Good evening everyone. Welcome to the first warrant committee meeting of this new fiscal year. My name is Jay Funland. The moderator, Liz Dylan, has asked me to chair the beginning of this meeting and uh until the warrant committee Alexa chair for
this year. We already met outside of the Baron Hugo Gazebo and all members were all members who are attending here today are sworn in. So for the first thing we'll do is have introductory remarks by the moderator, Miss Dylan.
Thanks, Jay. I appreciate it. Um, so this is going to be a really wonderful and productive year. I'm really glad to see some returning faces and some new faces. There are some additional people that were not able to be here today, but they will or have
been sworn in by the town clerk. and then we'll be joining us hopefully the next or joining you I should say the next meeting. Um before I leave and you all elect your chair and your secretary which Jay can explain that process I
just wanted to give a few very brief remarks. So the warrant committee is very near and dear to my heart having been until I became moderator a member of the warrant committee. um it is extremely important in the town and so I
thank you all for volunteering, applying and um being really eager to start in this whole process. I think that for me the main thing about the warrant committee is that it really is meant to
be and has been a very trusted source for many people in town. It is extremely important because it is the town's people's chance to ask questions, to get information, and to really dig in on all
of the town finances and other matters. So for the benefit of the people watching from home and anybody who's a little bit newer to town government, um essentially we have the executive branch of our town government which is the
select board and then we have our legislative branch of our town government which is town meeting. The warrant committee is an advisory committee to town meeting. And so what the warrant committee votes in this room
or if there's another meeting in this room for some reason upstairs, but usually it's in this room. What the warrant committee votes is advisory and not binding. However, people in town meeting really look to the warrant committee kind of to give their
perspective because part of our town's bylaws and also in town meeting time talk about the fact that the warrant committee has the opportunity to call upon any employee or elected official of the town to provide information and
answer questions about the articles that are in the warrant. So fundamentally the warrant committee is serves really two functions. So one of the functions that it serves is our financial committee. That is an incredibly important role
looking into the budget. I know Jay will talk a little bit about that I think. Um and so really diving deep into the budget. Some towns only have a finance committee. What makes a warrant committee different is that when there are nonfinancial
articles on the warrant, the warrant committee can also vote on and ask questions about and provide a recommendation on those as well. However, meaning time talks about the fact that
when you look at those non-financial articles, what we really want to do is think to ourselves, do I have a particular expertise, maybe not even your job, but an expertise, a knowledge or a background that would give me some special information that would allow me
to ask relevant questions of these town employees. So, if you're an attorney like me, maybe you ask legal questions. If you're a finance person, maybe you ask financial questions. If you have, you know, HR experience, maybe you ask questions that are related to personnel, that sort of thing. But of course, anybody's able to ask any questions that
are important and that they might want the answer to. Um, we meet we you all will meet fairly frequently down in this room. And so, again, I really appreciate everybody's willingness to serve. Um, as Jay mentioned, everybody was sworn in in
the gazebo, which was beautiful. Um, am I missing anything? I don't believe so. That's it. Okay. Well, thank you all and we'll see you at town meeting in October and on Zoom before that. Thank you. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, our first task, our our main tasks for this meeting are to elect a chair and a secretary. So, for nominations for chair, I'll open up the floor for nominations for chair of the warrant committee for this year.
Um, make a motion. Okay. Go ahead. I'd like to um make a motion to nominate um Macy Lee for chair. All due respect, okay, Jay, on that um I think that I was on the one committee last year and I
know the last couple years I think it's important to have an attorney as the chair. There's a lot of tom bylaws that you go through. There's a lot of detail, legal detail. I think it's helpful to have an attorney as chair. I think it's also very important to be neutral. I think you have to go into it
with um nonbiases, no agenda. I think this town I think the town of Milton has had serious polarization the last few years and I don't think it's good. I don't think it's healthy. And I like the fact that I think Macy um this is a surprise by the
way. I didn't campaign for her or anything but I spent the weekend thinking about this. And um like who the best one would be and um I think that um last year she was very non-biased. She didn't there wasn't like
a side like you didn't know. I did not always vote with her. We disagreed on a number of issues and I think that's a good thing. I mean I don't think you know I think that she took time to think about an issue was very thoughtful in what she thought and even when we disagreed I thought she was very thoughtful in how she presented her
arguments and she had a lot of good questions too. Um I think that um you know I think diversity is important. I think it's been well over a decade since there's been a woman uh chair. I think I don't even know that Milton's
ever had a person of color as chair. And I think that talent's getting a lot more diverse, which is a good thing. It's healthy. And I think it'd be good to um have some diversity on it. And I think that um and I looked her up on LinkedIn. Sorry about that. Stalking stalker.
And an impressive resume. And I think it's important, but you know, I think that like management experience is helpful. And right now, I think she's like uh director of the on the board of mass, you know, executive office of
health and human services. She has I think she told me once she has 60 people that she oversees. Um and when you're in that department, you have to be very um impartial, fair, and you have to be very judgment on what you do. and she has been promoted a number of times. She's
been an attorney I think for 30 something years and has been had a lot of promotions during that time. Managurial managerial experience is important and I think it legal experience is important and uh I think being a partial is also very important
and due respect to Jay I I nothing personal please but I do think it's good helpful I'll just go through it like four points would be like um have an attorney is really helpful. It's not critical, but it's helpful. I think having somebody who's um
diverse, you know, bringing diversity to the chair is helpful. And I don't think it's critical either, but it's helpful. It's good. I think being a centrist, being non-biased centrist, um you don't know how somebody's going to go on something is very important in and I
think it's very important to the town of Milton right now. And I think that um experience, managerial experience is important, too. And um I think it's just crucial. So that's my
those are my my thoughts this weekend. So that's my motion. Macy, do you accept the nomination? I do. I was very humbled um honored by this uh surprise nomination. So thank you for the kind words, Brian. Yeah, I know. We didn't always agree.
No, we don't. Which means you which means you're not right all the time. I would have begged a different you too. I know we did disagree on a bunch of stuff, but I don't know. It's good. Should I make a statement or I'm not prepared?
Sure. I'll say anything. Um, I think I want to open it up for any other nominations and then the nominees can speak. Um, I would like to nominate Jay Funding for chair. Um, I Brian, I agree with
everything he said about Macy. Um, and also acknowledge that it's only Macy's second year on the committee and it is now Jay's fourth year. Um, and I think experience uh in this committee and as a town meeting member as Jay is is
important. Um, I think I I think we could probably all agree there's no one that works harder and puts more time and effort into the warrant committee than Jay. um he is always incredibly prepared and goes the distance to f I mean he's
at the library looking up files that aren't digitized because he's going back in the history of the town and um so I uh and I like I said I agree with everything you said Brian and I would love to see a female in this role. I'd love to see a minority in this role and
I think Macy would be great in another year maybe. Um but I um tonight I'm here to um nominate Jay Funling for chair. Is there a second? Second. Okay.
Oh, did someone second Macy's nomination? Well, I took Macy's acceptance as second. Um are there any other nominations? Okay. So, I think it's a good time to hear from each of the people who've been nominated. AC, would you like to go
first or second? Okay, before we go go, one thing um and I really hate this process cuz I went through it for the first time last year for people that um I know there's some returning uh warrant committee members
that were from past years. Um it's basically an impossible process for you. You just met, we just met for the first time. are being asked to um vote for a chair um that you don't really have any
working experience on and um in many respects I'm torn because I agree with everything that's being said. Um, and I'm not really sure how I'm going to vote on this process, but I guess uh
thinking back to what um where I was last year, it I I would encourage you to take the time to ask questions that you think are important for you to make this decision, not just listen to what uh
both Jay and Macy are about to to say, because I think they're both qualified to be great leaders. Um, it's just a question of I think work I think boils down to a working style at the end of
the day. So I I don't envy you for people that don't know Jay or Macy. Um, but u I don't believe I abstained last year. Uh, I will not this year either. Hopefully you'll just make a decision
and either way I think we're in good hands. it. I I'll leave it that leave it at that. But um I wish there were better process than to do this on day one. True. Macy, would you like to speak first or second?
Sure. I'll I'll just make a a brief statement. Um I I did meet um all of you at the gazebo and I was really glad to do that. Um but as Brian mentioned, um I've lived in Milton since 2003. I started uh my residency here on Lyman
Road and then we moved to Crestview Lane and now I'm on Brook Road. I have two adult children uh both of whom went to Milton schools. Um I have a 22-y old and a 26 year old and uh I've been involved in the community. I'm now the vice
president of the Milton Garden Club. Uh something that I really love because I love to garden. Um, and it's it brings out a part of me that I I normally don't see, which is creativity, focus, um, and just the process of growing things. Um,
so if you stop by my house, you'll see all the tomato plants that I started from seeds growing, zucchinis, and cucumbers. And I don't even like tomatoes. That's the crazy thing. I just like growing them because they're so challenging. Um, in terms of my professional life, um, as Brian mentioned, I've been an attorney now for
close to 33 years. Um, I've always been a public servant. Um, I started out in the attorney general's office as an assistant attorney general. Um, and then I was a prosecutor in Cleveland for seven years and then moved back here. I clerked um in the court of appeals um
which is the federal intermediate appeals court um for the first circuit and then I joined the Suffach County District Attorney's Office and I spent 15 years there um first in the appellet unit because one of the things I really love to do as an attorney and I don't get to do much anymore is to write and
do research. It's one of my strongest um strengths as an attorney. And then after that I was promoted to become the chief of the narcotics and acid forfeite unit. um where I'm really proud to say that I've seized the greatest amount of fentanyl in New England in all of the history of any narcotics work. Um took
them off the street, heroin, cocaine. Um it was a job that I really was proud of. Um but then, you know, it got kind of old and I joined the executive office of health and human services. I was a deputy um general counsel and got promoted to the director of the
adjudicatory board for uh Mass Health. So, I'm the director of um it's called the board of hearings. It's uh one of the largest adjudicatory boards in Massachusetts because we hear about 30,000 appeals a year and that includes provider appeals um which hospitals
appeal. We had a little discussion of that. Um and then member appeals um that request fair hearings because of eligibility for whatever mass health action um my office handles. So, I oversee a staff of about 60 people. Um, I'm well verssed in running meetings.
Um, I'm very well verssed with organizational and structural management. I have four deputies um and various supervisors. I like I said I Brian's right I I supervise approximately 60 people um and I answer
directly to the office um the Medicaid director for Mass Health. Um, so if you decide to think that I'm the best fit, um, to be chair of this very important committee for the town of Milton, um, I'm committed to being here, um, I was here with the exception of two weeks in
January where I travel with my family, but I will be here, um, in person, um, and do the work that's necessary. Um and I think most importantly I will be fair um unbiased um impartial which is a role that I'm very wellversed in because as
the director of the board of hearings I need to do that um and I do conduct hearings uh when there are rehearings. So it's my role to listen to both sides uh let the party speak um and then move forward. And I think in this part particular position, I think it's really
important to keep everyone on task uh to value everyone's time because it is very time consuming. Um especially last year to keep our meetings where they need to be because I personally start to fade after 10:30 at night. I just can't
focus. I I I need to and it takes me an hour to unwind whenever I leave here or a town meeting. So I will be respectful of your time. Um, one of my managerial strengths is I'm very organized. Um, I have a strong ability to multitask. Um,
and to work with all sorts of personalities. Um, and that's from 25 years of management experience and working with all sorts of agencies, federal, state, local, and with a, you know, a really large the largest secretariat in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So, so sorry to go on,
but um, thank you, Brian, for the nomination. I'm so humbled. Sorry for and so surprised. Um, so I know I'm rambling because I didn't expect this at all, but u but I thank everyone for their consideration and as Andrew said and Brian it, you know, it's going to be
a great year regardless of who's at the helm. So, thank you very much. Okay, I'll I'll speak a little bit. My name is Jay. It's my fourth year on the warrant committee. I've been on town meeting for a little over 10 years. Uh, my background is more financial. I was
an actuary for 15 years and now I work at Eversource. I do want to share a presentation of where I see the uh what my vision is for the warrant committee this year. All right. So,
come on. Come on. Slideshow. Okay. So, this is how I see the warrant committee running this year. Uh this is I'll skip past the table of contents. These I'm not going to spend a ton of
time on every subject, don't worry. Uh first of all, what is the role of the warrant committee? Now, Miss Dylan addressed this a bit. I see three things. One, as Miss Dylan said, we're a trust adviser to town meeting. So, we're we're really the adults in the room. When I I'm not from New England. I'm
from Texas. So when I explained this committee to people who don't live in New England, I explained that instead of a city council, our town has a town meeting with 280 people. So because 280 people can't do the work that city council does, which is investigate issues, gather facts, we the warrant
committee do that role for them and we present our results to the larger body. So we collect information, we make decisions, and we present these. So that's how I see our goal. We're doing the work that town meeting can't do because they're too big and unwieldy.
And when we make a recommendation to town meeting, it's not just what we recommend. It's we have to present our reasons why we recommend it. If there's a question, should the town of Milton favor chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream? We can get up there and tell town
meeting we think it should be vanilla. That doesn't do any good unless we say, here's what we looked at. Here's what we collected. Here's the information we got. here's why we think it's vanilla. We've got to really convince them as to um as to why we're making our decisions.
And you know, a lot of us, we all have various jobs, but a lot of us do things like that in our jobs. We present decisions to our bosses, our peers, our colleagues, and we don't say, "Boss, I think you should do this cuz I feel like it." We give them our good reasons. So, I think we should bring the same
professionalism to this role that bring to our job. Uh what's next? We're also the finance committee of this town. So what does that mean? Well, we're I see our if you compare it to the federal government, the town administrator is like the president. They prepare a
budget and they present it to the legislative branch. So in this analogy, our role is like we're like the house ways and means committee. We receive the budget from the town administrator. We look at it, we scrutinize it, we ask questions about it, and then we present the budget to town meeting, which in
this analogy would be Congress. So, we should take a long-term view. We're looking at things that things that town beating just glosses over like reserve funds, things like that. We're taking a long view and really seeing what's this going to mean for the town. And we
should also establish town financial policies, which I'll be talking more about that in a slide or two. Uh, I don't like having big words and just reading them to you on a slide, but I will say oops, I got cut off at the beginning at the end. Um the Mass Department of Revenue looked at this
town's government and including the warrant committee in 2013. Now this was back when the warrant committee wrote the budget from scratch and the department of revenue gave some guidance that I think still applies. We must be willing to step back for more global issues rather than minutia of working on
individual department budgets. We should be looking at the whole town financial policies at a high level. I think we can still benefit from those words. And uh the fourth one, as has been talked about in the past few minutes, we're we're non-political, but one one
way I see that as helping us is, and this may or may not come up this year, but we have a special role. We may be able to make decisions that elected boards and town employees can't. Elected boards have to face the voters, go for re-election. Town employees have to
answer to their bosses. We don't have either of those. There might be some times when we can make decisions that they can't. All right. What is the time commitment? I talked to some of you before you signed up and the question I got from everybody was how much time will the warrant committee take? Uh I'm
going to have a goal to make the time more reasonable with a couple ways. One is a lot of our work is budget work. I want to frontload that. I'll be talking in a few minutes about how I think we can get a lot of the groundwork for the budget done in the fall and that way in the spring when we have to finalize the
budget, we've already done a lot of the foundation. Now the flip side of that is I think this will lead to less time sitting here in this room in meetings. It might mean more time for some of you subject matter experts going investigating. You're the subject matter expert in a certain department. We're
going to ask you to go learn about that department, educate yourself about it, come back to us. So that would be timeconuming, but hopefully it's more reasonable if it's timeconuming when it's on your time. You can choose when to do it. Uh, and one other way I want to help this committee respect
everybody's time is to keep conversations focused. You know, what is a decision in front of us, we have to make a decision and we have to outline the reasoning for that decision. Everything else we don't really need. One example I like to use is when the fire chief comes in. Fire chief comes in every year and I know for me, I turn
into a little kid. I want to hear the fire chief talk to me about fire trucks for an hour. That is fun. That's not necessarily the best use of this committee's time unless it's going to be directly relevant to the budget. So I want to sort of stay focused and I think I don't have the magic solution for
this. I'm going to be talking a few minutes about how the whole committee should be setting policies early in the year to help us stay guided to help us stay focused, help us decide what's relevant and what's not on conversations. Uh what is the role of the chair? If I want to be chair, one thing is keep us
on task. what I just said. Uh we have to have some room to explore it. It we're going to be people are going to be going, you know, maybe outside the lines a little bit, but try to keep the discussions focused. I will say I think the chair is 115th of the committee. No more, no less. I like making PowerPoint
presentations. You can already tell this. Uh I was a little torn. I was like, if I'm chair, can I still make PowerPoint presentations? In my view, I think it's allowable. And the reason I think it's allowable is because I'm equal to all of you. Um I
trust that my opinion will not carry undue weight just because I'm sitting at a certain end of the table. If anyone on this committee is going to do what I recommend just because I'm sitting at this end of the table, you're on the wrong committee. I expect you to be all be independent thinkers. I expect you
all to be critical thinkers. If I share my opinion, no matter where I'm sitting in this room, I hope you'll take my opinion just the same as everybody else is on the committee. Uh I also intend to abstain from most votes unless it's to break or create a tie. Again, that's so
um because the chair will be up on town meeting presenting the results of the warrant committee and advocating for what the warrant committee voted for. If we're deciding between chocolate and vanilla and I really like vanilla and the warrant committee votes chocolate, I don't want to be on the uh don't want to be on the record voting for vanilla,
then I'm gonna have to be in front of town meeting advocating for chocolate. It it wouldn't be the end of the world if I did vote that way. Either way, I'd advocate for what the what the warrant committee decides, but I just prefer to abstain from most votes. Uh okay, here I want to get into something that I think will be a little
bit different than the previous years I've been on the committee. Previous years we've had subcommittees. Let me pass something around. Previous years we've had subcommittees of two or three or maybe even four people going into various town departments and
investigating them. I would like for I think that was sort of unwieldy and led to inefficiencies in some way. I'd rather have individual subject matter experts. Uh I'd like to pass around some sheets of paper showing what I think the subject matter experts the ones that I think we'll need to fill. It looks like
a long list. Don't be intimidated. A lot of these are not heavy lifts, but if we have one e subject matter expert on each issue, if you go become the expert for that and then come back and report findings to the rest of the committee. I saw there was a survey of the mass
finance committees. Out of 135 of them, only about a quarter of them had subcommittees. So, it's not unusual to not have subcommittees. How would this subject matter expert thing work? Let's look at an example. Let's look at BERT. Let's say Bert is a member of the warrant committee and Bert is a subject
matter expert for the library. So Bert in the fall goes to talk to the library director, find out what their budget issues are because really whatever their budget issues were last year and whatever their budget issues are now are probably going to be pretty darn similar to whatever their bud budget issues will
be in the spring. So learn all you can about their budget, how they work, and what what their budget needs are. And then in the late I say late fall, early winter I'm thinking maybe October, probably November, December, the warrant committee here from not from everybody,
not from every 39 people on this list, but from the biggest ones come in and do a presentation. This is what's going on with the library. Here's what their needs are. Here's what they haven't gotten in previous years. For the smaller ones, I also would want to hear something from the subject matter experts, but it can just be something
written. we don't need to hear um you come in and talk about here's what the insurance budget is. So um so at that point ideally in the fall we would have heard from subject matter experts about the major issues of the budget and then in December the department submit their
budget to Mr. Milano. In January Mr. Milano compiles them all, submits the budget to us. Hopefully at that point we have very few surprises. We already know what the budget issues are for all the department. We already hit the ground running. Look at Mr. from Milano's department budget.
Okay. Uh next, ah a summit. So the I like the word summit better than retreat. The select board and the school committee both have retreats at the beginning of the year. Like I think they're both going to happen within the next month. And I like that. I I want to
do something similar. So they're long meetings. They're usually not televised. and uh they're just sort of getting everybody ready for the year. Both training and setting the tone for the year. So yeah, I'd like us to meet first of all have some training. Uh assume
nobody knows anything. There are some new members, some returning members. Some of the new members have a lot of experience in town government. Some of the new members have no experience in town government. Start from scratch. Bring everybody up to speed. Here's the basics of how town meeting works and how how the warrant committee works. Uh I
see this as this will be an open meeting. do open meeting laws. I don't see any reason for it to be televised. So, we could feel even more free to ask stupid questions than usual. And I also think we should decide on policies for the year. I said I think we should set policies for what's in scope and out of
scope on our on our um discussions. I'll say more about that in a minute or two, but I think this would be a good time to really set the policies and know what are we going to do on warrant committee for this year. Uh, I think it'll I don't know exactly how long it would take. I
think it'll be longer than the average meeting. So, sometimes when I look at the select board and the school committee, sometimes they have it on a weekend day or sometimes they just have two week nights in a row, meet a little bit earlier. Um, so we can talk about what we want as a group for having this
longer meeting. And we'd also have some guests from the town to help us uh help us get things done. What's next? Policies. I've talked about policies several times. What do I think we need? Uh, I'd like to pass these around. Also, I just want to give some thought to
what's, you know, when I say policies, what do I mean? Well, where are we now with town financially? We had a successful override in the spring. Now, we can really state back, take a look at the financial picture and how do we want the finances to run a as probably, you
know, the most prominent examples. We have various stabilization funds. There's the do not break them except in case of emergency stabilization fund. Then there's also something called a road stabilization fund, a capital stabilization fund. We've got two new ones. One to get us through to the next
override. I forget what it's called. Operating budget stabilization fund. We also have a new special education stab education stabilization fund. I don't think it would be best if we just, you know, every year the town administrator decides, oh, here's the amount I'm going to put in and here's the amount I'm
going to take out. be better if there were some sorts of guidelines as to how much are we going to put into these, how much are we going to take out, how is this going to keep our budget predictable from year to year. Uh for a policy like this, it's really best to make it before the budget process. If you make the policy while you're in the
middle of the budget process, you're not really making a policy. You're saying, "Oh, here's what I decided to do. Let me write a policy to justify that." Uh I think we're in a good position to we're in a good position to make these policies. uh the select board will want to have their say. There's the new
budget coordination committee that I'm still not sure what their role is, but none of that stops us from having our our say in what financial policy should be. Um and finally, sort of I'll think internal policies like how are we going to conduct our meetings? I I have some
questions. I have more questions than I have answers. So, you know, let's talk about when we have budget articles here. It's a balancing it. It's a balancing act. If we have budget items, the balancing act is we're we're not the we're not the
managers of the departments. If we're look, you know, let's look at the library again. We're not the manager of the library's budget. They have they have their director. They report to Mr. Milano. So, we're not managing the department, but we are approving the budget. So, to a certain extent, we do
need to go off go dig deep into what's going on with this department, but then not micromanage them. So, what's the balancing act between, you know, asking the fire chief to talk to us about fire trucks for an hour versus doing no investigation? There's got to be a balancing act into, you know, what do we
really need in order to uh approve a budget or not? And like I said, I have the questions. I don't have the answers. I have one brain. You have 14 brains. So, I want us to think about these things together. Um, if we're sending subject matter experts out, you know, half this committee is new. If I'm sending you out and saying go to the
library and learn learn what you need to learn, let's uh let's let's be a little more specific in saying okay, we want you to ask questions A, B, and C, and D, and anything else you want to ask, that's fine, too. Um, also, if we do want to modify the budget, my understanding is that ever since we've had a strong town administrator past
8ish years, the Warren Committee has never changed the budget the town administrator presented. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it should at least be within our purview to have the ability to modify the budget. Is the best way to do that to talk to them early on while they're still making the
budget and say, "We think this and this." If so, that's another benefit to looking into the budget in the fall. Then we're ready. We're ready when Mr. Milano is putting together his budget to say, "Uh, we think you should look at this and this." Or do we get, you know, wait till we get the budget and we pres we try to get an agreement with the
select board and town administrator. Now, we think you should move money from A to B. do you agree with this? Or do we say too bad, we're the warrant committee, you know, we'll do our on our own? Uh, all these are ways to do it. Uh, again, that's that's give some
thought to how we want to accomplish it. And then if the this is a lot of words sort of saying, so there's budget items, there's non-budget items. This is a lot of words where I sort of say for the non-budget items, how do we decide
those? Do we decide them because we're 15 people and we have 15 opinions and we vote for our opinion. Um I I don't know the answer. I think there's got to be something better than that. We've got to say, okay, how are we going, you know, when we have these non-budget items, how
are we going to look into them? What's going to be in scope? What's going to be out of scope? How much difference are we going to give to whoever put it together? And then how are we really going to focus our decision? So that is all that is all I have for my
vision for the year. Also have a schedule for the year which I was going to pass out later but uh I'll leave it at that. Can I ask some questions please? So you mentioned you didn't want like asking the fire chief about trucks,
right? I mean I also said it's a balancing act, but yes. Yeah. So like that's like a over $1.3 million purchase, I think. Right. and he didn't at the time still didn't have some of the answers to that why we needed a truck. You don't think that's within the scope
of the want committee to ask that question? I think what I would really like to see is for the have a fire department expert who goes and learns everything about the fire department then comes back to us and says here's what I think is really important. So hopefully it be filtered
out at that point. I mean it is a balancing act. We we So the expert comes in and he says, "Oh, we're going to get a new firet truck." Can the warrant committee can still ask that person that question like, "Why do you need a um Yeah, I guess I'm I'm I'm getting hung up where I shouldn't get get hung
up, which is firetruck as a capital expense." But um yeah, I mean we'll we'll see how this So what I'm imagining is that the expert would come back to us and say the fire the fire chief wanted a new truck and here's why I think it's a good idea or
here's why I think it's not a good idea and you know Mr. Milan is recommending a new truck and here's why I think it's a good idea. Now, truck's probably a bad example again because it's capital. But let's say let's say they want a new lieutenant and uh the the expert comes in and says, "Yeah, I think it's really really important. They haven't gotten a
new lieutenant in years. I think it's really important and here's why." That way they can they've done the work. They're presenting it to us. And then we'll ask we'll ask the expert questions. What did you look at? We should still be able to ask those questions. Yes. Yeah. Just hopefully it's a little smoother. Yeah. Mhm.
You had more questions, but Andrew's got his hand right. I have questions for for both both of you guys. And when I think back to past year, uh, one of the things that at least from the general general business uh,
subcommittee work and some of the other issues that we uncovered that I felt the town lacked. Um, and I want to be careful how I say this. It's not that the town doesn't plan. Okay. Uh I don't think they have the equivalent of long-term strategic
planning that a seale executive might set or a vision. Mhm. Um and one of the things that is another question um and endemic of that that problem is the lack of reporting
capability that we have out of our own financial systems. Mhm. and the issues that we've had in terms of visibility from the school from a budgeting standpoint. Uh so the question I have is
what are your thoughts on this and if you agree what do you think we can do or what do you how far are you really willing to push um the different parts of the town whether it's a select board or u the
administrator or the individual departments to ensure that we have the information that we have we need as well as long-term planning and oversight to make sure that we're able to make the investments that we need in order to get that kind of visibility. And so I want
to get sort of both your thoughts on that or or if you think it's there are other priorities beyond beyond this because it it's a personal okay pressure point for me. I've got some thoughts.
Yeah, I mean I can respond to that. Andrew, I liked the way we had subcommittees last year. Um, and the reason being is that all of us here have other lives outside of the warrant committee. Um, many of us have jobs or we have family obligations. And I think
to have just one person, let's say, focus on police, um, would be really burdensome. Um, that's number one. So, I liked having a partner and Liz Dylan was my partner and I liked working with her. Um, where we both met with the fire
chief and the police chief. Um, and we both had we brought different perspectives together. So, it wasn't just my perspective of what I thought the budgetary needs were for for public safety. Um, Liz contributed greatly to that and the two of us were able to come
up with, yeah, I think this is what we need. Um, so we were I like the tag teaming thing. Um, and I think by having not just an expert, because I wouldn't ever think that just because I met with someone or spent 6 months or a year with with a particular part of town would
make me an expert. Um, I don't even consider myself an expert in Medicaid. Um, and I've been working with in that field for quite some time. So, I like the investigatory um partnership of um with someone else on the war committee and I also think that brings about I
hope greater financial transparency which is what I think Andrew is getting at is is am I right and correct in that? Can I resteer you on that and it is I think um when I think about what Nick had told Nick Milano the town administrator had
told us about um the accounting system. Yes. was that there is a lack of reporting and they know there are more uh upgrades to the system that they can implement but they don't have plans
or the resources to invest in that and to me um as as I mentioned last year you have to have a plan even if you're in an override situation you have to either have a plan to invest
or invest a little over time otherwise this problem perpetuates itself. So that's one problem that uh I saw and then taking a step back further it is in
um a for-profit entity somebody would on a sea level would say the same same thing and say hey this is a we need a broader strategy on IT we need a broader strategy on protecting
citizens data we need a strategy Y on investing in internal systems so that when we meet or when town departments start articulating needs, they're able to not only present in a sophisticated manner, they're able to pull up data
real time to be able to answer questions and this back and forth. And so the thing I did not see last year was any motivation to do that. And I don't see in the town governance structure
um the ability to have that kind of leadership. And so the question I'm really asking is how if any way do you intend to tackle that problem? Okay. I think it's Can I just answer that really quick? I think I mean having been
a public sector um employee for a long time I think it's very difficult to do that. I mean, I think your analysis is coming from the private sector. You have a corporation, you're for-profit, you have stakeholders, you have stockholders, your various degrees of
revenue. Um, whereas states and towns, I mean, right now we're fed we're facing enormous amounts of federal cuts uh across the board. Okay, that's number one. And it's we're nonprofit. I mean, government inherently is not for profit. That's number one. So you can't forecast
the revenue you're going to bring in because you're so dependent on the state budget, okay, the federal budget bring contributing to the state budget, which is not a lot right now. And then the states funneling into the into town government, municipalities, and then
there's taxes involved. There's so there's a whole variety of factors where I think it's really difficult to forecast um because we're not profit driven, you know, we're a municipality. I mean none I mean the commonwealth is not profit I mean you do like you know the lottery is an an aspect
cost you one more again and it's really I'm not talking about taxes permits I'm talking about the infrastructure we need to get the visibility and information we need as a town and as a warrant committee in order to make these
decisions because we're relatively speaking running on antiquated systems. So that that to me I don't know if the Warren Committee can completely Yeah. restructure and and and have such a I mean that's that's a a I mean I wouldn't
say global issue but a townwide issue and I I'm not sure if that's the role. Yeah. Go ahead. I'll I'll defer to James. I'll say at first I thought you're talking in general but you are talking about specific for us to make financial decisions we need good reports from accounting. Yeah. I'm talking about two two separate
things. Okay. that and yeah so I would say to a certain extent to echo what Macy said I would say that's we're not the executive of the I'm not trying to dodge responsibility but the executives of the town are the town administrator and the select board
so they'd have a significant role to play in like long-term planning do we want the accounting group to have another software like that um where there's some overlap is like that would be a capital expense there's the capital committee which I think has people who serve on it for even longer than the
warranty committee and they make a lot of decisions. Now, we can, you know, we can come in with a heavy hand and when the budget is in front of us say, "No, capital committee, we're not going to spend a million dollars on a firet truck. We're insisting you spend a million dollars on accounting system." It's probably not the best way to go.
Uh, but so there's some overlap between you want the executive branch, I'll call it, to take the leadership, but maybe we could push them. I think a couple ways that we could do better this year and again whether you're talking about specifically accounting system or in general things that I've seen frustrate
me for past previous three years is I think doing the work early like getting laying a foundation in the fall I think will help us cuz I mean every year we've met here in February and March and we've said man I really wish we were doing X
instead of Y but there's just no time to make those changes in budget in a responsible way. Like, you know, maybe it's I really wish we were spending a million dollars in accounting system. When we're in March and the warrants going into print in two weeks, we can't make that happen. If we meet in November
and it, you know, people come back, the subject matter experts come back and say, "We could really benefit from new accounting system." We can say, "Great, let's lay the foundation. Let's have our representative to the capital committee say that. let's have you know we should somehow communicate that to the select
board that that's what we want that otherwise you know I feel like we've been working on the budget too late every year I've been here the other thing which is a possibility is this new committee which is a budget uh budget interaction committee between the select
board and the warrant committee and the school committee and I believe the planning board the committee has not even formed yet and I don't know exactly what it will do but there's possibility for that for you know like we're saying if if we see we need a new accounting
system that's and and also in general like the long-term planning this new committee they're talking about is supposed to be long-term financial planning that has it doesn't even exist yet so maybe we could guide it into something positive there thank you
Brian you had more I Yeah. One other question. You um you talked about coming up with a policy for stabilization funds. Yes. Isn't that decided by the select board? That's it. You maybe when I've talked to
people about this, some people some people say that's the select board's job. Some people say no, that's our job. What I would say is if it's select board's job, they haven't set a policy for the past and by policy I don't mean this year we're going to take out $1 million. I mean a policy uh like every
year we're going to try to put in this much and take out this much. If the select board wants to do it, they haven't done it in about 10 years, maybe more. So I would say it's our job. If we think it's our job, we can put a policy together and if the select board has a
better idea, we're open to hear it. If But nobody's done this and Sorry. I'm sorry. But like money goes into the stabilization fund based upon income less expenses usually and um don't they it just like stays there until the
select board makes a decision on it. Like when things come up like they need a new school things or you know there were number of a new fire truck or something or something that's necessary that's when they make that call. I'm just I don't understand. Isn't it like that that's like you don't know what's
gonna happen in five years. Yeah. So, let's keep in mind we're talking about this which fund we're talking about. So, there's the general stabiliz so the school one that's school stabilization. Yeah. None of this is the um whatever the one that's under our control that we just approved a million dollars from none that's none of that's
this there's the general stabilization fund which is like do not break glass except in case of emergency that I think you know we'll put some in every year decide how much we should have in there. There's also there's the new operating budget stabilization fund. The goal of that fund is to get us through to, you
know, if our expenses are going up three and a half% per year and our income's going up two and a half% per year, that's the cushion to get us through to the next five years before we need another um before we need another override. And uh I I don't want it just to be, oh, Nick looks at it every year
and decides how much we need to take out. You know, there should be some formula of okay, you know, are we going to put more in, and if so, how do we take it out? Or even more specifically, there's a new special education stabilization fund which has zero in it. So we maybe we could say, you know,
something along the lines of every year when we have free cash, let's take the first $2 million and we use the first $2 million for capital and after that we'll split it among these funds. Something like that. Well, a special ed education stabilization fund. How much should they
take out? Well, we know that the schools every year could say we have expensive special education costs. So they could take out however much they want. It'd be much better to have a policy like we expect special education costs to go up 4% a year. If they go up more than 4%
per year, then that's the amount you can take out. Um there's also a road stabilization fund which is established seven or eight years ago. It's never been used. I don't know except for the title. I don't know what it's for. But what if we said every year we'll put a certain amount of free cash into the
road stabilization fund and every year we'll spend half a million dollars on it. Some years we put in more, some years we put in less, but we have the same amount coming out. Again, I don't necessarily have the answers, but I think I have the questions. That's the kind of question wants to know what you meant by that. Okay. Oh, Ronia has his hand up.
Ron does have his hand up. Ron, uh, first, Ron, I I do want to ask you, were you sworn in before this meeting? Not this year. I can't hear you, Ron. Oh, can can you hear me? Yes.
I I have not been sworn in this year. Okay. Uh you will not be able to vote tonight. Um but you can ask a question. Uh yeah, unless there's a general disagreement, I think it'd be perfectly fine for you to ask a question.
Yeah, please go ahead. Sure. U thanks to both of you for being willing to uh be considered for the chair. Um think you're both great, very qualified, and very eloquent in your explanations. One question I had, how do
you see the words committee's role working with the select board and then also with the uh advisory ro the county? If you could talk a couple minutes on those two, that' be great. Thank you. Okay. As far as working with the select board, I certainly would like to set up
weekly calls with the select board chair just to get a pulse of what's going on. I'd like to have them in here to explain their articles. One thing I'd like to see different, um, I I don't want to throw shade, but we we have in the past couple years gotten
some articles the select board votes, yes, this should be on the warrant. And then they come to us and it's just not ready for prime time. It's just not even written correctly. So, I'd like to sort of encourage them in a very polite way, you know, take a pretty close look at
these things that you're voting to put on the warrant. you know, even if we still have some more investigation to do, at least make sure that they're basically ready to go on the warrant. So, that's one thing I'd say with the uh select board. And as far as um the with
town meeting, I think in previous years, I've seen warrant committee chair be the main person to speak to most articles on town meeting. And when a person from town meeting has a question, the warrant committee chair is the number one person to answer those questions. So I see it
as we make decisions. We make a recommendation. We should be prepared to explain that recommendation. How do we come to that decision? Why do we think it's the right decision? Do not necessarily do a presentation on every article, but do a presentation on any
article that is involved. And uh I I think we should, you know, since everything Town Meeting votes on, they're voting on our recommendation. They can amend it, they can change it, they can vote it down. They're voting on our recommendations. So we should be a point person for explaining what we did
to town meeting. That's all. Thank you Jay. Uh Ron to answer your question very similar to Jay. Um I would have weekly calls with the select board and have a discussion about their articles. Um I think we all had the experience that a lot of the articles
could have tightened up a bit and I feel that that's my area of expertise um when it comes to articles and reviewing legislation um and any aspect of the law and what would hold muster in court. Um so I think I would be very beneficial if I were chair to work closely with the
select board in doing so. Um, I also I believe that I demonstrated the same way um when the planning board came with their articles um and had to send them back with a bunch of edits um areas that needed to tighten up. Um so I feel like that's my area of expertise. I also
think that I would be able to represent the warrant committee um professionally uh directly and succinctly at town meeting uh and obviously I would gather all the recommendations and thoughts and contributions from the warrant committee
and present them in a unified manner um before town meeting. Um, I've had the experience of doing that by arguing in a lot of cases in a lot of different level of appellet courts. Um, and a aility to handle questions being asked um, and being able to answer them quickly um,
and correctly. I I have one question as a new member. Sounds like the one of the big differences between the two visions that you have is a way in which the kind of I guess individual subcommittees go off and get information and bring it back. And I I like the idea of uh you know
collaboration. I think multiple inputs makes for better um you know kind of conclusions. I'm also as a new member really not fully aware of what I might have signed on for here in terms of the time commitment. So I like the idea of you know kind of one person tackling different aspects of things. And so I
don't know if you could speak to that both of you a little bit and are you kind of wedded to your respective views of individuals versus teams or are you thinking that uh that's going to be something that the committee is going to work through together as we try to develop that uh view of working together
going forward? I can use that. Um I like the team aspect. I like working on teams. Um it makes me a better thinker um a more committee member in anything that I work on. Um, it makes me a better team member because I I value the perspectives of my
team. Um, I don't know everything. Um, and I never will, but I learn a lot. Um, and I, like I said, the time commitment involved here is quite significant. And when you're working with the team, you can tag team and just say, look, you know, I have a commitment tonight. Can you cover this? Um, we can do it
together. It's just I I'm a I have a team approach in in my management style um and really in every aspect of my life down in my family. it's it's a team because it just makes the product stronger at the end. So, I I am wedded to that. I just don't think that we'll
be able to be experts um just by going in individually and meeting with with particular departments. Um even as an attorney, you couldn't send me into a legal department and say you're going to be an expert. I no um I sometimes want a lay person's view because it may sound
clear to me, but it needs to be clear to the public. Um so, I think that's really important. So, I I do like the team approach in every aspect of of everything I do. And it would be the same here if I were to be elected chair. Okay. I'll say my favorite part about subcommittees in the past couple years
is getting to work one-on-one with my peers. You know, Brian and I were on a subcommittee. Brian and Andrew and Am I crazy? Yeah. And I loved working with them. That was the best part. Uh some downsides though to it were well one if you read the open meeting law pretty
strictly every time the subcommittee meets that's an open meeting that has to be posted has to be posted 48 hours in advance. Uh I not everyone sticks to that strictly. Certainly my first year I did stick to that strictly and it was maddening because if you and I are on
our subcommittee and we want to meet uh at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday have a Zoom call. Okay, we got to get that posted on Monday. Okay, not the end of the world. And then let's say, oh, I can't make it at 8. Can Can you make it at at 9:00
p.m.? Well, no, cuz we had it posted for 8 and you can't just make a change at the last minute. You need it's technically 48 hours, but really it's 3 days notice before you can change a meeting. So, if you're sticking with the open meeting law strictly, it's just
unwieldy. Um, another thing is I don't see the upside and that I said, you know, I've been on this for three years. Uh, let's let's talk about schools. For example, we've had a school subcommittee for all three years that had four or more people on it. Not once
did the school subcommittee come back to us and say, "Hey, here's all the work we did and here's everything we learned." So, it would that be better or worse with one person or four people? I don't know. But I haven't seen the upside to having more people. And uh so there's
also the question of divided responsibility. If there are four people on the school subcommittee, maybe they all look at each other and say, "I thought you were doing it." There's one person. We know who's supposed to do it. So that's my thoughts. I also think that's enforced by the chair to, you know, to require
subcommittees to report. So I think as chair I would designate time on the agenda um for weekly or whenever we meet reporting. So I think that's incumbent on the chair to to to do. So, um I Are these automatically on?
Oh, but you want to get it fairly close to pick up your So, being new like Nick, um I'm seeing a lot of different responsibilities on here and if we team up,
we're going to have to do more of them than if we were single entities. So, I just want to hear from the two of you. um how many um of these subcommittees you were on and what kind of
what kind of time did it take you? So I can go first. So last year I was assigned police, fire and other public safety. Um and it did not evoke the public meeting law because there were meetings and it was part of the investigatory purpose of the warrant
committee. So so it's not subjected to the open meeting law. Um, we went and met with fire chief to discuss his budget, obtain it, um, and just to learn more about what their needs are and it didn't require Liz Dylan and I were both on this subcommittee together and it was
emails which is public record. So, we had questions we would ask the uh, fire police chief. So those were obviously um subject to FOYA which is public records information act and if anyone wanted to see them they were they would be available and it was an investigatory um
role which is to understand their budget their needs and then to present it at at at the warrant committee. Um we asked the both the fire chief and the police chief came and talked about their needs um and what their budgetary items um entailed. So
I like I said I remember one meeting I couldn't make it because I had to work late so Liz covered and then there was one meeting that Liz couldn't make it and she covered but then we talked about it together what we learn and compare notes. I thought it was very effective. Um, and it was just the two of us and I
know other people had uh other subcommittees and I just thought it was very effective as opposed to having one person um like I said I I spent years decade two decades in law enforcement. I would never ever think that I know so much about what the police needs are. I
understand what they are, but it it's a lot, you know, and their needs and and and things that I didn't think about um because they they're they pertain just to this town. Um like cameras, I you know, I knew we had cameras, but I didn't know we had there's certain
software that was needed. So, I learned a lot from that. And I like the team approach um versus like I said the individual post and then and then professing that I'm an expert which I would never qualify myself as in any ex area not even in parenting with two children who are now young adults. So
not even close. The question was what I'd worked on. So for all three years I worked on general government which is sort of a catchall. It includes most of the things that happen in town hall. It includes employee benefits which is my professional background.
uh you know it includes quite a few things that are that are broken out into different lines on this list. Um what was your question about how much time it took? I guess it it it it sort of felt like it was as much time as we wanted to put in because nobody was going to ask
anything of us like uh the property and casualty insurance. I had a lot of questions. Some of them I got answered some of I didn't but the warrant committee never asked us hey tell us more about the property casualty insurance line. So it sort of felt a little frustrating in that sense. Also,
you say this is a long list, which it is. This list covers things that the warrant committee hasn't looked at in the past few years. Uh like the revenue side, all these revenue items, there was nobody on the warrant committee assigned to, hey, be the expert on the revenue item to at least at least know what's going on with it. If not, you know, push
back and ask questions. Stabilization funds, nobody, you know, some of them are new, but even those that weren't new, nobody looked into those. Um, yeah. So, I've added things that I think could benefit bonds. You know, we just accept what the town treasurer says, "Okay, here here are the bonds. Here are the
costs." We say, "Okay." Um, I'd like somebody to be an expert on that. Whether it whether it's an actual item or not, I want somebody in the warrant committee to have a really good sense of what our bonds are. So, this is a long list. It's longer than the things we've looked at before. A lot of them are
easy. A lot of them are what's the law budget? It's the same as last year. Okay, check. move on, but I want to make a thorough list. Gotcha. Thanks. Yes. Um, can I just ask how you put this list together, Jay? Uh,
out of my head. Okay. I mean, the the the departments, you know, it's it's everything that's on the um the departments are everything that's on the uh warrant every year and then things like bonds and capital on the on the warrant every year, uh, insurance.
And then I just started thinking like what have we not looked at in the past that we should. Okay. Thanks. I'll just add like there are a lot more things on this than we added up. Jay's right. There's a lot more items on this than we had last year. That's what was the difference.
I guess I was just looking for an idea of how many um different subcommittee responsibilities people on the war committee generally had because it would help make my decision about the the single person or working
as part of a collective like some of these things like insurance, unemployment, like I mean a lot of these things are like fixed cost and it was like one group like my our group just went through it. It was like a honestly it was like a two-hour in the afternoon but three of us went through it right
like some department like a lot of these are very quick and easy and you can't do anything about it because they're fixed. school's huge, you know, it is small. That's a big one. Um, well, like I said, the public safety aspect, it was great working with Liz because when she was unavailable, I could cover and then we were able to
trade notes and if I had any follow-up questions, I would just email um the fire or police chief to follow up um and you know, she was on emails. So, it really was a group effort. Um, and I I enjoyed that part. And I and again, I was new to the warrant committee. So, it
was great to meet Liz and and just to have someone um to get to know. So, I like that part as a new person. And uh I think even just being here this year, I you know, again, I would feel the same way to get to know someone new and work with someone new um and get to know them
because everyone brings something different to that to the table. Um as a team, I I'll give you my opinion. I do think teams work and like that was probably one of the first things I I I did when I got my NBA that's one of the first things they taught us like teams do come up with better decisions. They do a test
actually but teams generally do come up with better decisions than individual people do and I I do just a point is I do disagree with Jay on something on the school committee is that it was I think there were four people on the committee and you were on the committee but they wrote
a really good summary in the warrant in April. the one that that we did in April, a really good summary that the school committee is using to make changes because they all agreed on the school committee. They said, "We didn't do a good job on budgeting last year." They were very open about that and they
said that and they they came up with a good solution. Like they came up I thought it was one of the better things written in the warrant. M but I will say that having I mean to this day I don't know if there were technically four or five of us on that
committee and um we never actually got together and talked and there was definitely sort of that like dispersion of responsibility thing I feel I felt like because especially because Lori was such an expert. She'd been there so long she attended all the meetings that weren't even the meetings we needed to
attend. So it was like I can see the benefit of it like if if I just knew it was me. It was all on me. Okay, I got to you know I got to go to the meetings. I got to meet with Katie Blake. I got to do this. I got to that. But it was sort of like oh yeah I think Lori's meeting with Katie and then so
pros and cons but I also think to Macy's point that is part of the chair's job is to step in and make sure that like if it's a subcommittee setup the subcommittees are meeting and communicating and coming back and reporting. Yeah. I should I should be free. I think it's a my opinion is it's a mix. Some of
them could be one person. A chunk of these should be more than one person. That's what I believe. Yeah. And I think that works itself out in committees also. Yeah. Mhm. Cuz some people naturally for just to be nimble took on a sing in general
business. Mhm. I had a conversation with it and so and so there are other issues that are bigger bigger beers that I think takes a it requires the full team but
okay are there more questions. Okay, seeing there are no questions, it sounds like we're ready to proceed to a vote. Uh Ron, as we said, you have you weren't sworn in, so you're not able to vote. Uh
Karen, would you like to take a roll call vote? Are we able to get his input? Second. Can we a non-binding vote from Ron? I'm just curious. Um we'll abstain, Andrew. Yeah. Okay. was very
That's right. very neutral response. He emphasized that. I'm happy to take a vote. Can I just um I'm going to when I call your name, you're going to say the name of the person who you would like to elect. Is that correct?
Yes. And um be I'm going to probably call the names of people that aren't there because I don't have a clear yet. So I am going to apologize for that. Um, is Nicole there? Nicole is not here.
Okay. How about Elaine? Yes. Yes, I'm here. Um, Jay Kingsley. Jay. Lorraine. Jay.
Grace. Excuse me. Grace is not here. Okay, Jay, I'm going to abstain. Okay, Andrew. Macy. Macy. Uh, I should abstain. Um, Julia J.
Brian Macy. Um, Lee Michael. Lee Michael is not here. Thank you. Uh Ron, I understand the distension. He can't vote. Ron can't vote.
Okay. Uh is Jimmy there? Jimmy is not here. Okay. Nicholas Macy and Cecile J. So I have um five for Jay, three for
Macy, and three extensions. Okay. I would like to thank you for the responsibility you've given me and give respect to my colleague Macy. I think um as many people said, it would have been good either way. But uh there we go. The
next thing our on our agenda is the election of the secretary. Now, last year when this came up, somebody around the table said, "What does the secretary do?" And everybody looked at Yeah. Okay, great. And everybody looked at each other and said, "We're not sure." Well,
um, I would like to propose what I think the secretary could do. Um, am I sharing? Yes. Okay. Uh, can I make a slideshow? It's only one slide, but it'll look prettier. I'll leave it as that. Too bad. Um, what are the official duties of
secretary? I don't know what duties do I think the secretary should do. One is manage the minutes. We are um by the open meeting law, we're supposed to approve minutes within 30 days. I believe last month we approved some
minutes from 2023. So let's say we're behind. I would like the secretary to take charge of that. I'd like the secretary to call ro and take votes. Um what if the chair is absent? I believe for the past three
years I've never seen a chair be absent, but you know, I'd like the opportunity to be absent once in a while. Uh so whoever the secretary is will be perfectly capable of running the meeting. Uh sometimes we have confusing
votes like if there's a motion to say to vote no and everybody says, "Wait, so does no mean yes and yes mean no?" I uh getting off topic a little bit, but I think there's a good way for the secretary to communicate what people are voting for. Uh warrant comments. You know, we need to write the comments for
the warrant. Some of you who are new don't know what I'm talking about, but let's just say I'd like the secretary to assign those and then review the warrant comments. Now, this as with most things can be delegated as long it gets done. And on the days of town meeting, uh
before town meeting, town meeting starts at 7:30. At 6:30, we meet downstairs in the basement. Feels familiar, but it's the basement of the school and has a meeting and our our beloved clerk, Karen, stays with us for half an hour
and then runs upstairs because she helps run the town meeting. I'd rather say, Karen, you've got you've got that part of the night off. The secretary will serve as the clerk during the pre-T town meeting meetings and then on the floor of town meeting when the chair I guess I can say that's me is preparing getting
up speaking answering questions the secretary runs the meeting. Now you might ask yourself that's a lot of duties. Is there someone who is ready willing and able to s to do these duties? Um, I would like
to tell say that Brian and I are of a like mind because a few days ago I reached out to one of my more respected colleagues, Macy Lee, and asked if she would be willing to serve as secretary. Now, I do want to repeat something that I said a little while ago.
My opinion as chair is no more valid than your opinion. I am the the the committee decides the secretary, not me. All I am saying is that I did reach out to Macy several days ago and Macy said they were willing
to do the job of secretary. So that is all I will say and uh now I've had my say and I'll open the floor for nominations. I'd like to nominate Macy Lee. Thank you. Second. I was really torn in my vote. Oh,
really? And so I um I mean I'm a new member. It's exactly what Andrew said. Um but um so I I think that a lot of stuff that you said would make you a good person to fill in
if the if the chair is able to do it. Thank you very much. Jay, what happens if the chair is dies? That is not what I said. Say something like that. Sorry.
incapacitated or unwilling to serve in their capacity. Is it re is it revote or is it I I assume I don't think it's like vice president. I think it's okay. I assume it's some sort of revote. Okay. Yeah.
That's morbid. So that is Are you an actuary? It's intangible. Okay. We have had a we have had a motion. Do we have a second to that motion? Yes. Okay. Are there any other uh what's the word I'm looking for? I'm
doing a great job as chair so far. Are there any other nominations? Nominations. Okay, hearing no other nominations. Macy, you have the opportunity to speak. Um everything that I said before. Don't do it. Don't do it
because it's not Say it all again. That'd be great. No, I would. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Repeat. Um, read my speech. Yeah, go ahead. I'm humbled. Thank you, Elaine. Okay. And Jay and Brian.
Okay. So, sorry. Were you going to say something? Okay. Karen, can you call for a vote? I guess I guess the motion is for Macy to be secretary. So, I guess it's a yes or no vote. Okay. Uh, Elaine, yes.
James, yes. Lorraine, yes. Jay, I will not abstain from this vote. I will vote yes. Andrew, yes. Mathy,
abstain. Julia, yes. Brian, yes. Uh, Nicholas, yes. and Cecil. Yes.
Unanimous approval. Okay, great. Congratulations. Thank you everyone. Uh, next on the agenda, discussion of this year's schedule and tasks. I want to talk about schedule. I want to hand out something
uh regarding my thoughts on the schedule for the year. It starts with a story which uh may be true, maybe false, but the internet seems to think it's true or at least if it's not true, it's a good story. Uh that's in 1911. There were two
groups going to the South Pole. One from Norway, one from England. The one from Norway, good weather, bad weather, no matter what, they went 20 miles a day. They reached the South Pole first, first ones to ever make it, and they all survived. The ones from England, if it
was good weather, they would go as far as they could, 40 miles, 60 miles a day if it was good weather, it was bad weather, they hunkered down. They reached the South Pole second, and they all died. So, um, I'm going to lay out a plan for the annual schedule. And you might look at this schedule and say, "Hey, Mr.
Chair, it looks like some months, like November and December, we're not very busy. Maybe we could just not meet those months." I think it's going to pay off if we do. Uh, the next slide. Sorry. Sorry, Ron. You miss out. You don't Oh, wait. Do I have the slides? I do have
the slides. Boy, y'all voted. Yeah, this was this is what your your campaign should have been no slides, Macy, you would have won. I actually have a question. Yeah. Now, as the duly newly elected secretary, so and this is the attorney coming out. So, you're passing out these items and
this consists of four pages. Is this part of the record? Is this part of the minutes or should I I mean do you want to mark them as exhibits or how do you want to keep them as part of the record in case there's um public um I'll give a I'll give a partial response to that that is anything that is passed out at the meetings
is part of the public record and can and isn't always but probably should be. No, it should be. We have a warrant committee web page on the town web page and should be shared there. So do you want me to mark them as exhibits? Now you're getting out of my area of expertise.
Okay. I will mark them then. Okay. Because I think it's easier that way. Okay. Okay. This is campaign stuff. I'll share this entirely for Ron. I guess for all our fans watching at home also. There's the South Pole. Blah blah blah. Um I've got a plan for the year.
And uh two similar quotes. One is from the Prussian general Helmouth von Molki the Elder who said, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." It was phrased a little more eloquently by Mike Tyson who says, "Everybody has a plan until
they get punched in the mouth." I've got a plan for what we're going to do for the next 12 months. It's better to have a plan than not to have a plan. Uh if the state comes to us in February and says you're getting $10 million less than than we thought you're
going to get, our plan goes out the window. But let's see what we can do. Um I don't I I think this is something to look at on your own time. Uh I think th this month we should assign
roles. So maybe I lied. uh next next month. So, at the beginning of August, the select board is expected to give us sorry, stepping back a bit, there's going to be a town meeting on October 27th of this year. At the beginning of August, the select board should be
giving us their warrant articles that they expect us to consider. 27th or 28th? Says 28th. You said 27th. Oh, well, it's my daughter's 18th birthday, so I know it's the 27th, so I wrote it wrong. 27th
that Monday. Um I've already apologized to her in advance. Um so the select board should be giving us warrant articles in early August so we can start discussing those in August.
Also start doing some pre-work for the summit if we're going to be deciding the policies of how we want this to run and also financial policies that start fleshing some of those out in September. When I looked at this schedule and I thought, "Oh, if if the warrant goes to the printer in early October, it's
really tempting to say, let's have our summit in October, but I didn't want to give into that temptation. I'd like to have that early, set the tone for the year." Uh, and then also in September, discuss the fall time meeting articles and finalize our recommendations for
them. It goes to the printer the first week of October. And uh so between the time it goes to printer and the tie-in of town meeting we you know experienced warrant committee members know things come up but ideally we won't have much to do
then so we can work on what are we going to present to town meeting what did we decide and how can we present it the best and then that gives us november and December to start coming back you know so during this August September October also all of you have had individual
assignments you've gone out you've met with the DPW director you've met with the cemetery board of trustees, whoever you're meeting with, start coming back in November, December and presenting here are the issues with the cemetery budget, here are the issues with the DPW budget. So, we start laying a good foundation for the budget in November
and December. And then um you know, then we're getting so far so the the budgets the um departments give their budget requests to Mr. Milano in December. Mr. Milano usually puts that into a whole budget
proposal in January and uh that's when we'll be working with um that's when we'll be you know at that point we'll be doing warrant committee stuff. We'll be finalizing our recommendations on the budget and the non-budget articles for town meeting.
So one other thing I want to say about schedule or ask about schedule meeting times. The past three years at least we've met Monday evenings. uh seems to be a good night. You know, the um select board meets on Tuesdays, the school
committee meets on Wednesdays, the planning board meets on Thursdays. Most of these are every other week, so we're not necessarily precluded from meeting another day, but I just assume stick with Monday unless there's a general outcry for another day. So, it can be a general outcry right now. You can
contact me later either way. Otherwise, we're going to stick with Monday. Um, and I' I'd like to plan with, again, with the slow and steady wins the race. I'd like to plan for meetings every two weeks, including over the summer, all meetings you can
participate by Zoom. So, during the summer, I know it's sometimes hard to get people here, there's always a Zoom option. Uh, what else? The other things on the agenda are sort of what we already talked about. Um, so two weeks from today.
Two weeks from today. Yes. Can I ask a question on your schedule? Sure. So, on the 2026 side, are you is this schedule implying there's going to be another town meeting before May like there was
this year? It's not. Okay. So, the early February the warrant is closed. what the warrant is closed means, and it's sort of squishy, but it means the select board knows all the warrant articles that are going to be on the Maytown meeting, and there will be no more except that there
always are, and they always reopen it, but Okay, we should know most of the articles are going to be on the Maytown meeting by early February. Thank you. And do you stick on that every two weeks or do you sometimes have conflicts and are going to go every week or every three weeks?
In the past, it has not been a regular every two weeks. In the past, it has been more willy-nilly. So, I'd like I'd like to stick with the every two weeks. I mean, again, if there's a general uprising that says, "No, that's July 4th." It won't be July 4th. No, that's that's a really bad day. That's Halloween. We're
not going to meet on Halloween. You know, we can be flexible. Okay. We can certainly be flexible, but I'm just thinking about putting in my calendar and how locked in I can make it. Well, as we get closer, I mean, we we've had three meetings in Oh, yeah. That's fine. More more. Oh yeah.
And that's what again, no plan survives contact with the enemy. I'm hoping to not do that. I'm hoping we can do enough in the fall to be in good really good shape in the spring. Hope is a bad word, but I just said it. Do you think we can get like the full like the plan for at least the next six
months or something like that? So we have calendars and then change it for holidays and all that stuff, you know? Sure. I mean, I think and I think the I think the answer is every two weeks. I mean, I sort of laid out Yeah. You going to do the holidays, too? Well, I
Okay, I'll put I'll put something better together. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just so we can I'll stop sharing my screen. So, the next meeting is going to be July 28th. Yes. Okay. Okay.
Uh the next thing on the agenda, uh and I sent an email out to partially explain what this is about. interim appointments to the Milton Budget Coordination Committee. Two questions you might have. One, what's the Milton Budget Coordination Committee? And two, why interim? Budget Coordination Committee I
mentioned earlier. That's the new brand new committee between the select board, school committee, planning board, and us. And it's to do multiple things. One is to open lines of communication between the boards. You know, the select board really said we want to talk to the school committee back and forth
officially. So, that's one thing. and also to do long-term budget planning and also I think we'll sort of see where it goes. Now the select board and the planning board have already selected their representatives and the school committee will do so soon. So I don't want to delay in choosing a presence
from the warrant committee to be on there. I also recognize this is our first meeting. Maybe it's a little knee-jerk reaction to elect people. That's why that's why I said in the agenda interim appointments. Um, I didn't know if we'd be ready to choose permanent representatives and at this
point that's what's on the agenda. So, that's what we should do. Um, Andrew, yes. I'd like to nominate the two newly elected folks to be interim representatives. Okay. Say that again. I'd like to nominate the two newly
elected as inter or unless anybody else is. Do you want to do a motion to nominate first? Um, and then open unless you like I think you'd be great on it. Yeah. Can Can we put a pen in this for for just a minute? I I appreciate the
thought. I do appreciate it. I want to put a pen in it because the other smaller groups seem to just look around the table and say who wants to do it and they come to some sort of communal hive mind. So, um, I eventually want a motion for two people. Um, I would sort of like a little bit of
discussion like to see who would like to do it, who is inclined to do it as interum. We're voting on interum now because I I think we should because we don't have a full body here. I'd prefer to see everyone. Okay.
Can I make a suggestion? Um I it seems as though we skipped right over number five on the agenda of introducing ourselves to each other. Oh, thank you. I'm wondering if it might be helpful to have an idea of people's backgrounds and things like that before we Thank you. I did skip that. For the
people at home, we had the our open meeting began in the gazebo where we had informal chitchats for about half an hour. Um, but you're right, you know, not we may not even know what the professional backgrounds of any everyone in this room are and certainly the people watching at home don't. So, I'll
start uh brief. I told you a little bit about myself. My professional background I may have deemphasized. I worked as an actuary for 15 years. I'm still a fully credentialed actuary. What that meant was I worked with employee benefits including mostly retirement plans,
retirey medical plans, dabbled a little bit in healthcare plans. And so what that means for my role in the town is I've been very involved in meetings with Mr. Milano, Miss Dexter, the town uh financial uh director about what should
our policy be for retiring medical plans, what should our policy be for the pension plans, what should our policy be for healthare plans. Uh I've, you know, I'm sorry, you will all hear more from me about employee benefits than you want to hear. And now I work at Eversource
where I do a combination of policy and um policy and uh math work. Um, I am not like our secretary. I am not a lawyer, but I tell everyone my job is I'm not a lawyer, but I pretend to be because I work with
policy. Um, let's go this way around the table. I think we Okay, I'm going to press rewind. Okay. Ditto. Um, and then move it to Andrew. Uh, I'm a operations executive. Uh,
mainly IT focused. However, I've managed HR insurance uh vendors. I've managed benefits. Uh I've managed commercial property and cash executive liability insurance and basically keep the lights on for other other folks to be working.
Uh last 14 years I was with the uh Blue Hub Capital, which is a nonprofit uh financial institution. Um currently serving as a technology advisory board member for Persian Ventures. Um and most
of my work is basically spent on business process optimization innovation um and uh trans business transformation work. Thanks. Um Brian Magcguire. I've lived
in Milton for 42 years. I um 40 years actually. Um I lived in East Milton for 30 of those. I um retired a year and a half ago upon my company being sold. I was vice president of operations for what was uh fifth largest uh be distributor in the country and we had up
to 21 divisions. I worked uh 30 years. Um I don't know. I kind of lost my train of thought. I am going to put in for the budget committee. I think I would be good on it. I want to talk to you about why, but I don't need to do it right now in the introductions.
Lorraine Dy. Um, this is my third time on the Warren Committee. Um, different uh committees each time I was on it. I've lived in Milton for 30 years. Um my background is clinically as a physical therapist which I did a number of years
and then I went on to different levels of management in healthc care and IT healthcare and I'm currently an administrator for uh health center master health center where I have policies budgets a lot of people under
my name um day-to-day stuff um pretty much committees whole bunch of different So my name is James Lee. Um for the past 20 years I've worked in IT service management. Um basically the
responsibilities have gone from day-to-day desktop support all the way through to um managing um transition from on premise to cloud infrastructure. Um on the that's been my 9-5 dayto-day. I'm
also a real estate investor. I've gone pretty much nationwide at this point. Um, so look, I'm also a landlord, which is not as fun as being a real estate investor. So, um, so I kind of,
you know, do the handyman stuff and just kind of make sure I understand and what what the costs are and how to do all the different work that I do. um for this I've been in town uh for about 12 years now and so I've been poking and
saying I I participate a little bit more in town um in town functions um and then now getting serious about it and so uh that's why I'm here. I'm Cecil Yang. Um I'm pretty new to town. I've been here three years now. Um
I am a software engineer. I've been a software engineer for nine years and before that I was a student. Um yeah, I have been interested in local um like town government. I became a citizen like fairly recently like three years
ago. Um so I I'm just like trying to jump in now um that I can vote and I can be involved. Um yeah, excited to work with you all. Um I'm Ela Craig. I um have been a town
meeting member for about 15 years now. Um I was also a member of the school committee for six years. Um on during those six years I chaired the finance committee for five years. So I've been um involved in putting that school uh
budget together uh a number of times. So yes, it's complicated. It's it's it's big. Um before that, uh I served on the Milton Cultural Council. Um I was I served with Lorraine on capital improvement planning committee um for a
couple of years. Um and I also was involved in negotiating contracts with the teachers union um as part of my responsibilities on the school committee. I've actually negotiated contracts on both sides um of the table. I'm an associate dean at Mass
Maritime Academy and um I was a faculty member there uh before being promoted to my current role. That's it. Uh so I'm Nick Tagy. I grew up in Milton and then my wife and I uh bought our first house here 27 years ago. Uh so
I've been here a long time. Um I was in the uh town meeting for about 17 years and I was a member of the Milton girls softball board of um directors I guess for about 12 years. Uh I work at an investment management company in Boston.
I've been there for 35 years. Uh I'm involved on the product team. Um so we do a lot of coordination between the distribution and sales team and the investment folks that manage all the different investment strategies. And we're involved in helping support those strategies in the marketplace. uh work with the marketing team to tell the
stories, do design of new strategies, that kind of stuff. Um, so I think that's it about me. Uh, my name is Julia Maxwell. I've lived in Milton for four years now. I live in precincts 1 with my husband and my uh six and fouryear-old boys. I'm a
precinct one town meeting member. Um, and my background is in public health in low and middle inome countries, mostly in the program and project management space. Um, so I say I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. I've done a little bit of everything. Um, and I
currently work as a director managing uh a program that does event-based surveillance um which is uh like pandemic threat detection. Uh Ron, are you with us? Yep, still here. Can you hear me? Okay.
Yes. Okay, great. Thanks. Uh my name is Ron Sia. I hope to meet all of you in person soon. Um, I've been a resident of Milton since 2009. Uh, my wife and I have three kids. Two are in, uh, middle or two are
in high school, one's in middle school. They all go to Milton public. Um, we've been, uh, we live in Central A. So, I'm a precinct 3 town meeting member for I think four or five years now. And this is my third year on the warrant committee. Uh outside of warrant
committee uh when I do find time I I I have a job. I work as a corporate in-house attorney uh focusing on technology law and risk management. So that's the introductions. So should we go I think we were going to discuss
who has interest or inclination to be on the budget coordination committee. And Brian did you want to say I I do I'd like to be on it. Okay. And um and I think that as much as possible, we should try to avoid interim because I think having continuity is
good. I'll tell you a bit bit about my background. I was primarily an accountant. Um I have got an MBA. I worked for the same company for 40 years. When I said I worked for the company, it was two divisions and there were 100 people that work for the company and we were up to uh 21
divisions and um 2,000 people work for the company after 40 years. It's pretty big. Company was sold uh billion dollar company. We grew a lot. We're very fiscally responsible. I was 30 years as a senior vice president of the company.
And um this is might be depressing, but I fig I figured this out that I actually have been part of 2,000 budget meetings in in that range approximately, which is a choker. I think, oh, it makes me cry.
Uh but um you know, so I've crunched a lot of numbers. I've looked at a lot of financial statements. I did a lot with the company. When we started, we didn't even have computers, you know, believe it or not, if you can imagine. So um we
I like a lot of the things that we did I helped develop or had ideas like we had capital uh utilization like you know I got fr I got frustrated with some stuff at the last meeting because I felt like they we were buying things and people weren't really sure like if we needed
them or not but it was kind of late like Jay said it was late in the game so we couldn't really check it but like I was involved with like setting up utilization spreadsheets things like that like things there were like so many different w things that we came up with to measure costs in the you needs for
different things in the budget. Um I um yeah so um I and I could tell you a lot of different things I did but capital expenditures, budgeting, hiring development of managers. I negotiated union contracts. I had in the last few
years there's some major changes we made like I um set up some warehouse management systems that saved the company like um uh $2 million a year which was huge. We I established a sustainability committee for the company which I think was which is big that'd be
something that I want I really think this town should do. Um we had a goal of um was called 20 by 25 and we had a goal of a 20% reduction in carbon emissions uh electric usage and waste by 2025.
Unfortunately we only had three years because the company was sold when I left but within that three years three out of the five years we had already achieved 75% of our uh goals which was we were really proud of. I was really proud of that. And it was a $1.1 million annual savings in the
company. And that's something like, you know, you have a sustainability program, you should be saving money. Doesn't cost you money to do that. It saves you money and it's good for the environment. Um, other things, you know, we had like delivery logistics systems. I saved like a million dollars with that. Um, I mean,
uh, emergency response plans. I headed COVID response team. I worked with a lot of different areas, much more than that, but those were the big things. Um, I think Yep. Oh, sorry. I guess I was going to say I was hoping maybe less than like everyone
making a case first. We get to see like do we have two people interested? Do we have more than two people interested? If if not that solves that would be great on it too. Is Andrew interested? Um I would love to the reason why I like the idea of interim and by interim I mean like two
weeks or whatever. Uh is okay. No, no. Go on. Is because we have five voting members not present today. Okay. Um and I would prefer that I get to know the other five members or
the other four members. Uh and gau their interest in their background cuz there may be somebody that has an infinite amount of experience that is a no-brainer for me. And all else equal, I'd likely still vote for Brian anyway. Okay. Um but I I think it would be
appropriate to have the full body here before we make um a vote on this which is why the expeditious answer for me had been you two but Brian has an interest and I think would be a fine candidate also. So
there there's I think okay there are many ways to skin this cat but can I make a motion to table this until the next meeting the next time we meet? Well, the reason I wanted to do something quick and something interim, I
didn't love doing interim either, is because I don't know when this group is going to meet first and I want us to have a presence there when this group starts. We can vote again at the next meeting. I just per Jay's comment, I think it would
be good to have some a pin in it before then and like I'll I'll nominate Brian as one of those two. Okay. Okay. Um and so I I support what Andrew said um mainly because I'm gone for two
weeks. Um so I'm not going to even be here for the 28th. Um so unfortunately I'm going to have to miss that meeting. But I do think it's important to have a presence at this committee as soon as possible um so that we can get our feet wet um and be able to report back to the
war committee. So uh thank you for the nomination um but I'm going to um excuse myself from it and if I can make a motion to nominate um someone uh you want to do that for interim and then do that again later could do a
permanent um vote later on. I don't hear anyone else clamoring to speak up for themselves. So, sure, Macy. So, I'm going to um do a motion to recuse myself of Andrew's nomination as one of the interim members of this
committee. Uh and in place of that, I moved to nominate um Brian um as the interim person along with you. Okay. So your motion is that myself and Brian would be the interim members. Yes.
Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Second. Okay. Uh that's not that that's good with what's working for now. So for now, Karen, can you call the role? So that's a that's a yes or no on
Bassy's motion for me and Brian to be the under members. Okay. Blaine. Yes. Jingles. Yes. Lorraine, yes. Jay,
abstain. Andrew, yes. Macy, yes. Julia, yes. Brian, abstain. Oh, then we go to Nicholas.
Yes. Yes. Cecil. Yes. Okay. Motion carries. Great. Uh the only thing left on our agenda was discussion of minutes. Before we get to that, I'd like to give a heads up of what I see for our next meeting
two weeks from now. A couple things. One administrative thing. One one of our members who is not here right now. Jimmy Sternus Sterner. I'm going to mess that up. Uh there is an administrative difficulty. There's an administrative problem with getting him nominate,
getting him appointed to the warrant committee. That administrative difficulty has been cleared up. He is willing and able to serve now, but because he wasn't nominated by the 5th of July, technically we don't have 15 members. We
have 14 members and and an empty spot. When we have an empty spot, the process is not for the moderator to fill it, but for us as a group to fill it. So it wasn't on the agenda for us to discuss who should fill that but that'll be something that we take up I think
immediately upon the next the next meeting first thing next meeting is to fill that spot. Uh I think also the next meeting we want to discuss the roles. You know I I surprised you with this list today. It looks overwhelming. I'll sort of be
poking you know I'll be poking you in the next two weeks. Think about what you'd like to work on, what you wouldn't like to work on. I think we can have an open discussion of oh what's you know what's the board of health what is that and we can help you know help get towards figuring out who will do what
role uh also the summit the timing of the summit we can have a discussion do we like the idea of a weekend day that sounds the more I say it that sounds horrible but maybe that's what we like or like two week nights in a row something like that and also as a reminder the next meeting we have is the
last meeting we will have before we get warrant art those calls from the select boards So that's why I want to clear up some of this uh administrative internal stuff because then we'll be running with warrant articles from the select board after that. Uh the next thing on the agenda was review approval of minutes. We don't
have any to approve right now, but as we I said we have a backlog and we have a very capable secretary who has expressed uh willing and able to get us through that backlog. So that is everything we have on the agenda. Jay, if we are
voting on uh filling that 15th slot, then most likely with Jimmy. Yeah, I I don't want to. Are we rubber? I would prefer not to rubber stamp that if that's the process. I mean, the process is we fill that
role. Okay. Now, Liz appointed Jimmy to that role. There was a administrative issue with him getting on, but that's been cleared up. I don't since it's not on the agenda that we're discussing who will fill that role. I don't want to discuss it too much more.
I'm not it's not discussing. So if we are appointing that person I'd prefer to see that person's background and okay get a sense of whether we believe that is fills a gap that we have as a
committee. If there's a specific domain expertise that we are lacking, I would prefer that we fill it, okay, and make sure that this candidate who I don't know, okay, meets that need or at least I'd like to be able to see it before. I hear what you're saying.
Otherwise, we're we're effectively rubber stamping that and I it procedurally that's just not something I'm not comfortable with. Yep, I hear you. Thank you. What is the name again? Oh,
Jimmy Sterner. How do you spell that, Jay? It's on the website. I spell it a lot easier than I can. Sorry. I asked him how to pronounce it and I'm just Yeah, it it's on the website because he's listed as a member on the website because
Oh, okay. Snafu. Uh, s t o u n o r a s. Mr. Norris. Mhm. Okay.
I think that concludes the meeting. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I. Great. Good night. Thanks. Thank you.