I hereby call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the Sunderland Select Board. The time is 6:30 p.m. on the nose. Our first order of business tonight will be to approve the minutes from our last two meetings from 61625 and 51925.
I motion we approve the minutes of 519 and 616. Second. We have a motion made and seconded. All those in favor? I I I. Three nothing. All right. Moving on to new business. Our first order of new business is updates from our state senator Joe Cmerford. Welcome Joe. Thank
you so much. Hi everyone. Hi Joe. Thank you very much for allowing me to come and visit with you, talk with you uh for a little bit. I I try to get to the committees I represent at least once every session. Um and you know I wanted to come to Sunderland
because um you know I really want to listen to what's happening for you where you think I can do better. um where I want to make some progress in music session. Um of course I do all of this work in partnership with Mattlay.
This is just a tremendous what would be best for you and the the select I can give you a little bit of a lightning update or you may have questions or concerns. Um I think we probably have some questions but we can do that at the end if you want to give us your you know update on what you've
been doing. That'd be great. Sure. Um and again thank you for your service. Um I think local municipal government is the hardest in the world uh in our commonwealth and um you know sometimes I wish the state didn't make it harder and the federal government and so that's my
job right my job is to try to reverse that. Um so this session uh I'm serving on a range of committees. Um and the work has you know kicked off I think in in pretty strong ways. Uh we just today sent the f this year 26 budget to the
governor. Um and uh we just recently passed a rules package which will allow constituents much greater access to the legislature which you know I know that Natalie valued. I certainly value. Um and we are working on a a number of
other key pieces of legislation as well as um recently having passed a fair share supplemental budget and um we are also passed a deficiency supplemental which is a regular uh a regular budget that gets passed during the annual um
course of business. You know something falls short when we need more money for some particular thing each chamber will pass and the governor will file a deficiency. So, lots of important money moving, some fair share, some core budget um and some rules reform and then
policies also um are beginning to move, which is I think what you would expect from us. Um on the fair share supplemental, we focused on um circuit breaker funding, which is important, special education. I believe we need special education reform. I believe we
have to do special education funding differently. right now where there's an assumed percentage as you all know that's wrong for every reason we can imagine because there's not one community I represent where the assumed percentage is the actual percentage and
that means Sunderland that wants to give your children an excellent education pays every dollar above that assumed percentage we have to just we have to have whole uh special education reform Natalie BL and I have a bill the rural schools bill that's a key piece of that and it works of course not only for
rural schools schools, but also declining enrollment schools and actually every school income. We need to do that, but it would be a key benefit. So, Reple and I did as a sidebar have a briefing on the rural schools bill. We're moving really hard in that direction. I will say I'm really
grateful to the Sunderland school committee um for their keen leadership here. Um in the fair supplemental, I was able to snag a little bit of money for Sunderland Elementary. I wish it could be more. Um, but it really is a testament um to your good work, to the
great work of the school. Um, you know, that just is a sweet and beautiful place to send your kids. Uh, so I wanted to support that. So, uh, the bigger money of course comes in special education. That's $248 million. Um, that money in the fiscal year 26
budget that just is being sent to the governor's uh I just came in for Boston uh desk today. There's numbers of gains. Um I will say that the federal turbulence is having an impact on us in Massachusetts. Um but with regard to
transportation, we keep our commitment to have chapter 90 going out by miles only. I will say communities like Sunderland helped the state understand that the traditional chapter uh 90 formula was just wrong for our people.
Right? We have the miles, not the people. Um and so now the state is really making that a consistent piece of work. We also in the fair share supplemental put out more chapter 90 money uh half with miles only. Uh again I think you should expect us to do that
if we want a regionally equitable um budget. We have to have that kind of rural focused uh spending. We also uh kept the cost of police training down uh in the governor's base budget. um she
was imagining a doubling of that. We held it down to just what it is. Um we funded we continue to fund things like public health. Um uh we continue to have a commitment to the RTA so they can do microtransit and other uh inter county
transportation. Um there is a provision in there to have a housing uh production dashboard to make sure that the housing bond bill is getting expended in regionally equitable ways. And then important for us in Western Mass um
there is a provision to begin cracking open what I call the chapter 70 municipal contribution formula. uh because I think as we know in all of the communities I represent um chapter 70 uh through the student opportunity act um while we're spending much more money we
are not feeling finding it uh hitting home feeling it here in western Massachusetts and that's because we're rural or we're declining enrollment or we're both um and we need to understand that and so there's two kind sides to the formula there's the chapter 70 what we get in our communities and there's
the municipal contribution so we haven't uh looked at chapter 7 in a decade. We're pressing hard for that. Um Natalie and I are uh but then there's the municipal contribution, what we're asked to contribute. We haven't looked at that as in 17 years in the Commonwealth. So
in the budget sent to the governor, we will um reopen municipal contribution. And that's everything from the state split 5941 to the cap put on u municipal contributions of 82 and a.5% to the
collision with Prop 2 and a half. All of it um we'll get a hard look and there'll be real opportunities for Sunderland to weigh in um as you may want to right and say, "Hey, it's really painful out here and we're making horrible choices to
fund our schools, right? We can't pit our firefighters against our teachers. It's not fair." And that's what's happening in small towns. And um so we, you know, we will keep pushing um both with money uh but also with policy to
help communities like Sunderland. Um so I think I'll pause because I just talked at you for a little bit and just take your questions and your critique and feedback all of it. Did you want to get started or uh Well, I'm just c I'm always curious. I'm learning more about the the school
funding and I I I read about like other places that they do it differently where there's more of a state the state kind of controls more of it and here obviously in Mass it's all it's mostly local. Uh but I is there any move to is that basically what you're talking about is trying to get that more equitable
across Yeah. all the towns. Yeah. So this this look the looking at the so there's the big money shots for schools are this um municipal contribution what Sunderland is asked to contribute charter school reform and I should tell you I put in a charter school reform
bill um and that would that would help um that would help the state take more responsibility for funding charters off the shoulders of the municipal um governments. So, uh, municipal contribution, charter school, special
education, and chapter 70. Those are the four huge money shots that communities have. That's where the money either goes from you or should stay with you. Um, and that's that's where I'm focused. So, the municipal contribution, yes, in
there, stipulated in the budget is a look at the split. Right now the assumed split is 5941 with municipalities paying generally 59% of education the state paying 41% of education. Uh you know why
can't we flip that around? It would be a gamecher for a community like Sunderland. It would be a way for the state to take more of a responsibility. But there are other ways we can look at it. So there's not just one way. And this uh commission will look at all the
ways. And it'll have to tell the story of the high taxes we pay out here in Western Massachusetts because we don't have as much of a commercial base, right? Our our property owners are disproportionately paying for our schools. It'll show all of that. Um, I'm
really glad to have worked with Natalie on that and glad still that it made it through conference and now we have to get the governor's signature on it and then we have to make our voices heard um in this process. There's stipulated um
local hearings. There'll be one out here, I'm sure. Um and well, I'm not sure of anything these days, but I will work to have one out here. Um, and then we'll have to really raise our voices so they understand what we're facing. Okay. Thank you. I mean, I think we'd be happy
to see 59% going towards the school. 43%. Well, no, I'm just saying I would take out of our Oh, yeah. Right. This is the state local split right now. Right. The state local split is 59 on the municipality shoulder generally. 351
cities and towns, 41% on the state. So one of the things this has to look at is why is that number why is that the split? Can we do something different? Can we move that by several handfuls of percentages over time? You know what can we do to relieve the burden that
municipalities face? One piece of feedback I would give you on that is one of the large drivers for our town in terms of educational expense is the health insurance of the employees at the school. Yes. And that that needs to be part taken into consideration when doing all these formulas and all these things
is is how volatile that industry is and how you can have a 20% increase year-to-year and how that can be worked into the formulas to be accounted for also. Absolutely. And in the rural schools bill, it does that's one of the uh pieces of the bill that Natalie and I
filed um is about health insurance and how to help communities regulate their spike in healthcare costs. Um because it is you it's a budget pressure and of course you want your people to have insurance. You know, I know that's not what you're saying. Um but you know, it
can't go up 10 or 20% and have other things remain the same. Um like revenue. So, that's a good segue into another question I had. Um, and that is that as we're all, I'm sure at this point aware, um, the big beautiful bill is being pushed through the federal government.
Um, with that comes giant slashes to Medicaid and Mass Health is largely Medicaid with our sticker on the front of it. Um, what is the state doing to prepare for that? Um, and are we when are we going to know what
that is going to look like? Well, so the that's it moving in the Senate right now at the US Senate. Yeah. Um you know, and uh that was stalled through some procedural moves that I supported. Um trying to slow it down, get more time
for people to weigh in. Um uh uh but it is moving again. I don't know the timing. I will say that um and we were saying this earlier, the the havoc and the volatility at the federal level is absolutely having an impact in
Massachusetts. I wish I could tell you it wasn't the case. Um it is uh we our revenue is not looking as favorable as it was. Um and everyone is worried about the impact of for example the research
cuts the NIH research cuts um to our industries um you know especially bioscience and they're big taxpayers um and they're big employers. Yeah. Um and that's and that's very scary out here for us. The UMass cuts are very
devastating. Right. Um, so in the bill that's before the governor, the $61 billion. It's less than um the governor's bill, less than the house, less than the senate. And it's less than that because of your
question, which is what's going to happen at the federal level. So the house and the senate and the governor didn't want to stop all business and say, you know what, what's happening in Washington is scary and volatile and maybe we shouldn't budget, right? We
should wait. But that's that's not tenable for our people. You need budget certainty. We you know you can't you can't just be arrested, right? Grants need to flow. What money we have in the state should get out uh because so much
so many things have been critically cut at the federal level already. Um so we decided to press on. Um but we pressed on with a smaller budget and that is in part to leave us some room for a
declining economy but also for a moment when um and projections are looking like there will be some cuts to Medicaid and our people will need health insurance or our hospitals will need to be able to deal
with uninsured, right? that, you know, we don't exactly know what it's going to look like and we may need more uh shelter assistance, more food assistance. I will say though, and I say this very regretfully, um that in sh
agreeing to shave off $400 million, which is what we did um in the final budget, there were things left behind. Um, so some the Senate's number for rural schools was 16 million and the
final number is 12 million and and that's because 4 million of that went into that $400 million pot um for the moment where our economy turns down and um and or we have um we have federal
cuts that are really threaten the life lives livelihoods of um our people And so, uh, everything I can think of, if you saw my budget spreadsheet, everything was affected. It wasn't just Western Mass things. Um,
and that is a shame. And it it, you know, and it is um, deeply mournful, right, because we were making some significant gains in rural funding. Um, but we're not certainly not going to
stop fighting. M um but it is it is having an impact right we've been able to forestall it a little bit um with some you know extra money from fair share some surpluses over here you know but um it has come home in this fiscal
year 26 budget anything else from you guys um one other thing we did want to also um which you probably are well well aware of this because I know Dan reaches out regularly about it but um we are moving forward with the shared use path from UMass all the way through to the
park and ride in Weightley. Um and just want to keep reiterating that to to you and to have you support that at the state level as much as you possibly can. Your advocacy is unmatched. Um and it is really terrific and yes I mean count us in. Um you help you know
you've really lit this on fire and it's great as you know right when you first reached out I said oh this has to be a town priority but knowing that it's a town priority it is a great thing. Um so it's exciting especially if you think it will be useful to Sunderland which of
course it'll be useful for your residents but it could be such a a boon for other things as well. Right. Yeah. Well, any encouragement you can give to Mass to keep it moving forward. We can get through design maybe these next couple years and then when more money comes from the federal side, that would
be great. Maybe we'll be ready for it. We should have a catchup meeting on it. Okay. Is that something that Sure. Sure. I mean, we just we're just putting the trails grant in. So, you'll get a full copy of that. Yeah. We have to do a letter of support. Uh, we've done that already. I think I think you're good
now. We just we'll submit it now. if if this just if you could continue to encourage massard but we can right right after it closing I know we have done you know traditional things but you know we could have a meeting on this sure certainly I'd love that so I I can certainly work with and Karen and
Natalie on that okay that's very exciting yeah thank you yeah we're all very excited on the prospect of it should we include the other two three towns Oh yeah yeah we definitely would want everybody I mean all the towns involved yeah Ammerst is now um involved
they reviewed the project um Deerfield and Weightley are starting give to give signs of support. That's wonderful. So I mean I think any kind of unified meeting that was one of the questions I had. Yeah. Um so that's fabulous. Thank you for preempting that. you know, any kind
of if if Sunderland wanted to start a conversation. Yeah. Um you we could bring Mindy Rep from Ammerst, right? Um Replay represents Weightley as well and Deerfield and you um that would be
terrific. We should do that. We're going to invite in Mass liazison and uh that would be great. Yeah, exactly. And have a conversation about it. Yep. I think that would be great. If you want to follow up tomorrow, I can take that baton and help organize. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. Yeah. Thank you again.
Thank you. Love that. We appreciate that. I have one question regarding schools. I walked in a little late. Sorry. Tom Kelly from Russell Street. And um there used to be a lot of unfunded mandates. Now I have been out of it for a while.
Maybe they don't see as many they used to, but are you guys going to do anything about stop slowing this down? So un unfunded mandates for schools and and special ed and all these other things a little bit over the top. If you're going to mandate something you
should fund. So what we were just talking about is um earlier um was special education funding. So you mentioned that. So, I do think that special education as it is currently calculated leaves communities like Sunderland um
with um costs that are above what you have because right now we assume a percentage of special education students and then every student above that which is 16%. Every student above that
um is paid for by the town, right? the community. Um, and so I believe we have to count special education students like we count students who live in poverty, like we count English language learners. I think it's very simple. Um, right. We
don't take averages. We actually do count. Yeah. Um there's some rebuttal that I've gotten from um Jessie over time about that which I don't agree with which is that if we do that uh districts will use that funding to pad your
budgets their budgets. I think that's objectionable um because I I think the reverse is true that families have a hard time um districts have every reason to slow the role for 504s or IEPs because they're just expensive. Right.
So, our families are met with resistance from districts. Districts don't are actually doing the reverse because of the system we have. And I think they would just simply do what they do um with students who are English learners or students who are living in poverty um
or low income if they simply could just count students who are receiving these services. Um so that is certainly um that's certainly completely completely and utterly objectionable. So, I filed bills on that since I got into the legislature and we have a current rural
schools bill that goes right at that and that's not a rural school only issue. Um, I know that it is but it does disproportionately affect us because we don't have any meat on the bone anymore. Um, we can't cut anymore in our small
towns and so this just really affects us. Um, we've gotten a little bit better um with other kinds of unfunded mandates. For example, um school meals. We're now, you know, universally funding school meals. It's 180 million in the
budget. That's paid for by fair share money. Um and so that, you know, we say we want students to have free breakfast and lunch and we're not making districts pay for it. Um and I think that's good. Um honestly, um and you know, could we
do better job with other things? You betcha. you know, and I am, you know, police reform was one of those um things. So, we did police reform um and both Reple and I were pretty active there and one of the things was training, extra training for police. And
Reple and I went and got that money for communities like Sunderland, too. And um all of them to be able to ch train their part-time officers as full-time because that was one of the mandates. So, I I'm not a fan of unfunded mandates. I'm pretty critical of them. and if we do
pass, you know, it I want to see it through. So, like with police reform, I I wanted to go get that money um because I believe in the training for police officers. Many police officers um believe in that training, but it costs something for communities and um we have
to we have to fund it. Um so, we did do that. We also got an extra $100,000 out of and we ran it through Furcog for some of the Franklin County communities that were having even a harder time than just the funding um for that extra training. It was called a bridge academy. Um so
yeah, I mean I think Sunderland should hold me accountable to to not abide by unfunded mandates and if you see one, you know, lots of moves in the legislature if you see one, you know, you should send up a flare and say, "Hey, you just did this thing and now
it's costing us more money." I do pay a lot of attention um to small town budgets like we passed public health reform and now I pay a lot of attention to the public health money the public health excellence grants that are moving that are helping towns you know with the
state's commitment for the first time to public health. So um yeah I think I can't make your job any harder. It's already too hard, frankly. And you know, money is one of the big things. If I can just add one one more level to that is
that um I do feel like the state has gotten better about recognizing when a mandate has been has been inadequately funded and making it right. Um I would love to see a more proactive effort there where before the bill is passed, there is a study done saying,
"Hey, what will this affect towns like Sunderland and let's put the money up front there?" because it feels much more reactive where oh look we passed this two years down the line towns are complaining about it but also there's never an effort at least from my perspective an effort to um retroactively change anything either.
It's the oh yeah the towns were on the hook for that for 5 years before we fixed our mistake that we should have had in the first place but there's never an effort to say hey you guys are out a quart million dollars over the last 5 years for that we're going to now because we're maybe fixing our mistake we're going to go back and we're going to pay that off also. So, you know, to
his point, I would love to see it be more proactive and also more restorative in the in the in the end of the game. Um, I think that's important. I think that's an important observation. I know that I've talked with over time with the MMA and STAM about their analysis when
things are moving, being really critical, right? We don't have a legislative budget office. I think we should have one like a congressional budget office um that would do analysis for legislators like what's the impact
here going to be um for our municipality or a particular type of person right particular constituent elderly folks kids you know like what's the long-term short-term impact but I I agree with you that we have to be much more proactive I
I I'm glad you see that we've done a little bit better I do think that that we have um there's a lot more conversation about how hard it is to govern municipally um because of the pressures from the federal government and the state government um and two and a half and prop two and a half which is
part of this step um part of this municipal contribution is what you know what the heck how how are we going to do that right when with communities hitting their levy limit or having to go for an override to keep pace with inflation that's that's tough and at the same time
wanting to make sure that your people can pay the taxes. Yeah. Right. People on fixed incomes. So, it's like you have the ultimate burden um here. Uh and I think that that's one of the focuses of that of that school study that I talked about. I mean, fundamentally I agree
with Prop 2 and a half, the idea that there should be a no more than 2 and a half% increase. It I fundamentally agree with that. Just it has to also work in practice also, you know. Sure. Right. But if you have health insurance going up 10% um two and a half, right? or if you know or if infrastructure costs go
up 15% right costs you know 25% more with tariffs to fix your roads right there's there's a disconnect here which is why I think some of these um some of the ways in which we're we're trying to
enact regional equity are are more responsible on the part of the legislature one of the things we have discussed in the past I'm not sure if it was with you or not so pardon me if This is redundant, but um small towns, one of the things that we struggle with is a lack of volume for purchasing. We're
buying one whatever, one police cruiser, one this, one that. Um, if the state could establish a m a statewide municipal purchasing division or whatever where the state buys 20,000 Taho or whatever it is and then the towns can buy those from the state at
cost or below cost or however that gets worked out in in a way that allows um to use the state's collective bargaining, you know, to help to help us because, you know, we're talking about small towns like us, you know, we're always negotiating for one of something and
that's never a position to come from. Even though we need to replace lap something as simple as laptops, you know, we need three. We don't need 50 or 60 everything. But the state could buy a quarter of a million of them for
$80 a piece or something like that cuz they're buying them in bulk like that. And then you know the the our town needs a couple more Chromebooks. Great. We order them from the state at half of what we would pay. It just that kind of a thing would be gamechanging for small towns like that. That's a very good idea. Um that's a very good idea. I know
that the inspector general has looked at procurement um and has really been very critical of how a small town even does procurement with the state's regulations. Um, and this was because there was another town
I represent that was trying to purchase a used firet truck and it was really crazy um to do that and the inspector general stepped in and was very helpful and it sort of tuned him in to what municipalities go through. I think your
idea of a purchasing program is a very good one. I'm happy to run that down. Um uh it's you know we have DTA you know we have division of local services DTA and we have other things that are in that kind of um back office you know
administration um but I have not heard of a collective purchasing program. I will say in the rural schools bill there's a back office school system you know so a superintendent union could there be a superintendent for Franklin County you know could one person plus a
few administrators do that we don't know but this would provide money for a study like you know for superintendents to get together and figure it out right there there is a collaborative in well in Franklin County for school purchases and
well the schools Also, there's a a collaborative. They actually call it a collaborative that um I think it's larger than just one county. It's also in um you know, in Hadley and Northampton. Right. Right. Right. Right. But could we do better? Right. Do it
larger. State be a statewide thing for small schools or schools with declining enrollment. Maybe, you know, could we have shared that office staff for HR for um you know, for accounting? maybe, you know, and that we take some budget
strain off. I believe, you know, I believe that if we're going to ask districts to to deal with kind of pressures, we have to figure out where their safety belts are. Um, and in the same vein, we're talking about health insurance. We currently are part of a
group of, you know, we're part of a group insurance. And so, because of that, we get better rates than if we were just bidding ourselves. Again, Massachusetts seems like a large pool. If all the Massachusetts employees, municipal employees, state employees, all of them were a
a group in terms of health insurance. Um, we would not be paying as much for health insurance for all of our town employees because again, we're, you know, even with the dozen or so towns that were associated within that group, we're not getting the rates we'd be getting if we're talking about whatever 13 million people in the Commonwealth.
Agree. Um, so agree. Not every community, as you know, joined the GIC. Um, and yeah, no, I agree. But the GIC would have been more expensive for Western Mass and um the Hampshire uh County Trust did analysis and we our
rates were much lower than the GIC because GIC was developed in the Boston area. So, there's been quite a bit of work done, I think, comparing things, but the the Hamri County Trust for years had much lower rates. That's great. For
years and years. Um, that's great. And I know the GSC itself is doing some internal looking. Yes. They they've had to make a lot of adjustments too, right? Because it it wants to be stabilized, right? And even it is also struggling
with quite significant hikes in costs. Can you can you update? I know we got the ADU law last year. Is there any updates on housing anything? So the so the uh affordable uh housing bond bill is rolling out as I mentioned. I think that there is a provision there's a
housing dashboard if the governor signs it um that will track every dollar um so that we can see where it's being spent, what county, what municipality or what program. I think that's really important. It was a bill I filed um because I I mean I think we need
dashboards for all state spending because I just want to make sure that Western Mass is getting our fair share and if I can't see it across all the programs I'm I'm not able to I mean try right to see all the grant programs one stop and you know MVP all these programs
that communities need but it's I'm sure I miss some right in the 25 communities I represent but this will be a housing dashboard. Um, Rep. Lelay and I have been talking length length length um with HLC uh housing and Liverpool
communities on their housing choice 2.0 program. Um thanks to FCO um for its analysis, we understand that actually it doesn't work as well for Western Mass as it should. So we are pushing pretty hard
together um to get HLC to make sure that housing choices 2.0 0 is actually an improvement over the 1.0. Um it HLC has some proposals for rehabilitation which I'm interested to see but we need new
construction as well. Um because we we need both, you know, we need both. Um we, you know, we need housing, housing of all kinds, right? So we need folks to be able to rehabilitate their home, you know, maybe to have an elder move in with them. Who knows what it's going to happen, right? So we need rehabilitation
money, but we need new building and we need it's we need equitable amounts of that money. So um we're in it. It it is rolling out. There are some projects that are currently benefiting from pretty significant um grant awards from
the state. Um but you know 5 billion is a lot of money. So I'm going to want to make sure that you know it's equitably coming to our communities. Yeah. I mean I think the ADU stuff out here is is really tough because
every resident in town isn't on town sewer. So, when you start looking at renovations, adding in-law apartments, things like that, you're looking at you might not even have enough room on your property to to increase your septic,
things like that. It's a it it's a really it's a wonderful idea that I can put an in-law apartment on my home and you know let my elderly parents or whatever move in, but it's not even feasible to do
because well it's exacerbated by most of Sunderland being a a place in terms of a water table where if you do anything with your second tank, you're having to pull it out of the ground and it's a huge thing. And that kind of goes back to what you're talking about unfunded mandates. That was one of the things where the state changed the regulations
about how you could do septic tanks. And that falls squarely on the shoulders of residents of of all of our towns is that well this when it was put in was fine. They're telling me it's not fine. Now I'm on the hook to pay $40,000 to have these. Yeah. And I mean we're talking 304,000.
We're not That's another place where the state decided that they were going to change the rules. But there was no money. Why wasn't there a state program where like like solar panels or heat pumps, why wasn't there a state program that said we'll give you $20,000 towards towards modernizing your your septic tank? I mean, that's a great example of
these things where it sounds great on paper, but then you know, in fact, when was that? That's sometimes. Yeah, it was quite a while ago. It was a long time ago, but and this is actually really really I'm glad that we're talking about this because the
effect of that is actually so far reaching that it actually torpedoed the town's efforts to expand our sewage because so many people in town have been forced over the last 15 years to spend $40,000 to replace their septic tank. those people are not going to want to
spend more money to have their town then hooked into the thing. And so because we missed this window where like if we' gotten in at a certain time, we could have convinced people before a third of our town went through that process. We're now at this place where we're never going to get the the sewage the rest of our town because all these
houses have now have this sunken cost fallacy into their septic tanks that they'll never and just the distance between them. You know, when you talk about going, you know, past a farm field and going just incredible distances with
no houses, there's nobody to pitch in towards that cost. It was barely going to be worth it if we could get buy in from everybody because everyone but but yeah, I mean just in our little we live in a a '90s development. A third of our neighbors have had to replace their
septic tanks in the last like 10 years because they're all aging out and it's all happening well because they sold their homes and now they have to become compliant. Yeah. And again, if you haven't owned your home for a
whole long time and now you've got to sink 30, $40,000 into your septic. If I have to put that much into my septic, I don't have money now to build that Yeah. that unit for my parents to live
at my house. No. 100%. And I I know that the ADU law is unevenly lookable um across the Commonwealth, right? In the counties I represent, 30% of constituents are on don't have water sewer hookup, right? Or fully subjected
well. Um and that is an unevenness about that. So we have to look for ways in which that unevenness is matched by other kind of state funds, right? because not every fix or not every proposed benefit in the housing bond is going to apply to us here in Western
Mass. Well, and our problem out here isn't land. You know, in Boston, it makes sense for ADUs. Like, you don't have anywhere to put new houses, what are you going to do? You're going to put them in people's backyards. Um, if if if the issue was finding a place to put a new house in Western Mass, we wouldn't have trouble. Like, we have plenty of
places. There's plenty of subdividable lots. There's plenty of like ability to do that kind of a thing. where we have the the declining we have people moving out of the the the country and so it it yes it's largely
driven by housing and if the housing situation is better but I I again I don't think that that that's what's going to solve it for us is the ADUs um money being put into new construction in Western Mass money being put into um you know larger developments in population
centers like Greenfield and Holio is what's going to bring more people into western mass, that kind of a thing. But anyways, right businesses, we need transportation, we need economic development. I really am paying attention to all of that, right? So everything from, you know, economic
development, bringing new industries in, um, I was able to get $30 billion for mass food science and I think that'll lift everybody up, right? And I work not only on that, too, the RTAs will be to go across county to the Northern Ter
Rail, the Route Two Rail. um which I believe could be a generator um um you know to really pushing HLC to both give us our fair share of the renovation and our fair share of the rebuild money um
that's out there. And it's different out here, right? We need nonprofit developers often to build because our for-profit developers generally are not going to be able to build at a scale that's going to pencil out for them, right? just because we don't have, you
know, a thousand of them. 200 units, we're not going to build 200 units someplace, you know, where we could get the scale and we might build 12 senior apartments and be delighted with that. Um, but that's going to take public money to finish that balance sheet, a
stack of money. Absolutely. Anything else from the board? Wonderful. Thank you for your service. Absolutely. Thanks for thank you for all you do. Thanks for the schedule, too. And we'll we'll correspond about a multi- town meeting. Yep. Thank you for answering that question, too. Oh, yeah.
It's important. You two hard job community and again, I love doing this work with them. No, she's great. She's a great person. She is absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good one. Thank you very much. Bye. All right. Joyce is in the leading room,
just so you know. Oh. Oh, no. Sorry. Thank you. Um, on that note, do we want to jump to the South County stuff so we don't make our our guests wait longer? Any objection to that? No. Oh, no. All right. In order to not make you sit here
and listen to us do a bunch of other things, we're going to jump to you. As much as I'm sure you love to sit here and listen to us talk about uh support for uh Hadley Bridge grant. But anyways, um so thank you for joining us today.
Let me get my paperwork ready. Where are we? There we You're discussing the uh South County Senior Center uh three town updated memo of understanding the intermunicipal agreement. Yes. Last time it was uh enacted was 2009 and executed
in 2010. Um it's been more than 15 years and it was supposed to be reviewed um every five years maybe max 10 years. So we're oh 10 years. Sorry Joyce. Yeah. So, uh we're at that point where the
board of oversight has been meeting um I'd say we've been reviewing it for almost a year off and on since uh spring of last year and we collected data um unfortunately my predecessor did not really keep accurate records as to usage
data um in the my senior center data collection system which we use. we've been able to really uh take good record or collect good record data um back to at least 2022 when I started um you know we've also uh learned a
little bit more about the system so we've been able to really update the information as much as possible um based on the percentages that went over um Joyce do you have your spreadsheet handy on your screen or no um do you need to
be um I have it But uh am I allowed to share? Yeah, sure. One second up. Oops. Sorry. So, one of the things that we did was we took the usage data and the population based on the federal census data. So, and the federal census data we
went back to, I believe, uh 2000. We couldn't go back. Was it 2000 or 19? We couldn't get 1990. I think we just got um back to 2000. So, we had 2000, 2010, and then 2020 data. So basically 30 years. Um Joyce is
sharing her screen now so I can better give you information. Um prior to being um in the past few years it we could have really called it as people have shared the Deerfield Senior Center because it was mostly Deerfield uh
residents attending. Um we in the data collection which is um down below on the blue lines usage stats um you could go back to 2000 or um 2020 is when we really started collecting some of that
data um 2022 for me. So 65.1% um sorry could you make that a little bigger? Thank you. So, Deerfield's data 2022 a 65.1%. Um, are we looking at population data on that one or usage? This is just
population. Um, so this sorry the this is mostly the population data. Okay. Uh, the usage stats are on a different page, but I put the summary of the usage stats at the bottom. Okay. Thank you. I was I
wasn't following that. Sure. I was right. So the population in 2020 or 2000 uh 57.3 of our 60 and older population and that's where the state comes up with um the calculation for how they distribute formula fund grant uh monies.
Um and right now I think we're getting uh right now this fiscal year we're supposed to be getting $16 for older adult. Uh back then it was like $9 or less for older adult and that just generated up. Um so
in 2000 57.3% of those in Deerfield were 60 and older. Uh 2010 57% and then uh 54.1% was the 2020 census data. So we had a bit of a drop off not by much. We've
kind of maintained the same um 54 or you know around the same percentage 55 give or take uh right now 54.1 for Sunderland in 2000 we had 26.1% in 2010 26.2%
and in 2020 it increased slightly to 27.9% of our population in Sunderland being 60 and older. Uh for weight that was 16.6% 6% 16.9% it's up to 18% uh for 60 and older
within the community. Just for number wise um as you can see in the yellow up top a little bit for non-total three towns uh the total three towns is uh 3,027. The number for uh Deerfield right now is
1639. Uh for Sunderland right now is 844. You'll see it jumped from the 2010 census data from 557 to 844. So you had a bit of an increase. And for weight, we're at 544 up from 359 in 2010.
Please note that you know sometimes the state is a little slow at giving or the federal government I won't say the state the federal government it's slow about two years maybe even three uh for getting that data to the communities. So when the state um age which is now the
um aging I just sorry just to share um where that is now for usage stats um from the other tab in 2022 is when we really started collecting that information. I know you probably want to
focus strictly on uh Sunderland but I'd like to cover all three. So um in we had 65.1% of the youth participants or members of the center were from Deerfield in 2022.
In 2023 that dropped to 16.3% because we've grown the membership and now we're in Deerfield's at 57.7% of usage data and Sunderland in 2022 was I think that's 29.6%. 6%
and then up to 32.6%. Now we're at 30.6%. So the average is 31.8. Is that a six or an eight? I think that's six. You can tell I need new glasses. Um, thank you. So for uh for
Weightley in 22 it was 5.3%. 23 7.1% and in 24 11.7%. the mean is 94 9.4%. So the majority of the usage is uh has
always been Deerfield, but since we've uh migrated to the three towns and had our you know have our current main location in Sunderland, we've increased uh numbers here. Now, you may be curious as to why it's a little less than 24. Um
because our our numbers our our membership numbers are high. Um I think we had about 573 uh active members through the whole center um for the last fiscal year. So,
you know, that number could give or take based on where we were the past couple of weeks with our annual picnic. Um, but we've increased membership here in the town and if we went by this for usage data, you know, weight would only be paying 8%.
Sunderland, we'd be paying 30.9% and Dearfield would be paying 61%. Um if we went with you know based on usage over the conversation course of the conversation with the board of oversight numbers one of the discussions
has been um what is to make it the most easiest on the the town staff? Um are the clerks able to get their accurate information back in a timely fashion in order to move forward with annual budget season? Um because you know when you send out your census um some people send
it in late, some people don't send it in at all. Um so you're kind of you know the consistent data has always been based on the federal census. Um you know now mind you some people could say well certain people aren't sending it in a
variety of factors. Um but while I understand Frontier utilizes the system for you know usage um the number of older adults in our three towns is only increasing and it's scheduled to be
by 2035 around 37% of our entire population. Now in Deerfield that's a higher number than maybe Wely because of the number of people who live in the community percentage-wise. Um but overall this is how it was determined and it's kind of been
trending this way for a while um with the amount of participants and the amount of residents. So um I will leave all of the detailed questions you know whatever else you want to ask but Joyce probably has good
some good insight to that. Um but it was based on when you would get the data from your town clerks. would it be as accurate as the federal census data? The federal census data goes for 10 years and our funding that we get from the state for the formula fund grant um only
comes out every 10 years. The dollar amount that the state decides to put towards that um per person dollar amount may fluctuate annually. You know, it's been going up for the past few years because there have been at $9, $12. Um I
believe my first year on board it was at uh we went from 12 to 14 from the state. Last this fiscal year that just ended it was at 15 and now we're asking for 16 through the mass council on aging and that has gone through both the house and the senate for the state legislators to
be going through as long as the governor signs the annual budget and there are additional cuts. Um, but as you may or may not be aware, our aging service access points um, in Franklin County is Life Path. There have been a lot of
funding cuts to different programs um, that the ASAPs are offering due to state and federal cuts. So, what that means for us as senior center is now we're getting more people coming in potentially seeking out services and referrals that they may not have before
because they were working ASAP. Um, you know, and unfortunately, uh, well, Meals on Wheels is being flatfunded in the federal budget. Um, as we all know, flat funding is not a cut, but it kind of is because it's not. Your
expenses and your cost of goods um to provide those meals to your older adults, you know, is increasing and everything here is kind of staying safe with the flat funding. Um, and also right now, uh, depending on where that, uh, big beautiful bill goes, the dollar
amount in there for the, uh, low-income heating assistance program is not there. They've canled that. So, a lot of people are going to be looking for additional resources within the community. Um, and that's where we've seen a lot of people
coming in to look for for support. So just in a nutshell, right now the agreement is 50 2525. Correct. And we're looking to go 54.1 27.91 18 was it 5428
and then 18. Yeah. 54 28. Yeah. The the numbers that are in the bright green for Deerfield, 27.9 for Sunderland and 18 for Wheatley. So it would be going up a little bit in Sunderland. It would go up
more if we went with usage statistics. Yeah. Um but I think the usage statistics are gonna I mean they change so year to year they change a bit. Um to some extent it's we're getting better and better at taking data. Um and uh
just the outreach that Jen and the group have done over there to get people from all the towns involved has also had a big effect. But I feel like the to me the important reason to use census data rather than usage statistics um is
basically that it's going to be stable. It's very easy to plan. That's the first reason. Second reason the usage statistics with time are converging so that they're going to match up. And I'm from weightlies. So if I look at
weightlies, we went from 5.3 to 11.7. And then as soon as Jen gives me the data for fiscal year 2025, which ends today, right? I Where's that data? And at some point we're going to get
we're going to get to 18 and um your usage relative, right, is going to get down closer to 28 and and so on. And our our population numbers are changing slowly uh in like percent or two per decade. And I think that's easier for us
to plan for uh as we try to put our budgets together every year. So that those are kind of the two big reasons the board went with recommending we use the u the census data rather than u the
the awesome data that Jen has been collecting. We would still keep collecting that data by the way. There's no reason not to. It helps us get grants and it helps us see are we kind of meeting the needs of people in in the
various towns as well. What are the age groups that based on 60 and older? 60 and older. Um although we provide support to anyone 55 and older or anyone who has a disability who's younger um for services and supports.
It's based on 60. 60. Yes. That's the federal census data. That's how the state calculates it. And that's where we've been um keeping it. It's not terribly different if you did the census with 50 and older. So I I mean the the difference is is small
enough that it's not important. Can I just see the data for the age groups outside of the 50 and 60? Oh yeah, there is. Yeah. I just want to see that 20 to 30.
I can't. There it is. I saw we got some go down. Wow. We went down a huge Wow. Yeah. I just That funny J filled up way down and we get to college. Yeah. So the 30 to 34
I'm fine with, but that 20 to 20 24 20 24 with it's going from 700 to 500. The apartments's getting older or it's funny. No, I mean it's that's honestly I wonder if it's more people who are keeping their their registration at home
for voting purposes now than they were in the past because students living in Sunderland have a choice about whether they want to be registered and have this be their permanent address. Um but yeah, I I I would be interested also to to dig
deep the you know just looking at that you know cuz when I look at at this Sunundelin population look how big that 20 to 25 is it's like the largest number
the federal census data I'm sorry I think that reflects exaggeration well I I do I do too. Um I I just find it really hard to believe we have Well, this is crazy that this went down to there and
this went way up to something. Exactly. That's a big jump. Well, look at look at the 0 to 4 is Yeah. Almost dropped in half from 189 to 106. Every category under 24. Yeah,
it's just Yeah. But it's that 20 to 24 with the amount of students in apartments and 116 flats being new that is even more students in apartments in that 20 to 24 age group. Yeah, but that
was 2020 though. The flats wouldn't have been open by then. That's true. This is this is still lagging a little behind. And honestly, I wonder if the 2021 is just completely messed up because students were not on campus that year for CO and Were the department I don't I don't
remember. Were the apartment complexes empty? I don't remember. Okay. Anyways, so I mean it just you look at everybody else's age group 20 to 24 and it goes up and ours just drastically drops and
probably kids went home. Well, that was during co so that's going to skew all your data. Yeah. Well, and also my experience has been that over the 20s something years I've been in town, apartment complexes used to be all students, and now there's a lot more
families and low-inccome people who are living in apartment complexes because there's not a lot of other options around. So, I wonder if a big part of that is seeing that shift also from the early 2000s to the 2020s. Um, so back to the genius. It seems like there's a lot
less students even, you know, in the morning when I drive by, in the evening at the at cliff side. Yeah. I mean, I I lived at the true estates for years and I was living there as a young family with kids and most of my neighbors were
young families with kids. whereas when I had lived there 15 years prior when I was going to UMass as a 21-year-old um it was just all college students all parties all the time constantly and so I really feel like there's a demographic shift that's probably being
too but back to the money um inherently I don't disagree with the way it's being done I think that the 28% sounds reasonable especially with the usage numbers my big concern is just timingwise um we've
aotted the money for the year. So, I just want to make sure that this would be going to effect for next year's for fiscal 27th because we have to get approval from all three select forms to move forward. Y um we're also uh I believe it's out at legal choice,
correct? Being reviewed. Um say I believe it's I believe it's in legal to be it's currently being reviewed by one of the law firms for one of the towns. Yes. Yes, Pete sent it in to be looked at by
council. Um, so the staff and the other council says they've all discussed it. They all have asked me questions about the murders as you're doing tonight. Uh, and they've all put off voting because even if like they would have voted to favor of it as it is, they thought,
well, we're just going to have to vote again if council changes some of the words. So, uh, they have to put it on hold until we hear back from council. And, you know, this is probably the week that every council is, I don't know, at the beach or something. It is
summertime, so I didn't really expect I was going to hear back from them uh in time for this meeting. Uh, but I would think, you know, within a couple of weeks, we should have it back. I don't expect it to be controversial. I do expect that they'll find a reason to
change something. Um, but uh I I I think the agreement makes sense for all the towns and I don't think it's heavy lift for any of us business. No. And in general, I I like the idea of it being population based rather than usage based
because that incentivizes the towns to encourage their residents to use something we're already paying for rather than incentivizing towns to not encourage residents to use it because it costs us more money when they do so. And so like I think that it sort of philosophically I I I agree with that method for that reason as well. Um, is
there any other questions from the I was just going to note the only other changes to add and then we're going to be able to appoint the second person for the Could you tell me what line item or paragraph that is four four four y um so what what was discussed was um currently
the board of oversight is made up of one representative who is a select board member from each of the three towns. At this stage, it was uh suggested to appoint um someone who so have on the board either a select board member or
someone the select board appoints to take the you know select board members place. So say like Joyce decides she's not running anymore and she they she still wants to be a part they could appoint her to do that. The other change is adding a um senior center participant
uh from each of the three towns in an advisory capacity to the board. So be a non voting. Yes, it's non voting but you know to make recommendations and other things and suggestions about where they might like to see the senior center vote. Um the reason being non- voting at
this point in time is you know going back the 10 years when this uh select or the board of oversight was created. Um there were issues with um different groups with or factions that were um looking to have the position of the
senior center director eliminated and go to an all volunteer senior center. There was just a lot of chaos. Um you know and if you're curious in more I can drop off papers for you to read. but um to just basically give people a voice but not to
give them the unilateral decision-m where it would create a lot of conflict or cause issues with finance and other pieces. Um, so at the most basic level, I am not in favor of number four because
not having a select board member, having a designate does not get the information back to the town. Oh, no. It says it says one member, but then it's add the second person. No, it says or they're designated. Or they're designated.
Right. So, I believe it has to be run like other regional ones like and I'll use South County EMS. There is a select board member from each town that participates and a citizen at large from
each town. But I don't believe it's a good idea not to have a select board member on it and to designate someone else. And I would be 100% against that. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I hear what you're
saying, Crystal. Um what I would say to that is Sunderland would never be forced to pick a dice with me. Sunderland would always be able to put one of their select board members on there. That would always be the option. Um some
other towns don't have quite as many people available to take all these volunteer positions. So, one of the talents asked for the flexibility to be able to do that, to be able to put in a design. I understand, but I'm still
going to be against it. I agree with you about it being a a really good idea for it to be a slight member. I don't think it should just be anybody who steps up to volunteer. Um it I think a better example would be if something if you
guys needed them to would you be comfortable with Tom fighting that speed on the board over as a member at large? Yes. Right. But there may be not in place of a select board member.
So you would never have to some would never have to put in a design. That's fine. But you say that today we don't know who the next select board, anything like that. And like I said, I'm 100% against it
not being a select board member. What do you think, Nathaniel? Um, no. Honestly, I I agree that it should be a select board member on the and and I have no problem with adding a member at large, but should we beating other
towns? The flip side is that I I don't know that I have a problem with Weightley or Deerfield having a non-sleborg member. If they if their town wants to have that that communication breakdown on their end, hey, that's their prerogative. Um,
but I do also see your point about it opens the door for who knows what's going to happen in the future. And you know, correct. Just because we say today, Sunderland doesn't have to. You know, Sunderland can always have it. Yeah. Becky's not going to be here
25 years from now. Dan's not. I'm not. you might still be on this select blowing, but hopefully me and Dan by then have I guess I guess there's a question ability to retire. Um I know that for other things like for when we have a a contract with the the the
frontier teachers for example um or or I guess a better example is is the elementary school teachers. We we negotiate as a block but there is a separate contract from the sound of Sunderland to our teachers tier filter teachers and kind of windy to our teachers. Could we have the Sunderland
contract not have designy in it, the other two have designy in it, or is that going to open up way more problems than it is worth? Yeah, I I don't know that you can do that in one IA that everyone signs, but let me make
like one more pitch. Um for a long long time we had no board of oversight for our senior center and things didn't go very well at all and I think for the last 10 15 years having three selectmen on the board of oversight has been
really really important for that board to be effective. So I I completely get what Crystal is saying about that. But our senior center is also changing. We have three full-time staff members who
are so much more successful at making our senior center work than it's ever been in the past when we had part-time uh directors and like you know five or six hours a week. um our senior center
itself has changed and I think it's still important to have a lot of select board involvement but I also think that select boards are having more and more pressure to do
more and more things and if we can give some towns a little bit of flexibility on choosing someone who would be as effective as a sort to do that job, then I think we would want to give towns that
that ability. Um, I just that the senior center itself is changing and all to the good and all because of, you know, the person who's there in front of you in person. Um, and I I think I'm okay with
giving us that little bit of flexibility. That's my last pitch on that. Yeah. And I would propose adding a member at large, keeping a select board and in addition to that, adding a member at
large, make that board of oversight a little bigger, get a little more diverse input. Um, but yeah, I mean that's my opinion. Yeah. Would you say you want like a
another member at large who may or may not be a senior senator member? Correct. So a ninep person board with two voting members and one non- voting member. The members at large are voting members.
I think you're running into too much conflict by adding too many voting members to the board. I I've looked at the data from before I've spoken with I mean I'm on South County senior or I'm on South County EMS and that's how they do they have a select board member a
member of at large and they have um non- voting financial so it's three from each three from each two from each and then Deerfield sends a financial which is a non voting
member but you know that comes to it but there are six members ers that are voting members. Mhm. Um and I mean that would be that would be the same here with three select board three members at large
and then the member at large if the select board member is not able to attend for some reason that's you know someone that can fill them in on information you know I guess that could be an alternative is keep the
six member thing and have it be a voting flight board member a non- voting senior except the non- voting senior is an alternate. So if the cycle member can't can't attend because the town's unable to feel the cycle member, you'd be able to pass those voting rights on to the
member. Um that's getting more and more and more complicated. Yeah, that that defin keep it simple. Keep it simple. So, uh, do we what's do we have to do this tonight or do we do we need do we want to wait for council and then we can
kick it around one last time? Yeah, let's let's wait till we hear back from council as as um Joyce mentioned and then that way we'll we'll know exactly what we're talking about cuz town council might have a problem with four that we didn't even think about and it gets fundamentally changed in a way that
we, you know, need to react to. Um and then we can have a chance to mul over more ourselves. Um and then we can discuss it at a future meeting. Can can I discuss a question? Yes. Um it it sounded like your main issue is the fact of failure for communication. Um so if
you implemented in the IMA that like for for example for me I sent information and updates to Becky or to Jeff. I so I I I'm no one's going to change my
mind. I truly believe a select board member needs to be on the board of oversight. So what's the difference though when you talk about having a person at large? They're not necessarily going to communicate all that information to the select board even if they're on the board yet. So you feel
Okay. So right there, you just stated that a non select board member won't communicate information, but as a paid staff person, I communicate regularly. So if you included that in the IMA, I'm I'm
curious as to why that would be an issue. I well because we had an issue not too long ago where there was a change of hours of someone who was employed and it never got
communicated to the board and all of a sudden the first we heard about it and I'm sorry that was me as I know and that's what I'm saying if that happens with a select board member how does somebody who's not a select board member communicate that to it Right. Yeah. And
I I'm not trying to say anything wrong about what happened. It happened. That was the first we heard about it. We were all shocked. We learned a lesson. But now we learned from that, right? Yeah. It's also not just that direction. And it's
also the other direction as well is that it's important for somebody on that board to also know what we're going through as a town financially and not so that when when discussions are happening, the person I mean because somebody else might be like, "Oh yeah, sure. That sounds great. Let's let's let's throw more money at that." Whereas
that's sort of why you have a select member on all these boards is so that that person is not just a voice to bring information back to the board, but also a voice to be able to be like, "Hey, we're hitting 20% on our our, you know, our healthcare this year. We can't afford that." And that's that's why in
in in fundamental I I agree they should be a board number. And I guess the question would be really what we're talking about is Sunderland's comfort on this. Can we as Sunderland pass a resolution that the three of us do that says that regardless of whether
regardless of whether the senior center allows it or not, we are going to choose to constrain ourselves in a way that makes us happy and then whatever the other cows do, whatever they they do their own thing. Um cuz I I I I completely agree that for Sunderland I want to lock this down, but I don't want
to necessarily preclude the other two towns from being able to do what they want to do. That's my thing is that like I I I completely agree for us. Uh I just don't want to tell Joyce what to do. I don't want to tell you know what to do. Um and and I guess what I'm hearing too is something that maybe we should be
considering as the board of oversight. Um if there is a communication problem between um the BU and the sled boards then maybe we ought to be thinking about ways to make that communication stronger um even outside of the board composition
and you know maybe that's something we can talk about at our next meeting uh next week under items not anticipated and I apologize I didn't fine it's fine it's me me first time through correct and figuring that out So that's why I
have this. Yep. So let's do this. We sound like we all have some thinking to do and some discussion and whatever. Um we will brainstorm ideas of how to make this palatable for Sunderland. Um and we'll be able to get back to you with what we're proposing in that respect.
Yeah, whether it's as a town we make a resolution that that constrains ourselves, you know, in that respect or whether it's we're insisting on language changes, we will come up with that, you know, in the in the future. Um, is there any discussion on six though or
or the board all in the same position that could the 28% as long as we're talking about for 27? 27. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, six sounds good. four. We will get back to you if we have any ideas of how to make that more palatable. Great. Our just so you know, our next uh board
of oversight meeting is uh Monday the 7th. Is it the 7th? Joyce. Next Monday. Okay. Y So, uh and if we hear anything from legal, which we probably will not this week, um we'll make sure to forward that
over to Becky. Beautiful. So, she can share. Great. Thanks for coming in. Thanks Joyce for coming to Thank you Joyce. Thank you very much. Have yourself a good one. Thank you Jen. All righty. So we kind of bounc bounced around a little bit on our agenda. Um we're going to go back up to
authorization from select board for police chief to accept a missid bid to sell the 2010 Crown Victoria. Now, just to remind everyone, um, regularly we have surplus machinery in town where the police station decides that the vehicle
is no longer worth the money to maintain. Um, and the town um, sells that excess capital. Um, and the way we usually do that is you through a system called Muna Bid, which is a online bidding system where you put the the item up, people bid on it. It's been how
we've been doing it forever and a half. There's a picture of the beauty there for you. The crown. People love these things. There was a crown bear. People love these things. It is an old car. So, um, this is a very sort of a formality more than anything, but I figured it was it was important to give a little bit of
context. Um, so on that note, any discussion or can we move to a motion? Let him get rid of it. All right. I would entertain a motion to authorize the police chief to accept a misbid bid to sell our 2010 crime victory. I motion
that we allow the chief to accept a bid to sell a 2010 Crown Victoria. And I happily second. All right, we motion made and seconded. All those in favor? I I three nothing. Thank you very much. Moving on. Next up, we have a review
letter to Hadley in support of the bridge grant. And we have that in front of us. Um Hadley reached out to us, the town administrative Hadley reached out to us asking for a letter of support. Um they are going to be doing uh bridge and culvert work near 388 River Drive in
Hadley. Um which is Route 47. Um and given that Route 47 is one of the main thorough ways leading in and out of our town, they figured it was good for us to both be aware and also to uh get our buy in on that. Um to that Sorry, I just want to clarify that they're not doing the work at this point. They're only
applying for a grant to do the work. Sorry. Yeah, I think. Okay. No, that's all right. Two very different things. Very different things. Yeah, we're we're we're supporting that grant application in order to get secure the funding for that. And I I believe they have to start with the engineering. I don't think they have the engineering done. So, it's it's
going to be a ways and I think they're going to be alive when it's done. Starts have hope people have hope. Hey, I saw a I saw a culvert the bridge
over the Lake Wyola um by path It took 12 years to get it done. Yeah. They'll be having to give me that cane, but it got done. It got done. Um any discussion about I know we had mentioned that we wanted to make sure that all of
our um town services, fire, the Southtown, EMS, police that were well aware so there's no surprises. Um outside of that, is there any discussion that we wanted to have on this? Good. And I actually got the communication from our police chief. Our fire chief
has written his own letter and shared that it was in the in the in the drive. And um Crystal has reached out to the EMS director. So they all are aware at this point, which is wonderful. Um just
we always want to make sure that they're always in the know about these things. Um all right. Any other discussion about the letter? All right. In that case, I would entertain a motion to uh approve and send the letter. A motion to approve and sign the letter for the Culver replacement Natley. Second. All right.
Motion made and seconded. All those in favor? I I I three nothing. Thank you very much. All right. Um next up is our AON Ponty contract for continuing accounting services for the year FY26. Um they have been our um accounting
service for three years now, I Uh they began in 23. So 23, 24, 25. So we're going into our fourth year. Okay. Yeah. Um they've done a fantastic job on not just getting us back to a a good place um in terms of our old accounting books
and all that stuff. Um but they've been from my where I'm sitting doing a great job so far. So I don't have any real concerns there. Um anything the the amount is the same as last year. Okay. Any any concerns or questions from the
board? No. Yeah, please. Is that the same one that the new the notices we got about the new um tax bills uh real estate tax bill combined with the water tax one bill? Are you aware of
that? Treasury today. Oh, that is a result of transitioning software from a software that is now no longer can be upgraded or maintained to going with uh Vadar software which has a very good
reputation in Massachusetts with a lot of municipalities using it. It's the software that Aanti was currently using before they started with us and it it will be cohesive and using that software that our treasurer accountant and
assessor will all be using the same software. So we won't have as many breakdowns uh between software um units as we had in the past. But the issue is and I chuck to the bank they
don't care. The issue is, for example, mine and I'm sure other people since I've talked to other people, their mortgage and their escrow is just based on their real estate tax. Mhm. You privately pay the water tax.
And even the bank told me, well, if it's combined, it's combined and your your escro is going to blow up. And best thing you do with your escro, this is the answer from the bank, is when it gets increased, then come back
and just pay that monthly. So, in other words, did did you realize that was happening? So, one of those we learned about this this morning. Um, Heather was just back from she said she she talked to about it. Yeah, she was
reaching. We should be boarding a new contract until it's straightened out. The contract has nothing to do with this issue. The contract is for software. What's going on? No, it's the it's that
the Aanti uses this same software. Our contract the software is separate from a ponty. This approval has nothing to do with that software. Correct. Um Yeah. and we are working on a solution to get
back to you. Yeah, we hadn't yet been able to talk to Vadar or A Ponte when um so was here this morning. My tax and I guess because I need to understand this too as a taxpayer of course my tax bill now is going to include my water bill.
Yep. Yes. It's going to be one bill. I will not get separate bills. Correct. Not usage water tax. You won't get a separate bill. What about common land? All that. Will that still be a separate bill? All in the same one. Common land.
I don't know how that's taxed. I'm sorry. But I know, but it's not both of your water bills. It's not the usage. Again, I I think we need to understand the huge picture here because like we have common land. Yep. There's a lot of
places in town that have common land. My For example, if I had a mortgage company that was holding money in escrow, they never held money for the common land. I always had to pay that separate
or the water in my case, I guess, right? And the water also. Yeah. The because they all came as separate bills. The only thing that was held in escrow was my property tax for that one. All that
common land, all that other stuff was all separate bills. That could I think that will continue to be separate bills. Okay. Okay. That's good. That's not what I was told. The common land piece. No, anything like that. It's all combined
into one. No, there was only the one that was added which is the water. The water. So it sounds like what we need is more information. So each other item for next time it on the agenda for the next meeting but we are working on it. Okay.
I know Heather was a little She said we'll ask the bank, you know, maybe they can split up. No, we don't care. No, they're not going to do that. the bank a nice way. No, they'd rather send you the fine for being one on your escrow. She
had a lot of people with issues like that. She had a couple of phone calls before he got there. So, yeah, we we will get more information. Um, at this point, I don't know what to tell you other than where where
again has nothing to do with it. They don't they don't they're not offering the the software. This is a third party software they happen to use. Well, yeah, because they're our accounting company. Yeah, they're the ones straight up. No, they not them. It's it's they're they're it coming with their name on on it, but
it's not it's on our behalf that they're sending it to you and it's because we are choosing the software, not because they use the software. But anyways, that's a whole other conversation. Um that being said since the ponte contract is separate from this issue is there any
discussion about renewing this contract or are we good? All right at that time I will entertain a motion to approve the contract for year 26 for Ponty um for accounting services. I motion we approve the contract for
ponte for 2026 for accounting services. Second. All right we have a motion being seconded. All those in favor? I I I three nothing. All right, we already did the South County. Last up is our review of the final
appointment list. Um and we have that in front of us as well. So, we don't have to do all of these, right? We we did a whole bunch of them. Do we know which are the ones on here that we have to do still? So, there's the building inspector. Yeah. The building inspectors
and the alternatives and the wiring and plumbing and plumbing and wiring inspector and alternatives. Okay. Those are the only ones that we had to do. Um I did want to note that I um identified
our super RAOS. are sup an RAO is somebody that handles a public uh records request and the super RAOS um were appointed back in 2016 when the law changed when the state um
legislation changed the public record process. They instituted super RAOS uh and they are officially our town clerk, myself and our police chief. Makes sense.
And you will not see Wendy listed here because she's elected. Yeah. Okay. And she has that role through statute. Um and so on on here, I'm only seeing you listed as a super RAO. You're saying that Becky that that um Yeah. And then
Eric is over here under police department. Okay. Gotcha. Says it on there. Okay. Okay. Thank you. A correction in highway department. Um, let me find highway. The part-time person was new
is new. So, it's Kristen Miller. Miller and not Holden who had been there. Gotcha. And the other change was a member of
and we had a couple um couple part- timerrs were taken off the police department list change. And here's the plumbing and gas is Ronald Weatherby. Yep. And alternative
is Dennis Spill. All right. So we have to do each of these chunks separately, right? Yeah. All right. So on page one that we need to deal with building inspector and assistant building
inspectors. Is that correct? Yes. There's three alternates for the building inspector. Okay. So you just want a motion for each of these chunks then? Is that how we want to do this? You can. Yes, that's fine. So, I would entertain a motion. All right. I motion.
We're appointing these people. We appoint Tom Quinnland as building inspector, assistant building inspector, Mark Snow, Louie Hasbrook, and Ron Lauren. Second. All right. Motion being seconded. I guess my concern is you did
not vote last time. I don't believe you voted anybody last time. The whole thing. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's a question. I thought we voted on everything we could in the ones we didn't know. We reviewed them all, but I don't believe they were voted as I'm comfortable with just voting it as a
slate. Fine. Um the one question I had before we got to voting on the whole thing as a slate was just um and this is not really something we need to change or anything like that, but just brought it up. Um we now have two vacancies in the capital planning committee. Um I'd like to look to fill those. I know that
Rock has expressed that he's not coming back this year. Um, we're down to four people on that board. Um, and I'd love to see five or six. So, yeah, as a side note, if we can figure out what what those vacant seats requirements are, whether they're just at large or whether
they're from specific committees. Um, and then if we can get those committees, if there are from specific committees, if we can get those committees to appoint someone, that'd be great. Okay. Um, but anyways, sorry, that was just a an aside. Um, any questions on any of this before we move to a motion?
Beautiful. At this time, I would entertain a motion to approve. Um, could I just bring up one? I'm sorry. Not at all. Um, Council on Aging. Yes. I have not I don't believe they've had a meeting. The two people that are still
here um for at least since November since I started. I I just want to flag a concern about reappointing people that might not be able to meet and I think this might
be the case with the two members listed here on the council on aging. Okay. Should I I would maybe recommend that I should contact them and find out if they're we interested in continuing service. We had reached out to all the committees
and boards. Mel has done a lot of emailing and and calling people. Um but I we did not hear back from these folks and I just want to Should we pause pause that one? Yeah, if you can do all but that um
I'm not it's it's a decision. I just I agree. Um I guess the question is if we can't get a hold of the current people, do we find new people? Like how is that if that's a question is yeah Jen maybe well Jen could help us could help us and that is sort of part of my other
question is how necessary is the council of aging given that we have a a robust south county senior center with a board of oversight for it is that already doing what we want that council to do or do we need to have a separate council I I to
be honest I don't know what the council agent does outside of I guess they haven't been doing anything well Um but but typically they would be representative of your group of seniors. I know there are people that have become
active. I had that meeting with a small group of people from um South County, but there is some there is some financial support that comes from the state and they might be able to I don't know maybe we should I should start by
talking with the volunteer, you know, a couple of volunteers that we do have and get their input. Okay. I mean, if you can get a hold of Lana or Maryanne um about it, great. If not, bring it back to us in two weeks and yeah, we'll go back because we can always do this later if
it's not done today. Um, but yeah, I I agree on that. So, let's let's do a motion for everything except for council aging. Okay. And that should cover us. I am motion we accept the appointments as presented in this document in this
document with the exception of council on aging. Second. All right. Motion made and seconded. All those in favor? I I I three nothing. Thank you. And we will Thank you very much. take care of that last one when we have a chance to. All
right. Um I see we have a scope of work thing here, but I don't see that on the agenda. Is that am I missing? I'm sorry. What is that? What did I give you? Something a straight agreement with a ponte. Oh, that's a ponty. I'm sorry. For some reason, I
thought that was You don't have a header on it. That's very odd. There we go. Never mind. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something more than that. Um I know we had talked about um the the old school situation and so I was just making sure we weren't missing something about that. So we're on the right page.
All right, that is it for new business. Just double check. Yep. Um moving on to old business. We have review status of pickleball court grants on our agenda. So I I just wanted to have a chance to talk to the select board at this point. I um being wrapped up in the budget and
getting my feet on the ground, I have not touched this project and I wanted some guidance from you whether this is something I should dig into, start to figure out where we're at, um figure out if what the next steps need to be. I
know there was talk about getting um some feasibility studies done on noise and whether any fencing was needed in the last proposed location which is over near the abutters. Um sorry
and right behind the parking lot. Yes. Yep. That was that was the last proposed location. Yeah. So I just it was I believe from the studies and stuff that was the only location that would keep it
in Riverside Park. Yeah. Because anywhere else was too close to the river was too close to the river. Yeah. So my understanding of where we are on that is uh we ran into a bunch of roadblocks that that it was you know we were no longer smooth sailing and then
right around the time we were we hit those roadblocks. Um yeah that's when Jeff left on the left to where he might have been. Yeah. So if you can get yourself up to speed on that um obviously we want to pick that up and and keep moving on that. Um, just for history's sake, the
original proposed site which was just me sort of mentioned was it was closer to the river was kind of out behind the fields in a way that was going to be much further away from people. Um, and so what the town voted on what was approved was
with that location in mind. We're trying or at least we had been trying to figure out a way to salvage the proposed the proposal because the proposal the money the the town meeting you know article mentioned Riverside Park. So in order to try to keep it in Riverside Park and not
have to go back to the town we're seeing if we can make it work in that location over here. Um once we shifted from being away from everybody to being right behind a bunch of people's houses, um it went from something that was wildly being a you know everyone was excited about to all of a
sudden some people were less than thrilled about it and so it's now more of a contentious thing than it had been in the past. Um which makes sense. And so in some ways um we might have to go back to the proverbial drawing board in
terms of locations because um it may just be that no matter how much we want it to that the location back here may just not work um for the town. So um but that being said, we can't make any of those decisions unless we kind of ramp back up in that. So yes, please do get yourself familiar with it. Um if you
want any more information please feel free to reach out to the board members or and if there's any as I don't know if there was a construction estimate I know there was I think 120
from right but the problem with that estimate and again we need to see how close that estimate still is right but the major problem I believe with that estimate it was only 6 foot fencing. Oh,
okay. And 6 ft fencing is not tall enough if the need arises for sound barrier to be a sound barrier. Yeah. And we
weren't even sure if 6t fencing was Yeah. adequate even without sound barrier. Okay. you know, that was something we wanted Jeff to talk to because many of us in this room can reach six
foot tall. Um, and you know, it just becomes something that could get, you know, again, cuz you got a ball field right there. You have kids around. You just don't want something that is really climbable.
Huh. You know, for kids. Yeah. Um but again we need something that in the event sound protection is required can support it right we don't want to put up 6T fencing tear it back down and
now we'll have to turn around and put up 14T fencing it's a waste of money we should at least I also one suggestion I have would be to reach out to the Shelurn town administrator and ask them about complaints It's about the one they've
got up there. Where? Shelvin Shelvin Falls. They've got one in kind of in the neighborhood. You were invited there. Yeah, I went and looked at it. I I've been up there. Yeah, it's right very close proximity. Yep. Yep. Very well. So, I'm just curious if they what they've heard up there. That's that was
if the town administrator has heard anything. Okay. Do they have sound protection on that? No, it's just chain link, right? Nothing. Yeah. Most of the neighbors. They probably all play. Yeah. So if you if you can engage with that,
get yourself up to speed. As I said, reach out to whoever you need to to to Oh, I wish I had known last week. I could Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I should have mentioned it. The small town administrator meeting. Yep. But I will I'll call them. Excellent.
Thank you. That's what I I needed your guidance. I appreciate it. No problem. Another thing I'd like to know is I know one of them obviously, but the other ones were there actually written letters saying no, we don't want it. Yeah, we got we got letters. We got Yeah, we
definitely we got presentation from 2022 that was Colorado and Arizona. We didn't know that. You didn't know there was going to be a presentation that night. So, none of us in this room could have even counteracted that presentation. Oh, I'm not speaking to the the contender. I'm
just answering the question of that we have definitely gotten we've definitely gotten responses question is there something that can be brought forward when the discussion comes back. Yeah, there was there was one in mass too. I can't remember what town it was. There was one in mass somewhere. Yeah, definitely. But when we get to a point
where we're back on track, we will definitely have more public sessions to talk about it. It's a 10ft barrier is usually it's usually recommended 10. 6 ft is too low. Yeah. Well, that was what we were talking about last time was was was going to Yeah. Now, my understanding
was if it's going to have sound that sound barrier padding on it, if that ends up, and again, we need to check with somebody who truly knows this for sure, but for some reason, I was thinking it was either 12t tall
that fencing needed to be in order to support the weight and stuff of that. But again, we need to just find that out for sure because I would hate to see anything built and then shut down over
noise complaints and not have the ability to put up that sound barrier if need be. Well, spending redundant money that we pull pulling out concrete and putting in we have the money in that. Yeah. And I
respectfully request that this stakes go back up to where it's supposed to be. You know, where they were attempted to be. Oh, he said they mowed that day. They said they mowed that day. Are not no longer there. Oh, yeah.
They're not there anymore. I'd like to see them there. Is that possible? I could probably lay I could lay that out if you could we use um spray paint so they could continue to mow something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's kind of
weird that he said it was staked and they just happened to mow the day of the meeting and the stakes came in. Yeah. Yeah. No, it had been staked out there for quite a while. Yeah. I don't know. I could I could do that. But you know, but we could use that spring. Yeah. If if we couldn't paint it
on there. Yeah. Or at least paint the corners on it. That would probably be better because Yeah. Or that orange stuff that you use. The trouble with stakes are kids. Yeah. They're fun to pull out of the ground. You got to put them flush flush flush flush.
And the courts aren't year round. So like they're April to November courts. So they just want to you don't you can't use your room. So yeah. I mean they play tonight and then they're done. I mean, you can only play This is sun, so you're only going to play a couple hours in your eyes. It's too hot. I just came
from Ammers. Okay. All righty. Um, next up is Flexport updates. Um, Crystal, do you have anything? I have nothing. Dan, do you have anything? Just as you know, the the trails grants and are going in. So, um, the only thing I have is just that
the um Franklin Tech community suffered a loss this last weekend. Uh, one of the members of the um, junior class was killed and keen this past weekend. Um, I just wanted to offer the town's condolences to the family um, and to all
of the Sunderland students who attend as well as the rest of the students and their families. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. It's always tough. Been real hard for kids. Yeah. Um, all right. Ministry updates. Becky,
anything from you? Um, this is kind of I'm I mostly was just looking up and making sure we had passed the regulation to have remote meetings prior to our
Zoom meetings and we had um so even if we're having a phone meeting, we're still legitimate even if it's not on Zoom. So, um, I just went back to check that history. Um I'm going back through
trying to make sure that our ARPA is um as well defined as possible. um given that you know things will be there will there will be audits coming um of course and I have found that there's some the reporting that went in
for uh prior years we reported in 22 23 24 I did the report for 25 in March when I've gone back to match up my invoices to what we reported um not all the projects were the name
and there's some discrepancies. So, I've been um busy trying to resolve those issues. Um I just want you to know that's where part of my time is going uh because it I feel it's critical. We can't afford to lose no any of that
money. Um and uh the other I wanted to be sure we uh we brought it up. The Vadar transition um has been handled very well by our financial staff um by
our treasur has especially she was she went to her first treasures conference this u past week which was particularly difficult to do managing uh financial transition in software at the same time
but the bills all went out um they went out. Yeah, they're out. Everybody's receiving their bills, but all the bills got mailed out before the 30th. Um, she was working on that goal for two months um to be sure to make it
with all the transition requirements. So, I just wanted you to be aware that she's really worked hard to do that. Um, as well as the accountants and our our assessor clerk has learned a lot of new information to be able to do the transition as well. Good.
And that's the biggest thing on my list tonight. Okay. All right. Any small things on your list? You want to see the letter? Don't have time for that. All right. Um, so that's select board update time updates. Uh, correspondence. The only item we had was the letter that
we discussed already, so we don't need to go over that. Uh, next up is public comment. Anything else from our, uh, thank you very much for Absolutely. No, we appreciate you coming and always happy to have members of the public come and uh talk.
I motion we adjourn. Second. We have a motion made and second. All those in favor I I 8:18 take us out. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Have a good one. Recording stopped.