hi all set okay um welcome to the select board meeting April 16 2025 and uh before we start I just want to thank Kade McDonald Nathan
Kent Nate Rice and Joel Doulette for bringing us this production and if you would all join me in the pledge being recorded we're being recorded i pledge also so this is a special meeting for us
danielle Leonard reminded us of a couple things and um we wanted to honor a very very special volunteer in town that everybody gets to enjoy his hard work so tonight
we would like to honor John Mclofflin and many of you know Mr mclofflin um as the man who's always out there on the monument working hard and um making us look like a bunch of slouches when he's
uh just making it look so beautiful out there on the monument he's been assisting the town for the last 13 years is primarily responsible for all the plantings on the monument as well as several traffic circles throughout town he was responsible for the decorative
lighting at the front of the town hall he's responsible for the redesign of the World War II memorial at the end of the monument he's assisted both the senior center Andrews Chapel Committee with plantings and wreath hangings there's actually a lot more that John does for the town but we have a long meeting
tonight and we know he's getting a little embarrassed listening to this so John if you could please come on down we'd like to u reward you with this beautiful citation thank you John thank you very much
[Applause] thank you thank you very much that bag is to him as well oh jeez hold on sean you're not just any volunteer oh
wait there's more there's more more behind door number three oprah beautiful so John John is a VIP volunteer and we have something a little special for you thank you thank you very much all right
thank you and the bag is yours too John oh nice thank you got it all right oh that's a nice bag John it's a cooler bag i believe it's a cooler bag great thank you John okay
[Applause] okay next on our agenda is public comment please uh remember public comment is three minutes katie can you I can sure take care of the three minutes and um please just give
your name and your address hello uh Michael Conturus precinct one town member 46 Buista um I just had questions about the residential parking signs that came up on Burpee Road uh I since I live right
around the corner of Buenav Vista uh I know that last meeting it wasn't really voted on um we were going to get more information around it so just kind of surprised to see the signs um since I know a lot of people were kind of confused like is it active do I need to
get a pass uh also kind of looking at the agenda today it looks like it's going to be potentially for 24-hour parking um and the signs say from 6:00 a.m to 10:00 p.m so kind of seems like we're going to have to replace the signs at some point um so just kind of wanted
to express the concern there since um I I don't know if it was for the construction people or anything like that since that just means that they'll come around on Buenav Vista which already has very sharp blind corners where people almost hit each other
constantly on Roy um so just concerned about the traffic and that change that hasn't been really communicated very well thank you Mr contrera is there anyone else for
resident comment no hands are raised oh Mr dulette hello Joe Dulet precinct 3 uh I'm just wanting to let people know that the Blue Big Band which is Swampscott's Community Jazz Orchestra uh which is a program of the Senior Center is having
its spring performance on May 8th at 7:15 at Swampscott High School it's the same day as the um Heritage Festival so go to the heritage festival and then come over to the high school for a beautiful concert of Duke Ellington's work um directed by Teim Oenko who is I
think one of Swanson Scott's hidden treasures uh invite you all it's free for youth and seniors and $10 for everyone else thanks so much thank you Mr duet and not seeing any other
hands we will move to the town administrator's report would be okay if I defer that to the end i brought my notes here i'll put them down somewhere on this desk and I can't find them gino's notes by mistake i brought a package in today up on Facebook i see
yeah right hold on a second here let's just have a little bunch of What do they look like Gino like this that's it you just leaving all your stuff here oh now now they're going to be writing videos about me for stealing okay the
reason I increase the Okay thank you all right so we'll make it brief you always all have a full report in your packets i'm just going to address some of the uh what I I don't want to say it's the most important stuff but some of the stuff that I think is important to address tonight anyways
out of the town administrator uh uh we held the initial ground rules meetings to begin the negotiation with both the police department and the library this week both meetings went smoothly basically just to discuss the ground rules um met with Max to discuss
the cell tower leases something I was always interested in uh the one on the the cell towers on the water tower are set to expire this next year we're looking to sign a one-year extension with them right now we think it's definitely going to benefit us because uh rates are going down now that there's
so many opportunities the one behind the police station has 10 more years so we're stuck with that for another 10 years uh I met with uh Nahad Town Administrator Tony Ballet to discuss possible regionalization opportunities that meeting went well might be able to discuss a little bit more of that a
little later uh moving on to the DPW very busy most of you seen street sweeping began last week and will be completed by uh April 24th the schedule has been posted on the DPW website the annual pavement project
began last week roadway Milling will continue to that middle of next week all told the town will be paving 27 roadways this year and Great Eastern Suns will be wrapping up the Marshall Street outfall so rehabilitation project by the end of the month which is we're getting very
good results we're testing some of the manholes there so I couldn't be happier i think somebody else might be happy in the audience there because if we're ever able to open up Fisherman's Beach it's going to be a win for the town and I'm very optimistic and Gretian Sun also has a second contract with the Thomas
Swampscott uh to replace the water man on Palmer A and to reline the water man on Atlantic A you see the bypass piping has been laid down on both roadways palmer A is going to be start tomorrow the work there the whole project will probably be completed in two
months and then finally DPW awarded a landscape contract to Damato Landscaping it's a three-year contract with tomatoes the reason I bring this up tonight is my tenure here and probably for the past 25 years Ley landscape and it's done
cutting of the grass and swamps he's done a great job i'd like to acknowledge Matt Swanscot resident over the years work but it was very competitive this year most of the years when we put out a three-year contract he's been the only bidder we had seven competitive bids this time around so I'm looking forward
to working with the new contractor all right community development um Pine Street updates are attached somewhere here and talk about those um we'll be meeting with uh Earth Day event scheduled for Saturday um clerk's office is continuing
work on the annual report awarded more election equipment complete the capital project fire department is working on comprehensive set of policies and standard operating procedures and they were also awarded a $4,427 um grant excuse me for fire service high
height and safety equipment human resources is virtually attended the TA search committees meeting where they interviewed two possible consultants i believe they might be voting on that tonight organized and attended ready sets community GM session at the library attendees were engaged and stayed
roughly two hours feedback is positive library this is interesting continued discussions or revisions to the library entrance and more importantly the renovation project is now landed on their web page we're happy with that
facilities continuing the town hall roof replacement i believe they're just about done with that project other than installing the railings national Grid completed their inspection of the SHS auditorium lighting project and Matt continues to review the solar
project planning recreation most import well I shouldn't say the most important but most exciting thing maybe in my opinion is the plan of the new derby day event on May 3rd 4 to 7 there will be food trucks and bear events and I'm looking forward to a good turnout and Danielle's also planning a
public safety day on June 1st with officer rain and SRO officer Wilson That's it all right any questions i have a question about Pine Street since we sort of said it was attached but I think it's
probably important to call out um some of the things that were on the attachment if you don't mind absolutely um so the 40B was received by the town on April 2nd right april 2nd yep and I'm
sorry yeah April 2nd the comment period ends May 2nd y so I think Marzy sent that around to the select board for comments um and I think you can correct me if I'm wrong but this process will is
a friendly 40B so it's a town parcel and um so it'll follow a similar process as Michon followed right um but I think from what this update says um there you're in the works with maybe
a neighborhood meeting yes so I don't think we did that with Michan so that's great that we're sort of taking the reigns in doing that i know obviously this is a topic amongst um that's very much in the public eye right now so I think a neighborhood meeting is important um and
then also I wanted to make sure that we reiterated that Mar like town staff is working um to answer the um the letter that we've received uh the 40B like a com the comments to the 40B right yeah
and if we have any comments we should send them to Marsy absolutely yep okay great i'm looking at everybody's Does anybody have that miscellaneous part on the bottom of theirs yeah I just want to make sure I don't that's why I looked over i do i just wanted to make sure
everybody else had seen it okay so so just to that effect um so with the with the project eligibility letter that's received comment period ending 52 is there time for us to have a public meeting to have that that discussion um
publicly about about Pine Street are are we planning to have a meeting or can we ask for additional time so we can um so this can be included in a in a public meeting that's that's how this process I believe has worked uh previously
i don't know if the process I don't think this is I think this is a little bit different process um my understanding is that with this similar to the Michan um the public we're not even required to
have a public meeting but and they didn't for Michan but we are my understanding is Marzy is scheduling one for this one and then put together a put together a letter for the funding and then there's another my understanding is
that there's another time where we have to have a bigger process around the schematic drawings that's my understanding i I don't know i I I I do believe that when we had when when the Wescott had a had
their when when the Wescott issued their project eligibility letter that did come in front of the select board those are two different Yeah those are two different projects it was a friendly 40B as well it wasn't It wasn't a town owned property it was was was friendly right
well I know that she's scheduling she's scheduling public a public meeting right but I think what you just said Mariel I mean this says that schematic design plans can be submitted to who on 51 doesn't say yeah before the before the
comment period ends before the comment period but one day before the comment period ends and does the neighborhood meeting need to happen before or after the schematic design i mean I think I don't schematic design is 51 i don't think the schematic is 51 i'm not This is the
first time I'm seeing this my understanding schematic comes much later i would think so but what I would uh suggest is Mazi's at a not a meeting right now she said she would log on as soon as she finishes up with that meeting to answer any of these questions so we could we could put this at the end perfect
perfect all right i did have I did have something else uh Gino sure so um thanks so for the so for the last seven months I've been trying to address uh some serious allegations and concerns
that I have regarding the inappropriate release of town employee personnel information um I'm speaking about this publicly tonight after trying to address these concerns privately uh there are two instances that I know of where confidential employee information was
released um last fall came to my attention that confidential personnel information was inappropriately shared an internal investigation was subsequently initiated by the town administrator to examine this breach and despite the investigation being completed the
findings of that investigation have been repressed by Chair Marielleen Fletcher i've reached out numerous times to Chair Fletcher to request an executive session to discuss the findings of the investigation and each time that request has been denied in addition prior to the
investigation's conclusion Chair Fletcher wrote an email to town council on October 30th which stated "We need to shut down the investigation." Now question I must ask is why is a member of the select board interfering with an internal
investigation in a separate instance last year confidential employee information was once again released and Gino on March 5th of this year 2025 you confirmed to me by email that this confidential information was in fact
inappropriately released in a subsequent conversation on April 11th last Friday you indicated that Chair Fletcher directed you to retract that statement that you made in email to the board on March 5th it should be of serious concern to
everyone that a member of this board namely Chair Fletcher is attempting to prevent the truth from being understood and ensuring that whomever is responsible for the breaches is held to account the town of Swampskit currently has approximately 500 employees that are
entitled to their personal information being kept confidential there's potential for massive liability to the town and ultimately to Swamp Scott residents for example the swamps got residents aware that we are paying the former town administrator a
$275,000 settlement you heard me correctly $275,000 can I ask a of taxpayer money point of order no point of order yep this is a this is a public settlement yet the chair has not elected residents during a very
difficult budget you are out of line mr gishman I just has one question i just have a question if it relates to the town administrator's report then it's timely but if it's not it should be done during your select board time as Gino as the interim town administrator you need to make sure that we're protecting our
town employees and tonight I'm calling for you to commence an outside independent investigation into the multiple occasions where confidential employee personnel Mr gisham you are so out of line you are need to find out what happened who was responsible and ensure that this doesn't happen again we
owe that to all of our employees and to all of our taxpayers of Swampskit you are completely out of line mary Ellen you're not going to Mariel Ellen you're not going to silence me like you attempted like you attempted to silence the investigation the internal investigation you are out of line you
are out of line i have all the receipts mary Ellen that's great you are so out of line miss Failen mr miss Failen would you like to read this email here read the email please i just feel like this is totally inappropriate i'm not reading anything you're totally inappropriate mr richmond please sit down i mean if you
have something you'd like to talk to us about we can talk about it at select board time this is We're talking about the town administrators report i'm not saying whatever you're saying doesn't have the validity you're saying it does i have no idea you're just presenting it right now for all of us for shock value let's focus on the business we have on
the agenda we'll get to this at select board time this is this is the business of the town this is absolutely this is political theater that's all you're doing here David you're trying to humiliate people so you're trying to hurt employees in the town these are all about employees well I mean I guess the
one the one thing that I heard there that seems particularly relevant is and I couldn't quite hear it with the the overtalk but um there was something in there about that Mary Ellen asked Gino to not do something so that seems like the the
piece that's particularly relevant to the town administrator's report to me so where is it in the administ Did I ask you not to do something in this administrative report no thank you i I I am going to pipe in here because I do not want to see
another town employee put on the spot and that's Gino Cresta i I think this line of questioning to him is inappropriate and while again David you very well could have some valid points and this is definitely something we should address and speak to in a
professional appropriate human resources fashion right because this is an HR issue to me i've got my HR hat on this is concerning but I I personally don't think it's fair to put Gino on the spot right now i'm going to be PL and if if you did say
something or you you're a witness and you'll be investigated but I I do think an investigation is in order for sure to get this straightened out i don't want to see any undue pressure put on you period from anybody from any of us from anybody out there anybody right um and there is a lot of lines that we have to
make sure that are not blurred crossed and whatever else so while I agree that this is not the forum for it it definitely is concerning and it should be investigated and we will i I'm telling you right now I will because we need to get this cleared up whatever the
truth is needs to come out and it will but I think that it has to be done professionally through human resources or whoever or outside whatever um but I you know I just don't want to see anybody put on the spot here and ask
we're not gonna right but and tonight I'm just asking the call for a commencement of an outside independent investigation into the multiple occasions where confidential employee personnel information was released so if we can get to the bottom of that sooner rather than later that would be greatly appreciated
do you have anything else on your Oh you're finished with your Does anybody have any more questions on the town administrator's report i had questions about stuff that is not nearly as riveting or exciting um this morning I was on a walk and I
happened to see trash being collected and it was just blowing everywhere recycling was blowing everywhere down Readington Street down Humphrey Street and I wanted to get a handle on what type of process is happening because I I mean it was just it was a mess and it
and it was 9:00 in the morning so I'm assuming it stayed there all day or blew all around and just wanted to get an idea does DPW follow up with the trash trucks like how does that work on a day like this typically what I would say the board of health would send the residents a letter saying you're supposed to cover
your ass it was recycling so it was recycling that was just going everywhere and I don't know if it was partly because they weren't emptying it completely and it was blowing i don't know i think it's starting to blow i went down really messy i drove down there after we'll get that pic whatever remains tomorrow morning will be picked
up right it just Yeah I just We got to let the residents know because obviously we're short staffed we can't be following around the trash truck but Okay great my second question is more um in line budget wise for you yep um I know that I think that was part of your
you and Amy have worked on it I'm sure i know you're working on it a lot will we see an update tonight about where we're at what the next steps are what you're working towards especially with the schools all of that will we hear that at some point tonight no I don't think I'm
ready for that that was one of the things I wanted to discuss potentially tomorrow where it's Okay impacts employees personel sure okay great that's all I have all right thank you
okay um so next we're going to move to the uh presentation of the 2025 Swarmscott recreation beach sticker great we have a little slide we could bring up
okay so um welcome Okay so we would like to give special thanks to Isabella Kennedy who designed the beach sticker this year she's a Swans
Scott resident and she um focuses on architecture and interior design for the last 20 plus years her work has spanned residential commercial and institutional um projects and um we were very honored to have her develop the beach sticker
for us this year when Isabella is not working on projects she can be found on beachwalks with her family paddle boarding painting drawing or tacking uh tackling her own DIY ideas which is great and I have seen her many times walking the beach with her kiddos and
we're very glad and honored to present her design this year which is a nod to Hadley um which is so apppropo as the Hadley comes out of commission as a school building this year but remains a very big fixture in all of our lives and
I would like to present the first beach sticker this year to our designer um as a special thanks for her contributions to the town very nice it's really nice does Okay and then really quickly um
beach stickers are now going to be available at town hall they're coming out of the process that they came out of um prior years which were you know you signed up for a sticker and it came through the mail um beach stickers are going to be available starting tomorrow
but the hours are Tuesday Monday Tuesday Thursday 9:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m Wednesday 9:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m and Friday 9 to 12 and you need your license and registration you can pay by cash or check and great news the beach sticker
process this year will be saving the town quite some money it became a senior workoff program and I believe Danielle said it was about $16,000 we are going to save this year by putting the beach stickers through this process rather than through the
service that we normally use so finding all the money everywhere so does that does that keep the price the same as it was the price is the same year so is that is that 25 Daniel $25 yes 10 for seniors great yep great so we're
very excited come get your beach sticker tomorrow and thank you very much for your contribution proud daughter over there i know proud daughter for her mom all right so now we can move on to
discussion and possible vote to appoint Richard Beldachi as the building commissioner we had this on our agenda the last time yep madam Chair um is it possible that we push this back to talk about some fees first before we talk
about this item there's some uh there's some issues there's some uh ideas that I've floated uh and Amy has some information that might be relevant to this conversation um directly increasing some revenue in order to help pay for this building commissioner
i I don't have a problem with that we could talk about it that in the same context if you wish but there's other items on here about fees so you want to jump to fees you want to jump to fees and then we'll jump back up if that's okay so let's go to fees doug do you want to talk or you want to go right to this one or you want to talk
about the other ones first uh let's go to So what line item is our regular fees nine yep so let's just go right to nine to vote on increasing town fees and permits
amy um so Mr thompson had emailed me asking if I could get some information on other communities uh building fees and permits which I believe you have in your packets um and one of the questions he posed was you know it looks like we could potentially go up another dollar
per thousand of project cost on the permit and looking back at the past 12 months of permit data that we've had um if we did go up that dollar based off that past year it would bring in $10,832 um with the breakdown being
6,488 in commercial 404 in residential and 3,940 in electrical so this just for the board's um understand so I I as well as maybe the rest of you had calls from people um uh lobbying uh for this position one way or
the other and in the course of one of those conversations one of the contractors noted to me that our fees actually uh have some room to um go up to still be in line with some of our neighboring communities amy kindly pulled the information i don't know do we literally have all that information
in here hunt okay i think we do um so you know in some ways we're pretty well in line with others but I think it's Lynn uh that's much higher much higher um so it could be a dollar per thousand it could be $2 per thousand uh we could
do nothing but uh since it came out of the contractor community and since this position really would be helping to facilitate that community it seemed like it was a kind of uh very connected source of revenue that wouldn't be too
terribly taxing on any one uh uh developer or even resident um but cumulatively it would defay some of the cost if if and you kind of alluded to uh regionalization things earlier so I'm not sure if you want to talk about that
in this context too but uh this is just something to put on the table it seems like this is a source where we could get 10 or $20,000 whether it's for the building commissioner or something else right hopefully for something else because uh I met with Tony Balleta and Rich yesterday over in the Niha town
hall and Nahan has agreed to pick up $18,000 the salary for him to work four hours a week in the heart awesome we still got to iron out a few more details and but I think we got a an agreement in place he's willing to willing to sign a three-year contract
which would be in line with Rich's contract to give us $18,000 one year 185 the second 19,000 so let's finish fees and then we can jump up to we do both yeah well so are we let So can we have
as far as fees let's just do the for the recommendation the whole thing on the recommendation on the fees can we have a motion to Well you want to discuss the rest of these fees we should just Yeah we should probably just Let's just get this whole get the fees done okay is Amy are you going to speak on the
other recommendations for how we increase these yep so the other recommendations we had um was to increase the block party which would directly affect Katie and her neighbors from $25 to $50 um and just for
reference in the past year we had 16 of those um the other recommendations were to the town clerk's office um increasing the uh vital records so the birth death and
marriage certificates we do $10 um a lot of other communities are 15 and 20 so they didn't have a recommendation one way or another they were in support of whatever the board wanted to they just felt we were far below what um the
register of vital records set as it and our other communities we had 745 of those um in the last year and then the other one was the late fee on dog licensing we're very behind on every other
community most of them are at 15 so that's what the town clerk was recommending for that um they also had asked that we adopt the rest of the RVs so if you get your birth marriage or
death certificate and you need it expedited you need it mailed you need it mailed um internationally there's set fees for that they wanted those adopted as well is there a summary of the proposed changes anywhere in here i don't see it yeah okay
um overall Amy if we increased everything that's recommended how much additional revenue does that on an estimate on an estimate it was at least 20,000 okay and that's without the building permits because that was a today thing
okay um that was also inclusive of going up on the pram and kayaks from 25 to 50 [Music] so everything you're recommending is in in consistent with other communities right yes
so the question is do we want to just make a recommend and not having like just one sheet of it super detailed i'm just not sure how comfortable everybody is to make a motion to recommend the changes i think good hygiene we should have one
sheet so we're clearly seeing what we're doing yes right so there's no criticality to doing it today right so let's just put that Diane we'll put that on the next agenda and Amy if you just make one summary sheet absolutely okay and yeah just just just for me I'm comfortable with I'm comfortable with
the the changes to the um building permit to the building permits i'm comfortable with the town clerk recommendations i I would I would I would keep the block party at $25 or make it free to encourage community uh engagement and involvement that's the only change that
I would have for what it's worth i have one question on the very consistent party animal on the on the on the building so you're recommending that we're only going up $1 per thousand and that puts us in line with what communities
that was more in line with Lynn's building permits I believe lind Lind 18 all in here so we would be between I think the rest are similar to us right now but Lynn is higher so we'd be going
from 15 to 16 or 17 and Lyn's at 18 or 22 commercial commercial okay so we kind right now we're at 15 per thousand on residential and 20 per thousand on commercial so is everybody good with
just going up $1 $41 $2 and this is for pill people who actually pull building permits yes okay yeah i think if it's in line with the region then we should do that and then
we've already talked about keeping a cadence of looking going forward and making sure that we're looking at these um 20,000 is a windfall for us this year because we need every penny but if we're being consistent about increasing as the region increases
then you know unfort Well I guess we won't have this one full then going forward but at least we'll be consistently seeing that come in okay so we'll um I just had I'm sorry what uh to be clear we're not touching the mooring fees right because we did increase those
last year we are not touching them the harbor master is recommending we revisit them next year okay but due to the timing the bills for this year had to go out and there wasn't enough time to revisit them and get the bills out on time isn't there an issue with
commercial and moing fees Danielle not that I know of what do you mean well you're you're the liaison to the harbor water i just thought that there was something on on the on the mooring fees
for commercial i'm not aware of anything there is an issue i don't know what it is they're meeting tonight right you know incidentally uh I can never get there because they're always meeting on Wednesdays um I'll find out there is something with commercial morning okay i don't know
what the issue so maybe we have to pop that on there too yep all right um Okay so we'll just put that on for the next agenda so we have one sheet we could just approve one sheet so why don't we
jump back up to discussion and possible vote on Richard Buldace the building commissioner um I did have a conversation with Gino about this earlier knowing that he had a
conversation was able to get um Nant on board to pick up the extra amount the only thing that I just want to make sure that we start setting a precedent when we're working to regionalize that the benefits are also the the benefits are
also covered for example whatever the percentage is that the other community is going to be picking up they're also picking up the health insurance benefits so for an example with this case Mr belduchi will be about
10% between 10 and 16% work for NAT so I would like to approve I would like to get an get a motion to approve this tonight with the understanding that NAT will pick up that little bit extra on his health insurance and one thing
that's important about that is as we go forward then we have a precedence on how we start to regionalize and how we start to bring people in how many hours is he working in Swamp Scott when you're when you're How many hours would he be working 36 so we'd be working full-time
fulltime here and then Yeah and an additional four four hours okay yeah so if he's working a full-time here then why wouldn't we be paying 100% i don't understand why well if he's always if he's also working over there
so if it's a if the job itself is x amount of hours why wouldn't we why wouldn't we be splitting the percentage hours that he's working over there because we're our our employees are 34 well I was going to say once they hit 20 we have to cover their benefits so how
many hours right so we're obligated to cover his 100% of his right so we're obligated but if we So it's 30 hours plus four in the hunt no no it's 34 here 34 here and then four in a So why would So it's almost
like it's a it's not a So for example doing 100 he's a 1.0 here he's not a 75 and a 0.25 there this is just again the additional funds it's just I see both sides yeah I see both sides too i understand what you're trying to get and I think there's value in it yeah I think
there is but but I think if we get depends on the breakdown of the FD then we actually are I think we're cover I think we're obligated i don't think we have to literally have them pay the portion of the health insurance but you're saying conceptually if it was a job total cost for the building commissioner and we should be dividing
the total cost not just salary but also benefit so for example our facility our facility manager is 40 hours a week max is 34 i thought Max was 40 in the contract how could he be 40 when everybody else is 34 well this we know
somebody else is 40 i know it's you i know my under my understand my understand correct so correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding max is is a 40hour because Max was different than everyone else max that's what Sean had told me I mean should we really be
calling out individuals no it's not an let's just say an individual an should indiv I think what I what I would like hope we're paying him for 40 hours then if he's make a motion to approve approve
the appointment of Rich Baldachi as a building commissioner commissioner as the deal has been negotiated today have Gino speak to Nant about if there's wiggle room regarding the health
insurance but I still support hiring him if Nant can't come forward with additional funds so I could have my back to you no that's what does it amount to what amount would we be looking for in total 2600al per month because it's it's it's you're talking 38 hours so
that's 10.52% and then it's about $26,000 for a family plan so it's $2600 so that's the max it could be right because if he's not taking a family plan it wouldn't be I'm pretty sure he's on a family probably okay okay i'll second that so
we can venture down that road and I get the point and I think going forward we should think about this more holistically but we're talking about four hours not 20 and 20 or it's not a job share it's a little different yeah so as we if we as we get more hopefully more into regionalization and we talk
about more job share positions um then we should be taking into account benefits retirement all that kind of stuff the collective cost of that employee not just salary correct see that's what I think is important here is to look at I think we have to really start aggressively looking towards
working with NATO and and seeing what we could do as far as sharing and you have to remember we're going to be picking up health insurance retirement but we're obligated to do that for full-time employees but employee that we I hear what you're saying but we can't we we wouldn't even be able to bring him
on without having them together so it's it's one it's one job together that's how I'm looking at it i mean you're you're in a budget looking and I I appreciate it you're looking for every single dime and every dollar and I just think that this makes things
fair i also don't want to shoot myself in the foot and go back to NATO and have them say "Go take a walk i'm not giving you an extra 2,600." No I wouldn't I'm not re I'm not recommending that but I don't know the extent of your negotiations i didn't know you were negotiating so Oh yeah it's been going on for a week it's a win-win for both
tony will tell you the same thing right but they were paying their part-time guy up until last week when he left 14,000 so that's what he was started at i was able to squeeze the other four out of them right and what So do you have a salary i mean is it a you know have you
negotiated everything i don't want to no let the cat you haven't okay all right you have a tenative agreement right in place for a three-year contract which would be start the 108 with a 2% increase for the next two years and NATO giving us the extra $500 each year right
there's two different things going on here there's the deal with NATO and deal with the building commission correct do we have that but they're kind of intertwined you see that they are yeah yeah that was it yeah we've seen it last week last last meeting yes thought we did but it was a meeting i wasn't here
yes so again the motion on the floor is that we approve this on the condition that NAT is going to partner with us in that 18,000 and that piece closes and if it doesn't come back circle back to this right right so that's the motion second you have a
second all in favor i okay thank you and Mr bodachi will start tomorrow morning only if we get on board um Okay the update on the selection committee who's going to read that one
where is that Diane do you have that it's in our packet it's in your packet okay my new packet then you want me to read it yeah go ahead the screening committee has reviews proposals to hire a search firm to
assist in the town administrator hiring process we interviewed two firms last week the Collins Center and Grow White Consulting and are meeting Wednesday tonight at 6:00 to vote on which form to move forward with once we have contact contracted with the selected search firm
within 12 weeks we anticipate bringing candidates forward to the select board for interviews the chosen consultant will be wellversed in the position and what TAS do in general and both the Collins Center and Grew White are very active in Massachusetts municipal markets the chosen consultant will be
available to meet with select to discuss the swampscott specific needs and requirements from Heather Roman the TA screening committee chair how does anybody know how many how many um companies applied six six companies applied oh that's good
and they narrowed it down to two or did they listen to all six they narrow down two question do we know we have any idea of why it got narrowed down to just the six so the two I don't know how they narrowed it down though
i know I think you one of them was way outside what we could pay okay okay all right um this is not a question for you Marian but just in general um I know we had when we had spoken about and the select board took on the topic of the
town administrator search we wanted some public engagement and I while I don't see that here I'm hopeful that the TA search committee will be doing some sort of public engagement for what they feel like they would like to see in a town administrator also well I think we might
want to have the the committee chair present at the next meeting to kind of go over maybe some things you know some questions like that because I would like to know how they got from six to two what the criteria was and your point is is a even better point that we should
really direct I think to them specifically right so I think another should appear here right so we can talk to her a little bit about that i think they're meeting right now but Right maybe our next meeting i mean right so do you feel that we should be sending
them uh information right now as a board as far as what you'd like to see as far as public outreach i mean I felt like a a survey or some sort of public engagement would be appropriate but I'm also would like to hear what the consultants say
right because that's what we're hiring them for their expertise and they've likely hired town administrators in Massachusetts recently and so they've been through this process more recently than we have so I'm open to what their suggestion is but I think we all commented that a public process this
should be a partially public process right so you know I want to understand what that looks like and 12 weeks is great to bring candidates for forward so long as we are meeting those um thoughts that we had initially started with was which was that we were
going to have a fully robust process right i think it's important to communicate that we want to have a dare I say the word transparent public process right and we want residents to be involved right i think we have to communicate that directly we can't just assume it right
or think they know that that's our intention so um maybe if we could ask to have Heather here the next meeting we can go over that stuff with her or ask her some questions maybe with the consultant right wouldn't that be nice everyone just uh
Um when we voted on this to begin with there was a kind of we were hoping thinking it was going to come out of the finance committee reserve but they still needed to vote or something like that they they did they
did they did okay well they did vote that night yeah okay so the committee is authorized they can go ahead based on our votes they can go ahead and actually contract Yeah with this firm I believe so well the town is they approve the
financing so the town signs the contract with the firm okay are we all set with this one one it's not just us right um in terms of the they can come back and talk to us but it's also this is school committee
you know finance committee different groups are TAS for not just for the select board right um there's other representatives on that yeah there's five people there's one for each right and this came in on budget correct
yes I think um Colin center was 13 and ru was I'm 15 or 18 But it was obvious which firm would actually interact with you versus one that will not interact with you right so I hope they choose right the one that seemed obvious okay
thanks okay um now we'll move to discussion and possible vote to add handicap spots on Dy Circle and the library is Kevin are you covering that or who's covering that
he looks like he will you asked him to i mean I think to be honest with you it's pretty basic correct me if I'm wrong it's just a um a handicap parking space in front of um right in front of Dy Circle yes so
there so currently there are no marked handicap spots on Burl Street in front of Dardy Circle um there are a handful I believe there's three inside Dy Circle itself so putting one out front would be obvious for the residents that live uh
with their front door uh on the Burrow Street section the library does have one single handicap spot um directly in front of the crosswalk at the main entrance um I don't think it would be out of the
realm to add an additional handicap spot on the other side of the crosswalk yes and and actually and quite oftent times it would um it opens it up the parking a little bit more um and the line of sight for pedestrians crossing as well okay so
I would I would recommend it is to have one spot added to each location great so can we have a motion on that where did these requests come from the I believe it was brought up at the last meeting when we were here um I I
may stand corrected but I do I think that when we were discussing parking uh in the other details regarding the borrow street Dy circle pitman area uh there was a question that may have been asked about coming back with some
information for tonight's meeting which is this as well as the other information that I provided regarding the other topic and under handicap the library the handicap parking from the library actually came up with disability two
years ago and it's still so it's it's that box hasn't been checked yet so So So Officer Re are we are we just is the recommendation to just add one spot outside of Dohy Circle on Burl or add multiple spots yes for the for today's
purpose right now we would start with one i think that's an an obvious place to go because there is parking on the inside of the complex mhm um it does squeeze out a majority of other opportunities within the 233 Burl Street
area so if we were able to put one handicap at the Burl Street of Dy Circle location yep u that would facilitate a need for it right now it may present itself a few months from now or a few
years from now down the road that depending on the occupants of that building that we might need to add more okay so we can just we can re reevaluate as as new information and and as we as we see utilization exactly okay that makes sense
okay so can we have a motion for the handicap parking so move second second all in favor i I All right good um discussion and possible vote to change parking on Ilm Place Pitman Road
Hillrest Circle Upland Road Maple Street Columbia Road Burpee Terrace Burpie Road Burpee Street Dy Circle to residential parking only 24 hours per day effective immediately um I would like to take Burl
Street out for this conversation only because I think that we have a couple concerns with commercial did we all get an email on that how about Columbia madam Chair if I may if am I Oh go ahead i apologize but I just because I do have
information on that and I think I was pretty specific last week's meeting the residential changes to Burl Street would only take place from Colombia Street to Essex Street okay and I spoke with some
business owners and residents prior to tonight and reassured them and confirmed that at no point in time did we ever suggest that there was going to be any adjustment to the parking from Railroad A to the Ocean all of that parking on
Burl Street from Railroad A through Superior through Boon through Lombard through um the the Paradise Road up to Rock past the library all of that is going to remain as is there's there's no
reason or indication that that needs to be adjusted because those signs are already implemented and in place i did speak with Mr cresta about working with the town to update those signs some of them are not readable and and do need to
be improved and that's just a matter of of time on our end to make sure that we get those done in a in a in a timely manner i I I don't see that there needs to be any concern of the business area i just want to make sure you that point was clear
are there any residents here that wanted to speak on this yes ma'am it's Mar just your name and your address hi my name's Maro can you hear me almost there you go american
Idol um Maroite 26 place so we have a um different situation because we have been inundated with the Burks Academy and um I just found out tonight that Elen
Place is going to become a oneway that's that's fine um but the parking issues are unbearable down there unbearable my driveway is blocked my
front stairs are blocked you can't people park on the side of the building and then they s they park on the fence side and people have to back out and and it's a nightmare and
and not that we could have private parking but resident only parking that's what we got here i don't um own place own place yeah
yep all right so um can Sorry can is does what is is this turning into a is place turning into a one-way that was what we had discussed and presented at the last meeting yes elm place we have to Yeah right we did bring that up that
was a suggested recommendation of Elm Place being a one-way entering from the west caught side of Essex Street traveling towards the Burks exiting out the cross uh the swamp okay so we'll have to we would have to put that on our
next agenda to discuss and vote on i mean the street they've already narrowed the street you the writing's on the wall it's already been okay you know I'm good with it i think it gonna do it properly right now we're living a
nightmare we know and that needs to be to me addressed immediately um what else no the the the the parking situation the people parking people leave their cars
running packed the wrong way you know um and I I really haven't called the police on this a lot now I've been out there taking pictures and making a couple people
angry so how about how about this because this if this passes here this will become effective immediately okay then I'm sure the police will be happy to take your phone call so I don't know if you have to call the emergency number
but No no no you know what i I don't want to be a Karen you know what I mean i think it's I think it's I think it's okay for right now if we can just clean up that area every because what's happening is people are saying I don't want to call the police and
they're calling select board members after the car has driven away but well this is what happens when I call the police then the you know they're off doing more important things and the the car is gone okay i mean there there's there's bottlenecks sometimes that are
are 10 minutes have we reached out to the businesses and asked them to send some communication out to their membership and parents that they need to be more courteous of the neighborhoods yes um I've personally been in there to a
number of the businesses and I have no problem going back and reiterating our concerns and expressing uh how helpful it would be if they could uh could work with us a little bit more as we finalize our our problems with some new solutions yeah maybe once we finalize the parking
and the one way we can sort of put together a little memo to them and then they could just send that right out to I I know there's a list serve i'm on it so they could send it right out to their parents to say there have been some changes and like we need to respect the neighbors and these are what we need to
be doing going forward and we can sort of work with them to make sure that the other issue I have is like finding out that it's going to be a oneway we were never told i don't know
if you have to tell yeah that hasn't been filed hasn't been Yeah okay okay okay in the fence that that needs to be absolutely no parking that on your side yeah that
that I'm not describing it right the vinyl one the white vinyl fence the white vinyl fence on my neighbor's side the parking right there is We could probably easy put up a sign with no parking hit a corner it needs to be It
It probably needs to be cashed out yeah then people don't care telling you okay so why don't can you go over and how about if we can vote on this and then can you follow up with Kevin on tweaking
that area yeah one of the things I just talked about with Kevin is I thought this would probably happen after July 1 just because of the budget my signed budget has been exhausted to be playing my next Yeah that was going to be my next question is there any money in the budget is there any
money would we Is there any money in the budget that we'll end up doing a shuffle that will cover any signs i'd say $2,500 to $3,000 for sign post and sign i just I'm just concerned about waiting
no no I just I just want to make sure if we're taking this vote that we're enacting this and putting sign signage up ASAP yes agree and then can we also get more police coverage down there only because I I noticed
because I I did I did receive a couple phone calls that there was some police coverage i mean maybe if we could ask the developer to pay for a detail or something like that i mean just at least for a few days until people get used to they can't park yep what I bet you would
do it you hired a detail officer yesterday yeah you know they I think maybe they'd want to do that for another couple weeks i I'd love to move along but I'm you know Officer Re put together this whole memo and there's there's a logic to the whole thing right and I you
know I want to make sure we have all the public comment but you know the first step here the first recommendation is not you know is is actually different than changing the parking um and we talked about it last time i don't know
if we all feel like we exhausted that we're giving up on that we don't trust the Wescott will actually monitor and ensure that you but it is a term of their lease that they can only have one car uh are you sure yeah that was in the
documentation that we've seen it is a term of their lease they have to sign a separate addendum to their lease saying they can only have one car right so but I guess Doug then when they don't right who enforces that who enforces that so then we have to go to the Westcot and
ask them to hey is this your car break the lease with them because they're contract they've had a breach of contract i I don't know that the So that's the problem i agree with you like it's great that they did it and I I hope that that's really helpful it's not just symbolic it's actual but at the same
time I don't think that they're going to kick a resident out if they have two cars right but then then the next step recommendation right was this language about the large residential complexes and not giving resident parking stickers right correct yes just trying to follow
the order of your logic here no I and I appreciate that thank you and yes and that is you know one of the other things that came up at the last meeting was for us to research and look at other facilities in town that would be in violation of this so and we did and we look at places like Eagle Rock Vandage
Terrace Crown Point um the Landing they all have sufficient parking for the residents as well as visitors a an abundance of extra parking for other vehicles within their property and one of the things with that we collaborated
about with this language was knowing that they would be okay and trying to focus on protecting the the area because of the density in where we are right now with this project because this is a generalized rule if if you have this
scenario right where you don't have enough parking or you're really you're maxed out from the get-go that's correct um this could be another development and and this is for anything that we may we're trying to not look through the crystal ball but if if there's another project that we know that might be
coming up and we're also very aware of the fact of government housing and we specifically were protective of that knowing that Dardy circles provided government as well as other areas in town like Duncan Terrace so um we're just trying to come up with some solutions we know you mean we're the
we're the enforcers of this so we're just trying to to present as much of a to use your word a logical approach to help mitigate anything going forward is to to benefit the people here that support us the most because we want the lease to be there we want this to be
there too the whole point is this is supposed to be transit oriented housing right we shouldn't need the whole point of the people that are supposed to be engaging there is people that use transit and only have one car right right right so if we actually try this first we may
then if I'm following logic there's a lot of these other things maybe we don't have to do right away and right away we could also we could do them later if we still a problem but it I I think it's everything is kind of flows with each
other okay um and in the sense one of the things that's specific is if we open it if if we were to focus on establishing our residential criteria much like I think you have a copy of that map i I tried to color code it for you to get a better understanding
um being able to implement that as well as increasing the fine amount and making sure that we can hone in on a a a greater fine i think that is the is the good place to start because it establishes an
immediate foundation and baseline and yes are things able to be adjusted and amended as we move forward a absolutely with something of this scale I think it's only important to incorporate the people in the town especially the people that live there
and being most impacted as well as utilizing our government body to to bring it forth um I I don't think it's a it's a Lego effect where one works one doesn't i think if you put all of the pieces together it creates a much more solid
foundation which justifies the total means in where we're trying to get to uh and in one one mean action I guess and even if we did this language with other
things the language still has some path to travel in terms of I mean this is this yes this is this is by no means law i it's not stone right so um it's what we came up with and and proposed to you
all and I think that it's I think it's solid language that should be considered at its value if it needs to be adjusted because council thinks that it it would protect us in a different manner obviously we we would follow that but um
do we know if this has to go town meeting uh no no we checked with council it's your perview god bless did you actually run the language by town council i did not know no I ran I ran the authority by them after last
week but not the language yeah okay so Doug are you re are you recommending what is it you're recommending because I am still I'm recommending we run this language by town council i I do think that we should try to limit especially in areas like this uh you know adherence
to the lease and to transit oriented design for sure so I I would like that language reviewed by town council to see whether or not we could support it if everyone else agrees that's worthwhile doing but according to officer Reed Reene then we need to do these other things as
well and we can do those tonight all right so my number one my number one issue here tonight is I want to make sure that we have resident we have resident parking in place right away i don't know how other
people feel that I just said we do those other things too yeah other people besides Doug well I mean I want I want to make sure that I'm looking at uh Captain Cable's uh recommendation from April the 1st uh it's in it's in red
um the neighbors are concerned that we'll make uh an uncontrolled uh free-for-all pushing parking onto the streets uh there was request to have the select board direct them Wescott to number and assign spaces to alleviate this he's not in the current agreement um you know I would like to I would like
to make a you know to make a recommendation to have the town administrator uh write a letter to you know to the Westcot to to if we haven't already done so to to have them number their spaces so that way we can better control this since this is a recommendation of the Swamp Scott Police
Department we can do that for some reason um it's my understanding that they were considering that was that the summary that we received after the meeting i think Marzy had a communication with them after so I think we should just we should just
um make that letter anyway but Jenna Arsenalt ring a bell okay jenn she's a resident there she sent an email to res she has her hand up that's why you can you unmute her i already did she Jenna you can
unmute jenna can you unmute yourself here I am i thought you guys had to control that i'm sorry um Jenna Arsenal 148 Essex Street which is right at the corner of Hillrest and Essex and I just wanted to um say thank you to everybody for addressing this first of all because
it's been such a nightmare even before the WCOT was going up we've had a problem over here with commuters parking so it isn't just about the WCOT that has just added so much more of a headache and a nuisance i mean the construction workers are rude they park out there
there's trash everywhere and it's I've sent countless photos to Officer Re he has so much patience and I appreciate that and you know I think waiting to do this to July 1st just makes things so much worse for us because the residents will start moving in and just because
the West people say they're going to do something people already don't obey like resident only parking in other parts of town i don't think that delaying this is going to do any favors for anybody over here and it's been a nightmare it really
has i have three young children you know we have child care that comes to the house there's no place to park my husband will get out of work he's a laborer he knows what what it's like he's had to work walk two miles to a job site you know he comes home nowhere to park and it's been every single day for
a year and a half since that project and even prior it was commuters parking there for a whole weekend parking there every day to go to work you know se six o'clock in the morning to 7 o'clock at night it's it's an absolute nightmare and I just think that it should happen
now we've waited so long and we've been complaining and trying you know to be patient and wait for a resolution that building's almost finished um you know somebody there was another construction worker parked out there today i've approached them nicely and said "Hey you're not really supposed to park here." There was an agreement with the
Westcot i've gotten yelled at i've gotten called you know some profanity um along this process you know and I have I have three little kids and and I'm a hardworking person a taxpayer i I really don't think that the vote should wait i think that there's been plenty of information gathered everybody knows
this is a problem and there's resident parking on other parts of the town why Why should we have to wait that's all I need to say thank you thank you okay so I feel like we have been a little bit scattered in this meeting
because I um we took things out of order which is fine but when we did take things out of order did we increase the pe the permit um did we increase the fine last time did we increase that no we have to increase it this time the $75 fine last time okay so we're going to do
that is that on here yes it has it own item see how confusing it is i wasn't sure if it was part of the fees or if it's rate no I think because I want because that's part of this whole process as Doug said like it's not just one thing that's going to fix this it's
got to be a rainfall effect and or waterfall effect and so I think after I I mean I feel like I'm in agreement i don't know how how other people feel some pieces of this are not on the agenda so we cannot approve them
tonight like creating a oneway on um also I think there was another one place one way Burpee Road one way in the direction of Foster Road becoming two ways at the intersection of Buenov Vista well we
can't do any of the oneways tonight we can't do any of the oneways tonight but um we can certainly do the resident parking yes so we could just stick to the agenda and do the resident parking we there was in line with this conversation some additional and the last point on officer Rene's um report
is the potential for paid off streetet parking for the MBTA a lot at the high school so are can we talk at all about like paid street parking and um that would fall under your fee and permit schedule
so it is on your agenda and it's in the it's in the packet it's in the packet so we could talk about it so I mean obviously we'd have to negotiate between the town and the school and the MBTA to to do that but in
order to alleviate some of the MBTA parking could be parking at the school at at least in the summertime in the summertime yeah i mean we've we've had MBTA parking at the high school for I
think the last two years there's been as the as the construction because of the construction of the Lynn uh commuter rail station i don't I don't have numbers maybe maybe Gino can help us out uh with the number of of commuters that did use the the
high school parking lot over the summer and I know we had signage i just don't recall there being heavy utilization neither do I i don't know the exact number but there weren't a lot but I do know that we are going to have many more residents uh in Swampskit um this year
this summer and in future summers than we did uh in the last two so I'd be I'd be I'd certainly be open to the idea of the paid of the paid off street parking i just Yeah maybe we could get some more information about that i know Eric
Schneider from Income also sent us an email regarding the potential for a revenue driver for paid parking should be something we're thinking about especially considering the budget nothing should be left school would just have to make sure they were out by 7:30
a.m well his email was about a different around the transition not at the school so sorry I switched gears a little bit on you but um but that is something we should be thinking about not that we can implement that in today's conversation but we should maybe figure out if we could do some analysis
to figure out if that's helpful to us yeah I think I had sent an email on that as well um with some other communities and I had spoken with officer Rain about it um we even talked about potentially color coding the resident parking to neighborhoods
that way if you live in a green neighborhood you have a green sticker and you can't be parking in the red neighborhood that way you're ensuring that your resident parking is exclusive to some parameter around your house
okay so okay then can we have a motion okay motion to approve the item on the agenda do I have to read the whole thing line item five line item five changing parking on Elm Place Dimmon Road Hillrest Circle Upland
Road Maple Street Columbia Road Burpee Terrace Burpee Road marion did you want to take out Burl Street is that what you were talking no let's clarify you know what can we just clarify Burl Street portion of Burl Street we'll say it would be Burl Street
from Columbia Street to Essex West towards Essex Street okay okay like he said uh Burl Street from Columbia Street west toward towards Essex essex and DY Circle and Derty Circle to residential parking only 24
hours per day effective immediately can we enforce Dy Circle i'm sorry can we enforce Dy Circle absolutely yes it's a public way okay second all in favor i motion carries okay and then but then there's a couple
takeaways just to make sure right we have the kind of Eric Schneider recommendations we need to bring back right we have this language about large residential buildings yes um to confirm that right and then there's the other
recommendations that are offer recommendation the oneways that we didn't cover the one ways I think is address our next that parking here to corner and whatever else we didn't cover i so I I would think
that the parking here to corner pieces can be approved in the motion we just made right if they're changed because they're changed to parking so those should be fine there are those are sign there's spec and I I just have it because I I've been out there for so
much lately um these no here to corners specifically on BL Street by Essex those are signs that are already in place um it's more or less just me have putting them documented on paper because I wanted to be as thorough as possible
with what is in place at the moment and what they need or should be um upon this approval um so but these are the ones on Pine Street oh I'm sorry i did not hear you i apologize for that sir that's the one that's in here those were those were
the recommendations of from um residents regarding our uh community meeting on the 26th right that had come up you're saying we didn't get to those because they weren't on the agenda so we need to get to those next so we can include those in in the followup if if if we need to vote on something like that katie's point is so do we even need to
vote on something like that i suppose do we need to vote on something like that on specifically the restricted parking corner on Pine Street that's what you're referring to yeah right you can check it out yeah okay yeah we need to vote what's the regulation you can't park X amount of feet from an
intersection anyways right that is correct so it's and and specifically that area is rather difficult in in the way that there is some curbing that's posted next to the parking lot of the MBTA lot right
at the end of Railroad Avis Pine turns in there's a section of curbing that already has restricted parking on a telephone pole there the then there's also the parking 15 minute parking in front of the businesses on the opposite side so it would be just that direct
corner um there it's kind of just a random piece of curbing that is utilized as as parking so to be able to take with the validity of what the residents were saying about their line of sight and their their their safety issues I do
agree with it which is why we wanted to carry it forward so if it's something that you and I can discuss and even go out there on foot and have a visualization of it I'd like that yeah um I think that might carry some water with it okay sorry one last little thing
okay public comment there's signs up already right i was going to say that is there any issue there did we get ahead of ourselves or is it different or We did okay we're being proactive very proactive and it worked okay we kept the construction vehicle it was put up to
keep the construction vehicles up there and so these signs we basically just approved and you've already done well no those ones will come up we'll put the real ones in these are 24hour okay i think I think the signs were just for these are 6 a.m to They were just to keep the construction workers from they
like temporary type of signs yeah we put them in so I didn't put dig into the brand new asphalt there we put them in the treat pots so they're just going to come out really gotcha okay great okay so on the next line item discussion and possible vote to remove recreation
parking on Columbia Street by Beach A and extending residential parking to Burl Street to Beach A on the residential side um one of the I was thinking about if we I think we shouldn't address this tonight only because I think the uh recreation
parking is a little bit more complicated and also I did speak to a number of the residents on Colombia that are affected there and they said that they didn't have an issue with the recreation um parking so I'm not sure how you want to
how you folks want to deal with this i'm happy to table table it does this come from the police as well though just another piece from you this is not Yes that was also part of our our proposal was it was a um a manner in which we had used that to
remove the recreation on the residential side to stay with consistency um if we were going to be putting all all residential parking and restrict it we wanted to make it available for the residents of Columbia Street um there's
a very very small section as explained in on the wording there of where the recreation parking starts on Colombia um there was no elimination of the recreation on the train station side um
as well as no elimination of recreation parking on Beach A um it was uh a manner of thinking like I said just to maintain consistency with the residential as it stayed on the the home side of Columbia
Street so it's it has no bearing on so there's recreation on the home side there's a very small section where there are two spots for recreation parking okay on the the residential property side of Columbia Street
okay i would I'd be good with taking that off it's on the other side the opposite the opposite side which is businessoriented right and the train station side right there's a recreation section that begins right at the you and
Miss Failen does have a packet that explains it under my request thank you very much making visuals it's much easier to understand but he did I'm a visual learner myself so it helps it's very easy to see if you pull up the right map which has Columbia Street the red is the residential parking and then
there are a couple of green slivers of wreck parking yep and then there's a little sliver of black no parking around the corner of Essex A yeah it's right here um so these pieces here we're talking about the and the re the reason why we're
requesting the no parking on that corner is because it is it is a very difficult street to turn out of um with traffic flowing in both directions no matter what time of day you're coming from and especially with the tree that's right there when it's in full bloom um you're
pulling out blind so if we can prevent a vehicle from blocking any line of sight I just think it makes it safer for everybody even if you know kids are crossing and it's it's a volatile area yeah well we could vote on that because it's we could vote on that
and Kevin is the line um does the Swampscott line go beyond Beach A or is Beach A the Beach A is the last street in Swampscott so it actually the Swampscott line continues further about maybe if I'm if I had to guess 25 ft oh
okay okay so ver so virtually that's the and there is and there is there is continued posting down there as well so it's it it's all it would all be symmetrical on that side of the street thank you okay so then would it be fair
to say have a motion um to remove the recreational parking on Colombia by beach but should we say residential side what's the wording as depicted on I I I
mean I I think it picture speaks for itself it's the only recreational parking on that street so there's no confusion and it and I blacked it out on purpose yep yep um All right so Katie you want to make a motion on that make a motion to remove recreational parking on
Columbia Street by Beach and extending residential parking um on Burl Street to Beach on the residential side okay do we have a second second all in favor i I so moved
all right just want to say thank you to Officer Re for all the hard work here because I made more work by asking for visuals and they were very helpful to me in understanding you've been out there so you probably have memorized what's a recreational residential or no parking
spot but um appreciate all this work you're welcome thank you thank you officer that you've done with the resial the DPW work as it is i'm happy to help i'm glad I'm glad to be able to help thank you very much thanks Kevin
okay so next on our agenda is discussion of possible vote to increase the parking fines $75 across the town we have a motion second second all in favor i okay moving along now we have uh
the solid waste advisory committee updates wayne do you want to just have a microphone and sit down or do you want to stand up there okay great all set thank you Diane good evening everyone wayne Spritz
uh chair solid waste advisory committee um with me I have um Alex Smallen and Kathy Mick who are also on the committee and the reason we come to you tonight is you haven't come in actually quite a while and um I know
I only have 10 minutes so there's a reason for that though yes I understand because that first year you used up your time for the I understand so So you're just back to your quota i understand so I do have we do have So be careful here short slides yes we appreciate you Wayne
thank you okay um the the the the core reason we're here tonight is uh to discuss the fact that we have a new contract coming up for FY27 and uh we really want to get ahead of this early um we have some unique opportunities to be able to take advantage of and um I
know just because it's was uh over four years ago at this point that u there's been transition clearly between people on the um on the select board kind of wanted to go over just the very the very very high level of of how the contract works uh and the different cost and
revenues associated with um with uh waste solid waste uh disposal disposition in the town of Swampscott so just to quickly first discuss the trends next slide excuse me as you can
see here this covers us from 2007 to the projected for 2025 uh just looking at up to 2024 because the last bar is really just two months worth projected out so it's it's not accurate really but uh the blue lines are the uh municipal solid
waste otherwise known as trash uh the orange lines are recycling and the green bars are a combination of um uh black earth compost um um mattresses
um simple recycling um trying to think what else we've missed that's everything else that we know that we have in terms of disposition within the town that we can capture with data and if you look at the gray line at the top you can see that is the total um which you can see
going down as well which is an interesting kind of behavior analysis of that we are in fact we have less we're bringing less uh just material into the town and thus having to dispose of less um you can see that and I think we
discussed this before that uh we have a goal of 30% reduction starting at the 2018 numbers and um we just heard a very interesting uh thing from Mass D that the average state reduction from 2018 to
23 to 2023 is only 4% swamps at 17% so So that's awesome the trash barrels that what was that trash barrels yeah well that what it really does is it it helps us moving forward because what
we're discovering and the other reason why we're here tonight is that to to acknowledge the fact that rates are going up and the reason that rates are going up and you can Amy has it so you can go awesome thank you uh one
back here we go um we'll discuss kind of why that is in a moment but we have a significant amount of uh landfills that'll be closing uh this year alone let alone uh going into by 2023 we're only scheduled to have one landfill left in the Commonwealth so that means more and more
and more upwards of 40% of trash is actually being shipped out of the state at the moment um let's talk about how the Republic services contract is arranged and there's really three main components of it right the first component is the hauling and
transportation aspect of it it's a fixed fee um roughly just over a million dollars at the moment uh the other two parts are the um tipping fees that's effectively it's an old term you know as you tip the truck back that's weighed
and that's what the um you pay by cost right or excuse me we pay the cost by weight and so currently um you it's in the report and by the way the report that was sent to all of you all of you I assume was going out in the um notes in the minutes for the town this is for
general information um so we're currently paying uh $108 for trash and $85 a ton for recycling at the moment so um other costs that we incur are from
Black Earth uh we have public composting uh at the um the the dog park uh right across in the parking lot of the police station and at the senior center as well um and the schools also have uh in each of the three schools have um composting
as well that's run with max um we have mattress dispositions we have metals and styrofoam once uh at the end of every month we have the blue overage bags and we have simple recycling all of these have revenues and cost expenditures that all report back to the solid waste
enterprise fund so before the enterprise fund we really didn't have a way to track it it went to the general revenue but now we can actually see line by line where the money comes and goes next slide so what are the cost drivers um major closer of landfills um fact that
we're exporting trash means that it costs more it goes by rail it goes by truck um it's an environmental burden as well um the recycling markets are also changing um so depending upon from one year to the next what the cost of cardboard and plastic is means the
difference of how um we might foresee the cost of recycling itself per ton um so as you can see you know one of the main drivers is also diversion and that's really what the numbers that we've showed in the in the the bar
charts really is about is diversion uh what are the incentives in the contract what we'd be looking for is what is uh most if not nearly all that we're aware of i would say more most other communities on the Northshore are
doing cost price uh excuse me commodity price sharing which means that the base cost of the materials that we own as residents that we put on our curb side it has value right right now we pay
someone to take that to sort it and those all those machines and then they sell it they bail it they sell it out to the open market the way that this has been kind of changing in the marketplace is that if the the market price of recyclables goes above a certain
threshold the towns are able to share in that revenue so it helps offset on the good times it helps offset some of the the costs just this is one of the things we're going to be exploring um food
waste uh food waste is still 20 to 25% of all landfill waste is important but it's expensive to compost um composting um the cost just for just so you're kind of have a ballpark and we we talked
about the trash is $108 a ton um right now with estimates with the public composting we are around 213ish dollars per ton and individual
composting at the current rate at about 11 pounds per pickup per resident if you do the quick math right it's um it's about $115 per year it's about $400 a
ton so that makes it really tricky to incentivize from a cost standpoint just from a just from a financial standpoint there's been a question of hey can we offer free composting not saying that we can't but it has to be integrated into the hauling contract in my opinion right
because the efficiencies come with the person that goes around and picks it up and puts it right that's where twothirds of our current cost isn't just the republic contract right so just to keep that in the back of your mind what the real number challenges are when it comes
to that um the other piece of any type of recycling issues is glass we've talked about this briefly before what's really great up until a couple well until a couple of months ago we had glass went to landfill all there was no secondary market for it we just
learned last month in the mass recycles conference that we went to talked we talked with Republic directly talked with the director of the recycling at Greenworks he said that they are starting to actually get offload the glass where it's not costing them any
money to dump it where it was they're actually getting even if it's like a couple of bucks a ton they're able to offload it out of the system for free it still costs them to sort it right it still cost them probably between 80 and 100 bucks to sort it but any way that we
can get it out of the of of the of the curb side saves us more money so we're looking into that so and I talked about the fact that we're far ahead of the state average go to the next slide um one of the things that we know are changing uh we're right now we have
manual pickup almost all carriers are demanding going to automated pickup and the reason is for safety one of the most dangerous jobs in pretty one of the most dangerous jobs laboring jobs is is trash pickup um high incident of injuries uh accidents and so
on so you can go from two to three men or people in a in a a route to one person in particular just the driver the forks go in and they pick up and tip it back now unfortunately well that that
will drive some additional changes and one of those changes fact be the fact that we need to have um a standardized uh recycling cart um and one of the suggestions is that we want to go to the largest cart possible so that we don't have to have multiple carts but
also consider maybe going back to every other week if we provide a larger 96gallon cart just something to consider something that might be able to save us money at the town side um on the long run again because we could reduce the hauling and transportation costs collect
more at the same time and be able to to offload those um and then uh there was the investigate leasing additional 35gallon containers i know that's been feedback for a number of years now um it also becomes
a a consideration that if we do go all automated not we're not exactly sure how other communities are taking the extra overage bags and able to keep them outside right and have them if we're not doing manual anymore if it's all automated there some serious
considerations that we're going to have to be looking at um and then uh lastly um right now trash and recycling are covered completely under the tax base
we would like to explore and have conversations about what it could potentially look like and and there's a lot of feedback that needs to come here is whether or not to drop that is into a line item like any other utility that the town provides and whether or not that
would allow alle cart pricing to individuals or residents that want more or less not saying it has to be that way i'm just throwing that out there we have some opportunities while we're re-evaluating this contract they're things to have conversation about right next
slide so one of the the some of the feedback that we've received over the last year from folks in apartments and condos is that they do not have access to recycling there is no general law in the Commonwealth that mandates commercial entities or housing entities multif
family housing has to have recycling um towns have adopted like our neighbor to the north in Salem actually has adopted a bylaw or a city would be equivalent of a bylaw ordinance an ordinance thank you um to to mandate recycling for multif family
that's something that we don't feel like we have enough evidence to to to recommend at this point but we are trying to gather information actively between different locations as to what who has access and who doesn't have access however in a contract there might
be an opportunity we like to explore which is aggregating a um uh a commercial services contract such that because the commercial places the commercial uh um not just businesses but for condos and
apartments we don't offer them the town doesn't offer them those municipal services they pay that separately i'm not suggesting that we pay for them independently but what I am suggesting is that we might be able to bring them into a contract that gives them favorable pricing because we've
aggregated all of it together right so instead of having each of these individual commercial entities negotiating their own contracts it may be possible that we bid out a master contract that individual commercial entities could jump on could bid could could buy into if they want or opt into
if they so chose um so that would be taking efficient you know taking advantages of efficiencies other other investigative um options to build into more services would be shredding days uh combined composting options uh still
trying to find a home for rigid plastics uh improve household waste hazardous waste options we have very limited options at the moment um trying to collect cardboard for independent revenue as opposed to giving it and having to pay for it to be sorted out to collect it separately um and then
pre-negotiate residential bulkways costs like the Bagster uh and with the new contract so that people um if they have like mass cleanouts right they can actually have that option to do next one and so this is the last slide
um the we've been invited um to be a member of what's called the best practices contracting working group the D organizes it they don't specifically sponsor it because it would be unfair
necessarily but what they do is they provide data for municipalities to talk with one another so that we would be entered almost into a closed room if you will virtually closed room to talk with other municipalities and learn about best practices for contracts learn what
they're doing find out what other towns are paying for uh how much they're paying for and and really be able to take advantage of uh group think and collective information group think is not a great word but a collective information be able to make good solid
choices um that is going to be once per month um there will be different levels of opportunities for participation um we would need probably different folks at different times but initially definitely you know the town administrator the financial director um I assume you know
facilities director uh liaison from the board of health and the board of and the select board and various people including you know folks from SWAC um in the end what we are looking for is that for any service changes that may come we are looking to go to the public directly for feedback um hold public hearings if
if it's felt that's necessary if there's anything significant uh both to you know educate as well as to get feedback to turn to determine whether or not we don't want a situation again where where where things are so unpopular that
people don't understand why there's a reason for Um I think that's really the driving key and so we just uh we just wanted to let you know this is the things that we're looking to work on and hope that we can um gain your support in doing so as we as we move forward into
next year and hope to keep the prices level because I know budgets are stressed we're aware of that so thank you thank you does anybody have any questions yeah quick just timing so if this contract by 27 when would we have to have you done a timeline working
backward to know when we'd have to put out an RFP or Right um probably sounds like it's not too long from now that's why we're approaching it now that's why we're work entering to the working group to develop an RFP um this
summer so we'll we'll find more and I will um be back here to to give updates as we go do we do we have any idea when contracts are due with other communities like when is the contract up with NATO
good question i for other like nearby regionals yeah I don't know exactly for those communities but I can find out i have a master spreadsheet for that that I can look at and as far as the time that we signed our contract which was I think what three years ago it was 2021
and so it was a fiveyear contract and then we re Okay um from the time that we did that contract to now what's the percentage increase do you know off the top of your head so it's been for the first two
years it was the same base uh so from starting in 23 to now it's been a two and a half% increase year-over-year for the base hauling cost right um and it's gone up roughly 5% $5 on a 100 so roughly 5% on each of the um uh the
trash as well as the recycling do you have any idea what the anticipated increase will be only from what I've heard from neighboring towns um and it's it frightens me um it it truly does i've heard uh I've seen prices of anywhere
from $15 to $135 for recycling alone um and I have I'm still looking at various different numbers for um trash and the only reason I say that is that it depends how long they've been into a contract a lot of people are coming off
contract so we don't have a lot of really good solid numbers as to what's being offered out there so and of course every town is a little bit different everything from the distance to wherever they have to drop it off for the the the
exchange site right or to the land or to the incinerator so all these things are they come into play when a contractor or vendor comes up with their final price so Wayne if if we're going to if we're going to level if we're going to keep our expenses essentially level um with
this with this new contract we're essentially we'd essentially have to pull all of our glass out of our out of our recycling stream to basically keep to keep the to keep the expenses at at at current levels i I can't speak exactly to that but what I can give you
is a major impact is in the cost sharing um revenue aspect of it i have seen other contracts where for every ton of glass there's a charge back of anywhere between like 60 and $85 a ton that's how expensive it is to
to to handle unscramble the egg as Johnny likes to say right um because it it creates such a a a poor when it gets mixed with all the other things the paper and the glass it actually reduces the value of that as well everyone would
love to get glass out um unfortunately it's uh not as easy however I will tell you that um I have contacted um the sustainability director of Wholesome which is the aggregate industries um um quarry right but they also have other
installations around Massachusetts um there have been other programs where glass has been sent to be crushed and turned into whether or not sand for concrete um there have been other places around the country where they've used it
to you know use it for beaches or for um backfill you can also be used for um for the DPW to use back fill as well if it's mixed in the right percentage there's a Department of Transportation option that allows you to do that so there are other
uses for it the less we have to move it around the better so um we're working on it i'm not saying we have a solution but we're actively striving to do better so if we know that
glass is a pressure point and we don't have I mean I'm trying to think of like if there's a like a temp solution right like just sorting it out of our just sorting it here on the curb like for example I remember as a kid you had one bin for I
do too paper and cans and you had one bin for glass and you sorted it on the curb so is it just that then it just gets mixed when it gets picked up or Yeah so one I've been asking if we could go what we currently have is what's called single stream recycling i'd love to go back to the old system i really
would um unfortunately all of the transportation the trucks Yeah have all been modified back to single stream got it yeah now I have asked about can we mix composting with trash there has been some
experimentation done with that and one was one town and there's challenges with all of this right because it's all about the industrial logistics right they have a green bag for compost and a blue bag for trash you get to mix it it all gets mixed in together into the same trash
truck right then they sort it out later oh if you have a place to sort it out and you're in the right place in the right time in the right district great but if you don't have that then it so in other words what this comes to is you have to have regional solutions um
thankfully we are working and we have contacts with our neighbors um and working actively in fact the D our municipal um our MAC municipal area area coordinator thank you um just hosted a
regional meeting uh Jeff Fon was there with us as well so we had like 25 people from the Northshore coming talking just about all these different logistical issues so the plan is to meet uh every couple of months now so what is the prospect you were talking a little bit
more about the cardboard because when I look around on recycling day the amount of cardboard I see is astonishing so if we could is the thought then that we would keep it here and then bring it have a place to deposit it here and then
it would get picked up by somebody who only handles cardboard and that that that so that you you you wouldn't see benefit necessarily at the individual residential level unless the resident wanted to drop it off at a single central point where it could be collected i was thinking more in the
lines of the schools and the municipalities okay right where they're already collecting cardboard as it is but to be able to bail it separately this is something we've kind of on and off talked about for the last couple of years um but between the transitions between the schools now that we're
really kind of set and located it's a conversation we'd like to continue to have um and talk with Max more directly would there be an option to um work with Salem to try to utilize their facility don't they have a a facility where you can go and drop cardboard and things of
that nature is there any consideration or thought so you're talking about grief grief yeah it's on you know that I'm trying it's right near the police station yeah that closed it did yeah in fact they used to have free shredding yeah it closed about a year and a half ago two years ago jeez how about
piggyback Sorry how about piggybacking on a contract that Salem or Lynn has in terms of scale do we know what their rates are we do i don't have them off the top of my head but we do we know what those rates are i have a master spreadsheet to look at are they better um are they better than us is they
Interestingly no they're actually higher slightly higher in certain in certain aspects um they have the automated trucks and they have the automated trucks too so and I don't remember what year of contract that they're in and that really has year one linden year one
lindsen year one yeah yeah so you could do an addendum if it was or something potentially if it was if it was cheaper so so there are communities like in the Southshore that have done regionalization projects where they've created a regional trash district um
that would really come down to cooperating it it's seriously something that we do it in water and sewer something to look at and Wayne just just real quick um you know with the with the bigger 96 gallon barrels with tops which
which which is a a huge piece because you know as you've you know as you've said over the years and as your committee has stated over the years you know it's really you know on on days where it rains right picking up trash and we're picking up recycling those are those are added those are
added costs any any idea how much how much added cost i I don't I don't know if I figured if there if there there is somebody to ask it would be it's know it's an excellent question um there was a time God I wish id brought that with me i had actually looked up it's like how much water will cardboard absorb and
it is quite substantial um I think it was on somewhere between like 30 something 40% by weight alone don't quote me on that i have to look that back up i might be wrong but it was substantial um and so depending how wet and water
sogged it is you're paying for that extra weight to transport so there could be potential savings by having by having larger barrel there could be if the assumption that every Tuesday on Farragut Road that it's raining that Yeah i mean yeah absolutely but to to speak to to Danielle to your point that
you had about the blowing the blowing recyclables um I was just walking on Humphrey today and picked up a ton of plastic straws and stuff that just I don't know where they were blowing from that was brutal it was really kind of nasty um and it's one of the things that
we have definitely brought up to um our director of public health um and asked him to go out and talk to if you can't talk to message out that we would like closed containers for recycling not the open buckets right this is not this is
not okay particularly down in sensitive environmental areas like the beach or by the wooded areas where it just blows i guess the best solution maybe not best but probably most proactive solution is just to say this is now your recycling barrel and if we go to an either an
automated recycling system or even if we don't go to an automated recycling system we might think about if it is more cost-effective for us to say this is now the barrel that we're accepting and it's now every other week and that you have to use that rather than those open blue bins that have been around for
decades and and then if we do do that if there can be some sort of pickup for those blue bins because then you have to find something to do with all the Yes yes that's our challenge with with rigid plastics which is right we're trying to find people that or companies actually
want them so let me ask you when is your next meeting only because now that we are a little over the 10 minute little line we probably won't be seeing you for another three or four years when is your next meeting um I don't think we had one
scheduled it's usually the third Tuesday of every month okay um except for when it isn't except for when it is we've had a lot of changes so if there any questions that we've left here people can join the meeting or make a call but I just I have to once again thank you
and Kathy and Alex and everybody on that committee you guys just do incredible work and it's much appreciated thank you you all do thank you thank you thank you okay now we will move
to our very very patient town assessor i hope you've enjoyed the meeting so far um that's my bedtime that's what I was thinking do you have a microphone there
all right do you want to go over uh yeah um so the board of assessors is recommending a few changes um article 8 would um adjust the exemption amounts up
to 100% the board recommends adjusting that to 100% which would actually double the exemption amounts uh for example like the veterans exemptions at $400 all it would Can you just give us only because
we're on we're on TV and everybody in Swan Scott's watching right now just to give an update on like what that means just some type of a Yes so um article 8 would allow us to increase the exemption amounts the statutory exemption amounts or the
exemption amounts that we've had through the cola um up to 100% the board of assessors is recommending increasing those to 100% so in the case of a veterans exemption which currently the clause 22 the
minimum one is at $400 okay that would increase that exemption amount to $800 and along with the um the seniors the blind so it's it's an exemption of what i just we've got to get it a little
bit so the exemption amount real estate taxes yeah the exemption amount is what's what we allow to exempt the taxpayer um depending what they qualify for okay um in the case of um of a person u who's applying for the blind
exemption it's $500 i think it's $500 um would you would increase that to $1,000 um the veteran at $400 would increase to $800 so all of the statutory exemptions that we have would be increased up to 100% but the board of
assesses is recommending increasing those all the way up to the maximum of 100% do we have any idea what the revenue impact of that is well it'll come out of the overlay and so right now I think that the overlay amount would be
sufficient enough to cover it um we might need to consider some increase in the overlay account probably down the road so there's no way of knowing how many more people are going to qualify or what the what the actual impact is going to be but um like some
of these are designed the clause 41C and the clause 17D are designed for those taxpayers that are really at the most need um and certainly by doubling those exemption amounts it would be more beneficial to them absolutely no doubt
about it love that part so Doug for um rough numbers for the past few years the board of assessors has voted the overlay at 200,000 um very rough estimate we're estimating this could increase that
overlay to 225,000 where does the overlay come from can you It does come from taxes right um so it is a reserve for abatements and exemptions um also known as the overlay um we don't see this impact being more
than $250,000 so maximum $50,000 impact if we do raise the overlay and it ends up getting raised too much the next year we can set it lower or the board of assess could vote to turn that overlay back to the general
fund so it's not enormous for the individual so it's a big positive benefit in total it's not enormous but in a budget that's very tight this is another 25 or $50,000 yeah and it was a lot of the board of assessors and our assessor really wanted to you know as
we're looking at this tax increase make sure that our exemptions were as much as they could be so everyone who does qualify is getting the highest exemption that is allowable i think the town has lagged behind for a long time yeah the
last time we had an article at town meeting on this um it looks like was 2006 and this is the earliest that we can jump in so the hero act was just passed recently and then in terms of hero we can jump in proponents the hero act okay what we are recommending is
clause 22i which would allow us to put a cola on that amount um 22J was to to basically increase that up to 100% but we're already doing that in article n in
article 8 so article 9 would allow us to just attach a cola to that amount on an annual basis okay there's no different group covered really under hero that the vets there the same vets right so if we weren't increasing the others then the hero act
would probably make sense to do clause 22J but if we're going to do the other we're already doubling those and then so 22i would allow us to put the cola on that on an annual basis and the intention with the wording in this was so that it would just automatically
increase itself with a cola instead of having to have someone remember to come back to town meeting each time those numbers change and and and Paul is this this this is fully supported by you and fully supported by the board of assess the board of assessors yes so unanimous unanimous vote thank you and has Jeffrey
Blonder from the DAV did he have any input on this or like how will this this language covers what he had sent to us okay all right okay article 10 is the tax deferral uh that too uh the board of assessors is
looking to make some improvements to that uh part of that is to increase the income uh qualifying income to that could you just describe what a tax deferral means the tax deferral program allows the taxpayer to defer all or a
portion of their taxes on an annual basis um once they get into the program there is a lean that's put on the property and at some future date when the property is sold or the the estate is settled um then the town would would
kind of capture back there the um the taxes that are that are due on that property um so right now the the qualifying income is significantly low i think I believe it's at $40,000 mhm um and that's pretty tough and as a matter
of of of course the tax deferral is a tough program to to talk people into it's a really good program but because there's a lean on the property a lot of people feel oh you know we don't want to do that um but in in article 9 what we
want to do is increase the income qualifying income which be based off of the circuit breaker income for a single non head of household income which I believe in 2025 was around $72,000 and that's just qualifying on
income only okay so you're recommending 72,000 yeah well it's based off the circuit breaker income which changes annually okay based on department of revenue okay the second part to that is currently the interest
rate is at 8% uh the board of assessors is recommending to drop that to 4% the town can in can drop that rate anywhere that they choose even up to including 0% but right now as it now the board of
assessors is recommending the 4% so so would the So Paul just to that just to the interest rate aspect um that interest rate would be frozen at four or would it or would it float based upon so if town meeting voted to go to 4% it can change at a later date through town
meeting action got it okay but as but as contemplated it's fixed at it's fixed at 4% starting in fiscal year 26 and it can only be changed correct might it make sense just as interest rates fluctuate to have something you know tying to the five-year um the
five-year rate or the 10-year rate or Yeah I mean I think this would be depending on um probably board of assessors select board um town meeting is what they want to do moving forward i mean that could be revisited every year if you really honestly if you really wanted to um but I think for me
personally the idea is to to preserve people's ability to stay in their homes um and you know that interest rate can be a big difference when I work for the town of Westford I recommend to my board 4% my board overrode me and we went to
town meeting with 0% whoa and then that's what they they have done since then okay did that have any noticeable impact on people taking this up i mean how do people do this now here or in general you said people don't tend to actually use it well because it's a lean on the property yeah and so that
sometimes people are kind of leerary about that we currently have three to four yeah we don't have a lot we currently only have three or four right now really well I don't think we advertise this right a whole lot and we don't really push it well and also that
the interest rate was until you came the information we had on the interest rate was 14% that's on that's well 8 the statuto amount is 8% yeah so when you get into tax um if you if you're late in the taxes or you you then you get to 14
and 16% but the but the statutory amount for the tax deferral is 8% um my goal u moving forward is is to have an easy use your pamphlet put together that um
I've already talked to some of the sta my staff um all of you know with the staff in the office to to moving forward something we've done in Westford um is kind of like a really handy at this point two-page of all the exemptions that we that that are available what the
qualifying factors are and something that probably we can work with council on aging as well that you know that there's information out there um that to be readily available to taxpayers because in the short time I've been here and some of the people I've talked to
they're not even aware of a lot of the programs that are available so a lot of the tax we hope to change that programs that are available okay okay so you're going to be 72,04% yeah and so the the income would be
based on whatever the department of revenue determines through the circuit breaker right for a single non-head of household income okay well Paul I just like to thank you very much for bringing these uh to the four i I inquired actually with uh prior
members of the uh board of assessors about some of these things not that I could have explained them as well as you did but um I knew there are more options for us so I'm really glad that Yeah and and I for a number of reasons i I think the board is has been really um anxious
to do some of these things um so I I'm I'm glad that bring these forward um article 11 um is in relation to personal property um it allows the town to increase the minimum assessment to
$10,000 uh what that would in turn would do would reduce the number of actually um taxable accounts from like 300 something down to 88 those 300 accounts that are less than $10,000 only represents about $20,000 in revenue
which is actually absorbed into the higher accounts so it's not like we're losing any money that the the the higher value um personal property accounts are just going to make up the difference um so I was kind of surprised to see how many accounts were there uh and you know
what it really generated so what happens even from the tax collector standpoint I mean we're chasing down very small accounts um and sometimes if they don't pay we're spending a lot of money you know trying to get them to pay so this
form is actually very proactive for the small businesses in town especially the smaller accounts you know that they still have to file a form of list annually but at least that you know there's a little bit of benefit for them okay
and in article 12 is something that I was involved with in the town of Westford when I was working um it's a home room petition it allows for an exemption for those under the age of 70 who are disabled and to reach the disability um
qualifying factor is is if you're considered disabled through the social security and it's also based off the income and asset requirements that are similar to clause 41C so the intent here is is to reach those
folks that have a much lower income and assets and to help them kind of move forward so the exemption amount will be the same as clause 41C so if we're doubling those amounts through town meeting action that would follow here um
so we did that in Westford it did pass um but going through the legislative process could be a year to two so it wouldn't take effect probably for another you know one or two fiscal years and would this sit under the overlay as
well yes okay so the aggregate total so how many people would we would qualify we really don't know i mean it's kind of tough to say sure um but I think if if these things are there and available it it may help some okay
all right after that we won't have any more assessor things for another 20 years good recommendations okay does anybody have any questions on that this is great thank you for staying Paul a
little momentum um Paul I'm just wondering and um I'll also call the chair of the board of assessors if you could have a public meeting for town meeting members and for the general public prior to town meeting just to get people a little bit more familiar or up
to date um yeah if we could arrange that okay um or we could even if we we could even uh asked uh Mr doulette if he could do a question and answer on on a video that we could put together yeah originally I had hoped to have something
um but you know with 15 hours a week kind of really kind of slipped by um and it was like oh god it's like Tom meeting is like you know only a few weeks away so it's kind of caught me by surprise as well um so with the time constraints it's not
exactly um things haven't quite worked out the way I had originally planned it but yeah we can certainly get something together yeah all right thanks a lot totally more than likely to happy to do that thank you for coming thank you
okay next we will move to [Music] the FY25 third quarter financial update moro is does anyone is this critical for tonight i mean I don't
know how much time we're going to do for the warrant i know we have another meeting scheduled Monday morning but more we could get through now the better i think I think the big question is does anybody have any qu This is pretty simple i don't know if anybody has any questions we could go right to questions i don't know if Amy needs to go through
every line item i mean I don't I don't personally need you to go through every line item but I tried to put everything that I thought would be helpful on the presentation um and I can post the presentation online if you want the public to have it
also yeah does Did anybody Did anybody have any questions i just had questions on the receipts not on track Amy yes you're talking about fees currently $200,000 below estimates not projected to hit and building permits currently $643,000 below estimates not projected
to realize are those a result of us not having a building commissioner and not being able to collect those those fees in a timely manner i believe a lot of those are i also think that we have just had less activity
so my assumption would have been if we had a full-time building inspector we probably would have been able to realize more than half of what we are not realizing but I think some of it is also just drop off in the uh building right now sure so but but
bringing but bringing in a building commissioner will will assist this and help to narrow that you know narrow that close that gap yes so to speak okay that was it that's the only question that was it
katie are you good you're good okay beautiful now we can go to the warrant so we'll end up closing the warrant on Monday it'll give the give
our KP law enough time to figure out any type of language so the version you have um I got at 5:30 after KP reviewed it so this is the most recent draft that we have okay
so if we start from the beginning for article one go from there approve bill article two approved bills prior fiscal year look at that look how much lower
they are are these all of our bills from prior fiscal years didn't we we we did clean that up in December right we yeah we always we hit it December and then we always hit it in at the annual just they over the last couple years
they've been high yep so this is okay so can we recommend favorable action we generally don't do anything typically don't vote until finance committee does and the finance committee's meeting tomorrow night and I will email the
board with how they voted um so you can have that prepared for Monday however we could there's nothing preventing you from recommending it's $1,300 yeah so I would say why don't we take a motion for Yeah motion
motion to recommend favorable action on article two second second all in favor i okay so going to article three amended appropriate physical year 2025 operating budget that one we've got to wait on with them that's pretty
big so just so you're aware those are the individual employment contracts that were voted earlier in the year um as well as the siphon increase for the interim town administrator that's all that I have in that um
article for three all right so I don't think we really have to wait on them for this then well this says that we already recommended because we recommended it prior i I think when KP was pulling it in you did not in fact vote on this okay so can we have a motion on this
it is a net zero article but we So it's just transferring out of salary reserve well we have to make we do comment on it don't we she's I think Amy's just saying because Vincome has on it since it's net
zero we should feel just as comfortable recommending this one as we did the last one that's okay so can we have a motion motion to app um recommend favorable action on article three second second all in favor i okay so article four is
appropriation for fiscal 2026 operating budget article four will be reporting um at town meeting because as everyone's aware the budget typically evolves up until sometime the night of town meeting
right before okay article five approve and transfer free cash for utility is okay so this is this is this one is a little bit confusing for me so
my understanding was when we approved this last year we approved it for the elementary school and for um we had a section in there to cover the Hadley hadley or CL hadley
so we we did 250,000 last year so it was 200,000 to the school for the new elementary school and 50,000 to the town for the Hadley and the reason why we this is what's really confusing me on this one the reason why we did this was because in the because we didn't have
the solar on top so so what would happen is the school had a line item in the budget and then in the event that that wasn't enough they were going to tap in to the remaining amount yes we weren't going to have them structurally build in
something that wasn't going to continue okay which was the same thought with the Hadley with Hadley was only going to be on the town's books for a short period before it got turned over and we didn't want to build a pull from other departments to be able to pay the utilities there do we know how much is
left in the 200 well is like how much is left for our side the 50 and then how much is left on the schools um there is over 20,000 left for the town side um I know our
facilities director did speak with the developer um and they turned off the utilities at one point at the Hadley because um the costs were just exponential and the developer said they were going to be um gutting the HVAC anyway and the electrical so they had no
issues with it um and then the school it appears that they have um about 70,000 left at this time as we're talking about these warrant articles is it possible that we can put the the article the warrant on the
screen so the members of the public can uh can follow along with us please so does it on the screen i'm trying oh okay i don't want to ask you a question if you're trying to do that at the same time i I can do two things at time
so is it that we are just Sorry I'll wait to Doug was first so does that mean we've gone through 130,000 of the 200 for the schools and is that uh
through like nine months yes so on track to use the vast majority of And I looked back at the school's presentation from last year and they had estimated um that they might need 190,000 overage for it so So the
presentation last year was how much how much was in their line item last year it's like 180 170 they had in their line item budget last year 175,000 right so it was 175 and then because of the solar they were going to tap into they're
tapping into that and now we're waiting on National Grid and I know the schools had a problem getting National Grid on board and I went and got uh Brendan Kiteon involved and Brendan went and pushed National Grid
and my understanding is that Max is satisfied with National Grid that they're on board and they're working but do we know do we have any idea if we're going to be able to have that hooked up i don't know okay i I haven't gotten an
update from him okay so they've gone through their 175 in their budget and now they're tapping into the 200 and they're at about 130 in that out of that 200 when I looked today it looked like they had spent 130 it doesn't look like
they had the original 175 in there okay and we've used 30 of ours okay so it looks like they're going to need unless the solar comes online and full-fledged but we're probably going to
need to put up the 200 hopefully we would not use it all yeah right in the in the agreement with the schools they hold it in a separate line so any of it that's not used gets turned back to the town to fall to free cash right our agreement was they would go through their utility and then tap into
that when they needed it yep so their their utility line is 100% depleted or it's in line by quarter it looks like they budgeted zero so I I didn't get a chance to talk to Charlotte the school
yet the next budget I'm talking about current they've already depleted what they It looks like they budgeted zero for FY25 so I And like I said I haven't had a chance to talk to Charl yet hasn't this come up with the schools they've been asking about this have they not if we're
funding this 200,000 so have we had any conversations about it with them we have told them that it was in the um draft warrant and that but they have asked it's an issue that's an ongoing issue right yeah but now I'm more confusing
what you just said so they it sounded like they had in their budget for FY25 a minute ago 175,000 in their budget presentation last year so they had it in their budget presentation but you're saying they didn't actually fund it for FY25 and we
haven't asked them what the discrepancy is i just noticed it today so that that doesn't really make sense to me considering they've been asking us repeatedly in the past couple of months when discussing their budget about this very issue why would we not have the
conversation and say what what is the what's going on right doesn't that I mean am I the only one that thinks that's odd that doesn't make sense right very odd if the school said they were going to do something if we don't think they've done it but they're asking for us to do it next year that we
come to the bottom of that before we decide whether we're going to do it next right but we wait till right now to ask right that seems seems strange okay maybe we should get you know have a conversation and ask the question and
figure out you know I mean as we're opening the I just think we're opening we're looking at the warrant for town meeting and this is just all of a sudden a relevation revation that's coming up right yes doesn't make sense to me this should have been a conversation we had if there was a discrepancy we had ample
time to ask questions and we're just now looking at this it seems to me that either way the bottom line is that either they're using this as their primary source paying their utility bills it sounds like maybe is happening maybe or or if it's the
overage one way or another we still need 200,000 it is still being used for the electric utilities at the elementary school yeah but there's a big difference between if they were supposed to spend 175 out of their own pocket and then tap into this and they they had zero out of their own pocket and they just tapped
into this so the usage of this is far greater because they didn't utilize their own funds yet so then we would be funding this less if they use less from it for an upcoming year if they had utilized
what their presentation said so let's just get to the bottom of it and figure it out i'm Sure there's an exponent so I'm a little worried about only having this be 200,000 [Music] because the other worry I have is shutting off any utilities at the Hadley
you know we are we have not signed a final ground lease and I don't like to jump ahead of anything at any point and I'm just want to make sure that that building is safe so our facilities director has confirmed that it is safe
okay and this was checked with the fire department as well okay why do you think this is not enough though it's 200 the last one was 250 it was 50 for us and we 50 for us yeah but this only says 200 i know but we
don't need At least Well hopefully hopefully we will not need for this is just for Swamp Scott public schools right this is not for the town okay so well it says here free it no this it says for utility
for right this is for utility so we have last year last year it was 250 for for both yeah so last year what happened was we had this as a separate article and then right before town meeting um finance committee decided to recommend
it as part of the omnibus budget so we ended up indefinitely postponing the article itself but as part of the budget they just in the motion increased 200,000 to you know school line 68 don't quote me on that and the
facilities expense line of whatever by 50,000 via free cash um so that is still a possibility and that's something that might be finance committee's recommendation last tomorrow night okay so then maybe we should I think there's enough unknowns on this we just move
along yeah so this one number five we should move along i'm recommending number six we move along which is special education reserve fund and move i would think they would they're going to say yes so that would be easy for us but I don't want to say
anything until the finance committee gives their only because the how big it is the approval of the Go ahead wait what What have they utilized this year all of it none of it no probably all of
it they they were when they reported last I think that they were they weren't sure if they were going to have to utilize a little bit more right they were this current year i thought they said I thought they're going to have a fair
amount of leftover okay so obviously we need facts i I think there was something there was a possibility that they might need something okay so we'll have more along makes sense more data then yeah okay yeah none um the the approved free cash for the uh
transitional audit oh so this is I asked to add this back in here just to talk about we had talked about a transition a transitional audit transitional audit um as we bring in a new town administrator
and I think that we should look into it we but however I think we should look at what kind of categories we don't need to do a full audit sometimes those run at six figures but there are just some pockets and I just wanted to speak to a representative at do or even a
representative in town Jerry Perry a past do didn't we approve this we did we We have to we need to approve the funding we we didn't have the funding we didn't touch the funding so this would
be to use free cash to pay for this and do we are we going to have sufficient free cash to pay for this and everything else you will be below your threshold can we double check the minutes on that how do how did we How do we vote for
having funding to do it i thought that we voted to support going forward to it in theory to come on a to to come on the warrant i don't know no I don't no I think we I think we'd have to go through the minute i think we had we voted to support doing it but I think we also
needed to look into seeing what the costs were going to be and what levels we we would do it at so we'd have to just double check that my memor is a little tired okay so so we can get some more information we'll double check on this okay information
all right um authorize the increase for retire oh go ahead i guess to to Amy's point we're going to be below our threshold but we don't really even know to above what we actually will be funding so no maybe there's a chance i don't know how close
we are but maybe there's a chance we're not so let's Okay um to authorize increase retirees cost of living based cola the um the uh retirement board needs to come in and do a presentation they're actually doing a presentation on the
21st they're doing a presentation Monday evening with the finance committee and then I believe they are scheduled to come to your May 7th meeting for the select board so how do we how do we know they're coming a warrant or we're
putting it on we're not voting on it then probably vote on it vote on at a later time so they the the delay in this was their actuary didn't come in until last week so that was about that was a pretty extensive delay and that's why
they delayed we have the last time the cola was increased was what year was it it was May 2021 annual town meeting okay and at that time um we had put in parameters that we would readress it once we double check
the parameters again so pretty much checking the boxes so we have checked those boxes and now they need to come back and do another presentation and explain what they're looking for and whether or
not it's it's good to go or so we don't know what people are feeling hm we don't know what they're looking for i'm going to put this to 18 because that's the statutory maximum and the motion can be amended the night at Tommy when we increased it the last time we increased
it from what 13 to 14 yes 13 to 14 and during the conversations with the retirement they were all they were discussing going from 14 to 16 and at the last meeting they they talked about going all the way up to 18 so it's in
motion yeah you know and I think that we just have to have some real really great education on what the impact is going to be and where the impact is going to be because it it doesn't mean that it's going to affect the budget in in this
year next year and the whole thing could be put at the at the back of it so it's a very complicated this article in no way impacts FY26 right for terms of the assessment okay so we are punting that
uh article eight so these are the ones the assess so um I I'm not do people feel that we need to wait on the finance committee to support these or do you know what's your opinion on this one
so the funding it's all going to just flow back down to the tax rate well it starts out of overlay and the overlay what is the overlay at right now it's pretty high it's not actually that high do um gave us a warning last year
to make sure that we're keeping an eye on it because they said we were like on the line yeah we were like getting a little too narrow what's the dollar amount on it 371 i just remember I wanted some of
that okay um you did you did distribute excess funds I think several years ago not sure all right um so I think what we have to do there is we really have to see the long-term impact on that and how that's going to hold and but especially
with the fact that we haven't increased these exemptions we have people that are really struggling you know I can only speak for myself that I'm super supportive of it especially the fact that the state has put the HERO Act in
um I don't know so how do you folks feel want to wait on the finance committee or do you want to just wait on more information how confident are you talking with Paul or whatever that this is we're really talking about 25
$50,000 total with all these things we're reasonably confident so but like Paul said you know when we change when we increase the um exemption and you know reset the
limits for where people become available kind of you know it could bring more people to the table than we anticipated so how I do not see a scenario in which it doubles our overlay so do you want to so Doug it sounds like
I want to do it want to be responsible about it right let's just get a little bit more information on it okay so the information that we want is can we have a forecast if we do double our numbers what impact will that have on the overlay i can forecast it with what
we have now and then kind of come up with a a fudge factor for assuming more and also how how will the overlay replenish itself like what just some type of a you know a forecast a fiveyear span on what will happen with that
account okay and and then just just back to article seven Amy if the actuarial study is in is that something that could be shared with the board as well please yeah I think you could email that
because it seems to me if they're coming they know they're coming May 7th they know what the amount is going to be and it would be nice to know for for number seven did you not say they were coming May 7th for our May 7th meeting yes right so I don't I don't think they did
they vote on what they did not they didn't vote on what they were ask what they were going to ask we did not I am on the retirement right did you vote we did not take a vote right so they're they don't as of as of today they don't know they haven't said what they're asking for the actuary report um was
done for a 16,000 and 18,000 base okay so going to article 10 tax deferral i don't really see how that has a huge impact if we're I mean it'll have an impact on cash flow i'm going to guess pretty
minimal we can wait for the finance committee on this or I I'm personally good with this i mean um I think I Yeah wait i think Yeah I think we wait all right personal
property wait for Fincom i mean this makes sense to me i don't know that we'd need to wait on this one but sorry I just lost the 11 11 11 this is the personal property it's pretty minimal and then it just combines
things i'm sorry i thought we were just waiting on all the assessors that kind of flip by them but All right we could do that let's do that okay so 13 so we'll just go to 13 now
I will say with the finance committee as they went through the budget they were not in support of zeroing out the community program lines from the general fund um they felt that it was leaving it too much to if there aren't any donations then in a year where the taxes
are going up we could potentially not have community programs and the consensus was that it was short money they did take a vote of the finance committee and they did not vote to reduce those lines you know it just seems like it's that's
on a 13 revolving funds yeah it is yeah it is number 13 um but I don't see where I'm surprised because it just seems like that recreation it's It goes on two pages which is why it right goes over
yeah but what's getting zeroed out so so you should this article was because um there was discussion of zeroing out the community programming line in the general fund which was about
$22,000 to put community programming into the revolving fund via donations not through program fees so this is the article that would be needed to do that how many how many dollars How many How many dollars well you I don't think
you're going to know this answer but how many dollars do we bring into the recreation account on nonprograms we don't we don't we don't bring any any dollars when we have events we do we do
can I speak to that um I actually sent um Sorry i actually sent Marielle you had asked for that a while ago all the community events yeah and what money we brought in um I don't know if that was shared with anybody
anybody else on the board um but if you would like that information I can give that to you because I listed each community event and where the money comes from to um actually I have copies with me um and where the money comes
from i have uh four copies um that I can give you and it kind of explains how I do these events and where the money comes from so that's a problem
i haven't seen this great so um Danielle just before you get going I'm still confused on the context here so this is about the $300,000 in the recreation line of this
$22,000 in the rec line right that's community funding so community event budget is 7500 and then the 4th of July is 10,000 and then I think lumped into that was um
money that was in the select board community event right so these are line items that were in the operating budget that technically fall under recreation that we suggested moving into the revolving fund to reduce from the
operating to this is in an effort to bridge the gap of what we were looking at for cuts on the town side so we do get So there's 23,000 in operating budget money that's allocated to recreation right now so the
premise was we pulled out potentially correct and we're hoping we're going to find it somewhere else in the revolving account the recreation revolving account which has a limit of 300,000 so the recreation revolving account is for programs not community events right so
there is monies that go into that um particularly the summer concerts I get sponsors for the summer concerts so they if we put that into the general fund we wouldn't be able to take it out so it goes into the recrevolving account to pay for the concerts um the same thing
with um it's actually a separate account with the golf tournament we get sponsors at the golf tournament to in the golf tournament is used to help pay for Fourth of July if we if we don't have money in the
community event budget from the town that involves Pride Junth which I don't get sponsors for um it also is the holiday festival um that would affect that also and movie
nights potentially um that's all in that spreadsheet that I gave you this one here but you could potentially you might not have in the past got donations or sponsors but that's not to say that change right so what I need to say about that is you can only go to the horse
only go to the horse go to the well so many times and I do i have lists of people who give every single year to summer concerts and another list of people who give for the Fourth of July we've tried selling t-shirts we've tried
asking people for donations from the public and we don't get the amount that we need specifically Fourth of July fourth of July costs us $40,000 the town contributes $10,000 the rest of it I try to cobble
together with the with the golf tournament the golf tournament Dedesco gives it gives it to us for free every other year right on the years that they give it to us for free we probably make 22,000 on that
with sponsors um whole sponsors and um Eastern Bank is our dinner sponsor on the years that we don't get it for free which is this year we make about $10,000 on the golf
tournament so the town has in its budget $10,000 then I get $10,000 from Tedesco now we've got to come up with $20,000 i've been taking the um Swamptoberfest money that I get which
was $5,000 this year and throwing it into Fourth of July recently with Bentwater Bentwater gives us $5,000 we're going to throw that into the Fourth of July so that gives us another $10,000 now we're still short $10,000
this year we were able to use um other funds to try to bridge that gap or else we don't have fourth of July this year right so I think I think the question so this is this is where we come to a a crossroads because when I we sat down
when I sat down with Amy and Gino and Cheryl and we were actively going line by line to see what we could find we're talking about bridging a gap with the school department right and there this is the hard conversation this is this is
where it gets difficult right and you know we're talking about $40,000 on fireworks or a teacher or you know borrowing or using the revolving funds or trying to have you know some of this stuff come out from Pride Junth or you
know an ESP at the middle school so these are these are the types of questions and we could make the case that that none of these line items should be touched right you could every department head and Danielle's completely valid because she's trying to protect her department but at some point
someone has to be the adult in the room and say we're going to try to focus on finding money wherever we can to try to bridge this gap these are the hard conversations so this is part of that that's that's where this came from that's kind of like
23,000 theoretically we're pulling out 227 and hoping that somehow you'll do some magic that through event sponsorships fees whatever right we can throw that into fund and you'll be able to cover it
right and the thought process too deal scenario yeah i mean and and not to mention this was vetted by Amy and Cheryl with Gino and Pam now I don't think you're going to get four more cognizant people looking at this
budget looking to see where we could find any possible spot any possible line item any possibility so I mean we're we're we're doing the due diligence to see where we can find it it's not easy conversation can I respond to that
yeah i think it's really important when we make these cuts to any department that we have the conversation with the department head to see how that affects your department i work really hard to get the $10,000 that I do for summer
concerts now now I got to go out and try to find $20,000 for Fourth of Jul it's it's almost impossible for for me to do that and I try I I no one no one told me I had to go try to get sponsors for the
summer concerts but I did right and and I do what I need to do but it's not easy and we live in a small town and there's not that many places I can go to ask for money and I'm constantly asking for money i know so it's it's it's not an
easy thing to do and I understand we're talking about saving a teacher or or somebody i get that but we're about to ask this community to to pay more taxes right we're doing that anyway i know regardless of the Okay so we're about to
do that so the one thing that we can give our community is community and these I'm not I'm not suggest suggesting that we don't i'm actually then suggesting that your department works even harder unfortunately that's what I'm suggesting and I know that's not
easy to hear but really that's or maybe it's looking at this the way that you go about this differently and your funding sources differently to see where you can maximize revenue and do things maybe a little differently that would generate some type of revenue that we can so my
answer to that is that program fees would go up and they might have to like everything else is we're looking at everything else going up i don't I don't I don't think we're you know we're looking at fees going up everywhere right now i I think the conversation with the board last time was that program fees were not going to
supplement the community programs it's not fair to have program fees supplement community programs it's not fair you know you have you have people who have children and you're you're putting them to a paddle board program or whatever program and the whole community is going
to you know benefit from increasing those fees where I think that's a burden on a on a small group of people and I do think that there's a way to get it out of the operating budget and get it over into here but I definitely don't
think it should be on the back of of programs because it's just So then what do you suggest Mariela well I don't want to see you I don't want to see parents or whoever's taken a program paying more money to supplement full
community fees it belongs to me it belongs in the community budget so would I would I look at this and say how many dollar do I need I have to go out and get $20,000 to help offset this and right off the cuff I would think you know trying to go out and get sponsors
for some of the different events i don't understand why why is it we only get one year at Toesco is have we had more conversations i know Tedesco was very upset with us um in our communication
with them and Mhm you know I think there is enough money in the budget in the revolving account to cover this for one two years i think Amy you'll agree with me and then I think we could revisit it at that time but well then you would be changing it that you would be using
programming fees to pay for the Mhm but what you have in what what you have in that budget right now you don't think you have enough in that budget in that revolving account right now that you could cover 30 to $40,000 of fees i was
saying the conversation the board has was that you did not want programming fees to supplement the community programs right because the only money you're saying the balance is in there no not necessarily the balance that's in there could be from the revenue of what's brought in from these different
No those are on separate lines so these are on separate lines mhm i I think I mentioned this before but if there were an option like if I was signing sell up for paddle board and it was $160 a week and there was an option to stay round up
to 170 for community events that you would find a group of people who were able to do it and who would be glad to do that i'm not saying on the backs of every single person but I think that we have members of our community who would be able to do such a thing and would be
able to help to ensure that we're having movie nights and things like that like I don't want to see those things go away and I would be if I'm in a financial position I would be happy to do that i agree with Marielen not everybody's in that financial position so to put it on them as an increased fee but to ask for
it can I say something i have we we tried doing that jackie and I came up with that last year and the year before that we even offered people if you if you um donate to the Fourth of July donate 50 $50 we'll give you a free
t-shirt if you donate to the summer concert series we'll give you a free blanket we got maybe 10 people and and it's just not enough yeah i mean I you know I I I've been doing this for 20
years i I know how how much we've grown and how much we've needed to go out and get sponsorships especially for concerts because there's no money in the budget for concerts so we were able to do that
and get concert we're having a concert every single week of this summer which is great um we're going to have a movie night every Thursday night of this summer which is also great those are I I I can't say it enough those are really
really important things for our community um when I was hired I was asked to create community and I'm just asking for a little bit from the town to help me do that and I'm happy to go out i mean
Swamptoberfest I started that a few years ago with David and now it's like $5,000 we get i could have just thrown that in the recre revolving account but my thought process was this this needs it and this is money coming in from a um
a uh an event we had so let's put it towards this event and the same thing for Bentwater if I found something else if Derby Day becomes something big and we can charge people to go to it which I doubt but if we found something like that that would go into that bucket too
but we just haven't seem to find that and I don't know i I just think that that we need this it's not a lot of money okay so what about the funds from the um the marijuana shops in town
the what the community programming funds that doesn't exist well okay the community impact fee okay so the community impact fee but I mean they do pay us money for parking for what for parking right that gets
passed through the BFW well I I understand what we do today today it goes to the BFW understand that but just asking the question it would just be general fund revenue you wouldn't be able to dedicate that to a different source okay one of them Tarpine so we
just took over the garden art walk that was another thing we took on because the community really wanted it but it's going to cost us money to do it tarpine Journey did donate to that um to help us with those those costs um
so so basically as you do more cost more you need more you need Yeah yeah i mean not every not every event is a small October Fest or is it a Bent Water Day Beach which make money right which are profit right right we tried using the um third of July as a you know people pay
to get in and um boy were they mad that they did not want to pay to get into that event um they felt like it should have been a free event and so now it's a free event and you know we have people come in for the 3rd of July for that event and we essentially try to break
even on for that for that event oh yeah yeah the details alone for the 3rd of July are over $10,000 just the details okay um what about the Maybe this is Maybe you could charge for the July 4th
races no just kidding um the um we do charge you're supposed to bring candidates exactly okay yeah oh those Yeah we do charge um what about the 20,000 if we're not going to uh spend it out of uh the utility fund uh for the
Hadley that's this year's budget this would be for next year's budget that would fall to fleet free cash you don't use it or get shuffled into Gino sign so the challenge the the challenge that we have here is the finance committee has you're
saying the finance committee already voted no on this yes so we would turn around and they didn't vote no on this article voted no on zeroing out those budget lines which means they would most likely not be supportive of this part of the even our budget because we have a we do have a we have a line item we have a
line item they don't want to they don't want us to get No that's what they wouldn't take out they didn't Well there it's a collective it's a collection of of line items it's four different lines they did not zero out any of them right and they said no at all well I'd love to hear what they suggest then and where they think if they if they want to vote no on that shouldn't come out i'd love
to hear their suggestions on how we're gonna get there i really would all right so the second part of this article um which I believe would stay is um the public library revolving fund this is for printing services at the
library um due to the cost of the ink and the machines they are asking for an increase in the spending limit what is that to 5,000 yeah it was 3500 they're looking to go to 5,000 so I I wouldn't think that the finance
committee's I think we could make a motion on that well oh wait but it's all connected it's all one article oh Jesus all right so how are you going to separate this out then well we
can it's a select board's warrant so well we'll have to just make an amendment just make an amendment to the article article to remove the first yeah I can I can either separate it into two articles or you can wait for tomorrow night to see if what's finance
wants to do with the top or you can just right now decide to eliminate the top half and just keep the bottom half um why don't we just amend does anybody What other opinions do people have there
feels like 60 and a half dozen the other at this point let's just amend feels like why don't I just if you could just amend it and then add it into the into the warrant before they get it you want me to just delete out the top half
i Well I don't I personally don't see I don't see any way getting around it but I don't you know I think if Danielle if you feel like we should be going back and putting more pressure on them no I don't have a solid I'd love to hear their recommendations i
would love to hear how they suggest and propose we fully fund the schools i would love to hear it so no I I don't think we need to push back they want to go ahead and it then I would love to hear I would love to hear what they suggest and what they recommend so on
this article on this article right here do you have any recommendation on how you want to see this article addressed i do not know okay so why don't we just eliminate the top leave it at the bottom and then we can um
Okay so we can make it so do we want to make a motion to um accept the increase in the 3 to 5,000 on the revolving account for library second all in favor carries okay appropriation for chapter 90
roadways improvements so this is the routine article that's there every year this is so routine do we need to wait for them on this motion to motion to recommend favorable action 14 okay all in favor i All right amendment authorized appropriation
of capital projects so this is what I Where is Patrick well this is the one that I had sent um in the email with regards to the BFW after my discussion with uh our facilities director so
this is reauthorizing two projects that were already previously authorized for borrowing um for the purpose of 89 borrow street design and construction and that way if there is funds left over after design it's already there to segue for
construction okay this sounds good can we have a motion for this so moved second is this Why would we not wait for finance committee on this well we're we're reaffirming We're only reaffirming a vote we already Right an
allocation we already took right you're just reauthorizing we're reauthorizing the bonding we can if you want we can wait would you like to wait uh feels like that's the theme that we've been using but you know well I think we're using that on things that we have to This seems like it's a
no-brainer but if you want to wait on that okay do you want to wait Doug sure okay appropriations or physical 2026 recommended capital projects the finance committee hasn't voted capital yet they'll be doing that tomorrow um I do
have something to say on this on the the concern that I have is waiting on the windows where is the solar on here 35 right so I you
know the the windows at the middle school on that back wall right there they are so bad well then so the so the windows are on here but administrator recommended is zero right
right so so this was something that after the this was not something the town administrator didn't recommend it was Max had it later in a future year and then when the con when the burns were brought up the kids
can freeze for another year he he pulled he pulled some of it forward i thought to be fair I thought it had to do with the fact that if we were doing a greater renovation at the middle school that we would be jeopardizing funding related to that renovation to do this great of a
project so close to that funding yes so all I'm this is this is all I'm asking and I'll I'll call Max tomorrow whoever just the back the back the wall that's facing the bowl the wall that's facing the bowl which is in the worst condition possible if there's any chance we could
even just replace that wall to take some funding to do that wall and to skim it out of the solar panels is there any way I I just want to revisit the conversation that's all well we did I think Max asked for $190,000 to do the
design the design for everything right right so that's a design for everything and then we have to then we're going to have to wait even longer i'm just trying to He said the design would get be able to give him the ability to come back at our December town meeting with that
recommendation you come back to December town meeting yeah that means we're going to have to refigure some of these numbers here because when we come to December we're not going to have any money on for debt but the 190 is not it you're not 190 is right here it's on 40 it's on line 46 46
but it's zero no but he recommended i understand that oh yeah from grants on Max you said Max right so so after the town administrator had made his recommendation it goes to capital improvement and that was when Max then
pulled it forward okay but again Max had this in the capital improvement plan for years to come and not this particular year and CIC moved it clo closer in time yes yes so then Katie would you feel comfortable that there was not some
negative ramification of doing this piece then i think that I think that Max said there will be right yes there will be a negative implication to pulling it closer in time okay so we need we need we need more i want you to know that I was ramification is what the 190s you
know what's really really disconcerting is that we talk about things and we constantly say we need more information why the heck don't we have the people here that we need the information from in advance of this meeting it is a waste of time we and we do need this
information and we have a whole bunch of question marks all night about different things and you know it's just not an efficient use of time and it's frustrating i I agree with you D okay good it really is if we know we need we have questions about capital and and about the schools why don't we request
Max to be here why aren't we doing that why aren't we being proactive so we can get these answers right capital just finalized their vote this afternoon at 11 o'clock yes so then we should know the answer to that if they just finalize at 11:00 someone
should be able to tell me conclusively what will happen if we fund the middle school window replacement what will happen what's the trigger effect for a long-term middle school project like we're just spinning our wheels here right like it just doesn't make sense to me
can I interject i'm sorry this is Patrick i am on the call all right so I'm hearing your questions about the middle school windows i think I have some of the answers so I will speak up and hopefully provide them thank you Patrick so the middle school window
project if we pull that out of the larger middle school renovation and bring it out into FY26 and FY27 what we give up is MSBA support for that project so if those windows are $2 million all in with design and we had
that lumped in with our middle school renovation project we would get 40% of that funded by the state um given the condition of the windows it's the recommendation of the facilities director and the school department that they can't wait and that it needs to be taken care of sooner even though we have
the major renovation project scheduled for I think 2030 on the schedule and when the MSBA looks at repair repair projects um such as a standalone windows project if you apply for support from
MSBA for a repair project and you have a major repair on the 10ear horizon for the same building you jeopardize your funding for the larger project they won't fund both so to do the windows in 26 and 27 with design funded for FY26
and construction in FY27 we would have to support that cost locally through most likely a debt issue um but it's the opinion of the facilities director that it has to happen um so that's his recommendation the capital improvement
committee agreed and I think the recommendation of the capital improvement committee is to fund $190,000 of design so that we can do construction in summer of 26 and that aligns with what Max originally proposed which was a $2 million project scheduled
in FY26 but really he was just looking for the authorization because the project will take two years you have to do design and then construction the following summer when the building's not con um occupied excuse me so I think
what we have here is uh accomplishes the same thing that the school originally asked for it addresses the immediate issue that I think has been talked about a lot with the condition of the school and um but to answer your question the the loss is that you don't get state
support for this project in particular but we could get it still for the later much larger project so so on the much larger here's here's a little bit of we're hearing I who is we need to have a lot more clarity on the on the much
larger project because I really need to understand is who is thinking that we're going to do this much larger project in 2030 and how is that really going to sit how is that going to sit with our finances because 2030 is just in a few years
right um so it's been on the plan it's in the debt forecasts that finance committee has all of that um but we do have to have a lot more conversations about that I think as a community as that gets closer because you're looking at um debt service for a project like that even with the state support that
could will um rival what we just took on for the elementary school or exceeded so right that's that's a much larger conversation you'd be looking for a debt exclusion from the town at a ballot so um yes that has to be talked about more
but that's um the windows are you know recommended to be pulled forward for this warrant so in reality 2030 is not a realistic expectation for a major renovation at that middle school if you're lucky 2035 or 2040 is really what
you're talking about so that just that just further necessitates the need for these windows exactly you've needed for years right so you know it's it's a no-brainer but this 190 is is solely just the planning of it so these the
design of it they're not going to see new windows for two years is what we're what we're talking about next summer so not they're going to start next summer so you know you're you're still talking about you know by by allocating this 190 now means they're still you know going
to wait two almost two years for windows is that fair to say Patrick yes and in my conversations with Max um you know if we funded the whole $2 million in this warrant it still wouldn't be done for two years because you have to do design and then the work
can't be done when the building's occupied right so well I'm glad it's going to at least get started so I just think it not to say that the work doesn't have to get done it's just when we make these decisions we should be clear that like the sacrifice of the
decision is $800,000 that we could have received in funding from MSBA to offset you know the 6040 split potentially on this project and if we really don't think we're going to do the middle school project although it's on the horizon to to be done if we're not going
to be doing it for 10 years because it's not likely to pass in town for 10 years which is unfortunate but probably realistic then why wouldn't we go to MSBA for funding for this project because it's not likely that we'll be touching these windows for 10 years right well we can still have that conversation we can put the 190 in but
we still have that conversation right put the 190 in put the 190 in either way yeah right okay so thank you Patrick you're welcome thank you Patrick all right so moving on to
Article 17 Community Preservation Act doug you um you sent out the recommendations i did but it's not in here y it it's going to be added to appendix A
um I think KP got it and started reviewing if it wasn't complete to add into the appendex yet okay so we can just I think was there anybody that wasn't in agreement with what um Doug had sent out well the only thing is that I think you then sent
something around a summary or Dian did or whatever and it still had the two appointees from the select board and our conversation seemed like there was a desire to have one of those be from CIC right and then just one left so I don't know if
I can make that up okay if that is that the consensus of the group yep that's my collection so just for the record can you just um go over what you had um sent to us say it out loud right now yes uh well
the required are uh what's in here conservation Commission Planning Board historical commission housing authority and board of park commissioners which is our open space and rec committee and then uh there would be one from finance committee uh one from affordable housing
trust um and then there were going to be then there will be one appointee from the select board and there will be CIC okay so and twoear terms yep max five terms and
you wanted staggered terms no no okay not staggered okay i mean if town council feels extremely strongly about that that's I suppose that's fine but it did just seem necessary
all right so even though we don't have that here but you did say it can we do people feel comfortable voting on it i do okay we have a motion so moved second second katie you okay with that all
right all in favor hi hi okay um article 18 Earth Removal Advisory Committee uh this was just a change of language to remove one member from the planning board all right so can I have um a motion
and this is supported by the planning board they're the ones supported by everybody so motion to uh have favorable action on the article second second all in favor i article 19 um well Danielle just left so this is
um one that I think Marielle and you had forwarded from a resident john Picarella john Picarillo okay y um and in my discussions with KP Law they just said they weren't sure what the purpose was
and they wanted to make sure we're careful with the language because they said one there's no penalty right um for the enforcement they said "Do we just want the enforcement measure?" But they said "We also might want to look at the language to make sure that we're
being careful because you know how are we delineating a group is there you know six kids after school playing on the field and are they going to be removed and how is that being determined?" So so my understanding is to
uh is to limit the amount of leagues leagues like group playing like group you have two teams playing full teams playing and using the field and not um contributing back to the field whereas you can take a permit out you you can pull a permit it's your permit it's your
time and your field and I think the purpose on not I think the purpose of this is to when the police come out to say where's your permit the police are now they have the authority to say you you can't be here without a permit or there's somebody here with a permit they have to go on
the permit right now the police don't have that authority the way the language is now KP is saying if there are four kids after school playing on this field they would also be removed in the same way as those two leagues so that would be the discretion of the
police then right I feel like we should really flush this out a little bit more because I I feel like we this could turn into discriminatory i just Yeah I feel like there's an open space element that we're totally missing here
uh the right to be able to be outdoors and use spaces i understand that these are our spaces that we pay to maintain them and but like are you saying like residents are going to be self-reporting by the looks of people on the field that they can't be there like I don't want to
get go down that road and so I just think we need to have more conversations about this before we Okay so we'll report back on this we'll get um we'll get John yeah we can have we can have
him show up i I just I just know that from using upper Jackson and and the track there had been you know there there were large groups teams that were coming in uh they were parking uh illegally on
Carson Terrace uh they were leaving trash they were um you know causing damage to the field and we just want to make sure that to and to encourage them to pull a permit so that it's not to keep people from using fields but to
well is there according according to only swamp scout people can use swamp school districts municipal recreation I think if you have a few kids playing soccer or playing football or playing frisbee that's one thing but if you're having like a team with well we just have to make sure that this reflects that that right now right now it says
nobody no anybody should be able to group organization and if there's No fee related to the permit like you could just go get a permit for $0 is that No it's a field there is a fee what's that charge it's held by the school i'd have to Yeah
ad does it right yeah it's different but there are leagues that come and play at Philips Park outside yeah okay all right i just We should probably make sure all fields too right if we're talking fees cover the like if we're here to prevent damage and make sure the fields are in good
condition for the taxpayers to utilize then we should make sure that the fees then that the a the athletic director is charging right actually covers those so right part of the issue is I get a call from John every single Sunday afternoon group up there is my only issue it's
we've closed the field to swamp scar groups because of rain because we know the field and there's others up there the police don't have the right to a there's no enforcement there's no right well there are no guidelines there is no nothing bylaw so yeah I mean can there
not be some signage posted at the fields to say the fields are closed due to inclement weather do that we also have sign that says field use by permit only right to stop anybody but at least if it says if it says the fields I don't know I think we need to understand the process too because I don't have any
idea you know what how the ad reserves what her guidelines there if she's got written rules if she's telling people what the rules are trash this that and the other i mean does anybody know does anybody I mean we probably should know all that before we try to implement something we definitely have a permit
form that we worked on together so but whether it speaks to like different you know rates take out for trash where you park okay yeah then that that should give the police the necessary enforcement right there right chief is saying no alen I want to hear
from the chief right i want to understand where the disconnect is without the bylaw he's not for the same reason you said he doesn't want to be discriminatory there's no way of kicking these guys off yeah right i get it and now we're doing it
town meetings town meetings so I just say in fairness that's the only thing I'm coming from being in charge of the fields we spend an awful lot of money on those fields maintain and they get beat up pretty bad was a number one overuse and use when you
shouldn't be on the field but are we going to lose revenue if we restrict it to just Savot too well we should we shouldn't restrict it to we don't so they don't get revenue from outside leagues no no we get revenue from outside leagues not swamps right that's what I'm saying if we
restrict swamps leagues because you charge them all the user fee any sport and then once in a while we u rent out the turf field but never for a grass field okay all right just think we need a little bit more time here yeah it's 10 o'clock
10 o'clock all right moving on um article establish the fall meeting fall town meeting the think we could that's easy we have a motion for that so move second all in favor motion carries
town meeting minimum member vote so last meeting there was a discussion on whether this should be five or 10 um I don't even think we should have this article in here and my opinion is if if
people don't want to be on town meeting if their names come up they're not going to show up it's going to be an empty seat so you know I do know that my neighbors who are now on a couple serious committees they had a ride in and I don't even think they had four names and um they got on so and they
carried on but I don't know i think that'll just flush out itself i don't I I don't even want to see this you want to strike this that's just my opinion i won't I would like to keep it uh I think I think there is some value in having a minimum vote requirement i I don't know
if that number is 10 uh maybe that number is five um but I I think there is some I I I think there's some value uh and merit to to having the conversation does anybody else have an opinion
i think um I think 10 is too high i think five uh seems more reasonable and at the same time you know if it's not on there it's not um it's life or death to me but I mean I do think it makes sense because we you do have people getting in
with three you two that didn't even want to be in so it's like what are you bothering for you know what I mean there should be some minimum then are they even are they even going i know they're not right then if they are going maybe they show up and become engaged citizens yeah that's why but a lot of times
somebody just writes their neighbor and they say h Yeah jones that does happen and then in this is what happened to my husband right but nobody's back but getting back to it it's not that they're not they're not losing they're not losing it nobody's losing out right
that's why I think that that's why I think this is but yeah I think probably for every person who doesn't show there's a person who is like okay well this is a good person to be on town meeting and I wrote their name in and now they show up and now they're engaged and Yeah yeah i
don't I don't is the number and then we Yeah I I could and the town clerk was supportive of five 10 was just the standard across other communities but he said "All right it's two." The question is should we go to five or nothing let's
move it to five five okay so then motion motion to support the article as amended to five all in favor i Oh do we have a second second second okay all in favor i I discharged to sanitary sewers so this one and the following one are
from the uh water sewer infrastructure advisory committee can I just note I have to say those last two we voted to support they have this note saying that they're in rough draft and still related legal issues so maybe can we amend our votes just
saying approval by KP you will be able to review the whole thing and commend your votes before you close okay all right uh prohibited discharge of sanitary sewers all right so what is it the comment here
we received additional information this afternoon what does that mean not been reviewed this is town council saying that all right so we can't even comment on this until we really can't comment 22 and 23 is the same thing one day additional info but can we do we know
what that information is yeah it' be a great great question i don't maybe Liz Right i just forwarded to to Tom Mcin today okay okay okay all right so Monday so that has to wait till
you all right we're cruising he doesn't go so Monday's I just want to say Monday's meeting is at 8:30 in the morning and I stated that I have a hard out at 9:30 so no I have to go to my day job Doug that pays my bills you don't have that off i
wish I was running the marathon fulltime no I am not i am a full-time mom and attorney and then I do this on the side so um just to say it okay there's a lot of things being deferred okay what are we looking at here for preservation of historically significant buildings
boy I'm probably supposed to something about this what do they come in with their new wording or not huh this This was the one that we boot I think let's boot this one up what because it
if here's what what they got was not a red line version all right so can we remove this and just put this into the fall no I don't know no let's let's get the red line for Monday i mean that Yeah
all right so when you go to close the warrant any article that is not complete or ready to go will have to be deleted off so you don't have to do it okay okay all right accessory dwelling please confirm the appendix number yep
that was already confirmed so 25 is good and the second that's one with the say okay so do we have a motion danielle just motion all in favor i Okay doug Doug has a discussion moment i just Is this just to make it in concert
with state law yeah yes yeah okay thank you this was Ted julie was here on this and the planning board already voted on oh he never left okay all right uh keep an eye on that one just for the clarify all the governor's uh bill okay thank
you okay the flood plane wetland protection coastal overlay district zoning article 26 mr douly did you spoke on this at the last one the last meeting motion to approve second second all in favor i
article 22nd site plan special permit zoning bylaw mr douly spoke on this he did there's one minor change when I last spoke to you the final version approved by the board Monday night um eliminated special permit requirements or
instituted special permit requirements for any new build in Swampscott uh reduced the special permit requirement from 800 to an addition of 500 square feet and also instituted a special permit requirement for any new build or construction in the flood area
overlay district so those were the the last part the new um per requirement in the flood area overlay district is an update from when I last spoke to you okay so the the what what's the rationale for all that that's all seems like tighter control
so uh for the new build and the additions yes it's to have to it's to require any of the buildings that would need to any of the applicants to come before the planning board for site plan review for any new construction in Swampscott or any addition of 500 gross
square gross square footage or larger um just to go through the standard site plan special permit criteria the idea for the flood plane overlay district uh was to ensure that any of the construction in that zone would not only meet the additional building code
requirements so it would have to do by law through the building commissioner but also had additional scrutiny from the planning board to ensure it met the site plan review uh criteria as well given that area of um town has additional scrutiny requirements that we
have enacted through the first uh bylaw that we just discussed the firm map updates article 26 yes so we don't have to vote on this tonight i mean if you want to take more time it just has to um just has to be in the in the war
written pretty written the way we want it written and just to clarify the the planning board did vote unanimously to support all three of those articles so I mean I personally most feel like I could vote but do you the rest of you feel like you could vote or do you want to take some
time everyone else is doing it i'll do it too don't be peer pressure don't be peer pressure stand your ground i mean I trust the planning board but it's just since there was a change I feel like I should make sure I really digest that but I'm sure it's fine okay motion to have favorable action second second all
in favor hi hi okay and the citizen citizens petition we don't uh we don't say anything on that i know we don't take favorable action or anything on that but is there some data we can have about if we if we I'm working with the town clerk to put
together um how many public records requests we get um how many of them are you know simple requests that get answered in a short time frame which ones require legal review and all of that okay great yeah I really want to see the dollar amounts that were spent
on on those i mean I can give you legal i can give you how much we've paid with legal so far but Well I know on one of them just a portion one of them that was around the board of assessors was close to 20 hours of KP law
was legal but it's also time from the clerk and also supplies if like they're making copies or doing anything like that i think everything goes electronically mostly nowadays but um Okay review and discussion of the FY26
proposed budget do you know you and Amy i mean not to sound Yeah I was going to put that off i hope we could add that to an executive session we're going to be having where it's all the personnel
uh we have to we have to find out I'm not sure there's a I'm not really sure we'd have to find out okay you'll have to call You'll have to call KP and just give them whatever your question is as to whether or not that
falls in line with an executive session okay all right so um votes of the board approval of consent um the only Oh my sheet doesn't even have the consent is there any consent
back did I miss it there is oh yeah back uh it's not all right so I I didn't get a chance to go over the minutes i just want to remove the minutes put them for next time i I don't think there was anything else in there other than the minutes right it's right here huh
there's no Yeah it's here okay all right so I just want to like to u put this on the next agenda so that's the only thing that's in the consent is the is the minute the minutes all right so select board
time my agenda stops oh here did we post select time on the agenda we did well okay because it's not it's not on our agenda so I just want to make sure we got one page being very thrifty i'm on the website
and it is on there okay thank you yeah because it's all right tab so select board time Danielle um God what am I going to say i don't honestly it's been so long um I am curious to hear the budget update from
Gino Cresa when we get there be it in executive session or publicly i would prefer it publicly because I really am interested to see where we're at and how exactly we are going to move forward this board gave a very clear vote for
for nothing to support to fully fund the school budget and I want to know how we're going to get there and I'd like an update on that not now you don't have to do it right now but I think that we have to be cognizant of where we are in the process
and we're we're behind and we need to I I don't know what more support you can get than the support that was given by this four members of this board so um yeah that's that's that's my prime concern that's my the budget is my prime
concern we have a lot of things going on but there is nothing more pressing in my mind than that so and there are a lot of moving pieces certainly but um we we really need to we we need to come to a conclusion and wrap up this process it's been a very long process and I think
it's been a very um I think it's been good it's been it's a process we've never engaged in before we have involved the finance committee the select board and the school committee um we've asked the school committee many questions many people have they've given honest answers
and um now it's up to us now it is up to us to make it happen and I don't know what else we need to do or what other votes we need to take to get this moving in the direction it should be and it's not going to be easy and again I've done a lot of the work i've done a lot of
research um I've dug in as much as I can and I need everybody else to come up to step up to the plate and do the same right and that goes for us that goes for the finance committee who are experts in their fields if they are going to tell me that no we can't do this this and
this I certainly hope they're going to tell me what they can do because I'm real tired of hearing what people don't want to do and how easily they can say no in this town to certain things it is about time we said yes to some things right and again I want to thank the school committee and the school
department for their transparency in this process because I really do feel they have gone above and beyond they have been asked questions over and over and over and they have stated those answers honestly so I respect that i respect them for doing that i'm trying
to show them the courtesy they are showing they've been showing us for the past three months since the beginning of this process um really and it's time for for someone to step up and lead this thing because I really feel like um we're we're you know we're like a ship
without a harbor here right we're we're wavering and we're not we're finding a lot of really easy ways to say no but nobody is really coming to the table with what we can do other than and I want to thank Amy and Cheryl and again
Gino and Pam for that for sitting down and really trying to get to the heart of it and I understand department heads like Danielle who's working her tail off to do what she needs to do for recreation you know and again there are going to be hard conversations but um we resoundingly made a
decision last time we met and we're you know so now we need to follow through that's my take Doug i'm all set thanks David danielle said a lot of what I was was going to
say so that's that's it for me katie um one thing I will say that we didn't get to say when John McGofflin was still here is how great he is about acknowledging the summer help at the DPW and when he posts on Facebook or you know posts the beautiful pictures around
town he's always posting it with the the folks who helped him do it and I he's not here but hopefully he'll watch us and I just want to acknowledge him for that he's definitely asleep right now good for him he's a good man he really is he's great
he's really good he's a really good man walk into the DPW office and he's got a picture of him with all the summer help doing certain jobs over the years with the dates they were working at he buys him lunch he's done so much so much you know he's so deserving of that award
really he's humble too yeah want to show up tonight no okay and uh I'm good too so motion to adjurnn second all in favor bye