so when you're retired we can bring you on one of our committees what you think good luck I'm open Dorcas I think you only missed one oh okay thank you good evening welcome to the meeting of the Arma select Board of April 23rd 2024 this is a hybrid meeting and therefore I'm going to read the following uh notice into the record this is the formally advised that is required by general laws chapter 38 sections 18- 25 in pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 an act relative to extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16th 2021 as extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 the arm bard of SE arm select board will hold a public meeting on Tuesday April 23rd 2024 6: p.m. in the hearing room yarma Town Hall 1146 Route 28 South yarm Massachusetts the public is welcomed to attend either in person or view the attendance Public Access provided below and there are Zoom meeting um instructions to join the meeting by computer or by telephone on the armouth website please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America the Republic for which it stands indivis andice for all oh I signed in the wrong place on this one okay to start with we have one announcement that I'm aware of there could be others there was a if anyone's here um on a license matter uh involving uh let me get it right Cape Deli Foods Inc doing businesses Picadilly Deli that matter will not go forward tonight there is some kind of a change that is necessitated with the advertising and therefore this deadline could not be met so that matter is not going to be heard tonight but it will come back at some point um any other announcements um yes Mr chairman I have a public service um announcement um we've reached that time of year where the beach sticker sales are very brisk here in town and I I'd like to announce for all local residents that were reinstituting the sale of the beach stickers in addition to the town hall um they will be available at the Chamber of Commerce uh Monday through Friday 9: to 4: and starting Memorial day you'll be able to pick up a beach sticker at the Chamber of Commerce office on Saturday from from 9:00 to 1: so thanks very much to the Chamber of Commerce to try to make it easy on folks and and also I'd like to have a little shout out to the treasur collector's office um they've made special accommodations opened up extra windows and we're welcoming everyone um you know that that comes to town hall as well and and thanks to to Jennifer Mullen our finance director for reinstituting the Chamber Sales try to get um Beach stickers in folks hands before their ice cream melts anyone else any other announcements Mary Mary good evening Mary Miss lsky Town Clark uh just wanted to take the opportunity to remind people that next Tuesday is the annual town meeting the uh it will be held at the Intermediate School on Station Avenue in the uh Auditorium which is uh right next to the parking lot on the far left uh the town clerk's office will be there as of 5:15 to start checking people in so people people are should feel free to come early uh we do plan on starting the meeting promptly at 6:00 so if anyone has questions they are welcome to call the town clerk's office and we're happy to uh to provide more information if necessary thank you U public comment Chris KY thank you um Chris gy West Yarmouth I will try to keep this uh short in that I saw the 304 page attachment to your agenda tonight a couple of things one is I have some real concerns about the location of the town meeting I spent time several years ago on the study committee for having an effective town meeting I really think that the the placement of people who are not registered voters in the town so clear in such proximity to the registered voters I think you should be looking at having a classroom where un unregistered voters uh have screen was zoom and things like that and can then you know have hands raised to participate in the ways that the moderator is willing to allow second thing I would say is that I've had the experience this week of working with several of your town employees and was really really impressed with the work that Samantha snow out of the clerk's office and Kiren Thomas from the DPW did in helping me they're both Pleasant professional extremely expedient in terms of their help the third thing I have is that for many many years the uh West the henus park civic association has done neighborhood cleanup long before there was a formal program and then in the last two years last year in this year we have participated with the town on the Earth Day cleanup and um we've always had you know contests for how many nip bottles you can find and everything including this year we had 50 of the same brand found within a one block area which is kind of an unusual thing so I'd love to see deposits on nip bottles we think you could make some profit in the town but secondly um we had some very disturbed ing findings that we now have been in talking with others that they are stating that they are finding the same thing around town what we have found is that people are indeed picking up their dog poop and putting it in plastic bags however they are then throwing the plastic bags into the shrubs into the sidey yards and into various things we were finding shredded plastic full of dog poop in all kinds of locations and when I've talked to other people around town they are expressing the same thing I had the experience this uh week this earlier this week to then go to several Town Halls uh when I was visiting and I'm going to leave this I've left copies of this with Jeff Colby but I'm going to leave them now with Bob and in Dennis or in Barnstable they have a card that says be a poop scoop hero in Dennis they use a do your duty for clean water hand out that's done at their town at Town Hall with that and East Ham actually has a rules for dog ownership in the town and in it they are exciting the fact that the that the uh contaminations and the bacteria in dog fees is actually twice as bad as human and then to find it and put in shredded plastic which we were trying to eliminate and we were a coastal area down in Hy's Park but other people as I said all around town are complaining about the same thing there are actually fines and penalties that are allowed to be uh placed on people people who violate this and so I would just like to make a comment on that and say I'd like to see us move forward with better notification and enforcement of stuff that we found really disgusting and we found a lot of it thank you thank you Chris thank you very much anyone else um hi my name is Carolyn Bernett um first I just wanted to say thank you to the folks who did participate in the cleanup last Saturday it was really wonderful I happen to be out for a run in the rain but to see people picking up dog poop in the rain um I appreciate anyone who who was part of that effort um I wanted to come this evening just to quickly comment on um something which which will be on the warrant next week um and I think I'm echoing some sentiments that have already been communicated by perhaps another yarmouthport Resident um um to the select board um but that is just regarding uh the efforts that the committee has made on a potential new town seal um anytime I see a vote from the select board that is split uh naturally as a critical thinker I I tend to tune in um and I think the initial charge of what this committee was was tasked uh to do has has definitely been met um in creating a quote new seal but as we present this to the community as to whether or not this new image should in fact be adopted um I think it's up to our select board should I dare say select men um to really think about what what that means um just eliminating an artist depiction I've had the chance um to talk to a person in the tribe um and I I appreciate uh all of the efforts that have been made so far and the time and quite frankly energy and money that have been made up until this point but I'm just not convinced that um erasing a a piece of of Art which which reflects a moment and time um is the best uh solution for our town um I think we still have a little bit more conversation to do obviously the vote might dictate one way or another but as as Selectmen in this next week I hope that you can critically come together and listen to all of the points of of what other people have shared up until this point um thank you thank you anyone else you have two people on Zoom okay Jay Gardner director of Public Health for Yarmouth um I'm here today to let you know that I uh on a as part of my regular duties from the Town Administrator we monitor the the migrant site and as he has informed not only the board but also the community that the consolidation process was about to begin with the state where the migrants would be relocated off of uh off of Cape Cod well that began today six families um were relocated uh some to Boston some to Kingston uh the Town Administrator in his update has probably more detailed information for you that's going to continue tomorrow and into Thursday and uh as of Thursday if all goes according to plan the migrant site will will no longer be in operation but while I was there today and we we visit on a fairly regular basis to oversee that program um I met two women who I've met before because they're there five days a week teaching English classes to the migrants and as I spoke to them uh and I'm going to ask if the chair would recognize them soon uh Janet and Sue to that could they could they then be able to communicate to this board and to the community at large what really went on at the Yarmouth all the good the philanthropic the charitable work that happened from the armouth residents from nonprofits from the faith-based organization and residents here it was remarkable and I think their story is going to be very telling it really demonstrates what what the armouth community did for the migrants they were here for 7 months s and a half months and there was a lot of Goodwill that happened there the board will understand Mr chairman I'm sure you understand the contentious uh conversations that happens this board is to be commended and and the Town Administrator for the difficult Community messaging that happened here you were working with a lot of inaccurate uh sometimes disruptive information from the state but you were transparent in that despite the difficult and contentious uh conversations that happened from the community there was a lot of misinformation and misinforming even in public health there was talked about tuberculosis and things of that nature things that never happen public safety issues additionally to be commended is our chief of police fire chief and superintendent of schools they all went above and beyond to make sure the individuals that were here from only seven months they were considered residents and they were well cared for Mr chairman if you could if you could recognize Janet Sue they'll be able to tell you in detail what happens over at the migrant site thank you thank you anyone else to the board hi thank you very much um my name is Jan emac and I am so happy to have this opportunity just to take a few moments to talk about um kind of a bird's eyee view of the harbor side that was going on there for the last s and a half months and this morning I woke up thinking I wish I could convey to this community um what a good job you did and I mean that sincerely um and I I represent we represent an organization called building a bigger table and we' come in as volunteers and our mission is to um support Asylum Seekers refugees and migrants simply that um and um the people who were housed at the harbor side here were part of Governor Healey's um housing of people who were unhoused in Boston who had been living in Boston and also migrants um to the to the United States and the migrants consisted of primarily Haitians um but also people from um Honduras uh Puerto Rico Sudan beautiful families and um uh uh I think the really one of the first inspiring things was that this was a really um not a very homogeneous group they were quite mixed and they got along like a just a beautiful little model Community there was never conflict there was it was just a beautiful model Community um and expanding that even wider and I just want to say Haiti you probably know that in Haiti there people are struggling just to stay alive every day so it's a pretty tough situation there but at any rate um uh the the larger Community is really what I really want to speak to also and um there was an incredible consistent outpouring of generosity to the hotel all the time um Faith communities came and brought things individuals came and brought things um and uh Jean CLA with the well a number of people the faith communities came and and really supported the people there um and and it was really very much appreciated they brought clothing and toys and books and um we also had a an elll program that Jay alluded to and 5 days a week these eager Learners came and uh and spent a couple of hours a day learning English and another member of the community also your community um also helped with the uh English classes so they were very consistent uh let's see um Sue wants to talk a moment here this is Sue Gins and she wants to talk about the school your incredible school system here hi so the Dy Regional School District hit the ground running they got those kids into school within the first few days and they're still working hard right now trying to get them to finish out the year and make plans for them right now um the principls I want to shout out to Kevin dumen and the staff at Ezra Baker really went above and beyond welcoming the families providing food and backpacks and clothes and just um story times um they just really all stepped up and it was great to see at all the schools um I also work for The Children's Place in eastem and through the department of early Ed and care we were able to run a play group there for 3 days three mornings a week we had a tiny room filled with Builders and artists and scientist and dreamers and we just had so much joy in that room with a few Tantrums on the side um we just want to thank just the community the Yarmouth library Long pasture the managers of the hotel whenever we asked to do something their answer was always yes and what what can we do to help I also want to highlight the work of mass hire um down in hyanis uh who helped came in and and helped everybody write resumés and so that they could have um a PDF of a resume that they could email out and got them on the job search a good number of the people are working in the community right now every one of them has um a work permit and Social Security numbers I also want to highlight um khaki the Community Action uh network of Cape Cod in the islands in hyanis and they helped Advance uh their immigration cases every person who was there who was a migrant is a documented migrant I want to say there's nobody who is who is undocumented and there's nobody there who is maybe what somebody might call illegal everybody is documented and they're all advancing their cases and they're moving on to different Shelter Systems but the hope is that they're moving on to a next step of being able to be more independent so that's what your state is working on right now um and and I want to just say that we were just really felt honored to be able to share this journey with these families and it and we thank you for your part in it the town of Yarmouth and I know that I express their gratitude too thank you very much thank you thank you hello is next wish I could have set thank you Mr chairman good evening Tom canel for the record Precinct what was historically three um let me just start off by saying today is a national bus driver day school bus driver day so I think there's a select board member up there that we thank you very much for doing your due diligence and keeping that that big iron on the road so yes thank you so much also just a quick note we had a little unique piece of property that has uh now been uh torn down here in our community uh it was one year shy of 100 years old and that's on 137 run Pawn road we all know it as the castle Madrid and it is now going to be a single family home and the reason I had some calls on it and why it was torn down uh Mr chairman in in a flood zone if the uh remodel is more than 50% the price of the building then it has to Down By Law so the new owner is going to be putting a a nice uh home there single family home uh it's going to be elevated and uh so that's the first step in that neighborhood to be flood compliant so with that I did have uh out of order Mr chairman just a question because uh there was email sent out of five candidates that are running for the board which I'm one of them about tonight in the 911 and I just didn't know if we were able to ask questions During the period or if not Mr chairman thank you no questions at the time thank you anyone else two hands up on the screen there's a Christopher who Christopher can you hear us yes yes can you hear me yeah what's your last name Garen okay go ahead well first I'd like Tok thank uh Lori Rula she's with the water department I think in charge of the sewer um project uh there was a small matter at the Parker River Beach with the playground uh having some water standing water and she um fixed that overnight you know she had that cleared up right away and they just wanted to thank her for doing that so quickly um I I read in Senator Sear's uh monthly newsletter uh here in April and he gave an update about the uh wind uh power farms off cape and the cables that are uh coming you know on Shore and he mentions that uh future offshore wind projects are now proposed with the possibility of additional cable Landings along the Cap's Southern Shores and I'm just wondering does that include yarmi or is that uh is the town of Yarmouth aware of these proposed uh tables that possibly may be coming uh on Shore and maybe uh if Mr ritten hour could provide some information during the administrator update uh that would be appreciated about that and I also want to thank the um the board for everything with the harbor Suites motel and also for listening to the citizens of Yarmouth who rais uh rational questions and peaceful questions about the health education welfare and safety uh for the citizens of the town of Yarmouth I'd like to thank uh the police chief and uh police department for working with Cheryl ball of the concerned uh KOB citizens group where uh they discussed their uh standouts and uh weekly standouts and that were peaceful and uh I also would like to thank everyone else involved uh with the harbor Suite uh uh location so uh again thank you uh and have a good evening thank you Christopher and we also have a Margaret posa that's it Margaret posa one more Margaret does Margaret want to be recognized Margaret did you want to be recognized there can you hear me yes okay great um all right I I wanted to put a statement on the record and then I want to ask a question but I want to put a caveat to my statement my statement should not be against any individual migrant we all want the American dream I I have a distress that we who want the migrants removed have been maligned unfairly my concern and the concern of many others is that there are citizens in Yarmouth hyanis and on the cape who are recently homeless living in tents or in their cars on Cape Cod who have not received the same care as the migrants that we just heard I appreciate what what they have done for the migrants but if you read Hy's news couple of weeks ago there's a new family on the streets in hyana because they can't afford their rent anymore and the state was blindsided or I'm sorry the state blindsided the town officials by dumping the migrants with no notice preparation or communication with the town elders and all of you did an amazing job to work with them and to help them so that they could have the footing my statement is to thank the select board for working to keep the town's people informed of the status of the migrants at Harborside and to use all of the legal means available to have the migrants removed from Harborside and hopefully defer deter future plans to Warehouse migrants in Yarmouth and particularly thank you Mr ritten now for that and my question which I assume will be answered in the town update and has actually partially been answered by Mr Garder so thank you both on that will you post on the town site when the migrants have completely been removed from Harborside do you know if they're being moved Elsewhere on the cape which I think has been answered the answer is hopefully no and then are there plans to move additional migrants to Yarmouth in the future and thank you very much we don't normally respond to public comments but I can tell you based on past history we have no idea what the state's plans are they generally communicate us to us after the fact so I can I can categorically tell you that we're not aware of any plans either way um the other thing I want to make clear is we do not take action against migrants in in in that particular instance that you mentioned it's anyone who stays in occupancy for a period of over 30 days which in this case may very well have included the migrants but if there were not migrants that were there in excess of 30 days they would be um also subject to the town's enforcement actions thank you anyone else no one else on the big screen that's it okay we'll move on thank you everyone okay the next item is a fire department promotion of Lieutenant inspector Kevin inright who was promoted April 2nd of 2024 and I'm going to ask our chief Enrique I ask you to come forward and say a few words about that promotion good evening thank you uh so we're here tonight to uh honor and recognize Kevin enr um Kevin has been a member of the department for a very long time he was appointed first to the call Department dep in 1992 he was hired full-time in 1999 uh I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize the fact that he's on the HazMat team because he mentions it about every five minutes uh so he was appointed to the St uh Massachusetts state HazMat team uh he actually does a very good job we just tease him uh since uh HazMat team District 1 in 2014 he was also appointed to the Joint hazards assessment team which works with in conjunction with the mass State Police bomb squad in 2022 Kevin is an energetic member of the department participates heavily in Department functions and always comes to work with a great attitude and more importantly a smile Kevin uh is involved in all Union functions Association department and especially Community functions he embodies the armouth fire department he's filled multiple roles as an acting lieutenant and now it is my honor and privilege to announce that he's been uh promoted to Lieutenant inspector so thank you [Applause] Kevin he's going to sign some paperwork you ready yeah so if you would raise your right hand and repeat after me please state your name when I when it calls for it so I I state your name do do solemnly swear and affirm that I will faithfully and impartially that I will faithfully and partially discharge and perform discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as a lieutenant inspector for the town of Yarmouth fire department lieuten inspector the of Y fire department according to the Charter bylaws according to the Charter bylaws rules and regulations rules and regulations of the town of armouth of the to armouth the Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Constitution laws of the of Massachusetts and the Constitution and laws of the United States of America United States of America so help me God help me God [Applause] congratulations thank you congratulations thank you very much congratulations congratulations thank you congratulations congratulations congratulations making show up that's gr oh my God from the backy look just like my brother car he just walked out he's EMT in pinoke and I'm thinking what would he be down here for pretty much clears out now guys can fill a room I have nice to see all that is the attorney going to be present um yes absolutely the attorney and the L maybe he's not ready yet he's got a good sense of you too oh that's that's nice is he back there oh yeah there he is I see him okay we're ready for the show CA hearing on the music room okay everybody want to do their introduce themselves and then we'll proceed sergeant Tom hady from the police department evening Mr chairman for you to the members of the board of selectman attorney Bill Kelly representing the music room with me is Brian sapon the principal of the music thank you okay so this matter was continued from back in what was it February a date in February and um what the uh parties have been working on and by the parties um I'm talking about um the police and and um business is come to a consensual agreement rather than go through a um a full hearing and um I reviewed their work and added some things that I think were left out of the agreement inadvertently they had been discussed but were not embodied in the final agreement and I think it's a fair and reasonable one and I told him that I would make that representation to the board but for it to be accepted it has to be by um majority voted aboard and I they everyone's aware of that as well so um let me [Applause] see what the agreement is and I'm not sure I didn't leave it on my desk but um what the agreement's going to do is admit to um thank you Dorcas it's probably in my briefcase somewhere is um there was a report filed in January 2nd of 2024 um and what they're going to admit to is what's stated in the observations of Officer Erica winberg that on July 31st she was at the premises and um there were no there was noise from entertainment that was not confined to the building in violation of the armouth rules and regulations chapter 155 section 2B so no evidence needs to be produced on that that's a given just as if evidence were presented and the board made that finding and it's you know there's no going back on it it's written in stone so to speak the second one is is the factual admission is that in that same report um y with fire Lieutenant Matt beer on November 10th of 2023 um did a count of the patrons in staff and musicians in the premises and um that they exceeded um the allowed occupancy as set by The Building Commissioner um and I think I can give you some exact numbers on that the occupancy permit was for 88 um and there were 98 patrons plus there were 10 other employees of the music room um in musicians which brought it up to 108 so they're admitted admitting to that as as well any other violations that are contained in that report we're dismissing we're not going to go forward with anything else now in terms of what are the consequences of those violations that's also agreed to subject to the board's approval um and and what it is is a five day for the alcohol violation is suspended for five consecutive of calendar days beginning on Sunday May 19th and ending Thursday May 23rd and for the violation of the um entertainment license same same suspension to be served concurrently meaning at the same time so there' be that that there would be on on the record a 5day suspension on each of those violations to be run together and then uh the part that I said was inadvertently left out because it was included in all the discussions is each party waves All rights of appeal so there's no going back on this by uh this the business or or by the board or by the police or by anybody else involved in this and um I don't know if any if uh if anybody um has any questions that this point or how you want to proceed from here you tell me Peter this is this is not the not the first issue that we've had at the music room um I think I think the 5 days is too light well there are um okay so you I want everybody to violations there were but again there's decrees of violations they did in my opinion they didn't have any egregious or serious violations like serving miners or serving intoxicated people or permitting drugs to be sold on the premises or anything of that nature the prior violations were on August 31 2021 they did not attend the mandated annual compliance seminar and were found in violation but if I recall they did make that up correct they did subsequently mitigate and go and do it as as some other I think it was a half a dozen businesses they didn't do it so we found them in violation but we gave them a last opportunity to make up the class and I think everybody did and then on December 14th 2021 um the board found entertainment after hours and noise not being contained within the building it was also found to be a violation regarding uh server training certificates but again I think they went out and corrected those things as well um so but thanks for bringing up that issue I appreciate that I should have included that in the basic part do you have any questions or comments at this point dorcus not at this time Dan I'm not sure who to address this to but I'm I'm curious is the discussion regarding the allegations of um an improper manager at the site okay um so what apparently happened was when the police responded um people had identified themselves as in charge or managers but they weren't on the town's list of approved managers was there uh somebody on site that it was um identified as a manager I think the better question is who identified themselves as a manager and they the only way we would know that is to check our records and see if if somebody says you know I'm Dan Horan I'm the man the manager the owner is not here the only way we'd have to check that is to go to our town records and if you're not on our list then for our our intents and purposes that's a violation did any they they they said they were in charge did anybody on our list did anybody else say that they were in charge or was it this young person this young woman is that the only one that identified herself as oh was there a single was there a single instance I think there were two instances uh there was a second as well but um if I could just add to this I think there were two instances um the gentleman um I first met when I first walked in when Brian was starting the business to introduce myself so he'd been working since the start um he is on 2024's list of assistant managers and the woman yes I hadn't seen her before she is is also on the current list of managers and I will say she was on duty they were both on duty the day that I performed a compliance inspection and if you read my compliance report which should be part of the packet um there were other issues I noted but I noted that the bar was operating very professionally so I count those as mitigating factors why I was agreeable to moving to to dismiss those because he has corrected those issues okay um I realize that it is desirable to um have agreement on these matters rather than going through a full hearing and imp pellet rights and whatnot um you know I I have to admit I'm disappointed I hear such great things about this business I really do I everybody I talk to loves the fact that uh the offerings and the type of music that you provide it's a difficult spot no doubt about that and that seems to be creating most of the issues but um you know I would just say that you know you've been on notice for a while now that we're watching that the town is watching that the neighbors are watching and that you know to have these types of lapses occur um just as in certainly not in your benefit and it just it creates an untenable situation for this board because we have to hold you accountable for that you know we don't enjoy this we really do not we want businesses in Yarmouth to be successful and by all accounts yours is and we want you to continue in Yarmouth but it has to be sensitive to the needs of the neighbors and to the needs of the regulations here in town um so that being said I I appreciate the efforts to uh settle this and uh come to this agreement and I'm willing to support it thank you thank you Mark thank you Mr chairman um just so that I understand um what's being presented to us uh in the memo it it seems to suggest that Chief lennin the Town Administrator and you Mr chairman are all um in approval in accord with this disposition agreement is that correct yes um I wasn't just to be clear I wasn't working in harmony with the Town Administrator or the chief because if this thing didn't materialize I didn't want to get too invested in it because they'd be entitled to a fair and impartial Hearing in a before a fair and impartial board so I kind of laid back and let them do and then when I I was talking to um Sergeant Hennessy I said I want to see the draft of what is being presented to the board before we go in check it out check the violations check the sections of our rules and regulations that were allegedly violated and that's when he told me that they had approved it okay thank you um that's really my only question is just to make sure that uh that's clear to both us and and the public attorney Kelly what would you like to say on behalf of the board accepting this agreement well um first of all I would like to again to thank the board for his consideration and giving an extension of the time from the February hearing to April I think that it was uh more productive than I anticipated it would be because of the time it gave us to have a Frank dialogue and for some contemplation and self-examination by the music room uh where the report of January 2nd is a teaching moment a learning experience not only for Mr sapon who is uh very grateful to have this business uh operating in yth with the licenses this board gave him but it's also I think a sign of his faith in the community that he made this substantial Financial investment and brought this Economic Opportunity for employment for all the staff and employees that work at the music room to help make it a success and make it a popular venue uh I know I'm on the uh distribution list the email of Coming Attractions and what they have planned and I am always quite interested and struck by the fact uh of the quality and the breath and the variety of entertainment opportunities that are given right here in yoth um I grew up in the Heyday of the Mill Hill Club uh the compass lounge and all those other other wonderful establishments back when there was a happy hour um and the music room is not that it's uh taken it up a notch as has been acknowledged by Sergeant Hennessy it's a professionally run business that offers high quality nationally nationally renowned performers coming here to Route 28 in yoth in the center of your community and he understands that with this opportunity comes the great responsibility to this board to to the town officials uh to the and to the residents in his neighbors he does not want to be a bad neighbor uh and I think what this agreement shows is that uh when it is pointed out to Mr sapron and the folks at the music room that they will uh accept responsibility and they will uh as they have before pledge to rededicate thems eles to be certain that there is not a repetition of this CU just as the board takes no pleasure in holding these type of hearings you'd much rather have hearings that involve the expansion of business and substantial investments in the community uh so too Mr sapon doesn't enjoy coming to these hearings and in fact uh as an entrepreneur he's looking to make money uh and the sad reality that I accept anyway is is it's very rare that any lawyer that you hire is going to make you money especially in a situation like this um he's had to engage my services uh he I note his responsiveness his attention shows that he is in fact committed to having this responsible professional operation and when there are shortcomings he will respond to those accept responsibility for it and take measures to avoid repe repetition of the troubles that were identified so I would after reviewing the town's regulations in regards to your Progressive discipline policy looking at the nature of the two violations that uh the music room is admitting to uh for both the liquor license and the entertainment license we're not quibbling we as I think I told uh mentioned in a prior appearance before this board we were much rather work with the board than engage in any adversarial proceeding and fight with the board and I think this agreement achie achieves that goal strikes the balance and I would therefore urge and request the board to accept this agreement and this settlement and agreed dis say anything you want to say uh no I have nothing else to add and and I will note for the record that there was a there was an exchange of information was a discovery period you provided them with a lot of information um including bodyy camps and things of that nature so the parties had not only all of the facts before them but a fair opportunity to evaluate what the evidence might be if this matter were to go forward um to a full hearing absolutely and if I may there's one thing um I want to bring to your attention and I had a brief discussion with Sergeant Hennessy about it but one of the um one of the potential violations involved alcohol service in the afternoon [Applause] um it say okay here it is that on um November 18th at 3:45 25 to 30 people were drinking alcoholic beverages and the license was only operate uh valid from 5:00 p.m. uh to 1:00 a.m. so they were drinking before the license started but under chapter 138 section 12 if they came to us we could not deny them a license um between the hours of 11:00 a.m. at 11:00 p.m. so they would be they would be entitled to do that yes sir but what they did when they came to us is they shortened their own hours beyond the minimum that the statute would allow them so the board didn't do that M and the police aren't going to carry chapter 138 around in their Hip Pocket to check what I just said I would suggest that he come in if he's going to serve alcohol prior to um that date that you come in and correct that and get your license extended from 11 to 11 because you would have we we could not have stopped you from doing that it is it is my exper so on that one I don't consider had a big giveaway because you had a very solid defense certainly to that alleged violation and if I may uh he did adjust the entertainment hours back he just didn't think to do the alcohol license at the same time so the board approved it roll back in for an earlier St time in the entertainment yeah I mean there's no need for that because I see a I see a trip up down the road somewhere on that too uh um that is included in some of the teaching moments and the learning off yeah no there's always teaching moments in any case S I could tell you that um all right so does the board accept you want to close the this um settlement agreement in Li of going forward with a full evidentiary hearing on the matters that were scheduled to be heard back in February Mr chairman do you have to close the hearing first uh I don't cuz did we actually start a hearing participation in this hearing okay but I will if you'd like just procedurally asking we do that why don't we do that close theot motion to close the hearing have a second all those in favor I I public hearing is closed I'd make a motion to uh accept the agreement you you accept the agreement okay second second yes second okay any discussion all in favor I I all is opposed okay so we have four votes in favor of accepting the agreement one one in opposition so if your client do we have clean copies of this agreement we have three sign and and it the last line does uh if Mr would sign those then I'll pass them down you want all three I we have three Originals for signat three is good three is a good number yeah thank you a John Henry you want to know something I was I was elected in 2013 it was a licensing chairman since then this is the first case that's settled without the hearing oh really that's a good om [Applause] I think they worked hard on this and I commend both sides for for the work that you did to come to this point Thank you Mr chairman you want to give it to me one more [Applause] thank you oh that's mine that's my design okay [Music] [Applause] great CU you door yeah you want that [Applause] Peter has do you want to take one of these Mr Kelly yes if I may Mr chair do you need one these do not no I'll have you hold the other two you want just one um we'll keep two you want two for the official file on to Bob well gentlemen thank you very much for your productive work and uh I wish you the best Mr saon I hope we can get on some uh level footing like Dan suggested and that you can have a good good successful business appreciate that thank you we have had a thousand shows there by the way that ready thank you thank you thank you our next item is a discussion and vote on the annual Town election warrant and designation of police assignments to the police chief and to the town clerk no no those are just general good evening Mary maslowski town clerk uh thank you um we have a two procedural matters for you folks to address tonight one is the assignment of the police officers this is a new requirement under the 2022 votes act uh for each election we need to request that you uh pass that um Duty on to the police chief in conjunction with uh the town clerk's office uh the second matter is just the approval of the ballot warrant uh that it will need to be um published and posted after your vote um I just wanted to take the opportunity to give people a little bit of information vote by mail is in effect for this annual Town election uh as I had mentioned at a prior meeting we have uh in excess of 3600 ballots that are uh going to be sent out the last day to register to vote for this uh annual town election is actually Saturday May uh 11th town clerk's office will be open here in town hall all day that Saturday so that is the actual last opportunity for people to vote and actually be able to participate in the in the town election um and if anybody is still looking for a vote by mail ballot uh there is still time to request one uh ballots have been ordered we are hopeful that they will be in by the end of next week and that we can get the mailing uh done quickly um the they were officially proofed and are ready to go so um with that I would just ask that the board take uh two actions tonight one both motions are in the letter there were that was in your packet uh the first is for the police officer assignments the second is to enact the ballot warrant for the annual town meeting Town election rather sorry Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion I'd like to I'd like to move that the select board hereby delegates its Authority given under chapter 92 section 72 of the acts of 2022 to detail a sufficient number of police officers or constables for each building that contains the polling places for one or more precincts at every election therein to preserve order and to protect the election officers and supervisors from interference with their duties into to Aid in enforcing the laws relating to elections to the chief of police in consultation with the town clerk Mo have a second okay all those in favor I anyone oppose passes unanimously Mr chairman I have another motion have another motion you ready you you you moving the bot warrant yes I move that the select board adopt the warrant for the May 21st 2024 annual Town election as presented by the Town Clerk and direct that the warrant be duly advertised and posted in accordance with Massachusetts general laws the town of Yarmouth Charter and its bylaws second all right we have a motion to the second under the ballot warrant all those in favor I anyone opposed passes unanimously thank you very much the warrant should be in your signature packet for this evening those are the only votes you need right those are the only votes I need tonight any if anyone has any questions though I'm happy to answer them okay we need the the warrant has to be executed too so don't forget what's that it's in the red file the warrant itself needs to be ex to be signed okay she wants us is everyone else sign this everyone y here it is okay you I just leave it in the folder does she need this now you need it now no we can live in the folder I'll get it in the morning thank you okay [Applause] [Applause] not [Applause] yeah come [Music] on how are you I'm good hurry good evening good evening this item is CDC tourism Revenue preservation fund article presentation you want to identify yourselves and then you proceed sure thank you for having us I'm Courtney Butler I'm the vice chair of the community economic community and economic development committee Joseph Manning I'm a member of the committee um our our chair Steve O'Neal cannot be here tonight so um I will be taking over this presentation um thank you for having us this is relevant to article number 27 on the warrant for next uh week's town meeting which is to appropriate the tourism Revenue preservation fund um this is not the first time the article has been in the town meeting warrant it's a pretty standard article every year um and it is to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the following sums of money from the estimated annual revenues of the tourism res Revenue preservation fund as required by chapter 338 of the acts of 2006 as amended um and to fund such a propriation through a transfer of $469,500 from the FY 2023 rooms tax receipts and $ 79,513 meal tax receipts or to take any other action relative there to so this is a breakdown of the tourism re res the trpf I'm going to call it it's much more easier um the trpf um so we have um as you can see here a total of $548,500 us and our initiatives to better support you all and the town um historically this funding has covered 50% of the economic development coordinator position but since there's been a vacancy and we are now looking for a new um staff member is the economic development program manager um $115,000 is what we've decided to allocate this year the next category is special events um which $150,000 um allocated um towards these special events these are the special events that we do each year um to support in the town um such as the seaside festival St Patrick's Day Parade Taylor Bray farm sheep and fall festivals the Pirates festival and many more um the next bucket is for our marketing contract that we have with the Chamber of Commerce um and that is in the amount of $228,000 um we are so thankful to the chamber for all that they do to support us as well um Mary and her team are great and they bring a lot of great interest to the town and support the Vitality that we have here additional um buckets include the physical improvements um bucket which this year we've dedicated a lot to updating the packet Landing Pavilion working on the um playground improvements sand sculptures Riverwalk Park and many more and finally our Economic Development programming which is for $46,400 um this is the bucket that we use to um assist Town Administration in some of their goals such as last year we helped fund the uh District Improvement financing analysis we've done a route 28 market survey and most recently we have committed um a 5% match to the town's Grant submission um for Broadband um analysis I just is that it okay so that's the summation of all of our funding um and so that as I read the warrant article earlier that is what we were asking um just for your support and recommendation before town meeting next week and we'll take any questions Pete in in years in years past um you've asked for for 100,000 for special events and I've seen some of the information that was Bri for us you're upping it due to increased costs for police detail fire and other other safety issues and other miscellaneous CA is that correct that is correct it is becoming um more costly to host an event in town um due to the increased safety measures that we um wish that our our hosts take when hosting an event in town um the detail costs for police and fire have gone up as you know um and and with with certain NE necess necessity um because of the services that they provide and the great people that we have on those forces so um we have upped our allotment for this to be able to provide better um support to those who want to host an event in town thank you so your estimation really is that that 150,000 will probably continue now and be the new Benchmark as opposed to the 100 so we are working to better um make a better and more uniformed application process to better identify the the needs that we're going to have to have in the future to see if there's really a better need for funding for marketing for these events a better need for police fire I'm hoping that it can stay consistent at 150,000 um that's something that we're working at um as a committee right now we're looking at that okay thank you thank you for being here um I'm supportive of the article as it's presented I'm just curious um with regard to the economic development um going forward do you envision allocating more revenues uh to begin to uh discover um possible Redevelopment opportunities for 28 and um what might that look like yeah I think um you know our work plan includes work that supports um Mr Scott's efforts to do a a better study of Route 28 and what can go on there what needs to be done to make it a more workable livable walkable Main Street area um so we certainly are hoping to do more studies and Analysis to to better inform ourselves and you and the town as to what can be done to bring a more vit economic um Community to Yarmouth more year round sustainable economy okay I mean it just seems uh logical at this point to really begin to focus um our efforts and resources frankly um to ensuring that uh our Redevelopment of 28 um goes as we hope it will go um to help us with that uh tax um residential versus commercial yes we do want to support that I'm very appreciative of the work of your committee thank you thank you Mark thank you Mr chairman um I I too want to um follow up on seleman Horgan's comments regarding uh Economic Development and I think this is an area where the board's anxious to see the results of some of the work that uh your committee has helped fund and I think we're anxious as a board to sort of dive in and learn more about how as a community we can strengthen in the the the business basee and the tax base of the town the the route 28 Corridor is incredibly important and uh I think it's I would say it's a it's it's an important and very necessary agenda item that hopefully after town meeting we can delve into and really get up the speed on um I too want to commend you and your committee for the work that you've done this is an outstanding presentation the memo is incredibly detailed in terms of what you're spending these funds on and how they're being accounted for um you've done a great job in pulling it together and I know sometimes it's a bit of a challenge because we've had some challenges in in keeping staff to support the work of the committee so you folks have really stepped up and I know with you Courtney there enormous demands on your time and I'm glad that you're continuing to serve and you're still with us with everything else that's going on in in your life I I know that you've like I said you've your talents are well known and uh uh and uh we appreciate the Your Service uh on the committee and and for the town it's it certainly makes a difference it's very important and you add a lot of value uh to the work of the committee so both you and Joe thank you for for everything that you've done the the issue with respect to the funding and the security that's a challenging one for all of us and we recognize that that's a that's an issue that we share with you and we're interested in finding creative ways to address as we go forward but I do thank you and the for being sensitive to it and helping us uh get some of these events off the ground that are so important to the town so once again thank you for everything that you've done thank you uh Mr Forest I really appreciate those very kind words um I'm very happy to be on this committee um I've been looking for a place to lend my services and my skills and my talents to the town it's it's a special place to me this is my home um and so I I'm very grateful to be serving in this capacity um and and to be working with such great people such as my fellow committee members and the staff that we have here at Town um I did want to just mention relative to the economic development project um I'm not sure if any of you saw but hyanis they have started a facade Improvement program and we are looking to do something very similar here in Yarmouth so um at our next meeting we will be diving deep into how to get that program off the ground to take some of our um a little bit of neglected um friends who have some storefronts in town and and brighten them up and cheer them up and hopefully bring people back to Yarmouth so great thank you I sharing Dan's remarks marks and and particularly thank you for the detail that you provided in this presentation and uh to know where all the money goes and how it breaks out um in such a a succinct and compact way is very very helpful and very much appreciated thank you we're happy to have Courtney so that's that one okay the next item is the bond anticipation note we have a as I understand it at $8 million um Bond it's with for a year shortterm financing and um you're going to walk us through it I guess sure thank you very much um yes we issued bids for a bond anticipation note in the amount of $8 million3 million for the golf course um for the improvements that was voted that were voted at um the the November town meeting water mains um now the water mains is this is in conjunction with the sore project because they're laying the water mains along with the sore line so this is um for what the work they're doing on contracts 2 and three but it's water so we're going out to Market water isn't being borrowed from the clean water trust and for water facility improvements $2 million so we issued bids um Jeff was the low bidder with a net interest cost of 3.64% um so I respectfully request the board vote the um following motion that's in your memo and I'm here to answer any questions you may have on the um borrowing or the pro um maybe the projects I might be able to answer those I noticed that in these votes um there's there's it seems to me in the packet there's like one primary vote and then there's a certification by the clerk about other actions that have been taken in terms of votes so do we just have to do the one vote um yeah I would suggest and I've done this in the past because the um the the vote of the board that what we put in your packet is very lengthy it's like 2 pages instead of reading that I I hate to see what it's like for 207 million exactly so instead of reading all of that into the record we're going to incorporate it into the minutes but if you um move what I've written in your memo should be fine and it will adopt that full vote just move what's in the memo yeah Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion that uh the board uh approve uh the very detailed memo entitled um vote of the the select board um in the adoption or the endorsement of this 8 million Bond anticipation Noe is that sufficient looks fine we know the attorneys scrutinize these things so I want to make sure that we're getting every that's okay yeah that's fine second okay was that a sufficient motion that's a yes it's sufficient thank you you think we're covered with that yes okay good all right we have a motion and a second before us um should we do a roll call just because it's a bonding matter why don't we do that Mark hi danan hi lcus hi Peter I chair votes I so we have a unanimous vote on that thank you very much Jennifer thank you very much [Music] I want to commend you Mr chairman for being ahead of schedule I have to talk to you about this one um I thought we going have to read all this into the record pages and pages and pages so this next matter is going to be a presentation on dispatch of police and fire through a Tre toown Municipal um agreement I I guess if it when it materi if it materializes uh between bar sandwich and um the armouth now originally this was on for a potential vote that's been removed there will not be any vote tonight this will just simply be a pres an informational presentation um there was much discussion about that with Bob and I and trying to ate the feeling of some of the board members as well as staff um and we decided that that was the best way to do it so if you gentlemen and our lady will introduce yourselves then we can go forward Kevin Lennon chief of police Deputy Chief and Ro Ali Director of Human Resources Sarah O'Reilly there Enrique Ras the fire chief okay so you're going to be the lead speaker on this one Chief uh I am going to start and then I will pass it over to the fire chief and then it's going to go to the Town Administrator and then uh Sarah's going to Sarah's goingon to let's make it clear from the outset because a lot of these like the county for example if I'm correct they just do dispatch on fire correct in terms of you know working for the town so this would be both police and fire and both police and fire have been in engaged in this process as we moved along is that correct that is correct okay good okay so thank you uh so why are we here uh Public Safety is a top priority uh so for years a joint fire dispatch has been a uh it's been an idea for the town but for various reasons that never get off the ground um we think that regionalization will provide the highest services that we can to our community and that's what the end result is to make sure that when a call comes in whether it's a business line or it's 911 that the call is answered efficiently and effectively and the services are dispatched as quickly as possible the way our services work right now the the police department is a primary answering point for 911 we do not have emergency medical dispatchers at the police department so a call comes in we answer it our dispatchers answer it if it's a police call they handle it they dispatch it out if it's a fire call it goes over to the fire department and then then their one dispatcher will handle it the issues that we have seen are we have two disp disat working there's one in the fire department the Fire Department dispatcher can easily be overwhelmed with one call with multiple 911 calls coming in we try and triage the calls if they're the same we won't send them all down but it's not uncommon to have multiple emergencies going on in the town at once with the we know the call volume of the fire department with the ambulance service alone so the goal of this is to improve our our services in the community uh it's going to further the Professional Services of our dispatchers right now there's no career advancement for our dispatchers if you dispatcher for the police department or the fire department there's no supervisory position we don't have that there's no training coordinator moving to a regional center like this it would open up professional advancement for them provide proper supervisory cap uh capacity at the police department we have a sergeant who's in charge of our dispatchers who's supervised by a lieutenant they are not professional telecommunicators they haven't been to the schools there's specific training on that they've been to leadership training but not in that specific discipline so again moving to a a model like this you would have a coordinator an assistant coordinator a training coordinator and that this is that's their job they're professional emergency telecommunicator so we would see an improvement there uh provide stable Staffing we knock on wood right now are fully staffed but we struggled for years we have eight dispatchers right now we struggled for years with only having six five or six and trying to staff it that's it's very difficult and the fire department again is is in a different situation cuz they only have four they have back up from firefighters as we have police officers that can back up our dispatchers but when we drop down and we're trying to hire people it makes it very difficult and it becomes costly for the town and then it's more stressful for our staff because they're working doubles and it's a very stressful job when you're taking call after call after call with very little opportunity to take a break very little opportunity to leave the facility uh just get some fresh air and come back in uh so we will see an increase there and then it's going to see increased operational efficiencies when you have police and fire sitting next to each other working together there's no there's minimal disconnect if something happens you would have a call taker who would then pass it over to a dispatcher and if it's EMD we'd passed over to the fire department and they're literally in an emergency sitting shoulder-to-shoulder versus picking up the phone and trying to get information across we all know pick up the phone you say something message sent is not always message received well if they're sitting next to each other that's going to limit those issues so we see it's um it's going to be a uh a win-win for the towns and eventually in the the town administrate will cover this piece of it there is a uh there is a financial component to it long term you want this I got it oh sorry sorry I was talking about that with the slide up um so in a historical overview I said earlier I went through the The Archives of the armouth police department uh thankfully I came out of the basement I was able to get back to work but uh I went through the files and I found out that uh in 2008 when Chief Al Monti was here this was actually brought up and they discussed uh and it was a uh it was a goal of the board of selectman back then to combine police and fire dispatch uh many factors contributed to why that never happened one was there was an inability to pick a location they couldn't decide whether it was going to be at the Yarmouth Police Department or one of the three fire stations so that was one of the hindrance uh there's no suitable space station one doesn't have the the location station two doesn't have it station three uh one option years ago was to to build out the uh the attic space but that was deemed to be uh not suitable and then our Police Department the way our desks work uh the desks actually face each other so you could not work with a a working fire call and a working Police emergency because the radios would be talking into each other so that space isn't suitable we would actually have to build out a piece of the police department uh there is no funding for a joint combined dispatch from 911 in a single municipality 911 is funding Regional centers so if that's something that we wanted to take on we would have to shoulder the expenses for that and it would be extremely expensive to do that um and then Labor Relations challenges that was always a piece that came up in the past because you have the dispatchers for the police department or SEIU and the dispatchers for the fire department in the fire we would have to work on that piece so that never came to fruition that the this project just just kept getting kicked down the road for various reasons I think the closest that it came is when Chief Frederickson and chief simonan were working together on it uh and then it just it never it never materialized so where we are today uh in 2022 uh the police department was approached by then Chief sonan from the Barnesville police department and said we have an opportunity to get a grant to do a regionalization study thought it24 to do a uh a regionalization study with the towns of Barnesville Yarmouth and sandwich with Barnesville being the host so they the study was fully funded and it was uh it was completed by a group called The cin Center the Collin Center has done numerous studies throughout uh throughout the Commonwealth Chief why don't you hold on a minute can we shut down the zoom is that what's I'm not sure it is the zoom no oh okay it isn't so she she's in the back okay thank you she's in the backs go ahead okay she is very what so the colins study was commissioned to do the study oh she did they conducted uh interviews with the the various uh interested parties Yarmouth PD Yarmouth fire Barnesville fire hyenes uh police department excuse me barns PD highness fire sandwich Etc and the study showed that it would be very feasible for us to regionalize uh based on call volume based on the geographic area uh they said that this was this was the right time to do it uh and what it would do for us again it would improve our police and fire dispatching it would improve the working conditions so what we envision is with the funding that we're hoping to get would be a brand new multi-million dollar building with state-of-the-art equipment a state-of-the-art u Dispatch Center with the ability to scale up uh a break room outside of where the dispatchers work uh an actual locker room a training center and uh through the through the study we did site visits and we've identified an area which is to the Barnesville Police Department which is at 1200 FES way they have a piece of property next to it that is uh that's been identified for for a space than for that and then again their uh Town Administrator will talk about some potential decrease for the for the this project just speaking for the police department some operational efficiencies again I said this earlier but proper supervision we will have somebody who is a dedicated police dispatcher trained as a supervisor working directly with the dispatchers improve call taking again we would have a call taker we would have a a dispatcher and then we' have someone doing EMD sitting right next to them and the numbers that they worked out we would have plenty of staff to handle the call volume they looked at the 911 calls they looked at our CAD data uh drilling down to motor vehicle stops and self initiated activity looking at the at the communities and they said that they would staff it properly again improve working conditions again like our dispatchers right now they work in a room if they're in there for 16 hours their bathroom is L is attached to the Dispatch Center the kitchen is attached to the Dispatch Center they don't get the ability to step up and walk away and decompress if there's a uh if they have to work on a horrific call uh so that would improve that uh improve Radio Systems and Technology what we need to fund this what we need to to to get this off the ground would be funded through the grant so we've had conversations about what would we do with the police department off hours because we would be losing the staff that sit there right now to man the window take care of the window rather well through the funding we were told if we wanted to create a uh a new vestibule we could and the state would fund that so there's there's of uh there's benefits that way and then again better inter departmental and Inter agency Communications we would be working hand inhand with the fire departments uh with the head of the The Dispatch Center uh the Town Administrator is going to talk about the IMA how that's going to work out but we would have a we would have a hand in in what's going on at the center so I'm now I'm going to turn it over to the fire chief thank you um so a lot of the uh the same sentiments that the police chief has has noted here are similar to us um in the way uh it would affect our operation um as he had mentioned professional supervision is something that's very important to us uh we do a lot of our qaqi after the fact it's kind of reactionary we have a group that that uh listens to our dispatchers calls and then gives them feedback on how they do but that's all you know weeks and months after the actual call so it's not happening real time and we're not able to uh like I said we we as off officers of the department try to help in those regards but that's not our profession that's not what we're trained in to do um coworker support uh as the chief mentioned our dispatchers work alone uh all the time uh the firefighters do try to help from time to time if they're in the building and and able to do so uh but they're working those long shifts uh Alone um and like I mentioned here is the ability to support those basic needs they uh in order to walk away from the desk they have to uh have someone in the building who's actually trained and able to take those calls take to do something for a few moments so they can either you know use the facilities or get something to eat or take take a few minute break to get away from the desk if they've been busy um so it doesn't happen very often um ability to handle job complexity and and other tasks the dispatchers uh also do other things for the fire department other than just take calls and dispatch the trucks um they are all involved in other components of our operation whether it be radios computers technology and other other things that we do at the department and it's very hard for them to participate in those activities while also answering the calls that they do um coping resources uh is becoming more and more important uh as they take more and more calls and the complexity of those calls and the ability for them to uh like the chief said walk away or take a moment or take a breath from from their uh day-to-day um and the the same as he had mentioned uh supervisory positions um we do have a lot of informal leaders people who have been there at the department for a long time um and take on those roles and help in training new new employees or training the firefighters to to work the desk uh from time to time but there is no uh formal leadership positions for them now the next one um again cross training I think will help uh lead to a much better understanding of each other's challenges um you know as much as they do work well together uh I think it's important for them to know what they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis the jobs are very different uh and it's very interesting to and I think it'll be very educ UC ational for them to see what each other does and understand how they work um emergency medical dispatch um as we've seen in the last year we've had two uh two successful saves uh in a cardiac arrest from our from our dispatcher who's able to talk uh a family member through doing CPR uh so the ability to do that is uh obviously is going to increase if they don't have to put somebody on hold to dispatch or take a second call or do something else some right now uh we do uh EMD is done uh only to the ability they can if they get other calls or have other responsibilities they have to get off the phone um so obviously we we'd hope to keep that going um you know the increase in call volume that I've mentioned in previous presentations doesn't just affect the firefighters it affects the dispatchers uh we're doing uh almost every single time uh we're at 70% or greater where we're getting concurrence of calls so there's multiple calls going on at once which leads to multiple phone calls and also a lot of radio traff traffic in order to get the resources to to the scene um and large scale incidents um such as fires you know dive response Marine response motor vehicle accidents um all these calls involve a lot of radio traffic a lot of phone calls and it's a lot for one person to handle at once um you're talking to people who are calling 911 you're talking to uh the the crews that are on scene you're sometimes calling other resources whether it be eversource or or other uh people like that to come to the scene and it's a lot you know it's not not unusual for me to walk by the dispatcher and see them on the phone talking on the radio and working with somebody who's standing in our in our vesu trying to uh come in to do something with with uh with our permitting or something upstairs so uh it's very important I think it'll be a definite uh benefit to the dispatchers thank you Chiefs my my slide here first and foremost um what I really need to do is to to thank both of our Chiefs and their and their deputies for the very historic collaboration and Leadership that they've shown on on this particular project um the board of Selectmen asked for additional study among the two departments to combine the dispatch we all know the completely separate um has been so inefficient you know for years and doesn't lend itself to the highest level of professionalism and and and I I have to tell you I'm so proud of their efforts on taking the ball and running with it um and when when they came to me together to ask for my assistance in in in going over some of the more technical aspects of it I I was just very honored to work with them and I I want to talk a little bit about our our working relationship is that um you know the Chiefs have covered the operational issues and how everything fits together all of the protocols so well um you know that that scenario I I just respect um so much the the quality of the information that they present on how the calls are dispatched how people work together and and how the system can function um what I I want to talk a little bit about some of the economic items and uh you know to make it clear when when we started this the the goal here is to enhance the emergency communications it's not about the money um and and I'm convinced that U this program will provide an upward Trend in just enhancing the overall professionalism um really in our entire area by having the the common standards in but there is a a critical um piece that's Financial on this and on the chart what's what's outlined is that under the existing programs which are funded through the um the state e911 they get uh a subsidy on there's a charge on everyone's cellular cellular phone bill that has generated tremendous resources for the Commonwealth for uh the e911 services and under the state's regulations if the town were to be a member of uh an intermunicipal agreement and that that's what you have to do just to get in the door um then we could participate in this program for Commonwealth funding of emergency Regional Communications and the way their program works it is a 5-year program initially uh before the five years starts you're eligible for um funding to do the feasibility study and you're eligible for funding to do the um design work and construction for the new facility and equipping that that new facility so there's several Millions four to five million at least um in state subsid just there but what I'm going to talk about are are the operational subsidies once the system gets up and running so the state offers a 5-year program that consists of three years of Commonwealth at 100% funding the fourth year kicks it to 50/50 funding and on the fifth year it goes down to a 25% State share and uh in in year six the town takes it over entire so the next column over where we talk about the the cost to Yarmouth the current cost that we pay um just for operational to operate the both police and fire dispatch is just over 1.1 million 1.1.52 and that includes the the salaries and overtime in the police department and the fire department to operate the emergency communications and the next column over shows what the local costs would be under the program and um even at when you at you have the 100% State share you'll see the 182,000 and we'll cover the details on this that what we anticipate doing when we transfer the dispatchers over to the regional center we're going to be adding staff um there's going to be a new nighttime station officer to provide specific Public Service um to local residents who need to access um an officer at the police station and we're going to have a a principal office assistant uh for a similar purpose to assist with the public at the fire department and in the police department so that um one of the key challenges that we have is when we transfer the folks out of the the station into the regional center we still want to be able to offer that public service service to local residents so they don't find that dark station so the initial costs let's just take a look at year one um 100% of the operational costs of the regional Communication Center um will be taken up by the state and the local cost will be the 182,000 and that's our our new Staffing to avoid the dark um station so um the the next column over shows you what the town's annual savings are and and you can see with the added 182 and not having to spend the 1.15 the first year savings is 970,000 approximately so the cumulative savings over the six-year program is the final column and essentially uh after year six using current year dollars uh the town will save in operational costs alone uh roughly $4.6 million and and as you can see it's it's set up $970,000 almost a million dollars just in savings um every year and if you the the key I think a key point is flipping to year six because really what this is is a transitional program um where the the state takes care of us and sets us up saves us $5 million over the first five years and then in in year six um we take it over at 100% And what's critical to note in the feasibility study in setting up this three town system because of the amount of Staffing and equipment and everything that that it takes for the number of calls specifically in our system um the the costs there's a tremendous um just savings that you get in the overall cost of the program um the total Town assessment is estimated for Yarmouth at 539,000 so um that compares to in year six let's go back to that slide for a second so um if if we were operating this program in year one at 100% cost um compared to the what we're paying for the staffing now of 1,1 152,000 the the 721 th000 that's our % cost the breakdown of that is to operate the regional center our share of that is 539,000 and the additional Staffing to prevent the dark stations is 182,000 so the total cost to the town would be 721 th000 versus the current cost now of 1.1 million and um let's go to the next slide and just to take a look at the breakdown of the cost this is what we anticipate as the new Staffing this money is just for operations is just for personnel costs Human Resources costs excuse me right correct no equipment and and the equipment is is covered additionally so um the the state covers all of the construction that's at 100% all of the design the construction the full equipping we walk into a state-of-the-art facility and then we're calculating the costs of operating that facility so um I I would say the savings are roughly double what is shown here if you if you incorporate all of the capital costs but um just just looking at it from an operational standpoint so we see that's where the 182,000 comes from the um there a principal office assistant in fire that will man the front of the station there's the police department um principal office assistant that will take care of the administrative duties that are performed uh by the dispatching crew and the evening station officer will cover the station during the evenings for uh any walk-in traffic that we have there Bob can I ask just a quick question on this um when you're talking about the salaries here this is just strictly their salary this doesn't include the cost for their benefit package does does it um for these um folks and it it does not but the the numbers if you go back to the last Slide the the comparison of um the costs that we have currently and the costs that um we will have under the uh Regional system those are all inclusive of any fringe benefits so um on the on the Staffing end of it there will also be the benefits associated with those new staff three staff members um also reading between the lines here um we are going to put everybody together in one spot which is sounds like a good idea to me but it also sounds like in order to make folks have enough time to work you're going to be hiring additional people as well correct yes and we'll cover a little bit um on the the Staffing end of it but um I I think what the um when when we get to the the piece to the Staffing the current employees in the in the town of Yarmouth um Factor very heavily into the implementation program but I'd like to put that on hold and that's um an area Sarah Sarah's going to go over and we're going to talk about that in a little detail but um so let's take a last look at that previous slide um so you can see the key factors here it's the The Five-Year program with three years of 100 then 5025 there's your um current costs to operate the system there's the byye with the local cost annual savings cumulative savings just for operations and let's jump to I want to talk a little bit about the intermunicipal agreement um it's taken us uh since we briefly talked at the board of selectman level uh about the subject about a year to put together the type of intermunicipal agreement that um I personally had faith in um that would serve this community well as well as the region and we did have some significant assistance from um Our Town Council um also uh the the council John Georgio representing sandwich um to get some of these items in here and there are elements intermunicipal agreement that are quite unique and I I think are very important for yarmouth's success in this program and as I say it it took many months to get this finalized but I'm I'm happy that these um items are in here first and foremost we're adopting a hosted model where rather than create our own Treasurer and accounting you know that that will help run a new Regional Communication Center I mean those are all added costs the town of barnable has agreed to utilize their infrastructure financially um to host us so things will run through the town of barnable financially um but the most important thing for um Yarmouth for us was the creation of an operations committee that has a direct vote and is comprised of the police chief and the fire chief of each of the communities and they are responsible for um informing the recre the um communication director on all of the protocols that are used for how the dispatching is done how the staff interacts with the people on the street and they have a a direct voice in the management of the facility and there is a dispute resolution process that's built into the agreement that if there's um ever a dispute that cannot be solved between the Chiefs and the recreation I keep calling it Recreation the the regional Communication Center then uh the town administrators break the tie and um solve the situation and I have been involved in Regional Communications in the past and I I will tell you that that in and of itself to have that direct voice in the operations is the difference between the long-term success and the failure of a program like this because each Community has its own idiosyncrasies and requirements in terms of uh potential terminology the way uh Communications are done with the the people on the street the way the dispatching functions and each Community needs to have its own nomenclature respected and by having that system it it really um helps and um the terms of withdrawal if we ever need to withdraw are very clear in the IMA so there's no ambiguity there and um a cost sharing model is is based on the population of the communities in combination with the number of calls and we've done the research on that model is all in the feasibility study and um as it works out based on all the calls and population um the town of Yarmouth will be responsible for 27 roughly 27% of the cost and I I think that's a solid you know if you're looking at a three town Regional system you know if if you're close to 30 3030 um all towns have an equal stake in it uh so um I feel good about the the regional agreement because it protects the town and and Town Council is is very happy with it as well and and we you know frankly um we held it up for for quite some time until we were absolutely certain that the operational committee would give the Chiefs a voice in how the the dispatching is done on the on the distribution of the of the cost um if if the town of Yarmouth suddenly has 33 and a3d calls that year would our would our cost go up to that oneir would would it be revisit it annually to to make sure that it stays stays con I I read it and I didn't see that in there so I I wanted to make sure that there is some ability so conversely if if we go down to we go down 20% we're only going to pay 20% of the cost it's it's based on the model that is done annually when you do the budget and the assessments are made so um it it has the ability to move as one town grows versus another and um but it but it is is it it is interesting to see like examining some of the fire calls it's um for for example the um on ambulance calls town of Yarmouth um Stacks up almost very evenly with the hyanis fire district they're very similar units in terms of the number of calls and and I I think that's good for a regional system as I say where um they're similar in size they're similar in scope they're they're easier um to to combine right can Doris go ahead I'm sorry can I stop you right there because um where you see barnable an assumption would be made that that means all the departments in Barnstable but actually that's not part of this agreement is it who represents Barnstable in in this agreement at at this time that the the town of barnable PD and the um hyenas fire district are and sandwich are the three immediate members there is um the opportunity to fold in the other fire districts in Barnstable um but they're not immediately a part of this okay that was that was going to be my question too because I everything I read it seemed to seemed to that it was going to be all of Barnstable both police and and fire um so it's just going to be the hyenas fire district right but the 100% % of Barn's police right and that's owing to Barnstable structure those fire districts are all independent so we have the largest fire district in the entire town for the police okay whatever I think is I I believe senville Maron Mills is also a part of it so I think it's just barnable and West barille uh and sorry and coutou So Cal aille Maron Mills coutou it uh C is dispatched by senal asille marson's Mills so it would be those and hyenas currently right now uh Barn The Villages of barnable and West barnable are dispatched by uh a different Regional Center yeah comm's signed up they're part of the discussion as far yeah that'd be great it's great to get Comm in there too so then the 57.1% of Barnstable doesn't really incorporate all the Town of Barnstable they're 57.1% of the coverage and is there any estimate as to what it would be if all the fire districts in Barnstable and the police joined uh I I know that th those communities that aren't involved right now are would represent a very small portion of the rest of the Town Hy henus makes up hyen incal uh hon make up the majority of of the fire related calls at least and then as far as police I'm not sure I would imagine it' be similar okay well police is in there anyways the barnable covers the whole town for police so we've got most of their fire but not not all of the fire and you're saying basically that the governance of this Center would be handled by the Regional Police Chiefs and not so in other words um barnable having it located in their town and paying over 50% 57% of the costs would not have the lead voice on this it would be a United voice of all three towns correct and you feel comfortable that that indeed would happen correct okay well unless there's more questions on the the financial piece on your on your chart which which shows your annual savings to make it I'm not saying you misled anybody but to make it clearer you should indicate the number of people that your total cost does and then your increase in Staffing so it it represents a more reasonable savings because you are going to be adding additional folks and they they are going to cost cost additional additional money so we're not necessarily going to be saving $4.6 million over 6 years but it still looks like we'd be we'd be saving some some decent decent money and I agree with you the most important thing is the is the health and safety more than the dollars but the dollars don't hurt either if we are saving money and just again to to point out the 182,000 which is baked into the town's local cost and deducted from the cumulative savings that 82,000 and those are the new people too so um what we have to add in there I think is the the the benefits for the for the new people and then that that's 100% cost so that 182 those are the S those are the new salaries again the chart is uh 1.1 minus 182 = 970 so that does not represent new people I was playing with my fancy calculator here come up with those numbers so if you are adding additional people your annual savings would be decreased slightly again I I'm not saying you misled anybody here is just make it clearer you know because you may not add any additional folks in year one but you probably are in year two and year three and so on also also on human resources um the folks that do police and the folks that do fire it would seem to be a different skill set for both of them would it be or would they able to be trained to handle both fire and and police yes that that would be the ultimate goal that all of the dispatchers would be cross trained so some uh other models have been out there if this came to fruition and Yarmouth PD dispatchers went over they would be trained in EMD but they would they would slowly be integrated into that so they would do three days of dispatch policing and then one day of fire and the fire would do the same so they could slowly learn that skill set but the the ultimate goal would be to have the numbers like 38 38 fully trained dispatchers that can do each other's job so if somebody calls in sick you get somebody to come in it's not just a police dispatcher it's a public safety dispatcher that can do both and then again in in the case of an emergency if a fire call happens and it's not police related well that police dispatcher can jump over and help the help the the fire dispatcher with what they have to do and then same thing if we have a call where fire department's not involved they jump over and they help out it works well uh in in other locations but that is the ultimate goal and that goes towards the professional development of getting them trained up and getting them more experienc to handle different calls all right well I'd like to have Sarah talk a little bit about the the Staffing piece can one more on this because it I'm still when I read through the paperwork and maybe I wasn't understanding it correctly but the committee um of the Fire Chiefs and the police chief you're really your your role is actually more advisory isn't it that the director is the one that's going to actually be calling the calls that is correct as far as day-to-day operations correct and who does that person work for who does that person report to the town of barnable it's the town of barn the town of barnable is going to create a public safety dispatch division that will be staffed and the employees will be town and barn employees but as the Town Administrator stated the police and the fire chiefs will have an advisory role to to the the running of the center the development of the budget the running of the center the picking of equipment and if we cannot come to an agreement which we've been working on this for over a year and I can tell you all the meetings we've never left with hard feelings we've always left with every M every meeting that we go to we are making progress we are moving forward um even talking about creating uh subcommittees to handle protocols and and establishing uh standard operating procedures so I'm very confident that with the crew that we have working I have a great relationship with the chief in barnable great relationship with the chief in Sandwich I know the fire chief is great relationships everybody in that meeting has the exact same goal the goal is to make this work but to make it work professionally and I don't I don't believe that we're going to have an issue but we relied heavily on the town administrator's experience when he reviewed the IM to put those pieces in place so that if there was a problem that we couldn't come up with a solution then we would go to the town administrators and they would be the final deciding factors so be the town manager in barnable sandwich Town Administrator and Our Town Administrator who would be fighting for us and I truly believe that at the end of the day things will work out the the way they they should i i a lot of us here remember Dennis and Yarmouth and the fights that have been had had there so we do not want to repeat those those I was going to say mistakes call them issues anyone else Mark no I think I think this is a lot to digest you folks have obviously have been able to spend a great deal of time with us this is really our first real look and uh briefing on this so I think there's a lot to digest I think in terms of process I think it's important that um we give the public the chance to digest this as well and create a scenario where they can come and ask questions because I think in terms of the services that are being provided in the town of Yarmouth um these are critically these are vital services that are provided and I think the public at large has uh should have the opportunity uh to review the material and to ask questions and to give everybody a chance to uh respond to the question questions this is this is a fairly significant development um I will admit that in the beginning when we were talking about dispatch um I wasn't aware that a regional dispatch was was in the picture my understanding was we were trying to figure out how to do something just with the town of Yarmouth um you know and getting our police in our fire department collaborating and working together that's my understanding of what we were wrestling with so I this the idea of a regional Center involving other towns is is a whole new development and quite frankly um uh I mean I'm glad to see that it's getting discussed um I think what we learned tonight is that a lot of this is being initiated at the state level with the state stepping up and providing a significant amount of funding as a way to sort of encourage communities to come together and look at this in my censes is that if the state funding wasn't there I'm not sure how far along an initiative like this would would would be at this point but my hope is that maybe we can dedicate a section of our the town's website we can get the video posted on it we can get all the materials that have been presented to us on it uh I'm obviously interested in hearing from the finance committee and hearing from the public at large I agree with uh selectman Smith I think um often times at first blush we tend to look at all the the virtues and the and and the positives in this but I do think uh something like this really needs to be vetted and the public needs to have the opportunity to really scrutinize this and ask some tough questions and I think we need to prepare ourselves for that dialogue within the community um so I I I think like I said I think it's important to get something on our website and we can we should create a a process whereby people can submit comments and questions and then have a having a public discussion uh about this whole topic as well because I think the board I know I as a select board member would be very interested in hearing what what others have to say about this um obviously I think in this community there's a great deal of confidence you know in our police leadership and in our fire leadership um but I think we owe it to the community as a whole to um you know to hear what they have to say so if I could uh we we skipped um our human resources part of the presentation date it is today April 23rd 2024 is that correct today date April 23rd 2024 is that correct I want to handle our keep going want me the correct dat today yeah if you could if you could help if you could help that constituent that would be great we know her make sure to dou check the date thank you very much sometimes Public Service involves beinging calendar yeah so Mr Mr chairman th those those are my comments I think um I I I would like to create a process where we can engage the community in having a conversation about this I know time is of the essence I understand that but I do think that we need to give uh the finance committee and others in the community that have a real interest in this a chance to sort of be heard and give them a chance to ask questions I'm certainly interested in what the community has to say about this but but it's a it's a it's a very it's a very solid presentation and uh I'm appreciative of it yeah um likewise um I think it's a great presentation um you know when we hired both both of you guys um in the last couple years this issue was front and center um when we had the questions and uh it certainly uh it's been a select M go the last couple years so um I'm thrilled that you've uh tackled this in such a comprehensive way uh like selectman Forest I'm I'm caught a little short I was not aware that uh we were going down the uh Regional route um however um the presentation you've put together um really um leaves me um wondering you know what possible shortfalls this kind of a move could off for the town of yarm it seems to be all positives um the numbers are um a little challenging for me to Grapple with uh this quickly um but I and I think the questions I had was whose employees these are going to be and how does that all work but um I am generally extremely supportive of this idea it seems like you've thought about just about everything and the quality of services that we're going to be able to Prov provide um the residents of all three towns um seems to go up exponentially so um it's well thought out um I I agree with selectman Forest it's a great idea to be able to get a little bit more input that being said uh we what kind of time constraints are we under with this type of a um Pro proposal going forward uh so so right now we were only uh at of an $850,000 Grant because we did not have the IMA in hand we were only issued $371,000 uh through the work of uh Chief chalice over in Barnesville and chief Burke uh they were able to get that extended to June of 2025 there's an additional $470 some, on the table uh but if we do not have an IMA signed by July 1st that money will go away and we will have to wait until next march to try and get it that initial 850,000 round numbers is to do the uh is to do the design work and then 911 will only fund what you can get done in a year so they'll give a chunk of money for design and then once that's done if if the building the the actual brick and mortar is going to cost 4 million they'll give us that and then the next year we would go back for equipment and technology and then the next one would be for Staffing to for additional Staffing so um the the longer we wait the longer this is going to take this this process has already been going on as I said earlier since since September of 2022 is when we originally started we got the original Grant we didn't have the IMA so they only gave us a small portion of it and we have not been able to move forward with that funding so and I I spoke to Chief chalice this afternoon before I came over here to make sure that I was correct in uh in in what I wanted to tell you so we are under a under a time crunch to get this done because if we miss the July 1st deadline the $371,000 really doesn't do us anything because we have to issue an RFP uh and the funding won't be there for that and and I can just say that um Massachusetts is kind of an anomaly to other states when it comes to 911 centers if you look at uh and this was thrown out many many years ago if you look at the you know Delaware that area has five or six communication centers and Massachusetts the last I heard had over 200 peaps so by combining going regional is is the way that we should be moving it's combining resources it's making sure that our citizens are given the best uh Serv serves that they possibly can because the dispatchers are literally sitting next to each other in a room so any miscommunication is is is mitigated you have ample Staffing uh and I truly believe that this is the direction that we should be going in um we have looked and and and I said said earlier I have a letter from Chief KS back from 2007 with Chief Denny Brown to then Town Administrator Mr lton saying it was going to be $175,000 to renovate the new police department to put dispatch in there and they decided did not to do it back then because of the cost I can't imagine what it would cost a town today to try and renovate one of the Fire Stations of the police department to house our Dispatchers in house and this has never been taken lightly one of the most important things and Sarah can expand on a second but we've always thought about our staff and the way that they're going to be treated and and how they're going to land when this is over and then also our community our our community members there could be some hiccups in the beginning because that's just natural when you combine such such agencies together but I've spoken to Chiefs uh the chief of Norwood Bill Brooks that just retired the city of Norwood their police and fire departments just went to the hook Regional uh Dispatch Center Police went uh fire went first and then police they're making it work these Regional centers have popped up all over the Commonwealth and they're working and they're they're good police and fire organizations and I think the reason why they work so well is because they're being managed by professional Public Safety Communications Personnel again it's nothing against the our Sergeant Andrew koville he does a phenomenal job but he's a sergeant he's worried about what's going on on the road booking prisoners filling shifts dealing with people coming in and then working with our Dispatchers in an area that he's not qualified to work in so I I I see this as being a a win-win for everybody uh again our our Personnel they do have a different feeling on it because I don't blame them they don't want to go they came to work for Yarmouth PD and Yarmouth fire for a reason so this is difficult for them and we're very sensitive to that uh but we think that um and for a second I'll speak for the chief we we truly think that this is going to take our our dispatchers to a different level they are fantastic people but I can speak for the the police department we work under some extreme conditions and we have two dispatchers and a sergeant in the room almost 247 the fire department is way behind the curve with only one dispatcher working with the call volume that they have so I'm going to turn it over to to uh Sarah so she can uh Sarah before you go can I just ask um dollar is are tight they're tight here in the town they're going to be Tighter and Tighter at the state level how confident are we are that this grant funding is going to be available is it is this a solid These funds are going to be absolutely available to us from what we've been told yes and the flip side to that if the state funding goes away the town of armouth is in trouble anyway because we take in roughly $400,000 a year in 911 funding we get $140,900 for was called the support and incentive Grant which pays for one full-time dispatcher over time and then we use it to offset cost with our Cad and RMS program the to ties into that we get an additional training grant that we can train new dispatchers but then keep everybody certified because everybody every police dispatcher has to go through 16 hours of training and most of that is on overtime and then the the cost of the classes they generally range from about a $199 up to like $400 for a class uh so that covers that and then the fire department this year took in $94,000 in EMD so what the fire department does because the fire department provides emergency medical dispatch services for the Yarmouth peap so the fire department actually bills the police department $94,000 for the EMD services so that's other money that we get so if the state started pulling back funding we would have to figure out how we're going to fund a full-time dispatcher because one of our dispatch positions is not attached to a person but a position is funded by that and then all the overtime that goes along with it we we take in well last year because we we qualified for an additional $40,000 because our mental health Advocates are dispatched from the station that qualified US for an additional piece of the grant so we took in we take in quite a lot of money but what we have been told and they obviously can't put it in a piece of granite for us so we have it forever but they're telling us the funding is not going away because it's attached to the cell phone bills there's a sear charge in the bill they had talked about knocking it down a little bit but the funding would be there but they are directing funding towards these Regional centers taking all the the P apps that are working independently and putting them together so that we have a a better product and there's another group of towns on the cape that are working towards us as well okay so another piece I think that that we have to be aware of the longer we wait we're now all competing for the same money because Barnesville county is trying to expand their system their their Regional Center uh there's lower Cape towns that are doing it and we're trying to do it and there's only so much money going around when we started this back in 20122 there was one other major entity out in western part of the state that was working on this and now more are looking at it because it's it it's a it's a better model because Yarmouth PD if we lose three dispatchers we're not trying to we're not killing people with overtime we're not killing the town with overtime you know we you know if you put it in in a a regional model you start out with 36 people working you lose three it's not that big of a deal you lose three when you only have eight dispatchers we're we're in a world of hurt uh so I think the model is going to work out but sah and chief finally if I can um obviously nobody wants to see this go south for any reason but if we enter into this type of agreement there there penalties that we need to be aware of for withdrawing from the regional the Town Administrator can speak to that it's not a penalty as as much as we would have to create you know a new system okay so what this does it transfers all of our um you know our people and and we're not buying all the equipment where we're combining it we wouldn't have to pay back what we receive no okay all right thank you that's all go Sarah thank you I had a question about the um local Staffing portion of this that comes to 18288 are these people that will continue to be employed by Yarmouth yes and will these um office assistants and um for fire and police be operating separate and apart from the barnable facility correct in town yes okay and we will have one officer a police officer assigned where will that assignment be for the police officer they would be the station officer so they would be hand they would handle walk-in so why why would why there's no offsetting hire for fire why what is the need of having a another station officer hired because of these other positions or what suggest ification for that hire if we don't have dispatchers handling the walk-in traffic especially at night and even watching prisoners we would have to have somebody there so we would have to either add Staffing like put another officer on the uh on the road or rather boost the Staffing up so instead of having five officers coming into work we would have a sixth and that person would be the station officer to handle anybody coming in the bail commissioner coming in someone coming in looking for Legal Services a restraining order uh so the the the civilian person during the day would handle would assist with the volunteers handing the window but then also do the administrative work that our dispatchers do there's a lot that we have to do for sieges compliance uh whether it's validating records purging records uh maintaining training certificates for for the uh for the staff that that have to have sieges access so that position would cover those operations and then the additional person at night would be a station officer so if the supervisor has to go in the booking room or has to go on the road cuz there's only one working for whatever reason that person would be in there to handle all of that traffic again Watch prisoners and give us the opportunity to have an extra U police officer in the building I see and so all the other dispatching people that would be deployed in barn unlike these hires would be employees become employees at Town of barnable that is correct for purposes of this agreement correct correct okay okay thank you Peter um we want to hear a little bit from um our Human Resources Director on the Staffing go Sarah thank you um yes I'd like to address the Staffing component um to this plan um I want to start out by saying that the town of Yarmouth values our staff we're fortunate to have a very experienced highly professional team of police and fire dispatchers and a regional center would involve transitioning those existing staff to a new work location um with that said one very important consideration of exploring the regionalization of our dispatch for police and fire is ensuring that not only is it a good um move for the town but taking into consideration how such a change would impact our staff um as we are exploring this transition we've started meeting with our staff we want to understand their concerns and their interests so that we're not making assumptions and we're representing the interests of Yarmouth as a whole um we expect that with a move to a regionalized center there will be a more uh as I think this was mentioned by both the Chiefs there'll be more available positions than there are staff working in this capacity within the three towns our staff does an excellent job we believe regionalization will allow our staff and our community access to a more professional Dispatch Center including opportunities to be involved in promotions to supervisory positions as well as the new facility and technology that would be um afforded by this grant um we believe that being a part of a brand new Regional Center provides the unique opportunity for our local experience staff to bring both their professional talents and their local knowledge um and allow them to be a part of building this new Regional Center um as was mentioned this is in the conceptual stage and we do not currently have all the answers but we're committed to a successful transition for both the dispatchers and the community who rely so heavily on them thank you could I ask a quick question Mike sorry Mike could I ask a quick question I'm sorry what I'm just going to ask a quick question if I can so um the employeers that Yarmouth currently has um are you envisioning them being grandfathered into a position in uh the new setup or is it an open hiring process where they would be competing with um other people we anticipate that they would be offered positions in the I mean in the in the town of bar princi if they're interested okay but there will be a process to identify their interests there as we mentioned there's going to be supervisory opportunities and things like that so yeah no I'm you know just concerned about our employees making sure that this as are we sure okay all right thank youus anything else one last thing I noticed that um in the agreement and it talks about uh sandwich police would still be taking care of their own dispatching that's correct so basically the only um on those 91 911 calls that someone's calling in and saying I want the police and sandwich that's not going to get counted toward that percentage split that we have for cost that I don't know I believe sandwich is going to become a secondary peaps right now they're the primary uh so I can get you that information but I don't I don't know off the top of my head when we originally started these talks back in 2022 uh the former Chief from Sandwich Peter wack was on board with it uh and then a couple months ago we were told by the current chief that they wanted to keep their own their own p app so they're going to be a secondary their concerns were having a dark station their concerns were uh people not understanding the community uh and losing some level of service but uh the research that that I've done and speaking to Chiefs uh that have moved to Regional centers again as I said earlier there are always going to be some hiccups there's no doubt about it there were bumps in the road when Barnesville py and barible fire formed one Center and they started working for each other because police dispatchers are police dispatchers and fire dispatchers are fire dispatchers and it's hard to nobody likes change but it took time for them to start working together and now from I listen to them all the time it's it's seamless uh so I I I would expect the same for us so I know that they're there could be some concerns from our citizens but I am fully confident that the way that this transition would work is just as any other place the town of Barnesville will hire a person who has been trained and worked to be a public safety communications director build the program under that person's knowledge and we would see a seamless transition and our our community members when they call 9911 they if you call 911 now um you're automatically directed to the arm of police department the switch would just go over to a different location on Cape Cod it would be seamless and then you would get dispatch and and you wouldn't you wouldn't know the difference and it could potentially actually speed up calls because our dispatchers again as I said our dispatchers are sitting next to each other right now if a 911 call comes in uh if you're on Route 6 and you call 911 that goes to the state and the state then transfers it to us and then we transfer it to the fire department we are taking that hop out so right now if a 911 call comes directly into the Yarmouth Police Department as for the fire department we then punch it down to a dispatcher who could be working a fire and has to juggle that call under this under this uh this design this model we would have numerous police and fire dispatchers with a supervisor A dispatch supervisor working who would also be trained to handle calls to jump in a immediately so those gaps uh would be filled it would take some time there would be some some bumps in the road I'm I'm not going to say that there's not but I'm very confident that our staff because they're professional they know their jobs they know what they're doing and they're capable and compet competent people they would go over there and they would they would find a way to to work together and it would work out for us thank you just one piece that that we didn't talk about I know um selectman Smith brought it up the capital piece with us um I've had conversations with the assistant Town Administrator about our Cad and RMS program which is going away so we've been using this program since 2001 right now we spend $32,000 a year on maintenance we've started we started researching new Cad and RMS programs which is computerated dispatch in our records management system a couple years ago the new systems are all um subscription based and they range anywhere from $ 880 to $90,000 a year to upwards of 300,000 depending on the program that we go with and we will be losing an attendance components we have to buy a third party piece of software so in in realistically in probably four or five years and it could even be sooner than that um we will be if we don't go in this direction because 911 will pay for our CAD system if we join other police departments we will share one CAD system which happens all over the place and then it's parsed out so Yarmouth information is yarm Barn is barn but 911 will pay for that for us if we don't and we stay alone we're going to have to shoulder that expense because our system is eventually going to go away it started out uh as again I said we purchased it in 2001 we've been with the company for a long time they've been bought and sold three times over and they're now owned by a very very large public safety company that has come out and given us two demonstrations and their cost is $125,000 a year uh for the subscription so it's another it's another piece to look at I know money is certainly not the driving force in this but there are some capital expenses that we take on now that we would be able to funnel through the grant if we need radio repairs uh if we need new radios there's ways that we can write it into the Grant and then it's not the deputy chief or a lieutenant or a fire captain writing the grant it's somebody at the regional 911 Center who's writing the grant for the three communities and we can take advantage of that we can leverage that that opportunity so there's there's other things that we've explored and looking looking down the road we could see some significant savings to the community just in that and get better technology there's things out there that we can't touch because we can't afford that allow for uh you know large scale 911 centers can can afford that that type of technology that we can't so there's other things that we have looked at as well thank you I'm looking at this agreement and um there there was some discussion about the members of the operations committee being advisory and the U you know basic operational authority vested in the RCC director but this agreement really um goes a little bit beyond that there's language in there to the effect that if a majority of the members of the operations committee disagrees with any proposed action by the RCC director regarding operational issues the dispute can be submitted to the town managers of barn and sandwich and the Town Administrator of yarma to resolve it and then it goes on to say pending a mutually agreed upon resolu solution the Barnstable recc director shall have final decision-making Authority which to me implies he doesn't once a determination is made by by those people because while they're considering this he has final Authority but I mean I think the implication is that whatever the outcome of that group is is what's going to dictate and then further on um when it talks about the appointment of that individual it requires initial consultation with the towns of Sandwich through its Town manager in the town of barmouth through its Town Administrator um and selecting who that person's going to be so I think to say they're merely advisory there's other Protections in this agreement so that these other towns um are involved in in important or critical issues as to who this individual is going to be and as to what's going to happen if a majority of of that so-called supervisory board can't does the majority doesn't agree with what they're going to do so there are some additional Protections in there that I can see so I can just add you know one little thing to that is I've worked with these operations committees um in the past that um have a a regional center with a director and sometimes the director you know likes to be very strong and say no we'd like to do it this way and um I I will say this is that I've never had a dispute and I've had so many very minor types of dispute is not the best word but just disagreement over the protocol and in in my experience not one single disagreement wasn't able to be resolved directly by the Chiefs working it working it out and um advising it to the director and then all of those problems were solved and and I had that by Camal thing in a previous agreement and um I I never had a dispute that was submitted to me because the Chiefs uh with their professionalism and being sort of looking after the same values resolved every disagreement in a way that um the communities were cared for so I I think having the chiefs with the specific control um is the way to go anyone else Mark yeah what you that else Bob no I I think that's it I I I really want to thank the board for listening um you know because of the the time frame we felt it would be a great idea to get the information in front of the board and um and I think there was excellent suggestions on getting information out there with the public and have some Outreach and so um we'll continue to work together on this but I I feel real good that we were you just able to present you know the status of the project to the board well thank you very much thank you very much everyone it was a great discussion and uh we look forward to hearing from you further thank you thank you thank you use okay thank you next item is request for Town support from Cape Cod collaborative underutilized property program MacArthur building good evening members of the select board my name is Paul Hilton I'm the executive director of the Cape Cod collaborative it's great to be here in person uh the last time I came before this board uh we were working with Bridgewater State University on a rather lengthy uh Zoom presentation in the midst of the pandemic um the collaborative has worked closely with Bridgewater we've settled into the building and started to make more sense of it finishing our punch list items uh making it watertight making it more usable by the community we're here before you um hopefully for an easy action item we're asking the uh town of Yarmouth to submit an expression of Interest through the community one step for growth program uh for a grant uh to replace the second boiler at the MacArthur building the town owns the property and this is a grant program so there's no repayment if it's approved an expression of interest does not bind the town uh towards any action other than and um potentially submitting for this grant we're asking for the grant to be $250,000 which would replace the boiler and the expansion tank and reintegrate that to the heating system of the building which would continue to make it more usable to the collaborative to Bridgewater State University into the town i' be happy to take any questions and answer um anything that might be asked regarding this program me com behind you do we have a um do we have to take a vote on this or do we just write a letter of support or the if the board has to vote to approve them um to apply for the funds so it requires the um approval of the selectman for thetion uh I have not seen a sample motion but I'm sure it's fairly simple to endorse the uh not that there has to be I'm just wondering if there is I haven't seen I don't know no there's not a draft motion but um did you is it okay if we ask questions now Mr chair yeah um Paul thanks for hanging out tonight and uh enduring our long meeting and absolutely we doing good on the schedule and then we got hit with that last item so um we believe strongly in collaborative opportunity exactly I think it would be helpful we get a lot of interest in what's going on at the maatha school in the Bridgewater State can you give us just a sense what's happening over there how many students are there how much utilization it's getting um because we we don't get a sense at least that bridgy water is using it much it's pretty much exclusively uh a a you know a collaborative operation but I don't have a sense of the programs and some of the things that you're doing over there would that is that out of order Mr chairman with that that's great sure um we run a a public special education Day program in the building and we've designed the space so it could be shared with Bridgewater State University uh we're also working closely with Cape Cod Community College uh in redesigning an educator pipeline to make lure for educators um more palpable and easier to access for individuals in the cape uh one of the challenges with the building is that um online education is here uh hybrid courses hybrid flux courses and purely online courses have diminished U the use of the building itself um uh talking as recently as this afternoon with the community college and with Bridgewater State University about opportunities to use the building because education needs to be in person uh we began occupying the building on July 1st uh we're still in the midst of punch list items uh Bridgewater State University will come down and uh tour the building and we'll talk about the next course work that will happen there uh last year as we're coming out of the pandemic we wrote a grant with Bridge water where 50 individuals became fully licensed in one year currently and I think we may have shared this information uh we worked with them on a grant that has 550 people uh participating in a one-year program that makes them uh licensed as Educators in Massachusetts um that's a great opportunity there will be coursework happening after that but in the first year it's purely online uh very um very limited inperson activity we do see it um evolving to have more person activity but at this point in time coming back from the pandemic settling ourselves into the building uh and making sure the building's uh watertight and and good for the future has really been our focus and we see it continuing to get more access um as we've taken care of the grounds having the seaside Festival I believe you have a pirate festival coming in uh shortly just making the the building and the property um more attractive more attractive for Community use and to have not only Bridgewater but Cape C Community College uh begin to make more access of the building nights and weekends so have have you taken on the responsibility of caring for the facilities we we are 100% respons now doing that bridge of water is not involved in that at all yes and I need to thank the town of Yarmouth as we were talking about uh U removing a tree that had fallen down the I believe the town of Yarmouth may have um taken the tree which was very helpful to us yeah they're very resourceful um how many students do you have in the collaborative participating in programs there at the facility we hover between 5050 and 60 and we have about 30 staff and there's a lot of community outings with the cultural center uh they have community activities with a lot of the um institutions including the the stores the restaurants and activity centers in town so being in Yarmouth has a real Advantage for you in terms of providing a diverse array of experiences for the students in the collab route 28's been fantastic for internship opportunities for outings um whether we have been on the airbase we been in Sandwich previously um Yarmouth is certainly a much more Vibrant Community uh to access activities outside of the school yeah that's terrific thank you Mr chairman setet thanks so we have a motion to I'll make a motion Mr chairman that the towns support the uh underlied property program application and expression of interest is that sufficient Paul I believe that's sufficient okay good second okay we have a motion second and there is proposed language for the request um all those in favor I I anyone opposed passes by a 40 vote one member absent thank you very much and please come over and T the building at some point Thank you thank you very [Applause] much thanks P thank you we can Skip by the next item just for a minute um the Town Administrator evaluation I'll make a quick just a quick reference to um I got an email from the administrator's office saying it's high time to do the evaluation that we're always laid on and uh did I want to take it up at the meeting or have Mary Alice send out the forms I said have her send out the form put it on the agenda just for a placeholder so we can talk briefly about it and all I really want to talk about we've all done the drill right we we have two we have an election coming up so we're going to have new members I'd like to see if we can get this done with a sitting board um so all I really want to know for now is what's a realistic time frame for you getting the stuff to me the forms you all have them right yep and you know what do you come with and then when you know when can we schedule it so that we can get get it done before there's a change of the Guard so to speak that's really all it's on for are we meeting on the 7th yeah 7th and the 14th 7th and the 14th we meeting May 7th yeah my my suggestion would be is that we put it on his agenda item on the 7th and then prior to that seventh for submission no seventh for yeah seventh for you being able to tabulate I'd like to work backwards from that date sure it makes sense okay so that that's the date we we provide an evaluation yeah for discussion of ta evaluations and what we the only other thing I'd like to say is um I think Bob's completed his third year mhm so this um as you recall we initially gave him a three-year contract two one-year extensions based on satisfactory evaluations after year one and year two so he's already at year five based on last year's got it evaluation so this doesn't affect that portion of his contract in any way that's already a done deal am I correct on that Bob yes yes we had the two years and so that takes it yeah cuz it was a 3 plus two contingent upon those of vals so after year one that gave him year four and after year two that gave him year five so that's that's where we stand that's good with the contract so if we're going to be discussing this on the 7th uh when would you like to have those evaluation forms in hand so you can tabulate them and have a raw score seven I don't know I don't have a calendar with me do you have a oh I do yeah you just open may please if we turn them in by Friday the 3 would that give you suff Friday the third Friday the 3rd of May would that would that give you sufficient time over the weekend and on Monday to pull everything together that give the other board on the and you get them in on the third that's fine is that work does that work for the other board members tooo fine we have to so our assignment and this is Mary Alice might might be a good idea to ask her to remind everybody to get their forms into Mike by the thir so I think that's all we have to do on that MH and uh then we have board and committee actions we have anything dorcus we do um um we'll get some [Applause] minutes I just have to now that we don't have paper anymore my computer went off for a minute there see if we have I have a motion that we appoint carlen Jones um to the board of assessors and our term sorry here we go regular position um unexpired uh term to run through July of 2026 sorry so that's carlen Jones as a regular member of the board of assessors that's the motion I'll second it okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor I anyone opposed passes by a 4 Z vote one member absent was that the only one that is the only one um I would um mention that we um will need to um do a little business on just prior to our town meeting okay uh with one more member it's just a matter of uh somebody changing from being an ultimate to to a per permanent member it's that's fine minor that shouldn't take a but a second all right we have minutes of March 2123 um um I make a motion to approve the um board Selman uh minutes for the date of March 21st 2023 second motion is second all those in favor I anyone opposed that passes by a 4 Z vote one M absent and we have August 15 2023 motion to approve second we have a motion in a second all those in favor I I anyone opposed so that passes by the same vote for to zero in favor one member absent um upcoming agenda review we don't have anything in the uh that's that's scheduled with all these meetings and and town meeting coming up but one thing we can do is put that ta review in there on the 7th I think it was right yes do anybody have any um we have Lots open space here for items things they want to see get addressed in terms of agenda review is that what you mean or agenda review yeah we got the May 7th item we just talked about um our next meeting is going to be right before town meeting right on the 30th so in terms of what we have to do there and ends we have to clean up we can do that then I mentioned I just have one housekeeping item that's it what's that for the just for appointment yeah yeah yeah we'll put that on what would you like to do on agenda review if anything um I think we might want to we don't have to figure this out now we could probably even talk about this right before town meeting talk about this before town meeting no what I'm saying is um I think one of the items that we want to revisit is clearly the the whole police dispatch and have more there was that that was a ton of information that we got that was dumped on us tonight so we maybe maybe at our next maybe not the 30th for town meeting but maybe right after that we talk a little bit about process and how we want to proceed on that we know what the time frame is we know that a decision is needed from the board you know by a certain date and I think one of the things I'd like to do I think that would be very helpful for me is as the Chiefs mentioned uh there are other Regional centers um I would like the opportunity to actually visit a site where there is such a regional center and maybe get a tour and a briefing there in terms of how how it operates I think that is something that I would find incredibly beneficial so I would put that on my list of things to do um and it can be done as a board or it can be done individually um I think that would be helpful um there you know cuz I think what's going to happen is we're going to be the ones getting asked a ton of questions about all this and I think the more we have a grasp and understanding of what's going on I think the better off we will be and I think that's a step that I would like to take I'd actually like to go to a place where this is being done where the state because we heard tonight that this is the trend this is what's happening they're popping up all over the place I think as a selectman I think it's important to to to go visit and and get a Hands-On briefing the costs how do the Committees how do the how do how are the towns working together how do they collaborate uh and and and get a better sense of just how it operates and how in terms of the governance of it it all it all works I think that would be incredibly helpful so um I would like to have that opportunity um you know before we actually have to take up a vote on it um and obviously some of us may have questions about the material that we received I think it would be helpful to have the opportunity maybe even to to have some individual discussions you know not necessarily consume a board meeting but I hope that that we have access to the administrator and to others so that as we have questions we can at least get more better informed I don't know how we want to manage that but the mo to me the most important item related to that topic is I'd like to go to a site and actually see how this is done you you are correct that um and and I failed to mention this but when they when we first started talking about this dispatch question it was really between the fire in the police and locally it was a very delicate question and it was handled very gingerly and nobody wanted to ruffle the other guy's feathers and and I can see why it's it's a tough but they both felt that they should be the ones that were in control of the dispatch and Frank was adamant about it Phil simonian was pretty adamant about it and even when we I thought we had a report that kind of came down the middle too we had hired some Consultants or somebody and they well see that's the other thing is is that we had a consultant that was hired but we as a board were totally unaware that the consultant was hired I remember that board meeting it was very awkward getting recommendations when I heard that anybody wanted to give up control of that it like am I hearing right he know and I think as we all know during the whole process of selection for police Chief and fire chief I know that part of at least our thinking was making sure that we' have two chiefs that could work together so that we could come we could arrive at a consensus that made the best they seem to have that Rapport yeah they did so that all along I've been thinking that we have now two leaders and two departments where we're going to work that out um and uh I I think the regional approach has just sort of been taken as a surprise at least to me yeah you know um and uh I was not aware that the state had invested a lot of money and resources in terms of helping trying to facilitate these Regional centers but like I said um uh you know if this is the trend and this is the direction that we should head and I think that's important but I'm also very mindful of what um you know selectman Smith said that you know one time we had a we thought was a great idea with the Dy School agreement right we sort of ran into that was laid out with the form formula everybody was comfortable with it but then think of all the meetings that we had to spend as a board you know literally squabbling and and thrashing out over problems in the agreement and then once you get with an agreement I mean think of all the meetings where we were sort of lamenting how we were stuck with an agreement that really put the town at a very distinct financial situation and and I mean we've spent years wrestling with that and at one time the town was hurt financially and I think it's important understand that there's a segment of the community that I think has come to the idea of regionalization with some healthy skepticism and we'll want to make sure that we to the extent that we endorse something like this we're dotting the eyes and crossing the tees and that we look at uh sudden shifts in activity and how those are compensated um you know in the last di School agreement we made an adjustment in terms of those costs it there was average over a period of time so I'm not suggesting these are similar agreements but all I'm saying is is that when the town of Yarmouth went into the Dy School agreement I think there was a tremendous amount of optimism and enthusiasm and that changed significantly and then we found ourselves wrestling uh for many many meetings over the inadequacies and the things that were missed and it was you know we how many times did people say you know I wish we could do it over again so we don't want to find ourselves in that situation here that's why I think having a healthy amount of uh vetting in review in discussion um I'm a big believer that putting a spotlight on something is incredibly important and giving the public ample opportunity to scrutinize and I think to the extent that we have a forum and a meeting where we invite the public we should use social media we should really beat the drum and getting the public uh to come to the meeting we've done in the past and it's worked pretty pretty well we've had when we did our re a discussion on the regional Wastewater agreement remember that we did social media a lot of advanced publicity and we had a huge turnout uh for a meeting on do we or don't we you know and we wanted to hear from the public um and on that Regional agreement think of all the meetings that we had on that Regional agreement so um I think this is this is this is a this is really our responsibility to find a way to engage the public in this conversation and help them uh participate in this decision and I think the more we can find a way to do that I think the better off we'll all be because I think I think this is the kind of thing that I know there's a lot of interest in the community and so we should make that an agenda item on the 7th if yeah if if if that's the will of the board or you know I think it's time to start talking about you know just no I hear what you're saying I I'm also mindful that there an election coming up as as well so we should be thinking through when's the best time to do that we've got a little bit of time in terms of when to make a decision so I'd like to have the opportunity to go visit you know get to one of these places relatively soon no I I'm just saying that as an agenda item separate from talking about the um Regional agreement is just how do you get the word out to the public because that in a way is kind of generic how how do we start working on you know we've got a new communications director ctor how about we bring her back in on the 7th to talk just about that how to schedule that and how that how to do that how to do that um you know because we've heard some feedback from folks on the library for instance that they felt they weren't contacted you know so how could we do a better job when when the whole um when the library was putting out there um publicizing about getting together to talk about the Strategic planning and so forth so let's start talking about that and maybe what we can kind of come up with is a generalized way that we do that so that the town folks can start saying okay this is coming up and I know if I go to this site I'm going to see what's going on in other words just a generic communication plan for the dispatch decision well for the dispatch decision or any other communication that we need to get out to the town I I think it sounds like it's I'm I'm on board yeah I think you know just in general because then then we could just say to laor you know initiate this this is when I think we should get into the habit of when we have a big decision to make is to figure out what our public involvement approach is going to be right that's and that's that's probably the discussion itself right how do we do that right um I know that we've when we have come up with that in the past um and I think the the whole graze Beach management issue and the Wastewater I think those are areas where we've had big decisions to make and what we did was we picked the date for a public meeting and a public discussion a public hearing well in advance and then we use social media and other forms to sort of beat the drum to get the word out that we're looking for people to show up at this meeting because we're going to be talking about about this and we want to hear what you have to say we did that with the regional Wastewater discussion that was a that was we heard from a lot of folks at that meeting on what we should be doing and then uh on the grace Beach management decisions we beat the drum on that we picked a special date we gave ourselves a few weeks of leadup time and runup time and then eventually when we came to the meeting we had a very well not only did we have a lot of participation from Yarmouth residents but we also had uh a very well-informed uh dialogue with the community so I'm I'm with you it' be nice to with our new communications director have a conversation about um what I would say public involvement uh sort of a protocol or approach how do we get the word out right so getting the word out and then but but we have to be disciplined what we need to do is we need to give the public some time and we need to get not only get the word out but make sure that they're informed there should be things that we post on our website there should be other ways that they can access information on a topic so when we meet to discuss it and hear from the public they've had a chance to have access to the same information that we haveh that make yeah no I'm with you on that one and this is like our first test case and how we do that is with with the uh Regional dispatch well I think we've done it before and I think we've done it well I think what we need to do is sort of maybe use it institutionalize more you know right yeah right yeah it's not unusual for other organizations to have sort of a a public you know involvement policy or public involvement plan MH the reason why we can't try to adopt something and what would you all think of the idea that on the 7th that's the week after we've had our um town meeting I don't want to say the word critique but just kind of go over while it's still freshing our minds um you know how was access for folks you know uh Ju Just what could we do to make town meeting better how does that sound for another agenda item on the 7th Mike does that sound good I think it's great I I support the idea I think it's a great idea it used to be done years ago we used to yeah do a recap yeah and review how can we do it better for our next one well Chris gy had mentioned something a deficiency that she saw at the meeting mhm that the aisles on the side come on the far SES actually go to the wall there's no aisle no there isn't and I'm I was I was stunned to hear that no and what we had unfortunately kind of you could watch it happening was that people would kind of Park themselves in the first seat on the aisle and and then they weren't really accom inating people to be able to get into those seats and you know fine you want to sit on the aisle but please step out into the aisle to let the other people come in and be seated we we saw for instance elderly people literally climbing over people yeah to get to their seats right yeah we're is at M there aisles all around it's very easy to get to the seating I didn't real that that sounds to me rather strange to not have that kind of the other that we have to deal with in the new school is the stairs we didn't have the issue of the stairs at madaky either you know this is what I was talking about before that everyone kind of went for the for the seats down front and then the late comers were finding that all that was available were seats that for them to access they had to climb stairs to get into them and you know a lot of those people were having mobility issues and and that wasn't so easy for them to do so we may actually in addition to having tellers available we may actually have to have people ushers ushers yeah it's not a bad idea maybe use students well again I think that you know may need to have I think you might need someone with some a different skill set it might be more than that I mean cuz you're literally going to be asking someone to get up and let somebody in and bless you that's you Mr chairman if you're still looking for other items and this is just a suggestion but um I noticed in the last week or two uh there's been on some notoriety about uh state standards for PFS potentially changing we knew that was coming um it might be nice just to have an update we've had a lot of updates on the Wastewater but might be nice to get an update on PS on PS and other water issues how we're doing with those uh portable treatment facilities and um there was talk of building a permanent treatment you know just to kind of get a a path forward in terms of where we are and hopefully uh that we're prepared for any changes that might be coming down the pike um while we're identifying other agenda items I we can do that we going update on P fast one of the things I'm curious about Mr chairman is where we are with the station AV Corridor study we did the stud St it was done I think there were recommendations but I don't think we've heard a thing um so we sort of lost track of that the station have Corridor study and a set of recommendations for that for that Corridor that's sort of hanging out there and I I I would very much welcome a chance to get updated on that you know there are some other major projects in town there may be some value in having an update on road construction detours what's when is the Bass River Bridge Project I'm amazed that they were spending money to fix it that and it's only going to be Tor demolished you know within short order that still doesn't make any sense you know um here's another item that I I want to just sort of flag we don't have to necessarily do it but I'd like to bring it up maybe at a subsequent meeting and see if we can talk about this um I've been thinking a lot about John Sears and his contributions to the town of Yarmouth uh quite a bit and I and um my understanding that the field across from town hall that sort of B is boarded by the old simpkin school and MacArthur school that field my understanding is was named after him and I would like us to remembrance of John Sears do a little bit of research to make and maybe consider some kind of rededication of the field um but I want to make sure that we do the sufficient research that indeed because I've I've seen other places where a playground was the the naming it was a playground not necessarily the FI that was after the sun yeah yeah so I think it would be my recommendation would be is to maybe have the board updated on the proper naming of that field and then for a board to consider and discuss which field was that huh which field Simkins talking about Simkins the field the big ball field athletic was that the Joshua Bakerfield Joshua yeah it was the baker field josua field huh thought it was Joshua the name I don't know see here we don't know confused see yes see I've heard multiple names Associated Bakerfield I was told it was the Sears Josh Sears field let's put it this way the name Joshua Sears is associated with something there right and whatever it is it to me it would be helpful to know who the who's the Field named after you might be right what named after Joshua Sears it might be the Joshua Sears and I think out of that it would be at least helpful to identify the Sears and think of an appropriate way to rededicate that in honor of John seer and obviously anything that we do should be done in discussions with the family but I think yeah I I remember actually back to when um his son passed away and uh they had a um they had a scholarship fund and I happened to be in town hall at the time and they were considering um are awarding that scholarship to somebody mhm uh um and I remember there was a a young student that from Dy that got it who said she was interested in uh studying pediatric oncology why I would remember that I can't tell you but I do because I and I'm assuming that that young man died from from cancer I'm assuming that because of John talking about how appropriate the recipients career plans fit with the scholarship I remember I remember that very well um so you I think you're probably right Mark I think I'm going to maybe be backing off on my recollection it's probably is a Joshua Sears field I think it's worth double-checking and doing some research um because I've asked that question of others and I've had different answers so I think we need some help from the administrator to help us figure and the staff to figure it out that sorry stay staying with that for just a second wouldn't it be a good idea for us to inventory everything in town and what it's named or not named I think that should be on the list of things to do but I I'm again I'm very focused on John Sear's passing and um Sears was a great man he really was was he was an incredible exceptional be very a lot of work for the town I mean years ago when he was younger he would come to town meeting there'd be these controversial issues back and forth debate debate debate and John would get up and speak and that would and I'd be sitting there with David and I say it's a done deal and then there'd be a vote and and people would more often than not ex almost all the time the guy was he was just a very rational person and he really knew how to kind of weigh and sift through things well how many people did you communicate that to people right how many people did you know that went to the simin school and went there from grades 1 to 12 grade 1 to 12 went to the simpin school that he went there and graduated that was y with high school yes at the time they used to tuition the dentist boys over there I think one one floor was like the middle school and the top floor was the high school no yeah I think I think I I think it would be a an appro I always listened very carefully to the man he was a very intelligent very logical person yeah and [Music] uh David and I are nickname for him was the voice of reason here comes the voice of reason to the microphone you know the way putting it right so if we could put that on the talk about that Bob that would we're going to need your help on that okay yeah I think I got confused with something else it's probably the Joshua shefield but I think again in his honor because I know I know his son was connected in that naming somehow so I I would suggest we give some thought to maybe a rededication we may even want to uh consider maybe a plan to you know upgrade it and improve it you know it's a it's a beautiful area but I'm not sure it it's worth another look at I mean since we as a community we're fixing up Parks all around the community um that has enormous that's an important asset and if it Bears the name of John Sears we should think of how best to not only rededicate it but how best to utilize that and and uh and and respect it so I I would I think we should be thinking about maybe having a plan maybe using some some open space money Community preservation money having a conversation with Gary Ellis and members of the committee to see if they have some ideas and thoughts they can find a way to set aside some funds so that we could do that um John Sears is just an his contributions to the town are legendary he has done he did so much for our town that I think um this is probably the least that we could do as a way to honor the name and honor his contributions to the town of yarma so those are that's the that's the one thing I I I just had to had to get out there all right if anybody has anything else before our next town meeting we can further address this if that's okay um did we want to take up the assignment of motions for the town meeting or do we want no we're going to go back uh upcoming agenda review individual does anybody have any individual items no everybody's passing on that one move to accept the um consent agenda consent agenda you moving that I'm moving second all in favor hi passes 4 Z One member absent um so that's done we have any updates Bob so we talked a a little bit about just to to wrap up that migrant house saying um that today there were um six of the families that um moved out and the remaining families will be moving out tomorrow and Thursday so um what what we've been told is by the end of the week that the facility will be closed down for the migrant housing um so we have that and we had um another big meeting today with the D on the groundwater discharge and um you know the least the the statements that are being made are more and more positive uh we we've made um a lot of progress you know they're saying things like you're going to be issued a permit you know where you know before we were dealing with the letter of of potential denial but I do have to say that we're coming right down to the wire on the time frame and and just to let you know is our critical date is that we in order to stay on schedule for our current schedule we need to advertise that treatment plant um on May 29 right so um that is a date we're working toward and um we're going to meet again and and I I think that the the key thing is that it it's never going to be perfect no even after operating it for 10 years but um the the D is is going to have to and we indicated that today they're going to be talking about it again tomorrow they're going to have to take a leap of faith and um vote to allow us to uh advertise that plant to stay on and so we've got the full court press um uh on on the D right now and um everyone's been working very hard very closely together uh but you know we'll know very shortly if we're going to stay on schedule with this and so the um tremendous amount of energy uh on behalf of the entire town is going into this um and uh I just want to say you know on behalf of our town meeting preparation um you know we've really picked up um a lot of great Steam on that in addition to the nice for that we had at the last meeting we shot some great new videos uh there's the the moderator did a very nice video I I did one as well going through all of the Articles and even had conservation administrator here Britney dienzo out in the field uh with the video of the Vernal polls showing everyone um so um everything's ready to go for town meeting we had a a great run through with our Town Council moderator and um we happy that we doing signing the Motions so that's going to make I I think your um work a little easier next week and um another issue for a a future agenda item is um I had met with our town planner and Community Development director who had some feedback from the Chamber of Commerce suggesting that the town put together and this would come under the The selectman's Authority a public Arts committee to talk about possible public art locations and types for the town um so uh I sat in on just you know the infant sessions of that and what they're working on is to try to come up with a proposal uh to make a presentation to the board of Selectmen on potentially having a public Arts committee so I thought that was very interesting and I wanted to let you know that it's just starting now but um I I think they should have some materials before long that you can take a look at and be able to you know determine what direction that goes in how would do we have a bucket of money for public art tourism promotion for you know what um I was in Philadelphia recently and uh for redevelopment they allotted 1% costs for all Redevelopment to go toward public art and uh it had an amazing effect on I think that's a standard in federal Redevelopment fund is it okay yeah so if you have a for urban areas that have Redevelopment districts and Redevelopment authorities and and get those federal funds for redevelopment yeah there's a set aside that's mandatory and all we have right now is the public Improvement right section of the tourism under the tourism fund so that's a potential start but to investigate you know maybe one of the things a community could do is help investigate future funding sources what type of public art and you know it's it's a fascinating topic but um so that's something that's been discussed and I'm trying to work it to to get it in a position where we can bring it in front of the board of Selectmen and then you can discuss it yeah you know the thing to keep in mind is is that I think a lot of this ties into the large your vision of you know the route 28 Corridor right you know if if we had a sort of a a vision for the for the corridor if we had a sort of at least the outlines of a plan to redevelop and Revitalize it um then you know what the art fits in it becomes a component part of that plan becomes part of the comp see I'm I'm a big believer that on economic development the tourism piece that we're Mi the tourism promotion that we're missing out on is the historic parts of Yarmouth Taylor Bray Farm look at all the places that we have are rich in terms of character and history and um you know I think we don't promote Yarmouth as a historic Community like we should um and we're missing a huge opportunity in that that should be a core po core part of component of our all overall Economic Development vision is to focus on how we can I mean we do a good job preserving history right we are investing in preservation of historic sites but maybe we need to be a little bit more focused on it I mean think about how many people would like to go visit and get a tour of the the Judah Baker windmill think of all the stuff in the interest in the grismill that we've spent the fortune on I mean there's there used to be a sign there you don't even know there's a sign um or or or where the I have no idea where the sign is um but we have historic sites that we don't literally promote and there's no real access to it exactly so I mean I think those are the things that are worth but there may be a way to provide access to it that doesn't necessarily require Town funds or town supporter Town staff or maybe we want to provide access during maybe there's a week we want to promote you know we spend a period of time where we're doing sand C sand sculpture right and we have a a period of time where we draw attention to that why not draw why not have historic Yarmouth week right and then you have these places open and have dosant there to provide guided tours I mean I think in terms of the tourism promotion funding we're missing the boat by not doing anything on the historic side you know when the historical commission talked about you know the South Yarmouth Library if it ever were to be repurposed not that anybody is talking about that openly but if the Town decided to do that they're very interested in using that as a uh historical interpretive area you know and that could be a key component of a of a Heritage tourism initiative you know so there are all these incredible pieces but I think the Arts fits in nicely with plan yeah an overall plan and an overall Vision you know do we want to have you know maybe identify a portion of the community as where we really want to stimulate development on culture I mean are there things that we could be doing to sort of Leverage the fact that we have an incredibly popular Cultural Center in Yarmouth why that thing's thriving it is it's unbelievable and it's like you know sometimes if you have a thriving operation maybe there are things that can be done to help there's rarely a day you go by that there isn't some kind of yeah presentation or musical uh performance or so that that should become part of the the economic development I don't know who does the programming there but they should be commended they and then and then in on in terms of culture and history I mean the witam museum is a is a gold mine they do an incredible job over there so we H we do have people that are making huge investments in the Arts culture and her itage and I think to some extent those are in incredibly important assets that should be nurtured and or we we should be working with those folks to find ways to help leverage and expand um I mean I mean what Barry cliford has done over at the wi museum is just unbelievable and uh and I'm sure you know some of these folks probably have I mean a lot of ideas I mean when was the last time we invited them in to talk about okay you know did a great job with this what ideas do you have for you know what I mean so I think I I love that's why I think the art Fosters a whole series of very interesting conversations and if we tie it together with a theme of strengthening our economy strength creating a vision for our business district and long 28 drawing on those assets that we have because often times we focus on um the detriments you know the blighted properties and wonder why why not focus on the assets as well and figure out what can we do to um um strengthen them and help them out you know who knows maybe there's a another WID type initiative sort of out there on the horizon somewhere we don't know about I I didn't mean to go too far off astray but that that's the Arts discussion just sort of stimulated right B do you think on your updates one of the things you could get an update for us from the planning board about would be where are they on the plan I I did hear I I believe when we were um when Kathy was in talking about the recreation and open space I I thought I heard that um a consultant was on board that's right do they have a consultant now on board for working on and they're going to start Community sessions to focus on on the planning so this this type of discussion is is perfect for right now and um I I know they're they're working on starting their workshop so let's get an an update on that that planning effort's really kicking up now yeah that'd be good thank you did you have more on your update no that's it okay so I think the only other matter we have left is the assignments does anybody have any suggestions how you want to do this or does anybody have any favorite articles they want to present or anything like that then we could work around that so how many we each have 6 * 5 is 30 so so you're giving us a number what what's the number Dan six six each one gets six and then there couple a couple of extras we don't get six because oh yeah some CPC will do their own thing the schools will do their own thing the tech school will do its own thing so we got to take those out all right let me see um right yep you're right let's look at the ones we have to we we have to admit um I think it's going to be 8 right that's a school budget yep that's out they'll do that one mine is out well do you want to go down the list right here Mr chairman I mean I'm I'm Happ the tech school yeah one two three four seven I'm happy to take the first five five they'll do the library would the library be doing their own Library Grant the library won't do it will they I don't think so why not CPC will do their own right right yep I'm just going through who I've got so what CPC got appropriate ter res pre they probably have 27 and 28 do they they have 28 29 30 and 31 28 29 30 and 31 so that's right and Wetlands bylaw kcom going to do that one Bob y yes yeah so we'll probably take that one out 33 the rentals the planning board will do that one right Bob um yes Joanne Crowley will do that one yeah touris so we got to take out9 28 through 32 and what else anything I don't think so how about the town seal committee should that be moved by one that be moved by the committee a good idea I think that would be a good one to George slamma and Bob lton have the town seal yeah they going to do that one yeah I would say what number was that 2 21 [Applause] okay 21 would be Lon George you folks have a library they're they're going to just answer questions 1 2 three four five six we have a library board so if you took eight from 33 you have 27 roughly I would suggest to the library with the amount of discussion that's going on out there that it would be in their best interest to present that motion they should make the motion and then ask the moderator to do the explanation definitely okay so you've got two two Library articles 13 and 14 you want to have Library do those no because people are going to want to hear from them they're not so who's going to do 13 and 14 Library really okay I'm with you Dorcas I don't think they're aware of there's a lot out there well no I think quite frankly there what I what I hear there's still people that think that folks want to close the two libraries and repurpose them and I think that's that's that's getting in the way of so they they might they're just going to have to address that all headon right they need to take ownership of it exactly yeah so so if you took out those 10 articles six if we keep at it we can probably take out if we keep going down to 23 right mhm where what did you say you want to do the first five I'm happy to do the first five you know they're all bud I'm yeah I'm down to 22 so if we have five members of the board how about if I do the next five there you go how's that sound Mr chairman so that'd be six and seven for me and then 10 11 and 12 so we're up to 13 14 is so 15 would be the next one all right hang on for one second let me just catch up to you because what we're going to take and do is give you six and seven skip eight and nine and then and then do 10 11 12 so I have six and seven the other two are covered eight and nine are covered and then I would have 10 11 12 so what's my that verse five 1 through 5 and then after 12 13 and 14 is library right so 15 would be next I'm fine with capital if you want you know do the next it's you six and seven who's five Mark the end is six seven 7even 10 11 12 and who's this school committee school committee okay minut D School Tex school so 10 11 128 are schools yep I thought seven was cable vision eight and nine eight and nine Dan is eight and nine is school seven is Dan is seven wait what's what's seven so I have that one so that's Dan eight and nine are schools okay so 10 11 12 is Man 10 11 and 12 is Dan Dan library is going to have 13 and 14 the library is going to do that one right Library how about I do the next four um because you you still have Mike and um Peter yeah so four get 12 more to go so 48 12 okay so how many we picking each one two three four five so DOR down to four now to 18 the 14 to 18 is D we going to try to do these sequential 14 14 is the library yeah 15 to 18 15 to 18 is dorus 15 16 17 18 19 right no 19 um just doing four just doing four because there's 12 left now there's only 12 left so there's four and four and four four so if for instance you did 19 and 20 22 and 23 so what ones am I doing you're going to do 19 and 20 22 19 20 to seal is doing 21 22 Yep they're going to do it are you doing 22 yes you're doing 22 23 23 and then Peter would do 24 to 27 Peter Smith and then the others are being taken care of by Peter Smith three there you go Peter Smith that covers everything and then uh Peter's going to do the next four yeah Peter Peter Peter Peter how about 28 see CPA 28 through 31 is CPC that's the CPA committee CPA is 28 29 and 30 29 30 and 31 okay as well as those others conom is 32 and planning is 33 going to be Bernstein yeah Y and how about 33 planning board Joanne Crowley's going Joan Crowley that's planning board [Applause] no planning board Crawley zoning [Applause] article okay where dorcus is mine we're in the first page 15 dorcus is 15 through 18 18 Mark you have the long one you have to rehearse I have the long one yeah what do you mean that's um article two is always the long one because it's got the series of things but we'll have it up on the screen and that sounds good I can handle it you're a good speaker you'll be fine oh you're so kind only speaking the truth you got it all down Mike Bob yep good all set got it what else is on the agenda adjournment you ready to adjourn oh uh do we need do we uh do we want to take the vote on the um cedc tonight oh yeah do we want to recommend because you you'll need that right um we'll need it we've got four here you'd rather get it now right absolutely although we don't have it posted on the agenda is that you have a discussion of the article so you can recommend it all right so Mr chairman if you don't mind could I'm I'd like to make a motion on the uh tourism promotion fund article that we what I'd like to vote make a motion that we recommend that article that we discussed earlier tonight tourism TC yeah no no the tourism promotion fedc the EDC cedc yes okay go ahead and I'd second that good all right we have a motion second all those in favor I anyone oppose 40 one member absent Mr chairman I moved to adjourn you move to adjourn I have a second second those in favor you were so quiet tonight