e e e e all right so already called order um I'll start with Mark yes here Chris yes camon yes car yes we're all here
in person so we have on report reports great Coach Road discussion to and vote to turn on a street light is um on inperson early voting for the April
election logistics for the upcoming special election and we have a uh cost estimate not an estimate a cost for the for the new active Living Center with
some debt proposals in the packet and uh we're going to preview the town meeting warrant future agendas and meeting minutes so I'll start with the room um if uh say Karen is on Zoom Chris if you can help me for public comment please
yep does anyone want to speak uh Angela has her hand up okay is this new yes it's hug wow um Angela Benda town meeting member
um in April 2022 town meeting members approved $110,000 for four parking kiosks the discussion at that town meeting lasted about an hour and 15 minutes the point of adding kiosk was to change Behavior
increase turnover according to the then Town manager Park had studied the issue for over a year and had made recommendations to the select board town meeting was told the cost would be paid back by revenues generated which would be earned in 1 to three years town
meeting Park member and downtown business owner Liz whitelum said that there had been 10 public meetings and a survey to the town there was plenty of opportunity for input town meeting member John Sasso I I went back and I watched uh the
meeting recently so that I quoting people town meeting member John Sasso said that he suspects that we'd get a lot of good data from the kiosks mechanism to review and update over time I think it was uh select board member
Mark doxer who responded um absolutely we can see how long people are parking make adjustments because the system is flexible former select board member and town meeting member Barry Burman added the town got together and put all of the
stakeholders together we need to honor the volunte these volun ER hours and he also talked about uh data to be um gleaned from that and select board member and park Committee Member uh
Christopher Haley had this to say having the kiosks is the foundation we can build on we can make everything free six months from now we can make changes charge 50 cents the point is we would have the foundation to change to
whatever way the data is going if people are complaining about XYZ we can change it only way that happens is if we have the kiosks in the first place if the kiosks aren't there there is no
plan B the parking committee put a lot of time into this hearing from the residents the foundation the kios that's two minutes I'll give you 10 seconds to wrap up please need to be there without all all
of that we are out of luck how disappointing that the select board scrapped use of the upper lot kiosks after two weeks the promise of the foundation to gather data on the parking habit scrapped the possibility of still
Gathering that data while not charging anything gone what an absolute waste of time and money a betrayal of the town meeting members who were asked to support this and who debated the issue and ultimately voted for this I do I'm waiting to see that the kios had turned
back on the lower lot um as a Hiatus period is ended and I'm requesting that an accounting of how much money was appro how much of the appropriated money was approved by town meeting was actually spent thank you thank you thank
you anyone else uh Tara and then I'm not sure of David car okay so two more people like a page hang on just one second after thank you good evening
Taylor Gregory Pleasant Street on November 19th Mr Bachi and Mr Haley attacked my character when they called me a liar and misrepresented my public comments from P meetings during public comment on October 8th I stated Mr botch is a paid pickle ball instructor that works in Reading let me clarify Mr bot
is a paid pickle ball instructor who advertises to reading residents and reading Facebook groups and thus benefits financially from increasing the popularity of pickle Paul in reading while allocating the remaining arpa money $887,000 was allocated to pickle ball without any prior due diligence
their proposals for work outline to encumber the funds by the end of the year I want to be clear my issue is not with pickle ball or that Mr botch is an instructor but it's the favoritism and the lack of disclosure at the beginning of these discussions that is troubling and goes against select board policies I do not appreciate being called a liar
and subsequently told I shouldn't be on a committee that I work 13 months to establish as retaliation for holding this board accountable for its actions on October 29th I outlined the criteria from the state ethics commission for when a financial conflict of interest becomes an issue and I asked Mr botch
and Mr Haley to clarify the guidance they received from the ethics commission regarding MBTA communities because I believe similar criteria applied to the tax rate discussion Mr Bachi and Mr Haley are both commercial property owners in town and when they vote on the commercial tax rate they are voting on something that has a direct Financial
impact on them and their families again this goes against select board and E State ethics policies because the commercial tax rate does not apply to at least 10% of ring residents I find it hypocritical that Mr Bachi and Mr Haley attempted to hold me to a higher standard than they hold themselves I am willing to clarify my statements when
there's confusion or misunderstanding Mr Haley we're still waiting for you to correct the record for when you falsely accused your colleague Mr doxer of blackmail and extortion I hope Mr bot and Mr Haley will reflect on their actions over the past year and commit to doing better moving forward I urge you both to set an example of what
accountability looks like for public officials thank you anyone else in the room yep one more [Music] please this will brief just your name and address please uh David Carrol 33 gr
Coach Road thanks my wife Kath um we're seeking to um uh we're seeking that to have power restored to the street light in front of our home um in 1992 every other
street light was turned off to so I have the wrong glasses sorry here to conserve energy this continued for a few years when a new homeowner and her elderly parents moved into the uh
neighborhood expressing safety concerns to um po lighting they successfully petitioned the town to restore power we agree with their findings um another neighbor of um of
ours had a quote slipin fall fall that resulted in a fractured kneecap uh this was due to poor environmental concern um lighting pool lighting and shading effect and all that created some
difficult conditions here and including uh Walkers coming with their dogs and that sort of thing and so in general one there's light missing in our immediate part of this neighborhood and it's because the um it has
been without power since 1993 and that was back when the energy crisis was happening and that's what we're we're well beyond that at this point in stage and so I'm just looking to have this issue resolve by fairly simply fixing the
lights fixed it it's right in front of my house um we find that it's fairly reasonable to address this and we can't see any reason why we should withdraw our request um and but I would put this
before you to consider the reasonableness of replacing something after so many years and it has been for so many years is not uh benefiting us in our location and all it takes is a visit from the light department to do so
thank thank you Chris anyone else in the room anyone else once twice no one in the room kayen anyone on Zoom no one raising their hand all right we'll go with these on
reports uh Mark please thanks Carlo so um very simple um the focus of my my last few meetings have been um on the permanent building committee focused on the reading Center for active living they're going to be presenting the uh cost estimates and in addition from Bond
Council we have some information on some potential um financing Alternatives and what the tax impact would be all for presentation tonight to the board to be followed up um at our next meeting um with with a vote which is already on the agenda I'm going to leave it at that now
I will leave it to the folks that are presenting tonight thank you Chris thanks col uh just real quick the charter committee met um last week or the week before um and we're 99% done with the charter and
um we'll be finalizing everything at our next meeting and then taking a vote at a subsequent meeting um that's pretty much it the the big discussion last week with uh IA um was regarding the rmld section of the
charter once again um which I think is getting put to rest but we'll see what happens and that's all I got thank you I just have a question because I can't remember because you've been doing this for a while we this is not going to town meeting just to the
voters or how does this work again it's a combination so it's going to go to town meeting it's going to go to the voters as well there's like two different ways that we have to do it Etc cuz some will require who was it again the governor
somebody to sign off on it and some other portions don't General petition um the legislature needs to sign off on it or the attorney general you know there's different ways to do it and it's not going to be on for this town meeting it'll be on probably a future town
meeting correct or special okay okay that's I was the election before town meeting all right thank you yeah no we were just wrapping it up because you know we don't want to take up everyone else's time you know what I mean to volunteer on other boards committees Etc we're gonna get it done early and
that'll be that okay gotcha got Jamon thank you Mr shair um the only thing I wanted to report tonight was that for everyone with a college student living in town or somebody who is now a senior heading to college next year the
reading Scholarship Foundation is the application is online and open now until March 7th this is a hard deadline it is a very easy application um typically they give out almost $200,000 and um and they are able to
award it to about 150 students this is an application that is valid for undergraduates it's also valid for anyone who doesn't currently live in the town of reading um but who attended the high school for three years it's it's an unbelievable opportunity for writing
residents and um I encourage everyone to go to the writing scholarship foundation.org website and get those applications in I guess this message is really going to the parents because we know the students are are busy overwhelmed and um I know who's writing
the checks so thank you thank you and I'm glad pickleball was mentioned in public comment because the third annual fundraiser for the rppa is in the Fieldhouse again on the 16th um we've had two successful ones
already I am not part of RP rppa I I I support their efforts I have volunteered twice I plan to volunteer again and their money that they raise will go towards the pickleball courts over by Burbank so I I applaud their effort
they've come a long way in the past couple years so um I think signups are open are officially open if you want lessons if you want to play and now we have DED a dedicated site finally the past two years we didn't when I say we I
mean them and um again it's the 16th in the Fieldhouse and it's a lot of fun um you know family friendly and um they have their own Facebook page and I'm sure they have a website which I don't have in front of me right
now and uh that's all I have uh for now so Matt okay thank you Mr chairman uh just a couple of things to report on first of all people have noticed tonight that there's a new podium in the room so welcome to the new Podium it was actually um created by one of our car
Carpenters at facilities Rich price so I want to thank him for that um the former Podium is still in town use it'll be used for outdoor events um but this one will stay in the select Board Room we're still working on adjusting where it should actually go but it's a beautiful
Podium so we thank Rich for for building that for us um we have a a new face in the town clerk's office um an K shank um started last week in Laura's office she's hit the ground ring she's a ring resident um and doing a great job there
um we did lose an employee over the last couple weeks that was um Alex rosinski rosiki Who had who was our assistant Town engineer and left to be a town engineer in another town so uh we do wish him well and we'll be posting that position in the near future um we are
making progress on the fire chief search um we've re received several applications and we're reviewing them now with the screening committee um we'll select candidates to participate in an assessment center which will be held here on Friday March 7th and from
there um selections will be made and we're holding I think your last meeting in March to confirm the I'm sorry in April to confirm the appointment of the new fire chief um a reminder I don't think people need the reminder but I'll send give the reminder anyway that the MBT da public
forum is uh next Tuesday February 25th at 700 p.m. at the Pleasant Street Center that's our largest room available I've checked on all the other rooms but rctv will be there to film and we'll also have zoom available so and I recommend Zoom um you'll be able to
speak at public comment if you wish uh that might be the best option if the Pleasant Street Center gets filled up so and that'll be next week um also on February 25th there's black history month event at the library that begins at 6:30 and you can check the website
out for more information there we're finalizing as IID mentioned the last couple meetings finalizing the budget we did get some unfortunate news from Maya this week that our health insurance cost is going up about 13.5% um which is we found out about
that last week and it's sort of across the board we talked to several other uh towns who actually are facing larger increases so Sharon and I are working through the budget you know we'll we'll get through this it was a little more than we anticipated in the budget so we'll have more to come but Maya we we
met with the Maya rep today and he warned us that this is sort of a trend for the next few years to to keep an eye on um there's been issues with the cost of drug prices um special pharmacies and just Healthcare in general when it's going up um it's trending almost like it
was back in 2010 so but I I did send an email to the select board I've let fincom know like I said Sharon and I and others are working on some solutions U but I did want to put that out there and also I did want to again um mention the passing of former officer David Savio um
it's a big loss for the town um so many people came out to show their support for him and I know the police department um has taken a big loss on this one but I just want to say that the town is grateful for his service and our hearts and prayers are with his family so and I
think that's it for now thank you Matt Jane do you want do you have anything to add to update us on um uh just to one brief thing I want to um extend my thanks to the um DPW um last week I did was last week the week
before I did a brief Ride Along during um snow and ice operations during the day um and I it was very uh informative experience I learned a lot about how to uh avoid potholes or um manhole covers and that's terrifying actually if you
don't know where it is in a big plow um and the importance of clearing out catch basins and all kinds of minutia around snow and ice and um we' received a lot of compliments from our DPW for their work lately and they are working really really hard right now so um I want to
give my appreciation for taking me along for a ride and letting me film they did not let me touch the no no no no I know the insurance I don't drive I was a good side seat Rider so uh but I I was grateful for that experience and to be able to in my role
as Ombudsman um explain things more about detail to Residents who have questions um and take a little of the load off um whenever I can which isn't often so our DPW does a great job yes Carlo could ask a quick question
sure so um and I see Chris in the room too maybe there's um some guidance that can be given about catch Basin because with the last storm with the ice and everything covering the catch BAS um as the rain came down the road many
roads mine flooded like crazy um y I had family members undoing um digging out catch basins is there something that we can give as guidance or or better things because that was that was horrific I don't know Chris
says I mean we we ask people to keep if they can keep the catch bases clean so things could drain out um you know keep the snow and ice away from it but I know it's sometimes a tall task I know do we do anything to assist residents there Chris um we go around and um dig out the
critical catch basins and then you know we put out social media posts you know if anyone can help us by cleaning up the catch BAC we can we can put out another social media notification clear your catch basins um clear out hydrants we do that one too so yep I think it'd be great I
think folks know that that could be a big help because the some of the roads mine were terrible some bading recently in reading so that certainly it doesn't take much no no thank you Mark for bringing that
up because I I had the benefit of when I grew up uh retired firefighter probably active when I was little lived on a street and he taught me at a very young age to shoveled hydrants out that are in your neighborhood and didn't really talk
about the catch Basin too much but getting where I live now um we we take care of the catch basis because Green Street goes downhill onto Main Street so if anyone um that's usually bigger problem right if that
because everything's going to pull up at the end of green and Main or any Street at intersection but if you live on a flat Road maybe not as much but clearing the cations if you can you know if you you should know where they are if it's in your neighborhood and thank you for bringing that up um the hydrant moved
from my house to in front of Village carpet but I uh make sure I shovel that out even though it wasn't a lot of snow and I know the fire department goes around so so thanks for bringing that up any Resident that can help and and if I can make a comment real quick I had a
meeting this couple days ago before I came here and in front of CVS and in front of Nero was such a hazard I was so disappointed and I'm not saying it's the town but I could not
believe how bad it was and I just want all the businesses to know you shouldn't just shovel in front of your door you have to shovel the length of your storefront that's a very busy area up by CVS and it was treacherous the other day
treacherous yeah had walk up along the wall like shimmy along the wall and then there's an opening and then shimmy along the wall again so I know we can't find people we talked about this in the past but it was really disappointing in those
two spots Meo and CVS sorry I was venting there but it was dangerous very dangerous they didn't shov put it that way they didn't shov except in front of the door so I'll end it there uh on to
the next agenda item is a great coach we have public comment that's in our packet to me this is a formality but you know we should discuss it if anyone has any any comments um this is not a hearing it's just a brief discussion and a vote
it totally makes sense to me found with the wrong Mark Chris Cole is here Carlo oh Chris is talking first sorry no I mean I'll just be very brief um Mr Carol you know basically summarized everything that I was going to say
already and um the only thing I will add is that I did drive by um the area and this one street light is the last remaining street light on the street to not be turn back on and it is dark in the area so uh seems like it would make
sense thank yeah I agree anyone in the room quick question so I'm assuming so it sounds like a great idea I'm assuming it is converted to LED already Yes or it could be before you turn it on yeah yeah it will be because all the other all the other lights are LED in the neighborh all
good Chris anything yeah just real quick um yeah I guess back in 1991 the board of Selectmen voted to turn this off and uh you know time passes you get new data and then we change our mind and then we
vote the other direction that's typically how things go regardless of uh how people might think I think a lot of it now is since we have switched to Led Led uses so much less energy you know than previously that it's really minimal
you know when you look at the consumption I find it hard to believe there was an energy crisis back in 1991 but I'll take their word for it so I was in junior high then I think yes
no probably fifth grade so commenton we have a motion please let's vote uh sure uh move to authorize the street light in front of 33 gray Coach Road to be turned back on effect immediately
second thank you Mark a roll call vote Mark yes Chris yes karon yes Carlo yes uh after almost 30 years all right let's turn back on hopefully soon thank you thank you for coming
forward thank you enjoy next we have I'm assuming laa is there I can't see the whole room she is she's behind the podium we have discussing vot on inperson early voting for our April election only and um I
think we've been looking forward to this for some years now so I'll give it to off Lara to explain anything new or different so um as you may remember from the last couple of Elections that I've been here is that with the um vote by mail when it comes to local elections we
automatically do vote by mail unless you as a board decide to opt out with iners early voting we um do not do in-person early voting unless you decide to opt in the board of registrars t uh need to
make a recommendation to you to ask you if you would opt in to ear iners early voting um it was impossible to get the board of regars together as everybody is traveling to Florida to warmer weather
so I took a pulse of the board um via email and um it was a 2 to one of holding inperson early voting during normal town meeting I'm sorry normal Town Hall hours the
week before which would be a um March 31st through April 3rd so I'm asking if you would take a vote to hold in-person early voting during normal hours Monday through Thursday the week
before thank you which was done in the past which is always yes since inperson early voting has been in PL put in place for local elections we've um done it I personally recommend it because um if we
don't have inperson early voting then we're going to have to deal with a lot of absentees which requires a lot of paperwork on the voters partk I'll kick it off with you any comments or yeah no I think it makes perfect sense to do it I think doing
during Town Hall hours means not additional cost in in doing it that way it allows people who aren't able to come in person to the regular voting or aren't comfortable with by mail gives them another option it would be great to um keep a tally keep it running tally of
how many people do use it just just see I know that the answer is it's not a lot but it's not insignificant di which seems like it's a good reason to do it so I just want to clarify with there being uh a extra cost with inperson early voting there will be an additional
um election staff because I have to have at least four people working in person early voting so we if we without inperson early voting and just doing absentee we don't have to have election staff so do you have how many people from the clerk's office and how many
people from election staff out the four in person early voting would be all election staff and not Clerk Office correct um the clerk office people support them got it and how much cost are we talking about for four people for
is it a week you said um would have been nice if I verified those numbers but it's it's a $2,000 not even not even thank you I'm I'm in favor y thank you so am I Chris isn't it
like $100 a person a day or something like that something to that effect you yeah I mean sounds good to me thank you K any comments um uh thank you Laura for bringing in the um opinion of the board of registers I'm happy to go along with
their recommendations yeah I I see no issue with this I fully support it and L has done a great job with it and the staff so do we have a motion Chris move to hold inperson early voting during normal Town Hall hours March 31st through April
3rd second third Mark call vote Mark yes Chris yes har yes bra yes Bo thank you moving right
along um can clean my computer a discussion on Logistics uh for holding special election even though it's I know it shouldn't say elections but we I think we all know what we're talking about so uh this is for May uh
we touched upon this briefly so is anyone uh want to kick it off and and Lara's still in the room and maybe could leave it with Lara first sorry Lara so I'm not quite sure what you were
looking for with this agenda item I the the talk of the election date is for both questions for kilum and recal if I'm not mistaken which means it'll be one election in the month of May um I'm not sure what else you're looking
for yeah I I I think we just you know Logistics as far as you know for you we have election I think on the eth then we have town meeting and then we have something again in May so we just wanted
to confirm uh you know agree upon that you're not that you can't handle it but if there's any other issues that we should be aware about no um the only thing that um that will come up is that um
we'll still be C certifying the April election when we start getting to sending out ballots for the May election um but I don't see any logistical problem with between the two elections because all the ballots will be in um
before we start sending ballots out for May and Staffing wise I mean all the snowbirds will be back by yes may election please we may have a little bit of an extra expense because I've already authorized before the date was set for
the um special election I authorized staff to be on vacation and I'm not going to take that back so we may have a little bit extra expense to bring in some extra help to get through the May election we'll see as it gets closer but
um it should be good FL since you've been here have we done something when the last time we did this and TR a special election yeah May of
2024 a board member or I mean like for debt was when when was the last time we did that I'm sorry I can you repeat that again I'm sorry for debt not like a special election for for debt was it what was when we did the
override what two three years ago four years ago yeah was it four years ago we did the override 2020 about seven years ago about seven years ago that was the last time we did it for debt and that was a
special no no that was on the April special for a debt I'm I'd have to look that one up I might be able to answer that question okay I I'm just trying to encourage everybody that you know would have been the library I was going to
think I know if it was a special or not but you know this is this is a big one folks uh in May and um we need just as good to turn out as in April if not more so I think all of us will advocate for that the town will advocate for that
but we don't normally have a May election I don't think the um library was a special this is M msba so I think you maybe wood end maybe was the last one I guess and that was before my time right
right all right I I uh I just Bo Mo any of the comments I just we just I just want to put this on air with with Matt just to make sure we're we're all good and Lara seems uh satisfied and ready to go so I'm good so um just so you're
aware I'll be back in a few weeks asking for early inperson early voting for May right right thank you what is the date of the May election it has not been set yet but the talk is
May 13th and it's a Tuesday corre does it always have to be a Tuesday it doesn't have to be um but that's what the voters are used to so generally we do it on a Tuesday so most likely May
13th that is the talk at this point yes yeah we have to vote on that correct Lara the exact date uh you as a board need to call that date right right and what's the deadline for that do you remember do we all know this
deadline 35 days before something I have to be notified 35 days before so you have to take the vote at least 36 days before whatever that falls on I think I have it scheduled for the April 1st um board meeting to for you to vote on that
which gives us per time that's enough time yeah okay right all right uh Chris Mark in the road any other comments karon you as well so Ju Just to reiterate what what Laura said so there would be um two questions that
would be posed correct for that that's that's the plan at this point right right one for each of the project is kind of what's in discussion correct good thanks there was a special Town election in February of 20 of 20 3 for debt
exclusion yeah this was just uh on the agenda to get some clarification and even though we didn't pick an exact date yet that's the date we're shooting for so it was just something briefly for us to discuss thank you for hanging
around and uh next thank you laara all right you guys have a great night thanks uh and next we we have the in our packet we have the presentation uh that we've all
seen and then what's more exciting is the uh the schedule of payments that Sharon has put together so I'll let Sharon I think Sharon is on Zoom Sharon if you wanna well
sorry does anyone speak on I think that the plan Carlo if it's right with you is that um Brian the the uh OPM Brian hermica would um do a brief presentation first in terms of the cost side of things and then turn it to
Sharon after that yeah yeah Ju Just the cost please okay all right updated slides is it possible to connect this or we have slides Kaitlyn has the slides I
think should be showing updated slides I can put up the slides if you would like or if you want to join you can absolutely join and control it yourself okay would you rather join on zoom and control it or how would you like to do
it um yeah actually for time sake I think it's probably easier just to share the slides that you have okay I'll pull it up and you just tell me when so these are the updated slides right that's right yeah yeah so um I'll
be brief um I don't want to I won't go through the all the slides that were in your packet um so for anyone who's listening I'm Brian ratka with Turner in towns and heri owner project manager for the reading Center for active living project so we prepared a presentation
for you at your last board meeting uh bringing everyone up to date on the design and what's been happening on the whole project so tonight the main focus is to talk about the cost but I did want to touch on just a few things just as AER reminder again for people that are listening also to this project so if we
go to the next slide just you know noting that this project has been in development for a really long time uh we're looking at the 10-year Mark now so a lot of work has been done by the town to get us to where we are today and then on the next slide um what this is really
all about is that there's a need in the community because of the changing demographics primarily the 60 plus population that's been growing significantly and has needs that need to be addressed you know we're reaching close to 30% of the population at this point and if you go to the next slide um
just few quick images just showing how the current Pleasant Street Center is not meeting those needs so we have a site to go to the next slide um that we're all very excited about had unanimous support and it really creates a base there for us to have not only the
needs of the seniors met but it really brings a lot of community services together we already have the ice rink some ball fields um the Wilderness walkway that's been discussed and there's another project is your Weare pickle ball courts so that's all kind of on one site which is a really nice fit
and if you go to the next slide um so what we've you know you've seen all the designs in the last meeting so we're not going to go over that but basically you know we're looking at what amounts to a senior center for the 60 plus Community um along with the gy and
you know there's been conversations within the community about you know why do you have the gym well from what we found talking to other communities those that didn't build the gym wish they had and those that did were very happy it gets a lot of use it's able to tie into
the recreation and veteran services and some of their needs and it also provides for the opportunity to use this as an emergency emergency shelter um also allow voting and other needs of the town so I know everyone wants to know about
the cost so let's jump into that I think that's the next slide so uh we have a lot of numbers here I wanted to walk you through kind of the whole process you know what we've been looking at from the beginning so at the very top you'll see the 28.3 to 29.4
million those were the initial numbers that came through the feasibility study that BH plusa prepared and that was there was a range because there was a range in square footage based on the options that were selected those numbers were based on a construction start in
2025 and they had a 2 uh I think it was 2.6 I can't read very well contingency built in so the next numbers that you'll see uh are higher range you know of around 33 million so why is that well first it's
important to note that the current square footage of the facility is 28380 so you know it is L bigger but also we're looking now at a different start time for construction um a year later and we're
also looking at it some different economics that are happening in the local construction market and because of that we have contingencies built in to address those so the contingency numb is also a little bit higher so that's kind of where we started you know to get a
sense of what these costs might be we then you know we looked at what all the neighboring communities had done and we we tried to narrow that down to projects that were most applicable to this looking at projects that were done after covid that had a similar size and then
try to um look at those past projects and then escalate the cost to the current plan for recal when that would be built right because that would then bring all those numbers together and that gave us you know a range of 26 to
34 so the feedback that we have heard uh from the community is that we really need to keep this project under $30 million uh last time I was here I said that I felt confident that we would definitely do that we understand that
there's tax impacts for all the residents everyone's talking about that especially with two projects at this time that's something we really want to pay attention to and have the most costeffective option for this particular project so working together with BH
plusa and and the permanent building committee we put together a budget for 27.9 million so everyone was very pleased I think we had even one of the building committee members that wasn't too excited if the project went over 28
million so we were able to get it right in right in below that and that was a lot of negotiation and that that is based on this the same square footage I mentioned before 28380 ft so we didn't cut anything out from the building prog program it's
based on the same start date and uh the contingency so if we go to the next slide um I'll talk a little bit about how that um budget is was put together so there are really two things that we're looking at you know when we're trying to manage cost throughout the project uh we want to have cost
conscientious design and that's an ongoing effort it doesn't end now uh we take these same principles and approaches to the project all the way through design development construction documents all the way through the construction process so we're looking at
um comparing different materials in the project um what's the return on investment for the town some things you know might have a a price tag that is a little bit higher but you're not really getting that much and maybe that shouldn't be part of the project so
that's not just for this stage but all the way through the design stage uh making sure that we have what we need we don't have too much but we also don't have too little because that ends up being even more costly for the town down the road looking at design efficiencies
through Synergy and we definitely have that on this project where we're addressing not only the needs of the 60 plus Community but also uh some of the needs that uh veteran services and Recreation also have and then we've worked to tighten the schedule which
helps to reduce impacts from inflation we we've done that already a little bit on the design stage uh design phase and we're looking to get that project bid at um most desirable times to get uh low low
bids so all those items um and then we also need to be responsible in how we manage the project so we've been doing that throughout this stage we had two cost estimates uh by two different companies both of those estimates were reconciled to arrive at the current cost
for the project um so that's really important because it helps to make sure that you have the scope fully accounted for and that when costs are changing because it's not a static thing that you have professionals that are looking at kind of both sides of the picture and
then together can work out what the most realistic cost is for particular line items um and the construction cost we have a detailed project budget that we believe accounts for All the known costs to date and what we believe will encounter in the future we
also have built-in contingencies to address those items that we can't quantify at this point and then finally we've discussed using alternates so I'm not sure how familiar people are with those but alternates allow us to design
for what we really desire in the project but when it comes time for the bids to come in if the bids come in higher than what we'd like them we are still able to move forward with the project without having to go back and and change everything or go back to bid um at the
same time if the costs come in lower it enables us to include certain things that otherwise wouldn't be possible so that's a very effective way of managing the costs so those are some of our strategies now let's look at uh what's in the budget if you can go to the next
slide so as I said 27.9 million uh We've included all anti ipated project costs and we have a series of contingencies so I'd like to kind of describe what each of those are because they each have a different purpose uh so the first thing
you see on there is the design and pricing contingency which we're carrying a 10% contingency for or 1.6 million that is to address all the changes that are happening between the end of schematic design which is where we are now all the way through design
development uh and then this Construction specifications in construction drawing so there's still more decisions that need to be made um and we need to allow for that usually you have some items that go up in cost some items that go down in cost during
the process but it's important to carry uh a contingency so that you don't overshoot the budget during that design stage and that's a pretty standard amount for this type of project the second one is inflation contingency uh that's something that you know we're
keeping a very close eye on um I feel like the number that we're carrying right now is neither too high nor too low uh for what we know to this to date um but that's something that we're going to be evaluating as we go through the further design stages again
we're going to do additional cost estimating during the design development stage and then also during the construction document St stage and if we find that the politics um are causing construction cost to go up will addressing that through the
design and as well as having this contingency and being able to work that through uh the construction contingency that is something that we don't want to touch at this point that's reserved for the construction phase so there are always unknown conditions on a
construction project that you need to account for and that's a pretty standard amount for that piece and then finally we have the owner's contingency owner's contingency is used to cover basically two different groups of things it can be uh changes that are
coming from the owner where they decide either during the design process or even during the construction process that they want to add something because something has changed into how the building is going to be used maybe they desire to upgrade the technology because
more programs are now wanting to be U facilitated at at that location uh another another coverage for that is to to uh cover higher than expected costs during some of or for some of the owner items so that could be uh construction
testing that's required maybe there's some problems that are covered uncovered on the site the problems would be covered by the construction contingency but the testing for those things would be carried by the owner so that's a separate category so um I feel like I'm talking a
lot but I wanted to make sure that those items are clear uh in the budget we are I've also included the Range Road improvements to the second parking lot entrance so all of that is built in uh We've also carried the cost for a
propane generator and an upgrade to triple pane windows we felt that was a good decision because it's not only going to save on the energy usage of the of the facility but it's also going to reduce the sound impacts to the users so
with the potential pickle ball project nearby and also the gun range I think that was a very good choice to include that and then finally uh We've carried some costs for a stone dust trail that's something we're still working through with Conservation Commission um but that
cost is built into this 27.9 million what's not in there is just the pickle ball project and the associated uh Range Road improvements um there there were a number of other things that were discussed uh when we set the budget
about what should be there what shouldn't be there but everything that's needed for this project is included right now for it to move forward so we took these numbers um we put together um a cash flow estimate based on the
current schedule and that was sent over to the town and Sharon used that to help get us some data back on what the borrowing might look like like and she she'll talk about that in a little bit so if we can go to the next slide yeah I guess that's what that is so we
go to the next slide after that so just an update on the project schedule so right now uh we're looking at approval in May we'd be finishing the design for the rest of the year and get ready to go out to bid at the end of the year first of the of the next year and
then uh we would expect construction to start in the first quarter of 2026 and if all goes well we'd have the building open um the fall of 27 go to the next slide so as you know you know we are continuing to to spread the message uh
we'll have had total of seven public forms uh once we're all done with this phase and if you go to the next slide um you know we also continue to spread the news through various sources and media the communication group has
done a great job with that and uh Bob is here from the daily times Chronicle little shout out to Bob because he's done a great job of covering uh meetings and making sure that those articles are out there so people get um up to date on what's happening on the project and next
slide so as I mentioned uh we have the permanent building committee vote of approval uh that was received last week so uh now we're looking for votes from the select board and finance committee before going to town meeting and then town vote in
May next slide please so that's all I had I'm happy to answer any questions um before turning it over to Sharon to talk about the um tax impacts Ken do you have the um the Deb
schedules or do you need me to share them Mr chair I have a question before I moved on can we move on just give me one second Sharon I can um find them in the packet I actually have them I can probably share them but I
think Karen has a question to start off you were muted Carlos thank you sorry yes Karen do do you guys want to cover this first and Cameron's question just just want to do everything at the
end I'm fine with whatever any preference mark NOP either way all right good okay um I think I just heard we're going to build a brand new building that will be heated by a pro propane generator is that what I
heard no the propane generator is to produce electricity in the event that there's a power power outage okay yeah I haven't heard of a generator that big so forgive me thank you for clarifying um so we were able to
do away with a propane generator at the kilum school building committee K kilum School building um so I am really confused as to why we would feel the need to have a propane generator for this building and I'm not sure it's a matter of cost it's a matter of meeting
our obligations um under the climate law in Massachusetts as well as taking advantage of um rebates and assistance from rmlb so the question as to why the generator is there is that it was requested by the Fire Department in
order to enable the facility to to serve as a shelter um so you know right now the the building has a a kitchen has showers there's ample space for people to to occupy so in the event of an
emergency where a shelter is needed you would need that generator for the facility to keep running um I believe the current uh Pleasant Street Center facility also serves as a cooling center um during the really hot periods for those people that that are not able to
stay cool so this is also something that would serve um in that capacity as well so that's why it's in there um you know ultimately it's a decision uh from the town but based on the feedback we received so far um the fire department
felt it was very important um after meeting with the permanent building committee we did go back to the fire department to um you know talk about that more and they reiterated the their feeling that that was a very important part of the
project so all right so let me go back so this is specifically for a cooling center the need for a generator is to keep this building potentially to be used as a cooling center yeah the the need for the generator is essentially to keep the
facility operating if there's a power outage yeah we have battery bag for that we have extremely reliable electricity here um but also I I can tell you and I don't know if the permanent building committee has asked that no one is using
the senior center as a cooling center and we also have an ice Rank and we also have other buildings that could be used as a cooling center I'm having a real problem with this the the goal is to not to be
reducing our carbon emissions and not adding propane generators so let me and I'm gonna give you real world data that says things have changed in our community so that even when we do offer cooling centers like the the current
Senior Center like no one's using no one's taking advantage of it they' theyve got AC at home or whatever they go into a library okay so what I can speak to is that um you can't operate a facility on
batteries so battery backup is fine for emergency lighting um in order to get people out of the building safely but uh you can't keep a building operational just on batteries there's too much demand for power yeah that sounds like a
good excuse I'm going to tell you right now we are not putting in no more Propane fuel buildings for generators and we had this issue at the school and we managed to get over it so I'm going to push back really hard that we are not
installing more propre generators there's no need for it in this time um and this in this world that we live in with the technology that we have and the reliability that we have and so I would uh respectfully um push back on the
permanent building committee this makes absolutely no sense okay yeah I think it's something that you know it wasn't the permanent building committee that said this generator needs to be included it was because of safety mention so um so Matt
I'm going to I'm going to ask you to to to speak with our fire department things need to change we cannot keep doing the things the way we've been doing for the last 100 years and I think we need to weigh the other municipal buildings that we already have with backup propane
generators and the current usage and the current demand that we even have when we actually do have high heat days before we start investing in more carbon emission producing infrastructure Karen if you don't mind
Chief Clark has his hand up and maybe has uh some information that would be helpful Chief Clark thank you Mr chair I know me to speak on behalf of Chief Burns but I've been at the meetings this is to serve as an emergency shelter not just as a cool
Cent or not did we did we just say we're going to hear from Chief Burns or not was at the meetings and as the police chief I was involved those meetings with the fire chief so I'm trying to give you some understanding of what happened I respect that I appreciate your time I
just that if this is a if this is the fire department that we need to talk to about this then it's really not appropriate to have other departments weighing in does that make sense to you oh this is from Public Safety then Karen how about that so this between the
police chief and the fire chief and I I was at those meetings and this is to serve as an emergency shelter if God forbid we need to evacuate neighborhoods due to a gas leak some incident going on and we need to provide places people can get meals showers or whatever that was the intention of it so
this is from Public Safety then so I'm speaking as one of the chiefs of Public Safety that's trying to you understand why we need this the way it is Greg burs has just raised his hand so I'll to him then thank you yeah because this is pretty confusing because you know we were going to hear from Chief BRS the
next thing you know you're speaking so well CH well don't be disrespectful Chief Clark I'm not being disrespectful I'm trying to understand why you introduced Chief Burns and then Chief Clark starts speaking it's it's pretty confusing to people at home and and people in the room
well this is Joe Huggins director of facil oh my God so this isn't can we just let te bur speak if he he would like to respect I want to clarify something the Greg goodhead thank you Chief Burns if you
could comment that'd be great yes hi uh thanks for uh letting me speak so um I did I do recommend that we do have a uh emergency generator for um to be able to use the building as a as a
backup shelter we've used the current Senior Center and uh or coing centers and I do agree with Karen that we don't get a lot of people that do come but we also have opened it during per perod um when there's been power outages or uh
natural gas outages in in town uh to provide heat for the residents and a place for them to come in and charge their phones and things like that will just warm up and the senior center works well for that because it's a it's more
of an inviting uh place for it and um and it doesn't impact the schools if the school if there something that impacts a small area of town the Sena Center is ideal uh because we're not impacting the uh the school day if we if we use this
one of the schools as a shelter um we've We have basically taken over the building great may I also clarify has the library been set up as an emergency shelter with a propane generator no it doesn't it it's not able
to serve um like that so it does not have a propane generator no I'm okay I'm I'm surprised because I would have thought that during that project that building would have also you know seemed to you know be a building that could
meet just me very a welcoming a welcoming place if I could just uh point out one other thing in order to be a shelter you would also need uh a kitchen and showers so you know basically those things that would be needed in a home to keep people
healthy and clean and those types of things yeah and just one more comment usually you know in our our community we're we're very fortunate with our demographics so a lot of people can go go to other homes and and stay with friends and relatives and things like
that so in all likelihood if we need to open a shelter it's it's going to be on a smaller scale and that's why this building can conserve as that has parking and you know it it offers some things that a school wouldn't
offer okay well um thank you for that explanation and um I guess I should take comfort in a propane system when we get to the point where we do no longer need or when we are no longer allowed to use fossil fuel is much easier to convert than
digging up the street and expanding our gas structure so thank you I thank you for that answering the questions and that um additional information thank you shanon are you ready yes so can you see my screen is it too
small too small if you can make it bigger not make it bigger I guess I'm GNA have to just tell you what it says and we can work that way um so when we got the
numbers um on the recal center um we ran those through our borrowing agent to get some estimates about impacts um depending on what term we pick um for the borrowings and so the first term that you're going to see here and you
can't see it but I'll read it to you um is the 27.9 over 15 years and the way they break that down for you is they give you an impact for a th000 an impact for 100,000 so a 15-year borrowing for this type of project would be 30 cents
per thousand for 29.7 $29.78 per 100,000 so our assessor um tells me that our median home right now is about $8.90 so in this 15-year balling if you multiply
29.78 by 8.9 you'd get $265 42 is estimated yearly impact of this project on an average median home if we go to a 20-year borrowing
that $11,000 impact for per $1,000 is 24 cents per a th000 or 24.45mm 61 for a 20-year borrowing if we go to a 25e borrowing um it's 2155 for
100,000 19 19180 per year for the average home and then a 30-year borrowing is um about $20.58 for 100,000 and that's $1 18325 um per year for an $890,000 home
so we haven't kind of narrowed down exactly what direction we want to go um yet that's why I showed all of these but the worst case scenario that you're looking at right now is a 15year borrowing and so the the impact is 26542 for that
$890,000 home if we were to go with the 15 um and the least amount is the $15 for I think it was 30 so it's it's definitely um there's a lot of interest to consider um when we're the treasur and I will have to sit and look at both
projects and try and determine what um the best term would be um but this information is very helpful for your um residents to get a feel about what projects are going to cost you know what each Project's going to cost and be able to um you know figure out if these are
um options for them to vote Yes for did you have any questions for me car I think you're on mute yeah sorry thank youy thank you so there's four options you presented quite not not a huge shift but you know
the number I'm looking at is the interest I know no one likes their taxes going up and and and based on I'll just speak first real quick on the first on the last number the 185 for 30 years on the average home
is for the survey um you know kind of on the higher end if someone wants to correct me on that of what they're willing to pay for a project and this is going back you know well over a year for not two years
so things have changed drastically with inflation and Supply you know cost but um 265 to 185 is not a massive difference in my opinion but the interest is massive amount um so that's
my Takeaway on this I'll go to the room Karen has her hand up Karen you want to go Ken yep sure thank you had to um the audio button I appreciate that and um before I ask Sharon a question um let me just also say I I well I got very upset
about a propane fire generator I'm very excited about the proposal for triple pane windows for this building that's a really smart so it's not completely all that but um so Sharon thank you for these I appreciate you putting these out there these different um lengths of time
and but to be clear we haven't seen this come out of the school building committee yet right um we have similar um calculations for the killum project to as well yes okay but I was asked just to provide this to coincide with this
presentation yeah no that's fine that's fine I'm thinking ahead to town meeting I am thinking ahead to this special election this is the kind of information that needs to be easily accessible and we don't need residents scrolling through five pages and and this is known
way of criticism I'm just thinking out loud a little bit so we want to be able to concisely deliver to a resident who has a minute to come up to speed on what both projects and each project costs for an average home which um I don't know if we're still sticking with about
$800,000 as an average um home and writing so this is this is a good step in the right direction I just want to make sure that we have both projects available and I want to make sure that we have a a summary page and and the average home value so that so I'm adding
up the numbers yeah as as Carlo reiterated right around let's just round to 200 for this project and that is assuming that we don't pay it off early or get any other additional assistance with it um but so so people need to add
this up with the cost of killum and and really know what they're voting for um but I appreciate the format you put this in this is um easy to understand um the only thing I had to do is the mental math if 800 is the number then you know then I'm looking for anywhere from High
Teens to Mid 25 to figure out you know what it's going to cost for a median resident who wants to vote for this project so thank you we are talking about potentially putting a calculator on the website we're looking into that right now this is just the preliminary numbers that came from our financial
advisor um and I'm told that 890,000 is the median home okay so it's even higher this year so it's I mean the estimate of a median home has increased dramatically since we presented this back in 2022 I think we said it was 670 back then and
now it is 890 as an average home um so I do think that we're to find the best way to present this on the website so that people can get themselves you know get their value in there and determine what is the impact of both of these projects um so we're working with Jane Wellman um
to you know figure out the best way to present this data so that it can be easily digested by the residents and know with some degree of certainty how impactful these two projects are for their home yeah the calculator was a great idea I appreciate that thank you
and and Sharon before I let Mark and Chrisco it' be helpful of having what the debt what's coming off the books as well so looking at the slides you're looking at here the only debt payment that's outstanding is
the library the last payment at well well mil 2797 the impact of that particular borrowing on that average home 1631 per 100,000 so that would be $145 falling off I think we talked about
back in 2022 about the average home would save about $300 de exclusion so it's almost almost like 5050 the the high school and wood end fell off last year and now we've have the one remaining debt payment from the library so it's about about 5050
about $300 total but it's so hard to see a savings of $300 um when your your taxes are going up and your assess value is going up so high so quickly um but it is buried in there and um and that's the final debt payment that you see on the screen the 1,
2797 or 145 for an average home thank you Mark or Chris who wants to go first me first Mark I gu well whatever um a couple things uh I used to watch
The Walking Dead before it got terrible when uh they you know got rid of Rick um spoiler uh so I I'm I'm well aware that the senior center is going to be used as a shelter in like emergency situations we're not going to be running this thing
like 275 days a year in a propane generator right this is only when the zombies come and when like bad stuff happens right right this isn't a day-to-day operation just just so we're clear um I have my own thoughts on the 2050
thing that will never happen even though they're saying it's going to happen I've been very clear on this multiple times uh in the past it's great to have a goal because you can have a goal uh to to kind of look forward to but it ain't ever happening fossil fuels are never going away and I say that owning an EV
Etc I'm just being real on things um so I do appreciate that the generator is going to get used here in an emergency situation because I killing it can't be as you mentioned it's going to have showers and all these other um scenarios um the other thing
is that uh I know that I had mentioned previously that we had to come under um 30 million for me to think that you know this is going to pass Etc and it's good to see that it's 279 but I guess don't we usually do
wasn't the library and stuff 10 years of debt and now we're breaking it out into 1520 or am I incorrect in that Shar it was a 10year borrowing um I think the reason I started off with 15 was because there's two projects at once and um the
kilum I think the best we're going to be able to do is a 20-year borrowing um so the 15 was kind of the the minimal level that I thought we could go with I think if we went with 10 it might be too much I would think so as well um because
for me the numbers that I'm looking at is all the final number on the end of each page so the the 279 ends up really costing us 36 most likely as long as everything goes according to plan um yeah minimizing the
interest absolutely so uh for me I I opted uh for my first house a 30-year mortgage then the second one that I got was 15 because I'd rather pay it off earlier not have to pay all this interest Etc um so it's
good to see that you know we have options in here who ultimately is going to decide on which option we pick so the treasure is the one who picks the um the term of borrowings um so we would work together on this um and determine
what we think is the best course of action for each debt offering um but I feel like it's it's good to give the the options and what those options mean in terms of each individual tax bill um just you know so people have their worst
case scenario so I'm looking at a 15year is my worst case scenario for this in 20 years is your worst case scenario for killing those are the those are the the shortest terms we're looking at currently so that people have an idea well if that's the case if 15 is the the
shortest term they're looking at for the senior center and 20 for killum my Max um you know increase on my taxes is X to have that information available but we haven't decided officially where we're going with it but when you look at the
numbers for kilum particularly it's very telling you know to save a household $60 um from going from 25 years to 20 it costs us $20 million to do that and and so we really have to weigh all those decisions very carefully because there's
a lot of interest attached to these projects so the quicker we can pay them off the better but we also want to be mindful of the total amount that it's going to impact that average taxpayer yeah no definitely I I I think
it's good to have these numbers outlined here um for everybody to see I think for me it's hard to square away how we're going to get past uh the survey results and I say that as someone
in a unique position uh that I pay 100% of the tax and rting through the split tax because I own a business I'm paying everything I'm not at the luxury I get to do XYZ or whatever I'm paying 100% of the tax and R um
so uh and I know for me I've said multiple times I'm fortunate to be able to afford all of these numbers on here whatever bracket you put me in um I'm going to be good with that and I'm um sympathetic and I understand that the
seniors um uh built reading you know what I mean it it's through generations of everything that you know I just walked in here and and all these other things were given to me that other people had to pay for uh so uh I'm I'm
being supportive of of both projects in town um but I think we have to square away how we're going to get by the results of people saying that they don't want to spend over 200 or over a 100 like none of these numbers unless you scale all the way down to the end where
it jumps out at $50 million that we're paying on this if someone said the new Senior Center is 50 million nobody's going to go ahead and do that at all um so I'm just wondering how we're going to overcome that hurdle I guess I I just I
want this to be successful I want it to pass the first time around because of inflation and everything else that you mentioned on here who knows what's going to happen it could go up could go down most likely everything goes up um so to have a delay of a year and have it end
up costing 2 three million more because we did that that's not a a good look either and then by the time it gets built and all this like a lot of people that wanted it unfortunately might not be around to end up enjoying it so I I just don't
know I I don't know how to say what I want to say uh without uh getting destroyed for saying it but I I think a lot of people particularly involved with this know exactly what I'm saying and it is very unfortunate that I'm going to
have to be the that ends up uh broaching the subject on things I I I just I wanted to pass I just the numbers with this I I don't know I just don't want to hear from you Mark I know like
you've spent six years on this you don't want to go out at the end and not have this succeed am I right I think sure like we got to do something you know thanks so um I I I hear all the points I
think you got to start at the top for a second the needs Drive the discussion the needs Drive what we're doing it's not that we're building a tajmahal it's also not that we're going to build something that we're going to look back on and say boy we blew it we built the wrong thing it's too small it's not
going to accommodate the needs of the community 30% of this community is going to be age 60 plus in the next few years which is pretty amazing um the way that I view this is there two important things that the
town needs to support two two biggest pieces of the community essentially is this Center which is going to serve the seniors and the entire Community is the killum school which I could argue 20 years ago needed to be replaced because it
did where are we in terms of how to do it we did a survey and in a survey we threw out some questions with people not really knowing necessarily what what the numbers meant or what you could get and and you know some people will lch on to that that's fine I think the reality
of that is that the folks that talked about more a community center I think we more willing to spend about $200 without really knowing what it was and that was a few years ago so to I think Carlo's earlier point I think we're right in range in some of the you know the 15 20 25 year time frame I
think that's kind of what what the community said it was expecting in terms of what was going to go on what Sharon was talking about between the three projects that we finished we stopped paying for from between July of
205 and July of 26 coming is you would have seen another $300 on your taxes had we not paid those off since we did pay them off you not paying that $300 so in essence we finished some
buildings now we're working on some new buildings this town has been really smart financially fiscally thinking about can we pay things off quickly so you don't pay as much interest your example Chris on on the mortgage a 30-year mortgage if you look at the contract you sign on that for whatever
mortgage amount you had and how much it says you're going to pay over over time it's crazy you look at it and go oh my God you know it's four times what I started with the town has been really smart figuring out what's the right way to do it how do we make it work so if works for most of the residents we minimize
the interest that we have to pay but there's a balance we need to figure out how to make that work we have two projects they both need to happen we are looking at things that are 50-year buildings and we're figuring out how do
we view these how do we as a community figure out what's the right thing to do I think the right thing to do is to take a look at the work that and I want to commend in saying this the work that the permanent building committee has done on both projects but I'm going to talk about recal it's been amazing figuring
out how do we reconcile the needs with how to take it forward with how to do it at the most reasonable price with understanding how to minimize the impacts of inflation by carrying in essence I think it's a 24% contingency
between the four categories so buffering for the things that we we know about and some of the ones that we don't know about so it minimizes the chance of surprises they're going to take place after that everything's been done completely responsibly I think the most important thing that we can do now is
get out to the community the message that says hey these are the the two priorities for the community you're seeing everything about them you have the opportunity to ask questions to talk about them to make sure you understand what it means to you because most of the
people in the room tonight sorry but most of the people in this community either are in the 60 plus category Andor they've got kids in Schools they're going to have a chance to use the recal center and certainly they're going to use the kilum school if you're in the kilum district this is an opportunity
this community has I've been working on it for for six plus years um the Project's been going on for 10 years the time for this is is now I think this is the right project it's the right scope I think it's being done very responsibly I think the community gets so much benefit
out of this I think that if we took care of these two buildings took care of the roads I'd be happy and done um we do some other things though too that are important please don't don't don't minimize that but these are the highest priorities that we have in the community to serve the people who
are here and that's I've been very committed to that a lot of people in this room have I want to commend the folks who have worked on it and I want to make sure that we don't kind of short Change what we're doing reading has been very smart I think this is right on track with being smart that's the right
way to do it and I see my my colleague John cot in the room who was one of the people who felt that 28 was was the max number absolutely and guess what it's under folks I I appreciate that you know taxes are are a burden they should be
used for the right things I think the one thing we haven't talked about yet that we do need to talk about is are there ways other ways that we can reduce the amount of debt that's required um at the last Finance commit Financial Forum I brought up the notion
of potentially using an amount of free cash to reduce the amount of the borrowing that's required this board has talked about the possibilities of finding ways to monetize the Pleasant Street Center as another way of potentially reducing the amount of money
that's required I think those are both ideas that we should pursue and talk about see what what makes the most sense again this community we're working to figure out what's the right way to do this they're the right projects I believe they're the right amounts we've heard from from Sharon on borrowing and
how it might work in terms of 15 20 25 years I think that's right I think that it's important people hear that they look at it they understand what it means to them they make their decision on what they're going to do thank you Mark
Karen thank you Mr chair I'm I'm just um I wanted to before we leave this topic um the history that we've had in this community is that we take on the debt we are required to by law but we also are very smart about refinancing
and retiring debt when we can so um I just want to you know I I expect that um Sharon you and the treasurer will will make a recommendation based on tradeoffs with rates and interests but and I appreciate you keeping in mind
that as Mark said um taxes are a burden for a lot of people in this community so um I I think we need to I want to see longer terms these are 50-year buildings I don't want to see a 10-year term and I appreciate there wasn't one on here
tonight I would love to keep the door open to 20 years for the senior center and why not 25 and I do have a specific question regarding the killum school two all right two questions and um these are
for Sharon okay so um why why are we going to be limited at 20 years for a 50e school that'd be one question and the other thing is what thought have we put into communicating that while we're obligated to go and and bond for the
full price of these two very necessary projects if if we are the fact that we will be getting an excess of $40 million grants for the kilm school that can be that will more than pay for the cost of
this project and could be specifically the community needs to understand that we're getting grants that will help pay for this other smaller project I'm going to keep calling it a two for one we we are a very fortunate position there are
communities out there they are building Public Safety buildings they are they are building senior centers they are not getting and they're building schools and they're not getting any funding from the msba so um I think that needs to be part of the message that while these numbers are going to be
very scary to a lot of people there no question about that we need to communicate that we are getting grants we are getting millions of dollars in Grants we have the ability to pay off this debt early we have the ability to refinance when rates move things like
that um and I don't mean so shared on these two items I know I'm speaking with choir so I don't mean to I don't mean to do that but I did want to uh just probe a little bit about why you think killum would be stuck at 20 years Max and any thoughts you might already have on you
know communicating how you know the fact that we're we're so fortun to be getting the school grant funding and the IRA funding on possibly both of these buildings will help ultimately bring down the cost of these two projects so the reason I'm not
entertaining the longer borrowing for killum is the shared interest alone is mind buckling um you know like I said when I was looking at a 25 and a 20 to save a household member $60 a year I was going to pay2 million more in interest
to go to 25 from 20 so when you look at the overall interest we're trying to be smart and see where where's that spot where we can pay this off quicker um obviously refunding the debt could be an option that's certainly what we did with the high school um but we're going to
you know weigh everything very carefully we haven't decided anything for sure but it did look I mean if you look at I want to see if I can pull up for you the kilum numbers because I did not put them in the packet because I didn't know we were going to talk about them but that that project because of its size the
interest just it's Monumental it's it's absolutely out of control to see what you pay an interest Al longer you do that you know the longer you borrow for that project not seeing it on my thing though I it I think I think we just all
keep in mind as um many of us are also town meeting members it comes right down to the both perspectives as a town how can we save the most money be most efficient with our tax dollars but also
the individual homeowner who may say who who makes a a similar decision every time they finance a car or or get a new mortgage they they look at 15 they look at 20 they look at 30 they look at 40 and what a lot of people do is they re
they finance for 30 or 40 and pay it on a 20-year schedule but what that does is give them the flexibility that if Insurance continues to go up 133% a year we run into some other money crunches we're on the hook for the lower number even though you know generally as a town
we've been aggressive and like when we could afford we would pay things down so it's kind of a it's not that different from what each individual resident or business I I can tell you what I was thinking and I I've B up on the screen on the kilum because
I originally defaulted two to 30 year borrowing um but it's very can I interrupt killum is not on the agenda I don't wna I don't want to away from the agenda it's it's important but it's not on the agenda Sharon thank you okay fair
enough could we um maybe I'll just at the end of the meeting let's let's have another agenda item where we we talk about both of these in concert because Mr chair we are going to be putting the warrant together and we'll get F don't disagree but correct fair enough I get it yep you not do you want me to answer
the question at all though in terms of what what's driving us to a direction Carlo I think on on the on the active Living Center yes I I I think you here's what I'll just say to you is that interest is definitely a part of it um but we're looking at the average the
impact of both projects on the average home right and then you do have to consider how much is that average household going to save by me going from a 20 to a 25 from a 25 to a 20 or from a 20 to a 15 um because the quicker this
debt is paid off better in terms of how much interest you pay and also opens up the ability to have other projects come in other schools that need modifications other projects that need to come in and be borrowed for so there's almost always
something in the pipeline that we have to be concerned about so we don't really want to tie in for 30 years especially not when the interest is going to you know you know be so extreme um and so that's why we're trying to balance we're
trying to get to a spot where we think it's a reasonable fit for most people well I agree and thank you and you know Karen asked some very good questions and and I think as individuals as board members um I'm looking at the big
picture right interest is is hard money um yes we can refinance um down the road consolidate debt you know all the fun mumbo jumbo stuff with financing but initially we
have to pick a number 10 25 30 15 for both projects and we're going to look to our CFO and town Treasurer uh for guidance and but I I I think you know where Karen was the direction she was pointing in is that it's good to have
this information because you know I don't know how much the town is going to have a say you know it's really going to be staff and and the two big boards as far as guidance maybe not even I mean I don't I don't think we vote on what uh interest rate
schedule we want to be on to my recollection but uh these are important slides and and the kilum slides are going to also be important and um I I think you know we're going to have a at least one more financial Forum uh before
town meeting that we have to schedule with all the big boards uh to go over this high level stuff because yeah 30-year mortgage and a 15year mortgage is night and day if you can afford a 15E makes total sense to do it if you
can't compromise and do 25 or 20 but anyway I I I just I have a quick question for off this topic but on the topic is uh there there was conflicting things about Range Road I saw Range Road
included improvements then I saw Range Road not included so can I get some clarification on what that means yeah sure there's the part that's included uh would be the improvements that are needed to bring the road all the way up
to both parking lot entrances for the recal facility what's not included is the part of the road that goes beyond that that goes parallel to where the pickle ball corks are plan so the pickle ball courts would handle their own portion of the
road okay all right thank you I was I was wondering what that meant okay and I don't think it was mentioned thank you that was my main question on the on the slides and I'm glad it came in under 30 million but I you know for for me surveys are very
timely and convenient they're they're good good measures but I I think if we took the same survey now with what everything costs and again that will be reflective of what everything costs now right not
everything's going to cost in the future so I think you know survey are always a good measure but I think if we have the same exact survey that we had I think we get different results generally I'm not saying Pro con I'm saying we
would get different results because we're in a different environment um you know every time we have the split tax hearing I mentioned this year is going to be worse than the previous year and blah blah blah and some people is some people isn't small business owners it's not
pretty out there I'm sure some home owners too as well so we have to really be thoughtful of what schedule gets picked what makes more sense from Sharon's point of view in town meeting I'm sure I'll have a lot of say on these
two topics in April so I'm not going to take away from that because that that'll be a very important debate on the floor and hopefully you know obviously this will be part of the presentation um In Articles and so on so that's all I have for now I agree with
Mark uh both these projects are very important to the community and we have to support them um each individual person will make their own decision and how it impacts them personally on their taxes you know I'm
never going to notice a $300 coming off you know that's just me I don't think anyone else will notice it because our assessments have gone up so much I mean it it's staggering my my assessments is almost double since my the house in
uh 2006 almost 20 years ago so and that's for a lot of us so I'll leave it there if anyone wants to make some final comments I think we've all had a chance to speak but I don't want to go too long on this topic but if anyone any wants
have some final thoughts this this is very important um I'll start with the room anybody has any final thoughts just KY I I would encourage the community to to to get involved and to hear about what's going on with these
projects to understand what they are um what it's going to mean to you um in terms of use what it's going to mean to you in terms of taxes and ared with that information and I don't think you need to spend hours and hours but I think listening to some of the activities taking a look at some of the
presentations um I think this calculator is a great idea we've talked about U building that so you can see what the impact is um but learning a little bit about it I think will will serve you really really well and you'll understand the importance of it to you and and you'll make your decision I think that's
the right thing to do I encourage that town meeting Members First obviously since they'll get the first look at it and then the voters get a look at it afterward um but there are a lot of public forums for both projects uh individually and talk about putting one together so the community can see all these different things that are taking
place they're not happening in in separate they happened in separate stove pipes to get started but they're coming together it's important that everybody understands that we know that it's big impact we know that um these are Big activities for the community we're just
we've just taken off we just finished three projects we' just finished paying for three building projects so we're used to handling multiple things please take a look thank you Mar Chris anything thanks Carlo um no I agree with Mark the
the issue is going to end up being is is the Outreach Beyond this room we all understand it way too much for our own good uh but it's everybody else that's going to be the the decider in this I don't see being by four votes or
whatever scenario but um we all understand it it's the Outreach that's going to happen and no matter how much Outreach you do it's not going to be enough we all know that it's it is what it is um and I guess my last question Sharon just looking at the numbers if
hype ically on a 10-year debt would it be like 33 because the jump between 15 and 20 is roughly 3 million so I'm just minusing it the other way or is that wrong to think like that if you were at a 10 oh are you why me to estimate what 10
would look like yes um yeah I guess it'd probably be somewhere in that vicinity but I wouldn't want to quote the 10 without actually running the numbers cuz also the other thing that changes when you do shorter terms is the
actual interest rate and she is not giv me a 10 I probably could have requested a 10 but I kind of thought that might be a little too aggressive so but I can still request a 10 and look at it and see how that works I mean I feel like
these schedules are very telling because when you see the interest pile up on that column you start to recognize okay let me calculate what the average taxpayer is paying for these different terms and how much are they saving for me paying this additional $20 million of
interest to go to 25 from 20 or from 20 to 30 so it the interest plays a very big role here so I guess by that comment that typically 10 years is going to be a better interest rate than 15 though
right my guess would be yes okay I probably will request the 10 to look at but I didn't anticipate it would be a selection that we could make all right thank you count anything final
thoughts um yeah just again um so we can borrow at a certain I guess we just need to make sure that we let the residents and the voters lay in that you know because they need to look at each one of their budgets and I and and the
and the reality is we can absolutely pay off debt that we borrow early and and people understand that metaphor so um Sharon I appreciate you already looking at the range of options I am interested as well as um um knowing what you know
some other communities are generally choosing for their projects just to just to make sure we're being realistic with what we're asking the residents to take on and um certainly there was no reason there's no reason for us to try to pay these projects in off in 10 years
they're just desert so meaning that is an option no I mean I mean but realistically we were looking at potentially 25 for boat for 20 and 15 you I don't think we should take that off the table
Yeah the voters yeah okay you guys will let us know if there's and and certainly we shouldn't assume that we're going to keep it till the very end we will one or both of them is going to get paid down significantly because we are getting $40 million in rain on kill
so I'm not sure how do we communicate that to the residents but uh this is a good part of the overall presentation just because you have to kind of say we have to authorize the whole whole project um so so that we have the cash
flow to keep going even if we haven't gotten our reimbursement so um so they're going to see a number and it's the total project and then they're going to see msba kick in for that project and what we actually what our share looks
like um and they are really good I mean much better than I've seen in years past when I was an auditor you wouldn't get your money until the end we're getting our money as we go which is a wonderful way to do it and so there's less need to borrow for the msba portion because
they're paying as they go as we go we submit our invoices for reimbursement and they're paying their share of the eligible invoices so there's that read readily um coming in the income from the msba that we don't really have to borrow for but they do make us authorize the
entire amount in case there is a need for us to borrow the whole thing for cash flow so it it's important that um we we hear what the residents tell us in terms of what they they would like to see um in terms of how long we borrow it for but we've got to weigh everything
very heavily and decide you know obviously what the opinion of the residents is is very important to us as well um when we're looking at a 20 and a 15 the overall impact for an average home was just
$999 a year so like it just depends on how what the value of your home is how impactful this is going to be um and so we're going to have to run a lot of numbers to figure out where's the where's that sweet spot where most
people are going to be okay and car made an excellent point we do have another Financial at least one more financial Forum where we can really get more into to this so thank you thank you Sharon all right uh I think we should get a like small golf clap for myself
for running the meeting on time and um next not over yet say not over yet Carlo not over time next is Matt with the warrant thank you thank you Bri thank you Brian thanks
Brian um so I can move on to previewing the annual town meeting warrant um I'll go through it you know fairly briefly if there's questions feel free to ask but also you don't have to close the warrant until next meeting so if you have questions in between meetings if I can
provide more information I'll do that um it's a pretty standard warrant you know that the kilum and the recal are going to be on a separate warrant for a special time meeting so those aren't included on this warrant preview um Sharon is going to stay on and help um if there's any questions and talk about
the financial articles which there are usually five or six uh pretty important Financial articles there's also other staff on the call um if we have any questions so so I'll just go through it one by one um and feel free to interrupt if you have questions as I go on first
uh article one is always the local election um that's scheduled written reports is article two if there's any written written reports instructions is article three and we usually defer that to the last night that's uh instructional motions Article 4 is
amending the capital Improvement plan and there are going to be some amendments to the capital Improvement plan based on requests of different departments um Sharon did you want to say anything more about Article 4 and Article Five which would be amending the
budget and and also um oh good yep so largely what's happening under Article 4 um debt and capital as you know is 5% of our budget and we did have some planned debt for the Haven Street project that we didn't end up
leaving there we took it off um and so that meant a rebalancing of the capital plan um so we had done a little of that at for fiscal 25 at November town meeting where we took away the debt service and we added more Capital um in fiscal 20 26 we had the same exercise
happening where Debt Service that was planned goes away because we decided not to go with a borrowing for that project um and we're doing more Capital um what we end up doing for that Capital keeps changing because you the information about what priorities are has changed a
little bit and in terms of pricing sometimes we get updated information on a daily um I I we understand that we have um an elevator at the Main Street fire station that needs to be replaced and we had hoped to do that in fiscal 26
um but we we're talking about there's some more information coming in that it might be a little bit more expensive and might need to be pushed out one more year so it's a constantly moving thing when it comes to the capital trying to keep that 5% balance making sure that we're investing in our Capital assets
you know whatever remains after our debt service is paid so um that's pretty much what's always happening on article four is just getting that rebalance back and reprioritizing and repricing what we have on our Capital plan great
and Article Five would be to amend the current year budget not the fiscal 26 budget that we'll be presenting later in the Articles U but amending this budget um I think we will have some budget amendments um Sharon did you want to go into any detail on that there's quite a
bit going on for the fiscal 25 budget um when we built the budget um for fiscal 25 I think we had our benefits up 5 and a half and the actual number was 5.65% so this an need for a little bit of adjustment in the benefits area we have
quite a few retirements happening in the fire department which requires us to pay out vacation time um and also increases our overtime as well when we have retirements um open positions tend to especially with fire and police where they have minimum Manning overtime tends
to go up um and so that those adjustments will appear we are seeing a lot more snow and ice than we have in the last couple years so they will definitely um a need for um an ask for snow and ice we're doing everything we can to minimize the number by bringing down any
savings we do see in our budget due to attrition savings or anything like that within the budget we're trying to um take any savings we have and apply it towards the um the needs that we have at April town meeting um it it is a higher number than I'm used to seeing but we
haven't had snow and ice in the last couple years hit us this hard so um I'm expecting the number to be somewhere in that $400 to $500,000 of free cash which is High um but also you know we are being conservative and asking for um you
know what we think we might need but being conservative so some of it would go back to free cash anyway we we just have to get ourselves through this winter with more snow than we've seen in the last couple years um and so we're trying very hard to minimize that number
that we're asking under Article 5 because we we're very sensitive to how much free cash we're using okay we can blame Chris for the Stone ice increase this year right um okay so that's Article Five article six approv payment of Prior
years bills um it's too early to know if we have that any prior your bills but um if we don't we don't then we table the then we just table it but it's good to have on there in case anything pops up as a surprise um article 7 is always the
OPB article opep stands for other post employment benefit liabilities um and we do try to fund OPB to some extent every year um that'll be the same this year I don't know Sharon did you have anything to say about opab at all yeah so we we're funding at a lower
level in Fisco 25 than we had been because we did take um take down our oped number because of our health insurance being up a little bit more than we had originally projected when we put um our iated cost together last year so we' reduced it to 200,000 from
500,000 so um in Fisco 26 we had you know put it back to 500,000 which is our typical general fund funding for oped um but because we had that health insurance surprise a similar um thing is happening in fiscal 26 where we're looking to
adjust so the OPB has been that place where we hedge and keep money in case it's needed um in the last couple years we've actually needed it which in the past we've tend to put more into OPB than we have taken from OPB so the last couple years have been kind of the
switch it's been taking a little funding away from oped to fund you know shortfalls in health insurance which in the past it's usually Savings in health insurance going to opep so it's kind of been a little bit of a switch the last couple years um article8 is approving the
revolving funds this is something we do every year we establish limits on the revolving funds um the inspection revolving funds we list projects that are coming on and coming off um 25 Haven Street right a is coming off McDonald's
is coming off we have a project at um 34648 Main Street that's coming on um the real exciting part about this article this year is we're going to we're attempting or we're asking to establish a new revolving fund this is the elder and Human Services revolving
fund and this will act similar to the the recreation revolving fund where when people pay in to have those classes whatever they have we're able to retain those in a revolving fund and keep that it doesn't go to the general fund if this passes and it's something that um
Jenna and Chris and and everybody at the senior center really wanted uh for a long time and I think we're able to do it this year so there's language in there to establish that Elder and Human Services revolving Fund in this article the next two articles are the
hero act which is something that's that's fairly new um a new piece of legislation and it allows some new exemptions for veterans um these are veterans articles so the then there's actually two parts of it the towns can
um adopt so the first part part one is essentially just a cola on an existing uh veterans benefit so they they add in a cost of living um based on the CIP uh Consumer Price Index every year so that's a little bit of an increase and
part two is that is actually a new exemption that you can add for veterans and you could do that up to 100% I put in 100% after Consulting with Victor um Victor does uh support this as well as uh our veterans agent this will help our
veterans out a little bit on their tax bill um so that could you know essentially double the exemption they get um I could send you there's a bulletin that got uh put out by do when this passed over the summer I could send you that it gets a little complicated
into which law it effects but essentially um it's what I said it was a cola and a new exemption for veterans I think it's a good thing to do uh for our veterans so we added it on to the warrant article 11 that is the adoption
of the budget um that's the standard budget and I'll be having like I said at the beginning of the meeting I'm working on that given the new healthcare number is we'll have that done by the end of the month and on to fincom for their meetings um article 12 is a little bit of a I would say housekeeping or
administrative article so this is regarding the McDonald's project that was done on down on Main Street in Ash Street and apparently a sidewalk a sidewalk on Ash Street there was sort of in dispute um but as part of what cpdc
negotiated during the whole McDonald's project is that going to clearly become our sidewalk I think it's already an existing sidewalk but in terms of the legal title that will remain our sidewalk and we'll clean that up it'll be essentially I think a gift to the town from McDonald's to clear up that
that one issue Article 13 is High Street Haven Street and you've seen variations of this article before um the big difference here is that we are not asking for any additional borrowing I I got the message L clear um at the last
select meeting when we talked about this in town meeting we still have a $2.5 million massworks grant that we'd like to use and there's other grant funding as well um so this is just essentially to do a smaller version of the project using the grant funding that we already
have so we don't lose it but not asking for any additional additional borrowing and I think Ryan is on the zoom if there's any questions after if you have any questions about the project itself um it's much scaled down but it' still be beneficial we think to the downtown
article 14 I'm holding for funding for pickle ball I think at your La your next meeting we will be talking about pickle ball the cost of the pickle ball courts and what that will be obviously there are some donations there and some grants but obviously we're going to have to borrow it's not a it's not a debt
exclusion it's within the limit but we're going to have to borrow to fund the remainder of that project um so we'll have some hard numbers at the next meeting I think I think we do have the numbers but we're going to present them at the next meeting as well Article 15 is the lead replacement
program and that's something we've done before you know it's it's funded through the water Enterprise fund um and it's something I I think the last time we did it maybe four or five years ago but getting the lead and the lead pipes out um mitigation of the lead uh is
something that's important for for our community so we want to finish that up so Ryan again our town engineer asked that we put that on for this warrant and again and the it's borrowing but it's funded through the the water uh fund and the article 16 is something we
were just made aware of essentially you know we have to change our this came through cpdc but also we've gotten some information from fima on this regarding the flood plan bylaw um there's some administrative changes it's not changing
all that much um Andrew is working on some back some more background on this um but it is a requirement that we have to update the flood plan bylaw and some of the maps um to comply with insurance and whatnot so that would be article 16
and article 17 is your standard you know removal of town meeting members um and that's something we do every year so that's the the brief overview like I said the two two big articles uh are going to be presented separately for killum and recal that's going to be on a
special town meeting we we want that special T town meeting to be on May 1st um hopefully we'll deal with it that night and then usually we we deal with the budget on the second night of town meeting because of the special town meeting we'll be dealing with the budget on the on the third night unless we
finish up super early on May 1st and we're able to move on to the budget we we would be able to do that but I'm anticipating the third night will be the budget night uh this time around so that's generally your overview overview again you have some time before you close
if there's any questions or any additional materials you require I'm happy to provide them are you trying to talk Carlo or sorry thank youor thank you thank you Mr chair I'll go if that's okay um so I'd
love um for you to share with us more information particularly about 13 The High Street Haven Street revised project to maybe present to the board what's being thought about um what's involved in 15 I understand it's borrowing but it's it's from the um I some the water
fund sewer fund yes water or sewer from both um I think it's um is it water water water okay yeah just to see how much we're kind of pulling out of that the proposal um and the hero act part two just to know what it is I think would be great
to hear more so I'll send you I'll send you a Bolton on that to explain that in terms of high Haven I mean Ryan Ryan are you on the call right now yeah he is yeah I'm on could could you could you I I I think I stated it correctly in terms
of the you know the that we're not going to borrow and how we're going to fund it could you maybe say something about the H how the Project's been scaled down a little um if you have if you have a moment yeah absolutely I don't know um maybe if you wanted to share that map it might be
very easy to show the limit Kaitlyn do you have the map that I I emailed you earlier um from one second yeah if we could put that up might as well do it now if that's okay Mark just will I have Ryan on the call so perfect you see this yeah perfect
okay so um when we presented this the first time to the group we always um sort of had had a initial thought in mind that we may be seeing crazy pricing uh and so we broke this down right from the beginning so you've seen that slide
before the big difference between what we presented the last time and what we've scaled back to is um the initial project was anything that was blue and green now we're just down to the green section which is the massw work section which we
got that $2.6 million project for uh grant for and we're looking to use uh local funding to make up the difference in our match for that and so the primary um design elements that are in this would be an upgrade to a much needed
upgrade to the signal at wubber Street we still have that uh pedestrian Crossing improvements that are going to be happening at M high and Haven um and also the safer Crossing at Washington Street along with some various bump outs
here to there on Green Street and in the parking area so um I think this is a a great project it scales it back we still have the ability to use the mass Works uh Grant uh funding um and and basically that's what we we've reduced it down to
so no no borrowing to what Matt has said just local funds that we do have left over uh that we can put towards the project how much in local funds and is that in the uh Capital Improvement plan so the local funds will be coming
from four different sources so we we're making up the difference between 4 million and the 2.6 that we have in grant money um so we're looking at the Smart growth District which is in this area um the sustainability and then we have uh money left over from West Street
uh Road improvements from a while back that um can be transferred over into this which is a like project as as well as a contribution from the downtown waterm um Improvement project which we anticipated contributing to that from the water fund because of all the work
that we did in the downtown um over the past couple years with the water man Improvement so those are the the four funds that'll be tapped to make up the difference so Ry those those are all existing funds those are yes so there's
the uh you know both all four existing funds correct cool um and in term so the I I understood the the wubber street light in particular it's is great what are the other things that are envisioned along
High um so what you'll see along High Street primarily is you'll see some planting islands that break up that asphalt up and down that area which um we have some trees and some J trees put in there you also have some shorter Crossings one particularly at uh
Washington Street um where we have an RFB which is the rectangular rapid flashing Beacon um they'll be going in there we're still looking at the the tabletop type design on Haven and High Street looks like we'll be able to make
those improvements as as well as the inviting sort of wall area at the at the Depot um and again we're also shortening up a lot of the crossing that Green Street Haven at the Haven and High Street area as well so a lot of massive
improvements I think that we're we're still getting for the project the only thing that we're missing would be any improvements to the upper Haven Street area got okay thank you you're welcome
R thanks Carlo I'm back um I had on article four mat the firewall thing if you can find out how many that is cuz $60,000 pains me for a firewall upgrade yeah but if it's like
a dozen for various remote sites Etc or is this just one and then I'm very pained right I think Kevin um is on the call you may be able to answer that Kevin are you are you available to answer question regarding the firewall he's coming on okay yeah I am
are you able to hear me yes we are yep why don't you go ahead did you hear Chris's question yeah I did um so yeah I agree is a lot of money um we have it isn't a single firewall and we've based our our
ask on a similar project that the reading school department just completed um we have a smaller scale but similar task um so it's a little bit less than what their ask is we don't have an official quote for this yet it's two
separate firewalls working in a vault tolerant way at two separate sites with two separate um isps and um and some some configuration that
goes along with that so uh I agreed it's not it's not in line with the last time we had to upgrade our firewall uh what's what's prompting this upgrade need is we've experience two separate outages that
um that just uh are are the result of a piece of equipment that doesn't appear to be very trustworthy and is probably um a little a little longer than we we would have liked to have had it
um does that get to what you're asking is like a subscription built into this too or or how is it working yeah yeah it does come with a fewe subscription for the security services
on both firewalls so then in the future we're going to end up having to renew that right and that'll get included in some budget item yeah and we do have built into the operating budget regular um you know our current firewall
subscription renewal this will obviously be twice that because it's two firewalls um but it you know we'll we'll have to talk about that in a few years if it's if it's uh too far out of line with what we've already got budget
for all righty and then I just had one for Chris Cole on the um Main and Salem light that probably got hit while we've had this meeting going on at this point so where is that getting moved to or like is it getting a foot moved a
foot over or what are we doing with it so and Ryan um personal Town engineer can um jump in if he wants but um basically it's being moved North on Main Street by about 10t I believe just to get it away from the intersection so a
truck coming around the corner is not going to C okay yeah because I've seen a lot of people complain that it gets hit you know six times or something like that in the last six months like um all right so it's good to see that
that's um getting addressed because half the time if we don't find the person we're paying for it so okay that's all I got Carla thank you all right thanks K anything I'm mute no I'm good at pretty straightforward thank you Matt okay
thank you thanks um Mark asked my question about arle 13 I'm glad you had a map handy because so is it is it my I heard Brian say 4 million so we're contributing 1.2 is that what I heard
no the well the grant is is um 2.5 I believe 2.6 2.6 2.6 sorry and do I hear a $4 million number we're contributing 1.4 that is correct okay all right that's no that was good um we got
some why we using that money and to Spruce that place up down there and hopefully we can get some good tenants some retail tenants down there too that would be nice great Brian did you want to say anything more regarding the red the lead replacement program I I think Mark said you wanted
some more information on that you were go ahead Brian yeah absolutely um we we've started this program this is sort of a uh a project that I've been working on I'm pretty passionate about uh we started this a long time ago we're in the phase now we're replacing all the
lead service lines and that also includes what we call galvaniz too has the same ability of Le hold on the Le so where replacing those as well um we not only replace them on public property we replace them on private property as well and we're able to do that through uh up
until this year a loan 10year loan only no interest loan through the MW they've as of I think 202 late 2024 voted to also do a 25% Grant portion to that now so we have a 25% Grant 75% no interest
loan over 10 years so it's a really great opportunity for us to get in there and continue to remove them I will also point out that um it's not only good to do this but we are mandated to do it as well um so everyone has received a letter if they had anything uh close to
a Leed service um that we believe through the records at their house cool I hope that helps how long of a project is it until you got it all out um that's a great question we made great Headway since 2022 we we've removed 20
six somewhere around there lead Services um I believe we only have around 154 remaining and that's a pretty great number considering we have somewhere around I think 7,800 uh Records or services that we take care of
uh there's an additional 76 uh Galvanize that we have to remove as well so if you somewhere around 250 plus that we have to remote so we we're looking we're really in good shape and so is this like a couple of years to
I'm thinking um probably another two years so this and then we we start to you know ramp down a little bit and maybe uh we don't maybe have to go for another 1.5 million um but the I would say two more years
probably of this it's kind of hard to say because it all it depends on how it's easy to get the first group done it's a little bit easy like it's not as easy to get the second group and then it starts to get harder and harder as we get close to the
end got it got it and where does the um I know that it's indry loans and Grant um where is it is this water this is out of the water Enterprise that's correct over hit that thing hard cool okay thank
you thank you Ryan you're welcome thank you question questions we're going to move on to Future agendas okay thank you thank you everyone for saying yeah thanks very much Chris thanks um so the
fourth is pretty much set pickle ball because the numbers weren't ready uh we're closing the warrant and Mark are you going to be ready for commissioners of trust update so um we
met last week and and um I guess the question is what would what would the board like to see uh I mean I'm speaking for myself I guess you know kind of forbit him give us an update on on where we stand
and what what's changing and what has so uh kind of more in the numbers just kind of showing the the funds and and what's what's happening I think so I mean Mark have we done this ever yeah
so I think three-ish years ago Beth kpy I think did an update to the board um and she is kind of the so Beth KY was the town Treasurer then Town accountant um and was on the trust fund
commissioner for years and years and years and has all the history and in fact we should find her presentation is probably the right thing to do to get it started so okay the information she has relates also to oh what's that fund about what are the restrictions on that
fund that kind of stuff so I think if we want that um there's there's more prep that's going to be required um to do that if it's more kind of taking a look at where the funds are um what's happening how they're used things like that today um
then could ask um either ask the town Treasurer um who's on the she's a trust fund commissioner Diane um to do that or uh Neil Cohen is the chair um and kind of you know the board's
pleasure yeah what what does the board think I think an all-encompassing is nice but having an update would also be nice because we haven't had one in a bit but what are
other board members think I'm fine with whatever ceron any thoughts um I do thank you Mr chair um so I do believe um s like member Murphy also asked for this um we would like to it has been longer
than three years Mark it's been a long time um and as a a newer member um my impression was select board member Murphy brought this up so that we could a get a full accounting of what trust funds are out there b understand what
they can use for and um so C I'd like I'd like to make sure that I can rest assur that the trust funds Commissioners are are freeing up as many funds as possible we keep coming back to the hospital funds specifically time and
time again and um so yeah so no I think I think we need it's been a long time since we've had any kind of overview for newer members they have no clue and I don't remember us ever having an overview of the trust funds what trust funds exist I don't
either we've talked about but I don't recall line item by line item um in my so I'm okay if they need more time but I yeah I'm okay too I'm just I'm not trying to put you on the spot but I I I I think all
encompassing and maybe that's even after the election I what's more appropriate or on the on the 18th the 18's looking a little bit light right now I hate to say that um and not get trouble but I think it's a it's a general thing that the
Board needs to do we we we've had some turnover and um I cannot even remember a single presentation and and and in times like this when insurance is going up 133% and we're all seeing lots of inflation it's really important that we
are not letting trust funds um just sit there not be used appropriately well I'm looking at the 18th and I see master plan discussion so that could be a good tie in why don't we give us all more time yeah I I think you may want to push it a little bit further out so the next trust
fund commissioner meeting is March 11th okay um and I think it would be so I think it's fine to say you know kind of to go through things if there are particular areas so for example Hospital funds that's worthy of spending a little bit of time with Town Council also yeah um and if there are other funds that
people want more information about so so basic information you know when was it established you know what are the restrictions on it um those you know those I think are doable you know maybe maybe you target April 1 if that's possible um if they're
more specifics I think you want to get Town Council invol so Hospital fund is one definitely need you're going to need some opinions from her um if there are others that are in a similar category that people are you know what's going on with this one how does that one work you know can we it says X can we do y maybe
it's worthwhile having some questions brought up in advance um so they can prepare for it and I think that you probably want the the chair of the Commissioners and the town accountant probably to participate in that at
least all right I I I I agree so I'm I'm going to leave it where we'll hope to do it sometime in April I'll I'll work with Matt okay we'll do followup and um so that I just wanted to go over that
thank you and um this is I think we have enough for the fourth but I have that executive session minutes Carla for the fourth at the end yep I added that too on my other
spreadsheet okay thank you if we could get an update on Matt whether it's an agenda item which you might need more time or an update on what Paul sent us on the onw
assessment oh yeah right if if we could get at least an update and then probably it' have to be a future of agenda item um to see where this goes yep yeah it is it is I mean he's put
together a good letter letter it's a a lot of work looking into what exactly happened back then Umar I think it's warranted I think it's warranted yeah no I understand Sharon's been looking at it for me too so we'll we'll continue to work on that it's not you know drop
other things that we need to do yeah given all the work he did and just from reading it not knowing all the nuances and the in the legal stuff he seems pretty good yeah and what he's come up with so right I I don't I don't want to
Discount that at all no no me neither yeah and and again not an agenda but if we can get an update on at the next meeting um on when people can apply for the second water meter I think we're getting
close yep and then I think guys need to talk about maybe on the 4th how we want to manage the master plan discussion you know have have some maybe you know talking points you know discuss a few now but I
think that'll be important for our next meeting how we want to you know have that agenda item laid out you know so I'd welcome some thoughts on that either in an email or you know at
the next meeting I think I okay can I just add something Carlo to yeah so on the 18th so uh kanta that's now called reworld I guess um they're
our company that dis will R dispose of trash um they they proposed a new contract it's actually one that we like and it's we think it's beneficial to the town um so we want to present that on the 18th I think officials from the um company themselves would be there um we
we have a little time because it expires at the end of the fiscal year but we want to get ahead of it you know in case there's any issues on it so so i' add that to the 18th if that's okay yeah Kaylin if you can have that thank you y okay um interest for clarity that's
the trash disposal not the trash pickup that's not the pickup that's not Republic everyone cares about the pickup right they care about the pickup nothing to do with the actual disposal yeah so this this is this is actually I think the easy part so yeah yep no I I agree
thank you any anything else uh everybody me um yes please when you have a chance again oh I have my hand raised oh go ahead yeah okay um so we I would like to uh put our annual
um meeting with the reading ice Authority Arena on the schedule um when times get tough we need to you know be paying attention to revenue sources and we have a lease agreement and we did not receive any income in the last year with
them love that would be a great time to get an update on what we can expect going forward we could invite Sharon if we need to or just um share the info with her um and it could be May or late April and um you know I asked before and
I'm going to ask again um I think we need to have another we we need to have an either agenda item on the Davenport litigation or an executive session Mr chair as warranted um I am very concerned about the misinformation that is circulating
out in the public now and I know Math's doing what he can but as a board we haven't talked about it in a month and and it wasn't on the warrant and I'm I'm actually now scratching my head why is it why is it not coming before town meeting and um so either
need to have an agenda item to talk about this or executive session whatever makes sense well I think obviously executive session but I I'll talk that about yeah thanks and I think I want I I'm not saying you're wrong camera but I think we did get a check from the
reading ice last year no we didn't no um we did the year before and then we didn't the most recent year um due to them wanting to replenish their um their reserves after the roof project so we'
be looking for projections for this year okay I don't remember but okay that's fine payment for the calendar year ended um like July 1 2024 Carl MC faten was in here like four
or five months ago with a check in his hand and walked out with a full room in here I forget what was on the agenda that all right did you just interrupt because that's just r no I didn't hear you were done G we have an annual annual meeting with these folks and I'm just asking for to be schedule right but but saying they
didn't give us money is a different story we have um we have had one year with no lease payment that's a fact we had a a generous lease payment and it was late March and it could have been
2024 and it was for the fiscal year ending July 1 2023 and then we had a year where we're not getting anything and I want to know what's coming up in the future that's how that's worked and and I'm sure um our leaone will confirm that
okay I think we normally we them uh have them in the summer I'll see if they're available in May or June okay anything else is fine thanks anything else anyone seeing none on to minutes um if anyone had edits to send
to Caitlyn hopefully they did already I got a couple of small ones which I didn't send but they're very very small okay we can do that first Caitlyn if you want to P them up yeah one second and I sent
you some Caitlyn as well brief as well Mar want to start with yours okay on the bottom of the second page uh where it says $30 million threshold is a friendly Amendment you just put a dollar sign in front of the 30 oh sure
thank you Chad thank you and then the second one um Council on Aging leaz on next page page three we actually have two liais on so I
think it should say COA on right Karen is is alaon Chris is the other leaon thank you Mark that was one of my changes got it so there I think there are at least two instances of
that you mean on the vote we have two Liaisons it's not clear from these meeting minutes it looks like we didn't have one we were just we have two Le onto the council and agent that's all you you were you are you were so wait yeah it's not it's not worded to
sort of reflect that we have two of them oh okay yeah whatever that's fine yeah I think it's a friendly also yeah that's it okay first you were just sending your to Caitlyn
yes see crap do you have any you said you have some minor ones he said I think that was the only one the Council on [Music] Aging okay um so for the parking kiosk
discussion um Chris wanted me to put at the very beginning that Haley stated he would only be speaking on the CVS parking lots okay and then after the first vote he wanted me to put it in a gang that he left the room for the next discussion and vote
see I thought I put that in there but yeah it is second one is yes no it mentioned just vote I made sure to put discussion because when I left you did have a discussion on what was going to transpire Etc it wasn't just a flat
right into a vote agree I just the haly left the room for the next vote yeah I wanted no so it's Haley left the room for the next discussion I just want it more clear that a discussion actually happened instead of right into the vote
y you and that's it okay okay and then when you're done he said was done okay sorry so
herck noted that she voted against this where are I'm under um parking kiosk discussion um I want to include um the park committee where what do you mean where are you Eric noted oh against the will
of the town meeting Deputy Chief and park committee yes okay got you thank you got it all right guys someone want do the honors move to approve the meeting minutes from February 4th 2025 as amended
second thank you uh roll call vote Mark yes Chris yes Karen yes Carlo yes 4 Z thank you one more motion motion to adjourn second thank you seconded thank
you um roll call vote Mark yes Chris yes yes Carlo yes and we are Jed at 9:31 thank you everybody for