waiting for this recording in progress. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Yarmmer Select Board uh for May 6, 2025 at 6 PM in the Yarmouth Town Hall
hearing room 1146 Route 28 South Yarmouth, Mass 02664. For those of you that are at home and not able to join us, you can join us on Zoom. Just go to the town website and the information on how to do that is there for you. Please everyone join me
in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Well, I see Mary at the podium for announcements. Just some quick public announcements if I may. Mary Mazowski, town clerk. Uh just a friendly reminder that this Saturday, May 10th, is the last day to register to vote for the
annual town election being held on May 20th, the town clerk's office and uh will be holding a special voter registration from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 10th, here at the town clerk's office. Uh anybody that wishes to uh come register, if you're not
registered already, is welcome to come to the office to do so. It's also available online. Um, and I would also just put out a friendly reminder that the last day for um, people to apply for a vote by mail ballot is actually Tuesday, May 13th. So, we need to
receive those applications by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15th, or else uh, we will not be able to mail out a ballot. That is the new deadline under the votes act. Well, thank you, Mary. Thank you. Appreciate it. And Paul Newsiki, I believe you have an announcement for us
today. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Paul Nwiki, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. On the agenda tonight, uh was a request to to review a petition, a series of petitions that we put in to create a uh tourism destination marketing district.
And we would ask to withdraw that from uh consideration tonight. There are uh several questions. It's a case of first impression. It's sort of a new law. This would be the first district uh on the Cape. We want to make sure we have the property list right uh correct. So, we've been working closely with the
town. The town's been great on that. Town clerk has been great. Town manager has been great. Uh and then we've heard from uh other people in the community that there there might be some second thoughts on on from some of those properties that have signed petitions. So, we certainly don't want to move
forward until we have a proposal that's clean and uh a proposal that uh has is submitted and has petitions signed by people that absolutely are going to support it. So we, you know, there's a time frame in the legislation, this chapter 40X. Uh, but I don't want that
to create a false sense of urgency. This is an important discussion that we need to have uh for the future of the Cape, and we want to make sure that we do it right, that we're completely transparent, and that we hear from everyone. So, I would respectfully ask you to ask that you withdraw that from consideration tonight. Make your make
your evening a little shorter. Well, thank you very much, Paul. We will do that. Madam Chair, could we get a um an approval of the board to accept the withdrawal of the petition without prejudice and that way um you don't go through the hearing process? It's just
he can resubmit at any time um with the new petition. Sounds good. Do I have do I have a second on that? Any discussion? All in favor? I thank you very much. Okay. Um go ahead.
Um yes. Um, the League of Women Voters is having a candidates night for candidates for the Yarmouth Select Board. It's being held 4 to 6 over at the Cape Media Center, but it's being recorded. So, obviously, it will be in
circulation for a while after that, but Cape Media Center uh wanted to emphasize that people are are warmly welcome to come in person and uh take a look at the media center while they're there. Thank you, director. Go ahead. Thank you, Liz.
Um, as your appointments committee, I wanted to let you know that we have a public art committee in the town of Yarmouth. We have two candidates who've come forward to fulfill two of the required um positions. And now we're looking for three more people who are
interested in being on the Yarmouth Public Art Committee. it will help bring forward art projects to um beautify Yarmouth and give uh artists an opportunity to show their work. So, I hope you you let us know. There's a talent bank form online that you can
use, but you can always also reach out to me as your select person. And we also have um need of people to serve on the historic committee. So, if anybody is interested in that, please let us know
as well. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Any other announcements today? Public Go ahead. No, I was just going to say the public comment. Okay, that's coming next. Don't jump the gun. Okay, we're moving on to public comments. Please
come on up to the podium. Thank you very much. My name is John Fenari. Excuse me. I'm the general manager of Lighthouse Inn in West Dennis. uh we're Yarmouth uh Cape Cod Chamber and Dennis Chamber members and I'm glad to hear that there's uh more
introspective and more thought and more feedback is going to be taken from uh hotel years. Uh and I was here because I really feel that Yarmouth is it can really very much be a bellweather town for the Cape for whether or not to do that uh marketing district. We are
opposed to it. uh we're a seasonal property uh and much of the funds if not all of the funds are going to be dedicated to seasonal and winter efforts. Uh so and then as far as the notion of uh additional
1.5% in taxes uh being applied to our guests, we're not a fan of it. We're already at 14 and a half% for our taxes. So that would put us at 16%. And I think some of these numbers are very important to kind of look at uh as far as uh the
uh if if hotel years are pretty sharp folks, you know, they industrious and and they can decide on their own if they choose to add one and a half% and put that towards marketing rather than add an additional bure uh bureaucracy of uh
the state coming in and and taxing the guests that come in. uh and with especially with all the efforts that have been made to be transparent and not have hidden fees uh to add another uh fee would be very uh injurious both to
those uh and and the marketing efforts can like I said can be done if somebody chooses to say let's add one and a half% to our against uh the bill then they can put those funds aside it should not go to a the state then to be distributed to
a third party a third party who in in our should be really supporting its members, not finding additional ways to tax its members. But thank you so much for letting me speak, too. Thank you very much. Do we have any other public comment? Go ahead, Chris.
And I apologize, but Joyce, did you give a date? You said 4 to 6 at the Cape Media Center, but what's the date for the candidates? Um 4 to 6 is coming Thursday, May 8th. May 8th. Thank you very much on that. Well, for the sake of the very few out there that might not
know who you are, Chris, if you can I'm going to then do that. Okay. I'm Chris Gley and I live in West Yarmouth. Uh there were two things I wanted to comment and I apologize because I can't stay for the full meeting tonight. First thing is I know that you're going to do an annual meeting um recap and I want to
comment and it has nothing to do with the fact that I was there or did anything on the work that our moderator did in terms of the opening comments in terms of really celebrating um the 250th anniversary uh of independence and also
tying it in with the historical facts that tied into how Yarmouth participated and the kinds of roles and various things our town meetings things like that and I just think that um that was really quite very a nice way to open the meeting as opposed to perhaps another song that we've heard before. So um I
just wanted to comment I know he did a lot of research in order to do that presentation and a lot of writing in that. So I thought that was great. The second thing that I wanted to comment on briefly was that your item about the uh correspondence regarding the PAS environmental contamination. I think
very very strongly this is something you should be doing. I think the evidence is becoming stronger and stronger about the issues of the contamination in this community. Secondly, I am very very distressed about the fact that the airport um you know wants to go ahead to
expand and pave so many areas in that land that have not been explored correctly, have probably not been capped correctly. They have unidentified plumes. They've been very happy sort of pointing the finger at, oh, it's the fire training academy. But if you take a look at some of the presentations that
we've had before us, it clearly runs along the runways too in the airport. And so, um, I think that right now they're even going to the point of they're starting to pour concrete pads for planes because of the heavier weight of the planes they're accepting. And they know that they've got a couple of
areas, well, it'll be okay. You know, we've cleaned that area. And so I think it's a major major concern that until um there's really got to be some very coordinated very intensive kind of look um particularly for this community, but I think for all of the citizens in the
area and particularly I think the statements need to be made that they shouldn't be allowed to do any more paving over there because who knows what they're covering up or what they might have to uncover again. Thank you for allowing me to comment. Thank you, Chris. Do we have any other comments
this evening? We're moving on in the Sorry, we do. Forgive me. Uh Christopher Garren's phone. Yes. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. Thanks. I would like to
thank town administrator written, this select board, and the planning board for working together in the best interest of the town of Yarmouth to resolve lifetime resident in Massachusetts fisherman John Tal's issue regarding selling lobsters from his
home. Uh tomorrow evening, Wednesday, May 7th, at 6 PM, the planning board is scheduled to publicly meet uh to discuss possible zoning amendments for the fall special town meeting uh regarding retail sales, a commercial fish, shellfish, uh
which includes lobsters in residential zoning districts. Hopefully uh tomorrow evening the planning board will clarify given that uh the town residents will vote on the amendment in the fall that the town of Yarmouth will nevertheless
allow Mr. Tali to continue selling lobsters from his Yarmouth residents this summer. Otherwise, as a Yarmmouth businessman, he will lose money during the most the height of the profitable vacation season. In closing, thank you
again to Mr. written hour, this select board and the planning board for resolving Mr. Tolly's issue in the best interest of the town of Yarm. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Vita, I see you have your hand up.
Hello. Hi, Vita. We can hear you. Vita Morris. Um, I I don't even know how to start this. I I really got very very angry at the town meeting over several issues the way they were handled. Um uh but I
tonight I'm going to say it almost like in sadness. Now uh Norm Pulam raised a very interesting issue uh when he said that you know they projected I believe it was investment income uh was going uh
is being uh uh you know presented for the the coming year as about $400 plus uh thousand compared to the $1.7 million uh this fiscal year I guess it is that
is and and and the um uh the finance director uh put that off as as uh just being conservative. That that's not a correct designation. Uh uh this is not conservative. It's abnormal. And she
refused to answer uh you know what would cause such a huge discrepancy. I I I think that that was not uh the right thing to do and and it just raises all kinds of speculation and and uh uh you know people wondering what the
heck is going on. The uh uh the other one was uh with regard to a question that I had raised about the re-roofing of the uh town hall. uh the way Jeff Kby handled it is uh it was almost
incoherent as far as I could remember. I mean suddenly he was I I had been told that the uh that there would be a re-roofing that the solar panels that are there right now would be removed and then when the re-roofing is done they
would be put back again and when I raised this with Mr. written hour that uh I I don't understand why something like that which where the the panels are already very much on their downward trend uh and according to Mr. Colby
producing only about $2,000 in savings for us to go and put them back on the on the roof is is I mean I I can't believe that that would be done. But the the way Jeff even handled the whole thing. It only all ended up by being like, "Oh,
we're going to patch this up and this leak up and patch that up and then and then maybe we're going to put the uh the existing panels back on and maybe not." uh here again I mean that that that is I mean it was incoherent is that I don't
know whether Mr. written hour has a better explanation for for what happened there. But uh it and and as a matter of fact uh I I was told uh that supposedly uh the uh someone has come up with how
to dispose of those solar panels the used ones and I have not heard uh now we have a um uh an energy uh committee don't we in town and if uh maybe they should be tasked with the uh uh coming
up uh if if if indeed there is some you know the way of disposing with them properly uh that they would find out you know what it is and and uh how to go about it. So I hope that um you know something will be done about this but
it's it it really uh uh and and the the last one of course is not really so much doesn't belong here as it does at the school district. Uh Mr. Smith seems to be extremely proud of the fact that he has an increase the only district uh in
in uh within any striking distance that seems to have some new students compared to everybody else who are losing it. Uh I think he has to explain where are these students coming from? Are they bringing any money with them? And what
what's the story exactly? Who are they? So that's my my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Vita. Do we have anyone else for public comment? I don't see any on the screen. Once more for the public. Okay. Then moving on to the next agenda
item. Uh this is a good one to bring up. Our appointment confirmation of David Condan as director of natural resources. Bob, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Madame Chair. First, I want to start off to say that I am extremely delighted to have appointed Mr. David
Condan as the new director of our division of of natural resources. And the reason that we're here uh this evening is as a division head level position. According to the town's charter, the town administrator makes that appointment. However, the select
board um has a 15-day period that this appointment may be rejected through a fourfifths vote. And that's just an interesting part of the town's charter. So, um you'll we see all of the division heads come in in front of the the select
board uh to determine if the appointment is to be rejected or accepted. And uh the 15th day in this case would be May 17. And I indicated how delighted I am to have Mr. Condan here. Uh and um I'll
tell you he's been with the town um for about 5 years now since January 2020. Um and when when he started and and moved into the the position of natural resource officer and he's been serving as our acting director uh and for five
years prior to that Mr. Condan has had some very excellent high level experience um as a harbor master in three different communities and um he has exhibited some excellent leadership skills as well. Uh you need to know he's
the Cape Islands Harbor Master Association president. He's also the Massachusetts Harbor Master Training Council Cape and Islands representative. And very interesting, a lot of people don't know this about Mr. Condan. He
also had five years of experience as a second mate on a 900 ft vessel um in the Pacific Ocean. And the high level of skill and management capacity that it takes to act uh in an environment like that certainly gives him um a level of
presence uh working in our organization that we don't ordinarily see. And um I need to thank also um Mr. Bill Benetti who um is is looking rather um relaxed relaxed I would say this evening. Exactly.
But his attendance I think is a testament. You know he pulled me over early on and um had a discussion with me about some of the performance of Mr. Condan and how he was carrying himself in the department and the leadership qualities that um he really had in
working with um all of the independent tasks that that we do in the department. And I had because of Bill um had my eyes strongly on him. And I I just want to tell you I have been in his service in acting been so incredibly impressed. And
um I I do thank uh Bill for really u bringing this whole situation along and almost um making room in the organization to have Dave's leadership come to the four and it's much appreciated. He his skills are extremely high and I think he's a very
conscientious highly professional individual and I hope he does very well for the town for a long period of time. Thank you Bob. Let me just ask the board if they have any questions for David. Mark. Uh, Madame Chair, I'd like to move
to uh endorse the town administrator's appointment of Mr. Condan as our natural resources director. Second. Do I have any discussion? All those in favor? I. I. That's unanimous. Thank you.
Congratulations. Congratulations. Brings me great joy to watch how proud he is. Congratulations. Look at the smile. He's so happy. Look at him. It's adorable. Please do. Go right ahead.
Sorry, real quick. I just want to um thank a couple people. I got to thank uh former director Bill Benetti uh previous to that Carl von Hone for their leadership uh at DNR. We're a small little group, but we're we're dedicated and and uh we we try to get the job
done. Um certainly thank you to Bob and Bill Scott who I know is not here tonight uh for their support and the entire select board. Um and certainly last but not least, my dear bride and my little man Jack uh for their support. Hi Jack.
It's been kind of a long road uh getting to this point. Um I worked here for the division when I was in college 20 something years ago uh seasonally and I always wondered if there'd be a chance to come back and work full-time. Um it almost seemed like it was never going to happen because nobody ever leaves and I
figured there's got to be a reason for that. Um, so fast forward 15 years later, um, there was a couple openings and I snuck in there and somehow over the period of the last five years, we've had unbelievably like a almost a 100%
shuffle of staff. Uh, retirements, people have moved on and uh, I'm really proud to say that we may have a whole new staff from five or eight years ago, but we have not lost the mission. Um it might be different faces, but I am 100%
confident in saying that everybody we have working for us is 100% committed and you know it's a testament to their hard work and dedication and that everybody that works there now is there for the right reasons and um I think we have a bright future and and uh again
thank you all for the support. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Okay. Uh, we're going to be moving then to the agenda item that was set for 6:45 today. What time is it advertised for?
6 o'clock. Okay. This is for the fee increase. So, uh, notice is hereby given that two public hearings will be held at the Armor Select Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 6, 2025 and Tuesday, May
13, 2025. Continuing fee increases for the following departments: general administration licensing, community development, conservation, Old Kings Highway, Planning, Zoning, Board of Appeals, Community Services, Senior
Services, Finance, Town Clerk, Public Works, Beaches, Disposal, Water. The select board meetings will begin at 6 in the hearing room at Yarmouth Town Hall, 1146 Route 28 South Yarmouth, Mass
02664. Written comments will be accepted by the select board via email at select board atyarmath.mma. us until 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 2nd, 2025. Ver verbal comments will be accepted at each public
hearing. Persons interested in these changes are encouraged to attend the 2025 proposed fee increases. Department division general administration under licensing farmers market and agricultural event alcohol sales. This
is a new proposed fee of $50. Community Development Commation Commission. It this is um administrative review. a new fee uh proposed at $50. The um conservation
commission request for determination of applicability. This is on an explanation of notice of intent categories which will be available in the posted packet. Request for a determination of applicability for the conservation committee. Previously $75, proposed
$100. Notice of intent category 1, previously $100. Proposed fee $150. Notice of intent category 2, previously $200, proposed $300. Notice of intent category 3,
currently actually $300 and uh proposed $450. Notice of intent category 4 currently at $400, proposed 550. Notice of intent category five, $2 per linear
foot uh is current and proposed is $3 linear foot plus $750 for saltwater peers docks, $400 for freshwater peers docks. Notice of intent category six an
A currently $2 linear foot of each resource area delineated $200 cap for single family dwelling and proposed is a $3 linear foot extension permit currently
$75 and proposed $100. Request approval of a revised plan. There is no current fee, but it is proposed at $50. Request for an amended order of conditions. No current fee, but
proposed at $150. Administrative reissuance of a document. Currently, no fee, but proposed for $25. Certificate of compliance, $75 currently and uh proposed $75.
Certificate of compliance greater than two years after expiration of OOC and all subsequent COC requests after a denial currently at $75 proposed for $150. After the fact filing working
without a permit, no current fee, but proposed at two times the regular fee. Storm water management permit application currently at $200. Proposed at $200. Legal advertising currently at
$10, proposed at $15. Under Old King's Highway, certificate of appropriateness, new construction, residential, currently at $75, commercial at $100, proposed, all at
$100. Additions, alterations, garages, dormers, sun rooms, decks, windows, doors, solar panels, roofs. Currently residential at $40, commercial at $60, proposed all at $60. Site structures, fences, sheds,
signs, and paint currently residential $25. Commercial $25 proposed all at $40. Certificate of exemption residential um proposed all at $30.
Um, and then we have 20. I think it was I think the way they actually was supposed to read was certificate of exemption currently residential at $20. Commercial at $20, proposed all at $30. Certificate of demolition residential
$50. Commercial $50 proposed all $75. under the planning board approval not required plan or better known as an ANR currently at $250 less than or equal to three lots
then $75 for each additional lot proposed at $400 less than or equal to three lots then $105 each additional lot. Preliminary plan currently $250 at less than and equal to three lots. Then
$75 for each additional lot. Proposed $550 less than and equal to three lots. Then $105 for each additional lot. Cost to notify a butters currently at $5 per is included in the permit fee. cost
of legal advertisement at which is currently at the uh actual cost and is proposed to be included in the permit fee. Major reubmission $350 plus $175 per changed
lot proposed $550 plus $250 per changed lot. Subdivision resition for forgive me if I'm not pronouncing it correctly. uh currently at $350 plus
$175 per changed lot. Proposed $550 plus $250 per changed lot. Release of lots per lot currently at 150 proposed at 200. Confirmatory release of lots
currently at 200 proposed at 300. Special permit currently at 200 proposed at 350. VCOD site plan review currently no fee proposed $350. Private road name change currently
no fee proposed at $350. Repetitive board of appeals 200 currently is $200 plus cost to advertise and proposed is $350. Scenic Road hearings currently at
$100 plus cost to uh advertise is u proposed $200. Revitalization overlay architectural district also known as the RO A or road currently at $200 plus cost to advertise proposed at
$350. mailing and legal notices for businesses other than subdivisions, for example, ROAD, scenic road hearings, repetitive board of appeals petitions currently at $5 per if notification by
mail is required, and the cost of the newspaper advertisement proposed included in the permit fees notes. I would skip that. Yeah, that goes back up to uh cost of I see those are notes regarding some of
the other Okay, moving on then to the zoning board of appeals. Um residential currently at $125, proposed at $175. Commercial currently at $200, proposed at $450.
Comprehensive permit chapter 40B currently at $300 proposed at $1,500 plus $100 per unit. Local initiative comprehensive permit currently at $300 proposed to $750 plus $100 per unit.
under community services, senior services, charitable organizations, town boards, committees, groups granted special by select board. Currently, there is no charge and proposed is no charge. Registered nonprofits civic
purpose non re non-f fundraising open membership currently at $25 and proposed at $35. Social groups, individuals for profit groups that do not qualify for other categories,
currently at $35, proposed at $50. Under finance and the town clerk, a business certificate once every four years, currently at $30, proposed at $40. Marriage intens intentions currently at
$25, proposed at $30. Amendment to vital record, currently no fee, proposed $25. Burial permit, currently no fee, proposed $15. Street listing book,
currently $25, proposed at $30. Under public works with an effective date of May 24th, 2025 would be the non-resident disposal sticker currently at $192. Um would be uh proposed at
$250. Weekly weekly beach sticker currently at $75 proposed for $100 and daily beach sticker currently at $20 proposed for $25. Effective date on January 1, 2026.
Resident beach sticker currently at $35 proposed for $40. And then we can move into the DPW water quarterly meter fees. Meter size effective July 1st, 2025. Smaller than
one inch, $36 currently. Effective July 1, 2026, $38. One inch currently at n current effective July 1st, 2025 at $90. Effective July 1st, 2026 at $95.
1 to one and a half in effective July 1st 2025 at $180 and effective July 1st 2026 at $190 2 in effective July 1st 2025 at
$288 effective July 1st 2026 $34 3 in effective July 1st 2025 $540 $20 effective July 1st, 2026.
$570 4 in effective July 1st, 2025, $900 effective July 1st, 2026, $950. DPW water, quarterly usage rates, volume of water effective July 1st, 2025. The
first 15,000 gallons currently at $2.88. 88 and effective July 1st 2026 would be $34. 16,000 to 30,000 gallons effective July 1st, 2025 at
$341. Effective July 1st, 2026, $443. Over 50,000 gallons effective July 1st, 2025, $4.86. Effective July 1st, 2026,
539. I would welcome any um comments from the public. Somebody's got their hand up. I I see one hand up on uh Zoom. Would that be Tom Nicinelloo? Yes. Good evening, Madam Chair. And
first of all, thank you and such a good job reading all those off. That was absolutely amazing. I really enjoyed that. Um Thank you. Are you in the beautiful part of Bass River, Tom? The historic Are you in the historic beautiful historic? Are you in the
beautiful historic You didn't say were you part of Bass River? Yes, I'm a part of precinct 3, the very historic Bass River village. There you go. Make sure you used to be one time Friends Meeting Village. Anyways, um thank you all very much for doing that. And um you know,
here we are in drinking water week and it's raining and you're the water commissioners. That's very exciting. Um, also what's also exciting is our water technicians that have been doing an outstanding job putting out the fires up and down Route 28 with the water man.
But I'm calling I'm uh zooming in tonight, Madam Chair, just to uh reflect my opinion on the community development uh zoning board of appeals commercial for $200 being raised $125% at
$450. It doesn't seem too reasonable. We want to be a community that welcomes small business. Uh we have a a new uh business up with the old tasty buffet trying to sell hydrangeas and you know every every business has to go uh before
the board of appeals for a change of use, right? So I I believe this is kind of a a little bit of a inflated number. Uh we went up on the residents 40%. And I think we cons we should consider uh lowering that number down a little bit.
Thank you all very much. Tom, can you just say specifically which one I'm trying to Yes, it's the zoning board of appeals. When you go to file, it's the commercial that was the 200 and it's now 450. And can I just add I just thought
of my previous thought was um at the end of all these uh fee charges at the bottom could there somewhere be the actual what we're paying now and the increase what what it would be there's no total amount is it you know is it uh
10% of what we're paying now 20%. Do you understand what I'm saying? Mhm. So, you're saying basically, let's just stay with that commercial currently at $200 and uh proposed at $450. You'd like to also see added the percentage
increase. Well, yeah. At the end of all the fee increases, we just increased a lot of fees on all those lines. And at the bottom, it should it should say the proposed new total for all new fees and what the actual fees we're paying now.
You mean comparison? A comparison. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Do I have Britney? I see you sitting. Um, Britney Derenzo, conservation administrator representing community development for the fee increases. And if you want, I can try and address his
question about the commercial fees. According to the zoning board of appe of appeals, um the fees were generated by incorporating the legal ad and a butter notification fees into the fee. Um so those fees have been eliminated and
simplified with an overall increase of about $50 per fee in addition to uh reflecting and being more consistent with the fees in neighboring communities, which is why there's such a big jump. And lastly, these fees were last updated in 2008, so that they felt
it was a valid to increase it by that amount. Okay, Kathy, I see you seated. Yes. Um, just regard to the planning board fees, um, we basically looked at the I think the fees were last done in 2011 and just inflation from 2011 to 2025 was 40%. So, we made that increase
and then we had a whole bunch of different ways with which we were doing costs for legal notices and a butter notification. we decided to be more consistent and just we averaged out what the cost was going to be and that was about $50 per permit application. So, we added that into the actual permit fee. So, it was like 40% inflation plus $50
for the permit fee. Um, and then we did add new fees for the village center overlay district site plan review which we didn't we instituted in 2012 but have never charged any fees for and also the private road name changing. Lots of times that's just people are interested in changing it for vanity purposes and
we charge no fee for that and there is a public notification that's required with that. Um I would note that there was some mistakes in the um in the actual legal notice. Um the one that says preliminary plan that was actually the cost related to the
definitive plan and no definitive plan increase was actually shown in there. Also, there was a plan uh an issue with the subdivision recision. That information for the existing and proposed is incorrect. I don't know how to address that. What was read was incorrect. Um the subdivision recision
was put in incorrect both for the existing and for the proposed. Um and what's identified as preliminary for preliminary subdivision. Um that's actually what we were proposing I believe for the definitive subdivision. Well, it would be my
opinion that in terms of the the numbers that are wrong because they're advertised properly, we can accept those amendments, but but the preliminary to um a definitive plan would change the scope of what we've advertised. So, I think that that we would have to put on
our next advert. That's my opinion. I think that you have to give people the opportunity to to comment on and know what we're changing um information on. So that one if we missed it I think we need to put on the next advertise. Right. The preliminary plan is being increased more than what we were
proposing to increase it because that was the amount we were increasing it to definitive. So maybe we just eliminate the changes for the subdivision recision and the preliminary plan under this goound and we can address that in a future time. Okay. So we're taking out the preliminary plan for this uh hearing
and the subdivision recision recision. There was also an error for the conservation fees if what you read was what was in the legal ad um for notice of intent category five. The proposed
2025 fee is $3 per linear foot plus 750 for saltwater peers and docks, but it should say 200 for freshwater peers and docks instead of what you read was 400. That you don't need to readvertise because it's lower. It's a it's a lower
amount. You could just correct it. I like lower amounts. Yeah, that that's not bad. Great. Good one to catch there, Britney. Okay. Any other items? I I have a I have a question about about water in here because the the advertisement of
the water says the first 15,000 gallons and then it goes to 16 and then it goes from 30 to 31. So, I'm wondering if it's the first 15,9.99 gallons or if it's
16,01 or 30,999. There's a gap. Yeah. So, I'm not sure what the intention where you go to the next one. But, but so if you have 14 if you have 15,250 gallons, where does it what happens? Um Lauri Rosal, water and
wastewater superintendent. Uh we bill in thousands of gallons. So there is no 15,200's,000. So if you use 15,000 in1, you get build 16,000. No, 15,000. The next time it'll catch up and get that 16 get the next thousand.
What does that mean? The next time because your your meter always Well, either way you it gets it the next time you read because the meter is always going up. So if your meter reads 15,400, we bill you 15,000 and then the 400 is left for
the next bill. And then if once again on the next bill you're 15,800. Then the 800 is left to the next bill. It's that 800. So it keeps being left to the next bill until it hits a th00and, right? Yeah. Because we only bill in
thousands. So you're within 15,000 until you hit 16,000. Yes. And so on and so forth for all the others. 30,000 then to 31,000 and 50,000 to over 50,000, right?
Because we don't we don't bill in that incrementally. So you don't need that number in there. Why do we always do that? Yep. We don't build by the gallon. We build by the thousand gallons. Interesting. If we build by the gallon, then the price would be
0.0000 something per gallon, you know. Does any of the select board members have any other questions for today, Mark? No, I'm fine. Joyce, no. I mean, they're clearly explained and they were clearly read aloud. My diction teacher would thank you. Um,
and Liz, I just would note for the public that we were um very careful to have it explained to us that fees are required to be related to costs incurred, not to cover town needs. And so I think the fact that we've had some
questions answered very um ac completely uh testifies that that's what's happening here. Thank you. Okay. Then I would entertain u where I would continue this meeting hearing to the following week for a second part of the hearing.
Is that Robert's rules of order? What are we It's when it's on the agenda next. It it's what'll be on the agenda for May 13. So I'm continuing this hearing to May 13th. May 13. Okay. 6. So I can be clear
with with the preliminary plan proposal and the subdivision recision proposal no longer a part of the fee here. Correct. Did we not get any written comments? No, we did not receive any written
comments on the on the proposal. Okay. Thank you, Lori. You're off the hot seat. All right. Thank you. bring back Kathy Williams and J and um Joanne
Crowley. We're going to be discussing the local comprehensive plan update. I'm very much looking forward to this. Thank you all department heads that have been here for us. We'll let you go home and have dinner. Kathy and Joanne, I'll turn it over to
you. Buckle up for a lot of information. Joanne. Uh, good evening, Madame Chair and members of the board. I'm Joan Cwley, chair of the planning board, and I'm joined here this evening with our town planner, Kathy Williams. The
planning board is pleased to provide you with an update to the select board on our progress in preparing the Yarmouth local comprehensive plan, LCP. As our community long-term master plan, we believe the LCP to be a valuable tool
and resource to you, our town leaders, and the people of Yarmmouth. By people, I mean those of us who live here, who work here, who play here, and who learn here. Uh it is also our our responsibility to focus on um in a
significant way uh uh areas where we need to protect and preserve the environment and our beautiful and bountiful natural resources. The LCP will provide an important framework for decision- making as we develop ongoing and future initiatives and decide on the resource
allocations to fund them. We have followed your direction as stated in the 2024 priority goals for the LCP. You will actually see some action items that directly address those areas of focus you charged with us um back
then such as public engagement, benchmarking, permitting, zoning, and historic Yarmouth. In our presentation tonight, we will report on our community outreach efforts, goals, key act issues and
action items, the growth policy and supporting mixeduse analysis and our next steps. This is a work in progress and will be modified as needed during the summer with your input and that further input from the public and town staff.
As we had mentioned in our prior meeting with you, the LCP is being developed in accordance with the Cape Cod Commission guidelines with the goal of certification by 2026. Please note that the information is provided in your packet this evening
will be organized in a different format um in the final LCP following the Cape Cod Commission guidelines. meaning the index that we're going to follow isn't it isn't going to look like this um in terms of format. It'll contain all of
this, but some of these areas like action items appear in a different spot in the LCP following their guidelines. But we thought it would be best to show the connection between key issues, goals, and action items. although in the
final plan they might sit um in different places but will still be um pretty I think pretty logically organized. I would like to also add that members of the planning board, one of whom I think Dedra Gayquin is here this
evening, thank you Dedra, um our town planner Kathy Williams and our consultants have made except exceptional commit commitments of time uh uh to of time to this effort over the many months that we've been working on it to date
and have contributed greatly to the progress that we have made. Looking ahead, this will be a very busy summer for us. So, I'd like to turn over the presentation now to Kathy Williams, our town planner. Thank you, Joanne. So, I think Joanne did a good job of
kind of explaining what the importance of a local comprehensive plan. It's really going to help us um with the different actions and investments we're going to make in the future to kind of meet these key issues and goals that we're identifying through this process. As she mentioned, the LCP has a kind of format that we're going to go through that there's a vision statement and growth policy. We've kind of already
done the vision statement. We have that clearly and we've gotten some good information uh with regard to the growth policy kind of where we want to grow uh existing conditions you know what's the demographics of trends in our town what what are some of our issues with key issues and needs in town and that's going to be on a wide variety of topics
which we'll also go into you know and we're not oblivious we know we have a lot of these issues so there are current existing recent actions that the town is undertaking in order to meet some of these issues we have a whole capital infrastructure and facilities plan section a housing plan and then we'll have identified community goals and targeted action plan. Uh we need to get
it adopted at town meeting uh special special town meeting this fall uh and obviously certification from the Cape Cod Commission. You do get some benefits with certification uh including the ability for developments of regional impacts to enter into development agreements to um assess impact fees and
we can also um promote a designation for a chapter H or modify our growth incentive zone to kind of modify those DRRI thresholds. So the projects that would then be triggered to go through the commission would be different. So some of the t the uh things with the consistency with the regional policy plan the Cape Cod commission has kind of
broken these different elements down into natural systems, built systems and community systems. So in Yarmouth uh the themes are going to be the water resources, our wetland resources, wildlife and plant habitat, open space. We ended up putting coastal resiliency within the natural systems because it seemed to to mesh nicely with some of
the other uh items in in natural systems. Built systems are community design and land use, transportation and connectivity. uh climate mitigation and energy. Those things also seem to mesh together very well. Waste management and then of course the capital facilities and infrastructure. Community systems
are you know our community character or cultural heritage. Uh the big one economy big one housing. Uh one of the things that's not required in local comprehensive plan two things actually but we included it as part of our visioning plan that came out of that process was town services. you know, government, public safety, health,
library, senior services, and then education, and of course, recreation, how important that is uh in our town. So, we have done an extensive amount of community engagement um over the last year. I would say we've really tried to get the word and the buzz out
with going to the National Police Night Out, to going to the seaside festival. We had a community open house last September and to look at different goals and objectives and have people rank them and what were their their concerns. We also had a community meeting in January where we kind of drilled down a little
bit more deeply uh into the economy, land use, housing and then coastal resiliency and sustainability. We also have done an extensive amount of stakeholder interviews and questionnaires that um have been responded to from town staff, a large number of boards and committees including the big ones like finance,
capital budget, community and economic development committee. Um and then we also met with the DY regional school district, the superintendent as well as the um school committee uh chairman. We we had a separate meeting with the highness park civic association. We also
had a interview with a group of business owners and the chamber of commerce. Uh for people who couldn't make it to some of these uh in-person meetings, we also had the ability to do a crowdsourcing map where people could go in and identify some of their concerns on a map uh that then got incorporated in. All of
this information gave us all these meetings gave us um very significant information to identify the key issues and where people were looking for growth uh in our community. So one of the first things is the is the growth policy. You know, the Cape Cod Commission has an interest in growth policy related to centers of
activity. Um, unfortunately, we have very limited centers of activity, basically South Yarmouth Village and then a little section uh next to the hospital kind of because we're tagging into the Barnstable Activity Center. We're mostly uh suburban commercial development on Route 28. I think one of
our goals is let's try and convert some of this commercial suburban into those activity type centers. Um, so Yarmouth is really looking to pursue managed growth and development to add value to our community and benefit all of our residents and our visitors while also protecting our resources in the community character that we cherish.
We're really talking about pro promoting economic dev, excuse me, growth development in focus areas where we have municipal sewer because we don't want to be exacerbating our environmental problems. Uh, we also want aesthetically pleasing mixed use and commercial developments along Route 28. We also want to see growth and redevelopment our
hotel properties along Southshore Drive. We also had some specific areas of of growth people and modifications people would like to see um resulting from the community meeting that we had mostly related to locations on Route 28. And then of course other areas of potential growth um include the Madakis Middle
School property which has a lot of good synergy going on right now with that. And of course as we grow and evolve, we want to make sure that we're still preserving and protecting all the things that we value like our historic and cultural resources. um and our environmental resources and also promoting
resiliency. Oops, sorry, it's very sensitive. Uh so the the some of the things that we've identified here on the left are some of the key issues that we found out so far and then some of the action items we're considering uh in the memo and the actual um attachment to that. There's
very detailed, but this is kind of a quick overview of some of those those items. Uh and one of the key plans that was associated with this all all of the natural systems except for um resiliency really came out of the 2023 open space and recreation plan which was recently
completed. So looking at water resources that includes everything from fresh marine and drinking water. We're concerned about our drinking water quality. We're worried about the quantity. We're currently in a drought right now. Uh we also have aging infrastructure and how that's going to have implications to our water rates. We're also concerned about funding
mechanisms for future phases of the wastewater uh program. We did a great job on phase one, but we have seven other phases that we need to be looking at. We also have concerns about where we're going to find other effluent discharge locations for our for our wastewater. There's also concerns with things like septic system, storm water, fertilizer, and just development uh
putting contaminations uh contaminants into our water resources. And of course, the water quality impacts of of various title restrictions that we have around town. So, what are some of the things that we're looking at? We're trying to monitor and prepare for regulations and treatment requirements. We're going to I'm sure Lori has gone through many of
the water infrastructure replacement projects that she has going on and then also looking at future supply uh demands and conservation. We need the water supply so that we can continue with different types of growth. uh continue to implement our wastewater program including all the affluent discharge, finding those funding mechanisms, what
specifically would be the next phases in those areas, fertilizer education and the importance of keeping our septage treatment plant operational because we still have a lot of people on on septic and we're looking to promote title restoration projects. We're working with the friends of Bass River um on the upper reaches of the Bass River for
those two title restrictions at Weir Road and North Dennis Road. We're also looking uh at doing a study for Run Pond with them. And then of course the everpresent Route Six Bass River Bridge um which is not only a structural issue but also a a title restriction. Um also um the Cape Cod Commission did a fabulous job on their freshwater
initiative and they came up with a bunch of different pond strategies. I think we need to really dig into those a little bit more deeply and see which ones might be applicable to the town of Yarmouth. We're also doing a water quality study on Long Pond that needs to be finalized. want to continue to work with uh and
support the Hyannis PAS community working group. Obviously the near and dear to you guys. You know what the concerns are there with regard to PAS contamination at the airport and the training facility and then maintaining enhancing our shellfish program because they do help clean up our waters and then looking at whether we want to
continue um evaluating storm water regulations and continue with all the great storm water management projects that we do around town. Can I stop you there just for a second, Kathy? Um, because in case any of the select board have some specific questions regarding water resources before we move on to the
next section. I'm glad you brought this up. It's almost like each section warrants a discussion. Um, I I think I think I think generally ju just as a general, I think you've done a great job in tying goals with specific
action items. And on the water side, I think um the one thing I'd like to be able to flesh out uh is exactly the point that you raised, Kathy, and that is what does this freshwater initiative being done at the county actually mean
for Yarmouth? And I think um to what degree does it influence our thinking in the phases of wastewater? You know, are there pond issues that might require we take a different look at how we phase
the project? I'm also glad that you flagged the funding for wastewater because yeah, we figured out phase one um but our big challenge is going to be the subsequent phases because the challenge is where's the money going to come from? The revenue
streams that we have paying for phase one have already been figured out. Um, our challenge is going to be how do we come up with a financial plan that works for the for the residents of Yarmouth and that and I think to some degree it
might be helpful to maybe elevate that item because I think it's probably one of the more significant challenges that we're facing as a community right now. So, but I I appreciate this is this is definitely worth an item to to stop on. Those are some of my initial concerns.
But I think overall I I I love the way this is organized and the way you've put it together connecting goals with specific action items. The challenge is going to be keeping up with all the action items. Thank you, Mark. Are there any other questions, Tracy? No, it's I mean it's
very comprehensive. We can't This is going to encompass everything that our town does. So for us to get in the weeds on every issue is just not going to be possible at this time. when it comes to us, I mean, holistically, I mean, it's not it's not the LCP's
um issue to figure these issues out. It's to identify them and address them. So, um to the extent of the work that I see, I I'm I'm thrilled. I'm I'm happy. I know it's a it's quite an undertaking and um you know it's going
to it's going to identify a lot of the issues for us that are going to need addressing but but it's not this documents uh issue really to to solve them all. So, um, again, it's such a comprehensive,
uh, document that's going to encompass every piece of our town, every recreation, open space, all of it, that, um, I just want to see you continue the work and, uh, at some point at the end when it's collective, and I'm
glad we're we're doing it all as one this time, right? So, what was happening before is we were taking pieces and chunks and trying to get that approved and then going back to the commission. Um, hopefully they're giving you support as we go along. So, we have a document that gets approved uh by town
meeting that will be approved ultimately by the commission and that's that's the goal is to get the regulatory um lift so to speak from the commission from this. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of action items that are going to need to be addressed. So, I'm
just very happy for all the work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy Joyce. Oh, I'd just like to say thank you for all the work. It's comprehensive and it shows the time over years that you've invested in it. Um, I'm just delighted to see Long Pond
mentioned uh because I figure since it's in a town of Yarmouth presentation, it means our Long Pond since every Cape Town seems to have one and I'm I'm particularly fond of ours. Thank you, Liz. Um, I wanted to shout out on the
growth policy, the two the three paragraphs, which we didn't hit today here, but boy, I think that is such a um terrific driver for where we are, where we're going, and how we want to get
there. Um, and as far as getting specific, I I think what I'm hearing is we're not going to um get dive into action, get into the weeds, shall we say. Yeah. Um, I I agree with Mark that I when I I've read the draft goals, key
issues, and potential action items. And I immediately said sustainable funding mechanisms for future phases of the wastewater program needs to go up top so we're on the same page. and then and and eventually banning herbicides and pesticides in locations adjacent to the
waterways. I think some towns are are doing that and we're going to look at it. But I I'll refrain. There were some areas that I have some specific comments. So maybe when we get to those,
but I'll try to leave it as a uh a big big plan right now and not dive into the weeds. Thank you, Kathy. you can continue on. I think Tracy's right. This is not going to solve all the problems and sometimes things like the um freshwater initiative. That's something
that's almost a little mini project unto itself of delving into it and evaluating all of the strategies that they have and identifying the ones that would be applicable to Yarmouth and then moving forward with that particular. So, it's going to it's kind of trying to identify all the issues and concerns but not necessarily like you say answering all the all the questions. No, but I think
if I can just add, Madam Chair, I think it's important for us to work with you to identify on the action items the areas where they're very high priorities in the areas that are very challenging. I think this document is going to be incredibly useful not just for town
officials, but my hope is is that the residents of the town will actually get something out of this and understand the things that we're working on and how all the key goals and objectives all fit with some of the action items and why we're doing some of the things that we're doing. So, I think the challenge I
think for our next discussion on this is going to be how do we and I know and I know you I know you've been working on this. I know you've been doing public forums and outreach. The challenge is, you know, is this a document that I mean, there's a part of me that would regardless of the cost want to get a document like this in the hands of every
resident of the town or every household of the town. You know, that's a separate conversation for another time. But I do believe the work that you've done is incredibly important. I'm very pleased with the progress and the challenge is is how do we increase the awareness of it because uh it's incredibly important
information. Can I just say one thing? Um, I agree with all that and all that everybody said, all of these issues are important. My concern is once we get this, we need to consistently massage it because what has happened in years past
is, you know, we we get a section approved and then it sits on the back burner and it constantly needs attention and and needs to be up updated as um issues emerge. And so what I'm concerned about is, you know, thinking forward is
what is our plan to make sure that we continue to keep this alive document that is um like maintenance. Yeah, it's con park maintenance, building maintenance, plan maintenance that we're always having before was all the
different chapters. There was I like the synergy of this and how the pieces each system because a lot of the things were separate but they were cross-referenced and duplicated. So um it'll be interesting to see how the
final document comes out if it's still the same format. Um but but there was a lot of overlap. Yeah, I think and there's a lot of different action items that could have been placed maybe in a bunch of different elements within it. We tried to keep it consistent to or tried to
pick the right one to put it in so that there wasn't a lot of duplication. For example, like the route six um bridge that was I think put under title restoration, but it could also have been put under transportation and connectivity because it's in poor very poor condition and that would be a big
would be a big blow. So we had tried to pick places to put things uh so not to do and I would point out too that this presentation is yet abbreviated again because reading what
you've presented in the draft plan. You've got what 15 action items for for water resources. And here we're just seeing a a small sampling. So it's very gets very
specific. Excellent work. I think also we've been talking with BSC group our consultant about breaking this up into wastewater, drinking water and then you know fresh and marine water resources because it's such a big and important component it might need to be broken down further. So as Joanne mentioned the
exact format's still being a work in progress but we're just trying to get the ideas and thoughts out there to people. Great. Madam Chair, if I may, the other thing that um in in all cander, what we want to uh come back to you again at some point uh is not to
have this go merrily along and then all of a sudden we present you with uh a a draft of a product and and we hear that we're not going in the right direction. This is not what what you want that the town administrator wants. Um, we know
we've heard from the public. We think we've put it together as best we can. So, um, your your comments and questions as early on as possible, especially things we might have missed, um, is going to be very important to us.
So, I would encourage you to reach out to me or Kathy at any time with uh any comments with regard to this. Um the action items when they appear at the fi in the final report will have a date. We'll have a person a group that's responsible for it. Oh wow. Um we'll
have a timeline. Um so it's very specific in terms of action items over the uh period of the plan if you've seen any other local comprehensive plans. Um and that will be make it a dynamic document not a static one which I think
is where you're going. Um so um uh Tracy that this needs to be a kind of a living document and we check the box when we're done. Um and then we move on to the next one. Uh so uh um uh that's that's really why we we will be back to you probably
in the summer again uh when we get further along. But uh that's really our our real interest is not having any surprises. Well, thank you and Kathy love to hear more. Can we give them a round of applause?
This is a marathon, not a sprint. Good job so far. Um, so with regard to key issues that we found in our wetland resources is that we're finding that a lot of our resources are at risk from development impacts and also what adjacent and abuing property owners are doing. We've
also find that people are unfamiliar with the regulations. So they may be uh causing violations or inadvertently damaging wetland resources. uh the same issues with overfertilization of people's lawns and untreated storm water discharges going into wetland resources. Of course, there's sea level rise and
saltwater inundation that we need to be concerned about. And then of course um wetlands and emban abandoned bogs that are in need of restoration. So the some of the action items are really evaluating updating the wetland bylaw and rags to add protections for coastal resiliency zones. Those are actually like where where are we going to start
seeing inundation due to sea level rise and climate change. uh continue the public education on regulatory requirements and best management practices for homeowners. We have a bunch of information that we distribute. Pursue acquisition or uh conservation restriction on land suitable for salt marsh and wetland migration due to sea
level rise. We've already identified a list of different properties at different levels of inundation. uh continue and pursue wetland restoration projects. Uh the working with the friends of Bass River for the bog restoration up in the upper reaches of the Bass River, the Cape Cod Hospital,
Bay View BOGs, and then of course identifying any future projects for wetland restoration. Thank you. Keep going. Uh plant and wildlife, uh we always are seeing increasing invasive species need issues in around town. uh plant and
wildlife again habitats those are continue to be at risk again from development and impacts from adjacent property owners. We're also seeing some encroachment and impacts to our core core habitats and breeding grounds. So some of the action items are developing that invasive species management plan and identifying properties where town
properties to to conduct invasive species management. I think Britney's going to done a good job with identifying that and seeking funding uh to continue to remove them on town land and in town projects. The Parker's River Landing project included a significant amount of basin species management even
though we didn't talk about it a lot. But the West Yarmouth uh parks that has a huge component is uh invasive species um mitigation. So reinstating our prescribed burn and mechanical vegetation removal program. Not only does this reduce um wildfire potential,
but also improves wild uh life habitat by creating different types of habitat. uh evaluating uh potential vernal pools on town land and seeking uh certification for those. Uh we need to protect something. We need to know it exists and and Britney's been uh successful in going out in the spring
and identifying vernal pools. Uh continue to protect our shore shorebird monitoring and protection program, little plvers, uh and evaluate zoning modifications regarding clear cutting of residential lots. Can I ask a question about this? Those recommendations, where did they come from? I mean, in terms of
like reinstating the prescribed burn after watching just h what happened at um the base with our drought, is that really something we want to recommend at this time? It's part of the open space and recreation plan. Doesn't necessarily mean it has to be included in the local comprehensive plan, but as an action
plan considered reinstating. I'm just wondering where the recommendation came from. It came from just conversations to the open space and recreation plan development. It's an actual action item in that plan. A lot of these all of these natural systems, a lot of the action items came from the open space
and rec the 2023 one that was approved. Correct. Okay. We haven't been doing it since CO. So if that's something that you're not interested in, again, it's a good idea. Let us know and we can I'm just curious. I'm just curious if that's would still be a recommendation. I know that management is important, but um I
don't know. I guess just the prescribed burn after what just happened with the drought, like when when would we make the the uh recommendation to reinstate it? You know, are there are there provisions in there that says when that might be
appropriate? It concerns me. Maybe we could maybe we could include that. Yeah, I I think that those should come th that type of recommendation should come from an expertise like a fire chief or that's why I was wondering where I mean fire department like when they do
burn permits just for people's backyards they do look for that and see whether they can issue it's safe enough to issue a burn. So it makes sense that whatever that criteria is perhaps we should make sure we're following the same but I can follow up and find out what that is. Before you go, Kathy, um, invasive
species management. Um, is there another place in the document that might actually explain what invasive species what we're talking about? Because sometimes there's going to be an there's a whole existing condition section, okay, that's going to be providing some information. We could
elaborate on what that is. I just want to make sure that on some of these when we use these terms, sometimes we tend to talk on our own jargon and we often need to sort of explain things in English to people. And and this is one of those areas invasive species people people think
we're talking about aliens or something really your imagination can go wild. So I think yeah there might it might be helpful somewhere in the document where there's fragmitees frag exactly like other items there should be a way to explain what what we're talking about
fragmitees 101 sometimes photographs can help a lot might also want to look then too at um pollinators and explaining what pollinators are and and um introducing trying to uh promote
pollinators and I don't and again not getting into the weeds. Get it? Weeds. um is landscapers having a grading system so that we the landscapers we when you're going to get
somebody and you want to be uh mindful you can call a landscaper that's gotten some qualifications based on what kinds of natural ingredients maybe are used. So we might want to I I but again that's getting into the weeds. I think
we can hold that one. I can tell you a bone of contention of mine is that the town itself still sprays fragmitees in conservation areas. So until we lead from example, I don't think we should be
asking anybody else to do that. Okay, that's my two cents. um open space um again identified through the open space and recreation plan was inadequate maintenance and upkeep of our open space and conservation areas. We see some improper
use and dumping on town properties. Uh lack of trail signage in certain locations. Uh we did find there was a lack of awareness of open space and recreation trails. People didn't seem to realize all the great things that we have. And then also um preserving open space from development. So action items
include continuing to enforce and the legal use of conservation areas, installing trail blaze markers to keep people on the trails and then actually maintaining them. Improving signage at conservation areas that can just to let people know this is a town conservation area as well as wayfinding along trails
and also adding some maybe some directional signage to nearby attractions and businesses. So when people are on the rail trail, maybe they can go down to a business and that type of thing. Um and develop a list of properties for acquisition or conservation restriction for a wide variety of things of protecting habitat,
species, environment, drinking water, providing wildlife migration, any large tracks of undeveloped or privately owned recreation or agricultural land uh for recreation vistas, uh undevelopment like we did at the Yankee Village and archaeologic and cultural resources. And
then, you know, if there's a protractive land available adjacent to an existing conservation land, it's nice to to have that all blended together. and then continue to print and disseminate maps of our conservation trails. We have a good set of maps at this point. So, can I just make one point on this? Um, your
open space clearly identifies the inadequate maintenance and upkeep, but there's nothing in the action items related to that, and I I think that that should be an action item. Um, you can have all the markers and signage you want, but if you can't access the trail itself because it's not been maintained,
that's a problem. It would be good to get some ideas maybe from the select board. I mean, I'd like to give you an idea as a potential action item. I think we should evaluate uh an adopt a park program. All right. Look at an expanded. There are some communities that have done this and have done this well. And
so, under the category of open space, I would make sure that we're also talking about our parks literally like the parks that we're developing. I mean, we've got the drive-in site. We've got obviously uh the the other parks along, you know,
Route 28. uh we're talking about a common area now. Um I do think that we need to have a game plan and it may be once we get our LCP adopted as you know that triggers the
use of mitigation funds and I think one of the things that we as a group should be thinking about is allocating mitigation funds specifically to public space maintenance and upkeep. All right? Because once you do NLCP, it enables us
to utilize those funds that the Cape Cod Commission collects. We use them now. We use them now. Well, then I think that's part of the conversation then. Any mitigation funds that may be able that may be triggered in terms of adoption of the plan or in other mitigation funds. I think we should be looking at ways to
allocate those funds. We need to create a dedicated source of revenue looking at that. Um, but I'd also think that what we need to do is consider as a community an expanded adopt the park program. Uh, they're very successful in other areas. I think that's something that is going
to be crucial. There are businesses and towns that have stepped up already. Um, and I think, uh, there's potent significant potential in growing that here. I think now is the time to start having that conversation. I was talking about walking trails though, not parks.
I'm talking about the actual trails in the No, I understand. But I that fits the overall category of maintaining conservation areas and parks. I think the trails are a little bit different. I think someone might be um interested in adopt a park because it's public. They can have a little sign versus you know
necessarily. So I think the question is is like you know maybe it's a case of increase. The problem is is even if you have the increased budget, it's finding the people to do it. You just use Americanore for Yeah. couple couple years. We were talking about that at the beginning before our meeting started. But, you know,
um we have a ton of walking trails and they're wonderful, but you know, your action items related to putting signage and other um you know, things there is we we really need to find funding to
maintain and upkeep them in addition to the parks that we create. But I think they're all tied together. There's no reason why someone can't adopt a trail, right? Why not? Could well be. It's done elsewhere. Why not adopt a trail, adopt
a park, adopt an open space, adopt a habitat? Right? It really comes up to the what we we the work is on us to identify what that adoption what obligations an adopted park brings with
it. Right? So do that or an adopted trail. But some towns, I mean, I've I I I'm familiar with what we're doing, but some towns have actually really developed and expanded their program significantly. Do you know of any towns maybe? Uh, South Bridge is one to take a look at. Um,
I've got a I've got several others at my home office that I can share with you. All right, sounds good. We do adopt an island now. I'm not sure that's that's a it's a lot of work for the town to maintain. it last the last time we discussed it a lot of businesses put
their signs up and and they don't actually do the work and there was some complaints there. So in terms of managing that there's a cost. Okay. Climate resiliency. So some of the key plans and studies used um were the m the municipal
vulnerability preparedness report that was done in 2019 also the 2017 hazard mitigation plan and we're currently uh ongoing efforts to update that plan. So we've come up with some good action items from that and then also the 2023 climate change vulnerability assessment
and adaptation plan for municipal facilities. So some of the key issues were obviously the storms and the coastal in inland flooding uh road flooding and having emergency access and egress from those areas. Um being sure about the locations of our critical
infrastructure outside of slash zones and and special flood hazard areas. Coastal erosion and shoreline change. Also the lengthy process and cost of dredging and beach beach nourishment permits. Um we h we have one for Lewis Bay and Parker's River and the lower
reaches of Bess River but we don't have anything for the upper reaches and also the adequacy of staffing for management of resiliency projects and grants as we have more and more of these types of projects and looking for more and more grants to cover them. Additional staffing might need to be considered for that. Some of the things that we're
looking at for action items is conducting the MVP 2.0 O process which keeps us eligible for MVP grants investigating entering into the community rating system. That's something um where it might be we might be able to get some uh help from the county to get into it. But what are the
real efforts on an annual basis in order to maintain that and do the documentation that's necessary and then evaluating whether additional staffing uh would be needed for these resiliency projects. We currently are working on and want to complete the neighborhood emergency egress study south of Route 28. And that's focusing on sea level
rise and coastal storm flooding on residents, businesses, and emergency egress uh south of that section south of 28, which is really our major flood uh hazard areas. And then implementing some priority projects that come out of that. That's a two-year project. uh complete the design and permitting construction
of the packet landing marine resiliency project to elevate that lower parking lot and the wararf uh and the revetment there for our harbor um boats. Um looking for funding mechanisms for town coastal structures. We have a lot of seaw walls and some jetties that need some repairs and trying to find out
mechanisms for funding for that. Conducting coastal erosion accretion and shing study in Lewis Bay. There's a lot of issues with Lewis Bay uh related a lot to the fairies and the different types of things that are going on there. Uh conduct a Yarmouth dredging pro program. Like I say, we've got a good permit that we got in October, I think,
of 2023. And then also permit the upper Bass River. We were able to get um an a seapport economic grant for that with Dennis in order to uh do that joint permit. Also wanted to conduct a feasibility study for the fire station number one on Old Main Street that is in a slash zone which is related to
hurricanes. uh and then evaluate uh and look into Cape Cod Commission's model flood plane overlay district zoning bylaw and see if there's portions of it that might be applicable to the town of Yarmouth. Madam Chair. Uhhuh. Yeah. On on this slide, I'm glad you have the uh the
Lewis Bay sholing. That's an important that's also a water quality issue as well. So, I'm glad I'm glad we've got that on the list. Um, is this the area where we're largely dealing with the issue of flooding or is there another section on
flooding? Is most most This is most mainly here. Yeah. I think my concern about this particular section is is that um you know when the public looks at it, it looks like we're focused largely on fixing and addressing municipal infrastructure. All right. And certainly that's a priority, but I'm I'm very
concerned about the complaints I hear from people in the non-municipal infrastructure, the people that live in areas of the town that with uh that are constantly getting flooded and running into problems. Um I as I think Jeff's
gone, but I'm always sending him constituent complaints from office hours. There's always at least a coastal flood or a flooding issue that comes up, a drainage issue that comes up. And I think to some degree, I think we've as a community have sort of dodged the issue
um on in terms of the non-municipal infrastructure in many of these neighborhoods. There may be things that we could do as a municipality, but there probably things that we could encourage even homeowners to do. You know, there may be green infrastructure that people can utilize on their properties to sort of limit runoff. There may be the
rainbarrel program. I see APCC is out there pushing the use of rain barrels as a way to capture and manage uh water. So, it's it's sort of a water management exercise. And I'm not suggesting for a minute that the the work itself involves
ultimately the town of Yarmouth having to implement it, but there may be things that homeowners can do or can be incentivized to do to limit the flooding. So, I I honestly believe that there some effort needs to be spent focusing on the flooding problems in other areas of the community where our
residents are really getting harmed and uh finding ways to elevate those. I've mentioned this before when we talked about packets landing. I'm all in favor of that project, but I do think we need to explain to people what are we doing about the other areas that are being flooded in town where the drainage may
be inadequate and uh there may be other reasons why. Is this coastal flooding or inland flooding? inland flooding. So, Captain's Village, you're talking Captain's Village. I would put that on the list. It's been on the list in the past and it's basically a set of recommendations that have been sitting on a shelf somewhere that groundwater or
surface precipitation because I think far storm water runoff. I would say storm water runoff, but also some of these events are groundwater level. Yeah. High ground water level. High ground water. That's what I'm wondering. Is it is it both? It's a combination of things. Yeah. If you if you know um if
you go out to Captain's Village when there's a heavy storm event or you can go almost to any place these days on Cape Cod after a heavy storm event because we're in having I mean with climate change we're having an increased number of heavy rain events that impact
more and more areas of the town. You could probably make an argument some of the areas that were adequately designed for drainage years ago are no longer, you know, sufficient to deal with some of the drainage problems. So, I think if we're going to be talking about climate change, if we're going to be talking about how weather patterns are changing,
it's also having an effect on flooding in many areas of the community. And uh not just our coastal areas and not just municipal infrastructure, but we've got a larger community that's being impacted by this as well. And I don't think we can ignore it.
Madam Chair, if I may, I have I know that there is at least one constituent who lives over in this the south of uh 28 um and wants to consider a rebuild that would be specific to confront the the the resilience that she thinks she
needs. And of course, it would be it's not exactly appropriate with zoning right now. So maybe that's something we'd have to look at too. Elevate. Yeah. stilts. I don't know. But it's if it that's
that's what she's considering is she's got a piece of property. How can she if she's going to remodel, rebuild, she needs to get it up higher. She considers that that's something she should do. Yeah. Right. Right now it's based on the existing ground 35 ft. Right. So there's
been some discussions about that over the years, but then there's also the concerns of if you make it too high, then all of us, you know, what are you doing to what are you doing to other people? How do you balance that? I think it's a it's an issue that will be coming up more and more. Well, while you've
mentioned that, the other issue that's going to come up, particularly for coastal residents of the town, is going to be the growing interest in beach nourishment, right? And finding ways to help facilitate those projects. I've been watching the permitting process for the uh the beach nourishment efforts on
Great Island and um you know it hasn't been smooth, let's put it that way. That that has been torture. Um and so if we're going to be encouraging private residents to be doing more along the lines of resiliency, um the extent to
which we can be creative in helping residents actually do some of that work, I think is going to be incredibly important. Um, my own observation has been that the the proposed beach nourishment on Great Island has been torturous at best. It's been a waste. It really is. It's taken a lot of time.
There have been some requirements or recommendations that I think um are going to require I'm sorry, this permitting. Moving on to built systems. So, one of the uh key issues in community design and land use is we're really looking to balance our commercial
and residential along Route 28. That's our main commercial corridor. We don't want to get too much residential there, but some residential um might be helpful to actually service the commercial businesses. Um we need to have more commercial and economic development opportunities in these business
corridors. Give people more options. Uh we have few defined walkable village centers. Uh we want to be sure that when we're doing development and redevelopment that we're preventing environmental degradation. Uh we really need to be sure that we have a clear vision for Route 28 now that we have municipal wastewater. And the whole idea
is that there's this pent-up demand for future redevelopment to make sure that it looks the way we want it to look. Um we've had some concerns with complicated permitting process. Um and a lot of uses being through special permit versus by right. uh need for more housing options, you know, maybe increased densities,
different types of housing that might be available. And then of course the former Madakis property, you know, it does offer an enormous opportunity for a variety of different land uses. So some of the action items that have been identified is really u better defining and and updating our design standards so
we get the aesthetics um that we want along route 20. I think the studies that we're doing, we'll discuss a little later on the mixeduse analysis will help provide some visualizations for that. also evaluate significant modifications to the zoning bylaw. I'm even thinking like a complete rewrite of the zoning bylaw. We've been hitting things
intermittently, kind of a reactionary way, trying to set the table as much as we can through all our optional overlay districts and maybe now with sewer when we need to step back and and take a look at at the whole document. And then of course with the certified LCP, we can evaluate uh
re-evaluate locations and parcels for our existing growth incentive zone to increase those DRRi thresholds. That's one of the benefits. And then of course updating of subdivision rules and regulations. There's some com there's some criteria in there that's just antiquated with regard to the references because it really hasn't been updated
since the 80s. I would see as another action item, Madam Chair, is um working with the Mass DOT on the revitaliz on the work to um redo Route 28. um that that needs to be we need to continue to insist that it be
pedestrian friendly, people friendly, and enhance the overall safety as well as um our be compatible with our our vision for Route 28. But but pedestrian friendly is going to be incredibly important uh for that corridor. And I
think we need to make some reference to that as an action item so that we're all focused on making sure that that that project goes smoothly and in a way that like I said enhances pedestrian use and access. It also had green like the
rotary and green spaces. The plan that they presented had green buffers and trees. So if we're talking about maintaining what they presented, I we do talk about it in the transportation section, but but you're I
it can definitely be elaborated to talk about the things that you're talking about with regard to enhancing um development, the pedestrian. Well, you mentioned the vision for Route 28 on there and I I understand how it fits in here. It's it's certainly worth mentioning here is that that's that's a
it's a key project. It's probably going to be the most impactful project in terms of the overall look and vision of 28. Absolutely. I think we have to balance that though. I think we have to understand that our zoning um a lot of these lots are already pre-existing non-conforming and
and and what what's going to happen uh to these businesses that are already under um a lot of pressure. What's happening with construction is we are going to make them even more non-conforming. And um with that expansion of Route 28
um they're going to lose a lot of their frontage and land space. And I think that we need to um be very cognizant of that. And I'm not sure to what extent we can help the businesses. But uh a lot of this when we when we do these things, it
just triggers more um difficulty for businesses. But it also may trigger us to find more creative ways to work with them as people consider how they might want to redevelop or reuse their property. I hope so. Yeah. Continue.
So transportation. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I have one comment about um community design and land use built systems. Can we also talk about your redevelopment authority? Tracy, you mentioned it and it's something I was talking with Bob about and it it's been discussed a few
times. A redevelopment authority with some funding to help bring commercial aspects to the Route 28 revision. It's in the economy section. Okay. So these things like I say you got to go to fit into different into different buckets
and it's also before we move on is discuss solar canopy development and we know that um these new it's in okay it's it's later but gota let's move on
I think um yeah it's later sorry um transportation and connectivity I think not anybody's going to be particularly surprised by the key issues that were identified ly the increasing speeds, congestion, and safety issues around town. We do have multiple high crash intersections in town. Luckily, a lot of
them are being addressed by the mass DOT project. So, that's good. Um, we do um from the uh Cape Cod Commission when they did their vision zero, which is really to identify safety concerns. We did identify high injury networks and intersections uh in town. Uh we have the
increased traffic on con and congestion on Station Avenue. We have a high level of car dependency and people commuting uh off Cape. Uh we have bike and pedestrian safety and sometimes there's l lack of connectivity. Uh certainly lack of connectivity to destination locations. Um so even if you have a
bike, you may not be able to safely get to where you want to go. Um we also have a lot of narrow layouts and and historic context we want to maintain as well as well as environmental constraints that kind of impact our ability to expand our our roadways and add these multimmodal uh things. Current certainly with regard
to current regulations uh we have limited influence and input I think at the Cape Cod uh gateway airport was identified as a concern. Um and again as we mentioned before impacts to roads due to sea level rise and climate change the route six bass river bridge the condition as well as the ret title
restriction and then of course the Cape Cod Bridge and impacts to the entire Cape including us and our envir our economic vitality uh as those are being repaired and replaced on uh in the near future. So some of the transportation uh action items are related to obviously
implementing our route 6A village center improvements that we've been working on for several years and this is collaborating with Mass DOT on all of the Route 28 projects. You know that's the Bass River Bridge in the four corners. There's also that section that we're we were just talking about the from Barnstable to the Parker River. And
then we're also looking at um replicating that from the Parker River to the north to North Main Street. And then of course exit 75 is a high crash uh interchange and and needs to have some um work done there. Also evaluate implementation of those Cape Cod Vision
Zero safety action plan. They had a very detailed action plan that had short and long-term uh action items for those particular high injury network and intersections. Uh and implement recommendations from the Cape Cod Commission's uh station avenue corridor study. And again that's with the with
the direction of the select board. Um they had again long and and short-term um studies that uh implementation that could be done. Cape Cod Commission is working on a route 6A visioning study over the next two years and we're going to collaborate with them on that. See if they can come up with some some ideas
that we didn't think of. Uh increasing bike and ped connectivity. Um we have the route 28 the shared use pathway that's there. The ongoing right now the Cape Cod Rail Trail extension into Barnstable. doing things that we can to improve crosswalk safety, whether those are flashing beacons and then of course
looking into becoming um going the mass DOT uh complete streets program. That's something that we don't belong to right now, but if you develop a master plan for your bike and ped uh there's the eligibility for construction money trying to strengthen a coordination with the Cape uh COD uh
gateway airport commission. I think there's more detailed information about that in there. Um looking at different locations for bus bus shelters. I know that poor people at Shaws have to stand in the rain. Uh it would be nice if we could get them a bus shelter. Um and then solar p powered radar speed signs
and then also the mobile speed trailers which identify more traffic information. I think we all know that when you see the speed sign we all say, "Oh, wait a minute. I didn't realize I was going that fast." And so that it does help people slow down. I know it's certainly done it for me. Um and then just it makes me want to go faster and see.
Yeah. It's it it has the absolute rebel in you. Such a rebel. It has the absolute opposite effect for me. Light a cigarette and step on the accelerator. Oh, I'm like, h and right now, um, we don't have
anything in our zoning bylaw related to any type of traffic mitigation. Not even necessarily required to provide a traffic report. So, that might be something that we might want to look into for larger projects. obviously something that's larger than our regular projects but smaller than a um a DRRi
project. I got an action item that came up out of the January meeting. Our table was just delighted with the idea of a trolley that would be specifically dedicated to 28 uh just going back and forth from Old Main Street up to
Barnstable back and forth for all of the hotel people and hopefully even kids could ride it um without supervision with some supervision on the trolley. Who would do that? Cape Cod or RTA? RTA could be a grant. I mean the RTA does it
already. It's not necessarily a trolley, but we I mean I'm not sure. There are ways to design a service that can be worked into your RTA assessment. So that's a conversation to have with
our RTA rep Bob Lton. Yes, he's very familiar. He's the chairman of the board advisory board and he's very familiar with us. Good to have someone in the know. It is You know, another another thing that's
not on here is I know we need strong advocacy on our tip on the tip um the transportation infrastructure um to make sure we get funding from the state. Well, right now we have three Yarmouth representatives on the tip. You're not going to get any more than
that. and and I will and I will say the the newest the newest member of the tip was very aggressive at our last tip meeting and no meeting a plug for uh the Route 6A uh village improvements getting a a priority on the tip. She was already
lobbying pretty hard on that. So Liz, thanks for uh weighing in. She did not waste a minute to start speaking out on her first day on the job on the tip pushing everyone to elevate that. zone. Madam Chair, explain that. I'd just like
to say if we're talking about major streets like 28 and 6A, I would like to nominate Long Pond Drive, um, it is now the main East West thoroughare in the southern part of town. It is because of the construction. Yeah.
Kathy, what were you saying about explaining? I was just saying I think Jeff Colby responded to your email about why it wasn't on the tip. Absolutely. Brilliantly. That's why I'm gonna leave that to Jeff. I don't know whether the issues on Long Pond are a temporary thing related
to um construction or whether that's like something that we need to address as a certainly a learned byway now. It's a you know it's I never knew that there were ways to go other than 28 growing up
in Orleans. Now I know I think we can say that for all of our roads. Oh yeah. Comparison to you know before you think about people who are on Higgins Croll and who are on Buck Island. Yeah. These are all um more traveled than previous a
lot of our sub main roads are becoming main roads. I would agree. West Yamouth road I mean that that's heavily trafficked now squirrel very heavily trafficked. just the increase in traffic alone in town and we certainly are all seeing it right
now. It's you get into the month of April and we can definitely see a change in the traffic patterns. Okay, climate mitigation and energy. So, some of the key issues on on climate mitigation and energy is obviously the high cost of energy. I'm appalled at my
electric bill personally. Um and then different ways we can have energy conservation and and improved efficiencies. Um there's a large land consumption for ground mounted solar. We have limited land available. Um and ground mounted takes up quite a bit. I think we're seeing that at me small.
We're seeing it maybe even over at DY where these ground mounted have impacted the ability of locations for maybe an elementary school. Um the aesthetics of parking lot solar canopies. Um we certainly have a lot of parking located in the front pre-existing non-conforming. Uh, and we want to make
sure that we're not going to have a lot of um solar canopies over there impacting uh something that might have been a beautiful building that was that has been developed. Looking for more EV charging stations uh and additional ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And then um we have limited staffing
available for these energy projects and initiatives. So some of the actions items is I know that you guys have been talking about hiring a municipal energy manager who I think would help with the implementation of the green communities act and identifying different ways of of um improving efficiencies and
weatherization not just in municipal buildings but also in the school buildings. Um continued the efforts of the energy committee. Um I know that since Joyce is gone I I I haven't I don't think they're quite as robust as they were. I don't know if they have a full committee at this particular point. They're currently recruiting, but
they're now up to three engineers. So, that's Oh, okay. And you're an engineer, too, so you appreciate the value of that. Good news. Bad news. Ouch. Um, so then and then exploring and pursuing options for green infrastructure,
whether that's roof mounted solar or um parking lot solar, EV charging stations, and geothermal at town facilities. um working on minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and maximizing energy efficiency for all of our publicly funded projects in a cost-effective
manner. Uh encourage participation in home evaluations and energy saving measures through Mass Save and Cape Save. And this is something that came out. I've had a lot of people over the years complain to me about the sound and the noise of the gas powered leaf blowers that seem to go on for eight
hours a day in a neighborhood for for a long time. So maybe over time we can convert these back gas powered uh handheld equipment to battery operated equipment and again maybe it's the case where the town starts um before we ask other people to landscapers to do that. Um and then develop zoning bylaw for
ground mounted solar panels and also solar canopies. May I I want to give a shout out right now to Old Kings Highway historic because we've been struggling with their
distaste of solar in their historic district. And there's a new law that was passed that gave them more comfort in embracing solar and also in embracing more uh efficient windows and doors
which sometimes are not exactly uh all wood which is what they would prefer. But they are they have made those changes and they deserve a lot of commendation because uh those are the kind of changes that the state is
requiring us to make. So shout out to Old King's Highway. Thank you. And and and in the complete opposite of that, my recommendation would be to lobby the state to get rid of our crappy energy policies that's driving the energy costs
up for everybody. So, um I would also comment on the charging stations and um that there they anybody who owns a solo an EV car on who lives on the Cape is
really not doesn't need the EV charger. They have theirs at home. That's why you but the our tourists need them and but the only kind they need is level three and level two is what hotel owners want to have because
then you can charge overnight and that's adequate. But if you're for instance going to hit the bike trail and you're going to park your car and want to come back and have it charged up, you need level three. And that is a big rationale for people to visit places is ah I'm
going to we're going to have a great day today. We're going to get the car charged and we're going to do this. So that's a biggie. It's good to know waste management. All right. I had a really good meeting with the recycling and solid waste advisory
committee in Roi White House. I learned a lot. Um, so there's obviously we're with regard to waste management, we have a lot of increasing costs and it's really shrinking all of the options that we have for disposal not just of garbage but also wastewater sludge and our hazardous materials. Um, we're also
getting decreased prices for any of our recyclable materials. Um, one of the things that came out of it I thought was really interesting is that maybe the town hasn't fully tapped into waste products as an actual resource. Uh, and I know that they had the anorobic digtor was an idea. um they came up with some
additional ideas for that, but I think that's something that um people are interested in pursuing further even maybe you know the methane that comes off the capped um portion of the landfill and whether that's something that could be tapped into in in some way. Um also talking about composting
for leaves and yard waste is really at capacity at the transfer station and the final product is product is really not a salailable grade. So it's becoming an issue of what we're going to do with this. Um, one of the things that keeps coming up is maybe regionalization of recycling and composting for cost effectiveness and also maybe for waste
products like uh food waste and and that type of thing that goes into some type of um anorobic digesttor or some type of to converts it to fuels or biocharge char and then of course public education on recycling what can what can be recycled what can't be recycled and then of course the mass D wasteband
regulations which have gone quite strict you know with regard to no fabrics and that type of thing uh and and then just litter uh around our our community. So, some action items are again continuing the efforts of the recycling solid waste advisory committee. They have some new members who are very very knowledgeable.
Um we're working and on modifying that April 2023 general bylaw and single-use plastic food containers and the utensils that was a little too strict originally. So, we have I believe fall town meeting uh to come up with some revisions with regard to that. uh and looking at
engaging in our regional partners. You know, maybe it's through the base about discussions on solid waste disposal, sludge man disposal and also those composting options I talked about. And then evaluating opportunities to convert waste products, you know, whether it's food products or leaves or agricultural
waste uh to fuels and biochar or and then again evaluate that regionalization of those efforts. uh implement license plate reader at the gate house and then continue our annual community cleanup day. And one of the things that they were talking about is, you know, it's not just
um reduce, reuse, recycle, but it's also things like donate and repair. Now, anything you can do to keep it out of the waist stream. Um, so maybe if we had like developed and disseminated a list of places for donations, kind of what they took and then also a list of places that do repairs for, you know, small
household or or yard equipment. It might be useful to the community to be able to have that information. I know I miss having the the gift house, swap house, gift house. Yeah. Um, I I wondered if we uh would be reststaging our cleanup day,
our community cleanup day, Bob, there you go. uh because we we missed it and yet there's still a lot of cleanup that's could be done. I don't we can consider that at a later time. Right now let's Sorry. Yeah, let me just jump in on this
regional partners working engaging with regional partners. Um there is an ongoing effort through the county uh to work with the upper Cape Towns in developing a composting facility at Joint Base Cape Cod. The military has
signed on to it. They've agreed to it. They're developing a specific project now uh for use of space out at the installation. And the upper Cape Town, the enthusiasm there is very high. Y and um that involves also accommodating food
waste. Okay. Because D is tightening up the rules and regulations on food waste management. And obviously if you can remove food waste from the waist stream, that's a significant volume uh in any community. So things are advancing there. So I would I I would embrace when we talk about engaging regional
partners, it's engaging the county and working with them on plans to develop facilities at the installation. And when I've made the rounds as county commissioner on the Cape to talk about this, it's I'm amazed at the level of interest in this. It's very very high. I
was talking to officials in Chattam the other day. Um they're they're they're thrilled. They're enthusiastic. And this is where the discussion of the anorobic digtor begins to potentially have some life as well. That was another identified site for a potential project
like that. So um people should not give up hope that we might on an anorobic digtor for Cape Cod. Okay. Capital infrastructure and facilities. The key plan obviously is the capital improvement plan. Um some of the issues that were identified when we
met with the capital uh budget committee and also um Bill Scott was again the long-term funding for the wastewater program. Making sure we have you know a capital improvement program or or plan in place for our municipal buildings and our
facilities. Uh also also for our rolling stock replacement plan so that we know when we need to regularly replace things of our vehicles so that they're not all happening at the same time. Can you just add the vehicles in that? I don't I think you know rolling stock. Okay. I don't think a lot of people know what
you're right. Yeah. When we're talking about rolling stock, they have no clue as to what we're talking about. Um long range approach to that coastal infrastructure. U one of the things that was really identified as a concern is, you know, we make all these great laid plans, but there's a lot of unknowns out
there that are going to impact our capital needs. you know, with unknown regulations, legislation, and then of course, we don't really know the full impacts of sea level rise and climate change are going to be on our community. And then, of course, incorporation of regular maintenance into the annual budgets and not capital. So, let's
maintain it instead of waiting till it needs to be replaced and it becomes a capital project. And this the actual action items will be developed using the capital improvement plan which kind of outlines them already. And a lot of them you you'll kind of see some of them throughout here about the different types of um capital improvements like
the library and that type of thing. Is this where the redevelopment authority would belong? Goes into economy. Oh, sorry. It could probably go in multiple places, but that's where it is. Anyone has any questions on that? Moving on to
community services systems rather, excuse me. Oh, yeah. Community systems, community character and cultural heritage. So this gets back to the what Joanne was talking about your comment about more tourism opportunities and promotion of our of our cultural resources and historic sites and
structures, more public art and then talking about maybe the opportunities um for events uh in the off season. So action items were to develop a historic Yarmouth initiative that basically protects and promotes our historic resources in our sites that could be done through via an app, different types
of publicity, interpretive signage, um and also complete the Revolutionary War monument which is currently going on. Um promote installation of of public art on town property. I know Liz is working on on um getting members for the public art committee. uh evaluate that creation of
the town common and the park that the money was voted for at um all at the annual town meeting. Uh and then this is something that's been on the books for a while and they have CPA funding um for the historical commission to complete a townwide archaeological reconnaissance survey to identify sensitivity maps of
kind of identifying our cultural archaeological resources and artifacts so that as we're moving forward we have an idea of these areas might be a little bit more sensitive. um support arts and education programs, you know, through the cultural center of Cape Cod Historic Society of Old Yarmouth. We do through our um tourism
revenue preservation funds help assist with some of the activities that happen at the cultural center and help them with publicity. We always say that the historic is the untapped resource we have in town. We're sitting on, I think, a potential
uh Yeah, I I agree. And I agree that I I think it's terrific to have the historic Yarmouth initiative up there. I think that's great. One thing we shouldn't lose track of is the last time we had a brainstorming session with the board in the historic commission and the historical society. They had made a
pitch that if we do move out of the South Yarmouth Library into a newer library, they they were interested in leasing in utilizing that facility or making a bid for it, a pitch for it for doing a historic type structure there. Oh, historic structure. Well, they would
museum they would make it a museum. They sort of like have what they have at the Banks Hallet House sort of a a south Yarmouth version or a bass sort of a village version of it which could help anchor any kind of historic Yarmmouth initiative. So they they put that on the
table as a an offer to the uh to the select board at our last brainstorming session with them which was quite actually energizing. That was a very great very good discussion. I I guess I my only comment is I guess
picking out the cultural center. Um it's one educational there's several. Um I don't know. I think we should talk about working with our nonprofit businesses or however. I mean
because you just you talk about captain ballot banks. There's there's there's a ton of uh of um arts and educational programs throughout Yarmouth and Gory House. Yeah. I just I So maybe we reference all of our cultural
organizations, cultural and historic preservation. I just think singling one out of many is Sure. I think this kind of came out of um some comments and I think these are the ones that people are most familiar with, but
it would be good to kind of give everyone any that they don't know about. Yeah, there's a bunch of programs out there. Okay, the economy. This is the long one. This is very full. Holy Toledo.
I don't think there's anything here that's particularly surprising to anyone. Um, with regard to the key issues, you know, there's a lot more competition for vacation venues and the the demographic. you know, the younger people are not necessarily choosing a Cape Cod vacation. Um, we also have a
heavy reliance on our tourism related jobs with limited, diverse, and year-round jobs in an economy. We have limited activities and different things that for younger people to do to attract the the younger tourists. Um, someone was saying, well, where do you go on a date? So, some place that has activities and things that you can do on for a fun
date. Uh, better defined walkable mixeduse villages. Um we also have difficulty uh attra attracting and retaining business employees. Uh we have limited child care options and workforce housing which probably plays a role in that as well as wages. Um we need to
capitalize more even more on our midcape location and our family fund. I think somebody was talking about making you know make yarmath your home for your Cape Cod vacation because we're so centrally located you can kind of go anywhere and do anything. and just the overall aesthetics of the town. You know, it might even be things like, you
know, keeping our beaches wellmaintained so that people have a positive view of that as well as, you know, any blighted or vacant properties we have in our business district. Um, you know, that lots of people have commented maybe about the length and the cost and maybe some unpredictability of permitting. I think people are concerned they spend a
lot of money to get to a certain phase and they may not get the permit that they need. That could be very disenart disheartening. Um we also have limits on housing density in some locations and limits on mixeduse options we might want to explore. Uh we there's also obviously
a not um insignificant amount of impacts from wastewater construction from a lot of businesses that you know it's really concerning. We did have a meeting uh with the chamber um about possibly having you know a specific type of flag
created maybe a bright yellow or something that said Yarmouth open for business. So anytime a business is open, they can put it out so people know as they're driving by, oh, they're open, they're open, they're open. Um, so just trying to find different ways in addition to getting a better communication, letting people know where
where construction is happening, that maybe letting people know when businesses are open and what businesses are open. Um, and a lot some people are asking uh questions about expansion options with wastewater. So, you know, I've been limited on the number of seats I can
have in my restaurant because of my title five system. Can I just go ahead and add another blankety blank number of seats? Uh, how many rooms can I have and if I redevelop in this particular area? So, um, that's something people are looking for more information on. People looking for more access to highspeed
internet in different locations around town. U, we need to look at capitalizing on the Cape Cod rail trial and also eco-friendly tourism. And then there's also concerns expressed about the high residential tax burden compared to the commercial tax burden. So some of the action items that we're looking at um I
know that um Bill Scott had been talking to the community and economic development committee about funding a marketing study to kind of see what types of businesses are are needed in town based on our demographics and then identifying them and seeing ways that we can market to attract them to our community. uh implementation plan for
that promoting and incentivizing mixed use on Route 28 and that's part of that mixeduse analysis that we'll be talking about a little bit later. Again, creating that vision for the reuse of the Madakis property. Um investigating a large-scale indooroutdoor recreation or convention facility that came out of the
LCP in addition to coming out of the Madakis utilization project. Um expanding marketing efforts to improve our branding and promotion and and letting people know about all the different events that we have. uh consider additional staff for economic development. I think a lot of people
have a lot of different ideas uh but we may not have the staffing to do that. We've been looking for an economic development coordinator for years now and have not been able to find a suitable candidate. So there there's those particular issues of not having the staffing to do as much um with
economic development as as we would like. There's also a bunch of different funding out there uh investigate funding from the mass leads the economic bond bill, the economic development incentive program and mass development. There's a bunch of things out there and how can uh Yarmouth tap into those types of things.
I know that Bill Scott's done a good job with the mass development and mass works grants. Uh investigate creation of a redevelopment authority. I think sometimes as a town we're not as nimble as we need to be to take advantage of certain things and a redevelopment authority might might be able to do
that. But it does require the need to come with some type of funding to get them off the ground. Expanding access to highspeed internet to other areas of town. We have the backbones in place, but we don't really have it going to a lot of different areas. Um continuing, you know, the efforts of the community and economic development committee. They
do a lot of work with regard to promoting our tourism economy and physical improvements. Um they certainly helped us fund um different elements of the Parker's River Landing, which is much appreciated. Um and also the Cape Cod Commission's um comprehensive
economic development u plan. They had a lot of different tasks in there that things that they were going to be looking at and providing additional information just staying informed of of those studies that when they get done and see how they might be actually applying to the town of Yarmouth. Um the other thing is developing maybe sewer
allocation regulations for new growth. Is there we have a certain amount of sewer allocation, you know, do we want to allocate it in certain areas and how do we go about distributing that allocation um to different types of uses and to different businesses because we are looking for that new growth. Um and
again working with Mass DOT on the streetcape improvements on Route 28 and Route 6A. You know, our public realm and what our streets look like are just as important as what looks what things look like on their private properties. Investigate uh expediting entertainment and special event permitting. Um, that's
something I would like to talk a little bit more about because people really wanted to make that something easier uh to do and I don't I know there's certain state regulations and you guys have certain authorities, but maybe there's something we can do to make it a little bit faster or easier for people because they're looking for things for people to
do and that's entertainment and special events. Um, and then we've heard a lot about, you know, concerns about maybe we don't have enough seasonal temporary seasonal workforce housing. Uh, we have made some changes in the zoning bylaw. So maybe we need at this point to conduct a survey working with the chamber maybe on what the actual needs
are before we consider further zoning amendments to address a shortfall. Excellent. Yeah, I'd like to chime in if I could, Madam Chair. Um, on the workforce housing, the chamber actually has received some federal ARPA funding to help develop workforce housing. So,
um, I think that's incredibly important to pursue and make note of. So what's the funding for specifically to develop workforce housing? Which chamber? The Cape Cod Chamber. Okay. Thank you. So if they're coming to
Yarmouth to talk about tourism districts, maybe we could also they can also update us on what they're doing on workforce housing. Okay. Um I think that's important. Um few quick comments. First of all, um, in terms of the small
businesses being impacted by wastewater, from my perspective, uh, the impacts are probably not fully appreciated or understood, uh, the impression that I get just from my discussions with folks in the business community is that they're pretty significant. And, uh, you
know, I've I've asked the chamber to come up with ideas on how we could be helpful and and so far they have yet to present me anything or anybody anything. But I do believe that businesses have lost money. They've lost revenue. They are hurting. And if
there's some way that we can find ways to I mean we did this during co we created programs to help small businesses. So if there's some way um the chamber can help us better articulate and understand the impacts and design some approaches to helping
financially, I think that's worth exploring and discussing. I'm not saying we've got something to adopt, but we've got to do something more because um just the way the construction has been handled, it's just been really problematic. And let me just leave it at
that. So, I would put that on the list. I agree there's an impact. I think we got to do more than just flags. I think we have to do something that's much more significant. Um on the redevelopment authority, I think we got to get comfortable using maybe a different term. Redevelop authorities kind of
scare a lot of people. However, there are communities that will develop community development corporations that have the ability to redevelop property. So, I I would like to see us at least put those terms, sort of combine them, interchange, tie them together because
we have community development corporations in existence on Cape Cod. They don't cover this area, but Balmouth. Yeah. Economic development. Yeah. So I think I think if we give it a different name, but I I do believe the problem that we're trying to address
there is how do we help facilitate the redevelopment of blighted property? We had this motel conversion program. That was one thing. How do we develop strategies to broaden that and find ways to create other partners to work with? This is a conversation that we've had at
the with the Yarmouth Affordable Housing Trust. I mean, I've brought this up several times. Can the Yarmouth Affordable Housing Trust play a more active and more aggressive role on the development side helping package since its mission is housing. I don't see any
reason why it couldn't be involved in acquiring property or developing facilitate the development of property that's mixed use provided the plan you know meets all the other town requirements. So CDC I think that's something and I think we should also just keep in the back of our minds is
there a potential role for the Yarmouth affordable housing trust to play that kind of mixeduse developer. Um, and I know this is a conversation that the town administrator and I and other members of the board have had a lot of discussion on. Um, and
then I would also, this is another place I know in there multiple sections where we're putting things, but this is an area where I would say historic Yarmouth, our heritage is a huge part of how we need to market ourselves and define ourselves. Um, this is an
incredibly historic community and we don't in the we hardly ever talk about our history as a way to attract people to come here. Um, and I think it's just a missed opportunity. So, yes, historic
Yarmouth is good on the historic side, the cultural side, but I honestly believe it's a core component of of future economic development work and marketing and tourism promotion. The more we can talk about what's great about Yarmouth in terms of its history, I believe that brings people here. Um we
have um the historic commission has identified areas where you could do replica we could do replicas of salt works. Um um you know we once had the most did you know the most popular windmill in Yarmouth got moved to Michigan,
right? The Ferris windmill. We had it. It is now considered the most visited windmill in the country and it's in Dearbornne, Michigan. It was moved there by Henry Ford. It was bought and taken out. It used to be literally at the intersection
of Route 28 and um I think he can scroll years ago. So I have an interesting article on it and how it was moved and when it was moved and why it was moved. But the point is is our windmills, you know, are very much part of the landscape here and we we do very
little to draw much attention to them. But I'm telling you, there are people, you talk about things for people to do. I mean, go to the Gory House, right? That can be very busy there. Banks, very busy there. There are all sorts of events related to our history um that
are just amazing that draw people here and they really enjoy. though um the the widow museum has turned out you know when you look at um you know maritime history there's our history is just such an untapped resource that um I honestly
think on there's no end in what we can envision here so I I I would just sort of make here under the economy section we should at least make a reference to historic Yarmouth because there's a lot of opportunity there
I think Tracy was Well, I think that this is a very very important section and a lot of it has to do with one another and when you talk about a lot of the economy, it goes handinhand with everything, especially housing as you've identified. I like the
part about additional staff for economic development. I think it's been problematic with our declining commercial tax rate, not having an economic development person. And even when we had an economic development person, we tasked them with other things other than economic development, just
like our economic development committee is doing now, right? They're working on the grants. Um, we really need to focus on economic development. Um, I've always had an envision of a town having a a business on budsman, so to speak,
somebody who helps our businesses go through the process. And one of the action items that I don't see on here and um you talked a little bit about it um with you know the special event permitting but oftentimes we're our own
enemy in terms of helping our businesses succeed and doing an analysis and and I've said this forever. One of the reasons years ago that I was very much in favor of doing online permitting and keeping it was my vision to keep track
of the nose, right? to find out what the what the um roadblocks roadblocks are in our development. What what is the is there any analysis on our permitting that is a consistent
no that our planning board or zoning board whatever would look at because you know if there's something that's continuously a no and it's a minor thing I think that it's something that the planning board should be aware of and I'm not sure that the data is there yet
for that information or if it's collected but um one of the action items I think is to um really find out what those stumbling blocks are, what the roadblocks are from the businesses in terms of, you know,
we've heard it for years that it's been wastewater, right? Wastewater is one of the reasons why they haven't reinvested in their property, but that's not the only reason. You know, there's a there's a lot of other reasons that I hear from businesses all the time, and we need to get to the bottom of that and and and
address some of them. Some of them we as a community may not want to change, but um when it comes to, you know, if we're ever going to really change Route 28 and some of these um developments, you talked a little bit about it before
with, you know, the uncertainty of the Cape Cod Commission. So, this local comprehensive plan to me is huge because if we can raise our thresholds and get some of these um perhaps a a convention center to go by right right that that right there in our economy is a huge
change for our community. So, um I think we have to look within in in terms of the nose for permitting and do um a zoning analysis with that with the planning board. stories. Thank you. Um I have a a
question about uh the strategy for expanding access to highspeed internet to other areas of town. Obviously this is crucial quality of life, economic development in many different ways. Um does that involve anything with the open
cape system? Are you are you planning things in a a different direction? No, I think it's related to that fiber in in neighborhoods and moving expanding it beyond the core which is on basically on route 28 and I think sections of 6A
and seeing how we can get it out into the into the neighborhoods to have more economic cost-effective high-speed internet because right now a lot of people in the neighborhoods only have Comcast and and some of the some of the commercial um interests on Route 28 find
that hooking up to open Cape is too expensive. expensive that it's not financially u available to them. It's it's the pipeline is right there in front of them, but they can't hook up because of financial concerns.
While we're on this topic, Verizon is supposed to be doing a major expansion of their fiber optic network here in Yarmouth. Is that something that we can put on the list of things to track because I think that well Verizon is is
not expanding right right now in Yarmouth. No. However, you know, in just in fact, we have a meeting tomorrow morning um and we've been working with the IT team Open Cape and a number of people to enhance the competition for the installation of highspeed internet
service fiber optic. And there are companies that do this that, you know, we had one company that we looked at, you know, they were interested. They they wanted to dig the entire town up and try to put it in underground so they could avoid the normal process of
working with the um electric company to get access to the poles. But now we've um located some additional companies and there's a company we're meeting with tomorrow that is interested in going through the normal process to get located with um more fiber optic cable
in the normal on the polls and it it's a way of enhancing competition. You know, we see see this all the time that um you know, companies like Defiios, they don't want to come and they don't want to expand it here, but
um there are different options. Yeah. The reason why I mentioned Verizon is I attended a briefing with Massachusetts Broadband Institute and the Cape Cut Commission and they actually told us that they got a significant federal grant in order to expand their system
their their Cape their fiber optic infrastructure here on the Cape and Yarmouth was one of the communities that was going to be served. So I'm just saying that that was information provided to me at a briefing supported that grant application and the reason of
that the grant was awarded is to attack some of those lower income areas that don't have access to affordable and um you know it's not an entire community buildout and to date they haven't
expanded any anything but you know we're continuing to work on them and I've had significant correspondence with the company. What are you going to do now to implement this grant? And you know, uh you know, they seem to indicate that it's kind of a limited type of thing,
but it it is important. It's it's a part of it. And we also supported the grant application from Comcast to do the economic justice um highspeed internet and and so they're working on that as well. So there are there are options but to
open up the fiber optic to the community at large. It just needs something more fundamental. Liz. Um um it I wonder hearing the the the talk the conversations about our historic and
uh and the and the redevelopment of 28 and the hotels which are very are enthusiastic about the TMDM if I'm getting that right. Um, it I I'm struck by the different personalities of the
neighborhoods in Yarmouth and because you can't deny that that 6A is very steeped in history and people are coming to 6A and staying in the bed and breakfasts specifically to do Gory House
and to to be in an older um bed and breakfast and rooming house. But as we look at Route 28 and not not that we would deny that there's some history there, but I I as far as marketing, it would seem that we need to allow the the
more upscale hotels to promote what they want to promote, which is we're worldclass. Um, and and we are the go-to when you're looking for a fun hotel with a bar and a great restaurant. And so
there's a cluster of those that that should be an an area that Yarmouth can can designate as that area and not confuse it as much in my mind with our history Yarmouth which is beautiful over
on 6A. So I just I I think that's something that we're not we haven't really grappled with yet that maybe we should. We're we're not one flavor here in Yarmouth. We're many flavors. And I think that the that not only marketing
do we need to address that and and really and build it up, but I think it will help us with when we're redeveloping things too. will be, you know, this is the area we want to be more like this
and the hotels are this is where they should be and that's what Yarmouth has been known for for many generations to many people. So, and the and the fun a lot of people talk about gee there's no fun in Yarmouth used to be where you
would go to have fun and and we should build on that. There should be the area that yeah, this is where you come to Yarmouth for fun. Just thoughts. You can you can take up axe throwing within a hundred yards of the post office in South. I just want to
draw your attention to the slides in the material. You'll notice that there's history in South Yarmouth, too. Yeah. Well, there is absolutely. And you can have fun on the north side as well as the south side. Yeah. You can have fun in West Yarmouth, too. Right. the
there's a there's a I think for the the old-timers that are here, there's been a part of the history that we're trying to move. I don't say away from, but we're trying to evolve. Uh many people remember Route 28 as the fun place where there was a lot of drinking and celebrating and a lot of fun, a lot of
accidents and a lot of other issues that we would have to deal with. So, I think what we're trying to do is sort of move our community away from that and to have a different type of environment on Route 28. I think the work that we're doing is terrific. Um, but I do think historic goes beyond Route 6A. There's history, a
rich history throughout this community that we need to draw our attention to. I think what you're saying is there's something for everybody. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think the I think the um, you know, the water park is certainly fun. There's a lot of people who come and
it's fun. It's just a different type of fun that was back in the day. It's not night fun. It's day fun. That's what I'm saying. And you know, I haven't heard complaints that people have that they can't have fun in. That's what that's what she was saying. Well, I think one of the things that we are missing though in all of this, that there's something
for everybody, but we are a we are a beach town. Yes. You know, and and that's, you know, one of the things that we've tried to do with some of the parks and and just make sure as people drive down Route 28, they can see the water so
that we connect um we connect all of this hotels wherever we are to know that they're close to the water and I think that that's really the reason why people come here. Oh, I would agree. There's plenty of stuff to do. Now, how many more slides do we have, Madam Chair? Kathy, few. So, we need to let Kathy
keep going. Housing. H, you're killing me. Uh, 2020 housing problems. The key plan really is the 2024 housing production plan, and that's the main emphasis, and it will be summarized uh in its own chapter. But we're really seeing low inventory, high costs for all
types of housing. The increasing costs um of construction are really limiting the construction of new new units. Uh we have a growing affordability gap and cost burdens for people. It's more than 30% of their income. Um there's limited options for seniors. So you have a lot
of seniors who might be overhoused in a single family home, but they don't have any place to go. So if we provide them more options, they might open up that uh home for for a family. Um, and the needs that we have in town encompass a wide range of people. It's not just, oh, we just need more housing for families. We need h more housing for
everybody, veterans, seniors, um, singles, couples, uh, and families. So, um, we also have limited workforce housing, uh, which we need desperately for our economy. Also, um, we have a high percentage of second homeowners, 32%. So, we have 32% of our housing
units that are only being used part-time. So, they're not being used year round. Uh so we have a lot of housing. It's just not being used for year- round housing. We do have some increasing short-term rentals um that have been going on since the initiation of short-term rentals. Uh we have again noted before is more commuting from off
Cape and we have a lot of families and workers that are just abandoning ship and leaving the Cape because it's just too much of a struggle. We do have a lot of existing small lots with two to four units per acre. So that kind of talks about increasing density. Well, we do have some density already in our residential areas. We want to be sure
that we're linking our major housing efforts where areas where we have suitable infrastructure and then of course we're trying to reach the goal of the 10% affordable housing on our subsidized housing inventory. So the number one action item obviously is implementing the strategies of the 2024 housing production plan and there's
significant number of strategies in that. Um continuing the support and funding for the community housing committee and affordable housing trust. I think the funding elements of the arm of the affordable housing trust have been instrumental in getting housing in the town of Yarmouth. We're going to be completing the UMass Donna Hueghue short-term rental study and then
implement hopefully some of the recommendations that come out of that. We also want to look at investigating funding available from the affordable homes act and how we might be able to tap into some of that for the town of Yarmouth. Um can continue to work collaboratively with developers because we're looking for quality housing. We
also want to be sure that we're providing them with support with zoning, local regulations, programs, and then the local initiative program. I think we do a pretty good job of that. I think having us having a person dedicated to housing in Mary Wagan is is instrumental for any town to have someone like that.
U we're also looking to create a vision for the reuse of Madakis property but also evaluate housing as being a key component of that and then continue to fund and provide housing counseling including things like home repairs and and rental assistance. Great. Moving on to I got a lot to say
about that. Housing housing. I'm gonna hold off. But thank you. There's a lot there, right? I mean, and and the one point I'm gonna make though is like things like today there was legislation passed that protect people from knowing
somebody's been evicted in the past, right? Okay. That's great if you're an evicted person, but one of the things that has happened through COVID, right, is you've protected the renter and not the land
owner. So, they got to stay there without paying rent because we set that up all through CO. Now, why would somebody want to rent year round? You said 32% are second homeowners that don't rent year round. that hurts people who want to stay and live on the Cape.
But if we're protecting people from from having to disclose that information, which it's great for them, they get a second chance, right? I understand it. But it doesn't incentivize people to rent year round when they don't know that information. So, a lot of the
things that we do is um sometimes we bite off our nose to spiderface and we need year- round rentals and we need to protect the the landlord so that that they'll they'll go out on a limb and do that. And right now, everything's
stacked against them. Town services. So town services, we didn't cover every town services, but these were some of the items that specifically came up through the visioning and also um through the local comprehensive plan is about basically government and being sure that we're effective, timely and have transparent
communication. People want to know, they want uh more communication. Uh the town website has been clearly identified as difficult to access information. There's a lot of old information. It's not intuitive. We need to work on that. Um, we need to be sure that we are maintaining our town buildings, facilities, and including uh handicap
accessibility. And as as the businesses have difficulty attracting and retaining employees, so does the town of Yarmouth for all the same exact reasons. Um, and again, housing impacting staff recruitment. Um, and need for additional staff positions to meet goals and for public safety. I think we've talked
about some of them throughout this presentation about different staff, but public safety is also another one. And again, reliance on on residential taxes. So just some of the action items related to government was really implementing that communication strategy plan and doing something to improve the town website. I think that's an actual
project. We need to hire somebody. They need to be experts in this and they need to work it and and and work with all of the town staff so that we have a better website. Um one of the things about trying to get more people to come to town meetings maybe expediting it by using electronic voting uh in developing maintenance plans for our town
buildings, facilities and assets that are get included again in the annual budget. Improve handicap accessibility to our town buildings and facilities. I think overall we're pretty good, but in the open space and recck plan, we did identify some some issues um there. Improve the Armis regional competitiveness to attract and retain
staff. I think you guys have done a little bit with that with the police with the sign on bonuses and that type of thing. Uh evaluate implementation of a residential tax exemption. I believe that's something that you guys discussed maybe in the last six months or so. Um and then also investigate attainable housing opportunities for critical
municipal education and health care staff. That is something that came out of um the Madakis utilization project and the the housing team recommended that as well. So just town services key issues under health. I met with the uh the health director Jay Gardner before
he left. Um substance abu abuse treatment access and then just prevention uh community uh communicating available services and resources to the actual people in need and getting that information to them. Then just mental health homelessness and then the limited number of inpatient beds on Cape Cod. So
the action items are continue with our human services grants and consider actually increasing our annual allocation to allow for more things to get done and then continue the efforts of the Armouth substance awareness committee. They do a lot of good work and they uh get the word out um for that. And then moving on to public
safety. Yeah. Key issues are you know making sure that we have redundant emergency communication systems so we can talk to each other during an emergency. uh completion of the regional fire training sta facility that's only partially completed I believe. Um looking again at that fire station
feasibility study um school emergency preparedness. We now have three schools right together on Station Avenue. It's even more important than ever. Uh again flooding impacts and uh emergency access for public safety personnel. Um and making sure that there's adequate funding for training and staff
development. Uh and also noting that the high investment cost for onboarding. Uh, Chief Lennon noted there's like a $90,000 to send someone through the police academy and we really want to keep them here for more than a couple years with that type of investment. Increasing language barriers between people who do not speak um English as
their first language and then changing technology and keeping up with the changing technology as well as increasing in tech type of crimes. So, some of the action items are identifying ways to decrease unnecessary uh non-emergency calls for our ambulance receipts. We have a lot of people who are calling an ambulance that may not
need to call an actual ambulance. They may need some other services. Some of them might actually be at some of our nursing facilities andor memory care facilities. Uh implement the fire strategic plan. They have an excellent fire strategic plan. And then also update the police strategic plan because theirs is a little bit outdated. Uh
leveraging grants for staffing, training, education, technology, and equipment. Um there may be some drying up of some of those grants and they need to be supplemented with annual budget and there may be some things like staff that ultimately need to be may start with the grant but need to get into the annual
budget. Um and they also want to be sure that retain funding. I think the grant for the police department clinician is going to the wayside. So making sure that we retain funding for that and then transitioning to the regional emergency communication center and then as needed evaluating police and fire staffing
needs uh and then implementing that triple redundancy at the police station so that they have different ways of communicating and then completing the regional fire training facility and conducting that feasibility study on the fire stations and then evaluating whether it's beneficial to complete the third floor of fire station number
three. uh senior services. Some of the key issues that were identified were food food insecurity, housing and homelessness, isolation and loneliness, um technology, people not being familiar with it, and then the physical condition of the senior center facilities. So the t some of the action items are to
continue to collaborate with the Cape Cod food pantries and then facilitating intergenerational program services, activities, the transportation, technology classes, all to help uh combat that isolation and loneliness. renovating the senior center facilities, including the um the bathrooms first and
then also evaluating the addition of an exercise room and then continuing to support the age friendly community team. Okay, moving on to libraries. Um the the main issue obviously is a lack of a modern library facility of sufficient
size. So the real action item is just completing the sighting and concept design for the new library facilities with the grant that we received and work on building community support for that and then ultimately securing supplemental funding for the final design and construction of the preferred library facility improvements. With
regard to education is we need to have a 10-year school capital plan. They're working on that. There's a lack of early coordination with the school budget. Again, I think we're working on that. School enrollment is actually increasing and and people keep thinking it's decreasing, but it's actually increasing. School choice is a 4 to one
ratio of leaving to entering. So, we're we're at a disadvantage there. Maybe see things we can do to to change that. There's a large number of high need students. Apparently, I did not review this slide very well. Apparently, I'm one of those at at 8:35.
um 67% of the students and then just the poor condition of the Emmy Small Elementary School. So the um action items are fostering that stronger partnership with our regional school district and the town of Dennis, improving the communication, having earlier budget discussions and developing that school capital plan. Uh
working with DY on implementing they have a strategic plan and it's to increase school performance, graduation rates and decrease absenteeism. uh and then fund and complete the ME small feasibility study and pursue funding for design and construction however whatever that recommendation might be and then uh
also to conduct periodic reviews of the DY regional school agreement recreation can I just on that uh fostering a stronger partnership we have a great partnership with the Cape Cut Tech School but I think the tech school should also be mentioned okay good point
Kathy Quick question on the education side. Has in any of the public discussions has there been any commentary about needing to expand access to vocational education for adults, people that are sort of post
high school. Has that come up at all? I mean, I've picked I've picked that up in some conversations with businesses and people, but I I'm just curious in a in an effort like this where you're looking at education and education needs. I'm just curious. I think a little bit of that came up in some of the discussions
with regards to matakis because somebody was talking about need for a tech school, not just for school age, you know, students, but also for for adults that might need I don't know the actual need. I don't know any information on on whether that's a a viable statement, but
that's the only Yeah. The reason why I mentioned I've had some conversations with builders about some of the challenges that they're facing and obviously housing is is an issue clearly for them as it is with just about everybody. But they also had mentioned
that it would be they were looking for programs whether it's at the community college or at the Vogue Tech school to be able to train workers but outside of the high school the K through 12 environment but to be able to access
programs outside of that. And you know quite frankly I was stumped in terms of what one would do uh in terms of being able to deal with that. So, I'm just curious if it's come up as an issue in in your discussions and because obviously you're spending a fair amount of time hearing from a lot of people on
what our needs are. I just curious if that has come up. Just just a comment about Madakis having a trade school there. Thank you. Recreation, this all came out of the open space and recreation plan. Uh identifying again a
lot of it all coaleses and goes into each other. a need for year-round recreation and possible community center. People really are interested in access to an indoor gym facilities for all ages. I think we've seen the success of the gym at Madakis being used by everybody. Uh more programming for all
ages. Um there seems to be some again a lack of awareness of programs, facilities, and access to water areas. Identifying missing recreational infrastructure and needed improvements. So developing some type of capital plan. handicap access accessibility issues at recreck facilities and capitalizing more
on town golf and route 28 community parks for tourism and recreation. So the action items are really expanding recreational opportunities by completing a lot of the great projects that are currently underway. The expansion of the Cape Cod Rail Trail, the Parkers River Landing, the West Yarn Parks, uh the Taylor Bray Farm Barn, which I think
might actually be done, uh implementing the full Golf 5-year capital improvement plan, and then also the Baxter Grist Mill. did a lot of work there with the dam and the surrounding areas and the fish ladder. But now we need to take a look at the building itself. Um completing the recreation capital assessment improvement plan which is
currently underway and develop that capital plan. Create again a vision for the reuse of matakis and consider recreation as one component. Prioritize addition of pickleball courts but be sure to we're locating them to minimize conflicts with other users just they're very loud. Uh complete complete the
wastewater inventory map and post on the town website. That's something that DNR is working with through CPA funding and then also conduct the needs assessment for the infrastructure improvements at the waste to water. Review and improve handicap accessibilities whether it's Moby mats or chairs, you know, parking and circulation around our facilities,
specific playground equipment at the restrooms and then like handicap accessible picnic tables and benches. Expand programs and activities for for all ages. I think the recreation department's done a great job of doing that. And then improving communication and mapping to promote conservation recreation facilities and programs. get
the word out there a little bit more about what we have to offer. And that mapping is goes back to our walking trails, right? We do have excellent walking trail maps. Okay. On the ones that are townmaintained walking trails, there's a lot of informal walking trails
that are not being maintained. Gotcha. Um, so the mixed use study that we're doing is really trying to Can you just throw There's a one of our towns people who's very intent on making sure that we understand the the importance of water in pools for exercise. It's the best
kind of exercise you can get. And if we were to have a pool and we had a training program that would also bring um bring people it would be an attraction to have um worldclass
training for for swimmers. Thank you. Mixed use. So we're trying to get a better understanding. I mean, as I mentioned before, we want to keep the commercial component of our route 28 corridor, but we realize that there is an emphasis and need for for housing. we
have a little bit more palatable I think to have higher density housing on Route 28 than trying to move it into any of our residential neighborhoods. So trying to understand the opportunities impediments and potential incentives to create mixeduse developments. Uh we have a community planning grant um that we're using that needs to be completed by June
30th. We're working with um BSC group and also Union Studios and Horley Whitten to look at benchmarking. So, what are the examples of some other successfully completed mixed-use developments in the area that are actually been constructed? Uh, doing a full zoning review of the existing zoning and also looking at chapter 40,
our smart growth zoning and identifying any tools and incentives that help to solve these impediments uh to mixed use. Also developing some rendering so we can get an idea of what that might look like uh with the illustrations and we're going to do that for three hypothetical sites varying in size from 1 acre to
three acres. So seem to be the size lots when you combine and look on Route 28 that we might have. There might be some extra extra large sites out there, but they're particularly rare. Then we're also going to do a physical uh a fiscal feasibility assessment input from different business leaders trying to get this group together and developers on
common challenges, potential solutions, and what do we really need for real world programming? What's the density and that type of thing that you need for financial viability? And then there'll be a final report with a public presentation of the report and the outcomes of the mixeduse analysis.
That sounds like a task for our community development corporation. And so what's the next steps? Uh in June, we're going to be completing that mixeduse analysis final report and presentation. By the summer, we're going to have a draft of the full LCP for review and go out for a public comment
period. Uh in August, we're going to have a formal public hearing which is required uh for the LCP with the hope of going to the 2025's falls town meeting for town approval and then in the winter go to the commission for certification. Now you can take a breath, Kathy, and a glass of water. Maybe you did a great
job. They broke the record though. A marathon in under two hours. I'm sorry. Joanne and Kathy, this is excellent. I mean, you've really come a long way when you look at times when you've been before the board in the past and where
you are today and certainly can see a lot of that community input that's going into it. Of course, everyone's always going to have more opinions. That's part of the part of project, but uh I think you've done a great job to compile it all and um what you've presented so far,
I'm impressed. Yes. Thank you. Good to know. Thank you. Thank you for your Thank you. Madam Chair, before before they leave, um I want to make a comment about tomorrow night, um I I want to just say thank you for the for the meeting tomorrow night and particularly the
initial agenda items on some of the zoning issues. I think it's important for us to listen to hear what people have to say and I think it's a credit to you, Joanne, and and all of your planning board members. Um, you know, you it's I've learned over the past few
years that there are more and more folks here that really don't understand how local government works and how in a democracy like ours and self-governance that people actually have the opportunity to make changes and sometimes they just don't understand the process. So, I think what you're doing, what you and your board members are
doing tomorrow night, I think it's terrific and I just wanted to say thank you. Yeah, you're you are welcome. Um, one of the things we definitely want to do tomorrow is set some expectations. Um, and have and and have it be a place where they understand how this works,
how you get from point A to point B. And we want to help them get there so that the town can vote on it so that you can look at it so others can look at it. Yeah. when I when I I started going to town meeting right after I could vote
and it was a long time ago and people generally had a much better understanding how municipal government worked back then and how if you had an issue with the zoning what you do what your next steps are how you go about working the the government um what I'm
learning today is that the understanding of government generally but particularly the understanding of local government is not as frequent it's not as common local government in terms of its operations is just not well understood. And so I think the more every time there's a
controversy or something that comes up, they become learning moments. They become opportunities for us to find ways to educate people on how indeed they can access their own government. Because when I when I hear people rail about the town of Yarmouth, I keep thinking, well, this is our town. It's the community's
town. uh we make the big decisions at town meeting and if you want to be involved in making changes, you just have to participate. But I'm learning that there's just a lot of folks that just don't understand how it all works. And so I think what you're doing is constructive in that regard. And I and I appreciate what you're doing. You're
showing that there are other answers besides no. And that's something that for some reason everyone seems to put hanging over the town and u town operations. So, it's great to see that you're opening up. Thank you. I
appreciate it. Welld deserved. Okay, moving on. We have our annual town meeting recap. Um, speaking of town meeting, as Mark was saying, um, Madam Chair, I I wanted to point out I I noticed we have Nathan Stevens um from
Kleinfelder um has been Oh. Oh, Nathan sitting on the the the line and I I I know he's a very busy individual. He drafted I almost feel bad for him waiting for us. Nathan, I apologize and we'll be happy to take out of order and
do repos re review possible vote correspondence regarding POS environmental contamination. If we could please elevate N. Stevens to a panelist. Um, maybe he could walk us through the correspondence quickly.
Liam, are you listening? I think he did. Uh, I would be happy to. There you are. Good to hear from you, Nathan. Uh, well, I am here. As Bob said, we uh drafted the letter that we spoke of last uh
meeting to DP from Kleinfelder on behalf of the town. And in as much as we are making some assertions on behalf of the town, we thought it was prudent to bring the draft letter here and if the board so chooses, you know, move and vote. And
if they don't need to, that's that's okay as well. Um the primary items that we're you know bringing to DP's attention are those that we talked about at the last meeting
specifically the fact that uh PAS has been detected in the surface waters in the town of Yarmouth and appear to be related to either the firefighting training academy andor the airport that that represents a certain condition
under the under the Massachusetts regulations um that would change the status of those cases. It would essentially put them uh potentially back in or in the case of the airport back into immediate response actions which would do things like
reopen the opportunity for direct public involvement under a public involvement plan and cause them to do uh some of the work which we now understand they are
undertaking. Um the second primary point is that we think that the airport specifically has not completed the delineation of their impacts again as presented by the fact that airport related PAS are in the town surface
waters and that they need to continue their investigation which again is some of what they have proposed to do in the last joint meeting. Um really the the third point is just that if the firefighting training
academy has impacted the airport or if the firefighting training academy or the airport suspect that some other release of PAS has impacted them, there are regulatory mechanisms for them to let the D know that. Um and we would
encourage them to do so. they can basically write an evaluation that says some of the stuff that we're seeing is not from our releases. Uh there is no there is no regulatory deadline or time for them to
do that and they may very well do it in the future. And then finally, and probably the the most um aggressive, I guess, uh contention that we're making is that um
because PAS compounds have been detected in shellfish elsewhere on the Cape and because it appears that impacts from the training academy or the airport have reached surface waters in Yarmouth.
And because those surface waters may empty into places where there is shell fishing, uh we are essentially asking DP if uh if as part of the human health and
ecological risk assessment that both sites need to do, whether it would be potentially appropriate for them to consider sha sampling uh fish andor shellfish in that surface water body. um that I say is that that's sort of the
most aggressive ask or the most out there ask simply because um one there are no standards under DP's uh regulatory framework for how much is too much in
shellfish. Um and so I if only for that reason D may very likely uh find that that's not something that they're going to require either one of those parties to do. Uh we give a regulatory
justification such as we see it that it's a a potential pathway. But again, not having standards to hold either of the uh parties to may be a difficulty to the EP. Nathan, it looks like um your associate Lisa um y has put together a
very comprehensive letter for us outlining all of those concerns. Make a motion we uh endorse the letter. I was going to make one point about it. And just the last point that he's the the testing and the tissue samples. I just thought it rather than ending with a
question, could we could we ask them to test the the tissue sampling? Yeah. So, madam madam chair is a little weak. Yeah. I'd like to make a couple of modifications in the letter. The first is that in the first paragraph you should be stating that you're submitting this letter on behalf of the Yarmouth
board of select board. Okay. That would be my first request that we modify it with that language in the beginning. And then secondly, I agree with uh select board member uh Argo that the last section where it says would it be I
would say uh it would be worthwhile. Um, and then and I want to make it clear that we're requesting that they do the testing. So, and and instead of and end it take the question mark out and end it with a period. So, it's an affirmation
that we're asking them to do this. All right. So, I I would I would I'm seconding um uh Tracy's motion with those two modifications. And Tracy, you're willing to make those modifications. Okay. So, I have a um we
have a second on that already. Do we have any further discussion? All those in favor? I I Nathan, thank you very much. We look forward to u the next step. Yes, we'll be copying you on the on the edited letter when we send it to DP this week. Thank you. Okay, great.
Thank you. Have a great night. Historic moment, this letter. It it it kind of is in some ways, but Yep. It's time for them to do their job. Thank you. Thank you, Nathan. We appreciate it getting in touch with DP. Now, moving on to our
annual town meeting recap. Uh, first off, I'd just like to say to all of those that participated and attended our town meeting, thank you very much. Uh, as we talked about at the town meeting, it's your purest form of government that we have in the United States. And uh
once again, as I mentioned, it's the one place where all decisions are made regarding money and zoning regulations there and only there. And so truly appreciate all those that came out for um our meeting. And Bob, I'll turn it
over to you. No, I wanted to thank also the all of the town officials including the department heads down to the finance committee and we had meetings with the moderator and the town clerk and everyone in the the planning that goes into the the meeting um is is really
incredible and I I thought everyone did a great job on it. And I I wanted to also highlight again Bill Scott with his assistance with that slide deck. I mean, he had over um a hundred slides and every item that was discussed uh you
know was placed right on that screen for um for everyone to follow along, participate and see. And and I I I yeah, I don't know what happened towards the end. Our little monitor went out, but at least we had the slides to to look at
and and I kept running around and checking that that the big the big screen had everything on it. And um so you know I I think overall it was um a very valuable uh town meeting. We had um you know a couple of issues of of
concern. I I know I received a um a bunch of um sort of complaints after the meeting about certain individuals that didn't limit their comments to um asking questions. uh that they had a lot of
things to say to their neighbors, unkind things. And I I think that you know there's an issue that um of civility at town meeting that um you know you were about like a 97% of people are you know really celebrating the opportunity to impact
the town and and there there but there were a couple of people that had like multiple incidents of rudeness towards um their fellow voters and and neighbors. um you know not so much to the town officials but you know people need to um you know respect each other
in the process. Everyone doesn't agree on every item but um there's there's no need to accost your um fellow voters tell them to get out of their chairs where you want to sit and all of these kinds of crazy things. Um, and the only
other issue that that I had is that we did receive some follow-up correspondence from I I know that there was a motion to reconsider one of the articles um specifically about the Revolutionary War Memorial and that um
that motion failed. And I and I think that the um proponent of that motion left the meeting uh you know feeling like they didn't have the opportunity to say the things that they wanted. And sometimes, you know, when you're at town meeting, um, you know, the body decides when they want to vote things, when they
want to reconsider things. And, um, you know, that's nothing that we dictate to the the voters. We're we're very happy that the voters are there to participate and the moderator is elected and he governs the discussion. We're not there
to to stop the moderator and and change the the tenor of the meeting. But you know sometimes when people are not successful um you know that that they can go away feeling like they had more to say and I know like the initial uh request well you're the town
administrator you need to invalidate that town meeting because I didn't get to you know make my full comments and so um you know what we en encouraged is that if you know he's got some outstanding issues on the revolutionary revolutionary war monument you know that the select board would be you know the
appropriate body to take those two if it's about what the location is or things that um the only thing that town meeting was doing was the um community preservation appropriation for it. But whatever um issues anyone has, we just
encourage them bring those forward, you know, state your your reasons and then the community can um make decisions on them. But um overall, I felt really good about the town meeting. We had, I think, the largest um effort to promote the
town meeting that we've ever had um including the radio spots and we must have had um you know, including the select boards uh pre-Town Meeting, three individual videos. Um I know I did one
that had over 5,000 hits on it on social media alone. Wow. And I know only a couple hundred people come out to town meeting, but when 5,000 people view your video on on social media, you know, people know what's going on there. You
know, half the time though, the the problem is when, you know, people um they view it and then we didn't get this on this issue, but a lot of times, you know, the comments that, you know, if you're associated with a government, it's very popular, I I think, to um say,
well, what are you doing? Way to say it. negative negativity that may I see that Mary is in the room. Mary, would you mind coming up to the podium for a minute? I have a quick question for you. Do we know what the attendance was at town meeting? Yes. So, our official voter attendance was
363 of registered voters and how does that compare to previous meetings? That was pretty consistent with with past meetings. I'd say probably a little bit larger. Um, I'd say our first meeting at Dimes was might have been slightly
larger, but not by a whole lot. And we also had quite a number of non- voters as well. So, you know, we probably had an extra 40 or so people. That room um houses about 750 people despite the look
of it. It it's it's deceptive as to how large the seating is. One of the things I saw was the um after people had already sat in the auditorium, there were people trying to corral the non- voters after the fact that they settled
to a place. So I think um we need to make it more clear there was no signage or markings at all for So we've had that conversation already about um adding some some uh signs to say that that's reserved for non- voters. Um,
however, we were um despite the fact that we were telling people and directing non- voters into that section and and directing voters into other sections, they were still funneling their way in despite the fact that that um our staff and our election workers
had asked them to to to go in a different direction. So, we were moving people all night long. I saw the tone and it was um problematic. I saw some of your employees um being confronted by people that weren't happy about that. And I I think that that's, you know, we should that's unfortunate because for
them it's a privilege to even be there, right? Um they shouldn't be giving anybody a hard time. It was great at Madakis because we had the orange net and people had to sit behind it. But I think it's very important that um that they either, you know, either there's an overflow room if they want to watch. I don't know. There's got to be a better
answer. But once they're in and settled and then, you know, going in front of everybody and trying to get them to move, I thought was um so that that's usually standard operating procedure. And um I didn't see any anything that was problematic with our staff. I saw uh
certain um members of certain voting members that were arguing with people as to where they were and where they should be sitting. So, um, let me bring up though, Mary, that in the sections we should also have one that's designated as town employees because some of those
town employees are voters, some of those town employees are nonvoters, but I think traditionally we've always looked for them to be in that lower left corner of the room. So we have our our regular staff non- voting staff typically sits
with department heads. Voting staff typically is directed to sit in the regular main body. So uh that has has been how we've addressed it in years past and we'll confirm that before November because some of those people that are the non
voting members are also the people that we're relying on to talk to us about correcting things. We were so I think if you if you if I'm thinking back I don't think there was staff that was I don't think there was any non- voting staff
that wasn't sitting in that um front left to our left as we were facing out. Well, my understanding is that some of those got caught up in the whole where should you be moving if you're not a voting member. So just a way to kind of differentiate. I think that those people
are in a different category than an actual Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'll have another conversation with my staff, but but from from the conversations we've already had, that didn't seem to be a major major concern. It was people they could see that they had a green
card instead of an orange card. And that's when I saw people confront. So, I I specifically asked my staff to move people from the non- voting section into the voting section because I saw pink cards because we didn't want the confusion. Um, it's a tough room to do a
standing count in because that is a steep back wall. So, we have people counting. So, we wanted to make sure that we were we were we would be in a situation where we could catch everybody. But, we're happy to uh you know, we've already had the conversations about putting signage up
for the non- voting section. Um, and and we'll make sure that staff understands that they are welcome to sit down front. I would go heavy on the signage. Clearly, it's a work in progress. I think town meeting and getting it right
with one of the unique characteristics of that room that we did not have to um contend with at Madaki is that the end of the rows don't have an exit out. Correct. where people everyone has to come to the
middle and uh that that creates some um shall we say difficulties along the way. They're also curved and staggered rows, which is unusual because unlike Madaki's, they are staggered and they are curved such that when you're
counting down a row, you're not just counting a straight line, right? There's somebody standing in front of you from the row in row prior and the row behind them. So, um the nice part on Tuesday and I I will say uh that bright
pink card really showed the the the votes. You know, there was there was no question as to um a voice vote. You could see it by the by the card vote as well. I thought that was an excellent addition this time out. Uh very different than what we've had in the
past. You're right. Much brighter and I think we'll be continuing that. Right. The neon colors are perfect. They They were They were particularly from the stage. You could see them from space. I think they were that bright. Very true. And I understand that we're
we're moving uh possibly moving the finance people so that Jennifer has the moderator sees Jennifer. So if you if you had been to the first meeting that we had it at in that room,
we did one large row straight across and subsequent to that meeting some people didn't like that. So we had gone back to kind of the old um Madaku's method, but I do think it became clear um towards that meeting that you can't see behind
Ken and myself are part of the finance committee. So, uh, we've already talked about trying to stretch out that row and figure out, you know, where how better to to fit people in and maybe it's a second row of of, you know, finance committee, you know, if we can't fit
everybody across, maybe a few people are behind or if you look at there are pictures online of um, Brewers and I think Dennis's, they put sometimes they put the select board and the FinCom in Brewster. Exactly. In Brewster, the
select board is on the floor. Yep. In front. The moderator is up on the stage and then the town staff are on the stage. Right. So, I know I noticed that in in pictures today from from their town meeting. So, that's another thing we can look at. Right. So, there'll be a speaking area in the middle and then the
select board is on one side. The finance committee is on the other side and then on the stage are the presiding officers. There'll be the town clerk, it'll be the moderator, town council, other So, that's another thing we can look at and just see if you may need risers. I don't know how you're I don't know how low you
would be in that front in front of that stage with the pitch of the auditorium, but certainly something we can look at. We can certainly stage it and take a look and see what we think. Yeah. And in Brewster, the moderator actually has a podium. Yes. Sort of in the middle com commanding the presence and everyone's
attention. I don't believe Ken um wanted a podium because we've addressed that in the past. Understood. Usually in the middle. Yes. And then you get the tables. Exactly. Exactly. Everybody can orientate. No, it made it it made it very difficult because you couldn't see,
you know, he couldn't see if if um our finance director or um the chair of the finance committee was trying to speak, you know, you you just couldn't see because it's behind us. So, we talked about that. But in Brewster, the way the tables are organized is those tables are
much closer to the moderator on the stage. So it doesn't take more than a minute for the two of them to make or more than a second to millisecond to make eye contact and then talk. I noticed that in their newspaper pictures today works very very well. So certainly we can look at we can look at all of
that and um happy to discuss with the town administrator and see how what we think is going to work best. And perhaps to answer um what Bob was bringing up about perhaps there could have been a little bit more courtesy, shall we say,
at town meeting that we might consider coming up with um some kind of card that we hand out with the vote um that just kind of suggested rules of the road or something for you know how to act at
town meeting. And I leave that as something that would be discussed among the board, not for you, Mary, but Well, yeah, and I would say that would that would um also be a topic for the town moderator to to chime in on as well being that he's confusing like that who
missed his opportunity. I I I think it is confusing for people who at the first few times to sure to know. Um, I think our warrant, you know, inside the warrant, it talks a lot about the rules in there, what the different things
mean, but again, to Bob's point, the it's the moderator's meeting. To me, the moderator is the one who should be um addressing the unkindness and reminding people of of light. Yeah. and
and and you know there's a lot of people um that say you know some people go on whatever that that's the moderator's job and um but I'm just I'm just saying I I do feel bad because when people do try to participate it gets a little bit
confusing especially the first couple of times even if you read the warrant and you know what the process is. So, um, you know, I don't mean to be critical or say anything cuz as Bob said, there's a lot of hard work that goes into this. Um, I think that's a conversation with the
moderator. Yes, it's but but the but the public to know the public needs to know that it's the moderator is the one who um needs to address the these. What's happening, Madam Chair, is the fact that we have a lot of new faces at town meeting that really don't understand
even though they may be there for a while, it may be difficult to follow. Um now on that particular vote um I don't there were let's put there was there was a procedural glitch there and I'm I'm not going to get into the
details of it but there was a step that was missed and that added to the confusion and I'm happy to explain you know offline uh that procedural mistake but it adds to the confusion that was there. So clearly we had a couple of
instances where people didn't know quite frankly what they were voting on and these are the things that I focus in on when I'm at town meeting. I'm looking for those moments where we confuse people. Some folks may even just go
there for just one particular article and then if they get lost and then try to recapture where they were um it creates confusion and obviously it generates some confusion within the audience as well. Um and this is a
conversation with the moderator. You you did a great job. Bob did a great job. Bill Scott, God bless him. He does an incredible job at these and the department heads all worked hard and they were prepared and I thought they professionally answered all the questions. I think with the I think there's a conversation that we need to
have with the moderator a little bit in terms of dealing with some of this stuff. So you had 34 articles that were addressed from 6 to 9:15. So it was it was a very fast town meeting and I and I I have to say I thought Mr. Kby was very coherent and I
thought the finance director was very coherent. There are some topics though there are some topics though matter moderator that are difficult for some people to follow and one of the big things is free cash you know for example not understanding how free cash works or
how one-time dollars get used for one-time expenses what a what a structurally balanced budget means. So, who knows? Maybe maybe we want to add a few more definitions to the uh town meeting warrant book when we when we post that what a structurally balanced
budget means. We just have to have a test. We won't let people in if they can't answer the question. No, I think No, I think No, not at all. I think what we h we have to joke I'm serious about this. We really have to be cognizant that we're bringing into municipal
government, into the work that we do, people that have very little familiarity with how it works. I see this at a lot of the committee meetings. I see it at the zoning board meetings. And what we need to do is be aggressive in helping people understand how things work and
being aggressive in being patient sometimes with folks and being a little bit more aggressive in explaining how things I praise Bob. Bob put together this little brochure, this white paper for us to look at on, you know, zoning issues and and how to make changes and I
think they posted something up on the website. I think that kind of stuff is terrific. So rather than reacting negatively, what we've got to do is find ways to create more learning moments, more learning opportunities, more ways to help people understand how their
government works. And I think to that point, one of the things we could look at, Bob, for the next town meeting would be to have Jennifer do a spot. I think explaining finances, you know, have Ken as the town moderator do a spot because
there's there's something very relatable about having you for instance, Bob, when you did an excellent job just talking to the folks. It makes it, you know, it everyone can have something in the book to look at, but for some reason people,
I think, relate better to having that kind of one- on-one conversation. So that would be we'll have to tell Ken to get his makeup on and get ready for to have everybody have a good experience at town meeting. I mean that is always the goal.
Our goal is always that everyone has a good experience. We've had town meetings when we had the town meeting the special town meeting on the ADU. I was literally at the back of the town hall and or back of the uh the auditorium as people were leaving and I had so many people on both sides of the issue say how much they
enjoyed coming to town meeting. I had more people say this was a incredibly respectful debate. It was a spirited debate and this was probably one of the best town meetings they said they were ever at. So you we c we can do this. We've done it before. Absolutely. All
right. And I think um I think any extra effort that we make to make it easier or maybe sometimes in some cases on a complicated arc it'll slow down the process a little bit. All right. take some time to explain, okay, here's how
we're going to do things here. This is so if you have an item here on under community preservation, this is when you know you need to speak up. I think some of these things we may need to slow down a little bit rather than breeze through them. Slow down and and and take the
extra time to explain. And like I said, this is this is a conversation with the moderator because it's and that's what I was just going to say. I think that's a conversation for the moderator and you know those those committees and department heads that are that are giving those presentations as well that are there to do those explanations meeting I'd make sure that we have in
the can a few slides um we're going to have to clone Bill Scott before he uh moves on but because um he does such an incredible job I can't tell you how helpful that information is absolutely during the meeting I'm watching folks and they're literally soaking up all of
that information in the slides on the screen. It's an outstanding job and it's incredibly helpful. So, we may need to have a slide on free cash for for Jennifer to help. Thank you very much, Mary, for coming tonight. You're
welcome. And staying with us at 9:15. Happy birthday, Mary. Oh, happy birthday, Mary. I think she was expecting a way to celebrate. No, it's okay. You look beautiful tonight, too. I
love that outfit you have on. Thank you, Mary. Moving on to our next item, we have the town administrator evaluation. For the sake of the folks that might be listening in, this is something that we do on an annual basis. Um Bob has a
contract with us. uh and part of that contract is talk about his um having an evaluation done on an annual basis and then based on that evaluation is what potential compensation or merit increase
there could be. So the five members of this board each individually uh did an evaluation on Bob which was given to me as the chair and I compiled the results and as a result of those um
evaluations I am happy to report that Bob got a total score of 40 which for th those of you out there watching that's superior. That's what we think of Bob. Thank you very much. She did an excellent, excellent job. And um in the
contract it says that his score uh needs to be at least 33. Well, he certainly exceeded that. And I would introduce a motion regarding Bob. Mad Madame Chair, I would like to give him a big thank you for his
service. It's a privilege to work with him. And I would like to make a motion that we all lot a 5% raise in recognition of his excellent work. Second. And we have a second on that. Do we have any discussion? I'm assuming that's what's allotted in the contract.
Yes. Okay. No, that's not what's allotted in the contract. It's not in the contract. There isn't anything specific about a merit increase, but it traditionally has been what he has received based on the scores that he has received in the past. So we that's that's what we've done in the past.
We've done it in the past and it's in each amendment and it um is equal with the scores that he received. So, but but for clarification for the public, there's a there's a stipen that he gets for that for the performance that that
score equals a flat dollar amount stipen. Is that correct, Bob? It includes a an amount that is put into his 401k or retirement program and then the merit has always been left to um right, it says in the
contract that the merit is negotiated negotiated by the board. we've done in the past is not anything like this. Just so you know that I've sat here um what happened was the rating would come in and then there would be a subcommittee correct Bob that would work with you on
not for the past three years. Yeah. No, we haven't had a a subcommittee. I I worked with the the chairman. Yeah. And then there's the you also have there's the mer merit pay guidelines that apply to every um managerial employee and and
so it it ranges up to 5.75% and we've just um had the had the 5% because it was fit in that in that category. It could be as just according to the town's own guidelines up to
5.75% but we thought five was you know fair and in the past three years that I've been on the board this is the way that that um Mike Stone conducted it in the past right he used to from my understanding is he met with Bob um that
was my first question to you was met with Bob and you negotiated the 5% I no I think let me just reason I'm asking I have no this isn't about Bob honestly Bob you're very worthy of the 5% that's not my question my question
more is first of all it's not a contractual percentage I guess my my thing is more about um and I wasn't here the last two years so I'm sorry um is more about what we're doing for other managerial people to give our staff
whatever it's two and a half% and we're giving him five That's that's where I have a little bit of an issue and I don't know what the answer is. So, I'll tell you that the answer is I actually get less um because I should get the cola too, but I I don't I don't I don't have a cola in this that the the
managers would get this year um as of July 1, people get a 3% cola and then if you get the they have the same merit guidelines. If you get a um um a high score on your merit, you're eligible for you know a 5% increase. So it's the I
get the cola plus the 5%. Okay, that's that's fine. I just want to make sure that we're consistent with our with what we're what he's doing in our in our department heads. Yeah, my understanding is is that we actually had written in the merit increase. All we're doing is following the procedure in the first
same procedure. We're following what the amendment was that it's not written specifically merit increase in the contract, but it follows what we had agreed to in the original three years of the contract. So all we're doing is continuing that. Exactly. I'm I'm fully in support of it. I too just want to say
that I I think we're very lucky here in Yarmouth uh to have Bob. I think he's done a great job as a town administrator. I think the town um I believe that we're in the probably in the strongest financial position that we've been in a long time. Um, and I
think, um, you know, having spent a fair amount of time in in town hall, uh, with department heads and with personnel, um, I think the morale is very positive. I just think there's a culture. There's, um, uh, an environment here that, um, is
really focused on service and serving the people of the town of Yarmouth. And I think Bob has set a very good standard as our town administrator. And uh I think he deserves all the praise that board members have been heaping on him and uh I very much appreciate all of the
attention that he gives to me with all the nagging things that I bring up to him, all my constituent complaint. Never mind 5%. Yesesh, let's get more. So no, I I think we've been well served by Bob and uh he deserves all the praise and and and the bonus. I
think a perfect example of that was the issues that we've had regarding zoning and Bob took the initiative to put together a cheat sheet for folks to help them through the process um and to let's say offset some of that
frustration and allow people to see that there are other options. it isn't always the no and and that openness and his um his support and u encouragement to the staff is keeping everything goal
oriented um I think has been a tremendous aid to all of us in the town and I think thanks to Bob we are where we are today and I really appreciate what you've done Bob thank you yeah I agree thank you here here so I have I
have a motion and I have a second. U all those in favor I I opposed. That's unanimous. Bob, thank you very much. Well, thank you. I want to thank the board that you know the one thing that we do in this community is we don't have
a situation where um you know there's not a lot of communication between the board and the staff and we keep it together and the leadership of this community comes right from the select board and I'm just honored to work with all of you and to make sure you know we'll continue to make adjustments all
the time and try to stay on that you know goal oriented path. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on, we have uh the board and committee actions resignation.
Yes, I would like to read uh actually I will spare us. Um Meg um sorry Clark Meg Clark Clark yes is leaving
um historical commission. Thank you. Yarmouth Historical Commission and she's moving to Chadam. But she does do a shout out which I think is worthy of noting to Bob Kelly. Apparently Bob Kelly is the inspiration for the inspector in her book. So if you're
listening nicely done. So that's a resignation. So do I have a motion? So moved with a second discussion. All those in favor? I we accept with our thanks. Yes.
Uh then I have an appointment. Uh we have a Denise Galvin who is came forward and would like to be an alternate member of the recreation commission a one-year term. So moved. Second. Discussion. All
those in favor? I I We have minutes uh for the April 29th, 2025 meeting. I'll move the minutes. Second. Discussion. All those in favor? I I and we have upcoming agenda review. We'll be meeting again next Tuesday. We'll have
the hearing of course for um the fees. Oh, and and and Madame Chair as an agenda item um I I'd like to pitch um a recognition for Jack Braggington
Smith. his birthday, his the 100th anniversary of his birthday is on May 25th. And so I would like to have on the agenda for our next meeting um a
proclamation designating May 25th as Jack Braggington Smith Day. And now I I spoke about this with his daughter Diana and she was comfortable with it being Jack Breington
Smith Day in Yarmouthport since that's his sort of that was his center of gravity. Certainly was. So um I I'm I'm going to draft something up for the board to take a look at and vote on at the meeting. And um Diana has submitted a request that's being
reviewed by town staff for a bench on the park um Yarmouth Common Facing the new church. And uh this is one of the things that we do as a board is on benches like this. We have to approve uh an application for this. So where is
this? This is the common Yarmouthport common. The common the green space that's between the banks and the um No, no, no, no, no. The Yarmouth Port Common. Yarmouth. We have a Yarmouth Port common. We're crossing Gory House. Yarmouth. No, the Yarmouth Port common.
I know. Correct. Yarmouth common. Right. The Yarmouth Port Common facing the new church which he was very involved in in raising money for. And um apparently um there's a nice spot there facing the new church where his bench
could be placed. So that would be on the agenda as well. Interesting. I didn't think that there was room for any more benches in town because when Jack McCormack passed, Karen didn't there was a denial of a bench. Um I've driven by I drive by there every day on my way to the county. Not that
but I don't know that that came up before the board. It wasn't it was denied before he even got here. His family wanted a bench and they were told there was no spots for benches left in Yarmas. So I and I was told there was a wait list. So well I think we should at some at the appropriate time. Let's take
that, but let's revisit that. We should review that then because again, John McCormack is another example of somebody that's given an awful lot to this town that we should recognize. Definitely be good. It wasn't in that spot, so maybe it was just in the particular place.
Very good. We have um we're going to be having our district attorney come on May 13th. Uh in addition to the uh fees update of second hearing, we'll also have a hearing for um new section 12
alcohol license for the Heavenly Restaurant and a summer season um program update for recreation. Hard to believe, but that's going to be starting pretty soon. So, it' be interesting to hear what um they have on on hand for
that. And we have uh DNR's overview of the town ways to water assessment with our newly hired director David and discussion managing parks and buildings. Is there anything else that we need to
add to that agenda or can I ask the discussion on managing parks and buildings? Is this um keeping the basically what we've been talking about um parks that haven't been maintained? This is part of our
discussion that we had today. Okay. And that is let's begin the conversation with and I I would just tack on to that and I don't know I would put it out there. We have uh a resident uh who has noted two um town properties with dead
trees that he's brought to our attention on num numbers of occasions. And I did go and look at them and there it's the water one of the water buildings on Union Street for instance. and there are three or four dead trees and I guess
maybe that's needs to be t handled. Now, typically when I get dead tree requests, I get them in writing. I get them in writing. I pass them on to Bob with the details and the location and all the information that's needed and then the administrator pretty much
handles the constituent. He'll do that for Mr. Sears. Yeah, he he comes sometimes to meetings and likes to say it just at the podium, but he has a couple of times. So, I went and visited them and at least it is true. I'll tell them that if you can in
writing, I will make sure. Yeah, it's it's helpful on constituent complaints just for for our purposes. Ask the constituent to get it in writing. Give them the give you give you the details and make sure that they get to Bob. Um because you know this this
will happen now that you're doing office hours. This happens to me all the time. So I get people coming in with all sorts of complaints and I again I ask them put it in writing. What's the problem? What's the remedy that you're looking for? And then that kind of gets into the
whole system. And uh I I can say I can say quite honestly that in all the complaints that I get, they're acted on, you know, and there's followup. Would we want to consider I know we have at the bottom of the list, so to speak,
the transfer fee for property sales over 1 million or over two million. Would we want to consider accelerating that? I think that that's a discussion that would be even more detailed. I mean we heard a little bit I think in the long
um in the uh plan update today by Kathy that u one of the things also is real estate exemption resident real estate exemption. So I think there's an all-inc Yeah. And the thing is on some of these I would I would venture to say madam
chair that um it's best to coordinate some of these topics with the administrator because the amount of staff time that's necessary to prep us all right for the discussion um you know is significant sometimes right and for
example for example on this tourism district I can tell you Mary did an enormous amount of work with Bob and with council on doing due diligence on all of that stuff. Um, and that's just something that we don't So, um, little
did I know that when we agreed as a board to put it on the agenda, little did I know ahead of time that it would require an enormous amount of work on the part of staff. So, and the week after town meeting. Well, no, no, no. This was this work had to be done before town meeting. Town meeting. So from a
timing point of view, quite frankly, had I known ahead of time the amount of time and energy and work that would be needed, um it would have been far better for everyone involved for that work to have been done after town meeting. But she had to so while she's juggling town
meeting and getting for ready for that and all the other stuff that she's doing, she had to deal with the monstrosity of that, which was unfortunate. So that's what I'm saying. You know, some of these things it might seem like a simple idea, but it's it's worthy of some conversation first
because some of us I know for me, I'd like to get and this is this is was the conversation that we had prior to us scheduling the hearing. We wanted details. We wanted due diligence. We wanted all this stuff. So, knowing Kathy, she's going to she would put a lot of time and energy into this kind of
thing. So, we should figure out the best time uh to to schedule that. And I I think getting some feedback from the administrator I think would make a lot of help. I think that's why we can put it as an agenda item for future agenda. Uh and then get Bob's input and input
from all of us what we'd like to see at that. But I know it is something that has been um discussed, shall we say, quite a bit by folks in town and is u a big concern. Do we have any individual items that
anyone would like to bring up today? Mark, Tracy? Um, no. I'll take a pass. Thank you, Tracy. Joyce, no. Thank you. Lisa, Liz, Liz, just at least I'm not Elizabeth. I
was just going to um 9:30. Yes, it be note that um the resolution about the CDBG sounds like a band. Um it's it would be part of the consent agenda so the public wouldn't know about
it necessarily. It's in our packet. It's in the packet and the public has all and there was a public hearing on it. So it's been noted. Oh yeah. Okay. It's been out there in the public reason to read it. Very good. Okay. Speaking of which, do I have a motion to approve the
consent agenda? So moved. Second. Discussion. All those in favor? I. and our superior town administrator, Bob, would you like to give us an update? Yeah, just a couple of quick items. I know it's been a long evening, but I
wanted to um thank Tracy Post in her role as the licensing chairman. Um she's been really um pushing us to organize the annual alcohol compliance seminar. And this was something that um was a
real labor of love with um Mike Stone in terms of it's one of the things that from a licensing standpoint, Yarmouth is far ahead of any other similar communities in approaching the all of the alcohol compliance, you know,
through proactive education. And so, um, I wanted to announce that, um, you know, and and give some credit to Pam Barnes, who worked very hard on this, as well as Chief Lennon and the police department. They put together, um, our first alcohol
compliance seminar for 2025 is going to be on Wednesday, May 14. And all of the licensed establishments have to attend that. We usually hold two sessions in a year so that if they can't make the first one, they have to make the second one. and the uh attendance has been
100%. And so um it's a a really great program. Phil Magnuson, who is retired at the police department, helps us. He's a another retired police officer, attorney, licensing specialist. And um so that's going to kick off next week.
Um we talked about our town meeting. I thought everyone worked real hard and the um it was great. I I like having the board up on the the stage. which I might might add. I think people like seeing that too. And um we're also ramping up our major recruitments for the assistant
town um administrator slot and the community development director slot. It's another you know that's a very historic um period in history to be um addressing these types of positions. So, I want to make sure that we do the best
job that that we can with that and that we really, you know, just going through all of those items that we did this evening. We really need to be poised to make um a lot of progress on a lot of issues. And um you know, it's going to be difficult to replace people like
Karen who's been here for uh what almost 25 years, 24 years. And and I know Bill wasn't here as long, but he's just a force of nature, that guy. So, um, you know, my my goal is going to be to attract the highest intellects that we
can find and hopefully, you know, be in a position to, uh, just drive things forward on on all of the goals we have. Um, so you'll be involved in that process very deeply. Curious if you have any thoughts on structural changes while
those slots are open. Well, you know, I I um would like to keep the structure. I'd like to keep the focus on, you know, the planning and economic development and maybe um you know, push more toward
having the, you know, the community development overall, push projects and initiatives, things of that nature, working with the business community. Um maybe we might need some additional staffing to provide
support to um boards and committees, but I don't want to see, you know, the community development department just be a a service bureau for advisory committees. I think that there's a real leadership role there. Uh and we proved that in recent years. Just look at the
projects that they've been pushing out and and I I really give Karen a tremendous amount of credit. we've been, you know, talking about um all of these things and and I think that there's been a lot of accomplishments and interestingly enough with Bill and his focus on, you know, he's a former
community development director um himself being able to help push the projects and things and and I think really that that's what we need and if I can get the community development department under its current function with additional, you know, support for
the economic development, we have a as you see extremely strong planning function, our conservation is extremely strong. We support, you know, the the the ZBA and historic, all of those under that department to to see that, you know, that top position kind of help
push everything forward. I think that would be a great help. And then you may see uh the the change there uh become the assistant town administrator becomes more of um a town administrator kind of in training type thing to be able to not
just manage individual projects but be prepared to um you know do do things like the the collective bargaining and the budgeting and and all of the things that you do as a town administrator. So that's kind of my my focus on those.
It's to retain the structure that we have which I I think is a very solid structure but sort of retool it in a way that we can push that long list of initiatives and but it's going to take you know getting someone with a lot of skill there.
Sounds good though. Does sound good. And I I I would mention too is I have kind of a a a game plan too that we've continued to recruit for that economic development. Um, and it it may very well be that um I I think we hit a home run with having Jay
Grandandy here to move forward with um some of these mixeduse economic studies that are geared towards using our information to articulate a much clearer vision for business development along the Route 28
corridor and feeding that into the comprehensive planning process. uh it took a lot to get someone with that skill set to kind of push that. Uh but um right now he's only part-time and um you know I might have located the type of candidate that we could bring in um
that may be available on a part-time basis over the summer to work with Jay and have a handoff so that when we get to the point that a lot of these more sophisticated studies are performed that really can set the tone and the
direction then we can um bring in a person to work full-time to do more of the implementation, the onbudsman work, working directly with um businesses and try to push the agenda. And if if we can pull off something like that, I I think
that's kind of my my dream is to we really had a backlog of helping the planning part, get the economic development strategy articulated and and I think when we get to that that point, it'll be a lot easier to to fold that
off. You know, you don't need to have someone with, you know, 25 years of experience to to do that. So, I'm hoping that that's successful as well. And that's how you know we can work whether we're analyzing the community development corporation or other ideas.
So um a few ideas of what my thoughts are. Awesome. And I think that's it for me. Well then I'd entertain a motion. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I Thank you all
very much.