Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wednesday, March 5th select Board meeting. We're opening this meeting at 6:04 PM 6:02 PM We are going to go directly into executive session. This portion of the meeting is not open to the public pursuant to pursuant to Mass General Law. Chapter 30 a, section 21 a subsection three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair.
So declares maintenance and maintenance and custodians. Local 1 1 1 16 facilities maintenance. New England Police Benevolent Association, local 82 Natick Police Officers Association, local 4 9 6, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, coalition of the Police and pursuant to Mass General Law, chapter 30 a, section 21, A subsection one to discuss the reputation, character, physical condition, or mental health, rather than the professional competence of an individual or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of, or complaints or charges brought against a public officer.
Employee, staff member or individual. Open meeting law violation. Complaint from Patrick. Hi Higgins. At this time I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session. Speaker 2: Second, Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. Roll call Vote. Ms. Speaker 3: Slager. Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? Yes. And I'm a yes. 4 0 0. And we will return back at about 6 45 to open session of the need. Select Board. Board. Meeting. Meeting. Speaker 2: Turn that off. I thought I had muted that already. Oops. Speaker 1: At this point, could I ask those? Thanks Mr. Evans.
Could I ask those in the room who are able to stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence in honor of those serving our country? Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and America and to the Republic, which it stands, one nation under God, Invis, with liberty and injustice for all. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 1: Mr. Ostroff, do you want to approach the podium? Sure. Speaker 2: Should I move it? Oh yeah. Or actually this might, people might prefer this. Yeah, this is fine. Here, put it right there.
And thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you Mr. Ostroff. Thank you Madam Chair and board members. I'm Josh Ostroff. I'm appearing today in my capacity as president of the Friends of Natick Trails. We're nonprofit that's supports the Constituit Rail Trail and other trails in Natick. And we participate with an initiative that I wanna talk briefly about tonight. So, registration is now open for a program called All Aboard. This is an adaptive cycling initiative on the constituent rail trail happening on five Saturdays in 2025. And the first event is planned on April 12th.
So this program provides a very safe and healthy and enjoyable recreational cycling opportunity for people of all abilities. Natick partners with an organization called All Out Adventures who are based in North Hampton, and they bring a fleet of adaptive cycles and experienced staff right to the Mechanic Street Lot on the rail trail. The program is supported by grant funding from the Metro West Health Foundation, the MathWorks Community Grant program. And as of this week, the Rotary Club of Natick, the program is fully grant supported, so there's no cost for people to participate.
We have wonderful volunteer support and we always welcome more. The first date for 2025 is on Saturday, April 12th. We welcome riders and volunteers. As I mentioned, we've gotten great feedback from dozens of participants since we started this in 2023. I just wanna take a moment to call out John Marshall, a deputy town administrator who gave great advice when we were setting up this initiative a couple of years ago to make sure we had a sustainable model to provide this experience to people as well as to Melissa Carter, who manages adaptive programs for recreation and parks. And Angela Nell, the, the community services director.
So there's an announcement on the town webpage and folks should have gotten an email about this today if they're subscribed up to Natick updates. And you can register as a writer or volunteer through the website. It's, I won't read the URL 'cause it's linked from all the communications as well as our website. I want to make sure that people do sign up in advance because space is usually limited even though we have it five events. And so I would, I just want to maybe close by saying that the Rail Trail was built to be fully accessible, but as we've learned, having infrastructure accessible,
accessible is not the same as having the experienced staff to make sure that people have a safe and enjoyable experience, whether it's, you know, kayaking or running or cycling. So we're really proud to have, be able to have this partnership and to work collaboratively with the volunteers and provide this benefit to riders. Glad to answer any questions, but I know you've got a busy agenda, so that may do it. And I'm gonna try to hook up with some of your other speakers tonight, see if we can get some high school students involved as well. So appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Ostroff.
At this time, I'd like to turn over the floor to Mr. Sidney. Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very sad to announce that Joe Keefe has passed away 93 years old. He was a giant in our community and I, I'm not gonna read his obituary. You can find it. It's a he, it's a John Everett, but he was influential in so many ways in our community, and I wanna express the board's condolences and say that I personally will miss him. Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Sidney, do you want
to talk about visiting hours for that? That Speaker 5: Might be, oh yeah, I can think I can pick those up from here. I don't actually. Sure. So visiting hours are Friday, March 7th from four to eight at John Everett, which is around the corner from town hall at the internment will be on Saturday. And he's asking for, treat either donations to the Morris Institution Institute, library Children's Department, or the Walnut Hill School for the arts or plant a tree. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mr. Sydney.
At this time, I'd like to just talk for a few minutes. This is not meant to be a comprehensive review of all of the vacancies that are available on our boards and committees, but just to encourage those of you in, in Natick who would like to serve to look at the vacancies page on our homepage, the audit advisory committee will have one expiring term at the end of June and the Board of Assessors has one at the end of this month. Cable Advisory Board is, has an immediate opening, conservation Commission, has one expiring at the end of May.
Cultural Council has one expiring at the end of June, as does the Historic District Commission. They have three expiring at the end of June. The Information System advisory board has an immediate opening and the MathWorks Scholarship Committee will have an opening at the end of April. There are a number of different registrar voters will will have one open at the end of March, and the ZBA will have three open at the end of April. I just wanted to encourage you to take a look at the boards and committees, read their charges and see if there's something that might interest you. We have many opportunities for volunteerism
and we're gonna talk a little bit about that when we invite the Serve Natick team up to speak. But at this time, I will move in the meeting into public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on tonight's agenda, and it will be taken under advisement by the board. There will be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting. Due to the requirements of open meeting law, the section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes
while the select board endeavors to ensure that all interested parties have the opportunity to address the select board due to time constraints that may not be possible. In cases where there's intense public interest in a particular topic, the board may schedule a future meeting to allow for further public input. Is there someone in the room who wishes to address the board under public speak? Seeing none looking online, I'd like to recognize Katie Joyce, if you could unmute yourself there. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Katie Joyce and I am Call. I am Dial dialing in tonight as a representative of the Yes
for Natick Political Action Committee. We have a mission to promote civic engagement in our community. We provide programs, events, and share information to help voters learn more about and participate in local government. We recently held a form about the proposed operating override, and I want to thank Town Administrator Ericsson, along with Superintendent Bash for attending. As we have for several years, we are hosting a forum for Contested Town elections on Monday, March 10th at 7:00 PM For candidates for select board and school committee candidates will answer questions submitted by the public at the forum, moderated by the editors of the Natick report.
This will be recorded on Pegasus and available to watch either live or after the fact. Please register@yesfornatick.org and we invite questions to be mailed to Natick candidate forum@gmail.com. In addition, we have recently published a candidate information report for all candidates in the upcoming town election, including town wide offices and town meeting. This report includes verbatim candidate statements and contact information that was not edited by anybody and is completely in the words of the candidates. We have participation from about 35 of the 80 town wide candidates so far
and are updating the report as we get new submissions. Writing candidates are also welcome to participate. Please visit yes for natick.org to submit information or to download this report. Thank you so much to the board and for your time and your service to Natick. Speaker 1: Thank you so much Ms. Joyce. At this time I'd like to recognize Paul Joseph. Speaker 8: Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening everyone. Members of the board, just, I'm speaking tonight, representing a group of individuals that have come together with the interest of creating a nonprofit in the community, focused on saving the what has been an abandoned, basically concert hall up on the third
and fourth stories of the Clarks Block Building in Natick Center on Saturday, March 22nd from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM the public are welcome to get a rare view of the inside of that Grand Ballroom. The goal of this organization that's coming together is hoping to raise money to do a feasibility study, to revitalize and actually bring that historic property, if not back to its exact glory, very close to it, and with the functionality of a 21st Century concert hall. So I just wanted to extend that invitation on behalf of the group and also directly to the members of the board.
If you can make it again, the, the visit will be scheduled Saturday, March 22nd from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM and if you're interested, there is information, there's a Facebook group about Save the Clarks Bock concert hall. Speaker 1: Thanks you so much, Mr. Joseph. At this time, we'll move into discussion and decision, and the first item on the agenda is Serve Natick. Serve Natick is a multi-user, multi-dimensional user interface created by three high high school students, Kabi, Anand, Cameron, Bernard, and Finn Rando.
I was so impressed by their presentation before the school board that I invited them to share their app with, with our audience here at the select board. So without further ado, if you could introduce yourselves and I believe Mr. Erickson has your, your presentation keyed up. Speaker 9: Hi, my name is Kabi Anand. This with me is Tyler Fernandez and we are here to present Serve Natick. Next slide, please. Speaker 10: So what we're gonna go over in this presentation is, first our problem and solution, how we created S Natick. Then we're gonna be talking about more in depth, what is s Natick. Finally, we're gonna, or then we're gonna be going over our
growth throughout the years. And then finally we're gonna be going over our Natick Impact Collaborative, which is our event that we have coming up in the upcoming months. So first, the problem and solution. Two problems that we kind of considered when creating C Natick. There were a lack of connection and a lack of knowledge when it came to a lack of connection. We found that many organizations we're struggling to find committed members to help them with community service. And this Nat Serve Natick is a way where we can connect those organizations with the members
or with the people in the community to help inspire community growth. That's also part of what lack of knowledge is. Many people didn't know about a lot of different organizations that are in the Natick community that they can help out with. And by creating this website, once again, we're able to connect those people directly with the organizations and allow them to work together for, once again, community growth. You can go to the next slide. Thank you. Speaker 9: Moving on, what is Serve Natick? So first Serve Natick is a community connector. Our goal has always been to connect volunteers and members of the native community with organizations
that need these volunteers to foster, to foster genuine local partnerships between volunteers and the organizations that they work with. In addition, we are a service catalyst where we like to take community service to the next level by inspiring, inspiring volunteer action, but also making, making it easy to give back to the community that we all love. Lastly, we are also an impact amplifier, aside from what we initially made Serve Natick as was an opportunity for Natick high school students to complete their community service hour graduation requirement of 30 hours. We decided to take it to the next level, open it up to the entire town, and make community service a lot more
meaningful than just a couple hours on your transcript. Next lot, please. Speaker 10: So we're gonna go over our growth since we created Survey Natick in 2023 when we had 593 users and 4 45 unique users. Then going onto 2024, we had 972 users, so a ma a big increase and 740 unique users. And then finally, just in the first two months of this year, we've already had 1,038 users with 807 unique users and are projected for 4,200 users with th 3,200 unique users. Speaker 9: Moving on, what, what everyone really wants
to hear us present about is our event that's upcoming is the Natick Impact Collaborative. The Natick Impact Collaborative, also known as the NIC, is gonna be an event hosted by Serve Natick in the Natick High School Auditorium on April 2nd. The event will run six 30 to 8:30 PM So a little bit about the NIC. Our event is split into two major parts. First, we have a series of speakers which will provide their, or which will talk to the audience about their personal stories of community engagement, where they came from, what they find is most important in the local community. In addition, we are trying to inspire community collaboration
by having a panel discussion with a Q and a. So we have, we're gonna have six or seven panelists that are gonna have an open discussion between each other while also inviting questions from the audience so they can have an open discussion about community service in general, community engagement, the stories of how people got inspired in volunteer in their community. And our overall goal is to, is to transform. Is to transform the native community by increasing volunteer rates all around. Thank you. As, as I just mentioned, quick details for the event. One, once again, it's at the Natick High School Auditorium.
It'll be April 2nd. The doors will open at six o'clock. Event will run six 30 to eight 30. And you can sign up on our website@servenata.org slash Nat Beck collaborative. Along with just the event itself, we are basing the entire event around something that we are calling the lift goal, which is to lead, inspire, foster, and transform. We are hoping we all six of us that serve Natick, we try to be the best leaders that we can be. And we're also trying to inspire other members of the Natick, Metro West and Greater Boston community to lead as well by taking more action in their communities. We are hoping to inspire these audience members
to collaborate with more than just one organization, if, if any. And then we are also hoping to foster and build stronger connections throughout members of the community as well as members and the organizations they work with, as I said before, to transform and create a much more involved native community. Speaker 10: Really quickly, we just wanna recognize the sponsors of Serve Natick for our event sponsors. We have Talent Burst and the Natick Education Foundation. And then our general sponsors for Serve Natick are Precision Graphics, which makes our merch and then also Cameron's painting. Speaker 9: Now really quickly, if anyone has their phone with them or you guys can take a picture, you guys can scan the QR code.
That will go directly to our event page. Otherwise we're gonna do a quick demo of the website. So if, if you just click on that image, Speaker 2: Is it gonna work? Speaker 9: Oh, we not, that's 'cause it's on the presentation. Is there any way for me to share my screen here? Speaker 2: Yeah, let me stop sharing. Yep, Speaker 10: Yep. Speaker 2: It should be good. Wait, do, do entire screen because there's two No, that's okay. Okay. Alright, perfect. Speaker 9: All right. So this is, this is our event page. Again, as I said, it's serv naic.org/natick impact collaborative. Again, the information on the top of the event is hosted April 2nd at
the Natick High School Auditorium. Event runs six 30 to eight 30. And a little overview of our confirmed speakers. As of now. With more to come, we have Daniel Shea, he's the Executive Director at the Nat Service Council. He's gonna be talking about the overlooked issues that, that go are all around the Metro West community. We have Rayd Shaw, he's the CEO of the Metro West Chamber of Commerce. He, he'll be talking about a lot of the economic and cultural backgrounds of community service. Mahari, she's one of our first panelists. She works alongside Senate President Karen Ska. So she's gonna talk a lot more about the civic engagement side and how people can get involved with their local government. We have Leah Parker, mal over.
She is another one of our panelists. She's also the executive director of the Metro West Nonprofit Network. She's gonna talk about the importance between connecting, connecting people in communities, as well as connecting different organizations to each other. Anita Lava Kumar, she is gonna be another one of our panelists. She's the director of Advanced Placement in the Boston Public Schools, but she also works with mul, multiple cultural based community community organizations and nonprofits. So she's gonna talk about the cultural side of things and how we can embrace each other when we're volunteering. Last, but all least we have Mitchell Bamani. He is, he was a refugee at 14 years old when he came to the US and he, he's gonna be talking about
how he found his community and how he's been wanting to give back. Thank you. Speaker 1: And then you have flyers to give out, if you don't mind. I That would be great. We could put them downstairs in the upstairs. Yeah. Yep. Alright. Oh, no, just you can leave 'em here and we'll post 'em. We'll put 'em up. We'll take care of 'em. Just leave. Gonna say very impressive. And open up the open up questions and comments from members of a board. And can somebody see Kristen? 'cause I can't, sorry. Okay. So member Mr. Sidney.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just wanna say, this is not the first time I've seen them. I met you guys at the Jay and Rickey Ball Awards thing and I was impressed then. So I'm glad to see you're continuing to work on the system. It was a great idea back then, and it's an even better one now. So I, I just, I've been impressed right along with you guys. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Evans. Yeah, Speaker 6: Thank you. We have a ditto rule on that, but Speaker 1: I Speaker 6: Echo everything that Mr. Sidney said. This is my first exposure to it,
but I have heard of it and I'm looking forward to participating on the April 2nd event. We have a meeting that night. Well, I guess I won't be then. Speaker 1: Well, we could, but Speaker 6: I will certainly look at the website and, and the whole concept of it just is amazing to me that, that you, you guys have thought of a way not only to to think through the problem, but to come up with a, a easy to use
and extendable solution. And I think that's been borne out by the two month growth rate this year. I think that's just speaking volumes to the acceptance. So keep up the great work. We appreciate you. Thank Speaker 9: You. We appreciate that. Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger, Speaker 11: This is also my first opportunity other than the LinkedIn request that I got. Way to go. You're going far. That's all I can say. And I'm just very impressed with what you've been able to develop and, and keep going for this time.
I'm sure everybody in National Honor Society is very grateful for you and the connections that you've forged with the various nonprofits in town. But your panelists look fabulous and I, I, I know what it takes to organize some of these events and I'm sure that there is a lot of work on your part behind the scenes trying to get everything done. And I'm very disappointed that the select board will not be able to attend that night. But hopefully you'll record it so we Speaker 9: Can Yeah. It'll be streamed on Pegasus, so the recording will Speaker 11: Be there. Great. So we will, we will be able to watch it
after the fact and just very impressed. I hope you'll find people that will keep this going after you've graduated. It's, you know, what a great thing to have on your resumes. But more than that, you know, it's something that I think is very useful for the community. So thank, thank you. Appreciate Speaker 9: That. Thank you. Thank you, Speaker 1: Ms. Pope. Speaker 12: I did a, what all of my colleagues have said, and I wanna say thank you, thank you so much for what really is a service to the town and to the community. Just thinking about, you know, we opened up with boards
and committees that have vacancies and this is a great way to, to support that. And just the innovation that you're using is, it's really fascinating. It's, your enthusiasm is contagious and I hope it, it encourages people to, to wanna get involved. So thank you so much. Speaker 9: Thank you. We appreciate that. Speaker 1: I did ditto my colleague's comments. But I would also like to say that this would be a really great addition to our developing digital new resident welcome kit to let new residents in town know I,
I often meet them at farmer's markets or at Veteran's Day and they'll say, you know, I'm looking for opportunities to volunteer. What's, what's available? I see it in the moms group online. This is a great opportunity to give them something where they can peruse options. I'd also like to say that every new new profit nonprofit that I run into, in and around the great Greater Natick area, I tell them to sign up. So thank you. Try to be a multiplier effect. And I encourage my colleagues and, and those at home to do the same. So congratulations on a really great app
and thank you so much for coming out tonight. Speaker 9: Thank you for your time. Speaker 5: Yes. Just I wanted to add one thing at a kind of a, a higher level, which is the fact that we have this kind of thing coming out of our Natick school system as part of what they, how they teach people our kids to think is just shows how good our school system really is. And I just wanted to put the, put the shout out to the district as well. Speaker 9: Absolutely. Speaker 1: Kudos. Thank you. Speaker 13: Thank you so much for your time. Speaker 14: Thank you. Speaker 1: Moving on to agenda item five.
We have Mr. Brand from the school committee here to give us an update on the Memorial School Building Committee. Speaker 13: Tough act to follow, but I guess I can talk about the potential of a new school building. It's pretty cool. So yeah, I'm Matt Brand. I'm on the school committee and I'll be relatively quick at our meeting one Monday ago, not two days ago, the Monday before we voted to name Steven Myer, the chair of the upcoming Memorial School Building Committee. And I am here to let everybody know about the process
of forming the rest of that school building committee. The, the main thing there and the school building committee is made, will be made up of a, a number of different representatives. One representative from probably something like this, somebody from the school committee, somebody from the select board, a fin com representative, sustainability, the planning board, a bunch of different, different areas of town, but they'll also be probably two to three members of the general public. If you are somebody in the general public and are interested in applying that, there is a website that you can go to, and I'm gonna read the URL, but you can also find it through natick ps.org.
It is natick schools.info/memorial sbc, that's natick schools.info/memorial sbc. The deadline to fill out that application is one week from today, March 12th. The, the school building committee would be greatly served to have people who have experience in areas like architecture, engineering, sustainability, construction, all of those things. So everyone is encouraged to check that out if you're interested in being part of it. It is a, it is a lengthy commitment and it's important.
And when you go, when you go look at that website and you see the form, all of the sort of timeframes and the requirements are all listed there, it's typically a four to five year commitment with around now-ish meetings, pretty much once a month, maybe twice a month. And then as the project gets going, if it makes it through all the hurdles it needs to get through, there'll be more time needed as it goes on. So that is what I'm here to sort of share. Again, you have one week to fill that application out. If you are interested, and I, and I believe, I forget the exact date,
maybe Mr. Erickson knows the, the, you have to submit to the state, the MSBA, the Massachusetts School Building Authority by, I think it's the beginning of April. April 4th or fifth or something like that. Speaker 15: I'll say yes to what you just said. Right. Speaker 13: Perfect. Thank you. Yeah, so I Speaker 15: Forget if it's the fourth or the fifth, but it's one of those days. Yeah, Speaker 13: The school committee is waiting to pick its representative until after the election when we have a new makeup. But other than that, for the, the sort of members at large, the public members, you have until next Wednesday, one week. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mr. Brand. Were there any questions from members of the public, online or in the room or members of the board? Great. Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank Speaker 13: You. And I did sign up for the Serve Natick event, by the way. So one for me. There Speaker 1: You go. Thank you Mr. Brand. Next is a water and sewer abatement appeal for Gregory Heller. Mr. Heller, if you could come to the podium, introduce yourself and your need for an abatement. All of us have materials in our packets. Sure.
So if you could go ahead and Speaker 16: Yeah. I'm Greg Heller. I live at 10 Samuel Path here in Natick. I've been an NAIC resident for a little over 20 years now. Just thank you for taking the time to hear it. I know you guys have a very busy schedule, so I'll, I'll get right down to it. We received our water bill and, and I've written this up, but I'll cover the key points. We received our water bill for the July one to 10, one we window. And it came in at, you know, what would be two and a half to three times what I would have expected. Obviously it's a ballpark, those are heavy water usage times of the year.
And at that point I called the office, they recommended I call the DPW and talked to my irrigation company, which I did in the irrigation company. In our conversations, when I told them what the amount of water was, they said with that amount of water, you would've either had mosquito, you would've had standing water mosquito issues, or if it was even in your bush areas, it would, you would've washed away all of your mulch or you would've had your landscapers machinery, you know, sinking into your lawn. And we had none of that. I had no, in no indication at any point that we had any kind
of leakage. And so I, I did question the meter when I talked to the DPW team, they said to me, you know, water has to pass through for the meter to read. I mean, I get that, I just still have my concerns about it. But on top of that, I had signed up in the past for the warnings you get when your water usage is over. And I included that in the packet just so you could see that I had done that. So in 22 I had gotten a warning. We had put in some new sods, so we had heavy use. It came, that's fine. I expected that in this case, the town has started a new system, the my 360 system. And I don't recall seeing any indication to me that I needed
to ch you know, re-up or change or put in any new kind of warnings for myself. So, and, and obviously once I got that, I checked, I said I, I didn't know why I didn't get the warnings that we had extra usage. And they said the new system, I've since signed up. It's a great system. I'm able to see the day-to-day usage. I'm putting warnings in for both the, in the house and outta the house. But in this instance, we didn't have any opportunity to have the DPW come out, have my irrigation team come out and, and look into what was going on. Of course, as you can always imagine, these things happen. By the time I had that information, the bill
of course comes later in November. We had blown out the system. We did turn it back on. I had my irrigation company come in, turn it back on, and then we watched the, the leak meter and it wasn't moving at all. So I, I had no other way of seeing that we had any problems. So it was the best we could tell with the irrigation team and myself. We had no indication that we had anything going on and I was not getting the warnings that I thought I had signed up for. So what I, what I am asking for is to reach some reasonable amount. We have usage, obviously, and as I've noted in there that from September 11th until the end, excuse me, we had seeded,
so we did use more water. So there are levels where we can see how much we used. And I did include the June usage. So you can see what our pattern is as opposed to the July, August and September. And it will include October. But that's not in this bill. I just got the October bill, that would be October, November, December. And so through October I have the same problem. So what I'm asking for is, is some way to assess through the numbers that I presented that we would get a reduction in the usage of our cubic feet by the amount that we believe would be this number
that I just don't know if was coming out. And I had no way of addressing it. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Mr. Heller. We have quite a bit of documentation in our packet. Mr. Erickson, do you know if the office has received a response back from DPW with regard to the transfer of accounts from the previous system to my 360 from Water Smart to my 360? Speaker 15: In specific to what, what do you mean Speaker 1: Communications to people who had accounts? Speaker 15: Yes. My understanding is we did do communications to that effect. I can't speak to this individual and we can certainly look this individual up,
but my understanding is that we have done that communication. I believe we even brought this to the select board about a month ago or two months ago. These months are going by too fast and also too slow at the same time. But yes, yes, that to when we made the official switch. But we can certainly specify the details for the transition. Speaker 11: If I can add to that Madam Chair as a water smart customer and I signed up for my 360 right away as well. I got a notification that there's the new, a new portal in August of last year, August 19th. So it would've been after the time that Mr. Heller was.
Speaker 16: Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean I I, as soon as I had this thing, I immediately switched over and like I said, I frequently find myself checking it. I'm not really sure why I check it every day an hour, not every day, but, but it is a, the new system is a great system. Speaker 15: Yeah, it's actually more real time. 'cause it's ac Speaker 16: It's much more active. A hundred percent. Yeah. And you can break it up by the two in the inside the house and outside the house. And I got a warning the other day 'cause we did four loads of laundry and we went over the 50 cubic feet that I was kind of tracking. So it's, it, that part does work. Now, Speaker 1: Ms. Algo, did you say August 19th? Yes, mine too.
August 19th, 2024. Yep, I got mine. 24. Yep. Same day. Same day. Speaker 6: Yeah. I think they all went out that day. Speaker 1: Mr. Mr. Evans. Yeah. I Speaker 6: Just had a question. As far as the irrigation company, I, I assume obviously that it was shut down for the winter. Yeah. Did the, what did the irrigation company look at specifically to, to try to determine, you know, you're saying that they, they didn't see a leak anywhere, but according to the meter that the town has it, it's still showing the flow.
So to me there's some sort of disconnect. So Speaker 16: We, we didn't have the irrigation company come out until I received the bill. Had them come out. This was, this was basically right after the blowout. So at that, at that point they, we turned it back on and we checked the, the leak meter, you know, on the meter in the basement. And that wasn't moving at all. We didn't run any of the nozzles anymore 'cause we were trying to see if anything was leaking. I mean it's, it's, first of all, it's unfortunate. I, I hope I didn't have that kind of leak 'cause it's a massive amount of water. It was, you know, we're talking about an extra, basically 300 gallons a day is what it was indicating.
And if that's in, sorry about that. If that's in one section of my lawn, it would've just been this massive amount of water that would've been, you know, noticeable by again, talking to my pest control company and to the irrigation team. You would've had standing water, you would've had mosquitoes, the irrigation, the landscaping team would've been, you know, running into this, this just soaked down area of the lawn. There, there was just never any indication. I did try to reach out to the, my 360 company to kind of try to get a feel, you know, I know they're not gonna wanna talk about any kind of failure of their meters in their reading system,
but I, I had called once. They called me back, I called back and I never heard back from them after that. So I, I was curious if they have, you know, are they a hundred percent? Do they have some, am I the one in 10,000 or a hundred thousand? I mean, I'm sure there's some level, but no. So that, that is what happened. It was, it was, you know, everything's perfect timing, right? So we're getting this information and we're shutting down the system and then we turn it back on and it doesn't show anything. And that's the best I could do at the time. Speaker 1: I'm, I'm familiar with irrigation systems. So does, does it sense when the, does it sense dryness or if there's a lack of precipitation
and then it automatically kicks in? Speaker 16: Oh, they're set for timing. The only thing it does do in the sensing is it actually won't go on if you get rain. And I usually turn it off when you look at the, the graphs, you'll see some weird days. If it's gonna rain that day, I turn it off. You know, I don't even let it decide 'cause it needs to build up a certain amount before it would actually turn off. So I just usually shut it off for the day if it's gonna rain anyways. But no, it's not. It's the only sensor is to keep it from running, not to have it run. You, you set certain times every day. Ours usually runs early in the morning. You wanna do it so it doesn't get burned out in the afternoon. Speaker 1: So I'm, the reason I'm asking is I'm looking at June
and June was a pretty dry month or just looking at the average precipitation was negligible. It's less than, well I think the max was 0.66 of an inch. But your meter went on or your, your, you show water usage roughly every other day in June. And then in July, which has about the same precipitation for July 20, 24, I see much, much more usage. And then in August there's a lot of usage every day. Speaker 16: R right, so, so this is exactly the point.
I, I included included June, so you can see what our normal usage is. We basically run it three days a week. And what happened starting on July 9th is it started reading this extra reading every day saying that we were using approximately an extra 300 cubic feet of, of water. And, and that's the point, like on on the days where you're seeing 500, 5 24 85 15, those are the days I'm sure we watered and you'll see that we usually use about 180 to 210 cubic feet a day. But the other days we weren't watering the three 20 fives,
the three 10 that, that's not the water days. And the 500 fifteens and five twenties, that's our regular 200 ish plus this 300 that is now showing up every day for the rest of the summer. That, that's, that's exactly why I included June to give you an idea of what our normal routine is. Now I will say if you go through, if you go through August as normal in September we did seed and we did start watering every day. But it's still showing an extra 250 to 300 cubic feet then what I'm watering every day. And that's where this bill, which came in at $4,900,
you know, and I look back at previous years, we're looking at more like $1,800 for the, for that same quarter. And so that's obviously when we started doing some as much homework as we could. Speaker 1: But you included in your packet an an email from the Natick Water Division June 3rd, Speaker 16: The one from 2022. Right? That was just to show that I had signed up. Oh, I see. So that you could see that I got a notification previously. Speaker 1: I see. Speaker 16: And that one was right because we had put down some sod and, and I won't bo you with my fight with my lawn, but we had put down some sod and, and we were watering and that that warning did come up and that was perfect. I'm glad that that system was working then.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 16: I mean, so for me it's, we, we have a bill and we have a bill that was a decent amount of water for sure. But it, it, it wasn't as much as has shown up. And I, and I, I don't know what, what, well you let me know what your thoughts are, but I do have the month of October, which is on the next bill and then we closed it off. So I would be looking to have what if there's an outcome that works in my favor, obviously to look at the month of October. I could file it separately if you'd want. If it comes against me, then I won't bother wasting your time. Speaker 1: Ms. Ms. Slager and, and Mr. Evans,
Speaker 11: So thank you for sending this data. Did you check your programming to make sure that it wasn't going off daily? Because that's sure. What it looks like here. I mean it could be that, you know, you said it goes off in the middle of the night, maybe you didn't know it was on. That's Or did you verify that it absolutely didn't happen on certain days? Speaker 16: It, I can definitely verify that and, and a couple reasons. One, it doesn't really, there's nothing, there's nothing database. But I do care about how much water we use. The other thing is every morning when I wake up on the days it runs, I can see the water, you know, it hits the driveway, hits the sidewalk. If I was seeing it every day, I would've addressed it
because that's not what I wanna do. And actually, if anybody who has lawns knows it's actually not good to water your lawn every day when you're just having normal, normal growth, you, you're actually doing it a disservice. You're supposed to water it heavy every other day or every third day and let the roots grow deep and let it grow. So it would actually be bad for my lawn to be doing it every day. Speaker 11: So when you hand them come back and, and turn it back on, did they actually activate the system? Speaker 16: So we turned on the, the water back into the system Okay. To see if there was any leak. 'cause the, the, the meter has a little, I dunno if you're, if you're familiar with, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 11: We, we, I I do. Yeah. Speaker 16: We, so it's got the leak meter and, and that didn't move at all. Speaker 11: Don't, but, but did you turn a zone on? Speaker 16: We didn't turn a zone on, but I don't, I don't know that there would've been a benefit. Right. Speaker 11: But if you had that could potentially have found a leak. So my suggestion is when you do turn this back on in the spring, monitor it very closely. 'cause I suspect you've got a leak somewhere. I, but the Speaker 16: Water would run out to the ends of the zone. Speaker 11: Right? It can be hidden, it can be in the line. It could be, it could be anywhere. It could be in a place where it might drain easily away just based on this,
I would suspect you do have a leak somewhere. It may not be in the sprinkler head itself, which is where you would see the public, Speaker 16: Obviously we would see that it would be bubbling Speaker 11: Over. You would see that. But it could be somewhere else where it just is draining away and you, you aren't aware of it. So just based on this and, and based on my own fun experiences with sprinkler systems, when you have it turned on, again, please monitor it very carefully because Speaker 16: I obviously will with, especially with the new system, if I turn it on and by day two it's telling me we have a problem. But again, we'd be talking about 300 cubic feet in one spot. Speaker 11: It doesn't have to be in one spot. It could be in multiple spots dissipate and move.
Speaker 1: Right. It could be roots. Yeah. I mean we had this with someone else where you have roots of trees that have Speaker 16: Or hundred percent. But we would still get a large amount of water where that root break is Speaker 6: Unnecessarily. Speaker 11: No, no. Speaker 1: It also depends on your soil, it depends on the lot of things. Slope of your, it depends on the aquifer, it depends on the Speaker 15: Board. Might recall we had a had a, a almost similar situation where it was actually going into a French drain. Yes. And so there was zero evidence of it. And then they had their system actually fully tested by the company and they found that it was actually going into a French drain.
So they didn't see any evidence of it. I don't know if Speaker 16: I understand. I understand. I definitely understand all of that. And I guess the, the, I guess the way, the way I'm feeling things right now, I do wanna also point out again that, that I missed out on the system being able to tell me that I had a problem. And so Speaker 11: No argument with that. And, and we, and we completely, I completely agree with you that that is, you know, something that you were relying on. Yeah. And that you, you did not know and you had done the things that you could do to notify yourself of, of, of an issue if you had a leak. I'm, this is just advice to you a Speaker 16: Hundred percent.
And trust me, if you don't think on this, the second day that I turned my system on, I'm gonna be looking at the, I look at it now and I'm not even running the system. I won't have with my 30 gallons in the house. So I'm intrigued by the system. So, so Speaker 1: Thank you. S did you have Thank you Mr. Questions? Speaker 6: No, why don't you go to Kristen because I'm ready for Speaker 1: Ms. Pope. Speaker 12: Hi Mr. Heller, thank you for coming before the board. My question, in going through the materials, I don't see a reason from any entity as to why the readings were what they were. Did you, do you have an answer from anyone as to why the,
the readings are what they are on the days that you're s saying that the water wasn't used? Speaker 16: I, I don't, again, I did try to contact the company who runs it and I, I think that they may not have wanted to talk to me based on my question. But no, I don't have an answer for that. And again, my only question is whether we're talking about a system that is fantastic and may maybe there's a point of failure. You know, you're right. Maybe I do have an issue that I'll find. I don't know. 'cause unfortunately we shut it all down and, and then we try to turn it back on.
Nothing happens. So no, I don't have an answer to that question. Speaker 12: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: Anyone else on the board? Ms. Ocker? Speaker 11: No, I, I think Mr. Evans was gonna make a motion. Speaker 1: I'm Speaker 6: Ready. Yeah. Let me just briefly describe the policy that we change modified as a select board. What we do is we look at the highest use of the, the three prior quarters at the same time period. And then anything over that we charge at the minimum,
the lowest rate, just tier one. And then we figure out an abatement based on that. So based on that for figure, I'm proposing to do an abatement of $2,646 and 96 cents. Speaker 1: Second, if that's a motion. Speaker 6: Is indeed Speaker 1: There's a motion and a second roll call vote. Ms. Pope. Yes. Ms. Ger? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? No.
And I'm a Yes. So it's a 4 0 4 1 0. Speaker 6: And just a comment on, Speaker 1: I'm sure Yes, please, Speaker 6: Please call that irrigation company and get on their calendar early and make sure that they're available to check it out. 'cause something weird is going on here. Speaker 16: We, and I've already talked to 'em about the day they come out to open it up to be prepared to do that work. Right. Then we've already talked about, I talked about it when they talked, when I brought them in to look at it. So that's, that's already known ahead of time. And again, if I do have an issue, trust me, I wanna solve it.
Like I, this doesn't make me happy at all. The money's one thing, but the wasting of the water if there is a problem, is I feel terrible about it. That's why I sign up on the, on the, my 360. So I'm, I'm very appreciative of, of the understanding. And then the only follow up question I have is what you would all like me to do with the October month? 'cause it's the exact same, we blow it out on October 27th or 28th. So I have a, a similar month that I included in here. That month is in here. But you don't have to bill yet. I just got it. Speaker 15: I mean that's the pleasure of the board. You, the, the abatement value is, I I would argue fairly generous.
Maybe that's, but that's really the pleasure of the board. Speaker 1: If an abatement request were to come before us, I'd like to see a copy of the email from DPW about transferring. Because if Ms. Wiler and I both got the transfer email on Water Smart to my 360 on a August 18th, probably at 10:34 AM like mine. I'd like to, I'd like to know that because that would be my Speaker 15: Understanding is that went out to all then signed up users of the former system. But we can confirm that Speaker 1: That would be good. Yep. So if you were to submit that, that would be something I would want as part
of the packet for the board to consider. Okay. Speaker 16: Do you want me to submit it or do you want me to wait and see? What feedback do you get? I don't wanna waste anybody's time. So if you want to go the other route and just tell me you've got information, don't bother. I won't bother you. Speaker 1: You know, it would be really helpful. Do you have a Gmail account? Speaker 16: I have. It goes to the Hotmail account. Speaker 1: If you search for October 18th Water smart. I'll Speaker 16: Go back. I did try to search Speaker 1: For that. That, I'm sorry. August 19th. My birthday. August 19th. Okay. Yes. So my birthday, how did I forget that? I, so August 19th. If you could do that, that would be great. And on our side we will do that. And then you can get in touch with Mr. Marshall. Okay.
And he'll give you instructions on, you know, whether or not the board is interested in hearing. That's fine. Speaker 15: I appreciate and I appreciate the result Speaker 1: And, and I, I appreciate you not wanting to, to waste board's time. That's very thoughtful. I appreciate, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you Mr. Heller. Alright. And Mr. Marshall's office will be in touch with you about how to proceed in terms of budgeting or not budgeting. Paying You Speaker 15: Took too long. You should have left earlier. Excuse me. And as a side note, that was on camera. Dang. With Speaker 1: Those kids, isn't it? It's amazing. It's so impressive. I know. Thank you for that. Speaker 15: They did leave some stickers here and some other schwag so we can Oh, schwa.
Sorry. Merch. Merch. Merch. Speaker 1: Thank you. Goodnight. The next item on the agenda is a continued hearing for California Pizza, kitchen, liquor license, non-compliance. Do we have MS Block? You are, you can unmute yourself. I'll update the public and the board that there is now a completed application that has been filed with, with the A, B, CC or with, with the town and through the town to the A, B, CC in, in time for this meeting. So thank you for that. A piece of documentation that was not available at the last meeting
and has not been uploaded. What had some dates in it that I just wanted to draw the board's attention to. California Pizza Kitchen received a no action notice on from the A, B, CC on January 29th, 2024 taking no, no action. So at at least since January 29th, 2024, which is 13 months ago, the restaurant has been out of compliance at, at this time I'd like to ask the board if they have any questions or comments and then give Ms Block an opportunity to, to respond
comments or questions from the board. Speaker 12: I don't have any comments or questions. Just Speaker 6: A comment. Speaker 1: Yes, Mr. Evans? Speaker 6: My only comment is thank you for following through on the submission to the, to Ms. Donovan. It appears that the only thing we lack now is a review by the deputy chief. And so I think we've made considerable progress towards clearing this up. So when, when the time comes for a motion, I could probably do a provisional one pending his ruling. Speaker 1: Okay, let's continue this hearing
until we get the review from the police department so that we can make one. Just address this in one fell swoop. So moved. Move Slager. Seconded by Ms. Pope. All in favor, roll call vote. Ms. Ms. Pope? Yes. Ms. Slager? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? Yes. And I'm a yes. Can Speaker 15: You just specify the date for the continuation? Speaker 1: Well, the date would be dependent on when we get the police review. Speaker 15: Okay. Speaker 1: So we, we could do it two weeks from we have a, a special meeting next week.
Speaker 15: I think typically when with a hearing, just because I believe this one was posted. It's not a public hearing. Speaker 1: It's not a public hearing, but it's a post hearing. Yep. Speaker 15: It's a post hearing though, correct? Yep. Yes. So with a posted hearing, you have to continue to a date certain so that you can then continue from there to a date certain. So Speaker 17: I I would think we'd get that in two weeks. So why don't we Speaker 15: Go for two weeks. You can always continue to a date certain and then continue it again if we don't have the information. Speaker 1: So we've, we've taken a vote. Could I ask Mr. Bush for friendly amendment to continue to March 19th and then Yes. Okay. So that's, and Ms. Pope,
would you accept that as a second? With a second? Yes. Okay. All in favor Ms. Pope. I'm sorry, Speaker 18: Excuse me. I do need to interrupt you on March 19th. I will be on a flight at three o'clock in the afternoon. Can I have an associate attend in my behalf? Speaker 1: Of course. Any representative would be fine. Speaker 18: Thank you kindly. I appreciate it. And I just wanted to take a moment out and acknowledge the amazing special attention that Donna Donovan has given to California Pizza Kitchen and myself to get us to the position that we are.
And I am grateful that she has been so kind. Speaker 1: Thank you so much Ms. Block. We all deeply appreciate her. I'll just speak for everyone. Absolutely. Did we just vote that No, we, Speaker 15: We still have to votes. Speaker 1: We still have to vote. Ms. Pope continuing to March 19th. Yes. Ms. Slager? Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? Yes. And I'm a yes. So, so done. Speaker 18: Thank you Board. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 18: Appreciate the time. Speaker 1: Next item on the agenda is the Route 9 27 interchange improvement project. Discussion of a potential letter from the board to mepa,
the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act office regarding project permitting. And I believe we have Mr. Joseph here who has written him a memo and we have Mr. Erickson. So I'd like to defer to staff Mr. Erickson, if that's okay. Speaker 15: Sure, absolutely. I'm just pulling up some of the materials they were provided to the board in advance of the meeting and it's, it's a bit of a history on this front. Dating back to even the fall, some of these questions were raised at, at a public forum. I then continued to raise them with mass DOT just because following up on the public forum, I wanna make sure
that we were understanding of some of the in it was all permitting, but in specific to a MEPA permit related to an exemption position mass DOT is taking regarding the project. So in mepa, and this is my high, high level understanding, so I don't know the full details 'cause I'm not a mepa expert for bridge replacement projects, one can claim an exemption if that bridge replacement project meets certain criteria. This under mass, DO t's opinion is one such type bridge replacement project that meets that criteria.
So they're claiming the exemption. The exemption basically means it doesn't need to go through a more complete MEPA review. It was raised at a public meeting. Well, does this meet the exemption? And I believe this was also what Mr. Joseph mentioned more recently, but it was raised at a public meeting that MAs DOT held back in the fall. I then followed up with MAs, DOT, just asking does it, and then they provided assurances. I asked for just further evidence just because they did offer it in their emails. And I did not receive a response to that. This I know everybody's busy. So this isn't intended to be a slide on mass DOT
because they have since also met with town staff a couple times to talk through the project. They have been keeping us informed. I suspect that response just fell through. With that said, I did inform them of this meeting because I know that there was a public comment at the last meeting and that you're gonna be taking this up. And I said, could you please provide that evidence? And I just got that email, an email from them today that it forwarded to the board. We'll get it up on no longer Novus, but on peak after this meeting. But you can see their response. So they are making that, that assert? Yeah. They, they, they use the word Speaker 1: Exemption. Speaker 15: No, they're, they're making it's not claim.
They're making the, their position. Okay. Is that they have, that they fall under this exemption. I did follow up today 'cause it just came in today with just a request that if they have anything from mepa that provides written confirmation that Mepa agrees. 'cause I suspect a question of the board tonight is going to be what does that mean if, if the applicant could just make the position Speaker 1: Assertion? Speaker 15: Yep. What does that mean? And
that I only sent this afternoon. So actually no, I did get a response from person. Speaker 1: But to be clear, this isn't the first time you've asked and it's No, it has not. And it's gone unanswered. Adding to that history, there has been, there was a meeting with Mepa engineer, or not me, Amma T engineers, the district three chair President of for masculinity. Yeah. Speaker 15: Head of district three. Yep. Speaker 1: The design build consultants, town administration, various members of town administration and myself, where I asked
that they come to a select board meeting so they could explain some of the, answer some of the questions from the public and explain or yes, explain to the public how a $20 million bridge, bridge reconstruction is now a hundred million dollars. Double diamond back exchange. Speaker 15: Divergent diamond. Speaker 1: Divergent diamond. Thank you. Not a double Diamondback snake. Easy to confuse, but very easy to confuse. So, and, and they, they politely declined and said, it is their policy not to do that. When I pointed out that mass DOT does it in Boston all the
time, they said, well, that's not our policy in district three. So they're continuing to decline to appear before the select board. And that's the additional history I wanted to add. Speaker 15: So I did receive a response to my question about additional documentation from mepa from the district, and they did respond two hours saying that MAs COT applies the bridge exemption on its projects that meet the legislative criteria. So that's, that's what we have for MAs, COT regarding their exemption position. Speaker 5: So basically there's self asserting that this is true without actually getting confirmation
Speaker 1: Or providing confirmation writing or Speaker 15: Providing, yeah. Yeah. And I, I can't speak, it could be very common practice with these MEPA regulations that if you make those self assertions, you do still probably submit some paperwork to MEPA to make that position, to take that position. And unless until there's a question to that, whether it's internal topa or others project, probably go forward as if that Can I ask Speaker 6: A quick question? Speaker 1: Yes, please. Speaker 6: Oh, are we pursuing this with the wrong organization? In other words, can we ask the question of mepa?
Speaker 15: That's the question for tonight. Speaker 1: That's the question for tonight is, okay, would the board write a letter to MEPA saying, does this project, is it exempt based on the CMRs and the various legal, Speaker 6: Just teeing that up for you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Speaker 11: Yes. If I can, just for the public's benefit, just clarify what, since it's not on peak, what was said in this email about why they think they're exempt, there's a paragraph where they wrote the transportation bond bill of 2014, pursuant to chapter 79. Section 24 of the acts of 2014
provides exemptions from certain environmental requirements for mass DOT and MBTA bridge projects. This project is exempt because the Route 27 roadway cross section is not adding capacity and is being modified to accommodate queuing as well as the turning movements to from the Route nine ramps. So that's their rationale. Speaker 15: Yeah, that was just sent over today and that's, we'll get it up on peak after the meeting, but we didn't have time before that. But just Speaker 11: So that everyone knows that, that that is what they're claiming is the reason why they're exempt. Speaker 1: Right. Mr. Evans, can we Speaker 6: Just tell the public what peak is?
Speaker 1: Oh, peak is the new Novus yeah's the new, which doesn't help at all. Speaker 15: It's the new agenda software for which people can find the materials to a meeting and, and past meetings and future meetings. We are eventually, I know we're going a little off subject, but we're working on a migration of all the past Novus stuff onto the new Peak platform, but that's gonna take several months. So you can still access the former Novis stuff, but it will eventually be in one platform. Speaker 1: Excellent. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Mr. Joseph, would you like to address this? And thank you for the memo that you forwarded to the board. Speaker 15: Hang on one second. Speaker 8: Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry
I can't get my video started. I just got permission from Mike, so Speaker 1: That's okay. You Speaker 15: Down. Speaker 8: Yeah. You, you know what my beautiful face looks like. Yeah. So I, I think the, you, you've all hit on what it is that I think the, the crux of what I've heard from people in the community, and I was actually at that webinar too, was that the, you know, the in, in, what we had seen as justification for MAs dot was that the modified DDI is substantially the functional equivalent of, and in similar alignment to the existing two two lane bridge that's there. So that's that. I mean, it's more, probably more
of a legal question, but I think the board is onto what my concern is, is we're taking MAs DOT's word that it complies, right? And we're not hearing from the actual agency that's supposed to be enforcing not only the environmental impact, but the environmental justice impact as well. So there's a, there's a stretch of, of Route 27 north that was, you know, drastically affected by the mass dot project widening North Main Street. And here we go again for another five years. And it's a, it's a big question. And to be honest with you as a former select board member,
more than annoyed that the lack of follow up communication when multiple members of the community had asked, because one of the questions I asked and I was not satisfied with the answer was, who's gonna maintain this once it's built? We're putting in so much greenery and so much open space there that has so many nooks and crannies and MAs dots. Policy for maintenance is twice a year they'll cut it, Speaker 1: Right? Speaker 8: So think about trash, think about, you know, potential unhoused, people setting up tents. Think about potential drug use that we had seen when the rail trail first went into effect. We've got a lot of issues there
that we're trusting communication with MAs dot. And if the answer from MEPA is, yes, it meets the standard, so be it. But the lack of willingness for having communication with the community where this project is gonna be disruptive in my perspective, is unacceptable. Also at this time of fiscal, you know, uncertainty to say the least, you know, again, I think it warrants the, the commonwealth to take a good look of, you know, can't we just swap out the bridges or do something more expediently for a third of the money? So those are two factors. And then from an economic development perspective, and this is broader, I'm,
I've not heard any new news about how they expect to communicate on behalf of the businesses or, you know, in, in support of our efforts to make sure that businesses are supported by announcements of traffic pattern changes and the like. So I, I do ask that the town work with MAs dot on a communication strategy because this is gonna radically affect the businesses both north of Route nine and access to Natick Center. So there were a lot of factors here, but you know, to me, I'm, I'm not satisfied that the, the organization that does the work gets
to do legal interpretation for themselves. Speaker 1: Agreed. Mr. Joseph, I, during the meeting with Mass Dot, there was very cl frank and clear communication about the lack of proactive communication. So the, the system they had set up is that if someone were interested, they would have to go on the website and enter their email address and wait for an email and then confirm the email. And it was very clunky. But our communications director worked with them to come up with a, a couple of quick and dirty things that would be easy to implement.
I suspect they're using legacy systems and this is the way we, we've done it since 1990. And, but I I I take your point, and that might be part of a letter that the board sends to mast independent of the letter it will send to Mepa. Speaker 8: Yeah, Speaker 15: That's a good idea. Yeah. They have hired outside communication support for this project. But that said, we have been trying, we have been working and, and I believe there's continued work to try to engage with that team on updates, but it's, it's still a one way sort
of line of communication so far. Yes. Speaker 5: Well, and, and I actually signed up for updates and I've been getting those emails and they are obscure, to say the least. Yeah. They are not clear communications, you know, long stretch of, what are we talking about? A couple of lines about what might happen, really unclear lines and then a lot of stuff about how to sign up again, right? Speaker 1: Yes, agreed. Has everyone in the board, I think I signed the whole board up when, when I was in that meeting. So we should all be getting those emails. So I, at this time, I'd like to ask the board whether they would, would, whether they, someone would move
to, for a draft letter to be written, for the board to review to mepa and a separate one to MA DOT regarding communications. Speaker 5: I'm second now Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. Is there anyone from the public who would like to make a comment? It was a little delayed. Ms. Pope? Yes. Ms. Wolf Logger? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yes. And I'm a yes. 5 0 0 and I'll work town administration to come up with a draft email for the board to review. Speaker 5: It'll be two, two letters, right? Speaker 1: Two separate letters. Yes. Speaker 5: Is car involved? Josh has got his hand up.
Speaker 1: Mr. Ostroff? Speaker 19: Probably not. Let's draft the letter first. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 19: Excellent. Should be able to speak. Speaker 5: Go ahead Josh. Speaker 4: Hi again. Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanna caution the board before getting into a, sending a lot of paper to the, to mass DOTI know it can be challenging. Sorry, Josh Ostroff, a timing member not speaking in any official capacity. I worked for the MBTA and, but obviously they're not involved with this project, but long time advocate
and volunteer for the town working with Mass DOT. And what I want to just underscore is that it can be a challenge to connect with mass DOT. It's, you know, they've got their hands full not to apologize for them. And they should obviously get back to people who make comments or raise concerns in public meetings. Sometimes it takes a number of sit downs with staff meeting with, you know, with staff and MAs dot or the contractor or their communications consultant to sort these things out. But I feel like escalating things in a public meeting with, you know, talking about sending letters to me,
but it does not really serve the town's interest that well, this is a project that has been, you know, in the design stage for six or more years and is now under design build contract. It's, it's gonna go forward. And I, and I think that the town is best served by collaboration and not confrontation. I believe that the genesis of this is that there are folks who really object to the project and object to the process. And I do not think the board's, I think the board needs to be really cautious before sending letters that sort
of get at the, you know, the underpinnings of the legal underpinnings of this process. And I've done, you know, I haven't talked to rep Linsky about this, but I feel like, you know, part of him and Senator Spilker role is to engage with state agencies on the town's behalf. So I would really try to straw, I I would encourage meetings before, like sending letters, you know, and I realize that it can be frustrating if, if the time administrator doesn't hear back and a timely manner. And I don't, you know, excuse that, but I just, I I I would just be cautious about this
and not, not rush to, you know, do anything that threatens legal action because the, the state has a lot invested in this. They'll also hired a public engagement firm, and I'm not representing them or, or speaking to their work, but they realize that they need more expertise for a project of this magnitude and duration that they have. And I'm really grateful that our comms director is gonna be working with 'em. I think that serves the people of the community well. So it's all I've got to say, but happy to talk offline about any of this. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Ostroff. The tone of the letter.
If the, if the conversation didn't reflect it, the memo and the town administrator's emails should, it's a letter of inquiry to Mepa as to whether or not they play a role and whether or not there needs to be a formal application for an exemption. This project borders an environmental justice community. My conversation with the several people who've inquired about this was not because they really love the design and they love the project, but what we don't wanna have happen is be in the middle of the project and 18 months have passed, or six months or 12 months have passed.
And we learned that there should have been ampa, which extends the project and the cost out 18 months, which inconveniences our businesses. And it's, it's a, it's a vital, it, it, it's, it's a very vital artery. Thank you artery. I, my my concern is not, not time, it is, it's not, I, I don't wanna say that they didn't timely respond. There have been numerous emails from the town in which this project is happening and the emails have gone unanswered for months. So it's not a, we sent an email
and they just didn't get back to us in time. It's, this has been a protracted project. Moreover, in the meeting with MAs, DOT one of the questions I ask was, given the uncertainty of federal funding, I understand it's been contracted. I understand that there has been payment, but given the uncertainty of that, what are the odds of being in the middle of a project and the funding being rescinded and us having a mess at that intersection? And I didn't receive, there was no, I understand we can't for foretell the future, but I didn't even receive assurances that we're working
with Catherine Clark's office and we're working with, there were there, there was a lack of engagement on some very serious questions that were raised. So the, the letter to, to your point, it's not a threatening letter. It's not, it's a letter of inquiry. I, I I take your point about, about Speaker 5: Not being contentious. Speaker 1: Yeah, not being contentious. But we, we have had a number of meetings, we've had numerous meetings and we still don't have an answer to a very basic question. So that's, that's the intent, my, my intent in supporting a letter to the board and the board's. It'll be a draft, it'll be posted,
it'll be discussed at a public meeting. And I would welcome your feedback on it. Speaker 15: If I can maybe add to, to Mr. Otros point, maybe in the meantime, 'cause again, this is the first time that I've been at the meeting where the board has talked about this. Maybe I'm happy to reach out Oswell or, or work with Catherine to reach out to a MEPA rep just to ask the question as well before so that we can better understand if a letter's even needed or if, or if there's something on their end. And, and Speaker 5: I would welcome up, maybe we should reach out to our Speaker 15: And representative offices, Speaker 5: Our representative and and senate senator, but to see if they have some feedback as well.
I mean, we don't wanna make, I I agree with Mr. Ostra. I I want to send a letter if it's the appropriate thing to do, and we should draft it to see if it is. But at the same time, if there are other routes we can get answers. Let's pursue them all. Speaker 1: Okay. So we've, we've, we've voted to put together a draft with town administration prior to doing that and spending the time doing that. I would ask Mr. Erickson to reach out and see if through some informal channels we could get answers to the, the questions that are posed in your email. And if you could do that in the next week. 'cause that would give us another week to write a letter
and I'm happy to talk with you about that off offline. Mr. Ostroff, thank you for your, your feedback. Any member of the public which to wish, wish to address this subject, members of the board? Anyone else? Moving on to the review of the policy on the town administrator's review, which is a little awkwardly phrased, but, so we have a policy, I don't have a date on this. Is this 2016? Maybe Speaker 15: It goes back that far. Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. So we have a policy from 2016, oh no, this is 2014,
where there's a rubric and, you know, policy and purpose and the procedure. It was a period of evaluation from July one to June 30th, sometime between 2014 and 2020 maybe that was changed to be a calendar period of ev evaluation without changing the policy. The practice became a calendar year. Speaker 15: I think it even predated, I think it was like 20 18, 20 17, 20 18 when that became the practice. Speaker 1: Okay. So the pr the procedure is
laid out in, in the policy online. We've been roughly following the same procedure, but we've been using a different rubric. And so that rubric is also up on line for the board to review and discuss. And so what I wanted to get from members of the board is comments on both the rubric and the procedure so that we can update the policy and Mr. Erickson will be providing his self-evaluation,
but it's, it's best that maybe we nail down some of this criteria before he spends a considerable amount of time and then we ask him for additional information. So I welcome comments. Speaker 19: I, Speaker 5: I haven't seen this in a while, so I No, Speaker 11: That's fine. I just, if, if anyone, so I really wasn't involved the last time, so I don't, in looking at the review policy, other than the date period, what isn't being done? I mean, I'm, I'm just curious about what everybody thinks needs to be adjusted from. I mean, I realize the policies over 10 years old,
but other than the rubric, are there other, is the rest of the procedure not being followed? Speaker 1: It's not about about it not being followed, it's just slightly different. So the period of evaluation in the current policy is fiscal year. Yep. And as a practice, we've been doing calendar. So that's one example. Yep. Board of Selectmen, that's a minor change. What has happened in the last three years is the report from the town administrator goes to each member of the board with a blank evaluation form. They fill that out and send them to the chair or a designee, the chair compiles the scores
and does a consensus overview document with a narrative. The performance evaluation is done in public, at a public meeting and provided to the director of home, which is not specifically spelled out in this document. But I Speaker 5: Think that's required in general law. Speaker 1: It is, it'd be nice to have it for the public to know that, that that is the case. That then the chair gives the performance evaluations to the director of human resources. After that, during the process, it has been the practice, at least in the last three years, that the board members may meet individually with the town administrator to discuss
aspects of their review. That is not done through the chair. That there's no gatekeeper. You have complete total access, the chair needs, the con will provide the consensus document to the town administrator and other board members at least one week prior to the date at which the document will be publicly released. It should say, I think re publicly discussed and released. And then, then there's the, the rubric. I, I, I think yes. Speaker 6: Alright. Just had a question actually. 'cause one of the key differences that I'm seeing is
the rating system in terms of num. One is numerology and the other is exceed expectation, meet below, et cetera. It, it seems like maybe we, we could consider because of the, it's, it's all sort of aggregated into four evaluation criteria. Buckets, I'll call it personal characteristics, professionalism, public relations, communications, board support and relations within those, there are really separate bullets that, that,
Speaker 11: That's Speaker 6: Just page or less come from the, there's Speaker 11: A, that's page one, but there's Speaker 1: A couple more pages. There's Speaker 11: More Speaker 1: Community leadership, organizational leadership, financial management, planning and organization and progress towards goals. Speaker 6: I'm not saying that on my Yeah. Speaker 11: Scroll page. Different pages. Speaker 5: So in the policy there's a rubric and Got it. Okay. It's lots of pages to the rubric. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's not, I haven't compared them, but it's not clear to me that everything from the policy is in the Excel spreadsheet.
Speaker 6: Yeah. No, Speaker 11: I mean I think we've got two pieces here. We, we have the policy itself and then there's, you know, how the rating system and it, it seems like just if we took what you said, Catherine, it seems like most of we're, we're pretty much following the steps with a few small changes. Tweak. Yep. Yeah. That, that, so that part shouldn't be too difficult to update Speaker 1: Unless the board wants to do something else. Right. With regard to the rating scale, I think that the standard now in HR is the categories of
that are in the rubric we're using as opposed to using a numerical. And what has happened in the past is, let's say we pick some random profe public relations and communications. If three members did exceeds and two did meets, then that would kind of float, those xs would float over there. So it would show more, more of a subtlety, you know, as opposed to a, you know, an average number and a numerical quantity. Which I think is more accurate than to do a numerical quality, just my personal opinion, it's
Speaker 6: My personal opinion is, it's also subjective because one person's four might be another person's three. Speaker 1: Oh indeed. Of course. Subjective and also experience. So, you know, if you're not in a leadership role, then you may not have as much experience dealing with him on certain things. And so your perspective's a little different. So yeah, I think it, Speaker 5: Well, not only that, but that's the first time I did one of these. I'd been in the seat for six months. Mm. And I had no idea how to answer some of these things 'cause I didn't have a lot of experience with Jamie. Mm. And so that also feeds into how these answers go.
That's true. Speaker 1: So I think what I'm looking from the board now is for you to look at the descriptions, example of the criterion, see if any of it is duplicative, if there's things that you would wanna add, if you would wanna edit the description or examples of the criterion and send that back to me like in a week. So I can do a, a mashup and then look at the policy and tell me whether you, there are, you know, if, if there are things that you think we should be doing or that this doesn't provide for, so
that I can discuss it with the town administrator. Ja. Jamie, do you wanna weigh in since we're talking about you since, since you're in the room. Speaker 15: I, I, I mean it's really up, it's the discretion of the board. It's your review of the town administrator in, in current case, me in my time with the town. It, it kind of has gone full circle. It's been interesting because coming outta the pandemic, and I don't know if, if all of you have heard this, but I kind of created my own set of goals and objectives that then going into my first six month review, the board at that time said, Ooh,
that looks really good, let's use that. And I wasn't even aware that there was this formalized policy at that time. 'cause it wasn't something that was overly discussed and we're in the middle of a pandemic and Sure. And then through the years, what I had created for myself sort of became a review tool a little bit more granular to like project level and some other things as well. Whereas this is a little bit higher level. And then I think the, it was probably Paul, actually Paul Joseph I think actually took that and then sort of backed it back into the, the matrix or the, the, the table
that is now the, yeah, the, the evaluation master sort of matrix probably pulling from this policy. 'cause it looks very similar. The categories look very similar. I mean, I do appreciate getting constructive feedback. I do appreciate how the policy's set up in the sense that there's individual pieces, but the collective is really what gets shared publicly and gets discussed publicly. I think there's logic to that. One of the reasons why it was shifted, my understanding is one of the reasons why it was shifted from the fiscal year to the, it's really a February timeframe is contract contractual. And it's designed to align with the election.
So in theory, the current board before an election completes the review and then election happens, whatever happens to the election, that person isn't then trying to do a review for a year that they weren't here for. Right. So that's my understanding as to why it was shifted. It happened I believe right before my time with my predecessor's predecessor. And then it carried into my contract for context on timing. Speaker 11: So we're behind Speaker 15: A little bit. Yes. But Speaker 11: Well, I mean, given that we've met almost every Speaker 15: Week, understandably behind, but we Speaker 11: Are behind just from, you know, we're supposed
to have done this in in February, not, hey, we all know we've been meeting a lot and we've had a lot on our, Speaker 15: And I'm behind too, you know, to be fair, I need to do my part Speaker 11: Too, trying the process where we're at. Speaker 15: That's just some of the history of the process of where we got to where we are. So I do appreciate having this morphed with what the board currently thinks it needs and wants to do. Adjusting for what you have been doing the last couple years for clarity's sake. I think it's just good for the public's clarity, for your clarity for, for the TA's clarity, for my clarity and also just for setting sort of the expectations moving forward.
One of the things that I know we've been working on as organization is because we can get so bogged down into the day-to-day, it's, we have to elevate ourselves as leaders to what are our goals for this next year? What are our goals for the next X period of time? And we've been really trying to hammer that with our department heads and our division heads. And I think it's good for this process to also use that as a time to do that and reflect both backwards but also looking forwards. Speaker 11: Yes. So how do you evaluate your staff? I, you know, in organizations that I've been in, you know,
it, it flows upwards. So some, some of the goals that you might have for your reports, then you would bake into your, your own review. So Correct. Speaker 15: Yeah. And I will, Speaker 11: So Speaker 15: So we do a review process on a calendar year basis. You, you Speaker 11: Have, okay, so you, it's also on a calendar year. Yeah, we did shift that. Do you have something similar to this or how, how do you, how do you, Speaker 15: So we've actually, this year we actually just revamped it into a, we were getting a lot of feedback from, and it's really for non-union personnel, so just keep that in mind as well. We do have an organization that's much larger than non-union
personnel, but the union contracts ultimately govern how the process works for, from a review process for, for unions. But in case of non-union personnel, we, so timing wise, we do it at the calendar year basis. We usually use October to do self evaluations end of September, October, do self evaluations end of October, November to do super supervisor op evaluations. So department heads or division heads. And then December is really at the top level where 10 administration will then one, review all of those,
and then also feedback down to the division heads and department heads back to their folks so that we can apply at January one, any sort of adjustments if we're doing merit adjustments for that year. And we have been able to do that, not a lot, but you know, we've been able to do some encouragement through merit adjustments. But then we do those reviews at that we calendar year basis. The form we just revamped this past year, like I noted, we try to simplify it. We were getting, a lot of the form that we had prior was a fairly, we actually inherited the form. We tried to do tweaks about four years ago,
but it was trying to, it tried to do the similar like rating criteria. And we found that because it was one of those standard, more standard, like I had seen almost the same carbon copy in other organizations. People started just being standard with their reviews, you know, copy and paste from last year update this year. And so we were trying to really work with department and division heads and staff to get away from that and use this as a true opportunity to have constructive dialogue. You know, if there's not constructive dialogue, we find
that the organization isn't, the culture isn't quite there for collaboration, for communication. And so we've tried to structure the form in such a way that it did that. So we actually simplified it down to three primary parts and allowed for more of a narrative to be drafted into the form for the su for the, well the self-evaluation, but also the supervisor for that person giving more examples and you know, what does meet that exceeds expectation, what does meet that meets expectations so that there's some
understanding as to what it is, but also enough flexibility for the department head because all of our divisions are slightly different. To be able to also have some honest feedback. And it was interesting seeing some of the initial feedback from Dvar department heads. We had some that were, that had been used to the old form being like, I just, I just don't get this. Like you're overthinking it, just do it, you know, simply. And then at the end, like, that was really good this year we heard. So we can certainly share that template form. It's in a Google doc. I'm not sure if we put it up on the, on the website yet. Usually I've been putting them up on the website, but it's much simpler.
It's really three primary high level questions and then an overall sort of score for a lack of better term. But it's a pretty straightforward score. And then we use that to then do some adjustments from merit. Speaker 1: Ms. Pope. Speaker 20: Sounds good. Speaker 12: Yes. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Thank you Madam Chair. Just had a thought that I wanted to offer up is, would it be beneficial, and I don't know, let me back up. I don't know if there have been, you know, complaints or concerns about the current rubric that we're using,
but I wonder if to keep on pace with the fiscal year and with the election, if it makes sense to prioritize completing Mr. Erickson's review in this time span and prioritizing adjustments to the rubric after the election. That being, if there hasn't been concerns or you know, anything that, that warrants an urgent need to, to change things.
But again, that's just an idea that I'm throwing out based on the timeline we're in. Speaker 5: Thank you Ms. Pope. I was gonna raise the same thing. Speaker 1: So I was going to say something similar and what I was going to, what I was going to say is that I've been exploring other ways of doing performance evaluations in the private sector looking basically at the model that Google uses, which are OKRs objectives and key results, rolling that out throughout town administration, working with of course the town administrator and the communications director. The idea being that the public would know
what the key objectives are or for departments, what are their, what are the big goals? And, and it, you know, research has shown, business research has shown that when you, that committing to a goal can help perform employee performance. But interestingly enough, setting challenging goals. So being able to check in every two months, three months and say, we've been bogged down in the day to day. There's snow removal, there's, we've got this going on, we've got this, but where are we on this goal? And having those goals be forward facing so we can,
as part of, you know, a adopting measures to show an effective deliverance of governments. I'm not gonna say efficient because I don't, I think that I, I wanna borrow practices that make sense in a municipal setting, but I, I also don't wanna fall into the trap of saying that we're gonna run natick like a business. That's my personal political philosophy. You know, I've written about it, I've talked about it. So I I would agree. And the I, what I would like to do is doing something more than tweaking the policy and tweaking the rubric and, and given the timing
and giving that we need to do this. I I would, I would endorse that, you know, having stretch goals, setting objectives, developing key results. I mean, Linda has a, a great background in, in business and I'm sure she can, you know, I have some, some experience with the, this when I was at Harvard. And we all have different experience that we can bring to this topic. So, Mr. Evans, go ahead. Speaker 6: The other sort of similar sort of thing was a, a few of the companies that I worked for had something called MBO Management by objectives.
So to me that that was a little bit too rigid and I think the Google model might be more realistic to, to, you know, I'll just say stuff happens and you need to make adjustments and there, it could be a month from now, it could be six months from now, but you need to have that reflected in the adjusted objectives. And that's not to say, you know, if someone's behind on their goals midyear, they can come out
and say, Nope, I'm not gonna agree to this. But it's kind of a contract when at the beginning of the year they say these, I agree that these are my objectives, right? During the year, stuff happens, those can get readjusted. So what we don't wanna have is people being receiving a lower rating because they had to make an adjustment and, and do the right thing by the town, whatever that might be. I, Speaker 1: I think of these things as team, you know, key,
key results of teams, I think, you know, writ large and then the, the man we're not involved in managing employees. So we'll turn that over to the professionals and just say that given, you know, what are the team, what is this particular department or divisions team, three top goals that there's stretch goals for this year. And then you figure out how you wanna evaluate them, how, you know, who's responsible for what. That we, we don't need to be involved in that, but I would like to see, and the intro, you know, in the context of the override, in the context of talking about being more efficient
in the very real possibility of having to do with less. And that means less staff, which means pressure on the staff that's left behind. In this context, I'd like to come up with something a bit more flexible. Like you said, the management by objective it might be a bit too rigid. Something that is for an organizational unit and, and for the, and for the town administrator where we're involved is his administration of these OKR, whatever we wanna call them, across organizational units.
And this is a big conversation for tonight and we have a heavy agenda, so why don't we work with the rubric we have recognizing that it's not in line with the, the policy of 2016 or 14 or whatever it is, but that it's in keeping with the practice of the last five, seven years maybe. How does that sound, miss, Ms. Pope? Speaker 12: I agree with that. Sounds good. Speaker 1: Okay. Then I will ask the town administrator to circulate his goals just to the five of us in independently. And then if, if everyone could take a look at the,
the rubric that's a, that's on, what's it called? Peak? Peak. Peak. That's on peak. The newer rubric we're using. And there's also, there should be an area to make notes, but you can also, no, there's not really, you can also do a narrative. So when I, when I did mine last year, I did like a couple of paragraphs that said this is why this in this area for this, Speaker 5: Yeah. There should be, somebody should have an original Excel. If we could get copies each, get copies of the Excel spreadsheet. Speaker 1: This is the Excel, the one Speaker 5: That's, no, it's PDF on it's pdf D on PDF
Speaker 11: Peak. You can just create an Excel from the PDF. Speaker 1: I'm, I'll do that. I'm looking at it. Ls. Yeah, Speaker 5: I mean it looks like an Excel, but it's in pdf. Oh, Speaker 11: But I know, but you can, you you can convert it. Oh Speaker 5: Well I'll Speaker 1: Do that. Yeah, go Speaker 11: Ahead. I, I just wanna say yes, this is, I think this is a good idea. I think, you know, really looking at this in detail, and I'm sure you know, all of, you know, that different organizations have different ways of doing their performance reviews. There's the flavor of the month. I mean, I think management by objectives was, yeah, that was like what?
Eighties, I don't know. Eighties, nineties, eighties. Eighties. Nineties. Nineties. Yeah. So, you know, I, I think that, you know, past it's a Google thing is probably something that might be worth looking into, but it's probably also something that, you know, 10 years from now we're gonna look back on and say, oh, Speaker 1: You do that. Or even five. I mean, Speaker 11: Why did we do it that way? So I, I think going with what we have now, but I think exploring something different in the future, especially something that aligns with how we're, how you are using, how you are evaluating your staff. Makes sense. Speaker 15: Yeah. Some, some of the questions that we ask in our updated form include things like benefit
to the organization and we really wanna understand where they're, their, their, there's a positive, you know, organization wide service to others and customer service focus. That's a big question from some of ours. 'cause we are a customer service organization. We do obviously outline goals, planning, prioritization and resource utilization so that we can better understand how this is really this for the supervisor to evaluate. We also add some hard skills and soft skills just to be able to understand where some of the skill sets are. And then we've added the town values. We welcome, we listen, we lead
and we ask each, both in a self as well as the supervisor to, this is our first year adding it. So we just ask for one of the three this year just to say, how do you, how do you accomplish these? What do you do to accomplish these? So I'm not saying this is something for you to do, but that's just something we can certainly provide for your knowledge moving forward. One thing I'll ask is, you mentioned goals. Do you need me to do the forward looking goals or you need me to look backwards or both? Speaker 1: Let's just get through the, let's just get through the last year. I mean I have some of them put together, but if you could, it'd be much more efficient for you to put that together and send Sure.
Speaker 15: So accomplish over the past years. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 5: And now I think I've got the, Speaker 1: And things that weren't accomplished that you Speaker 5: Had and I think I've got the Excel spreadsheet somewhere in my backlog. Let's see if I can find it and get a master out to everybody. 'cause that'll be better than the one that's converted from P-D-F-P-D-F to anything's conversion is awful. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Mr. Sidney. Let's move on to the next item. If there's no other discussion, 'cause we're coming on eight 40. Before we go to the potential commitments from the override to residents in the context of the override, which is
a bit wordy, I'd like to jump down to I to the tax title process update from Mr. Erickson. Speaker 15: I'm wondering if, I know it's a little bit later than anticipated, so I'm gonna see if Mr. Townsend's still available. But long story short, the the finance team has been doing extensive work when it comes to the tax data process. And I did email it to the board and we'll get it up on Novus sort of a, it's really a snapshot update because there's a very large database behind it. But that database is also being worked on. So in the coming, probably
after the election in April, there will be a, a more comprehensive list provided to the board for your knowledge of really the, the, the next steps in the process, which is sending out demand letters and others to, to residents who are back on their taxes. But I wanted to cover the high level just to show what the work has been done. And with any, with, with any of the tax title work, it's, it's sort of a moment in time. I want that to be sort of understood as well. And the reason I, I, I say that in the sense that all throughout the year people are paying taxes
and we're collecting, you know, fees and taxes and such. So what was, for example here is what was for example on the free cash sheet based on July one or June 30th is actually different from today. Sure. Because after June 30th, we likely collected a bunch of taxes because it was tax renew. So it's a moment in time. So this is as of January 24th, 2025. I mean it's a full snapshot of everything outstanding.
So you have 3,862 grand total count of bills of which 71 are deferrals. So those are like the senior tax deferrals. Subsequent are those that are once a, like they, they're already in the tax title process. So therefore we just need to add their updated bill to the registry deeds. Basically The tax title. Yeah. Tax title. And that totals seven 17 or to the tune of seven $75,000.
Demands are the ones that will actually have a demand notice. So whether they do right now or not, we're working to do that work and John can fill that in in a second. I'm just gonna go through the big categories first and then John can fill in the details. Yep. Refunds are, in some cases people overpay, so we owe them a refund. Write offs are basically those that are under really cost more for us to collect than they're pennies. There's a lot of ones that are dollars or pennies, they're not a lot of money. It actually costs us more to do a demand notice or to do any of the work than it is to actually collect them. And that's really only $2,400 representing 1,300
accounts or people. So. So a couple bucks, a couple bucks a piece. Yeah, on average. And many of them are pennies. Some are like $5. And then John can explain the write offs. Those are again pennies to the dollar. So John, do you wanna go through, I just forwarded the 1 24 update. I know there's continuously been work done, but if you want to give a little bit more detail probably on the demands and then we can answer any questions. Speaker 21: Sure, yeah. Thank you having me this evening. John Townsend, deputy town administrator, director of finance, talking about the demand for payments.
We've been working pretty much nonstop on these. So what we're actually one of the, one of the, and I, one of the other, I think it was the other agenda items she was talking about where we are with regards to our policies and procedures. Well I can, I'm very happy to say that with regards to our tax title policies and procedures as well as the implementation of the munis module for tax title, we're actually doing fairly well. One of the things we did work very closely on was to get Muni up and running with regards to tax title, saving us a lot
of work with regards to putting things out. Currently where we're at is that we've going through the list making certain that we're sort of double checking everything, especially those people that might have a credit that we need to add to it. Just making certain, so we have as little sort of problems with regards to sending out demands for people that aren't accurate. Making certain that, you know, things will go smoothly. Now hopefully we should have the first batch out tomorrow and then the next batch is coming out Friday. One of the interesting things is that staff have actually been starting to get
calls from individuals who said, I've heard this is coming, could you gimme my balances? I'd like to pay. So not really gonna forecast on what's gonna happen when we send these out, but we are getting prepared. We're having another temporary staff person on Monday to help out With regards to the calls. We still are down actually two, two staff members. So this is gonna help out a lot for us. I've been working on frequently asked questions as well as information that will be put up on our website to make sure that people have it place to go, to get some general information with regards to the tax title process and also that our staff are informed with regards to
what it is they need to tell their residents once they actually call in with regards to this. So with regards to the demand payments, you know, we do approximately have 948. This number fluctuates every day. Actually you fluctuate several times each, each day. My expectation is it'll probably around seven 50 to 800, they're actually gonna go out. This is what it actually will look like. This actually is a bill, so I'm not gonna send it around to you, but it is in pink paper actually. We, what we, we formatted it very much like the actual bill itself. So people are sort of familiar with what,
how the breakdowns are on here. It's the same breakdowns. And then just with the demand notifications to the top with some information with regards to what they should do once they get this. So once they get this, they do have 14 days in which to pay the bill at the end of the 14th day. It's just gonna be a little longer. At the 14th day we can, we want to start the tax title process, probably give 'em a little bit more time to get the payments in. But we'll start doing, putting out the de notice of demand for payment of tax. We have a couple new forms that the state has wasted on us was part of this whole process.
So I think this is the one, oh no wrong one. Book's very similar to this, but has the information for the, for the tax title payment at the bottom here. This is where we then have to post it on the town's website, have to put it in the newspaper, and then we also have to post it on the property. I think those are all the particular notifications. And then we actually will have a hearing in which we'll announce it and they can, I guess people could show up and ask for it if they want to. But at that particular point in time, then we have another 14 days, which we have to wait after that.
And at that time we'll turn over all the documentation to our attorneys to file with the registry of deeds. So once we actually file with the registry of deeds, then that is when the tax title process actually officially begins. That is when it now comes off our receivable and comes into tax title. And also at that particular point in time. And we're gonna provide information for the residents about this. They have the right to request a tax title payment agreement. So that of course we haven't actually received permission with regards to or updated when we passed. We still have the first one we did that Speaker 15: Was at fall town meeting.
Fall town meeting, we amend our bylaws to be compliant or consistent with the state law, Speaker 21: With the new state law Speaker 15: At the fall town meeting. We're still waiting for the ags office for that. Yep. Speaker 21: Still waiting for ags office. However, our old one is still in effect, it's still good, which gives them an additional three years to pay. They have to put up 25% upfront. And of course they have to meet the payment schedules as we set out for them. But we also, I think it's 50% of the interest charges are also dismissed. They have three years to pay. If they don't, if they don't do the agreement, then
under the new law there's a, a one year waiting, it used to be six months, they extend it to one year before we can actually go into land court and file a complaint against them to foreclose on the house. Currently our attorneys advise us that once you do get to file a complaint against them, it's usually about a two year wait before the court will actually schedule a trial and, you know, for the proceedings. So all in all, the process is approximately three years, whether you have the agreement or whether you actually go through the foreclosure process. So this is a fairly lengthy period of time.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean hopefully people will pay at the demand notice time. Yes. Before we need to publish on our website the full list and after the demand notice. But before publishing or at the time of publishing. We'll that's when I mentioned we'll be back. We'll let the board know of that. Yeah. List. But we're gonna get the demand notices out as John noted. ASAP. Speaker 22: Great uptake. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Townsend. Oh, please, Ms. Mr. Schlager, Speaker 11: Just a quick question on the demand notice, do we give any instructions for people that maybe never see a property tax bill or they don't pay attention to it
because it gets paid by their mortgage company about what to do? Yep. I mean, some of them. So is that, is there language in there on it? Speaker 21: Yeah, so on the, on the actual form, no. However well aware of that concern. So we did extensive frequently asked questions and one of them is, my mortgage company pays this, I've never seen this before. What am I supposed to do? And then, you know, instruct them to call their mo mortgage company to see whether there's payments that, and that's one of the things we are sort of looking at, whether there was any of those we missed the payment from the mortgage company
or from them, you know, to make sure that those, those issues are identified upfront. Speaker 11: But that is part of the mailing Speaker 21: That that's part of the Yeah, the frequently asked questions, they can get that. And once again we'll instruct staff with the regards to it. The more, the more, the more experienced staff we have, we deal with that on, on, on a regular basis. But it does come up for them as well. So they're, they're, they're familiar with handling that. Speaker 11: All right, thank you. I just wanna say I'm just one more quick question. Yep. So are, are the bills being generated from the new muni module or it's Speaker 21: Yes. Speaker 11: Yep. That's awesome. So
Speaker 15: We only just implemented that. Yes. I, because there were issues with that module. Speaker 11: I, I know that there had been issues with it that other towns had experienced. Yes. But I guess it's been fixed enough that we felt comfortable implementing it. Speaker 21: Well it is, you know, and thanks. I have to give credit to Ian, we, the assistant director, she sat down with munis, went through a couple of classes with them and actually resolved the problems for our 'cause previously we actually couldn't actually print the actual bill. If you called in and said you wanted to know what your balances are, we had to run you a different report. Now we can actually give people a copy of their bill.
And like I say, that's the format that we're using here. And it also, it, what, what's even more important once you move the tax title, when you do the notices for tax title, everybody is on one. It's not one sheet, but it's gonna be multiple sheets, but it's all just sort of added in with all the totals with there that would almo, I'm not saying impossible to do by hand, but this is, it will actually just produce it for uss Speaker 15: A big database. Yeah, Speaker 21: It's a big, big time saving it just, you know. Yeah, it was, it is. Good. Good thing we got that going. Speaker 11: A big thank you to Tan for getting absolutely implemented
in such a short period of time. Yep, yep. Kudos to her. Speaker 15: Yeah, she's been amazing with Muni and helping resolve some of these issues that, you know, now we can, it's, there's a lot to resolve. So, but she's been an amazing resource. Speaker 21: Yeah, she's very good. Speaker 15: So like I said, the snapshot at 1 24 25 is really the, the current snapshot that we have. But as John noted, these numbers fluctuate literally daily. So this is just the snapshot that we had to pull the data together for the purposes of us being able to provide some information to you all. Yeah, Speaker 21: And I, I will just say, and this is one of our, their sort of going
through the process again, we went through district identify accounts that, you know, the state owes $127,000 for a water bill. So that's one of those ones we sort of pull back. Obviously I'm not going to send that to 'em before we take a good close look at that, why that, why that is. But those are things we're trying to identify, you know, I'm not gonna count that as part of the receivable 'cause it's not really a bill and that, you know, we pull this out before we saw a SAR sending things out like that. Speaker 15: And, and it's interesting to see how many are truly just that write off stage, you know,
of the three on this particular report, three thousand eight hundred one thousand three hundred ninety, almost 1,400 are really such low costs or low value. They're, they're, and I remember looking at the full database that they're, these are pennies, these are dollars. It costs us more to try to even just send the demand notice than it is that amount. And it totals a small amount, $2,400. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? Speaker 15: I, I mean, I wanna thank John and his team for all this hard work. I know, it's, I Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you, John. Speaker 15: The catch up coming outta the pandemic now
with the resource of TN and the team utilizing the Munis program, which we only updated again a couple years ago. So we were truly starting to utilize that more than we have, I think, really ever in Natick's history. Looking back even to the nineties when we were supposed to that update, I give credit to John and team for, for doing that. And now we need to move on, obviously to the next hopefully modified updated process that we can better, that we can use the Munis updates for. 'cause a lot of what I've experienced with John and, and just looking at the department, a lot of the challenges
were the issue that came up in the DLS report that came up in, and just what we know are things that we need to improve. When you inherit systems from the nineties, it's really hard to update those because they're so paper heavy and they're so process heavy. We needed the muni upgrades, we needed the expertise, and then we needed to take it one thing at a time. And now we're finally at a point where I feel comfortable we can start tackling a lot of those other things with some of the internal expertise with, with the team. We still need time. We'll still get there, but I'm, this is great to see
and I'm excited to see some of the next things that we're also gonna be working on. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Speaker 21: Not Speaker 15: A problem. And, and to the point of the policies, those policies are intended to be in the ones that you'll see in the, they were, they have incorporated, the intent is for them to incorporate these updated practices as well, as much as possible. This one, because I don't know if we were totally sure we're, although you did, did just say that you were also updating the policy with the munis as part of it. Speaker 21: Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. This is, there, there will be a policy similar to the, you know, format in the same way that we'll have for, for tax title. Yep.
Speaker 15: Now that we know that Munis can work, we can update that policy to reflect practice. Speaker 1: Sounds good. Thank you. And thank you for staying here so late. Speaker 21: Not a problem. Anything else? Speaker 15: Do I have any, is there any discussion? I'm sorry, this is my question for the board on the financial policies for tonight. I know we put 'em back on there. These are the, I think, the same suite of policies that were provided back in November on the 20th. And I know the board is gonna wanna look at those, but may, it's perhaps not tonight, given the time, but, Speaker 1: So this is what I would suggest and look to the board for input, is that we, we do want
to discuss, we did schedule an out of cycle meeting for next week. So I would like to start with the discussion because the board has not talked about, we've had a number of suggestions about what from, from residents, from, you know, finance experts about what the, what the board could commit to natick residents in the, in the wake of an override or the a in the wake of an ask for an override. And so because we haven't been discussing amongst ourselves, this is gonna be an unstructured conversation
and we're already at nine, almost nine o'clock. I, I would suggest that we look at, we continue the potential commitments discussion to, to next week's meeting and, and the financial policies and procedures. That way Mr. Townsend isn't here till 10 and neither are we. Speaker 15: Yeah. If, if I can just remind folks, we are in the thick of Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday, even tonight. John was at a subcommittee meeting and it goes into next week and the week after next week. There's also our override public forum on Wednesday.
And we are also due to be in front of fin income at least on Thursday, possibly Tuesday as well. Speaker 21: Thursday is Article three, the omnibus budget for fin com. Yep. Speaker 1: Right. So, so just, I wasn't sure if it was clear, but the Tuesday, Thursday meetings are for fin com and subcommittees and things like that, plus the override on Wednesday, correct? Yep. And then we have select board on Thursday. This Speaker 5: Tuesday. I thought Speaker 1: Tuesday. Oh good. Speaker 15: So John Speaker 1: And Laura, I'm not looking at my calendar, Speaker 15: Are gonna be at fin com Tuesday and Thursday next week, likely as well. Okay. Speaker 1: So I would, what I would ask board members to do as,
as they go through their review of policies, please reach out to Mr. Townsend, to Mr. Erickson about questions, whatever you have in, in those first two sections of the financial planning and the financial operation policies. Speaker 5: Madam Chair, we plan to make Tuesday a retreat. Speaker 1: Don't know at the pleasure of the board. I'd love to hear from members of the board about how you wanna schedule Speaker 5: It. I think that one could be a retreat. I mean, we can meet in here, but we, I, you know, let the public come in. But, you know, maybe we can be a little more relaxed in our
discussions and, and have those things be, you know, Speaker 1: And maybe start at six and Okay. Speaker 5: That's just my opinion. Right. We could Speaker 6: Just, we're we're only gonna have those two things on the agenda, correct? Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's six and 10 things. Oh yeah. Only these two topics. Yes. Speaker 6: There's those two topics. That's it. So I, I don't see why we can't have a regular meeting doing that. I'd rather have a public meeting and be able to say, yeah, we approved these, the list of policies that, that have been brought forth to us. You know, it may not be, we may not be there with the
potential commitments, but I'd like to have that be a public discussion and I'd like people to be involved in that Speaker 11: Discussion. Just to be clear, I know you didn't mean it this way, but retreats are public meanings as well. Speaker 6: Yes. Yeah, Speaker 11: Just I think his meaning just not televised. Allow Speaker 1: More access. Yeah. Speaker 11: But you're right. But I just didn't want anyone to get the Speaker 6: Wrong impression. Wrong Speaker 11: Impression. Yes. Speaker 1: But Mr. Sidney, you should feel free to be as casual as you would like. Speaker 6: Just don't wear the shorts. Speaker 1: So let's start the discussion. We've, we've got, we've got a little bit of time. Hey Speaker 15: Bruce Memorial to labor. Speaker 1: Mr. Mr. Erickson, the spring annual town meeting war articles.
Speaker 15: First. Thank you John. Thank you very much. Good with him. Speaker 6: Thank you, John. Have a good Speaker 15: Night. Thank you for coming up here too. Speaker 1: And we have a consent agenda Speaker 6: There. Speaker 15: Sure. So Spring Academy warrant articles, this is really a standing, once a a warrant is published, the planning, the select board always just reviews the warrant. And I guess these initially ones are, were identified as potential ones that might want the board might want to at least see or review. One thing for tonight though is there is a request to refer article 1818. So if that is a vote of the board to refer
to the planning board we put on here, just 'cause it was already an art, an item. So I figure just add that article to this for the referral. This is regarding accessory dwelling units. So we had to make some modifications of the gross floor area based on some of the minor adjustments from state law in our, in our definition. So this was sort of a late ad to the agenda. I think technically town administrators sponsoring because it's, it was late in the game. Okay. And nope, actually we had already, I believe the board had already referred Article 17 floodplain District review. Yes, we did review. Review even though it says refer to planning board here.
So we confirmed that. And you have already already referred that one. Speaker 6: So do we need a motion to Speaker 15: Refer? Do you need a motion for our Speaker 1: Do we need a motion? Speaker 6: I'm move to, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Move to refer article 18, amends zoning bylaws, accessory dwelling unit, A DU, gross floor area to the planning board. Second, Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Evans, second by Linda Bolla. Is there any discussion or debate? Speaker 6: Nope. Speaker 1: Ms. Pope, Speaker 12: I do have one question. Are we going to move or refer
or take action on each individual measure? Speaker 1: Not tonight. Speaker 6: Not tonight. Okay. Speaker 5: This is, this is the administrative process to get it so that the planning board can actually look at it Speaker 6: For Article 18, but for the other, Speaker 12: That's not what I was, that's not what I was asking Rich, but thank you. Yep. Speaker 1: Go ahead Ms. Pope. I'm sorry. Speaker 12: Yeah, I was asking more about the process that we were taking through each one just for mental preparation on, on each particular action. But I think you were also gonna ask for the vote. So I'm prepared to vote.
Speaker 1: Yep. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna ask for the vote only for Article 18 referral to the planning board so that they can get it on their calendar. And then any discussion of the other town meeting warn articles will be done as in when they're ready as as in. Can Speaker 15: You briefly run through these tonight? So you have some con Sorry, I can briefly run through these ones tonight so you have some context on, on, on them. Cool. But if you can vote on the referral, then I can go into the, Speaker 1: Okay, we have a motion a second. Ms. Ms. Pope? Yes. Ms. Wil Slager. Yes. Mr. Evans. Yes. Mr. Sydney. Yep. And I'm a yes. 5 0 0.
So that is referred Speaker 15: And, and I'll be extremely brief. Article six revolving funds. That was actually discussed last night and there's no action being sought. No actually, sorry. Revolving funds is a different one. We were seeking no action on a different article. Revolving funds is a fairly standard article. It includes all of our revolving funds. We are this year doing, we're implementing some cleanups that we had town meeting had approved in prior town meetings. We're just doing the cleanup components of those, if you recall, environmental for example, we had to adjust from one to another.
Rec and parks is another example where we've been adjusting from one type to another so that you'll, those will be reflected in that update. But that's a fairly standard article. Stabilization funds and opep. This is really gonna be dependent, well actually no, it's not gonna be dependent because I do have a slide to share and a little bit of TA updates regarding the override based on feedback from the board in yes and or no override scenario, we would not be looking to put money into the stabilization accounts. Opep we will be, because that's important. Yeah, For lack of a better term. Not that stabilization accounts are not, but Opep was still determined
to be an acceptable item to do. But I'll share that table after we go through these items. CAPI capital that is actually the subcommittee is meeting tomorrow night with Mr. Marshall and, and Bill Sprat to review the capital. What we're doing this year for capital, this SPRINGTOWN meeting for capital is given the override and given the lead time and the need for de, you know, the capacity of department heads, we've actually built a single spring capital request that won't change regardless of the override. However, what will change
and what we're deferring is about $12 million worth of projects to the fall. And the override is critical for us to have the capacity to, to even just complete a handful of those in the fall. We know we actually won't be able to complete all of those with the override vote. We just know we don't have the capacity from a financial perspective to give some pers to give some perspective and I'll share again my table in a little bit with the override that'll allow us to put into cap stabilization for fall town meeting use about 2.5 to $2.8 million worth of funding.
We have a $12 million that we're moving forward. If we were to put some of that in borrowing for which we do not have that budgeted and we won't have that budget even with an override because it's not in the cards. With a 7 million override to do $10 million of the projects, we need roughly $1 million of additional funding in the debt service line. We don't have that capacity right now. So to, to give us the, the, the time to really scrub those $12 million worth of projects further, we felt it most prudent to put forward a limited capital plan this spring
to the tune of I believe $540,000 worth of cash projects plus a couple projects that we'll borrow for in later years. And then give us that time in the fall to scrub those projects pending. What happens with the override, again, I'll share a table in a little bit, just showing that updated plan with the $7 million figure that the vote board voted on for the override vote. Community Preservation Act. That's really an administrative process for town meeting to take is the 5% of funds for administrative fees
to be used under the direction of the CPC that was actually voted on by or endorsed by the finance committee last night. It's to the tune of $74,000 or thereabouts amends zoning floodplain district and the other men's zoning. Those run there really just for the referrals. The town bylaw changes Article 80 water supply protection that is more directly related to updates to our bylaws, not zoning, but our general bylaws to ensure one compliance with our recent permits from DEP.
We have to add some language in there about water restrictions, like mandated water restrictions. So, and it's also important for us to do in, in a head as we go forward with our MWRA connection and then the bylaw changes, that's really not my article, that's a citizen petition article. Speaker 1: And Speaker 15: Stabilization and stabilization funds is also a citizen petition article. Speaker 1: I do have the warrant on my computer, but none of the articles are in peak except for 18. Could you ask Mr. Walsh Speaker 15: To, we can get them to put in there. Yeah, that'd Speaker 1: Be great. For members of the public who wanna have easy access.
Okay, are there any questions or comments from the board about these town meeting warrant articles? Speaker 23: All good Speaker 15: If it's helpful. I I under 10 administrative updates that have override scenario update based on select board vote. I can share my screen now if that's helpful. And it might even lead to maybe some questions with the articles. Okay, sure. If that's okay with the board. Yes, please. And I'll again, try to be brief given the hour, although it's, it's extremely important and these are the key three slides that I have that just show sort of the amended budget
with the $7 million figure. And I do have it and I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it bigger. Let me do that. You can maybe pull that over too. So a couple things. We've since, since the publication of the initial budget to today, we've actually gotten additional updates on healthcare and Keef Tech. We're reflecting those updates in this. One thing that is interesting is healthcare is actually coming in under estimated budget, which is great. Yay. KE tech is coming in over estimated budget, which is I guess great because it means more, you know, kids are gonna ke tech.
However, the net effect of that is actually a $500,000 benefit to the budget because we are, we're under, we're over, we over we, the net benefit is $500,000. So you'll see we reduced the free cash usage by that $500,000. We actually put that into the debt service line to cover past appropriated project expected debt so that we can use that actually, well technically we're actually gonna be putting it into the cap stabilization account to then use for debt service.
So I apologize for that mis confusion. But you'll see here, this is just that budget roll up slide. It's the same one that we've been presenting previously. It had $8 million here and then the free cash use was, we were anticipating a $6.5 million budgeted. We've reduced that to 6 million based on that adjustment that I mentioned about Keef Tech and and healthcare 3 million with, with an override of free cash usage. And then you can see the 3 million difference from the
$7 million figure. Everything else down here, schools town shared services below the lines largely did not change other than that Keefe tech and healthcare costs, which healthcare would be in shared services. Keefe Tech for purposes of this table is in town, not in the school. So that's why if you compare this figure 911,000 to the one from the budget presentation, it's gonna be about a hundred thousand dollars difference.
A couple hundred thousand dollars difference. Just for context. So you can see this is the budget roll up. Obviously we're gonna have a lot more of these budget roll up tables in the amended budget book, which will be out early April post override so that we know what we're presenting at that time. But this is showing the scenario of FY 26 budget, which is assuming no override FY 26 budget with override at that high level. The school department budget here largely did not change, ACT actually did not change at all.
Next is the free cash spending plan. And and I think it's important to remember we're the override isn't funding free cash. We have free cash. It just provides us, because the override is we have $7 million going to support operations. We can reduce the amount of free cash we need to put towards operations by $3 million. And again this reflects that $500,000 difference. So 6 million versus 3 million amended, no override would mean that we would have about $606,000 going to stabilization fund
and 544, that 5 44 matches what's gonna be presented tomorrow night to the subcommittee. And it's actually already posted on the website as the presentation to match the projects coming to springtown meeting free cash reserve is 180 68, which is still again well below our sort of recommendation but it's something 2 72 overlay. 'cause we were proposing the fund, some of the overlay and then two 50 for OPE trust that matches that 7.8 million in free cash.
I put a asterisk here for cap stabilization just to note that really these, these are the funds that will be available going into fall town meeting for capital, right? In both scenarios we're looking to defer $12 million of the projects to fall. We don't have $12 million in either scenario to fund those projects. So it's, it is imperative to understand the impact on our capital program with and without an override. So with an override. And that's why we chose to keep the capital improvement projects to the 5 44
because that still matches what's proposed or presented in the capital program. And then the delta for the stabilization account. So ultimately that's the three plus million dollars that would be for capital freeing up from that free cash usage. And then we would up the free cash reserve to what the target level is based on the financial management principles of the select board. And then everything else largely remains the same. This is a draft, you know, I'm willing to take, I'm actually wanting feedback from the board. We can still make adjustments to this. I just wanna show where we're thinking right now based on
what we know right now to give us the most, not flexibility, but the most level of understanding as to where we can really work to, to put funding toward for capital. 'cause we're not impacting the operations side with the $7 million number going from eight to seven. This, this and, and also responding to some of what the board had mentioned last time about funding stabilization funds, which Frank other than cap because cap stabilization really is more
of a capital account rather than a stabilization account. Final slide is just showing the budget roll up. Again, this did not change. No, I mean not budget roll up but the, the larger budget, this did not change. This is really just that by department budget figure with the additional cuts regarding and, and how the override versus not override would be, would be handled. This is the same. This did not change. We just put it in there for reference and these will go up on the web on peak. Thank you. And I apologize this took us a little bit longer.
I had, I had planned to have it to the board the prior meeting, but once we started running some of the capital figures, it just, we had to dive a little bit more completely into that to really understand the really all of the impact here. And once we dove into that, we needed that extra week to really hone our capital. And that also led to this strategy right now of this spring being really a very limited capital program for ask to give us that that needed flexibility to, to strategize going into the fall pending
what happens with the override. 'cause there's a lot here and capital is such a, because of the way you can fund capital with cash or borrowing or or combination thereof for us to really scenario build that based on the two outcomes. It's, it's, it, it, it became more com not complex, it just became more complex to do right now and better things to do right now. The capacity was a, was a concern for sure. Of course. You know, again, you just heard what John and team had been working on. Yeah, yeah. We didn't wanna pull them away from that to then start scenario building capital. We figure let's build that scenario and our, and we'd had to pull department heads away from their work as well.
Yeah. So we felt that this gave us the, the, this was a logical and sound approach to, and I apologize for this being here. There's nothing underneath there other than zero sound approach to the app to, to the one, the $7 million figure of the override with the overall budget. But then two, how does it then impact the free cash bending plan. Speaker 23: That Speaker 15: Makes sense. So I, I welcome feedback. I know you're just seeing it for the first time, so if you need to digest it, that's totally fine. Digest contact me later this week or early next week.
Again, we have a little bit of time, but this is what, what our intent right now is. Speaker 6: Could I just ask a sort of follow up on the, on where it's located, what you we're putting it up on peak, but are, are we putting it on the, or Speaker 15: Lemme ask, this will go on the override website as well. Yeah, that's what you're probably asking. Yes. Yeah, again, I want peak was just because we're talking about the agenda tonight, but we'll, we'll get this up on the override website as an update provided we've done this before, we update provided the select board on X date. Yeah. Speaker 23: Great. Speaker 15: Thank you. And I'll provide this also
to finance committee for their knowledge. I've largely articulated the high level details to them already after that last meeting, but we didn't, we hadn't gotten to this level of detail because we're still running the scenarios and, and understanding the impact on capital, understanding the impact on, you know, borrowing is a big part of that. And also just reflecting what we heard from the board and from the public through some of the meetings in this plan. Speaker 23: Sounds good. Thanks for your work. Speaker 15: Also note on the right hand side, those are all updated based on the $7 million figure to
these override tax impact figures and the website does reflect that as well. At that high level it's extreme. I know there's been requests for us to try to figure out either individual property impacts or how does that compound over multiple years and it's an exercise that's possible for sure. There's just so many variables, both individual to the property but also to our budget. You know, are we assuming just the standard. There's just so many variables. So that to for us through the exercise, we haven't tackled that yet. If the board feels is necessary,
we can certainly put some priorities to that. But we haven't tackled that yet. But we did update the website based on the $7 million figure. Speaker 23: Perfect. Speaker 15: Any questions, comments? I think that also if you have any questions back on, for example, the stabilization funds and opep, this I think answers that question similarly with capital. I think I provide a lot of context there. You can see the capital presentation currently to the subcommittee. It's already on the fin com agenda. So it's up, it was posted I believe yesterday, the day before. And really here to answer any questions on that front.
I know it's under town administrative updates 'cause I do have a couple of updates, but I wanted to give this to the board. Speaker 23: Any questions or comments for members of the board? Speaker 12: No, just thank you Jamie and the finance staff. Speaker 23: Yeah, ditto. That. Ditto. Speaker 15: Ditto. We have quite a few meetings on this with Gloria, John, John and the team and, and a, you know, yeah. We've been doing immense work to try to understand how, and one of the things that we do want to do, probably in the April may timeframe, because it's gonna take us a little while to really hone in on these details, is come in
with a more comprehensive look at our capital financing program. One thing that I give John Townsend and his team credit for is in the last couple years they've been really honing in and implementing programs to, to better strategize our borrowing capacity and tracking of projects that I don't think we had pre pandemic. Now we're really starting to see the benefits of that because then we can look at that, that data and start then looking. We've always been looking forward, but we can look more forward in a more strategic way and with John Marshall's revamping of the capital program
and more, more generally. I know when I started we inherited something that was good, but it, we needed to basically take a really comprehensive look at it. John has really taken that and run with it with department heads to really hone in on our project needs. We now have that information with the information from finance that it's gonna help us have a much stronger Picture of, of long term, not necessarily project, but the financial planning side of the capital program moving forward. Speaker 23: Okay. Speaker 15: And we'll be able to apply more to that
exercise once we know what happens with the override. Speaker 23: Sounds great. Speaker 15: If there's no more questions, I do have a couple other town administrator updates if I can just do them quickly. Good. Ca Speaker 5: We got a consent agenda too. Speaker 15: Yeah, let's do that. Really, really, really high level. Just he's on Speaker 23: A roll Speaker 15: Permitting for the notice of intent, which is local con com permitting for the dam removal project will be applied soon and notifications will be going out to a butter soon. So I just want the board to be aware that, and the public will be aware of that. We'll also blast it through the portal that we have online for people with project updates.
But I want the board to be aware of that. It's the next step in the permitting process. So it's on target. No changes to the project itself. I just want you to be aware of that because it's gonna be the next sort of touch point with the public on that project. Okay. And then kudos to our team. We received another MVP grant, municipal vulnerability planning grant. Jillian just informed me of it a couple days ago, so I'm gonna be signing that contract on behalf of the town. But it's really for updating our MVP plan, which we're required to do every, I believe, four or five years. So it's nothing earth shattering, but it's still important for us to do and we have a grant to do it. That's great. Speaker 1: It is good. Speaker 15: And there's a lot
of other updates, but I'll just keep it to Speaker 5: Those. Well, I, I just wanna say Jillian's been doing a bang up job. Speaker 15: Amazing. She is the Speaker 5: Grant whisper part. Yeah. And I just want to raise that up because she's a star. Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean I'm, I'm really starting to see a groove and really all of our divisions, like today, I just had a meeting with part members of our finance team, with members of the school of Finance and we're more in line than I think we've ever been in my time with that team due to, I think, in my opinion, the leadership of, you know, some of the people having these positions.
And we're starting to see a big culture shift in our partnership with, and it's not just with the school departments, with really all departments. So still some, there's a lot of room to grow, but we're, I see a lot of positive momentum there. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Mr. Erickson. We are at 9 22. Let's, let's consent. Let's go through the consent agenda. But next week, six o'clock, start on three 12 with these two agenda items and let's be prepared. It's three 11. Three 11. I'll be here. Three 12.
No on three 11 start then I'm not looking at my calendar. I'm figuring it out in my head. So yes, on three 11, let's start at six o'clock and be prepared to move through this pretty seriously. Expeditious. We are expeditiously, we, we have a lot to do. I also would like, there are a number of items on the on peak for, for the agenda item for financial commitments. As you scour and do research, please upload, send them to Billy for upload for discussion so that we can look at them ahead of time. If there are things that you want to discuss, I've up, I've uploaded a couple of things,
but there may be things that, ideas that you have or things you've seen in other towns or items that residents have brought before you. Let's, let's make sure we all have an opportunity to thoughtfully look at this before next Tuesday. Okay, Mr. Clerk, Speaker 5: Eight items on the consent agenda. Item A, approve 2025 flammable storage, registration renewals. Item B, approve request to occupy a public way. The American Cancer Society's relay for life of Charles River. 5K Run walk to fight back against cancer.
Item C, accept donation in the amount of $7,500 from from Needham Bank as a sponsor of the constituent rail trail to the town of Natick. Item D approved the use of common requests for the following events. Rotary Club of Natick to host tour to Natick to take place on Sunday, June 15th from nine to three Natick Center cultural district to host Natick Nights. Taking place on Thursday, June 26th. July 10th, rain date, July 24th and August 7th. Rain date, August 21st from five to eight. Juneteenth celebration taking place on Thursday,
June 19th from 10 30 to three. Multicultural day taking place on Saturday, August 23rd from 11 to two Porch Fest. Taking place on Saturday September 20th. Rain date, the 21st from two to 6:00 PM item E except John Brannigans res resignation from the historic district commission. Item F approved meeting minutes for February 24th, 25. Item G except Robin Woods'. Resignation from the historic district commission. Item H approve a request to occupy a politic way. The walk and homelessness. Anybody wanna pull anything?
Speaker 1: No Speaker 5: Move items A through H. Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Bruce. Ms. Pope Speaker 12: Aye. Speaker 1: Ms. Slager? Aye. Mr. Evans? Aye. Mr. Sydney? Aye. And I'm an aye. 5 0 0 Speaker 5: Move to Adjo Speaker 1: A Speaker 12: Can I ask one additional question before we adjourn? Of course, because I don't know if this needs to be in the public, but Madam Chair, can you please send an email with the homework in preparation
of the meeting on three 11? Yes Speaker 1: Ma'am. Speaker 12: Thank you. Love Speaker 1: How she called it homework. Speaker 5: You just want work Speaker 1: His homework. Homework? Yeah. Speaker 5: I'll second Mr. Speaker 12: I just wanna be sure I have it right. Speaker 1: I just love that. That's fine. Speaker 5: I second Mr. Evans. Motion. Speaker 1: All in favor? Roll call. Vote to adjourn. Ms. Ms. Pope? Yes. Ms. Slager? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yeah. Mr. Sydney? Yeah. And I'm a yes. 5 0 0. We are adjourning at 9 27.