Good afternoon and welcome to the uh August 25th, 2025 uh meeting of the select board. Uh I'm going to call us to order here at 50:05. Uh we have uh member Wells, I believe, is on uh remotely with us. Uh so we have
Mr. Daly and myself here. U Miss Hegerty, I'm hoping we'll be able to dial in later, but we do have a quorum with Mr. Wells online. So with that, um we have uh received your material. So thank you very much. And uh I want to start by saying I'm sorry the process
was a little irregular. I talked about that a little bit last week. Um I think there were were some crossed wires and um we're happy to have you guys in and and run through some questions. So what we've been doing with the other firms is going through a list of questions. We're
kind of passing the baton of who's asking them. It's this the same questions that we've asked everyone. So we'll just go ahead and do that. Uh and the first question is the please introduce yourself uh and talk about your attorney's experience and your interest in working with Milton and what your roles would be in in working with
the town. >> Thank you very much Mr. Chairman and other members of the board present in person and otherwise. Uh my name is Katherryn Hessie and um I am uh one of the founding partners of Murphy Hessie Tumi and Leah Hane and I'm here not
because I'm going to be part of your day-to-day team. You have here your your your proposed lead council Kate Connelly and proposed lead backup council uh Caris North. Um, we also have behind me, um, Jamie Donnelly and Eddie Singer, two
of our tremendous team of associates who do a lot of work in this area. I'm going to leave it mostly to Kate and Caris to go over some of the subp parts of that question. Um, but just to let you know why I'm here, I just wanted to express
our deep commitment to the town of Milton. Many of us, including many of my partners, as well as myself, live in Milton. I'm a citizen of Milton. I love Milton. Many of them were born here, lived here all their lives. John Flynn, Arthur Murphy, and Kathy Murphy and um
and others, their senior council. But I I was a military brat and I had to find a place that would be my home. And I've lived here now for over 40 years. I love it. It's a wonderful town. And um I'm just on the other end of the phone as a senior member of the management comm.
partner to give you our assurances that if there's ever any concern with anything that we're doing or not doing, if we can ever improve in any way, if you're ever having any problems, um you can reach out to your team here, but you can also reach out to me personally. So,
I want to let you know that the firm stands behind this because Milton is a very important community to us, both because we live here, work here, and love the town, and also because you're one of our first and long-term clients.
Um so uh we're also uh have a very deep and broad bench I think and an unusually deep and broad bench over I think at least half a dozen if not more of us have been recognized by our peers across the state and been elected as president
of the mass municipal uh lawyers association and also a number of specialty associations. For example, you hear about Kate and her expertise in so many different areas um including the um mass what is it the mass association
conservation commissioners. So um uh this is very important to us. We care about it and I think that we also have an unusual depth of experience. I think some firms have only done town council and so they
don't have their experience may be uh perhaps narrower than ours and what we bring to the table is the ability to have looked at so many other things to be able to see and predict what other people like contractors coming in you know if you're you know you have an architectural contract whatever it is so
I I maybe pop in later on more specific questions I don't know what what would be asked um but what I'd like to say is that we also pride ourselves on having not only a deep and broad bench uh of attorneys who are really tremendous attorneys but also a diverse bench that
we've worked very hard to. As you might notice we have uh three women here um uh speaking to you today. We also have a lot of great men. Um but when I started I was the first woman and that wasn't true and it took a lot of hard work to do that. We also have people of color in our firm including in major positions of
leadership. Um I brought on um one who is now um uh leading up uh co-leading up our public retirement area just to give you an idea. And I also um we have people from China, people who grew up in Ukraine. So we we we really pride
ourselves on the diversity of cultural uh gender, age, uh specialty, etc. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to uh to our proposed lead council, Kate Connelly. And if I didn't emphasize it enough, I know that your procedure has
been somewhat irregular. And I want you to know how much we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today, to hear a little bit about us, to meet us in person, and um and we we're very grateful to that. >> Yes. Thank you. And thank you, Katherine. Um, I'm Kate Connelly and
while I'm relatively new to the firm, I'm not new in municipal law because I've been practicing for over 32 years at I started at Copelman and Paige, which is now KP Law. I was there for 16 years, nine of them as a partner. And I just like all my colleagues at Murphy,
Hessie, Tumi, and Leah. We all do all the general municipal law, open meeting law, public records, uh, ethics, conflicts, finance, all all of the general municipal things. and we do trainings on them as well. My main practice areas are land use litigation.
Well, land use permitting first and then hopefully you can avoid the litigation but then also land use litigation. When I was at Copman Page, I was lead council for seven towns and I've had special counsel municipalities and actually most recently I was in-house in a
municipality. So, I had that perspective as well. Um, conservation is one of my big areas as Katherine mentioned. I do general land use, which most land use attorneys do zoning, planning, enforcement, and that sort of thing. Not as many, although Caris and I both do
conservation, not as many do conservation um cases, maybe because it's very scientific and technical, but I've always enjoyed it. And so I've lucked out that somebody else in uh the particular farm where I was, like when I was at KP Law, they don't want to do it, then I get to do it. Um after or
actually while I was at Copelman Page, I got asked by an opposing council who'd had had litigation against for over 10 years to join his firm. And that was a wonderful opportunity because I got to continue municipal law but bring in some private clients. And that gave me a
really good perspective for my municipal law for really for both. But the municipal clients trusted me when I was representing applicants before them because they knew what my real background was. And then I was able to provide my municipal clients with a better background of understanding what
the applicants have to go through and how they might want to respond to them in a better manner. Sometimes it was a developer and sometimes at the end of a project or or even during a project before it goes to litigation, my clients in that case massabon
um oftentimes are there appealing or getting ready to oppose something that a developer is going to do. So that was an interesting perspective that I got to do that as well um as the municipal staff and one interesting thing when I was representing Mass Ottabon on a matter and had had them in all different
municipalities. One was in the town of Sharon planning board and conservation were reviewing a development and massabon owned property next to it and so they wanted to make sure the development got permitted in a way that wasn't going to affect their property adversely. It ended up really well. Everybody was
happy at the end of it. no litigation and then the town of Sharon hired me to write and revise their wetlands bylaw. So, um, so that was a plus. Um, as I said, I' I've represented seven towns, really nine through my out
my career as main town council, so I'm comfortable doing that. And as lead counsel, what I would anticipate is that I would be the gatekeeper of any matters that come in to the firm so that it's efficient so that you're not having and and there'd be a gatekeeper here as well. A town administrator would review
things from town employees or u board chairs rather than letting them send it directly to us so that you're not having two different people send the same question, giving us different facts, and then getting a different answer from each person. So I would be the gatekeeper. I would do most of the work.
cover your town meetings. We've already looked at October 27th to make sure nobody had a conflict. Anything I couldn't do, Caris would do or we would assign it out to somebody else to to handle. But I'm very comfortable being lead counsel. We're also flexible and
I'm comfortable if you were to want us to flip it and have Caris be the lead council. Um, we're happy to do trainings as well. And, um, we mentioned Katherine mentioned Mass Municipal Lawyers Association
and the Mass Association of Conservation Commissions. I've done trainings. I know Katherine um, Caris has done trainings for both of those on all the topics that I just mentioned, all the general municipal stuff. And we did put in our proposal that we would give some um
free training to the town to town officials employees as well. And we are still happy to do that. Um and I think at this point, unless you have specific questions for me, I'm going to defer to Caris. >> Good afternoon. Thank you so much for
having us. Uh I'm Caris North and I'm the proposed backup council. Um I've been with Murphy Hessum and Leah almost 20 years now. Um before that uh I actually uh started my life as a regulator at the Environmental Protection Agency uh in Washington DC at
headquarters. I went to law school. I then worked for the state of Maryland in the energy uh agency. Uh and then I went to work for the private sector as an environmental lawyer in DC and Boston and then landed at Murphy Hassie because I really wanted a public sector um
practice. And uh while I've done a fair amount of litigation um with them, I have you know developed a specialty in municipal law um and currently am lead town council for four communities and then I have some special counsel work
that I do uh on a variety of things. Um my you know I'm I'm a generalist. I consider myself the sort of uh general counsel of a municipal corporation. Um, and I have that th all of those skills
um, and the ability to uh to work on a variety of issues. I certainly have some specialties as Kate mentioned. I have a deep environmental background. Um, I've done a lot of work on affordable housing across the Commonwealth. Um, I do a lot of governance. Um, I work with boards
and committees on how to be a good board in a committee, how to run your board meetings well. I do a lot of open meeting law and public records training. I just this summer did the Mass Municipal Associations Select Boards Associations training for the new select
board members that were elected. So perhaps your new board members were there at Devons. Um I did that training. Um and I've done that before. Um I was uh uh doing a a bunch of webinars um on
land use uh private roads and things like that with the MMA and the MMLA. Um, I'm a past president of the MMLA. Um, and I was elected uh top women in law in 2023. So, I've been around for a while and I, you know, I'm really committed to
and really love this work. Um, I've been working sort of behind the scenes as a backup in Milton back from John Flynn's days. Um, from my earliest time at Murphy Hessie, I've done a variety of projects for the town of Milton. um and very much enjoyed them and feel very
comfortable in town hall even though most of the players have turned over by now. Um but it's always been one of those communities that as Katherine mentioned we're you know really proud to serve. Um and so you know Kate and I work down the hall from each other. We
work on a variety of clients together and so we have a very um open regular discussions um and anything that she needs assistance with I'm prepared to to help. Um and again if you want to flip who's in charge and who's lead that's
also um uh something that we can do. Um we do do and I just uh the trainings that we do and that we have offered to do as a complimentary uh part of our proposal I think are really important to getting your board members in particular
up and running um particularly when there's a lot of changeover and just to make sure that everybody is on the right page how to run meetings effectively and efficiently and mostly to stay in compliance with the open meeting law because there have been a lot of of um
scrutiny of of uh board decisions from people, you know, in Alabama and Alaska and, you know, as well as in Massachusetts. And so, we've gotten a lot of complaints um for other clients um and that have been sort of sweeping around. So, we think it's important to
remind you all of that training and to to be available to do that. Um, the one other thing that I want to mention that is something that is a hallmark of of our practice is that we like to do office hours. Sort of a once a month spend an afternoon at town hall
scheduling through the town administrator's office, allow department heads to come in in 15 minute sessions or half an hour or sessions to just ask questions um to resolve something that perhaps is still pending, to raise an issue that's new. Um, and it's an
opportunity for them to get to know us face to face as opposed to on the phone or over email. It's an opportunity for us to get to know them to develop that relationship and that communication that is so important in resolving legal questions uh, efficiently um, and
correctly and also helping us sort of sort through what might be out there that we want to try to avoid as a problem so that we don't end up in litigation down the road. So that's something that we offer as part of our services and I do it successfully in some of my communities and I think it's
very valuable. >> I do it as well and the towns seem to think it's very helpful to them. >> Mr. Daily, you want to take the next question? >> I'll take the next one. Thank you. Uh so what would you say is your general approach to providing town council
services? How do you see yourself as your role within the town's organization? And how would you define a successful town and town council relationship? >> Well, I'll take it to start. Our role is advisory. We don't view ourselves as
directly part of the town in terms of decision-m and policy things. That's your role. We're here to advise and we report to the selectman, work with the town administrator, and our object is to try to be efficient. As I said earlier,
we try to be the gate the one person in the firm be the gatekeeper of any new things that come in. Try to make sure if since we know everything that's happening, if somebody's already working on something and something very similar comes in, we want to make sure we gave it to the same person, train new people
as well, of course, in our firm, um, new associates to get up to speed on things. But our our main role is advisory and to make sure that we tell you how you need to do things to to do them legally and to be compliant with the law. If there's something specific that
you want to do that we think you can't do, we would need to tell you that. But we also would help you to do, you know, some things are not black and white. There are some things that maybe the town may want to do that are are avenues that you could take to um to get the
correct result that you wanted. This is something that I I might just pop on because in the olden days when I started practicing law, there were a lot of individuals who were practically a member of of of of the board. They were
at every meeting of everything. They hung out in the town hall and I think even though they weren't elected, I think that many of them actually started to try to make decisions. And so that's one reason we try to understand
you're the electants, not us. It's up to you to set the direction. What we can do as as Kate just mentioned is help you understand what the pitfalls might be if you decide to go in a certain area so that you don't go into it blind. And if you decide to go into something that
might have some areas of danger that we can help you structure it in a way that most might be most successful. So, I see myself often as a risk manager trying to help you avoid risks, legal risks that might be out there, but also
reputational risk because one of the things that we're very involved in is um you know, understanding how if you need special legislation or if you need other other things that require uh work up at the state house um or work, you know,
otherwise that we can assist you in that because we know those processes. So we don't try to take over and tell you what to do, but if you if we understand the direction that you're going and oftentimes we'll be working very closely with your chief executive officer, your
administrator um uh to um to to basically make sure that you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. I'll just briefly add I think that the word counselor is really important as part of the relationship. We really need
to listen to what you all want to accomplish and then help you figure out the best legal path forward to accomplish what it is that you want to get done and understanding what the risks are, what the pitfalls are um and and help you figure out that that best
direction to make your next decisions. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Walls, would you like to handle the third question? Does he have the questions in front? >> If you're with us, Mr. else. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just need to unmute. >> Sure. >> I believe that I already answered the
question. Question three dealt with how you prepared to handle a variety of municipal issues. So I think for full disclosure as attorney Hessie mentioned when she came in and I mentioned this in the prior our prior interviews I think
Murphy Hessie Tumi became councel for the town in my third year of the police on the police department. I think it was 86 or 87. It was early on. And you have been entrenched here for um
all of those decades. I hate to say I'm all in all of those decades that um so and you do have handled a wide variety of issues for the community. Everything from labor to land use issues to civil action to in the early days um MCAD
complaints. I remember when I first met Katherine that was I think one of the first things she was hearing. It's a case for the town which as you know those are now handled by our insurance company. But um I think you've already touched a little bit on on um the type of expertise your PM has on staff and
and how you intend to assist uh as you legal. So I'm going to I'll let you go to question four. I think they've already answered this question but um I do think for the listeners citizens who are watching I know there are former department heads watching. You have been
entrenched here for many many years and I think that um it's important that we note that tonight. So that that's it for unless I think that's pretty much I think I've answered question three, Mr. Chair. I didn't even go on to question four. >> Mr. Wells, did you want to do question four then? >> All right. So I'll do um as you So I'll
go to question four which is as as the team knows many of our ongoing issues and political litiga potential not political political politics in the brain these days potential litigations stem from as you stated land use issues. Um, can you just you touched on this a
little bit a little bit more about your firm's ability to handle complicated land use matters and maybe an example of a legal defense of a of a land use body that um came before one of you before. >> Thanks Mr. Wells. I'm just going to repeat the question a little bit because
the audio is a little bit um fuzzy. Um >> I'm fine with that. >> So but we've been working together long enough where I I feel like I know what what what Mr. Wells is saying. So the third question was um how do you handle a wide variety of municipal issues? You felt like and I agree that you've kind of answered that in the first part of
your question. Um so this uh new question is um many of our ongoing issues and potential litigation stem from land use related issues. Could you talk about your experience or your firm's ability to handle complicated land use matters and if you have an example of a successful defense of a
land use body and the issues that were involved? I can start since I've handled a lot of land use issues and I'm actually currently handling two matters for the town of Milton which are both um I don't know that I mentioned I I in addition to court I do administrative appeals and
I'm know that Caris does as well. I have two matters for Milton. One is the G road turf field and that we just filed all of our uh pre-filed direct testimony which is the way they do them at it's a D appeal basically and the way they do
them is you file all of your written testimony in advance. So the trial doesn't start with direct exam, it starts with cross exam and I think they do it that way because it's so technical and scientific. So you want to get all the expert witness testimony in. And then the other one is a comprehensive
land holdings case for Milton which is also at the office of administrative dispute resolution. And that's a different situation. That's one where D overturned the conservation commission. I've had matters that involve two different town boards fighting over me
as town council and one of them has to hire somebody else. So those have been that's happened twice where where it was the DPW and the conservation commission. And the other situation it was a city and it was the mayor and the conservation commission. In both situations I represented well one I
represented the DPW actually the other one I represented the conservation commission and there were many complex issues. Both of the one of those got litigated all the way through the other one we resolved and I'm not mentioning specific names of
cases but I had another one that again was my mass autoabon client but it was definitely a municipal situation as well that was a situation that involved super fund hazardous waste. The federal government was involved and we ended up settling it. Um it was litigation and it
went on for about 10 years. I was only involved for seven years, but I was really happy to be part of it because my client was Massabon. They owned property next to the Husatonic River, which got contaminated by a large corporation out in Pittsfield. And the other parties
included two cities, several towns, a grassroots environmental organization, as I mentioned, the EPA, Mass D, Mass Ottabon, and um a neighborhood group in addition to the grassroots environmental group. So that was
litigation. We filed pleading after pleading. It went on for a long time with not only environmental issues because there was contamination. So it was mass DP chapter 21E, but also the federal super fund was involved. But there were also land use permitting
issues, um trespass. They contaminate they the company that did the work acknowledged that they did the contamination and then they just wanted to figure out how to restore not only their own property but the city of Pittsfield's property, all the municipalities who got affected and Mass
Ottabbon's property. And that's what we ended up working out a settlement for. And the parties were really happy and we ended up having um they had a a press release groundbreaking ceremony and all the media was out there and all the
federal and state representatives and so on because people were just happy that it got resolved. And while I feel like I had a small part in it because it went on for so many years and I was only one of several attorneys, it was still fun to be part of a resolution where it started out huge. many many different
issues crossing over zoning, planning, environmental and then it got resolved in a manner where everybody was at least somewhat relieved if not happy. My experience in the complex land use litigation has taken sort of three
different paths. either uh affordable housing 40B uh where I litigated um at the housing appeals committee uh whether or not a community met the 1.5% general land area. That litigation ended up
creating new precedent um for how the HAC actually uh calculates that that number. Um we lost but we came closer than anybody has ever come. Uh I think the HAC said we were something like
1.48% instead of 1.5% which was so tantalizingly close. Um, and then uh I I've done a fair amount of including for the town of Milton of uh conservation commission litigation either in through the appeals process through the
administrative appeals process at D um or through the superior court process when you're dealing with a a bylaw as a a local bylaw as opposed to the state wetlands protection act. So I've done both of those pathways um for Milton and many other communities. One of the cases
um that was very interesting to me and that we had a good outcome uh was for a different community where there was a challenge to a fields project um that abuted some conservation land um and some of the neighbors were unhappy about it and challenged it. I got the case
kicked out. It was a local bylaw challenge. I got the case kicked out um and dismissed at the uh trial court level on standing and then the appeals court affirmed that decision. So, we got a really good result. And then the last thing that I do is sort of the garden
variety challenge to variances and special permits um coming out of planning board and zoning board. Um I've been working a lot actually with uh Jamie Donnelly behind me on um on a lot of those cases for other clients. Um and
we're developing sort of a a great practice. a lot of the issues come down to standing um again in all of those cases and that's really important to think about um at the early stages because then you don't have to get into uh the detail but I've uh tried a case
um a variance case last year um so uh you know very strong experience >> thank you um so could you uh and this is something that we we've been dealing with a bit too as a town but we'd love to hear
about your process for explaining complicated legal issues to non- attorneys, particularly board committee members, town meeting members or the general public. We do that a lot at our trainings and I know I've done and I know Caris has done PowerPoint
presentations as well for um Mass Municipal Law Association but also more importantly I think in this situation the Mass um municipal association where the people that you're talking to are selectmen town managers various
employees of the town as well as volunteer boards and commission members and we just explain it in simple language without using Latin and other legal terms. And I know that the PowerPoints that I've done and the stuff that I the training and things like that
that I've done for MACC, that's a big part of it is just being able to explain things in simple language that everybody's going to understand. Um I'm one of the authors of the handbook for conservation commissioners that MACC puts out. We've updated it a few times and it's available electronically and
that was a huge part of what we do. Um, explaining the powers and duties of a conservation commission. It's a huge book. It's like 500 pages in the hard copy. Um, summaries of cases, all of those things have to be explained in a way that people can understand. And the more complex they are, the more you've
got to make the language just something that's Webster's dictionary versus a law dictionary. >> Yeah. I think as Kate says, you really have to boil it down to the basics and be very straightforward and clear. I
don't think that the the board um or town meeting needs to know the legal rationale behind the question. I think they need an answer to the question and then the guidance on how to move forward based on that question. And I pride
myself on trying to be straightforward and clear and simple and not over complicate matters. I spend a lot of time in communities that have long town meetings and ask a lot of questions of council and I really try to be efficient. I prepare in advance and I
may have all the piles of the law in my notebook with me but I don't need to explain to you that you know what a particular case says. I need to tell you what you can do based on that case. And that's how I try to simplify it. I try to be really practical and understand
that our audience is not lawyers, but they are everyday people who don't necessarily deal with lawyers in their daily lives. >> Thank you. Mr. Daily, you want to do number six? >> All right. So, town council is sometimes called upon to provide their opinion in
a public setting and may not be able to assert the attorney kind privilege. Oh, Jesus. attorney client privilege if doing so would negatively impact the ability of committee members or town meeting to engage in debate on an issue. How have you navigated issues like this
in other communities? >> I've always approached town meetings where we know there's something that's going to be controversial and if I've provided an opinion, I know eventually my opinions probably will get made public and the attorney client privilege is really for you. it's for the client
and if you get to a point where you want to release it, you can certainly do that. Going into town meetings, if an issue is really complicated or controversial, I will typically talk with the selectman, either um either the chair or if there's some way that I can do it. You know, obviously if it's a
sensitive issue, I'm not going to discuss it at a selection meeting and I certainly can't talk with all of you, but I might talk with one member or the chair and usually the moderator as well and say if you ask me this question, this is the answer that I'm going to have to give. And if I've given a legal
opinion, I do what Cara said. I just boil it down to like one sentence if I can keep it really short. I've had situations where in certain towns people will then challenge the answer and then you do have to site the cases or the statutes because people in some communities you do have lawyers and you
do have people that are going to look further and they want to look things up. Um and but I I do always try to keep my answers short and sweet and and again notice if it is something that the town has wanted to keep to um under protected
under the attorney client privilege. If somebody does ask it, I just I keep my answer as short as I can that addresses the question without giving away if possible without giving away something that might still be privileged. And of course, there are things that if something's in litigation, I don't have to give the answer just because somebody
asked at town meeting. So there are there are situations where um it's going to still be privilege even though as I just said that the pro the protection is for you and you may want to give it up. There are going to be situations where I'll advise you no, you can't. This is still executive session only. Minutes
can't be given out or it's still litigation or whatever the matter is. If it's still unresolved and still privileged, then you have to keep it that way until the matter's resolved. >> I think that says pretty much all of the points that I would make. Um I I think
the bright line for me is whether something's in litigation or not. I do not want to say anything in public that is going to impact the the town's position in a piece of litigation. Um, and I know that's sometimes controversial and it's difficult. Um,
but my role is to protect the town's interests and as Kate said, you all hold the attorney client privilege. If you vote to wave it, then we can have a more wholesome discussion. But otherwise that bright line, you know, I I I try to hold
to the rest of it. You know, when I give when I write legal opinions to someone, you know, they're generally open and and available to be discussed. Um, and if I discuss them at a public meeting, um, then they're available to the world to
to take a look at. And and I try to write my opinions understanding that they're going to be seen by multiple eyes. and perspectives. >> Okay. >> And and on that point, if I could just add, I learned early on to also be careful when we're drafting bills
describing the work that we've done to clients that it that's public record right there. And some municipalities, you've got reporters who are coming in and looking at the bills. So, you've got to while you want to be detailed and honest to the client, you don't want to say
legal strategy regarding motion for summary judgement that I'm filing against so- and so. You've got to really be more careful and just write a pleading or something like that. If the bill's about to go out, but you're not going to be filing that particular motion for another 3 weeks. You don't want someone seeing it in the newspaper.
>> Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so MG has been able to join us. Um, why don't we give you the opportunity to ask question number seven? >> Okay. Um, I'm not if if this is green, you're on. Okay, great. Um, can you tell us about a time where you initially gave
advice but later determined that a different approach on the issue was warranted? How would you communicate that to your client and address the issue? >> I'm immediately thinking of situations where it didn't turn out that way. I'll be honest if I can think of one, but I
I've had two situations where I gave advice, the client didn't like it and wanted and then it became litigation and they wanted me to represent them to court and I couldn't because it it was my opinion and then they hired somebody else. Um, but I I didn't end up being
wrong >> in either of those situations. Well, so >> sometimes it could be not necessarily that you were wrong, but given the political climate of the town or um sort
of the general zeitgeist, um maybe the the appro the the advice was the same, but the approach was different. >> I don't know if that helps broaden the spectrum out. Looks like >> I have two instances that I can think of where I've reconsidered my opinions and
I've been very clear. The facts changed. I didn't perhaps have all the facts when I issued the legal opinion. Um, and so I issued revised legal opinions and I talked about it with the people who said your facts were wrong and I understood
what was wrong about the facts and made sure that what the assertions were were correct. And then I said, I'm willing to issue a revised legal opinion. I you know it's I want to give you the correct legal advice and if the facts have
changed the legal analysis may change and it's my responsibility. It's not necessarily that I have to be right and that I'm infallible. That's not how I operate. I need to give you the best legal advice I can. So I'm going to I'm going to change my legal opinion. Not
because necessarily someone's pressuring me, but because something substantially changed. and I was very clear and told gave people the heads up, did all my due diligence and then issued a revised legal opinion. And I've done that twice in my practice that I can think of for
two different clients. Once it went great and it resolved the problem, and the other one it didn't go so great. Um, and you know, but then somebody went back and they had someone actually they had a third lawyer, a second lawyer come in and review the legal opinion and the
lawyer said, "Yep, this is correct." But, you know, it it didn't matter. It was it it was difficult. There's no question that it was it was a difficult situation and it was challenging to navigate. But at the end of the day, my ethical responsibility is to the
corporate entity and I want to do the best I can for that entity regardless of what else is swirling around in the world. So, that means getting the facts correct and getting the law correct. >> And I just to um I've had I I do a lot in the private
sector. Um, and what I have seen repeatedly is, as I said before, I'm a risk manager. So, sometimes I can give you an opinion that you're going to have issues if you go this direction. That doesn't mean that you don't that you have to say, "Okay, fine. We're not
going to go that direction." You're the elected officials and if you decide you want to challenge a law or whatever, that's up to you. And we can still be very effective counsel in many times. There may be times when we might need to take a back step and bring somebody else
in, but the reality is is that um there it's up to you as the electants to decide what your policy choices are going to be. And just because we tell you that you would have to challenge the law or the only way you could win that would probably be to go up to the SJC
because you're not going to get any lower ones to read it any differently. we know how the AG will interpret it or we know how this will be interpreted by other key boards. So, it it's understand as Caris and um Kate both said, our job is to tell you what the law is, not to
tell you what to do um and to tell you the risks if you choose not to act consistently with with the law, >> right? And I have had that happen in the situation that Caris described where I was given different facts and and in
that situation I do go back of course and I have at least once revised my opinion once I was given different facts and I also saw that happen with two other attorneys in my first firm where um they and this is why I think the gatekeeper thing is so important because
I I saw it happen where the town administrator and and I think it was the chair but definitely one of the selectmen both asked the question of two different attorneys in the firm and the attorneys both thought that they were authorized, you know, the chair of the board of selectmen. It it really should have gone through the town administrator
in that situation. But in any event, they were both given different facts and they both gave opinions and of course the opinions differed because they were based on different facts. So we had to get the right facts by talking to both and maybe a third party in the town and then revise the opinion. So that made me
really cautious about that. No, has to go through one person in town. Yeah. Yeah, >> once they all agree on what they want to ask, then that person asks, and we have a gatekeeper on our end, too. >> Thank you. Um, Mr. Wells, I um, we don't have a final question, but I don't know
if you want to, uh, I know that you posed the airplane noise uh, question to other firms. I don't know if you want to bring that up. >> I know. Attorney North wants me to. So clearly as Caris knows um and maybe
Caris this might be a good point because I'm the only member currently sitting on the board that's really been involved in this um you know Milton has been in a long-term fight um with the FAA and
Massport over the unfair dispersement of flight traffic over our community and before the schools and none of the the firms are even aware of this. So you might want to um maybe give a little bit of brief of um just quickly about how
and what got us there and um just your thoughts on this as it stands today in the year 2025. >> Sure. So >> thank you Mr. Chair. >> Um where to start? Uh Milton
>> Oh, you need an hour. >> Yeah. No, I got it. Uh Milton has been uh well there are routes over the town of Milton that go into the airport and um in oh boy
2015 maybe a little before then um uh the FAA went to essentially um electronic and satellite based navigation control instead of groundbased navigation control that concentrated the routes and that also created some new routes over
the town of Milton. So you now have a variety of at least five routes coming in and out over the town of Milton that create a whole lot of noise and annoyance. And uh we have gone the town has gone through multiple iterations of
working with the Massport Advisory Committee and its predecessor, the Logan Advisory Committee to try to get relief unsuccessfully. um has lobbied um legislation somewhat unsuccessfully, but that I think is
still sort of the best output and has gone to court and sued the FAA over their last um rulemaking um and took that up to the first circuit and were unsuccessful. But I do want to be clear, uh Mr. Wells, you're the one who asked
me the question um about the three mountains and how big the mountain was that we were trying to climb. and it it was it is a Mount Everest type climb to be successful in these types of cases. Um, but I think we put a a a good product out there and and worked hard to
educate people about what the issues were going into the town. I think the real success um that you can have in these issues and I have counseledled the town about this in the past is through lobbying and through grassroots continued grassroots communication. Um
working through your elected representatives at the state and and federal level. um and continuing to try to educate people about how difficult it is to live under um these these airplane
groups in and out of the town. Um and I think that there is still perhaps more organization at the grassroots level that you could do with your community members. Um and that's sort of the the piece that I'll end on right now. But I
I do think that there's more work that could be done. Um, it just needs the airplane noise advisory committee to be up and running again and and to really be connected to the community, which I it seems like it's been a little quiet lately.
>> We we're we're having some discussions about that. >> Yeah. >> Um, so I believe that takes us to the end of the questions that we have. Um, so, uh, want to make sure and any board member wanted to follow up on anything that they heard. Um, I know Miss Hagerty, you can go back and listen to
the recording. I was listening the whole time. >> Okay. Glad you were able to make it in person for a bit. >> Yeah. >> Um, so barring anything else, uh, our next item is a potential vote on town council services. Seeing as we're going to meet tomorrow, uh, and Mr. Wells
isn't here in person, I think it might make sense for us to have that discussion at that point. Give us all 24 hours to digest what we've heard here, weigh it against what we've heard from others, and uh, and hopefully come to a decision tomorrow. Does that sound good for everyone? Yes, Mr. Chair or Mr. Chair, Mr. Wells.
>> No, I'm not chair this one. No, Mr. Chair, I just um given in light of tonight's interview. I'd like to make a couple of phone calls that I hope I could get done by tomorrow night, but if we are not able to vote
this, I may ask and I'll call Mal first thing in the morning that we postpone this to. When is our next meeting after tomorrow? It'll be the first one in September is I think like the 9th or something. Yeah. >> Okay. Just and I'll call first thing in the morning if if I do ask for that. Um
I want to give this a little thought here and I want to make a couple of phone calls. You know, Murphy Hessie has been an intricral part of this community as I noted for over four decades and um I just think this is a lot to think about tonight. I want there's a couple I
just want to make. So, if that'll be all right, um I will call Mr. Moan really make those in the morning if I want to go that forward if that's okay with you. That'll be my only concern. >> Okay. Thanks, Mr. Wells. We'll we'll we'll wait to hear from you tomorrow about how the phone calls went. Um and then I think Katherine, did you want to say something?
>> Uh I did. I just wanted to reiterate how much we would like to work with you. We did hear that there were um you know, with the town meeting coming up and I think they addressed that that we're ready to the time issue will not be an issue. we're prepared to uh continue our
work and jump right in on whatever um whatever that you need. And um as as uh Representative Wells just um so kindly pointed out, we do have 40 years worth of experience. We'd love for you to reup us for another 40. We know that that that that might be a little bit of a
stretch, but we also um know that um at your meeting last week, there was some discussion that um paperwork would have to be done to to get that done. I just want you to know that I did take the liberty of looking at the paperwork
that had been in place um that I was able to find and we could turn that around in 24 hours from our from our standpoint. Okay? So whatever your timing is going to work for you, uh it it it will not be an issue in terms of of our um you know getting any legal uh
documentation you want in place, Nick and Mr. Chair and board. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right. Well, I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn, >> Mr. Dailyy. Second. >> Seconded. Uh we'll give it to Mr. Wells. Um we'll have to do a roll call vote.
Mr. Wells is remote. Mr. Wells. >> Yes. Miss Hagerty. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dailyaly, >> yes. Myself, yes. We are ajourned. Thank you again for coming.