I'm going to call the meeting to order uh the select Board of Thursday March 27th and we're going to start with uh right now we have Alec Rich via Zoom we have Roger Maran and myself and we're going to start with a pledge of allegiance IED to the of the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands one nation un God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay I want to I want thank you all for being patient with this um I'm going to start off with something that was not on the agenda because it just happened
um a lot of you know that my uh my daughter is in the wreath program in the school and one of the teachers uh sadly passed away last last week um Andrew Kemp passed away unexpectedly leaving behind his wife two beautiful young daughters uh Elena and Sabrina uh Andrew
was a devoted father loving husband a passionate Sportsman um um he worked for the Rees program as I said uh for the de students uh he made a lasting impact uh he he had been my daughter's teacher one of her teachers for about 10 years I've
known him since he was in high school um again 34 years old um just a terrible tragedy and there is a gofund me that I will put on um my Facebook page so it's uh it's vot horns be for that I'll put
that up there um I just wanted to to to acknowledge his his service to the town and these kids he was was a really great guy um okay so we're going to move on to the appointment of Robert linger to the Norton cural
Council excuse hey Robert how are you good evening thanks so um I think Roger had a great question earlier you want to re askk yeah I asked U why do you want to be on the cultural Council that's a great
question um no as I mentioned uh uh my wife me and I have lived in Norton for almost 16 years I'm a passionate believer in the Arts and believer in the power of the Arts to bring people together um the uh one of the main
function of the cultural Council of course is to give out grants to uh local artists and art Arts organizations and I think I bring um some experience to that um I'm retired now but for the last 14 15 years of my career I was a grant writer and then a grants manager for
liin hospitals in Rhode Island u r Island Hospital has Children's Hospital Etc I've ra written two grants for the senior center here to raise some money and I'm currently involved in reviewing uh B proposals with ARP Massachusetts on
a volunteer basis as a volunteer and so I'm hoping I can bring some value to the cultural Council to work uh with that excellent thank you for your service absolutely um uh Alec do you have any questions okay he said he did not for
those who can't here all right so without any further questions I'll take a motion uh make a motion that we appoint Robert linger to the Norton cultural Council I'll make it easy I'll second um all in favor oh uh we have to
roll call Alec Roger yes and I yes thank you very much thank you thank you thank you okay next up we have the appointment of the new Building Commissioner Edward
Bailey Mr chairman Mr Tomy um Ed is a resident of adaro and uh he's certified building official currently uh the Building Commissioner for the town of Halifax uh he's 25 years of experience
in the construction and four years of experience as a building official and uh recently he instituted online permitting using open gov and Halifax and it's the same system we use here so um and one of the things
I like um from Ed is that his motto is treat everyone the same good I like that model all right any questions um so again whyne Norton it's much closer than
Halifax honest answer I love that is it it's a busier town there seems to be more growths more Happening Here I I need to stay busy during the day sure and you live next door you live in adbor you said yes
um do you have a um a preference for your start date on this it says uh it'll be effective April 10th unless we decide to have you start sooner uh I think we're looking to push that out till just after April vacation that way I can give Halifax a few more
weeks and kind of square everything away there and then I had a uh previously planned vacation over the school holiday do you have a date April 28th April 28th that's the Monday after the election so the motion should be um effectively
appr all right uh Alec any questions I'm looking at the laptop that he's going answer me face to face he no okay um Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we appoint uh Edward Bailey as the Building Commissioner
effective April 28th and I second all Alec Roger yes and I yes congratulations we look forward to you coming on thank you the opportunity yep you want to hold off on the minutes yeah we'll hold off on the minutes we're going to go right to the um let's see
the one day beer and wine license um I'm going to this I see okay it's it's br C Inspire events LLC for a public event
at 4 manvi d Norton Max from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Friday March 28th 2025 had close just give us a quick background on it hello everyone so my name is Camille
Smalls I'm the owner of C SP D LLC and the new owner of the old Norton Public Library that is right down the street at for thefield ab tomorrow is our grand opening from 12:00 to 8:00 p.m. hence the uh license ship for
Wednesday special um lier license so I I believe a lot of you are from Norton so if you're not just a little quick uh history about the building it was built in 1887 by Mrs Eliza B weaton and hence we and college decided to name the college after her and then it had a
grand opening February 1st 1888 and from 1888 to 1989 it became the Norton public library and then it just sat there for 32 plus years into Chris perock Kyle perock Al Smith Nick Lance myself
Camille my husband Ron decided to renovate beautify it and give something for the town of Norton especially the college kids who are excited to come over and just enjoy the college G student life and then events weddings birthdays graduations networking events
lunching so it's something that's for the community that I'm excited to bring here to the town excellent thank you so much you're welcome we don't have to open public hearing for this we can just vote on it yeah we can just vote on this all right um Mr chair Mr Maron I make a motion
that we uh vote to approve the one- day beer and wine license to see whatever exactly um LLC for a public event at 4 Mansfield Avenue Norton from 11: a.m. to
11:00 p.m on Friday March 28th I'll second that uh Alex Roger yes and iy yes thank you congratulations thank you okay next uh we're going to go to the public hearing so I need to open that public
hearing Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion to be open a public hearing on the petition of uh Mass Electric doing business as National Grid and Verizon to locate polls wires fixtures including the necessary staining sustaining and protecting
fixtures along and across the following public Way Pleasant Street National Grid to install one Jo pole on Pleasant Street National Grid proposes to install the new 40t C2 Riser pole pole 6-50
approximately 20 ft away on 41 Pleasant Street second that Roger I'm sorry Alec Roger yes and I'm yes okay public hearing is open so Mike do you want do we have somebody on to this yeah Mike
Amal I believe from National Grid is on Mike Mike are you on I find it helps if you look at the laptop what's that he was I'm also here as 41 Street not
National GD but that does anything well you're uh your address is right in the motion so I'd say that you would have some say in it I'll tell sh to admit him again he would she did admit him and then he's
and I I can just explain some of it too yeah well he's logging on do you want to go through a mic after you text her um if he wants if the owner wants to come up yeah do you you're welcome to if you like public hearing come on up no
pressure we're a tough crowd yeah you want to just let us know about what's going on sure uh my name is Blake Cunningham um owner of 41 Pleasant Street uh bees realy Group LLC um we the
poll is to be installed um so that we can have two EV charging stations added in the parking lot of 41 Street and National Grid will be um the utility pridor of that and in
inovis um will be the contractor to install the um EV station after the pole gets installed seems pretty straightforward Mike do you want to add anything nope he
said is um here I'm just looking up where 41 Pleasant Street is is Mike on now is it Mike I'll show you 41 Pleasant Street is oh it's the um the old pre-art Lumber building
yes um and is the pole going to be out at the street or on the property or on the street I I can't speak exactly to the location um but on the street not on the property there's the lo
location yeah we have okay is he does he want to add anything okay um Alex do you have any questions okay Roger I don't have any more questions no all right um so then
we would close the public hearing and then Mr Mr Mercy I make a motion that we close the public hearing on the petition of uh Massachusetts electric company doing business as National Grid discussing the poll on Pleasant Street
I'll second that uh Alex Roger yes and I yes now uh as to approving this petition uh if there's any discussion we can have that now or I'll take a
motion Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we approve the petition for Mass Electric to erect the poll um on the following public Way Pleasant Street National Grid at one J poll on Pleasant Street to install a new 40t C2
Riser pole pole 6-50 approximately 20 ft west of pole 7 at 41 Pleasant Street I'll second that Alec Roger yes and I yes all right thank you all right we're going to go back to
the approval of minutes um Mr chair oh actually yeah Mr meron I make a motion that we approve the admittance of the executive session on October 10th 2024 you want to hold off on those have five members um what's that yeah you
know let's that yeah the executive ones all right it's only been since October yeah what's one more meeting um and we can go to announcements um so for announcements today I have uh Norton cleanup day
Saturday ail ail 5th 2025 you can check in from 9: to 10:00 a.m. at Town Hall and clean up from 10: to 1:00 p.m. volunteers are needed to help collect trash from Norton's busy streets brought to you by Norton's Highway conservation and park and recks Department along with
Norton veteran services and a select board there'll be a free barbecue afterwards at bar iron Brewing all right um the only other announcement that I have is just a reminder that Election Day is coming up up on Saturday April 26th from 8:00 to
5: p.m. here at the Town Hall all right um okay next up we have the U the fire chaters here so Chief Simmons um is going to discuss the Civil Service hybrid model even welcome so so the time man just ask me to kind of go over that
new hybrid model um be all today so uh last November the State signed into Economic Development Bill and contain in that bill withs to reform C servus in certain areas U the main the main area for us to utilize this would be their
new hybrid or alternate pathway model which would I'll explain what it does in a second but in order for us to even utilize this model we need to have a signed Mo MOA uh between the hrd Civil Service Unit and us as well as hiring policies that they approve the hiring policies um they require us that he had
a basic all common sense stuff but he had a basic mer principes uh recruiting considering uh candidates from diverse backgrounds anti-nepotism anti patronage anti favoritism um that sort of things so we did submit for those uh for the fire dep and I don't want to speak for the police but I
believe they've submitted for it also uh and on March 11th we did get approv to utilize um the hybrid system through Civil Service um so what that what that means for us is that allow us to hire 50% of our candidates from outside of the traditional civil service system
that we've been utilizing since the late 50s I think was right so this this allows us um to hire different candidates as you know it's been difficult to hire paramedics uh so if we don't get paramedics within the Civ service system we can hire 50% if we can find them outside of the traditional
list based system that U that we utilize um other than that the cand they still have to meet all the requirements for master Law chapter 31 all offensive Civil Service uh law so it's still the age restrictions the residency requirements the medical exams Physical Agility Test all that stuff still to
anybody that that we hire through that alate pathway um model once the um we hire candidates through that system they become Civil Service employees they fill out an application to Civil Service they automatically get made Civil Service employees so they're the same categories
all of our current employees same pay everything's the same nothing changes as far as that goes um from 12 within 12 months of us hiring them they have to Grant successfully complete the fire academy and become certified firefighters that's stuff different than we're currently been doing um the
agreement's good for 5 years um 6 months before that 5 years is up we can renew it for another 5 years as long as we're we're compliant with that 50% uh percentage that we're required to do so they also provide us with annual reports in um periodic Audits and they can audit
our stuff um obviously at any time from the hiring process any questions um my my question is um I know there was attempt to to get out of civil service is that is this going to impact that or you're still going to this is totally separate uh
like a total separate thing then than that um so this is this actually came from this this just started in February I think February 20th myself the police chief and Tom man went to an informational session about this and I'll tell you there's a lot of people
there yeah um but this is a completely separate thing from that so it's definitely a step in the in the right direction and gives us a little bit more of latitude to try to find the you know qualified candidates so okay it certainly help a little bit excellent
so um Chief could you just uh mention how if you're able to hire the people that you are able to hire how that affects your budget yeah so like for example we currently have two openings right now so whenever whenever we're down positions
that that increases the need for for overtime generally it'll drop by one or two positions before we have to actually hire for somebody for that for that ship so um not being out to hire somebody so for example we're down two people uh that's been since September we just
about 10 days ago called for our third paramedic list first two times we didn't get anybody to sign up this last time uh we got two people to sign up one of them is over the age of 32 so they're disqualified because no one has the the strictest of the three age requirements
um so is that nort or civil service so there three Civil Service a require requirments uh one is you can't be you can't be over 32 at the time of the exam there's one um that says you can't be over 32 at the latest date to apply for
the exam that's the one that we have and then the third option is no age requirement at all so whenever whenever the time voted then way back in the in the day that's what that's what everybody voted for so that's go around that all right and um just one other
thing have you um I know you said that you have somebody that you're looking at already uh are you is there any hold up for to just to stop moving forward and start hiring now no being being authorized to do this we could hire somebody tomorrow through that that
pathway so this separate I have I have to request a separate requisition for Cil service so I matter fact we have Tov be scheduled in a couple weeks from now um let's say we hide one person in the system one person outside of sorry outside of the system have to do two two separate requisitions give them on the
paperwork for each and full list and that sort of thing so so to use lot to utilize that system well I hope this helps you yeah me too it sounds like it will we have we have several um people that applied through the the online portal for our application process unfortunately four of them over the age
restriction so we have the small based on that U looks like we actually decent candidates excellent pretty excited about that excellent yeah so all right do you need anything on our end do you no I just want to make you aware any questions anybody from the town has any
questions they're always welcome to give me a call and stuff by station at any time I'm happy to sit with them and answer any questions at all excellent thank you Chief appreciate it I think he's I think he's up with the next one too oh yeah just be quick I promise okay
so the next thing is our um our ambulance billing uh contract is is coming up it's uhis end end of June uh we did an RFP for that uh we got one um one person that bid for it that's EMS Pro Solutions the other on that had our
current uh ambulance building contract they've been doing a great job um we have you know we'd like you to set the contract to sign I'm happy to answer any questions about that well okay yeah it looks
straightforward to me so um Roger any I don't have any questions Alec any questions I do not if the chief blesses it so Mike do you need us to just approve this or do you need to approve you to do something um to approve it and authorize me to sign it
okay Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we approve the ambulance billing contract for fiscal year 26 and approve the town manager to sign it I'll second that Alec yes Roger yes and I yes all right
thank you much thank you appreciate thank for coming in okay now discussion regarding 185 Washington um multif Family development Mr un do you want to open this up sure um Matt waty represents the
developer and uh met with uh the departments in town to uh discuss this proposal for um uh 40b development on where the rodeo used to be on North uh
Washington Street and B by North Washington time good evening the members of the board I'm Matthew Watsky uh I'm the lead environmental Regulatory and land use Council for the
for the the developer 205 Washington LLC uh Mike if you could pull up uh the the just the concept plans that we've provided um as Mike just said this is a it's a 60 million acre parcel that is
where the rodo is now and uh extends all the way over uh to goodwi drive so most of the acreage is basically fronting on 495 and then uh the property Loops all
the way back over to goodwi drive the concept plan uh would locate a four buildings with a total of 216 units uh um if you can point those out my that's
on the the right hand side of that screen yeah wait for the plan to come up so the the conceptual plan this is the perfect sheet to to use for now the conceptual plan is to to take the the
larger scale buildings which are the buildings on the lower right hand side of this those are those are facing uh 495 and are the furthest away on the site from any existing homes uh that would be 216 apartment units that would
be remain rental so you know the way 40b works is that if you have a rental Community you don't just get credit towards your affable uh numbers of the 25% you get a credit for 100% of the towards your affordable uh numbers in
town and then um to the to the left of that there you go into that section you have the one larger building that's a senior housing condominium apartment building with 32 units surrounded by uh
36 condominium town homes so the lower scale buildings would be the ones that would be closest to any residential neighbors while still maintaining a vegetated buffer uh between the project and those homes and then with access coming off of goodwind
Drive where you have existing uh existing houses on good drive uh the proposal is to have 28 single family homes um that be accessed off a good so the the net of it uh with this project
uh being located in an area of the town where really it's the largest portion of the property is fronted by 495 is to provide this new housing and the net of it uh for purposes of 40b is
that the town right now is less than one full percentage uh above the 10% criteria this would give you a credit of 230 um
new affordable units which which works out to a growth of were market rate homes in 2300 homes I think the town right now is listed as having 6,800 simultan homes so that would give you a
buffer that's U more than onethird of your existing housing stock that last was in 10 20 years so we've met with the department heads and with Mike we've gotten a good bit of of sort technical feedback there's a lot of engineering
yet to be done uh we understand that um the intention at this point was to to prepare and file uh the request for the Mass housing eligibility letter which then the board select and the select board would be given the opportunity to
provide comment on that uh we wanted to get ahead of the curve present you folks with the information if you have additional U you input that you wanted to give us welcome that but we didn't want it to come as a surprise to you 4 application cable so
okay all right thank you for that um Roger do you have any questions at this point um not at this time I just got this today so I want to take some time to to look through it so there might be some questions that I have at uh next time we come together that'd be fine and if you if you want to forward questions
to us through mic you can respond inviting or if you want to invite us back to yeah I saw a sneak peek of this last week so um uh Alec do you have any questions okay U we'll take one a question from the
audience as most people know I've been dealing with ls for the past 28 years in town first I've heard of it tonight I'm sitting here for another R I said no I'm coming in for another purpose this town has been inundated
with 40 be for a number of years um I recently looked up as an example the MBTA over of the 177 communities involved only only 52 have exceeded the 10% gold before go I know we're just
barely over I one uh to uh but we have re we have we've reached our required 10% on affordable the impact this will have on our our community will be devastating
the water impact the schools it will never generate enough money to uh create any kind of uh buffer for the expenses that will inur in that and the other issue I have had with 40 days I'm not
taking anything away from this devel I know they're trying to do do the right thing here but this is a very large project the biggest one I've ever seen and where I guess my question to you guys would be where we already reached
that 10% goal why do we even have to consider another fo be project my understanding has been always that once we reach the goal where where we've reached the goal so I know we can go beyond that I know there there cities that probably have 14 15
16% I know you can go beyond temp this town has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over years arguing and fighting over these projects and I can't even imagine the neighborhood over there and what's going
to happen when they come out when they find out about this I would encourage the board to um make sure you everyone is properly notified over there of what the intentions are the impact on traffic on that small
rural South Washington Street um nor Washington Street will be um pretty devastating and I know they have to go through the whole process I know they have to go through our legal uh mumo jumbo traffic
studies impacts you know I'm sure there's some conservation land up that be impacted by at all um but if they were talking about 100 units of affordable housing I guess I would have stay in my chair but
when you look at the scope and the size of this you got to you got to pay attention to this yeah so M Mr Kimbell at this point it's just a concept and and that's that's I I I agree with a lot of what you said um but this point it's a concept and I I believe they um you
know once they come back with something more solid will we'll get into all of that for sure and that that's the reason I think I didn't have any questions I'm sure I don't want to speak for anybody else but no I I want to I want to study it and digest all the information that they've given us tonight have of
transparency I would encourage you to make sure everybody's aware what the process is oh absolutely all right thank you I think Mr just a echo that Mr Kimble I think this meeting tonight is part of that transparency this is the first that I've heard of it and trying to get the
information out the best we can yep absolutely all right um discussion on that yeah come on I just say name and address yeah my name is Kore I currently don't live in
Norton I used to own uh but used to be three essic street it's that kind of uh hourglass shaped uh slightly darker gray area south of the goodwi portion of that lot uh I currently or my wife and I
currently own what is shown on Town Maps GIS maps as lot 15204 um it's kind of the bigger blob of gray that sticks out into the white uh area that between goodwi drive and where
Rodeo used to be um back in um Mr chairman could i m we're kind of getting down into the weeds here I mean this isn't a presentation to the planning our zoning board we're just talking about
Concepts sound we get what I'm trying to do is establish that I do have interest in here I was a previous land owner and I'm current land owner to whats this property we'll just keep just let us know your comments on it
uh what the the orange are red BH lines uh at the very edge of the gray uh slot that goes in there uh actually crosses uh onto that property that I currently own my wife and I
currently own I just wanted to make it aware that there are some questions about this that when the surveying was done the original survey done in 1978 showed the plot the correct plot lines um but then when it was redone in 19
1997 there was a slight change that shifted at about 30 ft onto our lot we had Rim engineering resurvey the property last year 2023 and they did validate and it's shown on the the maps
uh that they filed a new town map new map uh for that um that shows that it does actually encroach into our property I just wanted to make aware that before things get too far along in this process that there is some contention about that
roadway that would connect the uh Southern portion the old radal line up to Goodland Drive uh that cross was landed potentially is uh not you know it's in contention I'll put okay yeah and there
will be plenty more public hearings and meetings on this as well that we can go through that and and the planning board will will take that up directly I'm sure okay I mean I assume it's going to be a public uh uh Road public Street uh in the town of Norton to support something like this and I think Norton needs to be fully
aware of any contentious uh issues regarding the ownership and property of that uh absolutely Access Road abely thank you for coming I appreciate that okay anyone else okay we're going to move on next to the presentation from the Traffic Safety
Committee on the options for the town center and we're we're not we're not voting on these tonight this is just what the options are for the Town Center to be presented by the Safety Committee so you you gentlemen have all
had copies of this report we had a dra draft copy of it that meeting about a month ago uh this one is the final final uh presentation so um not sure exactly what you want to get into here but there
are three options that we're looking at and for those who don't know we're talking about the center of town M tton Avenue East and West Main Street Route 140 123 uh the re realignment of that town center which has been a u a major major
problem in town for many many years you can see it from the original slide there that's basically the way it looks today um the Turnin area to the we coming down manille AV going say toward East Main or
down to Avenue has a major impact on the intersection and uh it's been Source part for many many years we finally get traffic was near years ago but unfortunately that's uh that system seems to be uh oated doesn't seem to
work the right the way it should so we been with three options um just texed I don't know if you want to put them up there or not but I can go over briefly one we have a lot of information a lot of traffic studies a lot of stuff that's
been done over the years taking information three different projects we've done in the past to look at it um so the alternatives are pretty much straightforward and this it's stuff that we've discussed before as a community
as far as trying to get it St out option alternate number one allows the U traffic to go to the right of the Unitarian Church take out a
rather modern home behind it in one of the uh school buildings School housing facilities for Wheaten College uh that option is uh probably takes more more taking the property than any
other but at the same time it does uh pretty much keep the U the center intact as far as any of the other erass or anything else on the on the property as you can see the uh the Weeden house
taking the front end of it we come back out just be Beyond The Old Town Hall in that area the um cost of this is about $70 million and it's probably of the three Alternatives is probably the most
expensive however state has indicated that because of the takings and all of that for the most part the state will U more than likely pay for most of that cost that we incur through um any kind of
uh acquisition property the magnifying glass plus at the bottom two over no back there that one hit that oh was that you were say I'm sorry I thought you want to speak I want to see the whole thing one
no I'm not tonight sorry guys all right which option now option alternate number two Mr is this available online yet anywhere no okay would you like us to put it up somewhere or do you want to
wait no I think I think the town should put them up town manager has the information and obviously it should be out there people can see it okay so make can we make sure that gets put up sorry go ahead you can get J we looking an option to yes we are so
as you can see from option alternate number two um this is probably the least lik way to happen but uh based on information we have from Mass DOT um the engineering firm and other other
organizations that are involved the town Comm is protect natural heritage so when you start talking about putting a street through the center of the Town common and just for those make sure you understand where it is it was between
the Gazebo and the uh the war monuments that on the on the CL that would require some way intaking uh it would not not involve any inst structions of any sort so the
uh that's close so the U see from the diagram um the common probably would be bigger after because you can take what's on the
existing mans Avent probably convert that to Green space but we haven't got that far yet I will tell you that legally we would be uh challenged we'd have to go through a number of uh legal steps including legisl legislative Acts
in order for us to be able to to do anything with this property so the Traffic Safety Committee hasn't the way put much emphasis on this because of the uh concerns that have been raised by others on the project I feel like those do you're
going to love this one Al number three anybody ready for this should I do it Massachusetts Massachusetts now become the roundabout capital of the
world the latest technique that they use I think some of you if you go out on 118 and gr 44 or r with you'll see a very small scale roundabout being being built over there purpose of this is to it does
create a better flow of traffic it has a major impact on the center of town wheat and college is probably going to lose more from this and uh than most of the other Landers in there but the one thing about
a roundabout is um there's no EAS so if you get driveways coming on like up on Library Square you got two Wheaten houses there de driveway has to be moved somewhere else you come around the curve uh the
Doctor's house there loses one of the entrances to the house the new library which the young way here talking about earlyer tonight loses their entrance um if you look at
the Clos says proposes shade use path on the west top left this highway uh Mr prach who just purchased the library has just purchased most of that also has been divided off
from the historic houses behind it and he's purchased that Trum of land for additional parking so he probably will lose most of his egress into the property when you come around the other side it doesn't really
have an impact on the old bank site and the uh the church other than you know a bit of an easement issue but other than that it's not a big deal weat however loses the whole front of their property there where their sign is
today for the most part um the traffic committee voted six to five to support this one but I would caution you to uh to do some additional research on it for a number of reasons first of all it does
trigger the issues with the count commment again even though if you look at this it probably would be a larger commment than it is today uh but the abuts around that um the impacts I have on their properties I
would predict that this project would be tied up in cour for for many many years trying to stra out some many easements and some of the ways of getting on to some of this property so um this was the preferred 6
to5 vote by the Char Safety Committee second one was going straight through to the right of the church and the third which I think had two ever number one cost about $7 million Al at
two and three be $6 million the impact on the community as far as our share of U land takings varies with each project the uh coming like I mentioned earlier coming through by the church we have uh the town will
have to come up with very very little uh money for uh the land takings uh the alternate two which is to the common does take a rather large chunk of land on the back side of that whe houses on
the man LA and alter number three is the most costly because it takes a lot of the land wind that's going to be required and the engineering firm indicated that we probably would the to would probably have to put this in order
to acquire the E that would be necessary for alternate two wind for so the question I may the question on everybody's mind at town meeting is going to be which one is the least costly to the to the town
itself have you talked about that one one yeah one goes to the um left of the church Mr Pruno is in the process of building a new building next with the old U banqu Manfield B and we've had
conversations with him because he's working for the CL and he's been working with us and he actually backed his building back a few feet from that corner so it would have an impact if we you decide to go that way but the alternate U one is the is
the most expensive but we don't have to uh make any contributions to it at this time yeah alternate number one and this this goes back to my time on the planning board geez before Paul actually um five five or six years ago yeah and and before then an alternate
one was I think the one we we approved way back then and then I think Kevin can can I think you were on the board with that really gosh all right um anyone have any questions um just a couple of comments I wanted to make um I've been
looking into this quite a bit myself um being on the Traffic Safety Committee and um alternate number three the roundabout aside from the um access to some of the properties that are there
now viable properties all of the um buildings that are along Liberty Square now they won't have any access out onto the rotary they would have to all go out through the back and go out that clock Recreation Road that's how they would have access to any of their properties in there
um and the same thing um holds true for uh option number two there's a uh you can see they have some drawings in here of how the traffic flow would have to go to get out um of those properties they would lose access um and access would be
more difficult for the old library and the properties along that side of the road as well trying to get over to the road without coming out into the intersection um one other thing I just want to bring up is that uh that
intersection received a failing grade as it sits now um and with the different options um the best grade that it got was up to a b grade if uh we went with option
three so what were the grades of one and two I think I you had said this before they want was option one or two grade um alternate number two would give it a c-grade overall and alternate number one
would give it a CG grade overall okay all right yeah my my opinion hasn't changed on this one I'm always I've been for the first option for quite a few years now um it's at least impactful to to to the residents in that area in the
business owners I can also say Mr chair that um both um Public Safety officials that are on the traffic safety board um we're for option three because uh there's no cross traffic at all and uh
so there's there's no collisions into each other except for side to side so and traffic they felt would move smoother to get through the center okay all right anything else good
no all right thank you Mr appreciate it all right next up we have an establishing a salary range for um the town manager Alec you're up if you want to discuss okay so basically um you know as
a vice chair of the search committee uh talking with the chair uh and other members our first meeting was last Thursday night we um you know part of the process was bouncing it back to uh you know our board here the select board
for establishing the range for uh a salary for the next town manager and um with that being said we are in agreement the appropriate range should be 175 175,000 to 225,000 for the
advertisement um we will be going over and finalizing a draft at our next meeting April 3rd which is a week from today tonight and uh then the uh posting will get posted so that was the
recommendation uh we were in agreement uh on that salary range from our okay um that's actually almost exactly what I had in mind personally um so any other Roger anything to add no I've uh
looked at the uh the handouts that they gave and it looks like a a proper range I think you'll have a wide enough range where you'll have a decent number of candidates that you'll be able to picture Okay so with that being said Mr
chair the uh you know that is obviously just a range there's other you know benefits that factor into that you know um and that will all be weighed but this is just we thought that was the best range uh to attract an appropriate uh
candidate list hopefully okay um so I'll take a motion on that Mr chair Mr Maron I make a motion that we establish the salary range for the uh Town manager search committee to be
175,000 to 200 25,000 second okay all in favor I opposed all right excellent and your meeting next week you said right on the 3D yes sir okay um okay we have the blue Apple bus
company letter of support um Mr chair Mr so um I spoken with um former State Rep J Barrow about this and um he has been working on this since before the election where he no longer our State
Rep um so just to give a little bit of background the blue Apple bus runs from the train station in Mansfield up to Logan Airport and um it's been running for two years so far um and it's been
supported through uh money from the federal government to uh seed money to try to get it so it becomes viable um um just over the past two years in January of 2024 they had
1372 passages and in January of 2025 they had 1920 so they had a 40% growth just in the month of January um over the past year so um the issue that we have is that there are funds that are
available and we need to try to get um um let's see from GATRA so we have to send a letter to GATRA to Mary Ellen deaus who's the head of GATRA to request the funds to come from masot so masot
has the money GATRA needs to request the money and it goes directly from GATRA to the blue Apple bus so what I'm suggesting is uh that we send a letter to Mary Ellen def fras of G to formally request the friends from
maot to support the third year of the blue Apple bus line from Mansfield to Logan okay so we would vote to send a letter to request a letter to be that's exactly what it is yep want to make sure
we're on the same page okay um I understand that and there have been um State reps and U state senators who have uh contacted uh GATRA to try to get them to move on this and I'm just trying to get us to be in support of it as
well okay I'm all for it yeah Mr with the letter if you could include something about the NBTA overlay considering the fact that the state is mandating we have to have available available transportation to
from the City I think it will be important to include that in the fact that Mansfield Norton East Foxboro I'll use that bus so if they're going to mandate suggestions such as an NBTA over overway then they should be giving us
the transportation we need to make it happen so that would just be in addition to what you guys are already projecting I mean your suggestions are great I think right way to do it well let's make sure they we put that little stinger in there just that we do have to comply
with the m we have to um and um just one other uh thing I wanted to make clear that this money comes from the federal government from they call it CMAC congestion mitigation and air quality program and that's where
the money comes from okay all right so uh motion to I made that motion to send to send that letter okay sorry all in favor I I I oppos all right so I'll get that
letter together and um Mr chair even if uh the whole board can't sign it if you can sign it just so we can send that yeah thank you uh any other business nope um okay do you want to go through this memorandum of understanding between Town
departments or do we want to wait until we have a i' say until we have a full board so we'll skip that again tonight if you have any comments in between now and the next meeting just get them over okay all
right I'll okay and uh we're going to it was on there for the real estate exemption for for veterans um that was the heroes act that I brought up a while back we're going to hold off on that um at least for tonight and we're going to we're going to discuss it further at a further
date um next we have the springtime meeting articles Jim um so since you last met um the finance committee um took up a few of the
Articles um the first one is article four and this is an article that the highway department submitted this is for Tree Service so um when they need large cranes to come in to take down trees that they
can't take down and also they use it uh for stunt grinding um and it's $31,000 that they're seeking um the finance committee had a discussion on it and uh they didn't vote
but they were more or less saying why isn't this in the budget and because it happens every year um so I mean that's something that you can think about um two ways so one if it's
an article the money can only be used for the purposes that the article is for so 31,000 could only be used for tree services um in Stu removal
so if at the say in June the treat he he needs something done and the tree company is busy and they can't get in well this money is still there in the article he could have them come in in July and use this money to pay them if
it's if it's not that way if it's in the budget two things can happen one the money would go back to become free cash or two when we approve budgets we approve salaries and expense so technically the 31,000 is going to be in
his budget but he could spend it on something else so I I just think it's a better way to do it to keep it as an article but the fincom seem to be swaying towards putting this into this
budget um Mr chair Mr Mar the only comment I would have on that is that you could say that about any amount of money that you're using for any particular purpose like is snow removal you know that money is just in his budget um or if he's doing some work on vehicles you
know if we if we just take took it out of the budget then he wouldn't be able to spend it on something else it could only be spent on that I don't know why this tree service thing is a different animal I guess than the rest of his
budget um because it's just it's an extra that um you know we've been utilizing uh each year that there's money available that we approve this article and he could bring inome uh tree services for large trees and it can only
be spent on those purposes do we know what was used last year 31,000 the full amount was used or was that that's what was approved um I'm not sure if he has any left I'll check okay yeah I'd like to find that out first
what what's been left over in that for the past couple years um before I vote on this but um the other articles uh they took up um well they haven't taken up yet but um I'd like to see if he'll take this
one up under the revolving funds um right now Jared cannot accept any more mattresses down at the recycling facility because he's hit his cap on the in the revolving fund the cap right now
is $20,000 a year this would um lift that cap to $40,000 under Article 13 and I remind you that this 40,000 is money that people pay when they come
in so it's money that's collected down there at the recycle center so this would allow him to spend money if he had up to 40,000 he could still be taking mattresses right now but right now he's done he's hit his $20,000
cap so Mr chair if I if I can make a comment on this um this is dollar for dooll um you know this is this is a huge benefit you know me being in the industry uh for customers to be able to
get rid of the mattresses Massachusetts has a Statewide band on them uh myself owning a Disposal Company um I get um you know a slap on the wrist and a letter from DP every time a mattress a
box spring or anything that is classified as restricted to be uh disposed of at at any kind of material recovery facility um and this is a huge Avenue
um and asset that Jared is running down there it's a it's a center to take those items that guys like myself we can't take them ourselves to you know the recycling centers um but Jared is able to through this setup it's it's a mini
um you know uh recycling center uh out back and um I think it's a huge asset to the town to have this uh there's a lot of people that use it that's why he's already capped you know he's already hit the cap uh cuz people do utilize it it's
a great resource uh for um Town residents in my opinion so my question will be on the other revolving funds in this article um has anything changed from last year year no just this one all right the council and aging it recently
increased recently okay um Roger anything from you so the only purpose of this article is just to increase the amount that he can take in because it just goes into an account for him to spend it what so it it seems like a no-brainer to me it
doesn't there's no tax dollars involved it's revolving the account a major point of note is the resident you have to pay right um but it it's a wash you know it it's it's just a resource so residents don't have to drive all over the place
um and it doesn't you know it's dollar for dollar covered there's no no cost to the highway department at all Mr chair uh Mr mer I make a motion that we uh recommend Article 13 second all in favor I
I all right all right in the next article is Article 15 um this is our special legislation um so this issue developed um under the procurement laws if you're
doing work that's up to $50,000 you just have to see three prices and pick the lower price and hire them to do well this project turned out to be $84,000 so even though um the highway
department picked the low price they didn't go through the whole bid process that because it was over 50,000 so this work was done last summer and this person has not been able to be paid
because of the issue with procurement so our attorneys um are working with the legisl to prepare special legislation they've done it before when this incidents happened in other towns to allow us to
pay um Ryan asalt for the work uh the money is already appropriated but we just can't pay him because of that glitch in the bidding process and the fincom voted 11 nothing to
recommend okay yes no bringer to me too um Mr chair Mr mer I I recommend that we uh I'm sorry I make a motion that we recommend uh
Article 15 second all in favor I I all right and the next article is article 18 the finance commit committee voted 11 nothing to recommend uh this is for $3,000 to the highway department to pick
up discarded items on the road on the road side of the roads okay uh Mr chair Mr Mar just a question Mike m is there any chance there'd be money in that revolving fund that he's picking up mattresses with
already um I don't I don't I don't know to be honest with you but um and the reason this didn't come the reason uh oh I know why we had we had this discussion before that if people are being legitimate and they're going down there
to pay why should their money be going to pick up stuff on the side of the road and then the other uh question what came up like the thir 1,000 about putting this in the budget and we discussed how the fact is we' like to have this at to
meetings people realize we're spending money to pick up junk on the side of the roads people dump yeah Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion to we recommend article 18 second all in favor I I
opposed okay and we did take off U those articles if you remember um the one that were not going to be moved rather than leave them on the warrant okay um next we have the update on 55 West Main Street yeah so I did hear um back from National Grid and
they're going to have their surveyors um work um to develop easements out um in that area I mean right now if you look at the sketch of that you have in front of you more or
less everyone drives down along the side of the Trent Memorial and then they cut across through Mass Electric's property and they go back into the back of where the Senior Center Parking back parking was so we want to establish permanent
easement across there so we can uh access the salt shed in the water tower that are back there when we sell 55 West Main Street and they they said they're more than happy uh to work with us okay
excellent all right um like board report in mail anything all right I approve the warrants as written and uh we have an executive session but I don't have the wording you have to worry more less youve to ex
session okay um executive session person to general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 is to discuss strategy with a respect of litigation and open meeting may have detrimental effect on litigating position of the public body and chair so
declares um we'll be discussing let's it op uh opio the national opio litigation okay I he didn't for the motion so move I know it's going to be move it's
word for word thank God it's that small I think you have it in your packet okay it's not I moved at the town of Norton with raw its asent to amend its complaint in the National opioid no no that's the what we're going to be
talking just what more or less what number one make a motion that we same thing that he just said to go to Executive session as as make a motion we go into we go into executive SE session pursuant
to General Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 as outlined by the chair as outlined by the chair and not to return to open meeting and not to return to open meeting second okay uh and this is a
roll call so Roger yes Al yes and I'm yes okay thank you everyone and apologize start l