##VIDEO ID:https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/994DtmGEsi0VDYK3jJI2BJ72GfgNIpU2/media/931796?autostart=false&showtabssearch=true&fullscreen=false## <v Speaker 1>Welcome to the February 5th Select</v> Board, Natick Select Board meeting. This meeting is being broadcast on Pegasus and available to join via Zoom. I'm calling this meeting to order at 6 36, and at this time we're going to enter into executive session. This portion of the meeting is not open to the public pursuant to Mass General Law, chapter 30 a section 21, A three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair. So declares and I do town of Natick versus Natick Retirement Board, CR 2 3 0 4 68, DALA and two to release executive session meeting minutes. We should be back in about 45 minutes and then we'll resume our meeting. Moved by Linda and seconded by Ms. Pope. No, Mr. Evans. Mr. Evans. Thank you, Ms. Mr. Evans. Ms. Slager? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yes. And I'm a yes. 5 0 0. So we are now in executive session and we're back from executive session. Before we go to announcements, I'd like to ask those in the room to raise or to stand if you are able to say this Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence for those who are serving our country, our town, and our state. Thank you <v Speaker 2>To the flag, United States of America</v> and to the Republic, which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. <v Speaker 1>Thank you.</v> Next order of business are announcements, and I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Evans. <v Speaker 3>One second.</v> <v Speaker 4>Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been working with Greg Cohen</v> of the MathWorks Scholarship Committee and Amanda Young and Kaitlyn Brosnahan of MathWorks, and we have another MathWorks employee in the room to, to increase the value of the MathWorks High School scholarships available to two students from Natick High to increase the value of those scholarships to a total of $30,000. This year. The MathWorks scholarship is $15,000 per student for two students. Obviously, you can tell I was a math major and the 30,000 will support 2025 new scholarship recipients only through the generosity of MathWorks. The town of Natick is offering these scholarships to high school seniors who reside in Natick, who have excelled in mathematics, science and or engineering, and are committed to pursuing a degree in a related field at an accredited four year college or university. The Math Arts Scholarship Committee will be taking application shortly. Thank you very much to the MathWorks for their continued support. I also would like to do a shout out to Greg Cohen and his committee who do an excellent job of screening the potential winners. And every year we get to meet those two winners and it just, I'm, I'm continually blown away by how bright, energetic, and excited these these students are, and it really does a lot for me to, to see that effort rewarded by these scholarships. So thank you again to MathWorks <v Speaker 1>And I'd like to thank Bruce Evans</v> for taking the lead on this and seeing it through. It's been a a year of fruitful discussions and I'm very grateful and happy that we have such a great corporate community partner in town. I'd also like to say happy Chinese New Year. For those of you who celebrate and Happy Black History Month. I don't have any other announcements. Any other board members? First order of business is an update on the Soen House letter to Mass Auto. Oh, sorry. Yes. Skipping right over that. Thanks, rich. You can tell I wanna get out like yeah, before 10 tonight, any individual may raise an issue during public speak that is not included on 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 the section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes while the board endeavors to ensure that all interested persons have the opportunity to address the select board due to time constraints that may not be possible. In cases where there is intense public interest in a particular topic, the board may schedule a future meeting to allow for further public input. Is there anyone in the room who would like to address the board under public speak? Is there anyone on Zoom or who would like to address the board during public speak? Seeing none will move into discussion and decision. The Soen House letter to Mass Audubon status update Mr. Hoagland's here and we'll speak to that. I have set aside 10 minutes for that. And then Bruce and I will do an update with our conversation with Mass Audubon today. Mr. Hoagland. <v Speaker 5>Thank you Madam Chair.</v> As some of you may recall, I have hearing challenges, so if I don't seem to be responding to what you're saying, try harder. <v Speaker 1>Yes, sir. Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 5>I'm gonna keep this very short</v> because you already have a, a one page summary of the meeting this morning between Mr. Rio and myself and Scott UE with mass Ottoman Lynette. Bottom line is they're not interested in doing anything with us, and it is our recommendation that you explore preparing a temporary restraining order to prevent the destruction of the, of the house on in mid-November, and that you explore in parallel with that a, a taking it. There's no other, no other solution set that we can see because they have indicated clearly they're just not interested in, in discussing it any further. And we asked. So I don't know that I've got anything else to add to that or to clarify. We appreciate your support up to this point and hope that we can take this the next step, but unless we can stop the, the demolition and execute a, a taking, I don't think we're gonna save the property. I think, I think Sarah was mug and Thomas so's heritage is gone probably forever. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Mr. Hoagland.</v> Mr. Evans, do you want to start? So to set, just to explain Ms. Mr. Evans and I had a phone conference with Mass Audubon with Scott Chu this afternoon about a 20 minute conversation, and I also spoke with counsel this afternoon with regard to the potential ask for taking. So Bruce, I'll turn over to you. <v Speaker 4>Thank you, Madam Chair Catherine</v> and I, we were on a call with Scott UE of Mass Audubon to discuss the meeting that they had with Natick Heritage and Scott's opinion. Nothing new was offered in terms of planning and the proposal that Natick heritage, I'm sorry, I wrote abbreviation. Natick Heritage provided was infeasible Mass Audubon is prepared to salvage items of historic significance and they're, but they're not prepared to negotiate a delay to the demolition. They're concerned about the ability of national heritage to raise the appropriate money and be a viable long-term partner. They are amenable to preserving items of historic significance, having interpretive signage and possibly auto audio tours or information. They've worked with indigenous partners and in the past they are working with, they worked with Na Historical Society to determine the best ways to mark the location and are looking into possible signage there. So the bottom line is, historic preservation is feasible, house restoration is not, in my opinion, native Heritage can either work with Mass Audubon under these conditions and move forward or remain intransigent and allow Mass Audubon to demolish the house Mass. Audubon wants to help preserve the history, but it cannot conflict with their core mission. <v Speaker 1>Thank you, Mr. Evans.</v> At this point I'd like to open it to the board for questions or comments. Ms. Pope, <v Speaker 6>I wanted to just thank you</v> and Mr. Evans, Madam Chair for, you know, all of the work that you all have put in on this. I wanna thank the town administration for all the work, and I definitely wanna thank Mr. Hoagland and the Native heritage for all of the work that you all have put into this to save this property. I'm coming into this process a bit later than I think it began, and my concern is that not only, you know, obviously am I later in the process, but some of these changes have, are later in the process and it, it appears as though there is an impasse and the compromise is to salvage as much as possible and to move forward from this point. It's not, I don't think it's, it's, it's as ideal as we would all want, but it sounds like that's where we are right now and I'm in agreement with, with the current decision. <v Speaker 1>Any other comments or questions from the</v> board? Yes, Ms. Alger. <v Speaker 7>So just to be clear, during your conversations</v> with Mass Audubon, they did not respond favorably to the request to delay demolition. Is that correct? That is correct. And so when do they plan on demolishing the house? <v Speaker 1>They didn't say the moratorium is up on the 19th.</v> What they did offer though is to, and they've offered this in the past, is to, during the demolition process, to salvage the hip, the staircase, which is original one or more of the beams, which are original, and then there's a stone in the basement where swan's name is carved and, and a date and hold those aside for removal and storage offsite, they indicated that they will be doing a marker at the site. They're working with the Na Historical Society to figure out what that looks like. They're working with their indigenous partners to make sure that the indigenous markings around that area are, you know, restored, taken care of, et cetera. I asked Scott Chu, so I have visited the house, but I've not been in the house. I have photos, but I've not been in the house. I asked Mr. Chu if those items would fit into a pod, and he said yes. And I asked Mr. Erickson today whether it would be possible for, because there's about $3,500 left in the account. That was $3,500 that was left in the account under the town meeting warrant to establish the committee, the advisory committee to the board if we were to, if a Natick Heritage could arrange to have those items put into a pod. I've asked Mr. Erickson if there's a place on town property where we could enter into an access agreement by which those items, there's a waiver of liability, it just needs to sit there and, and give na Natick heritage one year to come up with a plan to display the, and fundraise to display this in one of the parks as we're redesigning them down where the dam's going to be removed. I didn't think it's a perfect solution, but it is a solution. Mr. Mr. Erickson? <v Speaker 8>Yes, to the point of finding a location.</v> We can certainly find a location for a storage pod, depending on the size of the pod, we'll determine where we would recommend putting it and I'll have to work with DPW and facilities to determine the best location. I also think it's important to note that the most recent request may have been denied, but a year ago there were two requests that were both granted by Mass Audubon for a delay of their permit application for a demolition. So this has been going on for many, many years, just for reference. But with regards to the most recent idea, obviously subject to the discussion tonight, we can certainly find a location on town property with reasonable notice several weeks hopefully on where we could potentially place a pod that could for storage for up to a year. <v Speaker 9>Mr. Mad</v> <v Speaker 1>Chair, Mr.</v> <v Speaker 9>Sydney, I assume that includes using some of that 3,500</v> to at least pay the initial cost of the pod until Native Heritage can raise some money? Yes. <v Speaker 8>Yeah, no additional town funds are expected at this time.</v> Other than that, whatever is left from that 3,500, <v Speaker 1>It may even be a little bit more than that, but</v> <v Speaker 9>Whatever it is.</v> Yeah. <v Speaker 1>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 7>Have there been any discussions</v> with Nar Na heritage about whether this solution would be acceptable to them and whether they would want to raise funds to support this effort? <v Speaker 1>No, because this all took place between three 30</v> and five 30 today when I met with counsel. So this, the meeting was today at noon. We had our call, our call at three, at three 30. I met with Town Council to go through what possible options there were, and then I met with Mr. Erickson at five 30. So this is the first time Native Heritage is hearing about this as an opportunity or possibility or actually the full board even. Are there questions or comments from members of the public? What I'd like to do is suggest that Native Heritage think about, To, to think about this as a possibility. Would they want to, to Ms. Lauger's point, would they want to raise money to hold onto these things to install at a permanent installation on town land, which is the case with our cottage, the Henry Wilson cottage that's on town land. So that was a relatively easy restoration or preservation to undertake. This isn't, it's not on townland. So I would se suggest that perhaps Mr. Hoagland and Mr. Victoria and Bruce and I schedule a meeting in a week, an offsite meeting to talk about what that looked like. And in the meantime, if they are interested to do research on what the pod would cost the size of it, and that that would be include moving it, there'd be no, no cost for keeping it on town land. There'd be no rental, but there would be a monthly pod fee on the pod and it could be a trailer, it could be a container, you know, I, I don't know how these things work. Whatever's it has <v Speaker 4>To be</v> <v Speaker 1>Secure.</v> Yes, it has to be secured. And with the access agreement comes a waiver of liability, which is proforma. Are there members of the public who would like to speak to this any in the room? Okay. Seeing none, how, what does the board think about this as next steps? <v Speaker 4>I think, in my opinion, this is the, you know,</v> we can continue to try to roll this stone up the hill, but it's been 10 plus years and I think it's, it's time to get realistic. We do want, I think Mass Audubon and the town have the same interest in preserving the history. How they, that we go about it is a different belief system. I, but we've, we've tried many times with Mass Audubon to, to discuss re re restoration of the house in, in one way or another. And that is not in their core mission. They have no interest in doing it. It's a liability from their perspective. They wanna resolve this, but they want to work with the town to commemorate the historic significance of that. And I think we should capitalize on that interest and move forward on this before it's gone. I mean, a lot of people have said, you know, if we, if we don't do something about this, history will be gone, but if we continue to spin our wheels on this, it will also be gone just by default and time. <v Speaker 1>Mr. Sidney?</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah, I,</v> it seems like the only path forward at this point is my take on this and you know, if, if when I walk down by the, by the river, down by Bacon Library, there are, you know, the grist stones down there, there are mill stones down there, things on display that are, you know, historic from when these things were active. I think, you know, if there's a place down in the new park that can commemorate this, it's pretty close to where the house was and it makes sense to kind of commemorate it down there if possible. <v Speaker 1>Ms. Wilger,</v> <v Speaker 7>I'm just gonna say,</v> I know this has been going on for a very long time, close to 10 years. I'm very disappointed that Mass Audubon, and I understand they have a different mission, but this is the oldest house in Natick and I was hoping that there could be a different resolution to this. I mean, we are where we are, you know, short of a taking, there's nothing else that we can do other than hope to engage them in what they're willing to do. It's their property. But I'm very disappointed that we're not having the recognition on that site that I think is appropriate. And, you know, I hope we can move forward and to come up with something that may be like a third best alternative. But I wish it had turned out differently. <v Speaker 1>I should, I should add to Bruce's co. Mr.</v> Evans's comments in the conversation with Mass Audubon, he did raise, Mr. Evans raised the possibility of restoring just the mill cottage. Much of the house that stands there, it's not on the original site. Much of it is not original. But talking about restoring, Mr. Evans raised this, talking about restoring just the mill cottage. They raised some very good concerns amicably, and I found them largely persuasive. So that's why I raised the idea of salvaging those elements that are historic in finding a place to honor them and a place that may be more accessible to the public. Not everybody hikes through Broadmoor this site is it, you have to go pass a sign that says, you know, like, no access here employees only to get to the site or come up South Avenue or South Street, south Street South South Street where you can't pull over to even get access to it. So this might be, it's not a be it's not the best solution by far, but it may be a solution that gives greater access to this history and may places it in a, like a prominent pride of place or prominent place. That is an upside. It's one of few. Yes, Mr. Sidney. <v Speaker 9>Yeah. And perhaps if it goes in, you know,</v> public parkland, you know, there could be appropriate signage and maybe a picture of the houses that should have been restored and things like that on a, on a plaque that, you know, is pretty permanent. And at least we'd get good, you know, good representation of the history, if not the actual location. <v Speaker 4>And that lemme just follow up on Yes, Mr. Evan, Mr.</v> Sidney's point is, and that's exactly what the Natick Historic Historical Society can provide. They have plenty of pictures of this house as it existed. They can create the narrative. If I'll, I'll take an example of the constituent rail trail where you have those historical markers. Every, that, what I was thinking, quarter mile or less, it seems like a quarter mile when I'm walking, but they're more frequent than that of what existed there. What you're looking at, the the same thing can, can be done here. I agree with Mr. Said. <v Speaker 1>So why don't we plan, we don't need to vote on this,</v> but we can plan Bruce and I to coordinate with Mr. Hoagland and Mr. Vitoria to meet in about a week. Give them an opportunity, give the the, the board an opportunity to give them an opportunity to just see if this is something they want to do. And in the meantime, I will send, I told Mr. Chu that I would send an email to him, excuse me tonight, to let 'em know what we're doing so that there isn't demolition tomorrow morning and to let 'em know what we're doing. That's good. Okay. Let's go onto the next agenda item. We have a water and sewer abatement appeal. Deborah Norcross, <v Speaker 10>You done this?</v> Stand up or sit out. <v Speaker 1>You go to the podium, identify yourself</v> and your address, please <v Speaker 9>Make sure the green light on the microphone is on. Yes,</v> <v Speaker 11>It's on.</v> I feel a little bit silly. You all have such important subjects. Not really. I I, I'm, I am appealing. I'm just, I, I'm, it's not a sad story particularly, but it's enough that I think that maybe if I could just get some help with this bill, it would, it would make my life so much brighter. My house is built in 1934. I was moved into it by my parents at three and a half years old. And I've lived there ever since with on and off career deflections in Los Angeles and whatnot. I took care of my parents until both their deaths as I'm an only child and, and then managed to get my career back on its feet. And I've always taken care of myself and I've been paying the property tax taken over the house since their deaths. My mother spent most of her life saying, I wish we had a nice house. My father wasn't very interested in taking care of it. The street that I live on, on Travis Road seems to be marching into the million and a half dollar amount for houses that they're building. And I've always wanted to just improve the house for just the sake of pride of ownership and, and to get along in the street with my neighbors. I, I had to, I I, I was diagnosed when I, about five year, four years ago with stage four breast cancer. And I had no choice because I was still paying a mortgage other, other than to, to, I'm sorry, I, I take medication and I lose words. Re mor not remortgage, but finance, no, give it to the bank and reverse, <v Speaker 1>Reverse mortgage.</v> <v Speaker 11>Reverse mortgage. Not very difficult,</v> but it just as things escape me, I was, I was told that maybe that wasn't the best choice, but to me it seemed like God's gift and it meant that I could still live in my house. So this isn't me trying to, you know, s make my house more beautiful for a higher sale, a higher profit of any kind or anything. I, the, the bank owns it. I'm just trying to make my house attractive for the sake of my mother, the sake of me, whatever. I, I I on my own, I managed to get the house painted, the roof done. I live entirely on social security with a ton stipend from my company in Los Angeles a month. And, and then I had the driveway done, and that pretty much emptied me out. And, and I wanted to do the lawn as the last thing. I did the lawn last summer, and I'm, the summer before last, and I, by myself, I was quoted $2,000 to do my lawn and I thought, no, I, you know, I'll do it myself and save money. A lot of physical work. And I managed to kill it by putting, I'm sorry, silly. So I did it again this summer and I'm, I I, I didn't water it any more than the landscapers told me I needed to. For the first two weeks of growing a lawn, you have to water it three times a day. That's what you have to do. Or, or it does. And I, I just got this phenomenal water bill and I paid my property tax because we've always paid our property tax on time in the 64 years we've lived in Natick, short of possibly my taking care of my mother. But anyway, and I paid it again this morning, and I'm just hoping that I, I just, I, I, all I used was water for the lawn. I didn't, no sewer water was used, and yet I'm being forced to pay for water that I didn't use. And I'd really like to, with consideration of my situation in life, I, I would just hoping that we could come to an agreement as to my not needing to pay possibly the sewer water that wasn't involved in watering the lawn. If, if you see the history of my water usage, it's like $55 a month or something. And I'm hoping that maybe we could, I don't know if there's anything I've left out short of my, <v Speaker 1>I</v> <v Speaker 11>Think childhood.</v> <v Speaker 1>I think I'll open it to the board</v> for questions. Mr. Evans. <v Speaker 4>Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple questions</v> based on what you've said. Did I hear correctly that you have taken out a, a reverse mortgage? <v Speaker 11>Several years ago when I was first diagnosed</v> with the cancer, I was paying off a mortgage I'd, I'd gotten my career back and I, I had to have, when my mother died, I had to take a mortgage out. The house was paid for a long time ago. It was 1934 house and they, we've had it, you know, for years and years. So of course it was paid for, but it was the only way that I, <v Speaker 4>I could</v> <v Speaker 11>Get back on my feet after I lost my mother.</v> <v Speaker 4>Thank you. I, I understand that.</v> But the, the reason I asked that question is there's a real, real estate tax deferral that's available, but it only is available if you don't have a reverse mortgage. Right. So if the bank owns it, we can't do that particular action. Yeah, <v Speaker 11>I'm familiar with that.</v> <v Speaker 4>So the, the other question that I had is,</v> there's an amount, the outstanding balance is $1,861 and 40 cents. Is there a payment plan in place to, to do this? That's <v Speaker 11>Minus the amount that I paid today.</v> The 27 <v Speaker 4>It is</v> <v Speaker 11>2,800.</v> <v Speaker 4>Okay. What I am seeing is a rebate for,</v> or what I have in front of me is dated from today from Mr. Marshall that says an abatement was approved on May 3rd, 2023 of 814 97. Other issue with the water and the outstanding balance, the current outstanding balance is 18 61 40. <v Speaker 11>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 4>So, so I paid, I guess it's a question</v> for Mr. Marshall, if you could shed some light on, <v Speaker 11>I</v> <v Speaker 4>I don't be possible</v> <v Speaker 11>Understand what I owe, because my bill required me</v> to pay a thousand dollars extra this month, and then the next, the second, third quarter, whatever it, it was also an additional thousand. So that's more than what you're talking about. Unless you're adding in the, the 2700, 2800 I paid this morning. <v Speaker 12>So before the meeting this evening, I had reached out</v> to the treasurer collector's office to get an understanding of what the outstanding balance was. My understanding in speaking to them is that some previous water and sewer bills had not been paid and they were leaned against the property. So as of right now, the outstanding balance that isn't leaned is 1800. And I don't have that, whatever that number was that you had Mr. Evans, that's the outstanding balance. That's not leaned. That's not leaned. Correct. <v Speaker 4>Okay. So in terms</v> of the outstanding balance is, is there a way to spread that those payments out? You know, this is, this is something that, that, you know, this is a person who's on social security as their pretty much their entire revenue stream, I'll call it. Is there a mechanism whereby she could pay a portion of this to, to catch up over time? Is the question? <v Speaker 12>There are, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to answer</v> that specifically, but what I can say is there's a number of programs that are offered related to water and sewer charges through the town that through our assessor's office, we work with residents in town. If they qualify based on financial circumstance, circumstances, there's some means tested programs that we have. I believe in some previous correspondences, we may have encouraged a connection with the assessor's office to have that dialogue. I'm, I'm not sure if there's been, but we're certainly happy to reconnect and try to offer what is available through those programs that the town offers. <v Speaker 4>Thank you Mr. Marshall.</v> <v Speaker 1>That's helpful. Ms. Ms.</v> Norcross, were you able to meet with the tax assessor's office to talk about assistance for water and sewer? <v Speaker 11>I'm, I'm sorry, the assistance for water and sewer?</v> <v Speaker 1>No. Ye yes. There's, there's</v> <v Speaker 11>The fact that I have to pay sewer</v> when I'm watering my lawn. <v Speaker 1>No, no. What I'm talking about is, in some</v> of the previous correspondence that I read from the deputy town administrator to you, there was a suggestion to go to the tax assessor's office because they have a water and sewer program to help people who meet certain means. Test have, were you able to do that? Were you able to meet with them? <v Speaker 11>I'm sorry. There's so many helpful possibilities,</v> but I don't, I I can't sort of separate that out of all the stuff that I've been told. So I, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. I, okay, <v Speaker 1>So</v> <v Speaker 11>Sorry.</v> <v Speaker 1>That's okay. So have you talked</v> to the Natick Service Council about assistance? <v Speaker 11>Oh, the Natick Service Council. There you go.</v> Well, you know, there's about a dozen things on my plate for the Native Service Council. I mean, I don't know what they're interested in. They, I'm, I don't know what's the na service council, what isn't, but you know, all, all the issues about, I I'm not working with food stamps right now. I've just managed to get mass health. I, I, I'm, I'm trying to get oil help with oil and there's one more that's sort of pressing, but the, yeah, that, that's, no, I have not met with anybody about that. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Ms. Slager, did you have a</v> <v Speaker 11>Question?</v> I, I assume, assume that there is, I mean, in my experience that you have to, you make only so much and I usually make $150 more or something. I had a career all my life. So anyway, I don't, I if I could get some details about that. Okay. <v Speaker 1>Thank</v> <v Speaker 11>You very much for bringing it up, Ms.</v> <v Speaker 1>Slager.</v> <v Speaker 7>Thank you Madam Chair. Ms.</v> Norcross, I'm just saying I'm very sorry for, for your situation and, and Mr. Marshall, do you have any information on the lien that has been in place? So, am I correct in assuming that the lien then the water and sewer bill gets placed on the property tax bill? <v Speaker 12>That is correct. So</v> <v Speaker 7>Potentially that might have been paid off if Ms.</v> Cro cross paid her property tax this month. I I, <v Speaker 11>Or today I came in with the property tax this morning,</v> so it was 20, roughly 2,800, you know, like 150 short of that, <v Speaker 12>That 1,861 and 40 cents is outstanding.</v> And that is not tied <v Speaker 7>To that.</v> Right. But the, the prior amount that had been leaned potentially could be hit, taken care of at this point? Well, we, we don't know. <v Speaker 12>It's, it's possible.</v> <v Speaker 7>We don't know. Right? Correct.</v> Okay. So the, the current outstanding amount of 1861, if that is not paid and we don't give an adjustment, would that also be leaned sometime soon? Do you know what, what the status of that would be? <v Speaker 12>That is a possibility.</v> The timing of that, I know that that happens over the course of the year. I'm not, I can't tell you at this point when it would, but if it wasn't paid, there's a possibility that would happen again. Yes. Okay. <v Speaker 7>Alright.</v> <v Speaker 11>Well, is there's an extra thousand dollars in</v> my bill for the next property tax and I assume that that's, that's not the other thousand dollars that I owe, which is, shouldn't be overdue to create a lien. However, there was an $800 bill several years ago. That could be, so that might, might half of it should be that. And <v Speaker 7>I</v> <v Speaker 11>Think Jamie,</v> <v Speaker 7>So our typical calculation, Mr. Marshall,</v> I mean we look at the prior three quarters, but given that there's been multiple attempts at growing the lawn, I assume that that, you know, it really isn't a lot of difference in usage and that's why your calculated amount is so low. Correct? <v Speaker 11>I'm sorry. So that we're, I'm not paying for the sewer</v> <v Speaker 7>Water.</v> No. So what we do, Mr. Marshall provides us with a potential rebate amount by looking at the prior three years usage for that quarter going back in time. I see. To see if it's excessive over that. And unfortunately yours isn't very different than you've spent in prior years, probably because you've been trying to, to grow a lawn for a while. <v Speaker 11>Yeah. At the same time. Right.</v> I mean, I, they remarked to me in the office, Donna, I believe that normally if my, the sewer water or the indoor water right is, is about $55 a month. You just hit me in the summer when I was trying to twice grow my lawn. I, you know, I, like I said, I I, I've lived there since I was three and a half years old. You, you know, playing in the yard as a child and running through the sprinkler all day was not an issue when I was little. And now <v Speaker 7>It's, bless you,</v> <v Speaker 11>It's gold</v> and I understand that it's gold, but I didn't know that it was cold. So now I do and I'd like to get an irrigation system, I guess because that allows you to run the water into your lawn without involving the sewer or the indoor water, right? Correct. <v Speaker 7>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 11>Is, I don't know if that's much of a savings,</v> but I'd like to get one put in so that I don't have to do this. I'm a little bit horrified at the amount just threw me back. I just wasn't prepared for it. I've never owned a house before and I, I worked very hard putting the lawn together myself and doing all the leg work and the grunt work, putting down, you know, two inches of soil across a quarter acre in the front yard and sort of thought I was doing the right thing and then I get a bill. It's like, you know, things have changed for an idea. It just, it, if the sewer water was involved in this bill, I, I was desperately going to plea that you not include that because I haven't used it, you know, it's, it is an extraneous part of the bill that was never used. And in my situation I would think that you don't need the money for water that I didn't use <v Speaker 7>U unfortunately, we still as a town still have to pay</v> for it even though it didn't necessarily go through the sewer we're charged for it. So, <v Speaker 11>So it's very important to have an irrigation line</v> <v Speaker 7>That that's the upside of that.</v> Yeah. So, so Mr. Marshall, I mean it's, I see the rebate that you calculated and it's very minimal. Is there anything else that we could do in terms of, you know, maybe somehow at our cost, I mean we, we definitely need to recover our expenses. Is there anything else that you can think of that we could do to potentially reduce this? I dunno. Maybe know, <v Speaker 12>I mean, I didn't necessarily think</v> of alternatives in my head, so I'm sure if I had a little bit of time I could potentially think of something. I mean, when we have looked at abatements, we've tried to bring things to the lowest tier based on usage. This doesn't meet that criteria due to looking at prior quarters, you know, within how administration's asked to look at it. There's nothing within that parameter. If you asked me to get creative, I'm, I'm sure that I could come up with something, but I I haven't actually looked at it through that frame. <v Speaker 1>I, I have a suggestion just for a moment.</v> My suggestion is this, in, in the correspondence that has been sent to Ms. Norcross, there's been a suggestion to go to the tax assessor and see what relief they can give on means testing and to go to Natick service counsel and with this bill specifically and ask what they can do. I would like to continue this hearing for two weeks, have you come back and if you could inform Mr. And you may not even need to physically come back, but if you could inform Mr. Marshall about the, your discussion with the assessor's office downstairs, it's on the first floor, and with natick service counsel that'll give us a better understanding of what we're actually looking at <v Speaker 9>And, and</v> <v Speaker 1>Because they may be able to do,</v> not an abatement, but they may be able to give you a block grant or assistance or say you qualify for these things and that would naturally bring that 1800 down and then it could come back before the board and we could discuss it. Yes. Mr. Sidney. <v Speaker 9>Yeah, I, I just have, I have one question for you, Ms.</v> Norcross, have you already installed an irrigation system or do you need to No, you, you would not be able to unless you got some of some kind of abatement, right? <v Speaker 11>Well, yeah, I I would say that</v> that's a fair assessment, yes. <v Speaker 9>Okay. So I I mean clearly going forward,</v> if you're gonna continue to water your lawn, an irrigation system is the right way to go. <v Speaker 11>Yeah, well,</v> <v Speaker 9>I mean,</v> and you know, of course finances are finances, so I I understand that. <v Speaker 11>I'm not sure there's, there's just a a no grow,</v> you know, people are, are, are creating lawns that don't require watering. There's a whole new, you know Yeah. Considering last year's summer, every, you know, everybody held on for a little while and then just quit. And it was brown all the way up and down the street. Mine wasn't because I just grew the lawn. So, you know, it held on for a little while, but it's going to be this year if I don't do something about it, I don't, maybe I'm just putting value where it doesn't belong anymore. I mean, I, I might be out of touch. <v Speaker 9>Yeah, I'm, that's actually not where I was going,</v> but I'm sorry. That's, that's fine. So just one final question and I, you know, I completely support your suggestion, but I want to just get like everything on the table here. It's up to the board what we might choose to abate. So if we decided to abate the sewer sewer charge on her last bill, we could do that, right? Okay. <v Speaker 8>Yeah. The board, the board has the full authority to abate</v> what you feel is appropriate. <v Speaker 9>Yeah. Okay. So could</v> <v Speaker 12>I just make clarification on that?</v> That's still active. You can't go into a lien and abate something on that at this period of time. So it's that, that's why specifically I shared with the board the outstanding amount because <v Speaker 9>Right.</v> But the, the sewer charge on the last bill is less than the outstanding amount. So it would be within the realm of, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, that's fine. Had clarification. Yeah. So I, I just wanted to get those things on the table for the board. Yep. So that when we come back and hear whatever we hear, we, we can make more clear decisions. <v Speaker 1>Mr. Marshall, in the meantime, in two weeks,</v> could you give us the amount of money that is not leaned and do an owing? Is it that 1800? <v Speaker 12>Yes. And the only thing</v> that might slightly change would be interest. <v Speaker 1>Okay, that's fine. We don't need that then.</v> So let's, let's do this, let's plan on Ms. Norcross going to the assessor's office, 10 DIC service council. See if that 1800 can be reduced outside the authority of this board. And this, this board will reconsider the abatement in two weeks at our next regular meeting. <v Speaker 11>Okay. I, I understand is, is it,</v> I'm a little confused about the money owed and, and the fact that part of it is leaned and or is it all leaned? Because I remember that three years ago when I, I had a toilet overflow and didn't know that it was taking water out. I thought it was just going around again, not being a house owner. So that was my fault. But you kindly cut it down to $800 and that is overdue. But the thousand dollars that goes along with that $800 I didn't think was overdue yet. <v Speaker 8>We'll have to look at that and get</v> that full report to you. We can do that outside this meeting tomorrow. And somebody can follow up with you that information. <v Speaker 11>If I could just get the information exactly as to</v> who I was supposed to speak to with the assessment's office <v Speaker 1>And the Yes, Mr. Marshall, could you take care of that?</v> <v Speaker 12>Yeah, I, I'll, I'll make sure that either myself</v> or someone from the office gets in contact with you tomorrow and we'll make sure we connect you with who we need to. I'm very grateful. <v Speaker 11>Sorry to take up so much of your time. Thanks</v> <v Speaker 1>Ms.</v> Scro cross. Carry <v Speaker 11>On.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you. The next item</v> of business is the fiscal 26 budgets and override discussion. And the budgets were revealed budgets, the two budgets from the townside and the school side. One with an $8 million override, one without. And at this point I will turn it over to Mr. Erickson to <v Speaker 9>Sure,</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 8>So as you noted,</v> the budgets were released earlier this week, both the town and the school budgets. There's budget books available on the town's website. I believe they're both linked through the override website as well. 'cause as you noted, there's two components to each budget. A with override and a without override. The override that is contemplated for purposes of the, of preparation of the budget was or is the $8 million overhead that we have been discussing for several months now at the board level and at the school committee level. And, and in the public level as, as you know, that hasn't technically been voted on. So this is by the board to place on a ballot. So you still have a couple meetings, a couple more weeks to make that determination to us. So whether or not this board feels it appropriate to put on a ballot and there's, there's still a lot to consider for this board. The 8 million is what kind administration prepared based on conversations dating back, well really dating back even several years. But the most recent conversations dating back to some summertime conversations with board and committee members from, from the finance committee, select board and school committee. And then more deliberately at board meetings starting in October, November timeframe. And then obviously the public meeting, the joint public meeting with the school committee and the select board on December 16th, where, where showed the details. 'cause we had more details about the upcoming fiscal year. We were able to show the true need prior to that meeting. And really prior to the November, october timeframe, we were still trying to figure out what the right, right approach would be, what the right balance would be, what the right amount would be. And based on feedback from really a lot of different people involved. The, in the presentation on the 16th showed the desired approach or the, or the intended approach of $8 million in a, in, in a one time override. That's not to say there weren't other considerations. There were many considerations. I believe we even shared in January the idea of a multi-year approach. I know there's been discussions about a menu approach. Those have been discussed in the past. There's various considerations for all of those. What I'd really like to hear from the board tonight is what do you need? Because my understanding based on your last conversation is that next week on Wednesday, this will be sort of a robust conversation around the ballot question. Should there be a ballot question, but a ballot question, what do you need to make an informed decision next week? How can we town administration provide you with what you need? There's a lot of information out there. So if, if you don't have it tonight, that's okay. Contact me directly and we can provide it to you individually and the board as a whole in advance of next meeting to help you make an informed decision. Again, there's a lot of considerations with all of this and so I just wanted to make sure it was ample opportunity for board members to ask questions for and, and there will be continued opportunity, assuming the board does put something on the ballot for continued dialogue about this override up until the election on March 25th, again the budget book, both the town and the school is moving. It has been prepared with the sort of a, a assumption of an $8 million operational override, but it's really the board's decision to determine what gets placed on the ballot as a question for the voters. And I can certainly ask what answer any questions about the budget itself. Although it's only been two days and it's a very thick document. So we can certainly continue that conversation for in the next several weeks as well at the board level. <v Speaker 1>Okay. I'd like to open up to the board, Ms. Pope.</v> <v Speaker 6>Thank you Mr. Erickson and all who worked on the budget.</v> I have a couple of questions. In our last meeting, someone asked a question about the capital Yes campaign. We've talked, I, I feel like in depth about that. But when someone asked, you know, where could we see what is needed from the capital perspective? Because this is a very important part as it relates to the override. Yep. I felt like the response was you can go to this place to go to this place, to go to this place. And I could be wrong, but that was how I interpreted. Is there a one sheet or a slide that we could have that shows this is how the capital portion will be impacted? Because I really like this. I think the slide is really important. This is number nine in the presentation that we have. Which breaks down that FTE part, which is really important. Those seven or seven and a half, seven people total. <v Speaker 8>Yeah. For the town and then additional</v> <v Speaker 6>41 for schools.</v> Correct. I'm right specifically to the town side. The seven people who would, or the seven places? Seven <v Speaker 8>Positions.</v> <v Speaker 6>Seven positions. Thank you. Who would be cut?</v> I think that capital slide is really critically important because we have talked about that from a high level but, and I know that it's in the capital plan, I think the 2030 plan, but just one slide similar to something like this that demonstrates this is these are the places that are going to be impacted and it will cost us more, as you have mentioned, if we don't handle this relatively soon. <v Speaker 8>Extremely soon. Yes. Yes.</v> <v Speaker 6>Or if there, if it is somewhere,</v> could you just point it out to me so that we can make that clear that this is the capital plan incurrence? <v Speaker 8>Sure. So what I'm gonna actually share</v> for the people viewing from home and for people's knowledge is the five year capital program that's on the town's website. And I just wanna show this because what'll what'll share with you is really the, and I apologize, I I'm trying to get it to be more of a presentation style on my screen. Oh that's not it. It's where is it? <v Speaker 9>This is the increase the size, the plus sign.</v> <v Speaker 8>Yeah, I was trying to make it a presentation style,</v> like make it full for the whole screen, which I think is over here. And it is a multi-page document and it goes through a lot of different components of the capital program. Lemme see if I can move this over. <v Speaker 6>And where is this?</v> <v Speaker 8>This is on the town's website.</v> <v Speaker 6>On the town's website. Where on the town's website?</v> <v Speaker 8>I am currently in, let me just,</v> actually I'm just going to show you, <v Speaker 9>We could, we could probably link this from the budget page</v> <v Speaker 8>As well.</v> It is linked from the budget page. It's also links from the override page Ma. So I just type in NA capital program into Google. It's listed as FY 26 to 2030 capital program. So it's natick ma.gov and then there's a bunch of things. FY 26 capital PR program. It's on this page that you can see here. And then the program is linked from this page. We also have a link to the program from the override page. Okay. And I believe it's linked from the budget page, but we can confirm that as well. And that will bring up this document which was released on January one. Okay. We do it always one month prior to the budget. That's a requirement by bylaw. And I would encourage people to look at the FY 26 column. It's a five year program 'cause we plan out five years and we update it every year. And then we also update it throughout the year. It's a, we, we call it a living document 'cause it's a moment in time. But there's always things that are changing based on the capital needs of the town. Emergencies happen, programs get funded or unfunded or, or we get opportunities for grant funding that might move things in and out of a certain year. That's just context. But if you just look at the FY 26 program, you can see the full list of projects that are currently contemplated for FY 26 and that's the fiscal year that is impacted by the, by the override. And it does total a larger amount than we typically fund. We tend to have a lot more at the beginning of the year in a capital program that we then actually bring forward to town meeting and that that is part of that living document component. So we've already started working with department heads to really hone in on what would be brought forward this spring and what would be brought forward next fall. But a lot of it depends on the override. If we don't get the override, we probably won't have hardly any projects coming forward this spring. But the projects that you see here are things like memorial beach shade structure, community services work, although that's, there's also opportunities for funding sources in here as well <v Speaker 6>For the public.</v> These I'm looking at slides are 15, 16, and 17. Is that right on this document? That's pages, yes pages. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. And I'm just, I want to drill this down as lay person as possible because these are the questions that are coming up. And so it is this document and I'm right looking at pages 15, 16, and 17 which really kind of detail out for the next five years what the capital, what the capital project or projects are that we were working on. Correct. Would be working on, so on and so forth. And basically if the override doesn't happen, you're saying that it comes to like a screeching hal? <v Speaker 8>For the most part, yes. Okay.</v> I mean we will be able to accomplish some projects but it really will be dependent on where we can scrape together funding largely from past appropriations and completed projects. Usually there's balances left over from past appropriations. You know, a, a vehicle comes in a little bit under budget, we have some money left over a project comes in a little under budget, we have some money left over and we can repurpose those. But by and large, yes, these, these, the capital program will, will not meet the needs of the town. And you can see the, they're broken out by, by department or type, so like facilities management, which is all of our facilities program projects. So like window replacement projects and if you click on the project later in the document are greater details about those projects. So for example, window replacement, if I click on it, it takes me to the page about window replacements and you can see sort of exactly what the intent there is for the window replacement project. <v Speaker 12>And if you scroll to the next page,</v> it'll give you a breakdown in terms of where those items will take place over the various buildings that we have in town. For <v Speaker 8>The, for the</v> <v Speaker 12>Various years, for fiscal year 26,</v> there's about 29 items that would be planned to be funded in the general fund. So that would be with borrowing, that would be with capital stabilization or cash. Those projects total roughly $17 million, you're not necessarily spending $17 million because if you're borrowing for it, your borrowing has a certain useful life. So you know, it's not all of that's gonna happen in one year. So you typically have a combination of borrowing and spending from cash or cap stabilization. Historically over the years we've been able to fund more with one-time money, like free cash and things along those lines. As that money has shifted a little bit more to the operational piece, we've relied a little bit more on borrowing the last couple of years. So that, that's been a shift. <v Speaker 6>And then to the, the piece about the debt service.</v> So that would also be kind of what we're talking about when we say debt service. Correct. <v Speaker 8>Okay. Yep. Yeah.</v> And actually one of the override funding opportunities is to fund debt service. Debt service. That's one of the items that would be funded with override funds. And that both is based on past projects that we've already borrowed for because we have to roll some of those into permanent debt, which costs a little bit more, but also is our capacity to borrow moving forward if we don't have the ability to pay our debt service moving forward. We also cannot complete projects today. <v Speaker 6>Thank you. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go. No, go ahead.</v> I'll come back. Bruce, <v Speaker 8>One thing also with the,</v> and I know we talk a lot about free cash and you know, why are we reducing our reliance on free cash? Well that's really important 'cause a lot of the free ca ideally the bulk of your free cash half to two thirds to to three quarters of free cash is spent on one time funds or for, in the case of what we were proposing, putting some into directly into capital. So a few million dollars with the override will go directly into capital projects and then a few million dollars will go into cap stabilization account, which then provides for opportunities to fund basically in the fall, for example, projects in the fall or even projects this spring, we use that stabilization account as almost like a savings account. It it, but we only have one opportunity to put like at, at this point to be able to fund that with the override. So really that that, that ability to fund capital, even though it might go into a couple different buckets is really all towards capital. <v Speaker 6>Mr. Evans,</v> <v Speaker 8>I unshared my screen.</v> I can certainly put it back up there, but I just wanted to show people viewing from home or even you just where you can find it, how, how <v Speaker 9>It works.</v> If, if I could suggest you go to the budget page and show them where that link is. 'cause it took me a few minutes to find it on the budget page. It was way down and, and not very highlighted. <v Speaker 7>You just have to click on,</v> you just click on document library. <v Speaker 9>Well I found it under CIP it's like way down.</v> It took me three or four tries to find it. So if you could just show it directly, this is where you go to the capital plan. Right. <v Speaker 8>So I'll show it partially. So I'm on the override page.</v> What's gonna come up here. 'cause I think a lot of people also will be interested in the override page. So it is on this page. So if you scroll down, we have a documents library section. I think that's what you're referring to, Linda. That's where it <v Speaker 7>Is.</v> <v Speaker 8>And the budget book is here.</v> The budget presentation, the, the school budget book is here. The school budget presentation, our public forum presentations and then the, sorry, additional documents is where you see the capital improvement program and there's a lot of other information in here as well. So we are really trying to make sure this is all one central location full credit to to, to Jay, our communications director for putting this together and you know, really being the mind behind this, this section of the page. And we are trying to make sure that all things school and town that are relevant to this doc, to this year's budget and this year's dialogue around the override are at this location so that anybody can find it. <v Speaker 9>Yeah. Well I I just wanted to, you know,</v> capital is such an important part of this. I wanted to make sure people could actually get to it. Yep. <v Speaker 8>There is also a resource library tab,</v> which I find also very interesting 'cause it talks about what is a proposition to an f override. It has the information about projected impact on real estate taxes. We mentioned this I believe on Monday night when folks were asking a little bit about impact on property owners. You can actually, there there's assessed rough assessed valuations and so you, based on your own personal circumstance, you can kind of see what, what the impact would be to you individual. There's also the q and a tool, which which you can see lower. There's, we actually are just about to release another batch. Oh, we just did release a batch, sorry, today batch number four. Yep. I knew it was around today. I just wanna make sure. And basically when people ask a question, it comes in real time. We batch them up on a weekly basis and then we release them. And then there's also a master document that has all the questions and answers and we, we are soon to be releasing. We got a, a list of questions from the finance committee that will also soon be releasing on this as well, so everybody can see what has been asked from the finance committee to date. And then there's a video library so you can see all the videos of the different public forums and meetings that have happened today as well. <v Speaker 4>Excellent.</v> <v Speaker 8>Mr. Rubins?</v> <v Speaker 4>Thank you Madam Chair. I have a couple quick questions</v> that I, I think are quick. Where are we in terms of the three big stabilization funds in terms of financial management principles, the general stabilization fund, the operational stabilization fund, and the capital stabilization fund? And the reason I'm asking is because in the last couple of years, we've by necessity had to decrement remint the levels of those, and so part of the override is going to replenishing those because they exist for a specific purpose. So if you get a respond to that, that would help. <v Speaker 8>No, that's a a great point and a great question.</v> So, and as you noted, we have three, we currently have three stabilization accounts, general stabilization, operational stabilization, and capital. And you're absolutely right. The pandemic was actually the first time, I believe my understanding is the first time in Nats history that we actually utilized operational and general stabilization funds because we felt that it met the criteria for the use of those funds as set by town meeting, which the, those, those funds were established. And I believe the general stabilization was back in 1961, and the operational was more recently than that. But the, the town meeting very specifically set the criteria by which those accounts can and should be used. And it's really related to economic crisis, economic downturn, unforeseen circumstances. I would argue that this current situation is none of those, but the pandemic absolutely was, which is why we felt it appropriate to utilize those funds during the pandemic. We are nowhere near pre pandemic levels in those two accounts, but we are near target levels. So the target levels that are in the financial management principles talk about a level equal to, for example, 2% of revenues for the general stabilization and 5%, sorry, I'm just reading it now. Sorry, what'd you say? <v Speaker 4>It's</v> <v Speaker 8>Receipts. Receipts, yes.</v> It's related to receipts for the operational. And we are, I mean, those do obviously change each year. We do need to make sure we have an annual in input into those because our budget changes every year. But last year we didn't meet those minimum target levels. And one of the reasons that we'll use, one of the intents of intents of using some of the free cash is to at then keep up with those minimum targets. Without an override, we won't be able to do that. Just full openness. Capital is a little bit different. It was created more recently in 2010. My understanding is that capital was somewhat intended as a way for local option taxes to be invested into that capital stabilization account. And I know for the last four years and pre, I believe it even predated a pandemic, we have not been following that practice. So that that's not a necessarily a pandemic related change in practice. I believe that was pre pandemic, but I would very much welcome the ability to get back to that practice in future years. Because I think in my opinion, capital stabilization had a much larger balance pre pandemic. We had to tap into it during and after the pandemic. It is now at very low levels as compared to historic levels. It's, I think it's at a, just north of a million dollars right now, where it used to have many, many more million dollars in it. And I would also love to get back to the practice of utilizing local option taxes, like the intent to put those into the capital stabilization account. Obviously we won't be able to do that with an override. It'll be challenging even with an override, but we have more ability in the coming years, you know, four or five years down the road to be able to make that become a more standard practice. Does that answer the questions about the three stabilization accounts? Yeah, <v Speaker 4>Yeah.</v> And the point that I wanted to make is with the override, we, we kind of have an opportunity to do a reset to reset to how we use the stabilization funds. And you know, there, there were things that we had to do during the pandemic and using some funds that we normally would not have tapped into because there was an emergency. But what the override will allow to some extent is for us to get back to quote normal behavior and good practices. <v Speaker 1>Ms. Slager,</v> <v Speaker 7>This is kind of an aside,</v> but I would like to, at some point in the next year or so, take a look at our financial management principles because we aren't following some of them and some of them may be out outdated and, and ones that we need to change. So I think that's, they haven't been looked at for, for quite a while, and I'd like to do that. <v Speaker 8>Yes, 100%. It's on the list of the many principles</v> that are items that we've been working to review. Obviously the time was not during the pandemic or the years coming after the pandemic, and that now we're in this debate over override. But I do think to your point, there's some outdated ones, but there are some really good ones in here too, that, again, the last four years since I've been ta we just quite frankly have not been in a position to even come close to, to, to meeting. And I think there's some new approaches that we can maybe adapt or adopt that might make more sense for Natick moving forward. <v Speaker 1>So along those lines, I'd like to piggyback Ms.</v> Walsch logger's comments and ask the board over the next week, say, by end of business Monday, if we could be thinking about suggestions that we could make to town administration. So for example, one of the suggestions I had run across the town of Hubbards has a tax recap policy. We do not, it sets out the policy, its purpose, applicability background, it's in layman's language, and it explains exactly what the recap process is and the policy suggestions to town administration about as we go forward to the public. And, and I'm not suggesting that we're gonna have all of these done and ready for Wednesday's vote on whether to put it on the override, but it's a very good exercise. Many of us have received well, all of as a board we've received and we've had conversations, we've had a letter from Frank Foss that had some very good information in it. We've had letters from other taxpayers and people who are learned in finance. I'd like us to review those. Take a look at what you think we could make. Like when Arlington did its, and, and I, I wouldn't suggest we follow Arlington's lead in what they did, but when they did their override, they made a, a series of commitments to say this is what we're going to be doing. And as a select board, as a select board, as town administration and as a select board. And I think some of these are, some of the suggestions are very good. I'm not suggesting that we bind future boards with decisions. I'm talking about policy analysis. I'm talking about procedures, ideas to address some of the questions that were raised in good faith by the public over this process. Along those lines, for example, there has been a question that was raised about why doesn't Natick adopt a senior tax exemption like Arlington did. When Arlington did that, it also had an excessive means test. So if you had, some people have a small income but have $5 million in the bank right now, our tax programs, tax assistant programs look just at income. If we were to do an exemption, the tax assessor has suggested that we may even need a halftime or a full-time person to do asset checks. And that's what they're doing in Arlington. The other part about that is Ms. McKenzie, please let me finish. I'm sorry. Thank you. The other part of that is when we saw it adopted in Weston, what ended up happening is we adopted a, they adopted a circuit breaker and we used town funds to defray taxes of people who met a certain means according to state guidelines. But what that meant was in that tax year, they didn't qualify for the state money. So what ends up happening is we are replacing state money with town money and it's seesaw. What they saw in Westin was it seesawing back and forth. One year a senior would file their taxes and say, oh, great, I have this exemption from the town of blank dollars. When they filed it with the state, the state said, oh, you don't get an exemption because you get one from your town. So then they're like, well, we don't like that. And that, that has just increased. That amount has just increased. So state level, I'm sorry, the state level amount has increased. The state level has just increased. So then the next year they would apply for the state one, and then the following year they would apply for the town one. So what we're doing there is shifting the tax burden onto other tax payers when the state is providing tax relief. So there's, that's a con. There are some pros. This is something I'd like us all to be talking about. They're very good questions and I'd like us to be going through the questions over the next five days with an eye towards developing administration, developing kind of a list of commitments that we can by mid-March, say to voters, we will have already taken a vote on whether to put it on the ballot. Now, if we don't put it on the ballot, I still think this is a very important if, if the vote is not to put it on the ballot. I think this still is a very useful exercise. So it's not wasted time. No, it's not. And we would need to do that in conjunction with the schools, which is why it would not be done on Wednesday. Thoughts on that Mr. Mr. Evans? Yeah, <v Speaker 4>I, I just wanted to add to the conversation,</v> and this was part of a conversation that Mr. Erickson and I had with the former town manager of Arlington and one of the finance director. Say again? <v Speaker 8>Finance director. Finance</v> <v Speaker 4>Finance director. Yep. Okay.</v> Oh, he what got his title? <v Speaker 8>Oh, he was town manager at the end.</v> <v Speaker 4>Ah, you see, I did my</v> <v Speaker 8>Homework.</v> I knew he was the finance director for a number of <v Speaker 4>Years.</v> Eventually finance director, then town manager. So anyway, so they had an interesting concept of that they called an override. Stabilization. Stabilization, okay. That's right. And I'm sorry Mr. Sidney was on that call also at which, which was an intriguing concept. And, and it kind of speaks to the, you know, none of us has a crystal ball and knows what free cash is gonna come in at one particular year after another, or if the new growth is gonna be higher than we expected. But anyway, so what the select board in Arlington did was create this, and I guess it was through their town meeting, which was the, they created an override stabilization funds so that they could put money into that stabilization fund and then be able to take it out in the future. And, and what, what the goal of that was is normally in, in, you know, we haven't had an override in 17 years. We're probably overdue for that. But what a lot of people have asked me is, how long will this override, you know, be good for, you know, can you guarantee that we'll never need an override. Again, this stabilization fund can be a little bit of a hedge to say, you know, whatever unexpected things come up, or if we happen to get more money in than we expected, more economic growth. Some of that, you know, obviously a big share of it is gonna go to the capital and other stabilization funds, but even a portion of this can be set aside to that. And to me it was, it was, it's a concept worth considering or at least discussing. And you know, I I, I intended to write up the notes from this, but the best laid plans, <v Speaker 9>If, if I may, just to support that, the difference</v> between the override stabilization and the operational stabilization, operational stabilization is restricted to economic downturns, for example. And there's like one or two other reasons you can use it. The override stabilization fund would be able to be used much more freely to essentially offset the need for the next override. As, as you know, as these numbers cross over time, which they always do. I, i, for one, I I I thought it was a great idea. And even if all we do is we put our free cash reserves in it at first it starts to build up a savings account to avoid the next override. <v Speaker 1>One of the things that when we adopted local option taxes,</v> which are taxes on restaurants and hotels, so those are taxes that don't necessarily hit our, our tax paying base unless they choose to stay at a hotel or eat out. When we adopted those, it was my understanding that the local option taxes were supposed to go strict go, were designed to go right into the capital account. Percentage. <v Speaker 8>The percentage A percentage, yes. A portion.</v> <v Speaker 1>Have we done that?</v> <v Speaker 8>I believe the town did</v> for the first several years of that, but I don't believe they've done that. Okay. I don't recall them doing ever since I've been here. We have certainly not been doing it since the pandemic. And I don't, I believe that practice ended pre pandemic, I don't know how many years pre pandemic, but I believe it ended pre pandemic. It <v Speaker 9>Was pretty close to the beginning of the pandemic.</v> <v Speaker 8>It could be, yes. I just don't recall</v> exactly when, because I, I <v Speaker 9>Remember it pretty, you know, from town meetings Yep.</v> Being pretty regular. <v Speaker 1>So if, if two homework assignments,</v> one is thinking about going through the suggestions, thinking about what you would be willing to support in terms of a letter of commitment. And the second thing is to now we have the opportunity, but, but before end of business on Monday, if there's any information that we need to make a decision about whether to put it on the ballot, get in touch with Jamie <v Speaker 8>If you have any Now I'd love to have them.</v> I know Linda, you and I emailed back and forth about a couple different considerations and there's a lot to consider. I get that. So please feel free to reach out, text me, call me. I'm not gonna give my phone number to the public, but you have it because we're, we're here to help support what you all need to make an informed decision. <v Speaker 1>Thank you. Jamie. Are there any, any questions</v> or comments now at this time with regard to what we need or what individuals need to make a decision next Wednesday at this time? Okay, I'll <v Speaker 13>Go to Jamie.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. Let's open it up to members of the public.</v> Are there members of the public in the room who wish to address the budget or the override? Yes. Dr. Mackenzie, <v Speaker 14>Donna McKenzie, Tommy D member precinct eight seven.</v> I just wanna thank you briefly for even considering some kind of property tax exemption means tested for seniors. I was at the open door dinner on Monday night and every senior I sat with was like in despair over the override. I didn't bring it up. They brought it up on their own. So people really are hurting. And I didn't mean to like shake my head, just that I don't think we need to hire a full-time person to go through people's assets. There are state ways. I'm sorry, I'm outta breath. I'm actually worried it's my heart. <v Speaker 1>Take your time.</v> <v Speaker 14>But there are state means</v> that are tested and the beauty of that is that people are really trained very rigorously in confidentiality in ways that local municipalities are not. And that's important when you're talking about people's finances in their property. So again, I just wanna say thank you. I know there was a committee that looked at this years ago and decided, well, it's just shifting the burden to somebody else, but you know, it's not exempting seniors of their taxes, it's maybe giving them a small break off, off of a huge tax bill so we can be creative. I just urge you to be as creative as possible and it's time to re-examine this. So thank you very much. <v Speaker 1>Thank you Dr. Mackenzie. Ms.</v> Edelman Foster, sorry, <v Speaker 8>Just if I can reiterate.</v> Yes, Ms. Donna, Ms Dr. McKenzie noted that there was a committee, I believe they disbanded about three years ago, but they did work over, I think the prior four or five years even looking at a means tested approach. And, and so the their, their information is public record. We can check and see if it's still active on the website and if not, we can try to get it more active and visible on the website just in case people want to view what they analyze. 'cause I think it's important to look at what the town has already looked at just as, as, as a part of informing sort of future analysis and decision making. <v Speaker 1>Sorry, I'm just looking something up.</v> Sorry. Is Edelman Foster <v Speaker 15>Oh, thank you.</v> Karen Edelman Foster. I live in Natick. I wanna thank the board too. Really thoughtful discussion. I love the thought, the talk about a reset. I love the talk about a commitment to voters and to residents because this isn't gonna be easy for anybody as much as we, you know, many of us think it's necessary. Some people are not gonna be able to afford it for real. Some people will be able to afford it, but it'll hurt. Some people will be able to afford it easily. But we have a whole range of people in this town and I really appreciate your, you are considering that deeply and thinking about how we can go forward in a way that both sees to the needs of the town and sees to the needs of the individual residents. It's really important. I appreciate that. Thank you. <v Speaker 1>Thank you, Ms. Edelman Foster,</v> we have two hands up Mr. Gates, if you could unmute yourself. <v Speaker 16>Can you hear me?</v> <v Speaker 1>Yes.</v> A little muffled, but we can hear you. <v Speaker 16>Alright. Is is that a little better?</v> A little, a little, yeah. Oh, can we keep trying? I had some questions regarding the shared services budget specifically as it relates to the retire the contributory retirement plan. I was just wondering, is there a minimum age at which someone can actually jet a pension or is it just based on years of service? So for instance, the way I was reading it, it said that anyone who had 20 years of service was eligible for a pension. And I was just wondering whether there was, if someone started working for the town at 18, whether they could start collecting a pension at age 38, but if they have to wait until a loaded time and life. <v Speaker 8>Yep. So the, the, a lot of, a lot to, to answer</v> that question, there are a number of factors that go into eligibility for retirement under the town, which is really governed by the state's pension system. Part of it depends on yes, your age, for example, and, and years of service. And then there's also a combination of the years of service and age that can then relate to what your pension actually is and date of hire. So those are the various factors that go into it. So any town employee, typically most town employees after 10 years of service of full-time service are considered vested in the system. Anyone with 20 years of service can typically retire, but their actual pension will depend on a factor of their age and years of service. So let's say you have somebody who started working for the town at the age of 18 and they put in 20 years of credible service and at the age of 38 they decide to retire, their pension would likely be very, very low. Something like 25% of their highest three years. Whereas somebody who puts in 30 years and retires at the age of 60 or 65, it would be much higher, such as 70 or 80% of their highest three years. There's actually a pension calculator on the state's website and all of the pension criteria are also located on the state's website. So that's probably as high level of a, of a, of an answer I can give you without getting into sort of the minutiae of how the state's pension program works. <v Speaker 16>No, that's, that's helpful. I mean,</v> because I was just looking at the fact that, you know it, even if it's only 25% for someone who's only 38 years old, that's a lot. It's a lot of money over a number of years. So that's one thing. The other is that, and so the contributory retirement system is actually run by the state, not by the town. Is that correct? <v Speaker 8>Yes and no. So all municipal components</v> of governments such as towns, universities like UMass, Framingham, state and state government, except for some of the quasi state agencies fall under the same rules. In the case of Natick, we actually have a Natick retirement board that is separate from town government that runs the Natick Pension Retirement System. They have to follow all the same rules under the state and, and so do all of our employees, but it's actually run at the local level. It's not part of town government. We have no oversight authority over them. The board of directors is actually voted on, it's actually there's one seat actually appointed by the select board, two voted on by the members. So people who pay into the system or are receiving pension from the system. And then one is the comptroller of the town. That's sort of a de a a seat that's automatic by that position. And then one of the members is appointed by the rest of the members and then they hire and fire the executive director. And they have a staff of, I believe three right now, but they're completely separate from town government. We just have an obligation because of the way the system works, they typically, their costs are governed by the membership, you know, basically our pension contributions, and then they run a trust where they invest those into investments. But anything above and beyond that, that does fall to the town as, as a, a liability of a cost. We also have to, we're responsible for, and this is why it's a, a, a large line item for the pension liability. So the town has been for many years paying between 12 and 14 million to the pension system. And that is the town's obligation. The retirement system though is not overseen by the town. Like I have no authority oversight over them. The select board has no authority oversight over them other than just the appointment of one person on the board of, of of five. <v Speaker 16>Right. And, and is, is it coordinated at all</v> with Social security, meaning that I think at one point state and federal employees were not eligible for Social security, but are they eligible, are town employees and state employees now eligible for social security as well? <v Speaker 8>I believe there's a recent change in the federal</v> government in December that might have actually adjusted that, but previous Correct, we were not eligible. We government employees in Massachusetts, I think we're one of maybe two states that were not eligible for Social Security, but I believe at the end of the last congressional session in December, they might have passed some new federal laws that changed that. <v Speaker 16>Sure. So I guess one of the questions I would ask,</v> I mean obviously most corporations do not have the defined benefit plans anymore, if they get away with 'em over time when the 401k and profit sharing and other things like that came into place. But it sounds as though that's not something that the town could institute because it's run by the state, not by the town. Is that correct? <v Speaker 1>That's, I think that's correct is the question,</v> could the town eliminate pensions because now town employees are, are eligible for Social security or switch to 4 0 1 1 or switch to IS or switch to is is that the question <v Speaker 8>Mr. Gates?</v> Right. We we do not have the authority to change the Pension PRO program or system. We <v Speaker 16>No, no, I</v> <v Speaker 8>Required, we're required to be a part</v> of it per state regulations and laws. We also do not pay as a town employee. I do not pay into Social Security either. Right. I only pay into the pension program and the town does not. While we offer the ability for the individual to pay into a deferred compensation program, the town does not provide any match for that. That's all individual contributions. <v Speaker 16>Right. No, I I I get that.</v> I was, I was just wondering whether or not it's something that the clearly a pension is a career is not a career average formula. It is the highest three out of the past five years in both cases for what I've seen reading this. And so clearly the last three or five years are what determines the pension for someone. And that's typical for a defined benefit plan. But in the case of a 401k or a defined contribution plan, it's a career average type of thing because you're paying in and you're earning and you get whatever the balance is. So one is, is determined by formula, the other's determined by what you contribute and what you earn. And I'm just wondering because the, you know, it, it, retirement plans are always very expensive when it comes to defined benefit. And if there's a way to potentially change it, this is one way that you could actually reduce the cost to the town of the shared services going forward. And it's not something that it, it that would eliminate what's going on right now because what people have earned their earn, they, they will continue to earn, but it's for new employees or those who haven't reached the 10 years or the 20 years of service based on whether you were, well I guess it's 10 years of service is the vesting point for a defined benefit plan anyway. But it's just a, a something to consider, you know, for the future if there's a way to, you know, move away from the state because I think it's a problem for the state as well as for cities and towns and it's one of the major and growing things, even though the, the school system is, is growing rapidly, it's clear that the retirement systems do as well. And of course the, the, the last question I had with respect to this had to do with what was the, what was the actual cost of the COLA for the retirees for this year in terms I, because I know the, the number was like 8.7% when it's closer to four or, or four point a half percent. So what was the amount of the cola for the, for the retirees this year, which is another thing that's unusual for a defined benefit plan. Most of them, you know, set and clearly if you, if it's coordinated with social security, social security goes up, but generally a pension plan does not. <v Speaker 8>Right. So, so I'll, I'll be able to answer the question</v> with regards to the cola. Based on the town meeting action that happened in the fall, our estimated impact for the upcoming fiscal year is in the $700,000 range. The Natick retirement system is doing an updated actuarial study, however, and so the, the full impact is not known at this time. And we might not have it even in time for this upcoming budget season. But because we base our payments into the pension system based on actuarial studies, it's possible that that amount could be less, could be more. Our impression from working with the retirement board is that their investments have been good above market. And our hope from that impression is that it will be less than what we are anticipating. <v Speaker 16>We don't have</v> <v Speaker 8>Those updated figures yet.</v> <v Speaker 16>And Opep is the same issue. Right.</v> In terms of the actuarial studies. <v Speaker 8>Sorry, what's that?</v> <v Speaker 16>Opep is the same with respect</v> to the actuarial studies. Other post-employment benefits <v Speaker 8>OO opep is also based on actuarial studies.</v> That's a different right. Set of actuarial studies. A lot of the most recent data from the actuary studies is in the appendices of the budget book. So you can see in, I'm just looking for actually for the retirement. I believe it's actually in the retirement section, which starts on page 180 5 and it talks about interest in, in maturing debt in the retirement section. But I believe OP e trying to find where it would be, it's in the 260, <v Speaker 16>Right?</v> I think there was 250,000 was what I saw. <v Speaker 8>Yeah, I believe,</v> yep. If it's helpful, Mr. Gates, if you have these questions, I'm more than happy to, I I'm thinking of just the time for this evening. It's already nine 10. We can certainly answer these questions if you provide them, you can send it to select board at Nat do. But the actuarial data for the ope, that's what I was looking for. It's called the GS B statement number 75, starts on page 2 72 is from Stone Consulting outta Medfield. <v Speaker 9>Thank you. If I, if I may, Mr. Gates, some</v> of these questions would be really worthy to put on the, over in the override q and A so that people could also see the answers. <v Speaker 16>Okay, thank you.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you so much Mr. Gates.</v> Mr. Devereux? <v Speaker 17>Yes, thank you Chair.</v> This is a, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yes. This, this is a question I'm not sure where to address this question. I'm not sure if this body is the right one or the town administrators have the answer to this now or even when to address it. But my question sort of piggybacking a little bit of Ms. Pope's earlier question about capital budgets is when can anyone town meeting member and how can anyone get a handle on an individual capital project's lifetime cost? I realize that plans may not be firm when budgets are set about how things will be financed. Possibly, maybe they have to be, maybe they don't. But is there any way such as writing to the, you know, the finance committee or attending all the finance committee meetings about the capital budgets to find out information like that? It's very difficult to imagine, you know, how the, how the capital costs hit operational expense when they're being paid for through their lifetime. And I imagine there's an aggregate, you know, sort of average whatever thing that, that it's complicated. I know and Mr. Marshall does a wonderful job of this stuff, but it's hard as, as a, you know, a resident and a town meeting member to know when one of these things comes into the budget, what the real impact of it on the operational of an individual thing is. And I realize there are other factors in getting onto a capital budget. I mean there is need, there is replacement, there is a lot of factors that have to be weighed. <v Speaker 8>Yeah. That, that is certainly a, an interesting question</v> and a challenging question as a general. So, so there's a couple ways to answer that question. And a lot does depend on the funding source. So for example, any projects that are utilized cash, like free cash or other, you know, non borrowing, the impact of the town is really that time of that cash or that use of that fund. So there aren't necessarily more long-term impacts, it's just more of an immediate impact of the appropriation of those funds. When we do borrowing, that's when, I think it's the heart of your question as to how can we determine how those impact the town over the course of a project. So much depends on the project because we can only borrow for the useful life of the project itself. So for example, a vehicle typically has a five to 10 year lifespan. We can only borrow for five or 10 years, whereas a building or a facility might have a 20 or 30 year lifespan. Our borrowing can be more to that 20 or 30 year timeframe. So typically what we would do when we do these estimations is we put all those factors into a spreadsheet, you know, the types of projects and the, the, the amount for borrowing the years of, of that ability for that debt service, what a potential anticipated borrowing rate would be. Fortunately Natick is AAA bond rated community. So we get the best rates, we want to keep getting the best rates, another reason for the benefit of the override. And then we, we factor that out with our, we have a software that we can do that in-house actually, but then we also work with bond council and financial advisors to let us know what we're looking at. Long story short, typically when we look at like for example, a 20 year lifespan, if we have $10 million worth of projects over 20 years, you figure just principle is $500,000 a year plus borrowing costs is probably another what depends on on our our rate for borrowing it. It could be, it, it fluctuates. We've been very lucky in recent years, although interest rates have gone up to get extremely favorable rates. I think during the pandemic when interest rates were extremely low, we were in the 2% range. But more recently I think we're in the three to 4% range 'cause interest rates have gone up. So 500 to $600,000 on a $10 million borrowing for a 20 year bond. <v Speaker 17>Very good.</v> <v Speaker 8>Rough, rough math back of envelope.</v> So if you figure, let's say for example we have a 10 year capital program, 10 a $10 million capital program this year and all the projects can meet that 20 year borrowing. That's not the case. But let's say we can, you would anticipate an an, an impact on the fe year over year budget of five to $600,000 in shared services just for that one year's worth of capital projects. Now one thing about our, our shared services, the, the, the that borrowing item, as we have projects coming on, we typically also have projects and borrowing coming off. So that's why that can also go up a lot through the years. So I believe it was last year, two years ago, we actually had a couple larger scale projects come off. So we actually went from a, an a borrowing to expense ratio of almost 10% down to 7% in one year. Simply because of that math of a factor of bar of borrowings coming off of our, our our books. It doesn't mean we want to just replenish and get back up to that 10%. It just means that that came back off our books. So, and, and it is extremely healthy for a community to utilize borrowing because you know, rating agencies actually look to that. Like how are you doing and how are you covering your finances? Are you within the, the, are you using borrowing to your advantage? 'cause it is an advantage for communities to borrow at such low rates to do larger scale capital projects. We are extremely healthy in that area, meaning we're at I believe seven to 8% right now. Borrowing to our, our, our ratio of borrowing bond radio agencies usually don't get concerned until it hits north of 10 to 15%. The state wants us to be at 10 plus 10 to 12%. Our goal is to be below 10 and we are <v Speaker 18>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 17>Well, let me, I don't want</v> to take further your time on this Mr. Erickson. Thank you. I would only urge if it isn't done and I'll go back and review recent finance committee books for capital projects, sections for town meeting if it isn't explained in a narrative in a given year. The kinds of things you, you just, which were only part of, part of the issue, the situation I'm sure, but like, you know, things coming off that are, that are, are reaching their end and don't need to be paid for anymore. And you know, what the impact of these things going forward is. So that, I'm not sure this pertains to, to people's understanding of the override, but when you're looking at individual projects and the capital budget, it's a very different experience than looking at FTEs in the, in the school committee budget, for instance on public schools budget where you, you have some idea of what you, what you're talking about in terms of expense when you eliminate them and capital projects. It's just very hard to get a grip on whether something makes sense or it doesn't make sense except by, by comparison and that individual thing to say, does it make more sense to buy this car then that car or whatever, you know, and those kind of questions come up periodically at at town meeting. But I don't know if the finance committee is the place to really address this and whether the, whether it's a common enough concern for people on most items it probably isn't, but on some it's at least that I can think of. Thank you. Unless you have anything further to add about what the finance committee might be able to add to what you're saying for a given year capital <v Speaker 8>Budget.</v> Excellent question. I, I do, from the capital perspective, there is a finance subcommittee that's, that just targets capital and review of capital that, that they do. And Mr. Marshall works with them closely along with our department heads. They do talk about the capital program, the projects coming on board, how we're planning on funding those projects. That has to be part of our motion for town meeting. This year's gonna be a little bit unique because we can start discussing projects, but we can't start discussing what's actually coming forward to town meeting until after the select board talks next week and also after we know what happens with a potential override vote. So it's a little bit unique this year but, but that, that is an avenue for some of that discussion. We also, I believe regularly and I we're trying to find it in the budget book, have a list of, and John actually just found it. <v Speaker 12>Yeah, on page 2 0 3 we have the debt schedule</v> and that shows debt over the kind of life of whatever that asset of the, when it started, when it's planning on concluding and then the schedule. So that's on page 2 0 3, <v Speaker 8>So 2 0 4.</v> <v Speaker 12>Yep.</v> <v Speaker 8>And that, that's that, that's</v> that spreadsheet that I was talking about. How you can map out a project and the cost of that project on the town. It talks about printable interest and then how that gets paid off over the course of a year. <v Speaker 17>Okay. So that's in the capital budget</v> portion that you were looking at earlier? Nope, it's in the <v Speaker 8>Budget book.</v> <v Speaker 17>It's in the budget book.</v> <v Speaker 8>Yep.</v> If you're in the FY 26 budget book, it starts on page 2 0 3 to 2 0 4. <v Speaker 17>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 8>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 17>Alright.</v> <v Speaker 1>Not the capital At this time</v> I'd like to close comments. Thank you. And discussion. Thank you Mr. Devereux. <v Speaker 8>Good questions.</v> <v Speaker 1>We have a lot on the agenda to get</v> through and it's 9 23. Next item on the agenda is to vote. Vote to hold a hearing for an alleged alcohol license violation. Natick Lodge 1425 BPOE of USA or the Elks Club. At this point, the only piece of business is to, to vote to have a public hearing unless anyone having read Ms. Donovan's memo thinks it's not necessary. <v Speaker 17>I, a motion</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Evans. Second.</v> Seconded by Ms. Wolf Logger. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? 5 0 0. And we'll see if we can do that. Well because of publication it might be three weeks out so <v Speaker 8>Yeah, we have to post that.</v> Sorry, we have to post that appropriately <v Speaker 1>For 14 days.</v> <v Speaker 8>I believe so for this one Summer 21 days. Summer seven.</v> But this one's 14th. <v Speaker 1>Yeah. So maybe in about three weeks.</v> And since we're meeting every week, that shouldn't be a problem. <v Speaker 8>It'll take us a couple days to put it in</v> the papers, so maybe it'll be <v Speaker 1>That's okay.</v> 'cause we'll be here. We'll <v Speaker 19>Be here. You know when to find</v> <v Speaker 1>A vote to hold a hearing for non-compliance</v> California Pizza Kitchen. Yes. So <v Speaker 7>Moved. Tuck up. Yes.</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Pope.</v> All in favor, please say aye. A Aye. Any oppose? Any abstentions that passes? And again, three weeks, four weeks. Mr. Erickson, could you just explain briefly or remind the public and the board about why we are the community host agreement amendments for KE a ma? <v Speaker 8>Correct? Yes. So KE a is a cannabis</v> lab testing facility in town with any cannabis related facility. We're obligated And so are they to have a host community agreement or say that we don't want one, but we negotiated one with KEA several years ago under prior cannabis control commission rules and regulations where they actually took, you know, they, they did not review any host community agreements since that time. They've updated the regulations and this is really just to bring into compliance that host community agreement with kacha. This board has already reviewed and approved, I believe all of our other cannabis facility. HCAs. We have two retail, one medical, medicinal, and then this lab facility in town. And you've already reviewed all those other three ones. This is the last one for you to review and update. It's been reviewed by town council Cara. She actually was like, wow, that's really good. So it's in good shape and we just need the board to vote to amend it. <v Speaker 9>Move to approve the updated</v> host community agreement. Second <v Speaker 1>Move by Mr.</v> Sydney. A second by Ms. Wch logger. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? 5 0 0 And the agreement is here for the three of you to sign. Next item is referral. Sure. That <v Speaker 9>Gets back in the blue folder too. Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 1>Referral. Referral of zoning articles</v> for spring 2025. Annual town meeting. <v Speaker 8>Yep. So this is another batch of zoning articles</v> for consideration of of town meeting. But ultimately per MGL, any zoning amendments need to first be submitted to the select board and then refer to the planning board for their public hearing <v Speaker 19>Motion.</v> <v Speaker 7>So you said batch, there's just one, right?</v> <v Speaker 8>Okay. There was a batch</v> previously and this is another one. Sorry, just one. Sorry. We knew they were gonna come in a couple different rounds. Just <v Speaker 7>Make sure we weren't missing any.</v> <v Speaker 8>No, it's just the one. Okay. It's</v> <v Speaker 9>Just what you have in there. Sorry, I</v> <v Speaker 1>Didn't mean to call the motion. Please</v> <v Speaker 4>Move to refer the zoning articles to the planning board</v> <v Speaker 7>Zoning article.</v> <v Speaker 1>Article zoning</v> <v Speaker 4>Article.</v> <v Speaker 1>Sorry, sorry. Move by</v> <v Speaker 9>Mr. Evans.</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Evans Second by Mr. Sidney.</v> All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? 5 0 0. The last item on our agenda before we go to the consent agenda, and we may not finish talking about this tonight, we may need to consider it giving, continue it giving given the time is first an amendment proposed by Mr. Sydney to our alcohol policy, which is located on Novus. It would insert here under manager duties and responsibilities, the duties and responsibilities for unattended drinks. <v Speaker 9>Yeah, if I may, I can explain why I,</v> <v Speaker 1>Why don't we see if anybody has any questions</v> first, but that would be good. I wanna try to get outta here before <v Speaker 9>Today.</v> Yeah, it's the real quick explanation. <v Speaker 1>Does anybody have any questions?</v> <v Speaker 7>Yeah, I think they're mislabeled on Novus.</v> <v Speaker 1>The draft amendment should be in red under seven point.</v> <v Speaker 7>Okay. Draft amendment. No, no, I'm looking at it. Ron.</v> Nevermind. Okay, so, okay, go ahead. <v Speaker 1>Do you have any questions about it?</v> <v Speaker 7>No, I'm just, I just did a diff on the file</v> so I can see what's changed. <v Speaker 1>Gotcha.</v> <v Speaker 7>So I just had 'em mixed up.</v> <v Speaker 9>So really briefly, this came about, I went up to,</v> on New Year's Day to celebrate a birthday in the middle of the day. The restaurant was basically empty. The bar was serving, which is all legal. There's no question of legality here. People who were using the putting greens were carrying drinks around and then leaving them half drunk behind unattended. And there were families, it's young children. And my nephew who is from Vermont said, don't you see that as a problem? And I said, Hmm, yeah, maybe that's a problem. And it's absolutely a violation without putting anything in our policy to have a a child secure one of these and take a drink. However, I felt, and, and this is why I made this proposal, that just highlighting it to the manager that he's responsible for, you know, whatever he needs to do to make sure that these unattended beverages get collected and not misused or, or grabbed by somebody who's not eligible. And there were no, there was on the only person of age in there, the only employee of age in there as far as I could tell was the bartender, the, the kids that were running around making sure the putting greens worked were all seemed to be teenagers. So they couldn't touch these strengths. So they, that, that became a concern of mine. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Ms.</v> <v Speaker 7>Slager, thank you.</v> I'm just trying to understand how this would work, Mr. Sydney. Like, so somebody gets up and goes to the bathroom, the manager is responsible for policing that drink. I mean, has this been discussed with anyone? Have <v Speaker 9>You, I I had a conversation with DC Lason about this</v> and we can't, in our policy, there's no way for us to say you have to do it this way or it's unattended for this long. What we ha what and, and we don't have to say anything. It's still a violation. But I I just wanted to highlight it to the establishments as we've got a bunch of these kind of recreational facilities that have very large alcohol licenses that, you know, they have to pay attention and make sure that, you know, kids don't get these drinks. <v Speaker 7>But isn't that the responsibility</v> of the person with the drink? I mean, given how many issues there are with unattended drinks, specifically in bar areas where, you know, women especially have to be very careful about their drinks, you know, making that the responsibility of the manager. I'm just trying to understand how that would work. <v Speaker 9>Well it, so if, you know, I, when I talked to DC Anne,</v> he said, you know, if I go in there and I see a kid pick up a drink, that's a violation. That's an alcohol violation. I'm going a, I'm going after the manager as the responsible one for making sure that it gets properly bust. So, you know, can <v Speaker 6>I ask a clarifying point which ties into this?</v> Because you keep saying that's a violation. I wanna clarify what the violation is. Is the viol the kid <v Speaker 9>Picks up, gimme</v> <v Speaker 6>A second.</v> Okay. Is the violation that the parent is leaving, that someone is leaving an unattended drink? Or that the the kid, the underage kid or minor is drinking alcohol? <v Speaker 1>It's the latter.</v> <v Speaker 9>It's the latter</v> <v Speaker 1>Because somebody can get up from dinner</v> and go to the bathroom and leave their drink and that is not a violation. <v Speaker 6>Right. And I think that's important to distinguish</v> what the violation actually is. To also distinguish who should be responsible. <v Speaker 9>You know, I, I had a conversation,</v> I also had a conversation with Attorney DeLuca at MMA and he thought this kind of language was exactly what was appropriate because you know, really, you know, in a regular restaurant you got two parents and a kid, this, you know, both parents are gonna leave the kids sitting at the table. This is really about these recreational facilities, putt Shack, bossy level 99 Dave and Busters, where, you know, people are like all over the place and the kids could pick up, I mean these, I saw drinks just left randomly on high tops in the putting greens. Yep. And it's hard. I mean, yes, the parent should, the, the parent who left it should be responsible, but the establishment is responsible. <v Speaker 1>Mr. Evans,</v> <v Speaker 4>I hear what you're saying Mr.</v> Sidney. But in terms of responsibility, how do you differentiate between an establishment like and a restaurant where someone leaves a drink unattended while they go to the ladies room or something like that? In my view, this is something that tips training or whatever the training is called that covers that. <v Speaker 9>Yeah, it does.</v> <v Speaker 4>Now let me finish. Sorry. It covers it.</v> And the other policies say if they're violating this, if they're, if there is a situation where a minor is, is getting a drink inappropriately, that's something that the owner of the establishment or the manager is obligated to a report b do something about it and train their staff to intervene. When they, when they, if they're in a facility and they see a kid eyeballing a unattended drink, the training should be go over and get that drink or find its owner before the kid gets this. Now it's not a perfect world, but I don't see the need to add this to every, we have no differentiation between the putt shack scenario and the restaurant scenario that are, they're both all alcohol licenses and in our policy there's no differentiation between, well these guys are an entertainment, all alcohol licenses licensee and these guys aren't. <v Speaker 9>Yeah. And, and in my, in my view, that doesn't need</v> to be the issue. So in a restaurant you've got, you know, license tips, train waiters running around, you know, the whole restaurant in these entertainment venues, the, the, the bar is in one very specific area and the drinks are all over the place and out of sight of the bartender. And that's the real problem is when they're out of sight, there's nobody watching. And we don't have to add this, this is a violation whether we add this line or not. That's point. <v Speaker 1>Only if somebody picks it up.</v> <v Speaker 9>Only if somebody picks it up, who's the liar.</v> <v Speaker 1>But this would a letter suffice</v> we're talking about for entertainment. Click Yeah. A letter suffice saying just be advised that we have seen unattended drinks and <v Speaker 4>Why don't we have an advisory from the deputy chief.</v> <v Speaker 9>Well, so</v> <v Speaker 1>Steve DeLuca,</v> <v Speaker 9>The, the, the reason, the reason I think, and,</v> and I talked this over with, with DC Za and, and attorney DeLuca, the reason to put it in the policy is that we don't have to constantly send advisories. This is the advisory to the, <v Speaker 1>We don't have to constantly, there's just one.</v> I would like to bring up a point of pride. Arlington is redoing their alcohol policy and they're using ours as a model. Yeah. So what it's not a, it's, you know, this is, we've, we've crafted something that's pretty solid. It took us four months. I think we're really, really proud of it. We either put this in or we don't. I don't wanna do that. I don't <v Speaker 4>Put in option.</v> Can we take a vote on this? I'd <v Speaker 1>Like to, yeah.</v> We'd have to take a vote if we're gonna put it in the policy. It has to. We have to. Or if we don't put it in, we have to put it in. Then I, <v Speaker 4>I'm looking for two votes.</v> I mean one is to, to vote yes or no on putting this in. And the other is the vote on the overall policy tonight. I don't want to see this anymore. <v Speaker 1>Okay. So the second one we're not ready for yet</v> because we have another item to discuss. Okay. And that's with regard to the, the alcohol and training intervention procedures. Okay. Because that has been raised as an issue. So I will take, I'll take a motion on the first. <v Speaker 4>Okay. I, I move to not include it. Second,</v> <v Speaker 1>I have a motion and a second.</v> Are, is there any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? <v Speaker 9>Aye. Nay.</v> <v Speaker 1>Any abstention?</v> So that's a four one. Okay. I'm going to try to very quickly discuss what the issue is regarding dis tip certification and I will gladly postpone this discussion to another meeting. If, if people want to talk about it, if it seems more complicated than I think it is, I'll defer to the wisdom of the board on this. Our policy says that individuals must participate in one of the following approve or one of the, these must participate in these programs, including ServSafe. We adopted ServSafe or an industry approved insurance approved or industry approved, da da da da. Now, when Paul Joseph was chair and he issued the first wave of reforms in our alcohol policy, there was a discussion. Unfortunately the minutes are not very complete. Hmm. The discussion was should this be in person? Should they should, should everybody do it every three years for certification in person All the time? Should it be the case that they do it? If you're new to the industry, you do t you do tips in person the first time within 30 days of being hired. So that gets them the ability to get on the payroll or, and, and then subsequent renewals could be online. What we landed on and what's not in this policy was something that's almost unenforceable. And that is first, first time has to be online. <v Speaker 9>It has to be in person.</v> <v Speaker 1>I mean,</v> I mean, so it has to be in person. The first certification has to be in person. The next, the renewal can be online. Online. The next renewal needs to be in person. Now the problem with this is your card doesn't say whether you did it in person online. You are certified. The industry understands that you're certified. So when I spoke with the deputy chief about this, he said, nope, they're supposed to be in person. That's the way. And then he showed me our former policy and the former policy says, must participate. Anyone who deals with alcohol, yada, yada, yada yada, must participate in one of the following programs. So I sent that to Dave DeLuca and said, as our alcohol co council, do you read that as mandatory in person or is it either, because I read it as participating means you participate, you get your certification. He said that it could be either way. We can choose to do it either way. We can make it as complicated as we can. We can make it as simple as we can. Now one piece of new information is we received a letter from Yogish Patel. I bet that's not up on, it's not on Novus, I don't think. No, I don't think so. I I'm just gonna read it into the record. Donna, I just wanna confirm that tips classes are still required to be completed in person in class. Question mark. We're having a hard time to get our employees enrolled in, in-person classroom because of the lack of classroom schedule. I heard that Framingham is no longer requiring in-person class or in-class training. Can you please confirm? So I happened to stop in there right after I saw this and I said, it's on the agenda for Wednesday. We'll discuss it, then Donna will get back to you. That's why you're not gonna get an immediate response. Hmm. So the question before this board is how do you wanna require TIP certification in our policy? And I'd like to take a vote on that tonight. Or alternatively, if you want more time to think about it, to look at other programs, we'll move this off onto an agenda. But I don't wanna spend more than five minutes on this 'cause it's quarter to 10. But I'm also happy to give us more additional time at a future meeting. <v Speaker 9>I, yeah, I have a question. We do typically offer an</v> in-person training once a year, right? <v Speaker 1>No, we, and we have a, an A, B, C, C,</v> alcohol law seminar for managers ah, once a year, which is not certification Okay. Or anything like that. Okay. But that's a good question, right? <v Speaker 9>Yeah. So I, I had this idea that, and,</v> and I don't think it's workable, so I'm not even gonna talk about it. So it's <v Speaker 1>Basic, I know basic exactly what you're thinking</v> and it's definitely not workable. So I'll, I'll just go out for us to do to, to offer it. Is that what you're thinking? <v Speaker 9>No, I was thinking, I was thinking, you know, if if</v> that we would require that they attend a, they, they could get certified online and then attend an in person within a year or something. <v Speaker 1>That's more cost. The downside, it's not a bad idea.</v> Downside is it's more cost to the restaurant because it's a three year certification. <v Speaker 9>Yeah. It's like I said, I didn't think it was worth it.</v> <v Speaker 1>So just background, I talked to Vit Zide, I talked</v> to Sharon at the Tavern. I talked to DJ Bossi at Bossi, I talked to Yogish Patel at Natick Wine and Spirits, and a random person at Total Wine. I don't have his name, he's a manager of some sort. I don't have it. I said, would from, from, from a requirement standpoint, would you think that this would be reasonable? If you've never been in the industry, if you've never had a certification, you need to go to in-person class. Subsequent to that, if you have somebody who's been in the industry for 30 years, being online is a good refresher, but I'm not sure we need to require that person to do an in-person. And if you're already certified in another, A TIPS program in Oklahoma and you move here and you have TIPS, certification, it's the same program nationwide. We accept that. So that, that was kind of my, my, my thoughts on it. Yeah. Any thoughts, comments? <v Speaker 9>Yeah, I like, I think it's reasonable.</v> I like the first one in person. For somebody who's never been trained, I think it's a better training. Mm. <v Speaker 1>I do</v> <v Speaker 9>Too. And you know, other than that,</v> online is fine for refreshers. Yep. <v Speaker 7>I agree.</v> <v Speaker 9>Agree. And,</v> and the other thing we could do is in given cases where there's a violation, we could, sorry, if there's a violation, you know, we could require somebody to refresh online. <v Speaker 1>Absolutely. That's already in problem. Refreshing</v> <v Speaker 9>In person.</v> <v Speaker 1>That's already in our policy.</v> <v Speaker 9>So if they, you know, unfortunately,</v> if they're not being offered in person, you know, I don't know that it's fair to require them if they can't get it. So <v Speaker 1>Serve Safe is offering them in person in Marlboro,</v> but the Framingham facility closed, another one may open. Yes. <v Speaker 7>Yeah. I, I would, I think I would, I,</v> that's a really great idea to require in person one time. But I would also like to keep that open, you know, once we approve it and review it again in a year. And if it's a hardship, and if we're finding that our restaurants are not able to get in-person training, then I would be open to changing it. Because if, you know, Framingham, for example, isn't requiring that, you know, we wanna do everything, I think, to be responsive to our restaurants and, and, you know, businesses serving alcohol. So I, I think we can, you know, we can do it now, but let's you know if there is a problem and, and we don't know if there could be problems, you know, that would've come up in the next year where they're not able to get in-person training. So that's <v Speaker 1>A really good idea, Linda.</v> And what I, what I could do is, is tickle in the, the issues folder, tickle a check in. We can send a letter to our license holders in July or August at the end of their busy season. This is a quiet season. And ask them, how's it going, what's their experience been? Yeah. Okay. So we can't vote that because you don't have the language in front of you. What I will do is write the language, put it on in a, a consent agenda so you guys can read it. And if you wanna pull it off and talk about it, we can do that. Excellent <v Speaker 8>Idea.</v> <v Speaker 9>Awesome.</v> <v Speaker 7>We're getting there.</v> <v Speaker 1>We're gonna bury this policy.</v> We are gonna bury this policy. It will be done. We have come to the, just an un under an hour late the consent agenda, Mr. Sydney. <v Speaker 9>Okay. There are five items on the consent agenda.</v> I'm gonna pre-alert you that I'm gonna pull one item, A approve request to occupy a public way. Boston Athletic Association for the Boston Marathon. Item B, approve request for a one day alcohol hall license and vets post 79 Item C approved bagging of meters for the 2025 elections. Item D approved meeting minutes for 11, 1 23, 11, 13, 23, and 10 30, 24. Item E approve early voting requests for annual town elections on March 25th. I'm gonna pull item D. Does anybody want to pull anything else? I move items A through E except D. Second. <v Speaker 7>Second.</v> <v Speaker 1>Moved by Mr. Sidney. Second by Ms. Wolf.</v> Logger. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? 5 0, 0. <v Speaker 9>And I pulled item D</v> because I heard that there were some outstanding comments to be made on these minutes, so we're just gonna throw the whole, whole thing to another meeting the next time. <v Speaker 7>Yeah, that's great because I had a, I had an email</v> to Billy that I didn't send yet, so me too. Great. <v Speaker 1>Me too. Yep, me too. So it's, yeah, I was like, great.</v> Thank you Mr. Town Administrator compliance with the MBTA Communities Act. <v Speaker 8>Yep. Thank you. Just a brief update given the hour.</v> We have heard word from E-O-H-L-C, executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. That, and, and they're going through a little bit of a, of a figuring out of the, what the next steps are for MBTA communities Act, be given the court case. That was recently determined with the Milton case. But we, with our submission and completion of the work through town meeting this fall and the amazing work of Amanda and team through CED and others, we have a, I think it's an initial approval or provisional approval is what they called it. But it's really what they're calling everybody who's in the approval phase. So we are considered approved or, or compliant with the MBTA community's work. So I just wanted the board to be aware of that. Yes, it has in a number of, up in a number of grant applications to the state come up. So we are, we can successfully check that box and say we are compliant with the MBTA communities. <v Speaker 6>Thank you. And congrats to Amanda. Yeah,</v> <v Speaker 8>She did an amazing job on that.</v> And Andrew was great in the clerk's office and was a true team effort. <v Speaker 1>Yes. Wonderful.</v> <v Speaker 8>I have one other announcement,</v> please, just briefly please. Mr. Westering, our deputy, or sorry, director of public works, will be leaving the community in the coming week or two. We have a <v Speaker 1>Date,</v> <v Speaker 8>I believe it's this week,</v> the 12th is the last day. Okay. He accepted the position as Commissioner of Public works with the city of Worcester. Pretty, pretty, pretty amazing opportunity for him. I think it's also a testament to the quality of the people that we have here working in Natick and that we can get working here in Natick. They're getting recruited away by such amazing cities. Second largest city in New England, I believe is what worcester's one of their many claims to fame. And we just wish him the best of luck in Worcester and know that due to his time here in Natick, he'll be well prepared for whatever Worcester throws at him. <v Speaker 1>Oh indeed. And it won't be town meeting. So,</v> <v Speaker 8>You know,</v> <v Speaker 1>Congrats to Mr. West.</v> <v Speaker 6>Major. Congrats. Great job.</v> <v Speaker 1>Real quickly, for select board updates,</v> this really isn't an an update, so to speak. I just wanna review our homework. Our homework is to go through the, the various suggestions by residents, get comments and thoughts and in into Jamie so that we can put together a structured discussion for next Wednesday for end of business Monday. Any questions or of more information you need something that's not clear, get that into Jamie or call, just call him, text him. Whatever you need to do. He's made himself available. Let's use him as a resource. The third item I wanted to ask is if, if we have our calendars open, I'd like to schedule a one hour retreat to go over select board norms. We haven't done that. And I'd like to get that on a policy before the end of the year. You'll be getting an email from me. I know I've said this for two weeks, but it has a list of all of our goals and what is still outstanding. And what I, in that email, I will ask you to prioritize what you want to put on agendas for the next two months. 'cause we have two months to accomplish some things and we won't be able to do all of it. But we've gotten a significant number of our bucket <v Speaker 8>List.</v> <v Speaker 1>It was, yeah, we did it.</v> We, we really got a lot done this year. So that's all just homework assignments. Cool. I'll entertain a motion to aurn. What's <v Speaker 8>Adjourn second.</v> <v Speaker 6>So we're not scheduling anything right now.</v> <v Speaker 1>Oh no. I'll send a Google Doodle, whatever.</v> Oh, and last thing, remember we have the override forum in the great room at this senior community center next Tuesday night at 7 7 7 o'clock. So for those of you who want to engage, we please come out, review the budget books. We really wanna hear from people, and then we'll meet again for next Wednesday for the sole purpose of discussing and taking a vote on whether or not to put the override on the ballot. Move to adjourn. Move to adjourn from Mr. Evans, second by Mr. Sidney. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any, any opposed? Opposed? Stay here and sleep. Stay here. Yeah, you don't have to go home, but you can stay here. All right. Have a good night.