Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to the Wednesday, August 20th select board meeting. I call this meeting to order at 6:05 PM and we'll ask for, well, I will read the executive session exemptions and then we'll go take a roll call. Vote for exec going into executive session pursuant to Mass General Law, 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 New England Benevolent Association,
local 82 Natick Police Officers Association, local 4 96 Massachusetts Coalition of the Police, deputy Fire Chiefs Association, local 1707 International Association of Firefighters. And I do declare that it would have a detrimental effect in negotiations. And the second item is pursuant to Mass general Law, chapter 30 a, section 21, A 10 to discuss Trade secrets are confidential, competitively sensitive, or other proprietary information regarding our electricity aggregation program. I'll entertain a motion to Speaker 2: Move.
Speaker 1: Second move by Mr. Evans. Seconded by Mr. Sydney. Mr. Sydney? Yes. Mr. Evans. Ms. Walger? Yes. And Ms. Pope? Yes. And I'm May, yes. We'll return at approximately 6 35. Thank you. At this time I'd like to invite everyone in the room who is able to stand to say the pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence. Speaker 2: I pledge to Speaker 3: Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which its Mind one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: First up announcements. Speaker 2: I've gotta turn that Speaker 4: Off, but you gotta turn the box down the bottom. Turn the thing, Speaker 2: The round thing? Speaker 4: No, all the way to the module. Then the bottom of circular thing with lights on it. Speaker 3: Oh, I turned it off. Speaker 1: One moment please. There Speaker 3: We go. I had turned it off. Alright. Speaker 1: Thank you gentlemen. Speaker 4: Reactivated. Speaker 1: Mr. Erickson announcements. Speaker 5: Thank you. I just wanted to take this moment to announce that we have made an offer and it's been accepted for a new deputy town administrator, finance director. This is a critical position in the organization.
It's one that is gonna be open in the end of September due to the retirement of our current longstanding director, Johnath, John Townsend, who's been in that role for eight plus years now. And that person is Ari Sky. He's not here tonight. He's actually on a family trip in Europe, so he's unable to attend, which I wanted to make sure he took before he came here because he needs to be well rested before he comes into Natick and enjoys the crazy that is Natick. But, so we're excited to have re comes with many years of experience.
He was previously in New Bedford for a number of years as their CFO Prior to New Bedford, he was actually down in county, former government outside of Washington, DC and Virginia. Other positions he's had in Massachusetts include similar position in Watertown as well as town administrator in Lakeville. So he even has some town administration experience. And so we're just excited to have such a qualified candidate come in for the position. We hired through him through, we did use the assistance of a recruiting firm just to help review some candidates. And we had two rounds of interviews that both Bruce and Linda were a part of, two separate rounds as well
as others on the team and on staff. We brought in a member of the finance team. We brought in other department heads as well as a member of the finance committee and others. So, and this was my understanding from for, I wasn't in the first round, but I was in the second round generally speaking, the, the sort of unanimous candidate amongst the different rounds. So we're excited to have Ari starting. He'll his first day. There will be overlap with John. We're still coordinating exactly how those days are gonna work, but it should be about two, two and a half weeks of overlap with John. So he'll be starting in mid-September as well.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Congrats. Speaker 5: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Awesome. Speaker 5: Obviously we're gonna miss John. Yes. But definitely a great hire. I think he's very excited to also go into retirement. Speaker 1: We'll enter into public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that is not on tonight's tonight's agenda. And it will be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of open meeting law. This section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes. Is there anyone in the room who wishes to address the board during public speak? Speaker 6: I, I guess I don't understand public
speaking terms of that form. Speaker 1: So public speak is if, if you would like to raise an issue and make the Oh, okay. Then you would come to the podium and we would listen, but we couldn't respond. Speaker 6: Understood, Speaker 1: Understood. Okay. Is there anyone in on Zoom who wishes to address the board during public speak? Seeing none, we'll move into proclamations. Madam Clerk? Speaker 7: Yes. Thank you Madam Chair. I have a proclamation in honor of the Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox churches 40th anniversary. Shall I read that? Yes, Speaker 1: Please. Okay. Speaker 7: The proclamation reads, whereas St.
Mark, Dick Coptic, Orthodox Church of Natick joyfully celebrates decades of faith service and fellowship as a beloved spiritual home for the Coptic Orthodox Christian community since the 1970s. And whereas from humble beginnings and rented churches to the proud establishment of its permanent home at 1 45 Oak Street in 1985, St. Mark has grown into a vibrant center of worship and community life. And whereas the laying of the cornerstone in 1991 by his holiness Pope sch the third,
the 117th Pope of Alexandria, marked a historic and sacred milestone in the life of the church, affirming its place in the heart of Natick and honoring its instrumental role in appointing clergy and guiding the church's early growth. And whereas St. Mark continues to flourish under the dedicated leadership of its clergy who have guided the congregation with compassion and devotion. And whereas the church's ministries from its thriving Sunday school and charitable outreach to its senior support programs embody a deep commitment
to service learning and love. And whereas the opening of a new educational building in 2018 by his holiness Pope Tiros two, the 118th Pope of Alexandria, stands as a shining testament to St. Mark's ongoing mission and vision for the future. Now therefore be it resolved that the town of Natick Select board proudly honors and congratulates St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church on its extraordinary legacy and celebrates its 40 years of enduring contributions to the spiritual and cultural life of our town.
In witness whereof, we have hereto set our hands and cause the seal of the town of Natick to be affixed on this 20th day of August, 2025. Congratulations. Speaker 2: So moved. Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sydney, seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor of issuing this proclamation, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? It's 5 0 0. The event will take place on October 4th and I'll let the board know the time when we get closer to that date. Discussion and decision First item is Loker Street, pedestrian bridge.
Mr. Sprat, Speaker 5: I may actually bring the presentation up if you want me to. Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, just gimme one sec. Speaker 5: It'll give Bruce time to be right back. Speaker 8: You wanna pass the proclamation around while we're waiting? Speaker 1: Before you signed it, didn't we? No, I didn't. I did. No, I did. We did, we did. Speaker 2: Thank you. Waiting. Speaker 9: All right. So I just have a, a brief update really for you. We've been communicating by email and keeping you up to speed. This is really for you and for everybody else watching of what's going on at Locust rate. I know it's been a topic of interest. So two Fridays ago, mass DOT came out
and did a bridge inspection on the Locust Street Bridge. The Locust Street Street Bridge was shut down to vehicle traffic in 1989, but continued on to be a pedestrian bridge across the rail. What is now the rail trail. Pedestrian bridges get inspected about once every 10 years. This was a 10 year reinspection of that bridge, which frankly showed eminent failure in a lot of places. Just some examples of the steel on the left side. You see the holes in the steel like rotted all the way through on the, the right side of the screen.
Connection points between two, between two steel beams that are just rotted away completely. On the next slide, you can see some of the damage to the wood beams and structure complete failure in some of those wood beams. So the inspection report was really, it showed the bridge was in eminent danger. And on that day, mass DOT shut down the Locust Street bridge to pedestrians the following week. Last week we were working with DOT trying to figure out how we're going to, to manage this situation.
At that time, as DOT advised that we shut down the rail trail and also advised us that they would be fast, fast tracking the demolition of the bridge. So fast forward to yesterday, they mobilized on the site. We spent the end of last week with mass DOT police, fire select board members, really trying to plan out how we do this. Well, a detour was set up on the next slide. You can see that Closing the rail trail off at Fisher Street, putting a detour
up North Maine, down bacon and connecting to the trail at this point. Now with actual demolition started today, so that section of the rail trail is shut down. We advise everybody to stay off that trail. That's posted it is or will be posted. No trespassing. Please take notice. So you can go to the next slide, Jamie. The, this is what it looked like as of this morning, as of this morning. So it's a, a wooden structure with steel supports
with a wooden deck with asphalt on top. They cut up and removed all of the asphalt today by hand because no equipment could be on the bridge. They'll be taking the deck down hopefully by tomorrow and then start their, their true demolition. So that's what the site looks like coming up Fisher Street right now. They are actively working. They committed to actually continue working through Saturday. One of our concerns is having this active during the, the, the weekend when it's really not monitored. So they're gonna, they'll be working on Saturday.
They anticipate one to two weeks. So as of yesterday, really one to two weeks. And then the bridge should be down. We'll be able to reopen the rail trail. We have some work to do on the, on the slopes. And then we'll have to make some final decisions on what the final treatment of the approaches of the bridge will look like. Likely it will just be a guardrail to protect cars and then let natural trees and and growth come up there. So that's where we stand. It's been a very fast project, incredible work
by the DPW team. Bill McDowell, Brian Casey, our communications director, has been super helpful. Mass t's been unbelievable to work with. Very well communication going both ways. Everything's gone according to plan and it's, we're really thankful that they fast tracked this. It's kind of blows my mind that in that short of a time we have a bridge already coming down. My, I was fearful this was gonna be months or years and, and it's going to be days or weeks. So that's the current status. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Raat. Before I ask for questions for members
of the board, I just wanna say we have received correspondence that asks us to replace the bridge. And I just wanna point out tonight is that's a discussion for down the road mass. DOT will not be replacing the bridge. So any discussion of that's going to be down the road. Right now we're very just concerned with the public safety, safety aspects of this project. Members of the board, do you have any questions or comments? Mr. Evans? Speaker 4: Just a comment of the extremely impressive responsiveness to all involved in this has just
been amazing and the communication throughout the process, this has been terrific. So thank you for that and thank you for pushing forward on this so quickly. Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger and then Mr. Sydney. Speaker 10: Ditto. I, I have to say I have never seen a project that has gone from a problem to a solution being done so quickly and so effectively and efficiently. And I hope you all take credit for this because it's, you know, mast OT
but it's also our staff that really, you know, got right on the ball to address the problem. And, you know, we're really grateful. Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Pope. Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm dilling all of these remarks. I saw it in person and talked to with one of the DPW members who was there and, you know, he just was all over it. He was all over it. And it is a public safety issue. And so I I I, I empathize with all of the folks who use the rail trail very regularly and, and somehow feel a bit displaced. But I think elevating the, the piece
of public safety is huge so that they can return to the rail trail without worry about their safety. So thank you. And the entire team, Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 11: Yeah, I just did what my fellow board members have said. I have to say, looking at that last picture of the demolition going on, one of my concerns going forward, and I think we will have to pay attention to this somehow, is that people will go down and up the slope and either we're gonna make it possible for them to do that
or we're gonna have to monitor it and or block it somehow. 'cause there, I mean, you know, I don't know how many people have walked across that bridge a lot, but you know, it does appear to be some kind of a connector for, for walkers. So let's, let's see if we can find some kind of a creative solution so that the neighborhood is kept safe, even, even when the bridge is down. Speaker 9: Understood. Safety will be our priority.
The the good news is we just did the north main project with a corridor for multimodal access. So this bridge was from 1907. So a lot has changed in that time. So there, there are connectives ways to get around that. It is a little longer obviously, but we'll, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Speaker 11: You Speaker 1: Didn't dad joke. That was, that was, I'd like to open it to members of the public who have any comments or questions in the room
or on Zoom if you could raise your hand on Zoom if you have any questions for Mr. Sprat. Thank you Mr. Sprout, and thanks for staying on top of this and please send our best to your team and our thanks. Speaker 9: Thank you. Speaker 1: Oh, Mr. Ostroff, if you could unmute yourself. Speaker 12: Hi, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. I wanted to just extend my appreciation, sorry. Josh Ossoff town meeting member formerly on your board and chair of the Rail Trail advisory committee for many years.
I, I really appreciate how quickly the, the town and MAs dot have worked together to prioritize safety as you as board members probably know. But I've got some information in your packet that just reflects on some of the inspection history on the decisions that the town and its consultants and Masto made over the years about the trail and the bridge. And it's if and when the board wants to talk about alternatives, you know, the programs that may be available for funding to explore alternatives to a bridge, I'm happy
to participate in that. Please let me know whether you a appoint a committee or just wanna meet informally with staff and board members. I have some thoughts and I fully understand the concerns of people that have written or, or share their views in other forms on how and where we might look towards reestablishing a safe connection. And while MAs dot who own the bridge has is probably can be taken to their word that they won't replace it, that doesn't mean that there are not other programs
and ways in which the town might explore doing that. And, and that's, as I put in my memo, that's probably best done as part of a more comprehensive plan that hope the town can elevate to the board's agenda for better safe pedestrian bicycle connectivity in the years to come. But just want to thank you for your making this such a important town priority. And yeah, it is concerning that they have a 10 year interval for inspections. That means that the bridge was inspected in 2013 and then maybe about 2015 and not until then.
So that's probably something for Masto to look at their inspection cycle. But that's again, not the board's concern today. Happy to answer any questions or engage on this with members tonight or in the future. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Os Ostroff. Next on the agenda is the South Neek DAM update. Mr. Sprat. Speaker 9: Thank you. I come here with good news. We've been in this cycle of permitting for quite a while now. We essentially have all of our permits complete absent one eight M permit,
which is just authority from the MWRA to work near their sewer line that crosses further upstream of the dam. That should be a fairly easy permit. It's much more of a rubber stamp than the, the arduous permitting we've been through. So we're in very good shape. I think the key things to point out from here as we wind down our permitting, we'll be ramping up our final design and then going through the procurement process. That will be from now, say September through through spring. We will have mobilization
and site prep, ideally June, July of next year with July August dam removal in 26. We are waiting currently on funding sources. We, we have funding available through town meeting appropriation, however, we've been looking at alternative funding methods we should know by the end of this month. Ideally if we have our dam and seawall grant, which was for a million dollars, which would cover all but 20% of the dam. So we're actively pursuing grants that we should know hopefully before town meeting.
That's our, that's our goal to, to have responses. So that's, that's where we stand. We're in, we're in very good shape and kind of ending that permitting phase and heading into pre-construction activities and, and with everything going well, we should see about this time next year removal. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Sprat. Questions for members of the board? Ms. Slager, Speaker 10: Thank you for the update bill. Hopefully we'll get one of these grants, but if we do not, are there other grants that we might potentially apply for? Speaker 9: So there are three grants we've applied for. Currently, we're constantly looking
for new grant opportunities. We've hit the major ones that will likely fund just about the entire process. So the short answer is yes, but we're constantly doing that work. The help of Bill and Jillian and Claire really hammering down all those things. We, we have other people looking for grant opportunities for us. Speaker 10: Okay, thank you. Speaker 1: Are there questions from members of the public? Anyone on Zoom? Thank you Mr. Sprat. Just, Speaker 9: Oh yes please. You could just add one more thing. You might see a camera up there now we're working with our partners in Pegasus
and we've put up a camera that's taking daily shots so we can monitor what the dam looks like or looked like in high water, low level. We're also taking sound recordings all in preparation for a way to memorialize the the dam. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is the Charles River Park system update. Snell. Speaker 13: Hello, I'm Angela Snell. I'm the director of community services and I'm here to give an update on the Charles River Park improvements, kind of working with Bill's team once they do the dam, we're gonna move in
and make some improvements to the parks. We're looking at Old Town Park, Grove Park and the multipurpose area. This past June, we just finished a MVP grant that gave us permit level designs and cost estimates. We've been working with Weston and Sampson on this project. The idea is to make accessibility improvements at all of these areas. And the next part of the project would be to do permits for the project. So there's permits, we put in a Community Preservation Act
application, which is moving to the public public process next month. So we'll be giving a presentation on that. And then moving forward from there once we will be doing those permits and construction documents and bid documents. And then we'll apply for a second NBP action grant next spring, which could help with the construction projects. And we'll also be looking for funding opportunities for construction. We'll look at other state grants, federal grants,
additional CPA funding, and we'll be exploring all that in the upcoming year. And if anybody wants to see all the plans and everything up to date, we do have information on the town website. If you go to the homepage, it's right at the bottom of the homepage. Or you can search Charles River Park improvements and it'll take you right to all of our updates. The plans that we've had from Weston and Sampson. All the notes from community engagement that has taken place over the last year. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Any questions for members of the board?
I had a question. Will you be seeking CPC money? Speaker 13: Yep. So right now we have an application in, and that's to do the next phase of permits. We just got notified actually today that we are eligible. So now it goes to the community preservation committee. We'll give a presentation and they'll be public, a public hearing, and then people can vote on it. The committee will vote to hopefully support it and move it to the October town meeting. Speaker 1: Wonderful, thank you so much. Are there any members of the public who have questions or comments for Ms. Snell? Seeing none, I thank you so much.
All right, thank you. Good stuff. Is Jay's online? He's online. Okay. I'm gonna change the agenda a little bit. We're gonna go to the summary of meetings for Johnson School and I'm going to ask Mr, where is he? He's on, yep. Yeah, once he starts speaking he, oh, okay. Speaker 14: I am, I believe you guys can hear me. Yes. Speaker 1: Yes. Thanks Jay. Speaker 14: Awesome. So the first topic that we're gonna talk through is the Johnson future use and the summary of meetings. Just to kind of acclimate folks,
this particular document summary of meetings, we're gonna continue to outline a six month outlook of meetings. So today we're gonna walk through, you know, next month's September, going through February of 26. The slide you're looking at is identical to the previous time that this was presented. May of this year. Ultimately was driven by community input. There was a survey of 90 folks who talked about what type of meeting types they would wanna see most. And that's really what designed the entire plan. The next slide gives you the six main buckets of the meeting types. I'm not gonna go verbatim, I appreciate that.
Some folks, this will be new to them who are on the meeting, but on demand, Pegasus, or you can check out the agenda item. But these six meeting types will be what I'll outline on the final slide, slide three, which I'll spend about maybe five or 10 minutes discussing. So you're now looking, and let me just kind of acclimate everyone how to best read this slide. There's two essential categories of meeting types that we'll have. The ad hoc, if you look at your Y access on the left will be on the top. And those meetings would be outside of the typical biweekly select board meetings.
And that everyone below the line within the select board meeting category, those would be embedded within the biweekly select board meetings that naturally occur. Anything that has a red triangle, that's a key deliverable that ultimately will be insightful for this particular project. And then the high engagement opportunities up above. Higher on the top, those would be the areas that the public can get most engaged and give the select board the largest kind of swath of feedback. The, they're numbered four on the top and then the remaining 12 totaling 16 total meetings on the bottom. I'll, I'll talk through some high level notes here.
Number one is a select board workshop that was recently announced last week. That's set for September 10th. It is the only one that has a yellow highlight because this is a key meeting. This is a three hour meeting, so we're asking the general public to give up a nice chunk of their Wednesday evening on September 10th. In exchange, we will allow quite a bit of feedback and interactive sessions. I'm not gonna read all the details, it's linked on the homepage of the website. Notifications have been sent through to folks. But this, I would say we did a site walking tour already that had about 60 folks. And those were one-on-one sessions led by,
or sorry, one to many sessions led by select board members. This might be similar in nature, but it's gonna be more interactive with imagine your colored, you know, colored stickers, your Y, your sticky pads and the six scenarios the town has outlined to start. There's a survey out there to give some feedback. Those are by no means final. That's something for the public to react to. We're continually to craft the scenarios and use cases on the Johnson property. The biggest takeaway from the site walking tour is we need financials. So this meeting is essentially to craft and refine a small subset of scenarios.
So we limit the cost that we'll have to pay for a consultant to do financial assessments. So I'm not gonna talk through the other meeting types as verbose. But again, mark your calendars, anyone that's listening, sign up for alerts and attend September 10th if you can. Johnson, office hours. These are very similar to select board office hours that are held around the town, community senior center, the farmer's market. But these are onsite at Johnson. We held our first one last week, August 14th. We had 10 residents that show up. And while that might seem small in nature,
in fact I don't think we've had select board office hours that have exceeded that other than the fact that a lot of people go to the farmer's market and walk by. So we'll continue those meeting opportunities October 11th and then a date to be scheduled in November. Number four, this is kind of the fork in the road. When we outlined the project plan in April this year, we talked about the idea that an advisory committee, which will ultimately be the select board's decision, we wanna do some work leading up to this. And so this meeting, very much TBD, the largest variable to have this meeting.
The goal would be to, you know, have some public input and the select board to comment and make a decision on an advisor committee. Yes or no, I believe in an upcoming meeting, the select board, which I'll defer to the chair if she wants to discuss it might be having some preliminary discussion. But this is a firm discussion in early 2026. If you look at the very bottom of the screen, there's consultant led financial assessments that will be a result of the select board workshop meeting. Number one, that will give a consultant three months to look at scenarios and the components within each scenario,
assign financial numbers and then allow in this public forum to come back and have a much more worthy conversation. This is like a house remodel. We started with talking to the architect of all the desires and now we're gonna start to hone down into, you know, within the finite financials, what is it that the select board wants to ultimately hone in on And then decide is it, does an advisory committee have a role within that or just broader? So that's the intent of meeting four. The, they're gonna be less exciting on the bottom, I just won't be as verbose.
But the select board workshop will follow that meeting one week later on nine 17 with a report from that meeting, we'll be issuing a post-meeting survey as well as potentially, well not even potentially, as well as defining the consultant's scope so the select board can make comment before we engage with consultants. A number, I'll go in order of numbers, I'm gonna go to cut top down. I think you guys can all track with me. Item number 11 is essentially just a survey report to get some process feedback from the public as the year ends. We will really kick this off in April. So at that point we'll have, you know, a decent chunk
of months through the process and we'll let the public weigh in, what's working, what's not. We'll continue to do quarterly reports, so we'll have those scheduled the next one, October of 29. And then we'll set up another quarterly report. Those are the circles. If you look in January, I don't have a date yet for anything in January and February 'cause we just don't plan that far out. So the 2025 select board calendars what we have, but we'll publish those dates once they become available. This meeting, what we're talking about is the summary of meetings. I'll come back and give a refresh in November 19th, and then later in February of 2026,
we will maintain Johnson speak, which is the next agenda item Johnson speak. Essentially public speak allows the public to comment on any items that are not an agenda item and to make comment, but the select board's unable to engage. So I thought this was rather slick. We came up with a meeting type, whereas if it's on a monthly agenda, the public cannot only make a comment, but also ask a question if this isn't present. Anyone who's interested in the Johnson project is limited to the particular agenda items. So this, we'll see how the next meeting goes. Maybe residents can weigh in,
but this is currently, it's a low lift because ultimately we just added agenda item and it tends to be 10 minutes or less, but just gives people a chance to weigh in with the select board and provide feedback that is, well I think I probably held my 10 minutes. Stay updated. Sign up for every update you possibly can. And as a reminder, this is a two and a half year project. Everything in yellow is September through February of next year. We're just talking about this section and we'll continue to make progress and ultimately make a decision approximately June
of 2027. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Jay Chair? Yes. Members, the board. Do you have questions or comments Mr. Evans? Yeah, Speaker 4: Just very quickly, I had the opportunity to walk through with Jay, walk through Johnson School and take a more in depth inside look at it. And it was very helpful to me to understand the state of the building. Number one, the, the geography of the,
the area around there and, and the site. It was also nice to see that one of the things we promised the neighborhood was to have periodic police patrols come in and while we were there, a cruiser came up and took a look around, made sure everything's fine and it's all good. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Evans. Who in the room would like to address the board during Johnson speak? And just show your hands one. And Jay, can you take down your presentation?
Yep. And by show of hands people online, if you can let me know so we can gauge time. Okay. Ms. Vickers, if you'd like to come, we'll go ahead and open monthly. Johnson speak. Speaker 15: Hello. Thank you. Brenley Vickers, precinct eight town meeting member Johnson Neighborhood resident. I just, and speaking on behalf of a lot of people that I know that are out of town prepping for school on vacation, lost everything. And people didn't want you guys to think that because there is nobody here participating that that meant there's a lack of interest. There's no lack of interest. It's just this is that month.
Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much Ms. Vickers. Is there anyone online going once, going twice? Mr. Gates and then Ms. G Gridley? Speaker 16: Yes. Wayne Gates tend to come us way. I would just like to start an idea that may, many may not know of. And that is the potential to combine o an open space opportunity at the Johnson School with the combination of replacing the, the lost open space at the Wilson property when,
and potentially resurrect the idea of the Wilson Gardens affordable housing. Anyway, that was it. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Gates. Ms. Gly, if you can unmute yourself. Speaker 17: Hi. So just wanted to respond to STRs. You mentioned that you recently had the opportunity to visit the property. I am assuming that meant on the in inside. As someone who has never seen the inside, I'm curious of what you saw, what your impressions are and anything that you were willing to share. Speaker 4: Sure. I'm sharing Speaker 1: Please. Speaker 4: Sure. Thank you for that question.
It, you know, you, for me, it was the first time that I'd been inside the building and you, I kind of have had a learning curve as far as Johnson goes because I did do the exterior walk and had an impression of what it would be like inside and thought I knew exactly what it looked like inside. But having walked through it, I got a much better feel for the space itself in terms of the height of things,
the landscape of, you know, that it's one story on one side and two in the back. And just, you know, having an opportunity. I actually was having flashbacks to elementary school and I went, I'm old enough that it, that that school was probably a new newish school when I went to school. Not, not as a NAIC resident, but what I was impressed with was how much space there is actually in that school itself. Now, whether we can reuse that space
or whether we need to modify it as you know, that's, that's up for discussion. But what struck me was the opportunity to have multiple uses on that property. The playground was in use while I was there. Jay and I talked about the sledding hill, going down there and looking to preserve that if possible. And just a really good discussion. I was only there, we were there less than an hour. And it was, it was time well spent.
I I I've learned a great deal about it, about the potential for this area, this, this asset to the neighborhood. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Evans. Is there anyone else who would like to discuss? Johnson? Okay, thank you. I know it's vacations and vacation periods and there are a lot of people out of town. So as Jay mentioned, we'll be doing another summary of meetings in on November 19th and we'll continue to have our monthly Johnson speak. Next up are water and sewer abatement appeals. First up is Sean and Debbie Potter. If you could come to the podium.
We have your application and your, are they here or online? Oh, yes. Okay. If you could unmute yourself. And we, we do have your application, we know some of the particulars, but if you could very briefly tell us why you're seeking an abatement. Speaker 18: Hi, can you hear us? Speaker 1: Yes, thank you. Speaker 18: Okay. Yeah, I was saying that we couldn't, trying to get my video on as well. Speaker 1: I muted. You don't need to do video. That's okay. Speaker 18: Okay, great. Thank you for hitting Speaker 11: You. And your other half are both unmuted. Why don't you
Speaker 1: They fixed it Rich. It's okay. Yep. Stop that Speaker 18: Coming. Yeah, we're good. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah, just won't let us turn on a video. It says disabled by the host, so Speaker 1: That's okay. You don't need the video, but if you could go ahead, that would be great. Speaker 18: Sure. Thank you. We were, we're outta town. We had a death in the family, so unfortunately we couldn't be there in person. We were, we, we don't know what happened here. We've been in our, our new home now almost exactly a year. And when I went to pay the first bill, it was only $25.
And I, I thought that was a little low considering our 10 year monthly average. And prior to that was $40. And when I first showed up at town hall, they said, are you Mitch Rogers? I said, no, that's, that's the gentleman that sold us the house and 'cause he had an outstanding water bill. I said, no, no, we're the potters. We purchased the house from the Rogers. I said, are we liable for that? And you were told no, which is why we just had a $25 service fee. So that was our first quarterly bill. The second quarterly bill was also $25. And then our third bill, it was $9,000
during that third quarter, DPW came out and they replaced, according to the bill, they replaced the meters and maybe the transponder for both normal water use and irrigation. And that bill had 2,148 for the water use charge, 1,582 for the irrigation charge and 5,259 for the sewer usage. These readings were done over the course of,
looks like one week, 2 25 to three one. So we immediately, my wife immediately called and said, what is this? And, and you know, the, the, the town clerks were very helpful and they said, you're gonna have to appeal it. We don't know. So we still have no idea how this happened. What I, what I can tell you is the most recent bill, which was, which came out July last month, we accrued charges of $528. Now we have irrigation. That's pretty reasonable. You know, we have many friends
and families in Natick with irrigation. They average with similar size lots. They average between 300 to 600 a month. So that seemed reasonable. The watering habits that differed in the last three months compared to October and November when we had our irrigation installed, new irrigation installed and grass was seeded in October of last year. So we only watered the lawn for about six months. The amount of the time we watered the lawn over the last three months versus that six weeks was about the same.
30 minutes, 30 minutes around every other day. So I I, I would expect that maybe we had, I don't know why we got $25, $25 fee, maybe there was a billing issue, but I would've expected the bill to be almost exactly the same as the one that we just received for $528. So we're looking at this, we don't have a pool. We, we, we don't have a nice rink. Irrigation was turned off in November, so that wasn't even a, a factor, but somehow we were charged when the irrigation was off
for irrigation. We're a family of three. There's no, there's no border leak. We checked that again, all I can say is we had the town came out and they changed the meters, they changed the transponder and all of a sudden we got this $9,000 bill. And the only other thing I can say is that I, there was definitely an outstanding water bill with Mr. Mitch Rogers who owned the house prior to us. The last piece of information is our bills say that the service address is nine Craigie Street. We do not live at nine Craigie Street.
So that might be the issue. I don't know anything more than what I've told you other than there's, there's, i i, it's, it's seems impossible. We're, we're confounded, we're baffled. We have no idea how like even a $900 bill we would've been calling about. But this is a $9,000 bill. So we're, you know, we're hoping that you, you can help shed light on, on where the, you know, where the mistakes might have been. But we're hoping that you can resolve this and help us out 'cause that that's not something we can afford to, to pay or maintain.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Speaker 5: Certainly. Yeah. Thank you Mr. Madam Chair. And, and I'll just provide a little bit of when we did some research and, and what we found out about what happened in this case. So as noted by the, the property owner, this appears to be a situation whereby the prior owner did not pay that final water bill. Now when that happens, our system doesn't send out new and we, we, we were trying to figure out what the glitch is here, but it doesn't send out reads for the new water bills. And, and they did receive bills,
but they're the $25 readiness of sur not the actual usage. So there was still usage happening from the purchase date in mid-August until, until the read date in February. But that wasn't being brought into the system like it would have if that final read had actually, or a final bill had actually been paid by the prior owner. Once the prior owner paid that, then the system played catch up. In addition to that, we were, we're doing a water meter replacement project and transponder project throughout town. So that was happening as well. We actually tried to do it with the prior owner,
but they refused to let us into the property. So once we found out we can get into the property with the new owner, we did that project and that's when that, again, that reed happened, the read on the, on the then existing meter occurred. And basically what's what happened here was because there were no subsequent bills based on meter reads, the usage that got billed that led to the most recent bill was all the usage that appears anyway from the sale date August 15th or thereabouts to that February date. And it came in one bill, which meant it automatically hit the upper tiers.
Right. And that would have not been the case had it been read on the quarterly basis. So it's kind of a comedy or perfect storm of, of sort of situations that occurred. I don't think it was anybody's sort of fault per se, but it is something that we're exploring to see how we can prevent from happening. Again. This hap this is only the time I've ever had this happen where, you know, during a real estate transaction that final bill does not get paid as quickly. You know, then we, this rarely, rarely happens. And then there was also the meter read and some of the other things that were happening
with just our, our water and sewer update program with, with the meter changes. So that's in essence from our, our sort of research what happened, it is the proper address, the meter, both the former meter and the current meter are reading properly. So the usage definitely occurred. The, the scenario though is that it it, it really came down to all of the usage appearing to be billed at one time, which then bumped the entire bill up to that high level of,
of the tier system. So it's the pleasure of the board. This is very, very unique case, right? The, what I believe has been provided to the board in email form is a version of a potential abatement consistent with how we've done other abatements, which is basically bringing, looking at the typical usage for the property for the prior three years and then bringing the usage down to the lowest tier that's above that typical for an abatement amount. That's the pleasure of the board. But that's the, when we did our background research, what I just explained is what we learned
and we are trying to figure out where there might have been other glitches, but in essence that what occurred Speaker 1: Questions for members of the board. Go ahead, Ms. Walsh. And then Mr. Evans, Speaker 10: I apologize for not bringing this up earlier, but I didn't understand that this was what the situation was exactly. So the information that we have received from Ms. Donovan is our typical way of looking at this, looking at prior usage and given that there is no leak in this situation, I'm thinking that more that we ought to bill it at the lowest tier. Not looking at prior usage, but just the actual usage is, I think that
what we've heard is that the meter reads were accurate. So we actually have the number that is of usage, but it's just at the higher tier because of how on our end the billing was all done at once. So that's kind of what I think would be fair to do. Speaker 5: So just re recap and it might be, it might be that this calculation is at the lowest tier. I just can't confirm that because I don't know what that Speaker 10: It, it says, it says divide this over the it Speaker 5: They're basically billed at the lowest according to this email from Ms. Donovan, it says it's the,
should the current usage be billed at the lowest tier and then it gives the ab the amounts and then the abatement amount. Right. We can confirm that though. If the intent is just to do the entire amount at the lowest tier, we can confirm that I Yeah. And if it's these numbers, great. If it's not, we'll just match whatever that intent is. Yeah, Speaker 11: I'd Speaker 5: Agree with that. I mean it's all subject to the board obviously, but, Speaker 4: So just to, to clarify that we'd be able to provisionally approve this amount tonight and say if there's a billing of all the amount at a lower tier
and that that number is lower than the progress. Speaker 5: We'll just, I mean it could be this amount. It very, it's kinda be close to this amount. Yeah, probably. But we can then we can use our spreadsheet to basically assume all the usage of the lowest tier and that way the usage was used, right? It's still being captured in a bill, but it's just gonna be at that bill at that lowest tier. Okay. Speaker 11: Yes, Mr. Evans. And it, it just, it looks to me, I mean if their, if their typical bill is somewhere around this $530, you know, we're, we're talking what,
three quarters pretty much, you know, so that would be about 1500 or something. $1,800 something like I'm not doing good math, but Yeah. Speaker 10: And you have to look at the irrigation meter too. 'cause a good chunk of this bill was during the winter, so That is Speaker 11: True. Yeah. Yeah. So good point. But you know, that's gonna, that, that would be a substantially larger abatement than, than what the, what the email says. Speaker 1: So what is the pleasure of the board? I mean if, if my concern is that this bill is getting, Speaker 10: Just to be clear, what, what I'm proposing
is we know the actual usage Speaker 11: Yeah. Bill is the lowest tier period. At the Speaker 10: Lowest tier period. Speaker 11: Yeah. And that would be the, and then, and then and Speaker 1: Then whatever the differences would be the amount of the abatement. Correct? Speaker 5: Correct. Yep. Speaker 11: I I I'd make that motion. Speaker 1: Could we vote that motion tonight so that there is an interest accruing on this bill that cannot be waived? Yes, Speaker 11: Let's do that Speaker 1: And put, put that calculation in the hands of the town administrator. I want Speaker 5: This to come back if we don't have to. Speaker 1: Wonderful. So I'll take that motion. I Speaker 11: Move we bill the whole thing at the lowest here. Second.
Speaker 1: Hold on a second please. Ms. Pope, Speaker 7: This is an a bit of a pivot, but it sounds like all things were working, the, the meters were working, why is, is there this address con discrepancy? Speaker 5: I I'm not sure if there is an address Discre. I mean I know that the, I don't know that there, I mean I don't, that's not what we focus on. So we focus on the bill and the billing and that work. Speaker 7: But the potters claim that they live at seven Craig and this is, they're being billed at nine, right? Is that, is that correct? Mr. And Mrs. Potter, are you, is your residence at seven Craig
Natick versus the nine? Speaker 19: So Speaker 5: Mute himself? Speaker 11: Yeah. I will say I know of other houses where the official address and the mailing address are different. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It's it's pretty Speaker 18: Thank you. We were, we were muted and couldn't unmute again 'cause the host had to undo it. Thank you for asking. There is no the, there is no nine craigy that we're aware of. Hmm. And so one of our concerns is someone's using water somehow. That is not us, but we live at seven Craigy Street, not nine Craigie Street, but the service address is nine Craigy Street.
I I also just want to back up a little bit. We our, one of our main things is that the meter was broken. That's why it was replaced. So replaced in February and the trans, the Speaker 5: Meter was replaced because of our meter replacement project. And when we replaced the meter, we actually confirmed that the old meter was working properly. That's not why it was replaced. We have an, we have an ongoing town wide meter replacement project. So the meter was not replaced because of anything wrong with the meter. It's because of the meter replacement project that we're doing in every comm community throughout town. Speaker 1: Okay. And every time you have an opportunity to, to go out to a place, I mean there is a systematic re
replacement going on, but every time there's an opportunity at a house where DPW is there checking on something related to water, they swap out the meter. We did this at my house when we re renovate kitchen. Speaker 18: Yeah, that makes sense. But when we were, when we agreed to let them come, the understanding was there was something wrong. Speaker 1: The understanding was that they were going to look to see if there was something wrong and when they found that the meter was working properly, they went ahead and changed it. That's my understanding. And could you address the question about whether or not somebody's using water? Speaker 5: Nobody would be using water. It's based on the, the meter number. Okay.
Not necessarily based on the address. Address. And, and there is no nine craigie, there's actually a town on parcel right next to this that we can certainly look into why this is noted as nine instead of seven. But it's not because there's somebody at nine Craigy getting service. Yep. Speaker 7: I think because there has been such a thorough check on all of like the media was working. This is correct. I think it mean, I don't know if it's our responsibility or theirs, but I think for the sake of like ruling that out, I think it's important to understand why they live at seven. But this is billed at nine even if it's very simple.
I think that would be helpful. Speaker 11: Yeah. I will note that I I will note the parsonage for Common Street is the, the mailing address is nine Beacon and the official address is seven Beacon. It happens and, and it's just, you know, the post office and the, and the town don't agree. Speaker 1: If you can look into Speaker 5: Delivery, we'll look into the address if that Speaker 1: Would be really good. Yeah. And Speaker 18: That again, we're grasping at straws here 'cause our, our usage hasn't changed. Our habits haven't changed. We still don't understand. I mean you, we hear you, you're saying the meter is right, but where was the water usage again?
Our irrigation was turned off in November. Our, Speaker 1: Our, our rates went up in May. So that might be part of the problem or part of the system. We Speaker 20: Just have a very dire concern when we look at the amount of usage that was that that it displays and we're just scratching our heads going, this is merely impossible for the, we're we came from another area of Natick. We had an average water bill. Now granted we're in a larger house with an irrigation system. Our average water bill was $40 and we're taking into consideration the size and scope of the house and we're taking into consideration that we didn't have irrigation.
But this is exorbitant. I think we can all agree a $9,000 bill in such a short window of time, it's just not adding up. We don't understand it. Speaker 1: Mrs. Potter, are you saying that you lived in a home in Natick and your average quarterly water and sewer bill was $40 Speaker 20: Monthly. So it was $120 a quarter roughly now much smaller house that was the town of, that was the town of Wellesley. We're on Wellesley water based on the area of Natick that we lived in. But to give you some context, we didn't necessarily grow the family. We didn't put in a nice rink, we didn't utilize a Speaker 1: Pool.
I hear what you're saying. If you're on Wellesley water, don't they have different water rates? Speaker 5: Different water rates? Speaker 20: Well of course there's different, there's different rates. But I'm trying to give you context in terms of Speaker 18: It's not gonna be two orders of magnitude different then. No. Speaker 1: Right. Do you under, do you understand though about the tier system in Natick and why? No, no, no. Okay. So let me explain it. It's based on usage. So if you use zero to, let me pull it up. I'm gonna, 'cause I want, I want this to be accurate and this is thank you Speaker 18: May explain. We tried and we tried to go into my 360 to try to dig into some of this and understand we, we can't, we can't get in touch.
Speaker 20: It's not acknowledging our account number or our name or our address. We've made multiple attempts Speaker 18: And I'm not sure would we get any more information, but maybe some of this is there too. Mr. Speaker 1: Sprat, could you come to the podium? Could I bother you? I know you're not prepared for this, but could you, do you know the water rate tiers offhand where they cut off? Because I'm looking online. I don't see it. Speaker 9: I don't, but I could probably pull it up if you needed me to. Speaker 1: Let me just, here we go. I, I have it. I did find it. So tiered billing means the more water you use, the more per unit you're charged. So if you use between, let's say
making these numbers up zero units and 15 units, you're charged one rate for that amount of water. If you use between 15 and 50, you're charged a different rate. The more water you use, the higher the rate goes up. So what ended up happening in this situation is when, when all of it hit at the same time, it looked like you had used all of that water Okay. In that period of time and you were automatically charged the highest rate. So what the board is suggesting is to take what your actual usage was and charge it at the lowest rate
because we have no idea where you were in the tier system. Okay. So the mo there's not a motion made yet, but the discussion is, well there was a motion in a second, but we're still discussing it, is to look at the actual usage for both the, the irrigation and the house usage. And then Mr. Erickson's office will calculate that at the lowest tier and come back or, and, and go ahead and approve because that's what process, Speaker 5: We'll process an abatement at that amount Speaker 1: Process an abatement at that amount. Speaker 5: And keep in mind the usage is from the sale date,
or I believe it was around August 15th to when we read it in February. So that's nearly six months, six months worth of usage. That all got caught up at once to that time. Speaker 1: Okay. So six months, that's definitely gonna be at the highest tier every gallon, right? Speaker 5: Yeah. It's gonna, you're going every gallon right to it really quickly. Yeah. And that's part of the billing system challenge that, that we're gonna troubleshoot a bit more. But that was when, when basically the prior owner didn't pay off that final bill. It, it's a glitch in the system that we need to figure out what, what happened. But basically it didn't continue with the new
until they got paid off. Speaker 1: Thank you. There was a mo Yes, Mr. Evans, we Speaker 4: Just have also a follow up to, to assist them to get registered for my 360 just to make sure that the address and whatever is, you know, moving, moving forward. The, they have an opportunity to track Speaker 1: Their usage. Look Speaker 4: At their usage. Yep. Speaker 5: Yeah, with the, thank you. The updated meter. The reason why we're doing it is that you can actually get almost daily, if not real time. I got Speaker 1: Daily. Yeah. Speaker 5: The prior meter was we'd have to actually drive around town and take it, and you'd only get them monthly.
Speaker 18: The, the, the one other thing we didn't really discuss, thank you for all those explanations. The sewer usage is a, you know, is almost, not quite double, but almost double what the water use and irrigation irrigation use is. And there's no numbers there. It's just the dollar amount. Yep. Speaker 5: Yeah. So the sewer VE calculation is based on water in, so the, the number of units that are in coming into and irrigation is a separate meter.
So we actually do not charge sewer on an irrigation meter. It also has separate rates for the water. But the sewer usage is a separate, it's based on the amount of usage that's brought into the house on the water side and then build at a sewer rate. And that sewer rate is a higher rate than the water rate. And that it's not tiered either, is it? Sorry? Is it tiered? It is tiered as well. So we gotta bring the sewer down to the lowest tier. We're doing everything down to the lowest tier. Lowest. So don't worry about water, sewer, everything's coming down to the lowest tier pending the vote.
But the sewer rate is a higher rate per unit than the water rate. But the units are the same because it's assuming that water goes in that comes out. Speaker 18: Yeah. It looks roughly two and a half times the water to use charge. Speaker 5: Yep. It's, that's charged. We're actually more of a, a pass through. That's what we get charged from MWRA sewer. Okay. So the water at the town actually controls or we handle our own water, but the sewer goes into the MWRA system, which is the system that eventually gets to downtown or the Boston Harbor. Deer Island. Deer Island, Speaker 1: Okay.
Yep. Wherever it goes. Are there any more questions from, from members of the board? That's Speaker 4: A good, Speaker 1: Good description. Which Sydney moved. And Mr. Evans seconded. Ms. Slager seconded. Well, it sounded like a deep voice. I threw my voice Could All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Mr. And Mrs. Potter, somebody from the town administrator's office will be getting in touch with you about the abatement and the My 360. Speaker 18: Okay. Thank you. We appreciate your consideration. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you so much time
and welcome to your new section of Natick. Thank you so much. Thank you Richard. And Selmo, if you could come to the, and just give us a very brief overview. We have your application. Sure. Speaker 21: Okay. I'm just looking at the sewer bill that I got back in April, and it's four times the amount that I usually consume. For years, I've been a Natick resident for 30 plus years, raised three children. They're no longer at home, haven't been for about 10 years. There was no pooling of water in the house.
There was no pooling outside. I I did have most of my explanation in the original appeal, which was denied. And what caught my interest was it was denied because the person said they couldn't really figure out whether or not I'm entitled to an abatement. I'm paraphrasing the words. Yeah, Speaker 1: We have the letter. Okay. Speaker 21: So I, I see a usage here, so this would be a financial disaster for a retiree like myself that's trying to stay in Natick.
But these kind of things are really troubling. I went down to the DPW says, listen, you know, something went sideways here. Folks said, well, is a toilet running? We come up with all kinds of dialogue on where this water may have been used, but at the end of the day, I asked when the last time my equipment was updated and they said, well, it hasn't been updated. And I, I, I've listened to what we've discussed with the previous folks here. What, what caught my interest here order selectman is, is that there's an automatic default on,
while the equipment isn't an issue, my equipment was never updated. It was never replaced, but the assumption was the equipment's working. So I said, listen, can I get somebody out there to mitigate this from happening again in the future? They said, sure. So they got out there, took care of it in short order, which I appreciate very much. I went into 360. I won't, some of the comments from the last person that's in 360, I used to be a program director in IT infrastructure. So I, I understand how these kind of things can happen, but it's very frustrating when all I have for a safety net now is M 360.
I created some alerts, but everything else, like data's not updated. It's, it's, it's a work in process and I'm sitting here looking at a bill that I can't afford to pay. And I am very distraught in terms of what the decision might be here based on what I've heard in the previous call. Speaker 1: Mr. Anselmo, can you tell me what you meant by you can't get data out of the My 360? Yeah, Speaker 21: I have printouts of those. I'd be happy to show you. Yeah, that would be Speaker 1: Good. I said I could because I get daily notifications on mine. Speaker 21: I have all kinds of things that I have for examples that your application is not giving fresh updates.
I went in and did the query, changed it so I could do a little deeper analysis so I could come here more prepared to give you chunks of information. But I think you have all that in front of you in terms of the data. You know, this, this quarter back in January of 2025 was an anomaly. And I'm very concerned that the default is, well the equipment's working, so that water Speaker 1: Well, it's not really the default. They usually test it. So when they came out to replace your, your, I mean this is what they did when they came out to replace my, my meter, I was renovating my kitchen
and we were pulling up the floor. I asked them to come out and move the meter. The sensor that my 360 picks up is on the side of your house. Okay. At least it's on the side of my house. And there were trees that have grown up around it. And so for a couple of days I didn't get a reading and then I got a reading that looked like I had used three times as much. And so when I called DPW the answer was it couldn't read on those days. The trees are growing up around it. I had a trim. That's probably the interference with the signal. And now I get daily updates. Speaker 21: I understand that things happen and I guess that's my point is, is that I am, I'm concerned
that the ownership of this usage is on me to indicate that I didn't use the water. I, I have no pooling in my house. I don't have a pool. You go back and look over 30 years of water bills nowhere near this amount and you mentioned 360. I think that's gonna be very important for me for as long as I remain here in Natick to use that effectively. So this never happens again. But I, I've got printouts of, you know, whether it's roots growing around trees and your situation, I don't know, they just installed 360
for me recently, so I set up the alerts that was working. So that'll, Speaker 1: Have you gotten alerts? No. Okay. Speaker 21: Members of the board, Speaker 5: Madam chair, could Yes. Provide a little bit of additional context. Yes, Speaker 21: That'd be helpful. Speaker 5: Thank you. Sure. So a couple things to note here. One, as noted, the resident expressed concern contacted the DPW department. DPW department went out, confirmed that the then meter was working properly. And when there is no known reason for increased usage
or an elevated usage, the policy of the board does not authorize town administration or the deputy town administrator to do an abatement. So our automatic default is to deny that we need some reason to base an abatement. And when one is not identified by the owner or by staff, then we don't have a a a known reason to do, to process an abatement. Therefore it's automatically denied. And that's the right of the, the rate payer to then appeal it to the select force. So they choose. So that's what's happened in this case. And in the case of, of this, this is also an, an issue whereby the meter was,
the prior meter was working properly, but in the case of going out and seeing it, it's an older meter. So yes, it was replaced with the replacement system that we're doing across town. Again, the updated meters. And this is part of a, a multi-year capital program that you're aware of. So in this case, it's really the pleasure of the board. There's no known issue as to what may have caused this elevated usage. The meters were working properly, the property owner has not identified an an item that town has not been able to identify an item. It's really the, the pleasure of the board in this case. May Speaker 7: I ask a question, Mr. Erickson,
was his meter replaced in February? Speaker 21: No. Speaker 5: Do you know, do you recall when? Speaker 21: Yeah, it was just recently. I would say more recent, the last 30 days. But I actually, I got an email I'll thank maybe give you the, Speaker 5: I believe it was more recent. Okay. Speaker 21: Yeah, Speaker 5: Because the abatement request only came in, Speaker 21: I don't have my glasses in June, but the date's in here, it was in the last four weeks. So I can give it to one of you if you like. Speaker 22: Okay, thank you. Speaker 5: Yeah, the, the project has been ongoing for two years now. Okay. A year now. One year. But it's still gonna continue for the next year.
Plus it's a three year project, so, okay. It's gonna take a while to get through every single house to update all of their meters. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. But then we also use opportunities when we're already going to a place to then take that as an opportunity to update that meter. Speaker 11: Madam Speaker 21: Chair. Yes. Speaker 11: So I was, I'm, I was looking at the history that was attached to the, to the water bill and the usage. It was, you know, monthly between, you know, 20 and 50 and then the May reading was 58,
which is the bill you received. That was so high. Yeah. And we don't have anything since May in our report July. Speaker 21: Oh, thank you. Speaker 11: But what I'm wondering, Speaker 21: Oh, Speaker 11: That's is, is it, is there any possibility that you, have you, I think, have you checked your, your toilets for slow leaks? Speaker 21: Yeah, I, I have, I would say probably six or eight months ago there was one toilet in the house that for some reason I was hearing maybe a two minute,
like it needs to get up to the water level. Right. I changed the equipment like six, eight months ago. Never heard, I still hear it because most toilets do that they refill a little bit. But it hasn't been a consistent theme in my house. Speaker 10: Ms. Algo, thank you. Thanks Mr. Al. Have you been checking to make sure, sure. On my 360, 'cause like my colleague said, we haven't, we don't have any information after the May 1st read date. So are you comfortable that your usage since May 1st is on track to what you've had?
Or are you not really sure? Speaker 21: I'm not sure based on the reports that I'm getting off 360. 'cause it says that reading not available for February, March, April, may, June, July aug all the way to August. Because my understanding is they read the meters once a quarter, once a read 'em every day. Speaker 10: Yeah. They're Speaker 21: Red every day. New meters, they're red every day. Well on 360. But if you don't have no red every, Speaker 10: Yeah. So if you have the new meters, you should be able to get daily usage. Speaker 21: Right. And I do have the new reader
and I, I'm not getting even monthly usage. Nevermind drilling down to daily. Speaker 10: You, you do know that you have to select the meter number. Speaker 21: Yeah, I have two meter numbers. Irrigation and regular. Okay. Alright. Which is an interesting, these are very good questions. I, you know, this is a layered, sending 360 out to folks that are 66 years old and never use technology can be challenging. And I've worked in it for a long time and I find it challenging. I select one and the other and I get no data available. And I'm not trying to belabor this point, I'm just saying,
you know, I'm doing, I'm trying to do my part to ensure that I I use your time in a more efficient way. Yeah. Speaker 10: I'm wondering if maybe the new meters somehow haven't been updated in what you're looking at as data from the older meters. Could that be possible? Speaker 21: I don't know what that process is. They replace it with the new one or do they keep that one and put, just plug in another one in the side? I don't know. Speaker 10: So the reason I'm asking that question is let's say you do continue to have a water leak that, you know, let's say I don't think it is normal for a toilet to keep flushing. Right, right, right. So if you still have that,
you're gonna have your problem when you get your next bill. So I I if I hope that somehow we can give you clarity on what your usage really is. Right. Speaker 21: And that's what I'm hoping 360 will give me. Speaker 11: Yeah. And I was actually wondering, there has been a water bill since may have you, I I mean I just paid one so Speaker 21: Since may schedule. Speaker 4: Yeah, they rotate. They're not all on the same. Speaker 5: The towns in three and three different systems. Yeah, Speaker 11: Well, I mean, so he's got a bill here that was sent out was so, so sent out July 7th for the May reading.
Speaker 5: We won't get one, another one in October. October, October. Speaker 21: And and the previous one to that point was 168 previous to this, this spike. And that's because, you know, winter whatnot, my, I am not using my irrigation. Speaker 5: And, and, and the new water rates went into place on July 1st. Well for the, for the bill leading up to that. So they, they were voted up for that bill. So could be a combination of things that are leading to, Speaker 21: And then that sewage obviously gets priced at a different tier as you use more water. Right. Speaker 5: The water and the sewer. Both different Speaker 21: Water and sewer. Speaker 5: Yep. They all do. Yep. Speaker 4: Mr. Evans.
Yeah, just a couple things. And, and not to belabor the point on the toilet, but what you can do to check that is, is just put, take the top of the tank off. Right. Put a little food coloring in there. Okay. And see if that dissipates. Right. If you, if it's getting diluted right. That means more water's coming in. Right. And you'll be able to see that and it's a slow leaked and, and you should get the toilet checked out. 'cause we don't, you know, want, want to
see this in occur in your next bill. Well, Speaker 21: Absolutely Speaker 4: Not. The other piece that you brought up that I think is worth the board thinking about doing is helping seniors understand my 360 and, and, and getting a, I I'd say a tutorial and, and sort of simplifying how, how to do it, how to get it set up. Maybe find some way to at least guide people through using this who are seniors. Because it seems to be that, that there, there's a fair
amount of population in Natick that could be seeing this problem in the, in the future where they're, they're older persons, they don't understand technology or, or are intimidated by it. And let's make it less intimidated somehow. Speaker 1: Maybe we do that. And I wouldn't say that it was just for seniors, but maybe we do a tutorial at the community senior center, do a couple of 'em a year and invite the public to do more awareness.
Speaker 21: And I would be happy, more than happy to, to help in that endeavor in terms of documenting nice little slides. It doesn't need to be rocket science, but I'd be happy to help in participate in that, in that endeavor if that's something you're thinking of doing. Speaker 1: Sure. Alright. Ms. Wilger? Speaker 10: Yes. Thank you for that idea Mr. Evans. I think it's a great idea. I don't think the, the user interface, the UI for that application is very good. It is not straightforward. So I think it is more bold. Yeah. Yeah. We, yeah, we, we we get it and it's, I I think I can see it would be difficult for,
you know, people to not, not saying for you Speaker 21: But for other people. Yeah. I, I, Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 10: It would be diff may be difficult for them to figure out how to use it. So I well, Speaker 21: Well if we waited to release something that was perfect, we'd be still waiting. So technology is just that way. We need to release it and prove it as we go. It's an IT process. I understand that. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 10: You're talking our language. Speaker 4: You are. Exactly. Speaker 1: Any other comments or questions from the board? Speaker 11: Moving abatement amount of $640 and 44 cents. Speaker 10: Second Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Ms. Slager.
All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? It's 5 0 0. Thank you so much for coming out. The town administrator's office will be in touch with you about how to process that abatement. Alright. Speaker 21: Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate the work you people out. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: Next item up, public hearing consideration of accepting Graystone Lane as a public way. Madam Speaker 11: Chairman, may I have two minutes? Speaker 1: Yes. Let's just take a two minute break and we'll be right back. And we're back. Public hearing consideration of accepting Graystone Lane as a public way. Madam Clerk?
Speaker 7: Yes. The select board of the town of Natick, Massachusetts will hold a public hearing on August 20th, 2025 at 6:00 PM in the Edward Dott meeting room in accordance with the pro provisions of the general laws of Massachusetts chapter 79 and 82 and chapter 2 71 of the acts of 2016. And consider to consider the laying out and acceptance of the following as public ways Graystone Lane as shown on the plans on file with the Department of Public Works to determine whether it is in the public interest to accept this road as a public way
and to hear all persons interested in the acceptance of sway. A copy of the plans on file with the on file with the Department of Public Works. The virtual meeting link will be found in the post-it agenda on nat.gov. Speaker 1: Need a motion to open the public hearing? So Speaker 11: Moved. Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Mr. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Public hearing is open. Mr. McDowell, Speaker 23: Madam Chair. Thank you. And members of the board Bill McDowell, town engineer The board may recall that Graystone Lane was originally on the fall town meeting Article 18.
During the process of recording that it was discovered that a public hearing as we are having right now properly advertised and mailed a public hearing had not been held. So in this particular case, we are now holding that public hearing for Graystone Lane. The condition of the road has not changed. The original subdivision was approved in 2018 and completed in 2023. The developer had requested that the road be accepted as a public way. All of the deeds within the subdivision exclude the public way. Fee interest is re is retained by trash enterprises.
So there's no damages associated with this. This is being granted to the town. Our recommendation from the D PWS that we were there, we saw the in installation of all the utilities and they were put in according to DPW standards. So we would respectfully recommend that Graystone Lane be accepted as a public way. Speaker 1: Since we've already heard this and voted to do it, we can just take a motion to move Speaker 23: To accept. Speaker 7: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Evans, seconded by Ms. Pope. Speaker 5: Just, just briefly, the, you'll see on another item in the agenda for sponsorship for town meetings.
So we do have to go back through that process as well. Speaker 1: All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes. 5 0 0 second opposed the public Speaker 11: Hearing. Speaker 1: Second. Moved by Mr. Sydney. Second. Yes. Speaker 11: Actually, before we close the public hearing, you do have to ask the public if they Speaker 1: Have any. Thank you. Mr. Sydney. Does the public, does anyone in the public have any comments or questions with regard to what we just did? Speaker 11: Move to close. Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: Seeing none, I have a motion to close and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Public hearing is closed. Madam Clerk,
Speaker 7: The Select Board of the Town of Natick, Massachusetts will hold a public hearing on August 20th, 2025 at 6:00 PM in the Edwards lot meeting room in accordance with the provisions of general laws of Massachusetts chapter 79 and 82 and chapter 2 71 of the acts of 2016, to consider the laying out and acceptance of the following as public ways. Jennifer Circle as shown on the plans on the file with the Department of Public Works to determine whether it is in the public interest to accept these road, this road as public ways, as a public way. And to hear all persons interested in the
acceptance of said way. A copy of the plans on file with the Department of Public Works. The virtual meeting link may be found on the posted agenda on natick ma.gov and I move to open the public hearing. Second, Speaker 1: Moved by Ms. Pope, seconded by Mr. Sidney. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0 0. Mr. McDowell, Speaker 23: Madam Chair, members of the board. Thank you Bill McDowell, town engineer Jennifer Circle. You may recall you had a meeting on April
of 2025 regarding a street acceptance evaluation report. Our recommendation at that time was that we did consider Jennifer Circle to be a candidate that was advantageous to the, to the town to accept as a public way. In this particular case, Jennifer Circle is available for the accelerated street acceptance process, which allows us to use the original subdivision plan for the acceptance. We still do have to hold this public hearing in accordance with Mass General Law, which is why we're fundamentally the same process for Graystone Lane.
However, Graystone Lane, I know you guys had seen and approved before and had gone through town meeting, we still recommend that Jennifer Circle is an advantageous candidate to be accepted as a public way in the town of Natick to be added to our roadway inventory and to add to our ability to collect Chapter 91 from the state. I'm willing to take any questions. I was not here personally when Jennifer Circle was built. It was approved in 1990. However, I do know that we have records in the engineering division of when it was constructed and that it was inspected and that all of the utilities under the utilities, including the drainage, was inspected when it was installed
and did meet DPW standards at the time. Speaker 1: Questions or comments from the board? Any questions or comments from members of the public? Seeing none, I'll take a motion. Move to Speaker 2: Approve Ion Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Evans. Seconded by, I mean moved by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. A Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0. Motion to Speaker 2: Close the public hearing. Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sydney. Second. Seconded by Ms. Ger. All in favor, please say aye. A. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you so much Mr. McDowell. Thank you Ms. Sugarman.
Next item on the agenda is Cannabis Control Commissions social consumption regulations. Saw her online. Yes, she is. Speaker 2: Oops. Speaker 24: Hello? Can you hear me okay? Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 24: Great. Thanks. I'm trying to turn my video. I don't know that the video is enabled, but, oh, there we go. Hello. How's everyone doing this evening? Thank you. Great. So for the public, my name is Katie Sugarman. I'm the Prevention and Outreach Program Manager for the Natick Health Department. I just wanted to bring to the board's attention some
regulatory changes that are happening at the state level by the Cannabis Control Commission. As I mentioned in the email that I sent to the board last week, there is a process that's been underway at the Cannabis Control Commission for a period of several months now to develop regulations for social consumption. So these would be, these regulations would allow local communities to opt in if they so chose to, to actually allow licensing for social consumption.
There are three different types of licenses that have been approved by the CCC, however, the language that has been developed by the CCC is now open for public comment. And so, Mr. Erickson, Mr. Evans, chief Hickson, myself, have been, have had a couple of meetings this summer, including one with the chair of the CCC to get a little bit more information about these regulations. And we wanted to make sure that the board was looped in on the current state
of those regulations. The public comment period on the, on the regulations are currently open for public comment. And the, there will be a public hearing held on September 8th, and that will also be the cutoff date for public comment. So any members of the public who would like to comment on these regulations are certainly welcome to. But if the municipality or if this board wanted to submit comment, this would also be the opportunity to do so. So I don't know if E Mr. Erickson wanted to add anything to
that or if you wanted me to get into a little bit more specifics about the three types of licenses that are on the table for consideration by municipalities. But happy to answer whatever questions I can. Speaker 5: Yeah, part of this was just to bring the board up to speed and the public up to speed on this new type of cannabis adult use cannabis sort of option, I guess, that the Cannabis Control Commission is putting out there for communities. If you recall from when the, when cannabis just adult use cannabis became an option
for communities, the, you had to actually vote to opt out if your community had voted in the election back in 2016 for cannabis. And Natick had voted for in favor of cannabis. I think it was like a 54 to 46 vote at the time. So the town would've had to opt out the town at that time. The select board indicated the, the desire and then we eventually brought it forward to actually regulate cannabis, which is why we have the zoning in place. And we have a, a bylaw in place that basically makes the select board the licensing
authority on annual basis as well. This is a bit different, it's actually opting in, but we know that the board is gonna potentially hear more about this. We want to get ahead of that dialogue one, just because we want to be able to provide comment to the Cannabis control commission as one of, I would argue, you know, there's a handful of communities in the state. We're not necessarily the leader, but we're definitely up there in one of the, one of the, the communities in the state that, that put in place zoning, you know, ahead of other communities. Not the first one, but, you know, we're in the second or third round. And so we just wanna make sure the board is aware of this. We're gonna provide comment regardless
to the state about the, the social consumption. But this may be something coming down the line that the board will be asked to, to consider. Or if the board doesn't have to be today, we just want you to make aware of it today. But in the board coming in the coming weeks or months, want the community to consider. We have to think about that. 'cause there is, you know, it's, it's an election, not election. It's a, it's a town wide ballot vote, vote ballot. I believe it's a ballot vote Ballot. Yeah. Yep. Speaker 11: Yep. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 11: Thank you Madam Chair. So as I understand it, this is basically like a cannabis bar, right? That's the kind of
Speaker 5: Pretty much, it could be food product as well. There's a lot of different ways for doing it. And as Katie mentioned, there's three different licenses that are part of this. Katie, without going more than like two seconds, you know, elevator type moment, can you just explain the three licenses? Speaker 24: Sure. So the supplemental license would be potentially granted to an existing cannabis operator. So somebody who's already licensed by the CCC and approved locally to sell cannabis. So supplemental would be adding onto their business. So it could be sort of like a, a bar so to speak,
added onto their business for cannabis consumption. Another one would be a marijuana event organizers. So that would again be for a business that is already approved to either it's already approved to sell or produce or deliver cannabis in some way. And that would be for special events. So that could be like a temporary, like a temporary permit. And then the third one hospitality would be for a non-cannabis related business to essentially get approval to host events.
So an example might be a yoga studio that wants to provide edibles as part of a special event that they're doing. So those are essentially the three different types. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Sugarman, are there any other questions from members of the board? Speaker 5: Depending on where these regulations go, 'cause they're not fully in in place. We may be back before the board at a future time seeking just potentially further guidance from the board. But again, this is something that, that could be a topic of conversation coming in the pipeline in the community. We know in some communities it's, it's, it's a hotter topic of conversation. So, okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Sugarman. Speaker 5: Thank you Katie. Thank you Speaker 1: Consideration of select board sponsorship of 2025 Fall town meeting warrant articles, first two Boden Lane right of way and the Jennifer Circle and Grace Stone Lane Street acceptance. So let's start with the Boden Lane right of way, Mr. Erickson. Speaker 5: Sure. Thank you. And we're still trying to exactly get from legal counsel the process here. So Boden Lane, this is regarding the right of way that's over the MBTA tracks basically from Route 1 35 to the intersection with Tamarack and Burning Tree.
That right of way, well all of Bode Lane was accepted back in the 17 hundreds. However, that stretch of right away has been impacted through the years railroad went in, there's now a bridge. So in essence what we need to figure out, and this is actually coming as a request or requirement from Mass DOT, if you recall, Boden Lane was actually brought out of service as a full on, it was a one lane road bridge, it was hit by a train is my understanding.
And therefore it was no longer able for a auto use. And so Mass DOT is committed and the state is committed to replacing it for, for similar purpose that it was previously at no cost to the town. However, because the right of way is has this very long history, they still need to confirm the ownership of the right of way. So what we're trying to figure out with care and legal counsel is what does that actually mean? In the case of this stretch of Boden Lane, we, we know that it was accepted at some point in the 17 hundreds. We also know that at some point in the 18 hundreds the
railroad went in and they put a bridge over it. It might not be exactly what the 17 hundreds noted 'cause that's more words versus a plan. But then we also know that there's all these parcels in including subdivisions that were built in the fifties and sixties and eighties. And that go up to a point that's noted as Boden Lane. And so we can piece together what is Boden Lane based on all those other plans, but we need to figure out the mass DOT needs something more than that from the town. So we're trying to work through what that actually means for the town. And I know Bill has more to say potentially to that. So go up to the mic bill and in essence legal counsel is
saying, well maybe, maybe we do a confirmatory right of way plan or maybe we do a confirmatory action like a street acceptance that we're doing for Jennifer Circle or Graystone. Bill, do you wanna add to Speaker 23: That? Yeah, I just found out literally quarter of six today we got a response from Mass DOT that a confirmatory layout. Basically the select board would sign a plan that says there are no new lines or ways created, but it formalizes that layout that is now Bowden Lane that we cannot find a document, either a deed or a plan that created that. However, everything agrees, as Mr. Erickson said,
we have a shape that is everything other than Den Wayne and all the, the select board has to do is just confirm that layout that's adequate to DOT. That's Speaker 5: Adequate. Okay. That's new news as of, Speaker 23: So don't need, we don't need to take that one through. Okay. As far as the warrant article, the other Warren articles, Jennifer Circle and Gray Stone stand Speaker 5: Should have stopped me earlier. I could have stopped that whole explanation. I'm just kidding. You now have the history so that when we bring the plan back, you know what the history is, but there was the option that we needed to have a warrant article in this case. So we put it on for the consideration, but according to that knowledge,
we don't need a warrant article. If something changes between now and the end of day Thursday, you may see a warrant article added that maybe is sponsored by the town administrator for example. Because I think we just wanna run this determination by Caris to make sure she's in agreement with that. Okay. So no need for the board to act on this now, but be aware that it might be a town administrator sponsored one depending on what Caris says. But this what Bill just mentioned actually makes it a lot easier. Speaker 1: Does that mean we won't have to do any takings? Speaker 5: There's no takings in any of this, regardless of the process. Okay. We were clarify,
we were contemplating doing a confirm what's called a confirmatory taking, which just means that we're confirming that we own the, that we have it and it would've been a way to clear title in the registry of deeds, but we're hoping that we don't even need to do that. Awesome. Yeah, so there's no takings as part of any of this really. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Warren article, Jennifer Circle and Graystone Lane Street acceptance. Speaker 5: So I'll just briefly say those would be two separate warrant articles. Yes. One for each, but it's just basically what you just voted on and the public hearings and putting those as warrant articles. And we have that language
for street acceptance warrant articles move, we put them on the warrant. Speaker 1: Second. Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Done. Mr. Sprat, before you leave, I just had a question. Who should, if somebody's having difficulty with na, I mean with the My 360, who should they call at DPW? Speaker 9: Call the main number and we'll get you likely to Tony Kamo supervisors for water. I was actively listening and we'll do some sort of a tutorial even if
that stays online for now and then we can do something else. But Speaker 1: That sounds great. Speaker 5: I was also contemp, maybe this is a NAIC 1 0 1 topic and then there's a video of it that then can be That's Speaker 1: A great idea. That's a great idea too. A great idea. Absolutely. Speaker 2: Cool. Speaker 5: Or some type of similar type of video that Sure. Speaker 1: And we can put it online. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. I wanted to catch you before you ran out. No problem. Thanks Speaker 5: Guys. Out now run. Speaker 1: Now run. Go Warren article establishment of high hybrid town meeting committee. Speaker 5: Cross that bridge. Yep, you're good. Speaker 1: Thanks Jeff. Come on up. Mr.
Alderon Town Moderator is here. Speaker 25: Thank you Madam Chair and select board. Jeff Alderson, your town moderator. So I had proposed a language for a select board to put a article in the warrant to start what will probably be a relatively lengthy involved and very public process for evaluating, potentially establishing a hybrid town meeting option for town meeting members. Just a little context in history, I, after the conclusion of Spring Town meeting this year, in a, in a spirit of continuous improvement,
I pulled the existing town meeting members in an informal survey. I had 50 respondents out of all of our currently seated members. And the, the vast majority of those that responded said that if hybrid town meeting were an option, they might take advantage of it. And then when asked a follow up question, under what circumstances would you take advantage of it and why would be valuable to you? There was a litany of different, different options. Some, the most obvious of which were, if I had a medical issue and could not attend in person, I still wanna be a part of the town. And when I saw that, I said, well, those are some pretty committed people that want to,
you know, continue to vote even if they're on their sick bed or recovering from knee surgery or other examples they gave. Other examples were business travel, time management, you know, dealing with family emergencies, kids travel, things like that. You may be aware that there's discussion happening, you know, with, with the state legislature about the, the ability for open town meetings to have the ability to be run in a hybrid. But for our purposes as a representative town meeting, we have the option to do so. We just have to review our bylaws, look at our technology,
create the plan and the, the guiding documents to, you know, sort of give us the rules of, of how we're going to execute upon that. Also, it takes a little bit of willingness and I, from the top, and I tell you as your moderator, I am willing to embark on such a project. And, and I do feel that one of the, I didn't campaign against many people, but I did, but part of my campaign pledge to to, to voters and I was talking about even beginning running as a moderator, was really looking and investigating this, this as an option to increase the democratic process for the town of Natick. The language that you see there, just to, just
to point out in the attachment that was included, the proposed warrant article language is just above the line. It's just that pithy that ends or any action there too. The what's proposed below that is a potential motion since I proposed the, the, the motion text via email in that attachment. I've also had a conversation with Randy Natick Pegasus. He said he'd be more than happy to participate on such a committee. He didn't care who appointed him. So, so my little note about it, I dunno who the appointing authority is, he says, you know, Jeff, if you want to do that, that's fine, I'll do it. Or someone else from his team, he's happy to. There is a note also in the, in the draft motion,
like I'm not sure if funding is required for this group. It may very well be that they need some sort of funding to, to, if, if such a committee were to exist, I don't know necessarily the block blocking tackling where, where that funding would come from. I do believe though, if this were on the, on the warrant for the fall, likely sun funding source might be free cash from, from the fall. But we can, the motion text would, would explicitly say the amounts and sources which have not been discussed, that is a draft motion. It does not need to be included in the warrant. Obviously I'm happy to answer any other questions, but this is really just to start the process and just to explain what the process might be.
If this article goes in front of fall town meeting and the committee is established, the likely next steps after that is they would start to meet relatively immediately to try to prepare some sort of report or recommendations for the SPRINGTOWN meeting. And at the SPRINGTOWN meeting, whatever those actions are that we take at SPRINGTOWN meeting, we would then start the process of potentially reviewing and engaging vendors, updating policies and documents. If there are bylaw changes that are required for the town to adopt a hybrid town meeting, that would probably be also part of the proposal for the spring 2026 town meeting.
We would engage with vendors, find quotes, what have you, but probably, and and if there's a budget amount that's also approved at springtown meeting, we could actually engage with a vendor. The earliest that we could pilot something would be fall 2026. And that's pushing it. I don't think it would actually happen earlier than that. Just to give you a sense of what process this kicks in motion, if we decide to start this journey. Speaker 1: What your question, I had a question. So I'm wondering if maybe the funding could be moving $30,000 out of the CR BBC's special council budget since they have
68,000 left. Speaker 25: My understanding is that with the fall town meeting, the RCS act duties are concluded and they'll be returning monies. I don't actually know the process, like when a committee releases funds, where that goes and if it just goes into free cash. And so by identifying the source here as free cash, I think it's, you know, tomato, it's sort of gets the job done. I do know that they're gonna be returning the vast majority of that dollar amount and I there's no way that a hybrid town meeting would ask for anywhere near that amount. 30,000 sounds fine. Speaker 1: I was just picking a number. A number. Speaker 25: Sure. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Sidney.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so a a couple of things. I don't have a problem. I I wanna start by saying I don't have a problem with this idea, but I will say it is a legislative process. You can put a warrant article on yourself, you don't need us to do it. I suppose I'd be happy enough to co-sponsor, but I would in, in my opinion, because I said on both town meeting and on the executive board, I think this should be sponsored by you and I think you should be the appointing authority. That's just my opinion of this because it's, this is a purely legislative
process, my opinion. Ms. Speaker 25: Charleson, if, if I may just, just respond briefly to one thing. I think part of the, we're seeing in terms of the draft of the motion, which is draft and we can absolutely incorporate that feedback into the motion regarding the, the composition and the appointments because it involves such a cross-functional team of people to execute town meeting, including people from the administration, folks from Natick, Pegasus, folks from the clerk's office, which is no longer elected. It's now a, a hired position from the town.
That's why I felt it was as important that the select board had a say in some of the appointments. Yeah, Speaker 11: I don't have a problem with that either. I'm just saying I think you should be the appointing authority since this is a legislative process we're talking about. We should, I I I like to keep, I personally like to keep a really bright line between those, those roles. Speaker 25: I take it Speaker 1: Members of the board comments, Ms. Slager? Speaker 10: Sorry. Yeah, my, my no, it's okay. My initial reaction was the same as as Mr. Sidney's, but I, I think I,
I can see the logic be behind Mr. Alderson argument about why maybe the select word and it also would make things much easier for you at town meeting because then he could still preside over the article. It wouldn't have to recuse himself. So, but I think we need to be really clear if we are the sponsors that, you know, this is not us trying to step on the legislative toes and that, you know, we're doing it because it involves the town clerk is a town employee that, you know, I agree with Mr. Sidney, maybe we don't need to appoint anything. Maybe it's the moderator that appoints the entire committee.
I don't think we should be involved with that, but I would be willing to, to be the sponsor for it just because it does make things easier. And, and for the all the good reasons that you mentioned and Speaker 25: For the exact reason you stated, that was my intent in asking the select board to sponsor the article, Speaker 1: Ms. Pope, Speaker 7: I would be in support of this 100%. I mean, many of the things that I ran on was about accessibility to government and, you know, during the pandemic, this was something that, you know, wasn't, it wasn't really an option. It was needed, it was needed for mothers and,
and parents with children and people who wanted to be involved. And we have been, you know, trying, I I feel like talking about the many, many ways we could make our meetings more accessible. This is a way to do it. And so I'm on board with this 150%. And so if, you know, and I agree with you Mr. Sidney about, you know, kind of the, how we do this. I'm, I'm, you know, very mindful of that and kind of the, the the methodology, the methodology behind it and our approach. But I'm absolutely on board. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 11: Yeah, I, a couple
of things in there completely separate from each other. One is in the article itself because there's a funding request, we don't know how much it is yet, but I think the scope of the warrant article has to include a request for funds and to see what funds the town will appropriate should be in the text of the warrant article. I agree. So amend that however needs to be amended. I'm, I'm gonna repeat what I said. I'm willing to, I'm willing as a board member to co-sponsor, I do think that the town moderator should be at least a co-sponsor on this. He can still present.
Speaker 26: Yeah, but Speaker 1: What, what is your thinking, Mr. Sidney? That, Speaker 11: So it's, it's just that bright line. Like if, if, if the select board is the sole sponsor of an article about hybrid town meeting and yes. Accessibility and all that stuff is important. It looks like it, it just, the appearance of encroaching on the legislative process. I, I just want the, you know, I want it to be apparent that there's a cooperation between the town moderators, the head of the legislature and,
and the select board as the executive body. Speaker 7: I mean, I could agree with that in terms of collaboration between the two, the collaborative for forward progress. Speaker 1: Do you have any thoughts on that, Mr. Mr. Evans? Speaker 4: I'm torn because I, I recognize Mr. Sidney's point of the co-sponsorship, but on the other hand, if we make the moderator the sole appointing authority for all, everything on this committee, it, it kind of puts the control back in the moderator's hands.
So I could go either Speaker 11: Way. Well, I, I was talking about the sponsorship of the article. I Speaker 4: Understand what you were saying Speaker 11: And, and we could, he, the, the makeup of the committee could be he appoints everybody, but the select board appoints one person or something. Speaker 4: I understand that. I Speaker 1: Understand. I think it's fine for the moderator to point everyone on that committee Speaker 11: Agree. Yeah, I do too, but just like Speaker 1: FinCon Speaker 11: Just like, but I'm really talking about sponsorship here. Speaker 1: Okay, so we all agree that he, that we would, the preference from the select board is that the moderator appoint all of the Yes, yes. Okay. So we're all in agreement there. Speaker 10: We're still the, Speaker 1: We're still talking about sponsorship.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I, I feel like I agree with you in, in principle, but I think that if we're very clear about the rationale about why the select board is, is being the sponsor as opposed to the moderator and that, you know, if the moderator is willing, let's say, to go before the finance committee and put something in writing that says, you know, as a courtesy the select board is agreeing to sponsor this Speaker 1: And that he asked us to do Speaker 10: That and that he asked us to do it, then I Speaker 1: Think that goes a long way Speaker 10: If that is actually documented and in writing and if I'll put it on the moderator to make sure that
that goes in the book. So yeah. If, if it's Speaker 11: Spoken like a fin comm chair. Well, I, I just, I just remember hearing, you know, and I've been on town meeting 20 years now and there's always that subset of people that are gonna stand up and, and complain because, you know, we're stepping on legislative toes and I just wanna avoid that. There's Speaker 1: No way to avoid that. There's no way to avoid it's gonna happen. What we're going to do though is Speaker 25: If I, if I may, I, I do appreciate the delineation. In fact, my predecessor made it very clear to always look for those opportunities to make that line even brighter
with my sharpie when I could. But what I'll say is, functionally speaking, the, forming the committee, I think the, the spending of funds at this committee is probably the biggest thing that would happen in this fall. The committee, the committee will make its own recommendations. It'll have to be, also have to be voted in front of the legislative body in front of town meeting, whether it's a bylaw change, a handbook change adopting, you'll, you'll see other recommendations from a separate article from CBRC about adopting town meeting time version four or addition four, which has commentary about how to run a hybrid town meeting. So you're gonna see other things put in front of town meeting that come through the legislative process.
I'm confident that there's no thumb on the scale either way related to that. Partly as I, I also do my primary videos when I interview sponsors of article or articles and talking to myself is gonna be a very interesting proposition unless there's someone I'd like to have sitting next to me talking about what the implications are for town government overall. I think part of, part of this, it's, it's not unilaterally, yes, town meaning itself is a legislative body, but we don't execute without partnership and collaboration. I think that that's the point. I'm happy to co-sponsor it.
I I have talked with other town moderators and other towns related to how they handle this. And part of the issue is that if, if I am sponsoring the article at town meeting also look not a, not a, a perception versus reality thing, there might be a perception that I personally have a thumb on the scale and the outcome because I want it to go a certain way. Therefore my personal sponsoring, it means it goes a certain way. That's not what would happen of course, but that's just another, Speaker 5: It's a Speaker 25: Perception. That's the other, the other side of that coin. And also someone may, someone from the public or anyone would say, why, you know, why are you speaking
to this issue on the floor of town meeting as the moderator, I may need to speak on the floor of town meeting on this topic because somebody asked a question. If we had a hybrid meeting, if we did this, how would you know, how would the moderator, you know, act or, or handle a certain issue or something. This would gimme the flex. I think the most flexibility to be a participant in the process of, of the appointment of the committee and getting it through town meeting in terms of not just this town meeting, but all the subsequent ones. It's just the, it's just the kickstart of the process. But I'm, I'm happy to go any other direction.
Speaker 1: I'll take a motion. Speaker 11: I move, we co-sponsor and with the, with the amendment to appropriate, allow the appropriation of funds. Speaker 1: Understood. Speaker 4: I'm good with that. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0 0. Yeah, thank you Mr. Anderson. Thank Speaker 11: You. With that amendment. So Speaker 1: Yes, with the amendment it passes with the amendment and adding the, in the, in the warrant article, adding about the, the funding language. Speaker 25: Thank you. I'll be in touch about
the changes. Thanks. Thank Speaker 5: You. If I may ask, while Jeff is here, just the logistical question, what do, what is, what do you feel is needed to understand what potential budget, like do you have an amount in mind we can talk off as well? I Speaker 25: Just didn't know. I outline the, the components of it and if you'll notice the way it's, it was written in the draft of the motion itself. There were some components that, that I, that I enumerated there. Part of it's public outreach in this case. It's not just the audience, it's not just the members we have now, it's the members we don't yet have because this is not an option.
So I do believe there should be some sort of public outreach or campaign, whether that's working with Jay in your office in terms of what that looks like, flash votes, things like that. I don't know if there's a cost with that. Maybe that's just infrastructure we have. Yeah, I do believe that there's probably going to be, and this the perennial favor, there may be a special council or a need for council to review bylaw changes or to look at, 'cause this might, this committee may draft a series of bylaw changes or a series of handbook changes. We haven't looked at the, the town meeting handbook since 20, Speaker 11: About five Speaker 25: Years ago.
About five years ago. And this would require an update to that. And, and there there's, there's things that would, that would, that would knock on, that might require counsel. Speaker 5: That's helpful to know. I I think further conversation maybe between you and town administration with Jay and some others, we can figure out what Speaker 25: Certainly before we put the motion in front of finance committee. Yeah. Yep. Speaker 11: Exactly. Yeah. And, and just one other suggestion for at least a source of potential numbers. When we were in COVID, we were running hybrid town meetings with option technology. So if the, if that technology costs more than what we have
now, that would be an indicator of, of at least a baseline of, Speaker 5: Yeah. My, my question wasn't about cost of implementing whatever the recommendation is. My question was more Okay, what does this committee think they might need in consultant? This Speaker 25: Is for the operations of the committee. Like the CV RRC has Speaker 5: A budget. Okay. That Speaker 25: Yeah, they would come up with a recommendation for a budget for technology vendor. Speaker 5: Yeah, I just don't wanna get to like the fin comm meeting. Just have a right, not like nothing there, but I just wanna understand what the number, what you're thinking was for, for that potential number. It might, it might, might be that when we talk through it,
we can actually probably do a good chunk of the stuff with existing resources. Speaker 25: Great. Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Discuss Metro West. Oh, I'm sorry. We have two more Warren articles and our town clerk is here with us. Warren article, revise and amend bylaw article 50, section 16 point 15 and acceptance of MGL chapter 41, section one 10 A. Mr. Gore, Speaker 27: Good evening. Thanks for having me. Andrew Gore, your town clerk and I'm here before you today to ask for consideration
regarding Article 50. Just a little bit background, article 50 is actually a police department bylaw and it has all the police functions in there. And as such I've actually met with Chief Hicks to talk to him about this, about this warrant article change. And he was very ecstatic and, and onboard to remove the kennel and dog license fees altogether from Article 50 and designate them for approval by the select board. So I did confer and speak to Chief Hicks. He's on board since it is his bylaw,
and I hope to move forward with this. I happy to ask, answer any questions. Speaker 5: It's pretty straightforward. It's just to remove the fees from the bylaw and then have basically the select board set those fees. It's very common with other sections. It's actually, I think, a, a, a a goal of, even in my, some of my discussions with like the charter and bylaw review committee, it was something that came up during that as a, as a good practice. But to do it all at once was just to cumbersome and challenging. So this is start of the piecemeal process to do it. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments? No. I'll take motion.
Speaker 11: Move approval. Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0 acceptance of Mass General Law, chapter 41, section one 10 A. Speaker 27: So this statute in mass general laws would allow the town clerk's office to remain closed on Saturdays proceeding any election as it stands right now, the last day to register to vote always falls on a Saturday. And thus we are required to remain open for voter registration drives from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM During the past three elections
that I have administered and, and, and my team has, we've seen very minimal flow of traffic in our offices and no one has taken advantage of that. People can register to vote through the secretary's portal online at SEC State ma us and they can also register in via the form that at all public buildings and facilities. So there's a, a plethora of different avenues to register to vote. And this is, this has just been a cost and overtime for the town. So I hope to eliminate this to render some savings
for the town and to, you know, preserve staff time for time of need. Happy to answer any questions. Speaker 10: Ms. So would this apply town wide? Speaker 27: So my understanding is this would, this would be accepted by the town, so it would be town wide, however, it would only relate to elections. So anything in the election world last day to register to vote, that sort of thing. If there is a meeting to be held on a Saturday, that would not impact the ability to conduct such meeting. This provision would only render the last business day
before an election to be Friday at 5:00 PM rather than Saturday at 5:00 PM Speaker 10: So this only applies to elections. I mean, I'm, I'm just confused about the wording of, of the article. Speaker 27: So I've, I've spoken to other clerks and this has not had any impact to their ability to conduct business as usual on Saturdays if need be. It just, it does allow the town to close from time to time. So if the town does wanna open, they have the ability to do so. However, for our purposes, this would allow the clerk's office to remain closed on Saturday proceeding
the, the last day to register. Speaker 10: All right. But, but if something is open, does that mean that anyone that is working receives holiday pay? Which might be more, Speaker 5: No, I mean perhaps, perhaps the language in the article could remove to make Saturday a holiday in the town of Natick. Can we, for example, Andrew, the current article language says to see if the town will vote to accept provisions of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 41, section one 10 A to make Saturday a holiday in the town of Natick. What if we just end it after section one 10 A and end the article there and then it's really up to,
because section one 10 A is office hours on Saturday and it says any public office in any town may remain closed on any or all Saturdays, as may be determined from time to time subject to the provisions of the city charter or town by vote of the town at a special or regular town meeting. And the provisions of section nine, chapter four shall apply in the case of such closings of any such office on any Saturday to the same extent as if Saturday were a legal holiday. And I believe that's that reference to elections.
So in essence, right now, since we have not adopted this, the clerk's office during election time has to be open on Saturdays by adopting or by accepting this section, we then they don't have to be open, but it does not impact, I mean, right now per union contracts, per other contracts, we, we have to pay overtime anyway, but, Speaker 10: But holiday pay may be Speaker 5: Different. Holiday pay is different because holiday pay on those designated holidays, those 11 or 12 holiday or we have to 12, no, 12 holidays a year. Right. Speaker 10: But if we, if we're now considering Saturday a holiday,
that's what I was a little confused about that, that, Speaker 5: So I think that language in the article can be removed. So it's just related to, do you, do you under, do you see where we're looking at, Andrew? I wanna make sure you're understanding. I do, yes. Okay. So if we just remove that to make Saturday a holiday in the town of Natick from the article. And the article is just to adopt, to, to vote, adopt to see if the town will vote to accept the provisions of MGL 41, section one 10 a period. Speaker 10: Yeah. So, so we're, we're clear though that by accepting that, that it won't have any impact other than on the town clerk's office. Speaker 5: Correct? I have talked to Caris about this.
That's her understanding as well. One question did come up is could then Saturday, does that impact the ability for boards and committees to have meetings on Saturdays? Which our understanding is that it does not. That was just one question that did come up. Not that we have 'em regularly, but they do occur. So our understanding is that it only applies I, we've the Kirk's office. Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, like, let's say we wanted to have town meeting on a Saturday for some reason. Would that be a problem? Speaker 5: Our understanding is it would not, but that is a question that has come up, correct. Speaker 11: Mr. Sydney? Yeah, so I, I looked up, excuse me, chapter 41, section one 10 A
and AI gave me an interesting comment and I think it just needs some research. I don't think it affects our putting the article on the, on the warrant, but it says that the, the, what the AI says is that if Saturday's a deadline day and the office is closed and the deadline moves to the next business day, which would be the Monday, not the doesn't back up to Friday, it goes forward to Monday. I don't think that's stops us from putting it, putting the article on, but I think that does require a little research on the part of Carris, probably Carris
Speaker 1: Or somebody at her firm. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 7: And this also doesn't preclude them from being open on Saturday if need be. This, is this, is this an exemption to having to be No, Speaker 5: There's a requirement during the election period for them to be open for purposes of, of voter registra registration, right. Voter registration, Speaker 27: Last data register, yes. Speaker 5: Yeah, on that, whatever that last, I forgot what the language is in the law, but it's like, it basically makes it so that it's the Saturday, even when town hall's not even open on Saturday. And so this would just make it be Friday.
But for anything else they could choose to be open on a Saturday. Absolutely. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 5: I, I don't see that happening very often, but I can see that's a possibility. I mean, I guess any town office could theoretically, other than our obviously public safety buildings and offices, which are open 24 7. Speaker 1: Are there any other questions or comments? I'll take a motion. Speaker 11: Move to approve putting this on the, on the warrant. Speaker 7: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Ms. Pope. All in favor, please say aye. A aye. Any opposed? Speaker 5: Move Just for, just for confirmation, we'll just remove that to make Saturday holiday that's out of Natick
from the warrant article. And then that'll be what goes on the, on the warrant sponsored by the select board. Speaker 11: Yeah, and I just, I comment, you know, if this does pass, I would strongly urge signage for people who might be paying attention to state advertisements about registering to vote some signage in advance about how to register on the Saturday. Speaker 27: Absolutely. We'll be sure to put that in our political calendar and advertise it very well. Yeah. Speaker 5: If Speaker 27: It, if it Speaker 5: Does best. I think Andrew indicated that even with the national election, you had what,
two people come into the building on that Saturday. Speaker 11: Yeah, but those two people last three Yeah, they weren't even, and that's fine. Those two people, if we want them to vote, which we do Well, Speaker 5: One of 'em is already registered. They just happen to be in the billing. Yeah, Speaker 11: But I mean, the point is, you know, yeah, they need to figure out how to do it if they can't do it in the office. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Gobrial. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is to discuss Progressive Metro West request for a proclamation. Have all of you had a chance to read the emails? We recently passed a policy and proclamations,
and I ask that this be put on the agenda so that we could discuss it rather than, and putting a proclamation on for us to approve or not approve thoughts and comments. Speaker 11: I like the intent of these proclamations, but I don't, and, and I, believe me, I've stepped into state and national politics at the local level before and, and was soundly put back in my place.
I, I don't think that we want to step into these politics personally. I, I like the intent of them personally. I support it, but I think as a town we want to focus on town business. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Sidney. Ms. Ger, Speaker 10: Just quickly for the record, this is the policy that we just recently passed and here's the eligibility criteria. There's only three recognizing individuals, businesses, and organizations for milestones, eeg, birthdays, retirements, community service, observing local state
or national awareness days, weeks, or months highlighting civic, cultural, or charitable events in Natick, right? Speaker 11: That's it. Yep. Speaker 4: This is outside. That's scope. Speaker 11: Yeah, it's, it's definitely outta scope in my opinion too. Speaker 1: Any other comments? I, I agree. We have a hand up for a member of the public. Mr. Fo, could you unmute yourself or Mr. Erickson? Could you unmute? Unmute him. Speaker 2: Sorry. Speaker 11: You should be allowed to, Speaker 28: Am I unmuted now? Speaker 1: Yes, you are. We can hear you. Speaker 28: Simple requests. If you're gonna take this up, could you actually take this up and have a public portion of one
of your future meetings so that I and other people could come in and comment. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Fos. It doesn't sound like we're gonna take it up. I think we're gonna reject the request because it's based on national politics and it does not meet the criteria of the policy that we, of the proclamations policy that we just passed last meeting. Speaker 28: Understood. But that hasn't happened yet. So my, my comment stands. Thank Speaker 1: You. It does. Thank you. Do I have a motion or it's a discussion? We don't really even need a motion. Is there a desire to take this up? No. No. Okay.
I will inform the request. The requester. Well, Speaker 4: May I just make Speaker 1: A comment, Mr. Evans? Speaker 11: I Speaker 4: Think in your reply you need to cite Speaker 1: Our policy. I'll copy Yeah, I'm not gonna cite, I mean I'll, I'll cite it, but I'll also attach it. Yeah, Speaker 4: I figured you would, but I just thought I'd Speaker 1: Make sure. Thank you Mr. Erickson. I sent you a form. Thank you. Next item is bylaw Article 10 addendum. We need to decide whether we wanna get that on the fall. Do we wanna get that on fall town meeting or do we want to combine the,
those two boards at the fall town meeting and then update the addendum in the spring? 'cause we're gonna have to update it again anyway. Yeah, Speaker 11: That's my opinion. If we're gonna, if we're gonna combine the two boards because of the, there's, there's language in section two that there's language, it's section two that makes that table required appointments. Yes. So because of that, I think if we're going to try to combine those two boards, we should be amending this table at the same time. And I, I think we didn't we already approve
putting the Yes, we did the, the repeal out. Yes, we did. Yeah. So I would, I would definitely put the table, the amendment of the table on the warrant. I mean, one of the, one of the interesting things I noticed in the table when I was doing the research is the, for one of the boards, and I'd have to, I'll have to check, Speaker 1: Which what the printed copy that you have in front of you is what Rich sent sent around to us. But I amended it. So I wanted you to see, that's why I have it printed out in paper. It's not on, it's not online. Alright. Speaker 11: One of the boards,
and I wanna just find the, I had it up already. Where was it? Oh, it was in a different folder. Sorry, gimme a sec. So I had sent, I had, I had sent back some of the amendments to the table, which are actually are in peak, the transportation advisory committee. And the table references bylaw article 37, which doesn't exist. Okay. So the table is very badly outta date. We have at least a certain number of known changes. I think the warrant article that I had proposed was to amend the table just to amend the table.
Speaker 1: Oh, not to combine them. Speaker 11: What's that? Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, Speaker 11: It was just to amend the table and then we could come back with motions later about how to amend the table, you know, whether we remove the committees or, or you know, combine them, whatever we decide to do. But I think, I think, I think we already approved the warrant article to amend the table. We, we, we didn't talk about how to amend it. Speaker 1: I see, I see. I thought we did too. Okay. Yeah. So I amended it by adding a primary reference and that primary reference is mass general law
because most of these committees we are, we're given the authority to appoint to these committees under mass general law. Secondary is the charter and bylaws. So I added a column of primary reference and I added in, there were a number of appointments that we make that weren't in the, the table that Rich sent around. So Affordable Housing trust wasn't there. Commission on disability wasn't. Speaker 10: But you had a cable advisory board that's No, Speaker 11: That was already there. We can take Speaker 10: It out. I was Speaker 1: Okay, that's fine. We can take that out and put it down and put information and cable systems advisory board or cable and inform.
We can, we can do that. That's not a problem. But I wanted to make sure that every board or committee that we appoint to, even if it's only one seat, is listed with the primary references being Mass general law and then other references are the bar charter and bylaws. Speaker 4: This is good. Speaker 10: Yep. There's an error, but we can go over Speaker 11: That. Yeah. So I, you know, I, I read through every section of the charter and bylaws to, to make sure that the appointment charter and bylaw references were correct. Speaker 10: I don't think so. Yep. Yep. Look at the charter. It's this, wait a minute, can you,
this is town administrative slip for confirmation. Yeah, that's this. Speaker 11: Yeah, I added that because we are required of We didn't Speaker 10: Do that. That was, Speaker 11: I know, yeah. So that's, we don't appoint the town court, but we have, we have an, a specific requirement to act and it's the only case where we are not the appointing authority, but we have an requirement to act. So Speaker 1: The same thing with the treasurer collector. That should be town administrator with select board confirmation. So do you want the, Speaker 11: That's not what the charter, current charter and bylaws say. Speaker 1: Ms. Lauer, could Speaker 10: You look I'm looking at online.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Speaker 11: It does. I mean it's, it, it, Speaker 10: It look online Rich. Speaker 11: I did, I pulled them down a week ago. Speaker 10: Well, Speaker 11: So I Speaker 10: Mean, it says right here. Let's see, where do I Speaker 11: Have it? I mean, I could have gotten it wrong. I'm, I'm, it's, it's possible I got it wrong. That's true. Speaker 10: Yeah. There shall be a town treasurer collector appointed by the town administrator confirmation subject to confirmation of the select board for a term of three years. It's the same. Okay.
Speaker 1: Alright. So I'm gonna make that change right now. And now what, what do you want this information systems to be? Do you want it to be cable and And information? Or Information and cable? Speaker 4: I'd say information and cable. That's more likely. Speaker 11: Well, flow is better. I mean, I mean, I Speaker 10: Mean, do we, are we going to keep that bylaw or not? I thought we were going to get rid of it. Speaker 11: Well, that's, so it's two questions. Yeah, it's two questions. The Cable Advisory Board is not in a bylaw at all. Right. We can remove Bylaw 27 and still keep the, we can either list or not list. I mean, there are other committees that we appoint ad hoc
or whatever Right. That aren't listed here. Right. Speaker 1: So what do you want the addendum to, to say is what I'm asking you? Speaker 10: I think we take both of them out. Speaker 1: Yeah, I, okay, Speaker 11: I agree with that too. Speaker 10: Yeah. If, if we're going to be deleting the bylaw article 27, then it, those two committees don't belong in this chart. Yeah, that Speaker 1: Makes sense. Done. It's taken out. And Treasure Collector has been updated. The authority is the town administrator with select board confirmation. Speaker 10: And you added the representatives to regional boards? I did Speaker 1: At the bottom. Yeah, I added those at the bottom. Where is that? Speaker 5: It just at the bottom. They're just listed. Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah. MBTA Advisory board, metropolitan Area Planning Council. The VMA Speaker 11: And I did pick up from, from the bylaws, although it probably doesn't need to be in the official table, the number of appointments the board has. Speaker 1: It's helpful. I think it's helpful for, for the public. Yeah, definitely. Speaker 10: Yeah. The only thing I would say about this representatives to regional boards is not put it under, if we're gonna be calling this required appointments, that we give it a different and, and put it at the same level as required appointments.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 10: Because there is one that is required potentially under, you know, we have the Keith Tech one, we have that citation for it. Speaker 1: Yes, we do. Okay. Speaker 10: So we just might need to play around with this a little bit more. Speaker 1: Okay. I will play around with it and add, I'll add all of those above and give it to Mr. Erickson to write the warrant article. Speaker 11: The warrant articles. There we have Speaker 1: The warrant. Oh, we have it. That's right. I'm sorry. What? We did that. Thank you. Speaker 11: This goes, it becomes the motion. Yeah. Okay.
This becomes the motion and we'll probably wanna run it by Carris as well. Yep. Speaker 5: Yeah. The motion will, will likely be fairly straightforward. Replace the table in its entirety with the, Speaker 1: With this tape. Right. Okay. Okay. Understood. Speaker 11: And then Speaker 5: I like to keep things as simple as possible. Speaker 11: And then, you know, somebody will want to talk to the fin com about this and the other one. Yeah, I don't know. I I, Speaker 1: I'm happy to do that. Speaker 11: Or I can do it Speaker 1: Or you could do it. I mean the, the, you can Speaker 11: Decide later. Speaker 1: It's very simple. It's, this isn't anything. I think that we're gonna get tripped up with fin com. It's very straightforward. So I will,
I will make those changes and circulate it around for people to play with. And then we'll look at this again at the next meeting. Consent agenda. Speaker 7: The consent agenda reads Item a vote to rescind the following. Select board policies, alcohol training policy, alcohol in holders, policy, fuel efficient vehicle policy, parking meter fees policy item B, approve request to occupy a public way. Kelsey Granby Beaver Dam, neighborhood block party item C, approve request to occupy a public way.
Friends of High Street block party item D approve request to occupy a public way. Richard Road block party item E approve request to occupy a public way. St. Mark's church. 5K item F approve planted collectives, applications for one day liquor, alcohol licenses, SIP and C on September 18th, 2025. Wine and design on September 25th, 2025. Item G approve request to occupy a public way. Farmer's market. Item H,
approve Natick Police department's request to accept donations. Item I approve. Select board meeting minutes for July 30th, 2025. Item J, referral of zoning articles to the planning board. Amends zoning, bylaws V through H, signage and adv and advertising devices. Downtown mixed use and center gateway zoning. District item K, approve main street banner request, town of Natick for Natick days. September 1st, 2025 through September the seventh, 2025. And item L approve, main street hanging banner policy.
Is there anything that anyone wants to pull off the consent agenda? Speaker 1: Kristen, did you wanna pull? Speaker 7: So I had a question regarding the banner policy. Speaker 1: This is not it. Speaker 3: Do you wanna pull it so we can discuss it? Just Speaker 1: Pull it Speaker 7: Off. Okay. I can pull it to discuss it and then we can approve item A through K. Speaker 4: A through J. Oh no, I'm sorry. A through K. Speaker 1: So is that, that's your motion? Yes. Moved by Ms. Pope. Second. Second. Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, aye.
So those items have passed. And regarding the hanging banner policy, what do you have Speaker 7: On responsible item one? It says responsible parties, town administration will provide all banner approvals and day-to-day operations to ensure operational efficiencies. My question was, do we need to have the line and day-to-day operations to ensure operational efficiencies? Is that necessary? Speaker 1: I I think it reinforces the fact that select board is not involved in the day-to-day running of the town. Okay. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. And, and if I can,
I mean there are some day-to-day, well, it's more week to week, I guess, operations, although it can be day-to-day when we're coordinating leading up to the implementation, implementation of the banner approvals and, and the policy. So I do think that's relevant more for the applicant to know, like come to us with questions about implementation of this. Not just the approval of it, but actually installing it. 'cause we do handle town administration through our DPW through, through staff do handle the
physical install as well. Speaker 7: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 5: Yeah. And I think that's probably a good thing for an applicant to know or somebody who's seeking a banner like, oh, do I need to install it myself? No, no. Talk to us. Come to us. We do the day-to-day work of it. Yeah. Speaker 10: So while, while we have this open, I just wanna say that Jay implemented the changes and they were mostly to take some of the things that were more process oriented out of the policy because we do have that very nice detailed process document. So as much as possible, this is now just the procedures and references that document. So hopefully we won't have to keep updating it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: Sounds good. Thank you. That's Speaker 5: Our goal with all of ours. But this is a good template. We have a legacy of many, many policies that we're working on. Speaker 7: So if that's all set, I move to approve item L on the consent agenda. Second Speaker 1: Move by Ms. Pope, seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0 town administrator updates. Speaker 5: I have a brief update. I did mention one during announcements, which is fantastic, but I also wanted to note that, and the board may may be aware of this, but we just did a couple things with regards to tax title and tax for FY 25.
We sent out demand notices. So that's all people that had not paid through the end of the fiscal year, the one that just ended. So those just, those just went out I believe Monday, last Friday. We have a 99% rate of accept of collection, which is fantastic. Kudos to our collector treasury team for all the work they did that they have done. And even since we sent demand notices out, which was for about a $1.4 million amount, we've already received over a hundred thousand dollars
of people coming in to pay taxes. So that's the first step. Before we even go to tax title, we have to do the demand notice process. So, you know, the, we're using this as a good reset year with all the work that we're doing to get on a, a system to ensure that we're cut up through technology and, and getting all caught up. So just a brief update on the other part of the tax title process because pre 2025, we have 2019 and 2024. We are targeting the end of the month for the, the tax title, actual next step in that process, we've already done those demand notices.
We've, we are now gonna be creating the list. People are still paying. So we're, we're trying to give people as much time as possible, but we will have that list. I believe the current expected timeframe is the end of next week. So that you'll, and you'll get a copy of that before it gets for at the time it gets published. And, and then that also leads to then us, we have to actually use our constables to notify the people. And then it goes to the actual tax title at the registry of deeds. So that'll be coming up at the end of next week, early part of the week after.
Speaker 10: So are we just publishing it on our website? Speaker 5: That is the requirement. Yep. Okay. So we'll be doing that. And then we also have to notify them in person. So that's separate from the demand notice for FI 25. That'll be a future time. But I just want you to be aware that those are going and we are advancing that work. Also, just very briefly, BALLOUT is happening in the collector treasurer's office and a couple different offices in the finance division are actually getting new furniture. It's been a long time. Some of the furniture is original to this building. Some of it even was used predated this building, right? It was used at the time. So this has been actually a thing
that we've been doing throughout the building as staff changes. Just as a a side story, when I started here 10 years ago and what is now Amanda's office, my desk was literally a 19, like forties or fifties roll top wood desk, which is impossible to use with a laptop and a monitor and a table that was from that same era and a wooden chair. So it was the most uncomfortable setup that I had to deal with for the first several months here. But it just speaks to, we need to re modernize our furniture every once in a while. So they're doing that. But what you'll see in the lobby is we do have to
remove some of the collector treasurer staff and assessing office staff to the small conference room down there. That'll happen the end of this week. Painting is happening over the weekend, and then the install is happening Monday and Tuesday. So they're gonna be displaced for a handful of days and several people will be working from home who can, and, but we're trying to make it as, as in less impactful to the public as possible, but also less impactful for our staff as possible. But it is still an inconvenience, but just be aware of that as you come into town hall in the next couple days. Okay. It's been a long time coming though. Navigate upgraded some of that furniture.
Yeah, it needs it tired. Speaker 1: Select board updates. Does anyone have anything? I have something but I'll go last, Speaker 29: But Speaker 1: I'd like to draw your attention to some problems that we're having with the retirement board. I've been very careful to not be involved in their business because the select board has absolutely no jurisdiction over the separate entity that is separate and apart and reports to prac at the state level. And the select board really doesn't have a role there. We, it ends up becoming a role for the select board when their actions or inactions jeopardize the financial
and fiscal stability of this town. The long and short of it is they were to have provided actuarial information for fi for fiscal year 2023 or calendar year 2023. Yeah. For our fiscal 24 audit. For fiscal 24 audit, they produced the actuarial information for 2024, which is the wrong year. We're on a, the PARIC requires a every other year, every, it requires an every other year. So we can't really use 2024. And they discovered this in July, had an urgent meeting, emergency meeting,
and then discovered they didn't have the data because they changed from an antiquated computer system to a new computer system so that they either didn't have the data or, or did not know how to retrieve it. Our comptroller had it and provided it to them on August 7th. Their actuary is working with that information. But we can't get an audit, our audit certified until that happens without a certified audit, we're in, in danger of having a qualified audit, qualified opinion audit. A qualified opinion. Right. The lateness of this audit means
that the police station is not eligible for some federal grants. Those deadlines are gonna go by for equipment that they cannot because we do not have audited books. We have our bond issuers asking for our audit. We don't have it. A qualified opinion means that it's very likely we'll lose our AAA bond rating, which means millions of dollars in costs, borrowing costs, and there aren't, there's not a lot we can do about that. So I went today to the retirement. There's, there's no, there are very few things
that we can do to force this along. We have no leverage over their actuary. We're actually paying for the second, the town is paying for this second actuarial report to be done because they did 24 and we just couldn't wait for them to figure out. It was just, we'll pay for it, just get it done. So I went to the meeting today. I had a, I've had extensive phone conversations with the acting chair, Mike Reardon, the outcome of those, some are personnel related, so I'm not gonna discuss those here. But there was, there was some good outcome.
And one of that is that the chair or acting chair, our and our appointment, Marco, oh, I just forgot his last name, forgive me. The chair of the select board and town administration will meet bi-annually so that there's more communication and less friction and tension. And we're working on setting that up shortly. The, the acting chair, Mr. Reardon and Marco are going to come to a select board meeting perhaps in November to talk about what it is they do. The opinion was expressed this morning that he, that they have been trying to get
before the select board for at least the last five years. I explained, I've been here for four years. I've been chair for the last year and a half and the year before that I was vice chair and copied on everything. Haven't seen an a request. We would, I, I don't know that we've ever asked, returned anyone who wants to come and talk or do a presentation for the select board. I don't think we've ever turned anyone down. I expressed my concern about the lack of alarm and a laity on their part in getting this done. The answer was it's out of our hands. Our actuary has the materials, we just have to wait.
The email I got just before the meeting started says it's likely to be six weeks from the time they got the information. Hopefully. So that was first week in August. So we're looking at mid-September and I wrote back that they need to put pressure on their actuary. If there are extra fees for an expedited report, yeah, please let us know and we'll get that authorized because we just can't risk $3,000, for example, to get this done is nothing compared to the financial impact
that this town will hit. So there are two things that the select board could do, and I wanted to put this before you tonight for discussion. Both of them I think are nuclear options. I'll be frank about that. And I don't know that this is something we want to do. The first thing we could do is file a complaint with prac and ask that they sanction the executive director for not doing this timely. The second thing we can do, and, and I don't know if they're inclined to do that, so I don't even know if that's something that they would do. The second thing we could do is to put on a warrant article for this fall town meeting
to form a study committee to look at whether we want to leave having a local retirement and join for ha for example, Middlesex. Now there are only a hundred, there are 351 towns and cities in Massachusetts, and there are only 104 retirement boards. Now, what makes this a very, very difficult decision is that our retirement board of the last 20 years is, has become one of the highest performing in terms of its returns Last year or for the year ending December, 2023, their annual,
their annualized return was almost 17%. Their 10 year annual annualized return is 8.5, which is higher than all but three other retirement boards in the, in, in the state. And and i, I have thanked them, I've thanked them in writing, I have thanked them today in the meeting. At the end of it, I thank them for their service to the town and for getting us in a position where our oped obligations are getting paid off far more quickly than some other towns. We're not in receivership. We have AAA bond rating and now that's in jeopardy. Yeah. Mr. Evans,
Speaker 4: Just a couple quick follow up. I, in my opinion, the nuclear option shouldn't be taken at this point or either nuclear option. But what what I would want to, to understand first of all is when they issue our, the rate bond rating authority issues, a qualified opinion, Speaker 5: It's the auditor that it's Speaker 1: The auditor that it does, Speaker 4: The auditor does a qualified opinion. Can they do an update or at what interval can they do an updated opinion?
Is that something that we can say, you know, here's, here's what's caused this delay. Can you reassess us in at X period of time, two months? Let's, let's say, Speaker 5: Well, I mean the, the audit is for FY 24, so we're already delayed in the completion of that audit. It got delayed in the beginning because we were changing audit firms. And if you recall that audit firm that we were switching to then got bought and then got bought again, and then it just took us a while contract. So we're already delayed in our audit. We're already sort of behind and just to be sure we, we, there hasn't been any finding yet. So it's not as if, if this, this has actually happened,
our auditors have been very good with us to say, yep, we'll give you the time you need to get this done. But they're getting to the point where we can't continue doing that anymore. So we need this data. It's like the final piece of, of data that, that they're, they're needing in order to complete their audit. And it's not that they're like everything else in the audit as far as we're understanding is, Speaker 4: Is all in Speaker 5: Place in place and, and, you know, good for natick and typical for na if, if we don't get this piece of data Yeah, understand they have to make an opinion and because of a lack of piece of data right out, largely
outside of the town's hands, it's the retirement board that needs to provide this data. We can't provide it to them. They have to render what they have to render the, the fix that is next fiscal year. We're gonna have another audit. It's gonna start very soon, if not as a, if not already started. Although we need to finish this one before it start the next one. And then that update is not likely to have the same because we actually have that data already from the retirement board, which is part of the, the, the, I guess question or, or concern here is like we have the data for that next fiscally next calendar year.
We need it for this previous one in order for us to get this, this audit Speaker 4: Completed. So to Catherine, hold on. Speaker 1: Hold on one second. Hold on. Speaker 4: The, the part that you talked about, madam Chair, about the finance, is there a financial mechanism to expedite this or is there some mechanism? I asked that. So if, if there is, I think that that's, that's the point that that's the only point of pressure that we can put on them. Save the nuclear options. He described them. I don't think, I think it's counterproductive to, to go
to those options at this point. But Tom will tell. Yeah, if, Speaker 1: If I may let Ms. Algo, she's been waiting. Speaker 10: So I'm still wondering about the process here. I mean I, I understand that we are trying to get this information from the retirement board, but it seems like it's pretty late to know that we're missing this information. Does the audit firm work directly with the retirement board or how does that work? How is or does the town have some involvement here that maybe there was a deadline that we missed? So I'm trying to figure that out that, you know, why wasn't this flagged a year ago?
I know we did change, confirm Speaker 5: It Speaker 10: Was so, it it was, okay, so Speaker 1: This, this is what happened in the fall, fall town meeting when Mike Rearden talked about the coal adjustments. He made a promise because he had not delivered or they had not delivered the fi the calendar, the fiscal year 2023 information. He made a promise to have that done as soon as possible. That was last fall in the, in the spring we had a delay to get the audit done. We had a, a delay because the audit firm, our audit firm got bought out a
couple times and getting a contract. So getting it started that, that 2023 should have already been done instead, my understanding is the executive director said, why don't we just do 2024? It's silly to go back to 2023 even though we're required to have it for 2023. And that way we'll be okay for a couple years. She can't change the biannual Speaker 4: Requirement. Speaker 1: Yeah, we're required to pr we're on an odd year biannual as I understand it requirement. Speaker 10: So, so we don't need 2023, we Speaker 1: Don't need 2024. It'll be good to have it, but we don't need
2024, we need 2023. And Speaker 7: What I hear you saying is, I mean, she didn't, she should not have had the authority to make that type of decision and she should have known better. Speaker 5: Well, Speaker 1: Again, I'm not gonna discuss personal matters. It's authority. Speaker 5: It's a separate entity. So I can't, we can't speculate that the intent or or or lack of intent or whatever. It's just for our FY 24 audit, we needed this piece of data from the retirement board. This piece of data is eva, it is called evaluation study or evaluation report for the timeline
of the 2023 calendar year. That was not completed. That was not provided. And there's various reasons for some of the challenges Yes. As to why that might have happened. Yes. But for better part of six months, I, I believe the, our comptroller who sits on the, the board, the retirement board as a, that's a required seat, has been working to try to get it all the time while we've also been doing the all the other audit stuff. At one point we even had the audit firm go down to the retirement board to try to get the data. And because it's, as Catherine mentioned, it's sort
of in this embedded transition of the, their programs. It needed an actuary to pull the data from the database. And that took really complic. We, we, the town cannot do that. It's not technically our data to do that. If we could, we would've done it probably three or four or six months ago. We need the, the retirement board to do that. And it's just taken them that this long to, to get to that point. Speaker 1: And it really isn't the case that we're just hearing about it now. Mr. Erickson and Michelle have been working on it for six months and I've been in the loop on it.
So we've known that it's just that getting them for the, they were moving from one computer system to another. When they did that, they lost the data and there's just been a, a delay, a delay, a delay, a delay. So I wanted to, I wanted to inform the public, I wanted to bring the board up to date and I'm waiting to hear back whether we can pay for an expedited review or an expedited report. And that's all. Okay. I I will say that they were very thankful. They said in 30 years, no select board member had ever gone down there. And they were very, they were very happy that I did,
they were very happy that, you know, I ended the meeting on a positive note saying, I'm very thankful for all the work they're doing. The way they've brought a retirement board where it was almost in receivership to where it is today, over 20 years. They have their, their management of their investments is, is astonishing. And I thank them for all their work on that. It's not the board, it's some accountability issues in my opinion. Speaker 11: So if I may Yes, you may. So a couple of things, the way audit reports work is they're issued and they're fixed. So they could issue a supplemental opinion later,
but the one, the qualified opinion would continue to be on the record. Yeah. So that's just so you understand how that works. The other thing, and I'm not advocating this in any way, shape or form, but there is a third nuclear option. And that is we could sue the retirement board. Speaker 1: I Right. But then we're spending more money. Speaker 11: No, I get it. I'm not, I said I'm not, I just want it to be, Speaker 1: And and the other thing about that is we could do that. And then we were paying for attorneys and we are also responsible for paying for their attorneys because under mass general law, the town indemnifies the employees and the board members.
Speaker 11: I, I understand. I just didn't want the record to be incomplete. I'm not, I wasn't advocating, I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that there was a nuclear option. It is the worst Speaker 1: Of three. Every way is costing us money every Speaker 11: Way. Everything cost us us money. Speaker 1: When we went through the override, we made a commitment to look at every single expense in the town and make sure that they are necessary. I don't know right now that we recover. They're paying rent to a private building. They have three staff members. They, I, I don't know what their expenses are. I don't know what their budget is, not my business.
But we pay for those things. Speaker 11: Well do doesn't doesn't it come out of the retirement plan? Speaker 1: Some of it does. I don't know that we're recouping all of it. Speaker 5: Well, it's also part of what we pay annually in their, it's part of Speaker 11: Well, that's what I, Speaker 5: 14 million that we pay. I mean it's, that's because we're also it's part of it catch up. Yeah. Speaker 11: Ultimately, but it's their expenses. It's not the town's expenses. Right. Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, ultimately the member's paying like, you know, town employees and, and what have you, that generates revenue. And to their credit, they've been the fourth, fourth best in the state to generate revenue from that. Then they have their expenses, which is paying retirees with their due and their overhead, which is the whatever
above that, that they can't cover comes to the town to pay for. And that's why we have that li that back liability because we didn't put enough in previously generations. And that's why. But then at the end of that, in 2030, we're still likely to have a liability. We just don't know right now what that's going to be. And that's when that additional cost will come into play. I mean that it already is factored in today. It's just overshadowed by us paying that back liability. So there to, to what I think what Catherine is, is also noting is that there's no action for the board right now. Nope. It's more of an awareness. It's an update.
It's something that we've, that I know I've been monitoring and behind the scenes working with Michelle and John Townsend. It's been a stressor for the better part of the last six to to eight months back in November, I think this sort of was known, but it's just coming to a, a very real head. And even though yes, that is currently with the actuary, it's just that there's definitely a need for an awareness to be understanding. Like this could be a big, very, very, very, very big challenge and big issue for the community.
And it's largely outside of our hands, unfortunately. Speaker 1: Mr. Erickson, do you know how long the auditor will wait before having to issue an opinion? Not will she not wait till mid-September? Is that something you can find out? Well, Speaker 5: You we're in regular contact with the auditor to Okay. To know so that they know where we are with things and Okay. But I can certainly get Speaker 11: That and, and the audit advisory committee is gonna take this up in September as well. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 11: All right. I, I've been, I've been monitoring this as well at, at, at a further distance than you, but I've been waiting to for the next audit advisory meeting
so we can get an update on all of this. And, and we're gonna schedule probably the second week of September or so, Speaker 7: Madam chair, with all of the options that have been laid out. Thank you all. Thank you for making us aware. I I, to me the, the best thing to do is to expedite this as best as we can. Speaker 5: And we, we've expressed that urgency with Catherine's attendance today at the meeting. I sent us an email as well. Speaker 1: It was read into the record. Mr. Erickson sent, it was read into the record. It Speaker 5: Was just to express the urgency. Like please make sure that your audit, that your actuary is doing this as quickly as possible.
Yeah. We're at, at a crunch time. We've been at a crunch time for a while, but we're really at a crunch time. Please make sure that it's expressed. You know, I've been to, to Catherine's point, they are, there is separation, but there is still a very real connection. Speaker 1: I mean, we're interdependent. Real Speaker 4: Impact. Speaker 1: So I I, we left on, I left on good terms. So I'm not advocating for any of the nuclear options. I just, I'll keep the board updated and as, as, as we learn more, I'll keep the board updated, we'll keep the public updated
and hopefully next year we won't have this problem with increased communication, regular scheduled meetings. And both Mr. Reardon and Marco will be coming before the select board sometime in the fall to talk about what it is they do, how they were able to bring us up from receiver, bring the fund up from receivership to where they are. I was astonished by the returns and I would hate to see Speaker 4: Jeopardized. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd hate to see that jeopardized. Yeah. And I don't, I want to make sure that our employees and our retired retirees are served well. Yes.
Speaker 4: Just want to, to make a quick comment and thank you for carrying the ball and having an initiative, an initiative to not only solve the immediate problem, but to lay a, create a framework so that this doesn't recur and that we get regular ongoing communication. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. It was a pleasure. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. An hour late move. Second move by Mr. Evans, seconded by Speaker 11: This walker. Linda. Speaker 1: Oh, rich, rich, seconded by Rich.
All in favor, please say aye. By Rich seconded. There you go. Billy, did you get that? All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Speaker 4: Nope, Speaker 1: You are out. Thank you. Speaker 11: And that is 9 53.