Speaker 1: Good evening. This is the Wednesday, October 15th meeting of the Natick Select Board. Let us, for people in the room who can, we're, we're now opening the session. It is now 6:04 PM I think, and let's all stand for a Pledge of allegiance in a moment of silence, Speaker 2: Pledge allegiance through the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God invisible the 30 Justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 3: Okay,
Speaker 1: First up is announcements and sarason, do you have queued up the, the three items or, or is this a John item? Speaker 4: Gimme Speaker 2: One Speaker 1: Second. All right. While you're doing that, I've got a couple that I can go through. One is, and they're both Natick 180 related. The first one is, there is a session on Wednesday, October 29th called Navigating Mental Health. It's over at the Mors Institute Library from six 30
to 8:00 PM It's a free community event that features a panel of mental health professionals from the field and native public schools to answer questions about how to navigate the mental healthcare system and support loved ones. And it is purely coincidental that it is the same time as our next select board meeting. So we'll have to get, we'll have to watch the tape or something. Okay. Next item is the Natick Takeback, or sorry, drug takeback day to dispose of
unused ex or expired medications. That is on Saturday, October 25th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM at the Natick Police Department. In the rear of the building, you can drop off tablets, capsules, patches, liquids, prescription drugs, vape pens, and e-cigarettes. You cannot drop off syringes, sharps, thermometers, or illegal drugs. And it says contact the Natick Health Department for disposal of those items. I know the thermometers can be brought
to the recycling center and they keep them out of the waste stream. So thank you for that. Mr. Erickson, are you ready? Speaker 5: Yes, I certainly can be. Okay. I do see Mr. Sidney's hand raised as well. Speaker 1: Go ahead, Mr. Sidney, Speaker 5: John. Okay, Speaker 6: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to report that Natick citizens for Safer Natick successfully held our gun buyback. On Saturday. We collected 56 weapons to be disposed of.
Interestingly, one of the weapons collected was a stolen weapon, which according to the Sheriff's Department, it was extremely rare. We really appreciate the help of the Natick, DPW, the Natick Police Department, the Middlesex Sheriff's Department, and especially the providers of our grant, Metro West Health Foundation. And all the access gift cards and funds have been distributed to a place to turn Family Promise and the Natick Service Council. Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney. Over to you, Mr. Erickson. Speaker 5: Sorry. Kristen Pope has her hand up. Speaker 1: Chris did. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Erickson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to share a, a bit of information. I have had a several people coming to me about elderly parents and, and, and seniors who need support. And I just wanted to to say that we do have Council on Aging in Natick, and I am am a liaison to that board. And they meet once a month on Mondays. Their next meeting is October the 20th in the community senior center in room 1 25. It's seven o'clock. It's hybrid. It's both available online as well as in person.
And so if you are seeking information about how to age gracefully and well, and, and folks who are, have a finger on the pulse on, on what's happening in our senior community, I would highly recommend attending a Council on Aging meeting or going to the Community senior center to speak to our director on the Council on Aging. Her name is Donna. That's all. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. Speaker 5: Right now I go, Speaker 1: Hey, Speaker 5: Just to very quick announcements, determination
of compliance with MBTA Communities, law of the Town of Natick is now officially in compliance with the MBTA communities law. We just wanna make sure that that was known more broadly and publicly, because that's a big topic within a lot of municipalities that are on the MBTA system. And it was a state law that was enacted a handful of years ago that towns and communities service by the MBTA need to have zoning that provides for and supports housing development, the creation of housing within those corridors. And we are in full compliance with that law. We've done our part, we're continuing to do our part,
and we have even more items on the town meeting warrant this upcoming fall that will continue to advance that initiative, which I'm proud to say that the town is a leader on in the region. Next is Natick awarded the community one Stop Shop for Growth grant program. And I think this speaks to how we are a leader in the community and in the region. Not only for some of the MBTs community compliance work, but also just general advancement of infrastructure redevelopment and, and the work that we do every day for the, for the region, but also for the community of Natick. In brief, we applied for a grant to support the continuation
of the design work for Main Street. This is right here in downtown Natick. If you've been in town in the last couple years, you likely have driven on or noticed that North Main Street and South Main Street have been reconstructed recently. This is the connection point between those two. And it's right here in Natick Center. We got a $500,000 grant through the State's Mass Works, one stop shop program. It's the first Natick grant in several years. Although we have gotten smaller grants through the years, the last large project was actually the General Green Way intersection redevelopment at the Natick Labs about 10 years ago.
And then we've had some smaller grants, but this is our first time of a, of a sizable one of $500,000. So that'll be great to advance that design work with right in the center of our community. And, and I would argue in the center of the region. Final on the list of items that are on the agenda is water usage tracking. Natick has a new, my 360 system for people, residences, or even businesses with water meters to track their usage. It's, we're in the process of updating meters throughout town to allow for it to even be more real time. But the platform, there's a tutorial and education at the community senior center on Tuesday,
October 28th from 11 to 12. I'm looking, it's gonna be taped so that we can put it on the website as well. Sure. I think we should make that a yes or, or some type of like tutorial like that that could be put on the website. But this is really for that hands-on for folks who need to have a little bit of extra guidance and, and they can come to that tutorial. They can learn about the, the program every time there's an abatement request. This board I know says, are you signed up for 360? And we also do the same in in town administration, but it's a great program that allows for folks,
individual rate payers and property owners to track their water usage. And again, with the updated meter system project, that's about a third of the way through the town, I think it's gonna be another couple years of doing that. 'cause it's a very big project where all the meters in town are being upgraded. You'll actually see almost real time. It's like almost by the minute for those who have that. If you don't have that, then it's, it's a, a monthly read, but you can still track your time and you can set usage alerts and things like that. So great program sign up, go and learn about water usage,
your individual water usage, not just general water usage. Yes. Speaker 1: Yes. And just to, to amplify a couple things that you said. It a, it's free, it's a free application. Second, if you could set the thresholds at a given level, you can get an early warning signal as to, you know, whether you have a leaky toilet or some sort of problem on there. I think I set the usage on mine to be four times my daily usage. So if I get, you know, I, I started out too low. I started out at twice or three times a daily usage.
But then when I finally got to round to doing laundry after I'd procrastinated, I would be using a lot more water than I wanted to. And I get sort of a, almost like a false positive. So I raised it a little. The other, the other piece that's really helpful is if you go away and you can set it to give you an alert and you can get the alerts either by text or email or both. And it, and it's valuable that, you know, if you see something that's happening, you can sort
of head it off before you get thousands of gallons of water either dumped into your yard or, or in your basement even worse. So you can, you can take action. You can ask a neighbor to, to go in and turn it off if, if you've given them your key or whatever, whatever arrangements you can take, you can do it quickly rather than react or come home to a very wet house. So it's very valuable. The other piece I wanted to talk about was to thank Representative Linsky and Senator Spilker for their work on the
award for the grant. Those things are highly competitive and I just wanted to express the board's gratitude for their work in, in doing and, and securing that. So the next step is public speak. Any individual may raise an issue not included on tonight's agenda. And it it'll be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion due to the requirements of open meeting law. This section is limited to 10 minutes and any one individual can only speak for three minutes.
Do we have anybody in the room who'd like to speak in public speak? See, no one. Is there anyone online? I should be online. I usually rely on Richard. I Speaker 5: Don't see anyone I understand. Speaker 1: Raise my hands. Okay. Okay. Moving on to our first item or our next item on the agenda, which is appointments, which is interviews for the community preservation. I will tell you that Joshua Salvi has withdrawn from consideration on this. He sent us an email this afternoon
and we thank him for applying and hope that he applies for another position, another volunteer opportunity. He had a very, very good resume. But we have, tonight we have Bill Ram and Jose Monte, mayor, do I pronounce it even close? Okay. Who are here to reapply or re be reappointed or consider for reappointment for to the community preservation committee. So we'll go in the order that's on the sheet,
which is Bill Ramage first. So if you could just say a few words about Speaker 5: Rich has his hand up. I don't know if he has something before. Speaker 1: Okay. Hold on one second, bill. Sorry. Thank you. Mr. Sidney, do you have something you'd like to say? Speaker 6: I'm just curious how many seats are available and for what term? Speaker 1: Good question. Two seats for a term expiring in three years. So June 30th, 2028. It's actually less than it is two and a half years. We're just trying to get 'em on the second. We're trying to get everything back on June 30th.
End of terms. Speaker 6: Thank you. So we've got two candidates for two seats. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 6: Very good. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Sure, Speaker 1: You're welcome Ms. Weller. Speaker 8: So if we can just c clarify, sometimes we, when we have the same number of seats as applicants, we do not interview the candidates. And I know that's been a subject of discussion, so maybe you'd like to opine on that a little. Yeah. Speaker 1: Thank you Madam Chair. Vice Chair. Yeah. What, what I think One
of the things that, that people have wondered in town is when there are a number of candidates that equals the number of open slots, people have wondered, well, why don't you go into more depth in your interviews? And so, even though there were only two people for two positions, and these are people who are reapplying, we, we want to go through the process so it's transparent to people why we think, why are, why we're considering these applicants, and why we think
or do not think that they're a good fit for this particular committee. So with that, thank you for that reminder. We will start with Mr. Ramage. And if you could please explain, you know, why you want to reapply what you've been able to accomplish. It's, we, we know it, but this is more for the public to understand what your contributions have been. So please, bill. Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Bill Ramage, precinct four and 14, Bellevue Road and Natick.
First, before I do that, I'd just like to thank the select board for appointing me two years ago. I'd like to thank the CPC committee for being very supportive and just a great committee to work with. And I'd specifically like to thank Amanda Lewis and Loomis and John for their support. As we've moved forward, what we've accomplished in the last two years is to start with zero and lots of other communities that we could review and look at and plagiarize. And then we developed a process,
a community preservation plan. We had public hearings, we developed an application process, which I could go into if anybody wants to. But I, I'll just say we have a process that seemed to work well this year. We had positive feedback from some of the sponsors and we are near giving the first round to the town meeting for their up or down vote. I'm very excited about that. The reason I would like to continue is that we're not done. We have, we're almost done with the first round,
but we then need to go back, look at our processes, tweak them, refine them, and then next fall have a process that's even better. So that's my ask. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the board? Anyone online? Kristen or Richard? Speaker 7: Yes. One question. Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Ramage for serving. And I, I just wanted to to ask what's been, what has been a highlight about serving on the CPC? Speaker 9: I think it's always exciting to start something new.
So we had approval from the voters to spend money that is collected from folks Texas. We wanna make sure that process was transparent and clear. And I think we've done that. Certainly have tried. And I'm not sure I answered your question. Speaker 7: I think so. Thank you. All right. Speaker 9: Thank you. Speaker 6: No, thank you. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Ramage and Mr. Monte Mayor, please. Same sort of question. Speaker 10: I'm Jose Montay, I believe I live in Precinct 10 and I live at 1 69 Union Street in Natick.
I first wanna say thank you as well to Bill as the chairman, David, the Vice chairman, and Amanda Lewis who did an amazing job. Must have spent hundreds of hours getting us up and going. And similar to Bill, I'd like to see the job through, now that we have everything set up moving forward, analyzing future projects, looking to see what the community would like to spend their CPC money on. In terms of myself, I think what I brought to the table to the committee is that I brought a business analysis to the proposals. I have extensive real estate management and development experience.
I analyzed the affordable housing, the two proposals we had to make sure that made sense, that the budget numbers looked appropriate. And I just really enjoyed analyzing the proposals and trying to make sure that they all got a fair shake. That any holes in the proposals were filled in with questions and that we were spending the money that we've been entrusted with wisely. And that's it. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Questions from the board? Speaker 7: I ask my same question to keep it even and that's what's been a highlight. Speaker 10: The highlight for me was the Elliot Street Affordable Housing Project.
It was proposed by A-C-D-C-A community development corporation. And I used to volunteer at 4 0 1 many, many years ago. And looking at what they put together, analyzing different components and making sure that it made logical sense, real estate sense and financial sense was my highlight. 'cause they used a lot of the skills that, that I have in my background. And it was nicely kind of flex those muscles again. 'cause I used to love doing real estate and I've been out of it now for probably 15 years, but just getting back into that world and crunching those numbers was just really satisfying.
Speaker 7: Thank you for sharing that. And similarly, thank you for serving. Speaker 10: Thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm not a particular question for this candidate. I just want to really appreciate the, these people who are volunteering on forming this, our, our first CPC committee hearing any number I, there were, there are so many options that they've sifted through so many applications. I think they've, you know, we'll see what town meeting does,
but I think they've brought some really high quality proposals through. And I just wanna appreciate the work that these two volunteers along with the CPC have done. Speaker 1: Thank you Mrs. Sidney. Ms. Walser, do you have any? I just have a co a few comments. Full disclosure, my wife is on that committee, so just so people know, she's the planning board rep for that. And I, and I just want to acknowledge all the, all the heavy lifting and work that this committee did, they had countless meetings. They worked with a lot of different
communities to understand and gain from the experiences that those communities had in setting up the, the community preservation committees and figuring out what's going to work best for Natick and, and for as their first attempt to do this, it was, in my opinion, and incredible incredibly good result. It resulted in a lot of resident participation. It resulted in quality applications
that were complete. Another full disclosure, I did read some of those applications as my wife was going through the scoring of that, and I was very impressed with the thoroughness of, of this and this. That just doesn't happen by accident. It happens by careful planning and great execution. So with that, i I add to the thanks for your service on this and appreciate that you're willing to continue doing that.
So thank you. So we do have to take a vote, which is, we can do that. We can't really do that the way we normally do it in a random piece of paper. But given that there are four of us, I'm just gonna ask for a voice, vote for the each individual. So I'll go online first, which is Ms. Pope for Mr. Ramage. Yes. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Er? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. So that's a four zero vote. I neglected to state earlier.
Catherine Coughlin will not be with joining us tonight at the meeting. She's very sick and at, at home and I hope that she's feeling better very soon. So that's why we're only four. So next up we've got Mr. Monte Bor and let's go to Kristen again. Speaker 7: Yes, Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Yes. Yes. Ms. Slager. Yes. And I'm a yes and that takes care of that. So thank you again, appreciate all you've done
and look forward to town meeting to hopefully get all these passed. So thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you honor. Speaker 1: Okay, next up we have a proclamation in honor of David Moores. Ms. Pope, if you'd like, I know you're not feeling great. Would you like me to read this? Speaker 7: You can. Okay, thank you. Speaker 1: Sure is Mr. Morris is in the room, my understanding. Okay. I he's hiding though. Just, just letting everybody know and know.
He's, he's just a modest person. That's all there is to it. Anyway, there's a, this is a proclamation from the select board in honor of David Moores. Whereas David, Dave m Moores had a distinguished public service career totaling 40 years with the town of Natick, beginning in on May 1st, 1985 as a school custodian where he moved up the ranks, ultimately leading to the promotion of custodial supervisor in 2017 and facilities maintenance manager in 2021.
And whereas Dave has earned the respect and admiration of his peers and the public within and outside town government for his professionalism, quality of work, calm demeanor and dedication. And whereas through his integrity, leadership, and commitment to exemplary service, Dave has built a strong sense of pride and team among the men and women of the Natick facilities department. And whereas Dave loved working for the facilities department so much that he recruited his own son DJ to follow in his footsteps.
And whereas Dave was born and raised in Natick, where he attended Cole Elementary School, Kennedy Junior High and Natick High School, graduating in 1983. And whereas Dave will retire on October 10th, 2025, his 60th birthday after decade, decades of dedicated service leaving a legacy of quality and continuous improvement, recognizes by, recognized by the select board and all who serve in Nat Town government. Now therefore, the Natick Select board congratulates David Moores on his retirement
and wishes him many happy, healthy years in the company of his children, grandchildren, Kathy, extended family and numerous friends. Enjoy your travels on your Harley, whether it's to Lake Winni, pasa, the Florida Keys, or wherever the roads may lead you in witness whereof. We here unto set our hands and cause the seal of the town of Natick to be a fixed on this 15th day of October, 2025. Speaker 6: So moved. Speaker 1: And Speaker 8: Second. Speaker 1: Thank you. All in favor, Ms. Pope.
Or if you wanna make comments, please feel free. Speaker 7: I just wanna say congratulations. Congratulations. And I'm so grateful that we are able to extend this to you. And yes, voting yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Chiney. Speaker 6: Absolutely. Yes. Thank you Dave. Speaker 8: Yes, thank you. And thank you for showing up post-retirement. We appreciate it and we, we really like the opportunity to recognize you and all that you have done for our town. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: Unfortunately we'll have to sign this thing later. Speaker 1: Yes, we will. Speaker 5: So you'll have to come back to town hall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: That's right. You, you haven't quite made it out the door yet. And I'm also Yes, send your Speaker 5: Son over and he'll pick it up for you. Speaker 1: So I would like to stand to Thank you. Would you like you're welcome to speak. It's not a requirement. Speaker 11: Just thank you very much. I glad much of a speaker. Thank you. Speaker 5: You're welcome. That, that is literally what happens with Dave. He's very dedicated, amazing at what he was, what he did do. Now that he's in retirement, always willing to help but a person of few words Speaker 1: To Speaker 5: Say the least
Speaker 1: Economic, Speaker 5: I don't know if, but, but always just personable. It is not for a lack of, of personality, I'll say that I've always enjoyed working with, with Dave and he did a great job with his team and now his son's with us stuck with us just like Dave was stuck with us for 40 years. I dunno if there's a whole team here. Bill, do you mind just introducing the team and, and please. Because just so that folks can see who came to stay, stand Speaker 1: On the camera Speaker 5: Or something. Thank you to Dave for his 40 years of service. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 12: Sure. This represents the facilities leadership team.
We have, let's see, I'm gonna first introduce Dave. Dave, why don't you just come up here for a second and just so you can just wave to everybody on camera. Speaker 11: Thanks, Speaker 13: Bill. Speaker 12: So this is Dave Morris, employee and even more a friend. I was actually wondering where he was this week. He retired on Friday and I was like, where's Dave? Like, you know, so very proud of him. He's done an amazing job, a true partner. I started here as, as director of facilities and quickly learned that Dave was, was a, a key part of this organization and just so proud of him
and gonna miss him dearly representing him. We have Deborah Schatz, the director of facilities. We have Ryan Cannon, custodial supervisor. We have Matt. Please help me with the montori Montori. I always like his, the Italian spelling really gets me sometimes. He took over for Dave as facilities director. And we have Mark plant custodian here, head custodian here at, at the town hall. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you all for coming. Speaker 6: Thank you Speaker 1: Dave. Thank you Dave. Thank you. Bill, Speaker 13: Do you wanna take a recess in case I wanna go
a recess in case they wanna leave. Speaker 1: Why don't we take a quick recess so you guys can exit stage left if you, if you want to, I'm sure you want to get on with your lives. There's also a baseball game on tonight. I hear. All right, we're back. Speaker 6: Hey Bruce, I don't think we voted that proclamation. Speaker 13: Yes, yes, Speaker 1: Yes. I, I thought we did. Yes. I was the last, yes. So we were four zero. Speaker 6: Okay. Just checking. Speaker 1: No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, next up we have a discussion and decision
and first up is an update from five Aborn Street, from Metro West Collaborative Development. Ms. Madden, if you would approach, thank you for being here tonight. Speaker 14: Okay. Can everyone hear me? Okay? And I did send over a presentation, so I think John is gonna be pulling that up. John, you're Speaker 1: Gonna, okay. Speaker 13: I Speaker 14: Can't, I can't see it, but I Speaker 13: That's here. Can we turn this at all? Speaker 6: Yeah. Could we please make sure that presentation gets uploaded to peak at some point? Speaker 13: Yes. Yeah, that's great. You guys still see it just popped. I got it.
Speaker 14: Okay. Well that was a very hard act to follow, but I will do my best. So good evening everyone. My name is Caitlin Madden. I am the executive director of Metro West Collaborative Development, the nonprofit community development corporation that will be the developer for five Auburn Street. We have some of our other team members tonight who are covering the conservation commission meeting. So tonight it's just me and I am here to provide an update on the project status and where things stand at this moment. So if you could advance the slide, John. Thank you. Okay.
So it's been a little while since we've been in front of the select board because we've been going through other processes in town. So I just wanted to kind of give a, a quick recap or reminder of the significant community process that we've had on the project to date. So back in the fall of 2022, almost three years ago now, the town of Natick issued a request for proposals and Metro West C submitted a response that included the pres preservation of the historic Elliot School and the creation of a new building to provide 32 units of 100% affordable housing. Then in the spring of 2023 through the summer of 2023,
the Metro West CD Pro proposal was selected by the select board, and a development agreement was signed through the winter of 2023 and spring of 2024. We went through additional due diligence, preliminary design, and began the permitting process, including going in front of the Conservation commission for the abbreviated, abbreviated notice of resource area delineation. We at that time also submitted applications for state and federal historic tax credits. We held multiple meetings with town departments and advanced our design through those conversations.
Then in the summer of 2024, we received our 40 B project eligibility letter, which said that the project was eligible to use Chapter 40 B as a permitting path. And so in October of 2024, we submitted our comprehensive permit application to the zoning board of appeals. October, 2024 through June of 2025, we had a number of zoning board of appeals meetings. We also had a number of voluntary meetings with various boards and commissions in town, including the historic district commission planning board,
and additional design review team meetings. This process led to significant de design changes, which I think is fair to say that they were very well received and the look and the feel of the new building and how it fits into the neighborhood context. And we are really proud of, of the result that came out of that process. In June of this year, the zoning board issued a unanimous approval of the comprehensive permit for the project. And since then we have been advancing design. We have also submitted an NOI and a major storm water permit to the Conservation Commission. We've had hearings on the second of this month,
also another hearing tonight. And we had a in-person site visit last Friday and we'll continue to move through their process. And also in the summer and fall of this year, we submitted an LOI to the CPC and were invited to submit a full application for funding. We were very pleased that the CPC voted to recommend funding for the project to town meeting. We also were in front of the finance committee. The finance committee voted six to four in favor of a positive recommendation to town meeting. However, there were a number of members who were absent
and the threshold number of yes votes couldn't be met because that was eight. So we'll be going to, what is the equivalent, I think of a, a neutral recommendation from the finance committee to town meeting. Next slide please. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 14: Yep. Thank you. So there has been a lot of community process to date, but I just wanna come back to, you know, showing the, that the, the core community benefits of our proposal remain the same. So as in our original response to the RFP, we are still providing 32 units of 100% affordable housing. We are still preserving the HEL Elliot School in accordance
with the Department of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Properties. We are maintaining the open space at the corner of Elliot and Auburn. We are also providing energy efficiency improvements for the existing building and pursuing passive house certification for the new construction building and providing significant improvement of the site storm water management to benefit the Charles River. We will also be making accessibility upgrades at the historic building and the new construction building will be fully accessible. Next slide please. So I wanted to just provide a quick budget update to the select board and kind of show the status
of the various funding sources that we have. This budget is the budget that was submitted to the CPC as part of our funding application process. As you can see here, we have a large number of funding sources. The low income housing tax credit is the largest single source of financing that we have. And that is a source that we will be applying for when we applied for our state funding. And we'll talk a little bit more about that timeline and the importance of that application in a bit. We also have state and federal historic tax credits, and we have confirmed our eligibility for both. We have been approved for federal historic tax credits
and we've been receiving steady awards of state historic tax credits over the past couple of years. We have also been awarded, the project has also been awarded funding from the West Metro Home Consortium. We will be applying for approximately $5.4 million in subordinate net debt awarded by the state. So that will be a part of that larger state funding application that's coming up soon. We have other loans and incentives that include mass save incentives for sustainability improvements. We, the project is qualified for those. The Natick Affordable Housing Trust has awarded,
it's been a, maybe a couple of years ago now, $600,000 to the project. We have applied for $750,000 through these Natick CPC. And we will have permanent debt in the form of a traditional mortgage of about $4 million for which we have a letter of interest from, from our lenders. So that brings us to a total sources of about $23 million of total project costs. So the big final pieces, we've gotten a lot of awards, we've make made a lot of progress, but the big final pieces are that state funding award and also the request that is out to the CPC currently.
And those two pieces are related, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Next slide please. So, very briefly, I know that there's been a lot of community process around the CPC funds, but just want to remind folks that we feel like the Five Auburn Street Project really very directly and clearly meets the goals of the CPA priority areas, including community and affordable housing and the historic preservation. Next slide please. So just to dig into the, the budget a little bit more, again, the total project costs are about $23 million.
As you can see, the, the state funding and the historic tax credits and the mortgage make up a large percentage of those funds. And the Natick CPA award, if, if we are approved, would make up about 3% of our overall budget. And I think it's a, a, a really important benefit to, to show that just $1 in CPA funds leverages almost $30 in non-local funds. Okay, next slide please. So just to quickly talk through the project, schedule
CPA commitment right now significantly strengthens the competitiveness of our state funding application. So we have town meeting vote in October or November of, of this year. We would be submitting what's called a pre-application to the state in December. So to be able to demonstrate to the state at that time that we have significant local support would be a really significant boost to our state funding application. If we are invited to submit a full application that would happen in early 2026, we would hear about funding awards in summer of 2027, and then we would start, you know, closing
and, you know, that process. And we would start construction in early 2027, which means that we would be occupying the building in 2029. So affordable housing is a, a long game, but we are really, you know, excited to be where we are. If we are not invited to submit a funding application in this upcoming round, it, there's a chance that we would have to wait for an entire additional year to reapply, which obviously would move that, that timeline back even farther. Given all the great progress we've made,
we're really eager to, to move forward. Vacancy is not the friend of historic buildings, so we would really love to get to work on the preservation of the historic asset and just wanna say that we are really grateful for all of the, the local input that we've received and the support for the project. And that's all I have. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Ms. Madden for that presentation. Questions from the board, keeping in mind that this is largely an update, Ms. Pope.
Speaker 7: Thank you Mr. Chairman, thank you as well for the presentation and the update. I, I wanted to know, and, and this is, I I would say this is information for the board, but also likely for the public. Is the process that you outlined, is that typical of this type of project? When we look at the funding sources and you know, where they're coming from, the amount of funding, is this a typical rundown of what this type of project would entail? Speaker 14: It is, yes. And as you can see, we have
to get very creative and thread the needle on a number of different sources. But that's, you know, the expertise that, that we bring to this is that we've been through many state funding rounds, we've managed many very similar projects and we've been very successful in securing that funding and, and moving the projects forward. It is kind of the nature of this work that it takes a, it takes time and the state funding round only being once a year obviously is, is a challenge because you only get that kind of, you know, one opportunity every year to be really competitive
and what is a very highly competitive funding round. Speaker 7: A couple more questions. You stated that the, in order to apply you have to be invited. What, what predicates getting an invitation? Speaker 14: Sure. So the first step is to submit what's called a pre-application. It's a very short application and the state collects those from anyone who wants to apply and they prioritize those, the things that they look like look at are readiness to proceed. So do you have your permits also they look at local support and a big part of that is the local funding contribution
because the state is bringing really significant resources to a project. So there's, you know, I think priority given to, to cities and towns that make their own resources available as a vote of competence and also as a, a contribution to the feasibility of the, the project. Speaker 7: Awesome, thank you. And my last question is, what, what does the project look like in the event that an invitation was not extended Indeed shut out? Speaker 14: Yes. So the, in that case, we would have to wait
and reapply in the following year. So next fall we would submit another pre-application. They do sometimes have what's called a mini round for highly ready to proceed projects that happen mid-year, but that's extremely competitive, very limited invitations extended. Obviously we would try to put our best foot forward to try to get into the competitive mini round, but that's never a guarantee. So it could be Speaker 7: A year. I think to just expound on that question a little bit more, I think what I'm not just, I don't just,
I wasn't just asking about the opportunity to apply again, but rather what does, what is the status of the project? If, if, if an opportunity is not extended, what does that mean for, for the project and these other funding sources and permits and just the, the entire status of the project? Speaker 14: Sure. So I think, you know, obviously as time passes costs increase, so we would be in a position to ma have to manage additional cost escalation. But I think, you know, really big picture, it's the project will move forward.
It's just a matter of when and obviously the sooner the better from both a preservation of the historic structure perspective and also from the perspective of managing the future increases of of costs. Thank you. Sure. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Pope. Mr. Shani, do you have anything? Speaker 6: Yes, I do. I just, I want to talk about the timeline a little bit, if that's okay. When we were, when we awarded this RFP, it seemed like the, you know, there's a lot of stuff to go through and it feels to me that
we're actually proceeding pretty much a pace we're actually ahead of where I expected us to be. Would that be a fair statement? Speaker 14: I guess speaking from my perspective, other folks in the town can certainly weigh in. You know, I think we have had a lot of community process here that's been really important for us and for the community. But overall, yes, I think we are very much in line with kind of the expectations of how these projects proceed. Speaker 5: Jamie? Yes, I I would echo that. I don't think we're a header behind what, what the expectation was just given the, the, the complexities of affordable housing projects, all the funding source applications and deadlines and,
and processes that these projects need to go through. I think we're right on target. Speaker 6: Yeah, I I, I really wanna appreciate that because there's been some buzz that it's taking too long and I just wanted to put that to rest possible. The other thing at the point you get asked to apply, is there any additional support that we as the board could provide you to help that application go through? Speaker 14: Yes, that would be very helpful. Typically at the time of full application, we would be asking for letters of support
and it obviously would be a huge benefit to the project to be able to demonstrate the support of a select board in the form of a, a letter of support. So that is, you know, a, a, a template that we could provide to you and you could discuss and decide whether it's something you wanted to provide. Speaker 6: Thank you very much and really appreciate this update. I'm glad to see this pro project is moving forward and, you know, I'm really excited to see it succeed. Speaker 14: Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you Caitlin. And, and thank you for the presentation. There's just been a lot
of progress since the last time you were here in front of us and I appreciate all that you are doing. Just wanna follow up a little bit more on some of the questions from Ms. Pope in terms of the timing. So you'll be submitting pre-application to the state in December, and when do you expect to hear back? Speaker 14: Well, the full application would be due in March, so they would need to let us know pretty quickly so that we could put together the 1000 page application
that is required for this, for the funding. But it just depends on how long it takes the, the staff to make their determination and how long it takes the secretary to approve that determination. So it can vary from, you know, about a month or maybe a little bit longer. Speaker 8: Are these funds, are they involved with the, the federal government in any way? Or are they, do they come solely from the state? Speaker 14: Sure. So the biggest source which we talked about is the low income housing tax credit. And we have both state and federal low income housing tax credits. That program has very broad bipartisan support.
In fact, it was just expanded under the current administration just a couple of months ago, which is great because we can build more housing. But one of the kind of interesting impacts of that is that because more credits are available, the price that investors are willing to pay per credit actually decreases a little bit. So that was one of the, the reasons for the, the changes in our, our, our budget over the, the recent updates. But overall, you know, still a very strong program and makes up the vast majority of our sources.
The rest are, you know, either private state, we do have some small federal subsidy sources that are awarded by the state right now. We don't have any indication that those will not be made available, but I do feel confident we live in a state where housing has been a real priority and if there's a good project that the state wants to move forward, that the sources can be kind of moved around if there are those small adjustments in the,
in the federal availability. Speaker 8: Thanks. So if you are invited to apply and applications due in March, when would you hear what, what's typically the, the timeframe on that? Speaker 14: Typically summer in past years, applications have been due due in February. Now they're due in March. So that kind of pushes, my guess would be maybe June or July, but, but summer of, of next year. Speaker 8: All right. So you would know by then and then have a plan moving forward if for some reason you, this project were not accepted for funding. Right.
Speaker 14: Yep. Speaker 8: All right. Just wanted to clarify that. All right, thank you. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Wolfer, just a quick follow up on the low income tax credit, could you describe for the public how that's attractive to people? You, you spoke about the demand for those because there's a greater supply, there's, you're having to compete more to get people interested. Could you elaborate on that just a bit? Speaker 14: Sure. And I'll try not to put everyone to sleep. So the low income housing tax credit is actually
a program of the IRS, not of HUD because it's not the mobilization of federal dollars. It's a, a tax program that benefits investors in a number of ways and attracts private investment to be able to build housing. The way that it works is that the federal government allocates a certain number of tax credits to each state each year, and then the state in turn allocates those credits to specific projects. And then once the developer receives the state award of the tax credits, we go out to our pool of investors
to try to guess get the best pricing in terms that we can for the, for the project. But when the federal government allocates more tax credits to the states and more tax credits are deployed in the state, it's just a kind of a simple supply demand. Investors can pay less per credit because there's more competition, or excuse me, less competition, which can drive down the, the price per dollar, which has a downward adjusting effect on the overall equity that we can gather for the project.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Again, just to e echo what some of my colleagues have said, this has been a, a protracted effort in, in a good sense of the word, you've, you've listened to a lot of the resident feedback and incorporated that into the design. Some of that has raised the cost estimate of the project and hence the adjusted need for that. I was encouraged by the percentage that the CPA funding
was represented as part of the overall financial package. I also was very impressed with the leverage of that investment is both a perceived commitment from the town, which helps facilitate it getting through the process of approval. And the second thing is, it leverages financial investment by other parties when you have a one to 30 ratio. That's a pretty good ROI in my book. So appreciate all the work that you've done,
appreciate all the ongoing work that you're doing. You're splitting yourselves between two meetings here in Natick tonight. So keep up the good work and any look forward to, to hearing more about this at town meeting and hopefully passing all the CPA recommendations. So thank you again for being here tonight. Thank you. Appreciate it. One last thing I need for neglected to ask people in the room if you had any, had any questions? Anybody online have questions? Go ahead. Go ahead Mr. Jacobs.
Speaker 15: Yeah, thank you very much. I actually just have a really quick administrative question, which is if it would be possible to get the presentation that we just saw on Novus? Yes. Okay, cool. Speaker 1: Thank you. We'll be doing that. I, I can try to get that up. Okay. Speaker 5: I already sent it to Billy. He'll get up there tomorrow. Speaker 1: Okay. Yes, this is the short answer. We'll do that. Any other comments, Mr. Jacobs? Any? None. Anyone else have a comment? Okay. Thank you again Ms. Madden. Thank you. Okay, moving on to monthly Johnson speak.
This is the opportunity in our agenda to talk about anything that has come up recently on the Johnson School. We do have later in the agenda a discussion of the flash vote survey re I'm sorry, that's the meetings. Speaker 5: Next meeting. Speaker 1: We'll have next meeting. We were having that, sorry, two meeting, two meetings are going together in my mind here. So is there anything anyone wants to bring up on Johnson right now? I have, I have a very small one, which is, we had office hours on last Saturday
since we'd had the October 7th meeting, which was a three hour meeting where there were about 50 people. And we had a lot of good feedback, a lot of good participation. There was only one person who attended, but I had a very good discussion and it really just sort of confirmed what we'd heard previously. So we're gonna continue to, to move ahead on the, trying to get the date in my head, the 29th of October. We will have an a full update from Jay
and he'll walk us through that sort of thing. So is there a question online? I thought I saw my hand up. Speaker 5: I see one for B Brinley Vickers. Would you Speaker 1: Like me to? Okay. Brenley, do you have a comment? Speaker 16: Yes. I'm just curious if you could expand a little on what you meant by that confirmed what you've been hearing. Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, you know, many of the same themes that we've heard, which was priorities of open space, priorities of having something for the entire community.
Those were probably the, the two biggest themes. Speaker 16: Thanks. I I just wanted to say it publicly again that I'm not, I don't think it was just that we had just had the October 7th workshop. I think that also Saturdays in October, especially Saturday mornings, happen to be really challenging to get somewhere if you have kids. So I just wanted to put that out there that the, the lack of show on Saturday and today does not mean there is a lack
of interest. So thank you. Speaker 1: Nope, I would agree wholeheartedly. We were getting a lot of participation and we're getting a lot of information online. We're also soliciting a lot of participation from people who are on various committees in town from ranging from the school committee, conservation commission, et cetera. So we expect to have a lot of input. We, we've said all along, this is not a hasty process, this is a process. We're, we're going to be very deliberate
and try to understand what the best use of this property is. And there are a number of things that we have to work through that just will simply will take time. So I appreciate your continuing continued involvement as a community. Next up, we've got a, any other questions? I'm sorry, I didn't look. I don't see any. So let's move on to a public hearing on Amvets post 79 application to allow outdoor seating.
And I know, gentlemen, if you could introduce yourselves and Speaker 13: Looking Speaker 11: For us post management. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: We need to read the public hearing notice. Speaker 1: Thank you Speaker 6: Mr. Open in the public hearing. Speaker 1: Yep. Ms. Pope, do you wanna read that or do you want me to? Speaker 7: I can read that. Mr. Evans, you would gimme just one second. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 7: I had it up and I'm switching between screens. Pardon me. Okay. The select board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday,
October 15th, 2025 at 6:30 PM upon the application of AM v's. Post 79 DBA AM BES Luis Torres, manager of record. The alteration of premises consist of adding outdoor seating. The hearing will be held in the Edward Delott room 13 East Central Street as well as remotely anyone wishing to be heard on this matter can participate in person or through zoom. Login instructions will be published on October 15th, 2025. Select board agenda. All persons interested in this application may appear and be heard at the time and place.
Mention above or may submit written comments to the select board at 13 E Central Street, Natick, MA 0 1 7 6 0, or at select board@natickma.org by October 15th, 2025. And I move to open the public hearing. Second. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Pope and Ms. Wal Slayer. Let me just briefly say that we've received a lot of Yes, I know. I'm just commenting first we Oh, to open the hearing. I'm sorry. Yeah. All in favor, please say Aye.
Ms. Pope? Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yes. Ms. Walser? Yes. And I'm a yes. So we are now as open the public hearing. Thank you for kicking me under the table. Okay. So let's, why don't you guys just quickly go through what your application is, why you wanted, and sort of give us the one minute long version of it or something. Speaker 11: Pretty Speaker 17: Much just the closed area. Speaker 6: The mic's not on. Speaker 17: Hi, Louis Torres, post manager. So we're looking for outside seating and drinking outside so our members can enjoy the
outside facility as well as the inside. We've been an outside facility for, since 1954. We've been asked to enclose an area so we can then have a better understanding and security of our drinking area outside. So that's what we're asking for at this time. I've enclosed the outside area according to the police deputy chief and he's approved it. He's approved it. So we're just asking that we are allowed to enjoy the outside facility at this time and be able to serve out the window so we can enjoy the facilities. Speaker 6: Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you Mr. Torres. Speaker 18: And I'm Eric Olson. I'm the post commander at this time. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Mr. Olson.
Any questions from the board? Ms. Paul Walker? Speaker 8: Just wanna say what a pleasure to have you come before us. No issues and kudos on your signage. My goodness. No one is gonna miss that. So Speaker 17: Thank you. Speaker 1: That was, thank you. I I I was going to mention that same thing. It's very, very unequivocal where the line of demarcation is. The deputy chief has given the thumbs up on this and so I'm looking for a motion to approve. I'm sorry Mr. Sidney. The end comment.
Speaker 6: Well, I have a question. Where does the correction of the license and manager of record stand, has that all gone through yet? Speaker 17: That is correct. I am the, I am the license holder of the, was Speaker 6: That actually, it's a question for administration. Oh, Speaker 17: Fine. Speaker 5: My understanding is the same, but I'll confirm and email the board when tomorrow with that information. Speaker 6: Okay. Thank, thank you Mr. Erickson. I I appreciate that. Speaker 1: That was my understanding too. Okay. Okay.
Any other que questions or comments? I would, I would just echo what Ms. Slager said earlier. It's great to see you guys and, and a happier discussion here. So, all in favor of granting the application for outdoor seating. Speaker 6: You, we, you need a motion first? Speaker 1: I need a motion. I'm really at a step here today. Would you be kind enough to give me a motion? Speaker 6: I would rather not tonight. Okay. Speaker 1: All right. Speaker 8: Move mo I'll make it move to approve the application for amvets post 79
to allow outdoor seating. Speaker 1: Okay. And I will second that. All in favor, please say aye. Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Sidney abstain. Ms. Multiplier? Yes. And now? Yes. So that's 3 0 1 with abstaining. Okay. Thank you very much gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's move on to item G so that we can get Mr. RA on his way after a long day here.
Speaker 5: So I'll just briefly start this and then we have Bill and Team Debra's here too for this, I believe to answer any questions. So we just wanna provide a brief update 'cause there's been just a lot of talk and just a lot of visual movement on really what is a maintenance update to the gazebo on the common. And just, there's a memo in the, in the BA board packet that just talks about the most recent work that's happened, which has largely been some carpentry work, some other, not structural per se,
but woodwork on, on the building structural as well. There was some structural work in there and what's most visible is the paint job, which if you recall or maybe don't recall, but we did a flash vote to gain community input on what we should paint it. And we're following that, those results. So this was a, one of the early flash votes that we had regarded that, that we used as a tool to get some community input. But really the gazebo project started, oh gosh, maybe seven, eight years ago with a working group, including members of the select board members and the center associates, members of the community, whereby there was a, a, a review
of what should be done. The first question was, what should be done with the gazebo? 'cause it was already starting to show at that time some wear and tear, to say the least. Through that analysis, it was determined that even, and they looked at that, that group looked at everything from full removal to full a DA compliant upgrades, to changing everything, to really, they looked at all aspects of what to do with the gazebo at that time. And even a full removal led to the realization that you were looking at once you start impacting it more than just maintenance. It was a six figure plus endeavor.
I think the removal cost that we got maybe in 2020 was $700,000 or something like that as a cost. People don't realize it, but that, that gazebo structure is a solid, solid structure. We also looked at doing a DA compliant upgrades, but then once you start doing that, you're chasing grade and you're impacting the other aspects of the common. So after a lot of analysis and a lot of dialogue, we've, we determined that it was made the most sense. We being town administration, working with our public works and facilities partners as well as select board. At that, that time I think it was a different set of members
and we started this work and Nate Center Associates, we just decided, you know what, let's just do maintenance and we'll do it when we, you know, through, through a couple different projects through budget appropriations that were part of some of the town meeting appropriations, not capital, but more general fund budget appropriations. And so that has led to the last couple years worth of works. You might have seen last year the roof replaced, that was part of that project. And then just recently was the, the carpentry, structural and paint work. I believe they also power wash components of it as well.
Or maybe that's next round. So that's the bulk of the work that's gonna be happening. I don't know if Bill or, or Debbie, Debra, there's gonna be more work going on, but the bulk of the heavy work is now at it's combination. And now we have a fixed up gazebo that should last another. I think that was installed in the eighties. So I dunno if it's gonna last another 40 years, but it might last another 40 years. So, any questions? Any, anything I missed? Speaker 1: No, I Speaker 5: Think we covered it. Okay. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Questions from the board? Speaker 7: Just wanted to say that this is exciting. This is really exciting. You know, people have remarked on the gazebo for as long
as I have been here about its need for repair and the desire to see it repaired. And so this is really exciting that it's happening and moving forward. I had mentioned a question on timeline, the timeline of it happening, but I think I'm pretty square on that. So thank you for this update. Speaker 1: Sure. Okay, Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering if Mr. Erickson or Mr. Sprat could delve into a little more detail on some of the things that are included in this contract. Given some of the chatter I've heard,
I think it would be really good to go a little deeper and, and it's more than just a paint job, significantly more than just a paint job. Speaker 5: I'll, I'll Mr. Re on to that. Speaker 12: Sure. Thank you. Yeah, to, To be concise on the paint job part, paint job was probably somewhere around maybe one 10th of this, this part, the, the real work started last year when we replaced the roof. When we replaced the roof, we found structural deficiencies, wood that was rotting insect infestation in some
of the boards, ballisters and new posts that were, that were loose or missing as of a couple years ago. That structure was fairly unsafe. So we did some temporary shoring work this round, which is phase two of two really at this, at this point, fixed up some of those structural deficiencies, shored up the, the ballisters and railings. The whole structure was sanded down. There was some carving like graffiti marks in there. The bottom, the base area, the masonry was
pressure washed and, and parts repointed. The, the flooring is gonna get a, a coating on it. And then right now that all that work has accomplished, it's being painted and we're about two weeks away from, from having that complete. Speaker 6: Is there, was there any Yeah, I know that thing has a, a real basement in it. Was there any work done inside that was needed? Speaker 12: Only some electrical repairs. There is a hatch that's questionable. That might be, I said phase two of two complete. We might be replacing a hatch, which is really more
maintenance as opposed to like a capital upgrade. But that's all that would be happening. Nothing subgrade. Speaker 6: Okay. Is it gonna be, and, and I just, I've heard a couple of complaints. It's hard sometimes to get the electric working. Is that all gonna be fixed up? Speaker 12: There were some electrical repairs done during this, this project. There is not a lot of electrical outlets there, but we have made some minor upgrades there. Speaker 6: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much Mr. Sprat. And I really appreciate the fact that the casino's getting, it's such a, it's just such an icon for the town. I'm, I glad it's getting some attention.
Speaker 12: Yeah, the, and frankly the credit goes to Deborah. She's done all of the work on this from the, from the scope writing to the, the bidding and the completion show. She's done all of this work. Speaker 1: Thank you Mrs. Sidney. So I'll cha you have any No, no. I just wanted to quickly comment on the RFP was very comprehensive. That is on, that is available on our agenda. So you can see the breakdown, you can see the project scope, which is as, as Mr. Sprat said, a lot more extensive than simply a a paint job.
There's a lot, a lot of underlying work to get it structurally sound. So great job, look forward to doing it. People who've been around for a while may have remembered that it was cordoned off for a number of years and people couldn't climb up onto the gazebo for a number of years because it was so unsafe. So it'll be good to have it back in action. So thank you for all your efforts on this. Okay, let's move on to the easement relocation
on 69 East Central Street. Speaker 5: So this is an, an approval request for a relocation of easement that just requires the board board's approval. There's information in the packet as well as, and we will get up there shortly, but I did add a, oh, maybe that's in the packet too. Oh, Billy was super fast. There's also a map in there showing the current easement versus the new easement location. This is an easement for a, one of our main water lines.
I believe it's a water main bill. Do you wanna come up and help explain a little bit, but in brief, as Bill walks up here, this is being relocated due to a private development project, the corner of union and 1 35 East Central Street. And in brief, it just basically the new project and they completed all the work for the town, but needed to relocate the physical location as well as an easement for the water line. And in front of what people can see is actually the, the existing versus new condition. Speaker 12: Right. So I'll just explain it. So this is a, a, a main water line that really feeds all of South Natick.
It's a, it's a main pressure line that comes from one of our reservoirs. The location of the red was the old easement. That's where the pipes ran. And they ran from the red into the blue. So the blue is existing and will stay. The red is what was there and what was removed. And the green is the new easement that were proposed that will be taken. So the, the new pipes are already working already in place. They run along the green connect back up to the blue. So what we're asking for the developer to get their CO
and those type of things, this easement has to be taken. So we're asking you to take the green part of the easement tonight. And then once that's done, that allows the DPW teams to dig and, and have access to the water main. And then after that is done, we'll figure out the, the right path to get rid of that red easement. So the, the green one comes first and then we'll figure out how to wipe away the easement for the red one. The red one goes through the building. Right now Speaker 5: There's no cost. Do you do, there's no cost of the town for this. So it falls from the perspective
of approvals under the blanket when the town meeting provides every April to the select board to except or give easements and no cost. Speaker 1: Do we have, excuse me, do we have to take a vote on it? Yes, Speaker 5: We do. Yeah, there's also an easement document for you to sign. Okay, Speaker 1: That's right. Speaker 5: Yeah, which is, there's a set of plans and Speaker 1: I thought there was a Oh, good stuff. Yeah. Okay. Questions Ms. Wallace, Speaker 8: Just, just to clarify, I see that the water line actually does run outside of the green area on Union Street, but I assume that's because we already have an easement because it's the street.
Is that correct? Speaker 12: That would be correct, yes. Speaker 5: That's already to, that's our, that's Speaker 12: Our right of way. Speaker 8: Thank you. Just wanted Speaker 1: To was in the right of way. Yeah. Okay. Good question though, Mr. Sidney question. Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I, I think my question is really procedural. You know, once we, once we approve the new easement, can't we just vote to release the old one or, and then administration can do whatever they need to do? Or do we have to wait for a second meeting to vote to release the other easement? Speaker 1: Good question. Speaker 12: So frankly,
I don't know the exact answer to that. I'm the, I need the help of Bill McDowell to, to do that. He's not with us here tonight, so I will find out that answer. I don't know, Jamie, if you know the answer of how to, how to do that, Speaker 5: I'll be fine. I have to defer as well, I think certainly makes sense. But I'd hate for us, I mean, you can always give the approvals, but if we have to come back, we have to come back. I think the big thing is just accepting the easement and then we can always come back and have another consent agenda to release it. Speaker 19: It, it could be contingent on, you know, just final tie-ins.
Yeah. So if the board wanted to approve releasing that, that easement or kind of giving that back, you know, barring any final tie-ins or anything that had to happen with the, the two systems, Speaker 5: It's also Speaker 6: Registered. Yeah. It, it seems to me that it would make sense if possible, to do it all tonight and then let administration take care of the rest when, when it's appropriate. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Sidney Speaker 5: To come back. We'll come back. Speaker 1: Yeah. So I guess, or any other questions? I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: So I move, we accept the new easement. Speaker 8: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Er. Yes. Mommy, here you are. I'll take that as a Yes, Ms. Pope. Just kidding. Yes. Me? Yes. Okay. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Slager? Yes. And I'm, yes. Also a 4 0 0. And we'll do Speaker 6: Sign and, and I move, we released the easement contingent upon, you know, any administrative stuff that the administration has to do. Speaker 1: Okay. I'll a second. Speaker 8: Second.
Speaker 1: Okay. All in favor, Ms. Pope? Speaker 7: Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney? Yes. Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Walger? Yes. And IS tell Lily she's doing a great job, Ms. Pope. Speaker 7: I was gonna say chairman, we can, you can consider that a double Yes. Double. Speaker 6: So Speaker 1: I'll record it as 5 0 0 then. Alright. All right, let's move on. Thank you Ms. Re Speaker 5: We can work. Bill, when do you need these signed by? 'cause we only have two members here tonight.
And Yeah, this is just in the coming days, weeks, days, week. Speaker 12: The coming days, weeks would be fine. It's, it's really, this Speaker 5: Is the beginning of the vote first, then we can get it signed. Yeah. Speaker 12: Right. And we have to do the registry and all the other stuff, the deeds. Speaker 5: Okay. Okay. Speaker 1: We'll get to tonight. And I think you need just three, right? Speaker 5: Technically yes. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 6: Okay. I can stop by in the next day or two. Speaker 1: Okay. Terrific. Thank you Mr. Stratton. Thank you Debbie. Okay, let's move on. We're back to the discussion of the flash vote survey results on meetings.
Speaker 5: Sorry, do you wanna briefly do the continued hearing for Gatsby's just to get it Yeah. Speaker 1: Outta the way. Alright, let's get that out of the way, which is, we are going to continue. Oh, obviously Gatsby's is not here. No further information has been exchanged. I would like to move that hearing to, I believe it's November 4th. What is, what is our Speaker 5: The date of the meeting you mean? Yeah, Speaker 1: Trying to remember that. Right. Speaker 5: There's, I think it's November, Speaker 3: We have the 29th on the, Speaker 1: On the 12th. There's, there's a meeting going on November 12th,
October 30th. Speaker 5: October 29th. All right. There's a meeting on October 29th, which is the Wednesday and then November 12th. Speaker 1: Yeah, so it would be November. Speaker 3: Okay. October 29th or November 12th. Speaker 6: I'd suggest the 29th. 'cause we can always continue it again. Yeah, I want to, I want these people to show up and just make every opportunity available. Okay. Speaker 1: In agreement with that. So we will move it to October 29th and they will be notified that that has moved. And that's something that Billy can do.
Speaker 5: Yes. Yep. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Now let's move on to the discussion of the flash vote survey results depart. Speaker 11: Hello, Jay Port Town communications director. Speaker 6: Microphone please. Speaker 20: There we go. Jay Port Paddock Town Communications director. I'm gonna walk us through, I've got the share just one brief second while I do a screen share. Alright, so the topic I'm gonna walk through is a flash vote survey and to the select board chair about a 15 minute version. Sounds appropriate. Sure. Okay.
And I'll try to leave opportunity to discuss it. We're at a meeting talking about doing better meetings. So this was a flash vote survey that was sent out to residents via the survey panel as well as social media, our website and other means. And essentially we were asking the residents to give us some feedback on how to run better local government meetings and ultimately see more participation and just optimize the meetings in order to make folks feel more engaged. I will say that we're at a select board meeting talking to the select board.
This is broader than the select board. So we never at any point delineate the select board. It's truly local government, government meetings. And I think that'll be appropriate or kind of evident as we go through this. Three primary findings at the top. We ran this for a 48 hour period in mid-September and we walked away saying, I don't, I'm not gonna call these groundbreaking, but ultimately residents want convenience and that primarily anchors around hybrid and video meetings. Residents are asking for improved communications. I am the communications director, so I'll, I'll speak
to some of those, but it's even broader than just simply a single job title. And then interesting fact, myself and the town administrator, were expecting the respondents on our survey panel to be the most engaged residents and tell us they go to every single meeting. Well, in fact, 53% have reported never going to a local government meeting in the previous two years. So it just gives us a sense that, you know, you want to talk to your existing base, the people, people that are engaged. But it's a great opportunity to hear from those that say they've been to no meetings in the prior two years.
This is the group that we can bring in the new cohort to take over local government beyond the volunteers we already have. I've got a couple of data points around the validity of data filters. This is kind of a, an ever present in all Flash road reports, but ultimately 739 total respondents. The response rate from the panel prior to the being survey deployed was about 49%, which is near our 50% benchmark. So enough to be statistically significant at a 95% rate, which is good with a margin of error of 3.6. So anything within that 3.6, take it directionally anything
beyond feel relatively confident. First question we asked residents and ultimately survey responders. How many meetings you went to in the previous two years? Again, 53%. None. I'm gonna scroll and just give you a sense of the key here. I would focus primarily on the blue as we go through these surveys. The other cohort was those are individuals who came into the panel or simply didn't give us their information. That was a relatively modest number. It was only 66 individuals. So the vast majority, 673 came from the blue bar,
which is the member panel. And so there were some light users who had been to one to five meetings in the previous two years, and then we had about 16% of folks that had been to six or more. Anyone on the zoom call that you can see right now is likely in that cohort. But you know, again, thinking about this question is primarily just getting people engaged into the survey and enabling us to filter the data. So we'll come back to this sort of meeting per meeting attendance in future questions to understand the insights we asked in question two, the meeting types that residents found most intriguing.
So in in this instance we talked about with the headline being again in the dark blue or the light blue that shaded the first two responses when asking about what sort of meeting types was primarily anchored on hybrid and video meetings. Anything below you see a lesser blue bar. If you focus just on the blue bars, the first hybrid references only public meetings and then only q and a sessions. So the q and a sessions hint at a more interactive session,
but ultimately give me hybrid give video is what respondents are saying. I'm gonna scroll down for the remaining ones into this green table that's labeled chart bb. So in this instance, the lighter green is a cohort of individuals who have been to none or no meetings in the previous two years versus one through five. The mid green. And then the darker forest green will be those individuals who've been to six plus. So IDA A in the top right, or if you're looking online, the cursor, when we looked at the nuns segment, the top two
responses were in fact hybrid. It was a lesser degree at 45 percentage points for both the top and the second choice. But still, if you compare that to the other light green, they're still saying they want hybrid. When we go down in item C and we looked at the most engaged residents. So those that have been to six plus, they're ultimately skewing towards more receptivity towards the informal or interactive sessions. So the 37, 35, 31 in sequence, those individuals are saying, I'm willing to come in person to a q and a, I'm willing to come in person
to a public meeting or just have an informal public workshop a little bit more engaged to come in person versus hybrid. So not, not necessarily, again groundbreaking, but it tells us this isn't the i, the goal of this is not to say what one meeting type should we hold. It's to say we really have to serve a whole slew of wants and needs. The last one I found interesting as well. We gave people an individual a chance to say not that interested in local government meetings. And if we looked at the population that said they had not been to a single meeting, only 13% chose that. So I'm willing to argue that that's a willingness
to become engaged. We can win these individuals and they either would've had to select a meeting above that response or an other response. But again, 87% choose to go beyond not that interested. So there is some level of interest, but we just haven't served up the appropriate meetings to get them engaged. Scroll through question three. I'll again jump in for any of the board members, but I'll try to, you know, anchor on that 15 minutes and let you ask questions at the end as well. We then asked about in increased participation, what would actually make you come
to meetings at a higher rate. I'm just, just gonna scroll to the bar chart, but ultimately the, again, looking at the blue, you can see more frequent and clear communications. We didn't, there were some responses in the other fields as well as the final question, but we didn't do run focus groups or anything. But the final slide I will anchor on some committed changes and then some aspirational changes that we're considering. And we can listen to the board as well as anyone else. But again, clear communications, more hybrid, more video, and then shorter meetings. That was a late edition by the flash vote founder who said,
why don't you ask 'em about shorter meetings. But I think, you know, there's some humanity here and if you, if you scroll through or if you click on the AI summary, I've taken all the open responses for all the questions and I've asked AI to tell us what are the top themes and what are the top surprises. So there's, there's some nuggets in there, but it's relatively sparse data. So not, I'm not gonna slow us up here scrolling through to question four. This is a slight pivot. Originally when we wanted to do this meeting, we were only gonna ask people about Natick 1 0 1, but in fact, presumably a small portion of Natick residents actually know what Natick 1 0 1 is. So we tried to enlarge the survey itself
to be about meetings in this instance. Natick 1 0 1, I have some context up on the screen. I I won't read it verbatim. The reality is most folks listening at this point are engaged and probably remember the leadership academy that the Citizens Leadership Academy that previously ran, we relaunched it in September of 24, revived it. And we've run some decent programs. There's some stats in there. But when we ask residents what, as we pivot away from sort of department intros into topics, what topics would they find most interesting? So just looking at the table or the bar chart, you can see planning the future,
which is a rather, there were some subtext behind that. So they gave them a little bit more descriptors. I didn't include it here for just brevity, but that would imagine something like the CED and the town administration coming together and putting together some compelling content for folks attracting the next wave of businesses. That's something I'm already starting to talk with the CED as well as the cultural district as we think through, so that that rated very high. And then an effort to build a more sustainable natick was our third. So areas within the CED, the cultural district and sustainability that will work towards content
and hopefully revive this. I know everyone says weekdays are better or weekends are better, or the summer's better or the winter's better. The realities are, there's 12 months that happen in sequence and we're gonna resurface Natick 1 0 1 in the very near future once we have viable content. So we're going to work within the finite capacity of staff, but all serve as the liaison going around and sourcing this content with the respective departments. And then final open-ended, this is the fifth question on a five question survey. You can read the themes and all of the number of instances that that theme was shown was in parentheses.
So some very similar themes towards the top. It gets in a little bit more in questions five and beyond around just building trust and transparency. There were some references that kind of get a little bit more niche, but I think want to do all the respondents justice and show their sort of thematic feedback. And then again, the AI with all all submitted survey responses. In this case we had the, of the open-ended, about 16% of folks 117 included an open-ended comment. This all netted into the final page, which is ultimately a set
of two lists near term opportunities. And then long term, the near term there's five, the select board is already working towards a hybrid or video only meeting policy, and feel free to speak to that later, but it feels like we're gonna take credit for that work that's already been in progress. And that aligns very firmly with what residents want. There was a lot of around communications, and again, this is not about whether or not we do or don't have notifications or whether or not we do or don't have agendas. This is about the fact that people are telling us we don't. So that's, that's the truth.
And so I think whether that be better website communications, you'll, you'll read the final one as a one page checklist for all boards and committees to really expand beyond the select board or maybe the school committee, the planning board, those boards that already have staff support and run relatively strong meetings. I think it's probably the long tail of boards and committees who don't have that same capacity or that norm. So they, there's a lot we can do around communications. We talked the promote and elevate key board and committee topics, that's this idea that, I've said this
to our town administration staff who prepares peak agendas on behalf of the select board. If it's a hot topic, we probably have a pretty good handle on that. Let's get a little small tile on the homepage. Let's send a broad notification not just to the select board agenda subscribers, but all of Natick. Let's offer that up to the school committee as a means to get more air cover. So I think this is the idea of like when there's a hot topic, let's make sure that residents who are engaged or those that are gonna be soon to become engaged can learn about that. And then the, the fourth one is internal training. I mean, I'm a department of one.
You're looking at the entire communications department and I think a lot of what I do is ultimately enable my coworkers and help give them trainings and not sufficient amount. So I think I've gotta figure that out. I won't read through all the long-term opportunities, but I just will put those in front of the board if those particular topics are of interest. We can talk into more details, but I would frame this as aspirational. This all takes time. We have finite resources, so we're trying to bite off what we think we can chew. But I will pass it back to the board. Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jeff. Any questions from the board on this that
I'll just make a quick comment. It's very, very comprehensive. I appreciate all the effort that's gone into that. And there are a lot of, as you said, I think that there are no huge surprises, but it, it's more what can we do better? What can we be more efficient at and recognizing that effort, how can we do it sooner rather than later? So I'm gonna open it up to comments from the board questions. Ms. Wal, Speaker 8: Thank you Jay.
Informative as always. And I always appreciate all the work that you do, not only in terms of presenting us the data, but giving us, you know, the interpretation of it. And I have to say that I actually wasn't surprised about the 53%. I mean, if you think about how many people actually do attend meetings in town, it's not that many. And you know, we have a big population and that's something that I wonder how we can try to reach those people. And I don't know that there's an answer for that. And, and you know, we've had discussions about it.
It's, it, it's difficult and, and these are the people that we have managed to reach. They've signed up for something. But there's so many people in town that don't have a clue about how we work. I mean, you know, you, you talk to people and they think we're a city, right? You know, that it's, you know, it's not an easy challenge. I think we've made a lot of progress since you've come on board about making outreach and communications. There's more to go. And I know that you recognize that as well.
And I just wanna, you know, say thank you for all that you've done and look forward to what we can do to make things even better in the future. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Sidney or Ms. Pope, do you have any thoughts? Speaker 6: Go ahead, Kristen. Speaker 7: Thank you Mr. Sidney. Thank you Mr. Evans. I first wanna say thank you for all of this work, Jay, in distilling these findings, I I ditto what Mr. Evans and Ms. Wilger said. And, and I do want to focus in on the progress that we've made.
When I think about the two and a half years that I've been fortunate to be on the board, the infrastructure that you've created, the data that you're collecting, the outreach that's going on, the projects that are unfolding and moving forward are really incredible. And we know that there is still great opportunity and I, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate to how to address that opportunity in incremental ways because that's, that's truly what progress is. It is incremental. And so we will continue to, to, you know,
close the gap by meeting people where they are. And I think especially as a team of one, I just, I commend you on, on all the work that you're doing. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yeah, so I wanna start, Jay, I really appreciate the survey and I appreciate the findings. I will say, I mean I'm a flash group float subscriber. I've signed in, I've signed up. I tried to, I started to take this survey and then realized that I, I really, I didn't see a way to answer it that wasn't gonna like be a real skew.
So I, I abandoned my answers to this survey. And the truth is, I don't attend meetings unless I have to. When I was not on the finance committee, I stopped attending finance committee meetings. For me, some of that is the trust I have because I know the people. I'm sure that's not I the general citizens experience. The other thing is I, and I'd be happy to work on you, work with you on this, I wonder if, I think one of the problems that I see is that agendas are lean
and I wonder if we couldn't make a tutorial of some sort or a recipe book or a how to book on how to write an effective resume effective agenda that we could hand to chairs of boards. That might be something we could do fairly quickly and effectively that would help get agendas better fairly quickly. If that's something you'd like to work with me on, or if that's something you'd like to do, that would be, or if you think it, it would be helpful. It, it seems like something we could do quickly,
but I really appreciate this. It's very informative. Speaker 20: Yeah, just on that last point, I would imagine that, you know, that checklist, that fifth item under the committed, that's where hopefully we can hand that to other border committee chairs. I agree that maybe agendas could be crafted, but I don't think it stops there. I mean, quite frankly, oh Speaker 6: No, but I, I was looking for like a really quick hit. Speaker 20: Well I, it sounds like a quick hit on the surface, but then we've gotta hand that off and trust that individual can do it. So I think coupling that with, I mean, I will tell you I talk to residents in a focus group like
environment and our attachments are often not included. And that's just the reality of time. The ability of civic plus to download A PDF is a bit clunky as opposed to the select board agenda, which is hosted on different software is more clickable. So I I appreciate that, yes, agendas can get better, but I don't think it stops there. And then what you're looking at on my screen ties into what Ms. Slager and Mr. Sidney's mentioned, but I don't want to give the context that we did a survey and that our goal is to get to some arbitrary value of residents. I actually fundamentally believe
that there's a burden associated with those that do show up and you get to lead on behalf of those who don't have the time or capacity. You know, Mr. Cindy just mentioned, he doesn't go to the meetings, he doesn't have to, I was, I say this all the time, I was a complacent 10 year resident. I had no idea there was a select board, a town meeting, a town moderator. And I believe fundamentally there are more of me than there are of the individuals in this room or on this zoom. And I don't think the goal is to push them over the finish line. They're in the middle of this 80% content happy.
And then there's the, you know, individuals who maybe aren't engaged and those that come in and out of being engaged and not. But I, I, I don't wanna give this sense that this has anything to do with growing our pie and more individuals. This is ultimately just running better meetings and you have to believe that the end game people will be more receptive. A lot of the nuggets that actually came through in the other comments were the exactly what people do in the private sector, which is the vast majority of our residents, which is why do I have to go through cumbersome minutes? Why can't I just get an AI summary like I do at the
tail end of a zoom meeting? And I think we have some legalities around mass general law and other things that the average resident might not appreciate, but I do think a little bit more of a nimble tech forward and there are some boarding committees doing this, but just make it approachable, make it human short videos that give a summary. I mean there's a lot of interesting ways to do this. I don't think doing the things we do now, 2% better is the solution. I think it's fundamentally zigging and when everyone else is zagging. So yes, we'll have some one-pager, we'll have some other areas, but I just didn't wanna give the idea that our goal is to get
to some arbitrary value of engaged residents. I think it's to get more engaged, just using the word more without a numerical value and run better meetings. So residents benefit from that. So Speaker 6: Mr, just one more question, Mr. Port Paddock, can you, and, and I don't know, and I'm, I don't wanna put you on the spot here, but can you imagine maybe having a discussion with our legislative delegation to, you know, maybe update OML to allow for like those kinds of summaries
that maybe aren't currently allowed or maybe with the Attorney general's office? Speaker 20: I I, I mean I, I'm not trying to give the sense they aren't allowed, they're in fact are govtech solutions that are in this space that tag speakers and adhere actually Billy Walsh, for those that know our town administration individual, he actually uses that as a jumping off point to create his minutes is using AI summary. So as far as I know, and I'm looking around the room, there are no legalities, you know, just kind of abolishing the idea of using that technology. I just think we're slow to, and I think that the average resident, we're testing it,
we're kind of kicking the tires, but there's, there's quite a bit we can do with the technology front. I don't think mass general law is inhibiting us today. Speaker 5: Yeah, I I would, I would agree with that. I think it's more just the bring it on board in the capacities to be able to do some of that work too. Yeah, Speaker 6: Okay. I just, I I was just curious if, if general law was getting in our way rather than, you know, might be impeding us and if we could get that, you know, anything going through the legislature slow, but if, if we see something, if impeding us, maybe we could, you know, have a, a conversation, you know, to kind of get
that impediment reduced. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Mr. Sidney. I just have a couple comments. First of all, thank you for all this great work. I think you've brought up some excellent points. One is the committees that have staff support versus not have staff support. That's, that's a big area. I also think you raised a great point of, you know, we don't wanna move, get 2% better at reaching people when, when we really need kind of a sea change or a transformation on how we reach people.
And some of that is the AI things. I know I personally, when I, I, I am, and Ms. Welser is much more well versed at this than I am, but I, I'm learning how to use it. I'm learning how to, to, to prepare summaries and you know, you can sketch out some of the information that you want to convey and get it cleaned up and get it more concise. Be it, have it more clear and be more responsive to Mr.
Sidney's point. No, and your point I think too, Jay, was nobody's got the time to sit down and do, go through every meeting. I, I, I listened as chair, I listened to FinCon hearings, I listened to school committee hearings, conservation commission hearings. It's a lot of work. One of the things that I've taken to doing is when there's an interesting or a topic of interest in one of those meetings, I use AI to summarize it for me and, and so that I know I can have an intelligent conversation
with people on those committees when I talk to them. So I think long story short, we're adopting it. We'd obviously like to do it faster, but I think we're, we are making, if, if I look back at the beginning of, of when I joined the board to now it, it's orders of magnitude improved. So, and that's largely due to you, it's largely due to the town administration's effort to move us forward on this path. So I think this is great progress.
It's not to be all and end all, but it's, it's considerable progress and I think that should be lauded. So thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, thank you. Thank you Mr. Ock. Speaker 5: Thanks Jay. Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to downtown parking requests. Lemme bring that. And Jamie, do you want to talk about that a little or do we want to Speaker 5: I can do a high level, I know John's here for a good chunk of this as well, but it's the time of year
where we do a couple things. And this, this year in particular, we've also been doing additional work and that's, that's, I certainly want to give John time to explain some of the work that we've been doing. But this time of year is when the 10, then the select board typically sets parking rates more for the commuter passes, the business passes and the, and we have a senior council on Aging pass that happens annually. You do this every year and that is part of this memo. But in addition to that, we're also asking the board
to consider some additional con ideas or, or, or adjustments to some of the downtown parking. This is the, the, the, well we're partway through several steps with the board. So you'll see us back probably in the next 12 months with some additional proposed adjustments. And we started this conversation really a couple years ago coming outta the pandemic. We've just been still doing that analysis, still figuring out what is downtown parking and Ick center. We're already sort of monitoring it pre pandemic, but the pandemic really threw it for a loop and we're kind of still seeing some
of those impacts in full openness. But John, do you want to help explain, just walk us through the memo and help explain the request for tonight but then also basically how we got here? Sure. Speaker 19: We probably started diving back into parking, I wanna say it was a year and a half ago. And at that point in time we talked about parking as this big massive thing and how do we solve it. And what we decided to do at that point in time was really focus in on some of the existing features that are in place. So trying to look at our existing infrastructure,
find opportunities to simplify that as much as possible, get some feedback and have some dialogues and conversations with the business community and engaging with the cultural district and just trying to to hear what some of the concerns and challenges are. We haven't found a perfect solution for this, that's probably not a surprise, but everyone has slightly different opinions on what the issues and pinch points and challenges are related to parking. So I think one of the things that we're trying to do with bringing you some recommendations right now is
to make some incremental changes that we feel will be helpful. We'll clarify, we'll clean some things up and continue to study and analyze this going forward to see if there are larger changes that need to be made with say our permitting processes. So I'll just walk you through the different sections and happy to answer any questions. I do just want to give kudos to the staff that was working on this, specifically Morgan Griffiths and Community and Economic Development, deputy Chief Loon,
chief Hicks, Jamie, and also acknowledge Heather Rockwood, the executive director of the Natick Center Cultural District who I think one of the first interactions I had with Heather was probably around parking. So kind of continuing to stay in that communication loop regarding what they're hearing and what some of those challenges are. I will, you know, first before diving into these sections, just say no one likes getting a ticket. Our parking enforcement officers have to issue tickets. They probably, you know, have that job where, oh gosh,
I got a ticket, this person issued a ticket. I'm not necessarily happy about that. However, I will say our parking enforcement officers are probably some of the best ambassadors within our parking district. I've seen them go over to and explain people that look confused with the meters on what they should do, how they could do it differently. So just want to give them credit for that because I think that's a key component of any parking program is just having people who A, have a job to do but at the same time want to communicate what people can do to use the parking system in the best way going forward.
So under item one, just some parking rate simplifications. Previously we had two hours and four hours in different spaces and this is related to meters and kiosks. What we're trying to do from a simplification standpoint and, and some of this might be familiar from the meeting we had in April, but we're really trying to get a, a vote of the board on some of these things. At this point, if you're on street, it's two hours and if you're in the lots it's four hours before there was some inconsistencies with lots and on street. We feel that this cleans it up
and in the change that is the benefit here in some of the lots previously the restriction was two hours. So basically now opening up all those lots to four hours we feel will be a greater benefit for those parking within the district. Simplifying of rates, and I will caveat this with the fact that our physical meters where you can put coins into is an infrastructure that is going away. We will have to address that down the road because we found out actually just recently in a conversation with Chief Hicks that the meters
that we have are no longer being produced. So we're trying to make sure we hang onto some spare parts. We probably over time will consolidate those physical meters that accept coins down kind of into the, the main area of town and kind of shrink that area of where those meters are and likely replace those with pay by app or pay by text. It's just the reality of where we are and we're not the only municipality dealing with that change. So from a simplification of rates, coin meters 25 cents for every 15 minutes.
Right now we have three types of, depending on where you are, it's either 25 cents for 15 minutes, 25 cents for 30 minutes or 25 cents for an hour. So this would be cleaning it up, having one consistent rate for that. I will say that is an adjustment and is gonna cost a little bit more. However, it is something that really helps clean that up. Other spaces with the pay by app or pay by kiosk, $1 for the first hour, anytime that you're paying by credit card, by app,
the initial charge is $1. So we felt that that made sense. And then adjusting for the 50 cents for each additional half hour after that. More library parking. There's a couple of spaces near the police station across from the Morse library. Some were 15, some were 30. We had a conversation with the library director who circled in with the trustees and they would just like to see that cleaned up to 30 minutes. It's a clear thing for us to communicate in general as well. Approve additional on street parking spaces. So this is under item two
looking at the parking district in terms of some mixed use properties that are going into play. We're specifically looking at those spaces across from St. Patrick's Church. So we would look to get those pay by space. We wouldn't put physical meters there. We would have pay by app or pay by text. Again, following that consistency of of shrinking down those physical coin operated meters into the middle of the district and a little bit further out using that signage, we recognize that there are certain times where
there might be a funeral service or something like that taking place. We feel fully that we can communicate with the, the church and coordinate to turn those on and off as need be. They also have parking behind their building and so we feel we have some opportunities to work with them on that. Under item three, overnight parking. So currently we put a restriction in place from November through April for overnight parking. The rest of the year you can actually per park overnight on street. So what we're looking to do is remove that restriction,
allow for overnight parking unless an emergency is declared by the emergency director who happens to be the chief of police, but his emergency director title. Once that emergency is declared, the restriction would go into place and then we would notify out, especially as our winters have changed a little bit more, it, it seems to be an opportunity to give some overnight parking to the public that they've requested. So that's, that's something we're requesting. So, and then related to the different passes,
we're actually making no recommended changes on any of the passes for this year or for the year ahead. But right now from a timely standpoint, one of the things we did hear from the business community is the sooner you can let us know and the sooner you can get those passes and get them opened up, I know a number of businesses like to do that before the end of the calendar year to purchase those. So we want to try to accommodate that. So these are the rates from from last year. I will say the one thing related to the commuter passes is
that's always contingent upon us reaching agreement with the archis on being able to lease the commuter lot, which is South Ave in that area. I'm happy to answer any questions. I do just wanna say we've also worked on a cleanup map, so beyond the memo you'll see some of the work that was done to clean it up. The goal is to make it a little bit interactive. I wanna give Morgan a lot of credit for his work on this. You'll actually see in one of the versions we had kind of talked about this, if you put a pin kind of in the middle
of the parking district, you can see about, you know, how far of a walk it is and what that radius is. So we have some opportunities to make this interactive. We also have the ability to turn on in doing some of our work, we found out that in the passport app, which is one of the main apps we use for parking, we can turn some of the features on and off that we believe are currently off right now. So we can give people warnings when their time is about to expire, which we feel would be great. And we can also do some things with the,
the zones themselves 'cause we did hear a little bit about that. We don't necessarily need the select board support for making some of those adjustments, but just wanted to make you aware that, you know, we'll continue to dive into these things and find opportunities to make parking better And I'm happy to answer any questions. Speaker 1: Awesome. Let me just to ask Ms. Rockwood, do you wanna say anything that's part of this first, Speaker 21: Hi, I am Heather Rockwood, the executive director of the Natick Center Cultural District. And I just want to say that making a parking map that is very easily read
and very easily conveyed will make our customers to the businesses in the center more likely to park in the spaces than try to find parking on side streets or in area or to find parking in areas where they don't know parking even exists. So I think having this and the way it is so easily to read is just exceptional. And I wanna thank, thank the town for letting me be a part of letting them hear my opinions and of all the work that they've been doing on this because this map is so much easier.
The first map I saw was so confusing and I had to take half an hour just to decipher it and I can't even imagine trying to drive and look at something and try to find a parking space while looking at a map. And I think this will be so much easier. Thank you. Speaker 1: You questions and comments from the board? I see Mr. Actually Ms. Weger on our end up first. Speaker 8: Thank you Mr. Evans. Just a couple of things and I don't, I went back to see what we had done last year and I don't actually, I didn't look to see what we actually approved. I'm just referencing the memo
that went out last year on parking and I noticed that included a $1,200 commuter rate for non NAIC residents. Is that something we're discontinuing or did we not approve that last year? Or, or what about that? Speaker 19: I believe I just left it off this as an oversight. I apologize. That Speaker 5: Was just an accident. It should have been in the memo. Okay. Speaker 8: Alright. Speaker 5: The intent is not to change from last year's. Speaker 8: Right. All right. So similarly, there was also the $7 rate for no pass. That was something that was in the memo last year. Speaker 5: Well that, that's part of our parking rates for for, for that lot.
And I don't believe that that is changed Speaker 8: Per but that isn't in there. It's on the map. Speaker 5: It it's on the map. You don't, we're not asking for that to be changed because it's not a pass. We don't need you to issue a new vote on that. It's just part of the rates that are there today. And we're not asking for a change to that. That's why it's on the map as that $7 rate. Speaker 8: Okay. So we don't need to do that. But we're, but we are gonna be asked to set the rates for everything else except that. Speaker 5: So the pass rates need to be set every year. The $7 just daily parking rate is just like a metered space.
Okay. The pass rates we ask you to set every year because we need to notify those pass holders Okay. Of that rate. And we need to order the passes quite frankly. So there's two parts to that. Whereas the $7 is just a parking rate for a particular lot. It, it doesn't matter who has it, anybody can go there and park. Yep. So therefore once you set that rate, it's just the rate until you change the rate. Alright. Speaker 8: I just wanted to clarify that because we did approve that I believe Speaker 5: Last year. So that was, 'cause that was the first year doing it. Okay. We did not have that rate prior to last year. So therefore you had to actually set that rate.
Speaker 8: Got it, got it. Now. All right. Thank you. And, and just to curious, curious about what happens during snow emergencies. Where do people park? What, what do they do? Speaker 19: So during a snow emergency, the people that need to, we open up the lot on Pond Street for individuals to park there if it's a large enough and advanced storm with, I know with certain town vehicles and stuff like that, we have a partnership where we're able to work with the mall
to be able to get some of our vehicles over there as well to kind of free up spaces within some of our areas. But really the intent is to try to get people off of the road so we can do the work on the roads, open up one of the lots, allow people to move in there until the emergencies lifted. Speaker 8: So, so how is that communicated? How do we, I mean that's, that's not part of this memo. So how would people know? You know, it's a snow emergency, they're used to parking on the street. How will they know what their alternatives are? Is it on the website? Speaker 5: It's always just part of the communications. We've always stated something like for those who need to park Pond Street lot's available.
It's part of our communication. Okay. It's been pretty consistent ever since I've been here actually. I've heard that. But yes, that is communicated through that, that work. And we do designate the Pond Street lot for, for, no actually we've never, it's always been the Pond Street ladder to Johns point, sometimes we partner with the mall just 'cause they, they, they're great specific partners and they have the garages. Speaker 8: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that people know that. And if we are, we are changing things and it's gonna be, you know, the people that I know that we've had issues with people that park on the street anyway. And so, you know, if we wanna avoid that, it would be
good if they were notified of, of what the alternatives are. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 8: Thanks. Speaker 19: And this doesn't change any of the parking restrictions that are in place because there are certain roads that parking is restricted on either one side or both sides of that road. So that doesn't change any of that. This is just related to those roads that currently don't have any restrictions on them. Okay. Speaker 1: All set. Mr. Sidney or Ms. Pope, do you have any questions or comments? Speaker 6: Yes, I, I do. Speaker 1: Alright, Mr.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Following up on Ms. Wolf logger's question about overnight parking. If we allow overnight parking all year round, I would imagine one of the unintended consequences of that is there'll be more cars parking on the street that may lead to the, a larger need for overnight parking during snow emergencies. I wonder if any consideration was given to also opening up the kiosk lot behind the police station as an additional place
for people to put their cars during a snow emergency. Speaker 5: I guess the short answer to that is we'd, we'd rather wait and see, you know, let, let's see what the demand is. I don't believe the Pond Street lot even today gets full during snow emergencies. Even though it's been a designated lot for snow emergencies for 10 plus years, that would be a a, a monitor and wait and see, we, we'd prefer to keep as many of our lots free and clear of cars and, and as in vehicles as much as possible, Speaker 6: You gotta plow them too. Right? Speaker 5: It's a lot quicker to get them plowed when they're free of cars and the emergency lot
or the lot behind police and fire, that's even more challenging because we have 24 hour operations of police and fire. So having that lot free of cars is even better from that emergency vehicle perspective because while the same time our DPW can clear that lot as quickly as possible, we can then shift employees cars to the cleared lot to clear the employee lot as quickly as possible. So we'd really wanna understand if we shift from Pond Street to any other lot, but especially the lot behind police
and fire I'd, I'd actually be hesitant to do that no matter what because it's our public safety building. And to have that be the clearest of vehicles during a snow emergency or any really any emergency. But we'd, we'd want to make sure we really think through that and understand that there's true demand for that. Speaker 6: Okay. The other thing I was thinking about is as we start to put more pace spaces in that don't have physical meters, and I understand why, and I realize it's a cost
associated, but ha have we considered putting maybe kiosks around town to support them? Because it seems to me that there are people in town who are gonna park and not have a, a, a phone that has an app or can text, and somehow we do need to support those people as well. L Speaker 19: So we currently have roughly 200 physical meters that can accept coins in our inventory right now.
I think as we as that inventory depletes and it kind of works its way in, I think we certainly should consider that we do have kiosks in a number of the, actually we have them in all of the parking lots at this point in time. So I think that definitely needs to be a conversation as that, as those physical meters continue to deplete. But we're looking at probably a couple of years, but that will certainly be on our radar from a planning stand standpoint related to that inventory and, and where it might make sense for that to go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I appreciate that because, you know, you know, we're gonna, if we, assuming we vote too, we're gonna open up spaces in front of the, the Stonegate building and make people pay. But if somebody parks there that has no ability to pay, we need to support that somehow. And, you know, I I, we need a solution and I, I think we ought to be thinking about that sooner rather than later. So that's just my comment on that. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Sidney. Ms. Pope, do you have anything? Speaker 7: I I don't have anything to add at this time. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, I'll make my comments then.
First I wanted to thank John and Morgan for all this great work on this. It's, there are a lot of good recommendations in here. A couple that caught my eye was a lot more consistency throughout this parking district so that people know, all right, it's consistent here. It's 30 minutes, whatever it is, and you have less guesswork involved in that. I really like the idea of when, when it's paid by an app, that they might get a notification in the future that says
your, your parking is about to run out. So either move the car or move it to another space or add money. I got, I don't remember. I can tell I don't do the pay, so I'm old. I have the $3 senior pass. So anyway, so the other thing that I really love is the Morse Library parking. A lot of people are going into the library to either pick up books or drop off books, but 15 minutes cuts it tight
and moving it to 30 minutes makes a huge difference. 'cause people bump in, you bump into people in the library, you have a quick conversation and all of a sudden that 15 minutes is gone. So that'll, that'll be welcomed. I think. I like the idea of the parking in front of Stonegate. That's a great idea. I really like the no parking restrictions only on snow emergency. But I did have a question on that. Since we're getting less snow, is there something like an ice emergency that gets declared
and would that, how would that factor into what we approve tonight? Speaker 19: Yeah, and I, I believe the way that we framed it and there was weather emergency, but okay. Snow, ice, you know, there could be strong winds or something like that where we might need to declare Speaker 1: Hurricane. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I just saw the snow slash severe Speaker 5: Rains emergency. There's all types. Yep. Speaker 1: Sorry, I, I, I, Speaker 19: I, I probably ex snow, I probably explained it as snow, Mr. Evans, so
Speaker 1: That was my fault. I just didn't notice the, the slash there. I like that we're keeping the passes the same this year. I think that's a good idea. And then we can look at it as hopefully the economy gets stronger, we can look at it again next year. And, you know, all in all, I think this just another example of a great step forward provided by town administration. So again, great work. So I would be looking for a motion to approve and it even says it here. So
Speaker 6: Is it one motion or several? Speaker 1: There is a board vote requested section in the memo that spells it out for us. And if you wanna refer to that, it's on page three. Is it page, page two? Two. Yeah, sorry. Yep. Speaker 6: Okay. So it's two votes. It looks like three votes. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 6: One is to, so the first one I moved to retain the parking rates for the next calendar year at the same, at the same level. Speaker 1: Okay. I have a second. Second. Thank you Ms. Pope.
All in favor, please say Aye. Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Sidney? Speaker 6: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Slager? Yes and I'm And aye. Okay. Mr. Sydney Speaker 6: Move to approve the change to the overnight parking regulations. Speaker 8: Second Speaker 1: By Mr. Sidney. Seconded by and Ms. Walser. All in favor? We'll just do it differently this time. Ms. Walser? Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yep. Mr. Pope. Mr. Pope. Ms. Pope. See, I threw, I threw myself off then. That's pretty good. Alright. Aye. And I'm a Yes.
So that's 4 0 0 Mr. Sin Speaker 6: And I move to approve the spaces in front of Stonegate on East Central. Speaker 1: I have a second. Speaker 6: Second. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Pope. All in favor, please say, aye. Speaker 8: Just a minute. It on, it's on the south side of East Central. Speaker 1: It's, it did Speaker 8: Not in front of Speaker 1: South side, Speaker 8: In front of Saint Pat, Speaker 1: Right? East Central. Speaker 6: Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. South side. Speaker 5: South side is in front of the, the development Speaker 1: South side. Speaker 5: Not, not the Yes. Not the church. Thank you. Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Now that we've established
Speaker 5: It's across the street from St. Pat's. Yes. Speaker 8: Yes. Thank you. Speaker 1: Now Speaker 6: That we've reached in front of gate, Speaker 5: In front of Speaker 1: Yes, you're correct. All right. We're all entitled. Come on. I just called her Mr. Pope, so come on. All right. So all in favor, please say Aye. Ms. Pope? Yes. Mr. Sidney. Ms. Er? Yes. And I'm a Yes. All right. Thank you again. All right, let's move on to discussion and vote to authorize Catherine Coughlin
to submit testimony regarding the Municipal Empowerment Act. And I put a couple things or had Billy put them on peak, which are for those watching at home. The Municipal Empowerment Act is an act that is currently being proposed in front of the legislature, sponsored by the governor and lieutenant governor that simplifies aims to equip cities and towns with tools to address financial pressures, streamline operations, attract and maintain talent,
and enhance public services. There is going to be a legislative session to discuss this and what we're asking the board to do tonight. I used to give Ms. Coughlin permission to go behalf of the board to advocate for it. And if, if you look at the items that are on, let me just give a quick summary of some of the things that, that are involved in that. Some are mechanisms to increase local
revenues, things like meals, taxes, local option surcharges on motor vehicle, expanded ex exemptions for post retirement higher. So if somebody had to say a mandatory retirement, they might be able to continue working more easily. And right now you have to get a exemption from the legislature and we've had to do that a couple times and more senior property tax relief options. Other things are operational efficiencies
to raise the procurement bid thresholds to make permanent hybrid public meetings for accessibility. Update the borrowing rules for school projects and emergency spending. I think that for the school projects at least that could, could increase it from 20 years to 30 years. You'd have to make a choice as far as you then have to pay interest for the additional 10 years, but it's a smaller principle. So yet to weigh that in place enforcement
for double pole utility removal. A topic near and dear to all our hearts workforce enhancements, this allows up to 50% of public safety hires to be hired outside of traditional civil service to give you more flexibility. Talks about allowing regional boards of assessors for shared services, which we could consider, and various other public health and safety sorts of things. So really it, it's to allow or to empower Ms.
Coughlin to go, go advocate on our behalf to the legislature. The legislature had this before them, I think in early 2024 and did not act on it. And we're, we're hoping that they will act on it now, I may have the date wrong on 2024, but it's been out there for a little and there's been a big push from towns to get this done this time around. So, so moved Speaker 8: Second. Speaker 1: Okay. Wow. I thought I'd have some debate back on that one. Okay, so all in favor, please say Aye. Mr. Sidney?
Yes. Ms. Pope? Yes. Ms. Slyer? Yes. And I'm a yes also. So we're now on to the consent agenda. You forgot the calendar. Ah, thank you. Thank you. I didn't put that right in front of me. Thank you. Okay, so let me ask a question because I didn't write this down on the 2025 calendar. Are we set on the dates there or why don't we review the dates that, that you guys have and make sure that I have it correctly? So according to what I'm seeing is I have the fifth, sorry,
the next meeting, the 29th, then it has the 5th of November, the 19th of November, December 3rd and December 17th. I think we've safely ruled out New Year's Eve the last time we talked about this. And I think we moved, our first meeting is January 7th, so we felt that that was Okay. Are those dates all right through the rest of the year? Speaker 8: All right, hang on, I'll fix our calendar. So we moved the meeting from November 26th to the 19th. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 6: And then we
added a meeting on the fifth, Speaker 4: Right? Speaker 22: 29 5 19 December three. December 17th. No, December 31st. Speaker 4: Correct. Speaker 1: Is that what everybody has Speaker 7: On the, is that November the fifth or? Yes, Speaker 1: November 5th. Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 5: It's on our current calendar on the website as well. Speaker 4: Yes. We have to pull off the 31st. Speaker 1: Yes. Yep. That's the Speaker 5: Only thing. Yeah, that's what we'll discuss I think at a, okay. Last meeting or two meetings go. Yes. Not meeting on the 31st. Speaker 6: By the way, John, I think you're the one who created these invites.
Yeah, I And you still got Paul Joseph on them? Speaker 8: We can't update it. So I, Speaker 6: So the fifth, the fifth, are we meeting the 12th? November 12th? Speaker 1: No, the 19th. Speaker 5: 19th. Speaker 1: 19th. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 8: And then when In December the, Speaker 1: The third Speaker 8: And the 17th. Speaker 1: 17th, Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all good for everybody. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 7: If we can, I will not be able to make the third meeting, the meeting on the third, but I don't think, I don't think we need to move it. I just will not be able to make that meeting. Okay. Speaker 1: I'll, I'll write that down. Jot that down. Speaker 8: Yeah, somebody can adjust our calendar. That would be good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll, I'll send that to Billy. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Moving on to 2026. Billy flagged a couple in 2026 that have conflicts, potential conflicts. The first is February 18th, which is as Ash Wednesday and the start of Ramadan. So we can do, Speaker 8: We've met on Ash Wednesday before, haven't we? I know that there have been meetings, but Speaker 5: We have Yes, yes. It's just we wanted to flag Yep.
Any potential conflicts so that we can just, at the beginning of the year, we're gonna probably come across others during the year, but we figured as best we can get your input on how best to handle the 18th. But that tends to also be, not that this has should be a factor, but a school vacation week is the 18th. We've also met during school vacation week. There's been a couple years, I know John's taken the lead on on some of the meetings when I'm out. So it's, by no means is that a factor for it. It just has been occasionally a factor for the board depending on, on board vacation time as well.
Okay. So I mean in that case we can, sorry. Speaker 6: I was gonna say, I think we should leave it. We can, you know, I think that's one that we can look at what's in front of us and just last year we had meetings almost every week anyway, so I'd suggest leaving it. We can always move it if we have to or cancel it. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 6: I think that one, that one is okay for leaving. Yep. Speaker 7: I'm okay with that for now. I would most normally prefer not to meet during a school vacation week.
So I'm Okay. Speaker 6: Flag it for a light agenda if possible. Speaker 1: Yeah. As Mr. Sidney pointed out. Let's, let's leave it in for now, but let's, let's have further discussion about that as we get into the new year. Yep. That make sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay, next one is April Fool's Day, which is the, Speaker 6: That's a good day to go get a drink. Speaker 5: It's the reorganization. So para bylaws, the town election is the last Tuesday of the month of March. So this year it coincidentally is on March 31st.
So therefore reorganization is on April 1st. Okay. It also aligns with your two week cycle. We normally would not have any other business on that. It's just the reorganization meeting and just wanna flag it just 'cause it's, it's a unique year. We're not used to being the election being the last day of the month. Yeah, Speaker 1: Last day of the month. Yeah. Speaker 5: But it is always the last Tuesday of the month, right. Of March. Speaker 1: Okay. Moving all the way down to Veterans Day on November 11th. Speaker 6: Yeah. That one's gonna have to get moved. That's a holiday. Has Speaker 1: To move. No question about that. Speaker 8: I think we should do what we did this year,
move everything up a week in November. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: Yeah, that makes sense because that'll also fix the day before Thanksgiving. Speaker 1: So that means we go to November four and November 18th. Did I get that right? Okay. Okay. Any other issues with dates? Speaker 6: I'd move the December dates up a week also. 'cause that December 23rd is really close to Christmas. Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. And, and as long as we're moving up November that, that puts us back on cadence for that.
So that's now December 2nd and 16th. 16th. Thank you. My mental arithmetic skills are eroding rapidly. Speaker 6: Gate math is hard. So is clock math? Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. So do we have to do a motion to approve these or I don't remember. Eh, Speaker 5: I don't, I don't think so. So, no, we just want your general guidance and we're gonna post them, but you have every right to amend or adjust these. We just like to give notice to folks a year in advance and, and get really everybody on the same cycle.
Speaker 1: So. So Speaker 6: Actually I think under our bylaws we're required to note these a year in advance. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well I'm hoping that we bump up the 53% and go to no meetings that, alright. Speaker 5: So that more people go to no Speaker 1: Meetings. Yeah, just, just kidding. Didn't punch. All right. So I'll send these to Billy and can update us. Okay. Now we're done with the agenda. So let's go to the consent agenda. Speaker 7: Okay. The consented agenda reads item a approve
meeting minutes for ten three twenty five, nine twenty nine twenty five six, twenty five twenty five and 6 18 25. Item B approve Natick Center cultural District's request for two hour free parking from November 28th, 2025 to January 2nd, 2026. Item C, approve Massachusetts Bay Transportation authorities request to occupy a public way on 11 one through 2 25 and 11 eight through 9 25 for shuttle services.
Speaker 6: That's two days each. Speaker 7: I see that Item D approve Bliss point mediaries application for farmer's market permit. I'm just gonna note that transportation is misspelled in item C. Yep. Is there anything that anyone wants to pull from the Speaker 8: Incident item A? Speaker 7: Okay. Anyone else? No. All right. Are we okay to move forward with a motion to approve item B through D? Speaker 1: So, yes. Speaker 7: Okay. Second.
Speaker 1: Moved by Ms. Pope, seconded by Mr. Sidney. All in favor say aye. Ms. Pope? Speaker 7: Aye. Speaker 1: Mr. Sydney? Speaker 6: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Slager? Aye. And I'm an aye. Okay. Ms. Walser, you wanted to talk about meeting minutes? Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a, there's a few typos. You know, some of them don't really matter that much, but one of 'em does, which is the meeting minutes for October 3rd. It says September 30th. So the date is Ron on the minutes. So I'd like to make a motion to approve with scrivener's errors.
Speaker 5: Second. Speaker 1: Okay. It's moved by Linda and seconded by Mr. Sidney. Ms. Pope Aye. Mr. Sidney? Aye. Ms. Walser? Yes. And Amina? Yes. Also. Okay. Town administrator updates Speaker 23: Chair one Speaker 5: Two. Madame Chair, Mr. Chair. We're all confused today. It's been late night. Just a, a couple quick things and, and these sort of our real time, and I forgot to mention one of these during the announcements, but there's a, an adjustment in the drought condition for Natick,
which adjusts our water restrictions. We just got word of that really just this week. We, it's in a, it's in the positive meaning we go went from I think a drought level two to a drought level one, which just means something on paper to people basically it means you can, the restrictions have been lessened. There's still restrictions. So people should definitely go to the website to learn more. But it's just a a, a change in the drought conditions per the state. We get those from the state, they kind of tell us, here's what you need to do and we have like three days to respond. So there's a question on that.
Speaker 8: Yeah. You may not have seen this, but we, we did get an email from Speaker 5: Bill Gath. Yes. Speaker 8: Yep. So I agree. I I think it's not clear that essential watering is is allowed. So if that could be made clear on the website, Speaker 5: Well we'll make that adjustment. Yeah, I saw this come in as well during Yeah, just right, right before the meeting at four o'clock. So we'll definitely Right. Speaker 8: Make so 'cause it that it isn't spelled out what, you know, non-essential is. It makes it look like it's more restrictive now than Speaker 1: That. Did I said that's my initial reading was. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 8: Yep. Thank you. Speaker 5: That, that makes great sense. Town meeting starts next week on Tuesday. It is at obviously the Kennedy Middle School. That might not be obvious for people but it's at the Kennedy Middle School. We are preparing obviously for that meeting. One thing, sorry, I'm just going back to my calendar to make sure. October 21st this year. Yep. This is obviously the first meeting for our new deputy town administrator for finance. So we're excited to introduce him to the group, but I just wanna make sure that the board has everything they need. I think the town is pretty well set
and the, the finance committee books have come out so folks at home can certainly access the finance committee books online and that is exciting that we're going to another town meeting next week or maybe it's not exciting. Maybe it's just what we're doing next week. So, and obviously we're coming up on the holiday season, so, so we'll be doing more prep work and, and well you just saw tonight with the parking and such, but we'll we're also gonna be testing some of our emergency management systems coming down the pipeline just to make sure they work properly when it
comes into the snow season. Sure. So be aware of that as we, as we move forward. One thing we're exploring is how, and it's gonna be a little bit of a, of a, of a, of a test, but use of the technology for meetings is a big thing that we've been sort of not holding off on but we've been testing. So we are trying to make that a little bit more streamlined. And it speaks a little bit to what Jay mentioned about holding meetings. It also just speaks to, and I I mentioned it this time of year because as we go into the winter season, this is when you could potentially still have meetings even
with a snowstorm out. We just need to be mindful of how the technology works for all of our boards and committees in town, Speaker 19: If that's actually perfect from a timely standpoint. We are moving forward with the project that was appropriated at town meetings several years back where we were doing AV upgrades in this room, the select the school committee room and then over at the Morris Library. That work is scheduled to start in town hall in these two rooms in December. So we may just have to be flexible with where the location of the board meeting is during those meetings. We'll keep everyone up to date in terms of where we are.
We have kind of like a tentative hold in December on these spaces and we'll just have to work around the, the vendors and the contractors to get that work done. Speaker 5: Okay. We've already engaged with all the organizers of all the other primary meetings that occur in these spaces. CED school, department, library obviously because they're gonna be a partner in this just so that they're prepared as well and, and they're making appropriate accommodations. Some of it's is a bit of a wait and see, but at least everybody's aware of it and know it's coming down the pipeline. So I'm glad you picked up my queue to, to mention that because it is coming down. It's gonna come up faster than we realize 'cause we're already in mid, mid-October.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great that it's getting done. Speaker 5: Yeah, I did have a another update but I'm blanking on it right now so I'll, I'll leave it at that. Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to select work. Speaker 5: Oh, I kind of know what it is in, sorry. In November we're gonna have our tax rate setting hearing, which is gonna be coming to the pipeline post obviously town meeting 'cause we need to get through town meeting to be able to set the tax rate around that same time with our new deputy TA for finance. We do want to do another finance update. I just want the board to be aware of that. We're heading into obviously our budget season and there's some just with everything that's happening in,
in sort of the world today and in Massachusetts, we're, we're continuously looking at our forecasting modeling and how, how, how that should help inform our planning and working with our partners in the school department and working with our department. So, so you're probably gonna see a little bit more activity in the coming you months. Actually I believe it, there was a recent MMA Mass Municipal Association article that was forwarded to the board that, that, that I think is, is is timely in the, where we are in the world. You know, we were for, we are definitely fortunate
that we did obviously have a, an override that passed last spring. We're still by no means out of the woods. There's a lot that we need to really hone in on and focus on and, and we're still gonna see some years of, and I say years 'cause it, it's very real years of bite belt tightening and definitely not loosening per se. So just want to give that board that precursor 'cause you're gonna see it pop up on the agenda a couple more times. Speaker 1: Good, good. We'll do select board updates. Anybody have anything? So move to adjourn second.
I just have no, I can, Bruce has one I can do this on offline. That that's fine. I'll accept that. Move to adjourn from Mr. Sidney. Do I have a second? Second. Second. I, Ms. Walsh lager All in favor? Please say a Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Sidney? Aye. Ms. Slyer? Aye. And I am an aye. We're done at eight 50. 8 48.