all right good evening everyone welcome to this s board meeting of oh jeez what's today March 13 2025 as always we're um up tonight we have Denise Roger and myself Alec and Kevin are not available tonight and we're going to start with the pledge of allees
stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all if that keeps happening I'll just talk very loudly lower the volume Jus can you still hear me yes
okay all right we have uh no appointments resignations we have no minutes we have no licenses and permits so we're on to announcements which will take the bulk of our evening tonight Mr chair Mr Mercy I have several announcements
tonight um a lot of announcements are coming from the uh park and rec um so we have uh Norton cleanup day is Saturday April 5th 2025 you can check in between 9: and 10 at Town Hall and
cleanup is from 10: to 1 uh volunteers are needed to help collect trash from Norton's busy streets there will be a free barbecue afterwards uh sponsored by bog iron Brewery um this is brought to you by the
Norton Highway Conservation Park and Rex departments along with Norton veteran services and the select board we also on April 12th 2025 is the Easter egg hunt at weaton Chapel lawn
you can visit Peter Cotton Tail it'll be face painting as well as uh the hunting schedule is at 2:30 for 2 to 3 year olds 2:45 for 45 and 6 year olds and 300 p.m. for seven and8 year olds for more information you can contact the rec
department the uh men's over 30 basketball league is going to be Wednesdays April 12th through June 11th and Thursdays April 3rd through June 12th you can contact the uh Norton rec
department for more information about the basketball league there is over 24 pickup women's basketball league on Tuesdays from 6:30 to 8:30 at the LG North school at 38 plan Street you can contact the Norton Rec
Department uh Norton mass.org over with 30 basketball there is a townwide yard sale sponsored by the noron park and Rex department on Saturday May 10th 2025 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. sell your
items at your house but be a part of the fund with townwide event for a $20 donation Park and recck will put together a map of all the locations with descriptions of your goodies and do publicity the more the marrier you can
contact park and wck if you want more there's also junior golf lessons dates are Thursday May 1st through 12th uh 22nd sorry and Thursdays June 5th through
26th these are at Norton Country Club doll crows lessons are at ever Leonard Park from 4:30 to 5:30 you can contact park and wck if you want more information we also have a saved the date for ribbon cutting and grand
opening for the Grand Chateau owl at for Mansfield Avenue that's Friday March 28th 2025 uh light refreshments and drinks are available the grand opening celebration will be uh I'm sorry The
rebon Cutting ceremony will be 12:00 p.m. to 2 p.m. the grand opening celebration will be 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and that is at the Oldtown l Library um I also have a personal announcement that uh we will be holding
office hours for uh selectman I will be available starting next Thursday uh March 20th uh Thursdays that the select board is not meeting I will be available in the lobby to meet with any citizens who have questions or concerns and we
have the availability of room if you have a private conversation you want to have so that begins next Thursday at 6:00 that's all that all right excellent thank you Roger okay next under new business we have discussion and our vote to open the
special town meeting for May 19th 2025 um is there any discussion Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion to open the special town meeting to be held Monday May 19th 2025 at 7:15 p.m. at the Norton
High School warrants and articles will be accepted until 400 p.m. on March 25th 2025 at select board's office I'll second okay motion second all in favor I I opposed all right I don't know about
that 7:15 time now okay um now we're going to go through the do you want to go through the meeting articles Town meting articles um I think I think you received the one previously um so I just wanted
to see if we could tackle a couple of them anyways easy ones uh under you have full board the first article Article 2 chapter 90 Transportation aid program so that would just be um to approve
acceptance of any chapter 90 money that the state sends us and allow us to expend down our roads right town I'll make a motion to approve two of the Town norn warrant for the annual
town meeting for Monday May 19th 22 fall as written second all in favor I I all right and the next article is um article
14 uh the finance committee took this up and approved this at their last meeting this would be let me go to it on the uh so this would set up an uncompensated absences fund so to see if the town will vote to
accept the provisions of General Law chapter 403d EXT establishing a reserve fund for future payment of acrude liabilities for compensated absences due to any employee or officer of the Town upon germination of employment from which Appropriations
may be made by the town Town manager and town AC and further to raise in appropriate and our appropriate and our transfer from available funds a sum of money to fund said Reserve fund or take any action relative there to so the
Auditors have suggested that we should set up this fund um what we've been doing in the past um say the fire chief would come to the town account and say I think I've got three or four people retiring this year we put an article on
warrant and money would be there to fund those retirements a lot of times um I was giv Joker with Paul Scher the other night at the finance committee at how he'd be in the day after town meeting and said okay transfer that money in our salary account now we be like whoa you
might have enough in your salary account to make it through the year without that money let's see and so a lot of times the money never got used or a portion of it got used so we have a ser of those articles that were done over the years
and right now in all those articles James said there's close to a million dollar that we would put into this Reserve fund and this covers cly buyback or vacation and it would be good um to
have this when we go out to bit uh borrow with the actual aial if they see we're making a commitment on our oped and we've set up a fund like this it looks like we're take rather than having to come up with money when someone's retiring we have the money set
aside and help us out in our bond rated and so we wouldn't have to appropriate any money we just transfer over what's in those articles right now excellent through you chair uh Mike so
opep already covers some of those separation expens is correct um op excuse me OPB just covers um health insurance for retirees it doesn't cover anything else okay so you move part of the OPB
over as well to the separation fund no we leave OPB alone and just keep doing what we've been doing every year we're we going up 5,000 a year trying to get to our goal of 200,000 a year going into OPB and then when Bristol County uh
pension systems fully funded the money that we're paying into the Bristol County pension system of year um we'd have money that we could put in a little bit but this would be a separate separate fund and it would be invested so they'
be making an interest and right now our liability is the town closed down today um if everyone retired it would be about 24 million I think James said to
cover the liability so this would be a good way to show that where covering that is none of this covered already in The Fringe my item when no when uh what we've been doing as I said when every year a
requests will go out to all the Departments do you have anyone retiring this year and an article would be on warrant to put x amount appropriate x amount of dollars into that article to fund the retirement so we've been paying
as we go Mr chair Mr um Mike so if we set up this account and we funded can we get the money out if we need it for something else um that's a good question I'm not
I'm not sure I believe that meeting for yeah and this from what I understand you're taking this from previous town meeting articles that's where the funds are coming from previous town meeting articles that were for
time so there's funds sitting out there that we can't use until we appropriate it Mr chair Mr mer I make a motion that we approve article 14 that's written for the time meeting tomk Mr chair sorry I I have one more
question um Mike I heard you say that this was brought for the fincom how how was the um not sure it was I think it was unan if not it was yeah second motion sorry second okay all
in favor I I opposed and if you're like um usually in in the spring and I don't think we're going to have money put money into opap and the stabilization um
and I think we could move no action on those for now I'm sorry which article of those 19 and 20 usually that is uh opep and stabilization there usually we uh fund
those in the fall do you need a motion to take not action recommend no action Mr chair Mr Mery I recommend we take no action on Article 19 and 20 second all in favor I and I would also recommend the same on
article 22 now um if we if we approve um article 14 we don't need article 22 should we wait and see if we uh I'm sorry Mr chair um should we wait see should we wait to see if we uh uh
pass article 14 first um well right now your motion could be no action and then you could move it at town meeting if 14 pass that Mr chair Mr I make a motion that we
take no action on article 22 second okay all in favor I post all right that's it so now we have the um review discuss of the vote to award the trash recycling contract and bid
results so we had uh several biders for um the trash pickup for both the schools and the town and uh you have in front of you breakdown with those the first for the schools um I
recommend uh that we award the contract to Republic and to the town all state they uh all state was a little better for the town public is not low
bid it was one bit or lower but due to uh not having all the information that was required in that bid package that bid was rejected so you want us a motion to award these or to allow you to second I
would make a motion to award and authorize me to sign contracts Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we award the uh trash pickup and single stream recycling
services for the schools to Republic and for the town all state and allow the town manager to go at the
contract second okay all in favor I I opposed all right next up we have a discussion and vote to award the DPW Service Awards it 13 14 Mr chairman this is for U line
painting and um for both of these bids uh one recommendation is markings in and uh this is for clar and rubber traffic line painting the thermoplastic traffic
line painting how much over last year was these I don't have that sorry I assume they're over CU everything goes up some of them were close though some actually went down and uh
long stay pretty close this year I remember some of the paving went down which was was shocking to me too any questions Mike I'm assuming that this bid is based on what we have actually planned for the year we give just like we do uh with our paper we
give um Southeast Regional Services Group quantities that we expect to use and uh they compile all the different tents the quantities that going to be used so the companies they can plan for
that so I'm looking for a similar motion to the last one I'll make a motion to approve the Southeast Regional Services Group uh authorized I should say uh Town manager to sign contract with Southeast Regal Services Pro
supports second all in favor I I I opposed great um so next we're going to have the um we were going to have the discussion on the real estate exemption for veterans which is um I brought this up a while back uh about the heroes act I would prefer to have a full board here
for that if possible when I know we have uh some folks from from the assessors here if they want to come up and talk or you want to hold off until everybody I'll make you do it twice to uh address the public in general we have
back that's fine but um we're here prepared to uh present to uh yourselves and the town um to you guys Mr chair Mr President I suggest that uh we hold off
on uh having any discussion or making any uh uh recommendations for the heroes act at this time I'd rather have a whole board here and um I haven't had the time myself to uh look over the information that we' received
okay that's fine that's fine that's fine with me with that Mak all right well thank you guys for coming let us you let us know and it was it was short notice I know we added that today so yeah all right no problem thank you guys all right have a good
night um is there any topics not reasonably anticipated all right uh next up we have the old business the U memorandum of understanding between Town Department we're going to we're going to skip this tonight because this is another one I'd like to have a full board here for yeah
much I Haven had time to read any yeah so we're going to skip that one today I told you the announcements would be the look of the meeting all right now we're on to the town manager reports I'm sorry Mr chair Mr Mar um I think we have an update on
the uh uh property on East Main Street um that on the agenda update on uh legislation for sale property on East Main Street yeah that's that's during the yeah oh I'm sorry we'll get my P it's all
[Applause] right I just wanted to give you an update on the health insurance um these are the rates for this year um it's a 88.2% increase over last year um
and uh I can get my most work I just wanted to show you a couple things um that we're looking at in our health group so right now um you know the big
thing with movi and OIC right now 1.8% of the members use OIC and that's 6 .2% of our entire pharmaceutical claims
and M GOI 4.7% and that's 17.3% so those two drugs are 23.5% of all our pharmaceutical claims
it's really uh driving up the cost and uh the health group is looking at ways to have other options um rather than cover those drugs uh in full um they're
looking to Institute a managing obesity program and uh gradually uh end coverage for those drugs or another option is make people pay a higher co-pay so we're going up
8.2% if we didn't cover those drugs we'd be going up 4% sh our health insurance so for every 1% it's about $80,000 from the town so if if we weren't covering
those two drugs um we would have saved 4% on $320,000 could have gone a long way and just uh giving you the past history with our group um so this year
as I said we're going up the 8.2% um for FY 26 FY 25 went up 5.7 we're at 1 one two uh 225 so and then 13.6 and 18 and 10.3 and
17 uh so on average it's been 4.6% from uh 20 fy16 to FY 25 U we actually got an email today there number of communities looking to come into the group because some of the
communities on Maya went up 20% this year I saw others there 14.8 I know Easton has said that GIC has been over 12% for the last three years increases so our group's been doing well
and we will look at um some of these communities that now want to come into the group and they'll be reviewed by the actual Arial and uh we've told them that we already have our rate set to FY uh 26 so unless they're going to
bring that rate down we won't be bringing them into the group we'll look at them for the for the next year but this is just some of the rates and some of the communities that responded ath was 18% no communities that I the Maya
communities I was surprised a lot of them might not be on here but a lot of went up 14.8% Medfield as you can see is meer they went up almost 177% so uh we're doing pretty good as far as the health insurance and we will
keep uh looking at options then uh on on the house the house legislation so I don't know how long it's been now 10 15 years that we've been trying to sell get the state to put up to for sale the
land up on East Main Street behind uh duckin donuts and now uh representative baros has introduced a bill to uh require that the state put the land
up for sale so hopefully uh this will get things moving um I was kind of surprised during the boom years here where the states I well the economy is not right right now for selling the land I don't know when it's going to get any
better but um it'd be nice to have that land back on the tax RS and I want to thank representative Howard for uh staring that great I thank you make anything else anything for this slake Bo report
meil uh just one quick question did he indicate um did they indicate when they expect the house to vote on this um Mr I spoke with uh representative Chason this afternoon about this uh
specifically and there is a bill that's been assigned to the state administrative regulatory joint oversight committee as's looking at it now um it has a uh a bill number and U he said he try to keep us
as it works through the house all right excellent um no report mail okay um I recruit the warrants as written and I declare under general laws chapter 30A section 21 A3 that the purpose of
the executive session will be to discuss strategy with respect to the litigation matters identified in the board's meeting agenda their updated meeting agenda because in a discussion of the matter an open session may have a detrimental effect on the litigation litigating position of the town and with the board
to not return to open session at the conclusion of the executive session Mr chair Mr Maron I move that the board go into an executive session under General law 38 2183 for the purposes and reasons declared by the chair and the board
to not return to open session therea okay we have to okay sorry second we have to have a roll call uh Denise yes Roger yes and I yes thank you very much everyone for sticking through this tough tough meeting than