Speaker 1: This is a good night. Good evening everyone. Good night. A little premature there, Bruce. Good night. Good evening. Okay. Today is Wednesday, February 4th, 2026. Otherwise known as the budget unveiling. This is a joint meeting of the Natick Select Board School Committee and Finance Committee. The chairs of each board will open their respective meetings and then we will hear the preliminary budget presentations from the town administrator and school superintendent. This is the first of many reviews of these budgets, so there will be a limited amount of time
to ask questions following the presentations. Total time allocated for this activity is one hour. I have it at 6 0 5. So 7 0 5. We're done for this night. So I have opened the select board meeting. Thank you. I had too many committees in my brain at the time. So is next up is Public Speak committee. There's a reason for this. Any individual may raise an issue that's not included on tonight's agenda
and 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 is limited to 10 minutes in any individual. Addressing the board during this section shall be limited to three minutes. Do we have somebody, Ms. Spdi? Speaker 2: Thank you. As you know, I'm a whistleblower who has exposed ongoing fraud by NA officials, a criminal conspiracy, and my family continues to be retaliated against. My daughter was illegally excluded by the school committee
after they had bullied her. We, I won't go off script. Excuse me. You're all aware that I reached out to town meeting and was first falsely told that I had to file a citizens petition. As you know, town meeting has a fiduciary duty per Massachusetts law to due diligence in municipal fraud and corruption. They have the legal authority to sponsor the article for a discussion, vote to refer to law enforcement for an investigation into the facts. There are several town meeting members who are involved in the corruption and retaliation. I'm sending the select board clerk, Ms. Pope,
the factual evidence with relevant persons copied so that there is no misunderstanding about the fraud and corruption. This will be made available for public and voters. The fraud involves embezzlement of over $20 million, which federal grants were procured and misused to offset the deficit. There was no need for an override last year per the internal documents we continue to be retaliated against by Natick officials. My daughter was abused by Natick, by adults here in Natick, to the point that she's now fully disabled. We reported bullying repeatedly.
It was never investigated and remediated per the law. And my child could not return to Natick schools because it was too unsafe. We were told by the hospital that she was in do not written recommendation or discharge instructions. Do not return her to Natick public schools. For fear of fear. She'd kill herself because we were forced. So Natick never approved the homeschool plan. So my daughter, I did the best I could.
She was evaluated by another neuropsych who said, do not put her in public school, put her in college. The college UMass agreed to accept the homeschool transcripts and then said, Nope. Natick never approved the homeschool plan. Your daughter got kicked my, she got kicked out of UMass Lowell. We had to file in federal court to compel the Natick School Committee To accept the homeschool plan. My daughter, Mr. Sidney, is now will be 23. He was telling me earlier that his daughter 27, got
to graduate high school, got to go to college. Why not my child? I didn't cause this. You did. You committed the fraud. You committed the corruption. Mr. Coburn, you did it. Not gonna stay any longer. 'cause this is extremely upsetting to me, as you know. I know. Mr. Evan. Right? Is it time up? One minute. One minute. Wow. This is just so incredibly upsetting to me that this has gone on time and time and time. Mr. Evans, I believe you were on the fin com or the auditor audit, the audit committee.
You all know that what you did was wrong and we cannot move on with our lives because she never graduated high school. Your lawyers are fully aware, as is David Linsky. Karen Spilker. We get no constituent supports whatsoever. I have repeatedly reached out to you and said, please, please meet with us. Talk with us. What can we do to get you to approve the homeschool plan? Allow my daughter and, and with all due respect, she wants to earn a diploma. She doesn't want A-G-E-D-I work for her. She is my child.
I am here because of her. Speaker 3: Wrap it up. Speaker 2: Yeah, wrap it up, huh? Yeah. So again, we do want this matter to be put on the agenda. I didn't do anything wrong. I was comp compelled by law. I was a board officer compelled to report the fraud and there is fraud over $20 million. Okay. Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Bald. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak? Anyone online? Jamie? Okay. Alright, let us move on to the budgets.
And is Mr. Skye going to go first or you wanna go first? Jamie and go wrap. Speaker 4: I think you wanna open the other, other meetings. Speaker 1: Small details. Okay. Sorry. Speaker 5: Thank you Mr. Evans. So this is a joint meeting, the native school committee. We'll now take roll call Mr. Brand. Present. Dr. Gman present. Ms. Brunell Speaker 2: Here. Speaker 5: Do we have anyone online? I don't think so. So I am here. So we are four. We are a quorum. So we will now have public speak. Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes.
Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility of the school committee. All remarks will be addressed through the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or responds to comments by the school committee. Is anyone here for public speak? Anyone online? So, we'll now close public speak and move on our joint agenda item. Speaker 4: Alright, I'm going to open up the finance committee. Will our members be online? Be able to answer here. Unmute themselves. John, can you make them co-host the finance committee members? So we, we put on security protocols to make sure
that we have to make people co-host in order for them to unmute themselves. Okay? I I can also see them, but if we actually need a verbal roll call, I don't know. Hasam, I see you remote online. Might take a bit for John to, yeah. Okay. Moving on. Dirk, Speaker 1: You're in person. Speaker 4: David, you're in Speaker 1: Person. Here in person. Speaker 4: Patricia here Speaker 5: In Speaker 1: Person. Speaker 4: Grace, I see you remote online. Yeah, see your, see your hand raised. Jean, I see you online. Julian Cat. Monahan. I see. Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: Thank you. Captain Monahans. Here. Julian. Matt, page Speaker 1: Here in person. Speaker 4: Richard Pope. I see you online. Gary Schulman. I see you online. Dan Nik. I see you online President. Online Thank you. And I'm here in person. So we are Speaker 1: 1, 2, 13. Speaker 4: So thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Erickson. You wanna start us Speaker 4: Off? Absolutely. Thank you Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all the boards and committees for coming together tonight.
This is, I think our fourth annual, third annual. I'm looking at Linda 'cause she was chair of the FinCon when we started this fourth annual joint joint meeting of, of the, of the tribe boards school committee, select board and finance committee. Thank you, rich. And I just want to say on behalf of, of town and, and I'll say on behalf of school administration, we really do appreciate you coming together for this budget presentation. It really does help us work with our schedules, work with your schedules, present the budget to all of you
in the, in the, in the, in the meeting as a collaborative effort between your groups as well as our groups. So for tonight, we'll, we'll have two presentations, one from town administration, one from school administration, but really it's one budget. We work to really closely together on all of this work. And so my hope is that you see that throughout, I mean, obviously there are two separate presentations. The schools is very specific to the schools and towns more broad, but it is truly one budget that we work together on and collaboratively on. And we've been working on the, the budget since Oh, or you started in, in September, probably from your day one,
if not before that, working on the budget. So this is the culmination of several, several months of work. And this is the first budget post pandemic. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Post pandemic, it felt like a pandemic post. Override post the override vote. I know we did have one for FY 26, which was contingent and presented as part of the override vote. But this is our first one that really is the post override vote. And there's some comments and notes to that throughout as well. I really just want to get into it and let the presenters get it get going. So I'm gonna pass the mic over to Ari. Skye no longer our new,
but still first time doing the budget presentation. New deputy town administrator, finance director in town administration. So Ari, now you can share your screen. You've tried it a couple times now. Speaker 1: I I did I getting protocol here. Give just a moment. I get this going Speaker 4: And please bear with us. This is our first time using some of the technology in this room, so we're hopeful that it works well. And we added the screen. So there, Speaker 1: This is awesome. That is awesome. This is good. Apologies. I believe this is the, this is the PowerPoint. Okay.
Just gave me a slideshow. There it goes. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. We're good. Okay. All right. It took me a second. Here we go. All right, now we're in business. Now this may be our Speaker 6: Fourth, the fourth annual, but for me it's the Speaker 1: First here. So I'm very pleased to be here. And I will say how much I appreciate the, the, the time and support and grace that's been given to me as I onboard and kind get used to how we do things here in Dan. It's still learning curve for me, but I'm, I'm, I'm getting there. So I'm try to keep this pretty efficient.
I know we have a limited time limit, so I'll, I'll go through, run through here. If I'm going too fast or I'm excited to touch on you, feel free to follow up with me. I'll be happy to, to get into a little more quick look at our agenda tonight. We're for presentation. We're gonna touch on budget principles, give an overview of the general fund revenue Speaker 6: And, and expense and, and new initiatives. Talk a little bit about Speaker 1: Working. I'm sorry. It working. Speaker 6: I heard, I heard myself echoing. No. Speaker 1: Is that working now? Lemme try this one. Yeah, Speaker 6: I had it.
Speaker 1: Okay. Is this better? Yeah, that's better. We Speaker 6: Better? Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll Speaker 1: Be of the new system. We're still working on some of the Speaker 6: Sound. I'll, I'll go real close here. I'm feel like I'm at the Grammys now. Yeah. Anyway, karaoke. Yeah, again, you don't wanna see that. Yeah. Anyway, general fund revenue projection projections, expense summary and new initiatives. Talk about financial planning. So some of the methodologies and long-term considerations. Give you a look a early look at the five-year forecast and then talk touch briefly on the enterprise funds.
And that'll pretty much be what we took cover tonight. Okay, so quick recap on FY 26. As we all know, the voters approved the $7 million override last march. The, we still have a sustainability issue going forward, which you'll see as we, as we get into this. So the focus of the 27 budget was really on maintaining an environment of financial and operational sustainability. There are still major drivers that are pushing us at a rate greater than the growth in overall revenue. So it, it, it just, it's just one of those things over time, you know, the two lines will meet and cross those items include things like the,
like inflation, which, you know, continues to be an issue. The impact of the 2.5% cap falling unrestricted state aid since the past, since 2010. It does go up slightly this year, but it's very, very modest. Hopefully we'll see some more action in legislature to help that. And then of course, declining federal aid. Mo a lot of localities were, this is a problem statewide, really local because we were boosted by the COVID era aid and that kind of masked a lot of problems. But there's, there's a, a sort of a built-in functional structural deficit that just about every
jurisdiction in the state has. And that's all because the rate of rate of revenue growth is limited. Well, the rate of expenditure growth is not Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 6: Looking at that, we took the town's budget goals into account and the trying to tie those to the board's critical success factors, namely prioritizing the delivery of essential services, balancing revenue while an expense as while maintaining reserves and of course emphasizing the use of existing resources for new funding requests whenever possible. A lot of transfers in the budget, a lot of reassignment of the costs and very minimal new initiatives.
And those that are pretty much tied to existing services. There was, you know, sufficient, the bottom sort of biggest picture there was sufficient funding and the town side to be able to fund the level service budget. But it took some, took a little bit of creativity on our part and we managed to get it done. But it is, it is gonna be a challenge going forward past 27. So look at general fund revenue. General revenue is up by 6.93% over the prior year. The major drivers of that, the tax levy is dependable, but growth is insufficient to support ongoing needs. We have a number of one and a half million in new growth, which is historically consistent but still
and a little bit higher than, than the town had used in earlier budgets. And we've earlier used the one one or 1.1, the one and a half million new growth is, we we're confident in the number, but even, even even that one and a half million combined with the two point a half percent levy isn't enough to keep the boat totally afloat. State aid's not projected to increase as much in as in prior years. The governor's budget ibel increases are restricted today by 2.3% and it's a very, very modest increase in minimum aid on chapter 70. So those, those two things, there's not a whole lot of,
a whole lot of relief coming from the state side. Local receipts are a success story. They're showing continued growth, especially motor vehicle excise, which at the rate it's going right now in 26 motor vehicle excise will prob will is likely to exceed $7 million. So we feel pretty confident that the, that we, that we could tweak that up a little bit, which is why local receipts overall go up by 5.7%. Free cash for operational uses continues at three and a half million, which is what's been the sort of the traditional historic number. We do have an increase in debt service, which I'm gonna get into later on.
And we use capital stabilization to help support that. We do have transfers into capital stabilization as well. So the balances stay all right, but we are starting to use that money a little bit to handle sort of, sort of smooth the, the effect of increased debt service costs. And we, the use of overlay, as I indicated to the board a few weeks ago, use of overlay has increased using 1.45 million. Normally we've used one, we still put a million in and the board of assessors is meeting on that tomorrow. But the, the num the the, the receivables have come down quite a bit and our tax title collection, as you know,
has helped that quite a bit as well. This is a look at the revenue breakdown overall, again, looking at local receipts, which is on the, the bottom, the right bar graph, you'll see that, you know, that local receipts, the number that we've been, the budget has increased slow gradually over time, but it's still well below the prior year actuals. And as I, as I said, 26 is, is running in the same direction as well. It's running a little higher than 25. This chart gives a sense to the use of certified free cash. We, as you know, we had a very favorable number for FY 26. We just certified for ffy 26 of nearly $14 million.
I would anticipate that to continue to recur. However, we were, you know, we did direct quite a bit of that money into capital projects as we indicated we would. The CIP that, that was presented to you a little while back anticipates that as well. And you know, overall the free cash number, as we know is driven by, mainly by tax title collection, permit revenue, delayed grant reimbursement and cost containment. The, we also continue policy of supporting the stabilization funds per the, per the financial policies.
The capital stabilization fund is, is right around $4 million right now. And we'll be at $5.4 million with this contribution. We take six 20 in the budget though, so, okay, me Generally speaking, it's sort of a meta principle. As we all know, the town's financial structure is rather dependent on recurring free cash. We really need to have a recurring free cash number to make things work. The, there's the operating budget portion, which is three and a half million dollars. We tr we, we do in the out year projections show the impact
of gradually eliminating that as our retirement is, is paid off, retirement obligations paid off. But, but right now, three and a half million dollars is kind of a lifeline that's needed to keep things going. In addition to that, our capital program is viable mainly because of free cash. And that's, that, that, that's a, that's a key part of it. And then of course replenishing the reserves and there's a couple other one time expenses I'll get into as well, or one actually one, one other, one time expense Looking overall at expenses, the, this gives you a sense of for the breakdown, the school's overview will follow this presentation.
As time administrator indicated, we worked very closely with the schools on this process figuring out sustainability going forward as well. And there'll be a lot more to say about that. Other major drivers of the of gen general fund increases, you'll notice a fairly large increase in administrative support services, about 10%. That is principally due to one time election year costs, which about 70 odd thousand dollars. Reserve funding for CBAs. As you know, we haven't settled all the CBAs, which is that number is close to half a million dollars
and some IT software costs, which is, so software maintenance agreements, that kind of thing. $130,000. So that's why this disproportionate increase. The other big increase is shared expenses and that's principally health insurance, which will show later on, Speaker 1: Excuse me, for the benefit of people who may not be highly familiar with municipal finance, who may be watching us, for example, from home. Could we try to use terms like collective bargaining agreements instead of the jargon? Speaker 6: Absolutely. Thank you. Certainly. Yes. Yes. CBA of course refers to collective bargaining agreements, which are the agreements with the various unions in ta in the in town government.
Thank you. Okay. Town expense breakdown. This is, gives you senses of the breakdown overall, just, just for purposes of information, the breakdown between salaries and expenses in the town, which we don't show here, but I can, I'm just aside, is about 70, 72% versus 28% for expenses. So about 72% of the general fund expenses non schools are attributed to salaries. The, given the recent reductions that took place during the last few years and, and going into the override
departments were allowed to incorporate an incremental increase into this year's guideline. We allowed them to, to increase by 2% in their expense lines without requiring full new initiatives and so on. They sold to justify, but we, we made it a little easier for them. We encouraged efficiencies and in general, the objective was a level service budget, which meant that new initiatives were really limited to core needs. And that the, the, the, the budget itself was really not designed to expand programs or change the footprint of count of town government, you know, in the, in the community in any significant way.
This is a look at the Natick, the public school system and you see the trend over there. The growth rate for FY 26 is 5.4%. Again, the superintendent, some more about that. And given the I year projections, which will also show ongoing discussions have been going, have been, have been underway with the superintendent and the business manager regarding future capacity. We are working collaborative collaboratively to develop a sustainable profile for future years. This is a look at shared expenses and for those not familiar with the term, that's mainly, those are the things, those are the, the accounts that are both townside and school side.
So things like health insurance, retirement, which is mostly townside, but there's a, a bit on school side and debt service as well. 'cause you, you know, debt, debt can be issued for school projects and for for town projects. The, the, the major drivers as you'll see are fringe benefits, which is health insurance. We're the active plans. We're anticipating an increase of 12%. Senior plans about 11%. We don't know that for sure. We won't have a file number till later on. WSHG is still putting together, their West suburban health group, I apologize, is still putting together their, their, their,
their exact numbers for next year. I'm learning debt service is the other major driver increasing by 6.2% and that is principally due to the July, 2025 bond sale and incurring interest costs for, for that, for that sale. Okay. This is a look at new initiatives and again, the term new initiatives is kind of, kind of tough to, to nail down on sometimes because, you know, we had to go through this process of looking at more contractual obligations, what were inflationary costs and,
and what were actually new initiatives. And when you get bring it down to that level, there's really not much there. That was a new initiative. Most of the increases that you'll see in the, in the, on the townside budget were due to inflation costs, contracts, things like that. But there are a few, and those few are listed on this page. There was a $120,000 for the police for replacing the uniforms and badges, which I understand was a previous initiative that's funded out of free cash. There's a stipend for the animal in for and health for animal inspector, project manager and facilities.
Facilities repair maintenance and, and the cost of a personal property audit, which is paid for out repeat out of overlay for $50,000 that I've been working closely with Mr. Henderson on that. And that is the kind that, that is the, that is an investment that will almost assuredly return many times its cost because it, it, it allows, it allows you what it is contracting with staff to go out to, to go out to businesses and actually get a better sense of their personal property and, and then some increases in the golf budget as well.
And we are attempting to work with fire to try do what we can to fund over time. They, they, they estimated the number and their need at over $600,000. That was not something we were capable of doing, but we are trying to gradually move to toward that direction in terms of the, there it goes. Okay, in terms of the, just the bottom line, we are to the good right now by $7,912. So I'm, I'm pleased, I'm pleased to say that I have brought you a budget that's in balance the there. However, at this point, early in the process, there are
numerous possible changes or revisions that can occur between now and the amended budget. The most obvious ones are the state budget, which will, which will change. I mean you can almost promise that the question is more what will we have by the time we get to town meeting? Will we likely have the house budget? I would be surprised if we have the Senate budget too, but you never know. So, but we'll certainly have the house budget, which would be a change. And historically the house budget does provide a little more revenue than the governor's budget does. But you know, given the sort of uncertainty in the economy and everything else, nowadays I can't, you know, you just, you just dunno. The Keith assessment is currently a placeholder.
It's 2% over the FY 26, actual those looking, those Eagle eye people looking in the, in the document itself, we'll see that the increase is only 0.08%, but that's because the FY 26 budget number was actually higher than the actual assessment. So the, the net is 0.2% is is 2%. We'll get the actual assessment probably sometime in March. And then health insurance, as I mentioned earlier, those rates will be updated probably before April, certainly before in time for time meeting. Here's a look at the five-year forecast. Lots of red in the bottom there. The, the, the main utility of the forecast right now is
that it demonstrates that historic trends are just not sustainable. We kept the scenario assumptions that we gave you back in November. So for example, we have the schools going up by 5% a year. We have the time going up by 3% a year. We have shared going down. We also are maintaining the policy in terms of capital and debt service as well, which is something that we'll probably want to talk about as we get closer to retiring to to, to funding the retirement. The retirement liability, this maintains new growth of 1.5% local receipts growth, 3.7%, which is,
is actually lower than we're seeing historically right now. And state aid is pretty, is is extremely, extremely modest. Chapter 70, just historic trends and I'm restricted a by 2% a year. Even this year 2% I think go is 2.3%. So that's, that's probably a little pessimistic. Use of free cash continues at three and a half million. Starts to go down to 2 million in FY 30 and goes down to zero and FY 31 with the, with funding of the pension liability and then the balance for capital one.
Time expenses and reserves are made per the financial management principles, which is something that we're gonna be coming back to talk to all of you about in the next several months. Over the just sort of information over the forecast period. We have capital program, we have capital expenses totaling about 77 million funded through this through the forecast GHE 46 million would be funded, would be funded through borrowing and 31 million through pay as you go through free cash. And so we are maintaining that, that conservative capital program. The needs are, as we've discussed
before, as I believe Mr. Marshall discussed before, are quite large, much, quite a bit larger than what we're able to fund. And then beyond that, the, the bottom line, as you'll see is right now in this forecast, a negative number of 3 million or so in 28, 5 0.3 million in 29 and 5.5 million in 30 then comes down to 4.4 million in 31 and 3.5 and 32. So that's a structural problem and that we'll that we'll need to be focusing on as the, as as this process continues. And this is a line graph. It shows basically the same thing.
It's just a, it just, it just kinda shows the expense trends over the, over a period of time again, shared is the, the shared services including like facilities, pension liability, debt service, health insurance and so on. And you'll see over time what the rate of growth has been for the, in these three major categories. Okay, so nearing the end here. Enterprise funds, these are self-funded funds, self self-funded enterprises. We have two, the water and sewer enterprise fund and the golf course enterprise fund, both of which are funded entirely by by fees.
The water and sewer enterprise fund has a couple of major drivers that are of concern over time. Those include the sewer assessment from MWRA, capital costs and p potential. PAS costs PAS costs, which could, you know, could, could, could theoretically become quite significant. The golf course it has, their major driver lately has been water utilities. I believe they keep, I believe they've come back traditionally to town meeting on a annual basis to try to to, to normalize that number. We tried to, to do that from the outset here, knowing
that the golf course could support it and that we wanted to make sure that they, that the revenue profile was what it needed to be. Okay, so, Oh, there we go. So budget timeline. We are past the budget kickoff, past our internal budget meetings and in the, and past the budget development phase. And we're into the public phase now. So really this presentation marks the transition to that public process we've been working with. I've been working closely with the finance committee chair with Mr. Giler to ensure that the staff is engaged, that we're responsive and actively supporting the town's leadership as we go forward on this.
And the, the, and ensuring that this process is, is informative and helpful for everybody. The budget can is online, it's available through a, this digital budget book. The QR code there is, is helpful as well. I'd like to just in closing, give all the credit in the world to the finance team especially to, to Gloria h who was instrumental in putting this together. Also thanks to the town's appointed elected leadership for your support, engagement and proactive involvement in all this. I sometimes feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose here, but, but we're, we're, we're getting it done
and everyone's been a, been a big help in that respect. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you Ari. So that concludes the, the, the sort of first part of the presentations. I, I just want to reiterate the thanks that Ari gave to Gloria especially, but we also have tn on our Yeah. Call as well. She was a huge help as well as part of that huge finance team. Department heads were amazingly involved and engaged throughout the process. I know John Marshall's in the back managing the, the, the Zoom link and was also heavily involved. So just thanks to the team, they did a great job
and also thanks to the school department. But now I'm gonna pass it over to the school department, Dr. Smash. Speaker 8: Excellent. Thank you. Now they're gonna, John's gonna load our deck, I think. Can you hear me okay? Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 8: So as he's loading that, thank you. It's good to be here. Good evening everybody. I'm Melissa Sp for those of you who don't know me, second year superintendent of Natick Public Schools. I'm very thrilled to be here. Tonight's presentation is intended to establish a shared understanding of the FY 27 school budget recommendation from Natick Public Schools. This is not a request for expansion, it's a level service funding proposal.
Awesome. There it's, there's a QR code there in case anybody who's maybe looking from home wants to access the deck in the next slide please. This is a snapshot. This snapshot shows the scale of the district. Many of us don't just get our eyes on these figures and it grounds us in who our students are while over overall enrollment. And there is something in the appendix that many of you saw during the override shows kind of flat and relatively stable, stable enrollment over many years, student needs have shifted while we're serving more students who require specialized supports, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners.
We just hit 5.4% this year. These students require licensed staff, smaller group instruction in mandated services that aren't discretionary. This budget responds to that reality while still resulting in a net reduction of staffing of 1.1 0.0 FTE overall full-time equivalent employee. The at a glance numbers provide scale, but student needs drive the budget. Next slide please. This is just a synthesis of our budget goal this year. The goal is around stability coming out of two years of some reductions, $2 million of reductions
and a recently approved override for which we're extremely grateful. The budget is designed to maintain current programs in staffing and meet contractual and statutory obligations without expanding services. It's intentionally framed as a level service budget. And I'll define that in a moment. It accounts for unavoidable cost increases without assuming growth and any changes proposed are targeted and budget neutral. Next slide please. So, just a ground in what we mean by level service in terms of our presentation, it's a very precise term and we're spending a moment on. It means maintaining current programs
and staffing while accounting for known cost increases or decreases such as salaries, benefits, utilities, and contracts. It doesn't add initiatives. So if we're buying a new curriculum, it is not considered part of level service. It doesn't add or change headcount. Next slide please. All of this is to say maintaining a level service budget is what allows Natick and I think we all know, is a very strong, stable and high performing district. The budget is intentionally designed to avoid further reductions that would undermine those programs and staffing and to support student performance in mandated services
level service allows us to sustain what's already in place in working well for students. Next slide please. We're gonna bring you through. Oh, next slide please. So this slide is what the recommended budget is $100,650,912. As the town already said, this is a 5.4% increase. We are gonna go over later in the presentation. That green box at the bottom, that's around strategic reallocation. Those are, yeah, I wanna thank the town as Jamie and Ari did for the support that made this level service budget kind of in line with the town presentation.
Thank you so much. And with that framing in place, I'm gonna turn it over to Mulu, our assistant superintendent of finance who's going to bring us through the budget summary cost drivers and circuit breaker reserve. Speaker 9: Next slide please. So here's the, the categories, basically the, the seven categories that the school committee looks at each year at both in salary and non-salary. And you can see where things are broken out. We give you a three year history and a summary of the FTE there. And there's some, some notes off to the side. But basically, again, tackle the superintendent.
It really is a, a level service budget, but the kids aren't Speaker 1: Always the same every year and their needs change. The kids change a little bit and then we, we, we change our program a little bit to, to meet the needs of the students where they're next slide. So some of the drivers, the collective bargaining agreements as as as noted, we, we refer them as CBAs. Commonly salary ranges are up anywhere from two to 4% on steps. Most folks settle on a 3%. Some of the early steps for our, our lower pay down school employees, we not on up to 4%.
And our administrator contracts about 2%. We're in year two of, of three year bargaining agreements. Non rep salary is initially proposed at 3%. It's probably gonna set out at two transportation contract. We're in year three of a next year will be three of a three year contract with two option years. And that's about 5.6% increase fee that has gone to the school committee. If that's approved, that'll be a 2.8% increase. The fee increase, I'm Speaker 9: Sorry if, if that wasn't, I can repeat the transportation part again.
We're in year three of a five year contract. Next year would be option. Option one. The regular bus contract is up about 5.6% and we do have a proposed fee increase of $25 that would, that would reduce that down to 2.8%. We did, we have taken into account where we are in comparison to other fees and the feedback we got when we were, I'll call it, making the tour for the override proposal last year. Special education transportation increase is estimated to be at 6%.
We have some FES that, you know, basically saying they want to get out of the business or charge us a lot more money. So we'll be, we'll be searching for some new providers and we're, we're confident we'll find them. The special ed tuition's pretty stable overall estimating at 3% and the vocational agricultural tuition is up quite a bit. But when, you know, when you only have a dozen kids or so, having, having one or two more can really start to increase the percentage there for that. Next slide is the circuit breaker. Our circuit breaker program has nothing to do
with electricity for folks at home. The state has a reimbursement program for high cost students and the state defines high cost as four times the, the state average. So if that four times that high cost of state average is about $52,000 and every dollar over that, they'll reimburse us up to 75 cents on the dollar. That's the maximum. However, we budget about 70 cents on the dollar 'cause the state never knows exactly what the appropriations and percentage is gonna be because they vote the budget beforehand.
And we're doing our claims and filing our report between July one and July 15th and the appropriation's already made. And so the state DESI gives us our number sometime in August or September for what we're actually gonna get. So we estimated fairly conservatively, you know, it, it changed a little bit of, of recent. And so where, where we think we'll end FY 27 is around 1.5 million. And where we think will end FY 28 is gonna be about 1.238 million and that's fairly stable.
So we're gonna be using a little more circuit breaker money to stabilize the budget and that's how that special ed tuition's work came in around 3%. And the next slide is, we're kind of back to budget framing here. So it's a 5.4% increase. Again, the strategic reallocation is, is just an net decrease of one position. And just to add for budget framing to what Ari and, and Jamie had said in the future we are agreeing in concept that FY 28 may be a little bit tougher and we're trying to, we're trying to look at how we make
that work and, and working together and giving us time. Anytime we have time to, to solve some of these problems, it can be a lot less painful than if it's done in, in a very short, short order. So we appreciate the working relationship. And I'm gonna turn it back over to the superintendent. Yeah, Speaker 8: So a last piece here is just to explain what we mean by strategic allocations. Strategic allocations represent about 1% of the total budget, so less than a million dollars. We reduce spending in certain areas and deliberately reinvest those same dollars in priority areas, staying budget neutral overall
to the level service budget. So rather than applying across the board reductions, we made targeted decisions about where resources could be consolidated, redesigned or redirected. And then we invested in additional strategies. But it's a net zero budget impact. And in this slide you can really see some of the different things that are driving those strategies. We had some reorganization in our communications department. We have some fee adjustments, a sizable fee adjustments, some cost sharing for information technology. We're adding a elementary therapeutic program to memorial school, which definitely is needed. We're adding literacy curriculum.
Many of us in the community have been very interested in that. So there's, we're in our second year closing out an audit and we'll be buying and shifting to a new curriculum for literacy, which I'm extremely excited about for next year. That's why it's not in level service, it's in a new investment we had to pay, it's $300,000 in that that assumption. There's some reorganization for what MTSS is multi-tiered systems of support, which we are launching in one of our elementary schools. And then we're adding two college and career readiness support at the high school. That's a very critical piece. It's where the nation's going, it's where our state is going and we wanna make sure we're ready in Natick.
And then this will be very exciting for many people really wanting to commission a study from a, from an expert around high school schedule and how we can look at that and get some recommendations. All of this is budget neutral, zero zero down one head count. And we'd wanted to show you the staffing. We're getting better and better at this. But this kind of shows you, we, you'll read this in the budget book, but we reclassified our FY 26 and so full, full transparency. We wanted to show you exactly what moved from last year to this year. But overall, when you look at this in reading left to right, you see the FY 26, what we had in the budget book last year.
We have a strategic allocation, which is a movement of minus one position and then the FY 27 budget, which is one less person. And you see where those changes are and this slide is much less about kind of going line by line, which you of course can. It's more about the pattern and the fact that these are concentrated on kind of strategic investment in the district. So with that, I'll close and we'll be happy to take questions. There's our budget book QR code as well. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you superintendent. So now what I'd like to do is just open it up to the committees and boards to ask questions.
So this is freeform, so raise your hand and I'll try to recognize anyone that has a question. And John, if you could look at online for me please. Speaker 4: You have one online. Speaker 1: Okay. Ms. Kenny Speaker 10: Successfully conducting his first presentation. So thank you for being here and thank you for the thorough overview for both teams. And I think my first question that I'll just kick off for tonight is more around the future projections. And so specific to the school budget, can you share how the future projection was generated? Speaker 4: Is that a question for the school department or,
or projections for Ari from a forecasting perspective, Speaker 10: I was thinking from a forecasting perspective for ari. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 6: Hi Grace. It was based on the historical increases over the past, you know, 10 years or so. Speaker 10: Okay. So they haven't been refreshed, I'd say. Speaker 6: Yeah, it's, it's not, it's not any type of analysis or assessment of what the, the needs based budget looks like is. It's simply looking at prior year trends and projecting them outward. That's all it is. Speaker 10: Okay, thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else? This is folks me. Speaker 11: So I have a question for the school department
and for full transparency. I'm asking this question not because I don't know the answer, but because I've asked, I heard it asked a lot in the community and so I think this is a great opportunity for people to heal the answer directly from you. But it actually was illustrated in the very last slide when you looked at the changes in staffing, I've heard people concerned about the reduction in interventionists. And so I'm wondering if you would mind explaining how we're not removing interventionists, we're just shifting that approach from a pedagogical experience and Yeah, sure. You'll, you'll, you'll be able
to even ask a question better than I can. Speaker 8: And, and anybody who wants a half an hour description from a very eloquent speaker can listen to Dr. Shelby Marshall, who is the principal of Lilja Elementary where this is gonna roll out. A couple weeks ago we did that and it's of course recorded, but in general there's a, there are 10 interventionists full-time equivalent interventionists at Lilja Elementary where we're rolling this out and we are prepared to offer every single one of them a different role. So in, we're moving from just the interventionist role into supporting five kindergarten para
or two MTSS, which is multi-tiered systems to support lead teachers. Highly experienced, highly licensed teachers who would provide all of that intervention for students alongside teachers and coaches and then building based subs. So kind of where it's really to match in reality what the people are already doing. Interventionists are getting pulled to sub, they're getting pulled to be putting kindergarten classes. And so we actually went and talked to people and said, okay, how do we make this actually a more systemic solution? And this is what we came up with. So it's very, I'm so glad you asked the question.
'cause we don't intend, we hope not to lose a single one of those people. Their role is going to change to align a lot of what's happening in the building, but also to really better serve as a system for serving intervention to our students. The interventionists are amazing people, but they also have, this also kind of came from post pandemic and it's time to kind of evolve it. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Superintendent. Any other questions? Don't be shy, Mr. Coffee. Thank you. I'm gonna ask this question, your honor, Speaker 12: Lemme ask this question on of our former colleague in the
finance committee, Dan Sullivan. A bane of many people's existence is the school population numbers. It's noted in the budget book you're looking at a 72 student drop from 2020 from previous year. What is your projections, if you have one for the school population, go moving forward and how does that parlay with always rising costs in providing student services while there are less students we are servicing? Speaker 9: Well, so very good question in regards because students always equal dollars right?
In, in some capacity. But when we, when we shift from, you know, I'm gonna call it 5,225 students to what we're projecting next year at 51 46, right? With a, with a three year average. And if folks wanna like see this, it's page 131 in the budget book or a five year average 132 page 1 32, we'd have 5,138 students. So when you take 70 kids, right, and they'd be spread out across 13 grades and then they'd be spread out in the middle school
and between two middle schools or four elementary schools in one year. We don't always have enough class size shift to collapse class sizes and reduce staff. Right? So, so we didn't do that really for FY 27, but we are aware if the projection for 26, 27 holds and we this for next year, we might be looking at possibly reducing staff, then I think folks can, if you, if you go back up to PA in the school budget book page 1 29, we have a six year bar graph
that shows our student population that's gone from 52 51 to 52 25. It went up slightly and then it went down slightly. So it, we will adjust the staffing when we can, when, when it starts to, to make sense because very rarely do the kids all happen to leave in the same grade at the same school. Speaker 8: I'm gonna add on that briefly if I may. We actually commissioned a report in anticipation of our MSBA work, which I'm happy to share and post even to this agenda. It is a public document that was presented to the school building committee as well as the school committee.
And in there we had enrollment projections by somebody who does this, does this for a living and their projection, I'm reading right from the report, the moderate projections indicate a decrease of 51 students or 1% in grades pre-K to 12 from the 20 24 25 to the 20 34 35 school year. So their predictions for natick are to stay very flat for the next through 2034. So great question, but we feel confident in those numbers and that explanation makes sense to me in terms of the distribution of the kids in classes. Speaker 7: Ms. Pop, Speaker 13: Ditto.
Thank you Ari, for the presentation. Thank you Dr. Sp for the presentations. One of the biggest drivers that was pointed out was the health insurance. And I know we've talked about that from a select board standpoint and amongst select board and with Mr. Marshall. Is that something that we are thinking about addressing? Again, you know, I know there are several different companies there's as a consortium that we're a part of, but is that something that we are thinking about reviewing? Speaker 4: Sure, I'll, I'll try to take the answer and I'll ask John Marshall in the back if if to correct me if, oh, he is up to the, at the,
at the podium he, he swiftly moved in in brief. Yes. We're always looking at that as you noted. Whereas part of the West Suburban Health Group, which is a consortium with other communities that allows us purchasing power, a joint purchasing agreement. But John, do you wanna explain a little bit more about West, what West Suburban is doing? Speaker 11: Sure. So as Mr. Erickson had noted, we're part of the West Suburban Health Group. We've been part of it for a number of years. It's helped us in good times. It's helped us in bad times I think. John, Speaker 1: Could you just explain what the health group is as a consortium?
Speaker 11: Sure. West Suburban Health Group is a joint purchasing agreement. It, we have legislation that basically created the group. We are one of nine members, mainly municipalities and a couple of school districts except in Dover Sherburne I think are the two. But we've been paying a lot of attention to health insurance and the health insurance market as a whole. Last year we had extremely favorable rates are rates as a whole increased at 3.85% where GIC
and a number of the Maya communities, which are also consortiums increased at a significantly higher rate. The increase that we're seeing this year is consistent within the marketplace with those other entities. The other option that you know has been discussed probably wouldn't be favorable 10 naic, is to be self-insured. So go directly to a carrier and get insurance through that. We would assume all of the risk in being self-insured. So if we had a significant amount of claims that we had from our members, that's gonna impact our premiums.
Being part of a joint purchasing group enables us to share that kind of claims experience across the group. So, you know, we have initial projections in terms of what the rates could be at this point in time, we'll have a little bit more clarity in the next month, but they're anticipated to go up in relation to the municipal market and what we're seeing in health insurance, we will continue to look and explore options, but you might save on premiums, but there's also plan design
and a number of other factors that come into the plan. So we work closely with the PEC, which is basically a group of all of our union groups to have discussions about the plans, what's important to them. And in our last round of conversations, some of the benefits of what we have in the West Suburban Health Group have been of most interest to them and we're still comparable in the marketplace. Speaker 14: Thank you. Speaker 4: If I can just briefly add, just for not clarity, but to, to reiterate what was, what was in Aria's presentation?
I think we're carrying about an 11% increase for next year, 12% increase for next year. And that's consistent as John mentioned across the board in the marketplace. It's more of a, even like a nationwide phenomenon, more than just even like a Massachusetts specific phenomenon. We'll be under that, but we won't know until the end of February. Speaker 14: Thank you. On this questions for the schools, on page nine of the, the deck, it talks about budget drivers and there's a, a line that says non rep salary range initially proposed at a 3% increase.
What is non rep, Speaker 7: Non-union? Speaker 9: So those are the non-union folks, folks with individual contracts. So we have people that work in it, we have substitutes, we have about almost four pages worth of positions where there's a pay range or a flat hourly rate if that's the case or folks get paid. And you know, when building the budget early on it was 3%, but school committee hasn't voted yet, but it looks like it might be at 2%. Speaker 14: And in the the just above
that it talks about contractual salary obligations. You are in year two of those agreements for those collective bargaining agreements. Speaker 9: That's right. Speaker 14: Do you anticipate being able to reduce the, the historic 3% cola? And the reason I ask that is that once you add in, and this is just my understanding, so understand that I don't have a master a mastery of how the schools are, the school's budget works. Admitting that looking at a 3% year over year plus steps, ladders, longevity pushes
that number up into four and higher. And on the townside we're holding our CBAs to 3% or less. And I'm just wondering, is there an appetite to negotiate at less than 3%? Speaker 9: I I think that's a little bit early. Understand, understand, understand why you're asking. But we, we take a a a pretty in depth approach and actually the, the, the superintendent, and I've been doing this since 2001 and the superintendent had had a a very good approach that she can expand on with, with how we went about it,
looking at being both internally equitable and externally competitive within the, within the job market and with what's going on around us. So I, I wouldn't want to get out too far in front of that. That's fair. But, but I, I appreciate the, the concern because we understand the town's financial limitations at times. Speaker 14: Appreciate that. Speaker 8: I actually don't have anything to add. I think you're spot on that a 3% is not a 3% impact to the budget when it comes to Cola's in education. And it is a challenge to the budget when about 80%
of our people, our expenses are people. But as we hear at town meeting and we hear and we value our teachers, right? We have to be competitive in the wage. So what what I can say is we do, I think a really strong job at that analysis and heat maps to understand how competitively we are falling and we wanna strike a balance there. We don't wanna be at the top or the bottom right, but we wanna make sure we continue to retain and attract fabulous teachers that make it great. But again, I don't wanna, I agree we don't wanna get too far out, but that's, you're right. That's in your assessment. That's Speaker 14: Fair. I appreciate that and thank you for that very full answer.
Speaker 15: Go ahead Ms. Speaker 16: Thank you. Just from the school committee's perspective, we enter it just like the town does with, you know, collective bargaining agreements. So I just don't want anyone to walk away here with a certain number or a percentage that might be in future collective bargaining agreements. I think that you did a really nice job summarizing, you know, our intention to stay within the reality of the town and within the market of the metro west area for teachers. But who knows? Nobody, nobody has a, what are they called?
Crystal ball. Thank you. Nobody has a crystal ball here. Speaker 14: Yeah, I, I appreciate that. I wasn't looking for specific numbers or just talking about appetite and looking at what the potential impact would be. So I I appreciate the thorough response. It's helpful. Very helpful. Speaker 15: Thank you. Our time is almost up, so I just wanted to point out for anyone in the audience or anyone listening on online, that this is just the very first preliminary step in the budget analysis that there will be many exhaustive finance committee meetings and school committee meetings will,
where the budgets will be discussed and approved. So if you feel like you haven't had a chance to express your opinion, there will be plenty of opportunities for that. And we welcome the questions. And I also wanted to ask, please make sure that the school committee presentation is, the superintendent's presentation is posted on peak so that everyone can see it. So this is just the beginning Speaker 1: That, that, that's how we post our Speaker 4: P peak for those from home, it's just our agenda setting. Agenda posting software Speaker 1: Used to be a novis agenda. Speaker 4: It used to be the Novis agenda. Yep.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: I do see one more hand, Bruce, I don't know if you Okay Speaker 1: That. Yes, Katie here. Speaker 10: Thank you. Yeah. And the previous speaker just said a really good point. So maybe this is a good wrap up question and once again, appreciate the balanced budget today. However, I can't not ask about the future projections and the deficits listed. And so I'm curious what plans are already in place or conversations are starting now to prevent the, the continued gap we have in in the coming years. Speaker 4: Yeah, so, so I'll take a initial stab at
just answering that high level. You mentioned what conversations are happening now, and I can assure you conversations are happening now. We are me regularly, we being the the town and school team on an every other week cadence to talk just finances. We have a finance specific meeting, which is really just the four of us. And then we pull in others as needed, depending on the topic that we need to cover. And that's an every other week occurrence. So we are constantly meeting to discuss what are we seeing, what's happening, what's coming down the pipeline. So again, crystal ball, if I could say what we, what, what we're gonna be saying this time next year.
I, I'd, well one, I probably wouldn't be here. I think we'd all probably be millionaires if we had that crystal ball and maybe off doing something else tonight. But, but you know, I know on the town side we're definitely working continuously with our department heads to figure out how can we provide level, if not better service or our higher quality services at the same cost. I know in the next year we're gonna be initiating a number of studies, or at least a number of initiatives to look at things that we provide, such as trash and recycling, such as just the financial management
principles from the select board and others that can help provide guideposts on how, how to look to, not necessarily control costs, but at least give us guideposts on where we're taking costs in the future. And I'm confident that the school department is doing the same. We've heard some of that tonight as well. I'll let miss Dr. Smash talk briefly through that on the school side. Speaker 8: Yeah, I think, I'm glad you asked. Didn't ask for a number because I was prepared to say it took a lot just to get the FY 27 out. But I do think we need to, you know, take a look at FY 28 this year for sure.
And, and, but what I'll say is more important, and this is almost my staff could say it, almost every conversation that's involving money, we're constantly saying, do we need that? How can we make it smaller? What's the usage? So can we warrant the expense from every program to every, all the supplies we have, et cetera. So without going into those details, I'm very mindful when we're looking at this and looking, even going from 5.4 to 5.0 would in this budget be around, correct me if I'm wrong, $400,000. So we're looking at how do we do this without affecting people and staff and student experience?
And that is through efficiency and that is through micro decisions all year long. And I said to Matt, I hope next year we're just, this is the wrong terminology, hero is the wrong terminology, but you can, we need a euphemism, but unsung heroes, like it's just no one notices it. We go to 5% without coming here and saying, oh no, all these cuts. So that's my, that's the spirit answer I can give to you. And I can say it's everyday conversations we're having to try to find that and bring that to a reality without affecting our students, our families, our teachers, our staff. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you.
Just one more thing I wanted to add to Jamie's comments, which is another project is regional dispatch. Is, is something that we're working on that, and that's a, you know, looking at things that we, where we can reduce costs with hopefully improving services in some cases, but at least at the very least, maintaining services. Speaker 4: And, and I'll also say that we're constantly working on ways to fund similar or more through non town resources.
We have an excellent team on both town and school side that's constantly chasing grant programs, constantly chasing funding opportunities for, to cover everything. Not usually new staff, but maybe it's just an initiative or a service or capital program usually is where we're most successful. Some recent examples include, we're still pending, but we have money to redo some of the work at the Behem school. It's about a 2 million grant from the feds that we're still pending. I know, I know Jillian Wilson Martin is also working with the school department on a potential application
for MSBA funding that'll be in front of you next fall for Lja, I believe, schoolwork. Those are all great opportunities. And I, I don't mean to just hit school of projects, we also got funding for town capital projects. For example, this June you'll see, or July you'll see work on this in South Natick on the spillway. That's all funded through grant funds. We have no town funds going towards that project. So we're constantly looking at ways to lessen the impact on our future productions by, by tackling projects and initiatives with non funds as much as possible.
We're extremely fortunate to have really strong ties and really strong just people working for us at the state and federal houses delegation. We were constantly, for example, were constant communication with state senate President Congresswoman Clark's office. They're great to work with and we're, we're pushing as much as we can. Those can offset our future demands and our future commerce as much as we can. And they're great partners. We really appreciate that. Speaker 1: Any other questions? I just wanted to briefly give a shout out
to the four of you. Thi this is a not only great budget cycle, but a great concise presentation that really made it crystal clear where we are today and where we need to be in the future. And I'm especially encouraged by the, I'll call it metamorphosis of the school. Same number of people, but different approaches to tackling problems. And that's, that's how you improve efficiency without,
you know, you talked about it being a level servers, but it's really not. It's improved service at the same cost. So kudos. Any other comments from the committees? Okay, let's start it over the public. We've got about 10 minutes for questions. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak or ask a question? You're speechless. Okay. Alright. How's I started late and I'm ahead of All right. Still. Speaker 17: Good evening everyone. Jeff Alderson. I, I am just wanted to give a little feedback on the quality
of the meeting going forward. The audio has been absolutely terrible this evening. Mm. I, I know there might be viewers at home that are less informed than I am about the, about this, but half of the content presented tonight was not audible and, and it wasn't because microphones were on or just, or, or enabled. Yeah. I'm getting thumbs up by different people. I just want you to be aware of that, that this is an important meeting. But if you look back at the transcript and the recording from Natick Pegasus, you may find that the transcript is not successful. So I just wanna flag that for everyone this evening. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Alderson. As Mr. Erickson said,
we're still progressing on the learning curve here. There, there are some issues that we've had the growing pains, so we will, we'll work it out. But as we say, this is definitely not the first bite of the apple. The presentations will be on peak. So if you go to the select board agenda, it'll have all the presentations there. So you can download those. If you have questions on that, feel free to send them in
to the select board or school committee or finance committee. Finance committee's gonna get there, bite at the apple soon enough. So I want to thank everyone in attendance online and participating. I want to thank both the school committee and the finance committee for, for being here tonight. Appreciate all the support and I will ask you guys to close your meeting and we're gonna pause our meeting and then continue with more fun.
Speaker 4: Okay. Do we have a motion? So moved. Motion to adjourn. Second. Speaker 5: All in favor. The school committee is adjourned. Thank you. Speaker 4: All right. Finance committee on the motion to adjourn. So moved. Speaker 1: Vote to adjourn. Speaker 4: Second. Okay. By roll call quickly. Hassam. Second thumb. Speaker 1: He's got his thumb up. Speaker 4: Dirk? Yes. David? Yes. Patricia. Aye. Grace? Yes. Jean? Yes. Kat. Cat a thumbs up, Julian. Aye. Matt? Yes. Richard.
Aye. Gary. Yes. May have left already. Dan. Yes. Thank you. We are adjourned. Speaker 1: Going back to announcements, I have one which is a reminder that papers to run for a town meeting are due on Tuesday, February 10th at 5:00 PM There are openings in all precincts. You can pick up papers to run for town meeting in the town clerk's office. You need to get 10 signatures from registered voters in that precinct. So please it's see the town clerk if you're interested
or any other announcements? No. Okay. Public speaker, we've already done. So let's go right into the discussion and decision portion of our program. I'm gonna change up the order of these items in the interest of time and the people who are staying here late who are working or in town. So first up will be the batting order will be C, then B, then E, F, and D finally. So item C is a public hearing core LLC,
doing business as core golf application for S 12 S 12 one, and malt beverages on-premises license and a common VI or license. This is not ready for tonight, but because the hearing was advertised for tonight, we will open the public hearing and continue it to the February 25th meeting to allow time for the application to be re ready for review for the board. So Ms. Pope, are you able to read the public hearing notice?
Speaker 7: I have it if you need it. Thank you. Speaker 13: Okay. The select board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 at 6:00 PM upon the application of core L-L-C-D-B-A core golf Oliver of Segal, proposed manager of record for a new S 12 wine and malt beverage record restaurant on premise license. The premises consists of 5,000 square feet of indoor space. The space includes one large room that houses five simulators, a putting green, and a service bar.
There are two bathrooms adjacent to the main room. The main office and the president's office are open to the second large space, large space lounge area. The hearing will be held in the Edward Delo room 13 East Central Street as well as remotely. Anyone wishing to be heard in this matter can participate in person or through zoom. Login instructions will be published on February 4th, 2026, select board agenda. All persons interested in this application may appear and be heard at that time and place. Mention above or may submit written comments to the select board at 13 E Central Street, Natick, MA 0 1 7 6 0 select board@ma.org
by February 4th, 2026. And I move to open the public hearing Speaker 7: Clerk. Excuse me. Now just be moving that. Well we have to vote to open it. Speaker 1: Yes we do. Thank you Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Speaker 7: Move to continue the public hearing to February 21st. Speaker 1: 25th. 25th. Second. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. A Aye. Aye. All right. So moved. Next up is the Main Street project update. And Morgan, you sir,
Speaker 18: Can I ask a question? So this, the core golf is not being discussed tonight and been moved to the 25th, Speaker 1: Correct. For open, correct. It it has not had, it was not ready to be reviewed tonight. The I Speaker 18: Understand that, I understand that. Just they need to send another letter out to the abutters Yes. To make sure that they're available to come. Speaker 1: We, we, we don't. And, and if you have, if you are in a butter and you, you would like to be notified or your neighbors might be, if you send a letter to select board and we'll try to answer that,
make sure you, I apologize that you were waiting here patiently for that, but yeah, is that good? Is that the good news or the bad news? I'm sorry? Is that the good news or the bad news? Bad news. Okay. Alright, thank you Morgan, please, either way, whatever you're comfortable. Speaker 4: So while Morgan walks up here, just introduce Morgan Griffiths is our, what's your title now? Speaker 1: Transportation and Speaker 4: Economic Transportation Economic Development Planner in the Community and Economic Development Office. And he's be presenting a few slides on the Main Street
initiative, which has been an ongoing initiative for, for many years, but just most recently due to Morgan's great work, we got a award and a, a grant from Mass Works through the state, $500,000 to help advance the design work. So this is gonna kickstart that next round. So Morgan, take it away. Thank you Speaker 1: Jamie. Make sure Mic, mic on and working. Speaker 19: Is that? Yep. Okay. There you go. Speaker 1: There you go. No, it's, it seems to be picking it up better so I, Speaker 19: All right. Let's see. I think that's good. Yep. Alright, so hello everyone
and thank you for your time tonight. I know I've been at select board meetings in the past, but as a refresher, as Jamie said, my name is Morgan Griffiths and I work as a transportation and economic development planner within the towns community and economic development department. I'm here this evening to provide the board with an update on the main street improvement project in Natick Center. So first, just a brief bit of background. 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 one to repair and or replace aging roadway infrastructure along the corridor. Two, to connect existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities along Main Street on either side of the project area and improve safety for all roadway users. And three, to address current and future roadway congestion issues with an eye on an expected increase in traffic of all modes. As new developments in DIC 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. We hope to turn this concept into a fleshed out design in phase two and construct it in phase three pending funding and community support. So while timelines are flexible and not yet exact, we estimate that we will be working on phase two over the next few years with construction not starting until the late 2020s or early 2030s at the earliest. So as you'll recall the last time we were in front
of this board, 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 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,
well preserving as many of the existing parking spaces as possible. Since this meeting, the project team submitted an application to the state's one stop for growth MathWorks grant program for funding to start phase two by bringing the project up to 25% design. We received this grant for $500,000 in November, 2025, and subsequently met with a few different mass DOT departments to understand what they would like to see from the project as it advanced. We hope to begin this work on phase two in June of this year. But before we do that, we would like
to get more eyes on the hybrid concept so that we ensure it works as best as possible for the myriad corridor stakeholders. Before entering design. To do this, we will be creating the main street working group a body which will review the current hybrid concept, share feedback, and vote on whether to endorse a revised design concept to take into full design during phase two. It is important to note that this process is not going to be a parking study, nor will it be an opportunity to decide if the full project continues or not. It will also not result in the creation of a design
that will go immediately into construction. Rather it will be an opportunity for folks to provide feedback on the hybrid concepts, the resulting revised version of which we hope to then take into more detailed technical design. The working group will be made up of 14 members from key stakeholder groups, including four members of town staff. That includes folks from CED and DPW, two representatives from the Towns two transportation committee. So that's the transportation advisory committee and the safety committee. One representative from Natick Center Associates, three representatives from the Natick Center business
community, and four Natick residents at large. So we've opened up an application to fill the spots in the last two categories, which I will speak more about in just a minute. But during the member selection process, we will deliberately be selecting folks with a range of skill sets and lived experiences, as well as a diversity of perspectives on the project. Members can expect to devote four to 10 hours to this process over approximately nine weeks depending on member role and interest. So just to walk you through a high level timeline of this process, we opened the working group application
last Friday this evening, I'm giving the presentation to you all. The working group application will close on Thursday, February 19th at 11:59 PM The project team will then select members and notify these folks during the last week of February. We will have our first working group meeting on Wednesday, March 4th, 2026. At this hybrid meeting, members will review the current concept and provide feedback. The project team will then work on revising the concept to incorporate this feedback where possible. And we know that not everyone is going to be able to serve on the working group.
So we will be presenting this concept at a public forum late in March as well, where the general public can weigh in on the design. The exact date and time of the public forum are still being flushed out. And then the project team after this, the project team will continue to revise the hybrid concept given all the feedback it's gotten so far. And present it one final time to the working group on Tuesday, April 28th, 2026. 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 to the on the working group process and outcome to the select board, hopefully in mid-May, and receive the board's feedback and direction on going forward. So if the select board gives the go ahead, we aim to begin phase two with this revised concept in June, 2026. And as this process progresses, the project team will also be happy to come back to the board and give brief updates on what is is going on. So we encourage anyone who is interested in the working group to apply the application is a Google form, which can be found at the project website,
which is natick ma.gov/main-st-study where you can also scan the QR code on this slide, which will take you directly to the form. And just a reminder that applications will close on Thursday, February 19th at 11:59 PM So make sure to get them in before that. And then before I close, I also want to touch briefly on project funding. The planning phase of this project has been funded entirely by two state year marks that the town received in 2023 for initial outreach and design efforts. The first part of phase two that will get the project up
to 25% design will be funded by the $500,000 Mass Works grant that we received last year. Once we reach 20, the 25% design milestone, we plan on taking a pause to evaluate the appropriate path forward, both for the design itself and the funding source we will pursue for future work. As you can see here, there are two main options for funding sources that we have currently identified for construction. The first is the transportation improvement program or tip, which is the five year capital plan through which the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization or MPO allocates federal transportation dollars
to municipalities in Greater Boston. The second is Mass Works a state grant program which funds construction projects. In addition to design work to be competitive for the tip designs must conform to specific standards set by mass DOT such as the inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities where deemed appropriate Mass Works is a little less stringent. That being said, the project team sees the tip as the most viable path forward currently for a few reasons. First, the tip would provide full construction funding for the project as currently proposed, whereas,
whereas it is likely that Mass Works would not cover the full cost. We've also had initial conversations with the MPO and Mass DOT and we understand that the project as currently proposed would be quite competitive for TIP funding. And finally, while aiming to get on the tip will require this project to conform to a higher set of standards. As we embark on design, we believe that this will actually benefit us once we reach the 25% design milestone and need to decide the, the direction in which to take the project, given that it will be easier and less costly to scale back from a more complex design
than to increase the complexity of a simpler one. That being said, nothing is currently binding us to either path forward and once we reach 25% design, like I said, we intend to take a pause and evaluate all of our options before deciding which way to go. So that's all I have. I'm happy to take any questions for the, from the board or members of the public. Speaker 4: I can make one brief reference point. So the, the tip for folks is recollection is what we utilize what the town utilize to fund the North Main Street improvements, which is just
to the north of this just over the train tracks. Those improvements led were completed only a couple years ago. It was one of the projects actually led early on through the design process and that that very useful funding sources Morgan mentioned it's fully funded, I believe the North Main Street project was about a $14 million project that the town only, well we, we had to pay for the design and any right of way, which is still a couple million dollars, but we still use a couple million dollars worth of town funds to leverage $14 million worth of state and federal dollars.
So it's, it's a program that we have experience with and it's a very viable option. Mass Works actually funded the, the entrance drive to the Natick social Systems center intersection project. So we also have experience with that one as well. Speaker 15: Thank you very much Morgan. I'm very heartened to see that the comments that we made during our meeting, and you've probably heard from others as well, have been taken into account into this. I just wanted to ask, with the working group, will there be a boundary and parameter so that whatever
changes are made would still make sure that the project would be eligible for TIP funding? Speaker 19: It's a good question. So our aim is to, so the, the, the hybrid concept as it currently stands, you know, we've, we've presented it to folks from Mass DOT and the MPO and they have said, yes, this seems like it would be a good tip project. Our intention currently is to make adjustments, any adjustments that folks would like to that, but still have it meet those requirements. However, I think if during the working group
it comes out that, you know, this is not the right design for Natick, you know, if we bring that to the select board, then you all say we don't think this is the right way forward, then we would take a step back and kind of revise, if that makes sense. Speaker 15: Okay. So the output of the working group isn't necessarily, depending on what they decide isn't necessarily something that would qualify for the funding? Speaker 19: No, but I, again, I think, I think we would, we would like that process. We would like the, the end of that process to be something
that would qualify, but we understand that it may not be. Speaker 15: Thanks. Just wanted clarify that. Speaker 14: Thank you Morgan. That was a great presentation for members of the public who are not aware the last time the board board voted on, well the, when the board voted on this was June 3rd and Morgan was able to get the grant proposal in for a June 4th deadline. So I wanna thank you for that. I know that a lot of it had been pre-done, but you had to turn around and get that out within a very short amount of time. So I wanna thank you for that and, and the funding that in that came about, I would ask
that the working group, when, when the members of the working group propose changes or ideas, I would really like the tip guidance to be introduced at every step of the way. So yes, that's a great idea. This is something we wanna agree on and this is what it will cost us. So I wanna make sure that the working group is fully aware of the offs between what we want and what we can afford. And the, the last question I had was how many applications have you had or received? Speaker 19: So the application has been open since Friday and we've received 25 applications so far, which is
much more than I was expecting at this point. So very heartened by that. Speaker 13: Thank you so much. Really Speaker 7: Appreciate it. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Kaman. Ms. Pope, Speaker 13: Thank you. Thank you Morgan, for this presentation. And forgive me if I missed this. When do the applications close? Speaker 19: They close February 19th at 11:59 PM Speaker 13: Okay. I was trying to think if we had another meeting in between now and when they would close if we could announce it, but we, we don't, I don't think we do. We do the 11th. Okay. So we can announce it again. Thank you. Thank Speaker 19: You. I appreciate that. Speaker 1: Sure. Mr. She have anything I just wanted to say thank you Morgan
for this is a great work and my colleague preempted the fast turnaround compliment, so I won't repeat that. I, I'm heartened to hear that you've got 25 applications already, but I'm also wondering if we could put that on our website and, and just make sure that there's is already there and can see that I'm right up to date with our website. Sorry. Okay. All right, excellent. You guys have covered all the bases, so any further questions Speaker 19: And I, I did just wanna say thank you for the,
the comments about the having the tip process front and center. We do intend to have that as I think something that we do intend to be upfront about that so that folks who come into this process know exactly what they can expect and what they can expect to happen. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Morgan. Thank you. Great work. All right, next up we've got Johnson future use reports. Over to you Jay. Speaker 7: Yeah, Speaker 1: Glad we got the bigger table. Speaker 7: Thank you. Skip that. Alright, so we're just gonna get loaded up but I had a couple cutting.
Speaker 1: Is that on? Speaker 20: Here we go. If actually if one person on Zoom can just give a thumb if the audio is working better now in the last 30 minutes, because I know we're saying it's working, but someone in Zoom lane, no thumbs. Speaker 11: Wait, Speaker 20: I'm not certain if we can do anything but Speaker 11: Jay, I was just in my office listening to it. Okay. Through the Zoom feed as opposed, it's not perfect but when people are talking and if they go quiet it's, that's when people are cutting out. So as long as you maintain a consistent
dialogue going forward, it's better if, if, if you kind of cut out at the end it's cutting you out. So if you go, if you go quiet at the end, so if I go like this and I go, it's losing the end of it. Alright, Speaker 20: So while John loads up some presentations, we're gonna walk through three different reports. The first report we're gonna talk about this is all the first two are gonna be reports distinct to Johnson. The first one is gonna be around boards and committees that we asked for a report. Then we're gonna get into a human services study
and then we'll close with some interrelated projects. Myself, Jay Port Paddock, communications director, I'll do the full intro. But Angela Snell, director of community services and within her organization, Lauren Moyer who's our director of Parks and Rec. So we're gonna go through the three reports. I'd love to just maybe give a brief soapbox moment just to kind of get us warmed up to the topic. So as we go through these reports, again, first two are Johnson. I would encourage the board as well as the public to be thinking about the word decision as we go through this. We're, we're inching along we the Johnson project and we'll go through some materials,
but ultimately we've been focused the last eight months on Johnson around the wants. We're starting to move into the needs and eventually it becomes the decision. A couple items is when we came in October 29th last year. I want to compliment a resident. He made an interesting comment and I tend to agree with him, but I think it's a kind of a loaded comment. So, and I see his name on the Zoom, but Mr. John Kaufman said wait a second, if we do all these reports, are we stepping back six months? And I think it's a fair question and we are somewhat stepping back to be more thorough.
And then at the same time, I think as we move towards decision, trying to just be cognizant of that watch out moment as we take on more input, which is great. Becomes more variables, more dependencies. So I just want us to be thinking through all of those when you see these reports. Ultimately we do have finite town staff resources. Two weeks ago I went to Spain with my dad. We did not have a single communications person on staff. We have some redundancies with some brief items. We had a big snow storm. Our supervisor of highway and sanitation was personally on snow equipment going up and down South Main Street on the weekend.
Mind you. So we are, we're a lean team. So as you go through this exercise, I encourage everyone to kind of embrace the realities of those situations and not, you know, potentially chase ideal but chase your best path. And then last comment is, we just heard a joint session on the financials. One of the interesting data points through the Johnson project is we said that ultimately the top, when we asked people financial approach, 650 people in a flash vote survey said work with an existing funds. So that was, and that was a 45% of the respondents.
So a fairly significant lift versus other options. So as we listen through the financials and you see the forecast, we're about to go through board and committee reports. I think it's just interesting context to consider. So if you pull up the board and committee report, Not that you're looking at the last of the three reports that we'll do, no worries. Yeah, you can just go to the homepage and just click on I. So what I'll give you guys context as we pull this up. So through a resident who had a brilliant idea,
which I would say he suggested, why don't we reach out to relevant boards and committees and get reports about what needs and opportunities might be at the Johnson property Through the chair, we, we reached out to 10 boards and committees and received six reports. I will tell you I moved to, I moved to Natick about 13 years ago and I thought we had a good school district pretty close to Boston. Probably have some amazing facilities, which we do and also have some residents who were pretty impressive. I thought when I read these six reports in particular, some of the ones around just outdoors parks and rec commission, open space, net zero con com,
really impressive reports. So what you're looking at is a summary of these six reports. I've got a link to Google Drive, which gives you the raw reports 'cause a lot of work and energy went in from the volunteers that are woefully underpaid. And then we have an AI summary of chat EPT just to as a starting point. And then what I pulled out is some overall themes. Looking across these six reports, there's some critical needs that pop quite a bit. It's this notion of town wide facility planning and maintaining existing fields. When I say town wide, that includes the town and quotations, town departments as well as schools.
Some mentions that were pretty prevalent, A lot of, you know, preserve open space, preserve, tree canopy, maintain and or reduce building footprint. Great news, those don't really come with dollars when you start talking about reduce and preserve. And I think those were pretty consistent. So what I'll do is walk through each of the individual six reports at a really high level. We've, we're gonna leave about half the time for the board and the general public to ask questions. So I'm not gonna talk fast, but I'm also not gonna be overly verbose when you look at the school committee. That orange marker I know on the screen share. John, if you don't mind just giving just a, a little bit
of a hint above on the key. The orange is if you just scroll up to give a little more view above, above the overall themes just so people can see the color coding and the key. Yeah, there you go. So the school committee, it's an interesting topic. Obviously this is a Johnson property that was a school property about two years ago when it transitioned. A lot of the needs the schools noted are space related, whether that be the high school overcrowding as well as potentially consolidating preschool. The athletic fields I feel are gonna come
through in future reports that we'll talk about tonight. And then they did mention two time sensitive needs, one around a d, a compliance and a cost estimate as well as also a reference to high school facilities and evaluation. But I think that it's a great opportunity in my opinion for the board select board and the school committee to have further conversations. They had a great meeting on December 8th, but ultimately I think there's a lot of nuance and interesting things to sort through there. The other reports scrolling through I think are a little more straightforward Parks and rec commission. I think this reinforces things maybe didn't uncover
something unknown, but coal center functionally obsolete a reference to a modern community recreation facility. And then it moves into this idea of preserving any of the amenities, notably the fields as well as a different way of saying it that town wide we, I dunno if this is me, I think this is Mike going in and out, but a shortage of field space across the town, which again will play into this next reference of recommending a feasibility study kind of associated
with the current coal center and community community center as well as the parks and rec, sorry, recreation, rec and parks department that's currently housed there, which I think we'll be addressing in one of the three reports tonight. Net zero, again another impressive report. One the green references a macro item. I'm not certain this is unique to the Johnson property, but I believe a pretty interesting idea that I believe our sustainability director has been chatting about with net zero, but establishing more of a policy as we take on additional, you know, facilities and buildings to have something that's informed
by the net zero committee. If you keep scrolling the considerations that the net zero team reference in relation to Johnson, just the location of Johnson and the opportunities associated with transportation and walkability. A lot of references to the natural resources. And then ultimately this principle of energy use and carbon and decarbonization principles. The open space advisory, again a a lot of the similar themes at this point, but it just comes with a different lens, if you will, through this particular body.
Preserving the forested and outdoor facilities, maintaining the open space which the residents have. Also throughout this entire process, this is just reinforcing the idea of not increasing the building footprint as well as the parking and pavement. And you know, some references that'll end up coming through in the con com as well. And then I thought an interesting call out by the open space advisory committee in reference to this potential friction if more fields are desired on the Johnson property that just ultimately has a little bit of an imbalance between natural and development.
So again, just context or considerations for the board to consider moving into con com, the location, urban heat zone. So a lot of work was done around this. So Johnson is essentially in Natick center on the south side with that, a lot of flood off and flooding and runoff items and some additional considerations I thought that are interesting. They move into this notion of nature-based solutions or native plantings, again doing the honor of what their commission is charged with.
And then council on Aging, it provided an email largely anchored in this notion of the multi-generational space, or sorry, multi generational space that could be provided to community members. Consistent themes that we've heard through throughout the eight months of public engagement. So that kind of concludes and we're gonna do these three reports and we orchestrate or communicate this through the chair to go through the three and then open up for all sorts of comments or questions unless there's one burning item, but I'm gonna pass it over to Ms. Snell. Speaker 16: Okay. Thank you for this opportunity
to present information from the human services needs study that would be appropriate to the Johnson project. Just so everyone is aware, the human services study in Natick was commissioned by the town to assess current and future human services needs across the community. It was conducted by the UMass Boston research team. The study draws on demographic analysis, community surveys, focus groups, and interviews with service providers and town staff. The report identified service gaps emerging needs the
opportunity to better coordinate and expand human services for residents of all ages. Its findings are intended to guide strategic decision making and investments that strengthen natick's capacity to support residents health, stability and overall wellbeing. So we did a overall summary of the report just to point out some of the key findings. The key human services needs that were identified are in a couple of categories. The first is youth and family support. The study highlights a significant demand
for expanded afterschool programming, vacation week care, and summer enrichment opportunities. Families report limited availability and long wait lists for existing programs. In addition, residents express so strong interest in enhanced youth and teen engagement opportunities including structured activities, social spaces, and enrichment programs. The next category is mental health and wellness services Across age groups. Access to mental health supports emerged
as a critical concern. Residents cited challenges finding counseling services long wait times and a need for more community based and preventative mental health resources. The report also emphasizes the importance of wellness programs, programs that support social connection and emotional health. The next category is centralized information and referral. Many residents reported difficulty navigating available services and identifying where to turn for help.
The study recommends a more centralized visible approach to information sharing and referrals to town departments, nonprofit providers, and regional resources. The next category is support for older adults. The study identifies ongoing needs related to social isolation among older adults. Caregiver support, transportation access assistance for residents, experience financial instability, strengthening partnerships with nonprofit providers in creating accessible service. Locations are identified as key strategies.
And the next one is inclusive community and gathering spaces. Residents expressed a desire for more flexible community spaces that support recreation, cultural programming, support groups, and intergenerational activities. Emphasis was placed on ensuring programs and space are welcoming to diverse populations. So what is the relevance to the Johnson project based on the study's findings, the Johnson site presents an opportunity to serve as a centralized community hub. Potential uses aligned with identified needs include youth
and family programming, including afterschool and vacation care, community-based mental health and wellness services, A one community resource and referral center, intergenerational program and social supports, flexible space for nonprofit partners, support groups and inclusive community activities and teen activity space. Basically the possibilities are endless. If people wanna know more information about the human service study, you can search. The full report is on the town of Natick website
and if you just search project human service study, you can get the full report and all the recommendations, Turn it back to Jay. Speaker 20: So now we're gonna go through about 10 slides and again, we're gonna pause and have all sorts of opportunities for conversation, but this is gonna be a relatively brief presentation by the three of us up here. But if you go to the next slide, the idea is the Johnson Future Use Project has been active since March of 25. So this was again October 29th. We took the direction from that meeting
and we inserted the next two projects, which is the coal slash recreation center future. That's what we're gonna be calling it going forward and field and parks planning. These are three distinct projects that are interrelated. They aren't necessarily being merged into a single entity. The next slide, again, I'll, I'll be relatively brief on the Johnson, I think the next two slides will be net new. But for the board as well as anyone who's newer to this, this is a multi-year project. We kicked it off in March of 25. We did eight months of fairly heavy community engagement in a great way.
And then the board, we paused to do the boarding committee reports that you just heard, as well as the coal slash recreation as well as park and fields. If you look at the timeline left to right, there were a number of deliverables in 2025. The final appendix slide actually just shows you the key insights, which I'm just not gonna read for the interest of time. But as we go into 2026, the first three items that are not in black are ultimately what tonight's meeting is. And then those items in black, we're not addressing tonight,
but just calling them out as open items that we've discussed with the board and the public. Ultimately we've, you know, these are, this is an illustrative timeline, but the middle of 2027 is what we've thought is a reasonable decision point. Obviously subject to all sorts of variables and then it moves into whatever the board decides. So now I'm gonna kick it over maybe to the meat of the deck. Speaker 21: Thank you Jay, and good evening everyone. Reminder, I'm Lauren Moyer, I'm the recreation and Parks director. Tonight I'm gonna share you with you the timeline for determining next steps regarding coal, the future
of the recreation and parks department. The department has operated outta the coal center since 1993 and that is after the coal elementary school had closed. It currently houses the offices of the department staff as well as me. Many regular programs for youth, including the teen center after school program, playgroup and morning pre-K programs, and many evening and weekend weekend enrichment programs for kids of all ages and people of all abilities. The state of the call center is unfortunately beyond simple repair. The goal is to use our program data to determine our next steps. As we've outlined over the first six months
of this timeline in front of you, our first step will be to look at our current program needs and wants through our registration to statistics over the last five years. That includes tracking registration numbers for all of our programs, looking at which programs have wait lists and which programs did not run due to low enrollment. And we'll also look at trends in the program interest over time. All of that is information that thankfully our registration software holds. Number two on this timeline is to look at that human services study that Angela just went over and pull out key information that is relevant
to the recreation programming and community space conversation. And finally, the last bit of data we intend to collect over the next six months is how we, our current spaces are currently utilized. And so that we'll look at the frequency in which the coal center is running at capacity as well as which days and times are in the most demand. We'll also look at which rooms and facilities are most heavily used. We'll look at the reservation hours for spaces we rent in town. That includes school facilities and the community senior center. And we'll also look at this data over that same time period that we're planned to look at our recreation statistics,
which is the last five years. This will hopefully help us understand trends in areas of growth that we've had. Our goal is to finish this data by early summer when we can use all of it to establish an RFQ for feasibility study. The feasibility study will hopefully provide us an opportunity to look at the site conditions as well as engage the public on a conversation about future recreational programming. And we hope to have that feasibility study started before the end of this year. Our final thoughts as outlined on the slide, we've worked with town administration pretty heavily on this timeline. So we've established some future concerns that we may need
to relocate the Recreation and Parks department before we finish this multi-year project. And then we will keep these, this consideration in mind as we kind of move forward at each step. Please lemme know if you have any questions about the Coal Recreation Center future, otherwise I'll hand this off to Angela. Speaker 16: I think we can take questions at the end too. Question? Yeah, so I'm gonna talk about the field fields and parks planning. So just to give history on this, the town completed a park and field master plan in 2016, which guided several park
and field updates over the past several years. Now that it's been 10 years, it's time for a refresh of the plan. This was identified as we prepared a five year capital plan and that continues the work outlined in the original document. We have identified the master plan update as a request in the fiscal year 27 capital plan. So the status of the field and park planning is that changes and projects have occurred to the field since the plan was completed. Data is to be gathered and reviewed and new priorities to be identified.
We have identified a few steps to begin this process, as you can see on the chart. So number one is collect use data and produce a report. We will be collecting information from field permits, youth sports groups, and the Natick public schools athletic department to look at the number of players and field use that have occurred over the last couple of years. Step two will to review the current conditions of fields and list projects that have been completed and funded from the plan. Step number three will be to review the Natick trends. This will help identify new sports leagues
that have started since the last report, growth in certain age groups and field dimension changes, et cetera. So steps one through three will take place between now and June. Then we will starting in July with the new fiscal year. We will go to step number four, which is the update of the field, the park and field master plan. This next phase is scheduled to begin in July and will involve several key activities, continue discussions with youth sports groups, review the current trends in recreation and sports, reprioritize the list
of future projects if necessary. Update project costs and priorities based on the latest data and host public engagement session. It is worth noting some insight from the previous master plan. A master plan is typically a general and dynamic document, and as such it's a recommend. It's recommendations are not final as specific projects are implemented. The actual scope of improvements detailed in the report is intended to be continually validated and refined through ongoing dialogue with stakeholders to best meet user needs.
We look forward to validating the past work to help us with a path forward. The needs identified from the last plan included more playing venues to accommodate usage, fewer overlapping in multi-use fields, opportunities to rest fields, more funding for basic field maintenance and improvements and maintenance to maintenance at new and renovated venues. And then for future items, we've listed a couple impact on new construction. When planning for new schools or town buildings, we should be assessing the impact
of field space, anticipating periods where fields will be temporarily unavailable due to construction and develop strategies for relocating user groups during these times. And also advocating to maintain or increase existing field space. The other one is land acquisition and funding. Proactively identifying in acquire new land should be, should suitable opportunities arise. And then identifying funding sources for these acquisitions for ongoing parks and field improvements. We look forward to ensuring our facilities meet the evolving
needs of the community. Thank you. Speaker 20: So on the next slide, this is, you know, the, the shell of what could be, which would be a truly integrated or, you know, interrelated roadmap of three unique projects. And again, that's why I somewhat did the soapbox moment as far as you know, how much we have in staff. And you know, we don't, we don't have, we don't have a project management team, we don't have a data team, we don't, we're not trained in Agile or scrum master for the folks on the calls who goes through, goes through these really complex projects.
So I, I just want to highlight again, we can do that, but I just want the board to be confident and then ultimately administration will give you a sense of whether or not that we have the capacities and skills to do something of that sort. The last slide, we'll just be next steps and discussion. Ultimately the coal center, coal slash recreation center future as well as field and parks planning. It's kind of, you know, day zero, they would start working on the two slides that Angelo and Lauren just laid out for you. Whereas the Johnson project,
we've been relatively quiet since October of 25. We'd like to come to a future meeting February or March and focus on the four items that are listed in here. So the two open, one, the financial assessments that we had discussed with the board and the public as well as the advisory committee. Those remain open. We'd like to take any feedback from the board and the public today in item three. And then that last one again is moving towards this decision framework. This is not a binary decision of removing or restoring a dam. It is an open-ended blank piece of paper. What do we want to do at a property?
And so this is where I will say that we would love for the board to really start a conversation around how we might get to that final decision. If the board would like staff to put an a la carte menu of possibilities, that is certainly something we'd be willing to do. But I would say that we would love for the board to lean in and play a really active role to really not have necessarily infinite options. As you know, Angela kind of joked because we've taken on so many variables and pieces and input. We don't want to be, you know, paralyzed. We wanna keep this project viable
and kind of on a timeline that the board and the public wants to see. So we leave it to the board to kind of figure out where to go from here. But those are the materials, Speaker 1: Questions, comments? Richard? Speaker 6: Thank you. This is probably a premature question, but one of the things I'm, you know, given, given the summary of the boards and committee reports and some of the things we've heard requests from the public, the wants, it seems
that there's a lot of it, it feels to me like there's a lot of interest in not tearing down the building and putting something new up or in, you know, basically there's some interest in seeing if that building can be repurposed for community use. And really the question for me is what do, do we have any concept of what it would cost to make that building at least parts
of it, a DA compliant? So it could be used. Speaker 1: Can I just clarify which building Speaker 6: You're talking about? Johnson. Johnson. We're talking about Johnson because if the only choice there is to rebuild, that's a completely different question than, oh well we can, we can spend, you know, a couple of million dollars or whatever and make it usable as a preschool and as a teen center or whatever. And so I, it's, I'm really looking not, I'm really looking for magnitude not, you know, final answers obviously.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll try to take a little bit of that, that question. So specific to Johnson and, and a DA compliance, really any building in aada a compliance? So much depends on what the uses, use or uses are going to be and that's, you know, if you just think about the different types of uses that could go into any building, that, that may, may make sense. You know, if it's a public facing space where you need to have public access, those are gonna have higher a DA compliant requirements. Whereas a less public facing, like an office space or a private residence
or something along those lines will have less a DA compliance. So in order for us to do any type of of a DA compliance study, we really need to have a, a lockin on, on the use or uses so that we can you, you geared the aada a compliance towards that use. In theory today, that building could be used for some type of use without any modifications. Will it need 100% a, a compliance? Possibly not, but you could use, there are portions of that building that are a DA compliant, so you could use portions of the building for some public eng or public uses.
One thing about, you mentioned renovation versus new construction In general, from what I'm understanding and working with developers and folks in the building department, it so much depends on the scale of renovation, but it's actually gotten to the point where new construction actually costs less in many cases than renovation. So even though that building might be a viable rehab, it still might be a more cost effective proposition to tear down a rebuild. But again, we won't know that until we know what the uses are going space on that property.
But that's something that for the more to consider as well. We've read that from many developers and from our building commission officials. Yeah, that's actually been the case because there's so many code compliant requirements that an existing building have to come up to that actually becomes more cost effective to tear down the rebuild. Speaker 6: Just a, a follow on question because it's gonna affect that decision. I, I believe the answer to this is no. But have we ever actually figured out whether that building has been declared historic? Obviously that has, you know, that has a big impact on, you know, how tear down
works and things like that. I don't believe it has, but I, I Speaker 4: Don't believe it has either. We can certainly confirm that, but I'm not aware of it being declared historic and it, and e even if it's declared historic, it, it could have an impact. Again, it depends on what you're doing with it, what you're using it for, how you're renovating it, so that, that's why it's important to understand those details before you start Right. Studies around aada A or other things. Right. But Speaker 6: It, if it is historic, then it affects the tear down decision, obviously. I mean, it could be torn down. There are ways to do that, but if it's historic,
it's more problematic. Speaker 4: I, I wouldn't say it's more problematic, it just go through a different step, a different process. Okay. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 15: First off, I wanna thank you all for your great presentations. It was very informative and I just wanna address one point that you made, Jay, about not necessarily turning this into a, a, a big project that needs to be managed and having this all on one single timeline. And I completely agree with that, but one of the things I was wondering if, if we decide to go ahead and start, start forward on our financial analysis
and presenting some scenarios that we want costed out, if there would be a way, let's say for example, I'm seeing these timelines here for coal and for, and, and for the fields, but if there would be a priority, like let's say we wanted to cost out a field, let, let, let's say we, would there be a way to get what kind of field would be a priority before you go through all these steps? Or is that not possible until you've made progress with your analysis? And that's for both Angela and Lauren.
Speaker 16: I can try to answer that. I mean we already have a bunch of projects lined up for the next couple of years. So this is looking at what's after those projects. So the master plan will help identify that and we would probably work with a consultant to give us the next five years cost estimates. We don't need to do 10 years out or every project at a cost estimate because I don't think they will be relevant when the time comes to do them. So I think some of our data analysis will help us,
lead us to what are the next projects after the ones we're working on the next few years. You know, is it a soccer field or is it more little league fields or more lacrosse fields? So it'll, that's what the data collection will help us. That Speaker 4: If, if I can add also specific to Johnson, an analysis of that property might indicate you can only do one or two types of fields no matter what. So that is certainly something that could advance to give us some insight. However, even that will be dependent on are you keeping the
building, are you keep, are you tearing the building down? Are you keeping the building where it is? Are you building a new building somewhere else? So Speaker 1: You, and when you add fields, you then that are maybe potentially more heavily used. You know, an elementary school for example has a different parking requirement than a very highly active set of soccer or baseball or other fields that there are other impacts there as well. So I think some of the site itself will lead to understanding what potential fields could work there. Speaker 15: But just trying to understand if we can get some insight into potential priorities. And I agree with you. I mean obviously the main decision
point is building or no building and what do we do with it, you know, as Mr. Sydney was, was you know, trying to explore a little bit. But I'm just trying to get some sense of, you know, given that your timeline is probably a little further out than what our decision point might be, if there's some things that we can get in advance that might help us help form scenarios, Speaker 16: Yeah, we can look at what current sports are going on there as well and try to get that information up front so we can look Speaker 4: At that. It's also important to note in the 2016 master plan,
and this has not changed, it's actually gotten worse. We were already under fielded significantly. Right. And that's only gone probably in the opposite direction given that projects such as the Kennedy Middle School actually led to fewer fields, not more fields. So in all likelihood, most any field that we would likely see as a potential man, like a soccer lacrosse would be a welcome addition to our field inventory. Right. Speaker 15: But, but just so you know, there's the baseball field there. Maybe that's not the best use. Maybe it's better to convert it to something that would,
you know, we, we need more of and maybe we need less of the baseball. No, no offense against baseball Bruce, but that just to help us and help us come up with things that we might like to get costed out. Speaker 11: I, I think if I could just add, you know, one of the challenges having been in the role previously is a lot of the fields that we have in town, a lot of the athletic fields aren't large parcels. So they can fit just a, you name what it is, right? I think in the work that was done in 2016 up till now, it was trying to look at the, the fields
that were being renovated and look at the total footprint to figure out just what can we do, how can we make it a little bit wider so you can ro rotate goal mouse and things like that to improve it. There were some elimination of baseball fields and then there was a accommodation of a need within the, the baseball program. So looking at that data, seeing what's still relevant right now. But I think the underlying challenge that we have is we need more field space and that is something that we haven't been able to tackle. So we'll be able to make incremental improvements
and make the fields better, but there's a huge demand and you don't wanna necessarily have people play less because that's one way to improve the conditions of the fields is you actually don't schedule people as much. That's not great for kids wanting to go out and play activities and, and the leagues and everything. So, you know, how can we have more space or how can we be creative with the spaces that we have? And I think with the existing spaces, it's being as creative as possible, but really that,
and Angela highlighted earlier, where can we find new space? 'cause that's gonna be a big benefit to those programs. Speaker 20: If you, if you don't mind just adding, 'cause I know this has come up about the building and folks are talking about preserve and demolition. We did ask that survey question post-workshop and we had 2 386 responses and it there, you know, the majority of people on a five point scale were neutral in the middle as you might expect. But when you compare demolition and preservation, there was a clear preference for demolition. So you don't have to necessarily infer or presume what you know you're hearing
and what we do have 386 data points. Speaker 1: Yeah. Just to follow up on a appoint, which is, I'm very, very happy to hear about the field and parks study update. I'm actually on a small working group right now that's got the great name of natural and synthetic turf field study group. And it's a group of three people. And one of the things that we're looking at, first of all is the demand side of things and, and how that affects the decision. And Mr.
Blanking, Mr. Moore. So thank you. I call Mr. Bruce all one time anyway, so, Mr. Anyway, so one of the things that we've been talking about in that small group is demand to a really solid understanding of the demand side of things because certain sports that, that are, are high, I'll call it high usage, high stress sports on, on a field.
And it has to do with the number of hours of use. I think Mr. Goodine has done a great job of managing the field use so that the condition of the field, they don't have a, a big dirt pile out there and drives me crazy when I'm trying to schedule baseball games. But some other study entirely, I think you and I, Angela and maybe you Lauren, also, we need to, our little group needs to work with your group to, to find,
to share data, you know, 'cause we all have little pieces of data and if we can put our heads together, I think we can do that. Our, our goal is to, for those watching is a town meeting. We, we decided on two things. We would, we would have a up update that field study. That was one thing and take a look at that. The other piece was to look at, actually there's three things. The other one was to determine what we do with the high school GV field, which is behind the memorial.
So Mr. Erickson has offered MR to do an assessment ley, Speaker 7: And you Speaker 1: Can see under the cell an assessment of what can be done there, whether it's turf or, or, or grass. It doesn't, it's irrelevant what can be done at that field, what, what you have to do with new regulations for storm water management and all those sorts of things. So figuring that out concurrently, we're we're gonna in town more than likely. The answer to the question of turf versus grass is yes,
there are instances where turf makes sense about the greater proportion of fields is, is are gonna be grass fields and it really depends on the sport, the usage, the demand, et cetera. So, long soapbox story, but I'd like to work with you two to to, to flesh that out. Speaker 7: Any other questions? Speaker 1: This is, this is great progress, Jay and Angela, this is, you know, to, to me this is,
I'll use like baseball, Speaker 7: Know that you called Speaker 1: Out. This is a home Speaker 7: Run. Speaker 1: Yes. Questions from the public. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 14: Okay, there you go. Okay. All righty. So I've been here before, but we're using titles. My name is Dr. Laura Forker. I'm a 31 year natick resident. And I, I live in the Johnson school district and I go on, on daily dog walks in the area. And so I have a couple of comments. What is that? I kept hearing again and again and again in the presentation, this need for sports,
sports space, for lack of a better word. So field space for sports. And when I walk, I'm a trail steward for the Eisenmenger trail. And when I walk across Coolidge Field to get to the Eisenmenger trail, I rarely see people using at least the grass part of it. The basketball court is frequently used, but the grasp part of it is not used very much. So my feeling is why not use what you have if, if you need sports space. Speaker 1: I, I can answer that question. That field is largely used for softball and baseball.
It is used by freshman baseball as their home field. It is used by Babe Ruth baseball most nights of the week and weekend. Ditto for the other field for softball. So during the day, I can tell you when I've had practices there, there are a lot of people ch throwing their ball for their dog on that field. And if you look at the sign, but the only thing you cannot do there is hit golf balls. Speaker 14: Well, if, if Speaker 4: I can also address
Speaker 14: That's, but that's not a, there, there Speaker 4: Are some other considerations when it comes to field usage, like peak demand times. So often, for example, soccer fields are over programmed, not necessarily during the day when the kids are in school, but after school or, and at night when all of the people that are trying to practice in the nata q sports programs are all trying to use the same small amount of fields. So you might not see them there 100% of the time, percent of the days. There are peak demand times that, that we're also trying to accommodate when these youth sports are
trying to use those fields. Which, you know, again, those are also run by volunteers. It's often after school or evenings and, and then weekends depending on the weekend and depending on the season. Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Speaker 4: Okay. Please continue. Alright. Speaker 14: Yeah, sorry. So that was just an observation and I, I have a quest, I have a question actually. I mean, I, I was kind of piling up questions as different presentations were going on, but I do have a question that re relates to the, the main street improvement project. As you probably know, I had submitted a,
I guess RFPI guess. Hold, hold Speaker 1: On please. Yes, please send those comments on the Main Street project. We have gone past that. I, it's already 20 to nine. We still have a lot to go through in our agenda. So if you've got comments on the main street parking or main street improvement, please send that to the select board. Okay, I'd appreciate that. Speaker 14: Okay, well I guess just my last comment about the use of the Johnson School property is that over the 31 years that I've lived here,
there has been more and more and more open space sold, filled up with businesses or houses. I mean, there used to be a big forested area on Bacon Streets. That's now the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. So my feeling is, is that we really, really need, at least in the downtown area, open space. And that's, and I was glad to see that several of these comments endorsed that. But I just, I I I mean I feel that like the, the field for example, shouldn't be used
for sports, the baseball field there, it should be used for other purposes. 'cause we just, we have so little open space in downtown Natick. Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you comments. Any other comments? Hear me? Speaker 22: Hi Jamie Bason. I just wanna thank everyone for their work and effort and collaboration on this. I was really impressed with the human service study and the results from that. I learned a lot and I really agree with it for the town and I would love to see that in that, at that property. So I look forward to hearing more about that.
I also really, I agree with a lot of the feedback from all the different committees. So I would love to see the collaboration of keeping that, you know, open space and conservation and also recreation. I don't know if like a main sports hub and field hub at that Johnson location really fits just because of topography and the need for the open space there. But I really appreciate, you know, all this feedback and like I said, I look forward to hearing more
of the results as it comes in. So thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else to comment in the room? Do you have Mr. Kaufman, please unmute yourself. Speaker 23: Hi, John Kaufman, south Main Street. I just, I just wanna thank Jay. IJJI just can't pronounce your last name and I never could but Jay working hard and, and you know, as we kicked that proverbial can down the road here, you know, it's gotta stop somewhere.
I, I mean we were working hard on Johnson as Jay pointed out, and, and now we've added into the mix, you know, the cold school and you know, the parks and recreation. But you know, I, you know, in, in real time in, in real data or I'm sitting here right now and behind me there's two feet of snow sitting on a 60-year-old building and you know, how, how much damage that's gonna do this winter, you know, and what happens there, you know, without it being heated, whether it's heated or not. I know I, I've worked in construction for years.
Union construction, when a building sits a long time, the water lines become contaminated. You know, there's some serious chlorination that needs to happen. You know, it's just a huge project. We, we, we've remodeled some pretty big buildings in and around Boston over the years and it, it, when it comes to the plumbing and mechanicals, you know, there could be huge problems as a building sits. But anyways, you know, I appreciate the work of the, the rest of the panel there, you know, with the parks and recreation and, you know,
but bringing into the call, the call center into the mix now with Johnson, as Jay pointed out, you know, there needs to be a mu much bigger involvement with the board, with town committees. You know, I, I, you know, it's just, you know, this, this, These, these three projects now, you know, coal and, and everything in Johnson School, it just seems to make, you know, the downtown roadway project look like, you know, you're, you're fixing up Pond Road or something, but it's, it's just, it's millions of dollars worth of work.
I I think you all know that. And longer we sit on it, you know, you know, hey, you know, if you're lucky, maybe I'm moving to Florida, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna see the end of this, but, but you know, I, I appreciate the work that Jay's doing and, and, and you know, and, and as far as your microphone, Bruce, I didn't hear a word you said or Jamie, so, you know, maybe that was a good thing. But, but I, I thank you for letting me speak. Speaker 1: You're welcome John. Speaker 7: He got another one.
Speaker 1: All I can see is Erica, so please unmute yourself. Speaker 24: Hello? Can you hear me? Speaker 1: Yes, yes, now we can. Speaker 24: Thank you. I'm also a resident in the Johnson area. I live actually on Pitt Street and I understand that the project, correct me if I'm wrong, is something that would be several years off, right? Presumably if I understood like towards like 27, 28 right, where the project would actually begin that,
Speaker 1: That's, that's probably true. So a lot of 2026 is going to be spent gathering information and specking out, you know, what can and cannot be done and what the costs are and all that stuff. But the actual implementation is going to depend on a future budget. It's gonna depend on, you know, what exactly Speaker 24: The vision is. I understand Speaker 23: Where we, Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 24: My, my question is, you know, what, what happens with the building until then?
Because you know, as one of the other residents mentioned, you know, for it to be sitting there empty when it could still be utilized, whether for, you know, an afterschool program or just used by the, you know, community members for holding a program or you know, girl scout meeting or what have you, rather than it sitting empty. I mean, is that something that like, is up for consideration? Is that, you know, like what is the current status
of the building and like how is it being used? I guess this is my bottom line question, and is there an interim plan for putting it to use until, you know, we're ready to move forward with the implementation aspect? Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Very good question. I'm gonna turn that over to Mr. Erickson. Speaker 4: Sure. Thank, thank you. Hopefully people can hear me. I know we've had some audio issues tonight, so I'll try to make sure I'm at a mic that appears to be working. So right now it is, it's not necessarily mothball,
it is still being heated, it's still being utilized. It's largely being utilized right now for sort of overflow storage, for town, town purposes. We have been trying to have some, like for example, we try to do our Johnson public engagement process there. However, because of a DA compliant issues, we could not. So we are looking at various shorter term uses. One thing that was mentioned tonight when we were talking about the coal center study is the potential need. 'cause we are doing a building analysis on the coal center for potential other space for the rec
and parks division in an interim basis. We don't know if that's gonna be a need, but the Johnson is a logical potential location in an interim basis. While we're going through a lot of the work that you heard tonight, that's not a definitive, but it's a possibility. And then just some other possibilities similar to that when we are looking at just various town projects coming outta the pipeline. Speaker 1: So I think the bottom line for that is, is it's, it's a moving target, but we're, we're trying to get the usage of it as, as a short term,
even a short term solution about to buy us some time for the ultimate decision. Are you all set, Erica? You do we answer your question? Speaker 24: Yeah, I guess to some degree, but, but I guess I wonder if maybe it's worth considering the idea of like using the space like a pilot usage almost, that as we embark on this process, that maybe for short periods
we could utilize it as like a pilot process for if, you know, a program is held there like, you know, through parks and rec or, you know, various ways to kind of test out what what would really be best for, you know, the overall community. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I I think the feedback that was provided by some of the committees considers some of that is an interim step. So really what we need to do is figure out, and, and that's part of our homework probably, is to identify
what interim things might be. It might be useful to have at, at that location and is it feasible? So there, there's, there's a lot of open questions, but the, the bottom line is that we don't want it mothballed, we want it to be used, but we need to carefully evaluate what it gets used. Excuse me, what it gets used for. Speaker 24: And just one last question. Like as we're doing this evaluation process, will we also be looking more closely at the impact that it will have on the immediate vicinity?
So like the roads and traffic patterns and you know, resources, et cetera. Because, you know, Pitt Street is, is a pretty quiet street and you know, putting in huge sports complex or you know, making it all of a sudden, you know, a community space Yeah. That is heavily used is going to impact. Speaker 1: Yeah, that understood. And you know, the will, you know, as someone said earlier, it's in a neighborhood, right?
Yes. And, and we don't, you know, take lightly. We're not gonna bring, well, you know, again, we don't know what's going in there, but chances are very good. It's not gonna be a huge building. So it's, there's not gonna be a huge amount of demolition. There's probably gonna be an emphasis on open space. We saw a lot of that in our surveys and we've heard more feedback on that. And so I think, and, and the uses that the human resources study pointed out as well as the school
committee's inputs, all of those are not big items. You know, they're after school programs, their adult programs. So none of them are gonna be, you know, heavy lift, heavy construction types of things. So no, Speaker 24: I, I understand. It's just, you know, I can recall several months ago where there were some sort of soccer tournament that was held by the, like over at the coal center where the impact on the parking in that area was tremendous. It was like during the Jewish high holidays.
So like we were walking and it, you know, you know, kind of imagining something like that, right? If, if the focus is on, you know, athletic Speaker 1: Yeah, I, I understand that accommodations and that, that that's a one-off event, that's a tournament that gets hosted in Natick and Speaker 24: Oh, I wasn't aware, I didn't, it particular always, Speaker 1: Always creates a parking problem and okay, we hear that every year. So that will not happen at Johnson School, I can assure you. Speaker 24: Thank you. That's good to know. Alright,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 24: Thank you so much Speaker 11: Mr. Evans. If I could just share some information. We have had some interest from a couple of entities, for example, to utilize the space to run an afterschool program. However, there's a minimum level of investment that has to happen to get that to a certain level of accessibility. You know, we could explore with those entities if they would, you know, based on high level conversations, I think they would be interest in investing something to get
to that point, but they would also need a certain time level of commitment for it to be worth their interest. So we kind of are in that period of, there could be some uses. We have to invest something into it. What is that timing of do we want to do something for a period of time or do we want to just move to whatever the future use is? Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and that's it. That, thank you for that. That's, that's, that is part of the decision process that we have to go through. So thank you. Okay. Dr. Mackenzie?
Speaker 25: Yes. I hope you can hear me. I just have a couple of comments. I first I wanna speak to the issue of accessibility, which I think is really important and you need, everyone needs to bear in mind that the Johnson building as it is, is not accessible. I mean, and I think it's no longer, I mean, you can't have it open to the public and use it for programs in between time because it's not fully handicapped accessible. And what is that saying about our town that we would even think about doing something like that? And I'm gonna sound like a grumpy old person,
but I wanna reiterate what Jeff Alderson said that only about half of this meeting has been audible to me, listening to it at home because of whatever new speaker system is in there is not working. And I'm hoping it's gonna work in the taping of this so that if I listen to the recording, am I gonna be able to hear people speaking on the recording? Because so much of it was lost and it was kind of frustrating. So accessibility matters. Everyone's ability to hear, to walk into a building
that all matters and it's all important. And lastly, I have a hope, I have a hope that in the process of doing these fields, that somebody from the sustainability community that their viewpoints will be seriously taken in a way that's not, I don't know in a way that's serious. 80% of town meeting voted for that, that advisory moratorium. And I think people are expecting that there will be cooperation and, and work along
with somebody from the sustainability community. And it doesn't have to be somebody specifically who worked on that Warren article, but somebody needs to, to give your efforts credibility. I think there should be somebody from the sustainability community on this because some of the people you're working with have a publicly stated preference for artificial turf field. Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop you right there, Donna, because I can tell you for a fact that the people on the grass turf
of grass versus artificial turf are, are, have not made any decisions. That is why we said we're gonna start with the demand for the fields first. Okay? The usage of the fields, no one has made any decision on what fields go where. And we are taking all the information that we have from town meeting and from other communities and assimilating that. So if you got up to date information that you want to share, by all means contact me and I'll make sure that it gets incorporated on.
We haven't made any decision and I kind of resent the fact that you're implying that we have, Speaker 25: I apologize, I didn't mean to imply that you had made any decision at all. I I know you're only in the very beginning of this process and I'm, I'm only actually repeating what some of my colleagues are fearful of. So I didn't mean to, Speaker 1: All I can do is is encourage you, I apologize. All I can do is encourage them to come forward and pass information that's up that's new net new from
what we heard at town meeting. Okay? Speaker 25: Okay. We'll be happy to do that. Thank you so much again, apologies for coming across as seeming that you had made a decision. I know this is the very beginning stages of this and I appreciate all of the work and effort and the fields are important. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Is there anyone else online? Okay, anybody in the room? No. Okay, great. Great work. Thank you for saying so late.
I did try to get you earlier. I'm gonna failed miserably. All right, next up we have discussion of select board sponsored 2026 Spring Town meeting warrant article for a home rule petition of an extension of chief and deputy chief was on contracts. So how do we wanna start this? Speaker 4: If, if I can just briefly note, chief Hick is not available tonight. He had a prior commitment and same with Deputy Chief Lou's onsets, why they're not here.
So this can be the first of a conversation if the board wants to continue to, to another evening. And just for folks watching, there was a retreat meeting that the board had held last week at which amongst the, a number of conversations around potential town meeting warrant sponsored articles, not just this one but a couple others as well. This one was discussed at at that time and there was a presentation two meetings ago that is available through Pegasus that the chief hits provided with regards to the state of the department, which provides a good outline as to
what the department is sort of experiencing. We're soon to experience this upcoming year. Plus I say plus because as folks may, may be aware, the chief's birthday is this month, today actually. This is part, yeah, so we, we ate cake onto his behalf and his due to mass general law, he's, he and Deputy Chief Luon. 'cause their birthdays are only like a day or two apart. So Deputy Chief Luon birthday is today or tomorrow or the next day tomorrow. They are required to essentially retire the same month
as they turn 65. And that's this time next year. So a consideration for the, for the board and for the community really. Because if the board is simply tonight, considering whether the sponsor or warrant article that goes to town meeting, which then has to be voted on by town meeting, is to consider whether or not an extension of the, of the chiefs and deputy chief's time one or both. It could be one article, it could be both articles, it could be neither to extend their time beyond basically one year from now. We're at a critical time of, from a timing perspective in the sense
that town meeting warrant closes later this month of February. And this upcoming springtown meeting is really just given the legislative cycle. And Speaker 1: I'll explain that in a little bit is sort of the last town meeting at which the town meeting members can consider this type of extension of time. And I say that because of the way the process works for those who are rock, Speaker 4: Essentially what's on the agenda tonight is a consideration of a home rule petition extension for the chief and deputy chief's time to sponsor an article to take to town meeting.
Town meeting then needs to actually approve that. But what they're approving is approving or really authorizing the select board to submit a home rule petition to our state legislature to then consider it. So ultimately this decision, it's kind of a state legislature's decision, but you, but the town needs to have town meeting author. The select board needs authorization from town meeting to submit the home rule petition to our state legislative delegation to then bring it to the state legislature to then be voted on. 'cause it's a state law that's being modified.
So that, that's just roughly how the process works. But because of that process, it takes time. And so now is the, the sort of last probably time that the board could cons could consider this because it needs to go to town meeting at and the spring is the, the sort of town meeting that makes the most sense from a timing perspective. So there are a lot of materials that were on the agenda last week and two weeks ago that the board reviewed that the board talked through with chief fix with myself about what the, Speaker 1: The department's sort of experiencing over the next year. There's, there's don't have access meetings.
This next year is a pretty critical, the department in the sense that there are two known retirements and lieutenants, Speaker 4: I believe sergeant level and potential another retirement or potential, I believe there's a couple other staff adjustments that may also be pending at the patrols level, which for an organization the size of Natick police department is, is significant when it comes to that longevity and that, that leadership structure, all of that can take time though because there's also four officers right
Speaker 1: Now that just started in the academy. And for the public's knowledge, in order for an officer to get through the academy, get through training and get to be an officer on the, that's a nine to 10 month process. Speaker 4: So therefore with four going into the academy, another four to five potentially going into the academy in June, this time next year, there'll be about 10 new people out of online department, brand new, along with potentially two out of four lieutenants being brand new along with potentially
three plus new sergeants out of, I think they have nine sergeants, 12 sergeants Speaker 1: Actually those Speaker 4: Nine, nine sergeants and then also 10 officers. So that's a significant just not impact, but it's a significant adjustment for any organization to have that amount of sort of shifting happening within, within an organization. And so that, that's where the consideration of this warrant article partially comes from along with Chief X and Deputy Chief Luon just requesting the additional time for that transition
and some other leadership shifts. Speaker 1: Thank you. That was a much better summary than I would've given. Appreciate Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am of the opinion that, and I'm willing to make the motion if you want, but I'm of the opinion that we should sponsor two warrant articles, one for each for home rule petition. It's pretty clear that to me, that the chief has a significant role in getting the regional dispatch center up. That would be, we'd be hard pressed to replace quickly
and that's gonna exceed the time in which he's, he would otherwise have to retire. It's also clear to me that, you know, even though DC Anne has done his best to train people to take over many of the roles that he's done, he's been the, the people are saying, you know, I don't wanna do this and he's gotta start some of that training over again. So I think for both of them it makes sense to keep our options open, put the warrant articles on and you know, then with some
of the suggestions from administration and the, and the chief about getting, you know, quarterly updates about progress on all of these issues, including all the succession planning that has to happen. I think that it's a worthwhile thing to do at this point. And as I said, when you're ready, I'm willing to make that motion. Speaker 1: Other comments? Thank you Mr. Sidney. Any other thoughts? Speaker 13: I similarly agree something I've, you know, we've heard a lot of conversation over the last month and some change and I am asking myself would
the rate of harm, the potential rate of harm to the town and these future plans and the department and public perception and so on and so forth. And so I I am feeling similarly, Speaker 15: Just wanna make it clear to the public that we have had, you're not hearing a lot of discussion now, but we've had many discussions in executive session because it involved potential contract issue with, with the police chief. So this is not something that is a decision that has, has been made with many hours, I would say of,
of discussion amongst the board. So, and I concur with my colleagues. I think based on the, the information that we received publicly from Chief Hicks about what is still to be done and the projects that we're working on, I think made a pretty compelling case. And I realize I'm going in and out, not sure why, and I would, I would support the, the two year extension. However, I think it's important to note that that doesn't mean that they're gonna be here
for two more years, that at their pleasure and or at ours they could be shortened. But it makes sense because we do have to go to the legislature to ask for the full two years and, and see where it goes from there. Speaker 1: Yeah. Lemme just make an additional comment and thank you Ms. Slager for pointing that out. If you look at the select board meeting two meetings ago, there was a lot of information that Chief Hicks provided on the state of the department and what sorts of things he would address if given
additional two years. He has a year left. One of the things that the town administrator pointed out is the process to get a new chief is the better part of a year. Even if we start today, that's going to take us well into probably the end of the year. And what I see is the, and I, and I think in, in, in response to our very pointed request of what would you do with the time if we extended you two years?
Chief Hicks put out a very detailed plan. He made it very clear what the personnel, I won't, I hesitate to call them issues, personnel challenges that he has as far as staffing. It's, it's a common problem recruiting police officers and, and training police officers. It's not the, it's a nine, I think nine to 10 months. Mr. Erickson pointed out it's a lengthy process. They get training, they are then
fully fledged officers and, you know, having 10 officers changed in, in the span of a year. I think the total police force is in the sixties, somewhere in that neighborhood. Right? And it's having that, having changes to two lieutenants retiring O one or more sergeants retiring. Mr. Sidney talked about the deputy chief's experience in roles. These things are not easily replaced. And I, I would, I'm
of the mind that we should have them continue in their roles for two years. We do have the checkpoint mechanisms in place. I think that we have very good chief and deputy chief now and trying to replace them. One of the things that struck me when chief we were having discussions with Chief Hicks was post COVID something like a third of police chiefs had retired post COVID. So that to me just says the pool of of experienced chiefs is
lower, more constricted. So getting someone of the caliber of Chief Hicks and the caliber of Deputy Chief Lizanne is going to be very difficult. So I'm supportive of this. Ms. Ka, thank Speaker 26: You. Speaker 14: I'd like to start by saying I'll, I'll only speak to the, to the position of the chief. 'cause this board does not, does not hire, negotiate contracts or review the deputy chief. I'd like to first start by recognizing the things
that Chief Hicks does extraordinarily well in our community. He's recognized nationally and internationally for community policing. He works very closely with our towns, nonprofits, and community groups. Spark kindness. Nat is United, the freedom team. He works to address community and resident concerns. That's very proactive in the tradition of community policing. He also works very closely with the interfaith community. The three rabbis who are in town have his cell phone number. Every faith community has his his and the deputy chief's cell phone number for when there's hate incidents in our town, except for one,
that would be my church because the Catholic church doesn't work very closely with the community. That's an aside. He's worked assiduously to attract and retain talent that looks like its residents. That includes women, people who are in a diverse talent pool, people who speak Spanish, people who speak Portuguese. And he's worked very closely with these new recruits to ensure that they're set up for success. His door is always open to them. He's worked very closely with town administration, in particular Jamie Erickson to rebuild trust with the unions over the past decade.
This is something that had eroded probably 20, 20 years ago. And that has borne that trust that's rebuilt, has been borne out in union contracts that have made both the police and the town happy. So that's, that's another, that's another comment that I wanna, that's another thing I wanna address with the police chief. He's, he's been extraordinary in a number of areas. The police department is not set up for community policing. It has a strict quote, paramilitary structure which precludes people
from jumping rank to make reports that has stymied and in my opinion, stymied law enforcement. So that culture is still in place. Working assiduously to attract and retain talent is important and he's done a tremendous job with that. But if you're in a paramilitary structure and you need help, are you encouraged to jump and go to a door that's always open with the chief? That's not been my experience in talking to some of our police officers. A concern I have is that Natick has been in the accreditation process for 25 years. This is a process that is required now by the Massachusetts Police,
MPAC Police Accreditation Commission. It's now required to be finished in three. Now there are very, very good reasons. The chief's only been with us for 15 years. So the other 10 years that were squandered where before he arrived, there's very good reasons that the accreditation process has taken so long. But before I ran for the select board, I met with the chief five years ago and was assured that we were on pace to be accredited and we're, we're not. I'm concerned about the lack of succession planning over the last three to five years. The chief and the deputy chief knew when they were going to be retiring. And I have sat in on discussions about succession planning
four years ago, three years ago and last year. And there's been no movement with regard to training and recruitment challenge. That is a challenge that has been for at least the last five to 10 years. So we knew that or somebody would've known that and prepared for that. A third of the police chiefs ex leaving since the end of COVID, that's a very significant number. But what I would like to say is that creates opportunities for lieutenants and deputy chiefs to be interviewed. Now having said all of that, I I will touch briefly on, on priorities.
So the chief's priorities were, were laid out in a, a presentation before the board. And he has three top priorities, which I think, and I think the board agreed with were important. What I don't know is whether the things that have the challenges that have made it difficult to achieve those priorities over the last five years are gone or ameliorated or addressed. The accreditation is currently under the de the deputy chief is the accreditation manager. The accreditation commission requires every agency or department that is going through the process to have one person and that person is responsible for
and showing that, or ensuring that the accreditation steps are met timely given the deputy chief is a known expert and he has been consulted in a number of areas on crowd safety. You know, his, his work with the Boston Marathon, he is, until you get to Boston, he is the person, he is the contact. So we have that coming up. We have, he's a consultant to the Concord Police Department on the anniversary, 250th anniversary. So that's the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Concord. Those types of things haven't gone away.
But I don't know a plan to ensure that we make progress on accreditation given those distractions or those demands on his time. Having said all of that, it doesn't mean that I don't, that I don't think that these two individuals are valuable to the town. And I recognize that replacing them will put an undue burden on our town administration because our town administrator who has or town manager who has an extraordinarily long list, we went through this in an executive session, an extraordinarily long list of things that are required to be done in the next two years because they're being, they're time bound by grants
or contract contractual obligations. So for this board to ask the, the town administrator to undertake a search in the next year is unfair. I think where I sit though, we knew about this four years ago. We knew about it three years ago. We knew about it two years ago and I still haven't seen a succession plan. So those are, those are my only comments on the, on the subject. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Coughlin. And thank you for all the detail you've provided. That's very helpful. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yeah, I just wanna reinforce something. I think it was Ms.
Wolfer pointed out we can ask for two years. We don't have to keep either of them for the whole two years. It's gonna depend on those quarterly meetings and those quarterly assessments as to their progress on the various priorities that this board sets for them. So I think it's, I think it's prudent to ask for the two years. And it's also prudent to hold their, you know, hold them to the priorities that this board sets Speaker 14: Mr. Chair. I think that's an important safeguard.
Having a one year con getting approved for the two years, having a one year contract and having quarterly check-ins. Here's my concern. This board has not held the chief accountable for the last four years, five years. So what is going to make it, where will we be stepping in and saying this is not working, we're not meeting quarterly deadlines or there hasn't been progress or I don't know that this board will do that and I'm including myself with that. I'm not, I'm not, this is not about me versus this is me saying this board has not done that
and I don't see us doing that in the future. However, we don't have any other safeguards, do we? So given no guardrails, those are very good guardrails. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fair point. But I think you raised the correct point, which is we through the town administrator have to step up more to make him accountable. And, and, and I'm thinking back to what Chief Hicks said a couple weeks ago about how having to go through the
description of what he's, what he's plans were, was very refreshing and helpful for him because, you know, he gets involved in the day-to-day and it, it, it's helpful. I think it was helpful for him to step back and say, what is my strategic plan for the next three years? And I think, I think we did, I hesitate to call it a forcing function, but it kind of was because we said, you know, we, we have to either figure out if we're going to offer an extension
through town meeting or do a search for a new chief and deputy chief. And I think that it was a forcing function to make him think about what it, what he hoped to accomplish in the three years. Having said all that, I I fully agree with what you're saying. It's, it's on us to make sure that those milestones are met and, and to date, I don't think we have Ms. Pope. Speaker 13: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms.
Coughlin, I, I agree with you about the accountability. I personally, I feel like this was the first time that I was involved in such a public accountability with the police chief since being on the board. I don't think this has happened before in such deep investigation and exploration that I've been involved in. At least I don't, I don't remember it in this manner. And I would also, you know, stretch to say that we are, we are not going to extend him past the two years.
Well, legislature won't approve it. So we, we, we won't, we, we haven't, we hadn't gotten past the first two and I could imagine that we wouldn't try to attempt this again in any manner. So we, we are clear that should we move, should we go forward with this? Should the, you know, town meeting and the legislature approve it. This is what we have, we have this runway to work with and, and it's, you know, at very public to, to not only hold the chief accountable
but to hold us as accountable as well. Speaker 1: And just to, to follow up on one of your great points, Ms. Pop is the chief has said that he wants to work the additional two years no more. Right? So he is put that milestone down, right? He, he two years and that's it no matter, no matter what the situation. But again, it gets back to us holding him accountable. And I, and I think you're right. I I don't remember ever having in my tenure tenure you're
such a exhaustive review of what, what was being done in the department and what was needing to be done in the department. Speaker 15: Thank you. And I just have to say no arguments with anything that's been said, but I'm a little uncomfortable that we're having this discussion without the police chief here to hear it. But I think part of the reason we haven't had this discussion is that the board hasn't been involved with the performance appraisal of the police chief. And I think that is something that we had to look at going forward that it should maybe be
beyond just the chair engaging in that process for the evaluation that maybe we need to have a, a broader conversation for this police chief and the ones to come so that, that this conversation can take place amongst all the board. Speaker 1: Great. Is, is there anything in the charter and bylaws that specifically says the chair and the tenant administrator only? It's in the contract that was in the contract Speaker 4: That the board negotiated with the chief for the current extension was that it was gonna be the chair
and the vice chair, sorry, the chair and the 10 administrator prior to that contract. My understanding I was not in the role at the time was that it was largely delegated to the 10 administrator to do with minimal. And that is true for the fire chief I believe at that same time. So currently the police chief and the fire chief both have that similar language of the chair working with the town administrator to do that evaluation process of both, both the chiefs. Speaker 1: Okay. Further for that reminder.
Speaker 15: And that's something that I think we, we ought to look at if we can going forward and maybe our next hire, because you know, I think there is, there's merit in having public conversations about this, which I don't think we've had. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 14: I'd like to just make a point of clarification. Everything that I have said tonight, every single thing I've said tonight, I've communicated to the chief. So none of this is going to hit him as being surprised. We've had conversations about this. It is not, it's not the practice of this board and it's not my personal practice to do gotchas in meetings
or to say things about somebody or in any context that has not been discussed before. So for members of the public who are concerned that the chief is not here, I am too. But this is the night we scheduled the discussion and the vote. So I don't have another opportunity to express my concerns Speaker 1: And, and to thank you for that Ms. Coughlin and, and we've all had our conversations with them, but you know, maybe there is something to be said for that. But that's the next contract, you know, we can
cross that bridge later. Mr. Permission? I sure am. Speaker 18: We put two warrant, two separate warrant articles. One for the chief one is Speaker 4: Your mic on? What is your Speaker 1: Mic? Your mic? Sorry, Speaker 6: I'll start over. I move that we put two separate warrant articles on speak Speaker 15: In the mic, Speaker 6: Two separate warrant articles onto the town meeting warrant. One for the chief, one for the deputy chief. I think they warrant separate discussion both at finance committee and town meeting and frankly at the legislature. I, I think we can make the case for both of them. So, but I,
I think we should have separate warrant articles and I so move Speaker 1: A second. Second. I misspoke. And what I would just add for clarification, there would be pattern after the, the John Haswell type, Speaker 4: Correct? Yes. We have that, that template. I mean we, we'll there, I believe there's one meeting before the warrant closes, so we can try to, we can work the draft up the final article language. We, it won't be the motion. I mean we can probably have the motion language as well, but we'll have at least have the article language for the next meeting. Okay,
Speaker 1: Great. Speaker 6: Yeah. And if I may, Mr. Chair Speaker 1: Yes please. Speaker 6: The ex if the extension is approved by the legislature, it will be a, a new contract with the chief. I suggest that whoever negotiates that contract includes the three month reviews in that contract with the board. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. All in favor? Let's vote them individually just for safety sake for the chief first. All in favor please say aye a Aye. Any opposed, any abstains? Okay, we've got five. I'm against, you're a.
Okay, so we've got a 4 1 0 for the deputy chief. Aye. Okay. Aye. Aye aye. Speaker 15: Aye. Nay. Speaker 1: Okay. 4 1 0. Okay, we're done. On to the consent agenda. Madam Clerk, are we there? Speaker 15: No, Speaker 6: No. GHGH. Speaker 1: Why have I missed that? Oh yes. Thank you. So have didn't have that. So what happens by G and h?
Bear with me. Item G is item G. He is police. Speaker 15: It's a memor memorandum regarding NA's jurisdiction in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Speaker 1: Thank, thank you. Speaker 4: Would you like me to just briefly? Yes, please. Thank you. Okay. So the intent of this is, is not necessarily to rehash any past dialogue of the board. The board did a, a policy on this back in December, 2024. It was really just more for the board's recollection, but also the public's recollection of that policy. And in light of things that have been happening
around the nation with immigration enforcement and, and some, some questions that the board has been receiving through email, we wanted to provide just a very high level response. Not really response, but just a reminder I guess from the police department regarding one, the, the, the work that the board did back in December, but also what legally the role of Nat Police Department officers can be. If the board wants additional discussion in the future. We can certainly have this as an agenda item
when the chief can be here. But again, the chief was unable to be here tonight, but we felt this was timely and it kind of speaks to also item H, which is the review of the Governor Healey's proposed legislation. 'cause that also came through at the end of last week regarding what the state efforts are around immigration and customs enforcement that I know in talking with the chair felt worth putting on the agenda. See if the board felt it important to, to dialogue about that proposed state legislation. So they go, they go bit hand in hand, but they're also separate items.
That's why they're separated on the agenda. Any questions on the front of, I guess G first, but then also H is really more for the board to discuss that state, state legislation. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments on G? Speaker 13: I do, I do think, thank you Mr. Erickson. I do think it would be helpful to, to follow this up at some point with the police chief here. Sure. I think these questions warrant that. I think there are some directives that people are looking for in real specific human language, and I think it would benefit the public to hear that. And so I, I think at some point we should follow that up.
Thank you. Speaker 1: Have thoughts Mr. Sidney? Yeah, Speaker 6: I, i, just real briefly, I thought one of the things I thought when I read that memo is good. This is actually really clear about the distinction between what police officers are allowed to do and what police officers are required to do. And I think that's an important distinction and it's all rooted. I, I will say, I'm gonna, I, we talked about this two years ago,
but it's all rooted in Massachusetts Constitutional law and federal law. And so it just, getting it really clear is good. And I thought it was one of the clearest memos I've ever seen on this topic. Speaker 1: Comments? I think I agree with Ms. Pope, although I, I think I concur with Mr. Sidney. To me, this is exactly what you wanna see from the police chief, which is clarifying what Natick police can do
and cannot do given the, the, the state law right now. I think I'll have more to say on item H than I will on this. I, I, I do think we should give the chief the opportunity to be in front of us. So what I'd like to suggest is that we put this on the agenda for the 11th to go through it with the chief and just let him talk about it also Speaker 4: Instead, specific date. Why don't we just future date, future date, and check with the chief to see what makes sense and also for, for continued dialogue.
And, and isn't the 11th? The 11th is a retreat. The retreat, yeah. So it's intended to be last. Yeah, I'm sorry, I just had, but it may be the 28th, sorry, 20, 25th or, or the following meeting in March. But, you know, I wanna sort of check back in with the chief and, and before committing to a date. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. So Jacobs, Speaker 27: Thank you. Thank you Cody Jacobs. I, I, first of all, just second, what, what, what all of you just said about the appreciating the memo.
I thought it was very cl I also thought it was very clear and very helpful to see. I definitely encourage people who are interested in this topic to click on the link in the memo to the, to the police policy on this issue. I know a lot of people have seen the select boards policy, but probably fewer have seen the police policy, which goes into a lot more detail about the specifics. And I think is, is helpful and perhaps will be reassuring to, to people. However, I do think like I, I, that when, when the chief does come back, I think some of the questions that I would like to see around this issue would be about thinking about things
that have changed and changed in somewhat unthinkable ways since two years ago when we first discussed these policies. You know, I want to, I would want to think about things that, you know, actually were discussed back then, but ultimately ended up not being in these policies, like about access to town buildings and things like that. And, you know, and again, some of that's covered by the proposal legislation, some of it isn't. We don't know if that'll even pass. So I, I just would ask those kind of questions. And the other thing I would think about asking is, you know, kind of about the interaction, the interplay, if, you know,
to the extent things ramp up in our community, the interplay between people who want to, you know, exercise their first amendment rights to protest against ice activity, to monitor ice activity, and how our police plan to handle that if and, and when those situations arise here in Natick. I think that the chief has done a really great job on this issue for two years. I saw him stand right here and answer a ton of questions about it and do an excellent job explaining things. And he did it again in this memo, but I would like to hear from him about
how we're gonna handle the issues now. Thank you, Speaker 1: Mr. Jacob. Ms. Ka, Speaker 14: When we ask the chief back and he can come talk about the policy, I'd also like him to talk about the Natick police department's use of force policy, which complies with post standards. The use of force policy was issued in October, I think, of last year by the police department. And the post police reforms requires a duty to intervene. And I'd like us to invite the chief to talk about what that looks like. Speaker 1: Thank you. Just, and thank you for mentioning that.
The other question that, that I had in my mind is the definition of the police or the force, right? Is it a federal force? Is it a Natick police department force? It is not clear from the language in post who they're talking about. And I think that's a question that we need clarification on. Speaker 14: I, I'm not sure if maybe we can get that from counsel, but I think that the mass general law that requires not the CMR, but the MGL, I can't remember the exact number, but it, it says regardless of okay, duty
to intervene regardless of rank. So it doesn't say regardless of Speaker 1: Organization Speaker 14: Or, or, or things like that. But it's an important point to discuss. Yeah, I think that right now there are a lot of people who are very frightened and reasonably so. And I think part of community policing, part of the job of the police chief and our force and the select board is to ensure that those concerns and fears are laid to the extent that it's possible. Speaker 1: Wholeheartedly agree. Okay. Any other comments? So let's, we are, have,
Mr. Erickson is going to talk to Chief Hicks about setting up a time, a future date. But now let's move on to h So everybody hopefully had a chance to read or at least see in the newspaper. I, I just wanna comment on a couple things. It's not just Governor Healy, it's our congressional representatives are doing work on protecting Massachusetts residents from unreasonable activities. And it's not just Governor Healy, it's,
it's the attorney general has taken a, a position on this even today. Now that, that, that's enough said on that. So I think what I'd like to do is given the hour, is have every, everyone go away and think about this, and let's put h back on the agenda for the future date that Chief Hicks is back. 'cause I think they're interrelated. I also think that it's a moving target right now and things are happening that, that we might have more clarity in in a few weeks time.
Does anyone agree or disagree or agree? Speaker 15: Agreed. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Now it's time to go. The consent agenda. Speaker 13: The consent agenda tonight reads as item A approve request to occupy a public wa a Speaker 1: Public way. Public way. Speaker 13: Thank you. Public way. The walk to end homelessness. Item B approve meeting minutes for January 7th, 2026 and January 21st, 2026. Item C approved Charles bridge Donuts, LLC application
for transfer of common Vehiculars license item D, approve open world entertainment L-L-C-D-B-A level 99 S 12, all alcohol temporary change of hours. Application approved hours are 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM Friday, 10:00 AM to 12:00 AM Saturday and 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Sunday. And the current hours requiring approval are 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM Monday through Thursday, February 16th
through February 19th, 2026, only E approved Bright Stone Transportation Services Services, Inc's application for a new 2026 library license livery. Item F, approve, amended use of town common policy. Item G approve Wonder Group, Inc. Applications for one day licenses, one day entertainment license on February the 12th, and a one day alcohol license on February the 12th, 2026. Item H approve Nordstrom, Inc.
DBA, Nordstrom, Brazil, Brazil, S 12, all alcohol change of hours. Application approved hours are Sunday through Saturday, 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM The current hours requiring approval are Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM Friday and Saturday 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM and Sunday 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM Does anyone wanna pull anything from the consent agenda? Speaker 15: No, but I have comment just quickly. I think these meeting minutes were really well done.
So kudos to, to Billy or whoever did them that they're very thorough and I really appreciate that. Speaker 6: I did send a couple of corrections over this afternoon, which, which he incorporated Speaker 1: Did. Speaker 6: So you got the corrected ones. Speaker 1: I agree. They were very well done. Yeah, I agree too. Speaker 4: We pass that on. Yeah. Speaker 13: Important to say that. Thank you. Thank you Linda. And Rich, I I, if there's nothing that anyone wants to approve, I move to move the consent agenda. Speaker 6: Second. Speaker 1: All in favor, please say aye. Speaker 13: Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. Zero zero. And Mr.
Sydney, it's, oh, no, we got more Mr. Erickson administrator updates. I keep trying to get outta here. Subliminal. Yeah. Administrator updates. Administrator. Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah, the hostile look, Speaker 4: We, we probably, this is just something that we probably could have mentioned in the beginning and so apologies for not doing it under announcements, but the board has a retreat next week and then you're off until the 25th, which is an adjustment from the schedule that's posted on the town's website. It made sense for the board to not skip,
but adjust the meeting from the regular cadence of two weeks from tonight to three weeks from tonight, in part because of school vacation week, but also in part because of the town meeting warrant deadline, which is actually the Thursday after that meeting. So that it gives the board enough time if there are other articles that are pending to get those prepped for that meeting. And then the town meeting warrant will close that Thursday at 5:00 PM So anybody watching should try to, if they have a warrant article can certainly prepare that and submit it for, for the town meeting warrant.
So this board will have to probably meet that following Monday at like a quick meeting to, to approve the warrant. No real other updates. I, I provided a lot tonight. The team provided all that tonight and so looking forward to seeing you next week. Thanks, Speaker 1: Mr. Your chair, who's, Speaker 14: I guess this is not a slip board update. I just wanted to thank town administration and all of the staff, Morgan and Angela and Jay coming out and, and John trying to manage the audio, which may be frustrating for some, but he's here
and I'm really thankful for all of the work that you guys have done to get us through where we are today on the agenda. So thank you. Speaker 1: No question. Thank you, Richard. Speaker 6: I have two pretty brief updates. I was wandering around by the Common on Saturday and I got put on hold by a number of people who wanted to thank the board for their actions on the flock cameras. So I just wanted to bring that forward since they only talked to me. I thought that was nice to hear. The second update is, I had a long conversation this afternoon with Mr.
Skye. The audit advisory committee is doing its best through Mr. Skye to schedule an in-person meeting with cbis. And Speaker 1: For auditors for Speaker 6: CBI is our auditors. They have not yet delivered the audit. The Mr. Skye is concerned, obviously, I'm sure Mr. Erickson is concerned. I know that I and the rest of the com, the audit advisory committee are concerned and we wanna bring them in to actually, you know, kind of hold their feet to the fire and, and help decide what we're gonna do going forward.
Mr. Sky assures me he has a break class option if we need it. So that's just to inform the board when we do schedule that, I may ask the chair to schedule a joint meeting so that you guys can show up at that if you want. And, and also ask questions. That's my, that's my plan. Assuming we can actually get that scheduled and it we're hoping for before the end of the month. Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay. I I have one that I just happen to see in my travels here, which is the wonder
of Wonder is coming to Natick. There's a grand opening week. I am meant to do this earlier. There's friends and family previews February 9th to 11, sign up for a time slot to enjoy a free meal up to $15 while our team finishes training for before the big day. There's a grand opening celebration on February 12th, a ribbon cutting at four 30. I know Catherine and I are both planning to go. And last but not least, there's a Valentine's Day offer, February 14th, starting at 12:00 PM the first hundred customers to order delivery,
we'll receive a single rose from table and tulip and a custom wonder promo code to share with somebody they love. So that's, that's all I got. Are you doing Speaker 6: Radio on this side? Speaker 1: I'm all right. Got got a new gig? Yes, please Speaker 6: Move to adjourn. Speaker 1: All right. Adjourn at looks like nine 50. Speaker 6: Who seconds? Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll second. Of course. I'll Second only favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. No, it's not interesting. Fish.