this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers all right very good I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for March 18th 2025 at 6:00 if we could please stand and say the Pledge of
Allegiance of Al to the flag the United States of America the rep stand One Nation God indivisible liy and justice for all thank
you okay do we have anybody here for citizen speak or are we on agenda items okay I don't see anyone so let us continue on we have uh everyone here except Steven tonight but I assume he's coming um so we'll proceed with the agenda as it is we have one appointment
before us for uh the Almanor Cindy would you like to take that one do you I do you have not I will I will I cannot because I don't I didn't get informed about that okay they they've taken my resignation they took it seriously okay jumped ahead very good all right no problem so we
have a an appointment for um Christine lead to be on the alers until the town election on May 20th so this is a very short um short appointment I gather uh for the uh interim time until the May
20th Town election um and Christine is a retired person who's worked in federal lending agencies around apparently and she's been um I guess uh she used to work for USDA and Farm Service Agency
and Farmers Farmers home Administration and the a stabilization and conservation service so she's uh been a pretty much a a loan loan technician person so she's put her application forward and we have a note I think from the uh chair of the alers who
says yes definitely please um put her on the agenda for appointment so with that I will take a motion to approve uh the appointment of Christine lead to the alers until May 20th 2025 I move to do the same to put to
accept the application for Christine lead until May 2025 for the position on the alers second second by John all those in favor I I I all right very good motion passes thank you uh no other appointments um
why don't we go ahead into the Town Administrator and select board reports and then we'll get into new business so Scott you want to go through a couple things think um so the hmp the hazard mitigation plan committee held its um Pro more than likely last meeting uh about a week and a half show um Piner
Valley Planning Commission is going to be putting together the final report and we're going to be presenting it to the select board and having uh one final public hearing for everything um special town meeting is going to be held on March 22nd at 10:00 at North School uh the warrant um motions and summaries are
posted to the town's website um I've started a meeting with individual departments uh about possible reductions for hopefully next week um so we can get back on schedule for the uh the budgeting process
um T bond is asked to start the first meeting of the storm water utility um we're looking to schedule in early April um as soon as special town meeting is concluded we're going to move on that um today we found out that the remote
hybrid extension uh was approved oh um so thanks Lucy okay so that means remote and hybrid meetings for Town Town meetings yes yeah any Boards of committees uh select boards um I'm not sure how long
it was extended for they didn't do it permanently right Lucy I think went to June of 27 it was supposed to expire soon like this month this supposed to expire the end sorry end of this month yeah or may I think I I have to read to
thing but it's extended to 2027 and it actually got approved I knew they were talking not yet okay if it gets approved it's going to go oh so it still needs to be approved at the legislature level so that's the probability is pretty great though they keep extending these things so I don't
know why they don't decide to just make it permanent but okay when does it expire is there some window we might have an issue of Time March 31st it officially expires okay yeah but hopefully it will uh okay probably all set by then okay good thanks I'm sure
that means those committees that have been either hybrid or meeting remotely theoretically can still do that until we hear otherwise as far as we know I mean looks like it's on on track to be to be approved for what we know okay and last and I just want to just point out that
uh this year we're getting a little bit additional chapter 98 uh from 321,000 to 551 th000 so it's a good good adjustment for this year mhm but that's again if the budget gets approved so it's like the you know
somebody's still got to approve the governor's budget as put forward right so all right uh okay any questions any thoughts hi Stephen uh any questions of Scott all right if not how about a
couple of Select board reports Cindy you got something down there um the Board of Health um there there has been a notice that the chair of the board of I mean excuse me board the health director is is
considering resignation at the end of April um and that is news um I know there'll be a transition time and um so that's one thing about the Board of Health um the open space committee there really isn't any update since the last
time we met or that I gave a report um and the board of assessors met today um and uh it's essentially business as usual um moving along on a number of projects we're doing and one thing to note is that um we are researching um
bylaws either in this town or in another town to use for the Board of Health we've never had a bylaw for the Board of Health so we're trying to determine one and get some input from perhaps Our Town Administrator and others and the bylaw
Committee in order to put that on the um annual town meeting in May is that possible yeah depends how hard it is to write well of our board members who is Linda Green who by the way has accepted the chair and in that I'm needing to
resign that was voted today Linda Green will be the chair of the a board of assessors okay um and finally we do need to say out loud that the the office is in desperate need of deep cleaning and I know I've mentioned it before there is dirt and frankly other stuff on the
floor that's been there for the whole time I've been attending there so I really feel that needs to be said publicly we need to come up with a plan for cleaning that office especially the floor all right Dan um so Conservation Commission
there's still no chair that committee um we mentioned the zoom meetings can continue so that'll be good for the concom um and we had a reading a review of the bylaw around naming so we're ready for that one I'll set that and phip planning board uh we're meeting
coming up on Wednesday um and we had a Reading and Review of the accessory dwelling units bylaw change so okay and is kcom doing a rotating chair or what are they doing yeah so for now we've been doing a rotating chair so people doesn't stop them from meeting right now
at Le doesn't stop them from meeting but it's more I guess difficult okay all right Stephen anything um Dan Housing Authority not up to date yeah sorry I should have mentioned Housing Authority
they just haven't had a meeting so um we did have that we had that town event where gathered information on zero College Highway I think that's something to mention around Housing Authority mhm um but there hasn't been a separate meeting of Housing Authority okay no
okay all right I have nothing more John uh finance committee you guys have been meeting with Finance all along so I don't have to repeat anything there and um PP P PQ or p is a meeting uh uh Thursday night so
um we'll have some more information after that but um I think the big thing is the schools and uh so I I put together something just to kind of rattle off here um on the latest update we met Hampshire Regional met last Monday
to vote on the budget the budget passed but there was a um inquiry made afterwards that went to legal counsel that changed the the impact of the U vote now the budget dollar remain the
same but it was had to do with an allocation so some money that was being allocated through Hampshire Regional down to the communities um the attorney said belongs in central office and we pay uh a different portion at central office than we do what falls through Hampshire Regional and and I'll get to
those numbers in a second but then fast forward to Wednesday of that week the school board met Norris met uh in hopes of settling the budget there so we could have our public meeting tomorrow night and finalize the budget but we ended up having to cancel tomorrow night's
meeting um because the the initial because of the initial ask and more work that needs to be done but the Highlight is or the running situation regarding both schools is that Hampshire Regional budget the current budget for fiscal
year 25 was approved at 5.7 million the 26 that was approved on Monday night um after adjusting for the allocations was 5 million 961 676 um a 4.1% increase we had a 4%
placeholder of 5.95 so we have $5,100 that we need to make up at the high school level um Norris uh fiscal year 25 was approved at 5.6 million uh the fiscal year 26 request that came in is
6.6 million it's an 18. 29% increase the only additional things that are in there outside of contractual increase is one stem teacher at$ 72,000 and additional $5,000 for tuition so there's there's an internal accounting error that I think
is going to come to light at Friday's meeting in this room with the school committee and any select board members or finance committee members that can arrive would be or participate are more than welcome um because we need to have our public vote Tuesday night to close
out the budget and at this point it's the 6.6 number that is going to be voted on uh vocation tuition um fiscal year 25 is 1.1 million um for this illustration I assume that stayed flat that we're going to maintain
the same number of children it may go down it may go up um but as a placeholder for when I get to the bottom line Local transportation was $399,000 the contract was approved in February we're waiting on the final documents but it is going to be a 3 and
1 12% increase for this year and fiscal year 27 is a 3% increase increase in fiscal year 27 they want to go back and look at the cost allocation of that of that contract and what towns pay for what because it's been about two decades since they done it so either
affirm that it's still be done the right way or not but that's a fiscal year 27 situation um so that um puts what we need is 413,000 there vocational Transportation it's the same contract we this year was 66 so we
need 68,000 to get to 3 and half% % um so assuming um that vocation stays flat which I don't believe it's going to um we need a total of $8.2 million for the select board line items in the north
school and we have a placeholder 7.3 for a shortfall of $91,000 at the local level you factor in the 5100 from Hampshire Regional and as of our last meeting the $198,000 shortfall on the town side there's a shortfall of 1.1 million
M and a lot of meetings to happen in the next 48 hours a lot of meetings between now and next Tuesday so let us let us assume that we will need to have a budget meeting with fincom on Tuesday next next which one we weren't sure that we were going to need to but we definitely do I think and especially
after these school committee meetings um the shortfall on the town side we we knew that's where we were as we ended up we we were $198,000 short but then that was before that's because we budgeted pretty much everything people asked for and that still put it back on Scott to go back and meet with the various departments
and figure out some of the cuts which I know has started to happen and before Tuesday we'll have those but we're trying not to inflict too much pain on departments that really definitely need Staffing um so we'll see what we can do we've got a got our work put out for us in the next
week for sure um from my end on committees uh bylaw committee meets tomorrow we're focusing on a bylaw on Scenic roads we're trying to develop that and the um uh Grant committee honestly we're we're floundering a bit there's been nothing
good in terms of advice coming our way for either uh the MVP uh action Grant in terms of the kind of things that we're trying to put in to qualify for which was basically a heating cooling center feasibility study uh and then the
One-Stop uh expression of interest is the first thing that's due up on I believe it's next Tuesday uh or Tuesday or Wednesday uh that's the first one that's due up and that's a very short application and all we were going to do is put in the the notion for the public safety complex like we had done before but I'm just concerned that it doesn't
seem to really fit their criteria that well so I'm not sure that either of those are really going to be worth our our effort quite honestly it's very discouraging U there isn't a good category for the kinds of things that Southampton needs right now in terms of infrastructure so um we will keep at it
we're meeting on Friday uh and we'll see if we have any better information by then yeah yeah okay so so that's it um so we have some new business if nothing else um and uh says Lucy's here we'll take a if nobody objects we'll move up
the uh signing of the warrant for the annual caucus you want to come up and just tell us what we got here Lucy this is the this is it should be green at the bottom is it light no uh on the is there a little button think you really need it do I need it well for the
TV part you do oh sorry okay um so the annual caucus is April 1 um nomination papers are being taken out being returned everybody knows that at the caucus you can be nominated on the floor for all these positions that we have
open select board Finance school committee assessor Cemetery alers um it's from to 9 it's very simple process and hopefully we'll get to fill
these seats so you're just going to sign the warrant so we can post it okay in our five places so people will know all about it okay and just to say on the um homepage of the town website now you can go under news and events at the very bottom and click that and it'll get you
a list of all the open elected positions and I think when I did a headcount I'm thinking there was like 28 yes there are a lot of seats positions to be eled there are a lot of seats open there has been a lot of vacancies in the past couple years that I know so we need to
fill those right and I know for example Library trustees has five or six openings but many of them I think are pulling papers and they're they're good but it's some of these others so I think there's um if I'm not mistaken there's one for Hampshire Regional maybe one or two for Norris am I right none for Norris know what happened nobody for
Norris none for Norris um it's mostly Hampshire okay um I think there's three I have look at that okay um finance committee has had two open seats for years right that have been vacant Housing Authority still need the state
appointed thereo so there's definitely you know positions available so please people um you know it's it's hard when you've got some of the same people doing multiple multiple jobs and and wearing multiple hats we really need some new ideas and and people to step up and uh
you know it's for a couple years it's not uh necessarily a big ass depending on committee some committees meet once a month uh some others are more frequent but um do think about it it's really important to have other voices from town involved in our managing of the town's
Affairs clarify can people be nominated if they're not present at the caucus yes they can be nominated without being present at the caucus they will have to I will send them a note saying a letter saying or I will call them saying that they have been nominated they have 72
hours to say yes or no that they want to go on the ballot and we'll get them on the ballot right and to make that a very useful process and not waste time it's helpful if somebody wants to nominate somebody from the floor who may not be there please check with them ahead of time if they're really even interested
in being nominated otherwise it's a waste of a lot of people's time it really is um so please you know try to be serious about it but do come to the caucus on April 1st yeah 7 o' is that yeah we need 25 people to be here to have to have the caucus so all right so let us pass that around Planet while
Lucy's here and U thank let you be anyway thank you Lucy for that okay uh Scott you want to pick up uh the first issue here on the uh Council on Aging retro wages for the van drivers um so when we did the Personnel
change form uh about a month ago unfortunately the van drivers were omitted um when I did the PCF I took out all the elected officials the contractual employees and all the Enterprise fund employees and uh the van drivers who we pay initially from the
general fund but then didn't get reimbursed by F frta uh was uh taken from that list as well so this would just insert the two van drivers um at 86 1862 an hour um from the original Personnel change form all right could we
have a motion then to uh add the two van drivers under the Personnel change form motion all right second second okay John Ste question yeah um this is just a pass through correct because it's actually paid by the F frta it doesn't impact general fund dollars right yeah
it's passed through but we just wanted to note it here for that do you need so in my package I have a a photocopy of the Personnel change it's not the real PCF do you something we need to sign on that or oh I'll I'll um if it's approved I'll make the final PCF again okay all
right so all those in favor I I okay consider that approved then for adding two van drivers onto the list but we know that they are actually paid through through the U FR Grant okay revenue and expense reports can we anybody have any comments and thoughts
about revenue and expenses here that you've seen off hand um going to pull them up you got my email off hand I hope people are having a minute to to take a look at them the um
I guess what I wanted to be sure of is the revenue still through December 31st um or has it gotten better than that yet I believe so um I'll double check with Bradley but I think we're
still waiting for January for a few things but we don't want to the March 6 email from Bradley says it's as of December 31st it is okay okay I miss working on January so we're still behind on that one um the expense reports though I think are
up to date if I'm not mistaken through March 6 thereabout so pretty close um is there anything that anybody noticed off hand that seems to be Oddball again we're we're approaching well almost a three quter time so you're you would be seeing
somewhere in the 60% range in terms of what's spent probably 60 to 70% if if everybody's kind of On Target um I don't know if there's any that jumped out at anybody offand that just we want to question any expenses on that but
um so far not catching too much right now so I'm hoping that you know Bradley will let us know if there's somebody that's really in danger of going over their budget or their department heads themselves will obviously be more in tune with that and check on that
um anything from anybody off hand no no all right so do uh do keep an eye on that from time to time uh those are important to keep looking at uh the other thing we have I believe um Bradley
sent around or Judy sent around the uh latest arpa report which would be expenses basically through um early March as well um I think we'll be at a time uh next uh in the next couple weeks the quarterly arpa reports are due again
and we'll do a cross check with those arpa reports and the balances on Bradley's spreadsheet to see if there are monies remaining where they're remaining and which projects a lot of the projects have finished but we still have half a dozen or so um on board um that we maybe will end up spending all
of it we don't know that there's um going to be that much excess money there is some of that money that came back for the grant under um the project that Randle is working on with the Culver study so that money had to be put up up front which we did and then get
reimbursed as the work has been completed with the study and we've already received $58,000 back on that and another bill went to the state today I believe for the remaining 25 26,000 so we will get back that 84,000 that was
technically the town's contribution toward this that we were able to be reimbursed right now um I believe we're we're not sure if that can be spent again it's it's one of those weird ones because it's one of those reimbursable
things that I don't know if arpa ever anticipated at some point in time we haven't gotten any instructions to my knowledge from anybody managing but but if the uh if the if the refund was posted against the project it would be a
surplus line item that would fall to the bottom line and be certified free cash if you posted directly back to arpa mhm then I would say it's arpa money but yeah we we appropriate that we happen to get get a rebate at the end of the project it comes back to that project falls out to the bottom line so I guess I don't know where where the 58's been
posted so that's a question maybe I don't I don't know that it went back into the into the arpa money but I mean I think that's a that's a danger I agree with you if it did because technically we've still got until December 26 to spend everything we've already obligated but this little Reflow thing we weren't
really anticipating that might be a question for the Bureau of accounts to clarify how to handle that if we do it this way do you agree with us yeah exactly we're planning on doing it this way or the auditor or somebody to give us that clue I think you'd been talking about it to the Auditors already the auditor already yeah but they hadn't
given us any real Clarity on that so that's what's happening on that process um the other thing um I think uh I had passed around if I can find it just a
minute oh boy got to find the right email um we do need to do the performance appraisal um Scott's performance appraisal uh and I had sent an email around of course if I can find it yeah so you would have got
an email from me with the various paperwork um March 10th so if you didn't get it let me know um but what that has is the uh standard form for the self- evaluation for a manager so something Scott would have to fill out himself um
then we do our performance appraisal as well and um that is is usually on a scoring of 1 to five I believe um in the past I will say we have allowed half points I wouldn't go any little ear than
that so a five is consistently exceeds expectations four often exceeds three meets expectations two occasionally meets expectations and one rarely meets expectations so five is your top grade for these and it's in a variety of categories from job performance job
knowledge personnel management fiscal management time management communication teamwork problem solving initiative and above and beyond those are the main categories uh and so um even though Scott will be working on his own self- evaluation first it wouldn't hurt just
just jot down some notes for yourself so that when you can sit down to fill it out it'll be a little bit easier to do um I had talked to Scott about trying to do the um a time frame for this uh and I'm
going to see what I did try to think about here where did I go to I forgot hold on um sorry well what I believe I was asking Scott I'm going to have to find it Scott sorry um we had talked about you're
getting back on a self- evaluation to me by the 28th of March I believe it was I'm trying to pull up that email which of course I can't I thought I tagged it um hold on a minute
oh boy just a [Music] minute okay wish I could find it that would be nice um well I will send it around did you get Monday 20:06
p.m. uh go ahead yep yeah um self AAL sent to me by uh Co March 28th okay uh SB member individual vows by April 8th uh results combined and shared April 11th okay and present at SB meeting
April 15th on April 15th or thereabouts Okay so until um Scott can work on his evaluation until March 28th we will have until April 8th uh sorry April 4th April 8th 8 April 8th okay so that will be our our
deadline so you can start working on some of your thoughts on that usually would want to get a copy of Scott's self- evaluation to help us fill that in too um so don't don't finalize it then but once it's finalized on your end I will collect them all on April 8th thereabouts what I end up doing is
averaging the scores and taking a look at some of the key comments and then I would sit down with Scott and talk about that just between he and I uh and then we will bring back the full evaluation results highlights at least to the open select board meeting on April 15th that
would be the process okay anybody have any questions about that or I'd love to assist you in this should I you should yes you can you can yes yeah okay I was hoping you might still be here to to participate with your your input on that you may not be here for the final part
but at least to give me your input that would be very welcome and I think the one thing that I would like to clarify too is that in the current pqb manual and and um John maybe knows better than I do but right now it seems to appear that select board would be the ones also
doing some evaluation of Scott's um direct reports which seems to be a little bit odd um it was in the um sort of the overview of the performance appraisal
process on the uh from the manual and it was um uh let me find this here um select board uh selectboard will set up a meeting with each department head supervisor to
discuss his yearly performance review uh and we would do the scoring and whatever that to my knowledge has never been the practice while I've been on select board and we may have in the past delegated that to the Town Administrator um so I would just like to have a motion I'd like to make a motion
to direct the Town Administrator within the next 90 days to conduct evaluations well as direct report these who are select board appointments and that he provide a final uh evaluation to the select board for review okay and I think we need to figure out well so what's a
good time on this is a question in terms of we've got Scotts right now from February to February was what I said was his first year basically um we had trying to figure out the right time for him to do the evaluations I was thinking more just on a fiscal year for him so it could be
like June June of last year until June of this year right so next 90 days roughly 90 days in in theory we would want the information before we authorize the extensions of contracts right so in the next so no later than June 15th to have it
completed well we can work at that try that cuz we've got I think there's eight eight people I believe that report directly to Scott that we appoint that um only the ones that we appoint the ones that we appoint I'm thinking Highway superintendent Police Chief Fire Chief uh Building Commissioner that
that's our yeah um Dave and Judy and COA but those aren't AR Pointes well COA might be but Dave and Judy on our point but there's six at least six out of the eight Pointes so we'll give it a try but uh yeah this I think it's just the way this
reads right now in the manual I think it just is a little bit wonky and certainly select board has never done the direct reports um evaluations in all my time here so I think second we will let that be allocated so I have a motion and a second anybody have any questions about
that okay oh I do want to hear of 90 days for days you good scottt yeah should be okay yeah he's already got written we'll we'll keep it keep an eye on it all right so all those in favor I all right so we let Scott and basically
the forms are still the same Scott as far as I know for the most part they're the same same forms to use that um we would be doing as well so nothing nothing different on that so and I think you know as as people you know write their score for
whatever you know element is is then just it's really just you know a few sentences of something to kind of explain your score you know something to beef up your rationale as to why you got to that score that's really all it is um so but it does take time and a little bit of thought process absolutely so
thank you for that but we will get on a track to get these going uh next up uh special town meeting preparation so Scott let me turn that over to you [Music] okay so we have the uh the special time
meeting is coming up on uh Saturday the 22nd at 10:00 uh let me just bring up my thing here okay MH um maybe if we work backwards through
the front to build up to the biggest one uh maybe make it a little bit bigger so we can read it I know it's hard for people at home to see any of these screens it's very unfortunate even when we were upstairs um when I looked at the video of our meetings upstairs you can see us farewell but nobody can see
because of the light on the screen you can't see what we're projecting and I'm sorry for that I don't know how we can improve that but we will think about that in terms of making it also more readable by people at home but go ahead Scott uh so the CPA has a request for
$155,000 um from CPA funds for uh heat pumps into the um across the street over at the uh Congregational Church um I'm going to coordinate with them but they'll be uh speaking on that the next one uh article 8 is unpaid
accounts from fiscal years um I did get a little bit of a few sentences for each one from each request so if there's any questions at town meeting I can be able to answer it by expect most of the other the people there to be anyways um so hope I'll give an overview of uh why
they were paid late or the invoices were received late uh legal costs we're unfortunately racking up the legal cost with all the land transfers and cannabis agreements and um a lot of uh problem properties so
uh hopefully I don't have to dip too far into it um I did receive the $10,000 from the uh fincom uh last week or two weeks ago um and trying not to spend all that so this would just be a transfer from from the funds the health insurance
funds um then we have couple of bylaws Yeah couple bylaws uh the swimming pool safety bylaw and I imagine the bylaw committee would speak that yeah I'll probably end up speaking to the bylaws in general I would imagine okay then we also have
the oops um the naming of structures and yeah I ski that buildings and structures and lands naming of structures amen um we also have article for which would be probably not for this annual town meeting it's
going to take a little bit a little bit of time for the um attorney general to approve it so realistically it'll probably come for next annual town meeting in 26 uh but this would change the time from the first Tuesday at 700 p.m. to the 1 Saturday at 10:00 a.m. um
which would be the first time we had a Saturday town meeting since 2007 and the idea there would be to attract more to have more flexibility for more people to attend an annual town meeting can can I just ask a question
about that didn't we have Saturday meetings during um the co period oh that's the difference this will be Saturday inside yeah oh these are inside that's that's yeah we used we had them at L field and during Co call
that yeah mhm uh the next one would be articles 3 and two are recommendations from both the state and uh our legal council to adopt the first one being oped Declaration of trust which would allow us to establish a trust fund that we would save up money for oped which is other post employment
benefits things like health insurance uh you know along those lines um it' be treated like our other um trust currently we we do have some Investments but they're not in a traditional oped trust fund mhm and we used to put aside
what is it 10% of free cash to OPB every year but I think this is another one where we are severely underfunded in terms of predicting our needs for the future for retirees right this is one of the ones that we are probably not anywhere near where we should be in terms of OPB funding that's somebody
else's problem huh that's just the issue with the OPB yeah right it's always hey that's somebody else that will be more people working behind me and unfortunately we haven't grown the size of South government large enough to support our current retirees so I would ask the treasurer to
speak to that one as well as article two The Prudent investor rule um so this would just give uh the treasurer some flexibility in the abil some flexibility to invest in a wider range of stocks uh currently there's the state regulates
this so there's only a very finite list of very conservative stocks that uh the town can um invest in so this would uh this would eventually open it up a little bit but still being prudent th
name prudent investor um and it still so it wouldn't be any type of you know crazy stocks or anything like that still so on on that one there we we went away or opted not to go with the um bylaw to establish the investment committee that the treasur would work with and not
independently we still need to do that I think so I was thinking for annual town meeting uh and that would be applied to all the trust funds that we have yep okay yeah it's still on the list we I'm okay with the twostep down yeah try to take take one that's maybe a little bit
easier to get understood first and then work on the on the bylaw change yeah uh and then the uh last but not least the public safety building planning bonds um which would be a debt exclusion uh this is going to be a relatively
complicated uh topic to discuss at town meeting um I was going to ask the town moderator uh if it's possible I know that traditionally there's always been a pro and a con um if we might be able to uh have the pros as a committee uh to
explain the the background first um my suggestion would have been U the board chair uh reading the mo reading the motion um I would recommend the public safety building committee chair Christina Madson uh maybe talking a
little bit about uh the procedure that we've gotten to this point um and then the police and the fire chiefs talking about the current state of the facilities um the fact that we just had a leak in our fire department
two days ago that destroyed money and checks for the burning permits and they're all drying out on a table and that we just got hot water for the first time in 5 years um at the fire department um and then also with the police department as well so those are
probably the two um the two people that know the most about the current situation and then I could uh talk about um the financial impact um one of the things I I put together was uh Christina and Ian were able to put together this
part and then I put together a tax impact for an average homeowner uh and it does have it in the into the two parts one thing is it is an estimate and it's over 30 years and we're going on about a 4 and a half
% uh rate so again it's a ballpark we don't know what the rates are going to be when we actually do borrow for this it could be 1% could be 10% I we really have no idea but we were able to go to bond Council and and get what their recommendation would be so this factors in 4 and a half% interest factors in 4
and a half% yep and it's also the average so one of the other things is the tax payments will be a little bit higher in the beginning and then as the principal is paid down so is the um the interest so you'll see a
declining so I took an average of what everything would be over the 30-year period MH and for those listing what does it come out to be what would be uh the average home value currently is uh $433,000 so the first part is the $3.2
million preconstruction costs which would cover the OPB the architectural and the engineering and this is to get the project to be shovel ready um not the op the OPM OPM I'm sorry owner project manager OPM um
so the Architects recommend taking 10% of the building construction cost for the architect and Engineering fees and then 4.5% for the OPM fees uh so that would come out to be a little bit over $3.1 to $3.2 million uh we're also going
have some legal cost and other things built in so that's I round it up for that part um for this part the tax impact would be a little over $69 per year to fund this part and it would have to go if it makes it through town meeting it would have to
be on the ballot in May at the annual Town election for approval so $69 per household per per year mhm uh later on the rest of the remaining cost which would be about $28 million so part two would be in the fall and that would be
about $24.8 million for the remaining of the building and construction costs so there's some soft cost built into that the legal stuff they're permitting uh other design things green energies and then you have the actual bricks and mortar which is you know the the actual construction of the building um so that
would be the the next phase um it's estimated to cost about $24.8 million and the average single family tax bill per impact would be about $554 per year and then total it would be a little bit
over $6 $600 per year putting the two together MH yes but the first one that we're asking for right now at the special town meeting is the 3.2 million as a debt exclusion right right and on average would be about 16 cents per um per thousand would be an increase so if
you had a $250,000 house uh it would be about a $40 increase and a $750 house would be $120 and that's it says per tax bill that's for the quarterly tax taxation or
is that yearn oh yearly yearly okay annual Bill yep and these these NE neither of these would hit the tax Nei of these would hit our tax bills for a good year their months I would probably say about at least a year and a
half um the 3.2 million if everything gets approved in the fall then we would go out to borrow for it and get the money and start with the OPM and the architectural cost so we w't be borrowing until at least probably in late 2025 early 2026 so then the bigger
chunk of it if that's approved once we get through all the design go out to bid and actually get the construction it will probably be a year after that so I think just for clarity because I know we've talked about it between ourselves or at the committee level with this vote at town meeting on Saturday
and then hopefully at The Ballot Box in May that allows you and Bradley to get the procurement paperwork and things ready but none of this money none of the 3.2 million can even be spent until later when we come back in the fall for the
bigger chunk of money so there's no money that's going to be outlaid laid out whichever right away so it but it allows by voting for it it allows you to get all the paperwork ready because there would have to be an RFP that goes out on the street to recruit an OPM and
to find archit text for the for the project right so that gets everything ready to be able to do that and then only when the second part passes town meeting and a ballot box right then would we be ready to so once hire
somebody if the town approves it in may we don't get the 3.2 million the next day and we don't spend it the next day so it'll be a long time um of rfps will probably take 60 to 90 days responses selecting the OPM is probably another 30 days
um and then finally when they actually bill us will be a few months after that so um yeah so it's we won't be actually touching the money until late 2025 if everything's approved and of course if it's not approved then you would put
contractual language that says if the town doesn't fund the entire project then M great okay any questions anybody so I don't know I don't we're putting Robert on the spot here would do you want to what do you think about Scott's question about having this being
presented tune it when we sit down tomorrow the day after okay fine so we know how we can approach this perfect all right that's sounds are you going to be meeting Saturday morning uh I don't know that we'll have a meeting Saturday morning we usually have a brief select board meeting before town meeting but I
don't know that we have unless we going to have free cash no no so no so we won't we've get we're getting closer to getting everything ready to put in there but I don't think we'll have it we won't have it by special town meeting no so I don't think we need a meeting on
Saturday morning before the special town meeting I don't feel like we do right now so let's say no probably so we'll be ready for a special town meeting yeah Cindy so I I have a question regarding what might happen and some people will ask questions about the senior center
and how any of this is going to affect them and I don't know how that will be handled do you have a thought on that I just wonder if this what thiser Floyd Tom moter at College Highway uh we can only discuss what
we're voting on but I spoke with Scott already that I believe a statement needs to be made confining the thought of the senior center uh project that will be held in the fall and so there'll be no discussion
Saturday on the senior center but there will be a statement um summarizing of the plan made by whom who will make that statement Scott will make the statement I can make the statement and I um okay
okay so thought I thought have included a paragraph I didn't we'll work that out so yeah because there's so many what ifs and we don't knows and and and technically we can only discuss what we're voting on so right that works
cheers thank you y any other questions Ste catch my voice um will it be possible to have public information about the senior center available in the hall no in the hall no
no we' got handouts only for the public safety building but I thought in the past yes if it has to do with the warrant you get it you can get it when you get checked in but if there are other groups that want to do stuff they were able to do on the sidewalk or before they before they
exited into the the room I heard it in the hall um any pamphlets that or handouts must pertain to the Articles we're going to be voting on anything else is outside outside outside the room we're in not blocking the entryway the
so it could be you know over by the library or somewhere you right yeah I just want to make sure this doesn't look like a magic trick or something um that the senior center is being considered but
strictly can't be considered in the town meeting but we haven't forgotten about it and there's a strategy you can learn about and participate in y okay any other comments or
questions about that okay so we will uh plan on being there a bit early before town meeting starts at 10: so please plan on getting there a bit ahead of time so we can get settled in and St media will be there to for 9:30 9:45 yeah 9:45 at the latest I'd say yeah
okay early as you can I don't know if we need any help setting up will they set up all the chairs and stuff up there at the school yeah I asked just for the traditional town meeting and I believe you stamped a media would be on on call to come in as well and record so we'll just rotate the
reading of the Motions um I think so there's only nine of them so we'll probably just go right down the however we set huh we'll start with you and then however we set yeah however we set sounds good work all right good good okay and we'll have a a separate mic on the select board table so we can be
heard as well okay um can we have some kind of mic check because while the select board was probably picked out picked up all right there was something about the room
amplification that I couldn't really hear oh yeah for the last meeting you mean the last town meeting or yeah I mentioned it to eastampton media but sitting at the select board table right in front of the speakers it was
um awkward or maybe we were behind but they ought to remember how they set it up okay we can certainly double check usually I think Jackson tends to do that but we'll double check that when we get the audio was okay in the um the ls planning from two weeks ago
right see we we didn't have a table in that location so yeah that was different there yeah okay okay good if no questions I think we're as ready as we're going to be for special town meeting so we'll hope to see people there here uh Saturday morning come on
in and put your vote down all right um next up we have um on the topic here of State earmark requests um uh rep Kelly peas was by the office just recently and asked Scott if we had something that we
wanted he and Senator vus to plug for us this year um I believe the rep puts in his budget request first to ways and means right um like within two weeks so he needs it by April 1st Senator vus is is a little bit later but he said you
know usually when you send it to us just send us the same same thing and we'll both plug whatever it is you want send it at the same time can we ask for 20 million for a public safety complex no here's the good news um he suggested we ask somewhere around 25 or $50,000 oh
come on and it's like okie dokie what do we have for $225,000 or $50,000 that we'd like them to go for um so we definitely anybody got a thought I mean there's everything we've got is so much bigger in terms of our
you know even you know things like for the heating system over at the highway garage or everything is big numbers um you know the 2550 you know we've done our various feasibility issues here and there but I
mean I don't know um can it go towards any kind of personnel situation probably not we talked about this land use planner person but that's not 25 no because it's not sustainable no this would be a onetime it would be a onetime thing and he said you know 25 25 is
probably realistic 50 I'll try for but probably not so I was like that's not a lot of lot of leeway there so I I'm a little bit stumped right now for some ideas I mean we had put in money in the pass toward a cruiser which we did get
what we get we it was cut in half eventually yeah we got but I think we got 20,000 or something for that maybe at some point yeah Scott I mean not Scott Dan guys ask snor not that they can come up with something they they can help you know that's the kids what they
want I'm just wondering if there's is there anything that might be on our Capital plan that we've heard about seen so far that's kind of smaller we have well we put in for the grant for the it upgrades for um the library mhm
um we haven't heard back yet from it but I don't I'm afraid if we put it in for that and then we get the grant then then we're stck yeah no I'm just thinking of some of these other things that we were thinking you know some of the smaller things that we were looking at you know moving to to Capital as we talked about various
budget things that would be my only thought would be to think well I mean if you just want a placeholder I mean I I I would go ahead and answer for 20 I mean I've got I mean ask Kelly rep right representative pece for $25,000 for turnout gear and then ask
the senator for $50,000 for a cruiser or I mean at least it would be something toward it if nothing else yeah yeah yeah we can check too with um with the chief I know he's he's recently done something with turn out gear but he well he
reappropriates that I mean yeah whatever we could ask for a steel gas tank for the the ambulance puty back in service yeah there we go cuz I know it's usually been around $3 or $4,000 per turnout gear so it's been somewhere in that 12 to 15,000 that I know the chief has worked with in the past but uh yeah
I mean I think we can certainly look out gear SL those first responder equipment yeah okay we can take a look I mean at least with them they get occasionally they've got some possibility of small grants you know through the fire safety um program I don't know if there's
anything small it all from Highway for example um that comes to mind um I'm just trying to think of anything else that would be helpful I don't know but yeah I think that's a challenge when we're not talking big big amounts of money yeah
maybe Scott spreadsheet would have a line item that yeah would be close that month I think we can you know take a look and just see but we'll we'll try to come back when we come back on the 25th okay we'll come back thought about what we'll ask for because I know wants it by the first of U what about ation of
all the of the handwritten records from 17 something of the cemeteries oh there we go Cemetery software it's at least 25 Grand well you someone's time to do it I thought it was only 6,000 no Chris someone's time to do
it we might need more of a description about what it would do what the software would do well we wouldn't have to cut the trees down to get the paper to write the well plans so yeah I mean so there may be some things like that but I think if we take a look and just try to think about some of the things we've heard you know maybe there's some you know things that would be helpful to
have another source of funding for but it's not any big money unfortunately but and if you write up the need and it doesn't match with this we'll at least have it ready for the next opportunity exactly plan yeah no that's fine and I think um we had asked him too about the
bond bill because they did put it was actually more Senator V put aside the space no last year they Senator vas had put a million dollars in the economic development Bond bill um and that is still there it's still waiting for the
Governor's final signature I think and then how that really gets released to us is a little bit of a mystery so that was all you know related to public safety building um so it's it's sort of
approved but not really accessible to us so it's a mystery so that's what's going on there okay we will uh do some thinking about that and come back back at our next meeting with some recommendations as to what we can ask for thank you for doing that if you got a thought send a note off to Scott and
we'll plug it in uh next thing just uh informational morally more than anything else um I know people have been somewhat interested in the whole lithium battery storage project in Westfield uh and that seems to still be
happening out there I've get emails from time to time from a person in Westfield named Dan Ally I think his name is um who's right now coordinating a pretty much a campaign for lawn signs saying you know no aquafer I'm sorry no lithium
batteries on our aquifer or something like that I've seen a few around town so people obviously know where to get them um by contacting Dan Alli I know he's been out on Facebook and provided some information and then there should be uh I've heard of another possible hearing
coming up by the energy facilities sighting board but nothing has been given as a date yet so there may be another public hearing coming up in Westfield sometime in the coming weeks and so once we hear about that we'll let people know but you know it's really Westfield in the lead on this this is
their you know it affects us obviously but they're the ones that are really uh taking the charge on this they do have a um website if people want to take a look at it it's called www. W ra raft with a WFT .org and that means
Westfield residents advocating for themselves so anything related to the battery project I think you can find on their their website at this point in time okay so that's all I kind of know about that site um the energy facility
sighting council is a state agency I believe so yeah so while the site is in Westfield and the city is leading the advocacy we're all kind of at the mercy of a state agency correct y so so if
there's a date I'm sure we'll hear about it we'll let people know in case anybody would like to attend but um best thing is to just be in touch with the folks in Westfield themselves okay next up uh land planning update so there there was a meeting
today for the seniors there was actually yeah about the Lan's planning um yep yeah are hopefully I talked to Kyle from PB PC so we're hopefully hopefully going to get the internal group uh probably next week if we can um one of the big
issues was we had a request from Dodson and flinker about potentially delaying the timeline a little bit um since we don't need it technically for special town meeting or annual town meeting uh they would like to see if they can maybe push it back a few months to release it during the summertime and then um it
won't impact our ability to apply for onstop Grant they'll still have enough information that we can go forward with that it's essentially the the final product and the things that we're going to need for town meeting and voter approval would be delayed until a couple
months okay so today for example say um Kyle from pvpc uh presented um kind of an overview kind of collapsed a lot of what happened at the three-hour meeting we had at the at the school um and did a presentation for probably about 15 or so
people this afternoon did a great job uh in an hour's time and just kind of collapsed everything and kind of gave the overview and uh answered questions and then just and I'll put a plugin too um people if you haven't seen it there is a survey out there you need to please get online and fill out that survey it's
only 12 questions it shouldn't take long it's really about your vision for how that site can be used can be developed um and there will be printouts I believe already at the at the senior center if you don't want to go online I'm sure we can have some over at the library too so that people could fill out a hard copy
and then they would be collected and then you know added into the the whole totals and so forth but uh Kyle did a great job presenting this afternoon and field did a few questions on that he was saying that there might be another public meeting sometime in April though is what I gathered that's what we're
hoping to do depending on how so I think can get that together the important thing of people getting your input in via the survey so that they can take some of the information not only that they gathered the other night at The Forum but pulling it in from the survey so that we can have another public meeting and say okay well based on
everything we've heard so far you know here's a first attempt at what it might look like and that's that's kind of what I understood today that it's not anything final by any means it's just like okay here's a first here's a first thought based on what we've heard about you know Public Safety Senior Center
housing Parks whatever it may be and just a warning um so autumn Olive and Southampton Common are in the lead for names Autumn Olive oh my you're kidding an invasive species oh God no uh so I encourage everyone if you
don't like those names um I Southampton Common is very common okay um Autumn Olive guys is an invasive species which I personally will get on the survey and and pick a different name okay oh my interest I don't know where those came
from okay interesting well a survey found on the town web page somewhere uh yeah it's under so go to special project up top and land use planning it it took me many clicks to
get there so there is a red banner just below the town of Southampton special projects and that's where you find special projects without scrolling scrolling scrolling yeah so it's a few less less clicks to go that way and also while we're on that top Banner there is
also a public safety one in that red banner you click on that Public Safety one and it takes you to the public public safety building committee page and that's where a lot of the background information is on the public safety complex as well so further over there's a public safety one somewhere up top y y
and that will take you to there so please do try to you know use the website you know navigate get friendly with it it's not it's not uh not that hard to get we're we're trying to make it so there's a couple less clicks to get where you need to get to um but hopefully that will help
people okay um so you guys will have an internal meeting sometime in the coming week from what I understood okay very good thanks okay um 250th anniversary just nothing totally new um main thing is Friday night this Friday night we have our Southampton trivia night at the
Country Club so a lot of people have signed up I think we've got at least 75 or 80 people that have signed up for that so we're looking forward to that there's still some room I think if people want to come it's going to be $5 at the door um I would ask that you try to send in a note there's um uh an email
to I believe it's SB tilby at 19 1952 at gmail um and so she's just keeping a headcount so that we know we have enough we can have a maximum of 100 people I believe so if you haven't signed up yet I think you can probably take your chances and come to the door and uh I'm having a feeling we'll probably be able
to let you in so hopefully that'll be a fun night that's the main thing which night this coming Friday so it starts at uh 6:00 from 6: to 9: uh this Friday at the Country Club cool okay so come and uh learn something about Southampton or
share your knowledge about Southampton trivia a little bit of History okay um any other business that can't wait till the next meeting and I'm going to say our regular meeting I guess would be April 1st but I I think I would like to suggest if everybody's available that we
have our a joint meeting with fincom probably on next Tuesday on the 25th because by then we should be able to get more clarity both on the school situation for both schools but also on uh potential potential cuts that Scott is trying to work on uh given that we've
got various departments that may need to do a little more trimming down um so if we could do that I'd appreciate that um and then I've got just one other thing when we did um and Stephen I hadn't told you this we I forgot when we did the
appointment uh for stepen to be on the as the alternate from select board to be on the pvpc I did not put an end date on that so the the term on that life no uh basically it would be um I'm going to suggest for May 1st of
2026 which essentially is the time of you know another year out in terms of your term on the select board I believe I you didn't you end up next year maybe I think I think so so so I will um just to if everybody's okay with that I'll just modify that appointment to have Stephen be the select board alternate to
the pvpc until May 1st 2026 okay any opposition if not none I'll take that as an approval and I'll let them know accordingly thank you uh we have two sets of minutes to approve February 11 and February 18 has anybody
noticed anything there that they'd like to correct or change or something missing they look pretty we do them together or oh I think we can unless anybody's noticed any errors um they look pretty simple to me I didn't particularly pick up anything myself I
didn't either so I move to accept both February 11th and February 18th me uh minutes as presented okay second second by Steven okay all those in favor I I I all right very good and then Stephen we'll turn it over to you on the warrant
approv my favorite part um we have approved or pending approval a goodly number of warrants seven seven maybe W 25-33 in the amount of $242,300
8 p 25-34 in the amount of [Music] $371,500 3,453 And1 PD 25-34 a in the amount of $241,900
W uhoh might be wrong W I'm going to go with W 25-35 in the amount of $258,000 y$ 28,750 65 right that's not w235 it's w25
correct w25 d35 is what we just read out next one is P2 25-36 the amount is $355,900 181 okay very good thank you very much welcome we have a couple of other
old business items that maybe we haven't talked about Scott you mentioned the hmp update already so we know about that and the storm water and rise fund um do you want to give us any update on the railway sewer next steps on that or what's happening status wise on that one um
Stephen and I we met with tyan Bond uh yesterday we just needed a debrief from that so far okay uh and then the 88 door openers uh should be coming in soon we've contacted the company got the taxes in status did the debit card placed the order so we're just waiting
for it to come hopefully they won't take forever all right okay um our money the capital capital money capital Y yep um Broadband committee charge we are still
at our own Mercy on that one we've got to sit down and figure out if we really want to be select board to be the MLP or how we want to proceed with that and that's another huge project but we need to keep that on there until we get down to figuring that out and the same with cap capital asset planning um we've got
to call a capital meeting soon so so um that's got to happen probably in a couple weeks time as well so um all right um so next select board meeting we will have on the 25th and then April 1st and 15th going
forward as our usual schedule so I I have a question on that we um where did I see it yeah we're planning on meeting on April 1st um the caucus is in here from is that going to be a very minute meeting uh yeah that's going to be a
challenge isn't it that's right I forgot that's a Tuesday night yeah the caucus is April 1st so we might not be able to if we well if we meet the 25th next week right and get business done Finance wise maybe maybe we can avoid the first and
and go until until the 9th or whenever that is the next meeting the next meeting you got tax day April 15 I mean you're just picking all up I know I know they're they fall on the wrong days this this year don't they someone who's scheduled special town meeting on race day yeah I know yeah we're striking
out on that one aren't we I know um well yeah April 1st with the concus what did what did um I wrote down 7 to9 7 to n on that so if anything you know we'd have a short six o'clock meeting we'll have to decide if we if we need that I guess when we get here when we get to that
point so thanks for pointing that out forgot about that okay um all right and then I think uh that's basic basically it so the 18th we'll get back together with I'm sorry the 25th we'll get back together with fincom we will be adjourning and going
into a short executive session and I'll just read the points on that um mgl chapter 30A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so
declares and this is related to the Cannabis host Community agreement so moved all right I have a motion on the floor can have a second second all right all those in favor Lumber ey Johnson i l Val ey Palmer ey FS ey okay we are
adjourned at about 710 and we will not be coming back into public session and so we'll take a couple minute break and then just deal with our business before e