I'm going to call the meeting to order. Will you join me in the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Good evening. Welcome to the uh Monday, June 16 um 2025 meeting of the Westport Select Board. Under Mass General Law, chapter 38, section 20F, this meeting is being recorded. I just have a couple of
announcements. Um the next select board meeting is going to be 3 weeks from today on Monday, July 7. So, uh the holiday in there, so it's Monday, July 7 is our next meeting. Want to remind everybody that there's a Fourth of July parade. We like to see everybody come
out. Um I think it's it starts at 10:00, but I think they must start lining up at like 9:15, 9:30. Um but uh stay you can check social media or um probably is it on the town website? On the town website. Um there should be information about the 4th of July, right? So same as
same as usual. Um do we have any other acknowledgements before I um turn over for acknowledgement? All right. So, we have um with us today in the back um state representative Steve who came um to present a citation.
Hello. Just stay up in front. You just have to have a you have to have a mic is all that's Yeah, I know. I know that routine. Okay. So, uh I asked to have it before the board. Paul used to do that once in a while so Westport person that received
an award can get some recognition. Uh we also had the pleasure of um awarding Fernando Lua last week too. So it's been a good time for recognizing people that put a lot into the community. Come on over so I can read to you. So uh the citations from the House of Representatives hereby known to all the
Massachusetts House of Representatives offers a sincere congratulations to Cal Freighus in recognition of your profound contribution, sacrifice and service to our country yesterday, today and tomorrow. We honor you. The entire membership extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for future good
fortune and continued success to all endeavors by the speaker of the house and myself. You have a shot for me. Can you describe a picture for me, please? One second. Who found the picture of me? Yeah,
it's a great picture of me. Pile maybe. Sorry. Hold on. Do you have a speech, Carol? No. No. Okay, here we go. One more time. Got it. Congratulations, Carol. Thanks for all you do. So, just so the board
knows, this is the first military appreciation day. So, she's our induct inductee for the first one. And hopefully, uh, you know, we can recognize more people in the future. All right. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. [Applause]
Um, I just want to make note, um, there was a public hearing that we had at our last meeting that was continued until today, but, um, it was inadvertently left off of the agenda. So, um, we didn't properly post for it. So, um, the public hearing for the petition from
Verizon New England and NStar Electric doing business as Eversource to install a jointly owned Midspan pole on the east side of Drift Road in front of 1024 Drift Road. So, we didn't properly post that, so we can't discuss it. So, I would like to have a a motion to
continue the public hearing to July 21 at 6:05 p.m. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Is there anybody here for that hearing? No. All right. Um, all in favor, they had requested a continue. They requested it. Yeah. All right. Um, all in favor? I
I That's uh four yes and one absence. Um, we have uh license and permits. We have a request from Weatherlo Farms for one day wine and malt beverage license for the following events. Um, this is a series of dinners and picnics. They all
received favorable police or they received favorable police reports. So we have July 12, a picnic dinner from 5 to 9. July 16, film series from 5 to 9. July 26, picnic dinner from 4 to 9. July
30, film series from 5 to 9. August 9, picnic dinner from 5 to 9. August 13, um, film series from 5 to 9. These are pretty standard, all the paperwork in order. And we have the police recommendation.
Uh, move approval of the licenses for each of these events. Second. Is there any discussion? Anything from the audience? No. Um all in favor? I I That's unanimous with one absence or four in favor with one absent. Um
then we have the second one was continued hearing from June 2nd. A request from the packuck in doing businesses package in 2056 main road to increase their hours from 4:30 to 9 daily and to allow an additional 20
seats on the patio. Um, so Paula, is that what we're t I I had a note that we were not going to talk about the additional seating talk about the hours. Okay. So, right now, so the additional seating needs is um we're not going to talk about that
right now. You're not requesting that today, right? Apparently not, but I don't I would like Okay. All right. So, do you want to come Do you want to come? Okay. So we so we had two requests. One was to change to add more days of the week um onto your hours and the other
was to add additional seats. So um Paula, can you just tell us like the additional seats required additional approval from the board of health, right? It's an alteration of premise. Yes. So it's um it can be approved on the local level, but it we're waiting for more approvals for you and approval
from the board of health. She has filled all the paperwork and that's all in order, but they just need they're they're waiting for clarification on a couple of things from the state for that. Um, she's informed us too since then that the it's not really because
she doesn't want to add an additional 20 seats. She just wants to for people to be able to go outside and have the liquor license cover that. So, at this point, it's not really an additional 20 seats. It's she has a license for 37 and
possibly some of those 37 people moving to outside. Okay. I don't think I understood that exactly. Okay. So, um so for the alteration of premises, there's another sign off required. Yes. From the board of health
and she submitted the paperwork, but we haven't received that yet. Okay. Um, and then for the change of hours though, the paperwork is in order for that. Yes. All right. Can you just talk about the hours that you have now and what you're changing? What you're changing? Right. Um, the hours that I have now are 5 to
8. And actually, I'm sticking with those hours for now. It's just that I noticed that in the winter time when it's dark, most of my guests like to come when it's still a little light. So, I wanted to come I wanted them to be able to ar be able to come at 4.
And I don't really care about the the nine. We just put that in there. What is it that you would like to change the hours to? So 4 to 9. Oh, when what what what change to the hours are you requesting? These are the change that I'm requesting, but not now. I mean, I'm
not going to use any more hours right now. Not it. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to understand what you would like us to approve is all. So So a change of hours. A change of hours from what to what? from
five, opening at 5 to opening at 4 and closing at 9 instead of 8. And did the days increase, too, or were the days the same? Well, the the it's not really a days increase. It just has
to be written that way because right now I'm only open two days a week and I don't intend to be open more days a week. But I don't want to have to come back say um we decide we want to do like Saturday afternoon proquet games or something
like that. I want it to be in place that that's okay. Actually Saturday is already okay. It's just Sunday that's not okayed. So Paula may know but I think they were approved for five days right right now. to Saturday. Tuesday to Saturday from 5 to 8. You want to go 7
days a week from 4:00 to 9:00, right? But I don't again I'm approved for those hours. I'm not those are not presently what what the hours are going to be. I know it doesn't make any sense. Um I just have like I have several questions
but what is there any um stipulation that if a place is open if so if someone is using a liquor license that's their limited number of liquor licenses right do they have to be open the times that they're saying on their permit or doesn't doesn't matter they're only
allowed to be open for whatever's in the permit but they don't have to be open for all of the permit hours. Okay. I I think they're supposed to be. If they're not, they're supposed to send a letter. Most of the restaurants are closing over the winter. I don't think that that's
been done in town. Um but like say Bayside, yeah, they should really be letting us know that from March, you know what I mean? From whatever to March, they're closed. January to March. And actually in the regulations that
I've read, we should actually be h taking their licenses during the those periods when they're saying they're not open. So it there there is something to that. Okay. But we so so there's a couple there's a couple of places that we they they close seasonally. They like
completely closed, right? I guess I was looking more on the terms of if they say they're going to be open seven days a week and they're only open two days a week, is that allowed? because um they're consuming one of the licenses in town. I I just don't know the answer.
Sounds like if it's to for the sale of alcoholic beverages, I think there there should be some restrictions in terms of openings and closings by the ABCC. When it comes to any other types of activities, I think that's at the discretion of this board. Okay. With
guidance from whoever boards we like the board of health that may have to weigh in because of foods being served and things like that. Okay. But or prepared in service. The current permit is
Tuesday through Saturday 5 to 8. Is that right? Correct. So Tuesday through Saturday 5 to 8 is the current permit. And you are asking us to change that to 7 days a week 4 to 9.
Correct. That's what the application said, right? Daily open daily 4 to9. Okay. But you don't want to Well, then I have the application. My question would be this. If I want to alter the hours, do I just have to come back every time I want to
like if I want to open at 4 starting in October, do I a change of hours? You'd have to come get permission. Yes. So, but every time I modified the hours, would then I'd have to do that. If you're if you are, this is the part I don't
understand. If you're making them if you have if you're permitted for a certain number of hours and you're open for fewer hours, that's one thing. If you're permitted to start at 5 and then you're opening earlier, that you definitely like if you're permitted for five and you're open earlier than that, you definitely have to come back. So, I
think what you're trying to get at here is that you want the permit to start at 4, but you're not really going to start business at 4 until it starts getting darker. Correct. So, you're not immediately going to adjust. You want the permit to cover starting at 400 p.m., but you're not immediately going to change your business hours to 4 p.m.
And then just to be, it was advertised as 4:30 because that was what you would put in your request. 4:30 to 9. Oh, well, okay. 4:30 to 9. That's good. 4 4:30 to 9 was what was in the posting.
Okay. So 4:30 to 9 and then you're adding Sunday and Monday. No, Sundays and not being added. Is it? It's fully six days a week. Are you six days? Is it What's in the You're looking at it, Joe. It says add Mondays and Sundays. Oh. Okay. Yeah. So So I think
you want a daily 4:30 to 9 is the way. Right. But again, I just Okay. So your request, so the application was 7 days a week, 4:30 to 9:00. That was the application. That was what you'd like. But it sounds like you, if we had concern about it, you were
willing to talk about the hours. Is correct. Okay. Yes. So yeah. Okay. So the request is 439, 7 days a week. And then um so that's the hours is one part and then the seats on the patio is the other. Now
I think that because and are you so how does the seating work like if she's not changing the number of seat but she's changing to outside so it's an alteration of premises okay all right somebody but does it change
the occupancy I mean if they're adding seats to there does it mean you can have the occupancy of 37 inside and 20 outside or is it just for the 37 to use that the occupancy I'm asking to keep the occupancy the
same. The same, not to change it. I do have a question about occupancy, but it's a general question about occupancy because for the entire time I've owned the building, the occupancy was 44 and that was the documents I had. Recently,
it's been changed to 37. And I don't know what constituted that change. I don't know in general if the if the mandates have changed or what has changed so what institutes have changed
there's two different numbers right there's an occupancy based on your septic load which is through the board of health and there's an occupancy based on the building code based on um exits fire exits and capacity so there may be two different numbers that's what it is
okay possibly that's what I believe it I'm sorry. I'm just trying to look at other. So, um All right. So, questions. I I think my only concern sitting here and it being a obviously town landing is that there are constant issues with parking down there, right, as you know.
So that would be my only reservation is if we're adding seating it obviously needs to remain well I'm not you know I'm not adding adding seating or people okay you know the the interior seating
that I have now is 26 okay with the exterior seating the maximum would you know if if I left every seat that was there there it would be 48 But we don't again, you know, that's not
the kind of place that it we're open for 3 hours a day or four, you know, or four hours a day when we're open, but the per the permit, Jim, you're looking at it is 37, right? That's correct. Okay. So, I don't So, I can't
speak to what the board of health requirements are. I do think that this board, if we chose to, could um amend the permit to 7 days 4:30 to 9 with the outside seating, I think, pending
approval from whoever else has to approve it or we could approve just the hours or we could not approve it at all. So, I think those are our three options. I move we approve uh pending the acceptance by the board of health for
the changes to the permit. Okay. So you're moving approval of the two requests pending the acceptance of the board of health for the capacity. Yes. Okay. Madam Chair, this is a public hearing, too. Yeah. Do we have a second to the motion?
Second. All right. So, we have a motion and second. Is there discussion? Uh my only concern again, we're back to the parking, but are we going to have a stipulation that it's not expanding the seating capacity? Well, we're only she's only permitted for 37
people. Okay. So, technically, you got to have 26 inside and 22 20 outside, which would be in violation of her permit if she did that. May I just note that across the street they're permitted for
75 seats and there didn't seem to be a problem with that. I'm not asking for half of that. I wasn't here for the approval of any of those establishments prior to I I just know there's constant concerns with park it is and believe me I'm the one that feels the impact of it the most and
that's why I try to keep these hours minimal because I don't want to compete with the fishing you know the the people that are actually working there um and are doing business on the water. So, um,
we did get a letter, they're here now, so I'm sure they'll talk about, but one of the we did get a letter that, um, from one of the abutters that talked about, um, that the some of the parking down there was supposed to be on
your like against where uh, some of the parking that was supposed to be attributed to you was not being used that way. But I was at um, I'm trying to find the letter. Hang on. Uh if there so the parking the parking was
that some of your park so you have a parking plan right? Yes. Um so have you got signage indicating your parking? No. No. All right. And then um it's it's pretty obvious because it says
that according to the zoning board decision, the parking is where the patio and the greenhouse are for um so are you using your parking plan that you have in your zoning agreement? If you're talking about parking where the patio
and the greenhouse that was in 1950. Okay. the only parking that has ever been discussed because the greenhouse predates any parking. All right, that went in in 19 in 2020
2000 period, not 2020. So, I'm assuming that the parking that we're we're that's under discussion is what is my personal landing which abuts the the house between myself
and Bob Haynes's parking. I have parking. Okay, other questions. How many spots are there for that? I'd say there's seven. I just want to clarify this uh motion
just to be clear was not increasing the occupancy. Correct. You intend to use your existing occupancy limits the combination of interior and exterior. Correct. But there's no additional. Correct. Yeah. It's just that at this time of year, if
people walk in there and they look out onto the patio and they see the water and they see the cool air, it's going to be hard to keep them saying, "Oh, no, you can't go out there." Right. It's an attractive nuisance, I think, is the term. Well, I raised that, Madam Chair,
because the board of health cited that as something they wanted want more information on, but if we're not dealing with an occupancy change, then and I would support the motion. Otherwise, I would not. So, I just wanted to I think because because I think the primary
concern that um the primary concern I've seen is septic, the load on the septic system down there, right? So, if you're adding 20 extra seats and more days of the week, like what impact is that having on the septic? So that's what the board of health is trying to Absolutely. I get that. So um so that's why I think
any and it was in the motion that we're sub we're we're only allowing whatever the board of health you still have to go board of health still has to approve whatever tied together. Yeah. Um but right now we're saying the motion was we have right now we're not changing the occupancy. There's still only 37 people
allowed um under the permit. So, you're increasing the days of the week and you're adding an hour and a half to your hours. Um, but you're not increasing the number of people that be there at one time. Correct. Okay. And I haven't
No, I guess I don't I don't know what they base that um how many gallons per seat the state now requires. I They wouldn't They would have to tell you that. I don't think there used to be 25. Does anybody know?
You I mean you have to work with them. Either inspectors or border health agents. Well, it's just that if it was still 25, that would still give me what? 25 and goes into a,000 for I think you need to hear from the board. Yeah. I mean, that's the board of
health will tell you that. We don't we don't know that. The board of health will know. Good. Um, so this is a public hearing. Is there anyone from the public who has anything they want to say? Hi, I'm Darthothy Paul. I'm um quite an immediate butter, but pretty close at
2048 Main Road. Um the last hearing for um the PCU's license, a lot of people came out and spoke in favor of the need for the community center and place for people to gather and that all still applies and none of that has changed. If anything,
um she's made it into a lovely welcoming space and um very quiet, very low-key. Uh and I hope that the um board will vote will vote in favor of this request to increase the hours a little. In the dead
of winter, it's pretty dark down there. There's not a lot of lights. Um ever since the town had to cut back on the street lights, I'm about the only one that has light on my section of the road. So, it really uh is nice to have it a little earlier be opening. Um the
other thing uh that uh I did want to ask just um that I know you're dealing with two boards or usually multiple boards. if you your um if your vote is in favor that it doesn't increase the occupancy but increases the hours and the days
that that get conveyed over to the board of health before they take a vote because that needs to be clear because it sounds like it's an issue. So I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, anyone else? Okay. So, we have um Brenda, my advice
to you is u do not assume that there's a that you applied for the license, you understand the context of it, that you probably should uh take the responsibility for notifying the board of health of that when you if and when you have a hearing or if when you talk
to any staff about it. That's all. All right. Anything else? Okay. So, we have a motion, a second to increase the hours and allow seating outside pending a board of health determination, but no increase in
occupancy. All in favor? I opposed. Uh, so we have four. Did you vote? Yes, I could. Okay. So, we have four in favor and one absent. So, there you go. Thank you. Why don't you just a clarification? So, if the board of health
does not approve the additional seating or the seating that's out there, do the hours stay the same? Can I think we I think I think the hours would stay the same. That's that's our review. Yeah, I think the hours would we the new hours the new hours, but the seating was
pending was dependent on the board of health. Okay. Everybody agree that that was your understanding of the motion? Okay. All right. There you go. Good luck. Thank you. I'll need it. We have a number of appointments and resignations. Um so this 3A I'm going to
read them and um if you have if you have any you want to talk about um put a hold on them and we'll stop. Um so we have appointment Jesse Das as a new member for the cultural council for three
years. Joseph Ferrera plumbing and gas inspector. George Stelgis, zoning board of appeals alternate. Michael Sullivan, Offshore Wind Committee, three-year John Bell, Community Preservation Committee. Keith Dus, new member, Economic
Development Task Force. Ben Walbeck, Economic Development Task Force, Josh Brum, Municipal Census Supervisor, Assistant Registar, Josh Brum, Robert Daylor, Carrie Kuna, and Renee Koman, a cable advisory board, Ray White, sealer
of weights and measures, Evan Almeida, Infrastructure Oversight Committee, and Tom Aen, Citizens for Citizens Representative. Do I have a motion? No holes. I move approval of all of the nominees of recommendations.
Second. Is there any discussion? Any of those people here want to say anything? All right. All in favor? I I That's uh four in favor, one absence. We have a request to appoint select board representative to the following
boards andor committees. So, these are ones where the terms ran out um or we need to appoint someone new, right? So, um, let's just kind of talk about them in general and then we can have the motion. So, affordable housing trust. Craig, did you want to stay on that?
Yes. Does anybody else want to arm wrestle him for that? All right. So, that's Craig. Um, long-term building committee. Craig, do you still want to be on that one? Yes. Okay. Everybody okay with that? Anybody else want to be on there? Um, public safety staffing
committee. So, Dick, this is you right now. Mhm. Are you okay with that? Yeah, Madam Chair, I' I've voiced my opinion in the past. We haven't met in several years. Yeah. And that the reasons for this probably no longer exist, but that's a separate subject, but we ought to consider that. But not before we talk
uh with the other members. Okay. Um so we have three here that are currently held by Manny who is not here to advocate for himself. Um, so I guess we'll see if we want to appoint him to continue or if anybody else wants to take his spot. Um, so we have the energy
committee, um, the infrastructure oversight committee, and then Sean, I thought I thought they're open seats. I I was interested in the infrastructure one, the economic development task force, but without Manny here, I'm not going to take the spot. So, do you want to leave
those open? I wouldn't mind if we had a discussion on that. Okay. And then the bike walking path. Um, this would be replacing Steve who's left. Anybody interested in that one? So, I'll take that one. All right. So,
um I'll So, let's um do the motion. We'll not talk about the infrastructure oversight and economic development. So, we have Craig U for affordable housing trust. Craig for long-term building committee, Dick for the public safety and staffing committee, Manny for the
energy committee, and Shauna for the bike walking path committee. Anyone want to move that? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I That's uh four yes and one absent. Um
and then we'll we'll talk about those other two um at the next meeting. Are there still more coming? Um Paula down. Yeah, this should be at first select boarding. Okay. Um we have a request from Police Chief Christopher Dunn to reappoint the following officers. Are
you here for that? No. Oh, Christopher Dunn is here. Chief, welcome. Um did you want to read these names? Do you want me to read the names? You can read the names. Okay. So, this is a reappoint of the following officers. Reserve officers. France Naper, Thomas PL. If
you have a hold on any of these, hold. Okay. Thomas Plord, Samantha Maguire, Christian Theodore, Javier Rosa, Antonio Custodio, David Lee, Johnny Kudo, Clinton Sylio, David Simco, John Bell,
Michael Sylvia, Paul Ree, and then community service officers Steven Kovar, Michael Kelly, Amy Lynn Smitty, Maggie Nora, Michael Russell, um David Aruda, Brian Souza, Michael
Bordon, Richard Rodri, Eric Vaness, and Valerie Bello. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I That's uh four in
favor, one um absent. Were you here for something else, Chief? Yes. Which one? Uh the National Police I know and the end of year transfer. Oh, the year transfers. Okay. I'm not going to skip. I was gonna skip to you,
but I'm gonna wait. That's fine. Um, we have a request from Keith Novo, the IT director, to appoint Paul Sullivan as the part-time IT specialist. Jim, you want to tell us about that? As you remember at the last meeting, we we made an appointment to this position, but the applicant took another job elsewhere. Uh, we had also interviewed um Paul
Sullivan who was uh seemed to be very qualified and Keith Novo was recommending that we hire him for the part-time IT position. Okay. So, this is instead of the person that we did last time. Yeah. All right. Is there any questions? And chair like to move the appointment of Paul Sullivan as the part-time IT
specialist. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I That's uh four in favor and one absence. We have a request to accept the resignation of Gab Gabriel Almeida, shared health specialist for the South Coast Public Health
Collaborative. You want to tell us about this one? Yes. So, this was a grant funded position through the board of health grant. Um she accepted another job in another community. So um she's put in a resignation. Okay. Do we have a motion to accept the
resignation? Mush to accept. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I That's uh four in favor, one absent. We have a request to accept the resignation of Gary Trip, the deputy harbor master. Um
that's effective July 3rd. Um, so, uh, that will be that will be our new harbor master starting out without a deputy harbor master. Um, so we have a motion to accept the resignation for Gary Trip. Motion to accept.
Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? I. I. That's four in favor, one absent. So, we have a item in a minute to post that job. Um, we have a request from Bill Chase, our incoming director of marine
services, to appoint Andrew Manchester and Kevin Carter as assistant harbor masters and shellfish wardens. Did you want to say anything about them or you just I kind of do. All right. Can you come to a mic? So, you want me to speak to the two of
them at the same time? Okay. Okay. So, one of my first tasks was to try to find the best talent uh to add to the uh marine services department. Um let me speak to Kevin first. Um Kevin
brings a dynamic to this hoba mast's department. I think any hoba masters department that will be a credit and that is that he's got the local knowledge that's basically a prerequisite. Um, I understand he's one hell of a recreational fisherman, which
does bring something to the department. And on a professional level, he works with engineers that I think will help us to automate some of the systems in the department that we need to do. So, he's not just a great marine talent. Uh, he's
also a guy who knows his way around the engineering world. Um, so I asked that you would appoint Oh, by the way, on on top of that, he coaches baseball uh at a fairly high level. We share that passion together and we've we've spoken down on his boat and we've had a pretty fair
exchange of ideas and I think we will mesh quite well together. Great. Okay. So, I asked for his approval as a member of the team as an assistant hobbit master. Okay. And you're appointing them both to both, right? Yes. Yes. So, so this is assistant hobbit master slash
shelter warden. Okay, it's the title. And Andrew, you know his last name, the Manchesterers have been in Westport as long as it's been Westport. Um Andrew at his young age has already worked on the deck of fishing trollers on George's
Bank. And now he works for his uncle Wayne building docks around town. Both of those jobs require a man with a work ethic. And we need that as well. And um Andrew is just that young ball of energy. I think that would be the future
of this department and uh so I asked for his approval as well. Right. Um Jim, are these u funded positions? Yes. Yeah. These are the part-time positions. Yes. And do you have a recommendation? Recommend approval. Right. Um anybody have any questions here? Motion to
approve. Second. Is there any discussion? No. Um, chair, I've I've uh had a few people reach out to me both for uh Andrew and for Kevin. Fully supportive of them. So, appreciate them uh taking on the responsibility and uh
the they have the ability to hopefully uh with Bill help out on the river. Okay. All right. We've already met, by the way, um in anticipation of a positive vote. Uh we met last Thursday down at the Hopper Master Shack and
we've kind of shared my vision of where to take the department and um I think between the five of us which would be Rick Smith, myself, Jim Perry, Kevin, and Andrew I think we'll make a pretty formidable team. Great. All right. All
in favor? I I that's uh four in favor and one absence. I'm going to bump up the other item on the agenda uh 4E. um because you're standing right there. So um 4E is a request to post for the deputy harbor master position. So um so
Gary Trip resigned. We just accept his resignation. Um so now we need to post and we had a job description in the um in the materials, right? That was a previous job description, right? That was from like 2016 or something, right? Okay. Have you are are you asking us to
um a post of that position? I am. Okay. and the job description. Did you have a chance to look at the job description? I have not, Madam Chair. Um, okay. So, what do you need from us? Just just recommend approval to post position. Okay. My my only question on that is if there are changes to it that after he
looks after Bill looks at it, can we make changes? Yeah, because um the way we would work, the way it would work is that we would um post for the position and then we can interview and then they when the applicant when before you hire them, you have an employment contract. that we could change the job description
between between the time you hire them and the time they put in a contract. I don't think we would change it substantially, but yeah, you could make changes. All right. Can I can I get with Jim on that before you post it on the posting? Yeah. Yeah. Just to review it in case there's something Yep. It's not
a problem. Okay. All right. Um, so we have a motion, a second to approve the posting for the deputy harbor master. All in favor? I I That's um passes four. Yes. and one absence. Was that all your items on the Sean? I don't. No, we
didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I There we go. Or or Thank you. Can I just ask ask one question? When do you think this position would be filled because So, do we have do we normally post for 10 days or something or There's no specific requirement. This is in a union
position. So, we can post it for a week. We can post it for two weeks. Um 10 days. So, how long will it take you to get the posting up? A couple days. We should get it up uh by Wednesday. Okay. So, sometime this week the posting will be up. It depends on how many applicants you have. So, could I assume that this
would be filled by the 7th? July 7th. I would not assume that. No. Okay. Well, I'm just wondering, do we go into Fourth of July with or without uh without you're going you're going to Fourth of July without? Yeah, that's right. I've got four guys that can handle it. So,
it'll be your first challenge. You're gonna hope for not great weather on the Fourth of July weekend is what you're hoping. Bring it. Bring it. Thank you all very much. All right. Um Okay, we we're good with that.
All right. 4 A, we have a request from Beverly Bish, um Council on Aging Director to approve the communication and community relations coordinator. Beverly, you want to tell us about this? I think everybody had received a copy of
it. Met with the um I met with the personnel board uh a couple of weeks ago. We reviewed the job description. Um this job description is more in line with our strategic plan that we worked a couple years with the board on. Um it's
more about having the senior center as the as the the center of uh the hub of what we want to do with uh seniors and about getting out there. it's taken this position. Uh the assistant to the director of services, that position, we're no longer going to fill that. I
have somebody that's been out for a significant amount of time and it's been it's been vacant. And we looked at that position and there were a lot of things in that position that weren't really being attended to. Um and but the volunteer part of it was so we've sort of rolled it over into the
communications and community relations coordinator position. and that person's going to um work with uh recruiting, volunteering, marketing, getting out in the community, um our our social media, all of those kinds of things. That's what we're looking for. Somebody with a
little bit of expertise in that area to really um bump us up from where we are and it's a funded position, grant funded. Grant funded. Um do you have a recommendation? I'd recommend approval. And we did talk about the assistant. I
think that's still up in the air. Yeah. Yeah. I recommend this is a grant funded position. I'd recommend So, what are we approving? The posting or just the job description? Moving the job description. The job description. Yes. And post, I guess. We didn't put post. We post isn't in the agenda. So, I'm just wondering
I'm wondering what the request is. Right now, it's just for the job description to approve the position and the job description. Okay. So, chair, just a quick question on that. If if it's grant funded by Billy, is that an annual basis? is this person would come on for one time, you know, an annual basis and
then have to get the grant again or how does that work? Um, I'm kind of the grant queen. So, you'll find I'll find a way. Yeah. Yeah. There's very few positions that we've had. I mean, I've just finished I'm getting into my 11th year already and we still have, you
know, 20 22 staff and I haven't lost any of it. So, it's it's just a formula grant we get every year and we're getting a little bit more. Um this year we're going to I think $16 a senior an elder uh for the town. Um and um I at
one point I did ask for a which is the association for the relief of aged women and we had other um money from them to pay for positions. Uh they've paid for mostly my outreach. So um but I have that um and um other grants. MCOA
usually gives me some money too. So there's a lot of senior money out there that I tap into a little bit here and there. So it's only a pretty low risk of not getting it approved. But the answer would be if it's don't have a grant then I mean it would have it would have to be catastrophic that we would all of our
women is an endowed organization. Yeah. So it's a what an endowed endowed so it's not subject to so much political upheaval. Right. Um, so we we had a motion that time motion. Do we So we had a motion to accept to the to create the
position and accept the job description. All right. All in favor? I I That's uh four in favor and one. Sean, nobody seconded that. I made the motion. No one second. Someone second. I will second it. All in favor? I I'm not not on my game today. I can't hear very well today. Can I just mention one thing? On
the very last page, it does talk about the ad. It talks about what we would put in for the ad, but I didn't know if I included that in there if that was part of Yeah, we just request, but it's it's on the last page. I think we just missed it on the wording on the because it says because the agenda said aging director
to approve the coordinator. It didn't say to approve the posting. Yeah, the personnel board already approved it. You guys have to approve it. So, I have to send another request in to post. Yeah. And that'll be July 7th. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I will do so. Okay. Anything else?
Do you want to Did you have any other topics in here? Yes. All right. Um, let's Can we Let's get the police. Let's do the police item and then we'll do the auditor. Is that okay?
Is anybody else waiting for stuff? You're waiting for the police stuff. You guys were already appointed. Uh, okay. All right. So, Chief, we're going to bump up um well, actually, it's three uh 4B. We have a request from Police Chief Dunn
to host the 2025 National Night Out at the old high school and hang the banner. Evening. Glad to see the windows are open. Yeah, it's okay with the board. I invited Sergeant Fernando Gonzalez here this evening. He's spearheads him and Michelle Dunovan, a few other officers
spearhead our community outreach unit. And he would like to speak about uh National Night Out. and I will probably add a few things. Okay. All right. Welcome. Thank you. So, on behalf of the community outreach unit, so this year we are planning on it's going to be our first time that we're going to be
hosting a national night out. It's a nationwide event. It's usually on the first week of August. This year it's going to be August 5th. It's going to be for 400 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. National Night Out is a is a building campaign that promotes police community partnership. It's a platform for us to connect with
the community. And we this year in Massachusetts going to be 47 TW cities who's going to participate. We're going to be one of them. We also have partners in town, the fire department, the fire explorers, the going to have a K9 demonstration, stroke bodies, all the all the events that we usually host.
We're going to bring them all in one place. It's kind of almost like a big safety day to show what we do. We're going to have a table set up. They're going to present what they do for the community. And the reason why I'm here is to seek uh permission to use uh behind the old high school. It's going
to be from 400 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on August 5th. All right. Anybody have any questions about that? We've already received permission from the high school themselves to use it. And we've also have a backup where if it rains, we're trying to make it not to make it too big
so we can use the gymnasium if needed at the old high school. All right. Great. Right. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. That time I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? I. I. That's
four in favor. Um, one absence. Stay there. Um, so we want to talk about your um, so I'm skipping to um, uh, 4F, the year-end transfers. Can I just ask one question, manager? The the approval for the sign is in that document. Does that
also need to be approved? Yeah, I just coordinate with Okay. Paula, just so you know that that the sign was actually donated by the West Federal Credit Union. Oh, great. So, um, yeah, we have a lot of signs going up in the summer. So, Sure. just Paula the coordinator. Um, all right. So, the the year- end
transfers. Yes. Um, so we have police department 15,955 from salaries to expenses. Yes. So, first off, I just like to thank the board for um them for the board and also the FINCOM for last year with the approval for last year with our
technology and our upgrades. Um, just in the past two weeks, we've been a part of two significant narcotic seizures where we wouldn't be eligible to do that or participate with what you were able to provide for our department. So, I just want to say thank you for that. Um, I just want to kind of go with why we're
here. Uh, first off, we have surplus and and expenses. That's due to we had six open vacancies at the start of FY25. Um, we were able to fill five of those six and it's our goal to fill the last one by March of FY26. So we continue to bring our department
up with technology. Um you know this this first one is through mobile computers data mobile data terminals or computers. We outfitted our police our patrol force last year. Um this is the last leg of our upgrade. Um this is for the detective.
This is for the detective unit. Um he's motioning to the next presenter. I'm okay. I I don't feel like stop. Don't do that. You talk too much. Yeah, we got you. Yeah, they grabbing the hook and multitask exit stage, right? Uh, so
we had an incident earlier this year where the regional SWAT team was called out to a residence in our town where we had an alcohol detective and that alcohol detective had to stay at the police department to write and print out court paperwork. Um, by having this sort of mobile data terminal, um, first off, it's an upgrade than what we currently
have. We have an older computers that they use as well as the air cards which kind of get damaged. But this would allow the detector, our detectors to to sit at these scenes and get gather real-time intelligence to write their reports. Um, so this is the main reason why we're asking it. And again, this is like the last leg of our mobile uh
computer upgrade. I forgot to introduce the year-end transfer because I know you're new, you probably know this, but I'm going to say it anyway because you're new. So, um, town meeting appropriates the budgets. we can't move money between expense or salary or between departments outside of town
meeting except for like this late period in June. Um where um we these are transfers in this case that we're talking to the chief about um it's from police salary to police expenses but there's some other ones here that are just it's moving the money around from
different spots. Correct. We're not asking for any more money. It's not new money, but but if we didn't approve this transfer, then um it would go into it would get swept into free cash. Okay. So the so you had the the first line items for the laptop for the dish, correct?
Yes. Unit. Yep. Okay. And then you had 56107 from salaries to expenses and board. If I can just invite Deputy Chief Rebell up for this one, he there might be a question something from the board might ask that I might not have specific knowledge of. Um, this isn't a great topic to talk about, but unfortunately
we have to. This is of upgrade uh to our handguns that we currently have. Um, we want to move forward to the industry standard that's currently with the handgun and the optic that goes with it. Um, the Massachusetts State Police currently transitioned as well as several other local agencies. We, like I
said, we feel as though this is going to be the industry standard because of the the larger departments transitioning as well as our police training council is now incorporating this into the recruit curriculum. and we have two recruits going to the academy starting in August. Um we had several officers go up to New
Hampshire to an academy up there to testify on multiple ranges of weapons. They felt as though this was the best one for the price that we could get. Um you know the other thing we talked about um the money the money aspect of it we actually defay the cost of the quotes
because we are turning in our current weapons as well as the ammo. So so there is an exchange where it's not going to be as expensive as as what it could be. Um, so that that's for the firearms as well as the ammunition is the I believe 58,000 is 5610. And then there's another
one for 13283. Yes. So with guns, you need holsters. Um, so these are for holsters. Um, again, the officers went up there, they felt as though the the the kind that the manufacturer wanted us to get, they felt it wasn't durable. They felt it was flimsy. They they they were able to manipulate some things
fairly easily where it was broken. So they um went and gathered other other industry holsters and they felt as though this was the best the best one that we could get for the for the price. So I had a question. When was the last time we replaced our firearms in the
police department? Do you know? They're old, aren't they? They're older. They're not they're not oldest, but they're older. Yes. At least six, eight years. At least 68. But again, this is what we're seeing is this trend. Um again, we call it industry standard. Eventually, it's going to come become the norm. And
that's what we're trying to get ahead of. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Finally, something in my wheel. We can we can speak. You're the deputy. I'm not the fire. I got all kinds of questions. Actually, no. You guys are going from the 320, correct? To are you you're you have Sig
320s right now and you're going to the 17. Going to the M17. And I'm sorry, the M18 with an M17 optic. Yeah. Just in uh full disclosure with my background, there's have been some issues with 320 which um nationwide. So, this is a good
move um by the police department to be going to the uh newer firearm. Um there have been some liability issues, some discharges from the old 320. So, uh this is a a smart move on behalf of the police department and as they pointed out, the optics that they will be using
on this is basically what everyone's going to with respect to that. So that's why the extra expense for the accessories, but this is actually probably a very good positive for the town. Uh moving to a different firearm. Okay. Anybody else have questions or anything on the police, the three police
items? Madam Chair, we're just going to vote on these three for now and then do the other two. Yeah. I was thinking we would just talk about these three and then move to Roselli if that's okay. Y motion to approve. Second. So, we have a motion and a second to approve the three line items for the police department
from salaries to expenses. All in favor? I I uh four in favor and one absence. Um anything else while you're here, chief? Yes, a few things. Thank you. Um our school res officers have been busy. They had a we had a mock crash a few weeks
ago that they were a part of. Um they've had the prom. They've had u graduation. I believe they had um another safety event. We had the third graders in our in our police station today. We had the we coordinated and had the two-day boater safety course. We're working with
the harbor master. We have a meeting with him on the 23rd with the fire chief and I believe representatives from DCR. Uh the other thing we're doing as well is we have we submitted for two grants. One is a traffic safety grant that we're hoping to get for the 4th of July and
Labor Day. The other is we've been working in conjunction with um Keith Novo. We've noticed that the our internal computers, the computers in the in the department are starting to become old and outdated. We've had a couple that have crashed where no data recovery was able to happen. So, we were able to
find a grant for technology upgrade. So, we applied for a grant up to $40,000 for uh I guess computer infrastructure upgrade. Um and I think that's yeah, we just coordinate with the hobm master regarding um what we want to do on the water with them and the fire department.
Great. All right. Thank you. Any any for the chief? That's it. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome. We are now pausing our agenda to skip down to discussion 5A. We have the FY2024
financial audit with Roselli and Clark. We have him. Is he on? Our technology is a little challenging today. He's on Jim's laptop. He's on Jim's laptop. We We can't see him here.
We just have to imagine you, Tony. Do we have his audio? Tony, I can hear you. I I can't hear you. Um, you may not hear us either cuz you're Can you can hear me, right? One moment.
I mean the Google button I did. Are you in the is this is on the meeting? Is there a presentation involved? You could always have him call somebody speaker. Yeah, you can call us phone. You can call in into a speaker phone unless there's a presentation. I don't know. No, you're not present. Is the meeting
are you dialed into the meeting room? I am on the right one. Unless it's Well, so can you just You can project that. So we could see him, but we still can't hear him. So you can What? How about your laptop speaker?
I can't hear him on my laptop speaker either, which is odd. Oh, he's not You're not Oh, I can speak. There you go. All right, Tony, say something. No.
We were testing this before the meeting, too. So, if you can go to the other one, Valerie, at least we can get the picture up. This phone works really good. You want to Yeah. Tony, we're going to have you call into
the phone. No, it would the bomb should be able to call into Here he is. Oh, wait. He's just popped in. Did you hear me? Y you just shut it off. Okay, it's back. I can hear you.
Yeah, you can hear us as well. Yeah, I just Okay, welcome Tony Ros. You good? Sorry for the delay. We're still Are you you can't screen share the I think I can.
So, um Dick, you want to just introduce us here? Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh we welcome Tony Rosselli, who is our town auditor. Tony has There we go. Great. has been doing our audit for a number of years and every year uh although we have
the presentation uh in the acceptance of the audit at the audit committee. It is our procedure to have Tony appear with us either remotely or by video and I think Tony were here last year if I recall in person. Uh so
um we already as a town as the uh audit committee reviewed the material but we'd like to Tony just to make a few remarks uh and answer any questions from the select board this evening. Tony Reli. Tony if you just want to give us an
update on what you found. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Little Okay. I I can't I can't see you which I which is not a problem. Um hopefully uh you guys can hear me. Okay. And uh we can go
through the presentation. So um yeah, so this was um you know um pretty uneventful audit. Uh there was really um it it was I like those I like uneventful audits where we don't have a
lot of problems or findings. The audit was issued on February 4th uh which is very early uh for Westport. Um and and that in of itself is indicative of things are getting better. Uh processes are getting uh done uh more
um more quicker and uh things are being um quicker which lets us do our audit um faster. It's all a domino effect. uh you miss an OPAD report and then you're you're not doing the audit till like May or June. But seems like this year
everything lined up and we got everything we needed. Uh there was no um there were no gap departures, there were no material weaknesses, there were no scope limitations, no disagreements with management. So all that stuff was pretty good. Um I'm going
to highlight some observations which we always do. some uh some repeats from the prior year and uh feel free to jump in if you have any uh questions or concerns. So um the report I'm looking at is what's called the governance
report. It's addressed to the board of selectment. It's about a three or four page report and and I'm on page three if you want to follow along. Um yeah, we don't. So, basically, uh, a quick overview of long-term obligations. We
kind of go through this every year with the town. And, um, the the pension liability, uh, increased a little bit. It's 35.2 million, uh, from the prior year. And this was mostly a function of
the town's covered payroll increasing. So even though the pension had a good year uh in the financial marketplace, the liability still went up because the town's covered payroll went up a little bit. So um I think that's all scheduled to be fully funded sometime around
20334. So in the next 10 years or so that should be fully funded. But 35.2 million is the pension liability. Um the OPED liability is in really good shape. Um
when you when we compare it to other towns, um the state does not require you to fund OPED, but uh Westport has chosen to put money in an OPED trust. Uh you've accumulated $4.1 million, so that's
increasing. And it's about 20% of the gross liability. So the gross liability is 21 million. The net liability is $17 million. So it's significantly less than the pension um obligation. So from that perspective, the town's doing a really
nice job of managing that liability. The goal, I believe, which we talked about at the audit committee meeting, was that once uh Bristol County uh has been fully funded, um kind of go back and see where your OPED is at at this time, 10 years from
now, and become a little more aggressive because the pension um pension assessment is built into your budget, and when it's fully funded, that's going to go down significantly. So, you have you'll have money available that you'll
be able to put towards OPED. My uh my gut instinct tells me by then the state may probably have some mandates to um to uh force you to fund OPED. Uh I think they're waiting to get all the pension liabilities out of the way. So, uh
that's my quick spiel on uh the OPED and pension. Any questions on that from you folks? When is that? When are you projecting that the Bristol County the pension will be paid? No. Okay. Uh I hope hope you can hear me. Uh my
microphone is showing a u a negative. Um but um next item is the network security. Um so again we're just just a reminder uh to continue to um now
can you Yeah. Can you guys hear me? We could hear you just fine, but you couldn't hear us. So I had a question. I couldn't hear you. Yeah. Now now I can. So it's kind of like going in and out. Well, yeah, we know that one. That one's user error. Um, so were there were there
any questions? Yes. So do when when are you projecting that that pension uh will the BRI the pension part will be paid off? When are we projecting that? Um I think uh it's 2033 or 4 is when they are um scheduled to be fully
funded. So less than 10 years from now that will be fully funded and then you're going to switch at that time. I would imagine and we talked about this a little bit in the audit committee meeting that you'd go to a more aggressive approach on the um on the OPED funding because that pension
funding is is hardcoded into your budget right now and um that'll be a big windfall come 20334. So um so hopefully a portion of that will be diverted towards OPED. Uh there are some uh communities that are 100%
funded now in their pension that are starting to do exactly that. You know, moving some monies into OPE uh a little quicker. Um but but but you're you're in pretty good. You've got a really good start on OPED. And the key here is there's something called compounding.
So if you're doing well at the beginning, it's going to compound much quicker than towns that are not doing anything now. So compounding is a very powerful um tool that you have on your side because you've started to do things and that number should start to really
move quickly um as the financial markets earn interest on it. Whereas if you've got zero, you're not earning anything which some towns don't have any money in their op. So uh so you guys have a really good start. 20% is very high compared to um most other communities
that u that we do audit. Um, I have very little that are over 10%. And most are right around 2 to 5%. Thank you. Uh, any any other questions on that? No. No. Go ahead.
Okay. Uh, the next item I talked about, which is just a basically annual reminder, just stay on top of your network security. There's um you know all kinds of Oh, I can see you guys now. Great. Um so um
the hackers are still out there in force. Uh they're praying on the vulnerable people that are clicking on emails that they shouldn't be clicking on. The emails are becoming very sophisticated. Hopefully you have a good training program in place. Um which I
believe you do. We talked about this also a little bit at the audit committee meeting where you're um actually, you know, tracking people where some people are more vulnerable, some people like to click on email, some people are great about it. So kind of, you know, track that stuff. So uh so this is just a
reminder to stay on top of that. I don't think you've had a major breach yet. You've been fortunate. Uh a lot of a lot of towns have gotten tied up for a couple of days just because they've gotten nailed. So uh or or lost money. um you know um the hackers have come in
and actually diverted funds uh to foreign accounts. Uh secondly um uh fraud risk just uh again just uh a reminder to continue to do your look at your departments, look
at your revenues. Uh uh how do they compare to the prior year? Uh does it look like there's any uh issues? How's your cash handling? Uh those are things we don't do a drill down to every department. We're only looking at the bigger ones. So that's something the
town should be should be doing uh periodically looking at the town clerk's office, council on aging, uh some of the different school um revolving funds. So those are some of the things that should be done on a revolving basis. Um and um
you know just again it's just a reminder just to um uh preventative uh uh things against fraud. Um any questions uh yet? So okay um come to the first real sort of finding the closing process is still
a little bit clunky. Um you know we've talked to Nicole about um the areas where we seem to be having some trouble with is making sure all the transfers are in the right places. So when we come in to do the audit, we kind of go through every single transfer, compare
it to the town meeting, and we've kind of gone through a checklist with her on how to uh to do that. Uh was it fatal? Absolutely not. We still got your audit done. We still got um you know, everything done. Uh but in the future,
I'd like to see that process uh a little better streamlined and we are working with her every year on that. So hopefully it does get better and better. Um, next area I have a question on that. Are you talking is that like month end and quarterly closing that you're talking
about or year end like which I'm talking I'm talking about the closing that goes to the department of revenue. So what will happen is there might be like a stabilization fund transfer that might get overlooked where you've got to take it out of the general fund, put it in a stabilization fund or um or something
from a special revenue fund that's got to go to a general fund. We that's the area that we're working on Nicole with to really hammer home. We spent a lot of time with her on that in the last um audit. It's it's gotten better each
year. Um the other items just the regular activity that's being done very well. Uh and like I said, it's not fatal. Um you know, we did get the uh audits done on time and everything got done. your free cash got certified. But
if we could streamline that a little bit just from So you're talking is that a year-end closing you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, that's the year end closing. All right. So that's a year- end close. And then is the they haven't instituted a Zrio yet, right? Will ZRO help with that?
Uh not really because this is this is Zobrio's cash book. This is general ledger. So uh yeah. So that that yeah that won't help with that. It's more it's more before you press those buttons to the state, step back, put all your
town meeting transfers on a spreadsheet and make sure they've been made in the GL. It's just a really it's a it's a crossing check. It's a very easy fix if you're if you're doing it. And um so hopefully this year we'll uh have a uh it'll be more streamlined.
Thank you. Uh the next item is with the treasurer collected to review uh the tax lean process. Uh the tax leans the tax leans went up again. So she's
doing her leans um but the foreclosure balances have stayed the same. So we're not going to that next step. We're putting our delinquents into tax lean, but we're not doing the auction side and not doing the possession side. So,
that's an area that um the town um maybe should take a look at um cuz that tax lean balance is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It went up about I think it went up about $90,000 between 23 and 24. All right. Um
the next item is your abatement allowance for abatements. Uh up to $1.2 million and it's very high. Um I think there's only about $25,000
in live cases uh where you're at risk for yet you've got 1.2 million in the liability. So that's something you need to talk to the assessor about uh a little bit. there is some money available there if you want to put extra money into OPED or if you want to move money into stabilization or if you want
to do some capital projects. Uh not sure if they released any for this last budget cycle. Um so they did town meeting just approved 450,000 to go uh the purchase of a fire engine here in town. That that's great to hear. So,
this was a really um so they had almost had like a scing fund for that and it hasn't really cost um the town anything because that money was in a reserve that you you were able to pull out. So, that that's good. That's good news. Jim, the abments were a little higher than 25,
right? We usually do about $200 $300,000 and oh jeez, what's the terminology? T not tax incentives but uh tax rebates, right? We're talking about the actual cases. So um so some of them are written off then
there's a group that the assessor disagrees with it and they have to take it to the next step which is your ATB and those are the amounts that go against this um this liability. Um so your your your initial uh uh abatements are done as soon as your tax
bill goes out. You have to get those done within 60 days and um those get done right away. This is what's left over after those are done. And then you've got your 25,000. Um there are there's a few special revenue accounts that have balances in
them. So we've uh told Nicole, take a look at those. Work with your department heads and see if those are available to be spent or see if they're coding errors. They're available to be spent or if they um you know, maybe you didn't
spend a grant now. So you might have to send money back to the state. But uh for the most part, usually you find that those are just coding errors that have accumulated from uh from years. And there's not a lot there. Maybe 50 or $60,000. It's not a lot of money, but it's something to definitely uh take a
peek at. Um and we call those stagnant balances. So you you you get money, say from the state, 50,000, you spend 48, you got two left. That 2,000 stays there for the next 100 years. What I what I'm
suggesting is let's and the state's already you've already closed out the grant with the state. They're satisfied, but that 2,000 sits there. What I'm saying is go look at all those 2000s and see if you can kick some money loose for the department heads to spend. There's
some gifts, revolving accounts, uh grants, some of it maybe just simple errors where it goes back to the general fund. So, um, so I have, uh, I pointed that out to Nicole, so hopefully she's taking a look at that.
And then, um, same thing with the agency balances. There's $150,000 in the retirement account, and that's way too big. So that's um so when I say
agency balances for those who don't know what I'm talking about that's when you take money out of somebody's pay. So when when you when you're working you have compensation and a portion of it comes out of your pay. That's your portion of what you're paying your
pension to. The town matches that and then the whole thing goes over to Bristol County. What this is saying is that there's $150,000 in employees uh money that's still sitting in this liability and that's impossible. Um that
should have been that should have been paid over. So in my opinion, there's some sort of coding error there and it's that that amount should be probably no more than 20 or $30,000. And it's uh it's so it's a very large sum that I'd like her to take a look at to see what
happened there. uh either the town paid too much and left the employees piece in tax so more of it get charged to the town side um or some payment didn't get make made which I find hard to believe cuz Bristol County would have been
screaming. So um so something happened there that needs to be researched. Um there's a miscellaneous uh agency account which we have no idea what that is that's got $50,000 in. Uh, and all this is income, by the way, if you find
out what it is. It's not an a write- off for the town. This would be income when you when you eventually find what it is. And then there's a fire detail account that has over $40,000 in, which is historically that's way too high. So, there's three accounts there that total
$240,000 that when we come in to do this year's audit, I'd love to see some answers for that because um uh to me I I believe there's some coding um that may have accumulated over the years there. So, this would be money that would belong to
the general fund is normally uh what happens there. So, um, other than that, I think, um, I think that's, um, I think that's what I have, unless you have other questions for me.
Madam Chair, I just wish to point out that the items that Mr. Rosselli is talking about, the audit committee will deal with those in due course and start working on that at our next meeting. Uh, and those are correctable problems and nice problems to have because there's money there that could be released. So
we will be focusing on that. Yeah, I can add the audit community been very um very responsive um very responsible. We've been having our meetings. We've been discussing the findings. Um there's accountability. Uh
unlike how it was years ago, this is really a nice situation to have and uh and that's something you should keep up. So, I'm I'm fairly confident that the town through its audit committee will resolve these items and continue to um
you know, show improvement so that we when we come in for the next audit, we should see those items resolved. Great. Anybody else have questions? Anything he missed, Dick? That No, very thorough. Thank you, Tony. We appreciate
it. Tony, we want more uneventful audits. I love on Remember when I used to just put a cardboard. You did figure myself thing. It was like beating your head against a brick wall. Yeah. And just play the tape recorder from the year
before. Remember we used to do that to avoid the trip. So uh no, I I like uh I like these uneventful audits. They're uh they're very good. So uh so let's keep it up, guys. Um and uh All right. Well, I'll be off. Uh you guys have a great
night and uh we'll see you soon enough. Okay, thank you Tony. Thanks. Okay, anything on that before we move on? All right, so I think we're back to 4C. Yep. Banner request from Westport
River Wershed promoting their summer concert on July 12th. Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. I. That's uh four in favor and one absence. Apologies in our normal summer juggling
of banners. Um 4 D, we have a request to approve non-UN personnel 3% raises effective July 1. So um we typically give the nonUN members um raises in line
with the unions that they're working with. Um, so this is just that's just what this is, right? Consistent with the bargaining with the other units. I move approval. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? I I That's uh four in
favor and one absence. All right. Back to year end transfers. Uh we have um 23,000 from library salaries to expenses and then for the beach enterprise 13,000 from health insurance to beach
enterprise uh personnel. So this is what is beach enterprise 13,000 from health insurance to beach enterprise personnel. Oh, so they have their own health insurance line item. They don't. That's that's actually a general fund line item. Okay. the general fund health
insurance line item two personal. All right. Do you want to uh do you have any information on these two? Yeah, I don't have a lot on the library. Um I do know that they had some positions that were unfilled throughout the year, so they had additional money. I know just in general discussions with them with the expense accounts over the year. Um
they've had a number of needs that have not been filled. I do not have the detail on this 23,000 as to what it's going to be expensed on, but I do know that they've had a number of expenses that um they've been looking to get complete throughout the year that have
been put on hold. This is um Oh, yeah. It just So, it says building repair and maintenance. So, we don't know exactly what this says building repair maintenance. Okay. And then the um the beach, the personnel service for the beach.
Yeah. So, a couple things happened I think with the beach. Um last year, normally lifeguards when you get towards the middle of August, towards the end of August, the kids go back to school and the number of hours or number of um shifts that are filled gets reduced. Um it happened a little bit this past year,
but not as much as normal. So, they actually expended more money um than they normally are anticipated expending because most of the guys didn't go back. They've also hired the head guard who's been doing um more detailed work. He scheduled training for the lifeguards.
He's um he's come in the last couple of months to make sure that the equipment is updated. So, he's put in some additional hours that were not included in the original budget from last year. They are included in this upcoming budget, but this gets us through the end of June. Without this transfer, um there
will be no lifeguards as of tomorrow till the end of June. Okay. Um it should be a one-time thing going forward. Um it's in the budget going forward. It is in the budget going forward. Okay. All right. Any questions about either one of those? Um my only
question is on the beach enterprise uh or basically salaries on the on there was an article on the shorelines I think last week uh concerning this that it was you know there was some overtime like you stated from last year but my only concern is that this is while it is a
variable cost in my opinion it's a fixed cost you know how many lifeguards you're going to have you know the hours there's discussion about how they're going to cut the hours for the end of June uh until July 1. So I think my concern is that this probably should have been brought up at town meeting to get, you
know, take it from the enterprise fund to have this. So I would hope in the future that they look a little bit back a little bit further or look further when you're in February or March as to what those expenses are going to be. Um, you know, these are kind of college kids that probably are pretty dependent on
the income. I'm pretty familiar with lifeguards and staffing and and kind of how it works. So, um I just especially like this week, right? I mean, you have a holiday on Thursday, could be very hot. There could be people down there very early and we just don't know what type of ocean you're going to
have that day. So, I think that the town should be a little bit concerned with the liability or the precedent um not having lifeguards during obviously beach during the weekdays, especially when the kids are out of school on Friday. So, that's my only concern. I mean, it it it's something that happened, but I
think needs to be a little bit managed a little bit better. I mean, we're only dealing with you get, let's say, you got 20 days at 300 bucks. It's 6 $6,000 that, you know, probably could be coming from somewhere else to avoid the
liability that the town would have if someone drowned down there at 10:00 a.m. with no lifeguards. Was this is this 13,000 covering that or do they actually need more? They need more. I believe this my calcul they can cover it. They may they may only have four a shift during the week and six on the weekends
which is what they used to have. Um they prefer to have six. Okay. All right. But yeah, because the article was only saying they were going to cut the possibly reduce the hours from 11 to uh 11 to 5. So if it just changes staffing then but you have still
covered full coverage that's probably good as well. And then just what's happened this past year as well is the select board and town meeting approved um additional money to be transferred to the recreation department. So Dana Stewart, the recreation director, just got
involved this past year um and that's going to handle a lot of the day-to-day stuff as well. So So with the amount of beach permits you have outstanding, does that that goes to the general fund and then has to be transferred? It it doesn't go directly to the management of
Cherry and Web then. It goes directly to the enterprise fund. So that's a separate account al together. The beach passes go right into there. Okay. And then obviously other entities can pull from that enterprise fund. Only what's appropriated at town meeting and it's supposed to be just for the the beach.
Okay. But they have Chvy and Web, they have East Beach and Beach Avenue or small. Okay. All right. So do we have a motion to approve those two transfers? Motion to approve. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I. So that's
four in favor, one absent. We have a request from Matt Ardo, director of public health to post the shared services health specialist position. So we accepted the resignation earlier. So this is uh funded by the it's a grant funded position that community share,
right? Move adoption of his recommendation. Second. So we have a motion and a second to approve the posting. Any discussion? All in favor? All right. I That's uh four in favor and one absent. We have a
request to approve change order number two for Digit LLC for $31,549. Jim, do you want to tell us about this? So, this is the waterline project that uh we received the $4 million grant for and that we had some OPA funds as well that went into this. Uh this change
order was expected or anticipated. Change orders always come in a little bit higher than you anticipate and this one did as well. But this one was um we have bread and cheese brook with two culverts in route six. Originally it was designed that we would uh the contractor would essentially dig under the two
culverts and install the the water pipe. Mass do was concerned about the structural integrity of the two culverts. So we had to come up with an alternative. We looked at different options. We looked at jacking which I don't quite understand but uh Mr. Sors was asking about that. So we did investigate that. Uh we looked at
directional drilling uh which would go under the pipes but the material wasn't good. So the engineer said that we would have to go through the bedrock which would have brought it significantly deeper and cost more than they're proposing. So we were fortunate enough there's an old aqueduct um in the route
six that used to bring water when needed from Lake Noachoke down to the southwa for river uh water department did give us approval to use that. We're actually going to slip line We're going to snake the water line through this old aqueduct and go under
the two culprits. Um, which um is an expense and that's included in this change order, but it is still less expensive than what was going to have to be done if we had to do the directional drilling. And this is all still covered under the grant. Yes. Yes. Move approval
of the change order. Second. Is there discussion? My only question is it does say additional patching on Gford Road. I know there's been constant push back on the impact on Gford Road there. Is what is this patching? Is this overlaying? Is it kind of cleaning up some of the mess there?
So on Gford Road, we did uh we milled and overlaid sections of that patch. It's much better. Um and eventually in no this fall street is going to be completely overlaid. Okay. So the the patches that are out there at this point, the overlay that they're doing in
the fall, is that our expense or is that part of the project that part of the project? proud of the grant. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I um we have was you were you I said
um I don't agree with the project. I'm just I'll say I to fixing the mess that they made. Okay. I was thinking you were going to object, but No, listen. You got to fix what's destroying. Okay. So, four four in favor and one absence. Um, we have a request
to approve contract EJ Prescott for water meters for $40,729.90. Jim, yeah, this same project, but now uh Grant installed the water manes. Uh, we installed services to a number of the houses. We've always um purchased the
water meters for the users. And this would be a separate um solicitation bid proposal that we went out for. And these are the water meters that you just drive by and it reads it, right? Yes, they read automatic. And is this part of the fun grant funding? Yes. Okay.
Any discussion or any questions? Do I have a motion? So move, madam chair. I'll second. There any discussion? All in favor? I I oppose. I oppose this one. So we have three in favor, one opposed, and one absence.
Um, we have a request from Michael Burus for a letter of support for Serpid's application for State Streets for All SS4A grant program. Jim, do you want to tell us about this? I don't know a lot of the details. This is a grant that the Serpent Regional
Planning Agency is applying for um, safe streets and roads. Um, I don't know a lot of the details. There's a letter here, a draft letter um, that's in their packet. They're just asking for support letter from the town of Westport. What's the pleasure of the board? Move
we submit a letter of support for the safe use grant. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? I I that's uh four in favor and one absent. Uh select board office staff
reorganization. Jim, is there anything about this one to talk about? I don't have a lot. We did have a meeting last week uh where we discussed some options. I'm it was left in my court to get some additional information back to the group. Uh we're hoping to
have something before the select board at the next meeting July 7th. So Craig and um Jake, you guys were working with him on this, right? Do you anything you want to add? We probably need another meeting before that. That's that's all. It was a good meeting. We we
uh we talked a little bit about um the additional position or the refined position redesigned position and we also talked about um the um well I'm trying I'm confusing it with
our last meeting at least on the other stuff that's the we were just going off some of their recommendations. Okay, Jake. Yeah, I I think coming out of that meeting, I think, you know, we have a clearer idea of kind of delineation of some of the roles uh that we're we're
placing. I think my only concern is that we're basically hiring the two positions that, you know, run the town. Uh, so my concern is that hopefully, you know, there there may be somebody internally or a Westport person that is somewhat
involved that could um, you know, maybe apply for these positions because bringing two brand new people as a town administrator and then the assistant, I mean, there's going to be a pretty steep learning curve to understand uh, kind of what's going on in Westport. So, um,
that that is my concern. I know we're going to talk about maybe an RFP for executive search committee. Um, I actually would like to lean towards actually a Westport internal committee to do to lead that charge, but that's just my opinion. We're going to have some more meetings on that, but I I'm
just concerned that bringing two brand new people in and might be an issue. My concern was that we're we have a town administrator. We're going to have an assistant to the town administrator, but not an assistant town administrator. And
so we're looking at so that and I'll give you the clearest example. So, if you get x number of department heads that report directly to the town administrator, we still have to finagle what happens. Um, because we're not going to have dual reporting
responsibilities, but there may be some sharing of the management functions of the town administrator currently has, particularly in the area of personnel, uh, for example, that we would see this assistant to the town administrator
focusing on those. Um, so you're not really changing the you're upgrading the position. You're not changing the the chain of command, so to speak, but you're providing um some additional
responsibilities to this new position that'll make the town administrator's job more manageable. Um, we we've talked about spanning control. we talk about every time we we we look we we we we have a discussion about this but more specifically
that there are some things that sometimes have that we don't and and and and you know with the number of employees that we have and the number of the department heads with employees um you know and we have x number of unions that we have to to deal with the
whole idea of of of uh personnel management is um is part of I think the strains on this job. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. We look forward to hearing more.
Uh anything else on that? Okay. The town administrator report a couple of updates. Um going to have on-site shredding shredding on July 30th of next month. Uh so we've contacted all
the departments. We've asked them to look through their old files. Um whatever disclosures or whatever notification they have to give to the state, uh they will be doing that. But we're looking at approximately 300 boxes of papers that um we'll be able to shred. They will come here to the town
hall first and uh shred the material here. Then they'll go over to the annex and do the same. Um I see Mr. Chase out here. He had also mentioned that there's a number of filing cabinets. the Harvard Masters office. So, I haven't reached out to you yet, but I will. Um, we may be able to shred some of those as well. So, they've
done this. They haven't done this probably for about I want to say 8 to 10 years. They used to do it on a somewhat regular basis. So, we will get back on that. Uh, surface equipment surplus equipment and vehicles. Um, McGwigan kind of nudged me on this one last week.
Um, we haven't had an auction in about two years, two and a half years. So, uh, we send notice out to all the departments asking them to take a look to see what vehicles, what equipment they have that we can put up for auction, uh, and dispose of. If it's, uh, obsolete, we would just dispose of
it. If it has any value, we would auction it off. These will be presented to the select board at an upcoming meeting hopefully um, beginning of August uh, to get their approval on the surplus and then they will go out for auction. An update on the Mac Cumber loop water
project work continues. Um, all the mains are in on Gifford Road, Osborne, East Briggs Road. Uh, we still had that crossing that I just talked to you about on Bread and Cheese Brook. Um, now that that change order has been approved, we hope to get that work done in the next 4 to 8 weeks. Um, service connections to
the houses have been uh done. We're probably about 80 to 85% done with those service connections. Uh, which has been quite a task for our project manager Roger Fernand's done an excellent job just coordinating. you have to coordinate every service connection with
the homeowner to make sure they're there when the work is being done. Um he actually went out ahead of time, located the septic systems, drilled the foundations so that when we're paying the contractor to do this work, everything was set up and ready to go. So that's been a big help. But uh the residents that are receiving the water
have been extremely happy, extremely pleased. Um many of them have uh poor water, many of them have uh some of them don't have water that's uh the volume of water that they need. Others the uh condition of the water is just not acceptable. So it has been a benefit to
many and there's been many in that area that have had to live with the construction over the last 6 months and um very appreciative of them just bearing with us while we we get this project completed. Transfer station paving. We had a grant from Senator an ear from Senator Rodri's
last year. from Madame Mindo has been working with that earmark to get some work done in the uh transfer station. They did some additional paving, cleaned it up. They were able to purchase a new shed which should be coming in shortly. Uh they're actually going to paint the existing sheds to kind of make it all
uniform. Um and they'll be striping um in the near future. They also, I believe, included some signage as part of that earmark. So overall, you know, the board of health, Mr. Meno and people down at the transfer station have done quite a quite a job of changing that
overall appearance over the last four to five years. So appreciative of the work that they do down there. And that's all I have. All right. Thank you. Uh we have minutes of June 2nd. Motion to approve minutes from June 2nd. Second. Any
discussion? All in favor? I. I. That's uh four in favor, one absent. A report on the bill warrant. Bill warrant. There was only one this time and u total of 2.2 million which is quite uh usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. I don't
know if this made it into your package but I have the the copy with me anyway. So all in order all right thank you. Um so we have liaison committee reports and suggestion for future agenda items. Um so uh Craig
you want to start? Well, um nothing new to report, but the two committees that uh I usually report on are meeting this week. So, um the um opiate settlement advisory committee uh is meeting on Tuesday, tomorrow night at 6:00
and the um uh affordable housing trust is meeting um with um the uh on Wednesday night. Uh with respect to the affordable housing trust, um I will be attending uh earlier that day the
housing authority meeting. Um we we've had some discussions about um use of some of the funds that we have available under the purview of the affordable housing trust to not only um expand
uh the availability of um u affordable housing in town but to maintain the quality of the affordable housing in town. After conversations with uh our leazison of the uh community preservation committee, we are um we
believe that there can be some some of the funding that we have for those types of purposes can be used to um make sure that we're maintaining and preserving the affordable housing that we have um and that the funds have been used in
other communities for that type of purpose. And secondly, that is also um in Greenwood Terrace, there is there is other land behind it that is potentially available. We uh we've talked about this in the past in terms of RF we have an
RFP out there for um u available parcels that we might be able to um uh identify and possibly develop and this may become in looked at in tandem with that. Thank you.
Uh Dick, we have a new committee. As you know, I was appointed to the Westport Open Space and Recreation Committee and we had our first meeting just briefly. I want to tell you about it. The primary goal of the this committee which is
which is dubbed the steering committee uh is to review a document that Jim Hartnett is familiar with. He probably wrote it. You can see it's very extensive, but this is the town's open space and recreation plan. This uh was
created in 2016 and was updated again in 2018. So, one of the tasks is to go through this and and update it in many respects. Uh also out of that will come discussions about
the use of open space and uh recreation. A lot of the conversation takes place with the land trust. Actually, we hold our meeting at the Westport Woods building there of the land trust. So, we're off and running. Uh you're going to hear about this. There'll be, I
think, a table uh at RiverDay and there'll be some public outreach and we'll be hearing more about that to get opinions from the public on a number of these items uh and what we should be doing and how we should alter the plan and where we should focus in terms of
land use and recreation. two go together and that's our task. This this project will take about a year. So I wanted to share that with you. For anybody who' like to read this, I'll be glad to relinquish this for a couple of days do so. And that's that's all I have. We I
did meet with the council on aging. There was uh just a regular meeting and actually the item that Beverly Bish had brought forward earlier this evening was discussed. I should have mentioned that. Um so those are my reports. Okay. Um I was looking I haven't been on
any um subcommittee meetings recently but um there is a school building committee meeting um on June 24th. That committee hasn't met in a while. Um so June 24 there's a school building committee. I forgot earlier. Um so you you mentioned River Day is Sat is the
21st on Saturday down at the head and then obviously they have the Fourth of July parade coming up. Um so that's all for me. Jake, uh no real updates actually. I just had a question on I know the one before with man uh with Manny on the economic development task
force there are two vacancies. Is there a stipulation in any of them that two select board members can sit on a committee if they want? That way we would avoid I don't think we have I mean no we have we have more than two select board members. We have two select board members on the long-term
building committee. Okay. Um so that may avoid if you know if he didn't want it on there anymore. There's two vacancies anyway. So, I was just looking at that. Um, the only update I have, Jim and I have been working on um, Hicksbridge Landing and hopefully
we'll have a decision maybe by the end of this week. I'm going to meet with them on Thursday. I think we've tried to hammer out some of the issues and hope, you know, we're aiming just really for a short-term solution uh and then look at
it at a longer term uh whether it's whatever that may be, but just hopefully get it see if we can get it to a point where we can get it open this year. All right. Thank you. I forgot to mention so town hall is closed on the 19th, right? It is. Yes. So June 19, Thursday, June 19th is a is a holiday.
So, town hall will be closed and all the town stuff will be closed. All right. Um, do we have any comments or statements from the public? We have a public here. Two members. He's like so excited to start his new job.
He's like here already. All right. Um, we do not have any items for the under the 48 hour rule. So, I think that is we're done. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I That's
four in favor. One second. Thank you, gentlemen.