hereby call the order this regularly scheduled meeting the sun slick board first order of business will be to approve the minutes of our last meeting March 26th 2024 I motion we approve the minutes for March 26th second we have a motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing all right our one piece of new business today is a ditch discussion yeah so um we've had with the the rain and number of residents calling with concerns about the ditches um so I've been reaching out to other towns to try and understand try and understand um what they're doing and what some of the challenges they're having and what what they found that works and um so the Deerfield super is out this week I think I talked to Hadley last week um they had a big conference um I think it was two weeks ago and they had a bunch of farmers there and they're running into the same issues that we are they have permission to go on some property um they have had a line item in the budget to clean out ditches but um it hasn't been enough to do more than 100 or 200 feet um a year so it's really not much and and they're facing the same issue of there are properties or ditches that have have ditches on them where they don't have authority to go on and clean them out um so you know how roughly how much they're spending for the 100t I could double check I want to say I it was either several thousand or like 15, it's either like five or 15,000 okay but not 150,000 or $100 and they um they usually hire out somebody I think they've been working with Carl's Excavating most recently to do the work um but they are looking into buying equipment so that their DPW could do it themselves and I said well if you're going to be doing that let us know cuz maybe we could have some shared equipment yeah um okay and so do we have a good survey of where all the ditches are and whose property is on all of them so we have um a list of the properties it hasn't been updated in I think like seven years I want to say uh so some of the properties may have changed hands but we have the lot numbers and so we know where the ditches are we do know where they are I just want to weigh a little bit because um this some history I know around 2010 uh sand hired stch Duan Henry to do a study on it and I don't remember the extent of the mapping but I know there was a full-blown report they talked about what you can do on agricultural land what you can do on a residential land the tricky part is there's a lot of Rights you're able to do a lot on agricultural land Wetland protection act is pretty forgiving and uh generous to for agriculture but when it if if a land gets converted to residential it's a whole another whole another set of rules um so we could I'm going to go back and look in my archive and there's no grandfathering in not that I'm aware of okay yeah but if we can dig up that report that'll tell folks a lot and and really kind of put a number to it but I I agree that the best thing to do is to get a map to and if there's something there we can use that's great but just to know the extent of what we're talking about you know how many feet of this where's the agriculture where's the residential what dit are we talking about I think all that would would be a great first step at least to have the good discussion and we it would be great to also spike out where the problem areas are at least the ones reported to us if people coming in be concerned if we say okay well all these people are on this one ditch maybe that's where we put our energy and is on that one ditch um if it's a even spread well that's a whole question but um are we going to send a letter out to all interested parties and just ask for the rway rights ask for them to donate that to the town um or we could um so I there are a couple things one is the Deerfield person mentioned that they had found some easements so I did I found some easements I want to they're from the 70s I want to figure out exactly where they are to begin with so I know what what we have um I think that if we send a letter out they're right or wrong there's going to be an expectation that the town is doing something about the ditches yeah so I think that uh we could it may be premature um to to be asking for donations until we know what we're doing but my thinking is I'd like to if there's a one property owner that's in a key location that's adamant that they will never give the rights to us that saves us a whole lot of time and effort investigating doing anything on that particular ditch because we know that there's just no chance it's going to happen then why put energy into something that's not going to happen but if we have one ditch where even if it's just a hey we're asking preliminarily if the town were to decide to do this would you be amenable to donating or otherwise you know giving the rights to us and we find out that one of the ditches everybody on that on that ditch has said yeah sure no problem then we at least have some place to start um and also gives us a use case where if we do work on that ditch and then the next year want to do work on a different ditch we might be able to go back to different property owners who were hesitant at first and they'll say you know we did this over here it worked out well feel free to talk to the property owners you know they're they're happy with the the progress we have less complaints about the the you know the downstream impact and whatnot um you mean that's just my thing I mean I don't know that if I I understand where you're coming from about the we don't necess want to make it sound like this is something we're definitely going to do and get people's expectations up um but I think we can certainly craft a letter that makes it clear that this is a probing the the you know the willingness to to give those rights um now is this something that our um T employeers have ever clinged out any of this before I've been told that the town has helped in the past but I don't believe I don't believe since the 80s that's okay it's got trickier I conservation rules yeah I was going to only only com is it'd be good to have just have a good base map to know maybe at the same time but that would help with just identifying the propag and where the ls would go no and I'm perfectly fine with getting the map together figuring out where the easements that already exist are on that map because it may be that we discovered that hey there's only three people we have to talk to on this particular ditch and we do a targeted thing where we just ask those three people rather than draw an ask the whole kle you know so I I would be perfectly fine with waiting on any kind of communication until we've gotten the map and the Y the partial down what not and I'm wondering is it the is it is it the farmers that want help with some of their ditches that they have or they have good rights or they just don't have the manpower to do it and they're asking our help or is it they have problems with neighbors down you know up you know on one side that are causing the problem that work chire all the permitting because they can't control what goes on there I don't know that's just a question I have and then the the last thing I'll say is I'm I've always been curious to know what the grades look like at all the Cals from the bottom of the hill all the way through to the end to see if there's any grade if there's no grade you can you can do all you want but that's just going to fill up with material again and you're going to have you know flat flat thing full of dirt you know so it's that that's an issue then the last thing I'll say is I'm real curious to know what happens at the it had Route 47 on the downstream side when you get an outlet what's the relationship between all those outlets and the high water level does the water level with the 100e flood go up and over it or does it is is it is there is it can always free flow I I don't know the answer to that I wish they had gone out there last summer when we had the high and look at those but you know I think you're going to get that again this summer probably maybe maybe but just the question cuz if it if if it's always able to flow out that's great you know and at least we know that but maybe the water comes up at a 10e or 2year flood event and prevents it then yeah you're not going to get as much water out y so that's thing to know you know okay so I can um start working on finding that Stant tech report seeing what Maps we have available um start drafting a letter uh and then discover where the easements are the existing easements great right any more discussion on the ditches all right moving on to Old business our first order business will be the annual town meeting warrant revieww yes so um I apologize I was not able to uh get a planning board member here um I know you had some questions but the planning board article is um at least one of them is is being refined uh tomorrow night so um we'll just skip that one for tonight and next week yep um so are we going through in adding articles tonight um adding and recommending start with adding um I I think at the very least it would be good for us to go through and add all the ones that we know or home runs you know um might as well the ones recommendations on them if they're easy enough yeah so we can the ones where you know it's like transferring $39 from some account back into free cash I think we can both you know add and recommend that kind of thing um if we if discussion comes up and we don't this board doesn't feel comfortable doing one or both of those things on any given article we'll we'll deal with that when we get there you know okay okay all right uh so article one is reports of boards and committees um and do you just need a motion to okay a motion we add article one do a second second sorry all right motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I and do we want to recommend it also yeah I mean there's I'll recommend article one I make a motion to recommend article one you need to say more can can can we on this one we we only did the the adding in a in a motion do you need separate motions for adding and recommending for each one or can we I think so so you can discuss them separately there is all right so I second we have a motion made in seconded to recommend article one all those in favor I I three nothing thank you um article two is compensation for elected officials a motion we add article two second all right we motion made and seconded all those in favor I I do nothing I motion re recommend um I think this one because it's your your it's your salaries you don't we don't recommend okay that makes sense too sorry I'm just writing down article three um is the operating budget so I make a motion we add article three second all right we have a motion made and seconded um and this isn't specific to Any Given budget just that the budget is going to be presented under this article correct okay just want we will have a budget yeah there will be a budget and it'll be okay just want to make sure that we this I don't think we can recommend until we have final final Final I recommend waiting until finance committee is available to but we can add it though yes we can add right y so that's why we're doing them separate instead of did we vote uh I have a motion in second I didn't hear all right motion made and seconded for article three all those in favor I I I three nothing uh article four is the capital budget so I'm M we add article four second all right motion made and seconded to add article four all those in favor I and like the operating budget I think we should wait on recommending that until after we've yeah actually definitely gone over that okay um oh I just noticed the capital planning committee did recommend I think it was for nothing the capital budget uh Article Five prior year bills I think it's about $1,300 in legal fees yeah all right motion we we add Article 5 Second motion made and seconded add Article Five all those in paper I I three nothing you can recommend this one right yeah make a motion to recommend article five second we have a motion made and seconded to recommend Article Five all those the paper all I through nothing uh article six is um CPA for 177,000 to um preserve the graves Memorial Library teror I'm motion we add article seven second was it seven Jeff six six six okay six all right motion made in teed to add article six all those in favor I I three nothing and also should we recommend article six second all right we have motion made and seconded to recommend article six all those in favor I I three nothing okay article 7 is an second CPA article uh 25,000 um for the uh shared use path um match for the MS Grant I motion we recommend or that we we add article 7 second we have a motion made and seconded to add article 7 all those in favor I I three nothing make a motion we recommend article 7even second all right motion made and seconded to recommend article 7 all those in favor I I three nothing thank you um article 8 is the administrative article for CPA uh $6,000 for administrative expenses $255,400 91 cents um to pay the debt service on 120 North Main Street and 28945 for historic pres historic resources reserved 28945 for community housing reserve and 28945 for open space Reserve okay I motion we recommend article 8 we add article 8 sorry second we have motion made in second to add article 8 all those in favor three nothing make a motion we uh recommend article 8 for administrative cost for CPA second we motion made sign to recommend article 8 all those in favor I I three nothing um articles nine and 10 are zoning should hold on those yeah um article 11 is the expenditure limits for revolving funds and that's just an annual um limit yeah so I motion we add article 11 second motion made and seconded to add article 11 all those in favor I I I three nothing make a motion we recommend article 11 for limits and revolving funds second all right motion made and seconded to recommend article 11 all those in paper I I I article 12 is the citizen petition I I'll ask for a vote I don't think we need it because I think we have to put it on but just in case we can add it yeah and then we can decide later on if the board wants RI on that y so I'll um make a motion we add article is it 12 yes 12 second motion made and seconded to add article 12 all those in favor I I I for nothing okay and then articles 13 through 18 are um just the consent articles can do that as a I think you can do that as a block all right I make a motion we add articles 13 through 18 second we motion made and second to add the consent articles articles 13 through 18 all those in favor I I three nothing do those need recommendations on them all right make a motion to recommend consider articles 13 through 18 second all right we have a motion made and seconded to recommend articles 13 through 18 all those in favor I I three nothing okay so we got a couple that we're waiting on and then a couple that we're just not going to recommend because we shouldn't or whatever all right excellent that was less painful than I was worried it was going to be that's thank you very much for that all right uh next up is our operating budget review where do we stand so we did I do um we have hopefully a balanced budget um we were able to get to a balanced budget um we looked at our health insurance costs and we're able to cut about 15,000 out of that um because we when we looked at what we were paying we wanted to maintain the two family plan buffer which we did um we don't anticipate as costs are going up that more people are going to be jumping on the plan so we didn't feel like we needed as much of a buffer this year um so we were able to reduce that um I also realized that when I was doing the Personnel committee's recommendations I had left longevity in so I took that out um but that was unfortunately offset by the final quote on the landfill monitoring which um went up another $2,000 for the pasas um testing that DP is going to be requiring this year so ultimately um this budget proposes using $210,400 cash um to balance the budget um I did uh ask the assessors um if there was a surplus that we could use um unfortunately this year they have there are two of the apartment complexes seeking abatements um so they weren't comfortable releasing those funds depending on whether or not um they wind up having to go to to defend the the uh tax assessment so um I think those were the major changes just how much that leave us in free cash after the 21 so between the 210,000 and then the opeg or oped 50,000 for oped and then 1,283 in Prior year bills um we would be left with 209,000 985 in free cash which is very reasonable um and thank you again Peter for bringing up at our last meeting uh reminding us that we aren't having to pay Capital anything out of this um and so yeah I I feel a lot more comfortable going in with that much free cash than I would have if we were also trying to put money in capital state liation and or paying for capital projects that were otherwise unfunded so thank you very much for little work on that we really appreciate it yes and yeah just um this document that is up on the website uh the 29,000 in free or 210,000 in free cash is about 2.4% of the budget if you include our stabilization fund um in free cash we would have about 8% of the budget available in cash that we could have a special town meeting or something and what's the recommended the 5 to 10 for that um three to five oh okay so we're actually quite a bit above that that's good never bad place to be there all right um do you need us to vote on that budget or are we just leave get into I think oh so the only other thing that that may that will change is um we're still in negotiations with the police Union so that that line might may change slightly but um I don't think so I think unless you want me to make changes have you gotten a more recent um document from South County EMS uh not not since the 270 I'm just date wise have you gotten one in the past week and a half um yes I think I got the one that I have not gotten one since what I presented at the last meeting last week's meeting okay so that one might have another slight change okay um yeah so I think that next steps unless there's something that you notice that you want me to change on here um when the finance committee and you come back to recommend the the article or not that would be okay the vote great um on that end um because it's part of our budget um we have the capital planning committee met we went over all the requests U some of the requests we either said no or said next year or whatnot um Jeff can you pull that up on the screen for you mind can um and while he's doing that just one thing I want to just point out there's going to be about I think it's $80,000 line item for the school for um mini splits in there but we will be getting a chunk of that back um not you know a million dollars or anything like that but I think who are you getting the chunk back from the state for the the I think we figured out somewhere in the $25,000 range we should be seeing back from that again not that that makes it breaks the whole budget or anything like that but fig that the context was important so the big ones as always are our highway to Department we have three vehicles share this thank we have three vehicles in question back top we've got the back ho which is on year two the truck lease which is says year two but we haven't actually gotten that truck yet right correct okay um and then the loader which is um the thing we put off from last year because we couldn't do it last year um the uh office repairs is I don't remember the specifics Jeff but yeah I think there are some ceiling tiles that had some moisture and the insulation in the roof um and then the steel structure is he he had actually put two requests on here one for this and another for an extra shipping container um we have a lot of really nice equipment some of it sits out in the rain we'd like it to not sit out in the rain um and so the steel structure is a request to put up a pole Barney kind of structure that will protect our investments from getting damaged um so that was 191,000 total for Highway um the only thing for the library is the HVAC and that's the the thing they ask us for every year which is just their sort of regular rolling maintenance on the HVAC system uh police is asking for another Cruiser we got one I think it was two years ago and then we're on about the every twoe schedule for those um that's 735 and then also the public safety complex repairs is 14,000 and that was it's under police but it's police and fire you know it's is that the one that's the floor ceiling and stuff no that was arpa okay um I think this is the drain in the sally port and yeah yeah yeah um so that total police is 875 and then the South County Senior Center had asked for a 14 passenger van our share of that is 6,250 and a little asteris on the right uh Mast do is paying for 80% of the van so we're getting a pretty good deal on that um we felt like that was worth that much money for the town so that's a onetime payment that's not a yeah that's just buying it out right um and if you remember I don't if you remember when she came in but they often go places to do things and they can they can only fit they can't fit enough wheelchairs they can't fit enough people they've had to rent a lot of vehicles and that's expensive and a pain and they'd be much happier if they actually just had one so that's that one one um and then the last is the school um Rim band Phase 5 little sh 10 um the power upgrade um is 14 and then the heat pumps as I mentioned before is 81,000 but we should be getting about 25 of that back in rebates at some point in the foreseeable future so our total is 405 and change um and then in terms of what's going in we started with 2073 we're adding 409 which is the 2 and half% increase on this Capital stabilization override um so our going in money is 617 coming out is 405 that's what 212 left over when we're all said and done um ideally we'd like to grow that at a faster rate in order to have a good chunk of money there for when the school needs a new roof um but we did feel good at having it be a uh you know more in the more in the end of the year than the beginning of the year um and this is all stuff that both have been put off and just needs to be done um so this is what our what the capital stabilization or the capital Improvement subcommittee um voted to send to the board any questions on this um I think it all Mak sense yeah cool all right so can we just go back up to the highway department Vehicles not that I have a problem with any of them but since we don't actually have you know where it's saying truck Le year to we don't actually have that that's the only vehicle we don't have yet or we don't have the loader yet because this would be kicking off the getting of the loader but we do have the backo yep yeah but the one that says the truck lease Year to you said we don't have that vehicle yet we don't have the vehicle yet I believe if if I remember correctly the vehicle's been purchased but hasn't been converted or something like that yes it's it's been the truck body has been delivered but it hasn't been outfitted yet so we're we're truly on year two of that lease we have not paid year one of that lease so the money is there for year one how what we do with it and how we pay it has not been decided because we've not started paying okay how long's the lead for I mean how long it we haven't we haven't financed it yet because we don't have to this this is really just earmarking the money so that we can have go ahead and do all that I think I think we think that it's going to be between 40 it for 5 years it's between 41 and 45 for both the loader and truck um I think and for 6 years I think it would be like 36 to 40 and these are lease to own yes versus lease them and they're all right purchase sh okay yeah and correct me if I'm wrong but we have money from last year for the truck we have money from this year for the truck Whatever Gets worked out with the financing if there's money that we've appropriated but hasn't been spent that just comes back to free cash next year and right or do or go back to it stays in it stays in stabilization rather than coming out of stabilization it stays in the truck Capital account okay we can move it back to Capital stabilization or we can close out that account to free cash okay but one way the other if we don't spend the money obviously we recapture it and that's yeah you know um and that was actually something I would like to mention is that one of the things the capital committee talked about is trying to maintain where Capital money is and make sure it gets back into the capital stabilization fund so if there is an overage we we over for something and we have extra $10,000 rather than that going directly into free cash and getting forgotten about we'd like to keep track of that and have an article every year that puts this much money from these six accounts back into or close those out to free cash but then move the same amount of money one way or the other we'd like to try to do that because we're trying to keep the Capital Money sort of as a its own you know right so just say as an example that steel structure ends up costing $30,000 we would have a warrant article next year to move $77,000 in excess back to Capital stabilization funds so that that money doesn't just get um agree yeah um so that that was one of the things that not an official recommendation but something that we were talking about wanting to to do and I think it's a smart plan yeah and I think we just need to you know I I do think it's best to keep that going back into Capital stabilization versus moving to free cash and if we ever get so much money in capital stabilization we could have a warant article I guess to move it to free cash or to General civilization or whatever you know right but again I would be very surprised if that happens if that ever happens I'd like to be the one to make that motion we have we have an extra million dollars sitting in capital so much money to be clear we do not have extra million doll no all right beautiful um and then in terms of our recommendation on this we're going to meet with the committee we already did we did already yeah we didn't recommend it but we did got you yeah so I um does it make sense for me to invite the finance committee next week to discuss and vote on budget stuff assuming we're I I think we're pretty much there so yeah that's that works for me great all right that is the operating budget um next up we have selectboard updates um went to the Village Center visioning kickoff thing at the library a very nice uh presentation by that St Tech to right y by St Tech um learned a lot of stuff it was very informative um very interested to see how people react to the various um posters and whatnot they have up there they are leaving them up for 2 weeks so if you anyone at home hasn't had a chance to take a look at them feel free to hit up the library and do so um so that was very successful thank you to everyone putting it together um let's see I think that's everything for my end all right so we had South County EMS last week um I think there's just a couple little hopefully they can tweak before like um there's a internet Comcast type Bill they're trying to get straightened out that's just a very high dollar amount um Telephone you know so it won't make a huge difference if they're able to get those updated numbers but yeah there's few dollars is a few dollars but other than that all's good I'll add to to thing said is about the uh Village Center committee very well attended two sessions the first one was actually had more attendees in the second which will surprise a little bit but overall there's a lot of folks who came a lot of great comments they're still up at the library I would also recommend there is educational stuff additional information if people want to learn a little bit more um trying to get the library to to to get that material out um so that people can look at it but feel free to go over put comments up I think what another week at least yeah so there's still another week to to go have a look at the materials and weigh in and what you think about about all of it that's it awesome thank you all right uh that's it for selectboard updates Jeff so um just add that the presentations from last week at the Village Center meeting are available uh FCAT recorded it thank you FCAT so uh YouTube and Public Access if you're interested um please watch that uh speaking of the library you're turning 20 years old uh the day after town meeting so Saturday the 27th they're having a birthday party at noon so if you can come celebrate Library um today we got our new phone devices in we have not tried them out yet we have not gotten that far but um we did get them in so that's exciting excellent um and then and the other thing I wanted to mention is we did get a request to wave a building permit application fee um the situation is that the applicant applied for a building permit with one contractor for a pretty sizable building um and a pretty sizable fee um didn't change plans but switched their contractor so a lot of the information from the permit application as far as insurance and you know license is all different um so typically they would just pay a new fee like I said this is a pretty pretty big fee um in the the five figures so since there hasn't been that much of a change there was a request to reduce the fee there is still some administrative work the Town has to do to review the application but um since the plans didn't change it's not as onerous as if it were a completely new application so um wondering if the select board would entertain uh the request to reduce the this building permit Fe just to administrative costs so again maybe you haven't sat down and figured it out but is $1,000 reasonable for administrative fees is $25 for administrative Fe five somewhere you know what I mean yeah I have not figured it you cuz again I I don't have a problem especially when you're talking a very large amount forly this from one contractor to another that you know that's all covered and covered fairly um we ar dangerous a president on this right we are allowed to review these individual mely this from one contractor to another that you know that's all covered and covered fairly um we s pres on this right we are allowed to review these individually yeah the the anybody can ask this lock board to wave your fees okay right and you know if this was if this was a $200 permit and it's going to cost $200 in administrative cost to do everything obviously you know it yeah but if this is you know you said a five digigit or a five figure permit that's a lot of money to pay again um and and if it was if it was an electrical permit or Plumbing where the inspectors are paid out of the fee it might be a different conversation as a building permit we pay the building commissioner's salary so it's not like we're taking money out of his pocket I just say pro rated I mean say so they paid the first fee and if we did 10% of the work and we need to duplicate the 10% of the work then make the new fee 10% of what the original one was and just prate it that way yeah I mean as long as that covers everybody could find out what a reasonable number would be it's hard for us make a decision the number is the might be $9,500 $1,000 on their lives or might $100 in which case we might just decide whatever but it'd be nice to know what that number is if it's $1,500 that's $5 $1,000 on their lives or might $1 in which case we might just decide whatever but it'd be nice to know what that number is if it's, 1500 that's a good number to know um and then we can at next week's meeting hopefully we'll have that information and we can make a informed decision at that point right because I mean there's the building inspector has a clerical staff yep yep that you know they're going to have to you know earn an hourly wage to change insurance companies change all the names reprint repost whatever you know make those I don't even know if they still have those blue cards or whatever you hang in your window but um and are we worried that we're going to come up with a number and then there's going to be extra work down the line that we didn't account for that we're going to wish we'd ask for for more or is it what I heard only the fee is concern the fee hasn't changed from when it was I the calculation would be exactly the same number okay has evening place okay all right yeah um if you don't want us at least a educated estimate of what that would be um we can figure out we want to do the board might end up taking that number and saying we're going to do 120% of that to little room or something like that you know whatever we'll figure that out but you need to have that number toble to even have that conversation so all right anything else for me all righty any public comment Peter do you have anything you want to say and Chin all right anything else for me all righty any public comment Peter do you have anything you want to say and chiny chindy anything on the line no I kind of had one question about the building permit do we know how old the original permit is because usually they have a six-month timeline um the a building permit was not issued okay not it okay thank you all right that should be it on um at this time I would entertain a motion to a journ hi motion we journ second all right we have a motion made and Ted to adjourn all those in paper hi all right 3 nothing 7 12 keep thank you very much