##VIDEO ID:Qf9SabPpJFI## to the flag of the United States of America to the stands na God indivisible and jusice for all welcome again everybody to the Capital Improvements planning committee it is January 9th 2025 saying 2025 um we do have a quorum we're looking for Melissa we hope she will be able to make it but we can go ahead with our business now we're getting to the part in the the cycle where we've had all the interviews with departments and um got the lists and this is list before us today um I assume is all all of the things we talked about I think I have more on there yes you have more I don't I think this is it oh okay included them all I got one thing the COA the elevator I thought she wanted it in the 26 she didn't have anything for 26 she talked about it because she's got 60,000 she needs 25 more to to fix the elevator I thought it was cuz I changed it to 26 so I'm not sure I'll have to ask her okay she did discuss it and I yeah I can check my note on that yeah cuz she's already got 60,000 to a it from an article from way back but now another part of it is gone going I don't want to get stuck on the elevator take the stairs I know yeah uh we should clarify that I'm just looking here quickly well anyway that won't uh hold us up any I'm not saying it isn't real money but it's not enough to change this speaking of money uh Jim presented exhibit to the board of Selectmen the other night select board and it had some uh the use of free cash is what it really was what we're talking about for the purposes of the capital Improvement planning committee is a number of about a million and a half I'll admit that I'm looking at this exhibit where there are two numbers um but they contain things and we will decide which one is is the one to go with for free cash free cash we have uh depending on which one you look at we have we have a total of $3.4 million and we have money set aside at the moment this is of course not final hi Melissa hi um hi we just making introductory remarks you didn't miss any any real action here um we've got the stabilization account special ed for the schools of [Music] 174,000 um budget and warrant articles somewhere around 523,000 and the difference in these Jim was the uh this minimum carryover that's I'm not sure what that is all about but I'm trying to remember which is the difference between these two exhibits is there something on so the one on the left there that was the fiveyear plan the financial plan those were the recommended percentages number come out on the right was just a different option it wasn't um anything specific it it puts more into Capital stabilization right um kind of shift some of the other stuff the first one is minimum 10% carry over that just unspent free cash that goes into free cash for the when you had to start with a balance okay well in any event for our purposes which is really what you're interested in is uh we thought if we used the number of a million and a half that would be a good number it's possible it be could be a little bit larger in the end depending on how this all plays out U but that certainly is one of the larger numbers that we've seen I think it's a largest number that I've seen for Capital Improvements so that's good and uh we'll work with that as our sort of our bellweather and take it from there of course this is one part of a process that includes the select board looking at this the finance committee and ultimately an article at town meeting so that's it for we'll call it the introductory remarks um on the agenda if you don't mind I'd like to dispense with the minutes of January 4th that was item Ra's item number four and uh sent those out and I what is the pleasure of the committee on the minutes of January 4th January it's December 5th this is December 5th we yeah that's last year that would have been me I would have printed out the wrong one did I print out the wrong one yeah but the thing is we never did approve that one we never approved December 5th nope that's why I put them here yeah this is well we can approve this is December 5th 24 right yeah right this was 23 and then January 2nd of 25 right no approvement is December yeah December 5th of 2024 well anyway it's not not fatal so we don't have to do anything with the December 5th we from a year ago well not a year ago 24 24 mon do the month was yeah December 5th was last month and we didn't we did not approve those no December 5th F no that was our last January 4th you're saying we didn't approve either a year ago yeah yeah I got my notes it says motion approve the January 4th but nobody wrote up the minutes nobody wrote up the minutes well then it's tough to approve yes you talking about 24 yeah okay well what's the what's the uh Roberts rules for improving minutes that haven't been sent around you mean the January 11th ones no they were oh I took and I had the whole thing and so we're meeting again next week right we did that thee we after so we can put January 11 yeah we can put it on why don't okay why don't January 4th of 23 oh two years ago 23 two years ago yeah years you should have been here this wouldn't have happened we can skip that all right so we'll let's do the December 5th we task the Town Administrator with getting all this together and presenting it to us at the next meeting before our deliberation but I did send you the minutes of our last meeting yeah yeah and I had it printed out at home but I didn't bring it because thought we'd have it here would you like that one we do I have two copies but yeah this is it I'm just looking at something at the moment here don't mind yeah this is where we we discussed the next meeting date so today we we're meeting obviously and then the next date we're going to go to Tuesday meetings so this is the last one okay and that'll be on Tuesday what um did I hear you say there wasn't one the day after Martin Luther King I think it's the 20 I can't read that for me1 21st that's our next meeting yeah okay that'll be a fun night January 21st got to put on my phone at 4:30 or 4 what's the pleasure of the committee is is for doable MH for me it yeah it's going to be difficult that's the first day of back to school for me so I will probably won't be leaving my work till like s and I know I'm the person who wanted the Tuesdays right um so if you want to do the four I just don't know if I can get here okay that's all right why I plan it for four then for that date and uh do the best you can was 22nd Tuesday the 21st 21st thanks and I'll see what finom later on that night yeah it's always fun snap yes really yes too anyway we'll approve all of the minutes in the past in the present um at the next meeting and how about the future he might as well add on a few more dates yeah yeah we'll we'll approve those ahead of time and uh Jimmy would you be taking today's minutes yes okay so we'll be we'll be all caught up if that's our only problem we're lucky lucky folks aren't we okay so I shuffle my papers around so this is where we where we start uh talking about the ranking so there were no more except maybe the elevator and the Council on Aging uh we start to discuss these and try to put them in in some order for ranking and and see where that takes us um I've done some some of that myself to see if that would work as a $5 million $1.5 million budget obviously we have more than that anyway and that's usually the case so we have to make some decisions so there's a couple of ways of doing this what Tim King used to do is send us home and have us do homework we' come back in with rankings last time I think we did this we just talked it through and said what do you think about going right down the line and how what are the feelings are the strong feelings for and we rank them one two and three and uh then we see what we' got and somebody has to to tally this all up and but it's really now it's a question of how strongly we feel about each area so unless there's an opposition we'll just I'll go through each one and say what do you think how important is it is it a one is it a two and at the moment this doesn't have to be binding this will be sort of like a a warmup and then we'll see what we've got and we have may have to make some alterations based on the way this goes and uh that's what we that's what we do until we get to the end and then have a list for the warrant article hoping that that list would also meet muster with the finance committee and the select board so I'll just Soldier on unless somebody tells me to stop or to pour a pause the first group and Jim you could add uh flavor to these uh in particularly the flavor that I'm interested in is like with the cemeter would that be funded by the cemetery Perpetual fund and that of course would have an influence on whether or not we're going to do it if we've got the money then if it's something like that we might want to do it anyway because we've got the money we can't spend that money on something else so we have a couple of things like that I suppose and that would be good to know but you can help us with that so I'll just start at the top uh General government uh and these are the fiscal year 2026 requests on the right they're most of them yellow the blues are the totals I guess and the first one is the library HVAC 103,000 I think this the people from the library said this was an important one for them uh what's the general feeling of the committee on on this item there any thoughts any sentiments it's been more than one year since they've been requesting it that's yeah yeah yeah we'd like to where we've haven't approved something in the past to maybe give that a little priority maybe not priority maybe just a little more urgency in the spirit of fair play because some of these just missed the cut I don't recall where the library H back ended up last year but I do know it was as you point out Mariel it's talked about but it didn't get done so what's uh we put a one on this or two I have I have a question hi um was there any like friends match to that I know they have like that the friends of the library was this was this was the actual cost from the estimates that they had I will say it's my understanding they're still working okay we haven't had the luxury over in the years to like replace things that are still working we usually wait till they fail and we spend more money to fix them at that point but um yeah they are still functioning right now so I I wasn't here so my apologies for that so it is still working uh at the library because it okay yeah and it's funny on last year's spreadsheet they put it the library hvc future years after 29 and it had $770,000 too right so this is they were requesting it early last year but we spread them out over the years too yeah that wasn't necess them no that was us was Mar what's the number you have on that item for last year 7,000,000 yeah like okay then must be looking at the right thing here this is dated 824 Jim yeah so this is last we got it we got it in were they going to try to look into see if there was some grants or something grants or other funding that they could get for that um or Energy rebates or something yeah so Kathy Stanley our energy consultant I think was going to take a look at that um just that would have been pricing you know they may have been able to get better pricing but yeah still I don't think the what needs to be changed would change well the obvious question is if it was 70 last year now it's 103 I know things have gone up in price that's a that's a steep increase um we probably need to get some clarification on this so all that being said I do think it's a building that and a resource that everybody in town uses and it's it's it's important that they're not that they have some air conditioning so if I think that would be important to know if like the status of it sure yeah well it's it's all working right now yeah but they're old one is 17 years old the rooftop unit and the humidity unit is 14 years old and um they've been doing repairs up to approximately 7,000 last year on them yes another question is what are was getting chewed up with and then the cost then the humidity control um keeps track of the history room that's very important in there yeah so if it happens all it sudden we'd have to come up with the money to fix it yeah so I would rank it a three or a two that's my opinion to everybody else I would suggest a two two yeah me too two two okay I'll put that down as a two again this is all tenative based on more information but uh that's it'll do that now the town hall painting we're happy to say that the price is the same as it was last year couldn't get a little cheaper maybe it's getting more money um yeah I I don't think we're ready at this point it definitely needs to be done there's no question that we need to get this place painted um interior or exterior exterior well interior too we're looking exterior is there CPC money for that there is CPC money um yeah have to go back before them which means we wouldn't go back before them until next year we'll put it as a priority one but I put it as a three okay I agree me too so looking forward to next year Jim how do you see this playing out would we be looking to move it up in the ranking to like a two or one yeah I'm hoping if we can get it up to a one next year and get CPC funding okay just making a note of this okay well that's a big item so it's we don't have to do it this year that's I guess that's good although we we might have more money this year than we're going to have next year right this this million and a half that we're talking about and the 3 million overall for free cash is quite unusual but you take it one step at a time one year at a time okay uh the next item was the building inspector truck $50,000 and uh did they have a truck now maybe you can refresh our memory so so we have one truck here that's used by the maintenance staff um and Ralph currently uses his own car um Ralph is out for a few weeks and we have a temporary building inspector and um he's going to share the truck with the maintenance guy while he's here temporarily um I thought Ralph used the electric vehicles he does he does he uses it I'm sorry he does unless he's got someplace that he has to go that's like impassible with the electric car yeah then he uses his own personal vehicle his own truck so uh What uh I'm having a I'm having difficulty gauging the importance of this is it really a one or is it a two is something we can get by with another year we can get by another year I'm G to put that one as a three I think it three is that the sentiment three three three you know three are not going to get done this year that's that's that's code for not getting done put a NE but at least if you get a three this year you might get a two next year and there is some desire to do that cuz sooner or later pay the piper right all right but for now a three and the cemetery truck this is is this being paid for with Perpetual care funds we can yes and it's definitely needed the existing truck is falling apart and right next door to it is the cemetery expansion that's also I assume peret yeah I don't know if we can get all of that out of Perpetual care I don't think we'll get 400 on a petrol care we might be able to get half of it um why is that doesn't it isn't there a million bucks in there there's the non-expendable and then the Expendable yeah we've got to look into how to use the EXP the non-expendable we don't the idea is that the non-expendable sits there earns the interest to that becomes the Expendable amount okay well I mean we've got what what do we look at like eight eight or 900 in the and the um if interest I was going to say the expendable amount I think is 8 or 900 around you know 78 900 which means we have enough in there it's just bringing it way down and how long would it take to rebuild that couple years yeah is the rebuilding of that based on the number of sales no that's based on the interest rate the sale the sale of the Lots actually goes towards the non-expendable so okay that sits there so it looks like we have most of the money for these two items in one way shape or form right so does that say definitely priorities one I regardless of how we pay for them we're running out of space at the cemetery and people are dying to go there I wonder if maybe we put some you know some from both like maybe 100,000 from cipc and then the remaining from Perpetual care because is that funds used to for the upkeep of ceter somewhat there's the ceter 40 40,000 each year is used to supplement the budget um that's salaries expenses that kind of stuff so yeah I mean we could always get the truck from cipc and put the other to the Perpetual care or something like that too or a portion thereof yeah you know building up to that million and a half I mean I'm just making up numbers but if it's 100 from one pot and 300 from the other yeah right because again that's one of that's an important resource for our town not just the people who are dying to go there but the people who are visiting those who they love that are there so I think it's just important so I would give it a a one yeah it's funny when we were looking at the five-year Capital plan is we looked at that and said you know we we don't really think about it that much but you got to have that you got to have that running right believe me it's and unfortunately we're running out of space we're going to need more expansion than what this is well we're going to need another location yeah that's been looked at in the past though has it h that's been looked at in the past wasn't there a study done the pick andine kind of yeah we don't have a space yeah there was a study years ago I don't know what the conclusion was I don't think they had a solution yeah I if I recall reading that I think Jane Los was part of that and it was every piece of property that was possible there'd be all kinds of things that say well you can't do it for this reason that reason the other reason well anyway that's not our problem today but it is longterm something to think about all right so we're going to put these down as a one we don't have to solve the funding problem at the moment we can talk more about that next time uh but I agree I these These are this is an important thing okay the next one was the it server cluster I'm I'm kind of lost on those things I could see the need for it but if you really ask me what this is really do and how important is it really I don't know so I have to defer to others uh do you recall the texture of the conversation we have yeah I well no yes and no right I'm not going to be able to explain in summary he said it duplicates what they have so if one server goes down the other server comes back up and what do these service feed Jim I mean it what is critical and what is um could go away for a few days or whatever and and and we wouldn't miss a beat really this is all public safety as well okay all right that's um all of the town's critical data resides on Independent servers a failure of the server requires a rebuild from bare metal which requires downtime is a critical component in having a redundant system will increase the system up time which will enable all departments including Public Safety to continue to operate can say we lose our computers you can't collect the taxes we can't it's it's very interesting there's how much we cannot do without computers in this place nothing yeah not to mention that the server also uh part of the server is like the 911 right okay you know all right so it's a public safety issue everything yes gotta okay so that's a one yeah that's yeah I would think so the server does the for dispatch for the dispatcher wow yeah yeah there are several different ones but they all kind of run out a loop right yeah it's it's I would imagine they're a separate one though right they they'd have to be separate because that should always have back up to the where like not that what you do isn't important but not having 911 and dispatching I thought that was operated differently it's all they were all looped together so it's a redundant system that they're looking for not nothing's wrong particularly with what we have okay rides another another layer of safety I guess add measure all right we'll put it down as a one and see where that goes unless it's objection I don't not hearing any not seeing any nobody's throwing stones at me so I guess it's all right um the next one we did talk about I recall at the Council on Aging passenger van Grant match so Beverly outlined her process of getting these Vans and has had some pretty good success in that over the years um but at the moment to do the next one uh I don't recall all the details but it's in here she just needs a 20,000 for the match sounds to me like it's a good deal because the vehicle is worth a lot more than that and a lot of these come with matches so now did she I thought she said she was going to see if the friends did pay they might they might not okay we don't know right up front that's yeah maybe we need to ask her at the next meeting because we got friends people come to the meeting too so yeah but they're replacing uh one that's um 13 years old and has over 130,000 miles on it she's been getting grants for most of the Vans and last year she got a free one oh fell out of the sky it was completely free we gave the school some of them the old ones so I I would say even if like even if there is Friends money 20,000 is is fairly low and there's lots of expenses that they have that I'm sure if if this is covered by um cipc money that the 20,000 that the friends give will cover some other expenses and there's such a large population that utilize those services that I would I would give that a one for funding from here that's just my the actual cost of the van is a 117,000 yeah yeah I I would agree with the Melissa I mean it's it's it's pretty lwh hanging fruit it's not a a big deal it's not going to kill our free cash or our budget and the population only continues to age to grow so very true and we're using more and more Transportation we're looking for another driver because we don't have enough drivers somebody's out sick and you don't have anybody to cover okay one putting down the moment I got enough what I do gu anybody objects now the next item a million n we I don't know if we could spend the money on that this is for planning that what this means yeah I think they were looking for a bike path but this is this is down the road you know even design if this goes to Massa you're looking like a 3 to 5e design period to go through Mass highway so I in the bike path we probably going to need grants to get yes that done along the way here okay that was my understanding anybody else have a different understanding on that okay uh so that was total General government next two items are police the three Cruisers that's usually the situation every year um and uh in the past we've usually call those a one because as the chief goes through this he shows us how many miles these vehicles have they're right up there um I think the tractor is worthy of more discussion I mean for the moment I'll I'll pencil in a one for the cruises but I'm willing to entertain other thoughts on that but the tractor was uh we talking about snow plowing sometimes it snows and sometimes it doesn't I don't know and it's for lawn maintenance too cutting grass that's true I was just trying to figure out for $65,000 we could do a lot of snow plone and a lot of cutting grass I think yeah and it was the police and fire I believe that were looking at that helps yeah that helps this one I'm sort of like neutral what are they using now they have an old they had a picture one didn't it was an older one yeah yeah and they can't PL snow if it's too deep they have to have the highway do it and they haven't got enough manpower on the highway yeah so so the tractor they have doesn't necessarily plow the snow that would lift the snow up over the fence if it they can't get rid of the snow it just Stacks it up you know pushes it and piles and leaves no room for vehicles well this is one and I mean it just this is not being made up this is a real need it's just a question of how how real how important is this need um for have a lot of snow it's important yeah which we haven't had we haven't lately said that we just missed songs by the about chinny chin chin so we purchased they had a um brand new pickup truck that was purchased through Opa last year with a plow and that's was intended for the the two stations replaced in older ones so they have to pick up with the plow when they get a lot of snow the highway department goes over it's just the only thing the highway department can't always go over there exactly when they need it they were looking for the tractor for a couple of reasons one was because when they get a lot of snow they want to get it out of the pocket lot so they lift it up over the fence but that doesn't seem and the other thing was The Lawns The Lawns the tractor they got for the Lawns takes I forget how many hours to cut and this will reduce the amount of time that it takes because it's bigger the way I look at this too you know it's this a legitimate request I'm not making light of it when I look at the Cruisers I say to myself we got to do that that's Public Safety tractor sooner or later the snow's going to get plopped one way one way or the other now I may bite my tongue someday saying that 25 Ines but you know I don't know I'm tell me how I should feel about this other thing we could do is do two Cruisers and do the tractor something like that yeah to I don't know if could could we do you know the amount of the three cruises but say something different so then they can have the autonomy to do two cruises and a tractor or I mean you mentioned they have a truck and a plow so I think that would do the the plowing so then I mean a tractor maybe they could get get it for a little bit less I mean 65 Grand is a pretty great they them my yeah my opinion we need to get it back on the highway the grass cting yeah and the plowing um to have all these different departments with their own vehicles that they got to maintain store um service it just doesn't make sense so I mean cost wise we'd be better off and we're looking to do that we just you know was not finalizing this year's budget to get another lab over in the highway department so they can got the gra in the summer um yeah I think we I think at this point I think we can get away without the track yeah I think that makes a lot of sense and honestly but I'm I'm not sure why they wouldn't make Public Safety a priority to plow and I know I'm not a highway department person but you know our ambulances are oh incredibly important yeah okay all right so I'm not hearing a a human cry on this one is this a two or three or three but a one for the cruiser right one for the cruises yes pardon me yeah I would I would just table the the tractor until there's some more because I I agreed uh Jim that even a few months ago I think it was when in front of the finance committee every little pod has their own set of equipment I mean we're probably spending 100 Grand I'm I'm making up a number on buying radial mowers for the library for the for this for that for the other and then when you start adding up all the other expenses there's got to be some consolidation yep yeah and good for the good for the people that work in the different departments for picking up the responsibility but I don't think it's the most efficient way to yeah deal with with this so I think we can address it we haven't finalized the budget by any means but we're looking so then we're putting it as a three to Kick the Can down the road and then yeah are we being surveilled is that a drone of them okay a good discussion and uh continuing now the next one is uh some big numbers here fire department all right so they have $950,000 for replacement of engine five engine is it engines give me this again five and two and one what's it what's it would it would how many are there it would replace engines five and two with one new engine one engine $950,000 he talked about that you recall does anybody recall if Chief had uh indicated there'd be grants for this applying they've been applying for a grant the last couple of years but they haven't received it it's very competitive um he's going to apply again this year but he doesn't he didn't seem real positive about it could we start putting money away towards the fire engine like a chunk he did say that it was they order it this year and it takes literally 3 years to build the engine and that you don't have to pay it until the third when when you receive it so we could put a third a third a third away um I mean the only problem with that is when he orders it we're going to have to we have to make the commitment that will'll pay the whole amount now if he places the order this year we could give them like you say 350 this year and so forth but who's to say whether we'll have that money in free cash next year or year after but we're on the hook is right once we order it we're on the hook for the full 950 so how about just putting money away or not ordering it that's another way of doing it because it takes three years to get it and he can't wait three years yeah but if we don't give him the whole amount he ain't going to get anything right but he's not going to if he can't wait three years to order it because it's already passed yeah it's old so this is like the 31 years old yeah yeah the Third vehicle right so he's got the Frontline vehicles and he used this vehicle last year when one of them got hit and was out of service for a few months um I can't argue with fire safety right somebody told you especially in light of what's going on in California right so so I think for this exercise it's a one right yeah that's how I feel we'll look at but but you're right you could do an article and put it put in a third over the next three years not put it in stabilization because if you put it in the capital stabilization and it has to vote town meeting if you just put it in an article and then let it roll from year to year and add to it in the second year and add in the third year then we'll have the money in the third year right but we just got to make sure like I say if if it gets voted down in one year we're sit okay where does the money we got two thirds of a truck yeah that's not optimal right yeah so I'm I'm in favor of a one as well and I like the idea of splitting it up uh over three years or maybe even over two years um or over three years but put maybe half of it now and then the other two split um I mean over the last few years we've had quite a bit of money in free cash I mean do you think it's ever going to be lower than you know 500,000 where we wouldn't be able to you never know no no way of knowing you but have we ever had it over less had negative in the 20 years I've been here we have had two negative free cash so over the last five years no we've had we've had we've been good so I mean I'm just I'm in favor of one either do half now or and then two years the other two Hales um because we do have quite a bit that's just my thoughts yeah well good thoughts uh we have the capital stabilization fund and it the thing I had before I'm putting more money into that your IDE articulated that and uh we're we should name it after you so do you do you know how much is in there now I do not so we're looking for another all depending on which one 500,000 um this one doesn't have that in there so we can look maybe at some different funding so that's what we did over here on the alternate one we put in 500,000 into the capital stabilization um you know there may be some other options with assesses overlay and some other things where we can pull some money out um well we could always fund it cipc partially cipc this year and like you say depend on the stabilization if we get stuck next year or the year after we'd have to hit stabilization MH or they could order it next year right we could put money in this year and put money in next year if it's in order to year own yeah well we agree that it's a one right yeah yeah it's just a question of the how how do how much are we funding yeah how much I mean I'm I'm going to be a contrarian um only because and and I know it's not going to be the most popular it is a one we do need it we've got a 30 31 year old truck that if I remember correctly was a hand me- down y so yeah I I don't think that I don't think the owes us a darn thing and I also know that a lot of the firemen are handy and they've put the thing together with you know rubber bands and bubble gum for for a lot of years so it's about time that we we stepped up to the plate my concern is that next year if there's free cash everybody looks at at the big number whatever that number might be a million and a half to and we get into this battle every year about who grabs what and if we're on the hook for 950 and we're in a battle for the for year two and year three to pay for it I I just want to make sure that that that somehow it's sequestered and my contrarian side tells me let's bite the bullet now when we've got $3.5 million put it into a fund that's interest bearing and have the funds sequestered so that that when the bill comes we need it that's again it's probably not popular but that's kind of where I'm coming from on it not the need but the way to fund it well what would help with that is looking at last year's the fire department doesn't have any needs for trucks forseeable future other than this one it's all blank so I don't know how far this goes out we just P we got him a fa Street we just spent I think with 280 300,000 on another truck for the fire department yeah I mean after this wasn't on their list last year I don't think uh yeah it was well actually no what you're right it's it actually on this particular exhibit it shows up for 27 so but does that mean they're okay with not looking for it this year it can go one more year and then they want to get it I mean my view would be they made a pretty good case for an old truck and we probably ought to start dealing with and if I remember correctly a couple of years ago the same truck was around $450 or $500,000 and now it's $ 950 it's not going to get any cheaper no all right well but I think your idea always I mean doing something creative here in terms of how we do this but are we talking about if we designated it a number one it's going to be ordered now or is it it doesn't have to be right now we're just seeing what we have for ones right and then we'll we'll look and see what the totals are oh no yeah I mean if it were to survive in some if we were to fund partial or or all of it he could order it day after town meeting but like he said it takes three years so we wouldn't actually pay it okay for three years but he could con conceivably order it day after town meeting it would be unless we have Armageddon we we'd have some money some way by hook U okay well good it's a one funding TBD for the moment okay good good discussion now as station car five that's what's is that I'm not sure what the uh what we're talking about here what is that what a station car I think that's like an SUV type car it was a 2010 Explorer do they're replacing that's in the main was he going to replace that with a Explorer or pickup truck I thought he said he thought the pickup truck would be more practical CU they yeah yeah I thought he I think he was looking at getting a truck instead of the Explorer well my gut reaction is if we got to have to bite the bullet on the engine of 950,000 I'm not in the mood of another 275 just just to be frank about it I was going to say I'm thinking that's a two or a three and we just purchased two vehicles for them two four-wheel drive vehicles through Opa last year and then we had the pickup truck through Opa and then an ambulance through Opa so they've okay pretty good run on doesn't mean it's not needed but they've had a good run on equipment yeah we haven't door they need so we we'll put that as for the moment system now the Cascade system system he described that as uh life life saving absolutely necessary was that the was that do you think I mean I didn't quite understand I think that was something to fill the air tanks that they use and it's yeah I think so getting out of date it's basically passed its prime and getting out of date to fill those air tanks so that is kind of and they can have it longer or something if isn't that what he was saying was that the one where they can have it on longer am I misremembering what he's saying is that parts are being discontinued and they can't will not be servicing the ones they've got it'll be impossible for example the system at Station 2 no longer has a motherboard available for replacement should it be needed extremely they must fill our tanks following any use without a function will have no option but to travel to another fire department to fill them did you mention if it was a recurring expense just like one time no this would be one time I think there's two systems right one in each station roughly 75,000 each yep they said one was purchased in 2007 the other was purchased 2009 I mean an option also to save some money there would be to purchase one this year and consider another you know we wouldn't necessarily have to get both of them replaced at 75 each we can that yeah I mean I feel like I'm boxed in here yeah because you want the fire engine I mean you can't deny our employees what they need to do to do their job and this could be life-threatening so it seems like we'd have to do something on that basis I know this adds up so we can put a one down for now I mean yeah we may have too many ones and we may have to cut some of these back anyway right as we move forward okay I I I just want to say I think a one and I think for both stations I think funding at the 150 because if there's a fire at one end or another then they need to refill it for some reason I just I think of the safety and I don't know that so but the thought is about maybe can we do one now and another one next year Well I I'd like to know how how does that put our firefighters or does it put our firefighters at risk at all like is there any risk associated with doing that if it's just he didn't indicate that okay all right then that makes sense but we could follow up yeah see tell them what we're thinking here and get get a different view on that or another view okay the rescue boat I don't know I always thought the Harbor Master was responsible for rescuing people but this was not talking about the river you're talking about Lakes of streams and I don't know ponds and stuff I think it's important but I'm still saying a three for now yeah I was going to say I could go with a two or or a three I I think we're kind of running out of ones as Jim said and subsequently running out of moneylion and a half it's not a question of the need but yeah it's just I don't know how many incidents we're talking about in the year and you know we haven't had a rescue ball right we ever had a rescue ball here yeah we did something tells me we had one at one time didn't they oh we had one that bu know for years right I thought we had one that they had like rebuilt I I remember one too about the about the time that the fire station was built I think they had one they did now that you mention it yeah I don't I'm not sure they ever used it no it was just a little like a little dinghy or something just to they got for the ponds or it was small it wasn't like a big anything well see that's the other question is is to see whether or not a uh you know a modified rescue boat like a Carolina Skiff for example that is probably half the price of that might be adequate um and you know cut some of that down maybe that's worth investigating maybe it's not okay well for now two two or three and we move on now the others are SE maintenance Windows fuel tanks hot water heater sighting um again these are things that sooner or you got to do them but seems like you don't have to do them always this year but I don't know which is more important I mean fuel tanks I'd worry about a little bit Yeah the other things I'd say I thought the fuel tanks he was talking about trying to get a set of fuel tanks like this set here up at the other end of town that the other departments could also use but it's again not necessarily a priority he was I I got the impression they were pushing for for the fuel tanks they were yeah that that's my impression as well that they're inadequate they are ready to I mean I'm not I shouldn't say they're ready to well they come down here to fuel up yeah so I mean look at the inefficiency of that right you know they they I think they still use no they do they do he he mentioned that there's it's a double wall a double wall and the the piece between is starting to go and then you'll end up with more water in the fuel so replacing the tanks but then he was also talking about getting on the same system that the highway department is on so that anybody else could use those like if they're plowing and they need to you know they could use the same key fobs that they have here for police and Highway when they're in the North End because again if you're in the North End and you need G like the police have to drive all the way down here highway is going to come all the way back here yeah it's a 30 mile round trip right you know pretty much give or take you know so yeah can't we just work with like um uh some gas station or something have a just like us to gas station know well here's uh good question for conversation purposes I could see putting a high number on the fuel tanks one or two but then the other ones threes because that's where we're going to put our money if we do one on the fuel tanks yeah I was I was going to say two because I'm just that there's no inconvenience down here because these tanks are relatively close to this main fire station you could also check with the fire chief and see what the priority would be for him maybe he would say that's a priority over the Cascade system or vice versa yeah yeah going forward all right so for the moment uh we'll put threes on the others but that's subject to change all this are subject to change I'll put a one next to the fuel tanks for the moment it's temporary and we'll be talking about it again okay okay soldiering on as they say uh the item for $5 million Tom talked about it for general purposes but I think he was aware that we don't have the money for this and I don't this argument whether this is really Capital that yeah that would be a bond issue yeah so I don't I don't think we need to deal with that I don't know how we could deal with that well Lista how do you feel about that no I agree I think it was something to put on the radar are yeah you know that that's going or you know one it would be beneficial to the to the town to have that and but yeah that's why it's not listed as one of the priorities okay well for the record keeping I'll just put a three on it for now but it's understood it's sort of a different breed of cat now these numbers 1 two three and four are those priorities that that was from the school department yeah so that's helpful so the security upgrades were one and that's 235,000 I would be amenable to that I don't know how this feel it's kind of hard to say no to that um then the electrical at the elementary school I don't know uh they have it as a two again twos might not make the cut here um I I don't know I think that was just their preference their preference that's not their preference yeah 1 two three four so these are all the schools priorities so if you were to say they would say all of them are ones that need to be done but they knew that obviously they couldn't get yeah that amount because that's too much um but looking at those four things the security upgrades the AC the playground and the generator was what they considered the top prior prority so they would give them the ones I guess and looking at it I think the the West AC Electrical was because it gets really hot in the elementary school for the students um and in order to fix it there needs to be an upgrade in the system and then um yeah so that's where you're at let you so we should just maybe take their numbers plug them in for now because that's what they had come up with in other words the electrical is a two I think there one correct well they're all a one they but if they had a preference of which ones were to be done they wanted the security upgrades first the electrical second the playground third and the generators fourth right so I think looking at trying to take my eyes off of being like a school committee member right and looking at it as this committee what I would suggest is looking at each individual item kind of like we did um for the fire department and the reason that they did the one two three and four is because I made that suggestion because I knew in the past when we've been here as a group it kind of was like the fire department like we didn't really know well what is their preference is it like you said is it the Cascade system or is it the the fuel tanks so what they're saying here is if we were to look at all of them you know those are the ones that they would want funded the most so you might look at it and say well the 7 00 700,000 for the AC Electrical maybe we can't fund it the the maybe that's something plausible that we could do um over years over a number of years or something because that is a high but then if you look at the Mac playground and the generators those are both 300,000 so is that more you know and it's also thinking about it what do you think the priorities would be too you know as we've had discussions for other items so with my sloppy math including the security upgrades just adding up number ones were at 1.2 million I may have missed something a but generally speaking we're at about 1.2 million so what but after this we're we don't have too many items left thankfully getting to the bottom of the page um but in just on your math I don't think it's sloppy sounds pretty good you said did you contemplate these four items no I just I I I just I just was adding up the column and when I got to security upgrades I got to 1.2 so we have a differential of 300 yeah give or take if we stick with the one and a half well we could list these oh I'm sorry to sorry to interrupt you I did not include because it's such a big number I did not include in that number the uh the replacement of the engine the fire engine the fire engine okay yeah that's almost the middle of there yeah oh yeah that would out of long before yeah so I I would ask though that if we're going to be looking at these because the school's at the bottom like any other Town Department would be I don't think we should be and I'm not saying maybe you're not doing this but that will we have 1.2 million that we've already spent so we only have a little bit left to spend here I think they need to be considered based on each individual item well I wouldn't disagree I'm not than I wouldn't disagree we've got to reorder the ones on top of the list next year right right for sure yeah I yeah I was going to suggest it sounds corny but just label them all as ones for now and then we're going to have to discuss it and say now how serious are we about that one versus that one that one yeah and then we have that uh then we're not second guessing the school's judgment that would be my thought but you know this is all tenative I've said that eight times already so so the electrical upgrades does that include the HVAC system too or is that just the electric do you know um it's uh AC installation with univent and mini split upgrades so I believe it is it does and again is that anything that they have they worked with anybody on um Energy rebates and so forth or whatever we did talk about that I I think that there was some calls made but I don't think it's like within that number so you're right that that could reduce the cost for sure so is this for summer school use is it for I think it's for the for for all year right but obviously that's whenever the students are in the school um so whenever we have the hot weather in then unfortunately the months have kind of been changing so sometimes you get really hot weather in September and then also in May May and June okay so what's the in terms of today's ranking what do you want to do with these you want to put twos on them and the other ones ones and made it again next time um I mean I I don't think they're all equal because we're talking about uh well I wasn't including the 8 million thing it's it's a different it's like the first one so it's really between these one two three four five items of which we've already decided security upgrades are number one so what do you want to do with the other four again this is all for the moment yeah the question is the electrical The Playground now the playground is that was that getting to the safety issues with kids it is so there's two things with the playground one it's a safety issue in regards to the playground being really old and then two it's the ability to have some of our children who have special needs be able to utilize the equipment right so maybe we should do this in reverse sck and and and think about that the fields in Recreation house I would assume would be a three M yep I would assume that the lighting Playing Fields would be a three mhm probably I I I don't I'm not I'm not projecting I'm just saying that that in terms of um the Mac playground you made a pretty good case right there about special needs kids safety issues and everything else so um you know it's either a one in my opinion either a one or a two I don't see it as a three generator if they need them send the kids home for the day they'll love you for it sometimes the old methods work yeah all right so again great so for now what what are we doing here the playground's been on the list for a few years yeah what has the playground playground okay the playing lighting paying fills here give my joke we won't penalize for incorrect spelling I what number do do you want me to put next to that paying we heard two we heard one vience we are paying um for the for the playground is that what you're talking about the no the yeah the playing F the playing fields lighting the current playing field so I mean I I it's one of those things that one of the things I talked about at the school committee is we have you know the fields and Recreation house we have the lighting and playing fields you know we have the bike path we have all these Recreation committees or Recreation things but then they're from almost like what I think you talked about Jim with you know not like centralizing something so we've got the schools that are asking for this and wck asking for that so I think for this conversation it's probably a three but I think moving forward it would be really great to get departments together to talk about because having a lighted playing field is such a great town activity but it's not you know safety of our students you know making those upgrades so I I I would probably say it's as much as I'd love it probably close to a three for the playing for the lights at this time yeah and and and the fields and Recreation house but I think those are important for our town but not safety you know I mean with those the the the recreation house the fields the lighting and the childhood education center you're looking at 14 almost 15 million I mean that's something for bonding it would be a case of seeing if the people putting it on as an article see if the but it has to go right excluded right but it's can't afford to a non-excluded debt but it's it's important for the schools to mention it because these are needs that they have right oh yeah and then when you talk about the generators and I I don't know if you have that information when they talked about I know that there was an important reason for having the generators besides like if if the like the sending them home yeah which I'm I'm in agreement with too but for some reason I think there was another reason for the generators who's replacing a generator too wasn't it yeah because the I know the generators are incredibly old yeah they said it was getting difficult to get pots just like ours well I mean the bottom just so many needs here in town could go through this building and right come up with $2 million without blinking an eye right but I think if you had to choose between the generators or the electrical for the West it would be the West so if you did um you know if you made the the AC Electrical a higher and then because it is a two versus the four for the generators they also said in the writing that the electrical is going to be a threeyear project say three years so maybe um I can also ask the the superintendent and budget manager um Michelle if um that can be spread out the cost too yeah maybe we get some clarity on these last few items here and and start to rank them more serious this would I think the arguments pro and con it's in there somewhere and we can clarify that so for now we could just put them down as twos or something okay but if you put them as as a three they're probably not going to make any Cuts so that's like the death now but a two can still implies some life possibility fresh air but uh so don't why don't we do that just for now for record keeping um but that's subject to change so that's it's a one for the security and two for electrical and um playground was a two too yeah I thought the playground was a one I'd say one for playground yeah I have it as a one I I I have no preference that's fine and then Twos for the next two or what do you want to do there yeah okay yeah that'll be a starting point for the next discussion and we need some clarification would you be doing that or yeah I'll ask um Mr super director to send that info over and Jim you might want to ask the police chief if this year does he really need three cruises excuse me or could he go down to two yep I don't know you know maybe he needs three but if he could go down to two that 70 80,000 could be shifted into another spot okay got that yep okay only thing we haven't looked at is the highway truck yep last but not least is the highway Heavy Truck heavy truck heavy truck I I think they made a compelling case again uh another year out of it I don't know Jim what do you think about this one I don't know I don't know uh this is another department where we've bought quite a bit of equipment over the last few years um let me look at the last last year's requests from them last year we had was the exavator the uh it say we had a pickup before was the mini excavator don't a trailer was the well here's here's the rank last pickup truck and Highway trailer yeah year before we had the excavator on wheels that cuts along the side of the road and we also got him a um a back ho from Opa about two years ago what was the heavy truck for like is it a specific um yeah it's it's it's like a big pickup truck with a dump on it so it's like a very small dump truck which they do use quite a bit they one pretty beat up um that's the one they replacing I can confirm with them how it's funny though whoever you talk to it's it's terrible needs to be replaced tomorrow you know if it's that department it's a one if it's us it might be all right well we'll put it down moment why don't I suggest a two just for discussion and then we'll have ADD it after you get a discussion as to how serious is it you know I I don't know that's one of these you got to do it sooner or later but can you get one more year maybe I don't know well they are the department to that when you talked about centralizing they would need the equipment to be able to assist the other town but they also need to have the budget to pay the people to work in the town yeah okay well that's uh that's to those two two tws with the generator and the heavy truck yeah Le I wrote in yeah correct on that I thought I was all right well that's that's good for today that's uh the discussion we needed to have the next meeting will be going into the same basically the same title review the request then we're going to start making some calls on that we've got to pin down all the the extra questions we had so we know exactly yeah any of the questions we had on the ones and exactly and excuse me pull out the ones as we discussed and reorder those so that everybody gets a fair shake at the uh that's right same bite of the Apple you know yeah like we're doing this within the categories and that's really not in the end you got to look at the whole whole picture then you get Sometimes some different things come to light Jim did you send this in in Excel to us I can okay thank you all right uh their topics not reasonably anticipated that's just one of those placeholder things I don't think there's anything there unless you know something I don't know the only thing I want few things I want to mention one is we have a this hasn't come up from the infrastructure committee yet whether it comes to this committee or directly to the select board I'm not sure but we have a grant for $970 odd th000 from federal government for Route Six infrastructure either sew or water um and there a match that's required for that I think that's about $275,000 um so that's just something to keep in mind whether what's the grant for Jim pretty much open anything to do with water sewer on Route Six so we could extend the water line they could we would need more for any type of sewer stuff but um the water line could always be extended with with that I was going to say and I will say as far as matching we need to set aside we got to keep in mind we need to set aside some extra funds for that anyway everybody have been applying for more grants all over the place uh the COA I know does the uh Board of Health is applying for Grants planning board you know and a lot of these grants um they require at least a certain amount of matching funds you know sometimes it's 10 only 10 or 20,000 but if this department needs 20 and this one needs 10 and this one needs 30 it adds money yeah it adds up quick and we've been fortunate over the last few years because we've had some Opa money that we could use to kind of fill in those gaps but that is gone right now when um when the individuals write the grants is there someone that helps with identifying if there's expenses that are already in the operating budget that they can utilize so for example the coa's director's salary if she's going to be running a program can they use part of her salary as matching versus do you know what I'm saying depends on the grants yes some of them have in kind Services well it's not necessarily in kind it's you can call it in sometimes it's in kind but sometimes it's actually direct cost so it it depends on what the grants are so I'd be I used to do that in a past life so if anybody wants to have a conversation about that because sometimes you can utilize it sometimes you can't it has if it's a brand new program um but if it's you know it all depends on the grant so it's just sometimes people don't think about that um and I just know that that can be used so no that's good okay Jim I think that and this is just my personal opinion this has nothing to do with swaying anybody I I think get a deeper and longer conversation when it comes to uh a match to a grant that the voters in the town twice have voted down so just to be clear on that right the vote is voted down the borrowing for the project which kind of indicates maybe they voted down against the project but technically they voted against the funding of the project so well well that's true we can have an offline conversation about it I don't want to bog the meeting down but it it's it's you know it's what my father used to say you don't let a camel get his nose in the tent because the next thing the old camels in the tent Y and all of a sudden you got a million dollars of a grant and then the next thing you know it's this and then you get my point so you know nope I get it the water line is going in though right now they're extending the water line under current grants um the pricing we got with that contract was extremely favorable um bid came in at like 3.2 million the next highest was like 4.3 so you know they were just eer to do work over the winter so you know if if you don't piggy back on that contract and extend it you're going to lose those pricing um so what might cost us a million dollars this year could very easily cost us a million and a half next year um so just not my call to make I just pointed out it's not my call either but I'm just bringing that up as a as a point no it's a good point and then the other point probably on the same lines is on some of these they could be considered for debt exclusions some of these bigger projects like the fire engine the uh Elementary School electrification that could be a standalone debt exclusion project um we did a we did a capital Deb exclusion one year it was like we did one I was just going to say that we did a they did a or something yeah yeah um in which they took like the lighting project this project you know two or three projects that were a million you know and did a three million I mean that was borrowing that was one and a half million back then but get appr do we know what rolling what's rolling off sus yes I got that all down for aome it may be that we've got some debt that's rolling off that not that quickly no that quickly we're getting there on a couple of them we're getting fire stations in another yeah I've got it all like I say a presentation for fincom on the debt regular debt we had one the camp ground's coming off this year right campground's coming off this year for the uh regular debt and then uh what is it the green was it the green that came off that one came off last year that was the last payment so that's gone so that's gone so I don't know if it's an appetite for that at this point but yeah but we've got we've got septic coming back on there you go right okay thank you thank you uh I guess that concludes it good meeting we've had some good discussion here so just need a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion made in seconded all in favor say I I next meeting is the 21st Tuesday 21st at 400 p.m. y