Always late to the party. Perfect. Good evening. Um, hello, everyone. Uh, it is 7 p.m. and we call to order the Hamilton Select Board, uh, meeting of Monday, September 9, 2024. Uh, we are going to do a roll call vote as we do have one member, uh, on the Zoom.

So I will start with you, Tom. Uh, Tom Myers present at the William Olson. Rosie Kennedy here. Bill Wilson here and Caroline, you present, uh, first things first, we’ll do our announcements and board openings, as always, we look forward to folks joining us on our various committees, uh, and

doing, doing the good work of keeping this town running. So we have one opening on the Conservation Committee. Uh, we have two associate openings on the Council on Aging. Uh, one opening on the cultural council. Uh, the finance and advisory committee has one associate opening. Uh, the Hamilton Development Corporation has one opening for a three-year term.

Uh, the historic District commission has 2 openings for 3-year terms, 2 openings for 2-year terms of one of, one of which must be a resident of the historic district, and one must be a resident realtor. Uh, we have one at-large opening, uh, for the Human Rights Commission.

Uh, with that, I will turn over to uh select board and town manager reports. Uh, Tom, anything to share from the internet. Uh, yeah, I’ll just give a quick update. So uh we met with the the school building committee met uh a couple Mondays ago on August 26th, uh, giving us sort of

some updates from the summer but also talking about what’s ahead for the fall. So there’s sort of a lot going on in the next couple of weeks, uh, both from a project standpoint but also from a public engagement standpoint. Um, so they did note that, um, you know, over the next few weeks they’ll be

doing a life cycle cost analysis, which is essentially going to report out an HVAC system select. for the selected um site. They’re also gonna be doing some, some workshops as well as a traffic study to look at, um, you know, traffic with the, the proposed site at the Cutler, um, um, location, then

uh there’s also going to be a number of engagements over the next several weeks, so, um, the, you know, curriculum night at all of the different schools as well as the open houses at Cutler, Bucher, and Winthrop, um, the, uh, consultants will be setting up shop there to speak with Folks and sort of

kind of give some answer questions and sort of address any concerns or issues people might have with the um with the schools just sort of give as much information as possible. So lots of opportunity for engagement over the next several weeks, so make sure folks are looking out for those

and if you’re attending any of those open houses or those curriculum nights at the schools, uh, both the high school, the middle school, and then the three elementaries, uh, make sure to look out for the consultants and, um, ask any questions, they’re there. A Uh Bill and anything to busy week

getting back into school, so that’s what I’ve been, so I’ve got nothing to add tonight. Rosie, yeah, couple of things conservation commission meeting on 8/28. Um. The salient issues from that meeting were the um. Uh, Bridge Street, uh, buildings, lot 9 at 185 Bridge Street does have an erosion control, um, Plans submitted,

but it’s not in compliance and so, um, the person who is the owner of that property has been issued 12 citations as of that date, and he owes $2800 so far. The other properties do have uh restoration orders, um. That are in compliance with the restoration plan. So we’ll see

what happens with that, um, the next thing that was of concern to the conservation commission is the athletic, um, Fields project, um, there was an update. And it seems that the Um, Fields project has not complied with pre-construction conditions, um, including, uh, uh, testing for PFAS for.

36 PFAS um chemicals and um they are out of compliance with the requirement to Um, submit substances that would that are contained within the um. Artificial turf, um, material, so. Um, the chair. was pretty concerned about that and actually went down to have a site visit and he actually. Um, instituted an enforcement order

to stop construction until they are in compliance with the pre-construction orders. One of the concerns is that on sites 1 and 2, the PFAS levels on the 4 chemicals that were tested are 3 times higher than um is allowed. Um, that’s a concern, so you can understand, I’m sure everybody can understand that

the conservation commission and indeed the town should be concerned about what’s going on there. So the other thing that the conservation commission is endeavoring to do is get a consultant to find out why there’s such an abnormally high level of PAS in those sites that are about the Clark property, so they’re um good.

To be figuring out where their money is they said that they have about $100,000 somewhere, but, but they’re not quite sure where it’s located today we’re going to be reaching out to Wendy, our, um, finance person to find out where that might be. So on to the ZBA meeting from 94. The interesting thing that

happened at that meeting was that there was a freestanding accessory apartment with a garage, um, On, on their agenda for a public hearing and there was a lot of really good discussion back and forth about what constitutes an accessory apartment? What are the, what’s the purpose and intent.

It’s kind of a maximum size accessory apartment, but it is allowed up to 900 square feet, so ultimately they did approve it, um, it was a very good conversation. And finally on 95 I attended um Gordon. I’m well, um, feel logic seminary meeting with the developers, Alex and Vince, and the residents and

the upshot of that meeting was that the residents are concerned about the wastewater treatment for treatment, um, facility and they’re concerned about further development on the site after the 209 apartments would presumably be approved so that remains to be seen what’s going to happen they’re more conversations in the future, but I think it was

good was a, um, very substantial turnout. That’s that. OK. I need a notebook. So good update, um, If you already touched on some of my updates, uh, relative to the schools, you know, back in session, uh, both on in the classroom, the athletic fields, um, Um, Rosemary did speak about the

athletic facility, uh, they did get a, uh, uh, an enforcement order to shut down, primarily for from what I heard, a lot of paperwork stuff and compliance related, uh, I think there’s overall, um, 19 usual conditions and 63 special that they’re supposed to keep up with and they’re actually talking about hiring a, a wetland scientist to oversee

the entire project. So right now, the shutdown, I think the, uh, they plan on attending the next conservation meeting on the 11th. Um, so, uh, more to come from that meeting, um, school, uh, building committee, um, met as, um, was already mentioned by Tom that, you know, they do meet on the 4th Monday

of every month. Uh, Tom went over the public forums. I encouraged people to attend those, um, Also he went over, uh, some of the HACC system selection, uh, some of the other workshops, traffic studies that are happening, uh, throughout, uh, September, all those dates are on the website, um, for the building committee.

I, I’d just call out the key milestones, you know, they’re in the schematic, uh, design phase right now. I think on the 11/7 is when we should get estimates of what the, uh, the plans, uh, cost and look like for plans are already being developed both from the building perspective as well as,

uh, the footprint of the property. Um, and then they need to submit to DESE, uh, Department of Secondary Education and the MSBA, uh, their final schematic design submission on 12/20, uh, so some important dates coming up for that, uh, by the end of the year. Um, HDC, um, They’re

looking to get in front of us, Joe, um, you’ve seen some of the emails I have. I know they’re looking for some FY 26 Capital. Uh, also, uh, there, you know, just letting us know the lamps and oil property, uh, is on the market, um, but they,

they’re primarily they want to get on the, in front of us about, uh, 2.5 million in capital for next year. Um, so we’ll try to get them in front of us to just discuss that and some other, uh, items, uh, CPC canceled their meeting, uh, for

this month, um. I guess we took all the money, so. That’s it. Perfect. Thank you. Um, I just have a couple of, uh, administrative things. So, uh, obviously thanks to everyone who helped the election last Tuesday, uh, go off well, um, we had a good turnout here in town. We can always have a

better turnout though, so go to your local elections. Uh, but one thing that came out of that election was multiple people showed up to vote 3A, um, and then they said they’d be back in November to vote 3A. So a reminder that anybody’s listening that the Um, 3A vote is not a ballot vote. It is a

town meeting. Uh, vote and it will happen in April at town meeting. So for folks that keep showing up thinking that it’s on the ballot for the, the state elections or federal elections, it is not on that ballot. It is a town meeting vote, uh, and it will take place in April. Um, that

doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show up to the other ones, but there was a substantial number of people who showed up to vote on 3A, um. We don’t even have a plan for 30s, so there’s no voting on it, uh, but that will be in April. So. Uh, with that.

Uh Just wanna make 11 quick announcement. We’ll be talking about it later at night. I’m sorry about my voice. We’ll be talking about the uh town hall project and the decarbonization project, but the town was awarded uh the maximum $500,000 grant from Green Communities for the town hall project, so,

um, that’ll be a big part of the financing for the decarbonization project Bill and Christian who are here today from ESG online they will speak to that when we get to them, but wanted to announce that up front so people don’t miss it. Thank you to Vicky and Bill and Christian, uh, for the

work they did on the grant application. Mickey Masoni. Um, all right, we will move to public comment, uh, as a reminder, anybody here or online, 3 minutes on anything not on the agenda. If you have comments about something on the agenda, please hold your comments and tell the agenda

item comes up. Um, Anybody Anybody online have any public comments raising their hand online. I see no hands. In the room. Uh, Tosh Blake, Sagamore Street. I, I recently watched a video of the uh select board workshop held on July 29th and it’s actually surprised to hear my name come up. I admit it’s

uh flattering to think I’m living in some of y’all’s heads rent free, but I would also like to seriously address uh some of the concerns brought up in that meeting, specifically in regard to matters of conduct of the public as well as related conduct of a member of the select board, particularly

related uh regarding heated discussions about 3A zoning that have been going on in town recently. Chair Caroline Boullio The recent workshop that was held on the twenty-ninth complained that I had advised her in a previous community meeting, not to use, in her words, quote, triggering language, unquote. Um, she maybe thought I was trying to

police some speech or something. I didn’t use that phrase triggering triggering language, but the sentiment for me was friendly advice not to repeat insulting misinformation that the 3 A zoning is that 3 zoning is only a change in zoning. It doesn’t mean anything will be built. That’s a phrase we’ve heard multiple times from

multiple people. especially with pro-development interests in town. Um, at first I thought at that meeting when she said it to the crowd, she said that unwittingly not expecting hostility. But now I believe Caroline said it to provoke the crowd, and this is why at the recent slug board workshop, Rosemary Kennedy politely attempted on 3 different

occasions to explain to Caroline that that false talking point is highly offensive in Rosemary’s words, that talking point is quote unfair and disingenuous, basically calling it I, I agree. Instead of taking Rosemary’s advice seriously, Caroline doubled and tripled down on it by claiming the phrase to be technically true. Well, If zoning laws can lead to real

life impact which we all know it can and will don’t insult us by saying it’s only a zoning change. Unless, of course, your intent is to derail a meeting or presentation. As a side note, when Caroline complained in the workshop objection to our language in the community forum.

She implied I, along with some of the crowd, was also shouting down and calling town officials names. I did no such thing. Others may have done so, and I certainly don’t endorse that behavior and wasn’t. Fact, on occasion trying to calm some of the more heated people in my vicinity, in my opinion and

given evidence, evidence of Caroline’s conduct in public, she may not have the right temperament to serve as chair of the select board, given the position’s importance in communicating directly to the public. Thank you. Thank you. Would somebody else like the role? I think you’re in a fantastic job. I’m happy to step down. I do. I’d take any

opportunity, in fact. No. OK. Thank you. Uh, anybody else? All right, um. We have 2 items on the consent agenda we have a request for electronic signboard from the Friends of the Hamilton Wynham Library, uh, as well as approval of the minutes. Of the July 29th. 2024 select board workshop. Um, I

will entertain emotion and then I do want to hear more about the signboard. I move that we approve the consent agenda. 2 Awesome. Uh, what is the sign board? Typically we haven’t put things on the signboard uh that weren’t directly sponsored by the town, uh, we’ve had the we had some discussion about that.

There was, um, in the past I think the use of the signboard for the. Um, Military History Day at Patton Homestead and some folks asked us not to do that so when the Hamilton went friends of Hamilton won the library asked for the board.

I thought it was best to bring it to the board and let you make that decision. So is this To put up a sideboard? No, we have a signboard. They want to put on a notice of their uh fundraiser. It’s uh for the annual book sale sale. Oh, they

want to use the signboard that they want us to put a notice about the the COA or the it, got it, got it, yeah. Um, um, I was gonna say don’t they have the uh the um physical signs that that they put up they have used those in the past. I don’t

know if they have. I mean, I’m, I’m assuming I don’t they the request came through. I didn’t know why they asked for it, but I put it in front of you because it came in kind of last minute so. So we’re gonna discuss that a little bit.

So we can, um, if we want to, yeah, you can remove it from the consent agenda so we can, uh. Amend the motion to just the approval of minutes. I, I would like to amend the motion so that we’re just approving the minutes of the July 29th select board meeting. OK. You have a

2nd. 2. Uh, all right. Any discussion about the minutes of the workshop? All right, uh, Uh, vote on the minutes. Yeah, that’s what we’re going to vote on the minutes right now. Uh, Tom, I’ll go to you first Tom Myers, Tom. Right. Bill at the end we abstain because I was not at that meeting, so Rosie.

Uh, yes. Awesome. Bill Wilson, yes. Caroline, yes. Uh, so we can now pull the request for electronic signboard out separately as sort of the zero agenda item. Um, Yeah So do we want to make a motion or do you just want to discuss it? Like a motion to let the friends of the library use the electronic

sign board in front of the fire station for an announcement about their. Uh, fundraiser. Oh. You have a second? Second by Bill Wilson. Um, all right, Rosie, do you have questions, comments or concerns. Well, I think that we had said that we were going to only allow issues that were directly related to the town on the electronic

signboard. Um, So that’s the first part of it and the other part is the library. Is part of Hamilton when um, but are the friends of the Hamilton Lenham they’re a nonprofit organization. So, OK, they’re nonprofits, so, OK, so under those circumstances, I think that the signage that’s put up

around town, um, not directly endorsed by the town because this is not a town. Um, entity who is asking for the um advertisement, um, I certainly love the library. I love what they do, but I think we need to Set some boundaries on that electronic board and we have decided that we were going to

stick to town entities and for that reason only I would not be in favor of that. Yeah Does the Friends of the library work on behalf of or raise money for anything other than the interests aligned with the Hamilton Wyndham library. Not to my knowledge, my understanding is they, they

raise funds, they do volunteer work here at the library and then they donate the funds to the board of library trustees to be expended on things here in the library. I’m just wondering like the friends of the COA asked the same thing. On behalf of a fundraiser for the COA, I wouldn’t want to say

no to them. But they’re also not directly affiliated with the COA, and you know how I feel about this, but how is it different? I guess that’s what I don’t understand. The friends of is not the COA, it’s the She’s saying she wouldn’t. Oh, you wouldn’t support it if it was the Friends of the COA

because they’re separate entity. They’re not a direct town affiliation. There are separate 5050 only because they have to be in order to legally raise money on behalf of that entity. It’s a tax shelter in order to be able to raise money for town groups. Yeah, because that’s, I guess that’s where I sit, right,

so I totally get where Rosie is sitting and it’s like we don’t once again don’t have a policy we have the discussion but not a policy, and I feel like, yeah, because they solely support Hamilton Wynham causes and finances. I’m never gonna, people always complain about not getting the message out.

Last thing I want to do is say no to not getting the message out. So I, I’ve I’m caught between. In fact, we don’t have policy on it, but it, but because they’re a, a group that’s solely focused on raising money for Hamilton when um. Like it, it’s not a, it’s not a, but they’re supporting a

Our entity of the library and not supporting some book club that meets, you know, in. Like, you know, top field, so I think that’s the camp I’m in as well. I think certainly, I look at those boards as community information. I get a lot as I drive through one. I’m in

Hamilton. I look at those boards and, and I, and I, I know where you’re coming from as well, Rosemary, and I think if we have, you know, certainly any direct, uh, board or committee, but if it’s a friends of one of those boards and clearly in, you know, like they should provide a paragraph

or bullets of what’s being done. This is clearly in support of the library, you know, so which is a Um, um, a general cause for everybody in the community, right? I mean, the library has things for everybody. It’s not specific to any political or certain cause, I, I would be in

favor of that. I think same with the park, any programs that we’re doing or, you know, that’s Hamilton one and I, I think, is that OK, you know, like sign up for concert in the concerts in the parks or um even with the schools. I mean,

I think like open houses, I, I think that’s a way in which people we talk about communication as being one of our biggest deficits. And I think that’s a, that’s a. I get a lot from that and, and I would ask Joe though. Is there, is there a constant flow of new information or would you say it

has room for more content? I, I think these types of things tend to be temporary. They’re only asking for it for a period of a week or so so that they can promote the book sale which will ultimately benefit the library, um, so I mean it’s not the type of thing where we wouldn’t have room to run

around there I guess they were asking about I guess I would mend the motion to maybe if it’s OK, men motion to say limited to a week and limited to just. title of the event and the date of the event and not have to pay a bunch of this doesn’t need to be a description, doesn’t need to

have any sort of what the money for you say. I want a book sale. On September 1221, 21st 23rd, 24th or something, so limited to just to for for a week, but I agree I I I I hate to say no to information for community focused events. Fights it’s not

like they don’t have any other avenue for advertising and the last time we had this discussion about this, it was um seen as that electronic board, um, first of all would be used for a specifically. To supported events and by having it on having people put their events onto that electronic

board. The presumption is that it is endorsed by the town, so I think we should understand clearly. What we’re saying and then when the next nonprofit comes along and says, oh, well, this is a town, uh, nonprofit, so we think that it should be allowed and there was a lot of.

Resident pushback about the Pride Day picnic, and that was when we had this very discussion. So, How do we decide if something is endorsed by the town because the electronic board is put on by the town. How do we decide between information and endorsing something. I guess I

think about like the friends of Winthrop or friends of Bucher or Friends of Cutler putting up, you know, the, the ski sail or the carnival or the things like that, and I just, I don’t want to get to a place where we’re suddenly saying that none of those things are allowed to go up because they’re not.

Products of the school, they, they’re products of the friends of asking for. And I, I understand like the, and, you know, the sort of What you’re talking about slippery slope, but by the definition that we’re using, that Hamilton went a picnic would not have gone up because it was the Right? It

was the 501, it was the other group that wasn’t a Friends ever, wasn’t a group that asked for it and and and that was two miscommunications, the town didn’t actually write a check for anything. I didn’t, but somehow we ended up as being I don’t connect the two though, but I agree with you on that

and I do get the um bridging something a little bit so I do kind of take a little pause, but this clearly, so we’ll have the library put it up. Hey, we’re having a, but I think any, you know, facility, uh, I look at this town at the library as

the town is the town’s asset basically and everybody wants to use and, and, and the library and, you know, why wouldn’t we? I would endorse this 100 times over. But I get what you’re saying because then when do you stop the next person, but we could we draw the line and we say if it’s a

friends group and we list the friends group, we must know who they are and they support the park and they support the COA and they support the library and they support the schools if we really want to put other stuff in there just so people know, hey, this is happening on the 10th, I’m gonna be there.

I mean, we also have the right. Unequivocally to say no if someone asks, we don’t always get everything because Joe, we’re we’re gonna get we could we want only bring exceptions. So like I’m saying I would amend and say, you know, any group or friends of a group that is Presenting, promoting

an event for the entire community. I know I know that’s an official town and tote, is that what you’re saying? I like the li you could even name it. OK, yeah, OK, so we’ve had this nice discussion. We’ve clarified I feel comfortable. OK. Deb, did you have something to add? Um yeah, I was just

gonna say that um the friends of when I brought this up to show like all the advertisers for that. There were friends of Patton, friends of the library, the Patent Homestead Cultural Center. These were all entities that when I said, you know, the town is sponsoring these, it was pushed back saying, no,

those are actually separate entities, so we don’t have control over them, including the library, which was sponsoring an event and hosting an event and our tax dollars to fund them. So It is an important the friends of Patton asked to put up an event that was happening at Patton.

We’re saying that’s a yes, but the friends of Patton didn’t ask for anything with the pride picnic. Do you see what I’m saying? Like it wasn’t a friends of group that was asking on behalf of their group. It’s the concept of clarifying. I’m just sort of taking a higher level is concept of

clarifying like our friends of as 501c3s, are they actually town entities and when I asked that about their participation here, you’re like, no, we don’t have any control over them. So if we don’t have any control over them, then do they have the right? To be On the fireman’s board. Do you know

what I mean? Like I, I just think that clarity with the rooms with the land, with the advertising, just so that there’s really clear consistency and rules. I would just encourage you just because I think it’s important like. What do we have control over and what do we not as a town?

Thank you. So I think if we just list like. Those entities I mentioned, I think that’s clean. I think they’re clean. I mean, who knows if the friends of the library and everyone else knew they were gonna be on that sheet, Deb, right? I mean, I mean, we ended up, we didn’t know it. They were hosting an

event right, but I mean, and they got put on it, so I think that that’s a st I think when you’re talking about the homestead that gets rented out, that’s a little bit of a different story. Um, we’ve got to be tight on that, but we don’t want to penalize a friends group from helping the

check to give it back to minimize the taxes and provide. It’s productive, I think the issue is. Honestly, I brought this up because I, I thought it was important to have a broader discussion about this and help us to clarify what’s appropriate, um, on the town, um, electronic board and what

isn’t and this discussion has helped to clarify that a little bit, so all right, so do we have a is there a motion sitting there’s a motion and we’re gonna be the motion to approve it to go up for a week and limit it to. Subject matter and time and date, yeah. OK, uh.

So, all in favor, Tom Myers, starting with you, the 2nd my son yeah Bill Bill Tom. Myers, yes. Still down there I. Rosie, I. Bill Wilson and I, you are. The eyes have it. So Joe, there’s no official policy we to make, but I think the direction we gave you knew is

that if it’s a town, don’t bring it to us unless it’s unless it’s not, if it’s, if it’s a town department or committee we have, I’m authorized to do it and if not, I’m bringing it to you. That’s why it’s here. Yeah, that sounds, that sounds good. Um, next up, uh, is an appointment

of Ken Wilson to the Hamilton Foundation, I believe Ken is here. Say hi. I am. Hello Ken, thanks for joining us. Um, I am happy to entertain motion to. Uh, approved K and then we can discuss it. I make a motion that we approve, um, uh, the appointment of Ken Wilson to

the Hamilton Foundation. 2nd, 2nd by Bill. Um, all right. Ken, would you like to tell us about yourself? Would you like the spotlight on you for a moment? Not really. I’m uh I am uh I’ve been a resident here for. 30 some odd years and I respect it up to him foundation does and

I’ve known Heather Ford for a long time, who has a certain way of Discussing and putting pressure on it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, but I have the time now and I feel that the foundation is important and they open vacancy that they needed to pay. So I agreed to accept that. I love

that. Um, does anybody have any questions or comments or concerns for Heather’s Heather’s memo said it all, so it was very well written and I support her. Recommendation. totally agree, I think Heather’s Heather’s word is, uh, solid gold as far as I’m concerned. Hamilton Foundation does great work. I know that they’re very discreet, very

careful, and I know that um knowing Heather, I don’t think she would, um, advocate for Ken Wilson unless she felt him to be um Uh, a worthy candidate, so absolutely we Uncle Uncle Ken is no, I’m just kidding. No, I appreciate it. No, no relation. Appreciate you, you volunteering and stepping up.

Thank you. You well? Um, with no further ado, uh, Tom Myers. Tom Myers, aye. Way more tonight. Rosie Kennedy, Bill Wilson I Caroline will you I. Uh, Ken, I’ll tell you what to tell everybody, you’re not going to hurt our feelings when you hang up. You’re stay.

We’d love, I don’t know if they have dinner, so I’ve been waiting for that. So thank you very much. Robust signage conversation. Yeah, I understand. I listened to it. But, but feel free to leave our we have thick skin. No, no problem. I will, I will, I will probably sign off, but thank

you all very much. Of course, thank you. Um, all right, next up, set age, income, and Todd Laramie. Unfortunately ties on here. I apologize for that, um, but we move or you don’t need him annual vote you guys take to update the uh the limits based on, um, changing factors and the sheet in front of you

is from the assessment you can table if you like, but you don’t have to, um we do it’s the same. Um, send things, well, you’ve taken every year for the last several years. um, so the ask is. Uh, age 65 as of July 1st, uh, It Or, but we’re

asking to increase it to so you just have to vote to set the age limit, you can be 65 or you can increase it to 70. The household income, uh, for a single is $47,520 for a married couple at $771,280 in total household assets of $175,000 for a single person or $250,000 for a married couple, so you

just need to decide which of the ages you want to be, um, the limit, but. Um So, uh, what is it currently and has it been that for? A long period I believe it’s been 65 steadily for quite some time. So between 65 and 70 seems um those are

only two options. Isn’t the age for Medicare 66 could we think about increasing it to the Medicare age? Um I think the main reason for increasing the age would be if you thought that the uh program was in danger of overspending its funds and therefore you wanted to limit the pool of people

that would be able to take advantage of it so it’s not more it’s not as much related to their age as just changing the demographic of people who could apply how is the health of the funds in the program? I think the assessors feel comfortable that you could say it’s 65 for this year. Yeah, I

don’t know that we need to limit our senior. Programming Yeah, so right now it’s, right now it’s 65, it’s 47,520 is the same. As, as this was, so it didn’t change. It hasn’t changed. The household asset wasn’t in here, but. This program has been here since 2021, is that right? I think

it’s longer than that, um. I, I, we, we made some changes to the law at special time meeting in 2021, but they had, um, to this because it was a special act but we haven’t, um. Uh it’s been around since before that, so they, they had made some

adjustments to, to make it more meaningful at the time, that’s all. You even change these things and since 2018, so 2018 has been that it’s been. 65 and $477,520. I ain’t broke Don’t fix it. Yeah, and, and there’s not an issue with funding for it, so good. Yeah, my only.

Question is. So. I mean, considering a 2.5. 10% year over year inflation or on average for the last 5 years, you’d be looking at like closer to 4 or 5. The fact that 47 hasn’t changed in 5 years and neither has 71. I don’t, I’m not saying we open this can of worms today, but Um, To keep

pace with inflation, both of those numbers should have gone up on average 2.5% a year. Um, Which It’s the the state dictates that, I think, but I’m not sure. Is this a state dictated number or was this something you heard on? We use this, we use the numbers that state uses and then we ask you

to vote on them so that state dictator we’re not, are we certain that these are the latest state numbers or Jane submitted it for to us so I, I know Jane pays close attention to this program, so I would move that we, um, approve the senior exemption program, uh, at the existing 65 year age and,

uh, outlined, uh, incomes and asset levels. Tom, Myers’s eye Bill at the end. Wilson I sorry. He’s applying. let’s say 65 or 70, not 65, 270, which is weird. I know I Uh, Rosie, yes, Rosie Kennedy I. Bill Wilson I. Caroline B I. All right, well done. Keeps. Sorry. Um, all

right, next we have a presentation from ESG, uh, to give us, uh, the overview of the decarbonization project at Town Hall. Uh, I believe we have folks with us on the recommendation of, uh, and Bill Gabba and this is just a, um, make sure that the board and the folks watching at home

understand the program and what’s being proposed out there. Great, thanks, Joe. Uh, thanks for, uh, it’s good to see you again. Uh, we presented this last year as we were developing this and uh very excited to be part of the first net zero decarbonized historic town hall in Massachusetts. Um, I have 3

slides here to, to talk to you about, um, one is the basically the scope and what, what’s going into the project, um, how it interacts with the Capital project where the funding sources are coming from and then a cash flow slide. I had my colleague Christian Michell, who’s the lead development

engineer of the Project as well the answering technical questions that you may have, so. With that, um, Joe Fight. So basically there are 5 key key energy systems that we focus on, uh, this project is happening simultaneously with the renovation project, uh, but she will be taken care of, uh, a brand new geothermal heating

and cooling system, um, that will be two standing column wells out in the parking lot, um, uh, behind Town Hall in public works that would be piped into the uh underground into town hall to a BRF variable refrige flow system to distribute that throughout town hall. There’ll be a new

building. Management system to support that. Uh, there’ll be a new energy recovery ventilation system to be code but doing it in a very efficient way to save the heating and cooling, not let it go right out the out the window. Uh, uh, network lighting which will be both aesthetically and functionally

pleasing uh to the users, um, and then we, uh, DPW roof, the new roof will be hosting a, are you not gonna have the omelet what you say you, I’m not having, you can have the omelet I I’m not having, you can have the omelet I I’m not having,

you can have the omelet I not having, you can have the omelet I don’t feel like I’m like you could mute, we got you What kind? I was wondering if someone thought there was an omelet somehow in our program, but, uh, solar, so solar was um

uh there’s gonna be about a 50 kW solar system that’s gonna be put on that roof and fed, uh, uh, underground into town hall as well. Uh, so that helps create the net zero, right? So now we’re decarbonizing by eliminating the gas, everything’s all electric, uh, and then we’re um making um the

power throughout the year with the, the solar system, um, to, to cover that knee. Uh, that energy project was procured to the chapter 25A and the capital projects 149. Um, you know, one key thing to know, I, I know that the town didn’t want to have what happened at the safety building where some of

the those energy systems of value engineered out when the costs will come. high on that project. So by separating this this project can stand alone and basically we’ll show you um a backslide how the funding and then the cash flow basically pays for itself. So we’re not asking for new money for these

systems from town residents. Um, it would be a tax exempt lease of a municipal lease to support the project. It’s a 20 year lease currently at 4.99%. Maybe it’s gonna come off just a little bit by the time we close, um, a big part of the 1.33 million is covered through a green mini decarbonization

grant,,,, $500,000 the uh uh the Greek community just started giving those out in the past year. Um, there’s only two awarded, um, in the spring, uh, around, uh, throughout the state and we were out One of them for this project, uh, and they, they thought it was a very exciting and really good

project, um, because it touched on a lot of things that I had mentioned earlier, not just saying hippo. Um, the, uh, the federal funding to support the project, the IRA inflation Reduction Act, um, allowed for what used to be the investment tax credits that went for like solar and geothermal to be paid

as direct pay grants to municipalities and nonprofits, so about 270,000 is going to be covered, um, to help support the geothermal and that solar massages uh for, for the, uh, for, for their share, let’s see, Toby rebate program has already. to 151,000 152,000 for the project and then the, the

Massachusetts Smart solar program is going to kick in an annual incentive of uh uh almost $2700 a year or over 50K over the 20-year term. Um, and then there was another grant that um was um uh supporting the energy manager to support the um OPM uh the project manager services for the

overall project in general both components, so annual savings. Energy savings is about 26,000 and that’s also baseline of what a renovated town hall basic to code would have been, um, and, and additionally, there’s uh over $6000 in annual O&M savings, maintenance that you don’t have to do, repairs on the, on the building that you’ve been experiencing um

over the last several years because of the aging equipment. So he basically took care of that deferred maintenance. Um, and then the, the last slide. Sort of the cash flow model can be complex, you may not be able to read it. Um, but, uh, basically it just shows how the

project is budget neutral and, and pays for itself with all those grants and rebates, which is about two-thirds of the project and then the rest is paid from the savings over the 20-year term. Any questions? God I guarantee. Bill, the uh In Co wants us to ask you about the guarantee in the contract.

OK. So, um, we, we, Energy Systems Group does guarantee the savings, um. Uh, this program, you know, that’s a key part of the program, um. And with the decarbonization projects, uh. You know, a lot of these projects have to be supported with these grants because there’s just only so

much energy that the building uses. Um, so we are, we are leveraging all those savings to pay the delta off that one third of the, the cost to you. Um, we have built into the um the project, the first two years of measurement and verification, um, and that

would help us to go through those numbers each year with you and show you how, how, how, how you saved. Um, and then it would be up to the, the talent if they want to. continue that, um, you know, for up to the 20 year term uh to cover that.

Most, most of these projects so after a couple of years of proving out the savings, um, it, it cut the the the cost of the exercise is, isn’t necessarily worth, worth the effort, um, you know, give them where they’re at and what they’ve already achieved. So what year is the guarantee triggered? Uh, the guarantee it’s every year.

So it’s an annual guarantee it sort of amortizes the guaranteed and you pay it out. We pay it up yeah yeah got it OK. Um, Cool. So does this say it, um, in year 20 it generates a profit for the town in some way? Yeah, so that’s um as that year rolls off there’s some

savings and then um after that, they’ll all the savings is to you because you don’t have, uh, you won’t be paying that tax exempt police uh purchase agreement anymore. Right. Yeah, a small net positive in year 20. And then are there like Maintenance or upgrades that

have to take place at that point, or is there some sort of Degradation of the System Uh, Christian, if I, uh, I’ll start if there’s something else, um, but so on the solar we only factored in the panels degrade in about 0.5% a year, so that’s already good factored into that.

Um, But uh, Most, you know, most solar panels and those, those things have a 25 to 30 year life. Um, same with the, the energy systems that we’re, that we’re putting in. So, um. There’s not any expected immediate uh shortfall from that, but over time as your buildings age, you’ll have to,

you know, tend to those deferred maintenance needs. OK, so there’s, there needs to be some sort of capital plan for that 25 year mark when we have to replace. The panels. Similar to how you. Put together your capital plans now. OK. So as we get to the end of uh the, the lease and you know 15 years

with this 5 years left we’ll be paying out on the on the municipal lease, um, we can start to put, we can start to plan to take what we would normally be paying the lease and put it into the capital so that we could build a um a fund to be able to address maintenance issues or

replacement costs. There’s a profit That makes sense. No, go ahead, that’s what, what would the cost be roughly to replace the panels, any idea? I mean, it’s 20 years from now. I mean we could, we could hazard guess what it costs now, but do you, can you, um, give us an answer to what would replacement costs

of the panels would be now in current dollars. I mean, if it’s the same as the rate of inflation on the senior tax exemption. Nothing. So it’s an interesting question. The real answer is what you mentioned, Joe, is that like, we don’t know. Um, I, I don’t, maybe the thing in 20 years will be micro

nuclear power plants or something, I don’t know, but um like could I tell you the replacement cost of like the modules and today’s dollars, yes. Yes. Yeah, we could, we could put that number together. Yeah, cause it, it’s. The, the module costs are about. A 3 to

40% of the actual installed costs of the measure, a lot of his labor, um. So yeah, I mean, I could give you that number. So like $500,000. the solar is one of the components of the overall project. So there’s the, the geothermal, the building management system on the solar, um, the, the lighting, the

receptacle controls, so it’s uh it’s gonna be a piece of a piece of that, so, um, in the green communities grant submission and in the IGA report, the investment grade audit report that we’ve provided, we do have the, the breakout of the um. Of all the costs per measure. So I, yeah,

I, I can get you the what the. Expected module replacement cost would be in today’s dollars, yeah. Yeah, if you could break that out, Christian, and send that to me in an email, I’ll share it with the board. Sure, I can do that. So that’s where the degradation, but did

you ask? Maybe I missed it, um, if something were to break and needs to be fixed from a panel or a module on the roof is that the town’s cost or is that some type of warranty on the panels. Sure, so there will be 22 warranties, um, on the project

at substantial completion of the overall project, there will be a one year parts and Material warranty on everything that we install that will be an ESG warranty. Um, so beyond that, any manufacturer’s warranties on the installed equipment would be transferred to the town as part of close out of the project. Um, so whatever would be covered by

the manufacturer that those warranties would transfer to you. Got it. And then what about having two contractors work on the project at the same time, Joe, is that, is there? How does that get contractually written? is that? We, we’ve actually been they’ve been working together on, on that,

um. Since You know, March or April, um, that they’ve had several meetings already. The GC will be managing the whole site, but they understand, um. The ESG’s role in getting the decarbonization component, they will understand getting that time won’t be any contractual obstacles to this. They’ve already worked it out with the

architects. Yeah So we it was explained in the bid documents. I won’t get into too much detail on it because it would take hours. Um, but we’re very used to implementing this kind of project where you are almost a bolt on on top of a capital project, so, um. This is something we do frequently and

the project manager, the construction project manager we’ve assigned to this project does this specifically on a day to day basis. So he understands how He communication is going to be with the 149 Project GC, um, in terms of getting our uh milestones and, and procurement lead times and um insulation

times baked into the overall project schedule, so that, um, the, the way we do this seamlessly is just through a lot of excessive communication, so that’s, that’s what we’re planning to do. Um, we have streamlined it up to now by As Joe said, we engaged the uh the town’s architect LLB and their

engineer BER um to do the mechanical design for our portion just to make things simpler, um. And the uh the mechanical sub on the 149 project we’re also using as our mechanical sub just to facilitate, so, um, in, in progress, I would say already. This piece. OK and you’re comfortable. Um. Does it sounds

like there’s no need. Deb, did you have questions? I just had a question. I’m just curious about this, so excuse me for not being an expert on it. I’m just curious, um, so the solar panels are doing the electricity for the town hall and then the geothermal is the heating and cooling, is that

correct? Yes. Exclusively. And so I, I think geothermal is relatively a new thing, is that, is that right? or how much like as a as a process, how much experience to do OK it’s not a new, so I just it’s become more efficient to figure how to do

it, but is there a track record in the um Efficiency of it and the longevity of it as a system that compares to HVAC and that kind of thing just from a maintenance because it’s a whole new investments. It’s just it’s air down or the water down nothing can break. It’s a beautiful system, right? So you

can get down that far and get the delta temperature. So the theory then is that that system has a long, long life cycle, would you say? And then the solar panels is like 15 or 20 years. I think that’s the. So that’s like a cost. I’m just wondering about the geothermal part of it, like what that um

the cost Sir Deb will tell you I had some friends who, um, put in geothermal, maybe 20 years ago and it was pretty hefty, I think for them and just how it was $50,000 but they, it has been consistently working well for them, so that’s my sort of

um faith in faith in a gasses or if there’s no other sort of other side effects from it. Maybe we should ask the expert. Christian, What is the question we can hear few questions there, yeah, um, so I’ll do my best, um, and let me know if I’m

getting too far off topic, so at, at a, at a high level, the, the, what the GO is doing is a ground exchange with groundwater. So we are drilling to 900 ft wells, um, on the rear of the town hall, there will be well pumps that are basically pumping water down into those wells and drawing it

back out. Uh, the beautiful thing about Groundwater is that it, it stays at a relatively consistent temperature all year long. Um, so as long as you have wells that are deep enough and far enough apart, um, you get very good, um. Temperature exchange between the building and the ground so you have a

pretty consistent return water temperature from your wells. So the well water is what the two heat pumps in the basement are going to use as a heat sink. So, I mean, none of this is really new technology. I, I think there’s more focus on it now because there are um a lot of incentives and, and rebates at

play now and electrification is becoming a big thing now, and this is a way to enable that, um, so I mean, fundamentally it doesn’t really function any differently than any other heat pump technology. It’s just it’s using groundwater as a heat sink, basically, um. So I forget what some of the other

questions were, um. Now, if there’s no, there’s no uh chemicals or anything that you, it’s, it’s just, it’s an open loop system, so it’s just, it’s groundwater. Um, so if, if we were talking about a closed loop system and we had glycol, then there would be some additives, but we’re not there

for, for this building. We, we, it’s an open loop system, um. Um, I think I, did I cover everything? Yep. Thank you, Christian. John McGrath from Fincom, uh, Christian came in a couple of weeks back and spoke to us uh we had some of the similar questions, um. And we were Um To the extent our

knowledge. was adding to the conversation was probably limited, but um what we did look at was, um, the total project is gonna cost $1.8 million but the grants and the rebates and the incentives are 9, almost $10 so from the town’s standpoint, um. Standing this project up. Um, with risks,

um. Uh It It really is gonna, you know, add about $1000 worth of value to the town free of charge, of course, you know, the town is going to be on the hook to maintain the equipment, um. The tech the technology from what we heard was not

groundbreaking or risky. Um, So we spent some time and to the extent we could. On earth any significant risk we didn’t find any, um. Now I’m sure when we get the town meeting, folks may have similar questions and we’re certainly happy to to field all those, but um. You know what we’re looking to do

is. Any opportunity we can to Generate some value tax free for the town. This project certainly does it, um, but there are certain risks and Bill, to your question about having two projects running. Same time, you know, the reason we’re having a town meeting was really the construction bid which was, you know, $20 higher

than what we went with a year ago, um. They came back in at 7.4 million for the construction for the preservation side. We’ve got a 10% contingency on top of that, so it’s $750,000 so, um. The comments that the Fincom made relative to this project are this is an old building and

I’ve been advised that once you start cracking open a building like this, you’re not quite sure what you might find behind the walls, for instance, there’s a concern about maybe the vapor barrier, um, but there are gonna be issues, but there’s $750,000 contingency there that probably will be

consumed in its entirety, but that will round out, you know, the full value, so. We think this adds a lot of value to the building and to the town, so. But it’s not without risks, so that’s the only thing I’d add. Thank you, thank you. Right. Um, any other questions for, can

you come up to the microphone so that they can hear, please? Sorry, I just, um, you mentioned the town meeting, so is there a separate vote that’s going to be addressing the geothermal like approving it as a project or is it already approved aspect of the project was essentially approved by Tom

Me when they, uh, voted to allow us to move forward in this way last year. No, no, there’s no aspect of the decarbonization project that needs to be voted by town meeting, um, but the funding for the preservation project has to be voted a town meeting. The select board has the authorization. Under state law

to enter into the contract with ESG, um, that will take care of the DCcar project. So you’re just saying as a collateral for the meeting that we’re having in September, there might be some collateral discussion as opposed to there being like a something that’s being voted in on in September. That’s what I

was curious about. OK for OK for OK for OK Uh that So more out of curiosity, that there must be pumps, right, that with the solar panel panels run the pumps that move the water. And I’m curious as of that cost typically higher than a traditional heating system. Does that make sense? So they.

I think the best way to answer. So the, what, what’s happening here is we are removing natural gas service to the building and replacing it with um an electric heat pump system, so electricity on a per BTU basis costs about 10 times more than the the natural gas commodity.

So I, I think that Kind of gets at your, your second question. So like if, if we did this standalone with no on-site generation, yes, you are using, um, you are paying more for heating and cooling for your building. Um, but the 50 kW worth of solar we’re putting on the flat roof on the DPW

building is offsetting, uh, it’s about 90% of the load of the building and that includes the additional power required for the uh well pumps and the uh heat pump Um, and the, the VRF Fanco units. So it’s uh it’s not. Uh, net zero technically, you’re, you’re almost there though.

You’re, you’re kind of what I would call a near net zero electric use. And that that cost is in your cash flow savings. Did you assume higher that would be saving because that would have been higher down the road? Is that in your cash flow here? Yes, so the, the amount of savings that’s shown in the

cash flow is just that that’s the, the, the net, basically, so that um would not include, you know, with the, the 10% that you’ll still be paying to to National Grid. OK. This is good. And it’ll provide electricity to those fuel tanks in the back, right? Yeah. How about the electric car chargers.

I’m not sure the car charge is the is the two car chargers at the, uh, town hall served by this now too, or is that still gonna stay separate? I think that’s on a different meter, um, I can double check. OK. I, I think that has its own service because of the voltage required.

Right. Billballer quick question, um, so I think I heard, um, Mr. Michel say that it’s essentially net zero because we’re gonna save money on the solar panels, but that standalone. The heat pump. is more costly than a standard. System. So If we went with a solar panels and a standard

system, I guess, gas. Wouldn’t we save money, be below net zero or am I missing something? We wouldn’t get the net zero because we’d still be using we’d still be using gas. We, we, we, we but I’m focusing on the dollars. We got the 500 or the rebates when you got the

rebates from National Grid or your yearly utility bill might be less, but you would, you would have to work off the $500,000 free grant. Well, that’s moderator doesn’t have opinions, but I’d like a lower utility bill, so that’s the, so I want, I want that’s, I, I, I guess I’m trying to drive at,

are we getting the lowest cost by doing it this way, the solar panels are gonna provide all our electricity, so we’re not gonna buy we’re not gonna use any gas and the solar panels are gonna provide almost all of our electricity, so we’re gonna

be using less from the grid and we would not we use no gas. So we all that represents savings to us that we turn around and use to pay the municipal lease. So it doesn’t cost us any new money at all. OK. Um Mm Uh. Is. All right, any Additional questions for our.

Friends online? All right, grateful to you both for coming in, uh, talking with us, uh, as I told Mr. Wilson, no hard feelings when you hang up on us, but you’re also welcome. To the rest of the meeting, uh, but feel free to drop off if, if you two have dinner waiting for you. Thank you all. Um, hey,

Joe, I did have a question. Number 7, is that gonna be kind of, we’re talking about uh how the town meetings should go or should identifying who will move motions in the script for To Me. All right guys, uh, we’ll, uh, we’ll jump off. Thank you. Thank you all for the rest of the meeting Um, all

right. The next item is the a proof of of the, I mean, approving the use of perpetual care funds for a new walker mower. Uh, there’s a letter in there from, uh, Tim in the packet that outlines the ask and the cost. Um, And I really appreciated it in his email where he said, I believe we

have the funding and if that’s true, can I please have it? So And we do, um, Wendy also provided an email identifying the uh amount that’s in the perpetual care fund. It’s currently $337,308 the cost of the mower is $12,491.50. Thank you, that’s really getting hard for me to talk. Save yourself.

um, so I would entertain a motion to approve the funds and then we can have a conversation. I moved. Would I moved. Would you second for Rosemary. Um, all right, um. Tim is is very good at only asking for things that he needs, uh, and we’ve argued with him about things

that he’s needed in the past, um, but I know that, uh, we actually had a conversation. 2 years ago when the blowers came up and it was brought up that we were going to be needing additional, um, Lawn lawn mowers, um, and we had asked him then to make sure that he was Do it not necessarily price,

um. Low price shopping, but making sure that the, uh, where he was going was providing the best value for the dollar. And I think at the time he was looking at 2 or 3 different places, um, and he has included the estimate here, uh, for transparency, um, So, anybody have any questions about the

approval of The funds. But just my question is, is this one of those mowers where you stand on the back and you zip around is I, I don’t, I don’t know exactly what kind of mower this is. It seems like a lot of money. So I’m just wondering

it’s a commercial grade mower that’s gonna mow all the grass at the cemetery, um, it’s, I, it’s not a writer, it’s a standard board, but I do think it’s one that you can stand on top of. I don’t think it’s one you you have to push yeah yeah so that, OK, so that would.

That would uh I had similar questions when the leaf blower was greater than $1000. I know. And was told the same thing, um. We’ve also revisited the um electric versus gas-powered conversation, um, obviously the costs associated with the, the cost and longevity associated with gas right now is still

better, um, but mainly from what I understand from, um, Tim is that. The lithium ion battery technology is not at this point as a place where we wouldn’t need multiples or we wouldn’t have to be charging all the time in order to maintain it, um, I have been a thorn in his side about this,

um, and he has said that like, it’s a matter of you’d have to have twice as many people with double the equipment to get as much time out of an electric as you would, um, a gas, um, and we get 4 to 6 years out of each of them. Is that true? I, I

would say that that’s what they expect. I think we do better than that. We have a very good mechanic. Who also works in small engines and excuse me. Uh, the one that we’re buying this one to replace one that’s well used, but the good news is, is

that as they go out, we do have this conversation every time about perhaps at some point replacing them with electric. It is now part of Tim’s standard operating procedure to look for, um. Options first and see if there is anything that would meet the department’s needs. Yeah. Uh, all right, so

we have a motion. And We have a 2nd. Any more discussion? Tom. Tom Myers I. Bill at the end wasn’t. Rosie, Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson, Caroline. Awesome, um, next we have the, uh, the approval of the use of $25,000 from ARPA for security cameras at Patton Park and the Patton Park pool. Um, As folks may

remember, we had, um, some unfortunate. Incidents over the summer, uh, with some, um, Vandalism. Uh, at the park, um, and I think this has been a, a sort of ongoing topic of conversation about being able to have uh eyes in places that we, we don’t currently have eyes. Um, I also think it’s,

it’s a more passive way to provide this kind of, uh, coverage, uh, without, you know, having our police officers traipsing around the park at night when there are other things that they can be doing, um. So Do you have anything to add here? Yeah, I’ll try this and do it briefly, um.

Recently that the uh police department invested in um a bank of. Televisions and um uh. Recording, uh, equipment, you know, computers. 2 Be able to have several cameras around town. We do one of the areas we do not have covered is Patton Park. We continue to have problems with repeat vandalism, um, and. These these monitors

are, are where they can be seen in the communication center at the public safety building, so they’ll essentially be somebody 24/7 that’s able to look at those and watch those. So we’ll be able to pull footage and identify. People who are doing what they’re not supposed to be doing and look and hopefully

this will get us to the point where we can start fixing things that the uh Patton Park because people are bored and just decide they want to cause damage. if we’re going to invest all this money I’m, I’m sincerely hoping that there will be a lot of enforcement because I know this has been an

ongoing problem for years. Yeah, art art issue has been that we can’t identify who’s credit. And we will be able to know. Good, that’s good. I have a silly question, which is, um, the. The location of the cameras at the park itself. That’s gonna be sacred if we don’t want anybody to tell me,

but I do wonder this keeps bringing up to me the need, the need to rebuild the casino, right? I think that um we do have, we’ll be coming back with more requests to do stuff with AARPA around fixing the gazebo and other more sidewalk work on time, but um my understanding is the cameras can. And they

can they can rotate, they can rotate and move and they can be, so they’ll be um able to get a lot of coverage uh with the number of cameras they’re requesting. It doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be stealth though, right? It’s I’m gonna, there’s a pole mountain, I think, you know, I think we put

the cameras up and then we put signs, hey, I think you have to do? Hey, hey, smile, you’re on camera and that’s better because people know that they’re on camera, they’re less likely to do things that they don’t want to get caught doing. Do we have to? I’m, I’m we don’t have to, but I think if,

I mean, I think in public indoor. Aim for the cameras. What’s that that’s better than anything, so yes that’s better than anything, so yes until they start like throwing things at the cameras to. Disable them, that’s, that’s what I worry about I think they’ll be they’re not Effective when it

when it when it these cameras are all over town. Did you when it happens we will notify these cameras are all over town. Did you when it happens we will notify these cameras are all over town. Did you know that I didn’t. But see there’s we we’re, we’re not telegraphing that saying hey you stop

talking about it we’ll just kill. All right, so, oh, Virginia, uh, did you have a question or comment? We can never find a place to film our meetings though. Virginia. To Grata. OK, now can you hear me? Thank you. Um, I, I just two short comments for myself, uh Judge Orwellwell would really appreciate this, um, Big

Brother, um, seems to me we, Of a small town, small number of people and I just don’t like seeing. Kiras put up taking most of the pictures of People don’t even know they’re there and there’s no reason for it. And the second Partiance since it’s going to happen anyways in

spite of what I think. Um, I was wondering if it’s possible they could just, they could put a timer on it. So that only takes pictures after dark or something like that. Oh, only on the weekend or holiday, what, um, we use timers for everything like that, um, that that using that would reduce

the uh It would help the longevity of the camera, but it also would um be on only during the times that’s most likely that uh Vandalism would would occur. That. Yeah, I mean, I don’t, I don’t actually know the capabilities of the um company that’s monitoring it. It’s certainly something we can ask about. I think the other

question we would need. Or not question. We would need to talk to the police department about, um, Just when we, when we need the cameras, um. And if that’s, if that is, I think for now nights and weekends, we can certainly talk about limiting the use, um, Mm And honestly, I don’t think anybody to your

point, wanted to get to this point, but I think this summer, there was some, some stuff that really tipped us over the edge in terms of the nature of what was. Uh, down in the park, and I think, um, that, that became a bigger threat to The citizens

and the people that spend time at the park than anything else and so. Well, I have one other little thing to say is that, and, and this tells me refer just to this event, uh, but you can see how it does for others and it’s uh typically called a knee-jerk reaction, uh, responding to the very first

time, something really bad happens and And it’s not necessarily the right thing on the, the pertinent thing to do because this could happen once doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen second time, um. And putting up signs asking people to clean up after themselves and make them aware that they have a park

around them, so, uh, people won’t be as apt to want to just come in and steal, but I do tell you that if it’s a beautiful sign, anything from a salamander Crossing to um to um you know, a game camera, uh, if people see it, they will steal

it. So, um, I know it sounds like a contradict myself, but, uh, actually, uh, if they don’t see it, uh, nobody will care. Except for people like myself that are concerned about. Having Big Brother looking at me when he just doesn’t need to. Yeah, OK. Thank you. Just to be clear, this has been a multiple

summers effort, um, we have every year for the last 3 to 4 years had repeat incidents of vandalism at Patton Park from damaging the bathrooms to the point where last year in 2023, we closed the bathrooms to the public and didn’t let anybody use them for the last 3 months of the summer. Uh, it comes up

every year. It isn’t something it’s not a one time knee jerk reaction. We’ve been trying to figure out how to get the vandalism to stop. And Without some kind of security cameras to be able to know who’s doing it where we’ve been unable to hold anybody accountable and responsible for that damage, so

we’re we’re doing what we can to Correct that behavior I thought it was the first time that something really major had happened. I wish it was. It’s the It’s the so we have um. Mm We, we have a motion, we have a second. I have no, all right,

um. Would, could I, I will entertain a motion to approve these 25,000 from ARPA for security cameras at Patton Park and the pool. The mood. Do you want it, Tom. Tom Meyers, Williams Rosie Kennedy I. Bill Wilson I Caroline I. Uh, all right, moving right along, we have the, uh, Goodhue.

Speed street speed limit, um. I think, uh. So you didn’t have anything in your packets this time, um, but remember the the last meeting we did discuss this we went over it with the folks from CTPS. The first step in initiating a change here is that the board has to actually vote, uh, what they would like

the new speed limit to be, um, then the the town will put that in the package with the CTPS recommendation your vote to the state to have the state approve it, um, some of the other changes that you guys want us to make including team the intersection, we still have to go through the planning board

to do that, but this is we I’d like you to start by, um, you know, you can accept the recommendation of CTPS which was to limit the speed on that street to 25 MPH and if you do that, we will, um, post that as um temporary speed limit while

we await the state’s approval of that. I am confident the state will approve it because it was recommended by another state entity so we’re we we’ve done the study we’ve done the homework the state should should endorse that we have the authority to do a temporary change you, you, you have to

take a It will be temporary until the state approves it, so this include the reconfiguration of the T intersection. A temporary barriers, you’ve already uh we still have to go to planning board for that, um, a scenic road and I, um, so we just have to make a, um a presentation to

them and then we can make the temporary change, um, but we will, we’ll be looking to get on there on an upcoming agenda to talk about that. OK, so this issue is just for the speed, the speed of it. And I think the idea is Correct me wrong, there’s currently no posted speed limit, which means it

defaults to a speed of 40, so we would post the 25 and then we would post police officers. To enforce the speed limit for a period of time, um. I mean, I think it’s important. I don’t, we don’t have any residents. I don’t think so here today, but you know. I think we heard loud

and clear that they wanted dramatic, they wanted to be dramatic to happen, um, and I think. We hear that and I think the T of the intersection is something that we can continue to, to work towards. This is the first step. We have to try this before we do something like look at a one-way, um, I

think we sort of agreed that while the one way would solve one problem, it would create other problems, um, and so, you know. The first things first is, is committing to the land and then committing to enforcement and just letting people know if you go on the street and you go 26, you’re going to get pulled

over. Um, and that should do that. Yeah, and have, um, has this been coordinated with Ipswich at all or is this what is, where is the speed limit, um, sign going to be on the portion of Waldingfield that is Hamilton’s on Hugh Street, um, on the Hamilton side of Good Hue Street, and we, you, you

can ask to do at the Walding field you might have less success. It’s a larger, more, um. Thoroughly traveled, uh, road, the, um, more heavily traveled road, the Goodhue is really just a connector street. It’s, it’s a very small road, not really built for the type of traffic it’s currently getting um. I’d, I’d suggest we

take a vote on the 25 for Goodhue right now. That’ll be on uh on the Hamilton portion of it which is. Pretty much where all the houses are, um, I don’t think there are any houses on the Good Hue portion of Goodhue that’s in Ipswich, so. Maybe. Maybe, maybe just one, but just one, I think

there’s one, but yeah, but isn’t the speed limit on Ipswich 25 anyway and it’s currently 40. So if you’re coming from one direction, you’re posted, so we would need to put one right at the start to slow down and right at the start and ends on both ends, OK.

Uh, all right, I’m sorry. How, how long is the temporary approval good for and what is the expected timeline for the state for approval? According to yeah, thanks Tom. According to the, uh, Chief Stevens, we have to vote it, send it into the state. It usually takes, you know, 6 to 8 weeks

something like that and it we’re only calling it temporary because we’re waiting for the state to make it official so it’s, it’s not official until the state blesses it, but once you vote it, we’ll post it and start education out there and try and get people to slow down my, my only comment is the

traffic study was both for Waldingfield and for Goodhue, and there’s a portion of. Wingfield, that’s in Hamilton as well so and there’s nothing posted on Waldingfield either, so my question is, why are we not including the portion of Waldenfield that’s in Hamilton if you’d like to make that vote, you can, and then we’ll see

what the state says. I don’t remember, I don’t recall from the CTPS report that they recommended 25 on Waldenfield. They recommended 25 on Good here. Um, so. When the state reviews this is gonna look to see what planning agency like 500 yards of it. Yeah, but you know, the issue is the same.

People who were here on from Waldingfield also said that the issue is, is the same there, so. I mean, it’s it’s also a portion of Waldingfield that’s closest to the intersection of people are just starting, excuse me, starting to accelerate or slowing down I’m, I’m not sure that we have a real good sense of how.

How fast people are going, they may be trying to be on a road that changes speed limits. I mean, if we got, you know, the other town degree, but last time to be Ro would change the speed limits within 500. Me feet Each other, but it’s such a small

portion. It’s only this little tiny bit. Well it goes all the way down to here. Well, I, I, I just feel like the town invested all this money. There are concerns on both Wingfield and Good Hull. I, I think it would be. Good practice to incorporate both portions of the roads that are in Hamilton,

and if the state doesn’t agree with it, then so be it. Can they prove one and not the other? If we send them both to submit them separately so that they can. We could do that. Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah, no problem, do it prompt Ipswich to make a change. Or maybe we asked we write a letter I’ll

let Steve know. Yeah, that’d Yeah, that’d Yeah, that’d do that. I, I was gonna say I was gonna at least let the town manager know and tell them what we were doing. Oh yeah, I mean, if it’s helpful for us to write a letter and sign it, we can

send it to them and just request that they. You want a 25 mile an hour speed limit on balding field on that side you want your vote to include for the time to draft you a letter for Caroline to sign, I will do that as well. OK, so the, the

motion we’re looking at is to approve a 25 mile an hour speed limit for the Hamilton portion of Goodhue. And Waldingfield Road as well as the town manager to draft a letter to the Ipswich Select Board. Requesting that they consider a change of speed to 25. On the corresponding roads in Ipswich.

Is that correct? What about do you have to write a letter to the planning board too. I mean, that’s just administrative will apply is the town and Tim and the police chief and I will take that in the CTPS report and explain what what what it

is we want to do. 2 Can you still move it and somebody else can second it 22 by Rosie. Uh, all right, Tom. Tom Myers eye. Rosie Kennedy, Bill Wilson I Caroline Bull, you are. Well done, y’all. Uh, moving along to the review of the special town meeting. ripped Uh, just a reminder that this special time

meeting is 2 weeks. From Tonight, yes. Oh, did you say no? Oh, it’s like don’t listen to me. No Um, uh, and it is on a Monday. It’s during our regularly scheduled town meeting time, so, uh, and where is it? And the regularly scheduled meeting location for high school auditorium. OK, great. I was just testing you.

Um, All right, so. Um, It’s a, it’s a pretty short. Short-ish warrant. Christmas Pardon? Yeah, yep. Um, We have bills, uh, soliloquy. At the top You always do such a nice job. Uh. You do. Uh, then we go into the Uh Report deal uh reports and procedures, uh, is there anybody who’s, are there

anybody giving a preliminary was added by the town council just in case, but I, I urge that we just pass over it or have the moderator say that we’re not gonna we don’t have any reports in Passover you want a song and dance it.

I think I’m all set, to be honest with you, um, yeah, so then we have the, the section 2 financial actions, uh, the first is the 3D preservation Town Hall uh project. Um, which is the appropriation of the 1.5. Uh, of course, this is a two-thirds, uh, we have, of

course, a summary, the tax rate impact, and then, um, the favorable action. From select board CPC and Fincom, uh. Then we have the, uh, town hall project. Uh, the $500 free cash, um. And the same, and then it ends. Uh, Jay Butler is on, on, uh, the. Zoom with us and the chair of the CPC, he typically

in the past has made the motion for CPC articles 22. So 212-1. OK. Uh Jay, are you comfortable with, uh, bringing forward the Article in motion for 22-1? I am assuming that somebody will speak before me and give a brief outline of What the project looks like. Yeah, so that’s been my question. So we

could either as a part of Sports Do a project overview. That explains what happened. Would you, are you looking at bill or I’m looking at. I’m looking at Bill. Which. I thought Fincon was gonna do an overview now you wanna. Well, so the question is, do you do

it before to cover both and just say, you know, industrial revolution brought a great many changes and then go into it, or do you want to fold in the presentations within the articles. And it seems to me that Bill Baer moderator, um, These are related, if you want to give a brief. Outline at the

beginning, well, first thing I think I may uh shorten my usual opening remarks because you know they might be longer than the warrant, we wouldn’t want that. So I may just identify the these, the boards rather than go through all the individuals we’ll see. Uh, so yeah, I think.

Short presentation on the whole project at the beginning, I mean. including where, where we’ve been and why we’re here, so. Would somebody like Mike Toomey be a good person since he has been involved since day one and um. He is, he isn’t a, he hasn’t the past skewed wanting to make the public

presentations. Yeah Hm Um, I mean, do you think based on what you’ve put together you could do like a 3 slide 5 minuter. Yeah, I think we owe the town, um, at least a single slide on. Mm to explain the decarbonization. No it’s not on the warrant So the decarbonization Yeah.

Somebody said something. Jang, is that you? I can’t hear what John’s saying he was, he, he was saying that he thinks that we should definitely do an overview, but he also wants to include, uh, a conversation about the decarbonization. Uh, My concern. Is that People will think that it was not part of

the original scope. I don’t know that this is true. I, I’m just throwing this out there. And the question similar to what we got tonight, which are good questions. But then lead to similarly people saying, well, if this is part of this and it’s new, I don’t want to

do it and how do we sort of focus on we were here, we were good to go, inflation and rising construction costs happens. Here’s what we did. He was the creative solution, and this is what we’re voting on is to keep it short and crisp, but. And just talk about the entire project and include the

components which includes blah blah blah. I mean. The PowerPoint that was uh last given at the fall 2023 town meeting was, was OK. It just needs to be modified a little bit. That’s a, that’s a great idea. Who presented it? Yeah, who, who presented that Jay, do you remember? I think the

architect did LLB. I’ll get, I’ll get it now I don’t think I might have been Tim. Mm, I don’t think so. But that’s, that’s a great question, and then maybe have that person. I have to go look for it. You did one of them. Remember? I don’t.

doesn’t mean I mean this is a terrible thing to say you did a great job because remember one of the slides was missing. From one of the, do you remember those? And you were talking to a slide that wasn’t up on the screen. He doesn’t forget it.

I’m so sorry. It wasn’t bad. It was no, I’m sure you’re right. No, but I just remember being like, wait, we’re missing a well, so I think, I think the let’s then add that to the upfront section, the reports and procedures and have an overview, right? So how about this? Well, I’ll plan to have

um. I will update the uh with in consultation with Jay Butler and John McGrath and Tim, I’ll update the uh 2023 side presentation and we’ll ask the moderator to recognize, um. Myself, uh, to get it started, we may build in a couple of other people to speak to specific things so we’ll have

ESG will be there to answer questions if it comes up hopefully they don’t, um, that part is kind of. Paid for, so it’s just a matter of getting the other stuff paid for, but we’ll make a presentation. This is, this is where we’ve been this is where we’re at, this is why we’re here and go from

there. And that’ll And that’ll And that’ll the slides and we’ve gone rogue. Yeah Possibly could OK, OK, be sure to talk about our creative solutioning. 2 weeks that right. So one project and then really we’re talking about the the funding sources, right, and the the funding sources, right, and, and I think the funding sources,

right, and I think that’s like all this we found it. One thing and Yeah. Go ahead, Rosie. One thing I think is really important when we talk about the fiscal year 2025 tax rate impact. I mean this is a little, I, I think people need to know

that it is not going to affect your taxes and it does this particular this this war, this article doesn’t say that. The second one does, but this one does not, um, and I think we should make it very clear that the CPC budget, I’ll I’ll. The towns people have voted in a 2% surcharge, which pays for

things like this. Therefore, there’s not an additional tax impact. I think that’s critical. We need to open it to change the language, or can you do that? We’re not making any changes there. We’re just making the presentation that’ll be a part of the presentation. The word’s already out, we can’t change anything in the

world now. It’s critical. Well, we will, I believe me my my whole. My whole message is gonna be the only reason we’re here is because the price went up and that that there’s no way for us to have known people will be annoyed about that, but, but I think more importantly we’re able to do this without

CPC is for. This is why our money has been coming out of our the we’ve been paying into this for 20 years for precisely this among other projects that are vital to the town. The next 20. Hm Well, I, I, I think what I’m trying to convey is that

the CPC 2% surcharge is not something new. It has been going on for 20 years, exactly, exactly, and these are the types of projects that this program was designed for. Yes yeah no pressure on the hot seat I think it’s important that all you folks. Read what we wrote because it does explain that you’re gonna be.

60% of the CPC revenue stream for the next 20 years for this building. Yeah. Yeah And also Don’t usually say that. Um You know, the costs are almost $3000. So those are hard tax dollars that are being consumed. bonds So I think if you Make sure you read through all that won’t get caught off guard.

It’s important Yeah I Yeah. So start to finish. Yes. So under. Layout So under Article 1.2. 1-2 whatever it is 2. No, yeah, but they’re trying the 1-2 whatever it is 2. No, yeah, but they’re trying the reports now 1-2 will be me and then you’re married band of gentle folk.

No motion though, just a presentation. Yeah, because if we and again I think it’s important that what Joe said is like, this is not a rehashing of the project itself. This is this is payment of the project that was approved. And just as a as a as a refresher of what that was exactly. I think

that’s respectful to the, to, to the audience and then Jay Jay is gonna do the 21 and then who wants to take 2-2. I probably don’t have the temperament for it, so. Like Rosie, if that, if that, if not unless I mean somebody else has a burning desire, I think that’s good. OK, um. And then

that’s that motion, and then uh they you get us out of there. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. No we’ve had enough from you constantly talking about money. It’s vulgar. I assume you’d be part of that Mary Mary Mary So You know, I think that’s critical. John, what I, and I’ll, I’ll share the slides they come up

with with you with the board. Edit them. I’m used to being edited, um, but then we I’ll I’ll make my presentation short sweet to the point and then recognize Fincom the uh comment on. And you’ve got some good slides I think you’d wanna, you wanna share, right, generally you guys usually vote to identify who the moves Seeing

elsewhere school building project will be impacted by it. I don’t talk about that. Yeah, but the point is that’s what I’m worried about, but I think this was an old bid though that was really the underlying issue of if we had re did it. Makes sense and it does. Well, let’s just talk about inflation in

general and it was an old bid, but we put a inflation multiplier on that bid, right? It was an inflated, inflated bolt, all right, so I will entertain a motion to approve the the assigned. Uh, motion movers and speakers for the official town meeting. Script. So moved. It’s your turn.

Second. Uh, I will kick off the votes with you, Tom Myers. Tom Meyers I. William Wilson I. Rosie Kennedy I. Bill Wilson I. All right, next I would like to recognize our resident cellphone enthusiast, Bill Wilson. To give us a quick update on appreciate the opportunity, um, really as I

look I sent Joe a few slides over and as I looked at him briefly before I came in I don’t know that they’re in the best order, but we’ll get through it. Uh, so just bring us back a little bit as you know we do have, uh, we have an

agreement with a company called Everest, and they, uh, currently built the, the cell called a macro towers, if you, you hear me use the word macro, it’s a cell site, you know, they can be 100 to 300 ft. Um, and there’s one currently behind Town Hall with two carriers on it. That provides

coverage, um. This is some crowdsource data which I shared with HTC, uh, HDC it also approached me as a liaison, uh, from the select board to the HTC saying, hey, we have a problem downtown. Our businesses need coverage, our community members need coverage, you know, we can’t wait for

another macro tower, um, are there any other solutions in the industry, so this is just really this is downtown Hamilton, you know, coming in from Wenham and the red dots mean poor coverage. You can see this isn’t current, you know, upper right, I think we saw Some of that, um, with the, the

town hall, some of those red dots, but you can still clearly see down around Cro Crosby’s, um, um, Rust Street that downtown area as well as myopia have some problems and I think there, there is, there are other solutions that we can consider. We could do this a phased approach, uh, I did

reach out to Everest today because part of their initial contract was the second tower behind our safety building, um, but. Like most developers right now and carriers, they’re not putting a lot of money, uh, in small communities like this right now, so they’re not eager Joe, right, to, uh, to build

the tower right now. I will tell you they said if there wasn’t a school next door, you know, potentially that would change some things because it’s an easier move for them, but I didn’t take that as any like, well, you know, if we incorporate that into a, a plan downtown, we’ll get a macro.

What I did want to just communicate is we have choices and options to cover the downtown area. So this would be an RFP that we could do. As a town I also provided, uh, I hope I gave it to you, Joe, but the HTC I was working with the

town of Wellesley and there’s about 5 or 6 other communities increasingly that are trying to bring communications, whether it be Wi Fi or cellular into dense or small rural areas that aren’t covered by the traditional carrier, uh, network. So we could do an RFP to some of those companies.

I think I list them on the, uh, the next page. Um, we won’t spend a lot of time on these, but, um, we would write an RFP, uh, which would say We have a general area that we want to cover like, like that map up front and we would, we would,

um, ask for, uh, solutions to cover it. One is, you know, we could put out a, a mesh Wi Fi system down along 1 A and throughout the downtown area we could put, uh, in-building coverage, you know, in Crosby’s and other buildings as well. Uh, that would be like quick and easy type of solution. It would

only be, um, wire, uh, Wi Fi, so you know, if you were to go downtown, it would pop up, hey. Jump on the Hamilton, uh, Wi Fi system and, and it would be free and you could jump on it, but it’s only Wi Fi, uh, or you could go into something and they’re kind of interchangeable,

but you could do what’s called a small cell and if you go to the next. Page, um. These are telephone poles in the next page I think has some uh light poles as well we can incorporate it if we do any downtown development stuff and put new street poles, you can see uh little nodes on each of

these poles, um, and they would put nodes like that they would have what’s called a head end, um, and we could put that in the public safety building. You could run fiber down 1A to the existing macro tower here, but you would be looking for a circuit, a circuit of some sort, um, to introduce This would put

cellular into into that network area as well and down along Bay Road you would have little nodes on any they would find attachments every, uh, whatever the distance apart. This is, you know, would feed onto that, this little leaky coax in the lower right would be this type of system would go in say a

Crosby’s and they could, you know, probably buy into it, you know, through the town we would create relationships with all the carriers because remember we wouldn’t have one host at this point, like, you know, Verizon, Verizon and Dish. Macro tower down the street, but they would all these three

poles would run out each of the carriers in there and then they would put in the ceilings of any business or store that would want to get access to it, um, and it would just leak out and it would grab those nodes that are outside on those

street poles that I mentioned in the in the, on the prior page. Another solution you could do and that’s kind of a distributed antenna when I say da, it’s just putting nodes and antennas out there. Uh, this is just another this passive and active, um, you know, I’m no expert in this, but um. This is

where we would have to require a third party operator to come in and they’re out there, they would run it for us and they would make money off it, just like Everest is making money off of our macro there and that would create more of an active system. Crosby’s wouldn’t have to get involved and they would

just, they would just flood RF signal into the downtown stores, uh, to make sure they have coverage, so you know, we could look at things like that and that could also be part of a phased approach where we would say, OK, we want to do everything, you know, a macro would be the best, but that’s

not gonna. happen anytime soon. Um, a Wi Fi network would be the cheapest and I think if you go to the next page. Um, this is what a Wi Fi, they would go on poles as well. They’re solar generated, so there’s no electricity needed. That little canister, you know, will, will

connect to head head nodes, um, and provide a mass integrated network, um, down through the downtown area of Myopia would probably love something like this if they are challenged according to those red dots that we saw earlier, but, um, that would be the easiest thing to do and we could do in our,

uh, this would be easy to do, you know, we do a uh uh a proposal. And such, but there’s a handful of companies that would come in and have this thing up and in, in weeks if not sooner. The next page is, um, this is what it would look

like downtown, you know, you can see myopia here in downtown Hamilton. These are roughly what I think when I reached out to some folks in the industry, um, the nodes that we would put each number represents a node. Each blue dot you could make a separate area so you could say

I only want to do 18 and I only need 6 nodes because I wanna cover downtown or you could continue up the street and you can do all of these nodes you need, you know,,, 44 of these main circuit nodes. That really bleed out to the other white

nodes. So but it’s a way to integrate uh Wi Fi, you know, whether it’s a cluster of streets or downtown business area or along, you know, through the park and up, uh, up to, to town hall basically. I think myopia would be very interesting if we approached or.

You know, we could build the system and tie people into it and it could actually be a revenue generator. Is it a secure system? Um, they would put all the security patches and stuff in the area that would be part of uh any RFP, um. And, and this is the one that would be relatively no cost to

I don’t, I don’t know the cost. I didn’t go through that, so I’m not sure of the materials and labor to do that, but it’s the quickest, um, and doesn’t really, you know, you gotta get attachments and and go through and look at where you would hang them and stuff and it

would be, it would be the cheapest, but I don’t, I have no idea of the cost. I didn’t get that far on it because I think one of the, I mean, I. Oh gosh, I’m right around the 18 is there that’s on your house. I have calls droptinuously my cell phone for for business

anymore. It’s so bad. Anyhow, um. So, so my question is. You know, my, my thought is it’s so expensive for people to have uh. In Internets, I mean self service, and then they’re gonna be smacked with another cost for this. Yeah, I mean. I don’t know. I mean, the town might get smacked for that cost or we

would get a third party much like we did to put up that macro tower, um, you know, that’s, you know, you find a third party who would build all this, but somehow, you know, they want to generate income, they may get that income from so the Wi Fi is less enticing for them though they wanna tie

in the the AT&T, the Verizon, and the T-Mobile’s, that’s where the money is and, and there and, and the carriers, I’ll call them are love these type of networks because it’s providing more Reach to the end user and their customers so they don’t churn or deactivate from their and they’re not.

So I don’t know did we pass this would be a pass through, but there would be a cost of the town. So a few years ago someone came in and presented this proposal to put him on like the existing polls down my first year here’s the time reacted negatively and they went and never came back but I

think what the challenge was that we didn’t own those poles, right? We don’t own them all at that it was kind of. Common they were going into, I can’t remember the name of the company now, um, something mobility, um, MM. M O B I L I T

I E. Yeah so they were um. And they were trying to do this in a lot of cities and towns, and they’re getting a lot of pushback because there was a lot of concern about what, um, the radiation was going to do to people, so there’s a lot of,

uh, a lot of communities were pushing back on it, and I think Hamilton fell into that category. It wasn’t a lot of, um, they, they kind of went away though, so this wouldn’t be cellular radiation or anything like that, and it would there’d be no need to go through like National Grid or

anything cause you get they put solar on the thing. So it’s it’s like when you put the probably mobility. Came in and they, they probably had to get rights away and, and, you know, go across under the sidewalk to get the electric and it’s and

that which is the next, I think, slide, um. Sure what I put in, I guess maybe we’ll just jump to the, you know, the lower right, you know, is really the Wi Fi as we talked about, that’s, you know, ranked in quickest to market as I said,

um, so it would be Wi Fi, then you’ve got, you know, those two in-building things which would help the businesses really to kind of if they wanted to tie in and that could be something we could promote, you know, to the, the, the, uh, portfolio businesses downtown to say, you know, would it be beneficial

for you? Would you want to buy into an integrated network, you know, is that important? I don’t know. I think in Crosby’s. It would be, I struggle in there all the time. Um, the third bullet is more. The You know, the, the, that’s the end

game, you probably want to get to. You provide a lot of, uh, a lot of coverage over uh a targeted area. They probably cover. 400 yards or something like that. So it’s not huge, but it’s like, so you wanna pick, you know, exactly where, um, you know, people are gonna, you know, commute or walk work

or shop or play, uh, but that’s that small cell or das host and that’s really using those same poles, but hanging those nodes that I talked about, that’s a little more expensive. That’s, you do have to get the carriers involved. There is more cost. That’s what you were presented probably in all the technology,

but it’s come a real long way because a lot of, a lot of community. And I can share some some towns and RFPs that I’ve gathered that they have done and read through what they asked for and I haven’t gone as far as to say, you know, what

it costs, but you know you could reach out to Wellesley or somebody and, and ask them, yeah, uh, you know what that was but that would be, you know, providing targeted nodes um along streets and in businesses uh with distributed antenna systems. It’s two different technologies, but they do the

same thing. And then the last is macro, that’s that big cell, uh, you know, working with Everest to say, hey, let’s put a Tower behind the public safety building and that’s gonna, that’s gonna go long and strong. Question, so the mesh system obviously doing downtown is important, but it sounds

like can be used anywhere in town? Where Where wherever you put you could run them down where people are walking on the 328 Essex Street. Um, I would say. A third to a half of the time I get 0 service on my cell phone. I mean, it’s just

abysmal, so, um. Yeah, I mean, if you could, if you could, if you can put them around town, there, I mean, there are, you know, there are plenty of You know, dull spots, so you need to be stationary. You wouldn’t have service driving through town, it would be tough. You, you might catch it. I mean, the

MBTA is looking to do something similar down along the tracks, and you, if you have it at a certain frequency and it holds a certain level it’ll do a handoff but I don’t think it would, it would not be ideal in a Wi Fi. I, I wouldn’t recommend running it past Patton Park. I would say go to

the pool and, you know, cover downtown and around the parking lot of Crosby’s upper Railroad Ave. There’s probably the extent maybe down Willow if that’s gonna be something that we create a loop in. And the good thing about that, you could, it’s modular, you could start with. do Crosby’s and

Railroad A, see how it works, and then you’d, you’d have those blue nodes and you’d keep building and and and like a building block. That’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so they’re very eager and then Joe asked me, hey, what are you talking to them about? Maybe we can move this thing, um, but I,

I do know they were, uh, we could use some of their money there, definitely the ones who asked me to look into this. What do you need slash want from the board is it just sort of. FYI and you’ll keep going or do we need to make some sort

of official here’s what I would say. I would say maybe a letter from the town to, uh, Everest asking about their intentions, saying, you know, we’ll continue to get, uh, feedback and complaints from the community about downtown coverage. They do have right of first refusal for a macro

downtown. So we want to know their intentions and say, and I would actually put in the letter, you know, we’re looking into small cell distributed antenna systems as a replacement that could be quicker to market. You know, that might cause right now I think they just know we’re not doing anything right, so they’re not incentive. It’ll do

one of two things. It’ll incent or it’ll say. Is this from Joe or from the board? I think Joe has a relationship with him. It’d be fine, but either way, either you or Joe. That’s fine You know, the, the other part is, I mean, if you look at the

reality that. Cell tower that people fought about for years has really not improved coverage and you only have to carriers on that. I, I don’t, I don’t understand that. Yeah, see, the the carriers are having uh. Uh, a rough time this year, you know, they’re getting hit with, you know,

cost of buildouts, inflation, interest rates, so a lot of their capital that they would spend in an area like this has been sucked up and moved to areas where they can get a bigger return, so it delayed, it doesn’t mean it won’t come back, but it definitely, the industry is seen with all of

the car is a big slowdown and uh the capital deployment. So it’s not Everest’s fault. They’re constantly monitoring the big three or the ones who aren’t on it. It’s really only T-Mobile, um, that Say, hey, you know, you’re gonna get on this antenna, but. Um, but they also monitor. Traffic usage, right? So they’re probably

reading that tower and they’re probably not seeing a lot of activity, which probably tells them, are we gonna throw more money and get a similar, a similar, uh, readout cause that carriers do the same thing and they’re like, no, it’s just not an area that is in demand. But I do think downtown would have

been in more demand, um, that area is probably uh. You need it, you know, I, I just will make this as a just. Sad comment on the way home on the train every single day as soon as you pass Beverly the cell service just dies. It’s just unbelievable. Yeah, the train is experiencing it too, and

they’re talking about a similar thing down all the tracks on yeah so anyhow, so, so so this is a better in, in, you know, like I think an easy thing and we maybe we want to just do a quick Wi Fi RFP. We picked 44 companies. I can tell you who

to pick if you want, you, you can, um. You know, send, see what the cost is. I could, I could get you a bunch of RFPs that I can find that other communities and what they have done and if there’s someone on your team, Joe, that wants to

drill through them to see what makes sense. That’s fine, um, but I think you overestimate my uh my team skill set. I’ve got, I brought, I, I brought this one in. I happen to have one and uh. And, and if we open the warrant. No, in parallel, I

think if you can share with me a draft RFP and maybe have a we have a discussion with Rick and or Scott, who are very interested in kind of in concert maybe see how we move this um. That sounds very hopeful. Yeah. But again, I, I

wish I had numbers. I have no idea the cost of this stuff, so, um, I could do some research, but every community and and what they do is different. So we would have to do actual RFPs, is, is Well, couldn’t hurt if it’s going to improve cell service. It is just so abysmal.

So those are our, we have options, you know, but again, I think the first one is to say, hey, where are we at with the second marrow that might move them. It might not. I did send him a text. On the ride home tonight, basically saying, hey, we’re talking about this tonight. These are some of the

things we’re considering. Are you, are you guys interested at all in that second macro, so he’s aware. All right, so no no vote for us. It was just a discussion. All right, so is the next one, yep, so the next one is also, uh, just more of I think an opening discussion. So facility use policy discussion.

I think Rosie, you’re, you’re owning this. With Bill, did I make that up? Joe, Joe Joe, um I could, I could do it with Bill. I know where he lives, and I, I think when we talked about on cell phone coverage um the idea was just, you know,

for folks to sort of give their thoughts. But I always work with you um. On where, on what they hope to see from this policy so that Rosie can move forward with Joe. Um, On drafting it. Yeah, and I think it just sort of piggybacks on our discussion earlier tonight just sort of clarifying.

Public endorsements if, if you will and so. Right, what kind of uses do we want to see? And I think right now it is just the um council on Aging. But it certainly has the ability to morph to. I, I don’t know, would, would the patent homestead be involved in that?

Would the town hall meeting room once it’s renovated, be included in that, so maybe that’s. The first thing, do we want something specific to the COA, or do we want a general policy? That’s a good question. I mean, um, I, I do think the COA is the logical one. I think

when you get bring in the homestead, I mean, it’s it, I mean, part of the longer term master plan on that is event scheduling. So how do you even a wedding one could argue is religious influenced and so, you know, but you want to draw and have people have celebrations, whatever might be

there. I think where it gets gray is, you know, the issue we had, you know, with things happening during the the pride picnic, which by itself, you know, we just didn’t know all the booths there and that caused we didn’t know. we didn’t know and so that that created chaos a little bit, I

think, but um, so I don’t know how you, how you put better parameters around an event facility and I guess the pool is should be part of it too, no, and I know it’s shared, but do people rent the pool for? For things and picnics and stuff, I

mean. I mean, is that, should that be part of it too, I mean. But if they’re I don’t think so. I’m because now I’m overthinking it, but uh, but I mean, I think anytime. Because I could say the same thing on the COA, right? It’s like what seems, you know, I don’t know,

I mean we gotta be consistent to, I guess, I don’t any asset that we own and someone goes to should cover something I don’t think we currently do any private rentals in the pool. I thought I um somebody told me I don’t know like on Sundays from.

5 to 6:30 you can don’t call me all the time, but there is like a one time block that you yeah, that you can do like a birthday party or whatever, which I think is great, you know that’s pretty innocuous. So, OK, so are we thinking we should maybe

just focus on the COA? That is that what people think? I would think that. We don’t have that many places in town, so probably appropriate to do it a specific one for each venue and maybe start with the COA. Yeah, that that someone need to decide to add other. Other locations to that or or then

near that and do a custom ones or somewhere else. I think it’s good to start with COA policy. Let’s see how that goes, but I think it should be specific to, OK, I, I would agree with that, so. So that’s the first hurdle. And should you formalize what we our discussion earlier in a

policy. About the extension of uh uh friends groups to current uh town organizations and use of. The billboard Uh Hm. I, I think it’s a separate conversation you’ve already kind of had it, we can, um, I’m just formalizing things. Are you saying the same list for the COA or if we had a list and

we said these are approved for this, then Joe can just run and then exceptions are brought to us, you know, um, you, you’re saying to work sorry I missed what you said you’re saying to work in the sign board to the policy you’re saying that we should use the same list of people can use design board and

who can use the COA. No, it’d be a separate like I’m saying you could do that as a town asset to and communication communication, got you. Looking for others. Yeah, I think it’s good to sort of make it a broad conversation, but then sort of focus down to to to this. So we’ve already got the first

parameter. It’ll be specific to, to the COA. And Yeah, I guess into your Bill’s point, I mean it could be the same thing anyway, right? like so. Friends or groups could use. I see Right, and that’s right for fundraising things, I think that well the COA friends have uh used local facilities, um, I

don’t know specifically they’ve used the COA, but, but that’s the question, I guess that’s the big question who, um, and what is it sort of our vision of what a COA should be used for, or is it anybody who comes And Um, is it? Is it just town entities, um. Like the um. The Democratic Town Committee and

then the Republican Town Committee, um. what we talked about, right? Just to paraphrase last time was. For the bar of entry was you have to be a resident of Hamilton to request use of it and then we talked about whether that was legal or not, if you had to open up to the public or just

put I thought we we thought it would just be town residents and then and then we said was if you’re if you’re part of a town organization, it would be free, but if you were not a part, you would pay. A fee so we could at least we could

raise some funds. Those are two things we talked about. What do you mean by town organization like a like a. Like a border committee or friends of. OK. So, I mean, I should preface this. It’s not a secret to anybody. I don’t want to touch this with a

10-foot pole. Which is why I’m Letting y’all do this and not doing it. I I do wonder then like if the gardening club wants to hold a meeting there. They’re not a friend of. They are Hamilton, if a Girl Scout troop who wants to do it, you know, have a meeting there.

They’re not town, right? A Girl Scout troop is not town. They’re just. And we’re saying this space is not open to them because they’re not a town group. What is that? Well, this, this is what I’m saying like I, this is where I get anxious that it’s like it’s very actually like. It’s the

elephant in the room, the elephant in the room is that this, this is very much a partisan conversation that comes out of the same conversation as flags. It’s all or nothing, right? It’s either government only or everything else. And I think this, the previous board for right or for

wrong, decided to not make that choice. We said we’re going to continue to use Case by case discretion, so that we have flexibility in the policy. My concern with this is exactly the same, is that if we say it’s government, that is a It is a very aligned partisan choice to do that, that it

suddenly public spaces become government spaces. And I do not like that. I think that we talk a lot about small town and friendly and being able to do things and to suddenly say, if you’re not in the government, you can’t use a building. That makes me very anxious and that’s, that’s the only thing I

have about it. If y’all choose to do this, like I support y’all doing it. I do not support a policy that is binary in that way. Almost at all. Well, I thought last time we said we, we were uncomfortable with. Potential Uh, Groups who would cause, uh, who, whose

presence would cause. Uh, discomfort in in town and so I don’t think Girl Scouts would, and I don’t think gardening club would. Um, But the truth is drag queens don’t cause discomfort to people who showed up to see drag queens. That’s, that’s the thing, like if a. If, you know, drag queen knitting

circle asked if they could knit there. As far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome to. They’re welcome to do that. If if a resident is a drag queen who knits and they want to knit in the space, it’s not my job to say I think you could be offensive to people, but Girl Scouts aren’t, so you can’t use

the public space. I simply don’t want to be in that business. And that’s my concern is that what I’ve learned this year on the board specifically is that what I think is kind and reasonable is different from what a lot of people think is kind and reasonable. Well, I think, I think it goes, I think

it takes 5 steps back and say, do we consider forget COA, do we consider that building to be a function hall that’s that’s rentable. Right, I think that’s really the question. Then we can start to define who can use it, but that’s what we’re talking about. It’s not that when when people are using it,

it’s not, it’s no longer the COA. It’s a function hall that people are either you’re a resident and you’re using it for free because you’re part of a a planning board or friends of this or you’re renting it for a couple 100 bucks because you want to have a meeting and you don’t want to have to leave

town. What does the library do though? What is their policy library has a policy they have their own policy on but The light, you don’t pay for the library. I think people might pay to have a Gastonian clean up the room afterwards because they originally wanted to charge us for that and I was

like, uh, take it, take it. I take it, take it. I take it, take it. I take it, take it. I I know if you go over a certain time they do. I don’t know about because they’re here till late or whatever and then. But we don’t really have a spot in

town that people can have a meeting, so wouldn’t that be nice if we had a spot in town where. Communicated Have a Model train, you know, meeting, right, but yeah, but it’s not a town, right do we do as a town we want to operate function room where people can rent for free or rent. I think that’s

the first question, then we can decide how we can write the policy, but if we don’t, then once again we get it the COA uses it, but it’ll be a part time. COA, it’ll be a part time functional, it’s not people renting out the COA. You have

to You have to You have to You have to external and or. External to this we just want to say the bill is not a functional it’s COA, then it’s a different discussion, but I don’t, I think it’s a first. I think that’s the reality.

Right, I think people, to your point, like they need a space and it’s, it’s dark and closed at night and so people have been using it. I think you could say that. It’s not, to your point, it’s not a space. Nobody uses it. If you’re not the COA, it’s the COA and then we can have this

conversation when the new rooms at Town Hall open. Right, if we think, we think the COA. Deserved of being the sole discretion of that. Of that property, but. But you have to see how often it’s used, how often does it it dark and so. But you also need to have a policy because. You can’t have

viewpoint discrimination that’s I mean that’s kind of that’s, that’s what we want to avoid and. I think if we are going to to rent it out or let community members use it. Um, so there’s going to be a lot of ruckus about 3A and about the school consolidation. So what do we do when people residents of

Hamilton are looking for meeting places for both for and against the issue, what do we do about that? Yeah, my only, I mean, it wasn’t even in, I was, I wouldn’t even say an issue when the request came in to use the COA. For the 3A meeting.

My only concern there, which I had said to Joe, was that they did a, that they were very clear that it was not a town. Um, sponsored meeting about 3A people gathering to talk about it. Now again, this is, but if people gathered to talk about a Nazi uprising, then what, right?

Well, we don’t have to extrapolate to the extreme, right? We’re talking about town issues that will affect townspeople and so people need to have a space where they can feel comfortable talking. About whatever their viewpoint is. I mean, I, I mean, I’m reading the library that’s what I’m

actually pretty good. I mean, it just says it has all the stuff that says at the end it says, it says, you know, it’s, it’s. If a meeting room is not being used by a library or town activity, the space will be available for meetings by government, nonprofit, civic, cultural, or educational

agencies or groups or organizations having a substantial relationship with the Hamilton Wham community substantial relationship, right? And then they say, final determination on the use of the meeting rooms by any group or individual rests with the board of trustees. So at the end of the day. They get the, you know

they have whole balls, they can vote to controversial, you mean, leave it open. They don’t say this is as close to not having a policy as you can get with having a policy. It’s free with a $50 fee to to clean it. So the question is what we’re back

again, this is a fine policy if we decide that, hey, COA sits dark and shuttered. 5 nights a week, so between 7 o’clock at night and 9 o’clock at night, we’re gonna open it up to the public to let them use it and they can apply for 7 days at a

time. That’s that I don’t, we don’t want to be conflicting with the COA activity. So the question when it’s not being used and it’s dark and shuttered to want to offer it as a as a. As an asset to the community. I have no problem doing that, but I don’t know what kind of study we need to

do to see how many nights a week it is. Shuttered most, yeah, so used to meet there they don’t meet there anymore, so CPC does it’s a CPC miss her and it’s I don’t have a problem using the asset and leveraging it, but. But um, but I don’t

wanna, you know, and I think this this this policy at that and this policy at that and this policy at that and look at this and see if there’s anything from there you like. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I’m, I’m for. I, I like that this conversation is heading towards open mindedness and that we, I

don’t want to discriminate against. People who want to use it. Um, and so. Maybe we’re talking about some tolerance here, like if uh. Uh, drag queen knitting group, um, you know, to take it way out there to the end. Um, Then If somebody else is allowed who has a um differing viewpoint about 3A or the consolidation.

I’m fine with it. I, I, I don’t wanna see any discrimination. I, I don’t, I don’t think something like that, maybe because uh I and I’ll take it in terms of uh, of the cell tower. OK, so the town is for another big old cell tower, and

there are lots of people in town who are against a big old cell tower, so because we are the executive board for the town. I don’t wanna. in our discretion to say no, you can’t come in here and talk about not having a cell tower. I want us

to be open minded and tolerant enough that it’s not our viewpoint. But you go in there and you have it. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like there were before one was just that the, the actual request said, Like the town of Hamilton conversation and I was like, we just need to make sure it’s

like a community conversation by residents. Yeah, that’s the same way that was it that we just, any time there’s someone presenting town information, it has to be clear that this this isn’t a town. Meeting. Does Does not a, yeah, and that was my, that was all I said. I was like, fine with me, but like

careful because people will say like, oh, you guys are hosting this thing about 3A and I was like, No, no, no, no, no, there’s a group of residents that want to talk about 3A. They’re doing it there. I have no problem with it. So in that sense, it can be a pretty simple policy, right? Um.

That we’re not gonna discriminate against any group and. This room has been free forever. I don’t think it’s had any controversy in this room for anything that people want to. I think there are sort of peripheral things that have been going on that sort of. Make people raise our eyebrow and I’m for just, you know what,

deal with that where there are differences. I, I, I just don’t want to see discrimination toward toward any group and politically there has been, I’m not saying this town in particular, but in general there’s been a lot of political discrimination, and I just. Yeah, that gets my hackles up more than more than anything if

we’re gonna rent it to person A or let them use it, then we’ll rent it to person B, C, and D, and I’m, I’m fine with that, so, so. I think that the town that when you look at the library say the trustees will have ultimate discretion. No, no, it’s, it shouldn’t be discretionary unless some group

comes in who has been known to. But I, I think, I think that’s, I think that that line exists almost in every policy we have or at the bottom it says. But it’s up to the discretion of the select board. That existed so I mean that existed on give a whole policy but the last

line is always but it, it’s your, it’s your, it’s like it’s like ghost that your safety net for good cause I agree with you that we want to be open to everybody, but I don’t, I don’t think we want to also eliminate that phrase in phrase in the,

the town reserves phrase in the, the town reserves for for good cause like we can’t just say we don’t like your controversial. Can’t come in, so the do people agree with that I mean maybe Tom can help write that phrase or whatever, but I agree with

you that we want to be open and use it as an asset, but I think it comes back to. You know, we have to decide what the hours are that’s not gonna impact what CO what he’s trying to do because you don’t want to be negative. I think that’s a

point of our policy is how to differentiate the two, so and make them feel like we’re. Trying to You know, we retiretitle the building, right, to the the, to the child but Of an asset being used and allowing people to promotes gathering, it’s great citizens

right so so we just need to and this would Joe, we would think about this with the policy, the hours, a cleaning fee or something like that on the banner policy too while you’re at it Rosemary. Yeah the banner policy you mean with the electric? We never finished the banner policy. What banners we

can have upon the tennis courts and when. Oh, I didn’t know about that. Sure. We don’t really the one we have, we have 3 different versions of it. I could work on that, yeah, where you look, I know, I think the banners get out of control sometimes think there should be a size and time duration.

How am I doing? The community house on the on the fence, it just drives me crazy. it turned out we were wrong. Like they can do it. Is that what we learned? We You mean over at their property. Mm. We have a temporary signage, but is that considered temporary sign? I have no idea.

Let me, let me see See if you agree that I do a good job on this and then I’ll take on the next one awesome. OK. You have that for the next. OK, so, so, so you want this before you do it. OK, so you want this by the next minute. No, that’s not a

priority after the, after the, yeah, after the town meeting, I’m off the hook for that, so what do you got for us real quick in your packet’s not on the agenda but just under nubious. I gave you drafts of two new IMAs, um, both, uh, IMEs need to be updated. I invite you to take a look at

them. I’ll be bringing them back to you hopefully vote in October, um, both with Manchester. Oh yeah, I saw those were good. Conservation. Conservation agent and I have uh HR. So will be making some changes with HR. Rockport’s gonna be dropping out of the partnership, uh, which is great because we get more hours, so

we need more hours so why are they dropping out? They’re gonna hire their own full time they tried to steal our and she said no, no, no, we, we wouldn’t let Joe up to me she was off and said no, so about a new agenda items yet.

No, because you tried to adjourn us I got, I got one thing though. I got one thing I want what’s one thing to bring up and just I talked to Joe about it previously, but I just wanna, you know, I’m hoping it resolves itself in the next week or so, but if by the next week’s meeting the construction

project is still on hold. I think we need to have a discussion because I, I, I don’t understand why. A our town. 11 group is. Quite in a different group and costing the town time the worst thing you can do for a construction project is stop them and put it on hold because it costs the

town money, which means you’re going to get less out of the project because the budget is finite and less on the budget you’re paying for people to sit at home and nothing’s happening and you’re losing momentum, you’re gonna lose people who have to go to different jobs sites. So if the project is

gonna continue anyways and we have to follow the paperwork, there should be a timeline or a deadline or a process not stopping a project. So I just wanna, and I don’t understand I still have one person and I don’t know if it came up in a vote. They, the committee vote.

There’s a couple of things there’s a I don’t want to get into right now. I just want to make sure that if it’s still by by by the time we have on hold we need to have a bigger discussion about how one person could put a product that on

hold. So are you talking about the conservation, they’re gonna have a meeting, um, and that issue is going to be on the meeting didn’t happen and they didn’t vote and one person wrote a letter, so I just don’t understand how, why that makes sense to do as a town that we’re trying to work together.

So I just wanna make sure if it’s not resolved by next week’s meeting. It’s on our agenda to deal with this thing and talk about it. Well, but that’s the conservation committee the conservation mission, so. And, and, and they didn’t have a meeting and they didn’t have a meeting and they

didn’t vote on it. They’re having a meeting Wednesday. Not the issue of the letter they didn’t vote. Um, but the, the bylaw allows for a single member to initiate an enforcement order has to be initiate but typically enforcement orders are begun with a site visit as was done

and identify the issues and you provide a period of time to have them addressed. They had the site visit and then they issued a stop work. They didn’t, they didn’t provide a period of time to have the discrepancies private entity. We’re talking about a public entity to a public entity. The past

practice I’ve never done this, it’s never been done like that before, just I just. These from what the way I understand it that these are pre-construction conditions that have not been adhered to arguing about that. The point is the process of you don’t stop a project. In a day, 24 hours. Doesn’t doesn’t typically happens when that

happens. I mean, I get that, but and I don’t know the extent of the, cause the way that I read Eric’s the superintendent’s report said it was mostly paperwork back up and they needed to hire a compliance person, which was a new request the person who would probably do the paperwork,

so I don’t, I don’t know what it is, I’m not, I’m not debating that the requirements need to be met. I’m debating the process. I don’t think the process is right. I don’t think it’s. You are required to complete that process prior to construction, and they opted for Rosemary, so Rosemary,

Billy inspectors go to billings all the time and say you’re, you’re in violation, you have 30 days to correct it. They don’t stop even though they had to meet it and they had a permit, they don’t, they don’t say you’re unless it’s some crazy violation, life safety hazardous, somebody’s gonna get

hurts them, they don’t stop the process, they give you 30 days to correct it. They were not given 30 days, they would just stop and So I don’t agree with the saying I’m not, I don’t have a disagreement with the with if they are in violation

of it, but the process doesn’t seem to make sense to me. So like I said, if the process isn’t resolved by the time we meet again, we need to talk about as a board talk about present because we’re we’re in charge of Matrix Town. Is fiscally responsible and everything else that goes with

it, investors of the town, and this is not in the best interest of the town this process that I disagree because it’s a significant environmental issue. Not, not, not the short term, it’s a long term environment, 30 days doesn’t affect anything. To keep the project going for 30

days is not going to have any negative impact on anything on that project or anything on the long term aspect of it, 0, you get, I do know that you, it’s paperwork and it’s when I’m gonna debate it with you right now, but it’s not a, it’s not a

30 day problem. OK, so, so, so to begin with when the order of conditions was given to this to to this project in July, they knew what the requirement I don’t requirements all the time, Rosemary, and they’re giving, they’re given. Inspectors say you have 30 days to comply.

They don’t just shut something down. It doesn’t make, it never, it happened so rarely this is a life safety violation or something just so. Inherently dangerous, not because you’re missing paperwork or you might have to have a disagreement on the interpretation of what it means to hire somebody. So and

the fact that the existing conditions of the PFAs, whatever is a high that has nothing to do with the project and the permit of the project. It’s a, it’s a completely outside scope. And discussion. So no, no, it’s required to we’re not required to have the existing condition be compliant.

That’s not the issue. The issue is that the that the pre-construction testing wasn’t completed to the conservation commissions, um, order of conditions on private property, but we’re not gonna, I don’t want to debate this. The point is they shouldn’t have shut it down. They should have given

him a 30, they should have given them a 30 day or some sort of day process, and it should have been the meetings and it should have been a consensus, and I felt like it was so. People, people, people from you’re defending somebody you shouldn’t defend. I’m saying if it’s still here,

conservation should come here and defend themselves. And I don’t, I don’t need you to defend conservation. You’re not conservation. You didn’t like liaison, I know, but you’re not you’re not right, you’re not. So let them defend themselves. I appreciate your position, but you didn’t make the decision

they did, and I, and I, right, right, so I’m um, paraphrase their perspective so that it doesn’t get. I appreciate playing devil. I appreciate playing devil’s advocate, but it’s not productive conversation right now. Well, that’s it is productive because you’re not them. You don’t represent them as a board need to understand their position.

It’s not just the school’s position, the conservation Commission is a very important commission in this town may I interrupt please this item isn’t on the agenda and I don’t think that I don’t think we want to be delivering. That’s what I’m saying I don’t want to talk about it right now I don’t

want to but I’m saying if it’s it. 2 weeks we, yeah, no problem 2 weeks when you talk about it and bring them in because the process doesn’t seem to make sense. So, I think that which next meeting is in month though, so we should just keep track. Between meetings of what you want to do, that’s a

good point. We don’t meet for a month. Is that a problem for anything else, Joe? Not that I know of, no. Um, the second thing, and you and I can talk about this, it’s come up multiple times. It comes up when I’m walking my dog, um.

We had made a decision as a board to support the decision to respect the decision that the school committee had made to move forward with the singular consolidation. As the, as the proposal for the project. There’s been requests for alternative proposals, and I, as I said this before, there are no alternative proposals.

There’s what we can do if it’s voted down. And I do think at some point we need to work with the school building committee or the school committee to basically put out a public notice of If this is voted down, the options are to renovate, get back in the line. For grants for this timeline and

this budget or do it on our own. Just because there’s, there seems to be this continued narrative that we’re going to show up with two options at, at town meeting and we’re going to vote this one down and then vote this one in. And I, my understanding, and I can

connect with Dana again, is that is absolutely not what’s going to happen. There is one option on the table that represents. The fiscal and feasible option that the committee has come to. And if that fails, the option is get back in line for renovation at about the same price. Or pay

for the pay for the 3 school renovations around the same price out of pocket. But I do think we need to have something that shows that and says that, um, because I continue to get asked like, what’s the second option going on the warrant? And I’m like, there’s not a second option going on the

warrant. There’s an order of operations if this fails, but we’re not, it’s not a menu. We’re not saying vote for this or vote for this. So just for new business for next time, I think we just need to talk about what we want to do there. Any other new business? Right Um, I just have one question

about the amicus brief. Is that all done? OK. that, that was easy. It was the easiest thing we did all night circulate a final draft. Do we have it was you, you were provided to it before it was sent in, and I read it and it was one too, so.

And the date is still October 16th. Did that, is that still the same? I thought it was October 7th. Maybe, maybe I’m. So is our next meeting October 7th. Well, you have to be you have to be a special I mean we, we could have for some for some

reason we need to meet. We can have a meeting before the town meeting, so, so we should also ask the chair to call call a special meeting with 48 hours’ notice. So we, so we could just, yeah, we could for some reason we need to be a half an hour

early and talk about something we always have that option. because because angry men in that back room. It It just hang out. All right, I will entertain. Motion to adjourn. 2 Tom, 3rd John Meyers I. and Rosie Kennedy, Caroline B. I. Thank you everyone for joining us. The Virginia. Thank you,