00:00:00,000	S1:
To call the. Monday, June 29th, 2026 workshop Meet agenda for July 4th. To order. Then we talk about which one we have to carry over to the next year and which ones.

00:00:12,800	S1:
But informal open discussion. Okay. Um, I'm happy to lead it, but I just I think we all can jump in this thing, but, um, Joe, do you want to go over sort of. What? I know you're sorry, but, um. Nope. I can go through it. But, I mean, we have we have the the handout there. I think everybody got to know, but I think we provided ahead of time last year's kind of goals were and kind of shows you how we use that spreadsheet. So I have to do a spreadsheet. Took out um, some of the filling stuff, left the major categories, and then added a new major categories based on recommendations that members have sent me over the course of the last week or so. So we can, uh, go through the spreadsheet if you like to fill in, you know, the tasks timeline, measure success areas. Um, you can have you can be a little more informal. It's really up to you. It's just always meant to be an open discussion, sharing of ideas and stuff. Um, so we'll start with last year's and then we kind of which ones we sort of give us like start with the good stuff and then cross off the ones we take care of. And then we go through stuff from process standpoint. I remember I was sort of like we went around kind of had we had the workshop and then like we we spent a little bit over the next several meetings, kind of like rounding it out and making sure that path and everything were aligned. Right. We whiteboard everything. Yeah. And then we try to group some things together. Right. Because there's some things like someone would say like sidewalk up here. And then when they reached out in here and say, okay, you know, combine these two things and then and then we'd rate them. Is it a one is the two is a three. Right. That's kind of what we did. We came back. So like a couple meetings later that ended up saying, okay, we've prioritized our goals for this year, but there would be a couple other collaborations that will just all but definitely get the big ideas out today. They are big ideas. And I think also there's two things that we're doing here, right? One is what are the big ideas of the town? We want to make sure we focus on. But the second part of that is we're going to evaluate Joe now and these things we need to do. So you have to think about that too. Not tonight later in the year.

00:02:25,970	S1:
So they have to be measurable to some. You have to give them a goal. You can't just say water has to be like one with water that he can do with it. He can accomplish it like not building a new building a new well. And you're not going to have it, but plan or process or have meetings or build consensus, whatever it is. Right? Right.

00:02:44,290	S1:
So we start with water.

00:02:48,210	S1:
Waterfall. We've done our goal. And you've been part of that north for patchwork. So are there any measurable things in the next year other than just ongoing? Like anything we're trying to accomplish the goal of this year, other than just continued communication and making plans and looking at what what the calendar looks like, what the budget looks like and what the state going off.

00:03:16,270	S1:
Of here. Um.

00:03:22,710	S1:
Yes. The, um, the task force has led to a lot of good, good conversations. Uh, we spent the last few years talking about options and things that, uh, might be good for the region as a whole in Hamilton, as part of the region. Um, you know, things to keep in mind when we talk about water in Hamilton is that Hamilton? The Ipswich River watershed is kind of a challenged watershed. All right. It's not that Hamilton's done anything wrong. In fact, in a lot of ways, we're in better shape than a lot of our neighbors. We have. Between our registered use and our permitted use, we have a lot more capacity than we do actually water to take out of the river and the times of the year when the river is most stressed in the summertime. Other times when we have the most trouble, but we're still always well under what we're actually allowed to take out of the water, out of the out of the watershed in terms of a daily, weekly basis. So we're we have the ability to bring more water out for usage than we do. But because the condition of the river, we're happy to stay within those drought regulations and not not try and pull more. Also with that, most of our neighbors are having more trouble with PFAS. We've already corrected that. You know, you'll remember that we were trying to solve for teeth, and then that solution wound up being a solution that was also going to be good for PFAS. And it has worked out that way. So we've got the PFAS treatment already attached to the site. So we're already pulling we're at non detect levels for PFAS and Hamilton Town water. That doesn't speak to people who are still on wells. But anybody who's on town water we're on we're at nine detect levels and PFAS, which we're already meeting the EPA, the new EPA regulations. So that's all good news. Um, long term, if you want to be able to grow, you want to be able to have you need to be able to have another water source. What's that look like? Who's that going to be? Um. It's you. We can't make there be more water in the watershed in the Ipswich River. So our only alternative, if the town wants to have the ability to grow in the future. And that's for anything for commercial anything, you're going to need to have another water source. So that's what Task Force has been looking at, is how do we make water a more resilient, um, resource in the North Shore area here in the lower Ipswich River basin in particular, we have, uh, one almost $1.1 million government grant from the federal government to help us establish a better interconnection with the town of Wenham. Uh, well, we just got notified that that Grant is going to be accessible soon. So we'll be meeting with our EPA project manager and getting the project started for that. At the same time, Wenham is working on a solution to solve its PFAS issues because they don't have a water treatment plan. They they just pump their water as it is. And, um, we have a much more, uh, built out system. One of the solutions is the estimate right now is that on the order of $12 million for Wenham to build its own water treatment plant that would also treat for PFAS. Um, but the estimates are that it could be as little as $8 million if they pumped their water to Hamilton, and we pumped them back clean water. They run there. In other words, run their water for our plant. And our plant has that capacity. So that's something that's very much in the early stages of just say, hey, could when I say, could one of em save some money for its ratepayers? And at the same time, Hamilton, one of them could show the region that it is possible to partner on water and find a solution that's better for everybody. Um, that won't give us more water, but it will help kind of set the table for regionalization going forward. We think at least we're talking to the folks that we've been talking to. It seems like a promising way to to look at it, but a lot of miles and steps to be taken between now and then. I definitely think, um, adding a goal for this year of moving the dial towards a better interconnection between Hamilton and Wenham with the grant money we have with the grant money that one of them has and their needs. I think that should be a goal for us this year, is to try and get to that to the point and make a decision. Are we going to connect and help them with their water? Do they want us to? And either way, we need to improve the interconnection. Because even if the future is MW or Salem Beverley Water, we still need to have a better interconnection with one for that anyway. So that's what we've got the grant money to do. I think that should be a goal for us this year. Got the engineering place. We've got the we've started the design on the project. We've got money to start the work. That should be one of our goals. Get us closer to that. Okay. So let me.

00:07:44,850	S2:
Just break it down. We can talk about each other on the room. So we had a multi water you know attack right in this town. Right. So we have distribution systems. We have a plan for and we're a pretty good shape. So that sort of goal is sort of not really the goal because it's already in place right. Then we have generation system which were you just talked about sort of ahead of that. Right. Now then what we have to deal with. And Tim does a good job of communicating. That's when we need to upgrade filters or things like that. So I'm not sure there's any sort of 510 year plan of distribution or generation. We should look at. Um, second water source we just talked about. And I think the baby step to that is the when I'm connection. But I think we also want to like I think like big picture like do we want to talk about like the next year identify three pie in the sky. Identify three options for secondary water source and what that cost and and schedule looks like like let's just whether we have to hire a consultant or whether we just work with your committees. But I think besides that, we need to sort of understand as a town like what are I'm is a top two, top three top. I don't know how many it is, but we should at least have a have some ideas of the plan. Well, that's 510.

00:08:51,250	S1:
Should we identify or something that's going to come out of the committee?

00:08:53,890	S2:
Well, I don't know that they're all that.

00:08:55,890	S1:
We're sort of like task force is looking at how to get all of us to work together and what's, you know, what is the most, you know, fiscally responsible way to get that to happen, because obviously, the state and federal government want to spend millions of dollars in each town. They're going to have to spend millions of dollars up here in some way, shape or form. And at some point in the future that is going to come back on our ratepayers. There's no way around it. The federal government, state government isn't going to pay for all of it. We're trying to get as much help from them as possible by showing them a bigger return on their investment. That's that's the ten year plan. That's the stuff that we're working on at the task force here. I think Bill's right. There are things we still have needs in improving our distribution system. Water the pipes in the ground. Some of the pipes in the ground have been were laid in the 1940s and 50s. They need to be upgraded. They need to be they need to be swapped out and modernized. We are the same goes for the water tank in the top of the hill. That tank is 50 years old. At least 80 years old. Okay, Ben's done his homework. All right. I'm sure Chris would have known the same thing. I'm sure Chris would have known the same thing. So, um, 80 years old. Uh, we've known for a number of years that needs to be upgraded. We've been trying to wait and see what was coming from, uh, this task force partnership, but we have to. It's on the list of things that has to be done for capital infrastructure. We just need to identify where we want to address it, whether we emerge somebody else or not. We're going to need a water tank. You always need a water tank for pressure. So we have to figure out, um, where you want that on the on the list of priorities. That's a potentially 5 to $7 million project. So that was it. And I think that covered the tank plus some distribution isn't that. Yeah. $7 million project. Um, where did the rate of discussion of back in the spring return. We've changed over about 40% of our distribution lines so far, so we've got 60% to go. So that first project was going to be filling the tanks and a portion of the distribution, but they're going to type by the sounds of it as they're kind of working through engineering design and cost estimating. It's kind of set the cloth to suit in terms of how much distribution you can get for the amount, uh, that we're forecasting going to be able to potentially bond. Right. So but I think from a goal standpoint, what would make sense is to have, you know, the tanks upgrades, the near term distribution and then kind of, okay, how do we get to 100%. Right. Because if we're right, and what does that look like as a, you know, 5 to 7 year plan. So that way in ten years time we have said we need 20.

00:11:37,780	S2:
I think we wait I think 100 years. So we need to have a holistic water plan, not just like not just the second water, because we say, well, we have like water. But then once you get to Hamilton, what's what are our challenges here? So it needs to be a holistic plan that summarizes all the issues a long time symptoms.

00:11:53,400	S1:
Because the regional task force, stuff like will potentially, at some future point in time, bring in new sources, right. In addition to the sources of the Ipswich watershed. So there's sources, right, which is going to be like determined that some other future point in time versus our kind of treatment and pumping system like our main treatment pumping system, then there's storage and distribution. So like segmenting it into those categories. Right I think makes sense as well. Like so that way you have okay. There's a goal for the long range sources question. Then there's goals for like filtration and pumping. And that was where when it would tie into that piece of it. And there's our own distribution and upgrades. I think there's also a goal in there too. Around maintenance, uh, regimes. Just like making sure that all of that kind of, you know, I asked him was like, hey, are we exercising the valves? Right? You know, and so I don't know when last time we exercised those interconnect valves are I'd say I want to do it a couple times a year. Right. You know, it's like you probably want to have a valve on hand for that first time that you do try to exercise it because it might not go so well. Right. So we don't want to have these, uh, kind of like failure points either. So I think there's which is I get it. And I'm not like being disparaging at all, just sort of making sure that those kind of continuous maintenance activities are also happening. Um, so I would tie that, that I don't know if it belongs in water or not. You know, maybe that belongs in a different bucket. Uh, no pun intended.

00:13:33,310	S2:
I think.

00:13:33,630	S1:
It's all.

00:13:34,030	S2:
Those are valid things. Yeah. I mean, we have, like, the sourcing Distribution, generation and storage, which is all pressurization. Right. And then we've got, um, we've talked about our rates, so we sort of have a plan on rate, but what's our bigger plan? I think we, we need to have a more plan of like, okay, we don't even know right now what's next. We're going to review the rate. It's going to be years, maybe two years, going to be three years. But we've been trying to do it. We've been trying to review the race with you every year, but not ask for an increase every year. Um, so I think.

00:14:01,970	S1:
You know, pending.

00:14:03,330	S2:
Feedback from the board or.

00:14:04,730	S1:
Pentagon.

00:14:05,170	S2:
Or somebody else, we'd like to say keep reviewing them every year. Keep abreast of it. Um.

00:14:14,050	S2:
Some people would say, oh, it makes sense to make minor adjustments every year, but if you have a year where you're.

00:14:19,210	S1:
Kind of tracking.

00:14:20,090	S2:
And you can kind of take it easy on people, that might not be a bad thing either. Everything is not right. It's not bad. Even reviewed every year and said, hey, good news. But then we get credit for not not, not not reasonable. We don't want to. Like we're not always giving bad news, but sometimes it's good to give good news too, right? So, um, and then my question to me, I mean, I know we've gone through it, we've had the means, but with the metering and the leakage. Right. And we only hear about it after it's happened. Right. Like the pool that they'll get strained 20 times and refills. Right. But, um, I'm not sure there's any there's any sort of common sense goal to, like, come up with. Like, do we know where our leakage is right now in the system? Besides, like, besides the 60 or 40% of the pipes haven't been replaced, but does does, uh, does Tim track like what he thinks are leakages on a yearly basis? So, you know.

00:15:07,080	S1:
For.

00:15:07,400	S3:
I and I the, the there is a kind of an estimate that the state makes you go through to look at what kind of percentage of water you're losing. Okay. And they want you to kind of ideally be in the 10 to 12% range. I think we're more like a 13 to 15% range, but it's still really good compared to a lot of other times. A lot of that is the upgrade of that 40% of the distribution network, and then.

00:15:29,640	S1:
Identifying where leaks are and repairing them as we go. So we do kind of track water loss, um, on a regular basis as part of our annual reporting to the state. Um, and we're trying to improve it, but some of it has to do with it. You know, infrastructure, the big jobs, the what you're talking about, like with.

00:15:51,060	S2:
The.

00:15:51,540	S1:
Individuals. Yeah, those are those are one offs you can't control until they happen. And then you have to fix them in. Um, but in the in the meantime, we do try to plan for, uh, regular replacement of water. Water main to try to avoid that loss.

00:16:05,500	S2:
But we don't have like, we don't have, like, the normal flow of our town. There's so many GPM and also in one day goes up to. Does does he get an alarm and say, oh there's got to be some big like how does that.

00:16:14,740	S1:
I mean, it would have to be like.

00:16:15,940	S2:
A super.

00:16:16,500	S1:
Large like, you know, you're talking you know.

00:16:18,380	S2:
Most of the main goers like that.

00:16:20,260	S1:
See your pressure drop or the pumps couldn't keep up. Yeah. That's that's yeah. It's not got registered like. Yeah. Even even a big loss over the course of a week or so isn't going to in in terms of things isn't really a big loss on the daily pumping.

00:16:35,120	S2:
So but one of the things in your in your goal for 25.6 was the messaging about water to the, to the community, right. So I think this having us doing a summary of all the different systems to create like a one page sort of something we could send out would be good, because I think that what we hear, what I hear a lot of, I don't hear nobody's complaining about this stuff, what people complain about is I can't water my lawn. Right. And we don't we can't. Why are we talking about future growth? We don't have enough water in our town anyway, so it'd be good to have be able to measure like what that actually means. I don't think that our water limitations growth in time for the minimal growth we're talking about, but that's what people start to say when they say, oh, we can't water Colombia. We can build, you know, we can build affordable housing, or so I just don't know how that works. So, yeah, the good news of the message that makes sense.

00:17:23,400	S1:
Yeah, I think the good news about the task force is that part of the task force has been the Ipswich River Watershed Association. They've worked with the water providers, the water suppliers, which are all the town systems, um, to kind of come up with what that messaging should look like and so we can start to work with them, um, and try and put that stuff out there again. A lot of that comes down to having the bandwidth to, you know, create the message and, um, amplify it. And we are hoping that very soon we'll be able to do that with our communications, uh, approach the strategy and that that person will be involved in helping us, helping Tim and I get that message out. And I do think that we talked a little bit about and didn't follow through. I think we had a lot going on last year, not making excuses, just saying, um, but we do want to do another water meeting like we did in 2019. Um, where we kind of, you know, do a one night where we just kind of go through the whole of what the town's water infrastructure is, what its needs are that we can foresee. Um, you know, explain a little bit more in depth and try to get that, uh, get Bill Melville and H.W. can to help us, you know, amplify that. Have the video shown.

00:18:27,430	S2:
I think it might be good to do this report and then sort of And then have that mean presented or the like. Not the final final, but just I think it's going to do a little bit of background before and then gets feedback, but at least we're prepared for it.

00:18:40,250	S1:
And uh, you know, switch, uh, watershed. Um, that non-profit like they've got a ton of, like data and benchmarks as well around like, kind of like uses and profiles and what people can expect based on number of people in the household versus how much irrigation you're doing. Well, I went to one of those meetings last, last year and yeah, they had all sorts of data as well. So I think it's, you know, giving people that, that understanding to, to your point around, you know, well how much capacity do we have, you know, versus like kind of ask questions around like how much is leaking, like where is like what's the waste like or where's the water go? Maybe they can help with that educational piece too. Um, because they're sort of trusted source and they have data from a bunch of other communities across the state, but their benchmark. So I went back to the water bills after that. Something like that. Not a lot left over, but.

00:19:41,830	S2:
What I like about our water is that we don't pay for our water, but we pay the distributed storage pump and filters. I do not have to pay for the water. Right. So and so it's a it's a it's a fixed cost. Yeah. So generally the water. So if we use less water our water bill is going to go. The rate is going to go out right now. Right. So it's.

00:20:00,590	S1:
Going to happen.

00:20:01,030	S2:
Anyway. So obviously we want to be responsive to the water wastewater. But on an economic scale we've got to kind of go here. But yeah it's interesting because it's not about like water. It's about it's about being efficient with it but.

00:20:14,510	S1:
Having no cost to use as well. Like if there's if there's questions about the well.

00:20:20,230	S2:
But even less water than say it with money.

00:20:22,990	S1:
I don't.

00:20:24,350	S2:
Buy this one doesn't feel like.

00:20:26,230	S4:
The work and trying to get the work.

00:20:29,380	S2:
Anybody else to take the next topic? I tried to get the owl working. Yeah. Um, maybe the elder. Yeah, the fell favorite. We had a plan in place to, uh, second the ad carriers and then as well. Another tower location. And I know that's what we're working on. So I think that's continues until we actually have the other tower up that stays on the goal.

00:20:58,620	S5:
So Planning Board approved that second tower behind the public safety building.

00:21:04,380	S1:
Okay.

00:21:05,100	S5:
So I think that's well in the works. And then the smaller tower, I believe has also been approved. So it's just a matter of getting it done at this point.

00:21:17,420	S1:
Where it's.

00:21:17,820	S4:
A smaller tower.

00:21:19,980	S5:
Right on the intersection. Ellison defined um, on Walnut Road. The time that the models are there. So it'll be you'll be there. It's just going to be a metal pole mounted.

00:21:38,360	S1:
On the poles in now. Yeah, right. Do you know what next steps or timeline on those poles now that that planning board has approved?

00:21:47,040	S5:
I have not heard any more than that other than it has been approved.

00:21:50,800	S1:
Yeah, they did their balloon.

00:21:52,600	S2:
Test.

00:21:52,840	S1:
Right before.

00:21:53,200	S2:
The.

00:21:53,280	S1:
Approval. So, um, it's as I said, they did the balloon testing, but with a pump. So it's not like the, like, telephone pole style once time like or the. No, I think we're I think we are asking the big one of the big one. Yeah I can get I can get you all for the next meeting and get Mark Connors to give us an update on, you know, reach out to everyone and find out what their next timeline is now that they've got the approvals are all in place. Let us know who you're working with when they're starting, etc.. So what's left to do on that project on our end? Nothing. Let them. Let them build it. up the building, start collecting the rent and then and then sell it a couple of years down the road. Let it build up some some capacity. Yeah. What about any carriers? I mean, we can't really promote or encourage that, but it just happens. Is it the tower owner is the one that has those relationships and tries to think they want to put more carriers on the tower, but yeah. But they have been very slow. By doing that, I'm not sure what the reason is, but.

00:22:52,300	S5:
I wonder if they're thinking to go to, um, more satellite technology because, I mean, I'm not I'm not a huge fan of it here. I just switched to to T-Mobile, and I can switch up on Wi-Fi and go on to satellite. It's a little wonky.

00:23:12,060	S1:
I'll say it's already wonky. Done. So I can't I can't order a Dunkin Donuts iced tea from the parking lot. I have to come over here to this parking lot and pick up the Wi-Fi from the building and then go back and get my SSD. So it's a little wonky already. So you.

00:23:30,890	S1:
Couldn't pay with our mobile devices on the block party because there was no online? Not enough cash. Only because. No, it was, um, you know, cube was working. There was no Wi-Fi. So the tower behind Public safety will help take up that area.

00:23:45,690	S5:
But now we'll see.

00:23:46,730	S1:
We'll see. I mean, they kind of always said when they built the first tower that I said was probably going to be needed, but they build the first one and see. And almost as soon as it was up, the board started asking me to get them to build a second one, and it was dragging their feet. So now they're now they're here. So they tell you that it'll make everything better. It takes less traffic off of the other tower or something like that. Traffic go faster. So it's.

00:24:08,210	S5:
Yeah. Remember, we have two other towers in town and we keep being told, oh, the next one will help the next one. I hope the next one helps.

00:24:17,930	S1:
We'll keep that on there. Right. Until that's all it was. My question was. Was that something that would be kept on the thing about something that needs work? Yeah, I think, you know, because a couple things. One, did you need to continue to press to make sure they get it done. And secondly, we found out last time that we were missing some easements or whatnot. So Joe now has that knowledge to make sure that there's no easement issues that we need to. They're going to hold up that tower from going online. So Joe can stay proactive by making sure they have, you know, the right permits or things in place so that we don't get a hiccup on those things. Yeah, that's.

00:24:56,950	S1:
What I would say. Yeah. In terms of priority, it's not heavy wind but at least sunny. Yeah. It's not a lot weaker right. Other than make sure you connect the dots.

00:25:09,630	S1:
On all projects. I hope that by the time we meet again we're going to tell you a completion date. So I think we're almost there. And the elevator is on track. As of the meeting last week, the elevators are on track to be completed on July 23rd. The progress on the elevator tower includes the stairs and the floors and tower, and they don't want to do that until they're done with the elevator. So they'll start laying, you know, putting them in the permanent stairs and the new wood floors for the elevator addition, uh, the last week in July. But we're, uh, cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to potentially move some folks into the first floor of the building. Uh, staff initially working. They'll have the access to both the ramp and the original front door. We should be able to potentially move the first floor in the last week of July and, um, maybe by the following week. Move in. The folks that are upstairs. Normally when you move in last the first floor, you're moving in most of what people come to town Hall for. The only thing the only office is going upstairs is our town manager accounting. So everything else will be, you know, could potentially go in there. I'm working with the building commissioner. He hasn't put it in writing yet, but as long as the elevator is finished on time, there's a good chance that we can have the elevator tested and certified. And we can get the CEO for the first floor before the end of the month. So that's. Excuse me. I remain optimistic.

00:26:38,600	S5:
It's beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful.

00:26:40,880	S1:
They're doing great work. It may be taking longer than we wanted it to, but they're doing great work and we're not over budget. So as long as I can keep saying we're not over budget, we're lucky. We're not like most towns that are in these situations where you're paying rent to somebody or living in borrowed quarters, where we're in a building that we still own. It's not costing us any money, so that's okay. We're really got lucky with the way it worked out. But the AV system and the Memorial Room, AV system, uh, they're going to be. Now that the ceiling's been painted, they're touching up the painting.

00:27:17,780	S1:
Bill Melville is going to be hooking up his room. It's going to the setup is going to be really nice. So there'll be a large, um, there'll be a large, uh, screen like this, but much larger behind the select board and the planning board. Whoever's at the tables and each of the seats at the table will have a small monitor. So you'll be able to see what's up on the screen. You won't have to turn around. You'll be able to see everything that's being presented to the public, and the public will be able to see everything. So and, um, so that the AV pack.

00:27:47,380	S6:
Is finalized and bid out. How did it come? How did it come in with the. I mean, no, we're not getting into the detail today.

00:27:52,340	S1:
But I can have him give us an update. I'm not 100%.

00:27:56,020	S6:
I guess with town Hall, my my goal would be kind of going to a town hall. My goal is not to be that obviously moved in and get it done, but it's kind of a reset right for town of like, okay, you know, we can kind of use a reset, like whatever we got to do in terms of any reorg you want to do or communications or or town engagement or, uh, or even the file system, they're going to go to electronic file, but it's kind of a reset.

00:28:28,090	Like if we move back to the town hall, it'd be good to have like some sort of plan, like, okay, we're going to do things differently or better or like, what does that plan look like? S1:
Yeah, we are working. You know, we have a group of led by our town clerk who happens to be watching us tonight, uh, leading the effort on the on the digitization of files and some. Look, ultimately, it's going to be a multi-year project. It's not something that's going to happen all at once, and we can convert everything all along the way. But we've got courage working really hard with the good folks to come up with the right plan so that we can start digitizing certain departments and getting them electronic. At the end of the day, you can digitize files so much, but you still have the certain records you have to keep in paper file no matter what. Under state law, there's a whole records retention list, certain records you have to keep forever, some records you only have to keep for four or 5 or 7 years. But we have to be cognizant of that and know that we're still going to have to store some paper files, and we can still move towards the, um, towards the digital frontier for our residents. Ease of use.

00:29:20,310	S1:
Okay.

00:29:21,270	S6:
How are we going to orient the public to the town hall? Like, I, I imagine like I want to spend a bunch of money out of money, but send out a one page like it has, like a floor plan with town hall saying, hey, this is this is the layout of Town Hall down all this is where this is where you want to go. This is where people are sitting, but we're just waiting for people to go and buy them. I was trying to think of like.

00:29:41,070	S1:
We're going to have wayfinding signage in the building. I think that the good thing will be to invite people to come and direct them to the new main entrance, which is actually at the back of the building. The idea is to get people using views in the back of the building as the main entrance of the building, because that's the fully accessible with the elevator and everything else. You get to every floor in the building by using that elevator. Uh, with a little, you know, very little effort, which you can get there. So we'll get people used to accessing the building. That way they can still come in the side door, they can still come to the front door, but we'll try to push people by messaging that use.

00:30:13,250	S6:
The back door. I think it's worth pointing out with like a communication that you send out either if a water bill or on its own or something, but a one page sort of is the new town hall. That's how I use it. This is where people are in the city. That's where people are. The hours or people always where you park. So I get in.

00:30:27,610	S5:
This is not that little waif on the map, on the on the on the website.

00:30:34,610	S6:
So yeah, you do that too. But some people just like some people like to get people there.

00:30:40,490	S5:
Right, right.

00:30:41,410	S6:
It's all taxpayer money. So it'd be good to show the taxpayers like not all taxpayer dollars grant money, but but show them what they paid for and how it's being used.

00:30:49,010	S1:
So who puts those kinds of things available?

00:30:51,250	S6:
Did you ever have to work with with either the architect or.

00:30:54,210	S1:
Yeah, the architect has all the drawings and it's just a matter of adding some stuff to that. We can get them to do that. Um, and then we have to produce, you know, they give us the files and we'd have to produce what we're going to be mailing out, what we've, you know, we produce stuff that gets mailed out all the time and the warrant cards and everything else, so I. That's what the board wants. That's what we'll get that. Wait a minute later.

00:31:13,040	S6:
You don't look like a graphic artist. That's that's that's all.

00:31:17,240	S1:
We don't have it. We don't have a graphic artist on here. Um, but I have, you know, my budget includes a line for consultant help so we can try to find somebody. If you really want it to look snazzy, I can get the shade.

00:31:28,840	S6:
For one page, but I think. Good. Look. Nice. Yeah. I want to build a lot of excitement about this thing. So because I think the goal is even with the even with the or maybe it's the same card it announces, like the ribbon cutting or whatever, we're going to call it the art show and the ribbon cutting there. So I think, I think maybe it could all be the same communication.

00:31:48,960	S1:
Yeah.

00:31:51,240	S5:
Yeah, that'll be a nice.

00:31:55,000	S1:
Ribbon cutting and naming of the tower. Yeah.

00:31:59,640	S6:
What are the town hall things we wanted to work on.

00:32:02,520	S1:
Maybe tours along with the ribbon cutting. Are you signing up to be the guy. Yeah, we can give tours, but, I mean, we need to identify who's going to who's going to provide the tours. And the guy could be the guides on them. So we're thinking what we're not gonna do. So September, I.

00:32:18,660	S6:
Think in September.

00:32:19,380	S1:
We'll have, you know, restaurants have a soft opening and then a grand opening. I think we'll do all these.

00:32:24,420	S6:
Five and get five tour guides right here. Yeah.

00:32:27,420	S1:
They're fun. Yeah. Be fun. Thanks. I'll. I'll add myself in, but I can't do tours all day long, so I'm happy to have that. I'll organize the tours. Happy to have that. So.

00:32:38,380	S1:
You got that volunteer? Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.

00:32:43,900	S6:
What other goals for town hall?

00:32:51,860	S1:
I think it'd be cool to to have sort of a some of the lessons learned on the Pasco model, um, that was used for the energy systems there. Maybe that's something too. That could be.

00:33:05,020	S6:
I think, a lesson learned, a great idea.

00:33:06,680	S1:
Replicated for other like for the school district or other municipal buildings, so that if that's a potential roadmap in a way for us to, it sounds like not needing to put up as much capital, you know, on the projects and having somebody else take ownership over that, that system and its operations. You know, I think that could be useful. I know that we're looking at sort of the age of equipment studies. Our energy manager was, um, I got her name and age. Um.

00:33:42,400	S1:
So I think that would be helpful to have. That's a way for us to subvert those. Yeah. I think it'd be great for the time to kind of crow about what we were able to do to get that bill to build without asking for or asking again, for we are told twice. No. So to be able to still get the project done Fortunately, the virtually the same project with without having to do override was great. Yeah, that's a historic landmark site.

00:34:11,270	S6:
So all of the good use of press out of it too. So I'm not sure if that local press or the.

00:34:15,350	S1:
State is still telling me that we're still going to be when we open up. We're still going to be the first, um, zero carbon. Zero carbon is still a town hall in the state of Massachusetts. It's just so.

00:34:28,030	S5:
Beautiful. Yes, it's so exciting. And I think we should get some big time press on.

00:34:33,910	S6:
Yeah, we're down in the gold tour to see what we can do with the local regional press and give some credit for the hard work we did to community.

00:34:41,070	S5:
National. Let's go. National.

00:34:43,910	S6:
Let's go.

00:34:44,310	S1:
60 minutes.

00:34:55,150	S6:
Yes.

00:34:55,870	S1:
It sure can.

00:34:56,670	S6:
All right. Um.

00:34:58,190	S1:
I'm sorry. All chargers. Um, are those up and running again, or will it be when they will be up and running again once we open it? But the site's not technically open to the public. Even though it took the fencing down that was more cosmetic to help with the Memorial Day festivities. We're not really inviting people onto the site right now. It's still on our site, but the Chargers are working there and working where everything should be fine. Okay. I'm sorry.

00:35:23,130	S6:
And and.

00:35:26,130	S6:
Were we was there is there anything that we sort of said okay, we're going to wait and do I get day two. Was there anything like we need to start thinking about like, okay, we were able to port, we were able to board and this is now done. But there's some day two stuff that we couldn't afford. But we either want to wait a year and we want to do we want to start raising money for anything. That's sort of if you are ready to put like, okay, we got we, we needed, but we didn't include the supply.

00:35:47,450	S1:
Yeah. So Tim has a list of some things that we want to kind of go back and revisit. Um, and some of them because the projects coming in on budget, some of them we might actually be able to do now without, um, so there's some things like, um.

00:36:00,850	S5:
About the cell.

00:36:02,800	S1:
So the cell was still there. We didn't get rid of the cell. That sounds like an old, like constable's like cell. Yeah. The police station used to be in. It was actually working. It was actually working cell at one point because the police station was was based in the building. So if they had to lock somebody up overnight, they locked them up in the basement townhome. Yeah. Well, that'll be good for the tourists.

00:36:27,480	S6:
But yeah, it'd be good to know. Like, also like we did this, but, like, let's not keep it on the road another 20 years and think about, okay, what's the what's the maintenance plan look like. What's the what's the next thing we need to do. But it's good to sort of. I think that some people you hear from the town say, oh, it's it's incorrect information, but it's a perception of, oh, we need a new elementary school because we didn't maintain it. Not correct assumption, but that's what people say. We want to make sure we're we have that. We know how we're going to maintain these buildings. So we don't really last for another 50 to 100 years. So yeah.

00:36:57,520	S5:
There's no reason not to.

00:36:59,040	S6:
Right.

00:36:59,320	S5:
Person so suddenly built to begin with. It's pretty amazing.

00:37:04,220	S1:
But even when you say that so that the building lasts another 50 to 100 years, well, you reckon the elementary schools have lasted overnight? They did last. I mean.

00:37:15,220	S6:
They were not correct statements, but they were made. It's good to be able to stay ahead of that side. Yeah. The negative messaging with our with our proactive plan. So. Sure. All right. What else is going on in, uh, Gordon Conwell Brownsville. Is there anything left to do over there for us? Wait for the check to come.

00:37:37,820	S6:
So you're just you're just watching the approval of the apartments in the background?

00:37:41,340	S1:
Yeah, the. We've been I've been I've been in touch with both the buyer and seller. Um, the last I've heard was that they're looking at a late July, early August, actual closing of the sale of the student housing. And, you know, uh, I know that the the buyer had had some concerns based on a couple of things with him not in town, but more probably on the state list. But there they seem to have those under control now. Um, and so we're just waiting for them to do that, and then we'll see what we got to do to help them. But they're not planning to make any, you know, major changes that would be like, detrimental in terms of noise and stuff to the neighborhood. They're going to go in and fix them up as best they can, and they want to get as many of the units as they can. At least a couple of the buildings rent that out as soon as possible. That's kind of their whole goal to make them livable and get people in.

00:38:32,560	S5:
So and how's the application going?

00:38:36,960	S1:
They they won't open that process until the until they own the buildings. So they don't own the buildings yet. So that'll be um, you know, we'll pick that up. But there's been there's been contact made from our town. Mark Connors, the state's aware of what's going on and is, you know, has lined up and the buyers lined up. Somebody that works in the affordable housing space to help with the. To make sure that they're doing all of what they need to do to make sure that the units qualify. So great. So we're going to do everything right. They're going to do everything right. And then it's up to the state whether or not they all qualify. We think they would.

00:39:13,630	S6:
I think the goal I think the secondary goal is they agreed to prioritize things down, like the cell phone thing. Like you don't have to do much, but you got to make sure you got to keep the monster. Make sure to follow through on the process. And they're not going to say, oh, you know, they don't submit. Somebody doesn't get approved. I got to make sure doesn't get approved, because we went through all the right steps and submitted all the right paperwork. And as we all.

00:39:32,350	S1:
Know, the agreement was maintaining some of the public access. Right. So is there any need for like signage or communication to like communicate that out for us? So it was kind of always allowed in the right place and there was no signage and people just knew. Yeah. So I, I, I wouldn't we could talk to the cemetery and see what they want to do. But unless we made. Unless you're making a change.

00:39:56,770	S6:
We've been silent on it because we sort of made it sort of say, hey, we're not changing what's there so we don't go. But yes. And they said, we're like, we're not. But unless there's some security concern, we're not going to close off campus. So um, but yeah, it's entry point, but and there's no. And then the gentleman retired. Uh, what's his name? He's retiring from.

00:40:16,450	S1:
Scott. Scott is retiring as the seminary president at the. Yeah. Um, so do.

00:40:23,090	S6:
We know the next president?

00:40:27,010	S6:
Not sorry.

00:40:27,810	S1:
Yeah. Yeah. We we meet Scott. We didn't meet Scott until after the other president had left as well. So it's just it's a private entity. They'll do their best to maintain relationships with us, I'm sure, but, um, we met Scott after the other president retired. I'm sure we'll meet the next one when he comes back.

00:40:43,650	S6:
So I would say we should be this week on that, too, and just put it out on your list of like, hey, we'd love to meet you. Yeah. Candidates.

00:40:52,730	S5:
And we work so hard.

00:40:54,270	S6:
I know you can't read.

00:40:55,150	S1:
Yeah, I mean.

00:40:55,670	S6:
I'm on a show, but I would be the squeaky wheel a little bit. So make sure we get somebody that understands the community is an important part of the of the school. And we don't want somebody doesn't realize that. So I just want to make sure that's important to them as well. We can't we can't tilt the needle, but we can't be trusted to be squeaky.

00:41:12,910	S1:
Yeah. Doesn't hurt. You know, just to ask. Right. And, uh, there's a strong candidate. They'll be excited to put them in front of you. Make the connection.

00:41:22,910	S6:
We'd be happy to invite them to a selected meeting.

00:41:27,510	S1:
Yeah. Check this out.

00:41:29,630	S6:
And we're each in collaboration.

00:41:39,350	S6:
Uh, pen homestead Intel. I mean, that's still going to stay on there until it's closed and done. But what? Just give us a quick, quick summary.

00:41:45,950	S1:
Of what those.

00:41:46,710	S6:
Timeline might look.

00:41:47,430	S1:
Like. Yeah. So you all know that the the property was appraised. appraisal was provided to the heirs of the patent family. We have heard verbally, haven't confirmed with counsel that he's heard legally from their council, but heard verbally that the existing heirs are not intending to buy the product property. I had one conversation with one of the children and he said he didn't tell me specifically. He isn't interested in buying it. Um. So once we have the confirmation from them, we can put the property, um, we can finalize the survey and put the property up for sale by the the the entity. Pat Foundation is still very interested. Also had a conversation with them, and they have indicated to me that they have lined up their, um, financing for the purchase of the property, as was outlined in the survey that we showed at town meeting. So, um, they're they're still comfortable moving forward and have some ideas. Um, there are some things that we need to have some more conversation with. I think the board at some point should. You know, this is just a recommendation for me, but I think at the board at some point should entertain a public meeting with the planning board this summer for two reasons. One, to talk about Pat homestead. There's a there's likely to be an existing zoning issue, right? It's zoned as residential, agricultural. And, um, the uses are going to be that. So there'd be a nonconforming use. Now there will be a nonprofit and how that plays into it. Do they need to just go to the SDA and get a used variance? And is that sufficient? Um, in many ways that could be a good solution because it allows you to, um, have the property revert back to a if if Pat Foundation wants to go away someday. Um, if otherwise you could and work with the planning board on potential zoning changes that might help. But that's a longer process. And that would mean either I think there's a way for nonconforming causes.

00:43:48,710	S6:
For them to go directly to the planning board.

00:43:50,270	S7:
To get a.

00:43:51,630	S1:
Nonconforming use directly. CVA CVA provides variances to two dimensional and use zoning. So the CPA would be who would who would determine they'd have to apply for.

00:44:07,910	S6:
As long as they're not.

00:44:08,910	S7:
Expanding the existing non-conforming use.

00:44:11,710	S1:
Well, there they'd be applying for first time nonconforming use. You can get a use variance. They'd be asking for a use variance based on their business plan. And then they'd have they they would potentially be, um, reined in on how much they could actually do to the property, which may or may not present a problem for them, but we need to have them explain that to us and what they want us to do.

00:44:35,830	S1:
Learning opportunity for all of us.

00:44:39,030	S6:
What was the timeline like for this?

00:44:42,310	S1:
Uh, I think that we'll probably have the property for sale sometime during the month of July for sale property has, to say, advertise for at least a month on the Central Register and be advertised at least twice and a paper record in the two weeks preceding the opening of the bids. So if we get it open in July, we can probably close it sometime late August and then have bids to look at. The RFP is going to be structured in a way that it's asking for, uh, the type of uses proposed by the Patent Foundation, because that's what we told our meeting. So, um, I don't know if there will be a lot of people bidding on it, but they know what the appraisal is, so they're prepared notes.

00:45:28,530	S7:
So we can ask for that sort of bids without it being actually approved for that use, doesn't it?

00:45:34,850	S1:
Yeah. The townhomes that we think we can ask for it that way, even if there's only doesn't match up seeing it happen lots of places.

00:45:43,010	S7:
So the offers that may be Contingent on being able to get through the day.

00:45:48,190	S1:
They could be. They could be. They could choose to make the offer contingent on getting the zoning in place, or zoning or variances in place to be able to operate.

00:45:59,270	S7:
The goal is to get this through in the next year.

00:46:02,790	S1:
Yeah. Goals to get through in the next year without needing any further action by town meeting. Unless unless the buyer and the town want to pursue a zoning change, that would be the only thing that we would be looking to do at Tommy. Hoping that we can. Well, if the buyer wants zoning change in the planning, and the town planning Board is willing to work with them, that's. That's fine. We can have that lined up for the annual if they want to make it seamless and take ownership of the property quicker. We can talk about potentially finding a way to get them into the building without the zoning. So yeah. Perfect.

00:46:38,190	S5:
Sure. Do you run into initial spots? Because that would be the only thing That would be the only building in that whole district that would be up for zoning change. So I, I wonder about that.

00:46:53,380	S1:
It isn't just once. It isn't just about it being one parcel. There's a lot of things that go into making a determination about spots on it. We'll have town council look at it and make make sure that they recommend us. When we talk.

00:47:03,980	S6:
About.

00:47:04,860	S1:
What does need to be there, was that it would probably be some kind of a commercial district to change for the non-profit uses, which could be, but you could also avoid a lot of physical.

00:47:16,780	S6:
For this commercial.

00:47:18,020	S1:
Overlay. There's another. Right. And then you could do it and you could potentially use it as a way.

00:47:24,580	S5:
Right. But that's I think that's the RA district, right?

00:47:27,660	S1:
Yes. So the farms are there, right? Exactly.

00:47:30,540	S5:
I'm hoping that maybe a simple use change through the CBA would be the easiest and cleanest thing

00:47:44,560	S5:
Um.

00:47:45,760	S1:
Anything else with that? Uh, then. Yeah. Then I guess, uh, what happens? And maybe a plan for what? So what's the left? And then what do we need to do to maintain that over the course of a year? Like, what do we know what that means is at that point, just landscaping and maintenance and landscaping. Right. I mean, the goal is to pass papers under and then take ownership of the cost. But, um, but but what's the what we're left with, though. So as long as we own it, we're going to have to. Well, what's left after we sell it is going to be just maintenance of the of the large field and stuff. Um, which is a lot less and, you know, and then with the property that we're part of the property that we're selling, our goal is to sell it as soon as we can. But as long as we own it, we'll have to maintain, you know, heat insurance. Right. And once that, once we sell it, what is it like? Is there a plan for what's left and how we maintain it? Yeah. The goal will be to Continue to maintain the field. We connect our developer. We keep the lower level of the market. Right.

00:48:49,500	S1:
In the dumps.

00:48:53,220	S1:
Gone by the 29th. I think it should be on today. Tomorrow. What if it's.

00:48:57,620	S5:
Here? Oh, really? Already? You know, for the crash team?

00:49:02,820	S1:
Yeah, there's been there for two weeks.

00:49:06,980	S5:
It's been very long, though. People have been asking me.

00:49:09,500	S1:
I think everybody in town is from their garbage can over there. Looks like. Yeah, a couple people drive right past that lot and up and put it next to a dumpster next to the stables, and, like, that doesn't really look like that pile. You drive right by and see the big parking lot full of garbage cans, and then you're like, well, we up to the ceiling. All right, well, that's what you saw. Um, here's what it is. A huge pile of garbage cans.

00:49:33,780	S5:
All right.

00:49:34,860	S1:
Where are those going? Are those bound to a dumpster? They have a recycler that you started because I was going to take it back and do whatever they have to do, and then they're going to deal with it. That's part of the change out. So I'm.

00:49:49,490	S5:
Excited about this new ones. You could fit a body and.

00:49:56,570	S1:
This is not a dark. This isn't a person in there okay fine. We're not going to go.

00:50:05,010	S1:
I'm waiting for my body. You said to me. Yeah.

00:50:15,610	S1:
All right. The big one next is school district. So we got the regional agreement, which is still not anywhere along with the timeline on that is that something can be done. Yeah, I'll take the lead on that one. I mean, we, they they chose to take a boss on it because if anything was going on, I think it's something we could pick up again. Once there's a reasonable say, we get it done by the end of next year. Well, it's going to require just a couple of issues. There are major issues, but I mean, there's only a couple, but it's really around like the, um, you know, how we're dividing up the, um, cost allocation, right? I think that's the biggest one. And we want a little bit more factors to be determined in how we, rather than just the last three years or something like that. But the school district and even one of them, I think is, um, not necessarily what I was interested in revisiting. Yeah, yeah. The apportionment. So, yeah. Um, yeah, we, I think there's been talk about stretching out for five years and said three years just to create a little bit more level. Um, not as much as, you know, values, but, um. Yeah. The committee stopped meeting and decided to take a pause while we were getting through town meeting after all happened last year was just decided to let everything cool down and then take it up again. That wasn't me. That was all of them members there. So the new contract comes. Um, we'll come back to annual town meeting and agreement. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. New agreement would have to be approved by both town meetings. Get approved by each committee and committee and then committee. Yeah. Okay. And then the site actually probably took some. Yeah. We are really trying to link it to the state template for what's supposed to be an agreement. Make sure all that such there. So okay. And the substance of changes besides the allocation or how has the audit got in there. Got it. Um. On it. Hold on. We talked about adding like a third party audit on a instead of like instead of when they want to add like on a, on some sort of regular basis, whether it was every year, every other year. But now it was like it's sort of silent on it, talked about it, but it didn't give like a I don't think that's I mean, it's just like our there's an audit done on our books every year. There's not a done in school district. But like as far as a.

00:52:38,320	S1:
Something that's publicly talked about. Yeah. I mean it's the cost allocation is added in. There it is. The, you know, formalizing sort of a budgetary and capital planning process, which is, um, which I think is important, which is great. We've been working we've been working with what's in the draft document right now for the last 2 or 3 years. So we're meeting, you know, more frequently with the five chairs. And then that leads into, uh, work by the administrative staffs before the first of the two big five board meetings. And, you know, the current agreement only calls for one five boards meeting. But for the last four years, we've been doing two five board meetings, and we've been doing, you know, multiple five chairs meetings to lead opposite kind of. And it's been helpful in terms of everybody is entering those bigger meetings with a little bit better understanding of where everybody is at. Right. Which made it a better working relationship. Even though we still sometimes hear things you don't want to hear. But in some of the other controversial topic, I guess for the the public sake is formalized in the language around the school committee calling for an election, which is outlined in the state law. And so kind of putting that language in there, I know there was a focus on that, so that we'll have to get voters approved on one way or the other. And then, Joe, what was the target? And then April annual town meeting then. Is that. Yeah, it's not necessarily in our control per se, but like we we if you tell me that you want us to target next April town meeting, then then that provides an impetus for me to talk to one of them, the school committee, and say, hey, we need to pick this up again. Our board didn't get moving on this. Um, the only thing with that, wasn't there something around the elections about needing special legislation? Is that so? So so that was the one other piece that was undecided. And there's still some The way the seats are apportioned now is all seven seats are up for grabs in both towns, and there was some desire, even on one side, to they were willing to kind of define it a little bit. So have there be a minimum of three in each town with one seat that could go to either town? Yeah. Um, but that would require the election then to be done on the state calendar cycle in November, or for both towns to adopt the humble petition to allow us to hold across district election in the spring so that it could go, depending how it all shakes out in the final negotiations, it could go to, um, town meeting with a vote on whether or not we want the petition to identify how members are elected to the school committee and then the the agreement itself. So then I would go for special legislation after I get to go to my town meeting. Yeah, well, we do the home rule petition votes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:55:39,430	S5:
And with that, um, home rule allowed for just elections, is that is that that the school that having a two town, um, election, it would just.

00:55:52,950	S1:
Put the number of members and how we get elected. So.

00:55:55,830	S5:
Yeah. Okay.

00:56:00,510	S1:
Because, you know, there's been there have been times in the last couple of years where the majority of members in the school committee were from Wenham. And quite frankly, it's been because nobody from Hamilton was running. Right. Um, and so but you wind up in this imbalance where at least four and sometimes five members of the committee were when, um, seats in the town of Hamilton pays two thirds of the bill. And we kind of feel like there's been some feeling among passports that you didn't have actual representation at the meetings about how the budget of kids decided we wanted to have more, more representation on the school committee. Again, it's still being negotiated how we attack it. Not because when I'm isn't willing to. When I'm in the school committee, aren't willing to talk about that more because of the state law about how elections are held. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable goal, that we could reunite the committee this fall and try and get that on the table with. Absolutely not. Come on to this to around capital planning in particular. So that's going to be an agreement, uh, valuable to have them kind of headed in the same direction as we're headed. Yeah, yeah. So I think that the school obviously is we can't do anything about it, but how do we promote whatever they're going to do in the next capital projects? And it's not within our purview, but I think we should just have as a goal like five chairs. And so they're the language and the new agreement. The language in the agreement does call out a capital planning process and establishes a school committee capital subcommittee that they've already actually established and in fact, are working with. So they're they're, again, trying to get on our kind of get on our schedule. Hamilton. And one of the schedules for how we decide capital and make sure that we're aware of the projects that they've got coming down the line, have it part of the whole conversation, but it's not it's not in the agreement currently, but they're trying to work that way. But even in an agreement, it's not like there's the select committee. No, but but in the agreement they would they would be forced to produce their capital needs for a five year period. What they would focus on, what they're looking for in the coming year and then over the next five years. And that would be able to be for us to decide how we how we analyze it or process that against the rest of the capital needs for the town of Hamilton. While when and does that for the 1011. Well, here's my question is I don't want to remain silent on it. So what can we put in a goal either as a town goal or as a town manager goal for how we help that process along so it doesn't get doesn't need to not happen or doesn't fail. You know, it's not in our purview, but we still can help with the process. And don't forget anything. We could we could turn a golden highway structure, a goal so that we can be proactive. Yeah. Thank you. That's a question to the board to ponder and come back. No no no no. So we need tonight but for us to be thinking.

00:58:59,500	S5:
About leaning on starting a capital plan for some time have been phased. This is this what we're talking about. Right.

00:59:09,900	S1:
So they've actually they've actually done it. They've they've identified the members of the school committee, their arm and capital subcommittee. They've they've started to put down a plan with what what is needed and trying to prioritize it. And so they're working on it? Yeah. Even though the district agreement as is, doesn't require it, but we're trying to get it into the agreement as.

00:59:29,800	S5:
Well to make that.

00:59:32,640	S1:
Exactly.

00:59:36,840	S1:
Well, I think somebody else at the 8 p.m. in April. Yeah. Realizing that maybe we even, you know, in part of negotiations, negotiate to have the select board member of each select board on that committee. Right. I mean, the liaison to be a part of it. Right. Liaison at least right to demand liaison without impacting bylaws or. Yeah. Maybe like a non-voting jurisdiction or something with that? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What do I call that? Like associate member? Yeah. Yeah. Associate member. Non-voting member to at least, you know, keep the communication flowing between both boards or three boards.

01:00:15,520	S5:
Wasn't there also, um, talked about having become members on on that project as well.

01:00:24,350	S1:
Income members are allowed to be on committees as voting members and any other board of committee where they would have to be making a recommendation.

01:00:36,470	So that's amazing, isn't it? S5:
Yes.

01:00:37,550	S1:
It's a seven member committee. A member of the Catholic Committee is on the seven member board. So that's in this case, Nick Henson, sir Hamilton Hamilton's capital committee. As a member of serving on the we stood on the committee. We're operating as if the agreement is already done. Right. Okay, so it's good, but you might think we might want to have a member of the Select board attend or be the part of. Yeah, that's the way it's.

01:01:16,390	S1:
So I think it achieves everything we want. We just need to execute the deal.

01:01:22,410	S5:
And would you be part of that process also? The they're their capital planning committee. You would just sort of morph your role into being part of that as well.

01:01:35,690	S1:
I mean, I think whatever liaison select board member for the school committee should be very important. Yeah. You're.

01:01:46,410	S5:
Missing out on all the information.

01:01:50,050	What? S1:
Yeah. No, I think I think I think I'm glad that some of the capital committee is on it, but I think, you know, for us to, you know, have, like, regular reports on it, I think it'd be helpful for someone to meet with the select board. Yeah. I would require that representative come to the select board on a regular basis through the budgeting cycle. So you guys are tracking what's happening. Yeah. That that would be part of the goal. I didn't think you'd want that. Yeah. Is to get a regular readout. What's going on with the schools. Well, Joe does it. Ask that person to come to your meeting. Yeah.

01:02:23,800	S5:
Before we talk to you about what not to do.

01:02:26,520	S1:
Well, on the phone, we can have a company. We're not a member of the board with a cap on. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah.

01:02:34,280	S5:
Okay. If you were not.

01:02:35,680	S1:
If we don't have a member. Just like to have someone say, the member from home.

01:02:40,120	S5:
Right.

01:02:41,760	S1:
And the superintendent is always willing to pay you out.

01:02:44,680	S5:
Maybe monthly.

01:02:46,000	S1:
Yeah. A week, maybe every other. Have a periodic visit.

01:02:53,720	And? S5:
It's always pretty good about coming in or anything.

01:02:57,680	S1:
Yep. Bring up the schools.

01:03:03,400	S1:
Sorry. Talk about the formalizing that requirement for for the for the superintendent to to report. I mean, even if Eric Tracy currently was happy to come and talk to us at any point. There's a change. If there's a future or if it becomes more antagonistic relationship, it might be good to have it as part of the agreement. That's an expectation. Yeah. You could. We can ask for it. I mean, it's not. It's not something we can actually require. They could agree to it, but they could agree to it. So, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking. We're talking about a little tiny. We're talking about corporate quarterly, a quarterly update from the superintendent at the board meetings. Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, I think, yeah. Regular cadence. I think it's fair. Yeah. So, yeah. So we're negotiating the negotiating a agreements that we could vote on at the April meeting, and then also getting these things that we just talked about in the agreement at some level, and obviously through the help of us, but at least you can guide it. Yeah. Be sure to have a center. All right. I'm going to leave it to you, Joe. Last year. But obviously it's always our goal. But but better public mitigation. You have money now in the budget to do it. So what is the measurable goal you want us to have over the next year in terms of public communication? Like what are you thinking that goal as we comment on what your thoughts are? Um, the goal will be that what we're going to have here in the next six months, we're going to have a staff member that's accessible and able to help us daily with communicate different things, to be in touch with, uh, boards and committees and with department heads, um, utilize a website and all the time social media reinforcing the relationship with Hamilton Cable access and the Hamilton one news so that we have, uh, kind of regular access to getting out into the public the information that we all know about what we haven't really done a great job of.

01:05:17,590	S1:
Great job of amplifying it out into the community all the time. So we tend to be more reactionary than proactive when it comes to communication. So all of the platforms decide like what the best platform, whether it's well, we'll use multimedia, we'll do multiple platforms. We we currently do. But again, a lot. Unfortunately a lot of our communications because you know, we I've been criticized for it and rightly so. It's been mostly reactionary or on one special things happen but not proactive thinking ahead. So that's the goal of having the communications person. Um, so we're we've got applicants to position, we're scheduling how we're going to review those applicants. We also have determined through the process that we think there'll be a need for some, you know, outside consultancy that can help set up kind of templates and models and, um, you know, strategy for that new person coming on. So we're going to look to support the new person with some of the funds that are in my line for, uh, contracting because I have something I'm trying to help someone get a new website and a new website which is already being developed, and then have this person as their first activity, sort of design a plan, a multimedia community. By the week that I can bring to the board, we can understand what is on it. My goal would be to have you kind of reviewing that plan in September or early October. Uh, you know, and then we then with your blessing and feedback, we, uh, make a make adjustments and then they remind this person how many hours a week, um, you know, it's a $50,000 a year, part time position. So we're looking at maybe like 20 to 22 weeks, depending.

01:07:05,210	S5:
On what will happen with, um, dates.

01:07:09,190	S1:
Bobby's. Bobby's exist in the budget. That's very small, right? And we didn't take him out of the budget so we can maintain him. Um, if there's need to. I certainly think to start. He's got all the passwords and those all of our social media accounts and stuff, and he's done a good job for what it is we ask him to do. And there's always a need to do stuff on weekends and things like that. So, um, he's available. So you know that person more on the IT side of things. But no, it'll be somebody with, you know, a background and understanding of communication. I'm sorry. Bobby. You know, Bobby is Bobby used you know, the background of Bobby Gates says he used to work for the Hamilton one, um, Chronicle years ago, and that was still a viable newspaper. And then he left to, you know, professional reasons to get paid more. And so at that time, my predecessor hired him to help with social media. And so he does a lot of, you know, pushing things out for us on Facebook, Twitter or Facebook and Instagram and whatever other social media. I think that's the bulk of what we use for social media, and he's provided some advice to us in the past to try to, uh, you know, put things on the website and stuff. But we need more than his availability. So, yeah, I think how we how we organize information on the like, think about it like it's a digital ecosystem, right. It's like the website is going to be one of our primary platforms of where we store kind of like record information about here's what we've done so far, here's what we're going to do next. And that and making that information, um, accessible and digestible so that, you know, then you can and having it all that digital information linked together so that you can drill into it as well. I think that's one of the areas where we've not done that. Well, like it's like stuff's buried. And if you understand how municipal governments work, you can find it. Right. But if you don't and you're coming in from the outside, it's very hard to like drill into that that information. So are you looking at a policy that's an old policy on a new policy.

01:09:10,400	S5:
Right.

01:09:11,160	S1:
So there's a classic example. Yeah. But I think the there's there's a need as well. Like sort of like our whatever communication communication strategy is going to be that there's kind of like the weekly stuff. Right. There's and then there's the stuff that's like, oh, trash is delayed by a week. Like what's, you know, what's the comms plan for like trash or it's like, that's pretty easy. You know, I think those, those are sort of like table stakes things where I think we're really looking to improve and level up is on the longer range planning activities, you know, so we could take water as an example or any other one of these like big goals, like you could build out. What would that look like if we're doing communications better. What would success look like against one of these goals? Or even like, you know, even rolling out the new recycling cans like that would have been a perfect, like a test case on how to use all of our resources to do.

01:10:04,660	S8:
It the right way. I think a lot of people have missed it. It didn't understand it.

01:10:07,780	S1:
And I and I went to Pittsburgh, but one of the people who didn't get trash or recycling bin, you know, so I was like, I happen to know who did this, so I just go right to it. Well, I actually gave it some paper. It's pretty damn good. But so I was trying to then figure out, okay, well, there must be a form or something I fill out. You know, I'm digging around. I can't find ten. Right. But I think if you if you don't know who Tim is or what Tim's email address is, you're sort of lacking that. But again, I think those are the types of things that are that are easier. They're smaller in duration, like as a program, like a singular event versus things that are going to span years and span multiple select boards. You know that those are the types of things where having that that digital record as well. So people can can see where we've been, where we are and where we're going. Right. Bringing people along. So they also know When that opportune time is for participation. I think that's one of the things where it's like, you know, in your new town, we're like, oh, I don't want to participate in the work to get an up or down vote. Like, you know, it's going to be a little bit like that would be like super helpful to have those person's ideas 2 or 3 years ago. Right. Or or even 16 months ago. Maybe we shouldn't bring this in front of the town right now because people aren't there yet. Right. Or or whatever it's going to mean so. So that's where I see a lot of our focus in terms of how we build out this strategy, where we'll get the most return on the investment. I think the other things are good for, like flexing the muscles and exercising, getting this ecosystem up and running, but not necessarily a measure of success. I think it's just kind of like really good for us. It'll be a big improvement for our town, but at the same time, it's kind of like, I feel like that should be like table stakes, you know? Or if it's a short duration thing, one time a fan or the weekly updates, you know, that's table stakes. Like, I'm more interested in the the bigger picture things and like how we can help people get engaged. Help keep them informed. Otherwise, it's easy to lose track. Next thing you know, you're voting on something that's tens of millions of dollars. Where the heck did this come from? Right. Um, so sorry for soapbox speech there, but I think that's where it's like the digital infrastructure, you know, getting that set up. It's definitely a goal having, you know, getting the staff person on. Um, having a consultant probably do some, I don't know, kind of like assessment on like where are we now? Like if we put.

01:12:46,390	S8:
A plan together, we can.

01:12:47,310	S1:
Talk about rewind the video and watch my monologue here. Um, and then. 72448.

01:13:02,140	S1:
So.

01:13:05,300	S1:
So those are those are kind of like some of the goals I feel like want to be in there. Right. Like have we stood up the infrastructure. Have we gotten some quick wins. You know shown that like shown to the public that we're doing a better job. So they're like, hey, that was money well spent. I felt much more informed about what's going on with water or what's going on with X or Y, and I can pick on water. This is at the top of the list for. All right. That's my soapbox now. Makes sense. You're not picking on water. Since I've been here, water has been at the top of my list of goals. So you're not picking on the water. Water is my main issue of concern. And it has been well, we'll continue to be. We're making progress slower than we want it to be, but we are making progress.

01:13:43,820	S8:
So we're in better shape than we're we're.

01:13:48,740	S8:
Not make sense what you said. And I think there's no better opportunity to sort of the last thing that's going to do is hire the person. And then people not to know we are dispersion. Right. Yeah. You want.

01:13:59,160	S1:
To.

01:13:59,680	S8:
Do good communication first? What I like were actually.

01:14:02,840	S1:
If they see a marked improvement. Right after quick wins too. And it's like, I don't want that to be a thing. You know, it ends up on the chopping block in a year or 2 or 3 successfully. Right. Um, just a quick similar thread. Since we're talking about technology, is there any investments we need to make in that North Shore IT collaborative that we're involved in? Is there anything that we need to do there? Uh. Great question. Uh, timing's a little funny. I have my next annual meeting with them on Thursday. Uh, so I can kind of report back to you a little bit at the end of the meeting next Monday. Kind of what? They're what they're looking for a long term down the road. Uh, but we stay. We continue to stay plugged into them. Some of our other partners in the collaborative are using them more than we are, because we have Andy Wood, who is the our who has been doing a good job for us. He's the he's the architect of our infrastructure and we're not dissatisfied with him. But we know, you know, you have to have you have to plan for the future. So several of our towns have are almost exclusively using Danvers as kind of their IT department, and that comes with a bigger cost. I don't think we're there yet, but Andy has a good working relationship with the guys in Danvers. They have come over to help troubleshoot stuff for us when we needed to. And they're they're on call and they're helping us strategically. Plans, particularly for cybersecurity and training for our staff, make sure that we're not allowing any outside threats into the system, or at least reducing our risk to. But, um, yeah, that's I can I can give you more of an update after we have our, our our annual meeting next, next this coming Thursday. Next time review. Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's July 9th, so I'll be able to update you missing it. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. What we're doing.

01:15:48,180	S1:
With our website we do have a document management strategy in place. Yeah. It's to not have as many pages saved as the current one does. Our biggest issue with the. Yeah. No not actually not actually like one page, you know, stock but actual documents like oh yeah. So so yeah. So that's part of the, um, the program that Karen is working on, um, for digitization of records and was a documented document management system speech that we're going to be eventually kind of getting people to use instead of our current methods for creating documents and having applications and things will try to get everything over time into the laser system and that, that will, that'll manage both the creation and of of documents and then management of them and the accessibility of them. Uh, through the to the.

01:16:40,730	S1:
Current journal. Yes.

01:16:46,170	S1:
All right. I'm ever grateful for that.

01:16:47,690	S8:
We kind of made it through our list of last years, and now we sort of get to lobby for new stuff. So go around the room. I'll go last, but we'll start with Rosemary. I think we had these two things I heard about, but when you talk about the two things or the three things you want to add to the goals for the year.

01:17:02,830	S5:
Two things, a couple of a couple of bylaws. Um, first one, I was in speaking with um, chief Guy a few days ago and we talked about the the e-bike problem. Um, on the streets in town. And, um, I had seen three instances that scared the daylights out of me. Some 14 year old kid was riding an e-bike without a helmet against traffic on one a, and I about had a heart attack that was really scary. And then down on Union Street, down near where we live, there were two young'uns, um, boys on, um, mopeds or scooters, I don't know. They were motorized some things, and I tend to drive very slowly because there are lots of kids. But they both came toward me and had absolutely no idea of the rules of the road. I just pulled over and they just thought it was the funniest thing. So so, um, I we and during that conversation, God and I talked about the fact that the state has something in committee for, for an e-bike regulations. But but there's no reason. And he and she also feels the same way, that there's no reason why we couldn't impose something on our town. In our town for for safety. Um, these kids shouldn't be running around like this, and it's just an accident waiting to happen. And then the second thing.

01:18:44,850	S8:
We'll talk about that.

01:18:45,810	S5:
Is.

01:18:46,210	S8:
Okay, I think it's a good point. I think it's a good thing to do. Okay. So. Right. So I think our number one goal is figure out what we can do. And then whether it's I don't know whether it's a law or policy or education or software or whatever it is, but I think I agree. I've seen.

01:19:02,760	S5:
Way too.

01:19:03,200	S8:
Dangerous situation down there. And I mean, we're starting with education, and it's like there's existing laws in place that probably that probably govern some of that.

01:19:13,160	S1:
But yeah, I mean.

01:19:15,120	S8:
Because things over certain speed limit have to be. But anyway so but I think so. So that's not just on you though because that's really us.

01:19:22,720	S1:
Right.

01:19:23,360	S5:
Right.

01:19:23,640	S8:
That's more of like a talent than a joke.

01:19:26,160	S5:
But sort of.

01:19:28,480	S8:
It could be a lot of keep pushing it forward. But.

01:19:30,680	S1:
Right. Is there.

01:19:31,280	S8:
A.

01:19:31,440	S1:
Possibility? I mean, it sounds like you've talked to chief Guy, but is there a possibility of asking the police department to look into what the what their current existing laws are?

01:19:41,360	S5:
Well, there isn't one. That's that's the issue. I mean, there are for, for for some things, but not for there are, um, bylaw. There are laws for mopeds and things like that, but not for e-bikes or lesser versions. And so that's why the state is, um, developing their, their regulations. And I will reach out to Christine Kasner to get a sense of what they're working on, but there's no reason why we couldn't. In the meantime, do something. Um, we can certainly make our own bylaws, as we all know.

01:20:18,540	S1:
So what would you be thinking as far as, like, restrictions on, like, like our restrictions or. Well, I'm just curious. What? Um, I think it's a really interesting idea. I've had some runnings on Union myself where I find people whizzing down there in the middle of the road, like. No, like in the dark with no, like, reflective clothing on. And it's it's scary.

01:20:38,500	S5:
It is. It's it's really something. So, um, we talked about it briefly. He, um, the plan was that I was going to, um, look at what the state is proposing. It's in committee, so heaven only knows how long that will take. But I think, um. Um, talking with chief Guy some more about what he thinks are reasonable. I mean, age requirements, speed requirements? Um, helmets. None of these kids had helmets on. Um, you know, where do they ride on those sidewalks? Do they ride on the road? Side of the road? I mean, just a lot of education. And what age are these? Should these kids be riding these things? So a lot of parameters. So that's why I thought it would be good to look at the states suggestions. And and as you know, I mean, we can certainly do what we think is right for, for our town.

01:21:33,800	S8:
We don't want to wait for them to happen because.

01:21:35,320	S1:
Right, exactly.

01:21:35,960	S8:
Your pathway.

01:21:36,920	S5:
Right. I've, I've even seen kids on those little motorized bikes. I don't exactly remember how to categorize it, but motorized in Patton Park with other little kids in there? Yeah, yeah.

01:21:50,910	S8:
So that's the easy ones around town on property. We could do that in one meeting, but it's the other stuff that we didn't think about. Yeah, somebody came back with a little two wheels. One's the two. There's one wheel. It's one wheel. They sit up in one wheel. There's a vision down the road. There's nothing, I don't know. One wheel.

01:22:08,230	S1:
Yeah. There's a guy at the block party. Dude, I got in between people at the block on one wheels.

01:22:13,630	I was like, what are you doing? S8:
There's.

01:22:13,950	S1:
There's somebody. And I don't know where he lives or where he works, but I've had multiple reports. He uses one a through Hamilton in his travels virtually every day. Yeah. And no helmet, one Wheeler like, as fast as that thing will go right down. One a and, uh, it's frightening. Like there might be another pathway through like permitting, you know, or like we're allowed to require permits or if that's also a good educational process to go through it, like requiring permits and safety, like a safety exam or things like that. Maybe there's some fees too, to be garnered. Yeah. I mean, we can we can try and get town council to come in. Uh, you might want to put a committee together for that. And a general bylaw or general town bylaw would have to be put into town meeting. That threshold would only need to be 50% to pass it. Um, but I definitely think it's something that if you want to do it the way you should probably think about once you once you make this a part of your goals for the year, probably should have established a subcommittee, have at least two members of the select board with somebody else. Somebody in the public safety team and maybe a representative or two from from the community. And, um, you know, start to fashion what it is you want the town to consider. Um, I think there's a lot of things you could do. That'd be pretty easy and pretty straightforward. Getting into issuing local permits will be difficult, particularly for people who travel through the town on one or any other major roads. It's one thing in the neighborhoods of Pan Park, but on one, a somebody coming from Ipswich doesn't need to get a permit in Hamilton to be able to drive through Hamilton on Route one. So or even route 22, Passaic Street. So you'll, you'll you'll have some challenges with a permit idea. Right. But you'll have like safety's top priorities like education safety number one. And then we see what we do from there.

01:24:08,680	S5:
Regulations enforcement.

01:24:10,240	S1:
Yeah. Yeah. And what we can. But you have to get you have to give the local police something that's legally enforceable. Right.

01:24:17,080	S5:
Right. And that's why. And she tries to keep people around to.

01:24:21,520	S1:
Make sure we all agree we should do something like that. Yeah, yeah. But then that was the other one. Yeah. Uh, dark sky.

01:24:28,120	S5:
Dark skies by law. I know that's been, um, running around for, for a while, but, um, Andrew has been working with a small group of people to to just work on that. And she has approached a few people in town. Um, she's talked to, um, who's that person who owns that yellow building in the town where we're down? Just just because that would that would be an issue, but it's basically just not lighting up every inch of the town. Her one of the one of the issues with the um, proposed, um, solar panel is in the the high school in the middle school is that they were planned to be sort of lights blaring all night. And that's, you know, there's a lot of sort of natural habitat behind that. I think it's a I think it's something to, to think about. Um, she is very committed to this and ask me my opinion about it. And I thought I would bring it up as a goal. I mean, lots.

01:25:40,920	S1:
Of we already had as a commercial goal. The lights have to be because we put a lot of project money where it had to be. But I know not. It's not a residential, but it's a commercial. But I was to be surprised that any commercial buildings being built in town doesn't have to follow that regulation. But it should. But I don't remember what it was.

01:25:59,200	S5:
Yeah, well, those are the guidelines, right?

01:26:01,920	S1:
We have guidelines, right?

01:26:02,920	S5:
Those are the guidelines. And they they were good. They made a lot of sense. But I think there are other other factors such as, um, the the school's parking lot, their lights stay on all night. Um, some of the downtown buildings, their lights down on the. Do you need that or would it be better to have motion sensors? So I think that's all part of it. I don't know a ton about it, but but I know it has been talked about and it has been brought up to me. So I just thought that might be something we want to explore, because I do believe it's something that enough people are interested in.

01:26:45,950	S9:
Is the is the process, so that we simply tell them that we're supportive of them putting something together, and they bring that to us, or revenue or outlets.

01:26:59,390	S5:
Well, if it's a if it's a citizen petition, but I think ideally it would be good to have somebody, at least one person on the select board to work collaboratively and be able to bring it back to the select board, who could offer ideas on suggestions and improvements and so forth, so that we would be able and willing to support a town meeting. Because there have been times when we've maybe not been supportive of a particular bylaw. And I'm hearing about this dark skies by law that there is growing interest in it.

01:27:38,530	S1:
Two other towns have them.

01:27:40,410	S5:
Oh, yes. Yes.

01:27:43,050	S1:
I guess I would be in favor of doing the research. Yes, I'm in favor of the bylaw yet, but I'm definitely in favor of looking at one because it could be successful. It could be a good thing. I don't think of all the pros and cons.

01:27:54,250	S5:
Exactly.

01:27:55,650	S1:
But, um. But eventually. No, but I guess I have no problem saying we're going to look at it over next year. There's like, uh, uh, like pollution, like kind of like I think a big part of it is just like getting a light like that's in the ground.

01:28:10,610	S5:
That's what we're talking about.

01:28:11,810	S1:
Is that the challenge becomes, you know, when it's if you're trying to light a large area, it's more cost effective to like have lights higher up that have a broader like throw to them. And so then they're part of a shroud, right. So that's where it starts getting some of the light pollution from. So it's not always as simple either as just replacing the light bulb or the fixture itself, even with a cooler spot. Or you need more lights, you know? So I think for new developments and things like that, it's probably makes sense because you can bake it in, but I think it's probably more challenging for the retrofit for retrofit, but doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means that they have to be planning to make those changes. And I think there also has to be some, you know, real understanding of what the different conflicts, where they are and what they'll come up and what they mean. So, you know, we've with the new town hall, you know, all the lights that we're putting on the exterior of the building are compliant. But it's not just about the lights themselves, the fixtures themselves being backside compliance operation. When are they on? Are they on all the time at night for security purposes? Or are they only on because they get tripped by a motion sensor? How does that interact with the lights that are on in the DPW yard adjacent to the town hall? Those have to be on pretty much all the time for security reasons. So it's it's identifying what the challenges are and making sure that we can get some level of comfort with how we do the best we can in the environment that serves everybody's purposes. So I think dockside compliance, especially in a community like this, that the values are exceptions too. Right, right, exactly.

01:29:53,140	S9:
You know, you don't want like people just like like, like frantic because they're not thinking about it or being cheap about it versus like, needing exceptions. I think it's just.

01:30:03,540	S5:
I think a lot of people residentially don't think about the consequences of these big like 9000 what LED lights that, you know, make neighbors feel like they're living in Times Square. Do do you really need that? Right. Can you have something that's oriented down? Can you have something that's, um, motion motion activated? And I think those are reasonable questions to to bring the community in on how can we. And maybe it's because people don't really think about it. And so it might be a better conversation.

01:30:43,880	S9:
Investigating it as well. And like saying like what a pathway like would look like. And they have like certifications and stuff. You can get into this. There's like dark sky compliance, like tenant certifications. I know there's no well I've gotten like southwest. That should work like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because of the observatory right there. But it is. It's great. I mean, they've worked on their own projects and we feel that it's kind of cool. You see the stars a lot better. So thanks. But so so Rosie, we were talking about having a representative from the Select board.

01:31:23,840	S1:
Which is based on that.

01:31:25,640	S10:
Or we could do it. We Then we're going to have the conversation.

01:31:31,190	S5:
Right? About what?

01:31:33,990	S1:
About the dark sky stuff?

01:31:35,230	S5:
Yeah.

01:31:35,790	S1:
There are a lot of.

01:31:38,550	S5:
I'm sorry. I was going to say intro had offered to come in and talk about what she's discovered so far. She's pretty, uh, careful researcher. And she would have a lot of good information. I'm sure she'll have other other towns that have dark skies. The benefits challenge.

01:31:56,230	S10:
Or what board or committee would bring that to.

01:32:00,310	S1:
Um, HNC environmental impact Committee. I mean, it's an environmental impact resolution is in my name.

01:32:08,350	S11:
So I've talked to Anne and Kathy also. Um, and my understanding is, is that if people are interested in working. So there was a separate from the HFC initially to put some stuff together, but um.

01:32:27,410	S11:
Yeah, very supportive as well. And exploring and looking at what would you do. So they put on a great program over at the library a month or so ago. Mm. Very interesting. I mean, I think a lot of times when people think about dark sky, they think of sort of these big like expensive things that need to happen, and they got all that sort of outline and there's lots of really easy loving kind of things that people listening to think about. And there's been there, done that. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

01:32:59,810	S5:
So those are two things I thought would be mainly like projects that would sort of.

01:33:11,850	S10:
Do that.

01:33:18,050	S11:
Um, I think of early, ah, patent park master plan implementation. I know that there's some work that's happening, uh, this year, but it might seem like an immediate priority for us moving forward to looking into the future of moving on to phase two and and getting that that plan. Keeping that. And finally, um, also, uh, downtown sidewalk improvements and implementing that plan that is out there right now for downtown stuff. My understanding is, is that that's, uh, with ten potentially.

01:33:55,190	S1:
Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think that we're further along with the planning and design of that. And we've tried once unsuccessfully, to seek for money, grant money to help, um, continue to improve the planning by the state and try to get masterworks money to help with that, because it's a a large scale project, right?

01:34:17,670	S11:
Yeah, that's that's what I think we're doing to keep on the schedule and keep moving forward as well. Yeah, I think.

01:34:24,340	S1:
For the the downtown up there works progress there, but also just in general, even if we can't get the grant money around like some areas where I think we know where some of the problem spots are. But out on like Asbury, new developments going in, uh, up there, just like there's no, no connector back through this section of Asbury. Um, and then there's that.

01:34:52,020	Is there also is a project happening, right? S10:
I walk.

01:34:52,460	S1:
In. Yeah. Um, Highland is where it is. Yeah. It's, um. That's. We're working to get that checkered through. Uh, right now, that's where that's at. So, um, so we have to get the, uh. Yeah, Noi kind of filed with them and be filed with them and get. I wouldn't I wouldn't be opposed to us breaking this up either, saying like, let's do this in chunks, Like, even if we're self-funding smaller percent like portions of it, and B, I'd be open to the idea of putting it in the budget and bring it to ATM in the spring. If you don't get grant money, it's like we've been successful in the past. But I do think that it's important for the health and well-being for people to be able to get around safely. There were times I saw little kids on bikes, bikes from around town as well, and you'll probably see it too. It's working out, but so. So that was for roads, sidewalks and pet park. Kind of. It seems like it feels like right now we're talking about all that sidewalks. I was in the pack on everything I was packing on sidewalks. So I think it's a good thing if it's downtown. It's sidewalks in.

01:36:07,280	S10:
I believe. Sidewalks.

01:36:08,400	S1:
Yeah. It's like, yeah, that's what it feels like. Well, we did get that email, which I appreciated your response on all the sidewalk improvements that we are actively doing, because I wasn't aware of some of the ocean's great. I think we're doing something. We're doing something. We? We continued. It's been a it's been both on the goal since I got here and it's been on the, um. Capital since I got here. And we do something every year. We're trying to do more. Uh, we added a sidewalk all along. That's the street connecting, um, fourth Street to second Street, which is great for walkability for those families, moms trying to walk their kids to the parking school streets on fourth Street no longer have to take their lives into their hands. It's actually sidewalk to walk on. Um, that's an improvement. It wasn't there. Um, we're going to continue to do those things. So, yeah, the the completion of the quote unquote loop between Hamilton and one of downtown's along Highland Street is in planning stages, and we need to get, uh, Conservation Commission approval to move forward with that. And we've got some money to do the designs, and then we'll have a recommendation for doing the getting the the sidewalk built and the crosswalks that will complete that work. Um, we have an amendment from the larger of the two developers doing the affordable housing out on Upper Asbury to for some of the money to help us make a connection from the Asbury Street project down to the intersection of Highland and Asbury Street and we and the the project that we asked for every year for state money and keep getting told no. Uh, is the intersection of Asbury and Tyler because of the kind of the wonky the way those two streets interact, intersect, interact. So we, um, will continue that. I just my my suspicion is that they failed at the state level to get real traction because the state looks for, you know, return on investment. How many how many lives am I affecting with this? But, well, we can show that we're going to have, you know, 54 new units of affordable housing out at Asbury, that some of it is going to need to walk towards the center of town. And we're already building the sidewalk. We're hoping we'll have a little bit better luck when we apply this year. Yeah, we'll keep it. I think having I kind of like, you know, if we get the we don't get the money, we do this. This little chunk gets work, right. And it sounds like we're already doing some of that kind of stuff, but just keeping that stuff moving. And if we do get the money then. And keeping people aware of the fact that we're doing it, but sounds like it sounds like summarize what a plan of all the products in town and prioritize them or compartmentalize and say, okay, we can only do you chuck it out. Not just from here. Here's phase one, phase two, page three, phase four. So I think a graphical plan of like all the projects around town, so we can help to develop a priority and a chunk out year after year so we can at least do a year after year, sort of, sort of. All right. What are you talking about? Yeah, I'm just building on what you were saying. Like, I just didn't want it to be an all or nothing thing, right? Well, we didn't get the grant money and, like. Well, so, so so was there a problem too with the grant and going to them with. Because this is how sound like we've completed the cost assessment for the downtown improvement project. So there's two parts of the downtown improvement project was originally envisioned as an entire project that included the Town Streets, railroad, Willow, and that piece of Asbury between Willow and Bay road and then Bay road Bay Road to State Road. The town really can't make the investment and actually fixing that piece of the road. So we've applied we I think we're pretty close to getting an estimate of what the cost will be to do the town streets. You know, we also want the state to buy it. We want the state to give us some money. But we can we can certainly phase it and do it without the state. But we also want the state to commit to doing their piece of our project. And even if they make some amendments to it for the fit into the way they do roads, we at least want them to address it and fix it up to make it consistent so we can identify the downtown as our downtown so that, you know, we don't have control of the state side of that number. But we have a pretty good estimate at this point. Of what the town side of the number is going to be. The longer takes us, the more it's going to cost. The phase it will cost more money, but I agree with you. It's better to start doing it than than inoculate. So we're and we've already tried to do some things. We've tried to identify. We know what the parking requirements would be. We've updated the parking regulations on those streets in downtown. We've already, um, to help with the business district and make sure that there's the ability to use, um, railroad and railroad and willow intersection and a little bit more of a community friendly way. We've had national grid drop power from the top of the pole to the, to the base so that we can actually provide power, street vendors and things when we want to close it off and use it. And so those are all things that came out of that downtown plan that we've already started to do. So we've already got some of those things checked out. But the bigger ones, fixing sidewalks, make them make them all uniform. Uh, we've got handicapped accessible ramps and crosswalks in most of that area, but some of them have failed and really had to make some improvements to whatever they got to everyone. Yeah.

01:41:19,980	S1:
So yeah, there's definitely more, more we have to do. But we have we're we're kind of zeroing in on the number, but it's it's a little bit of a move to go to bed. It's going to change. So.

01:41:35,060	S1:
I'm looking at our phone with the last issue that we got.

01:41:41,460	S1:
Okay.

01:41:42,500	S12:
Uh I'd like to potentially, you know.

01:41:46,140	S1:
Work on a.

01:41:46,700	S12:
Have a planning policy so that we have something as a, as a select board to, to lean on. Uh.

01:41:55,460	S1:
You said you have two things we do already. You already have a you have a local support policy that established the capital committee and gave them a charge. And then you have a capital planning policy as a financial policy that was adopted by the Select board years ago, and we use that to outline the whole process for assessing capital on an annual basis. So we do have the capital planning policy. We have a five year plan. But we haven't been as great about is amplifying the capital plan every year. The capital plan the five year plan gets discussed by the capital committee. And we are all kind of aware of the projects on it. But every year when we go to town meeting we spend has already been watered down. We tend to simplify it and just go with what we're asking for for that year. So we've got to do a better job of making sure people know what's on the five year plan. We. I agree with that assessment. We need to improve that and and have the whole experience accessible.

01:42:48,250	S12:
Maybe in terms of our policy reviews. Yeah. You know, we move that up to the top. I'd like to have that also kind of dovetail with, you know, because usually the Pinkham team is also doing a roll up of what the five year look at is. I would like to have them kind of involved, if that's possible in reviewing the capital planning policy. Some of the things that I would like to see in there kind of is like getting to it depends on like what types of capital improvement project it is. They're going to go by different standards. You know, there'd be different standards bodies or organizations, but trying to standardize that so that we are, you know, in a habit of every so often doing facilities or infrastructure conditions assessments to say, you know, what's the current state of repair? What what's coming up next? So we have just more of a data driven approach to some of that. And that might be that, and some of that stuff might be able to be done by the DPW or other departments, you know, but if they don't know how to do it to that level and that standard, like making sure that we have that, that data and I think about like the town hall, like, like I would love to have that facilities condition assessment done on that five, six, seven years so that it's like we're staying ahead of any, any issues before they arrive. Yeah. How it goes. Right. It's like there's like one little crack or one little leak. And then that starts to have all these downstream impacts that we've just made this big investment. It'll be low dollars to, to stay on top of it versus, you know, but everything reaches the end of its useful life eventually. But the state of repair that it is in, the longer it will go. Right. And so that's where this is coming from. It's just kind of having a better picture that's somewhat unified to an industry standard as well. And that we have a kind of some health checks and some spot checks that we I don't know what the appropriate cadence is. If it's every five or 7 or 10 years, probably depends on the piece of infrastructure and how durable it is. Um, you know, versus things that are just out the weather all the time. You know, if I'm eating.

01:45:04,890	S1:
Or there's.

01:45:05,330	S12:
A jump in there, I mean.

01:45:06,600	S13:
It is constant. Um, the thing is, like, you guys aren't keeping up on the repairs of these things and having this ability to say, we assess these every year, we prioritize replace, things need to be repaired is going to help go along. I mean.

01:45:23,560	S1:
With that messaging. Right? Right.

01:45:25,680	S14:
You go to town hall and say, these are the five things I will vote on it because voted down and no one's going to say, well, why do you do this? Well, we put it in front of you. Here's the money to do it. If you don't want to appropriate the funds, and we're not gonna do it and prioritize something else instead. But. Right, right.

01:45:38,440	S12:
So unifying that that capital planning, having some industry standards. So it's basically taking that policy, taking it around to a few of the committees. And I'm putting my hand up to help with that. I guess the short of it. Just set myself a goal that I want to work with. I know Capcom, you know, according to you, Joe, but it sort of felt that Biden would work on it. Yeah.

01:46:02,760	S1:
So, I mean, yeah, the cap on.

01:46:06,420	S1:
The processes that we have in place going. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with. So. The town has a pavement management plan that gets updated every so often. I don't know exact cadence, but I know Tim spends money consulting money, highway money every year, every couple of years to get it updated. And we have this sense, you know, we we're not extremely well staffed by people across all departments in the town, full time and full time appointments. Him and his crew do the best they can on that. We have him and Pete Cobb, the assistant director, trying to maintain a an assessment of state repair of all of our buildings. They're the ones constantly working to try to keep keeping open and maintained and everything going. Um, they they do try to update it, the five year capital plan every year. So sometimes things move along up and down the five years we might have something that's predicted to be in the fifth year of the plan this year. And then by the time we get to review it next year, it's something's gone wrong. We know we've noticed a deterioration. So we move it further up the plan and closer to swapping out. We do try to use consultants for that stuff. We have a number of consultants on board to look at our systems, to look at energy efficiency, of our of our buildings. As I said, the pavement management plan. So we're trying to trying to do all those things. You want us to do more of it. We can just cost money. You'll have to hire outside, more outside. And it just costs money. We haven't had. But we can we can look at doing more of that. The current process is that every year it starts with the existing five year plan. This is what we did last year. We're starting to meet in the summer and say, this is what we just approved, and this is the plan to get that stuff taken care of over the course of the next year. And then looking ahead, we're going to add a fifth year here. And we're gonna look at all the projects here. What else do we need to add to the plan and where do they all flow in the Capitol. Committee members. Representatives appointed by you meet with the different department heads to assess the level of priority for all the different things on the plan, and they make recommendations to us on what they think the priorities are based on what we have available to spend. We we prioritize that list. For the most part, most years that we that we've done this since I've been here. We follow the capital committee's recommendations almost completely. There are always some changes. There was a year that they wanted us to put $125,000 planning process under capital committee, under capital. I said, that's not a capital item. So we found $125,000, but it wasn't on the capital plan. That's a difference. There was a year that they recommended that we only buy one police cruiser, but our cadence is to buy one police cruiser every year, and every third year we buy two. That keeps the fleet maintained. That year was we were on track to need two. We recommended that we keep on track and maintain the vehicle policy that keep the police having vehicles. So there are always some little things that come up and then that gets reviewed by the fin com and the select board before we put it before the time being. So we are doing it. Unfortunately nobody goes to the capital committee meetings and we don't. Again, in terms of our inability or lack of ability to this point to explain to the community what it is we're doing all the time and communicate out what we're doing. But we we outline the whole process and the and the budget that we've been producing for the last three years. We it's right there tells everybody this is how we do our capital planning and the public. The meetings are all public, but we don't we don't do a good enough job saying this is a five year plan this year. This is what we're focusing on for the current fiscal year and ask for input so we can do more of that with the communications person coming on. That's part of the, you know, strategic communications going forward and making sure people are aware of what our needs are. Um.

01:49:52,490	S12:
I think, you know, what I'm driving at is around like the like the conditions assessment piece, by unifying that so that we have a full picture, regardless of like how we like which ones, we move up to the top priority list and then like, that's the stuff that gets funded that year, because that's what's in like the the level.

01:50:14,480	S14:
Um, oh yeah.

01:50:15,920	S12:
You want to.

01:50:16,880	S14:
List all our town properties, do an assessment of each property with a, with a, with a maintenance.

01:50:21,920	S12:
Plan. And that way it's just sort of like, hey, like, you know what? That one didn't make the cut this year. We know. But we know next year it's going to be it won't be that number. We don't have that many.

01:50:30,760	S14:
Properties to do that on.

01:50:31,920	S12:
But and that's just and I think that it sounds like some of this stuff is happening and that some of the information is available. And I think what I'm asking for is, is unifying it and making sure that we have that, that picture that like, allows us to look out, you know, five, ten places.

01:50:49,000	S14:
For maintenance program for our town.

01:50:51,760	S12:
Renewal. Right? It's like a deferred maintenance and renewal or something that's going to reach the end of its life and needs to be placed. And so there's and for each one of the pieces of infrastructure will be some other standards or organization biases. This is how how you do it to this level of detail.

01:51:07,820	S1:
Yeah I I'm not I'm not disagreeing or saying that. We don't need that. I agree, I just don't want anybody that's watching this or watches it on H7 cam next week to think that we aren't doing, you know, kind of a capital planning process. Are there needs still within that process? Absolutely. Happy to happy to take those on.

01:51:23,500	S14:
So this is more of the this is about the capital plan. This is the deferred maintenance program knowing that we need renewal and renewal. But it's part of the deferred program.

01:51:33,740	S12:
All right.

01:51:34,220	S14:
That was my guess.

01:51:34,900	S12:
You got one second.

01:51:37,780	S12:
My third one I did email it to Joe because it was it's a bit heavy. Uh, Tom, aren't you guys.

01:51:45,020	S1:
That was easy.

01:51:46,980	S12:
Uh, if you come back here, I'll come back to it. Let's see.

01:51:51,140	Huh? S14:
Give us a tidbit.

01:51:53,140	What was it titled? S12:
I mean, now this is on my list.

01:51:55,520	S14:
I don't want to bring it up if it's on my list.

01:51:57,080	S12:
Well, so it's basically taking the 2024 town master plan and then taking the some of the goals and objectives from that around. Uh, protect provide growth. They had recommendations in there of some some next steps to take. So it'd be basically putting some more meat on the bone, putting some economics against it to say, okay, we've made all these recommendations, these highlighted these opportunities. Well, what is the math like actually work out to be. And what I'm driving at with this, especially around kind of like capital planning and looking at, well, what do we need in terms of infrastructure. Are there ways for us to increase our revenue base? And so I was looking at that document and thinking, you know, what are the creative opportunities here. So it's in that vein. And so my idea is to kind of have an economic development plan that marries with the master plan from 2024 and says, okay, but that's where I need insight in terms of like how how would that come together? Do we need a subcommittee for it? Um, you know, who's that position to help with that? And it's it's much, much longer range. Like, it's kind of like.

01:53:14,230	S14:
But I have one that dovetails on that, so. Okay. Well, you can, but I think the idea of I think it's, um, I think we need to rely on the state and other people to help us with that, because I think they do that. I think that's part of the way.

01:53:26,990	S12:
They provide support.

01:53:28,550	S14:
They have. There is a, you know, there's.

01:53:30,590	S1:
An.

01:53:30,710	S14:
Economic development part of the state. And I think there I think there would be happy to come out here and give us ideas.

01:53:39,190	S12:
Just as I like, kind of like basing off the master plan, because that seemed like it was a pretty detailed body of work as well.

01:53:45,750	S14:
Um, and I think it makes sense to dove down together.

01:53:47,910	S12:
Yeah. All right. So that was my big one, but I was also running out of gas. I'll let you.

01:53:55,410	Do you know what I mean? S14:
Yeah, that was correct. I had the same exact right.

01:53:59,130	S1:
Uh, the only additional item in addition to.

01:54:02,370	S12:
Um, someone that already mentioned, I.

01:54:04,490	S1:
Think we should have or initiate another conversation with.

01:54:07,210	S12:
What.

01:54:07,370	S1:
I'm going to have, like, a realistic conversation about regionalization. I know there's politics behind it, and there was a lot of history. I know there's been you know, it's been talked about before, but at least getting like some sort of review of like what is currently shared services, what is like, you know, independent services and what realistically could be, you know, molded into one or shared in some way. I know we already talked about, you know, integrating water earlier, Joe, and I think there's there's opportunity. I know everyone saw it last year with the budget, uh, this current year at the budget and, you know, trying to put that together, knowing that, you know, with a lack of state funding, we're coming in and the federal funding, like we're all struggling with budgets. And I think we really need to realistically look at, you know, where can we have cost savings around, you know, different staffing models and public safety and all these different things. So, I mean, I think it's worth initiating that conversation again. Yeah.

01:54:59,710	S14:
Number one on my list is that so? Yeah, there was some opportunities coming up for that to be a favorable discussion.

01:55:06,150	S1:
Yeah I think.

01:55:06,710	S14:
So. So but but just losing staff and one of them that may be able to but it's still a long term way. But people retiring time in retirement.

01:55:15,870	S1:
Yeah I had one other one.

01:55:21,710	S14:
No.

01:55:22,350	S1:
You know that was the only one I did. Yeah.

01:55:23,590	S14:
Go ahead.

01:55:23,910	S1:
Go ahead. Good cover here. I haven't made the last two meetings, but the last one I did make it to. They were doing some, uh, goal setting in that team as well. I think it'd be important for us to look at our goals and also collect any goals from people that they may have. Uh, but they're also here. I mean, there's some interest to that. Yeah. I was going to go around the room, actually, if we were done, if It was a different year. So I want to hear what the airport. So yeah. All right. But so that was it. It was like I want to make sure that we dovetail some of our stuff. Yeah. I was just going to go around the room and then, you know, I had five things written down, but they're kind of all similar what we talked about. But one regionalization with the more we need to do more and think about what happens next year, five years, ten years. But I think that's the success of our community is to be more unified and to reduce costs and efficiency and improve efficiency. I don't think it's a I think it's a win win, right? Right. Um, number two, it's been on here for a long time, but we haven't really prioritized it. But ambulance ambulance thing like I don't know if that's something that we want to do any one of these years to figure out if it's worth making money to. It's worth having services to our residents by having. So I'm not sure if we want to put on there something to look at over the next year. I know Wenham does it and we think they make money, but they haven't told us whether they're making money or not. But yeah, they won't share you their numbers, but You're working on it.

01:56:49,240	S15:
They have their own ambulance service. Yeah.

01:56:51,960	S5:
Ambulance?

01:56:53,440	S1:
Yeah. They have. They have a basic life support ambulance unit that is staffed completely. Volunteers? Yeah, I know it's a good thing or a bad thing, but we've we've talked about it's an opportunity to raise revenue. I've heard a rough number floating around. Yeah. So 75,000 or something a year or something like that. That's a thousand. Yeah. Yeah. It's not huge. But anyway, it's it's something. But it's a service too. Yeah. The service you make money on. So it's kind of a win win. But. So anyways I'm not sure where we're doing it. We have a lot of things on our list but that's one. That's one. Number two is, um, you know, we lost our weight. Number three. Well, number one, he said it was in relation. Yeah. So number one. And number two is the waste recycling Committee. We lost that committee a few years ago. It seems to be a big deal now between compost and and and it's all sort of falls on you. So I'm not sure if it's worth reconstituting a waste recycling committee to sort of take some of the heavy lifting so they can do all the work behind the scenes and come up with recommendations. But if you're happy doing it, we don't need another committee. That's fine. But so I mean, just to remind everybody waste, you know, waste and stuff was in the bailiwick.

01:57:55,700	S15:
Of the.

01:57:56,580	S1:
Environmental Impact Committee. When you organize this charter, that was supposed to be one of the things that they looked at. The charter actually calls out for them to, you know, assess and review anything that impacts the environment and make reports back to the subcommittee. So if you're looking for that, I don't necessarily know you need it on the committee. You just need to ask that person to spend some time looking at the waste if you want. And they've vocalized a bit when we were looking at our budget opportunities to save money, and because they were here in one of our plans for town meeting and they seem still plugged in to that, uh, because, you know, you had on your you had on your spreadsheet, you had the trash contract that was really centered. That's, that's, that's that's going to be signed yet to be tomorrow night. Tomorrow. How long the contract is? I believe it's a three year contract with you. If it's a three year contract with a two year contract. Okay. All right. So that I just want to know what's the thing so we can sort of say, okay, maybe over the next year we see if there's because we're kind of a lost conversation on it. And we're doing a great job. But once again, we're not thinking about the next thing we got to. We got sort of the first down to have composting and doing the stuff, and now we sort of have it like what's being more proactive, don't we don't fall behind. We always want to lead from the front. Right? Yeah. Um, the third one is based on what you were talking about. So we went to a thing at mobile labs where the state came with their, you know, economic development person came and talked about certain things. One of the things that they offered was they could come to a town like ours and say and establish us as a biotech ready community, which means that biotech companies would look, they're looking to go in a suburb. They would look at Alyssa, oh, you know, Manchester by the sea or at Ipswich. Quadratics in biotech were not currently allowed to. I don't know if we want to be a biotech, but it's but it's one of the many services that the economic development will do. And so I think it's worth having them come over next year and speak with us either at a board meeting or one on one or meet with Joe. But we should understand, like, how the state can help support our economy in an appropriate way for the town of Hamilton and the character of Hamilton. Um, so it kind of dovetails into what you're talking about.

02:00:06,150	S15:
Yeah. And that was, you know, sort of some of these, the New England bio labs, what I think is a good example too, of like where it had been all the state land. You know, but like, you don't I don't know, but I think there's one road where you can almost catch a glimpse of it, but it doesn't really disturb like the, the rural fabric of.

02:00:25,990	S1:
Its big enough piece of property where. Yeah, it's lost back there. Yeah.

02:00:29,190	S15:
And so those are some of the opportunities they talked about in the master plan as well. Um.

02:00:34,150	S1:
We have to stay by a lot of the views, but I think the.

02:00:37,830	S16:
Greater state by law is They're not easy to use. It doesn't use because it's not easy to use. So if I were, somebody would have come in and taken advantage of it.

02:00:47,860	S1:
Right, exactly. And there's a lot of states that this sound you don't realize exists. There are many, many hundreds of acres. So, yes, I think it's worth looking at. I just don't know how we attack it and how we make it measurable. But I think it's worth looking at economic development in an appropriate way without ruining the fabric and the character with it, but maximizing or improving some of our revenue.

02:01:06,780	S16:
And.

02:01:07,380	S1:
Easy ways.

02:01:08,460	S5:
Right? And one of the things that they were talking about was the fact that.

02:01:13,380	S1:
They're.

02:01:13,540	S16:
Different.

02:01:14,060	S5:
Right? What makes one town about a 1030 doesn't necessarily mean the next town will be will be in the same vein, certainly. So it sort of depends. Right. What what facilities do you have available? And I was absolutely blown away by that facility by Alex. We had a tour. It was just amazing. But we talked about a lot of the logistics that are required to keep that up and running. They they have a lot of chemicals that they use there, and they have their own decontamination pod on site. They do decontaminate water. So they really have a very sophisticated system that doesn't. Wouldn't necessarily transfer to a smaller town like Hamilton. I don't know, but it's just interesting. But they did say.

02:02:06,800	S1:
Privately funded, right? It's not right. Just isn't the.

02:02:10,040	S15:
Funding, but.

02:02:10,960	S1:
It's also.

02:02:11,520	S15:
Privately.

02:02:11,880	S1:
Funded. So you found a company that came here and went to privately funded system. They could exist in Hamilton. We're not going to be able to do it, but it's $1 million facility, right? Just for one tenant. But yeah, but they they can fund it because they're big enough.

02:02:24,000	S15:
But the industry is there like a growing need for biotech right now I feel like in Boston.

02:02:27,880	S1:
But it's not.

02:02:28,800	S15:
Like a lot of like just empty labs.

02:02:30,600	S1:
Yeah. Science, technology community or whatever or whatever. But yeah, I mean, yeah. Or it goes in cycles and stuff now, but maybe in years back, but we're gonna need some kind.

02:02:38,860	S15:
Of R&D and a lot of stuff. It's like with Crispr and all these other things, they're doing so much more like simulated first before they even go to a bench. Right. You know, so what the facilities are all getting smaller is a big part of what's happening. It's like so the what used to take like huge teams and giant labs. It's like now is it 2 or 3 people. Right. You know so but they gave us just what you need.

02:03:02,580	S1:
I just don't understand that.

02:03:04,860	S15:
Can you imagine advocating for that? I'll make a.

02:03:09,900	S1:
Recommendation.

02:03:10,420	S15:
For that on my last day. Yeah, I'll put that on the go. I'm not advocating for that.

02:03:15,860	S5:
But I like that idea of bringing them in and letting them just sort of give us.

02:03:21,220	S1:
I think we haven't done anything with that. So we sort of have let it come to us. And I think it's important that we sort of be proactive with and say, what could we do here? Right. That could benefit us but not negatively impact us.

02:03:33,060	S5:
Right. And they were amazingly creative. So I definitely.

02:03:36,970	S1:
It's a success, right? It's a huge success story there. And how can we build on that? Right. It's right down the street. Nobody even know the sign is. The sign is big, but it's been there for 20 years. But I'm not saying.

02:03:48,810	S15:
It wasn't over. It wasn't an overnight success.

02:03:50,690	S1:
Right? But but we were long term residents. There were going to be over 400 or so. So, um, and then the last one I had was, uh, just on the streets and sidewalks up to the dead end street. Just went over the next year on our resolve, our two dead end streets that just like the North Street and not to fire down the streets and maybe look at other once again, we wait till people come to us with the problem and be proactive and look at any opportunities to do.

02:04:17,890	S5:
So it's, um, Sharon Road and what's the other one? Uh.

02:04:23,090	S1:
Past, um, on their way to switch off the violence and.

02:04:27,650	S15:
Biking right by Apple.

02:04:29,450	S1:
Um, it's.

02:04:30,450	S15:
Not.

02:04:31,650	S1:
A dead end, but we dead ended one of the legs of the street.

02:04:34,110	S5:
Yeah, yeah, that's that.

02:04:35,150	S15:
Real true street. It's a true street.

02:04:36,470	S1:
But we turned it.

02:04:37,510	S15:
We turned it.

02:04:38,310	S5:
So people wouldn't go flying down there, I think. Yes, yes, I agree with that. I mean, it's it's a great concept, but it is really an eyesore.

02:04:48,270	S15:
I do think the Sharon Road one will, will come to an actual resolution because we're talking about the sidewalk. So we run a sidewalk that we're going to have to kind of change it right now. As Tim explains, you have basically all the drainage off that road is quote unquote, country drainage. The minute we put a sidewalk there, we're going to need to, you know, account for where the water goes and make sure it gets to the right side of the road. So that'll include some things that will wind up improving that hole that that flows through and closing and essentially closing it for good.

02:05:19,270	S5:
So yeah I agree. I agree.

02:05:21,270	S1:
So sure, what I would suggest is that we've made a list of a bunch of things. I have one who took the best and.

02:05:29,030	S15:
I have one.

02:05:29,710	S1:
Absolutely. I don't want them to.

02:05:31,110	S15:
This took the best notes. So we'll have we'll have you give me my version of notes and then balance it against what notes I think.

02:05:40,010	S1:
I'm going to add to my.

02:05:41,090	S15:
Notes, but I just wanted to add, uh, Ben briefly mentioned it when he talked about economic development, but really, you guys have a message from the planning board chair a couple maybe a month ago, a month and a half ago now, basically talking about implementation of the 2024 master plan in general. What does that look like? Do you want a committee? Do you want to be staff directed? I we'd like you know, we would like some, some, uh, direction from you on how you want to do it. I agree with the planning board chair. We need to have somebody looking at the 2024 master Plan implementation plan, ensuring that it gets included in our and our budget cadence and our capital funds, and how we look at, um, building ourselves out each year. And I you guys have to identify what that is going to be. So I think I mentioned earlier, you might want to have a meeting with Planning Board at some point this summer to talk about Peyton Homestead and Patagonia and the master. The master plan should also. Oh, that's weird, because it's plugged in. So we lose Lucy. I just want to waste. So maybe. Yeah. You're good. Okay. Um, so, you know, my goal would be to have you give us some direction of what you want that to look like. Um, because it's not just the economic development parts of the master plan, but really all the master plan.

02:07:07,720	How how do we prioritize what we attack each year and, uh, and, uh, bring it to life? S1:
I think it's it. Yeah. And it's on here on this list.

02:07:10,120	S5:
I like the the joint meeting idea. I think that was one of the things that the chip, uh, advocated for.

02:07:17,960	S1:
Yeah. We would do all this good work right then that we then we don't get a lot of good. That's a great read. And we have to be aware of that part one. Yeah. Which we've tried to pick away a few things every year. A bad part, but the low hanging fruit works. Yeah. We can't. Yeah I.

02:07:35,540	S15:
Think.

02:07:39,020	S15:
Going back to my email here, but I'm.

02:07:42,620	S1:
Being there. Yeah, let's let's have the drop down.

02:07:45,420	S15:
Um, I think I would.

02:07:47,020	S1:
Advocate.

02:07:47,980	S15:
To have a, have a committee. Um, and maybe it's a combination of, of the boards and staff. Um, it might be also appropriate, like long term thinking here as well. Like around this economic piece of having some people who can put some, some numbers and some specific policy recommendations, it's like if we already have a great estates policy, you know, if that were to be activated, what would the economic benefit be to the town and to our revenue, you know, to unburden the residences, but sort of like the what changes have to go with it. So that way there's a roadmap and some kind of like step by step things that that can be implemented. Right. Because of that. But I don't I'd be surprised if there's that skill set hidden like this would be a big, big chunk of work, right? Yeah. To do that type of thing would probably be looking at hiring some people to help with that. Yeah. So that's like where I feel like if we were able to form a committee and put in a request, you know, for next year's budget to get such an entity and to support those efforts to help prioritize, we'd get this kind of bang for the buck in terms of making changes if we need to, if we want to consider these tools.

02:09:10,080	S1:
But let's use our free services for our state. Yeah.

02:09:13,760	S15:
The state and the, um, you know, even semi free, you know, the regional planning entity and the metropolitan planning.

02:09:21,600	S1:
Assistance with that as well for lower cost of pavement. is not a good.

02:09:29,150	S1:
Thing. You want to run notes. I think the biggest topic from my standpoint is water, and I think we should pull in members of the public and form some sort of public informed committee to support Joe and you guys. Uh, I think water is financially to be the biggest challenge we have over the next 15 to 40 years. And I think energy be put into it needs to follow up. So, you know, we talked about it last last meeting I think.

02:10:12,950	S1:
Chris Wilson's been tracking what Joe has been doing and what he's doing. I just think we need to raise our game relevant to water. So that's probably the number one topic that I personally have. We've been talking about it, but we haven't done much other than listen anymore. Last time Senator Tarr was here at the community house 15, 18 months ago. There were 650 people in the community house dying to hear what he had to say. And basically, he just said, here's what we've been doing, but not what we're going to do. So I just yeah, to me, that's a big, huge topic. And I think it's a key to almost everything else you're talking about here in this water. And at a minimum, I think we need to demonstrate the power of what we're doing. Yeah. And that comes into communications. That's that's my soapbox, right. I know that he's recently joined the he's got some points about things. So you're thinking kind of like there's like we're going to like think about it in two parts. There's the stuff that's on our side of the fence in terms of whether it's the treatment, pumping, storage and distribution. There's that piece of it, and then there's the the second source, the second, second source, part sourcing and infrastructure. Yeah. You know, what about the potential reservoir that they're talking about. Right. $380 million. Okay. Is that real? That something you would ever do that would be more than whatever. I just I just think we need to raise our game in the water. Yeah. In general. And we do have a visibility of options from your side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of it has to do with communication. Yeah. Well but anyway, I just think it's the biggest, it's much bigger than school buildings from my standpoint. I mean we need to invest money there, but I just, you know, how how at risk are you. Right. Right. It was the worst recession, right. So anyway, that's my topic. Thanks, John.

02:12:26,220	S1:
Go ahead. Great. Thank you. Just a quick comment and a question. I would strongly support.

02:12:34,580	S17:
And encourage any effort by the Select Board to address the possibility of the ebike or regulations by a town law, by law or otherwise. Just about a month ago, Robert and I were down near a patent park in the evening and saw two kids. Uh, no helmets, dark clothes, no lights on their bikes, engaged in reckless behavior on the tennis courts and also on the town crossing. And I think this is just an accident waiting to happen. And we're talking about the possibility of serious injury or death by kids here. So I really hope that, uh, there could be some forward motion on the e-bike issue. Um, the other question relates to downtown sidewalk being a lifelong concern about the aesthetics of downtown for a long time. Very glad that finally, those rusty bollards by the Post Office have been dealt with. And I think that the, you know, downtown sidewalks on Railroad Avenue, even though they're not already number one, are shabby and not worthy of a town of this caliber in history.

02:13:55,840	So my question is how much money is would be involved? Ballpark to upgrade? No sidewalks? S1:
Well, it would be part of a holistic plan for those streets. And it's on the order of $3 million. But that's what I've been talking about. Let's let's break into smaller pieces so we can do a year by year.

02:14:10,240	S1:
We don't want to wait for the 3 million to show up. But yeah. What can you do? We can make more money doing smaller pieces, but we've got to look at it. Right? Progress.

02:14:23,470	Right? S1:
Yeah. Yeah. What do you got? Oh, thanks for asking. Um, I think three things. Uh, I'm new to the Pinkham. So are we new to the finished content on a long time ago. So I'm still catching up. Like John brought up the point of water. Um, and that being potentially a large thing. But it's also very hard for us to understand what our options are and what potential timing is and what potential costs could be. So even for the income to do what's work, we need to work together with Joe and you to be able to develop what the message is. And how would we be able to finance things and help communicated to people. Uh, first, all that needs to go on for a very long period of time. So, um, I volunteered our group to help Chris, who was here before Eric listened to your water discussion. Uh, so that's, uh, that's one of them's, uh, the second is capital planning. I think, uh, I would suggest that your capital planning policy is ready for an update. Um, how it works is worth a close review. Uh, does this generate what we want to. Taxpayers and voters know what our long term plans are and what the implications are? Um, I think it's needs a lot of improvement. Um, and, and the third is really a communications, as John was saying. Um, Joe is talking about getting, uh, was a big gap to get forget that $50,000 to get a quote from any person to help. They can only do so much. But what are the messages of what we're trying to communicate over a long period of time on some of these big topics, so that I was getting educated to our account. People appeared with some credence to it. So we're not open. Comes here to advise a meeting at all. How do we make it? Not? The old people show up when we're going. But I didn't know it was going up. How do we help do that and provide a better cadence to it? So, um. But I'm a new I don't know, all the things that I'm working on today, but I know those are some things I'll probably be involved, helping and working with you. You know, you. I mean, you hitting on that, right? What was the first one? We sort of talked about those things like we need to have options in the course. We need to have. We have to have some real plans. Even if they don't happen, we need to start putting them on paper and talking about them. We talk about that. We're going to we're doing policies right now and then going to work on, uh, on the capital planning policy and the communication. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, you mentioned that. I mean, I want you just to really what he said because we already talked about that. It's not just bringing a person on board, but the first. Their first month or two months going to be developed if this plan is and then bring it to us. Not just. But but they're not just social media, right? They're communications. Right? So it's not just social media in my mind. It's communication as a town. Right. But yeah, no, all things that we want to work on. Thanks for asking. Thanks for coming. Anybody else? We missed anything. I have two other general questions and we're done with this. So lots of information here tonight. Um, our next meeting is next Monday. There is no way I can have this ready for you on Monday. The next meeting after that is July 20th. I will be in New Hampshire at a concert with my family, so I won't be ready to give you that on the 20th Barenaked Ladies. And for anybody who's asking, can't wait. Um, actually, seeing both bands play live in the past, but I'm looking forward to sharing the experience with my sons. Um, and, uh, So if you want. If it's okay with you, I can return. I can have this, like second iteration with all the teals kind of filled out for you to review and make comment on and refine further at the first meeting. And what I would ask in the meantime is if you can send out the transcript. Yeah. And then we can sort of organize a manner, give you our comments to it. Yeah. Okay. Maybe don't put it throughout the transcript. We put it at the bottom so I don't have to look everywhere for notes. But you know, so I wouldn't I wouldn't edit the transcript or say, but maybe just give up your notes of the boxes and look at five paragraphs.

02:18:47,960	S5:
How would that coincide with components.

02:18:51,840	S1:
The minutes for this meeting, we'll go then different. Then we'll just pick up what had happened in this meeting, and they'll do that. And that'll be for you to vote on that, the record of this meeting. But if you go forward, you'll review the notes as you make sure. Understood. Just make sure you only send your notes to Bill and I, you don't share it with the whole group because we'll get into an OML violation. But if you care to, just me and Bill. Bill and I are mostly we can work on putting together that second iteration of this for you to review again as a committee in Congress.

02:19:25,390	S1:
I hope I can get to you afterwards. Okay. Um, so remember you, buddy. Anybody else? Uh, Barney is looking for somebody to be appointed to the planning board. I think they're looking to appoint an associate member. Um, so should we get it? I'll get it to you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make sure we reach out and get that. And, um, I had some I had some comments about, um, recycling just to have it on the topics people notice. And so if Tim can be here the next meeting and can we not presume for five minutes just and give people the opportunity to. It's always on the agenda. Ask ask questions, get answers. We talked about it impromptu last time so people wouldn't know where it was on the agenda. What was the topic? Sorry. Just the recycling program and how it's going to work. And they always have questions. And I think it's.

02:20:16,250	S5:
Thrown in that.

02:20:17,570	S1:
We talked about a little bit last week, but I think I've had a lot of questions. So I think it's good to have Tim just answer them. But I don't want to give the wrong answer.

02:20:25,690	S5:
I don't know that that could be a good feeling, but like the, um, trash committee did before, they gave us a really.

02:20:35,930	S1:
Good throw away.

02:20:36,370	S5:
With user friendly.

02:20:38,690	S1:
Um, still use.

02:20:39,970	S5:
It poster. Yeah. Me too. Oh.

02:20:43,490	S1:
Well, we're.

02:20:44,770	S17:
While we're talking about.

02:20:45,490	S1:
Other.

02:20:46,210	S17:
Things from Monday night.

02:20:47,050	S1:
If I.

02:20:47,330	S17:
Can. Um.

02:20:49,890	S1:
Tom and Bill are up to help set the agenda. I'm out tomorrow or using the last of my vacation time for the fiscal year. Um, but, you know, on Wednesday, if you have time to do it, uh, or if any of you want to throw ideas to me before then, I could put together a draft agenda for Bill and Tom to review. Um, I do want to ask the board's appetite to have an executive session, potentially with at least the chair of the SDA and council. Um, are you ready for that? We've got, uh, I think we definitely need to have a conversation. We have been served with, uh, an appeal on the funding decision. 957 they wrote and, um, and at the same time, um, there's been a the start of a counter of a not counter, but a second application for different. So I think the board should be made aware of everything that's going on with the property and have some discussion, but it is pertaining to litigation. So we should have that in executive session and uh, need to be soon. Is there is there a time on the uh to respond to the lawsuit? Thing is better if we assume, because it may well may lead us to assume you don't have a lot. Right? As of right now, you don't have other than what you just mentioned, there's not a lot that head needs to be happened in the regular agenda. So you could do start the meeting regularly at seven. Monday, Monday at 7:00 and then that's fine. The general meeting will start after council city closed. Was that council will be on. I'm going to make sure that somebody from council there. We were working with two attorneys on Monday about that. Everybody else could be around on Monday and I think someone's not around. But I thought, oh, we're all here. I'm on vacation. I'll be there with me. Sorry, sorry. So who's not right? Oh, yeah. Well, we will have a zoom option if you want a communication next week. We will have a zoom option if you want to zoom in, at least for the executive session. But in the past.

02:22:44,180	S5:
It doesn't sound like.

02:22:45,260	S1:
Oh, they don't have cell service. No, no. You think it's bad? You're going to modify. You can borrow a satellite phone.

02:22:55,820	S1:
All right. I have a motion.

02:22:57,900	S5:
I make a motion that we adjourn.

02:22:59,820	S1:
Second. Second. All in favor, say aye. All right. Thank you.