##VIDEO ID:R510SfqgQ-Q## reporting in progress good evening this is to formally advise that as required by Massachusetts General Law chapter 30A sections 18 to 25 and pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 an act relative to extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16 2021 as extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 the armor select board will hold a public meeting on Tuesday January 21st 2025 at 6 PM in the hearing room Yarmouth Town Hall 1146 Route 28 South Yarmouth Mass 02664 the public is welcome to attend either in person or via the alternative Public Access provided on the town website if we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pled alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all good good evening on a chilly night that it is probably one of the chilliest we've had uh do we have any announcements for tonight Madam chair I have a quick announcement uh was we were invited to attend a Dennis Yarmouth Women's Club meeting uh a luncheon and it was terrific and I thought um would bring It Forward because their logo is a bridge fast River Bridge and it is indeed a bridging group and I encourage uh people to look into becoming a member of the Dennis Yarmouth Women's Club and I had the pleasure meeting Carlin Cary who is a Dennis select person so that was also a way of building another Bridge thank you thank you Liz do we have any other announcements for today I do have one announcement that the Yarmouth local comprehensive plan will hold their second community meeting on Wednesday January 29 2005 at 6: pm and that will be right in this room so everyone's invited to come out and have your feedback on the local comprehensive plan wonderful okay no other announcements we'll move on to public comments do we have anyone for any public comments good evening good evening I'm Bob Wilkins I'm chairman of Yarmouth Old Kings Highway committee and I'm here tonight because of the two it the items on the agenda pertaining to the appointment of an architect to our committee and an alternate member of the committee uh with regard to the architect appointment um there are no issues um uh concerning um open meeting law uh uh violations or potential open meeting law violations the only uh involvement that the um yarmus oing Highway committee has with the appointment of the architect is that uh we are um permitted to um participate in the interview process that has taken place however um with regard to the appointment of the architect um the uh the act as as specified in our bulletin uh it's very specific about that and um in on Section Five establishment and organization of the Town historic district committees it states the selectman or Town Council of any member Town May upon the nomination and approval of the committee annually appoint two persons residing in the district to serve as alternate members of the committee so uh the nomination and approval of the committee did not take place um so inorder order to get the horse back in front of the cart um I would request of this board that that um nom that appointment be postponed until the next meeting and in the interim um I have arranged uh through um Lisa Sherman our administrator to put on our agenda for Monday uh the following U item uh vote to nominate and approve John Grady and John Stewart for appointment by the select board as alternate members of the committee uh parenthetically um the John Stewart um nomination was proposed by uh chair um committee person um um board person Liz Argo and U at Mr whitower was present when that occurred so um I think that would um alleviate any potential problems that might occur with or challenges that might occur as a result of the open meeting law thank you can I ask one one question sorry I just want to ask one question thank you Mr Wilkins you said the committee was involved um and participated in the interview were you given um grading sheets no okay all right thank you you're welcome if I understand this correctly you're not talking about the appointment of the architect you're talking about the appointment of the two alternates yes that's correct okay okay um there two totally distinct appointments uh in so far as our involvement is concerned the committee's involvement is concerned so we have no um responsibility to um uh advise where it concerns the architect at all that's totally your purview the alternates are a different situation as I as I just read to you okay thank you okay anything else I don't think so right I don't think so I just might mention concerning committee appointments generally um when the uh select board has someone interviewing someone for a committee appointment um a representative of the committee is welcome to be there but um when you send three members of five or four members of seven with a larger committee that's that's an aggreg violation of the open meeting law so I want everybody on Town committees to be very aware that they're going to have to if they're going to bring a majority of their committee they're going to have to post that as a meeting and if they do that interview is open to the public yeah I'm just a just a point on that um the way it was years ago um when I was appointments Chair say I interviewed for a member of the planning board I did it with the planning board in their public meeting I went there we interviewed together there was always a grading sheet they always gave their grades and and they were averaged and put together and that's who got the position that that is I believe the way our handbook reads um and the way that it it's supposed to be done with a full Committee in a posted meeting but things may have changed since I was it's been a lot of years since I was appointments chair but that's that's the way it it was supposed to happen that was never my experience getting appointed and as when I served as the appointments chair um we would extend an opportunity for the committee to participate in the process as well sometimes the Committees would choose to just nominate the chair of their committee to participate um or they would have a number of members and if it was a majority that was interested then we would do it in a public meeting so that was the practice I think that is in our handbook and that's I I can tell you this that there were some committees that took full advantage of that practice and like I said we have it we have it codified in our in our handbook so I encourage people to read it if they they're unfamiliar with the the way in which we go about interviewing candidates and and I will mention you know since this issue came up last time and it's been some discussion for the board um you know my reading of the old King's Highway statute makes it very clear as Mr Wilkins suggested that alternates are nominated by the committee and presented to us so I think what he's trying to do this evening is to correct that oversight and to make sure that the committee has an opportunity to at least bless this or at least give some consideration and so when we take it up it should be based on their nomination at a subsequent meeting that's how I read the statute in all fairness Joyce I was not given that information I did as you have done and had been um suggested to me when I came on board so somewhere along the way things changed but um I have to admit that uh the process if it's in the handbook then we certainly should be following yeah I mean the handbook is something that we've had pretty much in place for quite some time it's posted on our website it's where the committee information is I encourage like I said I encourage people to read it and I I know with energy committee Mark um we have always had uh uh the um the interviews of new members with a member of the select board and the candidate and the whoever the chair was of energy committee um never with the SEL board is Select board can and send the member to participate um in the past there's been very limited interest in it I think that may be referenced in the handbook I'm not sure like I said I would encourage people to read it so so I guess my thing is is you've never been given the grading sheets to use whether it's a full board or not how do you is it just your is it how do you make recommendations is it just based on your opinion and and this is a discussion we could have at another time not in public comment however we always used a grading sheet the grading sheets were turned into Pam I'm surprised that Pam hasn't given um you those for any of the interviews they should be given there should be a record of how we're coming to these decisions um that's the way it it always was it wasn't just me and and me if it was me and a group of people even if it was the chair of the committee we both rated each candidate and based on the collective rating that's who got the thing it wasn't my particular choice to say this person or that person so when I was first interviewed for energy Committee in 2008 um it was with Jack Howard and a then select person who's moved on uh and there were no rating sheets and I was chair of energy committee for years and we we never had rating sheets and we met with an individual member of the select board and the candidate I when I say we I mean either me if I were chair or whoever was chair well I think what we're hearing here is we've got a policy that has been in place that some of us were not aware of me included and and that what we can do is ensure that in the future that correction is made and as far as the agenda is concerned for tonight we will not be reviewing the alternate positions for the Old Kings Highway and Madam chair if I could just say also the grading sheet method I don't think would be in some ways the most helpful method because you're you're interviewing you're going over background I mean it's it's hard to make that in little one to FES look at the grading sheet first to make an analysis but it's a collective decision it's just like when we when we grade him it's not the chair doesn't get to just say you get a 50 it's based on everybody who's there what's the purpose of sitting with the chairman if you're not taking their their opinion into account you mean as chair of appointments as chair of appointments you're meeting with committee members how how can you go back when somebody argues that you know the board wanted this person you wanted this person you have no proof when I did it I had everybody's grading sheets and the average on the top and I turned them in and this is the appointment I I rate up write up a paragraph okay okay I'm just I'm just saying to help you I think it would be for a town volunteer process we can get overly grish we could but we're also being overly critical for somebody who's now serving the town who we want to remove from a committee so you can't have it both ways I would recommend Madam chair rather than continue this discussion that we take it up as an agenda item and that if members of the board have some suggestions on ways to change our policy and to change our handbook that they present those ideas at that time and so we can just move on with the rest of the tonight's business one last piece of business relative to the the appointments committee we uh are going to Joyce is going to be handling I think you brought this up to Dorcas handling on the appointments committee and I will then step in March 15 15th so we're not sharing the responsibilities as we were originally instructed to do so I want that to be clear too well then what I would recommend again it should come up under our business and it's a board should take it up and vote on it in due order so in the meantime if we're going to make changes on policy I these are all interesting ideas but let's make an agenda item and let's take it up discuss it because this handbook was voted by a board of Selectmen so it's been voted it's been adopted it's our policy we should follow it if we're not going to follow it then let's bring it up put it on the agenda and find ways to make modifications to which we so will do mark thank you I would just point out that there's a member of this current board who interviewed according to the uh procedure that I described with single board member and chair of committee and candidate well I think at this point let's just hold this for a discussion when um we have it on the agenda okay great do we have any other public comment today I see a hand up on the screen Joe Glenn hi madam chair can you hear me I can indeed Joe Glenn uh with a nod to my old Boston Neighborhood uh from saly Yarmouth now um I uh find it very interesting that you are concerned about the open meeting law and just spent 10 plus minutes violating the open meeting law by having a deliberation on a topic that's not on the agenda but uh so be it um I did want to congratulate uh officer or sergeant Tom Hennessy another great loss to our community I I wish him well I always remind people who retired as a retired public servant myself uh that when you're retired you don't get a day off um but uh and I also wanted to recognize uh the other members of the ypd um and uh Chief lenon that's there I see um but those that are being commanded tonight I saw officer renzy and officer nus among them uh but obviously they do a great job and I did want to point out um just as a side not as a school Committee Member but as uh a person who happens to be on the school committee um that I believe that our school resource officers are the best value that we get in the district um what they do for us and the amount of what they do for us is incredible um and I just wanted to personally uh publicly state that uh that that we couldn't have enough school resource officers I want us to be uh the national model for school safety and uh they provide that uh and then some in a lot of different ways from frency throughout the things so I just wanted uh as I saw uh officer Lennon there I just wanted to reassure him that that he's always got a vote on the school committee uh just oted him Joe what's that you just oted him um and um uh I wanted to also commend the uh the mck committee uh that met earlier today it was a jam-pack full meeting uh with not only people but ideas um that was very efficient um and probably one of the best run meetings that I've ever seen um I participated remotely um but it's a a a a great start and you should know that I had told them um that um I will report back to the school committee because there are some overlapping um issues there um but you should know that anytime um the report goes back to you the select board um I will report that back to the uh school committee because I'm I'm not represented on that on that board and nor is there anybody else but as the lia onto the school committee I want you to know that any uh progress or any that is overlapping um that the school committee will be apprised of it and then finally um uh the armor Housing Authority um I am uh always here in public comment or try to be um but uh I had reported out um after one of our meetings I try to update you sometimes the meetings are on the same night so uh uh I reported up when the uh information that went up to the state the RFP went up to the state I immediately reported that to you so I just don't want want ever to be any kind of um miscommunication or thought that there's non-communication uh you can always contact me you can call me you can text me you can do whatever you want uh I'm available um but I want everybody to know on on that board that uh anything that regards the Housing Authority that we can talk about or I can talk about um I will so thanks very much have a great meeting and a great evening thank you Joe okay moving on to um our next item on the agenda um it is with some pleasure and also um I have to admit with some regret that I see that Sergeant Thomas W hesy will be retiring and chief chief Lennon if you'd like to come on up and tell us about this I'll answer to whatever you call me we'll start with uh with Tom Hennessy Tom could not be with us tonight but uh on o oober 11 2024 Tom Hennessy retired after proudly serving as a police officer for over 34 years Sergeant Hennessy began his career with the armouth police department as a 20-year-old summer Reserve officer in 1990 he was hired by the Arlington Police Department then transitioned back to Yarmouth a few years later during his career Sergeant henness he held many specialty positions within the organization such as he was on the mountain bike unit he was on the code enforcement unit he was a Firearms instructor he was a canine Handler and he was a canine unit supervisor he was charge of our proactive anti-crime unit he acted as a patrol sergeant and he was also the alcohol licensing agent or liaison rather so we are all very grateful and proud for the service for sergeant Hennessy we wish him the best in his retirement and Tommy is probably someplace warm right now hopefully playing golf not right now but we uh we applaud his service and we thank him for everything that he did because he certainly made the Yarmouth Police Department proud so Tommy Wherever You Are Tom did send in an email saying please convey to Bob and the board my sincere appreciation for re recognizing my service however I will not be attending the meeting and ceremony on January 21st best regards to you and all of my former fellow town of Yarmouth employees Tom Anese let's hope it's somewhere warm um would any of the board like to share some comments at this point about Tom uh I just want to personally thank him um you know we have had the ability to work very close with him being the uh licensing liaison and uh you know it's not an easy job to do to come and give that presentation um 34 years is remarkable I'm kind of giggling still about the mountain bike thing trying to picture him back in the day riding his bike um but he did a lot he did a lot and he's um he's going to be missed and I'm just thankful for his service so thank you Tommy I always like to see him at the the dump by called the dump I know it's the landfill but it's it seems that's the place I was run into any of the other board would like to share their comments U Madam chair yeah I would uh also want to Echo um uh Tracy's comments as well um the board in the town have benefited enormously by his service and uh we are going to miss him uh he was a was not only a great public servant he did a great job for this community the police department and he was a mentor he was a leader in the community and uh he said a very high bar and a great example so we wish him nothing but the very best he deserves it I did not know uh officer Hennessy well but I admired the work and the times we heard him speak back when I was a member of the public thank you very much for having such a a powerful uh Department with good people leaving um and getting a nice rest and good people arriving I had the pleasure of knowing him for pretty much all that time I think that he was on the police force he's a wonderful man and uh he was a tremendous um asset to the town and I with the licensing he he was um excellent as far as how that was all handled some of the situations could be a little touchy so um Tom congratulations and I hope you are somewhere warm Chief I'm going to have you have a seat because because I have one more thing before I bring you back up okay okay Paul if you'd like to come up please good evening so uh our friend Bruce Barrow has retired and I just would like to share one quick story just to tell you the character of who I knew Bruce was I remember calling Bruce in one of my first days here and saying I know that you work strongly with GIS and you know that's your principal um focus and I said but if you'd like to be more involved with such a small staff we have would you be interested in helping support us with the web and Bruce was the type of guy who just said I'm with you let's do it tell me what we need to do so um after 29 years uh of dedicated service to the town of yth Bruce has retired through his remarkable 29 years of career Bruce played an integral part at the DPW making valuable contributions with the gis he later moved on to join the IT department while continuing his work with GIS he also stepped up to help manage the town's website his expertise his commitment his problem solving skills were instrumental in keeping our town connected and informed Bruce hard work and dedication has left a lasting impact and he'll be greatly missed and I know this because my door has not stopped being knocked where's Bruce what do we do here so uh he's going to be greatly missed by his colleagues and the residents alike um we extend our heartfelt gratitude for the many years of service and wish him the very best in his retirement and he also was unable to join us tonight unable to attend tonight well let's hope he's somewhere warm as well our congratulations do any of the board want to share any comments um well thank you very much to Bruce uh he was a great help to me actually who's a total computer neoy coming on board and uh learning the ways of things and uh we wish him very well and congratulate him for his service thank you Paul and Bruce also kept our website up to date and it was another self-made um experience and qualification that he had excellent thank you very much Chief I'm putting you back up on the seat again our next item on the agenda is citations for exemplary action in response to a fraud incident I turn it over to you Chief to explain thank you so I sent this over to the Town Administrator because I thought it was important to highlight the work that not only one of our Patrol officers did but then getting our detective division in involved and really thinking outside the box so on December 16th officer Jefferson Willis received a call to go to one of the banks in town uh for a a fraud and we handled quite a quite a bit of these but it was a uh one of our elderly residents and somebody was trying to to uh pull the normal scam of hey Grandma I'm so and so I'm in jail I need money so this woman went to the bank and she tried to withdraw a large sum of money officer Willis showed up showed professionalism compassion talked to her uh and then involved our detective division to get involved and then they did some uh outside the box thinking to figure out how can we how can we find out who did this so they they set up a uh a sting for lack of a a better term they traveled from Yarmouth to Worcester they waited for the uh suspected package to be delivered which it was not there was nothing in the package because the we didn't allow the woman to take the money out of the bank uh when the two suspects showed up they placed them under arrest and during the investigation they recovered $30,000 that was stolen from a previous scam in another part of the state so I thought it was important to highlight number one the excellent job that officer Willis did by going above and beyond uh sometimes cases like this they can be handled with a report most of the time with these scams we don't know who the perpetrators are we can't find out who they are so he went he he did a very commendable job with that and then detective Sergeant reny detective nus detective amini and detective rivet took the case from there with officer Willis they also contacted the state police followed the package out to Worcester waited for the exchange to happen and then placed the two people under arrest the uh they were charged and the case has now been turned over to the FBI for further invest investigation so their actions and we issued a letter of commodation and I'll read it says I'm pleased to concur with the recommendations of your supervisors regarding the issu of this letter accommodation for your exemplary actions in response to a fraud call on Monday December 16th officers responded to the Cape Cod Five bank in South Yarmouth to we were responsive of possible ongoing fraud the victim a 96-year-old resident was attempting to withdraw a large sum of money it was learned that the victim was contacted by an unknown person who is requesting $110,000 to bail her son out of jail you along with the members of the detective Division and Patrol Division initiated an investigation tracked the suspects to a location in Worcester your Swift response along with your effective teamwork in handling the situation led to the arrest of two suspects and the recovery of $30,000 so they did a tremendous job so gentlemen come on up and I'll also note that uh officer Willis's dad drove two and a half hours from Western Mass to be here oh wow I would too officer Jefferson Willis we have a commendation for you um for exemplary action in a fraud investigation and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for your role in the successful resolution of the Octo of the December 2024 fraud incident involving an elderly victim your dedicated efforts along with those of your invest investigative team led to the apprehension of the two suspects as well as the recovery of $30,000 from another scam incident this citation is duly signed by the chair of the armouth uh select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 congratulations thank you thank you thank you congratulations can I just say something before uh officer Willis goes away and um not to distract from the other recipients but I think it's very important also to recognize officer Willis um for another event and I don't know if you have this coming up in in the future but he was recognized as a servant officer um this past Christmas time uh over I I'll just read you the the ypd Facebook post uh this week he was featured um with the Yarmouth Police Department in Worlds of the prin principal at station of Elementary officer Willis has been a continual positive presence in our building at the start of the school year there's a kindergarten student that was having a hard time adjusting to school officer Willis would stop by just to check on him and he would take the time in manyi breaks walking around the halls just trying to connect with him and make him feel more comfortable it goes on and on and I'm not going to read it but officer Willis um bought every student at that school a Christmas present it's amazing and he was recog recogniz for that and I think we should recognize him for his um his efforts on that because um what you do um and I got to say it while your Dad's here so I can't I can't not do it while Dad's here when dad's not here but what you do every day makes a difference and um it when I read these stories it makes me extremely proud because that is the meaning of Christmas and what you did for some of those kids was extremely um important and should be recognized and I personally thank you and appreciate everything that you do thank you thank you very much detective Sergeant step Renay uh we have an official Citation for you for exemplary action in a fraud investigation and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for your role in this successful resolution of the December 2024 fraud incident involving an elderly victim your dedicated efforts along with those of your investigative team led to the apprehension of the two suspects as well as the recovery of $330,000 from another scam incident this citation is duly signed by the chair of the yarma select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 thank you very much thank you very much thank you detective Nicholas ambrosini I have a citation for you for exemplary actions in a fraud investigation and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for your role in the successful resolution of the December 2024 fraud incident involving an elderly victim your dedicated efforts along with those of your investigative team led to the apprehension of the two suspects as well as the recovery of $30,000 from another scam incident this citation is duly signed by the chairman of the yarma select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 Detective Jeffrey rivet I have a citation for you for exemplary actions in a fraud investigation and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for your role in the successful resolution of the December 2024 fraud incident involving an elderly victim your dedicated efforts along with those of your investigative team led to the apprehension of the two suspects as well as the recovery of $30,000 from another scam incident this citation is duly signed by the chair of the arm select board at this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 congratulations thank you congratulations thank you detective thank detective Eric nus you're not last but not least you are all fabulous I have a Citation for you for exemplary actions in a fraud investigation be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for your role in the successful resolution of the December 2024 fraud incident involving an elderly victim your dedicated efforts along with those of your investigative team led to the apprehension of the two suspects as well as the recovery of $30,000 from another scam incident this citation is duly reigned by the chair of the Yarmouth select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 congratulations thank you thank you congratulations I would just like to add that uh detective nus and detective rivet were involved in a similar case several years ago where a Resident was a victim of fraud and lost over $100,000 but because of their efforts and working with the FBI they were able to track the suspects down recover some of the money and charges were brought against people in India based on the initial investigation that they did congratulations I have to tell you that from my previous occupation as director of Heatherwood um I unfortunately saw many of these types of incidents and uh one very similar to the one that you're talking about uh with India happened uh to one of our residents to the tune of $75,000 it was um involved with the FBI and uh they were able to arrest individuals in Las Vegas for that one it's horrible to think what people will do to the elderly and um that there is no um no crime in my mind that's that's worse than what praying on the elderly and it's wonderful to know that we have a police force that's ready willing and able to ensure that that's not going to happen in our town thank you very much I appreciate it thank you all gentlemen you're dismissed okay Bob I can take this item in the vein of praying on the elderly they're both online oh oh oh our next item on the agenda is the retiree healthc care benefits request and um I also want to um recognize Sarah O'Reilly our Human Services Human Resources Director who um worked on on this as well and I I just want to called to your attention there is a long-standing policy uh in the town with respect to keep this policy uh you know in um strong um I guess Umstead moving forward uh because you know it's you know not fair to the community if people come back after many years and and attempt to get on that the health insurance in in this case there's a request for two exceptions um which um I I recommend them both and it's for uh longstanding Town employees over you know 27 years um each and well in excess of of 30 with Frank and you know the first one is Carl Von hone and he had indicated his desire to take advantage of the benefits he he didn't meet the one year but it's within um a a year and a half so it's it's close to the to the deadline and he did have some extenuating circumstances of his own um health issues that he was dealing with um and he missed the deadline so that requires an exception um from the select board and secondly is um from Chief Frederickson who um he did provide his notice and he is on the town's Insurance however he has an opportunity as now he's a county official I believe he's on the Assembly of delegates that he can get health insurance from the from the county and um if he notifies the board and if the board accepts he can get off the the town's Insurance be under the county while he's a count a county official and we don't have to pay any of his premiums um as long as you know the board votes to Grant him an exception so when he's done with his County service then he can resume under the existing insurance that he has now with the U with the town and with the notification on these issues the way we look at them the key is to know exactly you know what's going on in every case if um you know these are people usually that we deal with um you know there are fewer and fewer of these long-term career employees that spent their entire career with the town of Yarmouth and provided exemplary service so um based on the the the service and the extenuating circumstances I I don't think um Sarah feels any any differently I hope I didn't I'd like to make a motion that we approve the uh two requests from both Frank Frederickson and carvon hone on the exception of uh the health insurance coverage second discussion yeah Madam shair yes um I I support these as well but my question is really about the policy of informing employees before they depart so that we won't have this happen again have we corrected this have we fixed this I don't think there's anything to fix there's nothing so well I'm reading in Carone Hon's message to us about lack of notification and so I just want to make sure that going forward I I don't I I don't want to Hash over what may okay so there's a disagreement there but rather than engage in that we're just going to okay yeah we reminded him and I think he acknowledged that okay but for if I were an employee of the town would I get some kind of written notific how does that work could you explain that notified uh upon your retirement or if you're if you continue your insurance coverage at the time may I ask you Sarah to come on up to mik thank you if a retiree is is on health insurance upon retirement then it continues if they choose to go off of the Town Insurance either at that point or at any point in the future they're notified of that policy do they like sign a release or acknowledgement or something like that I know when when I was in federal employment sometimes when there's separation you there are things that you at least acknowledge having a receipt of the uh the policy something that we in this case he was notified via email by email so there was and okay well that's get a signature yeah no I I would recommend like I said I you know I work for many years in federal government and uh sometimes it was just to cover everybody uh I had to sign that I was notified of this and I put my signature on it so it just provided an adequate degree of assurance that um I was given full notification of whether or not you know uh I wanted to continue on with any benefits or right I was forfeiting my right and I understood that I had so many months I I just recommend if we could do something like that that might be yes again the these are two individuals I I have no I have no quibbles with their service to the town or they're they're totally deserving I'm just trying I'm just trying to think going forward taking an added step of typically I meet with every employee before they retire with the town and I go over all their benefits with them and and I don't want you to think the checklist that they signed so yeah so they do sign a check they do sign did not because there were some extenuating circumstances where we were corresponding via email but yes typically that is the process thank you you're welcome does anyone have any other discussion okay although I'm sorry I would I would just say that I'm very proud that the town of Yarmouth is sees these extenuating circumstances and is reaching out to do the right thing so once again I find myself proud of being on this board thank you okay no further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed unanimous thank you thank you very much thank you Sarah since we have a little bit of time I'd like to read the uh citations for um they're not here with us tonight but I think that it's fitting that they should be read into the record I'm going to start with um Sergeant Hennessy the town of yarma Select board official citation be it known that the town of Yarmouth hereby recognizes Thomas W Hennessy on his retirement as police Sergeant effective October 11th 2024 and for dedicated service to the town of Yarmouth and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for over 34 years of tireless service as a police officer in the armouth police department he held multiple specialty positions one of which was alcohol licensing liaison for the yarma select board this citation is duly signed by the chair of the yarma select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 another round of applause for In Absentia for Tom I also have a citation of from from the town of uh Yarmouth select board official citation be it known that the town of Yarmouth hereby recognizes Bruce R Barrow on his retirement as GIS technician effective December 13 2024 and for dedicated service to the town of Yarmouth and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for 29 years of tireless service in the DPW engineering Division and most recently in the information technology division this citation is duly signed by the chair of the Yarmouth select board on this 21st day of January in the year of Our Lord 2025 I think it's amazing two extraordinary employees spending um a lot of their time with us and devoting themselves to us and the town's a better place for it thank you very much said our next agenda item is not um until 7:15 so I think I'll take some of we can take it it's there's no Public public involvement in it's just us in that case I'm going to turn the chair over to our licensing chair thank you so this is a letter what in the packet it uh basically codifies our decision uh the decision was sent to uh the abcc without enumerating uh the rationale for for our decision in in any case whether it's for or against um a decision the items need to be outlined and it wasn't so we were fortunate we had a hearing before the abcc we were allowed time to be able to outline our decision and um so this is for submission do you need a motion yes I move that we enumerate the decisions in the uh Yarmouth mini Mar decision there's a um if you could just uh amend it to reflect the letter that's here dated uh January 2st 2025 so amended um that's in our packet tonight that outlines uh 10 of the items in our discussion that that uh it well I just think we need to make sure we point to this as what we're submitting so I move that we uh enumerate the the um the issues the findings and as per the letter from Ravi Patel dated January 21st 2025 and send that along to support our decision perfect we don't need to read the um findings of facts into public record okay is there a second on that motion there's a letter two not from Ravi Patel this is from Ravi Patel no this is two this is to Ravi p yourd yep from we're writing a just so that folks aren't confused about this we're writing a letter to Mr Patel outlining uh an amendment an amended decision identifying the findings of facts oh so this has been okay I that's the of that's a proposed letter that we as a board have to approve so so your your your your motion is intended to approve this letter and finding a fact so I move that we uh um approve the letter that is addressed to Ravi Patel dated January 21st 2025 that enumerates the findings of fact to support the decision Excell second second any discussion on that motion all those in favor I I opposed okay thank you very much moving on on to our next item on the agenda is our budget discussion um first up we have the fire department I turn this over to Jennifer and to Bob and the chief and the vice and the deputy chief so the Chiefs are here and they have a a presentation on their budget and and hope to um answer questions I want to acknowledge Jennifer Mullen our finance director who has been um just very instrumental in the whole budget process and working with the public safety departments um we know this year in the fire department there is a strategic initiative to increase the Staffing um in the department that will require an override for us to pass so um we are very anxious to um start are real specific budget reviews following up on the budget Workshop that we held at your last meeting to to bring in the the fire department and actually we've got Public Safety night this evening to um lay out these issues um take a look at some of the the facts and um hopefully answer any questions the board may have see we're getting good at the PowerPoint here getting better you know I took your advice although I don't like having more and more fire pictures well I'll start with saying I think I already got to win because I get to go before the police chief so I'm pretty happy is this you chief who's who's doing is this you is this your production yes it is uh no so before before I get into the details of that I just wanted to kind of summarize I appreciate the time uh and the audience here for us to explain what we're trying to do um you know two and a half years ago I sat in the same chair kind of getting ready to talk to you guys and and with a you know a whole initiative of making a a positive change for the arm with fire department um so two years in uh with some with some help here from Deputy Smith we're uh we're working really hard to achieve a lot of the goals that we set forth uh we also did a strategic planning process uh last year when uh when I had first started to identify the needs of the department what we needed to do uh and kind of chart a path forward so uh I appreciate all that and uh kind of this is kind of where we are now and obviously don't take lightly having to ask to do an override to to fund our initiatives but I just kind of wanted to give you the background as to how how we got to where we are today uh and certainly please ask away at any point for any questions that you might have so uh last year uh I came before you and asked for eight firefighters uh to start because I knew we were far behind where we needed to be uh uh we had done a lot of analysis over the last 20 years as to our call volume and our staffing and our models and how we do things uh and I identified uh and I presented to you that we've been making some incremental gains and I I appreciate all that I think uh the fire department appreciates that the town appreciates that but we needed to take kind of a bigger bite of the Apple at some point to catch up for what we've been doing um so last year uh the board although it has changed a lot since then uh we approved a two year plan to increase Staffing by eight firefighters uh to get to the shifts to a total of 18 Personnel so last year we hired four uh and what we're looking to do is hire an additional four this year to get to that number of 18 uh our call volume continues to increase steadily uh a 3% increase last year we did just under 88,200 calls um which is an average of about 22 calls per day between the three fire stations um not just addressing call volume uh we also have a lot of other issues that we're trying to address within the fire department uh one of them obviously being uh burnout injuries and employee morale I know we're looking at kind of the fire department as a whole we have a lot of strategies we're trying to accomplish or goals that we're trying to accomplish at the same time Recruitment and Retention is a big one uh and as you compare us to other departments uh in size and statistics and the call volume that we're doing we need to increase our call volume in order to avoid these negative impacts of overworking our employees uh the model uh that we've had here and sustained for too long of using call back to respond to subsequent calls is uh is no longer a viable option for us um I know that talked about this before the workforce has changed dramatically over the last couple of years uh we don't have a living radius in town obviously housing is an issue so we have a lot of employees who aren't here and available to respond to subsequent emergencies uh we're relying on a very small group of people that have been doing it for 20 plus years of coming in over and over and over uh working their regular shifts working overtime and then also coming in on on their days off to response to emergencies whether it be during the day or in the middle of the night um and obviously those lead to long-term issues for our employees um and most importantly it it has an effect on our response times and our ability to meet Staffing standards for response types and what I mean by that is you know it's not just getting a firefighter or two firefighters to a call um based on the emergency that we're going to we have uh standards of what we need to get to a call in order to be effective in that incident and mitigating that incident whether it be an emergency ambulance call or a fire or a motor vehicle accident a technical rescue call whatever it might be um you know sometimes the statistics can be a little bit misleading cuz yes we are getting people to the call but are we getting enough people to the call to actually make a difference and that's the important part um we've done a lot of analysis over the last 20 plus years on the fire department uh we've had a lot of analysis but very little action um and that's that's kind of where we are um the last just going back to 2002 uh we had a Consulting Group come in and do an entire analysis of the fire department uh that analysis led to a 2003 override uh and Staffing full-time the West y with fire station uh that was back in 2002 um at that point they recommended uh the minimum Staffing of six at headquarters which we just accomplished last year in 2024 um and it also at that point recommended in addition to our Command Staff based on the size of the fire department so that was 2002 2011 uh the department and the select board went through a strategic plan analysis to look for the next four years um at that point a it was recommended that we move to 18 per shift which is what we're trying to get to now um it recommended moving the shift Commander into his own vehicle which is another goal that I've obviously brought up a few times uh and and also uh had recommended uh a full-time training officer and a second Deputy Fire Chief and then uh in addition to that had also recommended a supervisor in dispatch I know dispatch is a whole different issue that we're kind of moving in a different direction there but uh just kind of showing points of of uh you know that they were looking to expand at that point in 2018 they had another study done by The Matrix Group um again recommended in uh restructuring to have a training officer and also restructuring of the entire Command Staff because of the size of the department and the ability to to handle the management of the department uh it recommended some additional day positions to off to offset daytime call surges which I know was brought up I think during public comment the last meeting about trying to manage when the calls come in but honestly that was those positions were recommended to be added after meeting the minimum requirements of 18 um we do have a a slight spike in call volume during daytime hours between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. uh but honestly at this point we're at the point where we're not we don't have enough Personnel to manage the calls during the 24-hour period you know subsequently it'd be great to address those issues but we need to start with getting to 18 uh the biggest issue that they identified during that study was the concurrence of calls um 70% of the time we're doing more than one call at a time um and what that means is either Station 2 is empty Station 3 is empty or headquarters is empty or there's times where there's nobody in town because we haven't gotten any body back on call back so that's the importance of having or understanding how we're if we're doing two three four five calls at a time you know we don't have the Personnel to respond and if we at that point which has happened we get a major incident like a structure fire or anything bigger like that we're behind the aball from the beginning and the other thing that leads to is not meeting response times uh because a lot of the times the responses are coming from out of District so you're responding to a on Yarmouth Port from the hospital from South Yarmouth from West Yarmouth so your response time that are already because of the size of the town we have an average response time of six minutes from anywhere in town obviously some are shorter some are longer but six minutes is a long time and what happens there is if you're already responding from another District that's not your first two area you're adding to that time before you can get to a call and then uh just last year uh we had another consultant come in and do kind of an overall picture uh of the fire department uh we already knew we had holes in Staffing and other issues so we kind of focused on the other areas that we thought we could make an impact and a lot of that had to do with leadership and administration of the fire department which we're working on as well our organization and Staffing and our professional and career development I think one of the biggest things that we are as a group you identified during the last process for fire chief is that there hadn't been enough done to plan for the future and to get some succession planning done so you identified your Future Leaders within the department and prepared them to take those roles on uh it just simply wasn't getting done so Financial strategies over the last 20 plus years um and one of the things that are really important to point out that we're at this point taking $2 million out of about a 2.8 almost every year we receive just under three million in ambulance receipts from the ambulance calls that we go on so just under three we're spending 2 million of that to offset our salaries uh every year for the last 20 plus years we've done some ambulance fee increases I think the last one was done in 2023 just before they hired um again this is a uh a strategy that's difficult based on our demographic uh because a lot of our demographic aren't paying uh private pay insurance so a 100 150% % increase in ambulance fees only results in like a 10 or 15% increase in actual receipts so it doesn't it's not a great strategy to increase or it doesn't quickly solve your problem certainly any any increase would would lead to more income but it takes a while to make that up uh overtime funding has in effect decreased over over a 10year span um the overtime has uh gone from a uh fiscal year 16 request of just over a million 1.1 million to last year what we were asked for was 900,000 now certainly that's not a huge decrease but at the same time if you look at the increases in Staffing um you know it's it's kind of a uh a strategy that's been told yeah if we hire these many people we're going to reduce our overtime but as you as that number starts to creep up you also have obligations to to train people to give them time off whether it be their regular acrs and then there's also a lot of uh every year requirements that they need to do to maintain their certifications and they it cost money to cover them to be off in addition to that we've also had to uh we're trying to accomplish a lot of things at the same time so we're also trying to do some Community Education and other fire prevention type initiatives and those things and you know it there's only so much they can do on shift so that requires a lot of backfill or having people come in off duty to to meet those requirements and and they're important to get out into the community and find out you know get back into the schools and do a lot of things that simply just kind of fell off the radar over the last 10 years so we've been pushing those back and doing that so in addition to that it doesn't take into account the uh the raises that uh collective bargaining raises the obligations that come over time so that number actually decreases every year as their salaries increase because the overtime rate goes up so uh in effect we we have done a very good job of of limiting that overtime increase and I just wanted to point out again the last override for fire department Staffing was in 2002 and that's when they opened station three full-time and hired 12 so over the years uh we have in just the last couple of years seen an increase in a commitment to to increasing our staffing but if you look backward uh back in 2012 we were at 14% shift uh and then we went a 7year span without doing any increases in Staffing so from 2012 to 2019 uh at 2019 we we moved up by 1 to 15 and that was accomplished through a safer Grant through the federal government and then for the next five years we had no increase in staff um so from 2019 to 20124 there was no change 2024 we went to 16 and 2025 we went to 77 and our request now obviously is to get to 18 per shift in 2026 um the important thing to point out as well is that that entire time the minimum so this is the the number of 14 15 and 16 those are our uh our total members per shift but our minimum Staffing to start the shift has remained at 11 uh just until last year when we increased it to 12 so we were at 11 members just up until 2024 four just wanted to point out those numbers of concurrent calls because I think it's critical to understanding what's going on uh in the town so only 25% of the calls occur as a single incident at a time the rest of the calls are all happening uh either in groups of two three four five or even more uh and it's more and more often uh as we move on uh I know that there's a a thought that our our increases are really only during the summer months and honestly it's not true at this point uh we do see a slight increase it's about 10 to 12% during the summer months of June July and August uh but for the most part our calls are very steady uh and we keep an average of of that 22 what what you see in the summer months are more occurrences of our 30 40 40 plus calls in a day so so y 18 um other than obviously just meeting our daily uh call volume uh what this will facilitate is finally getting that uh that shift captain or the uh the shift Commander into his own vehicle and off the piece so that he can manage the three stations and all the all of the department functions um contractually Our obligation we have three members off on vacation uh on a daily basis and we average one line of duty injury uh per shift uh throughout the year uh just based on on historical data uh and then that also leaves you time uh for a person either to be out sick on personal time or on training so by 18 uh it leaves those five spots uh for for what you need to accomplish and as you can see that the distribution of personnel with 13 uh at start of shift would be seven at headquarters three at Station 2 and three at station three uh so also embedded in our uh in the override is is an increase in the Command Staff or a change I I think I'd rather refer to it as a restructuring the uh the EMS officer is also our training officer and has been for the last 10 or 15 years uh when that function was created uh it was a great step forward from where we were uh but the department was also a lot smaller um and had uh less administrative requirements to to accomplish what they have to to do uh that job now handled by one person uh he's doing a great job and uh you know he's doing it now and and we had a the the people that have filled that role before um requires an enormous effort to get that work done uh they do a good job but we can do much better is basically what it comes down to uh and what we don't have is the ability to you know follow up on the training and make sure that things are getting done correctly and things are are being accomplished at The Shift level so both of these roles are handled right now by one person uh like I said the workload is is really prohibitive of them doing it effectively um there's an enormous increase in continuing education requirements uh for all our EMTs and paramedics uh they increase annually um they have to do obviously as our call volume goes up they have to do more uh quality assurance and quality uh control of our ambulance calls and make sure that that's done correct uh he also serves as Department's Infectious Disease Control officer uh which obviously uh proved vital during covid and all those things but continues to this day um and then uh attempts to to participate in community education uh has to order all our EMS equipment and our supplies and then on top of that uh is doing our uh our annual fire training plan for the Department uh which we have annual fire training standards for for uh the different things that we do so uh there's a lot there uh and basically what happens is it ends up falling back on the shift to try to make sure those things are accomplished and to find out if we're actually uh getting them done and what's what's falling behind there uh is you know individual training plans and being able to follow up with our employees to see if they're getting things done the way they should uh and accomplishing the goals that they set out to do so that uh that's the main piece by by providing uh the deputy Fire Chief and I'm sorry that's really small so I'll read it to you um so the uh there was a lot I was trying to fit in there the uh I can obviously send you a copy of this so you can look at it later um but uh the goal here would be like the two the two ones on the right is to to split up the EMS officer and the training officer uh what it would allow to do is the EMS officer to accomplish a lot of the things that he's trying to do now but do it better uh and also provide an opportunity to to possibly provide a lot of our annual uh recertification training that we're sending out for and paying for at The Shift level um there's also some parts of our strategic plan and parts that we've been trying to move forward with uh some other initiatives uh such as Community param medicine uh firefighter wellness and accident iny prevention that we just haven't been able to to even start thinking about so we could start moving on in that direction uh then the deputy uh could do uh more training and emergency preparedness it could develop manage and forast daily Department training uh you know devise manage and forecast individual training and personal development uh and follow some standards and make sure that that it's getting done um and that's the big piece is completion measuring the completion of the training uh and making sure that's all correct and done succession and mentoring plan development you know engage in uh efforts with uh Community other communities and departments to develop Regional initiatives uh and and then uh basically move a lot of the the more higher level roles to the assistant fire chief uh where we can get some movement done on our strategic planning or grant writing uh you know some oversight on fire prevention fire investigations and Community risk reduction um you know our station and Fleet Maintenance uh the deputy can attest to is is almost a full-time job um we have over 35 vehicles and three fire stations um it is an enormous undertaking to make sure that all of that is up to date and working correctly um probably a huge part of what he does on a daily basis and and managing that is uh is a lot so the uh I said we can talk more about that but basically it would allow projects the time and attention that they need to to make the difference uh we have a Command Staff that's spread really thin with meeting requests and town initiatives or you know staying in the office and being able to get things done and we've been multiple attempts over the last 20 years to try to delegate areas of authority between the different shift captains that are there and it just doesn't work because when they they they work their shift work they're here for the day and then they're gone for for the next group of shifts you can't follow through with tasks and make sure that they're getting done correctly so you need somebody who's there every single day to make sure those things are getting done correctly um and then you know a lot of these Studies have also shown um that by having the the training officer not be uh a part of the Command Staff uh it leads to some logistical issues where they have to defer a lot of the issues to the Chief and deputies so they end up coming to up to us anyway whether it be giving somebody time off or you know closing a station for for a couple hours to accomplish a task or whatever it might be it's hard for them to manage that as a lieutenant when they're working with their shift Captain so it they ended up having to defer a lot of those decisions to us um so we've had a substantive increase in management with all the additions in personnel and all the IND individual training requirements so just a a financial breakdown of of where we are right now with that with that override um that top number being the biggest of 293 437 which is the the firefighter salaries um um that second uh position of the assistant chief and then uh the other thing that we tried to incorporate because it really has never been done before is the actual hiring expenses when we hire new people a lot of the times we just try to absorb that in our operating budget and ends up us making us fall behind so that includes our physicals our background checks uniforms uh the health insurance component and their retirement assessment so that gets you to that total of 617726 that's my Spiel U comments Mark sure thank you thank you for that um that presentation I'd say that's probably the best presentation on the fire department budget that I have seen in my years as selectman so I want to commend you both and I'm sure Jennifer had a hand in it so the team put together I think a very good presentation and we're getting a lot of Insight a lot of background information uh it's incredibly helpful so thank you for this this this terrific presentation um you know and looking back I I think one of the things that I I I I should sort of want to get out on the table for people that might be watching and paying attention to this is that um you know we have as a community you know made these assessments that indeed we need to make changes and we need need to make increases in Staffing but part of our problem is been that financially the town has struggled you know during those time periods that you're looking at um you know I can recall over the years the town really struggling with finances um and the difficulties in dealing with increases in the schools and sometimes the unplanned uh expenses that came in from from the school department so U the fire department I I felt that always seemed to get the short short end of the stick so to speak when it came to dealing with some of these challenges and the town overall for many years has found itself in a very very difficult financial situation and I think um you know we have now found ourselves in in a stronger situation that's not to say that we're um I I don't I don't want to say that we're in a terrific situation but we're in a much stronger financial position and I think we've been gradually making improvements um along the way to sort of fit within the financial resources that we have so I I think you've done a great job I think you've laid out a great plan and um I'm fully supportive of it and I think we're headed in the right direction I think this is this is one of the reasons why you know um you know we wanted to bring you on as chief chief all right and why we why we're so thrilled with uh your number two and U together as a team you guys have really done together you guys have done a great job no I appreciate that Mar thank you yeah so I I very much appreciate it so I'm very supportive of the budget I'm very supportive of the override like I said I think you've laid it out you've made the case I wish we could have made those improvements financially before but we just financially we're in a in a very difficult bind but to today we're at a point where we can make these Investments and uh I think we're doing it just right so thank you madam chair thank you Tracy I agree it's been it's been tough because you know we see the same information we're really in a bad position to be able to make those decisions but um I'm concerned this year as well with the school budget and how it could impact what we have but I mean the reality is um you know with the increases that you've shown and being able to do what we've done is really remarkable um I'm interested in that six minute response time how that has what that there's an industry standard sure um and I'm and I'm wondering if we've I know we've kept track of it over the years for um insurance purposes to make sure that we're within a a number um but statistically how these might help because every time we think we're doing something to help we're really okay so 2002 we needed 18 yeah do we need do we really need 18 now or we're just really kind of like we're we're bridging a gap uh no and and honestly if if I could ask to be frank is is we need more but uh what I'm trying to do is is ask for the appropriate amount so it actually happens because we need to make a move need to understand that and we're not looking for really where we need to be we're really looking for where we were we we should have been probably 10 years ago and I think it's um you know I don't know how we can't mention what's happening in California you know I mean that's a that's a complete disaster and um if the people don't recognize the importance of what our fire people do from from watching that I know I I certainly do I do every day but um that just changed a complete Community yeah and um you know I like the restructuring of the admin I think it's something that um we could do we we should be doing because I think some of those things I'm I'm always looking to where we can invest money that will save us money right so if we're if we're doing these programs with training and development you know hopefully we're keeping our people because the training and new hires are very expensive right so we have as you mentioned you know perhaps a morale issue you know one of the things that we have a hard time dealing with is the fact that we're so busy and when there's other departments that are hiring you know where are people choosing to go they want to you know make more money and do less work I mean it's really it's really hard so to to the extent that we can train them and develop um develop them and and try to keep them I think um will be great and if we have a training person to be able to do that I think that's important to a lot of people I know it was important to you and um you know I think a lot of the guys there um we we always said you know we've been very fortunate that our bench was deep on the police department very deep and they did a really good job with that type of training so I'd love to see the same thing in the fire department you guys are working towards it so I just these numbers here aren't within your budget now right no they're not in the proposed budget so I just have a couple questions about the actual budget sure they they are reflected I think in the in the proposal are they I'm not sure if they are because when I look at uniforms and clothing yeah not the the bottom ones the the salaries are so the so the the Personnel the firefighter and the assistant chief is in this uh recommended $8.4 million budget but not the expenses is that true sure come on up to a microphone Jennifer sorry I just want to make sure no it's fine um no you bring up a good point I just wanted to tell people my thinking when I was putting this together is that yeah the salaries are in there I did extract that because there was a lot of discussion on because it's because we have other costs in the operating budget not just the four firefighters so I extracted the cost just to show them um of what it would be and um so I did take them out because I envisioned this as like a separate town meeting waren article so then I would extract the salaries out of this as well um but that's kind of why I did it I could have probably left it in there um but I wanted to show the the expenses what happens if one article what happens if this budget passes and then the the the the override doesn't pass then you still we still have a budget that raises an appropriate the we're allowed to spend the money so yeah I would I would take out the I would take out the salaries from the operating budget that was the way I was thinking of it I I was super focused on trying to show um you know the actual cost of a firefighter that you know I I did it that way okay um but no we would take the salaries out put them in a separate town meeting Warren article okay good all right so but for purposes of this um they're in the top part so the 6.38% increase includes includes the new for personnel exactly the salaries include the Personnel the operating budget doesn't include the um doesn't include the physicals the background checks or the uniforms because physicals they can be in another budget you know um sometimes it might be in human resources or background checks um so that's kind of why I did it that way and then obviously the health insurance you have a separate line item for that I didn't put that in there because you don't know what they'll sign up for health insurance and then retirement assessment um that was just a calculation that we use when we calculate the indirect cost because in your retirement assessment you have a portion that's um your assessment then you have an a portion of an unfunded liability and so um the other thing I wanted to point out you could make you know the argument well the physical background checks and uniforms those are onetime costs right so why are you putting in an override while it's continuing um so what I'm I've done in the past is um just so we can show the costs and not put it in the budget because the budget's kind of tight what happens is once that passed that goes to those expenses the first year and then I flip them usually to the retirement assessment or if you need um more in health insurance so when I cost out the health insurance it was like two at individual two at family and you never know what that can be so those costs can be rolled into just the wages are going go a minimum of 2 and a half% that that right there will be eaten up just in wage increases exactly so okay okay um thank you that makes more sense I guess I'm looking at the line item for professional and Technical up the 35% um and I just wanted to see what what was in that uh the big portion of that is a uh a yearly uh promotional exam that uh typically cost an area of 10 or 122,000 uh that's never been in our budget before and we've kind of been taking it from old articles and and making it work but that's a a yearly contractual obligation that we have to do a Lieutenant's test one year and a captain's test the next year okay um and the ambulance and billing fees that's just the percentage of what you collect going back to to the company that yeah that's just a natural increase as the call volume goes up the the fees to for our billing company go up so we've been uh just trying to push that up as our call volume goes up okay um I just have to say I watched the school committee meeting on Monday night and I was very impressed and proud um with your award that you received from um the partnership Community Partnership for the pathways to Independent transition program that you guys were involved in I think that's a great thing and um I'm just proud of all the work that you did there it was it was great to watch yeah no they uh they they did a great job honestly they they kind of took that ball and ran with it and uh did a great thing for those that you're willing with everything that you have to do to um to have somebody there to be able to work with these students I think is extremely um important and much like we said earlier about officer Willis um checking on that child till he felt comfortable the same thing happened with you guys and um some a a a student who had been around and then when when they actually had their fire drill at school they knew what to do and they weren't scared and it was because of the work that they did so I mean those things really pay off a lot and that was great to hear thank you I appreciate you mention it thanks those are my only questions Joyce oh thank you um I would like to say that I totally agree with what Tracy said about fire being very much in our minds I happen to be in Los Angeles um from January 7th to January 18th and it was a terrifying thing and seeing so many people um crowded into downtown Los Angeles because the areas that they live in were burning um because of that I think that's why the protective clothing item on the uh emergency uh Budget on the back um jumped out at me um have there been changes in technology and have protective clothing gotten better in say the last year or two absolutely um basically right now one of the big thing that that has been identified is paa um that they're they had in the gear they're now finding ways to remove that through new technology uh making the gear better more protective and now also posos free um so it's better for the firefighters but every year that goes on new technology comes out as far as our Airway um SCBA breathing apparatus our turnout Gear helmets basically across the board so of course along with that goes cost you know cost will go up with new technology so but um our firefighters are going to be in in the best gear that we can give them so so we should expect that category probably to go up slightly every year uh technology yeah and we also do a uh a yearly uh out of our Capital uh every year in the capital budget plan we'd put money aside every year uh to replace gear so that's probably why you don't see a big increase there uh that has more to do with uh when uh contractual agreements for for uniforms and for uh as as firefighters stay for a longer period of time uh they get a a Class A uniform which is like the dress uniform so after they've been there a certain amount of times we For That Uniforms seem to be page one right separately um categorized can I just say something about that I know there was a law passed recently in terms of um the Pas gear and I I believe right now that that full technology isn't available but when it is I think as soon as something is available that has um has the appropriate defense that doesn't have pest we should be ready to act at that moment because pest causes cancer and and that's the reason why the law is passed and I I think as soon as possible we need to do everything we can to make sure that we get them uh turn out gear that does not have some of that technology was coming out like the end of December um and we've been trying to uh work with the fire Union at this point to try to um work in a timeline when we're going to be replacing the gear so hopefully it's looking like this spring do we have a cost on that complete uh we replace you know only the gear that's 10 years old at this point so they'll get a new issue of gear um for those firefighters that have met the 10year mark personally I'm just going to tell you my opinion we should look at that as a as a community if it's available and it doesn't have p in it I think that we should we should speed that up I don't think that they should be wearing the the no and they did a great job passing that law uh the the issue with it is that they passed the law and the technology is there I understand I'm just saying we as a community me personally priority will vote yeah okay and I want it to be known that as soon as it's available I think we need to make sure we have that budget available whatever the cost may be to move as quickly as possible one of the things that they're dealing with right now is um when they remove the posos the internal temperature of the gear goes up so it makes our firefighters overheat faster uh so then we have to worry about cardiac issues and all those other things that go along with that so it's trying to find a fine balance between the exposure that they're getting to the cancer stuff and and you know all the other health issues that go along with it so as soon as we can do it we're going to pull the trigger on it and and make it happen so excuse me mad shair Deputy could you just repeat that comment again you're saying that this new equipment increases temperature or am I did I get that wrong no they are having um breathability issues with the new gear uh because what they're replacing the posos stuff with is increasing the temperatures of the gear so firefighters if they're in the in the gear for a long period of time they actually raise es their internal temperatures which has been shown to have cardiac side effects and things like that so um that's why we're working right now trying to get the newest gear that comes out increases the breathability of the gear and takes the posos out so we can get the best set of gear we can for our firefighters um and hopefully that's going to be just a few months away no I appreciate that and I agree with the selin post that we should make this a priority but I also appreciate the fact that um you're doing your due diligence and making sure that we end up making sure that we don't create other problems and that we get the best gear we can thank you I'm sorry Joyce Joyce um I just had one um final remark which is that uh um in your narrative it seems to me that the idea of um a tighter connection with plugging in um training staff more directly into admin makes makes sense in terms of efficiency I appreciate that thank you Liz yeah um I I appreciate that was a great presentation being a PowerPoint star myself um so I'm a little bit confused though with after the discussion about the protective clothing and the fact that the newer stuff is imminent and it will be more expensive have you budgeted then for it or we've been working towards that with okay so there's not this is going to be adequate yes yeah and then I also wondered um why and I might have missed it the increase in repair and maintenance was for something specific oh that's also on the page to jump yeah EMS operations sure yeah go ahead um so basically right now at this point um we've been struggling to do annual maintenance on all our apparatus to get them into a position where we're not replacing broken things all the time so the annual um that annual maintenance is hopefully going to help us get ahead of some of the repair issues that we're having so um by spending a little bit more money to to help with our annual maintenance and take better care of our equipment hopefully it'll last a little bit longer and cost us a little bit less in the long run I ask one question about that are we still having to take them off Cape or do we have somebody coming to it's it's a combination um a a lot of the uh missions things and computer issues software issues and things like that have to go back to a manufacturer um so those are off Cape but we do have uh several good mechanics in the area that we've been working with that have been coming to the Firehouse to deal with the things that we have on a on a weekly basis um so but yeah there are some things that we're still traveling which cost money yeah it costs money expensive do you have a mechanic on staff no ma'am no we've been uh relying heavily on on like the deputy mentioned some some local some local talent uh to get stuff done but um it certainly isn't uh inefficient operation at this point and like I said with 35 Vehicles you know boats fire trucks pickup trucks ambulances you know uh just in the last week we've been moving vehicles to Walpole to Plymouth uh all over you think there's a value in a in a regional situation uh it's definitely something we've we've talked about uh we've talked about maybe trying to incorporate something with uh with Jeff Colby at DBW as at least maybe like a townwide but uh the issue it becomes the certifications that you need to to work on emergency vehicles are very unique to emergency vehicles so and it requires annual recertification in classes and schooling and and that market is very uh competitive for salaries as well what do the other communities do do they have to bring those off Cape as well um for some of the work they do some of the work like he said is unique to the manufacturer but uh uh at least looking uh to our West and barnable they have uh they have their own mechanics that are all certified to work on those Vehicles the town of harch has um Public Works people that are signed off and have the certificates to work on Emergency Equipment so they do that in town that's something we should look into Liz yeah so and I'm catch me up the status of moving the Comm Center from Main Street to station three where's that at um it's actually uh so it's moving the direction it's it's they're looking into is a regional dispatch which actually be in the town of barnable um so it's not going to be a a combined dispatch within the town it's going to be a regional effort with a Barnes sandwich um and arm believe some issues for you certainly certainly uh yeah the the it's forecasted to to certainly provide uh the town some savings over over some time nice um do you have any idea why the annual call increase I mean does it is it track directly with population it doesn't sound like it um no I mean it's it's something that we discussing today you know over over the last whether you call it 20 25 years obviously there's been uh a a you know a commitment to provide services in the town whether it be uh nursing facilities uh elderly care elderly living assisted living um and then some of the housing uh projects that have gone on have all increased our volume uh significantly over time and it's something that we're very concerned with or want to be involved and I I know the deputy met today uh with the madaky committee over over thoughts or what they want to do there because all of that just drives uh you know calls for service for for both police and fire yeah I I am guilty of calling 911 or at least calling the no not 911 but calling the fire station when the smoke alarms I when we first moved into our house could not fix the smoke alarms and uh twice we called the fire department and they came in all their gear and I was mortified but is that still happening if I did it I'm sure there are other people no yes it happens it happens all the time you know is there anything we can because that's is there anything we can do to to fix that is there a lay person who can be there to handle that and uh relieve your fire officers from having to make those calls you know it I I volunte most of the directions are on the back of the smoke detector so if you can get them off the ceiling to read the back it'll explain right what's going on so but it's a hard thing you know obviously there's been increased regulation with Co calls specifically and and we don't like to just say oh it's just a battery or it's just a bad detector we like to come in and we meet her to the house no matter what because there's been times when we go for you know what you think is in you know an unsuspecting or a non issue and it actually turns into something oops so so do you think this 18 shift people per shift is going to hold the town of Yarmouth for very long or I think you were indicating it's going to get us caught up and then I'll be back no it's uh yeah I think it's it's a step in the right direction it's not it's not it's not the the complete solution all right those are my questions and I'm very grateful that we have such a crackerjack fire department thank you Chief I'd like you to take a moment if you could for the sake of the public um education here when you're talking about calling 911 and you hear medical and it gets transferred over to the fire department what happens at the fire department when that call comes in well if you take us through it sure what a call so immed obviously the Call Comes in through uh the police department gets transferred to us uh at the fire department when it's a medical call uh immediately the uh the dispatchers are making a determination as to what's actually happening at the house and uh you know first and foremost getting an address so we know where to go um and then determining the level uh of what what's happening whether it be a heart attack whether it be shortness of breath whether it be a traumatic injury um once they have that address uh they have a a a goal of trying to get that truck on the road uh so they're simultaneously assigning that call to a vehicle whether it be one that's on the road or one in the station uh they're doing that while they're actually looking at uh what they call EMD cards which there's an emergency medical dispatch so they have some protocols that they follow based on the call that's happening so if it's a shortness of breath call they'll flip to that you know most of them probably know it by heart but they'll probably look to it anyway uh and give them the appropriate types of questions that they need to ask get the information that they need uh like I said they dispatch the vehicle once the vehicles are on the road uh they continue with Medical Care let me stop you for a second you've dispatched a vehicle how many fire officers do you have in your vehicle uh three three uh one officer two fifers typically yes so three personnel okay yeah sorry sure sure so they uh so that while they're in route the dispatcher uh the fire alarm operator is continuing with uh what you call emergency medical dispatch providing medical Direction uh I know we've had examples in here of of our dispatchers doing CPR with uh working through CPR instructions or helping them with their you know their medications or their EpiPen or whatever it might be uh and unless it's at a nursing care facility they typically try to stay on the line with that person as long as they can uh to give them the direction they need uh obviously unless they get another call where they have to jump to that or if they can stay on they will until the uh the Personnel arrive on scene and take over care okay so now you have three fire Personnel that are on scene sure and then are going to assess and let's say that this person now requires hospitalization what's the next step sure so uh you know what we are are depending on the on the call uh you know we typically send uh we like to send on a high Acuity call for example would be two paramedics and one EMT um so they will make an assessment of what's going on with that patient do a full medical uh analysis of of exactly uh what interventions they can make immediately and what uh they need to get the person to the hospital to so they'll they'll make in an immediate determination what they need to do uh they can start IVs they can put somebody on a cardiac monitor they can uh give them medications in the home uh start treatment uh while they're transferring them to our stretcher in the ambulance um and then continue uh if they need further medical Direction they can call the hospital right from the ambulance get medical Direction based on on what they're presented with uh but other than that they're following a protocol list of of what they need to do uh treat their patients and then uh then move them towards Cape cot hospital but that's an ambulance that would be taking them to the hospital but the first vehicle on the scene might not necessarily be an ambulance isn't that correct yeah there are times when we do have to send a fire truck and it's typically either uh uh if there is no other ambulance available or if it's coming from another part of town and we if we do have staff for that fire for the firetruck we will send the firetruck so they can start making that assessment of the patient okay and if if they're off to the hospital average how much time before that ambulance is going to come back to you and be in service uh it depends on the time of year I guess uh so uh I'll say average uh hour hour and 15 minutes um it depends uh sometimes uh you know cap cot hospital is uh you know very busy in the summertime and it the turnaround time is is not so much the uh the interaction with Hospital staff it's more so actually having a physical place to put the patient when you get to the hospital uh whether it be a bed in the hallway or a bed in a room uh and then there's other uh parts that typically unfortunately slow us down in replacing medications or equipment that's only available at the hospital after we get appropriate signatures from whether it be a nurse or a doctor especially in the case of Narcotics we have to have the complete uh report done before we can do an exchange for Narcotics so sometimes that takes a little longer so you're talking about concurrent calls and here we have one call that's come in to 911 that now is probably taken if you got an hour hour and 15 minutes at the hospital you still had to get there you had to assess the patient and you had to get them so you're probably talking that that one call is counting for about up to two hours of time um I I would say uh I'm including the time of response and assessment at the house um you know obviously a call in West Yarmouth uh at a nursing facility is going to be a little quicker than a call in in yarmouthport or on the other side of South Yarmouth depending on on uh on where it is but I would say on average about an hour uh sometimes I think a little longer depending on on what interventions were done and now if a second call comes in while you're doing this with this individual what then happens it goes to the next station it does it does so all of our districts are broken in based on geographical area or broken into the initial like first due area and then depending on where that call is it'll either be say if it's if it's station one in South Yarmouth depending on where in South Yarmouth you are you'll either get station two next or or station three from West Yarmouth depending on where you are if if we're lucky enough to have a second crew at headquarters obviously it'll come from there but or else it'll come from one of the outlying stations and at this point are you calling in to other towns to assist you if you've got two stations that are uh not with two stations no uh like I said we're we're fortunate that we have uh um you know on most days we can handle four calls simultaneously before before having to call Mutual Aid um it dep obviously depends on those calls and what they entail because sometimes you do have to rely on call back Personnel from home to to make that fourth call actually happen uh but we do uh we do you know rely on our mutual Aid Partners uh you know as as much as they rely on us we rely on them and that's why it's really important uh like we talked about the the maintenance budget and those types of things was we need to keep those trucks on the road all the time because right now we have a truck that's in Plymouth getting a um a turbo and the engine replaced and that takes one ambulance out of out of service to to be responding so um you know our annual maintenance budget is really important to make sure that we can keep the things on the road uh get the ambulances and the fire trucks on the road constantly so we can deal with these multiple calls all the time without putting all that extra strain on our mutual Aid partners and the captain on the shift wasn't that Captain going to the hospital with the ambulance uh right now uh several times a day yes so it's just it's not your Captain's out for an hour at least yeah multiple times a day multiple times a day yeah and then that's what takes our you know the chief and I our attention away from what we're doing that we have to start focusing on the operational part of the the fire departments we can't you know so cuz they're tied up we need to pay more attention to what whatever else is going on in town so thank you I just felt that was important for the public to know exactly what the process is Bob thank you uh we have a another concern that we'd like to bring to the board um with respect to the Recruitment and Retention piece uh that's not showing up yet in the in the town's budget but um obviously we're continuing to survey the wages throughout our region and there's been a lot of movement in public safety and and frankly with some of the settlements and things of that nature we're we're seeing that um you know we are concerned about the potential um that we may fall behind in terms of the um wages the specific area uh is in the paramedic um level and you know we have um some issues there and I know that we're going to be scheduled to come in for a briefing um with the board at your next meeting I I think is February 4 um so that we can share some additional uh data and you know review potentially um some strategies uh in that respect as well but I I wanted to bring that up it's uh issues that may um you know come in future collective bargaining um settlements things of that nature that aren't showing up in our our budget um but their concerns we're working on and uh you know the the data is coming in um you know fast and Freer so um we'll be we'll be here to provide a full briefing and some more information and and continue those budget discussions uh at your next meeting as well can I just ask one more question I'm curious as to the um Finance committee's it it looks to me like there was $411,000 in requests for EMS including um what you've spoke about several times here your repair and maintenance budget you requested 44 they only approved 35 again with a vehicle maintenance 84 they approved 75 um and in protective clothing you requested 128 and they approved 18 was there a discussion with yeah okay yeah anybody yeah I just want to be clear this hasn't been reviewed by the finance committee this was the recommendation of the Town Administrator and so when we were going over the budgets um you know we had to cut down on the requests you know every Department a lot of departments had higher requests and this was something that we worked on we wanted to show obviously what the need is but we weren't able to fund every ask and you'll see that in the police department too so some of their requests weren't recommended we had to cut back a little bit but when we looked at the expenses we felt that they'd be able to operate at this level great I just think that we should be putting a a heavy emphasis on things that are preventative so um you know I I always think you know personally I look at things that what you spend money on now like vehicle maintenance saves money in the future and you know obviously we I'm not going to repeat the protective clothing situation but I feel pretty strongly on that and you know uh having an employee with cancer doesn't cost us any less money money so no points are very very well taken and and I I think what we're trying to do is work with the Chiefs to take that um longer View and you know as an example I mean there's almost in the EMS operations alone it's almost a 20% increase and what what we figure is that um you know it's difficult when you're talking about the entire budget you've got every Department the requests come in literally millions of dollars more than we have in prop two and a half what we try to do with some of the I mean obviously what you see here when you look at these types of numbers we've clearly made the fire department uh an extremely high priority uh we can't erase you know some of the sins of neglect over a long long period of time in one single year but what we're hoping that we can do is to continue to make progress to have significant gains in um over a period of a few years we're hoping that we can get exactly where we need to get if we can't do everything in in one year but um your point is extremely well taken I mean uh it's the hardest thing that we do it's why um we're so glum over the holidays because we're we're facing that we just routinely have millions of dollars in legitimate requests more than the revenues that are available to support the budgets and when we um you know request these overrides and things we try to make it just the most important things so it's a little frustrating um all the way around but I I think when we work together we collaborate we try to make progress and not just stall it we've been talking predominantly about the um increase in Staffing but are there other particular points that you want to bring up regarding the budget for 2026 uh you know uh on honestly I I think uh what Mr ritar just said is is we're trying to make some incremental increases little by little uh and we've been fortunate uh to to get the increases we we got I I think um you know along with Staffing the the vehicle maintenance is is really become an an overwhelming part of our of our operating budget and uh is if you uh you know a long-term strategy is is again I guess it does lead to more staff is is a mechanic is something that we need to we need to solve that issue inhouse because we're we're spending weight more than we should uh sending every every piece out every time we need to do something uh but uh we're we're doing a fairly good job of of staying within within our uh within our operating budget and trying to make the increases I I think focusing on our staffing right now is is the the most critical piece so that's why I'm putting all our attention there we do have some capital budget items that are coming up that you will satisfy some apparatus and things like that I thought you were going to say We'll curl your hair maybe that too but you feel comfortable with this what you're presenting today with recommendations from the Town Administrator I do okay is there anything else that you want to share with us today uh no thank you very much for your time and the opportunity to to present our case and uh you know we we very much appreciate the support uh from from the community and from from all of you uh you know the the men and women of the arm with fire department uh are committed to doing a great job and they do an awesome job every single day uh so I think whatever we can do to support them and their mission uh is critical to us and I appreciate that thank you thank you and um do any of the select board have any other comments or questions before I just have a question about the hospital having uh the trauma at some point in time I know it's not budget related but I'd like to see how that impacts us as a community I'm very happy to see that but I don't know how it changes your work but that's a discussion for another day sure yeah it's uh we can get into the weeds in that later and that actually that prompts a question if we just quickly when when we have a medivac where does that how does that affect your costs does it if if you if the helicopter is involved bringing it in somebody into B no it it doesn't affect us no it's uh y we're very fortunate in the members of the that we have serving us in our fire department and um particularly in the presence of the two of you here tonight so thank you very much right thank you very much for your time thanks Chief and now we're going to discuss the police department this could be really quick oh do want PA's trying to do a lateral transfer over there or what yes trying to recruit the new member for his former retiree no no problem here goes your job there you go Chief and overcome good even evening good evening so this is the the presentation that we submitted to the uh to the Town Administrator so I will run through it real quick and then we can go through the uh the individual budget items if you have any questions I did not I I apologize uh I thought that this presentation was going to be pre-loaded so this is the one that we submitted uh a while ago okay we're seeing it for the first first time right so our mission statement is the Yarmouth Police Department is a proactive police agency dedicated to Excellence by ensuring quality customer service for everyone we Ser serve through teamwork accountability and Community involvement so recap of the prior year uh Recruitment and Retention challenges uh like everybody else we're dealing with that at one point we're down seven officers uh I am happy to report since July we have hired five and two are graduating from the academy next uh next month and two will be going into the one's in the academy now another one's going into the academy in the beginning of March and we just hired an officer back he had left to go to the State Police that didn't work out so he came back and that's actually going to be a significant savings for us because he's already fully trained so it's going to be the deputy is working with Lieutenant caretti to put together a an accelerated a training program recording in progress to get him back on the road as quickly as possible uh some other uh issues that we've run into increased uh increased training requirements mandated through the municip municipal police training committee so one area that we're we had to work with is they've increased the amount of hours for taser training from three hours to four hours so every officer now needs to attend an extra hour of training and there's a cost to that uh the company axon has also increased the price of our taser cartridges we used to buy training cartridges at a much reduced rate than the than the actual cartridges We Carry On The Road they caught on the police departments were buying the cheaper cartridges to train they've eliminated them so now every time we deploy a cartridge it's $497 wow and every officer needs to shoot deploy two of those to remain certified and our new hires have to have to deploy 10 oh God to be certified and it's an 8 Hour training uh we continue to have a high Bond of mental health calls substance abuse calls domestic violence calls for service so we've spoken before about the the worth is not the right word but the uh the services that our mental health uh clinician provides and our two domestic uh violence Advocates provide to the community are immeasurable so a budget overview uh I'll just go right to fy2 it's asking if we are in track we are not uh and the reason we're not on track is our expense budget cannot handle the increase es when we have to hire new people so I've been working with the with the Town Administrator on trying to find a funding source but for each officer that we hire their physical exam is $1,200 the psychological is $400 the academy fee is$ 3,200 and then the equipment that we buy for them if it's a uh someone going to the academy we spend about $2,000 on their Academy gear and then we have to buy them their initial issue so as I said previously hiring the amount of people that we hired since July none of them were Academy trains we have to put them through the academy so it set us back quite a bit there's also a program that we purchased called DTS which is to manage the the details we saw uh before the Wastewater project was implemented we saw what the other communities were dealing with so we purchased a program that allows us to allowed us to change the way we were we were filling details so we're leveraging the technology that program is $8,000 a year so that came out of our budget as well but we are working with the Town Administrator and uh the finance director to find a way to pay for that moving forward but that without that program we never would have been able to fill the details and keep up with the volume of work right now with only two contracts going we're fill filling approximately 10 to 15 details a day so we're we're it's it's quite a quite a lift for the Department to handle that uh FY 26 uh the request that we got uh we didn't get everything that we asked for and I truly appreciate the amount of work that the Town Administrator and the finance director have to go through to to to balance the budget but when we don't see an increase in some of our expense lines it's actually a decrease because I can point to a couple areas where our software maintenance programs have gone up the cost of of just regular supplies our our expense budget covers everything from tissues to ammunition to windshield wipers to oil maintenance on the building and and everything in between so it's difficult to to manage it when they're we don't have an increase we actually take a step back but again we sat through with them we made our pitch uh the deputy and I as best we could and we understand the the issue that the town has with there's just not enough money to go around so we do the best we can with what we have and I think that we put out a pretty good product so changes in the budget uh 3% on that line uh additional funding that we requested we sat down and we went through a laundry list of items that we think that we need moving forward uh one of the things that we do similar to every other department is we have to try and project what's coming next and the things that are affecting policing now are technology driven so we now have a detective his sole job is working on technology we've been lucky where we just got a grant from the District Attorney's office for $220,000 to PE Buy piece of software to unlock cell phones every crime that is committed almost every crime that's committed there's a cell phone present so we need that data so we can track the criminal find the evidence on the phone that we need and then present it in court and it's very timec consuming and it's extremely expensive but we've leveraged that technology that's how we figured out who was with the the two people that passed away in the Anglewood Beach parking lot we're able to use license plate readers and other technology that we have to track those criminals so it's very important and that's one area where law enforcement is falling behind because it is so expensive the training is is very expensive but Jeff rivet has been working with the Secret Service and he's in a program every time he analyzes a phone he sends them the data and because of that he's had free trips to I think it's Mississippi and he's come back with tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and software because he goes down there he does the training and then he he follows up with the Secret Service so we are working in every aspect that we can to make sure that we can keep that going but at some point those funds are going to dry up and I'm going to have to put a presentation together and figure out what we can do to to uh to start working to bridge that Gap because it is so important and every single crime that we have significant crime the first thing they do is look for the cell phone people do not go anywhere without their cell phone and we use that to track the suspects so additional increases to uh maintenance agreements our CAD program which is our IMC software for dispatch that goes up about $1,500 every year uh different organizations at the deputy and I belong to mass Chiefs International Association Chiefs of police Southeastern Mass Chiefs the cape Cloud Regional law enforcement Council they all go up every year and those small incremental increases they just start chipping away at the at our bottom line the academy we pay for now for new hirers it wasn't something that we did before and then just um training fees we investing in our employees is one of the most important things that we can do that's how we keep people here that's how we keep them interested and that's how we develop them to take the next step whether they want to become a a detective or do some sort of specialized investigations not detective related like a proactive anti-me officer or become a supervisor we've identified that we need to start working very early on in their careers to keep them interested people become police officers because they want to be busy they want to be out there serving the community but at a certain point they also start looking at what can I do next and it's it's a compant upon us to make sure during the evaluation process during day-to-day conversations that we sit down and we talk to them and say what can we do to help you move forward it's on them as well to to seek out training and and find their Niche but what can we do it makes them a better officer makes them more well-rounded it also improves their officer safety we sent officers to deescalation training in July uh we sent an an officer to uh a drug enforcement a drug training where they would find HD vehicles and then what we we request is that they bring something back back and share with the Department we do not send people to training that own have benefits that one person we look for what's going to serve the the greater good so when we send people out one officer might go but they're expected to come back but we've seen a a marked increase in the training cost to send people to these classes a class 10 years ago that was $129 is now $199 and what's difficult for us is when we tell our supervisors when you sit down with your with your uh your subordinates and you're talking during the evaluation process and again daily conversations what do you want to do put in for training it gets difficult when they come back and they say I'd really like to go to this class and we have to do the same thing we have to look at it we have to break it down and figure out where we can spend the money so we did ask for an increase in funding for training classes uh but again we know that there was limited funds can I just say one thing Chief um just one thing to to Really emphasize the training and I don't I I don't want to just keep on going but the emphasis that we put on training is also going to significantly decrease the liability to a municipality um the two biggest things that police departments get sued for are failure to train and failure to supervise um I just priced out use of force Summit which is kind of the industry standard in our area for um what's going on in use of force use of force protection the appropriate amount of force um that law enforcement uses we're under I mean it's no secret to anybody that we're under huge amount of scrutiny these last few years justifiably so but we want to make sure that our our sergeants have that training and that ability I priced out what it would cost to send a sergeant or two sergeants to the use of for Summit it was well over $2,000 and that's just the class in of itself was $1,000 the the cost of training just Contin used to go up and we we need to provide it for our supervisors as well as our Patrol officers so some additional challenges we know that we have a couple more retirements coming up they may happen before July 1st but we know that they're they're pending uh overtime shift coverage instructor certification another thing that is a tremendous piece to our department is the the level of instructors that we have at one point and we're probably still there her department and the probably the South the region we've had no other department has had more active shooter instructors than we have we have seen a we've seen a a uh a pattern of officers that were instructors on the or members of the SWAT team that then Rose to become field training officers and then supervisors you give an officer that extra training it gives them more confidence on the road uh so we could have a we could show up at a call and you could have an officer who's tactically trained and a supervisor standing there and sometimes a supervisor will rely on that officer because of the the additional training that they have with retirements we have lost some of our Seasons instructors when Chris Capal Bianca retired he was a Firearms instructor so we lost him Sergeant Hennessy was a Firearms instructor but due to some of the changes with the nptc the cost to send somebody to training is astronomical the training may be free but getting somebody there is very expensive we are sending two officers to become defensive tactic instructors we have not had a defensive tactics instructor on our department for probably 15 years we are sending two officers to a 12-day training in the middle of the state but it's very important because we have not trained in the use of pepper spray in quite a long time we have not had our own training in the use of a baton our taser training it meets the minimum St uh requirements of four four hours a uh a year so we're hoping to have these officers come back they can be then become subject matter experts when an officer is writing a use of force report or dealing with something we will then have that that that knowledge that that we can bring bring back to the department uh a Firearms instructor they have to go to about a 12 or 13 day class to become a Firearms instructor and we pride ourselves with having a very robust training Cad and again that goes to the employee development it gives them something else to do versus coming into work and getting in a cruiser and driving around and handing Radio Calls it gives them something else and we give them projects our instructors have to develop the the training and they have to have the training objectives and they have to uh have it passed by uh through a lieutenant to make sure it's meeting our standards and then what we do above and beyond that increased uh expense cost for programs association dues I already covered that uh loss of grant funding we've mentioned this before but we used to get a $440,000 grant that has gone away uh for drug investigations but we do have an officer that's assigned with the DEA task force so we do get some overtime for that we've worked on a couple cases with the DEA and they will give us certain amount of overtime uh to work those cases uh potential costs associated with post certifications there's one thing that the peace officer standards and training is working on right now is coming up with a process to recertify officers and things that are on the table right now would be a physical fitness exam and a psychological for every single police officer every three years W so that is still in in the still in the discussion phase and what we have found out is that the way the post was developed the post Commissioners have the absolute right to put forth whatever mandates they deem necessary there is input from groups like the Massachusetts uh Chiefs of Police Association the different uh unions have input but the way we're looking at it right now that could be implemented and if it was implemented we would have to figure out a away to pay for and it goes a through H and then the next chunk and then the next chunk but we have officers that are being recertified as of July 1st and if it was Implement implemented at that point each officer would have to pass a physical fitness exam and have to take a psychological and right now a psychological is $400 per officer so these are things that when we are looking forward trying to project what possible expenses could be coming these things are are are looming uh coming forward and then um you know the loss of the SRO funding from the school district that was a big hit to us uh and again I I've said this numerous times I'm hoping that we're fully staffed so I can keep the the level of of the services up at the school where it should be so recommendations uh we through the deputies uh the deputy took the the bull by the horns and ran with our Recruitment and worked with Nick giamarco and other officers within the within the department to put a recruitment team together that has gone out to the different colleges for the uh for the the job fairs uh we have worked very hard with the Town Administrator and with the with the Union on the the signing bonus thank you we haven't had anybody take advantage of that yet but we're hoping that's out there we just recently worked with the with the petroleum Union to to uh give a lateral transfer up to five years of credit for Service and bring them in at a higher pay rate and then also give them more vacation time because we we can see what the landscape looks like chadam is ahead of us with their their signing bonus Provincetown is ahead of us with their signing bonus and barnable next door is coming out of civil service and the next they keep saying six months they said that six months ago and so we're not really sure too sure when it's going to happen but when it does happen barnville is going to be a a force to be reckoned with because they have a their contract is better than ours their benefits are a little bit better than ours it's a busier department and we could see some younger officers jump and go there because they also have a signing bonus so we've stayed um our efforts with recruitment have been very diligent working with Lori uh the communications aspect of it of putting uh putting it out on the radio so really hoping that we can attract some qualified candidates uh increase funding to cover investigative programs I mentioned that a little bit but we are we are in a world where technology drives everything now every case that we work on has a technology component to it so we need to figure out a way to move forward in the past we've used the New England State Police Network which is up in Franklin to analyze cell phones we've used the state police we've used the Secret Service but you know you can only go to those Wells so many times we have to have in-house expertise so we can work on cases the the tragic car accident that we had where with the the young child was killed over the summer we Ed technology to to trace the the vehicle that the operator was driving we looked at his phone to make sure that he wasn't texting we look we look at the vehicle to see what what was happening immediately before the accident we use technology as I said before on locating the individuals that were involved with the uh the two uh young men that passed away at Anglewood Beach it is something that is that is here and we have to address it because it's not going to go away and it's only going to get more difficult we are behind the times with technology law enforcement is always playing catchup and and this is a perfect example of where we are um increase funding to cover employment uh employ development I spoke about that a little bit as well uh earlier we really need to look at what we can do to get our officers to more training get our supervisors to more training and similar to the fire department if I take somebody off the shift I have to replace them on overtime and it's just a cost that we just have to uh we just have to figure out when we're fully staffed we have a little more flexibility to take somebody off the road and it doesn't impact uh our our bottom line but that hasn't happened in a while and best plans you're fully staffed you take somebody off somebody calls them sick or somebody puts a vacation day at the last minute and then what didn't cost anything now cost something so but we work with that as best we can and uh that's the presentation so I apologize if I went a little quick I didn't know if I was short on time but um if you have any questions or I can run through um the memorandum that I sent down to the Town Administrator just outlining some of the the changes that we hope to see in the future we know that we can't take a big bite all at once uh we would love to but we know that that's not possible but there are things that we are looking at forecasting in the future of ways that we can we can stay ahead and not fall behind yeah Mark um thanks for the presentation while we have you is there any update you want to share with us on the regional um communications center excuse me I have not heard anything so I will reach out to uh to Chief Burke or chief chalice I know that the next step was to apply for the next round of grant funding yes so that would be the application would be going in in now due March 1st for funding in July last I was told it was on track but I will find out that would be great yeah no I I also want to encourage our newest member of the board Liz to um find some time and uh maybe with your assistance get a tour of the facility on the Southshore some of us have had the chance to get up there it was quite an impressive on the south Shorey XY yeah there's a regional CER yeah there's a regional communication Center there and they're doing it was very impressive and it gives us a sense of how things will operate here so I would put that on the list of things to do and uh sounds good and uh reach out to go in a vehicle with police the siren I yeah they might let you play with the siren Tracy you're a special case I am a special no but I I would highly recommend it because I think um you know this is the future and and uh I think this is going to be a first class operation here in the cape that you know we've teamed up with barnable and sandwich on and uh you know those departments are incredibly well-led and uh I think we've we've got a good collaboration going here and like I said it was impressive when we got a chance to get up there and and see what they were doing with respect to the budget I don't have any questions I think you pretty much answered everything on my mind so thank you thank you Tracy can you thank you can you flip back to the um where there was a question I had about the post training um and I can't if I see it I don't uh I'll start from the beginning go that way well I guess I guess just generally speaking um you know it's right there it's the second from the bottom okay certification mandates um just generally speaking um with the environment that we've been in and the inability to have a full staff um you know I've feared for a very long time what's what's happened in our society and um you know what's the limited amount of people who apply and what what's essentially happened because of that is we've had to reduce our criteria and that to me you know you talked about town liability it's always been in the back of my mind because you know I know law enforcement from Florida who basically is is at the situation where right now they were there 10 15 years ago and um they have very little training and it's very reflective in um I guess the the lawsuits that come to the municipalities and and so on and so forth so um you know it's if we're going to to be dropping our criteria I think training is extremely important um we have a very uh amazing Police Department don't get me wrong I'm out I'm out saying that it's not but it's just it's just um seconds matter and I think I learned that many many years ago when you had the live fire training here and I was able to participate in that and the scenarios that they went through and the literally Split Second decisions that are life or death that need to be made is something that training you can't have enough training to be able to do that and a lot of the things that you talked touched on um to do with with training and I you know um we need to make sure that we have the best trained staff that we possibly can I think the technology um we we've been talking about that cell phone reader for some time um what what is the cost of something like that to have our own technology if to throw a just curious 60,000 a year per year per year because what it is is you're buying licenses you're buying so the the grant that we just got from the District Attorney's office is if you have an iPhone that is locked you only you only have certain certain amount of times you can try and unlock it but for the phone it becomes a brick it's useless now with this with this software that we have we can so Jeff rivet not we Jeff rivet has the ex the training he can plug it in and whatever software that we have but it's very expensive it unlocks the phone and then we can extract the data and when Jeff extracts data if you so if we're dealing with a with someone that commits a crime and they take a picture and then they delete it it's never really gone right so he is a technology to go in and pull the pictures off of the phone or take the cell data and we can he can map it and we can show that the phone was at a was at a certain spot so if somebody says I was not in that area we can say well your cell phone was and you texted somebody 5 minutes before that or 30 seconds before that so you were with your cell phone so you actually were there so that technology is it's still evolving but it's there's different pieces too so sellbrite is one piece of technology that we have and that's how he dumps the phone and then you have another piece of technology that get you into the phone is this something that that regionally we can do is this something that the the county can do or the um the sheriff's department so that we we're we're all not we're splitting the cost of the 60,000 60 60,000 so the answer is we could look into that but right now so i' like if uh I'll just make a department if Brewster has something they may have to send their phone off to the state police and it could take a couple months to get it back where we can do it immediately so we would have to have quite a large funding source to do that because once we started to do it everybody's going to do what we're doing and it just it's it's a very expensive proposition and it's it's a per seat license so it's so Jeff has it and he's the one that can work on it you only for the $20,000 is only so many times so many phones we can unlock and then we have to go back either using the state police or the Secret Service so it is it is challenging but it's the direction that policing is going because everything now and it's got to be at our fingertips I mean we have to be able to to to do it so there's got to be a way that we can all put our heads together and find a way to be able to get a something that's a sharing resource perhaps um I don't know but it would be it would be something I'm I'd be interested in looking at and I think that if we could split it or maybe we bought the software and we were able to charge other communities I'm not sure how that would work but um it just just seems like like you said every everything that you do has to do with with a cell phone so um and back to your recruitment part uh we did lower our entry standards so we we didn't lower we were we we took out the piece that you have to have an associates degree so now we're looking at anybody that has a high school diploma or a GED or military and if it's military it has to be an honorable discharge uh but what we have put in place is a mechanism so that we we have one person that we hired great life experience uh had a couple things come up when he when he was in high school and just couldn't finish high school and he got his GED went to college that really didn't work out and he started working he's had a great job for quite a many years we partnered with a company that does a certified aptitude test so he had to take that test so we could we could show that that we were investing in somebody who had the the the qualifications the educational qualifications they could move forward and we do a very rigorous background check and with anybody that we hire it's you can only find out so much and sometimes things work out sometimes they don't but we saw an opportunity to hire people that had a little more life experience who could come into the job a little bit little bit older uh but with more life experience and they could bring a different perspective to the job years ago it was either military or somebody right out of college or you know with an Associate you know coming out I was like that that way had my associates degree and I immediately jumped on a police department at 23 years old you know we can hire somebody who's 30 or a little bit older they have that extra bit of of life experience so when they're dealing with these calls where now Everything is Everything involves the escalation everything involves talking through a problem and then our goal is with these people that we're hiring is start steering them through program a we can offer within the department but just push them there's an educational incentive so you don't have your degree now go back and get your degree it is much easier now to get a college degree than it was I think life experience is great and my comments really weren't negative towards any of those people it's just it's just in lie of some things training is like the constant right the it's it's life experiences I think help with a lot of those things too more than a college degree would but seconds matter and that's I I always go to that I know what I was going to say about the post training um you said they have to have in the in the new law they have to have um physical and mental evaluation how where does that leave um somebody who's a I mean I can only imagine um working with your union through this as what happens if something comes up after 10 years of service what what can you possibly do at that point in time I mean I'd imagine that there is a whole remedial uh process that would happen for somebody that maybe would be out of physical um Fitness but um you know then you get into the mental health thing I don't I mean what what do you foresee that how do you foresee us being able to accomplish that those are the conversations that are being H uh had at the higher level with the chief's Association to bring up the fact that say What happens if somebody doesn't pass right so what happens if if somebody has had a traumatic experience in their career and they might have PTSD and they're getting it treated but they go to a psychologist psychologist says no you're not fit for for Duty anymore what happens we we don't know we also don't know what happens if somebody that can't pass the physical so there you have to pass a standard to get in the academy there is no standard once you're out of the academy so for various reasons people get out of shape people get injured they can still do the job but we don't know what that physical fitness exam is going to look like if it's even going to be a PT test it could just be a a physical exam we don't know that that dialogue is still ongoing but that's something that we wanted to bring forward and let the Town Administrator know because we don't have a say in the matter we do to a certain extent but they are they are driving it and they're the ones that are going to make that decision so there's a there's a been a lot of dialogue but with some of the other decisions that have been made through the post commission we just we have a seat at the table but we don't really have a voice so the Chiefs are pushing very hard to make sure that there the the message of what the impact is going to be on the organizations uh is getting across and the cape Chiefs delegate just met with Senator Seer uh the other senators and representatives and we brought it up at our meeting with them to put it on their radar to say hey this is what's going on and we mean we may need your help if they start going in that direction where they're going to say every single police officer has to be re when they get recertified they have to pass a psychological and a physical the effect that that could have on law enforcement it's hard enough to get people today but if you get somebody who's towards the end of their career and they say I'm not going to go through with that and they just retire we could see mass retirements and those are the things that we're bringing up to say look you have to we we want highly qualified police officers to do the job job we want people that are mentally fit we want people that are physically fit it's a very demanding job we dress the deputy and I dress like your average police officers we wear body armor we wear full Duty belts when we come to work because at any given time we could be thrown into a situation we're held to the same standard as a patrol officer when it comes to our annual inservice training all of those things are great but when the unfunded mandates start coming out and there's no there's no relief and there's no assistance that's when it becomes very difficult for us what's the implementation schedule there is none because I haven't decided what they're going to do because the next group actually not the next group the first group of recertifications which is a throughh if your last name is a throughh is July 1st so what we do right now is there's a questionnaire that they have to fill out and then I have to sign off on their good moral character and then we send it up and they're stamped uh when my certification comes up the Town Administrator has to sign off on it and then it goes up if they make a change to that and we now have to implement physicals and psychologicalscience to us when we tell you if you put a in place it's going to cost this if you put B in place it's going to cost this so that we can we can prepare for it right um my other question is you had mentioned uh earlier about the academy you said at one point in time it it's being paid for and that stopped who was paying for it and why did that stop the recruit we the recruit used to pay for the Academy okay then we changed that because again when we were we were fighting for a limited amount of people to to come to you if and the deputy can speak to it he he went to a school where they were doing a job fair and he was interviewed by the by the by the student officers what does your salary what does your vacation time look like what does this look like what does that look like do you have a signing bonus so when we were looking at become remaining competitive in the market that was one thing where it didn't sit right where congratulations you're we're going to send you to the academy you're your Yarmouth police officer but you have to write a check to the municipal police training committee for $3,200 to go to the class that we're going to require you to have to become a police officer so that was something that we had to we had to change and we did and but that's a that's an expense so that's why we're aggressively going after lateral transfers because when we do that we can as I said in the the previous presentation we can significantly significantly reduce the cost of getting a person on the road which helps us in the long run I'll stop for now thank po post commission how how many people comprise the post commission nine nine I think there's nine there's nine Commissioners and their expertise to be on this is it more political than you cannot have been a fulltime law you could not have you cannot have been employed as a law enforcement officer or in a law enforcement agency to be on to be on the post commission not on the post commission but to be working for post so we do have law enforcement Representatives we have um the gentleman who is the Austin patrolman's Union president he's on there uh the chief from Worcester is on there so there is there is law enforcement representation but they have the same say as the other Commissioners which are made up of a retired judge attorneys a social worker so that there's a mix of people that are that are on the that are make up the post commission who created the post Commission created after police reform so when police reform was passed the post commission was part of it seems kind of counterproductive if you don't have police officers telling telling you how to set up a criteria that they would follow you've got non police officers that are doing this there are so the post commission is made up so again this a chief of police from I think it's Worcester right is a Wester Framingham and then the there's two from Boston and then the balance are made up from from outside we there are meetings we have public comments so we can make comments uh the leadership of the mass Chiefs Association speaks frequently at those meetings but the post commission through legislative action they are they have the final saying what they want to push forward so the nptc is involved but they have they have the final say okay and it does it has done a good job in the fact where they desertify people who should never be police officers M so if you look at some of the the cases that they're reviewing people have done things that they should never work and what it allows us to do too is put somebody into the national desertification index so if you're desertified in Massachusetts you show up on a list you can't go to New Mexico and try and get a job and vice versa if you're desertified in another state which has used to happen before organizations got on got on board with the desertification index you you could be a police officer in Wyoming and get fired for something and go someplace El and then pop up and start working and you know you do a background you miss something now that's part of the that's part of the checklist that we have to go through we have a questionnaire that they have to fill out and then we have to check the decertification index and if you show up on there it's an automatic disqualifier okay uh Liz any oh did you have anything I just was GNA bounce down to you and then back up to Joyce she she's she's kind of lucid flexible that way see I I wanted say thank the congratulations on your recruitment successes because I was here for one of the select board meetings before I was elected and uh heard about the challenges and so and I've loved the ad I was ready to make the phone call but I thought maybe I was busy with the select board so I refrained um conflict of interests last night uh I was involved in a performance um that was called Neighbors and uh I was a character that came on stage and talked about defunding the police with disgust so I think my character is I'm living it here behind the select board table I'm I don't want to see any less funding for the police I think that your the job has it's just blown up because it's it's safety but now it's the counseling and the having to take care of the mental challenges and the the homelessness and so many aspects and I know that that's why the um the program that we were just talking about I'm sorry I forgot the the acronym stop post post post the post is you know a result of of so many tragedies but it I and I hope that that they the commission hears you because yeah it's too much but I understand too that it it came about because the police have so much more that they're expected to do and of course avoid um inflicting harm at all times to your own when harm may fall on you so it's thank you for your service and I I I say again let's not defund the police not in Yarmouth and I I don't think that that's what Mr rittenau has suggested or Jennifer has suggested so um um it works for me and thank you oh thank you and I just we had a great conversation when we sat down with the Town Administrator and the finance director and we and I believe it's our responsibility to put everything out on the table to say this is what we need this is what we see coming and then we certainly understand that there is only so much money to go around and it's it's it's not a fun position to be in but that's just you know that's just what we do and we we do the best best we can with what we have to make things work and I also know that through the support of the of Mr whitower and the finance director that I can go to them if I have a problem and they're going to assist the best that they possibly can so we didn't get everything that we asked for we knew that going in that's it's a simp no different than when we go before the capital budget committee we know what we're requesting and we're trying to project out what we're going to need and put it out there so that it's not the first time that they're seeing it so we can start chipping away at it to make sure that we're staying on top of uh the changes that we're seeing in this profession and it's it's Dynamic it it flows I I also want to give a call out to one of your officers uh we had a fraud incident last summer with um I won't give the company's name um but they essentially we we we did a Google search for the 800 number for one of our big providers service providers and it was somebody within the company who took our credit card and they didn't work for the company so your officer came and he was great big he was a giant redhead giant um but a can9 officer he was wonderful so shout out thank you Joyce oh well thank you for all that you do um I'd like to just emphasize as has been emphasized already the importance of training and I think it's important not just for like best practices and how to and even kind of you know practicing them again from time to time but I know it's somebody who taught for years it was wonderful to sometimes just take a course to not be the person in charge to be the person kind of having someone walk you through something uh and I I found that just a big help professionally to occasionally do that I also like to say think it was heroic for the Department given all the financial constraints to assume the $3,200 tuition for the Academy because that would have been a huge barrier for some people who probably would make very excellent police officers thank you thank you I have a couple of quick questions um maintenance and repair of the vehicles yes that's not in here that falls under have to give me a second vehicle Supply that falls under vehicle supplies it also may fall under other so we've been so our vehicles uh the hybrids are finally coming around but some of our older vehicles uh we're still having an issue with so one large expense that we have every year is tires uh they they have gone up and down our Lieutenant Bryant works with our mechanic and they uh and actually the the deputy implemented a program where we track everything in workel spreadsheet right now so we can see what's being spent uh but our maintenance could be everything from brake pads to washers uh windshield uh windshield wipers uh to a new transmission and when we look at investing in the cruiser we look at the longevity of it how old is it how much is it going to get driven uh so like we just had a car that the transmission only had 70,000 miles on it but the engine went so we decided to replace it so the vehicle maintenance is tied up in um in the vehicle supplies so that's everything from inspections missile mous supplies and then vehicle repairs and thankfully a good portion of our new vehicles are under warranty uh so any of the work that's being done it's covered by warranty but the day-to-day stuff is not heaven forbid those hybrids are expensive to fix they are how many vehicles do you have in your inventory oh you'd have to throw that at me wouldn't you uh say would uh 40 that's amazing that's all of our that's our line cards that's the admin cars that is the post the command post the SWAT vehicle uh two motorcycles the UTV and then our detectives have have cars and then we have a couple cars that we have that are older that we use for surveillance and other things like that and how about gas does that come out of something separate that does that comes out of the DPW and I actually got an email today that uh it was a quote me but I think it was $88,000 in unleaded gas for the police department for the year for 2024 and it was a little higher than that in 2023 and I actually asked if they could go back and do a historical so we could start looking to see if there's a gas savings with the hybrid vehicles the the hybrid vehicles it's it's kind of misleading it's hybrid when the vehicle is stopped so when the vehicle is stopped the engine shuts off and then the battery runs all the equipment when you're driving around town it doesn't switch to like a true highd hybrid where if you're driving around the engine shuts off and then you're on a battery power but the the number that Ford threw out is that you would see about 28 28 or $2,900 a year in savings with the battery turned on but now that we are slowly replacing I'd say about 70% of the fleet right now is a hybrid vehicle so we should be able to see that savings maybe not next year but the year after really to to gauge how they're how they're working as we're replacing cars okay and would you ever consider going EV fully EV uh right now no and I'll give you the answer why I looked at I talked to the Town Administrator we actually applied for and was awarded funding through the state to get a charging station and some money for an electric vehicle so the the big one out there is the Mustang the mai the one that I priced out was over $775,000 after we did the upfitting and you had to replace the batteries in 5 years for a cost of about 35 or $440,000 so an admin car like I have my car will last 10 or 12 years so when we looked at it and then in doing some research there was a police department that went is not in this area but they started getting EVS for all the for all the officers and they were finding that they had to start putting charging stations in the officer's houses because if the car sits well I take my car home if my car sits over the weekend there's in this cold weather it would have to be charged so I could so I could get in it and go because my responsibility is not only to the town of Yarmouth I'm also with the control chief for the SWAT team for the Cape Cod Regional law enforcement Council so anytime the SWAT team gets called out if I'm available I go to that call so an EV for for me wouldn't have wouldn't have worked out Chevy just rolled out a patrol EV and the price tag on that is well over $80,000 and then we have to look at charging you have to look at you know if it's it says it'll go 250 miles but that's under ideal condition I conditions you can't charge them up to 100% if it's colder you get less of a a charge out of it uh if it's hot you get less of a charge and that the technology is just it's still so new that I right now I just don't see it as an investment for the police department so we're we're uh cautiously looking at it to see how it goes forward I'm glad you're looking at it I have had an electric car since 2019 and the big Advantage is there's no maintenance so but again that's a 10year battery not a five-year battery so it does sound too expensive okay I have a follow-up question on vehicles if I could um can you give us a sense of What proportion of the vehicles in the department are are leased as opposed to Owned they're all owned so we do we do the municipal lease program but we're paying for the vehicles over time but at the end of that lease we own them so it's not a traditional lease where we're paying and then we give it back at the end of that payment period which is four years the cars are ours we can't lease cars because we have to put equipment in them so even if we were going to do like a detective car our admin Cruisers get a certain amount of equipment installed in it so we would have to pay the we would have to pay a charge for damaging the vehicle because when we give it back there'd be holes all over it uh so we don't we don't lease we don't lease Vehicles it's a it's a lease to own program we own them outright at the end oh okay thank you thank you any other questions from any anyone I just want to say again you know training you've really shown yourselves in the police department for being really on top of that and um we were so impressed those of us that did the interviews for the police chief position at the depth that was available within your own department and that's fantastic and anything we can do to continue that I certainly support thank you thank you thank you very much for coming out thank you let you go cheps okay Communications update Lori and Paul and Bob I'm going to be running back and forth time so he's gonna be busy good evening good evening even um I know that some of you know my background but I know that um Tracy and um Liz and Joyce you may not so I just wanted to give you just a quick um little bio of of my background so maybe you can like understand where I've where I've come from um I've been in television my whole life my whole career um spending most of my time at the ABC6 affiliate um and Providence with two uh two stints there and then I also um worked at Channel 7 in Boston in the special um projects unit over there as well I eventually got out of television news and got into um commercial television well actually public television um being the director of programming for Rhode Island PBS and so I was picking all of the programming that you see on the station so I did that for seven years and then um made a move here and decided I needed to stop commuting back and forth from the cape to Rhode Island and then I was lucky enough to um find this find this spot here and so far it's just been love that Downtown Abby thing there on the PBS that's oh downtown ABY yes they don't hear that anymore but that was always a good one that that was a good one um so first I'm just going to talk about the mission statement our mission statement is the same that it always has been um we try to be open honest and always have transparent messaging our target audience is um stakeholders obviously um elected officials the business Community um and internal employees and so with every message that we push out we try to keep that in mind to make a clear message so our communication strategy IES um we've looked at the social media platforms and we're always designing a plan to improve them coming up with new ways maybe shorter messages maybe better visuals um to to really get our messages across as far as upcoming projects or Pro projects that are ongoing uh we try to find a positive um a positive piece to that puzzle to really um drive home that there's even with the Wastewater project it it might be an inconvenience but there's a reason why that we're doing it so we always kind of keep that in mind we don't want to just always give the bad news we kind of want to find that that light at the end of the tunnel um we've established a partnership with CCB media to launch a year-long campaign with them um that campaign started in December uh we have radio spots that air three times a week Monday through Friday um usually between 6:00 a.m. and 700 p.m. uh those three spots will Air um it's a great opportunity because it's an alart type of thing so I can pick whatever topic that I feel like we need to push um there's going to be a spot created uh coming up about the The Detour starting on the 27th so we're hoping to get that on the air but it's you know Police recruitment fire recruitment anything that we think is important um it gives us the opportunity to to put that on the radio and I'll get to that a little deeper as we go through the presentation so our goals obviously is to communicate with the residents um we also want to Brand you I'm sorry there was one last bullet point and you didn't address it as the one oh the produce sorry I skipped it produce a uh produce a podcast I'm going to get to that later in the presentation as well um the goal is to have a podcast where we can bring um you know Jeff Colby on Lori on to really talk about Wastewater or talk about even you know just the fun stuff that are going to be happening in town St Patrick's Day parade and so forth so our goals are obviously to communicate with residents to keep that line of communication open uh to them as best that we can um we want to really brand Yarmouth with a campaign as like far as like where you can find us um all the social media platforms the website Channel 8 YouTube all of those places we're really working on pushing that out because I hear a lot from people that I don't I didn't even know you had an Instagram account um and I'll also get to more of that in the presentation um social media and ra radio campaign we just kind of kind of talked about um I think they're both super important and a really great way to to to drive our messages across so we had a lot of um accomplishments this year and there's a lot of them listed here we have two slides um I'll just go through a couple one the biggest is the St Patrick's Day uh parade the Cape Cod St Patrick's Day Parade so this year was the first time that we ever broadcasted the parade live and I think when I first came up with the idea Paul thought I was a little nutty and didn't know didn't know what to expect um but uh it really it turned out great I felt like the community really loved it we got a lot of um great feedback um and actually I think we had like 6,000 views on our YouTube uh Channel when we when we aired it live we do plan on doing that again this year it's the 20th anniversary um and I'll speak a little bit more about that when we get down further yep you can go to the next one um we did the the idea came for the radio campaign um with Wastewater because we really we worked with the chamber and and really said you know how can we attack Wastewater in a positive way so we created a radio spot for six weeks just about you know pardon our appearance um you know we've we've we know we're we've we're going under construction and we have a lot of detours but you know be patient with us because um it's going to benefit everybody and everybody wants clean water uh we did get a lot of feedback a lot of good feedback from that and that's what kind of gave us the idea to take the radio campaign to a yearly contract so I know a lot of people have um Wastewater questions and this is how we attacked it attacked the um Wastewater project so we started with a social media campaign uh raising the awareness through all platform forms so any any information any nugget that I received we pushed on social media uh we worked with the chamber we're working with the chamber currently uh to really get those messages across to the businesses as far as detours what it's going to do to their business how it's going to affect their clients um and we've had good reception with that we actually had a meeting a business meeting with the chamber and Robert bow and Jeff Colby and Lori where everybody kind of sat down and they were free to ask questions to the contractor and to uh Jeff and Lori and it was it was a great it was a great turnout we actually taped it and it's currently on YouTube and on the website next schedule meeting for that will be the 28th of this month will we bring in the chamber along with uh many of the businesses to answer questions on the upcoming uh sections of of each of the contracts and where are you going to do that here in this room and say to the date again 28th of January okay yeah we just finalized that today the date um we also push about ways and are constantly telling people please download the ways app it's going to help you even though you know your way to work in the morning if you download the ways app and they they might be a different way for you to get to work because of a detour and ways is updated daily by um L's team because they getting the most accurate we created a relationship with ways so that we have input into what is being said in the in the town of yamas so I just mentioned the local business meeting um the radio spot is we're going to have a new radio spot for just the detour and I think I spoke about that earlier the me the major detour that's going to start on the 27th we wanted to do something a little extra to inform people of what was going on so that will be airing next week um and then the last one is you know Lori is really um she's kind of coming to her own as far as these videos go um so we have uh road work with rosala and we put her out on the street near detour signs or certain areas so she can tell the public um you know what to look out for in the coming months or what work they're doing just to kind of give it more of a relatable um approach and so people know who she is because they're going to be seeing a lot of her in the next couple of years right the last thing I'd like to mention is the map um we have tried many many ways of making sure that we're updating folks of where the uh detours are and how they're happening the most accurate map that we can come up with is what the police department puts out they are fantastic at because they're assigning uh um you know folks to be at each of these sites daily that's the most accurate so that is shared out in all social media platforms when we get the information from the police department because we can have we have meetings every other week with the contractors and we get a list of what they're going to do we have their look ahads and inevitably they change that and they move it down the street or uh have a completely different Outlook of what's going to happen so the police department uh map is always out on a regular basis you we've had to Pivot a lot with um that information but we you know we we really do a good job of putting it out on the website and um letting people know especially if there's a change um so I know that we had I don't know if you want to take this we had talked about um how can people that have questions get their answers that they need regarding the project so I know Jeff had said that um Wastewater the water department is has a 24hour 24hour hotline that you can call and leave your questions and concerns and someone would always get back to you we're working with Jeff and team currently now to to solidify this and get this out appr appropriately so there is a telephone number currently in in use by the water department and it will be SL Wastewater that can be uh it is man during the day the calls are routed appropriately um and then at the in the evening time it is then um we have this an answering service that flips over if there is something that needs immediate attention it can be um can be pushed out immediately to where it needs to go and Ryan chase the new assistant water superintendent will be uh will be publicizing his email address as well as how to get in contact with and which will be through this number so that's in in in development right now with with the um DPW team so something else that we're working on is um creating a video for the madaky utilization project because there's going to be a report done by the Consultants um we spoke to Bill and he really wanted something broken down in layman's terms because let's face it not a lot of people are going to read that entire report or understand it so um we're working on putting a video together to help people understand the project and what needs to be done so video has already been a lot of video has already been captured from the school um and right now we're just waiting for the report to come in so we can look at that and create the video from the report so now now the fun part so like I said in the beginning a lot of people always say oh I didn't know we had an Instagram account or do we have a Facebook page and so um Paul and I really talked about it and said you know maybe we need to put something together like a Communications card to let people know exactly where we are with our handle um and and put them have them made and put them in all of the buildings um in the town all the town buildings and so we came up with this Communications card these are rough we've just final final look at what they're going to look like and they'll sent out to print we'll have we're going to do a a first run for about 5,000 so that anybody can take and have these cards at there their hand it's a first communication on back and then on the back side is what you're going to see here we didn't put the front part here give you a moment to look at that any questions on that all the um all the handles are right next to the social media platform logo you know what would be great on this a QR code that would bring you to all of them good idea I I would like to do that landing page that would have a link to them I would like to do that and I'm going to put on my It Hat here yeah um with the cyber security infiltration that we've seen currently and the e of of uh taking one of these cards and just putting on a a bad code um I I'm hesitant to do that right now we'll take it an advise and take another look at that but they're they're they're so easy to copy and change and just put a little sticker on there unknowingly and then we have an issue with that so let me go ahead here this is uh go ahead so we um pulled some social media data for you because that is one of the biggest platforms that we use um and it was pretty interesting so for Facebook and I'll just kind of break this down for you so for Facebook from January of last year to January of this year we had um 328,000 views and if you look at the def definition of what views are views are the people that actually did see the content um the reach for the fa for Facebook was uh about 223,000 that's up from 4 2% from last year and the definition of reach is the estimation of how many unique devices could have seen our content so that's the possibility of people seeing our content um and then visits we had uh 48 like a little over 48,000 visits that was up 53% from last year and visits are the people that are going directly to our profile the visits is what we want the most because that means somebody's logging in and when they and if you have Facebook you know you log in and you have a feed um so they think we're so important that they're going to go right to our page so sometimes in a news feed they'll see a story from us and they make link on it that's different that's we're getting them there a different way the views is is really the visits is what we really want we want them to be thinking of us when they're opening Facebook so they go right to to our page directly um and then Instagram um Instagram was only um I think I I started it maybe in October of 2024 23 and um so Instagram is a little bit smaller uh the reach for that is about 27,000 uh sorry 2700 which is only up about 1.6% the visits were uh we had 713 visits which is up a lot 185% and then new followers we had 106 new followers since last January so our total followers for Instagram was 236 and then I forgot to tell you our total followers for Facebook was um like 70 7,600 so that's we have a lot of followers not as many as we want we hope that this will help us get some more um Twitter they don't give us um data for Twitter because we don't have a premium package with them so we only have the number of followers for Twitter which is 900 in 26 um YouTube is seing a great big jump actually so the number of views from last January to this January uh was about 30,000 um and that's up 114% uh the watch time is also up um to 88% um and then new subscribers we have about 168 new subscribers and then our total subscribers for YouTube is 645 so people are really getting a lot of their information from YouTube and then you can see at the bottom that the the top viewed content from us last year was the St Patrick's Day parade and we had like 6,000 views from that so the next thing we're really excited about is the mobile app I you you might have heard Rumblings about it um we've really have realized that people were getting frustrated because they were trying to find information on their phone through the through the website and it was either blurry or the words were cut off or they they couldn't log into certain things or get information so Paul and I were like we need to get the mobile app um we are working on it right now it's in the design process I think the design process is is almost finished and we hope to launch the app um in March and this is going to help tremendously with everything with Wastewater notifications you can pay your bills online you can get your dog license you can do just about anything view meetings um but right now uh we're going through apple and it's taking a little bit of time um there's some hoops we have to jump through for them but as soon as um that happens we can launch the app and it's a free app um you just download it like any other app so we're really excited about that I stop you for a second there you said you're working with Apple so what about the Androids no it'll work it'll work for them too totally compatible so what happened we signed the app we signed this contract back in November from November we work with Civic plus and they needed to convert the current page uh the current uh website down so that it is forat formattable on to a uh an iPhone or an Android um from there they go ahead and they have to apply we have to to apply to Apple to be on the Apple Store so it'll be available through Apple Store and it's much easier to do in any other it they also take care of the window side of it so it it it's it's going to be smooth for both devices we had to give the app a name so we chose y Yarmouth so it's like everything Yarmouth related um and like I said they're they're almost done with that design process and we really should have it launched by March that's our that's our goal great so now I'll just get back to the radio campaign a little bit um so we did sign a contract with CCB media and the three stations that our spots are on are Cape country 101 99.9 The Q and ocean 104.7 uh those spots are 15 second spots they air in the three stations Monday through Friday three times a day like I said usually between 6 and 6:00 am and 700 p.m. um and we have a one-year contract now I just wanted you to hear some of the spots in case you haven't heard them okay take me a second you guys got to listen to Cape country well actually before he even goes there um there's another slide for the Radio Data okay um and you can take a deeper dive look at that if you want but I think what stood out for me was these three stations really have um their demographic really is midc Cape so we thought it was going to be a really good fit because of that so now we've got a couple of spots here for you should St work the Yarmouth police department needs you the Yarmouth Police Department is now seeking dedicated police officers if you've completed the Massachusetts MPT C Police Academy have or are eligible for post certification apply today enjoy great pay ranging from $63,000 to $17,000 as well as education incentives paid time off and a $5,000 hiring bonus for post certified lateral transfers apply online at Yarmouth police.com or email Lieutenant Michael Bryant apply today and make a difference in Yarmouth ready for a rewarding career in public safety the Yarmouth fire department needs you the Yarmouth fire department is now hiring paramedics with great benefits including a $2,500 fire academy stien paid holidays vacation sick time education incentives and opportunities to join specialized teams like the tech rescue Cape SWAT and Hazmat apply online at Yarmouth fire.com or email Deputy fire chief Scott Smith start a career that will make you proud apply today and make a difference in Yarmouth so lorious working with some of the department heads who are needing some kind of message sent out and with that she devels writes the script then submits it and then they record it for us and this is just one of the events that's happened in the town this one's a little fun ready to make a big splash this New Year join the friends of the Yarmouth Council on Aging for the annual Polar Bear Plunge just head to Smuggler Beach on New Year's Day at noon dive in for bragging rights or just cheer the plungers on either way they need you there you're never too old to try something new kick off a great 2025 at the Yarmouth annual Polar Bear Plunge New Year's Day at noon registration and info at fca.org this next one is the Wastewater one that I was telling you about earlier that we wanted to put like a positive spin on on the uh on the project Yarmouth is open for business the Wastewater construction project on Route 28 may be an inconvenience but it's temporary and the upgrades will make for a cleaner Yarmouth in the meantime don't let detours get you down download the free ways app today for a smoother ride to your favorite Yarmouth restaurant or shop learn more at yarmouth.ma us and while you're there sign up for notifications to get updates on project status the town of Yarmouth thanks you for your patience and continued support of its local businesses and the last one and that's in conjunction hey Yarmouth it's January time to clean up and get organized still have your Christmas tree Yarmouth residents can recycle it for free through mid-February stop by the gate house and the staff will show you where to place it what about old batteries and light bulbs don't toss lithium batteries in the trash they're dangerous instead bring them to the gate house for proper Recycling and those LED or compact fluorescent bulbs you can recycle those too let's work together to make Yarmouth a cleaner Greener Community really nice it's fun we want to have fun too so I love the way the Wastewater update is called wave I mean so it's consistent with thinking about water that's that's great oh the ways app is that yeah um and then the podcast so um it's always been on my list of things to do and with the Wastewater project continuing and revving up again in the spring especially we thought it would be a good time to launch one so um we could start out really small and we can go really big get we we have a lot of room here to do what we want um we can start off just doing the podcast once a month um until we get a lot of content or we could do it three times a three times a week it's it's a really great platform and and I think it's going to be an easy lift um once again that podcast staying with the theme of your Yarmouth that's what we would call it um and it would be great like I said especially with Wastewater I can you know pull Jeff Colby in pull Lori in um and then we could you know always you know bring Bob in or one of you in if if if something comes up um it's a great way to kind of tap in to a different way to give our stakeholders a me a message um and so many people are doing podcasts and I think Orleans does a a podcast um right now so I think it's just a great a great way to just kind of really manage that message this also allows any Department it's not going to be limited to Wastewater but it can any Department that has a message that needs to get out whether it be department or elected officials committees can come in and have a conversation on an important topic and be can be leveraged that way go out over Apple uh and it'll go out Spotify Spotify iTunes YouTube anywhere you get your podcast this podcast will be available and then I talked a little bit about the St Patrick's Day Parade but we're going to do that again we're going to broadcast it live this year and it's going to be exciting because it's the 20th anniversary um I think people Now understand like you know where we're going to be at and I I've had people say to me are you going to do it again are you going to be in the same spot I think they were excited to see the cameras last year and I don't like I said I think he thought I was crazy initially but um it you know it really worked out and um we already have you know a a production team lined up to do it the same production team that did it last year um and it's going to be we we're going to broadcast it live so it'll be on Facebook live and YouTube live um and yeah it was it was seen in four different countries uh last year when we did it and we had a lot of Engagement and so we think it's a great way to bring that Community together you know there's nothing going on in the winter right so it's just a a great way to kind of give us like a little bit of lift and have a little bit of fun so we're looking forward to doing that and then you know for some strategic initiatives um eventually I really want to give the um especially the fire department and the police department maybe a little bit of media training with you know just to have them prepared of how to how to deal with a press conference if you need to God forbid you need to you know uh give one how to deal with the with media inquiries um really giving them the tools since I had been in the business for so long I know what producers want I know what reporters are going to ask um so I really want to get that moving as well and then that really can go into training videos for both police and and fire any Department we can do internal training videos um you know to help um you know facilitate the the Departments um and then of course you know Assist all the ongoing and future campaigns that we have because we're going to have a lot of them especially um Wastewater and continue to think about ways that we can really manage that message effectively and you know give the stakeholders what they really need um clear transparent communication that's it CL would you like to any comments don't ask don't don't ask um first of all no thanks thanks for the presentation these are all very very interesting initiatives and ideas um and uh I I wanted to have this before us so that we can um provide more input give you more guidance I think this is an area that we have to have a sustained Dialogue on so I and I don't want to this is we're doing just so that you may hear my comments or or criticisms or concerns don't for a minute think that we are pro we we are we are probably better than most towns in terms of what's going on with communication so let's just get that out there um but I think there's more we can do and I think we can do better um I like the fact that we have 7,000 uh friends or followers on Facebook Police Department has 60,000 mhm I mean that's that to me and and they have a presence uh they can they are very good at getting their message out and if we can get close to where the police department is uh that'll be that'll be a huge accomplishment um just just an FYI item um the mass Municipal Association has created an association for communications directors and communicators um that's an association that we may want to hook up with um I'm going to be at the mass Municipal Association Convention uh later on this week there's actually going to be some workshops and forms focused specifically on Communications this is a field that is growing in municipal government in Massachusetts it's coin coinciding with the demise of the local press so as as we lose local press as we lose local media what's happening is is we like a lot of communities are in a situation where we we're sort of struggling to make sure that we can get the the news out the word out about the things that we're doing and it's basic stuff that relates to our work um I mean it's good to draw our attention to our parade but you know things like getting people to town meeting getting people to follow what's going on in the town so I'm going to just Identify some things that I and I can put this in writing and and follow up with this but I think there's some to-do items that I'd like to see some improvements on um first of all in terms of videos and Communications I'd like to see more coverage of a number of committees there's some committees that we just don't get any coverage on and we don't get any videos on or on demand for example I like watching what the finance committee is up to but you can't find anything on our website there's no video on their meetings or any coverage of them so that's an area that we have to improve community preservation if I want to follow their meeting I'm a I'm a you have to understand I'm a video junkie I watch select board meetings in other towns I'll I'll follow the sandwich town meeting they had a town meeting the other night I watched that I learn from these and I like to know more about what's going on in our own community so I'd like to see more coverage of our finance committee and I'd like to see the stuff posted right away relatively quickly turn quick turnaround Community preservation we have a great historical commit I'd like to see more some coverage of them um when the drivein sight committee I know they're kind of phasing out but when they were around it would have been great to see more of their stuff on video so the video and coverage of what the minicipal government does is incredibly important to me TR it's incredibly important to get it in the video on demand section of our website so that people can quickly get at it um the YouTube feature is still important um and that needs to be obviously sustained and I don't have a complaint about that CU I think we do reasonably decent job on that so that's one area where so the in-house stuff that the stuff that we do here and then there's the in the field stuff um you know the library has very interesting forums so it's getting into the field I mean some of the work that's been done on the Memorial Day and some of the other sort of Ceremonies and celebrations that stuff is improved um it's just how do we sustain it you know that's that's got to be a challenge and so I'd like to see more effort done in sustaining sort of infield video production or coverage of some of these Community forms um uh I think the I think in getting that stuff on Channel 8 you know so it's get the stuff inhouse getting that stuff on Channel 8 as well getting more infield production stuff particularly you know in information session information forums the historical forums the other day the South the armouth library hosted one on slavery in Cape Cod and the you know the origins of ab abolitionists you know here on the cape I thought it was you know a fascinating idea I don't know if we got any coverage on at all I didn't I was I'm not aware of it but there forums like that that are going on whether at the senior center uh the library and other venues where infield production coverage um you know would be great and I think it provides some insight in terms of who we are as a community and what what's going on in our community so I I want to make a pitch for doing more of that and partnering with those operations and it would be great to be able to get a quick turnaround I don't know what the process is internally but you know I know in some communities it can get bureaucratic so hopefully you know there's a standardized procedure so that if something's going on you know you can get notified of it and you can make arrangements to have some field field coverage of it um the um Wastewater stuff we could spend a I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Wastewater we're still it's good that you I'm glad to hear that we're we're going to have we're going to have a a person you know that's going to be on call a phone number and be able to be reachable I call them the the Wastewater Zar but have getting that going is going to be incredibly important because I still believe just in the handful of businesses that I talk to people are getting impacted businesses are losing money all right this is not work I'll be honest with you this is not working nearly as well as ID hoped um so it's got to it's it's it's got to be the focus of almost everything that we're looking at and working on because I think on the Wastewater side it's just people are not people I mean businesses are losing money and uh hopefully on the 28th you can have a again another discussion and hopefully more ideas but you know we we've got to figure out a way to improve the situation and help our business Community because the feedback that I'm getting from the businesses that I visit and the places that I go is not good so and that's and that's that's just not that's just not acceptable so we've got to keep working on that so um and I'll leave I'll leave Wastewater at that I could keep going on but I'll leave it at that um I want to pitch as a as a suggestion item is creating I mean it's good to have a plan but we may need a Communications policy and I just want to put that out just from a legal point of view what do we cover what don't we cover and maybe having some conversations with Council about you know what should be the basic framework of a Communications policy that we as a board can adopt in terms of what we're going to cover and not going to cover and how that is handled so I just put that out there because some Julie I think we have we have a Communications policy actually I think Sean mcginness did it before we even start with Facebook because it was a we might want to look but I'm I'm pretty sure we I'll look into it yeah I think that would are you aware of our Communications policy that we voted on aware of it but I look I am not aware of it so there you go if they're not aware of it then we've got to resurrect it if we can but I think we should find a way to look at that question I think that's got to be on our list of things to do um the other item and I'm going to keep this short I've got a few more things but I'm going to just in the interest of time um I think we need to start thinking more about because other towns are doing this and we need to think more about how do we build up an email base where we do a either a weekly or a monthly newsletter where we're finding a way to blast out our story on what we're doing in Yarmouth on a given month or on a given week now the town managers are doing this in a number of towns uh I get a Weekly Newsletter from a number of town Managers from around the cape so we need to be thinking about either a Weekly Newsletter or a monthly newsletter just getting something out the things that we're working on so if you're a resident and you know that maybe next week we're going to have a hearing on this particular issue or that particular issue it's a hot potato we can use this as a way to help at least building some awareness um and communicate in a more instead of news bites and press releases sort of help people sort of plan ahead and think ahead about you know getting ready for town meeting you know we could we could have in one of our newsletters like if we were doing one now you know sort of a preview of what's coming up in the budget give people some idea that we get some ballot questions that are coming up there's some big decisions we're going to have to make with the fire department some background on it you could have links to videos and other presentations you know finding a way to build you know if if we can if we've got what s ,000 people on Facebook right think think about connecting them with an email newsletter um and again if you're looking at who shows up at town meeting you know on an annual town meeting we can get you know 400 500 people maybe more hopefully um this could be at least a new source for the people that really like to stay in the know in terms of what's going on in the community so with a newsletter I'm not sure we need 7,000 although I'd love 7,000 wasn't subscribing to it but if we have a way of regularly communicating with the folks that really spend like to spend you know time and attention on things that are of real concern here in this community I think that would be of some value so I I'd like uh that's on my list of things to think about so these are all suggestions these are all my recommendations on where I'd like to see some improvements so let me just stop right there and see if you have any reaction thank you well some of those things we have been looking at for example uh I'm I'm looking for a a a common database of all the uh email addresses so we work talk with the clerk she has some with uh voter registration but not all they don't require it uh We've looked at assesses and I haven't had chance to but next stop is Police Department with uh the code red to find out where we have and what we have for tell so those those are valuable things I think that's one of the things we we needed to establish a database of email addresses for the folk towns and for the folks in the town good stuff I think another thing that has been kind of sitting off a little bit to the side is we're trying to find out how can we cover more of the uh things that are happening and and one of the things we're looking into and we're really preliminary at this point is taking and looking how we can put in a studio over at the uh Senior Center so that it would allow us and afford US a different venue than this particular room but equipped with the equipment that's needed for any any type of a meeting where it can be broken down into smaller Studio where you can have the intimate settings where we want to sit and have conversations these largic conversations like a similar to a podcast but elevated to that point so these are some of the things we are looking at and these are all good points and it's on video so I can get all that information tomorrow I I would say that any help that we can get of committees that are not being covered or of events in the town um that if we could get that fed to us in some way shape or form because there is so much going on right now in the town um that anything that would like to be covered I know that we got a request I think it was last year uh I think it was last year where there was a gentleman from uh who's uh from Japan who came in and gave a story and it was recorded and it was put on channel 8 that that was a good production it was a solid production that could be shown time and time again one of my pet peeves is why isn't Channel 8 not filled uh we're working well that's that I I that was on my list I'm glad it's on your list too it is on my list and it's uh you know we need more content there there there's no question about it exact all this will work the committee that I complain I'm concerned about the most is the finance committee finance committee Community preservation they do important stuff in this town when I was the interim Town Administrator in Brewster we did not miss a finance committee meeting and we film their meetings live and they are on zoom and I will make sure that they start getting delivered properly to the uh to YouTube and chinate yeah because I think particularly if you're a town official and you want to stay at breast of some of the discussions that are going on there because sometimes they they get into the Weeds on some things that um obviously either we don't have time to uh or we'll come up with us later and and and those meetings are important Julie but all the other committee meetings that I mentioned that we don't cover they're important too absolutely absolutely I'm going to stop right there Madam chair Tracy yes um well Mark hit on a lot of them Channel 8 to me is got to be um you know it's come a little ways but just things that people are interested in you know I mean a lot of it's I think the the video and I I keep going back to you know Joyce had her fair fair with um people who are interested in serving on committees but I think if people were able to like really not just like play a a a a video but interact interview these people what what makes you interested to be in here what do you working on having something that people might actually content that people will can I ask you a question yeah was that covered on video that form that Joyce did did anybody cover it on TV was it no and it it really was it meant to I think I think Lori made a a notice of it but it was meant to be kind of people like asking questions that maybe they don't want you know televised yeah but just I mean I found and I go back to Jerry Sullivan he did a great production many many years ago interviewing and sitting down with each committee and talking to them about what they do um what they're working on and I found I found it very interesting so it's a it's a way rather than tell in an applicant to watch a t meeting this is a way to have some dialogue with committee members and getting that on the air and having them understand what some of the Committees are working on I think it's a great idea I just think a lot of what the town does is share items from other things which is great but you have to have some type of interaction something that keeps people like wanting to go look um and I you know like Twitter when you think about some of you know and I used to watch you know I mean I X I should say it's not Twitter anymore but X you go into the City and I've seen it and I know I've talked about it before but you I went to a metropolitan planning uh thing uh event and it was filled with young people and they were all tweeting there was somebody there that was you know even like town meeting somebody's like live saying what is happening um I just think if you want people to to be there they need to see actually what's going on like what's happening make it make it exciting like you know somebody should be tweeting from these meetings or what just as updates go you know past unanimously you see some people do that at different meetings and I find that a lot of younger people will start to engage when they feel like they're part of it or they know what going on but um Mark talked a lot about it I just think timing and repetitiveness um you know like you talked about the detour thing that's going to go out next week the detour starts on the 27th people have to know about that in advance and then you got to remind them again back you know like sometimes I think oh there's an event going on and I go to our Facebook page and I have to scroll back a week to figure out when it is when it's coming up you know so sometimes you got to we got to redo it when it gets closer um I think with the detour um um up to the you know it wasn't officially going to start on the 27th like we didn't have that's been the problem with with a lot of the um the contractors that there's last minute changes and so we constantly have to Pivot so the radio spot is made it's written it just needs to be produced because I needed to know like is this going to happen on the 27th because I can't put a radio spot out there and then have it not happen so that's been a frustration on everybody end especially you know Jeff's because he he's told one thing and then it completely changes and so we have to kind of pivot the way that we're going to get a message out so um so can you guys tell me I know when the chamber was here and we talked about their contract they had some uh part of their contract that was dealing with some of this social media or communication what is our responsibility and what is their responsibility I I that's unclear to me because I I I agree wholeheartedly with what Mark's saying and I know that we've talked about everything is open during construction and I don't know if it's training the um detail officers better or um something like that but I would love to see um a feature out in the field Live From The Green Spot saying we're here here's the owner here's how you get in here um you know go out to the businesses and and try to help people visualize how they can get there and really try to feature some of these businesses on video because they are being impacted and I I do believe that they do everything they can to make sure everything is accessible but it's confusing and and I think that if we went out there and explained from there you know I know Lori does her um her spots out in the field but it's not really um featuring a business and saying here's how you here's how you can get here you know you can go the back way or come over this way or give me a call and I'll tell you you know this particular day I just think we have to do a little bit better trying to help communicate surely so to answer your question about the contract with the chamber I'm not sure what that is but I do know that uh Lori and I are getting involved with this year's contract so we understand a little bit clearer what where the responsibilities are and I think as as a government mouthpiece if you will as you in the peg end of it I'm not sure and it's been i' I've been baning because here's my deal Peg we should own it it doesn't matter what we put on there it should be this this and this we should be covering any event in yth I've had push back with some of our contracts saying well you know we really shouldn't be doing this or that doesn't matter to me if it's for yth we should be doing it uh but as far as working stepping into the chamber where the business is concerned I really would need chamber to be very very involved in that uh just because the time cons the what it takes to get that 2 minute three minutes we really need the chamber involved there and that's something we can we can bring up I do know that we meet with Mary's and and at the chamber it seemed every other week we're we're for sure meeting but it seems like it's now every week that we're just checking in for example for this big detour with the conversation this morning we were on with her staff talking about okay what needs to be on this when can we get it we need it tomorrow afternoon so one of our deadlines is tomorrow afternoon we need to get this in so Mary can print it she's going to knock on the doors of all the businesses but again that's going to be coming from the town uh the the information and then so we we're working as close as we can with the chamber to make sure that we're helping that and and hopefully we'll be able to understand better what that contract is to help support them to get the information they need great I just think we all need to be working together to help them and and to some extent perhaps this communication I'm not sure how much of it gets to the actual detail officer on the on the ground but um I think that's also important to make sure we're closing that Loop and and perhaps it's happening behind the scenes but from the people I talk to sometimes it's you know no it's not open you got to go this way but it's but it is yeah and that that's been brought up at at any of the uh the Wastewater meetings that we have we go to the uh every other week each contract has a meeting every other week they talk about the look ahead as well as I mean just on the communication side I know that they were looking at the look ahead and and then people would say well I mean Mary's very good at bringing information saying that you know these guys aren't even flag is aren't telling us anything and I know that has been addressed uh because Mike um Lieutenant is is part of that conversation the fire department is there Jeff has all of us sitting at the table at during these meetings to make sure that the input or the negative input that we're getting we're trying to find a solution how we can meet those needs of the town I think one of of the things that I really I mean that's one of the reasons why we're doing that card is because we keep getting well you know we don't get our information this way we don't get it that way uh we're putting it out in seven different formats uh please if there's we can help you if you're looking for more on those platforms we can help you but you got to go to some of those platforms whether it is the website Etc so we don't have to cover that all again but yeah I agree with you 100% Stacy it and it's it's an ongoing um interaction that we all have to take responsibility for so work in progress but um it is we gota we gota like we got to hone it now because it's going to ramp up and we got to get those kids worked out unfortunately you know people are suffering while we do that so um I have faith that we'll get there but it would be nice to feature I know that you know it I'm not talking about the chamber I'm just talking about as a community all these businesses not one particular one just in general it would be nice to Spotlight some of them and you know we'll see how we can do that thank you okay Joyce well I was inspired to see all that you're doing and it seems that you're really trying to cover everything um and maybe you just need everybody in the town to be better conduits to you for information so that you you could pick and choose for each spot and I certainly after tonight will make sure that I get any information that I have um to you because it sounds like it would be um a a great way to get the word out so thanks for all you've done um I first of all I I think that if you work with C3 TV uh which is in Dennis but it's closed pardon Kate media yeah um whatever their new name might be this week but they have the studios and you can walk in there and so there wouldn't be any reason to create your own Studio I don't think I'm on the board yeah of rather because the senior center kind of jammed up at this point anyways I can't even get them to answer my phone calls surely we we're looking for options um we do work with c3tv cape media um we're down there we Lori we asked Lori to sit on the board to make sure we have a voice perfect um I know that she's real excited to Helen is real excited to try to fill the gap Gap that we now have because of the newspapers being so lame so you she she wants to be there for you um is there a way to to take the YouTube videos maybe not of all of the different committees but the um the select the the select board meetings and create chapters can you put a um a uh a marker and so if you were if you could and you're going to have mobile app which I think is going to be the solution I'm looking for my constituents and and I don't use social media I couldn't even find our Christmas video when I went on Facebook it was like I she says it's here somewhere we could never found it but it um so I'm really looking forward to that I would love if the website were had a side menu and and every they headline for every piece of news news was was there and you clicked on it and it brought you to the page that told you about what you clicked on whether it's uh um Wastewater or or the the Muk the MMA key utilization and it would also have the chapter that was relevant perhaps from the select board meeting that you you you have the choice of course of watching or not watching so I don't know if that's something that exists but I think it would be really really helpful for our um voters people residents to be able to use the select board meetings but they they most of them Cann sit through the whole thing sure well there's one thing that we do have to be careful about I can't edit any of the any once we have on film a a meeting we can't touch it so to break it down I can look into that but the issue that I have with that is is that that's a resource and it would take a lot of time to edit down and and I wasn't thinking about editing down and so maybe it's not a feature that exists but it was it's it's a marker that and I'll have I can look into it myself so tabs basically that says when a certain item starts so it does take editing to do that it takes somebody to sit there and put these markers in and currently I don't have that resource available something that we can look at we have submitted to just so that you know we have submitted to the um uh the employment board uh uh to hire a new assistant in the community Communications Department to help alleviate some of these things as well as go out to department heads saying where who do you use what committees are having meetings how can we get in there how can we talk to them Etc because that it takes a lot of effort to just to get a list of these things and make sure we have somebody scheduled to be in that place so that that position that's already a budgeted position Madam chair don't we have a contract with a Media Services Company we do yeah I mean why can't we try to just ask them to provide more service they are they are we've actually doubled from last year what we're covering yeah we we are we I guess what I'm getting at is is you know my my reaction in terms of building capacity is to try to rather than hire new staff with all the costs associated with staff is if there are ways to work with vendors um you know to try to do that as best we can that that would be my Approach we are we have doubled up in what what they're doing as far as what they're recording on a on a on a weekly basis at Skyrocket working on the website because Bruce has left left so we needed somebody to kind of help us navigate the website because a lot of departments needed things uploaded and we didn't know how to do that so who is who is the website Maven now with we don't have one yet we don't have it so right now what we've done is we call Civic plus and we'll be having some training for the department heads that they can designate an individual that they can help um upload and update that particular page so we'll be helping with that training and then we will have somebody sitting over in this to uh to help with that because I yeah I find the website is is lacking a lot of information but if Bruce is if we don't have anybody working on it that explains why and and we're learning very quickly how to get stuff on there was stuff missing out of the calendar that we didn't realize Bruce was putting in there was some Finance issues that uh the uh budget wasn't Place properly that was hopefully have been has been correct corrected so it could be found now okay I wondered too what happened with our Ombudsman for the Wastewater um isn't that the assistant superintendent of Wastewater so that's who's going to do itan oh okay and that's so what's the hotline number that we put that1 number yeah I think what they need to do is they need to do a PR push on all of it I think that's in the works right it's in the works we're working on that right now let me see if I can find in the meantime we've got Jeff sure yeah Jeff kby Public Works director so we really want to push the the phone number that goes to water now really looking forward towards the operations once the system's up and running so when there's a water issue you call that that number uh it's going to be the water and wastewater number going forward so uh exactly like uh uh selectman Forest said we really need to just push this out now and and kind of brand that that this is uh the number that's U monitored during the day there's ability to leave a message uh after hours or even um a uh call service that if you want to hit one you go to the call service if it's an emergency they'll dispatch somebody immediately so that's kind of the the format we want to have going forward uh we still want to push the uh email the Wastewater uh at yarmouth.ma us because it's a great way that we have multiple people monitoring and can get back to people right away but if you need to have a telephone number uh that's the one we want to brand is the Wastewater number to call and Ryan's equipped to um make everybody who's ready to come and find somebody to throttle he can mellow them out absolutely okay he's a good point of contact because he's a strictly a Wastewater resource but myself and laer rosala of course are always available as well so all righty so and my last um note I am really looking forward to mobile app I hope that's going to be the solution because as I was saying what my people want to see is a list of what they what we talk about and what and then they can dig further so hopefully it's like a web page or a front page for a website so you have a list of of what's going on at the Town level and you click it and then you go to the page and you and you keep going further into it the more you want to find out the further you can go so what's on the website now will be on the mobile app adjusted so that it's readable and and functioning well so maybe it's the Web Master because I I can't find anything on our web site I just went on it to try to find some stuff while you guys were doing your presentation and it's it's just uh there's nothing there certainly no so that's why I think what you need is for for people who are trying to find out information maybe it's a dedicated page but it's right there on the front page that says want to find out what's happening at Yarmouth go to this page and there you have your list of what's Happening whether any wa I mean we can create the list but Wastewater Dump hours sorry Transfer Station hours um so like a today in Yarmouth or something yeah I think it it's it's a like the newsletter but it's a it's an updated page after a select board meeting it should be here's the what the select board talked about here's where you go find out about all of these different things because people still don't even know in some in some cases what is the what's going on with our um fellow Chris Wilson and his cranberry bug and they don't know where to go to ask the question and if that were on the website somewhere and it it have to we have to be careful because again yeah you have to be careful about what you say and what you post but there should be information about that updated if it's even just to say it's on hold because people want that's what they want to know they want to find out these were issues and we don't understand what's going on the um the the the um Plastics in the restaurants where is that at now they voted and what what's the the outcome what's the next step what's going on with it that's I think what people want to find out and they don't have anywhere to go I think those are better handled than a newsletter if it's if it's a newsletter that's fine but for me the website this becomes part of the sort of the development of the plan some of these things are lend themselves to a weekly item not you to try to create cont we're we're TR having trouble keeping up with content now so to create new content in the moment is a huge you know you're going to you're going to have to hire all sorts of stuff the point I'm getting at is is that some of these things like what's H what's going to happen on the Plastics that's a great question people want to know what's going on and that's that's a that's a very easy lb that you can put in a in a newsletter whether it's weekly or monthly and a newsletter is fine I come more from the the world of building websites because that's part of what I used to do so for me it's the a newsletter is a website and it's instead of you know it's it's the same it's the same function it would be a page of the the Yarmouth website for instance but it's fine to handle it that way call it a newsletter yeah I think what I'm trying to pitch is focusing and this is why a policy might be a good idea because there are lots of interesting things to cover but I think our first priority ought to be making sure that we're doing the municipal business in a way that's transparent and accessible that should be at the heart of Y what we do so for example if we had a limitation on resources let's say maybe maybe we don't do the St Patty's Day we don't pay for that project and covering that because we need resources for something that's more municipally oriented in terms of uh the town uh there may be things that we might try to get maybe the chamber to cover rather than the town uh I'm interested in finding ways to connect people with the decisions of this board so we can include them I know in the past when we've gotten word out early on key a key hearing that's coming up or a key decision that's coming up getting the word out early and inviting people to come to our meeting or follow us on Zoom we've been successful in getting people to participate uh on our Wastewater when we did our dhy Wastewater discussions we made it very clear that on a date 3 weeks out we were going to talk about Wastewater and whether or not we should go forward with the dhy wastewater treatment plant project and we asked people to show up because the board was going to have to make a decision do we continue with it or do we pull the plug and go off on our own and I thought it was incredibly helpful for the board we had almost 100 people you know checking in with us between group that was here in the room and the folks that were here on Zoom I thought the Public's involvement in that meeting was critically important so for my point of view my priority is getting the municipal government's business done when we need to hear from people we want to when we want to have a hearing on an important issue facing the town and we need to hear from people we want to be able to get the word out so we can fill a room we can fill up zoom and we can get lots of feedback and we can hear a really good sense of where the people of Yarmouth are on a particular issue that's my from my point of view that's my priority there are there are lots of other interesting ideas but if we want to stay at the heart of what I think is most critical in Communications it's dealing with the municipal government's business it's dealing with projects that might disrupt people things that people really need to know and to be somewhat selfish I want public input for the decisions that we're making here so if we have a if we have a huge issue that's coming up you know we need our team's help in building a crowd getting the word out to make sure that this room is packed and we get a lot of people on Zoom giving us feedback on things that are critical to the town so from my point of view lot of lot of interesting ideas but if at some point if we really had to sort of cut to the core of what it is we really need to focus on that should be it and that's why I I suggest it might be helpful to resurrect the policy if there's one out there take a look I was just trying to yeah I found it but it's I it's it won't it won't let me it's in the employee handbook I'll I'll look into run the board right definitely look at it biggest thing that I would say is I agree 100% the biggest help that we can get is that we're the vehicle that we're going to publish it out we're going to move it everywhere it needs the content we need to know what that content is as clearly and as in depth that we can get then we can communicate it out but the policy also helps you so when you come in here and you hear people like me complaining about this that and the other thing you can say well let me remind you selectman for us that's a nice idea but on the list of priorities um it doesn't really necessarily rank you know at at this level absolutely and so I hope when we call you you're going to come in and do the I'm I'm going to come in and help out whatever you need bu on camera that's all want that mug on camera I don't know about that I don't know about that I'm talking about on this the substantive aspects of this yeah that would be absolutely so just to finish up so I think we are saying the same thing Mark and I um so publish a newsletter but have it on the website too as a page and then last um the communications policy I I go back to the the uh issue that we had over the holiday and the Press called and there was nobody to respond um I think Mark ended up putting off the person off the reporter off but that should also be something that would be in our communication policy um yeah and I think that's worth being clear but in defense of the Town staff this person called the day before like Christmas yeah I was on vacation and and and then they wanted an answer like the day after Christmas and I think that's you know I kind of had to make it clear to them that that's a bit you know much right and so I I think if if you for my viewpoint um it would it would have been better to have had some kind of response because they published without our response and uh so I put that forward and just having run my cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative we would have responded because it's a it doesn't look good for the town to be out on vacation I don't think um if there a way foring at night stay in the building it was like I said it was Christmas Eve and then it was the day after Christmas I'm I'm okay with taking that hit no I don't I think anybody that I talked to that read that article was wondering why couldn't they wait until people were around you you don't you listen I've been doing media probably longer than you and the reality is is most reporters give you a little bit of time to check on a story like that it should just be something that's looked at in the in the communications policy here's the deal is if there's something urgent going on if there's something that's life or death you know yeah I can I'll take that criticism but not in this case not at all so I guess what I'm saying Mark and I don't want to it's 10:00 at night but um the communications policy should clarify that because I almost wanted to reach out an answer that needs to be cleared up because it was addressed to all of the select board do we respond I was it I was fine on responding but and it wouldn't have been proper and Bob ended up saying he would have responded if he had known available yeah so I think pick up the phone and call my number that's what need needs to be in the communications policy call him the reporter has his phone number and I would have re repeated it to her you know at any rate it should be in the in the policy so can I just put my two cents in um I I would like if if any kind of media Outlet contacts any of you for anything um I would like you to tell me about that so I can I forwarded the email to you did I forward it to B no you did I'm just saying and and they generally and everybody checks on this stuff so again I don't think you should you folks should be thrown under the bus at all on this thing I think you handled things just fine this was not an urgent call the reporter should have given the town a little bit of time to provide a response they didn't have any time they were given a very inappropriate deadline if this was something involving an urgent matter that's a different story I'm saying Mark I just don't like you making the decision I I you're not chair and you're not the Town Administrator so that's the chairman got the chairman got that let's let's put that up in his agenda item and have a conversation about it I think that's what I'm trying to say is it was a decision that was made and I didn't understand how it got made I'm knew I want to see how those decisions are supposed to be made in black and white we can do it for future discussion thank you okay great yeah I'm very excited about what you have um planned and anything I was going to say has already been said thank you all very much appreciate you being here thank you L thank you Paul ni on social Med okay next up we have an update on green communities and R2 grants we have a twers show here good evening hi um so I wanted to update you on the green communities Grant um so in July of 2022 uh Comm uh Grant was applied for and we received it start I'm sorry was there any information I I missed in our packet about this no no okay I've been just I've been researching this just so I could you know give you an update um so it was awarded in July of 2022 for three specific purposes it was 30,000 for um a hybrid police interceptor 160,000 for an Anor robic digestor and 10,000 for administrative expenses that was directly directly linked to the Anor robic digestor um we did use the 30,000 for the police interceptor um but we haven't used the money for the Anor robic digestor that was for a technical component um that project has been ongoing since 2017 um with fits and starts just really haven't received the information that we we really need on that project so um we wanted to ask the board to redirect those funds that haven't been used on the green communities Grant and use it for an energy efficient um HVAC over at the senior center and try to steer those funds and and request that change but we wanted to update the board on the Green community screen and um and why we would request the redirection of those funds I I I I would like to see more details on the grants the anerobic digestor has to is a very very important project and um uh you know before I would consent to sort of unloading those dollars I'd like to find out a little bit more about why that project has not gone anywhere um is this the one that Ed centio was working on before he left with a huge Department of energy Grant yes let me just jump in for a second and then let me throw it over to Jeff because Jeff's been here since they put out an RFP um I jumped into this project when I started a year ago an RFP was issued in 2017 and the way that RFP was issued it was for a public private partnership and it was awarded with a with a lease pertaining to the anerobic digestor and I know that there's a lot of information has been put out there um but I will tell you the private Equity company that they were working with and has since changed and they um they transferred their rights to another private Equity company which is um called inverdale we had I've had several meetings with them and originally with n Ed Centennial and one of the things that we were looking for was a financial analysis which we just never received so we haven't received any information really that would move this project forward that would make us feel comfortable um and why this would be beneficial to the town of Yarmouth um there's a lot of you know discussion around it um this grant does end or is supposed to end in June or has to be spent by June there was really no way we' be using that money for the Anor robic digestor in in six months we really are are nowhere with that project um and it's really because I you know I think a lot of it has to be the way that it was set up with the private Equity Firm a public private partnership it wasn't really a municipal project and so we haven't really been getting that information so I just wanted to throw that out there that you know I've been I've met in Bob and I met with inverdale several times and asked for information that would help us you know um look at the financial impact of this that was the first thing we asked for and we just have not received it and I don't think they have any such analysis um can you there's an issue that you know I I just want to bring up um you know the potential risks that you're facing with this that the the idea of the science behind the anerobic digestion is is really sound and a project like this for Yarmouth H you know carries with it tremendous benefits whether it's potentially for you know the um Wastewater sludge uh you know the these types of materials to um lower the the volume of that um what my fear is based on the Darth of financial information that we've been able to gain from this second private Equity Firm um inverdale um is is that what we're looking at is basically a massive long-term lease that this company feels that um their best interest is in developing a massive Regional facility that will make Yarmouth the repository for all of the Wastewater sludge from Southeastern Massachusetts all the way to New Bedford and Beyond and there's not a lot of these projects going in because communities uh you know don't view it as as a positive um you know impact on the town and as far as the it looks like the the revenues from being such a a regional center for having all of that material come to our community uh there's surprisingly little Revenue associated with it and when we've asked for additional financial information and and all they do is they give you a couple of pages of the executive summary from a report they've done but flatly refuse to provide the whole report um you know I I honestly don't think that their heart is in the the town of yarm's interest and um you I I just want to you know put that out there uh that if and and then they they say that well until you sign a lease with us that you lease this control of the property over to our company well we're not going to uh do any more work um as as far as I'm concerned that that's not in in our Town's interest and I I just was not um aware that the select board U you know was was together with making us such a regional facility for um you know the the Wastewater sludge and I I think that there's a a lot of issues there there's a lot of concerns I have you know not the least of which is um you know you read the report from the EPA just last week that you know they're determining that the um digested sludge right from Wastewater can no longer be used as a fertilizer because it's considered a hazardous waste because of all the Posas in it um you know just another reason to be a little bit concerned about everyone uh you know within driving distance taking their sludge to Yarmouth um you know there's questions it's a good idea it's a good process I worked with Ed on it for a bit before he left and um you know the motives were pure and in the benefit for the town of Yarmouth but U this particular company seems to be more um interested in you know trying to get as much control as they can and then and then having a a big Regional facility so I I think there's issues I think that this should be a um the Anor robic digestor Alone um you know should be an an agenda item to just talk through but I have not seen anything that makes me convinced that this is a a huge win for um for Yarmouth at all Madam chair before we have a discussion on this I really would like to have in front of me more details on exactly what it is we're talking about because literally we could spend tonight going through each one of these items that they're concerned about and spend a considerable amount of time sort of trying to extract the details when it might be best if we had a briefing something on paper that lays out in some detail the amount of money that we're talking about and the nature of the projects and some background on and on how we got to this point I I really think that that would be the most productive use of of everyone's time I'd like to come into this discussion as as Bob said as is a separate agenda item and have some detailed in front of information a briefing in front of us so that we know what we're talking about let's add it to the February 11th meeting May I just ask are there any other communities in your in Massachusetts that are doing this Anor robic digestor for what I could say about the an Jester it's a great technology it's you know whether it's here or at joint based C or just off Cape uh the issue early is the feed stock associated with an ad and we just don't have it on exclusively Cape cod's Wastewater sludge so that's been the real challenge with any of the partners that we've discussed this with it's something that's certainly worth continuing to look at I think the reason why we wanted to have this discussion today is the $170,000 that's tied up and committed to Green communities is uh could be better used elsewhere it doesn't mean that the isn't a great idea and we wouldn't be looking to explore uh different Avenues with that in that regard we've had some conversations with other vendors that are interested in exploring this idea and are not um needing the green community's U funding in order to continue those discussions uh but it's really been the feed stock issue and so we' really you know have to find a large volume larger than Cape cod's volume to make it viable for a uh outside entity uh to fund that uh to that's the long answer the short answer to your question is yes there's major uh facilities like Springfield MW they have an digestors associated with their uh Wastewater facilities because they've got the feed stock they're much larger uh their flows are you know bigger than all of Cape God combined because that's what makes these projects viable Madam chair M um you know I've had a huge interest in the whole issue of food waste um because it's part of the governor's climate change agenda in finding better ways to deal with food waste we generate a lot of methane from food waste we waste a lot of waste that is food waste and um one of the advantages of us looking at this actually Yarmouth was one of two projects on Cape Cod that was discussed and promoted as a potential site for this type of Technology uh the other site as Jeff had mentioned was out of joint based Cape Cod the upper Cape towns are involved in a regionalized effort to look at uh a food dig this type of technology for development out there so because Yarmouth was further along I think those other communities have been unable to get funding and support because the cape can only support one food digestor and so funding for their project has been basically sort of been put on on hold or has not gone anywhere because of the Yarmouth project so if Yarmouth is not interested in doing a project then that might I guess what I'm saying is is that there are other people working on this on Cape Cod uh and they've utilized the county Cooperative Extension they have a solid waste program that is done in conjunction with d and uh there's been generally an awareness that the the cape could not right now support two Anor robic digestors but could support one yar was getting a great deal of consideration because it was much further along but it sounds like that really hasn't progressed at all um so there's just there seems to be a lack of communication among the various players and participants that are working on trying to develop this technology all I can say is the intention is to do this on Cape Cod to help facilitate residences and businesses better manage food waste reduce the overall amount of solid waste volume reduce tipping fees and tipping costs that the towns are facing uh in terms of their transfer stations and solid waste and and deal with a regulatory issue in which the state is going to be clamping down on communities and businesses uh to reduce the volume of um of food waste so again in under the big umbrella of climate change and reducing methane gas this type of technology has sort of been of interest to to to at least the state and they've been trying to figure out a way to move a project involving this technology along in the cave and there were two areas Yarmouth being one I'm not promoting the idea of Yarmouth doing it I just think that I'd like to have more information on what's the amount of money what are the terms what's the project but I I to me if there's another effort going on that has real traction which this other effort does uh my hope would be to just you know weigh in with them join join their efforts and and help them get their project underway and maybe there's a way to either allocate that money for that or find another way to help them get their project funded but in any event I just need to know more about this um I just want to mention um yeah definitely an update I can work with Jeff on the update because Jeff's been involved in this since well you know on the outskirts and has known about it since 2017 and from what I gather I just don't want to have high expectation when I come in on the 11th I don't we don't have costs we don't have anything like that that we can present like this is what it would be if we decide to do it and I just you know I just want to you know lower that expectation um I don't they even have a a Federal grant see what what happened was the the the town went out to to bid and a firm bid on it and then they wound up going out of business and they they sold their interest which we accepted uh this new company that was interested because we wanted to keep the project going and so this new company came in and there are private equity firm and you know they were hoping to do a regional facility and you know they got tied up with uh the project that had litigation up in Maine which is the closest one that was going on and never came back to provide the detail um to support the original bid um and how long ago was was that though to 2017 no I mean that the that the com that the the inheritor company didn't come back with it I mean did we ever think of going to another vendor again I think you want to have this this it's it's 1020 right now this is a discussion that can go on way too long well yeah I but I I agree I would love to see it as an agenda item um and it's also um it's it's holding up our ever getting another competitive green communities Grant and you know it it runs out in July and we haven't asked to substitute anything can we use can I mean i' I'd have to look at the RFP and see if the whatever we're trying to transfer to is In The Same Spirit of I don't I don't know if I understand that redirection you're talking about yeah oh well that's pretty simply answered by going to Green communities it's in inverdale is Lisa suiv I'm not talking about that I'm talking about what what her recommendation is to utilize the money for now instead well that's what we're saying is youd go to the green communities people and and ask them if you can redirect the funds and we don't get the funds andless we do something that they agree to right but inverdale is the company that no we didn't do anything with no the grant is for the town of Yarmouth um when the grant was applied for um public partnership public private partnership you said that was the public private partnership was an RFP that was issued in 2017 to in 2017 to develop the anerobic digestor when this was a RFP from the town of yarm yeah that was in 2017 but when we applied for the green communities Grant um it was worded in such a way for a technical component now this grant was applied for in 2022 but we applied to the state the green communities for that and we're you know we're nowhere near that at all so we just want to contact the state to redirect the funds that we said we would use it for to maybe you know an energy efficient HVAC at the senior center because there is a deadline to this grant so it wouldn't have anything to do with um they're not a third party to this grant inverdale the private Equity Firm is not a third and I don't know what we would use the money for because every conversation we have with inverdale you know they just you know they'll build it but they need the lease but they can't give us really any information it's really kind of like a circling the drain type of thing when when you're trying to get information of where we're actually at with this project and Madam chairman I don't think this board has even had any this is the first time I think we've had any real discussion of this I'm not even sure the board was even briefed when the first grant was even pursued you know I think just as part of the the application that we a lot of this is all new do you recall Tracy when you were on the board any of this coming up I mean I remember the the RFP and and the contract I I knew Ed left I wasn't sure what the status was as a yeah the green communities was applied for after the process after the RFP and and really in a separate track when there was a search for funding to fund components of the ad uh and this would be one component of the ad uh the overall you know general costs that uh Genesis and now inverdale has given us are multi-million dollars for the total cost to develop a project this was just one small piece that we were able to secure Ed was able to secure Ure through you know looking under every you know rock to find you know funding source so it was money that was secured but we have no other you know matching component to it and uh it's not going to build an ad with $170,000 my understanding was that Ed had identified an EPA Grant and said he had EPA funding secured for this project over a million dollars he had indicated um is that true well I had a meeting with um the former Finance director and I asked him for the paperwork for the grant and when I read through the paperwork EPA was recommending us to another agency I think that's what it was for the grant but there was never a grant award in any of the paperwork or anything that I can see because usually you apply for a grant this is what it's for and then you get a grant award and it gives you the conditions of the grant like you know Green communities but they recommended and this was a couple years ago but there was no no Grant award or anything like that so EPA was recommending us to be approved for a $1.8 million might have been do Department of energy was it okay Department of energy said okay this looks like a good project but that's where it stopped there's nothing else and that this is the um paperwork that the former Finance director sent to me and then it stopped and there wasn't an amount to it or anything um so there was really was no a EPA or doe grant for not that I can not that I can not that I can find and I'm trying to piece L all this together in the last year I mean I've been reading through the paperwork but yeah there was no Grant award that I can find well let's just still put it on the agenda for February 11th to um do we have time if we come on February 11th and determine that it sounds like if we're not going forward with the an anerobic digestor that we should serious seriously talk to whoever else it is in the cape that's doing it we need to find out what our liability is in that RFP that they received are we allowed to just walk away from yeah I have had discussions with Council because there is in the RF let me just say this real quick so they issued the RFP and then they awarded the RFP but there's no contract so you could use the RFP as a contract because the RFP lays out ter not really terms and conditions but what you're going to do so when I spoke with Council about it to look at our liability um they H we really we really don't have any liability because they're not giving us the information that we're asking for and so in that RFP it says when we ask request information you have like 10 days to give it to us it's in some of the documents that I sent over to council and so there really there isn't any Li liability because we can terminate that RFP because it's not even really a contract you don't even really have a contract time limit so can I suggest something that when we bring this up in the agenda can we be a little I we need to be clear on what this agenda item is cuz right now it says here update on green communities are two grants I I no one really knows what that is I don't understand it it's very cryptic I think we need to have an explanation if we're looking to reprogram already allocated funds I think we need to have that in the description of the agenda item so this people have some general sense of what we're going to be talking about isn't that what we're doing repurposing funds I requested the uh the update um because I wanted to find out what was happening with that second Grant because it didn't seem to be happening um so um it's interesting to to find out more about it was clear the Anor robic digestor was a stumbling block somewhere in this but um no I'm glad we're talking about this don't get me wrong I think this is all I'm saying is it's St us to prepare would be great I'm trying to exit out of this and and every time we try to go out of it we end up getting drawn back in and I just think that all I'm suggesting is that we if we put on as agenda item just if we can make it more clear what it is we're discussing we're talking about getting an update on a what is it a round two yeah Mass Department of competitive grant that we apply for as a green Community okay from the Mass Department of energy resources is that it where's the funding from yeah they're green communities division yeah and then we're going to repurpose the funding and it's just one Grant we're talking about right or is there are there several grants or what what is it we're repurposing is it just this one just the portion what what we're hearing is that the police department portion has been spent has been spent so we're only what's left is the remainder which is the Anor robic digestor so what we have to have a discussion about is the Anor robic D digestor and um it we have to look at um you know like if we're not going forward with it you know like what are the particulars about it and there is another community on the cape you know is there a way that we could give that money to them for the purpose of Anor robic I mean to to have it go forward so you can't comes down to yeah so it just be sounds like it's our money our our money and our way to resp and we either got to spend it or lose it the clock is ticking right tell me if I'm wrong you're correct and and you have a good idea on how to use the money right we have a very good idea put that on the agenda for the 11th make that clear what it is we're giving up and repurposing and what the project is that we're repurposing it for I think that would be very healthy for the discussion the other stuff on how we deal with food waste and Anor robic digestors is a separate conversation for another day not really if you want to utilize money to move that project forward there you go then I mean if we still want to do it and that I don't know I'm just asking I think that that if we I think there's you know the the the project was sold to us as something that's going to help save us money in the long run like we have to pay to dispose of our sludge and our things I don't disagree so I think it's a conversation what what we're hearing is we have a company that isn't even communicating with us it's not even giving us any can we utilize that money there's no liability there let's dust them off well I mean but I think we also need to without going Jeff's pretty busy right now but there the the the technology has evolved since 2017 and there may be a smaller version that doesn't require the as much of the um the fodder that that is not available on Cape Cod but we don't have enough time it this the clock is ticking until July June June okay there isn't enough time I think to analyze this I I I don't see how we could come up with a the only thing we could come up with that I can see is that we have to we have to um Consulting for a new RFP no I think we have to look at where can we use the money elsewhere wisely if if it's approved because General Energy Efficiency stuff is not what the grant is about can can I I mean that's what we we went for we was we and we canvased all of the Departments looking for Energy Efficiency items that to make it part of this round two Grant and we needed help on the anerobic digestor because the town just didn't have enough information to be able to have the wherewithal to move forward with it where we stand this minute I mean I got to tell you even if this was a good idea to come up with some big Regional overly technical facility that we going to plop down in Yarmouth honest to God I need be anything beyond the cape though again can we discuss an and I need Jennifer next timeing on the Wastewater it's 10:30 and you know I got to be up at 5 handle this project to do a regional anic digest have the ability to do it let's finalize the discussion on February 11th all right it's too late to stuff in the packet and we'll read it and then we'll go just kind of a a history of where how do we get to here and where do we go from here and um we can put it on the 11th and take a look at it it's too late too late right now for us to be doing this all right moving on thank you thank you thank you we have reappointments we do want me to say them really fast so we can get out okay um Recycling and solid waste um advisory committee um a reappointment of Bill glass for three-year term ending two uh February 2028 and are you um second all in favor I I moving on okay zoning board of appeals um three alternate to be renewed um for one year to uh run through 2026 dick Knights Barbara Murphy Anthony pen biano so moves second second all in favor I I okay um disability commission uh renewal um three years through January 2028 Mary vilin so moves second all in favor I I I Old Kings Highway architect Sarah Porter one year uh appointment not a reappointment clarify right I didn't say it was a reappointment no but you didn't say appointment either can we hold this till next meeting table this to our next meeting make a motion we hold this till next meeting because we have a we have a a a resignation coming that needs to be in this mix okay let's hold on the appointments until okay February of of our next February 4th meeting upcoming agenda review um so we don't want even the planning board one you know I have on on our uh upcoming agenda for February 4th and one of the things we're going to be look reviewing again is our process for appointments I think just to educate all of us on what we're should be doing and where this is a new appointment let's look at we may want to go back on that um it's one through July but yeah it still I think if we're going to do that so let's put that on U February 4th um another additional one I had was the Old Kings Highway Alternate which we've just talked about I've also been um approached by a group in Yarmouth who want us to reconsider the naming of the Parker River Boardwalk Park and they have 145 signatures of what they think it should be and which is enough I think to put it on the agenda on February 4th in your packets will be the information I don't I don't know how that happened I don't know I I'm not going to have what what the alternative is is that they want they want to they want to put it on as a town meeting article I mean why shouldn't we be listening to what the people in town want and if we have that large a number that are that are not happy shouldn't we be listening we have a we have this General undercurrent in town about how the select board never listens to anybody we've got 145 for a discussion before it was it was that decision was made well it has to be on the agenda to be a discussion and that's what it is it's on the agenda we do an agenda review we sit here and do an agenda review for me to read online that it's already been determined I bother why bother for us to do an agenda review every week if we're just if you want to make the agenda just do it and save me the time that was not from my understanding was not supposed to come out until after we had had the discussion here tonight that was private conversation between myself and someone else and they they let it loose but I'm saying to be we just need to talk about it I'm not making a decision one way or the other I'm just saying if you got that many people that are that are voicing their concerns and I'll have in your packets the the packet that was handed to me of what all that information is you need to talk about it agree and on budget update for next uh meeting we'll have public works and Wastewater sounds good I have one the ballot initiative that came and I we don't certainly have to talk about it tonight do I uh I would love it to be on our agenda at some point it's um the um holte releasing the radiation into the water yes is that something we can I got an email from the person emailed the rest of the group Jim Garb right he had emailed me I don't know why he didn't email the whole board since he well he I think he did no I mean I got it well he emailed he emailed me a message saying never mind oh somebody else is going to be approaching us on this topic with a petition we've made we've made several statements on this we've made public informal statements on it in the past so just FYI I got an email for some reason he just sent it to me I should I should have forwarded to the rest of the board my apologies we'll just keep keep it down on our side information okie dokie okay and uh the library feasibility update just to know that the library did receive their Grant and um excellent that uh Jane is looking for guidance on setting up a committee now to proceed so that's what we'll be discussing on February 4th okay and okay on from that we have uh updates by our um Town Administrator first the consent agenda oh I haven't signed the folder stuff yet I do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda so moved second second all those in favor I okay um I think we've all our chance to talk about individual items at this point so let's just move on to Our Town Administrator updates I might say on the agenda the February 4th meeting is getting very um long we might have the town meeting warrant review on the 11th um just to spread it out a little bit and make sure we have all the right articles on there um uh we had today was our brainstorming session for the all of the housing agencies to develop uh brainstorming ideas for the madak kees utilization committee I thought it was very nice to see um representatives of the Housing Authority indicate that they thought it was a great meeting um I thought it might be a little bit stressful for them but um apparently it wasn't and so it was good and we um that was our second meeting and the housing is really leading the charge I think on getting some ideas together for the uh potential formati Keys we have our next meetings just want to make sure people know February 24 and March 177 and we're hoping by the March 17 meeting I guess they're both uh 24th is going to be 3:00 here 17th is going to be 2 o'clock here and by then we're going to be honing down some recommendations for the utilization committee and um yeah I had the the whole Tech thing we um had that tentatively scheduled for the February 4 agenda when Dr Garb contacted us um um Mark had received the email forwarded that right to me I got back in touch with the doctor and you know he did he did say that he asked to be taken off the fourth and um that he's got another team that's working on getting some information to us now we're told that they're doing a a petition and it's the type of petition that has enough signatures to you recall this process we went through the same one before it goes to the select board and then the select board makes a decision as to whether it was on the ballot and then if you decide not to then they would have to have a lot more we did and it passed 90% right I mean it was over it was like 90 something per was ridiculous but they don't listen anyway so it doesn't I mean the whole thing is so be on the lookout where I'm on the lookout right now for this new petition and so we thought it was going to be Dr gar but it's not going to be him it's going to be his team and we haven't seen any of the paperwork yet but we're looking for that and is that's all I have for tonight thank you do I have a motion to adjourn we move second second all in favor I thank you I feel bad to you guys on that that was a Dan surprise you know I