This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers. Okay. Okay, we're going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton Select Board for May 6, 2025 at 6 p.m. uh sorry, at about 6:15 p.m. uh here at
North School Library. And let us stand and say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and
justice for all. All right. So, let me just pull up my agenda again here. So, I think we are going to basically focus our discussion on the town meeting that's coming up at 7
o'clock. And we want to go through and look at a couple issues that have come up before the town meeting and then kind of go through and do our usual who's going to read what article um where we're going to do that. So, new business. Um Scott, you've got anything here? Just the discussion preparation
was that more just going through in terms of who's going to read what articles is that it so um as usual I guess I'll try to start off if that's okay. Who's whoever's going to be sitting to my right wherever we're going to be? I'll be on the end. You'll be on the end. Okay. Between you two flight who wants
to sit next to me. I'll sit next to you like I always. Okay. All right. So Dan is two, Steven three, John four. So, I'll be five. What do we want to just send the mic back up?
Um, instead of going from end to end. Well, we could do that, too. That's what we did last night. That's That is true. We did do that last night. Okay, we can do that. Sure, Stephen. So, you want to do two in a row or do you want to just take You've done four past five back to Stephen. Is that it? Sure. Yep. Stephen.
Dan. Chris will be seven. Then we go Dan H. Steven nine, John 10, Steven 11, Dan 12. Yeah. Uh Chris
13, Dan 14, Steven 15, John 16, Steven 17 18, Dan 19,
Chris 20, Dan 21, Steven 22, John 23, Steven 24, Dan, 25
Chris. 26 Dan. 27 Stephen. 28 John. 29 Steven and 30 Dan. Um are we
CPAs? Uh actually, yeah. No, we usually don't. I take that back. 28 29. So 28 uh 28 29 actually that will be a break because CPA people usually do their own I think Stephen you're 27. So Steven's 27 do 30 to end it. Sure. Why not? Um
we'll have CPA does sorry CPA will do 28. Thanks John. I forgot that 28 and 29 and then uh John go ahead and do 30. Okay. Is that all right? Yep. Everybody
kind of got that? We'll vote as we go. All right. Perfect. So, that's a few things. So, I think with that, we have a couple of um adjustments to make. We've got a couple of typos and then we've got a couple of other issues related to our free cash and our distribution. So, if
you would open these up and I think Scott, our first one is probably article six. Is there one? Um there's one. Yeah, one tiny one. I don't know. It It's just a correction. It's not part of the motion. Do you want
to correct that? It's just a math error on article number four. Just it's not part of the article at all under the uh the transfer station. The u the total is not 2110372. It's actually 211 23944.
Anybody got an extra pen? An article. Yes, sir. Article four. Article four. So, it's just a total. That's what we got. Um that was wrong but that's just for our information. Um uh the motion itself does not have the
number in it so that's okay. So okay 21 23944 it don't have the um the actual money in it. However let's jump over to article six. So first of all um Scott you want to go through and explain maybe this page here on the free cash and then we'll I think we need to take a vote on
your recommendations of how to divvy up this free cash. Uh so we did get free cash certified for last year. Uh it came out to $642,670. Um that's in the neighborhood of what we were planning on getting. Unfortunately, there were some outstanding deductions that came
through. Um the biggest of one is the special education for $95,000. This was a little bit frustrating because uh the school department worked really hard over the last couple months to get this in. Um, this is an outstanding grant from before and it comes from the state and we did
provide the DLS with actual documentation that the funds were coming and they actually did come a couple weeks ago. So, we did receive the funds but it was too late for our um our free cash certification. So, even though we proved that we got the money and we did
get the money and the money came directly from the state, um they were they didn't include that into our free cash, but that 95 will now fall out next time around. Yeah. Um the other big item was the water hazard mitigation uh that
popped up this Bradley and I were doing some research on it. It is for a FY22 FY23 water main replacement. Um that originally totaled a little over $450,000. Um, we haven't talked to the water commission yet, but we're
wondering how this kind of came onto our side. Yeah. So, this would be the water man. If you remember those that were around, we pulled the water man um from the bottom of the river by the the bridge by Sheldon's and put it to the bottom of the bridge. And so, that's what this grant was for. And we got FEMA
money for it. And I have a feeling FEMA only reimburses a percentage of that. And we may have overspent our percentage. I don't know. Unclear. So, we need to investigate that. So, right now, that's a a question mark, but that may fall back to if we can clarify that, I think. Yeah. Uh, we have some minor
things. And then the other big ones um other than a few $14,000 education grants, the um the greenway acquisition and mass greenway acquisition uh in Conan Park, which we need to uh do a little bit more research on. I know that Mark Mark Cass has been very diligent in
looking over the last four or five years of open space. Um and he was able to find um some questions that we're going to try to work on, but that's going to take a little bit of time. Yeah. And the Greenway acquisition came both from Mass Trails and CBC, I believe. So, I'm not
quite sure. I can't believe that we wouldn't have spent all of the Mass Trails money that we were allocated. So, I'm not quite sure on that one, but we can dig into that. So, those are ones that are at least the bigger items. Um what's the top one? this receivable variance up
top. Another 14,000. Um, you know what that was? That's receivables between Bradley and I. Okay. So, that's what we're not. We don't match. Okay. So, is this an entry just to zero them out or are are have you guys exhausted all reconciliation
possibilities and this zeros it? I mean, I don't know if it should be exhausted, but um there wasn't any more time, you know? So, there's just certain numbers that we don't don't agree on. Okay. So,
if I'm understanding, then if we can reconcile some of this, not for today, but if we could reconcile some of this and make it go away and convince the state that it should go away, right, then that would fall into our free cash going forward next year. Next year, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz
there's a couple of these. I mean, the the REAp grant and a couple of other uh early education sped things and so forth, too. So, some of these are grants that maybe weren't closed out or something. Um so, um we need to figure that out. So, then that gets us they've they subtracted all that out. Is that
it? And then Mhm. Um next up, then we deduct the um the settlement with the schools for the central office costs. Um I I understand that they met last night. um they would prefer $200,000, but I think they understand the uh the situation we are in now with free cash.
So, it looks like we we're going to be able to come to an agreement over a 3year period. Um hopefully some of this funding uh that comes through into next year's free cash, we'll be able to apply it to the total amount. Mhm. Um so, just on that, the two chairs met again this
morning, the Hampshire regional chair and the Norris chair. Okay. and agreed on general terms to put forward. Okay? So 150 year one, year two, we pay the balance off if we're if precash is north of 600,000. Okay? If it's less than
600,000, then we only pay two and the remaining 100,000 falls out the next year in year three. So um Dupree Law Firm is drafting that up and then they'll have to circulate for approvals. Okay. All right.
And then the snow removal. Uh and then that's the snow removal for um the deficit that uh Randall is has for the uh snow removal from last year. Um so that leaves us with 145 $220,000.
Um going by our our standard policy, the 30% operation, 35% capital, 10% OPEC, um it leaves about $36,000 from that. Mhm. Okay. So, that would be changing on our
articles here, but uh does anybody have any comments or your recommendations that we put in the required amounts per our policy and that gets us much smaller amounts, but is everybody understanding what we're doing here? Answer questions. So I'm fine with doing the 30 35 10 and
I know we talked about the remaining 25% doing 12 and a half to operation 12 and a half to capital but doing that 43 will put operations over a million dollars um in capital isn't quite at a half a million yet. So I I would say that I would
advocate to move that 36 just to capital move the balance of the capital into the capital fund. Right. So cap so operations would get to 43,566. Its current balance is 958,000 and change. So that would bump
it over the million mark. Mhm. Okay. So you're you're advocating to put the 36305 and 15 into the capital stabilization which would bring that up a bit higher then. Right. It would add 8086,000 and the current balance is 354.
Yeah. So that would give us a little bit more. Yeah. Scott, any comments about that? Does that make some sense? Um, no. I think capital's in desperate need of it. Mhm. Yeah. I think that the you putting
that in that for tonight's 369,000 if that's approved. Um, we believe I believe this was very much so. Okay. You want to make a motion on that, John? I'll make a motion to allocate the 135220.61
61 30% operations or $43,56618 10% to OPED $14,5226 and then 60% to capital which equals 87,132.36 87,132.36 Yep.
That's for article seven. Okay. Okay. Any I'll second that. We have any discussion on that. This is the amount. So operation is operation stabilization fund, not the general budget. Correct.
Right. Y. Okay. If anybody's all okay with that. All right. Then I'll uh take a vote. Let's have a vote. All those in favor? I. All right. Motion passes. So with that, let's turn into our warrant then and make those changes. Um so
article five is okay. That is the the snow removal. That is the correct amount. Uh article six, please cross off anything and put in the 43566 and 18 cents. And that will be in the motion. So that needs to to be read
that way as the motion. Okay. Article 7, I cross off the figures and put in 87132 and 36 cents. And again, that will be read into the motion. Um, OPET fund uh cross off and put in
14526 again read into the motion. And then last one, as we're on this page, article 9, um the amount transferred to Hampshire Regional, uh will not be 200,000, it will be 115,000 for this year,
right? Okay. All right. Um we had just one one typo, right? Uh, article 16. Yeah, article 16. Uh, one sum didn't translate. So, in the
motion, um, third line in the middle, it says 98,000. That should be 190,000. 10 90. Yep. 566.18. I see. It's up in the top part in the summary, but it didn't come down into the bottom part. So, change that 98,000
to 190,000. That's on article 16. [Music] Okay. And one more on the assessor for that. Is there another one? Yeah, 16. It 190 on the article 16, right? Yeah, right
there. It's up in the top part, but it didn't come down correctly. And on the assessor's article 22 in the summary and the motion uh
after clause um clause 41C that should actually read clause 17D. So this is page 25. Page 25. So the clause related to in uh MGL
should not be 41C. It should be 17D apparently. So chapter 59 section 5 clause 17 is David is in David 17. It's only once. It's only once in the motion. It's in the motion. Yeah. Once in the motion,
correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I think that's all that we know. Yeah. Any other news? Uh on the conservation bio I do have the highlighted changes. If anyone wants to I can give this to them. So instead of reading the whole
thing which one is that? Uh which number is that starts on page 14 and Oh, I'm sorry. Page 15. Uh, it's actually Stephen number 21. But, um, so,
but Stephen's going to read the motion on that. So, depending um, since I'm in the bylaws committee, unless Danny, you want to do it with there's We're just going to point out where the changes are. Um, cuz
that's a long a long bylaw. This is uh, Hold on. Um, I just lost it. Yeah, as long as I understand what I need to do. Page page 14.4. So, in the alternative, we're reading the entire No, no, no. Oh, god. No, no, no.
We're just reading too, but I can't find the motion. So, it's on page 15. Right at the top of our first, right? And is Dan gonna swap me if you want? No, you're going to read the motion, but Dan will get up and speak to
it from Oh, fine. Okay, unless unless George is here, but I don't know. Uh he may Yeah, he was um at town hall a little while. Okay, so we'll see who who wants to step up one is the wetland. The wetland is article 21. It
starts on page 15. It starts on page 15 and it's a long one. It goes for several pages and we're definitely not reading the whole thing. And the other the motion is actually on page 24. 24 the bottom of 24 is where the motion is.
Okay. You find that Stephen if you're reading that one as well. Okay. And then so Dan just to point out there's about six changes I believe. So and they're minor sort of minor wording changes but number 18 page
18. Correct. Okay. And you're looking for anything in bold. So this is related to the core issue uh currently in office. So that's related to that quorum. Oh yes. So that's issue. So you're saying these are things we're just we're just going to point out I think two people when Robert asked for somebody to speak to it rather
than going through we're going to say that there are six wording changes here and these these are where they are. So on page 18, this is what that wording is. On page 19, there are two up top. All RDA applications will be treated as
public hearings. And then on B about halfway down the middle, um pre-construction site visit, um applicant, representative, builder, and conservation agent andor commission members. I mean these are you know minor
but that's what concom us to do. Page 20 there's a strike out. Um so there's just a end of a sentence that is completely deleted provided that the work conforms to performance standards and design specifications. So it's just
clarification right? I mean that apparently the design standards hadn't been adopted by concom. So George recommended that it get deleted. So that that's a deletion. So just noting that that's language is deleted. Okay. Okay.
And on 21 just changing shall to May. Uh there is shall to May. That just makes it a little bit looser to Yeah. administer. And then the last thing is on the next page on 21 uh the inclusion of the
wildlife habitat studies paragraph. 22 page 22. And those are the oh this one right here. Yeah. So anything in bold. So those are the the bolds are the the main changes. So these are requests from concom basically to
the forum the quorum is obviously given you know those issues in terms of having enough people for meetings to vote on things. And then these are just other other minor language changes that seem to make it sense make more sense to administer the bylaw from what I gather
for Kong. Okay. I think that's all we have for changes on that. So, we've got a few few challenges here, but um I think that's that's it. Um anything else on the work? Anybody? Okay. Yeah,
sorry. Robert College Highway moderator. Uh just to keep you all informed, I spoke to Scott and met with Chris earlier. The moderator is going to change how we read the budget rather than what we've done historically for the last 15 plus years. I'm going to
read each of the 29 items one at a time. If and when I hear a hold, we'll have a discussion immediately on that one item. And when the discussion is ended, we'll go to the next item and I'll keep reading all the
way down. When I get down to 29, we'll vote on the entire budget. One vote. So, you're not going to do the categories like No. Like you I'm glad we did it and people have it information. A lot of towns do what I just expressed and we
have to do it eventually. So rather than wait till next year, I felt we do it now. So can I just so I understand my mind. Yeah. Chris will read the motion or the article as it's in there now and then we're going to go A and B.
Um there's two motions together. There's two moves. We're going to read one motion and only about the budget and then we talk about the budget and I'll discuss I'll go through each item and then that will bring in discussion. You
know, Scott will talk about the budget up front and then when we vote on the budget, then a motion will be read about the override and seconded and then we'll have the discussion and then the vote on the overrides separately. Okay. Okay.
So, in other words, reading the motion because this was a long paragraph, it kind of combined two action. There's two moves which are two primary motions and you really can't have two primary motions on the floor at the same time. Yeah. So technically we need to do this anyway. Okay. So in other words, I'm
understanding that I'm going to stop the first read after No, you read the whole motion. I'm going to trans I'm going to stop after transferred from ambulance stabilization. That takes care of the base budget. Correct. We go through that and then I come back to move further to raise and appropriate once we finish
once we I'm just going to divide this paragraph and you'll stop and then those of us stop. We'll discuss those of us that are against that. We should line up tomorrow. And it's a win-win for everyone, I think. Yeah. So, we'll stop right after ambulance stabilization,
discuss that budget. And what happens if the first budget gets voted down? Then we have nothing to base it on. Okay. And we move but then we still move to the override. Yes. And then we figure out what to do with the base. Yeah. I
mean I would hope that the base could pass. I mean even those I suspect I suspect that there will be a outcry to kill the 4.05 at Morris to stop that from happening in the event that the override doesn't get to the ballot. The
Monterey won't allow won't allow any severe changes to the budget. 10% increase 10% decrease. But they would vote down the line item. Yeah. When when schools come up. Yeah. Cuz if people aren't reasonable people think this won't happen, they stay home. That type
of thing. Yeah. So tweaks to a budget is allowable, put severe changes on, right? But one would hope that by tradition, right? But in in terms of voting for the different lines and
voting for Norris in the base budget, if you're voting for that, but you doesn't stop you from coming back and also voting for the override in me. Right. Right. Cuz we're doing one vote on the whole budget, not individual votes like we historically did for the nine
categories. Now we have 29 categories. It would take too long to do a vote on each one. So I'm going to read each of the 29 down. It's faster. It can be faster the first time. There's a transition, an introductory may be a little confusion,
but I'll walk everybody through it. We'll get there. Okay. I'll follow your lead. Okay. I I think what happens is in the my understanding of the if it ends
up being just a school that fails the commissioner of schools or commissioner of education will tell us what our budget's going to be. Which can be anything the commissioner deems it to be. Mhm. So which is fine. I
mean it's it's a Mhm. Let the people speak. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll we'll follow your lead here, Robert. All right. Anybody have any other questions about the work? I think we've got that squared away. Uh,
let me just check one more thing here. Um, there was going to be um a possible uh PCF for the board of they interviewed an agent candidate, but um that hasn't gone through all the the required procedures yet in the PQB and so forth.
Um, so we're not going to handle that tonight on the board of health agent that they have in mind. Um, so other than that, we have our select board meeting next week on the 13th and then on the 27th and obviously we've got the town election on May 20th. So with that,
I don't think there's any other commentary that I'm aware of, but if anybody has anything. Motion to adjurnn. I think motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All right. All those in favor? I. All right. We are adjourned at 6:40. This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable
subscribers.