Thank you. Thank you everyone. Good evening. Going to call the meeting to order. Um we have Kevin, Denise, Bob, myself. We'll stop by the pledge of allegiance, please. Peter.
I aliance 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. We're going to start before we get into the appointments. We're going to start
with um there was a passing of a Norton resident um a couple weeks ago. Mr. Kimble, can you please sad to report that senior airman airman Jacob Nicholas Foster Cole, age 24, a resident of Norton and a member of the
United States Air Force Station in Alaska and more recently in Georgia, passed away on Sunday, August 3rd, 2025. He was born January 7, 2001 in Attboro, the beloved son of Rachel Foster and Joshua Cole. Uh Jacob grew up in Norton
and graduated from Norton High School in the class of 2020. In October that same year, Jacob hosted United States Air Force. His service took him to Alaska where a new chapter of his life began. He was quiet, thoughtful in nature,
pretty much kept to himself. Um, the government, Governor Mari Healey has asked that all flags in the Commonwealth be lowered to half staff from sunrise to sunset at all state buildings on Sunday, August 17, 2025.
Like to have a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Okay. Appointments or resignations. We have first up a resignation of Nathan Lowry from the Norton Fire Department.
Also, we also have a reg, excuse me, resignation of Evan Willard from the Norton Fire Department. We have any um Mr. Lowi is transferring to the Fall River Fire Department and uh
Mr. Willard is is just resigning for uh for another opportunity outside of the Norton Fire Department. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Next item is appointment of representatives to serve on the following. MFN Regional Wastewater District Commission, Southeastern Mass
Health Group, SEMRC board of directors. Um and I believe this is a housekeeping matter, chief. Correct. Yes. So, the uh the new town manager, Mark Ghoul, takes over on September 2nd. Um I'm the representative for these these groups and it's uh my term will
end September 2nd. So, I would suggest that uh the board uh make Mark Gould effective September 2nd, the representative to these committees. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I'll make a motion to appoint as representative to serve on the following the MFN that's the Mansfield
Fox Newton Regional Wastewater District Commission Southeastern Mass Massachusetts Health Group and Surak and the board of directors effective September 2nd, 2025. Okay, so this is a roll call because Mr.
Maran is on Zoom. I'll second. Okay, Kevin. Yes, Denise. Yes, Bob. Yes, Roger. Yes. And I am a yes also.
Next, we have appointment of municipal hearings officer. And this is same bucket right here. This is the same uh housekeeping matter for to make the appointment for September 2nd, 2025 for uh the new town manager, Mark Gould. Chair, I make a motion that we uh appoint Mark Ghoul to
the uh municipal as the municipal hearing officer effective September 2nd, 2025. Second. Second. Okay. Mr. O'Neal. Denise. Yes. Bob. Yes. Roger.
And I am a yes. Unanimous. Okay. Does Mr. Gold know this? He will minutes many hats. Okay. Next up, we add the minutes. Approve the minutes including but not
limited to May 22nd, 2025 exec session, June 11th, 2025 exec session, June 17th, 2025 executive session, July 12th, 2025, July 14th, 2025, and July 24th, 2025.
Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to approve as written um through your chair. Yes, sir. Ma'am, sorry. It's okay. Um because I'm going to abstain from one of them. Can we just maybe do that one separately, the July
24th one, cuz I wasn't here. Okay, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I make a motion that we approve the minutes uh May 22nd, 22 2025 executive session, June 11, 2025 executive session. June 17th, 2025 executive
session, July 12th, 2025 executive session and July 14th, 2025 executive session. Second um through your chair. Sorry, just correction. The July 12th and July 14th are not executives. Just want to make that correction. Okay. Yeah,
we try that. Let me retry it again. Make a motion to approve the minutes, but not limited to May 22nd, 2025 executive session. June 11th, 2025 executive session, June 17, 2025 executive session as written.
Second. Uh Kevin, uh yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger, yes. And I am a yes. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to approve the minutes of June 17th.
I'm sorry. July 12th, 2025, July 14th, 2025 as written. Second. Okay. Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes. Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion we approve the
minutes of July 24th, 2025 as written. I'll second that one because you can't. Kevin, yes. Denise, Epstein. Bob, yes. Roger, yes. And I am a yes.
Good, Jen. Okay. Licenses and permits. Vote to approve the special events application of Melissa Nilec on behalf of Park and Wreck for the 32nd annual charity Charlie Halloween parade
scheduled from 12 to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 26th, 2025. A motion to approve. Second. Sorry, point of clarification. Chair, can we just say pending um approval by the licensing? Sorry, the board of
health, police, and fire cuz those hadn't been approved yet. We can if they're not. Yeah. Yeah. Jen, is that that's accurate? They haven't approved them. I had since then is fire department. Okay. So, pending approval. Okay.
Uh would that Kevin? Um who moved that? Me. Want as amended? As amended. Yep. Second. Okay. Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes.
And I am a yes as well. Okay. Announcements, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Have a few announcements. The Norton Historical Society presents a free event. The 13th Continental Regiment, the 18th Century Civilian and Soldier
Camp. The Continental Regiment will set up a full-scale camp to include tents, cooking displays, and items used during colonial times. There will be talks on weapons, medical equipment, occupations, clothing tools, toys, food, and more.
Learn more about the American Revolution and American in Massachusetts history. This is lo will be located behind the old school house in Norton, 18 West Main Street on Saturday, September 6th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with a rain date
of September 7th, 2025. This event is free and open to the public and all you history lovers, we hope you come out and um and check it out. And uh that maybe a few musketss may be discharged at the same time. So we encourage you all to come out if you want to get an idea.
It's the 275th anniversary, so it's a great chance to uh relive some of history. Boston's TPC will be coming to town on August 28th through August 31st. TPC of
Boston. We just remind everyone that they will be on um up and running uh those dates and I would expect that the traffic and on Mansfield Avenue will be extremely heavy during that period of time. Just another reminder, Nor Eastern
Savings Bank is going to close their branch located at 172 Mansfield A as of Friday, September 12th, 2025. So, uh, just keep you everybody up to date on that. The follow annual tele meeting
will be held is scheduled for Monday, October 20th, 2025 at 7 p.m. at the Norton High School. Warn articles will be accepted until 3:30 p.m. on August 28th, 2025 at the Select Board's office, Norton Town Hall, 72 East Main Street,
Northern, Massachusetts. That's all I have. Thank you, sir. On to new business. We have recognition of patrol officer Taylor Cross of the Norton Police Department.
Come on up, please. Chief. Uh, Mr. Chair and members of the board. So, back in July 16th, I I issued a recognition letter to Taylor. Um, you know, over the last 6 months, she's been really extremely helpful, both on duty and off duty, volunteering and assisting
the animal control officer. Um there's been a number of dogs down the dog shelter that have been homeless and it creates a it creates an enormous amount of work for the animal control officer. Um she established a Facebook page, established an Instagram page, um goes
down on her off days and walks the dogs. Um and uh you know, she definitely has a love for dogs, but it's even bigger than that. It's uh you know what I found out within my first day of of this new role is that uh the animal control officer was unable to take a vacation day all of
last year and um and in the early July Taylor housed the last dog down there. So she found homes for all the dogs which is really an amazing uh an amazing feat. So, um
I mentioned it to the select board and uh I don't know if she wants to talk about her efforts very quickly. Um she's not one for the limelight, but um I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here. Um it was definitely I would like to stress it was
it definitely took a village for us to get um all of the dogs into homes. um being able to use social media to Oh, sorry. Is this better? Okay. Um like I said, it was it was a
community effort. Um social media has been a huge tool for us to get some exposure down for the shelter. A lot of people in town didn't even know the the shelter existed. So, it's been really great um to kind of have both my passions mix into one one area. So, I'm
having a great time. It's been nice to uh connect connect with the community and I look forward to helping save more dogs. Thank you very much, Taylor. I'm sure Mr. Plant appreciates all the help you give him. For sure. Anybody else?
Thank you. I hope you didn't adopt all of them yourself. Yes, sir. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Maran. Mr. Chairman, yeah, if I could add to that, you know, we we talk a lot about we're fortunate in Northern to have a
police force the way we have it. Uh the participation that uh a lot of people don't even know about unless you happen to read it on Facebook or the paper or whatever. This is just another example of how great a police department we do have. Thanks to the chief and all the people that work work beyond him. Um,
but it's it's that hometown feeling when you have people such as yourself step over to make that happen. So, we really appreciate it and uh keep up the good work. Put your resume in for Chief. We'll be he'll be retiring for you. Thank you. And and Officer Cross, this is another
great example of how you know the saying, um, when there's a problem, you know, being part of the solution, right? rather than, I hate to say it, but complaining or whatever, pointing out problems, you just jumped in there and and took care
of a problem and connected, you know, needy dogs that need a home to people that want them and also helped out the dog officer at the same time. Uh, be able to take vacations. So, thank you very much. Appreciate your initiative. Thank you. So, with that,
oh my goodness. Excuse me. So with that um from the select board we have a cert certificate of recognition. May it be known that this certificate is hereby presented to patrol officer Taylor Cross in recognition of your tireless dedication and invaluable contributions as an
animal adoption facilitator. On this 14th day of August 2025, the town of Norton Select Board wishes to recognize your unwavering commitment to connected animals to connecting animals in need. from the Norton Animal Shelter with loving homes bringing joy and
improving countless lives. Your efforts are deeply appreciated and have made a significant difference in our community. Norton Select Board, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Thank you.
Well done. Congratulations. All right. I hope she's on uh duty right now. Chief, she's gone. She's out of here. All right. So, next up,
presentation from the board of assessors followed by discussion and a vote on the following. Heroes Act clause 22J clause 59 section 5C and a half and age age reduce the age for the senior
exemptions from 69 to 65 years old. 70 70 70 to 65. Okay. Who's going to present?
Please by all means. Mr. Dornney. Good evening. Appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening um as part of uh the chair of the board of assessors, but um we have a a a good group and I'd like to uh recognize them as well. And uh
particularly our our new member, Lucas Ray, he's active and um Mike Mason is unable to make it tonight. He's out of town during a vacation. Welld deserved. Um and uh director of assessing Denise
Ellis. So, um you know, uh feel free guys when get a chance if you have questions. But what I'd like to do is um kind of a uh accent that the presentation tonight. Um I'd like to uh
it's going to be data driven and it's going to be uh presented on facts. Um and from that um I'd like to do the presentation first. um you know with your permission and then we can follow
up with some questions um at the end. That'd be great. Sure. So um tonight or Yep. Tonight, um there are three new or we're introducing um
two new uh clauses exemptions that uh fall under Mass General Law and managed by the division of uh local services. Uh can everyone hear me? All right. Okay. Thank you. Um so again um what we'd like to do is
talk about these um two clauses and um the uh age reduction um exemption or possibility of that. And again um this will be on uh numbers driven and um
welcome your questions after. Um if you could uh the first page here um again we're going to talk about uh first is called clause 22J. It's also
known as uh the Heroes Act and it um is uh part of or affects uh our our current veterans in town and it would um increase the exemption
uh for them uh as a a double exemption. So they they would get an increase of um double what they get now. And if we look um we can talk about it in a bit but
there are two clauses that fall under the veterans uh 22 and 22E and um those clauses um make up 80 me uh 80 residents are participate or enrolled
in clause 22 which um is a disability uh uh exemption. And it is uh they are certified to be disabled u between 10 and 90% disabled.
uh veterans clause 22E, which we have 41 residents, um uh they get an exemption of $1,000. Um and uh they are 100% disabled.
though they are 100% disabled, they do need to um submit every year to the state to get um approval and continue the exemption. Um I did mention or I don't think I
mentioned on clause 22 the exemption status rate $400 per resident. So, that would increase uh under the Heroes Act to $800. And clause 22E would go from $1,000
to $2,000. And if you could go to the next page. So just um as we're going to the next page, both 22 and clause 22E,
we have 121 residents. Um, and their exemptions uh total $73,000. Um, get the next page. Go ahead. Trying. Okay. Excuse me. Thanks for doing this.
Rick Rick, can you back up? Can you say that last last part again? What would what would make what is the $73,000? Yeah. So it's um is that the 70? So right now um their exemptions
are 80 at $400 which comes out to $32,000. Oh, it's a total of 22 and 22E. Right. I got you. Um okay. So that is in in summation the
hero's act or clause 22J. Um I want to next talk about um the seniors um reducing the age from uh exemption age from 70 to age 65.
Um, you'll see a uh on your handout. Let me just hold on. It's um if you can see the hand out, but it it shows you um the ages of our town residents
um per year. And it's it's really interesting. Um again the seniors fall under clauses 17e and 41D. Um if you look at the ages from uh we
talk about age 70 um and over there's I guess from age 70 to 74 we have 1,048 residents. From age 75 to 79 we have 762
residents. Uh then we go from 80 to 84 527 residents. And then 85 to 90 272 residents. We we stopped at 90. But if we combine that with the present um the
a and adding ages 65 to 69 uh we have a total of 1,337 residents. So between ages 65 and age 90 we have a total of 3,946
residents. Um from uh the information that we got the latest information uh our total population um from and this is goes to 2000 or 2023 is 19,146 residents. I believe that's probably an
increase since the last 2 years. Um, so if you divide the 3946 by 19146, we have almost 21% of our residents are over 65 years old.
Um, and I guess we're we were looking at this as a group and saying, well, can we lower that and give that exemption age to 65 and beyond? But the the it's unknown. We
don't know what that impact would be financially. So, um at the at the moment, um we're just not able to provide that information. I think it would be difficult to to get that as well. And and Rick, that would be
because we don't know the people in that of that 1337 people in that age group who's going to take advantage of it or not, meet the criteria or not. Correct. Um there's two two um financial there's an income based Y
and there's also an assetbased the criteria correct? Y and um you know and and many people today um do work beyond 65. Um but it it would be it would be hard to really come up with a a number that
would be true or somewhat you know you just don't know who's going to sign up. Correct. Just don't know. Right. You don't know. I mean you have 1337 but if you look at who we have now ages 70 and over that participate
um we have a total of te technically it's a total of 209 people for exemptions 209 residents um and seniors and veterans
make up 181 of those 209. So again, you know, to put a pin on the map, I don't know if you can really do that um with a hard number. So our
I guess presentation tonight on that would be uh it's an unknown. So um just want to provide that information to you. And again, the seniors, what we're talking about, 70 to 65, the age,
they do fall under uh clauses 17e and 41D um which um provide um 17e provides a exemption of $251.
Uh and that's this is FY25 numbers. Um, we just recently found out I think there's a colar adjustment which would be 258 per uh resident. There's 13 residents that uh are enrolled in that 37A it's a
$500 exemption and uh clause 401D is 42 people. Um, so we can move to So if we and and then we can talk about I think we talked the heroes act which
is clause 22J. There is also the other clause um and again it's this is coming from mass general laws division of local services. It's called um clause 59. If I get this right, it's 59.5c
12. And um that would include the veterans which we just spoke about and the seniors that we have um as um exemptions which
would be clause 17ea 41D. Um, and I believe it's uh what uh there's also a clause 41A, which is just a deferment of of
paying the property tax until a later date. Correct. So, those numbers would double um from the current um
um 251, 500, and 1,000. So if clause 59 um.5 C12 were to um be implemented, it would be
uh the seniors clause uh which we mentioned um that would be uh a a total of $47,763. and uh the veterans it would total um 121 people total $73,000.
So that would be um a total of 12763. Um the other important note would be um you can
as we only vote or approve um one or the other. So you can't um since the veterans will be covered under 59 C um
and the seniors, you would that would be kind of like an umbrella um clause. And then if you wanted to do just this um you you were a little bit hesitant to roll everything in, you could um just do
the Veterans the Heroes Act. But I think again I'm just presenting the facts. It would be um either 12763
which would be everybody. That's the 59 C. 59 C 59.5 C 1/2 and um again that would cover 181 of our residents
and of course you know next year this this will not go in effect until um uh FY27 July 1 July 1 2026 which is FY27 um
So again, um, you know, the information I can't think of. Let me see. Is there anything else, Denise? Oh, okay. That's right. Yeah. So, yeah. So, uh, an important note is if
tonight Oh, not tonight vote. If you do vote, right? Um, if you do go in the affirmative for the veterans only, you cannot revisit the 59C. What about vice versa? I'm sorry.
What about vice versa? Who? If you do it, what about if we if if we do so happen the 59 C. If we do approve that includes every we can take up the Heroes Act if if was so inclined. Well, it the
Heroes Act is really under the 59C, right? So, what'll happen if you if you choose the 59 C again, it's for everybody from there, you cannot go you can't add the veterans on top of that. You can only do one,
but the 59C incorporates the veterans. Yes, it does. It does. So, doing the Heroes Act would be a duplicity, right? So, yeah, legally we can't do both. You can only do one of them. So, You can't double dip. You can't double dip, right?
So, it's either if you do the 59 C, that's everybody. The veterans, it's only for them. Um, and like I said, if you go with the veterans, you there won't be anything for the seniors in the future to get doubled if you go that way. Just something to think about. Maybe they'll
come up with a new clause down the road, years away. I don't know. But that usually takes a few years. Um, I just wanted to make that point in case somebody came like, "Well, how come the seniors aren't being doubled?" um they can only go under this clause 59 5C and a half is what they'll fall under.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chair, I ask a question. Um the um I read I I did some other reading on it on my computer and I thought it was stated that both programs could be
available, but you could only get money for one. Take advantage of one. You couldn't you couldn't double up on on the program. So if we adopted both programs, it doesn't work that way. You can't adopt both. You can only adopt one of them. Okay.
Okay. I understand his question. We could have those available for residents and they can choose which one they want. It says um no no they the state doesn't you only you can only choose one clause out of it. The the residents can't pick and choose which one they want. You guys can only choose one legally and that's
what the that's what the power make it easier because it's confusing at best. Exactly. Exactly. Mr. Mr. Chair, one one qu So Rick um just to clarify that the five individual clauses, the two veterans and the three
other ones. So they they're all kind of unbrled under the 59 5C and a half. It's all grouped together. Yes. So you have the elderly is 17e 41D. That's um as we have it now it's age 70
or older as of July 1st of this tax year. Uh the 41D and now there's no these programs um some are income eligible driven some are income and asset some are just asset. Um, and then
there's the 41D, and that is for a single or married, uh, a couple that have must own their home in town for at least 5 years. And, um, they could, um, uh, you know,
get that exemption amount of $1,000. Um, the veterans, we talked about, that's clause 22 and 22E. Again, they're uh service connected disabled, the 22. Again, they must have lived in their home in town for at least one year.
And um and they would be eligible with a disability between 10 and 90%, $400 exemption. The 22E is 100% disabled, must have lived in home for a year in
town, and um it's $1,000, but they have to submit and apply annually. Um others that could could fall under it would be the uh legally blind uh which is um there's no age limit. It's a
certificate that comes from the state, the Commonwealth. and um and then it it it we you know it's administrated through us. Um there's others that um clauses 4243 is a surviving spouse of a
minor child of of police officer or firefighter who's been killed in the line of duty. U thank God we don't have any one on uh in that. Um 17E surviving spouse of a minor child of a deceased
parent. Um we do not have anyone involved in that. And um again clause 18 extreme hardship and that's um that has to be um it varies but it's it's it's someone who really can't pay their bills
or uh needs to apply uh for for need. And um then we talked about the 41A. Uh there are a couple people do that and that's just deferring your property tax and paying off at a at a later date. Um
I think there's um I think pretty much it Denise is you have question. So Rick real real quick those are those are existing exemptions that we Yeah correct. So if you look at this page with the spreadsheet uh it tells
you the number of exemptions. Um I think that'd be uh 47 and 13. So you have really seniors you have 60 um and veterans you have uh 121
which equals 181. So by by moving forward or approving the 59 uh 181 right here 5C 1/2 this
you would be um increasing um the exemption total of 73,000 because it's a double. Yep. Yep. Okay. That's clauses 22 and 22E. That would be um you're correct.
That would double. Yeah. Yep. That would double. That's the veterans and um again clauses 17e and 37A and 41D are ages 70 and over. Um except for 37A is
legally blind. Okay. And those are those are the existing I'm I'm looking for more that the the new the new information that we're we're talking about you know that that you're presenting that the 22 and 22E what what that's what's going to be affected with
the 59 C adopt right exactly right so if we went with the 59 C it would be a total of 120,000 whatever that number 763 y yeah 763 that would be the total additional money that would have to come out of the and that's if everybody that is
currently existing taking advantage of the program were to reapply this upcoming year. Exactly. We'll send all the applications out. We have new people that will go out. Could be more could be less. Criteria, but it does fluctuate a little bit every year. Not a lot. Yeah.
Okay. So these are all has to be submitted by April 1st and um and then by April by April 30th um it gets uh forwarded to DLS should take effect July 1. Y
so we we'll what we'll do in April we have to send it into the state and we get reimbursed for part of it. All of this we will not get reimbured for for the Heroes Act. The state doesn't reimburse us. So, we only get partial reimburse reimbursement for what we have right now. Oh, I'm sorry. So, we only have partial
reimbursement for what we have now, but for all the new um ones, we won't get reimbursed. So, it'll just be on the town. The 41Ds are on the town anyway. We don't get reimbured for those. Okay. Can you run down what what do we get reimbured for? Again, it's right here on the sheet on the
Excel sheet. So, for um the 30, we don't get reimbursed for We do not get reimbursed for the 17e. Mhm. Um the 37A, which is the blind, we only get reimbured $436 for the five of them. Mhm.
Um 41Ds, we do not get reimbursed. The clause 22, which is the veterans 400. Out of the 32,000, we get reimbured 18,000. and clause 22E
um out of the um 41,000 we get reimbured 33,325. Would those reimbursements that one there increase? No. No, those will stay the same. Those would stay those are those are set numbers. It's not Yeah, those are set numbers on on the
current numbers. So, anything going forward if we double it, we don't get reimbursed on the double amount. So, of that 12763, we'd be backing out that 18 and that 33 and a quarter. Um,
no, no, no. It would just be the 12763. I just added it up. So, that's that's the the 12763 is the amount for all the current clauses that we have on the first section. Oh. Oh, okay. All right. I gotcha. So, yeah. So, you just go right down.
It's 12763. the clauses below that, like when you see the veterans 22D, we get 100% um reimbursement for that. Okay. So, I'm I'm kind of honing in on it that the clause 22 and 22E if if we
you know whichever one if we adopt you know the town does at town meeting um if that exemption stays constant same amount of people you know and we're we're realizing $32,000 in in rebates so to speak exemptions
that if that were to double 64,000 our reimbursement from the state would still be 18,000 exactly that wouldn't What is that number based off of? How does that not increase? They It's It's a percentage of the ones that are already in there. It's a
percentage of the 80 80 applicants applications that we have in there. They only give you a percentage of it. Okay. So, and what they're saying with this Heroes Act, they will not reimburse us for the Heroes Act. Okay? So, it's on the town. The whole that's heroes, but 59 C
59C is the same thing. So, if you're going to double everything, anything that you double is on the town. the state will not reimburse you for it. The second double, I mean the first double, you're going to get the the existing reimbursements are going to continue, but you're not going to get any reimbursement from
this 59 C. I got you. I got you. So that if we double it and and it is 64,000 that's realized in exemptions that people elect to take, right? It's still going to be 18,000 of that 64 that's going to be re reimbured.
Exactly. Okay. Through your chair. Yes. Um I just want to clarify for either one of these clause 22 or clause 59 section 5C 5 C and a half.
Um you're allowed to double it 100% but you can also choose to select an amount in between I was what we currently have in that 100% double. Right. I was going to mention that. Um, okay. There is um a uh an option.
It's a stepped percent to phase it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, or or step or like slow steps. You can't do a step. I don't believe so if you picked like 50% this year for the first year, then you would have to come back and vote again. You know, you'd have to come
back every year to get up to wherever you want to be at. Yeah. And so I also wanted to just mention uh based on the numbers here, right? If we have um about,300 seniors in the 65 to 70 group, which is about uh onethird of the total amount of
seniors that you have in that first page. So if you to extrapolate the 200 that we currently have in the program or roughly 200, it'd be an additional 100 people if we were to decrease it to 65. So, by my estimate, I think that'd be an extra $100,000 because they currently
don't have any. Correct. Okay. That's not That's not accurate. I got to speak to that. Yeah. Go ahead. 100% accurate. But I'll you know, when I get Okay. If if you have 100 people times a thousand. Well, you don't know how many people you
have. Well, we don't Well, no, she's just We don't We don't know how many. I'm just estimating based on the numbers, right? So, M Mr. chair, just um on the sheet, the the reason why all of these other
possible exemptions are not on the the impact sheet, the dollar impact and the counts like the uh legally blind uh extreme hardship is because we don't have anyone taking advantage of those currently. Is that why those aren't on that cover sheet?
So, uh correct. So, we have the we do have the blind, the 37A, those we have five of those. That's been the same ever since. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, 37A. That's right. But the 18s, those those are hardships. Um, that's somebody that can
apply. It's usually just like for one or two years, they have to apply every year. Just short term. if they're really having a hard time paying their bills, whatever, they can apply to the board of assessors for a hardship case, and we have to get gather all the information from them and then the board would
decide if they want to give them that for the year. So, there are only two that are missing, the um 42, 43, and then 18. And that's because you we don't have any. We don't have any. I haven't had any since I've started here in the nine years. So, great. Thank you. But they are out there for people to utilize if they need them.
So, Mr. chair. I just um artificial intelligence, right? We have real intelligence here, but I figured I'd do a little Google search. Um it it appears that increasing these exemptions,
regardless of which option, it it doesn't directly impact the levy limit. So the the burden gets shifted to the other taxpayers in town. So your overall tax revenue, the levy limit does isn't impacted. Is that correct? Well, so what happens is it's um so we
have the assessors have the overlay account. The overlay account is an account for all the abatements and exemptions um and extra money in there for the ATB in case you know we have to do more for the abatements. And let me quick question. Is that um overlay account over and and above the 2
and a half% increase? I don't believe so. No. Okay. because what happens is um we get budgeted a certain amount in that account every year to cover those. So right now we don't have enough to cover for this year. That's why we're not doing it this year. Um so if we if you
go with one of these clauses then the town's just going to have to figure out where they're going to grab the money from is what I should say. So it's just going to come from other areas of the budget. You have to be you have to be clear on this because I'm going to tell you if we brought this to Tommy right now we got shot down be we going down
smoking real fast. Yeah. So we're going to have to figure out a way to simplify this a lot more than we are right now. Number one your betterments of your overlay. Last year I believe we put in $350,000 into the account. That's correct. Okay. So that money is part of our
budget process. So that money goes into a betterment account, overlay account, se separate. If we follow through on these here, we might have, I don't know, $50,000, $200,000. Nobody seems to know. But instead of moving 300 next spring
when we do our town meeting, instead of moving $350,000 into our overlay, we may have to put in four or five thou 100,000 into the overlay. That's correct. By doing so, that cuts back on available revenues that we have for other things. That's
the only only way to clearly state it. It does not in increase the tax taxes on all the rest of us. Correct. We're not paying for this, right? What it's doing, it's cutting into our services because it's taking that money and putting into a an account. So, I
someone could apply and say, I need I want a betterment and they can they can get that money comes from that from that account. So, we have to be clear on that. But just sitting here, I'm thinking I can't picture this the town meeting. We're going to have to figure out a way to explain this process. If we're not
going to do the Heroes Act, that takes out half the problem, I guess, and we just have to concentrate on the rest of it. Well, yeah. Whatever whichever one you decide on, then we can figure out the best way to present it if you decide on one of them. So, so Mr. chair. Other people are going to Google this just like I did and I
came up with a couple different very similar responses, but to Mr. Kimell's point, it it it's accurate that the levy limit is not impacted when you increase the exemptions, but we put money into the overlay account from our regular
operating budget to pay for these exemptions. That's got to come from somewhere, right? So, we're still going to collect the same amount of, you know, real estate tax revenue, but our expenses are going to be higher. So, it is going to shift from whoever qualifies
for these exemptions to the rest of the population. But whatever the difference is, 120,000 or whatnot, has to come out of a budget somewhere or layoffs. Is that a good statement, Bob? Hey, Rick.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to come from Oh yeah, it's definitely got to it's paid by somebody, right? Somehow. So with that, um, continue with the questions. Lucas does want to Lucas Ray wants to come in and do Sure.
points he wants to make. All right. So after watching that, I'm confused and I've been studying this for a couple weeks. So I really want to just simplify this. Um, if we, you know, as far as passing the Heroes Act and the 59C, you know, I was just, you know, we
were just informed by the board by Miss Ellis that you can't pass both. I haven't confirmed that with the DLS. I've been calling and emailing them all week. They don't answer the phone over there. So, you know, it's my um opinion that, you know, we could even push off
the Hero Act for a couple weeks until I get a response from the state. uh in regards to the her um the Heroes Act uh as far as the 59C um you know we get you know we get well let's start with the retirement age
dropping the retirement age from 70 to 65 so we got in Massachusetts the retirement age is 67 years old so 65 66 and most 67 year olds are still working they're still making income they're still um a lot of them I don't feel you
know if they're living in Norton and they own a home, a lot of them are not going to qualify for the exemption to begin with because of the you know the um you know the criteria for the income and the assets. Also, you got to take into consideration that some of those 65
to 69 year olds are veterans. So, they're already I think Rick just said like 100 of them are veterans. So, they're already covered. Uh so if you look at uh you know the 70 plus crowd you're talking 70 to you know 100
whatever they survive till uh they don't include social security payments so anybody 70 plus you know for the most part they're retired they're not making income they're not bringing home a salary so a lot of more of them I feel are going to qualify than somebody who's still working for living 65 to 67 years
old so and if you look at the 70 plus crowd for the seniors, it's $47,763. That's 70 plus whether they're 100, 105 years old. That's say 30-year gap. Now we're looking at approving dropping the
age from 70 to 65. So now you got a four-year gap. 65 to 69. So, I'm not convinced that a four-year gap where three of those years are people still working, most likely
still working and won't even qualify to begin with, is going to cost more than the 70 plus crowd who's in a 30 to 35 year gap. So, it's my, you know, my opinion that I think dropping the age from 70 to 65, you know, we may see 10
20,000. I' I'd say it's going to be less than half of the 47763 that we're currently paying for the three clauses at the top there for the seniors. And there's no way that's going to be $100,000. As Denise said, you know, you're talking a four-year gap with three years of those seniors are
still working and a lot of them aren't going to qualify. And some of them already get the exemption through the military. So, that's where I stand on that. But, okay. Um the the other thing to look at on the age drop is there 269 residents aged 70 to
90. So that's age 90. So you know I know there's some seniors up to 100 years old in this town. So you know that number is is a little deflated. And there's 1337 residents aged 65 to 69. So that's half
the number. So there's no way the exemptions are going to be double what the 70 plus crowd is is getting. Um if you look at let me just start here.
So the one thing about the taxes effective in April is I was you know I was trying to get this on to uh fall town meeting because when is spring town meeting? We have to set that. So is it after that? Yeah, we don't be in May.
It'll be usually in May. So, you know, I understand that these taxes will go into effect July 1st on the new fiscal year, but you know, if we miss um fall town meeting, are we either going to get, you know, miss an entire year because we get pushed into spring, we miss spring town meeting, and we
can't enact it for 27. So, that's, you know, that's why we're trying to get this on uh fall town meeting. And to be honest, Bob, I don't think, you know, the majority of seniors that go to those town meetings are seniors anyways. and I'll be glad to speak to this and I highly doubt all those seniors are going
to vote against the veterans and the and the disabled seniors. So that's there's really not much of a cell there. You know, the the town is going to vote this in. I'm not concerned about the selling of it. I'm concerned about you've been to town meetings as many probably as much as I have. When you start getting that
gray area and those questions coming up, everything goes down in smoke fast. That's all I'm saying. I just like to make sure we we present this in a way that everyone can understand what we're trying to do. I'm not against this. I want to understand how it works and I don't want to see it go down in
smoke before April 1st. I believe someone said we had to have have this adopted by April 1st. Um so if we don't do the fall time meeting, you're absolutely right. We're looking probably another year before anything kicks into place. But I
I'm I'm just a bit concerned about all the numbers and the 21 22 this and 23 that and act and just we got to we got to tone it down a bit. So I'm trying to simplify it here. The bottom line is if we approve the 59C, everybody gets a double exemption. So
this this you know graph that we did, not that one on the screen. I'm trying to find the you know the spreadsheet that Miss Ellis did. Um, it was kind of confusing and even, you know, Mike Mason on our board was confused. He thought we were, you
know, going to cost us $500,000. But, so the bottom line is we're already given exemptions to seniors. We're already given exemptions to milit uh, veterans. So, that's not going to change. Uh, exemptions like the 22D for $17,000,
that looks worse than it is because we get that back from the state. the other clause for 22E veterans that we currently give $41,000, we actually get $33,000 back. So that's about eight that cost us about $18,000.
I understand we don't get reimbured for these new exemptions, but if you look at the you know, we're getting quite a bit of money back from the exemptions we already give. So whether you and and also whether you guys approve a Heroes Act or you guys approve 59C, we're still
going to be giving these exemptions to seniors and to millet and to the veterans. So the bottom line is here it it's real simple. There should be one box, okay? It's it's $120,000 is what it's going to cost us to um if we approve the 59C. We don't need to look
at all these other boxes in the graph here. We just go with the one solid number is 120,763. And to be honest with you, you know, this town just spent what, $50,000 doing a roof plan for the fire department. I could have done for free on a napkin at
at Honeydew. So there's a lot of waste that I've seen over the years. And $120,000 to help out the disabled seniors and the veterans is not a lot of ask on a $80 million budget. So that's where I stand. position.
I mean, we're up here handing out, you know, we're handing out awards and stuff. You know, I saw a great award you did a couple weeks ago. Um, you know, for for Mr. Roberto, that was awesome. You know, it's like what better way to award these folks than to
give them a financial relief. You know, most of them are living off social security and the taxes go up every year. So, you know, let's help these people out. And I don't think we should, you know, I don't think we should, you know, when I found out that we can do all the seniors and the um veterans together, I
think that's great. So, you know, if we have to push off the Heroes Act until I can confirm that there's no additional um you know, benefits by approving both or that you can approve both, I'd like to hear that from the DLS because as of a week, you know, as of two days ago, um
you know, our tax assessor was telling us it was a Forex exemption, which turned out not to be true. So, I'd like to get my facts from the state. I you know so I'd like to get my facts from the DLS from the state whether or not we can approve the uh heroes act as well
but um the one thing that did concern me with the um the limit of reduction it says right here in the 59C the additional exemption cannot reduce the tax bill to a point lower than what the taxpayer paid in a
previous fiscal year. So if lightning strikes and uh taxes don't go up one year, then that person is not going to get that exemption because his his taxes cannot go lower than the previous fiscal year. With the Hero Act, they will
automatically get that double exemption. Not that I expect that taxes are going to go down in town, but you know, it is a stipulation here. And then the other thing, you know, the Heroes Act gives 100%. Um, it doubles these exemptions 100%.
Um, and I understand the 59C, you can start anywhere from zero to whatever to to 100%. I don't think that's even a question that we make it 100%. That's what we're here for. So, you know, I understand Denise was making the questions about whether or not we can make it 10 or 50 30 50%. No, we're here
for 100%. This is what we owe these people. This is the people that, you know, bring up this town is the people that have built this town and the people who have served to this town. And $120,000 isn't a big ask. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
One thing I think we have to be clear on and because I'm sure people sitting at home are sitting there thinking, well, we're going to be we're going to be get some kind of an exemption. There are guidelines, and we have to stress the fact that these guidelines are minimal to to a
major point. If You look at the maximum income of the elderly, a single person, the maximum income, and this is a person who's lived here for 5 years and owns their own home.
$35,744. It's not a lot of money. I know what my taxes are. I'm sure their taxes are crazy. Um, in addition to that, you can't have assets and income
at a maximum of 58,667. That's not a lot of money in today's world. Occupied home for a married couple, 53,619 and married, $81,689 with maximum assets. So, we're talking
about a a small group of people here. We're not talking about a large group of people. And to Lucas's point, you know, a lot of these people are already in the program. It's the double maybe the double whammy in some cases that we'll have to come up with as long as we understand that the
money has to come from somewhere and it's going to be on the back of the next town meeting we have when we're trying to set establish and and run this town through the schools and through the town and everything else. So the money
has to come from somewhere and once it's put in there as a betterment or put it put aside as part of that 350 we did this year which will be more next year. It just cuts into what we have for available cash. That's all. But that
doesn't mean that the people that are eligible for this probably should be getting some kind of slack because that's not a lot of money. The income is not it's not a lot of money to deal with. So, so one thing Bob, I just like to, you
know, reiterate that fact. So, maximum assets for a single person is $58,000. Married couples, $81,000. U most of the seniors I know have already paid off their homes and have equity in their homes. So, a lot of people don't qualify for that. I mean,
$81,000 is not a lot of equity in your home, especially considering, you know, the boom we had in the housing market and valuations have been spiking. So, you know, it's it's unlikely a lot of these folks even qualify for this, right? I think uh Rick did the uh math
um a couple days ago at the meeting and it was 02% of that population that age qualified in this town. That's what it was. 02%. 022%. It's a small number. It's a very minimal number. It's nowhere
near the $100,000 projection Denise mentioned. And it's, you know, a lot of these folks got more than 80K in equity in their homes and they won't qualify to begin with. So, can I just follow up with that and maybe when you go back to the state, Lucas, you can validate that because the way
it's written, it says must have owned an occupied home for 5 years. Anyone who has owned their home for 5 years has a lot more than $81,000 in equity. Excuse me. Yep. I'm sorry. It doesn't include your home assets. I was going to say it must exclude the home with the house at all.
Yeah, that's what was my next question. Thank you. Excludes the home. I was unclear on that. Thank you. What were you going to say, Denise? Then I was just going to point out that um in the bulletin that you have um on the
um what is it here? The Heroes Act. Second page number five. What Lucas is saying about the state, it's all written right here. This is from DLS. So, it that is what it is.
Thank you. And um I never said that they could get the $4,000. I always said it was one or the other because it was way too much. There's no way you could do both. And I knew be that because the reason is if you know you're getting $4,000 an
exemption, your taxes might not be $4,000. So, you can't get more than what your taxes are. So, we have it on we have it on. No, we don't. No, we don't. No, Lucas, we don't get double twice. I said if if it was possible to do that, but it's it's not possible.
You said, but that's just that's just what I want to make clear that it is in here in the bulletin. It does describe what it is. Um, so I don't think you really need to wait for him to talk to the state um because we already have it and if you want it to go on to the fall
town meeting, we have to get it in by the 28th of August. Mr. Chairman, all I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, so even if we we adopted the 501, whatever it is, um 59 C. 59 C. Yeah. If we if we if we agree tonight that
that's probably a good good play to go, Lucas comes back in two weeks and says, "No, we're all wrong and that we can also adopt a Heroes Act." It's just two steps, but I think this one's important. I think we need to take the first step now so we can get this ball rolling
before you before the town meeting comes up in October. It's coming fast. I don't know where August is going to. So, I just think it's a good idea to get that done in by 3:30 on the 28th. So, I don't Yeah, I'll have the answers by then. Yeah, but um
Yes, sir. Um, we use quite a bit of it. Right now, I have a lot of ATB cases out there for um, a lot of the warehouses. So, some of that money has been tied up for a while. Um, and unfortunately, our lawyer just passed away unexpectedly. So, I'm in the
process of um, getting a new lawyer. I just spoke with them last week. So once we get to the ATB and we can get these warehouses straightened out hopefully um if we win then um we'll have some money to release but I don't know when
that's going to happen because everything just happened in the last few weeks where she passed away. So so so speak English to us. So at so the appellet tax board Okay. So the appellet tax board, you're putting money aside because I got my
taxes and just so people understand how this works. Y I got my tax bill. I don't agree with it. I don't have five sheds in my backyard. I only have one. Um I can appeal it. Exactly. And that's what this benefit overlay money is about.
Correct. We have to keep I've been ch I have to pay for it. Then I have to you I have to challenge you to prove me wrong and I can get my money back. But I have to pay it up front to begin with. Exactly. Then I get the betterment after that. Y I go back and I apply. Yep.
Make sure I'm qualified. Y and then I get the money back. So the money is even though the taxpayer is paying it forward, they're going to they're going to get the betterment back, right? Right. If it everything works out. And so um so I have to keep so much money in
there, especially for commercial properties because of the values. Every year in the springtime, we're looking at the betterments, the overlay, saying, "How much can we safely put in that? Can we reduce it so we can have more money for the budget?" Exactly. As an example. Exactly.
You know, and we do that every single year. We talk about it every year. My years on the finance committee 100 years ago, we were talking about the same stuff, saying to the assessors, can you begging, can you give us a few more bucks? Right? you know, but you guys have to have that money in that account
because if you don't, you're in trouble, right? If we don't have that money in there and we come back and we lose and there's not enough money, then we'd have to go to town meeting and ask for more money, right? So, we have to make sure we keep money in there. Um, so there is money in there covering it, I hope. Um, you never know what's
going to happen, but hopefully there's enough money in there to cover everything that's there right now. Yes, sir. We never spend down the whole account. We always leave money in there. Um, sometimes we do release money back to
the town. Um, a couple years ago, we did release some money back to the town. Um, and I'm hoping once we get all these warehouses straightened out that, you know, because these are all the new warehouses. Um, once we get all these straightened out, then we'll start releasing money again. Um, but that won't happen until these cases are
finalized. And hopefully soon. Hopefully this fall. I'm hoping for. Yes, sir. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen. I I don't It'll be great if it is there.
I don't think it'll be less than 350. That's not going to happen. No. Well, no. you would have to plan for more in that account because when you look at the spreadsheet um where we're talking about the 500,000 when you I don't have it in front of me, but when you're looking at that spreadsheet that I gave you, that's why I put everything
out there for the overlay. Um when you're looking at those bottom numbers, that's why all the exemptions are in there. It's showing you what we're what we need in the overlay at that point. Um I think you'll see a middle column for like 400 and something 406, right? So that would be the money that
we need to cover everything at that point just for the abatements and the exemptions. Really? That that's just I'm sorry I take that back. That's just for the exemptions. Then we have the abatements on top of that. Mr. Chairman. Yes sir.
Just another question and you you don't have the answer. I know you don't. I have to assume that there's there are a number of people that are taking advantage of the programs. They're they're aware of it. they're taking advantage of it, which is something we would encourage them to do. If they can
get double of it, I hope that they get that, too. But there were probably a number of people out there that may not be aware of some of these programs and all of this attention to it now is probably going to be a conversation say
at the senior center where people are talking. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, we tell the senior center Beth is aware of it. She lets people know about it. Um, we try to let everybody know about it. It's on the website. Um, I mean, if people can think of other places to post it, let me know. We'll post it. You know, we we try to let everybody know.
What I'm trying to say is probably to it. It could I don't think it's going to go down. It's probably going to go up. It could go up. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of times we say that, you know, at these meetings and then they still don't go up. So, I don't know. Through your chair. Yep.
Uh, I just want to say I appreciate the presentation, the passion for the topic and I in an ideal world I'd love to give everyone a tax break, but the realities are that that 120,000 is probably two plus jobs and out of the last 3 years
we've had layoffs two out of those three years. So, we can barely make it today with the current budget the way it is. And I'm not saying that I don't want this to move forward. My suggestion would be something less than the 100%
increase, some smaller percentage. I disagree. And to be honest with you, you know, we got $350,000 in the overlay for abatements. You know, like 90% of the baitments in this town get denied. And I'll speak to that. You know, they all got pushed through before I sat. So,
and Mr. Kimble, if you need help with your abatement, I'll I'll be sure to help you out. Sounds like I qualify. Okay. Yeah. I'm an expert at I've beat this woman five years in a row. All right. All right. Mr. Chair, so the the the 595C and a half. Um, from what I
hear, and it's good to repeat, if the town approved that, we can always go back later and ask the town to approve the Heroes Act on top of that 5 years down the road if you want. Well, let me talk to the state about that. And I want to confirm with the state that we can't approve both. So, if
I can get two weeks to do that. So, if we delay the Heroes Act for two weeks, I'll get the state to confirm via email. If they say you you approve 59C and you don't need the Heroes Act, I'll forward that to you guys. You just take it off the agenda. But if they say there is an additional benefit to um approving the
Heroes Act as well, then we readress it. You know, I just I'd like to speak to the state. I don't take, you know, no not for nothing, but I'm not taking um the tax assessor's word for it because there have been mistakes this week that we had to correct as of 3:00 this afternoon when you guys got the new
information. We changed that spreadsheet cuz it did show a 4x um for the for the veterans and that was not accurate and I was able to confirm that yesterday and that was changed today and that's also in our meetings, two of our meetings. So basically I just
I just want to make sure we have the accurate information from the state before we vote on the Heroes Act maybe in the future. Okay. No, that's I think we should push off the Heroes Act for two weeks. Vote on the 59C and vote on the age reduction, you know, and then give me two weeks. What's two weeks?
It's not going to hurt anybody. So you know, and to be honest with you, I'm the one that brought up the Heroes Act and the dropping the age from 7065. I didn't know what the 59 C was until Mrs. Ellis added it to the meetings with my other two board members. So, I'm on uh you know, I'm on a crunch here trying to
figure out exactly what the 59C is. So, I would really like to see the Heroes Act delayed for two weeks and let me get the information from the state. Let's vote on the other one and if it ends up being, you know, no use, then we throw it out. So, no, no big deal. Nobody's
through your chair. Certainly happy to wait for Lucas to get his confirmation and writing. As we know today, just make sure that we're clear. If we pass 59 C, we cannot pass the Heroes Act either today or in the future. It's one or the other. Correct. No, no, that's not accurate. It's the other way around. We cannot pass the
Heroes Act and then come back for the 59C. So, we can pass the 59C, but I'd like to get information about the hero. That is not my understanding. But, but we should get legal counsel's advice probably. Well, we should get the state's advice from the DLS, not Mrs. jealous in
council, you know, to be to be fair. So, she has provided us with inaccurate information this week. So, I'd like to get the professionals at the Boston DLS to just give me the facts. It's simple. I can shoot an email to them. Okay. So, the only thing I I would say, and
again, it's it's not definitive, but there are other towns that have moved forward with both. I mean, not both, one or the other. uh 59 C or uh 22J.
Um and there's been no um as from what we see, I'm not 100% sure, but there's been no case of a 59C and a 22J.
That that's what I'm stating is that you have it's one or the other. There's no if you move forward with the 59C and there there's no um I don't want to use penalty but there's no no detrimental effect
correct to the veterans. Correct. Uh I'm not saying there's a detrimental effect to the veteran. I'm just saying that we can't then choose to on top of that approve the Heroes Act either now or in the future. It's one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. So,
uh, I do trust the experts. Yeah, I Well, the experts haven't spoken because they're in Boston at the DLS. Okay. We're all learning, too. Me and Rick and Mike learned about a lot of this last week. So just
I think with the 59C there's there's really no downside um at all and that probably will conclude that that decision is the right decision for
the town. But again Mark telling you an opinion but you know factual it seems that would fall in I'm in agreement. I think yeahment of that. Yeah. If you're looking for comments, I'm all for expanding the um exemptions
for 65 to 70. Many many people retire at 65 because of Social Security, Medicare, and also um I would like to expand it to a larger group of our elderly folks um who may not be and the ones that are taking advantage of it. You know,
increase the uh the amount of the exemption from a,000 to 2,000. I'm all I'm all for that. We would just if we if we vote to support it and present it to Tom meeting, I mean that's then you guys are going to have to do um you know uh
proposal and selling it for the town meeting. But also I think it should run through the finance um and this we're two two years away but it should run through the finance committee to understand let's say we just approved the 59 uh C and not the Heroes Act. is
still about a $50,000 impact plus whatever additional in that age group of 65 to 70 take advantage of it. So the finance committee would have to determine what the impact is on services. Right. So the 595C would be the 120,000 estimated. Correct. Correct.
And then the 6570 would be some amount over that. We're in disagreement about what that amount looks like and that's fine. We don't know until we know. But uh I do know lots of people who are 65 who are retired already. So, uh, yeah. I mean, it'll So, that now I'm confused though because
you got the Veterans Clauses 22 and 22E. Aren't those Isn't that the Heroes Act? That's the Heroes Act alone. Yeah. Alone. As a standalone. A standalone, right? So, okay. Those are also part of 59 C. So, the 59C includes the veterans and the seniors.
Okay. Yeah. Um, it brings it all. And if you go approve the 59C, you're covering or it includes the veterans, everyone, all those clauses. And there's no option to just do the elderly, the the um
171D. Not as a clause. No. No. Okay. So, just to your point, there's roughly 269 residents over 70 and over. There's 1337 65 to 69
from the people 70 and over it represents about 2% of the participants are enrolling. Now if you take the 1337 I mean you don't know it's an unknown. That's why I I really don't want to go down there. It's it's
I was just extrapolating the same percent sorry the same percentage. So but if you use the same percentage um it's about $100,000. No, it won't. It won't won't be near that. Okay. It won't. Not even close. It's half of that. Okay. Well, I can since we're all learning
here together, it it can we confirm that you cannot approve clause 59 C without including the Heroes Act in you know so bundled with it. So what you're doing if
you go forward and approve 59C, you are doubling the veterans 22 and 22E. So they are getting included with the the time or the 100. And there's no way to split those out, Rick. There's no way to split those out.
They're they're bundled under 59. Correct. Okay. Correct. Well, but if I'm hearing this correctly, God, the 59 5C and a half, yeah, has the same guidelines as the Heroes
Act. It's already in there. They say what's going to happen is if we adopt both, it would double up on the two veterans, that's the one that's expenditures that we've already approved on the 59 5C and a half. That's where the double factor comes in.
That's where I I read it somewhere where it said in the state and I think it was DLS I read it that you could not allow both to be used at the same time. Correct. So we shouldn't even be talking about the Heroes Act if it's already in 595C and a
half. Right. Just leave it alone. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Now I get it again. Boy, it took a long time. Correct. I would like to hear. So So Mr. Chair just uh um maybe some point of clarification from the board. So, you know, we are against up against
some time where it's the end of the summer and I don't know what your next meeting date is, but the warrant is due the 28th. Um even if you had a meeting the 28th, it's it's past the due date. So, I think we'd need to know tonight what you'd want to do if you want to do two placeholders for the Heroes Act and
59 5C and a half, which it seems like that, you know, at least the five 595C and a half you seem to be on board about. The finance committee to Mr. O'Neal's point, the finance committee will will look at the Warren article anyways during their deliberation. So, and and they will provide um their recommendation.
Correct. Yep. I think that's a perfect game plan uh moving forward. We do two placeholders. We can vote on Yeah. On both and the 59 Z and a half. Um and do we have to vote on the
Yeah. Yeah. The hero. Yeah. So she does. Yeah. We have to vote on both and then but even though we're vote doesn't town meeting has a final approval. We can vote for whatever we want. We can vote to paint the walls pink if we want but town meeting has to has to approve the final decision. We're just putting a
placeholder for the heroes act. I think the 59 5C and a half we should take a position on. And as far as um you can vote the age as well, how you want to handle that. Say there's three of them that we're voting on, right? So there's the 59 C,
the Heroes Act, and the H reduction. So why do we have to vote on the Heroes Act tonight? Why can't we just I mean we have select board meetings all the time where you guys don't hold a vote. You push it off. You delay the vote. You add it to the next meeting. Why do we have to vote on it tonight? If we if we if we don't vote on it tonight, it will not be
on the warrant for that fall meeting. That's fine. I'd rather not vote on it. And I mean, personally, I'd rather not vote on it and then have it shot down because that seems it will never get there. That's where it would go. If it's not legal and it goes to town meeting, it goes to finance committee. They're not going to they're not going
to go any f further with it anyway. It's going to be dead. But voting on it before I get the facts from the state doesn't make sense either, you know. So, yeah. Yeah. Look, I I agree with that. We could just leave it and it knew this. It could always be presented at Springtown meeting. Yeah, exactly. Okay. You know, if we needed to.
I think we take the position on the, you know, take the vote on the 59 C and a half and the age reduction. Let's vote if the here I could vote it down. It's a lot harder for me to get this back in front of my board to get this back in front of you guys rather than just push it off. And are you gonna vote on
the age reduction or let me can we talk a bit about that? Yeah. And if you want to retire and get your full benefits, you have to be have to be 67. So why are we going back to 65?
Just curious. State offers that. So a lot of towns have taken up this 60 the age exemption drop from 7065 and that's where I saw it. I think Tom just did it. A lot of towns have taken that up. So that's why we, you know, propose that. That's fine. I do know a lot of people have retired
earlier than that for health reasons or they get laid off, whatever. I understand. My father's 83 and he's not retired. So, you know, it goes both ways. So, yes, sir. No, no. Um, you do the math on Yeah, I'm doing the math right now.
Is going to do the math just to get a a guesstimate on if we went based on those those numbers, right? Um, so you got Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Do we hear from the veterans com agent? I was just going to ask if she would
what her comments might be about this. She has any? Yeah, that'd be great. A second. Yeah, divide by the mic if you want to take it back. Got the hot lights going. So, so Oh, sorry.
So with the addition of people ages 65 through 69, it's 1337 people, right? So the the the enrollment would be roughly 33% of the 3946.
But if you think about the percentage of the 70 and above, which is 2609, there's only 60 participants. That's like 2%. So if you took the 1337, you did
uh 2% would be uh only be 26 people. 26 people, 27 people, but but that again it definitive. It's an unknown, but it's something you could
consider. Stealth Stealth Flet Norton veterans officer I understand the hesitation and I think that's why uh along with the previous town manager our accountant and the
assessor's office we had waited to this point because of the new town hall the council on aging and the need for money in town but um I'd hate to see it delay I think the idea to increase for the
veterans because the Heroes Act came up is is great, but I also agree that our seniors, if we're going to do it, I'd like to see them included as well. I'm not sure. Um, I understand you want to
verify with DLS about, you know, whether or not you can later come back with and do the Heroes Act. I don't think that is the case based on what's happening in other towns. So, to
this point, I did do some work um gathering information, seeing what towns did it and who didn't and why. Um, it really comes down to money and budget. I think I stand fast for the veterans. That's
who I represent every day. But I also know the seniors. So, I don't know. It's a tough decision. I don't want to see them miss the opportunity for another year. So,
I would say, you know, vote tonight on the 49C. I think that is the best avenue to go. I hate to point out but I am because I want it to be in fairness with the Heroes Act. I do know you get to
choose on increments of money. So whether you totally double it like you mentioned Denise or you do 50% now 50% later or some combination I think you from the sounds of 59C you lose that
opportunity. So, I'm going to put the hard decision back on you. Um, I think my understanding with 59C, you could also do the same thing. Oh, 59C will do it as well. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So, then
yeah, I don't know. It's a hard decision. I know money is tight but and I don't want to see layoffs whether you know wherever they might occur in within the town but um I think making you know having a vote tonight
just so it moves forward and then can be looked at further by the finance committee that would be my recommendation. Thank you. So Mr. chair. Um, sorry to continue this. I know it's getting late, but is it did it sound to me it's the
wish of the board um of assessors to whether it's approved in October or May, it's still going to take effect the same time because you have to have it has to be voted on before July 1. Is that what you said? It goes in effect July 1st, 2027. You have to have it as decision by April
1st. Ap um I heard someone No, no, no, no. What was the April 1st date? April 1st was the um the um applications or Oh, okay. to apply for the exemption. Yeah. Great. And it doesn't have to be
approved before you apply like April 1st, you'll have to have your application in, but it won't be approved yet if you wait until a springtime meeting. No. So the application process, this is going to cover someone who applies March
30th to these 59C or Oh, I'm sorry. Internal resident applications. Exactly. So, the application has to be submitted by April 1st,
but we're addressing tonight. Understood. The clauses that would maybe allow someone else to participate. Understood. I thought you meant application to the state. No. Okay, that that makes sense. So, regardless of whether it was approved in
October or at the Mtown meeting, it's still going to take effect the same time. So, is it the wish of the of of your board to not present it to the October town meeting? Is that what I'm hearing? No, we we'd like to move forward cuz Lucas mentioned something different that he wanted to get the facts before
we No, that the heroes act. Just the heroes. Just the heroes act. So, I would like to present the 59 C and the age drop at the fall time. Okay. So the 59 C is a benefit for clause 22 and clause 22 22E which is the
disabled veterans the veterans. Okay. But you also need lead time I would imagine to communicate this out to the community present to the finance committee gain approval do the promotional activities in order to get it approved. I'm sorry. I don't need much time.
All righty. Yes sir. Through you chair. Yes. Uh Roger. Can I ask for clarification? Are you saying at 100%. No. No. I think so.
Mr. Jelly to propose reducing that to 50%. Okay. Is anyone want to second Roger's proposal? Um I the way it's worded it we're not adopting it. It still has to go through
the approval process. So are we recommending it to the town meeting? Recommending the town meeting. Okay. Is that how It's general law chapter 59 subsection 5C and a half just for the Okay. How do we handle those two requests?
I think there was a motion on the floor by Mr. Mason and I think you have to take action on that, right? And then you go to Denise's uh motion after that. Okay. Y. Do we have a second for second? Okay. Kevin,
yes. Denise, no. Ro, uh, Bob? Yes. Roger? Yes. And I am a yes. Awesome. Good, Jen. Okay. Make a motion.
Now we do. No, I already did 100%. That's what you just I think you asked me% you made the motion at 100%. So now I'm looking for uh a motion for
the uh age reduction. Correct? Yes, sir. Second. Kevin. Yes. Denise, no. Bob, yes. Roger, yes.
And I am a yes as well. Okay, get that, Jen. And a no. Okay, we we're not taking up the Heroes Act. Okay, excellent. Fair enough. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thanks. Have a good night. Yep. Thank you, Rick. Thank you, Denise.
Thank you. Okay, next up we have discussion on the Municipal Modern Modernization Act. Chief, take it away. I believe this was a question regarding uh
um signing of the warrants um by the select board. Um so this this act went into effect in 2016. and it was voted on um by the select board some time ago to have that one um
designated person sign the warrants. Um just uh what we kind of clarified is that the uh the warrants will be distributed along with the payroll to the entire select board. They'll have a time to uh to review it and they'll notify the chair if there's any
questions or comments and the chair will still sign off. Okay, chairman that uh I'm the one that's been making the noise about this. I appreciate I really do appreciate the uh the effort of the uh the uh
town of county to send that information out so that we all can see u see what's what's being spent. You know along the way you may run into something and say what's that about and why are we spending a gazillion dollars for this and it just gives you a chance to over take a look at it. We are all
responsible even though one person is designated but I appreciate the effort to compromise and get me off your back. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you sir. Uh next review discuss in a vote to
accept MGL chapter 138 section 12D. So Mr. Chair, we did receive a notice from the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission uh an advisory regarding u wines and malt beverages to trade in their licenses for uh for an all alcoholic license.
There's a notice in your packet. I submit it to you just to review. Um it might be something that you want to do at a at a at some point in time. We would have to put it on the uh the town meeting is because it would have to be adopted. Um, basically, um, it would
allow wine and malt license holders to trade in their license for a non-transferable, uh, MGL1 138 section 12, all alcoholic beverage license. Local boards must accept the new law by allowing uh, Mass
General Law 138 section 12, wines and malts holders to trade in their license. Um, and they also must notify the uh ABCC of the the change. Um,
this just came out recently, so I uh I don't expect you to vote on anything tonight, but it might be something that comes up in the very near future. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. It's rather confusing because we have done this in the past. We've had companies, we've had liquor stores that
could somewhere sell beer and wine. quick stop as an example. They came back, turned in their malt and and wine and we had an available all alcohol license available, which by the way is very rare. You don't get those back too
often. So, something we've been doing anyway, but I guess there's another way to do it now. So, we should probably talk about It looks as though this is the state telling us we have to if requested. I think as I'm understanding this is on premises, right? So, not not sales. So,
this is if there's a facility that you can currently go to and drink only beer and wine, they can trade that license up for an all liquor. Do we have a limit on how many of those we can have? No, I believe there is no limit to be honest with you. I think I'm supportive of it, but yeah,
it have to be on the town meeting. So, do we I guess we have to vote on it before August 28th to get it in the town meeting this time or just wait till the spring? I recommend we wait, take it under advisement. Okay.
Read about it, wind down exactly the details of it, and um take it up at a later date. Okay. Anybody else? Yes, sir. um through your chair. Yes. Jen, do you know how many licenses we
have today that are just wine and beer? So I'm looking I'm looking at the quota for on premise and we're allowed to have it looks like up to five and it's saying we have three total issued. Okay. So we're talking about just three that could be converted to a liquor. Okay. Yes. Thank you.
So Mr. Chair, am I understanding this right? Where a brand new applicant can ask for an all alcohol beverage license on premise and perhaps get priority over somebody who already has a wine and malt beverage
license who wants to upgrade it. It possibly could happen. A as I'm reading this, this is just saying if we accept the Mass General law, if somebody who currently already has a wine and beer on premises license can simply convert it to an all liquor license.
Yeah, that's what this is saying. Yeah. But if we if we don't approve this, I don't think it gives any priority to anybody. Well, I'm saying if we if we don't approve this, if we if we're not following this and that means somebody can come off the street and get the the uh all alcohol beverage license um first
they have to request it through us. No, I know that. But it gives them go still have to go through ABCC and the whole Yeah. But what I'm saying is somebody who has an existing wine malt beverage license cannot come before us if we don't adopt this. They they can come before us today
if they want to convert it to a Well, you're saying in the meantime be in the meantime till we do if we put it off till spring and two people coming off the street. We don't even know and somebody else who wants to operate. We have existing business. They can't even come before us. Have to wait, right? But we have no limit on how many all
alcohols. Correct. For on premises, there is a limit. Yes. Um there's a 20. Okay. Allowed for alcohol. 20 left. There's we're allowed total right now with the way things are. We have 20 for all alcohol on premise consumption.
And how many are um available? None. None. None. Okay. So my through you chair can I my understanding is that if we have say five licenses allowed with on premise wine and malt that those people would be able to
upgrade to an all alcohol is my So essentially it will be added to the current that's my understanding of it. It seems like we're still within that quota number and they can upgrade it but we don't have like an endless amount of them. So we couldn't have like 10 people come and want an all alcohol that didn't
already have a wine and malt. Gotcha. That makes sense. Okay. It's clear as mud. All right. Well, I'm I'm not looking to open a business. So move moving on. Okay. Next item. Discussion and a vote
on allocation of acquis forming firm AFF products liability litigation awarded settlement funds. Mr. chair. So, we did uh we received a uh settlement uh there was a class action shoot. We received a settlement
of roughly uh believe around 40 uh $49,000. 4988472. Um so, the question is what to do with this money. So, there's two forms in talking to the town accountant that we can do. we can put that money when we
receive it into the general fund and it will become uh it will close out next year to free cash and then it becomes eligible for you know all town government. The second is to and what the town accountant would recommend is to create an a reserve account um
to put that money into um we'd have to do it for town meeting and then you spend out of that account for any remediation for PAS. um we're going to get roughly up to $250,000 it appears um over the next couple
years. So um there is no necessarily remediation plan right now. Um but that's what what the town accountant believes we should we should do. So we would need a vote from the board to to do that to put it on a town meeting warrant article.
Okay. To create the account. So chief to be clear this is stemming from from PAS. Yes. Okay. And the recommend recommendation would be to
put it in a designated account for PAS mitigation in the future. Okay. Reserve account. Yes. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Uh, Chief, the um so the $250,000 once it's all in the account
um does it have to be used for remediation or could we use that money to I know Mr. Rich has talked about possibility of talking to one of our neighbors about maybe buying buying some some water somewhere else. Could that be used for that?
You'd have to come before town meeting to appropriate the money. Right. But it could be that's in the account. So there'd have to be a specific purpose what you're going to use that money for that $250,000 that town meeting would approve. Okay. Yeah. So I understand that the options are either put it in the reserve account
for PAS or you can put it in the general fund where then you could use it for that. Use it for anything. Yeah. Right. And the custodian of the account would be would be us, not the water and sewer department. That would be correct.
Okay. Thank you. So it could be used for engineering. We have we have some as we all know we have some big PAS issues. We're staring in the world. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um you know my re
my inclination would be to put it in account designated for that. So um we can allocate it as needed for engineering you know whatever needs to be done. That that's my u that's what I think.
So m Yes, sir. Second. Okay. Motion in a second. Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes as well. Unanimous. Jen.
Okay. Thank you, Chief. Next item. Vote to declare NEMA's 2001 GMC Sierra 2500 HD regular cab long bed pickup truck as surplus. This vehicle has uh over 95,000 mi and
has hit end of life where the cost to repair it outweigh the cost to get a new vehicle, which I believe it's already been purchased. Chairman, I make a motion that we surplus vehicle of NEMA pickup truck
2001 GMS Sierra 2500 HD. Second. Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes. Unanimous again. Jen. Okay. Next up, review, discuss, and or
vote to accept the grant awarded to the Norton Council on Aging in the amount of $9,70 from Bristol Aging and Wellness, Inc. to be used towards its Fitness First Program from
Fitness First Program. Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we we accept, I guess, the award from Bristol Aging and Wellness to be used for on behalf of the um fitness program
at the Council on Aging, I guess. Yeah. Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes as well. Thank you. Okay, next up we have vote to close
Library Square for 2025 Festival of Lights scheduled for Sunday, December 7th, 2025. Chairman, I make a motion that we close Library Square for Festival Lights be held on Sunday 7 December 7th, 2025 from
5 to 6:30 p.m. on the town common. Second. Got a Jen. Okay. Yes, Denise. Yes. Bob. Yes. Roger. And I am a yes as well. Thank you.
Okay. Next up, host community agreement municipal equity HCME policy. Okay, Mr. Chair. So, in August 1st, we received a notice from the cannabis control commission that uh we had an outstanding host community municipal equity submission. Uh basically the
board has to develop or come up with a policy regarding uh how they score and a rubric on how they score new uh cannabis um businesses in town. Um I am working with
KP Law on putting this together and I'll have sent you a uh first review that you'll have to take a look at and schedule for probably your next meeting. um to approve and then upon approval uh after you after you review it, we'll
have to send it into the uh the Cannabis Control Commission so that we are up to date. Okay. So, we're just that's no action action take tonight. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Other business topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance.
Anything? Nope. Okay. Old business discussion on opioids. opioid settlement funds. Uh so, Mr. Chair, so this was a this came up from an article that was in the Sun Chronicle uh
not too long ago, probably just well June 28th uh and on the use of of opioid funds. Uh I'll be I'll try to be brief, but in uh 2015, the town of Norton was ranked 26 per capita for overdose for overdoses. And it really got our attention. We started a problem
orientated police policing team. 2016 we started the Norton opioid prevention education collaborative where the mission is to utilize multiddisciplinary approach with community members and leaders to strategically plan for prevention awareness and uh education
programs. In 2017 we started a the co-responder model one time a month. 2021 we started um a weekly hours with a with a co-responder clinician a mental health clinician. Uh the program has has really been incredible and been
wellreceived. Uh was talking earlier that I I can't imagine working without a clinician in these days. Uh I do a uh I do what's called a problem orientated policing and anti-rime report that we put out on our website. Um, so to date we have received as part of a settlement
fund $546,66.96 and we've spent 200,000 23,212.39 roughly 38% of what we have. Um, these monies can be used for prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery support. So, some of the things we've spent them on are cardiac monitors, um
CPR machines, NAN, family resource kits, so that if we go to a uh if we are the fire department go to an overdose, we can leave kits behind with resources in uh in Narcan. Um we've also used them for some clinician services from the Community
Counseling Center of Bristol County. Um, I think right now there's, you know, when you look at this, uh, this article, there's been a lot that's been talked about recently about people not using this money. I think we've been using it. I don't think it's something that we should just spend at all just to say we
spent it. Um you know when I t tell mentioned that you know uh I can't imagine working with a clinician I am fearful I guess that at some point in time the DMH grant we have um might get pulled out and we would want to pay for
a clinician services out of out of something like this. Um this the clinicians not only benefit the police department, they benefit all town residents, they benefit the school system, the veterans, the the uh the human services. So, it's a big it's definitely a big benefit for the town.
Um, there has been talk about our DMH grant getting reduced and if it got reduced, we could use some opioid funds to assist that. So, um, that's kind of the overview that I just wanted to give quickly. Um, our overdoses, you know,
back in the high point was um, around 2016, we had a total of 32 overdoses, 26 non-fatal, six fatal. Um last year we had zero fatal uh two non-fatal and and no fatal. So we you know our overdoses
have dropped com you know dramatically. Um we've had a few overdoses this year. A total of uh three non-fatal. We have had a couple fatal. Um but uh where we were in 2016 at a high
point is uh dramatically lower. So, um, I don't know if there's any specific questions I can potentially answer. Chief, could you, um, the clinician services? I mean, to me, that's what this money should be used for anyway. It should be used I know
it's we shouldn't use money to hire people but Mhm. uh it is important that the money be used for get somebody out outreach kind of programs where that conversation can be had with other people or they know there someone they
can go to if they need help that kind of stuff. So, uh, I agree with you. I don't think we have to spend every penny of it right away, but it would be nice to continue working with any kind of program where outreach program where they're actually out there talking to these kids, young adults, old
adults, whoever, whoever's having the problem just to make sure it's money is being spent wisely. But we also run a program uh, Officer Robashad runs a program called Project Alert in the middle school for sixth and seventh graders. And uh we do use some
overtime funds out of out of that grant. Um so right now there's just there's a lot of money that's being pushed at it at uh opioids. Um probably a little late to the game to be honest with you. We could have used it much more five years ago.
Um but I know we're we're doing the best we can I think to try to help out the the situation. So Okay. Yes, sir. Yes, this is a uh we'll receive funds for a number of years. It's a dwindling
amount. It's uh we started off with a high point and I don't have that with me tonight, but I can find and send it out to you on what we're going to be receiving over the next number of years. He's like 19 more years. Yeah. 18 more years. Yeah. Mhm.
Yep. I agree completely. Yep. Nice job with it all. And and nice job in the article, too. When you interviewed back in May, you stood out as being one of the leaders in the comm in the area communities. I believe does this also include the um the person the counselor who who rides and goes on calls with the
with your police uh officers. Yeah. So that's our co-responder model and our mental health clinician that that does that and it's been I mean it's been just you know from the first day it's been really wellreceived and it's like I said I can't imagine us working without it. you know, when we first
brought into the police department, of course, there's some, you know, there's some naysayers and how's this going to work? But it uh we have a good we have we've had great clinicians. One of them became a supervisor. Our first one became a supervisor, so she's not with us as much anymore. But to be even call
on off hours and them assist, it's it's been really really good. And I think that's one of the reasons that that uh we have a a much lower rate of overdose here. 100%. Do you feel chief also that having her on these ride alongs is helping to
kind of like teach and train and counsel your your officers on how to deal with situations if they're alone for example? Oh, absolutely. Kind of that expertise kind of rubs off on the force. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I know this was something we started
years ago. the board started years ago and it took a long time for the money to get get to the towns actually. But I guess the discouraging part of it was u how the attorneys made more money than we did when it was all said and done. It's
standard operating procedure, right? Okay. Any other discussion, comments? No. Nope. Okay. Town manager report. All right. Mr. chair uh and board members. So, um I
sent you some sample policies that Mrs. Reid put together for the town hall building use uh for the town hall in the senior community center. We're starting to get a lot of requests um you know from some private organizations, some
recreation um organizations, associations, and uh we have no mechanism to to to do this right now. And I'll just give you an example that one of the associations wanted to use the room at, you know, 8:00 at night outside of business hours. We don't have
the ability to give somebody a key fob to come in and who's going to sign off and, you know, what exactly you want going to want to do. So, um, we sent you a couple of samples maybe to work through and see what uh what you'd like to do. Uh obviously for town boards um
and committees, you know, they can use it at any time because of their business, but um you know, there's some private organizations that want to use it and uh it's something we we just need to have some type of written protocol and mechanism in place. um
you know even the uh even the media center has something where um where people you know who want to use it can go in basically sign up and then they have a key code there um which makes it maybe a little bit easier. So um you know I know that another question is
going to be you know do we charge a fee or not? That would be up to you guys for you to to figure out uh if that's what you want to do. um may not be necessary. But on the one thing I did want to mention in particular on our custodial
contracts, we have an option for the community center, the Nelson Community Center to have a uh have a custodian there for off hours for private meeting uses. Um you know, and then we can outline a fee for that if you if you
wanted to. So um but I wanted to start to get your attention on it. We did people that did ask to use it, we did have to cancel them. Um we don't want it to get in the way of any of our boards and committees, you know, if if they want to use it. So, Mr. Chairman, yes, sir.
Just a couple of thoughts on it. First of all, the um I think anybody should be able to use any of these buildings anytime they want to that are, you know, obviously that are authorized to do so. Um I'm on the permanent building committee.
I'm wondering if I should go back to the committee and discuss the possibility of putting a keypad out there so that on both buildings one door where if the town manager want if they come to the town manager say I want to use this we
can determine whether or not we charge a fee or not who has to be there if anyone or not and maybe have a uh a punch code designated for that one time only where the person can get entrance to the building, use it for whatever purpose
they were approved that was approved and then it expires so they can't do it. But I can check into that. Okay. And see if there's maybe something one particular door we could use for that purpose and I'll check with them to see if that's possible. Um Bob, another
thought would be uh which may be another affordable option is instead of a keypad if we if we do charge a stipend or some amount, give a stipen to someone to be like the door person, right? Come in and unlock the doors for them and lock it up after they're done. Um give them some
stipen for each instance or something like that and charge the organizations. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking like the friends of the of the senior center. Yeah, it could be a way where one of them could come in at night, stay there for a couple of hours, and the seniors get a few bucks. Yeah.
You know, for that purpose, maybe we should create a friends of the town hall. I don't know. We have a the senior workoff program, right? Even even a friends group in the town hall where somebody could make a few extra dollars and we could I'm not talking about municipal meetings. I'm
talking about, you know, some organization wants to come in and use the facility for if another town agency wants to come in and set up this room and have a conference on, I don't know, police work or something, you know, they can use it, restrict them to other so
they can't get into anything else. Yeah. You know, but maybe come up with some ideas, but we can talk more about that. Yeah, we have to figure out scheduling and that kind of stuff, but I'd like to open it up. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, you do have that in your email. You do have a a working template
that uh Mrs. Reed put together um that you can you know edit at your own. Yeah, I think I think we're not voting on it today. Roger. Just clarification. We're going to take the draft that Jen started and we'll discuss it in more detail at the next meeting probably.
Yeah, Mr. Chair. So, so I was involved when I was on the school committee with doing this uh revising the use of field use of fields and use of facility agreement um for uh anyone. So, there are multiple tier and I would recommend first of all
that we kind of um wait until Mark is in his position. he's one that's going to have to execute it and may and follow this policy. Um I'm sure he's got chief has got enough to do over the next couple of weeks, but um there are multiple tiers. So if it's a 100% Norton
organization and there's no additional operating costs involved with the request, then it's completely free, right? Because we're Norton's already paying residents are already paying taxes for the for the building. So we don't want to charge them user fee to use their building. Um but then you know
5050 50% for example uh the fields many on the weekends I think there's an entire regional uh soccer club that uses the fields all day Sunday I I think maybe 10% are Norton residents so they pay the full amount right um so there
there are m multiple ways to structure the school department probably has a really good one that we can reference you know when marks in place and sit down with the school superintendent kind of review it and get some ideas from that as We want to be careful about charging Norton residents to use their
own buildings unless there is overhead and operating costs involved with it. So, Right. Yeah. I'm not saying a money maker, but just Yeah. to cover it break even. Right. Yeah. That's right. To cover someone being here while the function is happening. Yes. Yes. So, Mr. O'Neal, your offer is accepted.
You can be one of the I can be one of them. One of the designates. Yeah. You That's the background. You You've done it. Yeah. And And it all makes sense. Yeah. I'd love to. Absolutely. outside. Absolutely. Roger. Outside of the uh key the keypads, you
know, we do have the key fobs. We could probably program them for each individual room as long as somebody comes in, signs it out, then returns it and stuff like that. So, idea. Yep. Okay. Okay. Well, let's let's review the um
Yeah. Generally, right? Okay, thank you, Chief. Uh, Rail Trail, uh, real briefly, uh, last week we did a a walk through with Mass DOT and 20 of their closest friends, um, with, uh, Mr. Masan and
Mrs. Arena back here in the back row. Um, the the rail trail is beautiful. It's getting a ton of use. Um, it's really incredible the amount of use it gets. uh a couple things that came up that uh um you know are really minor stuff that Mass DOT is going to handle,
but I did want to mention a couple things. Um the garbage is a major issue. We kind of had some discussion about um you know when it's turned over probably in the in the end of September that you know there might be one some discussion about taking the trash barrel out and making it like a state park where you
carry in carry out. Um it's going to be it would be overwhelming for highway to have to handle that on a on a weekly basis. Um you know we did talk Mansfield plows their end. It's not going to be cost effective for us to plow it during the winter. Um there was a question
about stop signs in particular out here on 123. Uh Mass DOT is not going to put them up but you know the town of Norton may want to consider putting up a couple stop signs so that people don't go go through and they know to stop. We did have a somebody hit on the bike. a week or so ago. Um they weren't seriously
injured or anything, but it would be good just to have that pronounced stop sign. Um and we have got some parking complaints on Draper Street and and uh the highway superintendent's going to put up some some no parking signs along there. Um there I mean there's it's not
like one or two cars, it's like 14 or 20 cars that are parked there. Were that many? Yeah. Wow. So um so yeah, I will say I drive by and I see people using it and it looks it's always busy. Yeah, it's always busy. You want to say something, Kim? Come on
up. Mrs. Arena is a member of the Friends of the Rail Trail. So, Kim Arena, 8 Formom Drive. Um, yes, the Friends of the Nord of the Rail Trail are looking to help with signage and I'm trying I'm going to meet with um we have
uh contacted some people that have offered to do signage at cost. So, I need to coordinate with Jared. They're going to do the design and materials it cost, but I want to coordinate with Jared what his cost would be or the town's cost would be, do a comparison,
but that's something that the the friends want to do is take on things like that and any other types of support. Um, you know, we're looking we're exploring the idea of maybe getting sponsorship for sections of the
trail like for landscaping or things like that. It's just thoughts, you know, but we're obviously want to work with you with the board and come up with anything, but definitely the signage and something like that. Wonderful. Oh, that's great.
Thank you, Kim. So, Chief, I I started a habit which may not be a good habit. Anytime I go down Plain Street or 123 or even up and down North Washington Street, I always slow down and pause at the cross uh areas. Yeah.
On 123 the other day, I slowed down, saw somebody coming right there, basically getting ready to cross. So, I stopped for them, right? Didn't wait for him to push the crosswalk. And then I I had to I had to stop him because the cars coming from
the other direction weren't stopping because the light wasn't flashing. And I said, "Am I creating a potential safety hazard by stopping before he pushes the button?" So it was kind of like conflicted because it's got to go both ways. Both
directions have to stop otherwise it's a dangerous situation. So, as a police chief, I just figured maybe maybe the signage, Kim, is uh, you know, at the crosswalks reminding folks press the button and wait, you know, might be the solution. It blows my mind. I I've seen people
just like drive right across. You can stand. I'm talking bicyclist or pedestrians. Same side of the token. I've seen people not even, you know, adjust their gate. Yeah. walking thinking they own that road
without pushing anything and you know sticking the cars are going to stop. There's only so much you can do. Flashing signs, you know. Yep. Flashing neon strobe and they're not going to. But if we do make the attempt
Yeah. Yeah. I ride a lot of trails around that bikes. Not anymore. Okay. So, select boys. Mr. Chair, Roger spoke because he couldn't hear Kim. Oh, yep. I'm I'm assuming.
Yeah. No, no, it's over. There wasn't much. Um Kim was just mentioning how people don't stop both ways walking and and whatnot on the trail.
They don't push the button. Before we became all these electronic things we have today, the original design when we were talking about that way back was an S formation where you had to get off your bike, walk in an S,
then cross the road walking to the other side to another S. And that didn't happen. And you already seeing the results of it. We've already had somebody hit. I had someone come out and same thing as as Kevin. I anticipated someone was going to come come out of
that side street and they went through there 10 miles and 15 miles per hour and I I was already slowing down knowing feeling I had a feeling like somebody was going to do it, I guess. But there's going to be a lot of that unfortunately. Stop signs may work.
Okay. All right. Perfectly said. Uh, okay. Select boards report in mail. Uh, uh, who wants to present? Chairman, I'll make a make a motion to approve invoice warrant AP26-05
dated July. You jumped ahead. Maybe we can postpone that till the next meeting. Yeah, let's do let's do that. Yeah. So, it it Yeah, the that um Oh, yeah. the gentleman that the the high school Yeah. Yeah.
high school kid. Yeah. He's he's coming to uh we're going to skip over that cuz he's going to be available. I thought he was That's where I thought you skipped. He's not available tonight. Um I do have one quick announcement. We were going to uh we tenatively have
scheduled September 4th. It's a night that we don't have a meeting. Uh, a meet and greet for the new town manager. Um, I guess it's 6:00ish. Okay. That good for everybody if we pencil that in September 4th
at 6:00. Yep. Is that a meeting or a meet and greet? Nope. Just a meet and greet for the new town manager. Okay. Yep. For everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Yep. Open. next will be bring your grill.
We're getting to that, Peter. So, so Mr. Chair, just to be cautious and safe, let's post that meeting even though it's not going to be a official meeting of the board. That's what I was advised when I went to one of the M MMA um sessions is when you're having a group activity where you're going to
have a quorum, you're not there to talk about any business and we're not going to, but just to be safe, it's always good to post it as a a meeting. But okay, it's up to up to the board. I don't know. Bob probably has more ideas. It takes Jen five minutes to do that. No problem.
Line meet and greet. That's it. Okay. Um, no. The other Denise, I saw it. I saw you reminded me with an email earlier and I just saw the email about the
repair fair. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot all about that. Yeah. Um, I think if if we could I think it's a great idea as well. Yeah. And I think um you know per your email if we ask Jen to reach out to John.
Did you see that email? Yes. Can we um initiate that? Yes. With John. See if we can set that up. He offered to help set it up. We offer help set it up. I can coordinate with John. Yeah. Perfect.
Okay. Thank you, Jen. And thank you for the reminder, Denise. No problem. Okay. Any anybody else? Anything else? Oh, okay. Lawrence, want me to read them?
Yeah. So, now you want me to do it? Yes, Mr. Click. Make a motion to approve the warrant invoice warrant AP26-058 to July 31st, 2025. You want to do them all together or
we can do them all together. To approve invoice warrant AP26-06A dated 8 August 4th, 2025. Payroll warrant PR26-03 for the week ending August 2nd, 2025.
Warrant dated August 7th, 2025. Invoice warrant AP26-06 dated August 7th, 2025. An invoice warrant AP26-07 dated August 14th, 2025.
Motion Kevin, yes. Denise, yes. Bob, yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes. Thank you. Next meeting's agenda, uh, the 28th. August
28th. Is that good for everybody? Yep. Could I ask a couple things be brought put on the agenda while we're here? The hybrid meetings policy we wouldn't be talking about and the flag policy needs to be uh addressed again to get that done.
It's a sign policy. Yeah. Sign sign and we have a flag. There was a proposed flag one too. So maybe Yeah, there was some changes that town council suggested on the flag. Yeah. Okay.
So we do sign and flag I guess. So hybrid hybrid meetings and the sign and flag policies. Okay. Good. Okay. No exact session. So I'll take a
motion to adjurnn if there's nothing else. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Kevin. Yes. Denise. Yes. Bob. Yes. Roger. Yes. And I am a yes. Good night everybody. Thank you very much.