Hello. Are we good to go? Okay. Okay. Hold on one second. Okay. All right. Um, first I'd like to welcome everybody to the uh May 7th, 2025 select board meeting and Before we start, I
just want to say thank you to Ethan Rancatler, Nate Bishin, and Nathan Kent for bringing us our meeting tonight. Um, I also want to thank we have special kids here that are going to lead the pledge of allegiance. And so, if
everybody please join us in the pledge of allegiance. Okay, are we ready? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic
for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Wait, before you before you go, can you just tell us?
Okay, Mikey Harie. Thank you. Nice job. All right. Good job. Thank you. Okay. So, we have a just a minor hiccup
tonight with Katie Failen is uh rushing through traffic, so we could have a 15 minutee delay. So, um, might even be 20 minutes, but I think just 15. So, what we are going to do is we're just going to skip the swearing in until she gets here. We're go we'll go to public
comment and then, um, we'll follow part of the agenda and as soon as she gets here, we'll stop the agenda and break in the swearing in. Okay. All right. So, do we have anybody here for public comment? Rachel,
Mikey's mom. Mikey's mom better known as um Rachel Terodash 71 Middle A good evening. I'm here to speak to you tonight about school buses. For the first year of the new elementary school sponsored school buses for families
living 1.6 miles or more from the new elementary school. I'm grateful to say that my children have taken that bus every single day with the exception of one timing mishap. Uh they were there at time for breakfast which as you all know
is free for all children. Last week, families who are less than two miles from SCS were notified that we will not receive bus service for next year. I'm here to ask for your help in increasing bus availability for elementary school next year instead of decreasing it. Families impacted by this change include
a large number of families surrounding the Clark School, potentially going back as far as Essex Street and Stson. Many of these families, including my own, have two working parents, which is what allows us to continue to live here. Without the bus, our children would have
to cross Paradise Road, a road where cars don't stop for red lights or even other cars. 2020 to 2024 data from Mass DOT indicates that accidents on Paradise Road account for onethird of the accidents in Swampscott. This averages
nearly one accident per week, as many of those are major accidents, including a recent rollover. Without the bus, more children will either need to walk or be driven to school, which is a potentially huge increase in traffic to the area surrounding the elementary school.
Without truly a heavy bucket campaign against the goofy ripples, which is without the bus, parents who have been working, able to continue working throughout the day, will now have to take time off of work to drop off and pick up their children. Increased bus
service means safer routes to school for young children. It means fewer cars on the road. It means working parents can keep working. We want to continue to encourage families to move to Swampscott and to be able to afford to live here. Providing safe transportation to and
from school will help to make this possible. I had a discouraging conversation with Mr. Pastor on Monday. He made it very clear that in the school committee's opinion, the bus was a nice to have and not a need. He also made it clear that even if the select board was able to allocate more money to the
school department, it would not be used for a bus. He stated that he does not know of any plans there are for ensuring safe crossing across Paradise Road, and that was an issue for the police department. I've been in contact with a number of families about this. One of
them shared, and this is a quote, "There are so many parents that would partake in this." But for whatever reason, the school committee, school department just seemed to shrug and act like it's not their problem when parents with jobs, meaning most of us, are struggling with
transportation. I'm not asking for a magical $100,000. I know the budget is lean everywhere. But I'm here to ask you to consider this request. And instead of a knee-jerk no, I'm asking you instead to say, "What if we could?" and to work with families, the school committee, and
the school department to do everything we can to find a way to increase bus access for swamps families. Thank you, Rachel. Mikey is going to stay for the meeting. He has a sleep stud.
Thank you. Um, Eric Schneider. uh 480 Pton Road. As always, thank you for your service. I wanted to follow up on the sewer project and the lateral repairs. Um as you know, the sewer mains or town property and sewer laterals are responsibility of the
property owner. Uh as in response to public records requests that I've shared with the select board revealed that as part of phase one of the Stacy Brook rehab project, 470 laterals were inspected and repaired at a cost of over 2.5 million. And the current fisherman's
beach project is projected to have 57 laterals inspected and repaired at a total cost of over $600,000. That's a total over $3 million of town funds spent on repairing private property. I don't think that this is a good use of taxpayer funds for the
benefit of a few property owners. I doubt that the repair of private property was part of the scope of the project approved by the CIC prior town meetings or you know in the case of the use of ARPA funds by the select board. Um, and in addition, I had some thoughts on some of the upcoming town meeting
warrants um, related to the sewer projects, article 23 and 24, the sewer discharge and the lateral inspection requirements. You know, these are clearly important and timely, but they're not quite thought through. Um, both of these articles lack an
enforcement mechanisms and clarity on the acrual of the fines. So, is each day a violation or is each discharge a violation? Is just each connection a violation? and regardless for how long it continues. And you know, the article 24 references a state regulation 310 CMR
title 1500. And in there they have uh much more detailed requirements of when the inspection right is triggered. And that regulation relates to um septic systems. And what's missing in ours is, you know, it's there's a reference, but
they're not all included. For instance, if there's a condominium that um has a sewer line, if there is a transfer of property, does that mean the whole condominium or each unit? And if each unit, does it have to be inspected each time? Uh if you look at the regulations that I also shared with select board,
there's some good language in there that we probably should consider adopting. But if the goal is to improve the water quality at the beaches, inspect as many sewer laterals as quickly as possible, maybe waiting for a sale is not the right way to do it, uh, but rather setting a timeline five or 10 years out
where everyone has to do it. Um, since if you look at how many sales happen in Swamscott and how many might be excluded because of, you know, their interf family or transfer to trust, uh, of the 470 transfers that are listed on sale in registry of deeds, the last year, over 180 were for less than $100. So
presumably those are intraf family transfers. Um the article proposing an annual fall town meeting is a great idea except that um then the charter and in the bylaws there's several references to the annual
town meeting and if you have two annual town meetings then which one do the bylaws and the charter um cross reference? So I sent a proposal over that maybe at at the town meeting next in two weeks we could say that the annual town meeting shall be the third
Monday in May and then the annual fall town meeting shall meet in the first Monday in December. Um and then on article 20, you know, I know you guys had lots of discussions on that on the 21st. Uh but the scope of this bylaw u is very broad and as it's written, it
prohibits any person from using any park or facility um without a permit, which is not what was intended, but that's what's written and that's what we're looking at. So, if you were going to change it, um, please change it soon so the town meeting members have some time
to look at it, uh, and not amend it, you know, the night of. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Steiner. Next, Dana Wstrom, 61 Prospect Street. Uh last week, Swampscott voters once
again made their voices heard and did so with clarity. By reing reelecting Mary Ellen Fletcher and Katie Failen, the town reaffirmed its support for steady values driven leadership grounded in transparency, collaboration, and
respect. At the same time, the voters rejected a campaign built on personal tax, selective storytelling, and misrepresentations. We saw statements pulled out of context, facts twisted in an effort to seow distrust. But Swanscott has seen through
this brand of politics and chosen a better path. Writing this and saying this isn't easy. It's uncomfortable because it risks sounding like the same tactics voters have rightly rejected. That's not my intention. But
when the tone and tenor of a campaign and just in general governance in this town seek to divide rather than build, it's important to acknowledge that and recognize the strength it takes for a town to reject it. Disagreements are natural and in any community. They're
even healthy. But what matters is how we work through those differences with respect, with facts. Excuse me. Please be respectful. With respect. Please And with the goal of finding resolution,
not fueling resentment. The election results reflect more than just individual wins and losses. They signal a broader shift. Over the past four cycles, candidates aligned with that approach have struggled. One incumbent failed to re reach 900 votes. Another
bar barely held a seat against the firsttime challenger. This is not a fluke. This is a town clearly moving in a new direction. Swanskid is asking for leadership that brings people together even when opinions differ. Leadership that listens more than it lectures. That's why the select board should
reflect the values of this community and elect Katie Failen as chair and Danielle Leonard as vice chair. Two leaders who have consistently shown integrity, thoughtfulness, and a commitment to the common good. Let's move forward not by pretending differences don't exist, but by rising above the tactics that divide
us. The voters have spoken. Now it's time for the select board to reflect that message. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else for public comment? Hello. Um, Miguel Contras, uh, precinct
1, 46 Buista, school committee member, not speaking for the committee. Um, I just had questions uh around the Burpee Road um change that I've been hearing about it becoming a one-way and just trying to get more information around
that part. Just seeing which way is it going to be a oneway, if it's a one way up. Uh, I feel like that's going to be tricky because your only ways to get out of the neighborhood would be at Tony Lennena's or at the antique table, which both are very awful intersections and
don't have a light. Uh but if it's coming down Burpee Road, then I can kind of see that working out. Um and kind of going with some of the parking uh residential things that are going on in there. So just kind of seeing, have we
done a traffic study around any of that? um to just see which way is better. And if we're going to go up, are we going to add any traffic lights into the other outlets to try to make it a little bit easier to get out since there is a
school bus route that goes through there as well? So, I just want to make sure that we're not impacting any of that uh for education wise so kids don't get there late. Um, but also for the people in the neighborhood that have to get to work, cuz I can tell you going towards the antique table exit, uh, it can take
a while. It's a blind corner. You just floor it and go and hope for the best. Um, so just want to see if we can discuss that at some point in the future as well. Thank you. Is there anyone else for public comment? Bill Dementoto.
Okay, Mr. Dementoto. One second. Hey, Bill. Bill, you can unmute yourself. Okay. The camera obviously work. I just wanted to let you know that on my iPad
there's no video coming through. Is that just me or is that the world? There is current I know you people love to be seen on TV. Hold on a second. I don't see anything. There's some video on Teams right now. There is currently no video on Microsoft Teams.
Unfortunately, it is available on YouTube, Facebook, and the town uh local channel. Got that bill. Okay. So, I got Thank you. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Is there anyone else left for
public comment? Right. So, seeing no one for public comment, we're just going to move very quickly over the swearing in of the newly elected select board members. Seeing as how the one of the newly elected select board members is here. Ready? All right.
Stand up. All right. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. I solemnly swear thou faithfully and impartially discharge faithfully and discharge all
the duties incumbent upon me all the duties and incumbent upon me as a member of the select board. as a member of the service for the town of Swampscott town of Swamp in accordance with the bylaws of the town in accordance with the bylaws of the town the laws of the
Commonwealth laws of the Commonwealth and the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the United States of America of America to the best of my ability to the best of my ability. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Did do you want to say
anything? No. Neither do I. So, all right. So, thank you very much for coming down and um I hope you stay for our public hearing. We are going to be addressing in our first public hearing. Who are we addressing here?
TA selection committee. Uh oh, I'm sorry. Yes, we I'm so sorry. We have the TA selection committee is going to give us an update. I always missed that number one. Yeah. Hey everyone. Uh I'm Tivvon Amore. Uh and I'm here on behalf of the TA
selection committee to give you a quick update on our progress um and what our schedule is going forward. So, um, since kicking off the town administrator selection, uh, search, um, at the end of February, we've created
and launched an RFP for the TA search firm. Uh, we've reviewed proposals, identified and hired an experienced search firm to lead the search. That firm is Grew White. And, um, as of last week, we've agreed on a process and timeline with Grewite. Uh, so now going
forward, here's the schedule uh, that we've agreed on. I'm also happy to share this in writing with you all. So, our very next step is to engage the community in an online survey to give our residents input uh in this process. It will generally cover three things. One, what characteristics our
community members are looking for in our next town administrator. Two, which issues our community members would like our town administrator to focus on most. And three, generally what our community members would like our committee to keep in mind while we go through this
process. So on May 9th um this week we intend to launch the community survey. Um May 28th uh after a couple weeks uh we expect the job posting to go live with help from Grew
White. July 11th Grew White will present us the selection committee with their picks for candidates uh for us to interview. And 10 days later on the 21st of July, we'll conduct interviews with
all of those folks. One week from there, we will meet to discuss the interviews. Now, ideally, if we all have some sort of consensus and it's pretty clear who the the the front runners are, we may be able to on
the on the 21st um make our selections, but we're going to give ourselves a little bit of of pad there. And so we expect by the 28th we will have um consensus or at least a decision on who we're going to move forward in the process and then um by August 4th we
expect to present the final three to five candidates to the select board for their consideration. So as you may notice this plan puts us beyond the initial timeline of the charter uh which expires at the end of May right now. So, we'd like to
request our first extension of 30 days. Uh, you may also notice that we will probably have to ask for more extensions as per this uh current uh uh schedule. So, we just want to acknowledge that we'll probably need the additional two extensions provided for in the charter
um to get this completed by uh April, excuse me, by August. So, you have questions? I do. Yeah. Um, thank you very much for coming and thank you for all the time that you've already put in, I'm sure, um, with this massive task that we've given to you guys. My
biggest concern is that the community is actively engaged in as robust a manner as possible. So, I know that you mentioned that there'll be an online survey. Is there any other vehicle or mechanism to engage members of the community that might not be able or
comfortable to take an online survey? Is there something, you know, that can be placed in the senior center, the schools, anything that really will get as much input as possible because that's kind of my primary driver. I want to hear from what people in town really
want to see so that we can guide what we're going to do going forward. That's definitely something that we can we can talk about as a committee. Um, do you have any suggestions for what type of format we would use? So other than online, um I mean I know it it you know
a lot of people don't use pen and paper anymore and and literally in person, but perhaps a member of the committee um can make themselves available at some locations in town. Perhaps the senior center, the library, um places that people, you know, frequent that they can
come down on a c here's a day we're going to be available here for anyone that wants to fill out a survey in person. um you know where perhaps there's an email box set up um if you know someone isn't comfortable taking a survey if they have questions that aren't part of the survey that they want
to still offer their opinions and just something that where people could reach out if they feel the need um or point person on the committee however you guys want to decide that I just want to make sure that we're we're leaving no stone unturned in terms of engaging the public
because this is um probably one of the biggest decisions you know in the past five years, right? Or or the future five years. So, I want to make sure as many people have an opportunity to voice whatever opinion they have about it. Um, my second area of question is I I saw an
email come around where um Mr. White, I think, was asking for our opinion on members of the community to interview. So, I mean, if you ask all five of us, I'm sure we're going to come up with two different people for all of us, right? So I'm kind of trying to understand the
thought process um behind that so that I can really think about who you know who who I would suggest. I mean that's kind of that's a difficult one. So I want to understand what what the thought process is there. Right. So um just to make it clear what the request is um Mr. White
is looking for two distinct individuals from each of you. So a total of 10 people to interview. Okay. Okay. I don't know if that was clear. Um, thank you. I thought he wanted us all to come to a consensus of two people. So, he intends to put in a lot of work over the next uh week or so. Okay. Just talking to as
many people as possible. And the idea is in his he he was a TA he was a town administrator himself for a very long time. And so his approach is very holistic and he looks to try to get a sense of like a 360 view of the community. What are the challenges that
it has now? what are the challenges that it's going to have over the next couple decades? What are the amazing parts about it? What are the the parts that could use improvement? Um, and he tries to get as many perspectives as possible. So, um, in addition to interviewing each one of you all, he's interviewed us, he will be interviewing department heads
and a bunch of community leaders that you all um, suggest. So that that's the idea and the reason for that actually is so that he can present a good picture to to prospective candidates because we want to make sure that somebody is aware of all the potential challenges that
they face and and Excellent. Thank you. That's that's a very thoughtful approach. I appreciate that. Thank you for clarifying David. And Tomb, what what is the what is the timeline for the for the interviews with us and with you know each of our two names? I'm sorry if I
missed that. Yeah. So, we'll present you the final candidates on the 4th, and we don't have a I don't have a clear timeline right now on what what transpires after that. Um, but I'm happy to get that for you.
Yeah, I was just I was just more curious about the interviews with the select board members individually and with the with the two names. So, is that going to happen within the month of May? Oh. Oh, with these first folks, sorry. Yes. Uh yes that's ideally that happens
starting end of this week next week as soon as you can provide. We asked um uh that you provide them on a rolling basis. So as you have them just uh send them to uh you know through the town and and Rick will Rick will get them start calling. Okay. Thank you.
Um just a suggestion because Danielle had mentioned getting the facilitating the survey. If we could somehow have it go through the school system through parent square, that might be a good way to hit a lot of people at once outside of like posting it to Facebook and other town. I'm putting it on the town website. Um, it's called Parents Square.
It's called Parent Square. Andrea will know what it is. All right. Um, I just did you want input on that survey? Um, I could certainly I'm happy to act as a resource if they need me. um if happy to share. Yeah, if you could send
that survey out because I know I'd have be happy both of you wanted some input on that. The other thing is if you could talk to Rick about the possibility of actually going to the senior center one afternoon if they could just they could advertise it and if people want to come down and have lunch and and talk about
it that might help. Great. The other thing is um your if you could bring this back to the chair, your meetings have been held without being on um without being broadcasted. And so I would like to make
a request that your meetings be held somewhere that people can actually watch your meetings. Um unless they're you're having meetings where you're discussing things that are confidential that but if if at all possible please put your meetings where
people can watch. Great. Okay. Are we all set? One quick question on the um inperson engagement. So right now it sounds like senior center is a must in person. What do you think is like the right
number of potential inperson engagements? I want to make sure that we, you know, clear the clear the minimum here. I would say three. I think that, you know, it and it doesn't necessarily So, I use the library as an example of just a location in town that
most people are familiar with, right? Um, it could be town hall. You could set up a, you know, the conference room at town hall and have people come down there. You could have it be the library. anywhere that's, you know, really like accessible for people. Pick a couple dates and say, "We're going to be here
on this day, here on this day. Feel free to come down, fill out a survey, give us your thoughts." Um, just as long as it's I would say three is a decent number in addition to the online survey. And we could potentially set up a robocall or right, a reminder. Yeah,
we're going to be here on these days. We can we can publicize it on Facebook. We can put it on the town website. These are the days we're going to be here. You know, the selection committee will be here if you want to reach us, you know, and advertise it that way. Just so we we're getting the word out and we're we're trying to reach as many people as we can. David, sorry, I didn't hear. Did
you say set up a call? No, like a robocall. Roboc. We can do that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, you could send it out by email. We can send it out by robocall. You could do a QR code for um town meeting so people can access the survey
at town meeting. Town meeting members. audience. Take it. That's a lot of people in one room. So, okay. Great. Uh, we will, um, we'll share our our plan to do this and make sure because you just threw a lot at us. I want to make sure that we we capture all of it. So, we'll share. Great. Thank you very much. Thank
you for coming down. Okay. So, now we'll move on to our public hearing. And our first public hearing will be for uh Sam Walker's Tavern, which will be at 450 Paradise Road. Oh, excuse me. Can I have a motion
to open a public hearing? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I I Okay, we are in public hearing now. How you doing? How are you doing? How are you? Well, thank you. Uh, can you hear me? We can hear you. Right. My name is Pat
Dylan. Uh I'm from Wuburn S. Uh a business here. Sean is also uh from Wuburn now originally High Park. Um we own and operate Sam Walker's American Tavern in Wuburn as well as five other restaurants. Uh Lucy's American Tavern in Dorchester, the Barry Bar in
Dorchester, Chuck's Taco Bar in Dorchester, Lea's American Tavern in South Boston. Um and Sam Walkers as our most um We are here because we have been given the opportunity hopefully to open
the San Walkers in Swamp Scott. Um, so we're here to answer any questions you may have or go through the process. Thank you. This is great. So it looks like you are looking for approval
on LAR permit. Yes, we are. Yep. Does anyone have any questions on the liquor permit? Thank you. Oh, good. Okay.
Um, so does it does anybody on the select board have any questions on the liquor permit? What are the hours? So, we would be looking to operate uh at 11:30 a.m. to It depends on what time what your closing hours are. I know
Walkers and Wuben is 12:30 um and 12 on Sundays. So, we open 11:30 for lunch Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. for brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Um and then it depends on what your your closing hours are. Marissa, can you speak to that? Uh we they can stay uh
they can stay open as late as 1:00 a.m. I believe. Uh the liquor license hours are something that you as the local licensing authority do get to establish. You have it listed here as 12. We have it listed here at 12:00 a.m. Correct. Because that was um those are the hours
that he just read you. So which means that in the event you want to change those hours at a later time, you could always come right back and Okay. have a discussion about if that's okay. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we usually close our kitchens depending on volume. Honestly, uh Wuburn, we close
the kitchen at 10:30 during the week and 11 on the weekends. Um so we usually operate the bar for an hour after that and then close. It's actually 12:30 Monday through Saturday. It's only 12 on Sundays. So just to say. Okay. So that's the same thing as we have at B. Yep. Okay. And
um do you do breakfast during the week? We do. We do. No, not during the week. Sorry. No, we just serve it's it's ultimately a smaller version of our dinner menu. It's it's we serve a full lunch menu during the week. We only do breakfast from 10:00 a.m. to 3 o'clock on Saturday and Sunday.
Okay. Um I have a question for So we have four licenses currently available. Uh we have we actually have I believe six six through special legislation and
two based on our census data. So I believe hold on unless okay I'm just looking at the this whatever you have on that form is correct. I don't have it in front of me, but whatever you have on. So, it looks like there are four available four all alcohol licenses available. And then
there's another six available through special legis. Special legislation. Yep. And those are for any of our local business districts, which this would apply. That's if we run out of the census. If we expire our census quota and any business wants to operate a liquor license in one of our local business districts like Vinnen Square,
like Humphrey Street, they could get a liquor license under that special legislation. Okay. All right. Great. So, if there are no questions, when are you guys looking to open, by the way? Maybe there is. So, we're going through the permitting process now. Um, hopefully
we'll be able to start demo in the next week or two. If we can, then it's usually about a six-month time frame. So, it would be late October, November would be what we're shooting for if everything goes well. Obviously, there can be unforeseen circumstances, but that would be our goal. Right.
Excellent. Okay. And then you'll be coming back for the common vicor and the entertainment license. Yes. Yep. Okay. Well, I'm only going to speak for myself here, but I am incredibly excited that you're coming to town. So, I hope you can expedite your um Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Yeah, we're excited, too. We we put a lot of thought into the communities that we look to go into. Uh we want to make sure that our concept and the way we operate, we feel like we'll be an asset to the community and a place that people want to go and feel like Swampscott is the is a really good opportunity for us. So, we're excited. Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. So on that, can we have a motion to accept this liquor license? Second. Second. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you very much. We appreciate Nice to meet you. Thanks. Do we um close this public hearing and open the new one or open? We're just going to
leave it open. Okay, cool. Okay, so our next um our next liquor license is for one of our favorite restaurants currently in town, Andrea's Takaria. Well, I'm attorney San Vitali. My office is in
uh Lynn. This is William Sanchez who has an existing business uh in the town of Swamps, Good Andreas Takaria. Um he's coming up on I think his third anniversary. Okay. Uh of his restaurant which is at 646 Humphrey Street and he
serves Mexican food and menu. I think he handed out some of the menus. He hopes he recognizes some of you who stopped by. He hopes everybody else has an opportunity to stop by in response to requests, many requests uh from his
patrons and customers um who want to enjoy uh alcoholic beverages uh with their dinner. Uh we are seeking an all alcohol on premises restaurant license. Um Williams and Tips are certified. Uh
the current restaurant our hours was uh listed on the back of the menu from 11:00 a.m. uh to 900 pm. If you've been by, you know, it's it's a small restaurant and it's a sort of a tribute to his hard work that he endured uh the
COVID crisis and came through. Uh and he's hoping uh that you'll look favorably on his request uh which would assist him in and expanding uh the volume of his customers at the place. Um, I have one question. Does this
license cover He will has outdoor seating right in front. Would this liquor license cover his outdoor seating right in front? Yes, so long as his premise is explicitly um listed or contains the outdoor seating, then yes, alcohol can be consumed on those
premises as well. But does this does this permit because it says square footage is 950 square feet. I just want to make sure you've covered well. Right, Katie? Does it look like that? Well, it says you submit a floor plan, which we don't have. So, I guess you'd have to
see the floor that gets submitted to the ABCC. If it says 950 ft, then I'm inclined to believe it's only indoors, but we can you can alter your premises and then uh it can include the outdoor seating, tables, and chairs as well. How does he go about doing that? It's al there's an alteration of premises form
available through the ABCC's uh web page. And then will he have to come back here? He will have to come back here. Yep. Okay. Well, okay. So, we'll um hopefully we'll approve this tonight and then if you could address that. Sure. And see if you have to come back in and start that process only because the weather's getting nice
and um I think that's will be a major benefit for that business. Agree. Okay. Agree. All right. So, does anybody have any other questions? No questions. Can I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Oh,
sorry. Hold on a second. You want to come on up here, sir? Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, I'm I'm in a neighbor in the uh in a neighborhood and I was just kind of concerned about Can you just tell us your name? Oh, Joe Dero. 16 Glenn Road. Um I'm here by myself. My
my other neighbors that were going to come, they they couldn't make it. And for some reason, I'm here to represent the neighborhood. And uh we were we were kind of concerned about the deliveries of the um with the uh with the bear and stuff
like that on a on a small street. And uh I don't know if you um know the street at all, but It's a it's um it's a narrow it's a narrow um alleyway in the back of the building and it's a small street and uh
it really wasn't designed to have big trucks coming in here coming in and out of there because when the f when the building was first built in 1986 there was supposed to be no food, no alcohol, nothing like that. supposed to be mainly supposed to
be businesses of like um doctor's offices and and you know insurance agencies and stuff like that. It wasn't made to to have a you know access to big trucks coming in and out of there. And so since time has gone by that bylaw has
been thrown in the barrel if you want to say it. And now you want to bring in this business here which he's serving food which wasn't in the original plan but it's going as it is now and it has in the past and now you're going to now you're
going to supposedly have like alcohol coming in there and like the trucks that coming in and out of there are going to be like you know Medel and Budweiser and Miller Lightite and all these trucks and can be like coming up Glenn Road and we're we're a one-way street and we
don't have sidewalks and you know it's you know it's not like down this Paradise Road in the Swampskit Mall where there's a a ramp and there's a you know and stuff like that to accommodate these things and I think it's a little reckless to have you know and I wasn't
at the last meeting and my neighbor Steve Bome was here but he said that he proposed or I don't know the terminology if I'm saying it correctly but he says if you're going to have it you know, do the deliveries through the front door,
but I don't see how that's going to work when you pull into that that mall like I I live there, you know, in that neighborhood and, you know, getting in and out of there with a car is a challenge, but not saying it can't be done, but you know, pulling in with an an 18-wheeler for 1500 cases of beer on
the back of it and I delivered beer before when I was a kid and to pull it around the corner and pull it in front of the building and then block the other businesses like the child center and Burkham yogurt or whatever is in there and they say, "Hey, I'm going to pull my truck in here for an hour. I'm just
going to load some beer out and the other people are going to be walking into those businesses and saying, "What's this truck doing in front of my building here? I want customers to come in here. I don't want a truck with diesel fuel running out in front of my building." And so I think it's just a little
reckless to um have that. And then I gave um a little letter regards to um that and uh it's just the history of the um that it was supposed to start out back in 1986 and it was kind of like you
make these laws and then you and then you just and you change them and you throw them in the barrel and then then you want then there's a restaurant in there now. Okay. You know it's it's constricted to the front of the building. I get that and stuff like that.
Um, you know, the restaurant is a little, you know, like they had like a shed back there and I don't know what they were storing in front of in it, but there was like a electrical wire. The shed was pulled out and I think that the the owner of the building is not really proactive and
say, "Hey, you know, you know, you shouldn't do this." you know, and you know, you you put like an eight by10 shed in there and I don't know what he he's running a food business out of there. I don't know what he's putting in there, but I don't know if he's you know, he's putting napkins
or whatever he's putting in there. I don't know. But I hope it's not food, but it's gone now. But I thought it was just a little bit reckless and and I just I just think that there's no way no way that you can that the truck's going to be able to get in and out of the back
of that building. And I don't think I don't think they're going to make that curve when they come in from Humphrey Street and they go around that building and they go in there with all those other businesses, especially with the um child care center when there's people with um small kids and infants and stuff like that getting out of their cars and
they don't want to be competing with an 18-wheeler, you know, coming into the parking lot. And um those are my uh you know safety concerns and the concerns of the neighborhood of um you know having big trucks coming driving up and down
their street on a on a small residential road. It has no sidewalks and and I just think it's I don't think it's right. And um I just want and that's where I stand with that. And um you know if you can get the beer through the front door, no
problem. But I don't see anybody in enforcing it, you know. So, I mean, you know, I don't know how how it's going to be written up, you know. You know, I don't know how I don't know how it's going to work, right? You know, you know, so is there an existing bylaw that
prohibits a restaurant from being in that space, Marissa? No. Um, it's part of the B1 commercial district. So, there are multiple uses allowed there by right, and a restaurant is one of them. To be clear, Mr. Sanchez did come to the zoning board of appeals for a use
special permit to allow for a liquor license to operate out of that establishment. So, a lot of these concerns were addressed at the multiple ZBA hearings that we had back in the fall. And there cannot be any deliveries in that back alley at all. It is purely
just for trash collection. So, there will be no deliveries back there? No, they'll all have to be handled through the front front door. So, Mrs. Sanchez is aware of that. Yes. Yes. You know, Maurice said we went through all that and also uh they they are not 18
wheelers. It's Yes, it's a truck but not an 18. But the the bottom line is your deliveries come in and out the front door. Is that correct? Right. Okay. And uh also if it helps uh when it comes to the delivery
portion in this case I pretty much the schedule and tell them when to come and when not to. Okay. So that there is some accommodation uh that can uh help differently. So so you can be flexible
in terms of delivery time to not perhaps try to you know mitigate any concerns by the neighborhood is what you're saying. right? You know, we don't want to be an obstacle or or the business that is, you know, looking bad within the neighborhood. We of course want to be a
good fit as we have been with the last three years with right, you know, and and that what he brought up about the shed. Uh I took that responsibility as a mistake of not
reading the bylaw within Swamat. It was it wasn't um far enough uh from the building. Not just because I chose to, but it was no there was no space and of course there was there was not food in
there. Uh, it was for Okay, we're going to stay We're going to stay focused on the We're going to stay focused on the on the on the permit right here, not on on the shed, but And we also It's done. So, it's done. Yeah. Okay. So, Mr. Sanchez, what what time do
deliveries typically occur at your place of business at 646 Humphrey Street? Uh, for for food? For food? For supplies? So, I do currently I do um a restaurant. So I don't get deliveries. Okay. Uh with
meaning from different companies with big trucks and stuff like I have a pickup truck. I get it two times two times a week to restaurant. Y uh you know it's a pickup truck. Got it. And then and then how would you know how would you envision the the alcohol the
beer deliveries working? Would that be a similar manner? Would you would you also pick would you also pick those up? Would you have that? No. According to the ABC, I'm not allowed to deliver. You're not allowed to. I'm just right. I have to buy from certified suppliers.
Right. Which again um you know they are trucks. Yes. But not not 18 wheelers. And um we we are the ones who tell them when to come. Got it. So you would anticipate one delivery a week, two deliveries a
week at the most two. too. Okay. Um, thank you. Well, I have a concern. Um he um has a space in front of his building and he's got like um some lattice and stuff and he kind of he moved the
um the lattice out like into the front of the building like in invading the parking lot area and it's like a little corner in the square and you know I guess you spoke if if I got this correct you got to put tables out there and have drinks out there. Well, in front of that
building there's a fire lane that he's taken over a portion of that and in that corner and so that's a red flag in my opinion and also to address what he said. I worked up at
Seabard delivering beer in the winter times. All the trucks are 18 wheelers. All of them. All of them in the fleet are 18 wheelers. All of them have a trailer in the back of them. I work I've seen some for little G that deliver alcohol that aren't 18. Just
personally, I'm just telling you there's no guarantee that a small truck's going to come there, right? You know what I'm saying? You know what he says is, you know, I seen from experience working. So when he comes when the truck comes in and that 18
wheeler or whatever truck you come in there and it's going to do the swing, he's got his lattice and his little play area there after having drinks and stuff and they're going to need every inch of the parking lot to swing the truck in front of the building and make it there. And he's got he's got tables out there
in the parking lot in their way blocking a fire lane. Okay. and like do we have a plot plan or some type of plan to visualize where his tables are or what the outside looks like? You could see if you drive by there like is it in a fire line? Well, I
was just going to say to Marissa if we could just get um some information back whether he's in compliance with his outdoor dining. I know we have in the past had restaurants that were on sidewalks and taking up parking lot spaces and other variances that we I
don't I wouldn't call them variances but other accommodations that allowed for outdoor dining. So just making sure that he is it's also a separate topic. So right now we are talking about a liquor permit strictly for totally understood but I'm could bring that back to email
us some other time to let us know. Yeah, I certainly can. Yeah, I will say this is a private property we're talking about that's set pretty far back from Humphrey Street because it does have a giant parking lot in front of it. So, I'm not I'll be honest, I might have to look in a little more to what the restrictions are with like putting outdoor tables over there with respect
to um maintaining access to a fire lane and everything. But good news is this particular liquor permit does not serve alcoholic beverage outside. So, that's a moot point for this for if he modified the permit to include outdoor dining. And I do want to make one clarification with respect to the daycare that is in
that plaza. daycarees are essentially allowed to exist anywhere. They don't as a use, they don't have to conform to any um any special zoning districts. They're exempt under what's called the Dover amendment. So, if Mr. Sanchez already
had, let's say, a liquor license operating out of his business, the daycare could move in there tomorrow and and that would be okay. This is a situation where we're having the reverse, but it one really can operate without the other. They're not okay. So, okay. Okay.
So, can we take a vote? Is that Does anybody have any more questions? No. Did we already motion? Yeah, we motion. We did motion. All right. Second. Okay. So, all in favor? I I motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, for our third
um and final we have what is the name? I don't have Kasumbal LLC. Where do you have that? Oh, yes. Kasumball. I got it. LLC. Thank you.
Again, this is Kevin Lang. Kevin lives on Paradise Road. He's a resident of town of Swampska. He's an experienced package store operator. He has a store in Reading. Has one on the Fenway in Boston. Um he's been approved by the ABCC uh for other locations and is a
certified uh tips trained manager and it's been a long journey. Uh I think we were here at Christmas time like two years ago when uh we were seeking at that point what had been a a license that had been betrayed. They call a pocket
license. and it was the site of a license that had been uh not exercised. Uh but then the dennial census allowed uh you to have additional package to licenses and the residents of the town.
I think it was uh the previous spring uh changed the bylaw with respect to the ability of uh a package store at this location. uh to be uh operated. Uh we went uh as we did with William to the
board of appeals and got approval uh for the use with respect to the location uh and address some of these issues you've heard tonight. Uh and Kevin is more articulate than I and can speak to more. He's more familiar with, let's say, the
alcoholic beverage industry than I am. Um and uh what he hopes to do is also uh provide con customers and the residents of the this of the town uh a choice uh but he he's looking to do a couple of
things differently. He's not going to sell snacks. He's not going to sell cigarettes. He's going to be selling higherend scale uh alcohol liquors uh uh craft beers. Um and and so in a way he's going to hopefully carve out a niche for
this package store unlike the present package stores. But it gives uh consumers and residents the choice as to not only as the price but as the quality and the kinds of products. As I say um he's a resident of the town. He saw this
opportunity. He's been pursuing it diligently. uh and the residents of the town helped afford them the opportunity when they uh addressed the town meeting a change in the uh uh zoning bylaw which then made this possible. Uh he's going
to make a substantial investment at this location. Uh, and as I say, he's an experienced operator, uh, who lives in your town, uh, and what I think would make, uh, another welcomed, uh, new business for this, for the town and for
its residents. Why don't you tell them about the products? I don't know. Hi, how are you doing? My name is Kevin Lang. I'm living at 280 Paradise in Swamscott. I've been operate the um, liquor business probably 20 year plus.
uh also have location in Fenway and have another location in Reading and we'll pursue try to get another locations here and mostly product that we're going to carry here is the uh high-end product all a lot of IPA and a lot of high
bourbon that um the neighborhood might need. So mostly we are target on the high high-end sub. Do we have anyone here for public comment? Mr. Delissio, come on back.
Depro, I called you Mr. Delissio. I'm sorry about that. Mr. the Petro. Um, basically basically it's the same thing I said from from the last I don't want to go over it again, but one thing I do have a little bit of concerns is
having a having a liquor store there is um there's a daycare center, you know, 50 feet from there and it just seems like u, you know, having a daycare center and a liquor store right next to each other and the park and the kids and stuff like that. I just think
it's um not appropriate, you know, and I think uh you know, people coming in at, you know, at night, you know, looking to buy booze and stuff and kids playing in the park and you know, I just think it's uh and
that I just think it's not uh a good area for having a liquor store. And then also the concerns what I said before with the deliveries of course. And so I don't want to so I just wanted to bring those things up, you know, again. And um
if they say they're going to do the deliveries in the front, uh I hope that it's going to be enforced, you know. Um, I don't want to have to come out there and say, you know, don't do it, you know, because, you know, I've
um I've had some meetings with the town with some it's a different issue, but I just want to say that I uh had some things where they were doing some building in on my street and some renovations and the town pro made some promises and I addressed it with the um
building inspector and and I won't I won't go into it, but he just told me basically I got duped. That's what the quote the building inspector told me. And so I don't want to stand here and you guys say that you're going to do something and then you know 6 months
later down the road someone's going to tell me I got duped again. And it's a little neighborhood and I live there all my life except for four years. I'm 62 years old. I've been living there for 58 years. and to see what was there in
1986 and there was supposed to be no food and stuff and to what it's being now and for me to sit there and defend my property and sit there and say, you know, where's our integrity? You know, you you say you're going to do something in 1986, you say you're going to do
something here, and then everybody just takes all their idea, all their bylaws and stuff, and they just throw it all away. And then here I am sitting there like this is my home and I get, you know, people coming in at 8 or 9:00 at night, you know, you know, looking for booze and alcohol. There's a park across
the street. There's kids in the store across the street. There's a daycare center there during the day. And I, you know, I know what kind of people walking in and out of liquor stores. And I can make judgment and I just think you
should think about that too under the consideration what what the landscape around that building is, what's going in and out of it and what's around it. So I just want to just clarify that. Thank you, Mr. Dro. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Dro? I do. I think
it raises a good point um for this business owner specifically with its location across from Phillips Park. um what kind of safeguards and preventative measures are you prepared to to put in place to make sure that
underage drinking or you know anything like that have you do you have experience with that type of situation and how would you address something like that being in the area that you're looking to be in Kevin would you mind taking Thank you. The way we're going to address that,
we're going to buy the uh equipment on that, which is you're going to slide through it. It will show you if you're not old enough, you cannot purchase. We're very strict on that, right? On every location, because the fine is very, very And all your employees are obviously trained to All trained. Yes.
Okay. David, do you have any questions? No, ma'am. Katie. Um, the only question that I have is on deliveries as far as getting your product in the door. So, you understand that you have to use the front door?
Yes. And then what about the scheduling of deliveries? Schedule is we can go by whatever the town looking for or the neighbor looking for. Let's say the neighborhood said, "Okay, don't delivery from 9 to noon." We tell them not to come that time. We can tell the company
to come anytime. It's up to us. So, we're going to hear from the neighbor. Whatever the neighbor require, we'll follow through that. Anything neighbor want, we'll follow through. Is that something we have to put on this license right here? I don't believe so. Um, but I I don't
know that there's any way that we can condition a license. Um, I can look into it. Um, I'll admit this is my first liquor license since I took this over. Considering we don't condition it for any other business, I don't know that it would be appropriate to do here. But I do appreciate your flexibility and
because we already know that there's a resident that has concerns. So I appreciate your flexibility also because I live in the town. Right. Of course. And that's and I've been in business for a long time. I every location we'll go through, we'll talk to the neighbor. We'll find out what we can accommodate
with the neighbor. We'll do anything the neighbor looking for. That's what we there for. Mh. If you don't have the neighbor, you don't have the business. You have to take take care of the neighbor. That's the most important for our business. Nobody out of town come here and purchase our product. It's only
our neighbor. So if you good with the neighbor, everything solved. That's a great point. Yeah. Thank you. Wait, I was just going to say I think to your point if we've done this in the past, we had similar conversations related to doside and its proximity to the neighbors and some concern noise concerns, delivery concerns. We didn't
condition the permit upon that, but we did voice our concerns to the proprietor and say we need you to be neighborly and work with the neighborhood. Yes, there has been some growing pains. I you know, but I think that they've resolved themselves and that the proprietor, he's
also a um a town res and feels the same way of what you just said, which is, you know, we're we're here because this is our home, too, and we want to be good, right? We certainly don't want to start off with the assumption that you're going to error, right? So, we want to give you a chance and assume that you're going to do the right thing. I trust
that you will and until I have reason to think otherwise. So, you could trust me 100% on these because I have a young kid myself. Well, if not, we know where to find you. We do know. And there were a lot of other conditions too that were imposed by the board of appeals when they did come for their special permits. So, any of those conditions can be
enforced by the building department. And so, we have a mechanism in place for making sure that those are adhered to as well. And we also have the ability to come back and make changes to to a license. We haven't had to do that, but we do have it. So, it's great to hear that you're going to interact with the
neighbors. And so, with that, if we have no more questions, can we have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. So, if we can go to the first
reading, possible vote on the new special events facility, neighborhood block party road race application guidelines. Gino, you want to Who's taking this? Ma, is this yours? It's uh it says new app. New app. Sorry.
Ready? Yeah. Wait for them. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Back in I don't know maybe the fall and I talked about doing applications for okay block parties that then morphed into special events as well
as facility use such as the town hall front um talking to the chief chief Danielle and the chief the chief really felt strongly we need to put some guidelines on these events he I'm sorry thank you he doesn't feel that he didn't
feel that the current applications had enough guidelines and he had some safety concerns So that's what you see in there. The application is basically the same the first two pages, but it it's the guidelines from Chief Casada that we need to review and
approve. So this has been created in consultation with Chief Archer, Chief Casada, the recck department um as well. So it's kind of a meeting of the minds because and it was started by the by Chief Casada at his request. Great.
Diane did a lot of work. So thank you Dan for that. So I look through it. Everything looks fine to me. I mean I don't know what it's kind of like a one page where it gives sign offs for different departments so that everybody's on the same page when
something's happening and there isn't a you know chance for things to you know slip through the cracks. Everybody knows when an event is happening in town and can sign off and everybody's aware. Okay. So, um, our options here are to I
mean, we've had it. I I'm not sure how you folks feel about voting on this. I would be fine with voting on this tonight only because I think things are going to be starting up quick and it's going to help recreation out right away. Yeah, I would be fine with that. I've
seen it though. So, in fairness, if anyone has it, David, do you have an opinion on that? I have no issues. I think it's it's fine. self-explanatory. I read. Okay. So, can we have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? I. I. I. Okay. Motion
carries. All right. So, now we'll go to the joint meeting of the retirement board. Is the retirement board here? I think they're in the hall. Is everybody in the hall? Do we have the retirement board? Yeah.
You had a meeting. Okay. So, do you want to call the retirement board? Yeah. How are you? Good. Quickly, I think we need to just call the order uh special meeting of um meeting in joint with the
selectman and board of selectman motion. So moved. Move a move by Kevin Breen. Seconded by John B. All those in favor Briscoll I. John B. Right. I think Kevin's voting I too. I.
All right. Good. It's not the retirement board. It's the old guys. Madam Chairwoman and members of the voter select may the select board. May I begin? Please. It's nice to see you again. Sometimes I do feel it's like groundhog day that we're here again to
see you and I hope that you did have a chance to see the uh slide presentation that I thought would be best to get to you uh in advance. My plan is to just give you some open remarks and go through the the um slide presentation and really encourage you instead of
sitting back and waiting to just see something, ask something. It's just easier that way. Um again, so we're here today uh respectfully request that we are once again going to town meeting for an increase of the cola base from 14,000
to 18,000. Um and we're hoping to have the select boards support of that. The key arguments behind this is really our improved financial position. And our retirement system is funded as a funded ratio has increased by 31% since 2017
and now exceeds the state average of 75.3%. The significant improvement demonstrates our responsible fiscal management and create and creates a the financial capacity to support our retirees better. The competitive disadvantage.
Swampscott's current cola base of 14,000 is 1,538 below the state average of all other systems of 15,538. Of the 104 public employee retirement systems in Massachusetts, only 23 systems at our are at our
current level, while 63 systems have a higher COLA basis. This puts our retirees at a disadvantage compared to their peers across the state. We also talk about declining purchase power. Retirees who were at the cola base in
fiscal year 2022 have lost $840 in purchasing power due to inflation. To retain to maintain in the same standard of living as of 2020 July 2021, the base would actually need to be 16,100 just to keep the pace with
inflation. retirees, particularly the 56 retirees we have who are earning 14,000 or less per year have been especially impacted by this loss. And to put an historical context, prior to 20121 increase, the cola base remained
unchanged for nine years since 2012. Additionally, Swampscurt was one of only 10 communities out of 104 systems and that did not grant the additional one-time 2% pandemic colar increase. Um our funding date uh responsible planning
um is our funds uh dated to among among the roughly a third of the systems with funding dates of 2032 or less. So we're we're in a minority. We're we're we are holding fast to a a a funding schedule
that will get us fully funded earlier than most. Um there are things we could explore such options such as using 2 million from a one-time funds to offset the ability to increase or spreading the cost over multiple years. Other things
as we go forward in this um in our funding schedule. This increase represents u not just a fis financial decision but a moral commitment to those who are dedicated who have dedicated their careers to serving swamps.
All three triggers we did establish in 2021's town meeting have been met. Uh we we have uh by creating both a fiscal justification and ethical obligation to increase the cola base to 18,000. This increase would help our retirees
maintain their standard of living while keeping our retirement system on solid financial footing. Um I will point out that I also personally one of things that always strikes me as having been on this board for 30 years and we talked about different groups in the town of Swampscott and amongst our um residents
um if you ever took a look at the roster of retirees that were in our system and the employees it always amazes me that the names and maybe I'm triggered tonight by by Mr. Deedro being up there and and and Gino I will attest that
there's our whole roster is just just names names of people in swamps but more importantly they've remained in swamps their children have remained in swamps their grandkids are in swamps there's something about swamps town employees I know it's very difficult
today for them to be able to afford to live in this town but people who have have really developed a great bond and there's the connection to our retired town employees is really incredible uh to see and I really one of the reasons I do enjoy this. So we right now uh we'll go to f
to questions we'll go to the the videotape to the slides. Currently our fund uh our funding status funded status is 75.9%. As you see that increase in 2017 we were down at 53.5%. So there's been a
pretty significant increase. Um, and again, I think our last one, you kind of lob between there in 2021, 2022. Just go ahead and I'll uh our funding ratio. I'm going to have to look at this because my my eyes
aren't good enough to see that. Um, we're right in the middle. Yes, funding ratios. Um, it just shows that of all the systems, we're right there in the middle of the 70% to 80%. Um so there are there are quite a number of systems in the state that are not in the
position we are. Of course there's always going to be some that are better. Um and there's various reasons for that. Much of which is commitment by the those cities towns um to actually be more aggressive in their past funding schedules and commitments by the town to
in terms of what this money is paid. the cola base uh is below the state average as I said in the presentation which this is just clearly shows that the 14,000 of 2024 it's now 15,000 um whatever 16,000
should be 159 15 that's the average I can't so the average is 159 15598 yeah if you take all the communities the ones that have not gone up at all to we actually found found there's one community that went up to 30,000 we found out recently. Montigue I don't
even know where it is. Um next uh the cola base of bases as of April 2025. Um John, you want to just help me on that one? Yeah, just on the uh bottom the
bottom gives you all the numbers. He just gives you Okay, these are the breakdown of the numbers of the of the different communities of the 104 systems. I say communities, but always remember there's water and sewer commissions. there's um the state fund and and things like that. So that we are
again in that middle range. Um and that's kind of where we've been. Uh one of the things that I think is important for us, people are like, why are you asking for 18,000? Um for me, um I think probably seeing me as often as
you do here, realize that when we come back, we take these, you know, significant breaks in in raising our our cola base. Um, and really under the leadership of Bob Powell, who I believe is on the Excella quiet train listening to us. He's on his way up from New York.
Um, really under his not negotiation, but really getting to these trigger marks and and setting up the triggers really was a finally a breakthrough for I think select board, finance committees, and ourselves to
say, okay, because we all get together and start throwing these numbers out. Um but the reality is they really set for us goals to come back. So you're not coming back every year. The fact of the matter is we have six years left on our funding schedule.
Um going this route of adding adding coming back coming back. Giving the boost to 18,000 at this point would allow us time to in our in our actuarial and our abilities to invest and our performance which has done quite well to
help spread that over that time period. Once you get to the end of your funding schedule, it doesn't mean I always think people in swamp school thinks it's going to go to zero. You have your operating budget every year which will be million
1.4.4. Um, so that anytime you try to raise a cola, then you just be like boom boom boom increasing it with no ability to smooth it out, no ability to to really factor in our success with our investment advisors and and making
making our 7% uh return. 7% return is is the standard, one of the standards in the state. We're we're about in the middle on that. Uh we've done a great job. We've we've taken on new uh a new consulting company in the last two year last year who really kind of we kind of
shook it up a little bit. We weren't doing badly, but we weren't doing what we want we want to do better. Uh and we we making some changes and I think madam chairwoman, you you're out of meetings. It's pretty interactive uh for us to um sit there and and really map out our
strategies. Uh, and we think we're well on our way to to really having some some great success. And again, we're the market is the market. Um, some people will say to me, well, how much money did you lose to the, you know, did the fund lose this week? The reality is it's it's
never what the money lost is. It's the value. And we've weathered every storm. Uh, we've had several, John and I, during our 33 years. Um, and you know, and is politically whether how you feel politically or what's going on nationally and the when and the boom
boom boom boom bat, we tend to always ride it out and get back into into a position that will move forward and meet our 7%. Um, some years we'll make 10, some years it'll be five, five, but it's we really have been confident been
hitting that 7%. Uh yeah, regulate. So if I could just jump in for a second, we have a couple of examples of that uh because everybody says, you know, when the sky falls down, what's your plan and everything else? So we're going to show you some of the history in one of the slides, you know, 2008, some of these
examples that Tom and myself have been through. the methodology, the six years. The reason why we want the 18,000, we're going for the 18,000 because we believe this is gives us the best advantage to achieve that uh to 18,000 and also pay
it off because remember we would have been paid off in 2028, but we extended the funding schedule to help out the time. We also did a ERI, which is early retirement incentive to get out some of the 5enters and the seven percenters. So
there were four times that we extended the funding schedule to help out the town because it's a relationship, right? We just talked about the family and that's what we're trying to do. So we're trying to make sure as fiduciaries that we do a good job with the money and we
get it fully funded this this and then also give value for the taxpayer because that's what we all want. I'll turn it back over to Tom. Go for No, keep going. Um, again, this is just a quick
breakdown. You've seen um the 56 retirees earning less than 14,000 a year, 188 retirees earning more. Next, um the preliminary actuarial valuation results from Seagull received April 25. We're waiting on the final numbers on
that. Do we have more input on that, Kevin? Yeah. Well, basically what we do is we we run an act we run on an actuarial which is done every two years by seagull which I think you guys are familiar with. One of the leading
um one of the leading uh companies doing this in the in the in the country. Uh their actuary val value assets of now is 94,215,963. Um the funding schedule is adopted by us. It is done every two years. Uh and
we then the town's obligation comes through that. All kinds of factors are put in with it uh into it and and kind of is scheduled out and that was the funding schedule. That's well with respect to seagull um we our
most recent uh preliminary valuation they they uh reviewed our um investment return assumption and uh confirmed that we were on the right track at 70%.
um and looking at a 10, 15 and 20 year horizon and confirmed that our 7% assumption was correct. Um they
um increasing the cola base to 18,000 would increase the unfunded liability by approximately 2.07 7 million and increase the nominal cost by approximately $40,000.
So the that would take it the key point that we're we're trying to put forward here is we we're like a mortgage. So the the longer you push out the horizon, the
more actual dollars you're expending. Mhm. So um to increase the cola base to 16,000 for example from its current 14,000 would be roughly half of of what
I just stated. So roughly um approximately $1 million um on the total um or uh
$20,000 increase on nominal cost. the the point that I think that we want to make here is that um as as I constantly say to my fellow board members, we're a bill and I
understand that, you know, we're we're just another bill that you have um to, you know, on top of all the so forth. Um oops. But but we are a bill and
um there's a cost associated with doing business and um the the unfunded liability, if you will, represents pushing off um future cost, you know,
cost, immediate costs into the future. And Now we're in the future. So the when we talk about the unfunded liability or increasing the unfunded liability, it's because of decisions
that were made in the past. the the legislature has made it that you should reach um fully funded at a certain point and we're in a good position at that point
at 2031 um and we want to stay in that position but we also have a requirement to push up our colab base. So it it's our fiduciary responsibility
to come to you and say that we need we we need to increase the cola base to 16 or 18. Our preference is 18 to get it to not
um blow up the the final cost in the final years. So um and actually we don't you can actually unless you want to keep that up. I mean, one of the things is I'm finding it hard because I can't read what's up there and but I have it here and I know I provided all of you this,
but I don't want to go on forever here, but I do think one of the really thing that when we really looked at this that was and I said in my opening was that increasing it to 16 really isn't isn't really doing as much as one would think when really to
the math says we should go up to 16 when you can only go in thousand increments than to 161. So, we'll be we'll see you next year because we'll be going to have to keep coming back. I do think that going to the 18 now sends a message, you know, and we're going to be hopefully
done with this in six years. I don't know. I'm not speaking for the board what we're going to do, what we're going to be asked to do, what we're going to talk about doing, but but I know getting getting to that 18% is a is something that will truly benefit the retirees um
and the employees when they become retirees and and kind of set us. We won't be at the top, you know, we'll still I will tell you in two years we'll be back to the middle at 18. Um but that's okay. I do think that the the message set sending the message to go to
18 is saying we're going to actually get make it a little better uh for you and and kind of stop this yearly mishmash of going up a thousand. I I just feel strongly that it's time to just say, "Okay, let's put this issue
aside for a few years and and do the right thing and just get it to 18 now." um instead of having this yearly discussion and articles and things like that and and again we'll get a little ahead of the curve uh won't be hugely ahead of the curve but we'll get ahead
of the curve. I think uh Tom and Kevin did a real great job. Uh the methodology um is really what I'm concerned about that six years. Uh we've been doing this Tom and myself for 30 years volunteering our time and we started out like 30
million and now I'm saying to myself we're up to 94 million. Eventually we'll be over the 100 million. I know these are big numbers for you but they're not really big numbers in the big picture. And the the thing is is that you have to
realize everybody says, "Oh, my 401k." And I'm only going to throw that out there because people try to relate that to it. We are highly regulated because of the past history of what Kevin said because of the unfunded liability. The IRS came in and said no more. And they
built this committee. in this committee. We have one of the most not us but personally whole but out of 104 but we we are one of the most senior um you know uh members uh when we go down for training and so forth. Uh we take uh the
responsibility very very serious. We do con uh continuing eds all the time. We have all kinds of people that come in and audit the books. Um, like I said, you just can't pick up the phone and just say, "We're gonna buy, we're going to sell." There's methodologies to all
this. So, I'll turn it back to We just don't want to watch you guys have in front of you. You know what we're here. We're willing to answer any questions that you have, concerns, and would really love to have your support on the article. Yeah, it mean a lot to
the citizens. I mean, to the retirees, the employees, and to us. I mean, but ultimately that's that's up to you. But I I we've presented why we think it's important for them and uh it's not us personally. We don't we don't get, you know, I'm not going to get well, I'm not saying that
others won't, but I'm it's really about us doing our job for the group that we are there representing and would love to have your support. Are you aware the finance committee has supported the finance committee voted um
to support 16 the cola increases 16 could I we're aware of that and just I'm the liazison to both of these committees I just want to make sure I'm letting everybody know right and and we
certainly appreciate the the incremental approach that they're taking um our recommendation is that to proceed with the 18
because that's the the the statutory upper limit if you will 18 but there are communities that have already gone past the 18. So in in three or four years time 16 is going
to be less than the average and we'll be back here again. Um our intention of asking for the 18 is not based on greed. It's it's based on getting ahead of the
curve and not being a constant drain on the budget by coming in in little incremental, you know, dribbs and drabs, if you will. 16, 18. We'll be we'll be
back here in less than 18 months saying that 16 is behind the average again. Again, what we tried to do, what we what we really intended to focus on tonight is that we had set with the finance
committee and the select board um triggers that would say that we should press up the uh cola bids and we've met all three triggers um with respect to
funding ratio um cost of living adjust ment and um um where we stand um with respect to our peers in the chat
and all I'm saying is that um we feel that in a very short period of time we'll be back at 16 and saying we need to go to 18. One of the things and the and the only other last
point that I want to make is that likely that will be occurring just as we reach normal cost at 2031. So just at the point that the finance committee and the select board
are saying oh we don't have a huge bill is going to drop down by four or five um in in normal um we're going to be saying oh well we need to press up the the uh polar base I
think it's actually not I mean obviously appreciate any support for any repres I'm not saying I don't one of the things I don't think is being considered here and he was alluding to it is that it is better when I say us
the board it's better for us to have six years to smooth out and and and earn our income and offset blah blah blah blah blah for that to go to 18 and get it done now and give us six years. We wait two more years and then add another base
of a a thousand and another base like he said we'll be there trying to to trying to soften this thing within a year. Having six years now at 18 gives us that opportunity to say okay it's in our funding schedule. It's now part of our plan. It's part of our investment
strategy. It's part of our actuarial and we move forward. If we go, okay, you give us it goes up a thousand this year. Okay. Start the process again. In two years it goes. It just gets pushes it right up to the end. And I think that the board is is much better postured to
just take it on now. Um, put it all in the mix now and and to have those six years. Can't believe I'm talking six years. It's amazing. It seemed like forever when we started to get that to spread it out over the six years. I think adding a thousand adding a
thousand. So if we keep the system going the way we have and I say system the tradition of us getting it, it's usually been about two years maybe three, then we're going to come in and eventually we'll be like, well, why do
it anymore? They'll just keep it at 16. Well, historically the last time there was an increase was 2021. Mhm. And then prior to that, I think it was was it 10 years prior to that? Nine years prior to that. And I think the jumps were only a dollar
on the excuse me 1,000 per dollar was 1,000. So what you're asking? So we did set up something in 2021. The finance committee and the retirement board set up the the check marks. Yeah. As long as we achieve the
check marks that we would consider increasing it. And you have checked all those marks and but it's not they're not looking to increase it by a thousand. They're looking to increase it by 2,000 at this point. So
which would be $60. No, they're looking to to increase it to 16. 16, right? That's what they that's what they actually voted. They they voted to make it 16.
Um which we we're not looking at gift horse in the month, but we're we're just raising the fact that 16 will be back right in a short period of time because
the benchmark moves right very quickly. I think we may have made Katie has a question. Oh, sure. It sounds like the benchmark you're already beyond the benchmark. You said bringing it to 16,000 brings you to what would have been the same purchase power in 2021. So
you're you're behind it now. Behind the curve already. Bringing it to the curve really just puts you immediately behind the curve because as cost of living is never not correct going to increase. The only way to get ahead of it is go 17.
Okay. So I guess for me the most important conversation are this last slide the options. We didn't really get there yet. So maybe we should go there because I think you've met we there were parameters set in place in 2021 the triggers. You've met all the triggers. That's why we're here having this
conversation. Income agrees you you've met all the triggers and should be seeing some sort of increase. Now it's just becomes what is the appropriate increase. For me it's how we pay for that appropriate increase that's really important. So that is where I would like
to focus if that's okay. hit it. Can you get to that? Well, I just, you know, I think I haven't, but I the key point of how to trying to tell you the I go back to my original
um portrayal that this is this is Y and um you know The difference between a 15-year mortgage and a 30-year mortgage is that your monthly payments are lower,
but the total amount that you pay, right, is higher. Correct. And that's that's the bill that we represent to you. Mhm. And um quite frankly, Chairwoman Fletcher has been at
our uh retirement board meetings and has heard us discuss that there are a lot of communities that have frontloaded this that have taken free cash or available
free cash and paid off in advance. the increase of your amount. And I mean, frankly, you know, we're not in a position to to tell you how to spend the money obviously of the community, but
um there's there's a fiduciary benefit to front-loading paying this off. So on the options um that you see before you if if there were an opportunity to frontload this then um the overall cost
to the community is less. Sure. Of course. Uh but the longer you push it off the the the total dollars spent go up. So you know it's a balancing act with your current budgets. you know, I'm
I'm certainly aware of current budgets being a former department head. Um, but you know, with respect to, you know, what we're here in front of you tonight, um, to the extent that you could
frontload this uh, by expending free cash in into this amount, uh, is a great example of that. Every time I read fully funded ones and being in the area, I go Saras. It's like nothing
against Saras if anyone's listening from Saras, but it doesn't jump out at you as that, you know, I don't know. I just very shocking to me about, you know, and I know the members of the board. I I called them several years ago. I'm like, well, how did you do that? It's like
well every year maybe couple years when there's some free cash there's a little rainy whatever there is the number they'll they moved and town meeting will put in 100,000 200,000 500,000 extra over the years sometimes he says
sometimes 50,000 um it's like amazingly over the course of time they did that so that's where that frontloading sure I mean it's just like making one extra mortgage payment how it comes off and we've actually kind of the inverse in Swamps Scott because and and we're
guilty um of trying to be a little more sensitive to the town side. Um most communities like when we go down to our convention and the gathering the conference and you know they always shake our heads for one point but it's not so much now but in past we'd be like
okay we got old we got a possible you know things going on and we try to take that middle ground instead of going for the maximum amount under the law kind of back it off a little bit. So I'm sure that you know we have we've always tried to do that when we can. I don't think that we've ever come in and had the town
look us and say we're in dire straits and we can't there anything you can do. We've pretty much done it every time four times. Yeah. So, yeah, pretty four pretty significant times. So, with with the risk of sounding um less informed about this than others,
but I'm going to say it anyways because I think it's helpful to the folks at home. The legislature has required us to pay off our unfunded liability by when? 204 22 31 uh no the legislature is 202 the
required timeline because we're ahead required timeline is actually 2040 40 okay great 42 it get out you'll pay more money but you'll pay more over time right sure okay so right now we are ahead of schedule to correct what we
would say is the bottom line yeah can't go beyond that right now we We could go beyond the end date. The final date. The final date. Yes. So, we're ahead of the game. Yes. We have the room. Yeah. To, as you're saying,
smooth it out. Yeah. If we wanted to. We also have the ability to continue the payments the same as they are right now and then have a lump sum due in Yeah. 2031. 2031. Yeah. Correct. So, those are really the options that are available to us if we cho if we chose to increase.
And I mean clearly the smoothing out aspect of it is something that we we take into consideration um when we do our actuarials. I mean that's part of this the the the plan is although ironically I I've always been like oh we'll kick it out a year doesn't
have that much as significant a savings as you'd think because what you're doing is you know it may soften it a little hair at the beginning but by kicking it out that last year you're just you're just hitting a big number at the end. putting it out a little further. It's
not It's We're probably the most I'm going to say the most prudent, but we're one of the you know, and that was one of the things the finance committee when you were on it, but last last time we were before them, uh was um a member Cinder Mcernney and um and who else? Um
Sullivan. Um Jill Jill, we mentioned something like, "No, don't extend it. We want to do this and we don't want you to extend it because that's the best thing to do is to keep it 231." Okay. You know, it's kind of the first time anyone's ever said that to us. It's always been, oh, we have this think it
down the road. Yeah. So, so just for me, I mean, I'm I'm supportive of increasing the of increasing the cola base. I haven't decided whether I'm going to support 16 or 18 or 17, uh, those things. But just looking at these options, using $2 million from one-time funds to pay down increased liabilities,
I don't think that's that's that's not we don't we don't we don't have option. Um pay down an extra 333 over six years. That's not an option either, at least for the next one to three years probably. So we're really looking at uh
absorbing the cost in in fiscal year 31 if we're if we're just if you're not pulling the date out. Yeah, correct. which is not an option listed here but it's a to the voice of fincom prior but is an option. Okay, just one last well there's one I
was just thinking not that I'm being a horse straighter here but I mean I mean I I know that as much as I increasing it to 18 would be optimal. I would think that maybe doing it to 17 would be also helpful at town meeting. I mean if that
was something I mean I he'll I'm about to get boom right here from him. But I mean, I'm not beyond the thought of joining the finance committee maybe together and talk that maybe 17 would be, you know, kind of split the
split the difference a little. Um, I think 17 would still be a good Well, they they were considering 15. What first it was there was a question of 15, but it landed at 16. They did
talk about 18, but I think pretty much the finance committee was really fine with you coming back. I think it's this is a great board. They love seeing you. So coming back, we love seeing you. Just just remember one thing. We're all
on the same team. The finance committee, the select, we're trying to get best value. And I always say math is truth. These models and everything for the 18,000 the models for that. When you start moving numbers around a little bit, that's when you get into like not
getting the best value. Kevin kind of hit on that a little bit. Tom talked a little bit about we want the the main thing is to keep the benefit so that the person doesn't lose. We haven't caught up. When we start talking about these colas and we talk
about 16 and 18, you got to remember the 2% was on top of the 3% back in 2022, their pandemic and we weren't able to do it because we came here real quick. I get it. It was a huge number. You're not used to it was the first time in the history of the state that they did it.
So, it kind of catches you and you kind of say, "Whoa." With that being said, so this 16 and 18, all those other communities all these retirees, these 365 cities and towns and everything else, they were able to get that 2% in
that's not reflected in these models. Just keep that in mind. The people in Swarmskit, the 246 people didn't get that additional 2%. It's lost in the map. So whether it's 10 10 out of 104, right? So So let's move forward, but
just realize that that money is lost. whether we go we think the models are based upon everything we put hundreds of hours into this every single year you come to our meetings they'll tell you sometimes I talk we can't tell you all the math in a quick half hour trying to
give you a snapshot so just math is truth we're very appreciative whether it's 16 17 18 but we want to get best value so we'd have to rerun the numbers make sure that we're getting the value so we're all accomplishing the Okay.
Well, we Well, I think my guess is I want to thank you, which appears to be where we're going to have support and we'll be discussing what that number comes out to be. Um, I agree. If I have to sense the meeting. Um, so we are, listen, we it's not easy sitting up
there and and hearing the budget stuff. It's it's maddening. Um, but you know, other than I guess as I always remind people and this always shocks people that we're the second biggest budget. I mean, doesn't shock you know, but people in town, they're like, you know, they're like,
well, um, the schools and then the fire department or the police department. I'm like, you're forgetting another one. And they're like, what? And it's really, it is kind of an amazing thing that that how big that budget really is. We appreciate it. Except that we we're very
focused on getting to the the uh actual cost where we're not the the second biggest budget, which we call normal cost. Oh, we will be when we get to 2031, we won't be so, right? When we get to normal cost, we won't be the second
biggest budget. But the the the key point is that we're paying off what has happened in the past. And you know, the the legislature in their wisdom has said, "No, you can't do that anymore because that's not wise."
So, um, we appreciate your your support. Um, we're, as I say, we're not looking your gift horse in the mouth, but we are pointing out the fact that to go from 16 to 18
prevents us from being right. you know, I'm glad that you like us and that you want to see us, you know, but we'll be back soon because the as you see in the uh presentation, the the benchmark moves
and it moves quickly. So, okay. Thanks, Kevin. I think Tara's calling me. She missed. Thank you. Yeah. Do you know just a quick quick question about uh did was there any feedback or comments from the our director of finance Amy Saro on this on this matter? No, she was part of
this. Yeah, she voted with us in favor. She voted in favor. Yeah, she she voted in favor of the um of our submission of 18 of the How did she vote? When and where did she vote? She's part of our She's part of the retirement where you know when did that vote happen? Our last
meeting. She was unanimous with the meeting. A week ago. Y and the vote was unanimous then. Yes. Okay. Your vote. The retire our vote. Correct. Yeah. And maybe I'm not talking out of school. She she didn't I don't know if I think she
may have voted against the last one. You know, it's happened in the past. She did. She's on it. She's, you know, so, you know, I think, you know, she's been with us a long time now and I think she sees what we're doing. And I, you know, I can't speak for her. she's not here, but I I mean I think she understands the
the the uh the total cost versus the incremental cost and support of the 18 and you know we with reflection certainly um from her
role as she does a good job for us too by the way. We She really does. She's uh It's not an easy hat to wear when you when you are when you're that that that position because you know you you really you work for the bun side and you worked it. It's hard. Close out our meeting.
Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Motion to adjourn our joint meeting. So moved. Motion by second by Bean. Briscoll I Green I. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Have a good time for Florida. Okay.
Okay. So, now we can move to discussion and possible votes. Could I just have a follow I have a follow-up question. Maybe if Amy could provide I'm sure it exists the the value that they were speaking about between the 16 to 18 and then coming like is there a some math
tables that we can look at? You're laughing at me because I have no idea what I'm asking for, but I want to understand like obviously what what the gentlemen were trying to tell us is that there's a benefit to giving the 18 now versus coming back in increments of 2,00. So I'm trying to understand how
that mathematically that works. She'll send that. Okay. Why are you all laughing at me? No, I'm just delirious. I'm not laughing at you at all. Sugar high. Yeah, it is. I'm just eating the sugar. It's not just look at the file. Um Okay. So, now moving to discussion and possible vote to increase town fees
and permits. Um, so we've seen these fees before and I think the only issue really was one fee on there and that was the block party that we had. David wants to make it free. Free.
So, um, other than the block party, did we have any other questions on any of the other fees? I didn't. No. Um, other than the black part, does anybody has anybody changed their mind on the block party? I mean, I would be good with
leaving the block party at 25 myself, but I also want to make sure we get this passed tonight. So, can we just increase the block party by $10? Would anybody like to make a motion on that?
I'll make a motion uh to approve the fee schedule uh as presented with the amendment that the block party be free. Oh, totally free. Yeah. We have a second.
Okay, that motion fails. I'll make a motion to amend the fee schedule as written except the block party remain $25. Second. Okay, all in favor? I I I There we go. Okay.
Other I have paid a block party fee in the past. So, should I have recused myself from that vote? No. Yeah. No, you're still okay. All right. So, now let's move to the warrant. Oops. We have Mr. Picarillo here. I was
wondering, could we go right to article 20 first? Would anybody mind that? Okay. So, um, article 20 is generated from Mr. Picaro. And he has patiently sat
here and we've had, uh, some discussion, public comment. We've received a couple emails that, um, the way it's written isn't really what we're looking for. So the question is um whether or not we can
save this article and I just want Mr. Pigorilla to really explain. Uh, this article was written in response to the residents on each side of the high school soccer field complaining about what's been going on on weekends
with groups of men coming there and playing for hours. Every weekend there would be 15, 20, 30 gentlemen, men playing
soccer from noon time to 8:00 at night sometimes constantly all all afternoon, all day. They have no respect for the facilities. Um Gino and I had trying to recogni
uh do something about this this condition in for a couple years now and we came up to to suggestion that we chain up the goals so that they couldn't use them. There's two goals different sizes at each end of the
field. The first time we chained them up we chained them up together but they were on the field. The group came, they broke the locks, they threw the locks away. That's to me is destruction of property. They moved the goals on the field and
played when questioned. Where where'd the lock go? Where'd the chain? Who broke the lock? Oh, no. That it was like that when we got here. Bologn. So, we decided that and Gino can agree with me. We decided that we would
take and chain the two goals at each end to the chain link fence so they couldn't be moved. That worked. What did they do? They came to the field and just stuck sticks in the ground to replicate the goals with no
disregard, no regard for the sprinkler system that's in there. And they played. Another time they came to the field, they brought their own portable goals. They have no permit. No permit has been issued to these these
guys at all. The athletic director has not given them a permit. We've we've many times told them, "Look, you can't be here. You got to have a permit to play." Well, where do we get a permit? We don't know how to get a permit. They've been instructed how to and where
to get a permit. They don't get one. The problem is when you call the police as many times as the neighbors have, the police chief has gone through the bylaws and said there's nothing in the bylaws that forces him to take and
eject players off of a field if they don't have a permit. The purpose of this article is to put into the bylaw his responsibility to take and enforce the town field
requirements that are listed in here. And I'm going to read it to you. The permit holder may be required to be in possession of a permit at the playing fields and or related facility and pre be prepared to produce the permit upon
the request and represent representation of the town of Swampscott including the police. Failure to produce a valid permit when requested are grounds for expulsion from the playing
field and or related facility and such further action as the town of Swansk may determine to be appropriate under the circumstances. He will not enforce this because it's not in bylaw. It's only in the town field requirements for a
permit. So the purpose of the the article is to put it in the bylaws. So he has to answer the resident complaint. Now I have to admit the wording in the in the
article, the very first sentence may need to be removed and it says no person. It's not, this is not designated to take and prevent anybody from using a baseball field for a pickup game or the basketball court at Phyllis Park or
Abbott Park or anywhere else that they just want to go down and and enjoy a game in the afternoon. It's not that's not the intent. This is the intent to make the people the men that go to the high
school soccer field to play and don't pay for a permit. The permit fee is $20 per person each and every time they want to play. They're not going to pay. They won't pay. Um, I have some videos to show you.
There's plenty of signs posted up there that says permit to play. It's It's on the I don't dashboard. Yeah. I don't know how to get to that. John, I think we might be okay with not
seeing the video for a second. I think we need to see it. You think we need to see it? Katie. Yeah. I mean, I guess this is what this is what I'm worried about. you have um I I brought up concerns about the article when we initially talked about it because I felt like it was the
language of the article was not specific enough and the unintended purpose of the article may be that somebody, you know, the kids go for a pickup game and they don't have a permit and now all of a sudden they can't play. And although that isn't the intention, if the police were called in that mechanism, and this
is what it said, the police would have to enforce it the same way across all people regardless of whether they're the men up at the soccer field or they're the kids at the basketball court because that's what the bylaw says. So, we just have to be very careful that it's not
precipitating a discriminatory practice by accident. That's not an intended purpose, but it actually becomes one. So that that was my fear was that the language needs to be fleshed out a little bit better so that the purpose is not discriminatory
and it is acting in the capacity for which it's intending to. I am not certain that this article is doing that and I actually think that this article is doing unintended harm right to some
of the uh other activities that are happening at the parks and fields in our town. So I I I now understand the spirit of the article. I I thought I did previously also. And I too have concerns. I've had concerns now. I had concerns when we
spoke about this a couple of weeks ago. I want I would like to see the police chief here as well as whoever is in charge of reserving these fields because I have a huge problem right now with the fact that this Mr. Picarella gentleman
has to enforce you know people not having permits in police list when he's just an average resident who happens to be in the area. Where's the person that is in charge of permits? Where's the police to explain to me why people are damaging our fields and no one is going
down there and removing them? I don't care if it's in a bylaw or not in a bylaw. If they are damaging our property, that is a reason to get them off the field. It shouldn't be left to a resident or even to you to do that. So, I I would love to I don't I again go
back to the inefficiency of having discussions about this stuff without the people that are responsible here. It annoys me. So, while I understand the spirit of of what we're trying to convey here, I don't think it is appropriate for individual residents to have to police this issue because Mr. Picarello
is putting himself in an awkward position where, you know, he's he's just trying to help and promote this, you know, and put this article in. Unfortunately, the wording is not does not really come up to snuff legally or discriminatory and all that. And of course, right, you know, I don't I would
have done the same thing. Um, so it's up to us to to help that, right? To help with that because I understand what he's trying to do, but the police department chief and the person that's in charge of reserving these fields, it it's Kelly Wolf. Wolf. Okay. We need to have them
here. We need to have a conversation and understand why they're not doing what they need to do. But I have a question. If the police chief is saying, if Gino is saying, do they have that mechanism? If we don't have a bylaw that says that they can enforce a permit, if they cut
off one of our locks that we put on our property to secure our goalposts and they go in there and cut them off that are gone, that's you don't need a destruction of property. I mean, I don't know what else. You don't need a bylaw to tell you to do that. One of the examples that came up last time was the fields were closed for inclement weather, but they were still utilizing
them. That's a different violation other than not having a permit. So, why aren't they able to go down there and say, "Get off, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they're damaging the field using them when like for example up the swamps got used soccer can't use
it because it's closed, which it has been because of rain. Then there should be that is a a data point of fairness, right? Our town members and other leagues who are paying are not using the fields either. So, we should enforce it across all people who are using the
fields. that I I understand that and I don't understand why that is the chief is saying he doesn't have a mechanism today to do that. So that is why I would love to ask him all of these questions. Therefore, I would like him in front of us so we can do that because I've got a laundry list of questions for him as to why do you want us to get him on the
phone? Sure. I'd love to. Can we get I mean we'll bring him to the next meeting and and I also think and I also think Miss Farley or Wolf should needs to be here as well because she is the one assigning permits. I want to understand her process and what people have to do, right? And who monitors whether or not
someone got a permit, right? I mean, is does she receive is she getting a stipen to do this? Okay. So, she should be monitoring who's using what field at what time? Right? If there's a problem, if Mr. Picarella observes someone, can we pick up the phone and call her and say, "Somebody's on this field. Do they have a permit?" No, you can't do that.
Okay. I did that once and she got mad at me for giving Gino gave gave her she what? Okay. Well, she's then I'm gonna get mad at her. You don't have an issue. You You don't have an issue with people pulling
a permit and using Absolutely not. I don't care where they don't care who they are as long as they pay to play. Well, and as long as they also pick up their trash because that was that was one of the other that was one of the other issues, you know, I Yeah. Monday morning, Monday morning, the the residents that walk the track from both
sides of the field have to pick up trash, right? And so that should be part of their fee. That should be part of their fee. And that should be true of the conduct related to when you whether a security deposit is pulled or whatever it is or we get your credit card or something. So if you're leaving stuff on our field, we're going to charge you 50
bucks to clean it. That should be I'd love to see this process that that we have for these permits because I think that we have some holes. I think and I don't believe it's $20 per individual per game. It's like the No, cuz it's it's in here. Do you know? No, it's not. It's the same fee we charge the youth
groups. It's $20 per participant per season. They get the whole year. It's not. So, I think this whole thing needs to be revisited, right? The process, the permitting process, who's in charge, enforcement, all of it. So, not and I don't mean to say that I don't want this
article in here to be action, but I think it needs some work. So that that is why I would respectfully think that we should at this point pull it off. Yeah. And do what we need to do. I what worries me is that the language is such that we may be causing more problems
than solving the problem we have at hand. And so I I want to solve the problem at hand. I don't want to cause more issues and I want to make sure that we are being fair across the board. So for me, I would like to rem like
indefinitely postpone the article, get the language correct to solve the problem at hand, make sure we understand the full size and issue of the problem and then put it forward at the next town meeting. No, you don't need the police to come down and ask to leave the field.
Actually, the field direct the person in charge of the fields can come down and ask them to get off the field. That should be the first line. If that person Danielle Strauss was in charge of these fields. Danielle Strauss would go right out there and tell people, "You don't have a permit. You have to get off these
fields." Absolutely permits. Daniel Strauss chased these guys all around town to get a permit. And if they didn't have a permit, she asked them to leave. Yeah, I believe for years. We have somebody that can do that then. Well, she's not getting the part of the deal we talked about. No, not D. I'm not
Daniel. You're talking about maybe just protecting the fencing fields because those are the ones we're spending $80,000 a year to treat. Mhm. Upper Jackson. Yeah. Is this a fenced in field? Yes, it is. The trunk is Wait, when you say treat treat with fertilizer
organic, by the way. Organic. Yeah. That's why we jump from 40 to 80. Got it. Yep. Yep. But we do treat these fields organically and to 80,000 to $280,000 a year, which is significant. Got it. And just one of my concerns is just again with the language. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but the fact
that this was printed in a warrant reviewed by town council and just has these issues is is just troubling. We shouldn't have even this shouldn't have even gone in here. And that is no offense to you at all because when I
tell you I'm going to I'm going to solve this, I mean it because I'm as iate as you are right now. And believe me, it's no I appreciate you doing it. I hate that you had to get to this point. It It's a shame that last spring it rained for two days straight and as soon as it
stopped raining they were up there playing on the soccer field destroying the grass. Yeah. And by mid August if this continues and it will every single weekend the in front of the goals in a in a in a 15
foot 10- foot area it's going to be dirt not grass. So in the interim Yes. I would love you to speak to the the to Miss Wolf. Yep. And explain to her stipen is being paid so that she is the
first line of defense from people that are unpermitted on those fields. So I would expect her to be policing that and if she can't, then she can kick it up to the police if it becomes an issue that she can't manage. But she should be down there and she should be speaking to this
man, Mr. Mr. Picarello so that he can provide her with the details of when these people are here and she can ask them if they have a permit at the very minimum without even dealing with this in the warrant or the bylaw. She should be able she should be doing that. This shouldn't have got to this point, right? We should he shouldn't have had to do
this, you know, and and that's that's on us. It it's it understand it's just not me. It's the residents from both sides of the field, the Greenway and and the Foster Pond area. They all walk their dogs up there. they see what's going on. Um, and you came before us in the
summer. This month this month they were up there at 10:00 in the morning. The the law the the the procedure says that field cannot be used until noon. So what it and they had a boom box blaring music. Oh yeah. On a Sunday morning at
10:00 I called the police. 15 minutes later they came up. The music stopped. Play continued until 3:00 in the afternoon. Yeah. Uh oh. Well, it sounds like we have a road. We're on the right road here. Yeah. I want to be clear. If
they get a permit, they can play there till 3:00 in the afternoon. They can play all day long. Like the purpose of the field is to be utilized. Purpose of the field is to be an open space. Absolutely. Where people find community and find camaraderie and all of those things. So, I don't want to lose sight
of the purpose of there's not a ton of space in Swans as we all know, right? And so, Like I just want to iterate that we are not trying to keep people from using fields. We are just trying to align them with the practice of using them respectfully, right? And within the
protocol which we have intended. Okay. So for right now, so we're going we're going to we need a motion to indefinitely postpone motion to indefinitely postpone our second. All in favor? I I and then Gino, you are going
to work with getting this. I'll continue to work with And we should be able to tap into council because I cannot believe that we are the only municipality in their repertoire who is trying to who has done something like this. So I can't believe they don't have language that is better than this. No
way. We have issues on our turf field with other schools coming over to use our field. Oh, of course. Yeah, I've seen that they can't use theirs, right? Yeah. Mhm. Some private schools, a local school, maybe we should revisit the field fees. Yeah. we are going to be starting to
have things like that because we have you know what I I think down at the turf field I honestly think that we should put a senior work off person sitting there and monitoring people coming in they they're just going in there they're practicing they're they're not doing any
harm but other than ripping the fence apart through it I think there's another way to facilitate we're going to have two inches of rain between now and Saturday they will be up this Sunday Well, I think Daniel might be up there. I might be up there and
then I might get myself arrested. So, let's make sure the police are on every day. Get the I live in the neighbor. You can bail me out and Katie can be my lawyer. Crazy. Okay. So, since I just have a point of question like how since it's
already printed in the warrant, like we've just voted to indefinitely postpone it, but it's already printed in the warrant. So, we'll just say well that's our that's our recommendation. It's our recommendation is to definitely postpone but it can still be discussed at if I I'm sure they're going to want to everybody is talking about it. No,
I'm just curious as to how can actually send an email out saying it's it's not abnormal to have something indefinitely postponed. No, no, I'm not saying it's abnormal. I'm just asking from a protocol perspective what how we envision it happening the night of town meeting.
That's all. just stand up and say it's slick board votes reports that this article be indefinitely responded. Got it. We've all seen the movie. There's a line in there that says if you build it they will come. That's right. And there's also a
Chinese saying that says no ticket no permit no play. Okay. Go the distance. Okay. I get it. Well, we did build it. So, we want them to come. We want them to come appropriately. We want to protect the field. And the reason we don't lock the gate every week
is because people want to walk the track. Yeah. So, I can't lock the gate. Right. All right. They would just Sounds like they would figure out a way if they wanted to use it anyways if you lock the gate. So, yeah. All right. So, we have
article one, two, three. Uh, we go to article. Is that Rub? Is that Chief Cassada there? Did I just see him? Ruben. Yeah. Oh, Ruben. Okay. You can you unmute yourself,
Ruben. Or Diane, can you hear? Chief, you can unmute. I feel like we I'm here. Can you hear me? Y. Thank you. So, I I did uh complete a memorandum to
Gino outlining my concerns in reference to article 20. Uh the first and like Mr. Pigello stated there's nothing in the bylaw. So if we will go and we have responded this has been going on for
many years now we will end up heading there heading to the location and there is no nothing in the bylaw that says hey if the police get there then we see that you know people are there without a permit we'll ask them to leave. The
question becomes okay then what what happens if they say yeah sure uh police officers we will leave and they never leave uh they refuse to provide their identification we don't have a a a way or means to be able to forcefully remove
somebody I know that's that's that's extreme but I we cannot be in the middle of forcing somebody uh physically moving somebody or arresting somebody for a town bylaw viol which is a a civil violation. So that
that's that's Can you issue them a ticket? Can you issue them a ticket? We can issue them a ticket. What if they don't if they don't provide ID? Many of the people who are on on their track uh myself included, you might not carry your wallet or your ID with them with
yourself. So that is another issue. So we don't have a way to properly identify that's something that we would we want would want to put and then that's the reason for for the bylaw um recommendation of changing revising
and saying hey you need to provide or uh the appropriate party has to provide identification so that we already have an identification on the file so that we know okay who was the uh origin originator of this request and now we
have something to go off of in terms of identification. Yep. Um, so yes, I can issue a citation. We can issue a citation, but it might be to, you know, just a a madeup name and nothing will ever happen and then this this issue
will never it will it won't cease. So what I'm concerned with, Chief, it this is my issue right now. I have a resident policing this issue. So, at some point, this gentleman is going to get himself into a situation with these people that is going to be far worse than someone on
the police department going down there and having someone say, "I don't have an ID." Um, or or trying to give you, you know, a song and dance. So, so that's what's most concerning to me, that this has been going on for years and it's getting policed by a resident, right? That that's just not appropriate in any
way, shape, or form. So there I understand what you're saying with it not being in the bylaw, but there are a ton of things that are not in bylaws that we're able to say to people, you don't have a permit, get out, right? Or you don't have this or you you're speeding in my town, you know, here's a
ticket. Or you ran that red light, I'm going to pull you over, right? Same type that that's kind of the line of thinking that I have. If I if we have to have a an officer stationed at that field, I mean, is that what we're going to have to do? Like have someone stationed and say, "Can I see your permit? Do I have to have Kelly Wolf go down there and and
pay her to sit there and check permits? I mean, we there there has to be something other than this resident wording of a bylaw to enforce this. It's something that's sounds like it's been going on for years. It's making my head pop off right now. There is nothing else that this is going to solve any of our
problems. I think that just having the police be authorized to enforce the bylaw, this is what will happen. Nobody will get in my from what I understand from the resident, nobody will get a permit. The police will be called. The police will be call. The police will have a conversation. Do you have a permit? We do not have a permit. We're
going to issue a citation. Nobody has their wallet. Right. And I like the pro. This doesn't solve the problem. So I I don't know what the correct answer is. And I will they're damaging property. They're cutting off locks and sticking stuff in the field. And we can't do anything about it without a bylaw. I
mean, that sounds crazy to me. I don't know. Maybe I think that that we need that we're concerned about. So yes, it, you know, somebody is cut off the locks. We need to be able to prove that to be able to arrest somebody for for that. If they've been cut, nobody saw it. There's
20 people there. They're not going to say anything. We don't we don't have uh we don't have somebody that we can actually issue a summon to or arrest them for destruction of the property. So, it's easy to say, "Yes, they are doing this. Somebody is doing this. Somebody is is is destroying the
property." But it's our job as police to be able to prove that and summon somebody to court or or physically arrest somebody if that would if would need be. So, it's not as easy as it sounds from a police perspective in
terms of yeah, they're destroying our car. Absolutely. Uh there should, you know, we should have some um uh some some things in place to prevent that. But what I'm saying is it doesn't change the fact that we there we're not going to be able to prove that as a town. So
the the the property is still going to be destroyed, right? We're not going to be able to arrest anybody. And another thing with with um the residents, the the unfortunate part is when you place the the the police in the middle of a situation where you're saying, "Hey,
there are brown and black kids on this field." That right there is a red flag for me to say we are not getting involved in that because the last thing we want is is the 2020 protest where the police arrested a young black man.
Right. Who who said that though? Who said that there were brown and black kids? Where did that come from? Did he say that? That that yes, that came from Mr. Picarella. And there's documentation back from when Ron Madigan was the chief that clearly outlined if we get any
calls that that imply any bias whatsoever and not about the actions of of the pe of people or persons involved. We will not respond. You're not the police in the middle of this news to me. Mr. Picarillo was here tonight and he
did not say anything like that and he actually was very clear. He completely supports anybody anybody from anywhere playing on the field. He just is concerned with making sure people have permits so that they're actively participating in taking care of the
fields that I just I completely agree that there's document and otherwise. Okay. Chief, if you could just explain to me, this is Katie, this is Katie Felen. If you could just explain to me how the issuance of the article will
help facilitate your issue when you arrive at the field. I don't understand that part. So if you could just explain it to me that would be very helpful. So I think it one way that we can and I don't disagree with the premise of somebody or
people are destroying our fields and we need to address that. Uh I think if we work in conjunction with the permitting uh authority and that there's identification given up front. There is um you know certain things that that we
that they can share with us so that later when there's a violation we can issue um a fine right now. I don't even think there's a fine schedule for um for the actual uh using the field without a permit. Okay. So, say they never pull a
say they never pull a permit chief and you get there and this bylaw is passed. What will this bylaw help you do that you cannot do today? I think that if you have if the bylaw says about providing
identification for the use of the fields uh in that application process, there's a um there's I think there's eight fields that um that is on our town website. I think if you've clearly outlined what needs to be done in order
to obtain a permit for the field that gives us great flexibility in saying okay we have this person's name on file now I can call them I can find out hey is this you on the field also making certain instructions saying hey if you
are pulling a permit for this field you must be on site so that we uh if there's any unauthorized people on the on the field, we'll know automatically. Okay, who has the field from 8 to 10? Totally. All I know totally understand that point. That makes perfect sense. I am
saying when the folks on the field do not pull a permit as we suspect folks won't, right? Maybe they don't know that we've passed this new bylaw, so they won't pull a permit. What will change for the police department on arrival at the field knowing there is no permit
pull today, tomorrow if we pass this bylaw? Nothing. Nothing. The same. It's going to be the same thing. We're not going to be able Nobody's going to provide identification. We're not going to be able to prove identification. We're
still in the same spot. Yeah. Regardless if we put this together. Wait. I just have one quick. People are pulling up in vehicles vehicles and they don't have identific I think that I don't know. No, I guess part of me I find it hard to believe that nobody
is going to have identification when you're driving you're driving up there. And I'm also having a hard time believing that we can't have conversations with these people and and we of course we can there has got to be a solution. People have a
conversation there one day John calls me every single Sunday. Did you ask them to leave? I went up there one day. They they five minutes later they said can we just finish this one game? We got two minutes to go. I said, "Absolutely." Maybe Kelly can go up there and write a permit. I don't think anybody's gonna
write. I mean, yeah. I I think maybe we should go down on Sunday, have a convers. And then, you know, Ruben is going to arrest me because I'm going to get all hot. You won't take deep breaths. I drove up there. You don't have to go and call out 10 times a
police. I just where where I come from as the police chief is that I just want to I nine nine times out of 10, you know, they're going to say, "Okay, you know, we're sorry." They're going to say exactly like you know said, "Can we just finish this 10 minutes worth of game?" Okay, we'll be reasonable as long as
somebody's not doesn't have the permit or has the, you know, has the use of the field during that time. And I think nine times out of 10, that's fine. But in that 10th instance and and there has been instances here in Swanskoff where people are not cooperative with the police. Uh it it does happen. I don't
want to pretend like it does not happen. But in that situation there's forcefully I can't move somebody. I can't push the shove. I can't do something for a town bylaw violation. So can I make a recommendation? So, how about we
literally put instead of Kelly Wolf, how about a police officer is given this stipend and in charge of enforcing this on the field. Does that do Well, just so you know, the bylaw isn't enforceable by the police department right now. So it would still require us to change. But
I'm saying if if police officer is literally the one assigning the fields and giving the permits, right? Does that not give them then the the wherewithal to go down there and say, "I know you don't have a permit because I'm the one that issues them." You know what I mean? Like
the thing is there are solutions we will not come up with tonight and probably are better fit than this solution. Oh, for sure. So, how about how about if we we keep this where we are we are going to and postpone this and definitely postpone it. We'll probably come back in the fall. Maybe we don't have to come
back in the fall, but we have a plan on how we're going to start to aggressively take care of what's going on with that neighborhood. And I want to see the procedure, the fee schedule, the fines, all of it. What it costs to pull a permit, what the parameters are. I want
to see all of it written. I I want to see it all in detail. And I want I would love to see Miss Wolf here to explain to me how this works. That's at a minimum. Well, I would think that the next you want to address you want to ask Miss
Wolf to please be there over the weekend and have I mean is that hurt is that what exactly I want to know what this what's the standard for what are the hours surrounding this? Let's we've gone down the rabbit hole. Let's pull
ourselves back. I'll talk Gino can handle that piece of it and then we can figure this out to us and just send us Thank you. Okay, so that Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief. Thank you for hopping on. Okay, so let's go back to
article article four cover here. Article four on um in our warrant. So we have here we have one, two, three, four. We have just 15 of these that we have to approve. Just 15. Just 15.
All right. So article four. Can we have a motion to approve article four? What is art? Wait a minute. Article four is the budget. Okay. I have a question about the budget. Okay. So I Amy, are you on? It
looks like So, out of all of those cuts that I suggested way back to you guys, how many of those were implemented and at what cost? I believe Hi. I believe it's um just under 50,000 is what the finance
committee supported, right? So, aside from the finance committee, I think I gave it was over $600,000 worth of cuts. Right. So when we first had that bud budget presentation, we were at like 150,000 and then there were another
possible 150,000 we were looking to implement that would have got us to like a $300,000 number. How did we get from that to 50,000? All of those possibilities, what happened to them? So we whittleled it down the last time to 150,000, right?
And the majority of that was not filling a vacant position in the police or the fire department. Okay. And I just didn't think that would would have a negative con consequence because we would have had to pay overtime to fill those positions. Okay. So, what about the additional
150,000 you thought would potentially be there after? Do you remember that conversation at that meeting? Yeah. I think we went from 600 maybe to 440 and then the final one was the 150. Mhm. And I sat down with Amy and I couldn't the
majority of that was but not backfill in two positions. I just said I don't know that we get from almost 400,000 to 50 by two positions, right? Yeah. No. So the Danielle, yours was about 600,000. Mhm.
Um the rough back of the napkin math was40 and when we went back to actually cost it out it was 330. And then Gino um did not support the removal of the police and fire vacancy which
brought it down to I think 115 which were the changes he brought forward to the select board meeting. Um, but I believe that was inclusive of something involving the senior planner
that so did not. So we went from three something to 115 with two positions, one on police and fire. That seems like an awful lot of money for two positions, right? Two two entry level a police and
a fire should be about 150ish, right? Do you know what I'm saying, Amy? Yes. That math doesn't math to me. So the 330 to the 115 was one entry level police officer,
one entry- level firefighter for $215,000 for two position. Just just so I'm clear. $215,000 difference is one police and one fire position. Yes.
Wow. We're missing something here. the things but I don't the answer can be yes because the same things also included not um we wouldn't have health insurance for them so it's not just their salary right it's the fringe too okay so yeah and I think I saw an email where David
had suggested a bunch of cuts also anotherund and something thousand 160 some odd and none of those were were absorbed in this final budget either and I don't understand that piece either that was fuel fuel something about fuel,
right? Yes, it was fuel, snow, and ice. Um, so none of that was something we were we were able to absorb in this budget. Those were sent after the warrant was printed and after the finance committee recommended their budget and finance committee's the one who recommends the budget to town
meeting. Okay. So, finance committee, is there a way for finance committee to look at that after the fact? because we're talking about trying to find as much money as possible to mitigate right the increase of taxes to the people in this town. Yeah. And and two of us on
this board have done an awful lot of work to try to have that happen. Four of us on this board are are looking under every stone we can find. And I am just dumbruck as to why none of that is being given any
consideration. And I understand what you're saying, the finance committee voted it, but is the finance committee aware that these other cuts are out there or that that you know, I know David sent it to you to select board to I think finance committee was on there,
too. Like I I just don't understand. I know there's a process and an order of things happening, but why is it why aren't we getting better at this, right? Why are we Why are we throwing out all these suggestions and it's no, no, no,
no, no. I that's what I'm having trouble with. I think what's I know that's not on you, Amy. I don't mean to direct that at you, but I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. I feel like what is also frustrating is like we had more momentum before we voted in support of finding closing the
gap and once we voted to close the gap, it felt like it was then just put on the backs of taxpayers. Mark or like it it felt like not it's all too easy to say let's use free cash or let's like you know let's increase taxes but why are we
going there if we don't have to right now why are we going there if we're listening to someone sit here today and complain about a bus getting cut for 100 grand why are we going to these lengths if we have alternatives that we're not looking at that is what I'm having
trouble with yeah and I mean why are we you know I mean I I know there's been incredible amounts of effort and energy put into uh the budget process by town staff, you know, just certainly. So, period, you know, but when you're But when
you're Thank you, Amy and Gino and and Patrick and everybody, all the department heads who were involved. Um, but when you dig into this and you're looking at the five-year moving averages of, you know, what we're paying for fuel and gas and then that number's doubling uh in the budget or, you know, we're
looking at snow and ice, right? You know, on a five-year basis and, you know, those are things that you can evaluate and you can look at and you can say, "Hey, um, can we can we take 10 or 15 or$20,000 from here and there and
protect those essential services?" I mean, it's pretty simple. Taxes are going to go up or your services are going to go down. And, you know, we need to figure out what that what that balance is and make those difficult um decisions. And I think that's what we're and this board is trying to do. We're
doing that ad nauseium and it's not making any difference. That's sticking and that's what I'm getting frustrated with. So, I don't know if it's, you know, and everybody's pointing a finger. So, it's, you know, who took this out? Finance committee voted this. We voted that. Where does the buck stop? Right.
What else do we need to do to get a handle on this? I I just don't understand. We can vote as amended. We can amend it. Yeah. I mean, we can amend it now and then the recommendation would be right. Yeah. I mean, is that the
finance committee's recommendation will be whatever they recommend at town meeting. There's nothing to stop uh select board from going to finance committee and asking them to amend their
recommendation. You know, I I think we've we've I don't you know, some of us have really tried to be as collaborative as possible in this process. And I mean, how many more times can we all sit down together in a room and talk things out and this and that? And it just it seems
like we keep getting, you know, back to the same point here. And I don't I don't know what else this body needs to do to to put our residents in the best possible position. I don't know what else we can do. So unless we're going to amend this
budget tonight. All right. So what the only thing we can do is get look at those if you if there are numbers there again. We just have to pull them up again and get on the phone
with the finance committee. The finance committee is meeting again on Monday. So that meeting's already scheduled. So where is the recommend where is the where is the recommendation of the cuts that were supposed to be in there? Was that because David, I don't have
anything here. It's it's Yeah, I sorry I just flipped it to you. It's in general fund expense and the uh the cuts are highlighted in yellow. Mary yellow. Mhm. Yeah. The only thing I have is general budget. I got it right. I pulled it up. Okay. I mean there was snow and ice,
there was fuel. There is I'm It was over $100,000 worth of Yeah. I I will say same thing I say all night. If we reduce snow and ice, we legally cannot deficit it next year. Yep. Um so that is and
would be a gamble that if you reduce it next year, that is the extent of it. And if you if we have a bad winter um or not even a bad winter, a lot of snow events because those are costly. Um you do have
to raise additional taxes or do something to fund that because you won't be able to legally defile it, right? But having to do that at that point, I would understand. But having to do that now before we get to that point when we've
already identified a number of areas to save in is what I have a problem with. Right. That that's that's what that's what I'm challenged with here. I don't know. Okay.
So let's come let's come back. All right. So we just have to it's your opinion that there is still that recommendations for cuts there's still recommendations for cuts that can come out of this budget for savings.
I the the recommend to me the data hasn't been brought back to understand why the recommendations cannot be facilitated. Well there's a couple recommend I mean I just you have reducing a a police officer reducing a firefighter. Mhm.
Um, go ahead. Well, reducing positions that aren't filled. Positions that are aren't filled, not they're in the process of filling positions right now, but they're not filled right now. But you look at our time budget, it gets blown out of the water every single year. That's why I'm reluctant to do it. But the failure for a department to
maintain staffing and overtime cannot be the reason. I just throwing a position at it is not going to stop their overtime problem. There are other problems. The positions that they within that department that are causing overtime. The positions that the numbers that both of those departments have are
in the in the best recommendation for safety according to both of those chiefs. Fire is a little bit different than police and they are in the process of making sure both of those departments are fully fully staffed. So making a
recommendation to not staff them at the levels they should be staffed at is because of the minimum maning minimum manning they could go with seven could they not in fire didn't we already have that discussion they go with seven up until December 15th December 15th March
15th right goes to eight y so so if one guy calls out sick they have to backfill that position right but that's the case now anyway even with full staffing if one guy calls in sick I mean we're not that's even if you're fully staffed and someone's still calling out sick which we're going to have. Right. Yeah. But we're not fully staffed on those six
months. You're already at a deficit because we don't have four groups of eight. But we have been fully staffed. We're still we're still we still have a huge problem with overtime with the fire budget. Right. Right. Completely fully staffed. Do you know what I'm saying? So the problem still exists whether or not
it's fully staffed isn't. There are there are other issues when it comes to overtime. Yeah. We all that need to be addressed to manage. Yep. A lot better. So, you're going to have that problem with overtime no matter what. You at least would save that one position is my thought. That's how I That's how my
thought process was. Yeah. Also, I'm I'm certain the schools would say that what's the difference between not filling a fire or police department role and cutting six teachers or whatever. You know what I mean? Like,
if you're going to use the logic there, you have to use it everywhere. So, the schools are making those types of cuts also right now because if they don't fully fund their budget the finance committee recommended fully funding the the school budget. Right.
Right. So the issue that we have here is where the money is going to come on the tax. Right. Right. Right. And and that's for me like we're moving in the right direction. We all we all got to the same page of fully funding the schools. That's wonderful. But once we made that
decision, it felt like we stopped doing a little really hard work of finding the cuts, right? And we started just sort of resigning to the fact that that was taxes of taxpayers. And I think what I would like to more fully understand before we make that decision that it
will be on the back of taxpayers is that we have done all of the due diligence, right? and we understand why some of the ideas that have come up through a very thoughtful, thorough process are not going to fly going forward. Right? At least to David's email, I don't
understand why some of those things can't be facilitated. Maybe even not to the degree that David's suggesting, but to a a lesser degree, which would still close that gap. Right. So, I guess that's true, but to an extent, but if it's not like we're losing that money, if we don't spend the money, you know,
we're under the five. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Right. I just I think we beat up the town a lot this year. You know, when we're cutting individuals and we did the best I'm not going to say we did the best we could, but we had a concerted effort and none of these cuts were easy, especially when you sit with department
heads and tell them what's happening. But it doesn't look like we got much is what I'm saying. So out of the second time, but the first time to eliminate two positions. So why don't So why don't we So why don't we do this? Why don't we Why don't we all look at this? Why don't we all
spend I don't know tomorrow, next day, maybe over the weekend and we send those lists out. Yeah. Send the lists out to Amy and Gino. They can consolidate and then at our next meeting we can have a we can have a thorough discussion. Let's see what works, what doesn't work and let's try to do our best to close that
to close that gap uh as efficiently and effectively as possible. All right, sounds good. All right, so let's move to article five. Um, article five is to approve free cash for the utility budget. See if the town transfer 200,000
from free cash to the utility reserve line. Um, I do have an issue with this only because um, I was in support of this completely because the solar wasn't on there. However, my understanding of this was the 200,000 would come into
play to once the once the utility bill was uh once there was spikes or once the utility bill wasn't being hit, then we were tapping into the 200,000 and we do have a memorandum of
understanding from the schools and that was the memorandum of understanding in 24 in 24. So when we I brought copies of this just in case any of you needed to see this. Um so thank you. In April of last
year when we brought this up, we had a big discussion of whether or not we make a stabilization account or we just put the 200,000 under the facility budget to help out. So, the reason why there was a lot of push back on the stabilization account was because why do you want to
make a stabilization account? And correct me if I'm wrong, Amy. Why do we want to make a stabilization account if it's not something that we're going to be keeping in place for over x amount of years? So, we decided, let's just get the cap in there so that the school is
protected for any types of spikes or additional usage for utility. And in the 2025 budget for the schools, they had budgeted I think 170 or 175 something like that.
So then you have the town administrator and the superintendent sign an agreement and on the agreement it it says clearly the funds can only be used to offset increase in utility funds. So my understanding was always that it was an
offset. was to help in the event it came above what the accumulation of the utility funds were from the elementary schools before. So meaning meaning that meaning that in the event so if there's a $300,000 utility expenditure. Yeah. You
they whatever the line in their budget is would be paid and then this would be this kicks in this kicks in to whatever the delta. Right. That was that was my understanding. That's what I thought. And that was your Okay. Um, according to Amy Sorrow, that's not what happened. Is
that the schools did not use their 175 and that they automatically just dipped into the 200. So Amy, correct me if I'm wrong because that's what the explanation was to me.
That is correct. That's correct. So that means the schools just went immediately to that $200,000 fund and never used their allocated money first. Amy, is this is this contrary to
what did we not get an email from the school committee about this from the last meeting where everyone sat here and no one knew what happened or what the situation was with this utility reserve? Didn't we get something from Glenn Pastor or Cheryl Stella about this?
Cheryl Stella about a memorandum that's different than this. This memorandum that I received something about it being discussed in tri chair and what was agreed upon. You are correct that Charl did circulate an email
um back in April. Yep. Correct. Because in triair meeting she was clarifying right we did support in trichair making sure we have the other we have $200,000 to help support utility. It wasn't
$200,000 to it wasn't $200,000 to absorb into a line item. Okay. So I mean you folks this is the information. Can do can I just read this
out loud? This was the um free free cash for SES facilities and utilities. This memo serves to clarify this is from the to the select board infincom CCing the school committee from Cheryl Stella dated April 17, 2025 regarding free cash
and the Swans Elementary School facilities and utilities. And it states, "This memo serves to clarify certain Sorry, just trying to read it on here. Certain statements and ensuing discussion that was held at the select board meeting on April 17, 2025. Please be advised if any
further discussion is required to explain during the 2024 25 budget planning in trichair meetings. We worked through all known budget pressures. We discussed at length the estimated increased cost to operate the new elementary school. At
the time, the facilities director estimated the new school would require an additional hundred $190,000 over previous years. Various options were presented on how to accommodate this increase in our budget. Importantly, we knew that once
solar was fully up and running, we would anticipate a decrease in the overall operation cost to a more sustainable level. This is a short-term budget problem. Well into spring of 2024, the town administrator contemplated multiple ways with which this could be funded. It
was decided that some kind of reserver stabilization fund would be created and used to offset our facility and utility costs at the new elementary school. Below is a summary. At the March Trichair meeting, I agreed to draft anou detailing what was agreed upon. Thatou
clearly states that the money would be used for facility and utility costs. Here's a draft of the MOU that was created and sent to the town administrator. There's a link to it. Sometime later, the town administrator and finance committee altered the allowable use to only utilities. This
last minute change was without collaboration and created confusion. We only have one utility bill at Swampscout Elementary, electric. To accommodate this school, to accommodate this, the schools had to zero out what had been presented in our original budget and
place the $200,000 in utility reserve account. See below. This was then reflected in the town's financial software munice. So, the facilities reserve fund became $200,000 and the elementary school facility electrical utility service line
became zero. The budget for the SCES utility sits only in the facility's reserve account. When we have expenses for electricity, we transfer the budget from the reserve to our electricity line to cover the expense. This process is approved by town hall. Any monies
unspent in the reserve will be returned to the town. Below are screenshots from the financial software showing the account um as it stands. And it looks like as of April it had
$71,84 left in it. If I'm reading this correctly, which I may not be because I No, it should be because Okay. If they've used 111 so far, they've used 128 196. So they so where we where we
thought that there was a line item in the budget and then this reserve fund was meant to back be the back stop offset when that line item was depreci um you thank you utilized in actuality
that line item became zero and this became the only way to fund the electrical at swamps elementary. Okay. So, my understanding all along, including when I was in last April, was
that this was to be used to offset and even when we were having conversations about it, my understanding was that this 200,000 was to always offset that amount of money. That was Amy's understanding, too. I never thought that this money was
being used right in a line item. And I'm not David. I don't know what your understanding was there, but I think if you go back and watch our meetings, you'll see. Well, I don't think it's about your meetings. I think it's about the tri-chair meetings. Well, I don't think it's about the tri-chair
meetings either because in the tri-chair meeting when we're having discussion about this 200,000 that 200,000 in my opinion is always to be an offset, not to be a line item in a budget. This was this was to me always an offset. I mean, I here's the you have right in front of
you a signed memorandum that says to be used to offset increased utility costs and are not for general uses in the school or town budget. But there was numerous discussion after this signed memorandum in May of 2024. You have had
trichair meetings in January and February of 2025. Our triair where there appears to be a different understanding, but this is for this is for the fiscal year 25, right? But after that in the tri-chair meetings there was other discussion that the school committee is saying there was agreement about in
those tri chair meetings oh one thing there wasn't there were there were meetings with discussions okay and I do I always believe that we needed to have that extra 200,000 on the side to facilitate these spikes. I never believe that it was $200,000 to just put in the
line item because why would we have a why would we have a separate stabilization? Why wouldn't we just have the line item right there on the line item? Because that's what we're doing. We're not What we're doing is we're we're calling it something that it's not. The schools are the schools are
actually asking to put $200,000 into the budget. It's it's not a So when sent this email last month, why didn't you talk to her about it or why didn't you ask these questions when she a couple week I was a little busy a few weeks ago. So, Mielen, I didn't Stella sent a
very detailed email to all of us, 15 of us a month ago, right? With an explanation of this whole entire thing. And that was the time to say to her, "No, that's not my understanding. Why is it now coming up? Why is it coming up
just now? It's coming up now. You know, I'm just I'm just saying that's not appropriate. That's not and I and I don't really feel good about that to be quite honest with you because Cheryl Stella has gone above and beyond to be collaborative and helpful to this board and if we have had questions and we have
had questions it was up to us to ask her anything we had a question about. Now all of a sudden at the ninth hour we want to say well for it was only a few it was only a few weeks ago and I had to go back I had to go back hold on I had to go back and also look to see what was my understanding because it caught me
off guard. So, you know, it takes a little bit. It didn't catch you off guard because at the last meeting you said the same thing. Yeah. Then I turned around had to do the research. That was two weeks ago. Yeah. And so why didn't you ask her two weeks ago, Charl, what is this? This isn't my understanding. Did Did you have a conversation like
that? No, I didn't. I was very busy two weeks ago. Well, you know what? You're the election isn't the only thing that was happening in this town. Right. And it it's not the only thing that matters. Right. Right. For us to just like ignore that, ignore a big massive issue right now with our budget because of an election is crap to me. That that
doesn't fly, right? That that's infuriating to me. So, okay. So, just thinking critically about this article itself, if we if we do not support this article, then there will be no utilities at Swansky Elementary School next year
because is it in the current budget? Um, this is an attempt to reduce the school's budget by $200,000. I understand. But I am and it is completely disingenuous and that is how I feel about it. I am not saying I disagree with you. I am just asking if
this is not funded, is there another mechanism in their budget to fund the utilities? Of course not. Okay. So, it's not it's not it's not plausible that we could not fund this because our kids need lights and other things that are
Oh, that's Glenn Pastor. We hear him. We don't talking, but it's it's not going to be I mean, we it's ludicrous. It's it's it's asuded. I understand what you're saying. You feel like
we were sent down a path. you don't feel like that's the path you're on right now, right? Regardless of how we got here today, we're here, right? And the kids need lights. So, we can't just make sure I just want to make sure that we're very clear. See, I I understand. You can
make a motion to to uh to accept this this article. That's fine. But I just want to make sure we're really clear. That's not where we landed last year. That is not even close to where we landed last year. And we put $200,000 up specifically so it was used for offset.
That's it. What? I don't believe that. You don't? I don't believe it. No, that's my personal opinion. I don't believe it. Well, I am choosing to believe what what I have been told over the past numerous weeks with no one ever bringing it up as a question.
And now in the school committee is sitting here and I think we should hear from him. I don't think we need to hear from him. I think we do because he was also part of this agreement because I think that it's if if you want to just make a motion to pass it and we can move on. Well, the other option is that you
amend. Well, I that it can't because I was going to say where's it coming from the sky? It's Well, no, but I was going to say the school committee budget would have a line item of zero for utility and instead we would increase the budget by $200,000 and not put it in a reserve
fund. It's got We've got to fund it. Don't cast your choice but to fund it. What is the other choice? All right. Motion to approve. Motion to recommend favorable action on article five. Second. Second. All in favor? I. I. I'm
a No. Okay. Article six, transfer free cash for special education fund. This is outlined very clear. Motion to recommend favorable action. Article six. All in favor? I
approve and transfer of free cash for transition audit. Gino, do you have that? I'm gonna look right now. We skip over this one. I'm having trouble. Come back to want to come back to that. Yep. Um, authorization increase for retirees cost of living.
Cola, do you want to put that off? I mean, I would like to understand some additional information between the 16 and the 18. I don't know if it's going to help me come to a better decision next week, but I just think it's I would like to see the data. So, okay,
skip. That's increase all exemptions by 100%. Can we have a motion? Motion. Second. All in favor? I I the hero act. This is part of this is part of the exemptions. Motion to accept. Second.
All in favor? I I tax referral. We've gone over this one. Motion to accept. Second. All in favor? I I personal property minimum assessment. All in favor. Oh, a motion. Sorry. Can I have a motion
to accept that? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I I home rule petition. Is the chair are you not voting on these, Marielon? I'm an I. Okay. You're an I for 12 and 11 and 10.
Okay. Um home rule petition, real property exemption for disabled person. Motion. Motion. Second. Second. All in favor? I
um number 16 we're okay 16 capital pro uh 16 to amend the authorization a motion for that move second all in favor I I
number 17 capital I have a motion. So, which one are we are we voting on? The administrators, the CIC's or F? Which which one? Uh, I thought they were adjusted here.
Um, well, can we have a motion on the on mo a motion on the finance committee recommended? I think Patrick made one adjustment on there. Amy, are you still there? Amy. So, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, there's one adjustment. There is
the window middle school window replacement when the administrator recommended zero. CIC and FinCom recommended 190,000. Also on the um library controls and electrical the administrator recommended 100,000 CIC
and fin recommended zero and uh the US school network upgrade line item number 47. Oh yes. So Gino and CIC recommended
140,000 but fin doubled that to 280,000. Mhm. Is that just in case we don't get the grant? Yeah. Okay. Right. No, actually it's a little bit more than that. They're trying to accelerate a little bit more because they're concerned that the federal government's going to shut down all grants. So by
increasing a little bit, I think she's going to apply for a little bit more. Okay. Okay. Um and then Gino just on 72 with the sewer main rehab. Yep. So your recommendation was $250,000 less than CIC and and FINCOM. Oh yeah. Is is that just based upon where your you know
where the bids have been shaking out for the first for the first several phases? The SRF loan didn't support engineering or testing. So that's why we added the other 250,000 in to get the 3.5. Got it. Okay. Do you support the 3.5? Yes. Okay.
Perfect. That's all. So then can we have a motion for the uh project totals of 1076 292? So moved. That is the finance committee's recommendation. Uh I'll second. All in favor? I I But
can we uh the middle school window replacement? I thought the discussion was that we were maybe going to go to um whatever the acronym is for the MSBA. building MSBA because uh well we the the
recommendation we had in our conversation was that you know the likelihood of that middle school project occurring in the next in the next 10 years is nil being realistic is nil. So we should apply for those funds
and not borrow them. This because the reason we were borrowing and not applying for funds was because if we did the bigger project within 10 years that we would get less funding or they may not fund the big project because of the windows. We did we did just talk about you know we're
going to have what $4 million come rolling off um from from the you know from the retirement. Yeah. in in fiscal year 32 2031. Yeah. So I mean that does give us some room at that point which is just six
short years away, right? Six short rolling off from what? Okay. Just I just wanted to to bring that up because it does following there's a couple multiple that 190 that 190 is so that you get the design ready. Right. That's so it's a it's a ready project, right?
Wait, it's a ready project or we have to make it a ready project? to make it around. Okay. Got it. Got it. Right. Wonderful. So I we motioned and seconded. Do we vote? All in favor? I um Okay. What number are we at now? 20.
We definitely close. So now we go to 20. Earth removal. We already did that. 23. 20. We're at 23. 23. Prohibited discharge. Okay.
So 23 24 23 I was good with this until Eric showed up. You want to punt this? Punt it till when? Next week. Oh,
I don't know. Unless everyone's comfortable. Does does the town administrator have a recommendation? Yeah, I support them as is. You know, we had spent a lot of time. We had public hearing on these and Okay.
So, we have a motion. Did you do you mind if I ask a question? Wait a minute. What about the Eric Snyder email? Yes. Y All right. Are we just going to ignore that or or are we going to talk about I was gonna say, is there feedback from that based on the commentary that that directly relates to this? You don't have
a copy of it. So maybe we hold off till Monday, make sure Liz gets a copy of the email and then maybe there is some feedback or not and if at least we I don't even know if we have legal counsel legal counsel's response too to his
email or the review of the two. Oh, so wait, legal counsel hasn't legal. This is going out to legal. Did this go out to legal counsel? No, I sent it out to legal counsel. But did you get a response back? Response. Yeah.
I can do a quick search. Amy, can you speak to that? Legal has reviewed the warrant in its entirety. So, what was the response back from legal counsel about article 24 and article 25? They did not have any specific feedback from any of my correspondence with them
on those two articles 23 and 24. Sorry. Okay. I knew which one you meant. So on the question, do you know do you know what I'm talking about with Eric's email? I haven't seen Eric's email is like as far as the condominiums. He sent it to you, right? You were on
that. I so far no money. So basically he's questioning that we've been paying for repair of of private that has nothing to do with either one of these articles. That's just he's concerned that we've spent $4 million or $3 million to replace sewer laterals and I
stand by I made that decision several years ago and like town administrators at the time and didn't base that lightly. What we did is when I met with the EPA when we're under the consent decree in 2015 to correct our issues
with bacteria going out onto Kings Beach, we recommended I meet with the Norwood DPW director. They had a similar issue there to see how they were addressing their problem because they had a great deal of success. Went out to Norwood, spoke the DPW director, Mark
Ryan, and he told us how he started selling the soulmates. similar to what we're doing now to stop the sewer from exfoliating into the drains. Right? And they did their first project, spent millions of dollars just doing the mains and not the laterals. Right? When they
started testing, they were still getting high readings. High readings. So they went back into the neighborhood and did the laterals. I said that caused a lot of disruption. Number one, because you went into a neighborhood once, tore it up, and then you went back in and did it a second time. Right. So the time I met
with Tom younger Kleinfelder and I said this is the decision I'm going to make and that's what I did. But we're are we still doing that now? We still are. So we're still repairing private laterals. We are repairing laterals. Yep. Private laterals that just cross over the drain.
Okay. So but but we're prepared to have an article requiring people to pay at the sale of transfer. Right. Transfer property. Correct. to not we want them to have video and camera to make sure the sewer
lateral is in good condition prior to the sale. All right. But he did raise a good point today and said, you know, there are tons of transfers of property that are happening within families, right, that we would never see. It would never be recorded, right? We would not require those people. So, he had a
problem with the wording of this. Yeah. I think also uh both he says both articles lack an enforcement mechanism and clarity on the approval of fines. That's more so the part that I thought might be we left that we didn't want that in the bylaw.
We wanted it to be in my enforcement similar to what I do with so that it can be adjusted. Okay. So, um, the it's purposefully not in the bylaw such that it allows the town administrator or the DPW director discretion to facilitate
the enforcement of the bylaw so that we're not stuck in a situation where when we want to change the enforcement of the bylaw, we have to come back to town meeting. Instead, we have discretion. So, so what is so, so how does it work? How does it work now,
Gina? Right now, yeah, we don't nothing. We don't do it right now. You buy the house that sewer fails the next day. The homeowner, that's the new homeowner's responsibility to from the main to the house, the foundation. But this way, we
know that the laterals are working and they're not, right? And it's helping. Well, we only know on transfer of sale, correct? So people could never sell their house in 20 years and they could have a lateral that's in disrepair and we'll never know. Sure. But we will contributing, right? But we will know a
hundred plus more times, right, annually than we know today. Right. So that's the important part. It's the first step, right? Right. Right. I think the will solve all the problems, but it will get us closer. It's not perfect, but it's better than none. And if your lateral is in a state of total disrepair, you're
going to know because we're just trying to keep the old clay pipes from excfiltrating out into the water. Okay. So, um, so I think the options here
are we indefinitely postpone this and bring it back up in the fall or we go ahead and pass it and make adjustments to it later on or um, we wait and deal with this next week. I think we I think we vote to pass to
recommend it right now and if they want to amend it on town meeting floor. If Eric wants if he still is not clear or he has something and he wants to propose an amendment on the floor then he can. But I think it's it's a step in the right direction. I'd support that. I I
second that motion. Okay. So motion to approve. Motion to approve. Favorable action on 23. All right. All in favor? I I I So 24 motion to take favorable action.
Second. All in favor? I Okay. So, can I just ask a quick question? Yeah. um to Liz um his point, Eric's point in the email, which I apologize because you're just seeing it right now about um instead of doing it at the point of
sale, having like a five or 10 year time block and everybody has to do it in within that time frame. Do you know of any other municipal municipalities that have done it that way? I do. Um I think it was Situit had to do it in a similar way. They had to look at all of their sewer laterals as part of a consent
decree. But we um especially because we have this issue with some of the laterals have been repaired and are being repaired. Yeah. We wanted to start this way and start populating that notion because that's not actually widely known. Yeah. So we think it's
important to get that information out and really have the discussion about, you know, the fairness. It came up at the public hearing. Is it fair? I don't think You know, you can take that in one of two directions, right? You can either say, "Okay, well, we paid for all of
these, but we're not paying for those, or we paid for these, so now we should pay for those." And I don't think anyone has the appetite for that right now. Right. Right. Right. Okay. It's the first step. Very good. Okay. Okay. So, the only thing that we have
left is to go back to the budget and we've got a plan on how to deal with that and the cola the cola and also what I was going to go back the transition audit the transition we did not get a number so Patrick
reached out to seven companies four of them one two actually did we take action on no we didn't get the number sorry the number won't be there till Monday either contacted seven phones four of them got back and said they would leave a little bit more time so we still don't
have an estimate on how much this is going to cost well but we We will we we thought we were going to have it by tonight. We will have it by Monday because four of these firms we gave a scope of work. We're going to come back with a number of hours estimate. So to be clear on Monday we have to speak to article four, we
have to speak to article 7 and we have to speak to article eight. Is that is that correct? Mhm. Okay. Wonderful. Town you want to boot the town administrator's report?
Is that all right with everybody? Okay, so you said Patrick, you contacted seven arms touries yet. Okay, so now we have the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda.
Second. Um, I just want to pull out the minutes for the 16th and the 21st. I'm good with 326 and 25. Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. All in favor? Oh, hold on.
Second. Second. All in favor? I I select board time. Danielle, let's see. Um, I think it's I think at the next meeting I would I requested it for this meeting, but I'm going to request it
again for the next that we discuss chair and vice chair. I think that it's that time of year and I think we need to it's on the agenda for the next meeting. Okay. Um, and I'm not gonna I'm not going to
belver the point, but I am really annoyed at this lack of understanding about the utility um article. I I I I just cannot deal with the with the level of disingenuous behavior that this board is
exhibiting time and time again in relation to the school committee and the director of finance for the school department. We've just had an election and it would have been my hope that we would now move forward in a positive collaborative
manner and I feel like this is taking a massive step back and I think it's inappropriate and it's uncalled for. It is on us to ask questions and certainly, you know, have opinions and feedback, but to behave in this manner as if we
are faulting the school department for something or or they're behaving in a way that's inappropriate is just disingenuous. And I really that really bothers me. Um, and I thought I felt it two weeks ago and I thought maybe I was mistaken. But tonight again, you know,
for us to claim that we, you know, that this isn't what we agreed to, that this is, you know, not the way it's supposed to be, I really think it is a bad is a bad look for this select board. And I'm very uncomfortable with that. And I'm directing that right at you, Madame
Chair. And I am not happy because this is this is, you know, we we don't realize with the way that we present things and the way we say things, we're making other people look bad that don't deserve to look bad. Cheryl Stella has been nothing but open, honest,
collaborative, and helpful. And for us to say that um we don't remember it that way or that's not it the way it's supposed to be really it it's playing games. And I I just it is not a level of appropriate behavior to me. And I'm really disgusted to see it continue.
David, I don't have anything else. Katie, nothing. So, I do have issues when select board members are carrying the torch for school committee and trying to really focus on one section of
town versus the other. I also think that it's fine to bring up issues that are of fact, and these are issues of facts. I'm sure facts do upset people. I'm also not on anybody else's time schedule. So, if I don't want to vote for something and
I'm pointing out why I'm not voting for something, that's the deal. There's nothing that I said here that was not factual. That was not factual. And, you know, we did not support I I stand by what I said. We did not support to make
a line item of 200,000 in this budget. So, this is not a slight against against uh Cheryl's Stella who I completely respect, but funding funding is very important and we have an entire town that we have
to take care of, not just the school. Are you directing that at me saying that I'm carrying a torch for one department? I'm saying because I am the only member of this board who sat through our budget and went through it and found $600,000 worth of cuts while you sat here and did absolutely nothing to help. You with the
finance committee experience that you have for years have sat here silent for the past month and done absolutely zero to fix a problem. All you've done is sit here and claim that you don't understand the problem, that you don't remember things that way, but yet you haven't asked any of these people when we've had
them in this room these actual questions. I was very clear that there are line items in that budget in the school committee budget that could have been decreased and that is just based on what say the vice chair Amy Okconor came out and said. So that is not your purview. That is not your authority to
decrease the school committee's budget. That's my point. That's not your wheelhouse. That's my point. And it's not your area of expertise. That is my point is that I am not here just to focus on the schools. I am here I am here to focus on the whole budget and that is what I did. The that is exactly what I did while you sat here and did
nothing. Nothing to help this town. Nothing with all your finance committee experience to help us get to where we needed to be. Thank you. Never once. You didn't offer a suggestion, an ounce of help. No matter how many things other members of this board brought forward from I'm happy to talk to you offline if
No, not necessary. You brought it here. You just called me out for carrying the torch for the school committee. I'll happily carry the torch for this whole town. Mariela, that's what you failed to see, right? That's what you failed to do. Great. In your leadership as chair, that's why I think we need to look for another chair because I don't think
there is any leadership. Thank you. We have a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor? Bye. Bye.