00:00:10,730	About whether I might. Oh, nice. All right. Good evening everyone. Oh, today, welcome to the selectboard meeting for the town of Wenham. It is July 21st, 2026 at 6:30 p.m., and we’ll start with call to order. We’ll just say, who’s here? Gary, start with you. Gary Cheeseman. Fin Sprague. Deirdre Peretti, present. Peter Clark, Ben Hyman.

00:00:35,770	All right. We have a full house tonight. Good to see everybody. And we will start with public comment. If there’s anyone present in the room or on zoom who would like to comment on anything that is not on the agenda this evening, please raise your hand. Nope. Anybody on zoom? No, no.

00:01:01,430	Okay. All right. We will move then to reports and announcements. Steve, do you want to start off. Thank you. Just two, two updates this evening. One on, um, the one a traffic improvement project.

00:01:24,400	So all the deeds were, uh, well, all the all the easements were filed successfully at the Registry of Deeds. So those are in place in the project is moving forward. I also want to just communicate a message that the, um, state Dot gave us, that they said that they have, you know, uh, a lot of projects going on right now, but that the town of

00:01:41,070	Wenham was the most professional and timely, uh, community that they’ve dealt with in this round of project. So, uh, you know, kudos to our land use department, where they were the primary, driver of this project. And, um, and then just a quick trash update.

00:02:02,870	So we still don’t have the contract finalized. It’s going back and forth between the attorneys. However, we believe the last round of revisions, we should have it back tomorrow. Again, they’re not really material in my opinion. It’s just very small wording tweaks. Uh, but we’re very close on that.

00:02:30,600	We have 30 people now have expressed interest in getting a second 96 gallon tote, only, uh, five have have uh, paid for it. So only five have gone out so far. And we have um, we’ve distributed the entire batch of 50 smaller bins and anticipate maybe another 5 to 10 more of those. So we’ve put in in order, uh, for more of those. Again, that’s included in the cost.

00:02:54,530	They’ll, they’ll cover the smaller bins and, um, so, yeah. And actually, an interesting note is the maples, uh, got 55, 96 gallon bins delivered to them. Uh, asked for all of them to be taken back in an exchange.

00:03:16,530	They wanted 16 smaller bins, so they only want two bins per building up there, two smaller. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Um, but yeah, that’s that’s the update so far. I mean, generally, you know, we still get questions and some comments, but I think for the most part things are going pretty smoothly. That’s all I have today.

00:03:33,030	Okay. Thank you Steve. Good progress as usual. I just have one note that, uh, Gary and I attended the Eagle Court of Honor for Patrick Crockett on Friday evening, and I just want to congratulate Patrick and his family. It was a wonderful, really wonderful, lovely ceremony.

00:03:55,070	Patrick did beautifully, and it was a thrill to be part of it. So congratulations to all of the Crockett’s. All right, who’s next then? Anything? Uh, no. I, uh, let’s see. Hope everybody had a good time down at the.

00:04:13,800	I was able to go down to the Tall Ships event in Boston. That was great. And, uh, maybe, uh, was able to go to the tea house and, uh, go to the World Cup. Uh, so, uh, those were both really, uh, enjoyable things. So. Thanks. Excellent. I’m good. Good, good. I did go to the twice.. To the TVs? No, to the tall ships. Oh, to the tall ships.

00:04:33,900	Pretty amazing. Um, my other comment is just to sort of add to the commendation to, uh, Steve and the DPW and the whole team on the on the trash receptacles.

00:04:51,770	Um, I’m not sure if everybody in our town has had the same experience, but just as a homeowner, I had a very good experience with a request to downsize the the bin. And that was like was done, like very quickly and smoothly. Um, and, um, I’ve certainly heard a lot of anecdotes from other towns that are going through this similar transition. Um, that things aren’t quite as smooth. Um, in some neighboring towns. So, uh, good job.

00:05:19,330	Thank you. Ben. Rich. Now. Oh, yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Next we will move to the consent agenda. We have two items on the consent agenda this evening when, um, housing authority appointment of Sharon Ivey, effective July 21st, 2026, through June 30th, 2031.

00:05:49,870	And the sponsorship request from the community house of $1,600 in support of Sundays in Patton Park, which I saw were in full swing on Sunday, looked very well attended. Does anyone have any questions on the consent agenda? Okay. Move a motion. I move to approve items A and B is printed in this evening’s consent agenda. Three seconds. All right. We’ll take a vote. Start with Gary.

00:06:14,830	Yes. Then I. Deirdre I Peter. Yes. Ben I we can decide if we’re doing eyes or yesterday. I guess it’s the diversity of the. Uh, you can choose. Yes. Okay. The first item on the agenda this evening is our joint meeting with the historic District commission. We have one coming in now. Good timing.

00:06:45,470	Bonnie, come on up. Yeah, okay. We are meeting, and I know we have a few people on zoom. Yes. So we are meeting with the historic district commission regarding the HDC request to add a demolition delay bylaw to the 2027 town meeting warrant.

00:07:07,870	We will have a presentation and a discussion about the rationale and the proposed stipulations of the draft bylaw. So do does the HDC have a quorum this evening? And Kelly, would you like to call your meeting to order? Yes. Thank you. Kelly, just to let you know, Bonnie is here. So we do have, uh, four members for a quorum.

00:07:31,730	So you can do a call to order now for the HDC. Okay, just so you guys know, it’s very hard to hear you guys. It’s very scratchy. Um, but anyways, I’d like to call to order the meeting of the one historic District Commission. Today is July 21st, 2026. The time now is 637.

00:07:52,530	Um, we start starting with Bonnie. Can you please go around and state your name for the record? Oh. Bonnie Anderson, present. Lisa, present. Ryan Malloy present. Thank you. Those are the four members so far. We have a quorum, though. Great. Thank you. Kelly, I’ll turn it over to you for. To Joe, for the presentation.

00:08:17,100	Okay. My video has been turned off. Um. Or I can’t turn it on. But anyways, um, I’d like to, um. Joe, do you want me to present or.

00:08:32,270	Kelly, if it works, I’m happy to go over the slides real quick, and then you can fill in anything I miss or anything you want to add, but it’s totally up to you. Okay. Uh, so thank you. Select board. Madam chair, appreciate you having us here tonight.

00:08:51,430	Um, I’ve been serving as the liaison for the HTC and the Historical Commission for almost four years now, and I believe this is the first time we’ve had a joint meeting with the Select board and the historical Commission. So this is a great night. Um, so as many of you might know, Wenham has considered demolition delay bylaw, um, for the last 15 years or so, the Historical Commission has reviewed past discussions, examine how other Massachusetts communities approach demolition, delay.

00:09:11,770	And we have prepared this draft as a starting point for discussion. And I just want to emphasize that we’re hoping to get this on the warrant for next year. So there’s plenty of times to go through different drafts and talk about it. But this is sort of the initial document we put together. It’s also important to sorry. Sorry.

00:09:26,730	It’s also important to note that we’re presenting this proposal under our Historical Commission authority, the Wenham Commission serves as both the Historic District Commission and the Historical Commission. The HTC administers the local historic district under chapter 40, CML, which governs historic districts.

00:09:50,230	Because this bylaw would apply town wide and is intended to address historically significant buildings that are not already protected by the historic district, this falls under the umbrella of the Historical Commission. So I just wanted to point that out, and we can actually get started with the presentation here.

00:10:09,730	So again, we’re here just to the HCC is here just to introduce, um, I’m sorry, the Historical Commission is here to introduce the proposed demo delay. They are going to be providing a background on the proposal and its purpose to explain how the process would work. And of course, receive Selectboard feedback and discuss next steps and the concept of the bylaw has been discussed.

00:10:27,100	As I said, for quite a while now, and we’re going to talk about it tonight and just go through the first draft. Again, this just talks about the umbrella of the Historical Commission, which I already talked about. We can go to the next one, Michel. Thank you. And this is the historical Commission, as I mentioned.

00:10:46,000	Um, it’s charged with advising on preservation matters throughout the community, maintaining awareness of the historic resources town wide, and may administer preservation tools such as the demolition delay bylaw.

00:11:09,470	So why? What is a demolition delay bylaw is a preservation planning tool, and it is used to create a process to review demolition of historically significant buildings before they are permanently lost. The purpose is to. This is an important note to encourage preservation, not prohibit demolition. This simply allows time to explore different alternatives, preserve significant historic resources where possible, while also balancing private property rights for residents as well.

00:11:35,400	Demolition delay again does not prevent demolition permanently, it just would create a temporarily hold, temporary hold on demolition. And as you’ll see soon, this is going to be. We’re proposing the proposing nine month demolition delay bylaw. The proposed bylaw would only apply to buildings that meet these two criteria. The first would be age requirement and this would be 80 years old or older.

00:11:54,970	Um, the historical commission that looked at different communities across the state, and many had 75 years, others had 100 years, 150 years. They thought this was sort of a good meeting to have the 80 year rule. Um, the second criteria is historical significance. This would be determined by the Historical Commission.

00:12:12,200	Some of the factors, although they don’t need to all be considered by some factors to be considered, might be the property being on the National Register of Historic Places, association with significant people or events within town, um and beyond our architectural significance and contribution to Williams history and character.

00:12:36,000	This is laid out in more depth in the actual document, but there’s sort of just four steps that sort of outlay. The, um, the process. The first would be a demolition permit submitted. So this would be somebody looking to demolish a specific property. Number two would be historical commission review.

00:12:55,370	This would be where the commission would determine whether the building is historically significant. Like I was explaining on the previous slide, the third step would be a public hearing. And again, this would only be if the Historical Commission had deemed the property to be historically significant.

00:13:14,470	After this, uh, within 14 days, the historical commission would sort of they would give their own ruling on whether or not there should be a demo delay put in place. And if this is put in place, this would be delayed up to nine months. Again, nine months, similar to the criteria for the age of the buildings, many cities and towns across the Commonwealth had 12 month, um delays. Some had six months. The.

00:13:33,830	The Historical Commission thought that nine months was sort of a happy medium. I don’t want to speak to the you know, I don’t want to speak for the commission, but I feel like they would be willing to talk about the nine months.

00:13:46,030	But this is sort of the the time period that came up with and had a consensus with. Next slide, please. The delay periods, um, provides time to work with property owners. The historical commission itself. CPC if necessary, uh, town officials and stakeholders, preservation organizations such as we dealt with one for nine Maple Historic New England to be an example and interested buyers as well.

00:14:08,070	During this nine months. These are just some potential alternatives that could be put in place. You could rehabilitate the building, um, preserving historical facade to the building without demolishing it. Adaptive reuse to a different project, or incorporating the building into a bigger development as a redevelopment as well, all while keeping the building in its historic nature.

00:14:30,800	And also relocation would be another option or a sale to someone that has a preservation minded buyer. Again, similar. An example would be Historic New England from a couple weeks ago. Um, involving nine Maple Street.

00:14:51,200	So what is the historical Commission proposed to the Select Board? They propose continuing to refine the draft that was put together, incorporating all feedback from the select board as well as residents. Um, do a public outreach, gather community input, explain the purpose and processes of the bylaw, work with town council to ensure consistency with Massachusetts law, and finally putting this on. Hopefully for the 2027 Annual Town Meeting warrants.

00:15:17,430	And I’ll open this up to questions. But if you’re okay with this, Madam Chair, I was going to ask if each historical commission had anything to add, any color they want to add to my presentation. Hi, this is Kelly, um, chair, the HGC. I’d like to add a few comments here.

00:15:38,070	Um, the the delay law has been in the works since Harriet Davis was the chair, and I believe it was first initiated. Um, to, uh, excuse me, in 2015. Um, but, um, I’ve been trying to get it on the warrant for the last year or so. It was not just that we put in the work last year, so hopefully, um, sorry.

00:16:02,600	The background noise sounds really funny. Um, so hopefully the we’ll get approval to be put on the warrant. Um, again, this is not to the tour. Um, demolition is just to support the 45 existing homes that are designated as historic houses within the district, um, we’re the only surrounding town that doesn’t have a demo delay. Law.

00:16:30,430	Hamilton does. Beverley does and does. Topsfield does. So I hope you’ll support us with this moving forward. Thank you. Any other HDC members would like to comment first? Okay, I’m going to move it over to the select board.

00:16:59,230	And yes, we did receive this, um, last year as the proposal for the warrant. But my recollection was that we did not have an opportunity to meet together, and the Selectboard still had questions about some of the rationale. So some of that you just spoke to. But I’ll start with a question, because you mentioned the surrounding towns.

00:17:19,530	I’m just wondering across Massachusetts how typical most towns have this. What is the prevalence across the state? Percentages. But most towns do have a demo delay law.

00:17:43,530	Yes, there is 155 or so towns and cities that have, um, demo delays and I want to say there’s about about half of them have one, maybe a little bit less, but I want to say around half of them. And again, there’s 155 cities and towns with historic districts that have demoed, uh, with historic districts. Around half of those have demo delays. Okay. So about half of the 155. Okay. Thank you. So I was. Looking at 6160 out of 351. As of 2024.

00:18:07,570	Okay. And I’m wondering if you looked at sort of what the experience is with the demo delay and how successful those bylaws have been, and sort of repurposing and and preserving. Sorry, you’re cutting out. Can you repeat, please? Yep.

00:18:32,130	Question is, did you take a look at how successful these bylaws have been in terms of repurposing the properties and preserving them? Just wondering what the impact of the bylaws have been. I do know in Danvers there has been there was one property that was, um, that did not get demolished. Um, I could get you numbers on other towns. I’m happy to do that.

00:18:54,170	I do not know exactly the numbers on that. I don’t know if Kelly does, but, um, I can certainly look into that. I think it would be helpful to know the impact.

00:19:10,600	And when we it comes time for the public to vote on this, these kinds of questions, I think, will be useful for the public to understand as to why we’re doing this and what the impact will be. I know one other question, and then I’ll open it to my colleagues, was, could you talk a bit about why you settled on 80 years? Um, because I, I guess I’m wondering, you know, that doesn’t take us that far back

00:19:28,200	in history. Um, so sort of what’s the rationale for that number other than it’s sort of a median between other towns? Most, um, or do you want to answer how we ended up on that? Yeah.

00:19:49,700	I mean, I just, you know, I, we did research different towns and again, a lot of them had 100 years, 150 years. Um, we sort of wanted to create the least controversial number that we could. So we sort of picked one in the middle. That was honestly if correct me, if I’m wrong, Kelly, that was the biggest rationale.

00:20:04,600	We didn’t want to have something that was too restrictive. Um, is that correct? Yeah. And also, we were just trying to tie it back to date. So like no homes built. Um, before 1945. So it was sort of a that’s what we were sort of targeting a time frame of houses built. So anything before 1980 years ago, essentially.

00:20:29,570	So any homes basically built before 1945 could not be torn down without the demo delay law taking effect. All right. Thank you. I’m going to open it up to the other members of the board. No questions here. No thank you, Madam Chair. I echo what you were saying there.

00:20:51,000	If this is going to go in front of the entire town, I think a good one pager on with this sort of information is going to be really important to help people make a decision as they vote. Um, you know, the things that were going through my mind were the similar ones.

00:21:03,400	What you had was, you know, and when and what percentage of the houses are over 80 years. I think it’s a pretty significant portion. So, um, you know, you know, what percentage of folks are, uh, and houses are going to be delayed on this.

00:21:20,400	Another questions I had was, you know, the quantity of, of, uh, demolitions that we were actually having in our town in any given year. Right? If there are not that many happening or if there’s a significant amount, I don’t recall seeing a lot of houses being demoed around here, but, um, I’m, you know, not going down every single road every single week.

00:21:37,730	Um, and, uh, you know, the statistics, you know, it’s really helpful to know and understand that all the towns around us have that, um, that same, um, or this, uh, this demo delay, but it’d be good to have, uh, the statistics that we were just talking about the percentage of towns that do in Massachusetts.

00:21:54,000	Um, and, you know, our neighbors to understand what it is. You know, I, I’m trying to think about the impact to, um, to the town that, you know, maybe people don’t understand or don’t appreciate. And that would be helpful.

00:22:09,500	You know, what’s the reason that that we haven’t done this to date or the argument against, you know, this, you know, I’m trying to think about the structures that I think are going to be demoed in the next 2 or 3 years.

00:22:22,730	We’re talking we’ve had a lot of discussion here about Cherry Street, and we have a whole lot of going on over at Penguin Hall. Um, so I wonder what, uh, what other structures we can think of. Um, you know, having, uh, you know, an additional nine month delay on, on, um, on what they’re doing. So thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you. Peter. Ben. Um, just a couple of questions.

00:22:41,400	So in the packet, um, and thank you, Joe and Kelly, for the presentation. Uh, in the in our packet, there is a, um, what appears to be a draft bylaw. Is that correct? That’s the one that the historical commission drafted earlier. Right.

00:23:03,330	And so, excuse me, is it the case that, um, that this particular draft is still, um, potentially the subject for discussion before it’s, um, put forward for town meeting? Or is this this is the proposed bylaw that the historical commission, um, has, has approved at this point. The historical Commission did vote on this draft.

00:23:26,430	But, Kelly, I know if you want to speak to that, if the commission would be hypothetically willing to revisit some of the, um, content. Yes, of course we’d be, you know, willing to take in more input from the community as well as the committee, um, to make any edits as needed. We haven’t done it. We haven’t done a focus group with the town yet. Um.

00:23:48,670	Thank you. And I’m not suggesting that that I have any particular edits to it. I just wanted to make sure I understood that this was that this was the actual, um, draft that’s been approved, uh, at this stage.

00:24:08,270	And then the other question I had is the the slideshow says that there will be two criteria for triggering the demo delay. Number one, that the building is 80 years old or older. Um, and number two, that there’ll be a determination by the historical Commission as to historical significance.

00:24:34,600	So does that mean that any homeowner who wants to demo their 80 year or older home would need to go in front of the historical commission for a meeting or a hearing of some kind at which the second criteria, the determination of historical significance would occur.

00:24:58,070	So, yeah, um, the the first step would be applying for the permit with the building inspector, and then after seven days of building inspector would send a written notice within seven days, he or she would send a written notice to the historical commission, and they would meet within 30 days to discuss whether or not they feel it is a, um, uh, a significant, um, building or not. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah.

00:25:14,630	Now it was I don’t know if it was from Harry or not, but there was 45 designated homes within the that are deemed within one of as historically significant. So I don’t know if there’s a list in the archives somewhere that we can pull that up. Yeah. There’s this should be on.

00:25:35,630	I would think Makris might have this the local, um, the State Register of Historic Places, which I can certainly. Look into. Doesn’t the town have a document there? Yeah. But that’s not going to be the only criteria, whether you’re on the list or not. Yes. The commission or the commission could still determine an architectural or other history that it’s in a significant.

00:25:57,300	So it’s not restricted to the 45 houses. That’s correct. That is correct. Okay. It typically houses that of, you know, or within the or in the macros database. Thank you. I didn’t have any other questions. Thank you Ben. Okay. So I think I’m going to try to summarize.

00:26:22,630	But I think what I’m hearing is that the board is open to including this on the warrant, putting this before the town for the town to decide. Um, but we’re suggesting some of these questions be clarified and some additional information.

00:26:42,330	Be prepared to educate the town on in a little more in depth on what the rationale and why we should be doing this. I’m sorry, Madam Chair. It’s wanted to clarify. There’s about 150 cities and towns in the state that have that. That have. Demo delays. Yes. Okay. Sorry if I misspoke. That’s okay. Thank you. Joe. Okay. So I think that’s where we’re at. Joe, you have our comments and questions.

00:27:08,500	Yes, absolutely. We’re going to be meeting again the next month or two. So okay. So we’ll look forward to seeing this return again. And is the plan to do what is the plan for public outreach.

00:27:28,670	Yeah, I’m imagining there’ll be probably several public meetings just about this, but we’re obviously going to invite public comment. Um, and I can imagine maybe even having another joint meeting, perhaps as we get closer to finalizing the document, just to make sure the select, um, gets all their questions answered and we’re all on the same page, and I’m sure we’ll you can use our social media platforms to, um,

00:27:46,200	you know, put this up out there as well. The town website, perhaps. Great. Um, Instagram x and uh, and Facebook news. Yes, yes. And thank you. We appreciate you starting this process and raising this early on.

00:28:07,330	Um, so that we can be ready in time for April with a really sound proposal, with all the questions for the public answered. Okay. So the next item is also with the historic District Commission, and we will have an update on the revision of the historic District Guidelines project that was funded through the capital appropriation at the 2026 Annual Town Meeting. Thanks, Madam Chair.

00:28:30,770	You mind pulling up to a second one, Michelle? Thank you. So this time, we’re on the historic district Commission will be using that title for this project. So this actually dates back quite a few years as well. Um, the current historic district guidelines that are in place have not been updated since 1999.

00:28:48,730	So this project has been a long time in making as well. Next slide please. So the one historic district was established in 1972, and it’s one of the town’s most significant historic resources.

00:29:07,630	Some of the iconic community landmarks in the historic district include the building we’re in right now, Town Hall, the Main Street Cemetery, and Civil War Memorial, among others. Um, the historic district guidelines purpose are. To assist is to assist homeowners, contractors, architects, etc. by providing guidance for projects within the historic district. This would just be for exterior work in the historic district, um, that’s viewable in the public way.

00:29:28,930	Again, they have not been updated since 1999, so why update the guidelines? Um, the Historic District Commission identified several opportunities to improve the existing guidelines. Here’s just a few of these, um, examples. Modernizing a document that’s over 25 years old. Improving organization. Ease of use for both residents, contractors, and staff members, and board and committee members alike. Adding photographs, graphics and visual examples.

00:29:53,330	If you saw the ones in your packet, you can see it’s quite rudimentary. There’s not a lot of color to them. Literally. Um, not a lot of graphics, and we’re trying to incorporate a lot more to that.

00:30:09,600	Expanding the guidance regarding Massachusetts general law, chapter 40, C40C is the law that governs historic districts in Massachusetts. Um, the ACC operates under the umbrella of chapter 40 C uh, better explain common project types and review standards, whether that’s putting an offense or creating a bigger addition. Addressing newer materials and sustainability initiatives.

00:30:29,630	I know solar has been sort of a hot topic the last several years. Um, the commission has since approved several solar projects. There’s even one approved here, the upper lot, if you recall, although it’s on hold because we’re a leech field problem. But that was also approved through the HCC.

00:30:47,330	So solar has been sort of before the HTC several times in the last few years. Uh, next slide please. Just a little bit of background on the funding, $50,000 capital improvement project was requested by by me to the eighth through the HTC.

00:31:07,470	The funding request was supported by both the fin com and the Select Board, and was approved at the 2025 ATM Annual Town Meeting and consistent with the requirements of chapter 30, Be, the town conducted a competitive procurement process and we received proposals from three very qualified consulting firms following proposal reviews, interviews and reference checks with myself, Kelly Schmidt, Steve’s assistant as well.

00:31:32,570	The commission unanimously selected Barrett Planning Group to complete the design guidelines, rewrite their very renowned preservation group and planning group throughout the state. The Commission has been working closely with Jennifer Doty. She has a preservation planner who specializes in historic districts. She works with Bay Area Planning Group, and she is serving as a project manager.

00:31:50,800	And again, this is some of her experience, but she’s also worked with the Massachusetts Historical Commission on the state level. Some of the work that’s been completed thus far, there’s been a kickoff meeting with Barrett Planning Group. Jen was actually in town a few weeks ago and conducted several photographs, many photographs throughout the historic district.

00:32:10,530	There’s been a review of the existing guidelines, which, again, are quite out of date, and comparable guidelines from other Massachusetts communities. Sorry, it’s one more before there’s been interviews with town staff and board and committees.

00:32:29,270	Some of you might have met with Jen in the last week or so on zoom, but she was meeting with board and committee members, town staff, just to identify current strengths, challenges and opportunities for improvement with the guidelines. So what’s next on the horizon? Barrett Planning Group will be will continue community outreach and there will be a public information session, which everyone is encouraged to go to on Wednesday, August 12th at 6 p.m. this will be on zoom.

00:32:50,000	This will provide residents an opportunity to comment on the project, ask questions, offer feedback that will help shape the final design guidelines, and following this public engagement, Barrett Planning Group and the HCC will again incorporate public feedback. Continue Commission review of the draft. Complete final design guidelines and prevent present of finished guidelines for historic District Commission adoption.

00:33:12,270	This will not require town meeting approval like it did for the demo delay. The funding was approved at town Meeting, but this is not technically a bylaw change like the demo delay would be an expected project outcomes.

00:33:33,300	Once it’s completed, this will provide a modern illustrated, a much more user friendly document, offer clear guidance to homeowners, contractors and design professionals. It will improve consistency and transparency in historic district commission decisions. Better reflect current preservation, best practices, and help preserve one historic district character, and will also set a valuable resource for the community for hopefully many years to come.

00:33:55,300	I didn’t write this on the slide, but I think another good thing about this will be potentially, um, avoiding any kind of litigation. If there’s any ambiguity, ambiguity with the district guidelines, with, you know, decisions. Um, this just helps, I think, tighten up the restrictions, the guidelines and avoids any sort of liability, which we’re trying to avoid. Obviously. Yeah.

00:34:17,070	And final slide is just project timelines. Again, this was approved in 2025. Uh, barrier planning has already been selected as the vendor site. Photography has already been done. One of the workshops will be done next month, and the final design guidelines are expected to be completed in fall and winter.

00:34:41,030	And, um, is there any comment from the HTC that I missed? No. That’s great. Thanks, Joe. Great. Any other members of HTC like to comment? All right. I think this is a tremendously valuable project. I’m thrilled to see it moving forward. I think this is going to be a great contribution to the town. I want to turn it over to the board.

00:35:07,800	If anyone have comments or questions at this juncture. No, just as you said, very important. It’s been a long, long time since we’ve looked at this. So along with our departments, we need to bring it up to speed. Thanks to Joe, a lot of work on this. Thank you. Absolutely. I’m also looking forward to it.

00:35:26,500	Um, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, looking forward to seeing the glossy pictures and the clarifications that we’ll all have. Um, you know, I just as I was going through the presentation on it, just to make sure I completely understood it looks like the HDC has complete authority to

00:35:41,000	adopt this document. Um, and so it’s not up. Doesn’t need a vote by the Select board or any other will again, obviously going to be taking a lot of feedback from from stakeholders in the town, but it’s up to the HTC to to approve this document. And, uh, accept it has the authority to do so.

00:35:58,430	That’s correct. Funding was secured at town meeting via um capital funding. But this is sort of an HTC. You know, we’re obviously looking to get feedback, but this is not a specific bylaw change. This is just sort of adopting new guidelines under the umbrella of the HTC. Or again, under that chapter 14 that I had mentioned earlier.

00:36:16,100	Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, I just wanted to say that this is like over the last 3 or 4 years, we’ve, like, cleaned up everything and, you know, like the HR policy that hadn’t been updated for like 20 years. Um, so I think it’s really great.

00:36:34,930	We’re like crossing the T’s and dotting the eyes on stuff. Um, and to the extent that we can limit any liability, uh, or just create, um, yeah, it’s really good. So congrats to the HTC and Joe. Thank you. Um, I agree, nothing to add though. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Uh, thank you Joe.

00:37:04,200	Very well done. Thank you as always. All right HTC, we appreciate you being here. Any last comments? Um, before I give you time to adjourn. Uh, nothing for me. Thank you. Everybody okay? Bonnie. Nope. Thank you. Glad to be here. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Welcome, Ryan malloy. Thanks. Ryan. Newest member.

00:37:29,270	Yes, yes. Wonderful to see you here, Ryan. Much appreciate it. I look forward to get going on these projects. Excellent. Bonnie. Excellent work. Joe, thank you for presenting. Thanks, Kelly, for leading us along. I have no additions. Thanks, Bonnie. All right, Kelly, over to you.

00:37:59,100	Kelly, would you like to adjourn? Oh, sorry, I didn’t understand you. Um, yes, I’d like to adjourn to the time now is 7:08 p.m.. I’d like to adjourn. Uh, the meeting for the Wenham Historic District Commission. Um, and second, please. Second. All in favor? I. I. I. Okay, great. Thank you everyone. Kelly. Yeah. Thanks all for from the HCC committee.

00:38:29,600	And, um, to town. Uh, Joe, thank you very much for your presentation. And, um, we will then be signing off. Appreciate it. We’ll see you for the next round. Thank you. All right. We’re going to take just a moment to switch boards here. We’re going to have the Finn come get settled.

00:38:51,470	And, um, the door to the outside is. Locked. Oh. Yes. And then. But again, what? Chances are you getting. Oh, as soon as start. Went in. David, do you want to swap here? I can move over here. I guess we’ll see who’s on this one. Pointed to the. Mikes, the back on. Oh, okay.

00:39:45,370	We are about to, um, begin our joint meeting with the Finance and Advisory Committee. Do we have quorum? I don’t see Sarah up there. As attendees. Michelle. Is Sarah on Michelle. No. We have a fourth member hopefully joining soon. Soon? Actually, we are at will. All right. We’re at 710.

00:40:20,600	So actually, why don’t we hold for five minutes? Because we scheduled it for 715. So we’ll take another item and then we’ll see if Sarah is here. We’ll do that. Do? Yes. Thank you. If you want to do F. insurance okay.

00:40:44,600	So we will take F in the meantime, which is to review the draft policy outlining the town’s insurance requirements for contracting with external vendors. Steve, leave that to you. So. Um. Last meeting we brought before the board a, well, a suggestion and a request. If the board would consider, um, reducing its insurance requirements on certain contracts, $10,000 and below.

00:41:17,730	Um, the board seemed to be supportive of that, given that they want to promote the town’s ability to do business with small businesses and that our insurance liability requirements for a small business was, in some cases, the premium annual premium was as much or more than the contract itself.

00:41:43,130	So we did some due diligence and source some information from neighboring communities to see what they’ve done in situations like this. And we got some general feedback that pretty much aligned with with each other that, uh, in generally the reduction was, uh, $1 million umbrella policy. Uh, and in general and professional liability, a million per occurrence to 2 million in the aggregate.

00:42:11,130	In addition, they waived the, uh, commercial motor vehicle insurance requirement if the person would provide in writing that they would not need, uh, transportation, such as? We had a designer do the town’s logo. It was a home occupation that didn’t ever come on site. Uh, and was a sole proprietor. Uh, the request to waive the motor vehicle requirement was not asked.

00:42:36,730	But in addition to that, the one of the things that popped up in our our diligence was that, uh, some communities waive the, um, the workmen’s compensation insurance if it’s a sole proprietor, so that was discussed last time.

00:43:00,370	And the board asked me to take a stab at writing a policy that would kind of, um, provide a framework that we could operate under both one providing, you know, a formal statement of the town’s insurance requirement at a high level, which we haven’t made in any formal capacity.

00:43:21,730	So that is in, uh, number one on the the policy up on the board to say that all town policies, um, you know, basically, uh, must provide these, these, um, these insurance requirements to any vendors looking to do business with the town. But then in certain situations for, um, policies that are low risk.

00:43:48,330	So things not involving construction, heavy equipment or, or physical hazards, uh, and under $10,000, the town administrator would have the approval to reduce these risk insurance requirements. Um, and, uh, all other contracts the board would, you know, retain the right, although you don’t need a policy for that, but would be able to, uh, either further reduce the insurance levels or reduce a contract that may be deemed higher risk.

00:44:10,900	Uh, it did ask for us to go back to Meyer and see if they could give us some statistics. They did not have any statistics that would help us in this.

00:44:28,530	But in general sense was if they’re not going to be on site working on the building or in the building within the town limits, uh, it’s professional in nature, such as office work. Um, you know, those are generally the ones that are low of liability. And that’s what we included here. Thank you. Steve. All right. Questions, comments. Then? Nothing. I thought this was great, Steve, because it kind of gives you the authority to work on this. Right.

00:44:58,200	And makes it clear where you can, you know, reduce the the, uh, insurance requirements proactively and, you know, put this in front of the smaller, uh, smaller contract, you know, go out with the RFP and say, this is this is our policy.

00:45:16,030	And, you know, you don’t have to wait for us or or, you know, delay, right? You can just put this right out there with these and move forward. And so I, you know, this is exactly what we were talking about last time. And I’m in support of it. Thank you. Thank you Gary. I think it covers all the concerns we had last time. So I’m in favor of this. Great.

00:45:31,300	I agree with my colleagues. Thank you.. So the emotion. Look, we need a motion. To approve the one on vendor insurance requirements policy is written or amended. Gary. Seconds. All right. We’ll start with Ben. Ben votes. I yes, Peter. Finn, I. Gary. Yes. And Deirdre. Yes. Thank you. Motion passes. Okay. Sarah is here. Excellent.

00:46:02,970	Perfect timing. Okay, so we will move back to item E, which is a joint meeting with Finance and Advisory Committee for a discussion of proposed FY 27 finance related goals and initiatives.

00:46:30,600	We are going to discuss prioritization of the proposed goals with respect to the level of urgency, feasibility and our staffing capacity, which is in fact limited. So we, Steve, would. you Steve, Ernie, who are we presenting the list? Oh I’m sorry, you’re right. I skipped that. Bob, would you like to call the Pinkham to order? We found Sarah. Yes we did. Okay. Great. Uh.

00:46:59,400	I’ll call to order of the incoming advisory committee at 717. I guess we’re still taking public comment. Is there any public comment? Just call for. Since you’re split in person and on zoom, just have everyone state that they’re present. Uh, Sarah, are you there? Yes. I’m here. David. David and Bob’s here. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So. Yeah.

00:47:28,200	So we called a joint meeting tonight, and just a little background. So I met with the select board. Last meeting cycle. So two weeks ago and brought to their attention that, you know, we have a lot going on in the finance department and financial related goals and objectives that, you know, have been brought up both in

00:47:46,970	conversation and and also, you know, formal requests over probably the past six months or so. So as I’m compiling my lists of goals and objectives at the Select board will be reviewing. And at the end of August, um, I found that the finance goals is quite extensive.

00:48:08,630	So basically I brought it to their attention that it’s, you know, it’s unlikely that we’re going to be able to get to everything this year at least and be able to do it well.

00:48:22,200	So, you know, they thought it was a good idea that we invite the fin come in tonight to, you know, one put out kind of the list that I’ve come up with thus far, uh, to make sure that I haven’t missed anything.

00:48:39,070	Um, and then I, you know, and further, I kind of took this as an opportunity for the two boards that, you know, have a discussion in, you know, since I’ve been since Jeff left, I’ve met with the fin com, uh, a few times through through that public meeting.

00:48:55,000	And, you know, I kind of get the sense that, um, the fin com, um, you know, feels like maybe the information isn’t put in front of them, uh, either timely or in, um, you know, they’re maybe not consulted first. And it just seems like the, the play of events. I sense that there was some, uh, you know, maybe unhappy is maybe too is a strong, too strong of a word, but just that they weren’t too thrilled.

00:49:15,200	And you can correct me if I’m wrong with how some of the things the solar project, uh, maybe the police, um, uh, request for additional, um, uh, additional officer. So I guess, you know, staff and myself work, you know, hard to accommodate the needs of all boards.

00:49:34,800	So I figured we could take this an opportunity to, you know, to kind of let people speak freely, kind of let us know what you know, what we’re what we’re doing. Well, what we could do better. Uh, we can hear, you know, the select board.

00:49:51,330	Similarly, I took an opportunity to write an email of kind of what the roles are of both respective boards in a formal capacity. Right? Some of it is just relationships. And you kind of make it up as you go. But for what documentation was out there, that kind of, define the roles of each board? Because, you know, I get comments from the select board.

00:50:06,800	Does the fin com need to weigh in on this? You know, what’s the fin coms role in town meeting. And then similarly the fin com you know what is the select board looking from us. You know you know we we should be included more. We should be included less. You know just comments as people.

00:50:22,330	It’s like, you know, what are we exactly doing here. So that is kind of what I put together and that email. So I thought we could talk a little bit about that. But first I figure we can kind of go through the list.

00:50:38,800	I don’t know if everybody wants me to go through one, one by one, happy to do so. Or if people have any comments that I’d like to make first or items that maybe I missed. We’re happy to have comments first. If there are anything. Bob.

00:50:58,530	Well, the only thing I would say is the comment about timing wasn’t so much the we wasn’t the finance and advisory committee. It was the select board. And everyone that you know that some of these things came up very quickly. And, uh, you know, we heard about it at the same time, but they were probably too quickly in terms of making a good decision.

00:51:16,200	Uh, the other comment I would add is I think one of our interest is long range planning in terms of being able to look at things that, uh, go multiple years out so that we’ve got some idea of how things fit together.

00:51:35,070	Uh, the third comment was when I shared, in terms of meetings that our meeting on Wednesday, after the Selectboard meets isn’t very helpful if you’re looking for advice from us. So it might make sense to, uh, we talked about this of going on the odd week in between so that if somebody has a question, we can work on it and get back with an answer. Uh. So. Anything that makes too much sense.

00:52:00,500	Do we have the list up on the board? Oh, yeah. Can you go to my. Yeah. The email I sent, um, the, the, uh. The one in the. Packet, I think. Yep. Right. I think it’s right there. Right. Steve. And so. Just for. A second. , one. Clarification, the list that you compiled includes. Yeah. Keep going.

00:52:25,800	Things that you have on your radar screen, Steve, things that you have heard from the select board and things that you have heard from the Finance and advisory Committee. Is that correct? Is that a fair statement? Yeah. And yeah. Right. And just priorities that Ernie and I have have discussed. So yeah.

00:52:46,000	And so again I’ll, I’ll start at the top, I’ll share, you know, maybe some thoughts that I have and then, you know, maybe we can have discussion if needed or not. But you know, ultimately, like the editor said, this is this meeting is to kind of compile a list, get some open discussion to help the select board, you know, understand the level of

00:53:03,000	priority, uh, from everyone’s perspective, uh, so that when it goes into its goals and objective setting and it’s kind of carving out the capacity we have to do, you know, finance related land use goals, it, um, you know, it will help them make an educated decision.

00:53:22,200	Steve, can you maybe add how much effort is required in your judgment for some of these? Yeah, I know you and I talked about one today. It’s not it was more work than I thought it was. And yeah. So I think that’s health insurance. Right Bob style. So we’ll start at the top of the list is a good starting point.

00:53:40,000	So health insurance is a um is a request that came up. You know, I’m not sure. Just fin com commented I think the Select board has made comments. I think everyone kind of knew last year or two years ago we had a double digit increase and it was kind of like, well, that that can’t happen again. Uh, but it did.

00:53:57,930	So where, uh, you know, so, so I think that that became a, you know, there was some, a sense of urgency to see what else could we do? And we are, we are, uh, a majority of our labor is, um, is union labor. So any change to benefits needs to be bargained for.

00:54:21,600	Uh, we do have a mechanism in law that allows us to transition to the GIC, which is the, uh, state run group insurance, and that may or may not be advantageous.

00:54:53,400	So both by from a cost perspective and from a personnel perspective, the the general consensus is that the plans are, um, not as rich in benefits and not necessarily any cheaper. Again, analysis would would be able to prove that out.

00:55:11,200	So to the extent the, um, you know, the, the labor cost of negotiating it in, you know, making folks unhappy, I think it’s something that, you know, uh, would need to be weighed as far as the relationships we have with our staff. But the so the GIC to to do this, you need to form an insurance review committee. So it has to be formally appointed by the Select board, and it has to be comprised of, um, active retirees, union leadership from all our unions. Um, I believe it may need a resident as well as committee representation to.

00:55:41,570	It’s just start the review process. So then once we we start opening that up, you need well before you before that committee, you have to send formal letters, certified letters to all union members in the town to let them know that we’re having this discussion.

00:56:01,470	And then you have to form the committee, and then we can start analyzing, um, you know, the general sense is you couldn’t you can do, you know, back a little more detailed than back of the napkin math, but you can take a look without going through this whole process.

00:56:18,470	You can take a high level look at what are the rates of the GIC and what are the rates we have. And you’ll see that the GIC is slightly less expensive for their, um, you know, for what just kind of comparing, um, uh, like the richest plan to the richest plan. So like, the best, the best plan in the GIC to the best plan.

00:56:42,330	We offer the GIC is slightly less expensive, but what’s been brought to my attention again is through Meyer. And obviously they have incentive to keep us with them. But to look at the deficit that the GIC runs here every year in the state just had to bail them out this year.

00:56:59,030	So the expectation is that the state is going to stop bailing them out at some point, and then the rates are going to have to adjust to be able to balance their books. So right now, every year, they operate at a loss. Um, and then the state has to bail them out with, with the, with a budget supplement.

00:57:17,130	So anyways, that that is something that, you know, I don’t think if the plan was to go to the GIC and form the committee that the it’s unlikely that we would be able to align that with this town meeting. But it is something that we probably could get started with. Uh, sending the letters, getting the leadership together, having meetings.

00:57:35,400	You know, I’m anticipating that these discussions would be relatively slow going. Uh, there’s not a lot of incentive for the parties to, you know, participate. So that would be a slow a slow burn on that review. Uh, fire review and ambulance. I’ll group those two together. So if you couple.

00:57:58,330	So we just had a, um, a pretty big retirement. Uh, the our deputy of 28 years, I believe, just recently retired. And I know the chief has made, um, you know, some comments that he is looking to retire at some point in the near future. However, we don’t we don’t know the timeline on that.

00:58:22,270	But I know, but Hamilton has reached out to us in a couple different ways. One, I think through chairs, and I forwarded to David and another way through their goal setting. Um, meeting that they had a couple of weeks ago.

00:58:44,130	And they’re looking to, um, connect with Wenham and look at the fire, as, you know, do some analysis on whether regional izing of fire station is feasible. So, I mean, first, the first question is, does when a want to reorganize, um, you know, and then the answer is if the answer is yes, then, you know, obviously you want to look at it. Uh, or maybe we want to look at it.

00:59:02,630	If the answer is, you know, no, just to understand how advantageous it could or could not be from a financial perspective. It. Yeah, I think it was in 2007. But the labor. So back then we had no full time, uh, firefighters. And now we have four.

00:59:24,130	So that’s, you know, that’s a change. Um, and I believe Hamilton was in a similar boat to us as on call. And I believe that they are now just about fully full, full time. I don’t think they rely on call a lot.

00:59:44,000	Uh, so the that study, um, although certainly it would be useful to help to see their, you know, their methodology and the certain things they looked at. Would, you know, the numbers would have to all be reworked because the labor pool, which is the biggest cost driver, has all changed. Um, the ambulance analysis. So that is so we put $250,000 into an ambulance.

01:00:10,730	Well, I vehicle stabilization fund to in anticipation of replacing the Ambulance. But before we replace the ambulance, we really need to figure out do we want to keep the ambulance? We don’t know. Um, you know, we haven’t looked at it, uh, close enough to know whether it is a, uh, you know, a revenue generator, whether it’s positive or negative.

01:00:32,700	Uh, from a revenue perspective for the town. So that’s something we need to spend some time analyzing. The money from. Gordon. We do. So Gordon pays us not only for the ambulance, but for. Fire as well. Right? Yeah. So any any response to Gordon? They pay us.

01:00:54,830	Um, for the labor involved in that response? Steve, the, uh, the ambulance is also run out of the the fire department budget as well, right? Those are all kind of tangled together. The the one you were just discussing. The fire of you and the ambulance would probably be a linked question. Yep. And there is some.

01:01:11,100	And this isn’t a secret, but, you know, uh, there is some feedback that we get from the call firefighters that the ambulance is not something that they like to staff. It’s really changed the their role in the department where, you know, before, when we didn’t have our own ambulance, there always. Sarah Bishop has has her hand raised.

01:01:33,630	I don’t know if we want to, but they’re always they’ve always like the thing to keep in mind is that they’re always the first responder. So when we talk about whether we run the ambulance or we don’t run the ambulance, that doesn’t change the fact that the fire is the first respondent, you know, to a medical call in town.

01:01:54,270	So whether we run the ambulance or not, they’re still coming. The difference is, is if you run the ambulance, you have transport requirements that you have to fulfill. So that means staying with the patient.

01:02:11,270	Uh, and then transporting them to their hospital of choice unless it meets certain emergency criteria, in which case you have to bring them to the closest hospital. But what that has done, the transport requirements, what that has done is it changed a 30, 40, 30 to 45 minute call in the middle of the night or during the day.

01:02:28,670	We have some IT professionals that work from home and they’re like, you know, I used to be able to come to calls during the day because I could step away from my laptop or whatever for 45 minutes.

01:02:42,330	But now I can’t gamble that I’m going to go and the patient’s going to want to go to, you know, uh, Boston and I’m going to be gone for four hours. So, so they just tone out the call and don’t respond.

01:03:00,400	Um, so again, like there’s still so the change would be the ambulance would be go to a bow port who is staged on both sides of town because they over they, they, they um, they, they work uh, Manchester, Essex and Hamilton. Hamilton doesn’t have an ambulance either. And Beauport does their, uh, response. So, you know, there are options. So but I mean, first I think we’re going to look at and see how much, you know, how much of the money does it make.

01:03:16,000	Doesn’t make us any. And then do we want to run it during the day, you know, because the full timers are like, well, you know, kind of gives us something to do during the day. So they don’t mind going.

01:03:28,730	And it might be a way to offset some full time costs to run an ambulance during the day, but then on nights and weekends when it’s preliminary call response, you know, maybe we just we defer it to like a bow port or another private ambulance company. Hey, Sarah. Do you have a question or comment? Yeah. I wanted to.

01:03:48,930	Check on this one because I thought that this was or kind of at least making a decision on both two and three was related to an audit. Perhaps it’s being done right now as well. I don’t see that mentioned here.

01:04:06,570	I didn’t hear you say anything about that, Steve, but isn’t there an audit being done? And that would also give us a better sense for, um, how financially, you know, I don’t want to say lucrative. I don’t know if it’s like, if it’s that much, but, um, for the ambulance, I thought there was some items there that were being reviewed. Yeah. I mean, we did we did conduct an operational review.

01:04:27,400	Um, but there are personnel related matters in there that prevent us from disclosing them or the report at this time. But I don’t think it’s an audit, per se. Yeah. It’s not an audit. It’s a it’s a kind of a best practice suggestion.

01:04:49,300	Um, you know, they didn’t get into the ambulance finances, although their findings matched and mirrored what I just said about the, the, um, the call firefighters and they, they recommended they didn’t look into analyzing, but the general recommendation was that, uh, if we can, that we should continue to work to try to preserve a call, uh, full time hybrid department and that, you know, it works for a

01:05:15,400	town of Windham and one and the group of guys that we have are, um, you know, have a lot of heart and, um, that it’s something that we should hold on to and not explore at this time.

01:05:33,070	Going to a full time department that we can continue to work with the call, just with some structures, maybe with some structural changes. Um, delegation of duties. Uh, kind of maybe expanding some of the roles and letting some of the call people take on some additional responsibilities, which had been traditionally kept with only 1 or 2 full timers, uh, to help help spread the burden around, but that we can work with the, um, the call

01:05:57,030	full time hybrid solution. Okay. And so. we have, um, as far as timing goes, when you say these different pieces here, two and three, most of this analysis has not started yet, but some of it has. It sounds like because of these this other review. Yeah. So no.

01:06:21,670	So as far as operational finance, staffing, we really haven’t done any. And as as it relates to right, we know how much it costs us to run our department now. So you know we have that data. But as far as what it would look like in a regionalized effort or shared service, we have not done any formal analysis at all.

01:06:45,670	The ambulance analysis, uh, you are correct. We have gotten quite a bit of data as it relates to the ambulance, although we have not spent much time really, um, diving into it and figuring out, you know, kind of assigning some capital costs, um, and trying to figure out the difference.

01:07:07,230	And, you know what our response time would look like, whether it’s 45 minutes or whether it’s three hours and minimum show up times and things like that. So we haven’t we haven’t really worked through that. But all right, we do have a lot more information than we did probably a month ago. As far as books and billing history.

01:07:24,630	, because this seemed like something that. You’d want to do internally rather than ask for help from fin com. I think this is something we could handle internally. Okay. Um, you know, I think that I think just by nature of timing. Right.

01:07:44,830	So we had a, we had a, we had a like I said, we the deputy retired. So. Right. So we haven’t backfilled that position. So we’re kind of at a standstill. Like what what do we do next. So I think we need to figure out what the future of the department looks like in the select board is.

01:08:02,600	On top of that, uh, through a series of meetings that they’ll be having, um, and then, uh, you know, costed out or, but then start to build that whether it’s, you know, with Hamilton or what’s the timeline or if it’s to just replace our existing structure or make some small tweaks within our, um, within our call and, uh, full time forces that that’s, you

01:08:24,470	know, we don’t know what that’s going to look like. But there is a time element, right? Because we’re short a deputy, uh, the chief would like to hire somebody. But, you know, I’ve kind of froze the hiring until we can figure out what what we want to do.

01:08:38,270	Because I don’t want to hire anybody only to either, you know, let them go under the probationary period or realize that maybe we shouldn’t have backfilled the position as it was and something else we could have done. So this is our chance to reimagine it.

01:08:58,300	I just want to say, Madam Chair, I support, um, you know, the analysis of, of number two and three, you know, as, uh, as a select board and as a former member of the thinking, we’re always looking for ways of of trying to be more efficient with our citizens tax dollars. And there aren’t a lot of opportunities.

01:09:13,830	Um, you know, we’re always struggling to find ways to, to do major cost control. I don’t know that there will be major cost control. I’ve seen the the analysis that’s 20 years old. That wasn’t very compelling at the time to make a change.

01:09:28,330	I think it would be, you know, fairly complicated to just like we have with the regional high school district of, you know, how do we ensure that there’s a structure in our town, right. Fire related and all the other things that go with it. So it’d be complicated.

01:09:41,730	But just like with the historic district analysis that we just went through, you know, it’s been two decades since that had been reviewed. You know, it’s it’s probably time to to take a look at this.

01:09:54,770	And with the the change in staff, um, just like you were saying, Steve, I, I don’t know what the answer is, but, you know, this does seem like to be a time to try to make a decision and be a little more strategic in our thinking. So I’d support this analysis. So I’m going out to dinner next week.

01:10:09,600	My wife and I, with an old Selectboard person, and the last time I did this, we did this, um, probably like 5 or 6 years ago. And he’s going to say, how come you haven’t consolidated the Hamilton and Wenham fire departments? That’s a that’s exactly what I’m going to get. Let me say let’s go to dinner in six months and you’ll be able to say why you did or did not. Ben, um.

01:10:35,170	I just wanted to echo what Finn said, that I think we should be open to this. And, um, see what the analysis is, because, as you said, from there, a few opportunities for substantial cost savings with things that could be, um, regionalized.

01:10:59,970	So I’m all in favor of, uh, having the analysis done, hopefully with, you know, with, uh, fin com, um, you know, involvement and support because we’ve leaning on you and Ernie, um, quite a bit on, um, how to go about that. But I agree that it’s a good idea to look at it, especially this particular crossroads that we seem to be at.

01:11:21,570	Um, I also just wanted to add, get my apologies in advance that I have a child pick up that I need to attend to in about ten minutes. Oh. We’re gonna. Lose you. Oh. Dear. Um, okay, so I do think I agree with what’s been said already that this, I think, needs to rise to the top.

01:11:42,800	But in the interest of time, Steve, maybe just a brief statement. Of, oh, yeah, we’ll take. The rest of the list. Uh, I don’t know if I can be brief. No. Just so, so well, I mean, with that said, so like we we’re looking at the financial the budget book.

01:12:03,230	I think Ernie is doing a really good job. And he thinks he’s closing it on that probably, you know, by the fall will actually have the clear goal of budget book. Perdue produced or published on our website. So that’s that’s a huge milestone. That’s like 2 or 3 years in the making.

01:12:22,300	Um, with that is we’re rolling out, uh, the capital improvement, um, module. So I know that in this I bring that up because that’s going to tie in with, um, the budget book and the capital improvement module will tie in with, um, the forecasting.

01:12:45,170	So and I believe that the, the forecasting free cash and capital are all, all going to work closely together because I believe the fin com is going to want to see, you know, both if somewhat of a long range and a short range model. So it can work to come up with recommendations for our, um, policy, financial policy.

01:13:06,200	So we have the draft policies and around those policies focus capital spending, uh, free cash reserves, free cash, um, net of appropriation. So all these things that we talk about in budget season every year, how much are we going to spend on capital.

01:13:25,300	And we get comments like, um, you know, we just spend the money because we have it. You know, we don’t have any benchmark. We don’t have any standard, you know, capital spend that we’re trying to target. We have too much free cash. We don’t have enough free cash. Right.

01:13:41,230	So like but this will help us figure out like the forecasting will help us figure out what is the right free cash for when right now we have industry best practices as our draft policies. I think they’re reasonable range. But within that range, you know maybe the range is a little bit on the high side for a small town.

01:13:57,470	Like what? Um, or maybe it’s a little on the low side for a small town, like when I’m right, given our constraints and the fact that our entire capital spend is outside of the operating budget and relying on free cash, right. So all those things are going to tie together.

01:14:19,230	Um, so I think that that’s a priority to do the forecasting, because I think by default, the other two key things in my priority list is get to figure out what we’re going to do with free cash this year, because we’re going to have about $700,000 of, um, tax deferral or a tax deferral that we collected on that on top of our regular free cash generation.

01:14:37,670	So we’re probably going to have, you know, an excess of $2 million in free cash. So we’re going to have to figure out, you know, what do we want to do with that? And I’m not going to go into what we can do with that. But that’s you know, let’s figure that out sooner rather than later.

01:14:54,930	So we’re not having this discussion when the warrant has to go to print in two days. You know what I mean? So, uh, that knocks a bunch of things off the list. The other thing that really isn’t, um, you know, doesn’t really affect the boards and the staffing of the board so much.

01:15:13,970	But is the audit, the audit findings, the audit picked up on the Affordable Housing Trust this year. They had a bunch of findings on that. Um, I think that also highlights, uh, our need for better internal controls, particularly in particular around revenue generating, property managing.

01:15:36,030	So like the iron rail, the affordable housing trust, all this formalizing like when a people handing in checks, who’s handling the checks, you know, where do they go. Make sure we get the checks every month. And I mean these things we’ve kind of just operated on, you know, small town. They send it in. We’ve worked with them for 30 years and they drop it off.

01:15:49,070	You know, it’s it’s you know, I think we had it’s time to kind of grow up and, and put some of these policies and procedures in place. And then, you know, Ernie has the job of enforcing them.

01:16:02,930	So but you know what I mean? So I think it’s, I think that those that that is also a priority. When I look at this list, I see, you know, I see blenders retiring. Um, I see Jen, who are we going to talk about later, who will be stepping up into Belinda’s shoes, which is causing other, uh, transition.

01:16:22,900	We have Ernie, who himself is still new to the department, so I’d see that there’s a lot of change going on there. So, you know, we’re taking that into account. And I look at the other items on the list, things like the fee project. I mean, in a general sense, we’re relatively competitive with our fees.

01:16:38,100	Like to go and expend the effort to do a formal fee analysis. You know, I would say put that on the back burner for a year and maybe look at that next summer. The community comparison analysis. I know some stuff have been done to that, uh, extent. I haven’t been involved in it, so I don’t know where that stands.

01:16:55,230	The costing of the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District master plan, you know, like that stuff. I think, you know, unless and this is something that Bob and I talked about, unless there’s a subcommittee of folks that are willing to take that over without staff support.

01:17:13,170	Um, you know, those are the types of things that I’m looking to, you know, push out to, maybe to, to next summer and not try to align it with a, um, a town meeting date of completion. Can you just, like. Turn this into, like, a quadrant analysis? This is stuff one bucket is, uh, priority. That’s not not a priority.

01:17:38,770	Who’s going to do it? Yep. Or are you and the finance department? Yeah. No, I can do all that. And part of this is, you know, unfortunately, most of it is a priority.

01:17:55,630	But the, um, you know, I just wanted to get this list out there just so folks understand a to communicate what’s going on. Right. Com wants to be kept in the loop. So communicate that to everybody to communicate that capacity is limited. And. All right I’m going to stop you for a second because we’re losing Ben. Did you want to comment on anything before you leave? Ben. I do.

01:18:11,730	Not thank you for the opportunity, and I apologize. I have to unexpectedly depart early. Thank you. See you. Bad luck. I’m leaving. At, uh, 748. Um, yeah. No, I can do that. And, you know, really going through that list. But I also wanted to make sure that I’m not missing anything. Right.

01:18:32,030	So I know I think, um, you know, just for my time with the fin com was, you know, conceptually how, you know, I’m not sure what the fix is to this, but you know, how the process works.

01:18:56,830	So, like the solar, like, sometimes things come to our attention that our, you know, unplanned for in, you know, I’ve just I’ve got a sense that they want a little bit more systematic approach. But in some, some cases, you know, we kind of have to deal with them how they come.

01:19:12,300	But, you know, I wanted to also bring it up to let you know, let folks if there’s ideas on, you know, thing procedures, policies we can put in place, you know, we’d like to hear them. So. So.. Steve, I mean, Bob, some of your comments were pretty interesting as well. I’m sorry. Peter, some of your comments were, uh. Okay.

01:19:34,170	Well, you know, I think one thing is, uh, this general, one of getting departments to let everyone know that something is coming up that has a financial impact or it’s going to have to be analyzed. I’ve noticed on a couple of presentations that people would have benefited had they, uh, come to the finance side, whether it’s Ernie or as us earlier in their deliberations.

01:19:53,830	And I don’t know how you motivate people to do that, but, you know, it’s something that, uh, we could do. Uh, I went through the list in terms of the things I think are important.

01:20:11,230	And I think that where we can help as opposed to things, I think that you’ve listed, like the book and the audit, those internal controls, those probably should be taken care of internally. They’re not something that, you know, unless you’d like us to help you with something in particular. Uh, the ones that struck me in the Sarah and David may have different views, but I thought the fire and ambulance was one that we could approach.

01:20:29,230	Uh, the financial policies. I agree with you that that’s something that should come up as we get more into the long range planning and forecasting. Uh, it’s kind of a, I think a low priority right now. But, I mean, that’s where it fits.

01:20:46,400	I think, our involvement in Iron Rail would be, uh, important, the fee project. But I also agree that that’s a low priority kind of thing at this point, particularly since in the last year we’ve refined our process for how we look at revenue and we break out, particularly the library reimbursement, because when labor reimbursement goes up, all it means is our

01:21:03,730	expenses go up. It doesn’t really help us. Uh uh, I think the forecasting, I think the community comparison is something we can help with because we’ve been doing that with Jeff for the last two years. Uh, we’ve done the DPW, we’ve done the library, we’ve done part of education.

01:21:25,200	So, uh, and I think on the master plan, that’s something that we can help with, you know, in terms of putting some resources because, you know, it is such a large part of our overall budget. So I guess I’d ask Sarah if she’s got any, uh, comments from having looked at the list.

01:21:41,670	Yeah, I would just say I’m glad that to see that, um, the schools was and was added at the end, I think, you know, there was a question of how far we could get in the coming year, but it does seem like this is a, uh, something that

01:21:59,470	we really need to do that keeps coming up. And we know there’s a lot of different pieces that need to be developed and analysis completed so that we can invest in the schools and try to plan that out in the coming years. So that’s something I definitely see.

01:22:18,500	Um, as a, as a priority to get started. But understanding it will take some time. Um, otherwise I don’t have any, um, you know, I think that I agreed with the proposal or request to have Steve write out a few more columns there that will be helpful. I was trying to take some notes, but I couldn’t really tell fully.

01:22:37,570	And I think part of it is that we haven’t done the analysis, so we don’t know where the best place is to even put our time, where there could be, uh, potential savings to the, um, the town.

01:22:54,330	But, uh, it does seem like, as others were saying, I agree that the the ambulance and fire sounds like an area where we could, um, improve on so and we and it is more of a priority, it seems any way that a decision needs to be made. So, yeah, that’s all for me, David, anything you want to add? No. Nothing. Really.

01:23:14,800	Um, outside of kind of what’s already been said, I would say on the health insurance item that has been such a large driver, and these are 2 or 3 year conversations. I think it sounds like at least where just the power of forming the committee, I think, will help our negotiating power with Maya in terms of year over year increases.

01:23:31,730	So just the act of starting to look, I think could help this town. Whether or not we actually get to a finding anytime soon. Um, you know, because I think what we’ve seen in the last two budget cycles I’ve been a part of at least, is you get these insurance numbers very late in the game, and they basically just said

01:23:46,100	you’re stuck with it. And that’s a huge problem. And, you know, really drives you know, we came very close to an override two years ago, if I remember, based on the health insurance numbers moving a lot. So, um, yeah. Cause a lot of problems. But like bigger picture.

01:24:04,300	I think also it’s just really worth thinking about what are the services that we’re providing as a town that we should be providing as a town of 5000 people? Ambulance from the housing trust, things. I don’t know all the details, but just thinking philosophically, we do have limited resources, so it’s important to kind of think about that. And that may be outsourcing.

01:24:24,530	All right. Go to the select board fin. Sure. So you know I appreciate everybody’s input on this. One of the things that I, I really appreciate Steve, is that you put together this list so that we could have this discussion and organize this, this meeting I think is pretty important.

01:24:38,970	Um, you know, I, I hope with, uh, some of the feedback you’ve gotten here, you can help help us by adding those columns, you know, those different factors. And there are certain things that maybe the fin com, you know, has would, would be willing to volunteer themselves with to help, help your team.

01:24:54,900	Um, and some of these that they can’t help with. Right. And knowing that where you can go for for help on these um. You know, I’m not gonna you know, I’ve already mentioned the fire since that’s particularly timely right now.

01:25:12,600	So I’m not going to go into the to the rest of these, but helping, you know, getting your insight on where you would prioritize these, when they might be able to start, um, you know, even if you just call it a straw man, just so that we have a discussion, um, you know, that that’d be very helpful for us to, to move this forward. So. Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you. Gary.

01:25:30,200	I think that, uh, a law that centers around the division of, uh, responsibilities. And I think perhaps we need to be a little more innovative in that, uh, historically, the process was build a budget. Select board says yes. And over at the fin com, and they take the town meetings.

01:25:52,630	Very simplistic approach. Whereas today’s questions and issues are very complex and is not a a one year process for a lot of these things. So that perhaps that, uh, within select board or fin com or in the staff that perhaps we need, uh, whatever you call them, a study group, whatever, to focus on each of

01:26:16,170	these issues because, you know, just taking the fire department, for example, that is really there’s a financial aspect, but there’s also a historical aspect. There’s personalities. This organizational structures as well. Before we even talk about regionalization. So I think, uh, something like that.

01:26:46,570	We need to bring together several partners, perhaps outside of your regular budget process and say, here, take this time and really study this one issue. Likewise, I think there’s something like, you know, the the fee project.

01:27:07,970	Yeah, it takes staff time, but perhaps, uh, you know, that’s one that, um, the Select board could solicit just a temporary committee of 2 or 3 people and just go, hey, your task is to look at our fee structure, compare it to other towns. Do we need to update it or not? And that’s being done in a few meetings.

01:27:23,970	But I think what we need for next step here is for Steve to lay out his priorities for the select board, and then see what areas at the fin com can assist on, such as, you know, the free cash, um, forecasting projects and so forth. But I don’t think that we can go too much farther until we sort of get the side our own priorities. Peter. Come on.

01:27:48,470	Fine. Okay. So I thank you for putting the list together. I think this is helpful to start getting us on the same page and to proceed with the prioritization exercise.

01:28:13,270	I think my concern, and I think there are things that, you know, in terms of timeliness are just going to have to be done this year. This the the hiring transitions is going to need to happen because that’s already in motion. The iron rail, we’ve already set that as a goal. So I think that’s going to be pressing. And as everyone has seems to have agreed, the fire and the ambulance intertwined.

01:28:31,900	But looking at that expeditiously is also going to be very important. But I guess just what I want to make sure that everyone is keeping in front of mind is that we have Steve and we have Ernie.

01:28:52,170	We do have a finance team, but most of the finance team is consumed with making sure that the business, the day to day business gets done. All of the accounting fees, permits, revenue, so forth and so on. Reporting warrants, all of that. In addition, we’re coming into budget season where all the departments and the finance staff are going to be starting to prepare the budget. We start discussions.

01:29:12,900	We have to put a warrant together, and that is typically a very busy time of year. So I just want us all to be cognizant of those competing demands. And as we think through the list, I think, as Gary said, are there things that can, in essence, be outsourced? But with the careful consideration of what can truly be outsourced without

01:29:34,230	necessarily a lot of staff involvement? And I think we need to be clear about that. Be clear about where the fin com could potentially do some analysis, where you’re willing without, again, a lot of staff involvement to make sure that we’re utilizing our staff to the best possible use in

01:29:53,430	getting the things done that are pressing. In addition to keeping the wheels on on a day to day basis, and moving us successfully towards another town meeting. So I think that’s my sort of primary concern.

01:30:13,170	Can I make a suggestion to approach that? Uh, having spent decades in the strategic planning business for lots of people, including government agencies, is that, uh, you kind of, in your thinking, separate the long range planning from the budget processes? You may separate who’s doing it, but I would suggest that maybe we spend the summer and start right after, uh, town meeting, a period where we focus on the

01:30:33,430	longer term issues and get those underway before, as you rightly indicate, you get all the pressures of trying to get the budget done. And so that would be my suggestion. Started early in the committee has a long range plan that we we did use in terms of the recommendations about, uh, using free cash. Uh, last year.

01:30:55,300	Well, this year when we talked about it. So, you know, there are some tools already in process, Ernie is looking at using the planning extension of the existing system that exists. So there are a couple of ways to kind of get into it.

01:31:11,900	But I think the important thing is, you know, you’ve got to commit to it, you’ve got to start it and you’ve got to kind of separate it a little bit from your budget process so that you people can focus on the long term, because otherwise what happens is you never get the long term right and the long term happens. That’s correct.

01:31:33,230	So I think you’re suggesting so that we prepare now to queue it up for immediately following next year’s town meeting. Is that what I’m. Hearing for that? And maybe we can get something started this year? There’s still some left to the summer before we really get into high gear. We do.

01:31:47,870	But you know, you go to the beach and you can take your laptop and work on it. Is that what you do, Bob? Surely that’s why you use a laptop instead of a regular office computer. There you. Go. Mobile.

01:32:07,970	Jim, along those lines, um, you know, there are certain things that I think Steve can say on this list that have to get done, and they have to get done, and they are some of them have long term kind of consequences. So, um, I think that he can help us. He can help guide us with these are the ones that, you know, we could get going and might see some, some real analysis, be ready.

01:32:25,570	But say by October and and be done with them. Um, or maybe not done with them, but at least free ourselves up for the when the real budgets work starts to happen. Um, so I’m, I’m looking for Steve with his experience to be able to help us with that and, and be able to achieve what you described.

01:32:38,900	And he’ll say, yeah, these are the ones that we’ll have to move to, you know, May of next year, um. Or beyond. I mean, I think these are all worthy projects, don’t get me wrong. But we have to balance it against capacity.

01:32:56,500	Where do we start? Where do we move to and what hopefully does not go on indefinitely, but is not the first tier of priority. All right. Further comments. Good discussion. Good discussion. I don’t have anything else to add. Yeah, it was very, very helpful. I appreciate everybody’s feedback. Um, yeah. I don’t have anything else to add unless anybody else does. What are you saying? You’re speechless.

01:33:25,870	I’m saying I’m saying I was I’m saying I was asked to expedite my. I’m not going to go into anything else. Are you ready for us to adjourn then? I think if there’s no more further comments. Anything else? Sarah? Sarah? Sarah, did you have any comments? Sorry I couldn’t get to the unmuting button.

01:33:53,730	No, nothing else for me. Thank you. Okay. I’ll make the motion to adjourn at 803. Okay. Is there a second to the motion, Sarah? Yes, second. Okay. All in favor? Okay. There’s only three of us. Well, that’s true. Uh. For the moment. For the moment. Oh, all in favor of, uh, adjourn? Sarah? Yes, I. David.

01:34:17,670	Bye bye. We stand adjourned at, 804. Great. Thank you very much to the fin com for joining us this evening. And we will, I’m sure, have more of these. Quality time. Yeah. All the time. Okay. That takes care of this.

01:34:47,570	And we did the, uh, just to add the fin com appointing committee is meeting tomorrow evening. I’m guessing. Am I guessing correctly, that we have a candidate in the room? Okay. Thank you for joining us this evening. Did you want to say hello real quick? Oh, yeah. Sure. It’s, uh. I’m Alex Farrell is 37, William Fairfield drive. Dave and I had a neighbor’s barbecue. Two weeks ago.

01:35:15,300	And he. We just got to talking about how interesting this work is. And I’m thinking about participating in it, so I love it here. Tomorrow night, recruiting at a barbecue. Well done. David. Excellent scouting. Thank you for coming this evening. Last last barbecue you’ll go to right.

01:35:38,830	So the fin com appointing committee will be meeting tomorrow to consider. Mr. Varela says application. So thank you for applying and we’ll see you tomorrow. All right. So we are up to item G which is to review the draft policy that Steve has put together to allow signage crediting the Community Preservation Act funding to be placed at project sites, which

01:36:05,570	we discussed at our last meeting. And Steve has put together. We have show and tell as well. Excellent. So for the cameras. All right. So this, I believe, captures our discussion last time, which was to.

01:36:35,100	At least my take was, was to allow for CPC signage or advertising that these, that your CPC funds were used for this project. Uh, both through the granting process and also the town managed product projects, uh, with restrictions to, um, any war memorial, um, such as the two across the street in the cemetery. Obviously we could add more, but that’s that’s what I got from the conversation.

01:37:00,670	Um, and the fact that it was not, uh, permanent. And what they the board wanted a time restriction around it. So I went with, you know, the day the project commenced so that, you know, the the contractor shows up to do the work, the CPC can plug this sign into the ground and, um, it will need to be removed within.

01:37:24,500	I think I went with seven days of the project’s conclusion. Was it 14? Okay, 14 days from the projects? I did speak with the chair of the CPC, and, uh, this wasn’t drafted at the time, but I share with her my thoughts that I was going to include it, and she was supportive. And we seemed like we aligned.

01:37:45,500	Um, and she actually brought this sign so that I could show it to the board. And I figured that the board would probably want to approve this design as being the official CPC sign. So then that way this is it’ll be uniform in nature.

01:38:04,670	Uh, what? What else? Oh, one other thing I included in there that was brought to my attention. Um, during the meeting with the chair, was the. They’re looking for certain projects where they feel. Or is it appropriate to request in the application. So the appropriation at town meeting would be inclusive of.

01:38:27,770	And, you know, I said that probably would make sense that we make sure we spell it out very clearly to the voting. Um, population at the meeting that it is included in a permanent sign. So like, um, the non one village, there’s a permanent plaque that was put there with CPC funds.

01:38:48,970	Um, and it was a, a grant, a separate grant to buy the plaque and put it up there. For my understanding, the way and they’ve gotten feedback and uh, that it really can’t be it can’t be funded with CPC. The signage can’t be funded with CPC funds after the fact.

01:39:10,830	But if they if it’s included in the original request and the appropriation goes to town meeting, then you can include it. So I want the Selectboard to be aware that you know, that those recommendations may be coming out of the CPC in the future.

01:39:32,700	And then this, uh, grant agreement kind of, um, frames that up and that it has to come that, you know, permanent signs have to be it basically was trying to do is make it so that it goes before town meeting so that all the folks that are voting to grant this money know that part of this money is going towards a permanent plaque. And it’s not just the project.

01:39:47,930	So nobody feels like their money is being spent on plaques that, you know, on super expensive. But they, they can be, um, you know, whether weather proof and that type of stuff does get costly. You know, the. way I think about that for for the people whining about how.

01:40:07,500	Much money on plaques, I think for the people that are actually on the CPC. Um, hey, hey, we actually did that. And, um, I think the citizens should understand that, you know. that’s where your money’s. Going. Yeah, I. Don’t know. So I think it’s important. Hopefully this does captured the discussion. Yes. I didn’t have any real issues with it.

01:40:40,430	I guess my only question would be, um, you did talk to the chair, but I think it would be good to send this to the CPC just to see if they have any input before we finalize. And do that. That’s the. Anyone have? What’s that? If that’s the will of the board for sure, we can do that.

01:40:59,600	This thing about the, uh, this reflects our discussion. I think it makes sense. I think it covers all the concerns that we’ve had. And, um, you know, the limited feedback that you got from them about being generally this being acceptable is a good sign. Um, no pun intended.

01:41:18,030	So, uh, I’m looking forward to, uh, you know, hearing what they, what they actually think about this. But as it stands, I’d be willing to vote for this. So live for their feedback before we, you know, enact it. Thank you. Thank you Gary. Good. I think we covered everything from a previous time in this draft.

01:41:33,800	Okay. All right. So if there’s no objections Steve, I think send us, um, to the CPC. Just let them have an opportunity to provide input. I’m guessing I don’t see any hands. There’s no hands on zoom. Oh, okay. We’ll take any feedback, but it sounds like for us at least, we’re all prepared to go with it.

01:41:57,830	All right. Okay. All right. So move to item H, review the initial list of town owned land that is recommended for disposal by the working group. And Steve is going to just give us a brief explanation of the process used to determine the list and what our next steps are. Sorry, I’m teasing.

01:42:23,030	You again. No, no, I know, I know, this will be relatively brief. As brief as you want it. So first, Michelle actually ran this working group. So thank you Michele.

01:42:41,630	In the process was they, uh, initially started with a staff working group that made an initial review of the 23 parcels that we deem our appropriate or have select board authorization to dispose of without town meeting. Um, and ultimately arrived at you. Scroll down a little, please. Um, ten that the group recommended for disposal.

01:43:11,030	Those recommendations were then brought to uh, we tried to to bring in a couple planning board members, but it would just David Anderson was the only one that was able to align his schedule, but he was very helpful. And he, um, agreed with the group’s recommendation for disposal of these ten parcels.

01:43:31,070	Uh, there are, uh, the caveat here is that it’s not quite as straightforward, um, as the other ones and that it may there may be a cost from between 5 and $700, I believe, per parcel for disposal, because these ones are very small or very wet and landlocked in there. You know, the only likely the only person interested in it would be in a butter, which is common in this.

01:43:54,230	But even in some instances where there really isn’t an A butter and you want to go through the map so you won’t go through it to show you now that there may not even be interest from an A butter.

01:44:10,370	So the disposition would either, you know, fail to get any interest at all in which center would have to compensate the auctioneer, uh, which normally works on a commission based on the sale, on the selling price, similar to what was done with the two. We disposed to the brand wines over on Longfellow.

01:44:34,530	Uh, and then so you see here, out of that 22, five of them, um, were flagged for, uh, that there’s possibility that could be advantageous for the town for other uses, whether it be open space, pocket park, um, right away access. So those are going to continue through the working group.

01:44:57,770	Uh, as we kind of narrow down on, you know, proposals of what to do with those and disposal is unlikely going to be, uh, um, a recommendation and then so those, those are the five. And then you see here we have 4 or 5 community, I think it’s five. You scroll down for up five MBTA community.

01:45:18,270	So those are the five parcels that we zoned the three a MBTA, uh, two town meetings ago. So those are, um, I guess, held up in our, um, our MBTA, the three A certification for the state.

01:45:43,170	So will, you know, as we work through that process with the LCC and finalize what we’re going to do with those parcels that will be rolled out in time, uh, and then the lastly, just the the two that I mentioned earlier that were already sold and the, uh, the memo is online for folks at home to look at. Uh, so, like, I know I apologize for the late, um, kind of, uh, circulation of this, but, um, you know, it’s there for you to take a look at.

01:46:04,570	There’s no vote needed tonight. This is really just an overview since it was an objective that the select board asked me to do at last year’s working group, and I wanted to be able to capture it as a done item in this year’s workshop. So that’s why it’s here.

01:46:29,100	So for some of these less desirable parcels, essentially, if there’s no interest, the town has to retain it and there’s no real way to ascertain that without going to auction, actually attempting to dispose of it. Yeah. I mean, well, there’s a couple maybe, I think three here. One is audible, two are Audubon, and one is, um, was there another one was Essex Greenbelt.

01:46:50,070	There’s another nonprofit, I think. Oh, at Salem, Beverley Water board. Uh, so you know, those ones, we could just approach them and be like, hey, would you want to buy it? I’m guessing the answer is probably no.

01:47:06,100	Um, so but it’s like, if you want to give it to us, it would take it. Right? So it might be a situation like that. Uh, the other ones do. Yeah. I wouldn’t give everybody anything. All right, I can’t I don’t disagree.

01:47:26,730	But where is zero monument? Isn’t that right here? Isn’t this right in front of the church zero monument? Or like this? Well, some. Well, sometimes, I mean, I don’t know, we can. Leave this on the disposition list. Which which list do you. It’s the first. It’s on the first page. So you see a lot of them are zero. So it doesn’t mean that it’s at the beginning of the street.

01:47:39,000	I think you’re right though. I think that is right over. So if we if we could scroll down for it to the, uh, maps and go to zero monument. I was just trying to look. Right there. So it’s right there. Ah, okay. So that’s on the 60 side of monument. Okay. Yeah, that’s an odd parcel. Very wet.

01:48:03,600	It’s it’s, uh, it’s like a depression. I mean, what happens over. Here? It’s a good place for a tree house, maybe. Yeah. Or Christmas party town. Christmas party. There you go. Or. So for the moment. This is informational. Yeah.

01:48:28,770	So what we’ll do is, I mean, if the Selectboard, you know, can take a moment and just review over the next couple of weeks and if there’s any, because what I plan on doing once, it’ll be in September because we have the next two meetings mapped out, but it will come back asking to, um, author our, uh, yeah, appoint Belinda as the

01:48:47,370	custodian of these parcels. So then she has the authorization to move to the process. Okay. Just a side question. As Belinda departing at some point, have we ensured that she has written down the process that she undertakes to do this? Because she’s spent a lot of time. Yeah, yeah.

01:49:07,130	So that’s. Yes, I’ll get into that. On the next agenda item. All right. That’s a good segue. Any last comments on this? Okay. So let’s move on to Steve is going to update us on the treasurer collector position.

01:49:34,370	The search process and a request for the board to authorize him to finalize terms of employment with the final candidate. Yep. So we, um, we we post. So as we just mentioned, Belinda is retiring her. The her retirement date is the end of December. And we posted we wanted to have um, some given that Belinda gave us want to take advantage of the fact that Belinda gave us such a large notice of her retirement.

01:50:02,230	So we wanted to coordinate some overlap. So we posted the position and we knew we had a strong internal candidate. And we knew that if that candidate was successful in the process, that, um, it would create another vacancy in the department. So we wanted to get out ahead of it.

01:50:20,900	And we we posted the position, we got how many total applications, Joe. Around ten, ten total applications. Um, three, including Jen Davis, who is the internal candidate? Um, we felt were qualified for the job. Uh, the others did were did not meet the minimum qualifications.

01:50:46,900	Um, we invited those three in for a, uh, interview at the last minute, though. Two of the three withdrew, one took a job in Topsfield. No, um, West Newbury for the same role. It was just happened to be that there’s 3 or 4 almost neighboring communities. A hiring for the very same position right now. Um, and then the other one. They couldn’t they didn’t really respond to.

01:51:07,200	So anyways, so Jan well, we still Jan still went through the interview process. We formed a panel, uh, and the panel was unanimous in their recommendation for her to take the position. I think that’s great. She’s been with the town for three years. She’s been a huge, huge asset.

01:51:25,900	You know, a complete rock star, in my opinion. And, um, and also it it really sets us up in the best practical light for success in the transition. As she can start. Well, she’s already started training immediately.

01:51:49,830	The documentation of processes and um, like this are all, you know, part of the of the training. And you know, it is a community. And, uh, yeah, a um, it’s getting late. The it is a, uh, a town wide initiative through Selectboard is to document, um, procedures, internal procedures, which we have made a good got a good chunk out of that this year.

01:52:10,930	But, uh, continuing on that, uh, adding on to what Belinda has already done, Jen, through the learning process, will be documenting and writing, uh, formal notes and, um, so, yeah, so with this, I’m asking the select board to authorize me to proceed to finalize the terms of employment.

01:52:31,730	Uh, in line with our compensation structure. Um, for Jen Davis.. Makes sense to me. Yeah, I think this is wonderful. I agree, Jen, the rock star, and couldn’t really be better for a transition in succession. I agree. Nope. Nothing else. Thanks. Gary. I was just question. the chairman’s position. We advertise.

01:53:07,030	Yeah, the plan is Ernie, right? We want to have a month overlap. Well, We modeled this out and if we if we were to hire somebody October 1st, but a lower level person, we could probably get this to within about $2,000 of the original budget, which, considering all the turnover, that’s as good as we could get, that would give us a three

01:53:31,900	month transition for the new position. And honestly, I’d be shocked if we actually pulled it off according to that time frame. But not meeting the time frame. It’s a little bit less of a transition, but also a little bit less of a budget thing.

01:53:53,270	So some, you know, ideally sometime early in the fourth calendar quarter of this year. It’s it should be about as smooth as a two person transition. And a four person office can be. Yes. Uh, I moved to authorize the the town administrator to finalize terms of employment for the treasurer’s last collector position. Very seconds. All right, we’ll take a vote. Peter. Yes, Deirdre. Yes.

01:54:23,670	And I there? Yes. All right. Motion passes. Thank you. Steve, and congratulations to Jen. Thank you. Okay. We have one, um, late addition to the agenda that, um, came to my attention over the last 48 hours. So we did add it under an unanticipated items. So I’m going to give Jennifer a chance to comment.

01:54:52,500	Um, but the item is discussion on a request from Jennifer Jokanovic regarding the use of our home for an independent film project. Doctor Jokanovic has requested permission related to the use of her residence as a filming location for a seven day period between August 10th and August 18th. Thanks, Deirdre. Um, good evening. My name is. Jennifer Jokanovic.

01:55:18,130	Um, I know it’s late, so thank you for including me. I live at 36 Topsfield Road in Wenham. My husband and I have lived here for 13 years, along with our three high school and college age children, and my mother. Um, thank you for giving me the time to speak tonight.

01:55:31,500	I’m here because, um, a small film production company applied for a permit to film inside our home during the week of August 10th through 18th, and the town administrator He denied it, saying that he. cannot approve any commercial operation in the residential zone. I’m asking the Selectboard to review. That.

01:55:51,900	Decision and allow this temporary use to move forward, as that was a surprise to us. First, I want to be clear about what we’re asking. It’s not a business operating out of our home. It’s not a reoccurring activity. It’s short, temporary, professionally managed film taking place entirely inside, specifically my living room, my kitchen and one bedroom.

01:56:10,270	Um, the crew is small, the hours are limited, and the impacts are minimal. And one of us is home the entire time it’s being used. Um, they’ve already paid us a $5,000 deposit. Um, and they are fully insured. Second, the Wenham zoning bylaw does not prohibit this activity.

01:56:26,670	The bylaw simply doesn’t list film production as a principal or accessory. Use. And under Massachusetts zoning law and under article 13 of one’s own bylaws, the Select Board has the authority to approve temporary uses that are not explicitly listed as long as the impacts are mitigated, and that’s exactly the situation here.

01:56:44,900	Third, our proposed film sheet fully complies with article nine of the performance standards. There’s no excessive noise, no lighting impacts, no generators, no street closures, and no disruption to neighbors. Parking is contained on our property and we have very long driveway in our home is hidden behind a long fence.

01:57:02,530	The activity is entirely indoors and our abutting neighbors have both written letters of support, which I sent to Deirdre. Um, we’re more than willing to accept reasonable conditions regarding hours or parking or anything like that.

01:57:23,100	Fourth, this request is consistent with how other Massachusetts towns handle filming Hamilton, Topsfield, Essex, Rockport, and Manchester by the sea all allow temporary film shoots through special permits or just administrative approval. Wenham doesn’t currently have a formal process, which is why the administrator defaulted to a denial. However, Wenham is listed on the Massachusetts Film site, and in the last ten years there’s a public record of four films being shot on location in Wenham, which is why the film company sought to shoot here.

01:57:44,030	Finally, this is an opportunity for when I’m not a burden. The production brings economic benefit, it brings positive visibility and it demonstrates that Wenham is willing to work collaboratively with residents on reasonable, temporary requests. We’re not asking for anything that would change the character of our neighborhood or set a problematic precedent.

01:58:01,030	We’re asking for a one time, very low impact, temporary use that fits comfortably within the discretion that the board has. I believe based on what I’ve shared and the fact that this film is less than three weeks away on August 10th and thus will now force us to lose $5,000 that we have received,

01:58:17,570	along with the anticipated income in a year when our local taxes have increased significantly. And we have two children in college, and it may cause the entire production to cancel. I’m asking you to reconsider.

01:58:34,630	We are committed to working with the town, with our neighbors, and with the production company to ensure this is handled professionally, safely and with minimal impact. And my neighbors who abut my property echoed the same points in this.

01:58:52,830	In this presentation, I have been told that you have no authority, but I believe that the decision was made in error and in light of the timing, this puts our family in an incredible financial bind as well as this film. And there was no indication that this would be an issue prior. Thank you for allowing me to present, and I would welcome your feedback as to next steps, as this puts our family in a real bind right now. All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate the presentation.

01:59:15,270	Um, and I think, you know, I feel for you. Don’t get me wrong. I feel for your situation. Our understanding as we have consulted with the building inspector and town council, is that the Select board does not actually have the authority to grant a permit or, uh, change the use.

01:59:38,700	Essentially, that is, in the bylaw. So I’m not going to be the best one to explain the bylaw. But we have a table of uses. And if it is not explicitly allowed in the table of uses, it is not something that we are at liberty to approve.

01:59:58,700	And just let me continue, and you can have a chance to also speak. Um, our building inspector, Inspector, is the agent for the town who is empowered to make these assessments and determinations. We do not have the authority to overrule his decisions. My understanding that in that those cases, the appeal would have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

02:00:24,570	Although I don’t believe they have the statutory ability for use again, for it’s the it’s the the use question. They they can’t uh, and again, it’s, it’s community specific but and when I’m the DBA or nobody has the authority to grant a use variance only dimensional uh relief in the zoning requirement.

02:00:48,330	So like acreage setbacks, things like that. So the, the Zeba could overturn Rich’s decision. So the appeal would go through the Zeba and the argument would need to be that the, uh, movie production is and indeed is indeed an allowed use under the Wenham current zoning. Uh, and so if you know, you convince the Zeba of that, they could overturn Richard’s decision..

02:01:18,000	And when is that meeting? Because it puts. I would think that a lot of citizens would have concern with this. This is something in our private home. We discussed it with our neighbors, like just being good neighbors. Um, to be told there’s no commercial activity.

02:01:42,700	What is that exactly mean when people have consulting things in their homes? I mean, people do a lot in their homes. This was an effort by our family to try and alleviate a burden. This particular year, I, um, we didn’t we didn’t know that it was an issue, especially because films get shot all the time. That’s why someone encouraged me to do this.

02:02:00,870	Even on a Hamilton. One of them, uh, community group a few years ago, there was like, hey, this old house or it was one is coming to town like, it’s it was not done in error.

02:02:16,770	And the timing of the denial, which did take over a week to get back to the film company, and they had received approvals from all these other towns nearby, has really put us in a bind. And the film company is, you know, they’re small, but they are flying in from LA with their and our home is it’s just conversations taking place. It’s not a big action film.

02:02:33,230	It’s just conversations literally being filmed in my living room. So I am really struggling to understand how this even needs to go to the zoning board.

02:02:55,200	Um, when my neighbors are very clear and I have it written that they’re fine with it, and we have a long driveway, it’s tucked back. So you’re using the language of that. We’ve committed a that this is not allowed by a bylaw, but it’s I’m really struggling based on what I shared earlier in terms of what the mitigating circumstances are and in the intent of the law to understand why we would be breaking a

02:03:15,470	bylaw by having a video shoot in our home. Um, in terms of commercial activities, it’s a this is a one time situation, and people often have things in their homes. Um, so I’m just really struggling to understand.

02:03:37,300	And I guess because of the financial burden this has suddenly placed, because we use the money to pay for tuition. So, uh, this month in particular, will we be fine? I’m sure. But like, it’s it’s also the principle of the matter. And it also puts this company into an incredible bind.

02:03:57,830	And you’re encouraging citizens to find creative ways to to stay here and to to foster business in our community. And here’s an incredible opportunity to do that and to have these individuals purchasing things and going to restaurants in our community. And and for this technicality, it just seems rather, um, arbitrary to suddenly clamp down on our particular family. It’s just I’m struggling to understand something. Yes. There’s been in. Hamilton House and pizza. Night. I was.

02:04:27,470	On railroad.. On railroad. Yeah. Railroad lap. You’ve been in there? Yeah. I can’t remember if it’s still up there, but there used to be a picture of Adam Sandler because he shot a movie, I think, in part of a movie in Hamilton.

02:04:46,200	I don’t know what Hamilton’s bylaws are, but in the movies that were filmed here were done at Penguin Hall, which is an educational institution which is exempt from these laws that we’re talking about. I just I personally listening to this. This doesn’t make any sense to me. I agree with her. Jennifer. I mean, that’s that’s fair.

02:05:09,830	I mean, I mean, my the reason for the denial. And, you know, Richard and I talked about this at length is that it is in his determination that it is not an allowable use. It’s pretty clear that if it’s not listed in this chart of uses, then it’s not allowable and it’s not listed.

02:05:28,100	Uh, he made the determination, and I’ve supported him. And, you know, I agree. I, like I’ve said yesterday, I don’t disagree at all. I agree that it is probably benign and not impactful. And your neighbors are important. May I ask a question? Because Rich Rich didn’t actually know the address of the home. He didn’t.

02:05:46,000	But the whole thing is it doesn’t. That’s what I was getting to, is it doesn’t really matter whether this is a movie or something else. It’s applying the rules uniformly regardless, and is if this is something that the town is supportive of, then it should bring it to town meeting and have it changed for the future.

02:06:09,500	And I can say that in the last five years we have not received one. I know you’ve said a number of times that things go on all the time, but we have not received one request for a permit, and we were approached in a formal capacity to provide

02:06:23,430	a permit for this use. And we had to deny it because it’s not an allowable use. I completely I want to work with the town on this, because I think it actually opens the door to a lot of conversation, especially post-Covid, with people and their work environments.

02:06:45,230	But I am asking for the town to have some empathy here in terms of the financial loss for our family, and we really thought we were doing everything right in terms of, um. to allow this within for a temporary use. Um, just for this one, with the understanding that the bylaw has to change, but with the confusion regarding it.

02:07:06,430	And if you read the bylaws and as I stated, it really does not seem clear because the intent of the law is to not, um, you know, change the neighborhood in terms of or to bother your neighbors and, and in no way in hosting the film in my living

02:07:19,970	room is, is that happening? And so I guess I’m asking if this is a needs to be brought up at the town meeting. Is there some temporary use of the Selectboard recognizing the complexity of it and the confusion around it would grant, in light of the time frame of it being less than

02:07:38,300	three weeks, not having time for the zoning. If the film company they are considering even canceling their travel to come here, they’re filming in nearby towns for other locations, but they don’t have a home, which is where the bulk of the dialogue takes place. And so we are living in the home at the same time.

02:07:58,930	Um, it’s so I guess I’m asking for your mercy on this in terms of just in light of the particular financial hit that our family and the surprise of this and not understanding.

02:08:18,170	I hear what you’re saying, it’s just very challenging for us to swallow that we are what we’re about to lose this month in particular this year, as we’ve in terms of how much the taxes have increased since we moved here 13 years ago. So I get I don’t know how this, you know, the laws, I apologize, but I would appreciate your mercy on this particular one. Gary. Good.

02:08:42,630	Is the, uh, request for the permit a prerequisite on behalf of the film company? The film company did say they have to have it. Have it? They’re trying to do it right, too. I’ve had plenty of people say it could just happen, you know, but they want to do it right. They don’t want. Their.

02:09:06,770	What circumstance in the past is a select board approved other events, if any? Um. I mean, it would have to. Be approved. Can approve a completely approved private non-profit activity, but I’m not sure we’ve ever had a case where a commercial activity.

02:09:30,230	I think yes, the the issue is that it’s a commercial activity on a residential property, which is explicitly not allowed by the bylaw in the residential district, which we did not draft. That is was written by people who predate us by a long. Time. Probably. Probably potentially. Yes. It sure. I mean, I think, you know, it is not our wish to cause you hardship.

02:09:54,300	That is certainly not the intent or the desire by any stretch of the imagination. Is available. And within a timeline that would, uh, match the film companies. I don’t, I don’t know, I could certainly find out. I don’t know their availability right now. Yeah, the.

02:10:18,800	Company has told us that if this you know, I’ve asked them if they could just wait until Wednesday, you know, tomorrow, if they could just wait. But they have a lot of people that the logistics and it most likely is they’ll have to. I’ve never done this, so I’m not sure on all the logistics. We signed a contract with them.

02:10:39,170	Um, and so I most likely we will have to give back the money. Um, and so the timing, just because they would either have to find another site, they’ve been trying to see if they could find another home on the short notice. Um, our family was really willing to work with them on it because it came at a really good time for us with this particular month.

02:10:55,530	Yeah. And I think in general, I mean, I didn’t know this was a thing really, that you could have a film made in your house, but, you know, I. Salem lot did most of Ipswich and Hamilton and people.

02:11:10,900	I mean, this I only know because my son had done some acting and someone said, hey, this is a great thing. You should, you know, just so. Yeah, I think it’s it’s pretty cool, honestly. I run. Into the 48 hour notice even to convene the CPA. Yeah, it has to be a posted meeting. So we would have to find out.

02:11:30,300	But the issue that we have is the select board is that it’s not within our authority. And that’s been reiterated by town council for us to overturn the finding by the enforcement agent. Um, and a use to, to basically grant a variance on the bylaws. That’s just that’s not within our span of authority. So that’s the problem that we have.

02:11:51,070	I well, I kind of I understand, I think when I look at the email and one it says no commercial activity in any residence.

02:12:07,100	And two, when when I met with the permit there, I mean, there was no inquiry as to could you tell me more about this property or where it is or anything like that? And, and so it was just a and you said you had never had this issue come to you before.

02:12:21,830	And so a part of me is like, as the resident who was doing this, that would have been helpful to have had the chance, and now the time is up and my family is out. The $5,000 that we already just paid our daughter’s tuition, two daughter’s tuitions with so.

02:12:44,670	Um, and again, I guess maybe even because I’ve sat here listening to the conversation and even some of the conversation about all of the budget issues and the regionalization and sitting in those meetings where we did strategic planning, people are looking for economic opportunity in this town. Here is an opportunity where these 20 wonderful people are coming to live in.

02:13:01,330	I may not live there filming in my house, and they have to eat somewhere and they have to do all this, and this could be great. And I understand you have to get something approved in a town meeting, but in the meantime, if this and I don’t know what happens if someone does this and then they break a bylaw, do they pay a fine? I don’t even know because we’re we we’re

02:13:17,030	very lawful, abiding citizens, so I don’t. But recognizing the 48 hours, I don’t know, I just think that I think it was misinterpreted based on what I was saying. And the intent of the law is to not have any mitigating circumstances and to honor your neighbor.

02:13:36,300	And we really sought to honor our neighbors. And they have written their approval of this. So there’s the intent of the law. And then there is the the bylaw. And so for my family, I’m just asking, recognizing the time and recognizing that apparently I can’t even meet with the zoning appeals. And it did take over a week to get back to them.

02:13:58,130	So I, I think the inspector did not ask for details because of the fact that it’s a residential a commercial use in residential property, which is on the table of use. It’s divided, right? It’s residential and it’s commercial. And so the specifics are not germane. And his view is my take on it.

02:14:20,600	But the bylaw doesn’t list film production as a principal or accessory use. And it also fully complies with article nine. If you’re a general citizen and you read that, I don’t see how you can think that you’ve broken the law.

02:14:43,730	So what I recall is that the table of use correct me if I’m wrong because I’m not looking at it. That activities that are not explicitly allowed are excluded. So that’s my understanding of how the when an bylaw is written. And we did we did ask town council today for their interpretation of this as well. It was consistent.

02:15:02,470	Are you going to try to pull it up? So I do I just want to mention something else too. I mean, I, I agree that that website that you’re referring to, the Massachusetts film website or something, is misleading. We I think as a town, we’re not aware that we were listed.

02:15:22,030	I mean, I do think all towns are listed with their contact people. They do have two movies listed that were not filmed in Wenham because they did research all of them today.

02:15:39,570	So just because they listed it there, I don’t think it’s necessarily true because I did a search on all four movies, two of the movies, and these things are out there on the internet. Um, there are sites that actually list the very specifically where these movies were filmed. Two of them. There was no nothing on the internet that I could find that had anything to do with Wenham. One was like a German TV series that was filmed in Rockport.

02:15:56,830	So I think there are errors in that website which we will reach out to them to correct the two movies that were in fact filmed in Wenham, as Steve mentioned, were filmed at the Academy of Penguin Hall, which is not a private residence.

02:16:16,500	So I think the idea that there’s some case history there is there is not, in fact, a history of movies being filmed at a private residence that we’re aware of. And I also saw on that film website that they do state in the resource section that the process should be started very early, with towns in particular, because it may have to go to town meeting for approval.

02:16:34,930	And I think that’s a recognition that not all bylaws allow for this kind of commercial use. So I just want to point that out. There are issues with that website, and we will attempt to reach out and have the Wenham information corrected.

02:16:53,430	Um, but it does state that to be sure to start the process early in terms of getting a permit. I know. That’s more for the film production company, but I just want to state that that is. There, right? I know that they were working through their list and that they received permits from everyone.

02:17:13,770	And yes, maybe there were I don’t know, I know films, having watched my son go through a couple things, a lot of decisions are made very last minute. Um, but this particular one, they they had gotten the permits from the other neighboring towns. They saw it listed not knowing necessarily. I didn’t realize the other two were.

02:17:32,930	I know there was confusion because even other people I talked to have been who are like in the development world, commercial development, real estate development, were like really surprised that I was this was an issue. And they’re like, hey, um, they said that Adam Sandler just did a film here.

02:17:48,200	And then I thought, well, I think it was in Hamilton, but they’re like, that’s so confusing because people will see this happening and think that it can be done here. So as a normal as the regular citizen thinking, oh, this is a great way to use my home and have someone help.

02:18:07,800	And now I realize you’re going to go back to the bylaw and the very specific bylaw, but you’ve cost my family. That’s costing my family a lot of money this month, and that just seems really an unfair use when you’re trying to encourage people. And yet the tax is keep increasing and we are all trying to do our best.

02:18:25,870	And I, I run an international office, really painful to see this kind of decision made. So in their worst. Yeah. I feel for your situation. And again, we are not trying to penalize you, but we all sitting here have taken an oath to uphold the bylaws and the laws of the state in the town. I understand I’m asking for a temporary use.

02:18:44,470	But that’s that’s not within our authority. That’s the issue. I personally have no problem with what you’re proposing. I think it’s great. I think it’s cool.

02:19:05,770	I mean, does anyone else know? Besides, I would, I would, I would say that, you know, what, what authority we might have, Madam Chair to to ask the planning board to to propose something to be changed in the bylaws. Oh, yes. Yes. So that, you know, you know, whatever is has worked for a neighboring towns, we can, you know, put this in the, in the town meeting and, and, you know, avoid this pain in the future. I would be supportive of that.

02:19:22,070	I agree I don’t want to. Doesn’t help her. but but. We should we should close that. Loop. As my daughter said. Why are you even going. It probably won’t accept it. And I said, well, maybe it’ll change it for someone in the future. Just happen to cost my family. Actually $11,000.

02:19:40,030	So it’s really I work with kids in the slums of Nairobi. This is really just a really just feels so trite. But I understand the law is the law. I just feel like it’s a misuse of the law. And I feel like more research should have been done to actually inquire to the family. Since our homes sit so far back and it’s not bothering anyone.

02:19:56,400	So we don’t believe that you’re bothering anyone or would. Be, but it costs us. It’s costing us $11,000 in total. We have to now give back the 5000, and it’s just a painful thing. So is. There can. we can we try to mobilize this? Eva. Okay, I don’t know how quickly, but.

02:20:18,270	I mean, we consider just an emergency motion. If I emailed them my letter this evening, along with the information recognizing the temporary use, because I actually think I changed the bylaws will help many families, not because of the film, but because of actually how the bylaws written. This is post-Covid. This is we’re in a new era.

02:20:38,070	People work from home. Um, so if I can help families in that regard, I am very happy to have stood here this evening. If they would allow me to email my letter to them this evening to explain the circumstances. If there’s any way that they would do that, I would be very grateful.

02:20:55,070	So there is we. Yes, I believe you can. The question. So the posting requirement, they would have to do this in a public session because that’s how we’re all required to work. They cannot just grant it. Right. So the posting requirement is 48 hours.

02:21:17,030	So we would have to try to mobilize them to put together an agenda and to set a meeting as quickly as possible, but not less than 48 hours. Okay. Because it has to be publicly posted for that long. Again, we are required to follow the law. I understand, so we can. Try to mobilize that and request that that take place.

02:21:37,800	Are they allowed to do that by zoom or it has to be in person. They can do it by zoom. That’s a that’s at the discretion of the committee. And I’ll certainly work with Kate in the morning to see what their availability is. So should I email you what I wrote tonight? You can.

02:21:59,670	, and I’ll ask the production if they’ll wait two more. If there’s any way they would wait two more days. They need. At least. Two days. Yeah. I mean, depends on if they can get a quorum.

02:22:13,330	This would be the best they could do is 48 hours from the day they decide. So say it takes them to 11:00 noon time tomorrow to figure out what their availability is. They’d have to meet in the afternoon on Friday would be the best they could do. So we have to get to them.

02:22:28,470	They have to agree to a time 48 hours from the point that they agree, so that, well, from the point that we can post the agenda. , if you’re willing to accept that, that would be very helpful. Or maybe I’m hopeful, but. Yeah, I’ll. Do it. Thank you very much. And thank you for the extended time. I know it’s late.

02:22:48,030	That’s not a problem. Again, Jennifer, this is you know, this is by no means personal. Unfortunately, this is our role. And we didn’t realize. So our apologies for that. It seemed very innocent. Um, so.

02:23:08,100	Yes, I know we don’t fault you, and I appreciate the film company trying to do things the right way. I think we do need to try to reach out to that website, because I do agree it’s misleading and there are errors, um, so that people aren’t misled.

02:23:26,000	And I agree with fin, that trying to actually do this officially in the bylaw, as you said, the world has changed. Our bylaws have not changed as fast. And it sounds like, you know, in this particular area, we need to do some updating so that we don’t have this kind of situation going forward for you or for anyone else. Okay. Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming this evening. All right, Steve.

02:23:46,800	So we’ll leave that follow up to you. Um, okay. So the last thing this evening is just to go over some dates. So sorry. Do the Dexter Lane agenda item already. I might have missed it. Sorry. The Dexter lane. Oh, the Dexter lane. Sorry. Um, Dexter Lane was. Was withdrawn. Thank you. That’s the word.

02:24:15,130	Apologies. Yes. Item J was withdrawn by the Affordable Housing Trust. Okay, so just on dates. So Steve and I have been looking at dates and what we’re thinking for August is to have our meeting on August 11th, which would be the second Tuesday.

02:24:38,200	And that meeting would largely be devoted to the presentation of the working group results on the Iron Rail project for the Select board to have sort of initial reaction and feedback. We would try to minimize other business, um, and mostly devote the meeting to that.

02:25:04,800	Likewise, on August 25th, we’re proposing, excuse me, to have our goals and objectives meeting and that would that meeting would be exclusively goals and objectives. So we would not have other business or public comment reports and so forth that would be dedicated to, um, goals and objectives.

02:25:22,530	And then we would return to our usual cycle so that we would know there would, it would be the next week to go back to the first and third Tuesday. So regular meetings would resume September 1st and 15th with, uh, bringing the issue of the speed limits, reviewing how the speed limits have worked over the past year with the police chief would be one of the agenda items for September. Can I tell you something about that? Yes.

02:25:44,270	Yesterday I’m over by, like Harry Barfield near where Harry Ball Field is. Harry both know. What is that? Um. Pingree. What is, uh. It’s the exit. Um, on 128 that takes you into into. 22 North. Yeah. 22. Yeah. I don’t know the name of the field, but.

02:26:06,470	So I was going from 22, coming from the Y. And, you know, I get on to, um, I start driving 25 miles an hour. I see there’s a person like it’s a VW right up against the back of my car. And I’m like, I don’t know.

02:26:29,670	So I pull into the liquor store and WW pulls into the liquor store. And this I don’t know how old she was, like 30, 30 year old woman. Just starts swearing at me like I.

02:26:53,670	you know, I couldn’t believe it because, you know, why were you driving 25, 26, seven miles an hour? And I said, well, you know, I’m kind of I’m a slut person on the board. I can’t be driving around, like violating the speed limits. And she goes, whoever elected you to this. Election, oh my God. And and then she I just started laughing at her and walked away. Nice. Thanks. I had a bad someone had a bad day.

02:27:14,500	Woohoo! So we will we will discuss speed limits. Uh, and it will be open for public comment. Um, but that is, that is the current plan. Does that schedule. So that’s the that’s the 11th and the 25th. Is that correct for August? And then back to the first and third Tuesdays. A month for me.

02:27:37,970	That’s okay. But you can do it on just on zoom okay. It’s not too fast. Just it’s just at 25 miles an hour. You know, with the puns. I think we’re ready. That’s all I have. So I moved to adjourn the. I just. Wait. Hold on.

02:28:04,500	Um, let’s maybe want to go in the record or not, but, uh, Ben just texted. He must have been watching from home. The the CBA for this notice would be a 14 day minimum.. 14 day? Yeah. Oh. Posting requirement. Wow. It has to be. It has to. There’s a advertising publication, so it’s got to go in the newspaper.

02:28:27,200	So it actually has to be in the newspaper for 14 days. That means it would probably take us. Best case would be 14 plus three because the Hamilton one of news runs on it Friday or Saturday. You. Yikes. Not good. Not good. Um, so try again. Try again.

02:28:59,670	I motion that we adjourned the July 21st Select Board meeting at 858, and we will meet again on on August 11th. Jerry seconds. All in favor? Gary? Yes, Ben? I Deirdre. , I. Yes, Peter. All right. Thank you and good