Speaker 1: This is the NA Select Board meeting for March 18th, 2026. And as soon as I find my agenda, I will read what we are, we're going to Talk about going into executive session and take a vote. This portion of the meeting will not be open to the public and it's for the following purposes. A, pursuant to mass General Laws chapter 30 a, section 21, A three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair.
So declares Deputy Fire Chiefs Association, local 1707 International Association of Firefighters. I so declare item B pursuant to MGL 30 A 21 A four to discuss the deployment of security personnel or devices or strategies with respect there to Northeastern Massachusetts, law enforcement counsel, Middlesex County Chiefs of Police, interagency agreement. And I declare have so moved. Moved by Mr. Sidney. Second. Second seconded. Aye.
Ms. Pope, all in favor has gotta be a roll call. Ms. Coff. Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yeah. Ms. Er. Yes. Ms. Pope? Yes. And I, yes. So we'll be in executive session until approximately 6:40 PM so please tune back in at that point. Thank you. All right. We are back from executive session. If any, everybody in the room who's capable of doing so could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence, Speaker 2: Pledge of allegiance, pledge of all of the flag of the United States of America
and the Republic for which nation, nation under invisible liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay. First up is announcements. I've got two. And then the first one is the discussion on addressing safety concerns on a bikes has been postponed until an April meeting because a key person involved in this discussion cannot be be at this meeting tonight. The Safety Committee recommendations will be discussed and considered at that April meeting.
There are a number of sub substantive issues that remain to be discussed, so it's important that we have everybody here to weigh in on that. The second announcement is Route 27 and Route nine replacement and interchange improvements in-person. Public information meeting is on Thursday, March 26th at 6:30 PM at Wilson Middle School. And the last one is the Natick Water Division is notifying town. Has notified town administration that a level three critical drought has been declared
effective March 9th, 2026. Ms. Erickson, do you wanna say anything on that or no, Speaker 3: Just to go to the town's website for more information to learn more about what this means to a certain degree? Somewhat. Fortunately, it's in an off season, it's not like it's a peak watering season, for example. So the typical rate payer and user of town water would probably have minimal change to what they're doing. It's more of an awareness and we do need to, per the state requirements, notify the public. So there is information on the town's website about what this means for the town and the, I wish I had the link off the top of my head,
but I don't have the link off the top of my head. Speaker 4: It's on the front page of, Speaker 3: It's on the front page of the, of the town's website though. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Ericks. Any other? That's Ms. Kaufman. Speaker 4: Tomorrow marks the at sundown marks, the end of Ramadan and the Feast of Starts on Friday at sundown. And I just wanted to take an opportunity to congratulate and, and celebrate with our Muslim neighbors and brothers and sisters the end of their holy month. That's all I have. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thank you. Any others?
Speaker 3: There's the announcement of Paul Car's upcoming retirement, which is on the agenda as well. Paul car is our, been our veteran service officer for, for gosh, 13, 10, 13, 12 years, three year term. So probably 12 years. Yeah. So, and 16. Yes, 16. Okay. So I missed, I missed the term 16 years. His retirement is on March 27th, 2026. We do have plans to do some type of retirement lunch party for him, but that date is
to be determined for various reasons. There is overlap with our new veteran service officer as well who started this week. So if people do need support for veteran services, they're still, we're, we're ensuring that there's no impact to the services and we're very excited to welcome a new person. Sad to see Paul go, but meaning retire. But we are excited for him and his next chapter of life as well. One thing about Paul, I, at a future board meeting, we are hoping to also do some type of celebration for Paul's time as well.
But unfortunately tonight did not work for Paul. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Next up is public speak. Any individual can raise an issue that's not included on tonight's agenda and it'll be taken on their advisement. There's no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting due to requirements of open meeting law. This section is limited to 10 minutes in any individual. Addressing the board during this section shall be limited to three minutes. Do we have anybody who wants Mr. Joseph? Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you Mr. Chair. Good evening. Members of the board.
My name is Paul Joseph, Ken Carlson Circle and chair of the Economic Development Committee. Earlier this afternoon, I sent to the board for a future consideration, a letter that is a proposal for an economic develop economic development vision. This represents the work of the last couple of months of the EDC and the timing of it Intentionally wanted to get in front of the board for consideration, noting that with the town election coming up at the end of the month, you'll be seat a new in incarnation of the board in April. And typically the board has gone into a retreat
and planning session soon thereafter. So we wanted to get at least some guidelines based on EDC perspectives from outside business owners and the commercial tax base as you consider your priorities for the fiscal 2027 year. Again, it's not meant to be directional so much as just, you know, feedback from us in terms of aspects of a plan that you should consider. Priorities and considerations of our ability to implement should factor into your decision making when you do those goals. So I emailed that earlier to the entire board and at some point in time I just respectfully asked that the board consider in, you know, sort
of post-election mode, perhaps an update from myself that's been authorized by the EDC to sort of present what those findings are more formally to the board. So it's here to kind of do that initially. And since I'm here, and I know I can't make the meetings coming up specifically around that election time, I just wanted to wish Mr. Sidney good luck and thank him very much for his service. I'm sure you'll be getting your share of, of all of that in a couple of weeks. But I won't be able to be here for some of it much to the chagrin of some people in town and maybe to the delight of others, it was rich that taught me about town finances when I first got my toe
in the water trying to understand the budget during the initial 2008 discussion pre override affecting Johnson School. So he couldn't have been kinder taking me in, showing me how the budget worked and worked a lot sort of early on to understand the system of, of town. And then we served in town meeting together and also on the board. So I really respect how much you've given to the town and how much you've taught me and really appreciated the opportunity to work with you. So thank you. Speaker 6: Thank you for those kind words. Speaker 1: Glad you didn't answer into debate. Just kidding.
Okay, thank you Mr. Johnson. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak? I did not see anyone online. So let's go. The next item was proclamations, which as Mr. Erickson talked about, were deferring to a future meeting when Mr. Caru can be available for that. So we're on to dis discussion and decision, and I want to change the order just a bit to do items B and E first and then do the rest in order. The reason is we can dispose of those pretty quickly because item B core golf is not,
not prepared to move forward at this time. So we're going to, I'm going to ask to close the public hearing and we've told core that they should resubmit their paperwork and restart the process when they're ready. So I'm looking for a motion to, Speaker 6: I I think you have to officially resume the public hearing first, just by saying so. Okay. All right. No vote necessary. Thank Speaker 1: You. Okay. We are now resumed our discussion of the public hearing on core LLC application for new S 12 wine and malt beverages on-premise license.
Speaker 6: Move to close the public hearing. Second. Speaker 1: All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Speaker 6: Aye. Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: What will we do without you? Rich? Speaker 6: You'll figure it out. Speaker 1: Alright, next up is item E, which is safety committee recommendations, which we've talked about earlier. We'll be talking about then in a, in a future meeting. We've deferred talking about it because it's a very important topic that that has a, a few substantive issues that remain to be discussed.
So we want to have everybody here to participate on that one. So next up is a water and sewer abatement. Speaker 6: Before, before you move on. Yes ma'am. There is some safety committee stuff on the consent agenda. Are we gonna defer that stuff as well? No. Okay. I just wanted to, Speaker 1: Nope, good question. That is pretty straightforward and doesn't require further discussion. Next up is a water and sewer abatement appeal of 50 15 rather Homeward Lane. Sir, if you could come to the podium and introduce yourself. Make sure that the green light is on so that we hear you.
Speaker 7: It's on, can you guys hear me okay? Yes. My name is Peter Corbett. I'm the tenant of 15 Homeward Lane. Thank you very much for, for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this evening. We are submitting an appeal to the water and sewer abatement. We were declined the abatement we wanted to appeal given the terms of the policy. What occurred was we received our bill from our landlord on February 11th. Our water usage bill was significantly higher than our historical usage. Immediately upon receiving that bill and our landlord seeing it, he came over,
inspected the property for any leaks, pipe bursts, any other fixtures that could have had an issue. Upon that time, he noticed that one of our toilets had a silent leak in the top of the lid. There was a MEChA mechanical function that just wasn't closing the valve properly. So we had a, a water leak from 11 one until the date of the inspection, which was two 11, which caused excess water usage. Since that date, you have seen our water usage return back to its normal usage prior to a leak occurring. So prior to November 1st, our water usage on average per day was about 240 gallons.
During this leak period, it skyrocketed up to about 2100 gallons. And then upon fixing the leak, we were back to about 280 gallons per day. We're asking for an abatement or an adjustment on the excess usage of water compared to our historical norms. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the board? All right. Let me just quickly go through what our abatement policy is with, just to refresh people's memory. Now the board knows this, but what we do is we, we have to charge you for all the water that's used.
But what we do is we look back to the comparable period three years or the previous three years, and whatever the highest amount is, is considered your average usage for that time period. And so what we do then is look at the overage of the current period compared to that. And we charge for the water at the lowest possible rate. And that, that, that's our standard policy. So it's further discussion from the board. Speaker 6: Yeah. Just to point out, we can't abate sewer, we can only abate water. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Just forget that. Speaker 6: 'cause we don't collect it. It doesn't stay with us. It goes to the MWRA. Speaker 1: Thank you Richard. Speaker 3: Well, you, you do abate sewer down to the lowest tier Speaker 6: As well to the lowest tier. Speaker 3: Everything is a, you're technically not. That's true. The way the policy is written, assuming the board wants to provide an abatement, in essence the water and sewer is being paid for. It's just being paid a, whatever you decide as the abatement is usually typically being paid at the
lowest possible tier. So we have a tiered system for folks watching a tiered system, meaning the more you use, the more you pay basically at high at different rates. So your first like eight units, I think it's at one rate. The next set of units is another rate. And then it goes up from there. And there's four tiers basically. So in essence you're paying for the water that you used, but since you use more water, you're getting a higher bill 'cause you're using higher tiers. But we're reducing that down to the lowest tier for that excess water usage. So it's, it's a pretty significant reduction,
but you're still paying for the water that was used and then the subsequent sewer that was also used. Speaker 6: So I just want to comment here if I may, oh, based on the application and Mr. Marshall's report to us, it sounds like even though you didn't bring a plumber in, and we don't have any actual pictures of the fix you've done, you and your landlord have done the right things. It, it appears, I would encourage you to make sure that you pay attention if this mechanical problem happens again more quickly. But I'm prepared with a motion when the board is ready. Yep.
Speaker 1: All that thought, Speaker 8: Just just a couple of things on on that one. So on peak on the attachment to the meeting, you'll note that there is a letter from the landlord who says that they have signed up for my 360 and we'll get further alerts if this happens again. And that was very encouraging to hear that that happened. And I'm also just gonna reiterate, because this has been a source of confusion that if we do grant an abatement, we do still make you pay for the water. I know that Mr. Evans mentioned this and Mr. Erickson,
but that is, I think, hard for some people to believe, especially when they see maybe some large sums of money that we might be reating. You are still paying for it, it's just the low tier. Speaker 6: Understood. And thank you for the consideration. Yep. Speaker 1: Thank you. I just wanted to, to respond to something that Mr. Sidney said, and Mr. Marshall gave us an update on this, which is he asked the same question about the,
do you have anything in writing to substantiate this? And the tenant said no, it was phone conversation between he and the, the landlord. So that additional information was received from the landlord that Ms. Slager referenced, which said, here's what we did, here's when we did it. And we signed up for my 360. So that, that to me and to is, is
a substantiation or a validation that that steps were taken to remediate the, the situation. But to reiterate Mr. Sidney's point, always check, always make sure that thing is shutting off. 'cause it gets stuck. Especially the ones that have chains. They definitely do. Okay. Richard, did you say you had a motion Speaker 6: Moving abatement amount? $3,240 and 23 cents is calculated by Mr. Marshall.
Speaker 1: Second. Moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Ms. Pope. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Just wanted to read one more thing off that the tenant had paid $5,312 and 44 cents. And so that rebate amount is taken away from that $5,000. So he is paid roughly $2,000 for that fee. For those watching at home and keeping score. Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 9: Thank Speaker 6: You. Yeah. And thank Speaker 1: You. Speaker 6: Yes, thank get in touch with the get in touch with administration tomorrow they'll figure out how to get the money back to you. They, they Speaker 3: Will. So usually what happens is it's a credit to the account, but we can adjust it accordingly. Just call the office tomorrow and talk to John or Donna, depending on who you've been talking to already. Thank you very much. We'll have this settled tomorrow. Yeah. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's go on to, Speaker 3: You can go if you want, Speaker 1: Since we have two people from the Chance advisory committee here.
I'd like to take that up next. So welcome and Ed please your presentation. Speaker 3: It's for ED and D. Speaker 1: D Yeah. Speaker 9: Ed, is this on or? Yeah, Speaker 3: It's the green light's on then it's on. Yeah. Alright. Speaker 9: Ed Doherty, chairman of the Transportation advisory board. We exist based on the will of the board of select select board. And I'm here to report, I've been on the committee four years. There was a down year when we had no town staff to sort of support us, but right now we're in a peak period
'cause we have Morgan who kind of directs us or keeps us busy with agenda items. And then we have the DPW engineer who always attends Bill. Alright. If you could put up the slides or already. Yeah. Alright, terrific. This next slide you can just, oh yeah, so this is our charge. I think we discussed it with you or reviewed it with the board before Transportation and advisory Committee was established
to advise the select board on transportation plan, transportation plans, projects, and policy that it impacts all modes of transportation in or including the town of Natick. And this is our committee. We have one new member, but every, everyone else, I think you guys appointed RT a month ago or so. So she attended our last meeting trip. Terrific addition. And we're lucky in that fact that we have diversity on our committee. So we hear from young mothers and we hear from old guys like me.
So the committee does have good discussions. Next slide. All right. We're here tonight, not only to discuss our goals and what we've been up to, but also to get your feedback so that we can PR advise better than we've advised in the past. So let, let me go through our five goals that we pro proposed tonight and maybe you could help us focus on a particular goal or direct us on some action items we possibly have. Our number one goal is to work with the town to formalize a long term Natick bicycle
and pedestrian network. So we have a list of actions here. Let me just first would be to develop a plan. The next one be Work with the town to help assist with the town wide design guidelines for Streets, an updated Natick Complete Streets program plan, exploring changes to roadways to improve safety, livability and the environment. Enhance the access and visibility of Natick off-road trails and network. Yeah, so this first one and,
and I don't know if you want to ask questions as I go here. It might make sense. This first one is really because you see cities and towns that have bike trails like we have, but they also have street scapes where you want to walk and you want to ride your bike or there's a place for you to go if you have a bike and you're trying to access town hall or something. So I think this is very much within our preview when I, I think it's kind of something that we've not been able to get to the finish line, but we've had this bike
and pedestrian plan on our to-do list for a long time. Was there a question on one before I move on? I don't, Speaker 4: I I didn't know. Do you want us to wait till the end, Mr. Chair or do them as we go? Speaker 9: Let's wait till the end. Okay. Alright, sure. Number two, continue dialogue with town departments regarding speed limit policy and street safety. You know, everybody wants their street to be quiet and slow moving traffic, but the reality is you have streets that are through streets and streets that aren't. So the question becomes how to achieve the goal
of everybody feeling comfortable on the sidewalk or the street or crossing the street. And I know we've done a great job with the flashing cross signs and I know we have more coming online, but it's projects like that that, you know, move us up the list. The state keeps track of how many accidents, almost accidents happen with pedestrians, bicycles and automobiles. So there's been some improvement, but speed enforcement and, you know, encouraging
slower speeds would be. And the second point here is something I'm really interested in. I see a lot of cities and towns identify and advocating for physical traffic, calming measures in residential areas or high active areas. So Morgan and the town are doing great with this Main Street redesign because as a pedestrian in downtown, sometimes it's dark, sometimes you're confused. So this is a goal to improve street layouts. They call it street scape if you're a designer.
Next one, goal three is to strengthen the president present utility of the Metro West Regional Transit Authority within Natick. So I don't think very few people are aware that besides the changes to bus routes or whatever, people aren't aware that on nights and weekends you can actually call and get a ride from the public transportation department. Alright, you can move on en engage with the native community regarding non single occupancy vi vehicle
transportation options. This is a big one because, you know, we know we can't fit more cars in the throughput in Natick. So if we can encourage people to park and walk through Natick, then the parking options become bigger in Natick. So we'd like to develop a new residential map or flyer to highlight walking, biking, and transportation opportunities in town. Create guidance on how to access popular town events without a car.
And this is something new as we're hoping to at least do one or two events where we advertise what's available in town for walking and hiking and and biking through town. And I think Jordan's even talked about having a, a map to encourage people to walk and bike in certain places. Next goal five that we propose is to clarify the transportation advisory committee's operational role in projects planning implementation.
So here are the three action items. We, we actually do get involved with. Like when the state ca came in and is redoing the bridge on 27 and Route nine, we were very involved. We met with them once and Morgan updated us. So, and we, they asked for our input, which was good. So anybody you can send our way, like the state or the DPW, we'll we'll be glad to put them on the agenda work to ensure that transportation
planning projects move forward in implementation. So we don't want to just ride a bike and pedestrian plan. We want to have town employees aware of the plan and trying to implement it, trying to get funding for the plan. And then finally aid staff and the search for funding sources and grand opportunities to support transportation projects. And Morgan's been doing a great job with that. Kudos there. Is there a number six? Ah, this is, so thank you. And I'd be glad to answer questions, sir.
Speaker 4: Ms. Coffman, thank you so much Mr. Doherty, that very comprehensive and, and Morgan very helpful with regard to Goal one. Could you go back to slide? Thank you. The second item, down Town wide Street design guidelines. The town is a member of the Complete Street, the National Complete Streets. I think we've been a member and adopted their guidelines since 2015, at least long time ago. A long time ago, 10 year at least 10, 10, 11 years ago. And so I'm wondering what in addition to, so the,
the national and the state Complete Streets plan has very pro very specific criteria for street design. Could you talk a bit more about what other guidelines the TAC might be interested in? Speaker 9: Yeah, the, the only thing I know on that point is that the town engineer Bill had explained to us that he's really big on crosswalk designs. And, and I think maybe Jordan can maybe answer this. Jordan, do you think that it has more to do
with specific intersections here or Speaker 10: Yeah, I, I can speak, I can speak a little bit to this. So yes, it's true. Natick is a Complete Streets community and that does come with design guidelines. There are other communities, I think Newton is one of them. Needham is doing this too, where they have a, a physical playbook or a like physical or digital playbook that essentially says on this kind of street, you want this kind of infrastructure for these kinds of conditions. You want these kinds of, you wanna make these kinds of design choices. I was just looking through Newton's
before this meeting actually. And they specify, you know, kinds of different types of lighting and other sort of amenities that go in specific streets and we wouldn't necessarily have to go into that level of detail. But I think, you know, there, there is, there are I guess additional design considerations sort of above and beyond what Complete Streets mandates. I think Speaker 4: That's really helpful. Thank you. On goal number two, the continuing the dialogue with town departments regarding speed limit policy and street safety. Does the TAC interact at all with the safety committee?
And if so, how? Speaker 9: Good question. I don't, we don't have a seat on the safety committee. It's interesting. We, yeah, we don't work together that much. And the, the safety committee is pretty much run by the police department and some citizens and you know, they have their focus. We don't want to overlap with their focus. But when you read these regulations like Complete streets and whatever, you know, and the state, you know, we have to encourage other departments in the town to post signs that say leave four feet for bike riders.
We had them for two years. We had those signs, they didn't go up. You see a lot of towns posting. And again, we can only recommend posting 25 miles an hour town wide unless you see a speed limit that says you can go over 25. And I just, I don't wanna speak on a personal level, but I, I was at town meeting when we voted for that to post 25 miles an hour and the safety committee and the select board chose otherwise. So I hate to be the last town and say that I'm on the transportation advisory board
and we're the last town in Massachusetts to post that as you enter their town. But Speaker 4: Are we the last town in Massachusetts? Speaker 9: No, no, no. But it's over 50. I'm just curious. It's over 50%. I, I know Speaker 3: That not all towns have adopted that, so there's, there's no last town yet. Okay. Speaker 4: Understood. Understood. Just yeah, thank you. Still in Speaker 9: The running. Speaker 4: Yeah. Going on to goal number three, I'm really excited to see the inclusion of the M-W-R-T-A as being something that the TAC wants to be working with. The M-W-R-T-A right now is fair free, not just for seniors.
Okay. The CATCH connect that you mentioned. So on weekends and nights you can actually call and get a ride. Yep. That's also fair free. So for those of you who are out to dinner and having a couple drinks in town and wanna go home and don't wanna deal with an Uber or a Lyft, that's really important. I'd like to see some collaboration not organized necessarily or institutionalized, but with the Council on Aging to, because the M-W-R-T-A does have a number of benefits for seniors that they may not know about. And 25% of our population in town are, are seniors.
So I was really excited to see that. And I wanted, just wanted to encourage you to, I mean, I don't know if you've ever been to their facility, that would be an interesting field trip for the tac. It has an extraordinarily and they love to Speaker 9: Do tours. I've been to their facility. They Speaker 4: Actually, they love to do tours. Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting because Morgan's on their board so he, he knows exactly what's going on. But I don't think we have a whole lot of influence on like roots or anything. No, not it's, it's all designed at a higher level.
So it would be just us being aware. And I think you're right in the fact that something we haven't done is do any kind of outreach or education and you're like, you go to the senior center and you present things that we're up to and things that public transportation can do for you. So, so I'm glad you emphasized that and I'll make sure the board, you know, has that on the agenda and addresses Speaker 4: It. Yeah, I was, I was just really happy to see that as part of one of your goals in ensuring about information dissemination. So thank you for that. Just two more quick questions on goal four.
Do we know for engaging with the native community regarding nons single occupancy vehicle transportation options? So talking about the new resident flyer, creating guides, hosting a table at public events, especially like Natick days and things like that. Great ideas. Do we know of examples of other towns that do something like this so we don't have to recreate the wheel? Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm, I'm sure Morgan knows of and I can reach out, I know people in Framingham and need them so I can reach out and Yeah. Yeah, I think there again it's, it's first to produce the
materials, but then it's to get out there and go have a table, go to the senior center and maybe even the town could spend some time, you know, advertising that, oh, this town meeting tonight, here's how you could get to town meeting. You know, Speaker 4: That's a great idea for our communications director. An idea among many in terms of, Speaker 3: I think a potential challenge there is the length of time town meeting is in town meeting. Oh Speaker 4: Indeed. Speaker 3: I don't know if the service rides after Speaker 4: No, Speaker 3: 10, 11, 12 o'clock at Speaker 4: Night. True. But just as an example of, of events in town, we do that with Natick days.
You know, we're very proactive about ensuring that the public knows where to park where shuttles are going to be. And just being more proactive and mindful of communication strategies would be helpful. And then the last thing is, does anyone on the committee, and I apologize for not knowing this, have any grant writing? Morgan's amazing. He's a professional. Yeah, sure. Yep. But you mentioned aiding staff and the search for funding sources. Do we have anyone on the committee or the that and there may not be, there doesn't need to be. I'm, I'm just curious about capacity and Morgan's coming up on your right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we, we used it. Oh, all right. Go right ahead. Speaker 10: I just, I know specifically, so Joanna Carey, who, not to single her out here, but Joanna Carey, who's a relatively new member on the committee, I believe she's a professor, I think either at Wellesley or Babson College. And when I was working on the grant for the Main Street project, I think she offered to take a look at it if I needed to. 'cause she said she had some grant writing experience, so I know she does. Speaker 4: That's really helpful. Yeah, it's not,
it's obviously not necess of eyes. Speaker 9: Hmm. Speaker 1: Another set of Speaker 4: Eyes that Right. It's it's not, it's not necessary. Another outta curiosity. Speaker 9: Yeah. And I think there's also a member of our board, I think Matt is involved at the state level or something, or his wife is involved with a local town at Speaker 3: His wife's the planner as well. Speaker 9: Yes, sir. Oh, okay. Thank you. Speaker 4: That's really super helpful. Thank you so much for this presentation. I'm sorry to have hogged up. Speaker 9: Yeah, go ahead. There was a question. Great Speaker 1: Question. We've got a couple queue up here. Linda Gar. Speaker 8: Thank you Mr. Doherty. Sure. And thank you Morgan for, for all that you do.
Just a, a couple of questions going back to the M-W-R-T-A. I have a severe envy for Wellesley and their ability to have catch connect free during the day. And I'm wondering if there's anything that we can do as a board to perhaps encourage that. And I noticed that one of their stops is the Natick Senior Center. So Wellesley, what residents can, can catch the bus for free to come to Natick, but we don't have that same opportunity within our community. So Speaker 9: Yeah, it's actually, that's a great question
because I, I still bring it up every meeting, but I live almost walking distance to Wellesley. So I'm like, oh, I can walk to Wellesley and then call for a lift to the supermarket. But, but again, it, it helps Wellesley businesses 'cause anybody that can't drive can go to a grocery store in Wellesley. So again, I think it has to do with, I was told that it has to do with demographics. So if you're spread out enough and you don't have multifamily anything, then you don't get bus routes. 'cause bus routes wouldn't work.
But if you have dense buildings like we do, you know, on the mall or downtown now we have some dense buildings. It's a bus route that you get, you Speaker 4: Know? Right. I, it's just, I could be wrong about this. I think if you remember Mr. Evans, correct me if I'm wrong, we pay into the MWA for certain level of service. So Wellesley may be paying per capita a higher level, a higher payment. Yeah. Speaker 9: That was another thing. I, there Speaker 3: Are some, there are local assessments for local regional transit. There's also federal dollars and state dollars that all go into it. Morgan can certainly resource this a little bit more being
on the board and seeing how it, it exactly works. But I don't, I don't believe there are any M-W-R-T-A stops in Wellesley currently, but I don't think there are. But don't put that up. But that could be a reason why, for example, they have access to a different program because they don't have stops in the current system. Whereas we do have a, actually have multiple bus route coming through Natick. But we can look into that a little more completely as to what that Speaker 8: I I think that would be helpful. I, one of the things that Wellesley can do is they can go to Newton Wellsey Hospital and I know that that might be a valuable service for some people.
I've had to give rides to people that haven't had opportunities, you know, that can't, they can't drive themselves. Right. And it's been, I I think that there's more demand for that than we might be aware of there. Speaker 1: There definitely is having driven in earlier life driven seniors to Speaker 3: Appointments. Yeah. There, we do have a circulator bus for seniors and there are some other things that we do offer, but it's, it might not be exactly the what Wellesley's Speaker 9: Yeah. I think what would have to happen is as a senior you'd have to get to the Natick Senior Center and then you could get to the hospital from there.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Not, not so convenient. And, and my my last question is on goal five and I'm curious on the first bullet item about clarifying the role work with the select board in town to clarify the advisory role in both current and future transportation projects. Is there something that you had in mind there that, that we should be doing to help clarify the, the, the role of the committee? Speaker 9: Yeah, I, I I guess we put it in there to kind of start a discussion with you about that and yeah, again,
we, we have that with the safety committee where there's overlap maybe a little bit. Excuse me. And yeah, I think what we're looking for there is, is just, I guess besides meeting with the state when the state's doing a project or meeting with the DPW about future street projects or whatever, I, I don't know. We're probably looking for you to send people to us. If something's going on in town and you think that some advisement could be used, then you can send them our way.
I, I think that's what's in there, in there for Morgan. Did you Speaker 10: Yeah, I, I I think that covers it. I think at least as staff to the committee, I think something I've ob observed over the past few years is folks on the committee kind of have their own ideas about what they want to do in town, but they haven't, because the committee is advisory to the select board, they haven't been entirely sure, you know, if it is appropriate for them to be pursuing that or if they should go more in depth or if there's something that the select board might want them to focus on instead.
And so I think, at least from what I got from the committee when they were putting these goals together, is kind of just opening up that dialogue with the select board and kind of saying, what would you like us to work on? What kind of things are we seeing that we want to go back to you kind of, if that makes sense. Speaker 8: Alright. That, that's very helpful. But I would also encourage you as the people that are really the experts on, on this topic, if there are things that you think we should be considering that we aren't that, you know, feel free to, to bring that to us as well.
Yeah. It, it definitely does need to be two way as as I just heard my comment. Speaker 9: Alright. And, and our communication doesn't have to always be in a public forum. I can send a message to Yes. Your the select board, right? Yes. There's a select board. Right. Email or whatever or Speaker 8: Yeah. And and we would encourage you and it and it, and I'm also curious if you feel like there's more capacity on your board. I mean we, we have to be careful. We don't wanna overburden our volunteers, but if you think that there's other things that you can tackle and it looks like you've got a pretty good list of those and we wanna hear that
Speaker 6: Too. Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I, I would like to prioritize, you know, like even one ways or something. And again, it's just throwing out ideas for one ways. Because I know one ways can create walkability, bikeability, even it advanced parking, right? You can get additional parking, but one way is a very political, so I don't know, again, would that be outside our scope? I guess if we're just recommending streets we think might work, it's our role. Yep.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 9: Thank you Mr. Speaker 6: Sidney. Yeah, I just want to follow up on something Ms. Coughlin said and, and actually something else that Ms. Slager said, any changes to roadways generally are not gonna be done unilaterally by the board. We're gonna listen to what the safety committee has to say. So in terms of one ways, in terms of making a town wide speed limit change, you know, there's been some advocacy for
that speed limit change and the safety committee is always recommended against it for its own reasons. The board is not gonna overturn, you know, unless it's a very extreme situation. Board's not going to not listen to them. So the thing I would say is I think that on things like that, your ADV advocacy, which is totally appropriate, is through the safety committee. So if you want to get the speed limit reduced in town, you gotta make the case to the safety committee so that they recommend it to us. If you want one way, you gotta make the case
to not only the neighbors but the safety committee. So they recommended it to us. Crosswalks, same thing. All of that goes through the safety committee first. And I think it's totally appropriate for you to, I I I imagine it's totally appropriate if it's, if, if it's something that you think could, you know, improve traffic 'cause you're a traffic advisory, transportation advisory committee, you know, to start your advocacy with the safety committee. It doesn't mean you have to like force it down their throat. Right. But advocate there, I think's appropriate.
Speaker 9: No, and I like your thing with the one ways is that, you know, we have to start the groundswell at the gra at the residential level or at the owner level, people on the street level before it comes to your attention or before it becomes even a plausible thing for you to consider. Right. That's a great point. And it, it actually, so you're right in the fact that as a committee we're not limited to going out and trying to advocate for things. Speaker 6: Yeah. I think Speaker 9: And that's probably an appropriate thing for us to do.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean if, if you wanna advise us to make a street one way, which is your advisory position, advocate through the safety committee and then join them here when they bring it forward, if there's any resistance, same thing for the speed limits, any, anything like that crosswalks, stop signs, right? Those are, those all go through the safety committee first. And, and I don't think it's wrong for you guys to, in your advisory position to advocate through the safety committee to get to us. It's just a thought. Speaker 9: No, again, the safety committee has a police chief,
you know, we have Morgan, so I I guess we have to go to them. They don't come to us. I, I understand. That's understand. They're not gonna come to us and ask if they can lower the speed limit. Speaker 6: Right. That's exactly right. Speaker 9: Good point. Speaker 6: Most of, most of what they take up is from requests from citizens or departments. They don't make stuff up to put on their agenda. They, they get it from somewhere else to consider so that they can make a recommendation to us. Speaker 9: Okay. Yep. Speaker 1: Thank you. Totally Speaker 9: True point taken. Speaker 6: Sorry it took so long with that. No, Speaker 1: That's fine. You all Speaker 6: Set? Yeah. Speaker 1: Ms. Pop, Speaker 11: Well going almost last, most
of my questions I think have either been asked or answered. So the first one was about the safety committee in that particular goal. But that's been asked, and this is, it's similar to my, to my colleague Ms. Slager, but a little bit different for this action item. The first one on goal five is what has been the, the select board and tax role up until now has in the town? Has there been any connection or relationship up until now? Speaker 9: I think a previous chair used to present to the board at least once a year, if not more,
to advocate for certain things. Okay. So we kinda went without town staff helping us. There was no DPW person, there was no planning person. So now we have a planning person and a DPW person that puts us in a position where we can present to you more often and be, be more visible on projects. Speaker 11: That's awesome. Thank you. And I just wondered because similar, you know, to, I think there was something about not reinventing the wheel. I was thinking if there's something we could build upon if
there was something existing that we could continue to build upon in terms of this relationship and collaboration. So it's good to know that. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation as well and thank you Morgan. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Pelp. Going last, I definitely have most of my questions asked, but a couple observations more than anything. The first is that the safety committee, as you know, has the town engineer and the DPW on there. So they have always, they always have good representation at, and I think CED is invited to that, although sometimes they're confl conflicts to the meetings.
So as, as my colleague Richard pointed out, things get put on their plan or their agenda by citizens either contacting us, contacting you, or contacting the town administrator. I'll give you an example today, and this one's been languishing in my inbox for a while. A friend of mine who lives on Union Street nearly got ran o run over while she was walking her dog by somebody looking down, doing a text while speeding up Union Street.
And so she asked me to put that on the safety committee agenda and I just requested it and it'll be on X one's meeting. So it's, it's that sort of thing. It's the squeaky wheel, you know, the, the, the safety committee responds to safety request. Ultimately the chief is responsible for public safety, but it involves roads, it involves street scapes, all the things that you were talking about and discussing in your plans. So it's, it's good to hear you say that. The last thing that I wanted to talk about was, thank you
for coming before us. 'cause you are the first board to voluntarily come before us and present us with an update and talk about what you need from us as well as what we can provide to you. Our intention is to do that with every other committee. And that's on my to-do list, but communication two-way, I think Ms. Wolfer said this two-way communication. Our, our doors are, our emails are always open
or you can call us whatever you want to do, but know that we're, we're gonna help you advocate for what you think is right. I think the work that we're doing for the downtown part, both parking and the main street redesign, it's thoughtful, it's detailed and, and we're going to be having some difficult decisions, but some good discussions about what we think is needed. There's going to be a, a lot of public input on that.
Morgan's probably nodding his head in the back. So great work. Continue. Let's continue the discussion. I appreciate you coming. Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me. And I did want to say on that is I was at town meeting and one, one of the things on the warrant was something about spending money on committees and they listed all the committees and of course we weren't on the list. And I was like, what, what do you mean we're not a committee? And it turns out that there's a whole bunch of committees in town that are required by law to have. So we're the only one that is created to just
do good for the streets. Speaker 6: Actually, you're not the only one. There are 40 committees and you know, we only listed the ones required by Speaker 9: Law. Correct. All right. Yeah. Well thanks for having me. And yeah, I'll, I'll stay in touch. All Speaker 1: Right. Thank you Mr. Jacobs. And I'll go to the people line. There are a couple people. Speaker 12: Thank you Cody Jacobs, I had a question and then maybe another question or maybe a comment. So my, my question is on the first, well first of all, thank you to the, to transportation advisory committee.
We, we overlapped on the committee a few years ago. I don't know if you remember, but anyway, yeah, good to see you. The, my question is about the first goal, the f actually the first item under the first goal about the comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian plan because I, I know that this is an item that is on the, is on the, it's on the capital plan and you know, for the, the, the funding options it has listed on there, you know, kind of going into what you guys were talking about before, it has grant funding is being explored
and I was curious if like in terms when you have that on your goals, like if, if part of that is in terms of thinking about like ways to help identify grant funding for that, you know, if that's something that, you know, you're sign kind of working with, with, with the town on or sort of what the, the process is behind kind of getting that going in terms of finding funding sources for it. I don't know if like, you know, that's a rhetorical question or just, yeah, I was just curious about sort of what the, what, you know, with that being on as a goal, if that's what that meant with sort of facilitating that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the, that is on the goal list because we actually have to get that written and put together. And again, it's only been a year since Morgan's been on staff, maybe 16 months. So yeah, I think it opens up grants if we have a biking pedestrian plan. I know other towns have gotten grant money because they have a plan. So once we have a plan, I think we will open up opportunities. It's, it's sort of like having a, a school project. Once you hit 25% design then you can talk to the state
and different people about funding. Speaker 10: If I could just add to that, I, it's an excellent question. I think that's an excellent role for the transportation advisory committee. That's something I think we've discussed a little bit, so we can definitely discuss that further as a staff person. I think one of my ideas was also to have them, if we did embark on a bicycle and pedestrian planning process to have them serve kind of as a part of a, a steering committee for the plan and kind of help own a little bit of the planning process as well. We kind of like resident advisors if you would,
but I think yeah, that's a great idea is having, helping staff look for grant funding. Speaker 12: Thank you. And then just real quick, I'll just, these are just two points. One, you know, this is sort of just a rhetorical suggestion maybe, but the one thing that I, I, you know, and I know that transportation advisory committee is kind of rightfully focused on, you know, multimodal transportation that isn't cars. But one thing that I was curious about in terms of sort of public knowledge and kind of public outreach is about parking downtown and just about like looking at, you know,
as we have been talking about the North Main Street project and things like that, looking at people's awareness about the parking options that are currently available. Because I think there's, you know, a little bit of a disconnect sometimes between people's experiences and what we see in the data as far as the parking that's, that's utilized and sort of what the, you know, I think it would be a good, you know, not that you don't have enough on your plate already, but I think it would be a good transportation advisory committee thing to think about is like, okay, like what are, what are people's experiences, what are ways that, you know, is, is our signage good enough? Things like that as far as just, you know, making people aware of those options.
And then the last thing I wanna say is just the, just I I would gently push back a little bit on one aspect of something that was said about the, about the role of the committee in things like, you know, the, the speed limit issue and stuff like that. I do understand the, you know, I think that there is some overlap between the safety committee and the transportation advisory committee. That was something that came up a lot when I was on that. I think that, you know, when it comes to something like the, you know, I think the, I think the, the safety committee has a very, has a particular perspective and is is staff driven in a way.
Whereas the transportation advisory committee, you know, from talking to some of the people around when it was made, like have, is designed to have a different perspective that's sort of more a little broader. And I think both are important and I think obviously the expertise of the, the safety committee is gonna be incredibly important in any decision like that. But I think on something like as broad and policy focused as like the speed limits, I think it's, it is okay for the committee to, and I don't think this is inconsistent with anything that was said, but I think it is okay for the transportation committee to come to this board
with a different perspective and for that to be considered and weighed out. You know, again, not that you would go, you know, disregard the safety committee's recommendations either, but I, I do think there's a role for, for you guys in, you know, in advocating even when, you know, you have a different, a different view on something like that. So anyway, thank you guys so much. This is extremely comprehensive and very encouraging. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Jacobs. Next we'll go to the Zoom land, which is Catherine Duran. One sec. We're in the process
of unmuting you. She's Speaker 12: There. Speaker 13: Can you hear me now? Speaker 1: Yes, there we go. Speaker 13: It was a two step process on my end. Sorry. It's Catherine Doran. I live on Point Street, which is off of Pond toward the SPE street end. And a few months ago I had a nice phone call under station with the traffic safety officer whose name escapes me. I think that's his title. I had reached out to him because I was concerned by what I perceived to be speeding vehicles along the stretch of pond near my street that I'm afraid to cross from one side to the other and I won't for the rest of my life because I value it.
And I was really shocked to learn from this officer that the speed limit along pond by the cemeteries and you know, ahead of it and behind it is actually 45 miles per hour, which to me is like highway speed, like Autobahn level. And I'm just grateful that there are no street signs with 45, you know, miles per hour posted there because I'm sure that would encourage people to drive 50 and 55 on Pond Street. So I think it's great. I'm interested in, I guess,
following the conversation about town wide speed limit policies, you know, a a maximum speed limit town wide unless otherwise posted. So thank you for this presentation. Speaker 1: Yep. Just two a couple comments on that Ms. Doen. One, thank you for bringing that to our attention. I will ask that that be put on the, the safety committee's next, next agenda because that's, that's dangerous. Which in particular? The fort, the no speed limit posted on Pond Street.
Okay. I just wanna make sure because there's about three things. Yeah, well it's Speaker 14: Also going to ask them to review 45 miles an hour on that street as being inappropriate. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not posted and it's not typically settled. And the state speed limit for that is 45. Speaker 14: Is Palm Street a State Street? Speaker 1: No. Okay. So Speaker 14: If what I'm asking is, can we ask, Speaker 1: We can ask the safety committee to post a lower speed limit. It's a recommended lower speed limit. That's kind of Speaker 14: What I'm asking. Yes, the two parts. Okay. Speaker 1: Yes. But the reason it's 45 is because of the state rules on unposted speed limits. Yeah, no, that, that's exactly what I'm asking for Ms.
Kafa. Speaker 3: So to review 45 miles per hour on, on Pond Street. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. What was the last thing? I don't remember. Speaker 3: Sorry Speaker 1: To, can't be that important. You good? One more. You got the, got the important part, so, so thank you for bringing that to our attention. Ms. Do yeah, Speaker 3: She's got it. Speaker 1: Something Speaker 3: She was just saying there's still another person waiting. Speaker 1: Mr. Devereaux, Speaker 15: I, Speaker 16: Yes. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Evans and thank you to the committee. I should probably be taking this to the safety committee
and it may already be done, but I was just curious whether there was any existing regulation, traffic regulation or anything about using e scooters and e-bikes on sidewalks downtown where I was shocked to be passed in front of the police station by a kid on a e-bike going fast. And I've seen them on the common, on the sidewalks of the common and around the, you know, the streets there. So that's my question.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Devereux. That that is a part of the topic that we're going to discuss in April. It's e-bikes. It's on both, on basically all road, excuse me, all roads, sidewalks and rail trails and so forth. So, you know, having, having rules to guide the public safety people on that. So for example, there'll be posted limits for speed limits on constituent rail trail and there'll be other things.
There will be rules specifying that you cannot write a motorized bike on a sidewall. They should be on the road in the side of the road and part of that is the education process. And the police department has agreed that they will consider, I can't speak for them here, but in prior discussions, they've indicated a willingness to provide some education and some signage and work with, it's probably with the
Public Works Department to work on signage. So that to come back in April. We will start, start that discussion again. Speaker 16: Thank you. Yeah, it's, I think, think one of the rules that I'd throw in just the last point is that when you're on a bike, even on a rail trail or somebody else where bikes are, you know, clearly allowed, you know, just the manners of getting the message to people who are pedestrians walking in front of you, that you're coming to the right. That should be a standard, you know, knowledge by bikers.
But I'm not sure everybody knows that. Yeah. And if you know pedestrians, sorry. Alright, thank you. Speaker 1: Yep. I can tell you as a bicyclist, there, there are many people who pass me and don't say a syllable. So it, it's not, I, I won't call it pervasive as a problem, but there, it, it's rules of the road and courtesies of the road are, are, I think there are a number of people who need the course and or a refresher on it.
Okay. And anyone else? I do not see anyone. Okay. Thank you Morgan. Thank you. We appreciate you coming here with tonight. Great plan. Okay, next up is item C, which is the spring annual town meeting, art warrant articles. Anything we want to discuss on this? I'd like to go first if I can. Chief Hicks and I reviewed articles 12 and 13, the home rule petitions to extend their retirement date to age 67.
So I'll start with the ending first and then fill, fill in the blanks. FinCon voted six to four favorable action on article A 12. So as you know, you have to reach eight to have a favorable recommendation for town meetings. So they have no recommendation for town meeting. Article 13, they referred back to the select board and a nine one and one vote. I'm not sure what they hope to achieve by that, but there you have it. So Mr. Erickson, chief Hicks, Ms. Er, and I are going to meet to discuss
how we move forward with these articles. Our objectives are to discuss how to convey what we're trying to do with each article. FinCon seemed to understand the objectives, but felt that this should have been considered earlier. I reminded them that we first began this activity in December, 14 months ahead of the retirement dates. And we also want to present our rationale for support of these articles at a future select board meeting with a view towards preparing our messaging for the town meeting rec recommendation book and
or messaging for town meeting, I should say. And then provide that information also for inclusion in our select board letter to the fin com recommendation. But one of the things we talked about during fin com was depending on, on what fin or yeah, what town meeting decides, we either begin work on the recruitment process or get the approval and we work on the getting the home rule petition approved.
And the timeline, as you know, this is Mr. Erickson described this typically a nine month process. It would involve a lot of resource to on the town administration's part of things. So we need to know at the, by the end of town meeting, which direction that we should edit. So I wanted to give you a, all an update on what had happened there. So just to give you a heads up on that. And one of the things I sent to each of you the second time I tried to send the attachment, which was
a transcript of the fin com presentation and what we Chief X and I had presented to fin com. So that'll give you an, an idea of what transpired during that review. Speaker 8: Did you send it? Speaker 1: Yes, I just sent it an hour ago. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I was, no Speaker 8: Wonder I had Speaker 1: To, yeah, sorry. Okay. Are there other articles that we want to weigh in on? The only one that I'm, Speaker 6: I didn't see any that I was particularly thought we
as a board needed to weigh in on. Mr. Jacobs may have something 'cause he'll be on the board going into town meeting. Lemme hold Speaker 1: That thought. Does anybody want to think we should be weighing in on the hybrid town meeting? Not at Speaker 6: All. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 8: I think it's outside our purview. Speaker 1: That's what I thought too. Wanted to get that on record. Speaker 8: De depending on what comes up there, I might want to, and I emphasize, might wanna review Article 15 about the CPA funds might. Speaker 3: Sure. I can fill you in on just the, the details of that.
The intent for this year anyway is to basically just allocate the statutory required amounts impression as well as the 5% for admin. Speaker 8: Okay. Then No, Speaker 1: There are, there are no projects. Those Speaker 3: Have been reviewed by IFFs and they're, and I think they've are soon to be presented in front of the f income if they haven't already. But it's just, there's no projects, there's no additional funds that are being proposed. It's just the 10% for each of those three buckets as well as 5% for admin. Speaker 1: I, I think they went after Chief Hick and I the other night, so they should be all done. And that's what they presented, the 10% buckets?
Speaker 3: Oh yes. They presented after you. Yes. Sorry. When you said they went after you, I thought there was like an attack of some type. I didn't know what you meant by English. Speaker 1: Subsequent Speaker 3: To me they, English is such a fun language. Yes. Speaker 1: Especially with me. All right, Ms. Pope, Speaker 11: I have a question about Article nine. Is that pretty standard just for the warrant? Speaker 3: Yes. Capital equipment and improvement? Yes. Speaker 11: Okay. And just the l the language about it? Speaker 3: Yes. We've been working, it used to actually years ago it'd be two separate motions. We merged them and then we've been tweaking the language through the years. But yes, that is standard language
for the warrant, both fall and town. Thank both fall and spring. Sorry. Speaker 11: Thank you. Speaker 3: And if you recall, John Marshall presented the, our capital to the board, I wanna say about a month ago. And so just a reminder of the board that heading into town meeting the board has an opportunity to, to provide a comment letter, so to speak, to the FinCon, to include in the FinCon book. And usually you have like a, at the very least, a table or a matrix that shows which ones you've reviewed and what your, what your sort of support was.
I believe in years past. You've typically provided some level of support for things like capital and the budget. I, I would wanna look at last year's just to generally sup provide support for that at town meeting. And in this, this one it may be worth also considering, although it's still pending what happens in the coming weeks. So it's not quite decided now, but some of the other ones that, for example, the board has typically been a part of like, like collective bargaining. Like I'm not seeing anything else on here that's typical. But those are the types of things that you might also then
have provided comment on in the book. Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah. If, if you can provide that list to us. Like for example, I think unpaid bills, if there are any, maybe that's something we talk about. Speaker 3: There will be none this year. We just found out that out today, so good. We're seeking no action on that one. Speaker 8: Awesome. Or potentially, you know, depending on again, what it is, the personal board pay plan, you know, if depending what's on there. Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Yep. Yep. That's being presented tomorrow night. So you can look at the materials on the website now, but it's, it's, I appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's Speaker 3: Been the, the spreadsheet is usually prepared. Yeah. The staff helps the chair prepare it. Yeah. Typically. So we can look at what we did for last year's template and see which ones you've typically commented on and have that for the next meeting as well. Speaker 1: Okay. Bruce? Good? Yes, Mr. Sidney, Speaker 6: Look at the audience. Speaker 17: Well actually, they, they said what I was gonna say actually, so I don't have any, I don't have anything to add. Thank you though.
Speaker 1: Okay. All right. All right. Next up we have this thing called the Town Administrator review. Speaker 6: Mr. Chairman. Yes. Can I suggest we take up motion GI think that'll be fairly quick. Article item G. Yep. We don't have to take any actions tonight, but I wanted to make sure that the board saw the memo that I wrote. Thank, Speaker 1: Go right ahead. Speaker 6: Yeah, so I wrote a memo about merging the two boards with a, a suggested charge title and charge for the new replacement
committee and makeup. I gave you some insight into the current membership and, and suggested several options for figuring out how to appoint a new board, a new committee. I just want you to be aware of that. It's something I've been driving for, you know, through last town meeting. And, and I just wanted to, to close it up while I'm still on the board. I don't have to vote on this stuff. I pretty much this board if, if you want to defer it
until April, I'm sure you, you guys can figure it out. But I wanted to like really just chunk out what it might look like. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: And if you want to take action tonight, it's on the agenda, but Speaker 1: What does the board, what does the board think? Any discussion? Speaker 8: I just wanna thank Mr. Sidney for, for putting this together. I don't think we should do anything tonight like you suggested, but I hope that you'll come back when we do discuss it. I'm counting on you. Okay. Even if you're only online, because I think this is very thorough
and there's, you know, there's definitely a well-defined path forward and I appreciate that. Speaker 6: Yeah. I just, like I said, I wanted to, I knew, you know, I know my time's short, I, and we just got the approval to repeal like last week and so I wanted to at least, you know, close the loop on this. It's been a long time coming. Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. And I wanted to just say, say it to Mr. Sidney that thank you. 'cause it, it was a short window for, from the time that we
got approval from the state to, to you laying this out so neatly for us. So I appreciate that deeply. Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, I appreciate Mr. I, I consulted with Mr. Erickson on this and to make sure that he, he, he gave me some really good suggestions before I wrote the memo and some pretty reasonable tweaks on the draft. So it was a cooperative and collaborative effort. Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent.
Great segue to the Town Administrator Speaker 6: Review. See, I knew it was gonna be quick review. Speaker 1: Okay. What I sent and is on peak is each of the board members received these general categories and, and provided that both their ratings and the narrative to support the ratings. So first thing I want to do is go to the overall ratings summary,
which I probably should have shared, but the categories are broadly personal characteristics, professionalism, public relations, communications. Can I share my screen? Is that possible if I'm on zoom? Yep, Speaker 15: You should be able to. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Can everybody see this? Okay, so this is the ratings, this is the summary of all the ratings that the board provided, and we'll go through the narrative after this.
So the mon or the numerical value of exceed expectations is three. Meet expectations is two below. Expectations is one, congratulations. There were no below expectations as we would expect, but just looking at the, the categories personal characteristics, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing. You can see the various categories that we looked to rate Mr. Erickson on. And these are standard sorts of things where you see
in some instances there are numbers that you would think wouldn't add up given as 3, 2, 1. But it has to do with some members said there are somewhere between exceed expectations and meets expectations. So that's why those numbers are a little, maybe a little different than you might expect, but they're all positive, they're all nearly exceeding expectations. So the lowest is professionalism, which
it's still above expectations. So I don't, I don't think that's, that's a, any cause for concern. So now I don't know what I just did there or whatever it did, it blew up on my screen. Let me go back. And here is, what I wanted to do is share this one again, Speaker 8: Just wanna point out that that's a typo under professionalism. It should be 2.5. Speaker 1: Okay. A little Speaker 8: Worried that that was the lowest score. Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 8: So that is not the lowest score. Speaker 1: That is, yeah, Speaker 8: Thank you. If if you go to the the actual Yeah.
The one where we, they show our individual votes. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you for that. Well, let me, let me do that. Let me do that just for the sake of transparency. Let's go to, so let's stop that one. Speaker 6: That's not going well. Speaker 1: No, it's funny 'cause Speaker 6: Well, while you're trying to figure that out, may I make a comment? Please. You know, we, we've got these three categories meets exceeds doesn't meet. Right? I, you know,
I said this last year, I'm gonna say this again. Meets expectations is not a bad rating. It's he, he meets every c every part of the job as defined in that category if he gets a meets expectations. And to some extent for me, this was hard because I've come to expect so much from Mr. Erickson that my expectations have gone up. And so am meets is really exceptional in this case for most of it. And I don't know if that's true for the rest of the board,
but that was true for me. So some of my places where I, where I said meets, it's because my expectations have gone up working Speaker 1: With him. I, I would agree with that. You do such a good job that Speaker 4: Mr. Chair. This is, yes. The one of the points that I wanted to make tonight is when we redo the policy and we redo the form, I really wanna encourage this board to think about five categories because there's a list of, maybe if we talk about personal characteristics, which of course get a perfect score on, but let's pick another one. Public relations and communications. There's maybe 10
or 15 examples of what we are to evaluate if eight of those exceed expectations and seven meet expectations, we're kind of stuck in this weird place of in a half. So either we, when we going forward thinking about, and, and I think absolutely the policy that Bruce came up with, the sample policy that he circulated for us to discuss at a future date and to refine, have that as an example. And I, I would really like to see that. So that an exceeds expectation is truly a five out of a five
and a four out of a five is exceeds expectations in almost all cases, three meets expectations or however we come to define it. But giving some nuance would make this exercise more meaningful, I think for the town now manager or about to be manager and for the board, it would make it a lot less stressful. So that's the only, that was the only real point I wanted to make tonight about process. Speaker 1: Yeah. That would, that would've made my job, you know, some of these decision points a little easier for me. Yeah. Speaker 8: So while we're talking about process, we need to discuss this way earlier during the year.
I know we all know this, but every year it, well, every year for me, two years not exactly a, a huge thing. But I think that's been common for other boards as well, is we get to the end and it's a rushed process and we, we know we want to revamp what we're doing and let's get that on the agenda sooner rather than later this year, not wait till next year. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting that you brought that up because one of the things I did last night was put into our calendar that said Fire chief review,
police chief review December Town Administrator review February. So that will, that will be in our calendar. And you're right, we should be starting this process probably the beginning of the year at the latest. Speaker 8: Now I am actually thinking like after town meeting because it's gonna take us a while to define a new process. Speaker 1: Oh, no, no, no. I'm, I'm just, I yes, Speaker 8: That, that part is what I'm talking about. But not, not just the review process, but we are both, Speaker 1: We're not gonna wait till, Speaker 8: We're not gonna wait till the end. Yeah. We, we were planning on doing it this year, but defaulted into doing it the way we had done it before.
'cause we ran out of time. Right. So let's Speaker 4: Not run outta time again. Speaker 1: Agree. Yeah, no, I, I misunderstood what you were saying. But yeah, that sooner rather than later. Speaker 4: And if we're still talking about process, I would like to see each of us develop a habit of perhaps quarterly making an appointment with the town administrator and giving feedback during the year, especially if there's a needs room for improvement or a, I'd like to see more of the first time that any person you're reviewing in almost every single corporate setting in municipal setting, or any setting where there's a process should never be
a year after the last time you saw that person. And that that's also to deliver kudos. It's also to say, Hey, this is what you're doing really, really great. Keep doing that. And we also wanna see X, Y, Z or, or alternatively, especially with the, with what needs to ac be accomplished in the next two years in from town administration mandated by grants, deadlines, processes that the board has set in place, if there's areas that we're, that we're not seeing progress on. 'cause it's gonna be impossible for anyone, any superhuman to do the 26th things that have got
to get done in the next year. What resources do you need? What are the barriers to doing this? Or do we just drop this off so that we don't have this conversation only once a year? It's not fair to him, it's not fair to the public, it's not fair to the board. Speaker 11: Yeah. Mr. Erickson, when you brought this up a couple of meetings ago, I thought it was fantastic. Like the idea that, you know, you want more regular check-ins, more quarterly check-ins, which I was like, that is absolutely, and I took it back to my teams at Harvard, both up and down because I was like, we, we actually aren't doing a good job of this. Yeah. And we're setting the same, we have a similar process
where we set, you know, the fiscal goal and it's like, we're not checking in on this. Hmm. I shouldn't expect that from the people that report to me and, and vice, you know, like I said, up and down. So I thought that was an excellent recommendation for this. And I, I, I may call you to, to talk about this to recommend, but, but, but that's how strongly I felt about this. I, to me, I took it to work right away because I was like, this needs to happen. We do the same thing where you're expected. And then when I did it, something fell off my list because it was like, oh yeah,
actually there's gonna be a whole organizational change. We don't need to do that anymore. And so we need to be doing those check-ins because Right. Maybe there, the priorities have changed, you know, and we need to know that. Good and challenging. So I, I, I applaud you for saying that because, or recommending that to us. 'cause we need to do that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you for that, Chris. Very well said. Well, all right, so let's try this, share this time. And can anybody actually read this? Your zoom is on the, there you go. All, all right. So there we are.
Anyway, we already, these are the individual ratings, you know, we didn't just make up the numbers. So that's available on peak. So what I'm gonna do is just quickly go through some of these and I correct it on this one, but not the other one. The professionalism. See, you gotta bump up Jimmy on that one. Speaker 15: Thank Speaker 1: You. Okay. All right. So I'm, I'm gonna now go to stop sharing. Sorry for that visual. When I leave, it just explodes.
All right, let's go to the actual ratings themselves. Speaker 15: What that one, Speaker 1: Okay. All right. We relieved to notice. This will probably be my last share of the evening. But again, this is a good illustration of the problem with meet meets expectations and exceeds expectations. You notice that there are six Xs there, and only, excuse me, are only five of us. So that, that reflects that they, they, one person
put it between meets expectations and exceeds expectations. So I'm gonna try to read these, but I'll try to read them and summarize them. I did a lousy job of making it concise, but I wanted to get some of these points across professional development. Mr. Erickson has already identified on his plan for 2026. His extensive knowledge and experience in municipal government are well established
and continues to serve the town well. The depths of depth of his expertise is evident as another comment on professional development and continuing education, greater delegation to department heads where possible to create the capacity to be able to do this professional development, which I have mixed emotions about that. 'cause I think Mr. Erickson does a really good job of delegating and empowering his staff. Jamie's remarkably accessible
and approachable, making it a priority to remain open to the public and available when residents bring forward concerns. He handles them responsibly. And even when there's a limit of what the ca town can do, the residents feel heard and valued, which speaks volumes to the level of service. And that is professionalism in a nutshell. Public relations communication, the response quickly and appropriately to citizens requests communication about current issues is a conundrum to solve.
But he finds ways to improve communication, again, accessible to residents. Again, the, the concern was raised about bandwidth and, you know, can we help Mr. Erickson yet help on, on some of the items, items? One thing that was noted, and now that there's no snow on the ground, we can actually float about this. Jamie and his team demonstrated commendable adaptability in their response to two major snow storms this year,
while working with an almost entirely new DPW team the last time something like this happened, as in 2015. So they did a great job. Again, very responsive to residents. I often, and this is a personal one for me, I often marvel at the amount of constituent service that Jamie provides during our override deliberations. Jamie made himself available to the community for forums, questions and answers, and went above and beyond to answer the requests
and provide information to the public. He provides tremendous advice to the select board. His counsel is thoughtful, well-researched, and grounded in thorough analysis, rather than simply presenting a path forward. He provides meaningful alternatives and well-reasoned recommendations, equipping board members with everything they need to make informed decisions. And, let's see, we're on to board support. Obviously it gets very hard marks on this. Jamie's counsel to the board is
among his most valued contributions. His guidance is nonpolitical, though appropriately, appropriately informed. He helps the DA board make data-driven, well considered decisions, presents alternatives thoughtfully and with transparent disclosure of the needs and more of that further down as a board. We feel fortunate to have Jamie as a town administrator, always wants to do what's best for Natick is deep. His professional advice is deeply
valuable and he keeps the board and definitely the chair of the board abreast of changes coming a large and small and a timely manner. Community leadership talked about this a little with respect to the override, but again, he, he projects a, a terrific image into the community. He's genuinely accessible to residents who seek them out, engages thoughtfully with stakeholders and civic organizations in ways
that reinforce confidence in town government is it has effective relationships with neighboring communities, state agencies, and municipal organizations. And it's kind of a repeat of that. 1, 2, 4. Jamie's an exceptional community leader with visibility and approachability to make and has made a, a meaningful and lasting impression on the town. Again, engaging with community members on a, a daily basis and doing very well. Organizational leadership and personnel management.
This is an area where Mr. Erickson shines. He's humble about his part in the continuing successes and improvements within the administration. His professionalism is a large part of the reason the administration is as successful as, as it has been. He demonstrates exemplary organizational leadership, meeting expectations consistently and exceeding them in many areas. He fosters a professional environment grounded in open and honest communication. We talked about delegation. He excels in his collective bargaining leadership.
His handling of union negotiations reflects careful press preparation, excuse me, and a measured approach that serves the town well. Staff morale by most observable measures appears positive. I would reiterate that one of the suggestions is an initiative dashboard, a similar system is an accountability tool for, and it, I think, dovetails nicely with what Ms. Pope said earlier of quarterly check-ins. And we do this informally, but we don't, maybe if we formalize it at least slightly,
you know, and make it a, a regular cadence, I think it'll help us, help us help both the town administrator and ourselves. Jamie has demonstrated strong results driven leadership with a genuine commitment to empowering people and improving processes. It leads by example with integrity, accountability, and clear purpose. His staff consistently reports feeling motivated, valued, and supported. He balances ambitious goals with what happened there.
Sorry. Yep. Ambitious goals with the ability to deliver on those goals. So he, he actually makes our, our job relatively easy 'cause he's accountable to himself first and then to the board. And he keeps us appraised of what's happening. Financial management, he's extremely cautious with both budgeting and expenditures. During 2025, the deputy town administrator
retired and the new deputy town administrator for finance has been hired. And these very much onboarded Mr. Skye and got him up to speed. So, and there he's doing a great job. Mr. Sky is he excels. We talked about collective bargaining. All right. Jamie's budget stewardship represents one of the clearest areas of distinction in his performance
during the 2025 override discussions. He demonstrated exceptional skill in communicating the underlying drivers' trade-offs and long-term implications of an override vote to the board and the public and inaccessible yet analytically rigorous play. Let's see, long-winded air, basically, we're really happy with how you're doing in financial management. There's a lot of tech there that one, this it to repeat. Planning an organization again sets hard
and achievable goals for himself, even though the board was focused on other things in 2025. He keeps the board advised on his progress towards those goals. He's achieved many of those goals and continues to work hard to achieve those ones that are achieved yet achieved. One of them is the implementation of a regional dispatch center. That has been a multi-year process that will improve town efficiency and it's paid primarily through grants and will save the town money in the long run exceeds expectations in the areas of long range
and strategic planning and operational efficiency. I know that we in the last few years have done developed five year outlook plans, which are really helpful not only for the board, but for the public to understand why we're doing things today with the view towards what's happening in that four or five year timeframe. So it's critically important to do that. One of the things that organizationally, Jamie consistently challenges his department heads to reassess how services are delivered, often finding improvements
to reduce costs rather than add them. Staff vacancies are treated as opportunities to better align roles with department missions rather than simply backfilling positions. He sets clear goals and then trusts his department as to develop their own approach, delegating effectively without micromanaging, while maintaining, maintaining accountability. It's a formula that drives results and contributes directly to employee motivation and retention and progress towards goal.
We, we, we kind of talked about this already, so if you don't mind, I'm gonna see my voice on that one and skip right to the overall comments, which are all positive. And again, going back to Ms. Coughlin's point of the ratings being three, two, and one, it it, it makes it difficult for us to really demonstrate how, how well we think Mr. Erickson's doing. So I'll just read these
because they're indicative of how we value him. Mr. Erickson is the, the most, by far the most competent town administrator I've worked with among many years of service to the town. He'll humbly say that it's his staff and he's correct in that comment. However, without his steady, competent and imaginative leadership, his staff would not be as successful as they are in some. Mr. Erickson is a highly talented town manager who acts with integrity and is very respected among his peers,
direct reports staff and members of the community. He makes decisions that are fiscally prudent and in the best interest of the town. Mr. Erickson, it is a pleasure to work with. Jamie is steady, deeply knowledgeable about town administration and deeply understands Natick and the impact of his role, again, working to empower his team. Jamie is honest about the limited capacity of town staff, including himself and the limited resources. He doesn't sugarcoat matters with us or sell us false hopes in achieving the impossible.
When he's pulled in a new direction, different from its priorities, he's honest about sharing the trade-offs. And Jamie is without question, one of the most valuable assets this town has. And the select board knows in a financial environment that would test seasoned administrators, he has driven continuous improvement across town operations while ensuring stability and reliability that residents depend on. That balance is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. And Jamie strikes it with consistency and confidence.
What sets Jamie apart is his willingness to make tough calls. The ones that are easy to avoid and hard to defend and, and makes them correctly. Time and again is demonstrated judge judgment, integrity, and courage encourages and we are deeply appreciative. Speaker 6: Mr. Chairman? Yes. Something I meant to put in writing and forgot to please don't make Speaker 1: Me talk. Speaker 6: One of the things that I truly appreciate about Mr. Erickson is the ki is his accountability. Like all of us, he is human and occasionally makes a mistake
or goes in the wrong direction. And when that happens, he's always fully, he, he fully admits it, he takes correct corrective actions. He's just fully accountable for whatever he does and knows how to, knows how to do it. And, and I, it's one of the things I most appreciate about him. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sidney. Is anyone from the board or comment Speaker 8: Just wanna say thank you for summarizing this. It's really important that we recognize publicly all that you've done over the past year.
People can read it online, but probably people don't. So I just wanna thank the chair and his faltering voice for, for saying, reading out loud what all of us have said and, and think. And for Jamie sitting here, and I know it's probably a little embarrassing to hear all these wonderful things about you, but they're all true. And, you know, just know that the board really enjoys working with you and appreciates all that you've done. And no professionalism is not your lowest score
because you know, you are the consummate professional and we are very lucky to have you. Speaker 1: That was just a miscalculation. Any other comments? Speaker 11: Gratitude. Gratitude for how calm and collected you always are. I mean, this is a stressful job and you really make it not look easy, but you just make it look manageable, you know, and I, and I don't think most people would be as calm and collected as you are under the circumstances for a lot of things. And when I think about 2025 like this last year,
Speaker 1: Whew, Speaker 11: Done. Great. So I think yes, I deeply appreciate your, your steady leadership and, and how you, you know, help us to stay integrated with the staff and how you empower the staff to, and delegate to them to do their jobs well and, and really again, plan forward for the future of Natick, which is, which is really, really important. Yeah, we are, we are very fortunate to have you at the helm, so thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Jacobs.
Speaker 12: Yeah, Cody Jacobs ditto to everything that they already said because I I, I totally agree with it. I think just two, two comments and then I have a bigger picture comment, but, but about the review specifically. I think one thing I would also like to say is just thank you for, for me personally, for just educating me so much about everything. And I think I speak for a lot of people that way. I think you do a really good job of explaining things. You know, we're a volunteer driven government, and so we are, don't come into this, I mean, some of us do,
but many of us don't come into this as experts in this stuff. And you do a great job of really just like breaking things down and explaining it in, in a very understandable way. And, you know, definitely as someone who's a candidate for in, in the election, you know, I, I talk to a lot of people in town and I can say that the views expressed by the board are shared by a lot of other people who say, you know, whatever you do, keep, keep that shame guy. He's great. So anyway, just wanted to relay that. But also just a, a bigger picture comment on some of the things that you guys were saying about the, as you guys, you know, as, as the board thinks about the,
the form I do really dislike the name of the category professionalism, I think there's like a disconnect between that category name and some of the things that the comments are about are about, like, I look at those, those ratings, and I totally take, you know, Mr. Sidney's point that a two is a is a good rating. It's not like a, you know, an Uber driver where you give less than a five and that means something horrible happened. But I I, I do, I take the point that someone could look at this and say, oh, that's one of his lower ratings is professionalism. And, you know, think like, oh, he's unprofessional, or something like that.
And it's like, but then you read the comments and it's like, no, what you're saying is, you know, about professional development and all that stuff. So I, you know, this is a comment about the, literally the labeling of that category. But, you know, I, that was one thing I noticed. But anyway, obviously I agree with everything that the, that the board's saying about this. So thank you. Speaker 6: Well, the good news is Mr. Jacobs, if you're elected to the board, you'll get to actually have some input into what that looks like. Okay. Speaker 12: I'll take a look at that. Speaker 4: Mr. Chair, Speaker 1: You got your first action item here. Speaker 4: Just had a, a couple of comments. Over the last two years, I've become more involved
with the Massachusetts Municipal Association through policy committees. And I've had an opportunity to speak to, in particular on the topic is transportation, public utilities, and another P word, I don't remember which, but in any event, I, part of that committee are town heads of d pws and town managers and town administrators from across the commonwealth of cities and towns and even Sherborne to our south. So small towns. And without a single, you know,
without a single ob sec ob exception, everybody knows Jamie Sen. And so he has a tremendous network of peers who like and respect him and have told me how lucky we are to have him. That says a lot. The only other thing I'd say that hasn't been necessarily said tonight, or at least in my words, is that we are a young board. Bruce and I are the OGs with just four years under our belt. We've both had to serve as chair when very difficult decisions were made. One thing that I've really respected and admired about Mr. Erickson is that he very clearly
and plainly sets out what our options are with the downside risks and the upside. And when you ask for further guidance, he's very good to say, that is your job. Our job is to implement it. Whatever you guys decide to do, even if it means it's gonna be a lot more work on staff, we will get it done. So you make your decision based on what you believe is best for the town. So he is been very, very good about making sure that we know what our job is and, and, and I mean more than just what the charter says or the bylaw says, I mean, there are nuances to being a select board member that you just don't know
until you're sitting up here. And so I deeply appreciate that and the advice and his availability, at least to me personally, in terms of being able to answer questions about, well, how do I think about this? And then, so I, I do appreciate that. And that's all I have. I I think this is the longest performance evaluation that a town administrator has ever gotten in terms of pages. I think it's 21 pages, which is a record, but I think all of us having the opportunity to weigh in and the chair ensuring that each of our voices is heard in
that evaluation is valuable. So thank you for that, Mr. Chair. Speaker 1: You're welcome. You're welcome. The next, the next form will be much shorter, no need more concise or, or maybe we'll, we'll have an appendix. Speaker 3: We can do that. Speaker 4: An appendix. Speaker 1: Anyway, so I, I, ITing Catherine just said, took the words outta my mouth. We, we, we were chairs when, when we really, you know, barely knew what a, the select board's supposed to be doing. And you guided us through difficult decisions.
And as Catherine pointed out, you just said, I can, I can advise you, but it's your job to make a decision on this and we'll support you either way. So that was extremely helpful to that. And now you have the opportunity to either rebut all that stuff or just, Speaker 3: Well, first I'm humbled, thank you for, for all the kind words. Bit speechless just given, you know, when you hear all of that about yourself, it's, it's,
and I'm not one necessarily to want to be this, that, the center of attention per se, or I just want to, you know, do a good job for the community and, and really do a good job for the team. And, and it is truly a team effort. I know it's said a lot in the review about how it's, it's, you know, I do give ac i, I try to make sure I, I give credit or credit due because it's true. It's not me. It's, it's the team. I wouldn't have been able to build the team if it weren't for the leadership of this board. If it was not a board that was, you know,
relatively cohesive. Even when you're not always on the same page about things, you're always professional as well. You're always supportive of, of the town, town administration, the staff, you respect the professionalism of staff, which goes a long way with the town and it helps with that recruitment process. So ensuring that we can keep a strong team is truly what, what, what makes working for this town special, but also makes my job fruitful. Just it, it's part of what we do.
And so I'm excited for, for what's coming ahead. You know, we have many years worth of projects still to do, you know, starting in this job five years ago now, four years ago now, and have been in another role here in the town. So I'm going on I think 11 years with the community. It's, it's a, it's amazing how much they're still to do and that's just the nature of government. There's always something to do. But I'm really confident in the team that we've built in the last several years that we are gonna continue to, to sort of provide great quality services for the community, guidance to the board, guidance
to the residents and service to the residents. And it's just gonna, I'm excited for, for the next, next several years for the future. And I, I wanna say thank you to all that you're doing as well. Speaker 4: Mr. Chair. I have a PS here for the members of the public who aren't inclined to read the 21 pages. There's two points that haven't been made tonight explicitly, and one is that we just over, we just underwent a $7 million override proce process. Mr. Erickson tightened the budget, negotiate the CBAs within budget and return 2.2 million back in Turnbacks at the end of the year, implemented a hiring freeze
valued the, the ensured that departments had had, you know, for whatever reason someone leave, ensure that they were examined and reorganized to see if we actually really needed that person. Those types of things for, for financial accountability are super important to residents. So while I know that residents are really impressed by this, many residents are impressed by us almost gushing about personal integrity and professionalism and supporting your staff and being a resource to the board for residents who want to know how this affects them. This is a very clear, these types of things are an example
of our town administrator taking a fiduciary interest in the financial and fiscal condition of our town. And that's something that I want to emphasize. So that was pretty much it. Speaker 1: Thank you for the, for reiterating that. Anything else? Nope. Speaker 3: That's a very long consent agenda. So Speaker 1: It is, it's almost as long as 21 pages way to take the focus off you trying. Speaker 18: Nothing. Nothing at all. Are we ready for this? Absolutely. Okay. Speaker 11: Right. So the consent agenda items
A through O reads a approve meeting minutes from March 4th, 2026 and March 9th, 2026. Item B approve roadshow concepts LLC applications for a one day junk dealer's licenses for March 31st, April 1st, April 2nd, April 3rd, and April 4th, 2026. Item C approve request to occupy a public way for the Jimmy Fund walk on October 4th, 2026.
Item D approve request to occupy a public way for to NAIC on June 21st, 2026. Item E approve request to occupy a public way for Natick Knights June 25th, July 16th and August 6th, 2026 and the rain dates being July 23rd and August 13th, 2026. Item F approve request to occupy a public way for the farmer's market on October 3rd through October 31st, 2026, item G appointment
to special police officers, retired Officer Daniel r Broman and retired Officer Robert A. Hoffman Jr. Item H reappoint Nancy North Graves as a register of voters for a term expiring March 31st, 2029. Item I approve. Open world entertainment, L-L-C-D-B-A level 99 S 12, all alcohol temporary change of hours. Application approved hours are 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM Friday 10:00 AM
to 12:00 AM Saturday, 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Sunday. Current hours requiring approval are 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM Sunday April 19th, 2026 and 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday through Thursday, April, 2020, 26 through April 23rd, 2026 only, and 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM on March 26. 2026. Approve Natick Amvets post 79 DBA amvets S 12, all alcohol temporary change of hours.
Application approved hours are 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM Sunday through Thursday, 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM Friday through Saturday. Current hours requiring approval are 12:00 PM to 11:00 PM Friday, March 26th, 2020. March 27th, 2026. Item K approved 2026, flammable storage, registration, renewals. Item L approved May, 2026, license renewals to junk dealers, collectors and the taxes delivery Item M,
safety committee Recommendations. Town engineer request the recession of crosswalk at 20 South Avenue resident request for a stop sign at the corner of Church Street and East Street. Resident request for a stop sign on Grant Street at Sherman Street. Due to safety concerns, town engineer requests to rescind the previously approved RFB request at the crosswalk on Mill Street at Ranger Road. Item N authorized chair to sign activity use limitation A UL for 90 Oak Street on behalf of the board.
And item O approve request for exemption from town bylaws Chapter 41 S four for Elizabeth Chaplin. Is there anything that anyone wants to pull from the consent agenda? Speaker 4: I'd like to pull item N item. Okay, I'd like to pull item H. Speaker 11: Would you like to have those in discussion after we approve the rest of the consent agenda? Yes Speaker 4: Please. Okay, Speaker 11: I move to approve items A through G. Items I through M and item O. Speaker 4: Second. Speaker 6: All all in favor, please say aye. A.
Speaker 11: Aye. Aye. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 11: Ms. Kaufman, do you wanna take item H? Yes please. Okay. Speaker 4: Since Ms North Graves is in the audience tonight, I would just like to thank her for being willing to serve again as a registrar of voters and for her tireless work on elections and supporting our elections. And at this time I'd like to move to reappoint Nancy North Graves as a registrar of voters for term expiring March 31st, 2029. Second. Second. Rich, that was fast. Speaker 6: That was almost Speaker 11: Like Speaker 6: A chorus.
Who are you giving it to? Rich? Let's give it to Rich all. I just want to make sure I write the right thing down. Sound Speaker 4: Like everybody just wants to get out. Speaker 6: All all in favor, please, Sarah. Aye. Speaker 4: Aye. Aye. Speaker 6: Thank you Nancy. Well, Billy sometimes sends me an email saying who did that? Speaker 11: That would've been talked. Thank you. Rich picked up item N Speaker 8: For item N. The reason I wanted to pull that is be just in case people don't know what this is about and this may be one of the final times, if not the final time before this comes before the board. I'm hoping Mr. Erickson can summarize. Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, just briefly. So 90 Oak Street is the e Connor Heffler park site,
former East school. A lot of other names that I think it has through the years, but it's essentially that that property, what this is related to is actually during the construction of the park, there was the sort of discovery, I guess, of some environmental contamination on the southwest corner of the property. Abutting some of the properties that abut Route nine, like the gas station was a couple others. It was legacy environmental contamination from when Route nine was expanded back in the fifties. As far as we can tell, that's that's our presumption. It did not impact the construction of the park, but it did cause and put into place
some required remediation work per both mass. It's called mass contingency plan, but it's basically the mass environmental rules. It's also referred to as a 21 E site or there's like two or three different terms that people use for Massachusetts rules around environmental contamination. In this case it also included contaminants of PCBs, which then triggered what's called tosca, which is an acronym under EPA for remediation. And it just took a long time to do that, not to actually do the physical work. It's just, it comes with a lot of required reportings, a lot of required reviews by the Fed federal
and state governments that deal with these things. The EPAA, mass DEP. And so we're at the final phase of that reporting component, which is to put what's called an A UL or an activity use limitation on the property. An A UL essentially means that there's a deed, not really a restriction, but it's a deed notification. And I guess it is a restriction 'cause it's basically saying certain types of uses should not be used on this property. And it's all based on what the contaminants are, but they're fairly common language in the case of this property. And it's only at this location of where the contaminants are. And if you look on the website, you can see there's some maps showing
where the physical location is. It's just limiting, for example, the growth of, of agricultural like food products. You can't, you can't do like growing of, of food products. You're not supposed to have, for example, single family residents on that physical spot. I even think some other residential uses are on there may be multifamily and it's common for environmental contamination sites to have those type of AULs for certain types of contaminants. It's not impactful on the park. There's no danger or any harm to folks in the park. In fact, it's only in the area that's been impacted.
And there's actually other engineered barriers that can prevent any access to the contaminants. There's literally like if you dig down a number of feet, you'll actually hit an engineer barrier, which is like a, a very bright, no, there's other concrete that's encapsulating it. Okay. But it's actually a bright fabric that's really hard to puncture. It's like a bright orange fabric that they use. Good. So, and again, it's all based on what the contaminants are, but we've done everything proper per this site. Ideally you would've removed everything, but given the slopes and proximity to wetlands and a lot of other considerations at this location, we were unable to do that.
So we actually had to encapsulate it or prevent, put the engineer barriers in place to prevent access to it. So in essence, this is the final paperwork exercise whereby we have to, we finally got approvals from DEP, from EPA, from everybody involved and, but we need to file these at the registry of deeds on this property for everybody in the future to know what's going on at this location. Speaker 1: Thank you. Move approval of vitamin second. Is that the all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Let's see,
that's town administrator updates. Okay, so this is just, Speaker 3: This is the report of the town common permit approvals. So with the updated policy from the select board around the use of the town common, we've now created an administrative process that uses actually our, our online permitting system to do this administrative review in a more expeditious way to ensure that we're compliant with, among other things, guidance from legal counsel on, on timeliness of review of approval for, for use of a common, but given that it's become more
of an administrative function, I want to make sure that there was still a feedback loop to the board on the public. So this is our first one of these reports. 'cause the first round of approval of the comments for the upcoming season. As you may recall, the common is not used by outside groups or even really much by the town from, it's usually end of October through and part of it's weather dependent, but through April, mid, mid-April. Again, it depends on a bit the weather, but again it's, this is more of a, an ability for the board
and the public to know what has been reviewed and approved at the administrative level, consistent with the select board policy on the use of the comment. So if you, if you click on that link on the web, on the agenda, you'll see a list. I believe there's three that have been approved so far among outside of town uses. So we always populate the calendar with town uses first, such as our concerts in the park with the rec parks department, the, the farmer's market, things like that. Speaker 1: Awesome. That's exciting. Anything else Jim? Speaker 3: Just that the election in two weeks is October one.
One thing for the, sorry, April one. April, well March 30th is April 1st is the reorganization. My apologies. But that is a regularly scheduled board meeting, which I know the board will not be handling more general business that night other than reorganization. So one thing that I'd like to just firm up with the board, 'cause we have about three to four pending public hearings for various things in front of the board is when your meeting date will be after that so that we can post those public hearings. I believe there was dialogue about potentially, 'cause the next regularly scope meeting is April 15th.
It's too long, which is four weeks from today, which is a bit long potentially moving that meeting to the eighth or having both the eighth and the 15th. A couple things that are coming up for your awareness is in the public hearings. I noted there's a couple liquor license, I believe applications coming down the pipeline for some of the new businesses here in Natick Center, some of the new restaurants. And we have our water and sewer rate hearing coming up along with a couple updates that are programmed for April, including some updates around downtown parking
and the Johnson School project among others. So those are some pretty decent size items and as long as we know when those meetings are, we can better prepare for, for how best to allocate those amongst the April meeting dates. In all likelihood, the water sewer rate hearing would be on the earlier side, whereas some of the other ones could be shifted to a later side. And then the public hearings for the alcohol licenses would likely be on the earlier side. But those all do require, depending on what it is. Sometimes it's two week notice, sometimes it's 10 day notice.
So we need to, by the end of this week, advertise if the meeting's gonna be, for example, on April 8th. Speaker 1: Thoughts on dates? So the, the ones that I have in the calendar right now are the 15th and the 29th. In addition to the first one of these we should probably do is a retreat date, probably the eighth, if that makes sense. So I think we're gonna be meeting every week in April. That's doable. Speaker 4: If we do the retreat date on the eighth
and that pushes the public hearings to the 15th, Speaker 8: Let's Speaker 1: Switch those. Yeah, let's switch those Speaker 3: Wet. We haven't advertised anything yet, so we could do the 15th. It's just, that's four weeks from today. Speaker 1: That's too big a gap. Speaker 8: Or we could do another day, we could do a retreat on a Monday, a different day. Or the other option is, are you away for school vacation week? Kristen, Cody? Speaker 17: I'm not away. Speaker 8: So could we meet on the 22nd? Speaker 11: Yep, Speaker 8: We could. Speaker 11: And we could commemorate Speaker 4: Administrative Professionals Day that day. Speaker 11: It's also Earth Day. Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 8: So Speaker 1: If I understood what we're saying is April 8th is gonna be a regular meeting? Speaker 8: Yes. Let's do that. Speaker 1: What about the 15th? Speaker 11: Is that when you wanna have the retreat? Speaker 1: We're talking about the 22nd for the Speaker 11: Retreat. Okay, well the Speaker 4: 18th Yeah, on the 18th is already listed as a regular meeting date. 15th. Speaker 11: The 15th. 15th, isn't Speaker 4: It? Yeah, the 15th. Speaker 1: Alright, so that's another regular meeting. Speaker 3: So you, just for clarity, you'll have back to back regular meetings. Speaker 1: Sorry. Speaker 8: Yeah, we've done it before. Yeah. And then the 22nd would be the retreat. Retreat,
Speaker 1: Yep. And then you're back on your regular games. We're back on the regular, Speaker 8: Yeah. Okay. So then we would meet again on the 29th after town meeting starts. Speaker 1: Let's, Speaker 8: We've done it before. I know, but now that's a lot. Three, that's a lot. That's a lot. All right. Speaker 4: Four of us serve on, Speaker 1: We can kill off the, when are we meeting in minute? You had something to add, Cody? Speaker 4: He said he's okay. Speaker 8: I Speaker 17: Was just gonna say, yeah, I can do all those dates. I actually, it is, Speaker 19: It's better for me if the, if the retreat one is the, is the 22nd and not the 15th or the 29th, because those days I have, I have childcare lined up. But if there's a childcare issue, then I'd have
to be on Zoom and I know the retreat is in person. So if the, if the 20 seconds, the retreat day, that's better. Speaker 11: Linda, isn't this where you say bring the baby? Speaker 8: Yeah, bring the baby. I don't know Speaker 17: If you know, I have two. So that's Speaker 11: I a whole nother thing. Isn't this where you say that Linda? Oh no, Lily. That part I Speaker 8: Know. Lily. I dunno. Cody may not wanna bring his kids Speaker 1: All. So what do we land on? Speaker 3: Let's see if my daughter's regular 16 babysits Speaker 1: The 15 retreat on the 22nd. Speaker 11: The town community babysitter Speaker 1: The 29th. Back to our regular meeting. Speaker 8: That's a lot of meetings. Do we need 'em? A lot to do?
Speaker 1: Why don't we do it this Speaker 11: Well, because the next meeting is, is May. Speaker 1: May Speaker 11: Is 13th. May 13th. Okay. Speaker 3: You could choose not to hold a regular meeting on the eighth. I just wanted to point out that that's a four week span. Yeah. Which is fine. We can make the 15th work as just the next regular meeting. I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that. 'cause it just means that, you know, maybe there's a, a special meeting in between for like consent agenda type items or there, like I just wanna be aware of it Speaker 4: On the consent agenda. Speaker 6: That's appealing. Yeah. Speaker 8: What Speaker 6: That if we Speaker 8: Have a light meeting on the eighth,
is that the idea or? I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Speaker 3: My, my point of raising it was just that April 1st is not likely to have a lot of items at all. No. And so therefore it's gonna be four weeks between meetings and that tends to be a, a long-ish time for the board. Not in that way. A lot things pile up. There are things that could pile up. So, so it could be that we do a brief meeting on the eighth and that could even be a Zoom only meeting. If it's just, for example, items that are typically part of a consent agenda and we plan
for the more heavy stuff to be on the 15th. 15th, if that's okay with the board. I just wanna make sure that, that we're aligning what we can one express to the public and to also town staff, but also just for our own scheduling purposes. 'cause we do have a number of things that we're just pending. Yeah. Is it the eighth? Is it the 15th? Is it, are we shifting things or are we not? And I just wanna make sure of that before we start scheduling some of those public hearings. Speaker 4: So 22nd is during school vacation week. That's not during town meeting. Right? Right.
So what about the retreat on the 22nd? Yeah. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. That's what we're talking about. Alright. Yep. Speaker 8: Yeah, we're talking about a brief meeting on the eighth, regular meeting on the 15th retreat on the 22nd and another regular meeting on the 29th. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 8: Yes. Yikes. Speaker 3: And if the eighth comes and we don't have much to put on there, we just, we don't have to have it. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 3: We'll, we'll just monitor that as we go. But we'll plan on the 15th being the regular, regular meeting like Fullblown meeting. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 4: And are any of those public meetings time
sensitive or public hearings? Sorry. Speaker 3: So, well we had, we we're getting the applications for the liquor licenses. So we'd like to, we try to advance those as relative as quickly as we can. The water sewer hearing. It's time sensitive in the sense that we want to, we wanna do it earlier in the season because there's a lot of other prep work behind the scenes that people don't see. Like we have to line up all of our, all of our systems with the new rates, assuming, you know, that's the board of the board and, and that just takes a bit of time for the, for the first bills that go out. Speaker 6: And given that we're likely to be in a drought all summer,
that's gonna impact how they, how, how the recommendations for the rates come Speaker 3: Potentially. I mean we, we have, we're, we're, we're doing a lot of that analysis now, right? So the 15th is, is fine for that. I just wanted to the, to start that on the 29th think would be challenging. Starting on the 15th gives you time. If, if there's a need to move additional questions to the 29th, that's, that's fine. We just can't be pushing that too much into May. Okay. You might, and there might be enough just on the 15th to render a decision on the 15th as well for that. We'll have materials to the board in advance while in advance. So they're just not prepared.
So I can't give you, because we're still working on it. They No, now and then I just, it's just about lining up some of the other staff or some of the other items as well. So we'll just plan on the 15th as a regular eighth if needed for just if there's any other time sensitive things. If not, we'll just move everything to the 15th. Speaker 1: Sounds Speaker 3: Good. And then I retreat on the 22nd and we're, so we're just keeping with our regular schedule, basically. Okay. Speaker 4: Just one dot on the alcohol licenses. If a business indicates they need it in sooner than a month, could you let us know that so that we can,
so it can be noticed properly and we can actually do that on the eighth? Yeah. That's the one thing I'm thinking about. Speaker 3: In order to make the eighth, we need to notice it this week so we can make that, we can ask them if, if a week is a, a difference for them or not. Okay. I can talk to Billy about that tomorrow. Thank Speaker 4: You. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. You pre preempted my question. Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Any select board, Speaker 4: Two quick Sure. Notes. Could we ask ability to notify people when they're on the consent agenda?
I know we do that for change of hours and we let them know when it's going to be, but if somebody's on the consent agenda, they should know proactively and not read it on the agenda. Speaker 3: So I'm sure they, and understand what consent agenda means, like I'm assuming is what you mean. Yeah. Speaker 4: I mean, yes. In this particular case, just shooting an email and saying your appointment will be on such and such a date. You do not need to appear. But if you, you know, if you do, if you want to, you can. Yeah, sure. Just as a general practice. And then the second thing was I do, could every member of the board who has not signed that deed
for 2 46 North Main Street, please do that. And then whoever's the last person to sign it, if you could leave it on Billy's keyboard. Okay. 'cause it'll be picked up in the morning. Speaker 1: Okay. That's my last official duty before I go home. Thank you. Speaker 4: That's all I have. Okay. Speaker 1: Anybody else move to adjourn? I have a second. Thank you, Linda. Second. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. 9 0 8.