##VIDEO ID:WSTvswWi6F0## time is 6:30 p.m. I hereby call the order this regularly scheduled meeting the sunnd select board our first order of business is going to be a approve our minutes from our last meeting on October 28th a motion do we also have executive session minutes for um they're in the folder I'm just fig I can Jo them both at once if we have it I believe so we have we'd have to go into executive session to do that till appr the minutes they become public eventually all right I'm motion we approve the minutes from our last meeting 28 1028 second all right we have motion made and seconded to approve our last minute meetings last meeting minutes all those in favor hi hi I not thank you all righty so our first order of business today is some very uh welcome news to all of us uh today is Bey torres's first day as our new Town Administrator so it's it's such a pleasure to be here the the staff has been really awesome on my first day and Department had at least one checked in and um things are there's a lot uh going on I'm starting to get the pulse and a lot of budget things to work on I've been already working with the accounting firm and thank you so much um for um for hiring me great appreciated it is absolutely our gain and loss so very happy about that yes um all right so uh welcome aboard our first order our next order of business is uh appointments with the energy committee um would you like to sure um the energy committee is here in the audience today to present two topics yes and I will turn it over to you cool well should I come up here is that yes for a while here uh thank you all my name is David Goodman I'm the chair of the Sunderland energy committee and I'm joined today by two of our three members Laura Williams and B Ferman youman sorry hate to interrupt you but our owl is not actually working so it's not recording you okay if you don't want many things and one of those things is a lot of Technology inserted into small towns meetings which is a great thing in the long run in the short run it's there we go it just helped since we don't have fap I good call on that thank you for catching very sorry about that shall I start again start hello everybody thank you for inviting us to this meeting my name is David Goodwin I'm the chair of the Sunderland energy committee and I'm joined with two of our three members Lauren Williams longtime member and Meg fer k sorry well see that was good because that's what I did the first time uh Aaron Fel is our fourth member and he's not able to attend tonight uh the first item we wanted to discuss tonight was the EV charger donation and the person who was supposed to be here uh from the east coast is have to get my glasses on East Coast Renewable Energy company uh Nick valori kind of hoping that he was going to be here but in the meantime um why don't I just kind of introduce the uh the concept here and sort of a brief history don't be daunted that my notes are three pages long here I'm going to be as brief as I can but I do want to say that um we moved here from shutesbury as well so feeling you're stocking it could be the other well we've been here for six or seven years I guess not if you go further back I grew open shb about 20 years ago okay guess I'm big circle of life here so we are as the energy Committee of course very interested in electric V vehicle charging uh back in 2021 um we were notified about the mass evip program the electric vehicle incentive program which provides grants uh grant money to build EV charging stations on government property we thought what a fantastic idea idea Town Sunderland we had what we thought was a fantastic couple of locations um so we were working with the former administrator Jeff Kravitz and we ended up applying for a grant um and we were considering either the library parking lot the Town Hall Parking Lot out back or the graves lot as it's called the parking ride out on North Main Street Route 47 um we submitted what they call a Make Ready application um to the state for that for two level two EV Chargers that was all that was available at the time so if you're not an EV owner level ones are like the trickle charger the twos are the slightly faster the threes are close to the superchargers okay so at the time that was really all that was available um and the our Make Ready Grant application was behind in the town hall ever Source saw that application they didn't like it there they said it was going to be too expensive and they liked the graves lot to park and ride out of North Main Street instead okay that was fine with us um Jeff however thought it was a terrible idea because that was right before the North Main Street repaving project was about to start and he didn't want to try to um coordinate all of the construction and that this that and the other thing so long story short nothing ever became of that okay um several months ago it was either Jeff or Margaret I'm not sure who was the Town Administrator at the time uh forwarded to me a letter from Jim McGrath who was working with the East Coast Renewable Energy company which is a a for-profit company I'm pretty certain um said that they were interested and they've been working around in Massachusetts to donate level three Chargers to towns and of course we were interested in that and responded very favorably to that inquiry U we did meet with Nick valori um who works with Jim with gra on September 17th at our regularly scheduled energy committee meeting to discuss it and we were suitably impressed by what he had to say um couldn't believe that there wasn't a downside to this and I'm sure there is and I'm hoping he will eventually show up here tonight so we could discuss this a little bit um but the energy Committee of course is very very supportive having a couple of level three charters in town for a variety of reasons um and he has discussed with us a bunch of different possible locations they do have to be accessible to the public and what I've learned in the meantime is that eversource requires that they're visible from a public road as well so people know that they're there as well as the app that shows you where they are etc etc okay um just confirm that clude behind this building here unless it was somewhere where you could kind of see it around the corner or something like yeah it it it does preclude it I would think for that very reason yeah it doesn't preclude the graves lot um it doesn't preclude the library necessarily although Aaron tells me that the library would never support that idea because parking is kind of at a premium there some at the time U they've also discussed the possibility of at the public safety complex um so that's kind of where this all stands um we did ask for some references or some towns that there or people that they were working with in various towns around the state to try to get some better idea of of what their experience with with East Coast renewable energy has been and one of the people that he recommended I talk to was Nicole from East Hampton and I assume Nicole was like on the energy committee or something and find her on do you know what I'm talking about my old boss turns out she's the mayor of East so I had a long chat with her the other day about this and they she she was very I think open and honest with me about their successes and some challenges with with this whole concept but they're moving forward with it and they seem pretty happy with it um so I have a list of questions from her that I was hoping that Nick would be here that we could sort of get some clarity on so I'm not sure really how to proceed at this point if he's not here because the whole idea of this meeting was to have him be here to explain it um I mean I have a couple questions that maybe you guys could answer just to sort of make sure that our team are page um I'm assuming this would be a uh you know Revenue neutral operation in terms of electricity charging the people who are using the Chargers is not going to be a free model I know a bunch of towns like nor Campton have recently shifted from a free model to a re no this is a pay pay for charging concept um I just want to make sure that because I'm not sure the town has the fin ability to absorb free charging forone um I mean again when we heard about it at least from my perspective I can't speak to rest of the board we were very about the pro especially getting free level fre Chargers was great um there's of course the question of how much supplemental adjacent costs the town are going to have to absorb in terms of putting in their infrastructure and the permitting and that kind of stuff I'm not saying that any of that's necessary road block per se just that obviously we need to keep that in mind and budget for that and and you know keep working on that um but I think it would be great for pretend to have that um I do kind of agree with the library being premium parking because there are definitely times for that's an issue um you did mention the the front parking here was that ever in consideration the parking town hall h um no it wasn't but it could be on the table for sure okay um it just feels like underutilized parking in general there's not usually a lot of people there and with the parking in the back being as plentiful as it is yeah you know and there's also of course aesthetic questions to raise that we want to have the the EV stations right in Fr of our town hall I don't know that's the questions I'm more worried about safety that would be my only concern with having him at the public safety complex only because I I work someplace for Chargers M and on those kind of hot miserable days sometimes people let their kids out of their cars right and they're yeah you know if there's a grassy area or whatever the kids are playing and I just don't want to create a safety hazard for a fir truck or a police vehicle attempting to leave their their office and somebody's kid frolicking in the parking lot and also judgment aside not everyone feels comfortable going to a public complex in order to car yeah I don't want to make anyone in the in the population feel unwelcome to use those so that would be kind of my concern there you're not you're not near anything either plug in go shock or do that's a big Point both Laura and I are EV owners you know so we know what the whole charging scene is like and you like to charge someplace where you can do something go get something to eat yeah take a Scenic walk do something and at the public safety comp said it may not be the right spot for it yeah no I mean we've been having a lot of conversations in town about the Village Center revisioning and trying to revitalize Center and get more people to come in town to St and so trying to tie that into this makes sense from my perspective which us again back to either somewhere close to the town hall or the graves location so is the graves location from your perspective the the the location right now or I think that's probably the the highest priority right now there's I don't know what four five six places that spaces out there so that raises a bit of an issue and I live you know close to the center of town and there's quite often cars parked there you know they meet there to go for a bike ride or whatever so it's not like it's it's a always available lot so if you put in two parking spots reserved for EVS that would r that would certainly have an impact on that now just brainstorming um is there any room on Swamp Field Drive at the at the um you old old emmer Road end of it for a little off things so it's far enough away from the school if we're not worried about interaction in that respect um or there's the um isn't there a next to um the O's there's like a open lot there is that town land state but might be there's 25 spots in there yeah next to Subway no well south of the O Okay that parking lot in back it's in back there 25 spots and the rber are you talking yeah oh there because at the pullup yeah sorry okay sorry yeah yeah um just because that's about as Central to the to the commercial part of our downtown I mean this part of downtown doesn't really actually have that much commercial in it a lot of that going to be in that little mini mall there with you know Frontier and the co oper what not and it's also means just close to apartment complexes you know three of our apartment complexes would be walking distance from there so have owner live in those complexes they' be able to charge their car they'd be less likely to have be able to have something at home yeah it's not highly visible that's true would you want to park your car and leave it there no you know what I mean it's and I'm not positive that's plowed during the winter yeah they sh it's not maintaining so so and one of the things to consider is to try to coordinate this with other efforts in town one of those being the Shar news pth because but we're already talking about running not sure if you're aware or not but we have a shared news path that's in the process of trying to connect UMass all the way to the park and riding lately with a shared use bike walking path we have funding for the design currently we're working on that thank you I will diver my engineering buddy over here um and just that that that location I believe was part of our consideration for connecting to that location so people would have an entry point to park and then go for a walk or a bike ride on that shared path and if that's part of the consideration for the project it makes sense to at least have that be a consideration for where to put the EV because again it'd be a great location for some to come Park their car let it charge for two hours while they walk up and down and check out the library or the river walk or maybe even go all the way up into Meadow Street and amers where our current end is um um David could I just um so this proposal is for two Chargers and each charger would be for two vehicles it's open-ended what Nick had been talking to us about is two four six whatever we were interested in doing so it's it wasn't really limited I should mention there are costs associated with this and those are the that's the aspect of this whole thing that I'm still not entirely clear on there's there's maintenance there's software updates there's the agreement that the town has with East Coast Renewables to either buy the systems or lease them from them so I think again I wish Nick we're here to discuss this but I think the idea is they're donating the hardware the the actual unit yeah and town then eversource donates the electric installation I don't know they do sometimes I know they do at times yeah that would be a question that we can we would be a we would want to ask is can we get any kind of additional grant funding for this especially from the state yeah to to be able to offer those costs and can we when we're trying to price point our electricity cost to the and user can we roll in some of the maintenance to that and have a realistic idea of it's not going to just be your electric cost but also this for all so it's important to State for the record this is not just a donation of everything and why we've got these three Chargers and never have to pay a penny for it it's not that yeah but it's an entry into it that could benefit the town under certain circumstances right after we met with Nick in September I went down to talk to Margaret about it because she's working in Deerfield and you know I wanted to arrange this meeting and she said well we've done this a similar kind of thing in Deerfield and it hasn't really turned out as lucrative as they had expected because they weren't getting the high use that they had expected so it ended up costing them more said just be you know go into this with an open mind and ask a lot of questions the sp's going to get used to yeah so there's a lot of factors that could lead to the success or the failure of something again and it's something you gota have the discussions but the post office if there was an electric charger there there's another easy to walk around downtown walk around it gives the post office the opportunity to try an electric vehicle if they chose to because they'd have some place to charge it without installing something which is also one of the drawing points of the public safety complex is we're trying to help them transition to electric vehicles there too and it was kind of in anticipation of them maybe getting EVS at some point and that's both in many ways a boom to that location but also drawback in terms of public opinion is do we get this donation and we put it in half of it is being used by Poli criser all the time and the public like well yeah well that's not actually for us is it it's for you know the town um I would want to tread lightly on that respect if we went there but yeah I think the the um post office is also defin had thought of that yeah um I just want to mention um about a year ago in shutesbury we had a proposal similar to this from a company called Livingston out of New York State and their proposal was um almost there were no costs for the first five years and then it was going to be $1,000 or something for to pay annually to pay for their um the package where they you know where the customer pays all the software that went with the money and the flow of money um but other than that the first you know the installation was all covered everything was covered until the end of five years and then you and then the only additional charge was at around $2,000 but the biggest concern people had in shutesbury was okay so what if we need to repair it it's a $300,000 piece of a equipment how much is it going to cost for us to repair it after five years yeah and that was that was the overriding concern that made people hesitate and there was also feeling maybe that yes the the superchargers are faster but how you know when people are actually shopping and going to work and having their car sit there you don't always need the fastest one so something less expensive might do but I just wanted to throw that out there but if you're interested I could follow up and see if living Stone still is making those kind of offers so you can compare it that sounds pretty similar to what yeah it was similar I thought it was going to be the same but the more mention as well okay so it's the same kind of gr funding program through National Grid or or yeah eversource so it's probably the same well this isn't National Grid here this is eversource spirit it's right but but yeah you know and then again you have just your your long-term maintenance of it and you know you don't usually have overhead wire going to it you have underground wire which is very expensive to replace when it fails right right which is also another benefit to having it someplace where there would already be the appropriate like like Public Safety complex for example already has the electricity coming to it that's going to be size close I would assume no well no I mean you if if this whole thing falls under eversource MH Supply the electricity to it that'll deal with that right yeah okay yeah it doesn't need a high voltage or anything like that well actually the reason um we got the call in shuberry is that summer they National Grid ran three-phase power past our town hall and the three-phase power is required for the superchargers for the little and that's going to come up and the next item on the agenda as well for transfer stations threee power and do you all have three-phase power in town well yeah there is in town yes there is not all over the place not all over the place no but in front of the public safety complex there is here on graes there is is there any near town hall why can't I even picture I just can't even Pi picture it's you have a map of three-phase power in Sunderland in your head I work for the electric okays that question that okay it's fine so goes on North Main Street goes on South Main Street probably 116 pal tree pal but maybe not back here yeah but it's not I mean we're only talking from corner down three polls maybe together okay that's I got a young engineer whove done about 10 or 20 of these and I'll I'll send I'll connect you two up excellent just to talk to him because he'll fill your head with stuff been doing it well I've kind of exhausted what I can tell you about yeah yeah yeah yeah I'll definitely reach out and connect great great okay thank you sounds like unless we have uh Nick show up um we're going to have to table the rest of this discuss um but you did want to talk about the the trication also yeah yes yes I do interested to hear yeah was that I'm interested to hear yeah okay so transfer station you all know what a transfer station is right so um back in May of 2021 we've been working on this one for a while and I'm going to I'm going to give you the executive summary up front pretty much every place we have looked at has fizzled for one reason or hundreds of reasons but I have a solution and Jan I mean is is going to be joining us here shortly um Jan can you hear me okay maybe she oh she's muted oh she's Dan you're muted there she is hi there okay I just wanted to make sure you could hear the whole introduction here I'm gonna pull you into this in a minute Absol absolutely awesome all right so back in May of 2021 our our one of our members Laura who's here tonight kind of casually brought up the fact that Sunderland was one of the few towns in the area that does not have a transfer station instead we have a a garbage and recycling um curbside pickup through US Waste and Recycling and if if you are a customer of them like most of us are you notice it's starting to get really really really expensive so she you know uh transfer stations not only do trash and recycling but they do U things like take it or leave it have bulky items appliances tires use motor oil compost uh household hazardous ways blah blah blah a lot of things can be dropped off there and it in a lot of towns it kind of becomes a community focal point For Better or For Worse oh you know let's go meet at the transfer station people meet there and it kind of builds Community right we all have looked at a lot of transfer stations in the area you have the little tiny one over in Whitley um a really funky little one in lever back behind the cemetery off a little side road uh one up in Greenfield and Deerfield which is a pretty phenomenal transfer station I have to say so there's some really good transfer stations to be using as models here and inspiration perhaps so back in August of 2022 we met with the select board to tell them um the select board members at the time what we're up to and wondered if we could get their approval and we got the green light to move forward with it so we have been doing that at nauseum since then so it's been three years now uh in 2023 we put together a survey that was posted on the town website at paper copies distributed at Millstone at a element School event and also sent out an email link to everybody so they could do the survey we got about 150 responses over 80% were positive a lot of them said oh well would it include this this and this so people were pretty interested in it okay so um I've looked briefly into the operating budgets of some of the surrounding um transfer stations lever for example 2021 was the number that I had they had an operating budget of about $83,000 that included salaries and all their expenses did not include revenues I don't think uh weightly in 2023 had revenues um not including grant money and recycling revenues which were about $6,000 of $37,000 um for baggage bag fees dump fees etc etc um but we are looking at mostly Town owned land and Sunderland to find out where a nice location might be um each one has different costs to to develop them each one has some issues like I alluded to the very first site that we looked at was behind the public safety complex you know you have like it's an 8 acre spot site parcel it's got the public safety complex in the front with the police fire Highway you got the wastewater treatment the facility in the back and you have about 2 Acres of undeveloped land in the middle well just so and what we like to about that centrally located um didn't have neighbors residential neighbors it was our already largely developed and the the cons just started piling up here rapidly high water table it's classified as Prime Farmland so it requires 100 foot buffer on either side which took the Acres down to one acre uh usable one acre uh we would need a the butters to sign waivers that they would allow it the fire department hates the idea because they have live fire training there it's also an emergency helicopter landing site it's in the 500e flood flight in the Connecticut River finally we just all right this isn't going to happen so next we sheld that idea the second site we looked at do you mind me giving you this is good this is good I like it okay U I think Jan might have even suggested this the Richard bump property which is at the intersection of Route 47 going north and Falls Road it's privately owned it's five acres it's fairly close to the center of town it is a former landfill yeah in town um I've been in touch with Mr Bump he was interested in selling it but um the cons again started piling up up here pretty big it um you know we would have to pay money to purchase it and develop it uh it's in the Connecticut River flood plan so that raises some issues we met out there once um with the Conservation Commission and they thought there might be a wetland on site so you would have to go through L weather protection act hearings etc etc have orders and petitions decided okay it's not worth it so we we shell that one we went to our third site which is way up off of reservation road again another former Town landfill it's Abed by the CL property it's a so reservation Ro you actually have to go into monteu to get to it so it's way at the far north end of town and you come back into Sunderland and then you go up a little what looks like a private rador road which is the way the cloudes get back to their property but um Jan and the cons and the um energy committee met out there maybe a month ago and again the cons just started piling up the slope would make it difficult to develop the access is an issue it's in an aquafer recharge area and what I learned from from Margaret the other day was there's some groundwater contamination from heavy metals I believe def what is it Beast yes what is that it's a plastic deadly firefighter yeah it's like the the foam that comes out of like um it's the the firefighter so given all that took that off the table one site left that we're considering okay uh I'm a GIS guy that's what I did my career at UMass and for the state I I'm into the maps done a lot of GIS ands this year and try to find good spots there really aren't many in town I mean the town owns a lot of land but not not any that were really standouts for transfer station so the last one we looked at was off of B Hill Road right on the east side of the Warner gravel pit and it's a piece of land the town owns it's 14 acres there's a little Access Road into it right off a bill Hill Road across from the bagden house fairly new kind of acial place there um the pros here are that it's fairly close to the center of town even though it's closer to lever probably than center of town but it's you know it's not up in monteu um only a little sliver of it on the Eastern Edge is classified as Prime Farmland um the southern Edge the very Southern edge of this property is in a medium yield o for recharge area yeah U and since it looks like it's a former B pit you know you you come up at a level there's about two acres up on that level I sent a map to marget I don't know if you guys had a chance to look at it or if it's something we could call up here but anyway there's about two acres on the top part that are fairly flat and have some potential once you get past that upper part which is the north end of that parel it's a long rectangular shaped thing you've got a really steep slope it's like 15 16 on my bicycle with my with my garment it's like 18% in a few places so it's super steep going down into it so that yeah a whole variety of challenges so when Jan met with us out there a few weeks back with the energy committee we were looking at the idea of of possibly considering that as a location for transfer station um the cons are the lower TW 12 of the 14 acres are access with a really steep slope uh the town had talked somebody somewhere in my notes is that the town was considering a solar field down there I don't PL front um I think it was very briefly on our our map two years ago but don't not nothing that's active currently it wouldn't be affected if we did stick with the upper two acres because the solar field I assume would be down in this in the lower area um and there's no three-phase power on Bill Road that true right that's an issue which could be an issue um so the issue their solar there yeah oh is it right is it do have the capacity to handle that load yeah okay so Jan was talking about Jan I don't want to be putting words in your mouth here but I'm going to paraphrase what you told us out there and she said it's not a bad spot but it might be 100,000 or $100,000 or so to develop it Paving putting in a road etc etc and kind of on the as as an offhand remark she said you guys have have been putting a lot of work into this and not having any success why don't you think about going in on another Town's transfer station it's like light bulbs went off on all of our heads sure instead of banging her heads against the wall and trying trying to fit a square square peg into a round hole here why not pursue that option so that's all way of saying what do you think of that no that was that was honestly one of the yeah I I without dispar anyone have a problem with any waste from a number of bad experiences with them in the past and refuse to give them business and so I don't luckily recently and the knows a couple of companies are actually now offering trash service in town that aren't USA waste um that being said for a number of years I was Hing it up the Greenfield because that was the only option that we had that was in the um the South count solid waste treatment District that we're in um and eastampton I think is the other location that accepts our we can you can go there without a without um those are the only two though I would love to see Deerfield or lever be an option Leever was another one that for a while um I was helping my friend pick a trash there and I had experience there lovely little place you guys sound like you've been there too well and honestly in terms of feel and in terms of services that are offered I many good lessons to be learned from the lever um like their like their take leave it like their composting operation that kind of thing um but yeah if we could develop relationships with towns closer and maybe a little bit less intimidating than green field um in terms of that's a much more of a like you know mechanical Drive you're driving through hurry up get out of the way whereas Leever much more let's stop and chat and kind of thing um and and the one the one thing I wanted to say is is that the one thing we don't gain from that plan is the point you brought earlier which is that these transportations end up becoming a focal point for people in town um if you run for office anywhere around here where do you go tox signatur you go to the transportations into your F and Leever mon that's what you do we don't have that in town and that's something that I noticed a number of years ago when I R for office was well where do I go in sundland col signatures you know stand outside the corner store I guess maybe Millstone that's not really that's not really a town location though um all say I don't hate the idea I think it's if we can develop a relationship with a town that is both amenable and convenient great but they kind of raise a question is your field yeah I don't know about that I've heard I've heard offhand comments about bad relations between us and other people other towns for some reason I who knows what that face can I tell you about uh shsb story with Leever so um shutesbury had a bunch of different issues with Leever over regionalization and other things but when it came to the transfer station um um a member of the shitz B Community was working at the transfer station and as they he introduced a concept to both lever and shsb and suggested their their hours were very very limited they needed $33,000 to be open another day a week um you know for like three hours three or four hours so they came to shutesbury um and we ended up having a really good discussion with them and we now have the use of the we don't but we don't take our trash there we do everything else so the $3,000 we make use of all those other the composting all of those other um things you call funky but you know trading the books and picking things out of the barrels but you know so we have that shuberry has that relationship and um are is part of your goal in doing is to do the trash dumping or not because if it if you just want to have all those other services and not do the transferring of trash the part that the community is already paying privately to do or are you trying to grow your services to provide a place for people to take their weekly trash well yeah I can't speak for everyone but I I think the goal here is to to provide a in town alternative to going through the very few options that are I mean again not trying but us say we double their prices as a matter of a couple of years um and that that's the town doesn't have control there's no colletive bargaining going on there there's no there's no competition there's no alternative if we have a transportation in town not only does it give people who don't want to go that direction an option but it also provides some safeg guards of some you know guard rails to companies like USA knowing that if they push it too far they going to lose customers they have another option um it gives some kind of incentive there um and so I think that yeah question can I bring Jan into this now of course you all know who Jan is Jan is the executive director of the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District and we've been working with her for three or four years on this so Jen were you able to follow my long sad story oh oh yes and I and I want to apologize in advance because my Vermont internet has been a little wonky so I I if I if I cut out my apologies um maybe like right now you can hear me yeah you're you're breaking up a little okay so um one of the the idea that came up was um you know Leverett is pretty full I think I don't I don't really think Leverett would be an option for you folks um but Deerfield could be and Deerfield is um you know I'm my my original idea was not necessarily that you would bring uh material to the Deerfield side of the transfer station but that their transfer station is very large and has a lot of empty space and so the town could basically um site a transfer station lease part of their transfer station and put in your own uh compactors and you know bulky waste boxes um and it would just be open on different days and and the model for this is um Charlemont and shelburn they actually are on the same parcel of land and shelburn uh rents pays rent um to to be there they pay rent to the town of Charlemont and um it works beautifully so you know they're just open different different hours uh and residents either come in and go to the left to Charlemont or go to the right to shelburn so so each has their own set of equipment no if it's it's on all different days is there room to share the same equipment just you know if they're open Tuesday Wednesday Thursday or Tuesday you know Thursday Saturday and we're open Wednesday Friday Sunday or something like that yeah the CH the challenge with sharing equipment is um covering costs right so towns don't completely cover their operate the transfer station is not completely covered by Revenue so there's um a net expense that goes on the general fund so you know deerfield's not going to pay want to pay for sunderland's couches or somebody brings something in and throws it in or there's not they you know they're losing money on their bulky waste box or something so I can't really imagine uh they would share it full-time what what they could do is they uh could do like um berston allows lien residents in with a extra permit so that would be the other option is that Sunland residents could buy a a permit you know my be $100 a year as a non-resident and then use the facility and pay you know they have a pay throw program and pay the fees so so it wouldn't be necessarily that Sunderland would come in and use their equipment one day a week and then you know you'd be you'd be the town would be using the equipment but certainly residents could come in um I mean we can talk to them about that idea I think it's worth a discussion only because we have South County EMS which is housed in South Deerfield and it provides ambulance service with an assessment to Sunderland and weight Le we have South County Senior Center we already have shared services with them I I think just taking it off the table and saying you can't share it without a discussion yeah I I would I would definitely like to explore the different options with your field their see what their appetite is um I don't love the idea of doubling up on equipment just because that seems like wasteful like you know if we already are doing with that yeah exactly I I I would be I would be more apt to try to come up with a deal like the ones we have with our other services where based on population size or based on usage like they can have stickers and we this year we sold 400 stickers if residence we sold 125 to something residence we divide the total operating cost by that much I feel like if we if we approach ji with that kind of an idea um you know volume always brings costs down mostly brings cost down sometimes often brings cost down um I feel like there's an incentive on their end because they be able to the cost per you know per capita for them would go down as well um without again I don't love the idea of doubling up on the equipment um employees everything else I mean and also just in general small towns like our are moving more and more towards regionalizing everything because all costs are more apply shared when it comes to a couple of towns so it could be attractive to them to them and to us um and possibly I don't I don't know Conway's deal is but it it may be the kind of thing where we' be rather than just having a conversation between two panels we have a conversation between wle Deerfield and pondway about we want to have a South County transfer station where all four towns can come to wait and shut their little tiny deoration down and move their budget towards Deerfield all all the towns come together and you know where is it's well so I don't know the name of the road the crosses i91 um it's Le roadway Road 116 no no it's well it's on leer Road what what's the road it's leer Road leer Road that's right acrosses i91 and that kind of Curves up around and the transfer station back there is huge there's a massive amount of open space back there so if they wanted to expand capacity they have the room to do it and weight Le weight how big is weight tinyest one you ever see that's what I'm saying if you do talk regionalization it makes sense to at the very least you know open discussion to the other towns in the r Reg because weight may they may have been hoping for a better solution and they might be having an Comm that's also looking for news um I do also like the idea of not um contaminating wor plots of land honestly that's always one of the concerns is you know we talk about these PL of lands our former landfill sites and why is that important it's important because that prudes a lot of future use of that land and you know to the point of the of the T complex I'm actually kind of glad that we're not looking at that because if it is buying Farmland don't really want to contaminate it forever you know um especially with concerns like eaps and and you know microplastics and whatever um if we already have a location that's being used for that that has space in it I'm all for that sounds like a win-win yeah yeah and I also think about a Butters like on the blo road site you know you'd be right behind two houses and they would not be happy I would be if I live there for sure and yeah developing more more land is not my priority either is one of those those things you hear a lot where we want one in town just not near my house right you know everyone wants a transportation I also don't really want on our SEC as well either we can Avo that so if again if we have a location where the butters are already used to it being a transfer station sounds great yeah so that sounds like something that we could start looking into and make some inquiries and see what sort of enthusiasm there might be for that Jan great idea yes thank you very much we appreciate not just that idea but also I keep hearing the energy committee say and then Jan came with us here and Jan came with us there and Jan King this year so just want to say how much we appreciate that you've been working with our energy Committee in town to try to improve our our options so thank you again yeah absolutely you're welcome I mean that's my job so and I'm glad to do it I I like doing I like helping out it's great all right I'll let you know how things go okay be in touch take care all right that's what we got yeah I just want to say thank you for your persistence and all your efforts you are amazing to be able to stick with this like that's great great Jan kept saying you guys are persistent you're not getting up here it's funny that this is possibly going such a different direction than as we had set out to do so I like it I think it's a positive thing um and we'll be happy to um Rec convenient some point when um the the charger Guy is available to do so um avilable keep us surpris and we'll be happy to you know put you on another I'm not sure how that fell through the crack because I just talked to him a few days ago about it but we'll be back sounds good all right thank you all appreciate it we appreciate all your work on this thank you you question yes I'm Nathaniel wearing the chair Nathaniel weing w r i n thank you cryst Dan Murphy I got you all thank you all right guess we're thank you than you guys very much for coming in all right our next item is to review the 4year 26 draft budget process timeline okay so um I did have one meeting with the finance committee um and they are very um interested in working with the select board on this new schedule I think Margaret outlined it in the last meeting I wasn't at but to have um work sessions with the select board where you have have a shorter meeting just that night with the finance committee um I think we talked about their request they are requesting to meet with the select board on December 9th um to review the big picture um and if depending on how far I get in the budget I might have some Revenue projections I'm hoping to have Revenue projections at that point for our first discussion because I think that's very helpful for the big picture uh so we have an idea what's up ahead um and then after that I understand the agreement is for fincom and select board to meet in the off weeks from the regular the you know from this meeting date starting in January that what everyone that's I don't decid on a specific dat as much as just only because when we look at this straft here this is like the 13th no one's doing presentations before January 13th so yeah I find January 13th being the first of those well we need we well so we gonna actually so are we just a quick are we talking about having the different departments coming in for their presentations be with us and the finance committee on these separate weeks and then the opposite weeks would be your regular business makes sense because budgets oh yeah no that's that's great rather than having it be every week especially with the finance committee last year they come in wait through our entire meeting or you know be here for 10 minutes of it and then leave um I'd much rather combine as much as we can in both directions so um okay yeah that sounds like it'll be very helpful for both absolutely right because then they only have to commit to every other week versus every week yeah when we're listening to just one or two budgets no I that a lot okay and and if things get hectic for them that they can have those other weeks to meet to take care of issues in the budget or follow up commes more time to think about stuff between sessions rather than you know we meet and then six days and we meet again six days and meet again it gives us you know each have 13 days of of time to think about it and whatnot so yeah I like that idea all around wonderful so that's the proposal and did you I think Margaret already outlined it and sold it and I'm just here to review it yep yep no we were we were on board with that last time making sure we're on the same page um you need a vote on that from us um sure my as well at the time of entertain a motion uh to have the select board meetings coincide with finance committee meetings on every other week and have select board regulars beyond the offerings so move second all right you have a motion made and seconded for our schedule all those in favor I I you thank you all right anything else you want to discuss about the budget or is that it for now and we'll for now I um you know the eight hours I put in or 10 I put in today I haven't gotten it figured out yet yeah our entire budget your first day come on um no that that's absolutely understandable U we appreciate that you're jumping right in and getting it going um and we'll discuss it in two weeks at our next meeting all right um our next order of business is to announce um the notice period sorry the notice of proposed acquisition of an agricultural preservation restriction on the property in the town of Sunderland pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 7 c section 37 UB Gothic Top Farm project ID number 24 A3 that's um so this is a piece of property that the town is looking for a conservation restriction on um do you any discussion anything between the board on that or just our vote to I think tonight just your vote okay any discussion the board wants have around this property no all right in that case I would entertain a motion to um approve the so there's something here it says to be read into the 11 12 select forting minutes okay so that's probably so it does need to be read I'm sorry so yeah mind yeah whatever this whole thing I have no idea I guess so right yeah I think it's the incompliance yeah all right in compliance with General Law chapter 7c section 37 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts acting by and through its Department of agricultural resources hereby gives notice that it proposes to acquire an agricultural preservation restriction APR on the real property identified heing for the purpose of protecting in perpetuity its Superior and productive agricultural resources by preventing their conversion to other uses the application received by maidar indicates that this property is owned by Jeffrey B hover Joseph jard and marelen Hearn and consists of parcels located at Russell Street and Sunderland as approximately represented on the attached Maps the APR May Encompass all or parts of the area shown the current use of the properties primarily for hay and corn following the reporting of the APR the use of the subject property is limited to agricultural use as more particularly set forth in the API documents the general laws chapter 184 section 31 and the regulations of the department 330 CMR 22 etq um massach Department ND that's it Pi again all right I would entertain a motion to accept and notify the public of this proposed I motion we accept the APR for the Hub AAR property on Russell Road as read by Dan second all right we have a motion made second all those in favor I I nothing thank you all right that was our last piece of new business um first up for old business Dan any uh updates from you no updates actually one and and back you may have seen it in the email we did it we did get a first update of uh the feasibility study um so I don't know if that made it to the but maybe we'll share that around I I did want them to put on actual letterhead to be a PDF form but they sent an email but we'll start with that but we'll get it on you know offici bi-weekly give us some idea what's what's going on they they're focusing right now on what side of the road and gathering information right well but I will make sure maybe send that out when you if you you see your inbox beautiful but that's started I think I have U Margaret scheduled a meeting on Thursday for me to meet with the biologist um regarding the project that's right about the Misa permit yeah so I'll be doing that in the afternoon on Thursday I don't have confirmation from him yet that I saw um I'll search by name I'll try I'll try to join if I can greaty greatst anything from you South County EMS meeting last week everything going great um you know they're get obviously getting ready to do budgets for next year so that yeah it's everything's going good there they're there just doing an amazing job how many ambulances do do they have so there's three there's two that are on um during the day one through the night and then there's a backup they're in the process of um putting onto they have an electric vehicle that will be a hermetic Response Unit that can just it's a non-transport vehicle so that if somebody is having a you know bad medical emergency they can get paramedics there quicker they can great go to other areas they actually go they could you know again they're in the process of getting that you know all the vehicle's been purchased it's there but you know it takes a little bit of time to get that vehicle but yeah that's going to be a really exciting Endeavor for them to have this non-transport vehicle that could just go and provide paramedic level service to to the community that's such a upgrade most communities don't have that no we are very lucky to have the South County EMS and you know I lucky isn't really the word for we are very fortunate because this is not luck this is a lot of hard work and planning by a lot of people um but it's really and it's it's apparently been a model that other regions have been looking to because it's a unque model that's working really well for us and there's other areas that have yeah towns of our size that would benefit from a regionalized Ms like we do so um very proud of of that outfit um it is wonderful yeah great you know Testament to the people who work there leadership go past any so um I only have one small thing I'm say minor this not minor um just a reminder that uh you know in the wake of the election last last week um there has been a uptick in um violent language towards people in communities around including our own um our local Korean Delhi had a very hateful letter left on their door um following the election I just want to remind everyone that this is our little town we're all in together hate has no place here um and if you do find yourself a victim of hate or um are aware of it or whatever please do bring it to the attention of those of us in town who about it because that's not this is not the sunum that we live in and you know there's no place that here all right that's it for me um Becky do you have anything for us for time updates I know that you haven't been here long enough to update us about much but yeah and I apologize what I'm spotting on the the agenda is an executive session as a final item but is that just it's not specifically no it's always there as a placeholder if we need it okay so I will use that placeholder to put in the executive session to take care of the minutes clean up the minutes that okay are open once I figure out what they are okay y um so not not for this week OB for the next week thank you yep no that's that's why we have it there is because then we can always not go into exective session but if you don't it right um all right any other updates you were I think I have a maybe one or two just on the assessors we did get um I don't know if if Margaret brought it up as a concern but I know the Sanderson Place valuation had been at around 400,000 and she was following up with building commiss um Commissioners and assessors and we were um hand Nikki handed us a copy of the valuation it's I think 1.4 million um I I will forward it to you I'll get you a copy and I should have brought it with me but I did not grab that piece but so that it's a full valuation now we believe so it's you know a million dollars added to the tax um to the tax roles that wasn't there before so which is great new that was something we had last year we had kind of asked a little bit about but never really followed up on and um no Noone like leading money on the table so that's definitely a good uh a good thing for us to recover and I'm following up with the uh assessors working with Nikki to figure out where they're at with the with the the recap but also um there should be a classification hearing with the select board you probably are familiar with those where you said um whether there's one tax rate or two I don't know for sure I'm assuming there's probably a commercial rate in Sunderland I don't know in shs FA only had a residential rates but I I'm assuming there's probably two tax rates yeah to yeah and that is usually done before the recap votes to set the tax rate so I've been more um talking to Nikki and reviewing some of her emails from do to figure out how close they are to being prepared for that um and I'll follow up um with the other gentleman um David might be his name uh the other assess working in the assessor Department advising her but I I really want to get that on track because you know the the other issue for a town is if you're not collecting your taxes on time you could have cash flow problems so we want to make sure to avoid that and get the tax bills out appreciate it wonderful all right anything else from from you that's all I have all righty um as mentioned a minute ago we do not have any exive session tonight so we're not going to do that our next regular meeting will be Monday November 25th that is the week of Thanksgiving on Monday um at this time I would entertain a motion to adjourn I motion weour second all right we have a motion made and seconded to adjourn all those in favor I I I three nothing 735