Speaker 1: Good evening everybody. It is 6:01 PM on November 12th. I wanted to say October. I'm calling this meeting to order, and I'd like to first in the room to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance to the flag flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Speaker 1: Announcements. Let's first go to Ms. Lyer.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Evans. The Amvets post 79 is giving away turkeys this year. So they're giving up to 200 turkeys to local area veterans and service members. You get a free 15 pound Turkey and a 20 to $20 gift card to a local grocery store. And this program is not need-based, it's just the community's way of saying thank you to those who served. So if you, you don't have to be an AMVETS member either. So it's any act, any veteran or active service member. So if you'd like to claim your Turkey,
the pickup day is Sunday, November 23rd from 10 to 2:00 PM at the Amvets post on 79 Superior Drive. And if you to reserve the Turkey, you can request by mail or phone. The phone is five oh eight four eight eight nine seven eight oh or Turkey four vets, and that's four, the number4@gmail.com. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Slager. I've got a couple. First is a shout out and a thank you to the town of Natick. All the Natick residents who supported the food drives for
those in need, particularly those who were, were receiving SNAP benefits. The need is ongoing. I'm very proud that we live in a community where we've had such great support on this. I'd like to also mention that they still need assistance. So gift cards are always welcome. Grif gift cards, obviously to food establishments or grocery stores, donations of food, as well as checks to organizations. And it's not just, it's, it's a variety
of organizations in town, from churches to places such as the Natick Service Council. So thank you to all who are donating and continue to donate. It's much appreciated. Next is, I just wanted to do a thank you for all the people who were responsible for putting together Veterans Day events, especially to Rosa, to Paul Caru, to the Natick Police Department and Fire Department, the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts, and the Natick Band, DPW and DPW, who set up everything.
Also the soloist who sang the national anthem, who was very impressive. Shout out to the band who, as you know, it was freezing yesterday and they're playing their instruments in under 40 degree temperatures. And my hands were cold just standing there. I can't imagine trying to play an instrument while, while doing that with my, with no gloves on. So shout out to all of them for doing that. Next one is, I think Mr. Erickson, is that
Speaker 4: You want me to go next? Sure. Yes, please. Just briefly, there's, and we just got word today, the confirmation of the timing. Next week there'll be some tree removal work on the earth and dam in South Natick. This is in preparation for the couple different projects down there, including the spillway removal project, as well as the park project, the park improvement projects. The reason why it's happening now is that these are fully permitted through the Conservation Commission with a restriction that they happened in November December to lessen the impact on BA bat populations. So it's critical that we do it now because that project and components of the project gonna be starting as early as
as the summer, spring, summer fall. So this is like the last November, December before the potential start of those of the project that's happening next week in total, five trees are being removed. There's more detail and maps available if you go to the project webpage on the natick ma.org.gov website, and there'll be a blast sent out to everybody who's signed up for updates on that project. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Does anybody else have an announcement? Okay. Okay. Moving on to public speak. Any individual may raise an issue not included on tonight's
agenda, and it'll be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for a debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of OML, the section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any one individual is limited to three minutes. Speaker 5: Mr. Scott Roger Scott Speaker 6: 40 Water Street at the Natick Town meeting on Tuesday, October 28th, select board member Richard Cindy, made an argument opposing the referral
of Article 28 Motion G back to the sponsor. The motion involved the CPC granting $750,000 to Metro West collaborative collaborative development for constructing 32 units at five Auburn Street. During this discussion, a new issue was disclosed. Mr. Sidney was one of the three original select board members who voted in favor of the Metro West proposal alongside Ms. Coughlin and Mr. Evans with two other select board members opposing
the vote ended in a three to two decision supporting the Metros Collaborative. In the town meeting debate on October 28th, Mr. Sidney argued that if the town did not provide Metros Collaborative with $750,000 in CPA funds, the taxpayers of Natick would be responsible for the cleanup at five Auburn Street, which was inaccurate. The actual vote, Mr. Sidney supported the original RFP involved selling the property at five Auburn Street to Metro West Collaborative for $100 as is with this revelation, Mr.
Sidney's vote for the original proposal should be voided and the select board should vote, should revert to a two to two tie terminating the metro SDL. New requests for proposals should be submitted with new submissions showing CPA money will be available to the winning applicant in ensuring all environmental safety and neighborhood friendly requirements. Amit, for fair housing and a just solution for the residents of Auburn Street.
Thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else? Ms. Vickers? Speaker 5: Stand right here. Speaker 7: Good evening, Brinley Vickers Precinct eight. Excuse me while I get the sign ready. I brought a sign holder with me this evening. This is my son Kai. We are here to promote and support the Natick Frosty 5K that supports the cross country and track and field teams through the high school. We're one of the largest boosters clubs. We support one of the largest amount of students we support well over 300 students through all three seasons, fall, cross country, indoor track
and field and outdoor track and field. And this is our biggest fundraiser. One of the things that it does is, for instance, last year we were able to buy new tents with the money raised, which was huge, right? Yeah. I've experienced them myself going to a meet. It's very nice and I just would like to invite everyone to join us for a fun run around the neighborhood, behind the high school run Walk stroll. Everyone is welcome. Please dress in your favorite costume if you want. We'll have raffle prizes. There's great, there's great prizes for the winners in all of the age groups.
We'll have music, we'll have a dj, there's hot chocolate, we'll have loc, local vendors there. Our NHS own acapella group seven's not enough. We'll sing the national anthem when they are fantastic. Totally not to be missed. And in, in collaboration with Natick Spark, with Spark Kindness, which is Kindness Week. It wasn't mentioned in the announcements this week, but I can, I can t that at the same time. This week is Spark Kindness. Kindness Week with a lot of events happening and part of our proceeds from this go
to support Spark Kindness and the efforts that they make to make our town more kind. Sign up at natick xc and track.org or just Google Natick, frosty 5K. Love to see you all join us. I know some of you have in the past. Look forward to having you join us again, and thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. ERs. Is there anyone else who wants to speak in public speak? Is there anyone online, Jamie or someone else? Okay. Alright, let's move on to appointments. First up is Commission on Disability Interviews
and we'll just do them in order of the how there are on the agenda. First up is, I think you go by June Kingsbury. Yep. And I saw your online. Could you be unmuted and tell us a little bit about why you would want, why you want to be on the commission and on disability? Speaker 8: Hi there. Yeah. So I am June Kingsbury, so I would like to be on the commission on disability as I'm very passionate about disability awareness currently.
I will go over at MathWorks and I help lead one of our employee resource groups there where I've made sure to like encourage folks to learn about their rights and seek out accommodations and try to like lower the barrier to entry on that. And my hope is that being on the commission will help me to like spread that awareness to a wider group and really make sure that everybody in like my local area,
it feels like they can talk about disability that they might be experiencing or that their family might be experiencing with less stigma and understand like where they can go to get help if they need it. Speaker 1: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you very much. Questions. Thank you. From the board. Okay. Any comments? Speaker 9: No, just thank you for applying. Speaker 1: Thank you very much for applying. Now let's go on to the second candidate, which actually I'm gonna ask a one question, which is,
have you been to any commission on disability meetings? Speaker 9: Yes, I've been on, on, hold on. I've been on a disability commission and Westboro. Speaker 1: Okay. The next campaign, that's the next candidate. That was mr. That's for Mr. Kingsbury? Yes. Kingsbury. Speaker 8: Yep. Sorry, could you repeat the question one more time? Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Yes. Could you please tell us if you've attended natick com Commission on disability or, or reached out to anyone there? Speaker 8: I have not reached out directly so far.
I've looked through a lot of the meeting agendas going back throughout this year, but I've never attended one. Okay. Live, Speaker 1: That was, that was more a curiosity question than anything else. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank Speaker 1: You. Moving on to James Rogers, if you could also tell us a bit about your background and your interest. Speaker 9: You said the officers right? Could you repeat that? Could you repeat the question? Speaker 1: Yes. Could you tell us, talk a little bit about your interest in
joining the Commission on disability? Speaker 9: I think where, where do I start? Give a minute. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 9: Well, I, I like to, to help people in the, in the, in the community when, when they need it. I like to volunteer for various organizations like the food pantry, et cetera. A bunch of different ones. Hmm. Thank him. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Could could you tell us, you said you were on the Westborough Commissioner on
Speaker 9: Disability? Yes, I was. Speaker 1: You want to talk a little bit about that? Speaker 9: So I was the co-chair. No, it wasn't the co I don't re I don't, I think I, I think I was the, the co-chair or vice, I don't remember what my title was. But you don't have, we, I, I would research, research ideas for that we could bring to the commission, like help bringing awareness for people with disabilities and various things.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Does anybody else on the board have questions? Speaker 9: Typically? Speaker 10: So we've got two, two seats to point and two Speaker 1: Applicants, right? Two applicants were Speaker 10: Two Speaker 1: Seats. Two seats, yes. Yes. Move. Okay. Your mic is off. Oh, Speaker 10: Sorry. I asked the question whether we had two seats and two applicants and I moved to appoint the slate. Second. Second. Speaker 1: Aye. Give that to Linda. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Just so people know why,
why we only have four votes here. Ms. Pope is ill. So she will not be at tonight's meeting, so she is not available remotely either. So we wish her a speedy recovery. Speaker 10: Thank you candidates. We really appreciate your volunteerism. Speaker 1: Thank you. The so select board office will be in contact with you with details on your appointment. So again, thank you for applying, appreciate you being here tonight and talking to us about it. All right, moving on to Open Space
Advisory Committee interviews again. We'll, I'll go in order. This is one seat and two applicants, so just to make people aware of that upfront, which I should have done the last round, but didn't. So first up is Polly Smith, would you please go to the podium, introduce yourself and give us a brief summary of why you'd like to be considered? Speaker 11: Sure. Is the mic on? Speaker 10: Is is the green light on? Speaker 9: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yep. Sounds, yes. My
Speaker 10: Name Speaker 3: Is Polly Smith. Push it Speaker 12: Now. It's on. Okay. My name is Polly Smith. I live here in downtown Natick. I moved here in May and pretty quickly after that I, I met Mary from the committee who was having a table on the Common. And I've gone out and I, I love being outside. I love accessing all the open spaces that you, you all have made available to people. I think it's really important to have places available to people.
I was looking for a way to get involved in, in giving back to the town when I saw that there was an opening. I used to live in Wellesley and I was on the town meeting and had a way of volunteering there. And I moved to Freeport, Maine and I was on the, they, they have lots of land trusts in Maine, I think they do here too. And I was on the Freeport Land Trust Committee and the, particularly the committee that was focused on identifying parcels for public protection. And I just really found that really
invigorating and I appreciated a chance to give back. So when I saw there was opening, I thought I'll give it a try and that's why I applied. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board? Ms. Walsh? Speaker 3: Just one. I see you're also interested in the Council on Aging. I think that's the other, oh, the other one. That's the other candidate. My apologies. That's Speaker 12: All right. Speaker 1: Okay. That happens. Richard, anything? No. Any other questions? That Speaker 3: Was in my question too. Okay. Except for the right candidate. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Thank you
Ms. Smith. And thank you for applying. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is to Laura Forker I think is online. Yeah, there she's, can we get her unmuted and, Speaker 13: Okay. I think I'm unmuted now. Speaker 1: Yes, you are. Speaker 3: Okay, Speaker 1: Ms. Forker, please go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to be on the Open Space Advisory Committee. Speaker 13: Well, I am a 31 year resident of Natick and over the period of time that I've been here, I have seen an awful lot of forested area disappear and either get taken up by housing
or by, in one case, religious institution, the Jehovah's Witness Building in their large parking lot on Bacon Street. And I would, I would like to help preserve what remaining open space we have. What I see is that there's not a lot of it. I am currently a trail steward for the north end of the Eisenmenger Trail and I've been also regular, regularly picking up broken glass on Coolidge Hill for the past year or two, even though I'm not assigned to it, just
because I walk my dog there and I don't want my dog to get cut. So I, I feel that I'm already doing some of the things that are part of the Open Space Advisory Committee's responsibilities. And I would just like to extend that. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Ms. Walker. Questions from the board? Okay. Again, so we have two people applying for one position. So we've, we all each have a ballot that we'll hand to the town administrator will tally them, and then we will reveal our votes at the end of that.
So if you could give me your votes. Speaker 10: I have to say, in my opinion, we have an embarrassment of purchase tonight. I Speaker 1: Do indeed. And given that we're two or four people, the possibility of a a two two deadlock exists. So we may have to go to the tie breaker around I did I predict correctly? Speaker 4: No, you did not. We have three Three yes votes for Polly Smith and one yes. Vote for Laura Forker. So the typically board members say what their vote was and then go forward. Polly Speaker 10: Smith, Speaker 13: Laura Forker,
Speaker 1: Polly Smith, Speaker 10: Polly Smith, and Ms. Forker, please keep volunteering it. This was a pretty hard choice, frankly, very hard choice and I hope that you'll keep volunteering. And I did. I, as Ms. Slager pointed out, you did also apply to the Council on Aging. So I'm sure that'll come up at some point. Speaker 1: As one of my colleagues said, we had, it's really hard when you have two excellent candidates
to distinguish between the two. So to reiterate what Mr. Sidney applied, we will definitely consider you for the Council on Aging. And thank you for your interest and thank you for all your work on the trails. It is much appreciated by all the walkers on all the dog walkers and appreciate it. All right, moving on to discussion and decision. The first item is the water and sewer abatement appeal. You know what, why don't I take the,
do we have VIN online? VIN Victoria? He's not Speaker 5: Here yet. Do you wanna take the Community services Speaker 1: Department? Yes, let's do that. So I, we'll move on to item C, which is the Community service Department updates on field user fees. Speaker 5: Hello everyone Speaker 14: On. Thank you. There you go. Hello everyone. I'm Lauren Moyer, I'm the director of the Recreation and Parks Department. I'm here to speak to the field fee increase requests that we sent you. Per the document you have in front of you. We're looking to increase both the individual youth sports fees as well as the rental reservation fees for all
of the recreation and parks fields. Speaker 1: Questions from the board. Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you wanna describe your, your rationale behind some of these increases? I mean they seem, you know, some of them went up a lot, some of them went up a little. Do you wanna just go through these and and Yep. Give us what you were thinking? Sure. Speaker 14: Yeah. So we, this is the first time that field fees have been brought to the board since about 10 years ago. We've been operating on the same fee schedule for 10 years. Our goal is to kind of disperse the need for an increase in fees across a variety of different rentals.
Our youth sports groups are a majority of our rentals and we don't want the fees to hit the kids in Natick as hard. So we're looking for a five to $7, sorry, five to $2 increase depending if you're a grass field player or a turf field player. And then our hourly reservation fees are going up higher because we wanna make sure that we're kind of fairly sharing that reservation need. Speaker 3: Alright. So did you get input from anyone, let's say, you know, like some of the sports teams or the Recreation and Parks Commission or how did, how did, what was the
thought process be behind how these were set? Speaker 14: Sure, yes. So we talked to our youth sports groups, we talked to the Recreation and Parks Commission and got their blessing a couple months ago. And as well, we compared these fees to surrounding areas to Natick and tried to make sure that we were kind of meeting the market value. Speaker 3: Were there any objections from anyone particularly, let's say the youth groups and that the participant fee is doubling? Did you get any pushback from any of these organizations that said, you know, this seems reasonable or it's unaffordable, or what was the reaction?
Speaker 14: Yeah, understood the need for an increase after 10 years of not, however they would, did, you know, encourage us to think closely about in like passing along fee increases just to the, you know, Natick field user. They asked us to be mindful of the fact that these fees will likely just get passed along to the eSports players and to keep them as low as we could. Speaker 3: Alright, thank you Speaker 10: Sidney. Yeah, I I'm curious why grass is so much less expensive than turf. Speaker 14: Yep. Yeah, so we utilize our turf fee as a way
to help fund the maintenance and repair of turf fields through for the rec department. So the fees that we could gather for the turf field specifically, we'll get paid out for the replacement of the turf field. So for context, we've had 10 years of taking in turf field fees that we will now use to help fund the replacement of the coal turf coming soon. Speaker 10: Well, it's my understanding, and I could be wrong and Mr. Erickson will correct me if I am, but it's my understanding that the grass fee, the grass fields need a lot more regular maintenance than the turf fields.
And while I could see wanting to have, you know, we have fewer turf fields, you'd want to restrict, have people not use them if, if they have a less expensive option. But also I think the maintenance of grass is something that the, that also should be paid for. And so that's why I was wondering why it was less expensive. 'cause I think it's actually over time right now, more expensive to maintain the grass, not necessarily replace it. That's all different question. Speaker 14: Yes. Yeah. And we, we support the funding of maintenance and painting, but it is mostly in our land facilities,
natural resources division to maintain our grass fields. Whereas the turf field, the recreation department kind of stewards the replacement and repair of, Speaker 4: I also would want to confirm the numbers, but replacing a turf field, regular maintenance on a grass field is likely, yes, on an annualized basis, might be a little bit more costly because the turf field you put in, then you kind of, you maintain it, but you, you don't have to do as much to it. However, just to replace a turf field after 10 years is minimum a million dollars, if not more. Plus there's usually anywhere from three to seven years depending on usage, you have to do some level
of, of maintenance on that field, which includes like adding additional the, the rubber pellets that are always the part of it. So even though it might, might be on a annual basis, less maintenance, the cost of the maintenance and just that one time cost or two times costs over the course of the life of the project leads it to be a, a, a costlier endeavor. And obviously the, the budgeting as well, plus the turf fields tend to get more heavily used than the grass fields because they can be maximized in their usage, which then leads to just more time that,
that staff would need to be spending at those fields to, to monitor and main and make sure the youth groups are picking up after themselves, picking up trash, picking up all different types of things. And, and also just policing the use of the fields as well. So it's a, it's a little bit of, of a tiered system in part because of, of some of those factors. Okay. Speaker 10: Well that answers my question. Thank you. I just, I was curious about that. Speaker 1: I just had a, a follow up comment based on what Mr. Erickson just said. For the turf fields, given that it's per player
and there are more events that, that are on our turf fields than other fields. So for example, the soccer tournaments that we have put more of a stress on that and I assume that we get fees from participants in those events that go towards the maintenance of those fields. Is that a true statement? Yes, Speaker 14: That's Speaker 1: Correct. Okay. I Ms. Walser, Speaker 3: So I noticed that you said that the, the fees proposed will be in the middle range of
what other municipalities are charging. Now, do they also charge the same way? I noticed, let's say for example for the, the rental for the grass and turf fields we used to charge per day and now we're charging per hour. Is the per hour the normal way that it's charged? Yes. Okay. Speaker 14: So, so some of the examples I have with me are the towns of Wayland, Hopton, Watertown, and Holliston. They all bill per hour and they all bill a different rate for grass and a, like a higher rate for turf. Speaker 3: So that's common. And is it normally like the same
kind of, I know Mr. Sidney was curious about the differential. Is that kind of differential also seen in terms of the grass versus turf? Yes. Speaker 14: So Speaker 3: Like give Wayland for an example. Yeah, Speaker 14: So the, I'll give you Wayland for example. So Natick residents pay 30 per hour on grass and 60 per hour on turf. And then non-residents would pay 60 hour per hour on grass and 150 hour per hour on turf. Speaker 4: That's an, that's the whaling example. Speaker 14: That's the Wayland rec apartment. Yeah, Speaker 4: I know from experience because they live in Holliston that in some cases some communities also put some
of the maintenance burden on the youth groups. Like baseball groups would have to do some of the baseball field maintenance and the like, which we largely pick up here in our cost or fees. Not all of it. There are like our, I know our youth baseball does some work at Honeywell Fields, for example and some other fields, but I, I think it every town's my point there is every town's a little bit different on also how they interact with youth groups and what is being picked up by the town versus the group as well. Speaker 3: Yeah. Do do we have anything special with Natick soccer given, you know, how they contributed to the field at Cole? Speaker 4: Yes, there is definitely a special
Speaker 3: So are they included in this or do, are they exempt? They are included in this. They're Speaker 4: Included, yeah. Part of it was this, I believe the, there was a special arrangement earlier on in the opening of the coal field, meaning I think there was some time when they, they were not required to pay some fees because they helped fund it, but now they're paying the fees and they also helped put on the soccer tournament. So we do a lot of special work with them on, on that coordination and, and work as well. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: Any other questions? Okay. Do I have a motion approval Mr. Sidney?
Do I have a seconder second. Okay, Ms. Coughlin, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you for your thorough research and answers to our questions. Speaker 4: Mr. Chair, can I just do a brief, brief update on community services while Angela is here? And this shouldn't incite a question. I just wanted to make sure the board was aware and I use this as the time to do that, but completely unrelated to rec parks, the, as you may recall, the veteran service officer is gonna be winding down his time, I suppose is a,
is a, a fair way to say it. He's, his term as his appointment term of this board is up in March. I just wanted the board and the public to be aware that we are working closely with him and with the team on his transition. He's been a great service for the community for the last 18 years. 18, yeah. I was in the teens 18 years and we wanna make sure that there's as much of a celebratory smooth transition within as possible, but we are obviously need to think ahead and so we're gonna be likely posting that position to help it get filled in the coming month or two, likely in December is what we're targeting. Maybe even January, but likely December
because it is a specialized position, it does require the person per state law to be a, a vet, not not a animal vet, but an actual like vet veteran. And so we know that that's gonna take a little bit of time and I just want the board to be aware of that. 'cause you'll see it posted in the public. If there's anybody watching who is a vet who's interested or knows somebody who's a vet who's interested in giving back to the, to the vet community, we'd love to see the resume Speaker 3: Bruce Speaker 4: Course. We can make that as an announcement at a future meeting as well. Sure. It was more just, just Speaker 3: A, just a, a, a question. I know that some communities share their veteran services.
Is this something that we're contemplating or? No. Speaker 4: So when we already do this, so we share with Dover in order to make it a little bit more broader or bigger, it's what's called a regional. And right now we'd like to see what we get for candidates. We're pretty large town when it comes to vet populations, so we're trying to see what we get for candidates. But we have, there is a, a regional that includes a number of communities near us like Wellesley, Westwood, and some others need them that we have, talk with them about how that has worked for them. And so we are engaged in those conversations.
But for right now, we do think that there's enough of a population in Natick that we could just warrant our own. But yes, we are looking at that regional approach as well. It does require approval though, from the state in order to do that. Speaker 10: And, and I wanna point out, something I learned last year at one of the various veteran presentations is that per capita Natick has sent more soldiers to World War II and Vietnam than any other community in the country per capita for the size of the community, our, our percentage of
veterans compared to every other community is higher. Speaker 1: I remember hearing that. Speaker 10: Hmm. It's just, it's an interesting statistic. Statistic. Speaker 1: It's an anomaly. Yeah. Thank you Rich. Good question. Yeah. Yeah, that was Okay. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Do, do we have, do you want to go to the water and sewer abatement? Speaker 4: It does look like we have a Christie Feeney online, which is the same last name as Michael Feeney. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay, let's go on to that. And if you could unmute Christie.
Speaker 15: Hi. Yes. My husband Mike is actually joining the Zoom right now. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 15: Too. So he will just be on, in just one minute. Speaker 1: Okay. We can take a brief pause here. Speaker 15: Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Before you get ready, let us know when you're ready to go. Speaker 4: Would you like to take care of D? Speaker 1: Yes. Meanwhile, we'll, we'll take care of item D, which is the continued hearing of gate speed's Chop house, which we will continue since they're not present here. Continue that to the 19th
and we don't have to take a vote on that. So it is now hereby move to the 19th, which is our next meeting. Great. Okay. Are we all set? Christie, you ready to go? Speaker 4: I see Mike on Speaker 1: And hi all. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for joining us. Can you please, you know, we, we got all the information on your appeal through the deputy town administrator. Could you tell us a little bit about the background of it and why you're seeking an abatement?
Speaker 16: Sure, yeah, thanks and thanks so much for, for the opportunity to, to, to come to discuss the issue. So I, I received my, I guess that would be my Q3 water bill back in early October. And, and was somewhat surprised and shocked to see when I opened it up that I had incurred a $4,000 worth of usage fees for the period of June through September. I had expected it to be slightly elevated relative to what I usually see on a quarterly basis. I had planted some new grass and had used it somewhat sparingly over the course of the summer on some of that new grass.
But nonetheless, not to that extent. I immediately addressed the issue, turned off the irrigation, and then called my services company the next day cross services group who immediately came out and detected that in a portion of my yard off my driveway. I had incurred a small leak in what is a relatively new system. The system was installed in 2020 and as a result of that, a small piece of plastic on one of the valves had not been properly, had not been functioning properly.
And as a result of that, I've been leaking what it appeared to be somewhere in the neighborhood of around 2000 plus gallons of water per day into a bed of mulch off the side of my yard. I, the cross was able to address the issue almost immediately. I was able to register and sign up for the program. And I, I can't recall the name exactly, but the program that allows me to electronically track and monitor my water usage that I had not been previously aware of. And so the issue's been resolved, but not until obviously incurring almost $4,000 in charges for a a three month period.
And so I, I followed the abatement procedure as laid out in the town policies that abatement was denied as a result of it being a function of an irrigation system. And the opportunity I was given here was to appeal that to the abatement, to the select board here. And I guess, you know, certainly recognize the, the criteria there. I guess what, what I would acknowledge I think here is that the, my understanding is that there's some differentiation in terms of where the water leaks, whether it be into the sewer or directly into the ground. In this case it was entirely back into the grounds, not into the sewer.
The issue is remediated almost instantaneously. And so I guess my ask here is that just given sort of the, the excessiveness of that bill and, and it being somewhat of a, of a freak occurrence, if there'd be any even partial abatement that would be afforded for this, this issue. Speaker 1: Okay. Questions the board, Speaker 10: Mr. City? No, a a comment actually, just again, this is as much for you as for the public. Our typical process, and we'll go through it in a little while, is that we, if we issue an abatement, it's typically to reduce the cost
of the water use to the lowest tier. We do request that everybody pay for the water that flows, but because of typically a leak like this leads to higher usage, that gets charged more. Our typical process is to reduce it to the, reduce the cost to the lowest tier. I just wanted to make that clear in our, as we go into our discussion so that you don't come back confused, Speaker 17: Mr. Chair. Go ahead. Speaker 3: Alright. Just to further add to Mr. Sidney's comments, even though this water did not go
through the sewer system, that part is not monitored and the town has to pay for that water to the MWRA. So if it's going into your system, we assume that you're using sewer Speaker 10: Yeah. Except there's no sewer. It's an irrigation bill. Speaker 3: Right, but it's not an irrigation meter, right? Yeah, Speaker 10: It's an irrigation. Yes, Speaker 3: It was. It's an irrigation meter. Speaker 10: Yes. So there's no sewer charges on this. Oh, Speaker 3: Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. I did not realize it was an irrigation meter. Yeah, Speaker 4: It's an irrigation meter. Okay. Speaker 3: So you're not paying for that anyway, so it doesn't matter. You Speaker 10: Just Speaker 3: Don't, you don't get charged for that. Speaker 10: Good, Speaker 4: Good point either way. Good point.
Speaker 1: There's a hundred percent accurate statement Ms. Kaufman. Speaker 17: I would like the board to consider, not at this time, but on a future agenda to amend the water and sewer abatement appeal to allow for these ma irrigation matters to be handled by the deputy town administrator. Because right now there's an exception to our policy, so we wouldn't even have to hear this. Speaker 1: Could you elaborate a little more on that? Speaker 17: Sure. So our, our current policy allows the, so if there's, if there's a water and sewer abatement appeal filed and there's certain conditions met,
the deputy town administrator is able to adjudicate those without it coming before the board. Now we don't see every single appeal. So the, the exception to our current policy is if it's an irrigation matter among Speaker 4: Other, among other Speaker 17: Examples. Among other examples. And so given that I'd like this board to consider amending that so that we don't have to hear these and this is something the deputy town administrator can take care of, assuming that everything else, all the other things are met, all the other things are met. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you for the elaboration. Speaker 10: So I'd like to move that we have paid,
Speaker 1: Let me just, just to explain a little bit further on how the, how it's gonna be calculated. So what we do is we do a look back on the same period, go do a look back on the average of the highest, the highest use of the prior three quarters. So the same period of time over the, the last three years, hopefully if we, if we have them for a given cuts resident. And that average is 106 units, the irrigation units
as billed is 261 units. And so what we do is calculate what it would cost for the excess 155 units at the lowest tier, and then we make an adjustment, a suggested adjusted abatement for that. So that's how it's calculated. So now I will yeah. Speaker 10: Refer to you. So I, I move, we issue an abatement for the amount of $1,602 and 70 cents, 261 units billed, which resulted in the charge that you saw
of $3,779 and 5 cents. The highest unit, highest use of the prior three quarters was 106, which is $1,446 and 30 cents. The excess usage was 155 units, which, if it was charged at the lowest tier would be $730 and 5 cents, resulting in a final bill of 2000 176 35, which results in an abatement of $1,602 and 70 cents. Speaker 1: Okay. Second. Thank you Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Walsh. Liar. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.
Aye. War zero. Zero. Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you guys. Speaker 1: Thank Mr. Feeney. And thank you so much for, for people out there and, and Linda help me out with this to, to make sure that your irrigation systems are ready for winter. Now would be a really good time if you haven't done so already to winterize it. So, Linda, can you, Speaker 3: Yeah, so we had ours done this week and don't be like me, which in previous years I waited too late to get them done. To turn the water off and explosion.
Oh no. Oh yes. Luckily we were home and we're able to shut the water off in time. So yes, it's, this week is probably the latest because it's getting too cold at night. So if you haven't already turned off your outside water, please do so. Speaker 1: Do so and, and plead the system, I assume. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, can we move on to the fountain on the common discussion? We have our, I don't see Vincent here yet. Speaker 17: It's on the agenda for seven o'clock. We're running a little early. Wow. We're a lot early. We could do the consent agenda. Yep. Speaker 1: Okay. Never thought I'd have that problem.
Ready for me? Yes, please. Speaker 10: Okay. In Ms. Pope's absence, I'm acting as sort of temp clerk consent agenda item A approve request to occupy public wave for frosty 5K. Item B, approve a meeting minutes for October 21st and October 29th, 2025. Item C, approve Rushford and sun's brewhouse application for a farmer's market permit. Anybody wanna pull anything? Speaker 3: Item C, Speaker 10: Pull item C. Anybody else? Okay, I move positive action on items A and B. Speaker 1: I'll second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.
Aye. Wal on item C. Speaker 3: On item CI just wanna make sure that this is not gonna cause a problem. But on the initial application and the approval by MDAR, the Department of Agricultural Resources, it said the, the, there's a typo. So it says occurring Saturdays from November 1st through instead of April 25th, 2026. It says 2025. So I don't know if the applicant needs to go back
and get that amended because it's incorrect. So that's why I'm pulling it. You know, I really don't know. I mean we can approve it assuming that it should be 2026, not 2025, but their approval from MDAR is probably not valid. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 10: I would think we should approve it anyway and save Speaker 3: No, we can, but I think what we should do then is have someone like Mr. Walsh contact Speaker 4: Them. Yeah. You have it confirmed. Yeah. Speaker 3: To make sure that this, you know, that their paperwork is all in order. Speaker 4: I I can't answer that right here, right now. But we can have Billy do that tomorrow Yeah.
For the next day. But if the board is comfortable doing a Speaker 3: Yes, Speaker 4: An approval, assuming the 26th date 2026 date Speaker 3: Is corrected. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. So motion you're gonna Sure. Speaker 3: Move approval of the Rushford and Suns brewhouse application for Farmers market permit. Also, assuming that they get that the date corrected to 2026. Speaker 1: Okay. Second by Mr. Sidney. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Speaker 4: Alright. Speaker 10: Why we take a little recess? Speaker 1: Take a recess to, Speaker 4: Can I do town administrator updates real quick? Speaker 1: Well, yes you Speaker 4: Can. Okay.
Speaker 1: Asked So nicely Speaker 4: Two, two brief things. One is just regarding a requested installation for the common during the holiday season. And, and this was something that you may recall the board updated the town common use policy back in, I think you finally, well it's been a, I think it was back in September, August, September timeframe and we've been working to implement it and this is a first of like more of an installation rather than an event. So not for discussion tonight. We only just got the application on Monday. So we're, it wasn't in time for the agenda,
but I just wanna put on the board's radar that we might be back in front of the board to, to ask how you want to in the future handle these. We're gonna work to try to process it for this upcoming holiday season, but it does open a lot of questions when, when looking at these types of requests during a holiday season or any other time where it's an actual physical thing that sits in the common for like a month. And that's different than an event that happens over the course of an hour or an afternoon or a day or so. It just, they're very different. And so it wasn't totally contemplated, at least we couldn't see it in the, in the common policy,
how it was contemplated. So just wanna put that on the radar of the board and if you have any initial questions let me know. But we'll likely one, review it with CAR to see what might be a recommended approach but then to get some direction from the board moving forward. And this is related to some of the holiday installations that we have from non town staff doing things. Speaker 3: So is it, obviously this hasn't come up since we've, we've updated policy. Correct. So is this typically just this time of year Speaker 4: Typically yes. But I wanna look at it not just this time
of year just in case there's something else that gets requested during other times of years. Like other seasons. Whether that's, whether that's a, a season like the four that we have or other seasons like town meeting or other political seasons or or things like that. So in the past when we looked at this, the, these obviously have been more standard in the last several X numbers of years, but with the updated policy I just wanna make sure we're not missing something and I wanna make sure the board is aware of it 'cause of this after this year, I think this year we need to give the sort of cautionary approval saying we need
to review this and, and there might be some adjustments moving forward. Speaker 17: Mr. Erickson do, is there already established a written procedure by which applications for use of the common Speaker 4: Are approved? We are testing it in beta form through the open gov gov. Open gov. Okay. So Billy is working with the rec and parks department on that right now actually Lauren. And our intent is to make it live in the new year, correct. January timeframe. So we have been taking basically what we had as procedures less the boards
and committees like the select board. We already had those largely established internally and in fact they already are working in OpenGov when it comes to some of our licenses and requests for occupying public ways for example. And we're shifting that to see how it works for these types of requests for the common And we actually might further expand that to request for use of really any town property because it's non-school town property 'cause they're really following the same review by the same staff, the same expectations with regards to insurances and and application deadlines and things like that. So we're testing that right now in
beta form through OpenGov. Speaker 17: So would, would that include use of the Cole Center for say the soccer tournament in October Speaker 4: That would likely still go through the rec and parks division because things that are more regular users, like the soccer teams, just like what you voted today, those would still likely go through the, these are more for the use of the common but also things like a onetime or, or maybe a couple time use of the South Natick parks or JJ Lane for a onetime thing. Sometimes we get these from like movie production companies. Sure. They might be asking for filming
the more regular items would still go through likely the same process through the rec and parks for example. For, for that example. Speaker 17: Thank you. Speaker 4: Yeah, we're trying to simplify it for all users but we all do but we have an opportunity here to, to make it more streamlined for staff but also for the applicants themselves. Speaker 17: Thank you. Awesome. Speaker 4: Next brief update just to give the board a heads up. I think at the last meeting we talked briefly about the needs during this time of year and the last meeting was more in relation to some of the things that was also happening at the federal level
just with regards to folks in need and some of our non-profits in town that provide access to food services. And I just wanted the board to be aware we are working on a potential pilot program with town staff to see about how we can encourage volunteerism within town staff. Obviously it's all very much volunteer based but we're, we're looking at doing that. I just wanted the board to be aware of that. We're looking at maybe even we're engaging with a place to turn and Native Service Council to see what works
for them for like daytime, maybe like an hour or two for town staff to go over and support the work that they're doing this time of year. So we're gonna try it for this holiday season, see how it goes and I'll report back to the board to see how successful it was. Speaker 17: Thank you. Speaker 4: Really just trying to get us to get back to the native community. Speaker 1: That's awesome. Thank you. Speaker 18: Can we take a quick recess Speaker 1: Please? Yes, please. So we'll be back and five minutes. Sound good? We're back. Thank you very much for your patience. What I'd like to do is just reiterate
'cause I understand that we have a representative of Gatsby's here that we have continued our hear hearing on them to our next meeting, which is November 19th. So if you are here just for that aspect of it, it will be on the agenda for the 19th of November. So our next item is to talk about the fountain on the common discussion and I welcome Vincent and Andy to the podium.
Thank you for being here. Speaker 19: Good evening everybody. I'm Vincent Vitoria from Natick, also co-chair of Natick's Historical Commission and overall history nut about Natick joined by Andy Meyer. Do you wanna need to introduce yourself or not Speaker 20: Or Andy Meyer? I'm here just as a private citizen. I'm on the planning board, but this is just a private personal interest that I have. Thanks Speaker 19: Andy. So you might remember that I was here about a year ago talking about the discovery of this, this historic fountain that used to once be on Tex common. And it was a very popular spot to, to catch a drink
anywhere from 1911 up until 1979 when it was hit by a car badly damaged and thought lost. But somebody brought to my attention that the, the most ornate piece of this fountain had been, had been saved actually in 1979 by a DPW worker, had been in his yard for a long time and if, if about 10, 12 years ago was given to a retired Natick police officer who still has it in their backyard. So I, I went to take a look and, and found it and saw the beauty of it and thought it'd be kind of neat to have this little piece of nat history back where it came from. This fountain was given in 1911 by the women of Natick. A bunch of women's groups helped fund this.
It was led by a woman named Olive Augusta Cheney, who was very popular at that time, a major Natick suffragette and very popular in the, and very involved in the Temperance Movement. Her thought was that having a fountain on the town common would provide a source of clean drinking water and a nice alternative to drinking alcohol, which is one of the reasons why they wanted to have this fountain right here in the, in the center of town. So there it was for a long time, 1979 comes, gets hit as I mentioned and it's, and it's gone. But now we have a chance to, to bring it back and we feel that there's an opportunity here to bring something back that's both historically interesting
but also beautiful and and useful by bringing back this fountain. I think we have a nice opportunity to both honor the women of NATA who gave it, but also provide something that will be beautiful for the town and provide a source of water on the town common like we had for well over a hundred years. We had fountains even before this one in the Danek Town Center area. So our hope is to work with Jeff cio, who I don't know if he was able to join on Zoom is Oh, so Hi Jeff, you're on Zoom. So Jeff is a premier person in the, in the business of sculpture restoration. He's done fountains
before, including the one that graces the green in Hopkinson on, on their town common. He did the Tom Brady statue at Gillette Stadium recently for the Kraft family and for the New England Patriots. Very skilled in doing things like this. And what's great is that he's a Natick resident, still lives in Natick, grew up here, drank from this fountain. It was still there up until 1979. So kind of a, he's got a connection to this fountain as well. So our hope is to get approval from this board to move forward with a plan to try to bring this fountain back to the town. Common. The goal would be to use c hopefully apply for CPA funds to, to pay for it.
And it would be really nice to to, to bring it back. We have some cost estimates. We met with Bill Sprout who's here. We met with our goodine to talk about potential locations on the common where it could go that would be close to a water source away from trees and tree roots. And hopefully not in the way of activities on the common. So if you all had a chance to read through the, the short document that we submitted, you probably have a good idea of already some of these things that I'm, that I'm talking about. So our hope is, if you approve, is to try to finalize the location for this, what type of a fountain it would be. There's less of a cost if it's a, if it's,
if it's modified a bit, but still historically accurate to have something that would be a bottle refilling service or if we want to go a little bit more costly route to have it be a drinking fountain as it once was, we could explore that route as well. So we do have a couple of options in play that we could use your guidance on also, but we'd just love to answer any questions you might have and hopefully gain your support for this to bring back something that again would be a great honor to the women of NATA who gave it something beautiful for our Town Common and something useful. We have a lot of runners who've expressed interest in having a source of water outside on the town. Common I think would be used by a lot of people
and appreciated by a lot of people. So I hope you can support this for us. Can I a few more questions? Yeah. And do you wanna go on? Speaker 20: Thanks. So we, we actually were here last September, so it's been more than a year. And we promised that we would do some due diligence on our side to try to get some answers about what would make something like this possible. So we have been in touch with the Board of Health and we reviewed the fact that there are drinking fountains at Navy Field, they're at the dog park, they offer a variety of outlets
for bottle filling and for drinking. And I reviewed with the director of the Board of Health, Mr. Boudreaux, that those do not have sewer hookups. And, and as he saw this as a bottle filling station, he, his opinion was it would not require a sewer hook hookup. That's a big deal. So that, that's an important thing to learn. We learned that it is possible to have an a DA location. This has to be a DA accessible and that is entirely possible. We are not advocating at this point for one particular location. We met with Bill Sprat and Art Goodine. We looked at a map.
I think it's safe to say that there are viable locations available and that is part of the process going forward. As Vincent me mentioned, we have a a, a nationally famous sculptor who's worked in the town, lives in the town and is interested in this. The annual maintenance is gonna be similar to what is at the, the drinking fountains at the dog park, which is essentially turn it on, turn it off. The funding that we're thinking of is not from town funds, which is an important point to make, but CPA would be a, a very good place to start
because it checks off two boxes. It would be open space and I think it would be historic preservation. As Vincent mentioned, we do have support from Natick Running Club. We also have support from Natick Center Associates. And I'd say that probably we're at the point where as volunteers we can go about as far as we can go until we have a board kind of help us tilt the scale from Should we do it to, yeah, let's try to, you know, should this happen to, let's make this happen. Volunteers can only go so far. So we are, we, we, we have a proposal that is,
I think makes it clear that this is possible. And I think that is about as far as we can go until a board such as yourself says, yeah, let's support this and, and go further and, and see if we can make this happen. I think it's important to point out that this is a truly feel good project. Hmm. You, you would have a very interesting historic item going back on the town. Common in, in my hope, in my view, it would be functional. If you think about how many people are on that town, common who'd be able to fill a water bottle. I think it'd be a very, very nice thing to be able to offer.
And frankly, you know, it's not a damn conversation or a five Auburn Street or an override. This is a, this is a win-win feel good. And so essentially we are looking for you, your support to kind of tilt it from, let's consider it, to let, let's try to make this happen. So that's where we are tonight. And we met with the chair and we met with the town administrator to kind of review this. And we wanted to definitely come forward with some questions, to some answers to questions we did not have last September,
but I, I feel that we have them now. So thank you. Thanks, Speaker 1: Ian. Thank you both for your comments. Start with Ms. Coughlin. I saw you first. Hold on one second, Catherine. I just wanted to give Jeff the opportunity since he's here and paying close attention to, to comment on the, the, the project itself and how he sees it and any obstacles or or observations that he has on the project. Speaker 21: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
I apologize for the background. I'm in Vermont right now working on a project, so it's great to be here. I I don't see any, I think it's what was just spoken. It's, it's, it's, it's truly a feel good project. I've, I was born and raised in Natick and I drank from that fountain. And I think it would be a wonderful addition to our history, you to bring our history back alive. And my son, you know, grew up around that fountain, not
around the fountain, but around the commons. And, you know, would've gladly filled up a, a drinking bottle if, if it were accessible. And for me, as someone that's 50 going on 54 now, that would've been great. It would be great for him to be able to, you know, take his bicycle over to that fountain and, and, and fill a water bottle up. It's like the gentleman just said. It's, it's, I think the amount of time and money and resources that we would allocate toward do, towards,
towards preserving and resurrecting something like this would be really great. I mean, I'm, I'm great friends with Eddie Arena. He's on the, he's on the police force. I grew up with him. He drank from that fountain, Nick Ferry, who was a long time fireman. So it is, it, it really is in fact a feelgood, you know, historic piece of our history that would be ashamed to let go of. Okay. Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jeff, Ms. Kaufman. Speaker 17: So asking for the select board support in this, would the select board be the sponsor of the CPC
or application, or would it be a citizens' petition with the, with the support of the board? Speaker 19: So my own thought would be a citizens' petition. And I dunno if you had any other thoughts, Andy, but that's what I was thinking. Otherwise, Natick Center Associates could potentially be the one that does since that they've endorsed us or the Natick Historical Commission. I've never gone through a CPA funding process before, so I apologize if I don't know all the answers. Speaker 17: Oh no, that's quite all right. But I, I'm just trying to understand Mr. Myers, this is us putting our imprimatur and saying as a board we support this and that we'll lend our, what
Speaker 20: I, I felt that approaching you guys and asking you to do more in general is probably not the best idea. I know how busy you are. I know how many requests you get of people standing at this podium. So I would be very glad if we as citizens could put forward a citizens' petition maybe with Natick Center Associates, who knows, maybe we can get parks and rec on, I mean, maybe we can get various boards to, to, to offer letters of support, that kind of thing. But we're kind of prepared to do the heavy lifting and not necessarily tell you, ask you guys to make it happen. So obvious, you know, we just went through one round of the,
of the, the way these were funded. And so I think we have a better sense of what the process is. It was a good process, you know, it, it, there was a lot of public input and ultimately I believe they all passed town meeting. So I think there's a good process to follow and we learned a lot from watching it. So I think we can probably replicate it, get the information, the budgeting, all that we need to do without sort of just throwing it at you and asking you to do it for us. So if you felt that, boy, we'd love this idea and we want this to be a, a select board presentation or a sponsorship, obviously there'd be no OB objection to
that, but I didn't really want to ask you guys to do that 'cause I think you have enough on your agendas. So if you felt like it was mission critical that you support it, great. If you felt like, look, we just wanna say that we support it, the idea in, in general and we want you to run with it, that's enough for us. 'cause I think that would allow us to, to kind of go forward. So we're not really specifically asking you to take on more work. Speaker 17: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was just curious, trying to get an understanding of what the ask is. The second question I had, and this is more, it belies my ignorance of how plumbing works.
So what is the difference functionally with a fountain that fills water bottles or one that one can drink from, and why would one need a sewer connection and one would not? Speaker 1: I I am going to ask Mr. Raat. I was gonna say to do that. I I have been remiss in not asking him to come up before we did our questions. So, Speaker 17: Oh, Speaker 1: If, if Mr. Ra, you could answer that question specifically, but also comment on the overall work that you've been doing with Mr. Meyer and Mr. Vito. Sure. Speaker 22: So to answer the specific question
regarding what's the difference between a drinking fountain and a water fill station, there are health code re regulations regarding the drinking fountain. So it has to be covered, it has to have a sewer source. So you're introducing a bodily function. If you're drinking, you could have spittle or whatever come out and it needs to go down a sewer drain, but all of that has to be covered. So that's some of the research that we did with the Board of Health, with the gentleman here trying to, to figure out
what is the right mix of this. So if it's a water fill station, water just spills over just like a, a sprinkler or something like that and it doesn't need the sewer component. Speaker 17: That's very helpful, thank you. Speaker 22: And then specifically, so we did, we did start this research, our art and I met on site a couple times, looked at some of the intricacies. The biggest challenge is the water piece. You know, when, when we first came into this it was, all right, we're gonna put a fountain back on. Is it functional, is it not functional? The water and sewer piece now, just the water piece was,
there really is only one water main connection from the street to the park. And that's on the northwest corner of the, of the park. And that's where the water comes in for the irrigation system. So keeping to that area would limit, and the water pipes are fairly deep in the road, so it's a pretty big excavation to do something like that. So that was probably the main concern. The other concern is, look, the common is a very busy site. We have natick days, farmer's markets, the marathon,
all sorts of things happening there. So its location is, is fairly important because it's not a move movable object. So we need flexibility on setups for the park. So that's probably one of the bigger concerns we started with. Like, all right, where's this thing going and how are we gonna manage it? So I think from, from my take, I think we just need to be cautious of where we put it. And I wouldn't wanna limit to, this has to go on the common, there are areas around the common, like town halls,
grass area, or some other place proximate that we should also be considering too. I just, I wouldn't wanna lock us into one space as we just do a little research, think about a DA compliance and, and all of the other things that, that come up when we put a fixture, a public fixture on town property. Speaker 1: Thank you. Just a follow up on that, Mr. Sprat, it's, it, it would be obviously on, on town property in proximity to The common is that Speaker 22: Those are the areas that we've researched, for example, across the street at the library area, town hall,
and the common is where we've done most of our work. Town Hall is another area to consider. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: I think the, the big driver as Bill mentioned though, is that access to water source because, and, and just the coordination with all the other competing uses and users of the really any of these spaces, but primarily the common, as noted, it, it, it, assuming this moves forward, this would be a, this would be akin to like another monument or another permanent, semi-permanent,
really fully permanent installation. Unless it gets hit by another car sometime soon, which hopefully would not happen. But that just leads to the need to be extremely, extremely thoughtful with where it goes. 'cause once you put it there, Speaker 1: It's staying Speaker 4: Not moving. I mean, it took 78 years for the first one to get to get hit by a car. Hopefully it'll be another 78 years for the second one to get hit by road 1901 to 1979. Oh, so it's still another Yeah, exactly. Absurd. But point is like the common, like I know just in the events
that we've done in the last couple years with, with Natick days and concerts in the park and Thursday night events that the, that Natick Center Associates puts on plus all the, the, those are some of the more regular items and, and events plus all the, you know, one-off events. We just need to be very thoughtful with that. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Mr. Sch. Speaker 10: Yeah. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I really like this idea at this point. I mean, I was a little skeptical when you guys came back a whole year and a month ago, but I really at this point I've, I I hear that you've done, you've answered the questions I had and I really appreciate the work you've done to do that.
I really think, you know, I'm willing to support this, but I really think, look, you know, location is really important. I'm very concerned about the Western side of the common because we've got a potential tip that could just look, disrupt that whole piece of the common. And I don't wanna put something there and then have to move it or put it, you know, where it could potentially get hit by a car if it's just too close. So Speaker 4: The Main Street project. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Tip, TIP is a term that Transportation Improvement Program project is TIP is an acronym for Yeah.
Speaker 10: So I'm concerned about just that. 'cause I know that there, you know, several proposals, all of which sort of encroach a little bit on the common for one reason or another. I kind of like, you know, I don't know if it's possible and you guys, this is for you to research, you don't have to answer tonight, but I kind of like the corner of Park and Common across the street from Park Street Ice Cream. A lot of people come out and start eating their ice cream and suddenly need something to drink. It's still on the common and there's fixed things there already. Just as a concept, it concerns me putting it on town hall or library
because the activities, it's not gonna be, it's easy to get to for people, right? I'm just thinking in terms of, you know, who's gonna be using it on Natick days. It's gonna be really nice to have it somewhere nearby as opposed to like across the street. But I just want to put those comments out. I really appreciate you guys pursuing this and I'm really willing, personally, I'm willing to support it. Speaker 20: May I just add one thing? Sure. And that's wonderful news and I, I don't think we have a vision where it,
it's locked in where it must be in a certain location. So I, I think we are, I'll just speak for myself. I'm approaching this with a, a wide open degree of flexibility where we, we really wanna, I think the, the one thing I will note is the two fountains that I, that I mentioned previously, the one at Navy, as you get onto the rail trail and there's one at the entrance of the dog park. They are, they have got, they're the type that have the big metal buttons. So you just push it and it works. And I have not seen those covered. I, I could be wrong, but I believe that those are uncovered and that's kind of the model that, that I think we could use.
Obviously we have them in town, we know how to use it. So the second thing is, or the, the last thing I'll just say is kind of reiterating my previous point is as we go to work with Mr. Sprat and other town employees, if we have a little wind at our back that, you know, we are trying to make it happen. I think that's the difference in sort of getting attention as the work that we are gonna need to do about filling out the details of this. So I I just wanted to re re reiterate that. I think your support conceptually is, is the important piece that'll help us kind of get some leverage going forward. So thank you.
Speaker 19: Thank Speaker 1: You. Small shocker. Excuse me. Speaker 3: Well, thank you Vincent and Andy for pursuing this and coming back and all the work that you've done. I have a question for you Mr. Sprat. So in, in the proposal they've documented some costs associated with, with recasting, the fountain redoing it and then also the ongoing maintenance. But what about the actual installation? Is this something that public works can handle or is it, or would it potentially need an outside contractor? You know, how would we handle those costs and,
and do you have any estimate of what those might be roughly? Ballpark? Speaker 22: Sure. So the, the bottom line, could DPW do it? Sure. We do a lot of work. Would it be something typically in our wheelhouse? No, we have equipment, we have knowledge and capability, but the vision of it would be, it would be a self-funded self, it would be a gift to Natick, not more work for Natick. That's, that's what we had discussed. As far as additional costs. So Mr.
Sidney mentioned putting it near the ice cream shop, that is an area that doesn't have a water connection. So that would be a pretty deep excavation into the street. That alone is probably $15,000. So there are additional costs depending on where it goes. So whether there's a foundation going in, whether there's an a, d, a accessible pathway to it, all of those things at cost. So really the scope of the project will determine the
ultimate final cost of the project. Alright, Speaker 3: Thank you. So if, if we can hear back from Mr. Vitoria, Mr. Meyer, so there would your intention to be, to fundraise or potentially ask for CPA funds for the full cost of the project, including the installation and excavation or whatever is needed, assuming that there might be an outside vendor that's involved to do this, Speaker 19: So that, that's correct. Yes. And I was gonna say that with Jeff here, having installed fountains, he also could probably speak a little bit more to the installation. He's installed fountains as well.
So he could be a resource for you tonight. If you, if you want to chime in by Zoom, Jeff, if you have any comments on installation, please feel free to share. Speaker 21: This is a very thank you. It, this would be a, with regards to the fountains that we installed, this would be a very small fountain and it would be very straightforward and and easy for us to install for you. Speaker 3: Great. Speaker 19: Oh yeah. But the answer is, is yes, as Andy said, and yes is the, the, the cost would all be roped into this,
this whole CPA request and if needed, Speaker 21: And I'd be happy to work. Sorry, go ahead Jeff. I'd be happy to work with the town and whatever the town feels like they could handle, I could advise or however, however we have to, you know, make it, make it happen. We could, you know, we could, we could make it happen. Speaker 19: And Jeff has worked with our public works department many times before, which is great. Right. Speaker 3: So is this something that you proposed to bring back in the, in the fall for CPA funding or Speaker 19: Yeah, I was thinking fall of 20 of 26. Okay. You know, so basically if we can go forward from here with your blessing on this, I think it'd be important for us
to bring together the right small group of people to determine the exact location alongside with, with Bill to determine where's the best location for this. If you saw in the packet, there were two locations already I identified. But I think for having something that's a DA compliant as a, as a fountain that dispenses potable waters or a bottle filling station, whatever you wanna call it, it would probably need to be near a walkway also. So just working with the right group of people to determine that location will be a very important next step before we can actually go forward with submitting to have this put back together. Speaker 3: Great. Thank you. Speaker 4: If, if I can add a brief Sure.
Just note about the sort of maintenance longer term. And this one thing that, that Bill and I talked about briefly and we talked about all along, and I don't think we have an answer for it yet because we, there needs to be still work to be done. But, you know, one thing that that we do want to just make sure we're fully transparent on is just, you know, the annual ongoing maintenance should be relatively straightforward. It's, it's probably gonna be a blowing out of a water line so that it's winterized and what have you. But, and I don't know if we have the details yet from, from like Jeff, but in 10 years will we need to repaint
or cast something like this or 20 years now. Like those are some things that I think once we get into the details of the project, we'll be able to answer those questions as well. 'cause I do think that's something that needs to be mindful. 'cause everything looks great the first day, but 5, 10, 20 years down the road when something's not working or it doesn't look the same or there's a, there's gonna be another campaign and it's gonna be like, oh, I, yeah, I think we need to think through that as well. Again, probably not a today conversation unless you've already talked about that, but something that I would like the board to keep on your radar. 'cause it is something that could potentially become a town
cost down the road or, and even some of the annual maintenance could become a, like if a pump breaks in three years and it's just past warranty, which always happens like the day after the warranty, you know, we're gonna have to come up with some cost to fix that pump. Or the water fountain won't be working for a handful of days, weeks, months, your hopefully not yours, but a little bit of time. So we'll just have to think through that as well. Well, Speaker 19: We have Jeff here, it could be worth asking about. Speaker 4: Yeah, if he knows that, that'd be Speaker 19: Great. Jeff, if you wanna chime in also just about your thoughts on, on maintenance, durability of the paint that's used, any thoughts you wanna share? I'd be appreciated. Speaker 21: Absolutely, absolutely.
So to answer the question about recasting, unless a truck hits it or a car hits it, I don't, I really don't think that we have to worry about anything like that with regards to palpable water or the drinking, the drinking fountain. I don't think we have to worry about, my, my intention would be to repaint everything with a marine grade epoxy paint. So as long as no one is scooping water out of the fountain and it their, it's, their exposure is direct from the, whatever that spigot is. I don't know what we need to do to make that,
that's gonna be something that, how do I explain? It just needs to be a drinking fountain, right? So the, the basin itself is simply catching water and, and you know, providing, providing an egress for the water. So I don't know that a, the paint system is going to need to be something that we need to worry about. I mean, I, I, we could, I could talk with the town about that, but the paint system,
if we do the paint system that I would like to do, I think we we're good for about 15 years before we would have to repaint it. The, the castings, I don't think we have to worry about for the next three generations. Installation should be pretty smooth if there's a pump system. I don't know how the water would get pushed up in through, if it would be just, I, I typically do fountains. I typically do pump houses with fountains that are pushing water through a system that I design. I don't typically design drinking fountains, so I'd have
to do a little bit more research. I do work with Delta Fountain down in Florida whenever I do, we just installed a 30 foot fountain over at the Beachwood Hotel. They designed my entire pump system. They designed the nine 11 memorial in New York. So I, I think that that might be worth a call for me to make so that I can let them know what we're dealing with and they'd have the, they'd have the, they'd have the, the advice for us, I think that we would need as far as the, as far as what we would need, if there's something beyond just hooking up a line to the, to the water source so
that it's just pushing out. I just don't know what that is. If it needs to have an a midline, an inline filtration system, something simple, or if the town would provide that when they hook up to the dr, the, the, the water line. It's just, I'm ignorant to what that would be. Speaker 22: Excuse me if I may, if we're just hooking up to domestic water, the, we're good hours in in Natick, we'll push the water up so we won't Speaker 1: We'll Speaker 21: Probably. Awesome. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 21: And that seems really straightforward to me. Yeah. Speaker 1: Miss, miss Snell. Yep. Speaker 23: Angela Snell, director of community services. I just wanna make sure that it's,
when we say it's handicap accessible, I it's more than just the walkway. Like somebody in a wheelchair would have to be able to reach the fountain or whatever the, the lever is. So might have to run it by the Commission on Disabilities or just to make sure it meets Massachusetts standards. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Ms. Smt that a lot of that'll come out in the design work. Yeah, yeah. As well. And I know Andy had already done a little bit of research into that, just to how it would all work for a DA compliance. They Speaker 22: Are design Speaker 1: Standards. Yeah. Any other questions that we can answer?
I don't think so. We, does anybody have comment nru online? We have Ms. Duran. I think gimme a second. Speaker 24: Hi. Can you hear me now? Yes. Wow. I have to say, this is the first time I'm hearing about this proposal and I have had a big smile on my face since you started this segment. I think it is the best idea I have heard in a very, very, very long time. I think it's amazing that that major piece of the original fountain has been lovingly cared for
and in our community for so long and is being made available to be returned to the people of Natick. If I could vote, I would, I know I'm not being asked to vote, but like, I think this is fabulous. I think it would be an amazing use of CPA funding too. And I just wanna say amazing. So thank you for bringing this forward and I hope it, I hope it is. I hope we can do it. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. Just wanted, before we have a discussion on, on the support of it, I just wanted to thank Vincent
and Andy and Mr. Spat and his team for all the work that they've put in on this. 'cause it's apparent that an extensive number of meetings has happened and a lot of good research has happened. So thank you for all that. So I'm open up to discussion on how we support this. Speaker 10: I have a, sorry, I did have one other question or one other comment and I, I, I wonder if it in your plans to, you know, maybe add a plaque about some of the history.
So yes, Speaker 19: It's actually in the document and we thought it'd be nice Speaker 10: To have some. I skimmed, I didn't read deeply. I was looking for the answers to the questions I asked a year ago. Speaker 19: The short answer is yes. I think that helps provide an understanding to the, to the people today and who will follow us as to what this is and what's Speaker 10: Important. So, you know, I love this. I I, at this point, I love this. When you're ready for motions, I'm ready with one. Okay. Speaker 17: I just wanna say that I think Natick is extraordinarily fortunate to have a historian expert, Vincent. Andy is a great cheerleader and gets things done. And Mr.
Ocac CIO for you to be available to consult or to work, or to make this come alive. We are extraordinarily fortunate to have the three of you working on this and Mr. Sprat and his team at DPW. So as a trained historian, which is my first love, I wholeheartedly endorse this and as, as conceived, as explained, and would love to be of a service. If there's somewhere you think I can be helpful. Speaker 19: Thank you. Stand by. Speaker 17: I'm really good at grant writing. Thank you, Speaker 19: Paul. Sorry. Think up on that. Speaker 3: I think I, I hope I share the opinions of everyone
that hears about this project. What a wonderful idea. When, when it first came before us. Maybe Mr. Sidney was skeptical, but I wasn't, I I I just thought that the combination of the history and also, you know, you've got this dream team now assembled that I, I think can, can make it happen. And that's really important because I feel like we're in good hands with, with the team that we've assembled, and I have every confidence that you'll be able to make it, make it work, and have the right
questions asked and answered, and deal with all the details that, you know, the many, many details that are part of this project. And I feel really confident about, you know, your guys' ability to execute. And, and so I have no problem supporting this to, you know, fully. So Speaker 19: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: I'm just going to, you guys are really a hard act to follow, you know, which, anyway, so I I will just ditto all their comments. I, I have liked this idea from the beginning.
We've had questions about what, how it, how it would work, but never in my mind anyway, a question of whether we should do it. We should find, I've always felt that we should find a way to make this happen. And thanks to your efforts, I'm confident that, that it will become reality. So thank you for all that effort, Bruce. And anything you guys need from us, call Catherine. She's available seven by 24. Yeah, Speaker 17: I'm, I'm here, I'm here for you. Speaker 1: Oh, do I have a motion?
Speaker 10: Yes, Mr. Chair. I move that the board support the project of installing this as a working fountain as opposed to just a historic piece. And also as a matter of policy, ask that the administration provide reasonable levels of support to make the, you know, to answer questions, not to do the project, but to support the project, if that's appropriate. That's my motion.
Speaker 1: May I amend it just to say that water filling fountain, just to be clear. Yeah. Speaker 17: Not necessarily drinking food. I mean, yes. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 10: Yeah. That's fine. But I, it's, you know, we support it. We want it working. Absolutely. And we want the administration to provide reasonable levels of support without going too deep Speaker 1: To the budget. Yep. Yeah. I have a second, Speaker 3: Second, second with hesitation, because I, I, and if I can just explain why. Sure. I do think that when it's ultimately complete, that the town should bear the responsibility for maintenance.
So by saying reasonable, I'm not sure that that includes it. I mean, I think before project Speaker 10: I was, I was talking about the project in general, not the right, Speaker 3: But once it's done, Speaker 1: The town shall, Speaker 3: I think the town should own it. So I just wanna be clear that, that Speaker 10: This is only, I'm, I'm good with that. Speaker 3: Only until, Speaker 1: Why don't we just say, yeah, excise the, the, the ongoing support and just say we support the project as a, a, a, a water filling fountain and we'll work with the proponents to have the funding in place to make it come
to fruition and get installed. Acceptable. Speaker 10: Well, I was, I was leaving the funding out because they're gonna go different ways for the funding. Okay. That's really, you know, all right. They need plans for this water and things like that. That's all administration stuff. Okay. Speaker 1: Have we removed your provision? Speaker 3: I don't know. Have we? Speaker 1: I think so. I hope so. Speaker 17: Seconded by Ms. Wolf. Schlager. Speaker 1: All all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Speaker 17: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: Thank you again, guys, for coming in. Thank Speaker 17: You all. And do come back and let us know how things are going. We, Speaker 10: We will Speaker 1: Report back and Jeff on Zoom.
Thank you. You awesome. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks. Thank you all. Thank you very much, Jeff. Speaker 3: Thank you for joining tonight. Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, we're moving way down on the agenda now. I think we're all the way down to motion to select Speaker 10: Board updates. Select Speaker 1: Board updates. Select board updates. Does anybody have anything? Speaker 4: Jeff, you're more than welcome to go. Speaker 1: Yes, please. You, you do not wanna hear any of this, I assure. Speaker 3: I think he's frozen. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Speaker 10: Anyway, so I, I kind, it's, this one's kind of a question. I, I attended my first COA meeting
Monday as the liaison. And one of the things that came up is they, they asked us as a board to approve their rules of governance, which apparently the board has done in the past, but I don't see anything in the bylaws or the general laws that requires it. And I wonder if the board, you know, just something to consider. I told 'em not to worry about it. We can always put it on a consent agenda if we need it, but I don't see why we need to approve their rules of governance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no. Speaker 3: So you don't know the history behind this about why we did? Speaker 4: I'd have to, I don't know the history. I'd have to look at it. No, Speaker 10: I mean, I, you know, they're, they're a committee, an advisory committee like many others. And why would they, why should we now, regardless of history, why should we now treat them specially in this way? Speaker 3: And they're not asking for, let's say, clarification of the committee charge. They, they, Speaker 10: Nope, nope. I read their new rules and, and they're not outrageous. They're just, they define some subcommittees. They, they requ the charge and they requ the general law.
And Speaker 1: So you might be right that that might, that might be worth putting on a consent agenda that to just say it's one by us. You know, we have, we, we post their, their rules and just say, yeah, well Speaker 10: They can post, Speaker 3: But why, but why would we do that? Why would we do that if we don't need to do that? We didn't do it for this CB. Speaker 1: So, so I, if you send me the contact person, I as chair can just say, Speaker 10: Well, I mean I already told them they didn't have to because Okay. But I just wanted to run, run it by the board Speaker 1: And it's done just to, yeah, you've heard from the four
Speaker 3: Of us that would it be worth to checking with Caris just to see if there's anything Speaker 10: I did copy her on the email. Okay, Speaker 3: You did. Alright. Anything in mass general law that Speaker 10: Might, nothing in general law that requires it. Nothing in our bylaw requires Speaker 4: It. Do you know roughly when the last time? Was that the board? Years ago ago? Yeah. It hasn't been in my time. At least not to my recollection. Yeah, I don't even, because we can look in the file to see, Donna can look in the file here to see if there's any history on that. There might be something in the history that we're just not aware of. So I would like to do that first. Okay. Well I rise by what we find in that file. I would like, I did Speaker 10: Copy Harris on, on the, the Yeah, we can just,
if did you And you and me as well. Okay. I can try. I always copy you when I, when I send Appreciate. Speaker 17: I'd like to point out that historically the select board has not had a liaison to the COA. That was an interest of Kristen's and that's something that she wanted to take up. But we have a number of boards and committees where we need liaisons and we don't have them. I'm not saying not to be, I'm just saying historically. No, I get it. We've been that far. Hands off with COA, Speaker 10: Some, some boards and committees. Yeah. Speaker 17: So Speaker 10: COA Speaker 1: Thank you Rich. Anyone else? Speaker 17: I would like to see the board take up sooner rather than later. The hybrid policy.
The hybrid meeting policy for, there are some complications with it. It's something we need to discuss. There are some, but I think we should be discussing the draft. We've had multiple requests for the zoning board of appeals to be accessible and it isn't. Speaker 10: Well, and we also have a very outdated, we, we never did repeal the remote meeting policy. That's from, Speaker 17: I think we did. Speaker 10: No, we never actually repealed it. I've been watching. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I asked to get it on an agenda. It never made it. So it needs to be repealed. It's, it's, it's so far outdated that even with new, even
with new laws, it would be like absurd to try and use it. Okay. Speaker 1: Alright. So, Speaker 10: And it's just, it was just a miss. It's not that big a deal, but we should get it on an agenda to repeal Speaker 1: It. So what the next meeting is chockfull? Well, Speaker 10: It can be consent agenda. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 10: Repeal that policy Speaker 1: That, that we do. You're right, that piece. But the hybrid meeting policy? Speaker 10: No, it's a remote meeting policy and that think it's 12. Speaker 1: Understand. 2012. I'm moving on to the next one. Oh yeah. Okay. I already agreed with, which is Catherine's question about the hybrid policy.
We should put that on in December. Is that all right? Yep. Early December. Speaker 17: Great way to start New Year. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 3: So while we're talking about things, I also, and I believe Rich has also spoken with Julie McDonough, who'd like us to, and maybe you have as well, Bruce, to put on the agenda, potentially forming a committee. Well, Speaker 10: I'm gonna, I'm gonna meet with Jamie about it. I've got Julie's PowerPoint and her suggestions. Okay. I'm gonna meet with Jamie about it and I'll try, if we can get Bruce in on that too,
it would be great, but just to see what the feasibility is. Yep. Before we bring it to the board. Okay. Speaker 1: Right. So why, so Speaker 3: You're gonna do that Speaker 10: First? I'm gonna do that first. Let Speaker 1: Me know when that meeting is, because you book Speaker 10: It. Speaker 1: I have talked with Julie and exchanged emails and phone calls and Yeah. Yeah, we need to Speaker 10: Do that. I asked Jamie to book time with me when he's available for, you know, within the next week or so. Okay. So we can just go over the feasibility. Yeah. Speaker 1: So good. Thank you Rich. Speaker 10: I told Julie I would take that on, so,
but I think we need to start there and before we come to the board. Okay. Speaker 1: Indeed we do. Okay. Anything else? By once going twice. Go Speaker 10: Move to adjourn. Speaker 1: Second. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. We are outta here. 7 45.