are all set. All right, thank you. Uh, we’re gonna call. To order select board meeting Monday, May 5th, 2025. Um And I appreciate everyone being here tonight. It’s a great group, a big group, so I think it’s important that They were respectful everyone tonight, such a big group and a lot of

people, but we have people who have asked to be here tonight to speak. Um, if you want to speak to an opportunity to ask questions and come up to the mic. So I asked that in the audience here, you guys are respectful and, and not, if you want to talk, there’s plenty of room outside to have side

conversations. We’re not to use the library for anything other than the restrooms in the back. So the restrooms are through those wooden doors in the back, but I, I, you know, once again, I appreciate everyone’s passion, but let’s leave the emotion out of this meeting tonight. I have a very professional, respectful

discussion. So thank you for that. All right. In the, uh, the first order of business is talking about board and committee openings and with everyone. I did call you, you did. I’m sorry. So we have a lot of openings. So hopefully with so many people in the room, we get some involvement in the

community and other organizations. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna read through them and please take note and please reach out to uh to Joe if uh you’re interested to fill out an application to uh join one of these committees or boards in the Affordable Housing Trust. We have one opening. And Conservation commission, we have two openings. And the

community preservation committee we have one opening that needs to be a member of the historic District commission. And the Hamilton Council on Aging, we have one opening. And the historic District commission, we have 2 openings for 3-year terms and 2 openings for 2-year terms. One is to be a resident of the historic district, and one must

be a resident realtor. We also have a one at large opening in the Human Rights Commission. And in the Hamilton Wenham Cultural Council, we have two openings now. Just one, yeah, one, we have one we’re appointing tonight, right? So we, OK. Yeah, and then, To play on this thing popped up.

So people on Zoom. Please make sure you’re muted. I did make a request at last week’s meeting that people do not want to have their camera on, at least have their names on so we can, we know who people are. It looks like people have mostly done that, so I appreciate that. Uh, we will now have public comment.

So if anybody in the room, we’ll start with the room has a public comment. The podium is here. It cannot be an item on the agenda. We have 3 minutes to come to the podium. Introduce yourself, name and address and make a public comment, so we’ll open it up to the floor right now. And then

Joe open it up to the uh it’s not under Zuma, if you raise your hand. Oh sorry. Uh, Beth her 270 Asbury Street, um. I want to bring something to the attention of the select board. Um, that was important enough that it got voted and passed a town meeting, but it has been ignored. Um, we’ve had similar

citizens petitions. I’m talking about the citizen’s petition at the end of town meeting. It, I know it’s a non-binding vote, but we’ve also had other non-binding votes, um, particularly with the environmental or the climate change group, and we have a committee and they bring things to the select board to put on the warrant, and we continue to

feel ignored in general, and this is just another example that there’s been no Attention that I’m aware of to address The, the passing of that citizen’s petition asking for the abandoning of consolidation and the moving forward with renovations that passed, that article passed with the majority, and I just want the select board to put that on

their agenda, whether another night, but it needs to be addressed because it’s already been voted on and it’s passed, and it has not been addressed. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the room? And Joe, nobody else on Zoom Zoom, OK. All right, first thing is, uh, next thing is board in town and

manager reports. Um, Joe, do you have anything? I know we’ve been working on a lot of stuff over the last week, but do you think? I think we’d rather stay with the agenda with the agenda at the time, OK. And, uh, I’ll start with you, Ben. I know we have not, we’re gonna be assigning our liaison roles

tonight, so it might not be allowed to update, but I’ll give everyone the opportunity to uh, to speak, but Ben, anything? To address for Not in particular held my first office hours, um, this morning, actually, we’ll be doing that every 2 weeks, um, for now, it’ll be at Patton Homestead,

um, from 8:30, 9:30, uh, you can send an email if you want to confirm that I’ll be there, uh, otherwise it’s generally first come, first serve, but we had really good productive conversations this morning for those who were able to make it. So thanks for those who came out. It’s good to see you again

here tonight. That’s it for me. Great Tom. Nothing for me. Thanks. Rosary No, I think I will just wait until it’s a quieter meeting. Bill Wilson was on a, uh, is traveling back tonight. He will be here. He’s on his way from the airport right now, so we will welcome him when he arrives, but we’ll

keep the meeting. Uh, on schedule. Next item is consent agenda. We have 3 items on the consent agenda. We have approved appointment of Joni Millanin to the Council on agent. We ever prove you can’t run, have marathon, which is an annual event we’ve had before. This year it’s on May 17th.

And then approve the rededication of victory pillars at Patton Park by friends of the Patent Homestead, which is May 8th. I have emotion. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second We have any further discussion or questions who seconded that? That was Tom. OK. All right, so I’ve, uh, all

those in favor say aye, all opposed. Right, so we have 4, yeah. Thank you. Right, so our first item on the agenda is a presentation that was required by FEMA to have public, a public meeting for our Hamilton mitigation plan and we have a consultant here tonight, uh. Jamie Kaplan to uh give a

presentation and we’ll discuss and vote. So Jamie, I’ll be, uh, I’ll be able to move your, your presentation forward, so I’m gonna get to it now. Just go ahead and start. Oh, good. Thank you. Oh. Maybe. The seltzer. All right. I’ve never given an upside down one, so this is good. Look at that.

It was, it’s, it’s fine. OK. Um, so you could click to the next slide. Great. Thank you. So again, thank you so much for having me. My name is Jamie Kaplan, and I am representing the consulting team and the lead of the consulting team and we updated what’s called your hazard mitigation plan, um, the

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, hired our firm to update your plan. And so this is a chance for me to explain to you what’s in that plan and how you’ll have an opportunity to review the plan. Uh, so today we’ll talk about again, specifically what is hazard mitigation, what’s in

your hazard mitigation plan, and then, uh, I’ll give you a few ideas for how you can prepare your own home and family. We’ll talk about our risk assessment process, uh, specifically what’s in your mitigation strategy, um, and then how you can, uh, review the plan. She can go ahead to

the next slide. So just a little background about us, um, as I mentioned before, MIA, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency hired us to update, uh, 27 plans across the state. So we’re just at the tail end of um doing that work. Uh, we’ve worked as a team for well over 20 years together,

and we do mitigation planning, um, oops across the state. OK, you can go to the next slide. I don’t want to take too much of your time. So just a little background so you understand what hazard mitigation is and what mitigation is when we think about emergency management, um, for instance,

uh, preparedness was what we typically think about, that’s things like having flashlights and first aid kits in your car. It’s uh rushing to the supermarket when we know there’s gonna be a large winter storm, it’s things that you do when the disaster, if you will, um, is. pending, like it’s

gonna happen. Then response and recovery are both fairly self-explanatory uh response being what you do when the disaster is happening, uh, recovery is how you put those pieces back together, um, and mitigation is what you do, um, when there isn’t a disaster happening, but there’s action

you can take so that you won’t have a disaster and for when we speak about hazard mitigation planning and your plans. Specifically, we’re thinking about natural hazards. Um, I’m based in Northampton, Massachusetts, and it has been pouring here all day. Um, but we don’t have to have flooding.

We can’t stop the rain, but we don’t have to have flooding and things that we would do to not have flooding like shoring up sea walls or um Anything else that you, you know, anything else you could do to prevent flooding, uh, that would be mitigation, um, public education is part of mitigation,

any kind of improvement of your infrastructure is mitigation. So when we write a mitigation plan, what we’re looking to do is identify what can possibly happen in the community and based on what can happen, what can you do about it and what you can do about it, we call mitigation actions, uh, and

it’s required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, that uh your hazard mitigation plan be developed and updated every 5 years. to the next slide. So, I’m sorry, did someone have a question? I think you’re right the dole will be the first one to say every single have someone

unmuted. Go ahead, sorry, sorry. OK. I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell. So hazard mitigation, FEMA defines it as um in a sustained action to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to life and property from hazard events. Um, I know the little graphic shows that for every $1 you spend on mitigation, you’re saving $6 on

future disaster losses. In fact, it’s really closer to $13. depending on what that um hazard is. So it’s certainly well worth our time and money to mitigate risk. If we wait to try and recover from disasters, um, it’s exponentially more expensive, not to mention that we’ll lose lives and property.

When we develop a hazard mitigation plan, we’re looking to identify cost effective actions to reduce risk. Um, so these are well thought out projects. We’re not looking for random hairbrain. ideas, um, we want to make sure that we’re helping you use your resources, financial and human resources wisely. Uh, we focus on your greatest vulnerabilities, uh,

the process of putting the plan together as well as implementing the plan as an opportunity to build partnerships. That’s super important because these natural hazards that we’re considering, they don’t abide by government boundaries. They don’t know about them. They don’t care. So as you think. about mitigating risks, you want to make sure

that you are working in conjunction with your neighbors, um, especially when we start talking about flood risk, because things downstream are impacted based on what we do upstream, of course, um, also, when you apply for grant funding or more likely to receive funding if you’re um working in partnership with another government organization.

So the plan will increase awareness of hazards and risks, and each of you will have the opportunity to read the plan and I think you’ll see that. The plan uh that we’ve developed does communicate the priorities of the town. We’ve reviewed all the plans you have in place as well as work

closely with you over the last nearly a year to develop the plan, um, and so we do make sure that we’re aligning with your objectives as a community and then ultimately the plan should save lives and money. We go to the next slide. So just a little bit of an overview of how the plan was developed, uh,

we started with a kickoff meeting back in September. We put together what we call a hazard mitigation planning committee or HMPC for short. Uh, we’ve had 4 meetings with the HMPC members of that committee represented um the majority of your town departments. We’ve had two public meetings, this

being the 2nd 1. And then the, um, you folks have the opportunity to review the plan, um, should be available for your review in the next, um, within the next week because the HMPC is currently reviewing it now. Once you’ve finished review of the plan, um, any edits or changes that need to

be made are made, and we prepare the plan for review by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and And then they, when they feel comfortable with it, that it meets federal requirements. They send it to FEMA for their reviews. So all of that review will happen next month in June.

Um, the graphics on the top left there, um, show your previous hazard mitigation plan, exactly, as well as what’s called your, um, I think here you call it your community resilience building workshop summary of findings, but it’s uh municipal vulnerability preparedness plan. basically, and both your old mitigation plan and that other plan have

what we consider to be mitigation actions or recommendations for how you could mitigate risk. So, we started our process by looking at which of those activities you’ve already done. And if you haven’t done them, if you want to move them forward into this new plan or not, whether they’re relevant or not. And then our plan is consistent

with the state’s plan. That’s that 3rd graphic there, um, on the top. left. All right, you can go to the next slide. So just a little food for thought for everybody in the room, um. I encourage you to take a look at the ready.gov website, um, regardless of what you think of the current administration,

that website, um, I don’t think has changed much in the last 100 days or whatever it is, and it’s certainly a good idea to take a look at it. There’s a lot of good information there. It’s very important that you take some time as um community members to figure out how you’re going to plan to avoid

being impacted by uh natural hazard. Disaster, um, obviously you can put together some supplies, um, and you want to stay informed. I think that the most important thing you can do is have a plan for how you can communicate with friends and family where you might meet them, and then how you can stay

informed about what’s going on. All right. Next slide, please. So this is our process that we go through when we’re trying to analyze risk and risk we define as the potential for damage, loss, or other impacts created by this interaction between the natural hazards that we identify and your community

assets. When we’re looking at the natural hazards, we make a list of as many natural hazards as we can think of, as well as we look to the, um, your previous plan and the state’s plan. Anything that’s include in the state plan has to be included in your plan. Um, if it’s not included, we have to

explain why, you know, it wouldn’t be relevant. For instance, I told you I live in Northampton, we wouldn’t include tsunami in our plan. Um, all of the hazards are Detail the risk assessment chapter in your plan is well over 100 pages. Each hazard is described in detail where it can occur in

your community. To what extent and by that we’re thinking about the amount of um what can happen. So the magnitude or the strength, for instance, if it’s a hurricane or an earthquake, how big it can get. What’s happened previously, um, perhaps you’ve had uh previous disasters as well as we want to

look forward, what do we anticipate is possible in the future. In terms of community assets, we’re thinking about your demographics, so the whole population, we look to your built environment, and that includes buildings as well as infrastructure. We consider your natural environment, and then we want to also look at your economy. Um, and where

these interact, that’s what we consider to be a risk. All right, the next slide, please. Oops. OK, so this slide is air up a little bit, shows all of the natural hazards that we’ve included in your plan. Um, so for extreme temperatures, we’re thinking there about hot as well as cold. Obviously, we’ve

got drought, um, earthquakes, we look at flooding in terms of precipitation as well as dam overtopping, hurricanes and tropical storms, invasive species, landslides, other severe weather that could be things like thunderstorms. Severe winter storms, tornadoes, and wildfires are brush fires, so I think you’d be hard pressed to find a natural

hazard um that we didn’t fit into here in some way. The other thing that’s not on this list, but that we do consider in detail is climate change. So we look at climate change not as a standalone hazard, but how it impacts each of these hazards, and it, it does impact all of them to our knowledge,

except for earthquakes. we haven’t seen a way that um climate change impacts earthquakes. All right. Next slide, please. Did you give her a, I did, but it doesn’t seem to be, Henry. Did somebody have a question or, go ahead. OK. So when we think about um your community assets were, as I

mentioned to you, we’re looking at your population, we’re looking at the built environment and your natural environment. And then we’re spending some extra attention on what we consider to be critical facilities. And each community gets to define their critical facilities as they see fit. Um, so, The um graphics there that I have on the left

in um shades of blue and purple. Those are the types of facilities, but they don’t have to be the only facilities. So, we do include your schools, we do include fire stations, police stations, um, But we can also include things like a library because communities rely on their libraries, uh,

frequently they function as heating and cooling centers, uh, we look at, um, Uh, senior centers, um, any kind of health center, um, so we get to work with the hazard mitigation planning committee to define what will be your critical facilities and the reason that we spend extra time and

attention on those is when we look at risk, we want to see how those facilities are specifically impacted and if there are ways we can mitigate risk or lessen the impact of risk to those facilities. OK, the next slide, please. So when all is said and done, this is how your um risk ranking comes

out and what this does is help us have a big picture of how to utilize your resources. Um, we consider again when we’re looking at risk, if you read across the top of that slide, we think of all of these um different characteristics of each hazard. So probability, obviously, how likely something.

this to happen, um, we’re confident that you’re gonna have winter storms and severe weather, you know. There’s, there’s, you can bet on it, right? The impact to each um to you, um, again, we give that, um, a waiting, the highest number you can have in any of these is 4. The spatial extent,

that looks at the range of, of how big um an area, the uh natural hazard would impact. So something like flooding won’t um impact the entire community equally, whereas a severe winter storm or extreme temperature. temperatures, it’s not gonna exactly matter where you are in Hamilton, you’re

going to be hot or cold. Um, the warning time. We get way too much warning time, I think on severe winter storms by the time they come around, we’re overly prepared and then we never get snow. Um, so, and then the duration of how that

will um pan out? Hey, this is Bill. Uh, I just wanted to let you know we’re about, we’re about 10 minutes into a 15 minute presentation, so, because we have a lot of stuff on the agenda tonight, so not to rush you, but I just want to

make sure we hit the high points for the, for the topic tonight, so. Just want to keep, I’ll keep going. All right, you can go to the next slide. This is just an example of the type of map that you’ll see in the plan where you see your critical facilities, um, called out with some flooding areas

highlighted, right? You can go to the next slide. Um, just as a reminder that you can sign up for mobile alerts in Hamilton. I encourage you to do that, um, and you can do that on the website. You can go to the next slide. So your um mitigation

plan has oops, some goal statements, um, we put them in categories there just cause it’s easier to um to sort of digest them, if you will, with saving lives and property being the most important. We encourage you to increase your capacity to mitigate risk and then to specifically protect buildings and infrastructure as well as natural and cultural

resources, um, and we always include education and awareness, and that’s for the public as well. was for the community at large. All right, um, You’re bouncing around a little. One more slide there. So when we think about how to mitigate risk. There are 4, these are the four categories of where

your mitigation actions would fall into. So when you think about, well, it’s, if we’re gonna have, um, say, uh, flooding extreme temperatures or um earthquakes. What can you do to mitigate those risks. Your answers are in these categories of you can plan, for instance, to build properly.

or not to build in high hazard areas that would be planning and regulation. I think the other ones are pretty self-explanatory. OK, one more slide. So, each of your mitigation actions, and this is just an example of one that I show you so you get a sense of how the content that we’ve

included for each one. So we have prioritized them in order, um, each one gets a title and then a, a description. We’ve identified who would be the lead for each action, um, if there are supporting organizations or departments that’s listed, uh, the cost as well as we’ve identified potential grant funding. resources, um, And uh

implementation schedule with, it has to be within 5 years because the plans are good for 5 years. All right, the next slide. So this is just an example of some of your mitigation actions that are in the plan, we don’t need to go through them in any detail, but I think you’ll see that we’ve

um included all types of actions, whether it’s infrastructure or education, um, protecting your natural environment, it’s all included here. All right. And can just wrap it up pretty soon, just those are some general ideas for ways you can protect your own homes. I won’t waste your

time with that. Um, A little bit more on how you can stay prepared and you guys can obviously post this presentation somewhere if you want. And then the next slide. All right, so just quickly, when you do see the plan, it’s um over 300 pages. The introduction is just that, it

explains what’s in the plan, you planning area profile kind of sets the stage, what is Hamilton, what’s there, uh, your planning process describes how we develop the plan, risk assessment, we went over in, in some detail today. It ends with problem statements, and we look to find solutions to those problems in your mitigation. strategy with those actions,

your capability assessment goes over the town’s capacity to mitigate risk in those areas of planning, administration, finances, and education. And then the plan wraps up with the um method for you to implement it, which will include continuing meetings with your committee and um seeking some funding. So finally, uh, last steps, you will review the plan

shortly. Um, I have it in my notes that you are going to have uh copies of the hard copies of the plan at the public safety building and at town hall and that the plan will be posted to the town’s website, um, and I’m happy to answer any questions you all have about the plan. Joe, if

you can go back to 17, I think I just want to spend 2 minutes on 17, so you just closed it, but 17 had a sort of real life mitigation actions for Hamilton, right? So one was, you pulled up, right? One was replaced the Winthrop Street Bridge.

Number 2 was upgrade the senior center to function as a shelter and heating or cooling center. Number 3 was integrate a resilience into the updated housing production plan. Including policies or incentives for housing development that’s located away from known hazard areas. Number 4 was maintained safe access for fire apparatus to wild wild

and urban interface neighborhoods and properties. I was at a generator town hall and any other critical facilities in need of backup power. 6 was a right size call boos throughout town. 7 was town tree maintenance and replacement program expansion and the last one was support the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee and other local regional organizations, Watershed, Essex County

Greenbelts, etc. in promoting and delivering outreach campaigns that help build community resilience so I think those are things that we’ve all sort of talked about and, and we will continue to talk about. So I think it’s an important plan because there’s a lot that goes into it. I think, I think

Jamie is trying to represent how much goes into this. So as you all sit here and you’re here for a very specific issues, lots of issues in this town. worked through and so it’s good for you to get a sort of snapshot of other things we’re working through to help the us build a stronger, better, more

resilient communities, so. Uh, I could ask a quick question, do you take, um, uh, attendance at this meeting because it would be helpful for FEMA if you could pass around a sheet or something so that we have an attendance list. I said that. Joe, what do you think we got about 100 people here, Jamie.

I don’t know if I’m gonna get. That’s great. That’s great. I love it. I’ll mention that there’s 100 people in the room, if that’s the best you can tell that to listen to the plan. So Joe, the, for prosper night, so obviously we have to have two public. Hearings and this is number 2. Yes. And then we, and

then the plan will be presented on our website within the week. That a little over a week, yeah, we just have to finish it up, um, does anybody have questions about it? I really do want you to understand what’s in there and the value of it. There’s been a lot of work that your, has your mitigation planning

committee has put in, um, Joe’s been actively engaged in all facets of it as the fire department has, so, um, so are you looking for any direction from Like board tonight any specific items the um No, the price has changed a little since I used to write these a long time ago, but um, you, the,

the next step is for this to go to MEMA and FEMA once it’s, um, once it’s approved by them, it’d come back here for uh a vote to accept. So, um, they’ll, they’ll make sure we check all the boxes that they have on their little crosswalk, so I

just have one question, and this might be for Jamie or for Joe, but does this include, uh, like a continuity of operations plan in there or is that a separate plan, so like in the event two separate plants, OK. Yeah. Yeah, this is just mitigation, so no response in here, no recovery, yeah.

Thanks. Joe or Jamie, if people have comments or questions, uh, when they’re reviewing the plan, where, where should they direct those? Jamie, this information the plan about that if you want to. What I’m gonna do is make sure that um Joe has a form that he can post online as well as put some hard copies next to

the hard copies of the plan. So any comments that everybody has, you can go ahead and make those, um, and we will record all the comments in the plan that anyone in the public makes. Um, we don’t make edits to the body of the plan, um, unless the

committee agrees that the edit should be made. So you can. I’ll be all right, thanks. If you have a question, feel free to come up to the podium and say your name and your address, please. Hi, Yvonne Memo 21 Asbury Ave. So Is this presentation she’s given, is this what we take when it’s

finalized to FEMA or MEMA to get the grants to fix the buildings and the bridges. Is that correct? So the 130 page report she’s presenting the sort of the outline of how she got to it, but the 130 is what we submit. And, and we will submit that as soon as they’ve Chekhov that said that it’s

fills out all the boxes and then we need that on hand, but we need them to have that on, on file before we can even apply for money, so. So we can’t even apply for money until that’s, this plan is renewed. OK, and but it is the

basis of where they get the, we go to get the approval for grants. Thanks. Yes, it will help, and there’s a lot of good content in the plan that should help you with your grant writing. Any other questions for Jamie? Mm So, do we need to vote on anything tonight? No, I don’t. No, no. Now, no voting,

just learning. I will thank you for all the hard work. All right. Thank you for having me. Good luck with the rest of your meeting. Thanks, Jamie. If something else comes up, just let me know. Thank you. You’re welcome. Bye. All right, we welcome, uh, Bill Wilson. Thank you, Bill. Yeah, sorry, I’m

late flight delays. All right, so we get to the, uh, the main, the main event here. So I want to give people an update from our meeting from 2 weeks ago on a Tuesday two weeks ago, it’s not quite 2 weeks, but um, we met 2 weeks ago I had a very

robust discussion about, uh, we were, the school committee came to us and requested that we put, um, The school, uh, consolidation plan back on the June 26th special town meeting that we have already had scheduled and so we had a very robust discussion, uh, a good debate. We let everybody speak,

um. Uh, and it was, uh, I think it was very, very interesting discussion. What we did at the end of that discussion is we tabled the vote that we had up here for the select board to vote, um, and we tabled it. Uh, Rosemary requested to be tabled because they have a little bit more discussion amongst the

boards to think about it and we also invited, uh, Eric, Tracy, and the school committee to come tonight to answer some questions. Um, so that’s sort of that was the basis for the, for the meeting from last week. What has happened in the last few days, we have received a citizen’s petition, um, signed

by over 200 people. I think the final count Joe was so was the signatures were over 380, but the clerk only had to certify more than 200, so she stopped certifying. at 240, so we’re required if we get a sematician requiring a special town meeting to actually have that special time within 45 days.

So we now have that uh certified request. So now we do not have to vote and we’re going to forego our vote because now we have to abide by the requirements of the petition. Um, so tonight, what we’re going to do is discuss, uh, The petition moving forward with that petition, but we’re also

want to give. Excuse me, I’m gonna start now. We’re not going to have side discussion in this room. We have a lot of people in the room. We have to be respectful. We have a question. You can come up to the podium at the appropriate time. If you want to talk to your friends, you can go

outside and talk to your friends. Um, so what we’re gonna do tonight, but we did invite Eric Tracy and the school committee to come up and answer questions for the board. And so we’re gonna start with that. They’re gonna come up and answer questions and so, um, I think, uh, like Eric Tracy to

come to the podium and we’re gonna have some questions at the end of his presentation and question answer with the board, we’re gonna open it up to questions from The public related to his discussion tonight, but it’s for questions only. This is not a public debate. These are questions. I’m going to moderate the discussion, but you’re coming

up here to ask Eric Tracy or the school committee who’s here represented tonight by who is here tonight Eric from the school committee, uh, Dana. So Dana, if you ask some questions. It’s not a question, uh, we’re gonna consider it out of order and we’re gonna move on from it. So, but we want to have people

ask questions because it’s important for people to get their questions answered so we understand the situation. But for right now, the point of this discussion for the next few minutes. is to have, uh, the answer we asked Eric to come and prepare to talk about a few things and then we had

some questions for him, so Eric opened the floor to you right now. Do you wanna, do you have prepared answers from the questions we asked last week, or do you want us to ask you questions and you’d answer them more than 2.5 million lives in All right, so I’ll start down here, work our way this way, so.

Um, so this is Bengala. I don’t have any questions for Eric Tracy. I’ll save my questions for the school committee. Well, I think you should do it at the same time. Yeah, and Dana can come up. So, and this may also be sort of a question for you,

Joe, or, or, or Bill, if you have insight into it, but since the school committee, the last time we were here, they had submitted a request for us to uh bring, bring forward um Those articles On the June 26th meeting. So is that, you know that that vote took place, and that has been put to this board

that has now We didn’t vote on it. We didn’t have a motion, um, but it’s now closed. Is that how I understand it, that we, we do not need to take any action on it because it’s been superseded. Are you asking me? Yeah, I mean, I’ll I’ll start

with that and then, but yeah, so, so talking to town council, that vote is no longer, we, we could vote to, to sort of belts and suspenders, but we’re not required to vote because we were going to vote to open up the town warrant for our existing Tommy, which was June 26th. This is to have a

different to me has to be within 45 days, 45 days has to be by the 15th, 14th of June. So this is a different town meeting so we can decide what do the other town meeting later, but this is not, so we’re basically, we’ve been superseded by this petition that’s to be acted on within 45

days. All right, so that supersedes it and it closes out the request then from the school committee, so that’s now gone, essentially. We’re we’re not, we don’t need to act on it at this point. So it’s not that it’s closer we’re not acting on it at this point. OK. any other questions for now? Yeah.

Yeah, um, question for, for, for Eric and Dina, thanks for joining. I think since we have such a large group here and folks online, I think would be helpful. I know there’s still some conversations about um the renovation, reimbursement, and all of those questions, so like, you know, whether there was a

reimbursement available for renovation from the MSBA, you know, what was the, I, I know it’s been discussed in public meetings, but I think just getting some clarity on um you know, was renovation, you know, straight renovation considered and what was the re im b ur se ment options like from the MSBA

under a straight renovation. So you have to go all the way back in time to when we had 14 options on the table. Uh, ranging from ADA compliance all the way through, uh, a combination of renovation and renovation addition and new, um, construction for various sized buildings, small elementary

school combined various sizes, so any of those, uh, except for the ADA. So out of the 14, there was one, the ADA upgrades, code upgrade, they called it, was not eligible for reimbursement. It doesn’t meet any of the specs that the the um MSBA, uh, puts out, so for example, the gym would be

undersized in the renovation, you wouldn’t expand the gym, uh, excuse me, in a code upgrade, you wouldn’t expand the gym, so they wouldn’t reimburse for that. So they don’t, they generally don’t get into reimbursement for code upgrades. In the beginning of the process, they give us a number, and I

think originally it was 47.6%. That is generally holds true. Across that entire, the other 13 options that were available. Um, it did go down a little bit when we went into, uh, the PSR phase, which is something they just, they do a review every in each step of the phase. Uh, phases, so it was 47.6% plus

whatever incentive points you could gain, and you can gain different incentive points for different things you do, like, um, adding, adding, you know, an option to go to solar in the future opportunities for, uh, green building stuff that working with the um Um, Massachusetts, uh. National Grid programs for reimbursements on different

energy choices, so all those things add on as you go through the process. We ended up at I think 51%. Uh, given the choice that we made, and I think the, the, you know, the thing I’ve said over and over again, the, the school building committee picked, uh, one choice out of the 13, and that’s what you’re

expected to pursue through the process of feasibility, uh, schematic design, and then into what they call design. Uh, which would be the next phase after the point we’re at right now. Thanks. That, that’s helpful. Um, the other question I know is obviously on the, the number, uh, the overall cost,

and I know you talked a little bit about this at the Hamilton town meeting, um, around, uh, the 142 million sort of being the locked in raid. I know we went through a construction manager at risk process and you know, I don’t want you to go

too into the weeds on that. I’m sure people don’t want to hear all of the, the nitty gritty details, but can you speak a little bit about that number, um, and why that is sort of a fixed number. Yeah, the 142 million that approximate number there is uh Where the state will lock you in. They, they,

you go through feasibility and you go through schematic design to be able to get to the board meeting in February, which we had on February 26th, I believe it was, where they really look at the overall um project itself, the costs, everything involved, and they lock you in. So they, they on the 26th said,

yeah, we, we’re, we understand this 142 million number we we agree with it after going through all of our submissions, um, which gives us the reimbursement rate of the 49 million. And then the, uh, you know, the, the reality of what happens then is we went, we chose the school building

committee chose to go with the CM at risk, which is a construction manager at risk. Because they take on the project knowing that that is the max ceiling and really that’s what it is a town meeting. If Tom Eating voted for 142 million, I can’t go to 145 million, uh, because they

can only go as high as town meeting would would appropriate. So the CM at risk, their job is to mitigate the risk, but they also take on the risk of finding, you know, for instance, finding materials through uh value engineering, which is something that happens in every school building process, uh,

swapping out certain level of materials for other materials, looking for other. vendors who give better pricing on, on certain materials sometimes you can get a better quantity pricing through. Somebody the the building, uh, the CM at risk has worked with before, so they’re, their job and the reason we went in that direction is to try to mitigate

some of the things that were concerning even to the committee at that time. Thanks. Yep. No. Is there still a contingency in the project budget at this point, what general percentages are so they, they run anywhere between 5 and 18% depending on what it’s for. So there are certain

contingencies for different parts of the build, if you will, and it tends to be as you get further out, it’s harder to to be exact. So you’re looking at a, you know, a build window of 2 years that wouldn’t start until, uh, the summer of 26.

So your year now and then you’re going to build over the next 2 years, so there’s, there’s really a higher probability for price change as you get further into it, so the ground up stuff is usually a little more accurate as you gain into the building itself of a, of a project or, or renovation,

whatever it might be, you, you, you get a little more contingency built in for the longer term. on the outside. Hey, Eric and Dana, thanks. um, so I understand the contingency and I understand, uh, you know, what town meeting approves 142 million. So are you saying you would change scope of work if

you were to exceed that or might you come back at a future town meeting for additional funding. What do you value engineer through those processes, they would, they would look at steel is the one that comes up a lot. People, people keep talking about steel, you know, they, they look for a

different vendors. A number of the construction managers that we’ve talked to have locked in. Uh, certain things that they know they’re going to need in the next 5 years to try to gain price, you know, locks for for things in you’re buying in massive quantity. So, uh, a lot of the construction companies

that been on this CM at risk piece have a number of other projects going on, school projects going on at the same time, so then they start looking at ways they can start to practice things up to, to, to really, really substantiate pricing decreases. You also look at materials, you know,

There may be, uh, I’ll just use for an example, 6 ft of tile on a wall. You don’t need 6 ft of tile on a wall in elementary school, maybe a high school, but you know, elementary school, you can come down to 4 ft, which is a savings across

127,000 square foot building. it. Um, next is kind of two part on, um, you had said a couple of weeks ago that, you know, there was some, some things you want to clear up from whether it was on the floor or town meeting and so maybe it was misinformation or maybe ties to 3A. I just wanted

to give you an opportunity, one, to maybe if now they’ve had a couple of weeks, is there anything specific to that you want to clear the air with this size audience and for those at home, uh, and the second part is, I know the MSBA gives 120

days in the process, and I’m curious if that length of time is 4 kind of back and forth for is there any precedent with districts that may have had it gone back and done something similar, or where is the 120 days just typically, you know, the, the amount of time it might take to get funding one

time around 120 days is their first standard pitch. So from the time of the meeting where they look at that project scope and budget. So called PSMB, which is, which they voted on on February 26th. That’s where the 120 day counts. There are projects that are currently on an extension beyond the 10.

20 day count, uh, for various reasons. They didn’t pass the town meeting. They didn’t get their ducks in a row on time. Um, so there’s, there’s different, there’s different opportunities, you can, you can go back, I mean, really, the MSBA wants projects to be successful, no matter which direction they go. They want projects to be successful, um,

and the reality is, the longer it drags out, the more they have trouble because they, they got to move their money, so there might be a project that’s going forward in another community where they’re going to shift their monies around, um, so you’re seeing that now. One of the things that, uh,

just came out, I think it was yesterday, it was related to the reimbursements in these projects, and they, they, they noticed in their formula. Depending on when and where you calculate the formula that’s based on things like uh average income of residents, uh, equalized house valuation, number of low income kids in your community, uh, there are,

there are communities that have been penalized where your number has dropped. Uh, below what you were originally told because of the way the formula works on the revaluation. Ours was one of those that dropped down 2%. We sent a letter just to say, you know, that doesn’t make sense to us if we’re

planning and telling our community this is what we would get for a reimbursement, uh, their process along that whole that whole um line of discussion has been to now update that so that nobody can lose ground. You can either stay the same or you could gain it on a recalculation, so.

That’s part of that, that kind of move moving number of 120 days, things were, were changing for a number of communities over that time. Um, the 120 days in, in at least one community right now it’s been extended, uh, because of the, where the town meeting is located where they’re going to

vote, so there’s there’s different opportunities I think to go to the board, explain your case. Not everybody’s going to move forward. I I have seen someone they’ve said not, there’s not enough to move it forward, so. Do they ever let you change the scope of work or the design through that 120

days or is that locked in? One of the things that we have talked to the MSBA about is you change the scope of design, you’re basically gonna be asked to start over. If you start over in the SOI process, and you start in again in feasibility and schematic design, none of that is

reimbursable for the 2nd time through, so the $1.25 million that we had approved in, in, in a previous town meeting that was used for feasibility and schematic design. They have reimbursed. us over $515,000 of that money, um, so they don’t do it again. So if you go back to the drawing board and say we

want to switch scope, we want to change to something else. They’re gonna say start, start from scratch again because if you look at all of the documents that were submitted, they started to go from 14 down to 5, down, so along the way, you’re, you’re kind of leaning into one option for them to

gain traction behind and then they start to work with their boards to look at the, you know, the remaining option to see if it makes sense for them financially. Got it. Thank you. I’m good. Hi Rosie. Yes, I have a couple of questions that are more sort of um general in nature. OK. And my first

question is this um special town meeting request, as I understand it, is solely to revolt to previously decided issues. In fact, identical issues that were voted on less than 30 days prior to when this special town meeting request was submitted. Is, is that true? Your understanding? So in backing up in the conversation, I think we tabled our

conversation in in. lieu of the citizen’s petition that’s on the table I’m asking you questions though about this special town with the citizen petition. Yeah. And the citizens petition was submitted less than 30 days after these two exact articles were voted on at annual town meetings. Would you like me to answer the question, do I understand that

correctly? So that you are correct that the school committee, do you want me to answer? Um, I just said that’s just my, I’d like to answer. Can I answer? Yeah, I’d like to hear I have, I have Rose Mary, can you let her answer, please? All right, I just, just a yes or no. I’m waiting to see

whether I’m allowed to speak. I would prefer you let her answer the question. Please So the school committee voted to ask the select board um to add these two same articles, you are correct, to a future special town meeting. That is correct. That is separate, however. from the Citizen’s

petition that was presented to you, which I believe is what is on your agenda tonight that you are discussing and, and does, I don’t know, have you looked at those, those articles that are included on the special and on the citizens petition. I have seen the citizen’s petition. I was not involved in the

creation of the citizens petition, so I’m not, I’m not gonna speak to them, that’s not what I asked. I, OK, so then do you or Eric have specific information as to what’s included in the um either. I don’t think either one of us were included in in creating that, so no. OK, so you haven’t

read them either? I have not. OK. So I have and um it looks to me like it’s identical to the you’re putting words I actually said I did read it. I did not create it, nor was I involved in creating it. I, I asked if you had read it and I

said I did. OK. So my question to, to, um, I just wanted to ascertain that I understand it correctly. That’s the exact two articles. that were voted on less than 30 days ago in an annual town meeting. Do, can we agree on that? That is my understanding and so, um, and so the second part of my

question is, um, a revote as you um so aptly stated requires the request of the school committee to the um select boards of their respective towns within the district. I do I understand that correctly? You know, I know that you’re a lawyer, um, and I am not and I am not and, and it is, I

understand that you are wanting to put me on the witness stand and have me answer yes or no questions, but I, I really can just answer them. We could have a conversation like people, um, you know what I’m just move things along because there are a lot of people who probably want to speak to Rose, let me

jump in here. What we’re talking about here, so it’s not confusion, it’s putting exactly the same two questions. Back on a special town meeting. That’s it. So, yes. That’s what we’re doing. And that’s what I was trying to understand from. But if you’re going to be asking, but if you’re gonna be, that’s

the request of the of the of this. And so, and so my, my comment here is to revote those same articles requires the school committee to put the request onto the respective select board agenda. And so I’m wondering then, um, and this is probably for our town council, but I’m, I’m, I’m just

perplexed about this and I’m asking the question because it’s important. Are we compelled to hold our citizens petition special town meeting when the two articles within that petition are identical to the to those decided and an ATM less than 30 days ago. So we asked our town council that and

the answer is yes, you said the town council was not good. We asked them. They’re not going to be here tonight, but we did, we asked them to review this, but the, uh. The citizen petition to make sure we’re valid. OK, so we can have just regular old citizens come up and request it turns out it’s

being done more and more in Massachusetts. It’s asking me all that and we, we’ve seen now 3 or 4 cases in the last 6 months that this is done in other towns, yeah. I’d, yeah. I’d like to, yeah. I’d to get those stitch we’ll get them from our attorney and get them to you, but yes, it’s happening

more and more. That’s that a citizen’s petition can compel a revolt as opposed to executives there’s no limit on a revote, but they can compel a vote. They called a re-vote or a vote, but they can compel a vote, yes, it doesn’t that doesn’t distinct from a vote or a revote. It’s revote but there’s

no distinction in the in the law. It’s a vote. Anyhow, OK, so then I just. had a couple of other questions that I wanted to clarify, um, so when we talk about the um reimbursement rate, um, in effect, the reimbursement rate is a little under 35% for this entire project. Yes. OK. And so it

gets confusing for people when we hear 51.5% when in reality it’s 51.5% of eligible um components of this, OK, so I think it’s important to be clear to people that we’re getting 35%, um, and that the MSBA does not, Eric, maybe you can answer this. Is it true that the MSBA does not decide

the preference for a district, but that the district decides its preference. Is that? That is correct. OK. So, that in the original statement of interest in 2021, um, the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School District stated its preference as a consolidation. Yes, do you remember that? It was, it did

say that. And then my comment about that is, um, my question about this, um, as all of those decisions way in the beginning were within the school district and there was not a townwide discussion about what the residents in this town wanted to, um, what they felt comfortable um supporting

financially or what type of, uh, environment they wanted children educated them. And so I, I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. So the, the pro that’s how the process works. I mean, realistically, when, whenever we filed an SOI with the state, we’ve gone through the same exact process.

We’ve done the same exact thing. We’ve had a number of them for boilers for outside envelopes at the Winthrop, uh, different things like that. We have another one coming up for the roof, the same thing, statement of operation, statement of interest in being in, in the program. It’s the same exact

process. Uh-huh. OK. But for, but for this type of school it was within the school district where it was decided and not a community-wide conversation about what the town felt it could afford, or secondly, the environment in which we wanted to educate the children. Thank you. Thank you. OK, I had a

couple of questions. Um, when we met a couple weeks ago, a lot of stuff we talked about what’s going to be different, right? What’s different? Like why do another revote. We were debating about whether we were or not. This question is what’s going to be different the next time that we vote, right? 6

weeks away. So, so I, uh, I had asked a question, but I’m asking it again because there’s more people here and maybe at some time to think about it, but, um, I heard a lot of people speak against consolidation and against spending the money, but nobody was against, against but not

against spending money. Everybody said spend the money in the school, but renovate, don’t consolidate. I don’t think I heard anybody say don’t spend money. Um, I’m paraphrasing here, so correct me, you and Dana, if I make a mistake here, but we just voted in, you know, a school board,

re-voting the school board that that is not in favor of renovation. You guys are in favor of consolidation. That’s what you put your time and effort for. I just want to hear more of a stronger statement from from both of you sort of. the school board, the school does not support renovation and

why it’s a bad thing, why, you know, we talked a little bit, talked about the schools aren’t the right size, um, you can’t do it all at once. You have to phase it, you have kids in different schools of different types, but I wanted to kind of give you an opportunity to really talk about if you

thought about anything differently than you answered two weeks ago about why renovation is not what we should be voting for in this town and I’ll take you back to the a plan and looking at what, what our needs are. Um, what we have Right now does not meet our needs. Our school district

has changed dramatically, and I’ll, you know, just point to specialized programs as one of the areas that we continue to grow, uh, fairly dramatically. Our castle program is, you know, just for next year. I got to split it in two. I have to find a new place to put it, which is gonna move something else

around, um, because it just continues to grow. Our ILP program continues to grow. I don’t have spaces in schools that were designed in the 50s, uh, to not include all these kids and all of these programs in our schools, and I think, uh, that really is the priority area for us when we looked at

straight renovation, it was difficult to say, just renovate it as it is, clean it up, put new windows in it, put new heating ventilation in it, um, from that point on, we still don’t meet the needs of getting enough spaces for our kids and our programs that meet their needs like physical therapy,

occupational therapy, these things really didn’t exist in schools when these schools were built, so there’s not strong spaces for them, uh, to function. So any type of specialized program, it’s either gonna take up a full classroom or we create a space out of something we have like our, you know, our intervention program at the winter occurs on

the stage, um, physical therapy and in several spaces and is in spaces is far too small and it’s part of the, the reality of the things we looked at with just the renovation and part of that was, um, you know, future costs. We looked at, you know, the, the opportunity to To possibly conserve energy and in

the way we we developed our plan going forward, so there were a lot of avenues, but the renovation piece for us didn’t meet the needs that we, we outlined. For now and moving into the future as education continues to grow and change. Nothing And Dana, anything you want to add to that? Or anybody

else from the school committee? Yeah, Hamilton school. Excuse me, um, you know, as a teacher myself and and I’ve actually had the opportunity to work in, in both older buildings and in newer buildings. Um, just the technology issues alone, you know, and, and sort of running a room, right? It is, is, is

near impossible. I, I, I work at PBD High School now, which is in um in the process of going through their own, um, SOI, um, to be rebuilt and replaced and, you know, just the idea of running a classroom or something as silly as that you’d never really think of is. is having enough plugs.

Right in the room to actually plug in every everyone here I’m looking, you know, at a table full of desktop, um, you know, um, the laptops and, and, um, you know, just the technology evolved to, to run, you know, what is a modern day classroom, right? It, it didn’t exist, right? And, and everyone, I grew up here, I

went to school here. I, I, I went to the building, you know, I graduated in ’92. Excuse me, and I said it before at the field that I’ll say what the, you know, there’s still desks with my name carved in them and you know, and, and the, the school. Did you do that school building looks like.

School buildings look like, you know, nothing like they did when, um, you know, school environment looks nothing like it did back when I was in school, yet our buildings look identical. Right? And, and, and the, the environment that you actually need, um, to create these, these new spaces for learning

and and as Eric said, these, these breakout spaces for, you know, um, all these children that were identified that actually have, um, particularly needs, um, that we can address and, and, and we do a really good job of addressing, we need the space to actually run, run those programs. Excuse me.

I think, uh, when you’re asking sort of what’s changed? Right, since then, I, I think since the last town vote, I, I, I’ve sort of heard a lot of feedback back in, excuse me. One thing that sort of comes up and again again is, is this idea that we actually never looked at the idea of renovation, right? We

did receive bids on, on trying to figure out what the cost would be to renovate, um, some of these buildings and uh to just, you know, bring these buildings up to code, um, you know, would, would just basically equal the cost that, um, you know, is presented to us right now to get this

complete new building up to date, you know, with all the new the best learning opportunity in, in, in technology that we can have and it addresses the needs of all three. buildings in the elementary school system, right? Excuse me, because even though we’re not taking things, we’re

not doing anything in, in, in, um, we’re, we’re taking so much pressure off of Bucher that we’re gonna be able to extend the life of Bucher and we get to, you know, have a, a smaller load of of students there that we could actually extend the life there and that, you know, having our earliest learners

together in that single space, isn’t going to have the same demands as they would as a 4th grade, 5th grade class, right? So, I think uh Um, you know, and, and I said it’s sort of my job, right? It’s part of the school, um, committees to make

sure that I am doing a better job of making sure everyone realizes like, yeah, no, we did look into this, right? We did get cost estimates. Excuse me, and at the, you know, at the very beginning when we’re looking at these cost estimates, we started realizing that we could actually get more for

less, right? And actually, um, and, and, and actually impact every single learner that goes through our school system at a much better. Price for every taxpayer here in town, right? And then, so what’s different is making sure that that passage is a lot more clear. So I guess that’s the best thing I

can tell you. All right, thank you. I take on renovation for a second. I’ve got a couple of questions I’m gonna try and build them into one to keep the conversation going, but I’m in construction. I do a lot of, uh, you know, commercial work, um, half renovation, half new build. So I understand the challenges

of both. I’m trying to figure out how to wrap if we, you know, maybe you went through this or didn’t go through it, maybe you can or can’t answer this, but some of the questions in town is sort of, OK, how do you renovate multiple schools, occupied schools, how does it affect the, the, the life of

the student, the life of the teacher, life of the educator by going to 1 to 2 to 3 schools. Renovating the schools while they’re occupied, how you phase them, how it affects the student. I’m just trying to figure out the process of it, how many years that would take to sort of renovate 3 schools

in line with the students with the teachers, and it’s a day to day construction of schools. I, I don’t know if you thought about that, but I’m trying to unwrap how that would how that would work. So actually I was involved in the Peabody High School renovation many, many years ago, which was a six-part

renovation with everybody in the building. Uh, they brought in, I forget, I think it was a dozen modular units that they put on the property and. You know, the schedule had to be changed to move kids time and teachers time to move in and out of these modular units, um, same would happen here.

There isn’t a place where we can just say we’re going to move a whole chunk of kids while a sorting segment of the building, uh, would be renovated. So if you just said we’re just going to renovate the Cutler school, no matter what, you still have to get kids out of that, that renovation space. So whether

you do it in, you know, if you had another building to put them in, that would be great. Um, but we don’t. So we’d have to do it in stages and that that becomes time and money, the more you stage it out and the longer it takes.

So basically they would work on a segment of the building, um, but have those kids in modular units on the same, usually on the same grounds within the same, you know, perimeter of the building, so the modular units get expensive. You can either lease them or you purchase them, and they run

about a quarter million dollars apiece. That’s not even with the install for electrical and anything else you might need to go into that modular unit, so modular units. You’re moving kids over there, you’re renovating. Then you’re moving kids into the new spot, you’re taking those kids and swapping

them around, so there’s a lot of movement, a lot of scheduling issues that pop up, um, it it becomes somebody’s job full time to make sure that everybody’s in the right places at the right times of scheduling is moving through this entire process and that kids in fact here are safe from

all the hazards of the construction site too impacting the kids or the the faculty, I mean I mean time and money, but I actually impact the life of a student. It’s loud. I mean, you’re still, you’re, you have people still in part of the building. While you’re renovating in other parts, so

there’s that activity going on with younger kids, they’re distractibility level is much higher, so there’s a lot, there’s a lot happening all around them. There’s, you know, uh, in the, in the project that we did, uh, the six-phase project we did, it was fire alarms constantly going off and,

you know, moving, moving people around to different segments of the building during different time periods. So changing the old school schedule is one because you get to give people time to move. Um, you got to give people time to go from, say, a modular to their music class. if if that’s available

or if you need to move to move your music classroom, you could put your music classroom in a module unit. So there’s there’s a lot of you look at time frame of renovation. What’s the longer it, it does take longer, which is where the cost starts to accelerate, renovation and renovation addition, they’re,

they’re just longer processes because you’re working around a site where kids are still and adults are still in school. I want to go back to a question I think Tom asked, but in terms of contingencies and GMPs and at risk. Easier when it’s a new build, cause it’s sort of the knowns are, there’s less

unknowns. How do you handle a contingency and a renovation where there’s A lot more unknowns. It’s harder. It’s a lot harder to do. I mean, there is asbestos in our schools. Um, there are hazardous materials in, in buildings that were built in that period of time. So you have to deal with those

first. Uh, you just don’t know in some places what it’s gonna cost for you to get that, you know, that mitigation happening and done before you go into some other part of the project, so it’s, there’s some unknowns that you have to deal with and they, they just, they come up, they come up in every

construction, every renovation projects it could be. something from The way the windows are sealed, you know, the materials that we use to seal the windows, it’s the flooring materials the VCT tiles that we know are Asbestos in many of our buildings, um, and we continue to work through that now, even

now with our buildings each summer we try to continually mitigate a little bit at a time. It’s expensive to do. Um, and things that kind of pop up or also expensive. And the last question, not to look into a crystal ball, but in your perfect world, this passes, right? And the school gets

built, we’re occupied by 2028, 2020, what, what’s the 2828 probably a little further now, a little longer. This doesn’t pass, right? You’re the best, you bet your best guess, best, you know, your best knowledge, but this doesn’t pass. What, what, what does it look like? What, what has to happen?

What’s, what’s the time frame of the next 5, 10 years in terms of renovating the schools? What, what’s the next steps? What does it look like? what’s the time frame? What’s the state giving out right now compared to what they gave out a year ago, kind of walk us through what that alternate

plan looks like reimbursements actually give, it’s pretty consistent with your community because it’s based on Average income Equalize value housing. The only, the only changing factor that occurs in some communities is the number of low-income families that, that are in the communities, that’s, that’s factored in. So that generally stays the same, the,

the process would be in April to reapply, submit another SOI. Uh, for whatever the say the Coller school, we’d go back to it and say we want to submit a new SOI for the Cutler School and then go through that process and probably look toward an addition renovation only because The addition just

doesn’t meet our needs. We are a we have a space problem. We have a space problem that continues to grow, and I know the, you know, the elementary school continues to to grow on us right now. That is the one level that continues to expand on us. Um, we’re looking at At this time of year, I usually

have about 108, 110 kindergartners. I already have almost 130 kindergartners signed up for the fall and I haven’t gotten to, to, you know, June, July and August yet, so I, I, and I usually get about 15 or 18 more kids through the summer. Um, so we’re a little concerned there with, with the

possibility of having, uh, too many kids in kindergarten to, to, you know, we’ll have to move some things around. We budgeted for 7 teachers in every grade level because that’s been what consistently what our, our um numbers have shown us along the way. We have to go to 8, that’s got to come

from somewhere else. I can’t just, you know, take that, you just can’t create an 8th position in the in the teaching realm so that the those spaces are important for us. We’re trying to figure out, we met at a meeting this morning with our special ed staff. to try to figure out how to split the

castle program into two programs and where to put it, uh, we, we, we also have to put that extra kindergarten. We always have uh one school that takes 3 classes that rotates each year, so next year, which classes, which building is going to take the 3 kindergarten classes and the

other two will take 2, so those things are always moving components for us and then it really becomes what are the needs of kids, you know, how many preschool classes will you have? That number changes, uh, fairly. dramatically. I’ve had 32 years ago, and I’m down to 2, and you know, projections are

that in 2 years we’ll have back to 3 again. So those, those numbers go up and down. Um, as well, so it’s a matter of, OK, now I have to find a room for that program as well, so what I have is what I, I have. I don’t, I can’t make anything more of

what I have to timing wise we sort of, I mean, we’ve been in the process for 2 years, and we’re gonna finish in 28. Does that mean we had two, if we start over, I mean we had 2 years and we’re done in 30, or is there a different schedule

for renovation starts from scratch. You go through the 9 modules from the beginning. So you would do that all year long, feasibility study, uh, schematic design. And then Move, say you move towards the renovation or renovation addition, you’d still have to go through all the steps at the

MSBA puts in front of you, uh, which is a 9, the 9 modules that they describe on their website, actually 8, but the 9th is the after kind of after follow up, but those, those things depend on what you want to do. If you, if you do it in

one school, so you started with the Cutler school. He got an SOI, so you got it approved in 3 years, which is, which is Probable. I don’t know. Depends on what the monies look like for for the state. You apply right away, you know, if you, if this fails and we don’t have a direction forward, I would

apply right away as soon as that window opens back up again, apply again for the 3 schools just as we had and then go back at it and take our chances and until we get pulled back in, you know, people talk about Ipswich a lot, but, you know, I

think it’s important to note that Ipswich waited 2 years. They, in 2018, their vote failed. They decided to take 2 years off and not even have the conversations about it, just. trying to move forward and figure out, you know, kind of what their options are and now. 6 years later they’re in, so I

think they had a they had applied for 3, full years before they were pulled back in in the fall. Can you, uh, can you apply for more than one school at a time or the, the state, the state approves more than one school at a time can apply for more than one. They generally don’t in, you know,

they wouldn’t say, yeah, you can do all of your elementary schools at once. They, they would generally want you to focus on one project, excuse me. Sorry, I just want to add one quick thing, because you mentioned that, um, you know, we’re in year 2 now, we’re actually not in year 2, we’re

actually in year 7, right? So we’ve, uh, put in our first SOI, so that’s, that’s a much more realistic time frame on, you know, how long it actually took us to. get here. Any other questions came up on the board. Yeah, so you said you’d reapply in April and that would likely be an addition at Cutler.

Is that what you were saying? And then you talked about time, I thought I heard you say you apply all three schools, but would it more likely be over the next 10 years, you’d do one school, then, you know, go through construction, maybe apply again for the second school. Then by then maybe

Bucher needs something. Would it be 10 years of applying, you definitely have to phase it. I don’t, you wouldn’t want to eat all that at once. I mean, that’s. The management of the project itself takes up a ton of time for my staff, myself, and my staff, so you could really do one at a time, um,

and then say you waited 5 years and reapplied again and then got pulled back in and say, year 6, then you, you’d start again with whatever building you selected, I would continue to put in. All 3 Elementary schools only because that’s what we have been doing and you, you don’t know, the state may

say, OK, well, let’s look at the Winthrop school instead. Remember, this project was focused solely on the Cutler School SOI, but could it ever be one application, two additions in 2 separate locations or they only do one at a time. Yeah. Um, you can, you can, that’s what I mean some communities, some communities have been able to

do them one right after another, right after another. It’s 4 years, 4 years, 4 years, um, but it, it’s, it gets expensive. And then, you know, the risk for, for any project like that is you build, you renovate, say, just pick a number, say it’s

$60 million and you get some of that back and you go forward to the towns, there is a risk that you don’t get that vote for the next school because people are like, wow, I just got, I took a big hit, so there’s there’s there’s a risk there, and I

think there’s a double risk if you live in uh Wenham in your, you know, we’re renovating schools, two schools in Hamilton, um, that. that may be tough to swallow for people who live in Wenham. I don’t, I don’t know. Those are conversations I’ve had with a lot of people and just, it’s

interesting to kind of look at that in the big scheme of, of how we developed this. It’s hard when You know, you have only one school in Wenham, and that’s, you know, that’s how the regional agreements met, have one school in each community, and that’s what we have, one school and one of it

would be helpful to have a better balance, but It just didn’t work out that way so far, so Bill asked, you know, what’s different, uh, and you answered some of that, but is there a place you would advise people to go, to learn different information or additional information between now and a

potential vote down the road. Yeah, I think one of the things we’re doing right now is restructuring our website to simplify. There’s a ton of information on there. I mean, some of the reports that went to the state of 2000 pages long. There’s 3 of them, um, so we’re trying to consolidate some of

that information, make it a little more simple to digest, I think the, the idea of um You know, working with our OPM and them reaching out to O OPM saying, OK, what are you doing to kind of make this piece a little more palatable or what are you doing to help to simplify the logistics of what

happens through the process, so they’ve been pretty good with us working on how to rejigger some things on, on the website. It’s, it’s a, there’s a ton of information if you go there for your first time, if you did a week ago and you went in there

and you’re like, wow, I didn’t, you know, most people who do that have no idea. idea that this process started almost 2 years ago and that we started with over 2 land options in over 4, 14 different types of options for renovating, renovating, uh, an addition and, and new buildings, so that

that’s one of the thing I think that gets away from people if they joined late in the game. So those 14 options and that whittling down of the options along the way, kind of gets left off the table for anybody who jumped in in the last 60

days, say, because once you get on that site, you’re like. Wow, there’s, it’s just which rabbit hole do you want to go down, I guess. So we’re trying to simplify that. OK. I had one more question I got this so you have something else? Oh, go ahead. OK, great, thanks. So when David Plito was talking

about technology, I mean that can just be Jimmy rigged into any existing school, one doesn’t necessarily need to have a brand new school to do that. Right? Possibly. I mean, one of the things we’re finding is working with National Grid now. We have to Change the transformers and run new wires

from the street and some of our schools that’s running, they run about $600,000 just to do that and you know, we’re even having that trouble right now with electrification. We’re looking at the electrification of boilers in the high school, uh, which, which is causing that same kind of ha that’s a

surprise, you know, we figured, hey, we had 3 boilers running, we can bring in 3 boilers and just swap them out, especially if they’re smaller and more efficient. Well, that’s not necessarily the case in in the current schools the way we have them. Yes, you could jury rig them. The fire department

doesn’t like it, but there’s a lot of things in a way that’s safe and would upset the fire department, I would think, right? We would have to, yes. So, so another question about um So I’m sorry. Uh, can I respond to that too? So, um, I think I, I really, I genuinely appreciate. That question

because I think it’s an important one and it’s and Bill was asking us about what kinds of things might be different this time, all kinds of questions we’re getting from people in the community, so that was an important question. Um And I want to say that that kind of Making it work and

figuring it out. Is what we’ve been doing in our schools for many, many years. And now it’s time. To do this. So it’s not a bad question because, yeah, you can, you can make it work for a long time and you can jerry rig things for a long time.

And we’ve done that for a long time, so I, I think it’s an important question and that is one of the things that I would have highlighted in answer to Bill’s question about what do people need to see that like, yes, we have been doing that. And we’ve

gotten to a point now where we can’t just keep doing that. OK, well, that’s your opinion doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of everybody Um, OK, so, so then I just have two other questions. Um, when we talk about kids needing to be displaced from a potential renovation. It’s my understanding that we have significant excess space in

either um the middle school and or the high school and so it seems to me that those could be, um, reasonable. utilizations of um of space to accommodate young children who certainly will, will need accommodation. And secondly, part of doing a project like this, uh, uh, a renovation addition renovation.

Yes, you do have to build in logistics, and there are people who have a lot of expertise in that, and I, uh, my opinion is let’s find a way to do it and not put up road blocks and say, oh my gosh, we have to do this and this. Yes, we do have to do

this, and I think everybody in. in this room understands that there are, there are, um, difficulties, please. This is a question answers thing. Sorry, Rosemary questions. He rosemary, we talked about this format or order here. We talked about a format tonight’s question answer. They’re here to answer questions, Rosemary, please ask him a question last question is

there are, um, just a multitude of projected overrides, uh, next year, including a significant for the school district who has to accommodate uh teacher uh contracts. And so my question is. How do you as an educator, expect. parents to support an enormously expensive consolidated school and overrides in the towns and in the schools. I mean, where’s,

where’s the geez, this is a lot to ask of people, and I don’t think anybody in this room, Eric, is saying that they don’t want to provide, um, functional buildings for for our children. Um, I have family member in the school, and I definitely would want him to have the things that that. he needs, but there

comes a point where How, how are we going to do all this? Right. It’s a great question. I think the, the, the bigger scene. I think the the reality of this is if I was here 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we probably would have started it

back then and not waited as long. We would have been a little bit more ahead of the game, um, but the, the bigger piece of it, we’re here now, uh, we’ve neglected these issues for 25 years or so, it and we’re we’re not gonna gain anything by waiting and, and continuing to wait, continuing

to wait because we’ve talked about growth and uh exponential growth of construction industry issues that we’re concerned about inflationary issues we’re concerned about, so all those things. to continue to accelerate, so do you stop and wait until the time is right, or do you continue to move forward? I think the, the reality of our teachers and the

community has, has always agreed that our teachers are, are very important asset and they’re willing to, to, to, you know, do what, do what it has to be done to keep our teachers in our classrooms, um, and that I think we’re we’re at a level right now where our teachers do a fantastic job, and I think

what we’ve negotiated with them is appropriate to keep them not only in our community, but Uh, within the realm of competitiveness with the other schools in this area, so I guess the, the, the bigger question is we’ve got to do something. We can’t, we can’t wait any longer and, and this

is, uh, you know, one of the ideas that came forward, and it’s not everybody’s idea. I get that, but I think in the in the big scheme of things, we, this is not something to wait on. So, um, I, I just will comment that I have read in the

projections for for the next year than just a teacher’s salary alone is projected to be a $2 million increase, and that doesn’t include that the needs that the natural needs that occur within the schools anywhere from 3 to 7% a year, and so just looking at the big picture. And I think we, I

think we have a little heel digging in here, and I, I also, I also maybe you know about this as well, but the MSP is always willing to work with communities to maybe change midstream because a set of circumstances it is not working so well, and so I think that just goes along with some of

the other questions that the board has asked tonight that Um It’s, it’s just too a lot of people seems untenable, Eric, and, and, and, and I worry for the sake of what the schools need, I just, I’m sorry, Eric cut you off because there’s a couple of things I just want to make sure that uh we touched

upon here that you asked about Rosemary. Excuse me, one of them, um, you know, um, being, you know, when, when you actually just stated that there is we have to talk about this new teacher’s contract and then in addition to the teachers’ contracts, an additional 3% to 7% every year after war, uh,

remember that our 3 to 7% every year, whatever that may be, is largely the teacher’s salary, right? So it wouldn’t be in addition. It wouldn’t be in addition, right? It would be as part of, right? So it probably it would fall within that 3 to 7, you know, just to throw your numbers. Um, back out. Um, the

other thing I really want to state is the uh information you got about available space in the middle school and high school is wrong, right? So it’s wrong. It’s, it’s Debora, right? So when we say that’s available seats, uh, at the high school and middle school, right? We, we, we, um, like to keep our

numbers around the 1820 mark, whatever. So if we’re running a class with, you know, only 12 students. They were running a, um, you know, physics class with 12 students in it, right? So there’s 6 available seats in there. So when you hear that there’s available space, right? That doesn’t mean that there’s

available there’s classrooms anywhere. It means that there are available seats and as we were on certain classrooms, right? So if you go at any point in time at, um, you know, up to the school during the operating day, if you see a classroom that is being used, it’s probably that teachers one

prep period for the day. Excuse me, other than that, that, you know, we’re bustling, very busy sort of, uh, overflowing using every space we can, um, in all of our schools throughout the district. I wonder, do you know what the capacity is for the high school and the middle school? Because there are

roughly 400 kids in the high school, you know what’s the capacity for the high school. I don’t know what the exact capacity is, but it’s been high as the mid 700s,,, 1516, 7 before my time was, I think it was like 750, I think at one point they were doing double sessions to get kids through

the high school. So when I took, uh, over, I think it was 681 kids in the school is 451 now, um, you know, a lot, a lot of the, uh, the middle school is, is. 300 and what are they 300 and 368, don’t quote me on that, but they’re right around that

mid 300s range, um, and they’re starting to, to grow a little bit as well with our elementary school numbers starting to, to kind of balloon up. You’ll see, I think, a continuation, and it’s slow. We’re, we’re a small school district. We’re, we’re not going to see 100 kids coming in and out like.

You know, like a, a hall or a Lawrence or a Worcester would, but, you know, we’ll, we’ll see, you know, small increases of, of kids here and there. The other, the other piece of the puzzle is 15 years ago, 12 years ago, we were taking 80 and 90 kids. For the Choice program. We don’t do that any

longer, um, we’ve whittled the Choice program right now there’s approximately 50 kids, 50, I think it’s 57 kids and I. High school that are uh school choice. That number continues to, to go down only because there are so many more options for kids with online schooling and other schools now are

opening up that opportunity because as, as you know, mass has seen student flight out of, out of the public schools. So a lot of schools are trying to find ways to attract kids, uh, through the Choice program. So you’re seeing more of that availability as well in private school options continued to

expand as well. Yeah, you know, I’m I’m just Trying to, it’s, it’s, I’m just trying to raise possibilities that there are ways to do it, Eric. There are ways to do it to make it work. I’m a boy, you give me a problem and I’ll give you 27

solutions because I want it to work. I think we went through a lot of solutions. So let’s, it’s already 8:30. So I wanna move on here. So I want to respect him it’s time and and ability. So what I want to do here is, is we. We debate, so

we’re not gonna have debate or statements from the public tonight, but I’m like people come up and ask questions based on stuff we’ve talked about tonight or something to get clarification on. So I’m gonna let people approach the podium, ask questions, but I don’t want it to be a dance at the podium.

So, so, uh, Eric and, and the school, but if you could come up here, we’ll give you some microphones up here so you can just answer the question without doing dance at the podium, so I think we have, um, So down there we had set up people just make statements, We’re not doing too much

statements tonight’s questions only. Thank you, Mr. Chair Edward Flynn toys Lane. I just excuse me, order, please, uh. You, I’m gonna have to ask you one more time. You need to be quiet, please. Well, I don’t feel like you, like it has a whole select I’m gonna excuse me, if you want to come up, you

get in line, but you’re, you’re out of order. I don’t think. Excuse me, ma’am. We’ll start again. Edward Flynn toy Lane. Uh, my first thing I think is really a point of order question for the board, but Mister Chair, I’ll direct it to you right now we’re just asking questions of Eric and Dana and

the school board. That’s it. We debate the merits of the of the uh it wasn’t a date, it wasn’t a debate. It was a point right now, just so everybody’s clear, Eric and Dana and Dave took time out of their day to answer questions. But the question is

not for them, we’ll save it for after they leave. I have a question for Doctor Tracy then and also the woman who’s also on the board. I thought you said we could ask you questions. No, this is for them. This is for them. So Doctor Tracy and

Madam, uh, I don’t know if you’re the chair or not, but you are Matt I’m sure. How many bites of the apple are there? For citizens petitions of there’s almost 100 people in this room, so we need another 100. And if, if the no consolidation vote because you now are relevant in what you’re

telling me is you guys have become irrelevant, you know, there’s nothing we’re not trying to influence your votes, you know it’s going to town meeting because of the citizens petition. I’d like to know if the vote goes in a way that we are not happy with. How many days do we have to file a

citizen’s petition to demand a vote in 45 days. Because I’m hearing this this endless. Endless. And, and that, I, I don’t know Doctor Tracy, if you’d like to answer that, I don’t know if you know the answer Madam Chair, if you know the answer. So I, I don’t know the answer, but the answer is

that again, the citizens petition did not come from the district or the school committee, so that is a question. It’s a good question and it’s a question that I think we either need to refer to the town clerk or to the legal counsel council. Yeah, we’ll we’ll, we’ll ask that

question town council. Thank you. Good question. I meant to ask you, can I ask you a question? No, not right now. We were in your meeting with town council that you mentioned earlier today with the other board members in the meeting I’m not addressing that right now, so. There there was no

meaning to that. There was no. There was no meeting today. The question was asked over email it was answered, so sorry. That’s OK. I just wanted to jump in and add a little context to that last question. Whatever happens has to happen within that 120 day windows unless the state grants an

extension to that. So I think that’s, you know, the 120 days is what we would consider like that’s the window we’re trying to work within. Eric, what day is that? It’s actually June 26th is the 120th day, oddly, I wasn’t planned that way, but it was, it happens to fall that way. Oh no. Oh, OK.

Michelle Orlani, 39 Much, and I I have heard you say that you’ve dealt with, um, it’s actually a question, so just bear with me. With conditions for so long, and I think, believe it’s true, you need to change the conditions. I’m, I’m well aware of that, but everything can be upgraded. And if we look just

in the past 20 years, how fast technology has come, and if it’s going to take 4 years, 6 years, whatever, to build a brand new one with all that money to put all this new technology by then it’s going to be outdated in 5 years. So I,

I’d like to say that what we have, we can upgrade. This is this is not gonna work if you guys don’t ask questions. I mean that’s the end of the debate, so I want to do this. What is the difference for for us upgrading and remodeling and adding on for more space. To make the amendments, what we

have. And instead of a whole new building that in 10 years may be outdated because according to this. PBD was redone in 204 to 2010. We’re only 1015 years later and you’re redoing it again. You’re building a whole new building which will last. Technology wise, how long is that gonna

last? Uh, 50 years. No. The expectation for the building is 50 years actually, but the, the, uh, the, the tech, yeah, you and I, we all know, we can all probably agree on the speed of technology, uh, just AI alone is outpacing and it has always outpaced public education and will continue to outpace public

education for the next 100 years. It just, it, it is what it is because the technology costs more money than we could ever spend to keep up with it. So schools use a lot of the technologies that they have, ah, they squeeze blood out of rocks. I mean, we had smart boards that were designed to last

between 5 and 7 years. We were using them 10 and 12 years later. We just, just finally upgraded them. So yeah, you’re right, the technology does upgrade fast and change quickly, but that’s part of anything you do, even if you do a renovation, you’re still going to end up having to replace your

technology at intervals. We do it with our computers now. We have a 7 year cycle on, on, uh, computers for any of the computers in a school. district. So it’s a plan, you plan for those things and it’s a continuous cost in anything, uh, public buildings, corporations, town offices, uh, technology

will always be a continuous cost. Hm Thank you. uh, Robin Ray is 66 Woodland Mead. I have a handful of questions and they’re all questions, so, um, the first is In the, uh, Figures where the school committee and the superintendent, and this is on, I presume the revamped website.

Uh, in the figures where The cost of Remodeling versus building. They always put right alongside the cost of the Winthrop School and the cost of Bucher along with cost of Cutler. There’s no scenario on the table right now where we’re talking about remodelinguer and cut and Winthroat. So question

is. Why are we doing that? Should that be updated? Second question. How confident are we in a two-year construction cycle, would you put your money on that It’s, it’s a question for them, but you know, I’m looking at you because you say you’re a commercial construction. I understand, and

this is part of the question that the school cannot be built. There will be activities that have to be. You know, reorganized because the kids at Cutler will still be in school. So how are you gonna do that within 2 years? And then another question I have to ask is, You know,,, $140 million

project cost. We’re not hiring new teachers, are we? We’re not. Creating smaller class sizes, are we? Everything stays the same. We’re heading 240 parking spaces. Yeah Mhm How does that translate to getting Cutler from being the 600 ranked school in Massachusetts Elementary school. To being in the top 10, which is what a community like this should be.

We’re talking about biking to school. This week What’s that going to look like in a couple of years? What’s that biking to school campaign going to look like? A lot of conversations from these folks up here, and I’ll conclude very quickly. Talk about What is different? What is the new information

that’s out there. Someone like me, I’ve got a 4 year old daughter and a 12-year-old son. I’m like, every single parent in here. I want the best education for my kid and no one has shown me how a single penny of this is going to improve the quality of education they’re getting. I’m not talking about

the physical building. I’m talking about the quality of education. All right. I think you have 5 questions, so let’s give Eric and the question asked was what’s different? Well, I’m more informed now than I was before. You guys ought to be careful. What you asked for. Question about the

renovation piece with the cutler was the only school that was accepted by the MSBA and the Cutler process, they come to visit. Uh, back in 23, and they toured uh Cutler and Winthrop because Winthrop was another SOI that was going in. We asked them to tour all three buildings while they were here,

um, after going through all three, they said, yeah, we would probably consider adding Winthrop into the mix, but not on its own. So we didn’t have the option to do a renovation of just Winthrop because the MSBA SOI was focused on Cutler, uh, at that time, so that’s the, that’s the reason we didn’t

have a renovation option for the Winthrop site. The costs along the way are order of magnitude costs that ranged, I think from $48 million for a code upgrade, uh, into exceeding $100 million from various levels of uh renovation and addition, uh, in new buildings. So it got expensive

really quickly, so I think that’s one of the other reasons we started to look at the uh combining of the two schools to save costs, overall costs if you went with some of the, you know, renovation options. You were looking at, uh, trying to get as many kids as as possible into a new and up to-date

school, uh, which was one of the other driving factors of, of this kind of decision making along the way. So as we, as we looked at it, uh, using Bucher as a, a preschool, uh, early childhood program would be is perfectly suited for that, the way it’s designed and size of the the building, uh, because

we’d have anywhere between 9 and 11 classes of of young kids that range in age from 3 to 5 years old. is appropriate to have together in a classroom. The other kids would funnel through this new building grades 1 through 5 and then 2 right off into the middle school, and we’ve talked a lot

about kids not knowing each other at the elementary school, uh, really until they get to the middle school. We have, we have kids that never uh meet the kids in the community unless they play a sport or they get involved in gymnastics, or they’re involved in theater, um, there are some kids that

don’t meet all their classmates until they get to the middle school, which is when we. We first combine them together, uh, class sizes right now run in the elementary level at 19, and you’re right, none of that would change. Uh, we would not need to hire any more staff with this consolidated building.

Uh, we may be able to take advantage of some staff efficiencies, you certainly don’t need two principles, uh, but you’ll have the advantage of bringing some of your counseling staff together, uh, PT people would stay in one place rather than traveling around the district OT OT people would also have that opportunity, so there are, uh,

some function. differences that could occur. Along with energy efficiencies that would be in a building we’re paying, you know, we just, we just got our energy rate increase for next year, is it slightly above 40%. Uh, so that’s, that’s, you know, another piece of the puzzle as we look at, uh, all of the

options that were on the table. I think he has two other questions real quick. One was he asked about how is the school gonna make, how is the new school gonna make? Education better. Yeah, I think, I mean. Yeah, academic performance for us has been a focus since since I did my, uh,

my first plan in 2021, we really looked at what’s happening across the district and added um our literacy program right now, which is only in its 3rd year, which has been, uh, a boon for our kids. I mean, in a kindergarten classroom, they’re writing more now than they ever were, uh,

looking at the, the, uh kind of the intricacies along that path of kindergarten through 5th grade, you’re, you’re seeing much more advanced conversation, much more application of literacy skills through the, through the years, you’re seeing the uh math program that we just put in, uh, because we, we didn’t have the same experience in each of our

schools. When I took over as superintendent in my opening report that I did, uh, one of the first things I noticed that every 3rd grader in the district had a different experience in 3rd grade, and that was because each school was very. anonymous and did their own thing and had their

own curriculum and had their own plans designed. We’ve shifted that over the last 3 years, starting with our literacy program and we’re on our 3rd year of that, adding our intervention program in, so we’ll be able to now isolate all those things in one place like our intervention program,

they’ll all be in the same place, OTPT, all the support mechanisms that we have in place. We have over 300, uh, special ed students who need some support, some level of support, including, uh, you know, basics in the classroom all the way up into a 1 to 1 adult that’s with them for

every second of the day. So those types of programs all become kind of when in one place rather than uh spread out, you know, we have all of our specialized programs in the Winthrop school and they’re not generally in any of the school. There’s no castle program in the Bucher, there’s no ILP in

the Cutler, um, there’s no TLC, you know, so, so these programs all come together and kids in specialized programs get to be together with their peers, get to get the services that everybody else is getting, and that’s been part of my goal. To be able to give kids services that they need that they may

not have been getting, you know, to even 2 or 3 years ago, so, and you have plenty of bike racks? Plenty of bike racks, plenty of bike rocks, and I mean, the, the, the program for us works because of the volunteers that we have with our police and fire departments and helping our kids get to

school safely every single day. Well, the questions he asked Rosemary, uh, next, please. Um Marissa Polias, uh, this echoes a little bit and I’m nervous. Uh, 54 Beach Street. I just had a few questions, um, when you did the 14 different schematics. Did you go through in, in cost and get estimates on both the

ideas of renovation versus consolidation. You, you did. They ranged from 48 million up to the 100 and it was originally 151 million back then. So I, I feel like we’re all bristling about this number and it’s huge and I totally feel for everyone about it. I myself went on the calculator

and looked at it and was a little bit shocked. But what I really am frightened about is that we have one number and we know what that number is. On renovation, do we have a number so that we can realistically sit here. I can throw out a million different ideas and solve problems, but it means

nothing if I can’t put a number to those problems and I’d like to know is there a place that number one we could look at the, the cost difference, what’s gonna be more expensive to the taxpayer. You know? Oh, I have to sorry, I didn’t want to

crowd you. Yeah, that’s OK um, so the all the costs are on the website, the 14 different, uh, cost scenarios are out there. They are order of magnitude because you really don’t get into detailed cost estimating until you get into the 2nd phase of the program, the, the schematic phase, which allows

them to look at how much steel you need, what you’re gonna need for electrical runs, roofing, rooftop units, uh, what type of heating units you’re gonna use, so they’re all. order of magnitude and they do that, uh, fairly consistently across the school uh building and development companies that, that are doing all of this work because of

their The number of times they’ve done it, they have a good idea of what’s costing them per square foot, uh, MSBA also helps with that by continuing posting like what each project square footage is, so we use those numbers to update. The numbers of the final choice are much more

accurate because they were further into the process, the schematic design process. And that, uh, that again is all on the on the website, all for but in terms of renovating 3 schools separately and not adding to them. We did not do that because we got away from that very quickly. We didn’t

actually the plan never got to that. So that, that number is fictitious right now because nobody ever did that stuff I feel like at this point we have a number. It’s big and Everyone hates it. But what if we decide to renovate, we give up the $50

million and then also we get more numbers that are even less palatable, and then we have more time. Like I feel like we’re, we’re sitting here and asking to, hey, what’s your, what’s your question? Sorry. What I mean, I feel like there’s a recommendation here that has been made, yet there’s

opposition in every, how do you plan to make sure that that is understood by the public, what are they getting for these numbers instead of just hating the number. How are you going to make them feel confident that this is a great option for the town. I think part of that reality was the, the idea of

stacking debt on debt on debt, um. That there are 3 entities in this in this calculation, no matter what. The town of Wenham, the town of Hamilton, and the school department. Each of us has major, uh, financial impacts coming our way, the, you know, water future of water in our districts is a big

number down the road at some point, I’m sure. So all of these things start stacking on top of each other. So when we said, OK, let’s take the debt we have now, add in a $50 million renovation, and then 5 years later, add on another one

while we’re still paying a 2 year note on the first. one So now you’re stacking, uh, another renovation. So we do the, the high school roof and we go to the towns to say the high school roof’s gonna be $2 million.03 million dollars, that gets stacked on top of that, those two numbers, so it

just continues to stack, and if you continue to go down the line, that deck gets stretched out between 30 and 50 years of never really coming down the slide and when we’re trying to just focus on the consolidation. It’s kind of the big bump at first, it slowly comes down. There are going to be other

debts along the way that. These towns will have to take on both on the town side and on the school side. It’s just because the the position we’re in with a number of projects that are that we’re we’ve all talked about it at our meetings. I think the closest document that’ll get to what you’re

talking about is what the We Finance Committee put together that’s 7 page document that actually looked at if the consolidation were to not go through, here are our options of renovating one school at a time. Do we pay for it out of our own funds without going through MSBA? Do we go through

MSBA for one or two of the programs, but it actually maps. with escalating costs, what the actual tax impact is for the taxpayer, and I, my understanding from that analysis was that they found the consolidation option to be the least impactful compared to the, the other option of doing

all three schools, but there, I know on their website, they posted that document, I think it’s like 7 or 8 pages and it goes through, um, their analysis is sorry, finance. Oh yeah, finance committee, sorry, yeah. All right, great, all right, thank you. Oh Uh, Bathurs 270 Asbury Street.

Um, I have a couple of questions for the school committee, um, and then I have a question for the select board. Um, why would we ever spend $142 million to build a building that’s on the wettest part of that property. It was tested during a severe drought last year. And we’re, we’re concerned about spending

money. But I’m not a builder or an architect, but I’m very concerned about $142 million being spent in a really bad location. Can you address that? Sure. So there were a number of looks at the property, if you will, we did, uh, I think there were 26 different bores. Bour into property holes that were

drilled into property up to a debt of I think a depth of between 3 and 26 ft. Uh, yes, they did hit water. They would probably hit water in most of our properties if they dug that deep, um, but there, there was also, uh, we were asked, we

asked, uh, Semi Otis, which was a, a firm that does consulting around these borings and floodwaters and uh they could find no connection to the river that was floated out there for a while, uh, being under the site. There’s nothing there that the site is not in a flood plain, uh, according to all the

records going back to I think 50 years back, um, so they felt comfortable that that building would be appropriately built on that site, um, people do cite drainage issues, but I think one of the things people have to keep in mind is when they do put something there, whatever it may be, they have to address

those issues, uh, for a number of reasons. We have 2 septic sites, uh, uh, two septic systems on that site. Um, one of them is in the place that everybody, you know, continues to say that it’s flooding, so it’s, it’s one of the, the many uh mitigation. tactics that they’ll have to use with

anything they put in there, any new building, any renovation that’s still gonna have to, you know, look at, uh, water infiltration and gonna have to look at what, you know, where does water go when it leaves the site. All of those things get studied as part of the process. I’m going to ask my

next two questions, and then the school committee can come in and respond to the, the first question. Um, I want to know why our voices were ignored. There were 1000 people who signed a small school petition, dozens upon dozens upon dozens of letters to the school committee last year, um,

50 or more citizens attending multiple of their school committee meetings before they chose. To go ahead with this. There was even a professional survey company that came back saying there was a 50 58% were opposed, 40 strongly opposed. So we could have changed ge last year, and that is what we

asked, and we were very clear, and it’s very upsetting. That we weren’t listened to, so I would like to hear why we were ignored and continued to be ignored. And then I have a question for Bill Olson. How is it determined and was this advertised as just Q and A. I wasn’t aware that it was just Q

and A and do you normally make a decision as a whole select board or just as the chair, you decide. Yeah, we talked, we talked last week for debate. The debate was held last week. We only tabled the vote. So my question is it wasn’t wasn’t a

question we, we, we had the debate last week. So you, OK, so and that and the whole select board doesn’t get to discuss whether we’re going to discuss, we set an agenda. OK, on the agenda, it said it was just gonna be Q and A tonight

because that was, I think a lot of people who came had no idea it was just going to be Q&A. We had the debate last week. OK, so the agenda doesn’t say it. All right. And um if they can explain why we’ve been ignored, I’d appreciate it it’s a good

question. Bye. Thanks for the question, Beth. Um, so, Um Beth is right that we got a lot of feedback from the community. We got a lot of emails of people that felt a whole variety of ways and that and Beth knows I am pretty diligent. I’ve responded to Beth’s emails about this project, and I’ve

responded to other people in the room, I think about your emails. We got a lot of emails in support. And against When it went to town meeting, I think you saw. It’s a divided community. More than 50% of the people in this community voted in support. And I hear what you’re saying that the people

who voted in opposition and the people who wrote us our people in our community too. You’re correct, right? There are, there are more than one there is more than one opinion in this community. Um, I do want to address the poll. Um Beth is also correct that we did a poll about a year ago. There were

several options presented in the poll. Things like renovation, consolidation. The results of the poll and and I hear you before you start, there were lots of problems with the poll, it’s true, but the results of the poll. Were that no option. Met A majority The people did not want to do.

Anything And when we got those results, School committee Made a decision I’ll speak for myself, that I felt very strongly that if we have to do, we had to do something. And so we went with the preferred option that was recommended through the process. We brought it forth because we felt it was

the best option. So I, I hear you that you feel ignored. I want to say I’ve thought long and hard about all different sides of this. There’s no way for both sides to feel completely heard, and I hear you that it doesn’t feel good. I get it. Um, we’re gonna alternate now between online

and in the room, so Joe, can you, uh, Tom Martin, if you want to take yourself off mute and take your hand down. Could you also please turn on your video? Or you can choose not to ask a question now. No, I’m I’m here. Sorry, this is, uh, Probably a challenge most parents have where we have kids

at home and we’re not able to be at these forums live, so. Apologies. I think we’re, we’re already addressing a bit of my question, but the, the The question is to the school committee, and maybe it’s just a follow on to what has already been said, but a select board member earlier made a very bold

and definitive statement that there is a better and more financially responsible way to do this outside of school consolidation. So I guess my question is, Is that factually correct, or are we just, or is the select board just speaking her opinion. And if there is indeed a vetted plan that has

facts that support a so-called better, more financially responsible path. that make necessary changes to 80-year-old schools. What, what is that plan and where, how do we bring those facts and, you know, make them in a comparable way to the plan that’s been presented for consolidation at the next meeting, because that’s, that’s the only new

information that could be brought. Is that even feasible to do in 45 days? Actually, when I say an alternative, I actually mean like not an alternative that includes putting curtains in front of an electrical boxes like around my current daughter’s classroom and also options that give space for learning an ILP programs, which she’s a part of

as well. So, How do we address those things and actually see the alternative that is truly lower cost. If, if it indeed exists, because I keep hearing it from people, but I’ve yet to see any facts that support it. Yeah. Um, I’ll just quickly, I’ll just quickly, but why don’t we let them speak first

because the question’s really for them and if you want to come, he was directing that to the select board to select board. I don’t want to change that. We, we said from the beginning, not for the like board, but we’ll do it after they’re done. We’ll respect their time. Um, so I heard a

couple of questions there. One was, um, is this option, the best option, or how do people determine this is the best option. Um, again, this was the option that was brought forward when we brought this forward option for option forward, um. The Hamilton Select Board voted. Um, to recommend favorable

action on this item, the Wenham’s select board voted to recommend favorable action on this item. The Hamilton Fincom recommended favorable action on this item. The Wenham Fincom recommended favorable action. To your question, those who are not all unanimous votes, so there were members of those committees who may have made just as this evening.

statements, but that is true. So your select boards in both towns, your fincoms in both towns and your school committee recommended this option. I think there was a second part to the question. Is there a plan that’s not in the next 45 days, no, right now, this option is on the table with the

MSBA, the money that $50 million is for this project during this 120 day window at this time. Um And I think Mr. Tracy has already spoken pretty ely to what we, there is no, what I’m asking is, is there a plan? Cause, cause I keep here, I heard at the town meeting multiple times, and I heard

from the select board tonight that there is a better, more financially viable alternative to what’s been presented. That’s what I heard. I keep hearing people say that. And I think what you’re saying is no, that does not exist because this other option was presented. It was approved by a bunch of

boards and Therefore, we pushed forward with this option. So there really isn’t. A set of facts that would say that there is a better alternative that is more financially responsible. From answer that from the position of the school board, the school committee does not have a better option. OK, thank

you. All right, next question. Wait a minute, wait a minute, I do believe that, that I, I, I strongly object to that specifically directed his comment and not doing the board right now, I think that’s unfair and I should be able to open a can of worms. I could we could. Excuse me. I do think

there’s no reason for shouting like that the board members having a conversation at the end and can answer questions, but right now the questions are for the school board, that’s it. And I made that clear from the beginning. Yeah, I just think it’s a Mr. Martin brings up, I think the elephant in the room

that everybody is wondering if, because there’s a lot of like facts or not facts out there. So the question everybody has is, you know, are they just numbers that are thrown out? Is there any sound data that would say, you know, this consolidation plan is fiscally responsive, responsible hitting

the most. students and the cost of upgrading and maintaining 3 facilities going forward, uh, is more or less, because that’s what everybody keeps asking, right? So I do think that’s, that’s the that’s hitting the, the nail on the head is what he said from the school board was no, they don’t have a plan, but

I do think they have a thought because there were 1415, 19 different things looked at, including renovation, and they’re gonna jump right to, uh, audition as well that there’s an idea that 48 to, you know, 80 million, I heard. per building, the sum of those 3 would be greater than, you know,

what we’re spending now. I think that, you know, I just think that’s an important point. I don’t want to just skip over it. I think that I can answer his question in 3 sentences, and I would like to be able to do that. Thank you for your question. I was the person obviously who discussed that

there are other more affordable options, and I will point you to the Welsh Elementary School in Peabody, which had a complete gut and renovation and a 250 square foot addition onto the front of their school. So it was a 59,000 square foot building for about 400 students. Um, and the total cost of that

was under $40 million at that point, at that time, maybe 4 years ago, it was $34 million the MSBA kicked in, um, over 50% of that. They kicked in about 7, I asked about this town. I didn’t ask about Peabody. So that that that answer doesn’t answer my question. That’s why I wanted

to go into the debate right now. This is not a debate. It’s Rose, we can, we can, well, this is a board. They’re done asking questions, I’ll you speak at that point, but I don’t, I didn’t want to open up this can of worms. His questions for our

school board I’m our school board I’m just gonna our school board I’m our school board I’m just gonna ask them really quickly, uh, Lisa Terranova Woodland Mead. Why does my vote not count? Why does my vote count less than a yes vote. Why is the democratic process being undermined? Why are we throwing

out the results of two town meetings where nothing happened to invalidate the vote for the school board. All of them. I’m asking them what we’re on the, we’re on the agenda did it say we were re-litigating the issue tonight when there is no new information from the school committee or the school board.

I, I don’t understand your question. Why? You please ask the school board a question that they can. OK, I will ask the school board a question. Why has this issue been allowed to get to the point. We’re now the fabric of our towns is being ripped apart. This has gone so far past having a

consolidated school or renovations or anything else. And anyone in a position of power could have put a stop to this way back on April 5th. Ballot questions that shouldn’t have, shouldn’t were a nullity had been put out by school committee members. One more time, can you please ask a

question to the school board I have asked about 5 or 6 of them, but I haven’t heard a question yet. Well, ask a question. Why does my vote not count? Your vote does count. So next question, why doesn’t my vote count less than somebody else’s. You’re not the school committee. I’m sorry, with all due respect,

you’re yelling at me for not asking them questions and you’re the one answering them. They’re not they can answer. the weeks ago I was in this room and, and I forget there was one other time it was a school committee meeting after the town meeting. And I heard Mr. Polito and Mr. Tracy say

it’s just a point of education, it’s a point of education. The town meeting vote in Hamilton did not reach 2/3. It reached 57%. What makes you think? That in June you’re going to get over that hurdle with no new information. What makes you think that you two are capable of re-educating me because all

I hear over and over again is there’s no new information, but now I’m supposed to vote the way you want me to vote, or we’re going to keep voting. Until one of us drops from exhaustion. And one more question about the citizen’s petition. OK, that’s going to come up on June 9th now.

Is that, no, June 14th? OK, great. So if, if we start another citizens petition tomorrow we can have another special town meeting vote on the 15th, another one on the 16th, 17th, 18th, how much money as a community are we gonna be spending on special town meetings just for the school

issue. Thank you. So we want to address your question about, You don’t really need to answer any of my questions because everyone in the room already knows all the answers. But, but thank you. Right, so let’s, um, so let’s go to let’s go online. So, um, Bibbin. For one What can you take off mute and put

your camera on, please. I, if I’m mispronouncing your name, I apologize, Bienna. Here we go. Hello? Hello. Can you, can you turn on your camera, please? I, I’m trying, uh, We can hear you. It’s OK. I can’t, I can’t, um. We can hear you. That’s fine. Go ahead, yes. Sorry. So I’m Bison, huh, and from 20 North

Street. Um, so I was at the annual um town meeting, uh, and I did hear a, a bit about the Ipswich school consolidation, uh, plan, and so I took a look at the aerial shot of the, the, the location of where they’re planning to build a new school.

And to me, it actually looked spacious. It just looked like there was a lot of green space and there was uh and what I thought that I thought that there There should not be serious traffic issues. Now, have you, um, have you considered the traffic issues. Now we’re going to like trying

to combine all three schools and kind of, you know, jam jamming into the um the Cutler area, and it’s a busy road, densely populated area. I, I, I mean, I really don’t think it’s feasible and so that’s my first question, the traffic issue. The second question is we are reducing the question back to

your second question. I don’t keep 5 and 6 in a row now. The, uh, the answer to the traffic question is there was a traffic study done. It’s, uh, it is on our website over a 200 page traffic study. The building is designed with a, an access road

that goes all the way around, uh, for two reasons, emergency access and to to uh assist with taking as many cars as possible off the street. morning, uh, drop off or an afternoon pickup. So, like, so you’re saying, so. So the Asbury Road is just, I

mean, you, you, you were able to figure out um like a smooth flow. Over as for road? Yes. OK, um. The second question is, you know, the open space, the, the playground areas, the open space for, for, you know, the, is, is actually going to be significantly reduced. It’s from 3 schools, it’s now going

to be all put into one and that also because now there’s gonna be a bigger building that is further reduced. And now there’s also going to be a bigger parking lot, so the area for open space, you know, I, it’s just, I mean, I, I don’t see. How you can um ensure Like You know, happy, happy

environment for kids. But I, I know this is a, you know, um, uh, difficult question perhaps. No, we, we, we’ve came up at town meeting. So Eric, why don’t address that that question’s come up several times. The one of the things that um we keep having to clarify is that not all the

kids go to recess at the same time, uh, which is, it’s what happens now in our schools. Excuse me, sir, we run excuse me sir, multiple lunches outside, please. We, we have I’m done with it. We run multiple lunches, uh, for that fact, because cafeterias aren’t big enough to hold all the kids

that are in each of the elementary schools now, so that’s, you know, it’s something that we deal with every single day. We rotate, uh, 1 to 2 classes outside when uh 1 to 2 classes would be in the cafeteria, so that would be the same, uh, at the, at the new school location as well. Can I,

I just want to quickly add just for just. Um, so that you can visualize the, the completed consolidated school would have a little league sized baseball diamond, um, a wall ball area. It has a first grade playground and then a playground for the older kids, and it also has 3 youth-sized soccer fields.

Excuse me, 5 youth-sized soccer fields. Right So protein, uh, about 1 hour 45 minutes into this question and answer session. I see 1234567 people in line right now. Is there anybody else who hasn’t stood up yet that’s waiting to stand up last cause I would suggest, so please, I guess everybody in

line right now so we can cut, cut it off. At that point So if you want to ask questions, stand up and I’m going to cut it off at that at that spot. We’re Linda Preston, thank you. Highland Street, um. We have given already the understanding that When we voted for the middle school and we voted no.

Those who didn’t like that vote and who didn’t get the required number of votes arranged for a 2nd vote and when that vote didn’t go through. The way they wanted it to. We voted its 3rd time, and at that point, the middle school was passed and my question is, how many times? Can citizen petitions.

Be signed. For a revote such that it has the same two articles with the upcoming meeting. And The people of Hamilton and Wenham regardless of the fact that those who voted yes was a majority. That wasn’t the issue. It was 2/3 vote, which was not gotten. So how many times? Well, we have to go and vote again

and again till the other side. gets what they want. And our vote won’t come. I don’t know, we got, we got, we got there’s a, it’s a good question. We were asked that question earlier and we’re gonna look into it, but we do know do not know the answer. We don’t really answer that question,

but number 2 is we know, we know June 26th is when, is when our time period ends, so the other thing I would bring up too, just to think about is what this district would look like if we didn’t have a middle school right now. Right, so, all right. Hm Jack Davis, uh, 57 Lower Street. Simply have

one question for Uh, the school committee and it’s um a process and procedural. Question as to uh what the voters in this town might expect to happen between now In June the 26th. And the question is, given the fact that the citizens’ positions petition seems to have triggered the meeting for

another special town meeting on June 14th. In the event that that June 14th meeting, uh, was unfavorable to school consolidation. The question is, is it the uh intention of the school committee to come back to the select board to ask for a revote on February on June the 26th. Mm Um, so that is not

something that has come before the school committee, but I will just, well, it’s a rule. I can’t say how, I can’t tell you something that hasn’t happened, but I’m gonna answer. So the school committee asked Or the select board to put this on a a special town meeting. But in the meantime, before the select

board had the opportunity to decide whether they were going to do that or not. The citizens petition came forward. And that, so that was not directed by the school committee. Right? My understanding is your question is saying if it were to Go to a special town meeting with the school committee then try to

ask the select board to put it back on another special town meeting again. Is that your question if there were an unfavorable opinion on June 14th. With the school committee asked the select board to put it on a special meeting on June 26th. I don’t think there is a special meeting on the 26th

anymore, is there. Oh, there is 3. Oh, there still is. Um, so, so I guess I can’t, I don’t know because we, we haven’t entertained that, um, option. I guess that’s not something that I thought of. I’m not, it seems like the doesn’t feel like there would really be enough time to do that anyway, because

as you’ve seen this process has already taken a few weeks. I So I, I’m not allowed to speak for the whole committee unless the committee votes, but I can’t envision that that would be something that would be feasible to do. opinion That wouldn’t, that would not actually be up to Mr.

Tracy. You actually asked the correct person, but I, but I, but it is, and the select board know this that as the chair, I can’t speak for the committee unless this committee has spoken and the committee has not spoken to your question. It’s a good question, but I, I really think logistically, it would. Be sort

of a moot question. No, I mean, the only thing I would say, you know, other than the fact that I don’t think it would be feasible or like just. Be able to happen in that quicker turnaround is, you know, the school committee had the conversation and I think the one thing we could speak to is.

is to see this project through to the best of our current ability, right? And that’s, and that’s in, in the idea of, you know, um, asking the talents to uh special town meeting is to try and take advantage of this entire 120 day window we have. And, and that’s where it begins and ends, where we feel that

that’s our job as, you know, that we were elected to do as school committee members. Pro. Joe No one. OK, so we have 6 people left. So thank you, please, yes. 00. Sandy Fisher Green Brook Road, um, My question is, um, well, first the statement, um, Chair Alara said that uh things were so bad

and so we finally had to look at school consolidation. My question is for Mr. Polito. Is it true that during your 9 year, 10 year on the school committee, you have actually been working with the state of Massachusetts on consolidation. Yeah if I Personally, no. Why did you tell me that at the last

meeting that I went to. I never told you that. You did. I’m sorry. Well, I, no, no, please tell me because I. I’m happy to tell you I’ve been working on this projects for 8 years. I was part of the first SOI. Right, um, so I would definitely microphone because people online. Yeah, no, I mean,

I’ve been I’ve had no problem telling everybody that like this, um, been, I’ve been part of this project since day one. Excuse me, um, with the first SOI. In fact, met Joe at our first, um, Our, our first visit with um, with the MSBA up at

Cutler. Excuse me, um, so we’ve been, we’re going at this for a long time. What I probably had said in that conversation was, it was at that time that we were talking to the MSBA that they had suggested, um, including with In our future SOI. To try and, uh, because they tend to be more favorable

in choosing a school or in helping out where they can sort of combine and, and try and get more bang for the buck, right? Because that’s, it’s their job to sort of give out these grants, but they’re trying to help as many people as they possibly can. You know, so, so that was definitely a

conversation we had, but the idea that I’ve been working with that I wish I was that cool. So. OK. Um Is it true of school committee that, um, you chose to not bring a proposition 2.5 override. To the town meeting this year because If it was presented with a school consolidation

vote, you thought both of them would fail, so you put uh, did you in fact put off that proposition 2.5 override to next year, which will then, uh, be even larger price tag. No. That was. No, every year we go and we go about the entire budget process and. We see where we can, you know, what we

could do to maintain that our budget stays below that 2.5%. And so that’s what it was. Did we discuss at times that if you had to do an override in the project at the same time that cases of yes, but that doesn’t mean that we purposely, we always purposely try to avoid a 2.5 override. That’s sort of

what we do every single year. I was at the meeting. All right, she answered, he answered your question. It’s not a, that’s what we do. We try to not have overrides. To All right, next question. Yeah, yeah, no, I’m telling you, we do, every time, and I’m telling you right now, we try not to have overrides,

um, is it true that there are going to be need to be further uh repairs on schools, different projects that happen. We’ve heard, uh, a couple of weeks ago we heard about, um, when we’ve heard several times about it, um, the fact that the high school roof needs attention, uh, needs repair or

replacement, and, um, And maybe in a couple years further, the middle school roof needing a, um, attention. Uh, we’ve talked about security, need for upgrades. We talked about. Um, other upgrades and in the schools, um, How are these going to happen? So, I mean, your questions are great.

I mean, you’re doing a great job of sort of pay attention to what we’re saying. Um, I, I just sort of want to turn it back on, on you and, and say that these are the issues we have to deal with. Every single day, every single meeting we have, right, holistically, how we’re going to deal with these

issues as a district, right? And so the part of the reasoning behind why we chose this project is trying to take a couple of the older buildings offline. Right? Because yes, there’s going to need to be maintenance constantly on every single building, right? As soon as this new school building’s

going to be at some point, there’s going to need to be, right? And, and that’s just part of the thing, right? And then it’s our job here, it’s their job, right, to try and look at all these issues within the town, within the school districts, right? Uh, how we have to look at every single

thing, right? And I, I think, I, I think some of the, the main problems that are that sort of the, the, the divide is coming from. Is that there’s a lot of good ideas that come from the room here, but, but they’re they’re looking at it, you’re looking at problems individually in a silo, right?

And, and, and we don’t have that luxury, right? We do, we don’t have endless money. We don’t have endless time, right? So we, so instead of trying to figure out this problem one at a time, one at a time, one at a time, we have to try and look

at everything that’s going on, and that does include, right, this constant upkeep that’s going on with these 70 plus year old buildings. And that’s why this idea of You know, combining two of them, taking 2 of them offline is going to take that much more of these constant upkeeps offline, right?

So that’s part of the thinking. Right, so I think you’re right on base with everything that you’re saying. Does anybody? Knocked down their 60 year old house and rebuild it rather than the school board, please knock down please knock your 60 year old house instead of renovating it. If I may, if I

had the money to, yeah, because I can’t, I can’t. Listen, I just put in, I mean, it’s a great, great question because I have 4 kids and 3 bedrooms, right? I would love to be able to put it in, in a four-bedroom houses the questions in the debate to something that’s relevant to the project. Oh my

God. Well, and let’s see this other one is. Um So this, we’re hearing that the schools are in such bad condition. Are they structurally sound. I be condemned. Uh, they, they structuring sound. I can’t hear you. They’re in no, they’re not about to be condemned. We do do a good job of keeping up with

them the best we can. OK. Um Cuz I have been hearing that we finally got to this point, and it sounds like desperate that what we need is a new school and that’s the only thing that’s gonna solve it, um, so the question is not from me, from someone else who let the schools. Go into disrepair, and,

you know, after years of apparent neglect, we need to have a new school, so how, who let the schools go into disrepair. Why is there not some sort of renovation plan and how would this happen with a new building? Um, is that gonna just go into disrepair and then we turn around and say,

oh, now we need a new. You know, Bucher school or a new whatever school. Because we’re not doing our due diligence and, in repairing the buildings that we have. So I encourage you to think really carefully about that. And we do not have well I think I can help. Yes, thank you. Of course. The First of

all, don’t hold, please don’t hold me, uh, responsible for the sins of my predecessors. We are, you know, really looking at those things. That’s an important piece of the conversation before. We even started this process. Like what maintenance plans do we have? Um, What is our maintenance and

facilities director look at how do we prioritize it, so we put together in January, the school committee just passed a new, um, plan for any of our capital improvements, so that gives us now a process of submitting them all in one place, bringing them to a committee that’s combined of school committee

people, uh, and selecting Fincon people from each of the boards in one place so that everybody can transparently see, and this was a question that came up from Fincoms to say, you know, well, how are we going to manage this? So we developed this process. That will now use for all of our

schools, including the new school, to be able to say, what are the things that we need to know, like just general maintenance, what changing filters, changing out, um, you know, water bubble or filters, changing our ventilator filters and things like that. There was no plan up until 2 years ago

when we started to say, OK, we know we have 10 amount of end units in for ventilators. We need 10 amount of filters per year. Um, so now we’re planning ahead for that. We have all of that stuff that’s actually coming online. Same with roof repairs, you know, as roof repairs come up, we’re looking

at how to weigh the option of do we look at, you know, different levels of roof repair we just fix the holes or do we need to come in and repair, you know, the, the high school needs to have a full repair because we’ve been putting between 30,000 and $40,000 a year into it each year, so we

are working on that type of plan. It’ll kick off with the next budget season. um, we’ll have a prioritized list of everything that’s that’s currently on the table, if you will, from the school side and then all the boards, all 5 of the boards will be able to see that. apparently as we come

through the budget process, say these are the things we have, uh, going on. Other things, uh, we’re now using the software that we have to be able to manage things that should happen at specific times of the year, I mean, it’s like boiling of, of motors in the ventilator units, adding grease or belts

or whatever, you know, all of those things now are timed out so our guys get a message to say, OK, go to the Buker and do this, this and this this month. So great question. Thank you. Um, I’ll just refer to what Mr. Polito said that if he had an

endless supply of money, he would knock his house down and build it anew. And is my question is, is that what you’re thinking about the town of Hamilton and the town of Wenham that there is an endless supply of money. We, you just said that we have a new system of all kinds of different

repairs and renovations that need to happen, upgrades to different things, replacements of filters and various things like that. So How is that? Um How are we respecting the general populace of the town that both towns, um, by putting a huge project forward, all the while we know these other

things still need to be done, and we’re only talking about the schools because that’s all we’re allowed to talk about here, but we all know that there’s huge issues with the water, etc. and there’s other issues in town. These aren’t the only only town buildings that need repair. And, um, and

renovation and all that, so My question is, How are you respecting the people of the town when the people have said no. I think we answered that already, so. I want to say the gentleman in the back, we cut it off at the gentleman in the brown jacket is the last person. I made it pretty, very clear.

So, um, you don’t need to stand up anymore. The my last quick question is Uh, we all hear about reduced reuse, recycle, we’re trying to be green and all of that, and I’m wondering how reduced, reuse, recycle, um. fits in with putting two schools in a landfill and building new. answer that one

while I go sit down. Sure. So part of the process of, uh, if you go into a process of any demolition of building, uh, they Contractors are looking to recycle. They’re not just dumping a lot of this stuff. They’re looking to uh recycle wherever they can, whether it be steel or brick or anything

that they can pull out could be copper wire, things like that, so there are recycling programs that are built into some of these programs, um, that the contractors will use. Um, it’s, it’s really not a, you know, people envision taking the whole school down and just dropping it in a landfill.

There’s, there’s actually more to it, uh, based on whatever they can break, bring out of the school. good Hi Linda Mastriani, 23 Maple Street. My question for school committee or Mr. Tracy, uh, if we don’t Yet the new consolidated school, and we need to do, uh, renovations at, let’s just say,

Cutler and Winthrop because we’re not talking about Bucher for the consolidated school. Can we Bring everything up to ADA compliance. Can we Fix all the electrical and the tech stuff, which is actually what my job is, um, and get that up to where we need it to be. Can we add the spaces that we need,

can we fix all of the things that need to be fixed so that our kids can get the education that they need. And have that cost us less money than it would cost us if we give up the $49 million that we’re getting. Is it going to be more expensive? Yeah, probably not. Right, it’s probably we were,

we were not gonna be able to do it cheaper, right? I think, well, I think, um, one thing that you sort of mentioned that I think uh that Eric didn’t sort of touch on in the last questioning is, is that, um, you know, the 8DA compliance in, in, in these schools, right, where legacy in because these

buildings are so old and, um, But if we started taking on some of these larger projects that need to happen, right? I think a really good, um, example is the, the Winthrop right outer envelope replacing some of the windows and in some holes in the exterior and whatever and and with that

ended up doing is triggering, um, the need for, uh, updated sprinkler systems, right, which cost about a million dollars or so, right? And then that’s the stuff we’re sort of looking at when I, when I spoke earlier about sort of looking at this holistically. Right? It’s not an idea. It, it, if it was only

a sense of just changing filters and having a better maintenance plan, right? We’d be having a different conversation, that’s not it. That’s not it, right, so that that that these are seven year old buildings, these are 70 year old systems, 70 year old electrical systems, right? And, and, and you start touching these, right, and, and, and

again, we, we, we all do this at home, right? We, we live in New England, we live in your own houses. You get into one thing, you know, I, I updated my mud room and had it replaced. two walls because of, you know, wind damage is what we get into

when we run into stuff like this here, and it, and it adds adds hidden costs, adds hidden costs, adds hidden costs, the value that comes from a new construction. Is that most of that cost is upfront. Are you going to run into things, yes, you always run into things. However, it’s a lot easier to

plan for. Ahead of time, right, as opposed to just going to. These, um, maintenance programs. I think part of the question as well is if you decided to take a project on without the MSBA. You got about a 20% value of the building window based on the mass master procurement laws and the bidding laws that,

that we’re bound by, um, so when we look at a building and any building project, when you cross that 20% threshold value of the building, the current assessed value of the building, which the Cutler is, I think it’s valued a little over $8 million or something by, by the town. So once you hit $1.6

million in repairs, you now trigger ADA compliance upgrades mandatory and fire and sprinkler upgrades mandatory. um, before you, before you did anything else, those things would have to be completed once you cross that 20%. So if you did that at each school, you’d start to wind up pretty quickly.

So just to clarify, sorry. Last question. It’s actually going to be cheaper for me to get a better school by by having the consolidated school, then it would be for me to pay to update 7070 plus year old buildings. My father’s 80. He went to Cutler school. My father is 80 years old and was

a student at Cutler school. Things have changed, but it will be cheaper, yes. So, the, the answer to that is, I think better has been better answered by both of our FICOs who have done that work and their answer was yes, that this is the most financially, didn’t you already say that renovations numbers

really haven’t been drilled in yet. They haven’t studied them. That’s why she’s reaching to the Fincom. But you want to get up there and ask a question you you missed your turn. All right, next. You just asked them from the side. Hi, Kelly Fay, 23 Allen Road, proud Hamilton Regional graduate. Um, first,

I’d like to thank you all on the select board Superintendent Tracy and the school council for all that you do for our town. Um, my 8 year old daughter has an IEP for speech. If we vote yes for consolidation, will she still need to continue her speech lessons on the stage in the

cafeteria and at desks and hallways, or will there be a designated more discrete classroom in the new school. I also have a preschooler. If she is diagnosed with a learning disability, but I need to worry about having my children go to two separate elementary schools like some other families I know

because the same services aren’t offered at all schools or with the consolidated school be able to accommodate the needs of our town’s children in one location. Final question, would I still need to be as anxious sending my children to school every day in today’s America or the new consolidated

school have improved in state of the art safety measures to better protect our town’s children. So the answer is, is really yes, um, the opportunity to give kids and staff, appropriate spaces to educate our kids to help them with their disabilities to support their issues that they may run

into along the way is important for us in the design of the current building. We put 7 classrooms, smaller rooms, uh, that are meant for interventions and those interventions could be speech. They could be, um. Interventions for literacy, interventions for math, which are all things that we do within our buildings. Uh, so

these small interventions intervention rooms are shared by every two classrooms, and they give us the opportunity to keep kids close to their current classroom, get their services and drop right back into their classroom without having to go anywhere else, like on a stage or in the closet or down the other end of the building. So that’s really

the answer. The security thing is um Huge enhancements, huge enhancements from the front door on where we have the opportunity to feel much more comfortable as a parent sending your kids to school every day, knowing that. Um, there are multiple, uh, kind of Hurdles to jump through to even access

the main office, never mind to get into the building. Uh, there’s an opportunity to lock down every segment of the building individually so that um if there’s something going on in one section, you know you can lock down the other 7, the other 4 sections. Um, there’s an opportunity for closing it

off or even just for general community use at night, uh, there’s no one wandering through the school. If you go to the Winthrop school at night and to for an event, you can just about get around anywhere in the school. In this case, Uh, this is designed specifically that so the community can still

access the community spots like the gym, the stage, and the cafeteria without getting into any other spot in the facility. Uh, glass is an important piece of it, and I think one of the things that that we mentioned consistently with it with safety is the glasses was developed as a result of Sandy

Hook, uh, although it’s not bulletproof, it is designed to be harder to get through, to break through, um, that would be around the lower levels of, of the building, so that would. Definitely be out, I think the, the reality is you, you’d have a place where. Kids are undistracted private, almost, almost personal, much more personalized opportunities to

gain interventions to have their services delivered in a way so that no one’s staring at them. They’re not kind of looking around while they’re getting their services and being distracted, uh, so answer to those two questions are both yes. Thank you. Yeah. Hi, uh, Ted Ober at Gale Avenue. Um, I

guess, uh, just a few questions. Um You know, on the renovations, um, I’ve been involved in many renovations that, and I agree with The previous woman those concerns, you know, but in many of the renovations, you know, we addressed those concerns. Um, so my question to the committee is Because you haven’t been

that Enthusiastic about renovation, you know, have you ever seen a res renovation that you feel is successful or that you like. Um, that’s one question you want me to wait for the answer, it’s a good question. renovation. Yeah, I mean, have you ever seen one that you like or that it’s been

successful. I’ve not been involved in it personally, the renovation that was done when I was at PBD high school many years ago. It was a six-phase renovation and as you heard, they’re currently building and planning to build a new high school. because things just didn’t last. So you’ve never

seen a not personally. Well, there’s a lot of them. Um, and the next question is um What is the percent of reduction of green space at Cutler School. Off the top of my head, I don’t know, but I can get the number. We, we, we, yeah, we, we

addressed it during one of our forums and Uh, have asked our people to put together numbers and based on square footage, so we can post it. I’ll post it. I can reach out to them and post it on the sites to be at least 5, you know. Yeah. 50% or more.

I would think. OK. That would be a nice thing to know, um. And then my question for the, also for the school committee is um You know, right after the town vote, we had a very Huge town meeting and we took a town vote. And shortly thereafter

you asked for it to be put back on the ballot, so I guess my question is why does the school committee not respect the town vote. Um, so I feel like I talked, spoken to this already, but I’ll try again, um. So I I It’s, I understand. I really do,

and the people that wrote to me, I wrote back to them. I do understand. Why you feel unhappy. I do. I really do. Um, and the school committee had a very thoughtful discussion about um again after hearing also from many, many citizens. Um So I I’m not gonna, I, I hear your feeling that you

don’t feel like you were respected. I Didn’t View it as disrespectful and I, I respect what you’re saying, um, but we made a decision that in the situation where the majority, but not 2/3 of the citizens had said. That they wanted this. It was a difficult in a democracy. It’s difficult when more than

half of the people want something. It was A decision made by the school committee to to ask the select board. To bring it back to the people one more time. That was our decision. I hope that answered your question. It’s an answer. Still don’t think it’s respectful, but that’s all

right. Um. And then, um, we came to a lot of the school committee meetings when you were debating the 14 excuse me I have conversations, please step outside the room. We came to the school committee meetings when we were debating all the different options and um You know, and I don’t know,

you said that’s just how it’s always been done. Uh, my question is, why does the school committee move forward in a process like this because it really tears the town apart as it’s been done in the past and um we sat at those meetings, you know, you’re spending all this money and it’s likely,

most likely gonna get turned down. And we’ve spent $1.5 million of taxpayer funds to Design something when if you had just come to the town ahead of it and asked for what the town wanted, whether a consolidation or a new mega school. We would have at least had a decision that you could

move forward on and um assume that it would be um voted in favor of. So I guess my question is why does the school committee move forward in the way that they do, um, and hopefully not just because that’s how you’ve always done it, but that’s a question. I think the thing, thing with

working with the MSBA it’s a very prescriptive process. So from start to finish, they’re really setting you up and say you got to do this first, this next, this next, um, and we followed that process. We started, you know, with the kind of bigger picture of we’re in town. I mean, I remember

emailing the town managers town administrators say, we’re in town. Can we fit an elementary school, something that’s, I think we’re looking at 88, I think 88 acres if I remember correctly, or larger, uh, so we went through that whole exercise. We went through the sizes have taken the 4 design

options that the MSBA gave us that they would support and we studied each of those options, and that’s how we came up with 14 uh different looks at how this, what this, what we could do as part of the project. And then each of that, each step of the way and feasibility and schematic design ask us to

whittle it down, whittle it down, whittle it down till you come to one, preferred, uh, preferred answer like this is what is the preferred, so it’s really a very prescriptive process. It’s not. Uh, no matter what you do, if you go to any town, it’s the same process because you’re

basically following, you know, OK, step 1 is this, step 2 is that, and it’s, it’s laid out pretty clearly by the MSBA and they have 8 module process. I, I do get that part, but, you know, had you come to the town and um asked whether we wanted

to renovate or do a big mega school first that would have given you, you know, the information to decide what can go forth with the. The state to get approved and knowing that you have a great chance for a positive vote. So I just think going forward you ought to, you know, I think, asked the people

in the town what they want before you spend our money to design something that people don’t want. Um And the last, last question, it’s relevant to the current project. Yes it is. Well, I think this was a relative, you talk about what could have, but let’s talk about the current project,

please. Right, yeah, alright, um, you’re talking about in the current project. Um, tearing down, uh, Winthrop School. And um we’re not you’re not. I just thought we were just, were told that it’s gonna go to a dumpster and And you said, but they said, Cutler. OK, so it doesn’t have to do anything

with tearing down Winthrop. 0. That’s a completely different OK that hasn’t been on that? OK, I’ll say my last question then. Do you want to answer it? I do. You Just to be really clear. If I sub miracle, this goes to town meeting and it gets passed. When the project’s done, the property that the Winthrop

school sits on would come back to the town of Hamilton before anything could happen there at all. We’d have to get Tom meeting permission. Anything We can’t sell it, we can’t develop housing, we can’t make a park out of it without going to town meeting. Right All right. High current KL town clerk and the

person in the room responsible for the election part of this whole discussion, and I’m answering some of the questions that have been presented to the school committee and the superintendent. We’ve heard multiple times, why didn’t my vote count? Why are, why aren’t I being listened to? So I thought it was really worth talking a little bit about

proposition 2.5. I’ve had a ton of fun learning a lot about it over the last couple of weeks and sharing the documents with several of you. No, I’m answering the question about why the votes didn’t count. So I’m asking to do. I’m I’m, I’m, I’m the only one who can answer that question in the room.

So, why don’t we wait for them to be done, then we can have a different discussion, OK. My name is Charlie Peper, uh, 53 Meyer Road. Um, my general impression of this meeting is like uh Groundhog Day from the, the previous, uh, town meeting. It seems that the same issues have been, uh, rehashed when um

part of what this is and I I heard you mention the fact that you, you feel as though we’re not being respected. It’s not about respect. I think it’s about a question, sir. The authority is how uh are the citizens supposed to, when, when there’s uh uh uh Robert’s rule of order gets to the end

and he says, and so it is done. And yet it’s not. How can you re-establish the credibility in how the town is run, if nobody can believe when he says this is actually done. And for example, if there was um uh other votes that were taken by the thing to table something. Was there any knowledge that

there was a, a, a um a petition already in process to sort of provide some, some cover. I’m just, there’s a lot of things that seem to be going on that, that you ask us questions, sir, and I’ll try to answer it, how are you going to reestablish credibility. I don’t know how to answer that question.

OK, well I guess I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s been unestablished, so I don’t even know I’m right now we’re following the, we’re following the, the rules that we have to work with. OK. So if you don’t agree with them, it’s a different discussion then votes don’t seem to really I don’t

agree with that comment. OK. So. You know, know, I don’t. All right. Well, Eric. David And Dana, thank you, thank you for coming. Appreciate your time. Thank you. So, so just to summarize, the, you know, the discussion that we allowed them to have today was, sorry, before we do that, hey, go down

here. Corinne said that she’s part of a special town meetings you can talk about what that means and she can bring that up part of that discussion point. Um, but, uh, what we talked, unfortunately, we, we, we, there was a question answer session with the school board. So, the next item on the agenda,

we can talk about the uh your topic will come forward in terms of what a vote means for special time you can talk about what, what counts or what doesn’t count, OK. Um, but part of the discussion that we had with the, was letting them come answer questions, but really what’s before us today is the

petition. So we need to we need to have a motion and a vote on the citizens petition. So Joe’s gonna kind of walk us through the procedural requirements of us tonight in terms of the next step. Um, So there was a petition. There was a citizen petition called under Chapter 39, Section 10 of Mass General

Laws that compels the select board to call for a special town meeting within 45 days of the receipt and certification of the petition. The petition was received on May 3 May 1st, and was subsequently certified by the town clerk. I believe later that same day. Um, that gives us a 45 day window up

until uh June 14th, at which time the select board must call a town meeting to address the two questions that were listed on the petition. They law does allow them to open the warrant for other things, but they do not have to and they have to at least have a special time meeting that addresses those

two items in 45 days. So I would believe that the next step for the board would be to entertain a motion to accept the petition and with a recommendation for a town meeting date and time. And do you have anything to add about the certifying the vote or says petition or special time

meeting, Corin, you’d like to state. Thank you. As our clerk. So the process with Prop 2.5 votes. I, I think we’ve all experienced it many times, is a two-step process. So when people say, why didn’t my vote count or why aren’t you listening to my vote? Which vote are we talking about? It’s

a two-step process and the saw from the Department of Revenue. The ballot vote is to authorize the town to increase its taxing authority. There has to be at a ballot vote per per prop 2.5. Doesn’t bring any money with it. To appropriate the money. It is a town meeting vote. Both votes must take place. There’s a

thing called an appropriation election sequence. Some towns do a ballot first. Other, and others do the town meeting first. As we know, we do the town meeting first. So we had our town meeting vote. Then when we had the ballot vote as town clerk, my responsibility was to certify that vote.

And notify the Department of Revenue that the town of Hamilton did vote to, to give the town the authority to increase its taxing authority. Period. It’s the way the process works. The voters did vote 1,014 to 1000 to allow the town to increase its taxing authority. So that is what I

did. That’s my responsibility. The DOR direction further says, again, back to the sequencing. If the ballot question passes. And the appropriation fails. The ballot question is valid. And for debt exclusion vote, particularly the city and town has reasonable time to authorize debt for the same project. So I just thought it was important to clarify that

because it’s an excellent question. Why didn’t my vote count? I think we can look back at the multiple votes we had on town meeting renovation and both times town meeting voted yes. And then it went to the ballot and what happened? It failed. So the ballot vote is what gives the authority to

increase the gives the town the authority to increase the taxes. So I just thought it would be helpful to put it in perspective of what we’re looking at. So when people say, why didn’t my vote count? I think it’s an unusual question because it’s a two-step process. So we have to look at both of

those votes to really determine what happened and what the direction is, so thank you so it’ll be the same going forward. All right, so, um, we’re not gonna do questions right now. Um, so I don’t have, we’ll have a discussion first as a board and then we can open up to questions. Um, so, What I’m

looking for right now is I think there’s a board we we need to talk about a date. So we have motion and we, but I want to talk about the date before we get motion. Yeah, we should probably because we’re including the date and the motion and the motion of the first. So the date and time,

presumably, right, so. The Wenham vote is on the 9th. It makes sense to just do them on the same day, so it’s just. The town all votes on one day, so that was what I was proposing was, was the 9th on the timing wise, we’re gonna offset and I

don’t know if there’s been any decision on timing from at your request, I spoke to the town administrator in Wenham. They’re currently scheduled to start their town meeting at 6:30. They had had discussion about starting earlier and the board was reticent to do it at that point. He said he would

ask again, but he wouldn’t promise that they would move their time meeting to anything earlier than 6:30. So we were offset by 7, 7:30. We’re only gonna have really one, we’re gonna have 2 votes. One will be the least, but, but this one they’re gonna have two things on their agenda. They’ll have

3A. We will not have 3A. So the question is, is there agenda, what is the school consolidation is that their first point on their agenda. I believe that’s their plan. I don’t know the warrant’s been set yet, but from, uh, from talking to town administrator there, that was their intention.

Point of order goes to my wardrobe. Requested you put something on. A warrant You not have to vote yes or no, everyone on the. here. So the, the select board at the last meeting um on Tuesday almost two weeks ago had a discussion and there’s a lot of public comment about that question

that was put forward by the select board. I mean by the school committee at that point, but prior to a vote on the motion, it was moved to be tabled. An item can be left on the table and does not have to be taken off the table in this

case you have a situation where the citizen’s petition has come in and the select board is required to act on it and actually is is required to call the meeting. So therefore they do. not have to act on the previous request of the school committee, they can just simply respond to the petition.

This whole meeting was moot point. Well, the, the meeting was because this meeting, this is the item is on the agenda simply because they had to respond to the petition. All right. So I’ll, I’ll make a motion to accept the petition to call a special town meeting to reconsider the consolidated

school project and have the select board schedule a special town meeting for June 9th at 7:30 p.m. drive a second. Well that’s that’s my job. To have a second. Well, I didn’t know if we want to further discuss the do that after the discussion. Well, we’ll do after discussion. We can, and we, and we can, we

can amend it. Mm-hmm Monday to Monday night. Have a second. Not yet. I want to continue the discussion around the time. Yeah, I think that you started out with that because I think it makes a difference. I don’t want to disadvantage any, any side of person 7:30 at night is difficult, I think, you know,

and I agree that same day made sense if it was the same meeting. Otherwise that doesn’t matter. 7:30, I have an issue with. Yeah, 7:30, I mean. There’s a reason I think as well that when I’m choosing 6:30 and doesn’t want to move it forward and probably also doesn’t want to move it back.

I think the What I could see as the benefits of staggering it as if during the comment periods if there are questions, it allows people to be in two places on the same night, presumably if the School district or school committee wanted to be able to shuffle between the two, that would be

the advantage of staggering them. However, I’m also thinking about this meeting. And the meeting we had here. Two weeks ago. Um I’m struggling to see that there’ll be a lot of, but maybe there will be, you know, I’m not sure that people are really going to want to go through it all again.

I think people are going on walk in and vote and and get it done. That’s my impression just. Eric and Dana could be, but we’ve, what I’ve personally spoken with both Eric and Dana, I mean with Dana, who spoke with Eric, but they did not

have an issue having it on the same night, but we can ask them what, what the stagger, because I’m not sure how much time Eric needs to spend at the other meeting. So maybe I could come up and you’re comfortable advising and I guess the question would be, can you divide and conquer? Can one be

in one meeting and one in the other, or you both need to be able to travel across town to be in both. places, what’s your preference? So in an ideal world, I think it would be beneficial to have Eric Tracy at both meetings, um, however,

Um I, we would make it work. In other words, we could have a Um School committee member at one meeting and Eric at a different meeting. Yeah, and Yeah Just like I’ll, I’ll round out then my, my point of view is that keeping it on the same day at

the same time, creates the least amount of confusion, I think that just gets it like very clear. There’s a lot of cross-pollination and the communication channels. Between both towns and it can get confusing, so my point of view would be to just do it all same day, same time, so it’s just as

clean and simple as can be. Can we have different differing opinions about the dates. Yeah I think June 7th is a better day if you were going to have um honor this uh citizens petition June 7th is a Saturday morning. There are lots of older folks in this town who don’t drive after dark, and I

feel very strongly that they would be disadvantaged in having, um, a weeknight meeting. All right, please, we’re trying to have a move it up to 6 then because that presumably it’s gonna be a pretty quick meeting if there’s not a lot of debate. Well, we don’t know that, and I think it’s I think there’ll be

debate. Yeah. I want their voices heard so that it will influence the vote I think it’s much better on, on a Saturday morning and while um older folks would would absolutely be disadvantaged and they would, they would be, um. Very much unable to come at to a night meeting, you have other people

who maybe have something to do on Saturday mornings that they voluntarily do. I think older folks who can’t, who can’t see so well at night and don’t drive, I think that would take precedence over, um, Over somebody who volunteers something else on a Saturday morning. Any other comments? I

mean, in my, in my opinion is that the same. The same day I think is important. Just clear message in town. There’s things that there’s there’s events that happens though, I think it’s new, the second vote, right? Can you, can you elaborate on that, Bill? No, I don’t, I don’t agree with you

with that. Yeah, it doesn’t pass in one town, it doesn’t, but if it does pass, I mean, I think they they want we don’t want one to influence the other, which is why you need to have them on the same day. But, but that, that same time, you know,

I mean, ideally in the same room, I think 2 weeks ago when we talked about it, the benefit would be one voice, both sides, everybody hears the same message. Everybody votes on that message. The minute you separate it, I think the day really doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of dialogue in this town

it’s gonna happen between me, you know, once you, you know, I don’t want the appearance to be, OK, we, you bring it back to vote it, then you change the date and time because you’re trying to pull every lever you can to change, you know, a vote.

I don’t want that appearance. That’s not the case. But on the 9th, so this is not a trick by doing the 9th. It’s already been approved, voted with me. The time is an issue with me so we can, so let’s do it at 6 or so let’s do it at 6 or at 7.

Our meeting starts at 7 o’clock every Monday I think, I think we need to consider half of the population in this town and, and that’s 27%. Excuse me, excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me to these meetings Excuse me to these meetings. Um-hum Excuse me to these meetings Excuse me to these meetings.

Um-hum. Nothing. Um-hum. But you went upside down. Excuse me, we have an opportunity for you to come up in a second, but I hear you, but please, we’re trying to have a discussion up here. It’s not how we do things in this meeting. We will allow at a

certain point for you to come up and speak. Um It’s an unfair disadvantage, you know, I, I feel very strongly about that, um, I have a lot of experience as a nurse working with older people. I’m a member of the board of directors of the COA

and I hear a lot of seniors talk about that they won’t go out after 4:30. It’s I it is, but there’s gonna, you’re gonna once again in this town, you’re gonna find fairness on both sides. We have meetings during different than somebody who chooses to not be there on a different day. That’s the

difference, you’re going to find people that think Saturday’s better and people think that the weekday is better, and you’re gonna get a fifty-fifty shot in this town. So, I hear that everyone’s going to have a challenge with whatever day we have, but, but it’s not one has a challenge and one doesn’t. That’s not a reasonable expectation is.

Seniors, older people have a difficult time seeing. It gets darker, they get tired, and it’s not fair, folks, folks. And this started to happen last time as well, right? The select board. We do our best to be very attentive, to listen very carefully, you know, for a couple of hours now, I’m going

on 3 hours. And now the select board is trying to have a very open, transparent deliberation, and then there’s gonna be a time for, for comments, um, so please just respect the process in the room. Um, I, I would like to see an openness to the Saturday morning, I think. I think it’s, it’s important to

show fairness in this town. Everybody will have an equal chance to come on Saturday morning. If they choose not to, then they choose not to. There’s always going to be a reason why somebody has something else that they that they prefer to do, but the reality is it it is an

imposition and a physical difficulty for a lot of older people, and I remember the Saturday morning at our annual town meeting. There was a sea of perhaps people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and they deserve um the opportunity to be able to present. themselves at a fair time for their needs.

Joe, is the warrant closed in Wenham? Had they already slated their agenda and closed their warrant. I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ve closed the one. I think, I know they won’t open the warrant. Uh, my understanding is they’re only, the only plan is to have the school question and the 3A question. It’s gonna

be a big meeting. So, so I’m, I’m hearing there’s, you know, obviously another divide here about what the best time is, and of course we, we have folks that work that Saturday is not a good option for Trump, some folks, and weekday weeknights are not, are not. Good for some folks. So we have another

divide here, and we as a select board have to look at everyone in the community and what is gonna be the best fit, and I do think that one aligning with one of them does make sense, but I also think that we have to look at how we can possibly

split the difference here and think about, do we do a weeknight, but look at the earlier time and try and see what is the best time that’s going to accommodate no matter what we’re going to get pushback from someone that can’t make that day or time, but we do have to try and

accommodate both. Well, everyone in this community that could potentially get out and vote. So I think that looking at the same data as one I’m looking at the Monday night but pushing that up to an earlier time where it is, you know, still lighter out at 6 o’clock and still able to have

individuals come there at that time, not waiting until 7:30 when it’s dark. I do think we have to try and accommodate and find a middle ground to actually allow the most amount of people to come and vote on this very important issue that’s impacting everyone. So I would, I would support Monday

in an earlier time. Yeah, I think, I think Monday at 6 probably makes sense then to offset it by half an hour just to give Eric a chance. He’s not gonna speak for half an hour. Give him a chance to speak before he goes to the other

meeting. So, I’m talking to a wall here. I, I Rosie Rosie we’re not insensitive. Rosie Rosie, let’s let’s watch your language, please. We all have different opinions. It doesn’t mean I’m insensitive. It doesn’t mean incentive because we have a different opinion. if you’ve not heard one thing I

did. I just didn’t we didn’t agree because we don’t agree doesn’t mean we’re insensitive to each other. hearing the needs of I did, but there’s a whole need of other people who want to do it on a weeknight. There’s a, there’s a preference that’s a no, I, I disagree. People of other sensitive to

the needs, please do not. It’s not Rosie, it’s not appropriate. Mr. Slutman, I might have some information that would help Rosie. I’m gonna open up for discussion I’m gonna limit it to one minute per person because it’s late right now, so please line up if you want to speak about the date, the time

before we start the debate, please raise your hand if you want to speak the date and time. OK. Go ahead. Get up, please stand up and get in line if you want to speak and time just so we don’t have a running. Blog here. Most I think I remember

all special town meetings are weeknights. And, uh, June 9th, Rosie, sunset is at 8:30 p.m. That doesn’t change the fact that they are seniors who cannot drive in the evening. Yeah And I do think that our our ATMs were changed to Saturday mornings because we had difficulty getting a quorum

on on Monday nights. But This is a question not about date and time, but about The purpose of the vote and what can be on the warrant at this special meeting. Could it be the case that the school committee could also ask its uh articles to be

placed on that for a vote at the same time. they don’t have any other articles. OK, so a vote here would in a sense be a final vote bringing some closure, at least at this time to the point of consolidation or no. Uh, so, I mean, I wasn’t

part of the question and answer period before, but there is no way that if you had a special town meeting sometime between the 9th and the 14th, and it failed that we would have time to get it on the, on the warrant for this 26th meeting.

It just, there’s not enough time to do it, um, so. I think the board’s discussing having a special town meeting to address the citizens petition, which is two questions. My expectations are gonna open and close, um, the warrant for that right here tonight. They’ll pick a time, they’ll say what it is.

We already know what the questions are because they were on the petition. It’ll be closed. There will be nothing else on this meeting and the questions that are on this meeting, I do not know how you would get them onto the warrant for the 26th, there wouldn’t be enough time. I just had a date in I just set

a date and time, June 7th is the last day for intramural soccer for all children in the town of Hamilton, along with Bosomma dance recitals, which if you’re trying to say that you’re gonna make it even for all parents. Sorry, keep going. If you’re going to try to say that you’re going to open up to

parents so that they can all equally vote June 7th is one of the bosomma dance recital dates along with the last David and real soccer. We could do it a week earlier. That’s another option. I just would support the Saturday. I think that’s where we got a massive turnout for the town meeting, and I

think it is, you know, the most fair for, you know, everybody in the seniors. There’s a gentleman, there’s a gentleman of mine, Mr. Fisher. Go ahead. Mr. Fisher, do you want to unmute and put on your camera? Hm Yes, I had a question for the board about which demographic is at a

disadvantage if the vote is taken on a weeknight. Uh, if you want to make a statement or ask a question about what your preference, that’s fine, but. We’re not gonna try and answer that question tonight. Well, we see. What do you, what do you think? Is that a question for me? Yes. Yes. Um, it seems to

me that the folks who show up on Saturday can cover a broad spectrum of age and ability, whereas I think that Rosie is right that uh on a weeknight, you are, uh, intentionally excluding folks from the older part of the spectrum. Oh Yeah Go ahead. Yeah. I, I like to expand upon what I think Ben

asked if, if one of them’s closed or not. I mean, there could be a request from you guys with this issue, right? You are 100% change in the demographics of the vote, whether it’s intentional or not, you’re doing that by putting on a weeknight. Or even a weekend after 4 p.m. It should be

apples to apples. Saturday morning. Same kind of again, I understand this parents who have soccer practice, whatnot, and I understand it’s not convenient to leave your child with your with your soccer coach, but you have options there. The older folks don’t have options to get here that latest no comments. You had your opportunity to go home and

I just want the acknowledgement that, excuse me, hold on, no comments, folks. Do you have a date and time. Opinion, please come up and let us know what it is. So two things I’d like to see if maybe the select board can make a request or an

inquiry into when I’m to say, can you move it to the 7th? Is that a possibility because of the challenge of The entire gamut of demographics showing up on a weeknight, and 2, I’d like you to acknowledge the fact that if you put it on a week night or a weekend after 4:00 p.m. you were 100% change

the demographics, and you know what that outcome is. It’s not fair. The you Saturday is unfair. I don’t know if we’re still introducing ourselves. I’m actually glad he chased 254 Bridge Street. I’ll just make a note, um, Saturdays in late May and June is graduation season and if we’re talking about

trying to get the most voters out. I know of at least 2 local graduations happening on June 7th, and there are likely more, but I know for sure there are 2. We’re talking about grandparents, we’re talking about older parents, we’re talking about kids who can vote. That’s a large demographic of

people that are going to have conflicts on a Saturday in late May and June. Uh, last person, please. I would just say that um I totally supported, I’m sorry and address, uh, sure, Siobhan Manion 15 Patton Drive, um. I work with a lot of elderly, um, in the medical field and It absolutely puts

older people at a disadvantage between their cataracts, their glaucoma, um, they cannot drive at night or even when it’s dusk out, they have difficulty seeing and can easily fall, and they’re not supposed to be out at night, and I don’t think it’s fair to put them in that situation where they are, uh,

at risk medically when other people, even though, you know, I’ve had to miss meetings because I’ve had other conflicts and had to work and do other things on a Saturday when there’ve been other meetings. In important votes, but I understand that, but it’s not, you, you’re disadvantaging an entire group of people based on something that they cannot

help, they can have, there’s no mediation for it, even if you drive them, they still can’t see to walk properly, and I just don’t think it’s right. Right, so I have a question. Joe, can I ask you a question? Sure. Yeah, go ahead, um, Joe. And I don’t know, like this is a, it’s a procedural question,

I suppose, but they’re, they’ve already kind of opened up their special town meeting for June 9th, you know, how would they even go about moving it at this point in time. Is that even feasible? I think it because they’re changing the demographic too, so we wanna, then, but, but that’s their

issue. We’re, we’re we’re all in this together, Rosie don’t know why we don’t do more together, you know, this is a school district question. We’re all in it together, right? It’s for a school district project and I would, I would, I would just say I think that, you know, the The board wanted to ask

through me, I could ask the. I, I already discussed with them the timing there and it didn’t seem like they were gonna be inclined to move the time. So I’m moving the date, I don’t think is gonna get you any further, but I can ask.

I’m happy to ask. So But, you know, we sort of have to come up with something that I, so. My, and we can go down the road but can I just say what the two options are. It sounds like what I’m, what I’m hearing, right? And it sounds like one option is

during the day on June 7th. Saturday you’re saying yeah. Saturday during the daytime, June 7th. The other option that we’re discussing, it sounds like is maybe moving it up and doing it around 6 o’clock on Monday, June 9th. Correct. But those are the kind of the two options that we’ve sort of

honed in on here. Right? Correct. OK. I just wanted to and so that’s what we’re trying to now deliberate and then decide on right. So Oh, I just, uh, Tosh Blake Samore Street, uh, just, um, one point, uh, to respond to Ben, um, I believe our town meetings respectively in each town were not

identically at the same time, so conceivably since Hamilton had our town’s, uh, votes on mutual issues like school voting offset presumably our vote could have affected or not when I, so I think your point is moot. In other words, people could easily get the word out that what the vote went one way

and we didn’t say, well, Wenham’s votes invalid because it was held at I believe at at noon. where ours voted, our, our meeting started at 9 o’clock or so, so I don’t think that’s really, you know, there’s no sort of like scientific way to say that there’s going to be uh

influence whether the debates are offset. Am I correct? clarify, my main thought of holding on the same day and also like the advantage of holding them at the same time is that our town exists in in kind of a media ecosystem where If you say, this is the day that we’re voting on this issue

at this time. It keeps it really clear and clean and simple amongst the entire community about what’s happening and when. I wasn’t trying to speak to any advantages or disadvantages or how, how, you know, How the votes affect each other, that interplay just simply so let’s

get, I just wanna, I wanna end public comment and sort of we sort of have to make a decision and vote on it one way or the other, right? So my opinion is that it should be on the same date should be on the 9th. I, I think it’s 6 o’clock on the

night it’s gonna give everybody in town the most to build whatever demographic most ability to get there and to vote and to vote under one matches at one time, and so. That’s my opinion. If somebody else has a strong opinion or you want to vote or something, but we don’t have a motion yet.

We had a motion no one seconded, so we need some sort of motion to to make, I’ll make another motion. I’ll make a motion to accept the petition to call a special town meeting to reconsider the schools, uh, consolidated school project and for the select board to schedule a special town meeting

for June 9th at 6:00 p.m. I have a second. Uh Sounds like you don’t. Yeah, no, I, I, I’m struggling with not doing. The same thing we did last time. It’s hard enough and divisive enough that it’s coming back. I get all the discussion and then to say we’re also changing this, and that is our choice.

It’s not from the petition. Is changing, is pulling a lot with that will impact the boat, I think. And Since we don’t have a second, can we make another motion, Mr. Chair? Yeah, we. I make a motion that we hold a special time meeting. Um On Saturday, June 7th at. 10:00 a.m.? In order to address the

two questions on the citizen petition on that on that. Nobody Oh. Somebody can second a motion and you generally Well, is there also an option to talk to Wenham about a Saturday. I can I can really, I gotta, I gotta say we’re already in a really bad type window here. So like, I mean to have a

conversation with them and then bring it back to the board for you to, it’s, I just don’t know how we’re gonna have time. I think we need a decision tonight and I also think to go back to the fact that like um the one on the, the Monday town

meeting, I mean, at the same time, I mean, this is, yeah, this has, this issue has caused a big divide in this town. It’s been a lot of time and energy that has been devoted to the boards. To the citizens, a lot of effort and stress and strain.

I think there is a just overall emotional health benefit of having it on the same day and be done with it on the same day. And I think that we need to go and there is still a motion on the table that I believe, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I mean the most,

there’s not a motion on, on the, on the floor now because in 2nd, but. Rosemary made a motion. So what I’m suggesting, what I’m suggesting is this, is that we, is that we is that as a board we have to make a decision tonight, OK? And that if we, in,

in the caveat can be that we can go back to one of them one of them willing to move it to Saturday, we can always move it at the next meeting. Like let’s do this. Let’s, I would need to we need to pick a date. Yeah. To move this thing forward can.

Rose, I mean, at this point, I’ll be honest, like, I think the physical limitations of a, of a voting block, like that there, there’s a, there’s an actual voting block who have actual real physical limitations. And There are a lot of limitations? The inability to drive at dusk or

at night. And that in addition, I think just like the general like safety, health, wellbeing aspects that have been raised and I think we all know someone who has those challenges as well. So it’s it’s not a big leap. I think for parents and families, you know, who are trying to juggle graduations,

recitals, all the things that we all are looking forward to celebrating after a very long winter and spring, um, and at the end of the school year. Those things are all really important as well. This, this issue though, for, for parents and families and and children is also really important.

And It pains me to personally say that it’s like, OK, maybe I have to miss a recital. Maybe I have to miss something and show up. That’s me personally, and I just want to recognize that I’m See that pain and that that is a very tough place, but there’s

also For an elderly population, there is a real health and safety risk. And So I’m, I’m prepared to support Rosie’s motion at this time. But does it need to be restated because there was a long gap there and there was no seconding of it. Yeah, we, we, to be clear. OK. So I move that. Uh, Hamilton

hold a special town meeting pursuant to citizen’s petition to address two questions, uh, previously voted on at the April 5th. And you town meeting, um, and that meeting will be on June Saturday morning, June 7th at. 10:00 a.m. I second that motion. Right, so further discussion. So, I’ll start with

that. So we have not run that this state by Any of our infrastructure right now to see what’s available at that time. Right. Um, I will not be around that at that time. So I have Many other commitments that make it unable for me to come on that Saturday. So a lot of people have things that are

unable to come, so. Um, on Monday night at 6 o’clock seemed like. during the week when most people were free and available, so not in the middle of a Saturday during graduation, end of the year. I have a graduate, so. Um, so I, I, I, I just don’t think that once again it’s like you said, every

town meeting was a was at night for many, many years in this town, and we had one a couple of years ago that was very successful, so I, I, I. In terms of supporting the motion, I can order one because logistically we have not figured out if it’s even possible. Yeah. So. Are we at

the point then to put it to that’s my opinion. OK, so we’ll, should we vote? No. Any other discussion? Well, uh, like I told you, I’m not around in the 9th, so either way I’m not here. I’m out of town, um. So I wouldn’t be there on Monday.

I think it’s gonna be the same across the board. We’re gonna have trouble getting a quorum for the select board anyway because I’ll have to move some things around for that Saturday. So Are you here on Saturday, Bill? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not around the week during the week. I just sorry I Another

knife. Yeah, got it. So do we not have a quorum then for Saturday meeting? is that what I’m here said here said he’ll be. I misheard him. I thought he said he wouldn’t be. I just think it’s important to, to replicate, you know, bringing it back. I’m supportive of that. I want to do that. Um, I’ll

support the petition, but I do think it’s important to a change in the day it seems like it’s stacking the deck a little bit. Yeah I don’t understand that. Because we want a different the, the It will change the demographic of the vote as we brought up. I mean, clearly, I mean, we did change

meetings because we didn’t have attendances and quorums on, on weeknights, and there’s a reason there are limitations for some people to be out in the dark and at night. I, I live with it. I know it, um, and I know that a lot of people

won’t be able to go and that meeting will last 4 or 5 hours easily. How about May 14th? Is that still within the window? May 14th I mean June 14th. We have a motion. Oh sorry. I was just trying to come up with another Saturday option. So we

have a motion in a second. Yeah. Any other discussion? No, I, I support a Saturday, whatever it might be if the infrastructure doesn’t work, then we’ll call a meeting right away to do something, but I, I feel comfortable with a Saturday. Those in favor, say I. A. A. Yeah. So did you vote? OK, so.

41 in favor 41 41 in favor, I can’t be here. Right. Um, can I ask for you to open a meeting, uh, open the warrant for that special time meeting to place these two items from the petition on the warrant as the two questions and then for.

I move that we open the warrant for June 7th at 10 a.m. OK, any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye Uh Uh. Um, and need a motion to accept the two questions as proposed in the uh petition. Have a motion to accept the two questions as

written in the petition. I move that we accept the motions, uh, as outlined in the petition. I have a second. Second Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. I posed. For one. Olo. And Um, I just Yeah But I We’re pretty uh at this point, are we generally as a board feeling comfortable with

that that date can go forward as long as there’s no logistical challenges and I’ll do everything I can to get that date and then is it appropriate then to close the warrant as well since it’s really just to that we’re talking about, yeah. Oh sorry, I couldn’t. OK, I’d encourage that. Go next then.

Have a motion to close the warrant the warrant. I have a second. Uh, second by Ben any further discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. A 5. Alright, I’ll have STM calendar and uh for this meeting in the June 26th together so you’ll be able to see everything between now and the end of June, uh,

for your next meeting. Unless Can’t unless we don’t have a room to run in it, but I think we’ll be OK. All right. Want to move to the next items? Do I have a motion to approve the use of cemetery perpetual care funds for an annual grub treatment at Hamilton Cemetery. So I have a second. Any further

discussion? They’ve done a great job. No more grubs. Save the grubs I was in favor say aye aye. Um I’m gonna table the uh select board’s late liaison roles, but I want, give me your full we’ll do that through emails. And and feedback that we need to talk about talk about this sheet talk about

fill talk about that talk about this sheet fill that sheet, yeah talk about this sheet fill that, the number in order of priority, OK. Um Uh, Joe’s gonna also in relation to that submit an agenda setting schedule where it’s gonna alternate, it’s in your, it’s in your um packets of you any

dates you have a problem with, let us know. We can always make adjustments, but that’s what we proposed us. So we need to vote on that, Joe? No, you don’t need that. I don’t know why it says discussed but my bad and there’s two things on new

business, um. So regarding 3A, right? So we still have a town meeting scheduled for. June 26th because we talked to the to the people and they would not have been ready by an earlier June date. So at this point we’re still keeping a separate town meeting for 3A, um. Currently right now we’re

in a A parallel process of investigating like we talked about investigating um litigation and a parallel process, so we have to set an executive session to talk about what. Wenham has done and what we might do to follow it, but Joe, I don’t know if you want to get even give an update on

Wyndham’s lawsuit. I believe I sent to you today a draft, uh, a draft complaint from KP Law along with other information related to other similar but slightly different actions taking place in other communities, um, town council would be available to join us in an executive session to discuss that or have you comment on the draft complaint

make changes, etc. and make a decision from there, um. Incidentally, you know, if you could pick a date sometime in next week, perhaps next Monday or something like that we can uh try to make sure we get that. You know, Laid out for the the the correct process and if something came up and we were

unable to go forward with the 7th, then I could, uh, we could add to that same date an open session to discuss the change of date, but I don’t, I don’t know that that will be necessary, but just saying that. So, sorry, when do you want to

have executive session? Next Monday, even if you do it in as an executive session, you could do it, uh, as a virtual only meeting you could do next Monday night. What time? choice. Virtual, be a virtual so you can do whatever time. Tell me what time. I think I’m going to be on an airplane at that time.

So you wouldn’t be able to attend. Is, is there a time earlier or later than the normal meeting time? Uh, not really. It’s a long flight, I think. Um, is there a different date that would work if it’s just, it doesn’t have to be that was, that was just a suggestion virtual and could do

probably. Tuesday or or Wednesday that week, fun. That’s your Tuesday 13th. That would, that’s fine with me. I’ll be virtual, but yeah, I can do it. What time????????? 567. I think 6:45. That’s right. 45, um. than there was obviously the uh There’s a 10 citizen. that was filed too.

Yeah, I don’t know, I mean, other than what was in the in the packet I haven’t really looked into it but yeah there was a a second separate uh citizens resident action uh that was take a complaint that was filed, but you’ll have information on that in the council can go over that with

you during the meet. So without going to whole 3A debate, what, what, I just want to clarify question. uh, did you say you’re exploring options for a lawsuit or you’re committing to, I just want to where the board boring. I’m sorry, exploring, so it’s not committed yet. No, not yet, not until we have

executive. OK. So Tuesday, 6:45. Tuesday the 13th. Tuesday 5:13 at 6:45 p.m. yeah. You, we could keep going, Rosemary. I don’t know if I could. Do I hear something? Do I hear something? Oh yes, I’d like to make a motion to adjourn. I have a second. Any further discussion. Hell no. I was in

favor say aye. Alright, thank you, everyone. I really