00:00:35,501	S1:
Thank you. Good evening. This is the February 3rd, 2020 sixth meeting of the Welcome Select Board at 630. We're very pleased to be back in our home base here at Wenham Town Hall. With the big HVAC renovation 99% completed, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:00:57,267	S2:
Yeah, this is the first.

00:00:58,667	S1:
Yeah, yeah. So welcome back everybody. Um, and we will be meeting jointly starting at 7:00 with, uh, the finance committee, which, um, is here as well. So present for the Select board, uh, this evening are Karen Anger, Peter Clay, Deirdre Perotti, Gary Cheeseman and me, Ben Simon. And we start the agenda with, um, opportunity for public input. Joe, are we hybrid tonight. Are there zoom participants at all or.

00:01:31,701	S3:
Yes. There's no hands up.

00:01:32,868	S1:
Okay. Um, is there anybody here in the room who would like to make a public comment about that? Okay. Seeing none that will bring us to town administrator's update and town announcements.

00:01:48,200	S2:
Yep. Thank you, Mister chair. Uh, so we met with the working group. The Gordon College Working group. Met with Gordon College on Monday. So yesterday the the working group was, uh, Peter Clay, Karen Enger, Joe Mato, Michelle McGovern and myself. We met with a group of similar size with Gordon College. And, you know, we thought it went really good. Both sides expressed a strong desire to, um, strengthen the relationship between the town and the college. So I thought that went well. I'm sure they have more to follow. Uh, I'd also want to just commend Rich and the DPW guys for a good snow cleanup after, you know, record breaking snowstorm. I received more emails of, you know, thanks. And, you know, just commending the DPW, um, than any other storm since I've been here. So so thanks to those guys. I also want to say a reminder to the public and anybody here that nine and 54 Maple Street, there is a survey that would like you to participate in its work. For X, we are working with Essex Greenbelt to procure a conservation easement on nine and 54 Maple Street, and we're looking for residents feedback on allowable uses of the conservation land. Nomination papers are due on February 26th. These are on the website, but the planning board has three seats up the Hamilton Wenham Library. Trustees. Wenham. There's one seat for its three year term. The regional school district has three seats. It's two three year terms and one one year term. The Select board has two seats open both three year terms and the Water Commission one seat and a three year term. I also just want to kind of bump back up the 250th anniversary committee. We're at about 2 or 3, um, volunteers right now. We certainly need a couple more so we can get that committee set up and appointed. So if anybody's interested, please reach out and let us know. And that's all I have tonight.

00:04:06,901	S1:
Thanks. Um, I just want to echo on behalf of the board, um, kudos to Rich, Suzanne, the DPW, for handling a very challenging blizzard on the 24th and the 25th and the aftermath of that. Um, I know it's a constant battle between plowing the streets and dealing with residents who are trying to clear their sidewalks and so on. There's a lot of moving parts. And, um, just wanted to extend a reminder to the public as well that, um, in these circumstances, the policy of the board, um, which the DPW follows is obviously that streets are going to be cleared first, and then when the DPW can get to sidewalks on main roads and around Beaufort School that they will do that to the best of their ability with limited resources. But again, for the public, there's no, um, uh, guarantee that your street sidewalks are going to be cleared or when they're going to be cleared. It's really the responsibility of private residences and businesses to clear the sidewalks in front of their properties. But again, under the policy, the DPW does tackle those as their resources and conditions permit. And as Steve was saying, um, there were, I think, a lot of accolades that I received and I think others received and Steve did as well, um, about, um, how ably the DPW performed, um, over the course of this very large storm, including in sidewalk clearance. And so I just wanted to extend again my thanks and commendation to the DPW for the work that they did. And that's all I have. Gary.

00:06:00,400	S4:
There was a excellent show by Barry Mashhad and Phil Stearns last Thursday at the Koa music in the afternoon. I think they're going to have a more cafe music coming up. So it was a packed house, 50 or so people in there. So that's good. And I also add one more thing on the snow that, you know, people can get out to and at that far hydrants in front of your house pitching and helping on that too.

00:06:24,667	S1:
Deirdre.

00:06:26,267	S5:
Excuse me. Yes. I'll echo those comments and thank Rich Sousa and the DPW. I know they worked around the clock, so I appreciate the effort and really thank them for really putting in a tremendous effort. I also wanted to remind everyone that Representative Hannah Bowen is hosting a community conversation this week, Thursday night, February 5th from 6 to 730. It will be in Beverly at the Real Side Civic Center. And this is a conversation about school funding. I know Eric Tracy is speaking. She'll have others there. We'll be hearing from some experts about the challenges in school funding. And she's also having small working group conversations, so it should be an interesting evening. Encourage people to come out who are interested in the school funding struggles.

00:07:17,801	S1:
Thanks, Peter.

00:07:18,667	S3:
I'd like to echo most of what you guys say, and I'm absolutely going to the end of that one thing.

00:07:25,267	S6:
Excellent. Are you going to let.

00:07:27,367	S3:
What she just talked about down in Beverly? Great. Thank you. Karen.

00:07:32,501	S6:
Yeah. Well, I do echo some of the notes from my fellow colleagues here. I do believe that there is, um, some work that needs to be done regarding safety and our children. Um, regarding snow removal and sidewalks around Bukhara. So I do believe that we have to continue to put children and safety first, and hopefully we can find some middle ground and make sure that that is in fact, happening.

00:08:00,767	S3:
Okay.

00:08:02,267	S1:
Thank you. That moves us to the consent agenda. I would entertain a motion to approve item A on the consent agenda one day. Liquor license for First Church, February 7th, from 5 to 9 p.m..

00:08:17,567	S5:
So moved.

00:08:19,100	S3:
Second.

00:08:20,000	S1:
Great. We'll take a roll call. Karen.

00:08:22,167	S3:
Yes, Peter.

00:08:23,200	S1:
Yes. Deirdre.

00:08:24,067	S5:
Yes.

00:08:25,200	S1:
Gary. Yes. And Ben is. Yes.

00:08:26,901	S3:
Thank you.

00:08:29,000	S1:
Okay. Well, it looks like we can skip ahead to some things, right? Because we're not going to have our joint meeting for another.

00:08:36,567	S3:
Yes.

00:08:36,868	S1:
25.

00:08:37,868	S2:
Yeah. I think we'll definitely be able to cover easily B and C and then dive into the capital at on set seven.

00:08:44,868	S1:
Great. All right. So, um, move the item. Be continued. Discussion and review of warrant article items, which is a matter of old business. Steve, do you want to.

00:08:54,868	S3:
Pick it.

00:08:55,100	S2:
Up? A few updates on this? Um, I'll just run through. We'll start with the articles. So it looks like the tax deferred program is going to be removed, uh, for further study by the board of assessors. The, um.

00:09:15,067	S2:
The backyard chickens bylaw may also.

00:09:19,300	S3:
Have to be removed.

00:09:20,267	S2:
For further study. In addition to.

00:09:23,000	S3:
The.

00:09:24,000	S2:
Uh, subdivision rules and regulations. Uh, Margaret informed me that.

00:09:29,000	S3:
There.

00:09:30,701	S2:
There will be no bylaw zoning bylaw change requests this year at town meeting that they're rewriting the rules and regulations. Uh, it's just a regulation. And any bylaw changes are not going to be ready this year so that we can pull that down and that any bylaw changes as a result of this rewrite will be on next year's town meeting. So we've been working closely with Cape Law on the rest of these items. The authorization for easement and acquisition is been Kate's project. I don't know.

00:10:04,868	S3:
If.

00:10:05,667	S2:
You want to give a quick update or do you.

00:10:07,067	S3:
Not have.

00:10:08,300	S2:
She's been working hard on this.

00:10:11,467	S6:
Yep.

00:10:11,667	S7:
We've been working hard with the state. Um, the letters of intent just went out, so that is kind of kicking off the whole project. Um, so they just went out yesterday, and, um, we're just chugging along. We are set to hit, um, the ad date, which is in August, and then four months after that, they will let us know when they're going to start the project. It could be as soon as, um, four months after that ad date. So moving along.

00:10:43,067	S2:
So the articles that were added to this list, that's not here as we are, a request to permit the town to host a town meeting outside of the town of Wenham, and some a conversation that I thought the board could have tonight is on the, um, an individual person, uh, holding multiple seats on different boards. So I think the intent of this article is to limit certainly elected officials from home, from holding multiple seats, and then also through a bylaw change, which would be two separate articles. One would be special legislation to limit the elected board piece. And then if the board wants to further discuss what boards it deems to be, you know, we'd use the term policy making boards. But, you know, in a sense that's not accurate because there are like fin com although there is a currently a restriction to serve on fin com and any other board. But they're not necessarily policy making boards, but they have high influence on an advisory capacity to the select board. So for the, you know, the select board to have a discussion whether tonight or to least start thinking what boards you want to be affected. So in the sense that what boards can only have one person have the seat and you can't have a seat on multiple boards, has any thoughts to that specifically? You know, last time we had talked about board of assessors. Uh fin com obviously that's already in there, possibly Board of Health from an election standpoint.

00:12:24,868	S3:
We're looking for any board.

00:12:26,467	S2:
Yep. So that would be the the planning board select board I believe those are our only school committee. School committee. But we can't govern. We can't govern the school committee. The school committee would be the makeup of the school committee would be made up through their the regional agreement. And but it would by preventing a select board member or a planning board member from sitting on any other board. You can't. So you can say that if you're if you're on the school committee, you can't be on a Wyndham board. But not that you can't be vice versa.

00:13:02,767	S6:
So can you. Just restricted to the select board. You can't have both approving a budget line. So a select board member also serving as a school committee member.

00:13:13,167	S2:
Yeah. That would it would prevent it. But like indirectly because you can't be you can't be on a one on board and the school committee.

00:13:19,968	S6:
Right.

00:13:20,367	S5:
Although I did ask that that language be included in the regional agreement also.

00:13:26,067	S2:
Yeah.

00:13:26,467	S5:
And I don't know where that went.

00:13:27,667	S2:
Yeah. So basically where that is now is.

00:13:33,801	S2:
Hamilton was originally they were on board with it, but then they were a little bit hesitant because they have a difficulty. I mean, not too dissimilar from us in getting enough people to get involved to fill all the seats that are open. So inevitably someone's interested in getting involved. They end up being on two seats. So in Lauren brought up the point that we can accomplish what we want to accomplish through, you know, restriction in our boards. And then so that way Hamilton is free to have multiple seats and we can still accomplish us. But you can't be on a planning board, select board or school committee at the same time. You can only hold one one seat out of the three boards.

00:14:21,567	S6:
I would echo Hamilton's concern. We have enough problems with open seating and and when going into this April, we have what, ten seats you said potentially open to be elected for if not closer. And a lot of the CoA. The assessors, like you don't have to be voted on. They're just open seats. They're having a hard time filling. So if we can have as many less restrictions, um, as possible, I think that make sure that people are moving forward with signing up and volunteering.

00:14:56,400	S5:
So some of the seats that are up this year are re-election. So it's two different things. They're not necessarily vacant seats.

00:15:05,167	S6:
Well they're vacant which won the election yet. Just people.

00:15:08,567	S5:
Right. But that doesn't coincide with what you were just saying. That's not because we don't have people. That's people running for re-election. The idea of this article.

00:15:17,667	S6:
No one's running for reelection. There's two open seats. Should somebody then want to that to apply for it, they.

00:15:25,968	S2:
Say, is that there's an incumbent in those seats.

00:15:30,267	S3:
Right. So we have two would likely select board to open. One of them happens to be Deirdre, and I'm guessing she's probably going to run again.

00:15:39,367	S5:
Yeah, I am. Actually, now that you mention it. But the point of the article is to limit conflict of interest. That's the point of the article.

00:15:52,467	S3:
Um, what?

00:15:54,200	S1:
I think if we put this forward to the voters of town meeting, it will need to specify which.

00:16:01,968	S3:
Boards are.

00:16:03,267	S1:
To do so. Has that been have we finalized that? I don't think we have.

00:16:09,167	S2:
Kind of started the discussion. And I think, at least from what I've gathered so far, is the definite are the at least the way it's been presented. The board hasn't necessarily agreed on whether the item is going to go there or not. But right now we're writing it that the elected boards there, you can only hold one seat on the elected boards. Right. So planning board, school committee, select board can only be on one one of those boards at a time.

00:16:36,267	S6:
Aren't assessors elected as well?

00:16:38,067	S3:
No no no.

00:16:39,767	S2:
They are. Um. So they were up until two years ago, but now was migrated or migrated to and appointed. So then it leaves you with pretty much all the other boards and committees, including the CPC, really to some, some extent, because they do the appointed component, uh, as to what really leaving it up to the select board to decide which boards they want to limit participation in.

00:17:08,767	S1:
Board of health is currently appointed or elected.

00:17:12,367	S2:
Currently appointed.

00:17:14,100	S4:
We're transitioning.

00:17:15,801	S2:
I mean, yeah, it's it's like the reason why I say.

00:17:18,267	S1:
It's going to be appointed. Okay. Yeah.

00:17:20,100	S2:
Because I'm going to wait till it's a phase out. So we're in the first phase out. So coming up this year the Select board will appoint a first member to the Board of Health and the Board of Assessors in its ancestry.

00:17:32,667	S3:
Okay.

00:17:33,200	S1:
Because I know the discussion is and isn't purely an elected versus appointed discussion, but I would advocate not including the Board of Health in this because I think that's one board my mind that the most important thing is to have qualified people on the board of Health. And if there happens to be a member of another board who has health expertise, um, and wishes to put his or her name forward to be appointed to the Board of Health, I wouldn't want to force that person off of another board. Um, so to me that that's one board I would personally not want to have, um, as part of this prohibition. But.

00:18:15,601	S3:
Um, that's.

00:18:17,367	S1:
The only the only board in my mind that I would want to insulate from, um.

00:18:22,601	S3:
Not.

00:18:22,801	S1:
A bunch of conflicts of interest.

00:18:24,868	S2:
How about zoning, zoning board of appeals?

00:18:26,567	S5:
I would I would include ZB.

00:18:30,667	S2:
For the Board of Health is. Gentlemen.

00:18:34,767	S1:
What other.

00:18:35,067	S2:
People think?

00:18:35,667	S4:
Yeah. I don't think the, uh. You have the water commission, cemetery commission, the Board of Health that are all more technical oriented groups. So I would hope that they would be a attract those folks and not be duplicative to the other boards members. But I do see, you know, we've had in the past members of, you know, the Board of Health and other committees that, you know, it can create tension if you're bringing up a policy to a board that you're also sitting on. And I think that's one of the considerations here, is if we can move to a situation where people have one seat on one board that way for the key ones like, uh, planning, uh, you know, planning CBA fin com and select board those I think should be isolated absolutely to one person. And the others I think are flexible. But I would certainly prefer that everyone just have one seat and do that job well, and that the other people step up to the slots.

00:19:47,400	S2:
I agree with.

00:19:47,868	S5:
That. Agreed.

00:19:50,100	S2:
All right, so Water Commission is something I forgot that selected board. So that will be not included.

00:19:57,467	S2:
That's the sense. Let's just go ahead.

00:19:59,868	S4:
Yeah I think, you know, because they're called commissions. Both cemetery and water have traditionally had kind of their own little finance area. And perhaps CPC falls in that area too, that they got, you know, a lot of money that they're looking after, but they have to come forward to other boards for the final approval. Likewise, affordable housing trust I would not want to have, other than the designated one, to have people on multiple seats, bringing that forward to planning or to plant or whatever.

00:20:32,200	S2:
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:35,167	S4:
I just I think it's, you know, avoid the conflict of interest of person on one board, you know, turning around and voting on what they just recommended.

00:20:44,367	S8:
Right, exactly.

00:20:46,400	S5:
So I don't know if DC if the at large seat because CPC is comprised of people from other committees already. But I would want to preserve sort of some independent seats. So I don't know, maybe if we can distinguish the at large seats from the ones that are designated, if you follow what I'm saying.

00:21:05,567	S8:
Yeah.

00:21:09,000	S1:
That makes sense to me. I mean, yeah, large seats, because you would hope that those would be independent people because there's already so many folks.

00:21:18,567	S5:
There's so many criss cross.

00:21:19,968	S8:
Exactly.

00:21:20,767	S1:
Organization. Yeah. What about the Conservation Commission?

00:21:25,868	S8:
That's another technical.

00:21:27,667	S4:
Yeah, technical, but.

00:21:28,467	S8:
Not.

00:21:29,567	S4:
A lot of money over there too. So again, you know, if they have to come to the select board with a proposal like we've had recently and they really shouldn't be coming forward and saying, here, here's the document and turn around and vote on it as the select board member. So I'll put them off limits too. Yeah.

00:21:49,868	S1:
I mean, I do want to just throw in. I realize that all all of my colleagues know this already, but since it's relevant to the discussion that, you know, if there were such a situation where there's a member serving on two boards and one board is bringing something to the other board, the person would recuse him or herself. That would be certainly like the typical remedy to avoid a conflict. But I understand the broader, you know, conflict concerns, too.

00:22:18,000	S4:
Well, we still have some three member boards, you know. So one excuses and then one doesn't show and then nothing gets done. So anyhow. Nothing.

00:22:29,767	S2:
All right. And then the other big one is the date. So Gordon College cannot do the 11th. Their facility is not available on the 11th. They are packed from morning to late at night with sports events. They go if they want it to work out. The only other weekend day, plus or minus a week from the 11th. So we look a week ahead and the week before not deviate too far from our town meeting day. If they could do the fourth. So that's kind of back to the original 1st of April. That wasn't a holiday, but it was the day before a holiday.

00:23:15,000	S6:
That is Christianity perspective. The most religious 48 hours of the entire year. I can't imagine posting something the day before Easter.

00:23:29,601	S1:
Yeah, I think that was part of the rationale for why we, you know, moved it. Um, what about.

00:23:38,367	S9:
The Saturday after.

00:23:39,667	S4:
1870? Yeah.

00:23:42,267	S2:
They can't do it. No. And weeknights you're looking at the week. Looking at weeknights, they're gonna get back to us.

00:23:49,667	S1:
That would be the the week of April 6th.

00:23:53,868	S2:
Yeah.

00:23:57,167	S9:
Because to be continued. Yeah.

00:24:01,167	S1:
And the concern, the the concern is that that if we keep it on the 11th and we have an A puka, we could run into the same situation we did a year ago with over with, uh, exceeding capacity.

00:24:14,000	S2:
Yeah, exactly. So we're looking at, you know, possibly having to do it twice. The other thing we're looking at and getting prices on is doing it in a attempt in Pingree Field. Um, it's not a far. It's not ideal. Understood. It's not cheap, but it's likely cheaper than doing it twice. Because we're up against whether if we leave it on the 11th or we leave it on any day other than, you know, and we do it at the Bucharest school, you run the risk of exceeding the capacity and having to cancel and host it at a backup date, which, you know, we have to set anyways. But now you're doing it twice, or, you know, the other way you could do it is, again, you would have to pay to do it twice, but you could leave it on the 11th and do it at Beaver School with the entire warrant, minus the budget articles. So then you bring the budget articles back at a separate town meeting when you could do it. And again, probably not.

00:25:15,167	S6:
You're looking at having an override to then spend double the amount of money for having the meeting. I feel like that's a.

00:25:21,400	S2:
Pretty good.

00:25:22,067	S6:
Date. Yeah, but from a Selectboard perspective, that doesn't give much confidence in the board itself.

00:25:28,801	S1:
I mean, I think we I think we should either keep it on the 11th and look into doing it at Pingree Park, or do it at Gordon on a weeknight on the during the week of April 6th if they have it available. That's my feeling, but.

00:25:42,267	S9:
I prefer the latter.

00:25:43,801	S1:
You would.

00:25:45,267	S9:
Say I have all the AV stuff set up for us.

00:25:48,467	S2:
And.

00:25:49,567	S6:
It worked. It worked well.

00:25:51,267	S4:
I think we'll find that if we we still probably have the numbers from the big tent during Covid, and that was an expensive proposition. I think it was up to 50, $60,000.

00:26:03,367	S1:
For the tent.

00:26:03,801	S9:
Rental.

00:26:04,267	S4:
If the tent and then the audio set up and not to mention, you know, whether the ground's going to be frozen or muddy. So I think the the alternative with a weeknight at the Gordon may be the solution this year. Yeah.

00:26:22,267	S1:
All right. Anything else on this item? That's all I have from the board. Any members of the public wish to be heard on town meeting warrant planning items? Seeing no one that would move us to item C because it's 656. Can we handle C quickly or should we?

00:26:42,801	S2:
Uh, see, it's a it's really.

00:26:44,467	S1:
The same thing.

00:26:45,000	S8:
The same.

00:26:45,467	S1:
Yeah. All right. So we've handed. All right. So, um. Good. So in three minutes, we will or so we'll welcome the finance committee.

00:26:56,567	S2:
Um, there's.

00:26:57,167	S10:
No David yet.

00:26:59,167	S1:
When we take a three minute recess, we can just stay where we're at and come back.

00:27:05,467	S4:
Seven quick question for Steve. When do we expect the draft Warren articles back from town council.

00:27:13,367	S2:
I'm targeting to circulate a draft with rough commentary on the 10th.

00:27:26,801	S8:
Do you have the e-mail addresses of the people that you met with yesterday?

00:27:31,767	S9:
Dear, I can't start.

00:27:32,968	S8:
Do you have the email?

00:27:36,100	S2:
The deadline was no.

00:27:37,767	S9:
But I'm sure Steve first. Oh. I'm actually.

00:27:43,400	S8:
I feel like the chair.

00:27:45,267	S2:
The vice chair.

00:27:46,200	S8:
I wanted to send a thank, you.

00:27:47,567	S9:
Know, the the the the note that was.

00:31:20,167	S11:
We're going to call the order. The Hamilton. I'm sorry, the Hamilton venom. Uh, it's just the one. Yeah. Sorry. The venom finance advisory committee. Uh, president, uh, Finn Sprague and Jared Ward. We do have a quorum. Uh, so. So I think we're ready to go here.

00:31:38,467	S1:
Great. Thank you. So we are now meeting in joint session. And, Steve, why don't you take it from here? All right.

00:31:45,067	S2:
Thanks, everybody, for coming out tonight.

00:31:47,367	S8:
So you're on the thing.

00:31:49,601	S2:
I thought I just made some sense to get everybody in the room together and talk through capital, but Jeff's departure, um, you know, the timeline tightened a little bit and kind of killed two birds with one stone. Instead of doing two separate presentations and bringing the departments in twice for both the finance committee and the select board, and then to bring them together to come to a final decision on the capital plan. You know, just try to do it in one night. Although the expectation is not that any decisions will be made, but hopefully any of your questions or concerns can be aired out and answered so that we can take further deliberation and come up with a final recommendation. So I wrote that memo. Really, just as you know, we don't really have to go into it tonight, but I just wanted to kind of frame how capital is funded here in Wenham and, you know, the state of those reserves and funding avenues. And, you know, a few years ago we developed, you know, for the first time, certainly the first time in several years, a five year capital plan that kind of got us in the mindset for a little bit of forward thinking and as a capital needs for the for the town of Wenham. So each year that the town, the way the process goes, the town brings back the cap, the five year capital plan, and also requests to all department heads to bring forward any requests that they need to run their department efficiently, and that it isn't on the five year plan. And then we sit with the rich Sousa and facilities manager, Mike McCarty, and go through and kind of rejigger the Cap five year capital plan, along with the requests from the departments. So, you know, one of the things that we've everybody's noticed is capital expenditures have increased. Good.

00:33:41,267	S11:
I just want to acknowledge we have our fourth members just signed in online, David Doggett's. We have four out of five.

00:33:46,567	S2:
Thanks, Ben. So everybody has noticed that the capital expenditures have increased significantly over the last 4 or 5 years. So, I mean, I think that is really in part twofold. So if you go back to the years prior to the fifth year or so. 2022 I believe that through to back to 2019, the Select board used free cash to offset the tax rate. So essentially they were balancing their operating budget with free cash. And they also during those years they had very minimal to no capital expenditures. So I think in part the uptick is probably from some deferral of projects that were kind of in the waiting to be done. And with the turnover took a year or two to kind of, uh, come out, you know, come out and figure out, you know, what needed to be done and when and get them on the capital program and get them done. You know, in, in part, you know, the money's there. And when the money is there to spend, it kind of makes an easy decision to, you know, include all the requests instead of taking a harder look. But, you know, as the budget is. The budget pressures are tightening and discussions are starting to take place. And I've heard really from both boards that they want to take, you know, kind of a closer look, certainly through the lens of wants and needs of the capital program and see if there's any place where we can tighten up on the capital spending and try to, you know, use that wants and needs lens. So, you know, with that we I went back and we discussed in part with Geoff, but he's not here tonight. But we discussed with all the department heads and kind of went over their request this year and said, see what we could defer, you know, what didn't need to be done at all. Uh, you know, what needed to be done this year. So, you know, with those discussions, I did make some adjustments to the capital list that was originally circulated. I do want to highlight to what we did come up with was that, you know, really, everything on here is a need. You know that. Maybe just not a need this year. So, you know, for. You know, for example, we have some carpet and I can go through each, each change I made, but I, you know, I think for example, is carpeting is something that, you know, is needed in some of the offices in town Hall is needed in the fire station. You know, they're all ripped up. The police station, you know, wants to match their carpet. But, you know, it's certainly not something that needs to get done this year, but it is important to keep on your radar that it will eventually need to get done if it doesn't get done this year. So going through the list. Um, so with the starting with the new ambulance. So talking with the fire chief and deputy fire chief, they've been requesting a new ambulance for some time. And part of, you know, the finance director's role, once they got up to speed, Was going to be Jeff was to, you know, do a deep dive into, you know, the financials of running the ambulance and how much, you know, it actually makes the town. So, you know, we've decided to, you know, to, to to push that back a year or maybe to, to do a deeper dive into that. And what we did change is, you know, also new news was that the, the Chevy Silverado 3500 that the fire station has, if you go to, uh, the one that looks like this. Sorry.

00:37:37,000	S2:
Yeah. Go all the way to the to the top.

00:37:44,000	S2:
So that fire Chevy Silverado. So that was added in. The ambulance was removed. So the reason was we got and this was, you know, relatively new news, at least to me, was that the when they went to put the part of pub, the plough mounted. The frame is no longer safe to carry a plough nor tow a heavy trailer. Bobby had a question.

00:38:08,367	S12:
Steve, is it fair to ask the people to prepare an analysis for the ambulance when it comes up again, showing the revenue that's generated and how the thing interacts? Because it's not totally just an expense item. It produces revenue.

00:38:23,501	S2:
Yep. That's correct. And that's what we want to see. I think it's fair to ask. That's what we're hoping to be able to provide to not just the boards, but also the taxpayers when they're looking at it, where it isn't just an expense, that it's probably revenue positive. It may make business sense for the town to, you know, expand the operations.

00:38:43,300	S9:
It's not that far.

00:38:45,367	S2:
All right. So if you keep scrolling down, the next one is, um, the so the police station copper replacement. We've suggested deferring that to a to a later year. The police station victim interview room and improvement. I had originally intended to defer that this year I had thought I had identified a grant which we were still applying for, but it's not guaranteed. So in the event we will know before town meeting if we got the grant, we have filled out the application. I'll be submitting it tomorrow, and if we don't get it, I do believe that there is a need there for this year, at least for the, um, audiovisual systems, so that we can record the interviews and interrogations and provide those recordings to the courts when requested. And I will bring the chief up, will come up later. And, you know, he does feel strongly, um, the need to to rehab that room for a number of different reasons as they pertain to, you know, the police duties and the responsibilities they have to the community.

00:40:04,167	S2:
So and then similarly, if you go to the fire on the third page, the fire carpet replacement. Um, you know, so again, we'll be we'll be deferring that in in part like the, the fire station carpet is in tough shape, but in part because of the fire station I think needs, you know, there the, the basement needs to be looked at or it used to be a shooting range. It needs to have a significant lead of abatement in demolition. The department, you know, interior needs certainly needs some renovation outside of the base. Uh, you know, the building certainly is showing its age. And I think it this may be before we start spending money on it is to start, you know, figuring out what we're going to do with the structure. Like, are we going to continue to utilize as it is now? I know some of the new fire trucks don't. Or chief, is it all the new fire trucks don't fit in the bay's.

00:41:06,167	S9:
New specialty.

00:41:06,767	S2:
Maine, but they have especially specialized, specially made fire trucks or buy them on the use market because all the new equipment does not fit in our bays. They're too large. So again, but there's there's conversations around the fire station that I that are bigger than just, um, redoing the carpet and things like that that I think need to take place before we spend any money on those. So with that, that shaved about I'm about $150,000 off, uh, the other. What's that?

00:41:38,501	S9:
So, Steve, if I'm not mistaken, um, it twitched like a couple of years ago. Bought a new, uh, fire engine, and then they.

00:41:46,300	S13:
Needed to pop it outside.

00:41:47,767	S9:
Yeah, but then they had to build a separate building for it.

00:41:50,767	S13:
They took delivery without backing it in.

00:41:56,667	S2:
So as far as the discussion moving forward, I think a lot of these projects are relatively straightforward. However, I believe there are some specific questions around certain projects. Uh, chief DiNapoli, I don't know if you want to. We'll start off with the police. I know you have a couple requests. I've thought, you know, because I want each year we ask the department what they need to do to run their department successfully. And we take seriously their recommendations as the professional in that department. And so I wanted to hear where the, you know, the chief had a number of projects deferred. I just wanted to hear, just so the residents know, like what they're deferring beyond just the dollar amounts.

00:42:38,200	S14:
Yeah. I mean, I can start in anything.

00:42:41,100	S2:
You.

00:42:41,367	S12:
Yeah.

00:42:41,868	S14:
Yeah. I mean, some of the, you know, the just to go over all the capital requests just so I can make sure I'm not missing any of them. As far as the tasers, that's a second year of a lease payment that obviously was agreed upon at the outset. From the first payment with the purchase that was made. And that's an absolute officer safety and public safety need based on it's a less lethal force option that can quell a situation, to keep the officers safe and to mitigate and avoid greater, greater harm and injury to the officer and a person if needed, so that that second lease payment is beyond vital to get that done. The weapons that we added there last year or this past year, we had numerous malfunctions that had been previously presented at prior budgets to replace the weapons, um, just because of malfunctions and the costs associated with what would have needed to get those weapons fixed, it just wasn't prudent and didn't make sense. So we were able, it didn't end up being a capital item. We pulled that out of our training line. However, the remaining money in our training line could not account for the full purchase of the weapons, which left a handful of weapons that were a different type of weapon, a different caliber, so they didn't match up. Not to mention, the move over time was a cost savings, because the ammunition in the newer weapons that we transitioned to was cheaper. So the ammunition required for training, which we do have obviously mandatory regular training, it will save money over time not to just on the costs of fixing them, but on the ammunition costs itself. The two cruisers that were presented, Steve and I. And I want to thank Steve for for taking the time to really have a good dialogue back and forth and to understand kind of what I'm sure all the department heads will echo my thoughts on it, where we are, and to allow that discussion to take place and to be open and respectful. And and we took a look at the two cruises that were brought forward. One is a marked cruiser, which the patrol officers in some situations are using them 24 hours a day, not just in the patrol, but for traffic details, for training, for court. They're getting a lot of use. I do have the breakdown. My administrative assistant did a phenomenal job, actually. Today I asked her for an up to date breakdown of the maintenance costs for all our cruises over the last fiscal year and then year to date from July 1st until now. So I do have those numbers if you need them. I won't bore you with them, but quite a bit of maintenance costs were in place for the different vehicles and I have that breakdown. So what we did based on my discussion with Steve is to shelf the administrative vehicle request to next year. With the understanding, you know, I can't predict what the maintenance costs will be. I can, uh. Honestly, as we all know, understand and know that when it is traded in the the trading value is going to go down and maintenance costs might be high. May not be, I don't know, I knock on wood and I hope they're they're not but it will have to. We'll have to wait and see and address it accordingly. Um, as far as the carpets that's already been discussed, we'll, um, you know, move forward with that down the road as the other town buildings are doing, doing the same. And we'll address that if and when we can next year or the year after. And then the other area I don't believe I forgot any was the interview room that Steve alluded to. And there's a lot more to this to to mistaken to think of it as only a cosmetic item. Would definitely not do it justice with the understanding of what's needed for this room right now. The current room does. The audiovisual equipment is not working properly, so we're running into a circumstance with the court requests for this from the DA's office for the recordings of a victim witness interview. Um, we can't provide that right now. Uh, it's a it's a major, major problem. Um, so, um, that's something that's an absolute absolute need, not to mention, um, the room itself. And I'd be happy to show anyone if they are interested. I know, uh, Steve and, uh, Dave, uh, came over Dave Doggett when he was at the building. We. It's a poured concrete floor with a crack down the middle, and it's cinderblock walls in this room. So if we have somebody who's unfortunately a victim coming into our station to make a statement. Want to talk with our officers or our detective? This is the room they're walking into, and I it's I don't think it sets the right tone, the right environment for someone when they come into our station to be in that structure, in that setting. So that's something that is very important. It is not, you know, for the cosmetic purpose. It isn't that that simple. It is very, very important. Not to mention the panic button in that room for the officers. We are in accredited police department through the Mass Accreditation Coalition. It's required to have panic equipment in that room for the officer or the detective. Um, and that's a that's a compliance, um, need, if you will. Um, the soundproofing of the walls that will help the audiovisual equipment work more effectively. And then also the ability as a supervisor, myself, the deputy chief, any of the sergeants to observe an interview without being in the room. This equipment would also provide for that as well, which is very vital for another officer to be not in the room necessarily, but to be able to view it and make recommendations on how to better effectively handle a situation which is part of, you know, unfortunately, what we have to do. And I'd be glad to answer any, any other questions or better explain the quote that I received as well. Yes, sir.

00:49:18,267	S12:
Uh, first of all, thank you for offering to provide the numbers, because the committee was looking for that and in support of the comments that were put in the write up, the question with regard to the audio visual in the victim interview room. Uh, the bulk of that is audiovisual equipment. What alternatives were looked at. Were there lower cost alternatives that were rejected because some of the members of the committee here have suggested that? That seems like an awful high number for performing a basic audiovisual function.

00:49:50,968	S14:
Yeah. And it's it's there aren't a lot of companies that do it. We looked around a lot. We ended up the quote that we got as Hunt's, which specializes in this. I don't have other quotes to share with you. Um, it it breaks down line by line, and I don't want to bore you with it going by each line. But as far as the the cameras, the installation, the microphone, the power supplies, the, um, the the switches, the indicator lights, all these other things, and then the, the software that comes along with it that makes it compatible with our current operating system, our computer system. And then the soundproof walls is part of that quote as well. But no, I don't have another quote with that.

00:50:38,000	S12:
With regard to the generator, which is still on the list, I think. Uh. How often has that been used? I know it's 20 years old, but I have.

00:50:45,767	S2:
That would be a to that the facilities add. So that is like before. Yeah. So that's basically dead. That's something Mike and Rich added. So both the what is it the generator at the police and there's another generator.

00:51:00,167	S15:
Just the police.

00:51:02,167	S12:
So those are being withdrawn?

00:51:03,767	S2:
No, those are, those were added by facilities because it's a they don't they don't operate and they're the emergency power for the town.

00:51:12,767	S11:
So we can table that until Ritch comes up to describe it. Yep yep. Okay. Okay.

00:51:18,000	S9:
That's good.

00:51:19,667	S8:
Okay.

00:51:23,767	S12:
One question that's related to this because, uh, free cash is generated by, uh, budget performance, actual to budget. Uh, the record for the police department is at 98.4% of budget over the last four years. Okay. Is there some reason, you know, that you're able to budget that closely?

00:51:47,801	S14:
Um, as far as what my current requests are. Can you just better explain that? I'm sorry.

00:51:54,100	S12:
I'm just trying to. Within the context of free cash. Free cash comes from the operating budget. Okay. And it comes from two places. It comes from low, low budgeting on the revenue side. And it comes a little bit from high budgeting on the expense side. And I was just noticing it when I looked at the historical record that the police department comes very close to spending its budget. And I was just curious as to how you folks manage that.

00:52:19,501	S14:
Yeah. I mean, I'm super. I drive the office's crazy. I'm pretty fiscally conservative conservative, and any of our changes have really been the salary end of it is specific to our collective bargaining agreement. So it is what it is. As far as the union. How it's broken down by that. The other changes that we've made have been minimal, specific to the contractual services that have not been exuberant. We've been able to kind of stay within the constraints of where we need to be.

00:52:51,901	S9:
So okay.

00:52:55,367	S2:
And then just to comment on the audiovisual procurement law would require us to get three quotes. So the estimate is intended to be conservative. And we would procure the lowest quote to a by law to to get the equipment and then any, any proceeds that were left over, if the, if the appropriation was over would then be re appropriated to future capital projects through town meeting.

00:53:29,267	S4:
Well, I think certainly in the I've seen the room also, you know, and clearly it dates from original building design. And we know that policing is in a different era now. And as you say, you know, one of them needs to have the facilities that provide the information and support to the courts, as well as to, as you say, consideration for witnesses and so forth. So I think, you know, that's money well spent and the need to get it done. We can't be far behind on issues like that.

00:54:02,300	S9:
I agree with that. Kara.

00:54:06,167	S6:
I have a quick question. So I am understanding that we took or money was taken out of training to update the weapons, correct. So personally that I'm a little disappointed in that because I think that we have a younger staff, and I would really love them to be able to allocate the certain trainings or be able to, um, really focus on career development and, and be able to do that. Is there a way that as a town that can be increased in an additional walkthrough? Um, so that that is that amount of money that was taken from training, which I specifically think the officers need in addition to the weapons is do you know that exact amount that was taken? And is there a way that that can.

00:54:56,000	S2:
Well, I think what you're getting at it, this is a in budget year expense that ah, that came up as a dire safety issue. And we had to replace the weapons as soon as possible. And our emergency reserve is low and the money was in training, and we had to make the concession and decision to purchase the weapons, given the safety concern for all the officers to make sure they were procured this year. And that's why the capital plan that with the remaining weapons is for the on call or part time Officers, so it's not an ongoing next year. The training will be, you know, refunded. There'll be no weapon spent out of it. There's a one time emergency. It was a one time emergency expenditure.

00:55:43,868	S14:
No. And I appreciate the question. I, um, I really do because I agree with you 1,000%. It's so it's so important. And that's when one of our goals to to get the best training that we we can for all our officers. And not only you try to meet it halfway is is it. It's got to be mutually beneficial. It's a it's a wanting a desire for something the officer is interested in. But it is also benefits the agency and the municipality as well. So you try to meet it right in the middle. And and that makes a happy officer. And a happy officer is a productive officer.

00:56:14,400	S6:
So that's fine. I guess my concern was more did that was that offset by no money taking away from the officer?

00:56:20,567	S14:
I appreciate it, thank you. Yep.

00:56:24,400	S9:
Okay.

00:56:25,000	S16:
Any other questions or comments?

00:56:28,167	S8:
Chief job and mine.

00:56:31,400	S1:
I'm going to assume that there aren't any hands up on zoom. I don't see any on the screen. So, chief, thanks very much.

00:56:37,767	S14:
Thank you so much.

00:56:44,267	S8:
Steve.

00:56:46,167	S2:
Yeah. I don't know if anyone has the questions for the fire. I know they have some training that they have to get to. So if you guys have any questions or do you want to talk about the truck at all? Chief, I think we're on the same page on it. On the on the ambulance and the fire truck. The pickup truck. Right.

00:57:10,901	S1:
Good evening. So on the ambulance, we can defer that for one year.

00:57:16,167	S13:
Or possibly to. I would prefer one year, but it's a we try and put the ambulance in a reserve status after ten years. That's just maintenance wise. Everything. And so we deferred that and we put a pickup truck in that we need. Uh, thankfully, Rick Souza let us borrow a pickup truck during the whole storm, and we actually used it to get a patient out of a house, too, because we were no way getting into that driveway. So that's the one thing it's about. Uh.

00:57:56,400	S13:
It's going to reduce it by, what, about 164,000 from the ambulance to the pickup? And the pickup is going to be a total of 86,000. And that's going to come with the whole plow setup. It's going to have a king cabinet for the for any crews that we got to transport anywhere. It's not used just for plowing. It's used for command post. It's used for everything. It'll have a cap on it. And, uh, it's pretty straightforward.

00:58:26,601	S2:
And just to highlight why they need a plow is because, um, really two reasons. One, we have a lot of private roads in town in long driveways that can be, um, plowed. So for them to access the residents, they need to have a plow truck, which is why it was on the other one. And when we were told we can't because the frame is rusted out, we can't. We can't mount it anymore. Uh, that was one need. And then also the DPW and something that's been going on. Uh, for a long time, it went on. But on the heavy snowstorms, the fire, uh, fire department chips in and helps with the. It's the fire lot and the police lot.

00:59:03,400	S9:
Yes.

00:59:04,601	S2:
And sometimes over here, uh, when the heavy snow, the smaller storms, the DPW can maintain these lots. But the larger storm. Like what? We just had the fire chips in and helps out on these 2 or 3 town lots to kind of take that off the DPW plate to focus on the streets.

00:59:20,567	S13:
And also on the apron. We have to keep up with the snow once it gets two inches. Because if we get a pack of one inch the ladder truck cannot come out of the station, it'll actually rub. That's how close it is.

00:59:38,400	S6:
Steve, just for fun, if we were to get a new ambulance, what is the anticipated revenue in a year?

00:59:46,767	S13:
Well, it would be the. It would probably be if we were to actually take it to two calls at once. And like a motor vehicle accident. You're looking at probably another 25% on top of what we get. Right. Like this last year, we, uh, it's about 169,000. So about 25 on that. But it comes down also, we got to find a place to start, which hopefully we could find the the building at the iron rail.

01:00:17,968	S2:
Right. And that was the other piece was not only do I want to look into the finances more closely, but also location, storage, location because was one of the places that was identified was the garage behind the iron rail. But the iron rail is currently being reviewed for potential change in use and even possibly disposal. So, um, that if that was to take place, then that would create an issue with where are we going to put the second ambulance?

01:00:53,501	S13:
There's always something.

01:00:55,968	S6:
In my brain. I was trying to figure out if it makes sense to do both.

01:00:59,000	S13:
And we can look around. We can do an analysis on all this, and by next year.

01:01:02,767	S2:
That's where we will have the money to be like, you know, this is what it brings in, whether we have to make separate storage for it, the cost of the storage and you know, all that. And we can.

01:01:11,367	S13:
We can have all that done for next year.

01:01:12,868	S2:
We don't have a full package to present. So it's still a big it's a big expenditure.

01:01:17,400	S9:
Yeah.

01:01:19,567	S17:
And chief, this is David on the line. Sorry to just jump in, but I believe you had some estimates for the costs. You know, from estimated inflation of waiting year, as well as just the overall lead time for how long it would take to get the ambulance on hand. Um, is it possible to provide those? I know they're very rough estimates, but.

01:01:40,567	S13:
Yes, it would be about next year would probably be anywhere from 275 by roughly 275, and it would be a lead time of about a year, year and a half.

01:01:56,100	S11:
What's changing between now and then is that is it you've got an advanced, you know, information from the manufacturer that they're increasing prices or is their requirements?

01:02:05,267	S13:
Well over the every time we've done this that's actually gone up about that amount, about, oh, just about 10% every year.

01:02:16,400	S9:
10 or 15%.

01:02:17,801	S15:
Increase on Fire or EMS made it one one ambulance, but we hadn't looked at it. Although we had got the actual on first quote, they would not hold it for us, but it actually went up another $7,000 on January 1st.

01:02:35,367	S9:
Yeah.

01:02:36,567	S15:
So that's just kind of anticipation.

01:02:39,701	S9:
Yeah.

01:02:43,968	S9:
Okay.

01:02:44,701	S1:
Thank you very.

01:02:45,100	S13:
Much.

01:02:45,267	S1:
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, are you saying something?

01:02:50,667	S9:
Nope.

01:02:51,968	S11:
We've got a fifth member. Uh, Sarah Bishop is now on signed in as well.

01:02:56,100	S2:
And I just want to say, Sarah, I just got your email, and I'm sorry for just for all folks aware, the the door auto locked on us. So Michelle went out and took care of it, and Sarah was waiting outside to get in, and I just saw the email and she is now home viewing from home. So apologies for that mix up. Um, I think we went back to the old cycle with the door auto locks, because we haven't been meeting here in Town Hall for six months. This is the first meeting back. And, you know, we found the little wrinkle there.

01:03:28,567	S9:
That.

01:03:30,100	S2:
Goes overlooked.

01:03:30,868	S18:
No worries. Thank you.

01:03:32,000	S2:
All right.

01:03:32,467	S15:
Appreciate it. Assistant town.

01:03:35,567	S2:
Accountant. Okay, great. Thanks.

01:03:38,100	S1:
No way. No way to treat our new members. I agree.

01:03:41,167	S9:
I agree, sir.

01:03:42,567	S2:
Okay.

01:03:43,667	S18:
I didn't take it personally.

01:03:46,868	S1:
All right, who is, uh. Next up?

01:03:50,100	S2:
Uh, I think, you know, I don't know. Does the committee have either a committee or board? Have any specific questions? I'm not sure if you want to spend the time and go through all of them, or.

01:04:00,767	S11:
I think I would like to hear about the generator one. Okay. It sounds like there's one more story here.

01:04:11,300	S1:
So as.

01:04:11,501	S11:
Far as the generator.

01:04:12,901	S19:
At the police station.

01:04:15,300	S11:
Um, so I don't know if it's.

01:04:16,367	S19:
Noted in there, but it is 20 plus years old, I know. Uh, there's been breakdowns frequently, and the company that services it for us is having trouble finding parts because of the age. Um, speaking with the chief, he did mention that they have to have that a working generator for their accreditation. But I'm not sure exactly what questions you may have, but that it's becoming an issue keeping it going due to many breakdowns, but also the time it takes to get parts at the service company, uh, takes to to get those in stock.

01:04:55,868	S12:
How often is it used?

01:04:57,868	S19:
So the only time it is used is when the power goes out. There is a monthly test each month, but um, so there is no other use that I'm aware of other than, you know, there being a power outage.

01:05:13,100	S12:
No, I was asking how often you've experienced power outages, because I know it varies quite a bit across the town.

01:05:19,667	S19:
If that's the chief, that question how often this side or his particular building goes out. And, um.

01:05:25,467	S11:
Can you.

01:05:26,167	S2:
Just add just a quick to part of the reason why Mike was saying that, um, I believe it was two cycles ago when I had a monthly test, and I think it was two as a start of the winter, it wouldn't start and they had to come out to fix it. And there was a severe rodent infestation as the weather got cooler. So they had a they did some like temporary fixes to limp it along. Uh, you know, get us through the end of the year. But it's really it's been a problem for a long time. And, you know, and now it's we were hopeful that we could pump it along, but I think it's time to replace it now.

01:05:57,367	S11:
So this must cover this covers just the police station, not the adjoining fire station.

01:06:02,300	S19:
That's just for the police station.

01:06:03,501	S11:
So we have a second one at the fire station.

01:06:05,667	S19:
I believe there is. Yes.

01:06:07,868	S11:
Is there, uh. Is there any, uh, any interest in, in studying to see whether or not they can be. You could buy two for one cheaper, larger one. That covers both because for $42,000, I think most most residents would look at that and say, you know, my smaller house requirement is, is going to be a 15 or $20,000 generator. So this must be substantially larger. It must be more regulations because it's for safety equipment. Correct. But it's also right next to the fire department, which you can imagine. If the power goes out at the police station, it's probably gone out at the fire station.

01:06:41,300	S19:
Yeah, that would make sense. So I'd have to look into if they sister each other, you know, if one if that kicks on, can that run power over to the fighters? That'd be a good mic question. Um, but we could look into, you know, if we were to get two that were similar, would it be a, you know, a better price, you know, to is it 60,000 to get two of them? We could look into that as well.

01:07:07,300	S11:
Right. When you're having had to replace a generator recently. The you know, the generator itself is one component, and then all the switching equipment in the building is another. Correct. And so usually usually you don't have to replace the switching equipment unless there's been a substantial change or expectation.

01:07:22,701	S19:
And upgraded and yeah.

01:07:23,901	S11:
Yeah. So this so this is just the generator uh, you know, not doing underground digging. It's not doing no upgrading service or not upgrading systems or monitoring software. It's just for the piece of equipment. Correct? Yes. And the installation obviously.

01:07:39,667	S19:
Yes. Yep. Which has to be done by a licensed electrician under prevailing wage. So that adds up. You know, a little prevailing wage.

01:07:46,100	S2:
But we can look at we'll look to see if it makes sense to power bolt in like the quit switching and wiring to get over to the other building with that entails and come back.

01:07:57,100	S11:
They are they're relatively close to each other.

01:07:59,267	S2:
Yeah. No, it's a fair certainly a fair point. We can take a look.

01:08:07,567	S1:
Thanks. Any other? No other.

01:08:09,067	S9:
Questions. Looks like.

01:08:10,667	S1:
Okay.

01:08:11,167	S9:
Thank you.

01:08:13,467	S19:
Is that for all the facilities? Because I have my facilities list. I don't know where where you are.

01:08:18,567	S1:
I think unless there are any specific questions on DPW capital items besides the generators.

01:08:25,267	S2:
I mean, I can go through them real quick. Just if folks have any questions, you can stop me. So DPW. Um, it wasn't on the capital plan. It's a relatively large request as we found some pretty significant water damage when the stucco wall started bulging out. Um, we didn't realize the extent of it, so it's about a $40,000 fix. Uh, gutters. We knew water was a problem. So the gutters were $4,100 to to to to divert the water away from the wall where it was on the five year plan, because we knew water was a problem. But, uh, the damage we were not aware of. So that was identified as that.

01:09:04,467	S11:
Building or is it the DPW.

01:09:06,667	S19:
Garage.

01:09:07,167	S2:
Garage? Um, we put the another one that wasn't on the five year plan, and I believe it was more just kind of looking at it and seeing, you know, feeling like it was probably time, although, you know, it could wait. But, uh, is the maintenance garage and bathrooms at Pingree? Uh, they're pretty rundown. A lot of items are are broken and worn again. You know, it's I think it's just, you know, a level that the town, the expectation of the town probably, you know, would expect that facilities to be in a bit better condition. Richard put together a quote for 7500 to basically revamp the building with new trim and soffits and bathroom materials, hand dryers, things like that, kind of modernize it. Nothing fancy, but just kind of clean it up a little bit. And the Koa, uh, this is a this is a request from facilities. And Jim, Um, from the CoA. So it's both the basement floor and basement painting and the basement water heater, all of which were on the five year plan. Jim's been asking for the basement to be.

01:10:18,868	S19:
Yeah, I'm saying those two. Maybe not the water here, but the two were deferred last year. Yeah.

01:10:24,767	S2:
So he's.

01:10:25,868	S19:
More in.

01:10:26,167	S2:
The water year since I've been here? Yeah, that's been four years. Uh, he does want to expand some, like, I think exercise routines and things like that to do additional services or additional classes for the seniors in the basement to give them some floor space. Right now, it's original to the building. Asbestos tiling. That's all chipping up. Uh, water damage down there. The wall ceiling is like, half collapsed and, you know, paint peeling off the the walls peeling down and stuff from the moisture. So, you know, that's something that we feel it affects a relatively large group of an underserved portion of the the population, and it has been being asked for a long time and it's always getting deferred. So we're putting it forward again. The water heater, uh, is a exceeded life expectancy. It is on the five year plan. Um, it's rusted and corroded, and it's time to replace before it rusts out in the bottom. And we have a big mess. And the other one that is, is actually something that I added and with, you know, Rich and I have been talking is, you know, the DPW facilities. Something has to be done down there eventually. We don't have, um, we don't have a bathroom to have a female DPW employee. We don't have a changing room for a female DPW employee. Uh, the the buildings are relatively old. And, you know, we're looking at both in terms of services to the community and, you know, the continuation of the DPW that, you know, looking to the future as we really need to have be able to operate. It's the reason why Sheila, who's the admin, is here in Town Hall instead of down the DPW to help serve the residents when they come in with their bulk waste or questions about solved and stuff like that, that kind of they go down to the DPW, then they're referred over back to town hall. But it's because we can't, you know, we can't have a female employee down there. And so we're looking at alternatives to that. We don't know how much it's going to cost. We've looked at options that range anywhere from like 3 million or 2, 3 million to $10 million. Um, and we're looking at the request of the Selectboard to sponsor an article that establishes a building stabilization fund and requesting on this capital plan to take $50,000 of free cash and get that stat to get that funded. The intent would be was to build a small pot of money over the next three, two, three, four years to come back to town meeting to request them to release the funds to do actually the engineering and planning for the building. Because a project like that, you know, a significant amount of planning and it's costly, and you want to be able to likely be funded by some sort of a debt exclusion. And if the town does, does, um, endorse the project, we need to be able to bring back to town meeting real schematics and real estimates in design. And, you know, that takes time. So basically it's a two stage approach. This would be able to fund the planning and engineering and cost estimating to bring to town meeting to get the permission to pursue a debt exclusion.

01:13:46,767	S11:
So this has been discussed a little bit at the fin com. Um, one of the things that I think the Select board would want to consider, you know, we do have a stabilization fund that's a general fund. Right. And so, um, you know, as we are, as you're considering releasing money from, from that you do need to get, you know, a supermajority of the population to, to release it. Right. And if you do decide to establish a building stabilization fund, um, you may want to decide whether you put restrictive language that's specific to this particular project that you just described, or if it's more, uh, for, you know, uh, Buildings Stabilization Fund, um, that allows you to a little more flexibility for what you're planning on using it for. I assume that this is another case where you need to get two thirds of the populace.

01:14:36,267	S2:
Yeah, I think I think you only need, um, on, like, a building stabilization fund. A restricted stabilization fund is just a simple majority to release the funds. And I think at least my preference would be to not tied directly to the DPW building. Like I said, the fire needs to be looked at. Um, you know, again, and you don't have to. You can stop funding it at any time. I think we have a plan on the horizon that we're trying to save for, and not have to come back in 3 or 4 years and ask the town for $200,000 to help us plan for it. It's kind of like, well, we you know, we've saved the two or you have saved the $200,000. Now, would you allow us to access it? Never. And then maybe we switch gears and start looking at the fire department and do do the same thing. Uh, just thinking about.

01:15:30,167	S1:
Um, we have, um, you know, potentially some major development that will be proposed in this area. Um, across the street. Um, there may be a proposal coming forward there from a private sector owner. Um, and obviously, we're a long way away from knowing how the iron rail site redevelopment, you know, is going to unfold. But I think we probably, as those types of larger scale proposals make their way down the pike, we should probably begin to think creatively and work with some of the permitting boards on linkage ideas and, you know, seeing whether there can be some private development, um, monies contributed towards, um, something like a upgraded DPW building, given that there truly would be a linkage between the, um, the impacts of development like that on town services. Right, and the amount of investment that those types of entities would be putting in. So I'm not at all, you know, uh, critical of the idea to start saving $50,000 specifically for the DPW. But it just that, uh, triggered that thought in my mind that we probably should start thinking about those kinds of opportunities and potential linkage payments from developers.

01:17:13,367	S4:
I would add in also that certainly this is a generational change in the buildings, too, that just as the schools have encountered problems that, you know, our buildings, especially for the fire station, is two generations old, and I think the citizenry just needs to realize that we need to step up and not fix, but update to current standards. The facilities that we have in town, both from requirements that come down from the federal and state levels for professionals, but also for the safety of our folks and, you know, examples that we've seen rollbacks. So, you know, the the firing range in the police station. In the fire station, you know, year after year gets rolled back. We need to step up and address, you know, the environmental has like that and the same thing. I'm glad to see that we got the basement on there too, because these things that, you know, they just linger. They're easy to put off, but they really need to get done.

01:18:15,100	S5:
Well, I'm actually segueing from that. Just to clarification, I'm in favor of investing in the Koa building, but I thought that we actually can't use the downstairs level for programming because it's not Ada compliant and there's not access.

01:18:32,267	S2:
Jim.

01:18:33,501	S8:
Is that true?

01:18:34,167	S2:
He seems to think that you can. It's just going to limit folks that can access it. The building is existing.

01:18:41,868	S5:
So it's like grandfathered.

01:18:43,567	S8:
Or.

01:18:44,267	S2:
Finished space. We're just renovating.

01:18:46,868	S5:
That's sort of grandfathered in and exempted.

01:18:49,300	S2:
We all double check. But that was we had that discussion and that was that was my understanding.

01:18:55,167	S5:
I mean, that changes the calculus for me because I think that's a benefit if we can use it for programming. But yeah, I thought in our prior year conversations that was one of the.

01:19:05,701	S9:
Issues.

01:19:06,167	S2:
In prior years. The concern was we could do so much, at least last year with, um, income. Member. Excuse me. Do you remember?

01:19:18,467	S9:
Sorry.

01:19:19,067	S2:
Was he. Who was the finance committee member? Who? Just who left?

01:19:22,167	S1:
Deanna.

01:19:23,367	S2:
Deanna. Not Deanna. Um, moved to A6, I think.

01:19:28,000	S8:
Jeff.

01:19:28,701	S2:
Is that.

01:19:29,100	S5:
Jeff.

01:19:29,300	S2:
Calder no. See it for a short had. Anyways, he had a he was a support. He was a proponent of the CLA, a big supporter of the CoA and his concerns. The reason why I got pulled off last year was that we should be doing more, and we should add an elevator so that it can be accessed by all. Um, and that it needed to be studied more in German doesn't really support one. You know, it doesn't really lend itself that well to, you know, do we have the space to add an elevator?

01:20:01,100	S19:
Yeah, I think it's more of a it's probably more in a Rich Maloney wheelhouse. But my understanding is when you alter an existing building and it's 20%, I'm not sure if it's if there's, there's a calculation where it's square foot and also cost that you're putting into, then you have to upgrade to compliance where these couple, you know, these two small projects wouldn't get that. So. Um, talking with Jim, it sounds like we can do that. And he'd be able to offer more down there, you know? So that's that's the way I understand, you know, small projects like this.

01:20:44,767	S2:
David.

01:20:45,868	S8:
Oh, great. Thank you. Good job.

01:20:49,467	S5:
All right. Thanks, Rich. That's helpful.

01:20:51,300	S1:
That probably would be worth on getting rich. Maloney's confirmation on on whether the proposed changes fall beneath the trigger for Ada compliance work.

01:21:02,467	S2:
And the only other DPW specific is they're also replacing a 2014 plow truck with 127,000 miles. So.

01:21:14,000	S19:
Yep.

01:21:14,968	S2:
That's it for DPW and facilities requests.

01:21:18,367	S19:
Well, the only other thing. So I had and correct me if they're not on the list, still the chapter 90 supplement 50,000 for that.

01:21:25,067	S2:
That's a standard. You're right. Yep. Sorry.

01:21:28,567	S19:
And.

01:21:34,701	S19:
A fire was a fire water heater on their fire. That's a 40.

01:21:40,167	S2:
Fire water.

01:21:40,701	S19:
Heater, 4600.

01:21:42,667	S2:
So that's the same. Same thing as the Koa that was on on the five year plan.

01:21:47,100	S19:
This one's a 21 year old.

01:21:49,167	S2:
And just to highlight that the, uh, chapter 90 supplemental funds has been traditionally, I believe, a few years ago, it was 120. Then it was brought to 100.

01:22:00,968	S19:
No.

01:22:01,300	S2:
So it's always been 100.

01:22:02,701	S19:
It's when I first got here, it was 95, and then we dropped it to 50. The last this might be year three of 50.

01:22:10,167	S2:
Okay. So it's been cut effectively in half with the, uh, what is it, the, uh.

01:22:14,767	S19:
Well, the fair share as well as, um, our chapter 90 funds were increased last year. We expect them to remain. So they're historically they're around 153. Last year we got 250. We hope to get 250 again. Uh, Healy has like, a three year, um, plan that she put in. And as long as there's no federal changes there, um, then we should hopefully again in July ish. August we'll get 250 again. So that's why we you know, we made the conscious decision to lower the supplement here.

01:22:57,067	S1:
All right. Any other questions for Rich?

01:23:01,467	S11:
Okay I have a different I have a different.

01:23:04,467	S9:
Question.

01:23:04,868	S11:
A different topic.

01:23:05,667	S9:
So thank you. Thanks. Thanks.

01:23:07,567	S19:
Oh not.

01:23:08,300	S11:
Me. Not for you.

01:23:10,300	S5:
Thank you. Thanks, Rich.

01:23:12,901	S11:
Um, so, uh, you know, we've got the the five year plan listed on here as the Finn has looked at other sort of plans that have come through like the the long term master plan, that sort of thing. I was wondering if the select board could talk a little bit about, you know, how authoritative you see those plans are. You can see that things are showing up on these lists that kind of align with plans that have been kind of presented to the select board. Um, but and, you know, we've never, you know, had the ask the citizens to, you know, approve the five year capital plan, for instance, or even I think the the master plan hasn't been voted on. Right. So can you just talk a little bit about the the you know, how authoritative, authoritative you think these, these plans are and how easy it is to, you know, diverge from them?

01:24:06,467	S1:
Do you want to do you want to take the master plan implementation piece of that? Because I know that that one of the last phases of the master Plan committee's work was implementation steps. And I don't know that we've actually connected to the dots between some of those steps and the things that, you know, that we're talking about as budget items now. Or maybe Kate could address it too.

01:24:31,901	S5:
But yeah, Kate can help us, but can you scroll to where the plans are? Michelle?

01:24:38,267	S8:
What plans?

01:24:39,100	S9:
Yeah.

01:24:39,667	S11:
We plan.

01:24:40,000	S2:
I talked a decent amount about the master plan, so we're prepared to talk about that, I think. Um, I think just in general, Finn is asking not necessarily how it ties to it, but the how rigid are these plans? So like the the five year plan I alluded to like how things kind of show up and not on the plan, and they show up and we fund them anyway.

01:25:03,167	S11:
Right. Or or there was, uh, you know, discussion about solar, uh, you know, solar power for, for the town hall, right. As you know, substantial expense. And it fits with a lot with the master plan, but it's fairly expensive. Um, and so, you know, these, these fairly substantial things kind of piecemeal show up on the, on the capital, um, capitalist or they're anticipating. And so they're, um, you know, they're big numbers. Um, you know, there's been huge involvement in the community to, to pull together the master plan and trying to get a lot of voices, but it's, um, I don't recall ever seeing it as a as a Warren article say um, that it was approved or something like that. So I'm just trying to figure out how, how you guys, you know, as a select board, you know, decide, um, you know, what wants to prioritize and how to fit that in.

01:25:54,901	S5:
So the master plan is a statutory requirement. Um, and it's it's under the Planning board's purview to have the master plan process completed and to actually put together the master plan after it's completed. I think some towns still have it under the purview of the Planning Board, or it can transition to the select board, or you can put together an implementation committee, but the plan itself is statutorily required, as are the components that are part of the plan. So that's why we towns typically hire consultants who understand the master planning process and the regulations in Massachusetts to guide the process and make sure the plan adheres to what's required by the state. So the point and they're supposed to be done, I believe, every ten years. And ours was a 60 year gap. So we were we were long overdue to do the master plan process. I mean, the intent is that it is an operative document so that it's a comprehensive process that involves the townspeople, includes staff. You know, we had a process where we talked to as many constituents as possible, and we're guided by the consultants to sort of compile all of it, sift through and prioritize, come up with the goals and objectives then. But it's a substantial plan, right? There's a lot of objectives, um, in the plan. So then when you transition to implementation, there's still a lot of work to be done to figure out actually how you go about doing this and breaking it down and creating some sort of step functions, basically to what What are you going to do first and who's going to do it? And so forth. So we've done that to some extent with Nikita. You can certainly come up and talk about it also. But we've done some prioritization because it's also, um, you know, over time, this is not a one year implementation, right? So we had to find places to start. And so some of the things that have been appearing on the capital plan, and I think even the HTC guidelines were these are all stemming from the master plan. And we're trying to work through to prioritize what happens over time. But I don't I wouldn't say the whole thing has been distilled in terms of the order of operations.

01:28:23,367	S12:
How much attention is being given to the recommendation to increase the tax base and increase revenue? Because one of my concerns is it's easy to spend money, but it's hard to come up with ways to implement generating new revenue, new tax base. And related to that is the question of how does the historic Commission vibrancy plan dovetail into the master plan and into this question of how we're going to get more revenue into town?

01:28:52,601	S2:
But I can so, you know, the way we've been approaching it is, you know, we kind of like we try to distill down into a couple different buckets. So we did, you know, we have green initiatives. And again, I agree that the solar kind of popped up out of nowhere. But that was driven by the federal tax credit that we try to take advantage of. But it didn't end up working out. I think the effort was, you know, well worth it to try to make the, you know, to because it would have been some pretty big savings if we could have accomplished it. Unfortunately we didn't. But, you know, I think with that, we're, you know, we're going into further planning on solar and in a roadmap on how exactly to get to that net zero carbon impact. But then so we're doing the Complete Streets project. So part of the master plan was to enhance the town's safety, walkability and accessibility to its parks and trails and street signage and crosswalks and all that type of stuff. So that's the Complete Streets program that you see talked about in one of the, um, one of the requests here is for engineering. It's about $1 million grant. And but some of the engineering that is required to access that money is not covered by the million dollars. So that's why we're requesting the $50,000 then as it relates to economic development, we have a few things going on. So it highlighted, you know a well we have an HTC. Everybody knows that they have a relative lot of power. In what kind of developments are going to go in the historic district? They don't have a uniform set of guidelines that they apply uniformly to people who want to develop in the downtown. So the developers at the mercy of the makeup of the committee. There's really no uniformity. And the rules they apply, the type of materials, they allow things like that, so that we we do want to promote economic development downtown. But certainly a first step is to make sure we have guidelines that are, you know, accessible, easy to understand and also don't prevent overly prevent the development of the economic development in the downtown. We also have, um, the downtown, um, was a vitality study, fertilization study. And that ties closely to last year. We had a $50,000 economic, uh, Economic development study that was funded through town. So we've been going through that process, and we realized how closely the economic development study is going to tie to the downtown revitalization, because downtown revitalization is part of the economic development study. So by asking for that this year, it gives us the flexibility to pursue both projects simultaneously, if it makes sense, or even possibly have one vendor who specializes in both areas do it together. So we have one comprehensive product. But the economic development study is part of the master plan that you talked about about raising tax money. So with that you can go into the intricate details of it. But really we're looking at the whole town, not just the downtown and identifying areas and also uses that are compatible with the community. Right. Because we can come up with a plan that's going to generate, you know, the most amount of money possible. And it's, you know, makes all the sense in the world from a financial perspective. But then you bring it to town meeting and the community, rightfully so. It's their community. But the community is like, yeah, no way. We're not we're not going to have that. So we're trying to through these studies and in community outreach, we're trying to produce a economic development package that the community supports so that we can actually implement it and grow the tax base. And so if you want to talk a little bit about the economic development study, and then specifically how it dovetails into the revitalization.

01:33:03,100	S7:
Yeah, I mean, I think you you pretty much said it all. Um, one of the other things I want to mention is that the town for the master plan, they put in $125,000 for that plan, and then we received a grant for $75,000. So it was a $200,000 plan. Um, since that plan's been implemented, um, now that we have this roadmap, we have gone and applied for other grants. So we applied for a $425,000 land grant. And then we applied. And that was specifically from the master plan. And we applied for a subdivision rules and regulations grant to revamp our subdivision rules and regulations that have not been looked at since 1984. And because we have the master plan, when we apply for these grants, we have these extra points, and we would not have gotten these grants without having the master plan. So we did put $125,000 in the master plan. But, um, the town has gained almost $500,000 in grant revenue from that. So I know it seems like we're doing a lot of planning and not a lot of implementation, but I think you guys are seeing this planning piece because it's so close after the master plan was finished. So we have to do the next steps. Um, for example, for the economic development piece, once we get through the planning part in the downtown revitalization, we'll have a roadmap that will prioritize what we need to do and what grants we need to go for. And then when we go for those grants, we will have those extra points and will be definitely able to obtain more of those grants, as we've seen from the master plan. We've never gotten so many grants since we did the master plan. So.

01:34:46,467	S20:
Um, what if you come up with a plan for the economic development and then the Historical Commission doesn't like it? I sort of scratching my head amongst the these different groups is to and it sometimes it seems they may be working at cross purposes.

01:35:04,400	S7:
Yeah. I definitely agree with you, Jared. It is not an easy thing to do to get these plans done. And that's why we do a lot of community outreach. So the historic District Commission will be part of that committee.

01:35:19,467	S20:
I think we approved 50,000 for them for a A study or a and then the economic development is how much? 50 okay. I don't know. It just seems maybe if we could merge the two, the energies of the two and perhaps the cost, it would be worth doing.

01:35:38,667	S4:
Well, the 50,000 to HTC, that is to establish regulatory guidelines, to put down paper what we really want rather than people's opinions. That may change from one committee meeting to the next. So that is really a administrative thing to get that process in place that it's been missing there in other places in town previously. The finalization is, you know, a forward looking view of what we're going to do next once we determine what resources are available. In my look on the master plan, too, is getting back to the original question is, you know, certainly the master plan is not 100% compulsory because at some point it meets up against the realities of annual budgets and capital limitations. And certainly in when I'm here to, you know, there's a lot of aspirational items in there. But we do realize that there's limits on the developable land left acreage. And you always run into the concerns that we've seen last year. You know, not in my neighborhood or in, you know, there's groups that oppose certain aspects of it. So it is a long process that you have to work through. But I think finally, we do have a plan that guides the town moving forward, which is missing five, 10 or 20 years ago where everything was done. Okay. We'll just do one year at a time. And we've seen it hasn't worked that way. I mean, this.

01:37:10,667	S9:
Fall back.

01:37:11,400	S20:
The plan I understand the the the long term plan for the town but 100 grand for the historical commission and economic vitality in this kind of environment. I, I just I'm scratching my head. I think.

01:37:25,400	S4:
You know, that's the realities in the marketplace today.

01:37:28,667	S1:
I think just a couple of points. I think, um, you know, some of the areas of town that are probably the most likely to be developed over the next five years and generate substantial tax revenue will have no HTC role whatsoever because they have no jurisdiction over the iron rail property. The Penguin Hall property. Um, Boulder Lane, if that's developed under three a, uh, they may have a piece of the, uh, zero larch, um, property. That's the other three, a parcel. So, you know, their their jurisdiction is limited to just the historic district, which is essentially Main Street, um, and to exterior features. So, you know, I don't want to make them the boogeyman, you know, and blame them for, uh, development. That hasn't happened because I don't think that's particularly fair and and the $50,000 that I was a little skeptical of the amount last year, but I've kind of come around on it myself because, as um, has been pointed out, it's to try to create guidelines and standards that will make the approval process in front of the HTC more transparent to developers and homeowners who are coming before them. So I think that that's a good thing and probably would promote, um, smart development where it falls within the FTC's jurisdiction. The other thing I would add is, I think, like the I think the all of the planning and the the grants and the other things that are going on that Kate's described and Steve's described, I think combined with the other conditions that are in place that I do think makes it much more likely that we're actually going to be able to execute on some of these, um, you know, smart development proposals, as long as there are developers who want to come in and do it. But I think the conditions are there, the local conditions that we talked about. And then also at the state level, um, the state zoning statute, chapter 48, was amended in August 2024 to make it a lot more difficult for, um, butters and sort of, you know, Nimby opponents to projects to succeed. There are now appeal bond requirements of up to $250,000. This is an area that I've, you know, spent a lot of my day job working in. But, um, the courts can impose bonds at very high amounts that they couldn't impose before against appeals of projects that aren't really meritorious coming out of the box. And that's already, um, resulted in a lot of appeals getting thrown out of court earlier than usual. If you look at, um, Maplewood, the Harbor Light project that I think has been a smashing success and, you know, both from a tax revenue perspective and for senior housing, and it's been a good addition to the community in West Wenham that was bogged down in the courts through butter, appeals for about 4 or 5 years. Um, but Harbor Lake sort of saw that through, and they were able to build it, that the conditions are such in the state that those kinds of delays are also going to be less likely. So in my mind, I think like the environment is pretty good and probably better than it's ever been for the last 25 or 30 years. And when I'm to actually see, you know, uh, some fruit being born in, uh, in our plans. So.

01:40:54,100	S7:
We're being very careful of what we're asking you for. So, like, with the $50,000 for the complete streets, that comes with $38,000 from the state for a prioritization plan, um, for safety corridors around town. And also, we can get up to $1 million to implement those plans. So, yes, we'll have a prioritization plan of 15 or 20 things in town that we want to prioritize. But it also comes with real funding. So the only thing that it doesn't 100% come with is those design costs. I did speak to a couple contractors, and they think the costs would not even be around $50,000, but we'd have to go through the plan first.

01:41:37,701	S5:
So yeah, I just wanted to add, based on Bob's question. I mean, the the issue of expanding the tax base and raising revenue was certainly front and center throughout the entirety of the master plan process and something we wrangled with. The issue is that there aren't easy answers to it. Right. And Wenham doesn't have a tremendous amount of land that is usable, buildable and so forth. There's inherent tensions between the desire to develop and raise revenue and land preservation, and to not over build the town. And, you know, those are the questions we struggled with tremendously, trying to find a balance. But we have limited resources in terms of land, which is why the places where we do have opportunity are so important, like Iron Rail, like Penguin Hall and so forth. Um, so it's not that that wasn't a huge issue in front and center the entire time. It's that there aren't easy solutions, but some of the ways we try to get at some solutions is to do some of this work. You know, we needed more input on the economic potential economic development of the downtown. It's not obvious here either how that can be done. You know, there's a lot of constraints space, wetlands and so forth. Um, you know, there aren't easy answers, unfortunately.

01:43:03,801	S12:
I wasn't suggesting was easy at what I was going to suggest is I think there's a need to integrate these items into a long range financial plan. How the pieces fit together. And we're starting some work on the committee looking at some of the issues. And I think it's important because otherwise we're going to raise the taxes and drive more people away.

01:43:26,901	S5:
Agreed. I think that's that was the reasoning behind wanting to do an economic plan, following the master plan, because we couldn't get close enough to real solutions. So there's still a lot of work to be done.

01:43:46,267	S1:
All right. Any other.

01:43:47,801	S16:
Comments questions. Anybody online who is sticking their hand up. Good. Okay. Thank you Kate.

01:43:56,267	S8:
Thank you.

01:43:57,868	S16:
So, Steve.

01:43:58,601	S1:
I think we've probably.

01:43:59,801	S16:
Covered the landscape.

01:44:03,300	S2:
Here. Hopefully everyone got their questions.

01:44:07,567	S9:
And if we can.

01:44:08,367	S2:
Continue our Deliberation.

01:44:10,100	S9:
And morrow.

01:44:12,467	S2:
Into the future.

01:44:13,667	S9:
Similar.

01:44:14,167	S2:
Same with the select board. I just want to remind folks that we're meeting two weeks in a row on the 24th, I believe, of February. Is it the last Tuesday and then on March 3rd? Sorry, I'm going off memory and I'm horrible with dates.

01:44:32,100	S6:
Steve, can you start that over again?

01:44:34,067	S2:
Yeah. Last the last Tuesday in February in the first Tuesday.

01:44:39,100	S6:
So we're not meeting on the 17th?

01:44:41,601	S2:
Um, no, I think we moved it out one week because of school break.

01:44:46,901	S9:
Yeah.

01:44:47,801	S2:
And and we agreed that we probably should do that as well, because then it gives us two opportunities to get together relatively close together. And that because on that third, the hard deadline from the printer is the fourth. So everything has to be finalized and buttoned up with recommendations. Well, I guess recommendations don't have to have, because there is some history there that some recommendations come into a meeting. But certainly the capital plan contents, the budget, um, and all the articles that we have out here today have to be completed. Commentary drafted, approved in the room by the third. Hopefully, hopefully a bulk of that will be done at the meeting before. So we're not putting it all together the very next day.

01:45:34,467	S4:
But so we're anticipating votes on least partial effort, you know, as many warrants as we can on the 24th.

01:45:45,067	S2:
Yes. And I'll be meeting with the fin com in the next couple of Wednesdays, and hopefully we can get through the kind of the way I originally envisioned it is get through the, you know, the relatively, um, straightforward stuff. I think there's going to be some conversation when we get to the finish line around, you know, we have I think it's roughly $1,000 out there over the levy limit. Uh, there's going to be probably some talk about how we want to get over the finish line as to avoiding an override.

01:46:16,701	S11:
Well, that's. No that's not.

01:46:19,267	S2:
Yeah. Just. Right. Just specific for the town, you know. Do we want to move? We've talked about components about possibly reducing, you know, CPA funding to, you know, as like an exchange for, um, you know, whatever. Half a percent of the CPA equates to $100,000, you know, still out of your pocket would be the same money and it would cover the override, uh, to go that way by keeping the override and kind of like making the messaging that way, just going for the override and packaging it with the schools, uh, moving further cuts into the budget, moving op or, um, stabilization, annual op or annual stabilization contribution out of the reoccurring operating budget into a free cash appropriation. Um, you know, these are just some of the things we've been talking about, but I think those are it's going to probably be a decision made on the 24th ultimately. But hopefully, you know, we've been gone. We can get there by then and be ready to have a recommendation to for the select board. Oh you guys best thing too right. We, we.

01:47:28,067	S11:
We've had uh, we've had a really productive meeting last Wednesday, went through a lot of the operating budget and got very comfortable with it. Um, you know, the as you said, we are within striking distance of of being able to say that the overall any override that, you know, that we're asking for folks to vote for it to the town meeting is not coming from the town. Um, we will be we will consider pulling a few levers that are associated that there might be considered a little more controversial, like the trash, you know, pulling a couple, you know, tens of thousands of dollars out of the stabilization fund so that, um, you know, the trash increasing trash costs. So there are a few little tweaks of the budget that are are going on that allow us to be able to say that, but it's part of the messaging, um, kind of decision. Um, as, as a, as the two towns and the school committee prepare for these meetings to exactly how do we present the, um, you know, what is set to be an override? Ask from the citizens. You know what? What, um, you know, ask the citizens. Do you want to support this? Right. Do you also support, you know, these increases?

01:48:35,000	S1:
And on the 24th, we'll also confirm the date of the town meeting.

01:48:41,501	S9:
Yes.

01:48:42,767	S2:
It will be following up. Probably. There may be a need for, um, we call it emergency, but we'll be able to schedule it with the 48 hours of. Just a quick. Let's see how the things pan out through the end of this week. And if we have dates and we feel like we want to move like behind the scenes, we maybe we were to call a quick zoom meeting to vote to change the location or date or whatever we're going to do. Just so we can get information out in official capacity sooner rather than later.

01:49:08,868	S11:
Right. Well, Steve, in the past, do you have, you know, send out a schedule, right. And as you update that, it's really helpful to to see all that laid out on a regular basis at every single meeting. You know, just to say, these are the things that we have to achieve on these dates and keep them.

01:49:24,567	S2:
That calendar that I emailed every time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

01:49:26,901	S11:
Yeah. That sort of thing. They're very useful. You know, just like starting the meeting to understand where we are financially and here's, you know, here's the calendar. Keeps us marching really well.

01:49:36,400	S2:
Sounds good to me. Yeah, I like calendars.

01:49:39,000	S11:
I couldn't survive without it.

01:49:40,000	S2:
So love and hate. I hate being tied to it, but I love it to keep me. Are we done keeping our guys?

01:49:47,467	S9:
Yeah.

01:49:48,000	S1:
Um, if the fin com wants to adjourn first, and then we'll.

01:49:51,667	S9:
Any other topics? No.

01:49:54,367	S11:
Then I'll look for a motion to.

01:49:56,000	S12:
Are we going to meet tomorrow?

01:49:58,400	S11:
I think we are scheduled to meet tomorrow.

01:50:00,467	S2:
Yeah. Might as well.

01:50:01,667	S11:
Let's just double check if it's not on the.

01:50:03,467	S2:
Yeah, I.

01:50:04,601	S9:
Notice.

01:50:05,000	S12:
It's just a question of whether we wanted to.

01:50:06,400	S2:
Cancel. Yeah, that was right. All right. Thanks, Bob. Um, yeah. So we posted on Monday, so we're we're fine to meet. And then the question, a couple of questions came up whether it's worth meeting two nights in a row. Everybody wanted to I said I'm available. Either way. Let me know. We can always. We can always. Um. Uh. Excuse me. Cancel the posting and pull it down. We can post appropriately. That's not a problem. No amount, uh, concerns. It's really up to the up to the committee. I mean, I'm available. You guys did like you said. You did a very productive meeting. I don't know if you want to be here two nights in a row till 9:00. And I guess it'll be zoom, but.

01:50:43,100	S9:
I think the.

01:50:44,000	S11:
The, the next kind of thing that we're going to be trying to figure out is the language that we'd be putting into.

01:50:48,567	S9:
The into the Warren book.

01:50:49,868	S12:
Well, I think we also need to talk a little bit about the long term implications in terms of, are we going to be rolling ourselves into another, uh, uh, override next year. So in terms of how that plays.

01:51:02,100	S9:
Out, so.

01:51:04,167	S11:
Uh, specific to override next year and where that might be coming from, you know, the, the, the, the thing that I've heard from people that, that are on the school or the town is that it's really hard to predict, you know, how likely that is. Right. And so, um, you know, being able to being able to say how likely that is, is kind of is up in the air, right? We have we may have some of this development that we're just talking about that might be putting injections in. If someone puts in a, you know, a la, you know, says they want to do a very large, um, you know, uh, senior living facility they often put in, you know, some funding towards ambulances. Right. These sorts of things will suddenly make it so that we may or may not be in an override. It's hard to.

01:51:48,167	S12:
Yeah, that's an argument, though, against, uh, organizations doing long range planning. And I've been working with those folks for decades doing that. So I think, you know, we need to do something.

01:51:58,501	S9:
Yeah.

01:51:59,767	S11:
Yeah, I hear you. So I think that we can. That has been a topic that we've talked about is long term capital planning. I think that that's something that we should be considering. Right. We have all these buildings. We're talking about a building stabilization fund. Right. We're you know, we know that these things are coming down the pike. And being able to put that, I would I would say we definitely need to spend time.

01:52:19,667	S12:
And also how free cash is used in terms of policies related thereto. That's all ties together.

01:52:27,300	S2:
Yeah. I mean, you know, bigger discussion than it's going to happen in the next month. But, you know, the funding, the draft financial policies are with the fin. Com. So work on getting those through. You know as part of that is if it's financial forecasting and the anticipation of an override to, you know, I feel is Arlington is a good example of forward thinking community as far as financials as they, you know, they plan to grow, you know, education at 5% in general, government at 4% every year. And they plan their override every five years to fund that strategy. So I mean that, again, they can come out of a financial policy that the town utilizes to help build its budget every year and funding mechanisms through town meeting and messaging to the community. But that's, you know.

01:53:16,467	S11:
If you're if you're it sounds like you really like to meet tomorrow. Yeah, a few things. Okay. So we'll we'll we'll hold it for okay. For now. Any any other discussion.

01:53:25,367	S20:
We're going to do zoom tomorrow, sir.

01:53:27,000	S11:
Yes. Okay.

01:53:28,000	S20:
No.

01:53:28,868	S11:
Okay. Then, uh, looking for a motion to close the Wynnum Fin Comm here at 823. So moved. You got a second? Any discussion? All right, so I will vote. I, I.

01:53:40,567	S20:
Jared.

01:53:41,000	S11:
I.

01:53:42,567	S17:
David.

01:53:42,868	S11:
I David I.

01:53:44,367	S18:
Here I.

01:53:45,000	S11:
Sarah. So that's all five of us. Thanks.

01:53:46,367	S1:
Great. Thank you very much. Entertain a motion to adjourn the board meeting.

01:53:49,400	S4:
One quick question, Miss Steve, for the 24th. Can we get actual The numbers for the reserve accounts opened and so forth, just how they're looking.

01:53:58,801	S2:
Yeah, I have actually I have all that I will. All right. There. Stabilization Bob was 2.12..

01:54:10,267	S2:
Remember what it was anyhow.

01:54:12,767	S4:
Maybe just send it around.

01:54:14,067	S2:
So at 8.5% of total budget, it was because we put that extra $500,000 in instead of like when we got the grant for the heavy duty. But yeah, and I have the old heavy stuff on my desk and I'll send I can send that around tomorrow.

01:54:28,367	S1:
Motion to adjourn.

01:54:29,067	S5:
Move to adjourn. 8:24 p.m..

01:54:32,567	S1:
Um, all those in favor, I thank you.