e e e sh all right it's 7 o' I'm going to call the meeting to order we have one member on Zoom so I'm gonna start with the roll call Karen here Chris here Melissa here Mark
here Carlo present all right so tonight um watch us on rctv blah blah blah and we have BL in there great new look wait for him laughter wait for him after
say hello so we have public comment we have select B select board leaon tomandre reports discuss for authorized debt from MW local financial assistance program pickle ball design and cost update discussion uh recal discussion
and vot of support vot to close the warrant Retreat discussion vote on intermunicipal agreement for animal control that we have with Wakefield we do this every year master plan pre- discussion Logistics future agendas Pro many
minutes and we will go into executive session and I'm pretty confident we will not be returning to open session and with that and if anyone uh would like to speak please sign in you don't have to but it's always nice and
so for public comment um how many want to speak for public comment today just do okay all right so uh we'll start with public comment TR to keep it in two minutes please I don't want to do a timer it's short sweet right this is
impressive pip Maryland chapley 11 John Carver Road I'm a member of the COA but I'm speaking tonight as an individual resident of reading I'm doing it to call attention to Wilmington's awesome new Senor center it's an 18,000 squ foot
building that was completed on time within budget my understanding is without the need for Deb exclusion moreover it is already wildly popular in the Willmington Community School orchestras are actually competing to perform in celebration of the
accomplishment the high school did it and the Middle School heard and they want to do it so there's parades going on um I call attention to the Wilmington facility because it is an excellent and much needed role model for the senior Hub that will replace our Pleasant
Street Center Wilmington Senior Center is smaller than the recal design proposals but I ask you to imagine for a moment cuz it could be in a different place that a gym and more office space were included and in that context please
think about Wilmington Senior Center as the senior Hub that needs to be incorporated in readings recal we get a lot of feedback from people that they just don't have much experience with Senor centers and they don't understand the new resp es of what's different between a rec center and a senior center
and there are huge differences so I think this is a good way to see a current Senior Center that to my eye anyway is really very rich in what it offers there's much to learn from wilington and I encourage every single
select board member to go see for themselves the kind of senior space that can be created when a community is committed to supporting healthy aging give them a call they'll be happy to give you a tour um and I just point out reading 60
plus population is approximately 25% larger than Wilmington's we need everything you'll see in Wilmington and more so please go take a look it's a rare opportunity to learn and they're dying to tell you about how they did it
what it has to offer it's really a nice piece of work so a suggestion because we've got a long way to go with a million little decisions down the road thank you my name is Joseph white I live at on Prescott Street in Reading um and I'm
here after attending the um MBTA turnaround track meeting a week or so ago there were a lot of people opposed to the project um but not many people that were in favor of it I'm a commuter
I I use the train all the time um frankly the numbers that they presented I thought were relatively low and I don't know if they actually did a good sensus but anyway I had a wrote a letter to the board I have it here and I'll give it to you um but I want to make a
couple of points and these were based on comments I got from the meeting um the other day there really are two options here there's a third they could do nothing in other
words leave the schedule as it is the schedule currently has 43 trains nine um leaving reading for Boston excuse me eight leaving reading for Boston nine leaving Boston for read the remainder either going to hail or coming back from Hail To
Boston um and they could leave it that way but from what they said at the meeting their mandate is to increase service and um so they're looking to increase the number of trains coming to
reading and leaving reading um meaning they're going to they want to increase the schedule number of trains um they can't do it without building a turnaround um however given the opposition if they get too much
resistance and don't decide to build the turnaround they'll use Wakefield as the Hub uh for um short trains meaning that reading loses Service uh by my account um those nine
plus 8 those 17 trains that either come to or leave reading out of the total of 43 is 40% of our service that's a huge loss of train service so the options that I saw were
either build the turnaround or lose service in fact when I asked that at the meeting with the MBTA they Bas they said yes that is the case they are trying to to work with people here
to get to position where they could build the track they own the land they'll likely get um approval and authorization to do it they could do it on their own excuse me they could do it on their own without anyone um objecting
or whether people objected or not but what I'm here to say is I don't know who um to speak to because there weren't enough people that ride the train there to to argue for it I mean if you if you
ride the train all the time and then you suddenly lose 40% of your service that really affects what you can do now so I don't know whether the select board has any say in this or whether it's up to the conservation committee either local
or state but um I want to at least make the point that there are a lot of people in this town that ride the train and we need the service so um I don't know who else or or where else to go to at least point
this out um and there there are some other options that I don't want to go into right now but um if this board has any say in it I would argue that um if ready wants to grow it needs the train service thank
you um should I give thank you any anyone else in the audience public comment I am Jean FR um 25 Archard Park Drive I am a board member of the councel and aging but I'm here this evening as a
resident I have been a resident in reading for about 53 years now I have enjoyed the town I appreciate everything the town has to offer from First Responders DPW Town officials I would not have been in this
town this long but I am finding right now the town needs to really and truly consider the 60 plus senior community and the proposed building site
for a senior community center it is important for the 60 plus seniors to have adquate facility to maintain social and learning whether you're two years old to
102 the senior population has changed IM s we're not just sitting at home knitting or watching TV we're active and these seniors have been active in this town for many many
years paying their taxes for our fabulous school system for our athletic fields my children have participated and it has served our family well so I sincerely would appreciate
this town taking into consideration and thinking about the 60 plus Community as well as the intended AB building that is proposed for the wreck the seniors need
an all day program and those who are 60 plus now take care our caregivers our babysitters so they need the senior Cent in the evening so yes it is now time for this
town to think of the 60 plus senior community and I appreciate all that has been done thank you thank you anyone else in the room Jackie it's you tonight right Jackie anyone on Zoom public
comment no hands on Zoom all right thank you I will with Melissa for the on yep um February 27th the school committee met um Dr mileski talked about the Unified sports program that reading
has um Tara Hurley who is a reading resident uh parent and teacher in town has really been a huge driver of that program um when the prog if people aren't familiar with it when the program started it was only um in the high school and they had
a basketball and a straight training program but now it's moved to the middle school and they have basketball as well um the school committee also approved their FY 26 school calendar um February 24th cpdc met they discussed a pattern book that
they are contemplating using which will create visual userfriendly guide for developers and applicants to understand expectations for Community Planning and Development um it's it sounds like in the spring it may be coming out but to
me it sounds like it's a book with like architectural designs and what the town expects from um developers so and that will be readily available to Residents developers um Town staff and all that and that's it that's all I got all right
Mark thanks car um so three updates one um last Tuesday evening um we had a lot of activities in town one of them was a celebration of Black History Month um that took place at the library um they had a trivia night they had a pretty good turnout um even given that there were three things going on pretty much
at the same time which was really difficult but um it was nice to see that and um it was a good event I was only able to stay for a little bit because I had come to the NBTA meeting um last night a holocaust Survivor named Helga Melman
spoke at the pack Center she is 97 years old and had an amazing amount of energy stamina and a story that was truthful scary and um unbelievable but it
happened and I think her lesson for us was just to make sure it does not happen again to be aware it was a very moving activity the pack was I would say there were 300 people in attendance last night um last thing um on the town
website we have some updates um in the recal area including an opportunity to see some videos to take a look at other centers um that have uh recently put together some videos and other activities including the sandwich Center forac of living which I think is a
really good uh video for folks to watch to see what it's like to get a tour to see what it's like to to be in the center to see how it's used to hear some interviews from some of the people that use it as well so I think it's a really good ad to the to the website and a chance for people to kind of understand what we're talking about here so and
that's it thank you Chris thanks Carlo the sandwich Center sounds like a great name for a business that's that's what I thought you had meant they have a cafe do they do they Ser sandwiches no um uh the yes I believe
almost all of us attended the uh MBTA Forum uh last week I'm not going to belabor the point we heard everything um there's a recording on rctv you can watch it back and and get the sense of everything um but if people don't know the MBTA pulled the permit temporar IL
or permanently depends on what um they do in the future so that's kind of it's on pause or not balls in their Court um and then the charter committee met uh last night we ended up uh voting and
finalizing the changes to the Charter uh IA and Lura are going to work who's hiding behind the podium are going to work on submitting it to um uh to the state I Believe by May 23rd
so we can have the most amount of time for uh feedback and participation by the public going forward so the select board is going to end up um more likely than not taking over the forums that have to
be held for it and then we could optionally pick a committee most likely the charter committee again to just hold those forums because the you know eight nine of us know everything about what we changed in the charter as opposed to just me and
you know little brief updates here and there so it's going to be on the select board to vote for the people for the for that and at that time I will advocate for all the existing members that were on there um including Jeff beckworth who won't be on town meeting anymore but as you know we can appoint him to that
committee because it won't be um done by the charter at that point whereas the charter form the charter committee this one is just an ad hoc that we would create um so the forums most likely will be starting uh July August uh we can pick how many we want
how little I would assume at least two Zoom option Etc um and we would go over all that uh then and then it would be able to make the uh November warrant of 25 I think so yes yep it's so confusing
we've talked about it so many different which ways that we could have done it Etc um so then the it'll go in the warrant uh and then it will get put out to the ballot as well so then uh residents can vote on it as well um but
that's it pretty much there's no like massive changes we did add a couple tweaks here and there mainly just taking out um gender neutral kind of terms uh just putting those in um but it's it's all on the website we redlined all the
different changes between the last and and the new one and that's pretty much it that's all I got Karen thank you Mr chair um yeah Tuesday I was a busy one I echo my colleagues comments and
um the mbaa representatives were very patient and they they did get a lot of feedback a lot of feedback from the town of reading and staff and so um appreciated that time and effort that they put into that and I would agree with the speaker that we heard from
tonight we we are not hearing enough from the people who um actually use the commu rail every day so I would definitely encourage more people to reach out to other the Conservation Commission of the select board and just make your make yourselves known and
heard um also just wanted to remind everyone um with us college student that the reading Scholarship Foundation um deadline will be March 7th and this is a really easy scholarship application it is good for seniors it is good for
anybody um who is still working on an undergraduates degree there actually is no age limit um rsf is the.org is the website and then next week um as you all know I've been starting on the mass
Municipal fiscal policy committee um this is my second year so I wanted to bring up next week's meeting because um one of the initiatives before the legislature and the governor is uh making permanent hybrid and remote meetings and what I did get to see a
draft of was a letter that um a municipality and elected official could send to let our wishes known so I might suggest that we as a select board um bring that bring that letter um and send it on
to our um Representatives the governor if we are in agreement that we appreciate hybrid and um in order to deliver better government than we should lend our voices so that's one option we have and then I also wanted to let you know I also saw a draft because um the
tax lean law regulations are going to be updated post um the decision by the Supreme Court so um I'll be seeing a draft of those regulations and um you know it'll it's it's going to be meaningful for lots of communities in
the Commonwealth but um given one of our agenda items tonight especially relevant for us so after I have that know I'll bring the regulations forward to this spot thank you thanks um yeah I was on Zoom for the turn backt track meeting
last week which was very well attended the NBTA was better prepared but still uh they have a lot of work to do that's probably why they pulled back for now uh and also I wasn't able to attend but I got an update from the CPA committee Community preservation act and they had
some presentations from other communities uh that adopted CPA and the benefits of it so we have another meeting coming up I think we're meeting monthly and um not a really a Leah's on report but
we won't have a meeting until then so the pickle ball fundraiser is on the 16th at the gym uh Fieldhouse sorry and hopefully it is as well attended as has been the past two years they'll offer lessons uh open play and that is on the
16th at the field L I encourage anyone who's interested to learn or wants to play uh please do so and that's it for me Matt yes um I wanted to remind everybody that Winterfest is this week it's still winter so Thursday from 5 to
8 on the common and the cobblestones um they'll be celebrating Winterfest the chamber again is hosting we going to thank them for hosting as they do every year should be a fun event um things for kids and adults as well so want to remind people we get out there on Thursday night um also I wanted to say
we we've talked before about the AV upgrades in this room and we've kicked around some dates and weeks it's very hard because it's a very busy room used a lot at night but we settled on the week of April 1st as a good week to do it it's good for the vendor for it for
facilities um that would mean that your April 1st meeting will be moved to the library we've already booked the room with the library to do that um very comfortable room we've had select board meetings there before um but I just wanted to announc that that this room will be out of commission for that week and then we'll have some really nice
upgrades uh when we come back I think you asked for a water second water meter update at the last meeting um the program is now open to all Residential Properties um so far we've had 48 applications we've had six requests for
uh inspections and dpws so far installed 2 meters um residents who are interested need to as people know hire a plumber the plumber will then initiate the application and that application is found in the permanent section of the website so um 48 I I think it's off to a
good start it's you know relatively recent um but that's the update on the second water meter um people are interested in the fire chief As We Know Chief Burns is retiring so this Friday we're going to hold an assessment center here at Town Hall it's not open to the
public but we will be using Town Hall while it's closed uh to have a thorough Assessment Center we've hired a PR a private firm to conduct it so we can ensure we have the best candidate for the important position of fire chief so after that the um the recommended candidates will go back to the screening
committee um we'll do some interviews and then ultimately it'll end up on the floor of the select board uh for your advice and consent on candidate so that will happen hopefully in April and as people may not be well aware tomorrow night fincom meeting to
discuss the recal and the kilum projects um that meeting is going to be exclusive L really about those projects and a few other housekeeping matters but the week after that on the 12th is when they will begin to discuss the budget that I submitted last week the uh the FY 26
budget so that will be happening on the 12th if needed the 19th um so that will take us through pretty much every Wednesday in March they've already discussed the school department budget um week before and I wanted to get the date out there so people um can hold it we are
going to have have a Kil we're calling the kilum recal project forum um that's going to be live on April 2nd that's going to be at the pack um our largest room and then we're going to have a a zoom only version of it and that's going
to happen on April 16th so we finalized those dates today in a meeting that I had with a lot of the significant board members U from the different boards and projects um and that's hopefully going to get people ready for town meeting it's for not just town meeting members but the public at Large that are
interested in those two major projects our two big projects um so we thought we would have the Pack for that on April 2nd and more will be coming out we'll put it all out on social media many times and we'll make sure everybody knows about that date so and that's the
the update Jean any any news um I went to some of the same meetings you folks did last week um I'm working with our community development director on updates uh for what's going on with 3A our MBTA communities um the green
communities um and uh he gave me some information also about um conversation you're going to have today about the master plan so I have some information from him for later um I continue is in the role of om hasman to meet with various Community groups today we met with the writing compost Group which is
a great uh meeting and U they gave us some great feedback about uh things we could do to improve our website and we talked a little bit about um the composting that's going on at the school system that's that's come on with black Earth compost um and we're looking for more folks if they're interested um the
Black Earth uh program is $120 a year uh which will be less expensive than a second trash card so it's an option that um we're going to actually include on that same page for people a you know we like oh that that makes total sense why didn't think of that so um so that's
just a few of the things including all these other things that I work going so yeah thank you all righty thank you not okay um all right so next on the agenda is we're going to discuss and
vote authorized debt MW and I think Sharon is it's actually Diane who's our Treasurer is is on the zoom okay the discussion hi can everyone hear me
yes not really I can I can turn go ahead Dian can you hear me now that's better yes seem so good evening everyone um this far was previously approved at town meeting held on May 1st
2023 the fund will be used for phase 14 of town sewer system Rehabilitation to make repairs for the reduction and control infiltration in inflow into the local SE systems MW will be providing the town with anic fin
financial assistance award totaling $140,000 of which 75% will be a grant totaling $780,000 and 25% or $260,000 will be an interest free loan
the $260,000 interest free loan will be a 10-year loan and is scheduled to be issued on March 10th Annual Debt Service to uh payments totaling $26,000 will commence on February 15th
2026 the bond Council has reviewed the Articles and all legal requirements as it pertains to this falling and have provided their approval Matt and I have read and signed the uh two necessary documents the MW financial
assistance and the loan agreement um however in order to proceed forward with it we will need the vote and approval of the select board I previously provided Matt with um three sets of documents um which
it to be signed the first one is the vote which um the secretary of the bo the select board will need to sign um and then the two other documents of the sewer Bond and the closing certificate which all members of the select board will need to
sign right thank you any questions board members pretty straightforward good oh good Kar any questions no seeing none all right the paperwork will make its way around you want to do a motion Chris please so the motion uh depends if
you want to uh get food Etc while I'm speaking because it's multiple Pages or somebody can wave the reading after I think you start it first don't you yeah but it's long so I the clerk of the select Board
of the town of reading certifi that in a meeting held uh March 4th 2025 of which meeting all members of the board were duly notified at which a quum was present the following votes were unanimously passed all of which appear upon the official record move to
dispense with the full reading of the article before you second um do a roll call vote Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes okay
thank you we will now we still have to vote oh yes we still have to vote Yes do like a on line uh motion just all in favor present yeah
uh move to uh approve the MW sewer Bond as presented second thank you uh roll call vot Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes 5 Z thank
you while we while we're getting that signed um we can get the uh pickle ball design up on the screen please Jackie this is you already did yours yes you already it's another one
this one's mine man okay thank you chis [Applause] Chris like to be a spots all right who's J you taking the lead on this one we have Joel this designer from BH plusa you can
start please presenting the spot excuse me Al what point of order will there be a public comment before this or we already have public comment guys did it with genda items well that's it's a hearing so let's see how this goes and I I know you guys are here
so thank you good sorry thank you and it's Joel bar with ph say online we have Mark Novak and Steve chrisop Philly from activitas who's the landscape architect and civil engineer for the project the
next Slide the the site for pickle ball is what's shown in the recal and pickle ball site which is a site that had been previously suggested by Weston and Samson as a
carve out when the town acquired ired the 30 some the large acreage of conservation and and land and chasing to the Burbank Arena um so the upper portion that parallels burback arena is
the site area that we're discussing tonight for the existing conditions It's a Wonderful location for pickle ball because as you can see from the aerial photograph there's no residence within any uh near distance of the proposed
pickle ball all Sites um next the site is access Down Range Road which is the picture on the far left you go to the left that's Simmons way that takes you to Burbank Arena um the two pictures on the right show the conditions of the existing site it's a
forested wooded site there's Wetlands to the south of the proposed site and there's debris on the site from when there was a contractor using it as a a staging and and dump site for construction projects that that's needs to be removed although hazardous
materials have not been registered on that site next I want to explain a little bit about um what we're going to talk about in terms of the construction when you have a site like this the first 12 in of
the site is what's called Forest mat and that all needs to be excavated and removed from the site because it's not bearable uh for a surface for a a court so that's built into the project and just wanted to go through some of these
slides to explain the soil condition because I think we've had a number of public meetings for recal and this where we've discussed the geotechnical conditions on the site I just I want to make sure that people aren't concerned about what we're proposing or there
aren't misunderstandings about it so the first 12 in of excavation is this leaves and all that that's been deposited on on the site for years next the site on the the white box on the left is recal which is the 28,000
foot Community Center Senior focused senior Centric this parking lot in between it and the pickle ball is on the upper right there are seven courts proposed one of which is at the far right the handicapped accessible fully accessible
Court um you can see it sort of spans the the extent of that proposed site breakoff of the Town own land so the master plan was identified during the feasibility study phase for
recal because pickle ball happens to be hugely popular with um number of seniors and our senior centers typically incorporate pickle ball inside and outside these days but also because of the lack of any approximate neighbor you're facing the
backside of Burbank Arena where those pickle ball courts are located next can I get the next slide please so this is just a picture to show the proximity this is actually happens to be sandwich that was mentioned earlier
there's six pickle balls in the middle of the image and then the 28,000 ft identical foot print size as the recal build in is in the back so I just show that because that's been up now for two years but has not been one
complaint about pickle ball noise emanating to the senior center so we have the similar distance at recal but in addition at recal there's a new energy code since sandwich is built to meet the energy code we selected one
option was to go with triple pane windows because the added benefit of thermal conservation a triple pane window is much quieter than a double pane window so we have a distance separation and we have a noise Separation on all the windows at recal
that I think will ensure that folks don't have to worry about the adjacency of pickle ball to the recal program next but it does show you the popularity of the program so back to little high school geology I think some of you have heard that we've talked about the site
as we've talked about recal and some of the costs that go into recal we've mentioned that the site has unconsolidated soils and I think people get nervous when they hear that unconsolidated soils means that the recal and The Pick of all sight is part
of a strip that emanates in reing and the North and runs down to Lincoln Sudbury NM where the the glaciers retreated they left this Consolidated gravel that had grown onto the glaciers as the glaciers moves South and the
reason it's unconsolidated is that the glacier melts the land that's on the glacier sits on the land that was there before and it's not under pressure it's not Consolidated it doesn't mean that it doesn't drain it doesn't mean that it's not bearable it just means that the
right side of that field may not settle the same way as the left side of the field so the recal building actually just drills through that gravel mess and 8 ft down there's great baring surface you don't have to worry about it but you don't want to do that with pickle ball
courts um so when we explain the cost for pickle ball we're putting proposing to put a post tension concrete slab that will bridge over that unconsolidated soil which means we don't have to remove the soil we don't have to
put in ground Improvement or piles to support this laab so that's built into the cost I just wanted to explain it so that people don't say well there's a soil issue there it it's not a soil issue it's just something to overcome um in the
design next I mentioned the forest mat so that does has to come off then they proof roll to fill in that glacial till and then on top of that we would pour a slam next and what you'll hear is one of the
costs that's in this project is this reinforced concrete slab which is designed to bridge those gaps and over time the slab doesn't weep and wve the way a parking lot does or the way
asphalt Court might uh do on this site so the the intent of adding a post tension slab to the base of the pickle ball courts is to avoid having to replace them in a short amount of time
because of the conditions now even if you don't have an unconsolidated soil site it's recommended to go to a higher quality court because as you see freeze thaw in New England wrecks havocs on tennis and pickle ball quarts but that's
sort of a picture of what we're proposing as an infrastructure underneath the pickle ball quarts next the alternative is just asphalt and what asphalt has is no Steel in it so
there's no ability to reinforce the surface as it goes across the soil and you might have one court that is lower or has a a puddling condition none of those things are great for the pickle ball player so I I we do have a cost for
the Delta between these two systems but I think it's pretty I me we do have uh activity sign to attest to this a lot of discussion has gone on and the proposal includes the higher quality longer life uh Court surface
next so pickle Ball's thought of as a separate project and it's s of as two phases we to make sure that made sense to do as a separate project we did have it estimated to be built with recal because of the contractor markups
to combine it with recal actually turns out to be about $2 to $300,000 more expensive than to separate it out bid it to a separate site contractor the advantage of doing that is not only do you save money but re the pickle ball courts could be built right if they both
pass this spring they can both start a construction but we will take a lot longer than the pickle ball court so pickle ball is a separate contract could be up and operational much sooner than the building would so disengaging them cost and schedule
improvements next can I guess one question before get so for some reason the recal doesn't pass are we adding 200 to 300 to this price no no okay if recal doesn't pass
that's what this picture is you can see uh pickle balls there behind the bird Bank Arena we would use the same AIS Road that's there today because recal is picking up the first 250 ft of that road we don't want to it it doesn't make sense for a pickle ball to pick up that
road so they would use the existing Range Road there's a parking lot proposed right next to the pickle ball and then there's the Seven Courts go in and then recal can go in whenever it passes on the other hand next slide
if Town chose to do recal and defer the pickle ball courts this is what it would look like you would get that first extension of the road down range road with recal and then pickle ball could be built in at a later time so all
contingencies are covered but the cost estimate done to assume that pickle ball just is its own separate stand okay so there would be a savings together good J thank you next
so the the next slide in the budget we have the concrete slab and we currently have the lighting for all seven courts um that's included in the budget that I'm I'm going to present to you and
these are just showing some ideas of of how the lights would look next I don't know if uh Steve or Mark have anything they want to add before I get to the cost part of this doing a great job Joel thank
you all right so this is the all in cost separate project from recal but with the concrete slab with the lights it includes Seven Courts one of which is fully accessible includes the post tension concrete Court surface lighting
it includes a connection to Burbank arena for overflow parking which is something to be discussed uh and negotiated further it includes an amount of furniture and accessories trash pins when you have pickle ball courts like
this you have four players on the court you have four players waiting to play so they need some benches sit on you want to bolt the benches in so that they don't get get um lost and um that's all in the budget that 1.8 N4 so very close to one
is significant cost but we wanted to present that that amount um of that 1.8 million I'll just break out a few of the things I mentioned the site Furniture the benches there's a a area in the middle of the courts that's a a sort of
Gathering Place that people can wait and there's uh for their game there's bulletin boards there there's furniture that goes in there so there site Furniture there's a small landscape allowance and there's a sidewalk that connects the front door of recal up to
the pickle ball courts that's included as asphalt um that could be uh changed to it's included as concrete it could be asphalt instead of concrete the cost of those items is $100,000 and if you wanted to save
$100,000 those are often things that are done as fundraisers often the landscape allowance is done as a um landscape contractors in certain towns donate services for those there might be other ways to accommodate those
those aren't necessarily essential for the direct operation you'd still have a path connecting recal to the pickle balls just would be asphalt instead of concrete someone had asked uh what is the cost of a court we have Seven Courts
sandwich happen to have six courts so I just said if you would to save one Court the cost estimator did that calculation that would be $190,000 for a court to be saved and then you also have the option
of deferring lights you can play pickle ball um you know it's nice to have the lights but it is a almost a $2,000 option to include the lights so on like in Sudbury we have this condition we put in all the
infrastructure the conduits ready to pull cable through them ready to put lights on the courts but we did not buy the lights and um as I mentioned that's a significant cost savings so you could bring this 1.9 .894 million project down
in steps to a more manageable cost if if the town and the community so desired um I know that's a lot to absorb so I can repeat those numbers and um Mark uh Steve I don't know if you have anything
you'd like to add on the um option of the concrete versus the asphalt because we do have a cost Delta for that we also have some cost analysis on the life cycle costing of that scenario if if people are interested in in the presentation or in
your head oh Mark has that good evening I'm I'm Mark Noak Des principle with activitas um just to uh weigh in on what Joel said about the post tension concrete um you know we're seeing largely a a shift in the market
um over the past couple of years um it started at the Collegiate level um and private uh courts uh were moving from asphalt to post exension concrete but now most municipalities are going with
post exension concrete because of the added lifespan and durability of that surface um you know with asphalt unfortunately asphalt uh isn't the product that it was you know 15 years
ago um and some course are installing asphalt these days with with wrap which is uh recycled and pro processed asphalt um we're seeing something happen in the surface it's called strip uh strip cracking excuse
um and it causes very thin cracks in the acrylic surfacing um and that's just because the Integrity of the asphalt is is the same even when we specify no wrap in the asphalt mix uh there's still the
chance of having that wrap um so you know you could have a brand new core um and within 6 months have cracks all over the core uh we witnessed that in a in a number of municipalities over the past
five years um so that's largely why people are are going to the post tension concrete um with the post tension concrete you can expect the surface or or the base to last at least 25 years um
some say up to 50 uh and really the only thing that you have to do from a deferred maintenance standpoint is reapply the colored surfacing on top um when it when it starts to wear thing um it floats as one slab as Joel was
talking about so you don't have to worry about ground improvements underneath unless you have really compressible soils uh which we don't have here um I think it's a a smart it's a obviously a larger investment UPF front um but over
the long term it it uh it pays off in thank you question yeah that no that obviously we would discussed that with the high school floor um the gymnasium floor um
so obviously maintenance and safe playing surface is very important for any any sport um okay you last slide for you you done what members is there another
oh yeah that's it [Music] Mark um so a couple questions I guess first what happened I don't think anybody anticipated a number like that so I I
hear a little of the discussion just so we all understand what's the difference in cost between the two approaches so asphalt versus as versus concrete so that's one and I'll I'll add to it so 25 years 50 years whatever how
long do they guarantee it up Mark no uh how long is it warranteed yes that's one question yes uh five years um either one either one oh no uh the assal courts will only
be guaranteed a year um uh for the Post pension concrete 5 years but if you see any issues within five if you don't see any issues I should say within five years um then you're then you're great to go
um it's really like a a parking deck um you know in a parking garage those are all post tension slabs to get span between the support posts um so it's uh it's a tried and uh tested method of
construction um and again it is it is more expensive than the asphalt uh Joel do you have a number on on the on the Delta to go to as yes it's of you it's $300,000 more assult would be a savings of
$300,000 so you know if you take out the lighting and you do those it brings it down to a number that you may have heard um but often those numbers aren't apples to apples so um is still trying to understand a
little bit more so understand non Apples to Apples but I think it was the notion of an all-in project was closer to half that number I think it was around a million dollars was the Le that's the number I had in mind I'm just I'm curious so I understand say was 300 for this what what else was there because it
wasn't was lit as I understand if you know we added it we've added in the the site Furniture we've added in 100,000 for soft cost say yeah this has soft costs in it too the design fees it has
the testing for the soil it has I didn't mention I'm sorry it does have a contingency built in which right now the contingency is at 1.5 $150,000 we could possibly reduce that you don't necessarily have to spend all
the money that's approved when we get to the next phase of design there's really an opportunities to dig deeper into the soil analysis and and potentially saves even some more money I I would say that the number that you may have heard if
you take the lighting out you do six courts instead of seven which is sort of the typical size that we run with um that is a $1.4 million project which is closer to where you might have thought now that for 1.4
million you take out the design fees and everything else it's all getting closer to what people might say oh quarts are a million dollars you don't necessarily have the Divine fees diving costs Etc um is there already discussion on on
kind of how to call Value engineer this and there already discussions taking place is there anything going on or sure we've had um a couple of sharpen our pencil uh conversations and that's some of the the value engineering that that
he's already presented so you can you can you know uh remove some of the Furnishings we don't have to remove $100,000 in soft CL we can remove some of those costs um we can yeah I think the contingency is important to keep on there considering the market that that we're in right now in that environment
um I think that the so that there's other pieces in there that we can do I think the lighting we really said give us the cost of the lighting um as its own piece will run the wire to it which is not an insignificant expense to bring that over but it'll be there so that if
um there's an an appetite to do some fundraising for for like later you know that's a real goal that's a tangible goal that is you know it feels good um and that lighting could go in later and that's a $200,000 um savings so I we anticipate
that this would be a heavily used um you know Community Asset so having lighting there is is really desirable um and and we hear that but you know we want this to be um you know a appealing project to to approve so we can take some of these
pieces out and like you said value engineering what was the discussion of six versus Seven Courts you mentioned six is more typical the cost to go from seven to six wondering why we started at seven we started at
started at we started at eight so in early conversations and in working with the conservation agent um it became very clear that um no matter kind of what configuration we were looking at we really couldn't make the eight courts fit
um and and not be you know into that buffer zone too much so we wanted to um you know really respect the Conservation Commission and um what that's going to look like so we went back to um the rppa and and said we don't think we can make eight work but we can make seven work so
that's why we're at seven um that would make us you know a a premier um complex in Massachusetts six is a more common uh size um that's the most common with with our Pure community so that's why we asked for what that
value would be okay um more a topic for for later today but related to this and also for next week um we as a community need to decide where our priorities are going to be and kind of figure them out if it's three or four projects then that's what we should be doing and and
kind of pull back on other things um I think this board started that when we had the first downtown discussions first downtown renovation discussions of we I know next week we'll talk a little bit more about revisiting that but that that all kind of factors into how we we work
with ideas like this and I I'm very sensitive to figuring out how do we how do we get the things we really want now and other things maybe they move down the capital line so I'll bring it later but that's my
thought want say anything I just um I just wanted to confirm so the reinforced concrete has a lifespan of 25 to 30 years they he that c and then what's the asphalt lifespan Mark the asphalt's a bit of a wild card
um in the past we would say 10 15 years um but we've seen cords more recently uh feeling within the first five years uh with the strip cracking um in the strip cracking um I think Joel mentioned when
he was talking about the asphalt process if you add a sheet of fiberglass over the asphalt during the acrylic um surfacing process uh that can help to leave the strip cracking um but there's
an additional cost to the to the asphalt fiber uh fiberglass sheet um that I don't believe was in the 300,000 or 2002 to $300,000 savings was it Jo yeah the sheet was not in we know what that cost
um if we did that cost that that cost would be for for for the area that we're talking about Seven Courts um it would be in the 75 to $100,000 okay thanks and then if we did go down to six courts would we still
keep one as um an accessible Court yes yes want to confirm that are we at ground level aren they all accessible well in theory they all are but the the recommendation for a fully accessible is slightly larger than a regular Court
okay so want to have one that meets no no problem y requir you gooda yes I am thank you very much thanks car um yeah for me I I I can't always sit up here and claim to be the money guy and
then not push back on the money at times and this as Mark alluded to is one of those times where we thought one thing here comes the other I understand you explaining it out now how we got to this point because my mindset was I'm just going to buy a house knock it down and put up eight pickle ball CTS and it's
cheaper than this like that's kind of like I don't know why we wouldn't have done that I understand then you're buying a house in a residential neighborhood and forget about it um so I had a couple questions uh so you mentioned the design fees what actually
so I believe we um described crude whatever 87 Grand I think for that was that all used that is well 8,500 that went to soil tests on the site
um primarily that fee went to activas to do the designs to get this cost estimate so we through complete schematic design drawings are more advanced than um than that it includes the cost us
and um those are the fees that went into it so the balance of the fees are to take to complete the drawings and to manage it through uh construction Administration so you saying the drawings that's not what we saw up here
this is something that we haven't seen or what's been done today are schematic drawings enough to get a cost estimate to decide should you want to spend more money and do the detail drawings um and and what we been approved to design to date will carry us
through um a majority of the construction documents um but funding was not approved uh to carry us through bidding assistance and then construction Administration um so you mentioned the
soil sampling was it taken in that area wasn't because the senior center did one or was was it its own independent well the advantage of consolidating and we had one geotechnical engineer go across the whole site in the next phase to get
the belt suspenders we would we plan to do additional boring exactly where we now know everything is going to sit when we did the soil borns initially we didn't know the master plan but we were trying to understand the general character of the site so we want to do
more exploration and verify that these conditions for real yeah because I believe some of the pictures that I saw up there um are used from other various contractors Etc that have done projects
so like the glacial deposit things that's available on the Internet it's a stock image kind of thing so I'm just wondering how much cost was actually put into the proposal that we saw tonight as opposed to well that's all I just use
that as an examp example of what that soil is that has been there's a full geotechnical report that was done for the town and that geotechnical report outlines the construction issues and that was provided to the cost estimators
and that information is incorporated into the activity drawings just always Leary when I see Google Earth images of the site when someone just could have taken them when they were there it's like you know what I mean like when I see there no excavation of the site so I
couldn't really show the I I showed the pictures of the site initially to show the mat I was trying to show the thickness of the mat with the other picture just to explain when when we explain that the surface is removed there's a cost to remove that
and someone has said why do you need to remove the soil and I wanted to show that with that mat you need to remove that because you can't use it underneath the parking lot for recount or some other place on the site so and we can't fit courts back to back
there I don't know the size Etc but there's no way to fit them because to me that would have saved something at least on lighting no matter what well it doesn't fit because of the white land border you're too close to the yeah we
we worked on several different configurations uh specifically when we started conversations with the RPV um because they would have preferred eight courts um and then as Joel mentioned uh
with conversations with Chuck terone and um the potential impacts uh to the resource area and within the buffer um we ended up with this this was the the most amount of cours that we could put
into the to the project [Music] site um and then I know we mentioned the concrete or asphalt Etc the biggest thing that we at least in my opinion is if we're going to go ahead and spend the
money we have to be able to pay to maintain it asphalt seems like that's you know ridiculous to even to to go down that Avenue um so for me I I would always want to keep the cost in to lower our maintenance cost in the future
because we're not going to spend this money and then not have it maintained um as with every other project maintenance always seems to get left on the back burner and then you have Imagination Station gone um so for me that's obviously you know I
understand there's some things that we can walk back in here I think looking at this uh my fear is at obviously 1894 town meeting it's a 23d vote we all know it's not going to pass it's 2/3 I think for it to pass it's going to get under
15 um in any combination of what can get removed on here I know we might not want it to go from seven to six courts um and the same thing with the lighting you uh removing that takes 400 Grand off you right there the easy thing is the $440,000
benches uh I mean I think you can take everyone who's in favor of it in this room and they'll buy a bench and call it a day like I don't know why we need 40 Grand in benches you know what I mean like I understand you you have to bid it out do whatever but like 40 Grand in Benes
doesn't sound uh not on in Benes there was a yeah but I I I mean we were given a program we worked with the pick ofall committee we designed it we try to give you the all-inclusive budget and i' try to give you the cost to save from that all-inclusive budget so the town can
make the decisions if you know I don't want to assume that you don't want something and then in terms of the fundraiser and I know the rppa raiseed 200 Grand how legally does that apply in
this situation can they just do the lights or they give you the money and then you do the lights or how does this happen uh be a gift we would accept it as a gift and then you can spend the money on lights there's no you still have to go to bed for the lights is it
separate yeah so they can't they can't get the lights themselves no they could get like the the benches and things like that that's a little bit different um if if they wanted to add the lights to it we would
run that through legal just to make sure if it was a gift that they would they wouldn't give us the money they would have to procure it themselves um but it would probably be the same thing and wouldn't necessarily see a huge savings we have to pay prevailing wage which is sometimes what um you know those gifts
when they build something separately from us that they don't have to pay a private entity wouldn't necessarily have to pay we always have to pay prevailing wage you know that's not I think um a sub stantive difference in this particular project if they wanted to gift the lights um but we would talk
about that but otherwise their fundraising they've done they've done you know substantial work for fundraising they do a great job um and I know that they they're considering trying to raise more once this cost came in like the whole effort was let's see what it would cost to do this and this
is where and we've come to that and and activitas and BH Plus have done an excellent job um working with the with Town staff and you're not seeing it here but the the number of drawings and the detail of of you know underground structures for for storm water and
things like that is really something um and I'm happy to share those um but yeah if they wanted to um a fundraise and give that as a gift you know we would accept it as a gift and then we would bid it out everything in this would get bid out and and Market forces would
Prevail one of the things Jan that we could do with the lights that we've done uh in the past is we could procure those through a Cooperative purchasing program um and then we would still have to bid out the installation um but that's something
that we've done with multi multiple municipalities uh previously all right Karen any questions um yes thank you very much um yes thank you Mr chair um so great presentation and um I appreciate this
discussion it's my college comments um a number of my questions have been um answered and um including the ones about oh boy how do we get this number down and what are we you know focusing on priorities so I appreciate the options and the discussion around um the number
of Courts the lights asphalt versus the post tension slab I also had questions about the warranties and expected lifespan because this is a big number and um I can't help thinking that I wish
we had had this number in front of us when we were deciding you know where to put the Fieldhouse um Renovations in the plan um but the questions I still have are um these pickleball
courts are they still usable for tennis or God forbid pickle Ball's not that popular and and and the town wants something else like basket a basketball court for leag so how flexible are
courts of this size for other purposes yeah that's a great question um unfortunately they're they're smaller significantly smaller than a tennis court um and the design we have currently has fencing in between the
courts to um to discourage balls from going one Court into the next uh Court's play um so potentially you know if you were to kind of resurface everything and remove the fencing in between a couple
of the courts we could rotate them um and get a few tennis courts in um but if we were to keep the same layout uh you wouldn't be able to get seven tennis courts or seven pickle ball courts if that if my explanation is
clear yeah unfortunate okay well okay I thought there was um I'm not either great at tennis or pickle ball so um you're eliminating me um yeah um and then so one of the areas we talked about potential savings is you
know kind of phasing it in with lights coming later but free wiring which is you know not a bad idea and I'm trying to get a sense of what are we losing um if if the town we're to go ahead for the project without the lights to begin with um so
right now with daylight savings I think we're about p.m. so you can pay play you know 8 to 7 and then in the middle of the summer you're playing 8 to 9 and I'm trying to figure out um how late we would allow do we
allow 24 by7 use of our tennis and the ball cours tennis of the lights shut off at I believe 9:00 or 10 o'clock in the summer lights automatically shut off okay so so and and for a good let's just say
2 months it's like till about 9 anyway so um all right well you know that that's certainly an option to sort of prepare for lights later that might be one way to make this more um palatable um as would
maybe a smaller number of cours so I I do appreciate the team love the geographic the geology slides that's super helpful and I and I love these options because this is definitely a bigger number that I was expecting um and then one question I did
have um our soil removal has always been more expensive than we appreciated in our previous projects and I just wanted to ask Joel if um at the at this point are you very very confident that we're not going to run into arsenic or something else that will um
significantly increase our um the 12in layer removal the as part of the recal project we had the entire site tested by an environmental firm and the tests came back negative okay great that's reassuring um
we talked about oh here's another question um so so many projects these days in different parts of the countries use pavers rather than asphalt and I'm just wondering generally where do pavers fall versus this
high-end concrete versus asphalt um so papers whether they be concrete papers or or some other type unfortunately with the um there's irregularities yeah not but like okay Oh you mean the walkways I guess I I
certainly I can't expect people to be running around a COR yeah okay um for the for the walkways um typically pavers are a higher cost construction method um than concrete or
as okay okay that's helpful to although I love them makes it a very nice finish well they're durable they can be repaired you know okay no that's good to know um okay I think that's it I
appreciate the job you guys did tonight thank you thank you thank you um I don't have much to add then I think we're all a little bit not surprised but you know taking it back and it's like Jane said prevailing wage and there's a
lot go goes into this we're not resurfacing something we're building ground up but I I I think we're going to have a decision to make as a board and with our pp's guidance whether to put this on the April uh warrant and not
this is not a discussion for tonight but this was good to have in front of us I can see a savings of you know $300,000 doing the lights later and you know the benches and the the the the wants it's not the needs uh so for me
I'm looking at this is 1.6 right now instead of 1.9 you take away a court gets close to 1.5 I mean 1.4 I know that's not ideal you know if we did seven or eight courts I forget who said it but we would' be one of the
leaders in our area for that number of Courts on one site that's what you see in the South and that's what you see in warmer climates um most communities have four to six most but it'd be great if we had
more um but um I I I think you know when we when we close the warrant we going to decide if this is going to be an article or not and to see what the and hopefully have a better number Jane so we can decide yes sir yeah so we voting tonight
we're closing the warrant tonight we can we can leave it on the warrant you know for now and still work on numbers for the background and if we decide to pull it at a a l time we can always P it but the warrant has to be closed tonight legally so I
was thinking of the special yeah that's different so that's that's going to be decided coup Agenda One yeah did you guys do the sandwich project or what did those C parts cost and did they do the concrete they did not do the concrete
they did as and so they were last okay because I I did I was just doing a little quick research and I know that Greenfield just finished quarts six quarts this fall and they were at like
750 6 760,000 for six quarts just slightly over a million with lights so I didn't know if you know anything about like what I that's a big swing for us you know if you if you isolate the cords and the lights from all the soft
costs and the other things that go into it that's the problem with comparing what's done here with what we're proposing what we're trying to propose is everything in all the consign fees the testing everything that the town has to do we shouldn't have to do any more testing right we said we construction there's
concrete testing there soil testing to make sure that what the contractor puts in is what's in the specification to make sure that it doesn't fail there's the concrete but soil testing we should be done with right well the soil testing for the bearing but when they go in and
proof roll the site and then they put gravel in on top of that before they pour the slab you want to go in and test the strength of that to make sure that that's adequate and meets the specification because if it doesn't it's too late to change it later so those
costs are it's not a huge cost but I'm just saying there are a lot of small things that go in to add to the cost so if I just if I the allend con construction cost for this was 1.5
million the rest is the soft costs if you back out the numbers that we talked about it getes you close to that green field for for construction cost can we break down those construction costs maybe a little better of the 1.5 million
of what that looks like yeah do that I'd like to see that yeah we can do that another question and I don't know that this is going to have a big cut impact but with all these projects is rmld involved in the discussions do they know what's the the municipal life
Department because I mean I see there's a like a Transformer cost and and you we're talking about lighting and all sorts of other things and with recal is potentially solar or solar ready they ought to be a a part of the discussion at least we we have had some discussions
that that we put in the cost for the transform if both of them pass you don't need the Transformer at the pickle ball courts because we can come off the recount Transformer but if they don't you need a separate transformer for pickle ball so I can't I I I wanted to
include it because I don't know the but I could be more explicit with a number breakdowns so you can understand those because there's potential savings once the future is clear got it okay so that's part of the answer the the other part I would just encourage that um not as a criticis ISM
at all but just as we're thinking forward and taking these projects and talking about things that require power we got to just talk to the light department too just to have them be a partner in the discussion minimum no but even better you know see what what they may be able to do to
assist well we we did make the inquiry someone's got to pay for the Transformer it's the municipal line so we wanted to have the budget to someone for make sense to have it here I got it thank you thank you m these are two separate projects you know
from the perspective of you know if recal doesn't pass we could still still do pickle ball I don't think we're going to do pickle ball I think it makes more sense to do them together but if you add these two
together even the way they are now we're still under 30 million so but I think with the savings of doing them to you know town meeting this town
meeting between the two massive projects then adding this and we don't get this lower concerns me as far as what the community's appetite will be for all this expense and all this debt but I think when you put these two projects
together on that site it makes so much sense I mean most of the people that I play with are I'm going to say 50 plus all right some in the 40s and 30s and the
majority that much older most of the people I've met in reading and who Who start where I started my pickle ball Journey with a lot of people in this room are 60 plus and that's a big big segment of the pickle ball Community
across the country you know uh so to me the these go kind of hand inand that's the perfect site we determined that years ago of for pickle ball we determined that this is the site for the active Living Center so these two should
go kind of hand inand even though they are separate items so as much as the cost is a shock I was I was glad to hear that if they both get approved we save at a minimum a couple hundred
thousand correct on doing at the same time is that what I heard put that into the budget already we've accounted for that yes you you've accounted that so but if we did them together that could come off no no no okay be clear you only
save 20 grand on a Transformer no okay so it's actually less expensive to do them separately yeah because other way around okay that's why I'm asking that's why I'm asking thank you that's why I wanted to get that clear okay um yeah we're going
to move on thank you for the presentation get better go ahead Chris sorry so I know we have like 400 something, in the bur Bank under something unless I'm making this number up but I don't think I am what are we doing with the money can you not use
that for a part of this or is it part of it already that you're going to do or what is the money going to get used for it's right next to the Burbank building right like we have not um pursued a funding mechanism through the Burbank fund
um we can can look into that they've been such excellent partners of the town over the years um and and given back to the community tremendously I know that um the Burbank um board has been interested in funding um programs that
are adaptive um in town and so that's been a really important goal for that uh organization and that's sort of what they they wanted us to do but um it's a great question um we are happy to um talk to that to that or oration do you have a number on how much the Adaptive
Sports were going to end up being is it a couple hundred grand 10 grand like what wallpark I don't have that this evening that's a great question because I wouldn't want to Lea frog them but if it's like 10 grand 20 grand like I know year over year over year you're going to
need it kind of thing but anything to lower this number down if we knocked off a court as well as the lighting you get it to5 burbank's 400 Grand you're at 11 one like don't just thrown the numbers out there even if it's 300 Grand fundraising absolutely is going to
happen I I know that like all this has to do is get approved and and I'm sure there's you know someone's going to have a light named after them essentially with however money a what a bulb a bulb it's an LED Mark you're G to get up at the times I don't think it is I think
it's a Cell It's a cell named after all right let's go all right but that's just another option just just a question can we um ask Shar I I saw her she's on she's on the zoom Sharon is um I thought that the those funds actually are kind
of uh included in free cash is already is that is that not right no it's a separate fund um the the Burbank fund is its own separate fund it's got a I think about 400,000 in it and it could be used for whatever we choose um so it could be used towards this project for pickle
ball or for anything we we decide to use it TS awesome and is when we look at our total position of available unspent resources for the town when you put your little graph together it takes free cash and all the other F funds that we have is it included in that
number it's not so when I show you the graphs I'm talking about um stabilization funds free cash thcom reserves those are the things that are considered reserves that appear on that graph I always provide you guys this fund is entirely separate um and we can
you know utilize it for whatever the community sees fit to use it for smiling Mark you you smiling you winked I got a wink wink smile wi some point it'd be great to and I know that part of the request for commissioner trust is to understand all of the different funds
that exist in all the different places so that we all really have a handle on kind of what the real total is and where where it's designated so because things like that are perhaps a great opportunity I think we just got closer to yes okay I'm feeling I want to thank
you for giving some numbers and some feedback this is very uh very helpful as we work with rppa and the design team um having that kind of guidance because we didn't know what that number was going to be this has been an exercise and and
I did ask that both projects stand on their own two feet and so we knew there would be some redundancies there but we wanted them to be honestly represented to the community so that if one passed and the other we agree both would be great to pass together we think that's the right answer for the site but if one
were to go or the other we will see maybe some Savings in you know underground you know preparation for storm things like that the Transformer um but uh you know I did I did ask for those to stand on their own two feet so we appreciate this feedback I think it's really
helpful no thanks I think this was this was really helpful because I'm glad we waited and I didn't do it two weeks ago yes of all this kind of upto-date data um all right are we good Karen you good move on all right thank you thank
you thank you thank you very much thanks Mark thank you thanks Ryan thanks Jim next on the agenda is uh I'm hopefully a brief discussion and uh we we just we talked about this um you know last week
we went over the hard numbers design the building itself and then we kind of put this on there I'm not going to call out Mark but Mark was kind of pushing for this and I kind of pushed back a little bit when I met with Matt I'm like I know we don't need this but it's kind of a
symbolic it's a symbol no we don't need it officially sorry me backtrack we don't need this officially May should I ask a question yeah I do find it odd that we're voting on this when we're not voting on the killum project correct school committee I believe did didn't they did they did school
committee vote on the kill R but not that I'm aware of them their Lea on I listen fre if they haven't yet I suspect that they will but I can't speak to them for me I don't think it's appropriate for us to vote on this because then we're pitting projects and I really don't love that for the town at all I
mean we're putting it on the town warrant and I think that's the appropriate thing to that's my op so actually we have to we'll have to vote separately to put on the warrant that's actually a SE no no I understand yeah yeah exactly for the special um I think so
this board had to um weigh in as it relates to project in general the spending of funds the allocation of arpa monies the designation of the site selection of the site establishing the permanent building committee's activities on this as well so but I
don't think we voted on any of we we in but we voted on the site uh we voted on the arpa money we voted on the permanent building committee we voted on the sign [Applause] so I I've been thinking that it makes
sense to kind of take the next step which is to um indicate to the community you know from a on this project from the town perspective that it is a priority it's something that this board feels is
something that that is rolling forward to town meeting than the voters and I would suspect that the the same activities would make sense on the school School side through uh school committee town meeting and and board as
well so I mean the The Advocates if you will so we are The Advocate that brought it to the permanent building committee the recal project yep um and The Advocate I believe that brought Killen project for would definitely have to have been the school committee to make it a school building project but I don't
think that um I guess I don't know for a fact but I don't think school committee votes on it I it wasn't brought up at kill him so I would assume it would have been brought up but I could be wrong I I don't know the answer to that
I don't either definitively Chris thanks Carla um yeah uh I had the same inclination when I saw this on here I understand we've always been saying it's an and not an either or Etc it's uh you know kilum
and the recal projects both priorities for this town I think at nauseum we've been up here supporting it it's been on at least the recal thing has been on our agenda I don't know how many times um kill him not so much but you know is
what it is I guess um you know I I've already said that uh I'm in support of this Etc uh I thought that the way that we would vote is how we've always done it in the past which is when goes on the warrant how we're going to vote to
Clause the town warrant uh next uh we're going to be in the same position where it's going to be pickle wall or something else if we want to pull something out but the next warrant we have the luxury of having a be killum and the um recal project being on it and
then we can do the same thing then I understand uh I guess when is when would that vote actually take place Matt April 1 April 1 yeah a for the killum and recal together yeah for your for that
special town meeting Warren was that for us so I don't so and and and you Rec call the election that night as well yeah so I guess more of I'd be somewhat symbolic if you
weren't here Mark you know what I mean like if we were going to be voting April 15th and you know you've committed a lot to this and to not have this uh I could understand but if we can wait till April 1st I mean that's when we're going to do it so you're going to be
here and that's kind of where I'm at God willing yes um oh sorry my other point is we're going to have all these other forums I WR down I wrote down everything everyone was mentioning this whole time the FI the fincom forums
April second and 16th and all these other forms that are taking place like I just think it's better to just vote on the on the Tom warrant and you know but like I said I'm in support of of the project anyway I I I haven't said
I'm not so just for I'm at we've done symbolic votes before right and and it's informal so I you know I I want to respect our process that we've gone through and the Council on Aging and
recal committee and everything else so this is a culmination of that if I don't want to put this to a vote and any of us vote no I think that's a horrible look for us so I I I don't want to do that and I don't I don't you know
and so it's it's a it's not an official vote and it's just kind of like and and I get the it's we're going to vote on April 1 I totally get it I mean not vote on it but put on the warant which in essentially is a vote of support right because we're the body that proves the
war but I'll I'm I'm happy to do what the majority of the board wants but I really don't want to put it to a vote and have anybody vote no I don't know how you feel about that Marcus I don't feel good about that I would
so I think it makes sense to continue to show both projects are priorities that the leadership of this community feels strongly that that's the case I want to make sure that there's the opportunity for that to happen um some passports actually not only voted to put things on
the warrant but they also voted each individual article as a board um we haven't done that in a fair amount of time but that's how at one point at least it it was done and again you know I'm not sure where we want to go here I think it is important to to share with
the community um how we feel about it um Beyond just saying okay you know it's okay to put it on the warrant um whether that is a vote or it's a um sense of the board if you will some way of of kind of sharing that
information other than a formal vote is is fine also I I just think that we should be clear with the community where where we stand um we are the leaders of the town we are the leadership of this community and we need to make it clear
what we're bringing forward and why so that there not a question no I agree and and Chris stated he's in full support I'm in full support I'll speak for myself Karen if you want to chime in I'm I'm assuming you're in full support I love this project this is an
interesting discussion to listen to um I'm full support of this project um and and we do normally and and either way the select board I think needs to have a vote either a specific War an
item vote because I can already see my fellow town meeting members asking how did select where m vote on this warrant article so that's that's one thing um whether this vote needs to happen tonight or whether it could happen after a town meeting approval as a an
additional um whether that's okay um that would be another option as well so I I um I do I worry about the divisiveness in this community and if we're not going to have a 50 vote support of this then I prefer us not to do
it well I want to be personally support this project I I want to be clear I'm not saying I don't support this project and I feel like this where their conversation was going I just want to be very clear it's not that I don't support this project I just think it's
odd that we're voting on something that really we're going to we're all we're going to support it and put it on for a special election like I just don't think that that there's a need for V I've said it from for 10 11 actually
probably longer considering my time running I support both projects we need solutions for both of these situations so I just want to make it clear that I'm not saying I don't support the project but I just don't think it's appropriate to vote for on it right now yeah no I'm I'm in the same boat and
we can do it on the first Mark is still here and that would be the only reason that I would think that it would it would warrant it now if he was not he will be here on the first God willing and I think that we can just do a thing if he said that for not me at me it's
just if we if we do that that um again simply putting on the warrant is is an action but I think support is another action absolutely like you know we it's not going to be like all right all those in favor I okay it's not going to be that I'm sure you know we're going to
have there only two items that were going to be correct two articles so I I I I I I think I'm I'm not saying I'm changing my mind but I think that it would be good to have a symbolic
vote but I also can see where this is coming from this discussion and I don't want to disparage anybody so I I think I think we all get a sense and everybody here in the room gets a sense that we all support this project we're all glad that
it came under 30 million uh we're all glad that pickle ball potentially is going to be right next to the building for that for that population and the rest of the community so I you know it it sounds like we don't have to but I I don't
wantan to I don't want to I know the chair right now but I don't want to have to decide so but I guess I'm G to have to I guess I'm gonna have to but uh I you know I'm looking at you mostly because you know we talked about it but yeah and tomorrow night we have a fincom meeting
right right and be presentations made to fincom and I think you know expectations on the members of fincom in terms of okay we're we're the boards and again I I can't answer on the school committee because I don't know if they've discussed it or or voted it or not but I
just think it's a a much stronger look if we're if we're on board that way um but it's got to be together with Kellum that's at least yeah and it's you know I'd be fine voting for both but we
don't have that on our agenda tonight no but I think on April 1 I think that's where Chris is going it's more it kind of makes more sense because even though it's not our project is boards project it is a very big town project that we
know needs to be done um and that goes the same here so for our town project let's call it the boards so I I I I think that' be the better place to do it I and really think ahead too much when I
when I meet with Matt and Jane it's kind of like yeah I look at Future agendas but I really focus on this agenda and you know I was going by that it was already on there uh from the previous time and I'm like okay it makes sense then
I and then finalizing the agenda like do we really need this you know cait asked me I'm like no not officially we don't really need it but you know so shame on me I guess I could have just took it off and had so would it be comfortable to um on April
1st have an agenda item that number one obviously is to close the warrant for the special um and then to uh kind of I'll call it a leadership folks and talk about supporting both projects I think that's reasonable fa
agree all right wow took 10 minutes not wasn't bad I'm proud of us I am all right I am going to take a five minute recess so we're all going to take a five minute recess and
very e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e [Music] I'd love to see theak of that that the know yeah so it was just because the
door was I can't vot on the all right guys we're back in session next we are closing the warrant we have how many 16 some yeah so I I just wanted to draw your attention
to one so the the warrant is the same as when I previewed it last last two weeks ago there's one additional article I put in your packet a letter from an attorney and we added the article on it's regarding a drainage easement that's no
longer needed by the town um he's asked us to modify it um because he has a building project the benefit for the town though is his building project if we were to uh modify the easement the building would be further away from Wetlands which we like
um and he's also offered to pay our attorney's fees and Appraisal fee so there's a letter from attorney um Galvin in in the packet explaining it all and so and I had uh Town Council draft an article I said that I would bring it to the select board and see um the letter
didn't come to me until late last year I had to have uh Town Council in engineering you know take a look to see if we really needed the drainage easement um I think Ryan is on if there's any questions as well regarding it but it turns out we don't need all of the easement so we could we
could uh modify it but it would take a town meeting forward so okay and Ryan like you said is Ryan's on still in and he's um he could speak for himself but he um he looked at it and he he agreed so any questions from the board because
the additional article um was there anything that IA brought up in terms of things that we need to be aware of when once we wouldn't be giving up the entire easement right no we're not giving up the entire easement and she she really sort of deferred to Ryan and Andrew
looked at it too to see if there was any Town use for it we don't want to give up something that we need um but it doesn't look like we're going to need it we don't need all of it um and so it would help him and it would help us in a way to get the building away from the wetlands you know so because he could
still build there but he would have to build closer to the weap and you know it's explained in the letter so Ryan's looking over your shoulder oh Ryan did I explain that okay is that you want to add anything to that perfect you're going to make an uh excellent engineer for me assistant engineer I might have
you have an opening we do we we have several um yeah no man explained it perfectly there's a there was an an easement that was drafted back in 1985 86 that's that g and the expansion on the roadway and the build out for the loss never happened
doesn't look like it is going to happen with that building being there and so it would make his project better and make it better for the environment if we reduce that or modify that easement so that was the only change otherwise it's exactly the same as what I spoke about a few weeks ago um in
terms of the born articles so we can pleasure the board at this point yeah so what what we're going to do is we're going to vote on the warrant pull 13 out okay vote on the warrant without 13 and
then vote on 13 so let's uh which should we do first um doesn't really matter right what we do first I guess I just had discussion thing real quick quick um so I know we have the funding for pickle ball I guess
I get the sense that we're all not okay with 1.9 million but if we can come down significantly then we would be kind of thing that's kind of the the court that I'm in by I know by us voting to put it
on there and go forward to town meeting by then more numbers might be refined yeah we can table it consolation might come out Etc and then or we leave it as is and then on the floor town meeting cuts the Stu back and they realize that
you know people took some cuts to make this happen as opposed to us cutting it down in advance you know what I mean like I think it's almost better if town meeting itself Cuts things down if so chooses I'm not going to vote on that
then but if I me maybe I will probably not but if history repeats itself for the seventh time in a row um so I'm kind of you know we'll leave it up to them see what they want to do but you know I
think I got the sense that you know this number doesn't work for us but that doesn't mean it doesn't by then or what Happ give me the motion just I mean strangely or accurately we when we vote to put things
on the warrant in many cases the numbers aren't finalized and they're in a sense that that's that idea of almost two votes I'm what to put on the warrant and there's a vote that discusses the amount of money that's being used or potentially the sources of
funding or whatever U but the Articles have to go in they have to have kind of the the [Music] full you know kind of everything in terms of specific like you know money has to come from borrowings whatever free cash yada yada the whole thing so
um I think there's kind of our own discussion that can take place separately when we have more information and on the town meeting floor there'll be something presented probably it's messed if there's pretty close agreement by people in terms of what it is and then town meeting decides what they're
going to I think I said today at the meeting that this should be part of the April second special so so that would mean take it off of this no no no I may be part of the discussion not part of oh okay so okay so right so just a separate
discuss not related to Warrant right not yeah right I only brought this up Mark because if the select board is the sponsor of it and this doesn't say who's the sponsor then we technically could remove it if we wanted to that's that's
why I brought it up point of information that was my question I'm not seeing the warrant who is the sponsor of this article right now it's blank I it's the S it is US yeah most of the Articles sponsor yeah it probably it
just needs to say that yeah yeah we can we can change it doesn't say anything Karen in the packet but it is US yeah page 55 you can see it Karen 55 in the um in the book in the uh I was packet online I didn't see it but thank
you she's right it's the sponsor isn't there it's in the in the pack the sponsor for funding for pickle ball the lead replacement program and cpdc flood plane bylaw Amendment are not they don't have the sponsor next to them some have it to the right but
this one doesn't have it either so are they in the book actually we don't have the book the book book no not the book book but just even here the uh oh here it is so yeah I was say 13 14 15 16 okay all right so it's
not in the it's not in the cheat sheet she's not part of the warrant that's just for us but in the warrant itself yes that's where I was looking sorry sorry about that all right so I'm I'm going to make the motion just in case things changed I'm going to make the motion to move to close the annual
town meeting warrant consisting of 18 articles to take place on April 28th 2025 and exclude Article 13 from this vote from this vote second second thank you um
Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes okay so uh Chris is leaving the room we are going to have sorry so we're not going to act on
on that motion 13 no we're GNA vote Chris is going to recuse himself from 13 because Haven Street so okay so we need a motion on 13 sorry so move to close annual town meeting
warrant which include uh I phrase this differently move to close the annual town meeting warrant with Article 13 included to take place on April 28th 2025 second second any
discussion arle 13 no Karen are you looking for a vote yeah V any discussion any discussion so I actually can I doing so yeah so all right back to the so um discussion not discussion
I think that we should and we do have on our agenda in two weeks or four weeks which agenda do we have the discussion of town priorities capital I think it's the next meeting next meting okay yeah so I I am
having a lot of questions about how much we do on that project um without having more discussion on Town priorities so I'm fine having it on the warrant at this point because we have a meeting set up in two weeks to talk more
about it okay okay all right do we have a second I think we had a second second second y any discussion Mark some discussion can we're ready for the vote now do roll call vote Karen what is the just approve 13
yeah yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes okay I'll so I'm going to send around the paper design for the war okay so that war could post it okay next where are we just a question just to close the circle here
we actually we had a motion that got seconded for the entire warrant without 13 and then we voted on 13 then we voted on 13 so we Haven voted on the we voted on the full one we did that for the first one we voted on 17
count we actually vote on that one we did yeah I pulled out yeah you Fain soon today is Tuesday right I'm faint soon [Music] yeah all right next on the
agenda is Retreat discussion uh we did we have been talking about this and I'm just going to start off by saying I think if we do have a retreat it should be after the
election kind the only comment I have I think we should have one it's been a while I know we discussed it many months ago but um so that's all I'm going to say I think I just put it on there as a placeholder to see we can we can
agreeing a date now are we say okay we commit to having a retreat within the first few months of the election after we do the aons and you do a after the reorg I think that's the better time to do it than do a
pre right so if anyone has any oh K you have your hand up good ahead yeah I would agree that um this is not a good time to speak about that but we should take it up after the election okay we're all good to go on the log
ride with Mark but it is what it is you I we're going to canopy Mark sorry oh well Splash Mountain timing is everything Splash Mountain I Mark commment is spare time he could are plus he could drive us you could be the
facilitator oh lead lead the group all right enough of that all right all right we do this every year we we do this every year everybody uh vote on the intermunicipal agreement it's in our packet it's with
Wakefield um I'll be honest I didn't read through it I'm assuming it's exactly the same as last year it's it's the same it's for animal control we share with Wakefield it's been working well I talked to um a day who Animal Control comes under the health department he said it's been working
well when when money gets better sometime in the future people may want to our own you know dedicated Animal control officer which we've only had part-time and shared with Wakefield for years but um because the there's other issues in say Town Forest or Birch
Meadow whatever but um but this is working out well and so we would ask for it to be extended it actually um if you look at the dates on it it's it's it's over it should have been done a few months ago but there was a little hold up on the Wake field side so we have it uh ready to go
tonight okay should be fine any other my question is so in regards to the town Forest incident incidents whatever scenario right why would this individual have not been a part of it or were they and I just didn't know it well I mean I
if it's a if it's a animal incident at the time so that that was more regarding um a recent you know bylaw that was that was passed and and and it was talked about at the time that the enforcement on that was more going to be public awareness and whatnot so the police
department and the health department um weren't you know prepared to enforce that unless it was a criminal aspect at the police department or um something regarding a a a dangerous dog that would you know wouldn't necessitate an animal
control complaint that was neither really what it turned out to be with something different I guess my thoughts are if someone has Unleashed dogs or whatever scenario I don't know how that does not fall under Animal Control like what else is he doing just if there's a
dead animal or something they're taking care of it like they do that yeah what about offleash dogs if you create a nonsymbolic bylaw scenario why are they not taking care of this they do they would take care of an off off Leach dog that incident was in the town forest and
there was a recent bylaw change on that that hadn't gone into effect yet so I think there was a misunderstanding by some of the people participants there um but 6 months from now yeah that could be the case though that animal control would handle incidents of not just at
the Town Forest right some you know dog uh I don't know like do they handle if someone's dog bite somebody else like yeah they yeah they they handle dog bite complaints anything regarding animals the the whole offleash dog you know because like I said the the Town Forest
was a little bit different so and I'm not sure that they leave called on that one I I think they directly called the commes on that case cuz that was a little bit more I just think it's more for clarity in the future like I know we designed signs to say please don't do
this and we can't really enforce this and we made nice signs just to say we can't do anything why isn't this dude's number on the sign and call it a day that we did we we did put something on the we have an order in for the signs do you know if they went up yet the signs I
don't I don't think they've gone up yet but it's not a number but it's um no we do have a phone number we have a dedicated phone number we have a dedicated phone number and we have a dedicated email and we're creating a h complaint system for people to Lodge
complaints that we can track um in the Town Forest one of the big challenges if I may um in this area is that um by the time an incident has happened these are on call Animal Control Officers they're not patrolling
or anything like that and we share them with another town so um and I think in these particular kinds of incidents are not included in what in their scope of work if you look at the contract um so we can in the police department can't
really enforce these either usually these uh situations are over and done with by the time anybody can get out to the forest to respond depending on where they are in that particular case that I think you're referring to there somebody went to the police department and lodged a complaint and they investigated so I'm
just thinking proactively for the future though like anything I would think that this would be covered it's not on the contract though so I think in the future I know we have to do this now I think it would have to be why did we go and do
all of this just to have ambiguity and self- policing of nothingness where nothing has any bite to it so in the future maybe it gets added and it's 10 grand more it is what it is we need that they'll they'll enforce reading's
applicable bylaws and so if we have a bylaw on it um then they will enforce it oh all right well that sounds good to me yeah so if I could just follow up on that I I think that's um an important point if it's not in their scope of Duties to have anything to do with it I
think maybe that needs to get modified right um and then the second piece would be given that it's a hard thing to enforce would it make sense to have them do occasional drive-bys and just kind of show their faith a little bit and maybe if there's a report
of a problem that takes place on Tuesdays at 10: a.m. maybe that's a good time to drive by yeah yeah but just to have some we have to obviously Drive buys but because they P DM you know we could call them out and see if drive by
and yeah I think it's got to be somebody and if it's feels like it's a little bit of this right now but it sounds like it should be the Animal control officer and if we had a dedicated Animal control officer that's probably part of what that person would be doing probably I think it's worth highlighting
a little bit just just for show to get it started I'll talk to I don't think we're at a dedicated spot obviously at this point uh but something like you something has to happen yeah no I think the BS were changed for a reason and there needs to be some way of addressing
things okay Karen thank you um yeah before we leave this topic Matt I feel like aside from the incidents in the town forest and the new bylaws that we all have to get used to I feel like there are still a lot of
residents who who feel like when people are off leash and dogs are off leash and menacing menacing residents and we have a leash law that there is nowhere for them to turn to get health so um and
there are a lot more dogs postco than there were even before and Frank my entire existence in rting I've never been able to get help from an animal control officer when being menaced by an offleash dog on my own
property in my backyard so what can we do to the database that Jane was talking about sounds great and a mechanism for followup because I I love regionalization sharing's great but
there needs to be um a circle of followup so that people know that I can report an incident I can report a leash law violation I can report a dog you know running wildly and scaring people if that's the case maybe um um and and
know that they're going to get a call back so how do we do that well I think that that you know goes to what we were talking about earlier also C click fix um you could put complaints and there are about dogs and we'll get a followup it's hard where it it happens and and
you know it's hard to get somebody out there right away while it's happening so it might be happening two minutes later it's resolved it takes us a while to get the animal control person out there but we still want to know about it um so I would say either email to um Health Department or C click fix where we can
document it and look into it further would be the best Avenue do um thank you do either of you know or anybody I have I don't recall if there is a um animal control issue that you can select and see clect fix now if there isn't could
we put one in there yep uh we have a dog complaint one in there and if you put in if you put something in um like a perpetually Barking Dog uh you people complain about a neighbor's dog barking for instance it will give you an automated message that says call the
police department uh non-emergency line and the police department is requested they get those non-emergency calls in the moment and they will drive over they'll send somebody out and they'll invest they don't want that particular kind of complaint in C in C click fix Because by the time somebody looks at it
the dog's not barking anymore because it's an hour later or something like that so they they do want to know stuff like that moment so we have it automated to to tell the co the person who looks that complainant and um if somebody the real challenging issue is enforcing the
only two dogs off leash in the forest the police department you know the Massachusetts state law says dogs have to be on leashes so we have this exception to the state law which makes it hard to enforce for the police department if somebody is encountering an offleash dog you know um not in the
town forest and particularly if you're feeling threatened by that dog certainly talk to the owner but you know you can call a non-emergency line that that is available too or you can call the health department um animal control and let us know that you had this encounter we have
this we have this line established we'll make sure that we highlight that on social media um get that news out there but yeah you can call and and we will then know as you said okay somebody's walking dogs off leash on school
property or in town cemeteries you can't walk dogs in cemeteries um we've had staff bitten before by off dogs not in the forest so you know it's certainly a concern that we want to be able to address all right are we good motion
thank you I appreciate that thank you thank you the question move to approve the intermunicipal agreement between the town of reading and the town of wake build for animal control services as presented second thank you any
discussion seeing none Karen yes Chris yes Lissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes all right next we have a master plan pre discussion meaning how do
we move this forward and not just talk about it anymore and uh it's time to shine Mark so um it's your point so so time to move it forward I think that there are a lot of things that are going on um in the
community now and going forward that would benefit from kind of having this guiding document in the form of a master plan um I think even as we think about the MBTA turnaround track that's actually a
really good example in a lot of ways also because we are we're trying to guide what we want to have happen and how we want to support it and again back to priorities on on Capital that relates to that also how we might want to use it so
I think the master plan starts out being pretty all-encompassing in terms of what it's thinking about um starting maybe from the plan that was done was it 15 20 years ago 2005 2005 20 years ago
literally yeah which is you know obviously way out of date the community is different the community has a lot of different things it wants to and needs to accomplish I think setting up what I think here is you definitely want a Citizens committee to come in I've already heard from some people that are
interested in participating um to kind of get together and start talking about okay what's what's the breadth what kind of level of detail does it go into but it needs to represent kind of what we want for this community where it needs to head um I think it starts with a guiding document
from this board and goes into a committee structure and then they come back with probably a couple of uh in between activities sorry I'm just kind of putting it together in my head right now um one of which is coming back saying okay we think that this is the appropriate scope based on what you said these are the kinds of things that we'd
explore um in more more depth then kind of go back and and dig in and then keep coming back with some pieces to that I think it would be great to find a grant probably for MPC to participate in the process I believe they did last time um
I think that'd be a great way to do it these are folks that are have done it for lots and lots of communities um they have a lot of expertise in it they can guide us on kind of how all that flows um obviously we'd have to go forward and seek that out pretty quickly see what's going on to do that but I think this is
a big kind of CommunityWide effort Guided by this board obviously but encouraging Community input into these different pieces so that we we know what we're trying to accomplish we're in coordination with other groups um I think that the the priorities are are kind of clear in terms of what we want
to get done maybe there were four or five big buckets that we work on do you recall from 20 years ago was it a committee or did the board I recall APC yeah okay um and I don't was it
cpdc yeah what what what do we how do we want to organize this the best way so I would suggest that we do we talk to cpdc now and kind of put thinking together a little bit in terms of what would be really helpful to them in terms of what
they need to put forward as well as what we're looking for as a community I think that that's the other group there's discussion of a I I I discourage them calling the facilities thing a master plan by itself because I think that's going to cause a lot of confusion um we're talking about school
buildings too we're talking about the whole town absolutely any school building yeah absolutely Town building School building whatever absolutely all of the above so I think you want to get that breadth involved just to make sure that we're kind of working on the right stuff and no one gets blindsided by
it so I think you probably want to have someone from arml Le participate truthfully or excuse me from the Commissioners participate so maybe what a good exercise for us be to get the old master plan get it in the packet for everyone
else to see it's something 20 years old like a time machine and then Time Capsule and then we flush it out a bit okay check this box check that box done done never done you know blah blah blah
and then I'm not against the committee this is going to be a big undertaking obviously but I just I think cpd's cpdc guidance and you know the school department and you know all these different
bodies and I I I'll be honest I I didn't I've never read the master plan from 20 years ago I I might have my freshman year yeah I might have read my freshman year but I don't remember it doesn't stick out in my freshman year so I did have an informal discussion with Heather klish about a year ago maybe even two
years ago um from cpdc just to kind of get things started talk about the idea of a master plan um and at the time I think she may have been in the chair at the time um I think she was very uh encouraging and interested in in some
activity there too so I would encourage that they'd be kind of one of the the key players in how it goes forward sorry um so I just pulled up the old master plan um from 2005 or it was actually dat 2006 but it says that um
there was a committee and then cpdc adopted what the committee brought to them and then it looks like cpdc was the um was responsible for ensuring the execution of the plan going forward that's what they did in the past
yeah because I know little things like uh Birch met roof is on the horizon or a new Birch Meadow Etc like these are the kind of things that you know just can't be in my head in somebody else's plan that they have I only know about it
because it was in their plan kind of thing um but yeah it makes sense to to get these things all flushed out to see where we're at well how much is the capital plan part of the master plan guessing they're integrated um so as it relates to expenditures for Stuff
definitely yeah right but there's projects in the capital plan that that yeah so I so but today I mean a lot of the stuff comes to the capital plan um either staff puts it in right or it
comes from let's say facilities because boiler blew up boiler departments they need department so that's a little bit more whacka all which is kind of what we've been doing for a while it's just you know it pops up whack it knock it down it'd be great
to have more of a a future view see you know as Pat was talking the other day about um thinking about look you got 2021 buildings in town they have a limited life you're going to need projects every you know X years that's part of the expectation they did a
grading of the buildings right so there's probably even an idea of you know approximately when you think building a comes up versus Building B PBC or facil PBC did first started
first they present the town meeting of the conditions of all the buildings in town um so spoke with Andrew about this earlier There community development director and he has a memo prepared that we'll include in your next packet for when you want to take this up but um in
terms of some background information um feedback from communities that have been going through their master plan process about a two-year process there's a lot of community engagement um it's about a $200,000 project is it yeah um that
being said we have some monies left over from our 3A work that was approved by town meeting for planning and so forth that number looks like it might be as much as $145,000 why is this so much we worked all of the Consultants the way we needed to work the Consultants that just
we did we were overfunded I'm going to be a consultant right well I mean we didn't spend it so um so that number I was just I just received tonight so you know that has to be looked at um and but so there is there's some there there in a grant and working with you know
another organization maybe possible but one of the things that Andrew uh wanted me to convey is that um that's that caus for a comprehensive master plan we've been doing a lot of the elements all along as we've gone not nothing no plans
have been done in the past 20 years A lot's been done and so um we'll send you this this um this memo it's it's pretty detailed and um it's three pages and talks about the bicycle and pedestrian plan from 2014 the wayf finding study
the housing production plan the open space and Recreation plan um the work we do with Nesco talks about um some of the the different facilities and services elements um that you would have economic development plan was done in 2015 so we
have um we have a number of pieces that are fairly up to date or could be updated you know from 2015 for the new for the new plan so we don't necessarily have to do that huge comprehensive we could do more of a vision plan that kind of pulls the elements together but still
achieves what you're talking about um and we we do need to do the facilities plan as well um that is really important and Joe Huggins has been a big advocate for that so um as you go forward we'll we'll inform you of all the pieces in a summarized fashion and what are the
different pieces a master plan um includes cpdc did talk about this in February and they wanted to think about um uh November town meeting so you know there's a timeline there that is achievable so right now I have it on is
the 18th is that too quick no the Memo's written okay no the memo is written but all the other stuff you just said that we're just going to be we're just going to just because I I guess I want to understand next meeting we can have the memo yeah and all that elements we can
have the actual 2005 2006 master plan in the packet and then we can start kind of formalizing a a charge or something like we have to start formalizing something maybe not exactly on the 18th but start
to coales on okay five to second person committee um what we want to incorporate what what a lot of what Mark said and you know that that it's not a small Endeavor so I I want to make sure that
we yeah might be worth getting some input from cpdc Al especially if February is it like a couple weeks ago yeah yeah they just they just talked about it yeah yeah so so make sure that there aren't two stove pipes starting to
run yeah no we don't want that right bring things together a little bit see what everybody's thinking I you know one of the things this could do is you know number one it sets kind of expectations if you will and the other is it helps with priorities I think that's the other
thing that would be very helpful because again got you know 15 different items you know how do they how do they fit in and yeah boiler blows up you know it jumps ahead in the queue obviously right but you know other stuff trying to figure out okay you know we're focused on this right now how do we how do we
get that rocking focused on this how do you get that one rocking that's what I think the master plane could really help with so that you know everybody kind of knows hey this is this is where we're heading no I I I agree I I think let's let's work on it a
little bit next time and then um you know given your limited time and how much input you've given us trying to nud us towards this because we've been talking about it and you know the 20 year anniversary adds a good ring to It
Right add a really good ring to it and um let's start working on it get some things in the packet and I'll I'll I'll talk to frecking Frack over here about what kind of a format we want might suggest maybe if you touch B even with the
see we can yeah come on it's after 9: it's okay they know that that I love them um all right Karen you have anything to add you think that's a good path you're muted Karen sure thanks I'm
good no questions okay thanks um go can me scroll up I think we're oh future future future oh just there yeah
so I have uh I want to have more of a discussion on the pleasantry center before town meeting and particularly
before Mark leaves um which is April 1st his last meeting so I I I think uh we touched upon already but I think town meeting and our April big meetings at
the pack and zoom not to know exactly but need to know what we're thinking and what staff is thinking what to do with that building yeah might have some interest too yeah so I think
that's uh I don't know if that's a good tie in for for next week next meeting is I hate to say this you know and I regret it later is light is you know on the
18th uh with April 1st is you know we we might try to jam some more stuff in uh before I mean we do have a meeting before town meeting April 22nd right and then and I was thinking of
maybe moving that meeting because that is a vacation I don't know why I'm looking at you you're going to be gone but I I'm I was talking to Matt and Jane about potentially having the 22nd the 15th but you know that's to be determined just because I
want to see um usually don't try to do meetings during febr vacation vacation just as a normal can come back to um it maybe that we need to charge these folks with what
what to bring back for that PSC discussion what what additional stuff we working on getting to find out how much an appraisal will be you know to get an appraisal of the building so we know if you know selling it or whatever is should be a couple thousand yeah several
thousand that's it yeah so we work on that um and I I had done the presentation a couple meetings ago about some you know brainstorming about what are these these are two if we're going to lease it what could go there um historically and whatnot but any
anything more any more direct would be helpful sure did you guys share potential dollar amounts expectations of what it could bring in that way for leasing there some per square foot yeah there was some on I have to go back to I
think I think per square foot it in the condition it's in that's one conversation y um when you do a commercial lease you usually do uh tenant Improvement dollars whether it's
free rent uh allocation over spread out over the course of the lease so you could get a great per square foot rate you know 20 bucks a square foot I think it'd be reasonable is you know just spitballing and then what you
actually get is probably not the whole $20 per square foot of all the square footage during the whole lease but that's just you know that's what's what's hard what's real money and what's paper money but yeah I think an appraisal will help us with that what we
want to ask per square foot and do we want at least a whole building or at least one floor we keep one floor or we keep the basement you know there options options right and you know I I and maybe the the ask for that meeting could be a
discussion about um what we want to have ready for town meeting yeah is it kind of a proactive piece of the discussion I I think we should I think we should have an appraisal done by town meeting okay
before time any I think so um so that's kind of what I had on my adding to the 18th can I suggest if possible on the 18th separate the master plan as one and capital projects priorities discussion they're related I just I I would like to
spend sometime talking about the capital projects that are currently on the plan would do you want to do that on the first where we do the warrant is that is that you want to talk about the just items you guys that we getting a little bit off track here say that again I could hand no we're looking right at the
specific um agenda the future agenda yeah future agenda items now yeah but that's exactly what we're talking about yeah but when you say specific capital projects the two that are coming before us or all okay others others others got
so it it's exactly as you stated here prior discussions yeah I think you might have been thinking about it as part of the master plan I'm thinking about it more in terms of the what's going to town meeting yeah okay yeah I I I it's both it's both but but I just want to make
sure there's room in that agenda to talk about capital projects not just as part of the master right I I yeah I think so we do PSC master plan and capital projects
with all kind of tie into each other anyway and then we'll have to work on okay anyone else for the 18th not for the 18th but I would ask that on the I don't know if we do it on the first to
piggy back what Mark said earlier is that it would be great to get an update on the funds that we have besides the trust funds like the Burbank fund what else is sitting out there untouched and how can we use it especially because we have all of these capital projects Haven
Street right pickle ball Etc yeah just get an Excel spreadsheet of all the yeah just so we can see what we have and you know what what are the constraints or how can we use that money okay sounds great and you'll be ready for the first for commissioner so
I um have spoken with the chair he put it on the agenda for our meeting which is next week okay all right so we should be good yeah he just see what can't speak for the I only have future future agendas
which is the the charter committee board um Organization for what we'll do for forums Etc so but that's after May 23rd what about that then let's get past we not get past but yeah you want to start
okay I know yeah so maybe thr May in May yeah all right TR right K we were talking about an agenda item for the first on the uh
disabilities Council and Lara gem is currently our Ada coordinator are you are you wanting this to form an actual volunteer committee or hire
somebody or where where's I'm trying to get just some clarity this is a request that's brought up a number of times by some residents so I think we need to talk about how other communities do it and and that's exactly what we would talk about do we need a committee to
move forward with this or um is there another approach so I guess I am um looking to understand but I wasn't aware that Laura was our Ada person so that's great just what are other communities doing what is working um we
do have residents who are willing to um be involved as well okay so you just want we can in the packet have some examples of what some other communities yeah are doing but what does it what does it look like because we don't have one here so what
does it look like right okay good and then we're going to do uh I guess a do we want it as a separate agenda item the vote of support or we're just going to roll what we not you're
you're spot on we should have a separate after we after we close the warrant yes okay all right projects plural yeah yeah yeah all right I'll add that okay all right and then um yeah lots of fun stuff going on all
right I think we're down the minutes right I typically don't have any changes um because um usually okay with it but um in a rare opportunity here I have a a minor change um oh you have them up thank you
on uh public comment the after the the paragraph after the Angela binda line I I don't own a business in town so I don't know how we want to Chris owns a business in town or that
wasn't my statement was but we're doing we're doing our our minutes right now no no public comment please so we can just correct that Jackie Chris does own a business and I don't so whatever you want to word it so that we we probably should do is
actually listen to exactly what was what was stated because these we can't correct per se unless it's correcting what the person said I'm just understanding it's factual I don't understood no we we've had in the past Carlo things that I remember
Karen wanting minutes change I said I said it we're leaving it so if it was said or not even if we disagree with it we typically keep it because it was said even though you know so I don't think we have to approve them right now we can yeah so I
see what you're saying rewatch it yeah okay so yeah and I would just like to say that we were talking about tax rates and we have residential rates and commercial rates and I I don't recall the comment might have been more about commercial properties for I take your
point about businesses versus commercial property owners as it relates to tax rates yeah I I I I don't disagree I I I I I think uh I just I I think yeah if you want if you want
to get it right we'll just do these next time with any other major mine's not a major change whether there so now we have plenty of time to get any changes to Jackie um for these minutes and then maybe we'll have like another set of
minutes we're doing we're doing pretty well thank on minutes so um all right I'm on motion uh move to enter executive session under purpose three to discuss litigation strategy with respect to
Davenport V town of reading and Miley V town of reading as the chair declares that the discussion an open session may have a detrimental detrimental effect on the town's litigating position in these cases to invite Town manager mellis assistant Town manager Jane Wellman
executive assistant Jackie lty and Town Council IA freed and Ethan Dively into the executive session and under purpose seven for the purposes of complying with Section 22 of the open meeting law to approve prior executive session minutes
of the following meetings January 7th 2025 and January 21st 2025 with only board me members in Town Council present and then to adjourn from the executive session and not return to
open session second wow that was a doozy good job uh roll call Karen yes Chris yes Melissa yes Mark yes Carlo yes50 thank you sign arob for