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the guys out there doing it um was there anything any other acknowledgements or recognitions we should be making Val do we need to do something um do that again because this audio was turned down I don't know how it got turned down so I missed the beginning okay we like to say thank you to the highway department um for the snowplowing and Public Safety officers that were
out in the storm over the week um all right so I think so um our first order oh we don't have a public hearing our first order of business is a request to approve the common victualer application for ABJ V Corp doing business as the head town landing Country Store at 488 Old County Road Andrea bisco manager um so this property is being transferred to new owners you can say something if you want to come up but you don't have to the new the people
who are involved in this okay so is the paper for a call in order I'll move it second so we have a motion a second to um approve the common vict for the head town landing store is there any discussion anything from the audience all in favor I I that's unanimous good luck um 3A we have a request from Beverly Bish um the Council on Aging
director to appoint M Helen Holgate as fulltime principal clerk have you want to hold on to the chair when you sit because they move and we'd be on the floor we used we got rid of the other trick chair so we had to make so now we had to do other ones welcome so what brings you here me um Helen has applied for our principal clerk position which is been vacant since August and we haven't had very
good luck with it but um she came in and appla and um really seemed like she would fit um with the group that we have the culture that we have um and she's got a background she's worked at the Jewish um home home for for quite a few years um and she she and her husband had their own business for a while um so she's got a good amount of background in you know accounting bookkeeping things like that too and she was the front desk person at the Jewish Home and so that's a very
busy spot so I'm like oh you're going to fit right in here because at the scor center when you sit at that desk it's like everybody's at you so um we're pleased to have her Jim do we have a recommendation recommend approval thank so Mo second is there any discussion did you want to say anything else thank you all in favor I that's unanimous welcome award have anything going on that we should know about at the COA um The Stroke buddies and friends is a
new support group that had started back in September and it has just absolutely taken off and Lisa felberg Costa and I have worked together um and with South Coast uh hospitals group because Lisa had a stroke um four years ago and she wanted to give back to both the community that helped her um in at the hospital and the COA because the COA um she was she only those two and a half miles from us and she didn't know that we existed so
she's been getting supports and medical equipment and things like that and she said you guys are a godsend I don't think people know about you so she came in and she asked about doing this in September the first meeting we had two and in the second meeting we had 12 the third meeting we had 24 and in December we had almost 100 people at an event at whites it's just it's huge um Lisa and I have since met with Dr STI um and his nurse manager Karen for the neurology um The Stroke uh neurology uh department at South Coast
hospital and they have been given grant money from the legislature to to do support uh stroke awareness not knowing they asked said what did you do to make it so successful because we've tried and it's just not we it's not taken off and I said well it's peer-to-peer it's not clinical it's not MediCal and people don't need more clinical and medical they've had enough of that they're looking for the peer-to-peer so it's just blossomed and we're um we met with um Kim wette at the um new high school
and we're going to have an event on on May 3rd um it's going to be it's going to be um the uh uh South Coast hospitals um are are granting they have grant money that they're going to give to us to do this uh group and what we have is the fire department from uh the fire chief from New Bedford Fall River Westport um and dayon are coming in with their uh emergency vehicles so that people can come in and kind of sort
of you know learn a little a little bit more about what the response is when people call and somebody's having a stroke how do you call what do you do we're going to be doing um doc some of the doctors and the and the nurses are going to be doing some presentations during the day um we have a state police helicopter that's coming in and going to land and say you know because it's scary for people they're having a stroke they're panick they don't know what to do so this is all about and getting it in the community we wanted to do it in westpa and we wanted to highlight also the COA is too small to do it
but we wanted to highlight the high school and the and the partnership that we have um so we're really excited about that it's really taken off we have people from all over the place and our goal and our hope Lisa and I is to be able to put together a standardized toolkit for any other COA to be able to do this and present in October at Massachusetts council's on Aging at their annual uh three-day conference and present as best practices and make sure that maybe Statewide they can do this because it was easy enough for us to do and we worked with
banks and we worked with other you know funders to be able to do this so a lot of the hospital groups are getting money for stroke awareness so um that's like the big thing that's sort of come it's just taken up a lot of a lot of time but it's I think it's well worth it and it's a support group that doesn't exist at all we have many other support groups but this is a support group that's just not out there and there's so many people right now that have had Strokes so we're working on that so if people want to learn more about that they should contact Council on Aging yep C Council on Aging it's going to be in
May we're going to have kinds of advertisements and things like that they're going to do a radio show um you know it's going to be an event like from 9: to 4: and there's going to be and it'll tell you each like each time at nine o'clock hour what's going on 10 o'clock hour it's even for the community for the kids to come in you know how they do the Touch a Truck and they can get on the truck and do stuff like that so it's it's that kind of event so we're just hoping the weather's good that's the big thing we're hoping you know but I the kids will go on a truck if it's raining they're not going to care anyway so you
know um and I just don't know about the helicopter landing if it's uh you know if it's raining but other than that we'll see what happens well thank you very much for sharing that this thank you you tomorrow so we got to put it on that committee huh that's next putting her on the committee Lisa felberg yeah so we have a request from Lisa felberg Costa to be appointed to the commission on disability through June 30 2027 I'll move her second
is there any discussion she here all in favor I I that's unanimous we have a request from Kristen Stinson the town clerk to appoint the following representatives to the board of registers you want to come forward CHR um Isabelle kokan Democrat three-year term beginning April 2025 Evelyn Mercier Republican effective immediately to fill the vacant term ending in April 2026 hi okay welcome thanks this is EVN
hi so um Isabelle was unable to make it but she is asking for a reappointment and she's been on the board for a significant amount of time and I definitely support her continuing on the board um Evelyn is filling a vacant spot that we um you already appointed somebody for we got the list of three names from the Republican committee and um the person was unable once they learned more about it they were unable to accept the position due to a conflict of interest and so were the other people
on the list so I've been working with the Republican Town committee for a while to find somebody who we thought was suitable and Evelyn who has been a pole worker but will be resigning as a pole worker in Westport um in order to do this felt like a good fit so I don't know if you had any questions for her but all right I'll move then second do we have any discussion did you want to say anything oh good all in favor hi hi that's unanimous got something else for
her something else for you but you're all set that's just something for me yeah let's we're going to skip we're going to skip down to um 4 d why we have you here thanks um so we have a request um from Christen sson the town clerk to opt out of the no excuse early mailin ballots for the April 8 2025 annual election I know this kind of a few people worried when they saw it posted so you want to explain what this is about sure sure so as you know
we've been doing mailin um early vote ballots and people have been receiving the postcards from the state um all of that information and then we've been doing it for each election because of that when we only have an annual election like this year we will not be sending out any of those postcards um I think there will be a couple issues one I think it'll cause some confusion if people just think that they are automatically going to receive a vote by mail
that bot in some way um this way we can say if you're absent if you have you know if you're homebound if there are reasons why you can't then you can still request an absentee ballot you just can't have a no excuse mail in early voting ballot they're two different things so this was the process where where postcards went out and said hey if you'd like a mail ballot check you know sign here and send it back all right right and so people were sending them back saying that they wanted a ballot and you were mailing them and then
what was happening and then I received about 40% of them back and um for the town that did cost 97 cents a ballot mailed sometimes more because if it bounced back or we had an issue we would have to mail a ballot twice and then people were not returning them so that is a significant financial financially relevant um loss in my opinion for the town um it was true for the primaries and it was
through true for the annual election we had a much better return rate for the um for the presidential election that one well it's a state election but we had a much better turnout for that and I don't I know that the state will continue to do them for State elections but for this election when we have no other elections I think that it may be wasteful because there are also other options for people so we won't be doing
in person early voting but you can and do inperson absentee voting so let's say you realize you're going to be out of town next Tuesday and it's you know the Thursday before you can come in and say I'm gonna be out of town next Tuesday can I just vote here today right now you can it's just that we won't be setting up in the hallway and paying pole workers and doing the big early voting process but yes absentee ballots would still be an option for people you just have to contact the town you just have
to let me know you want want them and then I will tell you how to get that application we either have them in person or people can get them online or you know it doesn't affect oversea voters or military voters or anything like that they still have the same options they've always had anybody have a questions so what is the action that you want us I would like you to opt out of no excuse early voting which is something that legally has to be done so
if you don't opt out it's fine we can still do the early voting but you have to legally say in a meeting that you will opt out of it so we're opting out just for this election just this election we have to do this right year if we want yeah if we want to do it for the annual election next year we can talk about that I'm not even sure if I want to do it for the annual election next year to be honest with you because I think they'll be sending out those postcards so it depends on when the state is planning on sending out postcards so I think it's worth discuss discussing for the annual elections and
the soon I know about things sometimes it might work out better because I can let people know and then they there won't be as much confusion okay right any other questions so do I have a motion Madam chair like to make a motion to opt out of the April 8th 2025 annual election process no excuse excuse early mail ballots second any
discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous all right anything else no I think that's it that's all I have on this okay we're back to 3D um we have a request from Denise bushard select board secretary to accept her retirement after 35 years of service effective August 31 2025 motion to accept and send a nice letter I'm sure we'll have her at a meeting but
motion to accept second uh through you Jim we you is there going to be any modifications needed to a job description to to post you think yeah I think that's something we need to go over forward all right um and we're not going to make her write her own letter right all in favor I I that's unanimous um we have a uh 4 a request to approve engineering service contract change order for ferns Corp for
$75,000 you want explain that yeah this is Roger Fernandez who's been kind of our owner's project rep for the waterline project and previous water sewer project up along Route Six um he's been invaluable to the process um he had an original contract that has expired and we'd like to do a change order to keep him on board for the remainder of the project I'd recommend approval second I so moved second is there any discussion did we did you mention it was out ofast funds not taxation
it'll be out of p and opa yes thank you there any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous um we have a request from Dana Stewart the recreation director to accept a donation of $100 from Karen Weiss motion accept second all in favor I that's unanimous we have a request from the opioid advisory committee to use $5,000 of the opioid settlement funds for administrative costs
um I just talked to um Donna but were you I am the designated hit tonight um yes um we we're going to be doing several things one we're going to be administering a grants process for people to apply and seek funds so that's going to involve issuing an RFP tracking rfps and so this would cover the cost of administrative support to the O uh settlement oversight advisory
committee three years okay and is the appropriate use of those thoughts yes yeah okay did you move it cig I will move there moved is there any discussion all in favor I I that's um for E we have a request from Coastal healing Inc to approve the settlement agreement and Community host agreement um Jim do you want to I think we have people here from Coastal healing do you
want to come forward yeah be careful because apparently those are trick chairs great you just I'm give your names for the I'm Phil Silverman I'm an attorney for Coastal healing and this is David buis he's CEO thank you um Jim you want to start off yes so this has been discussed by the board a couple of times Coastal healing we have a existing Community host
agreement with them that's been in place for about three or four years um they've requested a new community host agreement uh consistent with the new regulations with the CCC um there's two parts to it under the old host agreement there was some uh fees yearly fees impact fees that have not been paid um I estimate those to be about $100,000 um they have requested that in L of the $100,000 they've agreed to pay
$10,000 um if if it's acceptable to the board uh that would be for the existing host agreement and then the new host agreement has been reviewed by Town Council as well as um Mr Silverman and we have a finished product going forward if we can settle on the existing host agreement tomor okay I just want to confirm so keep me honest if I'm here so um the the the original host agreement
in included uh impact bees that um later the Cannabis Control Commission um said we can't put in future host Community agreements right and so um the there was some there was some question whether um it was I don't know the right word whether whether we would be able to assess those fees given the ruling of the Cannabis Control Commission right so this is why we're not just saying please don't give us $100,000 there there's some question about whether we would be able to to have the $100,000 is
that correct yes and we were also provided some examples of other communities who had lost that battle to reclaim those fees from previous ones secondly we also didn't entirely uphold our end of the agreement my understanding is because we didn't document uh impact uh we were unable to document the impact uh in terms of Public Services responses beyond what would normally occur for
a business operating on Route 6 Y and can we just um do we have the number the the we do still get sales tax revenue from this business right do we have a um an amount of sales tax revenue we've had so far that's okay if you don't have hand I don't know it's about $50,000 okay yeah all right so is there any questions anything for that mam sureair yes yeah on the sales tax were those paid on time yes so those are paid directly to
the State and then the state reimburses the town mhm so we we've received our funds yes yeah okay and we made a decision like gosh it's probably been over a year ago to hold off on assessing the community impact view when we were trying to understand the legality so again it wasn't just like you didn't send the check we decide you came here to us and we put it on hold in the first place right right um any question anything you
want to say all right um so what are we looking for so there's there would be two votes one would be to accept the settlement of $10,000 um for the existing host agreement and the second one would be to approve the new host agreement both have been approved and reviewed by Town Council I I move uh the former to accept the settlement offer of $10,000 for the pre previous uh host City Post Community agreement have a
second I'll second is there any discussion yeah Madam chair yeah uh just to be clear for I mean we understand this but public participants in this meeting may not be aware or the Press but I just want to be clear as I understand the 100,000 you only get that if you can prove it it was uh I'll say worthy or it's it's Justified so we didn't do that so it's not like we're we're leaving money on the
table so to speak I'm looking at Jim for an answer I guess but would mind that that was um Coastal healings argument I think if you read the wording in there there's some leeway as to whether or not we actually had to demonstrate those costs um under the new CCC regulations you do have to um identify those costs so I'm trying to ascertain that they are for all intents and purposes not collectible and although you your
answer seems to all there possibility that they could be it's a possibility they could be I think there's a number of cases that are working through the courts right now and depending on how those are settled um it's possible they could owe us the money if it if it helps uh just to provide some context there's a lot of different legal arguments and most of them they start out as lawsuits between you know a town and and a company and they've largely been settled
short of actually an actual decision in the courts and in those settlements what has happened is um towns that collected money have paid a lot of it back it was a recent one um you know it happened up in havil where the the company had paid about a million dollars in Impact fees and they had to give back about $700,000 of it um or they agreed to do that um I'm going to submit it's probably because they looked at what their actual
impacts and were and they realize they were not going to be able to prove it in court so I I don't want to tell you that it's a one-sided thing that it's definitely this way I have my views on it Council to the town has differing views on it the bottom line is you know trying to go and litigate that and figure out the answer to it would cost a heck of a lot more than I think you know the town would ever collect it's a lot more than you know we can afford to pay given the competitive nature of uh you know the business and that's why
we propos settlement and paying the town $10,000 which I think is you know if if there are impacts I I can't imagine it actually exceeds that amount but I'll go back to you Jim but you can ask the attorneys but there have been no recognized impacts that we have documented during this period not that I'm live yeah I mean that that to me is the argument if there were none in the police obviously well I'm not sure but they haven't come forth looking for
impact fees justifying it through uh police action or the fire department so if they don't exist they didn't happen to exist I guess is what I'm trying to say here have the right tents then there's there's no need they're not um it's not like they're repayable be they're not there you have to have something upon which to base the impact fees and then you have to make the case and even though your attorney is saying we could have we didn't
so that there are none right yeah missing there's two fees there's the $25,000 yearly fee and then there's the impact fee and the impact fee the wording in that I believe and I don't have an affirm me but was General that said if even if we don't show them what the impacts are they're still responsible for those fees now that's changed under the new regulations with the CCC but the old Community host agreement that we have um and again it's interpretation right La is
saying that they believe if we pushed we'd have a good shot of getting it and i' the other side says no you're not going to get it so um I I will say that we I'm not aware of any impacts direct impacts on the community um that we could say you know yeah that's what I'd be looking for but I don't I don't think they exist yeah I don't think I also think it's important that when we negotiated the host Community agreement in the first place we
were unsure of the impact on Town it was quite controversial people will recall um and uh we were a lot of people are afraid about the negative things that would happen in the neighborhood and traffic and things like that and that just never materialized it's also important to understand that this is a business with it's not making millions and millions and millions of dollars or we'd be seeing that in our tax revenue um and so to to impose an undue burden on them just because we might win in court just seems like
not good business business for Westport is there any other no I'll be voting for against it because like last time this was part of the selling point about coming into town we went we had to have special Town meetings to go over this again and that's the only reason people voted for it was because of these funds coming in to help our community right any further discussion anything from the public all right so we have a motion in second to um accept the $10,000 payment and that closes out
the first host Community agreement right all in favor I I opposed against so we have um three in favor and two oppos so then the second um piece of business was to approve the new host Community agreement is that right yes and the new host Community agreement is consistent with the one that was approved for the business next door okay you have a motion move approval a second so we have a motion in a second to approve
the um new host Community agreement is there any further discussion on that all in favor I um opposed is that unanimous I couldn't hear okay this is unanimous I couldn't tell you said something or not all right so um Good Luck thank you for coming thank you all appreciate it thank you uh the next item is a request from Michael burus um the town planner to create a barrier Beach planning committee consist in of
one beach Committee Member One select board member and three coastal Property Owners welcome hi so really quick I would just like to introduce Dia wheeler she's the assistant planner she started in at the turn of the year and um we're really happy to have her extra assistance with the the work that we're doing in the planning office and very fortunate to have her on the team
welcome thank you for having me so this is a a request that is is really a long time coming this is something that we initiated last year after there were some strong southernly storms that caused a lot of damage um on westport's barrier beaches and so to um the select board had asked the planning board to develop a plan for managing those barrier
beaches and so I applied to the coastal zone management Grant um and we also applied um the municipal vulnerability preparedness grant to get funding to develop the beach management plans we were awarded $230,000 to prepare those plans um we've gone through the RFP process to find a consultant we have contracted with Woods whole group to prepare these barrier Beach management plans for East be Beach
Atlantic Avenue and Beach Avenue and so over the last two weeks we've kicked off the project with Woods whole group we would like to have a um a committee formed um to help guide some of the the process uh some of the planning process and as I said or as you had said um this would be staffed by um we're asking
for someone from East Beach um I've spoken with Kevin Kurt from the East Beach Improvement Association and he has indicated that he's interested in participating um I also will have someone from the Westport land conservation trust I do not know exactly who that person will be Ross Moran would the executive director would like to discuss with his board before um committing someone but they will be
participating um at at Atlantic Avenue we've reached out to someone from elephant Rock Beach Club and so they'll be discussing with their board um sha Leech from the beach committee he will be participating on this committee and I'm also asking for someone from the select board these Beach management plans will ultimately uh well we'll have some recommendations on how the town should be managing those barrier beaches particularly as it um you know this came
on the heels of some storm events and there's some controversy with how the town um approached the cleanup and so I think it it behoves to have a select board member on on the committee um so you're getting some some direct involvement with the planning processes and you can come back to this board thank you so I had um someone reached out to me over the weekend and wanted to know um why we weren't considering um like the cherion web and the West Beach
area in the recommendation these so we had only applied for um in our coastal zone management Grant and barrier beaches where the town has infrastructure so um East Beach Road Beach Avenue um and Atlantic Avenue um that are being hit hard by these southernly storms which was not quite the same um situation in that area um we're also we don't have funding to include this those areas as well
so that's so the gr the grant is covering specific areas yeah it's specific areas it's not all of the barrier beaches in Westport it's just those just these three areas and then um I think it's I think I think I read that you said that um you'll be working with the um Conservation Commission but is that why like is there a reason we don't have Conservation Commission on here it's because Chris is on the project team okay um so in the same way we don't have a planning board member um since planning staff's on it um uh
that's why okay thank you Michael you mentioned the land trust and what notot is that what you're counting as Coastal Property Owners or you saying adding them when you me mention the land trust and this part of it the land trust owns a number of properties on Avenue and Beach Avenue so they could actually fit under both c yeah well they're they're Barry Beach and Inland that's what I was concerned with if you just had three coastal Property Owners they control the board but you're talking about somebody like the land trust that has
property throughout being one of those people right yeah they they I don't think they have property on E speech um on E speech road but they do on the other two two roads okay makes that makes sense so um I usually when we create a when we create a committee we don't usually appoint people and in fact the people weren't listed that we want to appoint so I think it would be appropriate to create a committee if that's what we just wanted to do but I think we'd have to appoint specific people after they've been posted on it yeah that's that's fine I was just giv
giving you a general update on where of the folks who I've reached out to to staff the committee um at this time I only have Sean leech and Kevin Kurt as confirmed participants so we need to vote on the formation I think so Jim yes to create the committee all right I'll move it I just hope the board when we when we vote uh consider uh somebody that has broad knowledge like the land trust as one of the property owners instead of
all own water on the bar Beach second all right so we're just forming we're forming the committee composed of one beach committee one select board member three coastal property owners and then you're saying is when we're appointing the three coastal Property Owners we need to make sure yeah keep in mind that maybe somebody with that has a broad uh view across the town something like the trust that has property throughout not just on the yeah so we encourage you to reach out to the people right is there any further discussion all in favor I
I that's unanimous so we've created the committee is there anything else you need from us today do we have anything else on the agenda for you we're here to answer any questions with with the the planning board chairman Jim whiten about the waren articles but we don't have any specific items that we'd like to address during that that agenda item we're just available to answer okay questions yeah all right thank you thank you Bo good luck okay the next item is to
review and approve warrant articles for the annual Town meetings you want to give us like a where we put this together first like the articles that we see in front of us where they came from so the articles that you have in front of you are the standard articles that we get on a yearly basis budgetary articles uh yearly transfer and a year transfer revolving accounts and we also get articles from different departments uh
if they have spefic specific requests and we have a couple of zoning articles as well um this is the first first round with the select board so they don't necessarily have to be approved tonight but um we wanted to give you an idea of what's been submitted to date and uh get some direction going forward believe you have hard copies of the the draft warrant front of you yeah yeah so three three four five I think it's safe to say we start at 14 seven8 n
10 11 12 13 13 those are all just the standard yes ones and they have blanks or like I'm assuming the one that's highlighted because that was last year's ask or yep those are um pretty much the standard articles budgetary um so then funds kind of then starting with article 14 so article 14 is um whether we should increase the room occupancy tax
um Article 15 is uh can you explain that one yeah this is I'd actually like to have Sue braon she is reviewing these again just on the these are kind of procedural articles um Sue has four of them from the treasur collector's office okay mainly on payment plans and so forth on collecting of taxes and rewarding and we're working with Town Council on that right now just to see if they are necessary and if they are if the wording is correct okay
and then 16 is um buying a skiff with the with the waterways fund 17 is for the assessor software 18 is for the water pollution abatement well just Madam chair just so people don't get confused article 16's motives for the boats oh sorry Moors for three outboard motiv and then 17 is transferring money from a previous town meeting vote to the board of
Assessors for software where 18 is the water pollution abatement trust does this we can have the board come and talk about that those are the septic loans the revolving accounts for the septic loans um Article 19 is a hazardous waste collection event um 20 is a purchase of a rolloff container and some equipment for the transfer station using transfer station funds um 21 is one of the treasure articles treasure collector articles 22
is another treasure collector article 23 is um acquiring land um from The treasur Collector 24 is um an a open space yeah so uh years ago in 2006 the town appropriated I think 1.5 or $2 million to uh purchase agricultural land or open space land there's
a balance of $83 ,500 left so this would just clean the books okay 25 um is an article requested by Steve bors um to prohibit um elected or appointed Town officials from serving on the finance committee um 26 is a change in the residency requirements um is our contracts have had residency preferences lately and not requirements so this is just changing the bylaws for that 27 is a change
to the short-term rental permit regulations 28 is zoning related to short-term rentals 29 is zoning related to accessory apartments and then 30 you're you got placeholder blinks for for some other ones in here yes 30 to 33 and then we have some pretty standard ones at the end here for um a couple of public way for uh accepting the layout for granite Post
Road and for May away and then some stabilization ones so um were the Departments given a deadline for submitting warrant article yeah that deadline is come and going so any articles that were received by the Departments are included in this and petition articles could come in until we close the warrant is that right or is there a deadline for that yes I'm not sure the exact deadline but they can come in after that date um after the January deadline for the Departments we do have two petition articles right now for Road acceptance Granite
Post Road Extension and may away okay um so have we posted this on the website yet it is not on the website yet okay so can we please maybe we have to take out the parts that are we'll clean it up and post it clean it up a little bit and post it so people can see and I like how you put your PL blanks in there so that if we rumber them it's like the ones that are not that controversial okay anybody
have questions about the warrant anything you want to talk about just say couple probably going to Warrant discussion going full with the short-term rental and um we have the um lodging increase in the lodging rate so as we move forward we may want to let's put those on agenda items on a meeting yeah and they have the treasur collector come in okay okay um
then the next item um did so we had the bicentennial playground on here but there was a request to to pass over that right that's correct okay so we're going to take that at another meeting um so budget update right so we're getting close
on the budget uh most of the numbers are in not all of them we're still waiting on a couple but um we have enough we have to approve the budget or the select board by Town byaw needs to approve the budget at the next meeting which will be on the 24th overall The Current financial situation or outlook for 26 I think in general as a town is better for the individual departments uh some of them are being cut or going to be restricted based on the available
funding we have had some improvements here in town the free cash certification was almost 3.5 million um and this is free cash for 2024 so we already made adjustments in 2025 and we made some additional adjustments in this proposed budget um which will impact free cash going forward uh stabilization accounts um General capital and we have a special education we're about 3.8% of our overall budget we have't stable ization the state recommends that we have
a minimum of 5% um I think after this year's budget putting some additional money into stabilization we should be at around 4.5% so we are getting closer um far as challenges major challenges that we're looking at is we've had stimulus funds over the last three or four years uh school department has had Essa funds and the town has been using Opa funds local Opa funds and Bristol County Opa funds um to select Bo
town finance committee have done a nice job of not using those funds for salar positions we've used them for one-time expenses which um makes the budget easier going forward um but we have used those funds to plug the gap on uh matching grants we've uh you know different projects throughout the town equipment which will no longer be available so those will be um charged to the operating budget in some manner going forward um we've also relied on free cash the last few years to balance
the budget last year we were up I think $652,000 of free cash to balance the overall budget um that is not recommended by by the state it is not free cash is a one-time one-time funding source and it's difficult to um carry that forward going into future years we still have the old high school that we're still trying to resolve that is a cost to the town in the range of200 to $300,000 a year and then inflation has changed a bit you know it's grown up we
had a few good years uh looking back the last three or four years and that has increased so those are all draining a little bit on the budget um as far as revenues go we are proposing the 2 and a half% tax increase as we have every year um New Growth we're estimating at about $400,000 that would be new construction on new properties here in town um last year or 2024 we had 736 th000 um
but we also had solar po project which was about 90,000 and we had a couple of big uh building projects um 400,000 I think is a little conservative um but we need to be a little bit conservative in these numbers state aid uh we have the preliminary numbers from the governor's budget it still needs to go to the house the Senate and um get resolved we had a moderate increase we're probably looking at about a 2.2% increase in the State numbers um state assessments which come down
from the state which is our chter school school choice um mosquito control a few other items um we actually had a slight decrease in that so that's that's a positive for the town the assessments are down a little bit um new revenue from the state uh Chapter 70 which is the school funding um we we took another hit again this year we had two years of decent funding for new revenue and and we're back down it almost
looks like we're minim a community again slide keeps going out here expenses um pension increase this year was up 7.15% health insurance right now we're looking at increase in the budget over last year about 6.6% but we had a little bit of room in the budget last year we're alleviating that right now because the actual cost of the insurance is going up over 10% so there will not be any flexibility in that count going forward our property insurance was still waiting on the numbers
but that is going up as well and we also over the past few years we had employee contracts were about 2% pay increases um these last round of contracts have gone up to 3% um and with incentives longevity and so forth it's in the range of three to 4% so that also taxes on the overall budget Regional Schools we still waiting to hear I I did speak to Diamond um business agent and we got some preliminary numbers and it looks like that may hold better than
we anticipated in the preliminary budget so um that's a good thing we'll wait we should get those numbers in the next week or two and this is just the Chapter 70 increase that we've received from the state on a yearly basis so this isn't you know we get about I want to say $5 million plus in Chapter 70 funding but this is what we get increase each year so we were getting $30 per student for most of the years going from 14 up to um almost
23 there was one or two years where we received I think $60 per student in 2024 was the first year that we were considered a non minimum Aid community so we actually got increases similar to other communities around us like uh Somerset Swansea secon where we had an increase of over $500,000 last year that dropped again a little bit went down to about 346 and this year we we're back to looks like a minimum a community with an increase of
$116,000 so but these are increases over we already got the 500,000 so it's the 5 it's just increase over increase year increases y so with the 116 we cannot keep up with the increase in school expenses um as far as new Revenue sources we're really limited as to what we can get for new Revenue sources uh we have our taxes that can only go up 2 and a half% a year um we do have the option of increasing the local room tax we could increase it from the existing 4%
up to 6% each percentage point is about $100,000 so we could generate about $200,000 if we increase it up to 6% um this includes hotels um short-term rentals as well and then uh the fire department uh Chief baldman has been working on this ambulance certified public expenditure program there's a number of communities that are participating in this and um he's looking to
join is it it's it's another another program it's a lot of work it's a lot of recordkeeping but there is some Revenue um that can be obtained from that whether or not we see 50,000 next year would would depend on how quickly he can implement the program but um overall I think going forward we're estimating somewhere in the range of $50 to $100,000 a year by participating in this program and we're looking to use those funds to offset a new position in the fire department
so as far as recommendations on the budget these are some of the line item changes uh the select board looking to increase the salary line item by $50,000 we're having a retirement in that that department this year and uh that would give us some flexibility moving forward that would still have to be discussed with the select board at one of the upcoming meetings the reserve fund will continue to fund at $100,000 a legal council recommending an
increase of 15,000 to that line item elections registrations U proposing a $30,000 increase I'm sorry decrease um this is mainly because you know we had four or five elections last year with the presidential elections they were having an election every couple of months um so there is a savings there the old high school we have $150,000 in the expense account which is being um tapped onto the operating budget in addition to that we have uh property insurance which is coming out
of the operating budget which is about $80 to $90,000 and we do have some previous warrant articles with some funding available or remaining that will offset the additional cost for the old high school property insurance uh right now we're looking at an increase of 80,000 but I haven't been able to confirm that with the MIAA yet hopefully get those numbers in the next week Police Department um they're at full staff now or they will be they've I think
just appointed their last um open position they've not been at full staff for a number of years so we've used those excess funds yearly to supplement the free cash and budgets going forward so that will no longer be available um we're also funding two resource offices out of the police department budget I know the school department had funding for one last year of $85,000 and they removed that out of their budget and it's in the uh police department budget currently expense they had
requested an increase of about $51,000 we we reduced that by $28,400 um he believes he'll be able to make it work with those numbers fire department they came in with a level funded expense account not level service but level funded but they did request an additional firefighter paramedic and they'll we believe we can fund that position with the additional revenue from the um funds that they're seeking building department
we're looking to fund the clerk from the operating budget the clerk is already in that position she's been funded from the revolving account um but she should be funded from the operating budget essentially comes from the same the revolving count gets to a certain amount and those excess funds go into the operating budget so it's more of a procedural change as opposed to a um impact on the budget the animal control uh there was a funding of 25 or $28,000 for the Animal control officer pot time that was not filled by
the Board of Health last year where they did try to fill it a couple of times and uh they were not able to get a qualified candidate um it was not on the recommended list from the Board of Health so that is not included in the recommended budget to the select board Highway Department we're looking to eliminate one of the unfilled positions um the highway survey Mr Gonzales is going to be posting or requesting before the selectman that he post one of the vacant position as a
labor to assist with some of the grass cutting um throughout the town including town properties hopefully to assist and I don't know if we can guarantee it all the time but um police fire playgrounds Library Town Landings the engineer position Still Remains in the budget their expense request was reduced by $27,500 that is from their request there still an increase in their overall expense budget um transfer
station we reduce the Professional Services account by 21,800 and that is mainly because they have a new position uh that covers the driving of the containers back and forth to the waste um we were paying a private contractor to do that uh so those funds were for the most part shifted up not all of them but a portion of it was shifted up to salaries uh the veterans budget had an overall decrease of about $8,000 and the opep currently is budgeted 175,000 but as we go forward with the budgets
we may have to reduce that amount a bit so overall we had a net revenue estimate increase of about $2.2 million what we normally do is we take fixed expenses out of that and then we share 54% with the school department 46% with the town so we started out with $2.2 million our debt service is actually going down so that's that's a positive of18 3,000 uh pension assessment
went up 254 health and life insurance 315 uh Regional School assessments went up 165 this that may come down a little bit in the next week or two um and the state assessment is an estimate um and that's that's a positive here is a negative but it helps us about 51,000 so overall we have about $500,000 that gets taken off that 2.2 before we split with the schools so that leaves a
balance of about 1.7 million with the 54 going to education 46 to the town 927 th000 would go to the school 789 666 667 would go to the town so the school department budget as as we mentioned before the um the operating budget what was presented the town meeting by the finance committee last year was about 22 million plus 500,000 in free cash this is on the left hand side at town meeting
the vo is uh amended the overall budget and added an additional $152,000 to the school department budget a total budget of $ 22,651 27 proposing this year um with the split that I just talked about um we would have the 21999 plus the 927 th000 in new Revenue so the budget out of the operating budget if we just went with
the oper ating budget would be about $ 22,92502 hundred, just in um employee contracts and raises um so for them to meet that would be extremely difficult um in order to boost it up a bit one thought would be to reduce the oped the amount of money that we're putting into oped by 75,000 and put that towards a school we could also pay
off the campground with uh free cash and that would free up 141,000 which would be available next year as well so that's not like a one-time expense when we pay that off and then uh you know unless the numbers change by some odd chance which I don't think they're going to change much um they are going to need some free cash and I had put $400,000 here that gets them up to about 23 thou $23,550 th000 uh which is about
500,000 less than they requested um but it's still um a budget increase of almost $900,000 and it's a 3.9% increase last year when we did the financial plan we looked at what was sustainable and we were in the range of about a 3.4% increase to the budgets is sustainable based on new Revenue so even the 3.9 is above that we've had a little bit more Revenue than we anticipated this year um but going forward the the stand increases for Town
and school budget should be somewhere in the range of 3.4 to 3.5 million I just want to point out that um school committee is going before the fincom tomorrow so they'll have a detailed conversation on the budget tomorrow at the finance committee now this is just a breakdown of um where our expenses go major expense categories with the percentage increases or decreases um our big numbers are the pension assessment the health insurance um public safety in the
school department those are big numbers um and they're ranging anywhere from 4% up to just over 7% and the reason that Public Safety is high is because we we added that new position funded from that other Revenue Source right we added the new position we also had the contract was um we had a new contract with both police and fire the um like I
said the state assessments and The Debt Service down the bottom there they went down a little bit so that that helps out a bit so overall we're looking at about a 4.2% increase now we're looking at 56 57 million dollar budget we discussed the free cash last meeting so I don't know if we have to go into a lot of detail
but um I'm sorry the cipc recommendations we're looking the cemetery truck for 50,000 that a come out of Perpetual care Cemetery expansion 200 out of free cash 200 out of Perpetual care I did receive an estimate today from the engineering company and they're looking at closer to $900,000 to do the two new sections so um that's going to have to be Revisited uh the it server cluster that just gives uh redundance see in
our security systems here for our computers 85,000 there's a match for a Council on Aging Grant of 20,000 elevator repair I think they have 75 or 80,000 in a warrant article now so this would be the additional cost to get the elevator repaired or upgraded at the Council on Aging three police cruises at 256,000 a fire Cascade system just at the North End station for 75,000 uh the school had requested security upgrades at 235,000 and uh improvements to the
Mac playground of 325,000 also cipc also recommended again this was discussed in detail at the last meeting uh new fire engine which should be funded with 500,000 for free cash and 450 from the assesses overlay so where does that leave us with free cash right we started with about 3.5 million the cipc was uh 1.7 uh if we put 400,000 into the school budget we pay off the campground we had
a warant article of 15,000 um last year in the 5year plan there was some recommendations as to free cash um they recommended 10% be carried over each year and then additional 5% be put into the stabilization accounts so that leaves a balance of about $341,000 that could be eaten up very easily with the cemetery expansion we also have a CDC Grant from the federal government for infrastructure
Water and Sewer on Route 6 or water which is a $978,000 grant but there's a $250,000 match that's required and we cannot use um Opa funds or we cannot use the p as a match so we'd have to come up with Town funds for that match that would have to be a war warrant article um we have some years before that can be has to be expended but um those are some other uses for that 34 41 it
also wouldn't hurt to carry that over as well as we're using 400,000 in free cash possibly for the school department if free cash is low next year we would have the ability to offset some of those costs next year as well thank you anybody have any comments or questions on the budget go ahead I ask Jim about the highway and the cipc a meeting we talked about the highway and today uh they were coming in late with a request for a truck did you were able to clear get some
clarification on that we didn't improve it I I talked to Chris um he said it's very much needed um you would like to see it in in the budget that's where we are yeah but we rated it as less of a priority and that was what the committee decided so I I looked at it just not moving forward but I was just wondering if there was some conversations and that I didn't know about I haven't had any more I just just a general discussion he asked if it was funded I explained that
it you know was rating number two it didn't get funded and um he just made the case that he really like it that he could use it going forward yeah we certainly would give him an opportunity next year which is next year starts really in October when we meet again to to consider that request as a high priority what you like to do with ones that didn't make the cut I'm sure I had another question regarding schools so this increase on the uh slide that
you showed was a 3.9% increase and that was $400,000 of free cash that would be contributed and was it and reducing oped yeah yeah and it was a 500,000 in free cash we gave the school last year yeah the finance committee recommended 500,000 a town meeting they from the floor they voted to amend that with 152,000 right well we had we had agreed to 500,000 the select board vote was actually 400,000
and we had funded um it was the equivalent of 500,000 but it was 400,000 from the and then plus a campground I think we wanted addition and in the school uh budget you sent around to us that was had a lot of good information in it they were looking for I think 6% is that correct they were yes it would probably be about 6% so it was a considerable Gap
up still yeah they about a $500,000 difference yeah okay just wanted to get the bearings on that that's all I have okay so um we will finalize the budget at our next meeting um we don't have to finalize the warrant articles that quickly but we should any warrant articles that are going to involve money should be um final before or not final but we should tell the Inc about all the money
articles um on the point fourth also I think all right anything else on the budget anything from the public okay um Town Administrator report just a couple of few things we have um conference table supposed to be delivered within the next week or two it looking pretty good that good before I can disappear what my initials are no there's no writing on the brand
new desk the diamond's been working on this um like I said it looks great they've been great to work with um he expects it to be finished uh finishing to be done over the next week and hopefully by the end of the month we'll get it delivered um we received uh the Mass DOT highway permit access permit for Route Six finally so is that for so we can run all the way down Route Six or is that just tying the loop in so it's I believe it's all the way down six but
there's some caveats um about winter work um about um right now it's in the island the hours operation we're still working on but we have the general permit we spoke to mass do they seem to think that the Amendments would be fairly minor the permit I believe is for the whole loot six well because my concern is losing losing dig it he's got he's got like a $60 million backlog now which he didn't have before we started the project so if
we delay them we might not be able to get them back yeah well we have some great price we have a great price with current contractor right now so we do not want to lose them the old high school uh AGB is going to be visiting the site on Friday morning that's the architect that was hired by the um long-term building committee to oversee the feasibility study for the municipal buildings so they'll be looking at the old High School Council on Aging the town hall Town Hall Annex um they've already started reviewing some of the reports
and uh we'll get that project moving hopefully we can get it moving quick um for of a waterline billing uh there'll be a mediation Wednesday um with the city of Fall River to see if we can resolve this we did you know a few months ago we thought we had it resolved but it seemed to fall through and um we should be close so hopefully on Wednesday we can come up with a solution that's all I have so I I had one thing I forgot to ask you to put in here so um when the uh Federal government announced the freeze on federal
grants um there was a little bit of a quick trying to figure out where we actually have incoming money from federal grants that we were worried might be frozen right and so the big one was I I want to say like $600,000 for that peep B project uh or for the water line um is being paid for we already incurred the expense and so we checked to see if we were going to get the money for expenses we already incurred so the net out of all all
that is that it's not frozen yet right yeah so so so they came back and called us and said to get our reimbursements up within 15 minutes and uh we did that so we did get the reimbursements for the work that was done but we hadn't been build for the January work which is about6 700,000 um we had additional funding to cover that with Opa funding if needed but we were notified late last week that the project can move forward that uh the funding is available and um can be spent
okay good as of now and then um are there any other significant federal grants that we're receiving in town I think I believe there's a couple but I don't know um of any that have been held up okay all right thank you um anything else for Jim okay uh we have the minutes of January 27 Craig how do they look they look fine I move approval was I at that one second you I was yeah thank you any discussion all in
favor I I that's unanimous we have a report on the bill warrant everything's in order you have that in your package and um $2.7 million uh no surprises and that's that's what we like all right thank you um we have lean leaz on committee reports and suggestions for future agenda start with you um I don't have anything at this time Jim kind of Hit the stuff that I had okay Steve no I was going to ask the staff us on the table and
and Jim read my mind so head table um I don't think I had anything the um the uh climate resilience committee meeting that was supposed to be on the 20th has been moved to March 6th I think is the Thursday um the just a reminder that on February 20 offshore wind is going to be meeting with vineyard wind is going to come down I have I have one question for you sha on what about on the Broadband we is was that stuff that work being
done on moving cable was that us for what for the Broadband cable the stuff that came down Highland Avenue that had to be moved for that solo company I don't know so we don't have a contractor working on the cable at all I don't know just I don't know is there I believe I believe the repairs were let me double check but my understanding is yes um the town's contractor was um reinstalling those cables and how are we paying for
that that's being paid for the it budget do we know how much that's going to be I don't know off hand but I can get it for you right thank you all right dick um nothing to report committees I'm on will be meeting in the very near future including the Council on Aging tomorrow but I have nothing else to report at the moment thank you great none of the Committees I'm have met since our last meeting the meeting in the next week or so okay um so that's it do we
have any comments or statements from the public all right um we are going to um go to Executive session this evening we're going to come out of executive session only to adjourn so I will entertain a motion pursuant to the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21A where the chair declares an open meeting will have a detrimental effect to a get an update from KP law DJ ardens at all V whiten at all land course Kate number
Miss 387 Nicholas at all vers planning board of the town of Westport land court case number 24 mc50 cost of re chief of police for town of Westport district court case number 2432 CV 0000 618 town of Westport buying through its Board of Health V white Mass housing court case number 24 h83 CV 00 312r branka versus town of Westport historical commission Mass Superior
Court case number 2473 CV 00275 Consolidated B to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares town of Westport workman's compensation Mia miia claim number 3 34213 47547 C to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct uh collective bargaining sessions or
contract negotiations with non-union Personnel veterans agent position and higherway surveyor position and to approve the executive session minutes of January 6 2025 I Craig duer move uh go to Executive session to discuss the items as enumerated in our published agenda second Steve is there any discussion all in favor any so I I Ste I sha hi Richard Brewer hi Craig D we are and executive s