00:00:00,130	S1:
So I was wondering if, do we want to go over the 2023 goals as a refresher and do sort of a heap heap, push hill kind of thing?

00:00:17,899	S2:
This was the point of time manager evaluation. This was the I only printed out one copy of the two sides, but you guys all had it on the in the packets. So that's um, that was the 22.

00:00:28,670	S1:
This is 22.

00:00:29,370	S2:
22, 23. Yeah.

Um. 00:00:31,629	S1:
Um, and I remember.

00:00:36,670	S1:
Okay.

00:00:37,369	S3:
Are we going to use this.

00:00:38,500	S2:
If you want to? Yeah, I brought them just in case. I bought I bought them last year for this and then haven't used them since. We got to bring it back out again.

00:00:46,469	S1:
And, Bill, I can't remember if you had just joined when we were doing this process or if it was before June.

00:00:52,329	S2:
So it was, it was actually it was okay.

00:00:55,030	S1:
So we had sort of gone through and said like there's um, The sort of business as usual stuff. And that's sort of the up front like general management, communication, personnel management, financial management.

00:01:05,969	S2:
I mean, I don't I got to hear it.

Yeah. 00:01:08,900	S1:
So, um, up until I think five those are all things that haven't really changed year over year. But we can go in and we can tweak or change or push those to more specific places if we want. Um, but those have been sort of like carryover of like this is what is expected administratively of the role. And then for professional growth and goals, we had also led we had left that fairly general, but we had talked about maybe coming up with more specific personal growth goals in the future. Um, but then the after eight when you see it says priority goals for fiscal 2023. Yeah, those are the ones where we like very specifically went and said, like, these are the things that we need to have done. Um, so if we want to go through the first eight or whatever we can, or we can sort of hold those till the end and talk about the hyper specific whatever works for the group.

00:02:10,099	S3:
Is this the right one? Is this one we got to look for? I think we.

00:02:14,969	S2:
Just filled out.

00:02:15,930	S3:
Yeah. You sent one that said completed. Oh. Was there we sent this, um, I just saved, which.

00:02:21,969	S4:
Yeah. Which, um.

00:02:22,830	S3:
Show you the different one.

00:02:25,229	S1:
There's a blank and there's a build out one, and I think there's a.

00:02:29,400	S4:
Right, but which one is the filled out that you're going to use those for the copy?

00:02:33,169	S2:
A blank copy of Town Manager.

00:02:35,830	S3:
I don't know if it was Matt that we can.

00:02:38,669	S2:
Well, that was that was I sent you one that was filled out. Really? I don't even have one here.

00:02:44,669	S4:
From.

00:02:45,969	S3:
Your email that you sent.

Okay. 00:02:48,169	S2:
Interesting. Didn't make it into this folder.

Um. 00:02:54,830	S1:
So the one that we're looking at is the blank copy of Blank Town Manager.

Okay. 00:03:05,729	S2:
So there it is.

00:03:14,830	S2:
To water. Right. Is that it starts with water. I mean, what.

00:03:18,969	S1:
Are you looking at, 2022.

00:03:20,729	S2:
Well.

00:03:21,229	S1:
You know, you're looking at priority levels.

00:03:23,370	S2:
Okay. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. He's in the first page. Water. If that's a no.

00:03:28,870	S1:
Yeah. Okay. So if we want to start with those.

00:03:33,199	S4:
This is town manager evaluation. It says. I'll just scroll down.

00:03:37,469	S2:
I'm going to work on this water.

00:03:40,169	S4:
Here we go.

Yeah. 00:03:40,870	S1:
When you started the.

Yeah. 00:03:42,030	S4:
Down.

00:03:42,770	S1:
Okay. This is where we get into, like, the specific, uh, fiscal 2024 that we'll be going. So these were 2023. But I think what we learned last year is that the the a lot of them will carry over and then we can add new categories. So for example for water there are some things that should be complete. But there's going to be new items for 2024 that we want to add to the list. So the complete pre and post treatment project and the complete or develop strategy for regionalization of water. Where did we end up on those.

00:04:19,569	S2:
So we finished the the secondary treatment plan. That's that's done. And we are involved in a regional effort with the North Shore Water Resiliency Task Force. That will be an ongoing thing for a while, but the state has been generous and put money into that group for studies.

00:04:38,800	S1:
We're working on the 200,000.

00:04:41,170	S2:
Uh, that was the first one. And they've given more so that we've got two different consultants working on things for that group. And that includes that group includes Hamilton. Ipswich. Wenham. Danvers. Ipswich River Watershed Association. I think Essex and Manchester are loosely a part of the group as well and. Beverley Salem Water board. So it's a it's, it's a pretty good size group.

00:05:07,930	S1:
And do you think it's an effective group like is there a sense of urgency.

00:05:15,029	S2:
Well I think that among the group there's an appropriate sense of urgency. And the best thing we're able to do is through the senator and the other senators and state reps, because they're all they're all the ones from around this area are all plugged into it. Uh, they just keep bringing it to the state, like, we're going to have to solve the water problem for the North Shore. And everybody's the state seems to be aware of it. They continue to pass money for us to get a line of funding and come up with with solutions. But it's a multi year problem. It's not going to be something that.

00:05:44,269	S1:
But in terms of um, and I know you're more plugged into this than maybe any of us. Like whatever solution we come up with is going to probably involve like interest, city typing and like building of a thing that's going to take ten years or whatever.

00:06:00,899	S2:
Take a lot of time.

Yeah. 00:06:01,870	S1:
And so if we're worried that our runway is between 10 and 20 and we need ten to build something. Like what? Is there anything we need to do? Like from a milestone perspective to like.

00:06:13,629	S2:
So trying to understand what what runway you you're asking about because it is true, particularly during the summer months, that the Ipswich River watershed is overburdened and that a lot of the effort has been around trying to make sure that there's ample water for that time of year. But that is really the only time of year that we're having trouble with the river. Yep. And and it's only in years like this year where we're not getting a lot of rain. But that's the addition of the town of Hamilton's. Uh, allowance to pull from the. The watershed is never succeeded. We're like, we're well below what we're allowed to take from the record. Okay, um, so it's not like. It's not like the river's gone dry and we can't get water from it. Um, it will impact things like, how much development can you do? Right. I don't necessarily think is a bad thing because most people here don't want a lot of development anyway, so we're not necessarily looking to add that much more water. Um, but we just want to we want the water source to be resilient. So we're looking at things that will allow us to perhaps take water from the Salem Beverley Water Board, because they're already pulling from the same water source. And if we can all be pulling from one plant, we might be able to reduce the demand and the impact of the river. Also looking at things like creating storage. So in the winter months, when the water is, when there's plenty of water, in the spring, when the snow starts to melt, they could fill up a new reservoir and hold that water for the region, um, over the course of the summer when it's needed. Okay, so there's a lot of different things that they're looking at. Yes. Entire municipality piping is part of it. A reservoir is another part of it. So Topsfield isn't it? Isn't it? To the piping.

00:07:53,470	S5:
Is to connect to Beverly Salem type of thing.

Uh. 00:07:57,370	S2:
Beverly went on the sales, and the interesting thing was that we weren't even aware, or at least nobody that I knew had been aware of it prior to the first round of, um, grant funding. But Hamilton and Beverly are in the original charter for the sale, and we wanted it, but all it would take was a vote of our board, a vote of their board, and then we had to create the connection between the two. But we could we could join the sale of Beverly Water District. Now, if the Salem Beverly Water Board Board of Selectmen voted to do so, we just need the millions of dollars to run the pipe looking at this. But that is.

00:08:31,600	S4:
I'm sorry.

00:08:32,330	S2:
Yeah. So it puts us in a good position in that it's what she wants to also be. And it would have to go through a legislative change for Ipswich to join. But we're kind of in the middle of everything. So everything that gets done. You almost need to meet Hamilton. Make it work.

00:08:49,730	S5:
Because the river watershed is in the long term solution. That's always going to be challenging.

00:08:53,600	S2:
Yeah, I mean, in possibility, there's also talks times scenes because nobody wants to say it out loud yet. But there's a good chance that the state legislature is going to look to the NWR and Zealand Water to partner in some way, because Beverly gets most of its water from the Ipswich, too, even though they're in the north coastal basin, they get most of their water from sources in the Ipswich River. So um.

00:09:20,570	S1:
So it's sort of like different plugs, same breaker.

Yeah. 00:09:23,269	S2:
So we're trying to we're, you know, there's there's the goal is to, uh, is to get us somewhere where, where the water source, it can be multiple water sources or mixed or maybe MW Ray MW might be the most expensive, but.

00:09:37,929	S5:
It's probably going to have the longest sustainability. And that's probably something that what five times you said are behind and is probably.

Yeah. 00:09:44,529	S2:
Talk to talk to Danvers. You know Salem. Beverly. The interesting thing there is Salem. Beverly wants Salem. Beverly wants the state to give them money to build up their their planning, their capacity so that they could then serve us. They they want to stay in the water business. You know, obviously, then, you know, they look at the MW array as a competitor. So there's been a little bit of tension around that. But is it sustainable for them to continue to be in the water business?

00:10:07,700	S5:
So I think water is definitely a goal. And there's a couple of parts of it. One is coming up with short term, long term sustainable solutions, whether it's, you know, with River or whatever with Beverly Salem. I think Manchester plant was something we had discussed in the past. So is access to one, but then also our our plant and the capacity that can clean it. And what does that become obsolete? Does it still if you do that?

00:10:34,299	S2:
Well said. It's probably going to take ten years before we can get something else build and we'll need to play. We'll need that play in the meantime. Right now.

00:10:42,830	S5:
I mean, our one place, the other.

00:10:44,799	S2:
Yeah. I mean, I think there's been some suggestion that perhaps the Hamilton plant could continue to be some kind of a backup or something for the future. But really, if we're trying to get out of the river, the plant at some point probably becomes obsolete. The good news is the plant's in really good shape right now. It's probably making the best water it's made in 10 or 15 years, and it should, if managed properly, should continue to do that for quite some time. So we don't have to make any new investment there. Um, which is good.

Yeah. 00:11:13,769	S5:
Yeah.

00:11:14,700	S4:
You know, I don't understand things. Um, we keep doing these water studies and water studies, and although we talk about what the possibilities are, I think as part of goals, we should be very realistic about the taxpayer costs. So, for example, the Salem Beverley system to look into that. It's the infrastructure, the pipe infrastructure. But it's to my knowledge, my information tells me that they would need to build a new water treatment plant to the tune of at least 2 or 3 years ago was $50 million. So I think when we talk about these goals, it just seems like a waste of effort to go around and around. And and so, you know, maybe we should look at realistic goals. So so that's the first thing. And then the second thing, the MW array, the MW array, um, their own internal documents. I have the documents from 23. Maybe I should I actually should have brought it with me. But the reality is the MW array is in a lot of trouble because their infrastructure is very, very outdated and they, can't guarantee that their equipment is going to hold up. And secondarily, they don't have a backup. So how realistic financially and in terms of use is it to think about these things? How realistic is it?

00:12:53,399	S2:
So the whole purpose of the studies is because we know that none of us can solve this problem on our own, and we know that we, the taxpayers and the water ratepayers wouldn't be able to handle the burden of solving the problem financially on their own. So the only way to do this is to get the state and probably the federal government involved and interested in it. And so the studies are to show them what needs to be done and what the anticipated cost is, so that they can start to get behind some kind of a financing mechanism. The this the legislature this year and it's in a bond bill. But in the environmental bond bill did put a substantial sum of money into the bond bill for North Shore water and water sustainability goals. Now, that might not all come to the North Shore Task Force. It might come back to sound some of it might be invested in NWA, but they recognize that the MW Ray sound Beverly have their own problems. They know that certainly the small water producers like Austin Toxic can't keep doing what we're doing, and they know that PFAS is an issue for all those except for us, because we now can remove PFAS from the water. So, um, the short term news is for Hamilton. For the short term, we have enough water for now. We have a plant that take care of our needs. And as current testing shows, we are removing that down to the discernible level, the faucets in the water. So we're doing okay there. But long term we have to we have to be partnering for somebody because Hamilton is not gonna solve this one problem and so on.

00:14:21,600	S4:
And there's there's no argument about that. But I would like to see us spend all this study money that, you know, keeps getting thrown at us on something that's that's workable, right? I mean, we we are taxpayers going to come up with $50 million, whether it's local taxpayers or state taxpayers. Um, so, uh, so I'm just thinking creative, you know, think about creative solutions, right? And, and I don't know what they are, but it seems like we're getting pushed to do all this high density development. And we keep saying we don't have the water, we don't have the water. We know we don't have the water. So what are we going to do to protect ourselves, to protect our residents here? So those are just things that I think should be part of the water goal.

00:15:15,730	S1:
So I think if we divide it into two categories, the first is long term access and sustainability. And I think we're saying to represent the interest and urgency of Hamilton Wenham. And I think sort of part of that is what Rosie's talking about is like, what are the short term milestones that are. Exceed the bounds of conversation, right. And then I think the second thing is maybe pushing a little harder on the Salem Beverly waterboard and or moi and maybe have some sort of opinion that we can socialize around which direction we think, you know, is worth going in or not. Right. If we just if we say by the time we get in Salem, Beverly Water board, we've just put the plug in a new space, but actually it's MW IRA, I think we should kind of have a opinion on that because then I think that helps. What you're saying is like, stop putting money towards like pontificating about joining the Salem Water Board, if that's only a short term solution. And then I think the second part of water is this plants pipes and PFAS, that it's alliteration, which is are there any things within fiscal 2024 that we need to have as milestones for either maintenance or upgrade of plants. I know the pipe stuff as a whole beast of its own. Are there anything that we need to be keeping an eye on?

00:16:35,429	S2:
Now let me circle back to Tim, and I'll come back to you with an answer to that. When we're when we're talking about rebuilding public. Um, but the plant, I think is in good shape at FAS issue I think is, um, is in hand, was well in hand because of the secondary treatment facility that's been added to the plant. There may be some need for more investment in pipes, but we're trying to pay attention to the end user and the ratepayer. And, you know, we've already bonded a lot of money for that plant, and we've got several years to pay it off. We're trying now to utilize do smaller pipe projects based on what we have. And once we have enough and retained earnings, we'd rather pay for it with money we have on hand than continue to bond, because I'll just add to that. So I know that there's additional pipe work we need to get done. I don't think Tim was planning anything for FY 24 or maybe even 25. He's trying to let the retained earnings build up so that he can feel comfortable and say, hey, we've got, you know, our free cash policy and retained earnings calls for us to have 20% of operating and retained earnings for the budget. But anything over that we can invest in infrastructure and in capital improvements. So I think he wants to get to a place where he's got 4 or $500,000 more than what's required to be able to say, I can do a $500,000 water pipe project. And these are the streets that are in the next highest priority list. But I will find out what his what his time. My understanding last time I spoke to him was that we didn't have anything coming up this current year or into next.

00:18:06,269	S5:
So okay, so it sounds.

00:18:08,170	S1:
Like what you're saying status quo. But then we also just need to confirm that Tim has an eye on a long term fiscal plan for how we do that.

00:18:16,730	S5:
Right. So we're talking capacity quality and infrastructure, which is underlying. Um, and can we make a statement, you know, to the community that says, you know, we can live with a 45 day ban every year with our current, you know, households and consumption rates, that we are sustainable for five years. We even have the ability to grow by 5%. You know, because once they get three a everyone's thinking housing development. You know, is there a statement we can make that, you know, in the five year window, you know, it's status quo, you know. But in the meantime, we know we're going to outgrow this. And, you know, we're going to we've got 3 or 4 options NRE you know, public about these.

00:18:55,329	S1:
So would that be if we wanted to like put like are we basically saying that we would like Joe to plan to put some sort of state of the Union about water in the Q4 water bill?

00:19:09,329	S5:
I mean, is that dangerous to do, though, or Q1?

00:19:12,599	S1:
I mean, I think it depends on the depth of the information. I think if you wanted to say, like, you know, we're we hear your concerns around cost and capacity and access and resources. And we wanted to like, you know, let everybody know that there's options on the table that we explored. We feel like as long as we continue to adhere to the water bans, you know, summer months are really hard on the Ipswich River water basin. But throughout the year we have this. We're looking at other opportunities. You know, you can find more information by standing in the lawn at Peyton and waiting your arms wildly.

00:19:43,299	S4:
You know, I think there's a lot of stress in this community. Just there's just so much proposed change. And we hear about water, um, as one aspect of that. And it just causes so much distress because people are saying, oh, we should go with the Salem Bible. I Beverly, we should go with the MW. I like that idea to put something into the water bill to so that people understand that these are very costly alternatives. And we as a community need to think about that because people feel like things are imposed upon them, right? Go to town meeting its yes yes yes yes yes. And then people are absolutely shocked with with the prices. So when, when taxes come around. So I think it would be good to be very I think part of the goal would be very be very realistic with the, with communication. And so that people don't think, oh my God, we're going to do this, it's going to cost all this money, blah, blah, blah. But we have to because we have to develop, develop, develop. And that seems incongruous. So something like that would, I think, enhance the sense of trust with the citizens of, of our town. I think that's really important.

00:20:58,700	S2:
Yeah. We did we did a water report my second year here.

00:21:02,630	S4:
I remember that.

00:21:03,769	S5:
Summer.

00:21:04,430	S2:
Yeah, we did that report on summer of 2019 maybe.

00:21:08,630	S4:
And they talked about a 3% growth that we can handle a 3% growth.

00:21:12,630	S5:
So so okay.

00:21:13,470	S2:
And we're still working with Pete. Um, the, the the engineering Dewberry. He's actually been picked up of the three studies that are being done for the militia task force. Dewberry and Peter are doing two of them. So he's very he's very familiar with us and surrounding it, surrounding areas issues. And so we replicate.

00:21:31,230	S5:
That.

00:21:31,799	S2:
Report.

00:21:32,369	S4:
Well, that's that's my point. He's throwing new all this new money into reports when I can write off a lot of things that, that they've already done.

00:21:41,869	S5:
So but I also think it's probably 1 or 1 of our top two expenses going forward as a community. I don't want to lie to people either. That to say, oh, you know, 45 days a summer, that's all it costs. And we can just keep moving because there is I think we're going to hit an end point. You know, whether we need to start thinking about that, reserving for that or planning for that. It's it's it's going to happen to a lot of small towns, I think, too. That's why I think the state's really trying to pull in and do more regional stuff and leverage some of the bigger, bigger communities like Beverly, Salem. So, I mean, we could say no, no, no. And I mean. But isn't that going to. Ultimately is that going to we're going to need to go there if somebody's.

00:22:23,200	S2:
Going to need to leave that chair. So like from my perspective, having worked in an MWA community and, uh, living in a community that served both by the land water sewer Commission and, and the MWD, we get our water from, we get our water from NWR. But we, you know, we get our water from water sewer, but we send our wastewater to the treatment plant. What's crazy? So it's not so um, but ultimately the MW is probably the only long term sustainable way to do it. So the question is how do you get MW array in Salem Beverly to partner? Because right now they're being very guarded and suspicious of each other. MW is being looked at as the as the £800 gorilla wants to come in on the North Shore and push Beverly Salem out of the way. And Beverly Salem was saying, well, we've been doing this for a long time. We can continue to do this, but they need $50 million worth of upgrades. So where are you going to invest your $50 million in the sale? And Beverly, that still is going to be taking out of the same drinking out of the same bottle that we're drinking out of, or we don't want to drink out of a different bottle.

00:23:25,400	S4:
Right. But the reality is NWR has obsolete infrastructure as well, and they don't have a backup. So I think as we tout these things, we need to let people know that the reality is that there's no ideal solution. And it's it's a work in progress. And the other part of that is the cost of water on ongoing basis, end users as, um, as as time goes on, I mean, it's very expensive to have regionalized water and you have no control over what the rates are. So. And I'm not saying not to, I'm just saying to put out more accurate information so that there's a there's trust built and people have the ability to understand exactly what's going on. And you don't need a 300 page dewberry report, but put sort of a concise and real estate plan for each of them and potential outcomes.

00:24:25,900	S1:
Okay, so in the interest of time, I think, um, we have long term accessibility access and stability. We have the plant types, capacity stuff that we have, the communication around water, which is the sort of bigger in a way to put it in there.

00:24:38,069	S4:
I'm sorry. Can I just have one more little thing? Um, in terms of you brought up at our last meeting, um, that, um, Tim allows particular things when there's a water restriction, i.e., um, developing a new lawn. I mean, you know, I wonder if we could look at the restrictions, but that seems a little kind of kooky, because if you had your lawn put in in April and the drought started as it usually does, what, June or July, you know. Why does somebody who's putting in a lawn right now have priority to be able to use sprinklers because nobody puts in a lawn in the summer, and if they do, well, what's your problem? Have a landscaper come back in the fall. And I know that that's been an ongoing thing. And it's always struck me as that kind of bizarre, um, use of water.

00:25:31,599	S2:
So, so.

00:25:32,670	S5:
I mean.

00:25:33,400	S2:
Yeah, another idea would.

00:25:37,630	S5:
I should say.

00:25:38,700	S2:
We are we already have it. We already have a kind of a little bit of a difficult to understand water rate structure. Right. Because we have the tiered rate structure. But, um, we could also look at, um, peak season pricing where, you know, to get people to voluntarily watch their water use, you raise the price in the summertime when the water is, you know, most at risk. If you're going to water your lawn, you're going to pay a premium for it because it's going to be a lot of money. Now, the problem with that is that there are people that will just pay that premium. but it will deter other people. Some people at least.

00:26:12,029	S5:
There's.

00:26:12,269	S4:
Something to consider.

00:26:13,970	S5:
I know the ad rate structure too there, because, you know, we familiarize myself with the tiered structure, but, um, you know, the rate structure is interesting.

00:26:24,069	S1:
We did just we did just do a tiered rate structure.

Right. 00:26:27,269	S2:
That's the two tiered rate structure. For a long time, we made it a mild adjustment to what made a mild adjustment to one of the tiers I think. And then you made a smaller adjustment.

00:26:35,500	S5:
To.

00:26:36,069	S2:
The connection fee. And that was about it.

00:26:39,569	S5:
So instead of instead of finding somebody make them pay upfront. But I don't know. I mean it's something made me come back and look at.

00:26:47,029	S4:
It's an interesting.

00:26:48,369	S5:
Interesting idea. But then you'll have everyone do it right because they'll pay a premium to those people.

00:26:53,170	S2:
And I don't think everybody will. I think some people would, uh, some people wouldn't.

00:26:56,400	S4:
Shut off that water.

00:26:57,670	S1:
I mean, have you all seen my lawn? It is crispy and brown.

Oh. 00:27:01,430	S4:
Yeah. That's the way it should be.

00:27:03,029	S1:
And my hydrangeas are dead.

00:27:05,069	S5:
Said they were beautiful, though.

00:27:06,400	S1:
They. There was a.

00:27:07,130	S5:
Boy.

00:27:07,470	S1:
They were very gay with a brief moment. But of course, you know my friends over on settlers, their lawns are green and they're their flowers are blooming and their pools are very full.

00:27:17,400	S5:
Now, my pool does evaporate. I have to throw the hose in, but.

Yeah. 00:27:22,970	S1:
Okay.

00:27:23,930	S5:
Um, I burnt a pump once already because I didn't.

00:27:26,829	S1:
I think we should. I'm going to grab another slice. So we do this. But I would like to understand.

00:27:32,000	S5:
Is this a big one? I think so the more we can tear and layer that down and really talk about even, you know, things that are measurable and accountable to come back on, you know, the Smart goal type of things, especially if we're coming back a year from now. Right. And looking at you in an extended one, I'll say, hey, we talked about this in July and wow, so you may be sitting with, uh, with Tim, you know, there's even some more specific milestones or layered approaches or things you can work on that touch on everything you just talked to. I do, I do think the answer is, you know, we can. We can do status quo. How do we do that? You know, giving some type of confidence, um, confidence to the community that, you know, if we can keep the rates the same grade or but, you know, we're going to we have to give a little bit of community. And, you know, 45 days a year, we're not using our sprinkler or something or whatever it is or, you know, but I do think that we're going to grow that. And I think we we shouldn't wait until we're forced to plug somewhere. Maybe we won't, I don't know, but I will.

00:28:30,599	S2:
I will say that the other thing is that for the people in the community who don't want to see the town develop, to grow much at all. Our water products, our water, our water problem is one of the things that's really going to make them happy. Because as long as we have a problem with water, we are going to have trouble attracting development. We are going to have trouble actually getting that stuff done.

00:28:48,529	S4:
So it's not stopping itself off.

00:28:52,299	S5:
I mean, I don't think what is what has our growth been since that 3% in Newburgh?

00:28:57,970	S4:
I looked at the, um, um, building permits, and it was pretty substantial.

00:29:04,769	S2:
New construction.

00:29:05,630	S5:
Not new construction.

00:29:07,029	S4:
Not a building permit.

00:29:08,670	S2:
But but a lot of a lot of those in Hamilton are for our renovations. So people put additions on their houses or do new kitchens and bathrooms. They filled building, building programs for all that stuff. Our building permits are not mostly for, um.

00:29:19,900	S5:
For new growth.

00:29:21,069	S2:
Or for new construction. We have, you know, we have the, the, the lots on, on, um, Bridge Street would have been adding to all of our existence. But since Cantor Brook opened and Willow Flats opened, that's been it. You got a little bit that's going on over on Asbury Street for the habitat for humanity. And eventually you're going to get Andrew the Friends to come in and build this 40 something units over on Asbury Street. That's all we've got in the pipeline right now for new construction. There's a you might see 1 or 2 houses in a once in a while. Tim Ford built two houses over here on Bay road. Tom, Tom Ford two, two years ago. And they were doing it together, though I think I think Tim took over at the end. Tom got it all started and threw, but Tim wanted to, But they were, you know, you see that come, you know, 1 or 2 on buildable lots and then you don't. That's about it. You don't get a lot of new construction.

00:30:08,500	S4:
You're right. I was wondering.

00:30:10,630	S2:
So that's not new demand. So that's not new demand okay.

00:30:14,029	S4:
Okay.

00:30:15,869	S5:
So is sewage or septic ever part of the discussion? We need to have we ever going to need to tie into something there.

00:30:22,900	S2:
Or if you want.

00:30:23,900	S5:
Us to tie.

00:30:24,369	S2:
Into sewage, I mean that's that's going to be even more expensive.

Right? 00:30:27,569	S5:
So we're sustainable as it is with septic.

00:30:29,670	S2:
And again, what you know, what is your end goal if you want more development. No. Then we have to find a larger, you know, septic solution, you know, a small treatment plan or something like IPS, which has a small portion of your downtown sewer. Right? Most most people don't accept that. You need some other solution to be able to do, you know, real big building. I mean, I haven't said it a meeting because I know because the people who don't want to believe me will just yell at me. And I don't want to get yelled at. But the fact of the matter is, the fact that we have septic and the fact that we have, uh, we have no sewer means that even if you pass through a, nothing will get done downtown until there is a sewer plant. There's just no way to do it.

00:31:06,470	S5:
Well, could the state at any point, since they would have the district say, would require us to have it.

00:31:11,299	S2:
So you're talking about $50 million to do a water treatment plant for sale in Beverly? You're talking probably $150 million to do anything from the air. And that's the water, water treatment on the other end. Wastewater treatment on the other end is going to be way more expensive than that. Yeah, it was over $3 million to do my understanding, and I only briefly scanned it. Michael Lombardo, and when he was here, had a small study done to determine the rough cost to do a treatment plant, a wastewater treatment plant for the for the town center, for the downtown area. And it was going to be it was it was several million dollars. And we know that all water and sewer projects have tripled in cost since then. So if it was 14 million, then you're $40 now.

00:31:50,369	S5:
But that's the one place if we had to.

00:31:52,970	S2:
It's one place you'd have to. But Why would the state give us $40 million?

00:31:58,529	S5:
The president did not make us put 700 units down there.

00:32:02,230	S2:
The three A doesn't require all 700 units in the downtown, but only 20% of its 147 units would have to be, uh, manageable within the downtown.

00:32:10,470	S4:
Only 147.

00:32:12,130	S2:
Well.

00:32:12,569	S5:
I'm just saying 93.

00:32:14,029	S1:
And I think we have to really watch one of them because they're proposing 300 of their units. Go. Yep. Uh, 150 yards from the train station. And then, which is practically Hamilton.

00:32:25,569	S2:
And they all. And they want that all. They want the access to that to be on a Hamilton Street. Yeah. Straight off. They want it to go down on. They want to go. Well I already told.

00:32:37,170	S1:
You.

00:32:37,430	S2:
I already told Steve that if he passes it that way. I'm so sorry.

00:32:41,029	S1:
Well that's we I was like, guys, this is why. And I, I recognize that our planning board is trying to, like, politically, not look like there. But I was like, we're in trouble if they vote this in. And then you have. Well, they've done it the way I've done, the way that they've positioned. It is like kind of that like, well, we're going to do it here. We're going to get a check mark, but nobody will actually build. And it's like guys. But if they do, you didn't fuck over when you fuck over Hamilton.

00:33:07,700	S4:
And the reality is, when I think about that little point, 93 acres at max you are, you could only put 1 or 2 units there. They did a self-contained wastewater disposal system. So I don't want anybody to say to me because they don't have one square inch of green space on that acre. But the reality is, nobody better say to me, oh, it'll never happen because there aren't wastewater disposal systems. Yes, there are, and they're getting better and better. So I don't think we should claim that even if we pass three A, they'll never be able to build. I don't I don't buy.

00:33:44,369	S2:
I didn't I that's not really what I was trying to say. I was just trying to say that it is an impediment. It's a kind of a large impediment at this point. Um, and.

00:33:52,299	S1:
And I think.

00:33:52,769	S2:
Honestly and the treatment plan for 18 units versus a treatment plan for four units are two dramatically different things. One is somewhat.

00:34:00,730	S4:
Has put in $4 billion. She can't wait to get shovels in the ground in places like Hamilton, at Ipswich, on these lovely little bucolic towns. They are prime fodder. So I mean, that's another issue.

00:34:14,769	S1:
I mean, I think we yeah, I think we don't know. I think October is going to tell us a lot. I think the the Supreme Court decision is going to have a lot. But I also think like we know that you can have multifamily housing by special permit here in Hamilton right now. You can buy any house in the downtown district and you can turn it into multiple units.

00:34:31,329	S4:
It doesn't mean that.

00:34:32,829	S1:
The per the current. Yeah. And we've had one permit pulled and it's the Willow Flats. So we know that we have a very low amount of interest, you know, in, in building these types of things here. But that doesn't mean they won't happen, although we don't know what the future holds, but.

00:34:50,400	S2:
I think right now that your biggest advantage is that it just doesn't pencil out right now, because the cost of buying land in Hamilton is high. The the available water and then the cost to accept the treatment plan just raises all the costs. And I have friends that work at Red gate and other companies and they like they looked at buying the the dorms, the student housing from Gordon Cornwall. It just doesn't doesn't work for our our work doesn't it doesn't work. We won't we can't do it.

00:35:15,630	S1:
I mean, Alex and Ben said they were like, if the building wasn't already there. Yeah. No one could make money building something like this here, right? Like it? The math doesn't matter. So anyway, uh, I do want to keep you on check. So I think the second the second topic is the cell tower. And I think the one thing I'll say about this is the amount of people who like to say, well, like, when are you guys going to get that cell tower? The cell tower is up and on. If you're not, you don't have better service. It's it's the carriers, not the tower.

Correct. 00:35:45,829	S4:
That's also a cool Location. I think it's very low in terms of

00:35:52,300	S4:
signal.

00:35:53,630	S5:
Yeah, but you're not going to get another. Someone else bringing in another cell tower. Anyway, I think maybe we shift this in some type of, you know, improve downtown communication, whether it's fixed wireless. Like HTC is looking into now, there are other solutions that can expand out and cover, you know, all through one A and stuff right now. Maybe there's a little things on, on your street poles, on the telephone poles. Uh, a lot of communities are doing that now instead of putting out.

00:36:18,900	S1:
So we're saying cell tower alternatives for broader cell tower.

00:36:24,599	S5:
Yeah. It's.

Yeah. 00:36:26,570	S1:
Because I agree.

Like. 00:36:28,429	S2:
It is ironic because the only place that's really dead at this time is downtown. Again, I put a signal on my T-Mobile phone. Like, I.

00:36:36,599	S1:
Have great service with T-Mobile.

00:36:37,829	S2:
I have Metro, but I have Metro by T-Mobile. But I can go anywhere in this town. And I just look at my phone. I've got enough bars. I can make a call I can get it for.

00:36:44,170	S5:
I don't You have mentioned your job. I built that network.

00:36:46,369	S1:
I did. I, I the like best worst decision I ever made when I was super poor like 15 years ago. I switched to sprint because it was like 50 bucks a month. And then sprint kept getting bought by all these other carriers. And now everyone's like, oh, I can't get service. I was like, I'm on T-Mobile and I have service everywhere.

00:37:02,630	S4:
I heard that they have really good research.

00:37:04,730	S2:
I had the same issue as you across with sprint. My, my, my bill just kept going up and up and I think we finally just gave up. And I went to Metro T-Mobile three years ago. I love.

00:37:15,030	S5:
It.

00:37:15,329	S2:
Yeah.

00:37:17,329	S5:
Yeah.

00:37:18,000	S1:
Okay.

00:37:18,369	S5:
So. So I think it's. Yeah, it's more in downtown is the problem area. You could have something where people come in and all of a sudden either it's fixed wireless or Wi-Fi or it's cellular, and it says, hey, welcome to Hamilton. You could sign on cell, you could sell it to the Crosby's, and they could meet, you know, pulse it into into their, you know, shops and stores. And there's all sorts of we could make money off of it.

00:37:41,199	S4:
I think we ought to put him on your committee.

00:37:43,670	S5:
Well, I've been reading with HTC on it. I brought I brought in, you know, somebody from the industry.

00:37:49,170	S1:
So what are we like? Are we saying like cable, the third site cable, the increased carrier and really do, like, do a pivot? Is that what you're suggesting?

00:37:57,869	S5:
You're saying, you know.

00:37:59,530	S2:
Like a meatless.

00:38:00,300	S5:
Solution, the communications deficit in downtown? Yeah. You know, whether, you know, whether it's an alternative station.

00:38:07,329	S4:
Just it just gets worse.

00:38:09,099	S5:
But I will tell you about without the school there, the.

00:38:11,400	S1:
Worst.

00:38:11,670	S5:
Part. Everest did tell you that when you think about.

00:38:13,730	S1:
Snow servicing and they have a whole thing of like, it's. Yeah, these are.

00:38:20,500	S4:
They have the communications.

00:38:22,769	S1:
They. Yeah. Yeah. But they were saying like parents who were like trying to like get Ahold like you can't.

00:38:27,300	S4:
Emergency cell networks are shut down now having lived through one of those in general.

00:38:32,670	S5:
So maybe we changed it to like connectivity or communications goal. And we talk about, you know, maintain maintain and grow existing cell tower, you know, expand coverage capabilities through next generation. Yeah.

Next. 00:38:45,630	S4:
Next gen.

00:38:46,500	S5:
Generation solutions.

00:38:48,329	S1:
We've just lit on fire. Okay, cool.

00:38:50,670	S4:
Look at that. Look at him.

00:38:51,699	S5:
Yeah, but to. We can fill this one out. There's only. Did you get dish on there yet. Did they start paying more money.

00:38:57,030	S2:
By.

00:38:57,230	S5:
Having. I know they're on there.

00:38:58,570	S2:
Yeah. I don't know.

00:38:59,500	S5:
The kind.

00:38:59,829	S2:
Of what we were getting about redshift.

Yeah. 00:39:04,429	S1:
Okay. Well, I'm not going to dwell in here because.

00:39:07,000	S5:
To maximize revenue growth on existing tower and expand geographical, um.

00:39:12,329	S1:
Coverage with alternatives. Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, town hall, we you're I mean, basically this transitions to a figure out how we're going to pay for the deficit in the current town hall situation and take that project.

00:39:34,829	S5:
To completion.

00:39:35,469	S2:
Because I thought this one was done. It really did. I thought we were over the finish line.

00:39:39,469	S5:
So short, you know, finding solution and then kind of management oversight.

00:39:44,429	S2:
Well we're going to have so.

00:39:45,900	S4:
We came to a rescue didn't it.

00:39:48,570	S2:
Uh well they have me so so you'll know we have um, we met with the, with the fin com last week. Capcom joined them. So it was a joint meeting Jay Butler was on, but not his whole committee. Um, when he updated the memo that you. Based on the feedback that we got from you at the meeting in July, she updated the memo and offered four different alternatives. Um, all of them rely on a mix of Arpa free cash and a level, a different level of borrowing. And the borrowing can either be through the general fund or through the CPC, depending on what the CPC wants to do, what can complement. So we've got four different options there. Looking at them. They haven't, uh, voice opinion yet. But when we meet on, you and I have to talk about the agenda from Monday, but when we, when we meet on the fifth next Monday, you know, we'll ask you to pick the date for the special time meeting. Open the warrant. Talk about the 2 or 3 questions that we have. Three. Three questions that we have in front of you. They'll get refined. Once you go through the process like they always do. But at least we'll know. These are the three articles to discuss. And then close the one and you'll you'll have a three agenda. Warrant. It'll be short and nothing else will be in it. So I did I did double check with town council. There's no requirement to leave a warrant open for a certain period of time, particularly for a special. So you can open and close the door in the same night. And he actually recommended it because if you're really trying to control and keep it to be a short one item meeting, then you should open and close on the same night.

00:41:17,230	S4:
Was there. Was there any?

00:41:18,269	S5:
Is there a risk of no quorum?

00:41:19,469	S2:
So there's always a risk in the quorum of 7575.

00:41:24,699	S2:
Yeah.

00:41:25,769	S4:
Um, did the cap. Com Amazon.com have any comments about different funding sources?

00:41:34,769	S2:
Um, they had they they talked about all of them. They, uh, I think this general sense from, from time to time didn't really talk about politics. They're just more interested in what the overages caused by and how the project is going to get managed. Um, which is that stuff hasn't changed. I kept trying to tell them that the only thing that has changed, unfortunately, is the price. Everything else is the same project. Um, income, you know, obviously always wants to have as much, you know, information out in the public as possible. John was getting into the, um, you know, you know, we have to, you know, be honest and tell everybody that the cost of the project is really all all in is going to be $11 million when you consider the cost of borrowing. And I'm like, okay, but all you're doing and we're saying that it's telling people not to vote for it because it's not you're borrowing about everybody knows if you get a mortgage, you get a car loan, you know, you're paying interest.

00:42:22,269	S4:
You don't discuss it. It's too traumatic.

00:42:25,429	S2:
Yeah. You don't you don't go. Okay. I agreed to pay $40,000 for this car, but by the time I pay it off, it's going to cost me 62,000. Nobody ever does that. But John Wilson had that conversation.

00:42:35,500	S5:
Okay.

00:42:36,800	S4:
So, um, what is the amount that is in question? Um, after the Arpa and the free cash, is it was it 800,000?

00:42:46,199	S2:
So, so there are a couple I don't have. The memo with me is a couple different sheets structured it based on to give you guys some flexibility and and and with the Finn comes input and Cath comes input. So one of the questions came up. Well if you use all the free cash are there any other projects that need to get done that we won't be able to do? Because we're doing that and so should we should. So it's going to be up to you as the select board to determine what level of borrowing will be, whether that's in you know, that's up to whether or not CPC says that they want to do it or if you want to do it. So we've got the numbers on what would cost to do 700,000, 800,000? 1 million, 1.5 different range of borrowing. And then each of those allows or or doesn't allow a certain amount of additional projects to happen if they.

00:43:27,730	S4:
So if I remember correctly, to keep our free cash out of 5%.

00:43:34,929	S2:
We didn't go below that.

00:43:36,030	S4:
We didn't go below that. We would still. And using the Arpa money. We still I maybe I'm.

00:43:42,369	S2:
Still at about seven. Yeah, it was about 800,000.

00:43:44,900	S4:
And then. And then Jay Bartlett and then you don't have to risk town town meeting saying, no, we want a new school, blah, blah, blah. That's just my fear. And so, I mean, we don't need to discuss it.

00:43:57,530	S2:
Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be a me saying no even on a borrowing. Even if it's a CPC borrowing, it's still borrowing. It's still going. It's still part of the town's borrowing. And it's still impacts our, our credit rating. Right. But, um.

00:44:09,570	S4:
But but the reality is only 10%. And, you know, and I think that's an important thing to bring up. And this is, this is what's one of the main purposes of CPC funding. So since we already have this extracted from us, maybe we won't use that term. But, um, you know, we already pay that it won't be any more of a burden anyhow. Okay. I'm sorry.

00:44:33,670	S5:
I think I don't know if you need to go into everything John saying, but I should say, hey, initially we approved whatever it was, 5.4 million. Based on these estimates. Not even get into that. It was 30% over. It was a couple million, if I remember right then. Here's our solution to do it and kind of just let it go from there.

00:44:50,230	S2:
But my overriding message is that based on based on our options that we're presenting to the to you and the Pinkham, and then later at the time meeting, none of them would require a tax increase. We will live within our means, whether we do it with or off the general fund, that we aren't increasing anymore.

00:45:07,369	S4:
And that's important. I think you have a much better chance of of passing something when you just take the pressure off tenfold.

00:45:17,199	S5:
Right. So that's definitely on Monday's agenda. Then we'll go through that.

00:45:20,500	S2:
It's on the draft. Caroline. Caroline. Tom.

Hammond. 00:45:23,400	S5:
Yeah, but so for that's a goal though too. So it's like identifying sources of funds to complete. And then it's really the management of of construction. Right. What we're seeing. Yeah. You know, because, um, how long do we think it will take once it's 18.

00:45:39,829	S2:
To 24 months? I mean, the good news is even even this delay in identifying the financing, the low bidder has agreed to hold this bid until we get through a town meeting. And he was not planning to start before late fall anyway. So we don't really throw him off his schedule too much.

00:45:54,769	S4:
You've heard that holding his bid before. Hopefully this time it was all excuse me.

00:45:59,500	S5:
He was. He was a lot lower than the other three. Right? So that's a little nervous in my opinion.

00:46:04,000	S1:
But I think part of it though, was that he was a mid bidder the first time. And so he was able to compare the scope. And I think he actually had more of a moral responsibility to the differential scope than anybody else, if that makes sense.

00:46:18,369	S5:
Yeah. No it does.

00:46:19,300	S1:
Because Tim was saying that he had gone through both scopes with him, and I think it had he have come back in the range of the other folks, there would have been more oversight on our behalf to be like you. But this on the first scope and now this on the second. Like where is a smaller scope? Um.

00:46:34,869	S5:
But how is, um, just on that topic, town hall and that like morale. Everybody's happy in their kind of temp seats or they're happy.

00:46:44,199	S2:
Yeah. I mean, so yeah. Yeah, we paid pretty well. I mean, not every single person. Peggy. Peggy just likes to complain about. I love her, I love her dearly.

00:46:55,369	S5:
I really.

00:46:55,730	S2:
Do. Um, but that's that she likes. She likes to have something to complain.

00:47:00,170	S5:
I don't know.

00:47:01,170	S2:
Um. I'm like, that's fine. You know, it definitely.

00:47:04,769	S5:
Doesn't make us any other friends. Or is there any things.

00:47:08,199	S2:
No.

00:47:08,469	S5:
People need to do to kind of maintain an 18 month window?

00:47:11,230	S2:
I think they're hoping. I think they're hoping that we get the money especially meeting. Mhm. Um, but.

00:47:16,469	S5:
Yeah. Because what is the plan if we don't.

00:47:20,429	S2:
I have two that.

00:47:22,769	S1:
You can all just come sit.

00:47:24,869	S4:
On my porch.

00:47:27,000	S1:
I have an outlet out there. Thanks. And I think the Wi-Fi goes at least at the end of the line. You're welcome.

00:47:32,900	S5:
Well, you can go to her.

00:47:34,730	S1:
Oh, right. We can go into the bathroom.

00:47:36,730	S5:
I'll text you.

00:47:37,329	S1:
Yes.

00:47:38,570	S4:
No, we will have electricity. And we do have the van. And there's plenty of room for campus. Is it accomplishing? Um.

00:47:46,869	S5:
When you're on the.

00:47:47,900	S1:
Very end of these conflicts.

00:47:48,929	S4:
I know, but you know what? They have a lot of things.

00:47:52,099	S1:
I know, I know.

00:47:53,170	S2:
There's a lot of maintenance or a lot of smell.

00:47:55,170	S1:
Right. All all true statements.

00:47:57,000	S4:
Well, you know, won't get used that much. And people up there when they still. It's still legal to have a house up there. And believe me, I have. I have 25 different opinions as to how to keep things.

00:48:11,199	S4:
Clean. And I also have an idea for pump sync.

00:48:14,769	S5:
Which is not.

00:48:15,570	S4:
So easy. All these all these things you can do.

00:48:18,099	S1:
You can love it though. I always talk about like I think I can't wait for like when we actually do hit rock bottom as a society and like, we kind of do what Cuba did, right? We're like, you have no option but to just take care of the things you have and like live minimalist like I expect to look forward to that.

00:48:32,730	S4:
Like like my $14 transistor radio from Walmart. Yeah. It's like, what else do you need? I don't need a $3,000 stereo system. It's just amazes you how little you are.

00:48:43,269	S1:
Like, I want to take Tupperware to to 15 Walnut, and I want them to put my sandwich in it and hand it back to me. I don't want all this like styrofoam and plastic and bags and utensils, but I need there to be. The problem is because of like, it'll use legislation, you know, like people don't want food. I'm like, oh, for heaven's sake, we've made it impossible for me to just be like, please don't put all that styrofoam there. I will come with a plate and you can put it on there.

00:49:06,869	S5:
I would probably love that.

00:49:07,829	S1:
No, because they'd be like, well, if there's anything wrong with the food, you can sue us and say that something happened because it wasn't an open container. And I'm like, I don't need seven plastic containers to go 150 yards.

00:49:18,269	S4:
But the other. But you can always reuse it. Going to work or something. Oh, what I do.

00:49:22,570	S1:
Is I have so many leftover Indian containers and then I make my own chicken stock, and then I just hand out plastic containers of chicken stock.

00:49:28,769	S5:
I love it when you know the black bottom. Yeah, yeah. You know.

00:49:32,969	S1:
You can get a gear out of those for sure.

Yeah. 00:49:36,429	S4:
You're under. I'm just seeing cupboards are, like, jam packed with them.

00:49:40,829	S1:
Those are the only, like, infomercials that I actually identify with when it's like, is this you? And it's like people like pulling Tupperware out, trying to find the lids, and I'm like, yeah.

00:49:49,670	S4:
Everybody.

00:49:50,269	S1:
That is me. Okay, so town hall. Great. Um, the next thing that we talked about, and I do want to say, I think we have done like exponentially better on communication. There does still seem to be a listening problem. And I don't think that we can always overcome this problem. And I think there's still a lot of opportunities in communication, but we are putting out a lot more information than we used to put out. Now, is it being received? I'm not. I can't say that it is or isn't, but I at least now when somebody says, I didn't see this, I can say, well, it was here, it was here, it was here, it was here.

00:50:25,630	S2:
We're trying to get better. We'll continue to try to improve. We can't, you know, I go back to the, you know, seventh grade science lesson, right? Where in order for there to be sound, there has to be a transmitter or a receiver and a medium. And, um, we're the transmitter and we have multiple mediums, and I just can't guarantee that there's a receiver. Right. And we do our best. Um, we put it out visually on the website. We put it out on social media. We put it out virtually through code Red, cos I had one negative response to me reminding people about the visioning session last week. Everybody else was like, great, thanks. Thanks for letting us know.

00:51:01,230	S5:
When that well attended.

00:51:02,800	S2:
There was only 70 people in the room.

00:51:06,969	S5:
Yeah, no, I think we were middle.

00:51:08,769	S2:
For the middle of July. And in the planning visioning session. Yeah, I thought it was all better.

00:51:13,769	S5:
So maybe we just got to talk a little more like during our meetings about, you know, are there any analytics on our communications? How many things can get rattled on.

00:51:21,969	S2:
That can get stuff from.

00:51:22,969	S5:
Even our website, which you click around in there. They find it easy. You do, they get what they need.

00:51:27,530	S2:
So when I first got here, we used to get some complaints about the website was hard to use, clunky, blah blah blah. We did an update a year and a half ago, and we don't really get those complaints that much anymore. I think it's gotten better.

00:51:38,000	S4:
You can pay much better events. You get everything you need. I think it's much more user friendly. So my compliments.

00:51:45,230	S5:
So how do we just I think we have the right tools. Then we got to get people to listen. Maybe that's just. But how do we like then? Focus messages. What messages do we want to make sure we communicate frequently, you know, and are clear about is it three a do we want to make sure we have a goal of communicating with our people.

00:52:01,329	S1:
Starting are we getting a person.

00:52:03,199	S2:
So so yeah, I mean I need to talk about that. So yes. Yeah we have a so we have.

00:52:09,199	S5:
We got positions over.

00:52:10,130	S2:
I got block position over here. We got. So I'm looking at a slight restructure, but with within or less than what I had originally projected to spend in this year.

00:52:20,099	S1:
This is the reallocation of glory.

00:52:23,000	S2:
Glory. So we with Patrick leaving and we're hiring a new planning director, and we have a part time conservation agent we share with another town. One of the things that's come up is that there's a need for some additional clerical help to support those two roles. Right. And, um, I was looking at a part time grant and communications person to add in my office. I think what I'm going to do is what what I've actually already had Michelle do is like, reorganize the job descriptions for the position, for the person who will be taking over for Lori that we're trying to find right now. That person will come in and do some, do some grants, management and communications and be in my office. And then some of the stuff that Lori was doing as far as assisting with the HDC, not the HCC, but the Hamilton Historic District Mission or the Affordable Housing Trust will get moved over to a 24 hour a week, part time clerical position that will support planning and conservation and have some role in helping those other smaller boards get their meetings done. So, um, it's it actually might cost us a little less, but we're going to assume it's going to cost us around the same. Um, and it's just reshuffling the responsibilities, same number of positions, just reshuffle the responsibilities because I've got an opening and I was hiring a new person, so it was the right time to look at that. If you remember, when I hired Pat, that was what Pat was going to do. And then he left and Lori came in and didn't have the same skill set. So we going to wind up triaging it and taking advantage of Lori's strengths instead. So now I can we can shift back to what we were just.

00:53:53,030	S4:
So Lori's leaving. I'm sorry, I'm a little behind me, but.

00:53:55,170	S1:
Oh yeah, I've learned this as well.

00:53:56,500	S2:
I thought we told everybody.

00:53:58,230	S5:
We told everybody we did. I know Laurie, Laurie and I did.

00:54:03,000	S1:
I found out in a side conversation.

00:54:04,829	S5:
Laurie.

00:54:05,670	S2:
Laurie is going to be a grandmother for a third time in December, and she has decided she wants.

00:54:10,230	S5:
To know.

00:54:11,570	S2:
She decided she wants to be a full time realtor.

00:54:13,570	S4:
So nothing wrong with that.

00:54:14,900	S2:
Nothing wrong with that. And so I'm very happy for her. I'm very.

00:54:19,000	S5:
Happy. I told her that.

00:54:22,269	S2:
She was. I've had her in my office longer than anybody else. Nobody else. That lasted 40 years. Like you're killing me. Wow. Michelle's still with us. She's just not in that role anymore. Um, so, um, so with Lori's departure, I was just getting ready to advertise the grants and communications person, and I said, wait a minute. I know that there's a need in planning and conservation. I can maybe solve two problems here with one hire. Well, one hire replacing. So we've reorganized some of those job descriptions. And um, that's what we're going to try to do. So I think.

00:54:56,769	S4:
So.

00:54:57,429	S2:
They're both advertised right now.

00:54:58,769	S4:
Yeah. Um, any board would be very happy to have a little more help.

00:55:02,400	S2:
Yeah. And so with the Conservation Commission, they'll be happy that there'll be something there to help Kristin a little bit. Kristen's done a good job. She. She she got off to a rocky start. It was no doubt trying to serve two masters was a little bit difficult, and we knew there was going to be bumps in the road. But she's she's straightened out and steady things down. So it's been it's been better.

00:55:19,099	S4:
Yeah.

00:55:20,199	S5:
So should we have a goal on you get a lot of open positions. Should we have a goal about whether it's managing, you know employees through transition, you know, which is different locations plus attrition and getting people up to speed is that that's something I.

00:55:34,369	S2:
Mean that's kind of a regular that's kind of a regular requirement of the job.

00:55:37,070	S4:
It's I think that.

00:55:38,570	S2:
When people when people leave, that's my job to find their replacement. And, you know, I always whenever somebody leaves, I look at and say, okay, do we have to do the same thing, or is there something else we could do that might serve us better? That's kind of how I go.

00:55:50,300	S5:
Yeah, I mean that usually that is a goal for leaders, right? I mean, you know, managing a team, right. You know, inspiring them and growing them.

Yeah. 00:55:58,869	S1:
So under personal management, if you look in that direction, if there's anything you want to add to that relative to this circle.

00:56:05,170	S5:
Yeah I think.

00:56:05,670	S1:
Next.

00:56:05,929	S5:
Year. I mean, is it is is it in here? The one I'm on.

00:56:09,369	S1:
Yeah. Exercise in leadership that promotes a positive, effective, productive work environment. Instruct staff on town policies and properly supports the implementation. Provides leadership and negotiating collective bargaining agreements with employee. Develop departmental objective and relates them to the town manager's goals as established by the Selectboard. Develops. Maintains a system for senior staff performance evaluations and merit pay. Properly manages staff, sets goals, gives good direction, has continuous follow through as well as promotes training. Personal improvement goals for all employees with the result of attracting and maintaining effective employees. Good luck out there.

00:56:39,269	S5:
Yeah, I.

00:56:40,030	S2:
Feel like I've been doing all right.

00:56:41,869	S5:
Well, I mean, it's just this will probably be the most open positions you've ever had. Yeah, and a lot.

00:56:47,769	S2:
We knew Patrick was retiring. You know, we said that wasn't a surprise. We won position. We were hiring the one, the one thing that's been killing us. And, Rosie, if you know any nurses out there that want to get into public health nursing, we have a regional public health nurse position. We have not been able to get a good candidate.

00:57:01,369	S4:
I find.

00:57:01,800	S2:
It crazy.

00:57:02,570	S4:
Well, Who is Rachel? Rachel. Was Rachel.

00:57:05,269	S2:
Rachel. Rachel left almost a year ago.

00:57:06,769	S5:
No.

00:57:07,269	S2:
Yeah. She went back to. She went back to be a school nurse so she could be home more often with her kids. Missed that. And I've been trying to kill.

00:57:13,400	S5:
Her since she left and everything. I didn't know.

00:57:15,170	S1:
How many hours is the position?

00:57:16,269	S5:
40 hours a week.

00:57:17,070	S2:
What's a well-paid.

00:57:17,800	S5:
Position?

00:57:18,170	S1:
What is.

00:57:18,400	S5:
It?

00:57:19,070	S2:
Um, I have to double check it for you because.

00:57:22,070	S4:
It's too many for me.

00:57:23,469	S2:
It's. It's 40 hours or 40 hours with full benefits. Um, because we hired. We hired we did hire a shared service coordinator for that regional public health thing, all in the states, and we're not paying any of it. Uh, Paul is looking at reworking the job description, trying to get a better candidate. So we got I we were in the 90s, though for for full, which a lot of nurses will say is look because nurses can make a lot more than 90. So that's low. But um.

00:57:49,000	S1:
I think if you put it at 25, you can get somebody for 90, 24 hours. Yeah. And then you could get the moms around here who are nurses who have kids in school.

00:57:58,199	S4:
Yeah, but you need to be a public health specialist. Just a little bit Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

00:58:02,699	S2:
By the way, I just bumped into when I went to pick up the pizza. I bumped into Chris Lee. She was picking up pizza, too. She's like I said, living down in the Carolinas now. She was out visiting for a month. She was out visiting for a month, and she happened to walk in an auto pick up for a pizza while I was there. And I was like, like, hi, Christine. She's like, oh my God.

00:58:20,369	S5:
What a small.

00:58:21,130	S4:
World.

Yeah. 00:58:22,230	S5:
Small world.

00:58:23,230	S1:
Okay, so keep bringing us back for communication. We added some things to that, but I think we still there's still sort of, um, some, some, uh, benchmarking that I think we should do that. We've sort of talked about which is, um, just pulling together quickly and we can add it to a future agenda like agenda to review web analytics, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, where people clicking what are they doing? Where are they going? Um, code red signups. I think we were just going to look at like, what is the eligible population for code Red and how many signups do we have? I know we looked at, um, offline, the code red. Um, What do you call it? The guidelines or whatever. I actually thought that they they were very clear as written. There was a question that came up last a couple of months ago. I don't know if y'all were essentially, could we use code Red, uh, to remind people about the master plan during committee meeting or one of the meetings, or was that an abuse of code red? But it turns out when you sign up for it on the website, you opt into the general notifications category. So there's like just like emergency notifications. And then there is a general. And so it doesn't seem like an abuse at all to say, like if it is a town and I think it should be very, very specific, like the town has a thing and is doing a thing, it's it's totally appropriate. But I also think that's a good lever for getting people to sign up for code Red is that it's not just like an Amber alert. It's. Yeah, if you want to be told about upcoming things.

00:59:49,500	S2:
So Bobby Gates has been trying to do more of that. So like when we when I authorize them to let people know about the visioning session, I said, just grab the people that often if the general notifications I said, and then remind people that they can, you know, tell their friends they can do this.

01:00:03,000	S5:
So yeah.

01:00:03,900	S2:
He's done some of that.

01:00:04,969	S5:
So does he have any ideas? Have we asked him?

01:00:07,400	S2:
He has some ideas, but he, um, he speaks in a very frenetic way. And it takes me a while to really.

01:00:11,869	S5:
He reached out to me when I first got on again, wanted to meet. We just we never did, but I don't know.

01:00:17,099	S2:
I think it would be helpful to have somebody in my office that has, you know, some more social media background that can collaborate with him and, and do something that.

01:00:27,099	S4:
You know, I want one thing that just popped into my head, code red sign ups. That sounds a little, um, I wonder if the nomenclature is correct to say code red code when you just.

01:00:39,199	S5:
Use.

01:00:39,769	S2:
The software? It's just the name of software.

01:00:41,599	S5:
You okay? Should we call it something else? It's not a bad point because it does sound like like like, get the paddles. You know.

01:00:48,699	S4:
I don't know because I've heard people complain and say, why are you using the emergency system? I don't.

01:00:55,670	S1:
Know. Yeah I agree and I but I also think that yeah that's an opportunity to basically like tell people there's, there's two there's two options there. Yeah. And so to your point, if somebody doesn't like what they're getting them, they can go back into their this the sign up and they can opt out of the non-emergency ones.

01:01:12,969	S5:
And what was the new um didn't we learn a new way to mail that was cheap to the drop.

01:01:17,530	S1:
Mail drop? That's what we use for the warrant, right?

01:01:19,230	S5:
Should we leverage that? Should we do other mail drops or inserts with water bills, the tax bill or whatever? There are other.

01:01:26,599	S1:
We ran out of time on the the one that we I mean, we still wrote it and we put it together for the, the the community conversations meeting. But I do think we were on to something as far as just like status of like a status thing. And I don't think we do it a lot, but like to do a once, like a mid-year like drop mailing that basically says, like, here are the big things, and here's where they are.

01:01:49,369	S5:
Yeah, yeah, I loved it. I think I wrote that down before I got here to say, you know, how do we make that a living document? We're updates and and communicating and and you don't try to overwhelm you hit the big things, you know? Yeah. These are the things that you'll be facing, whether it's water bills or three a or, you know, update on even school stuff, which I was going to ask to like, do we or should we or could we leverage they have a good communications reach. You know I know it only hits once. It's a large population. Like should we leverage them as well. And they could leverage.

01:02:22,369	S1:
Well, we do like Eric does a pretty good job of including relatively relevant town things.

01:02:30,269	S2:
They use connected. Is that right?

01:02:33,070	S1:
Yeah. But even his just like superintendent report.

01:02:36,199	S5:
Yeah I'm thinking over there. Connected there. Yeah thing if that's what it's called. But I mean they've got everybody's emails and phone numbers and there's a.

01:02:45,699	S2:
Couple different systems that you can use. Connected I think we use we use something else. But I mean but connected I think is what you're still using in Hamilton.

01:02:54,699	S1:
Um.

01:02:55,670	S4:
Okay.

01:02:56,000	S5:
That could be a good reach. And even if we leverage that, we got everybody on something like it if we need it, I don't know just other ways to do it. And I like also Caroline's like what what kind of metrics can we kind of capture on this. Like, hey, most people communicate via our website. We have this, we get this money clicks. So most people it's hard to say who reads the board, but I get a lot from that, you know, in front of the police station, you know, I mean that.

01:03:20,099	S4:
Oh, that's like too fast.

Yeah. 01:03:22,730	S5:
But, um, but I think we have done a good job on that. I think we've come a long way on communication, but.

01:03:28,230	S4:
I think so too.

Yeah. 01:03:30,300	S2:
We're working on it. We're trying. I mean, let's take I think we time it. Thanks for getting back.

01:03:36,869	S5:
But I think maintaining the, uh, the one gauge area we called it or something like that could be a good, a good, um, goal.

01:03:44,000	S4:
Yeah. Um, do we do Instagram?

01:03:46,929	S2:
Yeah. Bobby has, uh, we have, uh, town has a social media sites for Facebook Instagram Index. I believe we haven't gotten to some of the lessons, you know. I don't see us doing discord or Snapchat or, you know.

01:04:01,869	S4:
Yeah, I think I think that's that's a good triad.

01:04:04,869	S5:
Um, and I look at things like that and Facebook too, I really get the info out not to debate it. You know, it's almost like, yeah, yeah, we but.

01:04:12,369	S2:
We've done it. We've turned to doing that now. Some of the town departments have their own Facebook pages. Most of them don't have anything other than Facebook. Um, the departments are all the age where we're comfortable with Facebook. We're not looking to get into TikTok or anything. Yeah. You see, Tim's, like, doing a little TikTok thing and so on. That's kind of funny.

01:04:29,500	S1:
I saw this meme the other day. It was this cat. I do love Academy in my motto. I do, and it was like a very fat cat sitting on a on a table, like, kind of doing this. And it was like me trying to learn TikTok dance. So yes, that's true. I'm like, what are all these kids doing? Um, okay. Let's,, um, I do want to do sort of the, um, the, what do you call it? The rapid fire. Like the those were sort of big themes, but then we always have like a list of, like, really important things that we want to make sure that Joe is constantly sort of reporting on. And I think last year we had, um, you know, the GCS, um, overlay presentation, all that. You were sort of managing that process. Um, and then, you know, we needed new minutes. We were we had a whole sidewalk thing and the brick ends, like there was a lot of stuff there, um.

01:05:22,829	S2:
Still out there.

01:05:25,170	S1:
Because he he has gone on to his reward.

01:05:28,300	S4:
Um, his be involved, his wife.

01:05:31,230	S2:
He's never really been involved in the business as far as I know.

Um, 01:05:36,769	S2:
what I'm concerned about is they're just going to one day, all of a sudden, they're not going to they're not going to accept the truck because.

01:05:42,570	S5:
We technically don't have a contract. Right. So And.

01:05:45,530	S1:
That was always.

01:05:46,269	S2:
The issue. Trying to get into signing a contract for five years.

01:05:48,730	S5:
No no no.

01:05:49,570	S4:
That's Peter.

01:05:50,230	S5:
You should be at least inquiring where.

01:05:53,030	S2:
Tim was going to. Yeah. I will, I'll take over all this again.

01:05:56,599	S1:
So I'm just going to I'm going to list some things that other people can't do. But I think the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, um, this sort of three part, three pronged thing that we've, we've talked about, and I'm happy to say more about that, but I think so. We met with the Butters this week. We've met with John Whitton again. Um, there's there's some good conversations happening. And ultimately and again, I don't want to, like, get too into it because I think we should do it in a more public meeting. But the what we're going to sort of go for is a sort of multi-party orchestration where we try to do the 200 units. We we did restrict in perpetuity, the middle campus. So nothing can go there ever. And then we do an overlay on the upper campus, which would mean that and the butters would then like we would we would never have to worry about development happening in the middle. We would then do, you know, the stuff that we want to do with the 200, with all of the stuff that we've already talked about in terms of like infrastructure and all that? Um, and no additional development on the lower campus at all, and then an overlay district that allows the upper campus to be, to be maintained in a sort of sparse fashion. Um, but that will reduce everything. Um, well, I mean, they say they're going to be there forever. Right. Who knows? Um, but the point of the overlay is to say, like in that situation, worst case, we'll use air quotes is the upper campus becomes single family housing. That's how it's currently, um, zoned. And in some ways, the Butters prefer that because if you have nothing in the middle campus, the apartments on the lower campus, and single families at the top. That that doesn't really bother them. I think it does bother people in terms of like how much clear cutting would be involved, how much, you know, what happens with the, the, the sewage and the water and all that. I think there's questions there.

01:07:57,000	S5:
And how big is like, what is the plan? I'm picturing the going halfway up the hill by 60 acres.

01:08:01,699	S2:
Yeah. So yeah, you know, the whole area with the, with the golf thing is and a big open area.

01:08:07,500	S5:
Yeah. So does that become, uh, accessible for.

01:08:11,300	S1:
It just becomes. Yeah. Like deed restricted greens, great green space forever.

01:08:17,329	S5:
But is it going to be like trail space where people could go enjoy or it's just going to be they can't do anything, but it's private property.

01:08:23,770	S1:
So for now I think we would have to iron that out. For now. It would be theirs. I mean, it just it stays there. It's used how it is now. But I think what we want to avoid is if they were to sell that, somebody couldn't come in and say, like, we're going to take these classrooms and turn them into offices. You can't do that. You're not allowed to build anything.

01:08:40,369	S5:
So with that, what? You just subscribe. And you're right, we shouldn't have the discussion because it wasn't on the agenda. But I'll stop, I promise. So that'd be the 200 down low. What do you think the units would be up to off if that would have happened? Like single houses?

01:08:51,000	S2:
Well, I mean, what's what the overlay district process as well. There wasn't a thing. We had a number of minds for what would be appropriate in the upper campus if it came to pass.

01:08:59,829	S4:
Where's the planning board on this?

01:09:02,069	S2:
I the point hasn't chimed in, I've told. I invited Marnie to the meeting that we had with the Butters. She unfortunately had a personal commitment, um, with her family. Um, so she said no, but thank you for the invitation. Said that she she'd plug back in when she returned. So, um, but the planning board has put the overlay district off to the side for now, because there, you know.

01:09:23,470	S4:
Because Gordon Conwell had sort of factory from it.

Yeah. 01:09:27,470	S1:
And I think and this is, again, one of the things that we talked to John about today is like, we have to be kind of careful because we don't want to make it look like we're interfering in a contractual agreement between two parties. When we are not one of those parties and we get dangerously close to that when we start trying to make what looks like side deals with one versus the other. So the idea is if the butter's because, I mean, we had a very candid conversation with the butter's like, they will stop this if they do not get the concessions that they want. And so we sort of were trying to figure out what that trigger point was, where they would stop it. And essentially it was they want protections on the rest of the property if we're going to let this happen. Like, how do we protect the rest of the property? And, and I think our sort of counters that was like, agreed. We don't think there's any way that Gordon Caldwell is going to say like, yep, we'll never sell anything else here. But we think we can talk about the middle campus. So that's where we are trying to sort of balance what the developers could, could do. What the butter's want keeps it in balance for us. Because again, this affordability component is a big deal to us.

01:10:34,170	S2:
Oh it's.

01:10:34,399	S1:
Huge. It's such a big deal. And so we're trying to sort of balance all of that, but then also keep the other of Butters on that top part happy by saying, if we do an overlay, we can really, really manipulate what goes up here. Um, but again, nothing set in stone. This is just sort of, you know, as opposed to before where we were sort of like using the development agreements and the M.O., the Moas to sort of like, say like signage and infrastructure and whatever. We now sort of have a much more orchestrated ask. But the ask needs to come from the developer. They can't come from the town.

01:11:06,399	S5:
Right? I'm I'm interested. I mean, what voice do we have in here? I mean, it sounds like you two have been facilitating discussions, but do we have any influence in this, I guess, or do you need.

01:11:16,569	S2:
An all.

01:11:16,800	S5:
Board in in whatever the developer.

01:11:19,430	S1:
Does the.

01:11:19,829	S5:
Job with the neighbors?

01:11:21,630	S1:
Yes and no. I mean, I think.

01:11:23,800	S2:
I think the board's job is.

01:11:25,829	S5:
To.

01:11:27,470	S2:
Determine what's important for you, for the board and, and in the town's best interest and try to get that through agreement with either with either the developer or Caldwell. Probably not both at this point, but and then go in that direction. It's just the most likelihood of that. If some group of neighbors don't agree with what the board determines is in the best interest of the town, they may choose to involve themselves. And there's nothing you can do about that.

01:11:54,369	S1:
And that's where we were trying to figure out the trigger point with them, which is in pursuit of these affordable units that we need to get into safe harbor to avoid. I mean, if you in order for us to get 50 affordable units elsewhere in Hamilton, we would have to build multiple projects in multiple places. Um, and and that's.

01:12:16,529	S5:
That's what you see. You said 40. Andrew's going to do that.

40. 01:12:19,470	S2:
Commander. That was coming online at the.

01:12:22,770	S1:
Well, we need 210 to.

01:12:25,130	S5:
Be at 1%.

01:12:26,069	S1:
To get to Safe Harbor.

01:12:27,369	S2:
To get.

01:12:27,600	S5:
To 10% safe harbor, to be safe harbor is less than 10%, right? No. It's safe harbor harbors. Safe harbor.

01:12:36,130	S2:
Safe harbor is temporary. You have to meet your your hometown.

01:12:39,770	S5:
Yeah. And they're in safe harbor.

01:12:41,130	S2:
Well, yeah.

01:12:42,529	S5:
You just got to show you.

01:12:43,670	S2:
You got to keep chipping away.

01:12:45,000	S5:
Yeah, it's a big tip, but it's it's.

01:12:47,470	S2:
If you can get the 210 units, you don't have to worry about Safe harbor or anything else. As long as long as nothing else gets built, as long as you don't add to your overall housing because it's 10% of your total housing.

01:12:59,500	S4:
So it's still going to be way over what we need. So so we would probably be okay.

Wow. 01:13:06,829	S5:
But that's that is what we want out of that. We want a good amount.

01:13:10,329	S4:
And I mean.

01:13:11,029	S1:
And secondarily but also I mean, we want to preserve the integrity of the entire space and campus, not only for Butters, but I think for the bucolic nature of it and what it is. Um, so we were just trying to figure out, like, what needs to happen if if the town is saying we won't stop, we're not going to create undue stress to stop this because of this affordability component, but the residents will. What is that? And they were very clear. Like they have the money, the will, the time, the energy to to stop this if they don't have certain things, but which as we sort of described, is like we need to compromise though, because if you do that, it also stops these affordable units from happening. And that's what's that's where what's in your best interest is not in the best interest of the town of Hamilton. And we have to represent the town, not just the butter. The butter is represent 0.05% of the overall population of the town. Um, and so I support the butters rights to do whatever they want, but they need to do that knowing that they're doing it for themselves, not for the town. Um, and so we kind of know where those trigger points are now, and I think that's what we're trying to work with.

01:14:21,729	S4:
So what is it that they want?

01:14:23,069	S1:
They just they want the entire 85 acres restricted with no further development at all. We then sort of talked through it with them and said, we don't think that's a realistic goal, but what about going back?

01:14:37,199	S2:
And we'll ask, but if they say no, what? What's our response to them saying no to that?

01:14:42,869	S1:
And that's when we came up with the if we use the the upper middle, lower campus construct and say we restrict the entire middle campus. We also it's already in the language. John was saying this, that if if there's affordability in the lower campus housing, no other 40 B can go there, which means somebody couldn't pull a permit for the upper campus to do an affordable project and usurp the system. So that was kind of what we were floating with them was like, so if we restricted the middle campus, continued the overlay work with the planning board on the upper campus, would y'all not immediately lawyer up? And they were like, we think that. But again, there's this is the voice of just the group of others that showed up.

01:15:29,170	S2:
There are six people here, and there's 76 people that live there.

01:15:33,170	S1:
And we've heard that there are butters that are a hard no, nothing's going there. We'll do whatever, and we can't manage around that.

01:15:40,930	S5:
Gordon would agree to that. Three products.

01:15:44,329	S1:
If they're developer says that, they'll back out if they don't put a deed restriction on it. And that's why we're saying that this has to come from the developer.

01:15:53,399	S5:
So they they know they'll be there forever, but otherwise they well.

01:15:58,130	S2:
It's actually the developer's best interest to because the developer is buying, you know, 40 and 50 year old buildings and trying to market them as market rate apartment buildings. If Gordon Cornwell and three or 4 or 5 years sells the middle campus, and somebody comes in and does a plan and puts a brand new building, now you devalue the 200 units that they just bought, because now there's a brand new building right next to it.

01:16:19,800	S5:
No, it's good for the developer because it just paying for their bottom third. but the school loses the ability if it's being restricted to do it can monetize anything else if they.

01:16:30,329	S2:
If they're being honest and their plan is to stay, that shouldn't bother them because then they're not doing.

01:16:35,399	S5:
Anything.

01:16:36,930	S4:
Then development on the.

01:16:39,600	S5:
Yeah. So they couldn't they couldn't sell the rest of it basically unless another school given.

01:16:45,000	S5:
So that's what it's saying. Except for that unless you get the talk.

01:16:48,270	S2:
Unless you do an overlay district.

01:16:49,500	S1:
Unless you.

01:16:49,770	S5:
Do an overlay. So but they could say yeah, yeah. Again we'll get into it. But we shouldn't. But yeah but I think that's a goal. That's a big one probably um, as far as people.

01:17:00,300	S4:
And so.

01:17:00,600	S5:
Who's interested.

01:17:02,069	S4:
In in meeting with these all of these people I feel very out of the loop of of this. Who's, who's who's meeting and, and doing all these negotiations.

01:17:12,930	S1:
We haven't negotiated anything.

01:17:14,770	S4:
Uh, well, who's who's doing the meetings with.

01:17:17,000	S1:
We met with John today.

01:17:18,970	S2:
Meeting.

01:17:19,729	S4:
Just so you two are managing?

01:17:22,529	S2:
Everybody calls me because I'm a time manager. So they were calling and emailing me and want to know could we get together with them? I said, well, I'll come to you with you if I can bring. And I offered to bring Caroline and Mani, and then Mani couldn't make it, so I will I it's not me. I'm not going to say this is what I think we need. I we were there to listen, to hear what the what the neighbors are concerned about so we could bring it back to you so we could bring it back to the attorneys or negotiate anything at that point.

01:17:45,569	S1:
We're listening to the meeting today with John was about the the updates that he had made based on our feedback to the development agreement. And then we basically said, like, now, hypothetically, if if this happens, how do we to change this development agreement? And that's when he was like, that's when you kind of get into having to have the developer and the school. Otherwise you could get sued by someone for saying that you were interfering in a contractual agreement between two parties because they've already signed a NCE. And if we're trying to like, go around and like orchestrate as a town. It doesn't. It opens us up so.

01:18:23,000	S5:
Much as what we did though, right? We came up with the three prongs.

01:18:26,100	S2:
Well, but I mean, my my point to John, though, was, look, we've been discussing the development agreements with the local in Cornwall for two and a half years now. So and they kept us in the conversation. They know. And in fact, they invited me to talk to Alex. So it wasn't like we took it upon ourselves. They they've known that the town has an interest in protecting its interest in the interest of the neighborhood. So we're we're doing what we've been saying.

01:18:51,069	S5:
Right? It's just if the butter's at the end of this feel like we didn't protect them, actually works against them, and they go to court, they're going to drag us into court probably, too.

01:18:59,270	S1:
And that's where.

01:19:00,069	S5:
Like, do.

01:19:00,899	S1:
We I think we have to be very firm that like, you know, there was even like a do we need to have more public opinion in more public this and it's like the there's a difference between public opinion and a butter opinion. And we know the spectrum of a butter opinion. We're not unclear that it goes from absolutely no to. Yes. If these things happen. And that's actually really a narrow window because the thing that they the things that they want are pretty wide.

01:19:25,899	S5:
And so is that your buddies are always winning in this town.

01:19:28,829	S1:
They are always winning in this town. Yeah. And I said that too. I said, you know, I admire that y'all are so invested. But I can't stop anybody who has the the will still in time to put, you know, upwards. I mean they have literally they're willing to spend millions on this. And so it's like the town doesn't have that. But you need to recognize that you're doing it for you.

01:19:49,000	S5:
And so how do we uh, we had a point where we because the board hasn't heard about this in a while. This is the first time I'm hearing a lot of this. So it's like, how do we watch.

01:19:58,970	S2:
Friday afternoon in.

01:19:59,699	S5:
This room? No, no, no, I'm not complaining. But, like, do we need to have a meeting of meeting with the planning board and the select board on this and many other things? Or is there a point now or are we still kind of stirring the pot and it's not ready to probably.

01:20:12,029	S2:
Be happy to have a meeting with us on this at some point? Um, Later in August or so.

01:20:18,000	S4:
I'll just tell you my frustration at the meeting last week at the, um, representation of, uh, util util. Um, somebody came over to me and said that Scott Sundquist wants to talk to me, and I felt uncomfortable because I've been sort of locked out of this. And so I'm not sure. Um, I don't feel that I should talk with Scott, but I also feel frustrated that he wants to talk to me, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

01:20:58,970	S1:
So.

01:21:03,800	S1:
I don't know how, like, I don't know the best way to communicate on the topics If we. I mean, if we can't talk about them when we're not in meetings and when we are in meetings, we do talk about them. So I'm open to like, how how do we like when you know you and this is how you and Sean did it, right? You and Sean would do this best and we would bring it back. Similar to.

01:21:30,170	S2:
Bill.

01:21:30,670	S1:
Or you and Bill, like whoever. So you you're working on the. Yeah. Yeah. But like, you know, you're working on the cell tower. You'll report back. We've never done it where we had multiple people involved. So how do we want to I just don't know how to how we want to set it up.

01:21:46,000	S4:
Well, I think I think like I said, I feel frustrated. I have a lot of institutional knowledge. I feel very locked out of any meeting conversation, which isn't to say that I want to direct any negotiations, but I feel frustrated that I have been asked on more than one occasion by the president of Gordon Conwell. And I'm not involved. In fact, I had mentioned this to you in the past, so I'm wondering if there's a potential solution to have, um, to have some participation.

01:22:29,000	S1:
Yeah. I mean, I mean, to be clear, we literally met with the Butters on Friday and we met with John today, and.

01:22:34,000	S2:
We can you can do two members.

01:22:35,770	S1:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's I mean, that's fine. Would you you would like to be included in all the meetings going forward. Is that what I'm hearing?

01:22:40,029	S4:
I would like to be and I understand I'm certainly not the primary negotiator, but I think it's important to have a lot of perspective on on some of this. We all want this to happen. We want this to happen so that the town, the town benefits from this. We don't want to alienate a Butters and we want to placate Gordon.

01:23:05,170	S1:
Well, we didn't I mean, there was no alien, no alienation.

01:23:07,529	S4:
No, no no no, I'm saying I'm saying we don't want to. So it really requires a lot of just kind of sitting there and listening and really thinking about it, knowing what perhaps I know in the background. Um, and it would be I would feel that I don't, um, I would feel like I could contribute, especially. Scott Sundquist has on several occasions invited me, and I cannot invite myself. Right. That is beyond the scope of what I do as a member of the board. But I don't think that we necessarily just need one member of a board to go and discuss these things. I think it would be helpful to have another party, especially where Gordon Conwell has, um, talked to. We have has an investment for some reason.

01:24:01,500	S1:
If you'd like to be involved, I, I have I'm not worried about it. We just haven't been like negotiating. It was like we.

01:24:08,569	S5:
Were like, listening.

01:24:09,869	S1:
Yeah. We met with the voters. And then.

01:24:11,670	S5:
Is the president at these meetings?

01:24:13,029	S1:
No no no no no no no. It's literally been they wanted to talk to Joe. And then Joe was like, I'm going to invite Caroline. And then John took all of the feedback from the development agreement that we gave, and he came back and said, I have a draft. Can we review it so that I can give it to you guys for the next select board meeting? No. That's good. And it's coming to the Select board meeting. So we didn't do multiple members. Um, but I mean, candidly, I have as little involvement with any of this as you all want me to. I've spent 60 hours in the last, you know, month.

01:24:49,399	S4:
It's it's a lot of work, a lot of effort. Um, and, I mean, I think it's pretty clear my work would be. And and I do want this to be beneficial to the town. I want that for to be monkey off our backs and anything. I mean, and that's that's not the only goal, but it's a huge goal, but also protecting your property. I like these ideas and I would just like the opportunity to have my, um, my thoughts heard.

01:25:18,170	S1:
Sure. And but outside of meetings, is what you're saying.

01:25:21,529	S4:
Outside of our board?

01:25:22,770	S1:
Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm trying to figure out is, like, we're not making any decisions. We were going to come to the select board in the next meeting and talk about these meetings and say, here are the ideas.

01:25:31,369	S5:
You've done nothing wrong from my point.

01:25:32,729	S1:
No, no, no.

01:25:33,170	S5:
But I'm what would speak of my interest is why like and you're hearing this from the third party right. Like why would like if Scott's not even at the meetings. Like, does he feel like from the school position something's not working or.

01:25:44,569	S1:
No. And we've been told that right. Later. Scott would like to be involved. If God has asked us to not meet with him directly until like until we've met with these other parties, he said, like, you guys, go meet with them. You guys meet with them. And then we were going to set up a meeting for everybody. And so.

01:25:59,970	S4:
So it's perplexing that he was.

01:26:01,869	S1:
But I also don't understand why you don't just say to him like, I'm not the point person on this.

01:26:05,670	S5:
Job and say, what is.

01:26:06,869	S1:
There? What is it that you need.

01:26:08,699	S5:
That I would have by now to say if someone asked for me?

01:26:12,670	S4:
Yeah, I think it's just another I don't know, maybe he feels that I'm listening to.

01:26:18,500	S5:
Because I would almost think that you what you would want to do would go against what the school should do.

01:26:24,729	S1:
Yeah. Like they we've been we've.

01:26:26,500	S5:
Been on the present.

01:26:27,329	S1:
Incredibly flexible with Gordon.

01:26:29,300	S5:
Not you per se, but even like from the time we, we want a piece of the pie and they want probably the biggest piece of the pie they can. They need it. That's why I'm not sure they'll be there forever.

01:26:38,329	S4:
I think I think Scott also knows that I was pretty upfront with when when we met.

01:26:44,699	S5:
So you already have met once. So you.

01:26:46,069	S4:
Could. He invited me to lunch too.

01:26:48,970	S5:
So he definitely has an interest in you. Maybe it's a good thing to reach out and say, hey, it's been a bad. A lot's been going on. Curious your perspective.

01:26:54,930	S4:
And and it would be nice to be able to say I'll be attending the meetings, the informal meetings, And I would love to talk to you more, Scott. And this way I will have more information so we can bounce things off.

01:27:09,829	S5:
So you're just inquiring on his inquiry, right. But. Or is there something you've heard today or along the way that you might want to do with him?

01:27:18,470	S4:
No, no.

01:27:19,270	S5:
We'll just have more involvement along the way. Yes. To say.

01:27:21,500	S4:
You know, I'm I'm not against anything that's been said tonight. I would just like more involvement because I've been asked to be more involved by Scott. And I think that's a good sign. I think that's a good sign that he thinks that I could be helpful. And so that's why I'm just putting it out there.

01:27:40,329	S1:
Okay.

01:27:40,829	S4:
Yeah. Great. Thanks. Bye bye.

01:27:45,069	S5:
Thank you.

Yes. 01:27:46,670	S1:
Um. All right.

So. 01:27:48,470	S5:
So, is there a specific goal we want to say in here for you?

01:27:51,470	S2:
Because we got we talk a lot about good and not about what the goal is. The Gordon Caldwell Seminary Every sale.

01:28:01,029	S5:
Well is it?

01:28:01,569	S1:
I think it's also like managing or coordinating the the process between a butter Gordon developer and the town and the community.

Yeah. 01:28:11,300	S5:
Leveraging you know. Yeah. Representing town's.

01:28:16,899	S5:
Interests in agreements between Gordon Conwell and Butters.

01:28:24,500	S4:
I think there's that. It's a pretty exciting opportunity. It's a it's a great opportunity.

01:28:31,069	S5:
So that's one rapid fire.

01:28:33,770	S2:
It was not so rapid.

01:28:34,869	S1:
Yeah.

Okay. 01:28:36,000	S5:
More rapid ends contract, I think, you know, like being let's not get caught on at the end of the road without, you know, the ability to do it. So like, you know, look at some other options, you know, maybe reach out to the family is not it's not, not probably the time to do something like that.

01:28:51,770	S2:
A couple months later. I it felt a little too soon a few weeks ago, but I think obviously sooner or later we have to make contact. So now we're a month and a half, two months since he passed, I can. I think it's appropriate timing.

01:29:05,100	S1:
Did we send something on behalf of the town or board.

01:29:09,500	S5:
Because they just had the remembrance thing, right? Yeah, I missed it, I was.

01:29:13,270	S2:
I don't think we did.

01:29:14,569	S1:
Maybe we can do that now.

01:29:16,569	S5:
Is it to send them to the house?

01:29:18,100	S4:
Yeah.

01:29:18,970	S1:
I think we should send something to the house. Um, I prefer plants to flowers because flowers die and plants grow. But that's just my body. You can send whatever we want.

01:29:33,000	S4:
Um.

01:29:33,770	S5:
I do love flowers because they are bright. And I know flowers.

01:29:36,800	S4:
Can be such a big horse person, since some things, like little bit horsey horses.

01:29:42,430	S1:
I think you're going to have to advise on that. You're this. Me? I don't.

01:29:47,670	S4:
Know, maybe.

01:29:48,970	S5:
Like in Texas.

Hey. 01:29:50,600	S1:
My my.

01:29:52,270	S4:
Voice. Your head.

01:29:53,029	S1:
Yeah, yeah. Um. Did. Where did we end up on the process of digitization of records?

01:30:01,670	S2:
We have we've we've done a contract in front of us to be able to expand the, um, software that we bought with CARES money, but we obviously have slowed down only because we haven't been able to get staff to adopt it. It's a new it's a new extra thing that, um, has been difficult to get people to. You know, it needs a champion. I don't have the time to be a champion. And Corinne's the one that's most excited about it, but she would have decided to be the champion.

01:30:32,470	S1:
I know we talked about using high school interns to do so.

01:30:35,630	S2:
So we did. We did use a college intern to to to digitize some of the Board of Health and some of the building department records. Um, there's been some work done to digitize that stuff. But as far as putting it in a place where it's accessible to the general public, we haven't been able to get there yet.

01:30:53,229	S4:
How much is left to do? Is there hours or.

01:30:56,770	S2:
Yeah. I mean, we I mean, to really get the most out of the laser fee software you'd want to do, you know, all the records and treasury, all the records and assessing, you know, we haven't even started finding all.

01:31:06,670	S5:
Over at the homestead or the here stuff.

01:31:08,729	S2:
So Assistant Treasury left some stuff here. Um, the building Department of Health department took all their records, all their records down the street. Um, there's some stuff in the basement.

01:31:18,600	S5:
No way to break it up into, like, hackable bites, like do years X to Y by this date.

01:31:25,930	S1:
Maybe. Maybe the first step is a task force of some kind. Like, we need to sit down with Karen and you, and, like, I think we need to understand the scope of the project. And then I think that's exactly right. Like, can we put together a plan? But I think maybe the first goal is just to have that conversation with Karen and see, like, because I think we're like a single fire. Fire would take out.

01:31:49,399	S5:
Oh, yeah. I thought we might have done this, though.

01:31:51,500	S2:
That's been the way it's always been, right? Right.

01:31:53,329	S5:
Wow.

01:31:53,869	S1:
But I think with all the moving and moving back and doing this, I think there's an increased risk of this happening. So, I mean, maybe the first milestone is like sitting down with Kieran and even, like, scoping. How much is there? What's the time commitment, how many bodies would be needed for how long. And just kind of see how we could chip away from it. You know, it's like, oh, pep.

01:32:19,699	S5:
For the plan.

01:32:21,000	S4:
I wonder if we could consider doing one department at a time instead of five.

01:32:25,100	S5:
But that'll be part of it. Yeah. I don't think we get involved. I think, you know, sit with your department heads and come up and come back with a plan.

01:32:32,670	S1:
And I recognise like nobody wants. I think that the question would then be like, what are the resources necessary to make it? Not how would they make this possible? Because it sounds like they're they're strapped. Nobody has time to do this. Um, but if we said, you know, until we can find one of these other full time headcount, we're going to pay interns $14 an hour to come here after school for.

01:32:59,699	S2:
1525 now.

01:33:01,029	S1:
1525 to come, you know, for six months after school in the fall and work through it as long as we have a file structure and management system that they can put it into. They're so savvy. I mean, if it feels like they could, you know, we could or we could go, what do we do? We talk about going to like the computer science teacher and being like, here's a semester project. Yeah. How do we do this?

01:33:25,329	S5:
Seriously? The grants are getting a good grant.

01:33:27,670	S2:
Um, I can look at it. There hadn't been a couple. They. There had been some grant money through.

Um. 01:33:36,369	S2:
Grant Baker used to run. It was a community compact grant? Um, mostly tech grants. But we've been because of our involvement with the North Shore, IT collaborative. Most of our tech grant rent money was going to go in there as part of the regional solutions and stuff. So I'm going to ask you guys to have them come in and make a presentation, probably in September or October, because there's some there's some good, good information that they've been things that they've been doing for us that will help us in the future. But um.

01:34:03,899	S1:
Um, Pat and master plan.

01:34:09,470	S2:
Master plans. Done, done. We were thinking about trying to take some more money to start it, but it looks like we're going to spend it on town hall instead.

01:34:16,399	S1:
Okay.

01:34:17,270	S5:
Um, that other boy had a master plan. When we have an end, it's with the planning board. I know, ideally.

01:34:25,170	S2:
As well as with the planning board. And they're trying to, um, they're making their own. They're making their own edits.

01:34:31,500	S4:
So that's really neat.

01:34:34,470	S5:
Yeah. As long as it's that and versus changing the content that was brought forth through focused meetings and.

01:34:41,399	S4:
And will come.

01:34:42,000	S1:
Up with the structure.

01:34:43,470	S5:
So we twisted it a little bit. But it was voted on. not a lot. But I do think the three A and all this other stuff is time to influence how things are worded, and they're trying to position it so people, you know, all of a sudden they're getting big meetings with people who who said they couldn't come to one of our meetings because it was a beautiful day and they were outside. And I'm like, well, we had three of them, you know, and but I do think there and I haven't been to one meeting there. And because Patrick tells me it's moving, so they're just tweaking. And to your point, as long as they're not, you know, changing the message.

01:35:15,930	S4:
Correct. That's what I, what I understood is they're interested.

01:35:18,829	S5:
But we got to get that moving to go.

01:35:20,399	S2:
Yeah.

01:35:20,670	S5:
Well I know it's not unrealistic.

01:35:22,869	S2:
You know it's unfortunate. It's not unfortunate. It's not. It's a fact of life that in order to be certified as a master plan by the state has to go to the planning Board. And the planning Board is doing their role now.

01:35:34,170	S5:
So everything goes to the planning Board to die. I think.

01:35:37,430	S1:
Our planning board especially.

01:35:39,130	S5:
Takes forever. Do you disagree? I'm not saying they're not good, but sometimes over engineering and later on.

01:35:47,369	S4:
Well, that's why they put the kibosh on any US functional, any structural edits. They're just reorganizing information so it flows more often. Really? Yeah. Well, I think they've had other things too.

01:36:04,699	S5:
I know, so maybe we need a joint meeting because they've got a lot of things and we gotta move.

01:36:09,699	S1:
We're getting a reputation.

01:36:10,800	S5:
I'll say that they are.

01:36:12,069	S1:
I mean, like, I hear a lot about it, that our planning board.

01:36:15,800	S5:
They're just not complete.

01:36:16,699	S1:
And they're being called a cabal at this point.

01:36:19,699	S5:
Honestly, I do. I mean, nothing against the people because they all have very good intentions. But sometimes you get a lot of smart people in the room and it just nothing gets done.

01:36:28,199	S4:
Thanks to money.

01:36:29,770	S2:
You know, like to board.

01:36:33,069	S5:
Well, I have to tell you that, like, maybe we should have a joint meeting and start either helping prioritize or moving or understanding what's left. What's the final lift And how do we kind of get the ball downfield?

01:36:44,000	S4:
Yeah, I think we were getting pretty close to it. I thought for the for the master plan.

01:36:49,500	S5:
I think so too on that. Yeah. But then we want to get into the Jordan Canal. Would you have just had that line discussion? But it'd be interesting to have a good meeting with them. And what's their priority? I mean, they're all the three steps and the, the, the, the form based code and all that. They're probably very interested in that.

Right. 01:37:06,369	S1:
So did you end up talking to you till about that Friday, about the contract?

01:37:14,229	S2:
Um, we have so we've talked we wanted to get through Thursday night and then reconnect and see what we got from how those day went. So okay.

01:37:23,670	S5:
Is there going to be a readout or minutes or something we can look at on that meeting? We're trying.

01:37:28,100	S2:
So the meeting they had a zoom zoom component and page 710 was also there. So okay, so both I've reached out to both today because they're both getting making the effort to get those things ready to go public.

So. 01:37:39,770	S4:
There were some rough spots.

01:37:41,300	S1:
I got a look. People were so frustrated. Everybody said like that. They wanted to have a constructive conversation and that the bombing of the the three a folks that showed up just like they felt somebody was like we felt attacked. Most of us didn't even know what they were talking about, like where the anger came from. We couldn't have a constructive conversation. People didn't want to stay because of the 90 minutes of conversation. And I was just like.

01:38:08,729	S5:
We can't win on the website or H.W. Cam, you're saying.

01:38:12,029	S2:
I talked to Bill today. Bill said he'd have in a couple days. He had to. And then Zoe, who was the principal project contact for us, is on vacation. So one of the other people obsessed to pull the zoom together and get it, get the link to us so.

01:38:26,300	S4:
That people didn't understand a lot of what was going on. And and it was hard to I think the two issues were conflated and people were confused and frustrated by that, so I thought it went better when they just focused on the phone based code.

01:38:45,029	S2:
Well, that's what they were trying to get to and they kept getting interrupted. Yeah. So, um.

01:38:49,899	S1:
It's I'm I'm I'm very frustrated by that.

01:38:53,630	S5:
But, you know, it just became about three, eh.

01:38:56,670	S2:
Well, no, I mean.

01:38:57,470	S4:
Initially.

01:38:58,029	S2:
Initially.

01:38:58,770	S1:
But it's the same.

01:38:59,500	S5:
Group.

01:39:00,229	S1:
With the same level of vitriol, with the same objections and the same tone of voice. And it's not helpful. Like, we are aware that there is opposition to this, but it cannot stop every other conversation in its tracks. It's not helpful. And and there isn't overwhelming support for three A in any of our government entities right now. Nobody has overwhelming support at all. In fact, I would say most of us err on the side of overwhelming caution, if not in some ways opposition to three, eh? But we're doing our due diligence and we can't do our due diligence constructively if if this keeps happening.

01:39:39,970	S4:
You know, I think I think that would be good to convey to people we have. So I think.

01:39:45,029	S5:
We have to and.

01:39:46,100	S4:
Very clearly.

01:39:47,470	S5:
On the planning board, I've watched some of their meetings and I this morning was really clear about it opposing it basically. Right. So I mean, that's a board too that could speak up to it.

01:39:56,229	S4:
Yeah. I think what what.

01:39:58,569	S5:
At these meetings, I.

01:39:59,270	S4:
Mean, what I heard, I was sort of a fly on the wall and what I heard was that Zoe was, um, kind of minimizing the potential impact of three a and that while people would it's only it's only zoning. Well, you know, that's an unfair statement, right. And I think that irritated people when she said that and then didn't allow any comments. Well, wait a minute. So I think we should be careful about how we present it. I agree that I've not heard anybody say they are four three, but I think the public face needs to convey that a little bit more. I think I think that, but I.

01:40:46,000	S1:
Think honestly like my perspective on it has been to stay almost completely neutral. And that's why I haven't said I want to see a plan that shows what compliance looks like, because until we see a plan that shows what compliance looks like and shows what impact is, we don't know. We have no idea. And so with the if they won't allow us, we've paid money to get to a compliance plan so that we can vote against it so that we can say, absolutely fucking no, we're not doing this, but we want to see what that plan looks like so that we can say to the state and we can say to everybody else, we did a compliance plan, and we looked at it and it was horrifying. We're not doing it. But if we cannot even work with the people we paid with to show us what that plan looks like so that we can say no to it so that we can show how devastating 750 units would be, to show how devastating 200 units would be within a half mile of the train station. We can't even get there because everyone keeps telling us that we're the biggest idiots of all time, and we don't understand how government works and we need it. And I'm like, we're just trying to get the plan together so that we can show the state that, like, we did it. It's horrifying. It would never work here. We're voting it down. I've said that. No, no, on public I said it.

01:41:58,869	S4:
But that that that hasn't come through, though. I think you're you're very rational.

01:42:04,069	S5:
On the one page meeting. I think you got up and spoke to that.

01:42:06,829	S1:
I did. I was.

01:42:07,529	S4:
Like, yeah.

01:42:08,100	S1:
We're.

01:42:08,329	S5:
Just we're all.

01:42:09,130	S1:
Together that you get to vote.

01:42:10,270	S5:
Down. We said it in the library in meetings, too. I mean, people were jumping down my throat just. And I tell people when they asked me how we're facilitating the process. You know, we've been giving, you know, three a to look at and review. We're going to miss the deadline. We're not going to be.

01:42:25,899	S4:
Done.

01:42:26,170	S5:
Any time.

01:42:27,930	S4:
So okay, so.

01:42:28,829	S2:
I've been told by some of those folks that I'm trying to jam this down their throats. I might if I was trying to jam this down down anybody's throat, why would I have intentionally set up a set into position, a process that was going to miss the deadline? I wasn't trying to jam anything down anybody.

01:42:43,430	S4:
So, okay, so so the I think one of the other frustrating things, just as somebody who was sitting at that meeting is form based code is one aspect and then A three, A is another. Um, I think the two issues became conflated and people were saying, we don't want three a why are we going to try to make it work? And so that the form based code sort of got got lost in the, in the, uh, fallout from, from that. So that would be my suggestion going forward is to not conflate the two because people.

01:43:20,369	S5:
How do we untangle them? Because you're absolutely right. I think they became the same issue. The schools moved out. It's almost like we were this smart five years ago. And this is part of a master plan. Right. And it's not. But I mean, form based, we're going to need. We're going to have 14 acres of and we need to look at it. But I think people view it is you hired a company which is what they do three a staff. Right. And, you know.

01:43:42,970	S2:
I mean, right. But only three has only been the law for a couple of years. Utils been in business for 20. Sure. A lot of other planning stuff. They're very good.

01:43:51,369	S5:
Companies have opportunities where they know the state is going to throw a lot of money. And they are right now, I would bet you a good percentage of their work. Is that is that right? And it should.

01:43:59,229	S4:
Be exactly right.

01:44:00,069	S5:
You know, I would be if I had a firm like that.

01:44:02,300	S4:
People have said to me they are this Uto is and I'm only repeating what I heard. I'm not giving an opinion, but Util helps communities comply with theory.

01:44:13,800	S1:
But here's the thing that kills me though, is that even if they do that, if they put a plan in place that people like and want to vote for, they are autonomous grown people who can vote in favor of a three way plan. The assumption that everybody hates three A and everybody wants to vote against it is incorrect. And that's what I hate about this group that shows up. There might be people who who see a compliant plan and like it and say, I'm okay with this. If I want us to do this, that they're allowed to do that. So to say this.

01:44:45,000	S5:
Company, the noisy group, is always.

01:44:46,729	S1:
But I'm like to say, like this company has been hired to make sure that you comply. Yeah. They're going to show us the best compliance plan they possibly can.

No. 01:44:53,800	S5:
But I.

01:44:54,399	S1:
And if you like it.

01:44:55,470	S5:
They should have been I mean, I would have loved to have just hired them to do form based code, but we're going to be given a white piece of paper and tell us what to do.

01:45:02,569	S1:
But but what's interesting is like.

01:45:04,000	S5:
Now.

01:45:04,529	S1:
This is an important part of the three a compliance plan, because it helps you restrict it down to something that's more manageable.

01:45:14,170	S5:
That's debatable, but it could be. You're right. And it's tied by water. Except all of that stuff, right? Some people say, yeah, well, why don't you give away your right to an area? You know, anything can happen. right? It's already changed four times since then, and I'm not. I'm I for this. I want to do this, but I think it's been positioned and branded as one thing. And I'm sure if I was at that meeting, the first hour was only three a staff and people yelling and screaming because they can't. They got their see and read.

01:45:38,970	S1:
In.

01:45:39,369	S5:
The see and read instead of a green grass. That could be something inviting downtown.

01:45:43,300	S1:
But to say that we're not allowed to make any positive progress towards three A assumes that the answer is always no. And that's what's frustrating for me, is that there are people that came because they support three. They support Maura Healey. They want to see what the plan is. They want to have a conversation about it. You have to allow those conversations to happen. You have to understand that there will be two sides, and we're allowed to have positive conversations about three if people want to have those conversations.

01:46:10,369	S2:
And.

01:46:10,500	S5:
That's.

01:46:10,699	S2:
What we're trying.

01:46:11,130	S1:
To, and that's what we're trying to do, is say, and for these people to keep showing up and saying, you're forcing this down people's throat, I'm like, no, because at the end of the day, everybody gets to vote. They get to show up and say, we saw the plan. The plan is terrible. We're not voting for it. Or they vote for it and say we actually did like it. With a form based code village of 300 units right here, it looked nice and I think that would be fine.

01:46:34,699	S5:
We're on the same page, but to me it's Brandon, and it's more like we're going to figure out a mixed use plan for a downtown area. I'm not going to call it three. I'm not going to call it a project. I'm not going to call it single housing. I'm going to say, but here's the blend.

01:46:46,000	S2:
But the the branding unfortunately wasn't done by us because so we we I started this conversation with the board and think, I'm in the planning board in January when we asked as part of the budget, we want to ask for money to be able to do this. And everybody agreed. And I said, look, by doing this, we will miss the deadline, but I think it's more important to take a good, hard look and see what it looks like and see if it could work here or not and make that determination. And everybody agreed. But the first real big public thing was the people that were opposing it. And look, I blame a lot of this on the attorney general. If the attorney general hadn't sued, Milton made that the big thing. Util has helped sometimes adopt three eight compliant zoning because those towns wanted to write it. It's not like they were there pulling the strings. The puppet master, they went in and did what they wanted to.

01:47:34,500	S5:
Do for.

01:47:35,000	S2:
Them to get most of the communities that have taken up three votes. The vast majority of them voted yes. There's only a handful of communities that voted no on three so far, and I'm not saying that's right or wrong. It's just a fact. That's what it's just a fact. It's only about there's only about 6 or 8 that have voted no. So it's gone up since then. But it was it was only.

01:47:55,729	S1:
But I guess my point is whether we vote yes or no is it is to me immaterial to the conversation of putting together the information and putting together the plan and allowing the public. You know, the problem with Milton is that the Select board had unilateral decision making power to make the decision without the town, and then the citizens petition put it on the ballot.

01:48:15,930	S2:
So what happened in Milton, actually, was that at the town meeting, voted in favor of it. So. And then and then.

01:48:22,029	S1:
Blackboard had the power to do zoning in Milton.

01:48:24,670	S2:
The select board, the zoning still has to get them through a town meeting, but the legislature did.

01:48:29,970	S1:
And then the citizens petition reversed it.

01:48:33,100	S2:
So Milton has a Citizens Initiative petition in their bylaws that allows anything that is done at town meeting to be undone by a citizens allocation. So but the process for passing zoning is still the same. Milton is a town. They have a town meeting. Only town meeting can adopt zoning, right? So the Selectboard, just like a town can, either through the Selectboard or the planning Board, bring a zoning article to town meeting. The Selectboard brought a zoning article through use util to develop a compliant A3. A district brought it to town meeting and it passed like by a large margin. The people in the representative town meeting that had been educated on approved it. The people who were abutting the neighborhood that was going to get the bulk of the three. A development started an initial petition to override it, and that's what happened. And then they got sued by the attorney general. That wouldn't happen here because you don't have a citizens initiative petition under your bylaws. So it will it will live or die at town meeting. And that's and that'll be the end of it.

01:49:29,670	S5:
Oh, really? They can't just come this day. Can't come soon.

Well. 01:49:33,399	S2:
The state may sell the state made, but.

01:49:35,430	S5:
They sell it anyway.

01:49:36,529	S2:
As far as on our end, we, you know, as far as honoring.

01:49:39,529	S5:
That position themselves.

01:49:43,770	S5:
But again, they have big projects out there.

01:49:46,430	S1:
But I, I worry when we start saying that the only perspective we should allow the community to talk about is the perspective where we say, no, the profit. Well, this is my problem. We say there are pro three A and it's like maybe they are. But we also have a very anti three age group and.

01:50:04,000	S5:
We didn't hire them to do three. Right. It kind of it got shifted. But but we hired them to say we have open land and we needed we want to look at what what would be best suited there.

01:50:13,029	S4:
And That makes the warrant says that we are at the end of the form based code.

01:50:17,069	S1:
But the problem is, is that then when three A came down the pike and everybody was saying, well, what's this going to look like? And how is this going to be affected if what happens if three way passes and we have went.

01:50:27,300	S5:
Through our district.

01:50:28,100	S1:
What's not going to look like? And we were like, well, we have to look at it then, because you're right. If all of a sudden you look at 700 units.

01:50:34,930	S5:
I just fear we're going to get through this process and we're not going to have any real constructive feedback by the community, and it's just going to be written by this company. Yeah. Like do they have any preliminary survey stuff? They've had a survey out there.

01:50:47,699	S2:
I don't I don't know what.

01:50:49,130	S5:
I'm just curious because that meeting doesn't sound. I wasn't there like it was. And I think everyone that they've come to with ours, I couldn't say anything between that and even just a combination of the school.

01:51:01,569	S4:
Yeah. I just do wish that they.

01:51:06,800	S4:
Got a lot of calm, listening people when they were talking about performance. these. I think they focused a little bit on big projects. Um, but but I do think there's some value in working on a form based code. I honestly don't see how the three eight fits in with that. Um, I think.

01:51:28,029	S2:
It's not. It's an if you're going to have a if you're going to have A3A compliant zone, the best in, in, in in our opinion, it was in part of the RFP in our opinion. In Hamill's opinion, the best way to manage A3A compliant zone is through form based code. So you can control what it looks like and feels like. That was the push that I was getting from the planning.

01:51:50,630	S4:
Board, right? Because we don't know if state is going to allow that.

01:51:54,829	S2:
No, I don't think that they'll have a problem if the zoning that you got is for.

01:52:00,729	S5:
Community action and says, it sounds like this.

01:52:03,369	S1:
Is where I think we do have to.

01:52:04,729	S5:
Wait for a certain number of houses.

01:52:05,869	S1:
That is in essence, and I completely understand what you're saying earlier. It is just the zoning. In that sense, everything else still applies. Our bylaws still apply our regulations, so everything applies. So if we pass yes, we're board. So if we have form based code it still applies to the zoning for three a the only thing we're changing in.

01:52:28,000	S5:
Itself.

01:52:28,500	S1:
Is by right multifamily.

01:52:30,699	S5:
They take it by the domain of something. It'd be really it'd be really hard.

01:52:34,729	S4:
I think you have.

01:52:35,529	S5:
With the town have developed to sell out.

01:52:37,270	S1:
So you have to take this.

01:52:39,270	S2:
Yeah. And this town would have to sell a book to sell it, and I don't I wouldn't envision an easy path to sell that that parcel. As I've said, as I've said to people who asked me the question and let me answer them if we get that. If that's a huge if if we were to get the 14 acres at the Winthrop site back, I wouldn't recommend the Selectboard to put the whole thing up for sale. Anyway. I'd say let's carve out six and create a buffer with the rest.

01:53:06,930	S5:
Maybe that's what your gold ends up, like. No, no. Um, so I think I think we've got to go through a process. What can we do as a board and all of our committees in town to help facilitate the process so people are more open minded and we can have discussions so we can build something and make an informed decision versus speculating on, whoa, what we you know, what the what the news that.

01:53:27,800	S2:
Was the idea was to.

01:53:28,699	S5:
Try. So how do we help? That is what we're on. That's the path we're on. Is there? How do we help smooth it? Is there another session coming up?

01:53:37,500	S2:
Maybe the next one is supposed to be September. I'm supposed to reconnect with them when Zoe's back and I'm back, and to kind of take the temperature. Do they feel that they got enough information so far between the survey and the visioning session, and what they're getting out of the advisory committee? I had a positive report out from, um, Amel and Jonathan Poor, who had they had done an advisory committee meeting with the advisory committee and some of the members who are very anti IEA had really dominated that session with Zoe, and so Jonathan and Amel volunteered to hold an interim one without util there to try to get some of the answers that Zoe and you were looking for, and Amel says that that meeting went better.

01:54:18,829	S5:
So maybe that's a solution.

01:54:21,029	S2:
So we'll start to get some information back. So I've got I got to check with them and find out if they feel like they're starting to get the information they need to start to put together a plan. That was the other thing that got me with the with the meeting the other night, Rosie, everybody said, well, show us what your plan is. Nobody will ever. Whenever you show up as a planner, say this is your plan. People thought you did that without any input. But then when we show up and we ask your input, well, we'll show me what it looks like. I can't show you what it looks like till you tell me what you want. Well, it's like we're stuck in a little dirty little loop.

01:54:52,829	S4:
What does. What does? 15 minutes.

01:54:56,170	S2:
But I mean, under what, 15 units per acre in Euclidean design, which we currently have, or 15 units under form based code, which is what we're trying to get. If we're trying to get form based code, then you need to tell us what it is you like. What are the type of roof lines you like, what is the height, what's the massing? What? What are the setbacks? If you can answer those questions, you create the form based code. And then I can show you what 15 units per acre looks like in that form based code. But with Euclidean design approach, it's way different. And the problem is it only deals with floor area ratio and massing and building heights, but you have no control over what it looks like.

01:55:29,899	S5:
Well, I think, did this date have an idea when they gave us the number? No mistake. Both of them are out of the hat, but it had to be a formula for the 50 per acre. Or on average it was.

01:55:42,069	S2:
They were. They were trying to get a percentage of growth in every community, and they were going right after communities like ours that haven't grown because they're there, they're holding it out and saying, look, Beverly's grown, Salem's grown. All these communities have.

01:55:54,470	S5:
Added.

01:55:54,800	S4:
Traffic and density. And Beverly, you can't even hear you.

01:55:58,000	S2:
But I hear you. But they'll their pushback will be they're now dealing with a the disproportionate amount of the housing needs of the region, because smaller towns won't do any of it. And their pushback would be like, it'd be great if you got a few small towns could share some of the burden here. And I'm not saying that they're right or wrong, I'm just saying that that's the other side of the argument.

01:56:17,029	S5:
But that's where that's.

01:56:17,770	S2:
Just the other.

01:56:18,270	S5:
Side of progress versus it feels like it was one shoe fits all. Like you're talking percentage girl. That's what we told Secretary Keneally.

01:56:25,329	S2:
And again, I love that everybody keeps saying that this is more Healey's idea. The law passed on to Baker. Baker? It was Baker.

01:56:32,500	S4:
It's a very different version. It was. But you could opt out and lose a few grants.

01:56:39,500	S2:
Right. But Keneally was the secretary of housing and Economic Development when they started to put together those those regulations. The administration was only in power for a few months when they got adopted. So you know that the the bulk of that was written by the previous administration.

01:56:54,100	S4:
The brakes.

01:56:54,770	S5:
She brought it over the line. I think the brakes.

01:56:57,000	S4:
Just came out last year.

01:56:59,899	S2:
Large capacity, said last year was 23. The law got passed and the law got passed in 20. Most of the work had been done in the two years before.

01:57:05,670	S5:
That.

01:57:06,000	S4:
But the regs didn't come out until 2030.

01:57:09,670	S1:
Again, I think I think the problem I mean, there's very spirited debate. Obviously we've all been part of it. That's a good it's a good thing. But I think what I've always.

01:57:19,229	S5:
Been a debate though in these meetings.

01:57:20,699	S1:
It's just been and this is my thing, it's like I what's so curious is that nobody in all of this has ever asked me what I think in three a no. One and I go on Facebook where people are talking about how I am like the development queen. I hate this town. I'm going to put three everywhere. And I'm like, funny, you've never fucking asked me what I thought about three a and I think you're dead wrong. But I've always said the process is what we are here is what we're here to facilitate the process, to go through the process, see what we think. And we have to remember that there are people I don't know if you all remember the poll a couple of years ago, where on Facebook where everyone was like, if you could have one thing downtown, what would you be? And we had like 450 responses for a Trader Joe's. Now the reality of that is that would put 30% of Hamilton into the vapors if they thought we were putting a Trader Joe's downtown. There are tons of people that would love a Trader Joe's. And that's my point, is that there is there are varying opinions about the future of our town. Some people really do want growth, commerce. You know all these things and some people don't. It's not my job to tell the town unilaterally what they will or won't like. It's my job to show them what it would look like if we did it, and let them vote on it. I can have my opinion and I have my vote. That's the beauty of being a voter. I can vote, but I really, really, really do not appreciate this. Like unbelievably negative onslaught of people who are not allowing the process to go forward. It's the same people and I get it. Y'all may vote against it unilaterally, but when I asked that room of people, you were there and I said, raise your hand if you were here because you unequivocally oppose three, a less than 15% of the hands in the room went up, which means that the other 85% were there to understand and make a decision. It wasn't 100% of hands. It was 15%.

01:59:23,770	S5:
Is this the last meeting?

01:59:24,930	S1:
No, this was the community conversation.

01:59:26,729	S5:
Yeah, but that was a nasty meeting.

01:59:27,869	S1:
It was a nasty meeting. But 15% of the people were there to say, absolutely not. Everybody else was just there to listen and understand the process.

01:59:36,199	S4:
Yeah. It's like people want to understand.

01:59:38,800	S5:
So we just got to make that more of a safe zone for people to go in and be able to stand up and ask questions or voice opinions without fear of being.

01:59:47,270	S4:
Yeah. So, um, what did. I did hear that somebody contacted me and actually said that the meeting with ML and Jonathan went well, that they were very enthusiastic. What did they specifically talk about from baseball?

02:00:03,699	S2:
I don't know. I can I have already had so many people tell me that this is my plan, this is my that like I am out of it, I'm staying out of it. I don't want to create the impression that I'm trying to drive the bus or steer the ship or anything like that. My job is your town manager is to put some put a process in front of you that can help the town get to it. I've tried and I've and I'm failing, quite frankly, I'm failing because of a small group of people keep shouting us down and it doesn't even let us.

02:00:29,729	S5:
Start the process.

02:00:30,770	S2:
But I'm trying.

02:00:31,869	S4:
Yeah, I think something that would one thing that would be helpful is not to throw out there that it's it's only a zoning change. Nobody is saying you don't have to build. I think that's kind of a disingenuous statement. And I don't think we in our conversations like people went bananas when when Zoe said that, you know, it was kind of a Pollyanna ish, but I see.

02:00:59,670	S2:
But I.

02:01:00,329	S5:
Think.

02:01:00,729	S1:
Back on the other side of that, which is that it it is. I think what we've been trying to say is like it is factually just a change to zoning. It is that that is literally all it is. It is taking something from whatever it is now single family housing, multifamily, special permit to buy, right? Multifamily. That is all it is now. What has upset me though, is then like that gentleman who showed up to say, well, this and then it's deserted section eight housing and it's minorities in your schools. And it's and I'm like.

02:01:29,699	S5:
Don't get up.

02:01:30,100	S1:
And 700 the community we talked about Danvers and the whole thing. And I was like, I, I am happy to under to accept that there can be impacts to zoning. That is that is the point of zoning, right? There are impacts to it. But someone has to buy the land, want the land, develop the land, sell the units. There is a process that happens afterwards. Now, we can't always control what happens after that, but the fact that people were saying that we are ceding the land to the government is a blatant lie.

02:02:03,029	S4:
Well, we don't have control over it and.

02:02:06,430	S5:
We don't.

02:02:07,069	S2:
Live. We don't have control over it now.

02:02:08,329	S4:
Well, well. But you have.

02:02:09,430	S1:
To live within a half mile.

02:02:10,630	S4:
We have a we have a zoning rule. But if we give carte blanche as of right zoning, that that's worrisome to a lot of people.

02:02:22,069	S1:
But but it's still zoning. Like you and I live within a half mile of the train station. We'd have to sell our house. If they. If they pass an overlay that says this is by right, multifamily and no one sells their house and there's no property. Nothing happens.

02:02:37,630	S4:
Right. But if some. But if people do start to sell their houses, then then that's the slippery slope. So so so it could go either way.

02:02:47,130	S2:
Um, but it's so it is really even in the best circumstances. I'll take an example from the sea I grew up in in Chelsea. Chelsea. One of the first things I ever did in government was I was on the urban renewal zone in the Economic Development Subcommittee for the City of Chelsea in the late 1990s. Mayor and the city manager was Jay Ash. He was working on trying to redevelop the urban renewal zone. 30 years later, it's finally done. But he was working. 20 years later, he was working and trying to do something. And one of the people he had in to talk about trying to revitalize the city of Chelsea in the urban renewal zone, was the son of Robert Kraft. Kraft was looking to build a stadium for the soccer team, and he said, look, I've got this whole area down here that I can we can do what we want with the zoning if it brings in jobs and things like that. And Kraft looked and said, well, that's a great plan. Why don't you go out and acquire all the properties that I need for me and then call me back, and then we can do something because it's way too hard to buy multiple different lots to put together a large enough piece, and it's way too expensive. And the minute I set a price with you to buy your house, well, now you know that was her price. So now you want a little bit more and go on, on and on on. So even big developers won't get in and do the deal unless they know that they can control a large enough site to actually make money out for it.

02:04:02,970	S5:
That's why the school site is so precious, and that's why.

02:04:05,729	S2:
I say it's more important that we own it, because we can control who buys it as opposed to, you know, we. Meaning the town meeting in the town of Hamilton. It's it's better that the town of Hamilton owns the 14 acre site that's available then some private interest that just wants to get their dollar and get out.

02:04:21,170	S5:
Right. Like the Hansberry property could do something that's big enough.

02:04:24,670	S1:
Well, I was looking at like the the house right across the street from honeycomb that went on the market. And I was like, this is an interesting, like, intellectual exercise, right? We were talking about how, like, developers are just chomping at the bit to come in here and build multifamily. I was like, okay, so this is a house on like a reasonably deep lot. It's a private home. It's for sale. A developer can buy this house right now in the downtown district. And they can either keep it or they could raise it and they could put a building here. They could do a special permit for multi-family housing because that's.

02:04:55,270	S4:
Yep. There was no there's no limit.

02:04:57,069	S1:
But there's no interest. The house sits on the market. The price gets lowered. It sits on the market lower. It finally sells to another family who's going there. And I'm like, I'm not saying that's the way things will go, but that's why I don't appreciate the Chicken Little approach either. We don't have a crystal ball. We don't know what, we don't know what the future is. And so this like extreme of like we do this and then the government takes our land and next thing you know, there's section eight and you know, poverty everywhere and broken windows. And I'm like, whoa, that's a stretch. And it's I and I, I, I agree with you that it can't be as simple as it's just a zoning. But I will concede that line when this line is conceded. But the second we do this, we cede it to the government. And don't try it on me flags or. And I'm like, y'all, everyone take a deep breath and let's go through the process and let's look at what it looks like. And if we if we as a community say that is the worst idea we've ever had, let's vote it down and look at the state and say we're not doing it and take our grant money.

02:06:02,000	S4:
Can you say that in a way that people see it because clearly they're they're not hearing?

02:06:08,869	S5:
Well, we could say, if you guys want to go through an open and construction process, we're going to put it on the warrant for a special town meeting in September. We'll just vote on it since no one wants to.

02:06:18,699	S1:
Yeah, I mean, that's fine with three a on there.

02:06:21,329	S5:
I put it on.

02:06:21,970	S2:
I will say.

02:06:22,470	S5:
This.

02:06:24,170	S2:
As your time manager.

02:06:25,069	S5:
I.

02:06:25,399	S2:
Advise.

02:06:25,699	S5:
Against it. No, that's a joke. But how do you influence people if you don't want to be part of the, you know, invest the due diligence.

02:06:34,529	S4:
You're you're explaining it much differently than you do In our meetings. You're explaining it that much more. I'm just giving you a comment here. You're explaining it in a much more compassionate way. Well, I.

02:06:49,699	S1:
Think part of it is that, like when we started explaining it the last time, they that group was very clear that any, any progress towards a plan is unacceptable to them.

02:06:59,100	S4:
Right. Yeah I agree.

02:07:00,470	S1:
And I'm like, well then.

02:07:01,770	S5:
Then I'm we're ignorant. We're in their homework. I'm like.

02:07:05,699	S1:
Oh my God. I mean, it was.

02:07:07,630	S4:
It.

02:07:07,829	S1:
Was the most disgusting display of uncivil behavior. And we were incredibly civil. But I was not patient with that group. Like I have said this to anybody who's asked, I've said this is a process you get to voted down at the end if you want it. You know, I don't have a dog in this fight, but if you're saying that the only acceptable answer is to not go through a process, to not say anything good about three way to not say anything good about multifamily housing, then I don't know how to have you listen or have a constructive conversation because you don't want to. You've decided that the only acceptable answer is. I mean, because now it's the sound bite is to tell the state to go pound sand, and we're not going to do that.

02:07:45,199	S2:
And well, and I'm, I'm a fan of the idea that we have a process that we try to comply. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I can defend that to the state all day long. You passed a law and told us that we needed to consider implementing zoning at the local level. We considered it. Our town decided it wasn't for us. So do what you will state that I can defend that. But just because a smaller group in a very angry way insists that we just say no up front. That's not something I can defend, because the town as a whole hasn't had a chance to actually weigh in on it yet. And the town as a whole right now hasn't been given anything to really consider. There's no way of knowing. We can't ask them to decide on something that they don't know what it looks like.

02:08:27,199	S4:
Right. I think it might help if if we don't say it's only zoning because that's that's a I can.

02:08:36,600	S2:
You can. I can.

02:08:37,829	S1:
Give.

02:08:38,000	S5:
It.

02:08:38,100	S1:
Back to you.

02:08:39,630	S4:
Like, like not even discuss its only zone. Yeah, let's let's do a hypothetical of what 3D might look like.

02:08:47,199	S1:
It is.

02:08:47,800	S4:
It is who we want. But let's do it. Maybe if we are more careful about how we present them.

02:08:54,630	S2:
Make sense? I can, I can.

02:08:56,600	S1:
I don't think that.

02:08:57,470	S2:
Fully supports.

02:08:58,529	S1:
The full group that has come before.

02:09:00,470	S5:
Anyone or two people within that vocal group that an advanced discussion would have.

02:09:06,000	S4:
I don't know a lot of them.

02:09:07,470	S2:
And I.

02:09:07,770	S5:
Don't know.

02:09:08,670	S2:
If the ones that I've talked to, I don't think they're they've made up their minds and that's fine. People are allowed to make up their minds when they feel like they have enough information, and that group feels they have enough information. They've made up their minds. I'm not.

02:09:20,399	S1:
Mad.

02:09:20,569	S2:
I'm not sure I changed my mind.

02:09:22,569	S1:
About so many different reasons too. I mean, like, again, there was a lot of language in that meeting that I found. I don't believe in a god, but if there is one like he's not like the whole like I worked hard and deserve to live here And you know, I'm not just going to open up this town. It's like, first of all, you're talking about it as if multifamily and affordable are the same thing. They're not. We're talking about market rate housing.

02:09:42,670	S4:
And that's that's another issue that could be clarified that we're not this is not.

02:09:47,869	S5:
There.

02:09:48,000	S2:
Isn't even an affordable component. There isn't even an affordable component. Even in the regulations, the state and the regulations need to say you should have a certain number. They don't even want us to have it in the zoning that a percentage has to be affordable. So I'm like, guys, you're making us build new units and not letting us sell affordable. Are you kidding.

02:10:02,569	S5:
Me?

02:10:03,800	S4:
No, we're talking about nice market rate. Um, apartments or units. So maybe if we try to help them, if we try to help break down the walls with. With language that is not, um, triggering. And, you know, it's sort of knowing how to talk to an angry group that doesn't make them even more angry. And I think that that darling little person, like I said, what's her name? Do you tell leader Zoe? Yeah. I mean, she just. I wanted to get up and punch her too. Honestly, when she said it's only zoning, nobody says you have to build. That's unfair. So I think if we avoid like we.

02:10:52,000	S5:
Are.

02:10:52,369	S2:
And and I think, I think I don't, I think that if she did just she got, she got jeered down a little bit when she said that I think.

02:11:00,270	S5:
But but okay. Cheering okay. But if I can finish.

Yes. 02:11:04,569	S2:
If I think if people had just let her finish the statement was I think she was going to say because she said it mean technically it's only zoning, but we understand that there are implications to it and nobody really wants to approve zoning without understanding the implication. She didn't really get a chance to the minute the words only zoning came out of her mouth. People were like, oh, come on, stop that. You're lying. That's not true. And she didn't get to finish that thought.

02:11:27,970	S4:
And some people might just believe that. And that's unfair to people who really understand it at a much deeper level. And I think that's scary to some people. I mean, I don't know, I'm just I'm just sort of thinking about it, having watched the whole thing.

02:11:43,029	S2:
She, you know, at one point she also said that under three a and under the regulations, not all the zoning needs to be within a half mile of the commuter station and in fact, only 6%. And then I literally.

02:11:55,699	S4:
20, 2000.

02:11:56,869	S2:
I literally had a member of the planning board say, that's not true. And I'm like, no, it is absolutely true.

02:12:01,699	S5:
Absolutely true.

02:12:02,270	S2:
That is factually.

02:12:03,229	S5:
Accurate.

02:12:03,930	S4:
Right? It's like it's like the moving target all the time. So, so people are saying we don't trust the state because they keep changing the regulations. Where the hell did that come from. Right. Because they realized how unrealistic their demands were that we put we put 731 units within a half mile. So how so? So people are saying, how can we trust the state not to come in and and bulldoze us into doing what they want us to do. If we put the zoning in place, I'm just kind of, you know, trying to trying to understand it from angry people perspective.

02:12:44,970	S1:
But again, our job is not to change the minds of people who've decided that they're against it.

02:12:50,300	S4:
Well, our job is to maybe encourage more open mindedness.

02:12:54,470	S1:
And we're not the ones not encouraging open mindedness.

02:12:57,829	S5:
Well.

02:12:58,569	S4:
I think how we.

02:13:00,500	S1:
I don't want to spend 80% of my time.

02:13:02,770	S5:
Schools are going through it.

02:13:04,069	S1:
Yeah. Like but I don't want to spend 80% of my time responding to 20% of the vocal angry population. The other 80% want to have these conversations, and I don't I don't want to spend my time trying to to pet the feathers of a group of people who shown up to do specifically that, to derail a meeting and derail a conversation for another group. So when like when Tosh got up and said, you know, in the future you shouldn't use that kind of, you know, triggering language in the future, you shouldn't derail a constructive conversation by yelling and calling government officials names, telling us we're stupid, telling them we're the most ignorant person you've ever met, telling us to sit down, telling Dana to shut up, telling Dana, Lara they don't care what she has to say. Calling her a little girl like this isn't on us. This is on you. Like that behavior is unacceptable.

02:13:55,229	S4:
This is true. Except it's reality. So how can we tone it down if we know? I mean, good, I don't know. I'm glad. You know, because we need to find a way to get through.

02:14:06,930	S1:
The good news, though, is that. And I'll say this. And I mean, they need to know that.

02:14:11,329	S5:
In the budget for.

02:14:11,970	S1:
Time, they have created such a swirl that it is having the opposite impact of what they think. People now see anti three signs and they're like, that's that crazy group. I'm going to vote for three A because I see these signs and the yards of people who have behaved a certain way. And I know that it means that I'm four, three, eight, and they need to be aware of that, that that is now the narrative that it's like the same group of people that are misbehaving, and it's having the opposite effect. People are like, there's three way signs in these people's yard means crazy people. We're not voting that way. And they're I think they need to be very cautious about that because.

02:14:49,670	S5:
Hey.

02:14:50,270	S2:
The thing we can do, though, is pick up on the fact that if we feel that people are not engaging with the public sessions, we need to find a way to drive people to fill out the survey online and participate and get their voices heard in other ways, to help get us through a process that we all agree we need to follow some kind of a process so we can get to whatever the outcome is going to.

02:15:08,399	S5:
Be. How would we communicated the survey?

02:15:11,100	S1:
I haven't seen.

02:15:11,729	S5:
It. I tried to do it today at the office and I wouldn't submit. I don't it could have been my office firewall, but I got to the very end. And. Have you heard feedback like that? No, it just makes.

02:15:23,869	S2:
Sure it's on. It's on the it's on the website that was.

02:15:26,529	S5:
I want to go to a phone. I want to hear what I feel. What are they.

02:15:28,800	S1:
Like pushing it out?

02:15:29,899	S5:
Like sending it to phone.

02:15:31,000	S2:
We had we had Bobby pushing it out on social media. I can have them redo that. And we can have we can.

02:15:37,329	S5:
Maybe we gotta give them a deadline. I'm seeing that like, because I do think getting some of that information, like if what Caroline just said is more factual and we show evidence, more people want to learn more and don't. So please respect others, you know, rights to learn more and process and let us continue this process without, you know, disruption. You can voice your opinion, but and then then we just kind of help, you know, with the what gets said. It's hard. People get triggered. And I don't think it matters what came out of someone's voice when someone's already seeing read because they've read everything else and they hate the idea of it. Someone could have could have said, you know, Christmas Tree. And they would have stoked that one lot of Christmas trees in these places.

02:16:21,430	S2:
And we're way a field of goals right now.

02:16:24,470	S1:
So it's also 9:00. And, um.

02:16:27,470	S4:
How'd we do?

02:16:28,270	S1:
So I think that I think there's some homework that we just need to do. I think we hit the Gordon Conwell. The three a the brick ends, the digitization. Um, and we just if anybody over the next like week before the next meeting, they will just put a line item has any additional like one off things that need to be brought up as parties for Joe. We should just make sure that we get them on here. Like, I know Bill, if Bill Olson was here, he would ask about sidewalks. I think we now know where the fate of sidewalks lies, and it's in Town Hall.

02:17:07,530	S2:
It will not go over this coming fiscal year right now.

02:17:11,100	S1:
Um, and then I think at some point, although I don't have the energy for tonight, we should just discuss, uh, what I was going to say what role we should play in the ongoing conversation about the schools. Um, but somebody recently gave the feedback that they thought that maybe we should have less involvement and allow that conversation to live with the schools. So I don't know the value of that.

02:17:36,870	S2:
But so I and if I could reply that, I think to the extent that as town manager, I have to order the superintendent. I will probably necessarily be proud of it. I am on the feasibility study, uh, feasibility committee. The school feasibility committee, anyway.

02:17:52,270	S5:
Are they still up?

02:17:53,370	S2:
This would be. There's a meeting next week. It starts at 630, right before I have to be at your meeting at 7:00. So I probably won't be meeting, but, um.

02:18:00,229	S1:
On the eighth, perhaps their first meeting back.

02:18:02,469	S2:
You know, my observation is that until or unless a group that wants consolidated school organizes and starts to put together a campaign committee for that school, it will fail. It really doesn't matter what Eric and Tracy and our I or you do. School building questions get decided just the same way people run for office. You get a committee. You reach out to voters, you find the voters who support it, and you make sure they show up on Election Day. If nobody does that, the question will fail. I am confident of that.

02:18:36,430	S5:
So what is the mission? The school. I thought the feasibility group already completed their task recommendation.

02:18:42,469	S2:
Well, I mean, it's a building committee, so it's a school building committee. It's it. They'll they'll follow it as long as there's a process going on. So, um, they'll follow it through design and presentation to the public next.

Right. 02:18:53,370	S5:
So because I think the school needs to get out in front of this because it will fail and talk about the condition of all the schools, because the survey said most people think it's fair to go and educate people on stuff which will might help their momentum, you know, but that's what that, you know, they have this whole month off, they're back at it in August. Right. That makes sense.

02:19:11,969	S2:
So again, if a if a if a campaign committee emerges in Hamilton, one of them say yes to our schools committee. Grows organically out in the community. Then it has a chance without it, it's it's dead on arrival. Five seconds.

02:19:25,930	S5:
Right. It's going to and. Yeah. So unless they're the same 80% or just quiet because I do have plenty of people come up to me teachers and all saying, you know, oh, there's a lot of everybody wants this. They're just not.

Yeah. 02:19:36,530	S1:
But I've heard the same thing.

02:19:37,670	S2:
But. Right. But it's the issue is that it's a any question. Any question like this. Who shows up if there's any question like this is there's always going to be 25, 30%. They're against it. There's going to be 25% who definitely want it. But they'll lay in the weeds and just say, I'm going to vote for a when the time comes. But it's controlling the middle and getting the middle to vote one way or another. And there's an organized group that is telling people vote against the school. There's nobody doing that, telling them vote for the school. So until you find somebody that campaigns for it, I don't see it happening.

02:20:09,969	S4:
When will we know the price of.

02:20:13,399	S5:
Design phase.

02:20:14,200	S2:
Design phase. Design schematic design starts and that's when you can start to put closer to real numbers on it, because then you'll start to see what it looks like, how many flaws those drawings you have an idea of scale and cost of um, cost of uh.

02:20:31,600	S1:
Yeah. I mean, I think the last we're looking at ponding 50 million in Hamilton about.

02:20:36,969	S2:
About last year.

Yeah. 02:20:42,530	S2:
And that leaves them on the hook for about 32 million. But with that.

Yep. 02:20:49,329	S1:
There's more support for it, interestingly enough. And when I'm vocal support board and when I'm.

02:20:54,770	S2:
It's none of them.

02:20:55,899	S5:
Yeah. They didn't want it.

02:20:56,670	S1:
Well but I also think.

02:20:57,399	S5:
They're doing it now and I and rail and stuff.

02:20:59,399	S1:
But they're also a far more fiscally motivated town. And I think after all of the fallout, they were much better at talking about the fiscal responsibility of consolidating the schools, which turned that conversation differently. Um, whereas I think there's still this in Hamilton, this conversation about like, this isn't fiscally responsible. And it's just because folks haven't looked at what happens if we don't.

Um. 02:21:32,129	S5:
Well, I don't know what's wrong. I don't know if more people are, you know, disagree on the fiscal mess or the magnet school system because, well.

02:21:39,899	S1:
But I think one is the one is the same as the other, right. Which is we if we spend if we bond $50 million to educate 250 kids, we have to bond another $50 million to educate the other 250, and we have to bond another 50 million to educate.

02:21:53,030	S5:
The other fiscally responsible one. I'm saying, yeah, I'm saying the fiscally responsible don't do anything.

No. 02:21:59,299	S1:
So I think what people are saying is that if you're truly being fiscally responsible, you recognize that.

02:22:03,569	S5:
But people don't recognize.

02:22:04,500	S1:
That, right? That you have to consolidate because.

02:22:06,770	S5:
Get out there talk.

02:22:07,729	S1:
You're going to bond at the one.