Speaker 1: All right. Good evening everyone. Alright. It is on, not on mute, on the laptop. You're good. Okay. All right. It tonight is the Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 meeting of the Natick Select Board. This meeting is being broadcast by Natick Pegasus and recorded for future viewing as well as being available to residents via Zoom. Thanks to naic Pegasus for their great support. Thanks also to them for their work and and help in troubleshooting our new audio system.
As you may recall, we were having some growing pains, we'll call them with the new system. So thanks to them and town administration for working really hard with the vendor to figure them out. So I'm assuming that everybody can hear this properly. And what's interesting is the screen Chiron is backwards. So that's, that was a little disconcerting. So be that as it may. So we will enter our first, we will take a roll call to enter into executive session.
If that passes, we'll go into executive session and then hopefully we'll be back in about a half hour. So, executive session pursuant to item A, pursuant to mass general laws chapter 30 a, section 21, A three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation. If an open meeting may have an extramental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair. So declares Skylar Sian versus town of Natick and chief KY number 2 3 8 1 CV 1000 Middlesex Superior Court.
And I so declare item B pursuant to MGL 30 a 21 A four to discuss the deployment of security personnel or devices or strategies with respect there to Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, Middlesex County, chiefs of Chiefs of Police, interagency agreement. And I so declare, move to open second. Okay. And that the car is a roll call. Ms. Coughlin. Yes. Mr. Sydney and Ms. Er. Yes. Ms. Pope?
Yes. And I'm a yes. So we'll be going into exec session, be back in about half hour. Come back. Sorry, the executive SEC session took longer than expected, so I apologize. So now what I'd like to do is have everybody in the room who's capable of standing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. In a moment of silence, Speaker 2: P Allegiance, suicide flag of the United States of America, Mr. The Republic for stands, one Nation undergrad in Slope, Liberty, and justice for all.
Speaker 1: Thank you everyone. Okay. First up is announcements. And this is one of the favorite parts of being on the select board. And I think every select board member will say this is when newly promoted firefighters or hired firefighters are introduced to us. So take it away, chief. Speaker 3: Good evening. Speaker 4: Good evening. I was worried when I printed out my speech that it was getting longer and longer and then I just realized as I'm getting older, I'm making the font bigger. So it's exaggerating. Yeah.
So good evening and thank you to the board town administration, our friends and family for this opportunity to recognize recent promotions in our department. Anyone can be a boss, but people must work to be a leader. Being a leader requires putting in extra effort and time to learn new skills, take new classes, challenging yourself to be better. Doing the right thing is not always the easy way or even the popular way. Leaders challenge others to be better. I want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to the men and women of the Natick Fire Department who work hard every shift, provide exceptional service to the community. We delivered a baby boy this morning.
There is a tremendous amount of work that goes in on behind the scenes that we sometimes don't take time to acknowledge. There are countless hours of training, attending classes, pursuing advanced degrees, writing grants, and tackling certification classes. Over the last few years, I am proud to say that our members have actively participated and excelled in many of these areas. This is a bit of a double-edged sword. The positive side is that we have many members who are well-trained, well-educated, and well poised for their job and for leadership roles. But there is a downside to the promotional process having more exceptional
candidates than positions available for most. The promotional process is a very emotional process. Investing hours and years of time and effort for the privilege of leading others. This is no easy undertaking and I applaud all of these members for their hard work. For every promotion we make, there are sometimes 2, 3, 4 people who do not get promoted. Each promotional process has become more and more competitive and no decision is made lightly. So again, to the men and women who are working hard every day, keep up the great work, we see it and it is impressive. Turning now to the other reason I'm standing before you this evening, the opportunity
to recognize the most recently promoted officers of your Natick fire department. Standing on the far right, Lieutenant Jeff Libby, Lieutenant Libby, grew up in Natick and spent many years working for the recreation department as a lifeguard at Memorial Beach. Jeff was also the head swim coach at a local high school where he was awarded the Boston Globe Coach of the Year, as well as the Tri-Valley League Coach of the Year in 2018. Lieutenant Libby is an EMT. He has a master's degree in organizational leadership and fire Rescue Executive leadership from Waldorf University. He is fire Officer one and fire instructor one certified.
He's also driver operator and aerial certified and has more recently completed the Fire and Life Safety Education Certification program, which we put to use in delivery of our safe and Senior Safe programs. Lieutenant Libby will be assigned to shift four engine two immediately to his left is Captain Justin Moy. Captain Justin Moy is extremely passionate about the fire service. Justin is a paramedic who has a knack for teaching and coaching his crew, our new firefighters, and even veteran firefighters. Captain Moy is a member of the District 14 technical rescue team, the District 14 dive team. He's also our internal dive team team leader.
And I'm pretty much sure that there's not a Prober Prob board certification that he doesn't have. And I actually believe that they cringe when he goes to take the exams because he points out all their errors. Captain Moy has a master's degree in public administration. He is fire officer one, two and three certified. He's fire instructor one, two, and three certified. He's incident safety officers certified and that's really just the tip of the iceberg. On his certifications, captain Moy will be assigned to shift one ladder one immediately. To his left is Deputy Chief Kevin D'Angelo,
deputy Chief Kevin D'Angelo grew up in Natick and maintains a deep commitment to this community and its fire department. Kevin is one semester away from cleaning its bachelor's degree in emergency management and holds certifications as a paramedic fire officer one, two, and three as a fire instructor, one and two and HA also maintains numerous technical rescue, rescue credentials. Excuse me. In addition to his responsibilities with the Natick Fire Department, he serves as a member of the Massachusetts State Hazardous Materials Response Team. And he is also on the specialized team, which is the Joint Hazardous Incident Response Team.
That's a specialized group of hazmat technicians who work closely with the Massachusetts State Police on complex incidents such as clandestine drug labs and large, large scale or of large venue protection. Deputy Chief DeAngelo also serves as the department's computer systems administrator and he's currently assigned as the demi deputy, the administrative deputy chief role. Excuse me. The next position is a long overdue position for the department and I'm extremely proud and excited to see this position come to fruition. This position strengthens the management of the department and will enhance our ability to serve both internal and external customers.
The assistant chief is not simply an additional rank, it is a structural safeguard that protects operational performance, supports leadership bandwidth, and ensures the department remains stable, professional, and forward focused. So immediately to my right, it's my pleasure to introduce newly promoted and our first ever Assistant Fire Chief Christopher Hampton, assistant Chief Hampton, has progressed through the ranks with increasing responsibility and operations, training and leadership. He holds a master's degree in public administration, is a graduate of the Chief Fire Officer Management Program through the Massachusetts Fire Academy,
which is a joint venture with the Edward J. Collins Center for Management. And he is also a credentialed fire chief in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is a Marine veteran, he's also a paramedic. He's incident safety officer, certified Certified fire Officer one, two, and three, as well as fire instructor one. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated a strong commitment to operational excellence, professional development, and steady principled leadership and service to this department and our community. I am grateful to have him in this role and I can already feel the impacts that he's having. In closing, there is an excellent book written
by Jim Collins titled Good To Great. The book contains several strong leadership concepts that speak directly to the growth of leader, of a leader and the evolution of an organization. Much of its leadership philosophy centers around humility, discipline, and building enduring institutions. This little excerpt I have from the book is probably one of my favorite passages. As leaders, our responsibility is not to chase dramatic moments or quick wins. It is to stay disciplined, confront reality. Honestly, it makes sound decisions and keep pushing in the same direction. If we remain consistent and aligned with our purpose, the breakthrough will come not
because of one event, but because of a steady focused leadership. Over time, great organizations aren't built overnight, they're built patiently. So with that, you give a round of applause to our newest appointed officers. Speaker 5: Okay, Speaker 6: Mr. Chair, can I make a comment? Speaker 1: Yes, we can. Well, we're gonna, this is very brief. We're gonna have a few brief comments by each of the board members should they be so inclined. And I'll go last, Speaker 6: Scott, I just wanted to say that I'm always impressed with the promotions that Chief Ske brings forward.
We're so fortunate in this town to have a talented, passionate fire service and EMT service. But I also wanna note that it's really lovely to see so many members of families here and the colleagues of the promoted firefighters turning out for a select board meeting at seven o'clock after a interminable wait on a Wednesday night. And so I'm very thankful and it says a lot about the department, it says a lot about our fire service. And I just want to thank all of you who have turned out in support
of your newly promoted colleagues. Speaker 7: So first of all, we have a rule called the ditto Rule. Everything my colleague said, I'm just, I, I want to specifically say thank you to the promoted firemen who are taking on leadership roles, looking to the future and working to make our fire service and our, in particular our EMT service because it's clear it's more an EMT service than a fire service these days. Better, stronger, and making our town safer.
So thank you gentlemen, and congratulations on your promotions. Speaker 8: I'll also invoke the ditto rule. Ditto, ditto to both my colleagues. Just wanna say how impressed I am with not only the turnout tonight and thank you all for being here and support, but also all of the list of impressive qualifications that Chief Furge read off. I mean, your commitment to self-improvement and education and looking for opportunities. It just bodes so well for this department and the future. And I just wanted to thank you 'cause I know that all of those come at a cost
and it comes at a cost for your families that are here because you have to do this in your own time and just want you to know that that's very much appreciated and we hope you'll be with us for quite a while. Thank you, Speaker 1: Chris. Speaker 9: Did everything that was already said, but also congratulations to the promoted firefighters and I'm really encouraged by seeing your families here, your families and your friends, the support that you have in the room, but also the support that you have in the chief and in us as an organization and as a town. So thank you for being willing to do this work
and for the example that you are setting for the department as well as our residents. Speaker 1: Thank you. It's really difficult batting fifth in this line, but I would echo the, the sentiments of all my colleagues, the education, the commitment, the the family support and, and the commitment of the firefighters to come out and support their, their leadership team is always,
you know, it, it, it am the amaz is the wrong word. It always makes me odd when I see the room full of firefighters who've had probably a long day or are starting a shift come over here to support their leadership. It speaks great volumes to not only the leaders, the chief, but to yourselves. And, and we appreciate that very much and welcome to the future firefighters that I see sitting on laps here. So thank you all. Appreciate you coming in and you are now free to go.
You don't have to listen to the rest of our boring, boring meeting. So thank you all for being here tonight. Speaker 7: I appreciate, have a couple of announcements. Speaker 1: Okay. Right. Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 10: Hard to keep with. Speaker 1: Alright, next up, Speaker 7: I've got a couple of announcements in addition. Speaker 1: Okay. Sorry about that, rich, go Speaker 7: Ahead. No problem. The moderator contacted me a couple of days ago. There's been another resignation and there's an open slot on the finance committee. He asks that anybody who's interested in serving, please apply through the website in the usual manner and get yourself appointed to the, to the finance committee.
That's one. The second one is I'm doing my last office hours a week from Saturday at the Farmer's Market. So if you want to talk to me, talk to me about anything the board's doing a week from this Saturday at the farmer's market, 10 to 12. Speaker 1: Thank you, rich. Any anyone else? Evidence? Okay, now let's move on to appointments. The first is the appointment of the VSO Officer. So first of all, I want to thank Paul Caru for as many years of service to veterans in our community
and his tireless advocacy on their behalf. The phrase above and beyond only scratches the surface. We'll be honoring Paul during our March 18th meeting, so you'll be hearing more on that soon. The recruitment and hiring process of the new VSO started in late January. We received 17 applications, seven were selected for interviews. Two rounds of interviews were held. The panel consisted of town administrator, or sorry, town administration, two select board members, a local veteran and the community service director.
The panel selected John Martin as the top candidate. I want to thank everyone who is involved in the re recruitment and selection process. Mr. Erickson, Mr. Marshall, Angela Snell, Dorothy Bloe, Alan Grady, Ms. ER, and Ms. Coughlin. I want to go through just very quickly some excerpts from Mr. Martin's cover letter that gives you a flavor of of his background and experience. With over 30 years across military
and civilian settings, Mr. Martin has dedicated his career to improving the lives and outcomes of service members and veterans through benefits counseling, educational leadership, recruitment strategy, and talent management. Most recently at Mass Bay Community College, he led veteran enrollment certification, ensured VA compliance, and provided personalized advisement while building resource sharing partnerships with Metro West veterans organizations. As a senior transition assistance counselor and military leader, he directed outreach
and training efforts across US and Europe, empowering hundreds of service members to pursue meaningful civilian careers and educational pathways. Mr. Caru and Mr. Martin will overlap and work together to ensure a smooth transition. So welcome Mr. Martin. Thank you. If you'd like to say a few words, please, Speaker 11: This is gonna be a green new era for veteran services. Hello everyone. John Martin from Nashville. If you can catch the accent Speaker 1: Microphone. You need the mic on it? The green light on
green button on the mic. On the microphone. It's on the mic. It says push down the bottom. Speaker 12: Okay, thank you. Thought I was more technically savvy than that. I'm John Martin from Nashville. I spent 26 years in the military. I retired as a master sergeant, which is a pretty good grade for an enlisted soldier. I Did a lot of counseling of soldiers throughout my career. The cover letter makes it sound so wonderful. I just did my job. My passion is to help people and whenever I have the opportunity to help a veteran,
it just makes me feel so good. I enjoyed the Mass Bay veterans very much. I, but I, I reached a point where I felt like I needed a break Now I regret leaving that, not now, today I don't. But I did regret leaving that position for a while. Now I've got a new outlook on life and I'm gonna give Natick the very best that I can give you to support your veteran population. One more thing. It's my wife, Lisa. We've been married 38 years and we have four wonderful children. Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome. Speaker 7: Welcome John. Thank you. Welcome, welcome aboard.
Looking forward to your service, to our veterans. Thank you. Welcome. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 7: Yes Speaker 12: Sir. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 1: Any comments from the public? No. Alright. Thank you sir. Speaker 7: Thank you. Board vote. Speaker 1: We do need to vote to confirm, Speaker 7: Move, move, move. We more detail move. We appoint John Martin as veteran services off second, what length of term for three years. Three years. Three years. Friendly amendment. Speaker 1: Are you auditioning for Mr. Sidney's role for when? Speaker 7: Well, somebody has to parliamentarian. You'll you'll just let us know who, who seconded that. I'll
Speaker 1: Give that to Kristen. Kristin. Speaker 7: All right. He was Lin. Speaker 1: All in favor say aye. Speaker 7: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: 5 0 0. Speaker 7: Welcome aboard. Welcome John. Welcome Speaker 1: Aboard. Alright. Alright. Thank you again. You, you are free to go. Speaker 7: You, you could stay if you want. Be bored. Nice. Speaker 1: All right. Next up, we've got public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that's not included on tonight's agenda. It will be taken under advisement by the board. There's 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 is limited to three minutes. Do I have anybody who wants to speak? Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 13: So I'm going to speak and I'm going to speak until I'm done speaking and if you want to interrupt me or call the police, go right ahead. You have three minutes. Last time my child and I attended a meeting, it was at the senior center and we had notified you that we were gonna be recording. It was not publicly recorded. Seems to have angered you and created a very hostile environment for my child. And I had to call the police. We had to leave the meeting because of safety concerns.
Mr. Evans, you're very inappropriate with your words, Kathy. Coughlin's actions also very concerning. As you know, we also received a bizarre email from someone who identifies themselves as Felix with an email, Natick resident@gmail.com. As you know, I had to report what has been going on to my family, to the FBI and we are asking for an investigation. It is under their purview. I am an accidental whistleblower. Way back in 2011, I inadvertently stumbled upon some fraud in Framingham
and here in Natick, $20 million that was being embezzled, which the school committee, along with the select board, Mafa White and other officials all decided to keep it from public disclosure and procure and, and misuse federal grants that are meant for sped kids, title I, title ix, and, and other, other children instead of, and, and to, to cover up to supplant the deficit. I want to speak tonight specifically about Chief Hicks
because you are asking town meeting to vote to extend his contract. And I reached out to my town meeting members, as you all are aware, and they are unaware, they are uninformed of his involvement in an ongoing criminal conspiracy that has left a child fully disabled. So I have the emails. I first contacted Chief Hicks back in 2014. I asked him for the residency evidence because a residency investigation was conducted.
Natick school committee illegally excluded my daughter saying that they had evidence from the chief of police, from the police department that my daughter didn't reside in Natick. I was denied due process, which is our federal, right? I asked for the evidence and Chief Hicks violated Massachusetts general law chapter 66, subsection 10. He had in his possession the evidence. And as you know, the evidence showed that my daughter was seen with her dad in Natick on the way to the school. You had no right to illegally exclude my child for life. Okay? You said that they would use any law rule
or regulation to keep my daughter from attending public schools. Shame on you, chief Hicks. I, as you know, I had to take Chief Hicks to the court, to, to superior court because he refused to provide me with the evidence. He falsely claimed that it was in my daughter's school file. Again, you violated ferpa and when I say you, I'm talking about the elected boards. You hired Chief Hicks in 2011. He knew about the embezzlement and the fraud. He knew about the harm to my child's civil rights violations under the color of law. So I had to take him to court
and I finally got the evidence as, as you all know, he knew as of August 30th, 2014, that my daughter was a resident of Natick. She fulfilled your residency policy to police officers, Rick Halleran and my daughter's own school resource office of Beth Heffler. It's factual evidence. I'm not saying anything that isn't backed up by, by fax. It's an email from Chief Fix. And Chief Fix, as you know, does not deny or dispute my claims that he is a co-conspirator. This is extremely difficult for me as you know, I I'm scared
to death of what you guys have done to my family. And you show no signs of stopping, right? So Chief Hicks is a board officer of numerous nonprofits and they're all registered again. I was first, the first time that I had reported fraud was because the PTO in framing it in Natick were not registered. They were illegally soliciting and the funds were being given to the school committee. Again, that's illegal. The, the embezzlement happened in, I believe, 2011. Josh Ostroff was the Massachusetts Municipal Association
President and Natick and other municipalities are all privately insured by the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Agency. And instead of going through your insurance agency when there was fraud and corruption in the embezzlement public disclosure law enforcement, you chose to cover it up. We know that Chief Hicks, again, 2011, and again, sorry, I'm a little discombobulated. It's it's, excuse me, could I pause you? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going. I'm going. Okay, so again, the was we over three minutes now, so wrap that up. So was daily newspaper, but did an article on Chief Hicks,
but it was biased as you know. I sent an email to the reporter and asking for equal time for them to publish factual evidence. And that Chief Hicks is involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud naic, violating the law. Duly noted. Chief Hicks does not deny a dispute. My claims, which are factual court documents, sworn affidavits emails from Chief Hicks. So Chief Hicks, Speaker 14: Please Speaker 13: Verify the judge Josh Wall recused himself because he has a professional relationship with Chief Hicks. But November, 2015 after my child became suicidal, required over 30 days
of hospitalization and was, was left fully disabled. I reiterate, excuse ma'am, I'm please Speaker 1: Wrap up. That's okay. You have 15 seconds. You Speaker 13: Know, you know Speaker 1: We've got work to do. Speaker 13: I'm sorry. You know you do have work to do. You have work to follow the law you have with all due respect. I, three minutes. Okay. I'm giving you Speaker 1: Five. Speaker 13: Well, judge Wall came back to the bench and dismissed my claims against Natick with prejudice. Let me know he was protecting his buddy. Chief Hicks, you know, really shouldn't the town meeting members know about the factual evidence that Chief Hicks is involved in a criminal
conspiracy to cover up this fraud. Retaliation, my daughter is almost 23 years old and she has been, NA will continues to refuse to approve a homeschool plan to allow this child to go on to college. She'll be 23 years old in a couple months. How dare you. I'm not here because I want to be, I'm not here because I like to be here. I am here fighting for facing the reality with honesty. I think the fire chief said, I'm here because I'm an accidental whistleblower. Speaker 1: Thank you Speaker 13: Very much. To give an example of
Speaker 1: How the fire, thank you very much. Speaker 13: Yep. That is all has affected the Natick schools. That is all coordinator was also the cut Speaker 1: The microphone Speaker 13: Please. Also the SPED director from 2012 to 2024. SPED children did Speaker 1: Not. Do I have to call the police please to get you to remove please. Speaker 13: You where's my phone? I'll call and and call you. Speaker 1: Okay. Put the screen and the mic on. I'll pause for the Pegasus Speaker 13: Feedback. Per General Lodge chapter 44, section 53, all grants must be approved by the elected board chair. Move in a meeting, move into recess. Speaker 1: Move to recess. The grants second. Yes, I'm gonna go with Andy. Andy's been patiently waiting, so then I'll go take yours.
Great, thanks. So thank you Andy, the floor is yours. Speaker 15: Okay. Can anybody see me? You can hear me right? We Speaker 1: Can hear you. Speaker 15: Okay. Do I need to be on video too? I don't seem to be able to on, Speaker 1: No, don't worry about it. That's Speaker 15: Fine. Oh, that's fine. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you to the select board for recognizing me. Mr. Evans Select board chair. I just have, I'm a representative of a group called Yesper Natick, which is a civic education group here in Natick. We are a nonpartisan group promoting civic engagement
and participation in local government. And I just wanted to provide three brief pieces of information for you all and your listeners and those in the room. First of all, we are hosting, which we've done in the last few years, a candidate forum for the local elections on March 16. This will be a virtual forum, March 16 at 7:00 PM It will be moderated by the Natick report and it will include candidates for town wide offices, select board, school committee, and other offices that are town wide. So that will be an opportunity to hear from the people
who are running for office on a town wide basis on March 16 at 7:00 PM You can sign up@yesfornatick.org to attend this meeting and you'll be provided with a virtual link to the meeting. And that's yes for natick.org. My second point is we are also sponsoring, as we have in the past, the opportunity for candidates for any office in Natick, including town meeting, to provide information that we can then distribute on our website to anybody in the town who's interested. So in other words, it gives you an opportunity
to provide a brief statement about what you bring to the position and to promote your own candidacy, whether it's for town meeting or something else. This is also available, the form to submit if you're a candidate is also on yes natick.org. And it's also the spot where we keep a tally running list of the people who've responded already. So if you are a voter in Natick and you would like more information about the candidates who are running, you can go to that website at any time and pull down the most recent version of the candidate report for your education.
Finally, our group is also actively looking for new members and if you're interested in joining or finding out more about yes for Natick, you can email us at yes for na@gmail.com and that's it. I appreciate your time. Speaker 1: Thanks very much Andy, ma'am, thank you. If you could identify yourself so we can move. Speaker 13: Of course. Good evening. My name is Kat Whitten. I'm a 25 year Natick resident and I'm here tonight to represent my family and other former Johnson School parents and caregivers to share some news
about a collaborative project. To honor the late Catherine Derleth, Katie or Mrs. V, as she was known to her students, was a paraprofessional at Johnson School for 12 years prior her to, to her death in 2014 from ovarian cancer. Mrs. V was a beloved community member. Her official job responsibilities included supporting students with IEPs in and out of the classrooms and overseeing the breakfast program. This essential component of our school provided meals for the most vulnerable in our community and also helped many working families balance the competing
tensions of needing to get to work and raising young children. My own two kids attended every morning and they recognized, as do I how lucky they were to begin their day with loving educator who let them know daily how seen and known they were. I would venture to guess there are hundreds of Johnson graduates who would swear and I mean swear that they were Mrs V's. Favorites. That is because she made them feel that way and they weren't alone. Parents and caregivers remember Katie as a champion of us, always in our corner, making sure that we knew
that she saw we were doing our best patiently, answering our questions, whether they were specific to Johnson or not. After Katie's death, members of the Johnson community organized fun runs and pancake breakfast because she was legendary for her pancakes to keep her memory alive and to raise funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a cause near and dear to her and those who loved her. In 2019, a red bike sculpture was installed at Johnson in honor of Katie. It symbolized not only her favorite way to get to work, but also her lifelong commitment to health and wellbeing, which she passed on to all of her students.
After Johnson closed the DPW relocated this bike sculpture to the rail trail at General Green Ave. The friends of Natick Trails, who I know are here tonight with the approval of the DPW are planning to install a granite block and a bronze plaque in memory of Mrs. V and is providing matching funds for this effort. Katie's family, including her husband Tom and her children, James and Lily, are supportive of this project and we wanna invite the public to contribute. Donations can be made online at friends
of natick trails.org. As I said, Katie was famous for making and serving pancakes at Johnson, so it's fitting that the friends of Natick Trails will have a table at the annual pancake breakfast at Memorial School on March 14th to share a flyer about this fundraiser. We appreciate anything that the town and the schools can do to share this opportunity with the wider Natick community. Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you, KA. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else? Is there anyone else mission to speak? I don't see anyone online, do you Jamie?
Speaker 16: No. Speaker 3: Alright. Speaker 1: Next step is discussion and decision with the aforementioned friends of Natick trails Potential CPA con concept and request permission of use of town property. Mr. Ostro, please come to the podium. Speaker 3: Hi, Speaker 17: If I want go through a short presentation, should I log in and share or what Speaker 16: Would Yes. Yeah, if you log in, Speaker 17: Great. Okay. Sorry, I, I just need a moment to do that. Speaker 16: Is is the one that you provided us
Speaker 17: It is, yeah. Easier if we Speaker 16: Just put up, would that Speaker 17: Be okay? Totally fine. That that might be easier. Sure. Thank you so much. While you're doing that, Josh Ostroff, I'm president of the Board of the Friends of NA Trails and here to let the board know about something that we presented to the Conservation Commission recently, I wanna first just acknowledge the, the, what I thought was a wonderful choice by the board in November to support a proposal for, to rebuild or restore the fountain on
the, on the town common. That was brought forward by Jeff CIO and, and a few other folks. I thought there was a great kisser. So I'm joined tonight by Scott Landren, volunteer in town, but in this role, a landscape architect who's assisting their friends of native trails with this and online might be Jan Henderson, Adam Aplos, a couple of our board members also working on this as well. So you may have had the opportunity to see this for the benefit of the public, this is a link from the agenda and let's advance that slide.
So what we're trying to do is create a connection that really should have been there when the rail trail was opened in 2021, but it wasn't for recent Zelle. I'll, I'll touch on, I know you've got a busy agenda, so I'll go this through this quickly and then please interrupt me at any point with any questions. So what we are proposing to do through the Community Preservation Act is to establish an accessible path of travel between the Rail Trail and Natick Madera built on the former paperboard site. This would have an accessible connection, native garden seating area, historical panel, all
as public amenities. It, it crosses three properties. It, it would begin at the property line of Natick Madera owned by Mill Creek. It would cross a little bit of conservation commission land, and then on the rail trail, which is under the carrot custody of the select board. So the Madera development itself was constructed in 2016 with a paved access path that goes right up to the Townline but does not go onto the trail. It was not constructed by mass DOT when they were doing their designs for various reasons, I've been told they don't make connections
to private property, but they've made exceptions to that rule. So, and then when the trail was actually constructed, it was at a higher grade than Madera might have anticipated because you need to cap the, the, the fill. So kinda getting into the technical reasons, but it was never done. I tried to get them to do it in 20 21, 20 22, but they were hesitant to spend their funds on the, on a public project. Let's advance this slide please. So what the benefits of this, it would provide a fully accessible connection.
So you could, if you had a mobility limitation disability, you could get off the accessible train station, take the rail trail right to your residence at, at, at madera or visit somebody there and it would provide, you know, the 150 units, folks that live there, several hundred with an accessible connection compared to what there is now, as you can see in the illustration, it's not really navigable when it snows and it's not particularly easier, safe even under good weather. So we've got some experience planning native gardens, working collaboratively with, with a conservation agent,
you know, to help stem the tide of invasives. And we have the support of public works to do this project. So if it's proposed as a CPA project, it could be submitted by their friends or preferably by a town agency. The ComCom declines to do that. The select board certainly could, or the administration could, if you agreed to do so. We'll get into some of the financial stuff later. Continue please. So this is more why we think it's good CPA project and I don't wanna take a lot of time on your agenda to do that, but it's available for you to review.
It would preserve out outdoor recreation space and rehabilitate and restore open space. So we think those are a benefits. Continue please. We are a nonprofit with a mission that's consistent with, with this project. We've reviewed it with administration discussions around progress. The select board, ComCom Madera will be asked for written authorization because that's one thing we need to do for letters of interest. Font is not a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit. So we'd go through our fiscal sponsor if we were to be the applicant.
That adds a little bit of cost, but it may be desirable from the town's perspective that that is really up for the board administration to decide. Continue please. So this goes into the, the history of the parcels, how Madera was built in 20 16 11. Mechanic Street was acquired by the Con com back in 2007 and the CRT itself was built in 2019 to 2021. Continue please. So Madera is, is a partner in this project.
They provided a sketch of what their architect thought would be a good design and Scott has refined and improved that to we think make it a better project. This is just a con concept. So the, the grade would be fully a DA compliant. The final plan, this is really just a sketch. If we are approved, we'll develop final drawings and then do surveys and everything would be subject to town approval. So working with the conservation commission, working with public works, conserva, you know, community and economic development and so forth. Continue please. So
we feel this is consistent with the town's strategy. The 2030 plan talks about the benefits of transportation, of connectivity, of open space and of accessibility. And one of the goals was that we want to continue to invest in facilities and staff that will provide services to meet residents needs. That's really addressing the accessibility mandate. Continue please. So we've got a draft budget. That pencils added about $36,000. We've gone through the, a contractor that the friends of NA Trails uses who also does a lot of work for public works to give an estimate based on 2026,
we've got an inflation ES escalator in there. We'd source a new historical panel bench has already been donated, ballpark for plantings and administrative fee, which would essentially that's what CPA money would help go to our fiscal sponsor. They're like our back office. So if the town did it, it would be a little bit less. Continue please. This is where we're at in our timeline relatively early. We anticipate submitting a letter of interest next month and our ask and then, you know, if it all goes well construct it a year from now. Next slide please. So we have, you know,
a checklist of things we're doing. We're about to check the select board box. Well we're reviewing that so maybe there was checked prematurely, but these are all the aspects of A CPA application. However they are meeting nowadays and revising, you know, you know, putting together a plan for this year. So we may need to change some of those aspects of the, you know, it was just the first year last year. And then to the ask. So next slide. We are asking the board for permission to use the land. It's zero Mill Street South for a letter of interest.
And we would ask a letter from the select board and I've shared with your admin with Billy Walsh. Just a, a template for that. We would be grateful if the board was a participant in a submission. We would be grateful if the town wanted to be a lead applicant in a submission. And we as we move further along, get determination of required permits and approvals. So we're really not at seeking design construction approval. We wanna have that, you know, work collaboratively with the town because we're proposing to do something on Townland and really the town's gonna own it. I wanna mention one thing
because I think Snow is probably on everybody's mind. We are working with Mill Creek with Madera, so they would handle snow removal on, on the section of property. I know that while the rail trail is plowed by public works, they can do that pretty quickly with a truck, with a plow getting out and doing all the connecting paths is you something that can take a lot more time. So we would, as part of this proposal, ask Mill Creek to you commit to handling snow and ice removal and we've already started discussions with them about that. Happy to answer any questions if I've left anything out
that Mr. Flare would like to augment. I really appreciate your time and interest. Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Ostroff and Mr. Re, Ms. Coffin, Speaker 6: Can you tell us who your fiscal agent or fonts fiscal agent is and what their percentage is? Speaker 17: Yes. It's called the npi, the National Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives. They're headquartered in Wall Pole and we are at a 10% rate. So, I'm sorry, could I just explain, when you are a nonprofit and you don't have your own 5 0 1 3 status, you rely on someone else to have that for you. So when we get grants or spend funds, pretty much any check
that's written comes from them, but they, their administrative fee is 10% of revenue received. Speaker 1: So they're like a clearing house for you? Speaker 17: You could say you're back office, yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: In follow up to that explanation, that's a remarkably low fee. Yeah. In my experience and as a point of clarification for the public font is a nonprofit, it's a Massachusetts nonprofit with 11 officers and directors. And the town has entered into agreements with nonprofit organizations whereby the town serves served. It's my understanding as just receiving the checks
and maintaining a an account that's also part of the audited books. So that's also a possibility. Speaker 1: Can you comment on that? Speaker 18: Comment on Speaker 6: What I just said about, I'm thinking about the Soen House when it was soliciting donations and had gotten an appropriation from town meeting that money went into a, a marked account that was managed by the Treasure Collect no, correct? Speaker 18: Yes. Speaker 6: Yes. Okay. That's all Speaker 1: It would've to be a donation of some sort that just gets earmarked for a certain account?
Is that Speaker 18: Or Speaker 1: Or from their, Speaker 18: Yeah, I mean there's a couple different ways we can do this. We also currently already have a revolving account set up for the rail trail. Okay. So it's possible that that could potentially be used. So there's a couple, given this particular asset, there's a couple different ways we could do this. Okay. Speaker 1: That makes sense. Speaker 6: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Speaker 1: Thanks. Thank you Jamie. Further questions? Not at this time. I happen to know. Right. Jamie, you, Speaker 18: Mike, just gonna note a couple things from 10 administration's point of view, just regarding the project
and just the ask for tonight. We've been working with Josh on this for, for a while. I mean, I worked on the rail trail project with Josh. We would just get it, just get it done. This connection has always been contemplated. One thing that, that when we look at this connection, obviously we're extremely supportive of the idea of, of any connection along the rail trail that wants to be made, especially to, in this case a private property with potentially a a hundred plus couple hundred residents. A a balance of that though is also a connection to a private property. And so from, from what what we are trying
to balance is whether the town should really be the lead on something that's connecting to a private property and ultimately benefiting a private property. If we do it here, we might get many, many other requests to lead other connections and pay for other connections at other private properties. So we were early on trying to work with Josh and Mill Creek to have Mill Creek be the lead. It seems to make sense 'cause it's benefiting their property. They can take the lead, we can give them permission over the town properties to do the work and then it'll be that connection. They chose not to or they didn't want to. I still have hesitation on the town taking the lead on this.
We agreed it's, it's benefiting a private property. If we do it here, we might have to do it to many, many others along this stretch. So the idea of maybe having a nonprofit or, or the friends group seemed to be a, or a font seemed to be a decent compromise in this case. And so from the town's perspective, though, supportive of the project for sure, like Dun noted DPW support of the project, we aren't necessarily in a position to lead the project per se or lead the application process through CPC just
because of that precedent setting concerned. And then I I appreciate that Josh noted the long term, not long term, maybe like snow clearing and some other maintenance. The ideal would be for that private entity, that private property that's connecting to, to actually own that as well. Like, like Josh said, we, we can, we can certainly plow the plow it, but to do all the side little things, especially one's going to private property, it's going to like a public street. That's one thing. If it's going to private property, that's, that's gonna be much more challenging for our teams to actually manage and maintain. And I, I don't, I don't want to set up expectations not that's and false, false
or I, I don't wanna set up the wrong expectations. Expectation, yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 18: I wanna set reasonable expectations. Yeah, Speaker 17: That Speaker 1: Makes sense. So given that, what is your ask for the evening? Speaker 17: So thank you. I I think I wanted to comment on one thing, but I also saw Mr. Hand Sidney's hand raised, oh, go ahead. Okay. So I agreed everything that Jamie said. The one thing I would add though is that I, I feel that the town, by having an existing inaccessible and unmaintained connection to a,
to a multifamily development of that the town over the many years was supportive of being built, not investors. But, you know, we went through a whole process with 40 R and so forth and what is the exposure of, of having that unsafe connection to, to the trail and should that stay open in its current state if it's not going to be improved. So I would just be mindful of, of how we weigh those different things and I feel like this would remove that exposure and,
and make, you know, improve the connection and let the people's representative through time meeting decide if this is worthy of being done so. So the ask is only to use to approve the use of the, of this land for our application and perfectly fine if the board reserves is right for approval until this is more advanced design or if other issues come up where you want council's advice or something like that. So it's really just, just so we can get the process started because CPC may not like this for any other reason, in which case it could be moot at least from this. Yep.
Speaker 1: Sidney, Speaker 7: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I, I like this project in general, the way it's been presented. I don't know if the CPC will approve it. It strikes me that the more immediate ask in preparing for the letter of the letter of interest is providing the permission. That would be one thing we should vote on if we're going to, and the other thing that would be useful is if we as a board support the project, we could prepare a letter to be included in the letter of interest.
I'm not really, I think, I think we set a bad practice if we get directly involved in other than support on any connections to private property, you know, support is one thing, but actually being a sponsor, I, I think that that's a practice as Mr. Erickson pointed out for on the being a lead thing. I think it's a practice that that could bite us in the rear in the future. So, you know, I think, I think that the third thing that we want to do as a board,
assuming we support this, is direct the administration to work with whoever the project sponsor is on things like permits and and so forth. Speaker 1: Yeah. That would be the liaison, Speaker 7: You know, Speaker 1: Designate a liaison. Speaker 7: Well if, if we're not gonna be a participant on the submission, which I don't think we should be, then the administration can certainly work with whoever the project owner is to, you know, I think we want to, you know, tell the administration Yeah. Do this.
Speaker 1: So let me just pause you one second. Speaker 7: I I I'm done. So, okay. Speaker 1: What I heard from Mr. Erickson was that they don't want to be in the middle of this or designated liaison. Did I, am I overstating that or? Speaker 17: I think it's a little bit of an overstatement. We wanna work with, with the team doing Speaker 18: The work work. 'cause it's gonna connect to the rail trail and it's gonna go over town property. It makes complete sense for town staff depending on what component of the project, whether it's permitting or the engineering or what have you to be a part of it.
Yeah. Being the lead to CPC is something that we hesitate based on the precedent setting nature of that and going to private property, being the, the sort of lead funder or we have to talk I think down the road about who actually leads even the project. I think we wanna be involved in the project management, but I suspect this will be potentially bid to like a contract or somebody to do the work. So will that be a town contract or will it be a font contract? Those are details that should be worked out.
It might be a font contract in which we provide an access agreement to font and then they can sub sublet that to so that the liability and the insurances can be properly handled. And so we would wanna be a part of that obviously. So I wouldn't say that, that there's no liaison, no involvement. We obviously want to be a part of the project. Sure. We just wanna be mindful of our role in the project versus font driving it and Mill Creek, you know, hopefully Mill Creek will step up and actually do this themselves. But if that's still not possible after this effort, then you know, it's font, it's font.
If it's another entity, it's another entity. So it's just, and working through those details, we'll have to be involved. Speaker 7: And, and Mr. Chair, I just thank you for clarifying. Yeah. And Mr. Chair, I'm just saying I, I think, you know, the administration, Mr. Erickson makes a really good point about the administration being involved. I think given that this is a connection to private property, I think that the board should be leery of being a sponsor as well, because we don't want to get into that same hole. Yeah. So that was one of my points. So I think, you know, if we're gonna support this, I see three motions, one permission, two a letter,
and three direction to the administration to, you know, work with whoever the project sponsor is. Speaker 1: I I I see the first two is necessary tonight. I don't see the third one as necessary tonight. I Speaker 7: Agree. Speaker 17: Okay. Could I jump in talking to art about this and to Bill Spprt already? So like that's, that has to happen from our standpoint because we do a lot of stuff on the trail and can't really touch a blade of grass or move anything without coordinating carefully with Art Goodin who,
when he is not walking on the trail, walks on water. So like we, we, we rely heavily on that partnership. So I don't want to say tell the board what to do, but you should be assured that, you know, anything we do and we do a lot there would work very collaboratively. Speaker 7: Well, and some of the, some of the planning that's gonna proceed, the CPC hearings is gonna involve CED around permits and things like that. So Speaker 1: Conservation commissioner. Speaker 7: Yeah. So that's why, that's why the direction
to the administration I think does come tonight just get it, it gets it off our plate until, you know, it comes back from the CPC. Speaker 1: Well, Speaker 7: As a board, I mean, Speaker 1: Let, let me back up a second and let, let's think about the CPC process right now. The CPC process is closed for this spring, is it not? Speaker 17: They, I think at their next meeting they're talking about when they're gonna open up the process, but a letter of interest can be submitted at any time. I understand the formal application, probably not.
Speaker 1: I can't be approved by town meeting until fall town Speaker 17: Meeting. Absolutely, absolutely. Speaker 1: Yes. So in my estimation, the impetus for line line lining everything up with town administration is less important as a result getting the land established and designated alea designating a liaison. Yes, I agree. But I don't see the need of the CPC process immediately. Well, Speaker 7: I don't think we even need to designate a liaison. Speaker 1: Right. So I'm just following your, your
Speaker 6: But don't we need to grant permission Yes. For them to use the property. Speaker 1: That's that what Speaker 6: I'm asking. The first ask is two separate Speaker 7: Asks item. Yeah, that's right. That's what I, that's, Speaker 1: So that's what I'm talking about. Two Speaker 7: Separate ask and the third ask, I think, you know, they, they have to determine the permits that has to go in because that's gonna, the, the, the permits and things are gonna affect the costs which are gonna affect the project going into the CPC, which is why, and, and it's just giving the administration permission to work with font on this. That's all. I'm all I'm suggesting we can do that.
It's not saying, you know, go do the project. It's saying work with the, the project sponsor. That's all. I'm, that's all I'm suggesting is our third vote. Alright. Speaker 1: Other people's thoughts? Speaker 8: Yeah, I I'm not sure that's really needed. I mean, I I Speaker 7: I mean they're gonna do it Speaker 8: Anyway why they wanna do it, they're already working with them. Yeah. I I just see it as, as not really accomplishing anything since it's already happening. And, and I think just by us saying that they can use this land, by definition, they're gonna have to work with town administration as anyone who would be working on, on a project.
Exactly. That's what, so I, I just see that it's not something that's necessary. But I did wanna bring up, and, and I, this is for a later conversation. I think given that the CPA process is, is a CPC process is relatively new about what I think we ought to think is a board, what our involvement should be going forward. You know, what I, what I don't want is us to be seen as a, as a gate where everybody feels like they have to come to the select board first and get them to buy in on a project. And so this is not, no, not anything against this project, which I wholeheartedly support, but I,
but I think we, we need to understand what our role should be. And in this case it's pretty simple because it is town on land, we have to be involved. Correct. Speaker 18: Yeah. But yeah, I don't think if this is like privately owned rail trail or something, I don't think font would be talking with the SL board tonight per se. Yeah, I agree. Because it'd be on private property and you can go directly to the CPC process. Speaker 8: But I'm speaking more Speaker 18: In terms of that's theoretical world, so I'm not there. But yes, Speaker 8: In terms of more of, of, you know, trying to get select board on board with a particular project.
Speaker 18: So Oh yeah, that's, Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. It should not be a gatekeeper. I understand. Okay. Speaker 18: It just, the principle behind that. Yeah, Speaker 9: I, you know, the first thing that came up came to my mind similarly was, and Catherine brought it up, was the, the salad house. And this is different. This is not apples to apples, this is different. But just what our role is and I, I think I would be more comfortable as a supporter from a precedent standpoint and, and just how we handle projects. I, I think it's a great, I think it's a great project. I think it's improving the area
and improving the experience there. And like you said, it's on townland, so I think it, I think it would be great, but I'm, I think concerned about showing personality even though it's not, this is not an apples to apples situation at all. Speaker 1: Okay. So as I see it, we just need the first one, Speaker 7: The permission. So I move, I move, we give permission for the land at zero Mill Street to, for this project. Speaker 8: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Walser. All in favor, please say aye. A 5 0 0.
Speaker 7: And I move that we actually, that we authorize the chair to write a letter of support to be included in the LOI Speaker 6: Second. Speaker 1: Okay. Moved by Mr. Sidney. Second by Ms. Kaufman. All in favor please say aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Speaker 7: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: Thank you. So support letter. Okay. Anything else Speaker 6: Mr. Chair? If, if at some point the board seeks or wishes to discuss whether it wishes to be a participant
for the CPA application, I would happily serve as a liaison. Speaker 1: Okay. I've written it in stone. Speaker 18: Thank Speaker 17: You Mr. Ostroff. I appreciate the board's thoughtful questions and support. This is the second meeting of Drag Scott too. So I wanna thank him. He's a veteran of public meetings but, and we, we work closely with administration. We've got a working group on the rail trail on Friday and we've got a lot of stuff going on at any given time. So, but we will specifically document, you know, get back after this is submitted as an LOI and,
and just, you know, as it proceeds in the coming months. Yeah. Speaker 1: And please don't take any of our comments as negatives to the idea of this. We are wholeheartedly behind it, but we have to protect ourselves as a town. Speaker 17: I am a hundred percent understand that Mr. Chair and I, you know, before I joined the board, I hate getting up here and say way back when, but Carol Gl who was on the, sat me down and said, the view is different from that side of the thing. You have to under think of things in their totality. Yeah. And someone advocating does not have that burden.
But I think folks do understand that. And you know, there's a lot of trade offs with everything that we do. Everything that you have to vote on. I wish it was all simple, but what would be the fun in that? Thank you for your time tonight. Do appreciate it. We'll stay in touch. Thank you. Thanks Josh. You bet. Okay, thanks. Speaker 1: Alright, moving along. Let's go to the constituent street flooding update. Jamie, do, do you want that or is Claire going to talk about that? Speaker 18: Claire is on, I'm just gonna have to make her co-host so that she can speak to it. There's a memo in the packet while we're getting her co-host. Thanks Scott. There is a memo in the packet
that Claire actually drafted and it's just providing a status update on the Constitu Street flooding. While she's getting on and getting set, I'll just provide a bit of a brief, brief, brief, very brief background. You know, this constituent path or this, this sort of drainage area actually dates back to the late 18 hundreds when the train was put in place there when it was depressed and all the sort of flooding or drainage, not flooding drainage for the area was, was designed in such a way that it ran along the tracks. Our, our guess though is that
because the bridge for the tracks wasn't quite wide enough, they actually turned this drainage ditch north, went underneath another portion of Washington Street and then into the pagan brook drainage area. We just deduced that from the maps, just looking at how it goes and, and the area just based on dimensions. But in brief, this is isn't something that's like new. It's probably been going on for well over a hundred years. What is new though is at the time Natick was at a very different level of development than it is now. So the development of Native, just through the a hundred plus years of development has led
to various drainage changes, various impacts on what were probably fine drainage systems in the 1880s nineties. That might be a little bit different today, but I, I'll pass it over to Claire just to provide a bit more. She is on now to provide a bit more color on where we are today with this process. 'cause it is a bit of a, of, of a unique situation. Claire, you wanna take it away? Speaker 19: Yeah, thanks Jamie and thank you members of the Slack board for having me here tonight. So I won't go into the full details of the memo just
'cause I know you guys have a long agenda after me as well. But just to provide sort of an update on the situation, the flooding problems do persist. There is a large amount of street drainage that is directed into that drainage corridor as well as surface runoff and runoff from the train tracks that also travels through that drainage corridor. The, as Jamie mentioned, the system was probably certainly sized appropriately for when much of Walnut Hill was less developed. For folks who may live in the Walnut Hill neighborhood, they may know that the neighborhood does have some notorious
flooding issues and significant rain events because of the presence of ledge with the hill. There's often perched groundwater in that area, which also contributes to additional flooding. And so there's certainly a lot of water moving down into this singular corridor. And currently the culvert that passes under Washington Nav connecting the Pegan Brook corridor into the Pegan Cove conservation area is greatly undersized because the town doesn't hold any easements along the corridor. And the culvert is part of the bridge structure, which we believe is under the ownership of the MBTA. There are a lot of parties that need to be involved in order
for the town to actually take any action in this particular corridor. The town is very aware that this is a high priority flooding area and has made several attempts to acquire grant funding to help support assessment and development of concepts for solutions in the area. But none of the applications we've submitted have been awarded for funding. There were some very, very high level concept developed as part of a regional grant in partnership with Hudson and Framingham. But this was not the level of detailed assessment that this corridor really needs given the existing
extent of the problems. As mentioned in my memo, the town very recently kicked off being led by our engineering division in public works, a stormwater master planning process. This is an effort to review the town's existing street drainage system and using data backed by modeling efforts, determine where we might be able to prioritize drainage system improvements to not only improve climate resiliency in the town overall, but also improve some of these existing known flooding issues. Not just flooding issues that may come in the future. This area has been identified as one of the highest
priority areas in the very initial stages of this process that we started on. The process formally kicked off in January. So what we're just really hitting our stride, but it has been made very aware by all town staff to the consultant firm that the town is working with, that this is an area that that really causes quite a number of issues and is a high priority for us to determine solutions for. And with that, I will leave it to any questions that the board may have for me. Speaker 18: If I can briefly just add there. As noted by what Claire said, there have been efforts
through the years to seek grant funding. We've also had efforts to try to seek easements over this land. Our prior DPW director, Jeremy did have a set of easement plans that were signed by, I believe almost all the neighbors and one of the neighbors, Claire correct if I'm wrong, but one of them it should, the property changed hands and then that new owner refused to sign and it really, we need all of this under some level and it was, Speaker 19: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, just to jump in. So it was the final homeowner on the address that actually has the Washington Ave address that wasn't able to sign.
The owner passed away, the property was purchased by a developer who wasn't really interested in signing any easement documents prior to him being able to sell the property. And that is the portion of the stream that hits the culvert. So almost the most critical in terms of securing easement rights so that the town would be able to go in and do work once solutions are determined. Speaker 1: Has that property been sold? Does anybody know? Speaker 19: Yes, I do believe that the property has been sold. As far as I'm aware, I don't believe any new conversations have been started with the homeowners
after the passing of the prior owner. I had passed those documents back onto Jeremy and I, I unfortunately don't know what happened after that point or where those documents currently are located. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 18: Or Dbo team's trying to find 'em as well. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board? Ms. Excuse me. Speaker 8: So thank you Claire and thank you for, you know, very detailed explanation about what's going on here and it, it was a lot of new information for me. You know, we had, we had heard on multiple occasions from
residents affected in this area but didn't really understand the full background, so appreciate that. As far as next steps go, I mean I know you just gotten started with this, but do you think it will be possible, will you still pursue other grant opportunities in this area or is it still, is it premature to think about that at Speaker 1: This point? Speaker 19: So we are still hoping to pursue grant funding. The town is currently working on a number of grant applications for the EEAs new Eco one stop, which is a sort of combined grant application procedure
for a number of prior existing grant programs. And we are looking to reapply for funding to support a prior project that had been applied for and was not awarded funding. We're trying to break that project up into more competitive pieces, trying to build in portions of the project with regional efforts to make them more competitive. But we are still looking to pursue grant funding to pursue additional efforts in this area. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 1: Any other questions Mr. Sidney? Speaker 7: Yeah. Does it make sense to, you know, you know,
whether you find the original documents or not, does it make sense to actually go talk to the current owners and, and get easement documents approved or you know, or at least memo memos of understanding about easements so that we actually have a a, you know, a a reasonable expectation of having permission to do whatever project ends up? Speaker 19: Yes. I mean the easements would have to be held by the, the public works division, specifically engineering division
as the, they hold the drainage utilities throughout town. So I would certainly look to them for those particular efforts. Speaker 18: Yeah. And and they do, I mean it it, it's not easy just to whip up easement documents, right? So if we have them already created, I'd much rather start Speaker 7: From there. Right. But we also have one owner that, you know, sounds like they haven't even been been contacted yet. Speaker 18: I, I can't say that I just, it's been in transition since, I mean if you recall the, the time that yeah, this was last done, then we hit the pandemic and then it was just been, Speaker 7: Yeah, Speaker 1: No, things have changed. Speaker 7: It's, it's fully understandable. I'm just
Speaker 18: Wondering some transitional few years and so we just need to get that back on, on track. Yeah, Speaker 7: I was just wondering if it's worth actually ringing the doorbell and saying, hey, Speaker 1: Well I I I think step one is, is what Mr. Erickson talked about earlier. Earlier or maybe it was Claire talking about having DPW try to resurrect the old plan. Speaker 18: Yeah. If we can find those old plans and those old documents, we can likely do a lot more with that and have explanation for the property owners. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 18: Many, many of whom are probably yep. Below air let's go. But some might not be. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
And and then we do, we have to go back, well we probably do go back to the previous people, people who signed on previously. Yes. And just reiterate that Speaker 18: The other, the other reality here is Claire noted is that the bridge and the roadway structure is actually Speaker 1: That's Speaker 18: MBTA or mass DOT controlled and owned. So even if we were to get those easements, we, we can't necessarily fix underneath this, we don't have the rights to do that. So we would have to work with our state partners as well here.
Yeah. To do anything there. And that can become cumbersome. So there's gonna be a limit on what we can effectively do on our own. No, no matter, even if we have these in place today, there's gonna be a limit on what we can effectively do on Speaker 1: Our own. Yeah, I think one of the things that we have to find out is what that limit is. If we can get a partial solution, is that worth right Speaker 18: The investment and part of this, the drainage study will also help with that as well. Sorry, the storm water master plan study storm water. Claire, were you gonna say something as well? Speaker 19: Yeah, I was just gonna note that I think that it is definitely a priority
to engage the staff partners. Yeah. We could, you know, create cubic yards of storage upfront of that culvert location, but as long as that continues to remain a restriction point, as we do see more and more extreme storms from climate change and as we do see more and more development though we are mitigating that under our storm water bylaws, there will be more drainage trying to come through that location. So the, I will say from a, you know, engineering perspective, though I'm not an engineer, it certainly makes the most sense to pursue the culvert as the primary solution point.
Though the easement documents will certainly be critical for future and ongoing maintenance of any upgraded culverts as well. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Claire. Speaker 18: Thanks Claire. Speaker 1: Any other questions? Thanks Claire. That helped make it much clearer than it was for us. Speaker 19: Of course. Have a wonderful rest of your evening folks. Thank you Claire. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. All right, next step is the main street working group update. I saw Morgan's name up there so, and I know he has circulated his presentation so Speaker 18: He should be co-host now so we can Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 18: Come on up there.
Speaker 20: He's, yes, thank you. I'm just going to share my presentation real quick. Are folks seeing that all right? Speaker 1: Yes. What, what, let me just preface this very quickly. Is this is, we are early in the process of this project and what we're going to go through tonight is just the next stage on this. We are not even at 25% design on this project and Morgan will take us through where we're at now, what the timeline is
and what things are going to happen moving forward. So this is the beginning of the process. It is not anywhere near the middle or the end of the process. So with that Morgan, please update us. Speaker 20: Thank you very much. So hello everyone and and thank you for your time this evening. My name is Morgan Griffith and I work as a transportation and economic development planner for the town within the community and economic development department. And I'm here this evening to provide the board with an update on the main street improvement project working group.
So first I just want to provide a brief bit of background for the benefit of folks who are not familiar with the projects in the main street improvement project. The town aims to study and implement improvements to pedestrian and bicycle safety, wayfinding lighting and street scape design along Main Street in Natick Center from Cottage Street to South Avenue. There are several reasons why this project is being undertaken, including to repair and or replace aging roadway infrastructure along the corridor to connect existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities along Main Street on either side
of the project area and improve roadway safety for all users to address current and future roadway congestion issues with an eye on an expected increase in traffic of all modes as new developments in Natick Center come online. So this is a three phase project. We are currently nearing the end of the first phase during which we are analyzing existing conditions and gathering community feedback to create a preferred design concept for the study corridor. Once we have that preferred concept in hand, we hope to take it through more detailed and technical design in phase two this will start by working
to achieve 25% design and at 25% design, preliminary engineering and survey work will be complete and the project team can pause for additional stakeholder feedback before proceeding towards 75% and then a hundred percent design. We estimate that the full design process will take us a few years up through the late 2020s at least and we then hope to construct the design in phase three. It's important to note here that timelines are flexible and not yet exact pending funding and community support and we estimate that construction would not start
until the late 2020s or more likely early 2030s at the earliest. So as you'll recall when we came before the board last June, we had just finished a round of engagement during which we had presented the public with two concepts for the corridor that sat at opposite ends of the design spectrum as it were. One provided enhanced bike infrastructure along the corridor while the other provided minimal bike infrastructure. The feedback we received led us to create what you see on this slide here called the hybrid concept. This current version combines elements
of the two original design concepts by providing enhanced bicycle and pedestrian accommodations along the corridor while preserving as many of the existing parking spaces as possible. So we would now like to get more eyes on the hybrid concept so that we ensure that it works as best as possible for the myriad corridor stakeholders before entering full design. And this is where the main street working group comes in. So this is a body which will review the current hybrid concept, share feedback, and vote on whether to endorse or revise design concept
to take into full design during phase two. It's important to note here that this process is not going to be a parking study, nor will it be an opportunity to decide if the project, the full project continues or not. And it will also not result in the creation of a design that will go immediately into construction. Rather it is an opportunity for folks to provide feedback on the hybrid concept, the resulting revised version of which we hope to take to the group for a vote and then take into more technical design pending approval from the select board.
So you'll notice here that we, since the last time we spoke with you, we actually increased the number of working group members from the original 14 to 15 by increasing the number of residents at large on the committee or the on the working group by one. And this was just so we didn't end up with a tie for any of the votes that we took. So members come from key stakeholder groups including members of town staff representatives from the towns two transportation committee, so that's the transportation advisory committee and the safety committee representative from Mdic Center Associates, three representatives from the Natick Center
business community and then five residents at large. So members were selected in different ways based on their stakeholder category. So for members of town staff, the project team asked specific staff members to participate essentially based on relevant knowledge, sort of purview of job, that sort of thing. Or asked heads of relevant departments to choose participants they would like to be involved For the transportation committees, the project team asked committee members to discuss and then select one representative
to represent each committee. Similarly, for Natick Center Associates, we asked Heather Rockwood the executive director of the organization to choose a representative for them and then to solicit members from the Natick Center business community and residents at large, we put out a digital application, an image of which you can see on the screen here. The project team then chose the eight members from these last two categories from this resulting applicant pool. So the project team publicized this application several ways via the town website in three community newsletters
to five town committees and to two non town groups, specifically Natick Center Associates and Natick Center cultural district related groups. The Natick report also ran a story publicizing the opportunity and the application was open for a little under three weeks from the end of January to approximately mid-February. So we had 56 applicants, eight of which were Natick center business community members and 48 of which were residents. The project team made up of staff from community
and economic developments and the department of public works then reviewed the applications with consultation from the communications department. Our aim was to select eight members that represented a diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and community roles. You'll see here that we also selected 12 wait list candidates in case any of the original eight selected could not make it. And the way that we selected these wait list candidates is we tried to kind of match each wait list candidate to one of the eight selected members.
So if that member could not make it, we would then reach out to that specific wait list candidate. So, so here's how we selected these eight members. So the project team used the responses to the first question on the application to select as balanced a split of opinions as possible, focusing on a key tension that we've sort of noticed over the course of this project, which is whether the project should dedicate more space along the main street corridor, two bicycles versus two cars or parking. And you, you can see two examples here
that showed the distribution of answers to the two statements to two statements from the application for both the entire applicant pool, which is indicated in blue and the selected members indicated in red. So note that we did not aim to select members in proportion to the responses of the applicant pool, but rather aimed for as balanced a spread as possible across the three reply categories of agree, neutral and disagree. So here for this statement, there is currently adequate parking along Main Street and Natick Center.
We selected three people who agreed, three who were neutral and two who disagreed for there are currently sufficient bike accommodations along Main Street and Natick Center. We selected two people who agreed, three people who are neutral and three people who disagreed for the redesign of Main Street should prioritize automobile traffic. We selected three people who agreed, three people who were neutral and two people who disagreed. And for the redesign of Main Street should prioritize bicycles. We selected two people who agreed, four people who are neutral and two people who disagreed.
So here's a list of all the 15 working group members, including the eight selected from the applicant pool. So from town staff we have Brian Casey, Naix, highway and sanitation supervisor, John De Giacomo, Natick, assistant town engineer, deputy Chief Brian Luon, luon from the Natick Police and me. And then from the transportation committees we have David Cressman from the Safety Committee and Ed Doherty, the chair of the transportation Advisory Committee from Natick Center Associates, we have Heather Rockwood, the executive director or Artie Fair, who is the vice president
of the Natick Center Associates Board. I believe that they agreed essentially to split this responsibility with one of them coming to one meeting and the other one coming to the next. And then from the Natick Center business community we have James McGrath, vice president and senior property owner at Stone Gates. Jason Mancuso, COO and CFO of benefits scape headquartered above Citizens Bank and of main summer LLC, which owns the Debon block. And he's also the co-owner of Planted Collective. And we also have Gary Ooky of Stuy Jewelers.
And then residents include Adam Crager, Jo Atia, Kevin Keen, Maria McMorran, and Nancy North Grapes. And then I want to highlight the working time working group timeline for folks. So our first working group morning, or first working group meeting was this morning actually in which members reviewed the current hybrid concept and provided feedback. And I did not have time to update this presentation with a summary of that meeting, but I'd be happy to take any questions that folks have about it afterward.
Each working group meeting will be recorded and will be available on the project website for review. The one for the recording for this working group meeting should be up on the project website. I'm hoping by the end of this week this evening I'm here presenting an update to the select board. The project team is now going to work on revising the hybrid concept to incorporate the feedback from the working group where possible. And actually today when we were talking with the working group, you know I had originally planned on having only two working group meetings,
but members today requested another meeting so that they could continue to review and give feedback on the hybrid. I think a lot of them felt that there was more to, you know, we, we spent about two and a half hours in this meeting today and I, I think a lot of, because the project is fairly complex, I think a lot of folks felt that they needed more time to digest the project a little bit more. So in, so we're adding another working group meeting. This will be in late March or early April. That date is still to be determined. We know that not everyone will be able
to serve on the working group. So we, we will be presenting this revised hybrid concept at a public forum on Thursday, April 16th from six to 8:00 PM at the community senior center where the general public can weigh in on the design concept as well. In mid-April, the project team hopes to provide another update to the select board on the public forum and the working group process. And after that public forum, the project team will then continue to revise the hybrid concept where possible. And we will present it a final time to the working group on Tuesday, April 28th, 2026.
And during this hybrid meeting, members will review the revised concept and vote on whether or not to endorse it. The project team will then work with the working group chair to present an update on the working group process and outcome to the select board, hopefully in mid-May and receive select board feedback and direction ongoing forward. And if the select board gives the go ahead at this point we will aim to begin phase two with this revised concept in June. So you can learn more about the main street improvement project and sign up for project updates by visiting the project website, which is
www.natickma.gov/main-st study. You can also get to the website by scanning the QR code below. You can also reach out to the project email, which is at Maine st study@natickma.org with any questions or comments that you may have. So that's all I have and I'm now happy to take any questions or comments that, that members of the board of the public may have. Speaker 1: Thank you Morgan. Excellent presentation. Let's start with board questions. Sw Speaker 8: Yes, thank you Morgan.
Thank you for a great presentation. And I have to say I really like how you chose the members of the committee in a very impartial way. I think that was quite inspired. I know you're just getting started and I don't want you to have to comment on your meeting today, but I do wanna say in looking at the timeline the next time that you come before us, which is mid-April, if you feel like you need more time to digest things, don't feel wedded to this timeline. I would much rather see that, that we get it right and if it takes more meetings to do so, particularly
of the working group, then that I, at least from my perspective, that's fine. I know there's a lot to digest and having seen this before as part of the economic development committee, I know that there's, you know, a lot of, a lot of people have a lot of comments and concerns and, and need to understand it. So just wanted to throw that in that, you know, don't, don't feel like this is cast in concrete. It's great that you've got this and, and had such an aggressive timeline, but this is a complicated thing that
many people feel strongly about. So I, I'd really hope that we get all the voices that, that wanna weigh in on this. Speaker 1: Thank you. Well said further Speaker 20: Comments. Thank you. Yeah, I, IIII just wanna say I appreciate that comment and duly noted and we'll, if we find that it's gonna take longer than we'll make sure to elongate that timeline. Speaker 9: Yeah, ditto. Thank you Ms. Slager, Speaker 1: And well said. Any other comments? I just wanted to reiterate what Ms. Slager just said about the composition of the working group.
I, I had expressed a, not, I wouldn't say a curiosity, not a concern about how it was going to be staffed. And I have to say that I am, I am extremely satisfied with how the, the painstaking effort to make it balanced and get all voices heard. I think Ms. Welsch ER's point is, is quite valid. There, there are lots of people who want to weigh in on this and this structure accommodates that. So whatever you need from us, let us know.
We don't wanna rush into this. It's, it's, it's the heart of our town, so we need to get it right. So spoke. Speaker 9: Thank you Mr. Evans. And following up on that, the p the bit about, a lot of people wanna weigh in on this. Morgan, thank you again for the presentation. Can you share what the format's gonna be on April 16th at the public forum? Speaker 20: Yeah, that's a good question. I think we're still trying to finalize that. One thing that I found, you know, in attending other public meetings that I found to be particularly effective is having kind of like an open house
style for the first half of the meeting. So, you know, having folks come in, be able to walk around and look at the, the plans and and things like that and talk to members of the project team and ask questions and kind of have conversation or a dialogue before kind of the, a more formal presentation starts and then we can sort of after maybe like 20 or 30 minutes maybe sitting down and then having a longer sort of more formal process or more formal presentation. That was my, that's been what the project team has been talking about,
but it's, it's not finalized and I, I definitely welcome any suggestions that folks might have on how to make this as successful as it can be. 'cause I know, you know, I have my ideas, but I might be missing really great ideas. Speaker 9: Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Pope's. Speaker 7: Mr. Chairman, when we're done with this, could we Speaker 1: Have like a three minute recess? Certainly. Let me go to the public. Mr. Jacobson stand. Speaker 21: Hello, Cody Jacobs Just, I, I just had one suggestion about this.
I saw like the plans for the, the public forum as part of the, the process and I think that's great. The other thing that I think would be, I think this would be, and correct me if this already happened and I missed it, but I think this would be an ideal candidate also for a flash vote survey. I think it would be good to have that as part of the stuff that is in front of the working group. You know, I think the way that, as others have said, I think the way the working group was selected makes a lot of sense, but I also don't necessarily think that the way it's selected and I I I know it wasn't even designed to do this is a proxy for, you know, greater public opinion. The idea is to have diverse voices in the room
of different opinions, which makes sense. But I think the more that we can gather data to try to figure out like what the larger community thinks, you know, 'cause obviously the applicant pool isn't necessarily representative of what people at large think who might not necessarily be applicants. So I think it looks great, but that's just one suggestion. Thank you. Speaker 20: Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great suggestion And actually it's, it's funny you mentioned that. I've been talking to Jayport Paddock, our communications director about the possibility of doing a flash vote for this. So I think that's definitely a great idea and something we'll explore. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Morgan? Good.
Speaker 22: Hi Victoria Glin. Victoria Glin 45 Westlake Road. I just, I actually came to the meeting just for this presentation so thank you very much. Speaker 1: Should be a green light. There's a button. There's a button on the bottom. Oh I Speaker 23: See. Sorry about that. Oh Speaker 1: There you go. Speaker 23: Okay. I don't know how it got turned off. So coming a little late to the game, I didn't apply to be on the working group or anything, but I obviously appreciate the opportunity that you're going to have a public forum. I would suggest if it's possible to have your public forum be somewhat participatory.
You sort of described having an open house kind of thing or maybe even like little groups that could talk about different aspects before you get to just or after you get to presentation. 'cause there are diverse opinions about this and I am very much supportive and I think all the data I've seen from multiple studies over multiple decades shows that better street scapes, more accessible human scale street scapes tend to make to build community. And that's one of those things that people are always talking about wanting to feel their community and thinking about the past
and how great it was when we had community. And you know, this is the kind of thing that, you know, updating it and getting people together and hopefully making that downtown crunch space area feel safer, more accessible and a place that people want to be will do some of that community building. So I think I just wanted to say that, that really supportive of this process and look forward to participating just as a member of the public. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thanks. Is there anyone else in the room that'd like to speak? Hey, how about online? Have anybody Jamie?
I didn't see anyone. I Speaker 18: See. You can see what I can see. You can Speaker 1: See. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I wasn't sure if there was a one off screen. Yeah. Okay. Again, any further comments from the board? No, again, thank you Morgan, this, this is great work progressing this and appreciate all the, all the hard work that went into it. So thank you. Thank Speaker 23: You Morgan. Speaker 1: Thanks very much. Thanks so much. Thank you. Morgan recess? Yes, we're gonna take a five minute recess. Thank you. Item E first
or next, which is the monthly John Johnson speak and I see one person in the room who would like to speak or would you just like to listen to an update? Yeah, just sort Speaker 24: Of looking for an update here. Speaker 1: Okay. Do you want to do that? Speaker 18: I didn't prepare an update for, for this 'cause it's just really an opportunity for members of the public to provide feedback to the board. I guess in, in brief based on the last board meeting and the materials are all on the website through the agenda we debrief with the board post the sort of the holiday.
That's less the holiday season, the more post getting feedback from all the committees. And our next steps are going to be to prepare some materials for the board's consideration and present those to the board to try to help in encourage the dialogue of the board really at that point about where the direction's going with the Johnson project based on all the feedback that has come in so far from the public, from the surveys, from the community engagement work and the, and the committees so that we don't have a firm date yet on
that 'cause it's just gonna take us a bit of time to crunch a lot of that information. But we are aiming for one of the next couple meetings, probably a meeting in March for the board on that front. So it's really not much more to report on that. I think we had come back to the board, I think at the last meeting seeking, we provided an update and it was part and parcel with an update on the fields as well as the parks master plan. But the Johnson component was sort of an overall update. In December there was the, or November at one point in the fall there was the decision for the board to say let's hold until we get feedback from the committees. We got feedback from the committees, we provided that feedback and now the direction is okay,
give us a little bit more of the synthesizing of the information. So that's what we're working on. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Eric. Sure. Moving on to let, let's do the RFP for Hoy Lane, pine Ridge Short Terrace. Speaker 7: Is there anything under the springtown meeting thing? Speaker 1: We'll come back to that. Speaker 7: Okay, Speaker 18: So you, the board may recall you have permission from town meeting to sell these two properties. Hovi Lane is up on the Westin Town line near Regis. Regis Rivers one of those, I forget which one is in Westin. Rivers. Rivers, rivers, rivers, rivers. Speaker 7: They're actually both in, but it's Near
Speaker 18: Rivers. Okay. It's near Rivers. And then Pine Ridge Shore Terrace is more close to the Wellesley town line actually we've drafted RFPs for both that was presented at a prior meeting several months ago. The reason for this is we're we're getting to the point where we have the capacity again to actually do this work with procurement and, and with town staff. And in the case of Hoby Lane in particular, we did additional research on how that process can unfold. And because of state procurement and because of that property,
which is an extremely small unbuildable lot assessed, I think our current assessment at the town level was like $7,500. It's very, very low value. We have a bit more flexibility on that front to sell that potentially directly. So I wanted to ask the board if you just had, and maybe it's a chair question, just a point, just one member that I can work with to say okay, we're, we're talking through the process with for that one. I just wanna make sure I'm getting some feedback from a board member as I'm going through that process. Say, how does this sound? How does that sound before I bring something to the board that becomes more
of like a public dialogue of the board. I just wanna get that feedback during the way. So it's probably just one liaison from the board to help with that process. Pine Ridge and Shore Terrace, that, that is a buildable lot. So that one we're more likely to do some type of RFP and or auction. I want to talk with our building department to determine what they find is the best time to do that from builders to get the highest and best value quite frankly. 'cause I think the direction was from the board at the time to get the highest and best value.
So, so that that'll, that'll be what we do next. We put, we put these on pause from the last for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to research the Hoby Lane one for, for what I just explained. We need to do a little bit of, of research on MGL on that front. And for Pine Ridge and Shore Terrace, we just had a lot going on this past year that I just want to get through some of that work and now we're back heading into the spring where it might be advantageous for us to look at this. Speaker 7: Okay. Now I, I'm a little confused. The Pine Ridge, you, when you say Pine Ridge and Short Terrace on the map that you
provided, it looks, it almost looks like it's two properties. Is that It's one, Speaker 18: It's two, it's two parcels, but they are together. Right. And they're both owned by the town, so therefore they're in common ownership. So it's it's a par it's, Speaker 7: That's that's fine. I just wanted to understand, you know, it would turn into a really odd shaped lot and I noticed that there are buildings that are, at least according to the map, there are buildings that actually cross property lines Speaker 18: On the, but but they're both on town owned property. Speaker 7: Right. But looks like they cross off
of the town owned property. Speaker 18: Oh, I'm just gonna pull it up. So I'm looking at, Speaker 7: It might be just an, an artifact of the, it might be an artifact of the bad map of a bad map. Speaker 18: No, there, there is some potential encroachments on there is what you're seeing. Speaker 7: Yeah. A 21, Speaker 18: Yeah, that's a potential encroachment from an un budding property that will have to be taken care of. But that is a potential encroachment well Speaker 7: Spot. And, and it looks like the 2113 also has a little encroachment to the other side Speaker 18: That we don't think is an encroachment that we think is just a map being advisory not surveyed.
So, and that is an existing building on that property that's in disrepair. We do regularly check it our police and the public and inspection. Speaker 7: So it'll be torn down anyway. Speaker 18: Inspection most likely, yes. But we just wanna Okay. It, yeah, good question. Speaker 7: So a, a question Speaker 18: I I think the, the ask for tonight is just, is there someone from the board that would be willing to work with, correct? Yeah. And could just be Bruce or Speaker 9: I was gonna say I was willing to Speaker 7: Do it. Yeah, well I was, I was gonna, was gonna fight over it. No one, one of your other questions was,
but I'm willing, are there any extra conditions you might, we might, we might want to put on the Pine Ridge RFP right? Speaker 18: That, that will be a question coming up. So if you do have some that'd be Speaker 7: Grateful to understand. Well my question was really, you know, I, I mean I can't think of anything except highest to best value and maybe, you know, taking on the burden of dealing with the encroachment, but I was Speaker 18: Wondering yeah, the encroachment would need to be taken care of regardless. So I'm not sure that's Speaker 7: Well we can, we can yeah. Hand that over to the new owner.
Speaker 18: Correct? Correct. And highest and best value. It's a single family lot zone. So it'd be sold as a developable parcel for a single family lot in all likelihood, given the shape and, and sort of type of lot it is, there would likely be some type of, my guess right now is a section six finding for pre-existing non-conformity because it does have an existing building that's likely within a lot line. Unless, unless the proposed development can happen within all the setbacks, it might be challenging just given the
depo, the shape of the lots here. Right. They're unique. So, and we haven't done our own buildable area examination. We would just put that on the developer. Speaker 7: Yeah. So my question is, is there, you know, you're much more familiar with development, you were, you know, given your professional history, is there anything you might suggest to us as something, some additional conditions that might, we might want to think about? Not necessarily that you say we should put on, but that we might want to think about? Speaker 18: To me it's so site specific in this case, I'm not sure there are, maybe there's some just ensuring
that it's properly, you know, screened accordingly to neighbors, but it's in a neighborhood. So, you know, in keeping with the neighborhood could be one, if this was a, like a historic neighborhood, I'd say make sure it's architecturally sound within the historic context of the neighborhood. This is a nice neighborhood, but it's not, I don't think it's one of the historic ones. I don't think of this one as one of na like historic neighborhoods. We have historic districts for that reason. If there, and we've already looked at this, but if there were things running through this property such as as, you know, water sewer systems or things like that, I'd say preserve those easements. That's not the case here.
So in the, my my impression on these loss is that Speaker 7: There's Speaker 18: Nothing, there's not much for, for us to do here on the Hove lane. One probably similar. It's a, it's a tiny 4,000 square foot lot. It's, it's, it's, it's an acute neighborhood, but again, it's not like it's, Speaker 7: Yeah. And if it, if it went to a single, if it went to a single bidder the way it might be permitted to probably Rivers is gonna buy it anyway. Right. Speaker 18: I I'm not gonna speak to that on, on the mic. Speaker 7: No, I understand. I'm just, I'm hypothesizing.
Speaker 18: Hypothesizing. Yeah. So again, we did examine both of these, these for anything that might be of potential town use. I always look at this from is there a town use that we can have? Like is there a need for a sewer pump station? Is there a need for a connection for some type of, of water, sewer, storm water, what have you for both of these? They, they both came aback pretty clean and clear and, and it's really just getting the highest and best value for the town. Speaker 1: Linda, I'll defer to you. I was gonna flip a coin there.
Speaker 7: Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you. All right, what else do we have? Okay, I thank you Ms. Eric Erickson and sure. Mr. Student sound meeting warrant articles. What do we want to talk about? Speaker 8: Let's hunt on this one. Speaker 1: Okay, why don't we move that to the next meeting and then we can talk about it and have a little more thought about it. All right, well let's move on to the consent agenda. Speaker 9: Okay. The consent agenda tonight reads is a approve meeting minutes for February 25th and March 2nd, 2020 sixth.
Item B, approve the draft remote meeting policy item C, appoint Daniel Newman to the cultural council for a term expiring June 30th, 2027 and item E approved Pond Street Lodge LLCs application for a new 2026 lodging house license. There's a D missing nevermind. Speaker 1: That's, I notice that. Speaker 9: No, does anyone wanna pull anything? Speaker 1: Thank you Madam Clerk, I wanna pull item D I'm Speaker 6: Just, I'd like to pull item D for discussion. Speaker 25: Sorry. Speaker 1: Sorry I'm a little punchy here. Speaker 9: I hear you. Alright, so I move
to approve the consent agenda Speaker 18: A second. Second. Speaker 1: All in favor say aye. Aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Speaker 1: Opposed? Town administrator updates. Mr. Erickson. Thank Speaker 18: You. I'll, I'll, I'll work to be brief and we can provide a more complete agenda item at the next meeting or a future meeting depending on how busy the next meeting's gonna be. But we are rolling out and have successfully largely rolled out the online application process for the use of the common it. We took us a little bit because we had to troubleshoot it.
We were using the system that we use for permits and that we use for licenses. OpenGov, clear gov, OpenGov, OpenGov. OpenGov. Okay. Open gov and just with some modifications it's working really well so far. We opened it up, we did have people ask us in advance before we opened it up and we just kept them in a list and in order we let them go. We had top priority based on when they asked the question. But we first opened the system up internally so that we can one, just test it with our own people. Rec parks for example, health Department community Services,
just to see how the process works. And also to populate our calendar with town events first. We and, and as well as our partners at Natick Center Associates. 'cause we actually contract with them, if you recall, to do the farmer's market and some of the other events. So we opened it up to both the cultural district as well as town departments. We had all of those people apply and then, and then we troubleshot and we made some tweaks but largely it worked pretty good. We have had outside of sort of town events, we've had four applicants so far.
One just came in actually yesterday. So that's in the process. But we wanted to make sure the process worked because it's got a decision tree model in it and we wanna make sure how that worked, that it worked efficiently with the legal guidance that we have. So if we recall, Caris noted that we have to do this in a, I believe a seven or 10 day or two week timeframe. I forgot the exact number of days. But we wanted to make sure the decision tree process and the system worked to keep us in that timeframe. And so that's why we wanted to troubleshoot in heaven in a beta format before we opened it up more broadly. But we do have three events that have gone through the process from outside the agency that are, that we're actually gonna process tomorrow to get
what we're gonna call provisionally approved. And provisionally approved just means that it's been read by staff, it meets all the basic, you know Yep. It meets the criteria. You it's at a date and time that can work. We have the detail of the project, it it's their, their understanding of the various requirements of what they can use. But there's still some paperwork that we're gonna require before you actually hold the event. But we don't, we don't need that at this time. It's usually about a week to 10 days before the event where we need for example, insurance certificates and final confirmation of some of the details.
So we are processing those three, those are a marathon event, A to Natick and an event on July 4th for the Natick community patriotic picnic. So those events have met all the criteria we're be giving them that provisional approval and then the system will actually allow us to let them provide us with those final items that need to be submitted before we give them the final permit to use the space. So we're excited that the system's working. One thing that we're also exploring is how we can provide to the board regular updates. 'cause it can print out information
and that we can maybe add to agenda so that you can see on like a monthly basis here's what we've, we've reviewed and approved this last month so that it's more transparent with the board, it's more transparent with the public, you can see what's been done. So we are exploring that as well. We were hoping to have it for tonight for the agenda but really literally handed this to me like three hours ago. But we're excited that, that it's working as, as well as it is. We do want to couple get a couple more exterior applicants in there just to make sure that it's truly working. But so far it seems to be working well. Awesome. But our intent is to bring this back so that we have something on the agenda
through like correspondence that can transparently show back to the board and to the public what has been reviewed and approved. So we'll at least put what we've done to date on the next meeting agenda. Okay. And then moving forward, part of it also depends on how regular we get these, you know, as our first year using the system. So it might be on a monthly, it might be quarterly. Quarterly. Yeah. It depends. So annually, I think quarterly Speaker 7: Would be, it could be every meeting if it's on correspondence 'cause no Speaker 18: It could be but if there's no change, I'd hate to have something on there. Speaker 7: Change. No, but I'm just saying you know, the board doesn't have to actually do anything
with correspondence unless they Speaker 1: Want to. Yeah. Speaker 18: So and, and we're gonna use this as potential model, not necessarily this exact process, but just the idea that we'll provide more like regular table updates for the board on, on things like this. Other things that maybe have typically been on a, on an agenda but now are sort of a because of policy, because of compliance with law or more of an administrative function now. So that we can provide you with those more regular updates. So I'm working for example, with our team that does contracts to say okay, here's all the contracts we reviewed
and approved over the last month probably or every couple weeks. 'cause that that is just something that I want to be more transparent with the board, with the public about. Not that they're all not transparent, it's just how we Speaker 6: More Speaker 18: Regular. Yeah, Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Speaker 18: And then we're looking at other ways of other things as well for that. Speaker 1: That's excellent, thank Speaker 6: You. I'd like to shout out to Mr. Marshall for working with staff and, and getting this done. I know this was a lot of work and it was Speaker 18: And Speaker 6: Billy and and and Billy. Sorry. And Billy. Yes. So I said and staff. I couldn't Speaker 18: Quickly yeah it as a team. Billy John, our rec and parks division. 'cause some of the system actually uses
what they use as well. Oh, their front end. Yeah. And we're gonna, we're exploring how can we put 'em a live calendar out there so people can see the calendar of the common, that's what might use the rec and parks programs because they use a lot of things like that when they're programming their, their programs. So we're, we're trying to figure out the, the best way to be transparent about it, to be clear about it, to make it streamlined, to make it easy for the, the user to, to just have the overall process be that way. Speaker 6: So thank you. Thanks Speaker 18: Jamie. Thank
Speaker 1: You. Definitely you can be a user experience guy now. Speaker 18: It it's a team effort. I mean I'm just impressed. You know, some of these ideas are just, it's great that we're maximizing the tools that we've invested in. You know, like the fact that OpenGov is a great example. I'll try a brief update 'cause Billy did a great job on this with all the stuff that we're now using with OpenGov. He had the idea in his own. It was great to put, we, we often get claim like insurance claims, you know, we're in the season of plow truck drivers and it happens, you know, we,
we damage property and so insurance claim comes in. Yeah. He set up a form on our, through OpenGov on our website that allows the insurance claim to be submitted by, by a resident or by whoever making it automatically gets distributed to the proper town staff as well as our insurance carrier. Wow. Awesome. And then they can, they can investigate right away and it's, it's worked out extremely smooth. And a version goes to the clerk's office too 'cause it gets stamped in down there. So it's, it's just, it's amazing how we can start using these tools to better streamline what we're doing. It's really cool. Kudos to Billy Kudos to Billy Kudos
Speaker 1: Toku initiative. Yeah. Yeah, Speaker 18: Yeah. Awesome. Speaker 1: Good job. Alright Mr. Chairman, anything else? Speaker 18: I do hope to have an update for the board probably at the next meeting maybe soon thereafter. We on tax title, we're getting very close. I just don't want to give you a firm date yet because it was, I don't wanna give you a date and then have it be like two days later or two days earlier. So, but it is in March though. It's going to be advancing. Sorry, I don't mean to keep Speaker 1: Oh you distract distracted. Her Speaker 6: Distraction pointer.
Speaker 1: Okay. On to select board updates. Speaker 18: Oh, actually she had one Speaker 1: Way too much. Speaker 9: I wish that I had said this during the announcements, but it slipped my mind. So I'll just, I'll add this now. I've been in touch with a number of our Muslim brothers and sisters who are celebrating Ramadan right now. And I don't know if we've acknowledged it, I know that we typically do, but I do wanna say Ramadan, UBA Rock and Ramadan Kareem to our Muslim brothers and sisters who are fasting and celebrating right now. And I also wanted to say that the interfaith clergy is, is having their month as well of meetings
and luncheons and activations to come together and, and, and really just being in community together. That is going through the month of March. All the way up until March 26. I got the information from Rabbi Re Reish Weiss at Tip Temple Israel. So if you are looking to participate, I'm planning to participate tomorrow. In fact, I believe there's a lunch with the clergy updates and olives and I plan to be there. And so if you have opportunity, I think this is a great, great time to, to commune with our different
faith communities all coming together this month, which is really powerful and impactful so you can reach out to Rabbi Raich at Temple Israel to find out more information about that. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you for that. It's seen that email and I've forgotten to write it down. Thank you, Ms. Coughlin. Speaker 6: I have a short, short comment update. One of our residents who was a veteran, died on Monday. Vincent Getty was 63 years old, and I came to know him several years ago.
He had a storied criminal history, but owned it and was trying to turn his life around. He suffered from profound mental illness that was untreated, and our Veterans service officer, Paul Caru, had checked in on with him on Saturday and tried to convince him to go to a hospital and he declined. Mr. Crew went back to see Mr. Getty on Monday morning and found that he had passed away. Just telling you the story to draw attention to the fact that our, our veterans in Natick are some
of the most vulnerable, but the ones that are least likely to reach out. And that's why it's very important that we have a and involved veteran Service officer. And tying it back to the appointment we made earlier, I'm delighted that James Martin has accepted our off offer to step into that role. We thought we had 1400 veterans in, I think that was the number we came up with. I think. So according to the state, we have 763, but those are self-identified and veterans aren't always the first one to say, you know, here, pay attention to me. So I'm just sharing that story with the public because it's indicative of the, the hidden illnesses,
the hidden disabilities that are prevalent in our society, sometimes concentrated in one portion of our residents, or one segment of our residents in another. And I just encourage at this point for all of us to keep that in mind and to reach out with kindness when possible, when practical. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Huff. Speaker 8: So, while we're on the subject of veterans, I just wanna point out that a longtime town meeting member and the husband of our former town clerk, Judy Kuhn. Lynn Kuhn, passed away and the services are available on the
Everett Funeral Home website. There will be visiting hours on Friday from five to seven at the funeral home. Speaker 1: Thank you. Off my list. Okay. Last, last item that I have is I'm gonna talk about the R word that we don't like, which is retreat. Oh. And a bunch of Speaker 6: Other R words Speaker 1: Retreat. Yep. Yeah, so we have an open Wednesday next week on the 11th, which is only semi,
semi-open because we have a audit advisory committee briefing from five 30 to probably seven 30. But what I was thinking is we could possibly do eight to nine 30 if that's amenable to people, because the, the issue that we will have is getting Mr. Erickson there and, and conflicting with fin com Tuesday, Thursday appointments, and we want to get some things done, notably the 10 Administrator
review head of town meeting. And while Mr. Sidney is still on the board, Speaker 7: And I would appreciate if everybody shows up to that audit advisory meeting if you can. Speaker 1: Yeah, just, just to, to reiterate what Mr. Sidney said, that it will be, it is a joint, it is going to be a joint posted meeting, the audit advisory committee and the select board so that we can all show up to that meeting and ask questions Speaker 7: And vote, Speaker 1: And vote to approve the auditor.
Speaker 6: Mr. Chair, we have still not voted on or approved the policy for the town administrator review, and we still haven't gone over the forms that were submitted to the board in draft. Speaker 1: Yes, that is true. Mr. Erickson and I had a conversation about that. And he is going to do, and correct me if I misstate this, Jamie, he's going to do his self-evaluation based on what we have currently been using, and we will
hopefully discuss in the retreat what we want to do moving forward. So that that's, that's part of why we need a retreat. Speaker 7: And please send out, you know, that the forms that you, that for us to Yep. Think about. Speaker 1: Yep. I shall do Speaker 9: That. Mr. Sydney. The meeting audit meeting starts at five 30. I likely will not be there at five 30. I'll try to get there as soon as I can. I'll be coming from Cambridge and I'm sure that I'll be in a commute of some sort. I know that it's gonna be on Zoom, but I will likely not be there at 5, 5 30 on the nose. Speaker 7: Yeah, I, it, it was a real struggle
because I wanted to make sure that if there was gonna be a board meeting, that there was some time for it afterwards. It was originally thought to be five, but I pushed it to five 30. There's at least one member of the audit advisory committee that also has to, has work conflicts. Yeah. So, and I, I fully appreciate that and I, I think, you know, if you look at the agenda, it says, you know, discuss and vote on, I forget the exact words, but essentially whether we're gonna approve the same company for the next audit, which is FY 25
and is already six months late. Yeah. Speaker 1: We, we can also hold off on any votes until we have our, Speaker 7: Until, until you're there. Speaker 1: So is everybody okay with an 8:00 PM retreat? I know you're, Speaker 6: I don't, I don't know that seven 30, I don't know that we would be able to, I mean, I think it's really optimistic to think that we'll be able to execute a review of policy, review of forms and an and a review Yeah. In a retreat going from an audit meeting from eight to nine 30. But there are Mondays that are available.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let, let me Speaker 8: Suggest that I would prefer a different day than, than that for personal reasons. I'm Speaker 1: Getting there. Okay. What I'll do is I'll send out a, a doodle poll and, and times in next, we want to do it next week. So it's gonna be a limited number of doodle options, but Speaker 8: Either Monday or Tuesday would be good for me. Monday, Monday, Monday. Monday. Monday's good for me. Monday. It's Monday, Monday Speaker 1: On Tuesday. Monday I have a turf meeting at five o'clock. Could Speaker 8: We do it at six? Could we do it at six or seven? Six
Speaker 1: 30. Six 30? Speaker 26: Are we sitting to do it in person? Speaker 8: The retreat? Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 6: Because it's not on, it's not on Zoom usually. Speaker 26: Oh, that's right. Speaker 1: All right. So six 30. Speaker 26: I will try. I'm not sure that I have started and Speaker 1: There's two people. Oh yes. And they're both all this, so, but that's a Monday. That's, but Speaker 8: That's a Monday. That's not usually. Does Richard have a Speaker 1: Oh, subcommittee. Oh, okay. Yeah. Meeting Speaker 26: Is Wednesday. They're having subcommittee meetings and we're in the childcare bin right now, so. Speaker 8: Well, someone's welcome to attend our meeting. Speaker 26: I mean, she may have to Speaker 8: I'm serious.
She may have to actually. Yeah. We'll, Speaker 1: We'll, we'll, we'll take her on as a non-voting member. Speaker 6: So the other question I have is, since it is the practice of the board not to vote during retreats, are we just discussing the review? Okay. Speaker 18: That was more just, I don't mean to cut people off, but the idea was, I just wanted to make sure the board was still on track with reviewing the policy. Right. Just keep it, keep it going. I just, and I think there was dialogue at the last retreat that, oh, we probably need to do another retreat before the end of March.
Yep. Because Richard is is, yep. Is so, I just wanted to make sure that, and so my, my intent of talking to Bruce tonight earlier today was, Hey, tonight at the meeting, let's bring this up and say there's a need for at least one more retreat. When can it, when can it happen? Speaker 7: Yeah. And, and I had been pressing vez through Ari to come in person and, and, and, you know, talk to us. And this was basically the next Wednesday was basically the only day that wasn't gonna conflict with like FinCon and Todd is, Todd can't make it if he's in FinCon.
So, and he's, I think he, no, but I think he's vice chair of the audit committee. But yeah, Speaker 1: It was an impa impossible or nearly impossible ask. Yeah. So he did the best he Speaker 7: Could. I did the best I could and I spoke with, you know, Mr. Heavens and Mr. Erickson and Mr. Sky in scheduling it and setting up the agenda. So, and one of, like I said, one of the things I wanted to make sure of is that, and it's mostly the board, not the audit advisory committee,
although the audit advisory committee may well want to take a vote too as to, you know, what to do for the FY 25 and potentially the FY 26 audit. Speaker 1: Okay. She'll get that posted. It's posted. No, no. The retreat retreat for the retreat Speaker 18: I'll take care of. Yeah, it's Monday. We'll have to do that tomorrow at the latest. I'll do it brought up. I Speaker 1: Know that's real. All right. I, I will set that up with Billy and if anyone thinks of any additional things we should add
to that, let me know within the Speaker 18: Next, and for the board, I'll just take the draft of what you have and I'll, I don't know if I'll have my anything completed for Monday per se, but I just want to start with a template of some type and just start filling something in. I have, I have what I did last year, but it's, it's obviously if you're doing a new, I wanna make sure I'm consistent with what the board feels they need. So I'll just start working on that. Speaker 6: Along those lines, there's a section about, I can't remember what it's called, not outputs not, but anyways, where we allocate, that's input we need to get from you about what you, we were looking to you for.
What if you could provide the board what you thought would be measurable outcomes. Yeah, that made sense. Oh, okay. So, and then we can evaluate that, but rather than us come to you and saying, here are the measurable outputs that we want to see from you, it would be helpful to have something we could reflect on. Gotcha. Speaker 18: I'll think through that for Monday, Monday's conversation. Thank you. Speaker 7: Ready, Mr. Chair? Speaker 1: Awesome. Cody, can you make Monday? Just, I cannot. I'm gonna be outta, I'm gonna be outta town next week, so for like a week. Alright. We'll catch you up. Maybe talk. Yeah. Sounds good.
Yeah. Alright. Okay. You ready Mr. Sidney? I am done. Move Speaker 7: To adjourn. Speaker 1: Second adur. Invite. Mr. Sidney. Ms. All in favor? Please say aye. Speaker 6: Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. Anyone else can stay right here Speaker 7: And 9 24.