Speaker 1: It is 6:05 PM starting a little late. This is the meeting of the Natick Select Board, the December 3rd meeting. Precisely for those in the room, could we please all rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence. Pledge Speaker 2: Pledge of all allegiance to the flag on the United States of America into the Republic, which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible. Liberty. Liberty, and justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you everyone. First up, we have announcements. Does anybody have announcements?
I know I have a few confidence. Speaker 3: At the last select board meeting, I misspoke and I wanted to correct the record. The school committee or native public schools did not commit to holding their expenses at 4% as was forecast. Forecasts are not budgets. So during the override we used a 4%. The town used a 4% increase in expenses and the school department did, but they've updated that to 5.4%. So I just wanted to clarify that there was no commitment from the school committee to continue with the forecast of 4%. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Speaker 1: You're welcome. Anyone else?
I've got a few. First of all, I, I neglected to mention that this meeting is available on Zoom and is being broadcast on Natick Pegasus and recording for future viewing on Pegasus. So thank you to them. I have a few announcements. Select board member Kristen Pope needed to miss tonight's meeting. And the reason is, over the summer she lost a family member and tonight that family member is being honored with an award in their name. So that is why she cannot be here tonight. The next item is the 12th interfaith
community vigil. And I have the wrong version of this document, so bear with me one second and I'll get the correct one. The holiday season can be a difficult time of year for local families who've been impacted by addiction. On Sunday, December 14th, Natick and Metro West community members are invited to attend the 12th interfaith community vigil to re remember loved ones we've lost to overdose and those who still struggle with sub substance use.
The event will take place 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM at the First Congregational Church of Natick. Attendees are invited to bring a photo of their loved one to place on the table of remembrance. Photos will be returned at the end of the event, excuse me. Immediately following the event, Narcan training for Overdose and Reversal will be available. And anyone interested in learning more about how to get involved in with the Journey Living with Loss Bereavement Group will have the opportunity
to meet group members. It will also be the first night of Hanukkah. So community members attending the 4:30 PM celebration on the common are invited to cross the street to join the interfaith vigil afterwards. Next up is update on the police department. Fill the cruiser event at Roche Brothers. It yielded 1500 pounds of food for food pantries. So thank you very much to the police department and all who generously contributed in similar fashion.
The fire department is doing a Toys for Tots fill a truck event on Saturday, December 13th at Sherwood Plaza, which is 3D Road from 12 to 4:00 PM They're trying to fill the Toys for Tots trailer. They'll be firefighters, Marines, and the new ladder truck on site. Lastly, probably the worst kept secret in Natick. Congratulations to the men's and Women's High School soccer team on their respective state championship wins. Has anybody thought of any other announcements?
Okay, Ms. Ger? No, Speaker 5: We have the ones on the Speaker 1: Yes we do. Mr. Erickson, do you wanna go through this? Speaker 6: I can do them briefly. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. So the two that are on the agenda, the 2026 Town of Natick political calendar is out. We just wanna make sure that that was publicly known. It is also posted on the town's website, but it's, it's available through the, the agenda. So it just outlines the next year's worth of the political calendar, which is, you know, when the, when elections are happening, when you get things into the clerk's office for getting something on the ballot and all those other timeframes that happen over the course
of a year for the various political things in town. And then the second one is just a reminder for everybody watching that there's a New Year's Eve event on the Constitu Rail Trail. I believe it's the fifth annual, fourth annual rail trail event whereby there's a series of fire pits and they happen in the early-ish evening 'cause it's so dark, so early at that time of year. A lot of fun, a lot of great crowds come out for that. And I encourage everybody who is in Natick and looking for something to do to come out and walk the rail trail and enjoy the company that's happening on New Year's Eve night.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Okay, next up is public speaking. Any individual may raise an issue, an issue that's not on tonight's agenda, and it'll be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting. Due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section is limited to 10 minutes and any one individual addressing the board is limited to three minutes. Is there anyone in the room who'd like to speak to something not on the agenda? We'll go ladies first. Ms. McKenzie, Speaker 7: I am Donna McKenzie precinct a.
I just have a quick announcement and this is something that just sounds fun. So I wanted to bring it to your attention that on Thursday, December 11th, there are Carols by candlelight, a benefit in concert for the NA History Museum. And at six o'clock, the History Museum is open. So you can go and enjoy it. And at seven o'clock there's a singer, a musician, and there will be songs that you will have the opportunity to learn the history for. And there is a winter raffle and they have the best raffles.
Honestly, you don't wanna miss the raffle. And there is a silent auction of a rare hard hardwood baseball in 1889 frap framed, I'm sorry, framed map of Natick. This just looks fun. So I just wanted to call your attention to it. It's on the 11th down at the Bacon Library, the History Museums downstairs. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Ms. McKenzie. Mr. Joseph? Speaker 8: Thank you Mr. Chair. Good evening. Members of the board, Paul Joseph, 10 Carlson Circle. Earlier this evening, I sent an email to the board,
but for the sake of public speak and record, I'd love to read an excerpt from it with a request to the board. And I'm doing this in my personal capacity as a private citizen with no personal interest in the income. But I, I raised the issue and I had reached out to former chair Coughlin at a time when it was just coming up to town meeting and it wasn't appropriate, I think, to bring this forward. But wanted to explore the board's consideration of adding a ceremonial street name plaque to honor the life resilience and legacy of our community. Building member, community member named Susan Lane. Susan passed, if you remember, on March 12th,
and I'm pretty sure most if not all of you knew, knew or know of her since her passing in March, there was a groundswell of interest among the Natick Talks respectfully Facebook group, which she initiated and managed to officially name a street after her. From my prior experience on the board, though I know this is a heavy lift in a very rare exception that's made, but nobody was looking necessarily to do it officially in that a ceremonial renaming would be something that probably would suffice in terms of the honor that we would seek. And as we're entering the season of Hope and light, I see an opportunity to pay tribute to a woman
who was in Natick, a single mom, a Natick Center entrepreneur, a mentor and educated educator when she owned Flowers by the Depot survivor of terrible medical issues, an advocate for amputee support, mobility, and community healing. Through her fostering of the Natick Talks respectfully Facebook page. Hers is a wonderful legacy to honor, including her home ownership story, which conveys the values and hopes of many people in Natick to become local Omo homeowners in her son's. Jay's, Jay's words on Facebook. We came to Natick in 1996 via public housing.
At the time, 75% of the houses on our street were Section eight housing. We dealt with being very poor in a rich town for many years. 11 years into living in our home, my mother was given the opportunity to buy the real estate trust that owned the property to purchase the house well below market price with mortgage help. She took us from poverty to home ownership by herself, true American dream stuff, an orphan single mother becoming a property owner. So I think the time has come now, the time town meeting has passed and I, as I recall from, I was giving guidance from Ms. Kauflin to check about a policy or a formal request form,
but I did reach out to Ms. Donovan and there's no formal form for this particular ceremonial request. So I'm asking that the board might schedule at a future meeting consideration of this request to rename Cross Street Ceremonially as Susan M. Lane. I would appreciate your consideration at a future date. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Mr. Joseph? Anyone else? Anyone online? I don't, did not see any. Alright, let's move on to discussion and decision. I apologize if my voice cracks. I have, I have reached puberty, but you never know it
anyway. So let's do the, the, the first item and town meeting debrief. I'd like to go through the downtown signage in the street acceptance parts first because I think the Parks field study will have more detail. So Mr. Erickson, could you give us an update on the, let's start with street acceptance. Speaker 6: Sure. So for street acceptance tonight, you have two actions of the board. And these are for two IDA articles that were on town meeting
regarding basically public acceptance of streets. One of them, Jennifer Circle, has been sort of a long time coming. We worked on this through the board's policy around basically taking Unaccepted streets and making them accepted. And it's also through a, a special state legislation that the town had sought about 10 plus years ago to allow for these accelerated acceptances. And, and in brief, Jennifer Circle, what you need to do is, is vote and sign the order for the street acceptance for Jennifer Circle and then on Grace, I'll get to that in a sec.
But that just includes an order and is in essence with Jennifer Circle because it was a subdivision from the nineties that had a set of plans that, that are on file to registry deeds. They met the standards of the town just for whatever reason, we don't know for whatever reason it was never accepted by the town. We're basically closing that loop through what's, what's an accelerated process. And essentially town meeting took action. Now the board needs to take action to finalize this and then we'll file these plans that you're gonna sign tonight and vote on tonight with the Registry of Deeds. Graystone Lane is somewhat similar in the sense
that town meeting took action. The board now needs to finalize the step of acceptance. In the case of Graystone Lane, though, this is not an old subdivision, it's a brand new one. It was completed by the developer per the plans and per our standards, it's been reviewed by our engineering division. Both of these have actually been reviewed by our engineering division. We have all the easements and rights and everything on these plans as well as in place. So essentially this is the final step in the process, which is a state outline process whereby town meeting voted to authorize a select word to accept Graystone Lane.
And you have to, in this case, because there's no plans yet at the registry deeds, you both sign and accept the plans as well as the order. So that is the street acceptance process for both of these. Speaker 9: You have to vote on something, Speaker 6: Get the vote. Yep. It's, it's on the, the agenda. Vote and sign the orders of street acceptance for Graystone Lane and Jennifer Circle, and then your vote. And signing the plan of acceptance for Graystone Lane and the municipal easements Speaker 9: Move to accept to do the right stuff for Jennifer. Jennifer Circle.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do we do? Speaker 9: So we move to vote and sign orders. Speaker 1: Vote to sign orders. Speaker 9: Acceptance for Jennifer Circle. Yeah, so we vote to sign the acceptance and then we sign it, right? But yeah. Okay. So vote to, Speaker 1: Okay. Do I have a second? Speaker 9: Second. Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Walsh. All in favor? Not favor. Favor say aye. Aye is 4 0 0, Mr. Sidney and Speaker 9: Vote to accept the plans for Graystone Lane and the municipal easements. Speaker 1: Why don't we do this street acceptance also?
Speaker 9: Oh yes. Okay. Speaker 1: So let's do, Speaker 9: Should that be, that should probably be a separate vote. Yeah. So we vote separate than the, yeah, well I moved Jennifer's Circle vote to accept j Graystone Lane. Speaker 1: Okay, a second. Second. All in favor? Favor, please say aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Aye. Vote the vote. The plan of acceptance and municipal easement Easements for Greystone. Lane. Second. Speaker 1: And all in favor of say aye. Aye. Aye. All. Do we want to take an intermission
and do a signing thing and then come Speaker 9: Back? Sign, Speaker 6: Sign. You can do it at the end if you'd like. It's up to Speaker 1: You. I'll do it at the end. End, Speaker 6: Yep. There's a couple different sheets here, so it'll take you a little bit, but, and we have the plans here to sign. Speaker 1: Okay, excellent. Let's move now on to the parks field study and artificial turf fields. Speaker 6: Can I do a brief update on the downtown signage? Just very brief. Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. I I just bypass that completely. Sorry. Speaker 6: Just to get out of the way. And I was hoping to have more of an update, but we've had to, with the holidays, we have a staff level meeting to go through this as well
and I was hoping to have more updates, but that meeting had to get moved out, so it's actually gonna happen in a couple weeks. So I'll have more probably in January. But just a reminder for the board town meeting adopted new zoning for downtown signage in the Natick Center business district. Among, among, and the reason why it's important to be mindful of it tonight is that the board this past, I wanna say summer voted to allow for limited A-frame signs on, on sidewalks for downtown businesses for signage while this was being worked on. And that is due to expire at the end of the,
the calendar year. Now, in all likelihood, the winter months is when we would not have a-frame signs on the streets that much anyway because of wind winter conditions. But in January, once we at the staff level debrief on the next steps, there might be a request for the board to continue with what you've already approved while we then wait for the zoning to get in place and, and the zoning has been submitted to the attorney general's office, they'll come back to us probably in the next 30 to 60 days with their final sign off and then we can work to implement. But there is a component of the zoning, which is unique
to the board, whereby the board actually provides a level of approval for a component of the signage. And I just wanted the board to be aware of that because it's, it's new usually with zoning, the planning board of the zoning board of appeals are the special permit granting authority or just the review authority. If it's a site plan review, for example, it can be the select board. It's just in Natick that it has typically not been. And so this is new for the board and I just wanted the board to be aware of it as we're going into the new year because you might start seeing some requests coming through from that zoning. Or what we're gonna talk about at the staff level is do we do, we do like a more blanket wide request on behalf
of like the business district so that it doesn't bog down your time. It's also transparent with the business owners and the center as well as the public. So Speaker 1: Thank you. Any questions? Speaker 5: Is it something we should consider potentially at our next meeting, extending what we have in place right now? Because it does expire at the end of the year. And just so that we don't have to have a last minute meeting if, you know, depending on when we expect the ags office to come through, I mean maybe it would make sense to, you know, extend it let's say till the end of January or some other time. Unless Yep, unless the we get approval
Speaker 6: That, that, that's a valid point. We'll, we'll look, it's obvious that this is more about the zoning and so we'll have to have a separate agenda item at the 17th. Right. But we can certainly work to do that. Speaker 5: Yeah. Just yeah. In case somebody wants to have a, you know, a New Year's sale or something like that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: Excellent suggestion Mr. Sidney. Speaker 9: Yeah, and this is not on the signage. This is another town meeting item probably for another agenda. But now that we've repealed the information systems advisory board, our plan was
to combine the two committees. Do we need to vote to do that officially? Shouldn't be a big lift, but if we're gonna combine them officially, we should probably vote that and then update the website Speaker 6: So that can also, bylaw changes are also pending with the ags office. So we could always time it when it comes back from the Ag G's office. Speaker 9: Well it's a repeal, so Speaker 6: Understood. But they still, they still need to approve the bylaw change. Speaker 9: Okay. Speaker 6: So we still go through the same process. Speaker 9: Yeah. So, okay. I just wanted to make sure we remember to put that on the agenda.
'cause Speaker 1: That's a future agenda. Speaker 9: Yeah, I got it down there. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 5: From January. Speaker 9: Yeah, let's not forget that. And also, I mean there's a couple other things. I'll talk to you offline. Speaker 1: Okay. Onto parks and field or parks, field study, artificial turfs, turf field, Erickson. What I'd like to do is sort of summarize the discussions that you and I have had along with the school committee
and others just for some of some of the background and sort of set the stage for where we are today. And please feel free to correct any misconceptions or misstatements that I have. Sure. I will not take offense, I can assure you. So for background, in spring 2024 town meeting approved funding to study and design improvements for JV field, while a proposed moratorium was referred to the select board, school committee and Board of Health, no action was taken due to the focus on
the March, 2025 override town meeting then passed pass an override, an advisory three year moratorium on new turf fields at fall town meeting. Amid concerns about field overcrowding, field availability and conditions, there is strong demand and heavy wear on existing fields making turf versus grass only one part of a larger conversation. There's a need for a comprehensive field use study including
turf versus natural grass. However, there's an immediate need and a longer term need. The immediate priority is JV field design and construction. This field is an immediate need due to, to alleviate overcrowding of high school teams. That's causing a ripple effect on youth sports outside the high school level. The design for this field was approved by town meeting, but paused during the last year. A preliminary design has been received by Natick Public Schools, although I have not seen it.
In addition, coal North Turf Field is slated for replacement in FY 27. It was installed in 2015 and was partially funded by youth sports groups. A key planning meeting with the superintendent, school committee chair, town administrator and me is set for December 18th to clarify usage needs, benefits to youth sports and ripple effects on Kennedy and Cole Northfield. So the key challenges ahead are funding project design and management field scheduling and administration.
What are the roles of Natick public schools, athletics, Natick rec and parks, the school committee and youth sports? Longer term we need to do an updated field and mast and park master plan. The 2016 park and field master plan remains largely valid and many of its recommendations have been implemented through ongoing large and small investments with more project projects queued up. However, the town has, I think
with the figure that comes to mind is we have $20 million of requested capital investment just for this year. So we really have to prioritize not only how we spend the money, but on what we spend it and what resources we have, we being town administration to project manage these items. So I will turn it over to Jamie to correct anything that I've misstated, which is probable. Speaker 6: Well, thank you Bruce. That, I mean that, that's largely consistent with
what we've been talking about. The one thing I would maybe adjust in that is the defined, I, I don't think it's truly known at this point if the JV field will have ripple effects across other fields in town. That analysis has not been completed yet. I know that there are needs for the high school, which are I believe are very valid for an additional field for high school sports. Whether that shift of high school sports from other town fields to a a JV field, the high school actually benefit youth sports is, is not known yet.
We haven't done that analysis, you know, it is just not known. While there might be some overlap between high school sports and youth sports, in our anecdotal knowledge, and I did talk through with this, with Parks and rec director and the community services director, Angela, they don't coincide exactly. So after school, for example, after school sports is not when youth sports need needs the fields. Youth sports are reliant upon volunteer parents who typically can't start practices until five o'clock or later as one myself, I we never coincide
or conflict with high school sports who might be using those same fields. So while there might be a very valid demand for the JV field, for high school sports, it's unknown at this time. If it's truly gonna benefit the rest of youth sports in town. That is a component that I think needs to be clarified and better understood. So I wouldn't sort of state that as sort of a known conclusion. Conclusion at this time. The other thing for the board's consideration or just for the board's knowledge and, and it's been something that's a concern of, of mine especially, is where really any project fits in the prioritization
of all town projects. So for example, on the, on the sort of non-school side of, of projects for capital, as you know, we're, we're advancing South Natick parks and other things with five Auburn. And we just got a state earmark for some design work at Murphy Field and roadway improvements. And there's just a lot that are at coal North, as you noted, there's a lot of priorities there. So as we continue the conversation around a particular project, we just need to, I think also look at how that fits into the prioritization
of all town projects because we only have limited staff capacity to get these things done and we need to make sure that we're mindful of those other projects. So one project might be a top priority for the town or a department. It might not be the top priority for another town or department. So just this putting back to the JV field, that might be a top priority for the school department. And, and that's great. It might not fit when you look at it from the totality of non-school projects. It might be, might not be a top project priority, it might be, but we haven't done that analysis yet.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. That's very helpful. One of the things that, that we did say at town meeting we, or I said a town meeting is that we need to look at things as, as a whole and, and not as discreet pieces. The turf issue, certainly there's, there's a lot of analysis that has to take place on that, but I think we're not at that stage yet to have the discussion of turf versus
natural grass. We, we have to discuss the more fundamental issues that Mr. Erickson just identified. Can we do this? When can we do this? And we, our our goal is to, whether it's a formal committee or not, ha get inputs from all interested parties, get in from people concerned about turf versus grass people, youth sports groups or high school athletic directors and and,
and so on and so forth. Conservation commission, some of the committees that we have to get involvement on that. So I think as I think after we get to that past that December 18th meeting, we should have a clearer idea of, of what we need to do near term. I think we're not going to solve the field study issue beyond JV field at any time in the near term. And, and that's not to say there's not an interest in doing that.
We already heard at town meeting that we have a, a severe deficit in field availability, but we, we need to solve the short term issue before we even try to tackle the longer term issue. So that's where we're at today. So are there any questions Speaker 6: If, if I can add just a couple more things in the field? The 2016 field parks and master plan did show even at that time that we were severely under fielded for lack of lack of a better term. And since that time, it's only in our estimation gotten worse because some of the fields that were part of,
for example, the Kennedy Middle School site have gone away with the, with the updated Kennedy Middle School. Now there's a new turf field there, but it, it's not, those aren't the same types of fields. I believe there's a ball field and, and a different type of field there. And now it's a multipurpose field for soccer and field hockey and lacrosse. So it's accommodating different sports. And you know, again, the demands for fields are, are varying because you have a lot of competing new sports along with school sports. They, they don't always overlap in timeframes. Meaning the demand peak times don't always overlap,
but it doesn't mean that there aren't field needs that that need to be accommodated. And we definitely know that there's a limit on that. Another just quick component is the design funding that was appropriate, as you noted, I believe two town, two town meetings ago is, has been under the sort of, it was requested by, and it's still, it's still sort of managed by the school committee and school department, which is totally understandable and makes sense for the JV field broadening that. We'll just have to figure out how that works and,
and, and where that goes. That that's not for tonight. That's just another component of this. 'cause right now it's, it's a sort of identified as a school committee sort of sponsor project and to shift that. This is where those, some of those other questions come into play. Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah. Any other questions? Any questions from the public or comments? Mr. McKenzie? Speaker 7: I just want you to urge you not to put off consideration of doing a pilot on a natural grass field on the JV field. It could be significantly cheaper
and you could go for CPA funds to fund it in the school budget. There's presently 2.5 million proposed for that to field. And I don't know where you're gonna get it is the planned to fundraise is the plan to do a debt exclusion. But we could really do an amazing pilot and apply for CPA funds and it doesn't have to be a long belabor begar belabored process. And if it didn't work, the worst case scenario is we come back in a better time financially and you can do a, a better turf field.
There may be a better turf field. There are now hybrid turf, artificial turf fields available and sometimes like Wells Wellesley never allowed a crumb rubber infill. So we can just do this better and we are prepared since we came up with this advisory to help in any way that you might find useful. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Ganzi. Speaker 6: May I ask, has that suggestion been made to the school committee as well? 'cause the select board doesn't control that site. So the school committee in theory could advance
that concept on their own. Have you, have you brought that to their attention? Speaker 1: It's a worthwhile, have you have you Ms. Ken? Speaker 10: Yes, it was suggested and I thought they were gonna look into it. Okay. But a little nudge from you all wouldn't hurt either. Speaker 1: Well, we also have that meet, upcoming meet meeting. Yeah. Bring it so we can bring it to their attention at that point. Yeah, Speaker 6: I, I appreciate that. I'm Speaker 10: Not an expert on the financial aspects of this, but it would be amazing. It would be significantly less than 2.5 million to do a natural grass field.
And there's a lot of permitting that has to happen with a natural grass field, with a turf field on that site that will also take time. So we always, we recognize the needs for fields and their importance to health of our student athletes and we don't wanna belabor that. So we just, if anyway you can encourage the schools, that would be great. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Anyone else comments? Anyone online? I did not see anyone. Team. Okay. Moving on to item B,
Sherburn sewer connection, IMA and development agreement. Speaker 6: This is me again. So the hoping Yeah, no, I'll, I'll take and, and this is really to bring back to the board and the public's attention. This project has been thought about, discussed for the better part of four or five years plus years in Sherburne. And in essence, just for, for the reminder of, of those listening and, and the board, there's a, a,
a housing project, a 40 B project in Sherburne off of, I believe it's Coolidge Street, which is a street that goes from 27 to Speed Street. And it's a multifamily project, but Sherburn does not have the infrastructure to support it, meaning the water and sewer infrastructure. So they've been asking for, for many years the towns of, well now city of Framingham and the town of Natick for basically connection to water, sewer water from Framingham sewer for Natick.
Both our MWRA communities. So water's coming from MWRA go into the system, in our case MWA sewer. And it's been discussed in some form for the, for the better part of several years. This was reviewed by, by the select board, the Natick Select board a couple different times through the years, but the last time, I believe was about a year and a half, maybe two years ago by this board when we were just giving an update. And at that time there were still a couple hurdles for the project in the town of Sherburne to get over. One of which the biggest one was getting special state
legislation to allow for the connections they had to actually create a new sewer district to handle the sewer and water system in Sherburne to then have and then get special state legislation to get the rights to connect to the Natick sewer and the Framingham water that only got through the state legislative process this past fall. So Wow. So it's, you know, it it, it took a while for, for that process to, to work its way through the system. Concurrently though the towns have been talking, you know,
we've been talking with Sherburne, we've been talking with the developer of the project. I believe Framingham has been doing the same, where it's two, it's completely different agreements because we're just collecting sewer and they're bringing water. But in the case of Natick, what, what is, it's not on the, the materials aren't prepared yet for tonight, but it'll be ready for your next meeting or potentially the first meeting in January. But in essence, what Natick is being asked to, to do is enter into an inter municipal agreement with Sherburne and the sewer district. The North Sherburn water sewer district, I believe is the term think that's term, is
to basically receive sewer from Sherburne. It'll be largely for the housing project. It's about 130 units plus minus. And then there might be some other smaller, like single family or smaller lots that would also connect into the district and then enter into Natick sewer system on Speen Street flow down Speen Street to basically our, there's a point where our system enters the MWA system near 1 35 and then go to one, go through the MWA system.
It's a section of sewer. And, and Bill Sprat is here tonight in case you have any questions or in case I butcher anything to answer any of questions from public works, it's a section of sewer that has ample capacity even for this project in any other future development in Natick, we feel that there's ample capacity looking at development potential sites along Speen Street. So from a capacity perspective, we feel comfortable there is a need to do some upgrades in the area, specifically stormwater upgrades in this bean street area. So one thing that we're working on as part
of an agreement is, and you know, when in natick when a, when there's a brand new connection to the sewer system, we receive an INI fee and basically fee to allow us to ensure that we can study and address infiltration of non sewer water into the sewer system. In the case of this project, we're seeking an INI fee that would be substantive enough to allow us to do pretty significant work in Speed Street from the connection point to 1 35 that we wouldn't otherwise necessarily have. We'd have to come up with capital dollars or dollars as part of a, the enterprise fund depending on
what project project it was. 'cause it includes stormwater as well as sewer upgrades in that stretch. So the stormwater would probably be capital project, whereas the storm, the sewer would be more of a, an enterprise fund project. But this will allow us to do some of that work so it doesn't actually impact our, our, our capital to a sizable tune. Again, my final details will be brought to the board's attention between now and the next meeting. But in essence we'd be looking at, at being able to do that type of work as part of this agreement along with getting some level of annual fee or,
or quarterly fee from the sewer district. Just like any other rate payer would pay Natick, there's a couple nuance components that we're still working through, meaning in some of these instances elsewhere in the MWRA system, MWRA direct bills for the, just the usage to the user. So they might direct Bill Sherburne for example. We would still charge like some type of operation MA management fee. But those are still details that, that will have worked out before we come back to the board tonight is really just informing the board of this, bringing this back to your attention.
There'll be two components letting you know there'll be two components to this, an IMA or in a municipal agreement as I noted, and a development agreement with the developer because that's the primary first user of the connection. And so you'll be asked at a future meeting to review and consider both of those. I consider it kind of like a package deal because we, you want one with the other, you know, it's kind of, you get both. And what tonight is about is really just getting those high level questions. Like I said, bill is here to answer any additional questions and just make sure that that one you're remembering of what the project is. But then two, we can answer any of the high level questions that you might have.
Speaker 1: Lemme just add one thing, which is it is received both the agreement and a development agreement and the IMA have received extensive legal review on both sides. So it's, we're pretty close to Speaker 6: Yeah. CAR has reviewed both drafts and, and there's just some final language tweaks that we're working on Speaker 1: Mr. Sydney. Speaker 9: Yeah. So a couple of things occurred to me as you were talking about this. How would we, would we meter her the sewer somehow so we would know how much was coming through? So, so that we'd know what to charge. Speaker 6: I like build it to answer that. 'cause it gets, there's a couple different approaches
that we can take and, and I just want build to be able to answer that. Speaker 11: Sure. There's two primary ways you would do that. One is metering the water coming into the, the houses that would be then discharging that, that way is probably the most accurate. That's how we do it in Natick currently. The other way is to do a central meter that would meter the sewer flow. Water meters tend to be more accurate than sewer meters, but the MWRA does have four sewer collection meters that are part of our billing from MWRA. So one way
or another in both are identified in some of the details. We would either measure water or measure sewer outflow. Speaker 9: Yeah. So I mean I'm just, you know, I, you know, if if Sherburn is billing for the water, right, they're the ones that are running the water meters presumably, or Framingham is, you know, we'd need some way of finding that out in order to bill properly. That's sort of why I'm asking the question. It's seems a little complicated unless we have some direct knowledge. Speaker 6: Yeah, we for in that case we, we would have direct access
to the meters themselves or at least direct access to the data from the meters. Speaker 9: So one of the things that I know about Natick is that we've done a tremendous, tremendous job with our INI keeping, keeping the infiltration extremely low. We won't have that ability to control the Sherman sections. Is there some kind of a way we can sort of ensure that, 'cause that's, that's where the water is. The water meter is not accurate, is, you know, the infiltration.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is a, this is a good question. So we don't, we are not going to own or have any responsibility over anything in Sherburne. So the Sherburne sewer district will handle all of the stuff in sherburne. All that we are responsible for is when it enters Natick, getting it in the pipe from when it enters natick to the MD berry system. Speaker 9: Sherbert Sure. But it's server related question to, are we gonna meet as a sewage sewage because if they aren't taking care of their, I and i, they're putting a lot more sewage in or a lot more flow through the sewer system
than water's going into the system. Right. Speaker 11: So Speaker 9: I that's Speaker 11: I understand your question. Yeah, just two two kind of answers to that. First of all, MWA re will require a four to one removal. So for any gallon coming into the system, we will have, we'll be mandated to remove four times that upfront. So that's, that's how we typically do INI removal in Natick. That's, that's mandated by MWRA. The second answer to your question, it's a force main.
So typically iron ionis a lot through older infrastructure. This is brand new infrastructure. So I think the risk is, is much lower. I believe it's going to be a force main, whether that's steel or most likely plastic pipe, much lower infiltration opportunity, clay bell pipes and some of the older infrastructure we have, that's where the water is getting in, especially if it's down below water level. Speaker 9: Okay. And the last question, you know, so you answered part of this, which is they're gonna be responsible for the shervin part
of the, the sewer system, but you know, who's responsible for the maintenance of the connection or is that gonna be joint? Speaker 11: So the way it's envisioned right now is the force main would come in to a manhole on the sherburn side and then it would flow gravity from that manhole to our manhole. So essentially it's a very, the, the connection is probably only 10 feet or so into na. It's coming from Sherburn gravity fed into our system.
And then at the end of Speed Street, essentially it's, it's in our system for about a mile before it goes into MWRA. Speaker 6: Okay. So, and we would not own any of the infrastructure in Sherburne. So the force main, it's just that gravity feed connection once it gets into NA is what we would, we the town would be responsible for. Speaker 9: Okay. Those are my questions. Speaker 11: Very Speaker 6: Excellent. Speaker 5: Thank you. Either I didn't remember, or this was new to me, the possibility of connecting up something other than the development that's going on.
So you mentioned the potential of additional, I assume that they might be buildings or houses in that area. Is there a separate agreement for those? Would they have to pay a fee or would that all be handled on the Sherburne side? Speaker 6: Excellent question. Speaker 11: So they would have a water sewer district. They're responsible for all of their connections. However, any connection into the system would require the same four to one removal. Right? Now, if this was a development in Natick, it would be $1,300 per bedroom and that those fees would be, would be directly charged.
Speaker 5: Okay. And we would get those, some of those fees. Speaker 6: Correct. So the way the current IMA is structured is there's, there's an initial allowance of flow to accommodate the housing project. That, that primary reason for this, which the, the, the development agreement will then pay the fee to cover that. Then anything above that initial amount up to an upset limit that can happen a year from now. It can happen 20 years from now. We'll then have to pay whatever the, in the case of Natick anyway, we'll pay the natick INI fee rate at
that time of that connection. Okay. In all likelihood, based on our conversations with folks in Sherman, it's gonna be very few, it's might be a few single family homes. It might be, there's, there's relatively few things, but it's, there's still some potential for that. Right. But I can, and that then that's built into the IIMA. Speaker 5: I can imagine though that once at least this part of Sherburne does have a sewer connection, you know, they, they may want to potentially extend it elsewhere. Speaker 6: So if it gets extended elsewhere and it goes beyond like that would a,
a couple things I believe would have to happen. We would, we might need to negotiate a new IMA Okay. If it's intended to come into Natick. And so we would be a part of that dialogue if it were to be extended. It's really just contemplating this, this primary area. Speaker 5: I just wanna make sure that that's covered in the agreement that if Speaker 11: Yeah. So there is an upper limit to the agreement. There's an, so regardless of how big that system gets, there's an upper limit of maximum flow. Yeah. Okay. And that maximum flow represents approximately 4% of the capacity of that total pipe in Natick.
Speaker 5: All right. And then on on the INA on S speed street, is that some work that had been contemplated anyway or is it just work that we're gonna be able to move up because we're getting this additional funding? Speaker 11: A little bit of both. Okay. That sewer main in Speed Street, when it con connects to the MWA sewer is, is egg shaped. So it's crushed a little bit so that, that will have to be repaired. The drainage infrastructure that Mr. Erickson talked about is, is a need. So we have kind of a, a laundry list of things
that we'd like to accomplish and we feel that we can accomplish some or most of those through this agreement. Speaker 5: Okay. And so the work on that would be done prior to the agreement actually being in enforce or would it be done, you know, as, as you know, when would it be done, I guess is really what I'm asking? Speaker 11: So the work in the sewer has to be done before a connection can take place. So the four to one has to happen before any flows can come into the system while you're working in the road. You would do other things at the same time.
So there isn't a, a specific deadline other than sewer can't enter until the INI is removed. So all the other types of projects could happen and whenever they happen, but it would make sense if we're doing work in the road to do all the work in the road. Speaker 5: Okay. So it's it's sometime in the next couple years and most likely, Speaker 11: Most likely, yes. Alright. Speaker 5: Okay. That's it. Thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Speaker 3: Thank you Mr. Chair. Just a couple of points with regard to Sherborn wanting to expand and add sewer and water to other parts of their town.
They're restricted now by, by the state to be just this water district? There's no, I I don't think there's any businesses in the water district and there, there aren't a lot of homes. So even if they, you know, like Mr. Erickson said, you know, we would be part of exploring that expand, you know, renegotiating the upper limit of water and then also renegotiating, you know, where that would be. But they'd have to go back to the state and expand the water district. Speaker 6: That's part of the special legislation. Yeah.
One thing about the, the IMA, so the development agreement is more specific to the development. So that's a shorter agreement tied to the development. The IMA, and this will be a question for the board to consider. The special state legislation has an up to 50 years, but the Imma is intended to be initial 25 year term with the idea that it could be that be renewed for another 25 years. And, and there's a couple, there's a lot of reasons for that. I think it's just like 50 years is a long time. So from, from just like the talents perspective,
I think it's benefit for us to keep it to a limited number first, make sure this works. And 25 years is still a long time, but it, it, you know, it could take that long for us. You know, it's a sewer system, so just, it could take that long for us to, to work through some of these things, but, so you'll see that in the agreement it'll reference the ability to go up to 50 years. But this initial IMA is really for the 20, for a 25 year term. Speaker 1: That's Speaker 3: All I had. Speaker 6: Bill, anything else to add that I missed of import that Speaker 11: I don't believe so other than that we've been working on this for quite a long time.
Yeah. In brainstorming the details and our, our goal, Jamie and I'S goal have been to make sure this is something that's attractive to Natick, not something that we're necessarily giving away. We're, we're trying to make sure we're doing right by the town. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Mr. Sp, Mr. Erickson, Mr. Joseph. Speaker 8: Thank you Mr. Chair. Through you Paul Joseph 10 Carlson Circle, which is the neighborhood that will be impacted by the housing development, which this sewer is being attached. So without getting into details,
when I sat on the select board, we were part of some of these conversations early on at the time. It was also the time the town had accepted the Fair Fairview Neighborhood Roads and started paving and there was concerns about traffic impacts and the idea of having them conduct a traffic study for this development as part of this negotiation. Was that pursued? And do we understand the potential impact on the Bunker Lane area behind the way the high school there? Speaker 6: So if I can, my understanding is that, that there was a traffic study that was completed as part of the approval process in Sherman, there's no approval process in Natick, so it's not as if,
you know, there was a public review of that necessarily. In Natick to date, the final project design does not show any direct connection into the neighborhood other than for emergency purposes. And, and so that is the intent of the final design. So I mean, with, with a traffic study, when you don't have a direct connection, it's likely to show, and it does show that traffic would not, the traffic study indicated the traffic would not sustainably impact the neighborhood.
Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 6: I'm not a traffic, I didn't do the traffic study Speaker 8: Myself. Yeah. I know we're concerned enough about the fact that this is a massive development that's a budding, a very quiet neighborhood that's used as a cut through. So I will take it upon myself with the safety committee to talk about signage and other things. However, with the, with the Fairview project, we are still awaiting a massive tree to be removed. So the sidewalks can be completed on Moore Street and I don't know where the utilities are and taking that down and making sure that sidewalk is completed, but with kids walking to school in that area and stop signs were not put in. And we did discuss the idea of putting stop signs at the end
of Sylvester and Fern. So some of the affected neighborhood, the, when you're negotiating the developer agreement, there's some opportunities as well as for a light streetlight on Bunker Lane where there's a high speed turn that people take. So there's some safety considerations that I don't know, come into a negotiation for a developer agreement that we might use this as leverage to get some things done that really need to be done. So I, again, I'm happy, happy to work with you as a citizen and on that particular neighborhood because we kinda left things outstanding, but I think it's buttoning down the project as well as potentially getting some things that will impact safety.
So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Any other questions? I don't see anyone online hand raised. Speaker 3: Mr. Chair? Yes. I just wanted to make a comment about traffic and potential safety issues. If the, if this 40 B on Coolidge is not built, it's not our responsibility, I'm not suggesting that, but if it isn't built behind it waiting are four or five unfriendly 40 Bs that are of significant size, four of them are closer to 27.
So you're talking about putting more cars on the road coming up through 27 by the high school through the, you know, the John area where we have a lot of kids and dogs and then also up speed. So from, from a a traffic perspective, I, I think it's, you know, we do need to be concerned about this signage and things like that, but I I think that this is a lesser of two evils and I think that made it is going to significantly benefit by Speaker 12: No, I agree. I have no problem with that. Just making sure we Speaker 1: Leverage as, as much as we can. Speaker 3: That's all I have. Speaker 1: Mayor, anything else?
All right, let's move on to, excuse me, select board office hours discussion. And of course I brought up the last document or the incorrect Speaker 6: Document. Yeah, so the intent of this is just to confirm the select board office hours for the year of 2026. Billy put together a, a proposed schedule and really just confirming, obviously some of the member names are pending. Member number four, member number five will obviously be filled in post local election,
but it's on here just for your consideration and review. Speaker 1: Okay. Ms. Slager, Speaker 5: I have a couple things we can talk about the first thing first, then I'll talk about the second thing later. Okay. Which is, and and Billy had sent us an email about this, about the, the dates after the community senior center in November and December. They happened 2026 to fall and Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Of course no one wants to be there then. And we had for this year move them up to the third week of,
of the month rather than the fourth week. And I would suggest that we do the same. Speaker 1: So moving to the third week, November and December. Speaker 5: Alright. That said, I I, I am not suggesting that for tonight, I think we should deal with what we have in front of us, but I have found that we don't get anyone coming to see us at the senior center. And I think we ought to look at other opportunities, you know, maybe working with Angela or working with some other way of, we're just not getting the visibility there
and no one shows up and it's a waste of everyone's time and it's an opportunity that's missed to connect with, with, with people. The farmer's market is different. I mean, I don't know if what everyone else's experiences, but I've always had, I've, whenever I've gone to the farmer's market, I, I talk to people almost the entire time. So it's just not working at the community senior center. And I think that, you know, we, we need to have a, a broader, bigger discussion on this, about what would be more effective. Yeah, Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 9: I think we ought to get Jay involved in that. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I thank you for bringing that up
because I've had the same experience and I wondered whether it's because of the, the hour of the day that it's a weekday and, but I can say I think out of the half dozen times that I've had it recently, I've had one where I've actually had people. Speaker 9: So yeah, I've had, I've had the other experience, the, the last one I did at the CSCI didn't have any citizens, although I did have a couple of staff members come talk to me about things. They weren't, you know, I reported them to the, to Jamie,
they weren't citizen things, but I've almost always had at least one person, one citizen come to me at the community senior center. So I'm not sure, you know, I, I I agree it's low traffic. Yeah, Speaker 5: I haven't, I've, I've made conversation with people there, but I have only one time since I've been there, since I've been on the board, has someone actually been there purposefully to talk to me. Yeah. Speaker 1: So Catherine, what is your experience? So Speaker 9: Last Speaker 3: December, last December
after the immigration documentation policy, I had seven seniors for three hours. That is an outlier. I, most of the time I've not had anyone come to, to me at senior center. Two residents, one on the, the December office hours I covered. And then one subsequent to that said that they're not comfortable coming to the office office hours at the senior center because it's not private. So if you need to talk about something sensitive, you're sitting in the middle of the gathering room. Speaker 1: Okay. That's a, that's great feedback. And, and you, you raised the right point too.
It was the same timeframe in which I had the people who wanted to talk to me was during the immigration Right. Documentation timeframe. So why don't we do this, why don't we approve the calendar as is, and then I'll take the action item to talk to Jay about how we can do this better and how we, where we might locate this and what days. Jamie has her suggestion. Speaker 6: Just, just briefly for a little bit of a, his history, not lesson, but just remembrance. So during the pandemic office hours were obviously canceled.
And when we were, when we, the, the select board and town administration at the time or select board at that time and town admission were coming out of the pandemic. There was a pretty healthy dialogue. Jay and I, I know came up with some ideas for the board to consider the then board. And the then board wanted to bring back the in-person component, meaning having office hours at a standing location. We, we, we did provide some suggestions. So I'll work with Jaya to dust those off, including, for example, having a request a meeting on our website, like request a meeting with a select board member.
That way if it needs to be private, you can do that. The board at that time chose to go back to sort of what it was that we did previously, but we, we have talked about this. I just want the board to be aware of this. So we do have some ideas out there. And also, again, going to where the people are is a big part of this. That's why I think the farmer's market is so successful. There's people there. Yeah. I'm not saying there aren't people at the community senior center, but there are a lot of those repeat customers. It's, it's a little less mingy depending on where you are. Some thoughts that we had at the time was finding different coffee shops or other places in town at peak times
or going to different events. Not just the farmer's market, but sporting events or youth sports or other things. So we have some of the ideas what we can, we can dust some of those off and bring that to the board's attention. Speaker 9: Well, one other thing maybe talk to Angela about is, you know, maybe make a, a private room available during those hours. So if somebody wants a private space, they could be taken to a private room. Speaker 5: Yeah. I don't, I don't think that, don't, that's gonna, that's not gonna fix the problem if, if, if people aren't showing up. But I don't see that. I, yeah, I think that's a, that's a great idea. I mean, I'm envisioning maybe we just, you know,
pick different events where we could go or something like that because it's just, it's not worrying. I'm not saying that it, it's not that it's the senior center, like, you know, we don't know what the issue is. Maybe it is the hours of when it is, but we're just, or the request a meeting sounds like great. That we could commit, you know, once a month or maybe even twice a month if enough of us are willing to do that. But it's not working now, so. Yep. Speaker 1: I like the idea of dusting off the previous plants just to take it. So, let's see. Do we want to approve it as it is now until we come up
with a Yeah, I think she do that different plan. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Second by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Aye. Ms. Coughlin? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Speaker 5: Aye. And ideally it would be nice if we could get it done before the meeting on January 22nd where you are scheduled at the community senior center group. Speaker 1: I was just looking. That one I have a vested interest in. Speaker 9: Thanks, bill. Speaker 1: Thank you Bill. Speaker 13: Bill, these will be signed tonight. Speaker 1: Awesome track.
Next up is discussion on draft hybrid meeting policy? Speaker 9: No. Have we seen one? Speaker 3: I think Speaker 1: Catherine, is Speaker 3: I not something she wants to present? I thought was circulated several months ago. I can, I can go ahead, log in and share my screen. Yep. I have a draft and then and amend a draft I worked on today because I learned some new things. Yeah. 'cause I Speaker 9: Don't remember seeing one. Speaker 3: So it was a, it was quite a while ago. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a while ago Speaker 9: And it's not on peak, so. Speaker 1: Nope, this is late breaking news.
Speaker 5: Before you get started with that, Catherine, I mean Jimmy, maybe you wanna talk about what the changes that are being made to this room and others? Sure. I think we brought it up before, but I think that feeds into as background for this policy. So, Speaker 6: Absolutely. So, and, and we did provide an update. I think John Marshall provided an update at the last meeting or maybe two meetings ago, because your next meeting will not be physically here. It'll actually be at the library. And so for the remainder of December, they've actually already started doing work in this room. They've, so basically several years ago there was an
appropriation of capital dollars, not town capital. It's actually capital dollars in an account that we have from the cable access funds, along with operation dollars that get forwarded to negative Pegasus. There's capital dollars that are held by the town and a fund that we work with Pegasus to improve and use those capital funds. But they do need to be pro appropriate by town meeting. So town meeting did do that appropriation coming outta the pandemic, you know, we learned that hybrid meetings were here to stay in some, in some way or another, you know, during the pandemic we bought the screen
that we're using in this room and a couple of the screens, those were pandemic funds that we used. And that showed us that we really need to do some upgrades to this room, the school committee meeting room. And then we had enough funding to also do the two rooms that we primarily use for public meetings and, and events and things over in, in the Mors library, which is the Lebowitz meeting room and the, in the community room, both on the lower level, both of the meeting rooms in the library have since been completed or they're near completion. I believe there's actually a meeting in there tonight, the planning board that's testing, planning board this stuff. So they're kind of like our good luck tonight for you.
And the benefit of those upgrades is that it improves the MIC system. So these mics will largely go away, not 100%, but largely go away. I believe it more completely integrates the platform of, we are setting them up initially for Zoom, but we do have the ability to switch them down the road. But we had to pick a platform to start with. So they're fully integrated with some of our Zoom accounts along with Pegasus. So Pegasus can much more easily than they do right now, pick up the feed, especially in the
rooms in the library. It's really challenging to do hybrid meetings in the library. It's a lot easier over here, but it'll be very similarly handled between the, between both locations moving forward. I guess all four locations. But town hall and library, in addition, there's gonna be a plug and play ability. So if you just have your own laptop and you're using Google Meet or WebEx or meeting teams or whatever you use, you can plug your own laptop in and then be able to use the system as well. So there'll be other functionality as well for just the,
any really border committee That's great. Or just anybody having a hybrid meeting. So we're testing it now. It might take us a little while to get it, get it up and running and used to it and, and get people trained. There'll be more of like a keypad system, you know, integrated technology as opposed to a, a rolling cart, which has been a fantastic addition, but it'll be more integrated. And then these rolling carts will still be available. Like we have two in this building right now, but now we can use them in other meeting spaces as well. Yeah. Wow. So these definitely not going away. We use them, I wanna say daily in this, in this building.
So there's still a great piece of, of a resource, but that's happening in this room. The select board meeting room, the school committee meeting room, and then the two rooms I noted over in the, in the Moore Institute library Speaker 3: To share my screen. Speaker 6: Oh, that might be me. Sorry, Speaker 3: Lemme just take this, Speaker 6: Gimme one second. Speaker 3: Sure. Speaker 6: All right. You should be able to share now. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 6: If you can't let me know. Speaker 3: All right. Sorry for the delay. Here we go. Can you see that? Speaker 14: Yes. Yes. There we go. That's great. Since we don't have anyone in the audience. Speaker 3: So one of the things I discovered since drafting the original
hybrid meeting requirements is that we can't have, Speaker 14: Lemme Speaker 3: Rephrase that. What we wanna do is ensure that there's remote access, not necessarily hybrid meetings. So one of the things that I learned today in the CMR and the M-G-L-M-G-L chapter 30 a sections 18 through 25 and then the regulations nine 40 CMR 29, I think it's 29 point 10. The chair or the person chairing a meeting has to be physically present somewhere. So there has to be a physical place. Everybody else can be gone except that the quorum has
to be established by members of the public body in person. So for that would be, three of us would have to be here, two could be offline. That's in nine 40 CMR. Speaker 14: Hasn't Speaker 6: That changed? That's that's what the spec, that's what the has been extended from the pandemic though. Speaker 3: Yes. That hasn't changed. I just pulled that up today. Speaker 6: Well the law hasn't changed, but the emergency order during the pandemic, that's been ah, that's been continued. Okay. We're waiting for this to change. Okay. So to a bit more reflect what the emergency order, which has just been Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 6: Extended. So Speaker 3: I didn't find the emergency order, but Speaker 6: I don't know if they call it an emergency order still,
it might be called something else. Right now they Speaker 3: Haven't updated the CMR or the OR Mass General. Speaker 6: No, because they haven't. They haven't. This is what we've been waiting for the legislature to Speaker 3: Vote. Understood. But what I'm saying, so they haven't changed yet. Look for it. What do you look for? Emergency order or, Speaker 6: That's a good question. I can try to find it while we're, we're here. Speaker 3: So I think what we wanted to do, so I did find that only the commission on disability, if one has been established pursuant to mass general law in your town, which we have one, they can choose to be all remote. I think they have to get permission from the attorney general's office. That's, that's in the CMR also.
But that may be covered under the emergency law or rule. So what I did was, I struck shall conduct public meetings in a hybrid format and just put in, offer a remote participation options for all public meetings unless otherwise exempted by the policy. One thing I'm, until I look at the emergency order, I'm not gonna know this, but basically the me pull up the CMR, the CMR allows, even though the select board does not have jurisdiction over say the planning board or the NA affordable housing trust, that's open meeting.
It says that if the chief executive of the as defined, which would be the select ward of the town or city implements a policy adopting these measures, then that's applicable for all public bodies that meet. Now if that's changed in the emergency order, I don't know, but that's in the CMR. So, so Speaker 6: Yeah, so the, the town adopted the, the state law allowing for remote access was adopted by the town. Oh gosh. That went into a place Speaker 9: 20 12, 15 Speaker 6: Years ago. Yeah. Speaker 9: Yeah. That's the old policy we've got. Exactly.
Speaker 6: Yep. That Speaker 9: We haven't repealed yet. Speaker 3: So we have some boards that do not meet in person. So affordable housing trust, commission on disability and others that meet all virtually. So I struck that first paragraph hybrid meeting out. So we're not even gonna define a hybrid meeting. We're just gonna ensure remote access for the public and for members. The scope, this policy applies to all boards and committees appointed in full by the Natick Select board, including, but not standing to, not limited to standing boards ad hoc special task force that are subject to open meeting law if that CMR is still in place.
In other words, if the select board adopts the policy, then it's applicable to all boards. We'll need to change that in, in another draft remote access mandate. All public meetings of boards and committees appointed by full. Again, we may need to change that by the select board shall be, shall provide a remote participation for border committee members and the public via town approved video conferencing platform. So we'll need to find out what those are and list those. Speaker 9: Actually, I wouldn't list them Speaker 3: Including, but not limited to. Like we could give people an idea of what the board, I mean,
you're right, because every time, I'll Speaker 6: Tell you example, examples, clues or something. I don't even think Speaker 3: We need to do that. Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah, I don't think we need to list them. 'cause if they're setting up a meeting, they can, they can talk to, you know, they'll have to talk to somebody to arrange, arrange the connection and 'cause it has to be publicly accessible. So it'll have to go on the agenda. They can, we could, you know, and make sure Andrew has, you know, whatever lists Speaker 6: Of Yeah, WW with the, should have mentioned this with the updated room technology, although we're still learning this ourselves.
I believe there's designated like Zoom accounts per room, which likely means there's gonna be designated meeting access. Like, like we, we always use sort of like the same one for the select board. I don't know if that's accurate. I might be speaking incorrectly, but I do know that there's designated Zoom accounts per room. Speaker 3: One thing that this policy does not do, it doesn't, it basically reiterates what's required at o the open meeting law for meeting notices, corpsman participation, training and compliance is right out of OML except
for the second paragraph chairs where their designee are responsible for ensuring compliance with the policy kept the information about exemption. So executive sessions, there's another Speaker 15: Word for hybrid you're gonna fix. Speaker 5: Well maybe, we'll, Speaker 6: Yeah, well some of this it sounds like we need to confirm. 'cause I noticed like for example, in the chairs or not the chairs in the quorum section, it's states the law, not necessarily the Speaker 3: Emergency order. Emergency order. Right. So I just need to see that. And then I'll This is Speaker 15: The, another one in that same Speaker 3: Paragraph when I go through it.
'cause I'm gonna have to edit, edit it. I'll, alright. Okay. Enforcement, we have a paragraph of failure to comply may result in open violation of open meeting law, but the select board may take corrective actions including requiring additional training or in extreme cases recommending removal of noncompliant members. And that's pretty much it. Speaker 6: A question on that compliance item, since it's the chair that's sort of the leader, is the removal of noncompliant members really just limited to the chair in practice? Speaker 3: Well, if a board, let's say the ZBA takes a vote
and says we're not going to comply. I mean, I, I don't know. I mean, I Speaker 6: I was just curious from the, Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that's, I mean, the chair is responsible for, let's see, enforcement, Speaker 6: The chair includes members. So if, if there's multiple members or if a chair is not present and it's the vice chair that, that for whatever reason doesn't comply, then it probably makes more sense to keep it more broad. Speaker 3: Okay. So what are your thoughts? Speaker 5: So thoughts. I think it's a, a good first step. I think we need, you know, obviously we need to understand the emergency order and where that stands. If, you know, from with our legislators,
I know that they're planning on making it permanent at some point, but what form that takes and what it ultimately ends up being, who knows. So this may be premature a little bit. I mean it's, it's, it's good to start talking about it. My other concern is that, you know, we'll only have four meeting rooms that are really capable, capable of doing a full hybrid setup. It, it sounds like we could still do remote meetings, but they prob but they wouldn't be able to be televised for Pegasus. So
Speaker 6: If Speaker 5: You did not have them and whatnot, and maybe I'm wrong, but if you didn't have them in one of the four rooms that were set up, Speaker 6: No. Pegasus can, like we do now, Pegasus logs in as a Zoom user and then they just take the Zoom feed. So like if we have a fully remote meeting, Pegasus can record those. They log in as a Zoom participant and they record from there. Speaker 5: So that's if it's fully remote. Correct. Not if it's hybrid. So the, the four, these Speaker 9: Devices are available. I know there's one at the senior center,
Speaker 5: Right? So my, my, this is what I'm trying to get to. So, you know, we're gonna have the new technology in four meeting rooms. Are those, those the only way to accommodate a hybrid meeting Speaker 6: For pe Well, for Speaker 5: Pegas, for Pegasus participation, Speaker 6: No. It's just a, an extra step or two. So if you recall when we had a hybrid meeting in the community room downstairs at the library, I wanna say several months ago, we had to pull out the extra mic and speaker Pegasus can still record from that. It just won't be as seamless as like in this room
where Pegasus takes over the mic feed and the sound feed to Zoom. They just in the case of like using the technology, like if, if, if we were to put this screen that, that we have in this room now into the CED conference room Yep. And use it like we would for a hybrid meeting with the, with that, that sort of mic and, and, and sound system. Pegasus can log in as a user and then record from that. Speaker 5: Okay. But it would still need a special setup. You couldn't just do it anywhere. Speaker 3: But Linda, most of the board
and committee meetings aren't covered by Pegasus. Speaker 5: I, no, I'm just trying to understand what it means. That's all. Oh, okay. I I'm trying to understand what with the new setup and, and it's in place because if we're gonna be requiring something for all of our committees, including, you know, potentially every committee in town need would need to be able to do this. I wanna make sure that, well Speaker 3: The Natick affordable housing trust does it now. So they all log in from their computers. They don't meet any physical place. They log in using Zoom, they have their own Zoom account. So it's possible to do it without being in these four rooms.
Speaker 5: But that's remote. Fully remote. I'm saying hybrid. Yeah. That, that's my Speaker 6: Hybrid. Hybrid is a little different. There is, there is additional considerations for hybrid. Correct. Because not every room is set up the way this room will be. Correct. Not every room is gonna have access to a, you know, like CSC has one of these as well, but they have like one, there's not one at the police department. So if there's a meeting at the police department community room that for whatever reason is only in person sometimes like safety
committee might only be in person. Rarely it now. Yes. But pre pandemic, it was always, many of our committees were only in person pre pandemic. That, that, that's an added layer of consideration. You're correct. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. I just wanna make sure that our policy, you know, covers all bases. Speaker 3: So, so one of the reasons we resorted to policy, I'll just name the elephant in the room, is because we have been asked since Feb, no March to have ZBA meetings be available for public participation. And the answer that we were given the board was given
through a meeting that they had, was if somebody really wants to be there, they can be there. Now I, I had a, they had a meeting Monday night. I was in Key West, couldn't really be here. And I had an abutters notice for a property that was going to be de demolished and raised. So I, I couldn't participate. Now I co probably could have written a letter, but I wouldn't have been able to interact. So another challenge cited is that it's just too complicated 'cause there's all these plans. Well, ComCom does it. They do it very, very well. Planning board does it. They do it very well. So when they refuse to do a, a hybrid meeting
or allow remote access, counsel said this would be the next step. So while it is the case that, you know, it's good that we're starting to talk about it, we have been asked to do this for now seven months. Eight months. And if we have to do a policy and then change it whenever that executive order gets done sometime next year, maybe July, at the end of the end of the fiscal Speaker 6: June. June, 2027. Speaker 3: 30 20, 27, 27. Okay. So two, two years, three years Speaker 6: Sent you a link to the, to the medical. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 3: I, I wanna find a way for us to do this. And I don't know that it would pass muster
with the ags office if a complaint was filed, if we said the following boards must have remote access, so con com Speaker 6: Planning board, board Speaker 3: Planning board ZBA or if we said all quasi-judicial boards must have remote allow for remote access, I'd be happy to to do that. Not expressly name them. Yeah. Because what we're gonna run into is we don't have the space to record them. If every single board committee, task force commission whatever in town had remote access, they can't record it. 'cause there's no, we don't have the space to store all that. Well
Speaker 5: And but what do you mean by that? Speaker 3: I mean that if they record Zoom and they go to put it up on the website of their particular board or committee. I have been told we don't have the storage capacity to do that for all our towns and committee boards, towns, committees. Speaker 9: Just, just because they allow remote access does not mean they have to be recorded. Speaker 3: Understood. That's why that's not in here. Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean it doesn't have to be recorded, Speaker 3: But if it is recorded, it has to be kept in perpetuity or forever or some long crazy time. Speaker 9: Yeah. Like the a a audit advisory committee meetings are always hybrid. I, I sit in this room Todd, Todd usually comes,
but everybody else is remote. We don't record them. We just hold a remote meeting. Speaker 3: Jamie, do other than ZBA Con Comm and Planning board. Planning board, are there any other quasi-judicial boards other than select board Speaker 6: By quasi-judicial? Just to make sure I'm, I'm following the same, are Speaker 3: You saying elected or appointed? Speaker 1: I'm thinking rec parks. Speaker 5: I, I mean personally I think we ought to require for everyone that, that either, either that we appoint all the members like you had in there or if it applies to every committee, then so be it.
Because I think that's something that the public is used to being able to participate if they want to. And you know, we've heard this from people Yeah. That, you know, not everyone can, can be in person, like you said, or it sometimes meetings are held during the day and they're, you know, if you work maybe you would have the opportunity to go and, and and log in. But you certainly can't be in person 'cause you're, you're elsewhere. I mean, I think if it's possible that, that that's something, you know, that if we have the ability to say, yes this is what we want,
but we should do it. You know? I agree. Speaker 9: Yeah, I agree. And you know, there does need to be the ability to set an exemption, you know, for whatever reason. Yep. There are exceptions. Yeah, no, I, I saw that the, I think that maybe there ought to be a provision and we can, you know, as we go through drafts, this can be discussed a little more. Maybe there's a provision for, you know, to, you know, grant a a a complete exemption
for a particular board or committee, you know, for whatever reason. There might be a, you know, there might be a particular, you know, like the a c doesn't have to be, I don't think any, nobody ever shows up. Right. And I'm not saying that the a c should, should request that exemption, but there might be Speaker 3: What's the AAC c Speaker 9: Audit advisory committee. But there might be a, you know, a a, you know, fairly minor advisory board that, you know, just doesn't need to
have the remote access. And I'm not saying, I can't think of one off the top of my head. Speaker 5: Yeah, I I can't think of any, you know, reason other than something unforeseen, you know, everybody's used to doing things remotely these days. It's not like it's, it's, you know, a huge lift to add a, you know, have a, a login to, to zoom or whatever platform. Speaker 6: And with the updated technologies that we have, we can find space in most any town building to accommodate it. 'cause we have these carts in town, town hall, school
library and the CSC with, with like exemptions. I like the idea of more broad like application, but then maybe there's certain situations that we could be added in here, like site visits, right. Con com planning board ZBA, even select site visits are not likely to be hybrid or bring Speaker 5: Your phone. Speaker 6: It's harder though. You know, it's much different to do to do that. There could be other situations like that. So, so I could just see there being more situational reasons that most any board might have. Like we've done tours with various sports committees in years past of the trail networks in town
and they were posted public meetings hard to do those as hybrid consistently. 'cause you're in a van going from one trail to the next. So I can see those being more examples of what would make sense to not have it necessarily be but less, but that's less, that's more situational than border committee. Speaker 9: Yeah. The only other thing we do is we'd, I think we should include in here, you know, for some of the lesser committees that have no idea how to, you know, some way of obtaining a Zoom link. Right. So there needs to be a clearing house for Zoom links.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean there can be instructions and, and we provide those, we've, we've set up boards and committees ample times. Speaker 9: No, I, I understand, but I mean maybe in here, let say, you know, the town administration Yep. Will provide a mechanism. Speaker 3: Yeah. Paragraph seven has that Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah. 'cause you know, I mean I could use, it would be legal right? As long as it's published, but, Speaker 3: But if you don't have a commercial account, it's limited to 40 minutes. Right? Speaker 9: Well I've got, I can do a hundred people, so Oh, okay. I've got a pro account. Okay. The minimal pro account. Okay.
Speaker 3: So I can take the, the emergency order, whatever it's called and proof this, do more red line markup and send it to you guys. Sounds good. Great. I'll send this, this markup to all of you and to Kristen. And if you could give feedback to Jamie and that would be great. Speaker 5: And then, we'll I guess we'll need to run it by Kara too, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Speaker 9: I'd say after we get all our feedback after. Yes. Speaker 1: Agreed. Speaker 5: Thank you Jamie for that. Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. It, it looks from the, from what I found on the website
that the mass.co website, it looks like it was just a, basically a continuation of extending an act, extending certain COVID-19 measures is what they're calling it. That's, it's pretty and basic. So one of the reasons why I know I've been holding off on doing a more formal sort of, even just like an internal policy or, or procedures is because I've been waiting for the final language to come down. 'cause I wanted to know. But we're at a point now where it just keeps getting extended. Let's just Speaker 9: Yeah. Speaker 6: Do something that makes sense so that we're, Speaker 9: We're on the same page.
A little, little background. I asked rep Linsky casually one day when I ran into him what was going on with the hybrid meetings and he said the pushback was all from the rural towns because they don't wanna be forced to spend money on the technology even though the, the Empowerment Act, which has got this stuff in it says, may the rural towns are afraid they'll have to spend money on this stuff. And, and so they're pushing back through their legislative delegations. Oh, that's surprising. And you know, I, Speaker 5: I'm sympathetic, Speaker 9: It's, I'm sympathetic, but you know, we gotta have something
that allows us to do this stuff. Speaker 5: Well yeah, I mean, I get it. But Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm just, I just an interesting piece of information about why this has taken so long. Speaker 6: And to be fair, the technology's not cheap. Speaker 9: Well, Speaker 6: Exactly. I mean the investments that we're doing in these rooms is several six figures Now we're able to, Speaker 5: Wow. Speaker 6: Yeah. Now we're able to use funding again that came through the, the cable subscribers and it's, it's very directly linked to what Pegasus providing. It's direct, like we need to do these upgrades. We were talking about doing these upgrades,
even pre pandemic to a certain degree, not quite to the level we're doing now because of the, you know, pandemic evolving caused us to evolve much more quickly towards hybrid meetings. Well Speaker 9: And the technology evolves Speaker 6: Pretty very quickly. Yep. Yep. Speaker 5: Thanks Bruce. Speaker 1: You welcome. Speaker 9: Ready? Speaker 1: I am. So ready. Speaker 9: Consent, agenda item A approved select board meeting minutes for November 19th, 2025. Item B approved request for exemption from town bylaws chapter 41, section S four for Gerald. Barb, anybody wanna pull anything? Hearing nothing move approval of items a b second
Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Coughlin. All in favor please say aye. Speaker 5: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. On to town administrator updates. Speaker 6: I just have a, a couple brief updates for tonight. First I was at a interesting, or I was actually part of a panel today with GFOA Massachusetts, which is the Government Finance Officials Association. Basically all the CFOs res like, I think he's the president of IT this year or vice president. So he's pretty high up in it. But they asked, they had a panel of town administrators
or there was one mayor on the group of recently failed and passed overrides. So obviously I was on the, the yes side and it was enlightening 'cause it just showed me how one, I, I think how, how well the select board, the school committee, the town of Natick, just regardless of the vote, how well we just handled the override. 'cause hearing some of the stories from the other communities, they did it well. But there was also just interesting anecdotes that came out from the dialogue that I found interesting that I was like, oh wow, I like, grass is always greener.
You know, you, you see that. But it was interesting how, well, I think the community here in Natick, they, you know, remained civil and, and really got to the, the points and asked good questions and, and also how fortunate we were to have the team that we had in place getting us through this override this time now because some of the stuff that we did with the website and Jay's work with the community meetings that we had, with the partnership with the schools, with, with all that we did just to inform people of the vote and to get the word out about the details, let alone what, how, like how people voted.
Just getting the information out there. I feel fortunate for, for who we had in place and, and how we approached it. The panel included myself, we had the mayors mayor there, which is pretty interesting 'cause they just had passed an override of 13 point some odd million Franklin and Eastons town administrators who had failed attempts to actually each, in the last several years, Millis had just a couple failed attempts. Brookline, which they do more regular, they actually do three years at a time for three years. So their votes are, are a three year override where they,
they they, they sort of wave it in over a three year timeframe. And while they're doing that, they're planning the next three year override. It's, it seems pretty interesting how they do it. And Georgetown, which is a smaller community, so it was an interesting panel. It wanted to just share that with the board. The next thing, just fairly briefly, and this will be a more complete and formal update, likely in January, but I know the board has, and Linda actually asked me about this the other day, had concerted effort several months ago and we were are still doing the work for around tax title. Again, we'll have this more as an agenda item likely in January,
but it, it hasn't stopped. We just, with Ari coming on board and with some of the things with town meeting and you know, getting our free cash certified and the tax rate hearing and everything, we, we just sort of are advancing but advancing more slowly. So we have the, the final list has not been published but all we're up to date with all demand notices. People are actually still paying from years past. So that's good. The intent is likely in January to have a list ready to be published. We'll probably target the second or third week in January.
The thinking there is, we don't wanna do right around the holidays, but it'll be something that will bring to the board. It, depending on the timing of when we're doing it, either I'll inform you via email and have it on the next meeting or we'll bring it to a meeting and then we can go from there. Yeah. And Ari given his background, 'cause he worked in New Bedford for a number, number of years as well. Lakeville, he's impressed by how much of our, like we have a 99.9 99 plus percent collection rate, which is, he, he was very impressed with that.
So he said in New Bedford it's like 95 plus, which is amazing how much that difference, even though it sounds impressive 'cause you're above 95%. It's still lot of, still quite a bit. Yeah. Those are my updates. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Over to select board updates and anything else? Move to adjourn. Move by Mr. Sidney. Do I have a second? Second? And all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. 7 43 7:40 PM Well, rich,
it turns out.