good evening everyone my name is Laura Shian and I will call the meeting to order of the select board which is joint with the energy committee on March 4th 2025 at 601
PM roll call please Veronica Keel present and Laur present Ronald Montgomery is he called is there a joint meeting here so I I would also call my meeting to order
I would assume yeah I would call the at simultaneously call the energy committee meeting scheduled for this evening uh to order and uh uh ask for a roll call for the meeting I'm Ronald
Montgomery is there anybody else from energy here the same people are here for the meeting all right for for both meetings great they don't have a quum though for that we do not have AUM okay um so then no votes will be
taken on that behal um this meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to YouTube is there anyone else recording the meeting heing and seeing none um uh would you all join you with the
pledgeable allegiance i al to the flag of the United States of America the for it stands one nation God indivisible andice for
all i' like to thank all of our veterans as well as all currently serving in our military and all our First Responders and their families as well for their sacrifices um par did you have anything to add I do not thank you thank you very
much uh 1.5 I believe there is a motion Veronica to move to the mark okay there are no additions or dels I didn't accept to delete the minutes so you want we're not GNA do the
minutes oh all right so um I move the uh we move the minutes for 24 2025 and 218 2025 to the next regularly scheduled meeting on 318 2020
any further discussion hearing none roll call uh Veronica Cal I and F I um I don't have anything under 1.4 correct just verify
okay right we are at 6:03 um do we have to wait the two minutes because it's posted up to you guys doing a two minute pause just in case I doubt that anybody
else will join but never know Karen's on do you have um anything to say under 4.2 on Andor referral planning board I do but I'm not going to say it in the
next minute oh you do okay all right um if we're going to do anything we should do an appointment yeah okay we're good then y we're at
604 the computer that wrong the computer okay we're at 605 all right um take away is mrpc with us we are hello Karen
hi hi you're uh your your graphic covers you we can't see you really be okay on there you move oh there we go okay hi Ron here how you doing Ron I'm doing fine and you good good all right um we
don't talk much these days don't know last since last summer I guess but um uh I am using the uh uh Mei database it's very useful for me I we're not really getting to share it with a lot of people because we have a very small committee
at this point but uh we'd love to to to see the annual report presentation take it away all right thank you Ron so yes for those who don't know me I'm Karen Chapman from the montachusett regional Planning Commission I'm the planning and
development director my team that works on green communities is Kayla who's a GIS it analyst Zach K who's our regional planner um they split the duties for annual reports we do the work for 14
communities and they split it up and they each do seven so as part of our funding from the Department of energy resources we have several of our communities have requested these presentations to the select board to see
where your status is so um we've been recently working with Erin steinfield who I understand is now not here but we wanted to put her on the slide because she helped us a lot um and then Kelly Brown she's the regional
coordinator for the State uh next slide so um as you may or may not know there are five criteria required to become a green community and stay a green community so criteria one is as of
right sighting for renewable energy or R&D in regards to renewable energy so towns in was designated under the renewable or Alternative Energy generating facilities because you have a
solar bylaw next slide and then criteria two requires that criteria one when they go for a permit for renewable energy that it's that it's a shorter period than a regular permit so you're
um local site plan review allows that uh next slide and then criteria three is really the big criteria where you when you were designated you had to write an energy reduction plan that said how you were going to reduce your energy usage
by 20% over the years um you were designated in fy10 um I was a part of that time period and um so this is a table that we get
from Mei which Ron was talking about mass energy Insight it's a state database that tracks all of your energy usage for electric uh natural gas uh gasoline diesel propane heating
oil all of those things and so there we enter all that information into Mei in categories so there's five categories buildings open space Street and traffic lights vehicles and water sewer and so on this table you can see
fy2010 that was the Baseline year so that's what everything gets compared to and these units are an mmbtu which is the British thermal unit for it's the way to convert all of the
the usages into a common um common um what's the word the common denominator to it thank you so you can see in your buildings you've
increased 0.9% since fy10 and that's due to a a gazillion factors that I won't go over now your open space is uh has gone down 23.8% so that's great uh Street and
traffic lights have gone up 260% and I wanted to ask maybe Ron um and I don't know who else is there with you from the committee but um I thought we did the LED street lights and I thought that that was going to go
down but we did and that I have I have tracked this somewhat and the um the data looking at today is different from the data that I have seen before in other words I I I don't agree I think that did actually go down yeah we'll
have to look into that um and then uh vehicles have gone down 6% which is great um and water sewer has had the best uh reduction at 25.9% and that's because they've done a lot of work on their um their Motors and
their pump stations um so overall the change is 5.5% since the 2010 and that's not terrible we've seen other communities are hovering around that obviously there are some that have done
the 20% but with you know all the different variables it's hard to really get down the 20% uh any questions on that before I move on okay next slide um so these are just
these are the numbers of the usage right so so for example under the building line that 5,345 that's uh million MMB so that's all that's all of your
buildings all of your buildings usage so every Municipal Building except for the newer ones are counted under there so um what happens when you add buildings like the the senior center um
audition or Library even there in 2010 right so there's a calculation under the annual report where if there's any changes to square footage if a if a building is removed if the building has an addition
there's a calculation where you add the additional square footage but it doesn't get counted against you so it's it's it's the data is gathered but it doesn't go into these numbers cuz you know every time you add a building it it would
screw up your Baseline so the new buildings are not added but we account for them yeah okay all right how is our um open space
decreased it's just lighting at like sports fields or something like that and it it could be weather dependent like they had the lights on at the at the baseball field less nights than they did or you know it they used to keep the lights on
at the high school all the time I don't think that's the case anymore okay so that's considered open space Street and traffic lights um I agree with Bob I don't think that's right and we certainly have not had any
increase in lighting right right and or and I believe it was around was it around 2015 16 I think when that led thing happened and I thought that it was
supposed to go down but um I believe it did so maybe if that can be investigated because that may uh bring our negative number higher right all right thank you sorry to hold
you up but I did want to make those points no no worries um next slide I'm going to hand it over to Zach now to go through some of the tables that
he um got out of Mei so this is Zach K and he's going to go through this hi everyone I'll be reviewing our ecms or energy conservation measures so these are the projects that are Grant funded for um energy efficiency and kind
of reducing just the overall energy load um so for fy4 we had the library and Senior Center meeting space um which we'll see on the left side there that will be an HVAC retro commissioning study which did actually it looks like reduced some of that and you can see
from our past ecms as well that there was some reduction there over the years um then we also have Memorial Hall the town hall and offices which had three ecms a traditional energy project of weather resist ation prescriptive weather stripping and then weather stripping in the Memorial Hall garage as
well and you can see there that there is a pretty steady decline year to year as far as the overall usage there in mppus all right SEC so next we go to buildings to Target we're going to start with the greatest energy use here so in FY 2024 the Minal
operations used a total of 10,973 mmbt of energy um schools are not included in these analysises as they are separate accounts within mmei just so we're all on the same page and mmbtu is a metric million British thermal unit um is a measure of
energy and electricity is measured in kwh natural gas and therms in oil it's in gallons so we use mmbt as a standard way of like comparing Apple star wres there um just to review the top five buildings here we had coming in first
the library and Senior Center town hall and officite is fire department uh headquarters and then the police station Communications area and Highway garage these buildings accounted for roughly 41% of the community's overall energy use and could be targeted you know for
some of the energy reductions all right next up we'll go to the buildings with the highest emissions very similar lineup here in FY 2024 there was 74.3 mtco2e million tons of carbon dioxide
equivalent emitted for municipal operations mm Mt co2e is basically a total for all of the emissions that will get from any fuel type there um Shirley's buildings top five emissions were the library and Senior Center at 15% of total emissions the town hall and
offices at 10% of total emissions the fire department at 6% of total emissions and the police communication station at 4% and then last the highway garage at 3% these five buildings accounted for roughly 38% of towns and's overall emissions not surprisingly as we already
stated they're pretty much the same list that we started with so can I ask the question totally uh the Water office building is that the one in West Townson versus the new one that would be the old old one okay
so once the new was Water Treatment Plant comes online and I don't know if it is yet once it comes online we will add that information into Mei because the water off take out the other one then right what we'll have to
do is we'll take we like if the water offices in west Townsen or 1,200 square feet and the new offices are 1500 square feet we have to put in that there's a difference of 300 and that gets inut it into the calculations so you're not
you're not penalized for the additional Square footage it just additionally gets tracked okay thank you I believe that has occurred moved yeah they moved I think right around Thanksgiving I think yeah
so that that building is so that will be in the fy2 annual report because it's fiscal year so we'll have to get all of that and the occupancy of the um Senior Center expansion too okay awesome next we'll be moving to the
highest energy use intensity um energy use intensity your eui is calculated by dividing the building's annual total energy consumption so the first uh chart that we were looking at there by the building square footage to give us a kind of running ratio of how much energy is being used
efficiently eui is a measure of the building right we already said that sorry about that pwns and's top five buildings by eui are the repeater generator site the water office building the Recreation Center the town hall offices and the DPW garagebarn so we're
looking at the same lineup of buildings there these five buildings roughly use 10% of the overall eui allotment town has can I ask what's the repeater generator set that was my question as well so there go ahead Jack no worries
that is going to be um a police station site for communications that is not currently occupied but currently is like almost constantly consuming energy um because it has to run Communications 247 as far as reduced where is it
located in the police station I think it's near the water tank on uh Fitchburg road but I could be wrong it might be lunenberg road but it's a cell tower that has a repeater so police and fire can communicate and there's a generator
there that comes on if power is lost we that was um a capital um planning expense maybe six or seven years ago I seem to remember
okay all right continue sorry and that and that's on the top because this is a function of square footage and that really doesn't have any square footage yeah okay and the and the garage Barn sorry Zach is the garage out behind Town
Hall not the highway gar it's used in gas yeah there's a um there's a heater one of those there any water usage in there any water pipes they do I think they do have water
out there they have water they have to have some heat been there might be like a little slops okay I don't I don't think there's water like sinks and stuff I think it's like a hose but anyways or I have it's 20 years
ago I think we should take a look I've been in there when I first started but I don't recall seeing any a bathroom or being able to shut off the water shut off the water shut off the electricity exactly I went talk to
whoever's occupying that building somebody must be parking vehicles in there I think the senior van used to be parked there it's facilities right it's not used by the fire department now let's take a look at it we'll take a look at
it great so moving on we have a Criterion for fuel efficient vehicle policy um so we're really looking here at no violations overall um there's no transfers between departments noted and the town had they zero electric vehicles
in their Fleet currently one thing to keep in mind is the zero the Zev first policy so zero emission Vehicles first um as the town does have to agree to that to be in within green communities um and another thing to recall as well
is that police vehicles will be non-exempt for being fuel efficient after FY 26 um and you know the town has probably some heavier Duty Vehicles so that is definitely something to kind of keep in mind there all right tell me again about the requirements on that because we do have
some you know that we do have a couple vehicles um slated to be purchased with the capital plan the C the loader for example that where the plow do plows have to be energy efficient no if it's
over 8,500 pounds it doesn't it's exempt and does not have to follow the vehicle policy in the past the police vehicles have been exempt but like Zach said after FY 26 those will not be
exempt anymore and we'll have to comply with the fuel efficient vehicle policy does that okay so we we have a new lease pretty much for um fiveyear lease that's already been signed do we have to like
get rid of those vehicles and get new fuel efficient ones or are we good to go you're good to go as long as the one the vehicles you're replacing or uh lower MPG the replacement
vehicles have to be a higher MPG more effici saying okay yeah and we have and you have to so that'll get reported in the next annual report any vehicles that are retired or transferred or purchased okay great moving on to Criterion five
we have stretch Code Compliance um you currently follow the middle slide that or the uh panel there of stretch code and no stretch code enforcement violations were reported if you were looking to become one of the uh Green community leaders we would recommend that you or you do have
to have the specialized code um enacted so that would be something to look into if you were looking to be one of those leader communities to become what kind of community leader leader sorry great so here are some of the highlights we have from the annual report this year
since FY 23 buildings have seen a 6.9% reduction in energy use um this is in part due to the four ecms at the highway garage that were completed in 2023 um the least energy efficient municipal building was the uh repeater
generator site which was 97 eui giving us the highest total there although only counted for .1% of the aggregate Town energy usage and is on occupied so we would probably recommend that you know if they wouldn't take the highest priority as far as energy uh projects go
the top three occupied and least energy efficient buildings were the water office building at 85 eui which accounts for 1.3% of Municipal energy consumption the spaly memorial school at 85 eui which accounts for 33.4% and of Municipal energy
consumption and then third the recreation center at 75 eui which accounts for 0.8% of music energy consumption and then with uh the Renewables in town in FY 24 4.24% of Town's energy consumption was supported
by renewable energy um this goes down to 2.4% when we do include the schools because they are pretty energy consuming 100% of this renewable energy was generated onsite the harbor trace the solar project which is managed by the water department um and they also sell
the renewable energy credits to next grid markets LLC um the chart you'll see on the left side here facility enter usage over time we'll just show you a total of all of your facilities and what energy is used there as you can see since fy20 we're no
longer using any oil which is a great achievement and then also having some solar uh production there is also totally helping out um so the solar panels that are going up on the um parking area at the
police station that will be accounted for in the next as far as and the next report okay yeah we'll have to get all the details for that okay oh we'll be asking for the
details awesome and uh here we have one of our finishing slides so the possibilities here are endless with the grants available through green communities they have grants up to 200 $25,000 so plenty of projects that you can kind of get done with that we also would recommend leveraging environmental
justice communities um and you can use that to apply for even more funding at 250k um and then there are also some multi-year decarbon decarbonization grants um up to $500,000
great where would we use those those carbonization things that means changing the heating equipment from gas or oil or carbon producing fuels to electricity other words heat
would be electricity not gas okay so which is efficient and clean um so these grants are they matching or will they actually can we actually get a grant to change a building over to all
electric the ladder you can get a grant to change over a building yes without funds that for us uh this building would cost more than the uh maximum Grant per period was was I don't know what the new
rulle will be but um by breaking this up into sections which is what which rise engineering is proposing doing it in two pieces rather than one section it can be less than the maximum allowed so it it be all Grant rather than for this
building I think we need to get the details before we before don't quote me because I haven't got a quote yet you know sort of thing so see what okay that will be the process then we Pi a building and we can apply for a grant that changes that over to
elect yes that's okay so we are always being asked to um replace the boilers in here what is that versus what we're just talking about money wise that's what it would
be it would be so we would not replace the boilers we would instead it would be they would would rep half the boilers with and they do all electric for that and then they another time when we qualify for another Grant
they would do the other half remove the boilers and then we at that point we would be all electric for heating in the building so so this is something it was on the capital request from facilities so this is something that we wouldn't want to put on our Capital plan because
it would be covered by Green communities we don't know the total the total picture because the may be other things they need to do that aren't covered by the Grant in order to Electrify the building so we need to know the total before we yeah can you
know goord okay so and these GRS are pretty competitive too so yes um I you know we'll need to work with the engineer but you know depending on how it's structured um the the state TP likes to
see like sort of a mix of projects so you know if in your Grant medal you're only doing say one project one building that might not look as competitive as a community that's doing maybe several
projects a consideration for this structure for example and Rob and I are both concerned about it is that um if you Electrify this building you then have you know I think we have like a 60k generator uh that's not enough to to
run the heat you would need a much bigger generator and that's not necessarily covered by the grant program what about solar Brown solar it's another that's another discussion you know and uh I don't think there's anything covered in
the grant program with solar is that right Kon correct they don't pay for solar but we could lease solar yes without purchase we could do something similar
to what's being done with the whole it's a it's a whole ball of wax you know how you going to get the electricity to assure that you have Supply as well as replacing the heating equipment uh I I'm proposing that I think this year when when we see our quote we will be able to
use all of the regular uh maximum amount on one of the schools off book most of the other work around town is already done I say most there's still projects but um the the uh idea of of getting the
the uh quote in front of us for the whole project you know including the heating and stuff here that we can't do right away there's a lot of thought engineering and stuff to go into it you wouldn't really be doing anything with that at least until the fall you know at least um I think we'd be trying to work
on the schools in the meantime and that's be sort of the plan that an outline of a plan that I have now but we haven't seen the quote yet I asked rise to quote everything and previously they sometimes have quoted things they chose to quote and then not do some things so
we'll see what happens all right thank you oh I just did forget I do have to plug uh the green community's email blast here they send out a lot of information about different grants that are available um and you can sign up for that blast at mass.gov slinfold DD
details dbe a green Community or if you just Google being a green Community it's the Mas link there I have one question for you yep there's there's there's a lot of press and and discussion within the mass uh
green commut about um emissions you know like like 30 33% as a goal by by 2030 right and uh and using the it would seem that
the possibility of of calculating that is here do we have a place where we can see what our um our what our percentage reduction in emissions has been since since since our Baseline
I believe there was a line in the pre in the in the previous year's report where we got that if you looked in the right place you you'd see what your percentage savings are you know so far in the last uh we've been doing this 15 years now so
that's that's what we're looking for is how much have we uh succeeded what we're getting is the fuel usage reduction but there's a mix of fuels that have different emissions and uh the goal being to reduce emissions to zero we'd like to
see how we're doing so the report or Mei where I can find that information now so I'm going into Mei right now and there is an emissions I thought I sent it to you I've had I've seen it before but I
don't see it in the report that we just we just got you have to go to Mii to get it then right yeah not included so I can get it out of Mei but but it's not anywhere on the if I print out a report I'm not going to see it
anywhere we can include it in an updated version of this that's shared with the select board um post meeting if that's all right I'll We'll add it in as a slide there for everyone I'm happy to um I don't have it on this I would love to see that
great thank you moving on we are just going over climate leader communities um requirements for certification uh you must be an existing Green community in good standing establish and maintain a local committee to advise coordinate and
or lead clean energy and climate activities commit team in the municial of decarbonization by 2050 and formulate a road map for the implementation of that carbonization the zero I'm sorry zero emission vehicle first vehicle policy and then using that um kind of
third specialized stretch code adoption um there are a um multiple potential grant funding opportunities such as implementing climate leader best practices the municipal building electrification decarbonization grants seed funds for municipal clean energy
and climate coordinators um and then support for on-site solar PV and storage for existing buildings and new construction and then support for geothermal and for exist for existing buildings and for new construction there oh and then there are also just
requirements for recertification which is a three-year process there demonstrating that you meet the certification requirements updating your roadmap to decarbonization and then implementing the one one Community engagement climate leader or best practice great and finishing up we have your
green communities contacts um the director of the doer green communities is Joan deetta we have Mark rinsky the deputy director um and our local Central Mass Kelly Brown who's in the leftand corner here in the
bottom great thank you everyone so I think that you know to talk about decarbonization or whatever we could could invite Kelly to a meeting and I'll just you know discuss it is is that grant funding source separate from the green the regular
Green community been doing yes I think that might be a good idea then so one thing that that I want to point out um you're our first Community to give a presentation to so sorry if it didn't go well but one
thing I really want to point out is that it's super important to have a contact at the Town who's responsive to us in a timely manner to get all the information so when we start we usually start in
September end of August September going through all our community's Mei figuring out what information we need and we want to send that to one contact person who can then disseminate it to the people in the the department heads in the town
need to get it cuz us emailing six different people really doesn't work very well with the time period that we have you'll disate it yeah I mean in the past it's been eron but yeah you know
but but but I I would be just as good of a point of contact you know to until we get a starting tomorrow probably next week but yes next week okay yeah and we can tell you exactly which people to send the questions to
and everything I mean we've been doing it for a while so we know the people we actually is Dave vigant on vacation or anything um I think he's around I I I
think there was a question for him yes I've been waiting for that question about the um the Fitchburg Road tank electricity uh was low and we just wanted to know if it was shut down for a period or whatever just to explain why
the energy usage was lower yeah I'll get in touch with uh Dave uh thank you yep and Ron are you you guys still plan on applying in April yes okay we haven't we haven't got
our quote yet so as soon as you get that quote we should set a meeting with rise and Kelly and the um and unil just let me know okay thank you very much and reach out if you have any other questions thanks
Ken Sabrina I had a question okay I have a quick question I was wondering if the um Federal funding threatens any of these Brands was that separate no it does not the doar money comes from
different places in the state you know like um different transactions that have fees though that that money goes into doar so it's it's not dependent on federal money just for informational purposes
you you mentioned 14 communities yes are doing this are how many 14 14 communities are are using our technical assistance all of our communities except two are green
communities okay so we so at mrpc there's 16 communities but 14 are participating in this program yes okay I just wanted to clarify that I think 20 actually we have 20 are green
communities out of the 22 but we're technically assisting 14 okay with grants and annual reports and other stuff in in the mrpc
communities there are 22 for whatever reason I had 23 in my mind so when you mentioned 14 I was a little confused so I just wanted to clarify that so mrpc
has 22 communities plus Devin members of nrpc okay yeah thank you thanks Zach thank you Karen appreciate welcome thank you guys thank you
bye appreciate you uh taking care of this for us all right well that there's um the Mei database may be interesting one on-one because everything that she just showed us is there you know that's where it comes from y the the Mei
database is a collection of all the energy usage every tank every bill um and uh they they have probably having some trouble updating it for the people closer to Boston but
we're we should be okay and uh it uh may have interest for particular department heads and so forth but but what I've seen in the patterns of our usage of gas electric and stuff like that um is that
I think it's been pretty well managed you know we we certainly had to tighten up buildings and stuff but uh I think the the fuels um are being pretty well managed the indication that you look at the charts and see what's happened over the years they're they're they're
controlling it you know so you can see that yourselves if I can show you the information here we can do a a uh presentation in the energy Department some energy meeting sometime if you would like to join us thank you we're going to close our meeting you're going
to close your meeting I don't have ask one question before for the Mei data is it unel that feeds it for our town no there are several sources um some some some some of it is done in town some a lot of it is done by uh uh
mrpc okay um but uh there several sources and there's a contractor who does some of some as well so does the town need to provide data to mrpc to update that table day every time we fill a tank in one of the trucks you know the
the bill gets recorded to and I don't know how that happens within each department but every bill is getting recorded um onto the state of every meter the the water department has a
couple of dozen of them and every meter has a report we have a track of how much energy we use well so I think the I uh yeah there is some back door connection to uh unitel whether it's for gas or
electricity the UN bill you would come you know by a file just translated no one's typing it in so every every uh electric bill and um gas bill is done electronically but handled by mrpc or
this contract yeah and then the other stuff it's a little bit more um manual intensive um so when it comes comes time for reporting you know MPC will talk to the various
department to get um that information but you know um okay you know it's I would say it's minimal compared to the Litany of uh electric invoices that comes in each
month they have a back connection do we have to adj and yeah we have to adour the Joint meeting I'll entertain a motion um I move that we adjourn our joint meeting with the energy department at 6:45 PM I
second any discussion roll call Veronica K I thank you very much joh thank you Ron I'm sorry .1 thank you thank you appointment of Daniel Marshall as probationary
full-time police officer to the police department effective start date of February 24th 2025 is there a motion um I move that we appoint Daniel Marshall as a probationary full-time police officer to the police department with
effective start date 224 2025 I second any further discussion none call [Music] ver2 are you ready for a motion um I was just looking for the
paper yeah all right I do have it um I move um that we appoint Kieran me as housing and Grant administrator to the land use Department um contingent upon our
receipt of a satisfactory pre-employment exam result with a tentative effective starting date during the week of March 10th a different date on here and it was initial yeah we're we're gonna revise that further because
uh um some of the pre-employment stuff wasn't able to be completed this week so we're okay so you think the motion date is fine yep for next yeah the week of March 10 correct okay I
second any further discussion no hearing none roll call um for I I 33 app point okay got that one as part-time intermittent season
labor to the cemetery and parks department with effective start date of March 11th 2025 s motion I move to appoint um Daniel shine as part-time intermittent season labor laborer to the cemetery and
parks department with effective start date of March 11th 20 25 and I second is there any discussion none Veron I this
one and so is this 4.1 discuss comments on notice of inquiry and request for comments received from the Department of Public Utilities Department of telecommunications and cable is there a
motion I move um to direct the Town Administrator to submit comments as discussed to the dpu and follow up on comments with the planning board to be added to any submission and I'll second B is there
any further discussion I have okay so Veronica and uh welome to mandatory referral planning board 324 Main Street or agrees to comment as
follows you input um yeah I just wanted to I read the notice of decision and I see um I know that this property at one point um had to be was not environmentally sound but I know that this property did what
was needed to be done to make sure that the property was cleaned up um and so my only comment was to be certain with this the current storm water plan and the um the uh they have a plan in here you
know the way they have the tanks set up a minimal impact on ground and surface water quality and other environmental and natural resources uh I just want to be certain that actually is that being reviewed is there stor storm water plan
been going out for a review by an independent um engineer I guess that's what I'm asking for I the answer to that but Beth usually handles the storm water
reviews I know up you're on the planning board right I know but I can't answer that because I don't know what she's done but wouldn't you have directed her to do the to go out to an independent consultant to make sure that the storm water plan process I think that is our
normal process okay then my comment is I would like to ensure that the storm waterer plan is independently reviewed management application and it may be I don't know if that's the process but I know when I was on the
plan board we always voted that we don't need a motion for that right we both agreed okay three is support letter for Community preservation Grant do we have a draft
no let let me finish this okay behind notes that can stay with who gets this to sign it so so they both need to sign the you can sign it referral the share usually signs
it okay 4.3 letter for Community preservation Grant um this grant is due in on March 14th I believe correct and um I don't have a whole to write a letter of
support I'd like to at least read what the what we're going for what we are requesting be done okay I um let's see I yeah I think I should be able to provide you with some of that information before
Aaron left she had already started the application um I'm having someone another staff member sort of carry it to the Finish Line because I don't think um Karen is going to start in time
to to submit it um by the deadline so today I actually is pth gonna do that no um I spoke to cold and to finish it um so I'll look through
uh what Aaron has already started to see if she's sort of populated some of that narrative and I'll send it off to you she and I had talked about it but I don't know exactly what what's going to be
done so and and I'm willing to draft the letter but I I kind of would like to know what what it is that we're doing so if you can send that to me that would be great or Colby either one y
um do you guys need to make a motion of some sort to um I think we should just defer are we meeting on the 11th day after the um I think we should even not not for a long meeting but if we're doing if we're meeting on the 11th
I could put a letter together provided I get information to help me with that and we could approve it on the 11th so I think I would like to defer this to the agenda for March 11 okay it may not be the only thing on the
agenda so but it shouldn't take that long and we if we can get some things out of the way we will yeah no this won't take long okay so 4.3 is moved to our next agenda on March
11 um oh excuse me all right I which one are we on now that was 4.3 okay1 first reading of constable so we have we okay we're going to move this to uh the reading of the
policy to the next meeting yes because we don't have a response yet from Town Council on this okay I could see that so do we need to make a motion to move it to the next meeting or are we good um just defer to
318 yes do we need motion or we just consensus I'm good with consensus we're waiting for we need legal Cil [Music]
right is that what you think it should be because I mean if we do get something back from legal council we can do it on the 11th [Music] oh [Music]
um let's keep it to the 18 move it to the next meeting but it's still awaiting because we have a town meeting in there and Council will be busy with that I I would like to keep it to the
18th okay the 18th is f okay um 4.5 um this is the first reading of the public records request policy I'll um we need to do two readings of every policy in two different meetings so I'm going
to go ahead and do the reading for this and then we will put this um also on the 318 for the second reading if everybody agrees okay so would you like me to read it into the record yeah why don't I have
that have two cop I have two copies must yeah okay go ahead all right this um this is a public records policy it is policy number 02- 2025 to replace policy number
08 2006 okay the following represents the public records policy that the select board promulgated for public records requests made to town departments number one all public record requests will be submitted to the records access officer
Rao this number two this policy supplements but in no way is meant to contradict or supersede the Massachusetts Public Records Law mgl chapter 4 section 7 um
26 and mgl chapter 66 section 10 number three The Rao will direct the request to the appropriate Department if a department is not the custodian of the records that are being requested then the department should notify The Rao of
the appropriate department so that the Rao can notify the requester number four public records requests may be made verbally in person or in writing telephone requests are not acceptable all requesters should be
encouraged to put the request in writing however verbal requests are acceptable provided that the request is made in person number five The Rao is required to keep a log book of public records requests whether made verbally or in writing
noting the date and time when the request is received the name and contact info of who made the request and the documents requested number six in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law The Rao
must respond in writing within 10 calendar days of the request by doing one of the following providing the requested documents indicating that the requested documents will be provided by a certain date or indicating that the
requested documents will not be provided with explanation of why the documents are not public okay that is date certain just for clarification by a date certain not a certain date just want to make sure it's read oh
did I read it certain dat date certain um denials should only be made after consultation with the Town Administrator number seven in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law a requestor has the right to inspect and
examine available public records under the supervision of the custodian and not be furnished with copies of the public records unless so requested number eight in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law a
department May charge for copies of public records as well as the time spent to produce the requested documents documents should provide to the Departments should provide to The Rao an estimate of the cost before the work is done and The Rao shall pass this
estimate on to the requester this estimate must be in writing for any requests estimated to cost in excess of $50 meaning 2 hours of time at $25 an hour number nine all documents prior to
being provided under the public records request must be redacted to exclude this should be any personal information not an any personal information of town employees considered by the Massachusetts Public Records law
to be private including individual dates of birth social social security numbers or age the time to redact will be taken into account by departments and the estimate for time to complete the request and that is the first reading
which is today 3 4 um 20 uh 25 and um the second reading can be put on the agenda for 318 2025 um and only that one
change okay the an becomes an any so so that the other earlier the date certain should it be should was those two words actually flip should we flipped around no date certain is fine I just read it certain
date it says dat certain and that's okay I think that's okay I've never heard it oh yeah said anything else that we should change or add or um so do you think that there should
be before the department start all this do you think there should be a fee upfront well that's what an original request gets made before any departments do anything I think that by by Mass
General law if it's you can't charge for the first first two hours I believe that's correct yeah and it depends on um my population size so I think it's under 10,000 we are under 10,000 yeah you uh the first two hours is
um because we have more money no I think um folks uh uh cities or towns more of a population of different thresholds yeah but for us fewer records to look through
maybe okay but I do think that everybody should be evaluating the requests when they come in which is what this is saying and look if you can pull out an you know a document or you know easily
yeah no big deal yeah but if it's going to take any significant time there needs to be a charge for it because we're there are a lot of public records requests coming in as a town spend a lot of money yeah a
lot of Staff time doing things that um you know need to be done but should be paid for actually I stand corrected that the the law says municipalities with a population of 20,000 or under, are permitted to charge for the
first two hours oh really time span that's what I thought because the larger cities have more staff then I think we should change this then um I would make a motion to say that all public records requests are um
a fee of $25 minimum and then you go on with the rest of yeah adds to it and is there um or $50 right is there really not a cost to exceed in in that
uh it says here 25 per hour is the that's the maximum you can charge yeah per hour but if it goes for hours or then they have to come up the department needs to say this is going to take us
eight hours okay um so how much do we want to charge for a request because we can put that in there this would be number eight I think it's a minimum I think it's a minimum of
$25 to start the ball rolling and then you get estimate if it's over 50 so I want to put a sentence in after the first then in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law a department May charge for copies of public records as well as the time spent
to produce the requested document a charge of of $25 will be made for each public records requests correct department should provide to The Rao an estimate of the costs before the work is done done and
The Rao shall pass this estimate on to the requester this estimate must be in writing for any um um each public records request how do we want to word this each
is okay each public records request will incur a $25 fee departments should provide to the RAF so let me start at the beginning on number eight in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law a department May charge for copies of public records as
well as the time spent to produce the requested documents each public records request will incur a $25 fee Department should provide to The Rao an estimate of the cost before the work is done and The Rao shall pass this
estimate onto the requestor this estimate must be in writing for any requests estimated to cost in excess of $25 or one hour of time at $25 an
hour okay so um the the estimated to cost excess of $50 is not is not going to be in there nope if we're not subject to it I thought we were but we're not okay meaning one hour
of time right and we can leave that off the um um okay so so that now is the first Reading part of the first first reading and just make sure that we have a copy of it before the second reading
thank you for doing that Nelson because I thought so so if it was like a very simple request that you know takes uh a staff member like five minutes to pull up um it's
$25 if someone wants to come in and examine that's fine because I'm just reading on a few things and I guess uh The Rao is encouraged to wave fees where disclosure
is in the public interest so I'm just wondering if yeah uh something that takes minimal effort if you know if a if a feed really should be charge since part of this complaint came from the r
AO I'm okay with that determination being left to that person I am okay with that request being left up to that person when when you say that person do you mean The Rao or do you mean the department head I think it
should be the department head who makes that determination to wave the fee rather than the AR who who gets the uh request first the town clerk usually The Rao
or whoever are yeah yeah um just hearing some of the discussion the other day in the summit I think that um it got to a point where the person
wanted to talk about it and felt the need to so I think if that's the first point of contact wouldn't it be that person that says that is just a two-minute thing and I
can answer the question if the person if The Rao can answer the question without going to a department right okay and chooses and and determines that um they can do it right there I've got this
he'll be you know yeah I I can see waving that but if it has to go to a department it has to be a fee then it has to be a fee I'm good with that do we have to spell that out in this yes okay probably um so so it rests with The
Rao to do or not to do like take care of it right away should it need to go to a department head there is dep there's no question that there is a fee um I'm gonna make this number nine okay
um The Rao May wave the fee I don't know what the right word is um you were reading um or shall determine
may his or her discretion May wave the fee if the request does not require a referral to a department department head department head and can be fulfilled
by the RA in less than one hour time okay so number nine becomes 10 yeah number eight reads in accordance with Massachusetts Public Records law a May a department May charge for copies of public records as well as the time spent
to produce the requested documents each public records request um shall incur incur a $25 fee Department should provide to The Rao an estimate of the cost before the work is done and The Rao
shall pass this estimate on to the requester this estimate must be in writing for any requests estimated to cost in excess of $25 meaning one hour of time all time is charged at $25 and an
hour number nine The Rao May at his or her discretion wave the fee if the request does not require a referral to a department head and can be fulfilled by The Rao in less than one hour of time and then number 10 we just change
an to any yeah okay does that constitute the first reading um the boards and committee chairs or members call under the department heads um how did we say it
before let's just say department and just drop it at that because that's what there before so not department head but Department which would include any boards and committees should I say to the appropriate department or
committee no just to the appropriate departments so okay so then it's sorry the ra will make that determination the department yeah depart the ra will
direct the request to the appropriate Department okay if a committee was involved they're going to fall under a department yes you know yes that's the way it was written before
so okay I'm now good with the first reading thank you Nelson yeah thanks because I think that was all helpful to know all right would you like this
Sabrina and I and we'll do the second reading on the 18th of yes discuss special ter meeting March 10th set up and propos select board meeting on March
1125 6m all right I think we're good what are we doing um I here for the set up thing discussion yeah I'm pretty sure he
is um did did we um um want to tweak you want to come to the table a hearing started from the January special town meeting do you think um there some tweaks that we could do with the setup
um oh as far as little slide presentation um just like lighting and microphones and chairs yeah on our end of it the the quality of the resultant uh video we took everything was kind of dim and
dingy but what we think is what we determined afterwards is the first row lights that are up on the beam that are almost right above you guys on the stage they were turned off so they
weren't even on so our cameras were more sensitive than the people sitting there and it couldn't it could see the darkness more than the human eye could so we got to make sure that Turn All the Lights On before the meeting starts so
that way you're well illuminated and then there was does that before the town meeting is I thought there was facilities there's a thousand people that are doing stuff and it may have been overlooked and we didn't notice it because we were busy setting our
equipment do you know what switch controls the lights more or less they the switches that are up behind the stage and basically it's like just turn them all on turn them up full Blaster um the one I thing I have is the
the light for the projector is right in our eyes can we fix that anyway yes and no maybe we fit off to the side so the projector shooting up the middle you
you'd have to separate you know like three of you on one side and four of you on the other and then it looks awkward because there's no good way because the the stand at the projector was sitting on is as tall as it can get so I was
going to ask him to be raised right but then you got the problem of now you've got a projector that's like 10 feet in the air in order to shoot over your heads and get onto the screen so in the past I remember anyway when there was a
slide presentation those at the head table used to come down into the audience and watch the presentation right and then go back up after for discussion the only thing is that we do have uh if we're doing it the
way we did it last time each of the warrant articles is being projected that was what was being projected last time yeah you know it's not just the presentation on the budget see I think Nelson and I talked
about this a day or two after the last town meeting and my simp Le solution to it would be is don't do the slides for the uh each of the Articles because I've had people tell me when they sit towards the
back of the hall I can't read that anyway so it doesn't do me any good and we have copies for everyone who attends the warrants the warrants yeah but the only thing with that is is if something has been changed you're
planned on being changed that night for the warrant article the slide may not reflect what's printed and vice versa so well any one of them can change on the floor exactly so there's not going to be
a slide ready for that change anyway exactly that's what kind of led me to tell Nelson well let's not just do the slides because things are going to get changed and uh or take no action or whatever I'm okay with that not doing
the warranted articles but you do have a a presentation right now for the for the um for the budget for our percentages of correct I'm still um I haven't really started on that but
that's something I'm working towards for see that that we could do what Lor suggested where we come down you know so just save us some seats so that we can just come down that's up to that's up to Mr moderator make sure got some seat
um but would um elevating the the projector you know sort of um fix the issue um I I because I do like the idea of the slides you know I I've very been working on them because I guess it's
it's always been done in the past you know I understand the people all the way in the back might not be able to see the the they can't I've sat in the balcony many times can't see it well that was when I first came in
while you were busy with the U uh energy committee thing I was sitting here going can we that's exactly what we need um I mentioned that as a possibility to Nelson when we discussed it also is number one these are all like
uh plugins old store well they're old school light bulbs you know filament light bulbs so number one Buy in a a projector that's actually an LED projector would help partially but the
problem is is we either got to have it on the floor and move it up high to get over you guys or we rig some kind of a uh system where it lowers down from the ceiling in order to hit the screen
without getting in your eyes so it's six of one half a dozen of the other but there's no real way to project onto that screen behind you um unless we do something drastic like a
projector stand that's like 10 feet tall but then how do we control it we'd have to get one like this where you've got the like a clicker where you can turn it on turn it off pause it zoom in zoom out P left or right here here's
another question can we move the table off the stage and Podium down onto the floor so we're not raised up and then just project use the stage for just projecting right I'm good with that I
really am you'll need to discuss that with Mr moderator because his it's it's his meeting and if he says I'd prefer you guys are up on the stage where everyone can see you then well everyone can see
us though everybody can see Finance if Mr moderator wants to be up on stage with his Podium that's fine that's true he's not in the line of sight he's not being blinded you could move him into the line of sight and then tell him see
this is why we want but again that would the way the town meeting is going to get run how it's set up whatever ultimately is the town moderators wishes because it's his meeting
right but no could talk to him yeah I why don't why don't just see what he can do about that I mean I'm making it sound like he's you know a Taskmaster or something but we talked before the last meeting there was Nelson
myself uh Kathy Town Clerk and John Barrett we were all there discussing do we put the visitors over here do we put them up front or on here and you know people that on a video the meeting so he's amenable to whatever changes might
need to happen but he would need to be part of the discussion I mean we can try to adapt to whatever the poers that being decide they want to do because if we're if if we come down to the floor we can just
turn around in our chairs and see everything but and if John feels he should and I'm okay with um the moderator and the town clerk if they want to sit up next to each other on the right hand side where they always
sit yeah I don't if you were all up on the stage I don't think he'd have a problem if if he said okay we need to clear the middle three people out of the way in order to do the slide for you to go down and sit in one of the chairs or
several of the chairs on the FL I don't think he'd object to that it's just just moving everybody for the whole meeting down on the floor that he'd probably want to have a a choice so is there a way to rearrange the stage that puts the
I mean we're just three us Adam so we're just four can we go to the left you know like go to the left and and leave John and Kathy on the other side so that the four of us are
kind of off to the left you know like the finance committee is here we're all here just scrunch together or something you could even do boom boom boom boom so we aren't all in a row you know two of us in back two of
us in front again that's I mean whatever whatever am to whatever is ultimately you and I could be in back you know two tables yeah um or something whatever is acceptable to John you folks
or to well yes John and uh you guys otherwise you wind up with a blinding headache like you're looking at you've had your eyes dilated and you're looking at the sun it's that kind of a headache yeah I understand I'm sure we can come to a compromise so I'll talk to John and
on a Friday uh Monday afternoon we can maybe you know start taking a look at what that Arrangement might when when do you guys plan so the meeting's at 7 when do you guys plan to start on staging things we usually pick
our equipment up from the other location and bring it up here around 5 o'l okay and depending on how well things get put together we're pretty much down by like 6:30ish so so plenty of time don't give
us enough because we're probably gonna have a meeting beforehand at 6 so should go some time discuss that are we posting a meeting for six the post post for six just to discuss beforehand if there's anything
to Sabrina and I were talking about that earlier today she knowed she wanted to have a meeting on the 11th we do want to have a me okay but also I said well they usually meet for the hour before the meeting we want to do that so her and I
agreed it's up to you guys tell us what we need to do and I I can adjust the zoom links to uh I only put seven o'clock in my calendar um it has been the um tradition so to
speak to meet before tell it it allows us if there's anything for I have 6m okay um anything we want to review in the warrant it gives
us so 310 at 6 o' yep yeah and then what about the next night six o'clock I don't know why I have water department seven I think they have well on what day on May
11th I can go home and look but I don't think they've got a meeting that night they might though okay generally I think I want to say they meet on the on Monday
nights yeah lately usually when it's planning board and then I'm not able to attend they might have changed it because of the special 10wn meeting I I don't know I don't know I don't remember either I'm handling so much of those that's why I'm got a paper
calendar and I got an electronic calendar to try and remember all those so well I'm not making at the 11th to be a long meeting so six o'clock on the 11th and um it'll be a short
agenda but I think we should just have a little wrap up conversation and see what we are up against yeah did the B I think they do I think they're already book but they're but their book
they want us to come down to them on the 11 yeah they're downstairs in room two but just the 18th [Music] to we're meeting on the
18th so they can come to our meeting on the 18th do you love that there's two rooms that can still be joined which just would be in two separate rooms hybrid meeting come to think of it now that I'm picturing it I think you're
right the uh Water Commission is our meeting on the [Music] 11th I'm not looking for a long meeting few preliminaries and uh plan you want to do Zoom with the Board of Health
hbd like at 6:30 yeah we could do that okay they don't have to go down there they don't have to come up here give them a few minutes in that kind of works in your favors that K sent me an email they're going to
do uh I think Irene's supposed to be doing a presentation about uh something to do with the trash pickup and somebody else so I told her if they're going to do that they're going to need to do it with a zoom and have those people with
the presentation use their own laptop and join the meeting even though they're already in the room in order to show everybody else the okay the presentation so you could even be up here and watch
it whatever okay yeah ask if we could do that at 6:15 on Tuesday the 11th because we get to do a few things before for the 15 minutes I think 15 minutes is not enough
time for us yeah I do did they give any indication how long that presentations I'm Chris yes Christian um in the email had asked KLA to tell both Irene and whoever the other person was prepare a 15 minute
presentation so two 15 minute presentations so 2 6:30 6:30 with the Board of Health or 6:40 I just want to try I I will stay in the room and join water department at 7 is what I'm
thinking so trying to get it three done in one hour or you know attend the three okay what do you think um I I would like us to have discussed
whatever we need to discuss before we meet with the Board of Health okay so then 6:30 you can meet earlier oh well we could meet earlier I could I could yeah yeah you want to do 5:30 yeah let's do 5:30 that might solve
a lot of problems y talk to KY and maybe she can help you f tune what time the board of health is going to do their presentation yeah because I'm looking at their agenda right now and um you know 1.7 is you know GW Shaw it's
Irene and then B from GW Shaw so what time is that on the agenda it doesn't say you says it's 1.7 correct what are all the things they have before um B call adds of deletion septic permits for
review um 56 Bayberry Hill Road um discussion on rodenticides they say continue to 325 that mean they pun it right M and then food permit updates
that's contined to 48 so oh not much it looks like it's pretty quick so probably by 615 yeah okay we'll meet at 5:30 all right I'm good with that we need at 5:30 and then 615
for uh Board of Health and we're posting as a joint meeting with them and we're posting as a joint meeting with them at 6:15 615 if you're both going to be involved even if it's partially remote you're
going to have to yeah okay this room do you want to do the water department at seven no you're doing that right I will yes no then I don't I mean I unless we're doing a joint meeting
with them for some reason I don't think so I can ask but I don't think so Sabrina ask water department if they want join with the select board if not I will join them at 7 okay so I think that uh so we're good
with 4.6 I free to go are we done with me um oh uh Brad Morgan I believe will be um representing the the school district
at the town meeting um so he has a presentation um so I'll just get the file from him and because because it's one laptop controlling everything the the slideshow and whatever yeah he wants to position himself somehow um if he's
got the slideshow on his laptop we can do like we did with yours at the last one we just plug his laptop directly into the projector should have of the yeah I think the biggest issue will be is trying to figure out what we can do about the
discomfort you're receiving because of the projector right in your face I think off to the side is sitting on to the side is a perfect yeah just like you said I this way and and and
just kind of angle us so we have two tables like this or something whatever and'll work we'll help you out we can thank you a lot of that is is more on the town's shoulders that's how you want to set it up but since we're there we
can assist okay and if um if we're still uncomfortable I have no problem getting up and walking down yeah and I won't ask permission sorry I don't think you have to ask
permission um okay so if you want to abandon Nelson to be the only deer in the headlights no we're not abanded well he wouldn't see you get up and leave anyway because he'd be blinded
by the way oh well sues that's right that's what we could do we could all have sunglasses you were trying to ask me a question earlier um
I was is there um a way of knowing like IP addresses of people who have come into Zoom well that's part of yes how we really can't do it but that's how if
like that Zoom bombing thing were to happen there's a mechanism where we can click on a icon it opens up a box and you click report this person and it collects the IP address and the connections and whatever info it can but
sends it to zoom not to us we don't have access to that uh uh that way they'd have the authority to have the authorities go talk to somebody once they discover who did it because now you're misusing their
equipment federal offense they can do it with us it's just we can the information maybe but we don't have the authority to really do anything legal against the person okay
so just a question yeah no understood okay thank you okay have a good evening everybody see you all individually soon at another meeting
yes exced okay oh yes right um I will uh I'll be joining okay what's Friday at cable advis good good I was gonna report that under the whatever I to
um yeah 4.7 review discuss MMA alert remote public meeting options what motion um I move that the town administrator submit a letter on behalf of the select board in favor of
extending or permanently um I don't know what the rest of that is ex yeah me either uh extending the um remote public meeting options I
second to extend hybrid meetings and uh forever yeah well you know um I uh I had reached out to margus garsdale um she's working on on her end
so she's heard my you know um you know advocating for it and I had met with um congresswoman Tran's uh office maybe a couple weeks AG go via Zoom just go over some of
our issues that you know maybe she could uh you know address on the legislative level and uh you know I mentioned um that the you know um extending the the remote public meeting options as well so I think I think everybody really is in
favor of it as well because we get far more attendance virtually yeah uh than we do in person now certain things we have to do understand but in order to be transparent and allow more
people into the meetings or being able to review meetings at their Leisure on YouTube you have to do this absolutely I think people are getting uh nervous because it's expiring at the end of this
month right and uh I can certainly see a gap in h coverage where we have to revert back to the old um definitely you know um so you know they need to act
quickly I think so that there is no um extended period of time where we're using the the old you know way of meeting y hopefully they look get it with priority y 5.1 Town Administrator
updates some reports I made a motion did we yes you did I am sorry um it was I guess it was second yeah I did second it for hybrid meetings to continue forever that
was and we had discussion okay uh roll call verica Ky and Laura sherite now so um a big update that I want to let you
guys know um um so NM Cog you know the North Middle sex Council of governments um you know they're they're a regional planning agency and they're based on of La they're kind of like a we're not and
they're like mrpc they're the mrpc um equival yeah I thought isn't that one and maybe not but I think uh we are part of that okay region so it's a different thing yeah uh but they're
they're very similar to like an mrpc um so I guess this started before I even started here in Townsen um uh it was Townsen pep rol dunable and
Littleton all four towns got together and submitted a um a grant oh yes to um get a regional energy manager so this individual would be servicing the four towns I just
mentioned including towns and you know on a various number of of issues um but you know it's um you know what is the Cog stand for uh Council of
governments and MC and what are the towns D andleton yeah so uh over the summer into the fall uh
the you know all four towns met remotely to figure out you know what each Town hopes to get out of um this Regional energy manager so we came up with a list
and this was um Aaron at the time was assisting um so we decided that we would have this individual um come up with a climate action plan for Townsen so that
would basically incorporate um everything from the open space report that that we've um had generated by I think it was an RPC I think
um what else a uh hazard Hazard mitigation plan that Wesson and Samson did for us a few years ago and the MVP Municipal vulnerable yep um uh housing production plan um a master plan uh I mentioned the
open space and Recreation plan um we've had those plans done yep so what this individual would do is incorporate everything um into what we call a climate action plan so kind of
this takes all those plans and reports and studies and distills it into you know something that's um focus on the climent so it could be um you know a lot of it is um Energy Efficiency
projects um but it also has to do with um you know how does that uh you know relate to climate change and um you know how we uh you know mitigate some of those risks especially all of our CTS
and you know uh water ways here in town so it just incorporates all those um um plans and studies into a cohesive climate action plan you know um
and that's that's our particular ask I know peppol dunable and Littleton have a slightly different flavor of what they're looking for this individual to accomplish for them but for us it's um
the US Town town I mean who in Townsen is asking for this well so the um this um uh Regional energy manager would meet
with you know key stakeholders select board um planning board because you know you you guys do so much with um you know planning and development that you know could you know affect you know climate as well as um someone like Ron for
example on the energy committee well right I understand you know having the energy yeah but but you know the planing board you know when you think about it makes a lot of sense too because you're in charge of you know all site plan
review you know major projects and and those projects you know have um potential impacts you know to you know um the environment you know the the climate and
things of that nature so um that's why you should be a the planning board should be a pretty big stakeholder you know in the conversation and um I plan to you know I I don't think the planning board has
done much approval process of developments that would have an impact on the environment well it's things like putting in a um driveway if if the
driveway is close to a a waterway that it sifts down through or having Water Gardens or something you know of that nature yeah or or even just you know um an addition of you know completely new
structure going up you know it's you know it's a very um you know broad you know approach to um the issue and you know you know planning just happens to be you know I would say a vital
component of that so over the coming weeks I'm GNA her name is Michelle zalanka she has a lot of experience in this they hired someone they did yep who pays for this um it's do a grant it's um
a oneyear grant um but the individual knew that's going in we are hoping um if it's successful and there's funding next year that we would uh you
know apply for the gr to keep things going or was there did I did I miss a motion or a vote that was taken to join this um that for Townson to join this I think this was before I
even started do you remember it it it was probably done because I know that this posting was up for this position um when did I talk to somebody about that maybe in the October November time frame it was in the fall so it happened prior
to us being on board as select board members I mean I never heard of it in planning hard planning or assessing or town properties or yeah I at that point or mrpc actually
mrpc isn't involved yeah because at least two of these aren't mrpc towns three of them pepper is an mrpc duno is an mrpc littleon is mrpc so um it was it was outside of that
it was the the climate what is it called I went to several of their meetings three years ago there's it's like 3 C's or NM C4 yes yes it's a um it's e i I forgot the e e
CBG and I forget what the acronym stands for so do I um but yeah that that's who's um behind it uh they put out a survey probably three years ago um because this was when I was Prior a
select board member saying what do you need to um in your town to um bring about uh climate change or sustainability projects that sort of thing and I know I answered that survey
staff we need staff we need someone to do it because you can't expect that the people who are here right now are going to have this their everybody's doing their job to have this added there another there and so this position was
the result of that um there were and still are I know the peil select board was active on this committee um Dave foli and I went to the very first meeting that they had
probably four years ago and I just didn't have time to keep going to these meetings um okay but yeah Aaron was um you know was pretty involved in getting uh you know the our side of
things up and running um so we were fortunate enough to get the grant um so we uh we all join forces and you know this um energy manager you know part of their
time may be assisting that climate yeah definely thank you hope there's something in the air here as you can hear my it's like there's something floating around um
so so yeah um I I plan to have this individual Michelle um probably make a presentation um with the select board um maybe even the plan Bo and definitely the energy um
okay committee you know I think I'm excited because I think she can really all those reports and studies that we've done over years she's going to sift through it and
you know incorporate it into you know a plan correct um I'd be interested to know uh what the goals are of the other three towns since they are different than ours they are slightly different and um I'll have to look back at the
documentation but each town did submit like what their goals and objective were for this individual system okay so um so I'm excited to see that's um up and running
do you have any information that you can forward to us okay on her background or the the yep organization or whatever her job description that sort of thing yep I can do that thank you
um I think that was the all I had to share okay and you'll keep us posted on how you're doing for the special yes oh um yeah so I'm
um I'm crafting up a narrative to you know sort of present to the to the voters I know Brad Morgan will you know have his slides but I'm I'm obviously going to stress you know how important the the school budget override is you
know to the town budget because if we if it doesn't pass then we're going to have to make you know some pretty major major cuts um so you know I I'll probably do like a you know like a pie chart of what the
what each of those various buckets you know the percentage and then you know and then the second pie chart would be you know these are the cuts we would need to make you know to to balance the
budget you know and you were also going to have an average cost per household yes words taxpayer correct and I'll get that um right off the DLS St have a range I know said average but the
average is not going to affect the low end or the high end so if there's some a possible way may with Vicky you know out the assessors to try to get a range of what the tax increase would be to I mean
she's most familiar with the properties and the range so well so on the um DLS website when you enter in like the override amount it'll tell you what newx tax rate would be for each home uh well
that's the for the assessed value you know the per thousand yeah per thousand and then everybody you would take a maybe a median average you do yourself if you know what your assessment is right you have the per dollar yeah so
the website will you know tell you the the new tax rate as well as you know what the average increase is based on the average assess value at the home again everyone's value is slightly different from each other so you know at that
point it's on you to um know what your assessed value is then sort of do simple math that's public record I can get it even if they don't know it or they haven't gotten their bill cor I think I'm sorry go ahead and you know I can
also provide um maybe some sort of way of calculating for folks you know like all they need to do is tell me tell you know the the the calculator um
what their assessed value is you know and the new rate it should tell them math right so agreed the other thing I think we need to address is trash I think we need to say and as far
as how we left it on Saturday that we are going to um our intent as of the 10th is to go with pay you throw the collection only with a without
a feet for the remainder without the override we will be charging a fee if in fact we keep trash collection in town I think we need to address that somehow yeah those are the two major things yeah I think if the override
doesn't pass you either have to probably cut trash Al together which I'm that's certainly The Last Resort I feel or you you charge a fee a fee um you know and
as a voluntary fee obviously um we're thinking you know you think $100 a year per household should be sufficient to bridge most of the Gap it it's voluntary in the sense
that if you use Town trash pickup see C if you use Town trash pickup you are charged the fee so we're going to have to have some way in other words everybody gets charged unless they come in and kned out right um
but they'll get their own and they're going to pay more anyway that's true than $100 here in in bags um but but you know implementing that fee you know I think I said it before um it's it's not easy from an
administrative perspective I we have to do it we'll we'll make it work somehow but it's it's a lot of work to um you know keep track of all the payments um and then give this information to Shaw
um but if we're implementing CPA it should be a similar type of Fe Str that's what I think um that's my feeling but I could be wrong me too you know in a lot of ways there is
some commonalities but you know it is still um an extra step that you know the staff aren't haven't been doing so but Irene's numbers Incorporated funds for doing that work yes they did um in what
she gave us on Saturday she put 20,000 in yeah I haven't like quite vetted you know some of those estimates um but you know I think the cost of the increase in
Personnel cost is probably minimal but the workload is certainly going to increase um you know you know to uh get the program um up and running and continuing um the implementation throughout the
year well our option then is the override passes and we have trash the override doesn't pass we don't have trash if in fact We're Not Gonna you know do a and if it doesn't pass we're going to lose a lot more too oh yeah yeah not
just trash um so and I think um I I would probably in my slideshow presentation um sort of mentioned some of those things that might potentially be cut um
trash is certainly one that we just talked about the the pavement program that's you know going away I think that's going whether or not we have an override it's gone
even with the override um and then it's you know we don't have the the details but it could be like um a 20% cut or whatever the number is um across these you know departments I
think we've already sort of agreed on that Public Safety is we shouldn't cut because you know it's a public safety issue um you can't cut really on debt and insurance so and you know we're not
we're not in charge of cutting the school budget so when you take away all those buckets you're only left with a handful of things that you can cut and and those those areas are going to experience pretty painful cuts it comes down to the
highway department cemetery and Parks Library Senior Center Town Hall Town Hall pretty much what it comes down to and it means we're going to be closed for the most part one day a week and I
did hear I don't know if anybody else heard this but I did hear the other day that there are some communities some towns that do not clear the roads now until after a storm is over they do not go out until after the
storm is over that means that nobody's going out people need to know that um if that's what in fact I mean we we haven't voted that here but has been voted in other communities because snow and ice is so
high and then the labor for it besides it's it's the labor when you are when you're plowing at night or on the weekend rather than during regular hours right weekends we're still G to have because you're going to need to clear on the
weekends you know I can't wait for next week what another hour of daylight next week it's coming to a neighborhood near you what be a hand
for I think it should be yeah yes it should be people like to hold things and I I I'm not at the point where it's it's ready um but I think it's just going to be two or three slides at most we'll see
it first we will see it first yeah I I'll I'll send I'll start working on it start sending out drafts and we can um you know tweak it here and there okay anything
else you ready before I about the special um okay do we have maybe we don't have an updated leaon list because I don't have it to go with all right do you have any updates um the only thing I
would like to say is capital planning we need to discuss as a board the report was made last week so on 318 I would like on the agenda a discussion of capital planning projects and funding
sources okay and that ties into the annual town meeting or special town meeting at Town annual town meeting putting um you know releasing warrant articles that we can to put those funds towards other Capital items etc etc yeah
okay so that's the only report I have okay um as Dave mentioned the U cable advisory contract um your task force is meeting
from 5 to 7 Friday night and Nelson you're joining us I will be yes um um I'll I'll be doing remotely and I got to oh we're it's all virtual yeah and I'm bring my daughter to a ballet practice at 5:45 so I'll probably be in
the car driving for part of that and and waiting in the parking lot while she's doing it so remotely but um I had sent Dave um a quote for the
the attorney that was recommended to us so hopefully I I'll remind him that you probably should you guys should discuss that as a committee to you know see if it's reasonable and if it is you know reach out to um to
him to uh you know you know but there's been nothing from the cable company itself for a draft contract for the after October I think I could we haven't seen
anything I could be mistak but I think um sort of you the the committee meets as a group determines you know what you want to change or tweak in the contract we went through the contract already and there is a list of things where we had
questions or whatever there there's a list okay but then we sat there and said wait a minute we don't even know what the next contract looks like and we're we have this list of questions but it's
this contract not the next contract well maybe if you meet with the attorney that person can go through the questions that you have clear them up for you because it's it's kind of like almost doing a collective bargaining
agreement we want this they want that so you need to figure out what you want how do you want to handle um payments to pay access given that fewer people are Contracting with um
with another thing I I asked the question I asked the question of a few people and I couldn't get the answer how many subscribers do we have in towns and what was it at the beginning of the contract and what is it now you could
probably call concast and find that out I mean I don't think that's Secret information yeah but if we get payments we should know what we're getting payments for oh oh we do it it you should be able to get that from um the
treasurer and the accountant I was not you asked them yes are they not receiving the payments they would they came in quarterly I don't know by contract with
um I can pull out all my stuff before the meeting on Friday please it was always the accountant who gave us the number of what came in okay prior to town meeting you should be able to see it quarterly it used to be in released
you know on a monthly basis along with everything else and those are the funds that go directly to tcam they don't get processed at all as far as the general fund goes they never go into the general fund there's a separate
to support tcam correct for our use yes okay by agreement that the town has with tcam and that agreement will probably need to be reworked after or in conjunction with this new agreement with
concs well just for an example one of the things is not excuse me Madam chair yes who's speaking Lisa Struthers hi so um I have a
question is it to be understood that the cable advisory committee is to vet your legal for negotiating the contract no the the cable
advisory my understanding is the cable advisory committee would have an attorney that you work with that's separate from Town Council because our Town Council does not do Communications I understand that it's our it's my understanding that the board of
Selectmen negotiate this contract well we are not not the committee who has no idea how to do that um that's not what we said okay the committee just said pointing out is
pointing out things in the contract right which you know um Lisa that list that you had put together can you send that list to because she's our clerk can you youve all been you've all been
you've all have that I'm asking if you could just send it to Nelson okay okay yeah I can have the chair do that it just the committee got it okay
that's no I just wanted to make that clear um that who who's who who's going to say yeah this is the legal I wasn't under the impression that a committee would do that it would be the
negotiating party which I'm to understand is the select board that does the negotiating but you guys make the um you make the recommendations to the select board you're the committee that makes the recommendation we pull out we pull
out of and have pulled out from the contract current contract all the things that the select board can negotiate that are negotiable items everything else is boilerplate legal
right but I'm sorry Veronica just I I just heard you saying something about us and the lawyer um I the lawyer is your guys not us the last time this was done
the committee worked with an attorney and to um I never met the attorney that did the contract from five years ago okay it was out of the Boston firm that we had before KP law yeah which we were
not doing again so and that was not recommended to us so Adam did recommend somebody yeah thank you because that wasn't clear that hasn't been clear all right so thank thank you uh Lisa and if you could just send that
list to uh Nelson that would be great okay thank you for your time okay because Nelson is going to be joining us on Friday via zoom and this he'll have this ahead of time okay um would you also like me to invite
the um the the attorney who's offered to assist us to join why you look at the list first and then you and I can talk about that and then um maybe not for the whole time but some of the time I don't want to take up
our I don't want to use him for longer than what we have to right okay just MoneyWise yep um but yeah we can we'll discuss that before Friday okay okay thank you Lisa for
doing that you're doing a great job thank you for your time I appreciate it okay um and I really don't have anything else that I hadn't already mentioned as far as the water
[Music] department do we know what's happening there or staff um is there a resolve I I don't think
so it's it's kind of no not really okay we'll talk about that too um have we gotten any volunteer response
forms um there was one for Amanda Dwight I did look downstairs he did pull papers he pulled papers is that an election yes it's an elected board and there are two openings on it and he put in for one of the
openings so he pulled papers okay he pulled papers and is that term starts the day after the election that isn't anything that we could appoint now is there there's an active group now or no I think there's one person oh I'm
not sure I haven't I'm not looking but there are two elected positions on the ballot for that committee so even if there was someone appointed they would just be appointed until the next election so um uh so
okay well good um I did see his application and and I read it and I thought oh that was great and so to anyone else out there who's interested in serving on one of the either elected boards or volunteer boards the openings
are on our website and uh we're always looking for more people to be active in our community so does this mean uh the the select board is not appointing someone it's actually an
election it's on the ballot it's on the ballot oh okay I mean I suppose we could appointed if the committee was going to do a joint thing there's no committee to do joint if there's only one person that's not they recently
appointed someone we did was recently appointed is that the only one leave Ken CL on there too they actually just they actually
just had a meeting on February 24th so they must have must me okay then that um actually that it was a volunteer form that came in so he may have pulled papers that's great but if did his volunteer form then go to
the committee yes oh the committee already has somebody right now so they for the um okay so if you go and look you look I
look today okay there are two openings for Amanda Dwight he pulled papers for one of them I can't remember the length of the term he is the only person who has pulled for Amanda Dwight so I don't know what the deal was with the appointing maybe they just want to wait
until after but you know until after the election and then if there is still one opening someone that's on the committee will be to do business if they want apparently I don't know well that's
interesting um I would have thought that if they got the volunteer form they would have voted and asked for him to be appointed until the election but they must have a full board if if what sabr say is true I I'll go to the
website okay no all right um I don't see any other announcements or Communications no uh the next meeting is our special meeting of March 10th at 7M special town
meeting we are also meeting on March 11th at 5:30 p.m. and then March 18th at 6:00 p.m. and you got meeting on 6m on the
10 before the special time meeting yes sorry okay so can I answer the question on Amanda Dwight yes it looks like Karen Clement and Sue girin are on the committee and and ly LeBlanc but she's
an appointed member and only until 2025 so um and let me back up one more minute so there is papers pulled um and apparently elected Karen Clement is 2025
as well um oh those are the two positions then um yeah so har the person pulled papers for one of those two positions either Karen's or Lyn's I don't know which because um and uh so
so as long as he turns the papers back in he'll be on the committee you know because if you're on the ballot you're going to get voted in um and uh I guess the other person whoever it may be will be appointed so unless someone else pulls
papers you have until Friday at noon to pull Pap a good point to make everyone you have until Friday at noon to pull papers and and then they need to be turned in with the required number of signatures Monday at 5 Monday at 5
Monday the 10th to turn in your paper so anybody who's taking out their papers make sure you turn them in before Monday at 5: to the town clerk's office and thank you for doing that um thank you Veronica for looking that
up you're welcome now April meeting dates we discuss this [Music] um first April
8th April 29th I think we talked about this right nson we did it was kind of like a rough idea of what the meeting schedu okay well I'm good with those dates I must not have been good with the other I think there's a school vacation in
there with Easter It's usually the third week um the week of Boston Globe it's not necessarily Easter it's um Boston Marathon day the 21st is the week of um well Easter changes every year yeah it
it Easter changes every year but Boston Marathon day I don't know if it's the 14th or the 21st um I'm guessing it's the 21st looking at April there's lots of holidays that month it's the 21st it is
the1 yeah so I'm will not meet for three weeks is that wise so if we meet the first meet the first the 8th and the 29th yes so that's one that's two meetings in April um and I know when you were in my
office we're talking about because we need to button up the annual town meeting warrant on call so oh that's why the eth so let me just see so town meeting is on
the 6 May 6 oh no the annual town meeting is the 5th Monday no Tuesday the 6th so that means I we need to post by April 22nd correct um and obviously we need to
meet um before then to I I if if I mean I there are there are five Tuesdays in April is what I'm saying and so if we meet the first and
the second Tuesdays then we'll skip a Tuesday skip a Tuesday and then meet that means there are three weeks in between the 8th and the 29th I think we would be better off meeting the 1 and the
15th um you said there was a week that you weren't available was that right were my were my Mis remember yes but I can't remember why I know we had a discussion yeah you
had a trip well my my big trip is May oh I'm sorry um was there something wom in May it's no this is like I'll be gone gone no phone no nothing
the 19 this is from my daughter that's the 19th I'm gone from May 19th this is good to know to June 5th okay I'm going from May 31st to June 17th oh good I don't feel so bad then
but I will be able to um call into a meeting if need be and I should be back in time for the 17th in June oh but you you also you'll have a third select for yes
we so oh yeah right I will go in good conscience um so so let's look at April um yeah if we meet on the
1 um I just me if it's that third week and I must have told you that for a reason I would be virtual I mean I I I'm not going out of the country so I would be virtual any time
that you want to meet in April I'm just trying to think you know I want to make sure the 15th or the 22nd are the only ones have to be virtual for otherwise I'm here yeah there's there's the 22nd
is just we need to post the the warrants by then so you know if we met on let's put it in for the 1 the eth and the 15th and then again on the 29th which
gives us four meetings but so be it um okay the only problem with that is how would we me on the 29th it's the day after Town election we'll have a new board member oh right that's oh
okay um I mean I'm not sure about the 15 there's a reason for that I'm not sure but I'm not I'm not out of the country I know that I just think that right before town meeting to not meet for three
weeks to is is uh yeah I mean why don't you take a look at your okay let we don't need to okay yes so so I think the April meetings are still in flux at the moment
but that that's fine we don't need to decide well we can do the first in the eth we both agree on those sure it it would just be the next weeks that's a question are you
good with that yeah I think we should pencil in the 15th though just in case it depends on where we are with budget um whether or not um and then the
29th for sure and if the road meeting get exted um well not extending that well well that was my concern there might be a gap where that happened last time there was a gap yeah
and and if if there's that Gap then a quorum needs to happen in person correct so someone cannot be remote in that instance and if I'm not in town I'm not coming back so then we won't have a meeting is what it comes down so you
just need to find out you just need to find out where your schedule is and you know good sorry we had one month after this past Saturday and what I went through the whole week before since at the back I'm not gonna say anything but that
was crazy whatever works is fine with me yeah and you know and you guys don't need to meet on Tuesday you know um shift around yes I was going to say
that too but still if I'm gone for a week there is no other day so wait so come on my phone was off so now it's going crazy I want to silence even when I no it's
it's well we'll figure it out um so you guys need to make a motion to sign the Warr um I move that we U review and sign payroll and bills payable warrants out of session a
second is there any further discussion hear none R call vote I your friend I right there is no executive session this evening so I will entertain a motion to
adjourn our meeting at 8:31 p.m. um so moved and I second in favor I I thank you very much everyone