Um, Are we up there? There we are. All right. Good evening, everyone, folks joining us online as well as folks joining us in the room, we always appreciate that. Uh, I would like to call to order, uh, the Hamilton select board meeting of Monday, November 4th at 7:01 p.m., uh, we will do a roll

call vote because we have an online member, so, uh, Tom, we’ll start with you. Tom Myers here. Sorry for being online. I got the kids tonight. It’s, you know what, family first, Tom. William W I. Rosie Kennedy here. Bill Wilson here, Caroline Boeu here. Thank you. Uh, all right,

um, we will, uh, kick things off with our normal, uh, announcements of board and committee openings, um, as Tom has just shown, you too can juggle multiple responsibilities, including a board or committee opening and still serve the town of Hamilton in any of the following ways. Uh, the Conservation commission has 3

openings. Uh, we’re really hoping some folks can hop on that board. That’s a very important one in the town. The Council on Aging has two associate openings, uh, the Cultural Council has one opening. The finance and advisory Committee has one associate opening. Wouldn’t you like to see how all the money works in town. Uh, the Hamilton

Development Corporation has one opening for a 3-year term, and the historic District commission 2 years for 2 openings for 3-year terms, 2 openings for 2-year terms. Uh, one must be a resident of the historic district, and one must be a resident realtor, and we have one large opening on the

Human Rights Commission. Uh, if you’re interested in joining any board or committee in town, please reach out, uh, to Joe, um, and he can help, he can help you with that. We look forward to it. Uh, next, we will move on to our select board and town manager reports, um, I will start online.

Tom, do you have any reports? For us. I will just give a quick update on the event yesterday, um, so I was, uh, fortunate enough to attend an event in Hamilton yesterday where we welcomed uh Senator Elizabeth Warren, and uh we had Representative Casner there as well, uh, sort of they

get out the vote, revenge, um, where we had some remarks from, from Senator Warren, from Senator Casner, uh, and then, uh, a whole bunch of folks went out and canvassed the neighborhood, so a really, really great event, uh, some great commentary from our, our representatives. on what they’re, you know, hoping to accomplish in a, in another

term if if elected and what they’re gonna accomplish for Hamilton, uh, especially around, um, you know, federal funding towards the corporate infrastructure. There’s a lot of talk about, you know, our water systems and how they need upgrades and how there could be federal support and federal funding for that type of infrastructure, uh, so just

overall really great event. um, I was happy to attend and, and support the folks getting out, getting out the vote. So, um, there’s some pictures that I can certainly share if you are interested. Awesome. Thanks so much, uh, Bill at the end. Nothing to add. Perfect. Rosie, anything from you today? I’ll

give a general overview. Um, I attended, um, a meeting with a few of the Gordon Conwell abutters last week and we have another um to all a but our meeting scheduled for this Wednesday looking forward to um talking with the abutters and trying to understand their position. regarding the um

transfer of apartments to a private party, um, the ZBA is chugging along at status quo. Nothing exciting at their meeting this month, um, the COA continues to be a vibrant, um, Part of the community, lots of things going on there and if you’re over 60 and interested,

they have um a Facebook page and a website, and there are lots of really good activities going on there, um. The conservation commission, unfortunately has had a turnover in their leadership and This is something we will talk about a little bit later during our discussion of support for boards and committees. So that’s um it and

in a nutshell, and then just one other thing, um, Peter Phippin from the um Essex Select Board contacted me about a project that he’s involved with um the select board in Essex, Essex Town, the um Tobacco, watership uh watershed Association and um the state is working together to uh identify

the causes of some problems at tobacco Lake and ultimately, um, restore and protect the great marsh, and in fact, Dave lash is here tonight and will speak to us, um, upon invitation to the, to the podium here regarding that project, so that’s my report. Awesome. Thanks so much, Bill. Anything from you tonight? Uh, quickly,

the schools are, you know, for the elementary school, uh, in the schematic design phase still, uh, this week is a big week though. They’re gonna do some submissions to some estimators, uh, to get some solid bids on the cost of the schools, um, with that, they’ll also, uh, use those, that’s a

mission to get the final reimbursement rate, uh, from the MSBA. So the start of some budgeting and reimbursement rates, uh, which We should hear back from you around uh December on those numbers and obviously come April, uh, it’ll go in front of the town and, and get voted on to fund, to

prove first and foremost, but then secondly to fund the difference between the total budget and the reimbursement costs. So, so that’s going on, um, let’s see, they did reach a tentative agreement. The, uh, district with, uh, the teachers union, so that’s a positive thing, you know, that’s been

going on for a good part of 6 months. Uh, I believe I did see some emails as well on the schools about, uh roof just to be clear, you know, they were invited only, no funding for the school roof, um, uh, so I think, uh, Early January, the

MSBA will come in and look at the school and offer some solutions and, uh, they’re invited in the program and it’ll go through a long process, uh, before any, uh, grant funding, uh, would be authorized. Uh, HDC has not met since they’re uh very detailed update, uh, late October.

They do meet this Wednesday, however, uh, and I know they’re gonna speak some more about, uh, form-based codes and and things of that and and possibly unbuckling that piece in the Warren article, so that’s it. Perfect. Thank you. Uh, just too quick reminders. The first is that tomorrow is election day. I know we have a ton of

folks who have voted by mail or voted early, which is great. Um. But just a reminder to everybody, uh, that, uh, at the end of the day, we’re all friends and neighbors, and so a lot of work has gone in with the town clerk, and with our volunteers to make voting accessible and easy for folks

in town. So everybody, you know, bring their best selves to the polls tomorrow and and you know, keep it respectful and keep it happy. um, and then another small reminder that it is leaves on the ground season, which uh You know, when you have children at home makes it easy because you can send them

out there, but if you do have uh elderly or alternatively abled neighbors just to keep an eye out for folks, make sure walkways are clear, if you can lend a hand to neighbors to help them with leaves and certainly snow as we come along. Um, it is that time of year when not everybody is able to

to get out there and, and, and create accessible spaces around their yards and lawns. Uh, so if you can’t pitch into a neighbor, certainly do, uh, I’ll send my 11 year old, but he will just jump into the piles that have been created. Making massive mess. Um, all right. Uh, anything from you,

sir? I just add on the election uh tomorrow is expected to be a very busy day at the polls, according to the town clerk today there’s already been about 40% of the voters in town have voted, but they’re expecting close to 95% voter, uh, participation this year, uh, which should be, uh, the 2020

election, which saw about 90%. So you’re still looking at several 1000 people looking to vote tomorrow at the rec center behind us and so as Caroline said, it, it’s gonna be busy just. Come prepared, be, please be patient, um, the volunteer election workers will be working their best to get you through as quickly and

efficiently as possible. Also just for folks to know, it’s the start of budget season, uh, we’ll begin, we sent out our budget message that was approved by the select board in the FICO to department heads and, uh, we’re looking for, uh, submission from department heads of the, uh, 2026 Capital

budget requests so that we can get those out to Capcom by the end of the week and so we’re, we’re getting started on planning for FY 26 fiscal year. I see here is this. Um Oh yeah, so I, yeah, that’s a good point. It is there, um, uh, I also want to make sure the board

knows that you’ve been invited to participate in Veterans Day services at the, uh, American Legion post on School Street on November 11th. Coffee is at 8. Breakfast is at 8:30. There’ll be a speaker at 9 and then, uh, at 10:45 the Legion will form up in front of the town hall

and march to the cemetery where the 11 o’clock ceremony will take place.. 111 annual 11 o’clock Veterans Day ceremony will take place. Uh, we are asking if you could please let me know. Um, so that I could let the, uh, the organizers know if you plan to attend breakfast so that they can have

breakfast, uh, for you, um, I’m got a little check sheet here, so if you let me know before the end of the night, I can let them know if you’ll be able to participate, um, it’s always a fun event. Um, it’s a, it’s a good way to honor our veterans

and um. Thank them for their service, so. Awesome. Um, all right. Next up we have public comment as a reminder, public comment is 3 minutes, uh, for folks either here in the room or online, uh, on topics that are not currently on the agenda. Uh, if you would like to add comments to something on the

agenda, we ask that you please wait and, and make those comments, uh, in due course, um, and as a general rule, we do not respond to public comment, um, but is there anybody in the room? Or online? I’d like to make a comment. Don’t look like it. All right. Um, With that, we will move to our consent

agenda. There are 3 items on the consent agenda tonight. Approved temporary signs for ECTA Road Race at Patton Park, uh, approve ed fund tree sale at Patton Park and approve the minutes of the September 9th, 2024 select board meeting, um, unless there’s a request to pull anything out of the

consent agenda, I will entertain a motion. I move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. Any, uh Discussion or anything. The only thing I would say if we said this last year is, uh, The good news is the trees sold quickly. The bad news is sometimes the signage

and the and the. Stuff lingers, just make sure we’re down, get everything sort of picked up when it perfect. All right, uh, I will take a roll call vote. Tom Myers. On my resign. William Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson, yes, Caroline will you I. room. All right, look at us rolling along 2 minutes early

into the agenda, never happens. Uh, first up on the agenda is discuss the use of town funds to study Alewife Brook and surrounding watershed in collaboration with the town of Essex with Dave Lash of the Chibacco Lake and Watershed Association. discussion. Come on up. Wonderful. Glad to have you. Just state your name and

who you are and Yeah. Dave Lash, 73 Lake Shore Avenue. I’m with the Tobacco Lake and Watershed Association. Welcome. Thank you. We have a funding request tonight. This Thank you, sir. Thank you. being, uh, electronic, present electronically, but I’ll send it, send this out electronically. As well David, I see you on the Zoom. Nice to

see you. Especially in that very fancy sweater. Uh So, so nice to see pattern. All right. Oh, look at this. We just had our community forum, so all of this is hot off the presses for the community and I thought I’d give a very quick overview for you. I don’t know if.

The camera can see that it’s cracking. Can it track over to a speaker over there? You can switch cameras, I think HW Cam, can you pick up the speaker? Oh, there you go. He’s on wow. Super. Um, So as I said, I’m just going to start with the

bottom line, which is a funding request to the town of Hamilton for $15,000 this year and $15,000 next year to undertake the design phase of work that has been going on now for 3 years. Um, next year’s funding would support the 4th year of this process. So what I want to do is just step back, give you

a really quick overview of why we’re here, what the problem is, and where we think the solution. lies. I’m tonight with 3 other people from the, um, Lake and Watershed Association, uh, Adam Barrett is from Essex. He’s one of our Essex representatives, um, Sue McLaughlin from Hamilton and, um, Denise Kelly from Hamilton. So, um, tobacco

is 209 acres, um, the association was started 40 years ago, next year, um, When an invasive, uh, weed or plant, uh, found itself in the lake and quickly took over a large part of the lake and trying to find a solution for that led to a diagnostic study that the two towns participated in and we

tried, um, a rather unsuccessful attempt at some hydro raking. We eventually lost control of the invasive, but the Lake Association was, uh, has been uh instrumental, um, group to coordinate efforts to, um, provide for the welfare of the lake and then gradually over time, it became clear that only looking at the lake without looking at the

watershed wasn’t really going to produce good long-term results. So we added um the overall watershed to our, to our work. So as his first poster says, The Lakers 1302nd largest in in the Commonwealth. But if you take out all the, um, reservoirs. That are in undeveloped land and don’t experience the same kinds of

pressures from human development that tobacco has. We’re we’re within the top 50 largest 50 lakes in in the Commonwealth. So This is, um, this diamond shaped red here is the tobacco watershed. This is the lake here. Um, it’s Half in Essex, half in Hamilton with a little bit in Manchester and a

tiny bit in Wenham. Where the headwaters of the um Um, Essex River watershed, which is the rest of the red area there. Um And what connects the two is the iwi Brook, which is about 1 1.5 miles that moves for most of its length at a very slow

pace, um, I’ll, I’ll come back to Ill wife Brooke in just a minute. So, one of the reasons that the Lake Association is important is that in Massachusetts, no one is in charge of watershed stewardship. Uh, there’s all kinds of jurisdictional, um, support and regulation, um, for example, in Hamilton, we have the select

board, the Board of Health for septic systems, the Conservation commission for wetland protection, the planning board and ZBA for stormwater management and the DPW. and water department for public water supply, which at the moment, Hamilton is not pulling from, um, from the tobacco watershed, but down the road, it would be crazy to rule

out the watershed as a potential source of future water should the town, uh, need it. It’s currently being used by Essex and Manchester. Those two communities have a high degree of concern and give a great significance to the watershed. For their ongoing public water supply. So what we

try to do is be the connection, the conversation, um, conduit, the catalyst for trying to look at the watershed holistically. And this really, um, for us, a lot happened, um, just within the last few years, we had the 133 Essex Street development, which really was a huge challenge to the watershed

overall, but just looking at it ecologically, um, a real spark or a real moment was 2020 when we had a harmful algae bloom in the lake that closed the lake entirely to to human use for 19 days. In the prime months of the summer. And since then we

have been trying to look at, um, what that means for the future. The EPA tells us that, um, with global warming and climate change, that lakes and ponds are one of the places where we’re going to experience the most stress, ecological stress, um, because they’re robust ecosystems and they do a lot of

good, but they’re also vulnerable to the kinds of changes that we’re experiencing right now. So, Uh, that happened in 2020. We, uh, motivate, we, uh, mobilized in 2021, we said, well, the first problem that we need to look at is the condition of the outlet brook, wife Brook. I won’t go

into details, but we hired a, um, excellent reverie consulting group called Interfluve. They’re now in their 3rd year of data collection in the Brook. We have a pretty good understanding of what the problems are in the brook and where we might go to manage it in the future. And then we’re just, we’ve just finished the

last, um, lake sampling for the lake itself, um, we hired a group called uh Plide Watershed Sciences that has done sort of a limited amount of lake sampling last year and this year. So I want to report on what’s come out of that, what the findings are, the basic conditions of the lake and

where we’re going next. So, um, If we go into a doctor’s office, they check our vital signs, right? And when a lake consultant comes in, they have vital signs that they look at first too. And these are the four main ones that, um, we’ve, we commissioned, um, Sapling and and analysis on, so the

first um conclusion that they came to was that we have a norm, an enormous area of the lake that, um, at the bottom of the lake has near zero oxygen, which is really bad for fish, plants, but it also is the condition where cyobacteria harmful algae blooms originate.

Um, I always thought, you see the green slimy stuff on the surface. And you just assume, I have so assumed that algae bloom started at the surface, but they don’t. They start in low, low oxygen areas. So we have about, um, as much as 50% of the lake is what’s called a dead zone. Um, secondly, the

water clarity, which is critical to, um, a lake. Uh, purifying and cleansing itself, the sunlight penetrates deep and it lets the biological processes of healing, um, take place, the clarity has gone way down from 7 ft 40 years ago to just 4 ft, um, last year. Um And in addition, we have

excessive nutrients, um, phosphorus being the, what’s called the limiting factor, so the more phosphorus we have, the more plant growth we have in the lake, um, and then lastly, the mix of plankton in the lake is strongly biased towards an advantage for cyanobacteria. So we have really created um Um, a condition where harmful algae

blooms are, are almost predictable, um, in the conditions that we have in the lake right now. So what do we do and where are we? Um, we feel we’ve completed the uh preliminary assessment phase over the last 3 years of understanding the brook and the vital signs of the lake, um,

the Lake Association has contributed about $20,000 to that work and the town of Essex working with, with Senator Tarr has, um, gotten earmarks to handle the work in Ayrook itself. town of Essex, um, I can’t speak for the town, but it, we are, um, Pretty far along and conversations with

them to contribute, um, both continue their work to try to get some earmark money to support the effort, but also town budgeting to support this work going forward, and they asked us to make sure that we were checking in with the town of Hamilton and making a similar request. Um, so the

work that has to happen over the next 2 years is going to cost somewhere in that range of $100,000 or about 500. $1000 a year. Uh, the Lake Association has just finished raising about $15,000. So we’re hoping that with Hamilton kicking in 15, Essex kicking in 15, and some money from the state that we

will have enough to do this study going forward. Um, as far as the brook, the way we handle it there, uh, the town of Essex was the contracting entity, but we worked together in a collaborative way, had all our meetings together. our main main decisions together, and I would assume something like

that would, would happen, um, with this work going forward. So this will allow us to do the work that’s necessary to number one, come up with a, uh, restoration strategy, and it’s kind of crazy. I’ve been in, I started with this in 1988 when we moved it to the lake in 1987 and I was in real estate

development then. And have an engineering background, but it was overwhelming back then, um, all the science of it. But there weren’t that many solutions offered back in 1985, 19 in the late 80s. Today, there are literally dozens of restoration techniques and technologies that are out there.

So part of this process is to find the right mix of solutions that can, um, improve the oxygen, reduce the, uh, nutrients, improve the, the water clarity and so forth. So part of this is figuring out what data do we need? So we can pick and choose the right fit of solutions. And second, what

data do we need to qualify for the state and federal restoration funds and grant funds because any restoration strategy is likely to cost in excess of $200,000 and Hopefully, we don’t all have to fund that ourselves, so. That’s where we’re at, um, happy to take any questions, um, fill in

any gaps I applaud your work. I mean, it’s a, yeah, it’s a lot of work and a lot of hours and appreciate. And lot of people pay attention. If you don’t live near a lot of people pay attention, but it’s a real problem, so it’s, I’m glad you’re. Working on the problem.

Um, I had a question for you in terms of other, I mean, obviously you studying in other lakes similar. So what are the success stories that would be helpful to sort of the community here that might be, uh, so that’s always the usual when we do when we go over a new policy or anything, we kind

of look at other towns and see what they did to be successful. We think the same way. We just had a guest speaker at our forum from Lake Sunape Protective Association in New Hampshire, um, Kirk Bishop spoke, um, that association, believe it or not, has been in existence for 125 years, and

they, uh, key to their success has been education. with neighbors and also, um, just to incredibly thorough attention to, um, how water flows across the surface of land into into the lake, which is something we’ve, we, we cover in newsletters. We have an excellent person on our board who’s a landscaper and really interested in this work, Robin

Cantor, um, but we’re gonna really rev that up next year and do um a much more extensive opportunity. for people to modify their properties to reduce the amount of nutrients and pollutants that are getting into the lake. Um But yes, we have other we’ve we’ve met several times with, um, the

people at Hood’s Pond and Topsfield that went through a very similar process, multi-year process, um, the one thing that we learned from that, from listening to people is there aren’t shortcuts. You got to get the data first. You got to really um understand what’s happening in your lake and there’s a wonderful complicated chart that shows that every

lake is different. There are so many different factors and you just have To go through that process of, of understanding it. I’d always wondered when my 5th grade science project on your trification was going to come in handy. Today is that day. Excellent. It’s just 35 years in the making, um, to that end,

I do wonder, um, My very fundamental understanding or basic understanding of this though is that you sort of hit a tipping point where it becomes an exponential issue. And I wonder, I mean, looking at the plan that goes from 2021 to 2027. Like the data sets are they going to be consistent in

that way throughout this? And is there a need to actually pull that back sooner if you have this level of algae that’s already happening and at what point does it sort of Start to, I guess, fast forward. You’re right. In most cases, Erification does accelerate. One of the things that is of concern, but it’s purely

speculation. Is that houses on Tobacco Lake winterized after 128 was completed in the late 1950s. So since the 1960s, we’ve been Pounding more and more phosphorus into the ground and into the lake. And the ground is great at attaching the phosphorus and binding with the phosphorus. So a certain

amount of the phosphorus is captured in the soil. But soil eventually reaches a limit where it can’t hold anymore and at that point, more phosphorus is coming into the lake, plus you have the big factor where reduced water clarity causes the, the accelerating process that you just mentioned, so.

Everyone talks about there is a tipping point and you want to get on top of this before we reach the tipping point because it’s far more difficult uh later to turn it around and we feel like we’re sort of still in that safe we know one way or

the other how far away the tipping point is, but uh one thing is, as you, I’m sure studied ereification is a long process, um. But on the other hand, harmful algae blooms are year to year over 25 lakes in Massachusetts had harmful algae blooms this year this year, this summer, and we just don’t

want to be in a situation where every other year we’re closing the lake because of a harmful algae bloom. That’ll make David Wilson’s life really miserable because he’s got the job of closing it. It’s too bad I don’t still have the diorama. It was very compelling. We’d like to use it in town manager

class. How do you spell that? Oh, it’s uh EUT. E T R O P H I C A T I O N, I think your reification. I’ll look it up there for you later. You got it. You got it. Um, OK, so, uh, I mean, I obviously the

discussion here is the, the will of the board to authorize funding for the next 2 years, um, and I think Likely the sentiment is that we would like to support in whatever we can the questions that we will obviously get from, um, the town scrutiny is just, um, you know, how is the, the funding

managed? What are other what funding I think some of it’s in here, what funding is coming from other towns? How is that sort of managed, uh, what sort of visibility do we have into how the funds are used, how the contractors are selected, things like that. If you have information, that would be

great. I, I I suspect that you’d want to partner with the town of Essex again as you did in the past, let Essex manage the procurement process. I mean, Joe, that would be fine with us, but Brendan Zabrickie, the town administrator in Essex is looking forward to meeting with you, um, we, we, we can work

that part out. Um, the first step is, are we all in this together and then we’ll just figure out from there what kind of process everyone’s happy with and we, we’ve had a terrific relationship with the town of Essex so far. they’ve been terrific advocates and partners. I’m sure that it will

be the same as a three-party or multiple party process. Can I ask a question to Joe? Is there any, um, Are there any, is there any funding today that we already do for the lakes since a lot of it is in Hamilton and also back in 2020 with the

algae bloom, was there a cost to the town of Hamilton as a result, uh, to mitigate the town of Hamilton has an hasn’t incurred any cost on this project so far. And we don’t currently do, um, other than the things that the, the boards, um, do already as part of their, their function conservation

commission, Board of Health, etc. We don’t dedicate any funding towards the lake at this point. Um, as far as what our ability to participate. Uh, this year would be, it would probably require, um, us seeking a, a reserve fund transfer from the finance advisory committee, because we

don’t have any money in the budget for that, um, that I could divert to there, um, but we haven’t spent any of our reserve fund for the year, so, um, that would. Potentially be a a good source. We do a pretty good job of not seeking reserve

fund transfers year to year. So there should be funds there for that and then, uh, if the board decides that it wants to support this, then we could, we’re just at the start of the budget process, so we could plan for that expense in FY 26.

So that’s the way I look at that. I’d also say that from my perspective, I’m happy to meet with, with Brendon. He’s a great guy, um, but he’s already done he in Essex and Dave, those folks have already done a lot of work to lead this work

to this point. So if they uh open to it and you were supportive of it, I would like, I propose that we’d sign some kind of an agreement with Hamilton and uh a memorandum of understanding or agreement that would allow, uh, Essex to take the lead and we provide our funds to the town of Essex that

would manage the project from a financial perspective that they, they would have the same types of financial controls in place that we would if we were going to undertake it so I. That’d be my recommendation. OK, so I’d like to make a couple of comments that the first thing is I’m, I’m very impressed, um,

first of all, I think it was 2021. I was a member of um Senator Tar’s Elway Brook Coalition and I was very impressed with the work that was done on, on a shoestring budget. There are lots of volunteers. It was very creative in how those volunteers were procured and we

watched that progress, so. I have seen the effects of Senator Tarr’s intervention in that and also as well as Senator Tars, the um Chewbacca Lake Watershed Association has been just tirelessly involved in this, um, the, um, Residents around the lake have contributed their own money for

for this project as well as the town of Essex and the town of um and and the state. And so if, so people are saying why Hamilton? There are, there are lots of reasons why Hamilton should be included. I don’t think I’m speaking to an adverse audience here. I think everybody’s generally

supportive of it, but just to sort of um highlight some of the uh reasons why we should tobacco, uh, woods. Obviously, Tobacco Lake and and that area. And it’s uh just a very, very heavily used recreational area. We want to keep it pristine and keep it environmentally safe, um, so there’s a lot of healthy, healthy passive recreation

there, um, as, as you noted, Dave, um, local high schools use the uh lake for rowing activity, and that’s always healthy for for kids to get out and um finally, I think the financial picture, there are over 100 Hamilton houses around that lake. Which brings it, which has about a $60 million

real estate valuation and that premium land has an immense tax value that is beneficial to the town of Hamilton, so certainly for all the environmental reasons, there are also um financial reasons why I encourage my colleagues to vote affirmatively to um support this project. Just to confirm, there’s Full public access to Tobacco Lake. As a boat ramp

boat ramp at the south end of the lake is state owned. The state does very little to um manage it. In fact, right now the lake is at a very, very low elevation and people are having difficulty getting their boats out of the lake at the ramp, um, and the, the state is Not proactive about solving that

problem. Um, I did just want to slip in to Joe’s earlier point of that, um, there is no town of Hamilton funds going directly to the lake, but the town of Hamilton does one essential service to the lake community, and that is it really monitors the boat ramp really well, the parking, the partying, all that kind of.

they’re very responsive to phone calls about, uh, any nuisance that’s happening on the lake and, and that was not always the case, but, um, in the 90s, uh, the police chief really, um, made it a priority and it’s stayed consistently excellent since then. So it’s a huge contribution. OK. Um, So I

hear two things. The first is, is formalizing some sort of, um, MOU I think first is if the board wants to vote on whether to support the effort and then supporting the effort, getting it in the budget, and then the MOU are those the three things that I heard coming out of this.

Um, for, for the current year for the FY 25 year, we’d probably need to seek the $15,000 from the finance and advisory committee reserve fund, but we have $150,000 in that account. We haven’t spent any of it. We’re halfway through the year, so. OK. So the first Question I would ask is like.

A is their support to do this, and if so, Is there support to pull it out of that reserve fund to do it for this year with a formal budget ask for 20206, is that what we’re saying? FY 2026 to go to Wendy for Budget planning purposes. Is that what, is that what we’re all hearing? OK, yeah, I

mean we’ve dropped to that source of funding. Is that the only source you would, there wouldn’t be another source in the there, there really wouldn’t be another source in the current year budget, um, APA is depleted I’m actually, you’re right, we have our money is on here for later, so you

could do that. My problem is Our performance has to be obligated by the end of December, and that would mean that we’d have to have contracts in place and everything else, signed by December 31st in order to not risk losing that money back to the federal government.

You know, no, that makes sense. We don’t have a lot of time to get through FICO hearings and everything else and have them, you know, so just and I yeah I’d rather, it’s up to you, but it would be a relatively easy financial transaction to request it from the. Fun from the finance and advisory

committee typically that requires the select board to ask them, uh, ask us to take it to the Fincom. Sometimes it can it can initiate in the department, in the finance department from the finance director, but typically we initiate it here, uh, we asked them formally, they consider it,

they will probably ask Mr. Lash and the CLWA to come in to talk about it and then they’ll make their make their decision. So is the motion to formally request $15,000 authorized by the FICO. From the reserve for the express purpose of providing $15,000 to the Chewbacca Lake Watershed

Association. So moved. Can I have a second? 2. All right, so, so, so, so I think that’s the right motion. That means we’re only making a $15,000 commitment. We, we’re looking for a $30,000 2nd motion would be. Emotion to request. That Wendy Add a $15,000 commitment for this work into the FY 26

budget. As a part of the budget process that’s kicked off and I moved. OK, so that’s with two live motions on the table and then we need a third motion. OK, then the 3rd motion. Bill got the 2nd. The 3rd motion is a motion to develop an MOU with

the town of Essex to formalize the relationship and the funding for FY 26. Yeah, that’s my job. Emotional emotional author. You just need to tell me to do that is that what you’re suggesting? Do you want Essex to Essex has been a wonderful lead. We’d be happy to have that aspect of it,

you’re the funds if they take our money and put up Christmas lights. I think that’s gonna happen because we’re gonna have an MOA in place. We’re gonna have that’s the MOU, the MLA MOU will take care of that. OK, so, uh, on the first motion of a request from Fin I know we have a depleted.

Conservation commissioner right now, but what, what other town? I mean, Joe, we’re, we’re obviously the select board, there’s a lot of other what other organizations in town should hear this. So So So and weigh in on next steps. Well, I mean, for what you’re asking to do, it’s just you and

the Final. But, um, as far as if you want more buy-in, I, I would go to the ConCO and the and the Board of Health, um, and planning boards already passed a new stormwater regulations, the water department already does its best to limit its impact, um, we’re not drawing water out of

the water, uh, out of that watershed at this moment, but We, but we do our best to limit our impact as far as, uh, we do low salt in that area we’re trying our best to Not be one of the negative impacts of life. It’s on our agenda to brief all the. wards and commissions that

are that would be helpful would be helpful if you do that and also um in particular with the conservation commissions, we’re really hoping that we can get, um, Hamilton and Essex sport, um, boards together and, and do it as a collective thing because as you saw the municipal line goes right down

through the middle of the watershed so I, I would ask, would you consider asking Manchester to support because Manchester’s water source is, um, it’s it’s in Hamilton, but it is, it is the uh the, the water. And uh whatever we do to affect one lake will probably impact the others, so, um, I

would venture to guess they may want to be participatory and, and protecting their water source, I hope, and they already are very active, Steve Gang, who is the chair of the Conservation commission is also very instrumental in Manchester’s public water supply in the future. So they’re already very much part of the process. If you go back

to your your uh 3rd slide. Do you, I mean, Joe, you guys are obviously the, you know. The, the tobacco Lake and Watch Association, but is that just formal like you the diamond, like you, and there’s other watersheds that touch that like you, so you’re the diamond of that but then you touch other

watershed. The big one that you probably already know is the Ipswich River watershed which is 10 times larger than we are in terms of square square miles, and they have 11.5 staff positions. We are 100% volunteer organization. But Ipswich River, um, initiated something called the Pi River Partnership, which stands for Parker, Ipswich, Essex River

Partnership and we participate with them. In fact, we’re going to be speaking at their December meeting to work with other groups, um, throughout this whole great marsh region. So that’s been a terrifically valuable thing and uh it’s river is, uh, this past year, they were a fiscal uh partner

for us, so they handled our we, we don’t have a good accounting. System ourselves, that’s one of our goals for 2025. We’re moving towards that, but last year, the last two years, that wasn’t the case, and we had, um, funding that we were paying out to the consultant. We wanted somebody to make sure that all

the I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed. So Ipswich River took on that responsibility, um, and then we’re gonna be bringing that in-house this this coming year, but there are tremendous resources that helped us in numerous ways. Just real quickly, I just note too that part of the reason

that I would urge that we create the MOUMOA with the town of Essex is the towns are not allowed to give money to nonprofits. That was my question so I have to partner with another municipal entity that can spend public funds in order to get the funds in the right place. And that’s the

case for the, the original 15,000 will go to Essex. Got it. OK. Alright, so we have 2 motions. The first, we’re going to vote on. Is the, the 3rd 1 is just a, it’s, it’s, we just tell them this down here. To do this, to do the thing.

We’ve killed Dave with all this conversation. He’s had to leave. He drank the water, that’s the Godzilla algae, um. OK, so the first motion is the 1st 15,000 coming out of reserve, uh, the request for the FENCO. Is there any additional discussion on that, the 2025. OK, great, uh, roll call vote. Tom, I’ll start

with you. Pam Meyer’s eye. With most Is Kennedy, Bill Wilson I Carolyn, I, uh, the second motion, uh, is the motion to have the funding formalized in the FY 26 budget, Wendy’s here she’s eavesdropping, she’s excited, uh, so is there any additional discussion on that ask? Awesome. I’ll start a roll

call with you, Tom. Barmeyer’s eye. William Wilson Rosie Kennedy, I, Bill Wilson I Caroline Bull UI. Dave, I guess we’re going to become friends. Love the way you all work. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming. Thank you for bringing you great work, really good. Um, I say this to

everybody, it does not hurt our feelings when you leave. We know how this works is, this is, uh, actually leftover asthma. I had a head cold about 3 weeks ago, the head cold’s long gone, but when I talk, it, I lose it apologies I was just in New

Mexico be alarmed where that thin air. I couldn’t even walk up like 3 stairs without having to lay down. And, um, all right, thank you so much and, uh. It’s a hush, uh. We’ll keep you electronically so that that uh. Tom can get it right. Wendy and I will initiate the, uh, uh, uh,

initiate the, uh, initial $15,000 request of the FICO, and, uh, I’ll reach out to Brendan and get started on MOU. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks y’all. Appreciate it. Uh, all right. Next we have uh our good friend David Smith, the chair of the Board of Health, to tell us about the keeping of animals and other regulation updates.

David, take away. Thanks, Carolyn. I’m just gonna take a few minutes to update you on our revised Keeping of Animals regulation, which now is officially entitled Revised regulation for the keeping of animals, permits, and stable coop licenses. Um, the existing reg was adopted in 1989, it’s about 35 years ago, and it hasn’t been touched since then.

Um, and I certainly, uh, concluded that it was written by people who really had little or no uh horses or farm animal experience. Um Over the past couple of years, the staff of the health department and the board has really struggled. To interpret this regulation and answer questions from our residents. Um, we found the regulation.

Inconsistent, ambiguous, confusing, difficult to interpret, and very difficult to enforce. How’s that for a problematic regulation, uh, and just one example, the uh the permits and licenses, we have 130 permits and licenses. Um, under that regulation and they’re supposed to be, they expire and are supposed to be renewed every year, um, and we always seem to

have a um a, a group of people who just simply don’t do it. And so they’re essentially operating, uh, they’re keeping keeping animals and operating stables without a license. Uh, and we had no way to, uh, to, uh, to do anything about it. So, uh, With the experience that I have for probably, I hate to

say it’s probably 40 years with um having horses and being around farms in this area. Uh, I decided to take it upon myself to just revise the regulation and uh I Up and make it current. So. I start at the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards website looking for current regs, and I found a

couple towns of Medfield and Concord, um, I looked at our neighboring towns and fortunately we have uh some recent regulations from um Essex, Manchester, and Rowley. Um, I’ve also I solicited input from our local veterinarians from a horse farm managers, from a couple of farm owners and uh took all this together and came up with a working

draft. We went through with the board several iterations. Um, we held a public hearing to get comments, uh, we have only the town council review it and uh he really, uh, he or she did create well did some extensive revisions to it. So all those things were incorporated and we, uh, uh, finally adopted the

regulation at our September board meeting. So it’s now updated. However, some people have said, well, how is it different? Um, and, uh, I’m gonna surprise you with this. Under the old regulation, Horse owners were required to obtain a keeping of animals permit, even if they boarded their horse at a permitted and licensed stable. Uh, so that

amounts basically duplicate permitting and it, it just confused people. Well, who’s uh, who’s obligation is it to keep the permit and where’s it kept and all that. The revised regulation eliminates that duplication, requires, uh, that, uh, that, um, if you are a horse owner that you legally board at a permitted stable at a licensed stable, um, then

you’re not required to do that. So that’s straight that. problem out. The, the old regulation required a minimum of about 2 acres of property to keep a horse. Uh, we revised that to one, the old regulation did not specifically address how many chickens or poultry could be kept. on a property

above a certain number uh before a permit was required and revised regulation uh just specifies that it eliminates that that uh ambiguity. The old regulation did not explicitly uh specify that the keeping of animals permit. Um A fee and a stable license fee have to be paid as a condition for renewal

of the revised regulation does do that. The regulation provided no explanation of, on the basis on which an application would be renewed, um, or approved. So, uh, the, the new regulation, revised regulation does that. Your regulation specified um minimum size. I’m sorry, no minimum size of property required for keeping of Of animals or any

maximum number of animals on a given, uh, size property we revised regulation does do that, and the revised regulation. Specifies detailed procedures for um amending an existing license, uh, requesting a variance, um, appeal to our board to a board decision, um. Um, enforcing the regulation and then imposition of penalties for violation. And the old regulation just didn’t

do that. Um, so it, it really was uh a, a, a regulation that, that was meaningless in a way. Um So That’s uh a summary of what It now does the new, the revised regulation. Um, and I just want to update you on a couple of other things that are in the works, and that is, uh,

we haven’t touched the fee schedule in ages, and we’re working on revising that. That is the fee schedule for um the the uh permits and licenses. And then, uh, uh, I’ve, I’ve, uh, urged our health department to go online with their permit given that just in the the keeping of animals, uh, permits and stable licenses over 130

and they have to be renewed every year. Um, it just seemed logical that that can and should go online. Now, going beyond that keeping of animals business. I just want to highlight a couple of important regulatory actions we took this year. Uh, we significantly revised our tobacco regulations

to uh bring them up to date with the current with the state requirements and uh that they were, they were significantly out of date. Uh, until we did that, uh, we revised our tuberculosis regulations to eliminate Uh, public school, well, schools in general from that regulation, except For Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, which is still

subject to that tuberculosis regulation. Um, and as you know, we, um, adopted a new, uh, uh, septic loan program for um uh title for systems that are uh that failed Title VV inspection. Um, and then we’ve been working hard on revising our private water well regulation, um, in light of the fact that the

state uh published a model, uh, a new model regulation for that, but we’re putting that off till next year. Uh, we’ve had a pretty full agenda this year. So there you are. Um, questions. Mm I have one question, um, about, um, grandfathering of, say, um, large animals, horses.

Do you, um, is that still in effect or does somebody need to get a new permit with this new regulation. Uh town council made sure that the uh the revised regulation contains a grandfathering clause that specifies that if you don’t change anything, then you continue to be subject to the

old regulation, but if you change something like you, uh, increase the size of the stable or uh you uh increase the number of animals that you’re born. That would require a revision and then that revision goes under, comes under the uh the ages of the new regulation, the revised regulation. OK and

just one other question I remember a few years ago there was quite a brouhaha about roosters in town and so I’m wondering what the current feeling is about that. Says you can’t have them. I got asked that question the other day because apparently someone was complaining about it. Um, there

isn’t it, there’s no explicit um Um What’s the word? We don’t explicitly exclude roosters. It, it’s just gonna be done on a case by case basis. That is, if somebody has a rooster and it’s not causing a nuisance to the neighborhood. Well, that’s OK. However, if a rooster prompts, neighbors to complain, and uh

we’ll have to deal with it. So where it says no rooster shall be kept unless the permit so specifies. The permit would specify it if they requested it? Uh, if, if, let’s take a specific. If a rooster is not, is not on the farm now and you want to add it, then you’ve got

to come to the board and uh and and basically revise your permit. To allow it And in doing that, we would have to call a public hearing and take comments from abutters. If they, if the rooster is or has If there’s a rooster on the property now, and it in their permit, then they, they can

keep it. Even if the permit doesn’t specify it. Because it’s grandfathered in, you’re saying? Because his grandfather, yeah. Got it. OK. Um, I, and I apologize if you already said this. I was curious about section 5.4 being Completely removed, which is that no large animals should be kept in the

town without having available for inspection upon demand. The certifications of vaccinations, including rabies, all of that. Why was that struck? It was because we we uh sent this up to to a Michael Cahill in the Department of Agricultural Resources at the state. He reviewed the regulation and he said, Those provisions are not enforceable unless you pass a

bylaw, a town bylaw that requires them and then they’re enforceable. So we would have to go the route of, um, Uh, creating new bylaw for the uh for the town bylaws. OK, so animals are not required to be vaccinated against things like rabies, per this. It, well, under our regulation, no, but

the state Department of Agricultural Resources, I do believe requires rabies vaccinations now. I’m getting a little bit out of my depth right there, but um, I, I, uh. I know I was a little disappointed to hear that, that it was unenforceable. So We eliminated it, um, town council

also had the same had basically the same quandaries about it, what, what? What’s the basis on which we would specify those uh. vaccination requirements. So it, it’s, it’s a. If we want to do it, Caroline, all we’d have to do is create a Newtown bylaw and, and Iowa voted in a town meeting and then we’ve, we will

have those requirements. OK. Um, I mean, I think it’s worth taking offline. I know this is sort of the same process we went through with the ConCom where it was like regulation and bylaw and like sort of updating them. Um, the only reason I even bring it up is Because, um, you know, we do

have the charming. Public pooping of animals, and if, if we’ve taken out the thing that says that they, like, this is like certificate of um, All sorts of things, and I’m just worried like if we have animals that are allowed in public and they’re allowed to go down. Downtown and we have no way of monitoring whether those

animals have been vaccinated for Certain types of diseases. I just, I feel process for putting it into a bylaw. Um I’d be happy to take its property, right? But if you have a large animal license, but a lot of people bring their horses downtown or bring them around town, and suddenly we’ve taken

out the provision that says that they need to make sure that those animals are, you know, safe to be around. So I’ll, I’ll just make the comment though it may not be required by state or by us as a town, um, pretty much all of the local barns do require that horses coming in have particular vaccinations.

OK. Caroline, I think, uh Rosie’s absolutely right. Any arm that I, I’m familiar with, um, with a responsible bar manager will absolutely require that all all horses specifically. How many have certain minimum vaccination. And I’m familiar with the case where Um, the bar manager, um, evicted one of the borders because that Uh, horse owner refused to get their

horse vaccinated and so they were banished from the barn and that I think that’s probably pretty typical of just about all the responsible barn managers that I’m familiar with. Yeah, I mean, only because we set up in here that if you have an acre of land, you can have a cow. Yeah. So, You know, I, I

appreciate horse owners. I’m just saying if we’re telling people if you have an acre of land, you can have a cow. We might just make sure those cows aren’t, you know, Mad cowing if the select board of so wishes that um that they feel would be appropriate for the town to have a bylaw that requires

certain vaccinations of farm animals, um, I’ll tackle that, but you, you, I mean, you tell me. I don’t know enough about it to demand at this moment that we do that, um. But I would just be, I would be curious for us to talk more about it at some point.

Yeah. OK, fair enough. I, you know, I don’t know how feral cows get, but. One never knows. No, I mean, I see the reason and the logic between behind having it. I mean, is it harmful just to leave it even if it’s not enforceable, but it’s there and, you know, I think like you said,

most responsible, you know, barn managers would abide by it. And so if it’s in writing, you know, most responsible homeowners would as well, um, even if we know we don’t have a lot a leg to stand on. I think Joe, could you ask town council

to advise on this as to whether or not we You should put those back in even though uh the state folks feel they’re not enforceable unless they’re a bylaw. I, I’ll check with town council. I’d also say I think. We’re not, you, you know, you don’t create laws because of

responsible people. You create laws to control the people who aren’t responsible and if it’s not enforceable, then we’re creating a, we’re creating a regulation that’s unenforceable because the people that are going to be responsible are going to make sure the animals are vaccinated anyway. I, I think it’d probably be better to make sure that our

regulations reflect what we can enforce. And if I’ll check with town council if we have to create a, uh, a, a bylaw and the board so wishes we can create a bylaw and bring it to town being. OK. Let’s see what that lift would be. Is that a

big lift? I have no idea. You mean creating the bylaw? Yeah, yep. I don’t think so. I have the guts of basically exist in what uh provisions were in the earlier draft of the regulation that covered vaccinations. OK. I to obviously depends on the species as well. Yeah All right.

new business down the road, I guess, just something for us to keep in mind. I, I don’t want to be the one responsible for mad cow. In town you brought it up. It’s not my legacy. It’s not my legacy. Uh, anything else, David Smith? OK, I’m done.

All right, thank you very much and, and thank you for taking the initiative to update this for the first time in 30+ years. Thank you, David. Appreciate it. Thanks, David. OK. Again, not offended if you leave. We’d love you to stay though. OK. Um, but it’s, it’s past dinner time,

I know. Uh, all right. Next is our approving of the change of manager at the Myopia Hunt Club. This is just a standard, um, change of manager request, the, uh, hunt clubs obviously had a change of personnel, uh, the manager’s name needs to be on the liquor license and uh all

the rest of the paperwork is in order. Moved. I mean, I only had one silly question, but. But the um on their resume for Sean Green. And says like, what’s this, what’s his previous employment or says he’s been a manager since, since March 1st, 24. So this is,

this took 7 months to get in front of us. Um, it’s a good question. I’m not, I, I. I think that they had, I think there’s been some overlap. I think the other person was still there and employed and he’s not anymore so I’m not gonna deny it. I’m just more curious that. It takes 7 months.

I can, I can ask we don’t, we’re not really vigilant on making sure we know who the manager is with liquor licenses, but we, we don’t become aware of it until they come and ask for a change manager, so, um, but there hasn’t been a problem, so I’m just more curious. OK. I appreciate that. redacted the

Social Security number and the date of birth. That was good. um, I believe we finally figured that out after a few years. That was my crackerjack. I like that. Or did that on the way out and made sure Cindy knows to do it going forward, so I believe we had a motion to approve. Who was that from?

That was me. That was That was Rosie, is that a second, all right, uh, any further discussion? Right, Roll call beginning with you, Tom. On Meyer’s side, William Mo and I. Rosie Kennedy, I, Bill Wilson, I, Caroline I. Perfect. Um, all right, the next is a follow-up item from the request from the

cooks, uh, who had requested to purchase two burial plots in Hamilton, uh, and then we had asked for a little bit of additional information, uh, from them, uh, in order to make the decision, and they, um, sent us back a very robust, yes, I’m good. Yeah, I’m, yeah, they, it was, um, they, they already

have family that’s buried here. They were here with their families before. They also lived here. They did leave, uh, in, uh, 1991, um, They just moved back and moved to Wha because they couldn’t find a house in Hamilton, so. It all makes sense to me. They, they seem very connected to the town.

Um, but I’m happy to, uh, Uh, entertain emotion to. Approve the request by Ed and Eleanor Cook to purchase two burial plots in Hamilton Cemetery and then so moved and we can discuss further, um, If you’d like. I’m good. I read the letters. That’s exactly what we’re looking for. OK. Any more?

Any more discussion, um. I will then take a vote. Tom Myers. Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson I and Caroline Bull I. Um, if we haven’t emailed the, I mean, we’ll obviously email them back to tell them it was approved, but also just how grateful we are for. Um, how robust their response was. That was really

lovely of them to put all that time into that. Um, all right, next. Although we are all getting into the swing of the delight of the holiday season, it is time for us to look towards January and beyond to approve, um, our, uh, meeting schedule for. Did I? There’s a new oh, sorry, never mind.

Hold that. uh, authorize the town manager to sign contracts with ESG for town hall decarbonization project. Um, this is in lieu of us having to do it ourselves each time. Yeah I usually sign contracts, but this is just a 20 year contract and it’s already been discussed. It’s had the support of town meeting votes and your votes,

um, but we’re the term is so long, we just thought it’d be better just to have you take one more vote authorizing me to sign the contract as I normally would in most other circumstances anyway and uh. Bill Garbadi’s here to answer any questions if you have them,

but he’s only on phone on voice, I think so, um, the contract was worked over several times by our town council who was very diligent in making sure we were protected themselves. Rick Holland does a great job at that. He had to have several one on one discussions with ESG’s council. Um, all right,

uh negotiating the contract or what’s what’s there is what would be signed because there’s draft on that, but that’s only because it just hasn’t been executed yet. We’ll remove the draft. I make a motion to authorize. showed him all the way to To manager to sign the contract as presented to us for

the E. That’s the initials again EG ESG contract. And and how many times you have to sign it? I just signed a one document but it’s, it’s for 20 years for 20 year contract. Do I have a second? Yes, I can by our friend Wilson. Uh, anybody would like to discuss this further before we vote.

Yeah, it looks very complicated town council has reviewed it and felt comfortable with it. I’m comfortable. And dollars and scope are the same as what we’ve discussed in the past, correct? So I want you to explain the equation on page 91, please. Yeah, you just get in there a little bit.

Or something. Bill, you want uh oh Bill left. Bill left me. He thought you were voting and he just left me already, *** I already had to spell your trification on camera, so I’m good for today. It’s all the same to everybody else. Uh, Tom Myers. Tom Meyers on Rosie Kennedy, I, Bill Wilson I

Caroline Boe, I. Thank you all for your trust in me. You’re welcome, Joe. All right, now we actually are going to talk about our meeting. No, no. Why did I just OK, next we’re going to approve requests for the community preservation Committee signage. Tell us what this means, Joe. Yeah, and

there’s nothing in your package for it which is confusing to me, um, the. Community preservation Committee would like to put up some signage, uh, particularly I think it’s outside of the town hall project that, um. CPC money is being used to help pay for the project and that the signage doesn’t go up without

your approval, so they’re just asking for permission to put up some signs that cites that, uh, a big portion of that project’s being paid for with their CP with town CPC dollars, I’m like a motion that we allow the sign that authorizes that wonderful CPC to put up their signage in front of the project at town

hall, which they have generously um contributed to. I don’t know if Jay wants to finish the motion. Was that it? And all funded projects, not just we need a second. I’ll second that. This enthusiasm. Yeah, right, right, but they have a list of uh the projects

and if anyone wants to see it, the other one is the, uh, there’s some of Patton Park, there’s some there’s one at the uh. In front of the PSP building where the fire station, so then, OK, so then we’ll, um, um, I’ll amend that motion to include uh recent uh CPC funding projects such as the

patent project, the steeple project and uh was there another one? And And, and all the fire truck house or call it the fire truck, yes. High school athletic. Right Um I, so I so I so I, there was a 2nd amended motion. OK, so, um, love this. I would like to understand the form. And factor

of these signs. size of these signs. The temporary signs similar to in size to most every other sign you see in town for whatever they’re, they’re small, they’re only gonna be there during the course of construction, and they’ll be taken down when construction is completed. So be sized appropriately to be More or less the same. I don’t

know the exact dimensions, but pretty much the same size of all the other little signs you see around town, and they’re not large signs. OK. Um, I also ask because I know when people like put banners, they’re, there’s like stick them in the ground sides or are they hanging them up signs? Stick

them in the ground. OK, great. I just wanna make sure because we have insurance requirements. For different kinds of signs, and if that was the case, we need to make sure we’re adhering to all that. Um, so these will be tasteful signs appropriate time period. I mean, not so tasteful that people can’t see them, um, OK.

Just guardy enough to be seen to be seen for the downtown traveler. So Jay, these are just um. Kind of like stick them in the ground, as you said, not plaques that’ll stay in front of some of these locations forever. No, these are, these are temporary signs that will stick in the ground in front of

the work sites during the construction period for once construction is complete, we, we have a set of brass plaques maybe 6 by 8 inches that we would ask to be installed on the building itself once the project is completed. We’ve had. There’s about 6 or 7 of them around town that have been put

there over the years. And for some of these projects like Town Hall, for instance, we would ask that a small plaque be put somewhere in town hall acknowledging the CPA’s contribution. Absolutely. And the flag up to big flag. Some of the other projects like uh the fields and the uh patent

pack. I’m sure they’ll have custom signage thinking all donors. And we’ll be the CPC would be listed on those signs. And so we wouldn’t put a separate one. OK. OK. Um, I, any more discussion? Tom Myers. We more. Rosie Kennedy, I Caroline I. Thanks for coming,

Jay. It’s always a pleasure to see you. Um All right, now, for real. Um, we are going to discuss the, uh, meeting scheduled for January to June. It is in the packet. Uh, I will make a couple of notes. So the Tuesday meetings you see, the first one is because Monday is

in OK, Monday, January 20th is MLK. Tuesday, January 21st is when we moved the meeting. Similarly, Monday, um, February 17th is Indigenous People’s Day, formerly known as, oh sorry, no, sorry, that’s, I was thinking President’s Day, not indigenous People’s Day. Um, so the meeting has been moved to Tuesday, February 18th. That is

also school vacation week, so there’s a high likelihood that myself and Tom. May not be available, so I just caught, I just cautioned the group that, um, we would be depending on others for quorum. It’s also my birthday, so I probably won’t be here. Um you can uh offer alternatives if you think

they’ll, you got a better chance of having corn, but um I will not be here that week either. So there you go, you know that something that week’s probably not gonna be possible if you wanna move it to the following week, it means that you’ll have meetings back to back on the 25th. And then the

March 3rd. So I mean the only other thing you can offer is that there are 5 Mondays and Marchy could move 3 mes. You could go 24th, 10th, and 24th. You could do that. Look at you with the strategy over there February 24th March 10th, March 24th. I just don’t know what the conflicts are on those days.

I’d go for that. There’s also 5 in June. Um, OK, so we’re, we’re looking at perhaps saying Monday, February 3rd, Monday, February 23rd, then 24th. Then Monday, March 10th and then. Monday, March 24th. Um, and then And then you go back to regular programming one second. I just want to check the April vacation that’s what I’m

looking at right now. That’s the 4 of the 14th? Yeah, so we should be OK, we’re in between on that one. Um And then. May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, we’ll be having tacos and margaritas. Virgin margaritas virgin margaritas. Yeah. Well, I’m just saying during the meeting, you do what you want in your

own time. Um, and then, I mean, I I don’t plan to be your May and June, so that’s up to y’all. Texas. No, off the board. Oh yeah, um, so your time already, is it? Oh yeah, I fast, lots of fun. 3 years is not. The days

are long and the years are short. Um, All right, so, uh, so with the just April change, right? Or was it it’s a, it’s a March, it’s a February March change. When are we looking at town meeting in April. It is, uh, April 5th, Saturday, April 5th, the first Saturday of the month. So it’s actually nice

that we have that 24th 1 in there then. Yeah, I just, I need to go back and look. Um, we had set some of the calendar up based on what we thought the meeting dates were gonna be and I just need to make sure that whatever you need whatever you

need to vote on is handled by March 10th and instead of I have to have it ready for you on the 10th instead of the 17th. So let’s table this. You take these changes and we’ll vote on it next time. Is that OK? You seem sad when I said that He

said the word, he said the word tabled, so it’s. Yeah, OK, what did I I tabled it. He just check the dates to make sure that we still meet the requirements for, um, Town meeting with those changed meetings in, so we won’t vote on it tonight. Well, once he confirms that we can vote on it

next time. OK. We should make sure we know the dates for school budgets and all that as well in advance, so we have forms. Um, all right, yeah, cause there’s also remember there’s that multi-chairs meeting was also scheduled for the 18th, I think. Yeah. 5 board meetings coming up.

Yeah, I was looking at that today and want to send that out to you, sir. OK. OK, next on our list is the use of ARPA funds. Um, such vagaries Wendy’s here for. So we’re getting close as a reference You have a spreadsheet that outlines what we believe and actually the one

you have is off slightly. It’s a little bit more than that now. You’re showing, um, unencumbered funds of. A totally unobligated funds rather 280, 942 85. It’s actually 287 in change. When did you have that number in front of you, the new number, because we were looking at it

today, one of the, uh, yes we need this committed by December needs to be obligated, which means we so we had, we had held off, we were originally gonna, um, have you vote on putting some more money towards either Patton Park or Roads and sidewalks, you wanted to, uh, think about it a little bit

more and then we wanted to wait until we determined where the funding was coming. a town hall. You demurred on offering any of this financing to any of this money toward the town hall project. So at this late date, I would. Say that we have recently gone out to bid on

roadway contract that came in at over $980,000 if you diverted the rest of this towards road and sidewalks, we could use the saved chapter 90 on other projects in another bid later on and we’d be able to get everything obligated and and spent as opposed to worrying about the federal

government to spend it on. We have something to spend it right now. It’s roads and sidewalks, which is one of your favorite which is one of your favorite projects so smooth roads. So, uh, I guess I’m basically I’m asking if you could we said something in a pattern. You, you put $100,000

into that. That’s, that’s the other thing. So right now we know we’ve got, we’re, we’re putting together a contract that we don’t think is going to take the whole 100,000 so we know that there’s 287 Wendy, correct me if I’m wrong on this. 287 change and we think that the, the 100,000 that you would

put towards patent to create some plan for advancing the part and patent part. Easy for me to say Patton Park master plan, um, is gonna come in around 600 to $65,000 so I would ask for a vote that authorizes us to put the the 287 and whatever the balance from the patent. In the roadway

project. What about the 250? The sidewalk pairs an improvements, you’ve already approved that and that we’re planning to, that’s the same we’re we’re we’re moving the 280 up to the 250. You’ve already voted it and we’re gonna, we’re we’re already going to put that in the contract that we have for

$980,000. So that, that’ll be a part of that contract. chapter chapters in our budget and we can use it again in the spring for another road project to be roads Chapter 90 is roads and sidewalks, but, but it gives us more money to continue spending on can’t build too many sidewalks. We have a lot of, we

have a lot of requests for sidewalks and I just fun town things we could do with that money. Unfortunately, I don’t, I can’t, I don’t, can’t think of any of them that I can put under contract before the end of December. Oh, I could help you with that, but It just seems, I, I, I don’t know

everything for roads and side bidding process alone is gonna take 4 to 6 weeks we do sidewalks on, on, uh, and and New sidewalks. Is that part of the sidewalks? Is anything in the um Rotary. Um, I’d like to hear one of the fun part like what’s the fun? Let’s get some trees for the town. Let’s try

some trees. Is that part of road sidewalks. No, but but the Apple funds don’t have to be the sidewalk, right? No, I’m, we can’t use chapter 90 money on the trees, but we could use, we could use a little bit of the art for money for trees.

But give me $10,000 and well, not me personally, but I mean for for the project, the horse trading here right now. It’s, it’s a good level. Where we put these trees? Tell me about these trees. Can you even really buy many trees for $10,000? Yes, really depends on how really depends on how big

you really depends on how big you a good time of year. It’s the end of the year Exactly inexpensively put them into. and then in the spring you’d plant them. No, no, we could plant some of the now the ground’s not. Yeah. Look, I’m happy to have some, I’m happy to have some trees. So how can

you make that happen? How can you make that happen? We already have contract to buy trees when we need them, so we just, we just divert those funds and then spend them quickly on what about the above 280 we spend on trees. The 70 7000 or whatever. Yeah the balance from let’s do, let’s do

1065 was the other thing. So, so I’ll make a motion that we spend $10,000 to obtain trees for Hamilton in a beautification project and I’m happy to work with the DPW on where exactly we should plant them. And the second part is that the rest uh unobligated funds would go towards the sidewalk contract the sidewalk.

Can I have a second? Exactly. We have 2 seconds. We motion. There’s 2 seconds. Good. All right, so we’re gonna do $10,000 of trees we have to have to vote on that? Yep, and I’m just gonna, I’m just making sure we’re clear, and then the rest of it is going to go to the roads and sidewalks.

Got all that, Wendy? Yes, so we’re not determining an exact amount, which would be perfect. we will figure it out in the next week. What’s left. Yes, thank you. Any further discussion. So we’ll be at 0 on we’ll be at 0. All the funds will be obligated, so we’ll be that’s perfect. All right, Tom Myers. Tom Myers, I.

Will Mo and I. Rosie Kennedy, I, Bill Wilson I, Caroline Bou I. that you’re like, you’re like the Bob Ross of the board. Happy trees trees That may be bushes or uh they got to be trees, trees and beautiful native trees oxygen oxygenating town exactly right. That’s exactly right, sequestering carbon. There you go. All right.

The next is just a discussion of the town manager and select board goals, a recap after the meeting that we had a couple of months back, um. I know it’s all, uh, in your deeply in your minds. Yeah, got it. So, um. Looks like the I guess what I’m looking, no, it’s, it’s been

updated. I took out, I took out, did you see this. It’s all different. I took out the stuff that was in my last evaluation form. Populated with the stuff that we discussed from the minutes of the workshop in July and it’s subject to additions. Edits amendments. It’s not a final document. It’s there for

your discussion and. For you to add to if you like. Um, I was looking for though. Wendy, we don’t mind if you uh want to leave. We won’t be offended. I forgot to tell you is that in here? So So Hey, good night. Thank you. I mean some of these things have I’m looking at the

meeting minutes from the 29th. Um OK, so it’s Uh, the priority goals though, so most of the stuff in the first section is just lightly edited right from year over year. Well, yeah, so, I mean, it’s Some of the stuff is came directly out of what was discussed at the workshop

and then um and then the priority goals are just are, are basically the. There which need to be filled in there was specific things within each of these recommendations from you to what you want on, uh, in details, for instance, uh, one of the subheads, cell tower. OK, what do you want me to focus on

in Tower Cell Tower for for web with the web idea, right? Well, I think we’ve got to finalize it, um, the communication solution, right, which will be a, it could be a hybrid of a a tower and some type of fixed wireless network, but we’ve got to just work through that. Does Angela working with you on that?

We haven’t met yet, but she did send a follow up email, so I need to kind of, she wants to explain to me who she spoke with and, and I need to make sure I, I just identify that you know I’m in the business so.

How do I do that? Just so I didn’t do anything then? OK, um, I would say you can, um, you can go to the town clerk’s office, not tomorrow or Wednesday, but, uh, any, any time after that and file a disclosure, uh, with the town clerk. They had she usually has a blank one there you just fill

out what it is you’re doing and, uh, what they perceived, um, conflict would be you don’t have a conflict because you won’t be bidding on any of the work that goes out, but you. Subject matter expertise that will actually help the town. Perfect. So I think we’ll look at two things one, the existing

tower structure, you know, there has been a couple of. Buyout options, so we’ll revisit that and look at that just to make sure we’re maximizing any potential cash flow and then 2 is like how we extend coverage in the downtown area. Right Yeah I think that’s a good goal. I can help you

with. I do want to be honest that I have a bunch of notes for with the specific things here. I just don’t have my notebook with me. So I can’t bring the level of discussion that I hope I wasn’t anticipating a vote on this to make, I think it’s listen in the agenda is just discussion.

So if you want, if you want to add to it and send me, send me your additions. I, um, I can send you this in spreadsheet format so you could add to it yourself or you can tell me what you want me to add and where. Um, I think you’re good

with the cell tower stuff, I think from what we just said, have water, you know, I think we talked about, you know, Beverly, Beverly Salem Water District, Ipswich watershed, we’re working, I mean, I’m, I’ve, I’m on the task force for the North Shore Water resilience Task Force, and

they’ve actually just put me on to one of the major committees looking at the finalization of options for the for the task force to consider so I’ll be working over the next several months, uh, on the short list of recommendations that I’ll be coming out of that task force, so. Yeah, cause I remember we

had a thing that was basically like, we need to make a decision soon about whether or not we’re going to Continue to pour money into this. Idea of getting on Salem Beverly, which doesn’t ultimately make sense. Versus the MWR there’s a lot going on behind the scenes the water, the task force is. Their, their conversations between the

task force. And Salem Beverly and Salem Beverly and MWRA and there may be a future where Sa Beverly and MW are a partner and. Um It’s, it would potentially save it. Well, there’s a lot, it’s still being studied and I’m gonna have to spend, have to spend the next 8 months looking all at all that

with the task force to figure out what we’re going to recommend, but there, there is a possibility that selling Beverly and Me a partner in some way, shape or form, maintain some of their own autonomy but also partner in a way to bring water, more water into it’s like a daisy chain

instead of a pipeline because the pipeline gonna be a lot more expensive to build. So it was kind of the overarching goal then is it, is it itemized with specifics or just assure quality? capacity of water. It’ll be out for specifics. It’s all it’s a lot going on which spending several $100,000

of studying and the good news is that the, the lead contractor on it is our lead contractor for water solutions to Barry. They, they won the bid to do the contracts for the for the group, so. OK Um, Town hall is that just like more, you know, project manager we start to roll that down.

Yeah, we’re just, we’re just trying to manage it out for the next 18 months and, and then get a new town hall and move in. Um We do have, I, and I think this is a caregiver, but I think the. You said that the, um, trash slash compost. Thing was

definitely going to come to a head because it’s, it’s coming to a head now, um, an update for that on you is that we’ve been approached by Black Earth. We’ve been cold Um Not in writing, but we’ve been told that the family is probably going to start to wind down

operations at Brick end and we’ve already, um, and we’ve already been approached by Black Earth for them to provide the composting service to us we have to, uh, we’re gonna have to renew the contract with Wheeler Braer for disposal of trash and we’re gonna have to, uh, in the next year or so

renew a contract with Casella for hauling, um, so we, we’re talking to them about reworking that contract that they would haul our compostables to black earth instead. I believe there’s a site in Manchester that we, we go to, so it’s not that much further than what they’re doing now. So Tim is

working on all that contractual stuff right now, um. So we’ll, we can get, probably because we gotta get the pricing and and so we know the what, what, if any budget impact is gonna be for FY 26. When is the casse of? You sell a contract, I think is technically up in calendar 27,

which means in FY 26, so we need to start talking to them about it now would it be best to go and know when you want to connect with Black Earth or you doing RFP for 3 carriers to to do all three types of pickup. At this point, we think it’s probably going to be more cost

effective for us to go with Black Earth. Black Earth’s pricing is similar to what Brick and Farms was and they’re willing to sign a contract with us, uh, state law doesn’t require us to do an RFP or an IFP for trash, uh, contracting and. If we can get the same price for from or or or or

similar from Black Earth. That’s probably in our best interest. We know Casselo’s pricing is higher. I would also wonder too, and I don’t know. Um Black Earth that well, but, you know, it would seem like our composting partner, what people liked about brick ends was this idea of it was like a community partner as well.

So you could get compost back or they would combos for the gardens or whatever. Earth has a more robust because of the way they’ve operated and grown their business. They’ve got a more robust, uh, kind of give back to the, so the, the people that you don’t have to. You Black Earth does not just work

with municipalities. In fact, they started out by working with individuals who were compost and so they, they have a very dedicated, you know, if you’re, if you sign on with us, you get whatever, it’s a bag of compost a year or two bags of compost a year or whatever. So for a municipal collection

system they, it’s, they have a similarly already established proposal on how people can get compost from them once a year. OK, that’s great because I think it was definitive because in the last few years we’ve had to at times. Because we didn’t have a written contract and they didn’t want to sign one

we’ve had to, you know, cajole and, you know, harangue and. You know, call several times to get them to bring some compost and then like it was like yeah, and then there, yeah, and and then when we did it it was like scooping it with your own

bucket in the back of the town hall. Anyway, um, OK, um. I would like to have this conversation again, and I apologize that I’ve ruined my notes, but unless people have specific things right now. I’m, I’d like to put this on the agenda again when I have notes, if that’s OK. Yeah, sure.

OK, thank you. Um And I think this was paired with. Our goals too. Do we have any, have we had discussions I’m not looking at anything here, but that’s in my notes we have those that, um, we’ve at least drafted or we nothing’s been drafted. We had those conversations, some of the things that came out of

that conversation, but we haven’t had, we don’t have a template for, uh, how we, how we. Track your goals, so. I do have some of that in my notes that I didn’t bring. OK. I’m sorry. I don’t know if we wanted to do any work ahead in

advance of that to make it a discussion, no, I mean, I think the the topics here, the general topics are the things that we did talk about at, you know, it was like the, the water conversation was this idea of like, which, which is the direction we need to pick a direction, especially knowing

that we need to get into like long term. you know, Planning and financial planning for that. I think the cell conversation had transitioned into the, the Wi Fi conversation. Um, I think the communication, we had talked about the fact that we’re bringing on someone that’s going to own that, um, and we just need to make sure

that we have a set of clear and communicable and measurable goals for that person, um, and that would start with you and then we would give them to me and I’ll work with Cindy to have them, and that was that we can revise actually I was looking at from the um 2022, 2023, it was like uh,

baselining around, uh, the red alert signups and the number of town manager signups increase subscription to those emails and those alert systems, um, and then she’s already also started baseline with information on the website and how people see it and trying to change things and standardize that. So she’s already dug into that because that’s really

where a lot of her experience experience came from, so you’ll be impressed with Cindy’s, uh, take on that stuff. I think also we have the burgeoning, um, town paper, like what is, what is the relationship between the towns, the boards. We had a meeting last week. My God, don’t you love this? um, so

that could just be a separate item is just sort of a discussion and in the future meeting about like what are the specific communicate measurable communication goals, um, I think we had talked about with 3A, it was we’re waiting to see what what the it was it was sort of wait what the it was it

was sort of wait was it was sort of wait to see what the court of the process itself, understanding what comes out of the. Yeah, Supreme Court. Decision, um, and to that end, I think, I don’t want to talk about it too much because it’s not the agenda, but you know,

there, there was a discussion in the last meeting about, uh, decoupling the form-based code from the 3A conversation, uh, we had a meeting with With Patrick and with Rosie was there as well and with the, the planning board, we didn’t get into that conversation as much as we had wanted to have

another one scheduled for Thursday morning at 10. Yeah, there is another one scheduled, um. It is not because And I think Rosie can certainly echo the sentiment. The, the desire to keep them together is not to push any specific agenda, and I think that’s what we have to be careful of. It is actually

because there’s a lot of intricacies in why the foreign-based code and the 3A end up sort of dovetailing, um, and the decision to pull them apart. is as contentious as the decision to keep them together. And I think we’re just trying to work with the planning board and, uh, Patrick and Patrick’s placement to sort of understand

the best way to do that, um, because. It sort of always just comes back around to, like, you know. You know, if this decision comes back that we are going to need to have some sort of 3A zoning, um. We would, it would behoove us to actually have a form-based 3A proposal that covers that, um, and so

we’re, we’re still working through that. So we’ll have more to report to this board, um, at the next meeting. What he said, um, you know, I did like that one page we did with kind of 3 big topics that would be a good thing to continue to

update or I don’t know if it was meant to be a living document to update, you know how we did the one pager and it was really gonna send it out, yeah. I don’t know, I mean, it did a good job then. I would love to see that as a kind of recurring updated document.

Well, I, I wanted to ask your opinion too. I I’d seen that, um, and My town and the town of Manchester, my town where I live, Swampscott in the town of Manchester and another town had all undertaken some effort to utilize their local cable access channel to like get out the word and um uh I haven’t

had a chance to discuss it with HWAM, but I was thinking about maybe having like a sit down and being, you know. Yeah. Asked about various topics at different points and having those be broadcast. I, I don’t know if they have the ability to do a fireside, but it made me think that Fireside over

brandy with slippers on, that’d be great, um, but, um, with a puppy in your lap. Yeah, it’s very FDR of you. I like this. Call you Papa Joe. You’re the one that started with the fireside. All right, um, if it’s the same, everybody, I will. Keep us moving just to recap the. Uh, special time

meeting vote if anybody had any Postmortem thoughts about special town meeting, I thought. That’s great. Well, it went well. Um It it was a level Ayan task. Getting that passed and now it’s passed. Um, I do think it sets us up for. We had a very robust parking lot conversation with some residents after the last

meeting. You know, there continues to be this like. staggering disbelief around the. The How much money these things cost, um, and, and I don’t know. And I, I agree with people, it’s shocking. It’s shocking when you see these numbers. It’s shocking when you see the inflation, um, but I think

going into some of the conversations ahead of us, specifically around the schools and things like that. I’m really curious if people have ideas of how we can Better socialize and better get in front of the, the fact that, you know, if, if people come into this believing, we could

have done it cheaper. Well, that was 3 years ago. Right. And And And we certainly And we certainly could have at that million so yeah, that’s how we could have done it. For, for 10x the project, yeah fortunately. I, I also try to look for the, the silver lining in these things, right? So the

project, the original project also did not include decarbonization. And so I think that we’re getting a different project than what we originally asked the taxpayers for the taxpayers chose, as is their right to not support, uh, an override request to go with the project that we developed it

was a it was a dead exclusion, but, uh, and, and I, you know, we respect, I respect their, their vote on that. We, we pivoted, we identified the things that we thought we needed and then we tried to identify ways that we could get other things without asking the taxpayers, and that’s how they

desert uh how the decarbonization project came about and in some ways, I think that we won’t, although we won’t have all of the project that we asked for before, what we will have will be better quality because we’ll be able to save ourselves some money annually and operating once

once the project’s paid off so shocking the way that prices have skyrocketed in 4 years. It is absolutely. Shocking and of course hindsight, yes, we could have voted for it then, but you’re right, we didn’t and now we just have to deal with what’s in front of us and I’m, I know that we’re all very

grateful that the CPC, um. Stepped up and took on the burden and we’re very grateful for that and we’re very grateful that the project is going to get done. I signed the contract with Campbell Construction today, so we’re ready to go, um, they’re, they’re gonna have and and that’s a good thing, good point

for me to let you all know we’re having a kind of a formal um Project to kick off. I, I’m, I’m hesitant to call it a groundbreaking because we’re not really breaking a lot of ground, um, but we’re gonna have a project kick off on, uh, November 20th at 1 p.m. at the town hall. Uh, you’re all

invited if your schedules allow, uh, they’ll be representatives from uh Campbell Construction from ESG from DOER that gave us that very nice $500,000 grant, uh, for that project from, um, town staff that’ll be managing the project, um. Uh, Senator Tarr. Casner, we’ve, I’ve asked Cindy to invite our new

newspaper. Um, we’re hoping that you, that at least some of you would be able to come and it’s on the 20th 20th, Wednesday the 20th at 1 p.m. Because they’re they actually start work the next day, so we won’t be allowed in the building on the 21st.

Well that’s very exciting. I hope that you’re able to attend it’d be a lot of fun. I think you should break the ground with a small shovel and hang it on a wall somewhere. Maybe those little spoons that look like shovels, Bill, Bill Garbarti, who left and said, oh, I’ll make sure we have a shove there.

I’m like, It’s kind of funny that you’re gonna bring the shovel because the only thing that, uh, the only new ground being broken is for the elevator and you don’t have anything to do with the elevators like a, a brick laying you can like spread some mortar and just plop a brick.

Uh, if, you know, we can get a couple of shovels and, and pose a picture, that’s, that’s fine. I think that, you know, but it, it’s, it’ll be good to have that imagery to let people know the project is actually finally starting, uh, what we expected, um, project timeline is gonna

take, uh, they continue to say 12 to 15 months, so I continued to say 15 to 18 months. Um, that’s the goal. Um, all right. The next item, 2nd to last item is uh a discussion around supporting our town boards and committees and their work, um,

as everyone here knows, we have had a number of, uh, aging, uh, spots open on boards and committees. We’ve had some challenges getting folks into boards and committees. Uh, we’ve had some, uh, really disheartening resignations from some committees, and I think there is, um, Sort of an underlying feeling that maybe there’s not the level of

support, um. And I, I know that we all do the best we can day to day, but I think this is just a discussion of, you know, what can we or should we be doing? Yeah, I, I’d like to give a postmortem on the conservation commission, um, it is with great regret that I.

Reiterate that both the chair Lee McCoy and uh vice chair Kathy Simons both resigned and I had a Zoom meeting with him last week, um, I wanted to hear their um concerns and I tried, gave it the old rosy try to convince them to stay unsuccessfully, and I. Felt very badly and I apologized on

behalf of the town. I, as their liaison and this is this is my learning curve here that I wish that I had reached out to them more formally and said, look, if you need something, let me know. Let me see what I can do, because although I attended the

meetings, I let them run the meetings, and they never communicated to me what the multitude of problems were. Can you explain and this. I may be exposing myself here. I didn’t know what that thing was that they were talking about, where like we had authorized something without asking them.

What was that? In, in the email that they sent. Yeah, they had said like the, the board basically went behind their back and authorized something without asking and I was like, I don’t know it’s I don’t I, I Rosie, do you have background? I don’t remember that we spoke about, I think one, OK, so if I

can be totally um. Transparent. You’re on camera, so, yeah, OK, so, so, so the first thing that they were concerned about is they needed guidance because they were new in their roles and they looked to the our conservation agent. Um, especially because there were Such recent complex issues that were in there. Real house, uh,

the, the, um, school, um, athletic fields project, the Bridge Street project, and so what happened was Brian, who was a wonderful conservation agent had just left and they had, they didn’t have a whole lot of direction and then they, and then we hired. A new agent who lasted maybe a year and

they didn’t feel that she was knowledgeable in terms of being there for them. She spent a lot of time in Manchester and not as much as needed to be in Hamilton, um. So One of the other and and one of the other problems was a um Just in and a

huge lack of administrative support, um, Laurie left, but even prior to that, um, although Laurie certainly was very helpful as much as she could be, they felt that they had to do a lot of file searching themselves and a lot of um research them themselves. They didn’t have anybody to back them up and to provide the

sort of the the support that they needed, um. And so I had talked to uh Joe about this, that there was going to be more dedicated admin time, um, and I talked to them about that, that we have um We are now, uh, have we finalized a new conservation

agent. So you, you all voted at the last meeting on the new IMA, uh, we’ve sent it off to we’ve sent it off to Manchester to be executed and they’re advertising for new agent right now and uh we and Hamilton just to back up your earlier statement, uh, as far as additional clerical help, we

are advertising right now for a part-time 24 hours a week clerical staff person to support the conservation agent and the new planning director, so, uh. Part of this is kind of a result of of having to move out of town home and people being moved around a little bit.

At town hall when the building department and the planning and conservation were all on the same floor, uh, the, the clerical person that was assigned to planning and inspections was working there and offering some help and our previous agents. Other than the most recent one had all been very, very good at helping the, the conservation commission

stay up on those things. When we moved out and we didn’t have Brian anymore and we spent a period of time with Brian just doing some work as a consultant, but no real body in the office, uh, Virginia Wilder, uh, Virginia Wilder, Virginia Cookson stepped up in a great way and really did a lot of

work to help the board as did Cathy and, and, uh, and Lee, um, I was trying to avoid having the same situation, so we, we, we established a new position for part-time clerical person that will help both the new planning director who’s just started and, and the conservation agent. And the

Conservation committee. We, we Advertising now Manchester went through a similar uh process where they recently hired somebody, so we’re hoping to grab some of the candidates because they had several very good candidates they chose somebody we’re hoping one of those other candidates might be interested in our position and Michelle’s working on that now.

Uh, I, I recognize that there was a lack of support there and we, we need to provide it in different layers because we don’t have the ability to hire a full-time agent on our own and. So we’re trying to get there and unfortunately, we, we’re just not done it done it fast enough to help because I

think it’s important to talk about and get better, right, lessons learned doesn’t happen again, um, and you had a chance to meet with them. I mean, I want to applaud them for their efforts and thought they were so but my question is on the, the failure on under pressure.

Does that pressure that they felt they put on themselves to be good or is it pressure that they felt they were put under by the town in that position. They did a remarkable job and, and I think they just felt like they weren’t getting support and they weren’t getting

anywhere. They weren’t. I, I, so, so most recently, they felt that there were, there were some issues around the bridge Street properties, um, so yeah, they say in here they’re like, it says that the town. did not support the commission in carrying out its key responsibilities and enforcing compliance with the Wetland Protection Act and the by law.

And then it says the town failed to share with us its position regarding the renewal of the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School District’s bylaw permit. That’s the first thing. No idea what they’re talking about. Second thing is, um, The town supports, uh, the town failed to support the commission in its effort to enforce compliance with the WPA

bylaw when the commission sought to prosecute a serial violator on Bridge Street. No idea what they’re talking about. Uh, while the other Bridge Street property owners had complied with the same enforcement requirement, this property owner had openly disregarded the order and thereby avoided the expenses involved and subsequently did

not pay the fines we levied for non-compliance. We believe the equal application of the law is critically important and failing to enforce this penalty is unfair to those who comply with the law and reduces our. Authority I, I have no idea what they’re talking about.

I can just give you in a nutshell and Joe, you can augment as needed, but the first part of that in terms of they were um they were very upset that when the school district came for a for a new NOI permit at that point, a new wetlands bylaw had

been voted in by the town, and there were changed conditions. Um, nobody from the specifically town council spoke with them about this and what happened was town council went to one went to their meeting and told them that they. And it’s on, on video she strongly. Advised the conservation commission to write a new NOI,

a new permit using the old conditions and. The conservation commission was clearly if you watch the video, the video very confused by that because they felt that conditions had changed. The new bylaw was in effect, and even though the project had started. They felt that it was the school district responsibility

now that they let their permit expire. Therefore, they were starting anew in terms of a permit and that the permit should be issued under the new bylaw. So what happened was town council came to advise them at a particular meeting. They had no. For their discussion with me. They had no

prior knowledge that this was going to occur. They had no ability to understand what was going on, that was one thing they were frustrated about. Did we? Did we direct counsel to attend that meeting. I will say this, we also have Lauren Lynch on video as chair, confirming in one of our meetings. That we

would never behold them to the new bylaws. We have that on video. That was one of the very specific questions we asked the ConCon when they brought the updated bylaws, we said, if this goes into effect, will it ever retroactively affect the fields, and she said, no, there’s an understanding that

we will, we will respect the original bylaws in the dealings with the school. However, if you have a situation where a where a permit expires, that was the issue. The permit expired therefore. Yeah. We we we can argue, we can argue that point, Rose, but I’m, I’m not going to agree with that aspect

of it, but, but I I understand their position, but we had said we’re not going to let it affect the field. how, however you want to look at the fine print, but we, we weren’t gonna like, but they didn’t come back to us and say, hey, we’re not

gonna vote tonight. Let’s table the vote until we go back to the select board. I mean, nobody forced him to make the vote somebody made a recommendation made a vote. So I would say if they’re not comfortable making a vote, we need to teach our committees that they don’t make the vote.

If you’re not comfortable making the vote, right I’m saying that, but the pressure, that’s my question, as my original goes, who’s pressuring them? We were not pressuring them to make the vote. We’re pressuring them to make a decision. If they couldn’t make a decision, then they should

come back to us with like that’s what I was saying, how can we educate our boards and committees so they don’t feel pressured to make a decision that way, to make a decision. I agree with you they should have they should have, um, taken it under advisement or just decided they were going to take

a vote. They were, they were caught by surprise, so and and I know but I don’t feel like we were putting pressure on them. Like I wasn’t, no, I’m not saying you were how do we do a better jobs in the future. People don’t say that’s an issue that’s going to come up

that’s of importance and it involves a particular board or committee, they should be informed of that so that they can. Understand what’s going on that that’s all I’m saying, so and so and then the next issue was um about Bridge Street, um, so this person uh and one of the properties ignored um the

order to be enforcement order they they refused to comply, so the chair Lee McCoy issued citations, um. For every day they didn’t comply. It was an $1 fine. Anyhow, all the other properties complied with the erosion, um, erosion control, um, specialists, and, and they all hired one, and this

particular person just said, no, I’m not going, I’m not going to. So the fines got up to somewhere between 400 and $5000 and then they finally complied and Lee said, well, you still owe these fines and so it was, he wanted to make it a criminal complaint because that was ostensibly the next step.

And how to do that. So the police department decided that they were not going to file a criminal complaint because what happens is oftentimes, and I do some um criminal consulting work um in the in the court system. And so what happens is, yes, um, it is possible that a judge would say, OK, so you’re

in compliance, yes, you’re asking us to waive the fines, and yes, we will. And so, What, what was the Uh, the, the underlying goal is to make these, make this owner accountable for the fines that he owed, and so I asked Joe to ask town council about what could be put on, um, could it

be a lien on on the property or could there be some restriction on a building permit and our building inspector said that yes, he could refuse to issue a burning, uh, a building permit, and yes, it could also be a lean on the on on the property so it couldn’t, so the deed couldn’t pass, but anyhow, I

think and and I did explain this to Lee, and I think at this point, he and Cathy were so up to here with feeling overwhelmed that that that they felt that it was a cop out or maybe I shouldn’t use that word, but it wasn’t the route that

they wanted to take, and I said, you know, sometimes there isn’t just one road to take to a. achieve your goal, you could do it different ways at that point he just felt both of them felt so unsupported by the town, and that’s where the rights, right, and it’s all sounds like it’s

all different organizations. I was the town I’m like, what I don’t even know what’s the police department and as I said that’s, but that’s our Chief Stevens always tells us he’s his first goal is to educate, not to, not to like he always says that my first goal is to educate people not to send a

fine, not to, but to educate. and this guy was warned a gazillion times and so the bottom line is, um, I would have intervened, uh, not. was not sort of politically intervene, not not physically intervene, but I would have talked to him more about other avenues to get the the same um solution. The problem was he

felt that his decision was, was not supported, and it was only after I found out everything and I tried to talk with him. Anyhow, the bottom line is I think as a liaison, we are all liaisons to different boards and committees, and if we. And I have learned this, be more interactive with our boards and

committees and encourage them to talk to us about problems that they’re having, that’s one thing, um I agree like there should be a way to like if right if they feel like they have a problem, I don’t know who to go to, who do they go to,

right? So maybe it’s, I mean, one thing I don’t wanna make more meats, but maybe there’s more our joint meetings some of the most productive meetings I think we have. I think we should make sure we have a joint meeting with every single You know Committee twice a year, whatever once a year, twice,

whatever it is, because I think those are productive, right? Those are productive meetings. A lot maybe allows them to. Share their stories that we can help out because like you said, we don’t know about it, we read about it the first time in a letter and we can’t, it’s too late to react to it It sounds

like we obviously didn’t have a strong Concomposition because it was a revolving door for a little bit and so, and so they probably didn’t have the right person to go to and. But, but I mean, we, I mean, what’s like defend ourselves like we were very like like conservation rewrite. I mean, we gave that a

lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of support, and we help them quote unquote, you know, do that in a very condensed period of time because it was important to them, it was important to us, so, so I think there were some positive things that happen, you know, and they were like I

said, there’s a lot of things that went through there was the, there was the, there was the, all the different, there’s a lot of different projects they when they do a good job, but so, but I wanted, I, I feel like we were. supportive, but maybe we

didn’t know about stuff it was hard to be, but we also are gonna agree with everything, so I also wanna to like figure out there’s one thing about supporting and another thing that that we don’t always agree with every other board and committee. So how do we resolve, because I think those are

problems we have sometimes too in our towns that we think we have, we have different opinions. So how do we we all not in not talking specifically about Coon, but in another, if we don’t agree, we also want people to be disenfranchised because we don’t agree. So how do we, yeah, so we empower them

to, to make decisions so we can’t second guess what, what they’re doing. I don’t know. We don’t have to agree, but that’s a couple things. One on the agenda item, I think everything you guys said is right on. I think as liaisons we should all take this, you know, incident and and speak to the chairs of

all of our the groups that will liaison and see, you know, if there are anything, anything bubble up. Just take a pulse of the situation, but maybe we need a formal, uh, feedback loop from chairs of all committees, uh, and boards to the select board where they can, they, there is a, a, a process

flow of. For a way for them to send stuff, hey, this is bubble and this is happening, you know, so we can constantly. You know, get feedback and we can respond to it as needed. Meetings would be great, but it might be a lot. I think that’s some of the bigger ones with some of the

hotter topics, we definitely should be meeting with ComCO and other groups, uh, with a meeting, but did we talk also one this might be a lot. How do we get maybe a paper will help too, but uh some type of update on our boards and committees that where they feed in and there’s uh something that goes

out that has a blur from every board and committee of what’s going on in the group and it’s kind of published on a other than the annual report we, there’s, there’s the requirement to do the annual report and Laurie’s done that in the past and Cynthia, Cindy will take care of that unless

you look at every meeting minutes from every you could do that. I’m just talking more of a, of, of an update thing that just kind of like each chair of each board committee kind of sends a couple of bullets and they get aggregated and there’s

a place people. I mean, I try to reach out to all my. We do when we give our updates. And then it gets into minutes and then they get buried into minutes that are approved and consents and then it, it’s just not a, it’s not a way to

resource it and look at it so things kind of just age and then bubble, and then we get resignations. Maybe it’s overreacting, but, um, it would be nice to have. Yeah, I mean, I I think so. I, I, I just think of having that one on one communication and. You know, learning, learning lesson for

me, I, I felt terrible that I. I just, I felt terrible about the situation. I’m not going to say that I was personally responsible for it, but I felt terrible. About the situation and um. you know, I, I don’t think the town is is. It irresponsible, I think just

think it was a comedy of terrible. Perfect storm events that just culminated in in these resignations, um. I, I think there’s also. And I know you like silver linings, but I, I like Black satin ones. Um, I think it’s, I just think it’s a hard time to be on boards right now, and I think one of the

things I’ve heard from people is all roads lead to something contentious and unexpected ways right now. I mean, somebody was joking the other day, like I joined the ZBA because I thought I was gonna like approve people’s decks and then 133 came through and there was this huge pressure to do this.

And I think with the ConCO and, and I think, I think there’s something we have to sort of acknowledge there and like work through, which is, you know, Everything feels political, whether it is or isn’t right now. I think the, the Bridge Street thing. I mean, I remember when I got that email,

my first reaction was, because somebody else had said something to me randomly at Crosby’s about how like, we were pro-development because of our lack of engagement on Bridge Street. And I was like, what is what? I was like, that, that’s not true at all. Like that was private land and go

and that went through multiple boards and committees. But that’s the way it was sort of wielded, right, is that it was there it was a political decision not to be supportive. And it was, and I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t think people understand like how difficult it is right now to keep track

of everything that’s going through, and then, you know, it is volunteers and it is a matter of like, you know, a million well-intended decisions lead to something that ends up here. I mean, I, I think. To give a little bit of grace even to Eric and I You know, somebody said, when the, when

the permit expired, like, That was our somebody said that was our opportunity to finally thwart the fields project because of a clear core. And I was like, well, that in of itself is such a gross conversation that people are waiting for them to miss this so that they can ruin the

fields project and I was like, that’s such dangerous thinking. And, and then for people to say, and the reason that the town defended them is because they’re pushing the fields projects and I’m like, the reason the town is supporting is because the, the voters voted for it and, and we’re

trying to keep this moving forward. But I do think it is really difficult. I mean, the CIC felt, had very similar things when they came to us and said that we should say no to the turf because they are a committee that said it shouldn’t happen. And I got very specific feedback from

them that, you know, we didn’t listen, we didn’t respect them, we didn’t support the decision that they had given to us, because we don’t agree, doesn’t mean people should and that’s the challenge. It’s like, I completely understand and, you know, I’ve said this before, I don’t necessarily support turf

myself. But at that point in the process, and after we had been through, I couldn’t support us using anything to thwart where we had gotten. And that’s really painful. It’s painful to see something that I don’t even agree with happen, but I, you know, and, and I just say that because I feel

like I’m getting this feedback from a lot of people. HEIC has brought it up, the, the Human Rights Commission has come to me about these same feelings, um, that everything they do is, you know, contentious or litigious or, you know, all these things. ZBA felt this way when 133 came through.

The planning board, I know Marnie feels this way, you know, it’s like. But I’m like, it’s because, to your point, we Just because we don’t agree with you, how can we support you anyway, even if we are on opposite sides of this do you have the right to make those decisions because you have an appointed

to to these to these committees and saying what I in terms of the um the new permit application is right or wrong, they just felt that they didn’t have the opportunity to make a a decision they felt very pressured. And granted to your point they could have said, you know, in hindsight, right? They

could have neither all these people on Zoom and in the audience and town councils telling them her opinion, they felt very pressured and I can appreciate that, um, whether, whether you agree one side or the other, they should have been given the opportunity to make a decision based on their best process. No, I agree, and.

I wish, I wish I knew you because I, I do feel like it’s such a theme right now that boards are saying, why didn’t y’all or why didn’t this, and I’m like, uh. So, uh, so I think just I will reach out to all the committees that I’m

liaison for, um, that, that’ll be my sort of um mea culpa. I want you to know if you’re having problems, reach out to me and I can’t say I can’t solve all your problems, but I can try to help find solutions, right, that was the original. Like that was the original concept of having liaison

you’re liaison you’re liaison you’re liaison to all liaison you’re probably the best liaison to all liaison you’re probably the best liaison to all the meetings and it’s like it’s like you, you’re the one who goes to every meeting and makes no talk to people. So I understand that I feel the fact

that you’re like and that, but I don’t think there’s anything that you could have done differently, so I think it’s just it’s like I said, it’s a result of. Of the comedy a lot. I mean, like I said, I give them my credit. They want, there’s a lot of product they worked really hard on it last

year and they did a good job. I mean, Kathy is, is a, I mean, I, I, I just don’t know Lee as well, but like, Kathy’s lovely and they, and yeah, and, and Jack Jack, like they’ve just done so much and, and I feel bad that That they feel like we

haven’t been able. To support them in the manner that they needed to be supported, but. And, and And I feel badly because I was right there, but I mean, again, I think I just, I just don’t know. I don’t think it’s, yeah. Alright, well, I think I get like the feedback

loop, right? So what Bill wants to do is like how do besides. Like what other feedback loop can we give them and it’s like I don’t, you know, I don’t know if there’s it’s an e-mail or write to the need to sign. You know, to Joe or somewhere where

we send out a communication that says that in an effort to continue communications both ways. There’s a feedback loop if you feel like, you know, things are. Reach out to you and reach out to Joe so that we can. Well, maybe they feel they can’t speak to a liaison for some reason. I don’t know,

maybe they’re not going. No, it could happen, not Rosie’s Bill’s point, reach out to, you know, the option of both, you or me because first and foremost be, there may be times where they feel they can’t reach out to me. I, I, I, I, I like you, Rosie and very sorry to see them leave and very

sorry if in any way, anything I did led to their decision because I thought they were both very, very good at what they were doing and they were helped the town and I liked working with both of them individually. I, so I, if, if something that I did was misconstrued as unsupported by,

I apologize. I really, that’s not what I. want it at all. Well, you know, I don’t think it was any one person, I think it was just the whole system they found unsupportive and It is very unfortunate. I deeply regret that they have both resigned, but they have both made their decision and so we

have to take, so if we take this opportunity to get better, are there other I have to double check. I feel like we might have 4 there cause we had 2 that we I think we had 6 out of 7, so I think we still have 4 there, which means we, which

means we have a quorum they can continue to meet while we look for 3 more now something we should do to help support the 4 during this transitional period, you know, so I’m. You know, we’re, we’re going through a transition in staff wise too, right? And, uh, uh, our new planning and land use director,

uh, Mark Connors has some experience while overseeing and, and working with conservation in his previous stop in Streatham, New Hampshire, and I’m hoping that that will lend itself here, that’s a conservation. Well Well, my question is like what other boards can be are feeling a lot

of pressure and are under a lot of pressure right now. Maybe we can help out though besides them like lesson learned, like what other you mentioned something that you’re hearing about, but currently right now, what’s our current state? Do we have any sort of words that are Do we have like an email

distribution list to the chairs of every board and committee so that we could just probably need to, I probably need to reestablish it because The last time we did those. Probably more than a year ago and some of the chairs have changed, so, but I can, I can put together an email chain, um, I mean that

might be a good first step is to send an email to all chairs and just say like acknowledge of the environment and what’s going on and what we’re trying to do, but liaison and we can put the, put and then all of us should check in with our I.

The chairs of our, of our could of our could of our could of our could do a better job I of our could do a better job I can No, you do a great job. All right, um, in the interest of time and dinner, uh, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. All right.

Second, uh, Tom Myers. Tom Meyers, I most tonight. Rosie Kennedy, I I, Caroline Bull you