a chance. So Amy, are you recording in progress? Good evening everybody and welcome to the Yarmas Select Board meeting of September 9th, 2025. Please 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. Thank you.
Thank you. Um, we're going to start off tonight with announcements. We have any announcements, Liz, do you have any announcements? No, I do not. with us. Uh I just wanted to remind everyone that the uh the open
house at uh Barnstable County is tomorrow from 11 to 3. Um all sorts of uh of interesting things from science to history and it'll give you a good chance to get a glimpse of your county government as well as a really pretty
complex on a hill. Great. Do you have any announcements? No, I don't. Thanks. Uh Joyce took mine. Oh, sure. Bob, do you have any announcements? I just want to welcome those of you sitting at home. I wonder who's sitting
with me. Amy Harwood is our community's new licensing coordinator and um this is I think her second week um on the job and she brings a tremendous amount of talent, energy to the position. So, we're happy to have her and she's here this evening to meet with the board and
hopefully support the license applications that you have in front of you. Excellent. Welcome, Amy. very happy to have you here in Yarmouth. Okay, next uh we will go to public comment. Tom, good evening. Uh Tom McDonald, precinct
3 from the very historic village of Bass River. Uh nice to see you all this evening. Uh what a year it's been. We got off to a little wet start in the spring and then the summer came nice and dry and uh when you drive around our community, everybody's sharing love with
their family and friends and our little 600 ft homes with 12 cars. There's nothing better than that. So um I give up tonight just to um a little history. About a hundred years ago in 1925, we had our first motel open up in
California. And in Yarmouth, we have a we had, I should say, our hotel, which was the Yarmouth Garden Motel Lodge, which is actually where Yarmouth Common I mean
Gardens is now built in 1930. So, the motel is going through its centennial. We don't have too many left here in our community, just a few. I was raised on the property my family has, which was the Corral Motel. It was built
in 1940 by some wonderful people out of Dennis. And in 1977, my grandfather closed the motel and turned into a mixeduse property. We have business, we have residential, we have work for work
workforce housing. And this is something that our vision, our strip really needs. You'll be hearing tonight about your tax clification. And once again, we're as low as we can be. Um, you know, we're not going to
have the ability to solve all the housing crisis uh on the Cape. Yarmouth has done its part for many years. As a matter of fact, I think we were known as the bedroom for other communities. So,
we really need to kind of have a vision on where we're going to be 50 100 years from now. And the commercial end is extremely important. When we were kids, it was probably 15% commercial tax rate. And now it's four. That's not healthy.
It's hard for us as a community to do things. We have infrastructure problem. We have coastal problems. And yet we're doing more housing. We just went through override for firefighters. We get a 100 more apartments ready for
Route 28. Maybe we're going to get another override for firefighters in the future. So there was a time in 1889 when we celebrate our 250th anniversary, our motto was foremost an enterprise on
land and sea. I'm not too sure what our motto is now, but since the automobile and the motel, our community has changed and we are a tourist community unfortunately and that's the way we've been for 100 years. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to address the public tonight? [Applause] Okay, seeing nobody, nobody on Zoom, we're going to move on to another agenda item. Our 615 item um is with Senator
Julian Seir. I do not see him here yet. So, if it's okay with the board, um Tom, you are representing uh the first Okay, somebody's here, though. we can move forward and take it out of order. Okay. Is that okay with the board? Sure. Okay. So, we're gonna um it is
advertised for 6 PM, so we're okay to to do it now. What's up? I don't think his partner is here yet. If you don't mind, can I wait for We sure can. Absolutely. We will move on to um we'll move on to other items. We
can have a quick discussion on the committee policy, Joyce, if you don't mind because um unfortunately a vote was not put on our agenda. So any update you have on that we can discuss now if you don't mind well on our next agenda for
I think um I think I've met um what people thought were the uh were the needs on this and one is um a structure by which we um can allow if there's big interest on the part of a committee the
members of a committee to weigh in um on the selection process of a new member but at the same time um asserting that the the final decision is is with the board of selectment. Um I also um um
thought it was necessary to add um one other thing which um um reminds everyone that u um every everyone who hasn't been a town volunteer in some capacity in the past does have to go through the
interview process. even if it's just for a um a fill-in temporary appointment. Okay, those are the big changes. Those are the only changes since last time. Is anybody on the board have any questions or comments about the most recent updated
policy? Question, Tracy. Sure. Um this the grading, if you will, that has has graciously added um to the the policy.
Should that be um noting what its intention is? Should that be in the final um packet, the final review, the final um record for that interviewe?
In other words, it seems that at this point it's an optional um rating. Is that what we we want or did we want to have? Again, it's we were want trying to have a rating because we recognized that
it might solve problems in at a future date with contesting. It would be archived and Yeah. Yes. So, would we maybe want the candidates qualifications which are in the ratings to be carried forward and to
be a part of it always a part of it or just at this point it's elective? I guess I'm missing what you you're talking about. And I think I know what she means. If the policy states that um there are
multiple candidates and multiple interviewees, then I believe that the intention is to utilize that program. if if the committee wants to get involved with all the members. Well, I I I haven't seen this yet with
anything except old Kings Highway, but um my thought is that the um the um adjectives um of evaluation, which Bob graciously contributed uh last meeting, um that they would go to um the uh
appointments chair to the chair of the committee and if the staff member affiliated with the committee is there, in other words, they would go to the interviewing committee Then uh appointments chair brings forward appointment to the select board but I don't see the paper following I p
I see the paper being um the the the adjectives being registered rather than becoming a part of say select board record. Does that answer your question? Yes. But I think then it needs to be rewritten because the way it's written here, it's if the committee chair wishes
to weigh in on the selection process, then there's these qualifications. So I think you're what we're trying to say is that it should be a part of the deliberations always. I thought, but I I'm entire could be entirely wrong.
Not sure. um what you're asking here now. I I thought I was but so there's only one paragraph that talks about the grading and it's and and it's a it's not a requirement. It's it's an
and if the committee chair wished to weigh in then they can apply these gradings but it's only if this committee chair and a quorum wish to weigh in. And you think the if part should be more emphatic so people will get it. So it's a part of the process right now. It's
not a part of the process. It's an elective. Oh, it's absolutely meant to be if the committee chair and a quorum of the committee want to do this, right? But what if the committee chair and the quorum doesn't want to do it?
It's then discarded. There is no grading. That's okay though. Should I put in the unlikely event or something? Well, I I think that the intent is um I mean basically then you're reverting to her solely and then you know
and who knows what mischief she could she could I don't I don't mean it in that in that regard. I just mean if you're taking multiple uh input from multiple people, how else would you have a process
without having a public discussion, you know? So to me um if you're individually making that choice based on your own opinion then that's one thing but if you have multiple people giving um their input that's really to me the only
time I think that it would be it's a valuable tool. That's I think that was our intention from the beginning is how how do you without without discussing in public
you know um you know Joyce is was nervous you know how sensitive I am about you know cherishing our applicants. Yeah. Yeah. And we should be we should be and and I think that that is the the tactful way to be able to take a consensus of a
larger group. But if the if the if the chair in the quorum doesn't want to weigh in, it's a moot point. You know, I'm thinking on this as I try to figure out um the the kind of ability to offer that choice, but at the same time not
seem to impose it as an expectation that in some ways what I need to do with the first paragraph on page two is to um indicate that uh uh if the committee chair indicates that a quorum of his her
committee would like to weigh in, then this is our structure. Make it a bigger if if clause. Would that do it for you? I think that's better. Yeah. Okay. Makes it more clear. And onward we progress. Okay. Anybody else have any other comments so we can bring this to a final vote at our next meeting? And
Oh, I never that. Well, if you have any comments, um, a final thing just please review it and give it to her in advance. Didn't get it. The edit shop is always open. Thank you. Any any other discussion? Okay.
So, we will strike that and put that on our next um agenda. Are you prepared to do appointments, Joyce? Can we um Yes. Although I was going to wait until Rachel was here for her um
reappoint and she's coming for the um cultural council update. Could we do town administrator items? Maybe. Sure, we can. That way Bob can coast at the end of the meeting. The plastics are ready. Oh, the PLA Oh, the plastics people are
here. Did not know if that works. That might be a little bit longer of a discussion. I want to be ready for Julian when he comes in if we can. I don't know. It's up to the board. I'm ready. Okay, go ahead. Andy Andy is here also for the uh uh tax
classification. If we could let him go. Oh, that's a hearing that's posted. Yeah, that takes a long time, too. I'll just do mine quickly and be able to jump right in. Um I don't have a a long report, but a couple of um key items. The um first of all, I want to give my special thanks to the select board for
approving our recent employee appreciation cookout. Um and a special thanks to all of our town employees um who work hard all year round. It was a great afternoon. We had a great time to share a burger and um just express our thanks for what we have here in town.
It's a great place to work and I want to thank members that came. Nice cookout. No burns worked out great. And um I also wanted to speak on behalf of Mary Mlowski has been setting up with town council uh board and committee training
for open meeting law and conflict of interest. And this is a followup on that very successful session that um select board member Joyce Flynn put together for all of the committee chairman and Mary's presentation on those topics was easily the show stealer and the
questions just kept flowing and um it was so wellreceived we thought that having this for all of the boards and committees to try to have a real organized effort to make sure everyone gets this training and that town council is down here to do it would be a very valuable tool. So, um I I really thank
Mary. Uh she took the leadership on this and arranged it all and I think it's just a great job. And thanks also to count town council and Joyce Flynn for um starting the whole process. And I wanted to mention briefly on our um library site discussion from the
previous meeting. I just be aware um that town council is continuing to review all of the potential article 97 issues associated with that site. It's a large site and a portion of it has been
designated as um the Sears playground, but the uh committee is looking at those issues and working on potential alternatives within the context of the entire site to avoid any areas that um have been designated with protection. And the the most important thing is I
just want to make sure board members know that um we have on October 7 the full update for the select board on the um the library study committee and and they'll be prepared to address all of the issues including the you know the playground site, MacArthur building um
all the location and I think it'll be a great chance to get everyone together and have some public discourse on on what the library building committee is is doing and thanks especially to um Dorcas McGurn on that committee. I know they're meeting this week and they've got another meeting to prepare for that
and they'll be in um to see the select board right after that. And I wanted to also mention that we've conducted um an interview for our grant-f funed energy manager position and we hope to be close to filling that position soon. We've identified after kind of a long
recruitment, it's difficult finding the right people, but there's a fairly local resident that actually has a master's degree in um you know that subject like from John's Hopkins no less. And so we've got some highly qualified
candidates and I I really want to thank we have our recruitment panel again folks are used to seeing these now with Sarah O'Reilly, Amanda Lima, Nate Weton. um I participated but also um I want to thank Liz Argo who graciously agreed to
participate on that interview panel and thank you to Liz for that. Uh it was a great opportunity and we hope this is going to be very valuable for the town and and I also need to just shout out Liz for she was the one that remember brought this grant opportunity into the
select board which um you approved. So, um it looks like it's going to have a successful resolution um in time for the the big orientation process at the state. So, thanks everyone for that one. And um I also want to mention that we're
nearing the completion of our blogging studio here um in the town hall. We hope to produce programming on a wide variety of local issues just to help engage local residents in town business, local affairs, share information with folks in
an entertaining sort of informative way. So, I need to especially thank the communications team for putting this all together with the funding from our cable public access. So, it's um exactly what that funding is for. Um we're planning shows now and we hope very strongly to
involve directly members of the select board um in the process to get you folks on the air uh to share your passion um ideas on issues that are close to your heart, things that you're working on. Um and we'll be reaching out to you to
arrange topics um as we move forward. and we think it'll be a great opportunity to get residents to have a chance to get to know you um outside of just the meetings that we have to talking about issues and we also are going to be involving you know department heads from across um you know
to just try to go completely across the board with um the issues that we try to get out there in the community. I think it'll be helpful. So those smattering of issues that we're banding about this day. Excellent. Thank you for jumping ahead
on that. And you can reserve the right to hop back in at the end if if other items come up that need to be addressed. But um I see Senator Seir here. If perhaps you can come forward with your team. Um thanks for coming tonight. Of
course. This was a a topic that uh [Applause] was um requested by I believe Liz to have discussed which is an update on the transfer tax proposal. Sure. Well, thanks so much for coming.
Thank you so much for having me. Um and it's good to see good to see all of you and and happy uh happy post Labor Day on Cape Cod. Um the traffic is noticeably calm uh along along Route 28. only only took an hour to get here from Provincetown versus the 90 plus minutes
that we have to calculate uh in the summer months. But um uh delighted to be here, delighted to talk about housing, transfer fee, a number of other issues. Uh want to also just touch, you know, briefly on on a few other legislative matters that are pending in the legislature. Um issues that are gerine
to to Yarmouth. Um, first and foremost, wastewater uh absolutely critical across uh Cape Cod and the islands, but particularly here in Yarmouth. And really want to commend this board and the town um for uh its leadership in
finally getting shovels in the ground uh and and seeing phase one of your sewer project move forward. We know um there's some traffic hassles. We know there's some headaches. We know homeowners are trying to figure out how they're going to um afford sewer hookups and the like. But this has really been a key
commitment uh not only of of mine since I've been serving in this position since 2017 uh but really in the entire delegation. Uh the Cape Cod Alliance Water Protection Fund has made the difference in realizing these projects. to date, um, $39 million of other
people's money, uh, have come to subsidize projects across projects and debt, uh, service, um, across the region, uh, including $37.5 million right here to Yarmouth. Um, so those are dollars that property taxpayers uh, in
Yarmouth are not having to pay. Those are significant savings, about 25% subsidy. Uh, very, very significant. Um we're working to further ensure and shore up uh that funding stream in the future. Uh some uncertainty of course at
the federal level. Uh if you look at the administration's um uh proposed budget, there's significant cuts in clean water. Um but we're hoping this is an issue that cuts from a bipartisan perspective and and and and hopefully that that won't be uh affected. The other piece I just Yep. I just want to ask my first
question right there because one of the things that we've talked about um this year and you talked about the traffic hassle, but one of the items um that this board's discussed is been a business interruption fund. Um you know, a lot of our businesses are really
unfortunately uh financially impacted by what's happening. And I don't know if you know of any funding or um any source of funding for uh businesses that are impacted by the wastewater projects. Yeah, it's a good it's a good question.
It's a good idea. I'm not aware of um any sort of like immediate fund that sort of comes to mind. It probably would be needs to be something that y'all might have to kind of come up with. But um I don't know, we could have some creative thinking. We can ask about that. Um I often hear and what I hear a
lot about is not just the I mean look there's some some some there's some hassle and there's some um closure of businesses but really afford affording um not only the betterments but the sewer hookups the sewer hookups can be quite difficult in uh landmark tax reform that we did last session a
billion dollars in um uh tax relief in Massachusetts. Uh included in that was a tripling of the title five septic tax credit and if you are in a nitrogen sensitive zone designated by D which is Yarmouth and most of Cape Cod that tax credit also applies to sewer hookups. Um
so that's a significant savings for folks and I want to make sure that viewers at home know about you know this tax credit that you can take advantage of. It will apply to you. Um I don't know. I'm I'm glad to think sort of creatively or sort of ask um ask the economic development office what
what sort of ideas they may have. That'd be great. I didn't want to interrupt as as you're going through the items that you're going to um you know, but I I I think that the more immediate task for us legislatively is ensuring that um Governor Hilly filed the Mass Ready Act. It's her
environmental bond bill. included in there uh is language actually that I had secured in a prior uh bond bill that effectively dedicates um a certain sum of state dollars ensuring it's coming to Cape Cod. Um we're going to work to
preserve that, see how we can expand that. Uh we also work to to have the the cap there was a cap on on the draft intended use plan um that would have been problematic for our towns. We got that lifted. So we continue to stay very engaged on wastewater. Uh it's crucial
for cleaning up our environment. The reason why people are coming here is our alleged pristine environment. It's not that pristine. And also wastewater ties in so so closely into housing, which is sort of the other crisis um we're facing. Um I'm just seeing if there's
any other uh the the only other sort of business I wanted to sort of address. I don't believe you folks have pending home rules. I think we're waiting on a home rule to come up. Um, we thank you for that. Um, not all the towns in the Cape Lands district are as judicious with their home rules. I, my district files
the most home rules of any uh, in out of the 40 senators. Uh, Dan Tucket leads the way with like 13 or 14 a year. Um, but we will work hard to pass Yarmouth sole home rule. Um, and then I know on the Bass River bridges, there's been a lot of kind of conversation about um, the Bass River bridges and more broadly
around the Bass River. We've seen a lot of leadership um in the town in both uh Yarmouth and Dennis and as well as the friends of Ba Bass River on this issue. Um we're concerned about the the two Route Six bridges over the Bass River. Uh they were built between 1966 and 1971. They're in poor condition. They
have rotted pilings, rusted rebar, crumbling concrete. The westbound bridge is in worse shape. Uh there's some visible structural damage. Um we've asked Masot to do an inspection. They did an inspection of the bridges in April 2024. uh we're sort of pressing them for a little more information on
this or maybe even getting them to have a tour of the bridges. Um when we we've raised this issue sort of repeatedly to mass dot um I think there are a number of bridges across the Commonwealth that have some deferred maintenance issues. Uh but we continue to push them to be really looking at that. I think the
impact of having a weight restriction on those bridges would be very significant for especially for Yarmouth around um around having that would be not not something we can uh we want to have. Um, also on on the Bass River, uh, in the FY26 budget, uh, I was able to secure
$50,000 for the Bass River to, uh, the Friends of the Bass River rather, to install passive filtration culverts, uh, and also work to, um, remove this invasive Chesapeake Bay boring sponge um, which is present um, on those bridges. So, those are dollars that are
going to be coming um, to to uh, the Bass River effort, but we're going to stay on the um, the bridge issue. Of course, we have a much uh we have some bigger bridges we're working on uh replacing as well. Um a little to the west of here. Uh so, you know, on
housing, right? Um Cape Coders and also islanders face uh you know, the most acute housing crisis that we see in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has actually one of the worst housing crisis in the country. I think only in Hawaii uh is it more unaffordable um to to be
able to either uh purchase a home, own a home, or or or even rent. Uh in Barsville County, we've seen the median home price uh rise uh from about $350,000 when I first ran for office um uh to, you know, north of of $600,000.
It's an 87% increase in over a decade. Uh certainly in extremities in the region, it's even worse. Um here in Yarmouth, uh precoid median home price was about $367,000. Uh now today, um it's 605.
So, a very significant increase, almost a doubling uh in just a short time. Median income in the town of Yarmmouth is uh 81 a little over $81,000. Um and to be able to afford that median home in Yarmouth, a household has to
make $169,000. So, there's a clear gap. And Yarmouth is among the most affordable towns uh and me in median home price on all of Cape Cod, right? So it just gets worse as you go further out. Um median home prices is
higher even in in Barnes and Falmouth. Um so really, you know, this is really a critical crisis for us. We've had a housing crisis for 20 years, but the pandemic and and its aftermath and this this real estate rush um really has put
us in a real uh dire situation. Um and just as we have worked so hard in a collaborative fashion to make headway on wastewater, right? Understanding that the scale of what we have to build and what we have to clean up um is so much
bigger than the 23,000 odd residents who live here year round, right? It's for the population we support in the summer. Um and so we figured out a whole host of creative ways to uh secure state resources to bring in additional revenue through the Cape Cod Alliance Water Protection Fund with that search charge
uh the 2.75% uh search charge removy all dedicated to wastewater um you know tax credits and the like that I talked about you know I think similarly with housing we're facing um you know we're facing quite a bit of challenge we have done some
pretty significant things uh in the affordable homes act uh which is a $5.1 billion investment in housing that Governor Healey signed into law last August has a number of very significant provisions both financial and policy-wise. One of those provisions relates to what's called a seasonal
communities designation. This gives qualifying towns um a special toolkit around how do you preserve year-round housing. Most of our housing policy tools are available for people of of low income, but in our communities, right, we're going to have to get into the
business and figuring out a way that how do you subsidize housing, not only for people of low income, but really across the income spectrum. Um, you know, the the conversation, you know, on Nucket or in Province Town, um, which are sort of the the canaries here in the region, you know, is really they're talking about
how do you subsidize housing for most all year round residents? In Nantucket, they talk about they have the need to subsidize like 240% area median income. Um, and that's likely coming here probably a decade or so or whatever away. Um, so seasonal communities, uh,
Yarmouth was not automatically designated into that. There was sort of, um, a threshold of 35% of your seasonal housing stock. You folks like just missed the cutoff, but the law very clearly spells out criteria for housing and livable communities to deem
additional communities. Um, Yarmouth will meet those criteria if you look at how they're spelled out in the statute. I talked to housing livable communities this morning. Um, and it's likely we'll see draft regulations implementing seasonal communities should come out. We have a meeting on Nucket actually on Thursday. Um, we should see those draft
regulations come out. Final regulations um finished by the end of the uh the calendar year hopefully in advance of town meeting season. And I'm also really pushing that invitations to join seasonal communities also go out to towns like Yarmouth, weeks like Barnstable, Falmouth, others um a number
of communities in the Birkers as well figuring out their uh they have sort of a similar problems uh and challenges there. So that that is coming on seasonal communities and stay tuned there. Um, this is meant to be a tool. This is meant to give towns like Yarmouth uh and across the region a
special set of tools having a year- end housing trust. Um, the ability to give a municipal preference uh to give preference to municipal employees with housing. I'm sure when you look at hiring um you have a great uh relatively newly minted town manager. Uh but you
know, housing becomes a really big challenge uh and is really part of what municipalities are going to have to offer. um uh also the ability to have your indeed restrictions a few other components as well. So stay tuned on that. But um both myself and
representative Kip Diggs who serves on uh seasonal communities advisory council, we both do uh really making the case that that Yarmouth um should have access to this tool. Uh and I expect I expect that you folks will. Um so so
seasonal communities and the affordable homes act sort of gives towns the policy tools to really look at how do you um how do you begin to um preserve and build attainable housing right that missing middle middle inome housing. Um
the real challenge then is how do you figure out how you going to pay for that right? Um, and you know, we have sort of a few ways that we subsidize housing. Um, you know, first and foremost, we have federal and state tax credits that go uh primarily
to low-income housing developments. Um, you know, there's a traditional LITC program. Um, Yarmouth has benefited from those programs. Uh then you have programs like uh CPA uh which was sort of invented here uh on Cape Cod uh back in the day during the the land bank debates which was about another transfer
a prior debate around transfer fees. Um you know CPA dollars an effective tool right but but are kind of dimminimous around how much they can invest. Um the other way that communities can put dollars into housing right is just votes at town meeting right but that requires
going to your voters. Um some towns are doing that. you know, Nuckets's voted to authorize over, I think, upwards of $86 million directly for housing. Um, you know, they're an island. They've got a bit of a more acute crisis, right? But understanding the reality that, you know, you just went to town meeting
voters for oh, what is it? 200 and something million. um you know, unlikely that town meeting voters and town and that towns are going to be able to support really the the the robust investments that um we think we're going
to need on housing just in votes at town meeting, right? Um you got a lot of people even though our property tax rates here are comparatively low or lower than where um where they are sort of over the bridge and in other you know communities in Massachusetts, you have a number of residents who um are land rich
but cash poor. the valuations are very very high. It's just probably not a realistic model. So, we're trying to figure out other ways and how you could bring revenue um to to address to bring to our problem here and and really helping us help ourselves. And the model
that we've looked to uh actually is in Colorado, the Colorado ski towns and really the Colorado counties surrounding those ski towns, places like Vale, Colorado, Aspen, Crested, but they have about 20 years ago implemented uh a
transfer fee on luxury housing transactions and they use that transfer fee to establish a year- round deed restriction program. So both going in to purchase existing properties um and put a year-on-deed restriction on existing
properties and then on newly built properties. The program has been quite successful. About 30% of the housing stock um in Vale uh Colorado are year- round deed restricted, meaning you're creating sort of a secondary market, a
below market uh housing stock that's available to year- round working people. Um in in seasonal communities like Vale or like Yarmouth, uh properties here are valued not on what, you know, the year- round working person can afford or the economy can support. It's really based
on um you know the valuation of that that unit that home for what it rents for by the night in July and August in our case in the Colorado ski towns uh you know in those winter months right um so this has been a very successful program uh Nantucket uh and now Martha's
Vineyard and now the outer Cape Towns have really in lower Cape Towns have really championed this approach um I think 13 of the 19 communities I represent in the Cape Islands district have all filed some form of home rule petition requesting the legislature to establish
a transfer fee. All six towns on Martha's Vineyard have actually um are supporting a a housing bank proposal modeled after their land bank uh and is something that uh they're sort of clamoring for at a regional level. There's some discussion I think in county government here in Barnstable
about how does the county weigh in around needing around this being a a tool that we'd like our region to have. Um, you know, but I think the as we're trying to figure out where where do we get resources and money for um, you
know, to to address this housing crisis, uh, I'm a big fan of giving, you know, of communities getting opportunities to, uh, you know, if they choose to, um, have this revenue source. And so, um, there's conversations for the
communities who haven't sort of taken up the transfer fee. Um, Nucket, all six towns on Martha's Vineyard, Provincetown, Truro, Wildfleet, East Ham, Orleans, Chadam. Um, I think Brewster is taking something up or has taken something up. Um, we've had
conversations with the Dennis Select Board um about this issue and I've talked to town council leadership at Barnstable about it. Falmouth has passed a home rule petition as well. Um so the the strategy really the legislative strategy is to kind of convey to um my
colleagues on Beacon Hill right that islanders Cape Coders now are clamoring for the tool are asking for the ability to you know help us solve this problem with existing sort of revenue essentially largely other people's money if you look at the vast majority of real
estate transactions across Cape Cod on the islands these are secondary home purchases these are second and third homes fourth homes Um the proposals vary, right? Some towns have set the threshold at 2 million and above, others have set it at a million and above. I think actually the real
sweet spot here um is really about these the exemptions, right? And so a number of the I think best examples of these home rules have uh exemptions for first-time home buyers, exemptions for um affordable housing developers, exe, you know, those sort of exemptions. um
most of them are actually put the put the fee on uh the buyer not the seller right understanding that um the dynamic of the real estate market here. So I I can sort of go on and on sort of about this um but really really this is sort of a tool that most of my constituency
has asked the legislature to advance. Um this is a policy that Governor Healey supports. She included this in her affordable homes act bill that she had initially filed. um it fell out in negotiations and really the House and the Senate didn't take it up uh last time. I think we're trying to take
different approaches to bring this revenue. Um you know, I don't think from a from a cost perspective, we estimate that we have about a half a billion dollar problem on Nucket, a half a billion dollar problem on Martha's Vineyard. If you look Capewide, it
probably would be north of that. Um so where are we going to get the resources from? Um, we're already pushing the state pretty hard on paying their fair share when it comes to wastewater. And the wastewater bill that we have, we think in Yarmouth, right, you have over the 40 years is probably almost a billion dollar price tag alone. Um,
we're going to keep at that. We've had a really successful track record of bringing home the bacon on wastewater. Um, you know, we have a whole host of other efforts that we've taken related to regional equity. Actually, in the chapter 90 bill, the governor signed into law. There's a Senateled provision
around ensuring that road miles are counted actually by the mileage, not by sort of an old formula that left out larger towns or more rural towns um or towns that have a lot of a lot of uh mileage. So, you know, we're always sort of working to tweak policy and ensure
that um you know, the true needs of Cape Cotters and Islanders are met. uh you know, everyone knows this place, what this place is in those busy summer months, but we know the reality is that we have scores of constituents who um are struggling to make a life here really across, you know, the lifespan.
But um you know, I really am encouraged to see particularly in communities across the midcape where um you folks have a bit of a chance to get ahead of the housing crisis in a way that we didn't do on the outer um Cape. uh that
the islands are struggling now to do uh you know there was a proposal that was floated and and an effort made uh in 2003 2004 for this sort of policy on the islands. Uh I was in high school then. I wish we had gotten that done. Um, you
know, but but I can just tell you right as someone who who was born and raised in Toro, who lives in Province Town, um, what has happened in our communities, uh, is is quite concerning with an aging population. Um, I know scores of people who have had to leave because they've
lost housing. Uh, if you have any hope of affording something affording something, it's quite quite undeal. um you know so really I think if we don't and there's been a lot of effort made in recent years uh to resolve this challenge but I think is really really going to be something we're going to be
grappling with and how do you how do we as a peninsula and as a region how do you support the oldest population not only just in Massachusetts but in New England um where 30% or more of our workforce is commuting over bridges
every single day where we're losing about a thousand Cape Cod families amilies, working families who have to leave year after year because they can't find housing. We're increasingly relying on an immigrant workforce. And the reality is so much of that workforce, you know, people are living, you know, a
two or threebedroom house, 15 people living there or more. You know, that you can see that um you know, in your neighborhoods, you can see that play out in our schools. Uh so I'm going to keep working just doggedly uh on this housing issue. We've made quite a bit of
progress with seasonal communities. Um, and we're now trying to push and figure out how we can now uh basically bring home the bacon again uh around housing by having a local option transfer fee. So, um I think we've shared some
information with town administration uh that hopefully is going to be if not in your packets will be in your packets. Glad to answer any other questions you may have. Um I should say this is a policy that is supported um near unanimously uh in the delegation. This is supported
by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. Uh this is um supported by a number of our housing advocates, housing protect Cape Cod. Um a whole host of initiatives that uh and organizations I think understand increasingly employers who really have been saddled with um a task that they
don't want to do, right, which is providing housing for their employees. Um you know this is no longer just a t a responsibility for hospitality which has been doing this for decades. Um but you know we have our hospitals and healthcare networks getting into the business of being housing developers
because they you know cannot recruit and retain a workforce because their st their staff can't afford to live here. Um so I know a lot about this topic. I want to be respectful of your time. Uh I'm glad to answer questions. Uh this is really designed to be something that's meant to work for each town and really
meant to be um an option and I think we would want uh the town of Yarmouth to be able to have this option um were the state to to move forward on it. So uh just for the public's record, we're talking about two separate bills that you've filed. One is Senate uh Bill
966, which is um related to the seasonal communities, correct? And then the Senate Bill 1434. No, not No, no, not in No, those are those are separate those are separate
bills related to um No. So, what I'm talking about is a home rule petition that the town would then sort of submit. I can talk about those two bills. No, that's what's been submitted to us for discussion tonight. So, that's what Yeah, I just want to Okay.
Um Yeah. So, um, Senate Bill 966 is a placeholder legislation around adding more tool tools into seasonal communities. One of the ways we've run into opposition and getting this transfer fee, local option transfer fee passed. One of the strategies to say, hey, look, maybe you give seasonal
communities have the ability to have that transfer fee. Um and then um okay, the 1434 bill is uh basically a negotiation around saying to receive sort of a statewide perspective be like look we'll let communities who have a
you know if communities want to transfer fee they have to meet certain zoning st standards. It's a carrot and stick approach. Um but really I think what um so what should be focused on I I mean I would I would look to um home role petition models in Chadam what Chadam's filed
what Nantucket's filed what proven has filed probably um the best sort of examples there of what that would look like. Okay. So the tools there No, that's fine. That's fine. Um I was like those bills are Yeah. Glad we had the discussion because that's what that's what I was reading
and looking at. Um the home rule petition um allows for the flexibility but the underlying mechanism is already allowed by law. Right? So there's not an infrastructure that needs
to be put in place like what happened with the um wastewater infrastructure that that was a a state infrastructure had to be put into place then we opted into it. So this would be different than that. So the um
can you repeat the so I'm thinking you know when I think about home room petitions often the ones that we uh opt into or bring to town meeting isn't one that we've basically created oursel it's it's a tool that the state has that we are opting into. So,
communities will pass home. Thank you. I'm sorry. Uh, communities will pass home rule petitions that sort of have of two varieties. Um, one will relate to an easement on state land um to put, you know, sewer infrastructure, renaming of a road, pretty sort of routine sort of
stuff. These are prefuncter. They're passed. The other reason why communities will pass home rule petitions and send them to the legislature is they're effectively sort of a a policy wish list. Um, we have seen communities pass home rule petitions uh for uh transfer
fees. We've seen them um restrictions on pesticides uh related to um a whole host of other the closing of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station which I believe passed in Yarmouth a number of years ago. Um, so this this transfer fee would probably be in the sort of secondary category,
right, of having a community on record saying we want the ability to access this tool, you know, legislature give us sort of the give us that tool. What happens in when you have, you know, 13, 14, 15 communities in my district, the
city of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, towns like Ammeris in Western Massachusetts, when you have sort of a critical mass of these communities requesting that policy, that's how that's how it gets done. I think a good example of this of this playbook, okay, was with the was expanding room
occupancy tax to short-term rentals. So, this is exactly how that playbook worked, right? So, in terms of the details though, we have the ability. So, say this board had a discussion that we wanted it to be a certain dollar amount. Obviously, you know, you're talking about 600,000 is the average median. I don't foresee I
don't I don't personally see a million dollars being a luxury home anymore. Um, it's got to be a higher number than that. Um, and for me, somebody who's who's a year-round rent, year round homeowner might I'd look at that different than somebody who it is a
second, third, or fourth home. And I'm just wondering if we have the flexibility to write the petition the way that we we would want what this board discussed it and brings it to town meeting. That's exactly I think what we what we would want you to do. Um one I think you want to have something that you want to have tools that work for the
communities. What they also do is they help give the legislature some parameters around what communities are looking for. when we took up, you know, expansion of remo occupancy, um there was a whole host of different, you know, home rule petitions, right? Some of them said, you know, we want to be able to
have a a certain percentage and we want to put the money into wastewater. Some said they wanted to put it into tourism. Um, you know, and that then ended up going into the, you know, broader policy process. So, I would really encourage you folks to look at what would really make sense and work for Yarmouth. Um,
most of the statewide legislation uh that'll say it's a local option will say, you know, communities can may set the threshold as low as a million, but then they could raise it as ever high as they want. We also expect, right, over time, median home price in Yarmouth is, you know, now around $600,000. It's
going to be around $800,000. It's it it will pass a million dollars at some point, right? We know that. And so we want these tools to be flexible. And again, this is trying to figure out how do you get revenue that's not just on the back of property taxpayers. And I
think we have to be honest that um you know in the Commonwealth I think it is it is difficult for us to get you know significant resources for these problems here. Um one it's a it's a big state. We got a lot of whole big host of challenges. Um, I think the relatively
comparatively lower property tax rates that we have here, um, you know, my colleagues who represent suburban towns will say, you know, I I never bring up this topic on Beacon Hill, right? Because, um, you know, we don't want to get into it there. Uh, but, you know, I think that I really sought to figure out
how do we ensure and ensure how do we ensure that Cape Coders and Islanders can continue to have a year- round life here and how do they afford that, right? And if it's just on the back of property taxes, um we're going to be really limited in what we can afford and what we can do. And so hence these um other
essentially revenue proposals we've been successful about that effectively have been other people's money helping us to pay for a problem that frankly other other people, our visitors, our part-time res, you know, our part-time residents, our um our seasonal residents um
they've helped to create it. Yeah. Um I'm going to go to the board. Mark, thank you. Uh, thank you, Senator, for being here tonight. Um, and, uh, I appreciate all the all the assistance that you and your staff uh, and I see you have several folks from your staff
here and, uh, I'd like you to call them out because they do a great job on your behalf. I really appreciate that. So, we have Michael Hulcom here. Um, I see Michael in the back, who's my district director, and Bob Ciri, uh, who, uh, is my communications director. Um, both Bob and Michael are
Cape Coders. Uh, and um, I think as you well know, you're only as good uh, you only can do as good in this work and be as effective in this work um, as as your staff, right? And you know this, too. They do an outstanding job in in representing you and in serving the
community. So, I just wanted to thank you for your um your good work um in in hiring very very talented people that really grasp this stuff and are very active and serving the community. Um, you know, I I also appreciate very much
your leadership on the wastewater work and clearly on housing. And I think you've sort of teed this up for us tonight to have a really thoughtful discussion on the board here about what might what should we be doing in this area. And I think one of the key points
that you made that's that's going to be very helpful is that this is optional. uh passing a home rule petition to authorize the use of a a transfer fee. Um
having a petition filed gives us the authority to do it, but ultimately it will come down to us to determine whether or not we want to vote for it or approve it or the voters of Yarmouth. It's ultimately their decision. So by us as a board supporting a home rule
petition on it, we we may support the petition, but some of us may not necessarily support voting for it should we be granted that authority. And I think that's that's an important uh distinction and uh fact uh for folks to
be aware of. So I I think it's incumbent on us to figure out how do we how do we have that discussion? when when do we, you know, present something, you know, for the voters here to deliberate on and discuss. So, that's that's that's on on on our plate. So, I I just wanted to thank you for being here to talk about
this tonight and for all the help that you've been you've been giving us. It's been terrific and I'm glad that we're having more discussions about wastewater and there's an awareness about what's happening in Washington. U you know, as you know, I'm very worried about uh
wastewater. We've talked about this on on numerous occasions. I'm worried about a cut, a significant cut in the SRF because the administration proposed a 90% reduction in the N SRF and that would be devastating for Cape Cod and um
hopefully we can weather that storm and as you said the bipartisan support that has typically been there for clean water, you know, emerges and and and helps us out here. So once again, thank you and I look forward to our discussions and our deliberations on this topic which is clearly very
important. So thank you. No, thank I I really appreciate that. I I think also the reality is that anything that the legislature would pass, right, a local option means it comes back to the voters to decide if you want to have this tool. Um this also may not be a tool that
Yarmouth, you know, may vote to have, you know, if we did this tomorrow, right? Um but it's probably a tool that folks may want to have in the future. I think you will want to have in the future understanding how um this housing crisis has played out across the region how it's basically it moves you can kind of
you can quite actually predict you know housing prices are here in Nucket about 5 years they're going to be there on Martha's Vineyard you see the similar trend of the outer cape into lower cape and the midcape um but this really is about um having an option that folks are able to tap into that the towns are able to tap into uh and so I think that
framing is um is is is uh apt and helpful. Yeah. And and if I could just add, Madam Chair, I think I think the fact that the senator and the delegation are working on this now. This this is a time of opportunity quite frankly because um you know it's unclear when something like
this could get serious attention in the future. So um having this tool available to us whether it's now or at some point in the future, you know, has a has a has a huge upside. And so I I appreciate
you're making that very very clear. Well, Mark's been very eloquent in his thank you, so I'm gonna I'm just gonna piggy back and say ditto on what Mark has said. And thank you to you and also to your staff. I I don't think a lot of people out there realize
without your staff, it would be impossible to do what your office has been able to do for our town. And we thank you all for there are many, many different things. Um, I might point out for instance for folks out there that there's been a lot of difficulty for
people collecting unemployment over this summer and your office has been most helpful in that item. Um, particularly with the bus drivers, with the school employees and so forth. So, thank you and we will do our diligent best on
this. It's a crisis we all understand and it's only getting worse with housing. Thank you. Thank you, Joyce. Oh, I'd like to thank you for all the education that you've done on the housing and wastewater issues and on the delicate balance with promoting both um
because they're so connected. Um I think it's a town meeting town uh we would have to if a home rule petition was granted, we would have to put that through a town meeting. Am I correct? Okay. Um, I wonder about how long it takes from the filing of a home rule
petition with you all up in Boston. Um, how long that might take to get it approved. So, it it's a great question. Uh, and it really depends. Um, let home rule petitions of sort of a routine matter, right? Think of your land easements,
roads renaming, you know, those can be about six months, eight months, um, depending a home rule like this, right? It's un very unlikely that Yarmouth's potential home rule petition or any of these home rule petitions individually
will be would be passed as standalones. Actually, just today, uh, the joint committee on revenue, uh, had a hearing on home rule petitions from Nantucket, Chadam, and the six island towns. Um the real point of these home rules uh is is more so to build the case like we did
around um applying room occupancy uh taxes to short-term rentals to really building the case for it. So um the the the uh it could be something that is resolved uh by the end of this
legislative session which would be um you know late summer 2026. actually under our new roles it would be at the end of the year on 2026. Um it could be longer, right? Nucket's been clamoring for this home rule petition, a version of this home rule petition for
over a decade. So we could be in for the long haul. But I think the the intention here is to build momentum. Um and then also I think really making the case that uh Cape Cod and the islands do have unique factors, right? And so if this is something, you know, a lot of the opposition that particularly we hear
from the real estate industry and and others has been um to home rule petitions and the proposal for transfer fees for Boston or Cambridge or Somerville. Um I think there's an understanding that we have a different series of factors here on the Cape Islands. and part of my strategy um you
know candidly and I've been working in allyship with my other colleagues from all over the Massachusetts who want this uh but also in saying hey look we've we got a really sort of specific thing going on here um that you know I think there's like real case to be made for
something that's available to the Cape Cod to the islands um also to some communities in the Berkur that face sort of similar demands okay and I had one more question if if I can madam chair um and I ask this of many people who come in in front of us.
Um, not not your job, but you might have a good opinion on this. How do we bring our our Canadian friendly visitors back? So, I I will say just anecdotally,
I have heard far more um Keaqua French on the streets of Province Town than I ever expected I would this summer. So, uh Oh, I I I I will um there was a family actually I saw over like April vacation and I like I saw them at the beach and they were clearly speaking French and it's they ke like you know and I was
like I wanted to like chase them down and be like what are you what are you doing here? Like I want to know. Um there are a there is a very long list of challenges that Cape Coders and Islanders and that people across Massachusetts are facing um given the current administration. And I don't I I
don't know how we'll um I I think Canadians have uh taken real offense to a number of policies and um you know I do know in a Massachusetts perspective uh Massachusetts and the New England governors have met um with our had actually had meetings with their uh
Canadian premier counterparts. Uh the Senate actually hosted the council general uh of Canada um in the Senate. We had a we had conversations. So, we're working hard to maintain relationships. I was actually just talking with a colleague. We've been invited to um
Quebec for uh a housing summit uh later this fall that I plan to attend. So, I'm trying to keep those uh good relations and contacts from a New England perspective um notwithstanding the federal environment. Thank you. Thank you,
Liz. Um thank you, Mike and and company back there. Thank you so much for being with us. and Julian, thank you always for being picking up the phone and being available. Um, so my understanding is we we are when we talked about the um we
might get something by the end of the year so we can be on town meeting that's that's getting seasonal communities. Yep. Now there's no guarantee we're going to get it. What do we need to do to help make sure
we do get it? Because if we don't get it, and that leads to my next question, which is how is not having seasonal communities status, might that affect our home rule petition in that this is a whole group that are you're trying to
get some momentum and all of a sudden Yarmouth is an outlier. So, I don't know if it would necessarily affect the home rule petition um per se. They're sort of um they're related, but they're sort of separate endeavors. Um, you know, I have the honor of chairing
now the joint committee on housing. Um, you know, the Senate President really wants the Senate to be taking action on housing. Uh, and I am working very closely with, um, Secretary Ed Augustus with housing and livable communities. Uh, I was on a call with them yesterday about draft seasonal community
regulations. I was a call um with them on a call with them today on emergency shelter assistant shelter programs and and and um housing for for homeless families. I'm with them on Thursday. I I have pretty strong uh contacts and
collaboration with these folks. Um I would be very surprised if Yarmouth isn't offered an opportunity to join seasonal communities. If you look at the statutory um if you look at the statutory criteria um y'all meet it and um if for some
reason that opportunity wasn't extended through the administration, Representative Kip Diggs has a bill that would automatically designate towns like Yarmouth and Barnstable as seasonal communities. So, um I would not lose too much sleep over that. Okay. And I don't like to brag, but um your state senator
um could not be better positioned on housing issues. uh as it relates to our relationships, you know, in the Healey Driscoll administration with Governor Healey, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, who spent a ton of time here, former state representative Sarah Peak is now a senior adviser to Governor
Healey and working in her office. Um so I I think uh residents of Yarmouth and Cape Cod's um as a whole should feel uh well very well positioned in the legislature on these issues. Okay. And I would note too that we um
September 24th is the special hearing for the assembly of delegates and they would be filing their own home rule petition which again would be also more impetus more pressure from this um side
of the bridge bridges. So um I think I'll try to be there on September 24th to give Yarmouth a face there. And and one last um question that will take us a little bit away, but because you've done such a great job with this, I um we have
talked a little bit and we we have some studies coming back about our um seasonal rental issue and um how we can even it out a little bit better, disincentivize or incentivize to try to get more opportunities for year- round
rentals and not have so any empty homes during the winter when people are just as needy. Is there anything at the state level? I I don't want to take too much away from um what we're work what's what we're working on here with the the um
fees, drug transfer fee, but so there's a lot you can actually do at the local level. Um, and and I'm not immediately familiar with how Yarmouth is regulating your short-term rentals, but you know, I would encourage you to look to towns like Province Town, now and East that are implementing uh lease
to local programs where the town is effectively going to landlords who or homeowners who may be renting their homes out on a short-term basis and giving a financial incentive to bridge the gap. Um, a whole host of these housing incentives. If you look at what some of these towns have done, a lot of
it's around um you know, sort of carrot approaches around incentivizing year-round home owners um incentivizing year-round home uh rentals. Uh there's actually in that tax bill I talked about earlier, uh there's also a tax credit
available to um it's a local option property tax credit uh that can be given to landlords who are renting year round at reasonable rates. Um, so these are all part of the tools that um, we hope towns can bring to bear on the housing
crisis. The depth of the crisis is so, you know, we're in a pretty deep hole, right? There's not a silver bullet on this issue. You're going to need, I think we're going to need to have at least local incentives, deed restrictions, a whole host of things to bring to bear. The transfer fee effectively just would give you the
money to pay for it, right? So, you know, it would be a big infusion in revenue where you could say, "All right, we're going to, you know, we're going to launch a pretty robust lease to locals program in Yarmouth." Um, you know, uh, you'd have more money for that. But there's some really good innovative work
happening across the region, especially on incentives. And I think, um, particularly in a place like Yarmouth where there is a little more affordability in the market compared to elsewhere, I think those incentives make a ton of sense. And if we can connect, you don't need our authorization to do them. you can do them today. Um, and if
we can connect town administration with with other towns who are doing this, we're delighted to. Um, you know, really I think it's an allabove. I really see this as an allabove approach to solve the problem. Great. Great. Thanks. Yes. Um, just for the public, I have to say thank
you because every single time I've ever called or texted, you are readily available and there for us, which um, you know, we're lacking on the legislative side. So, um, very much appreciated you doing the extra work and and representing us. Um,
we talked, you know, a little bit. I'm I'm never jazzed about new taxes, right? So, I love the words incentivize. I think that that's always the approach, but I think it's our due diligence to put that. It's not about me. It's about putting, you know, options before the
people of the town to see what it is that they want us to do. So we take our direction from them. So I'm I'm looking forward to having the discussion amongst our board in the near future hopefully to talk about um you know some of the
options having um the study that we're in the midst of um come back I think also will be helpful as a as a piece of this. you know, I I always have questions about, you know, you talked about Vale and
other states um implementing it and I always wonder what the negative effects sometimes could potentially be um with any action. There's always some type of reaction and you know, essentially you're adding to
the cost of a house or you're you're making you're doubling the issue. Um so you know I I've made my comments known about about um you know people who we have to look at
it people who are utilizing it as a business just not one home that they may have but there are people who have multiple homes as you mentioned that are high dollar I mean I would be more comfortable with that but that's the discussion for the other night and we have Bob do you have anything you want
to add to the conversation about our our study that we're in the in the middle for for him. Well, the um one thing that has been great is that we have been working with our colleagues in the other communities and um you know, we went down and and had some meetings with I I
think Provincetown has shown some tremendous leadership on this issue and we've piggybacked on their study of short-term rentals that they conducted in their community and we've um also got the um UMass Donghue Institute involved
with us doing the study right now and they've been conducting all of their interviews and they're going to come back to us with some recommendations that we hope to form as the basis for some potential additional regulation. And um I I was also I just wanted to um
mention as well the comments that you made really um struck home on the seasonal community delegation. We honestly did feel a little bit left out in the initial legislation, but we are extremely mindful of all of your efforts that, you know, to work with um housing
and livable communities to create the additional criteria for those communities that fell just short of that 35% threshold of how many homes are seasonal in our community. And um we also see that as a seasonal community
there are some additional tools that include the further regulation of the seasonal home mix and those would be easily applied. So we would look forward very much, you know, when we see those regulations and I know the task force has been addressing that as well. And so
we look forward to working with you to make sure that we are designated as as a seasonal community just to open up that toolkit. Um and um we hope that between having the results of our analysis of the the seasonal home market, having the
additional discussions of uh you know possible home rule petitions as well as the um you know seasonal housing restriction possibility that that all of those open up some um you know real opportunities for us to address some
things. and and additionally you know in the as a seasonal community uh this board I I think has shown tremendous leadership and it's reflected in their priority goals to develop housing for uh our municipal workforce uh that is
really struggling. I mean, recruitment is just becoming harder and harder and as you said, this is the most affordable town and and we still are are struggling. And so, um, as a seasonal community, it really opens up additional
programs that we can use to attack that, you know, workforce housing where it's, oh, you know, you're you're dealing in that 120% plus of the median income where, you know, you're you're not um below, but you you also can't afford a
home based on what um your income level is. So, that's very valuable as well. Excellent. Thank you so much for coming. Do you have anything else you want to say? One, we'll just send over some examples of of um home rules that other towns have put forward that I think will be
more helpful than the sort of statewide legislation which gets into a whole host of negotiations happening around a whole host of other housing issues. Um you know, and then I just I just want to be really clear. Um transfer fee is but one tool in what we need to bring to bear on
housing, right? And so seasonal communities um is one tool that we've delivered. um you know, a number of towns are pursuing and have pursued um zoning changes, uh accessory dwelling units, a whole host of other pieces. Um you know, and and so I'm very much about
like an all of the above approach. How do you bring as many tools as possible, you know, to our towns and and and how do we figure out a way um to ensure that Cape Cod and also the islands can remain livable places? Um and then how do we pay for a lot of this stuff, right? um
not just on the backs of year-round cape cotterters and our property taxpayers you know how do you find sort of other people's money um you know in part especially with the visitors who come here or the um seasonal residents who may be have um to ensure that this can be a year- roundable place but uh you
know transfer fee is not a panacea uh and it really takes I think the um collaboration the looking to other towns for um shared incentives I'm really excited to hear about you know this report and what's going to be coming there Um, what's really interesting about Province Town, there's a real push in Province Town, I'll end on this, um,
to actually cap short-term rentals or sort of take some pretty like kind of strict regulation of short-term rentals. What they did instead is they actually put in place some common sense restrictions, right? You can't have more than two, you know, a few other provisions. And then they implemented this pretty strong incentive program.
The number of short-term rental licenses in Provincetown has decreased, has not increased actually because of this approach that was taken with with the work of the Donahghue Institute and others. So, um, you know, if ever we can be helpful on on these issues or on a
myriad of others from wastewater to unemployment, um, to help for businesses during, you know, under distress, um, that's what we're aiming to do. We're trying to work twice as hard. I'm really mindful, um, that Yarmouth and Dennis and and and Brewster um, don't have adequate representation in the House of
Representatives. I'm hoping that changes and soon. Um, but until then, um, my great team and I will be working as hard as we can to be good partners to all of you. So, I really appreciate the invitation. I know we took a lot of time. We appreciate you. We are always at your uh you'll be hearing from us. Great. Awesome. All right. Thank you so
much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We are going to move to our 6:35 hearing, a one-day special entertainment license. And I'm going to read um the public notice into the record. And if you could come forward, that would be
great. The uh county Yarma Select Board Special Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing Hearing. The Yarmouth Select Board acting as the local licensing authority has received an application from Robert Harding, DBA, Dream Day of Cape Cod, PO Box 737, Yarmouthport, Mass
02645, which is incorrect, for a special one-day malt alcohol license for an October Fest for Dream Day of Cape Cod fundraiser at the Skull Island Adventure Golf and Sports World, 934
Main Street, South Yarmouth, 0266. 64 on Saturday, October 4th, 2025 from 10:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. The applicate the applicant also requests a special one-day entertainment license for the event to have two local live bands up to
five musicians with amplific amplification system. The hearing will be held on Tuesday, September 9th at Town Hall, 11:46 Route 28 South Yarmouth, Mass. The select board meeting begins at 6 p.m. Written comments will be accepted until 4:30 on Friday,
September 5th in the select board office at town hall and can be submitted electronically to public comment at yarmat.mma. us. Verbal comments will be accepted at the meeting. With that, we will open the public hearing and allow you to um introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you're applying
for today. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Bob Harding and this is Dale Orman. Um, I've been a volunteer with Dream Day for I guess close to 20 years and uh I've had the good pleasure of being uh co-event chairs with with
Dale who is a founding board member of Dream Day. Um I know you probably all know about Dream Day, but I think it's a a very unique organization unlike it. Um uh where we where the camp takes care of
children who are facing life-threatening illnesses uh and provides them and their family for a one-week getaway uh camping experience at the Dream Bay camp which is in Nickerson Park.
The camp itself is uh is is provided its funding is to totally provided by donations and through fundraisers. Um and like I say, Dale and I have done a number of these events. Um I take all the credit. He does all the work and
it's worked out pretty well so far. Seems like a perfect marriage. Something like that, you know. But, uh, it it's going to be an event that we look at as not just a fundraiser. I think it's going to be great for the town. Um, this will bring together a whole lot of folks. Uh, we've reached
out to a lot of local businesses, local chamber. I see Mary here. She her and her staff have been very helpful. Uh, we're reaching out to other nonprofits asking for their support as well to to make this uh, you know, one a big fun
event. and we're going to have um local bands and uh some music. The schedule has changed a little, Madame Chair, it's 11 to 4. Originally, it was 10, but it's now 11 to 4. And uh Dale can tell you a
lot more about the about the mechanics of all that in terms of of what time folks are coming on. He knows all he's been working with the food trucks and and the uh the the beer vendors and the bands. So, uh, I'll turn it over to Dale.
Okay. Um, yes, as uh, Bob said, I've been, um, with the board since 1993 when our inception. And, uh, the way we raise funds is do a a myriad of events. We've done pretty much everything over the years from car washes to, uh, festivals
to fishing tournaments, golf tournaments, etc. Um, we at the camp, we do 64 families every summer. So to date, we've done well over a thousand families that we've supported um at no cost to
them. It's all of our stuff is free. Um so I appreciate you considering this and I'm here to answer any questions you might have. Okay. So um in the packet we have um all the tips certification. It looks like
Olivers is doing your alcohol service and your um ca catering so to speak for the alcohol. Can you just talk about um how the service will be contained and how they're going to manage that?
So, we have a 40x60 tent for the main activities and then we're going to have a separate uh cordoned off area we're calling the beer garden and there'll be a wristband to get into the beer gard. they'll have to go through an ID checker
to get that wristband and only those people will be allowed in that section of the property. Okay. Excellent. Um and do you want to talk about also for we can take them individually or we can talk about them
together because you also have um the bands and amplification the setup of how that will be on the property, traffic flow. Is there enough parking still? Yes. Um I believe they have 170 parking spaces and this is a a first year so we
don't know how many people will be there but we're hoping at least a couple hundred. Um the band will be on a stage which is a professional portable stage that's been donated to us um from a gentleman down
in Orleans. He has two of these stages. So, it's the stage is all contained and it's at the back side of the property over by the stop and shop area. So, I don't believe there are any butters that will actually hear much of any kind of volume.
Okay. Well, 11 to 4 during the day is a very uh amendable time usually for music and fun. Right. Hopefully. So, for the board um they also we got this at our packet today that talked about the the tent, the beer garden, the entrance, the parking
Um just for everybody's knowledge, I am going to take a moment um if it's okay with the board to go to the public first before we ask uh the board. Is there anybody here from the public that would like to speak on the application for either the alcohol or
entertainment license? Four or against? Okay, seeing none, um I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Liz, do you have any questions? No, I do not. I I look forward to it.
Um, and I know if Tom's involved, it'll be great. So, thank you for all of the very important good work. Thank you, Joyce. Do you have any questions? No, just um it sounds like a wonderful cause and a wonderful thing that you do every year. And um just in case anyone's
watching on television, um if you wanted to mention ticket prices and how to get them, this would be a chance. You don't cross that bridge yet. So, uh $25. Oh, I'm sorry. Per individual. I thought you said something. I apologize.
Which includes mini golf and everything that goes a family and a family of three is 40. Additional children are $10 each. Excellent. And they would And where would they go? Online or in person to get these?
So, we're after this hearing tonight, we'll start um publicizing that all kinds of social media um Oh, great. eventbrite. Um our website and um just to clarify, our organization is called
Dream Day on Cape Cod. If you Google that, it'll be the first 10 things you see. Um but yeah, they'll be it'll be splashed out there pretty well. Okay, thank you. Have a pretty aggressive um uh radio
spot campaign the last week of uh the month before that. So, you know, we hope we have a lot of energy and uh we we get a good turnout. So, can I just say one thing if you don't mind? First of all, Jaime's first uh her first pro her first
application coming in and she's been terrific. I also want to tell you Pam Pam Barnes uh I'd be remiss if I didn't say anything about Pam Barnes. She has done she's just been great because um he's done this a number of times. Me, I've never worked on licensing issues. I
did work with Dakota before, but Pam has gone way overboard to make it a lot easier and I just want to let let you know that. Thank you very much for saying that. We appreciate it very much. They're wonderful. Do you have any questions? I only want to say that I think it's a
fantastic organization and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much. Thank you. And hope you all attend. Yes, I wrote it down. With that, I will accept a motion, please. Um the only amendment I would say to the motion would be that we're changing the hours. the um both I would
just want to make sure because one was um one application said 12 to 7 um and that's for the alcohol. Do you want it to be 12 to 7 to have time to get it in and out? Should we leave it at 12 to 7 and then and then the entertainment
license from 11 to 4? Would that be I think that's probably safe. Okay. All right. So, we'll take a motion with that amendment of um just changing the entertainment license uh from 11 to So, moved that we change the time of the
alcohol license to 12 to 7 and entertainment license 11 to 4. Is there a second on the motion? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Wish you the best of luck. I hope it's very well attended and very successful. It's such a such a
great cause. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Our next um hearing is for the Harry Potter experience at the cultural center. Hello. Hello. Okay. So, I'm going to I'm going to read the advertisement into the record. The
town of Yarma Select Board special alcohol license hearing. The Yarma Select Board acting as the local licensing authority has received an application from the cultural center of Cape Cod. Mag McNamera, director of business operations for an special alcohol license to serve and sell all
types of alcohol at 307 Old Main Street, South Yarmouth, Mass 02664 on October 16th, 17th, and 18th of 2025 from 6:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. for the
theatrical event, Harry Potter event. The hearing will be held Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 in the hearing room of town hall 11:46 throughout 28 South Yarmouth. Select Board's meeting begins at 6 p.m. Written comments will be accepted till 4:30 on September 5th,
2025 in the select board's office. Town hall could be submitted electronically to public comment at yarmar.mma. us. This was advertised um in Cape Cod Times on August 27th. With that, we will open the public hearing and let you um
introduce yourself. You're everybody knows who you are but and uh tell us a little bit about what you want to do. Absolutely. My name is Molly Demillionaire, executive director here at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. Thank you for having me tonight. Um and the title's actually changed. It's actually going back to the Edgar Alan
Poe. I think that was submitted. Um, so we hosted that event also in February of this year and there was no incidents but it was really popular and so the company decided to do a 2.0 of Edgar Alen Poe. So four new play.0. I like it. I like it. It has a ring to it.
It does. Right. And um so it'll be inside the great hall. It It's all an inside event. Um and everyone is IDed before they walk into the door. So there's no um worry of people being under 21 inside the venue at all. and um it's a theatrical performance and we're
really excited to have them back. That's great. Um I see your tips certification, your certificate of insurance, all of your paperwork is in order. Um I will see if anybody from the public has any comments
for this application either for or against. Seeing nobody, seeing nobody online, I will take a motion to move we close the hearing. Madam Chair, is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, with that, we will um
see if anybody on the board has any questions about the event. Liz, I want to be there. That's about all I can say. You're welcome. It It sounds like a fun fun event. Thank you. Excellent. Dorcas, I love Edgar Allan Poe 2.0. Sounds
great. Moving Bob. Sounds like everyone's a poet. No, it sounds great. And uh I hope it goes well. All right. Great. With that, um I will take a motion on the application.
I Oh, is there a second? Dorcas got in there first. Second. All right. Any discussion on that? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you for coming and wish you the best of luck. Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to go to our 705 hearing for the annual tax
classification hearing. And with that, I am going to also read the hearing notice. I see our assessor and Tara here tonight. Okay. Um, so the town of Yarmouth annual tax
classification hearing under chapter 40 section 56 as amended by chapter 369 of the acts of 1982 and chapter 79 the acts of 1983. The town of Yarmmer select board will conduct a public hearing on
whether the town of Yarma should implement the tax classification act. said hearing to be to be conducted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 at 6 PM Yarmouth Town Hall hearing room 11:46 Route 28 South Yarmouth. The hearing at
the hearing, the select board will hear testimony as to what will be the residential factor which will determine the share of taxes each classification of property will pay. what will be open space factor and
whether to adopt a residential or small commercial exemption per the order of um the Yarm select board. All right, with that I will uh turn it over to Tara. You want to introduce yourself? Good evening. Good evening.
Very loud. That's a good thing. You just let me know when it's too much. Fine. I think it's great that people can hear you. Yes, they can. My name is Tara Monroe and I am the assistant assessor. We're here this evening because we're currently in the
process of setting the tax rate, which we do annually at this time of the year in order to issue the first half tax bill. After the budgeting process and town meeting take place, the next step in the process is for the assessors to determine through real estate market
activities what the value of all property in the town should be. Once the values are computed, they are reviewed by the Department of Revenue for approval and certification. Our values have been submitted and approval was granted on Friday,
September 5th. Towns that are certified by the Department of Revenue as assessing at full and fair cash value must decide whether or not to tax all of the classes of property at the same rate which is commonly referred to as
adopting a factor of one or to shift the burden amongst the rest of the classes. You as our local officials have the option of shifting the tax burden of the commercial, industrial and personal property anywhere from 1 to 50%.
This would create two different tax rates, one for the residential class of properties and one for the the commercial class of properties. And there you do have a graphic in your packet that actually illustrates the shift. Um the board of assessors did
vote at their meeting on July 31st to recommend the select board a factor of one and to reject the residential and small commercial exemption at at the July 31st meeting. Um
their feeling is that the fairest way to tax people is to tax everybody at the same rate to tax everybody the same. So in conclusion, I can tell you that to date, the county arm's policy has been to adopt a factor of one and to reject
the small commercial um and residential exemptions. And with that being said, um I'm happy to answer any questions or we I'm here as a team. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. Excellent. Thank you. Um, and everybody
has the, you know, we've have this every year. Unfortunately, our our commercial rate is at a 4.91% which has been unfortunately declining over many years. And for a split tax
rate of any sort really to work, you have to have a, I'll use Mark's word, a more robust uh, commercial classification. Um, I know that there have been other towns, Bob and I were talking about it recently that are uh also looking at a a residential
exemption. That is um something that I think you know it up to this board whether or not they want to have a discussion on that at some point in the future. But I'm I'm of the mindset that that needs to be in conjunction with a bigger uh planning process of
potentially, you know, offsetting a phase 2 sewer or something of the sort. Um, but having said that, does anybody have any questions for Tara before I go to the public? I go ahead, Mark.
No, I just wanted to uh uh echo uh chairman your comments. Um I do think at some point given all the major financial challenges that we're facing, you know, with the the the next two phases of
wastewater, uh we have needs related to, you know, a new fire station, a new library is on the uh on the on the docket and and now we're talking about a new school. So schools, firefighting, it's just we've got a lot. And if you
look at what we've just passed, you know, two years ago, we adopted $27 million in debt for our first phase of wastewater. So, we're ve we're in in uncharted waters here. And I think one of the things that we're going to have
to do as a board is look at all of our options to make sure that whatever ultimately the voters decide we're going to do on each of these items and other items in the future that we need to take a look at the exemption but in the
context of a broader plan as as the chairman has stated. I think that's that's the form for that discussion. While I think we're always interested in hearing what our board of assessors has to say, this question is part of a much larger conversation that we have to have
about how we meet some of these long-term obligations and and and and in in financial fairly sizable large financial, you know, items. So, um and and I welcome
having more of that discussion. you know, we've talked about in short order, you know, doing some more long range financial planning and um while this may not be part of those initial discussions, I think the more we spend time focused on our long-term financial
planning, uh the more this is going to come up as a topic. And I think we're going to want to look at in a very broad way um not necessarily in a narrow sense in terms of equity um in any one particular year but look at it looking at it as part of the bigger picture
and the financial burdens that Yarmouth residents are going to have to wrestle with. So thank you. I appreciate the work that you've put into this. Um, and it's just so troubling to see that
residential 92.7% of the total amounts that we take in. We've got to work on that nut before we really look at anything else. You know, how do we take that commercial and and rise it raise that number significantly
from where it is? Well, the sewer will help with that. That's our goal. That's our grow. That's our hope is that the uh sewer will help. Um but we we I agree um with my fellow board members that it's the long-term plan
that we have to make. We can't really single out one year and look at it. Um, so I I take uh seriously the recommendations of the board of assessors here for this particular year, but stress also how we need to be
looking down the road. What are we going to do because we just keep having these expenses that are coming before us. Um, and I thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, thank you, Tara. Thank you, Andy. Um, good work. I have a question
that came up the other day and this is going to sound crazy but you've heard how concerned we are about finances. Um, someone asked what would happen if uh with the town. Would there be a way to do this if they paid future property
taxes? They could only estimate of course because of annual town meeting but also even paid their sewer hookup even if they weren't for two more stages. Would that be of any help to um town finance? And I I counted on the whole dream team here
to answer this. Hi, Jennifer Mullen, finance director. Um we're pretty limited on, you know, when we bill for property taxes, we we create a receivable um to get money in for future property taxes. You're taking it away from the future and bringing it
in now. So, that really isn't an option. um paying for um the store hookup. First of all, what they'll be paying will be for a betterment and that will be for a larger discussion. So, what will happen is um 6 months before you're
completed with your full with the project. We'll assess a betterment to the comm you know to the um homeowners and then they can pay that upfront or they can pay that over 30 years. Whatever is affordable to them, the betterment that will pay for the
project. if they pay it up front, we can put it in a separate fund and then draw down on that to help pay off the debt. Um, their sore hookup and when they they'll be paying that privately that won't come to us. They'll have to once we get ready for, you know, they they
lay the store line and then they'll hook up to the store when we're ready to take flow. They only can do that when they're we're ready to take flow. You know, they will have to call a plumber um and get that hooked up and then they pay the plumber. But as um Senator Seir said earlier, which um I thought would be
pretty informational, is um new legislation is helping with Title 5 can assist homeowners with that. That's where they're, you know, it will it can be expenses for them, expensive for them to hook up, but they wouldn't give us the money to hook up. They'd have to do that privately because you're bringing
on a contractor onto their private land. It's not something we would do. Would there be any way to prepay the betterment portion? um they can if they want, but when you think about it, you want to make it affordable. So, say the Betterment, and I'm just pulling this out. I have no idea. So, I'm going to use a really low number. Say it's
$10,000 to tell homeowners, they can pay it in advance if they can afford it. We give them the option. You can pay it in advance or you can pay it over 30 years, whatever you can afford, but I don't think we can mandate them to pay the whole amount upfront. Okay.
I don't I I just want to make sure we stick with the tax classification. I appreciate the question. Saw everybody there and pounced. Thank you. And did you have any questions uh for Tara on the Are you okay? Oh, I I did not. No. Um I I was
impressed with what we have and I I felt I should go out and found an industry on Route 28, but you should. Yeah, it's that's a long-term goal, Tara. It is. Um I'm new to the tax process. So I'm going to ask what the example based
on FY26 values the effect of the shift%. Okay, let me just switch over to that page. Explain that to me. I sure can. What um you you just want an overall explanation of how it works? Well, what are you showing us here? Is this if if it was instead of a a factor
of one if it was a factor of one? Okay. So what this is illustrating for you is if if you voted to implement the shift at the 50%. So this is showing you the effect of that 50% to the commercial
industrial personal property class. It's showing you that the change at the end of the day if you want I'm certainly happy to walk you through each line. No, no, just the the big picture. The big picture is the highlight at the bottom right hand corner. And what that is showing you is if that shift were
adopted, so and you're looking at 150% what it would do for the residents at a if you're using your your property value that $710,000 is the average property value. So using those two comparables, 710,000
per class, using those values, it would lower the residential taxes almost $200, less than $200, if you will. What it would do to the same
commercial property is it would increase their taxes by roughly $2,500. So that that's what that illustration is. businesses last thing they need is that and you see that on the top that tax rate I I think that's very
telling is that for just a 27 cent reduction in the residential you're taking the commercial tax rate and jacking it up you know over 350 almost $4. So for a small that if when you have
such a small commercial uh any movement on that you know tiny movement on the residential creates a spike right I'm I move that the town of Yarm Oh wait a minute I have to go to the public I forgot is there anybody in the public that would like to speak on the tax uh
the tax classification? Madam chair I move we close the public hearing. I see nobody. Nobody on Zoom. Is there a second? Sec. Sorry. All those in favor? I opposed. Okay. Is there any more discussion that the board would like to
have? No. I would just like to say thank you and thank you for the education too. I move that the town of Yarmouth continue to tax all classes at the same rate by adopting a factor of one and to reject the residential exemption and the
small commercial exemption. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor I. Any opposed? I move to authorize the use of signature stamp for tax rate forms and authorize
the director of finance to sign for the select board electronically. Second. Any discussion on that? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Pass unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh we did just want to mention uh we do appreciate your
feedback and we will bring it forward to the board of assessors as well. So thank you. Thank you Tara. Great. Next we have um yes thank you Andy and Tara. Um next we have our proposed plastics reduct reduction
regulation. I see our team here. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, folks. Thank you for coming in tonight to discuss the the proposal, so to speak. If you want to introduce
your group to us and just tell us a little bit about what we have here for consideration, that would be great. Be happy to do that. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Jamie Vieira. It was my privilege to serve as the chair of the plastics bylaw review task force. The task force for your
memory was commissioned by this board back I think in early late May early June for purposes of evaluating the current petitioned bylaw regarding the reduction of plastics in food establishments and to
come back to this board with certain recommendations in connection with that existing bylaw and whether or not it was to be a recommendation to keep that in place or come up with a substitute. I'm speaking in generalities here. Um that task force was then commissioned by this
board. It was put together by the town administrator and it consisted of the following individuals here in the town. Um in this order uh that was prevented. Mark Forest was the select board member. Uh Peter Malpass was the community and
economic development committee. Mary Craig who was member of the Arman board of health. Mike Davis, owner of Bagels and Beyond. Aiden Delaney of the Skipper Chowder House. Jay Gardner you're familiar with now working with the county of Barnesville. Bill Glass
Yarmouth recycling committee. Barry Lewis from the health department. Haley O'Neal who is the petitioner of the existing bylaw. Jill Tallay the community representative. Christina Dwire from Stop and Shop. Myself and
Mary Vilbond president CEO of the Armouth Chamber of Commerce. We got to work quickly because we had a compressed amount of time. The first task that the bylaw took on, I will admit to all of you, was to learn a little bit more about plastic
because we were commissioned with the task of creating a regulation that dealt with products that came in plastic food service establishments. And it'd be amazing to learn that we weren't just talking about knives, food, forks, spoons, and plastic cups. We took some
time at the beginning to carefully look at the seven different types of plastics that exists and we felt it was important that if we were going to come up with something, we needed to know exactly what it is that we were talking about. And I want to thank the folks at Stop and Shop who took some time at meetings
and I forgot to point out Liz and I apologize Liz for your involvement at the time of those meetings as well. My apologies. Um, we took a lot of time at the beginning to learn just exactly what the different types were with actual examples. And I will tell you, it was an
eye-opening experience to see at those meetings the things that are in plastic that under the current regulation would be prohibited from use by consumers in this town, retailers in this town, and business operators in this town. It was
alarming. One note, the folks at Stop and Shop represented that close to 30 to 35% of some of the products they sell in that store would be unavailable to be sold to the public in town if the current regulation stayed in place. That is a large significant number. So once
we learned what it is that we were actually looking to address, we wanted to come to a resolution and a consensus of what was the best way to address the circumstance of reducing plastics but also having a fair balance to the business community so that there are
circumstances where conditions such as the inability to get an alternative, cost prohibitive nature of getting an alternative. We had to balance food safety alternatives as well because sometimes things are in plastic not because they're in favor of plastic but be it for pro provides longevity. It
prevents bacterial growth and it is a health factor that plastic actually helps support and that is the product that it best comes in. So we didn't want to trade off one thing of reducing plastics and then increasing food waste either. So we had to talk about different balances.
Each of the committee members, we went out and we looked as far and wide as we could for different alternatives as the starting point for what we were going to do. What we then decided collectively was that we were going to recommend to this board that the town adopt through
the board of health a health regulation, not a general regulation, but a health regulation. and it is enclosed in your packets, a disposable plastic food wear rules and regulations for food establishments. And it was the work of the committee
meeting sometimes every other week under this compressed period of time, taking models and pieces from other towns and other communities and other states and balancing all of the interests and presenting to you this evening what we believe is our recommendation of a
health regulation to be submitted to the board of health for their adoption and approval as a health regulation. We recently met with the board of health in advance of this and brought this to their attention. Now, they didn't vote on it. All we did was bring it to their
attention of what it was we were intending to do and I can report back it was unanimously acted upon favorably in terms of saying they supported the concept. Now, they couldn't act on it because we need this board to adopt the recommendation because that our task was
to bring it to you and you decide what you would like to do. So, I am happy to answer any questions. I don't think we have to go through chapter and verse. I will if you'd like to, but I'll spare that for anyone who has any questions about it. I will tell you that if this board proceeds in the fashion of moving
as a health regulation, we took the initiative to get ourselves on the agenda for the board of health at their meeting of 9:15 next Monday night. Why? It's been noticed, advertised, and a public hearing. Last point, what happens next? Assuming that this board approves
this process and this regulation to go forward, if the board of health approves it on the 15th of September, it is now an approved health regulation in the town of Yarmouth. There is now a conflicting general bylaw that's on
effect. And after vetting with town council, town council's recommendation would be assuming the passage of health regulation, a warrant article would be placed on the fall town meeting merely asking the voters to resend the general
bylaw that is currently there. And then you would have a health regulation in effect effective to January 1, 2026 that implements a process that we think is fair, balanced, and achieves the objective of reducing plastics while
maintaining all the things that we talked about that helps the business community get to that goal in a way that is beneficial not only to them but to the consumers and the general public. So I'll stop with that and take any questions that any of you may have. Thank you.
Great. That was a wonderful succinct uh representation of where you're going and where you've been. So um we'll open it up to the board, Mark. Sure. Thank you. Um participating and uh I I enjoyed um being uh
designated as the board's representative and uh I I too appreciate Liz's participation as well. I think um it's it's important that I just say this right out front that I I want to thank you for all the time and energy and
effort that you have put into this. You all have done a great job in tackling this problem coming together working with the business community. And you're right to to to to give thanks to the the supermarkets and the others who participated uh in this effort from the
business community because um they did a great job in educating us all. Um I think what you've proposed the structure of this is going to be the model uh assuming town meeting and others you know uh uh take their actions but I
honestly believe we've figured out the way to deal with this and that is through this process and um I learned a lot from the example of the town of Falmouth. Falmouth tried to do something and um they made a misstep and uh they
ran into some problems and they went back to the drawing board and u I think it was great to have them share with us um you know their experience and so their regulations are now going into effect. our regulations and theirs look
very similar and uh they're going into effect and uh I think generally there's been a fair amount of praise and support for what they're trying to do. So um the fact that we've been able to work together and learn from them I think has been a huge advantage uh for us and so
kudos to the to the town of Falmouth uh for their work and their effort as well and their help for us. So, uh, I fully support where we stand on this. Um, I think this makes the most sense and I think for the folks that are interested
and frustrated over the amount of plastic pollution, um, because I it's it's it's obviously it's it's there. We're all well aware of it. What I like about the way this has been crafted is the regulations create almost a climate
um for improvement because once one business figures out a way to deal with some of the plastics that are a little tricky um once that's figured out there's an incentive automatically set up in this program for others to follow
suit. So it incentivizes progress towards plastic reduction and we use the marketplace, we use uh the health department. The health department's a big player in this. So I think the way we've structured it, the way it's been put together, I think is well thought
out and I think it it creates an environment and a climate that promotes plastic reduction in in a sensible way. um people should not look at this as allowing um you know us backsliding or
allowing people to get away with something. Uh no, we've created a much smarter system and process I think and I think it's a credit to everybody who's been involved in this effort. So thank you very very much.
Dorcas, I would like to thank the businesses that um spent so much time on this proposal. Uh you had to sacrifice time from your businesses at the peak time when you're needed. Uh that's a
tremendous sacrifice and I I really appreciate the efforts that you put in there and I um am very happy to see that what we're going to have going forward. I'm assuming that we'll be passing this um is something that could actually be
acted upon. You know, we were kind of in a in a great limbo before and I think now this is a step in the right direction and I'm sure Barry and his crew is happy to see that we'll have, you know, something that we could really work from. I stress though that this is
going to be the time for education and communication. I think it's going to be critically important to get that out there um whenever and however you can do it. Uh handouts, snippets on YouTube, whatever. Uh
because there's just a great passion out there for many people on the plastics and we certainly saw that at our our last town meeting. Uh, and so I think they need to understand that we're on their side, that we are moving toward
that goal and that this is a sensible way of doing it. So as as Mark was saying, he learned a tremendous amount from u sitting there uh on your committee. Um, that just points to the fact of how important education is going
to be. Madam Chair, if I may, on that point, at our last few meetings, we had an opportunity to talk with town staff in the communication department about putting things on the town website in connection with this proposed regulation. And all of our meetings were
televised and recorded and you can find them and watch that process if you wanted. So, we've really stressed the transparency of what we're doing here. And now going forward, the effort after Monday night is successful, assuming, is to do just that, is to educate not just what the bylaw is all about, but what it
is that we are trying to accomplish here. Um, so we've already been working with the staff on that, crafting the messages and getting that all put together um before one. I I thank you for that. And I just point out, you know, Bob's videos before we
get ready for town meeting are a good example of of um you know, going forward and perhaps really getting Stop and Shop involved with showing some of those container. You know, a a show and tell always can make a big difference. Um, and
again, YouTube becomes a very popular vehicle for being able to do that, certainly with links to the town website and so forth. But thank you. I appreciate the hard work and I know at what great sacrifice it must have come to at this
time of the year. So, thank you, Joyce. Thank you for your work. I know that you were under a lot of time pressure and a lot of pressure from um conflicting constituencies on this. I would certainly tend to support um anything
that was supported by our assistant health director and by the board of health even though I'm terrified that when I sneeze I'm sneezing PAS at everyone around me. But it it's definitely a start and I hope it'll make
Yarmouth healthier. Liz, um I was really happy to be included in the process despite the fact that I wasn't officially um on the committee. Um Mary, you you were great. And Jamie, what great leadership and I wanted to be
a part of the process because I'm one of the skeptics and I was firmly behind those who said it's a ban, we're banning plastics. and sitting with you all and listening to uh Mike Davis and and Aiden
Delaney and they worked right next to everybody trying to find solutions and by gosh if there aren't solutions emerging every day that are new. It's really rather exciting. So this is a
process and I think we had discussed and I hope that we'll stand firm that this committee will continue to meet regularly to review changes and improvements that can be imp brought on board as we move towards what we hope
will someday be a plastics ban because that's where the uh the all of the businesses want to go. But it can't be overnight. So I think it's a it's the solution and I look forward to meeting
as we go forward to keep improving it. Thank you. Thanks. Um just on that point, I think the charge was just to bring it to I don't think that their um charge is after the fact that this is um brought to some resolution. So I think if it's a
board of health regulation, it would be in the purview of the board of health to keep um you know honing it to you know they're going to probably see a lot of requests that um they may find that they need to address somehow in in in their
own uh policy. My question is um first of all, thank you all for your work um and thank you for Haley for um you know getting this ball rolling. Um the January 1st date um I agree with
your assessment about having it I'm hopeful that it will be in place before we bring it to a recision obviously um the policy itself but the effective date I I'm just concerned about whether or not you know we're in September
um that doesn't really give the businesses a lot of time again Uh, not that I'm trying to kick the can down the road, but um, you know, I just would like to hear your thought process as to why why the January 1 date was chosen.
First, if the board of health adopts it at its meeting on the 15th, it becomes effective on the 15th. And it is now a health regulation. We chose that effective date because we thought that one, it coincides with the 111 date. We also felt it important that we we had it
in place and to bear in mind one of the things we thought was important was that this is education and it is a slow process to get started. It's a slow time of the year in January. We thought it gave it while it's in place, it had some meaning. It had effectiveness. We
weren't kicking the can down the road as it were and giving people ample time from September to March to learn what's in it, how to work with it. We talked about things of how to work through inventory that people already had in place so that they weren't impacted
financially to meet the requirements of it on a on a given day again because what you have now is an absolute and what we crafted is is the ability to get time to come into compliance. And so we chose the date so that lined up with the
other one so it didn't look like we were foot dragging number one. And we think that between now and March, we'll call it, that's more than enough time for people to get a grip on what it is that they need to do. Talk to the health director about waiverss and variances in advance of it. Work through their
inventory and get it so that it is impactful and not just something that was so I'll use the word draconian that it almost wouldn't have the effect. It would almost have the worst unintended consequences. So that's why we chose the date. Okay. All right. You sound pretty
confident about that. My fear is that the the bugs of it getting started prior to our recision could be problematic is that's that's my that that's the feedback that could potentially happen at annual town meeting based on it kind
of like you know it's going to anything that starts it's going to be a little bit of a a hiccup so to speak going forward. So, um, you know, I'm if you know, if we can't get it rescended, then we go back to that, which is not helpful. This would still be in place.
So, um, you'd know better. I just I'm just concerned about that. We'll worry about the potential for a conflict later, but I think if we go forward with this, we were confident that businesses would have the opportunity. If you look at some of the things, our first offense is a warning.
Second offense was a warning. So, we're not even out to try to collect money on this. It's really get people to move in the right direction. I I totally agree. That's why but but we had to pick a day and that was the day that we thought made the most sense. Okay. Um unfortunately again on this
item we have discussion on here and not a vote. So, I can pull I'm going to pull the board and if we need to come back for a vote um I think that that would be probably sufficient in terms of you knowing our our standing um on I don't think a vote is needed anyway but um
because you've done what you were asked to do which is bring it to us and you know ultimately it is the board of health that will adopt it and then um it'll be up to the people of the town. So unless you see it differently, I'll take a consensus of the board. Um Mark,
no, as I've said, I'm totally on board with what we're doing. I'm for it. Support with some concern that it's a potentially a burden on health department staff. Ready? We're good, Barry. Okay. Thank you. That's wonderful. I'm fully in support and I'll stand by
you, Barry. Excellent. Yeah, I think you got the sense of of the board that we support this and hopefully the board will take action on it next week and then we will get a recision at town meeting. Excellent. Thank you. Good job on a sticky wicket.
Congratulations. Great work. [Applause] We've got some other jobs. I think we're going to keep that list. Thank you all very much. what they'll do with all the time they'll now have in their weeks. We have other things I know that um
keeping all wonderful things. All right. Thank you very much. All right. C cultural council update. Rachel, good evening. [Laughter]
Hey Barry, is that your water? Hi Rachel. Hello. How are you? Thank you for having me this evening. Uh for those of you that don't know me, I'm Rachel Young. I am the newly elected chair of the Midcape Cultural Council. Uh this is this concludes my third
three-year term on the council. We're only allowed to serve six years consecutively by Massachusetts state standard. Then we have to take a leave and then we can be reappointed. So I've I've been actively involved with the council for about 15 years now. Um the
Midcape Cultural Council is a combination of Barnstable and Yarmouth and we are one of 329 cultural councils in the state of Massachusetts. We receive our funding directly from the Massachusetts Cultural Council which is our state arts agency and they use a
funding formula to decide how much we should be allocated based on um many different factors. population, property values, um, demograph socioeconomic demographics. Uh, and we are blessed,
uh, being in combination with Barnstable to get one of the highest allocations on the Cape because we are a regional council. That gives us the opportunity to give a bit more money than some of the other um, councils do. Uh for example, this year for the 2026
allocation, we've been granted 22,700 to give out in this grant cycle. Uh by comparison, Dennis has 5,800, Harwitch 5,700, uh Sandwich 9,300, Falmouth 8,700. So,
we get a little bit more leverage to really be a great support to our local community artists because as individual artists within our community, uh they are often not nonprofits. And so, if they're seeking support for an interesting or engaging program, it's
great to have a place to go to where they can get that financial support without having to go and become a 501c3 in order to get the funding. Uh so for example, in our last uh grant cycle for 2025, we granted out just um just under
$23,000. We had 59 applications requesting over $102,000 in funding. So there's a definitive need within the local community to fund these programs. And these range anywhere from
early childhood programming uh with free access to programming for seniors with Alzheimer's, uh specific individual fine arts shows of photographers, painters, artists, uh education, puppetry series that happen at our local libraries. Uh, one of the
themes we see across the whole of the Cape is that the libraries are funded, but they aren't funded to provide extensive programming to families, uh, seniors and the community at large. So, the cultural councils do pick up a bit of that burden, and we fund a fair
amount of programming through the local libraries. Um, we approved last year 20 applications and declined 39. And the range of grants that we gave last year were uh from about $400 up to $1,500.
Our cap is $1,500 because we really prefer to fully fund rather than to only give a partial funding. So, we make this very clear in our priorities that we set out uh at this point in the process. Our uh grant cycle opened on September 2nd
and it's going to close on October 16th and it's open to any member of the community who's interested in providing programming. Uh the key criteria are that it must meet our local funding criteria and those are not uh created in
a vacuum. We uh we do a community survey on an annual basis. We just concluded that in August. And the key criteria that the community is really looking for uh this year, the top priority is arts education and instruction. Coming in
second is the visual arts and third is public art. Um and within this uh the main there are three main focus areas. Uh the primary component is individuals want lowcost or free events. We and we see that as a great priority too. We
don't want to give $1,500 to a program that's then going to charge $25, $50 a ticket for someone to attend because how much public benefit is that truly affording to individuals within the community? So, that's a key primary component for us. Um, and then the the
two that come in second from our community survey are the projects celebrating local history and support for individual artists within the communities of Barnstable and Yarmouth. And we really value that very highly. We look to make sure that um individuals
are if they aren't don't have a long history that they have a strong case study for what they want to provide within the community. Uh but if they do have a long history, many of these organizations are known to us, the cultural center who was here earlier. We've been a routine pro um funding
provider for many of their programs, specifically Rise and Shine, which is geared towards troubled youth within our human community. uh who are then instructed by local artists uh in areas that they're passionate about. So, uh we have a lot of great programming coming
up um through these grants that we've been able to fund and uh really my plea tonight is twofold. Uh share with people, you know, that the grant cycle open and we love to see new applicants. Uh we're eager to have more input from
the community. Our um council is going to be doing a grant information session the week of September 22nd. We have not finalized the specific date, but it will be that week. It's going to be at the Cordial uh Gallery and Artist Space on Main Street in Hyannis. Uh and I'll get
that information to you uh once we have the date finalized for that week. And uh we are of course available at any point for anybody that might be interested in more information. and that uh our email is midcapecounsil
number twogmail.com and uh we're on top of that regularly. And then finally, if anybody's looking to volunteer, we need more Yarmouth representatives on the cultural council. Uh we currently have three from the town of Yarmouth and six from the town of
Barnstable. It's a robust group of various different backgrounds, but we would love to have more repres representation from Yarmouth. It's great. Well, you do such a wonderful job for us. Um, I really appreciate all that you do and um, like you said, you've been involved
for quite some time, almost 15 years. I know your appointment, your reappoint is on our agenda coming up next. So, um, is there is there a um I know you talked about the 22,700 because we're with
Barnstable. Is there any um percentage of grants that go to programs in one town or the other or is it just kind of It is it is primarily driven by our community initiative uh survey. So we
heavily rank based on those key characteristics. So we're not we in the back of our minds we try to be equitable and not say all of the grants are going to go to Barnstable and only two will go to Yarmouth. it does tend to be um
pretty equitable. This year we had a little bit of a heavier program um concentration in Barnstable, but this was also the first year where three of our grantees were very clear in providing equity between both towns and
provided their programming equally in both towns through various library programs. So, you have a website for um it's the the website is Mass Cultural. Uh you can get to us through the Mass Cultural website and on there are all the local cultural councils
listed with all of the contact information and that's where the grants database is too. So, you would just go in there, set up a profile and then it's a a much easier grant application than many that you are familiar with. I'm certain uh it's but we we're here to provide
assistance too. We're we're volunteers. We've been at this, we've had a lot of training through Mass Cultural, so we would love to support anybody who's interested. Excellent. Uh Liz, do you have any questions? No, I'm I'm delighted to meet you, Rachel, and I'm I'm very curious about
your shirt. See, there's a cat writing in this shirt. I'm a preschool teacher. Ah, okay. Well, thank you. I'm I'm I will be looking forward to trying to get a grant. Excellent. So, thank you for all you do.
Um I would love to pick your brain in the future for people who might be interested in our public art committee which we have just formed. We we would be very interested in supporting that initiative. Uh in my second term on the council uh we
implemented the high arts discovery walk in the um Barnstable Walkway to the Sea area. It was a jured process where we selected uh four artists to submit their applications to create public art and
then we did a fundraiser um independent fundraiser where we were required to raise 50% of the funds and then we got a matching grant from mass development to fund the whole project in the implementation. Uh so we would love to work with you on that.
Okay. Thank you. I'll be in touch. Okay. Wonderful. Doris, thank you very much for all you do. You're welcome. I have no questions. How do we clone you? A short question. Mark,
Mark and I are talking about a lot of things all the time that aren't related to the cultural. Yeah. No, listen, Rachel, thank you so much for everything that you do for our community. It's very much appreciated. It really is. And um and I I'm actually interested
in if there are some upcoming events or artists. I think this is a board that's genuinely interested in doing more to support the arts. And I think to some degree knowing when if there are performances that are coming up, if there are things that are going on that
we can follow that maybe we can attend. I think that kind of information is always worth sharing. Definitely. Yeah. We can be more proactive in getting that information directly to you. currently anything that we know we really encourage our grantees to give as much lead time to us as possible so that
we can share that publicity because we want them to be successful in the programming that they're offering. Uh but anything that's coming up in the near term I will definitely forward that. Yeah, we have a communications director Lorie Sullivan. I would recommend, you know, and through Bob is hooking up with
her so that we can get absolutely we can get details out and learn more about I mean, why not even help advertise on our public access channel and on our website some of the some of the events and some of the performances. Anything that we can do to promote
awareness and interest in our artists, I think is something that we can do. That's great, you know. So, Lori, I'm sure could be a huge help. Excellent. Thank you for the recommendation. Okay. You're welcome. So, thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Great. Well, thank you very much.
We very much appreciate it. Um perhaps uh when you're finished with your round of grants, we could get maybe get some information on um who was awarded maybe and then we see the events from that. So, the timeline as it works for us, October 16th is the conclusion of that.
Uh we then have a two-month reading period because one year we had 90 applications. Uh, so it's it's a lot because we truly want to vet them as adequately as possible and follow the conflict of interest regulations and all of that to make sure that we're really abiding by everything that we should be
doing. Uh, the official announcements usually come out either end of December, early January due to certain waiting periods we have, but we should know by January. Wonderful. Looking forward to that. Thank you again for everything. A lot of people don't know she also um is a is a
very talented um volunteer for the Highness Park Civic Association which has done a lot with PAS studies for the the town as well. So um all that you do, we're very appreciative and I appreciate the update.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So hopefully we'll see you soon. Yes. All right. Have a great evening. You as well. Thank you. Okay. Um, can you you want would you like to do a board and committee appointments now, Joyce? Uh, yes, that would be great. Um, I
would like to uh suggest reappointment for three years to the MidCape Cultural Council of Rachel Young. A term that would uh start immediately and end in August 2028. Second. She got away. Second.
Second. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Abstain. Okay. Um, I'd uh like to propose planning board representative appointment to the design review
committee, Peter Slovac. This would be a one-year appointment and it would end in August 2026. Second. So moved. Thank you. Uh discussion. All in favor? Hi.
Sounded unanimous to me. Thank you. Okay, great. That was easy. Upcoming agenda review. Uh let's see here. We need to put back on the final vote of the committee policy again for
you. You realize I might die in the interim. Oh, don't say that. We're going to get it done. um on September 23rd. Is that there's is that really all we have for September 23rd, Bob? So far, we also have um an executive
session for um wastewater discussion for property. Okay. And don't we have to put in for a vote on the plastics reduction if we need to? I'm not sure we need to, but if we do, we can we can make that a formality. Uh if you look into that,
Bob, I'm not sure what the um it's it's not needed for a vote because it's the board of health the way we had discussed it with the committee charge. Yeah. That um the select board would take a vote on um the special town meeting
warrant to rescend the current bylaw. That that that would be the hierarchy of the the votes. So that board of health takes action on the regulation, select board takes action on recommending a warrant article that would resend the bylaw.
Okay, then I think we're good. Um October 7th looks a little heavy. I don't know if there's anything we can I'm sure things will come in between now and the 23rd. We have two weeks. So, um if not, perhaps we can
do we have to do the um friendly. Oh, the committee charge. Yeah, that would be I I'd leave that to Joyce to make a recommendation and if she needs an agenda item for that, I don't know if she's had the chance to review it and we should at least have a discussion
on the energy committee as part of the appointment. Yeah, I I Well, Tracy knows my feeling of this. I would just like to see it with more members. I I hate to set an upward limit on a a number that they
have never been so low as before. But well, it's problematic if they can't do their work without a quorum though. So that's that's the problem with that. Um but you know, if we there's any members out there that are interested in serving on on the energy committee, then
please come forward. If not, I I mean, if they can't do their work without a quorum, I think we have we at some point are going to have to act. I mean, they're not a legislative board, so it's not as um you know, crucial, but I agree. I mean, obviously more is better.
I'm not sure seven is, you know, a necessity on a on a board like that, but that's that's your call. impression is is like the proceeding would then almost always be just with three. I think this might end all
attempts at bringing in more people, but that's just my perception from a bunch of conversations with the chair. Okay. Well, that's like like I said, you can bring us a recommendation after you review it and we'll put it on the agenda
when you're ready. Right. Is the board comfortable with that? Okay. All right. Anybody else have anything on the upcoming agenda review? Um, highway warrant back.
I I don't think we need to to we want to start our conversation about the transfer fee and what we might want to to start in in terms of our desires. Does anybody want to discuss that on the 23rd? I think that would be a great idea.
Okay. transfer fee discussion. And we may want to think as part of that discussion, we might want to think about tasking a group or an advisory committee to do to come up with a recommendations for
us, including maybe a draft petition just to sort of move that along. What get this group that we just had in here? Go ahead. They'd be great. All right. Um, all right. If there's nothing else on
that, we will move on to individual items. Does anybody have any individual items this evening that they would like to discuss? Mark? Yeah, I had office hours the other day and a constituent passed on to me a resolution
passed by the Barnstable Town Council. that passed unanimously affirming the town's commitment to the values of freedom, justice, and equality for all. And I'm going to give this resolution to our town administrator and ask him to uh maybe put it in a in a in
a future board packet. Um I think the request from this this individual is is that we consider adopting a similar resolution to the town of Barnstable. So u I'm going to pass that to Bob. he can share that with everybody and there may be other folks that might need to see
it. So, um, uh, constituent office hours, the the there there were a number of things that came up. It was very very busy. I think people are still interested in in what's happening with wastewater and the progress of the project. And I think we we as a board
have talked about um we had a meeting not too long ago um on wastewater. Um, I think it might be good for us to pick a date for a wastewater discussion and then do some advanced advertising, um, you know, in social media to invite
people to come if they have they have questions. We've talked about that before. Isn't there a public meeting on September 23rd? Is there? That's going to be the um startup session with the new contractor for contract number five. So, it's going to be 10:00 a.m. right in this room
September 23. And um we're also going to televise it as well. Oh, that's good. I think that'll be any questions. And yeah, I honestly think that the more information we push out in terms of what we're doing and what's going on, I think the better
off it is for everybody involved. I just um I'm I'm just hearing from way too many people who just for whatever reason, they're in the dark about what's going on. When's this going to end? and this and and to make available, you
know, Ryan and or whoever uh to provide information to people that have questions maybe, you know, some of the big picture stuff because we tend to get in the in the weeds like where are we going to be this week? It's the most important thing, but um people don't know when when's it going to end? How what's the
big picture? So, and even the times and the fact that we have a little bit more information today even from the senator. Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily need to be The push for information doesn't always have to always come through us.
Uh it can be done separately. It can be workshop session or you know want to know the latest. It can be done through DPW or it can be done I'm not I'm not suggesting for a minute that we have to be the board that always convenes these
public information sessions. But I think we should be open to all sorts of ideas about getting information out. So, I think it's just something that we need. I know I know we tend to focus on the traffic interruptions, but I've been asked questions. Um, and again, it was
the office hours are busy, but people wanting to know where what phase am I in, where when am I when when are you going to get to me, that kind of thing. Information about um you know, we've heard about noise and vibrations and stuff like that. Um, but I think
again it's I mean I'm I'm happy to to see us do more, but I don't think it's necessary or it's required. Um, I think anything that we can do to get information in front of people is incredibly helpful. Very important. And to find creative ways to make our people
available. You know, the the the police chief, you know, has coffee with the chief, right? Um or co coffee with the cop. I mean, we can I I just think we should let our imagination go wild a little bit and be thinking about other kinds of ways to make our piece people
available and accessible uh and to continually provide information out and maybe putting more stuff on on on our YouTube channel or our government channel, you know, about what's going on in individual interviews. You you talk about a blog. Um I just think it, you know, I'm I'm as
the senator said, all of the above. whatever tools we have, we just need to keep them fully engaged in helping people understand what we're doing, where we're going, what the big picture is, and and what's happening. So, I mean, that's that that would that's something that I'd like to see. So,
kind of jumping on to that, um having an interesting situation over the weekend for any of you that happen to be down Southshore Drive, it was kind of a going to say it. It's kind of a a wet ride. It was a wet mess. It was a wet ride. And it was not only coming up through
the sewer covers, it was coming up through the tarmac as well. And um people were letting me know that they had called the police department kind of in a panic going, "Is anyone doing anything about this?" Um and the police
department was basically saying, "Well, it was kind of expected. We knew." And uh and my my initial reaction back to that is if if it was expected, then we should have been letting people know ahead of time that evidently it was
something about um if I if I heard this correctly, it was something about that um the contractor had to have water discharge ahead of whatever they were going to do on Monday. So they were sending all this water out. So what
looked like major water mane breaks from all the way from uh smugglers to Pine Grove wasn't that at all. It was something else. Um and the more we can kind of jump ahead of that kind of
thing, the better I would think. Yeah, it's very frustrating because you're dealing with a a contractor that is not very responsible and they they do have approved methods of dewatering that don't involve flooding the whole town. And well, this was this was right in the
streets. The streets were were not only flooded, they were full of mud. It was it was horrendous. It was some cars couldn't get down there. I mean, you know, Liz, your electric car, I'd be really worried going down through that. That's four-wheel drive. What are you kidding? That's not a planned event.
That's these guys not doing a great job. And so it's very difficult. But I'll meet that you bring that up because that's exactly what I was going to bring up. It it probably should be something that should be on the the 23rd on September 23rd at 10:00. It should be re reviewed
as this is what happened and this is that's not having anything to do with contract five. That's completely separate. But I think this that the 23rd needs to be an opportunity for people to vent and hear what what happened down
there. And so the fact that it's it was a surprise to everybody that's there's a little bit of comfort in that, you know, I don't know. I I would think I mean it's all well and good that we're having our open uh you know our meeting on the
23rd with the uh new contractor but I'd like to just see kind of an open dialogue on wastewater not not yeah which is separate from September separate from September 23rd you know one that
that's where the Southshore drive should come up and and all the other things that people are really concerned about I mean it agreed This is all we got. Anyone I happened to when I was getting calls, I ended up going down to Southshore to see what they were t
talking about. My god, that was scary. Yeah. And uh for the for the motel that were along that that location, it looked like it impacted at least three of them, perhaps more. How their guests were getting in and out.
I have no idea. I had dinner at the skipper Friday night and drove down there and it was it was not good. Oh, it did look like, like you said, it looked like a water mane break. They must have been dewatering, but they were dewatering into the street, which
I drive I drive down there every day to check on what's going on just to kind of see how the roads are doing and how it's held up. It's it's again we have to find ways to constantly be accessible and available and communicating and hearing and listening and responding. It's just
again I I don't I don't want us to be prescribing all the options but it's like all of the above, you know. Is there any way that the message boards can come in handy for something like that? I mean obviously the website should have said we can stay here all night and each one of us can come up with a dozen or so
suggestions. point is it's not the most productive use of art. Bob's point is we can only communicate what we know and chances are that that wasn't communicated to us is what I'm understanding. That's right. That's not a planned event. That's just,
you know, bad performance. In any event, I have one little item I'd like to change up if we're Mark, are you finished? I'm done. Okay. I wanted to do a shout out. um Connie Carney um who watches a lot of the meetings,
she noted that we had a question about what are the board of health grants list. She sent it to us. So, thank you Connie for um filling in a blank. Yep. Uh the only other one of the things that I wanted to bring up was um the the
opioid um money. We should have a discussion on that or maybe Bob you can update us at some point in time. Um we can get an update on the the lawsuit funds that we've received and you know the plan for expenditures and
yeah because I don't think we've voted on any I mean there are other boards that are meeting that are acting on directing monies but I don't think I don't think we have. No, I would imagine it goes through it through the board of health that um
also involves the um substance abuse committee. Okay. We can get um an update and a report on um all the money we've taken in what they've got some very creative proposals and they've had an act very active
solicitation for for local programs and services. Well, it just be nice to talk about the total dollar amount now that it's increased significantly and and you know I think I just want to make I personally just want to see if we have like an overall
plan, you know. Um I know it's a one-time kind of funds thing. So, um yeah, if the board of health is managing it, then let's maybe we can have a joint meeting with them to find out what they're doing and where it's going. I think it it's incumbent on us to have
some general idea of what's being done with that money because uh I know in my interactions with other select boards folks seem to be aware elsewhere of what's going on in their town and there's been a lot of front page press lately about what the program great
yeah uh so maybe we can put that on an upcoming agenda just to get an update. Yeah. No, thanks for bringing that up. All right, Bob, do you have any um any more town administrator items? Nope, that's it. All right, so let's talk about the
consent agenda. On the consent agenda tonight, we have the Seaside Festival request for special entertainment license and donations for the senior center. I move to accept the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion on that? All's in favor?
Any opposed? Okay. The only other things we have in our packet areformational items, which is a September blood drive, there's a whole list of dates, um, sor, and of course the town's
hiring. I think that is everything that we have to dispose of this evening. If everybody's inclined, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Is there a second? three people simultaneously. Second. All those in favor?
I. Excellent.