Speaker 1: Calling the meeting to order at 6:07 PM for select board Wednesday, May 13th, 2026. So everyone in the room could stand the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence. I appreciate it. Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance Speaker 3: Of the United States Honor America to Republic for which it stands, one nation under God in the reasonable with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 1: First item of business is announcements. Mr. Erickson? Speaker 4: Yes, thank you very much. Just a brief announcement tonight, we heard, I believe this morning actually,
that the state has designated a new drought level for the town or the region really, but the impacts the town. It actually increased the drought level from level one to level two. I'm not gonna go into all the details. There's a lot of information on the town's website about what that means, but it basically just puts forth some potential additional restrictions and items for people to be aware of. Given where we are in in May and it being sort of a fairly wet ish time of year, it probably won't impact too many people. But please, for the public, just be aware of what that means. When we're in a drought condition, there might be some,
for example, watering restrictions or some other things that that people need to be aware of. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Erickson. At this time we will enter the, hold on. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: It's okay. This weekend the friends of La Morris Institute Library have their book Bake and Music Sale, and it's a two day sale. The hours are eight 30 to four 30 on Saturday, the 16th and noon, 3:00 PM on Sunday, the 17th. And please buy a lot of them 'cause
otherwise I'll have to pack everything again. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Evans. We're entering the item agenda, public speak I Item item number three on the agenda. Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on tonight's agenda and will be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during that portion of the meeting. Due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any individual addressing board during the section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes total. Is there anyone in the room who wishes to speak of something that's on, not an agenda? Agenda? Mr. Fo, could you come to the
microphone, introduce yourself. Speaker 6: Thank you. Madam Chair, members of the board, I'm Frank Fo, town meeting member from Precinct 10 and former town moderator. I want to begin by acknowledging something stated at a board meeting some time ago that if new information came up regarding a project that you would reconsider the decision to remove, specifically the dam. Some are here tonight because new information has come up. This is part of it. At the time of the original vote, the 2024 ZGZA environmental
notification form had not been prepared. That document prepared by the town's own consultant contained hydraulic findings that I believe were not before the board when the removal decision was made. Specifically G Z's own 2024 report shows that the existing DM already has a hydraulic differential of only 1.8 feet during the thou of the a hundred year storm. The DDCR office of DM Safety has confirmed in writing
that 2.0 feet is the threshold they use for non jurisdictional determinations. The town owned consultant is telling us in their own report that this DM may already be below the the threshold for regulation before any modification. Additionally, I wanna bring to your attention the original mass DEP water quality qualifications for this project specified a construction window ending August 31st, 2025.
That window passed without construction. The project is now operating an A amen on an amendment authorization. We respectfully request that the board to con, conform, conform, confirm, excuse me, publicly, that all permits are currently in hand and the project is legally cleared to proceed. We're not asking you, of course, to make a decision tonight. There's no debate on in this matter. At this time, we are asking that you honor your commitment
to reconsider when new information arise. I'd be more than happy to explain further 'cause I've probably hit my three, three minute mark. You've Speaker 1: Got about 40 seconds. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Fos. Anyone else in the room? Mr. Mayo? Speaker 7: Thank you Madam Chair. Patricia Deo, 39 Wellesley Road. I'm taking this opportunity to speak about the main Street improvement project, in particular about the addition of bike lanes. I recognize the goal is to improve safety for all road users, including pedestrians. However, the hybrid model currently being considered
with the addition of bike lanes is, in my opinion, redundant because of Massachusetts general law C 85 S 11 B bike laws. Ma dot gov's official summary of the bicycle law states you the bicyclist can use the full lane anywhere, anytime, and on any street, even if there is a bike lane. The law gives the bicyclist the right to use all public ways with the exception of highways, and does not require them to stay to the right
or in a bike lane, even if one exists in practice. This means that a bicyclist may use the entire car lane even with a bike if a bike lane exists. So in fact, the bike lanes already exist on the projects streets Main Street, route 27 in Natick Center from Cottage Street to Middlesex Ave. A bike lane cannot and does not guarantee more safety for the bikes or the cars. That's solely dependent on the operators as well
as the pedestrians. The most important concern I have with adding bike lanes is the loss of precious real estate leaving only five to seven feet of existing sidewalk in a hybrid model. In the hybrid model, Natick downtown has a huge disadvantage. It's located a mile from the Natick Mall and a mile from Wellesley considered the Newbury Street of the suburbs. There's no draw to our current downtown. We have to decide what we want our identity to be. We could emulate Waltham
and become a haven for restaurants with sidewalk dining or like Wellesley having sidewalk sails and strolls. But if we go forward with reducing our sidewalks, we're curtailing the future of a vibrant downtown Natick since construction of this project doesn't start for a few years. Excuse me, Speaker 1: Mr. May you have about 40 seconds. Speaker 7: We have plenty of time to first look at the opportunity for a thriving retail downtown Natick. I urged the board to consider these important factors before moving forward with the current hybrid model.
I invite any of you to reach out if you wanna discuss this further. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thanks, Mr. Mayo. Any, anyone else? Yes, ma'am. If you could introduce yourself. Oops, sorry. If you could introduce yourself. Speaker 8: Yes, I will. My name is Candy Halton. I'm a resident, a taxpayer of Natick since 1979. Downtown main, main Street, four blocks is a crossroad between wants and needs. In my opinion, we need to add details to make a beautiful
and welcoming downtown, or we lose the ability of all the shops to be prosperous and profitable. Small businesses are rapidly closing everywhere. If we reduce the width of the sidewalks, it'll be difficult to stroller shop with friends, carriages, walkers, canes. We might all be there soon. Natick is now allowing sandwich boards in front of their stores to lure traffic inside, even sit at a small table with chairs to have a bite.
These obstacles become an issue if the sidewalk width, width is reduced. If we're lucky, the town might put some large open seating for people to use at any time of their choice. Parking meters and bike rides. Bike racks, excuse me. Also take up space on the sidewalks. Narrowing the driving lanes on both sides would not allow for emergency vehicles or trucks to pass and would slow down or stop regular traffic. Trees not only add beauty,
but add a cooling effect to the continuing climate exchange. The bricks around has become a problem for safety. And I would recommend removing the bricks, adding mulch in its place, which would help keep the trees watered and moist. Please do not remove the trees. Maybe a consistent block awning might enhance the look of Main Street. While giving some protection from the weather, flower boxes at stores make a good impact. Maybe the garden club might make watering the plants their
contribution to natick beautification. I have heard bike lanes are not allowed, are, excuse me, are allowed in most places with or without Mark. Mark lanes. Please do not paint bike lanes in the four blocks. Two on each side. The visual confusion could be extremely dangerous for cars, parking, people walking, deliveries, emergency service, Speaker 1: You have about 30 seconds. Speaker 8: I hope that paving and parking will also become a priority. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Holden. Is there anyone else in the room that wishes to address the board during public speak? Yes, sir. If you could come to the podium, make sure the mic is on and introduce yourself. Speaker 9: Thank you. Madam Chair, select board. Good evening. My name's Michael Trinidad. I'm a former town meeting member and licensed professional engineer. Why I'm here, I'm here tonight because of recent data suggests the current high hazard classification at the Natick Dam may be wrong. That classification dates back to 1987. It's based on a visual inspection on an outdated computer program and has remained for this DAM for nearly four years.
Why does this matter since then? The town zone consultant, GCA, ran modern computer analysis in 2009. In 2024. Both appear to suggest that DAM may not meet today's high hazard standard that matters because the high hazard threshold is approximately two feet of incremental flooding. The consultant's own data appears to show less than half a foot. If that's correct, then the regulatory basis and urgency may change. What does this affect? The good news is that the data already exists. It's sitting in the town's own consultant reports. No new models, no new studies. The town simply needs to submit the data to the office
of DAM Safety and ask for an official determination. Even if the dam is reclassified, the town could still choose to remove it. That would become a policy choice, not necessarily a regulatory requirement. And that deserves broader public discussion. Since the urgency was to meet state requirements, What will this effect? Preserving The DAM does not appear to interfere with the proposed park improvements. In fact, it preserves a real water feature for fishing, canoeing and scenic river access during the dry summer season. All we're asking is simple. Before this committee, before this community assess
asset is destroyed forever. Someone should officially look at the data. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Trinidad. Is there anyone else in the room that wishes to address the board? Jung, you could come to the podium and introduce yourself. Speaker 10: Diane Young 11 Morgan Drive. I just wanna state that I, I'm trying to figure out in my head about the two grants that are available for downtown improvement. One I understand is $11 million including, and you need to have a bike lane. The other is, I believe, $5 million.
And you don't have to have a bike lane. What I, I'm just trying to figure out for myself, and I hope that I will get answers someday soon. Are bike lane's being proposed because Natick Center truly needs them or because the town believes they're necessary to secure outside funding? Is the grant driving the bike lane decision or is the bike lane decision driving the grant application? And finally, are we designing a project for Natick Center or redesigning Natick Center to fit grant criteria?
Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Michelle. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to address the board? Is there anyone in Zoom land with their hand raised? That's fine. I don't see any. That concludes this section of the agenda. Next item is appointments. The board will be contemplating an appointment to the associate to the planning board for an associate position for one term expiring in March, 2027. We will take the candidates in alphabetical order. So Mr. Lunta, if you could come to the podium, introduce yourself
and very briefly tell us, in addition to the packet that you sent us, if you could tell people at home why you would like to be on the planning board. Speaker 11: I'm Brian Lunta, 20 Loca Street Town meeting member Precinct four. Speaker 1: Can you move it closer to your Speaker 11: Absolutely. Thank you. Sorry, Madam Chair. Brian Lunta, 20 Locust Street Town meeting member, precinct four. So I applied, this starts off a couple years ago with, I grew up in Natick. I've lived here my entire life. The town's changed a lot, both good and bad. And it drew my interest. I started off, I ran for town meeting last year.
I got elected to that and that just piqued my interest even more in town politics, specifically the planning. I want to get more involved in specifically the planning board drew my attention the most because it ha, I feel it has a lot of impact on the direction we go as a town. And I wanna be part of those conversations. I wanna have input in 'em. I wanna hear everyone else's input, and I wanna help create the best natick for what Natick needs. Not just today, not just tomorrow. What the, we need to find a happy medium between what Natick wants 50 years from now and what some of the people still want from growing up
here for generations. And I believe that if we have everyone's input in those things, that we're gonna come to a better thought out plan. And it's gonna really, truly compliment what Natick needs. And I wanna be part of those conversations. That's my desire to have in the planning board. And I hope to learn a lot more. I'm not gonna pretend I know everything the planning board does. I've learned a lot over the past few months by watching and involving myself in some of the meetings. But I have a lot to learn and I'm not gonna pretend I don't. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Ana. Questions? Sorry? Questions from members of the board. Start with Mr. Jacobs then,
then Ms. Kristen, Mr. Evans? No, I'm just pointing to Cody. Just giving you guys a order. Teeing it up. So go ahead, Cody. Speaker 12: All right. Thank you Madam Chair. Of course. Thank you for applying my questions. Might sound a little bit robotic and scripted, but I'm trying to ask the exact same questions to you and the other applicant, so bear with me on that. Okay. So my first question is just a logistical one. Are there any scheduling constraints in your ability to attend meetings, particularly on Wednesdays and particularly in the run up to town meetings?
Speaker 11: I do not foresee any, if there was one, I at least could start the meeting remotely and, and finish off in person. But the select board, or sorry, the planning board meetings are at seven and that fits my schedule. Six o'clock pushes it a little bit for this, but for the planning board, it does fit my schedule. That's another thing that appealed to me. Great. Speaker 12: Thank you. My next question is, how do you assess the current housing needs in Natick, both in terms of availability and the range of housing options? And what role do you think zoning and land use decisions should play in meeting those needs?
Speaker 11: I question whether there is enough housing or not, honestly, if you want my opinion on that. But my where it, the, the zoning and stuff piques, my opinion in our bylaws too is I don't believe it's the right, the right housing. I don't believe there's enough lower low affordable housing. I think it needs more eight 60 MI, not the 80 that we're building right now. I think that was apparent during the yes for Natick forum where they had Stonegate and stuff and they're having trouble building that filling the 80 a MI housing.
We're looking at another project going in West Natick and I, I don't think we should make the same mistake of filling that with 15% or I, I believe it's 15% more A-D-A-M-I housing. I think we should potentially look into other options and try to fit the needs of the community, not just what we currently have now. I think that we as a, as a community are falling a little bit short on what our needs are for housing. Speaker 12: All right. Thank you. And then my last question is, how would you approach encouraging economic growth as a planning board member or as a, as an associate member, I guess, but Speaker 11: That's a good question. I don't truly have a great answer for you.
I think that what Route nine West needs some improvement. I think that we already decided what to do with 1 35. I think that it'll be interesting to see what we can do creatively to help that grow our community. There's obviously not very much property to continue to build on. I think that those two places are gonna be the next areas we need to focus on. I also believe that downtown, and obviously we're looking at that right now, it's, I don't think there's anything wrong with downtown. It just doesn't have the draw or the potential that it could.
I definitely do not have an answer for what that is to help fix that. But I do think that that Conti needs to continue to be everyone's focus and try to revitalize that and bring a little bit more vibrancy and businesses to it. We just built a bunch of housing down here, we're gonna, we don't even know what that's done. The, the commercial real estate in those buildings isn't full. So I think to jump to conclusions of what's that's actually gonna bring to us is a little early, but I'm interested to see what it does. And I think that it, it'll be positive. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Lunta. Ms. Pope,
Speaker 13: Thank you. Hi Mr. Lunta. Thank you for your interest and thank you for being willing to learn. I have a couple of questions for you and look forward to get to know you better through this process. So the first one, and correct me if I'm wrong, were you ever personally impacted by the planning board? I, I think I read something about you being a and a butter at one point, is that right? Speaker 11: That is correct. So it's actually my, I grew up, they're doing the right across from Stop and Shop. They're doing the Jesus the, they're gonna do a assisted living house there. I am actually greatly in favor of that.
It's next to my parents' house. We used to go skateboarding and rollerblading and play in the woods back there. And it's a very underutilized place. It's my par, it's but's my parents' house, not my house, but just the house that I grew up in. And so I followed that project very closely and I, I think they did wonderful things with it. I have nothing but good things to say about that, that that is another use. I do think that Natick needs is some more care for elderly. So I, I thought that was a phenomenal use for that Speaker 13: Probably. Thank you. I wondered how that may, you know, impact, like how you, having followed that pro project,
how you are approaching maybe this opportunity now, knowing what you know about that example? Speaker 11: Honestly, it just got me to learn more. It got me more involved. It really did not have anything to do with my decision to run. It just helped me learn a little bit more to gimme a little bit better of a base of what I would be running for. Speaker 13: Awesome. Thank you. You know, one of the things that we get feedback about is the amount of developers who are developing, I'd say million dollar homes and things like that. And I just wanted to know from you, you know, what are your views on that, on the amount of de development
that might be happening from developers and how you might have to make a decision that may frustrate or, you know, rub people the wrong way? Speaker 11: It is kind of a broad question for something that I'd have to look at at every single individual circumstance and decide with the other board members what actually is best for that actual project. I couldn't answer that for as broadly. Speaker 13: My last question for you is that the planning board regularly reviews complex zoning applications, special permits, things like that. How would you approach learning the technical piece
of being a planning board member? An associate planning board member? Speaker 11: One of the members has already been very helpful with teaching me some stuff and I would probably lean on him. But I mean, any anyone involved in town politics that I've reached out to has been extremely helpful. So I going to assume that everyone else would be fairly helpful too. And I do a lot of contract negotiation, arbitration stuff. I've taken tons of classes on that. I'm involved with it at work. So reading complex documents and understanding 'em is something I, I feel like I'd catch onto pretty quickly
with that kind of stuff. Speaker 13: Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger. Yes. And then first, and I'll go last, Speaker 14: Welcome Mr. Lunta. Before I get started with a couple questions, I just wanna point out for the viewing audience who might be a little confused if they happen to be looking online and seeing that these are applications for the Affordable Housing Trust fund and wondering why we are talking about the associate planning board permit position. It's because normally this is an elected position,
it is not an appointed position. So this is a very different process that we're going through right now. So there wasn't anything available online. And so we in instructed our, our two candidates here to fill it out under, under that committee name. But just so there's no confusion here, this is not for the Affordable Housing Trust. So just to piggyback a little bit on my colleague's question about your approach. So given that it is complicated and given that I see in your application
that you have not attended these meetings, what are you gonna do to really get up to speed? What is your plan to, to learn about this and how, what do you, do you have anything in mind at this point or are you going to just see as it comes, what you need to know? Speaker 11: My my intention to run for the associate member was to use it as a learning experience. But I, I have watched, I believe I attended in person my first one towards the end of last year. I forget the date exactly, it was about the project Ms. Pope was referring to that was at the Library Act actually.
And I've watched every planning board meeting since then. I did the last one I attended via Zoom and spoke on the car wash project. So I, I've tried to do what I can without physically being at all of them prior to running. I've tried to catch up as much as I possibly could and I'm current with the past five months worth of of meetings. Speaker 14: Great, thanks. Last question. As an all volunteer board, like many of the boards in town, there's often a lot of work to be done
and not a lot of hands. What kind of time would you be able to make available to the planning board and and working on projects that they might have? Speaker 11: Depending on the time of year, but for the most part I do, do I all, well I work for the, the high school, I do the score clock for the boys and girls varsity hockey teams. So I, I lose a little bit of time then, but usually probably three, four, maybe five hours a week I could put aside, if I need to dive in a little bit deeper, I I, I can do that. I, I know from town meeting how much time that takes trying
to catch up and be actually informed on all the articles and stuff. So I, I got, I have a fair idea of what it's gonna take and I'm, I'm committed to being able to use the time to do that. Speaker 14: Thank you Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Lunta for being here tonight. I wanted to just ask a couple of questions. A few of my questions have already been asked, so I won't be repetitive. One question that I'd just like to ask is how should na balance redevelopment pressure with preserving historic or neighborhood character downtown as an example,
Speaker 11: That's about as tough as you're gonna get. Let me think for one second. Fir, first of all, I, I think preserve in the downtown area specifically, I am going to say I believe the historic preservation part, it would be the most impactful to me. And then filling out how to use the actual properties. I think that we did a good job slowly transitioning what historic downtown is slowly to the east on 1 35 without jumping from a bunch of old 1800 brick buildings
to single family homes with modern stuff mixed in, there's a good transition period. I'd hope that we can continue to do that. I don't see too much actually getting changed down downtown. If you want an honest answer. I think that it's good. It just needs, we need to bring and we need to, as a community, I don't necessarily think it's the planning board that needs to do it. We need need to somehow give it, give it more of a draw. And I don't know how much say the planning board would have in that, but I do believe that the historic preservation would be the most.
And then filling out the uses with that, obviously with an extreme amount of community input. Speaker 5: Thank you. What is one planning or zoning issue that you think Natick has not addressed well and what would you do differently? Speaker 11: I'm gonna use, 'cause I was vocal about it, the West Natick zoning, when we rezoned that, I think we missed a big opportunity with that. When I went to FinCon and spoke about it. We had not involved the school committee or the superintendent in that discussion. We have no clue the financial impacts
that will have on our community. And you as a select board member should know any better than anyone the financial impact that our decisions make on us. And I think we really dropped the ball there. Do I think the zoning is positive with what they did? Yeah. But to not know the financial impact that could have because we just didn't simply ask a question. I, I think that was a big ball drop. Could we have made the same decision by asking that question? Yes, we could have, but I think that's, that really piques my interest last year on, on the planning board with the, recommending the zoning
to the town meeting and stuff if we ha we just didn't have enough information. And I believe that we need to ask just a couple more questions when we make that those big a changes. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you. One la last question, couple comments. First regarding the 80% a MI, unfortunately that's governed by the state and not the planning board. That's not a local decision and that's, that's according to the state zoning loss. And if you can find a way to change that, we'd all be better off as a result.
So the other question that I wanted to ask is, is more a scenario toward sort of question in the planning board hearings, like some other hearings that I'm familiar with can become highly contentious. How would you maintain professionalism and fairness during controversial projects? Speaker 11: From everything I've watched, I just don't see myself being over controversial with them. The, they seem to get along phenomenal. If I were to get heated on a topic, I, I mean we could take a quick recess.
I could just take a deep breath. There's plenty of coping techniques to be able to use if, if I need a minute. 'cause it's something that heated. I, I understand the, I I watch lots of the, the public get heated, but I, I don't see myself being that, not to say I'm not that passionate, but I'm not gonna be that angry about a project. And if I was, it probably would be something I should recuse myself from. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 11: All set. Speaker 1: Mr. Vicenta, the planning board often reviews projects Mr. Evan alluded to that generates strong public interest.
And you talked a little bit about your approach to evaluating complex proposals and weighing community input and making decisions that are fair, consistent, and grounded in zoning and long-term planning objectives. But sitting on this planning board requires collaboration with residents, staff, applicants, and other town boards and committees. What experience, perspective or professional skills would you bring to the role and how would those strengths help you contribute effectively as a, as a member of the board? Speaker 11: The, the strengths I have for the specific board, my, my job, which it touches a little bit on it,
but we supply building materials to build schools, town halls, fire stations, police stations. If you looked at my resume, we've done some of the biggest buildings in, in Bo in the city of Boston. So I think the construction site logistics and stuff like that will help a little bit. I understand what it takes to actually build the projects. I also think that, that, that's a perspective that the board doesn't have. I think that would be valuable. And I am not gonna pretend I offer more than the members do. They have a phenomenal board. I wanna learn from them. And I think that might be my biggest asset.
I'm 40 years old. I have another 20, 30, 40 years to put into the town politics and volunteering here. This is my best opportunity to learn from some well-rounded people who have been on a board for a very long time, who know what they're doing, who are willing to teach. And it's got something that has my interest in it. And I, I think that might be my biggest asset is that I'll be able to gain knowledge from them and be valuable to everyone in the years to come for a long time. Speaker 1: Thank you. My colleagues asked the other questions I had, so if there's any other questions from members
of the board follow up. Okay. Thank you Mr. Ana, we will ask Mr. Powell to come to the podium. Thank you. Speaker 11: Introduce Speaker 1: Himself. Speaker 15: Good evening. My name is Raymond Powell. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Board members? Yes. Would you like me to just go right in? Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Just so yeah, just Speaker 1: A, a high level overview for people at home who have not had an opportunity to review your application or your resume. Speaker 15: Sure, sure, sure, sure. So I can tell you just a, a little bit about myself. All right. Right. First thing, I have something that I wrote. I asked myself again this, this morning
as I was preparing for this. Why am I doing this? Why, why do I want to be part of the planning board? Why, why do, why do I think my voice matters? What, if anything, do I bring to the table? What happens if I am elected? And so I asked myself those questions. I wrote it down and I got up and I walked away and I said, don't answer them right away. Come back an hour later. I came back 30 minutes later, I couldn't wait. So these was, these were some of my answers. Why am I doing this? It's something that I wanted to do for a long time, but made excuse after, excuse after excuse why I shouldn't do it, or why I can't do it.
Next thing, why am I running for the planning board associate seat right now? Short answer. So my wife would constantly ask me, why are, why are you postponing this opportunity to give back to a community that has helped raise and shape our kids? And to be honest, I didn't have an answer. I really didn't have an answer. So we, one afternoon we're reading the, the paper and my wife said, okay, here's your chance. It's right there. Are you gonna be a write-in? And I said, yes. So here I am. Next question.
Why do I think my voice matters? I believe in Natick. I believe that we want the same thing for the town. We love. We want community. We want growth. And we want a place to call home. Why, if anything, what, if anything, do I bring to the table? Th this question was the hardest for me to answer because it makes me feel, you know, I'm bragging about myself. But to be honest, my experience in education, my experience in real estate and my experience in community, I think that what, that's what makes me a good candidate. Last question. What happens if I am elected?
I will commit myself to learning? Clearly. I don't know everything. I don't think anyone in this room knows everything. And, but, and I would be foolish to pretend that I know everything. Someone once said to me, this is very recently, she said, ask questions even if they sound stupid. As someone once said, ask questions, even if they sound stupid. And always ask why. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Powell. You're welcome. Take questions from the board. Sure. Let's do it in reverse. Ms. Wolf Love are you or Mr. Evans? Mr. Evans Long's last. Speaker 5: All right. You threw me off with that one. Okay.
I'm gonna ask the same questions that I asked Mr. Lunta. So you guys, I'll hopefully ask your similar questions also. Otherwise, anyway. How should Natick balance redevelopment pressure with preserving historic or neighborhood character? I'm gonna leave out downtown, but please talk about downtown and elsewhere in the community. Sure. I realize that was too restrictive. Speaker 15: Sure. I guess for me that's, that question is an important question. I'm a real estate broker, so I have a lot of people say, well, you know, what happens if you're selling a home
that's deemed historic? You know? And my my answer to that question is, you know, you have to preserve it. You know, and I know the town is gonna fight you like, like heck if you want to tear it down. So you have to preserve it. So for me, historic preservation, I think it is vital. I, I think it's something that we have to fight for. It's something that, that I believe in. I mean, I love, I watch HGTV, like my wife would say, you're, why are you watching this? You work this, this is what you do when you wake
up and when you go to bed. Why do you consider, why do you still watch these programs? Because it, it, I don't know. As a kid, I loved, I love architecture, I loved homes. I, and I don't know, but to answer that question, 'cause I, I'm a talker. I can go on and on and on. But historic preservation, I think is, is, is key. At the same time, I know that we have to do whatever we can to invite people into the town to continue to have the town grow. A while back, just a few years ago, I was talking to someone
and he was maybe in his early twenties, and we were talking about ta the town of Natick. And he was saying, there's not much for us to do for my age group. You know, this, there's, there's no restaurants in, in Natick Center. There's no, there's no bars in Natick Center. So those things just don't exist for me. So, although historic preservation is key, I'm looking at it from my perspective, but also you have to look at it from his perspective as well. So I hope that answered the question. Yeah, Speaker 5: That was good. Sorry. What is one planning or zoning issue that you think Natick has not addressed
well, and what do you do differently? Speaker 15: That would, to answer that would, I would pretend like I know everything. 'cause clearly, I, I don't, just looking around and in the town of Natick, clearly you'll have several people on one side of the fence and the others, other people on the other side of the fence. If you just drive up Route nine, when I first moved to Natick, I'm sure you all remember, but right at Route nine, where auto zone is, do you remember how you used to have to go up Oak Street to make that, to turn around in order to go on the other side of Oak Street?
That, to me, once that was done, it was beautiful. 'cause now I can just take a left and go down Oak Street and go home to Border Road. So, but before that, that was a nightmare. So that to me, screams, you know, revitalization, you need it, you have to. And then if you want to continue to go up to towards stop and shop, what's going on in there? I can't wait to see what that's gonna turn into. So I guess that's one of the main reasons why I decided to get involved to run for the seat,
because of my eagerness, my, my questions, I'm constantly asking things. So maybe this is a way that I could be a part of that. Speaker 5: Thank you. Last question, and I'm trying to repeat the same ones that I asked Mr. Lunta, but there should, there could be some variation. Planning board hearings can become highly contentious. How would you maintain professionalism and fairness during controversial projects? And by that I mean, not look, not the board itself, but the proponents and the abutters that, that might be in opposition
of to something. Speaker 15: Sure, sure. I'm typically a calm person. I don't, I some might say, when I say some, my wife might say that I run from, from confrontation. I run from conflict. It's because I, I, I don't like getting upset. I don't like getting angry, you know. But at the same time, just my profession, you know, I can give you an example just, just to answer that we had a, a, a nightmare of a, of a, of a closing, this is maybe a year and a half ago. And, and, and I still remember it today.
The two attorneys, the seller's attorney and the buyer's attorney, they hated each other. They knew each other for years and they hated each other. I was involved in some of the emails that, that the go, the back and forth. And I said, obviously I was on the seller's side, but that particular attorney, I know that attorney well, very well. And I said, okay, I'm not going to pick sides even though the buyer's attorney is right on this situation. So I tried to remain as neutral as possible, all all the same time trying to, you know,
remain neutral, but express what I thought needed to happen in order for this closing to take place. So, I don't know. Speaker 5: Okay. Good example. Thank Speaker 15: You. Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. Ms. Speaker 14: Ogo, welcome Mr. Powell. Thank you. And thank you for your willingness to step up and serve our community. Thank you. All right. So these are the same questions that I asked Mr. Lunta. I also noted on your application that you have not attended a planning board meeting. So what is your approach over the next few months should you
be appointed about what are you gonna do to learn about all of the various things that are involved in being an effective planning board member? Speaker 15: To study, study, study, study, study, study. Learn as much as I possibly can from the people on the planning board history. You know, just going back through everything that has been done thus far. And picking the brains of people that I know that have lived in this town, that have lived through some of the major changes in the planning board. I'm a sponge. I like
education, I like learning. I have two master's degrees and I don't know why, but I was going to go for a third and I don't know, it, it's, maybe it's, it's my wife and I, we challenge each other. She's going for her doctorate soon. And, and so it's like, it's learning is key to just to, to answer that question as quickly. I'm, I'm a talker. I could give you a thousand examples, but that's, that's one. I mean, I don't know a lot, even though my background in, in real estate doesn't matter. The planning board is its own animal.
And I don't pretend to say, oh yeah, from day one, I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna make changes. Not at all. I'm there to learn and ask questions. And if the questions don't, if aren't answered, ask why. So Speaker 14: Thank you. Same question about what level of time commitment would you be able to devote to planning board activities? And what would your interest level be in pursuing some special topics? Let's Speaker 15: Say I I, my time, I hate to say, I mean,
it might sound a little weird, but I own my own company. So I'm, I'm a broker owner, so there's always time for more time. And my son is going into his second year of college. My daughter, our daughter is getting her second year of master's degree. So it's time, it is one thing that my dad used to always tell me, you can't get time back, but you can give as much of yourself as, as you possibly can. If that makes any sense from a strange guy like my father.
But yeah, yeah, I, I will definitely be involved. And that's one thing, one of the reasons why I kept going back and forth with my wife, you know, she was like, are you gonna do this? And if so, you know, do you think you'll have the time? And I kept telling her, oh, I don't have the time. I don't have the time, I don't have the time, I don't have the time. But I, I asked myself, well, when will you have the time, Raymond? When it, it's like you're gonna have the time when you're 65. Are you gonna have the time when you're 85? If you're 55 now? So now's the time. So yes, to answer your question, I I I will make the time.
I will make the time. You I'm committed. Committed. Speaker 13: Lets hope. Okay. Thank you Mr. Powell for being here. Thank you for being willing to serve in this role and, and to learn. Thank you. You, as you have said. So my first question is gonna be a little bit different because it's tailored to you. Sure, sure, sure. But you have both been on, I would say the, the broker developer, investor side. Yep. And the planning board, you know, sometimes has to say no to projects that might be financially attractive for the town. How do you think that your development background will
inform your approach? Speaker 15: Sure. So I knew going in that I could have conflict. So someone said, you, you need to get involved with the ethics committee. So I took the test, you know, you know, I spoke to someone, the attorney of the day, and she said, whether you do this now, if, if, if you get it, if, if you move forward and that you are chosen, you're still gonna have to take this online. So do it now. Why, why wait. And I had, and I was, and I'm, because I'm a talker, she only had so much time to talk to me on the phone. And I kept asking question, asking question.
And she was like, just let me get through this, and then you can ask all the questions. Then she said, A lot of the questions will already be answered, so just let me get through it. And so at the end, you know, I said I was really excited that I did it in the beginning. I was like, I don't wanna do this. And my wife had had to go through it before, and she said, Raymond, you're gonna love it. And I'm like, she's crazy. I'm not gonna love this. Not at all. But I, I, I actually enjoyed it. So to go back to how to best answer that question, I know I'm gonna have conflicts. There's, there's no if and buts about it.
And, and I know I'm gonna have to figure out how to, you know, recuse myself if, if conflicts arise, you know? And one of the things that the, the training, the training was great because it helped me see things that I did not think would be a conflict. Clearly were a conflict. And so I said, all right, I have to, if I have to call them back, if I have to do some more research just to figure that out, then that's, that's what I'll do. Speaker 13: Thank you. You're welcome. Speaker 15: I hope I answered your question.
Speaker 13: Yes. Okay. Yeah, it's thoughtful. The next question I have is that the, the, again, this is a, a question that I asked Mr. Lunta about the planning board regularly having to review complex zoning applications and special permits. Right. You know, and just what your approach would be to that type of review and those types of decisions. Sure. Speaker 15: I think I would really enjoy that aspect of, of, of it. You know, I, I think that's something that my eyes would be as wide open as as possible.
I, again, I would ask as many questions as possible and, you know, try to learn as much as I possibly can because I mean, I, I guess this is the, this is the thing that intrigues me about the planning board. You know, it's, there's so many different things, so many different, I mean, there's a lot of things that could be fixed. There's a lot of things that I'm sure people have a lot to say about planning board and, and zoning and the variances, which are almost impossible to get.
I don't know. I, I, I'm, I'm looking forward to the opportunity. If, if, if it's given, Speaker 13: My last question for you is about the developers. Mm. You know, and, and the development projects that are going on, you know, some that are a bit more controversial and, you know, un unwelcome to some and potentially bringing economic benefit. How would you handle, you know, having to make decisions on those? Sure. Speaker 15: I guess that's a, a, a case by case basis. You know, there are, there are gonna be, for example, let's say you have someone in the neighborhood
that is planning on ripping down a huge, huge, huge home and let's say an historic home, or part of it is, is historic and other parts of it is, you know, built in, you know, 1985, whatever. I, I, I guess I'd want to be involved in that. I, I, I'd want to be able to say, okay, hey, you know, what about this perspective, what, what, what about looking at it from, from this way? But there were, I guess they're going back to the, I guess the first question with Pres, historic preservation
and the development of the town. I think they're both needed. I think that the, if someone wants to build a brand new home, that's another thing. If they wanna do what they did just up and down this street, that's another thing altogether. I know people that find what has been done just in the center of town alone, and I saw, you know, and then I have others that are like, no, this is great. This is bringing in more housing. And then someone could say, but is it, is it affordable housing? You know, can I afford that? Can I, with what I'm making, can I afford
that particular apartment or that particular home? So I guess that's really a, a, a case by case basis. Speaker 13: Thank you. You're welcome. Speaker 15: You're welcome, Speaker 1: Cody. Speaker 12: Thank you. Well, thank you very much as well for applying and taking the time. Thank you. So I'm, I'm gonna ask you the same questions as well. So first question, kind of a more specific version of a question that was already asked, but are there any specific constraints on your availability to attend meetings, particularly on Wednesday evenings and also seasonally in the run up
to town meeting, perhaps more often? Speaker 15: No, I, I, I, I can't see it. And if, and if, if there was a conflict in my schedule, I would, you know, as far as closings, no closings are happening at seven o'clock or six o'clock. Most, most closings, the attorneys that I, that I've worked with, they want everything done. So it, it could make it to, to record by four o'clock. So, and then as far as if I have a, a showing or an open house, most open houses really don't take place at seven o'clock, maybe on a Friday. But, so no, I, I I,
I don't foresee any, any of that. No. Speaker 12: Thank you. And then my next question is, how do you assess the current housing needs in Natick, both in terms of availability and the range of housing options? And what role do you think zoning and land use decisions should play in meeting those needs? Speaker 15: Sure. I'll try to answer the, the last part first. Okay. Zoning, I think is key. I think it's, it's could either make or break a town. I mean, I have a neighbor, I have two neighbors, I'm not gonna say their names, but one neighbor on, on one on one side,
and another neighbor across from me. They both were getting their houses done right around the same exact time. They started the project right around the same exact time. One home was done in three months, almost identical to what was, what took place. Another, the other home, it took over a year and a half. And that's what piqued my interest. It's like, how could two homes, I mean, obviously different, different, different contractors, but as far as the speed. So I think zoning had a lot to do, at least in my mind,
on how one house was done in three, three to four months. And the other took a year and a half. So, yeah. Speaker 12: Okay. Great. And then my last question is, how would you approach encouraging commercial growth as a planning board member? Speaker 15: That's another case by case basis, but honestly, I think, I mean, if you look at Natick Mall, and then if you look at Natick Center, it, two different completely zoning, right? You have a mall where there's all of Route nine is commercial, and, and then you have a quiet Natick center,
then you can compare it. I think someone was up here earlier and they talked about, you know, other towns like Wellesley, what about Natick, Newton Senate, you know? So I, I think it's vital. I think it's needed. But again, it's case by case in what location where, when you say Natick, where in Natick, you know, do you really want to throw a hotel somewhere in, in Natick Natick Center? I think that's impossible to do, but you could have a developer that says, this is prime
real estate, like these, these condos that were done. Maybe someone could have said, oh, half of it's a hotel and the other half is condo, and then the bottom level is commercial. So does that make sense for Natick? I think it could, it depends. Thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. Speaker 1: Being conflict averse is not a strength when it comes to being on a border committee. Mm, Speaker 15: I know, I know, right. Speaker 1: But being able to balance that, being able to balance competing interests. Yeah. Neighbors, developers,
planning board members have, may have their own opinion about a particular project or the way it should proceed. Talk a little bit about drawing on your professional background. Talk a little bit about how you would engage in a contentious, in a contentious public hearing. Speaker 15: Sure. Again, I'm a calm individual. I, it's, you'd have to, would say something about my family, my wife or my kids to really get me upset. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, and I, and,
and I'm even tempered, like, what I mean by that is I don't get too excited and I don't get too depressed or, or too sad. You know, I try to even kill, I try to stay right in the middle. That's how I approach everything. If I'm, if I'm bike riding, if I'm working out, if I am having, okay, I, I have actually just thought of an example. So I had this, I was selling this home, and the buyer's agent was also the buyer. So, and I believe she was an attorney, so it was contentious because she thought she
knew more than me from the very beginning. And I said, okay, that's, that's fine. So she like, I think she was just trying to feel me out to see how I was going to react to her. And it, I wasn't phased by that. And then because of that, now we're friends. Like, she, like that's, I think she wanted to know, okay, can I bully him? Can I force him to do what I want him to do so I can not only get this deal done, but get the best possible deal done for myself. And so I, I didn't realize that, but I sensed there was something more to, to
what she was like, the, just the things that she was saying. And, and, and it didn't, didn't rattle me. It didn't phase me. So now when I see her at an open house or another deal, she's like, Hey, Raymond, how are you? And I'm like, I'm good. How are you? You know? So I don't know. I, it's, you would have to do something to really, okay, I'll give you another example. The town meeting that just, that was my first town meeting, and I knew when I was leaving, some people were talking about, oh, that was, that was the worst town meeting I've ever been involved.
I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I know there's some people here, like, this guy's nuts. But I loved it. I, I was kicking myself, why did I not do this so long ago? And I guess, and I'm driving home, I'm asking myself that question. And my, and how I answered myself was, maybe you would not have enjoyed it if you did this five years ago. Maybe this wouldn't have been exciting to you. Maybe you wouldn't feel this way leaving and like, okay, I'm looking forward to Thursday. You know, so I, I don't know. I mean, that's like best way I could
try to describe, thank you. The answer that. Speaker 1: Are there any other questions for members of the board? For members of the public, we typically do not take public comment or questions when we interview for board appointments. And so we are going to make a decision based on, we're gonna make a decision based on the information that was provided to us and the, the application and the resume members of the board. Speaker 15: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Powell. Motion today. We ready to vote? We, I'm ready to vote, but I'm also happy to entertain if members of the board want to discuss their Okay.
That's until we voted. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Jacobs, Speaker 12: I, I don't wanna discuss. I, I don't wanna dis we don't need to discuss. I don't have any, anything to add comment wise. I just wanna say thank you to both of you again. And I, I think it is a, I know personally it's very hard to run in an election and lose, I've lost twice. I lost the first time I ran for town meeting. I lost the first time I ran for this. And it's hard. You pour a lot of your heart and soul into it and, you know, obviously, especially in this case went into overtime here a little bit. So I really encourage you guys,
whatever happens tonight to stay involved. You both have a lot to offer the town. And I, I'd love to see you both stay involved. I either way that it comes out and I just want to thank you guys again and, you know, encourage you to, you know, both run. Sometimes the voters can actually make this decision as it's supposed to to happen. But thank you. Thank you again. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Jacobs. This is for a less than one year appointment, so you'll, you'll need to run. Whoever's appointed will need to run this march for, if you're still interested in doing it, you'll need to run. And I encourage you to get your name on the ballot. It's so much easier than doing the writing intention. Yes.
Does everyone have a, we all have little slips, so if we're all ready to vote, let's go ahead and vote and then we announce how we voted, Speaker 2: Actually. Okay. Speaker 4: It was close. It was three votes for Raymond Douglas Powell, and two votes for Brian Lunta. Speaker 1: So let's do a roll call on how we voted. Mr. Jacobs, Speaker 5: Brian Lunta, Speaker 1: Mr. Evans, Speaker 5: Raymond Powell, Speaker 1: Ms. Slager, Brian Lunta. I was Mr. Powell and Ms. Pope. Speaker 13: Mr. Powell. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you.
So the clerk will be in touch with you, Mr. Powell, about next steps You've already taken the ethics training. There's conflict of interest training you'll need to take, and we will let the board, the office, will let the board know that you've been appointed for a period of, I guess it's about 10 months. So thank you. And I, I want to echo my colleagues' comments about staying involved and putting yourself out there. It's really hard to do that. Rejection is hard, and putting yourself out there is, is difficult. So I wanna encourage you both to be, continue to be involved and, and thank you both for applying.
Speaker 13: May, may I add one more thing? Yeah. I, I, too echo. Thank you both Mr. Centi. I was really so impressed by how you engaged the town and how you did it with such a positive attitude. And I would also say, as someone who has run an ill begotten right in campaign that she lost, this is not a rejection by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't take it that way. I, I immediately got involved and would not imagine myself doing what I have been tasked with doing blessed to do in this town. So I don't take it as a rejection.
I think it's a bit of a redirection and it's helpful. So thank you for your service. Thank you for how you have already served and how I know you will continue to serve. And I look forward to still getting to know you better. Thank Speaker 5: You, Speaker 1: Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: I just wanted to echo some of what Ms. Pope just said. Thank you for pursuing this Mr. Lunta. This was not an easy thing to do. You, you show your talent, showed your talents in organizing, you showed your passion in wanting to,
to do things for the community. This had, this was a very difficult decision. Both of your eminently qualified for this. You both have the same level of passion for this community. It was really, really difficult for me to make this decision. If I could have voted for both of you, I would've done it in a heartbeat. Me too. Yeah, it's, and to Ms. Pope's point, I do hope you stay involved in, in, in any shape that you can. I've, I've noticed in Mr. Lucentis case, your growth
in being willing to speak your mind at town meeting has been invaluable. You know, we will, we won't always agree and none of us always agrees with everybody else. That would be very bad. However, you cause people to think, to take another step and to step back and think, well, I hadn't considered something from that perspective, so please continue. And, and as Ms. Pope said, this is not a a, a negative,
this is a, an a, a horse race that just won, won by a nose. That's, that's all. It's, Speaker 1: Thank you. We'll go on to, we're gonna take a, a two minute, two minute recess and then we'll come back and open or continue the public hearing on San Sushi L-L-C-D-V-A San Sushi par. Thank you. Calling the meeting back to order at 7:17 PM for discussion and decision. The first item is a continued public hearing. The applicant submitted another application, but we're not, we're not hearing that.
We are going to take a motion on the submitted one, and we're gonna, we're gonna vote on that. The, the new application wasn't advertised. It's not. We're not, yes. So that's, we're not addressing that at all. We're addressing the original public hearing on San Sushi, L-L-C-D-B-A San Sushi Bar application for new Section 12, all alcohol on-premise license. And I'll take a motion. Ms. W, Ms. Slager, Speaker 14: Thank you Madam Chair. I move to replace Stewart Rothman as a proposed manager of record with SA ngu.
Speaker 1: Do I have a second? Second. Moved by Ms. Ger, seconded by Mr. Jacobs. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. 5 0 0. Was any, any dissent Everybody on board? Oh yeah. I said that. Okay. Sorry. Is Speaker 5: Screws on line earlier? Speaker 14: Don't stand out. Yeah, Speaker 1: Sorry. At the beginning. Speaker 5: Right in the right. Speaker 1: Oh, she is. Yep. We we're all set. So that has passed and we can close the public. Move to close up public hearing. Second. Second. Moved by Ms. Pope, seconded by Mr. Evans.
Throw it to you, Bruce. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Public hearing is closed. Rich would be so proud. Yes, he would. Well done. Proud me. Yes, he would. Next item of business is to accept mouth words Scholarship committee recommendations for scholarship recipients endorse you and Owen Ford. To what purpose do you seek the floor? Speaker 9: Thank you, Adam. Chair. Speaker 1: I'm waiting to say Speaker 9: That I really appreciate that. I also appreciate up a previous speaker saying they love town meeting. But I'm not here to speak about time meeting this evening. I'm here as a member of the MathWorks Scholarship Committee,
to which you all appointed me earlier last year. I'm really excited to talk about two very talented students tonight and make a hardy recommendation to give them some money for college. The scholarship committee would first wanna start by thanking MathWorks for its generous support of Natick students. We're continually grateful for MathWorks commitment to our community, particularly to the cause of STEM education. And these scholarships are gonna make a meaningful difference for these winners as they progress through college and launch their own careers. During our evaluation process, the committee reviewed all the applications. We ranked them based on academic achievement, a personal statement, educator recommendations,
and a demonstrated commitment to math and science. We then interviewed the top four candidates, and as always, it was an incredibly difficult decision. There were multiple candidates who didn't win, who were just as qualified as many winners from past years. But ultimately, the committee identified two students whom we'd like to recommend for the MathWorks Award. These students are Doris U and Owen Ford. Let me say a word or two about both students. Doris is a senior at Natick High School in the academic arena. She has achieved an incredible level of, of, of merit having amassed a 4.7 GPA in a very challenging curriculum. Her entire high school transcript is a series
of A pluses in all of her academic courses. This includes in each of the 11 AP courses she's taken. Her SAT score was an amazing 1580 out of a possible 1600. In addition to the strong in-class record, though her record through her extracurriculars are what stood out to the committee. She is the co-founder and president of the Natick Science Fair and a past member of the Natick Robotics Team. Just a personal note, she was known to folks at MathWorks because of her outreach to MathWorks getting grant money to run the Natick Science Fair. Her interests are very diverse, including leading the debate team to success. We were impressed with her true understanding
and embrace of the engineering process, particularly of learning through failure. Doris is gonna be attending Harvard, I believe, in the fall, and plans to study physics. Owen also a Natick high school student with an, an academic record, also truly impressive. He also has a 4.7 weighted GPA with an astounding 13 AP courses. On his transcript, he has self-study AP calculus as a freshman, which enabled him to achieve the highest score possible on the AP exam. This is typically only achieved by seniors and after exhausting all the available math courses at Natick High School, he, again, self-study courses in real
and complex analysis. He has already scored a four or five on 10 different AP exams before his senior year. He has also accomplished and particularly extensively in extracurricular activities, science oriented outside of the classroom, including his work with MIT and at Lincoln Labs. He has also served as a student body president at Natick High School. And his passion and interest in physics, particularly as it applies to future research into nuclear policy, came through in the review process of his application. And during the interview, Owen plans to study nuclear engineering in either Yale or Georgia Tech in the fall.
And it is with absolute great pleasure that I represent the committee in recommending a nomination of both Doris and Owen for this prestigious scholarship. Thank you. Speaker 1: Wow. Thank you very much. Members of the board Speaker 5: Motions and then comments? Yes. Alright. Speaker 1: Move to take a motion, Speaker 5: Move to approve the MathWorks Scholarship to Doris U and Owen, what is your last name? Ford. Ford. Ford. Thank you. Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Evans. Second. Second by Ms. Slager. Let's vote and then comments. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. A Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0.
And Mr. Evans? Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. Very briefly, as I read through this quick summary, I was struck by, by a couple things. One is the vast intelligence that you guys have exhibited. Two is the commitment to learning, not just excelling at the courses that were offered in front of you, but reaching out and, and stretching yourselves to, to achieve the most that you can do.
And the other thing that I noticed is, again, the balance. Doris on the debate team leading that and O Owen is student body president at one time. To me, that's, that's shows a well-rounded character in both of them. And so I'm very pleased to support this. Speaker 1: Ms. Wil, Speaker 14: Thank you. Just Hardy congratulations to, to Owen and to Doris. And I just wanna thank Mr. Alderson and all the members of the MathWorks committee. I imagine it was a very difficult choice if the other
candidates or anything like these two, how do you choose, how do you decide who's worthy? I wanna just give a shout out to Native public schools for obviously they're doing something right to have these two as as graduates. And it makes me very proud to, to know that we have these kind of, this caliber of, of student in, in our town, and we hope to hear great things from these two going forward. Speaker 1: Ms. Pope Speaker 13: Linda said exactly what I wanted to say. I wanted to give kudos to the Natick public schools and that we could say that, you know, Doris
and Owen, you've come from Natick and Natick Public Schools is absolutely incredible. What a, what a, I think a badge of honor for this town and also your entrepreneurial endeavors. And I feel so excited to see what you all will do, you know, in your future studies and beyond. So congratulations Speaker 1: Miss Mr. Jacobs. Speaker 12: Yeah, ditto to everything that my colleagues have already said. I think to me, what really stood out, actually going back to what, to what Mr. Evans said was just the, you know, I think that, not to diminish the incredible intellectual
accomplishments, but just like looking at how, you know, not only are you obviously very smart and accomplish people, but you use that to build community with people in the different things that you did. Like, that to me is a really, a really important trait, I think. And I think it's something that will obviously serve you well in the things that you're going on to do. And just, yeah, really proud of you guys and, you know, want to see what you guys do next. But congratulations. Speaker 1: I'm gonna invoke the ditto rule. We, we have a, a rule in the select board that in order to move meetings along, we can invoke the ditto rule. And I hardly endorse
everything that my colleagues have said. And congratulations. Very super impressive. So this is where you come up. Me. Shake your hand. Thank you. Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to Yale. Yeah. Decided, yeah, I mix now. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good restaurant. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Congrats on. Congrats. Thank Speaker 1: Mr. Erickson. Is the, the NCA associate for Nick Banners, does that involve staff? Sorry? Does the NCA yearly update request for new banners involve staff? Speaker 3: It Speaker 4: Involves Heather. Speaker 1: Oh, okay. So Speaker 4: Staff adjacent.
Speaker 1: Staff adjacent. So Heather wanted to come up and talk to us about, well, the yearly update and then the request from banners. Speaker 10: Sure. I also had a presentation. I don't know if that can come up on the screens. Speaker 1: Mr. Erickson. Lemme see if Speaker 4: I can, I'll pull it off the Speaker 1: Website. Okay. Thank you. It's Speaker 4: On, it's, it's part of the Novus agenda. Speaker 10: My name is Heather Rockwood. I am the executive director of the Natick Center Associates, and we run the Natick Center Cultural District for the town of Natick. Thank you to all of the members of the select board for having me here today and all of the town staff that I work with on a daily basis. I also wanna thank the residents
and business community of Natick who were welcoming when I arrived almost a year and a half ago. The community here is so collaborative, volunteer forward, and appreciative of multicultural perspectives. The Natick Center Cultural District has been around since the cultural district program was established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2012. And I'd like to thank my predecessors for the amazing job they've done making this cultural district the one that others look to for inspiration. I had a lot to measure up to as a first year executive director, a career changer, and someone who is being counted on by an entire community.
I hope this look at 2025 makes the residents of Natick feel proud of their cultural district and all the things we accomplish together on this first slide are some of my favorite images taken at events about collaborations in 2025. I would especially like to highlight the book Brigade for 10 Trees, which was asked for by the community and implemented by 10 tree's books with a little bit of our help during their move across a busy route 27. I would also like to point out the pins towards the bottom. This program was the idea of Kain Mancuso at the Planet Collective, A way to gamify shopping in Natick Center.
Nine stores signed on over the holidays and we've kept it going due to popular demand to save the smallest amount of times. I will, oh, if we could change to the next page, please. To save the smallest amount of time. I will let folks read the mission, vision, and values of the Natick Center Cultural District on their own. It is available 24 7 on our website, natick center.org, and we'll focus on our achievements. In 2025. We successfully executed or part participated in 19 Natick Center or Natick wide events. As part of a working group, we successfully updated the signage bylaw
for the downtown mixed use zone, presented to and passed by the planning board, select board, finance committee, and town meeting. We successfully executed three Natick nights, bringing the beer garden from Adams Street to Common Street, which increased attendance 300% and increased fundraising 600%. We successfully executed 51 farmer's markets with an attendance of 500 per day in the summer and 200 per day in the winter with a 60% return rate on attendance. We created a new event, rock and Run with an attendance of 150.
We coordinated that popular PIN program with nine shops for the holiday season with increasing collaboration between shops. This program is ongoing, each store ordered a hundred pins each to start. And at this time, since I've made this presentation, we have ordered 1300 more pins since that original order. We've received grants from the Community Foundation for Metro West and Eastern Bank with a new treasurer and director. We stayed within and balanced the budget to make fiscally responsible decisions on membership and flower program prices. And we successfully onboarded and had my first year as a new executive director
if we could go to the next slide. For the budget, we brought in a total of $290,000, $290,416, and spent 208 $88,020. So we stayed within our budget at 45.3%. Our largest income is our memorandum of understanding payments from the town of Natick. Next is our earned income, which are things like the farmer's market booth fees and sponsorships, and the beer garden tickets at Natick Nights. Our smallest contributions come from the Massachusetts Cultural Council at 16, $16,000.
And just under that from our membership income. As for spending, our largest expense is personnel, which includes myself and depending on the time of year four to seven part-time staff. Next is our operations, which is keeping our lights on and our programs, which are events. Our smallest amount is on marketing, which we do for our events, as well as for NAIC Center as a whole at just over $21,000. Our fiscal sponsorships are things we do for the community. They're represented in these charts. But this is not money that we bring in or spend. It is for those organizations, which are Natick Days,
Natick Art Association, and Eco Natick. I'm happy to take any questions at this time and thank you so much for letting me present this Speaker 1: Board members. Speaker 13: Thank you for this presentation. Heather, you are right. You had big shoes to fill when you came into this role, and this is really encouraging to see even as close as we are to Natick Center, I don't think we always know everything that's going on. I didn't know about everything that, that you had going on. You've been busy and productively busy, so thank you so much for, you know, spearheading, keeping Natick.
So in involved and engaged and the partnerships you've created. It's really encouraging to see everything that's going on. So I have questions, but I think I'll save them perhaps until everyone has their comments. Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Jacobs. And then Mr. Evans. Speaker 12: No, I just very quick di ditto, ditto to what Kristen said. Everything Miss, Ms. Pope said, but also thank you especially for telling me about the pins. My daughter brought home a pin from, from 10 trees and I was just like, oh. She was like, why'd they give you a pin? Like, she was like, oh, I don't know.
They just gave it to me and I was like, okay. But now I, now I know why. So thank you. But very appreciate everything you do. Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm gonna do the ditto rule as well. But what, what struck me is in the achievements, the breadth of things that you've been able to accomplish in one year and the impact of the things that you've done significantly improving the financial situation. I understand that you have a really good treasurer, so that's helpful. But you know, as, as my colleague said, you had a big, big shoes to fill and you filled them admirably.
So thank you. Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger. Speaker 14: Thank you Heather, thank you for the presentation and exciting to hear about all the things that have happened. I just have a, a question about in your last year and a half, what's been, what was your biggest challenge? It sounds like you came in here as a career changer and you've heard about the big shoes. So what would you say is, was the hardest thing for you? Speaker 10: I would, there are two. One thing was when the Sandwich board signs came down, that was a hard Friday afternoon of running around to all the stores to make sure that they took theirs inside before they got any sign, any fines.
But then we got to work together with the town and with a few of the businesses and worked really hard all summer to make this, the proposal come together. So that was one of the things. The other thing is I am much more of a administrator and background person. I like to be the person behind the scenes making things happen. And the people in Public Art Natick, which is my art committee, want me to be in the forefront and out there and getting in touch with the artists and making sure that they know who I am.
And that's been a hard part for me to come to terms with. Speaker 14: Thank you for your candor. Speaker 1: Anybody else on the board? Just thank you for all your hard work. We're better as a town. We're better. We have a better downtown for work you've put in, so thank you very much. Thank you. I'd like to see the beer garden be a little bigger. Speaker 10: That's the plan. Speaker 1: But other than that I don't have any other, any other comments. I just will invoke it. Overrule, Speaker 13: I'll just ask me one question. What do you see going forward with this, you know, with this outlay? What, what, what do you expect or what can we expect? Speaker 10: We're working on a few projects right now, one of which is the banner, which I have to bring to you
after all comments and questions for this part. But we're also looking at the mural at the train station is one of our larger projects. We'll be doing a lot of fundraising for that over the next year to hopefully repair or replace with town buy-in over the next year or two. That's one of my bigger projects. Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you. And did you wanna discuss the banners? Speaker 10: Yes. If I could have the banner brought back up on the screen. That was the last page of the presentation. Thank you. Public Art Natick, which is a committee
of the Natick Center Associates, put out a call for art for banners. In early 20 26, 27 banner designs by 17 artists were submitted and the members of public arna or pan voted by Google form to decide which banner was the winning banner. The voting was done by ranked choice voting, and this banner was the one that was chosen according to the downtown display flag policy approved April 7th, 1997. The Natick Center Design Task Force in this case, our committee, public Art Natick, voted at the meeting on April 1st, 2026.
A positive recommendation to the select board to approve this design for the banners on STR street polls in Natick Center, just in case the board of the Natick Center Associates voted at the meeting on April 15th, 2026. To also send a positive recommendation to the select board for this design, I ask that the select board consider approving this design by Mackenzie Pearson, a Natick resident to do, to be displayed on 39 street poles around Natick Center, where you see business sponsor name here. We will be sending out letters after this approval to all of the people that are members
of the Natick Center Associates, to then have the opportunity to purchase a banner and put their name on each banner as they are displayed in town now. And the banners will be double-sided. This image on both sides. Speaker 1: Comments, questions on board? Mr. Evans? Speaker 5: They have a mundane one, which is, what is the purchase price? Speaker 10: $175. Okay. Which goes to us and then we give it directly to the people making the banners. It is purely a pass through of money for us. Pass. Yeah. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you Heather. Speaker 1: Ms. Rockwood, how many businesses are members
of the downtown business District? Speaker 10: Usually around a hundred, depending on the year. It went down during COVID, but it's coming back up. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Ms. Pope. Speaker 13: Ms. Rockwood, what, is there a period of time that they'll be hung? Speaker 10: We ask the artist to not further sell this image for a period of two years after which we hope to redo the banners again. Speaker 13: Okay. And thank you. And for but in town, is there a period where we'll see them displayed or is it all year round? Speaker 10: We're hoping for two years. Okay. It's going to be all year round for two years. Okay.
The ones that have been up have been up since 2019. Speaker 13: Thank you. Speaker 1: A little worse for where? Yep. Thank you Ms. Rockwood. Thank you. Any other questions from the board, please just endorse I, I'll take a, a motion to endorse Speaker 2: Moved. Second Speaker 1: Move by Ms. Wilger, seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? It's 5 0 0. Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Next on the agenda is an appeal regarding public shade tree removal at nine Lincoln Street Extension. And looking for Mr. Goodine to, he's here to approach the podium.
Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 9: All right. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you members of the board for your time this evening. My name is Arthur Goodine. I serve as division supervisor for land facilities and natural resources. And you're town tree warden for native public works here for a mass general law Chapter 87 Public shade tree hearing objection appeal. So in Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Law chapter 87, known as the Public Shade Tree Act, provides powers to the tree warden that are very powerful, very broad,
however, they're not absolute. So that's why we are here today. So, Massachusetts chapter 87, the Public Shade Tree Act as a state law that governs the public shade trees, public shade trees are trees within or along the boundaries of public ways prior to the re removal of a public she tree. A public hearing is required unless the tree and the circumstances of the event meet one or more. Six qualifying exemptions if no exemption, the tree warn shall not remove or permitting removal of a public shade tree if prior to
or at a public hearing. An objection is received in writing. Removal may occur if the tree warden is so ordered by the proper officers. Proper officers are the select board members. This is a tough spot. So this is where tree preservation and tree risk management come together applying a law that was enacted in 1899 and using that in, in today's, today's, today's world, the select board is asked to hear the appeal by the petitioner, hear any public comments if the chair
so chooses, and to vote to either, so order the removal of the tree or uphold the written objections to removal. Just know that that decision by the board shall not prohibit the removal of the tree by the tree warden. If in the future the tree demonstrates defect or creative condition of qualifying exemption. I do have a, you have the documents that I sent in the letter with, with all the information from the hearing and the two objections. And I do have some general description
and attributes of silver maples, which is a species of the tree that I could share, if that's helpful. Speaker 16: Okay, Speaker 9: Please. Okay. Alright. So what I did not include was, what do we reference in our industry is a book by Michael Dur, the Encyclopedia of Trees. I thought about bringing it tonight, it's about this thick. There's two of them. So I decided not to. But when we look at tree risk and we look at tree management and just risk management in general, the species of the tree, the attributes of the tree are really important.
How you categorize that risk rating. So dur Michael Durr and the encyclopedia of trees and shrubs specifically, this is not verbatim, but some of the highlights said states that silver maple was once widely planted. Its leaves are dark green with a silvery back, creating a rather attractive effect when the wind buffets, I might have to look that one up and exposes the undersides of the leaves. So that's why it was had such a great characteristic when planted. It is extremely adaptable to varied soils.
However, it has fallen into disfavor with the industry. It is susceptible to broken limbs, it does have limited attributes and it's a fast growing tree, which can be positive, but as a result of its fast growth, it is susceptible to breakage in storms. And you saw a common branch failure in the photos in the packet Speaker 1: Board members. Mr. Jacobs Speaker 12: Is there. So is there a, like process wise, like are we gonna also hear from the, the applicant and then, okay,
well I don't wanna say my questions then until, okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Is the applicant present? Speaker 9: Yes. Speaker 1: Could you come to the podium, state your name and tell us why you want the tree removed? Speaker 17: My name is Patrick Forner. I live at one 15 North Ave. The property in question that the tree is half on, half on town property, half on private property. It's a lot that my father purchased that I will be buying from him shortly. Once we sell our home, my wife and I sell our home on North Ave. Maybe somewhere in that process
of my father purchasing this piece of property, a large limb fell and when it fell, the inside was hollow all the way through. So my father thought, I'll call the tree warden and get his opinion. So the, I do understand that there are a lot of people that love the tree. It's in a spot where a lot of people can see it and enjoy it. I, my cell phone, a landscape company in Natick and Wellesley, and we actually have a company policy, like if you put take a tree down, you put one up. So if one goes down, one goes in. So I'm not somebody that just thinks trees should come down,
but when I saw the photos and the limb, it was a concern. So that's why my father sought an expert opinion. I would just think that IF if we move forward, I look for solutions. There's a lot of people that love the tree, I love trees and I understand why people don't want it to come down. And I gotta be completely honest with you, when I look at it, I'm like, that's not a bad looking tree. It really isn't. But the size of the limbs that are starting to come down are a concern. And it's not just my house or my kids
or the neighbor's shed or the neighbor's house. The, the benches for the softball teams that play a Coolidge field are right there. So I think it's just something that we should all think about and come up with a good solution. Nobody's saying hurry up and cut this tree down. We're saying there's a concern that these limbs are now so big 'cause of how fast this tree grows, that when they start coming down, it's could be severe damage or somebody could get seriously hurt or killed. I know it sounds, you know, like a lot, but No, these are big limbs. I'm, I'm, I guess you guys have pictures. Do you guys have pictures? Yes, we do.
So we're really just here to say, let's figure it out together. We're not trying to just tear a tree down for no reason. Full transparency. The hope is that I do and am able to either enlarge the house that's there with an addition or build a house behind it. I'm not hiding from that, but that's probably a year or two out. The initial concern is just that these limbs that are falling are very big. They're rotted all the way through and it looks like it's the start of this to this tree to shed some more limbs.
So we're just here to seeking the expert advice and we're here to just hear everybody out because I love trees too. We planted 20 this week, so, but my children are in that front yard and that's where they'd fall. And on the other side of the tree, they would fall on our roof. And if some of the really large ones fell, they've already damaged the neighbor's shed. And if they fall towards the street, that's where everybody parks their cars to watch their daughters play softball. So I, we were just looking at it as something that we should be brought up the town meeting, you know,
the old, like some people, there would've been a tree company there. It would've been taken down and it would've been asked, you know, asked for forgiveness instead of permission. We did not do that. We just wanted to get everybody's opinion on it, make everybody aware, handle this appropriately. But due to the size of the limb, the size of the trees and the damage it's already caused whatever we decide here tonight. You know, if we decide together, that's fine. If whatever he, we decide tonight, I do have to move forward once we purchase the property. And my father will probably move forward with this as well. We don't wanna be liable for any damage moving forward
to either public property across the street, or if somebody gets hurt a neighbor's property. We would like to just say, you know, let's all take a hard look at this tree, decide together what a good solution would be. But if any were to wanna ever get hurt or if anybody's property were ever to get damaged, we don't wanna be liable for it because it technically is, I'm not sure what happens when it is half on the town, half on a private property, whose tree is it? Does Speaker 1: Anybody Mr. Good. Speaker 17: Yeah, Speaker 9: So the Mass
Massachusetts law chapter 87 specifically states public shade trees. Are those within or along the boundary of public ways. So along the boundary means any piece of the trunk that is on the boundary. So the onus of and duty of care is fully on the town, not the property order. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 17: So I would, so if anything happens myself or my father wouldn't really be liable anyways, I guess. Is that what that sounds like to you guys? I'd Speaker 1: Be reluctant to issue a legal opinion. Speaker 17: Yeah, I know, right? Even though who knows, who knows?
Speaker 1: Play a lawyer on tv. Speaker 17: So there, whatever's decided tonight, if, if not, if it's the treat, nothing happens to the tree. If it's decided that the tree is fine, that was a random limb, don't worry about it. Then we'll probably move forward to make sure that we're not liable for any future damage or injury. And if anything were ever happened to some, to a softball player or my children probably have to handle it the way anybody in this room would handle it. So we're here just to hear everybody out. I, it's a beautiful tree, I get it.
But it looks like it's rotting and it's starting to let us know that. So that's really all I wanted to say today. And I know everybody in this room will put their heads together and we'll all decide and we'll hear more people out and we'll get everybody's opinion. Speaker 1: Thank you. Are the two people who filed an objection? Are either or both of you in the room or on Zoom? One's on Zoom and objection. Okay. Could you come to the podium and give us your name and whether you're a need resident or business owner and tell us more about your objection? Sure. Can my husband come Speaker 10: Up as well?
Sure. Okay. Bring the whole family. My name is Patty Scheinman. I live at seven Chester Street. We've lived there for 40 years. The people who owned the house before us lived there for even longer. Our house is 159 years old. Small mansard roof. We abut that prop, their driveway. And we knew the people who have lived there for our 40 years and neighbors because where we live, there were a lot of people who have lived generations of families in our area. And that tree has been there just as long.
And I, I don't discount what Patrick's saying about taking down a tree and putting up a new one. But we won't be here because it takes a long time for a tree to grow that long. So what we're asking is that that's a beautiful tree. It's flat, it's definitely flowering and planting because I see it every day. We've never had any issues with anyone. And there are more issues with people who park their cars across the streets from our driveway, our driveways than that tree. So what we're hoping is that we heard that
that tree is not dead. If it were dead, I wouldn't be up here. I'd be agreeing with them. So our hope is that there might be a way for someone independently or someone who's an arborist who has not looked at that tree yet to come and look at the tree and give an assessment. The people that lived in the house before them, they have taken down limbs. We both have lost trees, unfortunately due to the death of our trees. We're very, very careful about having things taken down when
they're dead or dangerous. So we want everyone to be safe. But our thought and understanding was that tree was alive, but that tree has been there. I think definitely for as long as our house. And I was trying to speak to some of the older people who have lived there even before. It's been a very healthy tree. And trees lose limbs. I mean, trees sometimes have to have limbs taken off of them to keep their health. But other than that, that tree, if you look at it, it's thriving. So we're also hoping that there can be some way to keep the CO2 in the air, keep that tree thriving,
everyone's safe, and maybe have someone look into whether there is real decay or not, because that is still an unknown. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 10: Thank you sir. Speaker 1: Do you want to add anything? No. Okay. Paula t if you could we'll, we'll unmute. Unmute you. If you could give us your name and whether you're Speaker 18: Yeah, yeah. Hi. I'm one of the people who went to the meeting and protested with the tree warden, Mr. Goodkin. Goodkin. So I do object to the tree being removed for some
of the reasons stated the tree, in my opinion. I do agree with trying to have an independent study done with an arborist. There is, you know, I do, you know, recognize the fact that, you know, there is some concern. I do agree that there is a, a dead limb there. However, there is a street that separates the ba, you know, the field there. I think that there could be some, you know, some, you know, some work done to facilitate some of the dead limb being removed and that could improve the tree structure. I would find it really hard for his children
to be playing in the front of his house because there's a street there. He has a gorgeous backyard. He also, when I saw the report that was given for the reason for the tree removal, you have to file a report as to why you want the tree removed. His report was construction, there was no indication of anything else. So that was the state of reason why he wanted the tree removed. And I get that, I understand that things move forward and that there are certain things you wanna do, but he does not own the tree, the town does. I do understand that, you know, like you said, you know,
limbs do fall, things do happen, but it's a town's responsibility to take care of the tree limbs that fall and to, you know, do p prune the tree. But in the report I was given by the tree warden, you know, the tree is alive. It does not meet the qualifications for removal by the guidelines that I was given. I would hope that, you know, as you know the board, you do look at the report that the tree warden gave me and you know, you do adhere to what that report says. And you do appreciate the fact that this is a mature tree
that does, you know, deserve to stay where it is and not for the sake of another house being built that, that, that just gets removed. Speaker 1: Paula, could you state your last name for the record? Speaker 18: Oh, I'm so sorry. Paula Peterson and I live at Edgewood. I live on Edgewood Ave. Thank you. And I was one of the people who, I was on one of the only two people who showed at the tree warden. Thank you meeting. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 18: I'm sorry I didn't wanna come in person. I have RSV, so I don't think you wanted me there. Speaker 1: No, no. Yeah, you need not. We have zoom for a reason. So yes, I'd like to point out
that the tree warden is a certified arborist and he does, he does have the ability to. Speaker 18: So then I agree with him. I mean if he's assessed the tree then you know, I think that is qualified. I mean, you know. And then when I, when I met with, I actually met this gentleman's wife and she herself said that the reason they wanted to take the tree down was that it was dead. The tree is obviously not dead. I've taken pictures of it for the last three months as I've walked by it and the growth has continued to go. It's not dead. There is a branch that's dead. Yes. But the tree is not dead. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. A couple of questions for Mr.
Goodine and then I'll open up to the board for questions In your report on page two, you have, there's a, a rubric age class is overture. Can you tell us what that means? Speaker 9: Yeah, so over mature is one stage is pretty much the end, end of a life stage. So that is one stage past mature, generally reserved for something that is of an age of a tree where it's towards the end of its life expectancy. However, you wouldn't necessarily give it the defect
of severe or moderate dieback. Okay. But knowing that it is based on its species and it's expected life expected, it's towards the end of that chapter. Speaker 1: Thank you. You also mentioned there's a primary target. The street secondary target is a building, likelihood of failure is possible. Can you tell me what the range of categories, so if it's possible, is there possible, probable likely, highly likely, what are the categories that you would draw from to say it's possible?
Speaker 9: Sure. So those are from the American National Standard Institute's a 300 standard four tree risk assessment. They range from improbable possible. Probable imminent possible is failure of trees or tree parts. It could occur but is not likely to occur in normal weather conditions. Speaker 1: Okay. So it's not taking into account a hundred year storm, for example, or Speaker 9: Correct those that would be an abnormal weather condition. Speaker 1: Okay. Likelihood of impact? Medium.
Can you tell me what those categories are? Speaker 9: So that one is, so this is where it's very difficult to put the ANSI standard into what tree wardens do in Massachusetts. So when we look at the, the, it was a possibility of impact, Speaker 1: Medium likelihood of impact. Speaker 9: Okay, excellent. So you have to, what we, what we look for for our primary target is tree wars. Is is travelers within the way that's very specific to the law. The secondary category would be, you know, the building
or the park or, or something to that nature. So when we categorize the likelihood of impact, we have to look at the occupancy rate of travelers within the way. So that would be a, generally a low occu occupancy rate street. Speaker 1: Okay. And the consequences of failure, you said significant. Again, what are the, what are the categories that you, you draw from? Speaker 9: So when you look at the consequence of failure, you have to look at what parts or tree parts would fail
and when they hit the target, what would happen. And that's gonna be based on its proximity, its size, its weight, and those consequences and would increase, you know, a, a playground would have a high, high, sure, much higher consequence, a random tree in the woods, much more low likelihood of an occurrence and therefore the consequence lower. I'd like to hit other trees. Speaker 1: Thank you members of the board, Ms. Evans and Ms. Walser.
Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. One of the things Ms. Coughlin asked most of the questions I had, but you have an overall risk rating of low and is that how significant? Again, it's a scale question, just what does low mean? I know it's not high, but Yeah. And it's not medium. Speaker 9: So low. See there's a whole matrix to it. So it is really hard to explain. So there's a matrix where you combine, I don't have it in front of me.
I keep a cheat sheet in my truck, but there's a whole matrix where you combine the, the likelihood of failure, the likelihood of impacting a target, its consequence. Okay. Of that Speaker 5: It's like Speaker 9: A multiple failure and target hit, you know, failing and hitting the target. And then through likely unlikely, most likely imminent. It gives you that risk rating of low, medium, high or imminent or extreme, sorry. So low is anything's possible, but under normal weather conditions, that failure
of the tree or treat parts of concern, which really mostly be the branches, not the trunk. The trunk is very huge. It's likely, you know, it's a larger tree, it's not likely to uplift and and root if those tree parts were to fail during normal weather conditions, which is rather unlikely. It's low risk of impacting the target, which would be a transient target on a low OCC occupancy street. Speaker 5: Okay. Okay. Second question is, is there a possibility
that the town and, and I don't know whether how this would be funded. Putting that aside for a second, is there a possibility to do a preemptive prune of some of those branches that might be likely to fall? Speaker 9: Yeah, so if, if I may madam chair, I could share the, the six exemptions and that kind of shows you what the recommend, how that drives to the recommendation. So those six exemptions under the law, the, the one that's most common and very broad is endangering persons traveling on a highway.
So with it low risk, it's not endangering, it's very broad and really hard to define, you know, a hundred and something years later. The second one is, if so ordered by the proper proper officers for the purposes of widening the highway. That's not happening. I don't know the last time that ever happened. That's right. Suppression of pests declared to be public nuisance under chapter 11, under section 11 of chapter 1 32. Think of disease trees less than one and a half inch, one foot above the ground.
So little tiny brush, if so, ordered by the mayor, select board, road commissioner, highway surveyor. He may trim cut down trees and bushes if they obstruct, hinder in commode persons traveling on a highway, it's not doing that. And if so, ordered by the mayor of select board road commissioners or a highway surveyor to trim cut down trees and bushes if they obstruct buildings being moved pursuant to section 18 of chapter 85. So when's the last time you saw a house moved? So maybe 1835.
So because it doesn't fall into those six exemptions and it is of low risk, I, my power is not absolute. Just to remove it, we have the hearing, there's an objection. I must hold and pause until the proper officers Okay. Officers do that. So that's, that's where, so that leads to the recommendation. I'll lose your, your question would likely try to prune first. Yeah. Knowing that carries risk, but that's the balance of risk and preservation. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you Speaker 14: Ms. Algar. Thank you. Thank you Mr.
Goodine. Silver maple is like one of my favorite trees. So I was very interested to see that this was part of it. How many public shade trees does the town typically take? Take down in a year? Speaker 9: Hopefully no more that we actively take down without storm damage. Somewhere between 40 and 50. Speaker 14: And what are typically the reasons that they're removed? Speaker 9: They are dead. Speaker 14: Okay. Speaker 9: Yeah. Or an example would be an ash tree. An ash tree may not look dead, but it's, it, they're very brittle
and declined very quickly. So an example would be an ash tree. If it had emd ash bore, you know, the outcome of that very quickly. And that's part of the risk management where you would remove that preemptively much more quickly based on the species and based on on that insect pest. Speaker 14: So from, from your experience, given that that this tree has already lost a limb and, and there are, you know, these co-dominant trunks, which, you know, make it a lot more pro prone to, to splitting in the future, what would elevate the level
of risk for you if you saw more disease, if you saw another limb fall or what would make this potentially go into a, a riskier category? Speaker 9: So trees that would consider removal would be much more thinning of the crown. So you would see, you know, from the top down, usually indicators of maybe some, some root rot, just more dead and decayed limbs, it doesn't have a lot of those cracks included. Bark were you see in the photo there's many co
what we call co-dominant stems. If those limbs were a little bit smaller in its its angle, you'd have bark on bark that's included, barked, that's much weaker. Any mushrooms or anything around the base of the trunk indicating potential root rot? Oh yeah. Where it gets difficult, you know, is what we call sounding a tree. So trying to figure out if a tree is hollow, it gets a little harder when they're, when they're larger and there's a whole equation called the sound wood equation. And based on the diameter of the trunk,
based on the circumference of the tree, if it has X amount of sound wood around its circumference, it's technically that cavity is of lower concern. You can equate it to a light, a light pole in terms of physics. A light pole is hollow and it, it stands out. So just because a tree has decay or a cavity isn't necessarily a death sentence, but it is of concern if that continues to grow. Speaker 14: All right, thank you. And I know I know the answer to this, but just so everyone is clear, so if the petitioner wanted this tree
removed, who would pay for it? Speaker 9: So at this point, because it's not, the recommendation would not be removal and but the previous speaker too said there was a desire for the home construction. Maybe in future years if the tree is physically obstructing that work, in this case, in, in almost all cases, that cost and that risk is to the homeowner. Speaker 14: And how many times has that happened in your experience where the homeowner has paid for removal of a public shade tree? Speaker 9: Off the top of my head, I don't,
I don't know the exact number, but I would say in my time here in Natick, maybe it's been 20 times, I could think of more recent examples would be Everett, Everett Street there had a sidewalk there with some development. The windlow development on the other side of Route 16 was an example. It does not happen very often as, as much as coming before you for this reason does not happen very often. Speaker 14: All right. Thank you Ms. Hope. Speaker 13: Thank you. I just have a couple of follow up questions. I'm curious about the classifications in the age class. If the tree were dead, is that the denotation denotation
that you would use versus overture? Would, would you say dead or is there another language for that? Speaker 9: So that, that would be another language. So that is a factor of condition. And condition would be dead, poor, fair or good. And that is a indicator of vigor of growth. And a tree can have good vigor and show good health and growing in its cambium and the outer, outer rim of its stems in and, and branches,
but structurally can have defect with, with cavities. Speaker 13: Did you find any of the hollowness when you inspected this tree, that hollowness that you talked about? Speaker 9: Not in the trunk. I did see the evidence of the storm damage so that that broken butt of that branch is, is still there and, and torn. But that was just from the, the assessment was just from the ground, A level two inspection. The next level inspection would be aerial lift. You could add what's called tomography and there's a computer and it sends pulses through the tree to try
to determine if it's hollow. There's a, a tool called aristo graft that you can drill into the tree and drill out and it measures its resistance and indicates cavity. And based on that information you could, you know, modify a risk assessment. We do not have a risto graft, we do not have tomography technology. So that would be the next level. If we were to have a tree of concern somewhere else in town that we know of is of value and we would like to keep, we would, we would seek that data.
Speaker 13: And I was gonna ask what would trigger that next level of assessment? Speaker 9: Historic nature of the tree. So a good example would be the station tree on Winter Street wouldn't want to cut that one down. So I'd make sure whatever decision you make is, is really important. Species says a lot. If you're gonna spend and make that investment as Michael Durst and his book, you know, silver maple has fallen out of dis I can't remember the word disfavor. Thank you. It is overture, it's age class. It's, it's to it's end of its life expectancy.
So would you want as a town to invest at least 1400 to maybe $4,000 to have that, those other tests done. Speaker 13: And my last question, thank you. And my last question is, is the, the fallen branches in your professional opinion, is that related to the storm damage only or its overture status? Speaker 9: So this tree is not one that would be obviously readily identifiable
as a public shade tree. Like you would find one between the sidewalk and the roadway. It's just on the edge of a country road. I guess you could, you could classify a Lanka Street extension, so not aware of the storm damage when it occurred, I think it was May, 2025. It was likely a in result of high winds. So at some point that wind exceeded the lowed capacity of that branch and it failed. So I mean, trees are living organisms. It's really hard to quantify that. Speaker 13: Thank you Speaker 19: Mr. Jacobs.
Speaker 12: Mo Most my, my colleagues already asked most of my questions. I just have one, which is, I is just to understand if we were to uphold the objection today, does it, but then the homeowner at later state didn't want to cut down the tree, but just wanted to using their own funds and everything, wanted to trim like a branch. Like they saw that there was a branch that looked weak and they were like, I better trim that before it becomes a problem. Would they be allowed to do that or would they have to go through this process to just trim a branch? Speaker 9: So altering and trimming is, is different within the law. So if folks, so this is
where Massachusetts gets a little difficult. So Massachusetts is a rule of self-help state. It's the Massachusetts rule, which is referenced throughout the country, which states that as an abutting owner, you can prune tree branches or overhang your property. You can, in this case, at your own risk and, and, and funds if you choose to do so. But you cannot do so without prior written permission from the tree warden. If it's a public shade tree. So in this case, if the owner was desire was to retain the tree, prune the tree, basically have those options. You can have the town do that work.
Knowing that there goes, that falls into the bucket of all of our risk management. And that could be based on the risk. That could be, you know, two months or there could be two years, or if you'd like to ex expedite the work, the law does allow to provide written permission and they may alter the tree with written permission from the tree warden in compliance with best management practices for tree care. Speaker 12: And, and just, that's really helpful. And then just to be clear, so in, in the, in the case of, of
that kind of trimming process, if they wanted to trim it and they went to you and they said, we want to trim it, you know, trying to get permission, could someone object and then it would come to us again? Or is it a different process for trimming versus removal? Like, could you just make that decision on your own? Speaker 9: Yeah, so objection is only specific to tree removal. Not altering. Thank Speaker 12: You. Speaker 1: I wanna finish the board's questions and comments. I looked up the address and it looks like, but I can't tell looking at the, the heat map, the town's heat map. Is, is this location part of, part
of the heat map location? Do you know? I mean, it's an unfair question. I, I'm asking you if you know off the top of your head. I, I can't figure it out. Speaker 9: So I think you might find some sort of shade of yellowy orange Okay. For that part of town. But is a characteristic of the, like the most common type of heat island effect, like right outside this building? No, across the street you do have the athletic field, you have Coolidge woods, so your canopy density is a little bit higher than it would be.
You know, where we, where we are today. Right. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Other comments or questions from members of the board? So if the board were to, so we need to balance some competing interests, right? We need to balance somebody's highest and best use of their private property that they own. So that we need to respect that. We also need to respect the, the potential for liability to the town. 'cause I don't suspect we're gonna have normal weather going forward for the next 10 years. I also wanna respect the neighbors who
are concerned that they're just not gonna be around if that tree is replaced. And I wanted to ask you if, if the board were to order removal of the tree or approve removal, removal of the tree, can we require the homeowner to replace the tree with a fast-growing species in consul consultation with, Speaker 4: Do you know the rules? I, I dunno the Speaker 9: Rules so I could speak more broadly. So the law does not specifically say that I know just from having been past president of Massachusetts, tree Wardens Foresters Association,
the Inspector General Attorney General, I think it's the attorney general's not keen on the monetary penalty for things. So I think you, you could then you then you run into issue where town government, not city government. So rules and things that you make have to be approved by Attorney General City. They don't, so Right. If you had a city ordinance, way easier to mandate that. Sure. I think from town government, that's something you'd wanna move away from. Speaker 1: Thank Speaker 4: You. So I think what if I can reiterate what you're kind of saying is that we don't have anything on our current books that would mandate that,
like in our bylaws or anything. So the select board would probably have to create a bylaw, adopt it, then have that as part of an enforcement of a bylaw. Is that Speaker 9: What you're saying? Correct. Yeah. I mean, most people are human and would offer to replant the tree and wanna do what's the greater good. And we also have a tree planting program. So the law does allow the town to use public funds to plant a tree as long as it's no farther than 20 feet away from the right of way on private properties, that's an option. As long as you know there's funds available for that.
Speaker 1: Do we have funds available for that? Speaker 9: That's a Speaker 1: Probably not highly unlikely. Speaker 9: It was not fully funded last town meeting. Right. Partially funded. So I have some funds but running, running low. Speaker 1: Okay. But it sounds to me like the board couldn't require that, make that a condition of a decision that we render because we don't have a legal mechanism. I mean, we could do it. We don't have a legal mechanism to Speaker 4: Enforce it. Speaker 1: Right. Pleasure of the board. Mr. Jacobs. Speaker 12: Yeah, thank you very much for all this information.
This has been really helpful. I think my perspective at this point is that I would, I would want to sustain the objection to the removal and, you know, I understand the risks associated with it. I, you know, I, I can see that in the, in the report, but the risk is low. The overall rating is low, which is, you know, the lower, like, I think the lowest level of risk on the, on the rubric. And I think if this, if this rule is gonna mean anything, it, it's gonna involve a little amount of risk. Like if we wanna live with trees in a place where,
as you said, there's weather, there's gonna be more weather. Like we have to accept some risk associated with that. Both, you know, liability, risk, et cetera. You know, I, I have kids, I've had a tr a giant tree fall in my yard. So I know I, I, I understand the, the, the risks associated with it. But I think for this bylaw to mean any for this law as we enforce it in natick to mean anything and protect our trees, we can't only uphold it when it's the perfect tree. And, you know, I think this is close enough on the end of, of safe.
Like it's on the, the low risk based on a, you know, a professional look at it. Of course, if things change, they can come back to us. They do have the option, as you know, we saw in the discussion to trim and do things that will mitigate the risk with less administrative burden. So to me, I think like given the interest in protecting tree cover, the risk being low, I I would, I would want to uphold the objection Speaker 1: Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: Yeah, I just, I I I wanted to ask this question of Mr. Heim, but failed to do so for, with your permission, please say a year from now, the condition changed.
How, how frequently do we assess the shade trees in the town? I'm trying to remember. Speaker 9: The best practice in, in our practice that we, we try to stick with is every three to five years. Speaker 5: Okay. Having said that, and I have to concur with my colleague, Mr. Jacobs, that it's, it's in the low risk category. It's been there for a while. I think it bears monitoring. And we, and that's why you do these assessments. You, it's a snapshot in time, excuse me, and we need to monitor it.
There are sort of the at risk trees that you sort of elevate on your list and say, we gotta keep an eye on these. So I think I'm with Mr. Jacobs that I think we should, should sustain the objection. Speaker 1: Ms. Ger, I'm gonna concur with my, with, with my, Nope, we're not taking any more public comment. We need to move through the agenda. And so I, I want, Speaker 20: I just was wondering because 10 days ago a boy died in Melrose at a playground in who's liable?
Speaker 1: The town is liable. Okay. Speaker 20: And does anybody know where nine Lincoln Street extension is? Speaker 1: I do. I do. Yes, I do. Speaker 20: Alright, so do you see where the house is and where the tree is? What do you think? Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about right now. Yeah. Thank you. So Ms. Algo, oh, Speaker 20: So you guys, you guys all went by? Sorry? Yes. Oh, so you see where the house is, the tree and everything? Yep. Speaker 14: Wonderful. Speaker 1: We routinely do site visits when we have something before us that we need to rule on. Ms. Wil, Speaker 14: I'm gonna concur with what my colleagues have said, but with a caveat, as I mentioned, silver maple was one of my favorite trees.
The house I grew up in had and one in the backyard. And it was the one that all the neighborhood kids climbed. And we still trade pictures of people that I grew up with of pictures of everybody in the tree. But then we moved and my one requirement was to get a silver maple tree. And this tree started having branches that were falling down and breaking. And we had to take it down because it was not safe. The first tree is still standing, but this one had to go down. So I would say that I think that this tree needs to be very carefully monitored because at least in this anecdotal experience,
once it starts losing a few limbs, it, it might continue. And so I think at this point, I, I just can't support it. It seems to be a healthy tree, but I think that there is potential risk, particularly as my colleague mentioned, weather isn't good all the time and maybe getting worse and, you know, we don't want to take that risk of it, of the town having liability. But at this point I think, you know, I think the decision that you made was correct, Speaker 1: Ms. Hope Speaker 13: So that I incident
that you mentioned in Melrose was absolutely in the back of my mind, dear friend of mine's children, goes to that school. And so completely understand what it is that you're saying. And I think the reason why we're doing this type of expert observation is to be aware if it's, if it reaches that, that kind of level. And based on your observation, Mr. Goodine, at this time, it does not. And I agree with my colleagues that it needs, you know, and,
and what you just shared, Linda, about the example, you know, that you've experienced that we should be monitoring it closely because it now has a history. So that I think that history should elevate our, you know, our priority to monitor this tree closely. Speaker 1: So I, for me, that's the problem. For me, the problem is asking staff to be on touch on top of a shade tree, one of hundreds we have in town, and monitored it, monitor it, monitor, monitor it over the next three to five years and see if something, I mean, that's asking staff to take care of a tree.
So like for me, the decision before is, is I'm concerned about liability to the town. I'm concerned about the tree failing. We cannot compel, as far as I understand, we cannot compel the owner of the property to trim it at his expense, a public shade tree. So for, for me, I'm inclined to not uphold the objection and ask for the treated com and that, that's the way I'll vote. Mr. Jacobs, oh, Speaker 2: What Speaker 12: Are you ready for motions or, Speaker 1: Yeah, if, if no one has any other questions. Okay, I'll take a motion. Speaker 12: I'll, I'll move to sustain the objection
Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Jacobs. Second. Second by Ms. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. So it's a 4 1 0. What's, what's the next steps, Mr. Goodine? Speaker 9: So that tree remains and I'll schedule it to be, to be p prune according to best practices. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Thank Speaker 2: You Speaker 1: Mark Johnson, future use facilitation presentation. Next agenda item item E. Speaker 4: So Jay's here to lead off the conversation. Yep, that's really all my part. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Speaker 4: While
Speaker 1: Please take conversations out into the hallway, we've got a really busy agenda. Speaker 21: Alright, Jay Port Paddock town communications director and I'm gonna walk you guys through 13 slides, nine of which have heavy content. But I'm gonna focus really on five minutes. This is if you go to a good concert, I'm the opening act. You guys will essentially be the discussion for the board members and for the public as the board sees fit. So we're gonna walk through just, it's been a little bit since we've talked about Johnson at length. February 4th was the last meeting of significance prior to
that October 29th. So you're got about a three and a six month lag. So we'll walk through some milestones. I'm gonna inter introduce some definitions and then we're gonna focus the discussion on approach and framework. Just looking at a quick timeline, I would summarize the months that we've had to date. When we kicked off in March of 25, as the initial wants for about the first eight or so months, we flipped over to the needs. That's where we got board and committee reports. I'm also suggesting that our FY 27 budget outlook or forecast also is in of assistance.
When we think about what we're gonna do with this town owned property, what's open is what we'll discuss tonight. And I won't read each slide. I, I envision us coming back to a lot of slides as the board instructs us. Another refresher, I sent these materials to the board over the course of weeks, months. The general public received them on Monday with a larger homepage announcement. In addition to the agenda that was posted the previous Friday. Member Slager suggested a nice summary that's a visual tracker. I believe this does a pretty good job. The two Johnson graduates in my house were able to get a good sense of the project.
Just looking at this timeline, this discussion is gonna ultimately be around the approach and the framework. So you've got a couple pieces here, but I will further define that as we go through. On the top of this slide are just written definitions and then the illustrated view at the bottom, it's trying to get across the idea that thus far in the project we've been talking about components, individual items like a community center, a playground, a pavilion. We talked about scenarios to start to cluster those. But I'm introducing language and hopefully this assists the select board as this intermediate philosophy that kind of guides
and clusters scenarios. And that we're gonna call that an approach. So imagine that you know that it's a playground and a pavilion and some open space on the property, but we don't get into what specific fields or what are the dimensions. So those would be of assistance. And then the framework is a set of engagements or inputs that might inform the project throughout. And I'll be again, just kind of give you some further details. We get deeper into the slides. So if you have a kid, a grandchild or otherwise, I encourage them to think about their careers in avoiding ai.
AI is pretty good at actually taking over quite a few careers. I would argue my twenties were basically wiped out by ai. But what I did was I used the power of this tool to take seven documents on the left side of this slide, all the input documents and upload them into AI and then ultimately ask it for outputs of 10 documents that you have listed to the right side. This wasn't simply ai. We also use some staff members, especially around the financials. Our town administrator, our deputy town administrator, former parks and rec gentleman, our building commissioner,
proud, graduated Johnson also has a few years, quite a few in the building area. So we use them to vet the numbers, change the assumptions of the AI and inform it with quite a few municipal, municipal case studies and examples. There's been a lot of questions around the financials in particular. The next slide we're gonna show you starts to introduce some detailed individual line items. But what we're gonna do on this next slide is just summarize it for the benefit of this conversation. We asked AI to use all those input documents and give us some approaches. Approaches two through five are relatively straight outputs
from AI and the interim use. We, we staff encouraged AI to help us hone this idea. But we ultimately, if you look at the capital and operating budget line items, they look pretty large. And the individual costs we can certainly get into as the board sees fit. But if you think about our capital budget that we have available each year and what actually gets funded these, this would be yet another project competing for those dollars. So we want to think about a couple different areas as you scroll from left to right, the total dollar amount, relatively simple math. So it's taking the first year capital plus the
10 years of operating. And then the score, we use the weighted scorecard. There's some details on the far right side of this slide. Ultimately it's a weighted score across a series of different items which are subjective. You can take the base prompt that's linked below in AI and you can change the weighted scores as you see fit as an individual. What I have here is fiscal considerations, getting a hefty 40 points. We've got a budget forecast at our finance deputy town administrator did a good job walking us through. We've got a lot of competing projects, other potential
overrides, debt exclusions in our future. So this is an area where fiscal considerations got a high score resident input at 30 decision criteria that will drive it, which was informed by survey work. And then ultimately a boarding committee input report that was provided October 29 or we've read it out to you on February 4th of this past year. The next slide, I say thank you to the board members. They entertain this idea of submitting what they as individual members and they, we used the Google form, which is linked at the bottom for the general public's idea
of just seeing what the blank form looked like. Instead of just using public deliberation, it kind of can sometimes can become consensus thinking. We ask each individual board member also Mr. Sidney, who's no longer an active participant, lives in the Johnson neighborhood and was an active participant for quite a while. And we asked a series of questions. The primary one was, do you feel that you have sufficient info for you yourself as a member to create an approach? You can see the yes no by the individual members. And then I included some detailed notes, the board members, you gave me quite a few detailed responses.
My lowest font size there is nine. I tried to make it readable for most folks. And I think this will be one of the primary slides we'll come back to so board members can have a healthy discussion and ultimately give a sense of where we are now that we're pretty far into this project. And you know, a healthy discussion is kind kind of, I think our primary goal. The framework on the left side, the definitions at the top of this slide, you can see the various milestones that we had going back into May of 24 when we initially had the building transferred from the school committee. And then ultimately a whole series of meetings or engagements.
And then we kind of anchor on the right side of the slide around key questions that will potentially inform this project further. I'm going to basically double down on those questions on the next slide. And this will be the final anchor slide that I think the board will have a healthy discussion on. Where ultimately what we staff are looking for, and I think this is gonna be relatively consistent with yourselves as well as the general public, is if we stick with this approach style, can we lock on a single approach potentially too? So it starts to hone down the amount of time and capacity and progresses us further.
We can decide along those lines. And some of the board members, you saw quite a few nos on that slide, had some additional inputs. Well let's collect those, let's play that back, do some really good, you know, I wouldn't even call them meeting notes, but I'd love to produce a report based on this meeting and say, we heard that you need these 7, 8, 10 additional items that's sufficient. It'll just, you know, it'll just be a balance of time and resources. The framework really kind of breaks down into three primary items. An advisory committee has been a hot topic and I think at least defining a
target decision date would be an ask from a staff and then ultimately figuring out why. What would the charge be around this committee? Also an appendix slide member Ger had a good request to just, can you give us some tangible examples of what we might think a committee might achieve? Financial assessments. We provided AI numbers, we're calling them, you know, 80% confident. My little joke about financial analysts or some contractor running this, you could go into an RFI stage and treat this as relatively confident numbers at
an RFP stage. That's when you start to do geology or other work that you know, do an additional study, a traffic study to do all of that work prior will cost money. And until we hone down approaches, it's just a decision that ultimately the board will make. There's some the last piece around community engagement. If we feel like there's missing meetings or reports or other items, that'd be the third item that we will certainly take away from the board. But ultimately this is where I'm gonna leave it with the board to kind of lead the remainder of the meeting.
I'll just show you the final slide. These are some potential advisory committee charges at a really high level that the board could certainly entertain. Speaker 1: That's it. Thank you. Could you go back to the slide which has the different approaches with the financials? Yes, thank you. So I'll open it up to the board comments, questions for Mr. Mr. Jacobs? Speaker 12: Just, just a process question. Are we gonna hear public on this? Speaker 1: Yes. Okay. Af after the Speaker 12: Board.
Okay. Well I, I guess I'll go into my, my comments then the, well first of all, thank you. This is very helpful. I appreciate it. I I did ask a lot of questions and trying to fill out that form and I appreciate you humoring me and answering them. I think, you know, to me, I think these questions are, are very much tied together. I'm glad we're having this because I want to see us move forward on this. I think as far as the need for the advisory committee and then these approaches, you know, to me that was, that was sort of, I mean I was on the fence about saying no versus yes and answering the question
because I think when you say like, can you narrow it down to two, you know, then I think it's a little bit easier to say, okay, maybe we could have a, an advisory committee that looks at the benefits of, of those two. Now I don't, you know, my two may not be the same as everybody else's two. I think to me, in looking at these, you know, and, and Jay explained, like these aren't necessarily the only options. These are just the ones that they came up with as an exam as examples. But to me, I think, I think it for the, the, the, the fourth and the fifth option are the ones that
preserve the build that, that well not necessarily preserve. 'cause the fifth one is, is making a new building, but that you, that allows us to utilize the building or allows us to utilize a building in that space. And I think given the needs that were identified by other boards and committees and their input, you know, given the ongoing conversation at this, at the school committee level about the preschool and potential sites for that, I think that it's really important that we preserve some kind of usable space there. And you know, maybe that's one too, one, I guess would also fall in that category
'cause it's interim building use as well. But I think to me, what I would, what I would say, what, you know, and I, I kind of explained this in my, again, very long answer to, to Jay's question in the, in the Google form. But what I would say is, you know, we kind of narrow it, we can narrow this down so it's not just an open-ended advisory committee, you know, starting from scratch and say we, you know, we would like to explore options for preserving open space and in the space around it. And then a multi-use community space. Given that, can we look at these different options of okay,
renovating versus something new versus just getting it up to, you know, the minimum investment possible and looking at other things that, you know, I know you guys identified in some of your answers, like the finance, you know, different financing options, grant options and things like that. And then kind of seeing what, what comes outta that process. So that, that's kind of what, how I was looking at it. But I'm excited to hear what you guys have to say too. So Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Jacobs. Who wants to go next? Ms. Wil? Speaker 14: All right, I'll go next. My perennial disclaimer, this is the second time
that the board has publicly had a discussion and only the second time on this project. We've had many meetings, but we have not had discussions at the board level. So, you know, for people that are wondering why is it taking so long? Well we have, we have to have discussions amongst ourselves. So one of the things that I think was my no answer was further discussion on some of the board and committee reports. I mean, we've heard, and, and my colleague just mentioned that potentially the school committee has used for this. So those are, those are questions
that I think are really important for us to understand and, and discuss. If there is an interim use for this building, Then, then, you know, that might be something where we might want to say, okay, here's what's gonna happen for the next couple years and then after that it's something else. So that's kind of where I'm thinking right now is that I think we really do need to explore, are there interim uses that need to be considered and before we do any advisory committee, I think it would be premature if that's what we're gonna do. If we're gonna have someone occupy that building
for the next year, two years, whatever, then it's after that. Or maybe a year from now where we decide, okay, we know that after this point in time we don't need the building for this usage. Let's figure out what we do next. Do we, you know, do some of these other scenarios By then hopefully we'll have some of the coal information. And I see that my, some of my other colleagues also have said that we really do want to tie in the coal project to this. So that's kind of where I'm headed. I feel like, I don't know what is, what's really desired at this point by the school committee.
And that's one thing. And I think that my other colleague brought in the whole Wilson Gardens approach, which I think is certainly something that we ought to consider and I think would probably make a lot of the neighbors happy, where we would preserve the open space at, at the Johnson School in return for potential housing at the Henry Wilson site. Now that's all, this is all very preliminary and needs a lot more work and I, and unfortunately I don't think that that's the kind of work that the advisory committee would do.
It's something that I think other committees in town would do. So I'm just also still wondering, you know, where we're gonna get some of this information. So I don't know what conversations have been taking place with, with the school committee and or with the superintendent on their requests. And that would be helpful for me to know. Mr. Erickson, do you wanna weigh in? Speaker 4: Sure, just, just briefly. One IE, even just this direction about an interim use is helpful because we can start at the staff level exploring potential interim uses, including our own potential town uses,
but also with some of our nonprofit or outside partners. So one example is, you know, Pegasus, we've talked about Pegasus and their needs in the coming years. We have had some conversations with the school department and school committee in light of the work that the school committee, well more the school building committee around Memorial is discussing the need for what that future building could look like. Those are very preliminary 'cause that process is preliminary as well. But there has been discussion around what the future education plan or ED plan as they sort of colloquially call it would be around preschool.
And I know for example, the school committee had a meeting last Monday or two Monday nights ago where they talked about the, or they started discussing around the needs or the desires for what their preschool program could look like, whether it's number of sites where it should be located, things along those lines. And in my opinion, looking at all town owned properties for potential support for those types of, whether it's school department or coal center recreation is important and valuable to do. So. There have been those conversations. I've been encouraging really all the partners,
including the rec parks as well as school department to, to keep, whether it's the e school or the Johnson school, those are the two primary locations that we have the most flex space in East School. 90 or, and it's up on 90 Oak is also what we call it. The preschool currently has classrooms in there, but that has been a swing space for 30 plus years it seems. I think the senior center was in there at one point. Now the community senior center, we've had different town offices in there. So those conversations have
been ongoing. They're still very early on in the, in the stage. But with, even with direction from the board tonight, just to say we're looking at interim use, that's enough of a charge for us to, at the staff level really not pushed those conversations, but at least get some more detail about what those conversations might look like. Speaker 14: Mr. Evans? Speaker 5: Yeah, I just want to reiterate what Linda said. I did vote yes in the survey, but I was a qualified yes. So it's like a yes minus no plus, I don't know. Anyway, so I like the idea of going back to what
we could do as an interim use for several reasons. One, to, to use our resources cost effectively, right? Ms. Erickson just pointed out that there, there's a confluence of all sorts of different things. Memorial School, e-School, Cole Center. And we need to understand the sort of interplay between them and the timing of, of things and the cost of, of doing something near term, figuring out what's best longer term when we get a better idea of what we need. And I, I agree with Ms.
Slager that forming an advisory committee right now wouldn't be fruitful. It, it would, it would just be confusing to the people on the committee as to what we expected of them. And I'm not sure we'd get a, a good result. I think we need to do, you know, Ms. Erickson just pointed out that the direction just nominally of looking at interim cases is, is helpful to, to indicate a direction that town administration and school administration can look into.
So I agree with Speaker 13: Hope. Thank you. And thank you Jay for all the time you took because I too, you had to spend extra time with me to help walk me through this process. I I think that the interim use would be where I'm leaning at present because right now, these five or however many options we have or where we are, they're very binary except for the interim building use.
Like I see this as an as I would like to, based on what I have heard from the community, find a way to use the building but also do a park refresh like the land refresh. And right now they're, they're separate. And so I think in the larger scheme of what, what is the land gonna look like at the coal center? What is the land gonna look like at the memorial school? How, you know, I think the interim building use makes good use of our resources. And I think people, what I have heard is that the community is looking for us to do something with this building and to not let it sit
for such a long time. And I believe that by the time we are able to make an the best decision, it's still gonna be further out into whenever we're able to use the building in earnest. Most of the folks that I have talked to have asked for what I think is like a community center. And it's challenging because it is, you know, of the question about the finance piece. But, but honestly the confluence of things that people are looking for to me have, have
they spell community center. So that does need to be looked into. And I, I'm not against the advisory committee at some point I still feel like it's a bit early, but I think in the future, a an advisory committee would be good. Be a a, a diverse advisory committee would be good, I think down the line. Thank you. Speaker 1: So one of the questions I have is, and I'm, I'm inclined to go with option number one, interim use. How much of that building is a DA compliant and can be used?
And do we, we set ourselves up for potential litigation if we have non nonpublic facing, so staff usage and then we have a staff member who applies for a job and then we can't, we, we don't have a DA accessible space. So that's my one caveat about the interim approach. I like the idea of an interim approach. I'm not sold on a community center. We have a state of the art one on East Central that is in use often. And I, I don't know that it, it's a good use of,
of at this point based on the information I have now, always, you know, I'm always happy to change my mind when I have more information. But I, I would want, so right now the schools are talking about pot, the potential for five preschool preschools, right? In that building. And so my question is, do we have five that are a DA accessible for? Speaker 4: So I believe if, if I can just clarify, my understanding is the school department is looking at a bunch of different options with regards to preschool. There's currently preschool classrooms at the high school at Lilja and the East school, which is actually a town building
that we're, we're letting them as an inter as a temporary use use coming outta the pandemic. And so what they're exploring is they did get approvals through the MSBA to include, I believe up to four classrooms as part of the memorial project, which would then be eligible for the reimbursement. But then there's other goals that I think the school committee is exploring whether that's in the best interest to do four and then other classrooms elsewhere should they try to consolidate into a single site, two sites, three sites, what have you. My understanding is the target number is 10 overall classrooms.
And so a question would be at any location can you fit all 10? If so, what does that mean? What's the cost? How can you do that? Or, and or like there's other domino infect once you start looking at the different options. And so I know that's what they're currently exploring. And, and I have been in conversations with the superintendent just about the, the, the, the the available town owned properties. 'cause 'cause I think in my opinion we should look at available town owned properties for that type of, for that discussion as well as our call center discussion, which we will be wrapping up at least our intern,
our initial phase of review for the, for the board's knowledge by the summertime. So we are looking at that as well. One thing about interim use, you mentioned cost and, and, and just a DA compliant considerations, as I've said repeatedly, so much depends on the use. So much depends on where the use is within the building. And one thing that we would be looking at ba the, you know, based on sort of this feedback is what town and or again, partner like nonprofit type partner uses could be used in that building. And if we can get nonprofit partners, there might be an ability through some type of arrangement
for some of those compliant upgrades to be covered by the nonprofit, which could then, but so much depends on what portion of the building's being used and, and and, and the like. So those are all conversations that needs to be had. But we needed, in order for us to even start those conversations, we needed direction from the board as to to how how we can approach those. 'cause you know, for example, if we're trying to cover some of the costs with a nonprofit partner or even just just with our own capital program, there might be a five or or year look and is that interim enough or is that too much interim?
So these are just some things that I want the board to be mindful of. I don't, you know, you don't need to know the answer to say 'cause we need to do some research on our end, but I just want you to be prepared for that type of dialogue coming down the pipeline. If, if interim use is what the board is sort of truly thinking of. Speaker 19: Mr. I'm Jacobs. Speaker 12: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I i I am certainly not against an interim use. I think that that the thing that concerns me though about doing the interim, not that we're doing it, but moving forward with the interim use without, without the advisory committee and putting the advisory committee
as well, we need it later. I just, I, my concern is that the advisory committee serve would serve and serves a number of purposes. I think one of those is about securing, you know, buy-in. I think it's an important conduit. I we've had many great opportunities for public engagement and like continue to, and I think we've done a good job on that. But I think in terms of making a decision even of, of the magnitude of just interim use as you mentioned, like interim, you know, especially if we're, if we're, if there's potentially a deal on the table where some capital work is going to get done by an occupant,
presumably they're gonna want some commitment in in exchange for that. And you know, I I worry about interim uses having a way of building up stakeholders and locking in and it, it sort of changes the, the calculus a little bit and it's a, it it, it's a bigger decision than it necessarily may feel like. And so I, to me, I, you know, and, and the other thing about the committee approach too is that, you know, setting up, even just setting up the committee takes time, right? Like if we decided now we wanted a committee, it wouldn't magically appear. Now we'd have to come up with a charge, we'd have
to have applicants, we'd have to have meetings where we interviewed the applicant. Like it would be a whole thing. So like I, I just kind of wonder if it would be possible for those processes to happen more in tandem while we are still seeking this other information. You know, because again, I I do think it, it serves an important, it serves an important purpose I think, and I think we all agree that it's something that could be useful at some point. So I, I would rather start thinking about it earlier given the, the timeframes involved. But that's just my perspective. Speaker 14: I, yes, Linda, so I was listening to what Mr. Erickson was saying about the E-school.
I think now that started off as just a temporary interim use there and you know, it's, it's lasted for years. So I I I get Mr. Jacob's point about, you know, we don't want it to potentially, you know, make a decision now that we'll continue. So I would prefer just to say, okay, let, let's just look at, let's say the next two years or maybe even three, what, what would an interim use be in that timeframe? We're not talking about five years or 10 years. I mean, maybe that would be the plan,
but I do think that we would probably want some input at that point beforehand, way, way beforehand. I don't know that I now, I don't feel like we would be able to say, you know, here's how you can help us by making a decision on things. I think that it really, we, we need to start with getting that coal information and I think anything before that is a little premature. After that we'll see where we're at, we'll see what we can hear about. If we all agree that interim use is a good idea. If we don't then you know, something else will happen.
But yeah, I, you know, I don't know one way or the other about the advisory committee it at, I always want more public input that isn't the issue. Yeah. It's just that it's more on our end, like what are we gonna tell them to do? How will it be useful? And, you know, we don't wanna have a committee where, you know, we're not going to get some useful information out of them that doesn't serve anyone's purpose. But I absolutely agree that we wanna hear from the community before we make anything, any major decisions. Speaker 12: Just to be, sorry, just to be clear, when you said I, I just wanna understand what you're saying when you said at that point we'd want to hear from, you know,
I mean you didn't say a committee, but at that point we'd want to hear more from the public or whatever before making a decision. Did you mean make a decision on whether to do the, whatever the potential interim two to three year uses? Or did you mean after the two to three years then you'd want to get that Speaker 14: Not after the two to three years before then after. I think that the decision about what we're gonna do for the next two to three years is really a help helpful from the town. Like what can the town do with this property? And then after that, it's like, once we know that once we have some idea and then how long we're gonna need it for, then what,
what are we gonna do with it for the community? What are we gonna do with the property? Speaker 1: Right. Long return. Yeah. And that's when Speaker 14: The committee, and that's when the committee would come into play. Speaker 1: There's two decisions. One is whether to have an advisory committee and then the second one is what if the answer is yes, then what the charge is. And it's, in my opinion, way too early to talk about what that charge would. We, we still have enough information and it's not, you know, I mean making a thoughtful decision is going to take time if we do it right. And you know, the, the south native dam, that was a year and a half process for just the advisory committee
to come with recommendations. And then we had a se it was a two year process. Yeah. And I think disposing or Speaker 4: That was, that was also, I didn't mean to cut you off, but that was also a very, you had two options. Yes. Speaker 1: Very Speaker 4: Binary in this case, there aren't just two options, right? Like it's a very different case. The charge for that committee was very easy to put together, relatively speaking, right? The decision was not easy, but the charge was Speaker 1: Right. And, but it still took a year and a half of, of their engagement. Correct. And then public public engagement for that committee. And then they, then we on the board who made that decision, spent a lot of time doing research
and you know, reading every piece of correspondence from the office of DAM safety since 1970. Like we spent a lot of time making a thoughtful decision. And I think it's, I think that's, we owe the community, we owe the town a very thoughtful engagement of what it is we're going to do. And I think we should probably take a straw poll. This isn't a binding vote, but how do people feel about the interim approach? Speaker 3: Yes. My hands Speaker 12: Are just be is the interim approach. Just let's find out what an inter like Yes, let's find out what it is. 'cause I mean, I, I think I agree.
Like I agree with everything you guys are saying and like I, you know, if it's just, hey, let's find out what these possible interim approaches are and then maybe we can revisit the idea of a committee. Yes. Then I'm, I'm great with that. 'cause I think I, I would like to see that information too. So staff, Speaker 1: Staff really needs direction from us at Speaker 14: This point about Speaker 1: What gets next. Okay. So at this point, since we've all had a moment to talk and think about, I'd like to hear from members of the public and I'd ask that you stay under two minutes. I'm gonna time you 'cause it's nine o'clock now and we still have a full agenda to go through. So I'll ask people in the room if you could come up to the podium, say your name
and whether you're a Natick resident or an employee or a business owner, Mr. Vicenta, Speaker 4: When you're ready, I'll let you know. There are hands on Zoom. Yep. Speaker 1: Hi. Speaker 11: We'll take, I'll make this really quick. Brian Lunta, I just wanna say I was not planning on speaking on this. I think your discussion was awesome. I I really like the slide put together that showed the, I mean it's ai but the financial impacts and the scores on and stuff. I thought it gave a really good way to guide you guys. And I, I, I'm all on board with what you guys are talking about right now. I think that's a great use and we're not wasting time,
we're not wasting our money. The building's not gonna fall apart if someone's in there. So I just wanted to say thank you. Speaker 1: Very good point. Thank you. Online. We'll take somebody. So Ms. Bason, Speaker 22: Hi. I don't think my video is working, so I apologize. Can you hear me okay? Yes, Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 22: Okay, great. Jamie Bason, I also ag agree with what you're discussing and gathering more information. I think definitely some serious conversations with the school district about their space needs
is really important. And just, and just looking at it as a town need, because I think the information has changed over the last two years. You know, we used to, it was, you know, it wouldn't affect classroom sizes and so forth when it closed, but now we realize elementary schools and the high schools are getting overcrowded and I feel like town wide with all the new housing that's coming in, there's gonna be higher enrollments. And so I really think having serious conversations with
where are these kids gonna go to school is needed, and Johnson's property, you know, may make a lot of sense personally, I think it does for preschool or, or whatever they wanna put. And so also I think if there was, you know, an a DA compliance, if you looked into what that would entail, so you could use it, you know, maybe in the meantime. But I I, I do think you need a lot more information and getting, having those serious conversations and looking at the process long term
and town wide is really important. But thank you so much. I really appreciate all your conversations tonight and I think you're on the right track and I look forward to, you know, hearing more about these conversations because I, I really agree with it. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Bason, take another question from in the room, ma'am, you in the, in the front row, if you could come to the podium, introduce yourself and say whether you're a Natick resident employee, business owner, Laura Parker, Speaker 8: Natick resident for 31, almost three, two years. I have a, a question and possibly a follow up question.
But my first question is, Jayden a awesome job here of putting together these slides and especially putting a, putting together these budgets, potential budgets for these various options. So my question is, there's a really, really big difference between option one. Well, I I I'll go to option two. Option two, the park refresh, 10.4 million and the commit the community center 53.1 million. Where will the money come from to fund these options that very specifically will the
come from to fund these options? Speaker 1: That's a very, very good question and one that we need to take seriously, which Speaker 8: Is, okay, let me build on one more specific. Will it come from another property tax Speaker 1: Increase? We don't, we have no way of saying what's going to happen. We don't know if there's grants available for an interim approach. We don't know what's going to be there. We don't know. We, we just don't have enough information to say where the money's going to come from. I hear what you're saying. I think, and I would agree with you if you say we have no money, so I, I I Speaker 8: Think, I don't know, that's why I'm asking. We, we, we Speaker 1: Don't Speaker 8: Have money. Mean maybe you've got grants I just don't know about
that's gonna fund all of this. And Speaker 1: In order to get a grant, we have to determine a use. So we can't just apply to the state and say, Hey, we wanna figure this out, send us a half a million dollars. So we, we don't know where the money's gonna come from or what grants might be available until we hone in on a use. Mr. Erickson mentioned that it's very possible that if we have a nonprofit that's renting there, that that, that will pay for some of the park refresh or building renovations or something like that. But it's, it's far too early to even think about where the money's gonna come from, which is one
of the reasons why I'm in very much in favor of an interim use because it is the least impactful in terms of dollars. Speaker 8: Okay. I I I've been, I mean I've just, I've been going to all these meetings that with respect to the Johnson School future property, property future. And even when we go back to the May, 2024 gathering at the Johnson School, at least in my group, people were saying, well, it depends on how much it's gonna cost. So I Right. You know, and so now that we've got some estimates here, I'm asking, okay, well where is that money gonna come from?
'cause if people who want the community center saw that it's gonna require a property tax increase to fund this $53.1 million, they might think twice. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: Yeah, I, I'll just reiterate, as of right now, we don't have capital dollars even available or, or even in the five-year plan to cover Johnson. Just 'cause we, we don't know the costs Speaker 1: And we don't have the money and we, period. I mean our capital plan is whole, very underfunded. Correct. Speaker 4: So once we, once we get some estimate, get some thoughts on costs, then we can figure out
if there's grant programs available and if so, which ones, if there's private partnerships available, whether it's nonprofit or others. And, and if so, which ones if we can even incorporate into our capital program, which is within tax levy or does it need to be to the point of additional resources, debt exclusion, override for whatever the future use might be, whether it's interim or future. Yep. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. I'll take somebody online. Speaker 4: I don't see any other hands online. Speaker 1: Okay, then we'll go to you, Mr. Kaufman, if you could come to the podium, introduce yourself. Speaker 23: John Kaufman, south Main Street. Jay, thanks for all your work. Again, the, the DNA chat Ken of fooled me a little bit,
but I figured it out I think. But anyways, you know, Mr. Jacobs talked about the, what interim use that is gonna happen at Johnson. We, we only have two things here. We have the building and we have the open space, the ball field, the playground. I mean, let's keep it simple. When we start bringing in coal school and, you know, some other things that are needed around town, you know, it just confuses the whole, this whole piece of property over there. But as far as the building goes and interim use our operation is my problem.
I'm in a butter. You had it with Y-M-C-A-A few years ago. They were there till six o'clock at night, 50 60 kids screaming around the whole place. You know that. And what happens is they stop the residents at the gate. You cannot go in there and use the playground at three o'clock. None of the neighbors are allowed to go in there because they own the property till six o'clock. So interim use is really important to me. And in the long run I'd like to see you keep the open space, the ball field's being used today, the farm league was over there playing tonight. You know, we don't need a soccer field. It won't fit there.
But, you know, to, to, to spruce up that property, the basketball court, the tennis court, the hockey rink, whatever, you know, in a splash pad, you know, that's just a waste of water to me. So in, in the situation we're in today, but you know, I we're moving forward, I can see it, but it, it really concerns me of why the building was shut down. It was shut down because of, you know, the handicap access you pointed Madame Chair, you pointed it out yourself tonight. How can that building, I've,
I've been in construction for 40 years. I know as a plumber when buildings are shut down for that long, water lines become contaminated, water heaters, Legionnaires disease, duct work, everything becomes contaminated. You know, nothing Speaker 1: Soman, I need to stop you, but thank you so much and I appreciate your comments. Speaker 23: Well thank, thanks for all your work and I'll be around. Speaker 1: Thank you. Anybody online not seeing any hands? Ms. Vickers, Speaker 13: Thank you very much. I'll try to keep this quick friendly fixers. First of all, thank you
and thank you for being allowed to use the property all this time. I drive by it all the time and it is baseball season and watching the kids, there's very, very heartwarming I'm, many of us are very grateful that that is still going. Thank you for all of the information in the slide deck. I will say as a community member, two days is a very short period of time to try to make too much out of that. But regularly when I come to see you guys, you regularly say to me, make, get other people to say it too, right?
Yes. You're regularly telling me that. So in the brief period of time, since this was posted on Monday, other people contacted me and said, okay, we are ready to do that. Because they saw the opportunity for discussion this evening around a committee. And so I did not write this, I offered suggestions when asked, but this is not me. This is me being the person who's able to come tonight versus everyone who isn't able to come tonight saying that they wrote a two page letter
and managed to get as of 6:00 PM this evening, 229 signatures in 24 hours to say that the community, and this is across the town community, we, the people looking for signatures really wanted to make sure that the focus wasn't just the Johnson community to say that they would really like an advisory committee. Listening to the conversation tonight, I understand the reasoning for your reasoning for waiting. I would say that an advisory committee actually could be very helpful in an interim process
and understanding what's available. There are reasons here for why people think it's a great idea. I was the first person to sign it because I think it's a great idea and I really hope you all will consider it. And so thank you for the time. Speaker 1: Just question, was that sent to the select board? Speaker 13: It it, we intended to send it. We were unable to send it. It was managed to get a print copy just to, for me to bring it tonight. But there is intention to send it so that you guys can understand it. And are there Speaker 1: Addresses attached to the names? Speaker 13: There are absolutely addresses attached to the names.
Thank you. We know how you guys feel about random names and surveys. We did this pri primarily not through posting on social media sites. This was primarily done as a grassroots effort. I can personally vouch for many of the people on that as can many of the other residents. It was really an effort to do what you've asked me to do, which is have people share their voice with you. And so this is people sharing their voice with you so that
it's not me just saying it this time. Speaker 1: Thanks Ms. Vickers. Is there anybody else in the room? Thank you. If not, I wanna turn it over to Mr. Por Paddock. Speaker 21: Thank you. Just I guess in brief, just looking at this slide, trying to be really overt with what we were trying to accomplish. If I played back, I'm hearing a degree of, again, that word preferred on the slide is actually doing a lot of work. We didn't ask you to choose an approach, we didn't ask you to lock on anything, but we're hearing a preferred approach around an interim use. As I was listening to them, each of the members speak, and I'll write this up and send this through the chair, but I could envision us doing work
around which organizations within the town, municipal side, nonprofits, otherwise potential financial considerations, mitigating the impact on the community. You know, kind of factors like that. And I encourage the board, I mean if anyone in the community sends an email, there's lot, plenty of contact information available on the homepage to get it to me. But I would love to type something up, get that through the chair so we can make some progress on the approach. The framework advisory committee, I was hearing maybe not yet, but certainly there's an energy with a resident petition and
otherwise in a lot of members, you know, express an openness. Certainly when the time's right, the financial assessments, I mean, we could go down the route. I know I appreciate that one of the residents said, well, now we're seeing numbers. And that's fair. And there's actually quite a bit when you go into some of the D line item detail, if I'm not hearing any hesitation, I would encourage us. I've walked it with a couple buddies that own construction companies. I would encourage us not to go too far down the path with like firm financials and use AI at this point. But if the board wants to discuss that and you know, otherwise happy to. And then the last piece on community engagement,
if there's any meetings or, or means of getting information. I mean, I appreciate that you know, what Mr. Jacobs said around this idea of, you know, getting by and getting participation and kind of what an advisory committee could achieve, but it's kind of, you kinda have to ask why five times and you find out it's really just to be heard and to have significant input. Advisory committees won opportunity, but any others that the board or the general public would want us to pursue, this is something we're committed to do, but I feel like we're getting tangible feedback and I appreciate the conversation. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Port Paddock. Yes, sir. Yes.
Speaker 12: Just timing wise. So gi given this, you know, the kind of things you said, like when do you think that we would expect to have this back in front of us? Speaker 4: Ooh, I, I'd wanna debrief with the team when they get back to the office. Speaker 12: I didn't mean, I didn't mean like date, I just meant like, you know, is it a couple months? Is it six months? Probably, yeah, Speaker 4: Probably several months. Ideally we'd have something for the board to consider if we need to go for like town funding, hopefully for fall town meeting. But that would be like an interim, like a small amount of town funding, not anything regarding a permanent use of $30 million. That would be, Hey, we need some seed money, or we need some x, y, Z money to do X to the building just
to give us the interim use. What do you think? So in all likelihood, the summer timeframe, maybe early fall at the latest if we're targeting that fall town meeting. But I think we need, we need to put our heads together at the staff level and then talk to some of our partners internally and externally to see what is needed now that we have this direction. What is needed for, for them, both internal and external to, to provide the board with some informed next steps. I mean, we, we might go back to the office and I could, I could be ready next week,
but I don't think that's realistic. I just wanna set the expectation and even if we were ready with like a town interim use, we'd have to then explore what it would take to even bring that building up to a certain level of code to allow us to do that. And that's why I'm saying fall town meeting might be a good target date because that, that if we need money, that would be our next time to seek the appropriation from town meeting to do any type of town use in that building. Okay. Speaker 21: I, I would only say I agree with everything. My boss, my boss just said, I would also say this, this deck was actually outlined on February 5th, the day
after the February 4th meeting. So I mean, I'm now a, you know, kind of municipal employee. My last job is more startups. So I think we balance the speed and the precision and working through the system. So we'll have that conversation internally and figure out when it's most appropriate to bring it to you guys. But speed is, I just want folks to hear the realities of finite staff, but also the commitment to do things fast. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Jay. And thank you for all your work on this Ms. Wilger. Speaker 14: Thank you so much, Jay, for, for all you've done. And I don't have any suggestions at this point,
but I do think we ought to think about, given all the interest and certainly in the advisory committee about some form of public outreach in some fashion. And I don't know what that is and I'm looking to you, Jay, to maybe make some suggestions on that about, you know, communicating what we're doing Yep. And what's, and what's upcoming. And because the, these meetings don't get enough traction, you know, we, we don't have enough people showing up and we know that there's much broader interest in this, so. Speaker 21: Yep, that's fair. Speaker 14: Thanks. Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, next item is the
parking reset, ick center. And Jay, you're up again. Speaker 21: And I guess just for the chair, small, medium, large, or just a minute target on how long I should focus our efforts, I can adjust accordingly. Speaker 4: I also wanna know, Morgan Griffiths is also Yeah. In the Zoom land and he's, he's available for any parts of the question as well. Speaker 1: Okay. I'm gonna defer to you. Okay. So go take as long as it takes to make sure that we have the information we need. Speaker 21: That's fair. So yes, Jay Port Paddock, I'm the communications director and as the town administrator just mentioned,
we have Morgan Griffiths, our transportation planner. We're kind of spearheading this. I'm just gonna give a little bit more of a introductory on this particular topic. So I'm a communications director. This is not my core competency. We're talking about parking in Natick Center. Just a brief, couple interesting items. I mean, I, I've lived in town for 15 years. I've spent time as a commuter. I spent time driving my car in the opposite direction. I currently walk to town hall. I have an office that overlooks the common, probably my favorite perk. And so I, it's just an interesting topic.
My, my friends are business owners, a lot of them in, in the center, some of which own private parking lots. And when we're having drinks, we talk about parking. And you're, you hear this great quip of, we have a walking problem, not a parking problem. I love it, it's a great quip, but it also kind of suggests that we don't have a problem. And that, and I kept wondering, well, how are we chasing this perceived problem, which we'll talk about in the deck. And then my boss, the town administrator, was a former community economic development talking with Morgan, our current transportation planner. And they, I would just listen and hear
and talk to the business owners. And Jamie, our town administrator, allowed me to, you know, just place some and kind of in, insert myself into some work primarily with the idea that some of the near term opportunities have some very firm communications relationships. And they're really talking about just using data to make informed decisions. And so I found this fascinating. I appreciate that a lot of people gave me some latitude to do some work around here. Additionally, as I went through a lot of these materials, they, they take my father-in-law's company, VHB, that'll be featured in here as an engineering firm that's done a lot of work in Natick.
So my conversations with him about hearing Natick's past, as well as the sheer number of coffees I've done with quite a few residents and elected officials who are very prominent in all the studies that have been done over time. I started working on this probably in the fall of 2025. And I'll walk you guys through a timeline. But essentially what we're gonna do is three primary things. We're gonna give an update on some current initiatives over the past 12 months and just allow Morgan to kind of walk you through those. Summarize a series of parking studies that was done largely between 2013 and 2021 that was on the heels of a 2005 parking garage
that had a failure and demolition. And then ultimately propose and align on a new subset of opportunities that we want the board to ultimately endorse or comment and adjust. So there's, there's 21 slides, about 10 of them have meat on 'em. This is not one that has any meat on it, it's just a setup, A timeline, just to give you guys a visual representation from left, you know, you're looking at 2005 there was a parking garage that was prominent. If you can picture the backside of Carmelo's or across from Cardos affectionately the Middlesex lot,
which has, has currently about a hundred spots. But there was a multi-story garage at that point. And at that point when it did fail and we went through the demolition, there was a series of parking studies that you can see represented with those books. Those with the blue P were firmly parking related, or sorry, parking solely as opposed to the four below that were done at different points in time we're more adjacent. So think of the master plan or Natick center branding effort. There was a parking advisory committee that went through different permutations. I do have an appendix slide that walks it through.
But there for about a five year period, boy, we had quite a few committees, quite a few consultants and that, that we will talk about at length. COVID certainly is an interesting little variable that happened in 2020 and persisted for a few years. The main street improvement project is absolutely adjacent to this parking dialogue. So that's in practice now and ongoing. And then at the very bottom you see the new development that's occurring as we look around Natick Center, which certainly we expect more variables to be introduced. Last mention on this slide, the MBTA, you can't see that trend line on the bottom right,
but what that's showing you is ultimately a return back to 80 percentage points of the Framingham Worcester line in relation to ridership. That's not unique to Natick Center or West Natick Station. It's total number of riders on the entirety of the Worcester Framingham. But when you talk to people, we're nowhere near back. The answer is we're about 20 percentage points lower. And that's been pretty consistent in recent months. Start with the problem statement. And this is just to get us going and get the juices flowing and maybe a little bit on the aggressive side. Due to a lack of parking utilization, data supply
and demand, all parties have been are stifled by solely anecdotal evidence and personal opinions versus empirical data. Those parties include elected officials, residents, business owners, town staff, and others. Natick needs parking data. Then we can talk about solutions. I hear people say that we have a well-documented parking problem and a parking need in Natick Center. I'm gonna walk you through the past studies. I would love to be wrong and I've asked everyone that I think is closest to this topic and I have not unearthed new information. But again, I welcome all the conversations
and we'll, we'll walk through them. An update on the current parking initiatives. I'm gonna hand it to Mr. Morgan. Speaker 24: Thanks Jay. So, yeah, like Jay said, I just wanna give you all a quick update on the current parking initiatives that were approved by the board, I believe last October. So first the board approved converting all angled spots dedicated to library patron parking on Claredon Street to have a 30 minute limit. And as of February, 2026, this change has been made and DPW has updated all the signage on Claredon
Street seconds. The board approved the creation of what is likely to be nine new parallel parking spaces in front of 45 East Central Street. The new St. Pat's development, these spaces will not be metered, rather folks using them can pay through the passport app and then eventually a text to pay service. We have been in communication with Brian Casey and DPW, who hopes to get out and stripe these spots next week. Once he's done that, we will coordinate with the police department about getting signage up with the payment information.
Third, the board updated the town's overnight parking policy to allow overnight parking on all town owned roadways year round, except in the event of a weather emergency. I spoke with Brian Casey today and DPW is in the process of making sure all signage with outdated overnight parking information is taken down across town. Jay and I will then update the town website to ensure clear communication of the changed policy. And then the board also approved some rate and time changes for all municipal parking lots and meters some.
So after some internal conversations and feedback from the public, we've decided to put a pause on these changes to perform a bit more analysis. I think before changing any rates or times, we want to make sure that we have a solid understanding of the cost and revenues associated with parking in Natick Center. And we want to be able to use this information to establish a clear goal to guide any future recommended changes. And then finally, once all these changes have been made, we will incorporate them into an updated public facing parking map. So yeah, back to you Jay.
Speaker 21: Thank you sir. So chapter two, this is gonna be a self-critique of kind of some of the work we staff have done alongside elected officials, appointed officials. But when we look at these eight studies that are all parking related, there's a red asterisk alongside four of them that are solely parking focused. Others are adjacent 844 pages. We did not pull all the financials on the consultants against this, but be assured it's slightly more than a dollar for the amount of money that we paid for consultants to give us recommendations and outputs.
There's a scope that just gives you a sense of each of the reports. Just gathering these reports was actually a bit difficult because each consultant provides you seven different versions of the report. We had some staff that was still here, but we had gaps and when those staff members left, so finding these eight definitive reports was about probably 10 hours of just to meet with folks more than that, to meet with folks and figure out how to call down hundreds of documents into the eight that are at this point, what we're suggesting are the most representative
and informative that said, we put together a report card. I'm married to a teacher so I figured I'd take a, you know, stab at this. What we essentially did was we asked AI to look at these 844 pages and give us the six most compelling recommendations that we're consistent across the various reports. I'm not going to, you know, kind of go through and belabor this too much, but ultimately you can see the grades are not phenomenal. But the managing the parking demand before supply, we made some changes, but ultimately we do not have parking demand data. And we'll talk a little bit more as we go through some of these items.
The use of pricing permit and enforcement changes really to prioritize short term versus all day kind of commuter like that. This was a B minus, we did some decent work here. There were some zone and time limit changes, but that said, we'll, we'll get to the future projects. We'll start to play into this relocating private business employee permit parking largely of which is, you know, at the former parking garage, the Middlesex lot, there were some improvements but no significant changes. So we gave ourselves a less than a great grade ground floor activation.
That became a necessity in a lot of the reports in order to have the financial viability to replace the garage and rebuild. But it was not pursued. There was not funding firmly set aside. And you know, truthfully, in this particular scenario, I've talked, the planning board member was a coworker of my father-in-law for 20 years at that firm. And he's a Doug Landry, a planning board member. And Doug is, he's right in this area. And we had a great coffee and we were able to sit, but I think at the end of the day we were, you know, really looking to repeat what had previously been there without some
of the grounding data telling us we had a clear need for this. So that, that ultimately hasn't been pursued. But that's certainly something that's still out there. And I think when you talk to many residents, especially those long tenured that have been in this community, we need to rebuild the garage. And I'm very, I'm very sympathetic and open to the conversation. And I think once we have that data confirming that we're at a, you know, a supply and demand, you know, misbalance, we should look at that parking strategy around walking ability, street scape and placemaking. A lot of this lives in the Main Street project.
So even though that's in progress, we feel it's in a pretty good spot. A simple statement. Each study offers some degree of value at a fixed point in time. Time is changing. And ultimately present day applicability we're suggesting is modest. The outcomes that we've actually achieved related to a lot of these studies, many of the current initiatives that we reviewed on slide six are direct outcomes of that. The idea of the main street improvements project, you know, this has been a multi-year consideration that really kind of was a, you know, a outcome of those. And then the parking related initiatives
that we're gonna propose to you on a future slide are directly tied into this. The not so fun fact. The bottom, the most robust set of data we have during this period of time is a two day study that VHB did. It's time in the materials for the consultants I came to appreciate this. They have to send a young gentleman or you know, young fee lady out here to count some, you know, have a counter because they're not gonna pay a highly paid, you know, VP on staff. And so this is the norm. It's not a, it's not a knock on, you know, my incredible father-in-law. It's just the reality of what a lot of these individuals do.
And a lot of the studies build assumptions in and just say, we presume that this is your parking demand. We also had two of my favorite coworkers, Bonnie and Peter Peter are enforcement parking officers. They, I mean if you think of two people who have a good sense of Natick Center parking, please don't say any other two people other than the both of them. They did some counts for 14 days. They largely, and they've done some other counts where they're largely counting cars present. Not necessarily the math on what the supply is, but even that duration of time, weather, time of day,
all these factors, these really matter. Many of the anecdotes we hear is the expectation that I want the parking directly in front of the place I'm going, or I want the parking at Tuesday at three o'clock when I always have that appointment at that place. So maybe we have a Tuesday mid, mid-afternoon problem, but it's ultimately it's gonna be the data that tells us this. This was survey data tied into the Main Street project I just pulled out. This is a single question from a Flash Road survey that's linked in here. The question was largely the idea of is it easy to park in Naix Center? The over the largest answer was ultimately no,
it's not perceived to be easy. A weighted average in the middle of that red line is on a five point scale was 2.91. 43% of the people had the word hard, either very hard or somewhat hard. And I think in verses 26, so roughly two times you can see the open-ended themes in the top right. What I found somewhat interesting, and I was gonna fold this into the Main Street project, but that I think we had to focus on some other core issues. But we can look at the demographics and compare that 43% totaling the people who thought it was very hard and somewhat hard. And the more frequent you are as a visitor, which was,
I have all the definitions below in footnotes, it actually drops slightly. It goes down by four percentage points from 43 to 39. The shorter you lived here, the easier you perceive it to park. People can come up with their own theories as to what those are. I love to do focus groups, but again, you, you do have a parking garage, there's an expectation, you have high household income. These million dollar rebuilds that people are talking about, those folks might be coming from places that are harder to park in, in, you know, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville. So younger populations, maybe they're more able bodied,
but seniors it increases to 51. So that's where we have to be very intentional to make sure that they feel as though it's easy to park. So just a couple data points around the perceived area. So final chapter, this is the plan and what we're proposing are two priority projects, which ultimately want the board to discuss. And then a next up, number three you can read, I'm not gonna read the bullets, you can read 'em as I talk. But ultimately the parking utilization study would just be a crowdsource Google form. Imagine a scenario where you had an, an ability in one
to two minutes to be able to have a timestamp, what your role is, a resident, a business owner, parking enforcement officer, a municipal staff member. And you could literally upload a photo and just go to the Middlesex lot on your way to your daily commute. Take a picture and say the number of cars you saw. We can then parse that data by who we have some level of familiarity and confidence in. I would think Bonnie and Pete, their data and they've got a full-time job that they're getting paid to go around. And if I can give them a low barrier, and I sat with both of them multiple times
and we feel pretty confident that this would not slow down their operations. And chief and deputy chief have also been involved. But that, that Google form and getting scaled data, having seasonal consideration, allowing this development to get filled around Natick Center to see if that has an impact. There's no reason we would ever stop this to be totally frank. It would just be what's the uptick in ramp parking, signage, audit. There's been some work when we talk about, you know, signage, it's not limited to blue peas. It's how do I pay, it's where's the parking when I'm walking? Where's the parking when I'm driving? What are the clear delineations?
I watch people all day, you know, complain at the collector's office. And half the time I, I fear that, do we have the right signage that's telling that individual what they need to do? And Bonnie and Peter and we, we have some, you know, very frank conversations about how we really think we can do a better job. So we would do a, a complete audit and ultimately come back with public meetings is, you know, certainly the board, but also residents just to give us any feedback on where they thought the missing gaps were. The parking assignments, the one on the bottom. This could be permits, this could be time limits, this, but this is mainly around once we have the data
and we feel as though we have good signage out there, do we have the right mix of where we're shifting people to parking? The next slide I won't talk through it goes into greater detail. I did get some interesting feedback around the parking utilization study, certainly Mr. Rich Ames and who operates our GIS and drones. But even that requires Rich to bring a drone, prop it up, get, get over, you know, get over here and take a few shots. That's a lot more difficult than a Google form that takes you one to two minutes. And there's even conversations around, can you take, and I've done this now, I actually did about 30 straight days of photos and all the lots,
and I can shove that into AI and I can see the percent utilization once I train the model to see where the spots are. So there's, there's lots of different ways that we can do this closing discussion. This is a work stream, so just want you to know that we're not here after, you know, one meeting and a couple slides. We've been working, like I said, I started last fall. We had stakeholder meetings with, internally with administration, C-E-D-N-P-D-D-P-W, then ultimately the cultural district. We did a business member meet up the body language
of watching the business owners when we say, do we have a walking problem or parking problem, I won't speak for them, but it was universal and you know, it is just helpful to talk to those individuals and build the relationships. The EDC did a meeting a few months back and you know, took some feedback. But ultimately we're here today, we've got the five items that are in black or the current initiatives. The two in blue would be the new that we're proposing right away. And we would stop along the way and do continued aside from very select board meetings. We envision having, I didn't really speak to it much,
but a parking advocate training. 'cause again, that kind of, we would spend one to two hours to talk people through how to use the Google form and we'd be optimistic that that would give them, you know, a level of credibility and like rigor around the data so we can filter the data once we have advocates, first residents for business owners, and then come back and do a signage, kind of create a review of all the different signage we wanna roll out. So that's really the presentation. These are the items with the firm mask detailed. And I leave it back to the board. Oh, actually, if you don't mind, I just wanna flash the appendix just
so you guys can see the, some of the good materials you bury in here purposely. But these are all the items that are not included in the deck. When we had conversations with all the stakeholders as well as various residents, the, the notion of parking bleeds into many interrelated topics, but just have to be upfront. We're not addressing everything in this single deck. So here's the slide of what we're not addressing. There was a upfront on the title slide, the notion of a more vibrant community. Well that's soft, fluffy marketing language. Here's 10 tangible bullets on what we think a vibrant
Natick center actually it would become. And I think this ends up becoming powerful for some folks. And then the last item just wanted to pay respect for people's time and efforts. I mean I I I love celebrating outcomes more than effort, but there was a lot of effort that went in for all the folks that did this work. We pulled together the documents and that way we at least have a good view of the historical work that's been done. So, sorry, back to the board. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Poor Paddock, Mr. Cody. Speaker 12: Yes. Yeah, thank, well first of all, thank you very much.
I can definitely like say I'm, I'm definitely a hell yeah on number three. 'cause I think this is, this is very, this is very good. I I definitely am one of those elected officials that you called out as having anecdotal opinions about this. So I appreciate getting actual data to back it up to, you know, back it up or disprove it, you know, we'll see. So, but I, I, my question, so just to make sure I'm understanding on slide 10, kind of your not so fun fact and sort of that in conjunction with the studies that have already been done.
Is that to say that those studies are, I don't, I don't know if I'm using the word studies right, but those previous investigations, none of them actually have demand data. Speaker 21: Yes. Speaker 12: Okay. Well I'm, Speaker 21: They did not have the demand Speaker 12: Data. Okay. Well thank, thank you for telling me that. I'm glad we're gonna get that. This is a, is a good way to start getting it then. And then I, I think the other thing is can we, is there data that we can get via the, and sorry, you may have address, it's getting late. So you may have addressed this and I missed it, but is, is there data that we can get via
the paid parking data? Like the fact that you could see like, okay, like this many people paid for spaces at this time on this day and like use, use, utilize that data to check against the number of spaces. I know it wouldn't be as exact as what you're saying in terms of like what specific lots are they using? 'cause zones are bigger than the lots sometimes, but can we use that data? Speaker 21: Yes. So I didn't didn't actually speak to it, but it's on the slide. But essentially the passport app that allows you to do the meters and kiosks, that's software that we can download and see the usage. And we, we had a good discussion with Pete
and Bonnie about this, where it's ultimately, it's a, it's a view of paid time as opposed to cars present. Yeah, Speaker 12: That's true. Speaker 21: That's true. But absolutely we are gonna have the access to that data. So Morgan actually has a, an account associated with passport and can access all the data. So the short answer is yes, we will sort of, I would envision the Google form and the crowdsourcing becomes, we'll see what the data looks like. Imagine a scatter plot where you see it by day, by hour, by month, by location. And you can start to really actually see some really interesting data visualizations.
But then all of a sudden we say, well how is, is that consistent with the software for this given location? Yep. The software will also give us a little more granularity of data because if you wanna look at a particular strip of meters on the south side of the common, you know, on common Street, yeah. That we're not gonna go around and take pictures and do those counts, but because those are meter based and they're software we might defer to the paid time. Speaker 12: Okay. Okay. Great. And then my only other thing is Speaker 4: To that point though, oh sorry. There are lots, like the Middlesex a lot, those are not using the passport app.
'cause those, we have placards for like business owners, you can, you can buy a placard for beer. Yeah. So you kind of need to do an and approach here. It's not just like one or the other. You have to do the, and to really get the data. Totally. Speaker 12: Yeah. That, that, that makes total sense. Then then my, my only other thing is just more of a comment than, than a question, but just as far as suggestions of, of other things that I would want to see. I think one of the things about the the the demand, the, I think, I think one thing I would like to see is a flash vote that is dedicated to this topic. I think that would be really interesting. I mean, I know that the question illuminates some,
but like, there's a lot of follow-up questions that I think would be interesting to see. Like, you know, kind of getting into some of the granularity of the things that were raised in the, in the open-ended part of the question of like, oh, like why do you find it difficult? You know, pick three. And it's like, you know, I mean you're, you're the survey designer, you'd figure it out. But you know what I'm, I'm getting at, yeah, I think it would be helpful to see that and even, you know, you kind of mentioned like focus groups. Like it would be interesting to sit down with, you know, five people who said it's very hard to find parking and here, you know, what, what's their experience been? Because I think that would sort of go with what comes out
of this of like this, I think this side is very great on the data. I think it would just be okay, and then what's the perception and then going with that. So that, that would be my only suggestion. But I, this, this looks awesome, so thank you for putting this together. Speaker 21: Yes, yes. And yes, definitely on a flashlight dedicated, but yeah, there are shortcomings of what flash flow can achieve. It's five questions. So that focus group, that's, that's the great anecdote. So, and I think we still have got Heather, the cultural district executive director, but like getting access to the business owners and hearing from them, but ultimately the customers too, because that's the view. But yes and yes. Great. Thank
Speaker 12: You. Speaker 4: If I can just briefly note, I want to give a lot of credit to just the ability for us to even do this type of work now I don't wanna discount the past studies as Jay noted, maybe even with the previous one. AI is really a tool that is allowing us to even do this work now, which we did not have. And as somebody who worked on six of those eight studies, we did not have that tool at that time. So it's again, putting those VHB interns out of business as well, who used to go out there and, and, and do this. Like now we can snap photos and have AI analyze it for us.
This is, it's a really cool use of the, of a new tool that we didn't have arguably even like a couple years ago. Yeah. So just pointing that out, just that I don't want people to think that we, it's been a lack of want. Yeah. It's really, we have a new tool that's allowing us to do this now as opposed to like two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago. Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: Yeah. Thank you. Following up on Mr. Erickson's point, this this is a tremendous amount of work just pulling, I hesitate
to say the word stagnant, but if you talk to people around town, you know, they, they, they said, well, haven't we studied this for year after year after year? But now I, I see a lot more progress here and more definition of where we can head with this data and how, you know, the fact that we can get information on the utilization and have the tools, as Mr. Erickson suggested to analyze what's what's needed, you know,
are are things that have been anecdotally said bearing out in, in reality. So I just wanted to pass on kudos to Jay for all of it, all of the work in, in, in pulling this together. This is a ton of work and it's, you know, it, it's all condensed in a slide deck, but I recognize that there's a boatload that's an obvious substitution of work. Carload, carload, carload, carload. There we go. That, that would be more appropriate Carload of work,
full car load o of work to get to this point. And I, I sincerely appreciate all the work that Jay and Morgan put in on this one. So thank you. Speaker 14: Thank you so much Jay. It's yeah, echoing my colleagues the amount of work that went into this, even with ai, I know it's still, still a lot. So I have a couple of really disparate thoughts and maybe it's because it's almost 10 o'clock, but I found that the insight about the younger population dropping down to 28% hard was really interesting.
And you know, I, I wonder if just people have different expectations of coming to Natick Center. I mean I know like if you go to Wellesley, you expect to have to drive around the block a bunch of times to find a parking spot somehow. That's not acceptable in Natick. And I don't know why that is and maybe Heather can help out 'cause she's here. But, you know, somehow I think people expect to be able, like you said, maybe park right in front. I don't know, I don't know how we get to that data. You know, Mr. Jacobs has suggested maybe a follow on of the flesh vote, but I think that would be worth exploring and you know, what we might be able to do to find that out.
And my other thought is, when you were talking about collecting this data, is vibe coding an app for people to be able to, you know, take pictures on their phone? So maybe we could talk about that. Yeah, it's there now Speaker 13: Madam Chair, I just have one question. First of all, thank you again Jay for all of this hard work. My one question, and it kind of piggybacks off of Ms. Ger is does for those who find it hard to park, does that deter them? Is it a deterrent? Because hard is not necessarily a deterrent for people.
So that would be my question. Speaker 21: Yeah, I think it is a great question. I have no response, but yeah, I, I think the mixture of a flash vote as to that, you know, sort of a conditional question to like branch out people's difficulty I think is kind of interesting. But ultimately, yeah, it's gonna be that focus group and having those conversations. But it is, yeah, sometimes when people hear hard, the interpretation of, yeah, no, it's, it's hard and therefore I do it, but it's not that hard. And but, but if you're gonna ask me if it's hard, yeah, it's hard. So there, there's a lot of nuance in kind of, you know,
how you actually say that word and the inflection point of your voice. But Speaker 4: Yeah, we also, we also to that point, don't know what is hard. Can they just not, they, they just not know how to parallel park. So therefore it's hard. There's plenty of spaces they just don't know how to do it. Like, Speaker 1: Right. We don't know what hard means. Speaker 21: Yeah. Most, most cer, most flash roads in Flash Road, I don't wanna oversell it. It's five questions. The first one's a screener and the last one's tell me anything else. And so that you could really have three questions. And so we were largely in the main street addressing bike lanes so we could give a sense of aggregated data around preferences.
But, but I do think a future flashlight survey can get a little bit of that, what's the definition and what's behind it. But I would vote a little even more so on the focus groups and taking the, i I think using, you know, as much times that staff can afford to do, to get out there and meet with people and potentially having even a wider agenda than just focusing on parking natick center, but just using it as an opportunity to get 5, 10, 15 people in a room and, and you can get some really interesting anecdotes. We did that at large Fortune 100 companies. We were still using focus groups of 10 to serve
of 40 million customers at Staples. So I think getting 10 people and 37,000 is actually really interesting when you get a nuanced conversation. Speaker 1: So we have two asks before us. One is questions which we've all asked in the second is, do we approve the approach And I'll accept a motion Mr. Jacobs, Speaker 12: I move that we approve these parking initiatives. Speaker 1: Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? So 5 0 0. I have some questions. I'm just gonna shoot you an email. Sounds great. Thank you.
Thank you so much and thanks for staying so late. And thanks Morgan. Thanks Morgan. Yes, thanks Morgan. Morgan. Excellent. Morgan. Yeah, ex very excellent work. Next item is the vote on submitting home rule petitions pursuant to the 2026 spring annual town meeting. One is Article 12 authorizing the town of native to continue the employment of the police chief beyond the age of 65. And the other is Article 13, which is to continue the employment of Deputy Police Chief Brian Lason. And I think we just need votes on this. Speaker 4: Okay? Correct. Yeah, the letter are already, we just need your vote so we can submit the letter to Speaker 1: Office.
Ms OI move that we vote to submit the home rule petitions pursuant to 2026 annual manual town meeting for Article 12 and Article 13. Speaker 4: Do I need to do it? Second, Speaker 1: Second. Move by Ms. Ger, seconded by Mr. Jacobs. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0 review of remote meeting policy. So there should be really quick, there's some exceptions that we need to write into the policy and I think we just need to agree on those exceptions and ask staff to update the policy and bring it back to us.
Yes. On the consent agenda. Next meeting. Next meeting, Speaker 4: Correct? Correct. Yeah, the big one that we got feedback on was really exempting subcommittees of a primary committee. Yep. And I actually had Billy draft and I forgot I, I unfortunately wasn't able to get it to you before the meeting, but Billy actually drafted a proposed just one sentence to add to that section that just says something along the lines of, it's just an added exemption. There's an exemption section that talks about executive session and a couple others. Site visits. Speaker 1: Bottom bullet. Speaker 4: Yep. Yep. Site bullet. And the bottom bullet will just say something like, and subcommittees that are, that are of,
of subcommittees of the primary committee. So for example, if this board created a a two person subcommittee, technically that subcommittee is subject to a meeting loss, right? You still need to post your meetings but you then would not be subject to the remote Speaker 1: Meeting. Remote Speaker 4: Meeting policy. Okay. This feedback came to us primarily from the Council on Aging. They have a number of subcommittees. Yep. But then some other boards and committees that also use subcommittees. This isn't, we didn't hear feedback from the planning board 'cause they're technically not subject to this. But I do know the planning board, for example, uses subcommittees to review projects. Right? And it's usually two members of the committee
that then work with the developer just on outside their public meetings. But it's in between meetings or in advance of a, of a public hearing to then bring that feedback back to the, to the group. So that would be another example. Although again, planning board's not subject to this, but there might be another committee that has a similar type sub set of subcommittees. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: I haven't heard, I haven't heard personally other feedback. So if there's other feedback from the board about adjustments that was the big one that, that we and the town administration's office heard. Speaker 1: Could you have, could you being the town administrator, send it out, the five of us if we have any questions,
send 'em back to Jamie and then we'll put this on the consent agenda for it. Yep. Awesome. Vote to set the maximum useful life for departmental equipment and capital improvements, Mr. Erickson. Speaker 4: Certainly. So this is one that, that needs to be read into the record by the clerk and then you need to vote on it. This is anticipation of a borrowing they're gonna be doing. So you've done this Yep. Many times through the years. This is actually shorter list than Speaker 13: Yes. I'll go ahead. And Speaker 4: The last one was like two pages where you just kept reading, but sorry, Speaker 13: It's great. Long. And for those who are watching on home, I'm wearing my coat because I'm cold.
Okay. The vote of the select board As to useful life, I, the clerk of the select board of the town of Natick, Massachusetts certify that at the meeting of the board held May 13th, 2026 of which meeting, all members of the board were duly notified and at which a quorum was present. The following vote was unanimously passed, all of which appears upon the official record of the board in my custody voted that the maximum useful life of the departmental equipment authorized by the vote
of town meeting as further described below is hereby determine pursuant to GLC 44 71 as two B as follows, town meeting approval 2023 SATM 15 dash a four. The purpose for an engine replacement, the borrowing amount, $1 million maximum useful life, Speaker 1: 15 20 24 Speaker 13: Spring annual town meeting, 12 dash a six landfill capital maintenance, $150,000 maximum useful life
for 20 years, 2025 spring annual town meeting 11 dash a one ambulance replacement, $550,000 for 7 20 25 fall annual town meeting, nine dash a one fire engine, 1,300,000 for 15 and 2025 fall annual town meeting, nine dash a two multi wheel sander, 475,000 for five years. I further certify that the vote was taken at a meeting open to the public that the vote was not taken by secret ballot.
That a notice stating the place, date, time, and agenda of the meeting, which agenda included the adoption of the above vote was filed with the town clerk and a copy thereof posted in a manner conspicuously visible to the public at all hours in or on the municipal building that the office of the town clerk is located, or if applicable, in accordance with the alternative method of notice prescribed or approved by the Attorney General as set forth in nine 40 CMR 29.03, two B at least 48 hours,
not including Saturday Sundays or legal holidays prior to the time of the meeting. And remain so posted at the time of the meeting that no deliberation or decision in connection with the subject matter of this vote were taken in executive session. All in accordance with GLC 30 a 18 dash 25 as amended. Speaker 14: I have a question. Yes. Nowhere in here does it say that the maximum life is in years. So I'm wondering if we could put that in Parentes. You did. You did. You did say it. State it when you read it into the record.
I mean, I I know it's assumed it's years, but it, it, you know Yeah, there's nowhere is Yeah, Speaker 3: That is intention parenthetical. Yeah. Just yeah. With the friendly amendment Maximum useful life in years. Speaker 14: Yeah. Parentheses, yr or something like that. But it doesn't say years, anywhere could be months. Speaker 3: I'll confirm that with Ari. Speaker 13: It's years. Yeah. Speaker 3: In years intention subject to just final review. But Speaker 14: Ari, but okay. That, that would be good. I mean maybe, maybe you don't need to because of, you know, the general laws. Maybe it, it says years somewhere in, in these, I didn't look at the references, but Speaker 3: It's not like it's days or months or Yeah,
Speaker 14: It could be months, hours, Speaker 3: But we're not allowed to borrow for things that Yeah. You know. I Speaker 14: Know, I know. It, it, it's probably understood, but just, I just wanted to make sure just so Speaker 3: I clear, Speaker 13: Just as long as I don't have to read it again. Speaker 14: You already regretted this. You read into Speaker 1: The record so we have a motion. Speaker 14: Second. Speaker 1: A second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed 5 0 0. Madam Clerk, can you do the consent agenda and Oh yes. Could you hand step out? Sure. Speaker 13: Thanks. I do have one correspondence at the end. How do Speaker 3: I have you sign this right now and then I'll ask about it.
And if we need to change it, we'll change it. Okay. Wait before you, you don't need to come in. Speaker 13: Okay. Speaker 3: Although you might need to come in there. Speaker 13: Okay. Okay. The consent agenda reads, approve meeting minutes A, I'm sorry, a approve meeting minutes for April 29th. 2026 B appoint retired Lieutenant Allen w Graham, Jr. As a special police officer. Item C, approve Natick Police Department's request to accept a donation $750 from Middlesex Savings Bank to be used for the national night out event.
Item D, approve Coors LLCs application for a one day alcohol license June 3rd, 2026 for a corporate outing. June 11th, 2026 for a corporate event. Item E approved the planted collectives applications for a one day alcohol license on June 3rd, 2026 at the sip, the sip and Shop June 11th, 2026. The vase painting class. June 24th, 2026, plant bingo. Item F approve request to occupy a public way prior road block party Friday,
May 22nd, six to 8:00 PM Saturday May 23rd, noon to eight. Sunday May 24th, noon to eight, and Monday May 25th, noon to eight. Item G approve hot doggies inks application for a new 2026 common vehicular license. Item H appoint Kristen l Pope to the Affordable Housing Trust as the select board representative for a term ending on June 30th, 2028.
Item I appoint Linda Slager to the Economic Development Committee as the select board representative for a term ending June 30th, 2027. Item J approved Natick Community Organic Farms rain date of May 10th, 2026 for the previously approved one day alcohol license application item K approved letter of support for the Natick Historical Society. Item L approve request from level 99 for extension of hours on June 5th, 2026 for their 2026 common particular's license.
Oyster River Alumni Association. Does anyone wanna pull anything off the consent agenda? Speaker 1: No, Speaker 13: I move to approve the consent agenda. Speaker 1: Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 5 0 0 town administrator updates? Speaker 4: Sure. Just, just one brief one. Aria was actually watching from home and he says that MGL states that all useful life terms for capital purchases are in years. Oh, very awesome. Good. So that's a very, very recent update. Speaker 1: Thank you Speaker 4: Ari. Yeah, thank you Ari, for watching and for providing that update. Given the late hour. I'm, I'm gonna not provide updates tonight
and I'll, I'll make sure I provide any updates to the board either via email and or Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Select board updates. Seeing none, Speaker 25: It's like, if you dare Speaker 1: Correspondence, we do have correspondence. I don't think we need to do anything with that. Nope. Nope. The Speaker 4: Intent is just for the public knowledge. Yep. Speaker 13: I do, I did just wanna mention this one thing because this is very kind, it's a nice way to end this meeting. We got correspondence from Charlotte Schwartz who received that pro proclamation and it's, it's just a very, I mean, her handwriting is spectacular at her season. And she says, dear Natick, I'm so grateful
for the acknowledgement of this special occasion in my life. Natick has been very important to me in so, so many ways. I have enjoyed volunteering for the town that I adore. I appreciate all of the many friendships that I have made throughout the years. Thank you again for this special honor, Charlotte Swartz, Speaker 1: That was on the occasion of her hundredth birthday. Awesome. That was lovely. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Kristen. Mr. Mr. Speaker 5: Evan. I just tell you, I had been triple booked that day, so I wanted to thank publicly Kristen for doing the little league parade. I also had a Babe Ruth baseball game.
So between innings, luckily Ms. Schwartz is located near Wilson Field, so I was able to get in my car, drive over, give the proclamation, talk to her for about 15, 20 minutes, talked to her. She had four generations of her family there. And it, and it was really well received by not only Ms. Ms. Schwartz, but her entire family. And, and I told them, and something like Ms. Schwartz when I first ran for select board took me
around the senior center and there, there was some event there and there were about 10 tables and she brought me to each table and I didn't have to do anything. All she did was say, this is Bruce, vote for him. Speaker 1: Very nice. Speaker 5: And I said, wow, this is good. And I've known Charlotte for years from Tecan, so lovely lady. And I wanted it on record. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I Speaker 13: Move to adjourn. Speaker 1: Oh, second. Moved by Ms. Pope. Seconded by Ms. Wwa. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We adjourn this meeting at 10:06 PM.