Speaker 1: It's the meeting of the Natick Select Board on Wednesday, February 25th, 2026. I open the session and call it to order. There is no executive session tonight because the strategy session scheduled for Monday, February 23rd was snowed out since town hall, excuse me, town hall was closed due to the snowstorm. While we're on the subject of snow removal, I want to take the time to thank all DPW facilities management, emergency management team, and vehicle maintenance team who've been really busy,
I'm sure, for their ongoing great response to two huge storms. In my opinion, the town is doing a great job communicating what their priorities are for each day following the storm. Please try to be as patient as possible. If you have an absolutely problematic situation, please contact DDPW for daily updates. Please go to the NA homepage and the winter storm updates section at H htp, sorry, https slash natick mass.gov/ 2 3 4 4
slash 2 4 4 7 slash winter storm updates. Much easier if you just Google winter storm updates. So let us all, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence. Speaker 2: Pledge of Allegiance through the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice fraud. Speaker 1: First up is announcements. Do we have any announcements people would
like to make on the board? No, you guys are silent today. Speaker 2: Oh, Kristen Speaker 1: Is, I'm sorry. Kristen. Speaker 3: Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Just wanted to announce that I will be at the community senior center at 9:00 AM for office hours if anyone would like to stop by. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. Tomorrow. That is tomorrow. Alright. That is indeed. Okay. Anybody else have anything? Let's move on to public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that's not included on tonight's agenda. It'll be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion
of the meeting due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section is limited to 10 minutes and any one individual can address the board for up to three minutes. Do we have anybody in Ms. Sarah? Speaker 4: Good evening. My name is Deborah, Sarah Lambrecht, and I live on Constituent Street. I'm here because the traffic situation on our street has become unsafe and unmanageable, especially during storms and parking vans. Residents should be able to safely enter and exit their homes without navigating illegal parking delivery trucks stuck in the middle of the road, or drivers using the street like a pass
through at high speeds. During the recent storms, vehicles were parked in violation of the ban, narrowing the roadway to the point where it created real safety concerns. If an emergency vehicle needed to get through, I'm not confident it could have done so quickly that should concern us all. This is not about inconvenience, it's about safety, access and enforcement. Residents should not be responsible for monitoring and reporting violations just to get to work or get our kids to school. We need consistent enforcement during parking bans. There's currently no parking signs on our street,
and the police department has told us they refuse to enforce those no parking signs. We need a way to manage the congestion of Atch Street. We need to be able to share the road between residents and businesses. I'm asking the board to review enforcement practices during storms on a day-to-day basis and assess traffic, calming options and work with the police department to ensure Chit Street remains safely passable at all times. We've been in touch with the police department, Caroline Donahue and I frequently, I think I've spoken
with some of you individually about this. It's untenable. The road is reduced to one lane of traffic frequently. I've had people pounding on my door first thing in the morning because their delivery trucks are stuck in the road. I don't know what they want me to do, push their truck for them. It's just not okay. And the police department has said, well call it in every time. Well, we call, we email, we send pictures. I've brought some of the pictures with me tonight for you guys to look at and review. The road is really reduced to one lane of traffic
and we're frustrated and I need to be able to get to work. I run in and out all day. I've got kids to get to school, and I really need the traffic laws to be enforced. Can I pass these to you? Of course. Speaker 5: Thank you for your time. Anyone else wishes to, to officer. Sorry. Speaker 1: Turn my mic on. Now. Moving on to discussion and decision and police. Chief Hicks is here to, do you wanna do the Beth Heffler one first or Let's do that, that, that, that presentation
and then the appointment of the permanent police officers. So take it away, chief. Speaker 6: Thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'm here tonight for, you know, a lot of good, good things and happy things to be able you to do. My usual process of you appointing some new members. But I have a unique opportunity tonight to also recognize our senior member of the organization. Several years ago, we started a process of recognizing our senior member of the department, our senior patrol officer by awarding
what we call badge one. You know, it's a matter of significance to the organization. It shows the experience that goes with that tonight, coincidentally, after a couple retirements, one actually retiring as of the, the retirement board meeting this afternoon, it elevated Officer Beth Heffler to the position of badge number one. People in town know Beth, especially those in the school. She's a school resource officer and she's everywhere. So I went to take this opportunity and only recognize her many years. I'm not gonna say how many years, say 20 plus, 20 plus years
of, of service to the organization. And also being able to know, wear this badge as badge number one to recognize her service and where she stands with within the organization. So with that, I invite Beth up to award her her badge. Number one, You congratulate her. Speaker 7: Thank you. You want this back? Speaker 6: I take that Speaker 1: You can have two. Speaker 6: Thank you. If I could Mr. Chair, ask her, I say a few words. Speaker 1: Yes, please. Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 7: Usually I have a lot to say,
but thank you for this opportunity. I feel honored to have served the town 29 years. I was lucky to get on young. Speaker 2: There you go. Speaker 7: And there's something to be said. Speaker 1: Lower it a little. Yeah. Speaker 7: Sorry. That's me. There's something to be said. The honor that comes with serving the town I grew up in and being able to see the families that I work with that are pretty amazing. So I'm honored. Thank you. Thank you Chief. Speaker 1: Anyone from the board? Well, let's
Speaker 2: Congratulations. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 1: I just wanted to note for the record, I, I've served on a couple building committees now for, for schools. And in addition to her day job, she's been instrumental in helping design schools with, with security in mind and with students in mind. So another feather in her cap. She's a tremendous resource for the town, and I'm so glad that we've kept her on the force in
Natick for so long. So again, thank you Speaker 9: Mr. Evans. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 9: If I may. Yes, please. I had the opportunity to meet Officer Heffler in one of the promotion processes, and I was extraordinarily impressed by her ingenuity and her willingness to serve this community. And I really wanna acknowledge that she's a really impressive officer and thank you for continuing to work for us and good luck. Speaker 1: Anyone else? Speaker 2: Kristen?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Kristen. I gotta learn to look, look at that screen. It's only right in front of me. Why would I see it? Speaker 3: No worries, officer Heffler, I don't think I've had the opportunity to meet you, but I hope that I will one day and I just wanted to say congratulations. I'm sorry I'm not there in person to shake your hand and to congratulate you, but thank you very much for your service, how you have served our town and will continue to do so. And many congratulations. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Pope. Next up is the appointment of permanent police officers. And over to you, Ms. Speaker 6: Again, thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board.
And as I say, it's a very unique opportunity for us tonight to not only recognize a senior member, but also to recognize the future junior members that will be on the organization. And again, I respectful. I respectfully request that you as a board, the select board as an appoint authority for police officers in the town of Natick, appoint the following candidates as permanent police officers. This, again, this appointment should be contingent upon successful completion of the police academy and any other requirements and necessary for successful certification within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Disappointment would be effective Monday, March 2nd,
which is their scheduled academy date. The first candidate I would like to bring forward is Leonardo Coello. Leonardo is 25 years of age, currently resides in Milford, and with his mother, Sandra, and stepfather Dino. Mr. Quala graduated from Milford High in 2021, where he was an all American soccer player during high school. Mr. Quala was monitor mentored by a former Brazilian professional soccer player, and ended up going to Brazil, the tryout for their professional team home. Got drew him back back to to Massachusetts.
So he's back here working. He, he's been working, you know, basically he reflected on his, on his position down there while playing soccer and decided that United States is where he wants to be. And being in this area. He's recently been employed at Lowell's Restaurant in Minden. His supervisor describes him as a very quick learner, always staying clear of any workplace drama, always good respected by both co coworkers and customers. Now, during his interview process, the the interview team described his, his pro, his his interview as
demonstrating composure, maturity and a genuine passion for a career in law enforcement. For that reason, he's appointed. But again, the other good thing about this is fill in the room with family. And we have a lot of that tonight. So I just wanna make sure the family get recognized because they are a key part of this journey that they will take with Leonardo here tonight is his, his father Willin, his stepmother Kristen, his brother-in-law, Steven, his sister Whitney. They can, you can like raise your hand, identify yourself, his mom, Sandra and his friend Emma, who are all here
to, to welcome Leonardo to this position. Next up, I want to invite up Kevin Meen. Mr. Amin is 37 years of age. He's originally from Melrose, but now resides in Canton with his wife Ariel and his two children who we hope are watching us on Pegasus. We hope his, he comes from a family of law enforcement. So his father and brother-in-law are also in law enforcement. Attended Austin Prep for two years before transferring to Tilton High School, where he graduated in 2009.
Following that, he went to Assumption University in Worcester, where he was a played hockey, was a captain of this hockey team his senior year and graduated in 2013. He's currently employed as a senior account executive at QuickBase, located in Boston, where he manages approximately 150 customers. In speaking to his supervisor, he described him as coachable. He listens, obeys and is open to feedback. Again, all qualities that are important to us in this, this profession says. He also, he's a grinder, he scrappy and always chases a gold number for month.
And he all, and one thing his supervisor said that was very important to us is that he works for his family. So his family's number one and important to him, and that's a good attributes to have. The interview committee described his interview as he's both personal, mature, and put together, and he presented as a open and honest person. Now Kevin is here with his wife Ariel, and again, hoping that the kids are watching on on Pegasus as they are at home. Next, our next can is Ryan Kyle. Mr. Kyle's 29 years of age and he grew up in Hudson and he currently is a Tic Natick resident.
He's a 2021 graduate of Hudson High School and a 2026 graduate of Westville State College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business management. He is currently employed, at least for the time being with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab in Sudbury. He's a forensic evidence technician, include handling and package of evidence, transportation evidence, and conducting data entry of the evidence that is being processed. Our, our investigator, speaking to his supervisor says he is very adaptable and willing to do whatever it takes to benefit their department without
any attitude or pushback. Again, very good qualities that we look for in a police officer and worked well with his peers and described him as a team player. So during his interview, the interview team described him as Carmen Demeanor, attended instructions and thoughtful answers to every question. He's appears very mature, responsible person who would be a good hire for this department, as you can see. And as I always say, they go through a very rigorous process. Oh, hold on. Got, he has a whole list here. Oh, I can't forget to hit the family. It's like the Academy Awards. Yeah, I read everyth. We have Robert the dad,
Shana Mother Rustin uncle. Yes. Laura, aunt Randy, brother and Ricky. Anyone else get come in in the meantime. That's everyone. That's everyone that's, he has the biggest crowd, but again, I recommend strongly these candidates be appointed by this board as the next t police officers for the, the town of Natick and Natick Police Department. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Chief, any comments before we get started? Speaker 9: Well, should we do the motions and we can do comments? Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 9: So I move that we appoint Leonardo Coello, Kevin, Ian and Ryan Kyle as permanent police, full-time police officers, effective March 2nd contingent upon successful completion of the police academy and any other requirements necessary for successful certification with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Speaker 10: Second, Speaker 1: Any discussion Ms. Waler, please. Speaker 10: Congratulations. You are now officially employed by the town of Natick.
And, and welcome to our family. It's very heartening to know that family is important to all three of you as it is to us as well. And once again, chief Hicks, thank you for bringing some outstanding candidates to join our police force. Welcome. Speaker 11: Thank you. Thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 9: Yeah, I just wanna echo my colleagues' comments. I read Chief Hicks memo earlier today and I was incredibly impressed and welcome to the town and good luck at the academy. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. Speaker 3: Congratulations to all of you and welcome.
One of the things we've talked about as a board is leadership in the police department and how we are hopeful for the pipeline of leadership in the Natick Police Department. And in reading the qualifications of these candidates, I saw lots of leadership captains of sports teams. Great, you know, leading hundreds of, you know, respondents and customers and things like that. And those I think are the types of things that we need for the future of the Natick Police Department. And so I'm grateful that these candidates come with those types of qualifications. So again, congratulations and welcome.
Speaker 11: I'm, I'm going to invoke the select board policy of saying ditto to all of my colleagues, events or comments. I'd like to say welcome and yeah, welcome to Natick and we're very proud to have you join us. Good luck at the Academy. Congratulations. Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you. Last, I'll do the ditto rule, but I want to add a little bit, which is just the, it struck me. The same thing that struck the rest of the board struck me is, and they are responsibility
and accountability and those are attributes that a police officer must have. It also is an opportunity for us to grow you within the department and welcome 10 natick and good luck at the academy. So thank you. Let's vote and then congratulate. Oh, you have to vote. Thank you, Richard. I was just kidding that, that one roll call vote. Ms. Pope. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Oh yes. Ms. Sauer. Yes. Ms. Coughlin. Yes. And I'm a yes. 5 0, 0. So, well congratulations.
Speaker 2: Welcome board. Thank you. I'm sorry. No, Speaker 1: No, no. This is, we're not here. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Stay here. Congratulations. Welcome. Congratulations. Okay, so Chair, we'll clear the room. Speaker 1: Okay. One of the things I, I did wanted to say is you're building a great roster of intramural hockey players, sports teams. Yeah. What Speaker 2: You're saying. All thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board for your attention. Speaker 1: Thank you. Alright, we're gonna take a brief intermission while we do our best to clear the room. We're good at that. We're clear rooms often.
All right, we're back. Next up is the continued public hearing for core L-L-C-D-D-B-A core golf application for a new S 12 wine and malt beverages on-premise license. This is not ready. So we're going to continue this to the March 18th, 2026 meeting. So Speaker 2: Moved. Speaker 1: Thank you. And second, moved by Mr. Sidney, which Speaker 2: March 8th, Speaker 1: 18th. Two meetings from now. So Rich and Linda, all in favor, please say Aye. Ms. Pope.
Speaker 2: Aye. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney? Yep. Ms. Walser. Aye. Ms. Coughlin? Aye. And, and aye. So that's moved except we have street acceptance petitions and we'll, we'll go in order. Actually, Craigie Street and Zore Street are kind of related. So do we have Mr. McDowell online? Speaker 2: No. Can we pause that until he gets here? Speaker 1: Okay, let's do that. Why don't we go down to the five Auburn Street project update. Okay. Speaker 2: We do have, Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 12: Good evening, honorable board.
My name's Barney Heath, I'm the new executive director at MetroWest Collaborative Development. I'm here tonight to thank the town for their strong support for this project. And we're getting close to the finish line, we think in terms of funding. The last piece that we're looking for is from the state for their one stop application. And we're, I'm here tonight to request a letter of support that would go with that application. Speaker 13: So if I may add thanks, add it to the packet this afternoon. And I apologize, that's on me with the delay
of getting into the board is a proposed draft letter of support. It mirrors all the ones we've done in the past. I think you might've even seen this language at the past one that you did, I think six months ago or a year ago. Yeah, six months. So it's, it's consistent language. A couple other project updates that Barney did not mention, they're through their entire local permitting process. So that was completed with the conservation commission, correct? Two weeks ago? Yes. Last week. Two weeks ago. Yeah, Speaker 1: Last week. Last Thursday. Last Speaker 13: Thursday night. Yep. So the project from a local permitting perspective is complete. Speaker 12: Ready to go? Speaker 13: Ready to go? Yep. Are there any state, is there final mepa purpose at all
or is everything at the state level also complete? I'm Speaker 12: Not entirely sure of that. Okay. But my understanding it is pretty well complete, Speaker 13: Pretty well complete with all permitting. So it's really just the finance funding at the end of the day. That is the last piece of the puzzle for, for the project Speaker 1: Questions board. Ms. Volkswagen. Speaker 10: Hi, good to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm welcome. A aboard. Thank you. The last time when I think you weren't there yet, we were talking about the potential of what's next if it doesn't get approved. Do you have any information on that if you know,
if it doesn't go through this time around Speaker 13: The funding? You Speaker 10: Mean the funding? Yeah. Speaker 12: Yeah. So I don't have information. I'm, I feel like we have a very strong proposal here before the state because we have all of our permits in place. We've secured a lot of local match money. It may be the case that there are a lot of really good applications and that we don't get funded, in which case we would go around again and submit again. The state oftentimes has what they call a mini round of proposals following their kind of big ask that they have.
And we would certainly be in good position for that as well. Speaker 10: All right, thank you. You're welcome. Speaker 1: Question anybody else? I have a motion move approval of the letter, the draft letter. Speaker 10: Second. Speaker 1: Alright, Mr. Sidney seconded by Ms. Er. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Sidney, you, Ms. Walser? Aye. Ms. Coughlin? Aye and I, aye. So thank you ney and thank Speaker 12: You very much. Look Speaker 1: Forward to having coffee. Speaker 12: Likewise. Exactly.
Thank you very much. Nice to see you this evening. Speaker 1: Good luck with the, the funding. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing this project actually commence. Yes. Thank you. Thank you Barney. Okay, next up, let's see. Lemme take the water server. Yeah, no, the abatement. Do we wanna do the abatement? It might take too long. I wanna see Bill. Speaker 13: I'll text bill to see where he is. He might have thought it was closer to seven just given the timing of the Speaker 1: Session. Exact session. John, do you feel like doing the capital
Speaker 5: Any chance we could? Do they have a problem with their water meter bill? Speaker 1: Yes, the water abatement. Water abatement on the agenda? Yes. All right, let's go there. Let's do that. No problem. That's, that's okay. So let Mr Ti do I have that right? I'm sorry, Arvin. Yes, sorry about that. Yes. Speaker 14: Well I've been on, I have that house for okay, too many years. Speaker 1: We need you to put the mic there. There you go. Yeah, Speaker 14: I have that house for too many years and I never had any problem and all of a sudden it was like a, I got a crazy,
like usually my bill last year, last year was like 15 65, 1565 and this year it went up to $4,060. I mean it was a big difference like almost two and a half thousand dollars difference. So I didn't know and I, I, I keep checking. It's no, I didn't have no nothing going on, on the sink and everything, everything is okay. So I didn't understand why and I went downstairs, tell, tell him that. So they told me I have to come in and talk to you.
I'm sorry, my English is not that great. No, no worries to you that great. But, so I don't know if you guys can do something, but it's a big amount. Like it's extra two, two and a half thousand dollars. Yes, almost. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright, let's, let's for a sec. Go ahead. Mind, Speaker 5: Have you looked at your water meter? Because there's a little discord that turns if you have a leak or anything like that, Speaker 14: Which is Well, I don't understand all that stuff. Yeah, but somebody came to see it and they said, I don't know if they couldn't tell, but they told me they might come in and change the meter.
But Speaker 1: We, we, we can comment on that. If I could ask you Mr. Marshall, Speaker 14: They said they might change the meter on me, but they haven't called me to do it. Speaker 15: Yeah. So I, I can let the board know that the water department did come out. They did take a look at the meter. There was no issues with the meter when the water department took a look at it. So there's likely an issue beyond the meter. The town doesn't have the ability to dive in and walk in and check, you know, toilets and things like that. They can give some suggestions to the homeowners in terms
of things that they should look at and, you know, like a running toilet or you know, any type of faucets or anything to make sure that they're off, excuse me, sorry, let, Speaker 1: Let 'em finish. And then we'll, Speaker 15: And then the homeowner has the ability to have a, a plumber come in and investigate further. So, you know, regarding the situation, the public works department did come out, they did take a look at the meter and there were no issues reported with the meter regarding the replacement of the meter. As the board all knows
and information for the public meters are being replaced town wide. So it's likely when they were out, they notified the resident that as part of the meter replacement program, they would be out at a future date to replace the meter. Speaker 14: But it's just a, like I said it, we've been there forever, too many years and we never had a problem. It's all of a sudden it's just the bill went up so high. Speaker 1: So when they got to mic, Speaker 16: When they went out, did they notice the meter running? Did they note that Speaker 15: When the public works department went out, they took a look at the meter, they inspected it
to make sure that when the water was turned on, that it flew through and that the needle was spinning, but they didn't observe any issues with the meter. Speaker 16: I guess my question is to you is when the water was shut off, was Foley shut off? Was, did they notice the fact that the wheel was still turning to indicate a, a, a toilet or something like that? Speaker 15: I am not, I'm not sure. Okay. Speaker 16: If you need a permit, lemme know. Speaker 14: So I don't know if you can do something and I already paid my bill, but Speaker 1: Let us talk about this and we'll figure it out. Speaker 14: Okay, Speaker 1: Ms. Ser. Speaker 14: So just let us know, or you want
Speaker 1: Me to be here? Oh, no, no, no, stay here. Oh, and she's gonna ask you questions as the rest of the board are gonna ask questions, then we'll figure out what the next course of action is. Speaker 10: Have you had a plumber come out to take a look at things that might potentially be leaking inside? Speaker 14: Well, I checked everything and it's like always like that be like before nothing's leak, nothing was leaking, nothing. Speaker 10: But you didn't ask, you didn't call a plumber to look? Speaker 14: Not really, no. Okay, Speaker 10: Thank you. Speaker 14: But I didn't see anything leaking. I mean, what's the plumber gonna do? Yeah, because I checked everything Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I note that this is a, a multi-unit building. Hold Speaker 1: On, hold on, rich sir, if you have a conversation, please have it outside 'cause it gets picked up. And Speaker 9: I note that this is a multi, this is a multi-tenant building, correct? Speaker 14: Excuse me. Two family, Speaker 9: Two families. Yeah. I, I note from Mr. Marshall's email that the usage has dropped since the last bill was sent out. But I was wondering is it possible that your tenant left the water running at some point
and you know, then finally noticed it? Speaker 14: I asked them and they, they told me no, they always do it, use it the same way they always use it. Speaker 9: Okay, and but you, you never had, you never went upstairs to check the you didn't go upstairs to check? Speaker 14: I did check, I did check everything, but there was nothing, you know, no leaking or anything, Speaker 9: So, okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: Anything else, John, could you please send me that email? For some reason it's not showing up in my inbox. Speaker 9: I at least have the amounts. Speaker 1: Well, let me, let me just Speaker 14: Discuss.
It's the first time, like it's this much difference close to two Speaker 1: And a half it, in looking at the data, it looks like this problem has occurred on two different bills on two different occasions. So it's an intermittent problem that, that one time it appears and, and at a moment in time it could be working perfectly and it's not showing up. So if you look at it, you know, everything looks great, but then somehow something's happening that, that causes the water usage to really spike. So what what our options are is,
well the three really, one is to deny the, the abatement, which I don't think any of us wants to do. The second is to ask you to get a plumber in, to take a look at both ups, both halves of the two family and identify things. I can tell you from experience, a toilet flapper that just gets stuck for a day or, or a week or a weekend really adds a ton of money up very quickly. Speaker 14: I already checked them all, everything I checked myself, I
and I, nothing serious. Speaker 1: Here's, here's why I am asking for a plumber. I believe you, I believe you checked every one and probably multiple times. What what's helpful to us as a board is a licensed plumber says, yes, she's right. We checked everything, we can't explain it. That gives us the basis for, for an abatement, right? And I think if, if the board's willing to consider this, we ask you to get a plumber and to take a look at it
and bring it back to us with that plumbing, the plumber's information and he says yes, it could be one of two things. He could say, yeah, there's no problem. Perfect. Right now we know that. And, and it's corroborated. The the alternative is yes, I had a plumber in and he identified this problem and, and we fix it and it was a small problem, hopefully, right? Then we come back, you come back to the board and we can consider that abatement at that time. So I leave it to my,
my colleagues for their thoughts on that. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 9: Thank you Mr. Chairman. One thing I I just wanted to add something to what you've been saying and one thing I would note is that a worn toilet flapper can intermittently jam. So if the, if the flappers are old, if they've never been replaced and from the sounds of it you've had this property for a long time, I've had this happen to me, it will jam a little bit, it'll run a bunch of water and then the next time it's used it'll seal, right. Yeah. But Speaker 14: The bathrooms have been changed long time ago. I Speaker 9: Be made new regardless, regardless.
S leaking it, it would, it could leak for a while and then stop leaking when it gets used again, and then it might start leaking again. So I I will say from my perspective, should we grant an abatement, I would not consider it a second abatement later on. Should this come back? Speaker 1: Ms. Pope? Speaker 3: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I felt similarly that I would like for a plumber to just take a look and see, I know that they can't do anything about what's
already happened, but see if this is, could be a persistent problem or something that may pop back up since it's happened sporadically more than once. I think we should, that should be on record, Speaker 11: Mr. Chair. Speaker 1: Mr. Sorry. That's Speaker 11: Okay. So I don't, I don't see the, the information I have, I don't see it as sporadic. I see it as starting in the bill period ending or being billed on October 3rd and then being exacerbated for the next bill period. Correct? Speaker 10: It it was in the email from Mr. Marshall. Speaker 11: Okay. I'm looking at, I understand it's in the email. What I'm looking at is a bill date of October 3rd and then a bill date of one five.
And so there's two consecutive periods and what I'm concerned about is if we grant this abatement without knowing or having any more information than what we have, which thank you, Mr. Mr. John, this was a very thorough memo with a lot of information and that's always helpful. But when the third bill hits on the fir in the first week of April and that bill is $4,000, we don't do an abatement and that's a problem. So I would, I would concur with my colleagues and ask that I know you've done everything you can, you know your plumbing, you know your toilet, you know your plumber, you know the, you know all of that.
Yes I do. I understand. But a plumber knows more, so I would defer to a plumber. I know it's an added expense, but it's going to be better than getting a $4,000 bill the first week of April and having no recourse with this board. Speaker 1: So motion. Sorry, I have to come Speaker 10: Back here. Or the plumber can Speaker 1: Tell you. No, let we have, we have to vote on this first of all and we still have some more discussion, but go ahead. Speaker 10: Yeah, I, I just wanna say I concur and I think I would be very reluctant to, to grant the abatement until a, until a plumber has come out
because as my colleagues have mentioned, this is a sporadic problem. There's no guarantee. And this is also, I think for your benefit because there's no guarantee that it will not happen again. And you don't wanna come before us again with an even higher bill as, as my colleague said. So see if you can figure out what is causing this because something is causing it. And if you, if you can't figure that out, you know, sometimes these things are unknown, you may not be able to, but at least you would've given it the best opportunity to,
to find out what might be happening. And you know, certainly if it comes up again, you know, you've heard that maybe people might be what happens, the plumber doesn't find Speaker 11: Anything what we do Speaker 10: Then you come back before us and you tell us that, that the plumber looked at things and the said Speaker 1: That that's, I'm sorry. Speaker 10: Yeah. And as, and as said that, that they cannot find anything, but they may be able to identify potential things to look at for you to, to watch out for. That's what, if I were having the plumber, I would ask, you know, where could this possibly be coming from that would be causing this problem? Speaker 9: Mr. Chairman, what's the best date to move this? Sue,
Speaker 1: Hold on, let me, Speaker 16: John, you still have the, the leak of leak detect thing for where you do it online and on your phone? Is that my Speaker 1: 360? Yeah, my 360. Okay. Speaker 16: So if I set her up with that, which I'm gonna do, yeah, I'll be the plumber to it. Speaker 1: That'll be good. Alright, Speaker 16: That's fine. Yep. Speaker 1: Okay. Absolutely. Speaker 16: I'm not gonna do this right now. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Let let me Speaker 13: It gets picked up by the mics, that's why. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 9: What's the best state Speaker 13: Next? So it doesn't need, it doesn't need to continue. This isn't the public hearing. You can just come back when
Speaker 1: They're ready to come back. It'll probably be, I I want just make a comment on our, what our policy is. Normally what our policy is for abatements is they look at the last three years of usage. Three, three Speaker 14: Periods. Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm getting there last three years over a similar period of time, right? So that whatever the highest usage of those three years is, that's your baseline. Any usage over that would get charged at the lowest tier. So that's not what happened when,
when you were over, you paid your bill. Right. Let me, let me just finish and I'll, it'll make more sense. What you, what would happen is that difference, let's say it's 1,400, those 600 in excess of your average would be, would be a charged at the lowest tier in the water system rate system. Right? So you will have to pay for the water that's been quote used, but you won't have to pay at a much higher tier.
At a much higher rate. So our goal, Mr. Marshall figured it out based on that would be an abatement amount of roughly 13, $1,300. Yeah. Right. So that's what we want to have you come back here and, and provide the plumbing information and we want to be in a position to be able to grant that request. Speaker 14: I have all the, the, the amounts here. Do you want Speaker 1: To give it to you? No, we, we, we have those. Thank you. Okay. Speaker 14: Because like I say, I checked the last year. I didn't check the before last year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mr. Marshall is is the last year excellent at tracking all Speaker 14: I checked and it's like I say it's almost two and a half. Please speak in the mic. Hundred 95 please talk in the microphone. Oh, I says, like I said, I checked the, the last year, the 24, how much it was, and the difference is $2,495 extra and 32 cents. Speaker 1: Yeah. I, Mr. Marshall looks doest, look back, he works with the water and sewer department only. Looks back at your bill, let me finish.
Looks back at your bill looks at the highest usage in that same period of time. Right. He then says, all right, what in your current bill, how much over that average is it? So if in my example, if it was a thou a thousand and your average usage was 400, the 600 is gonna be charged at tier one, the lowest tier. Okay. So if you get the plumber to certify, everything's fine. Come back to us, we'll be in a position to be able to consider that abatement.
Right. Okay. So this is not us denying it. We, we want to help because Speaker 14: This, but we need help also. This is the last bill that was over $2,000. You know, it's, Speaker 1: I understand it's frustrating, Speaker 14: Frustrated. Yeah. Yeah. All right then. So you don't want, you, Speaker 1: You, you don't want No, we, we've got those numbers. Thank you. I understand. Speaker 14: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you for coming in. Speaker 9: Yeah. Let me make one thing clear as soon as ma'am, as soon as you get a report from the plumber, you let the select board people know, Mr. Marshall know downstairs,
downstairs that you've got information from the plumber and they will schedule you to come back for another abatement hearing. Okay. Speaker 13: It doesn't need to be continued, it's just when we get it in advance of the meeting. Speaker 14: Okay. Speaker 1: Awesome. Speaker 9: Can you take conversations outside please? Speaker 1: All right. All right. Let's go on to you. Good. Let's go on to street acceptance petitions and welcome Mr. McDowell. Speaker 17: Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of board, thank you for your time. As you're aware, the, the engineering division has reviewed
four street acceptance requests from town residents. All of the requested roadways have scored in excess of 200 points on the street. Acceptance evaluation reports meaning that none of them is recommended or considered advantageous to the town. I'll briefly address each individual street and talk about some of the challenges related to each, but I'm really here more to answer your questions or questions from members of the public at this time. The first street that we reviewed was Craigie Street, which received a score, total score of 229 points. Craigie Street is located on the
north side of Woodland Road. Craigie Street connects through Zoar Street to Edgewood Road. Craigie Street ends without any kind of provision for a turnaround. It provides frontage for 13 residences. It pitches moderately down from the south to the north to an unnamed brook at the north end of Craigie Street. There is no improvements, no drainage on, on Craigie streets. It just run the water runs directly into the brook. The challenges that we see are the major challenges are potential layout issues, primarily trees. We have very narrow pavement in the area.
We also have some fence encroachment on the area. So there may be, you know, private encroachments within the right of way. There are wetlands issues based on that brook at the Northerly end of Craigie Street. And the other drainage issues were there to be any kind of pavement improvement to that. We would need to account for that and control the runoff from that street so it doesn't drain directly into the brook. The second street we looked at was Felch Court, which received an a score of 211. Felch Court is located on the east side of North Main Street between Westlake and Stratford Road. Felch Court connects Felch Road
and Stratford Road as well as Drury and the Ferndale roadway. It's a a large neighborhood to the east of North Main Street. It's a through and through roadway and it provides alternate access to that neighborhood in addition to Stratford Road. The challenges with Felch court particularly are it is registered land, so we would require a land court survey to be done in order to make a street acceptance plan for that. At least a single sidewalk would be recommended on Felch court to connect that neighborhood. As we mentioned to North Main Street,
because of its heavy use, because of the, the neighborhood, the busy neighborhood beside it, it generates an enormous amount of maintenance calls for the highway division to fill in the holes and the ruts in the gravel roadway. For that reason, the highway superintendent has, has asked it Engineering select board, possibly consider this for further review by performing survey work on it, just to determine whether or not there were any private encroachments. Just, you know, as a, as a first step on Felch Felch court, the third street that we looked at was Lodge Lane that also received an aggregate score of 211 points.
Lodge Lane is located on the east side of Speed Street, approximately halfway between West Central and Route Nine. It provides frontage for four residents. It does have a dead end with a cul-de-sac. It also has a boulevard or a central island associated with it. There are utility connections. The electric particularly goes, the poles are located within that boulevard and there are street trees also located in that boulevard. Neither of these are really a standard feature of roadways in town. It does offer that neighborhood its unique character. So I would say that that it would be something
that would probably be, you know, the residents would like to maintain from a street acceptance standpoint though, those would be a problem in later years as far as for maintenance for the trees and particularly maintenance of the poles and the wires within the right of way, that neighborhood also provides water and sewer connections for two neighborhoods to the north. The Clifton and Francis neighborhood and the Columbia and Puring neighborhood. Both of those neighborhoods get their water and sewer through Lodge Lane out to S Speed Street. There is the possibility, looking at our GIS it notes
that the pavement, it might be located outside of the actual right of way, the surveyed right of way. That would be something that we would want to check. We could do that with just a simple instrument survey. If that is the case, there are utilities associated with that roadway, which may also be located outside of the right of way. That would significantly increase any kind of cost as far as the street acceptance, if those utilities do happen to be outside of the, the right of way. The fourth street that we reviewed was Zoar Street and Zoar Street is located adjacent to Craigie Street, connecting Craigie Street to Edgewood.
It is oriented in east and west direction and it pitches from the east downward to the west. Also contributing runoff to that same brook that Craigie Street does. Some of the challenges associated with that, I'm sorry, it provides frontage for three residences and some of the challenges that are associated with Zoar Street are a very narrow pavement width. In some areas it's less than 16 feet, which does not allow safe passage of two vehicles. Something we could consider would be a one-way travel direction for this so that we would not have to widen that pavement. There are significant topography challenges with Zoar Street
that the, the hillside that it is cut into is primarily ledge. Any kind of work that we wanted to do to try to widen the existing pavement that is there now would require either, you know, a retaining wall or significant grade changes on the, the adjacent properties both to the north and to the south. Also, drainage would be a concern. There's no drainage on either Craigie Street or Zore Street and they both drain, as I said, to that same brook. So all of the, the streets have potential encroachment issues. Lodge Lane being the most impacted with the Central Island
and with the possibility of the payment being outside of the right of way of the four candidates for Street Acceptance Engineering would consider doing some survey work, both for Lodge Lane and for Felch court just to do some preliminary work to determine right of way lines and whether there are significant encroachments within those right of ways. However, at this time the recommendations of the report are that none of these town, none of these streets would be considered advantageous to the town for acceptance at this time. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. McDowell.
Is there anyone here from the public wishes to speak on this? All, all of us are from. Okay. Craig and Zo. Alright, so you, you were the first. Sure. Absolute the mic please and tell us your address just so we know. Speaker 18: Hi, my name is Diana Papalo. I live at eight Craigie Street. I built the home about five years ago and I'm the one that actually collected the signatures and like brought this to the town. Craigie Street is a really heavily used pedestrian street. Every time I have people visit me they're like, wow, so many people walk by this house
because you know, people use it to cut through to the center of town safely without having to walk on woodland. And then other people use it to cut through to the other neighborhood where like a gunk woodlock and all of those streets are so, it is like a very heavily pedestrian street. I can't even count how many times my kids have gotten hurt on the street just walking to the bus stop. There's several kids, I have three kids myself. There's nine kids at the bus stop at the top of our street. But the number of times they trip on potholes cut themselves. I mean, I have to keep bandaids in both of their, you know, backpacks just because of the amount of potholes, asphalt,
uneven surfaces. I bought a car in July and in November I needed four new tires and they actually sent them back. I have the report from the thing, I had only put 2000 miles on the car and only local driving. I don't commute to work, I work from home. And they said that it was because of significant potholes and asphalt and things like that. I had to help a little girl carry her dog home, 110 pound dog the other day because of the asphalt is so ripped up that it got into the dog's paws and we had to remove pieces and the dog wouldn't walk any further. So I mean it really is a safety issue.
I think it's discouraging, you know, paying so much in property taxes and given that it's a significant pedestrian use, documented vehicle damage, clear public safety concern, I really think that it would be, you know, great for the residents if we're able to. I even brought some pictures of how bad the street was. These are taken on January 22nd, so before there was as much snow and there's such giant pieces of asphalt. I actually had to correct kids at the bus up that were throwing them at each other because they're just huge, you know, pieces of the road that are completely ripped up.
So it really is a safety concern in my opinion. Speaker 1: If, if you have those electronically, if you could mail it to absolutely Speaker 18: Select board. I'd love to. Speaker 1: Thank you sir. Speaker 16: I would just like to sec I would just like to second that too, that there was, I live at the end of crazy street and there is no, and it, the road does get ripped up by the plows and stuff like that. We know what the problem's been happening for decades and, but it, it's, it's been better over the last couple years, but not great. That's about it. Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: My name, Speaker 19: My name is Ronald Rado and I live at 19 Craigy Street. And the question that I have for the board is, is there an avenue that we can take as residents that we might be able to get some help with the, with the damage to the road as opposed to making it a public way, a accepted way that we could get some help. I mean, routinely the, the town comes out and patches and there's so many potholes that by the time they get through patching within a few days the patchwork is all gone. And right now it's, it's very close to being a dirt road. It's so bad. And again, I've tripped many,
many times on the asphalt in my driveway in the front of the house on our lawn everywhere. So I guess I'm just wondering if there's an avenue that maybe we could take or who we could speak with about getting some help from the town in that, in that manner. Okay, Speaker 1: Let me try to answer that question by, Speaker 13: So I'll try to, I'll try to answer, but it's gonna probably lead to a follow up conversation with somebody maybe in the DPW department. A challenge with unaccepted roads is that the town has no real ownership over them. And due to state law, we, the town
cannot spend public funds on non town owned assets. So since it's not a town owned asset, then the residents actually own to the center line. It's, it's privately owned, there's still rights for pass and repass of people on there and the public, but it's not owned by the towns. So we, we have a limit on what we, the town can do on a privately, essentially a privately owned roadway. And that means we can do patchwork, but we can't necessarily do full on re paving because that, there's just an extent there to which we have
to be mindful of what's called the antia amendment. With that said, there, there might be something DPW can do. I, I don't know, I I think I'd have to, I'm not putting bill on the spot tonight, but we can bring it back to the DPW team to say, okay, is there something we can do for these types of situations or if bill, you know, off the top of your head that you can speak to it, but it, there is a limit to what the town can do in this case. One thing that I, after this meeting that I also like to explore is for residents who are interested. 'cause we do do betterments for more like sewer and other projects, is there a way to do like a betterment for something like this?
But that that's, I dunno if you know off the top of your head bill for something like that. Speaker 17: There is for, for roadway improvements. There could be. And there's also a list of recommendations that are fairly common now that we've done several of these that are fairly common to the roadways that are yet to be accepted. One of them would begin with like a topo and utility survey of the actual property so that we could get an idea whether or not there were trees in the, in the roadway fences, stonewall, things like that, you know, private encroachments within the roadway. Those can be discussed with the residents. I know on Craigie Street, if you're aware, the southerly end
of Craigie Street on the westerly side, there are a line of cedars along that road, all of which appear to be within the right of way, all of which would have to be taken down as part of a street acceptance because they are, you know, basically are leaning toward the roadway. They could become a problem that wouldn't be something that art would probably like to take on. So as a, as a general rule, things like that, trees and fences, stone walls, those kind of encroachments would have to be discussed. But in order to discover them, we would need to do some kind
of a property line survey. It is possible for residents to get together to have that done. That's not hugely expensive, but it is an expense. And then further, you know, moving forward the possibility of betterment for, you know, the, the roadway acceptance could also be discussed. Speaker 13: Yeah. So, so a betterment for those who are not familiar, in essence the abutters, the, the town might contract for the work and help do, like, it could be in this case roadway improvement work, but the abutters pay for it over time. So it's like an added like over 10,
20 years depending on how the betterment works. It would be an added cost on your tax bill essentially Speaker 1: Over over Speaker 13: Just on those that are being impacted by it. Yeah. Speaker 1: And one of the things that we should mention is when you do a betterment, it typically is over 20 years, so you're not gonna get hit with a several thousand dollars bill on your taxes that year. Speaker 13: Yeah, Speaker 1: Right. To wanna know that. Yeah. Speaker 13: So unfortunately all of these options are not something that can happen overnight though. So it is something that just needs to be continued work with, with, with, amongst yourselves.
But also it's like you pointed to, to the leader of that, but also, you know, we we're here to help, but there's a limit to what the town can do, just given that it's not technically a publicly owned asset at this time. Speaker 17: We have been talking about that kind of stair step process as far as recommendations that can be provided to the residents once they've gone through this process and we take a look at the roadway. In many cases, the roadways that are being asked for acceptance are in the same state as Craigie Road. We have some that are in worse Yeah. You know, conditions than that. However, we do absolutely understand your concerns regarding the roadway, wanna see if there's some way
that we can provide some kind of pathway that is, you know, logical and you can follow step by step that we can do for roadway two roadway because we have 16 miles of these roadways in town. Yeah. Speaker 1: One, one of the things I wanted to add to what Mr. McDowell just said is each of these, and you, you guys did everything right. You, you did follow the street acceptance process. We've actually taken steps over the past few years to streamline that so that residents know, have a, or have a good idea of what they need to do to bring it up
to a standard that the, the town might accept. Now, Mr. McDowell rightly points out that there could be a, an intermediate step between being able to accept it as a public way and improving the road, right? So we need to explore that. But if you look at each of the, this, this was given, this was on our website, but it's all the reports that Mr. McDowell put together and one of the first ones is hiring, hire a registered land surveyor to determine the layout
of the roadway and encroachments such as fences, walls, decorative stones, et cetera, street trees. And I think that's, that's what Mr. McDowell is advocating for as the first step, right? We, we need to understand for each road. Believe me, I've driven down Craigie Street and my teeth are still rattling, so I understand what the situation is, is there, so let let, let's continue our discussion and then we will figure out what the best next step is.
But as Mr. McDowell said, you're not alone. There are, there are unaccepted roads in town that are in Morse condition and it's cold comfort. I understand, I know it isn't, it's not gonna help your, your tires any, but Speaker 9: Yeah, I just want to make one comment around betterments. A betterment could be used to just get the road paved without actually making it compliant with, you know, all the regular rules. At that point, the street would still
not be able to be accepted. You would have to do it again in 20 years when the road becomes gravel again. Good point. If you do a betterment to bring the road in compliance with road standards, the road could then be accepted and you'd never have to do it again. You'd have to pay for it once, but you could then deed the road to the town and the town would very like likely accept it because it's in good shape. Pay for it. The other thing about betterments that you should know is they have to go
through town meeting, which just delays it for, you know, considerable amount of time. We've done those before. I think the last one, I, I, I don't remember when the last one was, but I voted on it. So as a town meeting member, Speaker 13: Fox Hill Drive for Speaker 9: Sewer, what's that? Fox Speaker 13: Road? We do one on Fox Hill Drive for Fox Hill Road for a sewer betterment. So there's a sewer extension project Speaker 9: That's right about a year. And I, I, you know, I live on one of, I live on a corner a lot. And one of the roads I live on is unaccepted. And years ago I spoke
with the then town engineer about what it would cost to get it fixed so that, because I knew that we'd have to do a betterment and my neighbors couldn't agree to that, so we never did anything. But in that conversation, Mr. Coviello commented that it was his least favorite unaccepted road in town. So there are worse roads than the ones you live on. Speaker 1: And that seem appreciate that as, as Mr. McDowell said, it's not really comforting to you. So I think the, the best approach is to, to reengage with public works
and figure out what the, the next best or the next good step is to move forward on this works. Speaker 17: I am, my contact information's on the website. I know Diana has my contact information Speaker 1: Question. Okay. Excuse me, Ms. Cough. Speaker 11: Mr. McDowell, the, the survey that you recommended, is that something that's, is that a cost undertaken by the town? Speaker 17: Were we to do it, we're able to establish property line. We're not allowed to declare it, like stake it out. Sure. We're not registered lance surveys, but we can't find there's enough monumentation in the area.
We can at least get a good idea of what the major encroachments are. So we have, you know, a, a, a good idea of where the property line is and what's inside of that. So we could have a, just a better, more definitive look prior to the hiring of a, a registered land surveyor would not take a huge amount of effort on DP W'S part, but we, we have the, the capability of doing that, we have the equipment to do that. Speaker 1: So probably after the snow melts it would definitely, it might be easier. So that would be the case. Sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay. Speaker 11: So is that something that this board would direct DPW
to do in the case of these four streets or in ca in the, at least in the case of Fe and Lodge, Speaker 17: In this particular case, the ones that we recommended were Felch court and on Craigy way to establish Craig Way Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 17: To establish the right of way. Speaker 13: So you'd probably through town administration asked for that to be done. Speaker 11: Well indeed. So yes. I'm, I'm just establishing whether this is something that we're suggesting they work out amongst themselves or whether this board says that this is something we would like DPW to coordinate and thus inform town administration through the chair of the board in writing in duplicate.
Speaker 13: No, my, my point, and I think to, to Bill's point though, the first part, all they all the engineering division has the ability to do is just really high level survey work. The next step would still need to be the hiring of a registered land surveyor by the, and this isn't unique to Craig, this is sort of, actually I saw this recommendation I think on all four of these. Speaker 17: It's, it's very typical. Yeah. Again, to establish the property line in order to create a street acceptance plan, all of these things are, you know, the stair step they would all be used moving forward. We would just be looking at it just quickly to see,
you know, determine whether or not the pavement was within the right of way. Whether or not there were street trees or walls or things like that within the property line. Speaker 13: Really just to give the residents a sense as to how big of a lift is this, do you wanna spend money on the registered land surveyor? Do you wanna That's correct. Continue with this process. Speaker 17: The other part of that is if we do locate encroachments that are there, it's like, you know, would you consider having that stone wall removed? Would you consider moving your fence back? Would you consider having all of these trees removed? Those are just, you know, kind of, as I said, it's sort of a scare step Speaker 13: Process. It's like before they spend really any monetary resource,
then they know some of those things would need to be potentially impacted. Yep. So Speaker 19: Just ask McWell question. Sure. As resident please. The Mr. McDowell as residents of Craig Craigie Street, would we be kept appraised of, of you know, what you're doing and also more importantly, the cost. I mean, is it down the road as, as we move forward? I mean, I think that's something that we all need to take into consideration. I mean, Speaker 13: I think anything that the engineering division would do would, would come back to the residents. Probably didn't have to go through the board. It could just be directly with the residents. It could be, and that would be likely at
no cost to the residents. Just the initial high, high level survey work. We have the skill set in-house. It's really staff time that would be doing that work largely. And the Speaker 17: One thing I would recommend is we do have the names of survey companies that do work in town. I would not, you know, give them an estimate. I would just, you know, request that the residents talk to several of them and get an estimate for that work. I wouldn't give you an estimate for what it would cost to have that survey. Speaker 13: Yeah. Just, just for clarity, we're not allowed to give recommendations of businesses, but we do have list of people who have done work in town
that you can then solicit quotes and, and, and for the work. And then we would definitely recommend getting at least three if possible. That's our sound business practice Speaker 19: Estimates For Speaker 13: The work. Estimates for the work. Yes. Speaker 20: Hi, Sean Potter, seven Craigy Street questions. I guess mainly for you, Mr. McDonald. So the, I've never heard of the scoring system before, but it sounds like that's what qualifies the street as being accepted or un you know, unaccepted and I think the language you used is to the benefit of the town. So I, I guess is that something we, we can look at online, like how the scoring system works,
but the, the specific thing that I want to focus on is, does it consider the pedestrian traffic as, as Mrs. Papa pointed out, it's a heavy pedestrian traffic street and I've been on some of the worst streets that you refer to that are in worse shape than, than Craigie Street. But none of 'em have the traffic, the pedestrian traffic that is the cut through from Clearview Ave every day. I mean literally hundreds of of pedestrians families, dogs, children, runners, walkers, bikers,
I mean, you know, kids coming out on droves and their bikes going back and forth through downtown again for the safety of not going on Woodland. Is this a consider, is it part of the scoring system and or is it a con special consideration that the town would make because of the pedestrian throughway that it provides on Craigie and Zo to downtown where the town might consider providing some in, you know, in input and investment in the betterment? So that's, that's essentially my question. I Speaker 1: Think I can answer that one. And it goes back to what, what Mr. Erickson said earlier.
We are literally prohibited by law from putting any funds into an unaccepted way. Right? It, it is not something we can do. However, what we can do is the type of survey that the, the initial back of the envelope survey that the DPW engineering division can do. But what would have to happen is you'd have to consider, do you wanna, there, there are kind of two paths that you can go. The one path could be just pave it, we just want to pave it,
we'll do a betterment just to pave it. Right. And that was something that Mr. McDowell said earlier. The other more expensive, longer term type of thing is to consider, go through the process to do the whole survey, find out what exactly it's going to take. Get a price tag on that. Figure out is this something that you want to do? I almost think you wanna get the price of just the just paving cost and then see what that does or see what that looks like.
And then, you know, if, if it's, if it's acceptable to you and your neighbors, that might be a good solution for the near term or where near term is a few years plus hopefully longer. Depends on how good the paving company is. Or do you want to jump ahead to the next stage. And that's, that's your decision either way. Speaker 13: So if, if I can add to some of the other parts of your question. So the, the criteria about a year plus ago, the board adopted an unaccepted roadway policy program. It's a policy and a program that was a was created by
Mr. McDowell and his team as a way to essentially score unaccepted roadways. 'cause we're getting a lot of requests like from from from residents about, you know, accept my roadway. And we needed to figure out a way to under understand which roadways were easier or not as easy to accept. 'cause there's certain standards that a roadway needs to be in order for it to be accepted by a community. And this is part state law, part local bylaws and, and local subdivision control laws. So the report that, that Mr. McDowell has been reading off
of for the four roadways tonight are all located on the agenda for tonight's meeting. If you just google search na select board agenda, you can see the report. It's a 15 page report that talks through all of the rating criteria. The policy that the reports are based on is all on the, to the engineering website. So you can read the whole policy. I think that's an even larger document Speaker 17: That's actually fairly short. Speaker 13: Oh, it is fairly short. Okay. Maybe I'm wrong. But, but it goes through the, the primary criteria, and these are just high level components are existing conditions, impediments and easements, survey, topography, utilities,
roadway surface, and then other factors. And other factors is where this pedestrian component or usage component, and it's unique to the road. In the case of craigie, it does talk about the, the, the pedestrian traffic going through this area as being a factor. So yes, it does get factored in. It is just one of the criteria. And it's like pedestrian access isn't called out as a specific one because there's so many things that go into a roadway. But it can be a component depending on the roadway. And in this case it is in that report for Craigie. And then there's a series of recommendations that the end,
in this case, there's four bullet points of recommendations. The first one is hiring a land surveyor and then a couple others. And those are all specific to the roadway as well. So it, it's a thorough process. It takes the engineering division quite a bit of time and analysis to get through this. So by no means is, is this done without a lot of a lot of thought and it's just a way to, to provide direction to the board, to the residents and be transparent with how things are being reviewed from a roadway acceptance perspective. 'cause as, as Mr. McDonald noted, we have 16 miles
of unaccepted roadways in town. 60? Speaker 17: 60? No, 1 6, 16. Speaker 13: 1 1 16. Okay. 16 miles. And we, we know that there's a desire for many, not all, but for for many to try to understand what it would take to have them be accepted. And it just, every, every roadway is different. Every road has their own unique characteristics, their own histories, their own encroachments, their own easements, their own. So we have to be able to, to try to figure out a way to provide direction to the residents and to the board and to the just general public about how we're viewing this.
So anything to add there, bill? That I, Speaker 17: No, I, I think that that was fine. We're just basically trying to bring everything up to the exact same level so the same light gets shed on each one of these roadways. But to your question, and Mr. Erickson answered that, you know, do we consider things like pedestrian traffic, things like that. And that is in that last category, other factors where we looked at, you know, the use of the roadway, whether it's heavily used, whether it's a dead end, things like that. Whether or not there might be the possibility of connecting our existing utilities through to another neighborhood to get cross connection, you know,
ability, things like that. That's what makes that advantageous to the town. So those are taken into consideration. The reports are available through the select board's agenda. They're certainly available through me. We can send them out to anybody. You do want to email me, we can send you a PDF of the report. In the back of the report is the actual scorecard. The scorecard in this particular case, it's like the golf score. The lower score is better, the higher the score, the l less advantageous it is for the town to, to accept that. Speaker 1: So you do plan to do that higher level survey of Craig Street. Just before we take, take the mic, please take the public can only hear you if you're at the mic. Oh, I
Speaker 18: Apologize. So you, you do plan to do that higher level survey of Craig before we like pay out of pocket and do our own learn survey Speaker 1: Cut bill. We have to do, Speaker 17: Yeah. If that is the board's pleasure, if we're directed, we would certainly take that on. And it's something to, to note that we are capable of doing for almost every street in town. There's generally monumentation around that We can establish a, a property line, at least give you a, a general idea what the encroachments are. Speaker 1: Well, Speaker 10: So this quick survey that you can do, would you recommend doing that
for all of our future street acceptances coming forward? I mean would that be a heavy lift to We are actually to make that part as the pro of the process, Speaker 1: We're Speaker 17: Looking at this process right now that we have gone through this, you know, several times, several iterations of this and we're coming kind of to the same conclusion. So that is a probable process moving forward with this. We have drone capability, which has actually made this faster and easier if we can identify monuments in the field. So it's something we wanted to talk to town administration about, you know, about
what are the possibilities with this moving forward. So this is a more complete process coming here. I understand, you know, when the residents come up and say, yeah, we don't recommend, it's like, well now what do we do? Well there are things that can be done as a stair step, you know, methodology towards moving, toward making this more advantageous for the, for the time to think about accepting. Speaker 1: Thanks Bill. Thank you. Great question. Thank Speaker 13: You. Yeah, this is this, we, this is an iterative process. We're learning as, as we're going along with each one of these. So I, I give the engineering team full credit and I appreciate the comments and the,
and the feedback that we're getting from residents. 'cause we're learning kind of as we're doing this, this is a fairly new process for us. I think these are the, I think we've only done three prior to these four. Speaker 17: This is actually the, I believe it's seventh, eighth, and ninth. Speaker 13: Seven, eight and nine. Okay. So we're learning as, and new technologies come with like likes you said the drones and stuff, which is really, really interesting. So, Speaker 1: So do we have a motion to do the quick survey on the, the big four? So moved second. Okay. Moved by Ms. Coughlin, seconded by
Speaker 11: Administration. The, the motion to be clear is to direct town administration to work with DPW to enact the survey and follow up with residents as needed. Speaker 1: Thank you for elaborate and all in favor, please say aye. Start with Ms. Coughlin. Aye Ms. Pope. Speaker 21: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Walger Speaker 11: Aye. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney? Aye. And I'm an aye too. So let's get this started. Hopefully we can move it in a good direction. Speaker 9: Thank you all Mr. Mr. Chairman. Yes. And, and I, I defer to Mr. Erickson's thoughts on this, but would it make sense to give
the, give the town permission to incorporate these quick surveys in future reports, which is not what we just voted. Speaker 13: Let us come, I think maybe we come back to you with that recommendation. Let's see how these go. 'cause we might find that, that it's more of a lift than we realize. Yeah, I wanna give the engineering division the ability Speaker 17: There will be on certain streets, there are certain streets. If there's monumentation out there, there's bounds and things like that from the street. We can do that if there are not, and that's something that's usually relatively quick and easy to see. Yeah, we can just do a more thorough on the ground kind
of recon for Monumentation and then we can make a recommendation regard that there, if it's not possible, we could also just include that. Yeah, that, that quick, you know, arms length survey. We, Speaker 13: We might just have some like criteria by which if it, if we have X then we'll do Y. Yeah. If not then we'll do what we can. But that, so I'd rather learn from these next four and then we can go from there. Yeah, Speaker 9: That sounds fine. Yep. That's why I asked the question the way I did. Speaker 13: Yeah. Speaker 1: All right. Thank Bruce. Mr. Speaker 13: I dunno if there's others in the room for other roadways.
I know we heard from one, but it seems like there might be others. Speaker 1: Thank you in the room as well. Thank you for doing that. Is there anyone in the room who wants to speak about, you've Speaker 9: Got Speaker 1: Online of four roadways. Speaker 9: You got somebody online? Speaker 1: Okay, Mr. Kaila, hopefully I'm not mispronouncing that. Speaker 21: How you doing? Koala? Thank you Speaker 1: Koala. I was so close. Speaker 21: No problem. Tim Koala for eight Felch Court. As Mr. McDowell has stated that Felch court is extremely busy road for such a small road, but there is so much building going on in the Weatherill neighborhood that we get
tractor trailers and junk trucks just driving down this road daily. And it's, it's, it's amazing of just the traffic that we get. But if you're driven down Feltch court, you know, it's basically a, it's a, you know, a dirt road. And since the rotary has been installed at Pine Street in 27, there has been certainly a large uptick of tractor to trailer and dump truck driving down Felch courts. And these trucks unfortunately beat up the road rather quickly creating, you know, massive potholes.
And then therefore we do call the town a lot to fix these has become just unsafe to travel down the road. And it's only as, you know, just maybe a hundred meters. But my question is, is how can we get a petition to approved for a no truck access down this road? I mean, you have, they have many more roadways to get into what this field neighborhood, because they're not doing, you know, these trucks are just passing through our road. They don't really go down Pine Street into Fels Road
or go down Westlake, which is a much larger roadway, wider. So when they do come down our road, it's basically just a one lane at that point that they're traveling down. Is there any way to, to get some type of petition? Speaker 1: Yes. Is the, the short answer is there's a committee in town that includes the Natick police and residents in a, a number of different town officials. And it's called the safety committee. It meets once a month. And what I suggest you do is
send an email to select board@nama.org Okay. And say that I'd like to get added to the safety committee, the next available slot in this, excuse me, safety committee meeting. And I, I can hook you up with the police chief and they'll, they'll work with you to, to get on an agenda. But you, you, you need to ask that question. You need to, my suggestion too is to get out there with your cell phone, get some pictures of,
of, of the, the problem when you see a tractor trailer or hear a tractor trailer rumbling through, go outside, take a picture if you can. The photographic evidence absolutely helps the discussion. I can't make any promises as to what the safety committee does, but they could do things like do not enter or over a certain amount of tonnage you're prohibited. Right. Or even consider that it's a one way where, you know, there, there are few options on the table,
actually to be clear, they make a recommendation to us. Right. They make a recommendation that comes back to the select board. Thank you Mr. Sidney. Speaker 21: Okay. Thank you. And I appreciate the board approving the establishment of the right of way and the property line for the engineering work to, to be completed so we could further start this process of getting filch court paved. Thank you. Speaker 1: Sorry. You're welcome. Mr. Demitri. Demitri. I'm sorry. Hello? Like you're unmuted so please go ahead. Oh, oops.
Speaker 13: No, they're still, they're still un unmuted. They just unraised their hand. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Maybe that was the same point. So let's move on. Right. Okay. So we did take a vote on this, so let's take that ne next step and see where it goes. We're, see where it leads. So thank you all for coming in. Do you need a break? DT C'S running behind. So Cody hasn't gone yet. Okay. So we'll take a break when Kristen goes, she's still okay. All right. Why don't we go through
special act timeline. Sarason, do you want me to Speaker 13: Do that? Sure, I'll, I'll And and we're, we're in the home stretch so we're pretty, we're pretty close. So just for everybody watching from home who might be interested this, the, there was a special act pending at the state through the state legislative process that had it had it achieved all of its process, which included a governor's signature. It could have been added to this upcoming March election ballot. The deadline for the ballot was yesterday. Yesterday at four 30.
Well five o'clock we actually, even with the storm, we actually opened up town hall for the afternoon to ensure that it was open for the potential for it to occur. 'cause we wanna make sure that anybody and anybody who wanted a ballot question this included could have an opportunity for that. So I, I thank the staff that came in yesterday. It was really just department heads. Yes. And Andrew in the clerk's office for example. But in, in brief, the special act, which has been pending at the state legislator legislature for nine months or so. Now, maybe a year is still not
through the state legislative process, which that takes time. I I'm not, I'm not totally like surprised. I think our delegation has done a great job advancing it as best they can. My understanding is it's currently pending in the house. It has already gone through several reviews in both the Senate and the House. So it just needs to get through their final approval process, including currently in the house. I believe it has to go back to the Senate and then eventually to the governor's office or governor's desk for signature. Long story short though, because we did not have it in debt in the timeline for the upcoming March ballot,
it cannot go on the ballot for this upcoming march. So, and there's no decision for the board to make tonight, but it, the, the for the board to make eventually, once it gets through that final process at the state level is next steps. So there's a couple things that the board can consider regarding this. We can just put it on the next local election, next March on that ballot. That's the, probably the cleanest and the easiest process because it's a local election, it's a local ballot. It, it can just run like we would've run this year.
We are already doing the ballots. We're already printing, we're already covering those costs. It's there. Another option is to hold a special, a special election. We did this fairly recently when we had to hold a special election for an alternate for the planning board seat. And in essence we held that special concurrent same day as the September State primary. I believe it was two years ago when Andrew actually started. So we have experience doing this, what our current clerk does that's, that's mini it tries
to minimize the additional costs to the extent possible because we can do, do two elections at the same time, same day. But there is added costs cost of printing an an additional ballot. It cannot be on the same ballot, has to be its own ballot. But we can utilize volunteer costs and then, and paid staff costs. And there, there are some additional costs to that though. So again, no decision today because we have to get, it has to get through the state legislative process before we know the timing. Because in order to do like a, for example, a September special election, if the board wants to go that direction,
I believe we need to call that probably in May or June timeframe. Right. Andrew was looking into the exact timing. This is a bit unique because we are not, this isn't as if people are needing to get papers and submit them. This is like, you get the language and you put it on the ballot. It's very straightforward. So it's a bit different. And there are some questions given that it is coming from a special act that he's trying to clarify with legal counsel as well as the state. He's actively working on it this week. With that said, again, there's no decision for the board tonight. The, the most cost effective solution would be just put it on next year's election
because we're already covering those costs and those are already budgeted for a special election would be additional cost depending on how the board chooses to hold it. And if it was a standalone special on its own date and time, that's obviously a sig more significant cost than if it's concurrent with a, with a primary or with even the federal election November. But then there's other considerations that come into play there because if you're going to the polls for one thing and you get another ballot, there might be some confus, you know, there's just a lot of potential considerations. Again, no, no decision to be made tonight because there's nothing for the board to decide tonight
'cause it's still pending in the State House. So that, that's an essence where the update on the special act timeline is just for everybody's awareness. We are fully prepared once we get that to advance whatever the decision of the board is at that time. Meaning we've already prepared any, all the backup materials, any mailing materials, legal counsel has already done that work. So kudos to Andrew and, and car and, and staff for, for preparing that. It's just a matter of, and we are still waiting for some feedback from, from some folks, but it's, it's largely ready
to go once we have the direction. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Questions, Speaker 9: Just more comment. You've also got the article 24 changes that are gonna have to follow that election for whatever the next town meeting is. If you know, I, I won't be on the board at that point, but you're welcome to call on me to help with that. Okay. You've got all that in the memo. So, and Mr. Erickson, I do suggest you make sure Karis is at least taking a look at that. 'cause that sort of should fall fairly quickly, I would think. Yeah, Speaker 13: Yeah. The, the bylaw changes. Yeah. Correct. Yes. Yep.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Sidney for adding and thank you Mr. Erickson for explaining what the options are. And, and I, I, I do want to call out the, the work that car town administration and in particular Andrew Gabrielle did in, in preparing for this to be on the march ballot through no fault of theirs, it's not going to be on that ballot, but hopefully we can get it on
sooner rather than later. We'll talk about that at a future meeting. Okay, next up, let's talk about potential 2026 Spring Town meeting warrant articles. And first thing I want to say, I wanted to say this at the beginning of the meeting, but I forgot. And that is that all warrant articles must be submitted to town hall by 5:00 PM tomorrow the 26th of February. So if you've got a, if you're doing last minute polishing of a warrant article, make sure it's in by 5:00 PM tomorrow.
So the other items, let me go through the easy one, which is, well, they're both easy to hear and discuss the report of the natural and synthetic turf field study group. We have been meeting, we've had two meetings so far of that group. I'm, I'm the select board rep to that and we're trying to gather all the experts in these areas. Natural synthetic turf, pros and cons.
We're working with the youth groups, the high school, what our assessment is, we wanna start first with the, well, what's the needs, what are the needs for these programs? And then work backward from that. There are pros and cons to each of them and Speaker 13: On, on the article. Bruce, if I can ask for the, for the consideration, so there's a standing committee article Yeah. That is open for any sort of established committee in town, given that this is not really a committee of anyone.
Yeah. Would the board consider this be a standalone article that the select board sponsors or, or select board con it's a little bit too late, but in conjunction or collaboration with the school committee, but maybe it's the select board sponsors or could the select or would the select board provide the update on under the committee article, sort of like on behalf of this working group? I'm just curious what the thinking is of the board. 'cause there's two options that you can take. Speaker 9: I do not make sure you, the moderat, the moderator's online. If he has an opinion,
Speaker 1: Mr. Alderon, please weigh in. Speaker 22: I am online. Might have an issue here with sharing video. Apologize, I I have, I'm, I'm fine either way. If, if, if article comes through as a standalone article, but be aware sometimes a standalone, the the existing article, usually, like our article one for standing committees is usually just to hear a report. I've noticed that the draft language here is to hear and discuss a report. So if you do decide to want to keep that discussion, you might want
to keep this as a separate article. Okay. Speaker 10: I can just weigh in on that, Jeff, just, just to comment on that. It, it actually, we typically, for the committee articles, we allow either here or here and discuss. It's usually at the finance committee. It's been something that we recommend one way or the other, sometimes at the request of the committee that they don't wanna discuss it, but sometimes it's also whether or not the, the finance committee feels like it's an
important issue that they wanna have discussed. So it isn't typically just discussed. It's, that may be been some of the ones that have happened lately, but in the past it's, it's usually either or. Speaker 22: Yeah. You're you're absolutely correct. My my my feedback was only that the motion language should be clear and not copied from other committee motions just to make sure your intent is correct. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. I'm good Ms. Coffin. Good. So what are the thoughts of the board standalone or in, as part of the committee?
I'd go with the committee article personally, right? Speaker 10: No, yeah. This is, this is different because is a committee, because it is in a committee, this is a study, so I don't know how, I mean if it really makes sense to consider it Yeah. Under the committee article when it isn't a committee of the town Yeah. Speaker 1: That was there a dilemma. Speaker 10: Yeah. Speaker 1: We're neither fish nor fo Speaker 11: I I think it's perfectly fine to have it be the select board sponsor. Okay. Although that may give rise to the continued confusion that this is a select board committee. I would still think that's cleaner than asking a non town
committee slash working group to sponsor it itself. And I think Ms. Pope has some comments. Speaker 10: Is it, is it possible, i, I know this is very last minute given that tomorrow is a deadline that just like for the, you know, other things that we've done, that it could be jointly sponsored by the select board and the school committee, or would they have to vote on it? Do you think? Speaker 13: I know their processes. Sorry. My understanding is their process has been typically to vote on sponsoring. It doesn't mean they can't join during the process of going through FinCon and, and such. Speaker 1: I I can ask the questionnaire.
There is representation on this in this study group of the school committee. Yeah. So we could very well ask, we're sponsoring a standalone article. Would you be okay being a co-sponsor? We they can't vote in time. It, Speaker 10: It, it's too late. Speaker 13: They've typically wanted to vote as a committee to, to sponsor. Yeah, Speaker 10: We have to, we have to. Speaker 13: All right. I mean you can certainly ask the question, but I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no. We'd have to vote that as a committee. Yeah. Speaker 1: Alright. So forget that idea Ms. Pope. Next question. Ms. Pope. I'm sorry Ms. Pope, please go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. Would standalone say be equivalent to select board sponsored? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: I think under typical circumstances I would agree that I would prefer that it would be jointly sponsored by the two. But if we're not able to do that, I also would be in favor of the standalone. Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. The next question, well, we wanna vote on that. If we, well hang on a second. I wanna know what we're gonna be voting on first, which is to hear and discuss or to hear the report.
Speaker 10: My feeling on this is if it was just to hear then it could be a handout at town meeting you. You don't, you don't need to have a committee because there's no discussion taking place. Then the information could just be presented. But if, you know, I would defer to you as a member of the committee if you think that, or the, the study group, excuse me, not the committee. If, if you think that it would be valuable given the past discussion that we have had at town meeting about this issue, whether it would be, you know, advantageous to, to have a discussion
Speaker 9: Mr. Sherman. Yes. I would suggest that the warrant articles say to here and or discuss and then the motion can be only here depending on what your study group decides. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good idea. It's the leeway. Ms. Coffin have no thoughts. Okay. Ms. Pope, do you have anything further? All right, so let's do a motion to hear Speaker 9: And or discuss I Speaker 1: And the, or discuss thats move by Mr. Sidney. Do I have a second? Speaker 10: Second. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Pope. All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Pope.
Aye. Mr. Sidney? Yep. Ms. Slager? Yes. Ms. Coughlin? Yes. And I, yes. Also. All right, thank you everyone. Next up is the home rule petition for Chief Hicks and Deputy Chief Anne. Speaker 9: It's two home rule petitions, right? Speaker 1: Independent ones. Thank you. Speaker 13: So this is just at the last time you reviewed this, it was, well, at the last open meeting, you voted to sponsor the, the two articles, one for the chief and one for the deputy chief. Then the request of the board was to review the language
and that was, that was handled in, in a retreat meeting that we had last two weeks ago, three weeks ago. And so this is you, you reviewed the language, but you wanted to make sure that for public purposes you voted on the language in the next open full meeting, which is this meeting. So it's really just the vote of the board for the language that you've already previously reviewed for tonight. Speaker 9: Mr. Chairman, I note that Ms. Pope has dropped off. Speaker 1: Let's take a 10 minute recess. Sure, sure. Thank you. Thank you for noticing. Alright, we're back.
And when last seen, let me explain the reason for our pause, which was Ms. Pope was at a election event for 10 minutes where she was speaking. So that's why we took a little break there. So now we're back and talking about home rule petitions for Chief Hicks and Deputy Chief Lason. So are there questions about when we last we're talking we're Mr. Erickson explained that he had used standardized language for both
that we've used successfully in the past with the legislature and updated it with Chief Hicks and Deputy Chief Lizanne. So if there, are there any questions Mr. Sidney? Speaker 9: Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I believe we voted to put them on the warrant already. So really all we're deciding is, you know, do we approve of the language? Do we need a vote for that or is it just sort of consensus that the language is okay, we've Speaker 1: Approved it. That's a great point. Thank you. If we've approved it, it's just approving the language,
which is just as long as you're comfortable, we'll take it. Yep. Speaker 13: As long as you're comfortable, we'll take it. And we just, the direction was, put it back on the agenda to make sure that the broader public also saw it. Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah, I, I know we voted to put those two warrant articles on and you know, the language I saw looked fine, so, Speaker 1: Okay. Any Speaker 9: Other, there's a lot to discuss. Any Speaker 1: Other thoughts? Speaker 13: Yeah, it, it mirrored the last language that we've had for this type of article. Yeah, Speaker 10: I agree with, with Rich. I think it's, it's fine. Speaker 13: Okay, perfect. We'll take that direction. Speaker 1: All right, super. Awesome.
Thank you chief for staying and enjoy Speaker 9: The rest of your night. Yeah, Speaker 1: What's love doing? Yeah. All right, so next though, John, you up for doing the capital? Speaker 23: Yep. Speaker 13: So John gets that ready. Just the board previously heard a capital presentation back in January and as just a reminder, the team did an amazing job this year, really refreshing and, and doing an extensive job at the review
of the five-year capital program, which really did set up very clearly in that capital program what to expect coming in these next two town meetings spring and fall. For your knowledge, you're gonna see some repeat slides, so John, I'll go over those more quickly. So this will be a fairly brief presentation from that perspective. And this has already been presented to the finance subcommittee. They reviewed this two weeks ago now, I believe with a favorable recommendation back to the full committee. But again, it, a lot of the groundwork for this, which is why tonight's gonna be a little bit of a, not not fast, but you'll, it was done back in,
well the team did it back in November, December, leading into the publication of the five year program in on January one or two. But, but, and then you saw this at, I believe the first meeting or second meeting in January. So kudos again to the team for doing an amazing job this year with capital. It's been sort of a four year process in the making for us to revamp the capital post pandemic and get, and, and with the updates that we've been able to work through with the finance team, which has been a multi-year process as well with them, with some implementations that that, you know, again, Gloria's been amazing in helping us
revamp sort of our financial strategy with that as well. Awesome. Speaker 15: Awesome. Thank for that. Yep. So I'll, and all of these materials are in the packet for tonight so the public can follow along. I'm starting off on slide seven, so I'm skipping over a first of the repeat slides in the beginning talking about the capital planning, capital improvement program process and all that good stuff, which the board is well aware of, but those materials are in there. I just want to kind of start diving into fiscal year 27 in terms of how we tackled it, right? We have a five year plan
and then we take what's in fiscal year 27 and we really try to dive deep into the fiscal year 27 requests this year in particular, as I had noted previously, we tiered our project, so we had tier one and we have the criteria in front of you and then we had tier two. It didn't meet that criteria. It doesn't mean that those projects weren't important and you know, wouldn't be valuable if we moved forward this year with them. But you know, due to either staffing or the other projects being higher priority, we can't move forward with everything.
Funding just doesn't exist for $24 million worth of project. So we worked with our finance team and we estimated available funding for this year, which is different, not different. We hadn't done it previously upfront at this period of time. We kind of worked through spring and we worked through fall about what was available this year. We took a a different approach and we said kind of starting at the beginning of the year, we should really look what's available through one-time funding, funding
and also additional borrowing capacity that we could add and, and that really should be the starting point. And then if other funding becomes available in addition to that, we can consider, you know, different pro the tier two projects. So if you just look at the bottom of this slide, you'll see the top column or top row going across all projects. The amount requested, and this is for fiscal year 27, we have $31.5 million worth of projects. Then if you back out the enterprise funds the 6.9
for the water sewer and the 370 for the Gulf, that's where you get the $24 million worth of projects. We tiered those. So you have the tier one priorities, just shy of $12 million. Again, we have estimates and quotes right now as we move from spring to fall, some of those might move up a little bit so that, you know, 11.7 people might say, well why aren't you, you know, putting an additional $230,000 worth of projects in there. Well, as we go into fall, some of those costs might increase a little bit. So, so that's a little bit of the rationale behind that.
Additionally, the town is extremely good through our departments and finding grants and finding different alternatives to that. So kind of that comes off of the top. What it does show though is there are tier two projects that total just, just south of $9 million that will not move forward this year unless additional funding is found or available. And what that means is it, it's not that those projects are gonna go away, but those have to go into the next five years of plan
and get sequenced in there. Some of those would move forward in the next fiscal year, but some of them, you know, may bump out into two or three years down the road depending on how that sequences up. If you look at this next slide, and this is just to summarize just the number of projects. So, and this is focusing on the general fund requests. So requests that will move forward at spring based on what we're looking to bring forward are 21 projects that would leave 25 projects that we would look to complete in the fall and 25 projects
would not move forward this year. The bottom chart is just an estimate of general funding remaining for the fall. So again, we we're looking at that $12 million worth of either one time funding or borrowing. And this is just the breakdown right now of, of how we're looking at it with the 21 projects to move forward in the spring. We give you the pay as you go cash, which is basically the free cash spending plan that we had that would be utilizing those funds and then the new borrowing for projects. So again, if you look at the borrowing,
it's a little bit less than 6 million, but when we look at kind of updated quotes as we go into the fall, that gives us a little bit of a cushion in that area. And then this next slide probably what I'm actually gonna do is pause here after I go through just a summary and then if there are any specific questions on a project, I can go to the specific project slide. But this right here really summarizes the, the projects that we're looking to move forward in the spring. So under general fund borrowing, this is vehicle and equipment replacement program, we have a number
of vehicles and I'm happy to go to the slide if the board would like to see that. But it is in your packet, water and sewer borrowing the evergreen. Well, number three, we have a number of wells throughout town, so this is doing work on that specifically with some of the electrical work, which is pretty significant upgrading that h and t grease, green sand vessel, the h and t green sand vessel is basically a sand filter
that filters our water. That filter needs to just the interior guts of that basically just need to be refreshed. It's been a long period of time. So that's extremely important for us to do. It's reached the end of the useful life. And Speaker 13: That's part of standard filtration not related to PFAS, Speaker 15: Right? Yeah. And then vehicle and equip equipment replacement program, a specific item, the vector truck, which is a big piece of equipment that basically has a hose attached to it and we'll go down and be able to draw water when we run into issues.
And then the next bucket down, park master plan update. So as the board might recall, in 2016, we completed a field and park master plan. That's really been the impetus for a lot of the park and field enhancements we've made over the years. It's about 10 years old right now, so we're gonna do some data gathering with staff, but then we need to have someone come in and help us with some updates with some of the projects that we wanna see move forward first. So refreshing those South Natick Riverfront Park project
$225,000. We have estimates for that work to be completed that's kind of following the spillway removal. We will be seeking an MVP grant to be able to complete that work. This represents the match that would be required for that. So this will activate that grant money. We don't know if we'll get the grant. We used the MVP action grant to actually do the design and feasibility work, so it should, you know, hopefully have some pretty good standing.
But we'll we're in the process of working and applying for that. And we will know later this spring, kind of early summer. But we need this funding as, as matching for that space renewal, 450,000. This is the complete work in our town and school buildings. Things like petitions and our bathrooms and you know, things that have just reached the end of their useful life carpets, things like that. Emergency generator replacement. There are two generators behind the public safety building right now. This would be some of the design and engineering fund to dive into those.
Replace the salt shed, no, it is not $50,000 to replace the, the salt shed. This is to do some of the site work. There's a lot of piles and materials that are over there. This would help us move those around. And then also help with a layout. As you may recall, we've been able to extend the life of the existing salt shed for about three or four years with some of the structural work that we were able to do over there. The salt shed will have to be replaced, but this is kind of a intermediate step that we have to do in preparation for that.
And then three vehicles Speaker 9: That Speaker 15: Are probably some of our larger vehicles, a 10 wheel, 10 wheel truck, one of those big trucks that you're actually seeing out a lot these days with a plow on the front with materials in the back, being able to plow salt and sand. Extremely critical. Not only for our sanding operation, we use it throughout the year with the highway department for materials and things like that. But super important piece of our equipment as well as a couple of other larger pieces within that. With the golf course, we have three items, utility vehicles,
PUMPHOUSE upgrades. Th this is upgrades to the original pumphouse from when the golf course was built. So it's reaching the end of the useful life. We get that inspected every year. We've been able to get a good amount of life out of that, but it's now reaching the end and a rough mower. Water sewer retained earnings, SCADA equipment replacement. This is kind of the project that continues to go when you look at the amount of stations that we have throughout town, we have about 35. We also have similar brains
and things like that in these systems as well. So as we go through and we upgrade one of those systems, we also have to upgrade the SCADA components of that as well. Vehicle and equipment replacement, that is a couple of trucks. And then water distribution system enhancements, that's standard every year. It's to replace some of the smaller things as we're out there. For example, Eversource or N Star might be doing some work somewhere. We might be in that area, identify something it allows us to replace like fire hydrants and, and pipes and, and things like that. So that's a high level summary.
I'm happy to dive into any specific, you know, items the board might have to dive a little bit deeper. Speaker 13: I do note after the board, Cody Jacobs has, Speaker 9: Thank you Mr. Chairman, this is more of a high level question, not about any particular project. I assume a bunch of these vehicles have long lead times. Speaker 15: Yes. This, yeah. Speaker 9: And I don't need to know specifics, I just, I'm, I'm laying a foundation here and the borrowing doesn't happen until you actually purchase a vehicle, right? Correct. Speaker 15: We need the authorization from town meeting to, of course. Yep. Speaker 9: So my question is actually about part of your process,
which is when you're considering borrowing capacity, are you considering existing authorized borrowing before you say how much more we can borrow? Speaker 15: Yeah, so everything that is existing that's been appropriated that we haven't borrowed for at this period of time, we've worked with our finance team to lay that out as best estimate over the next three years. So that's incorporated into our financials. The new borrowing coming on, we're not gonna see all of
that necessarily in this year, but kind of the sequencing between some of those old appropriations and the new, we're kind of Speaker 9: Leveling that. Well that, that was, that was exactly where I was going is because we're not gonna see it right away. It's not gonna affect next year's budget because you haven't already yet. It'll hit whenever it hits two or three years or however long the lead time is. But what I don't want to see happen is you don't see that borrowing coming onto the budget and then you think you have more borrowing capacity and therefore you borrow for too much. That's what I was trying to get to.
Speaker 15: Yeah, kudos to Gloria and Ari. I think, you know, Ari has a a definitely a, a wealth of knowledge around this and kind of working with them in developing this this year we really took that into consideration. You know, making sure that, you know, a, you need to have that borrowing capacity and you can't wait until it's too late and say, oh, you know, this year it's all coming on and then all of a sudden your borrowing line kind of goes through the roof. So looking at what was appropriated
that hadn't been borrowed for yet, and then also looking at what was gonna come on and kind of recognizing where that, where that was gonna lay out and what's coming over the ladder and what's coming on. Speaker 9: Yeah. So that, that was my assumption. Yeah, you guys are really smart about this stuff and I get that, but I want the public to hear it too. Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and I want the public to understand that you're really trying to level the borrowing over, you know, the next, you know, forever years so that the, the budget doesn't spike because of borrowing.
And I think that's a really great thing and I just want to raise it up as, Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wanna follow up on Mr. Sidney's point is, and that's why in our financial management principles, we're looking at a certain percentage of borrowing that that goes on and, and I can't recall the exact percentage now, but we're well under the Massachusetts Department of Revenue recommendation, so, which is Speaker 15: Ridiculous anyway. Speaker 1: Yeah, well, but we're, we're trying, we're, we are
conservative in terms of borrowing, we're always finding ways to do things like bond anticipation notes so that we can take maximum advantage of interest rates. I'll call it ebbing and flowing. So just making sure we, we get the most bang for the dollar. Ms, Speaker 10: Thanks John. Just a question. I know in, in past years we've done a really good job of identifying projects that, you know, either are complete or we're not going to do
and we have excess funds. And I, and I know that's probably going down over time as, as we've looked at that, is there any of that in this? And if so, where would it be in terms of funding? Speaker 15: Yeah, none in this. We did a lot last year. Typically with departments, I'll look, I, I basically have like a tracking sheet and we have when we need to check in next related to whatever that specific project is. So a lot of the dates I have with departments are June based on timing
as we think we're getting closer to the end of that project. We'll go through that. If we've determined that everything's closed out, our punch list and everything are done for that project and we no longer need those funds for that at that point in time, we'll work to close those out at the end of the fiscal year. And based on what that is, some of them will ask town meeting to reappropriate in the fall for projects and some of that will drop to free cash depending on what that was. That will just kind of help with the overall free cash pool. Speaker 13: If you recall, we had a very sizable number this last year. Yes. We, that impacted free cash.
And so we are not anticipating those numbers moving forward to that level. It was to the, to the credit of the team. It's been a multi-year effort to really get that under really much tighter control starting when I was in the deputy TAC. So, so I think it's in much better control now than it has been for, for a while. Not to say that it was ever really outta control, but it was just, we've gotten a much stronger handle on that, so and so we did see some of that in the free cash number for this past year. Speaker 10: Okay. Thanks. Speaker 1: Any other questions?
I can, I can't see Ms. Pope on the screen. So she's, Speaker 15: She's Speaker 24: Got her hand Speaker 1: Up. Yes, she has hand. Okay. Ms. Pope, Speaker 3: Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Mr. Marshall. I don't necessarily have a question. I just appreciate the thoughtfulness in priority, knowing that we don't, right now, as you've said, have the funding to cover all that's necessary. I appreciate the breakdown and, and priority and I think it's important for the community to see what's gone into, you know, the thoughtfulness around
how we prioritize with, with the funding that we do have and that these projects don't go away, but that they're still on the book and, and we will, you know, we'll we need to get to them at some point. So thank you. Speaker 15: And that's Ms. Pope. That's a great point. You know, when we, when at the end of the year, anything that hasn't moved forward in 27, we've rolled that into the next year and that's kind of a starting point for departments to start looking at that
to figure out if it should be a request in that next fiscal year or should move to the next. So we make sure they don't just fall off the table and go away if they don't get funded in a given year. That's kind of part of the starting point for departments to review for the next year of requests, and then that kind of helps inform that next five year plan. Speaker 1: Okay. Mr. Jacobs, Speaker 24: Oh wait, I'm gonna read it now. Right. Okay, cool. Thank you. I have two questions. The, the first one is on the,
there was the slide that mentioned that the $6 million in borrowing here would add $700,000 to the debt service line for the next 10 years. And I was curious, given that, you know, the pro, like, because projects, it's always a fluid, right? Like projects, and I, I understand the answer to this is a little bit complicated by the point that Mr. City made earlier, but like, projects are always, you know, falling off as well, right? There's things we borrowed 10 years ago that are, that are now being paid off. And so I'm curious what the net is like, you know,
like if you think about the FY 28 borrowing line, like, will, will there be a net? Is this a net increase in 700,000 or is it saying we're gonna increase to 700,000, but then there may be other things simultaneously going off? Speaker 1: Of course. Speaker 15: So It's just to show on this side, it's intended to show scale. So if you take, I I, I don't think we had ever really communicated this out to the public. If you take $6 million worth of projects on, what does that actually translate to in a year over year dollar? Another way to look at it is
$700,000. If, if we borrowed $700,000 for 10 years, that's $7 million, right? And that would be in levy borrowing. And you look in our financial books, I think that that number right now is $5 million on the, on the levy side as opposed to debt exclusion, which has its useful life and then it kind of falls off. So I think we've done a good job of funding projects through borrowing for a period of time,
but we're not quite where we need to be. So we incrementally, and, and this is where communities are really good when they're incremental at things. So if we can incrementally increase our debt service line over the next couple of years, we can get ourselves closer to that point of where we want to be. There's two things related to borrowing, and this touches on a point that Mr. Evans had mentioned earlier. There's the amount of debt that we have kind of based on our overall budget, and we are well under kind
of the recommended limits for that. But there's another number that comes into play in terms of how much capital are we taking on based on the size of our budget. And in that area we're a little bit behind. So, you know, it's great that our, our debt line isn't triggering anything with the, the state, but at the same time, we should be taking on a little bit more of those capital projects to really be able to address just the magnitude of infrastructure we have within the town.
Speaker 13: I think it's also important to note a couple things. One, understanding the scale of a $6 million worth of borrowing on the annual over year, over year impact that does have direct impacts on what we can then fund for operations. So they are competing and, and we are trying to be a little bit more deliberate to, we are, we're, we're, we're deliberately being more deliberate about showing what that actually means in the capital slide. And then you can see the corresponding impact in the, in the, in the budget. The other reality is that debt service coming off
was typically brought out 10 years ago, sometimes five, depending on what the, what the item was. Sometimes longer, sometimes 15 or 20. But let's say 10 years, costs 10 years ago are very different than costs today. So what's coming off as often, even if it's the same dollar amount, is not covering nearly the same amount of projects. So like we've said this before, vehicles are about up about 40 to 60% depending on the vehicle from just 9, 20, 19, 6 years ago, five, six years ago. So the same, the same 10 million or $1 million going towards vehicles is co is only covering
half as many vehicles. So we actually need twice as much money to cover vehicles than we did just five years ago. And if you look at our actual amount that we're putting towards capital five, 10 years ago, we were putting about 10 million to capital. Now we're putting 12 million. We're not increasing the capital. So we're actually doing less with, because we're not increasing capital the same amount. This isn't coming to a head right now, it is going to come to a head within the next year or two. So it's gonna be something that we're gonna be back to the board with to talk through. So it's, it is, to your point, Cody
multilayered to say the least. And, and so what we're trying to do is really reestablish that foundation on which we build moving forward. Speaker 24: Yeah, yeah. No, thank you. That, that's, that's really helpful. I think like, yeah, the, I mean, just leaving this rhetorical, not a follow up question, but just as far as the, I I think understanding that ramp up, that makes total sense to me that we'd be spending, you know, more now for the same things that we, you know, spent is spent on 10 years ago. I just think like in terms of what the ramp up is in the debt service line, it would be helpful if we had a clearer idea of like, okay,
like it's, it's a, it's a net increase of this amount, not just what the, the increase is. But then, yeah, my my, my second question is more on a specific item. I was just curious, and you may have, you know, Mr. Marshall may have answered this a previous meeting that I missed, but on the South Natick Park project, was that considered as a candidate to apply for CPA money because it's an open space project. Speaker 13: Wanna take it? Yeah, Speaker 15: Great question Cody. That was something that we had discussed and as we have moved forward with the timing for this grant application, the timing
isn't necessarily gonna align with us for this year for CPA, for CPA for the match. And one of the kind of requirements of the grant is them knowing as you go through the process that you'll have the money. So it was something that we discussed. Unfortunately, the timing just didn't align based on when this grant was out and became available. Speaker 13: So if you recall, CPA is a, the, the, the intent of the CPC is to try to have the CPA funding be appropriate at a fall town meeting for projects. So they have an application program for fall town meeting.
This and municipal vulnerability program, which is a state program, wasn't something that we were prepared to be ready with for fall town meeting. 'cause we were still doing design work really on the, on the park project. So it's really this, this upcoming town meeting that we have to seek the matching funds. Speaker 15: Another thing is they had actually adjusted their timeframes, their timeframes used to be a little bit later the MVP, the MVP and this year in particular, they actually sped it up a little bit. So it caught us a little bit off guard. Speaker 13: Yeah. Speaker 24: Yeah, that makes sense.
I forgot about that fall thing. I, I, I didn't know that, but I, I forgot about that. Thank you very much. Helpful since we only Speaker 13: Two times a year to do this. Speaker 9: Yeah. Just, just, just to follow up on that, you know, as we appropriate the money at the spring, we could still put in for CPA A and then dis appropriate the money later Right. Speaker 13: I suppose in theory, but we'd have to, I think I'd wanna explore that before I give you a definitive answer. Speaker 9: Yeah. But it's just, it's a route to maneuver. Yep. If, if it's appropriate Speaker 15: And there may be other park related requests that may move forward to the CPA outside of
South Natick, so, okay. You know? Yeah. Speaker 9: I was just trying to put forward an idea. Yeah. Yep. Speaker 13: What we're hopeful for our MVP grant, because we, we used the MVP program for the design work. The design, yeah. And, and the spillway removal project will be moving forward this June, I think is when it's, well it, it depends on some of the weather conditions. But this June Speaker 1: Should Speaker 13: I timeframe? June. June timeframe, Speaker 1: Snow should be gone by then. Speaker 13: Yeah. It's, it's also the river level, so it, it's,
Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 13: Sure. We have a lot of flow because melts. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Any further questions? Speaker 25: Have one comment. Speaker 1: Go ahead. Speaker 11: I just wanted to, again, recognize the work of Mr. Marshall and his team for putting in the finance department for building a robust capital improvement program, which we haven't had for a very, I mean, we, we've been working on it, but you've really professionalized it to a point that we can be very confident about the way we're setting aside money for spending our bond expenditures.
And I, I deeply appreciate that. Just wanted to recognize it. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm gonna invoke the ditto rule on that. It did a, yeah, great job covering, you know, a difficult circumstance. Everything's gotten much more expensive and, and you're, you're doing the best to, to, to stay, I won't say ahead of it, but to, to, to not get further and further behind. So that's the challenge you're faced with. So great job. Speaker 15: Appreciate it. I mean, kudos really goes to the team
and probably the individual that the board here is probably the, the least from Brian Leblanc as our procurement director. You know, we're able to appropriate the money but then we move forward with the construction or the design and bidding and all that other stuff. And Brian Leblanc is tremendous in allowing us to move these great job projects forward. So just opportunity to, kudos Speaker 1: To Brian. Thank you for calling that out. Yeah, appreciate it. He keeps us online too, Speaker 9: Which is a, a good thing. Oh Speaker 1: Yeah. We, it's extremely talented. God, somebody does. I Speaker 9: Just kidding. I No,
Speaker 1: Come on. That was just so tempting I couldn't pass it. Alright, so that concludes I think our discussion and decision. So let's move to the consent agenda. Speaker 9: Alright, so we have a consent agenda. Speaker 1: Hold on. Let's see if Ms. Speaker 9: Wants No, I already, I checked with Speaker 1: Her. Oh, okay. Take it away. Speaker 9: I texted her while we were waiting. Speaker 1: All right. Speaker 9: Item A approved meeting minutes for January 28th. 26th. February 4th, 26 and February 11, 26. Item B, APLU approved blue square pizza, LLCs application
for a new 2026 Common Vic license. Item C appoint Kyle Boland. I hope I pronounced that right to the historical commission. Historical commission, not the historic district commission, the historical commission for a term ending June 30th, 2028. Item D, appoint RT Gandhi to the transportation advisory committee and the historic district commission for terms ending on June 30th, 2028. Item E, approve, amended select board policies, designer selection, policy license renewal policy, alcohol rules and regulations, hawkers and peddlers, rules
and regulations, waiver of fees, public and nonprofits naming of public places. Policies, item F, rescind general on-premise, alcohol rules and regulations. And item G approved planted collectives. Application for one day liquor license for plant bingo on February 26th, 2026. Anybody wanna pull anything? Ms. Coughlin? I think you wanna pull the alcohol policy, right? Like to pull Speaker 11: E I'd like to pull agenda item E. Speaker 9: Do you just want the alcohol policy or I'd like to Speaker 11: Pull the whole thing. So pull Speaker 1: The whole thing. Yep.
Speaker 11: I think that's the proper way to do Speaker 9: It. Okay. Anything else to poll? Okay, I move items A through G except E. Speaker 1: Second. All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Sidney? Speaker 9: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Wells flagger. Aye. Ms. Coughlin? Aye. Ye. Okay. Item E, Speaker 11: Mr. Chair, I would move acceptance of the amended select board policies. All of them listed except for the alcohol rules and regulations. Speaker 1: Second. Do I have a second? Second.
Got that out before. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Kalin. Speaker 11: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Pope? Aye. Mr. Sidney? Aye. Ms. Walsh, Leger Aye. And I'm an aye. So 5 0 0 with the exception of alcohol rules and regulations. And do we want to put that on the March 4th agenda? Speaker 11: It depends on whether we need to, I mean I, I'm prepared to move the amended copy. The board has an email indicating what the changes were. All of the changes were for the public typographical
graphical, with the exception of two, which were policy related. One is to incorporate the general on-premise alcohol rules and regulations, which dealt with alcohol policy at venues of for performing arts. Instead of having two separate policies that was incorporated into the, I'm gonna call it the master policy, I think that is section 6.6 on page seven of the posted, a posted, posted amended alcohol policy. And then the other item, which is up to the board, whether you wanna discuss it
or move it to a further agenda, is a change whereby the town has become, become aware that there are licensees who continue, who continue to serve beer. They offer beer in a 22 ounce glass with a 20 ounce pour. When we redid the alcohol policy, we changed it. We basically verbatim copied Wellesley's, which is no more than 16 inches, inches 16 ounces unless it's a bottle of wine. So with the exception of wine, no alcohol can be served on premises in a container
that exceeds 16 ounces. Okay. A couple of businesses didn't really know that had changed and they offer that now. So the question before the board is that change has been incorporated in this policy. We can discuss it, pass it, strike it, move it to another meeting. And I'm prepared to talk about it for those who Speaker 9: Wanna discuss. I'm, I'm okay with passing it and I'm particularly concerned about being sure that that section six two, whichever one it is, gets incorporated. 'cause we just rescinded that other policy. Yeah, well
Speaker 11: We can six five, but we can pass it and pull out this 16 ounces. I mean we don't, what I'm telling you is we have a number of options here. One is to pass it with the 16 ounces. One is to pull that out and pass it. One is to yeah, move it to next week, to next Wednesday. Speaker 9: Yeah. I'm okay with the 20 ounce four. Speaker 1: Yep. As am I speaking with my ServSafe add-on. You're still as a business responsible for monitoring consumption. So, you know, it's, it's on the business, it's their license, it's also on the license or,
or on the server to not facilitate over serving. So I think the difference of four ounces is not going to change that. Speaker 9: Well, and, and I would suggest that perhaps, and this has been my experience, if I get a 20 ounce pour, I'm not gonna order the second one. If I get a 16 ounce pourer, I might order the second one. I'm might end up drinking more alcohol. Speaker 11: Is there, so I looked at this from a business perspective. Framingham, our neighboring town allows pitchers and towers, which we do not. Wellesley is a 16 ounce poorer Wayland policy is silent
as is Needham's. Amherst is a 2022 ounce or 20, yeah. 22 ounce serving. So I, I didn't do an exhaustive study, but enough to look at how would keeping 16 ounces impact our businesses. And I felt like 22 ounce wasn't something that would, Speaker 9: I I don't think it's, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. And we still want to encourage people to have business to do business here in town. You know, Wellesley has a history of being dry and the fact that they allow alcohol at all is amazing.
You know, I don't want to put us, you know, I mean we're already a little bit at odds with the, the pictures and towers with Framingham, but I don't want to make it harder for our businesses to, to stay in business and, and, and sell. I'm okay with the 22 ounce, with the 20 ounce poor. Yeah. Just to Speaker 11: Be clear, it's 20, not 22, 20 not 22. It's a 22 ounce glass with a 20 ounce pour. Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really okay with that. Yeah. Speaker 11: Okay. So Mr. Jacobs. Speaker 1: Mr. Jacobs, Speaker 9: Sorry, Speaker 1: Hold on one second Mr. Jacobs.
Let me go to Ms. Pope first, see if she's got thoughts. Speaker 3: I'm, I'm okay with the 22 ounce glass and the 20 ounce four. And I'm okay with us if passing it in that manner, if we're not able to then pulling it out and passing it separately and, and, and also putting it on the March 4th agenda so that we can be clear. But if we're able to pass it in that form tonight, I'm fine with that. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Ms. Pope. Mr. Jacobs. Speaker 24: Yeah, I, I agree with the, with ev what, what,
what all the members said so far. I just, the, I just wanna make sure that the provision as written actually accomplishes what you guys are talking about because it says no alcoholic beverage with the exception of wine, may be serving any container, the capacity of which is in excess of 20 ounces. So if it's a 20 ounce pour, but it is a 22 ounce container, it would seem that the capacity is 22 ounces, not 20 ounces. So if you're talking about capacity as opposed to the poor, then I think to accomplish what you want to allow,
like it would, wouldn't it have to, wouldn't the capacity limit have to be 22 so that they could use a 22 ounce glass? Speaker 11: Yep. So we could just change that so we could pass it with that provision. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 11: Good catch. Thanks Cody. Speaker 24: Okay. Yeah, no problem. Speaker 1: So moved. Speaker 9: Pass the policy with the new section, the typo fixes and a 22 ounce capacity. Speaker 1: Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Coughlin. In favor say aye. Ms. Coughlin? Aye. Ms. Pope?
Aye. Mr. Sidney? Yep. Ms. Walsh Letterer. Aye. And I'm an aye. So 5 0 0 and Jessie you have the version. Yep. Okay. So you'll Speaker 9: Work and that takes care of the consent Speaker 1: Agenda. Yep, indeed. I wanna make sure you read it. Okay. Yep. Speaker 11: I'll do it and I'll copy, I'll send it. Speaker 1: Fine. Okay. 10 administrator updates. Jamie, do you have any? Thank Speaker 13: You. I'll just be brief so we can get outta here. On your next meeting, you'll hopefully see the appointment for the updated veteran services officer. We have provisional news
that it's been accepted, so that's great. But I'm not gonna say anything more about that 'cause I want to get through the next couple steps. Before the meeting next week, we also made an offer for a new bacon free library director that has been accepted, which is great. Let's get through the next couple steps before I announce the name though, because I wanna make sure that everything else pans out. But that's fantastic because the current bacon free library director is retiring at the end of this month, Amy Sack. And she's been a great asset for the town and all of her time here, she started in the Morse, then moved over to the bacon and
so we are wishing her obviously the best in her retirement. But, and the new person won't be starting until April 1st. Just they're relocating so it's taking 'em a little bit. So we have an interim plan in place for the month of March. So that is ongoing and, and we're excited for the new, for the new person coming on board. We think that person is gonna be a great asset to the team. But again, we have to get through the next couple steps Before I want to announce her name now, you know, it's a her before I mount to their name, Speaker 1: Narrow the Speaker 13: Practice. So let us go through that first and then we can have that person come in to meet the board probably sometime in April.
The VSO in theory, if everything goes well the next couple days, you'll see that on the agenda for next week. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Yeah, great, great work on the recruitment of, of both of them. And I wanted to thank also very Speaker 13: Fortunate. Speaker 1: Yeah. All the people who interviewed were involved in the interview process. Speaker 13: Yeah. And we brought in an independent veteran as well, Alan Grady, to be part of that process as well. Both first round and first and second interview. We wanna make sure we had that veteran voice on the interview panel. Speaker 1: That's a great choice too. Okay. Thank you Mr. Erickson.
Mr. Marsh, do you got anything? Dito, Dito. All right. All right. Select board updates. Do we have anything left to say? Speaker 13: Oh, I do have a brief additional update. Okay, go for it. So right before this meeting I was in on the phone with the DPW director, bill Sprat, executive Director for DPW and Public Works who is messaging through our website with Jay. So this is, I believe it's already on the website, but just for the board's knowledge, the snow removal processes are more heavily hindered this, this snowstorm than past
because of broken machinery. The, the sidewalk plows keep just sort of like breaking down and for obvious, obvious reasons, it's a much heavier snow. It's, it's just the other snow is much lighter even though it took longer to get through, it was lighter. Putting that aside, they've done an amazing job prioritizing locations and, and where to get to. So last night they were out doing as not every pathway and it's not perfect, but a lot of the pathways to the schools sidewalks and, and what and what have you tonight and tomorrow they're gonna be prioritizing
commuter rail areas. It's not gonna be perfect, but it's gonna be what they can get done with the machinery that they do have. Then we're gonna be tackling some Natick Center priority areas. We're not likely just given the, the, the capacity in the storm do what we did in the first one. We do a complete overhaul of Natick Center at this time. We're gonna try to get these areas done with what we have for equipment that's working and then we'll reassess as we go along. So I just want the board to be aware of that. We are reaching out through Heather at the Natick Center Associates to make sure we hit at least the big problem areas in Natick Center as well as staff
and then also through the schools to try to go back to them probably this weekend. But this one's gonna be a long-ish cleanup timeframe before we can get really back to, to, to normal. So as we go through this, you'll see more regular updates on the town's website and through the town social media pages. So please point people to the town's website. We created a winter page, which has been a great central repository for information. Speaker 1: Well, Speaker 10: Just one comment on that. I mean, if there is a way to prioritize the sidewalks on Route 27. I noticed that kids
that were coming home potentially from school, were walking on Route 27. Yeah, it's just not safe. Speaker 13: Yeah, the initial plan is for the first part of Route 27, likely tonight up to probably Washington and then a couple areas and then we'll do the rest of 27 both south as well. South is also, if you recall what the last storm, we actually weren't able to get to South Main Street until the weekend and that was with more equipment than we have now. So it's just a sense of what we're grappling with as a team,
what the team is grappling with really. So we, we are fortunate to have some warmish temperatures coming up. I think it's supposed to be almost 50 on Saturday. On Saturday. So, but then I also heard that there might be a storm on Monday again, so, Speaker 9: Well let's just turn, let's just turn it all into ice then. Speaker 13: Yes, we'll, we'll do Canada approach and turn it D Speaker 1: Right. Pat it down. Speaker 13: So, Speaker 1: Alright. Thank you Mr. Select board updates. You got any? I have one that I, that I meant to do early on, which is a little long. I meant to honor Paul Connolly, who
recently passed away and what I'm going to do is read the Natick Report article that did a great job of summarizing his service to the town. So here goes long time Natick resident Paul Conley recalled from remarkable Civic and Community Service Feb, February 20th, 2026. The passing of Paul Connolly 82 earlier this month has those who knew and recalling the 52 year plus residents extensive con contributions to town government and the wider community.
Connolly served as town moderator from 1989 to 2007. Presiding over town meeting Natick legislative branch. Connolly remained an active precinct six town meeting member even into last year when he could be seen asking questions in his distinctive style about topics like the expansive omnibus budget. He could always be counted on to point out warrant article errors, saving town meeting time in the long run. Con Connelly served on numerous other town bodies and not necessarily the most glamorous ones such
as the charter and bylaw review committee. Current moderator Jeff Alderson said that he's preparing a statement for the opening of spring annual town meeting, which will have a moment of silence and honor Connolly's many contributions to town government. I personally felt a special kinship kinship with Paul for reasons beyond Disservices Town moderator. We were both Air Force officers, both captain and we both had engineering careers. When I first joined town meeting, I learned a lot from Paul about procedures and the importance of getting the details
of mo motions correct. Alderson said he was the person that we could all lean on for his deep knowledge of how town meeting is run and to weigh in with precedent on obscure parliamentary procedure. And it was watching Paul's interaction with Frank Fos during Mr. FO's mod time as moderator. That inspired me to learn more about the role and eventually run for the position myself. Mr. Fos expanded on Connolly's contributions. His service to the community was
but part of his service, which included his love of family, friends and acquaintances. He was an avid supporter of the local Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in Natick as his and my youngest served together. Under his gentle guidance, he also recalled Connelly's support for Benham and Wilson school communities. He was a rare human being with character and impeccable standing. And I, and we will miss him. Carol Gl another resident active in town government in the wider community, said she first met Connolly in the mid
nineties when she interviewed to be on the Natick Finance Committee. He was kind and patient there we're explaining to this newbie more about what FinCon did. We also found similarities in our professional work and enjoyed comparing experiences. Connolly didn't appoint go go after their first meeting, but did take a chance on her in 1997. And that started her involvement in Natick local government. I owe her a great deal and will always remember him as an important part of Natick's recent history. Speaker 9: If, if I may expand on that, certainly Mr.
Connolly first appointed me to the finance committee and frankly it's watching him as moderator that taught me most of what I know about town meeting parliamentary procedure. So you can blame him for what I do at town meeting. Right. But Speaker 1: Kept paying it forward. Speaker 9: It's, he had a very dry humor. Oh, he definitely did. Which I love. And while I didn't agree with him about many things, I always did listen to him and I always respected him
and I will miss him. Speaker 1: Mr. Alderson has hung on for this whole meeting, so I'd like to give him the opportunity to weigh in as well. Speaker 22: Thank you Mr. Chair. I didn't know Paul as well as I wanted to, but it is interesting how much you can learn from someone from the way that they comport themselves in support of their own town government and it and, and, and a lot, I'm kind of preaching the choir now.
A lot of the folks that serve on committees and in town government. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. And I think the way I could say it this way is the town of Natick is what it is today in no small part because of the role that Paul Connolly played behind the scenes getting the work of the town done. And I, and I think the, the rest of the article that you read from the NA report speaks for, for his service. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Dollars. Er Speaker 10: Yes. I just wanna echo all of my colleagues
as well as say that he, Mr. Conley got me involved in my first committee. I was a town meeting member at the time and he talked me into joining the charter and bylaw review committee. This wasn't something that I was looking to do, but he approached me. So he was the one to do the outreach and he got me involved and now look where I am. So thank you. Thank you, Paul. But I also wanna say something that was left out of, not only was he well respected within our town, but he was also a president of the Mass Moderators Association.
So he was recognized as an expert for within the community for his, and I would say exemplary service as a moderator. So it's nice to know that he is probably remembered fondly, not only within town, but within, within our state. Speaker 1: Awesome. Ms. Pope. Speaker 3: Thank you Chairman Evans. I wanna first give condolences to Paul Conley's family. I only had the opportunity to meet him once, but after watching his unique style
as a town meeting member, I used to feel really fortunate to claim that he was a precinct six, six 'cause I live in Precinct six and I told Richard when I saw, I said, he's one of ours. He belongs to us in present six. I always thought his style was so unique and, and actually really cool. And so I'm thankful for his unique fingerprint on Natick, whether I agree with him or not, and just his, his service legacy that he leaves behind. And again, tremendous condolences to his family and thankful for his service. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. Any other thoughts?
All right, thanks everyone. Move to adjourn. Yeah. The magic words Second. All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Pope? Yes. Mr. Sidney. Aye. Aye. Ms. Er Yes. Ms. Coughlin? Yes. And a yes. So thank and it looks like 8 59 59.