I do recommend that in the in the report M um that I do think that uh that the time has come for the town to actually do a charter study if you will or an
evaluation of your your your bylaws and child create a charter if you will that supports the function of a town manager as opposed to a Town Administrator okay would you please clarify for me the difference between those two so a charter is is is sort of like I know what the charter is what's the
difference between an administrator and a town manager okay so the town manager has more authority to appoint and and also has more authority over the budget process for example in our town y um the Town Administrator does the hiring the firing negotiates
contracts um directs the development of the budget what are we missing well if you read the bylaw it's the the the act the the the special act the special act that was on it only really speaks to the hiring firing piece it doesn't do really
speak to the budget piece okay okay and it doesn't speak to any other aspect of a if you look at a typical Charter it will list out all the functions it it'll say I'll have the final final say on dealing with HR issues the the there'll
be no HR is all it's all included now but but it's not structured at all it's not it has there's nothing to fall back on in the event if there is a um if there is a a question about theth of the Town manager it's not listed anywhere other than to say he has the ability to
hire and fire that's it that's only that's that's listed in in that in that language there question so so let me just let me I'll give it probably better if I answer through an example all right please I'm used to working in in two or three communities where they've had Charters
and the charter actually is very very specific it Les list so responsibilities not only of the Town manager but also list the the responsibilities of various Town boards and committees it's it's it's like the it's like your it's like a uh Constitution thank you thank you very
much it's like your constitution for the town all right um and what I found is that town managers nowadays are is is the preferred title of many uh administrators they prefer to be the town manager as opposed to a Town
Administrator by virtue of the and the responsibility that goes I got the title part I don't get the responsibility part maybe maybe def find the incremental additional responsibility that the manager has so what what I for instance I when I
was the town manager in Foxboro for instance I was not only the appointing authority but I had I submitted the budget but I also provided the budget to the I provided to the selectman I also provid it to the finance committee but I also had responsibility for purchasing I
also had responsib for um for obviously hiring firing all the department heads that worked for me and also dealing with any of the Personnel issues any any Personnel issue came through me all right so it was is it I if I had I don't have a list in front of
me but I will tell you it was probably I was probably 13 or 14 different functions that if that if you if you looked at it would be What's Happening Here is we have done that without the explicit Authority spelling it
out so you may so you may be doing it but but you haven't you haven't you haven't written it anywhere right so it's potato potato is what it amounts to is you can call anything you want but you're you're providing that role as what would be the let me let me ask the question this way so for example hiring
and firing of direct reports you know if Greg came to us with an issue you know we we still have the final say m okay but department heads on the department heads is that that true for a town manager not necessarily okay
that's what that I think that's what he's getting at some in some towns the town manager is the final the final Authority period my experience it really changes the board of Selectmen primarily I mean that's what your implication is I'm sorry say that again P what it
change is your role yeah it reduces reduces role reduces the role of the town of of the bo slapping typically and and puts it in the in the hands of the town man correct yeah typically that's how it happens so so the way the difference I the with an administrator
the elected officials the select board still have the final control whereas with the manager it's a non-elected official that has final control that's I that's the big that typically happens right would argue that what we're
currently doing is pretty much the town manager um if if if Greg decides to yes you present a candidate to us and we say yes or no but we don't we are involved in the selection of candidates
for your department heads unless invited to participate in a committee as Brian and I have done yes we we are we are invited we are not invited and I I can tell you quite honestly I had that Authority but I would always include members to participate because it just
it gets the process EAS more collaboration you get stuff done and and we don't we don't log over the issue so I think that's important too so even though if that's what you're doing right now yeah then you should reduce it to writing so you
have it there so so so when at some point in time there's no confusion as to who what what the responsibilities are that's that's critical so I think I think what he's saying is we we may have some undocumented practices yes and
they're mostly doc administ looking at Greg and if you read that if you read that that Authority it's very limited there may be some undocumented practices and it wouldn't hurt for us to take a peek at it before we bring in a new found administrator just to make sure we
I just it's a good it's a good thing to do anyways right I just think it is that would have did that but we I'm not sure if we missed anything when we embarked on this process we may have may miss it's good thing to go back to the recruiter and ask you know do you think we missed
anything um I think we kind of did that that already but yeah so so John and Bill are okay don't share the same perspective on this 100% two different perspectives I'm not are you getting candidates asking this question when
candidates for your position they begin to ask question not that I'm aware they might have asked the recruit well I can tell you that whenever I was involved I used to ask that question for that reason so because so it was clear as to what the authority was because I've been in situations where it
wasn't clear and suddenly it changed and and the authority and suddenly there was there was a a debate over it and it was disagreement about so you don't you want to avoid that if you as much as possible is what I'm saying right yeah we should get it down on
paper especially with somebody new coming in want to make sure we get it a different question which is HR sure theun our size instead thing of HR which I understand is one of the recommendations in here does that require a full-time
position wouldn't necessarily I mean I you still could share with another Community I I actually because it's not you again you don't have a big it's not a big organization and so that I I understand I've actually thought about this because
you could theoretically have a person that's full-time that does this every day but I would say to you that is it practical given the all the other things that you have on your play right now the answer is probably not and also you have a situation where the existing person
who is doing it is actually I think reducing one of their responsibilities currently and so the so the opportunity right now is to increase that without too much of a so so what's your perspective though on um uh what What's the total employee count You' got
forg 70 70 okay yeah I mean full-time HR person or a team that size is like something I've never seen in my life so I I I think I guess I wonder um what
your thought is on the HR expertise of his direct reports it's been my experience that the more experienced the leaders are with handl you know they've had good training in how to handle difficult situations and critical
conversations they need to Ry Less on an HR professional um so so it's it's interesting to say that because I was just going to say to you that the HR person does that training so that's what I'm asking do you feel our team has been could use some additional support in terms of
training and education and then there's a different there's a difference between core hrf support and labor negotiations so I didn't really see a um a clear breakdown on where you think the HR Support is
needed is it Labor Relations or is it I think it's more I think it's more training operational training okay uh looking at ways in which you can do things better which ways in which you might be able to utilize computers better you know you can have that you can actually leverage that training from
different schools and universities through an HR Director so I I would say to you that's why I struggled with the issue it's not that big of an organization but you do have and but you could actually use a full-time person initially but then you could easily back off of that but but
given the fact you already have a person in place I would say utilize that person the best you can existing person so a strategy around what we how we could enhance our HR capabilities is probably what's needed before right because don't forget there's all the transactional
things too like there's a lot of stuff that goes on in in the Treasures Office that's HR related mean benefits and uh and all the things that go into that in addition to being a person that sits at the table in terms of negotiations that's a whole different aspect of it as
well so a a full a full fully effective HR Director or HR professional if you will can handle a lot of those things and be and be and actually save you money in the long term so Greg how many towns do we share with two others or
just one other two others right now two others it was two and now it's dropping down just because in terms of benefits right that's something that typic Al you know could be shared you know you know answering questions that kind Administration benefits administration
of benefit yeah um that's different than helping your staff deal with HR correct issues and you know historically that has the treasurers is administering the benefits one of the things that came out of that discussions with the with the
treasures offices that they they're sometimes placed in a difficult position to to to interpret language that's in contracts whatever which is really something that should be and they done by an HR person but that could easily be a shared resource it doesn't
be so you've got some challenges ahead of you in the in the sense that um you know timing wise the capital issues are the big ones uh organizationally you can have those are more shorter term but even and not all of the um the changes
that you can make on on the organization side can be done initially but I think probably in the shorter term let's say two to three years you um you can do some this year uh there are some very short-term ones you can do this year and I also think that
um the but I would get to work on the on prioritizing the capital needs as soon as possible because uh where there other needs coming about say for instance a school that's being talked about now as well um that needs to get on you that needs to be part of the conversation
with the other needs because you're facing some some critical issues that have to be addressed on a timing basis that's the biggest challenges facing I've got a question bill so I you know in reviewing the
report I mean the message came through that uh our staff while we could I guess use more staff and you certainly emphas ize that that they've executed very well yeah and uh that's been to the great benefit of our town there isn't anyone
that's really had big health problems or accident problems and disappeared where we've had to deal with any of that it's been a very stable uh stable group here two of the takeaway messages here are restructuring and adding staff to the
extent that it really supports the succession planning because the the staff as it stands is executing pretty well I don't think it's a real strong story to the taxpayer to say that we need more people because we've got to do more stuff um but uh the restructuring
thing is something that I think can be done uh independent of Staff or are there certain staff changes that really have to be made to make that uh that reorganization work so that there aren't so many direct reports going to the uh
the Town Administrator so uh that's my question sure that's that's that's a good question so there are a number of departments that could actually turn into those roles easily first of all you're not going to have a public safety department you'll have a police chief and a fire chief I mean we don't you're
not big enough to have a public safety department so that one's an easy one but you'll have but you will look to restructure things such as the harbard master underneath one of those departments so I want to ask you about that um so you have the H Master
underneath the fire sheet yes but we don't just have a har Patrol we have wars involved we have dredging we have infrastructure shouldn't in my opinion the H Master should still stand on its
own I don't really see it under the fire department well the the reason I put that there is because they actually do support each other when it comes to rescue and I also think that they do the h m actually does a lot with controlling
the harbor and and and protecting the harbor I get that Public Safety piece of it but there's a lot more to the har I think we I think we could be creative with the public safety because in fact the deputy har master has a
police Authority now right so I mean right so I think we've done that through um hiring department heads to understand how to collaborate with each other really really well so they don't need
the formality of a one boss structure to do good things together right um and I guess you know I'm kind of aligned with what Jeff is saying right now we feel we have something that works really well and so touching it scared the crap out
of me I was just like if it ain't broke don't fix it plus we do have a history here before ban was here and Arbor was under the police department we had issues I would you know Cathy's point I I think that one of the things that really works
well here in this town is our Public Safety all right um all three departments working in conjunction not for but with each other and well part of the reason why I did that was because he's such a limited operator I mean he he has a he now has a full-time
assistant but that by having them work directly with another department provides more resources for him too as well so I think that was the reason why I did was to help help the support what resources well of the Fire Department fire department can actually help him in terms of supporting him on a day-to-day
basis as well do already do I guess we're not clear on the Gap that you may if you see a gap that this structure would address it's not clear to us what that is well the Gap was to try and not to to reduce the number of direct reports to the town manager to so that
in and of itself um I think is um I it certainly it's something the new town administrator will have to come in here absorb all of this information and he or she may have a leadership style that aligns with what you're thinking or they may have a different
leadership style more comfortable leading through influence that doesn't require as much consolidation so it it's really I think GNA I think it's great information because it gives them a road map to go look at right but that that person is going to have to come to us
and recommend here's what I think I need in order to do the job ultimately that's what's gonna happen to any one of these recommendations right exactly you know so and so listen I these are just my observations and I I think the good observations it gives gives them a place to go look right I mean I'm not married
to any one of them in terms of saying look you have to do this because otherwise you it'll be a disaster no I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that structurally that makes sense to me and organizationally it makes sense to do it that way but if you if you it's your community you get to decide what how you
want to Str help with the town New Town manager New Town Administrator if you will will say you know what you know I like it the way it is or you know I like the recommendation I'm I think we should stay on keep it under the fire whoever the case may be so just like my my
concern is that you know you hire a fire chief to be a fire chief Y and he's not necessarily knowledgeable uh har I mean am law right and all that that's really where a Harbor Master should be
reporting to the Town Administrator manager whatever I think another way of saying that is when you're dealing with Public Safety leaders you're you're dealing with almost like a pseudo military they are very command and control very command and control yeah right other leaders that report to grig
they're not they don't need to be worried about that right but when you're talking about a command and control control structure like in the military they have a certain way of operating you mess with that that's right you're dealing with stuff you don't want to use and and like I said you're you're in a position now where not only is the
Town Administrator leaving but also the the har Master could be gone in in the short period too so I think that if that happens obviously you're looking at yeah so so it could be an opportunity to look at it again so um other thoughts questions
you when you've done these reports for other towns how long does do towns take to sort of try to implement this is this sort of a 18 month or is this a five year or how does this kind of line up on
a what I like to say to towns is that you do this within the next 12 months at least some pieces of it you don't have to do it all in one in one year but the organizational piece you should start looking at within the next 12 months um this is it's it's a little bit
challenging right now because you're heading into a new budget season but hopefully youve you've you've addressed some of those concerns in the next Budget on some of the recommendations at least um but I will say that a 12-month period is is a reasonable time frame
because a lot can happen in a year and and you're going to have a transition of authority in town administrator's office anyways but that in of itself will gar more discussion around those points so I think you know I think 12 to 18 months
is is a reasonable time frame but I like you like to see at least it doesn't get shelled that the project doesn't get shelled it gets because these are things that are important issues and then you take you take some real action steps to try and address the organizational needs it's probably and it and we
probably CAU it already but you suggest that the Parking Clerk who's that's currently a function of the town clerk M and that has a certain balancing effect between the person who gives the ticket and the person who adjudicates it having them both in the police department or as
you said in the report on fire department I think that yeah that was that was that was the typle it was thep I apologize for that so that was that has to be has to be the police department actually if you look the line down below it says Police Department it does so it's inconsistent so I apologize for that but yeah no it's definitely the police department and the reason I said
say that because you can actually have that adjudicate in the following way you have a lieutenant or a sergeant that that can oversee that and then they adjudicate the ticket and if if if somebody wants to appeal they're going to Beal to cheap and that's that's how I've seen it happen in that's a command and control structure really unified but
the amount of times that happens in a community like this is probably be surprised well I supp for the Su Sumer group I suppose that's probably an issue but I but I have to tell you that I have worked with in many organizations where it's like that and it's worked really really well I mean and and it's the
reason why I I you don't like to keep it the people who are most knowledgeable about the tickets is the police depart they know whether a person really really you know parked inappropriately I mean for somebody else to make that decision I actually had to serve as the as the
clerk in some cases as that and it was difficult for me to make that decision because I wasn't familiar with the situation at all I I relied almost all entirely on what the police officer told me and then I had to make a decision and N Out of 10 times I had to side outside with the police officer so that's my my
point is that it's it's structured that way I I recommend for that reason is that it's not uncommon to see that thank you I have a a flip side on that is um because I heard just this week um someone was questioning to me why do we need a Parking Clerk because they're all
adjudicated by an outside vendor is that true or not no no part the the meat the collection if the collection part of it's for an outside oh actually the ticket is created initially by a post
right right U but it is somebody from the police department looks at each of the entries and says yes or no that is in fact a violation and that's only what maybe 40% of the I don't know the police department we still have a we still have
you know physical people walking up that just eliminates to yeah I forgot the you probably have quite a few in the summer time but but seriously I I think structurally I I I stand by I mean I stand by the recommendation but look if if if you think it works better in a
different way that's fine you can have that internal discussion but I I I've actually seen it work well under the I agree it might be worth discussion with the next Town Administrator I I remember our past town clerk had a concern about
being the Parking Clerk I don't know how the new town clerk feels about it I haven't asked her she hasn't been through for some of yeah so it's not cler we'll have a new it wouldn't hurt to it's another good thing to poke at like you said it's good information
so like I said these are this is why these conversations are good because you you can look at it from both perspectives and kick it around and if it's not the right if it's if if Manchester bity is not comfortable with any one recommendation you can have that conversation I mean I encourage you to
have it so I but again I I go based upon my experiences and and U you know and best practic so some of the advisory boards um are functionally advisory
boards to the select board I think and and you kind of have the select board in a corner and and and doing our knitting quietly by ourselves and I wonder you know why it is that all of those boards which which
make recommendations on policy should go through the Departments well because you're the you're the chief policy board all right and and the reason why um shouldn't we have advice yes so so ultimately when the
recommendations come up through the Departments they should come back to you ultimately so you make the make the ultimate decisions very filtered information I'm sorry that's very filtered information I'm not sure I understand
that though that that point the the committee is sometimes provide a check and balance to make sure that the town staff is um uh providing services in a manner desired by the residents I would say
it's there's a check and balance there the the the it's a small town and people like to know that they can advise the select board directly on certain things however I do I do see some committees here which were supposed to be gone Greg so I don't know why we still have some
of these here because we just we retired some of them so some of them should be um going to double check the list here um and some of them we did move to advisory like um I think the Ada was to advise the DPW we did that already um so
I just think I'm not sure this 100% accurate that's that that ADA is listed in public works yeah yeah under current it should be um but some of the Committees that are listed propos or chart shouldn't even exist they they were gone I
so what I I filtered is that if the department head isn't interested in an idea that coming from one of the advisory boards it doesn't get to us that's that's a staff challenge it is
but we if we don't know what we don't know so I I have to make some assumptions when I when I put these recommendations together is that is that there is a continuous flow of information back to the Town Administrator on on these things and if there is a challenge from a particular
Department that that has to be addressed I I would say it a little bit differently I would say because I agree with what Anna is is poking at here I think we you know to your point about not having the operational meetings right every week okay that's standard practice yes we should be doing that but there are some things that we don't see
as a board every quarter okay certain metrics or certain you know what's the feedback from the residents uh we could do things differently by asking you know DPW to come in here every quarter and say okay what are you getting from feedback from these committees what you
know we could manage that differently if the Committees reported into the DPW that's how I yeah so so think of it from the perspective that you're really the board of directors if you will and that and what happens is that if the board wants certain information to come out of
the Departments the operating departments you filter that through the Town Administrator he then brings to all the department H they bring it well the department has present to the board in a public meeting absolutely then the committee heads would see that meeting and if they you know be
attending at that meeting if they and if the department head didn't represent their feedback um then that would certainly you know could be made not imediately you would definitely have the board before you to talk about the issues that you have there's nothing
there's nothing wrong with that right I didn't see this say the board reporting up to the department head I just saw it more as for administrative support yeah well they're all connected for a reason because they all advise each other well some of them some of
them we did change to be advisory to a department head instead of advisory to the select board um but most of them still remained advisory to the select board but if we were to change our modus operandi you could have some um more
committees report directly to Department has but once again that's a question for the next town administrator and their leadership style what would they you know how do they want to run their team right um and we could get a different perspective from from
person yeah everybody has their own style right that's how it works any other questions well thank you very much it's been a pleasure thank you very good information I hope this was helpful instructive and hopefully it'll provide you some good food for thought for the
next manager and Town Administrator or whatever that person is going to be titled and um and that uh organizationally you'll come up with some real changes right thank you all very much thank you 17,000 actually 18,000 they just on game
day everybody thinks Fox is being a city it's actually it's a [Music] small yeah close to 7 we can always be better see you thank
you okay the next item next joint meeting um is um
the well some item is is the operating budget so um finance committee is is very close to being done set of recommendations they have a few more to go um
the changes from the preliminary budget one way to look at it has there's been some some additions the finance committee did approve moving forward with adding an accounting clerk in order to move forward with that Finance
director model so freeing up some some current accountants time in order to take on the additional rules the finance director one way to do that would be to bring in that additional support
um so that was one uh the preliminary budget had uh the recommendation of boosting the um assistant town clerk position assistant to the town clerk from halftime to full-time so that would
been endorsed by the um the finance committee as well um and then thirdly uh the finance committee did does recommend going forward um on a a truncated basis for for this coming year
for the deputy fire chief so they are recommending that um come the fourth quarter of FY 26 next April move forward with that new position and then obviously on FY 27
that would be a full-time position so easing into it a little bit rather than doing it 100% in 2026 um so those are the probably the the more significant changes to the preliminary budget that
you saw in December so are we positioning these I mean I did want to make sure we talk about these proposed headcount increases um are we positioning these as placeholders Financial
placeholders uh because again I just um you know you got to let the new person come in and assess their team and have their say I we weren't considering making any structural changes before the New Town Administrator through the door right so
these this is for the 26 budget that starts July one right so I'm assuming that the new person will be on board by then or shortly there after I guess let me say it differently I I would feel it's very
disrespectful to a new leader to um uh demand that they adhere to a particular structure um I mean I'm certainly fine with putting some budget placeholders in there in case they agree with
these provides an option provides that option I and the reason I'm careful with this messaging is there are potential promotions as part of this budget approval and I just feel very strongly that you have to let a new leader come
in assess their staff put their own stamp on how they think they need to structure an organization and it's nice to have some placeholders because of some prior recommendations but we I this shouldn't be viewed by the the staff in town hall
as a gun deal if the if the town approves it that that's my concern I wouldn't want to be disrespectful to a new leader I Think You're Expecting too much of a new Town Administrator coming in that it's
historically it's typical you come into a town and you get a structure and oh you get a structure yeah to um you know there we need to move ahead with that Finance director because we need
somebody to be in charge of these budgets and not the Town Administrator um and you know to to me to to push everything off to a New Town Administrator I'm not
saying push everything off but um nothing will get done well to to Greg's point you know I my concern is about promising promotions to people be you know and then have a new leader show up you know a couple weeks later it it just
feels wrong it's not oh but the finance committee doesn't recommend placeholders we we budget for just specific things we we we feel strongly enough well you you the finance commit when I'm hearing the finance committee
wants is one person who's responsible for the budget preparation that is not the Town Administrator that's what I'm hearing this well was it but I'm confused because I thought Andrea did that so that's maybe where I'm not understanding no it's it's it's also a functional change
also I think support for that got yeah no understand I just I'm I've never had a restructuring done by committee before so this is new so we have I and and reinforcement
Bill have have advocated for a finance director for a number of years now um we have um slowly worked our way towards that goal um I I do think that particular
goal is ready to to move forward um and it's it's certainly the the TA will certainly have a major hand in the budget still it's not 100% handoff to the to the finance director but in terms of um
Finance director has more responsibility for overseeing supervising Treasurer and the assessor and that those three departments form a more cohesive team um under that Finance director role well if
if we were to go forward with this before a new leader comes in I I would want to add some additional responsibilities to that role that's that was the that was the goal no I'm just saying above what you just mentioned because um as I mentioned
earlier during the operational presentation this should be the most highly automated Department that we have so when we start talking about adding you know clerks and administrative positions there are other ways of handling that and I would want a finance
director to come up with an automation strategy for that organization that includes partnering with other cities and towns so that we can do something other than hire people to get worked on you know something a little higher level than just supervising more people this
is what I'm saying right I think we didn't realize that positions have not that been discussed they've been discussed I I don't recall we voted on hiring a finance director I don't recall that if we voted on that I haven't missed any
meetings but I I certainly have not umed so this is this is where that's that's where your role you get the you are there you get this organized set up the organization the way you
think it would work best 100% and that is exactly my point if Greg wasn't leaving I would have no problem with this this would be the current Town Administrator coming to the board and saying I need this to happen it's going to make my life easier it's going to do
better for the I have no problem with that conversation conversation we're having is let's do a reorganization and oh by the way there's going to be a new leader coming in I I've just never had that experience before when I go into a new leadership role the very first thing I do is assess
my staff assess my budget assess my customers and then I get to make some changes um if I think things need to improve I I don't have that spoonfed to me so that's this is something I'm not familiar with and that's why I'm asking the questions can well can I ask this
what would be the difference if we already had this person here and you had a new administrator coming what what I'm just saying is a leader you typically want to have a say in how your team is formed no I understand what you're saying but what
I'm saying is if a year ago we hired that person yeah and that person was sitting there right now but have no we hired a finance director a year ago yeah what would be the difference with somebody new coming in oh someone new
coming in I would say still should have the opportunity to assess their staff assess what they're given for resources and say and recommend changes that's any leadership change involves that I've never encountered uh a leadership change
where someone just comes in and and and is not allowed to make changes or recommendations so that's it's not allowed you're you're sounding a little bit no I'm not even going in that direction just I'm just trying to understand it's
not we're planning now for FY 26 right we need to make decisions about FY 26 on April 28th understand um we can't say now that oh it's too late no understand so I think the point also is that FY 26
starts July 1 right so we're not Hing anyone until the new ta is here no my my sensitivity here is because there are promotions involved okay and and they're part of the budget and we're talking about them now and I'm just I'm talking
about not from a budget standpoint more from a career standpoint they here for a budget that's so these people are number they look down columns that's they I'm concerned about from a more of a career standpoint
I mean I'm just I just I made assumption I'm concerned because this is a position that's been talked about with people who are currently in our organization Y and they part of the budget process as part of the budget process so that point
a new ta is going to come in knowing that he's got or she he got the money to do he's got the money to hire and I'm okay with that is that fair yeah I I don't think the discussion was to hire a finance director that's concern yeah it
was to hire an accounting clerk yes Finance director was going to be an internal candidate okay that's what we were led to and that's what the internal candidate has been alled to exactly kind of a horrifying thing to do to somebody if exactly my point
yes I'm not sure I follow how that's your point my point is um I think there was an assumption that we had already made a decision to we don't make that decision great make sense I'm sorry excuse me that that the timing around
this is what is disturbing to me that's okay so we're we're just we we have to when we interview the candidates for the TA basically they're going to be inheriting a structure and if they want what you're saying is if they want to make changes to that structure um that
would happen in the following budget year that's always the case well I'm just saying well I guess what I'm saying that would be for any position right I mean I you always had that situation I went I worked for a large corporation yeah I didn't get to come into a new
position and say I want to get rid of you I want to get rid of you I want to get rid of you I had to work with what I was given and over time develop it to what I wanted understand and this is same type of situation yeah understand I'm just I'm just sensitive because when
we talk about promoting people I think that needs to be handled with more care than what we did in this situation but I'll just stop right now well we talk this is all this time just a clerk well I think all of these new hires that are involved certainly the
new ta would have something to say about that terms of who that person is as an external candidate yeah the budget as it's is proposed right now proposes one new hire
at the start of the fiscal year right then one new hire three quarters into the fiscal year at a half that's correct and the new hire at the start of the fiscal year I can understand that the the TA probably would have something the new ta starting on or about that time would have something to say about who
that person might be per so you don't know what else you want to dive into in terms of the details of the operating budget I focused on those Staffing positions that that was the change from what you had seen back in
December well town clerk that was purely for um backup purposes the assistant to back up in workload well the workload I'm not buying them because when we discuss the notary adding the notary service last
April we talked about the fact that Staffing in the town clerk's office was sufficient to absorb that you know with no issue and specifically asked you know you guys aren't going to come at the next budget cycle and ask for more
Staffing right it's not being driven by right not needs I understand I'm just saying in general it's it seems to be not driven by workload could based on what I saw in the operational report but I'm curious
as to what the workload is that is what new information did we get because when we talked about Staffing last April there was no discussion about increased headcount so I'm just trying to you also have a new time clerk now I understand but I'm just is that the only
piece of information oh no Shear presentation right so um I think the real concern is anytime the clerk is away then that off is empty half the time it's a backup that's what I was
trying to get it not workload well we can workload ship work that's part of workload right so when when when it's when it's not staff that work isn't getting done people have to there's no way to serve service the counter that sort of thing could could
some of that be done by cross training for example could somebody from the treasurer's office learn to sell dog licenses so the short answer is yes um and it's you could look at that
accounting clerk as a possibility as as do having a dual role that that that could be something that's an excellent suggestion and the reason I'm really poking hard at this stuff folks is obviously this is a
really difficult budget year again we haven't even talked about the stuff on the capital list and we're talking about adding you know a couple of extra headcount to administrative position it's not a good look to the taxpayer so
I'm just trying to poke real hard at administrative add-ons because they are in areas that typically you wouldn't be adding administrative you know well I think that the clerk we took
away a lot of the beach uh tox and rep took over the uh like the selling of the tags beach tags maybe that goes back to the if we have a part-time or a full-time assistant clerk maybe that takes it off of pox and
wrecks plate puts it back downstairs or or the Parking Clerk that we talked about earlier if that were to move under the police department would that free up some of the RO I don't know what the specifics are of the workload that that are driving the the need for the other
sorry sorry she also told us that one of the challenges in your office recently has been the substantial increase in the number of public information requests yes and that can be
handled through um other means potentially so that's goes through the but it goes to the clerk's office yes yeah and you gotta have gotta have somebody there you gotta have somebody posting agendas um
you know we've we've had issues with public hearings recently that haven't been able to be no because agendas W post um you know that office is under tight time frames to respond to things and it's the
fa basically she's also the face of the Town that's the first when people walk in they're goingon to clerk's office useful discussion that we had a pretty good case did we hear that did I no we didn't hear that's the point
I think part of the disconnect is we're being asked to approve additional funding for Staffing and and you know so when Greg's asked us well what do you want to hear on the budget I want to hear about the increase headcount I want to understand why because that's something that the taxpayers I would
think are going to poke at right now I don't have good answers right committee to recommend the budget to this one right but I think headcount and and structure that's that's a select Board responsibility to implement so I just think we need to
understand you're you're you we do not implements a wrong word yeah um yeah I understand what you're saying implements the wrong word but it's there's the budget and there's the people aspect right and there's the structure and they all have to coales
but and and happy to have the Town Clerk and the town County come to your next meeting and make that presentation that's ARR I know I pushed back I I felt like what Kathy was saying was small
town the way to do the redundancy is to try to get people to wear more hats and I felt like we had planned the new hire for the parking and that that would be enough for this year and we'll see how that fits in but the the I know
accounting is going to be busy next year because of breaking in a New Town Administrator but I felt like the promotion and the assistant clerk boost was too much for one year it was a 40% raise yeah and but and then to to look at the whole government um departments
each one there's a lot of double digigit raises in succession like 15 we voted as a committee yes we did I'm and it was six to one in favor the budget is here now yes and and I'm fine with that but I
just did say that you know I I share the concern and that you know operating budgets you know once you raise those they don't go back down they're every year and with all our Capital costs that we have coming up we really need to um so so let me ask a question Greg the the
the accounting clerk um that seems to be a pretty Junior position is that something that could does that have to be an employee if does could that be done with a with contract labor at all
or um not sure where you would find it contract l i I don't know that's why I'm asking you talking to the clerk's office the accounting the accounting a lot should I'm I'm just asking I mean
obviously hiring a head count is a serious commitments a long-term commitment all the way through retirement and pension so that's I'm just pointed what was pointed out to us in the discussion was
that um there are there are certain things that occur in the treasurer's office and the accountant's office that have to be kept separate um separation of Duties yes um
so know that although they could help each other a lot you still needed somebody available to do things which are time sensitive and you've got one person um and that's a
problem you know we're we're really thin we we have no backup you know we have added head count to Public Safety we're talking about adding another one
wild and and I I'm trying to understand I think part of it is your desire to see everything automated and therefore you shouldn't need to have a person to do it it's it's just it these are pretty permanent decision I mean yeah it's it's
um it's like I said it's just not a good look when we haven't even talked about the capital stuff we've got to deal with the increasing the operations budget to add head count for administrative roles is typically grounded on so I just I
felt that I'm just just want to add that I think that and let's talk you stay in the clerk's office it's got to be an interactive position yeah yeah that's I'm not saying so automating something like that no I'm talking about behind the scenes stuff when you're dealing with some of what they do is compliance
and there's a lot of compliance related stuff in the accounting Finance areas and and when you get to that level of maturity you don't need as many so we're not there yet I get that I think I'm going to suggest that we have the
presentations that Greg has suggested at our next meeting and we move on to the Capal budget yeah I think it would be good for anybody else who's interested from the resident standpoint they may not have joined the finance committee meetings either that was discuss and they can ask their questions there as
well so there's a hand up I don't know who RF is but unmute yourself AR identify yourself and share your wisdom not they take their hand down maybe they didn't mean to raise
their hand clicked that wrong button so so on the capital budget for for next year um [Music] the biggest changes include um not doing
the library window repair project for as for as much as originally recommended and that that was originally thought to be a $200,000 project for the review it's a $5,000 project which CPC has recommended
funding for um so that has been taken out um what has been added in is um funding for the runda uh that's a anticipated to be a $3.3 million project our original
thinking was to receive uh two different grants for a million dollars each one from C Cort Council and another from czm and then 300,000 from CPC um CPC has recommended the 300,000 which is the
finance committee approved as well um but we have learned that this czm grant is not a high probability um they have significantly less money to award this year um and they are focusing on projects that
directly protect people um so we do not feel um lender will will rank high we will still apply and still try we may get some money but um we're not going to get a million dollars from them um so it
was recommended to add 800,000 for the retunda and to seek additional funding um through the CPC um uh they don't have a full2 200,000 more to make that a $500,000
allocation um they could go as high as 4440 um and so a couple of options one we could uh we could do some bonding using CPC and have them pay for it over multiple
years um we could dip into additional fund balance to make up that $60,000 difference um or reduce slightly reduce one of the other capital projects to to try to come up with that
full amount for the real TDA um so there's some options there but that was a significant change from what you saw originally and then the the last significant change is adding more money into Road resurfacing um
originally the projection was for about $900,000 worth of of resurfacing repaving particularly Pleasant Street we do not have bids in yet but indication are that that is that the
bids will be coming in higher and so the truck was able to do some recalculating and it could come in as high as 1.3 million so that's an additional $400,000 and so again U we have we have
some higher um fund balance numbers about a million dollars more in fund balance and so the suggestion was I'm sorry a million million one plus 15 50 being returned from the library because they did not get the grant so that money
also flows into fund balance um so it was taking 1.2 million in fund balance 800 for the Rotunda and 400 more for Road surfacing so that was the the those represent the big changes to
the capital and what you saw back in the fall is there any risk that when the Rotunda is displaced will discover that it's not a historic preservation but a
reconstruction problem and will that affect our ability to use CPC funds so fearful that the refund itself wooden structures on the water right to have surprise
yeah and none of them rep pleas can can the CP can the CPC be used for what as sometimes call grandfather's axe same axe two new handles two new head as long as it's it's certainly
within keeping recreational right that's right the recreational part of the CPC would it would at least fall under that or qualifies for both a lot of kids jumping off that thing for recre oh yeah
and they're going to have a better jump five more feet at low TI they'll have 5 well that that's another I I immediately thought that you know I always like the three-foot raise option and that's litigated we litigated
that one we we I'm going to take that one on again yeah okay it would have made up to and got us to the 202 back to the $300,000 that we gave to the green
belill that still bothers me so I don't see that here last year we did ask that question last year okay comfortable that said we usually
com that whatever the contractor decides to do to get the Rotunda out of the way so okay and I know the discussion at the finance committee about the paving that Chuck said well he could
do it for cheaper but it's not the right job it's not the right job prices have gone up that's what and looking at the winter we're having it's makes sense to put more money
in I see everybody nodding this is really nice I can't believe what's happened to the sidewalk oh you know what we forgot during the operational budget discussion to discuss the um we said we were going to talk about snow removal
sidewalks and whether or not there was equipment needed to properly do them you know what were the expectations for a sidewalk snow clearing I that's not on our action item list and I forgot about that but uh we wanted to make sure that
we understood the expectations do they have the right equipment because a lot of people were not happy this year I think that the found of the problem was that we just had there was a Confluence EV there are some problems
that happen every year that there have been questions about sidewalks in particular when do they get done and do they have the right equipment because they keep telling us away talking to Chucky doesn't feel it's an equipment issue okay um he's
happy to come in and is it a training issue discussion about what the expectations are okay can we put that on the action item list so we don't forget it on the website no I understand and it's not accurate so that's why we we um
said we were going to discuss it it was I think at our last meeting we said we were going to have a discussion on expectations we just forgot again so I'm just asking if we can sure we have that discussion yeah so we can can that up for the the okay but there's nothing we
need to worry about from a budget perspective he's got it covered okay the the snow budget is the one we can go over right I didn't understand if equipment was different than snow budget you know so that's why I was asking that
question y okay I think we covered the changes in the capital budget un anybody okay the next item um is the FY
26 school budget which is none of us here so the what we have plugged in to the overall budget um
is 6.29 or 7.29 yeah where are we at 7.2 yes um so that assumes um what what the school has presented
this sort of model A modeling that assumes a 27% increase on their health insurance which is the Big Driver there um and some some reduction in administrative
staff going forward uh further further the Middle School principal okay they're not talking about Beyond Middle School principal and and finance
facility correct and then there's some reduction in sections at the high school as they shift the staff to elementary school sorry I just want to make sure I heard that so the 7.2 n buget whatever umis
conses no Middle School principal and no facilities that's what you're saying okay I just want to make sure part of the conversation that was the mid-range one right and it had the 27% Insurance increase that fact a correct correct so that's that's our
assessment increase S6 would have around 8% increase oh the 7.2 is our it's our a portion me share increase so
um school committee is meeting tomorrow evening to further talk about their budget U with the goal of making a final decision on on the so as I say this the budget that was
given in your packet assumed that 7.9 7.29 increase it's uh it's roughly a million dollars more from from from the interest so um how S6 responds to that
uh certainly would will require an override to do that they were not successful in passing an override last year so it's it's a bit of a question mark obviously going forward but we don't need an override in
order to absorb that so we have enough Levy excess Levy capacity um so what we're showing is a 3.5% increase so that's a percentage Point higher than than the
prop two and a half liation not using unused Levy capacity I'm sorry I don't think she's using unused Levy capacity I think the the 660 is the um Capital exclusion which brings the total to the 3.5
increase um sure you can view it that way it's all depends on how you want to because that she's showing she's showing additional unused Ling capacity that she we thought we didn't want to use we we still have unused leing capacity
even with this higher number but it does go down it's 659 right but if without that school increase it would have been 1.3 in excess living capacity
so the reason why I I view it that way is because that Capital exclusion was the same this year as next year so there's no chain from a taxpayer's autop pocket perspective but it's it's all fundable right it's a little
fundable in terms of how you view it so needless to say um the the current proposal that that we're showing in the budget um may not get approved at at at the A6 to meeting obviously
there's a question that Manchester but I'm less doubtful about Manchester's vote than 6's vote and uh it could well be this is the year we have to go to a super town meeting I
just don't know if the override is turned down the school committee can reduction then the question is will Manchester produce prove we come into that Dynamic when essex's time meeting is
after us right it's the week after us it is is l oh okay and and the Poss it's possible that it will pass our
meeting and fail at the bot as as an over and that's happened before uh question an or Greg so is is the intention to use the extra Levy capacity for uh the extra monies that
are needed strategically does it make sense to use that or to look at an override for us as well so ter go ahead you guys you talked we talked about it John and I think that what we decided
was it wasn't that much money that was needed as an override so it didn't make sense um we didn't want to do the entire increase in the school budget as an override because that would be a lot and
the Delta's the Delta is only about $300,000 okay so it's pretty small yeah so it just didn't because originally I really wanted to do it with an noote ride to have people vote in the ballot but as the numbers come out it just didn't make
we decided it didn't make sense okay I understand for the low number you're asking a lot of people to do a lot of thinking for a small number right so the other thing is we're planning to have a pretty big override next year uh
yes no not no it isn't that all in two years I hope it isn't no there will be another one so those are Deb exclusions deter that's a
borrowing we've already approved that okay outside the cap L the 2 and half% yeah it's a cap well there are significantly different I know they are but as far as what you're
paying okay um I don't think we can make any more progress on the school budget than we have made I think we all understand where it is um see dial in tomorrow and find there
tomorrow sitting on my hands um one of them over mouth to keep from doing something really stupid maybe you need some duct tape thank you facilities um so um
looking at again talked that length about this at the finance commit the other night um walking through a fairly complicated spreadsheet um that shows and if people want to have it in front
of them I can walk through it again as well can you just put it up on the scre sure in case in case there's somebody outside who's looking at this and trying to imagine what we're talking about spread sheet I mean it's you know the upside of the PRC coming to our
meeting as we get the comfortable seats I know at you guys look I mean you know we've got our desks okay um this is a slightly revised version than what I handed you
um but um it's very very very similar um is this version four this is version four revised lightly so you didn't send ver 4.1 4.1 4.1 um dat I I I just I just did it late
this I saw a couple of errors in in version four it's minor but I can I can highlight it for you I will certainly send this out to everybody um so we we begin on on the far left listing the possible project now obviously lots of
assumptions but this is uh a stab at what if what if we did all of these is is there any way to afford at all um and so we have starting off the water and sewer that was that's already been approved that was approved last year for 7.5
million and I'm assuming a 15-year um bond for payback and so I'm showing it um partially in play half of it in play for FY
26 U so it would cost The Debt Service on half of that is 315,000 26 um and then on down you can see the various projects dredging past tapen Street Bennett Street DPW garage the S6
Elementary School public safety building a town hall rehab various resiliency projects including culbert redu and seaw wall improvements um and then at the very end
of this 25e period um a major investment in relocating the sewer plant 2050 so then so the amounts in millions are shown and then the terms of those bonds
from 10 to 30 years so then so I so what what's the new what's the new debt service for those projects for each accumulative Debt Service each year for the for the different debt Services as they get
implemented and then we have Revenue sources so then here I'm showing the water Capital fee that's the meter fees that have been imposed that people got for the first time the most recent water
water bill so that'll amount to 500,000 a year so that's how I'm anticipating paying for FY 26's water projects in in terms of borrowed monies some monies for p and some monies
for the water and sewer upgrades um other revenues U phasing in the CST project when it comes online and and starts paying property taxes I'm showing reallocation of pound
debt so as we retire existing Town debt reallocate those dollars to help pay for New Town debt debt similarly for school debt as that school debt Rose off reallocating it to pay for new
debt as we retire our liabilities for um retirees the OPB liability which is health insurance and the pension liability so again when those roll off we can then reallocate those dollars that we're currently using and also
start drawing down um the opem fund once it's fully funded we can start drawing it we can start using those dollars to help with that annual expense so then I show um tax revenue needed and then the cumulative tax
revenue and then what's added new tax so for 26 for next year um I'm not showing any new taxes need for uh the debts I'm showing 5.75 million in new bonded
monies 3.75 for the water um project the meters and 2 million for starting in on the P work being paid for by that water meter field of 500,000 that's a bonding of I didn't
write it down and I forgot already 7.5 which was approved last year which we haven't actually bonded for yet so we probably what we do is an on anticipation note yeah for for for this 26 I I am I am interested because
there's a fair amount of agitation online about we're not doing anything we're poisoning ourselves with our water and it would be nice to have a number to say this is what we expect to spend on this Friday if you look at the very bottom end yeah so pfas pfas are 2 Mill
milon in 26 and then 6 million in 27 right 28 is nothing okay thank you so this so this then continue so in 27 um I'm showing the
full amount of that 7 that riginal 7.5 being bonded and and costing now 630,000 a year Debt Service U more P money so now that's up to $672,000 a year in in
payments um restart the tap and Street project restart the DPW garage so that new amount of debt service is 1.5 and then how does that get paid for we use some of the revenue
sources that we can re direct or have put towards it but also we have that 460,000 in new new taxation needed and that would result in a 1.5% uh tax needed to raise that
additional money above and beyond whatever operating expense increase there is so if it was a typical year of 2 to 2 and a half% um for your oper operating expense you'd be looking at that 3 and 1 half to
4% overall tax increase great so this continues year after year when the different projects come on board what I'm trying to show in the color bands is when the full amount of that new bond is being
um paid for so again in 27 we have the full 7.5 being fully loaded in 28 we have the full 2.5 in dredging fully loaded in 29 we're showing full four
million for tapen Street fully loaded aren't we doing dredging every 10 years I'm sorry aren't we doing dredging every 10 years a different section every 10 years so don't we need to so I haven't included that in this model okay
um um the reason I didn't include it was I'm making the assumption that it'll be self-supporting by then for the next round with the additional revenues for the transit Dock and increased moing
fees Etc again lots of assumptions that are in this model assumptions that will no doubt change as As Time rows along do we have to hit a flag before our total debt service hits 10% of our budget
is that a number we want to try to stay under through all this or look at wasn't that like a counting for cou Bond ratings and stuff it it was a Target yeah yes yes so that might be something
we get close to down the RO yes yeah you you will begin to exceed it in in the 30s none of us will be here so uh jumping down to the bottom just what I
was trying to do was was U spread this out the very first model showed 2 and a half% more or less additional tax increases for five straight years um so what I've tried to do is spread that out
so this is now spread out over seven-year period and the highest year is 1.7% we got they said two of them at 1 1.64 and 1.7 um I tried to alternate them doesn't
quite work out that way terms of a higher year and a lower year but it ranges from you know half a percent to one 1.7% so FY 31 is now 1.7 it's not 2.36
right yes that's the change that you'll see I push that out the year just to try to lower that big big number the DPW you did thate moving the
DPW out spreading it out when we fully load the Deb service so the other thing I'll just highlight here is um when we get to where am I 30 yeah 34 you see a negative
number in terms of additional rip funds to raise and that's because we haven't added new bonds but we have been able to add additional Revenue sources so for example the second I'm assuming the
second phase of CST has come on board um and so what I recommending do with these negative numbers is basically you apply it towards that catchall of resiliency
projects whether it be seaw wall beefing up seaw walls improving expanding the size of some coverts working our way Upstream so Brook um
waterproofing you the town hall or Etc I'm sure we have no shortage in there won't be any shortage of so it it totals about I forget what I have here 30 changed down me because I when I push
things out it lowers that number a bit yeah 30 30 million ju just under 31 million over that 25 year period so it is a good good chunk of change no doubt that assumes you know that you don't that you keep the the
taxes at the same higher rate that they were that you're not lowering them as debt comes off or as other money has become available you're applying it towards additional projects what so New Growth I assume that that
200,000 a year um and I kept that as part of operating I didn't I didn't apply it towards this okay the only New Growth I applied here was CST okay about the 100 units on on paper I did
not I did not do that okay so again lots of assumptions um and things will change but it does provide at least a framework I think for start thinking about all of these different
projects um again decisions have to be made which ones actually are going to go forward um this this includes the list of the major ones we've been talking about in one shape or form or another another and it it presents a path
forward albe it it's certainly hiking taxes um this this isn't showing what might be happening in terms of school budget in terms of potential overrides there um so that's all in the
mix and that all has to be factored in um but as as a exercise of seeing how this might map out I think it starts to become reachable not everything U but it it I was
encouraged by it I guess is what I want to say is that it wasn't quite as impossible as as I first thought it might time you did an iteration it got a little it got a little bit that's a really good direction we we keep you know I keep oh yeah the the oped money we can start drawing down I
had forgotten about that so we put that in we're the OPB is being fully funded in two and a half years versus six and a half years um so we're ahead of schedule there so that's the kind of fine-tuning
that will continue to happen as you go forward um but I think it it does provide a a viable albe an expensive path forward you f Elementary at 27 million
that you're figuring that as the overall cost or our por figur that's our share get that's a guess right right that's Greg question so in Bill Keegan's report he
made some mention about um the harbor becoming an Enterprise fund somewhere in the future are you sort of thinking about that on this long range where it would be basically self- sustaining yes okay that's so I am showing one more dredging
but then I don't show the other dredgings not the line that doesn't have to be an Enterprise fund though true right the challenge with the Enterprise fund is it brings in extra Revenue can't we can't use it right and water is where we tend
to bring an extra Revenue that's right a heard that argument before so um not looking for a sign off on this right now it's just a sort of status report of where this modeling is um I I
I hope it's useful to folks as you think about these major projects really good spreadsheet I think you know part of um what I think you know Finn colum and and you Greg have been focused on is how do
you smooth out the bumps right to try and that's that's all we can do at this point but as we start to talk about the individual projects especially the buildings we really got to focus on requirements what are the
absolute needs versus the other wishlist things that may be in some of these estimates you know and and we haven't had that discussion yet so I hope we can have those discussions before the plans get too far down you know the line for
sure for sure um it's a lot easier to lower numbers than it is to raise them one of the real advantages though here and and we talked about since exactly a year ago when we met with you is that a lot of times we sit here in these meetings and meetings and meetings
trying to guess what the voters want or don't want and you know we talk about fire we talk about police and we talk about DPW and everything else and a lot of it's guesswork and I think the advantage of this spreadsheet is that hopefully coordinates between selectman
and finance committee and others what the long range outline looks like and we can talk to that as opposed to rolling up on the next year and Greg or his successor says well we've done the engineering for the DTW building are we ready to do it now and everybody looks
at each other and goes well what else is on the plate and we're all like well what else is on the plate when and this is a very good penciled road map and and I would hope that the Selectmen could do their best to reach out to the
population at large and say do you like this or do you're not like it because really we every year we're sitting here trying to figure out what are people G to put their end up for that you too can reach out oh yeah do we
do but I think but that's part of what I I I agree with that wholeheartedly but I think some of the when I talk to Residents what they ask is okay we need a new D next thing on the list is you know DPW building right they they ask the questions right what do you mean by
that you're you're you want to build more than what they have why and so then you get into the requirements discussion for you know wants versus needs and I have no answers because when I you know when we look at the facilities master plan it just doesn't have that level of
detail so the easiest way to explain the DPW is to walk them up there show no no no it's that's not what I'm getting at it's it's a mess right so you know you need something new but what they're proposing includes garage space for vehicles that don't have garage space
right now right it includes administrative buildings that are here now versus now they want to have it there so that's basically you're asking them to build asking the residents to approve a bigger facility than what we have nobody's asked anybody to do
anything no no no I'm just saying but but it's bigger than what we have so we have when we start talking to the residents we got to be prepared to We Can't yeah this is you're you're ahead of my skis understand but I was just getting
to the point about at the reason I brought it up was because you said start you know we can start talking to Residents and that's what where my mind went when I talk to them about this stuff these are the questions they ask me and I have zero answers so Z was talking about the communications
director and how we did so well in 3A right exactly and I have said this before isn't that something this person should do Absolut that's a but slam dun there was before the passport started
communicating we spent quite a long time figuring out what we wanted to do right and with the DPW garage as as Kathy points out we haven't decided what we want to do exactly yeah that's not going to be easy it takes a rope back yeah yeah so better get
started right well I think the talks have been seems to be more than what we need right that's what you're getting at we're going to need in 10 years though right well no I mean we're
talking about a different configuration than what we have okay which is Administrative space being removed from this facil you know DPW not being admin atively in this building being somewhere else so that's more space in the new DPW
facility Plus Garage space for vehicles like pickup trucks and things like that when I walk in downtown a lot of people who live downtown Manchester don't have garages so you know you got to be prepared to but these also don't do the wrong maintenance on their own no no no
I'm just saying these are the types of questions that we're going to ask just a second it's getting toward 9:30 we're beginning to talk in circles um yes there has to be a design we have to have we have Elementary beginning design decide whether that's what we
want what we need but that we're talking stuff that's still a year out um and I don't want to be here at 10:30 so part of that design process will give options yes exactly so there's
option A here's option b here's option C this is what you get for a b and c and the differences at that point we start talking to people about talking outside the volunteers yes agre okay um unless anyone has something
really important in novel to say about long range planning um I think we are going to move on whatever it is that's night the count administrative report I do I have
second all in favor okay thank you very much for your time and effort and explanations [Music] we're just looking at each other making CH I will be um so just an update on the
senior senat getting our person sale agreement nailed down with Mas that's making good progress in the last few weeks and um condle dos we should have that hopeful ready
for you meeting in two weeks pment give be last last edits um and also underway is the fundraising planning so we have hired a consulting
firm using State money that we received for this effort outlining sort of the game plan putting that game plan together for the fundraising identifying potential key donors and and putting together the
collateral materials that would be used to approach people foring ific contributions to the project we've also received rfps for The Architects to do the design work produce
the bid documents and construction documents um we have two very very strong proposals from two different firms and we'll be vetting those in the next couple weeks having that U having
that ready um so uh didn't note this earlier but I did in my notes to you about U funding for that effort finance committee was of a mind that it would be best to um use donated funds to pay for
that architectural work um we would prefer to hold off on the bonding that would be necessary until after at least the bulk of the funds have been raised you had talked about doing that opposite order uh
the professional Consultants they you know they've said they've seen it either way they said it can be a small boost to fundraising if you show that you've already got the funding um but it's not significant from what they say in terms
of the impact it's really a local decision preference so so I you know having listened in on that meeting um um I I am now in agreement with what the finance committee recommended and the
reason I'm changing my perspective on that is because one of the comments that they made was as far as fundraising goes we showed our interest by buying the darn building okay that ought to be enough to show that the town
is serious about having a senior center that was reason number one reason number two is gosh I don't want to go into that meeting without a without actually having bought the property we haven't signed anything yet and I it's just taking so
long I'm like oh my God I think that that from a numbers from col from your point of view columns it makes sense I think we have a social responsibility okay to our
seniors and uh I I don't see the downside to doing construction and fundraising concurrently okay and we're going to but if we do the fundraising be with the bulk of the fundraising we're going
to delay construction it's going to we're going to probably end up in the middle of a year we're not I think that uh there is an expectation the seniors have waited well over 10 years for this and I think we owe it to the
seniors uh and I don't see a downside to doing the fundraising and the construction at the same time it's a it's a new I mean as Greg pointed out the library and glossa did it it's a new paradigm as far as uh as far as uh
fundraising and donating the I know Mass development offered uh something like this 20 years ago to a project I was looking at so I I I am strongly in favor of let's get this thing started the position of the finance committee was
also the fact that um when we agreed to recommend the million dollars to purchase the building last year it was on the basis that the town would not fund any additional portion of that
project and if the town Town issues a bond the town is on the hook for living up to the commitment we already made yeah and we shown enough interest or we reluctantly agreed recommended that
million dollars to be honest I would just note that author authorizing the bond is not the same as issuing the bond trains out of the Station trains out of the station when you authorize
it the authorization is is Greg would it be uh useful for the this uh fundraising group to say attend our meeting uh in two weeks that's going to be one heck of a
meeting in two weeks I'm I'm not sure what's on the agenda I know but they only get more complex the closer we get to the annual meeting but um I hear you know it might be useful I would like to hear from them
directly I I have I have a question um if we're going to do a bond it has to be voted by town meeting and it has to be voted at the election and we can present this to the town meeting saying if you authorize
this Bond we will start building now and we will fill it with donations but you don't know if you will yeah that's people won't either so the earliest you can get that under construction is basically next January by the time you
do the the know design process and the bitting process it's it's going to be next January before you break crab uh that's the earliest is there is there a way to get some design funds so that we can at least show people a picture of what they're fundraising will
be a lot easier with something you know what they're donating to oh but we have to have that you have to have that joh you you speak to the seniors all the time yes now they don't they don't know much about fundraising but they're raising their hand several of them certainly want to be involved in
all of this but in any any fundraising initiative you've certainly got to have a draft design of this is what the money is going to it's it's a key part of the story and they're all about putting together a story and the design that we currently
have is I think not sufficient it's I agree an it's it's really just the very starting point we need something that's a little more has been vetted a bit more you and I exchanged emails about this what you have right now is essentially
what they call a test fit which is taking the interior and seeing everything fits right and you therefore have an architect who did that work right yes so I think you were going to go back to that architect we didn't authorize the money excuse me we didn't
authorize the money I know you didn't I'm not talking about authorizing the money let me just finish per say and and talk to that Arch about making whatever the depictions are that you want here and using donated money for that cost that's that that would be that'll be the
route we take if we don't have any additional mons but that that's part of the reach out early reach out to donors is I we're talking about5 to $10,000 Max I mean that's to pretty up to pretty up what we have yes if if if you want to
undertake if you want to advance the designed to a more final form before you make the pretty pictures that it's going to take more money than how much Greg 50,000 so 50,000 so I think the question to go back to the fundraisers is how quickly can you get 50k and if they say
it's it's G to be you know an anointed amount of time to raise that 50k okay then you know maybe we revisit the bond but I don't if we haven't asked a question I think maybe maybe what I'm is can we at least ask the question how how fast can they get their hands on that
kind of money to advance the design because I agree with with the need for something more more of a rendering than what all right so so the question is with with the current rendering can you get 50,000 with the current rendering so we can get three million with a much
better rendering I don't think we're going to settle this one tonight I no let me do some more homework and I can tee up some some information for you come up with a timeline as to fully funding with
fundraising my goal would be to I mean I know they can't give you a definite but is there like typically it' be 12 to 18 months is what they would say that they they're encouraged by the the community here they think
might be shorter here but uh you know you never know for sure uh but they're they're pretty optimistic from a perspective I'm sorry from my perspective is we could retire the debt when at ribbon cutting well you can't and I'm all for
doing that but you can't guarantee that okay so it takes ex year no but you but you need to let people know that what when they vote on it they got to know that that's well can the the it
will be presented that way which is different than how it was presented last year which is been change okay and we'll come back and say hey guys we have a different perspective now than we did a year ago and so then two years from now
when you don't get the donations things change I think still we still have a respon the sense is it's going to cost a lot more than 2.5 million who senses that Andy who who's in the construction
business okay so we're asking three I me the the the two architects we interviewed with their they professional estimators they were certainly they weren't comfortable with 2 million they were very comfortable with three and they think we could do it for 2.5 no and
I'm not I'm not arguing the cost I'm just saying is that uh I just feel that we and I I keep on coming back I'm beating the dead horse obviously and I'm the only one that's in this uh feeling is that yes we can look at columns and
numbers and we can look at lifestyle right and we we sit here and we're talking about the schools and our kids but we keep forgetting about the seniors I I agree I agree with that I
don't think I'm certainly not saying that I'm just not at all it's just that that you we have a very big list of very expensive things and the sen Center is very important to me
but but the people that are uh who need it the most might not have those uh those checkbook the the the pockets for that disagree with that we can agree we can agree disagree
you're disagreeing with me on my point I'm disagree with you on your town right there are seniors and seniors and the people who go to the senior center
are um tend tend to be less affluent than the people who spend their Winters in in Hawaii the yeah exactly uh they're the ones that can't afford to they're only looking forward to going
to the senior center for the winter let's let's continue the discussion y probably get some more inform when do we have to have a decision because it has to go into the warrant and if we are going so you have
to finalize that warant under April second the second one no no the first one be the seventh seventh doesn't the warrant go into the fincom report I thought it did yes yes so we may have
to do a special meeting April April 1 April first Monday in April sorry when do we meet so April 1 is a Tuesday so we may need a special meeting on the 31st you finalize your report on the 27th or
it sounds like 31st now want you to work hard we think it's good for you we think better sleep good we'll get right on it thank you thank
you finish up here wasn't short um 3A is an unfunded mandate I think most of you know the state auditor came out with a written opinion concluding that the zoning law is is an
unfunded mandate that was her opinion um the AG's office has already come out and says she strongly disagrees with that opinion she'll defend it in court U uh regardless the the auditor the state
included in her own opinion and explain that the way that a town could follow up on on her opinion would be to seek a waiver from from a judge
take it to court seek seek a waiver from from the Mandate claiming it's an unfunded mandate um so we would not have a very strong leg to stand on if we were to do that because a we we received funding from
the state to to develop the proposal and we did a an impact analysis that indicated that the development that would result would would not have a negative impact on our fiscal
standing um so I so a it was funded and second it's not to F it's not is not causing a additional cost um so um so that's that's the process um
that any town would would have to pursue um but it's town by town but it's town by town so this issue isn't going away okay it seems like every other week There's a new you know a decision that's come forth because some Town decided to sue
on this aspect you know the whole 3A conversation hasn't gone away because we have our and so what I was wondering is um is there a way for us
to you know kind of just I know you're keeping a breast of it but not sure how quickly we can communicate to the town hey you know what we know this happened but here's how it does or does not affect us because there's just a lot of
churn going on in terms of conversation and social media and retirement you know I'm just there's a communication aspect that there's um an operational aspect to this you know it's not going away anytime soon and I just feel like if we
don't communicate on I don't know I'm just asking and it shouldn't be on you to necessarily do that you know um but just a little bit of caution that we don't respond to every yes right no understand
yeah no that's true because we don't who knows what's going to happen tomorrow I'm just saying there's a lot of you know so residents have been emailing us asking us you know are we doing anything about this so the information on
those um that that information isn't getting out to everybody right you know the response doesn't get out to everybody so I'm just wondering is there anything we want maybe we don't want to do anything about that but I'm just um yeah yeah we can try to do more I don't
know if it's a you know part of a weekly thing in the cricket or I don't know it's just if you have bandwidths to just go over the um yeah so so yes like defy and I
talk pretty regularly on what's what's what's the chatter out there so I don't follow but she does and so you know want to so so you can try to and if if you're feeling a need for something let me know and we can I think that would be a good
topic to take up um because it is there is a lot of chatter and and everybody assumes that somewhere there's a worm Wormhole and we can get into another universe and not have this happen but and I just don't think it's going to end anytime soon that's the only reason I
bring it up because I just don't think it's gonna end anytime soon oh it's Never Ending Story with this okay um screening update uh you can read what I wrote if they're underway
they have any interviews this week and we are targeting that April 3rd time frame four o' start the interviews we'll have two or three depending what the recommendation is
so if you can plan on that that's helpful and uh was that the third April it was a Thursday right Thursday the third yes and then assuming you're going to want to
sort of sleep on it make a decision maybe on the seventh yeah and then just totally unrelated to anything else as a part of the cyber security it's highly recommended that we we transition our domain name to
a.gov rather than our manchester. us um so we were going to use Manchester ma.gov oh man our email address is all Chang that is so hard it's I'll give two months to let people
know right well they'll be they'll be both will be functional one will automatically yeah kick you to the other one yes there'll be a transition period where better be about a six-year transition right well we know who needs it the rain needs
it yeah this that is happens it's way what do you anticipate couple three months yeah I would say so four months okay lots of other towns are use orgs and comms and they
do and that's um it's they're advising us the best practices to use the do go it helps identify legitimate legitimate stuff naming conventions that's part of
it that's the biggest decision we have to make that's the one that's gonna I don't my experience has been that when you change the name of your C and you change your email addresses everything goes to hell for about a year oh what is Greg
here he's not gonna be right for noce he's making the change right what happens right after he's gone do I hear a motion motion to adj motion toj
second yes yes John yes Kathy yes answer is yes and Brian yes sign license oh I won't give it out I Z huh aen that's what I was all
scribbling about oh ah so you're the one with get all practice my signature a while oh God why you depress because I don't sign anything anymore e