Speaker 1: Meeting of the Natick Select Board. First of all, happy new year that everyone is watching or here in the meeting room. Tonight's agenda, we're going to start an open session and we're going to then take a vote after all our business and open session is done and take a vote to go into executive session of that vote. Successful we go into executive session and then adjourn following that executive session at this time. For those in the meeting room, would you please advise
and respect the national anthem and stand for a moment of silence Speaker 2: To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic of which stands nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all the video and the zoom is showing. So recess, Speaker 1: What do we do? Speaker 2: Recess. Recess Speaker 1: Showing. Speaker 3: So we're trying to get the video to show, Speaker 1: I'm sorry, here. Here's, here's the situation. We are unable to get the video working here, but we are able to provide the video
via Zoom and people will be able to see what we're presenting on Zoom. They'll also be able to ask questions via Zoom with luck and maybe a break. We'll get our video back, but we have to proceed onward from this point. So the good news is there aren't that many presentations tonight, so it's more just going through material that is already on the website so most people can act will have already seen that. So that further ado, I want to go through the announcements
and first one I'm gonna shift over to you, Jamie. Speaker 3: Sure, thank you. And I'll be brief with this one and there's a more formal complete announcement on the on on the agenda. Just in brief, the town was awarded through the our partners of the Metro West Health Foundation and MathWorks. So community grants to support the Natick recreation parks departments, all aboard adaptive sites program for the board's recollection and for those listening at home, this is the program that provides basically it's adaptable
cycling cycles, like cycles for use on the rail trail. And we actually program it at certain times to allow for people to, you know, get to use the rail trail that might have some, but the physical disabilities are other reasons. It's a great program and it allows us to purchase the actual cycles themselves, which are sort of specialty made and then also program it and maintain. So that I'm gonna pull up the announcement feed. We're just very excited to make that announcement tonight
and just gonna make sure there's not more detail. That's pretty much the detail in the announcement. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. I have a few announcements and slash reminders and thank you. First one is a thank you to the friends Na NAIC trails for their New Year's Eve celebration on the constituent rail trail. Thanks especially to the DPW for doing set up cleanup. As always, they're the on own heroes and one of these days I'll actually make it eye the flu. So standing out Nicole was not a bright idea.
Sorry David missed this here. Next up is a reminder that tomorrow, Thursday, January 8th at 7:00 PM Yesterday, Natick is hosting a forum on the changing phase of Natick Center panel of four, including town administrator Jamie Erickson, developers Drew Rothman and James McGrath. And Heather Rockwood, executive director of Natick Center Cultural District will answer questions about residential and commercial changes in Natick Center and other topics associated with our downtown area. The forum is on Zoom only.
Get the zoom link please sign up at yes board. The forum is also being recorded for Pegasus for playback. After the event on January 2nd, firefighter Scott Smith, retired firefighter Smith, joined the Natick Fire Department in April, 2001 and is retiring after 25 years of dedicated service. Throughout his career, he served at every station within the department and was most recently assigned to Engine one in downtown Natick. He wished Firefighter Smith along happy
and healthy retirement. Last item is town clerk deadlines. Just to remind people, we, we announced the political calendar at a meeting in December and I wanted to remind people of some deadlines that are coming up in January on Tuesday, January 27th, 5:00 PM that's the last day for incumbent town meeting members to give written notice to town the the town clerk that they want to run for reelection on February 10th, 5:00 PM It's the last day
to submit nomination papers for new Town meeting members and send them to the registrar as a voter registrar of voters for certification. More information on the 2026 political calendar. The political calendar on the town clerk section of the Native Town website, no one else have a is public speak. Any individual can raise an issue that's not included on tonight's agenda. That will be taken under advisement by the board.
There's no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of the open meeting law. This section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any indi individual addressing the board or in this section is limited to three minutes. Do we have anybody in the audience who wants to speak? Do we have anybody online wishing to speak? Raise your hand in Zoom if you wish to speak. Let's move on now to discussion and decision. The first topic is water and sewer abatement appeals and the first appeal is for Mr. David Ellis.
Would you please come to the podium? Sure. Second. Speaker 4: My latest water bill was nearly $1,200 and this is after 20 years living at the same address in Natick with water bills. In recent years being between 200 and $300, I called the water department and they said go check for a leak, call a plumber. And with nearly the better part of a year's water usage coming from when the 360 program said was five consecutive days in July
and there was no sign of a leak, we have had the toilet running occasionally and there's never been that much impact. There was no sign of a leak, no water anywhere inside or outside. So this really makes the meter reading software suspect and I filed an appeal. The appeal to the town administrator's office was denied on the grounds that I didn't provide evidence of a leak that existed purportedly
for five days and then magically stopped and referred it to normal behavior without any intervention. Not a plumber. We didn't see anything. So that seems to be an impossibility and I was rather distressed that the appeal was denied for lack of evidence because there is no evidence to provide for a leak that doesn't appear to have existed other than in some meter reporting software. That's new. Three sixty's.
I'd like to inquire as to when that software became available. When it started operating and reading from my physical meters. It may Speaker 1: Be, hold on one second. Let me ask the question Mr. Marshall, could you comment on when my 360 came on board, Speaker 5: My, my 360 came on board roughly 18 months ago. I believe my 360 does not read the meter. The town has the same kind of meter reading system
and software that we've utilized through the transmitter forever. The My 360 program helps report that information to residents but that software does not read your meter. Speaker 1: Next. Speaker 4: For the clarification, I didn't understand all the mechanisms for that. Speaker 1: Just say a few comments. Lemme describe you. You were sent the abatement policy as as part of the denial, but that typically means is there are grounds there. It is a two tiered approach where the deputy town administrator for operations
has latitude to offer an abatement when the fault is the town, it's a defective meter, the billing is incorrect, those types of things. Okay. Anything beyond that. He does not have the capacity to do that. That's when it comes to us. That's when you request the meeting. There Speaker 4: Appears to be some kind of defect either in the meter or in the transmission of the, okay. Speaker 1: I have a question. Did you ask that the water department to come out and inspect your meter? Speaker 4: That was not discussed. I had tough time reaching them over the phone
and they basically said call a plumber. Speaker 1: Okay. I'm not sure why they didn't tell you to, to have somebody come out and inspect the meter. Typically what happens is that request comes through and they say, we'll have somebody go out there and check to make sure the meter's running. Typically what we see in these cases is the meter's working fine. What we do see, and I I've had personal experience with this is a toilet flapper that gets stuck for a couple of days. I had that happen to me, the spike
in water usage just with one toilet, with a flapper that was left up was incredibly large. So it doesn't surprise me at all that you didn't find anything but that it was a five day period and maybe the next time somebody went and used that bathroom, it brightened itself. That's all it has to, that's Speaker 4: All. Yeah, I I've noticed that in particular when the flush cycle persists, there's something with the flapper. Right. And I hear it, I see it in the mold and I adjust it
and do what needs to be done and it's done within minutes. There was one time a couple of years ago when I couldn't fix it and I had to call a handyman and he had me replace the assembly under his supervision and that was replaced. Okay. But what you're describing about a leak persisting for five days seems unlikely in, in my particular case. Speaker 1: Okay. Well again, absent the meter information that the meter is running now
and it seems like it's probably running fine now since you only have this five day anomaly. But our, the second half of our policy is we still have to pay for the water that was used if the metering, if the meter is not faulty Right. We have to pay that. It's not fair to any of the rape other rate payers in town for us not to charge for this. However, we adopted a policy that says when you, when this kind of thing happens and you get a $1,200 bill, we are going
to charge the excess over the pre prior three years. We look at the prior three year periods, so October, 2020 4, 20 23, 20 22, the highest usage in those were 16. Right. So we deduct the difference between the usage of this period, which was 39 and 16 and we still charge you for the water usage but at the lowest possible tier, which is tier one. So we will be talk discussing in a bit amongst ourselves very shortly.
So Understood. Got got what you're saying. So questions from the board, Richard? Speaker 6: I think this is what I heard and I just wanted to con confirm, wanna confirm you did not call a plumber. Correct? Speaker 4: We had a plumber come over several times for another matter and he found no evidence of a leak, Speaker 6: But not for this particular thing. Okay, that's fine. And I think I heard that the water department never actually came out and checked the meter, although that's correct. They Speaker 4: Didn't offer to do that. Speaker 6: The, that,
that seems unusual Mr. Marshall is, was, would that have been an unusual circumstance? Speaker 5: I mean, depending on what's reported to the water and sewer department without being there, I'm not sure what the conversation was. At times a homeowner will might request for them to come out and check the meter other times no, I mean I I wasn't part of the conversation so I'm not, yeah, I can't really answer that. Okay. Speaker 6: Well just as an aside, we might wanna consider asking the water department to make that suggestion in calls like this rather than assuming the homeowner knows to ask
just for future reference. Speaker 3: If I can clarify, I wanna give full credit to our water department. They do, they do take extra steps to go out and inspect meters when the situation warrants. I don't wanna suggest that they don't make that a standard practice. So Speaker 6: Could have interest Speaker 3: Anomaly since none of us were on that call. It's hard for us to know what Speaker 7: Was said. If, if I can just interject here for a second. I think it might have been a timing issue as well, rich, because this appeal was filed in November after he received the November water bill. Yeah. And the leak occurred in July
and since it had not been an ongoing leak, I I can't imagine that the water department at that point would think that they had anything they were able to do. Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I, I understand all of that. I just, yeah, I just don't want people to come in here and not, excuse me, you know, have full cooperation from the water department and it seems like there was a, just a misstep here. So, you know, whatever happened is fine Speaker 4: As to the possibility. Speaker 6: Excuse me, I'm sorry. So I think that's all I have Mr. Chairman, Speaker 4: As to the possibility of a toilet leak.
I've had a number of them over 20 years and there's been a toilet leak. We've heard it right away. We hear that the cycle is running. That did not occur. That dog never barked. There was no sign of a leak of that magnitude. Speaker 7: Okay. Well lemme so so this happened last July and ever since then you haven't had any issues, correct? Correct. Alright, so it's really what then we don't know as far as, you know, if your water meter is behaving properly, Speaker 4: The, my 360 reported normal usage up
to July through July 20th, then July 21st through 25th sky high usage at a rate that would, you know, it's like an extra thousand dollar charge just for five days and then thereafter starting July 26th, everything's normal. Speaker 7: Yeah. Sometimes there could be a lag or an issue with, with my 360 in terms of how it reports data and, and what the, the data is in it. I know mine for example, I don't get daily readings, so I wouldn't necessarily go by the my 360.
It's more like what your meter read is and that's what's on your billing. Speaker 1: That's true. Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 4: I wouldn't know enough. I can ask has the meter been calibrated and if so, when and by whom? Who would actually perform calibration? We, we would check in. So Speaker 7: Were you home during that time period? Speaker 4: Entirely home. Okay. And never noticed a single thing. If we've had a leak before, there've been some leaks and they've had very minor impact on our bill. They've been noticed and fixed. There was no sign of any such leak.
And I think of that magnitude, you know, if we were, if we were there, we would've seen waterproof. Speaker 7: Okay, but you're confident right now that you think things are working properly that you haven't seen anything that since last July that looks odd. We Speaker 4: Had a plumber come in to replace our disposal units under the sink and he took a look and he noticed nothing. Speaker 7: Okay, thank you. Speaker 4: And I have one other person who's here. Lily Meadows, also a native resident, had, has had a similar occurrence in her home.
So maybe a good time. Let's, let's resolve this one first. Okay, fair enough. But, Speaker 1: But please remind me if I go on that. Speaker 8: Thank you Mr. Evans. Mr. Ellis, I'm curious as to why a plumber came. If, if the water and sewer department told you to get a plumber and they came but they looked at another issue, but not this one. Speaker 4: Well, that was entirely separate. That plumber came before I reported this to the water department before I even received the bill. It was Bill came in, was it November?
The plumber came in October to replace the disposal. And at that time he noticed nothing. Speaker 8: But you said that they instructed you to call a plumber Speaker 4: In November. They said call a plumber and there was no point in calling a plumber when one had already come and noticed absolutely nothing out of the Speaker 8: Ordinary. But that person had come in October. Correct. And were coming for something different like That's correct. Is it possible that if they had come with the understanding of what you were reaching out to them for, they would have been looking for what? For that specific issue and not another issue?
Like the direction wasn't precise. They came in October to look at one thing, but when you talk to the water and sewer, they asked you that's correct. About something else. You're Speaker 4: Absolutely right. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 4: But the fact that we did have a plumber and we noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Speaker 8: I hear you. It's just that, you know, I mean you could bring an an electrician to the house and if they're looking for one thing, but the issue is somewhere else and they're being directed in one in one place, they might miss an issue because that's not where they're intentionally looking. Aside from that, i i i, I am sorry for this inconvenience.
I'm, I'm struggling with this right now because it would have been helpful had a technician of some kind, been able to either look at your water meter or like when they told you to ask, you know, to reach out to a plumber that they were brought in to specifically review that issue so that you could have some sort of backup or, or reinforce material. Speaker 4: Well, at the, at the time in November, everything had been normal since July. Speaker 1: Yep, I understand. Any further questions, Catherine? Speaker 9: I just wanted to point out that most residents don't know
that they can request that somebody from DPD come out. So DPW. So the question about whether he asked, I mean, I, I don't wanna hold that against him because most people don't know that you could, Speaker 4: I certainly didn't Speaker 9: Know. Understood. I'm also struggling with this one too, for various reasons, but the questions were even asked. Thank you Speaker 1: There. Any other suggestions, ideas? Speaker 9: I I do have one question. So the usage is $5,000 and, and the abatement is it suggested abatement according to the policy?
According to the parameters that we've set up that this, hold Speaker 1: On, hold on. There was an update that, that was a mistaken, A copy and paste error. Look at the one Speaker 9: I'm looking at the revised one. Oh, I see, I see. Speaker 1: Yeah, you might be too far down. Yep, Speaker 9: I'm, the Speaker 4: Bill is $1,174. Speaker 1: Yep. You're looking at Speaker 4: Previous bills were $200 range, $300 range, never higher. Speaker 1: Right. Okay. Speaker 4: Despite some other toilet right Speaker 1: Ahead? No,
Speaker 9: No, I I just, he's talking about a $5,000 bill and according to the parameters of, no, it's not 5,000. Speaker 4: There was no five, the bill was 1,174. Speaker 9: Okay. That's where I was stuck. I was hearing Yep. 5,000. I'm not seeing that in the bill date. So I'm, I'm good. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Does anybody have a motion to get this moving here? Alright, I'll make a motion. Alright, I'll, I will request an abatement in the amount of $434 and 73 cents.
And that is based on our policy where we're charging for the water usage above and beyond the average of the, the three years prior or the highest. So we're still being paid for that as a town ho. And what I would say is it's a lesson learned. You now know that you need to ask, request that the meter be looked at and if they suggest you get a plumber, get a plumber. It's a vast difference between telling a plumber, Hey,
the town says I have a leak somewhere in my house. Go look for it. Versus asking them to put in a garbage disposal. Yeah. Speaker 6: Well it's, I I will second for discussion. It's clear that there Speaker 1: Is no leak leak. Alright, we, so no, when we're talking please, Speaker 6: I'll second for discussion all. Speaker 1: So move on me and second by which discussion now? Or any other, Speaker 6: I'm, I, if I may. Speaker 1: Any other motions? Okay, rich, go Speaker 6: Ahead. Yeah, I'm struggling with this because typically when we grant an abatement,
there's been some clear action to at least investigate, if not take corrected corrective action. And it appears that there, there was no action taken. Just a, a request for an abatement. I understand that there's a lot of water usage during those couple of weeks and it's confusing to me, and I'm sure the water was used because, you know, the meters, the meter reading system is, you know, reliable and,
and you know, not, hasn't changed in years. So I'm struggling with whether to, to actually approve this abatement or not. Speaker 1: Other thoughts? Excuse me. Speaker 8: I feel similarly, I feel similarly because I, I feel like if if there would've been some sort of additional material that says, you know, somebody looked at all of the plumbing as it related to this issue, I would feel better about this.
I just wanna say that on the record. Speaker 7: Yeah. This, this one is a little difficult. I mean, usually when we consider these, there is a known cause effect remediation and, and we have documentation that whatever happened was a one time anomaly. And since we don't really understand what the cause for this was, I am glad that it wasn't an irrigation meter issue because in July, that's obviously the first thing that you think of, that somehow, you know, there was a leak somewhere and, and something happened and this was something that happened interior to your house.
It, this is, this is a real struggle for me because it it's very nebulous and, and we just don't really understand what caused this. I mean, Mr. Evans theory about a stuck toilet flap, that's possible. But as you said, you've had this before and you've heard when, when the toilet's running. So I, I don't know. And I don't think any of us will ever know what the cause of this is. But that said, I mean, I think it's clear that it is excess usage over what you've had before. And because it is over such a short period of time, whether or not the, my 360 readings were actually on those dates,
I don't know, but, and it seems to have abated. So I can really go either way on this one. Speaker 9: I just had a couple of points. We've, we've, we've granted abatements when we don't know what happened, we've done that before. The most recent abatements, one of the two, we have no idea what happened. It just happened, it just resolved. There was no way to figure out what the issue was. And we've granted an abatement, we have an abatement policy with parameters calling a plumber in November when he was advised to, for something that took place in July.
Might have been a good idea, but it would've been more money out of his pocket. And I don't think they would've found anything since the used of it's normal. I agree with you, Ms. Schlager, that my 360 sometimes reports, I'll get two or three days where it's really high. But that's because there was a, a glitch in reporting or updating as it's been explained to me. So then it'll show that I used 25 units one day, but actually I just used 15 and 10 and it hit on that day and said, oh, we've got one thing that I think would be helpful but not all residents know about it, is that you should be enrolled in my 360.
So that when, when you got that fake report or that spike or whatever it was, you would've known in July, contacted the department of the water department and it could have been addressed in that moment. I personally, there, there is a sense among some residents that if somebody's is not enrolled in my 360, then we shouldn't give abatements. I don't think that's a smart policy because of a number of reasons. One is not all residents know about it. So maybe I didn't know about it until Understood. Understood. So just gimme a minute. Not all residents know. If we spent an entire year sending out in the water bills an announcement, do this, do this, do this.
Otherwise you're not gonna get an abatement. There's gonna be people in apartment complexes in or condo units or in multi-family units with one meter. They're not gonna be able to take advantage of that. So, or I guess the, the meter owner would be able to, so what I, I personally, I I hear what everyone's saying, but I I don't have any problems with this given the way our policy's constructed and the way we've made decisions in the past. Speaker 1: The final comment before we vote, I concur with Ms. Kauflin, although I understand the concerns of my colleagues.
It is, you know, the, the, the lesson learned here is if you see an anomaly, whatever it is, looking at your meter via MI 360, call the water department, ask them to send somebody out to check the meter. It can be a meter problem, sometimes it can be a billing problem. It usually, at that point it's just, it could be a meter problem. But by doing so, you've cleared the path for us so that if it's an ongoing issue, you can then bring a plumber in
and say, okay, the meter's fine. Take a look at our, our a plumbing and, and make a determination of what's going on here. Right. So I, I am going to vote favorably for this because I'm convinced that you did not know the appropriate process and you're, you're coming here in good faith. So that's like 2 cents. Richard, Speaker 6: Just a real quick one. I'll vote in favor of this abatement at this point, but if something happens again
and you haven't signed up for my 360, I did sign up. Excuse me, let me finish please. This is not a conversation, you know, if you come, if this happens again and you have no explanation, it's unlikely I would. So just because you can get notified in a more timely manner. So I just Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 6: Wanna make that point? Speaker 1: Any other comments before you vote? All in favor, please say aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: Any opposed? So that's 5 0 0.
Thank you. You've been patiently waiting. Would you like to hit up? Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Speaker 6: Bruce, can we just get clarity on what the intended abatement was? Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Thank you. The abatement is, is the amount of $434 and 73 cents as as computed by the deputy town administrator. Speaker 3: Thank Speaker 1: You. Sure. Speaker 5: And Bruce, just for clarification, 'cause I know that this has come up previously, the abatement is the reduction of the bill that people have, not the amount paid. So the 4 34 73 is reduced from
that, that bill that was Speaker 1: Presented. Thank you for that. It's okay. One of these days I'll explain it. Start to finish accurately. Okay. So thank you. Speaker 10: My name is Lillian Meadows. I've lived in Native Street for over 50 years. Excuse Speaker 1: Me, what is your address on five D Street? Five Speaker 10: Five Draper Street. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 3: What item on the agenda is this? Speaker 1: It's not, I just wanted to talk to her and, and just say please submit this.
So you have, you are in a similar situation. Speaker 10: I had a, an exorbitantly high water bill for Speaker 1: Okay, here's what you need to do is you, this is not on our agenda and we can only talk about topics that are on our agenda. So what I wanted you to come up to the podium for is to, for me to explain what you have to do. You have to contact the, the, the town administrator's office and look up if you want to call the tenant administrator's office and say I want to file a water and sewer rebate request.
And they'll walk you through the process of doing so. Speaker 10: So I call the administrator's office. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 10: And I want to file a what? Speaker 1: A water and sewer abatement request. Speaker 3: If I can just add the, the water sewer abatement policy and application form are located on the town's website. So you can go to the town's website or just Google search natick water sewer abatements and the, there's an application you have to fill out the form and submit the application through the town administrator's office. All the materials and instructions are on the town's website.
You can certainly call the office as well. And, and we'll direct you to that, that page on the website. Speaker 6: Okay. Yeah. And I just so you know, just, I just tested a search. I went to the town of Natick main website and I took water sewer abatement. It brought me right to the page. Speaker 10: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Sorry. Yeah, we move on. Speaker 10: So you don't want me to go through by Speaker 1: No, I can. I we can't. Literally we're, it's for us to do that. So thank you for bringing this to our attention. Ideally we would've brought this up in public speak 'cause it wasn't on the agenda, but it, since it was related, i, i,
I gave you a little leeway here, so thank you. Okay, thank you. You are welcome. Okay, next up is, oh, I hope I get this better than the last time. EG. Metin, you get abazi. Is that even close to Almost? Speaker 11: Hi. Hi evening. Happy year. You may remember us from last time before the holidays. If you want I can summarize our situation again. Sure. Just Speaker 1: Briefly. Speaker 11: Yeah, sure. We, we received this bill for high usage bill for three months for April through June of 2024.
But during that time we were overseas. Nobody lived in at, at our house during that time and everything was fine. But something started all of a sudden and stopped before even we came back from, from overseas. So we, after we came back, after we saw that bill, my husband came to town hall, spoke with the water department, they told us that they can send the guy to check the meter. The guy came in September, I believe, checked our water meter, said everything is looking fine.
And then we were not sure, we filled out that abatement form, sent it to John Marshall and then we exchanged some emails and then we decided to ask a lawyer and our neighbors to get some ideas about what we can do about this. And the lawyer suggested us to hire a plumbing company. We hired a plumbing company and emailed the videos and photos that they recorded to you.
Speaker 1: And yeah. Any questions from the board? We've heard that this before and we asked in December for them to provide more materials about when they were away and what actions they'd taken with the plumbers and which they have provided both in the plumber's bill and the videos. So if there are any questions for add? No, I Speaker 6: Have a motion. Speaker 1: Go ahead Mr. Speaker 6: So I move of eight amount
of $7,949 and 8 cents, which per Mr. Marshall's email is 5,000 97 33 from one bill and 2000 851 75 from the second bill. And I believe that adds up correctly. Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Ms. Er. Any comments, questions? I just have one. And and this is kind of a cautionary tale for people out there.
If you're gonna be away from your property for a while, first of all, turn off the water if you can, if you can do that, the, the from the meter to the house. Also, make sure you're signed up for my 360, which I think you guys have done. Second, is get a neighbor or someone on the who you trust to periodically look in on the house if you're gonna be away for a while. It's thi this is, unfortunately it is, it is
the way these things go. You never have a problem when you're, well, you seldom have a problem when you're, you're there and you can do something about it. But if you're know, you're gonna be away for a protracted period of time, just take those precautions. Speaker 11: Yep, Speaker 1: Sure. A comment. Go ahead Richard. Speaker 6: This is a, this is a, a situation where it's very similar to the one we just heard in that we don't really know what happened. But in this case, the homeowner took all the possible actions they could take and they provided all the documentation up front.
So I just wanted to differentiate, I wanted to, to compare and contrast those. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Richard. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Speaker 6: Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. 5 0 0. So the total Richard again was Speaker 6: $7,949 and 8 cents. Speaker 1: And that will be deducted from, I forget like 15. Speaker 6: I think the town administrator's office gets all of them. And Speaker 1: Yes, you'll be hearing from the 10 administrator's office as to the next steps. So thank you for coming back. Okay.
And thank you for Thank you providing the data we need. Speaker 11: Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we turned dollars on, on my 360 as per your suggestion last time, so, okay. Hopefully we won't be back. Speaker 1: Okay, good. Good luck. All right. Next up is, next up is item B. But we're actually not going to hear that tonight. It's a public hearing for core LLC application for X 12 all alcohol license. Were unable to hold that public hearing tonight due
to a butter and abutters notification error. The anticipated new hearing date is on February 4th, 2020 sixth. So let's move on now to item C, which is the sherborne steward connection, IMA and development agreement. Mr, can you take us through that? Well, Speaker 3: In fact, if, if it's okay with you Bruce, can I ask to take a couple items maybe out of order? Sure. What do you got? I was thinking the park study, 'cause we do have somebody here for that as well. Sure. And the capital improvement program. All right. We do have another person here.
Speaker 1: Alright, let's do the park study first. You're, you're my eyes and ears thanking. Yeah. Okay, go right ahead on the parts study. Next steps. You wanna go through your mo from you and superintendent? Sp Speaker 3: Absolutely. So, and, and the board may recall that there was a discussion, well this, there's a much broader discussion. The most recent part of the discussion at the board level, the board post town meeting discussed just briefly sort of next steps on a number of items after town meeting, which is a regular occurrence
for the board to consider after town meeting. 'cause at town meeting the board is sort of charged with or tasked with doing certain things. One of which was to advance the dialogue around artificial tur fields and sort of the role of artificial tur fields in the town of Natick as a field choice to accommodate demand. So that, that brief conversation occurred in, I think end of November before the holidays. And then after that meeting, the chair and I took us a little while 'cause of the holidays, but we scheduled a time to meet with the chair of the school committee and the superintendent because it was the conversation town meeting.
And just the broader conversation does involve the school department. You know, there's a lot of field use at the high school. There's a, there's an appropriation 2024 to study or design, but you need to study before you do the full design. The practice field at the high school for potential reconstruction, whether it's grass or synthetic, was still to be determined. Although the intent or the, the, the, the sort of thinking at the time, my understanding from the school committee was that they were, they were contemplating a synthetic to her field. But again, that still needed to be determined that
that's even possible at that location. So there's a lot of intertwining. So that's why I made sense for Bruce and I to meet with the superintendent and the chair of the school committee. And we held that meeting in mid-December, right. Really right before the holiday break. And we came up with an approach that is a multi, a two-pronged approach that can happen concurrently in, in sort of my opinion anyway, that can both guide the conversation around artificial turf fields. But then for, for the purposes of the school committee and the select board and and broader community
and also the advance the design work for the practice field at the high school. So that, at that meeting, the superintendent and I were sort of charged with coming up with really drafting a joint memo, which is in the packet for this evening, outlining that approach. It will be in front of the school committee and at their meeting on Monday night. So they have not discussed this publicly yet, but they will be discussing it my understanding on Monday night. So the same memo has been provided to them as well. I'm, I'm suspecting a similar conversation at that meeting. And in that memo it just outlines this two-pronged approach
with the idea that, you know, pending endorsement from both this board and the school committee administration town and school administration would be charged with advancing those two components forward as outlined in, in the memo. And those two components are one to establish sort of an ad hoc study group is what I called it in the memo. Whether it wants to be a formal committee is really the determination I think of this board and or the school committee. But really a study group that would be primarily just doing, not just, but looking at all of the literature
that's out there today around our artificial turf fields and synthetic fields, synthesizing that information for the Natick context and then providing some sort of guidance for the school committee and the select board, this is me paraphrasing around what are the considerations that Natick should be thinking through when it comes to the use of synthetic tour fields in a NA context. There's a lot of information out there. So by no means does, does is there need to do more research? It's really just looking at the existing research and making sure that it's current and accurate
and relevant to sort of the native context. And then figuring out, okay, what makes sense for Natick. In addition, looking at field usage in town, which I know there's been a lot of dialogue about and already a lot of research on, to then figure out, okay, based on that research, putting aside any one particular location sort of independent of location, what, what are the conditions by which a synthetic or field in NA might make sense. And then providing that guidance, not necessarily formal recommendations, but sort of providing the guidance to the school committee and the select board and, and just the broader community around the use of synthetic,
synthetic to our fields, types of, of usages and the like. That will concurrently support or help to inform the advancement of the design work for the practice field at the high school, which is that small field. It's not small. The, the field behind the stands at the memorial field behind Meaningly to the west and northwest side of it. That field was, there's design funding appropriated at 2024. In 2024 by town meaning to the school committee to advance design work at that location. To date only concept work has been completed.
So very, very little actual like field design work. And that project was put on pause for various reasons by the school department. You know, we had an override, we had a new superintendent. There's a lot of reasons why that, why that project was put on pause. So the proposal in the, in the memo is to basically have the school committee, 'cause it's largely a school committee project or or fund. The funding is under the, the control of the school committee to sort of ask or, or or seek town administration to have town staff who had the expertise in this type of work to advance that design. And the first step of that is just going to be can you,
what, what type of field can even be accommodated here? There they, there still needs to be, you know, wetlands analysis, groundwater analysis. A lot of science needs to go into whether or not this location can even accommodate a synthetic tur field or a natural tur field. Then that will help inform the design process moving forward. The, the memo notes are good Hein, he's our director of land facilities natural resources, who has extensive experience doing this work. He, he worked on the memorial field re reconstruction just recently worked, I believe on the coal field construction altogether
in conjunction with, and I didn't put these names in the memo, but Angela Sne with rec parks and Community services who also has experience working on field construction and design. Coincidentally. So does John. So do I, we have a lot of experience on the team. I'm, I'm not planning on being a part of this, but I'm just saying like there's a lot of experience on the, on the town side with these types of projects. And so we would just ask that the school committee sort of authorize town administration to advance the design work with regular check-ins with the school committee to make sure that, that as we learn more school committee is informed
and then can provide appropriate direction. And that would happen concurrently with this work that the study committee could study group would do as well. Timeline, I mean, ideally some of the work would be done by town meeting so that there can be a report to town meeting. I would hate to rush any project. So my recommendation is to just sort of say, could be three to six months with the idea that there can be at least a status update provided to town meeting because this, this was an outcome of the fall town meeting. But again, I would want to make sure that both the study group and the design work has the time they need to do a good quality work.
The other component of at least the design side is certain times of the year is when you can do certain things with wetlands, with groundwater testing with. So there might be reasons why we can't advance the design as quickly as we might want to. So I just want to give that flexibility to the people doing that work. I know the school department has already contracted with Tie and Bond, which is a, a firm actually that was recommended by, by, and I've worked with em in the past too. They're great firm. So we're, they're ready to go. We just need to get these next couple sort of things in place.
And the memo, the joint memo of the superintendent is intended to do that pending both the board's sort of endorsement tonight as well as the school committee's endorsement and potential vote on Monday night. The study committee is intended, I'll just go back to that at one point. 'cause one of the things the board could take action on tonight is an appointment is intended to be, basically, I see Ms. McDonough and the crowd tonight, Julie McDonough, who's done an, an amazing amount of work on this already led by her, if she's even willing, she's here tonight. So I'm assuming she's willing with a member
of the school committee, a member of the select board and potentially a member of, of the Department of Health or Board of Health. I have, I have not formally asked either for their role, so I cannot confirm if they would be interested, but I'm sure we can get somebody from the department in or the board to be involved. I wanted to have this conversation first to make sure that, that the select board and then Monday night conversation with the school coming up there on Speaker 6: Moving this approach. Speaker 3: So that's a lot of me paraphrasing, but that's a lot of the detail that's out in the memo. And then it's also a lot of the intent of how we got to where we're today and, and the intent of, of
what we're looking at moving forward. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Mr. Erickson. The, there were, as you said, a lot of moving parts and a lot of information out there and I think, you know, what we said at town meeting is we need to, we have an acute field shortage in town and we, we know that and we're wrestling with how we resolve that as quickly as we can. So questions in comments from the board, Ms. Wells Fargo, Speaker 7: I just wanna say thank you to, to you and to Jamie
and to Julie on all the effort and Dr. Sp thank you Rich to come together on this. I know that there were a lot of discussions and it took a lot of, I don't know what the right word is here. Not necessarily compromise, but, but getting, getting the issues out on the table. And I think you've come up with a very sensible approach that will work and also not really delay the project as well. And I'm, I'm hopeful and I'm very grateful to Ms. McDonough for being willing to champion this effort
and make sure that we came to a, a good conclusion to it. So thank you to all involved. Yeah, Speaker 6: Yeah. Just a couple of things you should, and, and I don't think this would happen, but should there be no ability for the, either the board of health or the health department to provide a resource for this committee, what would be an alternative to get somebody with that kind of expertise on the committee? That, that's a question for Mr. Erickson. I think,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think that's gonna happen. I think we'll get somebody from the health department at the very least to be involved. Again, it's, it's, the intent isn't to necessarily have a community that's gonna be voting on anything per se. It's just providing guidance, doing a lot of the research about what's already been done. They're in the research world and, and providing some, some considerations to the school committee and the select board and the community regarding the use of synthetic fields in the data context. Speaker 6: Yeah. And it's, Speaker 3: So Speaker 6: I I I understand Speaker 3: You'll be able to get the Yeah, you'll be able to get the, the, the, even without sort
of particular one member, my hope is that that group will still be able to provide that research and, and pull from experts even maybe even in, in Natick. You know, we do have a, you know, active groups in town, whether it's sustainability or, or conservation commission or, or others that might be able, and even the board of Health themselves, maybe they can't be involved in the group, but they can still be consulted with. So I'm thinking that there would be other ways to get that expertise. Speaker 6: Well that's, that's Speaker 3: Get that guidance. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Just wanna make sure that's gonna happen in Yeah, in, in addition, I, I want to say that from my perspective personally, I don't think I want, you know, the select board to be appointing this. I think I wanna see this run through the town administrator rather than through the board certainly reporting back to the board. But it seems like it's a good administration, joint administration kind of project. That's just a comment on, you know, when you're ready for a motion, Mr. Chair,
Speaker 1: Mr. Chiney? Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's okay, I'd recommend it being more like a, if that's the, the will of the board being more of a joint school Yeah. In town or superintendent insurance, something along those lines. Just because Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I was saying too. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: We're Speaker 6: On the same page if I may, the, the memo doesn't say that the select word appoint this, it just, I just wanted to get it really clear. Yes. Okay. Speaker 1: That's good that you brought that up. Anything else? Any comments, suggestions? Thank you Richard, for bringing that up because that the structure is, is important on this. What we want to be able to do is do kind
of a contradiction in terms a quick and thorough analysis. We have a lot of the data already, thanks to Ms. McDonough's efforts over the past several years. A lot of that data continues to be a hundred percent valid and there's a lot of detail in that that needs to get pared. And I think we can do that within the three to six months that Mr. Erickson has specified. So I will, unless anyone has a burning desire to be on this committee
or this ad hoc committee, I would put my hand up to be on the committee. Speaker 6: Well, Mr. Chairman, if you're ready for a motion. Speaker 1: Okay, Speaker 6: I move that we approve the approach proposed by the town administration and superintendent to move the, these two joint projects forward. Speaker 1: Okay. Second. Speaker 6: And hope to hear good reports in a few months. Speaker 1: Yes, I was move by Rich and seconding by second. I just, Speaker 6: Will you clarify as in the, in the memo from from Yeah, it's in the memo from the town administration.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: Thank you for that. Speaker 3: And, and just a friendly subject to school committee, obviously. Speaker 1: Yeah. Approval. Okay. Have we issued enough caveats? I'm sorry. We got Rich and seconded by Kristen. Before we vote, let's ask was McDonald Speaker 6: For the second seconded? Speaker 1: I heard on both sides, so I'll give it to Linda, to Kristen, let's give it to thank you. Speaker 12: Hi, Julie McDonough, three Sur Lane Precinct three.
So thank you very much for moving this forward. I, I think the approach really works with the study group. I'm really excited to have a, a public forum where people, where everyone can know that the discussion is happening and that all of the information can be shared in one place. I think up until now we've had some shared at town meeting and some's been at fin com and some's happened in the school department and not everyone has been in all of those meetings. So now there will be an opportunity for all that information
to be shared and to be brought together in this report for boards and committees to consider as they make funding decisions in the future. So I really like the study committee. I also really think that having DPW and Art lead the design and the investigation of what's possible at the high school fields makes a lot of sense. In my meetings with him, he's very, very knowledgeable and not only in in installation of new fields, but maintenance of fields. Everything comes back to how he and his team
and DPW maintains the fields. So it makes sense because his role is cross cuts across school, department and parks and Rec and DPW and he has the expertise to do it. So I think having someone like that will really move the process forward in a thoughtful way. So thank you very much for moving this. I know there's been a lot of discussion and it's important to know that like, I feel heard that, that this is an important issue and that you've taken it seriously and I'm sure that others who have been here,
who have brought this issue up in different capacities will feel that this is the right step and that we're making progress. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker 9: Mr. Chair. Ms. Con, I just wanted to make a suggestion, which is probably already in the works but hasn't been explicitly stated. I'd like to, to suggest that our communications director be involved in ensuring that the work of this committee and public, when there's public meetings, that those are adequately advertised. And I know he's got a lot going on, but it would be helpful. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: You didn't vote for me, but are you guys comfortable with me putting my hand up for this? Yes. Yes. We have to vote on that. Oh, that's what I thought. That's why asking you. But on the motion we haven't voted. Right. Thank Speaker 9: You Mr. Chair, did you wanna speak? Is that what you're asking? Speaker 1: No, thank you. No. Okay. Appreciate it. Just Speaker 9: Point clarification. Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Do we have a motion? Do we have a motion? Yes. Alright. We were in discussion. All Yes. Enough.
I told you I had the flu. I'm expect me to be clear at it. All right. All in favor, please say aye. A aye aye. Alright. Why would you think we expect it to be clearheaded? Yeah. Okay. Ooh, that was, that was worthy of your deck of court. Alright. All right, let's move on now. Thank you again. This is done authority work and for keeping after me. Alright, so let's see. Next up was improvement. I'm sorry, on the page Mr. Marshall,
take us through us or do you, do you wanna do a start on it or Speaker 3: I'll, I'll just take two seconds. It's okay with Mr. Marshall while I get the presentation up. So as required by, by bylaw the Town Administrators Capital Improvement Program, which is largely a group effort led by, by John Deputy Town Administrator for operations was published. It's, I think the bylaw says 30 days prior to the publish of the, of the budget, which is February one. So it's January one, we, we, we held it until Monday because we want to get on people's inboxes right after the holidays. It's been published, it's on the town's website. And I just wanna give good kudos to John
and the team all really, the department head team and the school administration team are really coming together this year. We're just gonna give you a brief highlight of the updated process and what we, what we had coming through from the capital program and given an opportunity for the board to give us our, your initial reactions. But you know, by no means is this the last conversation, but since we did, John and team did such an amazing job this year, really putting effort into the capital, we felt it appropriate to as soon as it was released to provide this presentation to the board and to the public.
So Sean, Speaker 5: Thank you Jamie. Members of the board. So for the public, I'm just gonna actually start on the town's website and kind of navigate people to where you can get to the capital improvement plan. 'cause I think it's really important for the public to be able to see this document to be able to access it and see how we're planning for our long-term capital. So it only takes a couple of clicks. So if you're on the website under government, if you scroll over and click to Town Administrator, one of the top links on the side is the capital improvement program.
It directs you right to the 2027 Capital Improvement Program. And if you scroll down a little bit, that gives you the PDF of the plan. Within the plan. We have the summary on the first couple of pages, we got a couple of links to help you navigate around. We have the summary in here and then we go down to a couple of tables that actually lists out the projects. And each request is searchable. So if you click on it, it'll actually take you to the request. So for the public, please take a look at that document, get yourself familiar with it to see how we're planning.
I do have a couple of slides that I'm just gonna walk through from a high level standpoint to give everyone an idea of how we navigated through the capital improvement plan this year, and specifically how we focused in on 2027, the component of the plan that we'll be seeking funding for at both spring and town meeting. What did I say? Oh, spring and fall town meeting. Speaker 1: John, can I just pause you for a second? I just wanted to inform users on Natick, Pegasus that we're now able to get our video back
so you can see our smiling faces up here. In particular John's. Speaker 5: Thank you Bruce. And I think it's actually just a screen share for right now on it. So they might not be able to see our smiling faces, but we are smiling. So for those of you at home, imagine that. So it was a high level, the 2027 to 2031 Capital improvement Plan, CIP for short is really a planning tool for the town forecasting and prioritizing capital investments over that five year period. This is not a shocker to people who have been following along
with the capital plan for years. But not all requests in this five year plan will be able to be completed either due to funding or staff capacity. But this is a representation of those needs and investments that we do do need to be making into our infrastructure requests over the next five years are estimated at 21.5 million in the general fund requests, what'd I say? Sorry, 215.5 million in the general fund requests and 70 million in Enterprise fund requests.
The difference for the public between General Fund and Enterprise Fund General Fund is through tax Levy Enterprise funds are self-supporting operations. So that's our water and sewer in our golf course. And then if you look at the bottom of the screen, I just have a chart in terms of how that plays out over the five years in terms of dollars. So you'll see that top line that says all projects. And then I basically subtract out water and sewer and golf enterprise. And that gives you the net of the general fund projects. And this is also within the capital plan,
but I think it's just important for people to see those amounts totaling back up to those numbers I mentioned above. So the five year plan is an important tool, but we really drill down into the current year. So that would be fiscal year 27, the year that's approaching us. And we did a couple of things differently this year. So prior to the review, we added a new step. We worked with departments to prioritize their project using established tiering criteria. We had done tiering in the past with them, but we really intentionally used this as an opportunity to
tier and tier one projects met the following criteria. They were an imminent threat to health or safety requirement by the state or federal law or regulations. Sometimes those unfunded mandates that come into play, alignment with established goals or plans, replacement of existing assets that have reached the end of the useful life. And I will note should be replaced. Stability or staff ability to begin projects before July 1st, 2027. July 1st, 2027 is important because if it's after that, it really should be in the following
years requests. And then tier two projects for simplicity are all projects that didn't meet that tier one criteria. We had a series of joint meetings with school administration, department heads and key staff to drill down on that specifically fiscal year 2027 component. Looking at funding, and this is something that I want to give a lot of kudos to our finance team with Gloria and Ari. In the past we had come up with what our request was. We had tiered those a little bit, but we didn't necessarily estimate at this period in time
the available funding This year we thought it was extremely important, especially following the override to add that component into the capital improvement plan and estimate what we might be able to fund out of our requests at this point in time. So the estimate, the estimate of available funding was driven by a couple of things. One, the incorporation of positive free cash certified from fiscal year 2026. So that was the free cash certification that we had default. And then an assessment of the degree
to which additional debt can be accommodated in the long range forecast. And I think the important thing related to taking on new debt is we have to account for that debt for as long as the useful life is. So as the board may recall, every time you sign notes for for bonds, we ask you for a useful life for those specific items. That's how long we're gonna go out and borrow for on those items. So we need to make sure that we account for that borrowing in our budgets in future years for as long
as we have for that useful life. So high level summary. If we're adding $6 million of borrowing capacity or $6 million of projects, we need roughly $700,000 added to the debt service budget line for the next 10 plus years. If each item had a useful life of 10 years, some have a little bit more, some have a little bit less. But that was a pretty good ballpark that we came up just to put it into perspective for people. So you'll see the chart below. This now takes a look at specifically fiscal year 27.
And again this ties back to the five year plan, but now we're drilling into 27. So we have the amount requested. And again, this is all projects and then you'll see water and sewer prize, enter water and sewer enterprise, golf enterprise. And then again those general projects, I wish my screen was could get a little bit smaller 'cause I know that's tight at the bottom. So when you go through that, basically the general projects, so once we subtract out water and sewer enterprise, we have about $24.2 million worth of requests.
And I had noted above we have about $12 million worth of estimated funding for those projects. We went through a tiering system and we also accounted for what we were estimating from grants. So on that third column you'll see grants or alternative funding. We have about $3.6 million that we're anticipating getting grants for to tackle some of that capital plan. We have our tier one priority that ties roughly back to that 12 million and working with all the departments. And we roughly have about $9 million worth of projects that will not be able to be funded with a initial estimates
unless additional funding came from somewhere. I would just say it's important for us to not only think of this year but to think of future years. So if we're using roughly $6 million of available one-time funding this year, are we gonna have roughly $6 million of one-time funding available next year to again be able to tackle that capital improvement program? And those are the couple of slides that I put together. I do have in the packet just for the public kind of next steps in terms of, you know, what happens from here. We will continue
to share this information out with the public. We'll start moving forward with those requests that will move forward to a springtown meeting. We typically break our capital requests up between a spring and a fall town meeting. So we will prepare those for spring. Whatever we don't fund in spring that we want to continue to move forward, we'll get prepared for fall. Once we get appropriations at either spring or fall town meeting, we go through our procurement process where we go out, we'll bid the projects, we'll start moving forward any project that's borrowed for, we need to sequence the timing in for that as part
of that process as well. And then, you know, from there, our department to work to carry out those projects, get those completed and then once they're completed we close out the project and then either rescind or turn back any of the money that we may not have needed for a project. So hopefully that was a good high level summary and happy to answer any questions that I know Ari's here as well. Speaker 3: If I can just briefly add one thing that we're gonna be talking with the board about in the coming probably months ahead, more once we get through the, the budgeting process is you can see as John noted, we had almost,
not quite, but almost double the requests that we have funding for that, that that $9 million doesn't go away, it's going into next year. Next year we already have on just this year's capital for next year, this equivalent amount of capital 20 some odd million dollars, 27 million. So now you figure that's just by, you know, we'll go through the capital process. So it's probably not gonna be that, but just by that math it's $35 million worth of projects next year, of which we're not sure we're gonna have the $6 million or $12 million worth of capacity. We don't know what the capacity is at this point, potentially is less than that.
So there's some real financial constraints due to our capital program. And one thing to note, and this is actually in the capital plan, you'll see a backwards looking chart whereby it shows in the summary, correct? Yes. Yeah. Backwards looking chart in the executive summary of the plan showing how over the last five years, five plus years, we've typically spent 10 to $12 million worth of money on capital. What we're not accounting for though is escalating costs. So even if you keep a $12 million capital program costs just on vehicles for example, from the last five years have gone up nearly 50%.
So we're just by that nature doing less than we can. So they're just very real financial considerations that we'll, we'll be sort of exploring more with the board on how to address what approaches we might need to take in the coming years to address that and getting some direction from the board from that policy perspective. Speaker 1: Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you Mr. Sidney. Speaker 6: Yeah, I just want to say that I'm, I'm really appreciative of two things that you brought up in preparing this capital plan. One is incorporating staff
capacity, because I think in the past and, and I've been, I was on the finance committee for 10 years, I think we've, you know, put projects on the books that we just didn't have the capacity to do. We eventually got them done. But by incorporating that in the plan directly, I think it's a much better plan. And the other is, the other thing I really appreciate is looking at borrowing capacity as part of the available funding. And with the understanding of course, you know, bonds go off, bonds come on, but the understanding that if we over borrow,
we hurt our ability to pay for current operations. So I appreciate those two things being called out in this plan and I think it's a much more realistic plan as a result. Speaker 1: I, Speaker 7: Yes, thank you John. And thank you for all and Ari and your team, all that you've done to give us a very comprehensive plan every year this gets better and better and I, and I appreciate that. I mean, it's never gonna be perfect. There's always gonna be things that come up, but I, I do appreciate how thoughtful that every
of all the department heads are in terms of kind of really trying to look through what, what is needed. With that said, it's very distressing to see how much is not being funded. And and I think that's something that as a board we really do need to tackle and, and take on. We have a lot in the town and many of them are tier one. We don't have the money to fund them and, and what can we do? And, and I think that's obviously a much larger discussion than we can have tonight, but it is, it is a concern. Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Evans. I also wanna say thank you, but I also appreciate that the, the contrast in,
in price, like prices, you know, like you said five years ago, however many years ago, and then what they are today, I think that would be helpful as we talk about this and shape the budget, is helping the public understand how the cost has changed over time. Like if we, we were investing in, you know, a vehicle however many years ago, it cost us this much money and this is what our financial picture looked like today. It cost us much money and this is what the financial picture looked like.
I think that would be helpful. Information is helpful for me. Speaker 5: I'll, I'll actually see if I can find it for the board, but I think I did an exercise last year when we were going through the capital plan and I took the vehicles that we were requesting last year and I actually went back into the previous capital plans in terms of what we were estimating for those vehicles at that point in time. And it came out to be about 59% higher just from what we were estimating at that time to what the actual quotes that we had gotten last year related to those vehicles. So it is significant Speaker 3: To the, to the credit of the team on that point.
Our, our departments have really looked at what is the need versus wants as well. And vehicles is just one of those areas where you have to look at that just 'cause a good chunk of our capital are our vehicles. So I, I give credit to the team for really, and you can see some of our newer vehicles around town and they're, they're more of the, the needs, not the wants. And some of them might, a lot of 'em, we also have the vehicle policy where we're getting some grant funding to help support the purchase of those vehicles 'cause they're, they're hybrid or, or electric or plugin or what have you. So, you know, credit to the team for really working together
to try to ensure that we can still do similar with the resources and and access to, to programs that we have, but also being, being mindful of the needs versus wants when it comes to, to projects and vehicles and, and like, and the capital. Speaker 1: Just wanted to amplify the last two points, which are, we do a tremendous job as a town. We being not, not to select board, but the engineering department and I forget what Ken Fisher's organization is,
but they do maintenance, vehicle maintenance. Thank you. They have a relatively small staff that does a tremendous job. They have faced hurdles that, that have been incredibly hard in terms of supply chains doubling their prices, lead times that are ridiculously long, yet they still manage to keep the fleets operational and find creative ways to get used equipment.
They do a tremendous job and I just wanted to give a shout out to them because they, they do that in an ongoing basis and the investments, excuse me, that we make in capital are leveraged by these people. At the same time, I want to give a shout out to Mr. Sprat who does the same thing on the building maintenance side of things. He works very proactively to prioritize what the immediate needs are and the critical needs are and guess
and resolve as quickly as we can. Again, a really of hard job in these times. So kudos to both those men. Speaker 5: Mr. Chair, if I could just, you made me think of something when we were talking about public works. I think a good example in terms of how critical the vehicles and equipment are with the snow and ice events that we've had recently. We had, I was listening last night as I was at home, you could hear the trucks go by and salting and sanding and then I put my trash out this morning and then the same people who were actually doing the salting and sanding last night were out today picking up our trash
and picking up our recycling. And then with the holiday season right now they're also trees picking up some of the trees. So it's amazing work that they do. But I think it's really important when we talk and we look at capital is we can stretch the bounds of some of those vehicles to a certain point, but if we stretch 'em too far, you know, that there's also that that point. And I think we're a little bit at that point in time where we need to be really careful. We have paused and held on some trash and recycling trucks the last couple of years as we've, as we've tried to look at that
and knowing that some of the state regulations are coming out that could have an impact in terms of what types of vehicles we, we could have. We had, even in the plan for this year, we were having conversations about do we really need, you know, some of these, you know, six to 10 wheel vehicles, but those are those critical pieces that are actually doing our salting and sanding. So the prices of those vehicles have gone up so much, but there's really not a, a great alternative that we have to not purchasing those vehicles and keeping our road safe and keeping our trash and recycling picked up.
Speaker 1: Mr. Marshall, we need Speaker 3: No, no, this is more an update to the board. We got some valuable feedback if, if as the board reviews the plan and as we go through the, the budget season coming up starting, well sorry, once we release the budget in February, we'll we'll have more conversation. It's definitely gonna be something that's a topic that we need to collectively understand as a community and then also work to, to address which can be a myriad of, of ways. So more to come. Speaker 1: Thank you. Alright, now go back to
the honor for the Sherborn sewer IMA development area. Speaker 3: Certainly. Yep. Speaker 1: Thank you Ari for being. Thank you. Thank you Ari. Thanks, judge. Speaker 3: So this is the board may recall we had a conversation about this project slash set of agreements back in early December, I believe is when we talked about this last, and this actually has been a conversation that's been ongoing at the board level, town administration and other levels for six plus years. I wanna say it's been a while, but in, in brief there's a, just to recap,
there's a proposed series of, of projects in Sherburne that Sherburne is interested in advancing. Sherburne does not have public water, public sewer, and these projects need connections to public water and public sewer. In the case of the public water that would be handled through Framingham Natica has been asked to allow for the connection into our public sewer system, which ultimately is a pass through to the MWRA system. The town of Sherburn went and sought special state legislation to accommodate this
because it does require special state legislation. When you're doing a project like this across town communities. They also have to establish their own sewer district. So there are some references in some of the documents to, to the special legislation in the, in the North Sherburn water and sewer district. Again, for the naix purposes, it's strictly the sewer side. The water will be coming, framing it in order to accommodate this request. And the board gave the green light to to, to work on this several years ago now actually to town administration to work with Sherburn administration and the developer.
There are two components to, to the, to support the project that are before the board tonight. One is an inter municipal agreement with between Natick and the town of Sherburn and the North Sherburn water material district. And then the other one is the development agreement with the developer. So the developer in Sherburn is Toll Brothers. They have, in order to accommodate the connection, there's quite a bit of, of work that needs to happen and work in Natick that needs to happen to accommodate this. This would connect in the Speed Street location.
It would need to be in the Sherburn side. It would need to be a force main, which means basically it's pumped through their infrastructure to a location where it connects in with Natick, where it would be part of our gravity feed system. So there's no, there's no there pumping or new mechanicals in Natick. However, that section of Speed Street does need to be relied and that's, that's a benefit to the town in the sense that this project will help us and actually pay for that work along with some other work in that section of Speed Street. And so that was what not brought us to the table,
but was that benefit for the community that allowed us, for my, my impression from the board was allowing it to be a, a, a project that we would seek to support among other reasons why we would support, you know, being a good neighbor and all. So the, the two, the two agreements in front of the board tonight are an in a municipal agreement, which is basically the longstanding, it's gonna be a 25 year agreement with a potential for renewal for up to 50 years. The 50 year timeframe is actually from the special state legislation. So that's where that timeframe comes in an initial term of 25 years with a potential renewal of another 25 years.
It's part of that, that in municipal agreement and basically that just sets the parameters by which the Sherburn sewer district will then be interplaying with the Natick Sewer District and, and eventually getting the, the sewer to the MWA system. And you'll see some components in the IMA whereby, you know, it's a lot of just basics of what the project is and what's happening, but then who owns what. And largely in the case of Natick, we are just that pass through, we will be able to assess
reasonable fees consistent with our other fees for just running a district. So they'll be fairly nominal on the scale of the native sewer system. However, one thing that that is an a benefit is that MW is actually gonna direct Bill Sherburne for the sewer. We'll just have OM fees that we can then assess the district for that amount of flow going through our pipes. And then it just sets out parameters by which, you know, we can, we, the town really any user can check the usage, check the rates, check the amount of flow that's happening, who's responsible for what in the emergencies, how it works,
how the district, the, the, the Sherburne district is actually a customer of Natick and how, so it gets into some of those logistics and that initial connection fee, which has been covered by the development agreement. The development agreement is, is directly between the town of Natick and Toll Brothers. And that is where the town of Natick is really having the, the fee come to Natick for the connection and the connection accommodates their, their larger amount of flow and also sets forth the, the mechanism
by which those payments would happen. And they're a staggered payment system for the projects that are, that are contemplated, which is about a, it's two, it's technically two projects, but it's about, I believe it's 136 total units amongst those projects to be constructed in sherburn. None of this is in Natick per se, but again, the flow comes into, into Natick and, and so then the fee would be paid to the town so that we can then do those improvements that I noted on. We would not want those improvements to be done by, by the town sherburne or by the developer. We want to do those improvements ourselves,
but payments to do those improvements be a benefit for us. 'cause as you saw, our capital program is pretty overextended. This will be something that we then don't have to cover with our capital program. Now granted will be an enterprise fund, but it's still an extended capital program even for an enterprise fund. So the development agreement goes into the details of, of what the developer responsibilities are, what the town responsibilities are and, and the lake. I can certainly go into more detail, however the, the two agreements are on the note on the agenda website so the public can review those.
I'm actually more interested if the board has any questions and there is one line that has been asked to be added to the development agreement, which is strictly to say that if for whatever reason Toll Brothers does not purchase the properties, they have no reason why they wouldn't. But if they do not, then the development agreement is null and void, which I think is extremely reasonable because they would not be doing this. So if they didn't purchase the properties. And so that, that I've already worked through with the, with the developer. And we'll just add that after the board's considerations tonight I am asking the
board if you're willing to vote on both these agreements. They have been reviewed by counsel. I would recommend that you just have one final review by counsel, but they have been reviewed by counsel at length and then we can work to get them executed after this meeting if the board's willing. Speaker 1: Erickson, I just wanted to, for clarification purposes addressed two things that might be on people's minds, which are, I can read my own handwriting, which is the sewer capacity that we have more than sufficient capacity to handle this as well as the ongoing maintenance and how that's handled in the
Speaker 3: Correct. Yes. Yeah, the speed street pipe that this would be flowing into. Actually it, it, where it enters to where it gets into the MDRA system, which is by right near 1 35. It's relatively, it's not as if this is going throughout the entire town. It's a relatively speaking small stretch. It's also a very large pipe and it has ample capacity, I want to say it's currently being used at 30 to 40% capacity. So, and this would be a very small component, maybe 7%, five, five to 7% if that of that capacity. I don't have, don't quote me on those numbers, but those are about roughly all parts scale wise,
how much this is in the capacity of that pipe. Now it does need to be improved. The pipe itself, it's an over pipe, so it would be sort of a lining type project, which we do through town. So that that's already something that's on our radar for the coming years. So this will allow us to pay for that without having to tap into capital programs and, and charge our rate payers. And then there's some other improvements in the roadway that we can do with the, the funding as well, such as some storm water improvements and repaving, which we would want to do anyway when we do such a scalable sewer improvement project. So this funding should allow us to do most if not all of that work in the Spencer Stretches Bean Street,
maybe not all the way to 1 35, but, but pretty darn close. And then your other capacity was a question and then, I'm sorry, what was the other question? The Speaker 1: Ongoing Speaker 3: Maintenance. The ongoing maintenance, yes. In the case of this, because this is in Natick, a gravity feed system, it, there's really, other than just the regular maintenance of the pipe that, that the system has to do over the course of centuries in some cases. 'cause some pipes are that old, there's really very little maintenance, ongoing maintenance for the town. None of the physical infrastructure has to be built
for the project and sherburne actually extends into Natick. And if it does, we would, the agreements stipulate that we would not be responsible. And if any of those break down in Sherburne or elsewhere, there's really no impact to Natick because when it enters the natick pipe, it simply gravity feed. And so the impact would actually be down upstream, not upstream, meaning back into Sherburne not, so there's really little to no ongoing costs or maintenance to the town other than just regular o and m costs, which we would have the ability to bill
the district in Sherburne for. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Questions from the board has your speech. It does happen. Well, we, Speaker 9: To be clear, we spent a lot of time on this. This isn't just a, we've spent time in executive session, we've been reviewing these documents for the better part of the year. So we're the public to think that we were just voting on something that's just before us. That's not really the case. Speaker 1: Thank you. I was going to mention, I, Speaker 7: I also wanted to, to say that, and we, we've had extensive discussions on this, on this topic. We've had a pretty good idea of what was coming before us for quite a while and it's just good to see the, the final versions
of these are close to final versions. But yes, we have had multiple discussions on it. So it's not like we are just providing the rubber stamp, Speaker 1: Just move Speaker 6: Approval of the IMA. Speaker 1: Let me just put my 2 cents on that one too. It's, as my colleagues have said, this took a lot of great work from the DPW department. Again, Mr. Spra and the town administrator, Mr. Erickson, as well as their peers in Fairborne, it has
received extensive and I do mean extensive legal review, both the side and the Natick town council side. So I'm very comfortable that every i is dotted and t crossed. I'll take that motion now, Speaker 6: Move approval of the IMA with council review. Speaker 7: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Walshy. All in favor, please say aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. I zero zero. Speaker 6: Move approval of development agreement with the addition of the sentence Mr. Erickson mentioned
and subject to counsel review. Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: Second. All in favor, please say aye. Speaker 9: Aye. Speaker 1: Aye. A Thank you everyone. Speaker 9: Could the record to the, could the minutes reflect that exact sentence when minutes for the meeting? The sentence that we're adding? Speaker 3: Yes, we can, we can I have that in writing and I can certainly send that to for the minutes. Thank you. Speaker 1: Yeah, good suggestion. Thank you. Good catch. Alright, one word we are punting the draft remote meeting policy to the January 21st meeting, if that's okay. Was not ready yet for tonight.
We've been all sick so bear with us. Next up is the main street banner policy. If you wanna do the select board hours first. That's probably a quick one. Let's do that first. Speaker 3: Main Street banner is also very quick. Speaker 1: Alright, let's, let's back to plan A, which is the banner policy. Do you wanna talk about it? Speaker 3: Sure. Just in brief, the, the board already approved to amend this policy from a little while ago and all, we're all, all this being requested tonight is to add an additional week noted in the policy.
And this will allow us to accommodate more requests from community, you know, nonprofits and our, and our own departments throughout the year. It's also, you know, given how interests have been, it, it's not a big lift. This has been reviewed by all parties. So it's really just a simple request to extend the policy by one week. 'cause we do turn it the po per the policy. We do not allow banners over the main street in the wintertime. Basically the wintertime, it just extends it by one month into December. Speaker 1: Okay. And again, this is, oh, Speaker 3: There is more detail in the materials on the website.
So for example, the, the, the current year request is to accommodate a couple different requests for the frosty 5K and the Flutie 5K. So this allows us to accommodate both, but that's not just the only reason. It's just also we've noticed that that given the amount of requests from both town departments and for town events, but also non-profit events per the policy, we, we have enough requests to fulfill those, those weeks in the fall months. Okay. Speaker 1: Also, excuse me, this also has received extensive review and has been reviewed by the communication manager as well
as legal our town council. So, question, Speaker 7: Just a question. The memo from Mr. Poor Paddock said that there would be an updated policy at this meeting. We don't have that, do we? It says we'll have an updated policy at our meeting for select board signatures. We don't, we don't have that available. Speaker 3: Oh, you mean visibly for signatures? Yes. No, he and I talked after he sent that, but before tonight and I said that you can vote on and you can enter electronic signatures. The current version which you voted on in August, we use electronic signatures on. Okay. So we do have that updated policy.
I don't believe it's in the packet. Speaker 7: Yeah, it's not online either. Okay. Speaker 3: I guess the current policy is online. The Speaker 7: Current policy is what's online. Speaker 3: Okay. The, the only change though, as as noted, is just the date, the additional week. Apologies for that. Move Speaker 7: Approval. Second. Speaker 1: Okay. Move approval by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Ms. Ger. All in favor? If it's safe please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Zero. Zero. Okay. Select port office hours. When we last tuned in on this one, we were talking about what trying to decide
Speaker 3: His off Sorry Bruce. Speaker 1: Thank you. When we last I was coughing so much. I didn't want that. Alright, so when we last were talking about this, we were talking about whether we wanted to continue having meetings at community senior center or sticking with the farmer's market only, and or a third alternative that has yet to be discussed. So Speaker 3: If I may, so one of the tasks was on me to actually come back with Jay, 'cause Jay actually did some research on this back in 2023.
And we did, but unfortunately with the holidays and this meeting sneaking up on us, we didn't have that prepared for you tonight. We do have that research from 2023. It was actually sent an email at that time, but we'll bring that back to the board's attention and have some recommendations for the board for the next meeting. It does include things such as having a more, more web slash website presence, an opportunity for asking questions online through Google form and other avenues and then some other suggestions. So we'll have that prepared for the next meeting. I apologize for that. Speaker 1: Not for, that's, we don't have anything in front of us.
And with those suggestions, I, I remember seeing that from Jay. So let's move that to January 21st. Okay. 21st. Could it be time for the consent? Speaker 8: I'll get started. Yes. So the consent agenda tonight reads as a approve meeting minutes for 12 23, 20 25 and 12 17 20 25 B approve open world entertainment L-L-C-D-B-A level 99
S 12 alcohol, all alcohol change of hours application C approve request to occupy a public way. Dana Chang Memorial run and walk. Item D appoint Brian p Howlin to the historic district commission for a term ending June 30th, 2028. And item E, accept the resignation of Amanda s from the commission on disability. Does anyone wanna pull anything from the consent agenda? Speaker 1: Okay, Speaker 8: Well I move to approve the consent agenda second
Speaker 1: By Ms. Po. Seconded my i ms well flagger All in favor please say aye. Aye. Speaker 8: Aye. Aye. Speaker 1: See you John. Just gonna set up things. Oh, you're going to these. Setting up the exact session. Gotcha. Alright. Town administrator updates, anything left? Speaker 3: I do have a few if that's okay. And I'll try to be brief just given the time and I know we have a potentially long executive session. So a few staffing updates. I just wanted the board to be aware of our town engineer. Bill McDowell has provided his retirement notice. It's, he gives, he's given a sample time, six months, June, July timeframe.
So we've actually come up with a program whereby we're gonna try to recruit a new town engineer to have some overlap with him. So you'll see that job, that job has already been posted, I believe. And so I give kudos to him and the team for all their time with the town, but also just for, for trying to make for as much of a smooth transition as possible. So more to come on that front. Just wanted the board to be aware of that. Another retirement, our director of the baking free library, Amy Acken has given her retirement. It'll be February timeframe. So that job has also been posted. And then the final, not not retirement notice,
but we talked about this actually back in November. You'll see the VSO job posting as well because we're, we're gearing up for that potential for that retirement of, of Paul car, which we've talked about before. It just, you know, new Year just reminding you of those job postings. And there's a number of others, but those are some of the, the ones of people that tend to interact a little bit more with the board or at, I do want to give, and it was mentioned earlier tonight, huge kudos, separate from from jobs. Huge kudos to our DPW team for all their work over the holidays. They got hit with some and they're still getting hit
with some pretty tough storms, tough time storms. I think one was on New Year's Eve night to morning and around Christmas holiday. And so they've been working very, very diligently and nonstop. So as John noted, they're the same people that pick up trash. They're the same crew that, that you see out there doing sort of all, all the work in the field in this inclement weather. Just huge kudos to the team. I know Brian Casey, who heads that operation is, deserves a huge amount of credit for, for him and his team through the holiday season
and just through the storms and keeping us as safe as they as possible. And everything this morning storm, for example, snuck up and I think everybody was in a bigger ice storm and it was pretty more intense. And I think recognizing they were out there and the facilities team, I give the facilities team in our buildings as well for keeping the facility grounds safe as well. But big kudos to them during, during the season just 'cause it was such a challenging time. And then just a reminder, we'll be, you know, we're working this month on, on the budget, but the budget will be published in early February.
We are working on a potential joint meeting with the select board and the school committee and the finance committee. So, so we have a couple, I think tentative dates out there in person you might have been reached out to and will be reached out to about that. And we'll just coordinate that as we've done in years past. We do have a meeting that Wednesday, so perhaps we can hijack that meeting with the select board for part of it or for it, but that'll be coming up in early January. Speaker 1: That's good. Any select board updates? A new year? A new year? That's an update. Still current still in the first 10 days. Speaker 9: I have an update. Speaker 1: Go ahead.
Speaker 9: Okay. I received a call yesterday from a businessman in Sherborne and he, Mr. Weatherly owns Sherborne Fuel or Sherborne, it's a gas station on Route 27, just after the split where Route 16 is. He called and asked that I share this information with the board. He was very upset with the town's Board of Health's decision to ban tobacco pouches. How does that impact him? His sales tripled in the six days that this policy has been in effect
and he can't maintain inventory because there's supply chain issues. He wanted me to draw attention to the board that this was not a common sense evidence-based policy. I explained to him that the select board has no authority to weigh in on any board of health decision or health department decision. He did ask though that I bring this to the attention of the select board because it does impact from his perspective local businesses that can no longer sell these products that are legal but still can sell nicotine patches. So I just wanted to report that out and I I told him
that I would, I would share that with the board. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Scott. Any others? Now I will. It's at the, we're at the point now where we're going to take a vote to go into executive session and this portion of the meeting will not be open to the public and there are two reasons for doing this. Item A is pursuant to national law chapter 30 a section 21, A three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining of if an open meeting law have a detrimental effect on the
bargaining position of the public body and the chair. So declares I do Deputy Fire Chief's Association, local 1707 International Association of Firefighters, item B, show it to MGL L, chapter 38, section 2182, to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-US non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions for contract negotiations with non-union personnel
per police chief. And I declare that. Is there Sidney second in by Ms. Walser? We have to do a roll call for that, don't we? Yep. Yep. Yeah. Ms. Coughlin? Speaker 9: Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Sydney? Aye. Mr. Walsh. Mr. Walsh. Mrs. Walser. Yes. Been a long day, Ms. Hope? Yes, Mr. Evan? The, so we're gonna be in an exec session. As I said earlier, we are going to adjourn out of executive session. So thank you everyone for tuning in.