Thank you. Um, good evening and welcome to this evening's meeting, May 13th of the North Fork Select Board. Um I'm joined this evening by Kevin Roach and Tais Sekman. Taiis is our newly elected um member of our board. And would you
please join me with the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Um, and as we usually do, we're going to start this meeting with public comment. We have no public, so I'm going to move right on from public comment. And the next thing I wanted to do was to introduce Kelly and Tim, but I don't see Tim here. Tim is not here yet. Tim's not here yet. We'll introduce him when he
comes in. So, um, do you I'm going to let you take over. All right. Thank you. Um, I have the pleasure of introducing Kelly King who is the town's assistant town administrator/HR director. Uh, I'll let Kelly sort of introduce herself, but I will just say this is what Kelly's
second week here so far and she has hit the ground running and we're very happy to have her as be a part of our team. Yeah, I'm I'm very excited to be here. I'm very excited to to work with Justin in the time that he has left and to to work with you all. Thank you very much.
Well, welcome. Welcome aboard. Thank you. And just context, we want to introduce Kelly because we're appointing her to some position. Thought it might be good to introduce her first before we appointed her. Yeah. So, I messed with the agenda a little bit, which is why he's pointing that out cuz that was number 10 to introduce you, but I
thought it better that we meet you before we appoint you to positions. Um, the next thing on our agenda is a reorganization of the select board for people for the multitude of people who are watching us. Um it is the tradition of this board that we change roles with
the new election. So um the in your first year on the board you generally serve as clerk. In your second year your vice chair and your third year as chair and then just an automatic rotation of of the roles and there's um two folds of thinking about it. um one is that in um
it takes a long time to learn the job and so by the time you're chair you've had two years of experience and the other is in in your third year in the role then you have a more public facing role as the chair and then that is your election year if you're running for re-election. So those are the two reasons. So I would entertain a motion
unless there's any discussion to reorganize the board. Okay. So I think Kevin should make the motion for chair and and yeah I thought she was just going to be chair. Now you got to make the motion to make a motion.
Okay. I make a motion that Anita Mcto be chair of the select board. Second. All those in Oh, any discussion? All those hearing none. All hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. I'm going to move that Kevin Kevin Roach
be the vice chair of the select board. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. And then would you make the last I make a a note a motion. Tais Hankman
be the clerk of the select board. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. So that is sorted out. I'm going to put number three then to you Justin. Yep. Uh just quickly for the board uh
considering the appointment of Don Porier as a member of the Council on Aging potentially the term expiration of June 30, 2026. The Seaway uh voted unanimously at its uh May 2nd meeting to recommend Dawn. Her information is in the board's packet. She isn't here this evening.
Awesome. Is there any questions or concerns? Nope. Questions or concerns? All right. So, I would entertain a motion. I make a motion to approve the appointment of Don Py as a member of the Council of Aging with the term expiration of June 30th, 2026.
Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. And oh, I forgot any discussion, but thank you, Don, for volunteering for our community. It really matters and we're grateful for your service. Number four, uh this is one of the appointments that we mentioned uh voting to consider or
appoint Kelly King as the municipal uh hearing officer with the expiration of June 30th, 2025. And the reason why is 2025. Uh as part of the board's appointment process, we do reappoints uh in for the next fiscal year in that time frame. Uh this is a position that is sort of state uh mandated and they
participate in the citation process uh for cities and towns as certified hearing officer. Excellent. Any questions from the board? Questions? No. I would entertain a motion. Make a motion to appoint Kelly King as hearing
officer with the term expiration of June 30th, 2025. Second. All those in favor? I I Sorry, I keep forgetting any discussion, but I don't think we're going to discuss it. So, um, thank you. Number five. Uh the next item is to
consider uh the appointment of Kelly King as the municipal liaison to the state ethics commission. There is no time period for that. Uh this is just for our compliance with ethics laws and as a liaison uh with the state ethics commission. Any questions from the board?
No. I'd entertain a motion. I make a motion to appoint Kelly King as mun municipal liaison to the state ethics commission. Second. Any discussion? See, I got it right that time. All those in favor? I I All right. Moving on to
number six. Next consideration is a road event for the ride for food uh which is on Sunday, October 5th, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Uh Three Squares New England has requested permission from the town. They're working with the police department on detailed information. Uh we'll be at the
intersection of Hullbrook and Route 115. Uh we're anticipating that about 150 riders will be in attendance. Uh we haven't heard any public safety concerns so we feel comfortable moving forward with it. So do we don't want the motion to be contingent upon a police detail or
we feel like that's you can make it contingent on police detail. They will have a police detail. They will have a police detail. So we shouldn't worry about it. No. All right. Any questions or comments? No. No. All right. Kevin make a motion
to approve the road event of of for the ride for food on Sunday, October 20 october 5th, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. till 1:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. I give a couple extra hours.
Yeah. Celebration. It's a long ride. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I. Excellent. Number seven. Do you want me to introduce Please go right ahead. Um, so the uh I will be transitioning from
my role as town administrator. I know the board has uh considered or had talked about uh having an interim town administrator. I was with the board before. Um and so one of the potential candidates for this position is Mike Gallagher. and the board considered and
thought it'd be helpful to have him come in person, get to meet him and introduce him to the public and al obviously give the new select board member an opportunity to speak with him as well. I'm going to have you come out, Mike, and take a comfortable chair. And for those who are watching or will eventually watch uh Mr. Gallagher's
resumes in the packet uh the board's packet public as well. Okay, that's wonderful. Great. Thank you. Good evening. So, good evening. Welcome. Thank you for having me. And just to reiterate what Justin says, um we are
considering Mike to be an interim town administrator to help us um keep all the plates spinning until a final decision is made. And so I have a couple of questions and then we can open it up um for people as well. So we've um read your resume. It's very impressive. Um
can you give us a very short summary of telling us about yourself? Sure. Um I've I was hopefully I can hear everybody can hear me here. Um I was um oh let's see I did most of my career in the public sector in the private sector and then um while I was in the
private sector I spent 13 years on the school committee in um got to know a lot of the people in the town that way. I was an elected town. We had an elected town meeting um back in the day and uh during that time I got to meet a lot of different people
and got very interested in the political process and how all of that worked. So um did 13 years as I said on the school committee, did my thing on the private sector uh doing it in case anybody really cares, but I'm sure you're more
concerned about my municipal experience. And then um after I left the school committee about 2 years later uh an individual who I had met while I was working uh while I was on the school committee, she was the select board chair at the time and we got friendly um
and made sure the town meeting ran appropriately. So we you know we we talked a lot. Uh she was elected mayor. We changed the form of government from a a town town, you know, a select board uh
uh town meeting to a mayoral form of government. So really the city known as the town of Weimoth at that point. So she um she was elected the second mayor of Weimoth and asked me if I would come on board with her administration. So I did and I spent eight years uh as the
director of administrative services but functioning as the deputy to the mayor and chief of staff. And um from there at the end of two terms uh the mayor didn't look like we were going to get reelected for a third term. At that point I was looking for other opportunities and I
became the town administrator in North Attboro and I spent um six years in North Attleboroough. um most of that time as the town administrator, but during my tenure in the in North Attleboroough, we did an override uh because we needed we had a
revenue issue. We didn't have a spending problem, we had a revenue issue, so we're able to get an override passed and um we also changed form forms of government to a council manager form of government. Uh the council decided that
they wanted to go out and hire um by default because I was in the role, I became the town manager. So, I was the person in there setting up their processes and procedures and whatever. Um, decided I didn't really want to do that anymore and was getting to the
point where it was time to think about retirement. Planned on leaving. Um but as we were bringing in the new town manager who didn't have a lot of experience uh co hit and he asked me to stick around after my
contract expired because there was some overlap for the two of us but then my contract expired. He asked me to stick around. So, I stayed another year and helped him get his feet under him and get, you know, make sure he understood all the processes and the plans that were put in place as far as long-term
what to do with the override because one of the things we didn't want to do was spend it all at once. So, there was a lot going on there. But, um, I retired in 2021, spent 3 months sitting on my sofa trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
uh got a phone call from a member of the board of selectmen in Somerset who happened to be the former general manager of the Emerald Square Mall. Uh and he and I he was my biggest taxpayer in North Adelurn and one of the first things I did was I went and knocked on his door just to say hello just to
introduce myself and let him know who he was dealing with at town hall. So we spent a lot of time together trying to think about next iteration of the mall, you know, to can we convert it to residential? Can we make it, you know, something special again? So, we
had a lot of those discussions, but he remembered all of those and reached out to me one night at like 10:30 at night was like, "Do you want to come back and do something? Do an interim?" So, I went to Somerset and I did an interim in Somerset for 3 months that lasted 2 years. And uh
same type of thing. They hired a new town administrator who didn't have a lot of experience. He was a deputy chief in Warwick, Rhode Island. And they asked me to stick around and help him get settled. So I did. I stayed there and as a consultant and doing like 20 hours a week helping him get settled and get his
legs under him. Um, and then from there I went to Northboro and I did a 3-month stint in Northboro as the town uh in town administrator there because their town administrator uh had left and stuck
around there and helped with the process of getting someone else on board there who was much more experienced. So when we got him in, he didn't need me to stick around. So I went back into retirement for a while and then I started doing contract work for a
company called Capital Strategic Solutions. So I do projects in various places and uh I've done a couple for for them and then they asked me to be their business manager. So I'm a part-time business manager for them to try to help them get their business under them. So
that's kind of me in a nutshell. The rest of the rest of it in the private sector was all information technology. I worked for the Boston Globe, the New York Times, uh, Fidelity Investments. I kind of ran the gamut there from uh, you
know, paper tape to where we are today. So, awesome. Thank you. Do you have questions? Yeah. So, actually, I I know you said we probably don't care about your IT background, but I actually do. Okay. Because I think one of the things we would like to do or I would like to
see is um for us to kind of bring our technology into the into the century and and find better ways to communicate with the residents about um you know things that happen in the select board meetings, but also we have a number 20
plus committees in town that meet regularly. Um, so you know, I would like to see us get that information out to our community. So happy to talk with you more about that at some point, but um, I think that that's definitely an asset and something we want to do. Well, I can
tell you one of the things that I I brought, um, I was one of the first adopters to, uh, of Clear Gov and I put that on my website early on and I used that actually as a tool when we were going for our override to make sure that people understood and had the as much data as possible. So, I'm I'm all about
transparency and getting the information out to the residents because the more information they have, the more informed decisions they can make. And um yeah, I think that it's unfortunate, but I think that the um public sector lags a little
bit in technology and it shows in a lot of areas. Um but yeah, I'd be more than happy to have those conversations with you. I think that there's there's always opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. No, I read the resume and he had a lot of the questions. So, awesome. I have a
couple more. Sure. So, like Tais was talking about um communication is really important. Can you tell us a little bit about some communication strategies that you use? Um when I was on the school committee, the um superintendent was an awesome
communicator. He I learned a lot from him as as a member of the school committee and then and even my 10 years as chairman were just a joy to have him around. Um and one of the things he would do was he would make sure that we spoke on a daily basis and usually was
when I was driving. I was living in working in Malber at the time for Fidelity. So I'd be driving out to work at 6:30 in the morning and he and I would be on the phone chatting about different things. But I think it's important to keep not only the board informed of what's going on, but uh as
many of the residents as you can as well, which is why I think, you know, utilization of your website, tie that into social media, you know, post the information in one place, but have it disseminate to all the platforms that people use cuz depending on the age
group will determine what platform you're on and what you're listening to and what you're watching. So the more of that you can do, the better off everybody is because then if if you're not open, transparent, and communicative, people think you're doing
something nefarious behind the scenes. So I think the more of that you can get out there, the better off you are as a community. Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about your style for managing conflict? Oh, um, I hit conflict headon. Um, I'm not
I'm not passive in that respect. If there's a conflict, I will usually sit someone down and have a conversation with them. I I'm I don't shy away from that type of thing. Um, and I think the more you speak with people, the better off you are and and have those
conversations. And if it's a tough conversation, it's a tough conversation, but at least you've had the conversation and you know where everybody stands. I'm not one to keep my cards close to my vest. you're going to know what I'm thinking at all times. And I think um if there's conflict, if it's conflict
between members of the staff, sit them down and have a conversation, put your stripe shirt on and and be the referee and and help them figure out what's going on because nine times out of 10, you're going to find that everybody's wanting to row in the same
direction. They just don't know whether or not they're they're in the boat. And if you have an opportunity to get them together, they usually find the common ground that they need. Thank you. Um, one of the strengths that Justin has brought to our um, town employees is
kind of growing a culture uh, that is um, safe and productive and and joyful. And so I was wondering um about your attitudes about that. So, I had a a mentor early on in my career who sat me
down when I first took my job and he said to me, "If I see you in your office, I'm going to fire you." And I went, "What?" He said, "I'm a firm believer in management by wandering around. You need to get to know the people that are working here. You need to understand what's going on in the trenches. You can't manage from there.
You need to understand what everybody's doing and how they're doing it and why they're doing it. So, I'm a firm believer in wandering around and chatting with people and finding out because that's where you you find out what's really going on in any organization is when you get out of your office and you start talking with
people. Um, I believe in a collaborative environment. I think that I'm I'm definitely not the dictator type. Um, I mean, I can be if I have to be, but I much prefer uh collaboration
and people working together and and understanding that, you know, we're all here for at the end of the day, we all work for the taxpayers. I don't care what department you're in. I don't care what you do for a living. It's not your budget. It's not my budget. It's not
It's the budget of the taxpayers of this community. They're the ones that we're all here working for. And as long as we all remember that and we do the right thing, then everybody's successful. Thank you. One last question. Um, in all of these different um, opportunities and
experiences that you've had, can you tell us about something where um, things that didn't go as you had planned and a lesson that you learned from it? Um I have to go back to the private sector, the public se. Well, I had some challenges in the
public sector with um issues that we needed to deal with. Um did they turn out they eventually things turned out the way they should have? Um we had a situation of um in Weimoth where there was funds missing and we had
to do an investigation and that was very difficult to do um particularly where we knew all of the people and all the people involved. It was a very difficult thing to to first of all come to grips with that somebody would do that and then secondly to
actually catch them in the act which kind of made things even worse. But um it went okay at the end of the day. Could I have done things a little differently? Maybe. But it needed to happen when what happened needed to happen.
Um I'm trying to think where other the other stub your toe kind of thing. That's okay. It's just it's interesting to see um get people talking about think what they learn or or see their learnings. That's why I asked the question. Yeah. My my my first
negotiations with a union didn't go well. That didn't go well because I was out of the private sector and I'm sitting there going what you want? You want what? you know, that type of thing. And after I got past all of that, things weren't
went much better. But, you know, that was that was on the school committee and we were negotiating with the teachers and it was difficult, but Thank you. We got there. Thank you very much. Yeah. One other question, please.
Um, so, uh, our town is facing a $1.1 million deficit this year. So, it's going to be a challenge from a financial perspective to get ourselves out of that situation. I see that in your experience in North Edelboro, you had um, some
success saving the town money. um what do you think, you know, what would you do strategically in order to help facilitate getting us out of um this financial situation that we find ourselves in? Um I will confess I have
not looked at your budget so I I probably should have come a little bit more prepared. It's okay. generally but generally um I think you need to look at long-term well first of all how did you get there what what transpired that got you there is there a particular area within your
budget where you have that pressure and is there something you can do within that budget if not if it's just a general revenue issue like we had in North Attboro you know we didn't have I looked at all the spending and kind of peeled away where I could and found some
savings, but not as much as I would like to have. We were still having discussions about uh closing departments. I remember having a very painful discussion with the finance committee where they wanted to send a message to the public, we're going to close the libraries. I'm like, wrong message. You don't want to do that.
That's not a good message to send. Um we need to find the funding and then maybe adjust it someplace else. Um, but it takes time, it takes effort, it takes a lot of digging to try to find all of that. And I think the other thing that
um is helpful is doing some longerterm planning. I mean, I've been in communities I I'll remain nameless. There was no capital plan. So, I walked in there, I'm like, "Where's your capital plan?" They didn't have one. So, they were kind of off the cuff every
year. And I'm like, "I want a 10-year capital plan." So all you department heads, go back out and give me a 10 year. Particularly those of you who have buildings that you're responsible for cuz I know there's stuff that's going to fail in the next 10 years. So tell me what that's going to look like so I can
at least do some planning and um some long-term stuff. But that's there's different ways to go about doing that and and I think it's roll up your sleeves, dig in and try to find the numbers cuz sometimes they'll jump out at you and sometimes they're just Yeah. It's just
non-existent, you know. Thank you. Um, so thank you so much for your time. I I think Thank you for having me. I would love to take a motion to approve his contract if everybody on the board is comfortable with that.
Are you comfortable? Yeah. Yes. Awesome. So, I'm going to put it Yes. Do you want me to say anything else? I don't want this board. I am excited to meet you and I'm excited. I was I was um the chair last time we had a transition
and we we went through a gap of time without an interim person and and I still regret that and so um it was it was we excellent to have this the support even though it would only be a part-time piece. I think that would be really valuable to us. So um I'd be
happy to entertain a motion to approve the contract. I'd like to make make a motion to appoint the interim town administrator Michael Gallagha and yeah and approve the terms of his agreement in the packet. Yes. And
approve the as can we just do that as as written in the in the packet. Correct. Lovely. Second. Any further discussion? No. All those in favor? I I thank you. Thank you so much.
It's It's a pleasure. I I'm looking forward to working with I'm looking forward to it, too. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Looking forward to working with you all. Uh I guess I'll work with Justin to figure out start time. We'll leave that in his capable hands. Okay. All right. Um I'm
pretty available. I'm working on a project for the town of Brockton right now. As a matter of fact, I'm I just talked to them today. We're going to be doing some uh automation stuff. So So anyway, but I'll I'll be Excellent. It'll probably be mid June. Yep. I'm sure there's some
transition work that you guys will want. Uh and July 1st we had as the start date officially, but Yep. congrats, Mike. All right. Well, thank you so much. Pleasure. Pleasure meeting you all. We're excited to work together. Right. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Next, Justin number eight. All right. This one I will probably just talk just a little bit. Obviously, um, at the board's last, uh, meeting, there were several items outstanding that the board, uh, wanted to sort of address.
Uh, the board did appoint, uh, a new police chief, and in executive session, uh, they reached agreement on a contract with him. Just for the board and the public's information, uh, when you re reach an agreement of non-UN staff, you do have to take a formal vote in
executive session. Uh so for the board's consideration is an extension for Chief Kenny's contract which the board did reach agreement on. Uh it's about it's a one and a half year extension for the fire chief. Uh three-year contract for the police chief Jim Barrett and then
obviously the board just agreed on terms with Mr. Gallagher. But in addition to that, the board did reach agreement previously with the police and fire union. Um that was reached in executive session. You don't require a vote for that. uh but it is good to announce that you reached an agreement. So I think
right before town meeting as these are article uh articles on the warrant it would be good for the public to see the terms of those agreements for police and fire. And I'll summarize quickly for them we did reach agreement on uh in terms of colas of 1 and a half% for police and fire and the third year is a
split rate uh an additional.5 in January. Um you know I do want to just credit our unions obviously we understood we were in a tough financial climate. they work collaboratively with us. I think we got a fair deal for all parties. I think it's responsible for the town. Um little small adjustments here and there, but you know, I think um
just great collaboration and um and it's I think financially um prudent for the town as well. So I think uh I just want to thank them and obviously thank the leadership of the board. It gave us the the parameters to to work within. Excellent. Any questions? No, I don't
have any questions either. I do want to comment on um I really appreciate the collaboriveness of the process. I think the process really matters and um it's it's exciting to come to come to an end where both parties feel like like things have gone in a way that's satisfactory.
I feel like you've done that really well. So um thank you for that process. And so we might need some handholding in terms of our motions. This one I'll help. Uh yeah. Um, so you should um and you can just say you uh the select board has agreed um or execute a contract with
fire chief Kenny on a contract extension from July 1st, 2025 until June 30th, 2027. Can you make that motion, Kevin? Okay, we good. Execute an agreement with Fire Chief Aaron Kenny. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to execute the contract
with extension for contract extension with Aaron Kenny for July 1st, 2025 until June 30th, 2027. Okay. Second. Any further discussion? No. All those in favor? I I. And then the next
one will be Jim Barry uh to execute a contract uh as our next police chief. And that's going to be from September 1st, 2025 until June 30th, 2028. Okay. Do I have to make that motion or you can say so moved? So moved. Yeah.
Yeah. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I right. And those were the only uh other additional non-union contracts that you had to do. And the information regarding the police
and fire union uh for the public, it's in the packet and it'll be on our website after town meeting because town meeting has to approve the funding of those collective bar agreements as well. Awesome. So, we're set with that and um thank you and we're excited and you don't need to stay through the whole
meeting if if you don't want to. It's We're happy to have you here, but I don't Awesome. We We're thrilled to have you here. I just didn't want you to feel obligated. Um number nine. Oh, nine. There's a calendar one. Yes. So, I'm
going to let the board uh sort of deliberate a bit, but however, you know, Amanda, I will give give Commander Globe a credit here. We have a lot of moving parts here. Obviously, we have a new board member, too. Uh we have summer schedule coming up. We have my transition. So, we did want to try and
nail down some dates. Um, and we're also juggling other committees uh with competing competing dates. So, we have some potential dates for you to consider and then obviously you guys deliberate and see if they work for you. Um, our next proposed date potentially
be for May 27th for the board. I just know it's the day after Memorial Day. um you know but it is 2 weeks from you know today and that would be our typical 7:00 meeting whatever you guys uh works
for you. What is that the the third or fourth that's the fourth one two three fourth Tuesday doesn't work for me. Um, can you do earlier at all or
um or if the board didn't want to meet then the next meeting date that potentially could work would be June 9th where you can meet in person you can meet June 10th via Zoom. Can we Is there any way we can change the meeting nights to Monday
nights rather than Tuesday nights? I'm open to that. I'm open to that as long as it works in terms of the room. Yeah. I mean, most of the time, Amanda, we don't have a meeting uh for committees or commission scheduled in this room on Monday. So, Mondays would
work. It just really depends on what Mondays. So, obviously in general are fine to holidays. Okay. Well, then we could just schedule that for the following week on a holiday. I'm fine with Mondays. You have no no days, but Monday the 26th is
Memorial Day. Would that be problematic? No. No. We're not meetingmorial. Memorial Day. Just for the 2nd or the 9th. So, um, the 9th is available. Okay.
Yeah. The 9th would be the 2nd. I'm out of town and so I can meet on Zoom, but I'd rather be here. So, the 9th would be better. Yes. Okay. And is there a time that you all prefer? The seven seven works for me. Yeah, 7's fine as well as Monday. Okay. 7:00 p.m.
on the 9th. Uh the next decision is um we had potentially scheduled the 17th of June as another uh board meeting. That's close to when my last day in office is. I'd like to be able to wrap up anything with you all if necessary.
Why don't you bring the cake? Cuz it's my birthday that day. But the 17th is your birthday. We can totally. Mine's not long after. We can totally have cake. Yeah. Um the 17th is a Tuesday. Is that okay with
you? Yes. So Tuesday the 17th. What 17th is it? What? The first, second, third? No, that's the third. So it's not the one. Okay. This would be our typical one. Okay. Yep. That's fine with me. So, we'll do June 17th. Yep. And that'll be
Justin's last meeting. Um, and I I um we might invite Jim to that one, too. Or should will we be able to invite Let's invite Jim to that meeting as well. So, we can recognize them um there as well. We can
give three minutes in public comment. Yeah. Yeah. Then we can have a mandate time. Um and then typically what the board does do in the summer months, it tends to go to a one meeting schedule in the summer months. Um so we do have some
options for you all. You know, I think if we're meeting the 17th, particularly if your interim town administrator is starting July 1st, you don't want to have a meeting right then. Let them get some sea legs under him. Um, so maybe the 15th of July gives you enough time
in between. Now, what day is that? That's a Tuesday, but if you want to switch to the Monday schedule. Yeah. If you want to switch to Monday, then July 14th, that works fine with me. Or the or the 7th. Yeah. Well, he said he wanted to give him a little time. Yeah. I I
think July 14th is good. Okay. July 14th. 700 p.m. July 14th. I am. Yeah. And then in August, um, you know, if you're moving to a
Monday, if you're a month out, you do the 18th before you do the 11th. Do you have a preference either way? I would prefer the 11th, I think, if that's all right. Yeah, I would prefer the 11th also. Yep. August 11th. Okay.
And then scheduling after that we will leave for the board in the next town and ministry. I think getting you through the summer I think you'll then you can awesome but we'll consider the second Monday the second board Mondays similar to what um I suppose we should have
checked with Andrew too but yeah I would check with Andrew but I also if the board is definitely doing that we probably want to sort of notice the public too because people have just been so used to the first and third of the Tuesdays. So if you're officially doing this, we can work with our, you know,
public relations. We can always do the first and third Monday as well. First and third Monday is fine. That way don't confuse them too much. That's that seems fine. And we can notice the public. We'll we'll do that. We can work with Gilfoil and just get some messaging out for them. Just say anticipation of you know forthcoming select board and we'll
check with Andrew. Yeah. Um Okay. Good. Awesome. And then um we did number 10 in terms of introducing Kelly King, but we're also like to introduce Tim. Do you want to come up for just a second, Tim, and join us?
And just a real quick intro. I know we had introduced Tim before in terms of his resume, but it's good for the public to get to know Tim uh as he started. And once again, he started this is his second week as well. Tim's hit the ground running. He's already had a slew of meetings and different things going
on. So, uh, if Tim just wants to give a brief sort of introduction and introduce himself if you'd like. Yeah. So, um, my name is Tim Schwinard. Um, facility director for the town. Just started last Monday, so getting into everything. Um,
previously I was the facility director for North Auto. Um, working for the schools in the town over there and then prior to that I was working in Sharon as their facility supervisor. So, been in a few towns. This is the third one, but
just a lot to get into and learn about Norfolk and, you know, we'll start getting projects moving. We got things to do. So, awesome. Well, welcome aboard. Thank you for pleased to have you here and um let us know if we can do anything. Sounds good. We'll be primeing
center for town meeting tomorrow. There you go. Right. Right up right up there. I'm sure there won't be any questions whatsoever. Is he the judge of the AC? Yes. Saving money. No.
There you go. All right. Thank you. Is that all? Yeah, that is. Thank you. We'll see you soon. Thank you. And then the pre-T town meeting discussion. So, last week we had um a a opportunity for residents to bring
questions forward about the warrant. We had heard some feedback about um some people were saying in town meeting everything goes very quickly and even though their questions are asked and answered then they have to vote right away and they needed some time to think about it. So we we had a pre-Town um
Justin I'm taking the credit cuz Justin did all the work about getting the department heads there and we we got um solicited questions from the community in advance and had opportunities live at at there as well. And um so why don't I
turn it over to you for two seconds and then we can see um we just are trying to be as transparent as we can and trying to give as much opportunities for um participation from the community as we possibly can to have a successful town meeting. Um, and I'm going to say what I
said at our last meeting, even though I'm being redundant, but even though this is the executive board of the town, our residents are the legislative body. And so, you are there all those hundreds and thousands of you watching are the legislative body of Norfor. And so, um,
we need you at town meeting. We want you to be able to bring your, um, full understanding to what we're talking about. And so, we're we're eager to make it as accessible as possible. I don't really have much to add and no credit over here. I credit department heads for coming. I credit the board. I
mean the board has mentioned as part of their goals is trying to reach out to uh residents and give as much opportunity for engagement with the community. I know that's important to you and we've heard it from Tais as well. So, you know, whatever we can do to help facilitate that, I'm sure that the town is going to continue this moving forward
and grow off of that first one. Awesome. And the feedback we got from people who were there was and I'll let you speak to it. who were there as well. um that they even though it wasn't super well attended and it wasn't very well attended that we should keep keep it up
and maybe publicize it well in advance so people can get it on their calendars and um give it a couple years before we say oh this is a no-go cuz I know our town department heads um went to great effort to be there beyond their regular time and so we were grateful for that and so I think we will continue with
that um and we'll advertise it better more um in advance that we did this time. Do you want to add anything? Nope. All right. So, we'll keep doing that unless we hear differently from the community and and um if they have other
ideas, we are open to hear from them. And then town meeting preparation. Justin, the only thing that I have for the board and um it seems with the board and I obviously toss it to you all. the only sort of article that is sort of I wouldn't say in flux but was the article
29 in regards to the town meeting changes and who makes motions. Um the advisory committee is going to meet before town meeting tomorrow so they can consider if they're going to change their vote or not. Uh it has seemed to be implied that the board wants to move forward with an amended version. We'll
have handouts of that amended version uh at town meeting. uh it's been shared with uh the advisory committee chair and I believe the advisory committee already so they'll talk about it tomorrow. I don't know how they're going to vote until tomorrow. So if they just logistically if they decide to still continue with the IP the select board
has to move forward with their own amendment. Uh but if they decide to align with the board then they would make the amendment and they have that language already. Everything else I I haven't heard anything else regarding town meeting from anyone else. Awesome. And so just
to summarize for people who are watching um previously in Northfor the advisory board um reads the um motion reads the motion on the floor and then gives their feedback from from their the work that they've done. And so the recommendation
of this board was that whoever was bringing the motion forward should be the one to read the motion but then advisory do that very important role of the checks and balances for us of giving their feedback on how things are going. and so um or what they're recommending
to the town. And so we were just asking for a change where if planning board brought the motion, then they would read the motion. If the select board had the motion, they would read the motion. So it's just a logistic change of helping people see who where did that uh motion
come from. So that was our motivation in suggesting the change. So we'll wait and see. And also I that's the one that's engendered the most conversation. But there are also little small logistical um sort of changes as well when we would
have a moderators meeting to try to make town meeting more efficient. Those other parameters we didn't really get too much push back or concern about them. I think everyone's generally been aligned on that. It was just the motions thing probably had the most conversation. Um so we'll see how advisory uh weighs in
tomorrow. Excellent. Well, I don't have any insight because I'm not on advisory anymore. I can't tell you what they're going to do, but um I understand, you know, why why the recommendation was made. So
awesome. And then we are at general updates. I I didn't have much updates, but I did hear some good news. And Tim is here. Uh we did we presented at the last board meeting. We were able to get in a a sort of efficient uh block for a PPA agreement that's going to save the town
an additional $100,000. So, that's good news. We also received some additional news that based on some legislative changes, the town is going to realize a credit of almost $8,000 on our uh sort of electric bills that we have there. So, that is going to come back to the town. So, we are just getting as much
money as we can to realize savings and um obviously monitoring what's going on at the state legislature with the budgets. Heard some potentially good news and some ear marks that we're getting. I'm not going to mention them yet, but we're going to wait till the budget process go through there. I was counting those tickets. Yeah. No, I like
to wait till I I I know it's done done until we receive a check in the mail. Yeah. But we've been very aggressive and potentially we might get our some of our largest ear marks that we have gotten in the town. So, we're we're happy about that work. We've been really advocating for that. And thank you to Senator Roush
and um Representative Vaughn for their work for Northfor. They both um played a role in the different earmarks. So, thank you. Absolutely. That's all I have for my Thomas updates with me. Any updates? No updates. You know, I
have things to say. You got six minutes, though. I have six minutes. All right. I'm going to shake a leg here. So, first of all, we had our election and I want to do a thank you to Carol and Becca cuz once again, the election was smoothly run and just really well coordinated and organized
and they did an excellent job, which is not surprising. That's typical for them, but I wanted to give a thank you. 24% of our community showed up to vote and I was very excited about that. I wish the number was higher, but for a non-presidential, it's very exciting and so kudos to our town for participation.
Um, participation is good. Um, tomorrow at So, yay on the voting. Tomorrow at 10:30 um in the morning on town hill, our our um our very own Blair Craig uh I'm not speaking correctly. Our very own
Blair Crane is being um named the tree warden of the year. and they're planting a tree um to honor him. And so that's tomorrow morning. It's looks like a beautiful day if you want to join us on the hill. And then tomorrow night is town meeting. So please join us. Even if you're kind of busy or kind of tired, we
need you. You are a legislative body. So please come. Also, um I I came across the garden club out here. They're changing all the planters. And thank you to the garden club for taking such good care of us and um keeping it looking beautiful. Justin and I met today with
Franklin and to talk about the Kingsbury Pond. We'll have a more um thorough update at our next meeting, but I just wanted to the one the one big takeaway I have is they um shared a lot of data that they have. And Franklin is not pulling more water from that well number
four than they've they've pulled in the past. So, they've consistently pulled significantly less than they're allowed to pull and it's been a con a fairly consistent amount. It's not an excessive amount. They do say that the um we are still in a drought and the drought
affects the water level and the the past two winters have had um haven't had that packed snow that we usually have where the snow lingers and lingers and lingers and that packed snow is really um important for replenishing our aquifers. And so some of the issues are mother
nature. Um we're not dusting our hands of the situation and saying that that's that. But I wanted to bring those facts forward that we did have and we'll have more to report at our next meeting. Do you want to add anything more to that then? No, I think that was good. But I think another point that you had emphasized that me too is they haven't
um adjusted their draw for over 23 years, right? Um and so we recognize that the level is down and we're not negating that, but um there could be other factors and it's it's not due to an increased draw from Franklin. Um, and
then the very last thing I wanted to say, I'm keeping it in my six minutes, is that at our last meeting, um, we had a couple of difficult conversations. Um, one with John Griffin about Kingsbury Pond and one with Eric Stall about purchasing some property. And both of
those gentlemen have shown the board so much grace and so much um John apologized on fa Facebook in such a way so gracious that that earns my respect and Eric came to the board and said he would have made a similar um decision even though we had so much angst about
that and I just want to thank those gentlemen for the grace that they showed showed the board and it's beautiful so we should all go play outside. That's all I have. Should we go on to the warrants? Yep.
I need a motion. Make a motion to approve the warrants as written in the agenda or Perfect. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I and then the minutes. I'd like to make a motion to
approve the minutes m meeting minutes of April 1st, 2025. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I and that's all we've got. Do you have anything else,
Justin? I do not. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I did motion. Did I