We don’t need unless we vote. Don’t don’t don’t. All right. All right, everyone, uh, it is Monday, July 15th, 2020 24, and we are calling the select board meeting to order at 7:03 p.m. uh with 4 members present. Um, Do we need? Well, wait, OK, uh, first and we’ll just go through our board and committee

openings, um, the list keeps growing, y’all, and I know there’s so many folks who want to get involved, so let’s make sure, uh, that we, uh, pay attention to the board openings. Uh, I see that we have some folks who would like to speak online, just a heads up, we’ll do public comment, uh, after in

just a bit, in which case we will call on folks, uh, to make comments. So conservation commission has two openings, uh, Council on Aging has two associate. Openings, the cultural council has one opening. The finance and advisory Committee has one associate opening, that’s a good time. Uh, Hamilton Development Corporation has one

opening for a 3-year term. Uh, the historic District Commission has 2 openings for 3-year terms, 2 openings for two-year terms, and one must be a resident of the historic district, and one must be a resident realtor. Uh, and the Human Rights Commission also has one at-large opening.

So folks looking for a way to get involved. Uh, we’d love for you to hop on a board or committee. Um, At this point, uh, do we want to go ahead and do reports and Public comment or do we want to hold until we’re going

to start with CPC. I just don’t even see him on here at all. No, no, no, I mean, uh reports and and public comment in there as well. You can do that, yeah. OK, um, real fast, I’ll just go to the board. Does anybody have any updates or reports from?

Your committees that you’d like to report on, I do. Do you, do you wanna go first? OK. So So Sorry, that was my mic. We’re not doing the pledge of allegiance? No, we stopped doing that about a year ago. We did. Um, OK, so I would like to

report on two things. First, the ZBA meeting. From July 10th, 24. Um, let’s see, they welcomed their newest associate member, Michael Madden. Um, and, um, Amy Kossel was there from uh KP Law. The issue there was that um tobacco, um, Chebecco Hill Capital Partners withdrew their application for the 40B,

um, and because they did not want to go ahead with the public meeting because anything that was decided would have been final and they would not, it would not have been an appealable decision. Um. And in concert with that, um. From, um, I, I’ve discovered that the tobacco hill Capital Partners,

uh, in terms of their cases being dismissed, the cases have to be dismissed for one year before, um, an applicant can consider reapplying. Um, For um a 40B project. So the update on that is the Superior Court case dismissed the stormwater management, um. Um Portion of that. Secondly, the land court,

which was the appeal to deny the special permit, the hearing motion to dismiss that will be held on July 31st. Um, there are a lot of judges on vacation. We’re not sure that’s going to continue, um, on that day, but might be continued, so that’s in the works also. Um, Second

thing I wanted to talk about was the um. Um, turffield project, um, we, the board and I was a especially um. Interested in this, uh, um. They on Long Manor Road, there were complaints from two abutters regarding that most or all of the trees had been removed from the Turfield construction site, meaning the

back of where the football field was, and that those trees had been removed right up to the property line. I did drive down that road and look at it and some of the issues that came to mind were privacy issues and light trespass. So that’s a concern and I’m I’m, I’m sure that this school

district will consider doing some privacy fencing and maybe some very large are bravidian trees once this project is completed. I have not heard from either of these butters that the school district had responded to their concerns, so I don’t know if, if that had happened. And then finally, um,

the question of whether the order of conditions by the Conservation Commission for Testing and sampling of wetland sites, um, abutting the Construction site had been completed and I spoke to the chair, Lee McCoy of the Conservation Commission, and he said it’s his understanding that the testing was complete, but they did not have any, um,

responses yet. Um, So let me just see if there’s anything else I had, um. OK. Second thing is, um, regarding the, um, Fields project. Um, the softball and tennis courts, there were 2 permits that were, um, given by the DEP and they the second permit, the softball and tennis courts permit

expired and that was on hold, but the concom expects that a new and notice of intent will be filed at their 7:24 meeting. So we have to wait to see what that’s all about. Um, The other questions that I have are, um, just, are we going to have an

update on the status of the amicus brief, especially given the more acute concerns about water that are looming right in front of us and We need to double check the deadline on that and then finally, the status of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary agreements, we don’t have that on our.

Um, agenda for tonight. So those are things that I’m interested in tonight and let’s see where they go. Yeah, thank you, Rosie. So anything uh quickly, Rose, you already mentioned about the athletic fields. I know they’re well underway. I heard as well that some of the abutters had some issues with trees and such.

I hadn’t heard about the permitting running out. Uh, I do know the school committee doesn’t meet again until the 15th, so I think it could be a little darker and uh now that school ended, as far as the elementary schools, uh, the next milestone there, I think it’s July 30th though, that’s

not a full committee thing, but there was a meeting with the MSBA, uh, and that’s when they start moving into the next phase, which is the, the schematic design. Phase. So, so look for that, you know, towards the end of this month, um, As I said, they’re coming back on the 15th. I think the

first day of school this year is September 3rd. Uh, HDC, you know, a lot of just more of the same going on there, you know, busy promoting the downtown plan, as you know, uh, they partially funded the, the foreign-based zone study, uh, they’re partnering with community house just to educate,

uh, the community, uh, on get awareness on the project. Uh, they did mention that Shop Local informed them that they would no longer organize and participate in the fall festival, so I don’t know what that means. I, um, relative to who does what, um, but I did get a note from Scott on.

That, uh, you’ve heard of a pocket park, uh, in the past, you know, downright in the corner of the railroad and Main Street by the bank in between there. Uh, that’s been the slow drag, uh, they’re having some issues a little bit with the bank, some insurance, uh, issues as well.

So they’re not optimistic, but they’re going to continue to try to go down that path, but right now, uh, it’s a, it’s a struggle. Uh I think that’s it for now. I know the HTC, well, I haven’t been to a a meeting, sorry, Jay, but uh we’ll get a

great uh update from them today, not the HTC, the, uh, CPC. That’s it Awesome, um, nothing big for me. I did get an email from David Smith and we’ll put it on the next agenda, uh, that we are revising our keeping of animals regulation, uh, the

Board of Health is, uh, for the first time since 1989, uh, so, uh, we’ll get on the thirty-fifth anniversary of our keeping of animals. Uh, we’re going to do a revision and we’ll take a look at that, uh, in an upcoming meeting. Um, all right, we will continue with the uh joint meeting with the

CPC, uh, before stepping back into town manager and public comment, if it’s all the same to everybody else. Is that fine? Um, all right. Uh, y’all don’t have to do a A call to order, I suppose. I’ll do a call. I’m Jay Butler, chair of the community preservation Committee. Uh, this is a joint

meeting. The community preservation and the select board. I’ll just do a call to order to see him officially record who’s here. uh, I’m here, Michelle Horgan, say ya, nay, uh, Robert Preston, Sandy Carting, Kim Deedle, Bill Wilson here. uh Sean Farrell is not here and Darcy. Dale.

I’m here, but I’m online. OK, so you were to come, Sean. So we have We have 4 members, so we need 5 for a quorum, so this will be an informational meeting and uh I will give a presentation on the state of the state of the CPC, but uh I

had hoped to vote on our last meeting minutes, but we won’t do that. So Do you want me to launch interrupt. And can you hear me? Mr. Memo, we’re not doing public comment until after the CPC presentation. Please give. I understand I’m kind of in a bind and I have

service now and I again I. Go ahead, Jay. Good This is respectfully just talk for a moment. OK you. We’ve already started this joint meeting so we’ll have to wait until after the joint meeting. I understand. I understand I’m a lineman in Ohio and I have service here

and I have to move. I just need to say a few words. I don’t know if you can see me. But I do need to speak to this committee and I need help with this committee and I just need a few moments of your time and then you can continue the

meeting and I can leave and go restore power across the country. I understand, I understand, Ms. Rio, and I’m sorry, but we have already started the joint meeting and it is not time for public comment and we do not have an agenda item on the list to discuss. Your item, so you will

have to wait until the joint portion is, is done and then we can absolutely talk. OK, let me say what I got to say you’re not understanding me. I’m autistic. This last 6 months has been held for me as long as the time, I genuinely and deeply empathetic and sympathetic. I have already

answered 3 times now. We are out of order and we have already started the joint meeting. I’m going to ask Joe to mute you, but if you wait, we will absolutely pick you up during public comment. I will do my best to wait and I will mute myself. Thank you. This is an informational meeting.

This is required by the uh uh community preservation Act and so with that we’ll go forward a copy of this PowerPoint will be in our web page later this week. Um, next slide, we have 9 members of the Hamilton CPC Committee with coordinator Laurie Wilson, um, recent changes, Sean Farrell moved to move from the, uh, select board

rep to an at-large position, uh, the, um, Bill Wilson just joined us as a select board rep and Darcy Dale just joined us as the planning board rep, uh, we’re down one member, we need a rep from the historic district commission, but their committee. Need so many members, I think we’re going to have to

live with 8 members for a while, and we can do that. Uh, next slide, just a bit of history. The CPA Act became law and mass in the year 2000. Hamilton adopted in 2005. Right now, 196 of 351 communities have signed up for it and these communities choose from a 1 to 3% surcharge

on their property taxes. We have a 2%, uh, the money that is come where the money comes from, from the state match associated with this comes. From something called the CPA Trust Fund, which is manded by the uh mass Department of Revenue and they set and distribute a state match to the communities in November of each

year, uh, and the money that they distribute comes from all the property transaction fees from the mass registry of deeds offices throughout the state. So as so goes the real estate market, so goes how much money we get as a state match. And then finally there’s a possibility that the state if they haven’t A budget surplus

could vote some money into the pot as well, and you’ll see in a minute what they’ve done in the past, um. This is a historical trust fund distributions from the initiation of the CPA up until last year. Uh, and you can see on 6 different occasions, the legislature did vote a budget

surplus, uh, swell the pot to increase the, uh, the amount of state match we get, uh, I don’t, that didn’t happen last year. It’s not like it happened this year. Uh, this is, this next slide is the, uh, history of the Hamilton, uh, the local surcharge collection, the state match, the present of the state

match, and the, the total dollars so you can see how we’ve, what we’ve reaped from the state, what we’ve collected from our own citizens, uh, since we’ve signed up in the year 2005. Um, The stage mass estimate, um. There’s, it’s unlikely to be any surplus funds for this year. Uh, this

is a prediction made by the community preservation coalition in May of this year. Uh, the registry of deeds, revenues are down 26% in April 24 versus 23 and in general the registry of deeds collections are down 10%. Uh, the state match for November of this year is estimated at 14.4%. Down from 21% last year. Uh, I threw

in this slide on the mass Millionaires tax. I, I wasn’t aware of this, but it, it didn’t come up on my taxes this year, perhaps some of you don’t, uh, there was an amendment voted to the mass constitution in November 22 with the effectivity for last year, the tax year 2023 that provides for

a 4% surcharge on any individual tax income over $1000 and. surprisingly, to the legislature generated $1.8 billion in unexpected state revenue. And while it’s restricted to be used for education and transportation projects, the idea being that this extra money for education and trans uh transportation might transfer over to allow

some money to be freed up to maybe uh put in the pot for the community preservation fund. That’s speculation and I’ve traded emails with the coalition on this, but I don’t know if it will happen, but we can only Hope. Um, In terms of the how we did last November,

you can see that uh we had a total revenues of 673,000, uh, for our 2% revenue plus the state match and I put in one of them because they’re our nearest neighbors. They have a 3% surcharge revenue. So not only did they get a little bit more on the state match, they get a couple of extra

distribution rounds of extra funds. It only adds up to be about 1000 in total, so it’s not a. A lot, but, uh, as a, as a proponent of the 3% charge, and I’m not recommending we do it, but I’m a proponent of it, uh, if, if we had had a 3%

surcharge last November, we would have collected $1000 just over $1000 versus 670. Um, I did a survey as I’ve done in the last several years for all the communities in Essex County to show which communities don’t have any participation in the CPA and those that do and their corresponding percentage, uh, Swampscot will vote this year.

Danvis tried to embrace it last year. It was voted down at their town meeting. Ainsbury recently voted it in at 1%. The rest of them are fairly standard. The, uh, I also looked at the Essex County’s tax rate and their CPA involvement, uh just to see if there’s a correlation there

isn’t, so what I show is the highest, 2nd highest, 3rd highest tax rates in Essex County and then the lowest, uh, 2nd lowest, 3rd lowest, and finally the bracket that I have the highest in mass and the lowest in mass, so you can see that when I is the parental favorite every year for the

highest. We were 2nd last year and now we’re 3rd, Rockport’s been the lowest for a while. And the highest and lowest in mass tend to tend to move around, but you can see the bracket from $2 per 1000 up to 22. Um, What is the surcharge cost to citizens? I show you

this table here, the uh assessed valuation of the property in the first column but the property taxes annually and then the annual 2% surcharge. So if you just look at the $100 property, they pay $15,000 in taxes and $272 a year for the surcharge and that’s a quarterly, that’s a,

that’s a 4 year payment. It’s billed quarterly with the taxes, so on a, on a monthly basis. It’s it’s not a lot of money in my, in my mind for somebody who owns a $1000 property and then just to mention 3% again if, if the, we had a 3% charge you’d only add $135 to that 270

numbers, so it’d be $400 a year, $100 every quarter. And then finally, at the bottom of the slide, I’ll show you how the. Uh, surcharge is calculated. Um, there are exemptions, uh, the 1st $100,000 valuation is exempt for all residents and then from a state perspective, uh, anybody who has received

the annual Elderly 41D exemption, don’t have to pay, uh, the surcharge and there are exemptions for seniors 60 and above a low income families in Hamilton and the next slide shows the income brackets for, uh. a low income non seniors and property owned by seniors over 60 and this is a full uh

exemption from having to pay the surcharge and the application is via our assessor’s office. Um, Just a little background on the application process. On the next slide, um, we have a two-part application. One is the eligibility where we need 5 members of our group to approve it and this is where we dig into what somebody’s asking for.

Can they do it? Is it eligible under the rules, and there are rules and um for the most part it frequently requires input of town council to sort it out. This is a law and we all know when it comes to laws that they can be interpreted by lawyers and so we need uh. Town council

helped many times. The second part is the funding application against we again we need 5 members to approve. This is where we review the cost estimate. Look at our reserves, we ask Wendy Hakowitz, our finance director, who we have any money, we make decisions whether we need to bond the

project if it’s too big for us to offer cash. Then finally, if we approved, it goes to town meeting. It’s a simple majority vote at town meeting, uh, unless there’s a bond, then it’s a. Two-thirds vote, but when the CPC votes something like this, uh, through these two meetings, uh, it

automatically goes on the one article for town meeting. There are reviews, detailed reviews by the select board and finance and advisory committees, but their advisory only in their, their recommendations are printed in the warrant alongside ours. And then we have an internal rule that we voted through a while ago that any project we approved, you

got to start it within 2 years, so we have the right to review it and revoke it. We’ve had, we had a an issue many years ago that we had one project sit on our books for 7 years with no action, and we Don’t want to have that happen again.

The next slide is something developed by the Community Preservation Coalition, and it’s a short form to how you can look at and say if you have an idea for grant, is it, is it eligible? So across the top you see open space, historic recreation, community housing, and down the left side vertically acquire, create, preserve, support, rehabilitate,

and it says yes or no, and this is the the quick review of can you do this? Can you ask for a grant? And Interesting under support. The only thing you can support is housing. Hence we just approved the housing production plan, which is kind of a support for new housing under, uh, historic, you can’t

create historic fixtures. We did have a situation though just recently last and its out meeting where we voted in a new building to house the Model T fire truck and at first glance that wouldn’t be eligible, but our lawyers looked at it and do the actual Wording of the law and whatever the fact that the

building is being built to protect the historic assets. Uh, we’re advised by town council that we could vote for that. Um, the rest of it is just, uh, You can read for yourself. Uh, I have a comment in here about artificial turf. This came up with the, the whole debate last couple of town meetings, uh, to

clarify the community of Trinity Preservation Act. The initial law in 2000 allowed CPA funds for uh allowed CPA funds for artificial turf on athletic fields. You could do that. However, it precluded rehabilitation of existing facilities, so communities like Boston, Cambridge, and some of the bigger uh communities that had outdated run down parks and

recreation. You couldn’t, you couldn’t use artificial turf and in fact you couldn’t spend any CPA money on it. There was an amendment that took 5 or 6 years to get finally through the legislature that finally allowed. CPA funds to use to rehab existing facilities and one sentence was added to the law with respect to recreational use, the

acquisition of artificial turf for athletic fields shall be prohibited. That’s the entire law. That’s it. So the lawyers have filled it with interpreting that as you might expect, so in 2024 there’s multiple interpretations. Uh, only artificial turf is prohibited. The dirt stone based foundation is excluded as well and or no use of CPA funds

on the entire project if used artificial turf and it’s all over the map. The current association in Hamilton is the 8000 that you approved, uh, at the town meeting will be used for the amenities building on the field, so it has nothing to do with the fields per se. It’s the concession.

bathroom storage building. Next slide is this is the total history of dollars from uh our CPC, uh, to the organizations in the community. There’s only 20. And the top. You know,,,, 65 of them are town-based communities the green represents town related organizations as you can see the bulk of the grants and the size of the grants.

Tended to be shaded towards town facilities, which is what you want because what you want is the CPC CPA grants to uh help, help lower the burden on the voters. The next slide they put in some. Um, stats. So the number of town organizations receiving grants were 12 out of 20 and the number of grants 79

out of 96 and 10 million out of the total of 14 million. And so I think we, we’ve been doing a good job as far as steering the money towards facilities and projects needed by the town. The next is, is a, is a look at how we did among the three categories open space and recreation, historic

preservation, community housing, and you can see the total number of grants for each, the total dollars, percent of total dollars, I won’t go through it, but there’s an imbalance community housing clearly gets the short end of the stick and in all cases and this is an area where I, I believe we need

to focus on because this law was written to have a balance among these three and just as a background, there’s only two instances I can remember where our committee said no to a community housing grant. That was a long meadow away that was when it came to town meeting was voted down by the entire

town almost and one of the time when they uh affordable housing Trust was first formed. They asked for an extremely large sum of money of several $100,000 but didn’t have any projects in mind. We gave them a smaller amount to start out with and said come back. So every time they’ve asked for money, we’ve given them money.

We’ve never turned them down except for that one project, so. Um, next slide, uh, in terms of this past year, what have we done? What have you done as voters, uh, At the 2023 falls special town meeting. We approved 50,000 more for town hall. Uh, at the last ATM a couple of months ago, we

approved 3 grants Asbury Commons, the fire truck building and the housing production plan update. Um, Currently grants that are open. Townhall $4.5 million middle school, high school facilities, 800,000 Asbury Commons 500,000 fire truck 150K and the housing production plan. All of these grants are approved, all of the money is sitting and if somebody were to submit an

invoice, we could pay it. But nobody’s drawing any money yet. Um, The, we have some bonds running. And um just a note that the the annual bond repayment is limited to the the annual 2% surcharge. We can’t use any state money to pay for bonds. We’ve got two, Sagamore Hill, current. Bond repayment

is about 1030. This runs until 2032. It was voted in in 2015 with a $1.25 million bond for 15 years. The Hamilton Town Hall reser renovation edition and preservation project, the recent premium was 345,000. This rejoice in 2043, the 20 year grant. Um, Juneavo, this

is consists of a grant for 3 million voted in 2020 and a $1 million grant passed in 2021 totaling $4 million. And just for the record, there’s been a total of 6 CPA grants on this project since its initiation in 2017 and a total just under 5 million. Um, these next few slides we were asked several

years ago by the select board to develop a forward-looking radar, if you will, to keep track of what we see on the horizon. So we developed a system called Future anticipated potential CBA grants. Uh, it’s purely speculation in many areas. We hear things from our fellow

members. We hear things in the select board and so we put them on this list so we keep track so every month when we have our, Just general discussion among members of ask what’s going on. We check on these things to see if they’re becoming a reality

or should we expect the grant request, etc. etc. The first is the Category A. This is an eligible project, good cost estimate, strong support. We don’t have any, so in other words, we don’t see any near term projects that, uh, meet this criteria. That could change. Category B is there’s

some question on eligibility, a cost guesstimate and the project needs a little more definition. In this case, there’s a wreck project on the Pingree Park tennis court since it comes under the Hamilton Wyham Recreation department, even though that’s in when I can support that with a grant.

uh, this project’s been kicking around for 4 or 5 years and in fact we’ve had a meeting on it where one of the people proposing something came before us and the, uh, it’s it. alive and well, but I don’t know where it’s going. It’s either gonna be a skateboard park, uh, pickleball, or revamp of the

tennis courts. Who knows. It’s real. The next category C, no project costs unclear, project supporting question. These are pure speculation on my part, but just to keep track of them. Uh, they’re all affordable housing. One is the Gordon Conwell Seminary, uh, affordable housing due to the MBT communities law rezoning, uh, and finally the affordable

housing at Essex Street, 40B development. We put them on here to keep track of them, keep our ear to the ground. Let’s see if we see anything emerging that would require our our looking at a grant. The last category C is a roof for the American Legion building.

For those you don’t know, the town owns the American Legion building. It’s leased at no cost to the Legion. Uh, and. We heard about this 5 or 6 years ago, but there’s been no word since. Uh, patent park improvements, uh, we don’t know of any, but when, when I saw the report last year, I can’t

imagine it might be something they might need money for, so I put it in here as a placeholder. And finally I just learned about another project that may come through Concom of removal and vaing invasive phragmites, vegetation along the Ms River. We shall see that comes to us or not. Finally, the state of

our reserves. My financial advisor is sitting in front of me, uh, we didn’t have a money, enough money this past, uh, annual town meeting to fully fund all approved grant requests. It’s the first time it’s ever happened since 2005. The request from the Affordable Housing Trust for the latest

project was for $1000. We could only afford 500, which is what you all approved. Um, The recent initiation of the 20 year town hall bond, somewhat restricts bonding of larger products and projects until 2032 when we pay off the Sagamore Hill bond. And right now the total reserves are at

800 or actually 900. Wendy and I have been trading emails it’s up to almost 900 nowadays, but it’s dispersed among several accounts. We have 5 internal, at least 5, maybe more internal accounts for open space and rec historic preservation, uh, community housing, we have an administrative and then we had

kind of an unreserved one. And once the money gets put in anywhere but in the. Unreserved, you can’t take it out of there, so the money this 80 or 900 grand is dispersed. So for any one project, we don’t have a lot of money for a big project.

And finally, we need to focus on in the emerging community house grants, not only because we haven’t spent a lot of money on them, but that’s what we see happening in town is that. Finally, final comments, um, we’d appreciate more advanced information from organizations sending to apply for grants,

hence this meeting. Uh, we will reach out a necessary to coordinate with the Wenham CPC for projects we share, uh, likewise with the Hamilton and rec department community house, and Hamilton Regional School Department. All of these organizations, uh, ask both. Communities for CPC money. Um, More detailed info on what I’ve

just presented in 70 pages is available on our annual report. It’s now on our web page. Uh, our meetings at 7 o’clock on the 2nd Thursday of most months, and we really encourage public attendance and input is encouraged. We have no limit on speakers or whatever. And finally, if you need

information or applications when the uh Laurie Wilson. Uh, is our coordinator. Thank you very much. Thank you Do you have any questions or comments about what Jay’s presented? I have just one question to clarify a definition. Um, I’ve always seen the title, um, Affordable housing, and I noticed it’s changed to community housing. Does that

change the, um, Parameters for for making it affordable housing or can we do any, um, community housing without necessarily an affordable component. We could do any community housing for the most part, but we rely on the Affordable Housing Trust. We’re not about, we wouldn’t approve any housing project let’s go through the Affordable Housing

Trust. OK, but, um, to your point, you just said that community housing doesn’t necessarily mean affordable housing. So I’m just I think it does mean affordable housing, I’m sorry I’m sorry. OK, thank you. Any other comments or questions? Jay, thanks so much for putting or Jay and everyone else, thanks so much for putting that together and, and

sharing with the group. Do you need to close your meeting? Again. OK. So I close our meeting. OK, let me, uh, just do a quick roll call and we’ll close out the CPC portion, uh, please say yes or no. I say yes and ask, uh, Bill Wilson.

Sean Farrell. Uh, yes. And Darcy Dale. OK, again, since we only had 4 members of was an official um meeting, but we do publish meeting notes and make it a point that it wasn’t an official meeting, but we didn’t vote anything so. Thank you so much nice presentation. Thank you. Thanks for your thoroughness. Thank you.

Mhm. I’m going to Take public comment and then we’ll get in. Where did Corinne, oh, you’re right there and then we’ll get to your ports, that’s right. Um, all right, so we will open public comment. Uh, just a reminder to folks, public comment is 3 minutes, um, on a topic that is not on the agenda

if it is on the agenda, we ask that you hold your comments until the agenda item comes up at the end of 3 minutes, one of us will, uh, ask that you and your public comment and typically there will not be responses from the boards as a

part of public comment. As due course. So Eric, um, at this time, We can recognize you to speak if you have service. OK, 3 minutes doesn’t give me a lot of time, so I’m gonna go as quick as I can, uh, again, these last 6 months have been

hard for me. Um, I’ve been born autistic. I was beaten at the age of one, and, uh, for the last 40 years I have not been the man I really am. Uh, people know about the brain, but they don’t know what they do. My mother had cancer. They took

out a softball all sides of her brain, and it took her 6 months for her head to rewire itself, so she could have those communications put back together. My brain’s been rewiring itself for the last 6 months, and that explains my behavior, but my brain is done, and let me tell you, it is very

unique. This town keeps talking about money while inventions bring money and the town manager Joseph Sa already I have a patent filed for my first invention, but I didn’t build one of these things. I built 3. So money is not going to be the issue. I can tell you that right now, um, the issue

is, what do I do with it, and I love this goddamn town and I want this town to love me. I’ve had nothing but 7 years of trouble from this town. This town has done a lot of bad to me in a really irritates me because I love the fucking town.

I’m sorry to swear, um. What else do I got to say right now, the only thing I care about is the bus stop I want to build for the children in this town. Um, right now this committee I need two things from it. I need one to recognize there are trees there that need to be

removed because uh I’m not going to build a bus stop. They’re gonna have trees fall on it, even though what I intend to build a tree will fall on it, and I’ll laugh because when I build something and I don’t build to mass code, I built a hurricane code. I’m a lineman. You have no idea what

it’s like when a hurricane comes. And uh So that’s the thing stopping my project right now from building a bus stop for these kids. Um, if you can get that pre-approval done tonight, so Tim can do his job and the other guy can do his job, and I can finally get a green light to start this

project at this point, uh, the only thing I can try to get accomplished is get the trees out of there, get the uh site work done and get the concrete pad done before school season starts, and then and then and then and then I wanna get all outside excavation done. They don’t. have an open site when

kids are standing near a bus stop. Uh, the other thing I need from this committee is you got to let vote to let the police and I don’t need a detail. I don’t need taxpayers paying for a detail. It’s very easy detour. I can close it at the corner of forest in Gregory Island Road, and there’s a

little detour going around it, and people can go around the site and it’s not a big deal, so police do not require it for the site work there. We would just shut the road down during construction, little detour, and that’s it. Those are my things I need from this committee as far as drawings

and what I intend to be. I don’t have time to do that right now, but I will get you all that stuff when I get back from Chicago. Thank you very much for your time. And again, I apologize for the last 6 months, but bring wires itself,

I had no idea what was going on, and doctors have been lying to me for 40 years, but people are done lying to me. People have done mistreating me autistic people are not fucking stupid, and let me tell you, I got a brain like no others. Did you

think we are, go on YouTube and uh Google autism is great to meet the woman that was born in 1940 and she talks about how artistic people. are the ones that actually run freaking California and build all the stuff. What I intend to build is wild. You think Patton made a mark on this town? You talk

about problems. I’m building a bus stop for my son now, but give me time and I’ll build a high school for this freaking town. I’m taking care of not only my son, but I’m taking care of everyone in this town. Eric, thank you so much for your, thank you so much for

your comments. Um, I will just say the process that you’ve outlined for the continuation of the project that you brought to the board will require additional, um, Interaction with perhaps the planning board, um, you know, especially as it pertains to changes to the site review. So someone here, either

Joe or or Tim or someone else will follow up with you and let you know, um, what we need to do to move that project forward, but there can’t be any votes taken, um, on anything tonight just because there is, um, you know, there, there’s a process, um, but we’ll make sure that you understand what that

process is. He’s gone. Well, bye. Um, all right. Any other public comment in the room or online. Absolutely come up Here in Stay your state your name and Where you live. Uh, my name is Don Perkins. I live at 20 Canterbrook Lane. Um, I’m a member of the Environmental Impact Committee, but I’m

speaking tonight, uh, as an individual because there’s been no formal action by the committee regarding this. I would like to speak to the opt-in specialized building code that the state has, uh, created, um. Opt in, I would like the town to opt in. Uh, we already support, um, the supplemental code. Uh, basically the only changes to

the Specializes, excuse me, specialized code. would be for new construction and major renovation. What it does is, um, It essentially we’re pre-wiring buildings, if you were building a new house, you would prewire for electric heat and electric appliances. Um, if you, if the builder were to choose to not use, to use fossil fuel appliances, for instance, they

would still have to pre-wire for electric so that the Buyer of the house, the owner of the house can subsequently change to all electric without having to spend the extra cost. Of um doing uh in building wiring. So all it it’s just a plug and play switch out of gas stove, put in an electric and that’s

the same that’s the nut of the specialized code. Um, I would like the town to adopt it, uh, 40, let me see. There are currently 4 approximately 45 because they’re towns are adopting it already as, uh, flew several of them, uh, adopted at the spring. Um, but there’s 256 with the stretch

code 45 of those have adopted the specialized code and if anybody’s. Interested, I have maps showing which building code is applicable for which town? Um, And that’s what I just like to encourage the. Slickboard, this has, I guess this has to be done with a town, a town meeting through a warrant. So I would like to

suggest to the select board that they produce a Warren article at the next town meeting to adopt a specialized code. Thanks so much. Uh, Joe can one of us will follow up, um, as far as, I mean, I think there’d probably be additional information or impact assessment that we’d want to do,

uh, because somebody will have to sponsor it going on the warrant, so we’ll follow up with next steps in terms of, um, What we as a board would want to see in order to uh endorse it being on the On the warrant for town meeting. Makes sense? Cool, thank you. All right, moving right along.

Anybody else, public comment in the room or online? All right, we will roll forward uh Corn is here to discuss appointment of election workers for our 2425 elections. Corinne, welcome. Good evening, Corin Cale, town clerk, thank you guys for having me here. Um, hard to imagine, July 15th and we’re

already into the process for the September 3rd state primary. Um, so, uh, lots of information I’ve uploaded on the clerk’s web page, so I encourage folks to go there, um, get the link to check in your voter status. The dates for early voting, the sample ballots I put up today

vote by mail postcards have been mailed from the Secretary of State’s office. We started receiving those today. So we’re, uh, we’re on our way to the September 3rd state primary. One of the things, um, by law, chapter 54 section 12 that I’m required to do with your, um, with your cooperation is to

appoint election workers, uh, uh, the period is always September 1st to August 31st. And there’s a process we must follow which we have, um, we like to stay compliant on these kinds of things. The the chairs of the town committees, the Republican and the Democratic Town Committee are required to be contacted to identify any of

their members who would like to work as poll workers. They had until June 1st to get back to um, to me, they did, um, and then July 15th and August 15th, the select board is to is to a point the, uh, the poll workers to work over that time period.

So in your packet you have the list of 46. Names of folks who have either worked in the past who have stepped forward to ask to work or have been referred from those committees. So, um, again, just trying to stay compliant with the law, and I,

I do need to bring it to you and have you, uh, make those appointments. Awesome. uh, are we taking a vote? OK uh so I will entertain an emotion to approve the appointment of the election workers for the 2024, 2025 election. So I moved 2. All right, any discussion? About the list of poll workers.

That’s been given to us. It’s a big list, good list. Do you have any trouble this year? Not really, no, we, we dig deep, a lot, you know, a lot of people work during the day, so they’re the ones who are willing to come at the end of the night to

help sort ballots and to actually do the tallying, um, but we have some, uh, at this point for me a long time daytime workers, so we’re we’re doing OK. Do we have a a preplan for feeding y’all? It’s It’s in your budget. OK. Definitely. Thank you. That’s a great thing to think about.

I just want to make sure y’all are, it’s going to be a doozy. I want to make sure y’all have food. I mean if you take a look at the sample ballots, it’s, um, there’s very few contested races on the on on in any party in fact the libertarian ballot

is completely blank. Blank, not even one name. So, um, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a quiet, quiet election in November, um, I don’t think I’ll be saying the same thing. No, no. All right, OK, uh, with that, I will take a vote all in favor all in favor is that?

Yeah, yeah. I, I have it. Thank you. Thank you, um, Okey dokey. Next is the consent agenda. There are 3 items on the consent agenda. The first is the approval of the minutes from June 17th. Uh, the approval of Patton Park for the annual ECTA 5K trail run and improving the extension of the noise ordinance at Patton

Homestead for the movie nights in August. Um, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. we approved the consent agenda. Like that Awesome. All right, any discussion? All right, all in favor. Aye. Awesome. Uh, just a quick heads up, we’re going to move into the main agenda now. We’re going to move things around

just a little bit if it’s fine for everyone. I believe we have uh the new owners of Hamilton House here, uh, as well as, um, The Larry is on the phone for the change of manager for Harrigans. So we’re gonna just go ahead and get those two

things out of the way, just so that those folks can, um, go on with their evenings, that’s OK. And then Holly will get right into you if that’s all right. Perfect. All right, uh, so first things first, welcome to the new owners of Hamilton House who are here for an

approval of the common victor’s license, uh, for, is it staying Hamilton House? Is that it’s gonna stay at the Hamilton House, um, All right, anything we need to know about this? clear Everything is clear, according to Laurie, um, So I will entertain a motion to approve the common Victor’s

license for Hamilton House of Pizza. So moved, so moved 22 from Bill Wilson. Any, any Comments, questions. We’re enthusiastic. We, we can’t wait. I my, my 10 year old needs some place to wander to with his wallet and and eat, so this is we, oh, he’ll be there.

Don’t you worry, we’re just two blocks away. Um, all right, with no further ado, all in favor. All right, perfect. Uh, you don’t have to stay. We will not be offended if you get up and walk out. Um, secondly, we have an approval of the change of manager for Harrigan’s liquor store, um, do we know,

do I need to have the details of this? Everything’s in the packet. Everyone feels good, um, so I will entertain, uh. A motion to approve the change of manager for Harrigan’s liquor store. So 2. Perfect. Uh, any discussion? Where, where’s that person? You said Larry is on Larry is, um, the owner, so.

Larry is is going to be the. Oh, Larry’s good. Oh, is this a promotion? Congratulations, Larry. Thank you. Uh, so Larry, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be the new, the new manager, manager, yes, perfect. You feel up to the task. I do. OK, as long as you feel good, we feel good. Excellent. All right, any

additional questions or concerns. Before we take a vote. All in favor. I. All right, Larry, we’ll see you there. Thank you. Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re welcome to stay, but you’re also welcome to go for pizza and pizza and liquor. What a what a deal. All right, uh, next up we have uh Holly

here uh to request the acceptance of the gift donation from the Friends of Patton Homestead along with Deb. That’s right. We have Deblan and Holly Erickson, and we have Deb Lannin here who co-wrote the grant for the Mass Cultural Council, um capital grant that we’ve been raising money for,

um, for the pavilion at the Patton Homestead. And so I’d like to introduce Deb Lannin, um, to present the funds for approval. Holly. My name is Deborah Lannin and I’m a member as Holly set of the board of Directors of the Friends of Patton Homestead as you and those listening online may

already know the mission of the Friends of Patton Homestead is to preserve history, honor veterans, and welcome community. On behalf of the entire Friends board and in keeping with our mission to welcome community to the grounds of the homestead. I’m privileged to present to the town of Hamilton this check

for $25,000 for design and construction of the new Joanne Patton Joanne Holbrook Patton Pavilion at Patton Homestead. Which will function as an open-air shelter against the elements for community groups, concerts, lectures, and private gatherings. The board would like to thank the following corporate sponsors for their generosity and helping to make this happen. Leslie Ray Insurance texture technologies,

McLean Middleton Law Firm Salem 5 Bank Patent Veteran Project and the Patent Foundation. We’d also like to thank the many individuals who donated privately to this project, both online and in person during various fundraising events, 4 of which were coordinated by Holly and 3 by the friends without the generosity of these individuals, I would not be

presenting this to you tonight. This check for $25,000 along with $50,000 from the town of Hamilton will provide the pavilion project with $75,000 with additional matching funds in the amount of $75,000 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Friends of Patton Homestead would also like to thank the select board Holly

Joe Damilovich, and the town of Hamilton for its support in this effort. The friends are excited to continue to partner with the town as the project moves forward into the design and planning stage. The Joanne Holbrook Patent Pavilion will be a lovely community asset to the property and to the town as

well as a beautiful reminder of the service of Joanne Holbrook Patton. I respectfully. Request the select board to approve the acceptance of this check. In a motion to accept the gift uh from the friends of Pat Holmstead, uh, for the purpose. Of Completing the work of the Hot patent. That motion sounds

right up your alley, Bill Wilson. I move that we accept the gift from the Pat and friends for the construction of a new pavilion. Tourists. Um, Yeah, any Holly, well done. Well done to everybody. So did you write the grant that got us the matching 75,000. The The together. That’s great. But a

good collection of people coming together to get the 150 I may add Joe and Holly Holly Holly. I knew that All right, well, congrats, uh, if there’s no further questions or comments. just for the location. And I just About it, right? I thought she meant put this on

the website. We’ll vote right now, all in favor. All right, the ayes have it. Great. Well done. Um, so Joe’s just gonna put it in his pocket. No worries. It’ll No worries. It’ll No worries. It’ll No worries. It’ll May I give him the? Yeah, OK, so we’re just gonna get a few. Oh, that’d be

great. No, no, I think you, you’re doing a great job. Well done. That’s awesome. a lot All right, um the next, gosh, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear about it. Uh, the next item on the agenda is the uh the approval of the fees

and interest rate for the septic loan program. Um, I have the background on this. So as you know, we approved the program, uh, and since then there’s been a lot of back and forth around what, whether or not we would charge an application fee and what the interest rate would be, um, and

the Board of Health and David specifically We have done a lot more deep dive and essentially the proposal that we’re making is that we charge an application fee of $250 and we settle on an interest rate of 4%. The term is 20 years. Uh, the reason is because, uh, there are fees associated with

um Like administrative fees associated with the program that go through the state and it’s about $500 per application about. Um, and so the idea is that the $250 will cover part of that fee and then the 4% over the the course of the loan will obviously make back um the fees that we owe to the state

plus cover any administrative costs that we incur in the town, whether it’s, you know, the town’s time, energies and efforts to to manage the program itself. Um, we did pull a list of other towns, um, that have the program. I think the interest rates run between 2 and 6% is what we polled, um,

and some of them are older programs that tend to have lower the newer programs obviously have sort of higher rates, um, and then the Fees range from $0 up to I think we saw some fees that were, you know,,, $500 which was just a direct path through cost, I assume. Um, so this, this felt

right to us the $250 application fee. I think you have to be taking it seriously to file the fee, but it’s not, um, you know. An absorbitant fee. It’s not outside of the norm for what other folks are charging and then the 4% should more than cover our costs, um, as well as the fees that we

incur by the state. Any questions? Concerns I had questions about how it compounds. Do you have? OK, I don’t know. I mean, I assume that’s up to us, but we should. We should figure that out so we just went to town meeting with these the numbers 4% and was there an application fee? There

wasn’t we didn’t put it, it was just the approval of the the program itself we didn’t talk about an interest rate. I think it was left open so that the board and the, uh, Board of Health could determine what the uh what the appropriate amount would be the, um. I think the discussion at the time with

John, you can tell me I’m wrong was that um. Once you had more uh definition around what the cost might be to the town, that would be the right time to set what the fees would be. Yep. OK. So if this feels right, um. I would entertain emotion to

approve the $250 fee and the 4.5% interest rate for the septic loan program. 4 is just 44%, not 4. Sorry, 4%. Did I say 4.5 I didn’t mean 4.5. I couldn’t read my own handwriting. With inflation, what it is, you have, it’s at the moment that you approve it is what we get. So it’s, uh,

yeah, 250 fee, 4% interest, um. If somebody wants to make a motion and we can discuss it further. I make a motion that we approve the, um, septic program, um, fee and interest rate. Yeah For a second I Does this feel right to folks? Is there any questions? No, we

just can’t yeah, we, we have to like finalize the program, which is what this is so that when folks will add it to the website, um, it is by understanding the board of health discussed this and voted to make this recommendation in terms of like the max minimum max you can borrow and how much

you can put up I mean is that all we’re not talking we’re not talking Yeah, it’s all the work with the with the state so we’ll be able to get the money in to be able to start everything else, my understanding is you can. The regulations the interest rate to 2% a year from now you can

just Yep. So I think So I think And a question I have is that, um, can people, it says it’s 20 years max, can people just pay it off sooner and avoid any further interest or how, how is that working? Yep. OK. And then I think it’s also, again, this

is the part that the Board of Health and the Fincom have been doing, but I think it’s also If you sell your house and leave Hamilton, you have to pay, you have to pay off the loan before you leave the town. A lean on the on the uh deed, yep, OK. That’s it’s residential only.

It is not for commercial users. So So does this money sitting sit in a town account or? Yeah, the, the money will be received by the time they’re put into a separate special account that the treasurer will, will manage it can only be used in support of the program, right. I think

it’s $500,000 was the initial ask for the program, which is what we opened the account for, um, and then depending on the popularity of the program, um, we can, as, uh, John said we can revisit it. From time to time. Yes, did we have a public comment? Sean Farrell, 15 Hamilton Ave just wanted to

comment about the everything was ironed out beforehand besides the rate and the fee because then town meeting approved it. If it approved the rate and the feed have to go back to town meeting, so this allows your board. To shift as things change without going back to town meeting.

And typically the select board does set fees in uh for all things in town, so it it keeps consistency with the way things are normally set. Cool. So I think your current assessment’s good, and I think if you have to revisit it in a year people aren’t have common, you can change it so it’s a good

starting point we also wanted it to be competitive with what would be available in the market. I mean, because part of the assumption is that you, you cannot get a personal loan would have a much much, much, much higher interest rate, even a home equity loan or a line of credit would have, even if it

had an arm or a variable, it would be considerably higher, so we wanted it to be accessible. Joe Stephen McWhorter, a Cunningham Drive, uh, very well. Explained, I think I heard cause we did go to the health meeting, um, just for the citizens. For somebody single and then maybe a couple

this kind of like a threshold of like what your income is just so they somebody could understand like if they even qualify. I don’t even think there is a there isn’t an income qualification. It’s for anybody OK who owns any resident, anybody that step into this house has a septic

system that fails, they could apply to this they could apply to this. There’s no uh equity requirement. Good to know then and I, I think you, Joseph, you just said the, the key thing. I think I heard they said you have to have a a failed certificate. You have to fail.

You have to fail. It isn’t for maintenance or or upgrades. It’s for like Title 5 failures. Right, yeah. That’s a good program. It’s an excellent program. All right, uh, I will take a vote then, all in favor. I, I. The eyes have it unanimously. Um, all right,

y’all, it is that time of year we received an email from our good friend Tim. Hm Tim is he’s single-handedly responsible for global warming that’s caused the water restrictions. Uh, but there is low flow in the Ipswich River, um, and so it’s time for us to take a look at the enhanced summer water

restrictions, um, and how we can, uh, do our part to mitigate. Uh, so Tim, I’m gonna let you talk about what it is that’s being asked, and then we will be asked to take a vote to approve said water restrictions. Tim Olson, DPW director, I, this time of year, you’re right,

it’s, uh, we haven’t got a lot of rain and the river levels are decreasing. Uh, typically what we do, we have a seasonal, um, band that prohibits sprinklers from 8 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. That’s current, uh, that’s every year depending on how much it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter how much rain we get.

That’s something in our permit that we have to abide by. Uh, once we see levels of the river start to decrease, uh, what I’m asking tonight is to increase the band one level to prohibit sprinklers, uh. Throughout the day, uh, so no nighttime watering, um, what I do if there are people that have

lawns that they’re trying to establish if they’ve done a landscaping project. Um, trying to establish a new lawn. I asked for those people to call in and tell me what their plan is. We can work together. I’ve done that in the past to allow it’s not to prevent, um, Uh, growth of a lawn, it’s

basically if you have a lush green lawn, um, it’s, it’s in good shape. There’s no need to water it, oh. That seems to oh there we go. Might be uh Food you just want to sleep, but we’re still connected to right so this that’s what it’s for. I mean, if there’s certain instances that I need to look

at, uh, on a case by case basis, I will do that, uh, but this is, uh, to increase the restrictions to prevent or prohibit the use of lawn sprinklers. For healthy, uh, green lawns. Mhm. How does this affect things like? People filling their pools and things like that. I don’t get into

pools, uh, this is more like I said, if we drive by and there’s a lawn that’s green and lush, we asked, we, we ask, we, we send a letter. It’s, we’re not really, we we’re trying to educate them. uh, they may not know that there is a ban.

They may not know what the town uh bylaws, so we try to educate them with a letter, um. We try to get and that usually works, uh, some people that do continue to use we’ll send a second notice. And then go from there, but I haven’t had to

really get too far in. I think it’s more of just an educating of where we are with uh current water conditions in the river and what level of band we are at at that time, so you say one step. Go from, but is there a half a step? So a lot of money

and a big investment in there. It’s they’re bored landscape to board them, so we’re just going to tell them to shut it completely off. Yeah, I mean, it’s a tough thing to tell somebody who’s invested a lot in there. It is um, but it’s, it’s something that we have a

permit that we have to abide by the conservation bylaw that we have, uh, what we do what we run off the river the triggers at the Willow Dam, um, gets below a certain threshold for multiple days and that’s where this comes from, uh, so the, we have, um. We have a water withdrawal regi registry

registration that every community pretty much has. We also have a permit. Uh, our permit guidelines are more restrictive and supersede the registration guidelines so we have to abide by the permit that we currently have, um. Like I said, case by case, some people, they have a nice lawn they’re establishing a new piece of lawn. They have maybe

different zones. I asked them to maybe try to use those zones and not the other zones. I, I tried to get them to understand how much water they’re using and if there’s certain periods of time that they could water, um, so I try to work with them

and I try not to get too involved with it, but, uh. Educate them that maybe there’s alternatives that they can, uh. Think about so my question is, There’s a lot riding on the assumption that the reason that we’re wasting water as lawns. Uh And that’s the, I think what I’m trying and maybe it’s

because it’s a one for one with the conservation bylaw, but I’m like, that doesn’t actually make sense to me that the, the biggest place we’re wasting water is lawns. So a lot of it, the reason the first the seasonal ban, the reason it’s 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. is because of evaporation, uh, right, so they

want, they’re trying to force people to, to, if you’re gonna walk along, do it at night, uh, makes sense. That’s what I do, um, you know, water at dusk or dawn, you know. And uh we also have issues with our water plan as we’re well aware of, um,

producing a lot of water, uh, for maybe not the best. Use of water. Uh, so we only have a certain amount of water. Our wells are old. We have runtime this time of year, our plant sometimes doesn’t shut down for 34 days, sometimes more. Uh, so

that’s taxing our wells that my job is to try to. Uh, keep the health of the sources and keep the health of the water plant, the processes, uh, the, the equipment, um, and this to me is just the next step, um, in the ask of trying to conserve

where you can and where it’s maybe more of a luxury than a necessity, um, maybe that’s how I look at it. Um, obviously there are people that are trying to establish new laws, um, and, uh, there’s companies, there’s landscapers, things like that that. They pay a lot of money for. I’m willing to

work with them, um, but if you have a lush green lawn and it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and it’s 95 degrees out, um, and there’s sprinklers going that to me doesn’t, that kind of defeats the purpose, um, and maybe it’s not the best time to

do that and maybe not the best use of water, um, since it is a precious commodity in town I mean it’s a tough situation, right? I’m just trying to think about, you know, it’s I mean because what we did, we did a one month water. And right now, right? And you just full watering of 1 100% right,

you’re saying is what you’re recommending, right? Yeah, so it’s not, no, I mean you can water um gardens, uh, if you have a uh flowers but no lawns lawns, that’s what I’m, yes, that’s the next level of 100% ban on water and established laws, right? Automatic sprinkler irrigation system for

how long? Until we have better health in the river, so we so we here so it’s a mandated thing. They, they, they actually as a why we required to do it or it’s a choice or it’s a best practice or. I just want, I mean, I’m gonna get asked these questions here, right? So it’s not really a

choice if we don’t do it, uh, we risk getting fined by the DP, so that’s I mean it’s good to know that, right, and what about you talk about wells because people think they have their own wells and they can water there’s still still still still part of the same is right behind you is is what we

currently have on the books, uh, that’s from the bylaw. It says it does include private wells as well. It’s the same aquifer, um, same principles. Um, Yeah, it’s, it’s one of those. It’s uh it’s conservation, uh, we in Hamilton, especially we have limited water sources, uh, very, very susceptible to drought, um.

And our infrastructure is fairly old and um not very robust, so it’s one of those if we can and we run into this every year, chances are we usually, we have a seasonal ban every year and most years we go to the next level and then I

think 2 years ago we went to actually another level and, uh, banning non, like no, uh, non-essential water. Uh, so you’re allowed to use a hose on your garden, but other than that, There’s really not a lot of other watering going on, so how, how in real time do you get feedback that we’re.

Actually accomplishing something. Uh, so I get to see uh the biggest test would be what we’re producing at the plant. Uh, if we can get reduction in our, uh, gallons per day. Uh, that’s huge, uh, if we can get, um, our reservoirs to to uh up at Browns Hill to fill up and stay

at a certain level, we get plant shutdowns so we get run times that are lower or sometimes off, uh, the health of the plant, the health of the the wells to now uh not produced for maybe 67 hours sometimes. So that’s how I see it. Uh, right now we’re running 24/7. Um, limited water that

we’ve had, the limited rain, uh, it’s not a great scenario to be in. Just trying to be proactive, trying to look at it, and so, um, prevent, uh, Failure, so. You know, I think you’re asking all good questions. I mean, because I get asked about it as well and because we were kind

of going from the seasonal, so we shouldn’t have the 2 o’clock in the afternoon 95 degree day system on, but we’re going straight to nothing, right? There’s not like an odd day or twice a week, no middle step, I think is where you were kind of go and that is a first step and

then the second step would be I mean we can look at the, we can look at what we currently have in the bylaw. We asked, I mean, the state’s been big in the drought planning, uh, recently as well. Um, but we’re limited on what we currently have in

the bylaws as well as the permit regs that we have, so, um, we can definitely look at maybe there are different levels that we can hit and or maybe uh revisit what the state has and maybe mirror that a little bit edged sword, right, so it’s but you’d be surprised at how many people actually I

go around and it’s because they’re on automatic sprinklers, so they, they don’t address just to the, I mean, some of them have the um. The the heads, the, the, the irrigation heads that are moisture controlled, but. Some aren’t some. But I see here we people can still do hand watering. Mhm. It’s not to

prevent any type of agricultural uh livestock, that is all still acceptable use, um, gardening, uh, vegetables, that’s completely, uh, my tomatoes and I was doing it under cover of darkness. I was so terrified. I’m trying I’m trying I’m trying and like I said, I’m just asking for, it’s,

it’s a hard, I get it, it’s a hard concept. It’s, it’s something that it’s people’s private property. Um, I’m just asking for cooperation, participation for the common good. No, I have, I mean. And we can take this up another time. Like I think my challenge is more like if, if the goal is

that we have to find a way to meaningfully reduce water. Like, I think we’re all a little bit scarred from last year after we did all this water stuff and then there was a water abatement for 340,000 gallons of water that had leaked, you know, 30 swimming pools worth of water that leaked over off

rock Mabel and it’s like we were all watering our plants under cover of darkness, and there were. 30 Olympic swimming pools worth of water that were leaking out of a pipe. And similarly, like I walk by water birthday parties and slip and slides and all stuff which, which is people should be able

to do that. But it feels like a band-aid for a bullet wound when we say like, it’s the lawns. I’m just not convinced that in our town like. Myopia is still watering their lawns, no pro they’re exemption permit. Yeah, they’re on their own and so it’s like there’s a bigger

question here, like happy to do this, to do our part, but like. This feels like, you know, like it just feels insufficient if the actual issue is that we’re in a water crisis. We’re targeting people who Yeah, meanwhile, like I have, yeah, but meanwhile I have good friends who have, you know,

freshwater pools that it’s evaporating and they’re refilling them once a week and it’s like, well, that’s really difficult, but I’m had a dead grass and dead hydrangeas, but we’re filling up pools all the time. So like I think there is a bigger question here of like, what is the goal and what are

the, the means to get there. But I realized that that’s not the question here, but it’s, it’s difficult to say. You know, This is what’s going to turn us around. What have we seen in the past like last year we did it, correct? Did we see don’t think we got to a last year, I

think it was just seasonal last year. I think it was 2 years ago 2 years ago and we went actually kind of if you want to think about level 3 last year, or 2 years ago 1 or 2 right now. We’re at 1 right now. One is the seasonal and we’re asking

to go to 2, OK, that’s this would be the half step. Yeah. Three is when the colors get darker. Yeah, and I, and I think it’s, it’s also, I mean, speaking about, you know, the pools and things like that. I think it’s, it’s, it’s not easy to. Um, calculate or think about how much water is

actually being used. Pools easy. It means volume, right? But your lawn sprinklers depending on gallons per minute, how, what the run time is, things like that. It’s, that does add up and you can see it. I mean, I can see it in water bills coming into the town. I know

who’s watering. I know because of the size of the bills that and the use that we’re getting, um, compared to the normal. Well, no, compared to the normal use, right? So you have an idea that OK, they’re they’re using water. Besides domestic. Yes so uh show teenagers the messages that’s right, it’s not like it’s not a.

It’s not that we’re considered we have to do it like we’ll be like we’re in business right now we have to do something or else we will get fined. Yeah, we, we have to do something DP’s gonna, right, so this is the first step of trying to get

it right sized, so it makes sense to say this is the first step, but I’d rather give it like a duration then have come back and you’re actually making a meaningful difference. Right, so can I ask, I mean. Typically we, I wait for you as water commissioners to make that, uh, call. Does it make sense to

work with the town manager, um, and not wait a few weeks. Uh, that’s, that’s the biggest thing for me is if we get it, I could get 3 days of a drought trigger in the in the in the river, and now I’ve got to wait another week and a half before

I can even talk to you. So I’m saying we would, you know, we could approve the ban tonight, but with the with the. With the date that you come back to us and. Say it’s working, let’s renew it, rather than just leave it, rather than just

leave it, can we get a report on on the August 19th. Yeah, I mean, it’s, and it will be evident with if we get moisture too, uh, so I mean I get drought, uh, I get the, the levels on my phone and emails as soon as it goes below the

threshold every, every day I get an update. So I know kind of where that the river is obviously much rain we had in the last month. You probably know that too. I’d have to look, but I know, I mean, I use the 52, like a discharge level like a 52.5 cubic feet per second.

And right now, I think it’s at 16. It’s been down for a while, um, and And, you know, like I said, you can go on the mass DEP website and we’re technically not in a drought condition, but that’s based on a registration and our permit, we have tighter. Tighter, uh, uh requirement that insist they

never know anything, but suddenly the whole town’s going to know about the water ban like how many, yeah, I mean, I, I, I does feel a little bit of lip service too because. Yeah. Oh, Michael Madden, I see you have a comment. Would you like

to? Come off mute. Hi and thank you for allowing me to ask the question. I just want to go back to an earlier comment I think was you have brought up. Just curious, why does myopia Hunt Club have an exemption on this I believe they’re exempted, they have their own uh

withdrawal permit from the state. well that was granted to them by DP. 100 years ago or whatever and they have their own, therefore they have their own withdrawal um uh registration and withdrawal permit and So they, they have their own rules, a lot of, I believe a lot of golf courses

have their own permit and things for drawing water. Can, can we revisit this and um update that. Update Update what so the the what we’re asking tonight is to comply with our registration or our permit rather with TEP um, we could update the local bylaw, but if the EP still tells us through

the permit that they need us to make an adjustment here and then we’re still gonna have to try to comply with that. So I’m asking is can we revisit that as to why myopia and other people are exempt from it, but we have we have nothing to do

with my, we have nothing to do with my opus permit. That’s between my In the state, I mean, we could write a letter to the state saying we don’t think it’s fair, but Well, I guess then that’s what I’m asking them. I, I mean, certainly we could write, I mean, I think.

Anything that takes a large draw. From our water that’s in our town can, I mean, is a concern of ours, and I think there is. Certainly we could in some way investigate that. But as far as whether we control their permit or have any say or governance over their department, the answer is no.

That’s between them and the state, and we would have to be. Oh, absolutely, yes, I totally understand that, yes. Um I guess I’m asking then if we could write a letter to the state. I mean, if you, Michael would like to take that on as a citizen’s agenda, certainly, I think we’d want to understand,

uh, impact usage. There have to be some sort of data draw on where we would get that data and how we would do it. I think, you know, I’m certainly open to Somebody taking that on, um, I don’t want to speak for the board, but I think with

everything else on our plate, I don’t know that there’s going to be, I will say that I believe the watershed has, has taken this message to the state multiple times in the past and they if they have their own withdrawal, I mean, I mean if you just think about all of the country clubs and private clubs

that are pulling from the Ipswich watershed. I mean that in and of itself is a bigger conversation, um. Cause you know, there’s a lot of green space, there’s a lot of golf courses and they’re all being watered to keep them blush and green all year round, the difference is, is we have

infrastructure that we need to keep healthy, to provide water for the town, uh, they’re just watering a golf course. They’re pulling water out of a a well of watering. I have to a process to treat the water and then to deliver the water. So I need to have the water to treat.

And that’s where a lot of this is coming from. On the river starts getting lower, we start seeing evidence of the, the plant working a little harder so we don’t have the a plant that can work hard, uh, we, we’ve known that, um. So I’m just trying to prevent. A couple of different things

going on here, so. Maybe we need some more rainbows. Reds next year. All right, in the interest of uh moving us along because our meatiest topic is still to come, um. I would love for us to, did we already make? No. Would somebody like to make a motion what do you, what do

we call a stage, stage 2 water um restrictions. Thank you for for 30 days. To make a motion of the water, uh, uh. What have been on all lawn watering for 30 days until we evaluate whether it’s making a difference and if not, we’ll have to enact other programs reevaluate, so 30 day. Did you

get that? OK, you have a second, I’m looking for Rosie, uh. Any further comment. Now it’s a good question though. Yeah Yeah spot, but we just wanna. Take baby steps to figure out how we can solve it. I’m the poster child. My lung looks like shit. You’re welcome You’re welcome.

I do welcome. I do not. I do not have. You’re welcome. I look like I make drugs for living in my house. Um, all right, all in favor. I. There you go. Thank you, Tim. We always give you such a razzle-dazzle time. Doesn’t Tim have more? Uh, yes, but first we do have an item to review

the report and recommendations of the Central Transportation Planning Services, um, for reasons. You want me to answer? Multiple, well, yeah, we’re we’re gonna ask that maybe somebody. Uh, table this topic, um. So To myself, Tim and myself and some folks from Ipswich and some residents from, um, Goodhue were on a call with the Central Transportation

Planning Service. They have, uh, kind of completed their work. They gave us a presentation. That presentation is in your packets. They gave us a draft report, but they have not yet finalized that report. They don’t want us to release the report publicly. So for that reason, I’d ask if we could table this to the August 5th

meeting. I’ve spoken, I’ve exchanged emails this afternoon with the neighbors and they’re OK with that. Uh, they’re a little frustrated that CTPS didn’t finish, but they’re, they’re understanding and um. They’d rather we just take it up and we can actually have you all take a vote on something. Didn’t we technically release it publicly since it’s in our

agenda? It says draft all over, I move that we table the recommendation from the Central Transportation Planning. board uh regarding Goodhue and Highland Street traffic. According to this board, you don’t even have to make a motion. You can just say the word out loud. It’s like, it’s

like Bloody Mary. Yep, there you go. That was a good report. I had questions on those, so I just send them to you? Sure, send them to me and we can try to get them answered in for the August 5th meeting but if you can send them to me, we’ll try

to have answers for them by the might of meeting on the 5th, so. I have a couple of things about this as well. I, I, I can tell you after reading this lengthy report. All you have to do is drive down that intersection of Good Vie going on to Highland

and you know what the solution is and they came to it amazingly amazingly it just supported what we all thought was the right thing to do anyway, which is great, but there’s another issue. It’s tabled. Yeah. OK. Yeah. All right we can we can have this discussion. I hear what you

have we already tabled it. We already tabled it. We’re having the discussion later, everyone, because we want to make sure that the residents are here and we already, I think they agreed that we weren’t going to talk about it and didn’t come, so I don’t want to be unfair to them.

Oh, you came. I’m so sorry I thought I had everybody on the email list when I exchanged. I was Mike and the Chamberlains and I thought everybody was on that list. I’m sorry. I did get the memo from you. I responded to you. I’m Nancy Baker and um

come up to the I wasn’t sure that well now I’m exhausted. After sitting here so long. I’m so sorry my comments then. But you are welcome to since you came out. Yeah, you’re welcome to come up if you want to just make some public comment, we

can write it down here so that we have it for the next conversation. Did you read the will you come up to the podium just so that folks. I can hear you and just state your name and address. Yeah, it’s my bedtime. I’m so sorry. That’s OK. Um, my name is Nancy Baker.

I’m on Good Hue Street, and I appreciate, uh, the time to. To talk to you, we came in the winter, um, I remember meeting a number of the selectmen then and we’d hoped by February that we would have seen the report. So it’s been a long haul and some of my comments relate to

that. Um, they’re basically 3 problems there, and they looked at two of them. They looked at the traffic counts and they looked at, um, The speeding. But I think there’s a third problem that neither the traffic count. Can pick up nor the speeding can pick up. And I,

I do want to point out that speeding was pretty extensive before I get into it. 66% of the traffic was speeding and the northbound direction and 58% was speeding in the southbound direction. So we can bear that out as we struggle every time I go out to pick up my mail, my husband looks at me

and says, be careful, and that’s just to cross the street. But the third problem I think is something that hasn’t picked up, and that’s the conflicts. And we’ve got the two-way traffic. We’ve got a number of truck traffics that use that as a cut-through. And they’re not small trough, they’re 18 wheelers. And when you get a

vehicle and a truck on that road is very narrow. It’s not too windy, so that’s why people feel comfortable speeding, but it’s narrow enough that people will actually pull into our driveway to try and pass. And that’s not the only conflict. We see a lot of bicycle traffic coming through there and we

have horseback and a lot of um horse trailers because they use the schooling fields around the corner on Walding Field, and there’s also a barn there. So we get a lot of that kind of traffic. And I think the problem that they don’t pick up with the conflict is really important. And that’s why I I

would hope that you would consider again the one-way trip because I feel that that’s the one solution that wasn’t looked at. It’s not, it would be cost effective, wouldn’t take much. You just need a sign, good signage there. And it could be done fairly quickly. We wouldn’t be waiting another

year for a long term solution that might include the striping, which is very nice, looks really pretty in the plants, but you know as well as I do that that striping needs to be repainted. It’s gonna be costly. We’re gonna have to revisit this maybe 5 to 10 years from

now. So I’m looking for a cost-effective solution for the town that can be done quickly. I think one way is worth reconsideration and in fact they excluded it based on two things, and that was based on the speed and the count, and they said that based on those

two factors alone. They threw it out and I did ask, um, in my comment to to Mr. Demelowitz this afternoon whether the longer term, the final report had addressed it in any more detail than that and um the answer back I got, which I appreciate was no, it really didn’t have that information so

that’s why I came out tonight. I felt that there wasn’t anything new to be learned. So thank you. Thank Thank Thank early in the agenda next time, we’ll put it at the top of the next agenda so that you don’t have to sit through so much.

That’s OK. I’m so sorry so Nancy, I, I, I will just add that I frequent that area. My horse is over and oh my is is over at Waldenfield and I too noticed ginormous trucks flying down that 18 ft wide road. There are no sidewalks there. Bikers, horseback riders, walkers, and yeah, it’s very

treacherous, so. Um, I will speak for myself, but certainly we’ll do everything we can to support reasonable limitations on on that road, so, well, I was really impressed with the effort that was made, um, in the first meeting that I think it was, was it Bill Olson? Were you the one that had driven it

and done the video of the street and so I was really impressed with the effort that was put in for that. mean so thank you very much for thank you drove the street if I drove the street if I the street if I remember I drove drove the

street if I remember I drove you you drive it every Yeah, I also have to imagine, well, I’ll text you, I’ll email you about it later. Um, OK, next we have a report from the illustrious Tim Olson regarding the town hall project and the recent opening of construction bids. All good news I’ve heard

it’s good news. So the good news is we got 4 bids. Woo. Everybody take a moment to be excited about that because what comes next We uh. The issue we have is that they’re quite a bit higher than what we thought. So we gets us back to um in 2020 we bid the project out and

it was about $5.5 million.05. I think 5.7, 5.8 was the. The low bid, um, they accepted a little bit, um. This time the little bit is 7.4 million, so looking at the math, it’s about a 30% increase, which is right around what we’ve seen in the construction accurate, right, because it’s an increase over.

A reduced scope. Right, right. So, so what our intentions when that’s what I was going to get at. Well our intentions were was to reduce some of the project by including this energy management, um, part of the project and to reduce the cost and to try to get it

around the same price. That was the idea, uh, knowing that market was up we thought taking out some of the work we would get around the same, uh, price for the project that that didn’t happen, um, sub bids We received, there’s about 15-16 sub bids on this project. Uh, they were quite a bit higher

this time, um, HVAC, um, the elevator. Um, actually, I think even waterproofing was high uh compared to what we’ve seen in 2020. So obviously when you get the GC bids coming in, they carry a number for GC work, but they’re also carrying the costs on top of the sub bids because they manage them. So, uh, it

kind of exponentially grew from there and we’re into the, like I said, the little bit of a 7.4, um. 4 years later and uh with the somewhat of a reduced scope, um. That was the intent. highest was 94. We had 4 bids and 9 yeah 749497 and 101.

And how many of them were the same fitters from. I believe um. 22 or 3 were the same. So the low bid was bitter, uh, last time. Was it bitter, yep. They low last time? No. They were the only ones that had to, had to be honest about the

differential. In the scope. So uh the, the crux of this crux of this is that it, at current, uh, with the money that we have available for the project and what the bid is plus having the proper amount of contingency. We need about $2000. Uh, Wendy can come up. She, you got a

memo late today we just we were crunching numbers trying to figure it out, um. When you can come up and and expound upon that or speak to the memo that was on your desks in front of you uh tonight and in your uh email earlier, um. So the, the

Wendy’s memo kind of lays out what some of our options are, but, um. Before, before she goes to numbers, I’ll just say it will require you to have a special time meeting and ask uh time meeting. We do think that we can do it without a vote of

a ballot question vote and an override, but um. We can’t do it without a voted tummy. So we’d need to have a special time meeting sometime this fall and in order for this project to continue, we need to have a special time meeting sometime this fall. Um, as quickly as a turnaround as possible and.

There’ll be a couple of different ways that we could put it before time meeting that’ll be up to the board and Fincom and Capcom and CPC and everybody else at once a year but just a quick question before we get into that. uh, you mentioned sub costs, um, the elevator materials were

they up 30% too, or is that? So, yeah, I mean, it’s pretty much across the board the sub. I don’t know exactly how, how much, uh, the sub bid was like the breakdown in that price, um, but I mean, an elevator is pretty much the material cost.

And that was a, uh, that was a double from what we had last time, so. And was there You you mentioned reduced cost. Is there an effort to maybe to close that 2 million gap or look at scope. So we’ve, we’ve, we have stripped that down, uh,

my concern is that we’re going to do. We’re not going to get the project we really need. Uh, we’ve, we’re battling that at some other buildings in town, uh, that continuing to continue to be headaches, uh, and costly and much more cost than. When it was constructed, um, so it’s, it’s uh something that we

looked at the from 2020 we reduced it, um, but it seems like we reduced the the project, but now it’s even, it’s as expensive or more expensive, uh, for. Um, for not as much project so if we keep kicking the can down the road, I mean, that’s, that’s the way we’re.

Every product is, you know, you defer it more problems with the building, um, as, as we defer, there’s more, uh, wood rot on the outside, uh, there’s more issues with an aging building and we’re just, it’s not that we don’t need to do the project.

It’s not that it’s be great if we can do it. It’s we need, it’s, it’s a necessity. It’s, it’s something we need to have, uh, put back together and, and, uh, structurally, um, there’s some structural issues, there’s issues, there’s fire suppression issues. I mean, the, the building is a wood

structure. It’s a balloon construction, um. It’s not a great environment for 21st century town. Government so All right. I mean mean if I’m sorry, just to respond to if I mean if the board asks us to go back and try and, and reshape the project again that’s more time that’s more time with the

consultants to figure out what to pair out, how to bring it down, rebid it, and there’s no guarantee that we’re gonna get a bid that’s still gonna get in under our 6.5. We’re just gonna take, you know, another 3 to 6 months to get the project reworked again. Yeah, no, it’s just not a small, a small

number, right? I didn’t know if there was a phased approach or a scope or anything just, but it sounds like. You know, it’s cost of waiting right now a lot of if you break the project down into the elements of the project, they all kind of work

with each other. They’re all kind of, we should do it all at the same time because if we, we, we do we phase it, then we’re almost kind of back. Kind of stepping on each other, I guess if you want to look at it that way, it’s, it’s, it makes sense

to do all at one time with the phases and the and the items that we have in the project, um. You know, and like I said, if we don’t do some things, they’re going to continue to grow into more of issue and and larger projects. So, got it. I mean, I think this is these are

our options, huh. Yeah, I mean, I think this also is a sort of representative of the larger issue and we’re having with. As Tim said, other buildings in town, I think we’ve started having conversations about the cost of the schools and are those those estimates right? Like, not only are they You know, when, when people feel

like the estimations are inflated. I think what we’re seeing here is they’re not inflated. Like these construction costs are. Very, very, very, very high. Yeah. And this is just such a small like. It’s not, it’s not that you’re not gonna walk into like a revitalized town hall when

this is over. You’re, I mean, there’ll be many things you don’t notice at all, it’s the bones. Yeah So we need $2000. You are going to give it to us. You just have it in your car, in a suitcases in a suitcases in a suitcases in Joe’s pocket, a heart in a suitcases in Joe’s

pocket, a heart, where’s that? Can we So we kind of brainstormed to kind of see, you know, what kind of funds we have available right now. So currently, um, certified available free cash. We have about 500,000. We would not get a recertification until the end of September to know if we would have any more. So it’s

not current information that we even can consider. Uh, we did talk about the potential to reduce the free cash reserve from the 5% to 3% on a temporary basis because DLS guidance speaks to best. Practice between 3 and 5, so that would seem acceptable. However, we’d be backpedaling to kind of try to fill that

again. Uh, that would create a $1.2 million available certified free cash. In the, in the moment. Um, then we have ARPA funds unobligated funds of 346,000 which need to be obligated by, um, December 31st this year. So, uh, we, we could utilize those funds. We could also take 350,000 of ARR

funding, 250 of which is sidewalk repairs and 100 for Patton Park Improvements and reallocate that to this project, uh, creating another $696,000. Or then we could take, um, the option of bonding. So we looked at two different. 1.5 million and 2 million to see what it would, how it would affect our operating costs. So 1.5 million

would be approximately $135,000 a year of operating expenses. And of course, that’s based on 4%, which is not set in stone. So, uh, there could be some wiggle room there and $2000 bond would be about $180,000 of operating cost, uh, maybe a little bit too much. So based on the facts that we have and

um and we also looked at the Capitol uh reserve, um, I’m sorry, the reserve. And we’re already behind there so we can’t, we can’t go into that. So based on the current facts that we have. I don’t personally think that’s a good idea to deplete our free cash all the way because there’s gonna be other projects that

we’re gonna need. So I think it would be in the best interest to go for the $1.5 million dollar bond and then and utilize the unobligated unobligated AA funds of $346,000 and then potentially reduce the opera sidewalk repairs to to 100,000, um, reduced by 100,000 so that Tim

still has money to do his projects, but, um, maybe those get phased out. So what’s, sorry, what’s the total in that scenario, what’s the total ARPA? The total opera would be $446,000 446 540, that would be the total opera usage. $1.5 million bond what you get your

1.99 10 year bond. This would be a 20 year bond. Dumbledore Have you looked at this? No. OK. Right. Oh sorry, what’s the, what’s the yearly? So it’d be 1.5 million would be $135,000 a year at 4% interest rate, which is not set in stone, and it would decrease by approximately

3000 a year, so it would continuously decrease, uh, for 20 years. Can you talk a little bit about, um, um, decreasing their free cash from 5 to 3% on a temporary basis. What do you mean by that? the policy says that we need to keep 5% of, um, of the prior years total operating budget in free cash.

Well, that’s recommended, right? So that’s the that’s that’s our current policy, yes, DLS guidelines say between 3 and 3 and 5, right. is 5%. That’s OK, so how, what do you mean by temporarily? So the board would have to take a vote to, to change the policy to say that

you want to bring it to 3% on a temporary basis and we could determine what that temporary basis is. You could do a timeline of 1 year, 3 years. You know, in order to, um, get it back to the 5% reserve that we want it to be at. And I just remember that it wasn’t fair,

it hasn’t been a whole lot of time since we’ve had this free cash at this 5% level and while it’s a great thing. We did without the 5% for a a long time, so I’m well, I’m, I’m just thinking that it hasn’t been in place for like a a really long time. It was 2018.

0 yeah, and, and Rose, you’re absolutely right. I mean, if the board want to discuss that and get input from Fincom, I would say though one of the reasons to keep it at 5% and have that financial policy the way it is, it really helps us with our broad rating. So having the 5% is a very good

thing. It is a very good thing even though DLS allows it recommends best practice between 3 and 5 being at the upper end of that is actually good for us. It makes it less expensive for us to borrow money for it. Yeah, and right now the the What’s in our or certified free cash is at that

5% threshold. We have 500,000 remaining at the 5%, yes, after the 5%. OK, yes, we do. So you could take like 100,000 from it. We could take the 5. Well, I just, but the 5% is already in there, the 500 is left over from the 5% result there’s that

that’s what’s left. That’s what’s left. Got it, got it. So a town meeting vote as well so part of the, part of the recommendation from Wendy and you know, I kind of concur is that we’re trying to make it as. seamless as possible. Get what we can in one vote if we can,

we could do 450 ARPA 500,000 free cash and bond 1 million. We could. OK, we could consider many options. I mean, I shouldn’t be the one ballot vote. Bond requires the passage of town meeting of two-thirds, uh, taking free cash only requires a 50% plus 1. Debt exclusion Yeah, we know what $1

million costs on a bond. It’s a two-thirds vote, it’s a two-thirds vote required uh join for the, uh. Not we’re not, we’re not recommending it to, you know, so just so you can understand the, the proposal here would be to get permission from a special time meeting to bond, that wouldn’t hit us

until FY 26. We haven’t even started that budget process yet. We would just have to assume that that that that service payment in our FY 26 budgeting what what what’s what’s sustainable building. You’re gonna save on utility costs. Well, for the 1st 20 years the sustainable building the

utility costs are going to pay off the money that we’re borrowing to do the sustainable building parts. So I mean that that’s, that’s money spoken for project goes forward. If we get the bond to 1 million per Caroline’s kind of suggestion, would that bring us below $100,000 a year. I mean, I’m

thinking right around 100,000 if, if I’m looking at, you know, the math of the 2 million, but I can, I can find out from Hilltop. Yeah, I can find out, right. Yeah So Tim, I have a question for you, um, I know that there is some, there are

some projects slated for the AA money. Could you, are, are those things that really need to be done or could, could. In some perfect world, the APA money go to the town hall project. I mean, it’s projects need to get done. Um, I would say if you’re gonna ask me to prioritize a project, I would

put it to the town hall. That’s probably my question, yeah. There’s other, there’s other avenues of funding for road projects. There’s Chapter 90, there’s, uh, rap money that we get sometimes just a winter recovery money. Um, what’s the total ARPA like left. 696 that’s a lot of pennies. Not technically you’ve already, uh, that’s that’s reappropriate

that’s what I’m saying like the stuff that we looked at two meetings ago, the total ARPA in That was what? 350 and then you’re saying there’s also an additional 350 left from that? Yes, yeah, you said like 696 696 is the total ARPA if we took all of what’s left. And don’t do any of the patent or

any of the sidewalks or any of any of that but you said there would be other sources. Yeah, well, in the town meeting there was the uh the overlay, I believe, right? Is there we had 250,000, uh, for sidewalks. Uh, we have chapter 90, um, we have some, uh, some older, um, appropriations, not much, but

we can still get some roadwork done, um, even without these, this particular, um, anticipate that the Chapter 90 money will. Remain roughly the same or I haven’t heard otherwise. I don’t know if you’ve heard. I haven’t heard that there’s any issues with that. If anything, it’ll go up because of the

millionaires tax transportation and education are the two things that we’ve been getting more we’ve been getting more so what do you, I, I unfortunately I have to leave it a little bit, but uh, what’s the goal for today? Are we gonna vote anything tonight or do you make a recommendation or to go to

Fincom before we have lots of questions. I think You’re gonna need yeah did you look at Right, right, for instance, what if he took the elevator out? What did that do to the whole. you can’t the biggest part of doing the is to do the accessibility. No, I was thinking the same thing though, like, could you put

everything accessible to the public on the first the 2nd floor off the map, is that? If you take the elevator out, then we could not put everybody on the first floor because then the meeting room would have to stay on the first floor. I just, I, I don’t know that, I don’t know that scope should be on

the table for the discussion at this point. Like it’s already such a skeletal scope. Based on what we needed like for a vote. You need, you need to explain, but I think the conversation that we need to explain is prices are, we’re in la la land about this, and we get, I mean, we have this conversation all

the time that people are saying, that’s not what they are, that it’s like, it’s, it’s even worse than what we thought they were. And so I, I think in some ways, I want to be careful saying. We’re being like greedy with scope because it’s, it’s, it’s a smaller scope than what we thought it was, and it’s

twice as expensive as as we thought it was going to be. the cost increases because we’re seeing it at the state level everywhere, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 40% increase in the new bids, so to speak. So I absolutely agree with you. My point is if you’re gonna go back and ask for another 1

million bucks. You need to Explain what that But I think that the explanation is. Oh, I see that Michael, your hand has been raised. Did you have a, a comment to share? Yes, thank you, Carolyn. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak. Um, I guess two things I’m thinking of is one is a

scope and I know you just talked about scope, but I’m curious to know why. On the lower end, I think it’s 7.4 in the higher end was 10.4 something like that. That’s a difference of approximately 40%. And why is that? Is, is that because there’s a Um, A

question on the scope. Like, why is there such a 40% difference in the cost estimate there. And then my, the, the second part of the question that I wanted to talk about was, who were the people that we sent this, or I’m guessing it’s an RFPI too and could we broaden um the area that we

send the RFP out to include maybe companies in New Hampshire, southern Maine, southern Vermont. So I can answer both of those questions. Um, well, the first, the second question is easier. Uh, we, we solicited, uh, invitation for bids, uh, through, uh, Project Dog, which is an online bidding, uh, that hits all of New

England. I believe some of our bidders were from Greater New England, um, maybe even further than that, uh, so it’s not a town of Hamilton newspaper, uh, that we put this in. It’s a, it’s a well distributed, uh, online. uh, planning room, um. We probably had, I believe, uh, interested GCs, maybe 25.

And close to 60 sub-bidders. Um, so it was very, um. I thought it was, I thought we were gonna get more bids in 4 actually. Um, it seemed like it was very um um. Um, enticing project, and I don’t know why the bids were 74 to 10-1. That’s quite a bit of

a range, um, according to our low bidder, I did question his bid, like I do, uh, every bit, uh, they took some time to look at their number and they’re very comfortable with their number. So they are the, uh, company that did ask a lot of questions. We had, I believe, 5 addenda put out for this

project for a variety of questions. Everybody seemed to be, uh, to understand the plans. Clear with the scope And uh I guess your guess is as good as mine as where the other $400 is. I it depends on maybe how busy contractors are. I don’t know,

um, but the 74 number which I’m more concerned with is, is, is a good number according to the low bidder. And did you say, Tim, that this was a bitter from the original project? Yeah, so they bid the original project they were one of, I think we got 6 in the original.

Um, they were, I think, 3rd from the original project, yeah. I would say it’s fairly common. I mean, I don’t know who heres price to house project recently, but we did it and it was There were bids that were $200,000 and there were bids there were 800,000 you just What they want

and what they think they can get in the market. I’ve talked to bidders on other projects in the past about. About different You know, why you, you’re so much higher. Why is you’re so much lower? What Tim said is often what they tell me off the record is that really just depends on how much business I

have. Like I’ve got this work lined up, but if you’ll throw a bunch of money at me, I’ll do it. But if not, I’m fine so they they they figure their cost based on how much they need it and right now they’re telling us they don’t need it. That that’s why I was asking about materials versus labor

because it’s more you can play with labor a little more than you can materials. Um, yeah, no, so I mean, I, I like I said, a little bit, I gave them time to look at their number. Um, they, they did that and they’re very comfortable with the number

that they, they bid. Even they always like to look at the what the the other bidders were and uh they, they, you know, they looked a little harder because there were $2000 off the next bid. So they wanted to make sure the number, they didn’t miss something. Uh, they were very comfortable with it.

OK. So, in the interest of everyone’s bedtime, um, I know that, did you have a comment? Yeah, go ahead. Just because I’m I’m just trying to figure this out, uh, Deb Safford. So if I understood 6.5 million was approved at town meeting. And so what happened from that 6.5

to where we are now, if someone could just explain that backstory please it originally in 2020 and it was around 5.7 million. When we went back in 2020, we were assuming a percentage of inflation on top of that, and we’re thinking it would be about 6.5 million. We’re going to reduce the scope.

Plus inflation, 6.5 is what we thought we would need. When we went out to bid it 4 years later at a reduced scope. It came back between 74 and 101. So the 6.5 that was approved in town meeting was not based on an actual quote, but on an estimate of an increase from a

2020. And so that’s why we’re here, right? Because we scope and assumption inflation, yeah. So, so that that’s probably going to be something that It’s going to be good to understand and clarify, right? as to why, if we have to actually go back to another town meeting and I

suppose not asking the town until we get a bid that can be locked in the bids now. They’re 74, but after the meeting and then had her do the time meeting that is not the way that’s not the way they do it almost never was very odd to me

that we were doing it that way and partly because you can’t then Tom Mey has to act really quickly because of the bidders put in their bids and they’re only they’re only that good for a certain amount of time. OK, so that’s just the way it’s

done is you sort of do A ballpark and then it ends up being OK Thank you for clarifying, and that’s a good point that Jo brought up. I did talk with the contractor, uh, I gave him time to look at his bid like I said, he’s comfortable, he also understands where we are, uh,

and he, uh, during our conversation seemed to be willing to, to work with us on our time frame so it’s good to know. OK, so he said he would work with us on our potential time frame if we hold the because you couldn’t negotiate with him now, right? We would have to go back to all four

were willing to pay, right? And I asked him what his time frame was, and he said he’d like to get in sooner than later, but he obviously was looking at maybe a late fall, uh, they fall time frame. So when I told him that we may have to do this

if, if that’s the decision, uh, he seemed to. Understand it and be willing to work with us. That’s nice. All right, OK, so can I just make one more comment here if we combine the um current certified available free cash of 510 and the um using the ARPA funds that gives

us 1.2 million and those are the things that Wendy feels comfortable with, um, not using, not decreasing the free cash percentage and I as a taxpayer knowing that things are just getting more and more expensive, it decreases our need for to 800,000 and which is much more palatable than even 1.5 million

or 2 million, I think we should squeeze every cent of our available cash and not bond a dime more than we need my comment. I understand what you’re saying and like Joe mentioned, we were trying to get a one vote. So this was the idea behind the recommendation, but I mean, we’re, we’re all

for whatever so I, I think, you know, in the interest of, as I said, everyone’s bedtime. Um, Uh I think this is a good start to the conversation. I don’t think there’s a finance degree amongst the table here is it you? OK, good. Thank God.

Uh, so what do you think, Bill? So I, I, I think that, I think that it makes sense though for the Fincom, like I think we need to look at a proposal. Of what the options are, the votes associated with those options, and And then make an informed decision because I feel like any further conversation with

us, unless there’s questions, which of course you’re welcome to ask. We’re not going, we’re going to have more questions that will be clarified if, if we can look at this and say, Here’s the ARPA, here’s the free cash, here’s the bonding scenarios. Here’s the terms. Here’s what we’re asking.

Here’s how many votes we would need and make a choice that way. But no, exactly. I think if we lay it out, you kind of what you started to do, you know, free cash, AARPA bonding scenarios in the columns and kind of lay down with the, you

know, whether it’s 135 a year or 185 at 2 million, 1.5 million, 10,800,000 and then just kind of we can plug and play it. Do you have more money for us, Jay? Was that what you’re about to tell me? Well, it’s, Yes, come over and it’s,

it’s not clear that you want to do it. uh, let me just say apartment. For Joe on the top, it’s community housing, right? Let me just say a couple things. First of all, the town hall is probably the most important project ever before the CPC and we were in for just under 5

million to date. Um, Wendy and I have traded emails on this subject, and is there room for a $1.2 million grant from the CPA, yes, but it would take all of our money. It would, it would completely wipe out any hope of bonding anything else for quite a while. And it’s because we’re limited to, you

can only spend bond repayments to the extent of your um 2% surcharge and we’re right now we’re paying 4480 between Sagamore and Town Hall, and you add the 135 to that, the limit is 603 so where it’s right against the limit, but it would just take all our money. Now I think that should be thrown

into the analysis by the Fincom as uh do you want to do that? Uh, that would, it’s certainly the hope of funding any kind of decent size grant for affordable housing going forward wouldn’t happen for a while. But Is, uh, uh, I think we should do it. Wendy doesn’t think we should spend all our

money. What if we do Adderall for the CPA. Yes, we could, we could consider it as part of the equation and I just want to make a comment. This was new information that we had to bring tonight so it wasn’t like I didn’t want to bring it to

Fincom. No, this is, no, no, you’ve done great. This is, I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t want or I don’t want John or Capcom or the EIC and all the other boards and committees that have, have logged their opinion in favor of this project previously to think that we were leaving anybody

out. This has only been about a week and a half. We’ve had the information we’ve been trying to work behind the scenes and we had, it was our responsibility to bring the select board first, but we had every intention, have every intention of becoming a Fin income, checking in with Capcom,

checking in with EIC and CPC because you guys have all been part of the project. This wasn’t and there was no way uh we were trying to leave anybody out. The first stop had to be here and this was only to start the conversation again a discussion I have one other question to the, the last fall

when we split the project into the decarbonization project that was She that was S7 need to be 1.5 to 2 million, is that fully funded? Well, I mean, we, we could ask Bill and Christian from ESG they, they happened to be on the call, but I, I, the short answer is yes, essentially that project

remains on track. We just need to, we just need to time it with this, it’s it’s funded differently. I know it is, but I mean, we’re not gonna. Fucking 6 months from now saying whoops has not yet given me the indication at all that that we’re out of whack in that

regard so we’re still, like I said earlier, I think if, if this is the decision this fall to. Maybe go after some more money. I think we’re right on still the time frame we were thinking, uh, for, for construction. Um, we’re not, I don’t think we’re delaying that too much. 2030 20322. What do

you think the sense of the committee is for another May too and bon and spend all the money. Um, I would. It’s tough one, Jay, because I think that we’ve overwhelmingly in favor for it. We all know it has to be done and the townspeople that we’ve been talking about it since before I was on the

board, probably 20 or 30 years you’ve been talking about it, but. With limited funding. But we don’t have any grants ahead of us. They’re predicted anyway. Other than affordable housing trusts and they haven’t come to us with the major project other than the harbor light one and habitat that just happened, so we’ll have safe harbor a little

bit on those for a year or so. Um, and with the bond coming off, even though it’s 2032 for Sagamore, that will clear up. What is that a 1. How much is that one? Do you know Wendy offhand? 135 or something like that. So that’s, this would replace it. That’s something we’re just going to replace it,

right? But it’ll be less, it’ll be what, 90,000 or something like that if you get it down under 1 million bucks. But, but right now we have roughly, uh, as I mentioned, 9000 spread among several categories, uh, if, if the take out of $1.2 million grant that would take away all of the 2% surcharge

and we’re getting 840 as a state match in November this year. And it’s probably gonna stay that way. So I, I think that, I think the board would be in favor for it it’s whether when we take it to town meeting if the town would be in favor

for it. We’ve had plenty of support at town meeting before it’s just been at the ballot where we struggled and this wouldn’t be a ballot thing. It would not be a would be a two-thirds vote be a two-thirds vote, we are euphemistically searching the couch cushions at town hall to try to figure out

a way to do this without a debt exclusion bake sale lemonade stand to grab every little pot that has a little bit of money that we can add to it, so. We want to avoid an override. I want to win. Right, and anything we can do to just.

Pay it up now and not put the town into debt for yet another 20 year bond just you. Right, right, exactly, exactly, so. The CPA is already our money, right, right, we already pay it right that’s that’s right exactly, exactly, I meant to ask that too because it. Seems like this is just Right up the

alley of what those phones are supposed to be used. Hm As a citizen who Well, exactly. Not going to Yeah. All right, what are next steps here? So, um, I, I will say I think we need to get this to Fincom we probably wanna have we wanna, uh.

Prize the Capcom and the EIC we. Kind of given the heads up to the CPC and maybe they’ll probably want to have a meeting about this. The, uh, timing is that uh for special time meeting to be called the select board has to determine the date that they

want to call it. The only real timing in the state law that’s required, according to Tom McEnany, is that we have to be able to post a warrant 2 weeks. Before the actual date of town meeting because it’s a special. Um, so you actually could. At a meeting in the future open the

warrant and close the warrant and Have a very limited warrant. Um, but you, you want to get, we want to get this in front of the Fincom, as I said, uh, potentially the Capcom CPC folks to get their input, um. Next meeting, uh, set a meeting date, set a special time

meeting date and open the warrant and if you’re gonna tell me you’re gonna open the warrant, we will have. Idea of what the question is going to be so you can close the work pretty quickly so we can limit it because we were all trying to avoid a special timing this fall, so the, the reason it has

to be full? Well, you, we won’t hold the, they won’t hold the vote, they won’t hold the bid much longer than the fall. No, no, I’m saying like could it be like August for like what how quickly, so we have that’s a good question for the clerk because she has to organize that part of it her staff’s

getting ready to do early voting for the state election. I’m sorry the state primary, um, at the beginning of September and so um. We probably need a month anyway. People are away. Uh People are away in August as well, right, maybe September, I mean, I wonder what our ability to get a quorum in August would

be. It’d be better than it would be better than trying to do in July, but weeknights. I haven’t heard back yet. In the high school on dates but she did say Yeah Thank you, Virginia. Sorry about that. I did hear from the high school that they’re going to be doing lighting work in the auditorium,

so I don’t know if that’s going to be more in August than September. She’s getting back to me with dates, but they, they do have that project online, so August may not want to consider if you want to do it a weeknight or a Saturday, uh, if, if you’re able to keep the warrant small and really on

this topic you should be able to do it on a weeknight like you did last, last fall, but. It’s the only item, right? Is there anything else you’d want to capture? I was trying not to have a special tummy at all, so I mean not really. I’m very unavailable. Yeah, the CPC

meets next on Thursday, August 8th. We could discuss a grant request at that meeting. OK Please plan on that. Should we put in a request? Does the town does that Tim Tim usually handles that for us, so. Thanks, Tim. OK, so our next meeting is August 5th. 0 well, aside from the meeting that you want to do

for goal setting, which we haven’t set the date on yet, right, right, August 5th is our next meeting, at which point we’ll be pre-CPC but Bencom will have had a chance. Your meeting is August 24th, John, your next meeting June, July, July next week, July 24th. Do you want a new agenda item?

Yeah. Um. Yeah, we need to propose. Yeah, I just, I think we just need to have, and I think you did an amazing job in the time that you were given, but and even if it’s just the two of you, yeah, or the 3 or 4 or somebody, I think we just

need to put together. A clear outline of sort of what the options are. Um, and then I think understanding like is is single vote versus multi-vote that like if we if it’s asking for free cash and asking for a bond, is that really that big

of a deal, like a one vote versus 2 vote, I don’t know the answer to that. Um, I mean, I think if the sole theme of the meeting is town hall. Like I think that actually helps us that people know that they’re coming specifically for town hall. You’re either coming to vote for it or you’re coming to

vote against it. It is what it is. Um, so I don’t know that in that sense I’m worried about us having multiple articles. Um But I think that’s a good point. Yeah, I mean it is the town hall town meeting if you’re for it, you, you know, you vote for it if you’re against it, you

vote against it. You, you’re not going to split votes. Because we can’t do it if you split both. Um, probably advised to have. All your Yeah. Well, I just mean one of the options was, should you try to just bond at all because there’s just one question. Whereas I think it’s the meeting is about I think I

think I think yeah it’s the issue of the cost of borrowing versus using what cash would right exactly. I think it shows a creative if we have multiple. And that’s right, that’s what we want. We want voters to see that we’re being really, really frugal with taxpayer money.

So let’s plan to review that August 5th and then we’ll set a date for a town meeting. Corinne, if there’s any. There’s a date that gives y’all some breathing room. Monday, September 23rd. OK, so maybe we, we hope to do an evening. Is that a Monday, did you say, we already have, yeah, that’s

probably a good idea that way it sort of falls. Between your two big hairy. OK. And can I just, so do you want me, John, to send the proposal to the Fincom? Like, do you want me to start that like a memo or something? Is that what you’d

like? Yeah, yeah, I, I think if you take the memo, um, from today and then uh incorporate the additions from the comments from the select board, uh, and, and Jay has other options and then Fin Co can chew over it and. Yeah, I think you’re hearing from the board, we want to bond the least amount of

money possible in the most financially responsible way. OK, well said. So whatever that looks like, I think is. What we’re asking. I can’t hear you, Grant. We, yeah, we, we have applied for a mass office of disabilities grant um we may know by the time um we’re ready to do the timing, but we, we

don’t know, I couldn’t say at this point we’d applied for $250,000. That’s the max. That’s the max that we could apply for, so. Well done. Alright, I’m gonna, I’m gonna move us on to. The next topics that we can get out of here, uh, for new business, we just have

the resetting of the goal scheduling workshop, um, I had sent an email to folks asking. Um, if there was a preference between doing it, we did it in the evening last year, um. And then But there was also an option for. Saturday morning July 27th and I got split

decisions from folks about which it was going to be. So, uh, from the folks I heard of. Two people said to do Monday evening and one person said to do Saturday morning. Did you get? Um, no. What did you want to do? Mine would be a Monday evening Monday evening, OK, um.

So what was the date, John July 29th 2 weeks from now, 2 weeks from that, because we don’t we don’t have a meeting on the, on that date would normally have a meeting, but it would be the 3rd meeting, so it would just be a regularly scheduled date

for us. Rosie, with that time work for you? I just think I might be away that weekend, so I’ll be here Monday. OK, so we’re gonna put it at, uh, Monday, July 29th. you want to start it at 6 o’clock and have food again. Yep, we’ll do it at

6 p.m. Does that work for? I know 6 is that too early, 6:30? On a Monday 6:30 0 6:30 and I’ll propose that we do it at the, uh, town hall and the memorial room. Down hall memorial room and there will be food. Just look at my calendar.

Now during the memorial means we won’t be live with a with um hybrid, but we, but HW camp can come and tape we just won’t have hybrid functionality which we don’t always do for this meeting anyway, so it’s a workshops welcome to come in person, right. All right, GoFundMe that night for the

town hall. Yes, we could. Um, all right, if there’s no any other new business? Um, I, it would be good to have a list of what kind of is open that we’ve kind of tabled for future meetings and just so we can kind of make sure we check

boxes, you know, like you mentioned a couple of things on the onset, um, just so we have a running list. I’m sure you already have it, Joe, of open items and so we make sure I know when you meet with different folks to do the meeting agendas that we kind of sprinkle all that in, not that

we’re not. I just wanna have a collection of open items too? The other open that’s what I’m asking for a list of items. Yeah. I, I’ll, I’ll I’ll think um the flag policy was it the flag policy or whatever it was that we tabled last week and we

were at last meeting and I thought we were going to bring it back tonight. It was the rooms policy policy, yeah, yeah, and I, as I’ve said, I will not participate in that, but if somebody else would like to put those all that’s what I was asking for like what’s open there then we’ll go around and

prioritize because we have a lot of. Plates, I get it. OK, so. I do think that’s important. All right. Anyone wants to motion to adjourn. I move that we adjourn. My second. All right, all in favor. Hi. 9:22