Otherwise, I expect that Lindsay will show, and I certainly hope she does. I'm going to forego, given the um the nature of this meeting, I'm going to forego the pledge of allegiance, but I will do the u the script as required um
for the meeting. Oops, wrong one. In accordance with the open meeting law regulation 940 CMR 29.1, all of our members tonight are attending this meeting remotely as is are all
participants. Hi Lindsay, thanks for joining us. Uh in addition, because we're all attending remotely, all of our votes taken at this meeting will be by roll call vote. Lastly, if any of us are not clearly
audible to any other members or to any members of the public, please let us know and um we'll act immediately to do what's best to remedy the pro the problem and inform the public on whether or not the meeting will continue. One other point I wanted to make. In the
unlikely event that there is like a Zoom bomb that comes in, um Greg Wilson will shut us down immediately and then the plan is that he will reactivate this the um the Zoom meeting and we'll we'll rejoin
right there immediately afterwards as soon as we have a quorum. Uh so that would be the plan. Before we begin tonight's meeting, I did want to um ask the members to um recognize the passing of our former um moderator Jim Coleman
passed away uh over the last few days. Um those of us who knew Jim, and I think most of us did, uh recognized the kind man that he was and the influence that he had on many of us and many of those in town. He served many years as
everybody knows as our town moderator and he also served not only recently on the planning board but in his past he was a member of the planning board as well. Um he was a tremendous mentor to me especially early on in my time
getting involved in in town government and I will miss him tremendously and I'm sure that um a lot of us will and I know a lot of members of town will as as well. So, I'd like to ask if you would if you would join me in a brief moment
of silence in Chim's memory. Thank you. And if you all have something to say about Jim, feel free. Um, you know, he was just such a remarkable individual. We we all saw him at parades. We saw him at all sorts of events. So feel free if you do have
anything you want to say feel free >> anybody including members of the public and if not we will we will move on. Um so the first item on our agenda is um public comments.
Um, the board would like to hear public comments and if there's any further action that's required by us, we will add the matter as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda. Depending upon the comment, we may, if appropriate, under the confines of the open meeting law,
respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on a matter. So, having said that, is there anybody in the audience that would like to make a public comment? If so, just please raise your uh remote hand, electronic hand as
they call it, I guess. And I don't see any hands going up, so we can move on. Um, first item beyond that on the agenda is the consent agenda. There are three items on the agenda uh for consent
agenda. Use of town property by the Maynard business alliance for the spring art week art walk rather which is May 2nd. Use of town property by the Maynard Stow Baseball softball Babe Ruth league for games and practices April through August. And then lastly a cemetery deed.
So if there's a motion to accept the consent agenda. >> I will move to approve consent agenda items A through C as presented. Contingent upon the adherence to all federal, state, and local public health and safety guidance authorizing the use
of digital signatures if approved. >> Second. >> Second. >> Motion's made and seconded. Any further comments or questions? Hearing none, we'll have a roll call. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes.
>> Nami, yes. as well. Uh we have a 7:15 um public hearing, but we'll skip over that because it's not 7:15 yet. And um we'll move on to the tree committee uh comments on item six, assuming the tree
committee members that wish to be here to be heard on this item are here. Um that's item five, I guess, on the true agenda. Um donation and acceptance of planting. Who can speak to that? and let us know what's going on.
>> We can, Mr. Gavin, and thank you to the board for letting us speak this evening. Um, we uh the tree committee intends to uh plant an additional six trees downtown this spring. Um, we've worked
with, uh, Justin DeMarco in approving the sites and we'll be hopefully moving forward with some of his assistance in getting that done um to add to the downtown arboritum this spring. We're
hoping to do that work on Saturday, April 18th. Um, it will be a relatively um quick planting. We should be done by noon time or so. Um we have a good group of volunteers um that will be helping
us. So we're hoping that um the uh board will move forward and accept the donation of the six trees to the town and give us permission to plant on on that date. Um in addition, we are going to be um we're asking permission to use
Memorial Park for um this year's Arbor Day celebration. Um we'll be doing a uh a dedication of the arboritum downtown at that time. We'll be doing uh um my wife and I will be donating
approximately 50 trees to for free to uh folks in town. So um in addition to that, we'll be doing a tree demonstration. So we're trying to make a small event of it. Again, it's going to run somewhere between 10:00 and
um and 11:30 or so. Maybe a little earlier for people to grab coffee and and donuts and such. And then it'll we should be finished up by 11:30 or so. That >> Oh, this is our house. >> Oh, sorry. Um that uh the tree that
we're hoping to plant in memorial will also be a donation from Lizar and I. Um, and we'll be having, like I said, a planting demonstration. And we're hoping that some of the folks that are taking free trees can come and learn about planting and kind of native trees and stuff. So, kind of a piece of education,
a little bit of dedication, and um, it should be a it should be a good event. And that will be on the 25th, April 25th. That's what we're looking for. >> So, there there's two dates that you're looking for. One is on one is on the 18th. >> The other 18th is Arbor Day. No, the
Arbor Day falls I think the Friday following that. So that's Saturday on the 18th will be the plant. Our hope is that we get the six trees in so that during the dedication we can point them out to folks again as recently planted
um trees. We're hoping to do something um possibly one or two trees that are a little bit different than what we've been planting. So again to drive some interest in the arboritum downtown and then the dedication, the planting and the tree giveaway will be the following weekend in Memorial Park
>> which is the 25th. So you need you need approval. You need approval to use the property. >> Well, correct on both dates essentially. >> We No, we won't be memorial. >> No, we won't be on memorial and the 18th of the locations are there's a couple of
uh there's a tree in front of sanctuary. There's one in front of um uh Kind Goods. They're in several locations, but they're all again downtown. >> So, it's just the use of the public property for that >> for for the 25th. Correct. >> Got it. All right. Any questions from
members of the board? First off, before I forget, Steve, thank you uh as always for your contributions, not only to uh uh you and Elizabeth, but also to the entire uh tree committee and all those who are working with you to uh bring a
canopy of trees to Maynard where some have been lost over time. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good group. >> Comments from the board. I I'll I'll echo everything that David said and then the the visuals of the presentation or where the trees are
going to go just simple and and informative and easy to understand what's about to happen. So I appreciate that as well. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? Hearing none. I will accept a motion.
I will move to accept the tree donated by Steven Liza Smith for planting in Memorial Park in conjunction with Arbor Day and to approve the tree plantings proposed for April 18th, 2026 as presented. >> Seconded.
>> Any further comments or questions? Seeing none, we'll roll call. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> And I am a yes as well. The second item is the tree giveaway event at Memorial Park on the 25th.
>> I'll move to approve the use of Memorial Park by the tree committee for their tree giveaway event on April 25th, 2026 as presented and authorized use of digital signatures if approved. >> Second. >> Any further questions or comments? Seeing none, we'll vote. Chris,
>> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> I am a yes as well. Thank you, Steve. Keep up the good work as always. >> Thank you, everyone. Have a great night. >> You, too. >> Thank you, everyone.
>> Thank you, Steve. >> Um, we're gonna I'm gonna skip over to uh Greg. The um the House Doctor design seems to be a pretty quick hit typically when we do it. Can you go through what is this a new one, a renewal? Where are we at?
>> Actually, it's a little bit of both. So, we're familiar with um uh I think he's on with us. Yeah, Ed. So Ed Dilvio um we've been contracted with in the past anyway. So Ed's representing another design firm who is was responsive to the
RFQ um and and I as I said I kind of apologize for sort of rolling issue about this but we do try to keep in touch with the design firms but be this is um because there's not necessarily a project. It's it's like we're sort of like an open house. We're trying to get
these design firms to to to be on our roles. So anyways, Ed is joined with us this evening. Ed, if you could say hi, who you are, who you represent, and uh I don't know, that's it. But otherwise, it's a pretty it's a pretty st it's the standard contract um for House Doctors.
And I'm happy to have Ed's sort of responsiveness. Ed, who who are you? >> Great. Thank you. Thank you, Greg, and thank you to the board uh for having me this this evening here. Um my name is Ed D Salvio. I'm with Ganet Fleming. Uh we're an architecture and engineering firm in Boston. uh very happy to be
considered for one of the house doctor contracts. As Greg mentioned, uh myself and members of my structural engineering staff actually at a prior form worked for the for the town. Uh did some work at one of the athletic fields and the bleaches. So um we I kept the band
together. Uh we're at Ganon Fleming now and I head up the um we call it the buildings and places practice. It's architects, structural engineers, MEP engineers, vertical transportation engineers. um under the umbrella of called buildings and places. So we're in
Boston. Again, it's actually a national firm. So we uh bring national expertise and municipal uh building projects, uh town halls, public safety, um schools, K through 12 uh facilities. So we're we're happy to be considered for this
opportunity to serve the town. >> Thank you, Ed. Uh any questions from the board for either Ed or for Greg? Seeing none, we >> Was this Was there a comment comment? >> No. Okay. Uh, we will vote. Chris,
>> yes. >> Mike, >> thank you. And yes, >> did we make a motion? >> I don't think we made a motion. Let me let me let me rectify that. I'll move to approve the contract with Ganet Fleming Engineers and Architects PC to serve as a house doctor for on call design
services and authorized use of digital signatures if approved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Sorry about that. Now we'll vote. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes.
>> And I am a yes as well. Thank you, Ed. >> Thank you. Appreciate opportunity. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Madam Chair, for letting him come and go. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> We are now at 7:15 approximately. We're getting there. Um, but we can't start anything else. So,
we'll just wait for the clock to tick to 7:15 um to begin the uh the public hearing. I would bring the attention to the board
for this public hearing that there were a couple of emails we got from residents that came in today on this topic um forformational purposes. They were both essentially of the same concern that we
can talk about when we get into the public hearing. Although uh based on the way this all evolved um you know although they're interesting comments and important comments to understand uh I don't think it really legally can uh
affect what is being asked of us at this point. All right. It is 7:15. I will read the uh the read the advertisement. Notice is hereby given in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws chapter 138 as amended that a public hearing will be
held on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 at 7:15. Although it says at town hall, room 2011 195 Main Street, Maynard, Mass 01754. It was this meeting was moved to remote due to weather concerns. And this is to
consider the application for a change of category of a section 15 package store license from wine and malt beverages to all alcoholic beverages for Maynard Corner Store LLC DBA Maynard Corner Store manager
Patel at 49 Walnut Street Maynard Mass. Um, and there is a hybrid option, the only option tonight for attendance via Zoom access using access instructions on the posted agenda to be found at www. townofnard-mma.gov
and a copy of the application is on file in the office of the select board. Um so the public hearing is open and we have with us do we a member somebody representing or somebody actually from
the maned corner store is that correct? >> Yep. >> Who do we have >> Mr. Patel? We can't see you or can you speak up and just introduce yourself? >> Yeah this is Morges Patel. actually I'm in the car but uh so I'm little driving
but uh I didn't so >> yeah so I hear that uh things and uh uh I got the email from the Greg and he's a concern about something uh there was a couple of issues
but uh I already mentioned uh to today on email and also when we have a public hearing last here we also mention about that things so uh what is that uh things I am uh
understand very well but uh uh I don't know what's going to be say that you know >> yeah I I I understand sir and um just for public record purposes um this is all associated with a home rule petition that was filed by the town of Maynard
after a town meeting vote by the uh town meeting voters in October of 2024 um to allow for an application to the state relative to an additional all alcoholic license. And so we are
complying with the approval given to uh the town by town meeting back in October of 2024. The issues that were raised, although they are concerning and important for us to recognize, are ones
that probably could have been discussed at that town meeting vote. I don't remember if there were any de was there was any raising of the issues or debate at that meeting on the topic. Uh but certainly we were always concerned about
uh the issues that came up were concerns about people leaving trash or people hanging out at the uh at the playground in the area um late at night or whatever. Um you know I don't know I understand the concern but I don't know
if we see that at our other locations that have um all alcohol sales where people hang out and uh and drink. So, it' have to be patrolled just like any other location. And I'm sure the police the police department is aware of that and would be looking out for it. And for
trash, we uh are always out looking to pick up trash if if it's out there and visible and hopefully people are respectful to the neighborhood. So, well, those are the comments that I would have. Um um are there any questions from the board relative to what the issue is
before us or what the proposal is for Mr. Patel. >> Yeah, I have a couple questions that may not be from Mr. Patel actually. Um, but in the most recent email that we received with concerns about this, Greg,
this might be a question for you. Um, the person emailing said that they didn't receive any notice of this hearing. I'm wondering what the process is for notifying people of a public hearing. And it I'm I'm I'm guessing we satisfied whatever our legal requirements are, but um what is that process?
>> That's a good question. So it depends on what the action or the permit may be. Um generally uh public notice requires posting the agenda. Sometimes it also requires a newspaper posting. Um but
rarely there are instances and I'm kind of blanking on when it is but rarely do we have to do direct mailings to a like a proximity to a to to a property whatever the case may be. That's different I think for the planning board. you notify a >> but there var variances require butter
notices >> but it's it is rare I just can't there might be an instance when the siteboard has to do it I can't think of a local licensing authority like alcohol related issue where we where we do it Greg you can correct me if I'm wrong >> yeah so um for this instance um we did
not actually have to do a newspaper posting or an abut's notice however we chose to do that because that is the process we did uh when we were going to do this uh similar uh hearing for uh Russell's last year. So, we wanted to be
consistent. Um so, the applicant did uh approach the assessor's office and did an abutter's notice request. We sent that out. We also uh publicized it in the Metro West Daily News. Um so, we we did that as well. >> Oh, great. So, we we actually have
already so appreciate. Thank you, Greg. So, in this case, we have actually notified the voters, but um but that's not to say that it hit everybody. So, I even got one more email just in the a couple of minutes ago. So, I I forward that to the board and we'll include it as correspondence for next week. I forward it all to the police chief. As
Mr. Patel said, I've been forwarding it to to uh to uh to him. Um and uh and and as he said, he was sort of cognizant, you know, like I think we've touched on some of these issues before and I I have to say and I know the board and maybe I'm speaking for the board and I don't
mean to, but we all appreciate that the corner store is kind of in a neighborhood. It is much more than any other package store which is on Main Street or Powdermill or down at Main Crossing. Like we this is in a neighborhood. Um which has its
advantages economically for both the B business and for the neighborhood. Um they can walk across the street, but it also means they're exposed and they need to be good neighbors. So that that's what I that's what I would be looking for. Um and that's my expectation to and I I I think he's receptive. Mr. Patel
has been spending a lot of time in the town minister's office over the last year and a half um trying to you know anxious about getting this passed. Um and so I don't I hope we don't mean to make anything a secret but I think we've gone as Greg noted we kind of went above
what we normally would do or what we're obligated to do and I appreciate that. So um and in addition it went to town meeting. It I I don't even remember as you said Mr. Chair I don't even remember a conversation at town meeting. probably went very fast. Um um it's just one of
those things it's you know now they're starting to hear about it and I'm glad that they are and and we can just talk about it. >> So as a followup then could I ask um Mr. Patel a question? Um, so the concerns even if they are coming late, you know,
>> late in relation to what the process is, um, I can appreciate that. It seems like a lot of the concern is around trash that is likely generated from the parking lot of your business. So, I'm curious what mitigating steps you have taken thus far or if you plan to take
any going forward. Uh my plan my plan is right now I I'm putting the more trash out there. So people are might be aware of that things so they can see and put the trash in that. So I'm going to put three four
trash around my buildings little bit I'm going to put in the plants so people can aware to put I mean throw that stuff even the cans or something they're not going to do it and myself we're going to clean every single morning around our parkings and the building. So it's going
to be looks beautiful neighbor, you know. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the last point I'll make, Greg, this is really more for you. It's just a comment. I think that intersection is highly problematic. I It comes up in multiple conversations. It comes up in conversations about visibility, comes up in conversations
about the crosswalk. It's coming up in conversations about this business. So there's there is definitely criticism of the level of safety at that intersection from a lot of the people who use it who live in that area. Um and
not necessarily because of any one thing. So I would encourage I know we have a um like a traffic advisory committee that's looking right now across town or public safety or somebody. I mean to to my knowledge given um there's not a lot that we've done even though there have been a lot
of complaints in the last at least in the last two years um since I started paying attention to it. Um, if this is, I don't know if the change in business type is going to increase the amount of delivery. I'm not confident it necessarily will, but if it does, if there's some mechanism that the town has
to ensure that we are improving safety at that intersection as opposed to allowing it to get worse, um, I think that that would be helpful. >> That's a good good point. Yep. I can relay. I Yeah, I understand. >> I'm not sure like who would do that. You named the two that I probably would have
named the police roads safety >> task force. Yes. >> Any other comments from the board? Go ahead, Mike. >> Yes. Following on from from that comment about safety, um do we have a a quantification on the uh the accidents
at that junction? I know one of the letters um stated that there had been multiple serious accidents at that junction. >> We we do number. Sorry. >> Yeah. No, you go, Mr. Chair. >> No, I was going to just say there's been a number of pedestrian accidents at that location over the course of at least the
last five years. Uh, and probably historically beyond that for any number of reasons. The sighteline isn't great as you come up from the Waltham Street end. Uh, it's a it's a rising hill and people come up and at nighttime even with lights, you know, an overhead
light, it's dark. Uh, and people do cross. So, a business that that might attract a lot of people that are on foot, as this one does, may indeed attract people to be crossing the street um in the nighttime. Um, ironically
enough, I don't think the majority of the accidents that happen there with pedestrians are at night. I think they're during the day and probably due to just u overzealous drivers um more so than anything else.
But I don't have those statistics in front of me. I'm sure the chief can get those for us um for identification uh issues. But my recollection of accidents, pedestrian accidents in particular at that location uh is not
that they've taken place at night on the majority of them. Also, you may know, I'm sure you do, that they added in a light, a flashing light, not right there at the the corner store, but a little bit further up towards the crosswalk
that leads to the playground, a flashing light was installed. Uh, within the last five years as a result of some of these events to try to improve on the safety. Uh, but those are my observations. Greg, you had more? No, just to add just to
add on is that yes, we do have crash data and yes, um I mean it was a lot of information when Mario came to present to the board and he gave and he gave an overview about all the various intersections if I recall amongst that um there was data that kind of pointed
out the the various um you know you know more I don't I don't remember how it's phrased but or or described but like the the danger levels of the various intersections across town and and it's difficult to address we obviously we addressed um the act and conquered Brown
Street by putting up you know very expensive traffic light and redoing the intersection like it sometimes it takes that much work but we identified that was the priority of the town and I don't know this intersection where where it ranks but Mario does have that information which is based on police data um so I I'll follow up with all
them >> thank you >> by concern only uh on the summer time the kids are playing in the party I I mean uh in the playground so sometimes they are crossing the road so I have to go outside and leave my store and I have
to take care them and come back then send it to them back home. So their mother father come in and tell me that oh Mike thank you very much you got very very appreciate you seeing that people for I mean for the kids. So I putting the sometimes camera on that roadside
too so they can I can see from inside my store in my screen so how they going to goes and how the traffic. So I'm going to let the kids inside please go carefully and cross the road. Okay. So
and uh next to the our store. So it's going to be makes part of work, you know. >> Any other questions from board members? >> Yeah. If you're going to look at the crash data, Greg, can you can you find out how many of those I mean, I'm just
wondering if any of these crashes or pedestrian actions if any of these things are uh specific to the activities of the corner store cuz it doesn't it wouldn't appear that they are. I mean, you know, I maybe there's someone that went into the store, came out of the
store that's involved, but you know, we're talking about um specific to the store. That would be uh someone pulling in or out of the parking lot, someone making a delivery either on Walnut Street or or um you know, Parker Street. I would suggest that all deliveries be made off of Walnut Street just because
it's less of a traffic issue with the the traffic on Walton Street, but um so I you know I have I just get concerned about that. Are we going to see a number of accidents and you know, how can we fairly attribute them to um Mr. Patel's
business when we don't, you know, we really don't know if they had anything to do with it unless it's um noted in police reports or otherwise. >> Right. >> The other thing is >> Mr. Patel, you said that you had uh um public hearings about this over a year
ago. >> Yes. And and I assume so I'm going to assume if you had public hearings about this over a year ago, trash and other such things that have been spoken about tonight earlier in this this call were issues then. Why is
it why is it taking a year to get to the point where you're going to put trash barrels out? >> We put it a trash bar. Somebody stolen that trash barrel >> cuz someone stole your trash barrels. >> Yeah. >> Okay. But I mean, I'm not I'm not being
critical. I don't own I'm not over there that much, but you know, on on occasion when you do go by, it's um the the trash on the ground in the parking lot is noticeable. I will say that. But, you know, obviously all of us on the call
appreciate anything you can do to help resolve that situation. But, all right, if you're telling me someone stole your trash barrels, I'll go with that. Thank you. And we we going to make uh now maybe the lock one something so
nobody can stolen you know so we are planning to do something about that so I'm going to do it definitely too. >> I I I understand I understand and I understand it's difficult to clean up after uh what's essentially grown adults making a mess and it really really is
something that none of us would like to have to do but I appreciate anything you can do about it. >> I think we all do. >> Yeah. Can I add said one last point sorry this is not specific to you Mr. Patel just in terms of the the actual intersection if we are going to like
carry this forward have another conversation I think there's the crash data which is helpful that's one piece of information that we can use as a as a data point for decision-m but I'd also argue the like the safety analysis of the intersection is probably what's more important like like let's get upstream
of the crashes and prevent them from happening the if say there have been only two accidents there which doesn't compare to other intersections in Mayard where there have been more that does not necessarily mean that that intersection is safe. It just means that the accidents haven't happened. So, I think
crash data is one piece, but the assessment that I think Mario and his um group are undertaking, I would I would weigh that as heavily as the crash data. And then to Chris's point, I do think it's important to note that, you know,
there's nothing to indicate necessarily that Mr. Patel's business is what is causing the crashes. And so, I would not want to conflate those two things. It's more that we should just keep an eye on if there is an increase in traffic pattern as a result of this business change, then what do we do to try to
preclude increased um accidents? >> Good points, >> Mike or Jeff? >> No, most of my questions have been asked already. I'll I'll I'll highlight what I think Greg Wilson or Greg Johnson or actually I think both of them said about making sure that if whatever approach we
take the business we're doing it consistently and fairly with all such um applications Mike nothing just nothing Mike >> nope >> okay this is a public hearing so if any members of the public wish to speak you
have an opportunity I don't see any hands raised PH. So we can if the board wishes, we can move forward with an approval of the license
change request. >> Move to approve the section 15 package store change of category. All alcoholic beverages license application for May Cornet Store LLC at 49 Walnut Street.
Excuse me. Authorizing use of digital signatures if approved. >> Second. >> Motion's made and seconded. Any further comments? Seeing none or hearing none, we'll vote. Chris, >> yes, sir. >> Jeff, >> yes.
>> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> And I am a yes as well. There's a second motion. Move to authorize the town administrator's office to distribute the section 15 package store all alcoholic beverages license for main at corner
store LLC at 49 Walnut Street upon approval from the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission ABCC authorizing use of digital signatures if approved. Second motion's been made and second. But I'm
just making sure that that motion isn't contingent upon number two, which was skipped on the three motions that are on our list here. Um, but I and I don't think it is. So, um, any questions or comments?
Roll call vote. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> Name a yes as well. There's also a third motion there, Mike. under number two. >> Uh, >> David, I think actually the number one
is >> Oh, I'm sorry. All right. I >> two and three were the motions. >> Yeah. Yeah, you were having me confused there for a minute. >> I was confused, too. So, my my fault. All right. Um, that should do it. We will close the public hearing.
>> Thank appreciate all all honorable member. >> Thank you, Mr. Patel. Good luck with your business. So, is there a motion to close the public hearing? I'll move to close appreciate all. >> I'll move to close the public hearing at 7:36.
>> Seconded. >> Chris, >> yes. >> Jeeoff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> And I am a yes as well. >> Great.
All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is annual town meeting some uh, draft zoning bylaw amendments. I think Bill Nemser is here to speak to us about this proposal coming to us this evening.
It says amendments, but is there uh, are there multiple amendments within the within the one proposal or is it just one amendment? >> It's one amendment. >> Yeah. Okay. So yeah, >> give us a little briefing, Bill, if you could about what this will do and uh then we'll chat.
Well, we as you are familiar with uh we've had uh marijuana establishments now for about I guess four years. And um when we designated locations for um recreational marijuana,
uh we were not really sure exactly um what we'd be getting into and and and everywhere. and we limited it to um the central business district, the business district and um I believe it's in industrial too. Uh we didn't address
medical marijuana because at the time it was a completely separate category from recreational. It was handled differently and it was already permitted in the town. Um when when uh medical marijuana was originally uh adopted by the town um
this was before I got here they left out the central business district. So basically the downtown overlay district uh you couldn't have a um a medical marijuana facility. one of our um current recreational um marijuana um
owners uh is in Actton with a medical uh marijuana business and he's going to be uh they're going to be selling that land and he wants to move and he's wanted to uh come uh and merge it with his business uh
that's currently uh on Nason Street and um and when we looked at what that would entail Hale, we were kind of surprised. We never had thought of just allowing the medical marijuana in there because they're we checked with council and they're allowed to colllocate. No
problem with that. And so uh in this case, it's sort of to create uh to uh correct a sort of little minor um glitch that I guess we never had uh addressed, but also to attract we'll have a new
business uh in town. Um uh right now all of our our current marijuana um businesses have all been great to work with in town. We've had very uh I've had no problems with them
as far as I know. There's been very uh any if anything negligible. Um, so we looked at it as an opportunity. We can update the um the uh use table to allow medical marijuana where u by special permit same
as um would be anywhere else and uh also hopefully uh bring some uh new business downtown. >> All right, great. Thank you for the brief summary. Um question. Do you know if there's ever going to be a restriction? Because they're talking
about bringing in um marijuana, what do they call them? Like uh sort of like bars. Marijuana bars. >> Onsite consumption. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Um on-site consumption. Would that be permitted with all types too as far as
you know? For example, would you could you have medical and recreational and >> hang out in the bar? >> No. uh if if uh we were talking about that um you know that's probably >> I realize that's not part of this I'm
talking about theoretically going no the way we're right now it can only be adopted by a a town meeting vote uh specifically uh for cafes that said it may be something that the board chooses to discuss amongst themselves if they want to have a sooner or later I'm sure
we're going to be addressed with it but at the moment um that that's a totally separate category. Uh, and the we right now, as I understand it, there's only one cafe is actually opened in Massachusetts. I think it's in Worcester. And it's um but it's
certainly they're going to be coming. But this is uh medical marijuana is a totally different um uh different category. Um, and while it's true we don't get the same tax uh revenue from medical marijuana that we do from
residential, we still get uh traffic in there and and hopefully maybe, who knows, new customers like any anything downtown, it could be an attraction. Um, and I have to I would be remiss if um if I didn't mention that, you know, our marijuana uh businesses have been
terrific to deal with and they've played by the rules and um I've they have they've been great. >> Bill, I think David's question was in the future and and the the regulations say towns opt in. So, if Maynard at some point down the road chose to opt in,
could you have a business that would have um both off-site sales from the medical and recreational and at that same site have on-site consumption? I believe the answer is yes, the town could choose to do that if it wanted to. >> Yes,
>> that was my question. Yeah, thanks for clarifying. >> Sorry, I got I missed that one just to make sure. >> That's okay. I knew when I knew when you started going down the other path that you hadn't got it, but I wasn't going to interrupt. That's fine. >> Well, it was good information. >> Yeah.
Uh any questions from the board? So, you'll be presenting this um at upcoming annual town meeting? >> Well, I'm going to talk to the this is going to go to the planning board Tuesday night. I'll just see how they want to handle it, but my guess is yes.
Um it's I I don't see a downside to it and I think that um all things considered it's just a something we probably should have done well we weren't trying to co-mingle everything at a time either so I guess maybe it shouldn't be hard on us but >> I think also I think also Bill in a
historic sense back going back now 15 years when when the um the marijuana thing first started there was a lot of unknowns and a lot there was a lot of fear >> rightly or wrongly about impacts
traffic-wise, impacts um you know any number of reasons wise, even people concerned about the quote unquote types of people that it may draw um to the area. So they So I think there
was a an intended um in there was an intent to keep it out of downtown so we didn't have the traffic and we didn't have uh a bunch of people that we weren't sure how how this was going to react to the downtown. I
think society has evolved even over 15 20 years relative to this issue that it's now just second nature. >> It's like any other >> store that's out there. And I think when it first came on the scene, it wasn't necessarily that way. And it was just
due to, you know, not really understanding what what we were getting into. >> Yeah. I mean, none of us it was a lot of unknowns. And if you look at the first decisions we wrote for the first two businesses, you know, they were now looking back, they were like, "Good Lord, we really tighten that." I mean,
we had it where, you know, you're going to have a a police officer on call 24 hours to direct traffic. We we didn't know. But at this point, that's why I'm saying it's it's turned out they've been very good uh for the business community. >> Yeah. >> And uh and this to me is uh you know,
we'll see. Maybe it helps uh and we and we're capturing a new business. >> And I think that is true throughout the Commonwealth at the stores that that I've driven by and seen. I've never seen a problem. Um, you know, I'm sure there are problem stores as just as there are
problem liquor stores or whatever, but I've never seen one where there's excessive traffic or people hanging out in front or anything like that. I've never seen that. >> No. Been terrific. >> So, can I ask a question? >> Yeah, sure.
>> Um, so this is I recognize that this vote is about sending this back to the planning board so that they can look at it for town meeting kind of related and Bill, this is a question for you. Um, so I believe a couple years ago before we were issuing permits for
marijuana businesses, there was some discussion about whether or not we should limit the number of licenses and I think the town was it a town meeting that they voted to not limit >> the town meeting. Okay, so town meeting voted not to. So if we were to um
reszone so that medical marijuana businesses could open in downtown theoretically we now have three different kinds of businesses that are all related to the same product. So would if say say in some future version of Maynard we decided okay we actually
want to limit the number of um marijuana establishments in the downtown area. Can you aggregate all of these things together? You have to say we want to put a limit on the number of of you know permits we allow for medical limit on a number of permits we allow for uh retail
and a limit on the number of permits we would allow for the these cafes if that comes up. >> Yes, they're all separate special permit categories and zoning categories. So you could if um you know if we said we wanted to limit it at x amount um it
would be x amount of recreational or marijuana establishment is the correct term. Uh the cafes we haven't brought in yet. So we don't have that but theoretically as I said that's something you know may want to discuss that what you want what the board wants to do with that because it's going to I
believe that will come. Um and then the the medical marijuana is its own category but they're each going to be controlled by special permits. um the mitigation, you know, right at this point, we kind of have a better handle on it and like
uh Chair Gavin was saying, the the we know now we're not going to be, you know, run into some of the problems we originally anticipated, but um I think that if the board um wanted to limit that in the future, you know, it would be by okay, we want to have x amount of
this category, that category, that category. Also, I'd say, you know, once we have once they're in, they're going to be grandfathered in, though. I mean, it wouldn't be like, "Okay, you got to go, >> right?" Oh, yeah. No, no, I wouldn't expect that. No. The only thing I'm thinking is I think all of the problems that people initially anticipated
obviously are not showing up. But if we're now creating a new kind of license for me for marijuana sales, um, say we get like, and this is unlikely, but four or five new establishments that want to be in town. I know that um to no fault
of their own, those like retail marijuana establishments are required to have, you know, like their windows have to be covered. There have to be there has to be security. So, when we're thinking about like a downtown pedestrian experience, I'm just thinking long-term and big picture. I know this
isn't currently an issue, but um I would encourage all of us to be thoughtful in the future in some future again iteration of Maynard. I know this isn't currently an issue um about the possibility of having a bunch of businesses downtown that all by law, by state law, not because of anything they
are doing, have to have their windows covered, have to have security, have to have what I'd call not a particularly friendly pedestrian experience, which I think what we're after is a is a pedestrian friendly experience for the downtown of Maine. And so having a
variety of businesses is certainly important to achieve that. And here's a great point and and that's the beauty of the special permit that's governed by the downtown overlay district. Um it gives the planning board considerable freedom to make these sort of adjustments you know where it's not in
conflict with state law. So um you know in this case it doesn't make any difference this particular case that's coming in and they all may do it. You're right. Um it's still going to go through special permit though. They've got to have a separate special permit for the medical marijuana. And if it were in a
location, I don't know what the state regulations are regarding medical marijuana to be honest with you. I've never one's never come in since I've been here. But if there was if there was a visibility issue that was state law, you know, of course we would be bound by that. Um but if it's not, that would be
something that um you know, I think the board would take into consideration. The planning board, >> the >> Yeah. And the planning board I think they do, you know, even if it is under special permit, they still have to have a good reason to deny a business. And if they have no legal reason to do so, they
generally have to award the special permit. Right. >> That's correct. That that's correct. And uh what I would say though uh is that the downtown overlay district has an additional special permit criteria which is how we get a lot of the um benefits
that we've been able to to you know gather in the last few years whether it's tree plantings or lighting or whatever case may be. So it's different than a traditional special permit in that sense. So we there's another layer there. But I I I I hear what you're saying and I think it's a it's an
excellent you've been reading on the downtown over district so that's good and and the pedestrian friendliness having everything blacked up would would you would not want to have that. I I >> no and that's what I'm saying is like that's why I'm encouraging to think of a limit because I don't want to put the planning board in a decision of in the
position of having to make these choices of like how many is too many when do we want you know that shouldn't they shouldn't be um burdened with that decision. Uh, so that's just something I want all of us to be thoughtful about going forward because say we >> we get like three or four different
medical shops that are like, "Oh, great." and want to be in the downtown area. Now we have instead of the four businesses we had, which two of which have not yet opened, now maybe we have eight >> with with law that requires that they, you know,
>> Yes. But but the the the medical establishment should face a higher barrier to entry through I I believe there would be state designation to get that medical designation right for our processes. Wouldn't we want the medical and the recreational to follow
the same patterns and have the same kind of barrier at at the local level of regulation? Maybe I'm asking Lindsay. I'm not sure. >> Yeah. I don't know if that's something I can answer. >> Yeah. No, I I'm just you you've um you're making me think about that now because I don't know that we would want
a different standard at the at the local level in terms of all those, you know, the things we talk and going back to, you know, what what Dave was mentioning some of the considerations back then for traffic, but um you know, now knowing and and it was only 5 years ago that we were having these conversations, but um
internal safety protocols and things like that, I would assume that a lot of that we would want to have balanced or are same consistent between the recreational and the medical. I would assume the higher barrier would be at the the state level for whatever the medical licensing is. So they could make
those health related claims. >> Well, I I I I would um you know, with medical we still have we don't have one. I mean, they're allowed now in other area, you know, the business area. They could go right outside on Powder Mill Road. They could go in uh a lot of locations. We just don't have one. But I
think that um you know if the board does in fact want to consider a limitation that's possible you know you could do that uh for whatever you know you felt was appropriate bring it to to a town meeting. Also remember that these are
all special permits that are two-year special permits including the medical marijuana. if there was a major uh issue that ever arose, they're before the board every two years for a renewal. And and that's how I know that there's been
no problems with our existing uh locations because when I come in, I ask, you know, I go through the police, I go through, you know, uh whoever and and and to see if there's been any issues. Um, so you know, it's not like it's if there was something that was like really
getting out of whack. It's something we could we could probably address. It's true though what Lindsay said is true. You can't just willy-nilly deny uh something that meets the criteria, you know, >> but with the >> I want to just be sorry, Jeff. I just want to be totally clear in saying to
anybody who's listening, my suggestion is not that there's any issue with any of the current businesses that should be part of this conversation. My suggestion is that when we are thinking of the balance of all of the different kinds of businesses in the downtown area and the impact that those kinds of businesses
have on the pedestrian experience, this might tip the scales for us in some way or other. So, I just want to be clear. I know that there are no issues with the current businesses and that's not at all what I'm suggesting. >> Um, would there be any change of the normal application process from the HCA
and and the entire process that we set up 5 years ago for a medical establishment relative to the process we've been through with the recreational establishments. >> No, the process is in place currently for medical. Remember, it's just the central business that doesn't have it. We just haven't had one come in for
whatever reason. I probably because there's one right in Actton, which is the one that was there, I guess, you know, but no, I've never I never had one come in, but uh it's already in place. It's it's very similar. Um I think that um
the biggest difference is um I I suppose just the tax structure and and some of the licensing >> in this case you know it's an existing business that's kind of a good >> a successful you know business that we
have so >> right but a new business would still go through the HCA policy and everything I don't believe medical marijuana is required to have that the the um the um let's let's
double click on that because I I would have assumed when we set that policy up it would have would have applied to any cannabis business full stop regardless of medical versus recreational. So I would like to have an understanding of that if if there's going to be a separate process for medical versus recreational.
>> I'll take a look at that. I mean, that's that's that's town administrator select board wheelhouse more than Bill. Bill's just trying to be nice and responsive, but I I think I think that's uh I think that's I think you're right, Jeeoff. So, um because our we have rules and regs just like we have for alcohol, we have for cannabis. So, well, I'm I'm making
notes while we're all talking about double check this, double check that. And so, um HCA was on my mind as well, but I like but the HCA has evolved because of the state law. not to go into it, but you know, like we have different um we're allowed to ask or not ask for
like community impact payments. Like there's been some changes. There's been updates and evolutions of the law. So like th this is probably a good chance for shake it off. I already made a note. Ask town council to make sure all our rules and regs are up to date for for marijuana. Like it's this is this is a good process. Um but it but eventually
it'll have to come back to the board for licensing anyways. >> Yeah. >> This board, not planning board. like I meant like you will issue the list >> and my expectation is that that process would be very similar at our mayor level, you know, independent of the medical licensing needed at the state
level for for either a recreational or a medical establishment. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you, Greg. Right. >> It's still a controlled substance, so we need to Yeah. There's some sensitivities to it. Yeah. >> Y and and to be clear right now, um the zoning bylaws don't require the HCA.
That's that's that's this is just strictly zoning standpoint and the same thing would happen here. >> Fair enough. Thank you, Bill. >> All right. Any other questions, Chris or Mike? >> All right. We can we can vote on referring this over if the board so
wishes. >> I will move to refer the draft zoning bylaw amendments to the or amendment to the planning board as presented in the planning director's memo to the town administrator dated February 20th, 2026. Second. >> Any further discussion? Seeing none,
we'll vote. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> Naomi, yes. As well. Thank you, Bill. >> Thanks, everybody. Bye. >> All right, we now have uh we're going to
move on to the DPW issues. There's two topics that we have the DPW here for tonight. One is the wastewater treatment plant capacity feasibility report and the second is the proposed utility rate fees. What this what the second one is not is not a hearing. So we're not here
to vote or um do anything relative to rates but rather just hear what might be proposed for the upcoming rate hearing that's scheduled for mid-Marchch sometime in the coming uh two weeks or so. Um
uh Justin as always I would preface by saying you know we have limited time so if we can you keep the presentation to you know 5 10 minutes that would be great but let's start with the uh wastewater treatment plant capacity and
feasibility report and go from there. >> Good evening everyone. Justin Marco public works director. So we'll make it short. Um we have a nice presentation concise to go over uh the feasibility study that was recently conducted at the wastewater treatment facility. As the board may recall, we were able to um
allocate roughly around $200,000 at last year's annual town budget from our sewer retained earnings to present a feasibility study of our wastewater treatment facility. Um and actually compound that on to a capacity study. As you know, you hear a lot about our water capacity issues, but
>> Excuse me, Justin. Greg Wilson, can you share the presentation for the viewer viewing public as they say on television? >> Yes, just one quick second. >> Thanks. Sorry, Justin. I just want people who are watching. >> No problem.
>> Not necessarily even tonight, but in the coming weeks, all of our viewers um >> want to make sure that they're seeing what you're commenting on. >> Yeah. And we may actually um Greg Wilson
in a second you may give the um the PowerPoint presentation to our colleague who actually conducted and ran the the project um as a whole. But I just want to kind of continue where I left off on that. >> Sorry. Sorry for Go ahead. >> No, no problems. So um when we talk
about water capacity and the constraints it applies to the town from growth, we also have another utility which is our wastewater treatment facility which also has its own capacity constraints. So we produce water, we distribute that, we collect sewer and we treat that. Um and
this study in this presentation is to kind of go over um a long-term phasing approach towards improvements and capacity growth. And this project was conducted by our Stantech team, our wastewater treatment facility Stantech team. And I am joined today by David.
Um, David, if you want to introduce yourself, >> David Graham. >> Hi everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yep. >> All right. Perfect. Um, yeah. Uh, hi everyone. Uh, evening, I should say. Um, my name is David Graham. I'm with Stantech. I'm a senior associate in the
water group. Um like Justin said, I um uh you know led this project um to complete this capacity study for you know the town and um looking at the plant. So >> if you want >> you should be able to share um >> all right
see if I can do this right. Can y'all see my screen? >> No. >> No. >> No. Not right now. >> Let's try that again. How's that? >> Yes.
>> All right, perfect. Um, all right. I I'll try to be concise so um you know, I don't get any too many glazed eyes here. Um and and keep it fairly uh brief, but uh like Justin said, um wanted to present to, you know, the board and the public here the the findings of capacity
study. And it's a um a planning level document, right? To um really ascertain what's what's happening at the plant in terms of condition as well as um identify those needs going forward with um you know an an idea of what maybe
those would cost um and how to those would be implemented. Um so this is really just a planning level document to to achieve that. Um excuse me. Um so I'll just touch a little bit on the background um and then get into the meat of it which is really the conditions
assessment component to it. Um talk about um influence flows and loads. That's you know right now what's happening there as well as the future which um has a big impact on a lot of the modeling that was done. So the modeling was a um using a um um um
simulation software to mimic the plant and to then use it to be able to predict what's going to happen in the future at those future flows and loads um and see how the processes are going to do or you know should do um and then um you know from there um evaluate what needs to be
done um and then from and and with that said I'll you know talk about some of the key findings and the recommendations and OPCC stands for uh opin opinion of probable construction cost. So, what what it might cost to to to um address some of the needs that we're seeing.
And um yeah, there's a lot of technical stuff in here, a lot of acronyms. I'm not going to read all these for you, but um you know, I'll try my best to sort of explain as we're going through what what some of these mean or what the what the implication is of what some of these mean. Um but um you know, I'm a
wastewater nerd, so this stuff is all like second nature to me. And um you know if I get uh too into it feel free to raise your hand and interrupt me if there's a question. Um so just a little background on the plant. It's uh it's been in operation for almost 100 years. Um you know in that time it's gone
through quite a few upgrades. The most recent being in 2011. Um it's designed for 1.45 million gallons per day which right now it's not seeing that. It's it's it's more about 1 million gallons. So um you know we're within the the hydraulic capacity right now. Um but
with that said, you know, there's probably changes coming down the line. And it uh provides treatment for pretty much the entire town. Um and that's a mixture of, you know, um waste water generated from residential, commercial, industrial sources, um that all come to the plant and need to be treated before
it's discharged to the river. Um you know, really just kind of big picture, right? there's um there's a lot of structures and equipment and um uh items that at the plant that uh eventually are going to need to be replaced, right? Um it's just like anything else. It wears
out, it deteriorates, it needs um to be addressed, you know, and ideally in a programmatic fashion. Um and along with that too, we're seeing plants um that are located within the the the the river tributary um having to do more advanced treatment. So, you know, that comes into
the future permit requirements, which um it impacts what needs to be there physically in terms of the uh the processes. Um and there's there's a likelihood that there might be one here for for the town of Maynard, unfortunately. But, um so that's just a little background on the plant. you
know, physically what's what's here is um you know, if you're going looking left to right on that kind of top row of equipment, it's you have your head works where we we remove the screenings and grit followed by your primary clarifier which are those four rectang or those three rectangles, excuse me, going left
to right. Then you have your RBCs which is the heart of the uh the plant. It um provides all the biological treatment so you can meet permit. Those are those white um you know rectangles and then from there it goes into the uh the clarification um and then you have com
tertiary treatment which removes phosphorus followed by disinfection reeration. So hopefully we got all that. It's basically the the liquid treatment process in a nutshell right there. Um a pretty conventional plant um you know for a community of this size. Um
now with that said the capacity study um has you know several major components. We have the conditions assessment characterizing the flows and loads both now and in the future modeling um a process evaluation which is more just looking at each you know pump and
clarifier and RBC and looking at how they're performing um and can they continue to perform well going into the future and then from there we have the recommended improvements and implementation schedule as well as the cost. So that's the capacity study in a
nutshell. Um so I'll hop right in here. the conditions assessment. So, um just going to start with the buildings because I think that's a little easier to sort of comprehend as I'm talking about wastewater stuff. Here is um there's three main buildings. There's the admin op uh headworks and the COMAG
building. Um generally speaking, COMAG is the newest one and in the best shape. Um you know, it was constructed back in 200 uh or 2011, excuse me. Um and it's it's generally doing pretty well. There's a few minor things uh happening, but the um the headworks in the admin
building definitely needs some more attention. Um the admin in particular is the oldest structure there. It's more than 50 years old. Um original doors, windows, roof, um and also, you know, some of the building mechanical systems like plumbing and HVAC. You know, it's
been in operation continuously for 50 plus years. Um, and we're seeing starting to see a lot of deterioration and leaks in the roof and and other um, you know, um, typical wear that you you're going to find with a building of this vintage in age, right? Um,
similarly for the headworks, it's a little younger. It's um, actually I'm I'm 43, too, so it was we were born in the same year, I guess. Um, but it uh, it it's a more of aggressive environment. It's um, one where um, you have a lot of um, corrosive gases coming
into the plant. it tends to destroy and eat a lot of the equipment. Um, but it's a similar sort of story in terms of the building envelope needing uh improvements. That's vent, you know, that's building mechanical roof, doors, windows, but but generally speaking, it's in fair condition. You know, the
the bones of it are good. It's just some of the building uh envelope components. So, um so those are the building structures. Now, um going to talk a little bit about the um uh the liquid treatment process. So that's all the um you know the clarifiers and the uh
screening and grit removal. Um you're going to see a common theme here where everything's at least 15 years old or 14 years old I guess um or older and generally speaking for process equipment depending on where it is in the plant um
you're you're going to get about 25 years of life out of it. Uh for things like concrete structures you're more like 50 to 75. Um and then you know there's there's electrical components which tend to fall somewhere between 25 to 50 years. So um you know with that
said generally speaking if you're looking at the first half of that liquid treatment which is the the head works to the RBC's things are in pretty good shape. You know generally speaking they're in we you know we we have um rated them from good to fair. Um there is uh one outlier
though the RBC. So that's the heart of the process like I mentioned earlier where it provides all of the treatment um well not all the treatment excuse me but the majority of the treatment that allows you to meet their discharge permit. Um these units are they're old
um they're um um you know falling they're they're having a lot of maintenance and operational issues. I guess I'll put it that way. Um it's mechanical failures. They're they're large rotating discs with these large frames. are constantly being exposed to waste water, pulled out. Um, you know,
they wear out, they they develop, um, you know, cracks and and they fail and in fact um, a lot of them have been sort of replaced and or repaired over time. Uh, and generally they're just in poor condition. And we'll talk a little bit later when we the modeling. RBC is um,
you know, it's uh, kind of an Achilles heel in a way. It's just not doing so well uh, overall compared to a lot of the rest of the plant. But from a condition assessment point of view, it's not they're not great either. Um there's just a lot of corrosion. There's a lot of failures that have been documented by
staff and um you know that's not going to get any better as they continue to be operated into the future. So >> David, is that traditional for all types of um buildings like this? Are RBC's typically the one equip piece of
equipment that that is grinded and fails most regularly or is that unique to us? >> No, I mean it it really depends on um on the the wastewater and the um and where you are in the process. You know,
oftentimes a lot of the equipment in the headworks actually gets destroyed quicker because it's it's abrasive and it has, you know, weird stuff that people have literally flushed down the toilet that tend to destroy equipment as well as a lot of um corrosive gases. So,
you tend you tend to see a lot of corrosion in headworks. And as you go through the process, it gets it gets better, so to speak, in terms of that. But um for the RBC's, they're they're they're very common. They're actually uh the first RBC was installed I think in 1955 at a um a military base
installation. Um they're very well understood and they're very common especially here in the northeast. But um they're you know they're a mechanical piece of equipment that fails. Usually what happens you have ba bearing failures, drive failure or the frame that holds all the media together fails
on you just you know gets corroded and disappears. So, >> I just remember over time, and I won't I won't hold you up, but I just remember over time the town meeting voted here in Maynard um various numbers of years in a row, it seemed um to fix things to do
with RV RBC's and they were it was I think we used at certain times we used um free cash at other times we used uh other sources of funding. But say seeing it say that it's 42 years years old, I
imagine that's the the big piece of equipment, not the pieces that we're buying for uh out of free cash. >> That Yeah, that that's correct. Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay, >> David, I can allude to that a little more too. David will get into it. This is for David Gavin, not David Graham. Um
we do replace RBC's almost at an average of one to two a year. Um so just know that 42 years is a collective. There is a significant amount of RBC's in our system and they essentially cost at today's rate right now we just got
quotes at about $250,000 a piece. >> We have over a dozen. >> So that's it. It gives you an understanding of what you know what we've been buying along the way. So I get it. Okay. Thank you. >> Um
yeah. So I think I got covered everything on this side. Um there we go. Um just continuing on down the line. Right. So we we stopped at the RBC's on that last slide. Now we're we're talking about clarification and the uh com system and uh disinfection.
Um at this point things are actually in pretty good shape. Um generally speaking everything again it's 15 plus years old. Um some of the the tankage is older but that's okay. Um, believe it or not, concrete, you know, back be in the in the olden days was actually much
stronger than concrete nowadays. Um, and it tends to last longer. Um, so generally speaking though, things are good on the on the sort of the back end of the liquid treatment process. There's a few, you know, outliers, but it's, you know, some pumps and some in the decllorination chlorination system that,
you know, it's old. It's functional, though, and it and it and it's wellmaintained. Um, and there's just a few items like the the sludge pumps and the um chlorine contact tank that are just, you know, there's a few defects andor, you know, issues as far as
maintenance. So, um um besides that, uh the only other item to note is that there is sort of an hydraulic issue with being able to lift the flow to the uh comag system. And um that's really just a um it's really because there's a bottleneck in the system, so to speak.
And um that does impact the operation a little bit, but it's not something that um you know is like a permit compliance issue, I'll say. Um but it at some point it should be addressed and and we talk about a little bit later. So um from a liquid treatment process, this is kind of the the end of the rope here, so to
speak. And um obviously there's a lot of solids that come into the plant. Those are all removed um and generally speaking they are um thickened with that one gravity thickener and then all of that liquid sludge is then uh hauled off and to be disposed of at the uh Greater
Lur Lawrence Sanitary District. Um the equipment on the solid side here it's it's you know really consist of some pumping sledge thickener and a holding tank. They're generally in good to fair condition. The sledge thickener is probably one that um will probably have
the the earlier failure just because the environment it's full of these abrasive solids and with again with the um corrosive gases they tend to fail a little sooner than the 25 years. But a lot of the other equipment with proper maintenance will last quite a long time.
Um, just one item to note too on the solid side, there is sort of a solid management issue and it's and it's and I'll talk a little bit more about it later. It's because it's not really a conditions component or you know a a physical thing. It's it's something that
um is more of a process related item. So just in summary, you know, there's no equipment on uh on site really major pieces of equipment that besides the RBC's that are, you know, exceeding their design life. In fact, a lot of them have 10 hopefully 10 plus years of
um of uh you know life left in them. The uh equipment generally is in good working order. It's been well maintained by staff there. Um except you know the RBCs have been kind of the Achilles heel. Um I think one of them you know there is one unit down right now and it affects the treatment capacity. Um and
we'll see that a little bit later too. Uh and then the other item that was identified was really that there's um some limitations with that secondary affluent pumping um which you know is kind of a known and ongoing issue but it hasn't resulted in any sort of um permit compliance components. So that's that's
the conditions assessment in a nutshell. Um going to switch gears here a little bit and talk you know like I mentioned before about what's coming into the plant and what that's going to look like in the future because this is um a pretty important component to this uh study here. So um just for your benefit
um there's uh you know the design flow 1.45 MGD that's an important number to remember um and there's a lot of other data here but um you know this is what it was designed to handle and then the affluent limit conditions. So um you know with that said right now the plant
is in a good spot in terms of flow it's uh it's well under that that um 1.45 mgd. It's only about one right now or 0.98. Um and then then in terms of um loading and concentrations heading into the plant, it's not it's it's it's
pretty good. You know, it's under that design. There are some issues with the plant being overloaded in the you know, in a maximum day condition. Um but uh sorry um but uh you know those can generally can be handled without a
permit compliance um issue. So hydraulically right now coming into the plant it's a good story so to speak. Um but um well I guess I should say it's a mixed bag. Uh one of the issues is that coming into the plant right is this
waste water. Well every collection system throughout the world has issues with INI. That stands for infiltration and inflow. And that's basically groundwater and storm water that um gets into the system either through um illegal connections or you know people's
sump pumps or connections from catch basins andor defects from the or in the collection system itself you know cracks in the pipes and the manholes that allow ground water to just pour right in. What that means at the plant is you're treating a lot of water that is clean
essentially, right? It's it's groundwater. It's it's clean. Um and it really um you know, and it also eats up some of the capacity available um in the permit and uh you'll see later when we start talking about the future condition. That's a big issue because um
we start coming up against that maximum day limit which um the state will won't allow you to ever exceed. So, I just wanted to highlight that based on the 2022 study, it's looking like almost 20% of the flow, depending on the year and
if it's a wet year, could be ground water. And that does eat up a lot of the uh available capacity in the um of the plant hydraulically. There's a lot of data here. I I think I'll I'll kind of zoom through this a little bit. Um but you know there's um
there's really four main constituents that the plant needs to to meet. Um it's BOD, TSS, nitrogen and phosphorus, right? BOD is carbon. Um right now on a maximum day you are exceeding there. There are instances where it's exceeded
but it's okay. The plant has the ability to kind of handle this shock load and then recover the next day. It doesn't result necessarily result in a permit compliance. But obviously that's right now as if you know population growth and water demand growth increases that max
load just goes up right um it just they go hand in hand. So um um it's a similar story with the TSS and again it's exceeding that maximum design point but it's okay the plant can handle it um just can't handle it you know for a s a
sustained period. um phosphorus you know similar story um maximum day is is is getting exceeded ammonia and TKN TKN stands for total kal nitrogen ammonia is a part of that along
with um um organic nitrogen uh and it's a it's a important consideration right now the the plant has a nitrification requirement to turn ammonia into nitrate that allows the uh plant to meet its permit the more more ammonia is um and
TKN and the the more load that gets on the RBC's again with them being limited. So, um there's a there's a lot of load coming into the plant on a max day and it only gets worse in the future we expect. Um I kind of touched on all these so I'm just going to skip ahead so I'm just
trying to respect everyone's time here. Um so future conditions this is this is where um it becomes you know we we should all pay attention is that based on the um water demands which are expected to increase over time as you
know there's uh more businesses and residents in town um the water that's used by the public essentially 90% of it becomes waste water typically and um with and if you look at the sort that
2045 grouping there. Um, you can see that II is a big component and that's because III gets worse over time if it isn't addressed. You know, you just get more defects in the system, more connections, whatever that increases and
that design flow of 1.45 is um, you know, it's pretty much being met and as soon and you and you're not allowed to go over that. Mass D would never allow you to exceed that. Um and in fact once you get to 80% of that design flow you have to submit a a
report to D mass DP saying you will you know how will you address it so you don't exceed and we're essentially projecting that it's by 2045 you're likely to be right there and again that INI component is something that um is is
it's worrisome and it and every collection I will say every collection system in town kind of has to deal with it right because things things um things leak Right. Pipes leak, manholes leak. It's really just a reality unfortunately. But >> can I ask I'm sorry David to interrupt
you. Can I ask a question on that? Just on these projections. >> So presumably the reason that these numbers go up is because there are more people and more businesses in town. But if we don't have the water capacity to allow for more businesses or more people, uh, is this just a projection
based on average growth, not specifically Maynard's growth? >> My assuming Yeah, David Lindsay, I can answer this for you. So, this this feasibility study took into account the water master plan and directly overlaid those projections to align. So, to your
point is if we have a moratorium on new connections, then the waterm's projections won't come to fruition. But if we had the water capacity and all the developments that approach us through permitting, that was what the water master plan brought in for forecasting. We align this feasibility study to match
that. So if the water master plan goes through, it will affect the wastewater. Again, it starts at water and ends at sewer. >> And can you >> can you can you go and color in what what are those um what are the major developments kind of that led to the
water master plan projections that we're now looking at an aligned version of? >> Yep. So those were areas such as the 40B housing development that was denied, Milan Mains 500 plus housing unit that was denied, Beijing Royal Schools housing area that was redeveloped and
redesigned that was denied. So large major developments that were essentially all denied in the past year plus were accounted for in that. Then we also took the variable of traditional forecasted growth patterns for the town of Maynard
and comparable communities that aligned with Maynard's uh projected values >> and those all filter in eventually to that 2020 I'm sorry 2075 bar that we're looking at. >> Correct. If if we if we essentially had enough water capacity and we accepted a
majority of those developments, whether they were exactly how they were provided or not, but essentially meeting MBTA zoning allowances, things of that nature, then yes, we would align with that that outgrowth. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um
yeah, so not not a great story, I guess, um so to speak, but um you know, I I think to to to your point, if uh you know, obviously if the water demand doesn't significantly increase, then yes, they're um uh uh the the wastewater
projections would follow suit. Um, but I will say though that I ini regardless of what happens development-wise, it will increase over time if there isn't sort of mitigation or some way or some something done to address it. It's just it just will get worse, unfortunately.
It's just a reality. So, um, okay, there's a there's a lot of numbers here. Um you know basically what we're trying to show here what uh show here is that we are um taking the
projected wastewater flows and the concentrations and they're and they they become the loads. These loads then are used within the modeling component that I'm going to talk about next. Um and generally speaking, everything is going
up, right? And uh we're starting to approach both on a um um a max day and a max month, you know, we're starting to exceed a lot of the design, original design for the plant, which um is um is not good because um you know, max day is
okay, but max month is more of a sustained load and that's when you you start running into operational issues in terms of being able to meet your permit. So, um, and I guess in red light, red lettering, I should say, right? We're we're starting to exceed the treatment
capacity of the plant. That's the big takeaway here. Um, so we'll talk a little bit about the unit proc or the the modeling, right? So, we um it's it's called bioin. That's the software that uh essentially uh simulates the whole plant from the from the screenings all
the way through to um disinfection and discharge. Um and it's a a pretty common tool in our industry to allow us to um simulate what the plant can and can't do or you know if it can meet permit. So um this was used to set up for the um for
the plant um uh that we're you know that we're talking about right now. Um and basically we've done um several model runs um at the current flows with the average and the maximum ammonia and and
other constituents as well as um future flows at the 2045 and 2075 um points at those and and we and I you know kind of focusing on the a nitrogen right now because nitrogen is going to be probably
the major issue here um at the plant just because of the RBC species they again they nitrify and the more nitrogen you have the harder they have to work and eventually you just exceed their capacity. Um and uh the other constituents like BOD and TSS were still
okay which is you know kind of some silver linings here but ammonia is the big one and you have an ammonia limit now um so it it doesn't get much better you know in the future unfortunately um I guess this is probably a better way to show it. So even right now at max
month the ammonia you know the effluent ammonia which is that dotted horizontal line that's your limit it's um 12 I believe and 12 milligrams per liter at the max month you're pretty much there in terms of the capacity of the RBC's but as you go you
know into the future and by 2045 even on an average day the RBC's are not likely to be able to meet permit um that um you permit violations are kind of a big deal, right? Mass DP gets involved, the regulators, and it just gets worse over
time. Again, these are um you know, obviously based on what's happening with the development and the um um what's happening, you know, it with the projections, right? If they sort of come to fruition and we just did a straight
line, of course. So, you know, it it could happen it could be flat and then come up and depending on development or andor the water, you know, what happens on the water side. So, um that said, big takeaway here is that the RBC's are
they're going to be overloaded and we even did did an empirical check, right? So, there's they've been around since 1956. All right. Um there's been a there's a lot of data out there. um they're very well understood and we just did sort of the back of the envelope calculation to make sure that we're
comfortable with the model and lo and behold even that says that we're going to be um exceeding the capacity of those RBCs. So um uh you know just kind of a verification step of what the model was predicting. Um >> but again to to clarify that ex
exceeding capacity would be if the development um increased as it had been projected to without the constraints that we have upon us that Lindsay spoke about earlier. >> Yes. >> Correct. All right. >> That's correct. Yep. Though I will note
right now, right, it um there's one unit down and the plant generally meets its it or it meets it the permit condition, but if you were to lose say two of them, um I think the plant would probably struggle mightily to meet its permit
limit. Um there just isn't a lot of excess capacity because it's because the the loading right now is pretty high. You saw that max month being, you know, pretty close to it. So um um so that's kind of what's coming out
of the process evaluation for the RBC's on the liquid side and the modeling. Um want to touch on the solids handling side. So uh like I mentioned um before all the solids that are generated are you know pumped to the gravity thickener. They're thickened and then they're hauled off site using a liquid
um tanker truck. Um the issue that the plant we're seeing at the plant is that there just isn't a the solids aren't being removed very effectively. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of internal recycling happening in the plant. You know, ideally you remove it from the liquid
once and then you get rid of it. Um what's happening is because there just isn't enough storage there and we and the the solids basically can't be removed or disposed of quick enough. there's a lot of solids to just hang out and get pumped and get settled out multiple times and it's very inefficient
and it costs money, right? Um to treat that multiple times. Um and then uh along with that the the you know the real bottleneck is that um you're hauling liquid sludge. So typically a lot of plants of this size will start to watering their solids because it's
really expensive to haul liquid sledge and there aren't a lot of places that will take it. Um right now GLSD takes it. Um, you know, there's there's two other outlets that can help in a pinch, so to speak, but GLSD um does limit how much they'll accept because they're
they're more focused on receiving um sludges and materials from like food waste and whatnot because they can make money off of it. Um, and like I said before, you know, as things are increase or there's a load increasing, you're just generating more solids. So, it just it's it it will probably get worse. Um
then the other part here is that the gravity thickener is is is underperforming. Um it you know a metric is uh what we refer to as solids capture is not very good. Um and it's just and what it's doing is that there's a lot of those solids being recycled back into the plant the liquid side that eats up
capacity too. Um and so in a nutshell the solids man the solids handling process could see a lot of improvement. I'll put it that way. um you know um you know it's it's works and it's been working for a while but it's
not the most efficient and going into the future I don't know how sustainable it'll be um given that you know right now GLSD is really your only outlet if they say one and they can say no any day they want um they probably won't but they could and you have no other outlet
for your solids and at that point it gets it gets really hairy um most plants like I said to water it and that gives them options to either, you know, composted later with another with a third party or go to landfill or incinerator or um, you know, other sort
of beneficial uses. So, there's a reason why a lot of people do do to water their solids. Um, it just tends to be more cost effective over the long run. >> Where if can I ask a couple questions? Where where do we where does the solids get where do the solids get shipped to?
And then how big maybe in terms of a percentage of the overall operating cost is for shipping solids. >> So the solids right now they're they're in essentially a liquid form. Um and they go to the um the plant um greater Lawrence Sanitary District plant uh in
Lawrence, Mass. Um and then they further treat it and dispose of it themselves. >> Great. Thank you. And then the second question that cost of the process just in just a very rough ballpark. Do you know? >> Yeah. Right now, currently, we wrap that into our Violation and Management
contract, and I would tell you it probably accounts for 10 to 15% of that contract, which is over a million dollars, the totality. So, about $100,000, $150,000 a year. Um, what what David hasn't also alluded to is there's
also some regulatory components that our entire industry is really scared of when it comes to solid removal, and that's PAS. So, as you hear PAS needing to be removed from our water, it also needs to be removed from the back end. And um part of the issue that we're seeing in
disposal is uh is a location like GLSD not taking it anymore because it will interfere with what their resale value is if there's PAS limits above what they're capable of resale reselling that material at. So you you'll see later on that this becomes kind of our phase one
approach to to revitalization of the treatment facility, but I'll let David continue. Um okay, I think I covered everything there. So just overview, right? So from a condition summary point of view, there's a lot of aging equipment.
Generally speaking, um everything is operable and it's wellmaintained. um you know and I you know and from just a strictly age point of view the plant's in a great spot to be able to sort of um proactively start planning for um that
recapitalization. Nothing's at 20 that that sort of magic number of 25 years for the process equipment or 50 for some of the other components. Um you know you're about 15 years for most of it uh with some outliers. Um, you know, there there's some equipment though that maybe
need to be replaced sooner. Um, along with some building improvements which are going to be a good um, you know, definitely a need going forward for the those two buildings I mentioned. Um, the RBC's are obviously the the one of the the big issues on the liquid treatment
side, but the solids management though um, is really the the the crux of it. Um because you can't really make improvements to the liquid side until you do it on the solids. Um I I can't remember how the saying goes. It's like, you know, the the tail wags the dog, right? Um everyone thinks about the
liquid side as the most important thing, but really the solids end up being the biggest headache. Um and um you know, with that said, um and I I probably didn't uh discuss it probably enough, but the permit right now does not have a
total nitrogen limit. However, in the future, it likely will. We had discussions with Mass D and they were you know sort of uh beating around the bush that like yeah it's going to happen and already in the permit you have reporting requirements and that's usually like the first step within those
permit cycles where they you know you start reporting what the nitrogen is and then at some point they say okay now you have a nitrogen limit because it's based on the data that you provided them. It's sort of that like you know that's the natural progression of it and um again the regulator said that's likely what
what's going to happen. the plant can't remove any nitrogen. It's not set up to do that. Um, so again, it's like, you know, there's a lot of needs here. The first being solids and then that liquid treatment is going to be the the next big nut, so to speak, that needs to be cracked. So, um, excuse me. That's
really it from a a process or from the overview and and whatnot. Um, what the what the big recommendation actually is is to develop a facility plan, right? because you're in a good, like I said, a good spot where nothing is like, oh, oh no, we need to
do this right now because, you know, either there's a regulatory deadline or, you know, there's a risk of eminent failure. Everything you have, you know, years to start planning and and just address this in a programmatic way. And that's from a cost standpoint the best way to do it. Um it you know it it
definitely reduces you know the burden on any um rateayers and and whatnot as you know you have to you know fund these sort of improvements. Um and that facility plan is one where you know we start you start diving deeper into what those improvements need to look like
what alternatives there are what's the best technology and what the costs are and how to implement those. And it's a living document. A lot of facilities that we work with, um, you know, they'll they'll they'll dust it off the shelf every year and say, "Okay, we did that project. We did this project. This is
the next one. That makes sense. We still agree." And or they update it as it goes. And it's um it's a really powerful tool to, you know, understand what you need to do going forward and inform the capital budget or uh the capital improvement uh planning process, I
guess. So, okay. Um Okay. So um preliminarily we've broken this up into three phases and you know we're saying 0 to five years for the first phase two five to 10 for the
second and greater than 10 for the third. you know, there's obviously some some wiggle room there. But, um, like I mentioned before, the solids handling and dewatering, which is the red, um, needs to be really addressed first or like at least at this point, we see that
being first. Um, and then followed on phase two with the the biological process. That's the yellow. And then finally, phase three is really just the balance of the plant and some other building improvements. That's, you know, the last phase down the road.
um what that looks like in cost and and I I do want to sort of just caution right these costs are based on assumptions we're making now on you know both technologies as well as what we think needs to happen but there's no real
design that's happened so it's hard to put a cost to something that's really kind of like you know I you know we drew a box here and we we thought about it when based on another project so but for the first phase it's looking like about 15.2 2 million. Um, you know, it's the right
order of magnitude we see for a facility this size that that that needs to go to dewatering and do building improvements. Um, and the second phase actually this number I I will warn is probably on the low end because we're assuming that
you're going to replace your RBC's with RBC's again. That's probably not going to happen to be honest with you. But, you know, we didn't look at all the different technologies cuz there's quite a few of them. um you know, we just kind of assumed, okay, as as sort of a placeholder, we'll just put that in
there. But it's it's 22 million, right? And it could go even higher. Um that's where the facility plan is really important because there's a lot of technologies out there. Some are more expensive on the operations, some are more expensive on the capital side, but cheaper on the operations. You want to
look at all of them and find the best fit and the most cost-effective option. So you know this these numbers again they can change probably pretty rapidly. And then this final one is uh for phase three it's a balance of the plant another 22 million um you know again
this is just picking up really what has reached the end of its useful life andor um you know needs to be replaced. So in total looking at about 60 million um and I think that is the end. Okay.
I didn't do it in 10 minutes. I'm sorry everyone, but I did my best. >> It's okay. Uh, thank you for the presentation, David. Appreciate it. Um, any comments or questions from the board that weren't asked during the presentation.
One comment I would make uh to the board members or to and to all of us is um you know first off we talked several months ago about the public buildings committee group getting together that we created and hopefully we'll we'll bring
together. I would think that this would be another one of those buildings that would have to go on that list of things, municipal buildings uh to look at for that group that we'd finally get together to talk about municipal buildings and uh development. And then
secondly, uh similarly uh I don't remember this building and maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't remember this building being on the capital planning committee's list of projects going forward at all. Um and therefore, uh
that needs to get on their radar as well so that then they can work with us and with the finance committee and whomever else to start planning as David said, planning for the future uh over the course of uh you know 25 years or
whatever it is. Uh but $60 million is another big number that we then look at, you know, DPW barn, $60 million. And then we look at, you know, the all the other projects that we've got there. We're looking at a billion dollars, a billion dollars in projects that we need
to try to figure out uh literally a billion dollars potentially. Uh, when you add things up, uh, I'm being somewhat facitious, Jace. Jeeoff, with that, I saw your face. I thought you were like, "What?" Um, but no, a lot
of money that we need to be prepared to, uh, to address and and consider moving forward. So, uh, any members of the board with comments? Can I ask a question about going back a bit to the infiltration and inflow? Um,
and maybe this is a question for Justin on on are there strategies to reduce that? Is there you know does pipe replacement and I know you don't do a holistic pipe but in sections um are there things that are more or less effective that that communities like ours will look at?
>> Yeah, Jeff. Um, I'm going to actually go and answer David's and then go to yours because I feel like it all aligns. David, if you recall, the Capcom didn't include water and sewer capital in their overall planning. Um, this building's been on our capital for a very long time. Um, part of the reason that we're
doing these style reports is to present to the community uh, more digestible capital improvement plans because our internal capital improvement plans are super technical and not always easy to digest, which is why we move to a
feasibility study of this magnitude, the same as the water master plan, right? To kind of put something together for the entire community to truly understand. Um, so this building's always been on our radar. Wastewater treatment facility is by far actually the most expensive public utility you will find anywhere.
More than a school. 60 million. I know that sounds like a lot, but for a wastewater treatment facility actually isn't bad. Um we're in a very very pre proactive position for this facility which is why we brought this over um to the board this early so that we can talk
about layering our utility bills in alignment with our master plan but we can talk about that too when that comes on. And so Jeff to your point >> David can you can you take down the presentation just so everybody's face can be seen on the screen.
I think Greg W can take back the sharing as well. Um Jeff, so when we're talking about sewer, you heard a lot about talking about facilities. And when we talk about water, you hear me talk a lot about treatment facilities, but we have two other utility components. In water, we have distribution, which are water
main pipes that break and distribute water. And in sewer, we have collection system pipes that take those take that affluent sewer from each house and bring it to the wastewater treatment facility. that is also supported with multiple mini style facilities that we refer to
as pump stations or lift stations. Sewers gravity and sometimes we have to pump that up and get gravity again. So, we actually have over 11 uh pump stations and we have hundreds of miles of pipe. When we're talking about infiltration and inflow, we have a pretty aggressive program for a utility
of our size. We have an operating budget that consists of $250,000 that we put towards INI yearly. Unfortunately, we are centralized as a river community. The Aset River flows directly through the middle of our community and we are a
very low community. So, we struggle with INI very very hard for a community of our magnitude and size. But there is strategies to reduce that from a flow perspective, Jeff. And yes, we reline sewer pipes. Unlike water, it's very
easy to kind of recapture um a sewer collection system pipes longevity because we have the ability to reline it and really acquire another 50 years. It's a non-invasive um approach. But part of our INI issue
is actually our pump stations um specifically Powder Mill Road, which we did acquire a Mass Works grant for a revitalization, redesign, and improvement. And if you're unaware, we have a sewer pipe that is forced under
the Asabet River. So again, INI is very complex when we're talking about our river style community, but we do address that. Now, this feasibility study is only focused on the wastewater treatment facility. Powdermill road corridor pump station could cost over $5 million as
well. So there's a lot of layers here that we need to consider, but we strategically consider those when it comes to this feasibility study. There's one thing I really want the board to truly understand. We're not as concerned with the max day
flows because we can control that with INI. We are far more concerned of the treatment proc violations, excuse me, treatment process violations, the regulatory component. So just like water, we pump enough water, we have to
produce it and get it into our system. We can handle the flows. We can reduce the flows through many avenues such as ini um mitigation. But what we're going to come into is the challenge of meeting the treatment process to um discharge
into the aset river now and in the future. And not only is it the discharge in the aset, you heard me talk about the solids disposals. So we have to get in front of what we can predictably understand. And we know that there is regulator regulatory constraints that are right in front of us. One is PA fast
removal. The other one is we are well aware that we will have to meet nitrogen um limits below what we're currently capable of doing. So when you heard David talk about RBC's, yeah, we put them as a placeholder, but if we talk about phase two in this, we're probably
talking about an entire treatment process change where we may remove the RBC's and go to a process that removes uh both phosphorus and nitrogen and things of that nature where we have to add pro we may have to add process, we may have to look at a different treatment process altogether. So phase
two could be far more than the original anticipated uh 22 million. And that was my second question. And for David, can you go into a little bit? You had mentioned alternates in phase two to the RBC's. What would those what am I looking at? What's a real what are what
are in the realistic options category for a community like Maynard? >> Um, you know, you're probably looking at like an they call it an activated slush system. It's just suspended growth. So, um, the RBC's are uh the the bugs, I'll call it the biomass live on the RBC's.
they're attached to it. Um, in a, you know, activated sludge, it's a suspended grow, so they're just in the waste water just floating around eating all the food. Um, that's a very common, um, one. And, you know, if we're talking nitrogen removal, there's, um, quite a few
configurations, but you're, you know, with an activated sledge, you're probably looking at like a four or five stage bard info process or MLE or um, a U, they call it a UTC. There's there's quite a few actually um that but they're all variations of on a
activated sludge. There's also um of treatment processes like SBS that are more of a batch process um that work well for a facility of this size. Um, you know, it there's there's a lot of of different options, but um, you know, it
they all kind of depend on um, lay. >> Okay. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to stop you there because I don't know what any of those acronyms mean. You know, I don't and I started with activated SL, but let me let me kind of ask the question. Let's say we we, you know, started on phase one here and let's say we completed it in five years. Um, in a
hypothetical, would we be talking about those options three or four years from now? What does that look like? Yeah, Jeff Dave, I can speak to that. Yeah. So, Dave, so Jeff, at the end of the presentation, we talked about next steps and the honestly the next step
here um is starting to financially develop a long-term plan like we do with our phase one, phase two, phase three and water, right? We're going to start to build a a financial capacity for the potential of bonding money, but at the same time, we're going to look at the next phase, which is the facilities
assessment. And then we'll start to go through uh treatment process uh matrix to understand what we can um uh implement as process that will meet today's needs tomorrow's needs but also fit in the footprint. We have a very small footprint there. We are a very
small utility um in regards to a wastewater treatment facility. And so there's some challenges that will have to be explored at the next level. What we refer to typically as like the SD um stage of design. So that's kind of where the next steps will go. You have not
seen a retained earnings reallocation in this year's annual uh town budget, but you will most likely see it in FY28 to move forward with uh facilities assessment because our focus is actually on Powdermill Road pump station um and
how we fit that into our um our sewer utility um financial matrix. So this zero to five, you may not see this come back for another two years. I wanted it in front of the board because we are contending with capacity constraints and
I wanted the board to truly understand both sides of the avenue. Our water capacity issues as well as our sewer capacity issues. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Mike, go ahead. >> Yeah, I have a question if I may. Um, first of all, well, thank you for for
the presentation. you've certainly pushed the limits of of my knowledge and understanding about a lot of the the science and and here and the engineering in here. Um are there any implications in the long term for staffing um both in
terms of the number of staff required to operate these facilities? And secondly, do we have any concerns about being able to attract the uh the quality of staff, the expertise that's needed um to to uh
basically operate these systems? >> Yeah, David, I can answer this one as too. Um so, Mike, as you're aware, this actually became an issue um over a decade ago when the town decided to actually subcontract out the operations and management of this process. um that cost will continue to drive up as the
regulatory components and the certification process becomes more and more stringent. They have to be paid prevailing wage. D classifies each treatment plant at different tanches and that classification has minimum staffing requirements. So when David talks about
if we do process changes, things of that nature, all of that can change the classification of our treatment plant which then changes the classification of the O andM. That same thing takes place on water. So if we were so let's take phase 3 OMR GM if we change that and the
capacity changes in the treatment process that might be classified as a class three and then all of a sudden the licensing requires requirements are increased the staffing minimization increases etc. So again that's all of that is taken into account when we talk
about schematic design. Um, we don't just look at what the mechanical situation or chemical situation can do, but we also overlay it with the operations needs and kind of look at that from a financial structure as well. >> Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make
sure that was part of it. Yeah. >> Anybody else? >> Uh, what's the takeaway for our next step as a result of this? Greg, do you have any thoughts? what um you know how we put this on our agenda to move it forward in any way. >> Well, you're going to hear a little bit
more about it in um when Justin's going to go over the rate recommendations. So, he'll he'll address a little bit of it, but I think what Justin said is key, which is we need more planning or we need more designs or facility assessments about the rest of the facility. So that that other phase of
this enterprise which is this the pumps and whatnot then that will sort of better fill out what the overall funding scheme may be which which Justin's alluding to starting to be addressed in maybe another year or two. So which you know we're and we've talked about this a
lot as this body and Justin and I even talked about today cost of living and we try to sort of pace it in addition to taxes and sewer enterprise water enterprise and in the very near future solid waste and recycling. So, we're we're trying to we're trying to be
cognizant of that and I would love the partnership with this new facilities committee if we can get enough people. Um, and um and it so no, I don't I don't think we have to put it on the next week's or next select word agenda. I think it's like we'll probably talk about a budget subcommittee. We'll
probably talk about the capital planning committee. We'll probably talk about next year's joint budget review. And this is sort of like a taste of what's to come. >> Yeah, I can add one more thing, David. This was actually also passed on to the chair of the capcom to upload it into their clear gov so that they could start
to continually develop their CIP as a whole, right? And so we talked about this now with with the capital planning team that they were doing it based on their resources and phases as well. Water and sewer was always very complex. If you're not in the field, it's complex, right? It's constantly
bombarding. The Capcom at the time felt it was very um advantageous for them to use their resources based in a methodical manner which was town facilities isolate water and sewer because they knew our CIP was pretty strong. They were going to concentrate on fleet potentially next year etc etc.
So they had a phased in plan but just so you know this has been uploaded just like the water master plan into the into clear gov into the CIP section. >> Okay. Thank you. We uh thank you David Graham very much for your time and your
expertise and your help with this. Very much appreciated. >> Thank you. >> Thank you >> everyone. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh we will then move on to the proposed utility rates for FY25.
Justin, you can have the floor. >> Excellent. Thank you. Greg, do you mind letting me have access? you should be good to go. >> Okay, let's see if I can figure this out. >> Where are you?
>> Just to preface, we have a a rate hearing that's scheduled or we're planning on it what a public hearing on March 17th, which is two weeks from today. And this is just sort of a preface for us so that when we go into the rate hearing, it's not all just
thrown at us at once. we can sort of uh learn about it, review it, prepare questions for the rate hearing and uh be prepared for two weeks from today. >> David, I actually know your
long-standing want for two meetings of magnitude of this order when we're talking about rates. So, that was the goal, >> right? So, >> I appreciate that. we can look at >> so that we're not just sort of not just getting things thrown at us and then being asked to vote on something within
10 minutes of the presentation. >> Absolutely. >> But can you imagine if that prior presentation had resulted in okay now we need to to vote you know that would have been difficult. >> Yep. I respect the long-standing policy. That's what we try to continue to adhere to. So um good evening everyone if
you're just joining me Justin DeMarco public works director. Um we're going to go over our projected FY27 water and sewer rates. Um we'll get started as always. Um we take a comprehensive approach to a year-over-year um rate
analysis. um where we focus on overlaying operations CIP which is capital improvement plans and we look at it in a manner that actually distributes um the cost burden year-over-year and minimum increases so that we can have a
sustainable uh growth pattern and a sustainable uh mitigation to our consumers and customers wallets. So within our FY27 budget, what are we seeing? We're seeing continued um excuse me I'm just getting over a cold
we're continually seeing um increases due to inflation um other magnitude processes such as health insurance benefit increases the same things that you're seeing on the general fund side we see on the water and sewer enterprise fund side. Um but some of the stronger
pushes that we're really seeing is power purchase distribution. If you're unaware, our treatment plant processes and pump stations actually acquire almost a majority of the town's electricity outside of the school facilities. Um, so we're continuing uh
with we're continuing to see um some debt budgeting for sewer undermill road pump station improvements as you just heard me talk about at the last agenda item. And we're continuing our water debt budgeting transitioning of our water master plan from phase one to
phase two which uh formerly was referred to as Rockland A. It's still referred to as Rockland A, but we've turned our four-phase capacity improvement program into a overall water master plan. Um as always, I'd like to present the board
with understanding um some viable options for consideration when we're talking about upcoming rates. So this year based on some largecale uh capital improvement conversations that have been had since the quadboard meeting to now
we've provided three options. Option A, option B, option C. Option A is the barebone minimum. Option B is the preferred method which is the recommendation of the director of public works. And option C is for a uh long-term understanding of what the cost
implications would be to move into phase two as of today. Um, the reason I bring that up is because phase two is a pinch point in our development capacity allowance. So, if we're contending with uh a lot of stakeholders over potential
growth and how that looks across the board, not only from water and sewer financing, but from general fund financing, I wanted to make sure the board understood uh their options here. So, we'll start with the water revenue requirements analysis.
Um the expenses are higher in FY27. Um they're actually um just a tick higher. We're seeing levelized stabilized inflation. That's in the commodity market and the service market. Our water and sewer utilities rely heavily on
third-party um contracted services and we also rely heavily on um accumulated commodities. Um, and those two giant factors have really leveled off and started to stabilize, which is allowing our operational budget to stabilize and
shift back towards our long-term capital improvement planning. So, that there's some good signs on the horizon for us when it comes to that. One of the biggest drivers though that we're not seeing is is the distribution market for electricity is actually not stabilized in the New England area and that is
driving up a significant cost margin on our operation. Um, what we're also seeing, if you're unaware, the board board knows this, but the public may not, is we're seeing higher than anticipated indirect cost as previously projected due to health and retirement. Indirect costs are the benefited process
that supports our staff that works under our um, water and sewer, but it also is affected by staff that isn't fully supported under water and sewer, but actually assists water and sewer, such as other departments like accounting, treasury, collector's office, things of that nature. So we do supplement some of
those benefits through the enterprise funds as those um employees do supplement some work of water and sewer. So as the costs rise on your general fund health and retirement, it also affects your water and sewer enterprises. >> Justin, is that split retroactive for
employees who are working on water and sewer prior to us establishing the enterprise funds? So all water and sewer staff that is fully funded under the enterprise fund, their salaries are fully funded under the enterprise fund including their benefits. The indirect
costs associated are the benefits above and beyond. So health insurance and pension. So so the full pay of the water and sewer staff comes out of the enterprise fund, but their benefits come out of indirect costs. We do acquire that revenue. Justin, Justin, the the just narrowing in on the pension in
particular, how does that work for an employee who was say working on water or sewer before we established the enterprise funds but is now retired and the pension cost is a factor. >> So, oh, you're talking about uh past practice. So, you're talking about um
OPED and retirement pension processes >> and then how it works with the split into the enterprise fund from before to after. I'm Go ahead, Justin. I I don't I don't think I ever asked that question. >> Yeah, I know that. So, I I wasn't sure where Jeff was going with that, but yeah. So, the only I can't answer for
OPED. I don't think we believe I don't think our enterprise fund supports any previous OPED. We do support current pension requirements and current um health insurance. Now, I think that's a conversation for town council if we're supposed to um because I don't know how
the process was prior to and how that regulation was described and defined. I think that's just the town liability. So, I don't know if we're paying for previous water and sewer staff that have are currently drawing from their pension
prior to an enterprise fund adoption. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Currently, right now, the indirect costs were done through an indirect cost analysis. Um, that did go into full detail, but not to that level. I actually would say we need to look into the master journal law of the of the
accountability for that. That might be a good do question as well, Greg. So, and we can make adjustments if needed. Jeeoff, >> thank you. >> Um, can I ask a quick question on this slide? I'm I'm sorry, I'm just not understanding this slide. When we're looking at like FY27, for example, on
last year's model and this year's model, what is the model you're referring to each year? >> So, last year's model is 20 FY26. This year's model is FY27. So, last year's model was the 5-year projected model. This year's model is the five-year
reproed model. There's too many variables to project out five years, but we try to do our best to project out. So, as things change, we adjust the five-year model and we show you the last five-year model. So, we had a five-year projection, which is the dark color from
last year's last year's budget projection. And then we had to adjust for the variables that we know now, the regulatory environment that we can predict somewhat in the next few years. and any variables that change and we just predict those models. So we do an overlay. So we're adjusting that
five-year forecasting model. >> Got it. >> Got it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Sometimes what happens is Lindsay we see is like three years ago the the cost of X was a million dollars and now the cost is five. Right. We can't completely predict inflation. So we're
trying to show you the the previous and the new projections. Um, one of the biggest drivers too is um, we have finally con uh, completed the full bond out of well 4A which was phase one. So those real costs have now been realized
the principal and interest. So we have a pretty solid understanding of where our operating budget is now with all past capital improvements. So now we're transitioning into how do we start to build our next phase which is phase two when we're talking about water.
So on the sewer side, we have some stabilization as well. I would tell you whatever we see on the water side, we typically see on the sewer side. So commodity market, service markets, all stabilizing. Um the same thing here. We're seeing electricity distribution costs be a driver. We're also seeing
indirect costs also be a driver as well. But we see some a large stabilization as we transitioned from a long-term 7-year operations and management uh contract with Violia to a new sustainable 7-year operations and management contract. And
typically when you sunset a long contract and start a new one, you see a giant spike in a a reallocation of funds and now we see stable market again. So, we're in the second year of that contract and we have some real predictable models when we're talking about on& and M when it comes to the
wastewater treatment facility. Um, what we also have in our sewer is over the past 5 years we've been water focused which we will continue to be water focused um because we have largecale capital needs in water that affect sewer as well. So, if we don't have water to
turn on, we don't need to treat sewer. So, that's usually how the process goes. We are starting to develop some um larger scale um practices or projects such as Powdermill Road where we're going to start to build in some financial capacity to potentially bond
out for that or to um acquire grants to offset either through the SRF process or through a Mass Works grant depending on what we can acquire. But we're going to start to build up that financial capacity and that you'll see that in in um upcoming uh rate scenarios. Justin,
can you just go back to that >> screen? I just want to make sure I understand what I'm actually looking at here. So, the fact that that say look at FY 2029 and essentially they're balanced. >> I would I would say they are balanced.
>> Yep. >> What message is that giving us with that being balanced? What are we being told by that story? So to go back to Lindsay's question is so the dark green here was last year's 5-year projection
which was bad 26 27 28 29 and prior 25. What it's saying is our 5-year projection had to adjust for some variables in 27 and 28 but it's still projecting as 29 matching up to last year's model. So that what that really
says is we saw a large inflationary factor on the back end of CO and the entire market had to adjust. So but we adjusted out to 5-year baselines because we use CIPs over 10 15 years and when
we're talking about CIPs in this one we're talking about consumer price index. I'm sorry CPI consumer price index and we are able to kind of look back in time and understand how inflationary markets trend. But when you have giant spikes, we saw a 9% spike off the back of CO and had a
ripple effect for three or four years that hit our industry really hard, specifically water and sewer. What we're seeing is our five-year models are still aligning. They're just aligning later again. >> And the model is based upon the projected uh increase that is estimated
for rates. So what you're saying is right now based on the and if I'm understanding this correctly, I just want to make sure I understand what I'm listening to and seeing. So the rates that are being suggested or were suggested last year based on last year's
model are consistent with it did the job that we needed it to do because in three years we should be in a good position where we are meeting our needs at that point for budgetary requirements. Is that sort of it in a nutshell? >> Yes, we had to make some market
adjustments, right? So, we try to trend it, but I there's a good couple of slides that show this in more numeric fashion that I might be able to help you understand a little little more as well. Okay. Prior prior slide with water >> suggested that we were missing the mark.
>> Yes. So, last year's model was far off. Now, do you want to know what's the driver of this? >> Sure. We're seeing far less use. So, we're seeing far less use because of drought conditions and other aspects, but we're starting to get into a situation where you're going to hear me
talk about it towards the end with our recommendation as we've been uh very aggressive at targeting our tier 4 rate to capture the finances needed to move forward and very less aggressive on our lower tiers. Unfortunately, remember
tier 4 users tend to be the heavy users that use out outside irrigation or large commercial spaces or even really heavy house environments. With that cost margin really being extremely high, people are taking a more conservative approach. Now, that's good from our
water capacity standpoint, but bad from our financial standpoint. So, what we're going to is like you'll see a point in an article where I have an article for our uh water um our water budget and it's really only a less than a 1% increase but our rates are going to
align at 7% is because we have to capture loss revenue and we're capturing loss revenue because essentially we might be targeting out the upper class the the upper tier. We might have priced out the upper tier where people are starting to reduce their their use. Now, that's a good thing. That's what we were
trying to drive, but now we have a healthy balance of understanding uh making sure that our finances match our needs. And so that's what you're seeing with the water. And you're not going to necessarily see that with the sewer. So remember David, and this is this might go a little further back, but David
Graham was talking about sewer. We see sewer at 90% of what our water capacity is. It's because 10% of the water that we produce is essentially used outside and never hits the sewer system. So that is the area in which we target our tier
4 rates. And as people use that water less and less or more conservative, it does have a financial implication. And so you'll see you'll see that conversation kind of travel through this process when we're talking about rates. Um and I can kind of allude to that even
more of like why why are we suggesting 7% in water when our operating budget is only going up 1%. And that's because we have lost revenue. And that loss revenue is really accounted for outside water use. And so, um, what you're seeing here is
just a trend model. And this kind of goes back to what our predictable model looks like when we're talking about forecasting rates. And that's just simply the same thing as the previous bar graph. It's just a linear graph that shows the three different options,
right? So, this has been our trend model since FY23. we we consistently go up. We had some drop in our um in our rates that did not align, but that was a market correction because FY24 was based on projected well 4A and then we're
starting to see FY25 and 26 be the realization of what the overall cost of phase 1 was. So we'll start to have a little bit more of a predictable model which we're also aligning with FY27 and that's based on the constraints of uh affordability. And so we c, you know,
you heard Greg talk about our strategy and understanding the bigger picture here in town. I am uh I hope you all know as a department head, I truly look at every single capital improvement and every single part of the financial structure that affects our residents and we take that into account as our
planning purpose as well. So, we understand there is some affordability issues and new growth issues, and we're trying to make sure that we align with the goals and strategies of the board and the community, but also making sure that we move our processes forward. So, what you're seeing here is option A is
the gray, option B, which is the preferred method, is the purple, and option C would be if we bond phase 2 um within FY27. So, as you can see, if we were to bond phase two, we need to essentially increase our water and sew our water rates in general, excuse me,
not our sewer rates, our water rates 50%. That's an astronomical increase, right? I would never ask that of our community. I would never ask that of our board which is why strategically I am um encouraging the con the entire community the stakeholders not only the select
board the fincom the sub finance committee the school committee to understand in order to accomplish these water and sewer goals we cannot do it alone on the back of our water and sewer receipts um if we had to incorporate let's say the feasibility study that was just presented in sewer we'd be talking
about 70% rate increases in sewer that is not feasible we need to start to have a larger conversation about how we allocate some general funds to offset some of these large-scale uh improvements. This is just for understanding purposes. If we did it all under our rates, phase two would result
in a 47% increase. Now, we could spread that out over 5 years, but essentially we're still talking about 10% increase year-over-year. I don't know if that's digestible by the board, but we also have to talk about comp compound interest issues, which essentially could
be anywhere between 11 and 12% over year-over-year. Um, Justin, why does it go to 20% on the access, but 47% on the label? >> Um, I think it just didn't fit on there. Honestly, it needs to be 47%. It just didn't fit in the PowerPoint
presentation. Sorry about that. So, that that needs to be higher. It's it was more of a visual component. So, um, that's supposed to be up there and I don't know why it didn't, uh, equate to further up, but it's 40% increase is what the and financial analysis presented.
>> Yeah. And I think the the the point of having it is is to when we if you're go to town meeting for this um, and and we've talked about the associated articles and timing on that that this is the realistic opportunity alternative to pay is is a unacceptable spike in water
rates. Water. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah. And Jeeoff, honestly, if we if the board even wanted to appetite uh entertain that and go towards a town meeting, we would have a different presentation right to truly understand what that looks like. >> I don't think he's suggesting that we >> I don't think anyone's suggesting it, but but graphically showing what it
would mean to pay through this enterprise fund is is is >> that's what this visual was. Yeah, that's what this visual is designed to do. >> Thank you. Um, so David, this this part right here is the fame system, which is really the finance management system in
which we define and design our uh revenue requirements based off of our operating. So to the bar graph in which you were asking David, you see how this says FY26 27 28 29 30 and it has water rate plan where it says 5% 9% 9% 3% 3%.
Those are our 5-year projection margins. And we're actually trying to get to a more stable realization of our rates that align with inflation. But unfortunately, we're playing extreme catch-up and we're trying to layer that on with extreme capital improvements. But when you saw that align in 2030,
2031, that actually follows this model, right? But that doesn't equate for the $25 million for Rockland, right? That's just operating equivalents based on what our projections are. Now, as you see, there is a slight increase. And if you
go down where it says cash for capital, Rockland Avenue, you'll see last year we approved rates that acquired 50%. And in this model, the 5% projection, which is the lowest operating uh rate projection, we would actually remove that 50,000 and
go backwards with Rockland. Um, but if we actually move forward in the next slide, I'll talk about that. But then it starts to build up again. So if we did this rate and then followed it with the 9%, we project we can add $375,000 of bonding capacity for Rockland then the next year and the next year and you
see how that incrementally increases. So that's what that that flow looks like. And at the end result additional fund to balance is our retained earnings projections. But that's not always accurate because that's based on what we spend within the year. That's just a model projecting it, but you'll see that
there is a positive and then i.e. negative cash flow, but that model isn't always correct. Um, and then the water bill is 100% correct underneath that. And you can see on the left box where it says current plan and target. Our goal is to make sure that our
current plan exceeds our target, which um essentially hits our coffers of retained earnings. And as the board may recall, several years ago, um, we removed all stabilization accounts from water and sewer, transferred them to retained earnings and reserve funds, so
that we could be more, um, resilient and quicker to uh, remediation of issues like RBC failures and things of that nature. But that does strategically and financially put us in a riskier position. So that's why we need to make sure that we account for retained
earnings hitting our coffers uh, year-over-year. So what you'll see on the next slide is the recommended 7% water rate and you'll see um at the top um FY26 2728 you'll
see a 7% 9% 9% 3% and again that aligns with our current plan and our target goal but this has a far more aggressive capital approach and it moves our 50,000 last year uh allocated for Rockland to
200,000K in FY27 to position us in a strategic position to potentially bond um the engineering delta that's missing to move on the piloting, permitting, and design of Rockland A. So, this would
potentially put us in a position to bond that without um asking the town to supplement that with general fund taxation, essentially putting the ban um fully on the water enterprise fund. And then the next one is the 47% um as Jeff alluded,
the really giant spike. Uh this scenario um includes $25 million bonding capacity in FY27. Um that's assumed a 30-year term, which we would typically bond a construction project like Rockland at 30 years. Our current interest is 5%. And the annual
debt payment would be roughly 1.7 million. So 47% increase in water would provide the cash for capital Rockland at 1.7 million to allow for the bonding uh principal and interest payments on that. So essentially this is that scenario if
we were to move on the entirety of the project um next fiscal year. So then we're going to move to sewer. Within sewer, we have one uh recommendation which is 7% that aligns with our overall operational needs. Um
and kind of we can go into a little more detail, Jeff, as I talked to you uh some of your questions at the last agenda item. You can see that we have ini improvements 250,000 year-over-year. We've been doing that steady for a while and made significant improvements. Um
when you're talking about the wastewater, this is perfect timing. When we were talking about that feasibility for the wastewater treatment plant, we have a uh in-house capital improvement um operating line that's $40,000. That doesn't seem like a lot, but I hope that
you took away from David Graham's evaluation that we maintain and improve uh the facility to the best of our abilities. That $40,000 may not seem like a lot, but it replaces uh pumps at a a CIP rate that keeps us in front of
things. The only thing that 40,000 can't handle is large scale. And David brought this up. You typically see a failure of an RBC come across your boards outside an operating budget. And that's because we have built-in capital. I would love to see this increase over time and we
may be able to actually reduce the overall cost of um the wastewater treatment plant upgrades, but essentially we can't build that into the model at this time. What we are talking about is positioning ourselves um for next year to start to put money
aside for powder mill road pump station upgrades. So the bonding in principle um we should be finished designs late spring early summer of this year and we'll be talking about uh revisiting this um come next fiscal cycle. So part
of that is to understand where we're at. Um that's our 7% sewer projection. >> That sewer bill line at the bottom that's quarterly I assume >> that is correct. That is quarterly. Yep. >> I think I think um if this were to be
presented at a town meeting >> that it should say quarterly sewer bill. >> Yeah. This this doesn't get presented at a town meeting. >> I realize that. But just for anybody watching um when you see sewer bill oh 360 that's that's a quarter of what I
pay now you know. So it has to be made clear this is a quarterly number not a full year number. >> Yeah. So the the model only punches out quarterly. The memo describes that in full detail, David. So >> I understand that. I just I'm when you're looking at a visual, I just want to make sure that
>> Yeah. >> It's accurate or not accurate because it's accurate, but you know what I mean? That it that it reflects the full sewer bill, not the quarterly sewer bill. >> Yeah. >> It says FY26 and you're thinking, "Oh, that's the fiscal year bill." >> Yeah. >> And you look down, you know.
>> Nope. Totally. >> That's the way my mind works. >> Yep. So we address that kind of on the next one, right? When we're talking about kind of the steps, right? And there's there's further impact analysis on the the back end of the slide. So essentially the 5% rate looks like this
on uh water bill analysis. And as you kind of heard me talk about the loss of revenue, we're talking about this step four, the use pattern of only 2500 uh cubic feet. And traditionally we've had a progressive rate model where we try to reduce our lower users and we try to um
raise the rates on the highest users as luxury users. But that's going to come to a point where it's going to essentially remove itself naturally by people sustainably reducing their water loads based on their uh based on their bills. So we're starting to balance that
out a little bit. And as you can tell over uh the past four years, we've been very aggressive in the base fee, which actually helps reduce that loss revenue as well. We have a goal of aligning our water with our sewer, which is $50. In this one, we're aggressively moving that
direction, but we have not acquired that goal. It was a 5-year goal at this point. Um this is the the lowest rate possible to acquire our operating budget. Um this 7% rate is the recommended rate. And as you can see, we
creep a little closer to the baseline needs. Um we do spread that load out in in step uh one, two, three, and four again. Um but again, we need to continue to be cognizant year-over-year on how aggressive we are on our step four and what the drought and outdoor water use
constrictions will do on our revenues. And that's what we're we're monitoring over the last two years. Um excuse me, the 40% rate revenue increase looks something like this. And so essentially that would be a significant base
increase because we couldn't put it strictly on tier use. Naturally people would use less water. Um but aggressively this is this is a pretty uh pretty aggressive bill. We'll look at what that um overall rate and bill looks like in the next couple of slides. Um
the sewer rate is the 7% as recommended. You'll see um you'll see the quarterly rate increases. you'll see the average dollar increases based on our tier usage. Um, option A. So, this is the combination, David, kind of what you're talking about, right? And this is our quarterly usage, as you can see right
here. This is our low user. This is our average user. And we typically put this together um for the full understanding of what the impact is to each one of our customers. So, option A would be the lowest option possible, which is the 5% water and the 7% sewer. And essentially,
you'd be seeing a um uh FY26 to FY27 jump of $59 per quarter or an average user of 35.92 per quarter. That would be their increase. And I lay this out in my memo far more strictly um and concisely
um and make sure that everybody understands what that looks like from a tier over tier. But that's what that equates to from the five and 7%. From the recommended 7 over7, we're talking about the low user seeing a $689
an 89 increase over a quarter and a 3965 increase over a quarter. So essentially close to $10 a month um for our average user and anywhere between little less than $1.75 for our low users over a month. Option C would look something
like this. This is that bonding capacity. If we were to move on phase 2 strictly underwater, we would see our lowest users see a 4363 increase over a quarter. And we would see our average user see a $12123 increase over a quarter. So these are
just some understanding numbers of impact. Um essentially this is what it looks like for water and sewer average quarterly bill. David try to give you a good matrix here. This is the best slide I think for for understanding what that impact would look like. We're
recommending scenario B. Um and this is what that quarter average quarterly bill would look like. And this is what it would look like if you adopted uh scenario B per quarter. I can leave that up if you want or we
can go to the next slide if there's >> Yep. So like anything we're seeing a reduction in operational stress from commodity markets and inflation, but we're seeing a complete high press high pressure situation from capital improvement projects looming in front of
us. Um we tried to take a methodical approach to that. That's why we provided three options. Um the middle option that we're recommending moves our water master plan. Uh the lowest option delays it and the largest option moves it in
pace with the projected timeline of the water master plan. If that makes any sense. If not, I can explain what I mean by that. But I I saw one head go up. >> It it it well it does in context what we talked. Could you explain the delta
between A and B? Uh, leaving aside the the 47% for a second. >> Yeah. So, if we if the board were to adopt A, what that means is Rockland Avenue piloting and permitting would only go as far as the recently adopted $200,000, which was roughly 33% of the
need for piloting and permitting. It also completely uh leaves out the $2.5 million needed for schematic design and full design development to move towards new wells and treatment process to meet our compliance regulations andor our
projected timeline under our water master plan. So option A delays that one full year which essentially you've heard me talk about 3 to 5year permitting window. So, as far as the master plan goes, if if option A is chosen, then take the water master plan and move it
one year later. And if you were to move on our recommendation of option B, you essentially fill the gap with a bonding mechanism that acquires the money needed for the piloting and permitting, schematic design and full design development to take place over the next
two years. And then so that essentially keeps the ball on pace through our timeline, but then brings us to another hurdle in about two years to close the construction gap of about $20 million. Now, one of the caveats that we're going to understand, not necessarily by
adoption of rate. You can adopt this rate and not have a consequent on the end, but when we're talking about the bonding scenario and we c we talk about the the uh excuse me, the article that's also potentially going to be um recommended
from uh myself to the select board is what's referred to as a ban. A ban is a little different than a bond. What we're banning is the principle and interest. So, we're essentially banning $3 million and the PNI on that is only a hundred to
$200,000 depending on depending on the rate we we acquire, which is essentially what we built Rockland in. But that ban maturity only lasts two years with the probability of full construction and bonding in three years. If we do not bond the full construction in three
years, we eat the maturity of an engineering at $3 million that we have to pay off in five years, essentially paying the same amount for the uh principle and interest as we hit year three for the engineering as we would for the entire $25 million project. So,
it's a conversation to be had about delaying the PNI now, making sure that we move forward in three years. Now, if the board doesn't entertain that, we can talk about that, what that looks like. That's kind of why I wanted to have this conversation. I believe that Greg um
also included on boards. I don't have Boardocks in front of me, but all the recent control articles that I also presented. So, I want to make sure that the board fully understands that and brings questions to the next meeting or even in advance of the meeting. You can follow up with me on email if you want to understand what that means more. But
essentially, if we were to ban, we need to really truly understand that that means we're going to bond in roughly about 3 years. Can you tell me what the ban decision means in terms of the A versus B that we're looking at here for water rates for this next year? >> Yep. So, if we don't if you don't move
on option B, then essentially you didn't acquire any money for Rockland, which is fine. You delayed it a year, but you're not sitting on a ban. You can also adopt option B and not move forward with the banning, which still delays it a year. and that option B still just acquires
you $200,000 of buildup that we were already planning on for the last five years. If you move on option A, you essentially have zero% uh excuse me, zero funding put aside for Rockland and you just delayed it a year and we'll have be we'll be having this conversation again next year.
And what you were saying about the ban there is um not just for this group but for town meeting would not want to approve a ban if they did not intend to approve that $25 million within that window that that threeyear window >> within that threeyear window. Yes. That would be very that would be poor
financial decision-making. Right. So we typically ban when we have a reactionary approach. So >> you answered my question. I got it. Thank you. >> And so um again we have high pressure on sewer and water. um the recommended rate scenarios satisfy water and sewer financial needs while balancing our
customer impact. So, so all three scenarios obviously meet our operating needs. The three scenarios were really designed around our capital needs. So, I just want to make sure that the board fully understands that. Um I'm assuming you have more questions.
>> Yeah. Um sorry because I think it does follow. Can we go back to the 5% financial projection on slide six? So the future rate increases. I'm looking at FY28 or 99 3 and three which is the same as the next on the 7%.
However, if we were to simply delay the conversation of um you know the ban that we just had, wouldn't that increase FY28 for the 5% yesction relative to the 7% projection? >> This kind of goes to what Lindsay's previous conversation is, right? It's
really hard to project five-year variables of things I can't control, right? I don't know what the stakeholders are leaning on, but I would just tell you this. If we were to if we were to approve Rockland in 2030, that 725,000 still wouldn't acquire it, right? So, no matter what, this
five-year scenario drastically changes depending on the decision the board makes this year. So at it's a it's a little bit false to say the 9% if if if we are making a collective decision to delay that a year we still would eat this 9% would become something like 11%
in FY28 instead. So that's that's this 5% is kind of um it's it's not accurate in the sense that it says we'll never actually go and do that ban and Rocklin will have in this scenario that we're looking at. >> No, it just says you delay it one year.
So essentially 9% would give you 375 next year to ban. So if you don't if you pick 5% today in FY27, then we cannot ban anything because we don't have the allocation of funds legally to pay for the principal
and interest. If you um delay this and go with 9% next year, you're essentially seeing 9%. I would say the 9% for FY27 is pretty accurate. The FY30 is probably not accurate at this because everything would push. Um, but your 9% next year
would essentially acquire the principal and interest amount in roughly 375,000 for next year's banning. Everything goes up, right? We cannot predict the general bonding market. Right now, it's it's dropping, which is a good thing. We're seeing 5% rates. That's a good thing to
bond at this time. We were seeing 7% uh less than a year ago. Those are all scenarios we have to take into account. Now, with our planning purposes, as you heard me talk about, I don't believe that the water and sewer utility can
handle the full brunt of all of the bonding of all the capital needs of the water and wastewater treatment facilities. And I'm looking at this model which we put in place as something that would also be subsidized through other processes like general fund
allocations whether it's debt overrides or things of that nature. Now everything can be adjusted Jeeoff right and so the conversation today uh um essentially changes the projected model tomorrow. So part of that was to have this exact conversation so I can understand where
the board is leaning. I need to understand where the stakeholders of the community are leading while also trying to continually align with our water master plan and our capital improvement plans. >> Okay, thank you.
>> Any other questions? Uh Justin, quick question just sort of um based on a feedback that I got from a resident. Um, how confident are you relative to lost
revenue? How confident are you that meters are appropriately and I mean in a favorable way counting water usage? In other words, do you think that there are a any substantive
number of residents that are getting away with using water that's not being recorded as being used? >> Yeah. water loss prevention program is what we have. >> Now, I'm talking about people I'm hearing stories that meters are not working and people are getting build the
minimal rates um despite the fact that they know they're using much more water than that. >> Yeah. So, that that's in our memo. So, that's so what I would tell you this is so we have a very aggressive meter auditing program and so it's not meters that don't work. So, just think of a meter as a mechanical device. They
actually never fail. Oh, I I was I was being told that the batteries died. But I said they don't work by batteries. So that can't be true. At least that's my understanding. But >> so I'll explain it because this is a great This is a great forum. Yes. So we have a mechanical meter like an odometer
on a car. The water goes through, it turns. It does not fail. They are 99.9% accurate. Um and when they fail, they actually fail in a customer's favor, not in the town's favor. >> That's exactly the point that was being made. But we have our meters are
actually in really good age. They're in a good age. We had a aggressive replacement program less than 15 years ago. But what we did as an industry to reduce operating costs is we no longer send a meter reader around. So we don't have someone go out and read 400 uh
4,400 meters every quarter. We have radio readers. We have the world of cellular devices. So on the on the meter there is a radio which is like a cellular device that sends out the exact reading to our program that creates the
bill file. What happens is those batteries have a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years and the batteries fail. Now that doesn't mean we don't recoup that money, David. We audit our billing process quite often. I would tell you right now we're uh we have roughly about
300 radio fails that we're that we're seeing. So we aggressively reach out to customers. We actually ask customers to also reach out to us and we replace the radios now in order to make sure we don't re lose any water at that time. The second we turn on the brand new
radio, it sends a signal to us so we see exactly what the catchup read is. We also take a manual read because we can our service techs in there. They take a manual read to confirm that the radio read is accurate and that makes sure that our QAQC process takes place. So we
essentially always gain back the revenue. Unfortunately, the problem is due to staffing levels and some major vacancies for a very long time. Our uh radio auditing program is is falling behind. Um but we we make some significant progress. Typically our
winter is the best time to catch this, but we've had a really bad winter and our water sewer staff has been plowing and and salulting like everybody else in the department. But that loss revenue >> that lost revenue is always accounted for. We we get it back. David, >> how long does it take? How long does it
take to get that back? >> So, the worst when I started about 5 years ago, we had some bills that actually went three years. So, we had a significant um aggressive process that took place over the last two years where
we really acquired um closing that time gap. Right now, we're seeing uh maybe two quarter cycles and we catch it in a third. So, again, we're catching it in a fiscal cycle. So, it's not it's not like we're losing it fiscal cycle, and that would be the issue. Um,
>> I just don't I just don't want water users that are being um properly charged subsidizing folks that are out there using water without ending up paying for it. And as long as you're on top of it, and it sounds like you are, and it sounds like the insight that I was
getting was as typically when people don't have full understanding as I don't of of how the system works and what goes on that you get partial truths, partial falses, halftruths, full truths that don't really tell the whole story, but
it's it's not somebody that's looking for trouble, but rather somebody that's trying to help. So, yep, >> that's >> we encourage all our residents. So there. So if you go to our website, the first thing it says, if you see a zero usage read, please call the Department of Public Works. Your radio has failed. If you look on your bill, it's the first
headline under your name. It says, "If you see a ser zero use reg, excuse me, a zero usage read, call the Department of Public Works." We internally audit, but unfortunately we're lucky to internally audit 1% per quarter. Um, so that's part
of that. So we look for a lot of customer feedback, um, customer support. You'd be surprised how many customers actually do come to us because they don't want to pay the catchup because it typically catches up after two or three quarters. Can be a very expensive bill. So, we encourage every resident to make
sure that they read their their bills. They have their bills just like it's an electric bill. And if you got an electric bill where you're charged $47 in the middle of winter and you have heat pumps, I think you'd be calling Eversource going, "I think there's something wrong with my bill. I don't want to pay $2,000 next month." Right?
And so, part of that is the same here. Um, we do have some vacancies. We're hoping to get those vacancies filled and get ourselves up back up to full staff, which then allows us to conduct our audit. >> Okay. You you you have an understanding of what the complaint or the issue is.
And I don't want to I don't want to make it a negative thing. The person's trying to be helpful and I just want to make sure that that we understand. All right, >> David. We have one more information. we have this information to digest over the next two weeks that we can uh each look at if I'm sure you're available for any
questions that the members have for you. Um so it's been helpful information. Any questions before we shut down this topic? >> Uh yeah, I have one more question. Thank you. Um I see there's a separate Q&A with a couple of questions. One
involving the state revolving fund. Justin, can you maybe color in a little bit of the details on how that might impact timeline decisions for when we invest in capital? >> Yep. So, the state revolving fund is a it's through the water trust. Um, it's
managed by Mass D. It's a grant process, but it's also a loan process. So you essentially have to apply uh through Mass DP for a grant project that typically can pay for uh treatment plants, upgrades, wells, pretty much anything within our CIP somewhat falls
in the criteria of SRF program. Um the SRF program is a very competitive program. It's funded through federal funds and state funds. Um as you're aware, federal funds are being clawed back for programs like SRF and other processes. Um so the SRF uh program is
actually seeing a reduction in their overall coffers. Um but what we're trying to do is position ourselves um for the most advantageous bonding. So we can either bond through general obligations which interest rates are 5% or we can be accepted into an SRF
program which we essentially still bond but that bonding scenario could be anywhere between 2% rates or principal forgiveness. The SRF program for principal forgiveness usually doesn't um doesn't apply until the back end of the maturity, usually the last five years,
but it's still advantageous over the overall cost. Um in order for us to position ourselves advantageously, we need to have full designs. And so that's why we're aggressively talking about the banning in the design window because that allows us to put in potentially two
grant applications to the SRF over that ban payback period. um and then position ourselves to potentially see a lower interest rate and lower P&I, which would be great for everybody because we'd save funding um on our rates and our overall budget. So, that's kind of the strategic
plan there, Jeeoff. >> When we get full designs, how long are they good for? Would we need to go back to design at some point? So luckily for us based on the regulatory environment, the only thing that we um that we can see coming down from the EPA and the um
D is the PAS regulations which we would we have to apply uh uh we actually have to um implement as part of all of our treatment plan upgrades and manganesees um reductions and MCL's. So, Rockland, we would put these treatment processes
in our design and those designs would be valid for the next five to seven years. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Any other questions from members? Okay. Thank you, Justin. Appreciate your time. >> Of course. >> Thank you, Justin.
>> You're welcome. >> All right. We can take down that. Thank you. Um, just for the sake of time, um, Greg, we're going to drop this conversation tonight about the reviewing our goals status. Um, because that would
take 15 20 minutes and we're already at quarter to 10 and I think everybody's starting to get tired. So, I'd like to move on to the um the next topic, which was what the Hold on here. >> Fiscal year.
>> Fiscal year. Yep. Go ahead, Greg. That's on you. >> I'm uh I'll be quick. >> I'll just interject to note that we the discussions tonight helped us move along several of our goals. Uh so we reviewed them in terms of water, sewer, long-term budget planning. So we we we didn't do a
complete skip, David. >> Great. And I I'm not I'm not complaining. I just >> Yeah. No, I'm not either. I was just making a a note. >> Now everybody's tired. And you know sometimes I think as as these discussions are going on that maybe we should have made this one separate meeting entirely because two you know an
hour and a half on that topic >> eats up the meeting. So all right Greg go ahead. >> Yeah. No it's okay. I mean um I think what I'm about to say I wrote in the board dog notes anyways. So here let let me just touch on it. Hey we have a
balanced budget. Hooray. And I mean that sincerely. I just sound I'm just tired. But um so we have a balanced budget which is I expected um because we we I I conservatively budgeted high for our insurance and the various insuranceances and guess what it was lower. So so we
have a we have a balanced budget as of today but that doesn't mean it's all done. It's just a snapshot in time. So I will continue to talk with my finance team. We'll look at local receipts as the state budget continues to evolve. That might change. But I do have health insurance. I do have liability
insurance. And with all that, the dust settled and it's and it's balanced. So that's good. Um um I did include what I I call it the snapshot of where we are with expenses. I usually provide it for the budget subcommittee which is actually
coincidentally next week. Um so I did that for this meetings. Um for your awareness, I don't I'm I'm looking at uh all the various accounts for the general fund. Uh Kevin Peterson and I the town account, we look at them. There's nothing that's surprising to me. I know where some of that where we're
overspending some of them. Like we don't have a mechanic right now, so I'm spending a lot on a vendor like a an auto body shop. Um or our unemployment insurance is high. Like there's there's things that are just high and there are some things that are that are that for some reason just trend higher in general
and we try to capture that in the budget for the next year. The bottom line is I'm not concerned about where we are at this point in the fiscal year with our with our expenses. Um and uh free cash. So, um, because we don't because we weren't certified with as much free cash
as I was hoping to be, um, two things are happening. One, um, Kevin Peterson did a good job of of re-reviewing what he submitted for free cash, and we're asking the Department of Revenue to take another look at our what they certified. Hopefully, they can say, "Hey, it's more
than it's more than that." That's good. Secondly, um, we're looking at about all the past free cash articles. So, if we had uh um if we had put I don't know $50,000 to some plan, I don't know what whatever it is, and we didn't do end up doing that plan and it was three or four
years ago, we're looking at all that now. We do that periodically. Um, and I looked at, you know, about a many many months ago when I was first started this budget cycle. I looked at some of the big items and I kind of thought we're I thought I
thought, well, we might need money for that X, Y, or Z, whatever it is in the future, but we're really we're re excuse me, we are reooking at it all of it right now. So, I had a meeting today with Justin DeMarco because he has the most sort of free cash. Like, we're buying a lot of trucks. We put a lot of money into road improvements. There's a
lot of projects under public works. Um, but you know, public safety, we use free cash for public safety things, too. So, we looked at all those. Um, and Kevin and I are going to take a look at those articles again, and hopefully I can come back to the select board and say,
um, we found more free cash. Now, I have an urgency to do that one because I didn't have as much free cash as I thought. So right now I'm only recommending for example one police cruiser instead of two which was the recommendation from the capital planning committee.
So that's one reason I need I need money to buy stuff. The second reason is that's snow. So that snow right now is obviously exceeding where the last couple years of average has been like that that's just everyone you everyone could just see that and feel that. But
the that comes at a significant cost. So whereas in the past generally we've been able to get away with about $300,000 of free cash put towards snow and ice that's that I as everyone knows here we are tonight that's not going to be the case. So how much do we need for snow
and ice? I don't know. And I won't we won't know how much we're going to need for snow and ice for months from now. For some reason it just takes a long time for vendors to submit their invoices. So it it it's like sometimes more than 30 days after they've they've done work for the town, we'll get an
invoice from some landscaping company said that they did. It takes time, but we ended up collecting all that and we'll go to town meeting with as best an estimation conservative estimation of how much we need for snow and ice. That's we that's how we do it every year.
Okay. So that is the update for I'm not asking anything of the board tonight. I'm not asking the board to make any adjustments. Um cuz cuz you know that's good. But I if I in the future I might have to come to the board and say like shoot state budget was totally different. Budget's all out of whack or
whatever the case may be. But what you see in and I'll talk more to the budget subcommittee about these things. I can get into detail with them. But um but what what right now the bottom line is it's a balanced budget and we're and we're taking a look at free cash >> relative to town meeting. When do you
expect us to start approving and accepting articles? >> Uh the next meeting. So there's um um don't quote me on this, but I think your second meeting in April is when we want you to have an approved warrant, which
means I have two select board meetings. And so next we're a lot of them will knock out next next meeting, which is like surplus supply, all that stuff. But like um yeah, so next meeting and then and then
the second meeting is usually when you know this the second meeting from this meeting. I notice I'm I'm getting all these things are confused. Either way, um I don't >> within two meetings we should have them all approved. >> Correct. Because I don't want the board to approve just like we did for the water rates. I don't want you to approve anything that the first time you see it.
So um that's always the goal and I think we're on track. And my last question on this topic is um do you have a sense at how many articles there will be? >> Oh man, Greg, what's your >> I just heard today there's a new uh
citizens petition. >> Yes. >> That's come in. >> Yes. >> Um something. >> So I'm I'm expecting two citizens. >> I won't comment on it. I I'm too tired so I don't want to >> Okay. Okay. But uh Greg, what's what's your guess?
Uh, actually just pulling up my tracker really quick. From what I can tell, at least 30 m, I think maybe potentially lower 30s number. Uh, if all of them
come to fruition because we do have some that were not positive, um, that I marked as potentials, but not definitely >> potential citizens petition types. >> Oh gosh, no, no, no. Total articles. >> All right. Yeah. No, no, we we usually get whispers at least of citizens
petitions by this point, but I I know of the two. >> We know of two. >> Yeah. >> That have been certified >> or one's been certified. Yeah. And then one is probably going to get signatures. >> And and the one that was certified I had never heard a whisper of
>> Oh, actually, me neither, actually. So, that um >> Yeah, I didn't know that was coming until it just showed up on our doorstep. too. >> I forwarded to the board. You'll see it in your emails. >> Yeah, I saw it earlier today. Uh, all right. Thank you, Greg. Anything on the
senior center, which is the next >> Sorry, can I go ahead Lindsay? Go ahead. >> Go ahead, Lindsay. >> Uh, I just want to understand what you were just saying about free cash because I don't think I understood this. So, >> so with free cash funding, so if town
meeting appropriates money for free cash four years ago to buy a truck, >> Yep. It's possible that we don't spend that money and it sits in an account somewhere. >> That's okay. So that is surprising given how
much we need money. Um so that money sits somewhere unspent even though it is available to the town for spending. And what's our like regular process for auditing whatever that looks like? It sounds like we don't >> Tommy basically comes back and and
accepts that money back eventually. >> That's right. >> Unspent. >> When do they spend it though? Because you're talking about three years ago. Like when when do the unspent funds come back? >> Immediately, but it's it's it's case by case. So, um let's say we put aside
money for a study and and we're always you you don't want to have to come back to the town if you don't have if you can prevent it. you you think the study might cost $275,000. So you but you don't know. So you ask for 300,000 and so now you got 25 grand that you didn't but that study
may take two or three years. So you don't know how long until until it finalizes or we set money aside for um how I'm I'm reluctant to get into case by case, but here's a good example. We we set money aside because I thought I was going to have to demo the old fire
station. So, we went to town meeting years ago so that we I can't remember how many years ago. And so, we didn't end up having to do that. We spent some money so we could do I can't remember what we did, but anyways, we we spent some of that, but there was a couple hundred grand that was sitting there because I thought I was going to have to
do um traffic improvements to the to the intersection after we sold it. Um we still may, but that's not the top priority of this road safety committee is that particular intersection. So the so with elimination with the limited free cash, the question is what's the
better investment? Holding on to $200,000 for a traffic improvement that we don't know when we're going to get around to or or um fowler doors which which the capital planning committee says we need to replace now. >> So it's a think of it more of like
moving money for investments. Like we invested in one thing, maybe we need to rethink that investment. >> Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. >> Yeah. Oh, so we don't So we do it kind of periodically. The town count kind of keeps a track, but in this case, we're
we looked at things that that that fire station thing I just mentioned is what I looked at months ago and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to keep that. I'm not going to I don't want to touch that cuz we might want to make those traffic improvements, but we looked at today >> that you're going to rearter." Yeah. >> Yeah. Because I'm like, "No." All right. We need to >> Yeah. >> Got it.
>> Okay. you'll I'll get into that in detail, you know, to the I will get into that in detail when I'm prepared. >> Okay, >> Greg, I have a switching gears a little bit, a question going back to related to the um joint budget review in which we
looked at the school's um intention to use the preschool revolving account for covering, you know, some of their budget gap. I think they would call it a budget gap there. And we've talked about other revolving accounts as well. Those are
maintained by the are those maintained by the treasur's office. So they're their accounts that we have here. That's my question. Did my >> We only have one getting a little late. That wasn't worded. >> No, that's I think >> so. Our accountants office has like an overall perspective of it and our
treasurer collector's office goes to the bank. So the so they are a town department. So the school department um but their financing as you know is very complicated. So like I you know I don't make recommendations to the like what about their particular revolving accounts.
>> Understood. Do we have a list of all the revolving accounts and and the current balances in them? >> Yeah. Yes. But I I I'll get that. >> Okay. Thank you. And and um >> could you could you get a five-year look back at the end and beginning of each fiscal year? I guess it's the same thing
for the school choice and the preschool revolving account. Those being the two that were discussed. >> Yep. Preschool, I think, is what they mentioned in February. School choice is what we talked about um in the runup to the
uh override a full year and a half ago now. >> Okay, I got it. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Okay. Uh senior center. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um I'm in talks with Lexvest, who's the owner. I'm asking and
they're I think they're developing the timeline, like how long is it going to take to do the renovations. Um I don't have it yet, but that's the latest I heard is that they're developing the timeline. >> Okay. Uh Green Meadow School, I saw there was
some paperwork showing the updates on what's going on. No, it's on track. Anything to add, Chris or Mike? What is in the weekly report that we get? >> Yeah. Other than that, >> nope. >> Haven't had a meeting in a bit.
>> There's a meeting on Monday next week, but I I we're on we're on I'm on the budget side of it, so I know we're on budget. We're on time in that budget. >> All right. Okay. We're going to skip the annual goals discussion. We'll move on to
correspondences. There are three of them. We take a motion to accept correspondences. >> Move to accept correspondences A through C as shown. >> Second. >> Any discussion or questions on those?
Hearing none, we'll vote. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> I'm a yes as well. Two sets of minutes. November 4th, January 20th.
>> I'll move to approve the meeting minutes of November 4th, 2026 and January 20th, 2026 as shown and authorize the use of digital signatures if approved. >> Seconded. >> If there's no comments, we'll vote. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff,
>> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> All right. Town administrator report. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, bottom line is we have a lot of snow and I'm very appreciative of all public works and public safety folks for working so hard during it. I was on vacation and I
appreciate Stephanie Dugen and the rest of the team um, you know, filling in, taking over while I was gone and then sure enough, we get back to a lot of snow. Not not a fun way to come back for vacation. But, um, public works is hard. They're working hard and um, we don't
have a lot of guys. We don't have we don't have the best equipment, but they're out there working as hard as they can. Any questions on Greg's report or comments? No, >> I'll add my thanks to the the DPW crews who've been keeping the streets clean and and for follow-up snow removal and
and for communication that we're seeing on the social media platforms as well. Appreciative of all of that. >> Yeah, I agree. I I'm I texted uh Justin in the middle of the last storm just to check in to see how his crew was doing and um he said they were tired but
hanging in and uh you know so that was good. Uh all right >> they'll make up for it. They'll make up for it in the summer. >> Don't worry about those Don't worry about those guys.
>> Uh chair report. I have a couple of quick things. Greg, you and I quickly spoke about this and at the beginning of the meeting when I mentioned um the passing of Jim Coleman, um I was hoping that we could use some of the funds within the uh purview of the select
board um from the town to send some flowers to his um to his wake. Um, and uh, with the board's approval, uh, I'd like to, uh,
approve that, sending you utilizing, and I forget the the money that you were referencing, Greg, um, that we have, but to approve that and just ask that some flowers be forwarded on behalf of the community from the board of select.
>> And if there's no objection, I don't Do you need a vote on that, Greg? Uh, sure. Because you brought it up in a public meeting. So, yes, why not? Just quick. >> All right. So, what's the name of the of the >> um community events, but that's you don't have to tell you don't even have
that doesn't even matter. just like you like direct the town administrator to >> I will make a motion to direct the town administrator to arrange for flowers to be uh presented on behalf of the community from the board of selectment
to u Jim Coleman's family at his wake um through town available funds. >> Got it. >> Seconded. >> Any questions or comments? And we'll vote. Chris, >> yes. Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay,
>> yes. >> Mike, >> yes. >> Nam, yes, as well. Um, I wanted to my other thing was thanks to the DPW. And then lastly, I think all of us have been invited um to WAVM to do
one of their What's Up Maynard programs. I know Mike did it. I know Greg did it. Uh, I did it yesterday and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Um, and I know Lindsay schedule I think Friday they told me. So, um, and Jeff, they told me was scheduled. Chris, they haven't gotten in
touch with you yet. >> Yeah, they I'm I'm trying to get my work schedule cleared on Friday so I can join Lindsay. So, I'm If you don't mind, Lindsay, I'm going to try to tag along with you. I think we'll be fun to do together. But I'll >> I haven't heard from them, but I'm not hiding. >> No, they I'm sure they may have trouble
reaching you. Do you have an issue with your email? >> Nope. >> Because I kept getting those kickbacks. You know, the uh that's a bad a bad word to use. They they might be getting through one one group preparing before they get to that because I >> No, they told me they told me yet that they wanted to reach Chris and they just
they said they hadn't reached reach reached you yet. So >> nothing nothing land in my inbox until well after David had had completed his first one. So I think they're just doing them one at a time. Chris saving the best for last. >> I'm keeping an eye of it. Sometimes that stuff ends up in that uh proof point
stuff. You got to release it. So, we'll move on to board members reports. Chris, >> me. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, we're talking about Tom moderators. Um, I know everybody on this this probably still left on the call with the
exception of Jillian has seen the uh things about what went on on a a Zoom call a couple weeks ago between Jen Picarelli and one of the members of the uh bylaw committee. Um, and I know when we I know David, I
don't know if we stopped giving them out, but at one point in particularly when I was there at the beginning, Becky gave me a kind of a re a set of rules that we follow, you know, for the select board to follow, you know, basic
common courtesies and that type of stuff. and and it would be nice if everybody in the uh world of committees and boards and everything had a similar piece of paper to take a look at when they um you know when they when they get um selected or
appointed to one of these type of committees. I I don't want to speak about what the particulars of that thing were because I have my own opinions and some people might not like them. Um, but there was definitely some issues that
kind of should be addressed in the way uh some people spoke to each other um and the way it was handled after the fact by the chair of that committee and then you know uh Dick came with his own opinions which is fine but the um a
couple people and I think I had this conversation with Lindsay over emails. Would be nice if we had something that we could all look at so we're all kind of on the same page as to what the expectations of us are during a meeting and while we represent whether we
represent the select board, the planning committee, whether we're representing um the town moderator as a member of the fincom or the bylaw committee, we should all have an understanding of how we're supposed to act. You know, some of us,
myself included, probably push the boundaries sometimes with how we act and how we get kind of excited about certain things, but I don't think anybody on this this call has ever been disrespectful or anything like that to anybody. And I I kind of saw some of
that during that particular call. And I just think we should we should address it. We don't have to address it with Dick. I think Dick's Dick's handling of it was exactly what I thought Dick would have done. And I I have no problem with it. But I just think going forward the the boards that we select and those that
represent the select board, we ought to have them with the same understanding that we all have of how to act. That's all for me. >> Thank you, Jeff. Uh no, no update from me. Thank you,
>> Lindsay. >> Agree with everything Chris said. Also, um, Ellen Dugen alerted me to the fact that we are 5 years from our CESQUA centennial celebration, which means that we're at our 155th anniversary of the town of Maynard in this year. >> Five years.
>> Yeah, it's been 5 years. Guess what? Co really warped time. That went fast, huh? >> That went fast. >> I think it's April. Is it April? >> That's incredible. >> April 19th. April 19th, 1871. It's the founding. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> So, we're coming up on 155. I don't know
what that would be. Ces Sesposen Quinn something or other. I'm sure there's a name for it, but >> wow. >> Yeah, that parade was something else. But anyway, >> thank you. Anything else? >> No, >> Mike. Uh, yeah, just echoing what uh Chris was
saying about that situation. Um, important to get those standards out there and clear. Um, other than that, not much. I was able to attend the uh official opening of Barrels and Vines uh the other day, last week. And so it was
nice to see them uh formally starting their business and just a reminder that they actively want us to stick their nose stick our noses in their business. So um it was it was good to see them uh kicking off. Um
>> was that a wine joke, Mike? >> Say again. >> Was that a wine joke? It was a a very lame wine joke. >> No, I liked it. >> Spin >> better than some of the sewage puns I was thinking of earlier. >> Yeah.
>> Did Justin say he was going to be maybe 10 minutes each? >> Well, you were only off an hour and 20 minutes. >> But anyway, just good to see uh new businesses um trying to make a go of it and main it. So, that was encouraging.
Yeah, that's it. All right, that is it for all of us. Is there a motion to adjourn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Seconded. >> Roll call. Chris, >> yes. >> Jeff, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Mike, >> yes.
>> I am a yes as well. Thank you everybody for your >> participation. Good night, Jillian. Good night, Steph. >> Thanks. Have a good night. >> Good night. Night. Good night.