##VIDEO ID:4cCkzq49QHw## this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers all right everyone I calling to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for February 4th 2025 at 60 1 p.m. if we could please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge alance to of the United States of America to theic it stands one nation God indivisible very good okay do we have anyone here for citizen speak tonight no all right then we'll just jump right into some business we have motion to accept both resignations of Britney Taylor Conservation Commission effective December 16th 2024 and Steven Johnson resignation of the planning board effective January 16 2025 second all right all right both uh resignations Britney and Steven all right could we have a vote all those in favor I I okay both are accepted thank you very much and therefore we will be looking for members to replace people on the Conservation Commission and on the planning board planning board will be in elected position however um so Lucy will be talking to us at some point about town elections coming up so let's go into report Scott some Town Administrator report I know you've got other stuff that you'll be talking about on the agenda tonight but give us a couple of highlights um just a word of caution so there might be some uh construction on the bridge of paly Meadow Road some detour uh we just got word from do about potentially uh having to do some repair searage so and that's the bridge as you head toward Glendale Street eastampton right toward eastampton right toward the end of Palmer Meadow Road so uh we just got about an hour ago but I'm going to meet with Randall tomorrow and and figure out we're going to probably have to coordinate with East Hampton to okay uh figure out traffic pattern for that area okay but um the first thing is the uh we we have a t of dat that we just were able to set today he got pushed back from the 13th to the um the 27th um Dodson Linker wanted a little bit more time to publicize and prepare for it um so they wanted at least a 3 we lead time um we're still confirming everything but hopefully tomorrow we're going to start sending out the U invites and the uh publicity for the uh land use planning and that's going to be open to the general public um it's going to be about 2 to 3 hours um it's going to be quite in- depth they're going to have little models and um I've never been to one but they've they're very uh they're very seasoned when it comes to that so um it should be a pretty interesting um input session um so this is for the general public everybody and anybody to come in and hear what's going on what's being talked about and and have a chance to hopefully put in your opinion too mostly get suggestions yeah yeah okay uh and on the same page we had um 23rd and 27th we had our first uh internal meetings with the uh public safety building committee uh the senior senior building committee as well as um uh some other some of the other um open space committee Greenway uh housing as well so um that went pretty well we did have a uh Zoom meeting um with uh the abutters and businesses although we had a little bit of lower attendance uh although I thought a few more people were going to log on that that expressed their interest but um just for the abutters and those those had been notified by mail and I think you went around knocking on doors some to be sure the people had gotten their the postcards little red postard postcards red postcards Etc so you know again we're we're trying to get the word out and get people involved in sharing their their thoughts and vision y um we did pass our cyber resiliency review uh which was performed by tsc3 and uh the eotss um I can uh I can't disclose exactly what's you know it's confidential because then we would open up our Network to all the hackers but uh we there's a few things that we have to work on like password security and and timeliness and things like that but overall I think we we did a good job uh so novas did a great job on that part and uh it'll opens us up for some future grants and uh the next step would be you know like the fishing test things like that that we can work with the otss on yeah no that I think that's good having done that review that really does open up the possibility to at least look for some possible grants if we needed to do any work upgrades and so forth y um I do want to give a quick update on the budget um so next week we start our first budget hearings uh pardon me um there is a budget web page uh under government and budget FY 2026 and the draft departmental budget requests have't been posted um I do want to say it's draft there there are going to be some errors in some Excel formulas that may not match so you know we're going to be going through this continuously and just updating everything U but this is just really a starting point um the table of cont contents is also just based on the Adobe page number not the actual if you print it out it'll be off um because it is almost 200 Pages um a few different things I want to just point out is um we did shared expenses um which was normally that long line item uh in the budget um things like our our postage employment advertising things like that we're all kind of put together um the other thing is our um excuse me information technology so things that affect the entire town like our Vadar software licenses Microsoft 365 things like that um we're put into one and our maintenance as well um right now it's really just Town Hall maintenance we might want to think about next year um consolidating both the library uh and police department maintenance budgets into that as well but we you know just Consolidated the custodian into one line item um and then other than that it's um the yellow part we also have the narratives as well so each department was able to complete a narrative uh so that's located on there um but if you look at it it's basically broken down into three parts the entire budget overview and then there's some budget notes that in case um we needed to fix something later on or if there was a major change uh it consists of the Personnel Services uh I did an employee count since we have varied hours it was just I put the line at 20 above or 20 below which is benefit eligible we have some employees that work 30 32 35 40 so um it's considering we PID over $30,000 for benefits for health insurance it's important to kind of track that um and then we have the operating expenses so this is the overall budget uh we have the Personnel Services which is the uh employees hours their status benefit eligibility uh the previous and the new compensation and then any other Personnel Services that aren't specific full-time permanent employees so if there's uh substitutes for the library or um if there's overtime or other type of stiens that would be listed under here and then finally we have the oper in expenses which um for example for the accounting department we have the you know it's not a whole lot but it's the independent audit the expenses and then uh their specific software support Scott just as I'm trying to read the top of the uh columns there so we have 20 oh thank you 23 and 24 actuals which is good and and then the budget for this year because we obviously don't have actuals for the first 6 months yet to be useful but at least having the 24 actuals I think that's that's something that we've always wanted to have at least to be sure that we understood where the request coming in was related to actuals at least for a year before and then this column will be the approved uhhuh and then it should have the variance in the the dollar value and the percentage so uh so that's that and then uh for the select board um I just want to make sure that you you know how to access all the budget documents so um all the town departments have access to the shared folder um as well as C board so if you go to uh portal office.com it allows you to um gain access what's your password I just have to type good one Dan uh it does have multiactor authentication um so you'll get a little beep on your phone to sign in and then if you go to um teams is essentially the gateway to everything to all the share drives uh that little icon the purple has a bunch of little people in a te uh if you click on that that's going to be like the the doorway and then if you go to teams again and then this brings up the shared folder so we have the select board and then we have the general town of Southampton if you go to um this is just available with the select board one is just for select board members so myself Judy and the entire select board the town of Southampton General that's open to anyone that has a Microsoft 365 through the town and if you go to General and files there's a specific budget folder for FY 26 budget um the book that I just showed you that's under the preliminary budget if you wanted to look at individual um and then the FY 26 Department budgets is where everyone submitted their um their indiv individual um narratives and requests so so there's a mirror of that essentially on the website right now too for the general public who might want to take a look at it okay good so that's for the um the select board well that's a different level of organization I would say that we've had since my time on the select board so thank you for all the effort that's gone into trying to make that happen I think that's uh very helpful um hopefully we can all find it at the right spot and um we do have um finance committee joining us for our first first meetings we've got to schedule the meetings which um looking forward to them y uh it won't be live that's the only problem is having them upstairs they will be recorded okay uh so it might be a little a couple day delay uh because you have the med media has to come in get the card and and then post it so but I think I you know I personally I think the idea of having it upstairs we've I think we've found in the past when we've met upstairs we just sit around and it's easier to talk to and not be you know trying to hear one one person or another you can have an actual real discussion and I think the budget lends itself to that so be patient folks it won't be live for the budget meetings as Scott said but they will get recorded and they'll be online as soon as eastampton media gets them there but it doesn't take long usually so okay good anything else uh we have the initial preliminary budget for the school department on next Monday I believe mhm so I'll be attending that yeah okay yeah and John would you be going up there for the school I'll be in Texas you'll be in Texas you won't be there all right but I have an update on that under my committee report all right because we think uh depending on who else goes I might I might try to go as well so if there were three of us you know we'd have to post it as a meeting um so we can we might just post it as a precaution just in case um if that's okay on the 10th okay all right good all right how about a couple of updates since we' LED with that how about John why don't you give us the update on this school stuff so um I spoke with the business administrator it became public uh Monday night at the Hampshire regional meeting uh while trying to close out last year's books there is a segment of invoices that were never well the invoices were never submitted to Norris to pay for its share of central office so it comes out to anywhere between $2 and $300,000 that's owed and prior your bill so we're going to need an article to pay that that's the negative the positive is based on the numbers I saw from Bradley there is a going to be a free cash certification from Norris of over $500,000 so we just need to understand that the reason Norris is free cash is so high it's because we didn't pay a quarter of a million dollars worth of bills because we never got the invoice so um just something to be mindful when we start looking at our free cash number mhm other than that they're working on the budget proceeding along everything's going fine H so this will be an end up being an article under prior bills with 90% approval yeah okay and this was just for norish not for any of the other oh no well so the interesting thing is West Hampton is in a similar situation where they have more their free cash coming out of the school is greater than what's needed Williamsburg is upside down and so the state's investigating now as to how that could even happen so but that's not our problem here mhm okay so we have from norish 500,000 in free cash and 200,000 yeah I think I think I saw 487 on br's numbers okay and around 200,000 in unpaid bills yep yikes okay well maybe that will help us close some books on our end too okay anything else that's it no that's the only one okay yeah Stephen anything no I am nothing okay uh Dan um two committees to report on one the Conservation Commission met last night and uh it was great that Kathleen stepped up to be the at least the interim chair for that meeting um and i' say the other important topic for this group is thank you to the grants committee for all their hard work on the on the bridge and bringing that back to life so yeah I'm sure that Comm may talk more about that uh and then for the Housing Authority uh we met we also went to a prop did property visit for Brickyard Road and we think there's some promise there for another site for some affordable housing so we're going to continue to pursue that mhm okay all right Sydney okay uh Board of Health has not met since the last meeting they'll be meeting this coming Monday um open space committee met last week uh and uh for one thing we support the uh new application for the bridge over the manh meadows and so we completed a signed a letter for that also um the mountain Waters project uh in that there's going to be a little shift and I mentioned this at the last meeting a little shift in what particularly property will be a part of it and they we will come to town meeting when some of that is finalized as to which properties could be proposed to be utilized within the mountain Waters partnership project um but nonetheless there's there is the need to kind of shift around a little bit and utilize the the funding that was already authorized so you might substitute correct some substitutions um and a couple of the members of the open space committee are still meeting with property owners to make certain we understand completely what their goals and plans are um in order to include them and uh we also uh will be and have started to review the um chapter 61 and 10th to withdraw applications there's two that have come recently and the board of assessors met today we also reviewed one of the chapter 61 applications that for the intent to withdraw and U I will be sending a letter to say we um approve an I'll wait until I get that email sent out um and um we're doing our routine abatements a routine um senior and motor vehicle exemptions um I think that's all M okay all right very good um on my end basically um from the grant committee we've been working a bit on uh two things we did submit uh two grants over the last week or two uh The manhatt Meadows um Bri Bridge pedestrian bridge uh has been resubmitted uh and it's going to be needing to go to CPC for a possible large match or a separate project in its own right because the bridge the grant would only cover the actual purchase of the bridge and we need funds to actually install it with the abutments ETC uh so that will be a separate thing going to CPC and if that if it's approved there then it would be on the uh warrant for special special town meeting uh the other one that has been uh put forward is for continued work on the um design permit uh design engineering and permitting of the greenway hopefully this might be the last big TR of that and so those two grants have gone into Mass Trails there's two or three others that are coming open there's a a webinar opening up in the next week or so on the MVP Grant a municipal vulnerability preparedness Grant uh and as we've done our plan on that and we've had uh some updates that we've been working on in the hazard mitigation plan that they kind of dovetail actually they really almost overlap in many ways but we had talked at some point about looking for grants for a heating cooling center or something else so I'll be sitting in on the webinar at least to F you know figure out if there's something that they're really looking for this year uh there sounded like there was something special for Rural towns so I want to have my ears to the ground on that and um hopefully we can find something to to put in for we've we spent a lot of time working on MVP and hmp Hazard mitigation type things and we need to you know try and you know get some funding if we possibly can on that so that's really the main thing we've got um probably two or three other we'll have a couple amendments we'll go to in sorry bylaws um in a second here but we have requests for two or three other smaller amendments to existing bylaws and so the bylaws committee will probably be meeting again over the next couple of weeks um before the end of the month for sure to try and uh take a look at any of those it's some small language things from the wetlands bylaw and a couple of others uh that have been asked for so we'll be looking at that and um that's about it cost efficiencies honestly has been on Hiatus um the bandwidth has gotten kind of low um but we're not we're not folding we're just uh I just haven't had the U the wherewithal to put it together with especially everything else that's been going on here but um we're trying to figure out how to make it work also with the capital Improvement plan uh so that it can really be a meaningful committee and exercise so that's about it okay so with that um if no questions we'll move on to new business and basically action and discussion uh this is basically the second stab at the uh two two bylaws uh one is an amendment to swimming pool safety so you'd had it I think at our last meeting so I don't know if anybody had had a chance to really read through it anymore um but this is really um requested amendment that uh we've spent time with the Building Commissioner and this helps update to the current code Safety Code and and uh so in the bylaw that you as a draft the areas that were highlighted in dark black were the ones that are the changes to that bylaw uh it's a little bit more explicit uh and it talks about enforcement and so forth um and these by the way these two bylaws so swimming pools and the use of public buildings are on the um town website so they're they're under the bylaws advisory Community page you can take a look at those and um if you have any comments speak now but otherwise we'll see how we go tonight and uh we'll get through them but does anybody have any comments on the swimming pool one did you notice anything that was something that you thought was kind of strange on this the the body of water is now 24 in that's increased um in terms of the definition of what a swimming pool is uh less than 40 ft uh cannot be placed less than 40 ft from the front lot line um no less than 15 feet from the rear side Lot line so these are the kind of things and then adequate protection barriers around the swimming pool uh locked areas Etc when when not in use Madam chair so yeah M the list of things that are not swimming pools mhm very important I think yeah um I'd rather not misquote do you have all it says the exemption that we had put in here was small plastic or inflatable children's pools are exempt as our hot tubs with approved safety covers that's I I think that's good to know okay so those are two there so um so if anybody doesn't have any other comments on that we'll go down to the second one is the um uh use of public buildings um and actually I I would change this before I give this off to Scott again um this is actually technically I guess this would be an amendment Scott because the only thing we have the sum total of our bylaw right now about public buildings is no smoking allowed technically it's on the book so this would be amendment to that which obviously goes into much greater detail and again we were looking at how especially requests for us use of town hall in particular this building um come forward what what defines you know who could be asking for it the kinds of procedures that they would have to go through Etc and this is very much as I mentioned the first time this is very much modeled after the library especially the libraries uh community room usage as well as Norah school we took a look at both of their policies and picked out things that we thought were relevant to um to town hall and this is um our attempt at at putting this forward so this is in my head it's a brand new bylaw but I guess it might be considered an amendment just because there's that one little tiny thing on the on the books right now so those are the two that we'd like to present and if we have any comments from selectboard now is the time otherwise um I would like to have us move these down toward KP to take a look at they usually have some comments and make sure that we've ated something correctly per some mgl Etc so they do their their due diligence first too but does anybody have any comments on these two I do yeah go ahead you mentioned that we have very few official rules so far no smoking but as you come through the doors um there's quite a large placard about service animals no animals otherwise um and as one of those people affected by that um we probably should put it in our established bylaw okay uh we'd have to figure out where that goes in there has that there's quite a list of prohibited things now yeah well we've got the whole set of procedures here but under exemptions uh okay uh got it well I I'll make a note of that but if you have any other thoughts just if you could just email me maybe on those or top of the head thank you I noticed it coming through the doorway to yeah good no thanks I had not caught up on that one uh and there will be a there is attached to this there is an application form that we would want people to to fill out when they request meeting rooms so that we can keep track of you know any conflicts of the same room Etc being used and a large part of this would be for the senior center but this room gets used and upstairs gets room upstairs room gets used as well so so with those couple comments that maybe Stephen will get me um is there anything else if not I'd like a motion to move these forward to the next stage which would be for uh legal council to take a look and get them ready for so move second that thank you um no further discussion let's have a vote then all them in favor I I I I all right good so Scott I can just Tedy these up a little bit and I'll get them to you and then they could move on to um KP to take a look at in terms of I think they're pretty simple I don't know that we've contradicted anything that they might say but that's a good one Stephen in terms of including that service animal one that we didn't um mention here so I think that ought to be included very good so good hey um all right so next up we have the remote work policy and this uh we have a note in here from uh Personnel policy procedure board uh they held their meeting on January 16th and approved um some recommended revisions to the rules and regulations about remote work policy and John I assume you were there would you like to speak to that a little bit well this came out of the ta's office a request to modify it we uh went back and forth did a couple changes the I guess the two highlights were is it's not automatic and it needs to be recertified annually once it's put in place it just doesn't automatically continue forever um we held a public hearing there were no comments made we voted to approve it and recommended the select board to implement the changes in the book okay and this is obviously remote work is done with the approval of this person's supervisor right provided the job doesn't require they appointing authority yeah which in some cases could be the select board and it's also so it's it's got to be approved by the appointing authority it has to be recertified every year and the intent is that at no time should an office be closed because of this mhm that the offices still need to be open to the general public right during scheduled hours correct yeah yeah we are supposed to be serving the public so yes we should not all be on remote work at the same time right for okay um so um shall we have a motion to excuse accept this if we don't have any other comments or questions some moveed all right second second all right John yep so all those in favor of this revision of the remote work policy signify by saying I I I I all right hearing no NS the motion passes very good and so this too would be um now just to be able to be incorporated in the pqb handbook okay does this have to go to anything with town meeting at all nothing no no no so after tonight's vote gets recorded then the handbook gets updated as of today okay and then it's shared in the three public places okay all right perfect good well thanks for pb's work on that as well and uh looking at it very good okay next up uh we have fire chief fi to talk about the compensation scale for fire and EMS Personnel I know you've got lots of pieces of paper that we've seen in our packages and I'm looking forward to you explaining them with Scott's uh guidance on the little mouse over there so we know what we're talking about but yeah welcome thank you uh Rich facility fire chief uh basically what I'm looking for is approval of the uh new pay scale for the fire department uh the current pay scale is is very confusing even for me um there's a lot of extra lines on there that you know you can get 50 cents for this 50 cents for that um so I just kind of simplified it to uh just five five lines um that's the old pay scale there and you can see all the different incentive pays sorry um so I I eliminated all those and just went to you know paramedic paramedic firefighter EMT with firefighter and uh just strictly a straight firefighter so this had many more so many more or that that was the existing one or that's the new one that was the old one that's the old one right to go so I I came up with these numbers by uh researching all the local departments eastampton Northampton Westfield ammer gramby AMR um all this information is available online through their Town websites and so the pay scales that you see there like for instance East Hampton the paramedic rate 2948 is their starting pay and they can make up to 34 34 now they also have a lot of uh incentives for education and so mine is just basically I don't have any incentives built in for Education right now um so so the uh current pay scale sheet the pay rates some of the pay rates are all over the place and nothing is uniform on the uh for everybody's pay so this would be if this is approved everybody's pay would be the same uh depending on your years of service and whether you're a firefighter for Southampton or uh just a [Music] paramedic one of the things that we kind of ran into a problem is because we're we're a part-time mostly part-time fire department um so how do we calculate years of service uh when most of our most of our employees are full-time elsewhere the vast majority right um but if they were to just go by their Southampton time they would never get a step increase or move through the scale because they're they're so part-time um so we are looking at years of service um in the industry so as a firefighter em or paramedic um so if you have you know 20 years that there should be some you know accounting for when you come to Southampton to take those 20 years of experience into account right okay so all of our paramedics um they all work for another fire department full-time or we have a couple paramedics that actually work at UH Bay State Medical Center full-time so their EMS experience is you know all their years of service are are being counted and the uh I broke down all the pay payroll totals where uh our current pay what we've paid out thank you and uh can you get rid of that thing on the right all oh yeah there there we go that might help I also went back and did payroll if everybody on here was to get the proper amount and we're still within Budget on both of them so as you can see there uh the bottom column there for EMS total $2 $335,000 is what we paid out so far this year and our budget's $500,000 so we haven't even hit halfway yet for that and if you went to the with the new pay scale it's at 259,000 and um you know we're already past the halfway mark So for the new pay scale up the budget I don't have to change it at all to get through the current year right and even next year I'm not not requesting more money in my budget for payroll so how does this as you you went through East Hampton Northampton Westfield and had the the EMT firefighter and then the paramedic firefighter range right so where do we fit now in are we somewhere closer to East Hampton versus Westfield or uh well what I did is I I took all the uh on the back sheet if you keep going down right there okay I didn't scroll what I did is I added them all up and divided by okay actually Four because of the firefighter you know eastampton Northampton Westfield ammer and grany so five departments so I I added them all up divided by five and that's how I came up with these rates and those are their beginning salaries is that right there's a big variation between yeah those yes pounds so I wonder if you through at the top and through at the bottom what would happen right you know so be the same well that's that's how I came up with the pay scale and again you know if you're strictly just a paramedic for Southampton you would get paramedic pay but if you're a paramedic and have firefighter gear here where you're willing to go into a burning building then you will get the firefighter rate par Fire part of R okay so should we look at the the sheet that had the base pay rate with your red marks on it or where where should we go uh not that one well it looks like there's three PE there's three people that will be the detrial what's that there's three people that would be go to a lower pay rate right well I wasn't going to uh deduct pay they would just stay there they would just stay there till the the pay scale caught up to them and which where is that one is that the base pay rate was that was on the the totals it's the page before that one at least in our packet uh and our just so you know our packet does not have your proposed rates what you're proposing we've got the wage determination determination that's the old one that you're looking at Chris that's the old one okay there's one you've got the pay rates per J current pay totals and then you've got the last sheets got some payroll right there that one there Scott yeah yeah so their current pay rat's on the left and their you know the proposed pay rate would be on the right most of them you know they'll go up a little bit there's some that go up quite a bit um think but again you know they don't work some of these people they work once a week some work once a month so what I'm trying to do is get the pay scale set so I can hire the two full-time people I know what I'm going to be able to pay well so that was my next question right this is Step a you need to get this resolved so then you can go out recruit and hire right and that was for the approved paramedic firefighter combination right the two two positions position yes right so until if you were able if you were able to get those two on board sometime during this fiscal year okay right would you still not need an increase for next year right right one of them uh one uh paramedic firefighter is already on the department and he is uh he told me again yesterday he worked yesterday that he he wants one of the positions okay so and so do you think what you're proposing here is what you need in order to staff the department yes and you're not going to come back in a year right I won't have to I won't have to raise my uh payroll expenses increase them for next fiscal year I think you've done a lot of work on this to get this going and and it's all heading in the right direction on where we need it to be so if if you're saying this is what this is the tool that you need approved in order to move forward then I'm in I'm in favor of it I have a couple questions yeah go ahead quick questions is there a union involved with the firefighters uh all the uh eastampton Northampton Westfield ammer are all Union Southampton is not Union I see okay thank you and secondly do people get UNC call pay just for being on call even if they're not called do they get on call pay just for being available even if there's no call they do not no they only get paid if they show up to a call if they get because there's no calls they don't get money right okay y there is one exception though right doesn't somebody get on call pay when you're on vacation to be available to cover your vacations uh well they or do they figure it out they don't usually uh but there's nothing uh I didn't put in their pay scale for that at all okay um so no no we're not right now so right now the weeks that you're on vacation right there there's no full-time coverage no under the setup okay May something to think about mhm and then on the so the what we're trying to hire remind me it's going to be the paramedic firefighter combination and you've got a few of those on the on the roster already right right so we're trying to get two more so that we can really have fulltime but a lot of the ones on the rosters are already full-time in other communities so their days off they the budget it's already budgeted for the two people right so even though they look like they they do come and work for us but it's not our full-time right okay got it that's what I wanted to be sure I understood so even though they say that they're they're denoted here as firefighter paramedic right that's so that job title is what they do for Southampton right okay correct but they are not our permanent full-time people got it right okay I think I understand that now thank you I can't imagine deciphering all this this looks like it was a nightmare yeah Stephen do I understand that you have have hired a provisional uh EMT that might take one of the two slots that we keep talking about we don't have anyone right now no one right now okay no they're all all they're all per deal I thought you had a pro I think there's an existing part-time per somebody working here parttime that would be interested in the full-time job right when it that's a small shade but a part- timer go okay very good okay all right good what else do we have in here then so this um are you looking to make this retro or upon passage uh I would like to make it retro to what but um we said this pay period would start it uh because the previous one kind of overlapped at the end of the year so the First full pay period in calendar year 2025 yes and again you know looking at the uh my spreadsheet you know there's more than enough money in the in the budget for it so what was the the 4% wage determination sheet what is that all about sorry I just want to understand that um that right here yeah so what is that sheat tell us just explain it to us a minute this is per years of service and right so that's you know depending on how many years of service it would be it's a 4% increase across the board oh step between step between steps yes between steps so somebody who's brand new versus 1 year to 5 years or 6 to 10 or 11 to 15 the way you've got broken up these things are just about impossible for people at home to see in spite of no in spite of the camera and whatever else I can't tell you how many people tell me afterward that we can't ever see that screen so that's why I try to repeat some of this stuff right um so it's not um not always very clear okay so this is what it's going to look like going forward is that right yes okay do any of these part-timers and the vast majority are part- timr they all are also get benefits from town of Southampton no no vacation pay no s leave no no they only get if they work they get paid okay now uh East Hampton um their compensation is it's $63 between their pay and their benefits is what they have to for a firefighter up there right where us it's just strictly what you're getting paid there's no no benefits the only benefit they get is if they work a holiday they get time and a half okay so that's the only benefit so I see that there are two of these in our package so what's the difference between the two of them yeah I uh one of them didn't have that last line there where it says these wages would be adjusted for Cola as needed okay but the figures are different as well are they not no the figures should be the same a little bit different little different the first one oh yeah well that's that's the wrong one then sorry about that this is the wrong one it's 2550 is the paramedic start pay so that's the wrong one there right there that's the correct one 2550 is the correct one yes not the 26 sorry about that okay got it no cuz I I worked with Scott on the pay scale and we both decided to uh drop it down a little bit so do you want a motion mam chair I guess so is that we want to uh go ahead and uh authorize the um the new I want to I want to amend this so I I would make a motion to adopt the September 16th 2024 wage determination sheet to be retro as of the First full pay period of calendar year 2025 and I would amend the last sentence to include the following wording these wages would be adjusted for Cola as needed but subject to board of Select and approval so it doesn't stop you from adjusting call you just can't can't do it automatically by yourself right so adjust for Cola was was select board approval yep second anybody have any comments questions on that I just want to thank the chief for all the work that he's done on this um a little story so I was talking to the Town Administrator from South anthon 10 years ago and uh it was in a little bit of a disarray even then um so when you when you looked at it one of the problems was that we had people with less experience but more years of service that were earning less than people with were earning more than people with more experience so it was kind of all over the place so this was really just when we first looked at it it just needed a complete fresh start and uh that's kind of why uh we had to end up just like rebuilding it completely from scratch and the chief did a really great job on it researching all the different contracts um great did the former Town Administrator recognize what that this was a problem back then y I see it's been passed down for 10 years okay yikes okay so I think we have did we have a motion in a second I'm sorry we do okay no more questions all right all those in favor I all right thank you so all right thank you yeah no thanks for all the work on this this is very very helpful and I hope the guys are guys and gals are going to be happy with it very good okay Scott I think uh um special town meeting date and timeline for article submission thoughts on that uh I know that last meeting uh we had talked about maybe March 4th um talking to the town moderator the 11th would probably be a little bit more convenient um it'll also give us a little bit more time uh one of the things is we just got word from um hkt Architects uhhuh that let just pull up the email um we won't have the cost estimate um for the public safety complex until March 3rd um the warrants do two weeks ahead of time for a special town meeting so it does throw timing into a little bit of a flux so we'd have to do an amendment from the floor to the to the article and we wouldn't know what the actual cost whether it's 15 20 25 million till March 3rd MH but again what we would be doing would be to try and take a percentage of that not not the full amount but the percentage for the architect OPM right right yeah hkt and um the senior center um Architects that did Will would recommend how much we would need a budget for that right is it possible to get a uh a number not to a vote worded not to exce ceed I mean if it's 20 if it's X percentage of total cost could we get an authorization not to exceed X and as long as it came in under that we'd have permission to go if it came above we'd have to hold another meeting right mhm because we won't have the report that night to be able to do it on the floor right unless I mean unless we had an idea of you know the maximum and then we amended downward on the floor right we could put in the maximum that we think in the warrant but then amend it when we get the actual figure do you want this to pass well you put that number out there yeah I know well I don't know yeah that's a good point but yeah yeah I don't so you're saying that the Architects set their fee based on the cost of the building is that what you're saying so like percentage of the cost but it's not just like it costs this much for them to do the architectural work it's like I'm designing a $20 million building I'm going to charge you more than a right so it's a percentage of what the total building cost would be usually and that's I mean it is a guesstimate um they have professional cost estimators that do this um but still you know it's still a yeah moving Target but can they not providing the building cost estimate can they provide their work cost estimate ahead of time um War right that that would be part of it like the OPM and then the architectural cost so so they can't break out the their those costs without telling us the cost of everything hard to because they they usually take a percentage and we we had been using as a rule of thumb I think about 10% of construction cost toward the architectural costs um and that's where we don't no no I think the one thing though as you said I mean they're going out hkt is going out to their cost estimator person or company MH to to Really you know look at the numbers and and get us some hopefully fairly solid numbers but I'm any coming in until the third and we hope to get some kind of pre-draft designs just so we can at least look at it because we don't want to go to March 3rd and yeah and have the designs of a building that we don't want correct yeah I'm going to hope that we're going to have something ahead of time to do that too now okay is this I mean My My Hope had been not to have a special town meeting and the annual town meeting too close together are we I don't know are we risking anything to go another week out are is that what's what's our to the 11th or the 18th no to the 18th if if this would to be the 11th I wonder yeah should that be a a safer bet just to give us a little bit more breathing room and then we can actually what of my concerns is getting out the information to the the voters as well um that's going to take some time I was hoping to do some right special meetings neighborhood meetings some meet and greets some online stuff uh website the whole thing but that's going to take a little bit of time to put together so so could we I mean you know I know we tossed around the 11th and I you know well if you're trying to separate sorry if you're trying to separate and the and the annual tell means the end of May I mean I would think as long as it sits in March uh so even if we went to March 25th to buy two more weeks we're still in the month and then we got the whole month of April and we got six weeks between that one the annual town meeting is May 6th right first isn't it the first Tuesday is it no am I wrong yeah May 6 first Tuesday so oh what are the drawbacks of having them too close together well it just you know just getting people out for for both meetings I mean getting a a decent crowd to come out for both meetings was a thought but yeah Robert why don't you call cheers Robert Floyd uh College Highway speaking as Tom moderator uh working backwards if we do take the 18th um we need it posted by uh March 3rd which means you would have to keeping your Tuesday schedule going you would have to approve the warrant on the 25th which doesn't give much time yeah for articles to come in or for you to discuss it because of the budget process and having three Tuesdays in a row so I from where I'm sitting I think the 18th is the even a squeeze so John having it close together be like taking an exam at 3 and another one at 5 yeah yeah I suppose yeah we haven't had him quite so close together in the past but the I don't know if if John was alluding to it but because it's a special help me out here Scott I if we had to I think we could meet on a Saturday morning and another Tuesday evening oh that's true as an option mhm yeah the only the only one that's set in stone is the annual yes y so again you need two weeks for it to be posted yeah well I know you know trying to get the school on a Saturday I think we found is already kind of difficult right um I do I might have the schedule let me just um so I would think with the basketballs exactly yeah they're pretty busy up there so um maybe the 25th is our safer even safer bet give us more time do we think we'll have free cash certified by then yes yes we will have free cash certified by then so you're talking March 25th I talking March 25th March 22nd would be the first Saturday opening for the school we were looking to do a Saturday for the um land use planning oh so but that was the next available so March 22nd would be the school's first so that's kind of Taken for that land use planning day no no we we didn't want to wait for land use planning that long we originally were looking to do a Saturday at the school but they were all booked up until 22nd I mean a couple of days different I mean I don't know we we haven't tried a Saturday meeting in a long time people are kind of used to the Tuesday night meetings but true but on the other hand the Saturday meeting has its own level of attractiveness for individuals who are working or people would come on a Saturday they don't want to leave in the evening if you're looking for more people we could find uh I don't know what what timing would you think what used to do Saturday meetings right was they oh it used to be Saturday until I think 2006 yeah so think it changed 2006 2007 what time like and that was 10 one person had a family with soccer and it wasn't for the whole benefit of the town but what what kind of timing was it like 10:00 or I I I forget I think I think nine but 10 I would like 10 better I know you would I vote for 10 all right what is what everybody think March 22nd is Saturday at 10: it's in the morning I it doesn't matter to me yeah and many people have come to me many prob percentages of people come to me but most have talked about the difficulties and driving at night well true yeah Darkness okay um yes all right I'm going to advance the notion of March 22nd then at 10:00 for a special town meeting at North School okay so it'll be a Saturday for a change and that should allow us to get our free cash done it'll allow us to have more concrete costs for what we need to know about the main articles that will be there um related to the public safety and Senior Center building is that a motion or a decision um I I'm going to put it out there as a motion so that'll be a motion that we make it at the uh thank you march 2 okay second by Stephen all those in favor I all right good so with that um just get us the right timing in terms of posting then we'd have to post on the 14th which is a Friday no 7th 7th post on the 7th I 7th post by March 7th okay perfect that work Scott think okay let's try that um that gets us as much time I think as we hopefully can have need to have to squeeze in you know like you say getting getting information out and getting people you know up to date in terms of what we're talking about so okay let's try that um and then you'll be putting out uh request for article submission and so forth I've already been Gathering got some of those already going up to like 14 or 15 now wow okay which is why we which is why we need the consent agenda okay there we go yeah okay so next on the agenda here I guess land use planning update you've mentioned a little bit in your um report already but um the next big meeting um so interally we're going to be having uh we're trying to schedule a meeting probably for the February 18th or 19th I think there was a doodle poll that was sent out by uh Dodson and flinker um for uh external uh we're looking at February 27th um that was the next available date that worked for dnf pvpc and the school was available um so we're going to still not as much time to advertise as we'd always want we' always want at least four to five weeks but that cuts down three and a half but we'll Thursday in the evening th yeah it'll be in the evening um 6:00 uh and and it'll take about two to two and a half hours if it was on Saturday they usually spend a little bit more time it can stretch to about 3 hours but being M recognizing everyone's time okay so all right and the internal meeting I believe you we when you had the um the brief meetings last week or whenever they were two weeks ago um there is like one or two people from the various committees that have been that have volunteered to be part of the internal working group is that right it's a it's a working group so so those have already been determined and they will be meeting with everybody pvpc and and doson cl on the 17th through the 18th 17th through 18th okay good perfect okay any further questions about that all right um anything up on the Green community Grant are we done and finished with the school finally here that was the only thing that was hanging out I think um I have to just get an update on that I'm not sure if it's been complet or not the valves and then we have a few lighting fixtures that we got to fix from the um in town hall from the first one so just working with them to get that done okay but that's basically pretty much can be pretty much crossed off our list okay uh what's new on classification salary plan did things go into effect as we talked about last meeting uh not yeah I do have it prepared for this payroll though retroactive 2 to 13th um so I'm going to be getting to the treasurer um all the changes so it just wasn't able to get everything done and calculated in time but uh I'm going to give uh her the a big one giant PCF for everything so okay so it will still take effect as of January 13th yep I'm sorry yeah January 13th January 13 not February yet January 13th okay all right um oh 250th anniversary I guess that's me um yeah couple things happening again we're um trying to keep the website updated uh and uh we have the Southampton 250th anniversary Facebook page uh there's an Instagram um also being developed I think it may be out there now and then uh also on the town Facebook page and it just gets picked up by a couple of others but the next um Main Event we've got a couple here in February the next main one which I'm hoping people will join in on it should be fun uh is going to be a Valentine's music Bingo uh in the back room at Panos uh and it'll be kind of a open time between 4 and 7:00 we' we've booked the room for that amount of time definitely do not expect people to come and stay for three hours um but uh come on in for an hour and you know have have something to drink and we'll have some pizzas available and uh play two or three games of bingo if you feel like it and uh you know keep on moving but uh whatever we're we're trying to kind of make it a very fun event uh and it's basically going to be very different in the in the regard of not being professional bingo I guess I would say um given the amateurs that are involved in putting it together but rather than having numbers on your bingo card your bingo card will have names or words from a song on your card and a snippet of a song will play for like about 30 seconds and you will hopefully recognize the song and figure out where it is on your bingo card but even if you don't recognize it the caller will tell you what the name of the song is so um it should be fun might get you up and singing a little bit remembering a few oldies you never know um so please do try to put it on your calendar and come on in from you know whatever 4 to 5 4 to 6 whatever is good for you or come at 5:00 we'll still be around so that's the main one we've got a couple more things um hopefully we're there's a a book club presentation um that is on the calendar for uh February 21st I believe it is and that's over at the library and that's open to anybody whether you're part of the book club or not at the library uh there a discussion on a book called The vastor Wilds by Lauren gr um and from what I've heard from Sydney it's an excellent book uh excellent author I read auth okay uh and then on the 207th right now it may change we have a booking for Robin krowitz of the National Park Service to come and talk to us about the underground Railway um in Western Massachusetts um I will say I'm not positive that she she's booked but um given the bigger bigger issues Beyond Southampton uh and that being a federal agency I'm not sure uh we may have a change there and if so we'll pick her in another time if she has to make any changes but that's happening and in March two big events happening um this one will be Southampton trivia night and that's going to be at the Country Club on March 21st and then on the 29th I believe it is um we're going to be doing a pancake breakfast over at the First Congregational Church so on the website we'll be continually updating um you know some of the key events some of these have been confirmed we're trying to confirm dates we do have uh Glendale Ridge booked for June 21st uh we just need to sign on the dotted line with the band but we've selected um King country as the band um and we should be having um looks like uh crep nanu and Loca Bergie as our food trucks and then because the actual birthday of South Hampton is August 23 uh we're going to be doing something the weekend after celebrate Southampton so on the 23rd we'll be having um another band over at Conan Park and this is going to be the Buddy mccc's band uh Buddy's a a local guy from town um under a different name Buddy MCN is not his actual name that's the name of his band uh and um Vera crana uh as our food truck so again we're trying to feature local musicians local businesses local artists as best we can and just lastly there is a merchandise committee that had been working really hard uh to try and incorporate our logo on things so we will be having t-shirts baseball caps um a canvas tote bag that's a very nice looking tote bag um a pint glass a sort of a metal camping mug cup um all of which will have some of our 250th logo on them because the the logo is so colorful uh that can only really be done on certain items because otherwise it would be cost prohibitive um but this will be online very soon and there will be a pre-order form so that we don't end up with you know 500 of something that we can't get rid of um daily use items there we go um so there will be a pre-order form and once we reach a certain minimum number at any item that will kick the order in and people can make out checks to the town of Southampton and our town clerk Lucy uh has been uh generous to volunteer to keep track of funds coming in or checks coming in so um we'll we'll get that all out online and have it all explained but um there will be some some merchandise along with us so we're hoping that uh he'll partake uh in that as well so more to come okay any other business that can't wait until our next regular select board meeting which is on the 18th uh anything off hand we have just to announce we have the February 11th Scott is our joint Finance meeting M our first one the first one yep okay so the 11th please be sure we're going to be upstairs for that one The Joint one but then our regular select board meeting on the 18th um we have uh minutes to approve just from January 21st uh is anybody got any notes or comments about that I think move approval second okay motion by Steven second by John any discussion on those if not all those in favor I okay minutes are approved thank you uh any old business I don't know if we have any updates on a couple things uh Scott in terms of the anything that's on the list from the railway sewer update study on that uh study update is there any further word that we've had from those guys at all or yeah I've been going back and forth with time Bond just to get a cost estimate for what the next cost is going to be for the next step of the study okay all right um the hmp hazard mitigation Plan update I think there's one more meeting that's going to be coming up I believe at least one more I thought it was maybe two but I think there's at least one there's at least one coming up I it's getting closer to to finalization I think um we're looking at the Ada door openers on the various bathrooms down here on first floor and Senior Center so those I'm hoping we can get underway sooner rather than later y they've been approved for a long time in terms of uh being on our list from town meeting um storm water Enterprise fund something we still have to do federal grants policy we have to look at again I believe right Broadband committee charge we still have to do we got work to be done in capital asset planning as well so we've got lots of things going on um just for the East Street uh construction and so forth here I did learn as I was working on the grant agreement for the bridge um Randall informed me that we are on the tip list for construction in 2028 apparently for the uh East Street bridge I'm sorry for the East Street Improvement so 2028 so that and the greenway are kind of together in terms of being on the tip list for that year at least um we'll see how that happens the pay Meadow safe fruits to yeah I haven't seen that one it's it's there I haven't picked out the data on that off hand I don't have it in my head but yeah that's that's do is really heavily working on that one so that's probably should be ahead of it they told that would be like a total 5year project and it's already we're into like year two at least right now so that well maybe 28 too it could be to dig up that road twice yeah no exactly yeah so we'll see what's happening on that one exactly okay um so that's all we have I think calendar announcements so we have a um the budget meetings with fincom as we mentioned and then our regular select board meetings um February 18 and March 4 uh we've got various Financial meetings in between time uh so budget presentations on the 11th the 18th the 25th and March 4th uh and again as we've said they will not be live televised but you will be able to see them uh once they are recorded and put up on our website so that's his best we can do and I think we should have some good discussion with that and I really am looking forward to the new budget book and uh getting getting a different perspective on how we can put our budgets together I think it um looks a whole lot more organized than we've ever been quite honestly so I know it's been a lot of work so thank you Scott Bradley uh whoever's been involved in putting it together um okay that's I think all we have does anybody have anything that needs a second I I don't I don't have appropriate words but the amount of professional work that's gone into the first Personnel schedules now the budget is uh a breath of fresh air and much appreciated and Untold hours that we'll never know about sure I I want to add one more thing to compliment uh Scott so in the today in the in the assessor's office they were commenting about how now things are online and reduced amount of papers flying around and it's a little bit of a learning curve but not much and so already that's taking place and I think that's a very positive direction glad we P that's good agre to that I think that is good so all right well with that I'll take a motion to adjourn I think I move to adjourn all right City and John second okay all those in favor I I all right we are adjourned at 7:08 p.m. thank you very much we'll make up the extra time in the future yeah we'll be making it up don't worry we'll be working longer meetings in the budget meetings I'm sure but thank you hopefully not very painful so dang good thanks e