##VIDEO ID:YlRQOrjw1Qg## to call the meeting to order will you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to of the United States America the for it stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all good evening and welcome to the December 16 2024 meeting of the Westport Select board under Mass General Law chapter 38 section 20f this meeting is being recorded um just a few um comments um to start off the meeting I just want to note our next meeting is going to be on January 6th so um we're not going to be two weeks from now it'll be three weeks from now on January 6 um for our next meeting I we just want to say thank you to a couple of the holiday events that happened through town um the Westport land conservation trust and the Westport Recreation Center had a tree lighting um at the Westport Woods not last weekend but the weekend before last it was very well attended it was uh the police and the fire department were out there um there were a lot of children out there so it was a really nice event weather held out for that was good and then uh so we want to thank the land conservation test and the recreation center um department and then yesterday Santa Claus came to town on a fire truck and so we want to thank the Emergency Management um service the public safety off the fire and um Police Department um those are involved in helping Santa Claus find his way around so thanks to all of you um I don't know of any other uh announcements or recognitions anybody know of any no okay so the first item on our agenda is um a public hearing we have a petition from National Grid in Verizon New England to relo relocate jointly owned pole in it says in front of 28 Atlantic Avenue but we determined it's pole 28 in front of two Atlantic Avenue um approximately 35 ft East towards pole 27 um do we have someone to talk about that [Music] good evening select men and women uh my name is Aaron Roy I'm representing National Grid 1250 braing Point Road in Somerset um we are requesting uh to relocate pole 28 uh approximately 35 ft um from one side of the driveway at to Atlantic to the opposite side um with um I'm sorry uh with the approval of the customer uh in uh at to Atlantic uh we were looking to shift that from 35 to about 28 ft so closer to the driveway um this has all come uh within the last few weeks or so so when this first came in um it was originally 35 but we're looking to shift it more like 28 ft um but that'll be within our limits customer um is is okay with it um the neighboring customer at 8 Atlantic is is okay with that as well so right that's about it all right um this is a public hearing is anybody from the public want to talk to this okay does anyone within the board have any questions or I was wondering uh Mr Roy what was the reason for the for that request for the requ okay um so the construction of two Atlantic uh it's been happening over the last two uh I'd say about year and a half or so um the new Serv to to Atlantic will be an underground service from the pole to the house um and with that driveway being in the way um they were requesting to relocate the pole uh from one side of the driveway to the other to allow for that Underground Service okay thank you no problem anything else from the board move approval second so we have a motion and second for approval is there any comments from the public any discussion so what it's been moved like 16 ft give a take yeah just just the the width of the driveway there's a rock wall on either side of the driveway so it's moving from the left side of the rock wall to the right side of the right rock wall right all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence thank you very much thank you uh we have no licenses today from appointments or resignations we request from gu Patterson deputy director citizens for citizens to appoint Tom Aubin as the Westport represent representative on the CFC board any anybody here to talk to that what's the pleasure of the board Madam chair I read the material and I would recommend approval of this request so is that your motion yes we have a second I'll second it any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous U we have a request to appoint the select board representative to the southeastern regional planning and economic development District serid commission through June 1 2025 this is a seat U being vacated by Mr wette and I think we've skipped over this because we thought you might be interested in it all right is um anybody else interested in serving in that role no I'm interested in the other one okay so we want to move I'll entertain a motion to appoint Manny SS so move Madam chair I'll second it we lost all our momentum here with one person gone I'm signing you know we're going to make it hard for Paula to take the notes all right um all in favor I I that's unimus welcome thank you foring that role um we have a request to appoint a select board representative to the Southeastern Massachusetts Metropolitan planning organization SS smmo from Jan January 1 2025 through July 31 2025 and Craig you are interested ining that I move to appoint Craig gutra to that role second any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence um action for a recommendation from the long-term building committee to enter into a contract with RGB Architects for the municipal building feasibility study you going to talk to good evening everyone okay so the welcome Mr Thrasher you're the chair of the long-term building committee I am indeed thank you so much so uh real briefly we had a uh a meeting which consisted of uh interviews for two firms that uh that that uh provided a proposal uh for a uh Westport facilities feasibility study uh and an additional meeting after um and the long-term building committee is recommending that RGB Architects be awarded a contract with uh there was also some uh some consideration of of having Mr hardnet uh work on the timeline for delivery with that vendor uh just to to make sure that there is a realistic timeline involved in in uh their proposal uh but uh it but both firms had had some some some good points but this particular firm uh the one thing at least that stood out to me was that they have they have uh seen many of these types of Municipal projects uh from start to finish from feasibility study all the way through construction so would uh like uh would ask the select board to uh move forward with the awarding that uh contract as as you see fit so um Jim I don't see the contract in the files I don't know if that's I just received the contct contract today I'd like to review it um I think we can if we can have the board uh authorize us to negotiate the contract can get that done for the next meeting okay does anybody have any questions I move we um move forward with negotiating the contract uh subject to the issues raised with respect to timing and Mr uh haret oversight of the uh terms and conditions second there any discussion Madam chair question to Mr Thrasher uh I watched this on the video I didn't make the meeting and um was this the first uh group there were two two parties this was the first the first two uh to to present yes yeah I thought they were both good but this one was I was impressed I think they had a more realistic I mean that actually their time frame was less realistic than the second group and but we felt that we like their proposal that we wanted them to have a more realistic time frame because I think they underestimated the amount of time that would take to get certain steps of the process accomplished okay anything else all right so we have a motion and a second all in favor I that's unanimous with one absence is there anything else from long-term building commit I believe that's it thank you so much thank you uh we have a request from Carol freedus to accept the following donations these are uh donations to the veteran service $60 Anonymous donor in memory of George Santos five $20 gift cards from an anonymous donor $25 from Mr and Mrs Edward theberge in memory of Paul Kristen Senor $50 from Angelo and Joselyn latini four $25 gift cards from Michael and Claire Sullivan $120 from Anonymous for discretionary use mam chair I move these requests second any discussion all in favor I that's unanimous with one absence we have a um request from the Westport Highway Department to approve the final reimbursement request from the 2023 chapter 90 Paving improvements project of $2,769 71 want to tell us what this is Jim yes so we get uh funding from the state chapter 90 funding for roads um Highway projects here in town uh that work has been done uh once it's a reimbursement type program so once that work is done we seek reimbursement the majority of this work I believe in this 26,000 roughly that would be getting reimbursement for was for um retainage that has been released after the oneyear warranty so I'd recommend approval is there any discussion so so this is all Paving work it's all Paving and it's um and also the consultant um was it tedesca or Walsh W hand I'm not sure it would have been wouldn't have been his last contract it would have been the one before and it was George melow was um George approved this George yeah this is all came in through George mow let see here we got this is Rochester any other questions okay what's the pleasure of the board Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to approve this request from the Westbard Highway Department second any further discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence or D we have a request from Matt arendo the public health director to approve the job description compensation and posting of transfer station form and position inhouse and open posting Jim you want to talk to us about this so we this was discussed at the previous uh select board meeting um there's a retirement in the one of the positions at the transfer station he's retiring the end of December um this position requires a CDL and hoisting license in the past they've had a difficult time filling this position when um it became vacant uh they requested that we U modify not only the pay but the position itself so there would now be a form in at the transfer station that would be responsible for overseeing its operations um during the day or during the week and he would be respond to Madam Mendo the director of the Board of Health um the pay rate would start off at $28 per hour this is a team's disposition they are in agreement with the rates um it's also consistent with other Union pays for similar work so I would recommend approval of the job description posting of the positions inhouse and ous and the uh the rate of pay move approval second so we have a motion accept and a second to um approve as stated is there any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence um we have a request to approve the lease agreement with Municipal Communications 3 LLC for the cell tower located on drift Road AB buding 88 to the east tell us about this one Jim yeah so this came from um Keith Novo IT director um this was one of the conditions of the approval of the cell tower on drift road down near Route 88 that we'd be allowed to put our own antennas on there for uh Public Public Safety uh radios um they've agreed to the lease agreement Municipal Communications again this will allow us to put radio equipment up on the on the antenna or up on the pole that'll provide service which is needed for police and fire in that area so I'd recommend approval there be no cause to the town this is part of the agreement okay any questions Madam chair this is not directly related to the question but I was going to ask the town administrators is that Tower fully operational now it's it's an ATT Tower primarily I don't know if it's fully operational but it is operational I I know my service is better down in that area and um other carriers other people in my neighborhood that have other carriers their service has improved as well so okay I'm assuming it's up and going did we move that already no I don't I'll make a motion to move second Madam chair all right any discussion all in favor I that's unanimous with one absence we have a request to close the town hall and the town hall Annex for an hour for the annual potluck lunch on Monday December 23rd 2024 didn't say what time though the Christmas luncheon is it doesn't say what 12 12 to 1 o' 12 to 1 okay just be sh do you need do you need us to vote on that yes if you could vote on that please okay I'll entertain a motion to allow the town hall poock 23rd second second is there any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence we have a request from the planning board for select board comments on the definitive residential subdivision Francis Estates located at map 68 lot 70 Charlotte White Road sometimes we comment on these and sometimes we do not does anybody have any I was actually just wondering about this one the other day I ran I drove by and I'm like man that sign has been up there for a while I wonder if it's ever going to go it's finally going to go does anybody want to have any comments for that yeah Jim White's here Jim could you answer a couple questions on this or or it hasn't been before yet but this is the change in for for turn it in to get rid of that Community septic it is to change it from a open space residential development which was approved several years ago and uh to remove that approval or remove that subdivision and who's the developer right now who's the developer on that he's got a lot of work with Board of Health up there he's going to that there's a lot of issues that are going to be harder to do with a regular subdivision than the one was already but I really can't go into all of them all right so the planning board will discuss it in detail right this is just do we have anything we wanted to send along anything no none okay um so we're going to refer that back to the planning board um we don't need to vote on that do we no um we have a request to post to inform um it part-time position um Jim you want to tell us about that what about oh sorry more planning board sorry sorry I crossed off planning board too early G uh H request from the planning board to initiate amendments to the town zoning bylaws for consideration at the 2025 annual town meeting relating to accessory apartments and short-term rentals that would be why you're why you gentlemen are here I apologize for skipping over though all right so this year Michael ver Stone planner this year we only have two potential zoning art zoning amendments that would go to town meeting um the first one is the first one I'll go over because this is probably a little bit straightforward and it's going to have fewer comments is the accessory dwelling unit bylaw when the state passed the affordable homes act over the summer this introduced some necessary changes to the the town zoning bylaw for accessory dwelling units we currently call them accessory Apartments um and so summary of the the types of revisions that you'll see in the bylaw is that we are on Town council's recommendation adopting the state's Definition for accessory dwelling units um we can no longer require accessory dwelling units by special permit previously detached accessory dwelling units were um by special permit and so now that is a a byright process we cannot restrict the types of occupancy in a short-term rental or excuse meal accessory dwelling unit that's next um and uh we're not also able to restrict who is the owner of either unit on that lot and lastly there were a couple oh and there there were some Provisions for requiring particular amenities so for example um whereas the town bylaw required particular amenities like requiring a bedroom if you wanted a Studio unit that would be something that would be an option that's now for in here and we had to update just some general tinkering with the the language of the bylaw based on council's recommendations so any comments on the accessory dwelling unit did what about the size did that change the size it did not change except that the so the the the new requirement is that in accessory drawing unit cannot exceed 900 square F feet which is consistent but then there's the the caveat that it also must not be larger than um one half the gross floor area of the principal dwelling whichever is smaller but still maxes out at 900 it maxes out at 900 so we previously didn't have the that other provision so for instance a 12200 square foot house could only have a 600 Foot Right anything else on the accessory apartment here yep from the letter of explanation here Michael thank you for that this is something we don't have a lot lot of authority on this is pretty much mandated by the uh the acts in August 2024 the affordable homes act that's correct yeah and so uh the proposals that are in here the stipulations rather do they comport to that uh affordable homes act they do I've run it by Town Council and Town Council is per so you you have two copies in here you have one that's the the markup M and the the one that's not marked up that's the the the version that Council has reviewed against the affordable homes act okay all right so the appropriate action here is for us to refer back to the planning refer the accessory apartment by to planning board move we uh refer the U without comment the accessory Apartments uh um by law Amendment second any discussion all in favor I so we'll refer that back and that hearing just for the record will be on January 14th at 6:30 and 14 at 6:30 okay and uh short-term rental we can you just take over a second yeah I can start out uh the short-term rental bylaw uh failed at last year's town meeting I'm sure you're all aware of that uh so a committee was formed um to try to figure out what to do and to come back with a recommendation five members on the committee and we've met five times um I was the chair of this committee uh I think Roger manard was vice chair I think um and we had a lot of discussion back and forth uh we took away from town meeting last year that number one a restriction on the number of days uh would be uh a noggo and so this time we've made it as seamless and easy as we possibly can the the issue here is that short term rentals have been defined by the state as a business so we have to uh change our table of use to allow this type type of business in all areas of town because that's where it's happening [Music] so we thought it would be best to have a very short uh zoning bylaw that would change the table of use to allow it in the uh business Zone and in the residential agricultural Zone uh with the stipulation that it is a business and the business can be regulated by the select board uh like other businesses are uh like uh uh auto repair shops Like Liquor licenses those kinds of things the question if it's a business would we allowed would we be able to collect a room tax on the units rented under the short-term rental with the ones that are registered with the state we do okay and I think it I don't know if Jim has an idea how much dollars we get from it but it's not insubstantial so 50 to 100,000 yeah it's it's popped up the last year or so so yeah it should be closer to 100 if the trend continues which is better than a sharp stick in the eye I think so uh so in the effort to make it easy to administer and that's the big problem of who's going to administer does it need Administration uh the committee decided that it would be a permit application that would be submitted to the select board like trailer permits and liquor permits and other kinds of permits that could be approved on mass as opposed to having a special permit so it's not a special permit which requires a public hearing for each uh location uh this is just a permit uh and I think Roger has spoken with Jeff Blake of Our Town Council many times about how this all would work and I believe that they have told uh Roger that this works I think he's seen our zoning article and uh our uh draft for your uh article for town meeting which would be a general article a town article not a zoning article the I I believe excuse me I believe that the select board has the ability to Grant permits on mass um and we are uh attempting to come up with a Draft application form for the select board uh for your perusal uh the the issue is that somebody has got to receive these applications and keep them on file and bring up the list one two three times a year I don't know how many times uh of uh list of the ones with the addresses and the names that are seeking your approval for a permit and I I think it can work I know that Jim has some big reservations about how this would work um but it's completely up to you folks whether or not you put our zoning article on the warrant and whether you put the town article on the warrant after we have our public hearing now the town article doesn't get a public hearing unless you want to do one here or yourself but zoning articles must by law have a public hearing and it will just like the accessory of dwelling unit um and after the hearing we have the ability to amend it if we need to uh or to withhold it so right thank you um so Jim do you have comments about yeah so there's two parts to this right the um short-term rentals of zoning by law the by law just the process itself starts with a select selectman refer back to or the select board refers it back to the planning board so that's that's step one I think that's to me is pretty straightforward the second one I think it just warrants more discussion um um I think we need to know up front what inforcement Authority the select board would have if any and what the expectations of the select board would be going forward um and just to make sure that we have the staff and the resources to administer it so I think we can work through some of those details going forward but um um that actually doesn't have to get referred back to the planning board because that would be a town bylaw which is pretty much just in the control of the select board so the action we could the action that they're looking for the first action they're looking for is just for us to um refer the zoning byla back to the planning board yes and then if we want to talk about so let's and then if we want to talk about should the select board be doing this kind of thing so I don't know what what do you guys want to talk about here so Jim how does it how does it work right now they're saying that this is a matter of right from the state and the state's collecting fees right now no no it's not a matter of right for the state um how's it working now that they because we get money but we're not collecting the money the state's collecting the money St collects the money so how do they know who's doing they people register with them y if if people are using Airbnb or or or whatever it is um they ask have you done this with the state and if you are somebody just with a cottage and you rent it out for two or three weeks to family friends or people that the real estate person gets the local real estate person gets they are required for whatever law governs their actions to to uh make sure that the owner has registered with the state now if you're doing it just yourself and you don't know about the law it doesn't get registered but with this maybe that word would get out that this is what you need to do so once it got registered though the state would be collecting the fees so there's no nothing the town has to do to collect the fees and the state just gives us our percentage or whatever they collect and and we we looking to get a permit fee for this is that what the going to mean that's up to you I mean it would be the select board whether you have a fee or not I don't know if you have a fee for trailer permits we do most of our permits have permit fees but so what's the advantage to us to permitting it like we're not permitting them now they're illegal well they're illegal without a permit like what makes them legal or not legal well right now they're not legal because they we're not zoned for it right right right yeah so if if once the zoning takes effect um is there there's no per I know your zoning bylaw says subject to permitting per the bylaws right so it gives some leeway there but is there a reason we'd have to permit them I I think that if you allowing this type of business then I think uh and I don't know I haven't spoken to Town Council but I think the town has some uh liability for making sure that they comply with all the regulations uh in terms of safety basically so does the does the house or the place have two EES does it have a safe kitchen does it have accessible uh toilet you know those kinds of things which um there are laws at the state level that require uh businesses that do this to have a safety inspection and stuff like that well we do that with the businesses right the businesses have to have inspections fire these are businesses yeah and I mean I to me a big advantage of Permitting is your ability to revoke the permit should they become problematic right yeah mam chair so this ultimately is a town meeting article Y and recalling the last discussion on this it was kind of interesting what took place as we all recall because by rejecting what was being proposed uh short-term renters were owners of short-term rental properties I should specify and not not the tenants were doing something illegal so I was wondering after that why would somebody vote for that knowing that they're doing something illegal and could be enforced so people I guess assuming people acting rationally they figured it wasn't going to be enforced so we didn't have the resources to enforce it and it had never been enforced before so it seems to me the the enforcement here is important otherwise it's meaningless so what would be the what would what would be the enforcement that would take place on the part of the select board to somebody who's non-compliant or whatever or fails to meet standards required in the permit because we don't have that knowledge out there people will just may they may turn this this thing down again and then we back where we started from so we want it to pass and it once understood I think it it can pass but I think this is an easier much easier uh bylaw to pass it's very simple it doesn't have uh it's not honorous it doesn't talk about you can only rent for 7 days or two days if you remember a town meeting it was 7 days yes somebody proposed two days that failed right and then the whole thing failed so I think a lot of it was misunderstanding of what was going on because after that it's still um and I don't know what would happen if you had renters from an Airbnb or something like that and your house burns down um if the insurance company says well this is patently illegal you're doing something illegal with this building why should we pay I mean that could be a problem that could be a problem well remember when after meeting last year um we kind of talked about enforcing because now we have all all 150 of them are now illegal right so how do we enforce and we we chose not to do anything but was the enforcement option at the time I think was um the building the zoning enforcement officer issuing citations or something right or we we didn't do it but I don't think we did it but was that what was the mechanism of enforcement like today right now so it's a zoning issue so the building inspector is a zoning in enforcement officer so he would have to issue a cease anded assist on on the building so right now so if the zoning article didn't pass that would still be the case that would be the zoning enforcement officer would be now if the zoning article passed though this one you're proposing pass then it wouldn't be zoning enforcement anymore that would be it' be permitted anywhere in town it could be per right it's permitted anywhere so then who enforce who enforces our business buiness like if um like like our automobiles who is that the zoning enforcement officer who does that so he enforces the zoning if it's permitted in that District if it's permitted in that District um you know the select board issues a u Auto Repair license or a use car license um but the enforcement is limited right the select board's enforcement authorities based on Mass general laws and as lical licenses those are all regulated and that Authority is given to the board this is a little different because when creating a bylaw would be like East Beach um where we issue permits based on a a town bylaw and yeah I I I just think it needs to be looked at because I'm not sure how much enforcement Authority the board would have if it's permitted by zoning and they meet bard of Health requirements and conservation requirements what would trigger this select board from denying a permit resending a permit or even approving a permit what what conditions or authority would the select board be looking at you know if we had a room full of people that were upset because Airbnb had a party last weekend does that mean the select board could we send that approval and those are the things I think we need to look at I don't want to get it's difficult you don't want to give expectations to the public that we have more Authority than we actually do so I I think that needs to be determined I'd recommend that we look into that a little bit more yeah I I think you should uh the the other the other positive about doing that is if there is a a short-term rental that is becoming a real nuisance to the things they have a place to come and talk with you and have the other people come in and say it's a onetime thing it's not going to happen again or or whatever but it gives some ability um the other ways that we're going to do it would be through the zoning and you know in the zoning in the town Zone there's a sound there's a sound bylaw of 85 DB but that was instituted to deal with a an airboat that was in the river and a party is probably not going to make 85 DB on a neighboring property is just going to be really nuisance so that's not going to help um so being able to come to you who are the the elected officials of the town and say this one is you know they've had on this date this date and this date they've had these big parties and trash and noise and whatever and you can take it under advisement you can admonish the people or you can revoke their permit it's a really challenging use to regulate because it is more temporary in nature so if you have a problematic um short-term rental tenant and they're just there for the weekend it'll tend to naturally resolve itself um with that particular violation anyway um but Jim to your point we will be meeting in January with the short-term rental committee and I think Jim raises some Val points that the committee ought to look into further yeah I I agree um so what I'm getting out of though it's it's it's rather important that we get something to pass because now they're illegal they're out there the state's collecting money and we're taking the money right that's a problem so so what this entails hopefully is a self certification process so they get an application from town hall and they fill it out it's I don't know how many pages the application will be but the the bylaw is very short uh and you know the Board of Health wants this this this this and this uh the fire department wants some kind of initial inspection um and uh zoning wants code enforcement so that they have they're able to run this business in this location so that they comply with the state thing and the the self-certification says that I comply with this this this this and this it has a signature at the end and so we're not involved with making sure that they do all these things but under penalty of law they're signing their name that they have done this and they comply um and to me that that's the simplest way to do it because we don't have the manpower to go out and inspect all these places is that similar to the way the states doing it now State's not doing it they're saying yeah but they're registered oh they're registered they could care less about all this other stuff they just want the money so all right so I think there's two components here so the first component is um to refer the short-term rental zoning bylaw back to the planning board is there any questions on referring that back to them no all right do we have a motion I'll move second any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence and then the um the the proposed um permit um portion of the bylaw it sounds like we've gotten some some information to go back to the short-term uh rental Comm comme to kind of ponder is there anything else you want to add to what was already been discussed for them to as they're thinking about this other Amendment okay so you guys are going to keep talking about that and you don't need any motion for that one okay anything else thank you do you have a date for this oh the short-term rental hearing do you know when that is oh uh it'll be the same date as the accessory dwelling unit January 14 January 14 who I mean it's it's going to be one batch but I I doubt the first hearing will be at 6302 it'll probably run over okay so uh thank you January 14 for people interested check your check the town website okay now the information technology parttime position you want to tell us what this is about sure so this position was in the budget for fy2 um for part-time position it position been kind of holding off to see how the the budget process was going to go or how the budget for 26 was going to go um it looks like you know we have a good possibility of keeping it in the budget next year um it's something we need uh we're doing some uh permitting software for all the um departments planning building Board of Health conservation uh we're also doing a a new uh website and permiting software with the cemetery department and uh we could really use some assistance in the it section somebody that's going to be here during the day part time um that can help us out if there's issues Keith has been coming in most Fridays and he's been available then and we've been using Tech MD for smaller problems but it's um it'd be great to have somebody in house to kind of show people or help people when needed so I I'd ask if the uh select board would approve posting the position so moved do we have do we have a job description we do it was I believe it was approved last year don't have that before second to that motion by the way sorry all right any discussion on that mhm this position Jim I mean it's not the same thing where we added that money to Keith's position well Keith is still doing that would' be great to have somebody in house um Keith is coming in here Fridays most Fridays he's here and um weekends nights but during the week he's not available but there were two things in the budget we increased his salary and also had the parttime position okay and we had the person in this position before I understand we did we had a yeah part time 20 hours week for a few years right so what's the pleasure we didn't move that one yet did we we did we did we did we did all right um all in favor I I any opposed will you name oos um so there's three in favor one opposed and uh one absence um request to increase the recreation director's hours to assist with Beach management Jim yes so we met with the chair of the uh Recreation Commission uh chair of the beach committee and uh Dana Stewart the recreation director last week we've been talking about this for probably six or eight months now um just making sure everybody was on board at least um the Department's involved with this process it would increase the recreation director's hours two hours weekly hours by two so she'd go from 32 30 to 32 hours per week and then she would take on the administrative tasks of the uh Beach committee um you know writing policies for the beach uh assisting with uh hiring lifeguards making sure they have the equipment they need um you know even the fence we're installing a fence I making sure those contracts are in place place um it's you know I think it's something that's probably a little bit overdue the the beach committee is all volunteers they do a great job but it's a lot of work and this there's um work that needs to be done during the day that we've been kind of doing as needed and we just be great to have somebody um in town available to uh take emails and address complaints and and work on you know it's our biggest Recreational facility here in town it's visit by the most people in town um it's really something that should be part of the recreation department as well um and then how's this funded last year um well this year mtown meeting the beach committee uh through the Enterprise fund uh transferred $5,000 to fund the additional hours okay any questions mam just comments this is something that I had the opportunity to discuss with the pro Our Town Administrator we thought that this made sense and for a lot of reasons didn't happen I mean this is really like a business and uh the beach committee is doing a lot of good work here but this is something that needs a manager that's what we have here and there's no change in salary it's just the hours that are going to be work so I think this is a good solution to what I consider to be a long-term problem and and this is uh welcomed are you moving I'll I'll make a motion to approve um I guess it's the increase in hours of this position with the purpose of beach management second any discussion all in favor I I that's unanimous with one absence we have a request to approve the change order for pair Corporation or par uh for 41,8 for the route 177 roundabout design Jim so with the last meeting of the select board um select board approved the authorization of opa funds to do this this is change order just came in uh today uh this should bring us up to about I'd say 95% of the funds that'll be needed I do believe we'll need another maybe $10,000 as we get closer to June um and what happens with these projects is it takes three to five years to get these approved through Mass do Mass do because this was a an e Mark had to approve the original hours in estimates with par so they limit it based on tasks now over the three years that this project the four years of project has been going on mass do has changed their policies and they've added additional steps so in order to meet those additional steps that are needed to get this project funded we have to increase the hours that um are contracted with power engineering so that's where we are this this happens on I've seen this happen for years on all these tip projects Transportation Improvement projects just takes so long to get them to the process that the process changes and the hours have to change accordingly uh par has um conceded a number of hours in uh one of their earlier phases because we had a dispute and they agreed to that but this is actually additional work that they had not contracted for okay uh what's the pleasure um Madam chair I'm prepared to make a motion but I want to be clear on what the motion is here so are we just approving the change order or are we approving more funds the funds the funds have been have been approved or allocated through Opa now we're just approving the change order for the contract then Madam shair I would recommend approval of the change order second any discussion all in favor I that's animous with one absence um next we're on 5A the Town Administrator preliminary FY 26 budget discussion all right so we we met with departments departments have all submitted their budgets we reviewed the budgets with the individual departments um this kind of gives you a brief overview of where we are in the budget process it's still very early we don't get the governor's preliminary budget till the end of January and it's difficult to predict now where those numbers are going to be so this again this is just preliminary estimates based on the information that we have available able to date um i' like to note some of the positive improvements over the last few years um our local receipts for FY 24 um at one point we were budgeting over 90 95% we're down to about 76% which is kind of recommended by do um these numbers do go up high I've seen them as high you know 80 85% as well um so we had a little bit of flexibility in that number and we used some of that last year when we budgeted so the FY 24 number of 76% was for FY 24 uh last year or the year that we're working on now we bumped that up to about 80% of of revenues to bring in uh more operating revenue for the town um and then for FY 26 we're probably getting closer to 85 86% um but that's based on FY 24 numbers so it would probably be just a little bit less than that um we'd like to keep it somewhere around 80 to 85% going forward but it gives us a little bit of flexibility um if we need it um our new growth came in higher than anticipated um mainly because we had about $77,000 in Old County solar this is for fly uh 24 um we budget at 400,000 and it came in at $736,000 so that gives us some additional Revenue going forward for this coming uh FY 26 year um the preliminary budget has no staff reductions um there are some unfilled positions that um we've targeted for cuts um the assessa overlay account um this was in the negative a few years ago and that has a healthy Surplus right now so that's that's a that's a big improvement from where we were a number of years ago uh free cash this year was certified at just under was certified at over 3.5 and we had to reduce it by I think $177,000 because of the way Diamond was um um funded or allocated for for their um Capital project so that had just been adjusted this past week this just gives you an idea of where our Revenue comes from um the majority of it comes from local taxes 65% um we have uh excluded debt so we borrow the school the fire station the police station so that takes about 8% of the overall budget uh we get about 16% in state aid um we have some budget offsets so our Enterprise funds we we offset some of the costs like uh the beach committee might put in $20,000 into our operating budget to cover cost related to the beach that only comes to 1% and our local receipts which I just talked about is at about 11% and we really do not have any flexibility on any of our Revenue except maybe local receipts and even that is minimal because 40 to 45% of that is excise tax and that's fixed so um maybe 5% of our Lo local receipts is um the only thing that we can really adjust going forward and and and that's minimal because that's that comes from building perit fees licensing fees and so forth and you can only increase those so much so our revenue is for the most part is fixed and we got to live within our means what our revenues are um just some Trends uh motor vehicle excise tax which again is about 42% of our local receipts um two years ago it it leveled off last year it actually went down for the first time in about 10 years um we had about a 5% decrease um that was going up 100 $200,000 a year for the previous years so that that was all considered new revenue for us so um that's something we need to look at the meals tax uh we had a boost um after covid and that seems to be leveling off uh the room tax is one area that continues to increase um that's been going up fairly steadily over the last few years and part of its short-term rentals um the ambulance uh revolving account we had a slight decrease last year we're hoping that goes back up this year um part of that decrease is because we've funded more into their revolving account than we had previous years so the actual amount that taken in is relatively relatively the same uh investment increase we had a big increase in investment income um just with the higher interest rates um I I think we're up close to $500,000 last year and previous to that we were you know $40 $50,000 so so that's helped out a bit uh state aid uh we look in preliminary budget estimates of about a 3% increase um the big number on the the uh Revenue side is Chapter 70 funding that's the funding for the schools there were a number of years we were considered a minimum made community community and we would get anywhere from 30 to on the high side $90,000 a year increase for Chapter 70 uh the last two years we've dropped out of that category or dropped into the new category and we've had some increases in that that um line item so if those increases stay that that would help out quite a bit um and uh New Growth like I said was certified at about 736 we usually budget 400,000 um to give us a little bit of flexibility F's expenses go in this budget salaries uh we were pretty much living off of 2% increases for a number of years to the union employees in the contracts and town employees uh School Employees that's pretty much gone up to 3% uh this year and that'll be staying uh just over 3% or around 3% for the next couple of years so that's that's additional expenses that uh we did not incur the last few years um when we did the budgets with the Departments we asked for we asked for level funded and uh they had to justify level service so most most budgets are pretty close at least expense accounts to what they were last year health insurance um we do not have a number yet but we're we anticipating about an 8% increase last year I think it was about 7% but um because the the Health Organization had had a few good years only in Investments and locally we were able to offset some of those costs with some of the Investments that were made so um I don't know if we'll be able to use those same Investments this year so we're anticipating about 8% the pension assessment is fixed that's 7.1% increase this year uh property insurance uh they've recommended that we budget in between 10 and 15% over last year we're still waiting on the high school the old high school as to how they're going to ensure that right now they're ensuring that is occupied and we've we've been pushing to continue uh to keep it ured is occupied and um they've been working with us to do that and as far as the state assessments go um you know we budget in the preliminary budget about a 25% increase which gets us to the 2023 numbers it actually decreased after 23 uh this is mainly the chart of schools and the school choice numbers um so there may be some flexibility in there depending on where those numbers go they had been going up for years and then the last three years they' they've gone down slightly more kids are staying in Westport and uh going fewer kids going to uh out of school districts and to the child of school so the expenses uh similar story to the revenues most of them are most of our numbers are pretty much fixed we do not have a lot of flexibility um you know the the numbers there or the um lettering in red are are essentially fixed pension Insurance Debt Service State assessment Regional Schools we do not have any flexibility in those amounts and then uh the rest of it is for the most part is pretty much salaries you know the school department I think is 82 83% of their budgets is salary um in the towns side is majority salary too so there's not a lot of flexibility there's not a lot of room to make Cuts unless you're going to cut bodies big unknowns going forward and we should get um our first assessment of where these numbers will be will be Chapter 70 funding the charter school assessment and the school choice assessment health insurance and diment assessment um those we hope to have a um good idea where those numbers will be by the end of January mam chair if I could ask the Town Administrator uh do you have any feel for the um the chart of school and school choice assessments and any read on that is I don't I I hope I believe I budgeted fairly conservatively in the preliminary budget so I'm hoping we get a little bit of flexibility there um they've gone up for years in the last couple of years they've gone down those numbers um if we stay at the last year's numbers um then we'll be in decent shape yeah thank you there were years where it went up1 $200,000 so it's it's it's tough to tell um in order to come close to the balance budget or to balance the budget at least preliminarily and and I'm hoping to get some of these things back in the budget as we move forward and get our final numbers uh the oped reducing from 175 to 150,000 the animal control part-time ACO officer um looking to cut that position at least at this point it'll be a $28,000 savings um there's two vacant positions in the highway department we're looking to cut one of those that would be $58,000 uh the highway expense request uh they had actual their expense budget actually increased quite a bit this year so we're looking to reduce that by about $43,000 uh increase the legal cost from 135 to 145 which is a little bit more realistic with what we've been spending uh the police department uh requests this is their requested budget but recommending we reduce that by about 58,000 at this point again I'm hoping we can get some of this back in as we move forward uh the fire department includes one additional position their expense account was level funded they did not have any increases in their expense account um he's looking at um a new audit process that some of the other communities are using and Governor Healey is touting as a um potential Reven Revenue source for communities where um I still don't understand it completely the fire chief is uh just getting into this process and I'm hoping he can come before the board to make a presentation as we move forward but I I think that the basis of it is that uh they look at our expenses based on Medicare Medicaid um and they allow communities to tie in things such as fuel pension assessments um any other cost associated with employees or Co associated with those Serv services and then we get reimbursed a a percentage of that um he Chief had mentioned like Freetown and Lakeville were you know $75,000 they were getting reimbursed on for some of their expenses some of the other communities like adbor which has you know more runs I think than Westport I think they were up $400,000 so there is some Revenue to be uh gained it's it's a lot of work it's additional work for the department but um it would allow them to this goes back to a plan the Department had number of years ago that was recommended I think that they were going to add one position going forward for a number of years and this would allow them to fully staff the uh second station and the building department the part-time clerk we increase the hours um this year they're being paid out of the revolving account but we need to start putting that back into the budget so if we could pay for about 50% of that position in the budget that would that would help out that department quite a bit so as we go through the process of the budget our new Revenue we're at about $2.2 million over last year's Revenue uh we take out some of the fixed costs which deducts that amount by 76,000 uh so the net new Revenue that we would split between the town and the school at this point is $1.5 million which would um allocate about eight just over $800,000 to the school and just over 700 ,000 to the town with that $700,000 and the cuts that I mentioned the school the towns side is um balanced within a couple of thousand dollar I think within $55,000 so we could make that adjustment the school side is going to be more of a challenge um they received $652,000 in um free cash last year to balance their budget um so making up that 652 th000 uh they would see a net increase of about6 66 preliminary discussions with the school just a negotiated salary increases is somewhere in the range of $700,000 increase in transportation is another $100,000 so um we're going to have to get creative to see how we can work that into the budget they're still working through their budget process so we do not know what their final numbers are um mam chair on that point uh it on page 17 of what you handed out to us that number for the schools is not not signif not the right number in other words you have um for 20 do Department request 22.7 million but that's not really the school request is it 20 I'm not so with yeah what it shows here is you're looking at the budget not the presentation right I'm looking at the budget the budget I'm looking for some good news here but I don't think I'm going to find I think I think it's so so the budget I think it had my notes off to the side no I don't see any notes here maybe I have it don't have a big enough screen but I don't see any notes well was would just be a number there a goal yeah well more importantly the number in here is not what the school has presented yet obviously they have not presented yeah okay there there is a number here it is higher than last year and then in the red on the far right which is U your your recommendation I guess that's even higher 22.8 million so I was thinking if that would be good news if that were the case but it's it's that 227 Department request on the part of the schools that's probably not a real number so my goal and I think that's the number on the far right was to get it to find a way to get him 700,000 over the last year's budget um I hav we I haven't achieved that goal yet okay I'm hoping as um we get some additional numbers in January we can get closer to that but um without some type of I I don't see how we make that number without free cash yeah okay nice TR I knew the good news I was seeking was probably not in the cars um this was just a chat light we had last year in The Five-Year Plan um based on the revenue and expenses that we see yearly we projected that we could have like a 3.5% increase in the overall budget so a 3.5% increase in the school budget and a 3.5% % increase in the townside budget which which puts net which puts new Revenue somewhere in the range of about $1.4 million we're just over that right now um and we can see on the town side how difficult it is to meet and how difficult how it's even more difficult on the school side um but realistically I going forward that's the number we're going to be at roughly that'll increase slightly each year but we're probably at about 1.4 $1.5 million um a year in new Revenue so we've looked at over the years we've looked at a number of options overrides um different options to bring in new Revenue um there is a new provision we could increase our local room tax option from 4% to 6% right now we bring in about $400,000 in our room tax at 4% so if we bumped it up to 6% that would bring in an additional $200,000 a year uh there's also a community impact fee for short-term rentals and and this one is a little bit more difficult to understand and I've requested more information on it it seems that it would only apply to professional short-term rentals um owners that have more than one or two uh units that they rent in the community um so it wouldn't I don't think it would impact the majority of um short-term rentals in Westport so there may not be much revenue if any to to Ghana from there and then the other one which I've talked about is the CPE audit with the fire department um and we're hoping for you know roughly $75,000 and that would cover the proposed position uh that's being requested by the fire department I think we need to consider putting an article on for the in increasing Lo the room tax option and I think we have to at least ask town if we want to do that we will work on putting an article together and then free cash um we had a good year for for Westport it was three just just under $3.5 million for free cash this year and this chart just shows where we were going back to 2004 um so this is the highest year we've had going back 20 some years so um what I do want to note though is while it's it's a lot for Westport it's not necessarily a lot for other communities comparable to Westport um on this chart the red line is is is westport's free cash and you can see where seon Somerset dmouth Swansea are still higher than westport's U free cash um Swansea is a little bit unique because they they roll over most of their free cash they don't use it um so you'll see that they went up to $18 million a few years ago because they just continue to roll it over and then I think they put 15 million into their Library um and then next year they're looking at putting in I think 8 or $10 million into a new town hall Annex but I you know our free cash is good but it's it's consistent with other communities um people ask where the free cash comes from um free cash is money that was raised or not spent last year um that was over uh what was budgeted so $3.5 million we carried over 172,000 from last year's free cash into this year's free cash we had Department turn back so if a department does not spend all the money that was appropriated or allocated for their Department that goes back and eventually gets into free cash that was about $1.1 million and our local receipts we had talked about this earlier um is 1.6 million over what was what was budgeted so we're at 76% but again this was fiscal year 24 we bumped those estimates up so in instead of 76% for uh 24 we were at 80% and I'm for 25 we're at 80% for 26 we're probably going to be closer to 85% so this number won't I don't see this number increasing um on the local receipts and in reality it should go down a bit um state aid received just you know 20,000 more than what their original estimates were and their assessments um from when we had our preliminary numbers at town meeting to when the actual numbers came in was about $141,000 difference in our favor and then there's just some miscellaneous stuff um if things aren't closed out at the end of the year they get charged to free cash so there's some grants uh chapter 90 funding and other things if if we've done the work but we haven't received the reimbursement or requested it that can get charged to free cash so that's where the additional money comes in um that goes to free cash this year we really pushed to get all that stuff off the books before the end of September which help boost up off free cash this year as well we'll continue to do that every year but uh we had a little bit extra this year because you know we push to get that done that's all I have again we're going to wait till the end of January till we get the real numbers or more numbers from the state normally the State numbers in the governor's budget for chapter 7 child of school and school choice are consistent and stay that way throughout the budget process okay thank you any comments or questions nope nice job thank you for doing that Town Administrator reports going to be tired of me tonight the M the mumber loop um the water line the construction has started um they started the first week is December um they started work on Greenwood Street and Osborne Street I believe tomorrow or Wednesday they'll be going over to do the tie-in um at gfed road in route 6 uh at CVS um so there will be some uh road closures in that area between Route 6 and probably East Briggs Road um once they get past there on gford road they're hoping to bring it down to one lane especially uh early morning and late afternoon when school's coming in and out um the police department uh the engineer and the inspector out there have been working with the school department to try to coordinate best they can but there will be some inconvenience to the parents and to the drop off um again this project is being funded by an EPA Grant in Bristol County Opa there are no funds Town funds specifically being used and residents are not required to tie in at this point or will not be required to tie in Buzzards Bay Coalition this kind of Falls in line with this I I put that information in your packet uh they're proposing to submit some legislation uh they're going to file that in January um for the state to set up a committee to evaluate alternative funding sources um to fund infrastructure projects such as water and sewer um Cape Cod has in the islands have a have a fund where I believe it's actually short-term rentals uh they charged a fee and it goes into this fund and they're using those funds for some of their water and sewer projects um so they're looking at uh different revenue streams to support projects not only in Westport but on the south coast project updates uh Cemetery design Power Engineering they should be filing a notice of intent on the expansion work this week they should have a public Hearing in January um I've asked them for estimates I don't have those yet I hope to get those soon we'd like to at least talk about those for the budget or the um Capital Improvements coming up for this spring um Cemetery software we've been using a volunteers actually done quite a bit of work on the website years ago and um the town has done quite a bit of work with volunteers to get a lot of the cemetery information available on the website uh but that software has kind of outlived its useful life so we've we've hired some sites we're going to be using their software not only for the website um but also for the staff at the Seminary Department uh for work orders for permitting um um they'll be able to look at things on their iPad or their iPhone if they need to when they're out on the site so um but there is quite a bit of work to get that that migrated over to the new system we've just started that process Town Hall entrances the four entrances here at Town Hall have all been cleaned and painted uh work also included repairs to the decorative molding and they replaced the railing that was kind of swinging on the north side of the building for a few years uh the town website I got to give caval freedus a lot of credit for this she's been putting a tremendous amount of work and time into um getting our new website up and running she's been working with uh the website company uh they've just started or they're going to be starting in the near future uh to migrate the data from the old website to the new website so that is working in in progress diamond diamond is working on our on the select boards tables I got couple of pictures in here pictures yeah um um they finished the base units um they're looking to have delivery soon hopefully in February so that'll replace a Fine Furniture in here and um like it very excited for that and uh it's great working with diamond they've done a number of projects for us and after this they're going to be working on some display cases at the school I believe that is all I have thank you um we have minutes of December 2nd fine with me are you g to move them yes second we have a motion and the second to approve the minutes of December 2nd all in favor I I and one is so um three in favor one abstention and one absence on the report on the bill warrant the bill warrant I believe you have a copy in the file was $2 million last time last week and uh nothing really unusual in fact the number of 2 million you've heard that a number of times right it's sort of like the average number except for certain times of the year when the year and uh often times brings a different number and sometimes certain things pop up like pension contributions and such but none of that this time so it was routine and was approved all in order thank you um so liais on reports or suggestions for future agenda you want to go first um well we got the the coming up um infrastructure oversight committee so we don't really have much to say now but in three weeks we already have quite a bit Jimmy hit most of the other things that we got going on so nothing more to say right thank you um so I had uh climate resilience committee meeting um a couple weeks ago um we got a report from the agricultural subcommittee so that went really well um this one of those committees that um is really suffering from being so big that it's having a hard time meeting quorums um but we're trying to wrap up reports um out of that the committee's purpose is to like have a to compile a report back to the select board um so we're hoping to wrap that up in the not too distant future and then um this past week we had an offshore wind um committee meeting and we had um I want to say three or four state departments came down we had uh representatives from three um departments at the state in Boston that are tasked with various parts of energy and um wind and um various related things so that was a pretty good overview of you know what the state's role and all that was um we're looking to have Vineyard wind the current whatever the current name is of the company running Vineyard wind um down in January but um we haven't got that confirmed yet so um so that was that was an interesting meeting to see talk about the different ways that the state um is managing off that's all I had Madam shair a few things here to mention um cipc is meeting on a regular basis and we'll meet again after the first of the year and all is pretty much in order there and moving at the usual Pace um I did attend a meeting as leaz on to the Council on Aging and they they've completed their strategic plan they would like to come in an early 2025 bring us all up to date which I encourage them to do the two other committees that I don't mentioned very much is the assert of the bus service and they have a meeting almost every month except for this time of the year when they skip a couple of months but there's a lot going on there and uh you've probably been reading in the papers that bus service is free in certa and that came from a grant and um they we've also added a direct bus service from Fall River to New Bedford in back now there's already an existing line that does that but it makes stops along the way so this is an Express service and that's going to be interesting to watch um I I think that may have been funded by the millionaires tax I I don't recall but anyway so there's stuff going on there and I attend the meetings and everything's pretty much in order but it is very important of course the other one which you don't talk about very much but has importance is the Bristol County advisory committee Bristol County Commissioners advisory committee um everything's fine there we've passed the budget and so on and so forth we meet from time to time we did meet in the summer we met recently to approve a small item on the budget so I just wanted the committee to know we've got all those bases covered last one I serve on as sort of uh lays on again is landing commission and Mr Bull wasn't here short time ago talking about the one there The hibridge Landing to try to do something with that that there a lot of parts to that that have to be uh a lot of questions that have to be answered but that we're working on that so those are some of the things that we've been going on we've been I've been involved I do have an item for future agenda U discussion and that is just something that occurred to me know we get the KP law bills from the Denise I guess every every month and I read them then you know it'll I don't know what half the stuff is cu it'll say like such and such versus the police or such and such uh versus the zoning board of appeals but I I have no idea what that's about I don't know if we really have to know about that others take care of that but I wondered and I'm sort of just wondering aloud now if that's something we ought to talk about a little bit um maybe it's just really a question of Jim alerting us to something on the bill that that's noteworthy I mean a lot of it I guess is routine um but there's no explanation to this it's just the bills I look at them and I say but I don't know what to compare it with um I don't know from looking at those monthly bills if we're on schedule to meet our annual allotment for legal expenses but it seems to me every so often we ought to maybe talk about this or get some more information um I'm not trying to create additional work but maybe a brief Nar narrative to explain some of this would be important but I mean these are just numbers that mean nothing so we get them do you want to like an overview of the cases working on well and more yes and more importantly which one should we be paying attention to for whatever reason yeah in the past that has been an occasional me we would sort of do a a briefing with uh with time with David Jenkins who's still there but um he's coming tonight so to give us you know overview of of some of the the Strategic things the point you point out that we should be paying attention to yeah so can we let's put that on a on a future topic and I don't see a lot of urgency here just something that after looking at these month after month I'm saying what what do I really need to do with these and what's important and what's not good idea that's it we do do a tabulation here and I can send that out to the committee uh to the board on a yearly basis um and we we tab every month so we know what each case is costing um what it's cost as fiscal year so I can send that out to the board as a start that would be helpful too thank you I thank you Craig uh couple of things the um opioid settlement committee had its organizational meeting um last week and um it was primarily to get uh the looked at the mission and the focus of the committee uh we did there was some changes to that we adapted we elected offices um and Don Emeral from the Board of Health uh is the chair for now and um we'll be uh we'll be reporting as time goes on the first the first major challenge is to develop criteria for soliciting and reviewing proposals for funding from the from the funding that we're going to be overseeing the distribution of so the committee would be overseeing it but the select board actually makes the decisions uh affordable housing trust um we're meeting this week uh we will be getting rfps uh being returned uh particularly for the land we will advertising for potential U sellers Realtors developers who um property owners that may want to um position to offer land available for us to purchase right now the biggest challenge for affordable housing development is for us to uh have the money to acquire land because land is most expensive item and the item that we can leverage to uh increase the affordability of a property so that's um that's it um nothing else thank you um so the next is comments and statements from the public there's no one here's the public Val is here um we do have um vacancies on some boards or committees anybody who's interested in any kind of committee come talk to someone even if it doesn't look like there's a vacancy there might be a vacancy um we are going to go into an executive session um we're not we're only going to come out of the executive session to adjourn we will not conduct business after we go in ex itive session just a reminder that our next meeting is 3 weeks from today on January 6 so I will entertain a motion pursuant to the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21A the chair declares an open meeting will have a detrimental effect to a review the following executive session minutes to determine if the minutes can be released January 23rd 23 February 2123 April 323 April 1823 May 3023 June 12 2023 June 26 2023 August 2123 uh September 11 23 October 23rd 2023 December 4 2023 um B to discuss the reputation character physical condition or mental health rather than professional competence of an individual or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer employee staff member or individual and see um the meeting minutes of December 2nd 2024 hi Craig go into the executive session for the purpose is so stated Richard Brewer makes second to that for those same reasons all right all in favor any so as I I shaas Richard Brewer I I craiger we are in executive session