##VIDEO ID:cp_M1pT_TiQ## e all right 7 o'clock call Select word to order we're on rctv and uh if you have any friends who have Comcast you are not watching us right now because they have to run a cable um rctv moved um so Verizon is up but if you have any friends who have Comcast because they can't see this please let them know that uh it should be up in a few weeks and so we have uh public comment uh Town manager Las on reports public hearing on tax public hearing on CVS and Brandon Court we have approval discuss on approved minable agreement between Regional Housing Services discuss multi-unit tier water rates discuss second meter pilot program update on the Opera funds and potential re reallocation future agenda minutes and then executive session so uh how many planed oh it's not that many so public comment we'll kick off public comment thank you Mr chair members of the of the esteemed board board of Select persons um my name is Phil Pacino I live at five Washington Street Unit D D6 I am here as the lead Trustee of the briwood Condominium Association which is the cond this is the Condominium Association that uh oversees five Washington Street uh I am here to talk about the uh the water rates the tiered water rates I have some statistics that uh I want to tell you about um basically we have a a fiscal year end that ends in September so basically our payments in the last two years have been as follows October the 27th we paid $7,150 December 22nd $ 7,560 March 2003 8,5 September 2023 95 9564 January 24th 12,387 Fe April 24th 16551 basically from March 23rd through April 20 March 23rd of March of 2023 through April 2024 our water pill has doubled and we believe it's due to the fact that uh the the tiered water rates we have 40 units in in uh in uh in the briwood state in five washing Street and we do believe that's the case um you know my budget I basically handle the finances um my budget this year the ending for the month 202 is $52,000 to pay for water rats last year that B that same budget was 36,000 and we're going to exceed the budget we're going to exceed the budget I have talked to the management company which not only manages briwood Estates but they they made another piece of property fortunately we have enough money that we pay we can pay the bills thanks to great Financial work work I must admit but the one another story the other the other Condominium Association could not pay their bills they had to go to their members and have a special assessment from what I understand so you know we've had the water department out to look at the property to make sure there's no leaks they tell us this minimal at best because we had a concern maybe we got a leak somewhere in the building you were told they not I did read somewhere that there is something that there's some sort of help that has been applied to multif family homes um I don't know what that is uh but you know if that's the case of course you know reading the paper it's got to be true right um you know that should be applied to everybody at this point in terms of that what we got you know so something needs to be done the race just seem you know incredible how we go from you know March of 2023 to April of 2024 double we don't really feel that we've doubled the usage at this point so you know because you know we have even gone around to each enville unit and ins each indiv unit to see if there's leaks in individual units because at one point we did find there was a leak in an individual unit so we've done that we've gone unit to unit as trustees so at this point in time you know we need the water te rate just needs something something to be adjusted because it just it's really hurting it's hurting I mean I conserve water I me I don't shower every day anymore sorry um to kind of serve water you know but yet you know we're hitting you know it's costing me basically each quarter my share of the 40% but that was over $450 per month to a quarter and on the rear so it really needs to be something done um I have toyed with the idea and I hope I don't get to that point where maybe I meet with the other cont to associations and and talk about litigation thank you very much thank you I saw a hand up Angel's in the front I'll take Angela y oh I'm not timing anybody but let's keep it tight please as I changed my glasses keep it tight glasses thank you Angela binda tell meeting member the tax burdens for all properties residential and Commercial should Rise by the same dollar amount for similarly valued properties this year $700,000 home and a $700,000 commercial property will not see a similar rise in taxes due to the senior tax credit born only by residents and valuations unless a tax split occurs I would like to see a 1.2 tax shift so the burden of rising taxes is not settled solely on residents one fallacy often repeated in this room when discussing s taxes by residents and select board members is that businesses have left or will leave reading if there's an increased tax split that's just not true noted Economist Barry Bluestone who spoken an economic development conference in Reading several years ago invited by then Town manager Bob stated that businesses do not choose where to set up shop based on the town's tax rate and that the tax rate is not responsible for attracting or driving out businesses let's put that notion to rest one select board member has stated during these discussions that when the town picks up the garbage of businesses then he will support a split tax rate another select board member often repeats that he's been against a split tax rate since he moved to town and opened business as it is never a good time to raise taxes on Commercial properties it's also never a good time to raise taxes on residents gas prices groceries basic necessities prices are all going up is it really fair to burden families with young kids just getting by with higher taxes the reading food pantry is in great need of donations as a record number of households are needing Services of the food pantry to feed their families it's not the time to BR them either tomorrow night the finance committee will be discussing a new kilum school and a new center for active Living Senior Center with great tax implications for residents I imagine the select board will be will be supporting these costly projects now would be a good time to let the citizens of reading know that you understand the tax implications of those projects now would be a good time for a sh shift to 1.2 when the select board goes to the town for debt exclusion or an override to pay for these projects why shouldn't residents have the same attitude that select board members have regarding other services I didn't use killum why should I pay for it do I really want to voluntarily raise my own taxes when I know the current select board doesn't seem to understand the burden of compounded tax increases year after- year on residents or is it time to consider that we sometimes need to do what is right for the collective good even when we might not personally benefit after years of supporting businesses through negligible split rate and other economic benefits it's time for the select board to let residents know that they're looking out for the struggling citizens and families too not just seniors and will not settle them with another tax bill with unnecessarily High increases when you ask me to support kilum which I want to do and other projects that could be viewed as wants not needs I will remember how you supported or didn't support the residents of reading tonight so please consider a 1.2 tax shift for reasonable tax increases for everyone thank youe thank you for letting me speak to you um David Zeke at sandborn Street and guess what I'm speaking on water rates for multif family dwellings again um and I I think it's good news I think that the town staff has figured out how to um adjust the the water rates for multi family dwellings and what to do where where to put where to change the data and I think that's a great development uh and at and I urge the board to go ahead and and approve that plan and to start it going to uh ease the burden on uh thousands of residents and multif family dwellings um the second part of that is that I also know that you've been struggling over the over our restaurant at the postmark I don't first first I don't think the restaurant is a is a critical path item you go forward without that but I also think that there is a very simple approach that we could take to to address the restaurant that doesn't involve futzing around with water meters or water lines and it's it's something that we I'd like to talk to the staff and and also the postmark board about but I I think it's not as complicated as as it as it appears and so thank you for your time thank you anyone else yes I'm Kathy Zeke I also live at 8 sandborn Street in the postmark condom miniums and um I'd like to um speak on a very similar topic to what we have been hearing um also on the water rates that residents of multif family buildings are currently paying I've been at this Podium a few times since June 2023 U pointing out the inequity and the need for select board to implement a fix I was pleased to learn earlier this month that our hardworking Town staff found a billing solution in munus um and I absolutely appreciate and applaud the expertise and the persistence that they brought to the problem as well as the continuing conversations that we've been having with Jane and some of the other staff the key issue the central goal is ensuring the residents of multif family buildings pay Equitable rates for their water usage to other residents in town you heard from Phil some statististics about the burden that that places the current rates place on residents of multi on family buildings um and that's something that the select board can and should fix tonight the restaurant in the postmark post 1917 creates a special case that doesn't exist in the 50 some other multif family buildings in town it's Unique it's a one-off situation it's gotten a lot of attention it's taken a lot of mental energy from our staff however as David points out there are some additional Solutions um that we would be happy to talk with you about to take care of that and I want to end with a request please do not let this one case of this one business this one restaurant in one building hold up implementing Equitable Billings for the 20% of reading residents who live in multifam buildings it's something that can be fixed and I urge you to fix it now now thank you you anyone else in the room yes there's one more Y at least thank you John Sullivan again eat s Street on the same subject thank you for indulging me again um I really wanted to thank M Wellman for in contacting us and working towards the solution very collaboratively and for bringing I have to assume a sizable percentage of the public works department to tour the postmark and see our system and sit down and sort of collaborate on what kind of solutions we could have that's very appreciative of that and I want to reiterate what what David and Kathy have said and what this gentleman is talking about we're not the only ones here it's not just the postmark there other buildings and this needs an equitable solution for all multif family owner owner occupied dwellings so thank you thank you anyone else in the room good evening Tera Gregory Pleasant Street I believe that transparency is one of the most important attributes for elected officials earlier this year Mr Bashi and Mr Haley were both informed by the state's ethics commission that they had to recuse from the MBTA community's discussion and Mr Haley also needed to recuse from the Brandy Court parking discussion and the Haven Street landscape project discussion because they are both commercial property owners in town during the tax rate discussion in the last select board meeting on October 15th it was stated that reading comprises of 6.3% commercial properties compared to 93.7% Residential Properties this means that Mr Bachi and Mr Haley over represent commercial property owners in town on the select board and are able to set tax rates for their commercial properties which appears to be a conflict of interest I ask that when you have the discussion tonight on tax rates that I would appreciate if Mr Bachi and Mr Haley would clarify the guidance from the state ethics commission for them as commercial property owners in town so that residents can have confidence that their elected officials are transparent trustworthy and acting in residents best interests not their own my understanding is that a financial conflict of interest occurs when a topic on a topic unless 10% of residents share that same Financial in interest did the state ethics commission clear you both to participate in the in this issue where you both have a direct Financial impact on the properties you own thank you there's no one else in the room anyone on Zoom Caitlyn yes there is hold on one moment hi I I got a message to unmute I am not Mark doxer but apparently it zoomed me in through our family account under Mark's name I apologize this is Linda snow doer beava Road um and just wanted to thank the select board for approving The adhoc Establishment Committee in order to establish an annual commemoration of Bill Russell's Legacy um and I want can you hear me okay yes thank you sorry um and I wanted oh I didn't turn on the video I'm sorry here I am not me and I wanted to thank Jane Wellman for uploading the description and the charge for the committee online and also remind folks who are interested in being active on this committee that now is the time to sign up to register thank you Jane for doing that and I hope that there will be people that sign up um I hope too that the select board will add to their agenda um either during reports today or under another meeting about what's going to happen in terms of the select board designate or whether there will be a select board member on the committee one way or the other it's really important to get this planning off the ground to get it started so um I would really like to ask the select board to keep that process moving so in the next year we can actually have our first pilot event by the H committee the second thing I wanted to ask completely separate non secator last year at the last spring at the town meeting um one of the instructional motions that was passed was about the accommodations for religious practices policy that was being requested from the town to consider and I just wanted to remind the town Administration um that it would be really helpful to consider that accommodation policy so that there are not town events scheduled on the holiest day of the Jewish year or on Ramadan when Jewish people or Muslim people can't eat and you have a beer fest um it's important to respect every resident in town um and so lots of times things are scheduled just because people don't know and if there's an accommodation policy the special dates will get on a calendar and people will be able to anticipate conflicts when they're planning for their Town participation events so I thank town meeting for supporting that instructional motion and I know I have brought a booklet on Jewish holidays to the administrators I hope other people will do the same for their religion so that um the town can create an accommodation policy so all in town are respected thank you very much for this chance to talk thank you K anyone else on Zoom no one else raising their hand NOP all right Le on reports Chris thank you car um The Kill School building committee uh met last week and went over the various um options coming for how the building is going to end up being powered uh between geothermal solar gas oil you name it uh they've been hashing out all this stuff um and at the next meeting uh we're going to be presented with the actual cost associated with uh picking the separate options um so that's one of the more important meetings because uh the number that's been talked about with kilum is on the higher end assuming the higher um energy cost whatever we end up going with but now we're going to finally get the numbers and see really um what things shake up so uh tune in for that then the charter committee also met uh we reviewed the uh uh Charter changes uh with Tom um absent of the rmld changes which uh Phil was on vacation um so we're going to be reviewing them at a a following move uh movie Yes meeting um and just that's kind of uh the onesie TWY hangup is the rmld stuff everything else for the most part is pretty much all scored away in terms of uh all the changes um but it is going to have to end up going there's two different ways that we can vote which direction it goes it looks like it's going to the voters plus the state delegation plus you name it it's going to that so because there's like three items that we're changing in there with the recall process Town manager job description and there was one other one that IA flagged as potentially having us go down this road um and then I attended the new Resident open house um so a lot of new residents obviously um in town staff as well as other board and committees that were there um they really put on a good event as always in just seeing you know we see people out and about in town but to see them all in one place and just conversing it's an excellent event followed by the uh Halloween event that unfortunately was canceled but not really the downtown small businesses still held the uh a bunch of them still did a candy today which was great um I did see police uh doing all the crosswalks ETC because there was still a ton of people out whether they got the memo or decided to become me and just uh do this anyway um so I really appreciate uh all the businesses and and the families that came out that got to make the decision for themselves and that's it Lissa um I also attended the just to thank the library and the Chamber ofer for organizing it it was the first time I've ever attended that um I wanted to make uh town meeting members aware if I know that La already sent an email out about the NBTA Community Ino session for town meeting members there was one on Wednesday but there will be another one on Wednesday November 6th at the high school library at 7:00 and that will just go over the two town meeting articles on MBTA communities um just I think it is a good way for town meeting members that may haven't been paying attention to just gather all that information before town meeting um and then also I would encourage residents to either tune tune in by Zoom or attend the fincom meeting tomorrow night because they're going to go over the kilm project and the center project so be great for residents to be our to those projects on that meetings at some Library thanks Mark thanks Carlo um so I think we what I'll do is just kind of a a reading Center for active living update um so three things are taking place one the town is hired an owner project manager I get the name wrong always but I think it's Turner and towns andhi I did it right how awesome is that um the lead person is Chuck Adams and he will do a quick introduction to the community at the financial form tomorrow night number two um I believe that the soil testing actually took place at Simon's way and we hope to get some initial results at the November 4th um permanent building committee meeting speaking of the November 4th permanent building committee meeting um there are a lot of things kind of on that agenda so the PBC now um the PBC that works with recal so it's augmented by Nancy zimac from Council on Aging and myself from the select board um we'll be talking talking about site selection so they'll be reviewing And discussing the site selection material and any questions that PBC members will have um the expectation um is that there'll be a vote um on site selection taking place not at the November 4th meeting by a meeting later in November and from there the plan would be to bring back to the select board uh what now would be the recommendation Council on Aging uh recal and then PBC for the select board to take action and then initiate the activities from our designer architect to do the schematic drawings um the funding for that is already uh in place it came from arpa funds that like we allocated more than a year ago now um and allow that project to get back on track um we kind of had a summer vacation um while we to get the owner's project manager and now that that's in place the goal would be to be able to come back to the community um the early part of next year year so sometime in q1 of of 25 with the drawings and all those activities in time to um get a lot of information to the community work with the community get to town meeting for so that is a lot of action-packed stuff to happen in November from the PBC that's it did you say recal there's no more recal so I said recal from before the recommendation came to this board from recal about Simon's way as the preferred site yeah and agreed there was no more recal at his Sunset just want clarify Karen you got a new acronym coming we could use maybe we need a logo or something I think we need to think about that okay great um so I had the opportunity to attend the climate Beacon conference which was hosted by the boss Society Society of architect and a general sponsor made it available to all MMA members to attend and I came out of there really pumped because these were all the folks in Massachusetts who are working hard to mitigate mitigate the damage we've done to our climate and we continue to do to our climate um buildings are the second largest emitter of carbon um after um cars and trucks so um everybody there is committed to um moving the needle in the right direction going forward um the priority for new buildings being the health of occupants and and you know today all of buildings got a good workout first good workout since the pandemic on how that filtering is working because the air quality as you know unfortunately was dismal today so fully everything was fine um so um let's see I also attended the school building committee and um you know I agree the committee is making um slow but steady progress towards a building infrastructure um which is a a green powered um um infrastructure Direction so um it will take full advantage of all MSA msba and all federal incentives for solar and um geothermal that was a specific question I asked of the designers if you have 50% geothermal in a project you are fully eligible for all of that inflation reduction act um money so you're going to need that for your building too it's it's a beautiful thing and in the the pictures that are available on the kilum website you can see in the upper left North Northwest northeast corner they have identified a location for the wells and you know there's ongoing discussion about minimizing disruptions to neighborhoods and how do we design how do we um put it into the schedule so that it doesn't interrupt the flow but other than that um it's making excellent progress and I don't recall Chris you could correct me if I'm wrong I don't recall hearing any negative feedback from the msba from the building that was submitted that's the other thing that we're kind of in the process of um finalizing and um um the other the other comment I was going to make is that this is going to be a significant Capital project for our community but um I want to be clear that this is a very large school that we need to versus the old kilum and the reasons for that are the old kilum didn't meet current today's current educational requirements and with an additional request from the school department to create create a central prek facility which added eight additional classrooms and related administrative um and support spaces so so those are the cost drivers for this project um you know as a community we we decide that schools are important and um we'll all come together to get this done but um I just want to be clear on what's driving the cost of this project um had the opportunity to meet with Matt before the last rmld meeting and I appreciate um Matt updating me he did meet with the general manager and um of rmld and also the superintendent and you know we're keeping up our our support for um a green and sustainably built kilum and at the rmld meeting the general manager confirmed that the um capital for solar for battery backup for Eves is in the capital plan for rmld and I hope to have a copy of that for the fincom tomorrow night when they when they talk about that um let's see I also um had a meeting with the MMA fiscal policy committee which I've been serving this year every year the MMA which represents 351 communities in the Bay State um provides a resolution in January to the governor and the State House what are what are the key funding priorities usually they're funding what do we need so all the regulars more for roads more for schools um the senior circuit breaker is um a strong candidate in the resolution this year and I I did ask them I recommended that you be a speaker at the January convention if I don't know if you're already scheduled thanks you know I took the credit and you know Jonathan Jonathan Chimes is the chair of the committee he's from Wakefield so we gave you know we're like giving you lots of Kudos um but thank you you've been a strong Advocate I saw you last January at the MMA convention so I appreciate that work that you've been doing it it has been a good thing and more communities are interested and then the other new item there is um some legislation pending um proposing funding a new authority authority for building municipal buildings not just reading other communities are dealing with aging senior centers aging town halls with not ADA Compliant bathrooms on every floor um DPW buildings um so lots of communities are in the same boat so we're going to it is highly likely that the MMA will put forth a resolution encouraging the adoption of this legislation to to fund um an authority to help us keep our capital buildings in good shape and ready for the future so that was exciting and um I was um a I was was too bad about the trick-or-treating today on my business generally participates it's one of my favorite events I I do appreciate the eight or nine different updates I got from the communication schem that it was cancelled and um you know I'm sure the health folks didn't take this lightly and I'm so glad the um air is better now but it it was pretty bad this afternoon so Safety First and next year it'll be even better I'm sure thank you uh we had a CPA committee meeting last week and we just mainly talked about how we're going to present this still hopefully in 26 and uh we're going have our meeting schedule we kind of dial it back a bit but uh we might meet one more time this year to discuss uh how we're going to go forward and how we're going to organize and you know present this to the the community have a forum and really advocate for this and how how good it is for the community um other than that um I don't know if I mentioned this last time but we had a meeting with um Greg at rmld and how rmld is trying to advance their footprint and increase their campus size over the a and tied into Eastern Gateway so rmld is working on um some Acquisitions on the property and uh in in conjunction with the town as far as you know how we're going to open up that road if that happens and and make it more accessible and have it as a cut through for future development so they're working on that and uh you know Town staff at the meeting you know give their full support and I think uh next couple years you might see some activity over there even sooner and that's it Matt okay thank you so the connected reading the the it used to be called the uh new residence open house at the library it's now connected reading went very well thank you I know a lot of you attended um I want to thank everybody at the library the chamber the town for their hard work on that event we've got a lot of great feedback got to meet a lot of new residents and existing residents so I'm looking forward to next year already um the financial Forum as we mentioned is tomorrow night 7 p.m. at the library we'll have an update on all the major projects going on in town so that's something to certainly keep an eye on also Veterans Day right around the corner I can't believe it um November is right around the corner so November 11th at Memorial Park at the site where we have the new flag pole display will be our ceremony on that day I'm looking forward to that um we received word last week that we are receiving a $500,000 OneStop for growth Mass Works Grant um for improvements in the Walker Brook Drive area so that's um very much needed and I wanted to thank the state Administration and state delegation for that Grant um that'll be coming up next year um also I wanted to mention that because a lot of people saw this on the news the the reading officer that was unfortunately hit while conducting a traffic stop over the weekend has recovered and is back on the job he got back on the job right away he's a he's a real trooper um so I want to thank him for his service and just remind people to be safe out there drive safely especially when you see a cruiser pulled over on on the side of the road so definitely be safe and you know I was um also disappointed about today's downtown trick or treat it's an event we look forward to every year unfortunately the reports that we were all getting at the time this morning um showed unsafe conditions that that still are out there and May and may um persist over the next few days depending on winds I know the fires are still burning in several sounds luckily not in Reading um but we want to just remind people to be careful out there the website has a lot of great information and um the health department as well so just wanted to say that and it's too bad we couldn't do the event but we aired on the side of caution in that case so and I think that's the updates I have today Jane any comments um you've kept me very busy for which I am grateful because job security is a wonderful um so uh you'll see a number of the initiatives I've been working on with our town staff tonight we we'll go through them um it's been my pleasure to meet with the folks from postmark over this last week they were fantastic to talk to and were open their books and open the doors and gave me information that we needed um and our town staff has really responded just enthusiastically and it's just been great so um I hopeful that we can uh bring that discussion forward um you've all mentioned on number number of other events in the community so I won't add to that but um recal and the killum and um I know more about water meters now than I ever and not enough but a lot more than I ever thought I would know that's very exciting so um thank you very much alrighty next we have a hearing Chris if you want to open that up yep to the inhabitant of the T reading notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held in accordance with Massachusetts General law chapter 369 of the acts of 1982 on the issue of determining a residential factor and assessing the percentage of tax burden to be born by each class of property for fisical fiscal year 2025 the hearing will be held on Tuesday October 29 2024 at 700m in the select board meeting room at Town Hall 16 low Street Reading Ma and remotely on Zoom the five classes of property involved are residential open space commercial industrial person property a copy of the proposed document regarding this topic will be available in the selectboard packet on the website at www. rting of.gov all interested parties are invited to attend the hearing or may submit their comments and writing over by email to town manager c. reading. ma.us by order of Matthew a Coralis Esquire Town manager thank you um so we had a our preview with Victor uh at our last meeting so hopefully we we can keep this brief and let everyone kind of indicate what they'd like to see um and I'll start with Melissa oh W um so as I said in the um at our last meeting I'm not I I'm hesitant to jump the commercial um split um as a big jump I mean because our commercial base is so low um that's outlined in one of these slides that Victor um gave us I do appreciate and completely understand the um feedback from residents that you know the jump between the commercial I'm trying to find the slide where it has the different phras of what you will go up next year for each commercial and residential so I I did look through these slides at home um find the exact side I'm looking for of what the um split would be if we kept it the same or if we did increase the split slightly um like I said I'm very hesitant to jump to I would not look to jump to 1.2 um just because our businesses our small businesses in town are already hurting they pay for things that are not included in our residential tax R but like I said a few minutes ago I do appreciate and understand as a resident myself that you know residents are also paying for a lot so I would support a shift to the 1.11 um like I said which then brings the increase on average residential homes and um commercial closer of what that increase would be for this year I cannot find that slide I apologize that I was looking for um page 21 in the packet page 21 in the packet um but I would support 1.11 after we be just at home and then that brings the um increase much closer for both residential business do you know what that increase is Chris Kaz yeah to 1.11 it goes to an increase on commercial of 120 and an increase on residential of 95 as opposed to an increase on commercial of $28 and an increase on residential of 104 yes if we kept it the same not not the 1.2 yes yeah the same so that was my opinion after looking through everything that we I would go to 1.11 um I you know and that's not an easy decision because I don't want to hurt our businesses I know that they are struggling but residents are also struggling so I hope that that could be a good compromise for everyone Mark thanks Carlo um so I think that we have been very accommodating um to the to the businesses in town especially over the last two to three years in having almost no increase and in fact although the the split kind of changed we had um rates going down slightly or just slight change and I think that it was the right thing to do at the time I also think it's time to start moving the split to a higher level um a number of the the speakers this morning talked about that also the burden on the residence is um is Hefty we have a lot to do in this town we do have two big capital projects in front of us for the residents to consider and I think that they need to understand that it's the whole Community the businesses and the residents that are there I think it's important that we take a look harder this year at residential tax rates than we have in the last few partially because we've we haven't moved past covid but we have um we've been very sensitive to it over the last several years and now the impact I think has really been more on consumers than it has been on on businesses I too am sensitive to the needs of of businesses I take Miss B's Point excuse me from earlier about the the tax rate really not being much of a determin if at all in terms of our business businesses go where it don't go um and I think that the vision that we need to have is to get over several years to a much higher split I don't think we need to necessarily get to 1.5 but we need to move forward because we've been so reserved over the last several years I think that the 1.2 is is a number to Target um you know I I appreciate the notion of kind of changing from 1.1 I think 1.1 or less really is kind of um not addressing the issue for residents at all and and I think we can't do that I think we need to move I think moving toward 1.2 makes sense 1.11 for me I think is not really moving I think it's got to move closer to that 1.2 level and that that's what I will to support thank you Karen um thanks um I appreciate the comments of the two previous speakers um my overriding thought at this point is that I would hate for our kilum school project to fail at the Battle Ballot Box because we have overburdened R residents with unfair taxes um and I would have always been an advocate of Equitable tax policy decisions um as a as a personal philosophy I am I am not going to be voting for policies that put more burdens on the residents whether it is water rate policies or additional meter policies or residential tax policies I I don't believe in tax policies that favor special groups um and I think our job up here as a board in a community with more than 90% residential um inhabitants is to come up with policies that benefit the majority without um without disregarding all of the things that our residents would like to have including you know a thriving downtown and um so we' had a couple of great new businesses open up this year and I'm happy to see that I also didn't see a big large Exodus of businesses over the past couple years being a small business owner is very difficult I do know that and I can bring your attention to the 25% reduction in the volume of home sales and reading um as far as the housing market goes what seea CNN has told us is that the data on the housing market in 2024 has been really Frozen uh we said the same thing in 2023 and um maybe there was an expectation it couldn't get any worse but 2024 did get worse and I don't see any change I I don't have a crystal ball but every small business you do this because you love what you do you don't do it because it's easy so you know I I totally understand that on the other hand I don't expect free ride so um one of the things I did want to point out are that our economy is healthy and I spent the time looking at Key performance indicators because as Mark referenced when we were in a pandemic when the stock markets lost a lot of value and um things were shut down we did make accommodations to support our businesses um specifically I can mention um cutting the liquor license fees in half for one year was happy to do that um and um you know Expediting outdoor dining permitting everything we could do we did but as far as the economy goes um the Atlantic uh the June 2024 copy of the Atlantic noted that if the United States economy were an athlete right now it would be Peak LeBron James if it were a popar it would be Peak Taylor Swift so this is a far cry for what we were all experiencing during the pandemic and we can all be grateful for that um grow GDP gross domestic product is up 29 .2% which is up 6% from a year ago and roughly 2third of that is consumer spending so you know that's another healthy indicator um of our economy being in great shape um let's see um consumer spending continues to be supported by solid wage gains even as the labor market has slowed a bit little bit interest rates that half a point cut that helped businesses that helped residences that was a really good thing that that the FED did and it will spur additional investment in our economy looking at stock market performance s S&P is up 23% year to date Dow Jones is up 12% year to date NASDAQ is up 26% year-to date inflation is currently at 2.4% employment is 4.1% generally 5% would be considered you know a good goal we're at 4% unemployment um anybody's trying to hire you know still knows it's not that easy so let me just make clear we're in a booming economy and um and that will be good for all of the businesses um the final thing I wanted to share was that I got an update on the food pantry stats because that's the thing that this board has been you know willing to help with arpa funds and been dismayed by you know hearing about the increases in their client base so the current update September 2023 um The Client List was 286 in September 20 thou 2024 The Client List reached 361 that's a 25 incre per increase in the reading food pantries clients in a single year um and and I specifically asked about children as a population of their clients um in March of 2023 of the 2024 reading food pantry clients 48 were children today of the 361 people reaching out for help with the food for food insecurity 82 of them are children this is almost a 50% increase in children needing food assistance and that is after free lunch and free breakfast were implemented in the schools I don't have a specific submission of Deeds or um St Vincent to Paul but you know anecdotal evidence talking to people around town they are stretched and trying to do as much as they can um and um so so yes getting back to we're at a critical juncture for this community we have residents who have been bearing over-the-top increases in their property taxes inflation that we've all dealt with which thankfully is is hopefully in the permanently in the rearview mirror um and I would like to support um something much much more aggressive than 1.11 and um 1.2 sounds fine I I would I would go along with that Chris thanks Carlo um I'm not a uh big uh Financial expert uh in everything that karon had just referenced over there uh but I do know that people uh that uh have offshore bank accounts exist for a reason I do know that people go down to Florida for reason I do know all of these things exist because people don't want to pay their taxes they want to hide the money they want to cover it somewhere else they want to pay less do whatever so to hear Massachusetts and reading doesn't do this I don't know what to tell you you can have 700 people come in here and and give a speech on that and I will not listen to 700 people because it's common sense to me um it's like I can't even believe I'm disgusted in this part I have a dozen Vehicles registered uh to my address in in reading a dozen do you know how much insurance rate up insurance rates went up compared to everybody else everyone else has one car two cars the rates go up through the roof try having 12 that's what businesses have that's what they have and who's getting the money from my dozen Vehicles the town of Reading Massachusetts as well but I could just move my things to somewhere else in Rhode Island one of my other uh businesses down there instead I could Nothing Stops me from doing it um so just to hear that that commercial I I understand I'm very cognizant about uh resident struggling I hear it all the time it's not a good position to be in for any of us up here all of us wants to do the right thing I I unequivocally state that Mark Karen Carlo Melissa me Jane and Matt I want to do the right thing up here uh so if we could help someone out Case by case basis we're all doing it I know we all have goodness in our hearts like that um so uh just the the struggle with business stuff is real the inflation that exists on stuff that I used to be able to get for $100 and I PID 150 now that's like crazy you you you like I understand food goes up that's everyday Necessities that people need but on items that I'm using on a daily basis going from 1 to 150 and then whatever Carlo is going to say with food cost forget about it um uh I just don't see how those things can't be taken into account in certain situations so I created a handy dandy chart that I showed Jane already but we have two options we have $11.40 and you get your trash included or you can pay $12.50 56 cents and not have your trash included which rate are we picking up here that we would like to pay for ourselves in reading or anybody in this room or anyone outside if you had to pick which rate you're going to pick which one are you picking 99 of 100 because there's always going to be one outlier is picking the lower rate that has your trash included well that's the residential rate currently in Reading at 1.10 uh a lot of people would make you to believe that there is this massive inequity between the commercial and in residential rate and there is this is the inequity up here that is a 10% difference that commercial units are paying as opposed to residential 10% and if we were to actually eliminate the split tax in Reading um which I'm not advocating for spoiler if we were actually eliminate that this number would go to $148 and the commercial one would go down to $11.40 a different of 8 if we got rid of the commercial thing and then we could have real inequity issues solved in reic otherwise this inequity issue where commercial units pay uh commercial business owners pay significantly more than everyone else will continue to exist Point Blank end of discussion as far as I'm concerned you will never get anybody else to pay this bottom rate except this is what commercial units pay and if you wanted to go ahead and flip this around where residential would pay 1256 and Commercial pays 1140 that number is not even in the packet Victor probably would never go through this scale uh on the reverse because nobody would ever pay for it and there'd be 100 people lined up to take our spots uh at the next next election if we did that um so for me this is inequitable looking at the rates in here like Melissa had referenced at 1.11 that brings commercial and residential within uh $25 of each other so at 111 the residential increase is going up by 95 and the commercial increase is going up by 120 and to go ahead and pick 1.2 like I said last time you would have to wager $980 right now for the New York Yankees to win the World Series against the Dodgers to win a grand total of $6 just like this nobody in this room is picking the Yankees to win over the Dodgers who are up three nothing right now uh in the world series for me it's 111 it's it's crystal clear and I'm going against the clear inequity issue I will now uh hang from the front so everybody else can really see what the number is as we continue the discussion thanks well it's fun to go last for once on this topic um we hear the word Equity a lot in this town and which is a good word but $980 versus $6 is not Equitable few my colleagues said that's Equitable let's be Equitable let's go to 1.3 folks almost two grand to minus 56 that's not Equitable let's go to a future board that goes to 1.5 almost four grand minus 200 for the residents that's not Equitable so what's Equitable I don't have the exact answer but as I stated the last meeting and as I've stated for a number of years I was never in favor of a split tax and even more so now that we're at 6.3 and I eventually to say in a couple years that'll be even lower um don't have a crystal ball but I'm not going to cite National statistics that mean nothing to the town of reading uh I have personal experiences that I I've shared in the past if you're a small business owner Point Blank your costs are anywhere from 20 to 40% more but yes we're in the business for ourselves we employ people we pay taxes we pay excise tax we pay all these taxes and we always want to pay less on all fronts so I'm going to Advocate to keep it the same it sounds sounds like I'm outnumbered but I'm going to stick to my steadfast policy of not wanting to split it I I I'd like to go reverse but that's probably a little crazy but I would love that if everyone anyone else would support me but uh 1.1 I I like that number we did a small increase last year 1.2 is you know it moves the needle quite a bit but uh you know where does it end you know we kick CPA to 2027 six and even that makes the body nervous to be honest with you of the timing of that uh with Kellum and uh the senior center you know we're going to give the old College try and I'm actually advocating for it but a lot of people might not agree with that coming for me but so I like to keep it at 1.1 um I I don't know if we should do three motions or a one motion I have heard 1.2 I've heard 1.11 so I've heard .1 so I'm in the minority so I will I will you know take that off the table so we don't have three motions uh I'd like to start with a motion for the just go in order of a you know lower rate have motion that we can have more discussion if needed yeah so this public sorry public yeah my bad I just you just soon as you caught me uh anyone in the room have any comments I have a question what can you speak on what the State ethics board said to you guys about your ability to participate in this discussion uh same thing they said to me the past four years thanks that would be never reach out to them weren't you told earlier this year that you needed to recuse from MBTA communities because you're property commercial property owners downtown we're not discussing MBTA communities I realized that but you were told to recuse because you had a financial in financial conflict of interest this is the same thing okay thank you Kaitlin anyone on Zoom no one raising their hand nope all say a question Mr chair yeah just a question for Victor um last year when we did the rates um what what can you go through what the median changes were commercial and residential the dollars so this year and we have the the chart that we're looking at um that goes through the different factors and it talks about what the median property increase would be by residential versus commercial do you have that from last year mark I'm good I didn't say did you have it in your head once I'm done with meetings the the information I just my Rec elction is that last year there was a decrease in commercial and an increase in residential correct let's see are you asking did something in here might to that Medium property medium Med Medi property yeah I don't know about commercial commercial went down is my recollection not by much but I don't know well the commercial increase uh where am I at no oh commercial went up last page of my slide looking at average commercial this year it only looks like a 64% increase for 25 you're thinking two years prior Mark okay where it went down three 0.15 for 23 well the residential went up by it's another slide that's in the packet I come prepared my man I just might not know where it is but it's in there this could be the residential it's page 23 in the packet page number no he's not right when you say that it's not right page 23 in the PDF do you have 95 pages in The PDF I have page 23 yeah it's uh page 23 at the bottom it shows okay so that's the commercial went down by 3.15 in that year 2023 that's the total right that's the grand total not the medium though so yeah yeah so I was wondering if you had it in 2023 the average residential increase was 3.73% compared to whatever I said earlier for the commercial that went down 3.15% so you had an over 6% explain right right that was 20203 yeah thanks so um yeah I just I want to you know the discussion of equity comes up and sticking little little things over the screen over here the residential property owners have picked up the bulk of what's going on and we're at the bulk of the community it's true and that's where the big changes are but a change of $100 is actually going to become more interesting to people as we talk about the big project projects and I know we've talked the issues through I just wanted to just make it clear that we've been over history especially the last few years very very careful about what we're doing and that's the reason why I think we need to change board this year thank you said Kaitlyn no one on Zoom sorry no one on Zoom wanting to talk nope all right close public hearing move that the select board close the hearing establishing the y 25 tax rate second for the hearing okay forar yeah any discussion none all those in favor closing the hearing zero thank you all right do you have any motions ready to go I just had one other comment if I could um uh just like in an upcoming agenda item I get out of this seat when I get to get out of this seat um it's been crystal clear over my four years here that I leave when I'm supposed to and uh in terms of Ethics violations uh people are zero for two uh against me so uh little background on that all right can we do a motion for the 1.11 factor and and vict do you have all the fancy numbers ready for us do we need those yet got them right here the six okay all right let's vote let's do a motion for the 1.11 first yeah well first well I guess we could do that we have um the open space all that stuff do you guys do we need to discuss that we I don't think so okay open land no all right we have to vote on it but yeah yeah to vote on but no discussion I I want I wanted to I want it to be discussed if needed but I don't think we all right let's go whatever order you have yeah uh move that the select board Grant an open space discount well not Grant so move that the select board not Grant an open space discount for fiscal year 2025 second any discussion seeing none all those in favor 5 Z thank you uh move that the select board not adopt a residential exemption for fiscal year 2025 second 25 discuss 25% yeah 25 y That's you said Mark second right any discussion see none those in favor 5 zero okay uh move that the select board adopt a residential factor of what did you want first 1.1 one the factor as indicated is 0.992 605 so moved move that the select board reduct a residential factor of 0.992 605 for f school year 2025 second second I heard Mark first um any discussion all those in favor oh wait scratch that all those in favor three Caitlyn all those opposed two all right that is settled are we done with we done with we got one more one more uh move that the select board Grant I'm sorry moveed that the select would not Grant a small commercial exemption for fiscal year 2025 second unless uh any discussion sing Oh discussion yes okay sorry Goode um thank you Carlo I believe that uh if the uh our state uh delegates can uh work on squaring away this commercial exemption for real small commercial businesses not just in Reading uh I'll take all of Massachusetts uh at that point but just changing it to be uh correct then we're going to be able to actually move these numbers the way that Mark and Karen uh you guys are uh advocating for because then we would be able to give actual small businesses in Reading uh a reduction and then charge the larger commercial businesses more um and then these numbers can work so I think that we should all be rowing in the same direction on this whatever Outreach that you have uh with Hagerty Jason Lewis uh and Brad Jones whatever we can do on this is how we're going to be able to move the needle I understand all the other factors that Mark had mentioned uh and all the projects we have going on I understand that but we are going to be behind the eightball uh forever if this is not changed um we all want to give small businesses a break at least I do um and like I mentioned I would exempt myself from taking any actually I have more than 10 people now so I'm no longer smallart um so uh I don't have to worry about that so I think that if we can whatever work we can do on actually getting this pushed forward um I think that we should do and I'll speak to anyone anything whatever we have to do just rework the language that's in here so a actual small business exemption is a small business exemption it's that simple question U do you know if um any of our delegation has filed legislation for done so I I spoke to Brad Jones and and Hagerty and he I read it at the last meeting what the update was that they're going to be retaking it up again in January or something like that posted what's that you follow oh yes but like I'm not I understand this is in more in your wheelhouse Karen and I don't care if I have to work with you on this I'll do it but I know that you spent a lot of time in in Boston doing these kind of kind of things so I'm not against uh just whatever influence that you may have to actually get something like this moving forward well I was just thinking that that is what the MMA fiscal policy committee that does if there's actual legislation I would and yeah I'm good I'd be happy to bring it up and and you yeah whatever whatever we can do attention absolutely and you can as well because you're also a member of the MMA we all are I know but it's more I'm giving you credit here Karen that you that you're more in tune with this kind of language and everything I I one person though so more voices are better and that's how we stop the bi Mass plant by all working together as a select board so y okay we'll just keep us posted thank you all those in favor me just clarification so the motion is to not Grant the exemption correct okay thank you we already had a second discussed all those in favor 5 Zer thank you thank you Victor that's the news I'm out of here thank you so much folks have a good day see you next year have a good night and have a good day tomorrow all right every day after that we have another hearing folks Chris uh no no Mark Mark okay so um so the public hearing first open the public hearing oh yeah please to the inhabitants of the town of Reading Please take notice the select Board of the town of reading will hold a public hearing on October 29th 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the select Board Room at Town Hall 16 L Street Reading Mass or also available remotely on Zoom to act on proposed changes to the following traffic and parking regulations I'm on the same thing right on the right thing amendment number 202 24-8 article 12.1 to enact pursuant to article 5.4.0 unless otherwise designated parking within the Brandy Court Municipal parking lot shall be limited to a maximum of 4 hours between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Mondays Tuesdays Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays and Amendment 202 24-9 article 12.1 to enact pursuant to article 5.4.1 unless otherwise designated parking within the reading upper mun ipal parking lot shall be limited to a maximum of 4 hours between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Mondays Tuesdays Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays a copy of the proposed documents regarding this topic will be in the selectboard packet on the website at dd. ring a.gov all interested parties are invited to attend the hearing in person or remotely via Zoom or may submit their comments in writing or by email to town manager c. reading.ma Us by order of Matthew a corelis town manager thank you so uh in our packet there was a memo from uh police department probably through pttf and from uh staff um from Andrew I hope everyone got a chance to read it uh they gave us some feedback and their comments and what's happened in the past few weeks which you know we were all afraid that would happen and that's why we're having this hearing to uh bring back uh you know regulations that were have been lapsed for uh a few weeks because we uh put a pause so um I I I read through everything I don't know four hours I'll just open it up I don't know four hours is you know I I read the memos and and and it said if we went to two hours that would make it tough for our enforcement officer but four hours that's what it was before and that was a problem and I I the the the whole employee thing so much work has been done and it's very disappointing to hear that employees are using the Lots again very disappointing and this is a pause folks it it's not uh we're not turning anything off permanently so if people don't people don't change their behavior uh it's not going to bode well for them in January um so I'm hoping the employees Park where they should Park we did have an increase in permits request we can disc we can discuss about you know lowering those fees in the future at a future meeting but it was very disappointing to hear how many employees and again maybe this will change but I I don't know four hours is right I'll just leave it there for now Mark want is a comment but also I I see Lieutenant Jones in the background is there anything that you wanted to to share with the board beyond the memos uh no I was here in case you okay all right so just thank you hours was just what it was before so now we have nothing in place right to enforce anything there yeah so we got to do something free all correct okay so so let me see so um so I I um I Echo a lot of what you said Carlo in terms of what's going on and but I'd ask a couple of things one is we heard um from a very active number of local businesses about their concerns with the the kios and U the impact on their business and now we've kind of gone back to that same problem um by eliminating this so in addition to kind of asking employees I would ask these employers to talk to their employees and say this has to stop and you will not perhaps prefer what comes down or I as the owner will not prefer what comes down this needs to stop now you need to stop parking in that lot and see if that will have some impact in terms of what we have to do um I I agree you know 2 hours is is right or much more right than four but to create this huge burden that we can't really take much care of is is not is not a fix I almost wondered and and again leaving it to pttf but you know the notion of in the old days used to Mark tires and you know you're not supposed to come back but I don't know what there is barring that we got to do something we got to do something tonight I think these make sense at four hours they don't make sense at four hours but they make more sense 4 hours and nothing at all and I think that's kind of where we are thanks anyone else no I um parking Anarchy is not the answer and um I appreciate you reminding everyone this is a temporary solution and um you know I think it's what we got in front of us right now yeah I uh you know again you know I advocated for the small businesses I know it's been the Wild Wild West for a couple weeks and I'm hoping that will calm down so I I I I will probably request an update for December from parking enforcement and and our parking enforcement officer to see what's been going on um you know before our January meeting but I I I don't love four hours right but two hours is unmanageable and I don't want to make it unmanageable um for for parking enforcement so so I I I just think yeah I I agree the employers are the bosses right and and if they do it shame on them and if their employees do it shame on them you know unless they're working a two- hour shift that's a different story but Lissa um yeah I agree with what everyone said and all the business owners that I've spoken with and that have come and you know spoke at the board meetings um I really hope you're listening because I we're going to have to go back to kiosk if this continues like we can't just have employees part in there right now we're in a pause to figure out what the best plan of action is going forward but employeers are not allowed to power in those laws I do have a question so what make and I'm not trying to um make her job difficult but what makes it difficult going to two hours like what is the process just more um timely what makes it more difficult to so the parking enforcement offer is isn't just focusing on the downtown they cover the entire town it's mostly the downtown area but there's regulations all over the town she's trying to check when she's trying to do two hour checks that means she has to come to the Lots check each plate um either a photo write down the light plate and then another two hours come back and those same cards are there to get a site with four hours before it would just make it the the ones who are staying a lot longer um obviously they are sticking out um yes she it's easier to right because she's going between the downtown the CVS Brandy Court and all over town Main Street yeah covering all the ground right right um the other question I have is that if I've read that um she found that employees would just Shuffle parking lots in between the two do we not I mean I my understanding is this for our limit for both Lots do we have to put that wording in here so they can't Shuffle between the two uh can we do that it's a different footprint they can move one car and move it to the other L my understanding was is that it was 4 hours Downtown parking because the others CU we'd have a problem in the on the street parking someone be in a two-hour spot and then they just move up a space yeah and think that's okay but it's not correct correct it's not okay it's 2 hours on the street it's 2 hours Al together yes so it Le it's the same but in the Lots so someone's parking on the CVS slot and they go to Brandy Court that that restarts the clock or it doesn't I'm not sure with how that works with the kiosks um how those programs and then I have to check with the the parking ranks as well but if we can do it for the two-hour parking on the street why can't we do it with the 4-Hour parking in the Lots saying that it's 4-Hour parking for all the Lots you don't get to to go to another lot uh quite honestly I don't think we're seeing anybody going from one lot to the other oh okay I had just read in here that they were shuffling that's why no no it's not going from like CVS to the brand court it's if they're brand Court they obviously want to stay close to their their business CS the street to the street yeah right okay yeah they're not going from sorry I misunderstood okay another question just hypothetically if we did do the two hours with the understanding that we we couldn't be vigilant all the time but randomly people are going to it's going to happen would that get us partway down the road without without a crazy additional burden but also saying to people hey you're running the risk of a ticket again that's saying you're running the risk of a ticket I think more people will see that as okay I'll run the risk and it's not going to help because she she can only be in so many places at once so you're you're advocating the four for now is making the most something better Okay Kevin hi folks Uh Kevin McCarthy Economic Development um just one one or two quick points um one is as I understand if you do two-hour parking I I hate to be an advocate for 4-Hour parking as problematic as we have seen it be um uh but if we if you were to do 2-hour parking just in in this interim time time frame um there would be nowhere for a non-employee non-resident park for longer than two hours in the town ready no right right so if you want visitors in the town of reading there's nowhere that I can legally park for longer than two hours right lunch and hair appointment lunch and dentist appointment right and so and so so I think um as much as we bat this around and you know in my brief time here obviously it's it's been contentious and finding the right path is is um is not easy um uh to satisfy all of the business and all of the other stakeholders uh but I I I think that longer than two in my opinion is probably necessary um and the other thing is as we as we do this into the busy season for our downtown retailers um I think uh I think we should be encouraging that in that space between two and four hours I think that it's probably much more common than we think uh as for the employee parking yeah yeah the behavioral uh I you know what they should do and what they do I think we're all human um I think that's I think uh expecting that people would do the right thing I think the business owners will tell you if they asked you um put their hand on their heart they'll tell you that they're at they're parking all day back there right now never mind their employees I have spoken to one today who told me exactly that yeah and uh so um I leave you with that and happy to answer any questions if you have thank you anyone else in the oh Chris oh thank you Carlo uh Chris Haley 71 Tennison Road um according to uh the last speaker um I would fit into the same bracket that he just mentioned if you keep this to 4 hours though I'm going to park there all day I'm telling you right now so if you're choosing to keep it the 4 hours that's what's going to happen with me and with everybody else that's back there CU they all do it that's just the way it is you go in get there at 9 9:15-ish Merit is walking around and then you know you got 4 hours from that and then you move to a 2-hour spot or do something else it's not rocket science all of the people down there have figured it out uh and that's just at Brandy Court CBS forget about it I don't even know what's going to happen up there um but the reason why things didn't work in the past uh is a the enforcement we didn't have Bridget back then we had somebody that went not on leave I already mentioned this before um but as long as we have enforcement you're going to be good but at the 4H hour thing absolutely not you're not going to change anything um I I do respect the holidays and everything else that's coming up now we want to have people I wasn't aware of the non4 hour thing but anybody with a resident permit um can park in any of the resident spots um on the street mainly uh for the entire day so that's a Saving Grace if anybody in Runing has that combo thing with the compost or whatever else you can do but I'm telling you right now 4 hours you are not going to change a single thing and we already ended up in this situation in the first place so to Mark's point the 2-hour thing uh does seem a lot more manageable and you can always change it because if not the kiosk are coming back and then here's the end of it but even if you go ahead and tell the businesses Etc like you just mentioned uh that yeah we're going to do the right thing we're going to do what I'm telling you everybody is going to park there regardless it doesn't matter what you do 4 hours my truck will be there tomorrow at 9:5 you can take a picture and that's me I'm just telling you how it is I could easily just be like oh yeah it's all going to work out um but I'm down there every single day um and the choice is yours you can do whatever you want but that's all I got thanks thanks Carlos thank you citizen haly um so look we have done a great job validating why the decision was made to do kiosks and it keeps coming back and back and back and it's not going away so we have taken a reprieve we do need to get rid what did you call it the free-for-all parking Anarchy Anarchy parking Anarchy has to go it needs to have some form of Regulation we can decide you know for or this you know this notion of others I do take the point Kevin made though that it'd be great to encourage people to stay longer downtown if you're actually shopping and buying stuff not if you're employees and I think employers employees need to take some responsibility here they need to act better and they need to know that that's part of what's going on here and I I don't see it as a long-term solution but I hope that it's a short-term solution and let's see where we can get to but we don't have the choice of doing nothing we need to act tonight yeah I think uh I I I think based on Kevin's comments and it's November next week I I I I will advocate for four hours with an update in December to see if any of the employee Behavior has changed and um is it uh so that's like a month is that too long what should we get it only have one meeting in November we can try to get an update in November I'm not saying we can't but we have one meeting in in less than four weeks but I don't know how much data we can collect yeah um besides going to each an individual store what all those parking lots do we have a way to contact the business groups like as a group we do yeah I mean I really I don't know if we can send a town email a letter encouraging them that you know we supported them when they came to us now they have to do the right thing and not parking the parking lot as an employee um I don't know if we can reach out that way I mean I'm happy to go to the businesses of mention it but we're going to be back in the chaos and I really truly don't think that's the right solution for reading um but I mean if the the fact that there are employee tags hanging on these cars their parking is really infuriating really INF so I mean I don't know if we can reach out to them and be like Kevin has a databased email list we can send messages to them problem if we can do that I mean I'm happy to draft something it can come for me I mean I'm happy to go knock on visit stores and explain it to them but they're going to end up in here complaining again understandably so I don't like the chios I agree that they are not the right solution for rning but they can't be party back there all right anyone else in the audience anyone on Zoom Caitlyn doesn't appear so no motion to close the public hearing second second any discussion see none okay all those in favor 4 Z okay let's go to some motions please move that the select word sorry move to approve safety Amendment 20248 to the traffic and parking regulations as presented Melissa on the second any discussion seeing none all those in favor 4 Z thank you move to approve safety Amendment 202 24-9 to the traffic and parking regulations as presented second sorry that was a tie I'll give that one to Karen any discussion seeing none all those in favor 4 Z thank you and request one can we take a a two second break sure courtesy drink um and second Chris would you mind taking down that the stapler please now that I'm back thank you all right folks we're going to take a two minute recess e e e e e e e e all right folks we're back in session we are on to discuss and approve intermunicipal agreement for Regional Housing Services uh we do this every year folks hopefully everyone got to read it in the packet um do we need a discussion or can we go right to the motion Mark I'm looking at you um so um I think it would be worthwhile if maybe Town manager updated us just on kind of what's what's different's on yeah I would appreciate it okay thank you I'm G hand that off to James I I spoke with Andrew before he went on vacation hundred away right um so no the only thing that's different is we're adding two towns to the intermunicipal agreement um ring holds the contract and so we allocate all of the funding toward it and the towns uh pay us to pay the contract so reading's uh portion is still $115,000 um but the total amount that will be allocated at T meeting which I don't have in front of me um will be that amount for I think all six or seven towns um just so Jan does that mean it's it's still one person that's it's a service it's service it's a service okay so they have extra resources it's not like they only have X hours and suddenly we're asking them to do more no no they can do it so we uh the last town that got it uh the last service that got it was um answer advisory and our individual who did the work was Nicole Lambert so she's a she's one person she does the work um it is you know it's reasonable for one person to do this level of work that's why we went from having a town one staff person each town to this Regional agreement saves money for all the communities and really meets the need this has been in unstaffed position since July and um you know it's it's an important thing because people are calling what's or unit becomes available and has to be marketed and it has to go through very specific channels to be marketed if it's on the affordable housing uh list so it's technical work um it has to be done a certain way and all the the towns are availing themselves of it so it's a great service that we provide to um those in need in our community um and it's you she's fantastic I've talked to her and called with questions I a resident called me with something Nicole can you walk me through this process she's just a tremendous resource for all the towns and supporting staff but also getting these particular pieces done you can ask so um for example with Victor right so Victor is a similar kind of person he is not here to defend yeah so that's why I waited no I'm just kidding um so I mean you get to a point where you can't do it anymore right you add more and more communities one person or even a couple of people maybe can't handle it with this service that's not the case right they have plenty of capacity that shouldn't be that's correct yeah we have not uh my understanding is we've not reached a point where anybody's having any complaints about the service or their overc capacity um the contract allows us to add hours if we need to but it's up to $15,000 per community and generally funds are turned back to the general fund we aren't meeting it's it's hourly build so it's not just a flat fee it she bills hourly to so that's this bill that you it's right in there yeah yep okay and then um is this also providing services to Residents so if they have a particular issue would they come through this is this where their question would come through yeah she would help people apply for units that become available she helps when they need to go up for sale and they have to go through a process if they're deed restricted so they don't go straight on to through a realtor through the typical marketing of a home um or you know rental agreement something how about maintenance issues or problems in the uh potentially yeah potentially if it's if it's in you know it's not owned right so a lot of these are ownership units so you're responsible for your own maintenance um but if you have you know rental you know that can be an issue you can talk with in the Housing Authority it depends on the management company and so forth but if there are complaints there they can connect you to the various um social agencies that we have Commonwealth so to guide that process a lot it's it's navigating a lot now that we have established the trust what is it that we just established the affordable housing trust trust okay um who who does this group work for do they work for the trust do they work for the town this group works for the town and you're going to sign a contract understood so what I'm trying to do is figure out when there are issues going on that the trust would be involved in what role will will this group play I don't think it would be related unless it was a case of you have um a unit that is not deed restricted it was before deed restriction happened and so in order to prevent it from being sold at market rate you could buy down that unit with affordable housing trust funds to then deed restrict it and keep it in perpetuity at a at an affordable rate um and so that's one way you can use affordable housing trust funds um I spoke to mapc today on the net zero action plan that we're working on and you can use affordable housing trust dollars to um do energy conversions to NetZero or to you know energy efficiencies in general with our Housing Authority but that would we you through this so is this more the administrative side of things where the the trust is going to be more um units policy related to affordable housing things like that this is where administrative been running yeah there's a lot of pieces moving around in affordable housing right there's a lot there's there's policy there's zoning there's uh the the trust fund this is a this is a service tool to help um communities Market affordable uh units in their Town legally to um uh qualified population have to also you know qualify to buy these units got it can sorry one last one um when we do use them so I see for example you know year to date we've we the town of reading have build have been built 8800 um and so this this was July and it was two and a half hours total what kinds of things are they typically had what kind for us what what kinds of activities so they they spent two and a half hours are there particular kinds of things that take up most of their hours yeah so if you look at the scope of work um that is on page 45 of your packet which I'm going right to now because I didn't know there was going to be a full Pop Quiz Professor um but I am I am I am mostly prepared in in a documents here so it your audience I know right um monitoring existing units and there's a list of items of what what does that look like that you read your packet it's right there so the page I I don't have kind of pages of the packet I have pages of the document so yeah page 45 of the of of yeah so that's the package so my pages are like one two three oh well scope of work yeah iing Services it was on and on and on here you go tracks for clo I'll wa some of these out for you so like no no so this this I oh I so scope work exhibit a I got it thank you and page 13 13 thank you I didn't mean to confuse you I actually did see those P okay thank you so yeah so there's rental and there's ownership um so value ownership units for assessment purposes to work with the assessor's office um rental monitoring track foreclosures subsidized housing inventory Administration reconciling Municipal inventory records with the Shi maintained by the executive office of housing liberal communities um so it's very administrative heavy um support municipalities on questions regarding affordable housing trust funds there you go um help in the development of Resident assistance programs such as down payment assistance rental assistance small grants or Capital Improvement programs buy down programs other locally defined initiatives to assist new or existing residents and then there's some you know a number of activities related under that um they help she helps towns achieve Town specific goals so we have things we can you know and I go most of the way down and I see resident support allow residents to contact the service provider directly with questions and concerns related to housing can include office hours in each Community um response to Residence within 24 to 48 hours and support numy needs okay so it's largely to the town but also some resident support built in also and and that's at the Town request so I'm actually really surprised that this a huge list like what does that say that just there's no affordable units is that what this says so you can do all these things but we don't have the inventory to like really so that's why six towns could do this thanks for your quiz results thank you sir thank you question so we our affordable housing trust has been formed our committee but we have not met so do you think that um Nicole sorry Nicole Amber maybe she could help get that process consult her once we have the contract in place and have them back under contract yes once we have our contract any other questions or comments I had a resident this week do you have like a Target date for we uh no not that I'm aware um I am a person but no resident ask when the affordable trust is to start meeting I think we have a full membership now on that board so it's a matter of meeting and you know organizing and whatnot so that that it's important so that yes all right all right ready for a vote move to approve the Metro North Regional Housing Services office intermunicipal agreement as presented C second any discussion seeing none those in favor 5 Z thank you the contract for you to sign did the traffic amendments make their way around by the way y okay so next we're discussing multi-unit tiered water rates I see Sharon on the screen we have a one-page document in our packet Sharon do you want to start's on she has can you hear me yes sure can see you too so um in your um packet I put a memo in um kind of going over where we're at with this process um I had presented to you a couple weeks ago that we did identify um we in munice to make changes um when it comes to Condominiums how many units are in a building um but then we did identify the issue with postmark and the restaurant because the restaurant was enjoying the savings of all the other units not using the full 10 units at the lowest rate um and so what we're doing is we've worked with um Jane Wellman who's been working with um postmark and their housing um their what do they call their HOA um trying to get information they provided us a lot of information and so they do have monthly information on um how much water each and every unit um uses um so what we were thinking would be a good solution is to put a deduct meter in that reads just the restaurant and then have that deduct from the one meter that fills the whole um the whole building and so the DPW staff went out to see if that was a viable option it is a viable option I'm sure there's other options but nothing will probably be done in time for this next meeting and so um what I am Comm commed to doing is as long as we can get a read from HOA on that restaurant I can manually adjust the bill as long as we need to because it doesn't appear that we have other circumstances similar to this when it comes to Condominiums most of the restaurants that we saw that were in a mixed use building were rentals apartments above and rented commercial space below or there was no you know high water usage in that in that proposed space so I felt that doing the manual bill for the one just to get this moving so that the residents can actually enjoy the lowest possible rate and committing to that my staff is committed to that um we can manually build them and put them through the teers in an appropriate Way for their actual usage um and and then all of the other residents will enjoy the lower rate um so that's what I propose and we've got obviously other options and apparent HOA has some other options that we could entertain but I do know that the meter was the option that we asked them to look at and was a viable option I can add some color Mr chairman to their conversation so um I reached out to Kathy Zeke and John Sullivan uh last week I spoke to the management company for postmark and um they didn't particularly want to have a conversation about water billing um which is fine because it's mostly gone over the responsibility is now mostly gone over to the HOA right they've taken over control of the building um and and so Mr Sullivan and Mrs Zeke were absolutely fantastic to talk but they came in the next day they brought all kinds of information that whole building is entirely submetered so every unit has its own water meter they can read those meters internally they get an update every single day and then those bills are the resident there are and all of the units are built monthly by their uh they have a third party vendor that manages their bills based on the bill that we sent to them so we wanted to see is there a way that we have um visibility into what the restaurant is pulling because as Mr Sullivan presented um the restaurant on the last bill was using about 39% of the to the building's total water so the whole building is being overcharged so the the munus solution that um um Sharon has uh researched and has tested will bring the water price down for everybody and everybody should you know even the restaurant should have a lower water price everybody should have a much lower water price um we did some mathematical testing and it looks like the difference between the restaurant being built at the lowest rate and um being built at the tiered rate is about 300 bucks per quarter so it's not C be money for us to implement this solution first and then work on the outlier problem and I think that's what um some of the speakers wanted to what was was advocating for earlier um so we've talked with those two individuals and they have not I don't think had a chance to talk to the HOA yet or make any decisions about how they want to go forward there could be a plumbing solution that puts in another uh meter that's expensive and hard to do um they could put a different meter um that they have on the restaurant meter that we might be able to read but that they wouldn't be able to read anymore and that's another potential solution or they could give us the data U which they have they have robust data um and we would make that manual adjustment that Sharon was referring to um that is that's a possible solution sort of an interim solution because we would like it to take the human factor out of it and have the me have it be able to read a meter but we haven't devised that solution yet we don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good and so you know it's our recommendation that we go forward with the mun solution it brings the rates down quickly for everybody it is Equitable it's fair and then those outliers we can work on Misa the restaurant okay um this is for residential condos in mixed use buildings this is not for apartments and mixed use buildings all the the same fix is possible with munus but we have we don't have visibility into if they're submeter we don't think they are um we don't know if we would be able to tell how much if there for instance is a hair salon on the first floor that's not separately metered what kind of usage they're looking at they do have commerci they of leases and their expenses are built into their leases so the board has expressed an interest to bring down rates for everybody fairly I we had we we can't say for certain that apartment buildings would low rents but we do know that water rates are always Rising not actively every moment but we know that this is always the trend so you know I just want the board to have that information and then be able to ask questions about that and I do want to thank um our staff and particularly the water meter Division and the Water Division Mr P um for just can you be at postmark tomorrow morning at this time and like coming down the street are all these you know the the the whole meter division they were great and they got right into there and be you know Mr Sullivan was fantastic giving us access so Mark thanks so um I was following you right up until what I thought you said is we're going to ignore postmark for now we're going to work on the building but not the restaurant did I hear you no um no I can't implement the tiered rate until I have the data right right and the HOA hasn't agreed to give us the data right to vote and or they have we have to meter it or some that piece of it has to be determined um the next water read is in is tomorrow October 30th is the next meter I think Sharon um no it's actually it was today it was today never mind I was wrong um but they have all of their data so and matter data them yeah the mem from Sharon says they can do this and it's requiring one addition manual adjustment to take care of the resturant that's correct why wouldn't we just do that if I have the data given to I have to have we don't have it we can't see it we don't have it we need the ho to give it to us right and so if they don't then why wouldn't they just get stay exactly with the same rate they have today in other words there's an incentive for them to give you the data I'm sure they will love to do it but if they don't they can stay at the current rate yes yeah very simple that is a select board decision um all I will tell you it seems like the solution is here and and that's why and and I feel like people are trying to hedge it it's like why are we hedging it the solution is here you can get your your rates all established because you have the information all you need to do is share it which they already did with you I understand it requires a vote so go through with that if that you know the flip side of that is if that doesn't work then we don't have a solution yet and let's you know we'll we'll work on it but in the meantime you stay at the current rates I feel like they've been very Cooperative I've every reason to believe that they will provide us what we need Absolut move forward so that the residents start to enjoy the lower rate I'm okay but I'm not okay with let's deal with postmark later it's here I mean I'm committing to manually bill it and I don't I don't foresee an issue but we don't have the ability to read it they have to turn it over to us and they have been very forthcoming th far I I suspect they'll continue to be I think so too I don't I just know that as two members representing the trustees they're not going to commit their whole board to something and I respect that um so you know if the appetite of the board is to approve it pending we get that data you know we could go forward and we don't have to wait for like the next meeting if they have a meeting in the interim and get that to us then we can enact that's what I advocate for there's a solution in hand it requires one additional manual adjustment out of they're already making they're going make 39 already so now you make 40 instead of 39 it's there let's take it as opposed to kicking that piece of the can down the road because that might not pop up on the priority list as high as other thing so I I would strongly Advocate here's a solution just make sure that you the Home Owners Association needs to vote sure cool that's great thank you I am um I'm also thinking about the future we have a new building going up across from Chas Bank I'm not sure if that New U property if a if a restaurant moves in there because that was the plan whether those are condos or not but have I had asked before so does this do the the work that you're having to do you like obviously you want to automate it going forward we part of that solution be part of the permitting process is we give guidance for in ring this is how you want a submeter because this is how your tenants will pay for the water yeah for you what you talking about rental uh ownership both yeah both options yeah I mean none of that's the cheap time to do it they could have this would not have cost a lot if they had done it when they built the building yeah and I don't they they submetered at the time and they use it they were using a different system I'm not sure what the what happened in the past I can't speak to it at all I didn't I didn't look back um but they they have different meters that we might be able to read so we Haven a test right now it's just on the developer to think about you know the future use of the building and the issues that you have to deal with and we have to deal with versus right so I'm just wondering as you get into this as you implement it is an opportunity to have some guidance come out from the building department yes this is how we would like buildings built water is expensive yep okay thanks that's great suggestion else Chris thanks Carlo so what is actually a submeter is it really a meter that they have mhm so the water comes into the building goes through a big meter yes and then it goes to 40 different ones why can we not read the 40 different ones we don't our system that we use to read meters doesn't read their meters it's just the one meter Town reads the one met we read the one meter that meter is radio for our system so we have that information but they have a different system for their sub meters that they can read I'm not a plumber but I know when water comes in it goes to the spinny thing and there has to be like some little piece of equipment that is probably negligible money that can just get retrofited onto that that is that is not the case one would think that and we had a long conversation if uh Mr Cole remembers um with the plumbing the water meter division like well we can cut it out over here and we can take the restaurant and we can Plumb it in over here in front of the main meter for the building and that will separate and this is this is you know maybe half a day of work that you'd have to turn the water off a few hours anyway to put that that pipe in so we are going to Smart Meters in 25 or 26 or something right something like that I think so hypothetically if we had said Smart Meters installed would postmark each one of those units be getting one of those meters or are we only doing the first initial one I I'm not sure but I think postmark probably is smart metered they have a lot of their their meter systems are very specific they have a detailed I understand we wouldn't want to cut over 40 units right now to do whatever but if the 40 units were getting cut over with the smart meters regardless is it not a mood issue at this point because we're going to have to do it like who is it on to put these me the developer or the owner of the building it's on it's on the owner for the town if we're upgrading meters then it's one meter at that building that we can do no like use my house as an example am I getting a new meter in 25 or 26 or something in the future I I believe that to be true but yeah he says so that's that's not what I researched so would if I'm getting a new meter in 25 or why is the zeks not getting a new meter building it those are some meters the building will get 1 meter from the street okay they'll get 1 meter from stre they own the meters for all the different units their HOA owns those meters yes so I was asking if we were meters with the equipment that I thought was going to be negligible that does that isn't if we had to do that because it is on us so you're telling me it's not on us we'd only replace the in 25 26 27 we're only replacing postmark single meter with a smart meter they're one meter okay good but yes hope there might be other ways for us to get that data automatically um through their submetering system but we're working with our vendors to try and figure that out but you know it turns out to be it's an outlier thank gosh but it's a more complicated problem than it seems so I think to Karen's point to just letting everybody know who comes in you better be building units with multiple meters that we can read or whatever in the future so right because if they're on our metering system and they give us that water tower can pick it up it can pick up something like 77% the day we turned it on which was last week yeah because it's on the developer to do that correctly so the unit over there that Karen just mentioned is 20 units and they're putting in one single meter they're not coming up here and giving public comment and saying I want 20 meters now because you are noticed that this board was doing this while this building was being built so if they don't want to do it that's on them I think the guidance to the building department is is great information we will definitely do that and ensure that cpdc has that as they go through the process and so that developers understand this part of the you know meter yeah because to me I would have assumed that every you go up at a postmark and there's like 300 gas things outside the back of it why isn't there 300 Water things like their water meters are outside their units they're specific I know because of cold and everything you can't have it freeze I understand that but I'm just you see this and you wonder why it wasn't done um because it didn't have to be done then but it's going to be done now and what is the Washington scenario are they the same thing they get a single coming in and they have 40 units over there that I I don't know if it's a rental or an ownership that would be Andrew would know that I'll stop with that um so and when does the next water bill come out I know Sharon just said they read the meters now so when are we issuing bills that this stuff pertains to I thought it's supposed to be the end of November Orly December so do we need to do something by then for this to take effect or what is our game plan with this as I was going to say there's there's another building on Maine and Pinefield coming it's the same thing it's mixed commercial and we will never know whether they're going to choose to do rental or ownership you know it could be either so we really they should be putting in meters for just makes sense water's expensive I honestly think it needs to be more than guidance because I'm being nice I hate to say it but like the developer doesn't care if in two years the owner of our condo is standing in front of our board because they're teared we I I think it needs more it's got to be more than guidance y it's got to be like this is how we do our water because we're going to end up with residents that had no idea this was an issue until they're a year into a condo right well there also needs to be information that goes into condo documents so people know what they're signing up for based on whatever the system is we can't the developer can choose which way to do it and if they want to have a third party buil it or they want to divide it among the units or I imagine with ownership they'd want that granularity about what is everybody using yeah that tends to be the thing so I think that that's probably more likely all those Johnson Woods buildings I mean how many more to have to build I mean there definitely there's more building coming so sure yeah and in the smaller like the you know the houses in downtown where there's three units that are condo in them they're not hitting the tiers you know most of the tiers most of the units at at postmart by and large were five hcf you know they're very they were under that 10 unit threshold 100 cubic feet threshold so there's like a lot of extra if you imagine tier one sort of left on the table which is why it gets kind of used up okay by yeah so we they were good yeah just one other question more more suggestion for later just considering it so what I think I heard is there's a third party already doing the billing by unit for them yes for so they're also billing the restaurant they're billing everybody individually based on usage and the other two commercial the other two commercial units but they're based on our bill uh so they're paying our bill and and so the entire building is paying way more because they have a they have a combination rate that is calculated right but they go they pay the bill and then they say Okay Sullivans you owe this based on usage zekes you owe this based on usage that's right with but with the rate that's configured right from our single Bill understood so here's the question since it's a third party already doing the billing can we just hand them our our tied structure and then they know exactly how to Bill everyone with that tiered structure that's right that's exactly right so what happens we wouldn't have to so we wouldn't even have to manually do it if they're able to do that potentially we have to well I I don't think that would work out because we have to give them a bill that was the right amount and we wouldn't know you know I mean like they're taking a bill that we're sending them that's okay when we before we put the condo factor in there they're doing 10 units at the lowest rate and then the next you know 10 or 15 units at another rate so they're only getting one one only like one properties yeah they can do it but we rate and so we have to bill it correctly for them to be able to really um break it out appropriately in the way it makes sense right so if the way if she puts it in at 53 units um in this building all of the units will drop yep all of them will drop to tier one for the most part but the bill will show up okay there's also people in tier two but it's just a number um the billing company will be able to you know build each unit based on their usage at the the new combined rate which is still much lower so or it's all at it's all build at tier one so we're not sure the restaurant would move through the three tiers um based on the initial bill that we send them the total so it's it's we gota we gotta work some yeah yeah we think we have I take back my suggestion you know what created all these problems teered rates second so so I I'll turn it the other way there was a reason why we created tier grades we voted tier grades in right and so there are some issues that we have to work through this one we haven't worked through yet but how do we fix Phil's building how do we fix that so I think we got to go through each one of so but that brings up a question so if the like the condo association whatever they have their own water use also right so it's not just the units there some combined usage whether it's washing machines yeah common areas that's right yeah any common areas if they do irrigation any of the things that they do in common areas are have to be allocated to the units they yeah they have a method for doing that right right that's the condo way that's a lot easier you have Department buildings right they're all taking it up to you know what right now yep and to hear these numbers from that yeah but yeah but but okay so the tiered right the difference between tier one and tier four is what percent total oh 10 to Minimus 10 Max so someone who's build doubled that's not because of tiered rates there something else going on the the easiest probably is that it's the issue of a a dry summer versus a wet summer probably but we you could figure that out but it's not the tiered rate didn't double their bill it's not possible say it doubled their unit and their cond unit it doubled their Bill if he actually had people the tier rates maximum difference is 10% it can't double your bill 10% higher it can't double your bill CU their volume had to it's not possible so the rat still theyed maybe looking at usage would be the way to to take a look at it but it's not the tiered rate didn't double their bill it can't I'm happy to sit down with with any HOA or management company to to work through but we think that by um in their case putting all the units in it drops pretty much most of and especially when there's no commercial it just drops everybody to tier one the billing is so much easier and it's much more you know it's that where it should be for for a lot of these older buildings not going to be submetered I'd imagine no I wouldn't think though but they also don't have the mixed use aspect or if they do it's a it's a commercial unit and the two commercial units that aren't restaurants at post Mark use less water than anybody else right you know so they're just they're very little amount of water hand what what's the motion read anyway I don't know why the motion read there motion I think no motion just discussion came back with a solution you know based on Sharon's memo we can go ahead and start doing this I don't think we need to specifically vote on it we've talked about it for three or four meetings now just wanted to get your sense as to you know you guys I think we all want it fixed okay we do too thank you we absolutely do so we'll we'll start getting this going um we will let postmark know that um if it's the appetite of the board that we will uh wait for them to give us the data for for their restaurant um and then we can you know look at that number for them and we'll continue to look for those Solutions I don't want to throw a wrench into the end of this discussion please don't but we're only discussing postmark what about this like 50 other buildings that's my question so are we only fixing postmark right now so no no there's like 54 buildings okay so we're saying that we're gonna fix the issue in all of the buildings correct okay yeah is the only one that had the unique circumstance of having a Resturant but I just want to confirm okay thank you okay no more Wren good okay on to the next fun topic thank you very much all right second water meters discuss second we we have again a lot of information in our packet Chris has has a discussion also Matt Abrams is um Abraham is on the line as well any specific questions for him and he'll make some comments when when um CHR has done his presentation so thank you um so as the board requested um we have put together a second water meter policy for um a 400 unit pilot program um to um Institute second water meters um this is just a draft policy and just um these are suggestions that are in there now um we've looked at what other towns do um actually a lot of this policy is based off of Tukes spry because we liked what we saw with u Tukes spry's um second meter program that they already have um and then we just looked at other uh communities and you know put um put different uh things in there that we like you know that they were that they were utilizing too um so if you go to the next slide kayen please so just some highlights of this program so this is a for a 400 unit pilot program um and it would be the second meter with for outside water usage only um outside water usage uh via these second meters would also only be able to be used April 1st to October 31st this is this would be for you know water conservation purposes um and so forth and if if we discover that there was someone using water outside of that um window then we would be suggesting that a uh penalty be imposed to them um also what a lot of communities do is requirement of a Rin sensor and um definitely a backflow preventor for any irrigation system um property owner pays for all permitting Plumbing work and the second water meter and transponder um and then also if there's any illegal tampering that would be another penalty um that would be imposed if we um came across that uh the next slide Caitlyn please so we've already mentioned previously that this probably about 150 plus you um properties that already have a second meter on them um so Town staff would want to go out and inspect all those meters because the last time the um the moratorium wanted to effect was 25 years ago and we believe that a lot of those meters have never been changed out since then so they're 25 years old so we want to take a look at them and see if any of them need to be um updated you know and also there may be 25 years ago there may be some Plumbing improvements that have to be made too if they want to take advantage yes yeah if they want to take it so that was my next Point um that these properties will all be receiving a letter inquiring whether or not they want to reactivate the second meter and then um tomorrow we actually have a meeting once we get feedback from this board tonight um on Logistics on an application process that would utilize open gov um you know to possibly you know um start something as like a plumbing permit for something like this and then it would go through the different steps and then Public Works we get notified once all the plumbing was um approved and then we would um go out and schedule an appointment for um putting in the second meter um next slide kid so now we look at what to set some of these rates at for the second uh water mes so the First Column that you see right here that is those are what reading's current water rates are for the four tiers and then we just started um putting some possible suggestions in like this first column here is a 5% increase for every tier um second um the next column down is a 10% increase and the last column which is what some communities do is um the first three tiers are what the um the top tier already is for the primary meter and then they all they put a much higher rate for fourth here I just we just put in here $15 for a placeholder at the for the time being um next SL kin please and then we also want to take a look and see what some other communities were doing um so for example you've heard about stonum stonum um just has a flat rate you know they don't have any increased rate for their secondary meter it's the same rate as the primary uh Lexington um has does the uh the top tier rate for all three tiers um and Lexington also um has a their tamper fee is if caught is a $300 uh we go to tuxbury tuxbury um so their first three tiers are the same as the first three tiers in the primary then the the top tier has a significant increase of like 188% so um that's one option there and then we go to NAIC and NAIC has significant increases um I really can't find any um rhyme no reason to their increases but like tier one increases 178% tier 2 is 228 tier 3 is 205% and tier 4 is 162% so um much much more significant increases on that think I'm move to niic I was just going to say how does NAX rate $252 I don't know that's for another day how is that even how much line from NAIC to ring let's move on let's move on that line alone will be cost more another agenda little joke a gofund made let's go I'm next like ite and then just one of the last slides here is just um so you you have the draft proposal in front of you in your packets and um you see this different things highlighted in there just some things for the board to think about on what they would like this policy to look like um for example like what rate should this be charged for the second meter um should there be an application fee you know um you know you go into open gub we've seen some communities they might have like a $100 application fee um and even for those um second meters that are already in place um what we've been talking internally about is there's a very good chance that most of those meters have already been purchased originally when they were installed so those meters if they need to be replaced and switched out um we would just you know come and switch the meter out and they might just be charged an application Fe or you know if they need a plumbing permit for any modifications to the plumbing or something like that um you know another question is the pilot program only for Residential Properties you know we've SE in some communities they have a residential rate a commercial rate for secondary meters um not sure what the board wants to do on this on program for that um should second meters be used for filling swimming pools um should there be a penalty charge for not cancelling an appointment um if we have a the resident has an appointment set up and you know the plumbing inspector gets there or the U Public Works gets there to put the new meter in and the residents aren't home you know maybe they should be charged a a fee for you know us taking our time to go out there and then not being able to um do me it to someone else can what what do we do now um Plum shows up and yeah I can't speak for the building department I know um Public Works is no there's no fee so electrical shows up building shows up and homeowners had an emergency or they they're on vacation they forgot I don't think that there's a fee but I don't know for sure all right just asking thanks and then they might not get seen for quite a while if that happens we don't there's no retribution Road yes then kind of thing sorry and then just the last couple of um things to think about um you know whether um you want a tamper fee and what that amount should be and also whether or not you want to just limit the second meters to that window that I showed earlier from like April 1st to the end of October um and if someone does you utilize water outside of that for the second meter what would that fit charge and then that is it for my presentation and then Mr chair if I could um if I could just um maybe turn it over to Matt Abrahams for a moment um Matt has um put together another slide that takes a look at how this pilot program um a more detailed slide about how this pilot program would affect sewer rates okay just just so you can get all the facts hi good evening Matt Abrahams from Abrahams group thanks the inro Chris yes so um Chris's presentation showed a little bit about the the program but was also focused on what the rate would be for out water usage now kind of the flip side of it is well if this is implemented what happens on the sewerside and that's what I'm here to talk about this evening for this slide so we did want to and capture um estimated amount for what we'll call the worst case scenario with um on for the impact the sewer fund so this would be usage that is currently um built sewer that would not be built sewer under this new policy if there were adopted um so what we did by worse case scenario was we tried to capture we'll call the 40 the 400 most egregious that's probably not the right word but the the 400 accounts that we thought had presumably the highest amount of for water usage was what we tried to capture with the analysis we did and here's what here's how we did that uh we averaged the usage for the two we looked at FY 22 bills now this is going back to the original analysis that we did um when the te were implemented we still had all that billing data available um so instead of grabbing the latest um which would probably yield very similar results we decide just to use the fy22 billing data that we had already accumulated so this is based on fy22 bill so it's it's using the current rates um so we capture the usage from the 22 bills based on current rates okay so we determine the average usage by bill for the warmer month so we focus on July and October as the two filling runs for the warmer months then we did the same for the colder month billing runs from January and April average usage from those two then weed the and the difference we would call presume out water usage you're freezing 3 that if you capture the usage during the colder months that can you hear now yes out Matt you might want to turn your video off I don't know or just your yeah camera you're Frozen sorry sorry about that now okay yep got can you hear okay how about now all right sorry about that um where did where did I leave on reduce usage for July bill I presume you did October you did July okay I'll just start of this slide so we determined the average usage for each of the warmer month bills July and October for the warmer month bills then we did the same for the colder month bills January and April and we took the difference between those two things and the theory behind that is if you're focused on what the usage is during the colder months that presumably is all indoor usage and probably standard usage for what a user would use in do so then if you take the difference between that and what's calculated from the warmer month bills it's not perfect science for sure but you can use those numbers to assume outdoor water usage and that's what we did here so we took the difference and then we reduced the July Bill based on that presumed outdoor water usage and recount calc it just the sewer portion of it then we did the same for the October Bill to get adjusted July Bill adjusted October bill with the presumed out water us taken out of Bo Bill and then we compared those recalculated bills what the actual bills were to determine the difference and again the 400 um accounts residential with the highest amount of outdoor water usage based on those count calculations we have that amount is being about $641,000 in the current that's an annual amount okay and then a quick calculation as to what it would take to make up that difference from a rate increase standpoint have that at 99.7% increase to the Sewer rates to make out for that Revenue D now again this is based on the 400 accounts with the calculated highest usage that presumably wouldn't necessarily be the case for the 400 that would be part of the program at least the pilot Fortune but we want to show you what we had estimated worst case scenar what would be an average case scenario ke you give us the worst case scenario I think that is the worst case I said average like that's the worst case scenario oh I see you want the the other side so if we if we go from 0 to 641 do we split that in half well how do you determine average well that's what I mean I don't I don't this number is really arbitrary well I mean you have to come up with a a way to calculate what's the potential maximum downside loss and that's what this calculates we don't know who will sign up for the water meter program but we do know that the probably the 400 highest users in those months are probably using outdoor outdoor water use so it's it's a logical deduction and I I think you know that that's potentially what the outlet would be if all 400 units were online all at the same time um if I can Mr chairman I just want to add a little uh color to this conversation um I worked with Chris on this policy and we looked at a lot of different things the philosophical underpinning of this polic policy is that it's um it's second meters are something of a luxury um and so we wrote a very somewhat restrictive policy with water conservation measures built into it and so the the board at your pleasure can you know adjust those things to see what works for you so not everything here is a requirement staff is not committed to any particular portion of this policy um but we wanted to present to you different options at different communities were using um and so we just I just wanted that to be stated for the record for the residents who may watch this conversation um and so that that's why we had yeah and we're also trying to learn from from other communities I I imagine the tamper fee that they have in Lexington was put in for a reason you know because we've seen that we don't want to see you know one resident filling up swimming pools for other other neighbors because they had long hoses and you know and so we don't want to necessarily see that unless that's okay um so those are something we we put in that swimming pools would be exempt from this from this they could buy pool water but it could be included I wonder if the board has the appetite for treated Municipal Water to be used for swimming pools and so if it's used for swimming pools that's you know that's drinking water quality that's going into swimming pools um and that again is at the pleasure of ab board but that's why we put some of those pieces in just to to be able to work with you um and give you lots of decisions and I'm grateful for Mr Abraham to come on and be able to talk about the sewer rate piece he's really the Lynch pin for that um we the rates that we proposed are just to give you something to look at what is 5% what is 10% what might it look like for the second second meter rate if you wanted to so those are all for you to to review um we do hear a lot about stonum being where we are in Reading they have a flat fee for everything there maybe the least restrictive um option around um and you know that's that's working for that Community writing's a different community so we we took pieces from other communities and and put them in but um we did vet this through our water department and our inspections department to make sure that they could work with us if you the presentation that residents have seen online if you go to the packet there's a procedural information there's a process walk through there's a drawing and so that's part of the reason why we kind of took the chury policy and then amended it and then looked at what other policies were this is a multi-page policy it's fairly technical instructions to plumbers and so forth so that's what we that's where we came from on this so that you have that understanding that's fair okay thank you um so so one thing this is a document that um probably wasn't ready but should have been in the packet can we and because we rates yes yes because we're using it in a meeting her IA should go on the packet oh yes absolutely and then I wonder I I can't help thinking that stonum residents and tberry residents don't understand what we've done a deep dive in and understanding that when you have these level payments somebody else is paying for a nice Green Lawn down the street so I don't know if this makes you want to go like asking questions but I also wonder since um these other if you have any relationships with the other communities whether they would be able to supplement he asked about you know best case worst case you know Fair it's a fair question I don't know if any of them would be willing to kind of share what they've experienced to spray's got bigger properties stonum has smaller properties so you might see a big difference I I don't know depending on how many size of the property but that concerns me if the worst case were to happen if it was only $500,000 this board then needs to figure out how to make that up so um that's not going to be popular and and this is wonderful the rest of this presentation is great by the way thank you kayln can you put up the the things we have to discuss slide back please it's next to the last slide in my presentation Caleb yeah give me one sec does anyone have any questions for Chris while he's up pick because then it will be more of a board discussion I just one question um so I saw the um the item in there about unless the town manager declares a water ban um I was wondering why we always have uh water usage hours in place historically should those also be repeated in here as people like sign up for the pilot sure um sure we could yeah okay it seems like those two pieces go together and it doesn't hurt to remind people okay thanks any other questions for Chris yeah thanks Carlo um yeah just real quick seeing on the r comparisons Stone of Tri very lexent and niic um they do seem significantly under reading um which is like 10 or 11 or upwards of 12 in in like $7 water I I'll take it um so I I think in terms of comparing comparisons like that um I don't I guess I don't like seeing these other peer Community things even though stonum helps my argument of they don't do anything we're not going to do anything either like but I I don't think these are somewhat comparable to what we should be looking at it's got to be like MW like are all these MW um's not not sure because we need some rates that are up there higher because if you were paying $252 for water we're not going to be like we're we're upwards of like 12 so quadling over 252 would I say double it of course double our rate now no way on planet Earth would I ever do that so when you see like these other rates it's like it doesn't really pertain to what you need to actually do we need stuff with higher ones like Tuk fa's like borderline verging on that but all these other ones like 252 506 yeah none are even close yeah it's it's not even close well I think aside from you know what the actual rate is it just gives you an example of what other communities are doing based on whether they're you know you using TI as one through three as the same as the primary and then just increasing the fourth tier or yeah you know that is helpful but yeah think they did that because they their rates are so low they're playing with Monopoly money at this point like it's shuffling around 252 to 385 it's just like you can't get breakfast for that like these numbers are are just like that's what they're working with so I think we need something more like whatever the MW communities that we have we need to get like a couple other ones like in here just to see m i mean if Turks I just have a question about like the jump from 16 to 30 if tuxbury is not MW is it most of tuxbury on S no the whole town is sewered it's fully sewered Community there are I have septic because I don't want to pay sewer Rich so um but yeah the whole town is completely sewered but they're not MW no we pull our water tkb pulls its water off the MARC and owns a water treatment plant okay all right yeah I mean I guess my other point is is and I know this discussion is not for now but we keep saying we'll have this discussion later and we don't but why are our water rates so high compared to so many other communities my understanding it's MW debt it's the so so that's not really on the agenda I understand that but this shocking like we do the water rates this is exactly part of that ni is not so that is nuts we keep raising yeah yeah so so a couple things so first thank you I think this is great I um I think most of what you have outlined and proposed makes sense if we're going to do a program like this um I think my concern comes up when you get to the slide of okay we do have to offset even in a pilot program conceivably $671,000 um that's a lot of money that basically other rate payers are going to see as an increase so um I I you know that that's trou to me I think as it as it relates to what you're talking about here what rate you be charged for the second rate I think we're we're allowing that people are going to kind of get half half price in a sense versus what they're seeing now for for just these 400 people if all 400 take up the offer to do it um on the backs of the rest of the community and I think that that requires that there's a substantial shift not back to the rate that was but a substantial shift and what that is I think you given us some pretty good and interesting ideas I don't think the source of water actually makes any difference at all I love the fact that somebody has a better rate and love to get there someday but I think the real issue is how do we how do we treat this by comparison right the same sort they're they're having to do the same kind of offsets that we are and you know if it's double the rate that's that's how they're doing the offset so um I I think that what you proposed in the second we meter rate tier 4 might be an interesting way of approaching it kind of what you have on the the slide where it's 12 97 it's it's the tier four rate until you get to the very high level in which case it goes up higher than that and folks that I think are the heavy users that's that's kind of what's what's going on should there be the application fee my answer is yes I think that um we're having to do work that we weren't doing before there needs to be an application to be associated with that um is it pilot for only residential I I think that's what I had in mind that's what I would suggest we start with um Can second meters be used for filling swimming pools well why not it's the same discussion of uh not having sewer um I think that that should be an available option and people who decide to fill their pools they have different choices and they'll decide which one they're going to do and they might just hit the highest R highest tier to yeah yeah exactly yeah uh yeah so that that first 27,000 gallons or whatever it is you decide how you're going to do that um should there be apparently charged for not canceling an appointment I think see what best practices look like I think that that would make sense so that we don't have to waste time that's not the biggest one for me I think a tamper feed does make sense I think we learned from what other people have done it shouldn't be an issue but I think that will discourage some of the bad behavior and I would keep it at at least $300 if not higher um It season use fine and amount what's the reasoning why just to I understand why why April and October I understand is kind of grass season but why why is that a control to say hey maybe you found a way around this system and that's not okay you got to kind of keep it your outdoor stuff yeah that's part that's part of it and then you know it's just you know looking at water conservation too you know I mean you know outside of that window you know you're really not shouldn't be really using outside water anyway so um you know maybe it would prevents someone from trying to fill a swimming pool and skirt the system or something like that you know outside of that card rails yeah and to your point um the deputy um DPW director Mike kesman said in rever they had to turn in their meters at the end of the watering season turn them in so we're not asking for that but this it's up it's plge of the board it's sort of like PL to take it out discussion said okay so so I I think basically what you've outlined based on the best practices what you've seen in other communities um make sense I think that the the focus seems to be thinking about what what rate is going to make sense in going here um you know to do it I think we we still have an obligation to encourage conservation I think it's wonderful that right now there's a lot of water in the Quin Reservoir that's fantastic there won't always be and you know we're we're watching a situation right now where we have drought and we have fires and God forbid something happens in reading and we're we're using all sorts of water to take care of that it is a li limited commodity period it's not a political issue it is a limited commodity just you can't effectively produce more water the technology doesn't exist for that yet so we got what we got we need to just use it carefully it's fine if people want to do additional uses whether it's swimming pools irrigation whatever um but that's a privilege and it needs to be set up in a way that says hey you know do it but don't don't go crazy right don't just say well hey I got cheap now so let's you know let's let's double the grass area let's do all these other things if you want to do it okay but I think you pay a fee for have for doing that and that's in the form of a higher rate so I I I think that the second meter rate tier four idea with the bump at the end would make the most sense from from what I think all the things we're trying to accomplish it accomplishes a lower rate for the second meter it also establishes it's a different kind of use it helps offset some of that $671,000 but we still have to talk about how to offset the rest of it um and then the notion of if you get up into these very high consumption areas I think that you should be paying a premium my thoughts I would like us to so we're not going over this for all night is just kind of fixate on I'm okay with an application fee does anyone want to throw out a number I don't think it should be high you've got 100 bucks in there right now 100 bucks 100 yeah 100 bucks for what we don't have a second what program for the pram for the application fee to apply to to apply just for a second meter based on what versus 50 I'm saying why 100 that's an arbitrary number we put we we put out there yeah it's an arbitary number that's what I mean right's what's an application for other of Plumbing um is there any other application that is a good question per fees because you need a it's a permit fee be a perit fee did you say the 100 was what you saw in some other communities that that was one of the reasons why you chose yeah I saw 100 somewhere here commun I can't remember either yeah we looked at a lot of communties I think in this case 100 we want to offer it to people at the same time I don't know where this money is going but it can offset some of the 600,000 scenario that I'd get to in a minute anyway but I think that it's fair in this I think we would air on the higher end if we had to in this because like you mentioned I'm not saying it's a privilege because I don't agree with that premise that because I have a sprinkler in Reading I'm privileged because of this but I think that the $100 because of the the fact of what we're doing is warranted and if not it could go higher I wouldn't go under because we have to recoup the money somehow and we have to make it where if these people really commit to this then they commit to it but we as a board also have to commit that we're not going to just rip these things out a year from now it's a pilot program I understand but like that's why we're putting in these higher checks and balances than we usually would at least for me because we got to make it a a steeper Gap uh for somebody to do it like I said I'm not doing it because it doesn't make Financial sense to me but um other people are going to absolutely do it and um $100 here is negligible but they're going to save in the long run because they're going to run the numbers so I'm good with the 100 I mean someone I know it's a pilot we're call it a pilot program but someone spending several thousand dollars I'm hoping a future board won't say so sorry but this has been the problem a concern that I raised about a pilot program like this from the g girl we take pil it out it it only just a word it's only 400 I didn't us to vote because I was in Italy but it was voted as a pilot program so trying to bait and switch we didn't vote on anything we didn't vote on anything I think you vote well you voted to ask the staff to spend time coming up with this I think is what he did right we directed we didn't yeah that's a big difference I thought there was a moment met I mean the minutes my mistake what my point is we We the People 25 years ago spent a bunch of money and then unfortunately we had a a environmental incident on the highway so now we're in MW we weren't then I I don't I know it's a policy not a bylaw but I don't want to see and I have no control over it but I'm hoping future boards will not you know within a certain window say you know what forget it and they're out a couple thousand bucks that's all that's for us to discuss but I'm hoping next year we you know don't do anything so just it's a great Point um since I wasn't here for the discussion of initiating this pilot program do we talk about parameters for the length of the pilot program because that's what normally you would do what do you mean length right you you me so we put a pause in the water we put a pause in the parking kiosk and we're going to revisit it and uh hopefully we're going to revisit it for sure in January February whatever it was we said so this pilot program how long would it run for one season which could ultimately be a year because what happened nobodying it yeah we we really have that discussion probably discussion we need to have but we didn't have that discussion can I say so it would be very helpful also because I me I think I hear your concerned about spending a couple thousand dollars um I would like to see what kind of the the kind of cost would be to put it in and what the anticipated savings would be my guess is that the anticipated savings the calculation that Chris did basically are going to show that you're going to you're going to probably outweigh that $2,000 pretty quickly I let's that's the point of doing the analysis let's see what it says I can't tell you the cost of the new water meter and the transponder is around $400 yeah no I think just the whole kind of package because the concern about you know if people are going to go do all this stuff is you know you're investing X what's the expected outcome and F to do it for the heavy users is a kind of starting point because we're I think it's a reasonable guess that they're the ones most interested because they can save the most so what what is it that happens and let's see what the numbers turn out to be because I I I have a feeling it's going to be the savings are going to be higher than the than the cost very fast youing it basically yeah but let's see right instead of guess saying why don't we take a look that I think that wouldd be very helpful so total cost to to kind of do it from the homeowner's point of view and the anticipated savings based on that kind of usage and that's basically the calculation anybody's going to do anyway I hope but you'd have to get that from someone who's willing to do it though yeah I think you can just talk to a plumber and just say hey if you're going to do this what would it cost and they'll give you a quote for that we know the cost of the meter you know the the potential permit fees you know pretty much what it's going to be well I mean a lot of it is going to be it's going to vary too because it's based on where the irrigation line may come into the basement you know you may have extensive amount of Plumbing work you know to do internally versus you know not much at all yeah so it's going to that caveat in place but that's okay some some kind of you know expectation I would I would just assume it is $1,000 for a plumber to walk in your door to do this it's a th000 bucks for an electrician to come into your house to do a couple Outlets that's just my well we don't know let's let's we know something can find that out for you um toward the fee had asked a question about right so the minimum residential fee is $50 most of the Residential Plumbing fees are $50 for you know back blow preventor sewer connection residential boiler heater all of those things are about 50 bucks there is um a lost permit fee there's a late filing fee there's a reinspection fee otherwise you know things like that those are all or double the initial fee so all those fees already existed 10 we want to seek to be congruent I was going to mention 50 I think 100's a little excessive I'm will to split the difference and we're not voting but we're just talking I think F 50 you might think is too low so uh but anyway these are things we're gonna so then um I agree with Mark this is me speaking Residential Properties only um second meters on swimming pools yes why not they're paying for it um should there be a penalty charge for non-an appointments if we don't do that anywhere else we shouldn't do it here unless if we do it for a plumber electrician yeah building then yes if we don't no why why are we going to treat this differently uh tamper fee yes and out of season use fine I think that makes sense the amount I have no idea um but I I think this is a good start obviously we want to get this resolve from the next watering season and get this going uh as far as a pilot program to Karen's question I'd say five years initially it's my initial reaction but I I have no idea I know it's not a year for this kind of investment I would be comfortable with that it's up to 400 so like there's 10,000 people, houses in town yeah is the pilot program when it starts when it reaches 400 you know I it's like it could be 100 the first year 150 it could be 400 the first year I I don't know these those hypotheticals we're doing I think the 400 because we want to see what happens if we get all 400 people Matt's number ends up being correct or horribly wrong we get to see these kind of things a year from now um if we don't we don't have the data correct yeah right yeah I'd like to say 400's a big number for a pilot but in the reason I say that is because the data that Matt Matt the water expert provided worst case scenario 400 pilot people fiveyear program that is five years of and we don't know like that could be five years of this select board and future select boards trying to figure out how to pay for the deficit again this is the number I'm throwing out we're not voting tonight is this what I throwing out now that's really what I see is coming because water rates and Sewer rates is never easy for this board no it's not so this is that's always use the right word it is egregious it's very it's very very scary so I'm not sure that 10% that you're in favor of without any analysis behind it I'm not sure if that's going to be a drop in the bucket the if everybody signed up for the $100 fee that only generates 40 Grand and that's one year and yeah so I just don't know whether that 10% is is going to work without leaving us with a half a million dollars they come up with every year and spread out them all the water users yep I think the the small piece that we're forgetting is that no one wants to see water rates or sewer rates go up for anyone I don't want to see them but what we're forgetting is that this $641,000 was paid by residents that never use the sewer so they didn't use the sewer for this water but they still paid that bill a hypothetical number it's not real no that's well we want to ask Matt to clarify because yeah I just want to let you know it's not a real number it's a potential it's he's giving us you said two minutes ago that it was a real number now it's a hypothetical number I'm afraid of that number that he put out there turning out to okay even if this number is $200,000 that's $200,000 that residents paid for water that never went into the sewer those are the numbers he's giving us she's saying the exact argument that I've always made is that we're paying so the rates go up every year right so there's no there's none of this like oh it's money they've already spent and wasted it's whatever we could do calculations to go back for 25 years and we could look at I don't want to do this is money no matter what the number is the money is what people paid for water that never went into the sewer they paid for a service they didn't use on water whatever that number may be they used clean drinking water quality is water is expensive yeah you can't get it for free and why should everyone else pay for them I just I don't really want to argue about this that that number we have to agree is hypothetical but it is but it is is egregious um so and it is something that is going to come back and bite the board and it's going to come back and make a lot of residents unhappy I have a solution Carlo if you look to hear my solution oh I love it h perfect uh so I noticed that that Chris put the the higher water Rate rates for the the second meters if we went that route um the reason for that is uh I don't know what H very Lexington natic stonum seems to get it is that um you're getting the water and it's not going back into the sewer therefore you should pay more for the water which means by us fixing this in charging more for the water that people are using you have to go conversely on the other end to make up the $670,000 that uh Karen just mentioned it's very simple everybody without a second meter now gets a a tiered sewer rate escalating off 10% tier four Etc and then you have the lineup of people outside of town hall ready to get rid of all of us again but we're willing to do that to up them on the on the water end but not on the sewer end because we're not using the sewer with irrigation we shouldn't be charging people for using sewer with irrigation it's it's Crystal Clear so if you have a water rate you want to go up second meter water rates Etc do all that fine then you need a second sewer rate to make up for it and then you get into a battle back and forth with uh Ridiculousness that's what it comes down to so the $600,000 deficit $2 200,000 000 10 bucks it doesn't matter s for the last 25 30 years however long this has been the backs of the water was paid for by people with irrigation Point Blank end of discussion again it's Crystal Clear you paid for water to go into the sewer that didn't it doesn't matter that was cleaned it's treated it's purple colored water you paid for the purple water that didn't go into the sewer though you paid for what you got but then you didn't receive it on the other end we're trying to fix the inequity by making more inequity by people who get second meters by charging different rates it doesn't make sense to me it just doesn't and our rates are ridiculously high anyway so like we can't just do this stuff all right so a couple things one um it is not true that when you're wandering your lawn you don't use any sewer and if you have a question about it it is negligible unclear and it's far from zero but anybody who is watering take a look at what's going on you're telling me every bit of it goes into the ground irrigation I do and only mine that ends up spraying onto the sidewalk which I wish it didn't this is data that we don't even need to have conjecture about we can find it out there'll be estimates of how this is done some of it goes into the sore it's nonzero so the notion that at zero is is a mistake it's not false it is not zero no matter what okay so that's number one number two is we um we have already agreed upon as a board or a pass board has that tiers make sense in terms of using more water um has a slightly increased cost on a tiered basis meaning that everybody gets the same rate for the same amount of water you use more there's the next tier you use more there's the next tier but everybody is kind of equivalent in terms of what's going on so based on on usage and different kinds of activities you're using more you're paying more for what you're using the the structure that most communities have also figured out is that you don't St them being an exception here you don't charge the same rate you have some kind of of different rate associated with it is it a nominal amount is it based on your highest tier how is it set up that those are the examples that Chris was able to share with us as to you different ways we might be able to approach that um the question of how do we work with the vast majority of the residents that would not be wanting to get the second meter yet are going to be facing a cost increase for them whatever the source it's more money out of their pocket and and I think that if we can do things to mitigate that that's what makes sense here is to figure that out starting point might be the fee but to Caren point it's a onetime the application fee so we need to figure out how other people are going to essentially take care of this modest number of of folks based on the change that we're making from what everyone has been used to whatever the source they're going to be getting an increase how much can we mitigate it I think that's our responsibility I think some of it can happen through this slight rate change in fact maybe we can take care of most of it through the rate change that would be fantastic not so that people are paying the the same amount for sewer as they were for water everybody can can basically get a bit of a win out of this thing if we figure out how to do this on the number of people let's see how many people apply let's see what the costs are let's see what the savings are I think that was the point of a pilot program that's certainly what I was thinking about is to understand how this thing works and understand how it could or should be implemented understand what problems we create see what kinds of offset we're going to need to do maybe we can find ways to mitigate it further that's the purpose of the pilot how long does that last my guess is you certainly don't need five years and you certainly can't do one year there some some kind of timing in between that probably makes some sense um I want to see the data that tells us hey here's what you would cost to put it in here's the expected savings just like anybody is going to do hopefully when they make the decision on doing it and and my guess is to be proven that the the investment's going to pay out pretty quickly in which case I'm not as concerned about you know what happens if at the end of this period we say oh my God this is terrible Andor the quab and Reservoir suddenly is weigh down or whatever seems to happen that we come back and we say wow we need to rethink this thing you know I don't want people to be put out I want you know to see how we make this work but I think you figured that out in in a few years time roughly to figure out what that ought to be my piece all right let's move on I think it was a good discussion um I think TR has a little bit of homework not much and uh whether we do this in November or December will be determined my schedule but I I I'd like to get this going by the end of the year in you know some kind of um fashion that we have a poli you want to bring it back for a vote an official vote that way in the agenda yeah either November or December I don't know yet just based on what you know Chris can help us with and okay yeah we can do that yeah just so we can have Mark made a good point about having data but you know again no one has crystal ball yet right now so and no will we but it was a good discussion uh so next we're on to arpa funds thanks thanks R thank you can you can you guys see my screen y yes y so this is an updated um year today budget report for the oper funds um just because there was a couple I think it was just one change I think this treating invasive species removal had a $560 um incumbrance that went away so the numbers go up by $560 since the last time you saw it we did have that Health proposal that I can show you in a minute because it's actually attached to this PDF um and I have $80,000 um commitment from Jenna on this 91,000 um that can be potentially reclassed so in total we have 109 26825 that we know to be available at the moment there could be more um there was the health proposes the health department proposal of take pieces of that but that was what the total was if you wanted to accept that whole proposal and if so there would be 87 90834 remaining to be reclassed to some other use um you know some of the uses I put out there is just an idea and it's totally up to you what you want to reclass towards but the pickle ball court design where we have donations um coming in for pickle ball courts that the design would be a nice um something that we could at um from this money Paving sidewalk work any additional Capital all those things would be useful to the budget this was The Proposal given by the health department I think you guys had some interest in the rodent mitigation but I'm not sure about the rest of it um so it's up to you guys what you would like to do but we only have till December 31st 2024 to encumber These funds so we're getting close to it so we do want to have time to spend it so the sun will vote on some reclassing of this amount at least the 109 26825 um that we know to be available um that would be the best because then we have more time to get it encumbered and and not risk losing any of the money you could even do like a kind of a generalized vote of 109 268 and if anything else becomes available it can go to x you know so that we don't have to necessarily vote it separately because we are going to be up against it timing wise I don't in the packet I don't see the health um do you guys have the health request yeah okay not just me can you last one yeah that was the last one but she's shown it so I think as a board we can we see it though it's really small you but we kind of said the roed thing yes everything else was a wish list everything else was kind of you know it was he put together a way of spending the money that was left in the Co mitigation right it sounded like from the discussion before the one that stood out as something that you might be interested is the road and mitigations and the rest was you know you weren't sure if I so I would leave this the health department 21 35991 in place for a moment take it out of your 109 number to get to that 87 net I think this was allocated originally to the health department I think that they ought to be able to you know let's talk through kind of what pieces are here um I like your your point Sharon in in two ways on the back end which is have a spot so that on December 31st if this board hasn't reallocated the money it automatically goes to let's say Capital just just to make it easy but we don't leave a penny there's a calculation done on that date and we authorize Sharon the town to move anything that we had not reallocated out by that date so there's zero balance left I love that I I again I'd like to spend more time on the on the health thing so I'd rather not try to reallocate the 108 109,000 I guess is the number now yeah I see 108 where is9 so she just said there's another $500 $560 that was released from a PO so um I would suggest that what we do is we we focus on you know 80 or 87 or 88 or whatever the number is yeah um that kind of kind of so called giv back 87 908 yeah 87 that's kind of given given back in other words there aren't clear ways to use it to encumber it by the time we have to without without other proposals in place and I think a lot of our discussion last time did focus on pickle ball as a as an appropriate use so we have 87 8,908 that we know is unencumbered for sure right so and and no no one with within the the current people who are allocated is is chasing that right now correct right so that's kind of there that's a cleone so so following kind of on what you're saying so you looking at these potential uses obviously it's up to us um we created some categories that included Capital included um was it Water and Sewer where did we put the money to the the town resource came back yeah some water and so we kind of allocated buckets of those already so I kind of feel like we we did those from an ARA perspective so finding a new use for a town priority sounds to me like a really interesting idea so to that point I'd love to see a motion on pickle B Court design I know you would not only that and just just as a FYI uh Council on Aging had a meeting recently and they fully supported yep that as well so not to have a big discussion we can discuss it after the motion but i' like to see motion to allocate the whole hund what was it 109 what again 10 109 26825 if we do none of the health proposal okay that so that's the money we should allocate right that's how much needs to be allocated right 109 26825 and then do we do we do a separate vote for the 8798 or that's going to be the amount is the 1092 68 to 87 if you is if you entertain it the heal proposal at 21 35991 that's what would be remaining how do we do the motion if you were going to do anything with health it would affect the total of what you could do for people BS you have to consider yeah so we're gonna have to have another discussion on the health a future discussion right so you could we could just thinking out loud for a second you could do a motion on the the 109 and and say that whatever Al so whatever of that we then choose to so this is where it gets like Harry um I wonder if you want two motions yeah probably two might be better what if you what if the board first got a sense and agreed upon hey tonight we want to allocate x correct and then the second motion would be that we want to make sure that there's not a penny left so that if in the event we don't allocate another reallocate another Penny then we're authorizing the town or Sharon to take any balance left over that wasn't otherwise reallocated and put it into X so so sh you didn't call it a placeholder but there there's a place where it would go such that the town grabs it or it has to be a um you have to be able to encumber it right so you couldn't you couldn't put into general fund you'd have to encumber we have to be able to either make a purchase by December 31st by with not necessarily pay for it or take delivery but actually order something or sign a contract by um December 31st 2024 that would be incoming it so so if we said additional Capital would that work or is that not specific enough I mean you could do addition capital and I would just add it to the number that I have and and select things off the capital plan that are you know that are most needed that could be afforded for the amount so it could include things like Paving sidewalk work etc exactly Paving and sidewalk work are always going to be needed I mean you're going to see that for November town meeting um we had savings on debt we had to do capital I put a lot of it towards Paving and sidewalk just because we're not getting as much Paving and sidewalk work done with you know the rates that are out there now we're not you know the streets are suffering so that's a potential flexible bucket that would I could just throw that money and then know for sure that they so we leave no no Penny gets left behind all right so so I I would so I would suggest that we not decide the health piece yet but rather say hey let's allocate the clear $888,000 now let's put on our agendas going forward discussion of health and or if it's pieces of health or not Health what else we might do and the second motion would relate to if for some reason we don't do it or on December 31st at 11:59 p.m. Sharon you suddenly find X you put it at the it's per vote of the board it goes to Capital okay yeah thanks car uh my take on this is somewhat different is um so out of the 109 26825 uh like I mentioned before I'm not spending $20 on on scissors for the health department it's not happening again at least for me um but the radent mitigation absolutely should be happening um I know with uh uh Melones and all that that stuff got displaced and we do stuff all over the place and things get displaced and nobody wants rats and we have rats so I think it was originally ascribed to the health department and it is fulfilling a use to a point um but not the other stuff so where I would be at with this is 109 26825 minus whatever the health department root of mitigation is and then we'd come up with whatever number and then that gets subcribed to whatever we're going to vote on right now but in terms of the health department I I I don't want to just push brush it off again I just want to give them the rodent mitigation thing then we have what 100,000 left or something what is it Sharon how much is the rodent 12 rodent mitigation number seems like the plug to make it exactly 21 35991 he's currently asking for for 12, 5198303 that number is the one that's got all the change it's kind of like the the kind of the last number so I don't think you have to do this exact number you could say oh 12 or 13,000 or whatever it is that you feel or 20,000 or whatever you think is the the number just do more with it give them 15 no I'd say we can make it easy give them $926 of25 and then we have 100 grand thought it was 12,000 why aren't we what they're asking for to do it round number that he only because Sharon mentioned the point that it looks as he if he went ahead and did that because he had that money to do that but he could allocated more things on the wish list or added more to the wish list we don't know that so so this is a little weird because we I didn't touch this list I didn't look at it again it's not in the package I didn't either I'm not super comfortable kind of saying this is in this is out this is this was the stuff that I had the last meeting and I could in the packet it's not no it's not in our packet no and did the Board of Health vote on this no this was just what what happened originally just so you know is one of the very first votes that you took for the arer funds is me asking you for 250,000 so I had access to funds if we needed Co mitigation items such as tests and glovs and you this was in the heart of still you know bad Co time yeah um and then this is what's remaining so this wasn't requested by the Board of Health this was money requested by me just to know that we have money set aside for um anything that might be needed as time moved on because the other Grant the car's Grant had been going was going away um so this money wasn't requested by the Board of Health or anything it's it was in a health related item because I requested it from you at 250,000 so that we didn't have any issue getting what we needed to mitigate the spread of I've heard two different numbers Chris said nine and Sharon said 12 so what is the number I said it's 12 her number is 12 but I said nine to make it even because she mentioned that he did XYZ but then Mark mentioned his point I'm fine 8798 34 to whatever we're doing now and then followup meeting we can do whatever but I don't want the road of mitigation not to happen still so I don't know like you what I mean like in the interim like is he doing Ro stuff daily and this is just an increase oh okay so as long as it's been done don't know what he's doing for RO it they're always doing that it's it's it's an ongoing problem unun so I I I think we could do the Board of Health pretty quickly in another meeting but I think we should kind of allocate the 109 26825 no that's including the okay all right so it's 87 9834 excludes the board of yeah so we got to figure something yeah so how far did the Board of Health discussion get with um pickleball court design in terms of size and scope of the project and what it actually I'm sorry sorry Council and aging because you went to the meeting right no they told me oh they just told you okay I understand that to be the case that they supported it yeah so I'm expecting to see a presentation on what that would pay for what things cost that's with with permission that would be the purpose of the funding would be for the design of the work the the look right now um based on the week Cal work that was done by the designer is eight quarts um over on that partial the picture well the picture I saw but I was like where you go out we um let me use the example of the um the floor at the Fieldhouse they came to town meeting and they said we've gone out and asked for estimates and this is what it's going to cost we you give us the money so here we're just it feels like we're just being asked to throw over $887,000 into a project that I have no knowledge of what it could potentially cost whether it covers it whether it's more I'm not comfortable with that so okay so it's for design work this would only fund the design work not construction yeah um and we believe that this would be sufficient to cover the design work so um we can talk to the designer it's doing the ARA work right now BH and have them do this design or we can have it go to another vendor we use activity Tas um because it's engineering design it's exempt from procurement good and we do have I forget which one of those is like on sta on call when so would it it's not un reasonable to ask them to take a stab that design estimate so that we are allocating to an actual project not a market with nothing behind it is an actual project you want like a design estim a gave us specific things he's going to spend us on you just want to I'm not comfortable just moving $887,000 into a bucket that says pickle ball I'd like to see the meat behind the hamburger terrible I'd like to see I'd like to I'd like our um it's reasonable because we do it for all of our projects that we have a professional and I just used the um floor at the Fieldhouse example give us an IDE idea of what the estimated cost of this project would be and then you're going to know $887,000 isn't enough or it's too much it maybe that's not enough and I just I want to know that now because that also means that gonna we're GNA have to find some funds from somewhere else to cover it don't you want to know Jane just said that it's G to cover it though my question put it in writing my question is what if it ends up being 60 Grandin and we have 27 left exactly so have them put something it's still covering it though sure so um a rule of thumb is that design costs 10% of what a project costs so if our best estimate is that eight thou eight pickle ball cords cost about $100,000 each then we're in an $800,000 to a million dollar zone depending on lighting so that's why 87,000 fits very nicely into that number that happens to be the case Okay so have they done that work on what a whole project would cost no we have not done we have we have that number from the engineer has done that the town engineer Ryan pel has given me a back of the nap he's given us a very conservative estimate his conservative estimate is probably about a million dollars and that is very conservative right at the highest level so um we7 is not enough I'm just saying that I'm not comfortable doing this with back of the napkin it doesn't feel right I don't know if it's going to if it's going to be sufficient for the powers that be that want to make sure that we encumber this properly either um well when we encumber it we will have that contract so that's what will that will be sufficient yeah we'll know for sure so staff is comfortable with the number um R is comfortable with the number but certainly I can get something on Pap you're gon have to come back to us if it's you gave me a backup plan like let's say you say if there's anything left over we'd like it to go to Paving we like it to go to so once we sign that design contract will know right away if there's access yeah so if I get to so I I'm um I guess I'm a little more comfortable here with that Proviso so that we know if there's extra here's here's what can happen but the notion of kind of allocating it to a specific use um so we kind of did that with some other projects too some of them came in with specific numbers do this exactly others were more you know toward this kind of activity like what do you think of can you give me an example so the the money that went to the senior group was was more of a a bucket to be used for ABC and d and it included a um saying hey so we want to do the study on the feasibility study I think we allocated we said N9 out of thousand it said 250 to a feasibility study and then when we bit out the feasibility study we said in the quote Thou shalt not exceed 250 and magically it so it came in I mean but that number that the whole 900 number it came from somewhere it came from Elder services like they said they put together proposals on what they would that's what I'm asking for like I watched our arer meetings everybody came forward with something I just like to see something something be in writing um yeah the pickle ball the pickle ball usage is congruent with the um the supplemental programming space uh that was under the arpit so we felt that the pickle ball usage fit that very nicely we allocated one point five to Birch meow before we had to go back and ask for more I mean yeah it seems like the Birch meow allocation fine but slight difference here they really this can't be the if it turns out that the number is higher this won't probably won't be the source of it right the arpa funs because there there probably won't be more money available from arpa to do this exactly so it would have to be funded a different way or more accurately you know Sharon just making sure that you can do this is find a way to if there is a difference to potentially cover it at least for the purpose of the quote right so you can say we're encumbering it against this activity is that right or do you have to can have a signed contract she has to have a contract contct yeah no I'm fine with7 I just I mean me is there time to write up a contract and and and have them say yeah I can do it for $887,000 yeah I would want get moving on that sooner rather than later I don't want to wait two we um the interested in having Thanksgiving dinner right yeah so can I Sharon from a logistics standpoint and you being able to encumber if we said now 87 908 what whatever the number is to to pickle ball design Jane goes out posts it figures out what it is and it comes back and it comes back in 30 days we're not going to post it okay def def to them so this is telling them here's the max budget yeah we'll either call you know bhna and see if they they can do it and you can call activity toss and say what would you what would it cost to do these two pieces and they'll give us their rates give a Max budget for it and they'll send us contract perfectly capable of doing I'm hoping it's not that high it seems I don't think it it might not be that high but the Fieldhouse floor was more than this remember Sharon I was like that was more than this the design work takes you through I'm always kind of surprised at how big the numbers are yeah the wor we are too all right so we're kicking this to November then yeah there's nothing I mean I'm fine with voting on it now nothing is going to change this this has been rehashed 50 ways of Sunday o over the whole course here like I I don't know why this is like even being discussed Council and aging voted too uh the rest of the Town somewhat voted on this like because we don't have a presentation on it and but we've already known about this for so long no it's not and I'm not arguing that this wasn't isn't a valid great thing to spend it on I'm asking for the due diligence that was pretty much done for all of the other Opera allocations and AD our director Health director did it and Jane said she can get it done because I already know they they design Courts for um the design course to the Birch meow right there's already designs out there so can we allocate the 109 and then come back andit this allate the 109 we can't we only have 8790 we have a quick Zoom meeting and like do this it's not a big deal I guess I'm a little confused what are we looking for for our presentation we're looking for a presentation on what it's going to cost for design wouldn't we want the presentation on the design work after it's done I mean I guess I don't understand why we need a presentation of what it's going to we have to sign a contract are you going to sign a contract for $87,000 and not know what you're getting we're not signing a contract Jane is she's taking care of it that's gonna take care of itna go on vacation for a week and then Jane will take care of I I either way like I can't believe we're spending this much time on it I'd like to vote on it too yeah it's on there so this is how we craft so my motion that I have down is move to reallocate X of arpa funds from X to X so it would be from the a suggestion that's yes well you the senior programs feasibility and programs that's right yes to which fund though from Senor line item it's not showing up right now there's a line item that say um senior programs and feasibility study and it was originally 775 they've expended 389 they've been cumbered 293 738 37 and they have 91979 I was told 80,000 at least would be available from this line and then all other highlighted areas absolutely need reallocation so I would just move the access from all of these lines to a new line that would say pickle ball design or what move the budget down would the motion be best if it was specific so you're saying in other words 80 from senior two plus three from x to this blah blah blah for a total premium pay andal you know it's got the you can see what the amount is I guess it would be clear obviously to anybody looking at it that that's where you're taking the money from I suppose what do you need to make it as kosher as possible so that you're completely comfortable do you want it to say by line item here's what we're moving it totals 8795 and we're allocating it to this is that the cleanest I mean I think that I could do it just from the you could just give me a total and I know where the money needs to be mov from that's what I was asking right yeah okay so there's the answer you're you're comfortable with that pickable I'm comfortable taking it Forward okay so move to reallocate 87,8 34 of the arpa funds from the arpa funds to from how about from from un unspent unspent just say from various line items with with remainders to the Eco ball line or to create a pick a design good second second any discussion saying none all those in favor four all those opposed one okay future agendas you back on the he piece of that yes why do we have a second motion to um to be the back stop that says if on December X any money is remaining that the board Capital so that us the chance to do whatever we want but if there's something left you discover it at the end of the day you can move it so but the thing is so we're going to but we're not putting a figure to that though so move right any remainder any remaining funds that have not been realloc ated by the board before the end of the year shall move to I would suggest cap yeah yeah and that that's just a back stop doesn't preclude us from anything but it also means nothing gets wasted not yeah but I don't think I don't think you can just say Capital do you want us to say Paving inside said capital okay she said Capital would cover capital projects oh for her purposes okay sorry yep great sounds good so move second you you're moving or seconding do one so moved second you okay any discussion seeing none those in favor 5 Z but we still have to have a board of health discussion yes and if if Sharon comes back and says at our next meeting our next two meetings guess what there's another $20,000 that isn't encumbered right exactly all right yep I'm a little unclear as to we did see the V of Health requ in a prior prior pocket and we just voted like this new line item based on like nothing in our pocket why is this a problem why wouldn't we just we didn't agree on the board of health we didn't really we saw it but we didn't really we weren't comfortable with all the things that a day requested we were all on board with the roting and we left it at that because we knew we were having another meeting that's where we left he have the day come and support kind of the things he was asking for so he can explain because it's $20 scissors I'm not giving them $20 scissors I will go across the street and get them 20 pairs of scissors instead that's why I'm not doing Chris gets scissors um so so I'm sorry Shan did you suggest or if not maybe I'm suggesting join us you he could have a day come in and talk about how different ways he could spend the money or if or why he's asking for the specific items that he's asking for and then you can make your decision based on that because all I have is his proposal on paper I would suest that work only if you want it I guess if you're only concerned the scissors could you take it offline and just verify he's probably good it's a lot of items on there that I understand that the government likes to spend in there a they have to do it a certain way inals on there could we just move this to the next meeting as a specific discussion we can decide yes this no that or all right future agendas I have a November mostly lined up so um I guess a couple of things so I guess I I wasn't I thought we were going to do Pleasant Street tonight here's we I think there needs to be a second meeting for December 3rd probably so that if there are specific proposals that come out of our discussion on the 19th we could vote on them on we can on the third so I suggest we add that as a line item for third for the third yeah also for the third I believe that the PBC will be able to present I'm just saying wait do you have it here so the update on November 19th we have update from PBC update so can I leave it there and then after this Monday's meeting see if that makes sense or if it makes sense to move it to the next meeting because I think that they will by theend of November be able to say select board here's our recommendation agreed to by AB C and D we need to pick a site for five of us right yeah so I think based on I just don't know that that November 19th they'll be done with their work no no yeah that's fine I'm not I'm not saying it would be it's just as update yeah okay and and so in that case can we add just a placeholder for December 3rd for vote on site recommendation well there be we need we need a formal presentation yes by the OPM yes right yeah we have the third and the 10th open right now if needed so I'm okay with the third that's fine anyone else or anything else so I talked to IA this week about an executive she wanted to do an executive session it has to be done I guess before for the 15th regarding a litigation matter that you're aware of um so November yeah 15th of November I guess and so she said it could be a quick Zoom meeting during the day at night or whatever fine but can I work up with you on scheduling that I just didn't want it to be a surprise and not come up we'll work on that could be before one of the Town meetings or a different night it it could be that yeah so whatever I'll send an email and you know okay all right that's fine okay one C comment just I don't know if this is meant to be the order for that meeting or it's just a list of things for the meeting but I think you definitely want to hear from the PBC on the site um findings before y we do any other activities Rel the environmental Simon way yeah so maybe just flipping the order of what you got here wait a minute so right now it says discuss and vote on Simon Way land for pickleball oh yeah yeah yeah right that's that's just a list right right yeah we yeah correct we could we'll reverse that put in a better order yes yes that's not we discussed that last time because we were going to do Simon's way last time and then we made it made sense to do them together right yes that's fine yep no problem there anyone else anything else I have a design appointment on there um are we going to have vas yeah I was going to say we're going to have to have vas either the 19th or the 30 has anything I was out of pocket for a week has anything been posted for openings for ask um um I think there was a call for volunteers I'm not sure Kaitlyn yes what do you mean postings for what we always have everything posted open position any new open positions on boards is that your no the 20-day windows for you know no us that we were planning to have bask um interviews in early November if that hasn't been posted yet then we can do that until it's been up there I don't understand what you mean the VAC every vacancy that we have has been posted for don't apply people don't apply no are you saying there's a 20-day window before we can have a vas meeting no that's well that's if you I think what Karen is trying to get at is the whole Ace committee scenario thing but that got advertised a month ago or something so as long as we did that in the future closing in a couple days that's closing it's closing November one and there are five applicants so far right okay so have we published that the vasque will be meeting on a certain date and that we will be looking to review applications for all of these um positions and they need to be received by a certain date have we posted anything like that to the community only only the ace committee has a line on it right now the other ones are rolling and um they they come in we can certainly post some tomorrow but it sounds like folks should come up with the date first we we went already went back and forth about this weeks ago and I thought had a date in early November um so I have to go back and check my notes I is for the ace committee because that was brand new Staffing up a so is that more an issue then of of the folks who have applied to let them know that this is when the interviews are going to be cuz they've been posted for a while yeah so don't doesn't the vasque need to like post I don't know I I I just want vas only needs 48 Hours like every other board I mean we try to do longer than that when we reach out to applicants but I think um because we have the ace um applicant applications open until um I believe Friday right Jane or tomorrow end of the week end of the month end of the week yeah so um we we have received a few this this week okay so we wanted to have a deadline for other postings if we're going to interview other postings other openings as well we want to have a deadline for them sure you can do that all right yeah do we we don't Kay we haven't received any other applications for open boards correct um no not recently committee but that's not a v well we've had that application for a while yeah I mean I'm still available next week to do a 48 hour um vask meeting to handle the E applicants but I it it seems like we're not going to be able to address the other openings we could try but it doesn't feel like it's very orderly there is a couple and I think we discussed having two meetings one next week and one the following yep I thought we had a date finalized and um the applicants can't do the date how's that work two days us the final date so I think what Camen is suggesting I'm not putting words on around is that we want a call for volunteers for any open boards and committees to apply ASAP right but there's no legal requirement no no no legal requirement right no but they do it now otherwise not till the next not till the next cycle right right yeah that's what you're kind of suggesting mhm right okay all right so we'll put on then so the 19th we have the design and then we'll put because the interviews will be kind of over for everything potentially right that we'll add a line item to the after the designes to appoint you know a placeholder for any other you know boards and committees to vote on from vasque okay anything else ask a question I'm just not clear for a second so for the 19th you you folks V will have met we can try we think we think the can try I think placeold is a good idea right and then so there there are five people that have applied so far we know right but but hang on it's tell meeting is all in there that's why we were trying to get it done week in November and it hasn't the 12th we discussed the 7th and the 13th right oh in our last email well that's what I had said yep no I thought we were all set it was going to be like the week of that maybe the 7th dat I thought that was going to be scheduled so so my question just for a second is about um Ace so five applicants so far see if there are moreing of the week right yeah and figuring out how many of those folks will be appointed how many slots are we actually appointing at that bask and then coming to the select board to to put in how many people there's a designate yeah our design design okay right and then two residents and three Associates okay so two residents go through so it may we have six appointments yeah one person from this board or designate yeah one person on this board or designate got it two other residents and then three assoc said three Associates okay doesn't have to be three Associates right right I was just trying to figure out of the pool of folks that don't get approved through vas correct this board might say hey one of them could be our designate that's a possibility or have other people in mind right or maybe one of us suddenly is able to to space all those are open I just I just wanted to kind of it almost sounds like we should have see what Bas comes up with in terms of recommendations bring those people on and then decide if we want any of the other applicants still in there to be potentially our designated I that's what I was thinking it only makes sense I'm not gonna that's the way I was random person yeah you're in okay so just I was just thinking order of operations no no I was think I was planning on that and if we don't get more than the five then we'll have one available spot until the next cycle and that'll probably be an associate spot right which makes sense y okay cool thank you all right are we good two minutes fun fun so so question um public comment on September 10th is one person in one long paragraph public comment on September 24th is one line per person so those aren't consistent so I suggest we get consistency and and you know whether either one of these is right we can talk about but right now they're just so different was it more than one public comment no my point is that public comment was summarized in one sentence there was one to one all the time I think it's twofold a first of all it's I don't want to say it's me but it's me uh and like I would assume the same would be for any one of us that would speak as a resident as opposed to as opposed to a board member only because I was put into that position but yes to the other point it's I understand that uh you know David Zeke said this and then John Sullivan agreed with them paulan agreed with them Phil I understand that part but like I'm not sure what else you want to put it seems for me looking at it it seems more advantageous the way that Caitlyn did the September 24th one where all of these people agreed with it it's better than reading a lot of it this is a transcript that's the problem is supposed to be a summary I I I believe I spoke for a long time so for my comment rul special select word members SC it's that is for a uh member of the public that isal rules to special members of the public who also have we do minutes and we do summary minutes this has been an ongoing discussion for four years and we've never settled on anything no we did settle it we did settle on every minutes seven minutes every seven minutes is freaking different end the story every set is different then we vote on them summary bullet whatever it is we vote on it you say this every meeting and every seven minutes is different I don't say this every meeting well pretty much pretty much Mark said it so you're looking at the wrong person so and I agreed with him okay so I suggest an edit on the September 10th minutes September 10th okay because hey the no speaking as a resident not a select board member he Noble gives opinion anything related to V communities or Haven Street Street skate Project tonight as a select board member because he know commercial property on Haven Street and then cut everything else last sentence he noted he does not support the Haven Street skate project or MBTA communities yep yep that's good wait uh you want keep sentence one and the last sentence and everything else cut out where he thinks guy that's where want end it well there's more to it and he attacked by members in the room like it's just not summary it's just not adding any value and so I have I'm new to the board I get it but I have an issue with adding things and taking things out that actually happen and this continuously happens with minutes and it is mindboggling to me if it happens it stays if it didn't happen you don't add it and if you can't take it out because you didn't like it because it happened like these are minutes right so on on September 24th K pelovski made a comment about water rates how they need to fix the multi-unit rates he spoke for three minutes and I'd be happy to agree with you to add more but we agreed I believe we agreed that with everything here every other comment that's here is that we summarize what went on we don't offer a transfer we don't offer a quotation that's not the purpose of the minutes that's not how we've been doing it I think I think our point is I agree with you both but I think her mela's point is that for public comment they're not our words we're constantly amending our minutes for uh typos uh you know misspelled words what we actually said and we add it because it came from us I'm not comfortable taking someone's public comment whoever it is and saying well we didn't like what they said let's get rid of it no we're not doing that we're summarizing what we're doing okay well there have been a number of circumstances where members of the public have have shared comments about us and then we not not for the sake of saying we didn't like what they said but we don't necessarily include exactly what they said and we don't go through and and go line by line here's you know they said this they said this they said this they said this I I don't think the rec sentences is is is getting into that area Mark if if we're talking it's like four paragraphs of stuff I agree with you but it's these are Chris's words if Chris is okay with deleting it then I'm okay with deleting it if he's not then I'm not just like you guys I think that's fair so no I don't think it's fair at all okay we need to have a to deal with how we're going to do minutes and what we're saying is each time we can decide whatever we want that's what we've been doing that's no kept it down to a few there going to be edit if you want to quantify the amount of edits that I have ever sent to Caitlyn or whatever this not about you here not about you I understand that but it you're you're trying to di minimize a section when consistently meeting after meeting there's going to be sentences and paragraphs added throughout this that I never even said say or oppose or do anything that should never get there you didn't say never get there or any of us that's not the case something that is not that isn't a misstatement nor did I just to take all of this off of Caitlin's plate yeah let's use like chat GBP GPT or whatever to do our minutes from now on it will be exactly what everyone says and you call it a day because I really am very frustrated with the adding and taking away of things that were said and were not said and adding them to our minutes if you do it with a program that people use in their board meetings or depositions all the time everything that's said is there and you call it a day nothing's added nothing's taken away something said it's said it isn't said it's not in the minutes so even with chat GPT or any other system you're going to use it it's trying to interpret and it will make M program that does minutes and like even so can't do it unmonitored I'm not say has to work with it we still have to approve it you you can review it but you're not adding words that weren't said or taking words away that were said so it's not a transcript we've agreed it's not a transcript we don't want a transcript it shouldn't be a transcript many many we have four hour meetings the transcripts could be 50 pages but then it allows presidents to go back and search for things so that's not the purpose of minutes as defined by the open meeting law that's not what it is but check the open meeting law that's specifically what it says at the same time if I was trying to add this myself I could agree with you mark this is Caitlyn did the minutes she does them all the time do matter she doing a we just edited I'm not trying to make myself appear one way or the other just like oh it works in my favor so leave it cuz I like it's just silly Chris these are supposed to be summary minutes not transcript that's that's all there is to it it's not a transcript Mark made one request and again if you IST on all of that going there I still have the edits because this our second crack at these particular meeting minutes and my obnoxious trans transcript stuff is going in there too but your transcript you're you're debating the issue in the minutes that's how it was presented last time you're trying to say something that wasn't said I said no no you denied saying it that's different you were wrong did you go back and actually listen to the meeting because I did did you go and listen I 100% did so did you I'm not saying you're I'm just saying we'd be improving our MS and Improv open lock you said you want to watch the video I'm not well I'm busy so you didn't watch the video and you still even though oh my God God oh my God so you want to still add it not having checked to see that I was actually correct you attacked me for being in meeting to the point where the chair said in the meeting you're mistaken the chair not say that unless you're wrong that's two against one so you're wrong you did not say that either Tarry conr the exact scenario he said Karen he's talking about the most recent meeting and the words out of your mouth were I attend the most cbdc meeting we're we're going to do the meeting the minutes for the 10th we have to agree on one thing right now and then we're going to vote because we're going to be all fraking night I have okay I have no is okay with removing it I'm okay with removing it he not okay with removing it what I would like to remove my edit was a little bit less it was half of that third sentence but I'm I'm with Mark take out the whole sentence it's more summary Chris puts specifically just States why he did what he did and then noted his position and that is a summary of public comment you don't need all this other stuff the color of the the sky outside the phase of the moon summary what did what did you do Chris because people let's is people go back and look at me nobody needs that's great that you thank Mr Manel that's really awesome and and then saying you were attacked by members in this room that's just factually I wasn't he was that's what I said and that's what this says I people can it's not board business that doesn't belong in our meeting minutes then don't allow public comment for people to give that comment in the first place it's a transcript it's not transcript is I do my transcript of what I said would be two pag just take out the are there any other edits for these minutes yeah I'm going to add the stuff that we left out um that I I brought up before um Karen attended the hold hold Kaylin do you have these up please we have nothing on the screen the second time we've looked at them um hold on I'll tell you I sent them I had to pull them up again I sent them on um 108 when meeting minutes and kayin was like being really like really really like edited for a while um that was my observation um and not in a bad way it is easier to get our minutes approved when they say less it's a what topic was discussed if there are dissenting votes why did the person descent that's fine a statement we've had some great meeting minutes like eight different public comments one sentence for each that's that's and that's less for us to edit and this takes less time can I suggest that we create a new agenda item going forward that relates to how we want to deal with minutes because we can't really yep we can we can decide this specifically but we're not honestly it's never going to change it's it's one next meeting it's going to be something else for somebody else just find best practices and then I understand best practice for me personally is whatever Caitlyn puts unless it's you know can we get rid of the green again I can't read that for yeah for me whatever Caitlyn comes up with is what she comes up with I'm not sending her stuff to put in is not in the spot of having to make the decision that's not she is she's the one that well you can to us it's our job it's not Kaitlin's job she does the heavy lift and we're just supposed to make any little Corrections right correct and Ken wants to add whatever that says in green which I have no idea on the topic of red or some Sor can you make the light green like a purple or something it's a PDF I can't change it oh what if I highlight does that make it better it worse 10 times worse can you read it to us please hang on I'll change it and I'm going to resend it to you enjoy yourself 648 what 64 Yankees prophecy is coming true Bob 64 oh they won still going do you want me just read the first sentence it's very noncontroversial yeah I'm good with the first sentence okay I already read it lunch and learn and that says on the topic of historical shoem making and writing at the Pleasant Street Center that's all on the topic of the struggles you're making right the second sentence and did a recreation do we need to is that a typo still yeah Recreation and cpdc meeting uh foreign update on the possible mvta communities proposals because that was the major agenda item that's fine with me it's being very specific okay keep going and let's see all right final sentence selectboard member Haley incorrectly accused select board member Eric of misreporting her attendance at a prior cpdc meeting it's actually pretty dry it's pretty dry I don't say I don't like your hair you bad the meeting you were incorrect fin sentence say Sheri corrected select board member Haley but he refused to apologize you can't even say that with a straight face Ken okay fine good on the shoing I don't think the shoe Haley take off the butt it's fine Caitlyn the last part it's fine I editorialize a little yep okay are we good everyone good what are we doing what my name mentioned cuz cuz that's what happened you spoke Carl said Chris he said Karen he's talking about the most recent meeting it was a big long involved discussion but you were out of line and you accused me of misreporting my attendance at my own meeting folks this is he was there and you weren't there and he said you're mistake any other edits any other edits right here any other edits keeping this why is Sean here just get rid of the supposed to do all right any other anything else yes down lower Beyond below MBTA communities discussion in green instead of they just can we just be a little more specific staff have scheduled instead of a a staff have scheduled okay anything else okay yes under sorry one more sentence in green herck noted that the town of reading will need to start budgeting annual to maintain open space and combat in space invasive species it is a I said a lot more it's a just a summary of a point I made anything else yeah we were just being um under Recreation committee appointment just to be consistent her we should always note when you have um 2 three 34 41 votes how the votes went so it was Herrick and doxer voted yes on the first one herck and doxer voted no on the all right and then we somebody put in there we're missing Ethan's last name that's all if fre and Ethan needs a last name yeah all right motion to approve these minutes let's go okay second without the no I mean I I'm not doing a motion I'm say we need a motion I didn't say as amended I want a motion not from me motion to accept the meeting minutes of September 10th September 10th as amended second second for Mark any discussion please go no seeing none all those approved 5 Z okay 24th any edits yeah but they're small and I don't know if they're really green nope they're in pink I didn't send these to Caitlyn but they're small okay um I was just noting because this was my late night meeting from Italy Karen Caitlyn correctly noted Karen herck joined the meeting via Zoom at 800m and I noted from Italy where the local time was 2: a.m. although I'm pretty sure I was up till 3: but it was 6 hours ahead from Italy where the local time was 2: a.m. and sounds like editorializing but I'll I'll allow it and then down below where she correctly also noted herck L the meeting but we missed the time stamp but then I added bot and Haley returned to the meeting because you two were missing that's all okay any right nope I I probably didn't to read the no I sent Caitlyn edit oh what are yours mine is the CPA on the screen again my name was I didn't no one I have Chris's but Karen didn't send me those so I couldn't put them up yeah no that's fine can you send them to me now Karen so I have them yes I can hold on maybe make sure let me make sure it's a PDF so you can't do it sorry I'm Chris you was minor major or are they minor it was the CPA vote where I voted no and I just gave a one sentence reply why I voted just like has those yeah okay and that was it that's it yeah I have those I can pull them up if you want to see it m any it's all right I'll wait for them to come up I I trust you and Chris but let's just see them we all know the C was in an email I don't know if you can read it carry it I know um I don't know how to make it bigger control yeah press control and then scroll it'll make it bigger on the screen no this is an email just copy paste it into word increase the font size okay Chris's changes my Chang is only reference in the section just gave her the spot to put Li it sorry Seine fine I thought you just wanted to be with us I totally forgot about my phone switched over to sleep mod there's a couch downstairs it's like you're asleep now it's probably lots of candy too yeah it's candy I'm to get home candy right there double down on my dinner no I know I'm not going to walk all right here we go my only edit is where it starts with Haley the other thing is the section that it cover is where's the edit right there yes oh now what happened I can't read it now he mention that he appreciated the committee's work really maybe oh there it is yeah there you you really want that in there CPA is the I said that's what I said okay all right I'm just asking you I'm just asking that's what I said I don't know tell that that is a summary it's a sence haly noted that while he appreciated the committee's work I said that he be this is bad timing or something you know that could be so much shorter cuz it's summary sentence it should be summary it is a summary it's a sentence he you could have said he is unable to support it well he didn't say it so I think it's fine it just it just seems Sil it's because the vote was 4 to one it's the same reason why Karen just called out the two to three otherwise if it was I wouldn't have sent it okay motion to approve someone please motion to approve the meeting minutes from September 204 2024 as amended second second Mark any discussion hopefully no all those in favor 5 Z thank God all right need a motion to go in executive session move to enter in move to enter an executive session under purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the facilities Union as an open session may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the select board and to invite into the executive session Town manager Matt corellis Town accountant Sharon angstrom Human Resources Director Shan Dono facilities director Joe fkins uh and executive assistant Caitlyn Noella not return to open session second second all right going do a roll call vote Melissa Mark yes Karen yes Chris yes Carlo yes all right who is going to be on