Okay. Um, good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the North County Commissioners May 7th, 2025 meeting. Uh, we started a few minutes late because of traffic with the Karen Reed trial. Uh, we have to start with uh the executive order on remote participation. On March
28, 2025, Governor Moraley signed into law House uh 62, an act relative relative to extending certain CO 19 measures adopted during the state of emergency, which includes a 2-year extension of the option for public bodies to hold remote meetings by suspending certain provisions of the
open meeting law master-law chapter 38 sections 18 through 25. That action was effective immediately extending the current option for remote meetings through June 30th, 2027. Um so uh uh at this time we'll say uh
the pledge of allegiance and we have two honored guests here today. Uh P County Commissioner Greg Hanley and Senator Mark Chico uh would ask them to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Very good. I aliance to the flag of America and to
the stands one nation under Godisible. Thank you. Okay. Uh first uh item is a roll call. Uh uh Commissioner Stady, I am present via Zoom. Yep. I am also present. Uh unfortunately, our chairman, Joseph Sheay, is uh out of state on county
business. So, um uh I'm chairing the meeting for today. Um uh we have executive session today. No executive session. Correct. Correct. Okay, great. Um, you know, before we go into well, even the minutes, uh, Richard, do you have any problem with the minutes for
the open? If they're all set, I'll move approval as presented. Okay, I'll second that motion. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Unanimous. Okay. Next, um, we have an appointment today with Plymouth County Commissioner Greg Hanley to speak about the transatlantic climate
conference at Bridgewwater State University on May 22nd, 2025. and he's where with he's here with um uh Senator Mark Pico. Um and this is of great interest to both of these individuals. If you'd like to both come up, that'd be great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Temporary chairman. Yeah, thank you. We'll take it. U Thank you for this opportunity. Uh about two and a half years ago, Plum County enter into a sister county agreement with Dunny Ireland. And out of that came four conferences on two countries uh centered
around economic development, tourism and culture. Um for your information I'll share with you that is the cultural part there. We're having a welcome dinner for the transatlantic climate alliance. If you'll recall, the first conference we
had was the blue green economy conference in the Shia town of Plymouth and we had a very successful um event where we brought kelp farming uh to the attention of our coastal communities and the industries related with the
processing and harvesting of kelp. Believe it or not, we also had a a great experience at the Puxit um um village u formerly known as the Plymouth uh plantation uh as part of our tourism piece and our cultural piece was up in
the um Irish area in the town of Situit with the highest density of Irish uh in the country uh in that area of Plymouth County. So um this is our second uh conference here in the other Shia town of Brockton and that first uh on the
other side is our welcome dinner for the transatlantic climate alliance conference and that will be feature uh Ambassador Claire Cronin who's now retired as the Irish ambassador. She'll be recognizing the mayor of Dunnal
Ireland uh with the first uh ever CLA Cronin Award. uh as well as uh we're working with our um Hiburnian um members as the nonprofit to name the Irish man and the Irish woman of the year and
that'll be uh Mr. Cedan who is the clerk of courts in Plymouth County as well as Ambassador Cronin. Um so we're looking forward to having that. That's a kickoff dinner and the greetings of the city of Brock and our host community will be brought by the mayor and it'll be a
wonderful night. The next day is our transatlantic climate alliance conference and today we're here to ask you uh and the commissioners to join the transatlantic climate alliance council. And I'll let uh senator uh talk about
that more specifically. But for us as the county commissioners, uh we're looking to find out what is the next thing that county government can do for our member communities. Uh back in September, I got permission to partner
with Senator Pacheo on the uh transatlantic climate uh alliance and since then I've been working diligently with him to plan this conference. But along the way, I've been educated as to the opportunities that present themselves to our member communities.
And specifically, uh, one of our panelists is going to be the Department of Energy Resources, which will do a presentation on monies available through the state, uh, by way of green communities acting and grant money that's already in the budget that is
exclusive of any federal monies. So, why we're asking you to affiliate is to bring that much more credibility to the process. Number one. Number two, uh we're looking to do this um potentially on an annual basis with the five counties in mind. Right now, Bristol has
agreed, Plymouth has agreed, Old Colony Planning Council, all by way of vote have agreed as well as the city abroad. We're here to ask you for your vote to support that as a climate alliance ally and charter member of the council. So,
this is something and I'll let the senator take it from here. Uh that was started back in 2016 when the senator was the senator. He's now retired and this is a passion and in a program um that he's now uh taking on full-time.
So, with that, if uh Mr. Buckley, we could pull up the website. There's one particular uh announcement or a piece of um the presentation that I would like to have you listen to and then the senator will take it there. And I thank you for your time, Mr. Chair.
Yes. Uh if we could have uh Mr. Buckley, if you could go to the news section of the website and you can click on the first guy that might look a little familiar to everyone. Yeah, there's no voice with that, Bill.
Sorry, you can't hear it. Yeah, there's no U audio. We know it's Al Gore, but that's we we don't know what he's saying. Didn't he invent the internet? How about now? No, no, no.
Yeah, we're hearing something. If you could go a little louder. All right, let's try our best. subnational level. And on a personal note, I want to applaud my good friend, Massachusetts State Senator Mark Pochico for leading this effort. Mark is one of
the most effective and active leaders in the climate reality leadership corp and I'm thrilled to see this effort come together under his initiative. In many parts of the world, subnational governments have become the standardbearers for climate action. In
countries where national leadership has lagged, city, state, and regional leaders have often stepped up to take the lead. And in nations with ambitious funding goals, it is subnational governments that are leading the vital work of implementation, putting in place
policies that are cutting emissions and growing the clean energy industries of the future. The governments and the leaders represented in this alliance are real trailblazers. You are the guides that many other officials will learn from and follow. You've achieved early
successes and have developed pragmatic solutions for some of the roadblocks that threatened to slow your progress. But even with all these efforts, we have to acknowledge that the climate crisis is still getting worse faster than we
have yet implemented its solutions. And that's why the work of collaboration is so essential because we know that this crisis is only going to be solved through collaboration. No single state or city or province can do it by
themselves. We understand that it's going to take all of us. And by sharing best practices, by discussing how to overcome challenges to progress and encouraging greater ambition among your peers, I'm very optimistic that this alliance will help to foster the kind of
collaboration that is essential to the global efforts needed to solve the climate crisis. And we can solve it. I'm convinced we will. So let me once again congratulate you on the launch of this effort. And now let's get to work. Thank you.
Okay, if we could go to our work uh Mr. Buckley and I'll be very quick from here. This is these are the major sectors that we're looking at as a transatlantic climate alliance. looking
at education and workforce development, green finance, the built environment, that's the existing built uh infrastructure that is out there in the transatlantic region of the world. Uh
adaptation and resilience issues, subnational uh climate leadership, uh the different forms of renewable energy uh that we have. If we can scroll down just a bit more, Mr. Buckley and then uh we're looking at our
oceans and how they can play a significant role in particular with wave energy now and what's coming out in that area the transportation system food and agriculture and a sector that we will be putting up on the website as well and
that is uh the sector around healthcare uh because when you look at all the components of uh issues around pollution that can contribute to significant health uh outcomes in a negative way. Uh
it's very important to know what we can be doing even at the local level to improve uh those initiatives. So the transatlantic climate alliance is really an initiative uh that is looking at what's happening
globally and acting locally. So, cities, towns, regions of uh the transatlantic region of the world are really building off of good practices, best practices
that are taking place uh uh with climate action. We have uh the cities of Qashqai, Portugal, for example. We have a board member, if you go down a little farther, Mr. Sparkley. Uh if you go down
to see some of the board members here, but one of the board members all the way down the bottom here is JP Printagasp. He's from Ireland. Uh we have uh uh a person uh by the name of Brian Atwood
who uh Brian used to uh run USAID at the federal level in OECD. Uh significant international experience as to what is happening. We have cities like Lowel that have already signed on. Uh we have regions in the
Azorus that have signed on. We have people from again Ireland, Austria, Germany, uh you name it. Just yesterday, a group of uh people in the aviation industry uh just announced an initiative
that they're doing relative to uh uh alternative fuels in aviation because what they're seeing happening in uh in turbulence uh issues that are occurring more frequently because of what's
happening with uh uh with the climate. Uh so what we're really looking for is is that vote saying that uh North County would be pleased to join as a founding member of the transatlantic climate council of the transatlantic climate
alliance and the council is made up of our work the the areas that I referenced uh earlier and uh what we'll be doing is uh on the 22nd of May, we'll be kicking out
kicking off the first in what hopefully will be several regional initiatives in counties throughout Massachusetts talking about specific areas that cities and towns, regions, uh, school
districts, uh, can learn about what other areas in the state and also in the transatlantic region are doing uh in the area of agriculture for example in the
area of u uh resilience initiatives in the in the area of clean energy technologies not only what's happening with offshore wind but also solar technologies some of the new uh solar technologies that are emerging and
coming out as new technologies uh that uh can actually beat the uh imports from China believe it or not, uh it's going to be quite significant. And uh when you look at that region of the world uh looking at Europe going from
Iceland all the way down to South America uh there are a lot of great new technologies that are out there that are up that are working that people should be learning about and ways in which they can implement right within their own uh
districts within their own political subdivision uh to make a difference for the people that we all serve uh the taxpayers here in uh in Massachusetts. And that's what it's all about. It's really talking about collaboration as the former vice president referenced. uh
we can all learn from each other the best practices that are going on. Uh in all cities and towns do not have the uh technical assistance budgets of places like Cambridge or Somerville or you know
and the list goes on where where there are significant local budgets available. Uh but this is really to focus on all those other cities and towns that are out there that really need somebody to bring a collaborative effort
together to explain a lot about the how you get to implement some of these uh some of these practices. That's what this is really all about. And I think it's going to be exciting if we can have all of our counties come together around
this and we can be having some countywide conferences that are focusing on specific areas whether it's geothermal or or or the newest uh solar technologies that
are being implemented and how to take advantage of some of the state funding that are available. to try to help underwrite some of these initiatives at the uh at the local level. So that's what it's all about and I thank you for the time. Specifically
uh the conference itself will have three panels. Uh, one will be hosted by the city of Brockton and Old Conley Planning Council on a tech highway, so to speak, where clean tech will be invited into the space and the bricks and mortar piece in the city of Brockton on
redevelopment of some of their um former manufacturing base, the repurposed buildings. Uh, they'll have a panel on that. the county of Dunnig will come over and speak about uh anorobic digestion and the what was the one with the water the hydrogen piece with the
water um forgive me miss Jim for not you're talking about geothermal geothermal geothermal there's a uh we may have a virtual presentation from uh the Azour is the mayor of Poto Dada where they have u over
40% of their energy is supplied through geothermal technology. Wow. And at the university uh at Bridgewater, they actually have a a geothermal uh piece there that may be
able to be put on at the end uh a little tour uh for some of the conference callers if they wanted to see a little bit about what geothermal could look like. That's great. The last piece is uh with the county of Avon. A company called Divert from Freetown right now
manages all the food waste for the stop and shop facilities and powers the entire operation down there with the byproduct of methane that is generated from the digesttors. they capture the methane. That's one of the things that
uh in the agricultural sector where you have u dairy farms and that's another thing that can be uh you know brought together to help generate some revenue. Uh but also uh the the
most important thing is to try to bring down methane emissions. the EU, the UN, and back a while ago, the Biden administration actually signed on to an international agreement to lower methane emissions by 30%. And one of the
significant ways to do that is through anorobic digestion technology looking at food waste that otherwise would go in a uh which in Massachusetts it's banned but we in terms of dumping food waste
into the landfills. But we also have to have those uh those companies that are developing the food products that when they have some waste, we have to have them have a legal place to get rid of it. And uh in this case, it's not only a
legal way to dispose of the food waste, but it's a way to actually bring down uh greenhouse gas emissions, in particular, methane emissions, and also be able to provide alternative fuels for things
like uh marine uh fuels uh to uh to power some of the cargo ships and those types of things. that can be uh can be done. So this is this is about educating
local officials about ways in which they can utilize their platform uh to try to help uh solve this uh most important crisis that's facing all of us. So thank you Mr. Chairman, thank you Senator. Uh
our ask today is to get a vote of the uh commissioners to align themselves uh with this program and then to turn around and promote the conference to your member communities. It would be great benefit for them to participate uh actively on it. It's a a conference that
has no charge. Uh there's 206 uh seats in the lecture hall at the Moley Center at Bridgewater State. Uh, it'll be held Thursday, May 22nd, and that'll be from 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. Well, that's great. Um, Richard, um, I had spoken to, um,
our chairman, Joe Shay, about this the other day, and he was all for it. We, our budget is, um, incredibly tight, and he was fine, he was fine with, um, joining, uh, the alliance. Uh, he with with the, uh, provision that, um, we not
have to pay any money, at least for now, because we don't have any money. But your thoughts, Richard. What do you think? Yeah. Know, first of all, thank you, Senator and Commissioner, for coming in. Uh, it's great to see you both. I think it's a a topic that I'm very, it's dear to my heart. I'm very
green oriented, as Peter will attest to. Um, I wanted to see if this lines up or conflicts with some of the ongoing green efforts we have, which you may not be aware of. Like, for example, we have a solar project that's been very busy at the Aggie School, and we're about to
perhaps enter into an agreement on charging stations. So, two of those green initiatives are already underway. I was looking at the PowerPoint that was sent to us and then I look I did I listened to Senator Pico carefully. It seemed like this is more of an educational type of alliance at least
initially to kind of group people together and point people in the right direction. Am I reading this the right way or is there something more not not there yet? Yeah. No, actually, Commissioner, you're pointing right to an example. Some of the initiatives that you're doing with solar Yeah. uh can be
one of the good practices, the the best practices that have happened where we can use that to explain to other educational leaders what they can be doing at their school to try to move in the right direction, right, carbon
emissions and get to the other side of the investment where it's actually going to be less expensive in the in the long run. So, it's really about educating people. Yes. Could you tell about best practices? In fact, that solar, you'll be intrigued by this real quick, but the
solar company has got an idea that they're using and there's an educational component for the students at the Aggie school in terms of being able to grow enough food that the sheep can graze underneath it. It's really a fantastic
idea. Right now, unfortunately, it's tied up in litigation. Hopefully, we're getting that resolved very soon. But that's just one example there. Uh the Mopy conference that's on the 22nd I believe that's at Bridgewater State. Yes. All right. I'm going to try to get attend that. I'm going to try my best. I
don't think I can make the 21st. Just letting you know we we have both of us. We have an Aggie board meeting that night. I'm going to be tough for us to attend which is unfortunate, but uh I'll do what I can on the 22nd. If Joe the chairman has said he's okay with it, provided there's no cost. I got no
problem moving it then today. Just to long as there's no cost. We don't have any money at the moment. Yeah. wild things to go, but it's why might why might as well get involved with it, you know? Yeah, there's no no cost. And actually, one of the components uh that
the chairman wanted me to uh uh chairman of Plymouth County wanted me to talk about just briefly was about green finance because how do you finance a lot of this stuff going forward? I'll give an example in Taton
uh with the public power company. We actually brought together a lot of the banking institutions locally and we worked with them to provide an opportunity to be able to replace oil and gas
um infrastructure in homes with heat pumps and worked at a discount rate for replacing those heat pumps. negotiated by the uh public power companies in the
region, the Middleboro Gas and Electric and the Taunt Municipal Plant along with a group of banking institutions that would provide the average citizen a zero interest loan for energy efficiency on their own homes. So they could go in and
not only replace a uh an HVAC system, they were going to have to replace anyway uh you know an older oil uh heating system for example, which would be at least you know in many cases 20,000 and
and and get that replaced with an alternative heat pump system. Uh and and while at the same time they're doing that, there's other types of things they want to do in their houses. Maybe maybe it's doing an energy audit, uh replacing
windows, put doing uh insulation, all of those things. Well, you need the technical work done up front to get that done. Uh because we worked together and we had a green finance piece put together around that. And at the state
level, we have a green bank. And so the green bank will participate with some projects. If we have a project of merit that comes to the forefront in Plymouth County or Bristol County or Northolk County, uh you know, we could we could
work and and put together a project uh that will be a best practice uh statewide and throughout the region uh of Massachusetts and New England. And we can also learn, and by the way, this
isn't just about Massachusetts. This is what we're doing right now. But I'll be meeting with Rhode Island, uh, regions, counties. I'll be meeting with, uh, uh, all the New England states, and I'm doing this in, believe it or not, in
Austria, in Germany, in in Portugal, and different places. And it's amazing when you go out and you start to take a look at the new technologies that are out there, the exciting future that lies ahead for those of us that are aware of
what's going on. So, this is about bringing that awareness to the very local elected officials that can make a difference. And thank you very much, Commissioner. Mindful of your time, Mr. Chairman. We thank you for the opportunity to present today and hope that you can affiliate and uh we'll look
forward to seeing you guys on the 22nd. Richard, do you want to make a motion? Yeah, there's no there's no, like I said, there's no cost and no conflict of what we're doing. So, I think it'd be great to uh join the uh uh Oh, God help me. The transatlantic climate uh group, transatlantic climate council, the
transatlantic climate alliance. Well stated. We'll make that part of my motion. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. It's It's a It's It's a pass motion. So, thank you. Thank you very very much. Nice to see you guys. Talk to you soon. See you again. Commissioner
Hanley, I hope that the next time the vice president does his does his presentation that he mentions your name. I know. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for h for coming in today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Really appreciate. Thank you, Mark. I'll see you around. Thank you. Thank you,
Christian. Thank you. Take care. You're welcome. Thank you very much. All right. So, we're gonna move on to item six, Richard, which is public comment. Every week during our meeting, we have public comment. Um, anyone that is zooming in today is invited to uh
make a short statement. Um, so I welcome that at this time. Not hearing anyone requesting public comment. Uh, I refer it back to the assistant county director. Has anyone mentioned that they wish to be heard at public comment today? Not today, sir. Okay. We're going to move on
to item seven then. Old business. Any old business, Bill? There is none, sir. Okay. Personnel matters for consideration. Richard, do you have all that in your I do. Very happy to move the Wall Recreational Facility. I'll move the following. The notice of
rehire. I have two individuals, Cecil Eli and Edward Broadney McDevitt. uh both seasonal golf associates for the rate stated the effective date for both are the same 5825 so moved um second all
in favor say I I I oppose unanimous and the next is um uh keep going sorry I I move notice of rate change and title change for Michelle Kull Jr. as seasonal golf so pro uh the rate stated effective
date 5125 so moved second all in favor say I I I oppose unanimous next item final one at the wall recreational I'll move notice of resignation of David Payne as seasonal golf associate for rate stated effective date of
resignation for 1825 so moved second all in favor say I I oppose unanimous Northark County Agricultural school Mr. Chairman, I move the following notice of address change for Lisa Garrett as substitute teacher. Uh that's it. Just effective date of the
address change 42425. So move second. All in favor say I. I. I. We have two uh I'll move together. Notice the contingent employment of Gabriella Penon and Abigail Van as student labor uh
marketing labor communications rate stated effective date for both 5825. So moved. Second. All in favor say I. I oppose. Unanimous. Okay. The next item was uh the payroll and expense warrants for approval. Richard, I have them. I'm not sure if you have them. Do not have.
Go ahead, please. Okay. Um, so the first item on the warrant list is u uh 25-44 payroll the county in the amount of $151,4939. So move second. All in favor say I. I. I. Uh opposed. Unanimous.
Okay. The next item is um 5125 expense of the county in the amount of $88,621.65. So moved. Second. All in favor say I. I. Uh, it's unanimous. Next item. Uh, 5225 W recreational facility
credit card payment in the amount of $25,597. So moved. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. U. It's unanimous. Terrific. That ends the uh payroll and expense warrants. Uh item 10 is a report
from the procurement department uh for bid openings and contract awards. Are there any of that today? Nothing today. Okay. Moving on to item 11, report of the county director through the assistant county director. Through you, Mr. Acting uh county commissioner chair.
Uh I have just three uh quick things uh this uh this afternoon. Want just some update some of the work that our maintenance department is doing. As you know, they're constantly working not only to clean our court buildings and our the county facilities, but uh to
maintain them and to improve them. So over the weekend uh at the end of last week in Stone District Court, the civil clerk's office uh the trial court purchased some new furniture. So they were moving things around in there. The electrician and custodians worked over the weekend uh to rewire some things,
move some outlets as well to uh update that space. Uh Joeofeni is working on bracing in the front counter area to improve that as well. Uh the sto HVAC unit was completed by industrial burner systems and was up and running. Uh
there's an AC unit pluggy added in uh courtroom 25 for the Cameron retrial for those large televisions that they put in the courtroom uh which I believe will stay there beyond that trial. So this is an improvement to courtroom 25 over at
Superior. The crane was here on Saturday swapping the HVAC units at Denim District. Everything went well. was was cleaned up in a timely fashion. We got reports I I know Commissioner Stady was uh able to attend L at Superior went very well. I believe they've rescheduled
the one in Quinsey uh for a later date uh and we're looking forward to that on the list. So, those are just a kind of a quick snapshot of the work that the guys have been doing over the last few weeks uh here in the county complex of Sto.
So, that's number one. Number two, uh just a point of information. We we bring this up from time to time. We have, as you know, a great new RSVP director. And one of the great programs we have is the Rides for Vets program. And perennially, it's such a good program.
It's so popular that we don't have enough senior uh retired senior drivers. Uh so, I just want to take this opportunity to kind of remind folks that uh it's a program that funded by the commissioners and a grant from Americanore seniors. uh rides for vets
drivers who need to be at least 55 years of age, use their own vehicles, and have the option to be reimbursed for travel related expenses at 40 cents per mile up to 300 miles per month. We have a number of of great friendly drivers that take veterans, principally their medical
appointments. Uh but the the need uh of veterans and the the the positive feedback from the programming is so great that we continue to have a larger and larger increase in desires for rides. So uh one of the
things we're going to do it is probably uh dust off the periodic press release we do and a lot of the local uh papers just to encourage people to think about signing up to become a driver. Uh we're revamping that portion of the website as well, making it a little uh nicer and
more appealing. But just want to put it on people's radar that it's a great program and as always, you know, some people phase out, some people phase in as drivers. Uh we're always looking to aggressively recruit uh drivers for this really wonderful program. And my final piece is just a just a flag uh
understanding that you guys have had a lot of additional meetings as trustees with the um with the superintendent search. We also know next week is at the Aggie our final vote on the FY26 budget with the
advisory board. uh on Monday at 10 a.m. we will have a quick commissioner meeting to uh to consider uh all final transfer requests um and the like. So we we I just want to flag that for your calendars because I know there's so many
moving parts this you know the season of May of graduations and school events as well. So other than that that's all I have and town meetings let's not forget. Oh and can town meeting is Monday night. It's a lot of town meetings, right? We're all starting. So, mine on uh this
Monday. We managed to survive through just a single night. Thank God. There you go. Um Richard, I know we said this before we started the meeting, but um just for on the meeting purposes, we have your per your permission to use your stamp today. That's fine. Yep, that's fine. It is for all the votes
taken. Whatever it was needed. Yeah. Yes, sir. Okay. On to item 12. Emergency items. Topics that the chair did not reasonably anticipate would be discussed. Do we have anything? Okay. So item 13 is adjournment, Richard. All right. Uh, nice job. I'll move we adjourn at 1:44.
Second. All in favor say I. I. I. We'rejourned. And Richard, I'll see you tonight. See you at the Aggie very soon.