00:03:17,430	S1:
Welcome to the Monday, November 3rd Select Board meeting. I'm going to call it to order. Um, a lot to go over tonight. And we have one member on the call for at least the first few minutes, Tom's I'm going to do a roll call vote. So we'll start with, uh, Tom Myers.

00:03:38,729	S2:
Tom Myers here.

00:03:40,000	S3:
Ben Ben glues are here.

00:03:42,000	S4:
All right, Rosie Kennedy here.

00:03:43,629	S1:
And William Olsen here. And Bill Wilson is, uh, is on PTO, so he's absent today. All right. Um, so we'll first go through the, uh. board and committee openings. Affordable Housing Trust has one opening. Conservation Commission has two openings. The Community Preservation Committee has one opening for member of the Historic District Commission. Finance Advisory Committee has two openings. The Historic District Commission has two openings for three year terms. Two openings for two year terms, and one must be a resident of a historic district and one must be a resident realtor. We have two at large openings on the Human Rights Commission as well. Um, and now we'll take 30 minutes at most max out of our meeting to, uh, have public comment. Um, for anything on the agenda or not on the agenda. So we'll start with, uh, anybody wants to come up in the room and then we'll go to the the zoom call. Uh, name, address. And we'll start the three minute timer.

00:04:54,430	S5:
All right. Thank you. Uh, this is, uh. Can you hear me? Good. Go ahead. Oh, good. Uh, Tosh. Blake. Sagamore street. Uh, last select board meeting on October 20th, I attempted to comment on a scheduled agenda item that was switched without warning by Town Manager and acting Chair Wilson, and I was cut off mid comment by Mr. Wilson. My comment was regarding new information in the meeting packets about the board's final town manager evaluation, specifically misleading positive remarks in the report about Joe's conduct and competence in communications with the board. I wanted to comment on the report before the board signed off on that report, but it was rubber stamped by the board at Joe's last minute suggestion, precluding public comment, as this board is aware of multiple on the record allegation of Joe lying to the board in the public on town matters, the town Manager evaluation report falsely praises Joe's competence relating to legal matters, which is concerning as he has given false legal advice to the board during meetings, which I cited with timestamps in past comments, notably at the August 18th Select Board meeting. A further concern former Finchem chair David Wanger, in a letter to the October 17th H.W. news, also accused the town manager of making a false statement in regard to the current legality of Hamilton's town meeting vote margin for school Committee appropriations, as the board tonight considers Joe's contract and future employment with the town. These matters should be discussed during that agenda item. Otherwise, it looks like the board is complicit in Joe's unbecoming conduct, not least by approving a false town manager evaluation. Thank you.

00:06:40,100	S6:
Good evening, Scott Madden, 12 Old Cart Road. Um, I'm going to talk about some budgetary requests. Given that this is kind of budget season, you've got a lot of important meetings coming up and several failed votes for Consolidated School. So I asked you to consider some changes for FY 27, especially considering that five board chair meeting. I'm not sure there's any public input to that. It's just chair people meeting. So here's here's our chance. Um, our grammar schools are older than me, and education has changed a lot in the seven decades since, uh, since that has happened. Uh, so I think there's things that we need to think about that are in modern campaigns, how you communicate with folks. So first, I think your 27 budget should include, uh, a reasonable chunk for social media, um, for the select board, for the planning board, for the fin com, um, you know, fin comps, uh, summary and advice, town meeting. I'll give you an example. There were 400 people who said they were first time attendees at our last town meeting. And I suggest yourselves just try using your phone, because that's what people use to go get the information about the votes that we were taking or ATM. When you got to get the page 89 of the warrant, if you can find it to find the the fin com presentation. Those are just not modern ways of communicating with people. Secondly, I ask that you initiate a school renovations app annual capital fund, and I think that should require an ATM vote. So every year you bring that up. But do the math of what some of the renovation ideas might be. Concepts. Million or $2. Ask the voters every ATM. Find out. Do they support that or not? Uh, because, you know, we don't know which renovation option we're going to be pursuing, but we're going to be pursuing something. And not planning for that is just terribly imprudent. So we ought to start preparing as soon as possible so that whenever that final number is as big as it's going to be, is in a total shock. And third, I ask that you ask the school committee to form a renovation and outreach committee with a charter that's way more expansive of what they had for the last building committee. It didn't work. So, uh, what's the funding? How is that money going to come to us? How is the voting going to happen? Is there a fundraising that can happen? You know, we didn't get Cutler and Winthrop just fall out of the, you know, out of nowhere, those families generated generously to our towns. More facility options. There was no real option presented to us. It was just all or nothing when there's always options in life. So we didn't have a choice last time. And I ask that you helped create them and most importantly, communicate them to all the voters. Thank you.

00:09:55,169	S1:
Thank you.

00:09:59,629	S1:
Anyone else?

00:10:01,529	S7:
It's difficult for me to stand. So if I can speak in here, this is my first time in this kind of a meeting.

00:10:07,899	S1:
Oh, it's like we have some feedback here. Pardon? Sort of getting a little feedback.

00:10:12,070	S8:
You have to come.

00:10:13,269	S9:
Speak at the mic.

00:10:13,929	S7:
All right. I'll I'll.

00:10:15,169	S9:
There's no way we can do that.

Yeah. 00:10:17,830	S1:
Why are we getting feedback?

00:10:19,370	S7:
I'm coming.

00:10:20,070	S9:
She's in the room. That's the first time that's happened today.

00:10:22,269	S7:
Thank you. I got it. There we go.

00:10:26,629	S9:
Yeah. Sorry about that. We're going to need to make it.

00:10:28,629	S7:
I'm old, you guys. I understand you're going to talk tonight about the, um, the zoning on Gordon Conwell and the only. The only comment I want to make is that I would ask you to please consider zoning in a way that would bring the most revenue to the town, because the more revenue you can get from that project, the more relief you can provide for taxpayers. And as you guys know, Hamilton, we're heavily taxed and it would be nice not to have to be asked, for example, for the schools and stuff like that for that large amount of money that would that's difficult for many of us. So just that's all I'm asking is, as you consider the zoning, to please consider the revenue we'll bring to the town.

00:11:12,070	S1:
Sorry. Can you name and address, please?

00:11:13,899	S7:
Can I address.

00:11:15,730	S1:
Name and address? Yes, please.

00:11:16,730	S7:
Oh 33 Baker Avenue.

00:11:18,529	S1:
In your name, of course.

00:11:19,899	S7:
Sanders. I'm sorry.

00:11:21,200	S1:
Sorry.

No. 00:11:21,700	S7:
Thank you. I'm first time at a meeting.

00:11:23,370	S1:
I apologize. We're in. We're in. The future, we will have a different microphone set up for people who can't come up. So we'll. We'll work on that.

Yep. 00:11:31,929	S7:
Beth, Herr, Asbury Street. I haven't been here so long. Have you missed me? Yeah. Yeah, bill, I'm getting a laugh, so I'm going to take that as a yes. Um, I just wanted to follow up on what Scott said. I feel like, um, communication was really lacking. Except for the school, um, people who are connected in with the school. So I'm not really sure how to do a better job communicating, but I think that the last vote ended up being what it was because people finally started knowing what was happening. So people with kids in town obviously know because they were constantly hearing about it. The other thing I wanted to mention, since we were talking about town meeting issues, is I would like to make a suggestion. Um, well, I had sent you guys something a while back on a list of ways for people to think. A town meeting, just like, uh, it's like a little question list to go through as you're processing how to vote on something, so I can send that again. I'd love you guys to consider adding that to the warrant. And then the other thing I would like to add to the warrant is when someone on a committee votes no. Or different from the majority, that you not just have the majority's opinion, but you also allow, if the person wants to, to write a minority opinion, basically saying why they decided to vote opposite the majority dissenting vote. Yeah. Just because it just helps like flush out the whole reasoning and why different people have different opinions. And I think we have more informed voters if we do that. So I would really like you guys to consider that. And that was just a thought after Scott shared. So thank you.

00:13:22,870	S9:
Thank you.

00:13:26,169	S1:
Good night. Anyone else?

00:13:33,629	S10:
Hi, Nancy, 215 Woodbury Street. I'm in a butter of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. And while I absolutely understand, since I pay taxes in this town like everyone else, that our taxes are high because we don't have greater bills. One of my major concerns is the development of the seminary property that keeps in its mind. As you finalize the development plan, as the body gets finalized, that there are serious issues with respect to groundwater protection, wastewater treatment, which is being done very effectively right now. But when the seminary in the future intends potentially to sell middle campus and upper campus lands, the issue is going to be very, very difficult to accommodate because of percolation as well as the.

00:14:39,029	S10:
Wastewater treatment facilities design. And so while money is important, environmental concerns are equally important, as are the effects on neighborhood and traffic and all the other things that we've been talking about. So I implore you, as well as the planning board, and you both got emails from me today to think carefully as you finalize any development plan for a future beyond those apartments. Thank you.

00:15:11,269	S1:
Thank you.

00:15:15,769	S1:
Anyone else to anyone? Anyone on the zoom can raise their hand virtually and Joe will call you.

Okay. 00:15:28,500	S1:
All right. Thank you.

00:15:31,769	S1:
All right. We are going to move to the consent agenda. We have three items on the consent agenda. We agenda. We have meeting minutes from September 23rd, uh, minutes from October 6th, and we have the Ed Fund Christmas tree sale at Patton.

00:15:49,669	S9:
I know there's a typo in the in the agenda that says Christmas Tree sale, but it's a tree sale.

00:15:54,500	S1:
Yeah, I got that. Any comments or emotion?

00:16:00,070	S8:
I move that we accept the the consent agenda.

00:16:03,899	S1:
I have a second.

00:16:04,899	S3:
Second.

00:16:05,799	S1:
Second by Ben. We'll do a roll call vote. Any further discussion?

00:16:11,330	S1:
All right. We'll start with, uh, Tom Myers.

00:16:14,970	S2:
Tom Myers I.

00:16:15,870	S1:
Ben.

00:16:16,730	S3:
Ben Kaluza, I.

00:16:18,169	S1:
Rosemary.

00:16:18,700	S8:
Rosie Kennedy I.

00:16:20,529	S9:
And I asked us to table these. They were not advertised properly. Just you have to ask the table to the next meeting.

00:16:26,929	S1:
All right. So on the agenda tonight, we're going to table the first two, uh, National Grid poll hearings and move on to the warrant. So a top third topic will be the first topic tonight is to reopen the warrant. Um, because during the construction process for the new town hall, we have found that, um, we need to vote on an easement for a utility easement for National Grid to put the new service into town hall.

00:16:53,200	S9:
Town council is on the line.

00:16:54,169	S1:
Um, so, Josephine working with town council and to get that. And so what happens is it has to be a town vote. So we can't just vote on amongst us. We did it for a few years ago for the cell phone tower. Same process. So, um, Joe, what exactly would you do tonight? Just open the warrant and.

00:17:10,829	S9:
Then you need to vote to open the warrant. Um, I believe that the warrant that, uh, Tom included included, uh, a draft article for you. Just in case that you decide to add this, to have a discussion about whether or not to add the article. And, um, Tim Olson is here to answer questions, as am I, but really, it's paperwork. The if we don't get the easement, the national grid won't do the work, and we won't ever be able to go back into town also. I think we assumed probably wrongly, but we felt that National Grid Services, the current town hall, and we would just use the same easement. But when that service was created, however, far back, there was never an easement recorded. So when Nash Grid National Grid became aware of it, it may not have been required at that time that you're probably talking, you know, 60 or 70 years ago, 80 years ago. So it may not have been a requirement at the time. I don't have any idea. I'm not trying to speak out of turn, but their national grid couldn't find evidence of an existing easement in place for the town hall. They asked for an easement in order to do an easement. We need a town meeting vote.

00:18:15,569	S1:
So open the open the warrant. Add this topic to it. But we don't need to add specific language. That language will come later.

00:18:22,569	S9:
It'll be in the it'll. If you if you agree to add it, it'll be in the draft warrant you'll look at tonight and discuss and then get sent to Tom to find time as well.

Okay. 00:18:32,970	S3:
Just to clarify. So it's an easement for a utility pole on the.

00:18:38,470	S9:
And the associated and the the line. And so it's an easement path to from the street to the building.

00:18:44,230	S3:
Okay. Standard dimensions and widths. Tim. Sorry we're not giving up any future flexibility in terms of what we might want to be able to do with the property to enable this easement.

00:18:59,200	S11:
Tim Olson, DPW director it's essentially in the same location. It's it'll be underground. Okay. So it's not going to be an aerial. It's underground conduit primary.

Great. 00:19:10,269	S3:
And then Tom drafted it. Has Council reviewed it?

00:19:15,000	S9:
Tom drafted it. Tom was our council to draft the article. The warrant article?

00:19:18,670	S3:
The easement from council, I think. Tom Meyer sorry.

00:19:21,069	S9:
Yeah. Sorry. Tom. Tom McInerney. Town council.

Okay. 00:19:24,630	S3:
All right.

00:19:26,700	S1:
And similar process that we did for the cell phone tower years ago. Same. Yes. Same. Same time. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, do I have a motion to open? The one?

00:19:36,000	S8:
Yeah. So I move that we reopen the warrant for special town meeting December 9th.

00:19:42,029	S1:
I have a second.

00:19:43,099	S3:
Second.

00:19:44,029	S1:
Any further discussion or questions? All right, we'll do a roll call. Vote. Tom myers.

00:19:48,470	S2:
Tom Myers, I.

00:19:50,170	S1:
Ben.

00:19:50,730	S3:
Ben Kaluza.

00:19:51,329	S1:
I Rosemary.

00:19:52,269	S8:
Rosie Kennedy I.

00:19:53,430	S1:
And Bill Olson I so warrants open Joe and we'll add it now. We'll add it when we go through that item the next.

00:20:02,130	S9:
Uh yeah. So we can if I'll just.

00:20:05,829	S1:
Vote now to add this to the to the warrant. Now, are you want to vote later.

00:20:10,369	S9:
Assuming that the board would want to do this, I asked Tom to go ahead and include an article that could always be taken out. So in your draft warrant, um, article three two on page six of the warrant Reads to see if the town will vote to authorize the Select Board to grant to Massachusetts Electric Company, also known as National Grid. On such terms and conditions as the Select Board deems appropriate. A permanent utility easement in, through, under, over, and across a portion or portions of the town or property located at 577 Bay road and described in deeds dated April 8th, 1897, and book 1514, page 354, April 26th, 1926, and book 2678, page 49. November 26th, 1979, and book 6679, page 747 and March 13th and March 13th, 1982. In book 6938, page 48 recorded with the Essex South County Registry of Deeds. Which portion of portions are approximately shown on the sketch plan on file with the town clerk? That's not there yet, but it will be, as may be revised, to take any action thereon relative to. So it's basically just authorizing an easement for the purposes we just discussed on town owned property at 577 Bay Beirut. Tom McInerney is here to answer any specific questions yet.

00:21:29,630	S1:
All right, so I have a motion to add.

00:21:36,569	S1:
Article on the previous page.

00:21:38,130	S9:
3-3-2I.

00:21:39,970	S1:
Have a motion to add article 3-2 regarding an easement for National Grid at Town Hall.

00:21:53,529	S8:
Okay, so I move that we add article 3-2, an easement for National Grid and two an easement two National grid for Town Hall.

00:22:09,869	S3:
Second.

00:22:11,269	S1:
As written in the in the.

00:22:12,930	S8:
And as written in the warrant.

00:22:15,930	S1:
Okay.

Okay. 00:22:17,130	S3:
Second.

00:22:17,730	S1:
Second. All right, so for further discussion, Tom McInerney, you're on the call. Um, so this has been reviewed by National Grid. Dotted. Dotted the cross T's. Or is the language need one more review?

00:22:31,470	S12:
So, Mr. Chair and members of the board, thank you for having me this evening. Um, no, they wouldn't necessarily review the warrant article, but obviously the terms of the specific easement will be reviewed. And, um, well, I'm sure there will be probably some back and forth. Probably not a whole lot. These are fairly standard between the town and national grid, but the warrant article is not something they would typically review. This is a standard form article that we've used, you know, dozens and dozens of times for these types of easements.

00:23:06,630	S9:
Ultimately, if the warrant article passes the town meeting, the easement itself will be signed by the Selectboard.

00:23:13,430	S12:
That's correct. Yes, that will be a separate document will be the actual easement document. The warrant article just authorizes the Selectboard to proceed in accordance with the requirements of chapter 40.

00:23:24,029	S1:
And a simple majority. Simple majority.

Tom. 00:23:29,099	S12:
Correct. Simple majority on this one. Yes. That's correct.

00:23:34,829	S13:
All right.

00:23:36,829	S1:
Any further questions or comments? I told you a roll call vote. Tom myers.

00:23:44,430	S2:
Tom Myers. Hi, Ben.

00:23:46,299	S3:
Ben Kaluza, I.

00:23:47,869	S1:
Rosemary.

00:23:48,730	S8:
Rosie Kennedy I.

00:23:49,869	S1:
William Olson I and now we have to vote to close the Warren. I have a motion to close.

Warren. 00:23:54,730	S8:
I move that we close the warrant for the special town meeting scheduled for December 9th.

00:24:00,230	S1:
Do I have a second?

00:24:01,130	S3:
Second.

00:24:02,299	S1:
Any further discussion? All right, so we'll do a roll call. Vote. Tom myers.

00:24:07,230	S2:
Tom Myers I.

00:24:08,670	S1:
Ben.

00:24:09,329	S3:
Ben goes I.

00:24:10,430	S1:
Mary.

00:24:10,900	S8:
Rosie Kennedy I.

00:24:12,130	S1:
Am Olson I. Okay. All right. Now we're gonna move on to the, uh, development agreement with Gordon Conwell Well that we had at our last meeting. We had done a straw vote to identify the open areas, and we've worked really hard over the last couple of weeks to, uh, to resolve those open items. I think we're all in agreement with them. But tonight we're going to talk about it and then vote on it. And, um, and I know there was some comment tonight from a Buttars and people in the community. And so what I would say is that, yes, we are what we're voting tonight is our development agreement, which is different than the zoning bylaw. And so we're going to continue to work on that because there are two things that happen in unison, but by two different elected boards. So we will continue to work with the planning board on the on the zoning which will be at which will be voted on at town meeting in December. But in terms of the development agreement, um, we are we had two open items after last meeting where we talked about one was the um, the open say the, the, the, the heritage landscape and sort of how we could write into it that while they occupied, if they did not sell and occupied the property, they would have Dover rights. But once the property sold, we would have the ability to protect the heritage landscape. Um, and so I think that that, um, we're good on that one and we can talk about that a little bit. And then the second item was funding of the, uh, traffic study.

00:25:44,529	S8:
Um.

00:25:45,730	S1:
And the $20,000 we added to the, to the pot.

00:25:48,599	S8:
It's, it's in the development agreement.

00:25:50,170	S1:
And development to fund the traffic study.

00:25:51,869	S8:
Right. But I think the, um, public access was another one. But I think we have we have gone as far as we can go. So we're we're satisfied with where that is.

00:26:04,069	S13:
Correct.

00:26:05,569	S1:
So I kind of will go down the road. Rosemary, why don't you start first? I know you've sort of been.

00:26:12,329	S8:
Tinkering.

00:26:12,799	S1:
Is involved in this because you went dead. Comments back and forth. The mayor and I believe that we're in good shape and everything. And Marilyn come up. Maybe we're done. But why don't you give a quick summary, Rosemary, where you think we're at and what we should do tonight?

00:26:23,670	S8:
Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to add the proverbial belt and suspenders to make sure that for any subsequent purchaser that all of these terms stay in place. And so I've added some language about that. Um, and just clarifying that the subdistricts are the upper campus, middle campus, lower campus, heritage landscape and natural zone. Um, because the district itself is the whole, um, Browns Hill overlay district. So when we refer to them individually, um, we just wanted to make sure that we use the correct terminology. Um, one other thing that I added. Uh, let's see, let's see But a lot of the things that we're talking about are pursuant to the zoning amendment. So we, um, amended some of the language to refer directly to the to the Browns Hill overlay district. Um, let's see. And just one thing that we were talking about was the concern for a future developer, perhaps not the currently planned developer, but in the future. Um, 209 apartments. And we wanted to make sure that given the fact that they the any future developer owner of the apartments will be able to make some, um, additions and, um, and enlarge the footprint a little bit. And we wanted to make sure that all the one bedrooms didn't become three bedrooms. So the important thing is to make sure that we have the 209 rental units and not exceeding the current number of bedrooms. However, there will be just a little bit of tinkering to that language. The current number of bedrooms plus 5 or 10 cap at 330. Good. Okay, so so that's fine. So we will just edit. Um, um, one be apartment projects and it will be 209 rental dwelling units. And the number of apartments will be capped at 330.

00:28:54,000	S1:
Over bedrooms within the apartments.

00:28:55,700	S5:
Right.

00:28:55,900	S8:
Well what did I say? Apartments. I'm sorry, I meant bedrooms.

Okay. 00:28:59,569	S1:
209. Right. 209 apartments and accommodation within there and up. 330 bedrooms.

00:29:04,700	S8:
Yeah. Okay. So I think. Yeah. So that's a little bit of an increase, but it doesn't put an unlimited number of bedrooms. Um, and then also, I think one of the important things is talking about the monetary contribution to the town. Um, there will be two contributions, $100,000 upon the passage of the body by town by town meeting, and $350,000 will be paid on the conveyance of the apartment project and the two remaining contributions, $400,000 and then $300,000. Those were going to be upon the sale of the upper campus and the middle campus. But a more fair way to say that is to say that, um, depending on what percentage of the middle campus is sold, say, maybe they sell 50% of the middle campus, then half of that planned contribution will be due, and then the other half would be due when the other 50% or whatever um, apportioned amount was sold. Does everybody understand that? Am I making that clear? Okay, so that was something I felt needed. Just a little bit of tweaking. And then other than that.

Yeah. 00:30:32,369	S8:
Other than that, just the only other rather important thing is, um, successors and assigns, which is um, section uh, section one M um. Originally it was stated that once this agreement is executed, one party, either party may record it at the Registry of Deeds. I think it's important that we talk about who will do that. And so, um, the language that I've changed is that once executed, the deed, um, this, this development agreement shall be recorded by the town in the Essex County Registry of Deeds. That way everybody knows it will get done. And by whom?

00:31:21,029	S1:
Good.

00:31:21,930	S8:
That's all.

00:31:22,599	S1:
That's all.

00:31:23,130	S14:
That's good work.

00:31:23,930	S1:
I'm pretty excited about the work that we've done and the agreement that we've come up with. I think it's a win win for the town. And, um, and I think that allows Gordon to hopefully maintain there and stay there as our, as our neighbor and, and help the town maintain its character. So, um, but um, then anything else you want to add to it?

00:31:44,769	S3:
I just want to say thank you to both. Uh, Rosemary, I know you've been working on the longest and the hardest, probably out of all of us. And for Bill coming in to help out here, um, over the past several months. Uh, thank you to the planning board as well. They've been working in parallel very diligently with the public hearings and receiving comments on the uses and tables. Um, thanks, Mark Connors as well for the summaries over the past couple of weeks, getting us all up to speed for for tonight. So it's been a real team effort. And last not least, thank you to the seminary as well for being a good collaborative partners and really negotiating in good faith. You know, both the community, the Buttars as well as the Selectboard and our representatives. And it's been a long process over the past several months to get here and a lot of give and take. So I just wanted to give some gratitude for all the hard work. I think you all summarize the benefits. And just even in the past two weeks, these last little modifications, I think those are those. I'm really glad that you caught that. And so instead of being a cliff payment, we've got sort of a nice smoother ramp. So we're getting more money along the way. That's a really good catch. So thank you as well as the additional 20 K. And so that would be the 20,000 for the traffic study that would be directed by the town? Presumably. Or is it directed by someone else?

00:33:13,769	S1:
Could it be in collaboration? But. But they're going to pay for it. Okay.

Yes. 00:33:18,130	S3:
All right. So that's another good win over the past couple of weeks. So thank you.

00:33:23,730	S1:
Um, so what I'd like to do.

00:33:25,000	S9:
Is.

00:33:25,569	S1:
Wait. I want to go to Tom first. Tom, anything else you want to add, Tom Myers?

00:33:32,069	S1:
Is he on his way here? He might find his way here. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to vote on it. And then I'd like to have a little further. So make a motion second to motion. And then. And I want to have Marilyn speak to make sure he's in agreement with it. Because that's the most important thing, because we want him to have a go on record agreement. And then we'll have ten more minutes of any public comment.

00:33:53,369	S8:
And then I'd just as a final.

00:33:56,170	S14:
Comment, I'd like. Okay, fine.

00:33:58,029	S1:
So can I have a motion to approve the get the wording right here. The final development agreement with Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

00:34:08,829	S8:
I move that we approve the final draft of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

00:34:16,900	S1:
I have a second.

00:34:17,769	S3:
Second.

00:34:18,730	S1:
All right. And we're going to have further discussion on that before we vote. So, Marilyn, please, first you can just give us the old nod.

00:34:27,269	S8:
We hope.

00:34:29,269	S15:
Yeah. Thank you. It's been a great long road. But thank you so much, Marilyn Walters for Gordon Conwell. And thank you, Mr. Kaluza, for those words. It's reciprocated by us. Thank you very much for the extraordinary hard work that this board has done, and particularly Miss Kennedy and Mr. Olson. Yes, we are in agreement with the draft that you have. I would say one comment that a substantive change that was made as a result of Butters approaching the seminary in the last couple of weeks, they were concerned about commercial uses. Commercial uses are, under the bylaw, not going to be permitted other than in the three legacy buildings the Pilgrim Hall, retreat House and gatehouse. But the butter's asked if we would consider including that in the in the development agreement as belt and suspenders, so that it would be enforceable outside of the zoning bylaw. And we did. And the board has agreed to add that in. So we hope that that will will please the Butters and their concerns that that will limit the commercial uses to those through three buildings. So we're ready. We we have a brief update on the transportation. The the consultant met with the police department and with the fire department up on the site, talked them through. We walked the site with portions of the site with the police department. And we'll they're working on the report now or the transportation analysis is coming out. So they're in the process. But one of the things that they'll be indicating is that the police and the fire department are both suggesting that the cemetery consider opening up a two way on Bridge Street in order to make it easier for police and other cars to get in there, and they felt that that would reduce the load on Woodbury as well. It won't increase the load on bridge, because people that come up a bridge would have to go up Woodbury now as it is. So it would reduce load on that area and it will cost the cemetery some money because they've got to widen the road, etc. but that's something that will be in that report. But other than that, both the police department and fire department felt that the current status is sufficient for, uh, for what's going to be there. What is there the, the 209 units. So we're in we're in agreement with with what you have before you. And again, we appreciate it.

00:36:45,230	S13:
Okay. Great.

Uh. 00:36:48,170	S1:
Tom, anything else you want to add?

00:36:50,730	S2:
Uh, nothing. Nothing major to add. I just want to thank Rosemary. I reviewed your edits. Thank you so much for the. I thought that is great. Um, um, that looked really good. I thank the seminary for their partnership. I think they've been great partners on this throughout the process, I think. I think we landed in a good spot from a compensation standpoint. I like the language around the existing use and walking paths and all of that. So overall, I think it's been a long process, but I think we landed in a good spot and I think I'm happy with where we where we are.

00:37:22,800	S1:
Any other comment?

00:37:26,969	S6:
Good evening. Scott Madden 12. Old cart road. Two requests. One is the traffic study include activity at the intersection of bridge Miles River and Woodbury, as well as Essex and Miles River and Woodbury. You'll have a benchmark of what's now and then. There can be one done whenever, later, when additional development, whenever this comes. This is going to this agreement and whatever development is going to long survive your terms on this. Uh, uh, on the select board. Uh, so regarding that, I ask that you protect our interests, our financial interests, in a way that there's nothing here that says where the money goes other than to the town. And I'd personally not like to have that just be a free. It goes into the general fund. And also in one year it's in there and it gets spent and we don't know whatever happens or when it happened. So, uh, the town has done this successfully before with patent, uh, Ridge property sale to the town. We put it in a fund that then had to be voted by townspeople to be to come out of the fund so that it, um, uh, we're deciding as the residents, not mysteriously, it's kind of in a budget slides through. It'll be positive, whatever it is. However, I think it ought to be designated, uh, into a fund, and then we can take it out of that as we need it. Thank you.

00:39:00,869	S13:
Thank you.

00:39:03,099	S1:
Just make sure we have enough times anybody else is going to get up and speak.

00:39:07,730	S14:
Oops.

Please. 00:39:08,769	S1:
Here to get up to speed. I want to make sure we only have ten minutes here. So we want to make sure we get everybody in. So two minutes for the four of you. Anybody online.

00:39:16,900	S13:
Doesn't.

00:39:17,170	S1:
Look like it. Okay, so two minutes each. Thank you.

00:39:19,329	S7:
Hi, Deb Safford. So I want to echo that I think that's a great idea about the funds set aside. I think that's great. Thank you. Um, I also want to thank you guys for all the work that you've done.

00:39:29,670	S16:
And thank the seminary, because it's really been a long process for you guys and a lot of effort and a lot of compromise and a lot of give and take. So thank you for that. You've really represented the town and the seminary is a great partner to the community. They add a lot to the community. So I really thank you for that as well. Um, and I also want to thank you, Bill, for how you've allowed us to all speak during this time. I think it's been I've, I've felt like you've really been engaged with the community and getting the feedback, as opposed to it being kind of an adversary. You've really embraced all of our feedback, so I just want to preface everything I say with that. Um, my question is a technical one. I there's a few drafts that are out of this agreement, and I think we want to make sure we're doing the right agreement, because this one says 300,000 and the number is 300,000. In the meeting packet it says 350. And then in your comments that was something that was posted today. The words are 350 but the number is 300. So if you guys can just if it's this one that's great, I understand it. But just to clarify, because there's all these drafts that are out there, I just think it's important to just be clear as to what that number is and what you guys are approving. And that's all I want to say. Thank you very much.

00:40:50,369	S1:
It's 1.11.

00:40:51,929	S9:
Total. So if it's three it's 103 hundred and then 407 and another three.

00:40:58,000	S1:
Let's keep going and we'll get. We'll fix that.

00:40:59,730	S9:
Thank you.

00:41:00,269	S6:
So, Dave.

00:41:01,670	S17:
Uh, 215 Woodbury Street. I'm just pointing out that section two where you talk about dwelling units and bedrooms, you do not include the number of bedrooms. The 330, if I heard correctly, it was the first time I've ever heard a number given for the number of bedrooms associated with the 209 apartments. So I would suggest to you include that in the sentence, since that is part of the title of that paragraph, the actual number 330 for for record 330.

00:41:30,530	S8:
Correct.

00:41:31,000	S9:
We will I am while they were while Mr. Kennedy was saying that I updated the copy that's on my screen and up on the there to reflect her comments about that. So that is that is currently there. Let's see if I can get to.

00:41:43,099	S1:
We'll make a motion to address that before we vote.

00:41:47,130	S5:
Tosh Blake, Sagamore Street um, just to add something, Mr. Madden said, I think maybe it could be good to have something going to a fund, but we just want to make sure that it's not a fun that's going to be anything controversial. I'm not sure exactly what the details are, what you exactly meant by going into a fund, but you want to have sort of like a fait accompli that you set up a fund for something to make it for. So maybe, maybe a development that could be controversial or something. So I guess more information might be needed. I know it was just put out there by Mr. Madden as a kind of thing that could, may or may not happen.

00:42:13,570	S12:
But.

00:42:14,230	S5:
I, I'd be wary of setting aside stuff for funds until someone's vote. Is this a good fund to have? You know, that's all.

Thanks. 00:42:21,269	S13:
Thank you.

00:42:24,670	S1:
Steve Erickson.

00:42:25,400	S15:
36.

Lorenzo. 00:42:27,230	S3:
I just.

00:42:27,500	S1:
Want.

00:42:27,699	S3:
To say.

00:42:28,199	S1:
Thanks.

00:42:28,429	S18:
To all of you who are involved. Gordon Conwell, the town Leadership Planning Board. Butters, for all that you've done to get to this point, I'm really supportive of what's going to hopefully get approved and take place both tonight and in the coming meetings. I'm excited for the new revenue that will bring to the town, allow us to do some of the projects we've all talked about and wanted to do for a long time. And this seems like a really, really, really positive way to get some of that done while still preserving as much of our community as we can. Especially when we consider what some of the alternatives would have been. I think this is really a really strong positive development. So thanks to all of you for for getting to this point. Appreciate it.

00:43:11,300	S13:
Thank you.

00:43:13,500	S1:
All right, so, Rosemary, if you could make a new motion and amend the, the, the 300 and number two and then the 309, I'm sorry, 330 bedrooms and B and one B.

So. 00:43:30,570	S8:
So I move that we, um, amend the further amend the development agreement with two items. The section section one e number four um to Two three. I believe it was 350,000. That was that was the number.

00:43:56,469	S1:
So it's 1.1 total. The way we broke it up was 100. 300, 400.

300. 00:44:01,869	S8:
Okay. So okay.

00:44:02,929	S1:
So 1.1.

00:44:03,570	S14:
Million.

00:44:04,000	S8:
Okay. My mistake. Okay. So 300,000.

00:44:07,500	S1:
So the two and four.

00:44:09,800	S13:
Okay.

00:44:11,500	S8:
Oh that's right.

Yeah. 00:44:13,369	S14:
302. 300,000 okay.

00:44:15,769	S1:
Yeah. The 50.

00:44:16,800	S14:
So.

00:44:17,269	S8:
Okay. So on one E numbers two and four. Those numbers should both be 300,000.

00:44:26,070	S14:
Correct. Yeah.

Okay. 00:44:27,099	S8:
And then the other than moving. Um, what was the other one?

00:44:33,570	S1:
It was, uh, 11B terms of the agreement.

00:44:38,269	S14:
Right.

00:44:38,670	S8:
One b terms of the. All right. The maximum number of apartments will be 330.

00:44:46,000	S14:
200 bedrooms.

00:44:47,000	S8:
Not apartments. I'm sorry. 209 rental dwelling units with a maximum of 300 bedrooms.

00:44:54,599	S14:
Bedrooms.

00:44:55,199	S8:
Finally.

Okay. 00:44:56,530	S14:
It's my party, so we're gonna.

00:44:58,199	S1:
So we're going to vote on the.

00:44:59,570	S9:
330.

00:45:00,300	S1:
Right? Yeah, 330.

00:45:01,329	S14:
Bedrooms. Three bedrooms.

00:45:02,099	S1:
Okay. All right. So we're going to vote on the. So Rosemary made a amended motion. We're going to vote for the final draft agreement with the two amendments.

00:45:09,170	S9:
We have somebody raising their hand. Now I've had to.

00:45:11,900	S1:
I mean we're done with public comment. So I'm sorry we had to we had ten minutes open for it.

00:45:19,969	S13:
Yeah.

00:45:20,869	S1:
Um, all right. So that makes sense. Everybody wants to say do we want to do one more time. So it's nice and clear.

00:45:28,929	S14:
So I think.

00:45:30,800	S13:
We're good.

00:45:31,469	S3:
On grass.

00:45:32,599	S13:
Okay.

00:45:33,500	S7:
Yeah I think.

00:45:35,929	S14:
It's.

00:45:36,269	S19:
A compromise. I think the stock is.

00:45:39,699	S1:
Um. All right I'm ready to vote. Okay. So we'll start with, uh, well, now that we're all here, we can just do.

00:45:46,599	S14:
We can You can put it in the chat.

00:45:48,230	S1:
Say hi.

Hi. 00:45:50,730	S14:
Hi.

00:45:51,099	S1:
Okay. Thank you. All right. So, Joe, you got the two amendments. Sorry. Three amendments.

00:45:56,570	S14:
Yep.

00:45:57,800	S1:
All right. Thank you. Now, this is good. And we'll continue to work with the planning board to make a successful meeting in December to get this thing passed and and protect the town and help the town. And Rosemary want to make it?

00:46:11,030	S14:
Yeah, I just I.

00:46:11,570	S8:
Just wanted to make a final comment about the development agreement. It's certainly, uh, the Selectboard is somewhat limited in the things that we can, um, make a contract for. A lot of these things are within the purview of the planning board. And, um, people who have concerns and want to speak further about the pod or, um, types of development. That's something that should be brought up with the planning board. We have worked long and hard to bring this along as far as we could, and issues regarding the wastewater treatment plant. We've talked about that, and we appreciate that. Not everybody is getting everything that they want. I mean, we've we've all made compromises and really worked hard together to make this the best plan. And we feel satisfied that on behalf of the Buttars and the townspeople in general, that we really have done the best that we could, and we hope that people find this will be helpful to the town, especially in light of the fact that we will be attaining 209 units of affordable housing, which I think is the main focus for so many.

00:47:34,969	S1:
So thank you.

Oh. 00:47:39,000	S20:
All right.

00:47:41,369	S8:
Let's stand.

00:47:42,099	S14:
Out. All right.

00:47:44,670	S1:
All right. We will move on to next item on the agenda. So now we're going to go back to the Warren and review the draft. Warren and Joe what you'd like us to vote recommendation so we can put it into the into the Warren.

Correct. 00:47:55,099	S14:
You.

00:47:56,030	S9:
And it's as you can either do it now or you could do it at the November 17th meeting. That'll be a little tight, but you're going to have to sign this.

00:48:04,099	S1:
Done it.

00:48:04,329	S9:
Yet? No. The meeting this Wednesday night.

00:48:07,769	S1:
I'd prefer to do it after the meeting if you think there's enough time.

00:48:10,469	S9:
But it'll be tight. But we can.

00:48:12,630	S1:
Wait. Let's go through them and see if we think we need to wait for Tom's opinion.

00:48:18,000	S3:
Well.

00:48:18,869	S9:
And Tom's here to help you with the company.

00:48:21,300	S3:
And be nice to. If, if, if Bill Wilson's going to be back, if we're all going to be here in two weeks.

00:48:29,130	S1:
Right. That's true.

00:48:30,300	S3:
If we have 505 votes, then it's very clear that favorable, assuming that everything comes back positive from fin com. Yeah. I mean it's all tilted that way, so.

00:48:46,300	S1:
All right. And I agree with that. What I might do is we might do a vote tonight and then a vote again. Because if we don't have time, if something happens, we know then we want to get something on the warrant. So we might have to.

00:48:57,369	S3:
Take.

00:48:57,670	S1:
That off. So we vote tonight, but then it builds back. We allow. And we don't have gone to print yet. We'll let Bill give his vote at the next meeting. But we can talk about that as we get into it. All right. So Joe, do we have. I don't know that we have copies of any.

00:49:11,400	S9:
We print out hard copy. I wasn't sure, but, um, on the screen, they were in your packets?

00:49:17,400	S14:
Yep.

00:49:17,599	S1:
So I didn't turn them out. Okay. All right. So we'll we'll walk through it.

00:49:26,469	S9:
Tom.

00:49:26,769	S1:
Joe, do you like, walk?

00:49:27,699	S14:
You go walking through it.

00:49:28,769	S9:
Yeah. I'm coming right now.

00:49:29,599	S1:
You walking.

00:49:29,929	S14:
Through it?

00:49:31,500	S9:
All right. So, um. And sticking and being consistent with the way our warrants are developed. Um, annually, we. Tom created the warrant in the same order. Section one is elections reports and procedures. He has included in an article for consent motion in case the board and some want to take advantage of that. We want to take advantage of that, but as of right now, you can pass over those two articles. We don't anticipate actually having a reports, and there's only five items on the warrant itself. So really probably not going to do a consent motion. The financial actions there are two. One is the prior year bills which will be reviewed completely by fin com on Wednesday night. And then Wendy is here. If you have questions about the prior year bills. And the other financial action is the community preservation for Town Hall. Tim Olson is here to answer questions. Tonight. The Community Preservation Committee did endorse, I believe, unanimously, Tim, unanimously, the request for additional funding, as you know, basically, just to make sure the budget, the private project stays on budget. We're in budget right now, but You got a couple of months left and the contingency was only 5% to begin with. So if you have questions about that tonight, Tim is here to answer questions about that article. Articles in section three include. Extension of the cell tower lease. This is your article. You would wanted to extend the opportunity. You want to have the opportunity to extend the term of the cell tower lease or lease is so that you could potentially sell them as the. As it stands, there's only 25 years left on the existing lease behind Town Hall, and nobody in the market would pay you for that at that term. They want at least 30 years. I think the article is written here to give you up to 40 years. Um, and then the authorization to convey the easement, which you just added this evening is article 3-2. And the last article in the warrant is the main article that caused the special town meeting, which was a zoning bylaw amendment. It's noted in here as the Brownfield Overlay district, although it may be The language may be changed to reflect Browns Hills zoning district as opposed to overlay district. Just because this draft zoning seeks to get rid of the underlying zoning. So if there's no underlying zoning, it's not really overlaying anything. So it's really just a new zoning district. Um, it requires the same two thirds vote to pass either way. So it doesn't matter if it's an overlay or zoning district. So the planning Board has at this point taken the position that they want to get rid of the underlying zoning. If we're going to do that, then it's not an overlay, it's just a zoning district. So and those are the five articles. Tom McKenney, he's here to answer your questions and help with any conversation discussion you want to have around.

00:52:23,599	S1:
Um, and yeah, let's go to the next page.

00:52:30,869	S1:
Okay. So the article 2-1.

00:52:36,070	S14:
Jesus Christ.

00:52:37,269	S9:
Here we go. 2-1. Probably your.

00:52:38,929	S2:
Bills.

00:52:39,230	S1:
Probably bills is a 9/10 vote.

Okay. 00:52:41,630	S14:
Yeah.

00:52:41,900	S1:
And we know roughly that's just a couple thousand bucks, right? I thought it was you told us last week.

00:52:47,070	S9:
It's 9008.

00:52:47,570	S1:
Or.

00:52:47,929	S14:
9000.

Okay. 00:52:50,170	S9:
Wendy?

00:52:54,130	S21:
Yes. No it's not. I'm sorry. You have, uh, outdated data. It's currently $26,387.56.

00:53:06,630	S9:
And what were those for?

00:53:10,329	S21:
Uh, let me just see real quick here. So we have, uh, KP law at 10,536 greenback or renewable energy, which is the east to west solar at 14,850, and C.I. technologies for the planning water overlay maps for $1,000.

00:53:34,530	S9:
We knew what the issue with the Cape Law Bill coming in late was. What was the greenback in technology? I mean.

00:53:43,099	S21:
It looked like the vendor never sent the information or it just didn't get delivered properly, literally.

00:53:51,269	S9:
So I think the issue here is that we have an open. We have a warrant. And then ultimately we're going to be required to pay these bills. But they require a town meeting vote because they were from last fiscal year. So ultimately, one way or the other, we're going to have to pay the bill we want. I think the finance was just looking to get this in front of the town, meeting as fast as possible, rather than delayed till April.

00:54:12,730	S14:
Okay. All right.

00:54:15,369	S1:
That's correct. And then doesn't the fact that it doesn't affect the tax rate.

00:54:19,730	S14:
No.

00:54:21,170	S1:
Because it's coming from free cash. Okay. Right. Next one. Article two. Dash two.

00:54:28,869	S9:
Yeah.

00:54:29,070	S14:
Here we go.

00:54:30,000	S1:
Is. What's the vote on that one. Is that a simple majority?

00:54:35,800	S12:
Yes, that's a simple majority vote.

00:54:39,329	S1:
And there was a spreadsheet that was in our packet. Do you have it up on the screen? I can

00:54:48,599	S1:
so this is to just build a contingency

00:54:53,269	S1:
as we approach into the project. Just because we don't want to have projects going so well, the deadline wants to be met. So we want to make sure we have contingency funds to take care of any unforeseen conditions, as well as maybe an AV package for so we can have successful town meetings without having any glitches. So you want to come? Do you want to walk us through this? Are you trying to build a contingency of about $250,000?

00:55:19,230	S11:
Two Olson, DPW director. Yeah, I put this together for you guys to take a look at kind of where we are financially with the current funding strategies for the town hall as well as the current contracts and where we are with the construction itself. So the funding is pretty. It has stayed the same for, for since the last couple of votes. Um, the million and a half I think, was the last large vote in the 500,000. Um, and then you see the architectural fees, the engineering fees, those are all contracted, uh, fees and agreements, uh, soft costs, a variety of temp space, outfit builders, risk, uh, insurance, which is about $117,000. Um, moving the National Grid services, as we talked about earlier tonight, that was about 25,000, uh, that we had to pay them. Uh, so it adds up to about 163,000 in soft costs. Uh, and then moving on to the construction alone. Uh, the current, the base bid, uh, when we accept the bids was 7.449. Currently, we have about $411,000 in change orders, which is roughly about 5.5%. Um, leaves us a remaining balance of about 262,000 from our funding. Uh, what you see below is where we are and anticipated some future change orders. Uh, as Joe mentioned earlier, um, this is more of a kind of a placeholder. Uh, we do have some grants that I have applied for that I'm waiting to hear. I should hopefully hear within the next week. Um, for the mod Ada Grant, I put in a grant for 250,000. Um, and then there is a a v Community Compact grant that Vicky Mazzoni, our energy manager, is helping me with, that hopefully will fund our ave, uh, in the Memorial Room. It's a sizable amount to get that memorial outfit for town meeting or our select board, uh, presentations and meetings. And then the CPC grant is what we were talking about just a few minutes ago. So what I'm trying to do is forecasting out in numbering some funds for, for some things that are necessities. None of these are luxuries. They're just to make the project successful and complete. And just with that remaining balance, I am a little concerned that that we have enough money to cover all those, uh, currently. So with town government, there's only a few channels I have available to me, and a certain amount of times that I do have the ability to get some more funding. And that's what I'm trying to do, uh, just to make sure that we have enough funding to complete it.

00:58:10,929	S1:
So the items down here, Tim. But those are not they're not currently there's no current allocation for cost for that that's to come out of the contingency or the or their portion in the project. This might be in addition to what we've already allocated.

00:58:25,230	S11:
Uh, so the the contractor is working on some pricing for us at this time, so I don't.

00:58:30,929	S14:
Have.

00:58:31,099	S1:
Anything in owning that stuff. What's that? He didn't own that stuff and they.

00:58:33,969	S11:
Did not own the hardwood flooring I should have. That is an additional hardwood flooring. There is a good substantial amount of hardwood flooring in the job. There is some elevation differences that we have to make up some flooring. Um, some of that is owned, but some of those are additional, uh, need to create and to finish.

00:58:54,130	S1:
And then if we if we vote on the CPC grant a town meeting and we get it, but we don't spend it on what happens, what happens to the money.

00:59:02,929	S14:
Go back to go back.

Yeah. 00:59:04,769	S11:
Yeah. So with the CPC, when I went in front of them, they gave me a sunset date of the end of March. Uh, I feel like I'll have a pretty good idea how much I'll need from that by that point. Um, it can always be extended out. I'd go in front of them again and ask for that extension, but I think by that time coming through the majority of the project. I see us finishing in February, so the springtime will be just last minute site restoration, uh, plantings. Um, I think, you know, items that we have to do when the weather breaks and in the springtime.

So. 00:59:43,000	S1:
Have you looked at this yet or.

00:59:44,329	S14:
Yeah. Make a couple of comments. Yep. So just.

00:59:49,469	S6:
To simplify.

00:59:50,130	S18:
This, um.

00:59:50,829	S6:
The project is.

00:59:52,670	S15:
$8.5.

00:59:53,630	S5:
Million.

00:59:54,969	S22:
Okay. What Tim is talking about is adding little extra contingency in case we spend over the eight and a half. I don't think Tim is proposing that we make the project 8.75 million. Okay, so basically what he's doing is the $8.5 million project remains in place. That's not changing. And we're committed to it. That's what we that's what we put in front of the town meeting Plus interest and other. So the total project is not changing. He just wants to have some contingency money in case, um, he needs to go maybe a bit above the 8.5 million. So base based on the financials, it was a good project budget. Looks like we're going to come in very close to it if we vote on this money. If it doesn't get spent, it goes back to the CPC. So it's still an $8.5 million project. We're giving him a little bit of breathing room. That's how I read it. And he's actually applied for a grant to replace the CPC money. So he's trying to get some free money. Right. So as we're talking about here is the contingency. So the project is as it was forecasted a year ago.

01:01:18,130	S14:
That's about to get it right.

01:01:20,199	S11:
Yeah. Um, like John said, it's, it's a, it's a project that we're working on to stay within budget, within funding that we currently have. I'm just like I said earlier, I'm just trying to complete the project. There is some ads. There is some ducks that I'm working on as well to try to minimize the, the, the overage, um, the, the amount in our contingency or even additional contingency. This is just a little bit more, um, added to the contingency if I need it. But I'm making doing my best to stay within the original budget, so.

01:01:56,030	S3:
Well, what percent complete would you say that we're at right now? Roughly.

01:02:02,000	S11:
I would say complete. We're probably around 65% complete. The building inside. I'm not sure I it's hard to see from the outside. Right. So the inside we are trimming a final trim. Uh, we are painting walls, the final colors. Uh, so we're getting close to hanging doors on the inside of the building. Um, they were looking to get on the hardwood floors. Um, within the next few weeks. Um. Ceiling grid. The act tile is going in. Uh, so we're moving pretty good inside the outside. Today they finished the elevator tower as well as they put in. They started to frame up the exterior walls. So I do.

01:02:46,869	S3:
Keep HVAC fully installed then.

01:02:49,429	S11:
So the HVAC inside the building is, I would say, fully roughed in. Um, they can't really complete it until the ceiling tiles in, but then the geothermal work is starting back up, I think, within the next week. Um, but the key is National grid and the service to, to, you know, to energize the building. Um, so there won't be any heat or.

01:03:14,769	S14:
Cooling.

01:03:15,469	S11:
With the new system until the new service is brought in.

So. 01:03:19,000	S2:
Okay just a couple of questions. So assuming we got the Mod grant, are we still going to be holding on to the CPC funds in case we have additional, um, surcharges or any additional change orders, or is that automatically going to be, you know, kicked back to the CPC?

01:03:37,599	S11:
They had the same question. Uh, I, I would suggest we keep it, um, just in case something happens. I'm not going to try. It's going to be my last funding source to spend. Um, I'm going to reserve it just until the end of the project. Um, I don't see today. I don't see us needing it, um, unless something unforeseen happens. But I think that if I can get the grant, that puts us in a much better shape, um, much more secure for funding to fund the rest of the project and the needs. So. And then the ave grant, uh, Vicki thought we had a pretty good shot at that. Um, but that's more springtime. I think it's due in February, so.

01:04:21,570	S2:
This might be a question for John, but assuming we only we don't use the CPC grant or only a portion of that, how does that get reallocated? Does that just. Do we just not, um, transfer those funds to the project or do we have to? Is there a town meeting vote that has to re appropriate those funds or how does that work?

01:04:37,929	S14:
No.

01:04:38,730	S22:
I mean Jay Butler is the expert on this, but my the funds that they appropriate have to be used by a certain date. And if that date comes and goes then it goes back. So suffice it to say that, um, we're monitoring this financially very closely. It's an $8.5 million project. I haven't heard that it what we want it to be 8.75. If that ends up being the case, I'm sure Tim is going to come back and I'm sure we'll approve it to get it finished. So we're very close to the end. We're watching it. He's provided us all the details that we need to see, uh, to monitor this project. Um, so, um, when we're done, there'll be a full financial recap of the project. Um, when they work to get that out so everyone can see where did we end up spending the money? So we're close. We're watching it closely. Sort of full transparency in terms of the financial details. So, um, we, uh, we're going to review this Wednesday with the income and then vote on it, um, the following week.

01:05:52,329	S3:
So for the, um, geothermal system, does it cover 100% of the heating and cooling load? Tim, we don't have any supplemental boilers or anything. It's 100%.

01:06:04,170	S11:
It's not 100%. Um, I think it's.

01:06:08,170	S9:
For the heating.

01:06:08,670	S14:
Cooling?

01:06:09,400	S9:
Yeah. No supplemental?

01:06:10,570	S11:
Well, no.

01:06:10,969	S3:
So there's no gas question.

01:06:13,530	S11:
The Geothermal does do the heating and cooling that is our system. Yes, cooling is geothermal.

01:06:19,269	S14:
I think.

01:06:20,199	S11:
I was talking about the electricity.

01:06:22,170	S14:
And.

01:06:22,599	S11:
We have a solar array that was.

01:06:24,000	S14:
Built on top.

01:06:24,599	S11:
Of DPW.

01:06:25,170	S14:
As well.

01:06:25,469	S3:
So do do we have the HVAC cost tracked separately? Do we know are we.

01:06:30,199	S14:
Getting.

01:06:30,599	S11:
Our own contract for that?

01:06:32,469	S3:
That's correct. For the entire HVAC. Like all the way out to the diffusers in the building.

01:06:36,969	S11:
So we have there is a portion of our building project that is a bit.

01:06:42,869	S12:
We have.

01:06:43,300	S11:
That cost as a sub.

01:06:44,900	S14:
Contractor.

01:06:45,599	S11:
And then we also have the cost of the energy efficiency contract.

01:06:49,869	S3:
As do more questions. Do we know if they're using prevailing wages.

01:06:53,170	S14:
Yes.

01:06:53,500	S3:
And do we know what are they by any chance buying uh domestic product, you know, for the heat pumps and things like that.

01:07:02,800	S11:
Uh, it's all standard commercial grade products. Um, they go through a, there's a specified I think there is some units. Okay. In our, in the in the town hall.

01:07:14,670	S14:
Okay.

01:07:15,699	S11:
But all specked and approved by the architect and the engineering design team.

01:07:21,269	S3:
Okay, those have all been. The equipment's all been bought out. Presumably, by this point, we should. I don't know if you've looked into the investment tax credit for geothermal from the federal government. If we looked into that yet.

01:07:33,900	S1:
We have a grant for that whole entire part of the project. That's not part of 2.5.

01:07:38,869	S9:
Yeah. We're using a combination of state and federal grants and and the use of our basically, we did a, an ESCO on the part that we didn't have grant money for. So we didn't take any money from, from the tax base at all for the environment.

01:07:55,269	S3:
They're accessing the investment tax credits and.

01:07:57,530	S9:
Accessing the ESG Access and Investment tax credit. And then we're um, and then the little bit that we have to pay annually, I think over the 20 years, it's like $20,000 a year will come out of the line item that we keep for utilities that we've always had.

So. 01:08:14,130	S14:
Thanks.

01:08:15,699	S1:
Tim. Our job is to be tough, but I just want to applaud you. I mean, you've been managing and, you know, in addition to your full time job, you've been managing $8.5 million construction project and keeping on budget and on schedule. So thank you for watching out for us. We're looking forward to getting back into Town Hall. And and I think this is the right thing to do because time is money. If we had gotten a situation where we couldn't make a decision because of funds and we had to extend the project, it would be much more expensive than than the small contingency money. So thank you for being proactive.

01:08:43,470	S14:
Thank you. Okay, back to you.

01:08:51,300	S9:
So then the next article would be three one, the extension of the lease. Right. That moves like.

01:08:57,899	S14:
That.

01:08:58,899	S9:
Sorry about.

01:08:59,470	S14:
That.

01:09:02,130	S3:
Yeah.

01:09:02,399	S9:
There we go.

Um. 01:09:07,329	S9:
So that's the as we discussed earlier, this was the article that the board chose to add so that you could potentially, um, uh, potentially, you know, no decision has been made yet, but potentially sell the lease, um, for the south behind Town Hall and in the future, potentially the the lease on a new cell phone tower that may be behind the public safety building. So, um, you know, if you have any questions about.

01:09:33,170	S14:
That.

01:09:34,029	S8:
I do. I have a question. Um, originally we were we did it for 30 years. I think we're down to like 25 or 26 at this point. But I'm just wondering why we're putting in a 40 year lease. I mean, I think about, um, technology changes and I'm wondering if it's a prudent idea to have a lease for 40 years. So I guess that's a question for for Tom.

01:10:01,270	S9:
Yeah, we could change it. I think the idea was to provide flexibility for the board to negotiate the contract that you want. But yeah, what we.

01:10:07,869	S1:
Found and we can talk about what we.

01:10:10,229	S9:
Found.

01:10:10,470	S14:
Was that.

01:10:12,670	S1:
If we like, if we vote for 30 years at town meeting. Right. But it takes but we decide not to sell the tower because we want to wait till the second another one gets built and sell the package, and we get two more years now. Now we're 28 years. So it's like, that's why we want to have some flexibility as we negotiate and try and get the best deal for the town. We don't have to keep coming back to town meeting voting. So it says up to 40 years. It doesn't say 40 years.

So. 01:10:37,770	S14:
Okay, Bill.

Right. 01:10:38,569	S12:
That's that's the language is not to exceed 40 years in the article. And that's exactly right. We it was drafted that way in order to provide the board with flexibility. But ultimately it's up to the board to determine what the actual terms will be.

01:10:55,000	S8:
Okay. That makes sense. Good explanation. Thank you.

01:10:58,600	S14:
Sure.

01:11:01,069	S9:
And then the last item is the.

01:11:05,970	S9:
Two items we have the.

01:11:07,229	S14:
Easement.

01:11:07,699	S9:
Easement, which we discussed at the top of the meeting. To add this, do you have further questions about the easement article?

01:11:17,630	S1:
I do not.

01:11:18,100	S14:
Know anybody else.

01:11:21,170	S1:
And then the last.

01:11:21,869	S14:
One on.

01:11:22,229	S9:
The last one is, I guess I said, the original reason to do a special time meeting on December 9th, which nobody ever really wanted to do, but, um, the Browns Hill zoning article.

01:11:32,500	S1:
So when do we need to rename it? Do we do we need to rename it by what date?

01:11:37,470	S9:
I mean, we can change it was I want to make wait and make sure the planning board says that that's what the direction they were going to go, that the the guidance has been provided by legal counsel was to if it's not an overlay district, don't call it an overlay district. Just say the confusion. So let's see how that goes with the plan.

01:11:52,970	S1:
Goes to print on the.

01:11:54,770	S9:
Uh it has to be posted two weeks prior. So, uh, the the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is the day that the, um, the warrant has to be posted with the town clerk So 17 with your signatures and everything else on it.

01:12:06,829	S1:
So we can do stuff on the 17th.

01:12:08,130	S9:
We can do stuff on the 17th. Our plan is to have you take your final votes and everything, and also sign the signature page on the 17th. So that we're all ready to go.

01:12:17,930	S1:
I think that makes sense. I'm here. Makes sense? Yeah. 17.

Yeah. 01:12:24,670	S1:
Yeah.

01:12:27,100	S1:
And then Bill will be here too.

So. 01:12:29,869	S9:
So we're done with that?

01:12:31,729	S1:
Yes.

01:12:33,170	S9:
Are we done with Mr. McKinnon for this? Um, for this evening?

01:12:37,899	S1:
You don't need him for anything else? Nope.

Okay. 01:12:41,069	S9:
Thanks, Tom.

01:12:42,270	S12:
All right. Thank you.

01:12:43,869	S1:
Thanks, Jim. Thank you.

01:12:44,899	S12:
All right. Have a.

01:12:45,430	S1:
Good night. Good night. All right. Next item is the approve. The new. Excuse me. This item.

01:12:51,270	S6:
Is noted for public discussion to.

01:12:52,869	S1:
Your comments. Jacob McCormick, chair. But we have a look. We got to look at our at the. I thought.

01:13:00,300	S2:
It.

01:13:00,369	S3:
Was.

01:13:00,670	S1:
I thought each person got a chance to speak once, but go ahead and speak until I clarify that, but the concept was you could speak at some point during the meeting, but not three times during the meeting. But go ahead. Since you're up there, feel free.

01:13:09,729	S2:
I'm out of.

01:13:10,399	S6:
Out of times.

01:13:11,970	S1:
Well go ahead. No, I just want to make sure it's right in the future. It's not a precedent set.

01:13:16,670	S6:
So I ask that you add an article 4.1 or 4.4.2, because whatever happens from this thing creates $1 million plus of revenue to the towns. That is going to happen way beyond your terms in office. And I want to see that go into a capital fund. So a town meeting in the future makes a decision on how to use that money instead of it. Just whenever it starts flowing, it happens. And there's no, uh, controls around town. Meeting is deciding on a bylaw that's creating value for the town. And for Gordon Conwell, that value that we get, we should reserve for our future decisions, for we have capital needs as an example that are supposed to be presented every year, that are five years out of things that we know we can't fund. Another million dollars could go a long way towards those kinds of things.

01:14:12,199	S1:
So the.

01:14:16,930	S9:
Tom and Tom just left.

01:14:21,670	S9:
The money from the payments has to go into the general fund, and from there it has to be voted out by town meeting. It has to be appropriated by town meeting. To some extent, it can be appropriated to a special fund, as is suggested, or it can be appropriated to the capital reserve fund or wherever somebody makes a motion to. Town meeting. Town meeting takes it under advisement, then takes it under advisement. They vote and it goes to that place. It can't. It doesn't just go somewhere without being directed. Once we collect any money, it goes into the general fund and then it has to be appropriated. Um, it's non-recurring revenue, so nobody in town at this point would recommend that it ever go into the upper the general operating budget because it's non recurring revenue and we don't do that. We have financial policies against use of one time or non-recurring revenues in the in the operational budget of the town. So additionally it's also related to a development agreement. So it would likely be that we would have to put some kind of or we'd want to put some kind of restrictions on it. Probably capital is that's normally where I'd send it. But a special revenue fund was also a good idea. So we the board could try to do it now. Or you could do it at the annual town meeting. The point is, it doesn't go anywhere except for into the town ledger until it gets appropriated to fund somewhere.

01:15:43,630	S1:
So then I ask you a question.

Yeah. 01:15:47,270	S22:
I mean, I see both points, but.

01:15:54,199	S22:
Scott mentioned the Patton. That money is still in that separate fund. It's it's earned $150,000 worth of interest. Scott. So it's still sitting there either way that it has to go to town meeting for a vote, whether it's comes out of free cash, whatever. So the point is it's going to go to town meeting. Um, I'm pretty pretty sure no matter what we want to do with it. So, um, if you want to add some more focus and some more overhead. Designate it and put it in a separate club. But the point is, it has to be voted by town.

01:16:34,630	S1:
Meeting in the 17th. You mean now 17th? Can you guys have bring us up in your income and see what you're. If you have any thoughts on this?

01:16:40,470	S5:
Yeah.

01:16:40,800	S22:
I mean, it's um, I mean, I, a year ago at town meeting people at people asked about, um, accessing deficiency at the schools and then free cash, and I explained that any use of the free cash has to come in front of the voters, so it will be in front of the voters one way or the other.

01:17:08,270	S1:
No matter what fun is coming from, has to go in front of voters. But but.

01:17:11,699	S6:
Scott.

01:17:12,300	S22:
Scott's point is that it's this is sort of a one time, very special event in the town. Maybe it deserves its own sort of special fund and an extra spotlight on it. So I could you know, I see that it makes sense either way. It's going in front of town meeting. Would you agree?

01:17:38,869	S6:
Everything gets voted by the town. I agree, everything gets voted by the people. However, if it's in the general fund and it's yes, there's policies that guide one time things and where they go, but making it obvious that there's over $1 million that's not just subject to discretion of, oh, you know, we want to add it to a particular department that year. No, this is a we put a lot of energy into creating this this value. We should harvest it discretely at some point in time for what I.

01:18:10,800	S1:
Can you guys. Yeah, we'll review it. We'll we'll.

01:18:13,699	S22:
Be happy to review it and go back.

01:18:14,930	S1:
With our, our we'll put on the agenda for the 17th.

01:18:17,470	S23:
Yeah I think that's a good idea.

01:18:18,800	S8:
I actually tend to agree I think sometimes when you're at ATM and all these financial needs and issues are addressed, something like this can get lost in the shuffle. And I just I mean, we'll.

01:18:36,069	S23:
Discuss.

01:18:36,529	S8:
It further on the 17th, but I think it might be be wise to put it into, say, a capital expenditure fund. So then that's a particular fund, but it's not requiring a lot of overhead.

01:18:52,470	S24:
It's.

Yeah. 01:18:55,729	S8:
I don't know. It's just a thought.

01:18:57,199	S23:
Yeah.

01:18:57,630	S8:
So it has some special, some specialness to it. So it doesn't just sort of.

01:19:02,930	S1:
It'd be good to go back later or when we plan it, but say this, is this fund paid for this rather than just, we don't know the money came from. So it's good to know what it's paying for.

01:19:11,430	S25:
So you're talking about the money that they give when it goes through, or are you talking about the tax revenue from the 200?

01:19:17,729	S1:
No. Just the just the just the payment upfront.

01:19:20,800	S9:
Yeah.

01:19:21,829	S1:
So it's it's a it's not a one time payment. It happens in four installments, but yes. Over time. Over time.

01:19:26,800	S25:
Yeah. It's only 300,000 now.

Right. 01:19:28,569	S1:
Right.

01:19:29,369	S9:
It's 400,000 on after the vote on the ninth. If it's if it's successful. And then 300.

01:19:34,199	S1:
And so it goes one to it goes 100,000. Then when they sell it goes to 400,000. And then it stays at 400,000 until they sell the next two pieces. And it can eventually get to 1.1 if they sell it. If they don't sell it, then there's no monetary gain and they don't pay us any money.

01:19:49,369	S26:
Which when you add all that interest.

01:19:50,930	S6:
To all these.

01:19:51,569	S26:
Serial payments.

01:19:52,630	S6:
John just told.

01:19:53,399	S26:
You how a half a million.

01:19:54,569	S1:
Sorry people online were talking about here. Yeah, but. Okay. Yes. Thank you. All right. So good. Good idea. Just talk about it. Yeah. We can make that.

01:20:03,600	S3:
Clarify next steps then. Um, so you all are going to look at it come this week. Maybe, perhaps make a recommendation if there's a positive recommendation. It sounds like there is appetite here amongst the board. So then do we need to come on the 17th with the potential we.

01:20:19,399	S1:
Would have to open the warrant, go through, vote on it. Close the warrant. It has to happen at 70. Otherwise we could vote on it at the next meeting because the money's just going to sit there. So it's not like it's gonna get spent between now and our annual town meeting.

So. 01:20:31,869	S9:
I mean, quite frankly, other than the $100,000, we might not have anything other than the initial $100,000 payment before the next before the annual time meeting anyway.

01:20:39,500	S2:
Right?

01:20:39,829	S9:
Right.

01:20:40,899	S23:
Right. Let's thank you, Matt.

01:20:42,430	S1:
All right. Um. Thank you. All right. Approve new intermunicipal agreement for veteran services through the city of Gloucester. And Joe, you wanted to say, we need to vote on this because of a timing thing.

Yeah. 01:20:54,970	S9:
So the.

01:20:57,670	S1:
She's.

01:20:58,170	S9:
Six years ago now. The town left eastern Essex Regional events, and we joined with Gloucester at a savings of over $20,000 a year, $25,000, almost. Um, the City of Gloucester is the fiduciary and they're in charge of the region. Um, they issued a new and a municipal agreement to us. Our existing one actually lapsed on June 30th. So they just sent this out a month, a month ago. Um, I'm asking you to take a look at it. There's no real change other than the the amount of money that we we pay in year one is now $17,250. I think it's up from $16,000. Um, it's not a big increase, but it's it's for our veterans. And, um, we're out of we don't currently have an agreement in place, so I'd love to have it passed sooner. If you wanted to wait till the 17th. It's not the end of the world, but Gloucester will be billing us and I can't pay that. I can't pay them until I have a valid agreement from me.

01:21:55,529	S1:
Okay.

01:21:59,029	S3:
Then we have half a dozen members of the community who use the service. Is that right?

01:22:04,430	S1:
Yeah.

01:22:07,229	S3:
And they're generally happy with the service.

01:22:10,329	S9:
Yeah. I mean, overall, I you know, the feedback that I've gotten from veterans and even the, um, even the veterans who don't access the services in town, the veterans that I've spoken to at the post, for instance, who have met, um, V, who is the.

01:22:27,500	S9:
Veteran service agent hired by Gloucester. They love her. They think she's been doing a great job and they're happy with their presence in our community, etc.. So, um, I haven't they haven't said net negative. I've talked to them, I've asked them. We went we met with them and talked to them before we recommended moving to Gloucester. So it's been it's.

01:22:46,170	S3:
Been positive successful.

Good. 01:22:51,000	S1:
So yeah. So we typically vote on things the second time. But because of the timing here and because it's just a process, it's a it's a reallocation. I don't have an issue voting tonight but somebody wants to table it again. But otherwise we should vote and let you get this thing initiated. So I have a motion for a motion on the floor.

01:23:13,399	S8:
I move that we approve the new intermunicipal agreement for veterans services through the city of Gloucester.

01:23:20,500	S1:
I have a second.

01:23:21,600	S3:
I'll second that.

01:23:22,770	S1:
Any further discussion or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right.

01:23:30,899	S20:
Thank you. All right.

01:23:32,500	S1:
Next item, discuss neighbor concerns about 19 old cart roads. There's been some requests for us to hold a public hearing. Um, we're going to be able to hold one tonight regardless. So we think at least we at least would talk about it, so we can figure out what the next steps are and to make sure that we're addressing the property. So, Joe, want to give us a quick update on everything that's happened last two.

01:23:54,600	S9:
Weeks in your eye in front of you today we had I had a little bit of an update from building commissioner, and also the attorney for the the apparent heirs has hired an attorney, local attorney that has been trying to work with the town to try to get this. The problem with the the problem with the property is that it's in probate in New Mexico. Um, as you can see from the packets that I left in front of you, the we were updated today by the attorney from Beverly that the, um, the New Mexico. Geez, I don't know what happened. My computer.

01:24:33,470	S9:
But the they they confirmed with the New Mexico that the they've got that New Mexico has the certified copies of their request to take it out of probate and and New Mexico is working with the Essex County Probate Court. To get a probate opened in Massachusetts. Simultaneously, at the same time, the attorneys are working with the and negotiating sales price with the potential buyer who would take that over and make repairs. Or I think one of the things they said is that their plan is to take the building down to the foundation and then rebuild on the existing foundation, but they'd have to go through the building process for that. Um, so it is moving forward there. They're taking steps to try to address everything, and that's where we're at with that at this point.

01:25:20,369	S1:
What about until that gets sold? Is there anything? I thought we were also working to assign.

01:25:26,300	S9:
So so the the health the Board of Health had been and through the health director have been working with the state because we hadn't had any response back from the spring when this really started to percolate through August. We had not had even letters that we sent to the owner's son were sent back unopened. Um, obviously there's been a change in their approach. He has gotten involved, and he has hired an attorney that's working locally. That attorney appeared before the Board of Health. The Board of Health is considering whether or not to continue the process with the, um, with the attorney general to initiate a receiver for the property. Uh, they haven't voted yet whether or not to do that. So, uh, and typically in cases where nobody is trying to step forward and address things, things linger and probate stuff falls further into disrepair. You'd initiate a receiver. The receiver would have the have the legal authority to take action on at least bringing the property up to code, etc. while it played out through probate. They um, at this point the previous owner son or deceased owner son is trying to get custody of the property so that he can get rid of it. So, you know, so, um, can I get to work? Continue working with them so that the Board of Health is looking at that now. They haven't voted.

01:26:46,930	S8:
And did this all come about because of the concerns that it was a dilapidated building or were they being proactive or. So I'm just trying to understand.

01:26:57,529	S9:
It's definitely clear that they started to respond when we started assess fines and okay. And but so in that in that regard the bylaw has been successful. We've got we've got their attention. They're working with us. Um, but it's still in probate and in another state. So it takes a certain amount of time.

01:27:14,630	S23:
Right.

01:27:14,869	S8:
That's that's understandable. I think that I mean, we as we all know, probate takes a while. So that can be very frustrating. But it's good to know that, um, implementation of the consequences of our bylaw helped to move things along. So I think that's a very good thing.

01:27:32,470	S9:
And the neighbors have been good advocates for trying to make sure that something gets get done. Um, we've been we've been doing our best to get things done. We handled some limbs from the property that we're overhanging the street. Got them out of the way.

Um. 01:27:48,270	S1:
So what about the fines that are on the property right now?

01:27:51,399	S9:
The fines are still there, and they're still payable to us. And when it all comes down to, um, depending on whether or not we, we, you know, depending on whether or not it comes out of probate or we just put it, it's up to us.

Yeah. 01:28:03,170	S8:
We lean on the deed or something.

01:28:05,800	S9:
Yeah. Well, we, we, we sought advice from town council and then they directed us to the attorney general because the attorney general's got this program in place with the receivers. That has been more successful than liens. ET cetera. So that was the direction we were going. We were a dual path. We were going to try to engage the receiver through the attorney General's office and at the same time start assessing fines. The fines worked for the receiver. Uh, was assigned to the property owner, showed up and started trying to take responsibility.

01:28:35,869	S1:
And one of the reasons here is because, um, because There's a request made to hold a public hearing. What would the public hearing do? And when would we need to do it?

01:28:48,630	S9:
So the town's bylaw calls out for some things to happen in a certain order. And it was brought to me by the Butters in August, asked me to have a hearing. We had the hearing. At that hearing, I took some testimony from the a couple of the butters that were there, and the building commissioner and the health director, and at that meeting, we decided that we were going to again start finding again and start really trying to get them to pay attention. At the same time, we directed the health director to continue to work with the state and get the process started for that. I didn't do a written decision out of that. It wasn't really clear that I had to. We were we had taken action based on the complaint, and so I hadn't done a written decision. So the bylaw does say that if anybody is aggrieved of my decision within ten days, they can come to the select board and ask for a public hearing. It's been more than ten days, but I mean, I don't want to get hung up on that because, you know, I understand certainly that the the voters are still anxious that something happened and that we move on, move this in the right direction as quickly as possible. We're trying to do that. So, um, I wouldn't worry about the ten days. I would just say that if the Select board wants to have a hearing on this, you could do so and bring the Butters and the building commissioner in and make make a recommendation to have to take action, further action, if that's what you wish.

01:30:13,899	S1:
So I'm trying to figure out what's the best use of time, money, energy if we're waiting for probate and waiting for the state. But that's what I'm trying to figure out. What the what are we going to do in a public hearing that that we could do outside of the probate and outside of.

01:30:30,270	S1:
That area. But I'd like to like to hear the butter speak. So I'm going to open up the microphone to the butters.

01:30:38,699	S26:
Thank you for.

01:30:39,229	S6:
Letting me speak again. I know it's a restriction on number of times. I'm gonna look into it. Didn't think so. So the problem with the property is not probate. The problem is our following of our bylaw. What the owner does is the purpose of our bylaw is to force them into action. Of which is what the purpose of the fines are. The fines started, stopped. They just said they're still there. I don't know what that means. Are we still finding daily they're unpaid?

01:31:13,500	S9:
They're unpaid.

01:31:14,729	S6:
You're still finding every day $300 a day.

01:31:17,069	S9:
I don't think he is finding every day.

01:31:18,869	S6:
Okay, so here's an example. I'm going to make some suggestions for policy recommendations to where there starts or stops. You don't know that this could be tens of thousands of dollars that you effectively have abated outside of your control. A water bill that goes over a few hundred bucks. You got a review here is just happening outside of your knowledge and control. That's totally improper.

01:31:43,829	S6:
This. Don't worry about ten days, okay? Ten days in the context of ten years, I suppose. But that's not representative of citizens who live next to a property that's been designated dilapidated, unsafe, uninhabitable. So yes, you need to get going. So the fines, I suggest you should not delegate this absolution of don't find them anymore because that's all it got. It got things going because of the fines. That's the point. And that's what the bylaws say for you to do. So I think you need a policy to guide this because policies tell the town manager what to do. And then they go, well, what could they be? I think resolution Timing is part of your policy. Get it done. Move it along. This is dragged on for years 2021. I had emails with Patrick Redford about this and inspections, and the police department got a car removed. All sorts of things had happened. The fines don't delegate the fines.

01:32:51,199	S1:
What's that got? 30s.

01:32:52,569	S6:
Yeah. Great. Thanks. So don't delegate the fines and do what other towns do in what the Attorney general has told you to do. Get a receiver. And they handle all.

01:33:03,869	S22:
Of.

01:33:03,930	S6:
This. That's what they do. You don't have like. Well, I don't know how to do this. I don't manage a property I don't know, I start stop fines. They do it. And then lastly increase the reporting not only to the residents because I'm getting our residents are getting almost nothing out of this. So compel the town manager, at least in his reporting, to keep people and yourselves up to date, including the fines, timing, the latency of all these activities that are going on.

01:33:34,399	S1:
Scott. I mean, we've had dilapidated properties in town. It's one of the hardest things to enforce and think about because.

01:33:41,569	S23:
I'm.

01:33:41,670	S1:
Just thinking it's just a just a it's a double edged sword because they're not doing it and you find them. There's I mean, so I get there's there's some frustration with the butters because we've, we dealt with many of them and they're very hard to take a lot of time. But yeah. So it's like, yeah, I mean we can talk about ways to improve. But this I mean, this one, I don't know. There's nobody owns the property right now. So he says it's not appropriate issue. But there's no owner of the property right now. So we get it's.

01:34:04,569	S2:
The.

01:34:04,630	S1:
Process.

01:34:05,270	S2:
For receivership as.

01:34:06,829	S1:
We're in the we're in that process right now.

01:34:09,600	S26:
Yeah.

01:34:09,829	S3:
We've not used.

01:34:10,399	S1:
The health department.

01:34:11,100	S9:
Has the. Yeah. The Board of Health hasn't voted to ask the attorney general to to go to court and seek a receiver because it was in probate in a different state, and they were waiting to hear more back. I think the attorney general would move forward if we direct them to, um, we.

01:34:25,529	S1:
Say we direct them to, can we direct them to it as a board to be the board of health director too.

01:34:29,270	S6:
I'll double check that.

01:34:30,270	S9:
I know that they're already working. I already worked with Water Health, but I can. I can double check and see if we can override that. But, um, the last thing I don't want to do, though, is create something that causes a different delay.

01:34:42,500	S1:
I don't want the problem to sell, but.

01:34:43,699	S9:
We've already we've already got we got an attorney that's identified to be trying to work on this up to the same end that we want him to work to. I don't want to get in the way and cause because if if the attorney General's coming in and saying, I want a receiver and then the property owners, the apparent property owners, attorneys sitting there saying, no, we want it to just come to us. It's I don't want to complicate the issue.

01:35:06,170	S1:
I'm assuming you want the property to sell and you want somebody else to own the property. The last thing we want to do is.

01:35:10,470	S6:
Get.

01:35:10,630	S1:
People to do, is get in the way of.

01:35:12,229	S6:
Handling properties like this, to deal with it or not.

01:35:14,699	S1:
Scott, Scott, come up for a second. I'm trying to make it simple at this property. You want the property to sell, right?

01:35:20,369	S6:
I want you to follow the town bylaw.

01:35:22,970	S1:
Not asking that. I'm asking a simple question.

01:35:25,029	S6:
Of course, that is. That is the. that is.

01:35:28,100	S1:
In the way of stopping.

01:35:29,630	S6:
That. It's not getting in the way. You're listening to a town manager. Tell you make my I've already got something going which has been delayed. The Board of Health had a meeting. I didn't know what to.

01:35:38,500	S1:
Do with it. Do you want us to ask you for your advice? Your advice is you want us to get in the way of this property.

01:35:43,630	S6:
You're not getting in the way. You are compelled to have a hearing. You've kicked the can down the road again.

01:35:48,869	S3:
We're passing.

01:35:49,699	S6:
Follow the bylaw that's in front of you, issue the fines, and guess what actions happen. It gets the monkey off of his back. He stops being defensive about protecting people.

01:36:01,529	S1:
But you understand that. Hey, Bill.

Right. 01:36:04,930	S3:
I know we've passed the point of this being constructive, so let's.

01:36:09,430	S1:
Just spend one second. I understand that you're in. Scott and I have friends. This is not an issue with us, but, um, no. And we've had other properties. We've dealt with the table. My question is that it's always like this. Because the second we start to put obstacles in it, it gets worse. And so we really don't like to make it worse.

01:36:26,369	S6:
You were listening to the opinion of the town manager that that's an obstacle of getting a receiver. It is not. It is how other towns behave. And it's the advice the attorney general has given this town. And the Board of Health refuses to act on it. We have a bylaw which you are compelled now to have a hearing and address this and go back over all this history, not just the Board of Health is going to give you last five months of stuff.

01:36:52,229	S1:
And we're having this discussion because we want to follow up on having a hearing. But the point is that before we go in that direction, because there's they're trying to sell the property, that would be in all of our best interest. But if you want us to have that public hearing would be more than one to have it. But I would think the best interest of town for somebody else to buy the property.

01:37:11,869	S6:
Don't put this on us. It's not the neighbors that have a problem the town voted a bylaw to do to that compels you to action that you are not following, nor is the town manager. When whenever the property sells, it's going to sell. It's going to sell a hell of a lot faster. If you were applying the fines, which you have not, unbeknownst to, you are not applying because that's the only thing that happened. Then an attorney showed up and he went, oh, nice, let's stop finding them because there's an attorney. The house is the same house it was for the last 5 or 10 years. Nothing's happened. I saw Windover truck there this weekend. They're trying. They're thinking. That's awesome, I guess.

01:37:58,130	S1:
But that's a simple question. You you you're you're you're of the opinion that we shouldn't we shouldn't give up. We shouldn't do a pause and let them solve property. That's what that's.

01:38:06,899	S6:
What. It's not. You are improperly framing that question. It is not a pause. It is follow our bylaw. Follow the advice that the Attorney general has given you two things that similarly to the other towns do, and these things get resolved.

01:38:21,970	S3:
Well, I would.

01:38:22,829	S1:
I would agree disagree that these get resolved.

01:38:25,130	S6:
We've been living it for ten years. All right. If it's if it's it's going to take a little longer. It's going to take longer.

01:38:31,229	S1:
These are very hard things to get resolved. I hear you I hear the pain. We've dealt with many of them in town, and they've all been very frustrated. I've gone and walked these properties years ago and find and find and find.

01:38:42,670	S6:
That's why I suggest you have a policy that says stop. Stop the nonsense. Apply some urgency to the bylaw. Go with the receiver's fine and fine and fine. And it's the receiver's job at the end of the process, decide to abate them due to them in the final resolution. Decide what cut the town is getting. It's not just get out of the business of managing this. Just stop it. You don't have the skills in time to do this. There are people that do.

01:39:13,729	S1:
So Joe, we'll look into the if we have to wait for the board or if we can supersede that.

01:39:18,529	S6:
You don't have to wait for the Board of Health. You need to have a hearing. You are not the Board of Health. You should have had a hearing ten days from a week from two weeks ago and it hasn't happened. So the Board of Health, they don't even have a meeting scheduled. Who knows when they're going to do it? They were thinking maybe they have their own. They were going to get the attorney general to come to their meeting. That is actually what they thought at their last meeting. So do what's under your control. You control things. Certain things. One of them is have a hearing, get the history, apply the fines. Get a receiver.

01:40:01,199	S5:
Okay.

01:40:02,100	S1:
Thank you.

01:40:02,470	S27:
Now it moves on.

01:40:04,630	S1:
Thank you. Scott. Anybody else?

01:40:08,399	S8:
I can appreciate the frustration when something goes on for a while. And you feel like we spend all this time putting a bylaw in place. I And and I appreciate what you're saying, that we've not been consistent about enforcing the bylaw.

01:40:26,869	S23:
So yeah.

01:40:30,229	S3:
My takeaway from I can see both sides at Scott. I appreciate the passion and that it's impacting you and your neighbors more than, than anyone else. Um, I think that it is incumbent for us to kind of start putting some essence of timelines together, as opposed to it being, well, it's going to just the cans going to kick down the road. Then we see where we are, and then it kicks down the road and we see where we are. And it seems like that's been going on for years with this, with this property. So I know that we've been effective by applying the the fines. However, you know, if it's coming, it's sounds like they've got certified copies, that it is in probate in New Mexico. It doesn't say that it's coming out of probate. They're still in the process of trying to get it into probate here in Massachusetts, presumably so it can be transferred, and then some sort of a deal can go through someone. The lawyer presumably is met with our, um, billing department or the town inspector, but not with not with Mark.

Right. 01:41:36,130	S9:
So not with Mark.

01:41:38,270	S3:
Um, it seems like they're starting to look around the edges to see what the easiest path forward is to be able to start to list this property. But it would make sense, whatever measures are available to us to create a timeline that they can start to hit. So or the fines are coming back. So otherwise if they're not and I know that the probate is out of their hands and they're.

01:42:03,329	S1:
Right out the building, Inspector. I mean, once again, he's right in terms of it's on us, but we don't see all this stuff, right? The building inspector initiates a fine. All right. Has to come from the inspector. We have to give him direct. I mean, there's a bunch of moving pieces and parts, and not just the four of us or five of us up here.

01:42:18,529	S3:
It's not. But at the same time, we can we can make an opinion about it, that they should be doing more setting timelines. Um, you know, if the state attorney general has a receiver who can force things along like that, that there are timelines in play, that they're going to act and that the attorney and the the soon to be seller, if they take and if they inherit the property that they know there's more fines coming so that they are not dragging their feet in any, in any manner. So that would seem to be the thing that we can help kind of advocate for is, is some timelines and that if deadlines and milestones are missed. So if they come out of probate and it's not listed within seven days because they've been dragging their feet. Right. So those are the types of things that I would think that these departments can start to put some scope around to give notice that the fines are coming back. And I think at a certain point, if the fines get to be so egregious, it starts to devalue the property, or it starts to seem like it's going to be a headache to work with this town, it makes it less attractive to a potential buyer developer. So there is a balance to it, but I think timelines make things pretty clear.

01:43:31,329	S1:
Do we know what the fines are right now, Joe?

01:43:33,199	S9:
I think they're wrong. Uh, $7,000.

01:43:37,630	S3:
So that's my take of it.

01:43:41,470	S1:
I mean, the next steps are here is that we'll we'll talk to the about the receivership, because I understand exactly who's supposed to do that. If it's we can do it, we'll do it. And then a public hearing, we'll schedule a public hearing.

Yeah. 01:43:57,430	S3:
I think a key focus is whoever's got the authority to set some timelines and put them on notice that the fines are coming back. That's the thing that we can advocate for. We don't have to vote on it or whatever. You know, those folks are if they're their own entity, they're going to do what they seem.

01:44:13,869	S1:
I mean, it's. It's just supposed to. It's not supposed to be. Stop and start. It's the bill. Inspectors. Obviously his his authority, but it's not. It's hard to do like a timeline. Once it starts. It starts. Once it starts, it's supposed to start and not stop until.

01:44:27,300	S8:
And you and you can't. You can't put a timeline on the process either. So. But but but I mean, I can appreciate the frustration. I think if I was living next to that situation for many years without.

01:44:42,430	S1:
But I just want to.

01:44:43,369	S28:
Yeah, I appreciate.

01:44:44,569	S1:
You, but I just want to set the timeline. You've been dealing with it for ten years. I've only heard about it for the last two months. So what I'm doing so and I've been on the board for eight years, that's why.

01:44:56,630	S6:
So policy to hear about this stuff and not just stop fines at 7000, there'd be another ten to almost $20,000 now. And accumulating you don't need.

01:45:06,229	S12:
Timelines are.

01:45:06,800	S29:
Great to for but that you don't control.

01:45:09,399	S6:
The timeline.

01:45:10,369	S29:
You control the daily.

01:45:12,300	S6:
Finds.

01:45:13,100	S29:
And that produces action. The resolution of those fines at the sale of the property is the discretion of the receiver. Not your problem. Get the receiver. You apply the fines and have a hearing.

01:45:28,270	S1:
I hear you well don't necessarily agree, but I hear you and we'll move things forward. Thank you.

01:45:38,869	S1:
But, Joe, there was another property on this email, too.

01:45:41,300	S9:
Yeah.

Um. 01:45:42,930	S1:
We need to talk about that one. No, it's.

01:45:47,729	S1:
Just got out.

01:45:48,529	S30:
Just got out of probate.

01:45:49,899	S1:
What's that?

01:45:50,500	S31:
What's that?

01:45:51,130	S8:
Is there another copy of that document?

01:45:52,729	S31:
Which document?

01:45:53,670	S8:
The one that you're holding.

01:45:55,569	S1:
Is this.

01:45:56,770	S9:
The stuff I left in front.

01:45:57,569	S1:
Of you? Is there anything?

01:45:59,369	S8:
You didn't leave anything in front of me?

01:46:01,430	S3:
I 61 beech. That one?

01:46:03,000	S1:
Yeah, 61 beech. When you talk about it, that one.

01:46:05,069	S3:
Has made it through probate. It is on the market.

01:46:08,100	S2:
Yeah.

01:46:08,930	S9:
You don't have to talk about it. I mean, nobody's. Nobody's been complain about it.

01:46:12,729	S1:
Get it through.

01:46:13,369	S9:
But here's where I left. One right. I left one at all three.

01:46:17,130	S30:
I still took it.

01:46:18,069	S1:
Oh, I threw it out.

01:46:21,600	S20:
All right.

01:46:23,000	S1:
Next item on the agenda. I want to get this open to start the discussion, not finish the discussion. But, um, is so worth the time. In the contract we had issued, you know, a three year contract. And after the first year, we can add a year to the contract. So I want to start those discussions and basically come up with a smaller group. You know, Bill Wolfson, I negotiated that contract and came back to to basically compromise. Do we want to work on it? And if we do want to work on it, then we just probably let me and Bill Wilson work with Joe and then come back to the board with recommendations to vote on. That's the way I want to talk about today.

01:47:01,300	S32:
So I like the process.

01:47:03,399	S1:
We heard a lot of comments from people. I think it's yeah, it's collecting all the comments, making sure things have been addressed, making sure that the right information is out there, because there could be some misinformation too. So we want to make sure we talk about it and we address it. So we don't need to take a vote. But that's a process that's going to start in February. Is an agreement with that.

01:47:23,170	S3:
Yeah, I'm comfortable with that. I think, you know, the two of you, if you did this last time around and you've both, I think superseded Joe's um, appointment. Right. So you've been here through the duration. So I'm comfortable with you guys being the two people to lead that.

01:47:43,600	S1:
So, Joe, we have until the end of the year or until.

01:47:46,729	S28:
Yeah. Are we good?

01:47:47,569	S1:
So we up to the end of the year and somebody right away. I want to start the process now so that because we have the town meeting coming up. But we'll come back to the bill and I will come back to the it does not be executive session because we're not really negotiating anything. It's just an extension. So we'll come back to the board with a recommendation. We'll vote on.

01:48:03,329	S28:
It.

01:48:03,529	S2:
So are we just discussing tonight the process process. The process, not actually like any input into what we think.

Yeah. 01:48:09,329	S1:
If you want to start the discussion so that we can. Yeah. Collect comments from community from yourselves.

01:48:14,729	S2:
Yeah. In that case, yeah, I support the process.

01:48:17,430	S28:
Okay.

01:48:19,970	S28:
Okay.

01:48:25,399	S1:
Um. New business. Anybody got new business?

01:48:31,869	S3:
I did, I forgot it. What's it said? If I did, I forgot.

01:48:35,170	S28:
What it's going to do.

Um. 01:48:40,100	S8:
I have a continuation of the Council on Aging issue. Um, I just want to stress how important it is to keep that on the front burner so that our, um, very new, inexperienced and lovely assistant director has the support that she needs to be able to grow into her job and that our seniors get the care that they need and deserve.

01:49:12,069	S28:
Okay.

Um. 01:49:13,869	S3:
I did have more of a public service announcement thing. I got an email from a cord. So if people are watching the recording, uh, and if you're a part of the snap program, they're having some open office hours. Uh, if you need support and food assistance, um, if you have any food insecurity or are missing paychecks, they've been thinking a lot about this, and they've they've got some open office hours coming up, and I'm trying to find their little flyer handout. Um, there it.

01:49:45,770	S28:
Is.

01:49:47,770	S3:
Open hours on Wednesdays, 930 to 11. Thursdays 10 to 11. And also on Thursdays from 630 to 7:30 p.m.. Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m.. Um, so just knowing that the Accord Food Pantry, which is on railroad and willow on the corner. So if anyone needs any help with food, go see them during those times.

01:50:19,770	S28:
Thank you.

01:50:21,899	S1:
How many.

01:50:23,529	S28:
Of them.

01:50:24,170	S1:
Go?

01:50:24,899	S28:
Oh.

01:50:25,729	S20:
All right.

01:50:26,470	S1:
I have a motion.

01:50:27,470	S28:
Motion to.

01:50:27,899	S2:
Adjourn.

01:50:28,500	S8:
Second.

01:50:30,000	S1:
All those in favor say aye.

01:50:31,229	S32:
I.

01:50:33,729	S3:
Do this. Not after a daylight savings.