uh vegetables from his garden also which made was a big hit with the uh people coming through. So again we want to thank everyone for their u support and u and we're glad to be able to help them out and I think that's all I have.
>> Okay. Thank you sir. >> On the business there's no new business and nothing uh not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance. Mr. manager. >> Uh that's right. Nothing under that item, Mr. Chair.
>> Okay. Thank you. Uh no old business. So, if uh town manager could deliver his report, please. >> I'd be glad to. An exciting report for you this evening. I first off, I was notified today that we've been awarded a
$ 1.5 million grant to help with the water cleanup from EPA D for um emerging contaminants. So, that'll be a a big help uh as we clean up um it's going to go towards wells one and three and the
water treatment plant. Um also, we're continuing to work on it. Uh we're on the second round of interviews for IT director. So I'm hopeful that uh next meeting uh January
8th I believe uh we will have uh an IT director uh appointment coming. Uh CNK roofing is preparing to do the highway roof whether permitting. Um we're continuing budget planning. We're in
full swing and early planning cycle this year. Um, I'm pleased to announce a DPW director appointment. So, this is Norton's first DPW director. This is a long time coming. Uh, this was a charter change in 2022.
And I'm pleased to introduce uh Mr. Justin Chica, who previously served as the deputy commissioner of public infrastructure for New Bedford. He's touched on everything that we do. Water, wastewater, highway, storms, capital
planning, emergency response, you name it. He comes highly recommended. Brings the experience at the right time to fully integrate highway water, wastewater. Um, I'm not sure if you want to hear from him at this point or
>> Sure. came all this way. >> Yeah. Good evening and thank you for having me. >> Usually the podium's facing this way. Sorry. There you go. >> Good evening and thank you for having me. Um
I'm I'm happy to be here and uh I'm um looking forward to the challenge that this position will bring and I'm looking forward to working with uh the town of Norton and for the town of Norton and its its constituents. Um I think um
what I've seen so far is very impressive and I I I think um the challenge that I face uh will lead to an uphill battle for bringing the DPW together. uh for
bringing some some new ideas to to how we can restructure and maybe um move funding around or or increase funding or or uh save funding, that type of thing. As well as um uh looking for the opportunities that that the state and
federal government have to offer to uh supplement uh in town funding. So, thank you all. Thank you, Justin. Uh I myself with uh reviewing all your um all your experience, all your at all different
levels uh and most recently one of the highest levels of DPW. I think Norton will benefit substantially with what you bring to the table uh to offer the town with this new new position. All that all that wisdom and experience is going to
be um super beneficial for us. So thank you very much. We're really looking forward to you on boarding um when you do. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much, >> Mr. Chairman. >> Yes, sir. >> So, uh uh Justin, obviously you're going to have a big job in front of you and
it's going to be a lot of lot of work. I'm very confident based on what I've read in and my conversations with you that you're more than qualified to do the job, which is great. Um, you know, right away the first things you're going to hear about is quality of water and you're going to hear a lot about, you
know, sewage and all that kind of stuff. Um, which all comes along with the job. But, um, again, just with our conversation tonight, I feel confident that you'll be able to step up to the plate and help us with that. Water quality in this town is a daily conversation. And so, we've got to
either fix our own or find someone else who can help us. But I think it's uh important to make that one of your first priorities when you when you do get a chance to jump on board. >> Thank you very much. And I and I appreciate you talking to me tonight and and uh I understand the uh the
importance of the water quality for the town of Norton and its residents and constituents. Um so I do look forward to to to looking into which which method would would better suit the community. >> Thank you. >> I guess for you chair. Yep. Denise,
>> I guess I'll tag on. Uh, I read your credentials and, uh, I'm impressed with your qualifications. I look forward to some, um, um, strong long long range planning and some, uh, hopefully finding some efficiencies between the
departments and, uh, looking forward to seeing what you can do. >> Thank you. Very nice to meet you all, >> Mr. Chair. So, um, Justin, nice to meet you as well. I I think it's good for the town to understand that not only we're talking water and sewer quite a bit, but
um public works, we're no longer going to have a um a highway department, correct? It'll be a public works department. Am I correct with that? >> Yep. >> Naming. And I think it'll be great because the projects can be and I know that they've worked together um with other
infrastructure improvements, but now it'll be one person overseeing anything that has to do with, you know, roadway construction, sewer lines, water lines, uh public works projects so that these projects can be done more cohesively under one leadership so that you know,
as a simple example, we're not um repaving a road and then having to wait seven years before we run through it. toward it, right? Because one side wasn't communicating with the other. So, uh I think this is really exciting for us. Uh and I welcome you. >> Thank you. Appreciate that very much,
>> Mr. Chair. >> Yes, sir. >> Um Justin, I'd just like to um also say welcome and uh look forward to um the improvements that you're going to bring to the town and uh to all of the departments. and uh thank you for uh
wanting to come to town with uh your resume. Thank you. >> Thank you all. I appreciate it, >> Mr. Chairman. >> Okay. Yes, sir. >> I hereby notify the SWAT board and in accordance with the provisions of article 4 section 2B of the Norton charter acting in my capacity as an
appointing authority, I have appointed the following individual as DPW director Justin A. Chika. said deployment was made on December 19th, 2025 in accordance with the provisions of the Nort and charter will be effective on
January 3rd, 2026 unless this board votes to accept or reject the appointment prior to that date. Chairman, I make a motion that we support the decision of the town manager and appoint Justin Aicker as our first DPW director.
>> Second. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> I >> I >> welcome. >> Thank you all very much. I appreciate forward to you on boarding. >> Okay. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you.
>> All right. >> All right. >> Continuing on. >> Continuing on. Uh very excited and high expectations. Uh so moving on, I I passed out an article from William and James College that highlights uh the work of two of
our officers, Don Martinson and Christopher McCarthy, who were spotlighted for their Norton's POP model where we we're responding to emergencies and diverting um people that may have mental health issues or addiction issues
and helping with their their crisis. and intervention in addition to responsible emergency management. And if if the board's willing, I'd like to bring them in at a future meeting and speak more about their day-to-day and
high level what they do and what they bring to the town, which is immeasurable, but just want to briefly uh highlight that we'll plan on bringing them in to a future meeting. Um, also Norton police were recently recognized by the DOJ for
a case uh where they recently had a gentleman that lives in Fall River who plead guilty to uh drug distribution including 1,600 fentanyl pills and that led to the death of a minor. So Norton
detectives were involved in that case and we were recognized by the DOJ for that recently. So, thank you to our outstanding police department. Um, we also had a a late coming uh resignation. So, I'd like to formally notify the
board that our treasurer, Wendy Cochran, has resigned as treasurer collector effective December 31st. And I've appointed the assistant treasurer to step in as the treasurer in the interim. She's happy to accept that appointment.
And that position will be posted um by the end of day tomorrow. uh economic development. We touched on El Nylm. Uh there was a Hanukkah celebration yesterday or it was over the weekend and
I believe uh select board member Roger Marson was there to uh to welcome and celebrate um Hanukkah with uh Rabbi Kibman and and the folks there. Uh so that's the report subject to uh your
questions or comments. >> Mr. Chairman. >> Yes sir. >> On the roofing project for the highway department. I know we've been having just starting the conversations with about the school school roof and how we have to uh how it has to be replaced in the middle school. Uh, one of the big
topics of conversation was having to um remove some of the equipment on the roof in order to make the improvements on the roof because the new insulation they use today is higher than what they used to use. So, I'm just thinking what
I'm looking at all back. I believe most of their HVAC and all that stuff is on the ground. I don't think there's anything really on the roof other than maybe a few stacks here and there, maybe a chimney. Uh, but I guess what I'm what I'm what I'm trying to say is can we make sure all that is addressed before
they start getting up there and they halfway through it and say, "Whoops, you know, we need a crane to pick this up." >> The highway roof, you mean? >> Yeah. >> Uh, yes. There's very few protr protrusions. Um, they they are demoing the the chimney. >> Okay, good. >> Which is an alternate and was included
in the winning bid. >> Okay, thank you. Uh but but so far it's come in, you know, well under the appropriation. We have a very capable highway director, Jared Ferrer, that's keeping very good
tabs on this project start to finish. >> Beautiful. Thank you. All right, moving on. Uh select boards report in mail. We have none. Correct. >> Correct. >> And warrants. Everybody review warrants.
>> Yeah, I have one question. Um, and I' I've been out of it for a few years, so I'm not on up on top of this. But when we did the Hill Street lands uh landfill project a few years ago, uh, we were told that by doing so, we would we would generate a lot of credits for the town
for electricity. Uh, looking through the some of the invoices and I noticed that we're still being charged by National Grid for some of this stuff. And I don't know if maybe we could look into it more to find out, you know, what kind of credits we're
generating and why we're still getting bills for certain schools and certain town buildings and all that kind of stuff. I don't know if it's the rates that we're paying down or it's the infrastructure cost or what the what the connection is, but I was kind of under
the impression years ago that that landfill, which is massive, would generate enough power to generate most of the electricity we need. >> So, that's a great question and one that I asked the accountant about a week ago as I'm preparing for the utility costs
for fiscal 27. So, we're undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the electrical needs of all the the town's properties, including school, senior center, town hall, the the public safety, and
preliminarily, I agree with you. I need to look at all the details once they're all in, but it looks like we are generating a credit overall and there are a few hundred,000 potentially in credits that we could request return of
or and a different allocation moving forward to make sure the credits are going where the most electricity is generated. So, I I need to review the allocation and set it in stone for the rest of this fiscal year and moving forward. But I
believe you're correct in that substantially all of it if or most of it at least will be covered and we can request a refund check moving forward. >> Yeah. And I think that's what I'm looking at because I'm seeing like even
the water sewer department, they they they're paying some massive electric bills and even though we're it's an enterprise account, if we have credits that can keep their cost down, we should look at it. And I'm also a firm believer that especially now with these massive parking lots we have around this
building and the senior center and all that that we should look at additional opportunities in the future for electricity. I'm not one that likes to go and take a a virgin piece of land and put a solar farm on it. But if we have pre-existing opportunities like parking
lots and um even roofs are kind of questionable, but even some of the parks like the schools do, you know, they have some electric like they're generating some electricity on their own. So it would be nice to look into more of that while we look into the next year. Maybe we can start taking more more of an
interest in >> adding additional capacity. >> For sure. I'll have a full report on that with the budget. That's a key piece of information. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Mr. Chairman. >> Yes, sir. >> Make a motion to
approve invoice number AP26-24 dated 11th December 11th, 2025. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> I. Chairman, I make a motion to approve the payroll warrant PR26-12 for the week ending December 2nd, 2025. Warrant dated
December 11th, 2025. >> Um, Mr. Clerk, I believe that's December 6th, not the 2nd. >> I say December 6th. Payroll warrant PR 26-12 for the weekend of December 6th, 2025. Warrant dated December 11th, 2025. >> Second. All in favor?
>> I. >> I. Chairman, I make a motion we approve invoice warrant AP26-25 dated December 18th, 2025. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I >> Okay, thank you.
Next meeting's agenda, uh, tenative schedule for January 8th, 2026. And here we go. We need to go into executive. Do we have the verbiage to go into executive for the motion? >> I have it right here. >> We do have it right here.
>> You declare it first and I'll do the You do your side and I'll do mine. >> Okay. Okay. I declare under general laws chapter 38 section 21 A2 that the purpose of this executive session will be to discuss strategy with respect to
negotiations with non-union personnel i.e. interim town manager because a discussion of the strategy in open session could compromise the purpose of the executive session and with the board not to return to open session at the conclusion of the executive session.
>> Just take we'll take out the IE interim town manager. >> Okay. I I would just yeah add that it's with respect to litigation. >> Right. Right. >> And then it has to be roll call vote. Well, I'm going to make a motion that the board go into executive session
under the general law se chapter 20 30A chapter 30A section 21A-2 for the purposes and reason declared by the chair and with the board not to return to open session thereafter. That's a motion. >> Second.
>> Uh Kevin, >> yes. >> Denise, >> yes. >> Bob, >> yes. >> Roger. >> Yes. >> And I am a yes. >> Okay. We want to wish obviously wish everyone a merry Christmas. >> Yes, very very happy new year. Um it's
been an interesting year this year especially in personally because I'm back on the board after six years. Uh but it's u been a pleasure to work with people here in the town hall and all the various towns and committees and boards
and most especially the board I'm working with here now. Oh, I think we all do a pretty good job and based on what we think is right for the town. So, we will wish everyone a very, very merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Be safe. Uh, and, um, I believe our next meeting is
January 8th. So, um, merry Christmas. >> Um, I just like to Yeah. I just like to wish everybody a happy Hanukkah that celebrates as well today. It's the last day of Hanukkah. So, >> happy holiday season to everybody. Mhm. >> Yep.
>> Thank you very much. So we go into executive in Germany, >> right? So we'll we'll go into executive