00:00:53,000	So. This is being recorded? Yes. All right. I’ll take my hat off. And broadcast. All right. Good evening and welcome to the town of Wenham select board meeting. It is August 25th, 2026. We are beginning at 6:31 p.m. this evening.

00:01:16,000	We have a workshop as the only agenda item for the evening. We’ll do a call to order. Everyone would identify themselves as present. Gary Cheesman, Peter Clay, Ben Timon. And Deirdre Pierotti. And we believe Fenn will be joining us momentarily via zoom. All right, so. I’ll just shoot him a text while we’re. what’s in it? I’ll just come shooting him a text. We’re getting situated. Got it.

00:01:42,100	So this evening we will be discussing and reviewing the select Board FY 26 Goals and objectives. Looking at the status updates and progress. And we will identify and prioritize the goals and objectives for FY 27.

00:02:04,600	And I want to thank Steve for all the work in putting together both the report on last year’s and the projection for this year, as well as all the incredible work that has been done by the staff as a whole. It’s quite an impressive list. Um, a lot of very complex projects, and I think people will see in a moment.

00:02:21,970	And I think I know I’m very proud of the work that’s been done. So thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. I’m you know, I’m proud of of everybody. To everyone, you know, works really hard every year. And this this year has been no different. So if you want to pull up why don’t we start with the, the, uh, staff initiatives.

00:02:44,100	And this this year. Right. There’s a lot of information here on these sheets. So I don’t plan unless you want me to. I’m not going through each one individually. In the interest of time.

00:03:03,330	But as, uh, you know, as, as an overview, this is something that we tried for the first time this year, and it’s, you know, kind of what the Redeem Staff initiated accomplishment. So what this is meant for is, um, you know, things always pop up mid-year that you can’t plan for.

00:03:24,700	And also staff take on initiatives and kind of assign themselves goals and things internally that they’re working on from year to year. And some of them you see here are still in progress in their multi-year projects.

00:03:42,400	But, you know, we’ve been working on a tool that will report, um, the Select board’s goals and objectives and how to measure kind of our performance and how we do in those areas each year. This is just something that, uh, you know, through our internal performance review process, I asked all the staff that are willing to participate is to help draft some narratives from their own respective um departments and to highlight some of the, you know, the projects they were kind of pulled in for and pulled into

00:04:05,430	that were on planned and some initiatives that they’ve placed on themselves, their goals and things that they’re working on. So that’s that’s what this is here.

00:04:23,330	Um, if you can just scroll down to the bottom, I just so I just got the finance, um, Ernie’s at the, uh, I was able to integrate this at the end of the day. So you didn’t see these, but it was really highlights, you know, I guess the integral piece that finance plays in the operations here, and we do have Ernie is new here with the town of Wenham. He’s already in his first six months completed. Uh, you know, an astounding amount of training that’s listed here.

00:04:44,200	Uh, he’s doing a bang up job. We already have some, you know, as you’re aware of some turnover, uh, some major turnover in finance so that, you know, working to put in a plan for, you know, business continuation on that. So all in all, you know, things are going well and folks are working hard.

00:05:04,570	All right. I guess we can jump to the. So before you leave that. Yeah, I think. Just pause for a moment for everyone to internalize it. But I found this spreadsheet, which as you said, is an addition to this year’s process, extremely helpful and illuminating.

00:05:22,730	The things that may not be obvious even to us, that are going on in the various departments. So I, I would love to see this continue year to year.

00:05:40,270	And I think for the public, this is tremendously helpful because I think it’s not always clear what certain positions certain departments are necessarily doing at any point in time. And there’s sometimes curiosity. And I think this goes a long way to helping with that, providing some more transparency as well as just illuminating all of the things that are being accomplished here. Yeah, I agree, thank you. And further on that point, ultimately, the plan is to integrate.

00:06:02,230	I doubt it will continue to look like this, but something similar to this into each department’s, um, so when when the budget document that we’ve been talking about for a couple of years now finally gets published, the whole idea of it’s called a GFOA budget in the whole idea of that, it’s it’s a government finance

00:06:23,000	officer’s association. So, you know, the move to governmental budgeting has been, you know, less about the dollars and cents and more about communicating, um, the services that you get from for your money so that anybody should be able to pick up the document.

00:06:44,530	And, you know, it has all the accounting type stuff and the heavy, um, numbers, if that’s, you know, if that’s what you’re looking for, but also has some narratives in there so that anybody can pick up and walk away with, you know, have a decent understanding of like, okay, this is what, you know, I spend this much money on the DPW and this is what I got for

00:07:01,730	that much money this year. Um, so this is kind of a start to try to get people thinking like that. Um, you know, as Geoff used to say, sing for your supper. So, I mean, I always like that.

00:07:16,930	I never heard it before, but I’ve used it a lot since, and. Yeah. Um, but anyways to, you know, to be able to because it’s sometimes it’s hard to articulate what you do in a day or a week or a year, you know what I mean? It’s like I do my job.

00:07:31,900	And so but this is, you know, a try in here. Hopefully we can we can continue to build this out and it’ll remain, uh, as part of this process every year. Any comments on it before we move on? Great. Great addition. Moving to the 21st century. Yes. All right. We can jump into the select board. Now, can you open up all like the hit that one.

00:08:10,900	Maybe it’s two. There we. Go. All right, so, um. Yeah, 26 was a good year. And I think we had. Yeah 43 goals that we came out of the select board goal setting um meeting last year with. Yeah we didn’t really prioritize them.

00:08:35,470	But the general consensus was that, you know, we’re going to work hard and make progress as much as we can. And we did just that. We’re able to close a good number of them.

00:08:53,230	We have made significant progress and all, but probably 4 or 5, uh, which I can I can outline, um, the ones we didn’t make any progress, but, you know, some of the key categories are, uh, you know, this one up the top here is, um, um. I must have forgot it at my desk. That’s all right. So in a sense, the the first one, I had to let them down all the exact, um, progress that each department made.

00:09:21,470	And in producing the policy. Well, the operational procedures for each department. So, um, you know, the town clerk is done. Diane was on it, and she’s, you know, written out all all the policies, all her procedures in the office. Um, I would say assessing in DPW, probably about 50, 50%. Their the police department is an accredited department.

00:09:46,400	So this is a they go through this process every three years. They just got accredited this past year. So they are up um, the uh library has uh, procedures are in place. Finance is probably the 25, 50% there. We’ve started, especially with all the cross training going on.

00:10:09,070	We’re using that as an opportunity to to get a three ring binder going and writing, writing down. Uh, so all that to say, we’ve made significant progress. I would say the biggest one now that we’re trying to dedicate some resources to is, is the fire department and getting that built out, um, as far as putting policies and processes

00:10:28,000	in place. But overall, you know, we made we made great progress with the master plan implementation. So, you know, you think about it. And if you look up here, they’re kind of the categories are kind of called out in different things.

00:10:48,330	But you know if you look at like the the iron rail, uh, progress process that we’ve been going through, like that’s kind of turned into a, um, a master plan implementation exercise. We looked at it through the the workshop that Kate put together. So we’re looking at, um, you know, more diverse housing stock, middle income, um, in middle income.

00:11:11,300	There also commercial development for as far as economic development, which is also a master plan initiative to build out our tax tax base. We’ve, uh, we’ve secured funding and gone through the RFP and selected a vendor for the economic development study, which the master plan, um, directive was that we have done.

00:11:35,400	And also a downtown revitalization study, which is master plan directive. So we’ve secured that. We’re actually going to combine those two projects into one with one, uh, one vendor. We felt that to be more advantageous because, um, you know, the way we see it is they really go hand in hand.

00:11:57,670	Um, so, you know, you want to revitalize the downtown, but also want to take the, uh, the opportunity to try to build in some smart economic development. And, you know, that ties also to and they will be these consultants will be working closely with the finance committee, and they are forecast which part of the forecast, any forecasting models your revenues.

00:12:19,730	So you know that could be a potential revenue stream that we build into the forecast model. That can be articulated into the economic development study. And also working with the HDC as we’re going through and putting together a historic guidelines.

00:12:39,870	Um, you know, hopefully that they get in and the plan is to bring them in with the HTC and talk about, you know, different types of development that could go downtown that, you know, they’re comfortable with, right. Because that’s that’s a pretty big hurdle for any building that gets done within the historic district. So, you know, we’re really doing a lot with the master plan, uh, implementation.

00:13:02,400	We have the route one, a traffic safety project that is looks like, you know, we’re we’re good to go. I mean, I gave the update a couple of meetings ago that, you know, where everything the the, um, everything’s been filed at the registry, the temporary easements are in place. All the takings that had to take place are done.

00:13:20,930	Um, you know, the town, the town is basically, uh, done. What? It what is required to do and is now the state is expecting to put out the bid package at sometime this fall. Uh, so I think this is about as close as we’ve ever gotten to this project actually happening. That’s been a long time. A long time coming.

00:13:42,470	Uh, so, yeah, a lot I mean, a lot of little projects, but I mean, everyone you can see here, I am happy to go through each one.

00:13:57,830	But I tried to put in pretty comprehensive updates and notes for the board to go through, uh, on your own time and read through and get an idea of, of of, um, of the forward momentum that we had and anything that wasn’t completed in this is carried forward to next year. I’m going to continue continue moving forward.

00:14:19,200	So I just want to emphasize one of your points, which is about the master plan, because you you did have it as its own thing, which is great, but I think very many of the goals that are articulated do tie very directly to goals and objectives in the master plan. And I think in the next sort of iteration of this, it would be helpful to add even a column.

00:14:38,570	Just to cite chapter three objective for. Do you know what I mean? So that it’s absolutely crystal clear that it does connect back to the master plan, because most even the historic district guidelines, separate from the economic development.

00:15:00,870	That in itself, we had a chapter on historic preservation, you know, that is directly related to the master plan, too. So a lot of this, a lot of these goals and objectives are.. Yeah, I like that. I like that idea.

00:15:16,930	And it also shows that, you know, even though I don’t think the Iron rail project, I’m just using this as one example, ever started off as being like a master plan, but it shows that we’re using the master plan as a lens, you know, to look at these projects and, you know, follow it basically like where we have an opportunity to to direct some development, where using the master plan to figure out what kind.

00:15:33,370	Even the demolition delay bylaw that’s being proposed, that was in the master plan. That’s also being and that could go up here too. Yep. That’s being worked on by the staff as well as the HTC. Yeah, I would just echo that.

00:15:54,430	I mean, it’s been said, but it’s been such a sea change in how the town of Wenham does things. And like the past 5 or 6 years from essentially, you know, kind of triage and putting out fires, uh, to something now that’s much more proactive. And when we see the detailed, you know, action items, they’re anchored to something.

00:16:14,700	Often the master plan, um, they’re part of a cohesive whole for the most part. And there’s so many connections between those things, which is a real success story for the town. Um, and I think your suggestion dear, to just, you know, makes would make that even clearer, showing, you know, how these things kind of fit together. Thank you.

00:16:36,370	I’m happy to help with that. Just so. All right. With that, I don’t know if anybody has any questions on the goals updates or if you want any. I guess I could run through the ones just so you’re aware that we didn’t, uh, there was. No, no. Um, no progress made. Steve. Yeah. Um, I.

00:16:59,930	Mean, I went through this for like, an hour or so. Okay. My question is, why don’t we just look at the 2027? Because the ones, the ones that you’re going to talk about now, Darren, the 2027 objective. No, that’s that’s fair. That’s a fair point. Yeah. Why don’t we just do that.

00:17:22,800	You know guys. All right with that. Unless anybody has questions on any of. These. Excuse me I have one. When you go to 2027. All right. Let’s do. It. Quick question. So for the public, is this document going to be sort of firmly stayed on the town website. Or it can be.

00:17:43,100	An agenda. It’s going to get buried in history pretty quick. If the board is comfortable with its content. I think it should be on the website, especially with your little comment. Yeah. Finalize it. The plan. Okay, so my question on 2027 goals and action items.

00:18:09,500	Why is town owned property showing up again? I thought we got rid of that. Well. It’s an ongoing. So what I did there was because it was getting so it was so many years involved that, you know, because with the action items.

00:18:29,070	So what I did was I kind of I closed it off and created a new goal. And, uh, it was disposed of. So now we have to dispose of those properties. We, we identified we took a well, we started with the whole town inventory. We said which of these parcels does the Select board have authority to dispose of. And so we filtered out based on that.

00:18:53,530	And then we took that list and we said which of these do we want to keep for you know, further discussion for potential development opportunities or future town use.

00:19:14,400	Or in which ones do we want to dispose of? Because the town has not that it really changes your liability insurance cost much, but there is some liability there of, you know, taking the trees down and, you know, just a abutter relations and stuff, like where it’s a town owned property and kids are partying in there or whatever. It’s like, you get the call like, what’s the town doing? We need a fence. You need this.

00:19:30,400	So it’s, you know, it’s it’s if these are just small little slivers, landlocked parcels that have no future use. And that was the process we went through. And a working group was to identify the list of parcels that are basically should just be disposed of. And in what way? Like, well, town and auction.

00:19:50,770	So would auction it off. Um, some of these. High a little sliver of wetland. Well and that’s I mean, that’s a fair point. So actually the Aabutters. Yeah, potentially the Aabutters. Right.

00:20:07,000	So that’s basically the takeaway is basically there’s no value really in any of these parcels except to the in abutter. Right. And in some cases we don’t even think there’s any value to the abutter. So at the end of the day we do want to clean up our inventory. At least that was the initial initial objective was to identify what we can get rid of and get rid of them. Um, that we can net.

00:20:24,100	You know, we’re not looking to you know, it’s really not a moneymaking proposition. It’s like, but there’s a cost in the auction with the auctioneers fees and legal fees to do what you got to do, say that’s 1000 or $1200 per parcel.

00:20:44,230	Can we at least net a, you know, net zero from some making, some selling for five grand, some losing 1200 or whatever. Do you know what I mean? And you end up with the net zero.

00:20:57,200	So that’s kind of the goal for this year is to try to figure out a way, if possible, to dispose of all of those, right? Because in some cases they have no value. But if they but it is like, well, if you want to give it to me for a buck, I’ll take it, you know what I mean? So maybe we do something like that. But again.

00:21:06,530	So hopefully by the end of the next year when we’re talking next summer, those 11 parcels or whatever will have been disposed of. Okay. But I guess the action items are the ones that are already done. Right. I think that’s what Peter’s. Yeah. So maybe I misunderstood. So scroll down. Scroll down first. Right. The three. No right there. Is the inventory was done right. Oh yeah.

00:21:37,270	Plan was brought forward. The working. Yeah. So that should be so. Yeah that’s a good catch Peter. That’s a typo. That should. Should be the next phase of. Yeah that should be that should be the next phase. And that was something I missed. So that’s why I was. Sort of confused.

00:21:50,830	Yeah. Well that makes total sense because that doesn’t say anything that I just said. That’s right. Stuff happened. The inventory is done. Yeah. So that is done. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. That’s done. And some of which we’ve already gotten rid of. Yeah.

00:22:10,070	Somehow I carried I don’t know what happened there, but it just kind of cross eyes. Yeah. So I just need I’m gonna remove that and insert what I just said. What you just said. Yeah. I found the one point where I could really just kind of stick my finger. Good, good. But, I mean, I thought everything else for so.

00:22:29,970	I guess the question is, from my standpoint, is a lot of this finance stuff get these programs up and running the software. Um, and then because I think that’s gonna make everything easier for anyone related to finance. And it’s also going to make it very easy and transparent for the rest of the residents to see what’s going.

00:22:57,230	On, I agree. Yeah, that is absolutely a priority. And, um. So why don’t we how do we want to do this? We want to just take it from the top and I’ll kind of just walk through. I think so, yeah. All right. So this is the, um, the job guides, the, uh, the procedures that I alluded to.

00:23:23,870	So this is ongoing. Yeah. I’m anticipating this probably will be ongoing forever. Right. Because as soon as you’re done or think you’re done, something changes. You need to update them. So this is probably going to be a standing goal going forward.

00:23:39,530	But you know we’re like I said, we’ve got a pretty good bite out of the apple. Uh, I would say overall we’re probably 70% done. You know, um, you know, obviously fire is a big one, but, um, number of the departments are, uh, some made some really good progress anyway. So that that will be continued into 27.

00:24:03,330	Last year we did the movie moving down to the Verizon five year licensing. So this is similar to last year. We did the Comcast, the ten year Comcast license. This is the exact same thing, but with Verizon. So we will start that process this fall and work through that.

00:24:21,930	It probably will have our attorney similar to last year. We’ll attend a select board meeting because ultimately the select board will have to sign the contract library. Moving to library negotiations. So we did reach a tentative agreement with the library after our third, um, session of arbitration. Uh, mediation. Excuse me.

00:24:50,670	So that will we’re waiting for the union to ratify. That’s very recent news. We’re waiting for the union to ratify that. They have not ratified the agreement. Once they do, the it will be brought back to the Select Board. Are they likely to ratify it? I think highly like the, uh. Okay. And then we will align the funding.

00:25:12,670	Um, for the April 27th town meeting. Moving down the historic district guide. So recap from last year, we again, we secured funding, tried a couple different avenues. Ultimately we had to get it through the Capital Corporation at town meeting. Uh, we selected the vendor, went through the procurement process that has started.

00:25:37,730	They’ve been meeting with uh, staff and various boards and committee members, and they continue through that process throughout this year. Um, with the anticipation of it being wrapped up by the end of the year, budget software transition line 14. This is ongoing. Uh, this one made Ernie a little nervous, but I said, don’t worry.

00:26:00,870	I’m like, this is really just there so that we continue to keep our eyes open and understand what software is out there and what’s suitable for one of them, so that when and if we get the word from Rittenhouse off. Right. I mean, it doesn’t have bells and whistles that soft writes.

00:26:15,270	The accounting software we use, it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it does just fine for our purposes, in my opinion. And but when that when the day comes that they’re no longer supporting that which they, they support it, they don’t build anything out of it. They don’t.

00:26:34,030	There’s no more add ons and you can’t add additional modules or change service levels, but they will continue to keep you going. But when that day comes that, you know, we have to start looking, that at least we have some like, I just want you to have some familiarity with the landscape. And over the course of the year, I have a couple conversations with vendors.

00:26:47,400	You get a couple demos, see what soft rights doing with that new stuff. You know what I mean? Just be aware and understand what’s out there. So we’re not starting from scratch so that that eased his mind a little. He thought we were doing a we were migrating accounting software this year amongst everything else. So.

00:27:05,930	Um, all right. Financial policies. So this, um, just make sure you read the right three one. Yeah. So this one kind of this one ties into the meeting that we had with the fin com. So this one is not it’s a priority, but it’s not a top priority for this year.

00:27:28,870	I mean let’s face it, they’ve been draft form with the fin com reviewing for now two years. So I don’t think another year is going to kill us. So the really the priority for this year is just scroll down a little.

00:27:50,700	Um, you know, even the permitting and fees, I should have put all the finance and budgeting together, uh, even the permitting and fees is it’s likely to get done this year. Um, just because we’ve kind of Ernie is kind of already started it, but the priority really lies in, um, the, uh, the, the forecast. So we’re getting get in the budget document published is, you know, is is right up there.

00:28:12,070	And then the forecast and because the forecast will do a couple things that will it will identify, uh, as part of the budget publication. It’s it’s a more comprehensive capital process. We’re going to go with go through because it has to be done for the forecast.

00:28:33,430	The forecast also is going to need, uh, free cash estimates. And a big part of our free cash use is going to be capital needs. So that’s so really those two pieces are really going to help with, um, with, with the, with the free cash and the capital in the budget.

00:28:53,670	And then because those are going to tie directly into the financial policies. So it’s going to be like how much of a reserve do you need for the town of Wenham? How much free cash regeneration do you need? How much do you left after appropriation? Do you need you know, what is our annual capital spend? Like what do we want to target for

00:29:09,730	stabilization, zombie stabilization? All that type of stuff is what’s in the financial policies. I feel like once we do the forecasting exercise, which encompasses a bunch of the financial goals that we talked about a couple of times ago, we’ll, um, we’ll put us into basically, we’ll have already established those.

00:29:28,400	Now you’ve just got to put it into writing. Do you know what I mean? So that’s why the policies is going to kind of it’ll probably continue into progress into, into FY 28. We are going to be starting. It’s a priority, but we are not trying to align with anything this year.

00:29:47,000	But we are going to be starting the health insurance analysis, um, getting that clock going. So we have some legal letters that we have to send to employees and union members and, and retirees to let them know that we’re starting this process. That kind of gets a clock ticking as the initial notification.

00:30:05,330	So we are going to get that out in the coming months. Um, Ernie is Ernie and Finance are leading. That’s the other thing. So you’d ask me to, you know, to let you know who’s going to be. We have so many finance things going on, who’s going to be leading it.

00:30:19,000	So Ernie and Finance are going to do the health and insurance. They’re going to do the, um, the permitting and fees study. They’re going to do the financial model modeling.

00:30:44,670	I am going to take the, uh, fire, uh, operations review and financial analysis, uh, with Wenham, I’m assuming with Hamilton or any other change in, you know, staffing structure we have over there and what the cost of implementing, um, cost and currencies are. And then also, I’ll be doing the ambulance, um, and it’s financial analysis. So I’ll take that off finance’s plate. Um. Yeah. So this one is um. Is it. This one is I’m just making sure I get it confused with another one.

00:31:26,370	And so this one is where, um, we’ll be putting in uh, it’s I think it has to do with the budget. This is the budget document and the integration of the narratives that I was talking about.

00:31:46,630	Um, there’s also another and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t confusing with there’s another, uh, goal up here that is the, um, the, um, performance metrics and comparing ourselves to other communities. So the community comparison, that’s further down the list. I’ll talk about that when we get there.

00:32:05,870	So the, uh, that, you know, that that’s going to be I mean, it’s a group effort that will be pretty much everybody is going to be involved in that. Um, so then we have the Affordable Housing Trust. So we did get audited this year. We do have a management letter. So we have some cleanup to do. That’s, that’s will be that’s sent to the finance committee.

00:32:24,730	And they’ll come back with their per policy, their report to the Select board on, you know what what it’s all about and what the plan is to satisfy it.

00:32:44,800	But, um, you know, Ernie really did a lot of work and cleaning stuff up, and, uh, he has the, you know, he has the auditors satisfied with the way things are right now. Um, so he’s been, you know, he worked really closely with the auditors in the Affordable Housing Trust, but there is still certainly some work to be done, especially the interplay between the LLC and the town.

00:33:09,400	So the LLC is, you know, this, like, quasi town or not, part of the town when it benefits us. We are part of the town when it benefits us type of thing, and who’s money when the LLC earns money? Is it they all seize money to pay taxes at the towns? You know what I mean? So it’s how much do we keep in the

00:33:22,470	LLC accounts? There’s a lot of policies that he’s working on. Uh, Ernie, to, you know, to basically to figure out all that stuff out. And he’s kind of come up with like a homegrown accounting through Excel, like, accounting software type thing because it’s not quite big enough for QuickBooks.

00:33:42,070	But he said, if we keep acquiring properties, we might get QuickBooks. So something to think about for the future, what direction we want to go with the affordable housing. All right. Scroll down. As we mentioned before, um, we have, um, a lot of a lot of turnover. So I mean, it’s no secret Jen was selected as the best candidate for the treasurer collector job.

00:34:11,400	And Belinda is our long term treasurer collector. And she’s leaving. She’s been doing that job for 30 plus years. So certainly a, you know, lifetime of of knowledge in that role, uh, will be leaving.

00:34:29,100	But, you know, we have no doubt that Jen, um, is up for the task and she’s already, you know, been cross training with that, but with that’s going to create a vacancy in Jen’s position, which has been, you know, will be a huge loss in and of itself. You know, even though we’re not losing her. And, um, so we’re hiring for that right now. We had 30 the 32, 32 applications for that role.

00:34:47,430	It’s like the world has totally shifted. Like if you 12 months ago we were hiring like you would have to call people and ask them if they wanted to hand in their application, literally to get one. And now it’s it’s wild. The difference is just insane.

00:35:06,370	We’ve hired three, three positions over the last two months and, um. what’s changed? Uh. The job market. Sheila. Yeah. No, I do a wiser change. Clearly, if people are, I mean, out of work because you don’t really hear. Sectors that have had a lot of layoffs.

00:35:27,730	because the reduction in force, lack of lots of funding has been cut by the federal government. That has ripple effects and jobs. Certainly higher ed, which is my field, is struggling. Lots of job loss and layoffs and. A very, very different environment than it was even six months ago. Um, oh, okay.

00:35:52,900	So that yeah, so we’re working on this succession planning for that. Right. We’ve got a couple big roles to fill with the the plan is in place now. We’re just working through it seem to be you know, we’ll have a lot of overlap with Belinda and Jen. And we’re planning for about a two month overlap with whoever the, um, successful candidate is. And Jen.

00:36:11,130	So they’ll be an extra person in there and make sure everything goes smoothly. And the bills keep getting paid and staff keeps getting their paycheck. All right, all right. So this is what we talked before. This kind of everything ties into this long range, short range financial model 65 and 67 is the same.

00:36:36,000	Like I talked about free cash project needs, targets, capital spending. All that is very closely. Um, uh, intertwined with each other. All those all those are numbers are information we’re going to need to build the long and short term financial model. So it’s all work we’re going to be doing anyways.

00:36:56,270	It’s a lot of work, but it’s also something that needs to be done and that will make the you know, what, I’m expecting to be a goal next year in 28. Finalizing the financial policies relatively easy because a lot of the heavy lifting will already have been done. Uh, community comparison. And so 69 and 71, the community comparison.

00:37:20,870	Juarez, the master plan, long term financial plan, impact analysis. We’re, um, Ernie and I are suggesting we’re going to if the income, you know, wishes to take these on themselves without staff support. We think that this is appropriate.

00:37:41,130	Uh, they’ve already done some work on their own last year on the community comparisons with fin and, um, Bob paddock. So they have already started a little bit. I don’t know how far they’ve gotten, but, you know, I feel like as far as, like our restraints and manpower, you know, I think these two are, at least in my mind, are our lowest priority for right now.

00:38:03,000	There’s a lot of other things going on and that if they see, you know, a value and getting it done sooner rather than later, then maybe, you know, they could work on it themselves.

00:38:17,470	So, Steve, I don’t know where you where it must have been in your cover letter that one of the things back to the school system is that you’re going to put a person. Oh, yeah. On the school committee or, uh, on. Capital planning. The capital planning process. Yeah, that should be on this. Did it. Get I think it was here somewhere. Um, make a note to add it, but yeah, no, they did. I did write that somewhere.

00:38:39,300	That was a really good idea. I was starting to see sideways after a while with all that. Um, so. Yeah. So basically. Yeah. Well, the, the Hamilton-Wenham district, adopted in part by the request of the towns to have a more transparent capital process, uh, and as part of their policy

00:39:00,200	that they adopted was they formed a capital review committee. Ultimately, like says, all over the policy that the school committee still reserve, you know, has the ultimate authority to do what they want. But this is kind of like an advisory committee.

00:39:15,830	And one of the seats is, uh, well, two of the seats is a member of the fin com from Wenham and a member of fin com from Hamilton. Uh, Jared Ward served as that person last year. So we need another person that’s willing to put the time in this year. So that’s just something that we’re gonna have to work through with the fin con.

00:39:31,100	That’s a I think that’s a really big improvement. I agree. Two for two on catching, uh, one. An my. Next company. Uh. I know right. Actually, I read it. I don’t know where I read it, but. I do remember writing it and I don’t know where I wrote it. The cover letter. No. It’s here. Yes. Oh, nice.

00:39:54,570	Yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah. I was like, you’re right, I did write that, but we did, I write. I did right there. So to. A good one. When did Jared Ward resign from the recently he did resign. He did resign three months ish. Two, two, three months ago ish ago.

00:40:15,030	I’m sorry, but Jared Ward, how did I miss that? I only. Heard about it somewhat recently. But. We need to fill. His vacancy. Yeah, we’re on my old dinner is going to speak better to that. I know it’s off the agenda. Is there close. We got four. We got almost.

00:40:35,130	We have four. And there is a an applicant for the fifth seat. Okay. But the appointing committee has not met yet for the the applicant that’s pending. So we have four. So that means. One of those. Persons is new right. Correct. So was Jared the myopia member I don’t know. I’m not. Sure Matthew. I don’t.

00:40:58,800	Know the stocky glasses. Yes. Yeah. I think. that Bob also is a little stuffy with glasses too. But I think I think you’re talking to the right person. Wow. Both the right person. Who’s the new. Do we know why? Not really. I mean, I. I think wasn’t too keen on the night meetings.

00:41:21,900	Public speculation. Yeah. Thing we don’t I don’t think we know for sure. Okay. Um. That’s all you have to say? Yeah. I don’t we don’t we don’t know speculate. No speculating. Um, Alex Varela is the new finance committee member. He’s he’s been appointed. Right. Um, just on the the finance and budgeting goals.

00:41:44,700	Michelle, if you can filter it the way you had it, um, I guess I’m still worried that it’s a very long list. And right now they’re all labeled FY 27. And I’m wondering if some of them should be more explicitly labeled as FY 28. Yeah, I mean, it’s that’s.

00:42:06,070	And also, yeah, you know, Ernie is listed as the lead for all of them. So if income does decide to take those on, I would just. You know. Update it to say, fine, come. Likewise if if we decide to take anything on ourselves. Yeah.

00:42:25,130	Normally I think I did I clearly I didn’t I usually hide the lead like it’s not really like I don’t really share that publicly. So it wasn’t intentional that I did. It was more for when I filter and send out goals and you know. But you’re right, I should. If it’s gonna be out there, I should update. Maybe, uh. On the status fi in progress. You know, maybe. Just put. The target, you know, in progress.

00:42:48,670	Priority 27 or in progress? Target 28 or something like that. That would, uh. Yeah, at a target. Just to not create the expectation that all of these are going to get done this year. I think that’s not feasible with this. With the amount of staffing we have.

00:43:08,270	Yeah, I mean, even to that point, if it’s a small if we know it’s going to be a multi-year, you know, just put multi. Just put multi year. Yeah. Exactly. But do we want to prioritize some in front of the other. Yeah I think we do. There was some prioritization in what you just said but I guess it’s not totally clear what we’re pushing out.

00:43:27,030	Yeah I mean I think well what I’m pushing out or suggesting we push out is uh, the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District master plan costing. Um, so the cost analysis of what it would cost the towns, the, uh, community comparison analysis.

00:43:48,930	And can I ask you a question? Yeah, I wrote it down a I everybody I know, my my daughter, my two sons, um, is being affected by AI. Why couldn’t AI do that analysis? Well, it can I do use AI and I’m getting better with it. Right.

00:44:13,000	I think it’s a very powerful tool that everybody should be using. And I push it on everybody in here. Right. To the extent they’re comfortable using it, because it really is, uh, makes you more efficient for sure. It also has some drawbacks. But yeah. So it’s like if you it certainly can help. But if it doesn’t replace it, maybe someday it will.

00:44:34,800	But like you have to know kind of where you’re going and be able to catch its mistakes. Yeah. Um, you know, it’s not to say that I love AI, I mean, I, I love it. I think it’s amazing. But, you know, it’s certainly. So we do all this, all this stuff to the extent possible. Extent.

00:44:52,500	Right. I, I probably use it more than most, uh, in town, I would say, although Kate’s probably a close second and we’re, um, that, uh, you know, I utilize it to, you know, to be as efficient as possible, but it certainly doesn’t.

00:45:12,470	It certainly not like a couple clicks of a button and it will do it, you know, you got to go through and get it all it’s information and then find its mistakes because it does make mistakes. And when you put a public document out. But I agree. I mean AI is and it’s only getting better. So like Steve Kavanagh’s got to write all those policies and procedures.

00:45:34,130	Well yeah it’s great. I mean it is great for that. But but you have to have someone that can identify what policies and procedures you want in need. contextualize it. And then also, you know, understand. Right.

00:45:48,170	And then but then certainly like if you put in the inputs and be like, yeah, I need a policy because of X, Y and Z that does this and you know what I mean. And then but you have to really understand the workflow and everything. Somebody’s doing it. Like I probably couldn’t use it for fire because I’ve never been a firefighter. He might be able to.

00:46:02,700	So might. So I’m just thinking out loud or broadly. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a resource that understands AI that could just walk around? Like if you said, well, AI might be able to help and then have somebody go in there who actually really understands AI,

00:46:27,570	and then do it. So it’s it’s really not the departments can say, this is what I need. And then the AI person could say, oh, well, okay, I know how to do that. AI liaison. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. That might be helpful. Kind of. Perhaps that might help you and Kate. Yeah. Yeah. Um.

00:46:57,400	So I just think about it, you know, I’m not trying to put you on the spot now, but I, based on everything I’ve seen, it’s just nuts. What what’s going on with AI? Yeah, I know, it’s just it’s getting pretty crazy. Perhaps, you know, along the. Line.

00:47:17,200	We have an energy manager, you know, that provides the expertise or the methodology. Perhaps the same thing. We need to find some way to have AI expertise introduced. You know, and share it with the Hamilton or whoever else Ipswich or. Yeah, I’d like to get a communications person in the. Same way.. You could ask Danvers. Right. Our IT collaborative if they have any of that.

00:47:43,430	Yeah. They he was pushing copilot because that’s, that’s the one that’s in uh, Microsoft and it’s terrible. Yeah. Absolutely terrible. It’s an embarrassment is much better. Yeah. Um, but yeah. No, I I’m open to that. I’ve thought about it. I’ve been actually researching classes. Watch this. Joe over in, uh, Hamilton.

00:48:06,870	Maybe he’ll finally be in his new office soon. Um. You know, see, if nothing else offers some, uh, some classes, some basic prompts and command writing, because that makes a huge difference. Actually, the kind of thing that would probably be a sensible regional. Resource. Yeah. Just like, uh, what’s your face? Um. Well, to that point, we’re. Actually sorry.

00:48:28,700	Gosh, when is that strategic meeting Danvers? The diversity center? Yeah, we have a strategic meeting with Colby and his team every year. And that’s the first week of September or second week of September. So we can bring that up. I know he was trying to push out some AI training, but it was really not.

00:48:48,570	Very good. Yeah, I don’t I don’t think we should be training our people how to do AI. They should say, this is what I need, and then have a resource that can come in and say, this is how you do it. Yeah. And then they’ll learn it too.

00:49:00,730	Like if you have a liaison, it does it for them. The first or second or third. Time they’ll figure. It out. Then they’ll start to yeah, learn it themselves. And then the AI will take the jobs. Right. Yeah. So it’s all. Part of that’s so that so that I never mentioned that ever. It’s a resource.

00:49:19,970	It’s an enhancement. Yeah. One step at a time. Yes I see it more like a it’s more like an assistant. Yes. Like you have to really know the job. And if you can be specific in your tasking in prompts. Like quickie. It does a lot.

00:49:36,070	But to just come in and be like, all right, I’m gonna be a firefighter tomorrow and go in, say, all right, AI, you know, it’s I’m not. It’s not suggesting. No, no, I know that I’m not. I know that at all. I know that I’m just, you know, half half joking.

00:49:49,600	But also it’s not quite to the point where it’s taking jobs. I think that’s what I was getting at. No substitute. So. So judgment. Yeah. I agree I’m going to continue to push AI and we’ll bring it up in the because maybe because with the North Shore Collaborative is like 1011 communities now. So maybe they see some value. Yeah.

00:50:05,300	That’s a starting point at least. Yeah, that would be super. We’re all facing the same issue. Mhm. Or opportunity I would say. Okay. So we’ll we’ll do some clarification of the finance goals. Yeah I’ll do that. So the permitting fees market study. Hello. I actually tried AI to do that.

00:50:55,930	Um and it is I mean it might speak to the way we Bill being um not very. Uh, what’s the word. Not very easy to understand because. How do we Bill? Well, how how are we, bill for services and how many variables there are that affect the fees and the rates in the aha.

00:51:21,870	So many communities do things differently because okay, so. That’s so that’s bad. Yeah I had a bad I. Know I just I just wasn’t allowed because I actually did try to do it with that. Like have like set up.

00:51:37,930	I set up an agent and sent them out to like pull fees in from all the different communities and, and uh, it did, but they were so apples to oranges that it was like. Anyways. My oldest son, PJ, um, has created an agent for his rental bees that his like, he’s been working on it for like three months and he’s a qualified AI engineer. Now.

00:52:03,830	what is it? What’s around qualified? What’s the what’s what is this agent to. Uh, it’s. I won’t bother you, but trust me, he’s using it. And he created an agent called Max. And Max keeps. He keeps adding functionalities. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. So where were we? Where were we? Um, financial Paul’s. We were down to, like, 60, 71, 69, 71. Um, yeah. We’re.

00:52:39,600	That was funded under finance. Yeah. I think that was filtered. Now it’s unfiltered. Oh. So I guess why don’t we just go through the, um, to just pick the next go to category. The next section. And unclick finance, or maybe do we just do them all because I think there’s a lot.

00:52:58,830	And then just unclick finance and budgeting. There you go. All right then I’ll just go to the top and I’ll work the way down. All right. So this I already gave and we got through these before I dated it. All right. So the iron rail best use study getting ties to the master plan.

00:53:20,730	This was a pretty successful working group that just concluded the recommendation of the most recent action item. I mean, the most recent action item that was taken off here from FY 26 was to complete a pull together a working group, uh, complete the working group and make the recommendation to the Select Board, which. Right. You received the recommendation last month.

00:53:43,130	And the next step, as a result of those findings was the select board wants to, um, you know, move forward with that. Uh, we’re going to continue on finalizing exactly what the board wants to be, kind of the final, um, goal for the for the, uh, for the site on the eighth.

00:54:07,200	And then we’re going to be hosting a public meeting the Wednesday after that. I believe it’s I would only guess at the date, but I think it was the 17th. The 17th. We’ll do a public hearing and then that will give us another meeting in September to. Right.

00:54:29,070	So at least the way I understood the Select board is taking the approach to the it’s not really it’s well obviously you get feedback, but it’s like here’s what we’re planning on doing. It’s not like, what should we do? Here’s our plan. Uh, obviously you’re going to get some feedback. It’s like where you can deliberate on that feedback. At the following meeting in September.

00:54:44,530	And then otherwise, fine, finalize and give the request to the planning board to draft a new zoning. Uh, that needs to happen in and I it’s gonna be some subdivisions, subdividing of property and stuff that is going to have to happen, but give them, um, kind of the marching orders to get that ready for town meeting.

00:55:04,870	That’s still our goal. Um, I guess we’ll see how this month plays out, but I think that it’s achievable that we’ll be able to align it with this year’s town meeting. Um, master plan implementation.

00:55:26,200	So this is kind of this is a this is a broad goal that maybe needs to be changed and have a separate, um, that kind of pulls in all the projects that are touching on the master plan. But the way we kind of though, this is the goal that initially originated in FY 26.

00:55:47,800	And you can see here the three primary action items are the three, uh, big projects coming out of the land use department that tie directly with the master plan. That’s the Complete Streets program, which increases pedestrian safety and walkability. The town and better, and signage. And then the economic development study in the Downtown Revitalization Study that, um, we’re combining, uh, that I spoke about earlier.

00:56:07,630	And so those are really those are really big pieces of the master plan. But there are a number of other projects that tie into it as well. Yeah. So I think as I was saying before, instead, to create, I think you could actually drop this master plan implementation as its own item.

00:56:26,570	Instead, make the column code it to the master plan goals and objectives, and these three become their own standalone because they’re all significant projects again mapped to the specific goals and objectives from the master plan. Okay, I. Like that because this also makes it look like this is the only master plan and it’s not. Yeah, I agree. And that was yeah, I agree. Yeah. Let’s see.

00:56:51,100	Land use and planning MBTA 3A zoning. Right. So we’re still in interim uh, approval. Um, interim compliance I guess. So we’re still working with the attorney General’s office and the HLC. Last year we were successful in getting a town meeting vote that authorizes, like board to dispose of the Boulder lane.

00:57:14,070	We’re still working through the access questions that they have. And there is a scenic easement that is really, um, learning is more of a conservation easement that was put in place on the town owned parcel closest to 128 that could prevent the development of a road through there without a some sort of release from the dot.

00:57:35,400	And some state. Um, environmental agency. So anyways, we’re working through that. That could be a multiyear progress actually likely will be multi-year. We don’t know if there’s gonna be any more town meeting votes, but it’s it’s ongoing.

00:57:54,200	We have a meeting with the OLC set up for, I believe, next week. So we’ll have a better have a better update on that after that meeting. 24 Cherry Street in progress. I felt like we made some good, good progress this past year. Right. We’re still not quite there yet.

00:58:18,800	Right now we’re waiting on Elk and Cam to give us some feedback on some of our final questions, a couple of them being the, um, our health, our health regulations require 10,000. Excuse me. One. Yeah. No, 10,000ft per bedroom of, um, basically on disturb sur. I’m not sure the right word, but, you know. No. No driveway, no house can be there.

00:58:41,730	So basically, land available to be a leaching field, there is no way you’re going to get nine bedrooms in there with that requirement. Uh, the draft regulations pretty clearly state that they’re not going to, um, abide by those types of regulations, but they will they are going to follow the state sanitary code.

00:58:59,670	And, uh, title five. So but, you know, the residents want, um, a response from the HLC. So we did submit that question. We’re also waiting on, um, their response to our question about, you know, what type of assurances that we have once we get into the process that they are going to allow, um, some development

00:59:18,500	agreement to help with some safeguards to ensure whatever RFP project we put out there and ultimately select a developer that’s going to build it, that he actually builds what he says he’s going to build, and we don’t end up with something totally different.

00:59:37,670	Um, and then, uh, finally, I think the, uh, the outstanding question that we’re looking for from Cams legal feedback is, um, the, uh, encroachment issue. Minor. Minor, minor encroachment issue, uh, huge. So see what see what they have to say about that, if anything. Right.

00:59:58,700	So I think it’s more for more for the Aabutters to, to just get a better understanding of where, where cam is coming from in that particular situation. So once we get that, I mean, I think we’re in we’ve got the Affordable Housing trust recommendation. We’ve got them to commit to a, you know, a funding of $300,000, whether it’s one unit or three.

01:00:19,270	And I think we’re pretty close, right, to getting there. I think once we get the, uh, Chelseas, we’ll pull the working group back together with the residents. Um, you know, kind of go through that. And then I think this, like, board is just going to have to make a decision, uh, and move forward on that.

01:00:39,670	Uh, review and update. So this one is um, we didn’t really make any progress last year. This was something that I know it says I’m the lead on it, but this is something that Select Board was kind of taking on themselves.

01:00:54,970	Um, I think we start a little bit with the, uh, Human Rights Committee and made some progress, but nothing, uh, made it to a meeting just yet because I’ll continue to stay up there. Um, it’s probably something that might stay up there forever, because, you know, you’re starting new committees, closing old committees, reviewing charges and things like that.

01:01:15,330	It’s probably a good practice to always be reviewing that early airport commission. I just have not done anything on that. That onion, when I started to peel it back, was. I would say that your ability to get representation on the Beverley Airport Commission, it’s about zero. I agree. I agree with that. Yeah.

01:01:38,200	Because I think the current setup is anybody we propose that Beverley Mayor has the final selection. Anyhow, we don’t get to pick the seat. So it’s kind of. A it’s really worth the effort. Yeah.

01:01:55,870	The only right the only bargaining chip we have, which I think Danvers was just in a unique situation that maybe they needed the money or didn’t realize, but they, you know, we they pay us a very small dollar amount. I don’t want to make it up, but I think it’s less than $5,000 a year. And that’s how Danvers got their seat was they basically bought it by. giving up, giving up that and giving up that pilot. So it’s a pilot payment that’s required by law.

01:02:13,530	And one of the complications we have is like is I think we get they pay a tax bill to us. I actually think it should be a pilot by law. But then when if it’s a pilot by law, you can’t abate it because it’s required. And Danvers abates it as a refund.

01:02:33,870	So you get into that kind of sticky situation where it’s like, yeah, nobody’s probably going to come out looking for you if the state’s not going to go, you know what I mean? But it’s like, well, are we Going to propose to do something you can’t do and try to buy a seat for five grand, which I don’t think they would

01:02:47,130	sell anyways. I think to Peter’s point, I think it’s probably close to a 0% chance that would ever get a seat on there. Sorry. But anyways, I just have not just with everything going on. I have not made any progress on that. Uh, regional school agreement this. Right. So this kind of fell apart.

01:03:13,870	Towards the end, um, you know, in the lead up to town meeting, we were all on the same page. And then, you know, Hamilton and Wenham, you know, I think we we know. we we kind of diverged in the financial sense.

01:03:32,530	We had some things that, you know, we were saying we would want to do, and they were saying things they wanted to do. Ultimately, we were just like, well, we’ll just leave all these financial pieces. Anything that impacts us financially in the assessment, we’ll just kind of leave for another time. Let’s do everything else.

01:03:48,000	So the two towns were in agreement on that. Schools were very much in opposition of that idea. Um, they, you know, they said the whole reason why they opened it was to get these, you know, they want a more smooth, uh, assessment shift formula, which you have five years.

01:04:08,330	I mean, I’m not sure it makes that much of a difference, but, you know, they they didn’t want it. And then we just got to be too late. Um, in the town meeting cycle, and it just once, once the pressure of town meeting was off the group, uh, just kind of stopped meeting.

01:04:27,330	But Joe and I are having coffee on Monday, and that is on our agenda to talk about. So we’re probably going to be getting that going. Now that follows here. It’s not under any deadline in the sense that the existing regional agreement that the existing regional agreement, with no particular date to renew it. Or anything. It’s. Uh. 60 years old or whatever. Six years old now. I mean. 61, 62. Yeah.

01:04:53,100	Um, so, yeah, that’s ongoing, you know, we’ll see. What see what this fall brings in that and get the district back going. I just I don’t know, it’s a tough position because if the district is pushing for these financial changes in these financial changes impact Wenham or Hamilton positively

01:05:15,030	or negatively, it just it becomes a very difficult. It’s like the community that’s getting the negative, you know, I mean, it’s whatever you propose. It’s like the other ones like, well how does that affect us? Well, it’s going to cost more.

01:05:29,330	It’s like, all right, well hold on, let’s let’s look at this. So we’ll see. We’ll see. Um yeah. So this this one is, this is a, this is a, this got brought up actually probably a. Well yeah. It was on the 26th. So it would have been brought up at least a year ago by Colby. Um stuttered who is on the water commission.

01:05:51,870	And he was looking at the amount of taxes that are paid by the Beverly Salem Water Board to the town of went. So I have not done any due diligence.

01:06:13,400	There’s a couple of statutes in mass general law that govern pilot payments as a required payment, but also the formula as to how you arrive at that payment. Um, in the law. And but there’s certain acquisition dates that have to be met. And without knowing those dates which we don’t have all of them just yet, they’re starting to look into it. Um, you know, we don’t know.

01:06:31,930	But anyways, we’re gonna look at it last year, uh, the, uh, assessing, we had a, you know, they kind of stopped, they call it classic. They had some issues with that and they weren’t supporting it anymore. So we had to kind of make an emergency shift to AP five, which is our new software for assessing software.

01:06:50,200	Um, but it’s actually still ongoing in the migration. But that really took priority in the assessing offices. Just really one, one person, one and a half people.

01:07:04,570	So it’s just we just didn’t have given that this is what the Salem Beverly Water Board and I do have some history with them. They don’t. You know what I mean? They’re they got a lot of resources, let’s say. So, you know, if you’re going to ask them to have a discussion that’s going to cost them money, want to make sure you have done your homework? Um, they’re very well versed in these laws.

01:07:21,770	So anyways, that will be something that, you know, Terry and I talked a little bit the other day once the classification hearing is, is done in September.

01:07:36,800	Excuse me, in November or December, we’ll, um, we’re going to work together on that and see if we can start at least, at least the initial groundwork, and do some research to see if to see what, what, if anything, we can do to generate some additional tax or pilot payments. Emergency response plan. This is, um, emergency, uh, just with, you know, all the all the public safety matters going on.

01:08:00,600	The team was unable to, uh, compile the emergency response plan. Uh, they are still continuing to work on that. And, um, hope is that we’ll be able to deliver it to the select board this year. If we had an AI liaison, this would be a perfect one. Yeah, you’re probably right on that. Um, let’s. See. Okay.

01:08:31,270	So public safety, um, so we implemented as by way of background, we implemented a town wide 25 mile an hour speed limit, except for one A and Topsfield Road. The select board asked when they implemented it to come back in approximately one year, which will be this month, with some performance metrics to measure the impact.

01:08:54,170	As far as like speeding tickets or whatever the chief has of, you know, performance metrics that he can report on so that the Select Board can get an understanding of the impact of going to 25 miles an hour.

01:09:12,270	Additionally, I understand that most of you have received some feedback from your constituents as to what they feel about the 25 mile an hour, so this will be this is on the agenda, tentatively.

01:09:30,830	Um, you know, once in pending approval by the chair on the eighth to come back to the Select board with Chieftain Napoli to give that overview, and then in a subsequent meeting after that, the board can discuss whether it wants to continue with a town wide 25 mile an hour speed limit or make any adjustments so that I’m anticipating will be wrapped up pretty easily. Uh, during 27. I was sorry, guys. No, no, no.

01:09:52,830	When I was driving into when I’m on I seven the other day from Topsfield, maybe I missed it, but when you cross over the line, I believe there’s the sign that says 25 mile an hour town wide, speed limit. And then again, I missed it. It was a.

01:10:09,730	Good, I don’t know, a quarter mile, third of a mile before you got to a 40 mile an hour sign. Is that right? Because I thought that 97 was 40. And was there a 25? That’s correct. The the first sign? Yes, I believe it is. The first sign says unless otherwise posted. But it is confusing with the gap between where it says 25 and where it then says 40.

01:10:37,430	Oh, so you’re thinking something closer. I mean. That’s like where we switch from County Street to Topsfield Road. Same issue, is that right? Yeah.

01:10:56,130	Now, I noticed perhaps what we need is, if I may, you know, going from Wenham into Beverly, the two signs are right there together. The 25 town wide. But here it’s 30, you know, it’s going into Beverly.

01:11:14,330	So maybe it’s just a location thing, but do we control the location or is that State Road? Do they put up the street signs? Uh, well, no, I think any any road that we’ve changed the 25, well, I guess, yeah. To your point, these are the ones, um, I think that would be a state I can get that. I’m kind of guessing, but, yeah, I’ll get that answer, is pretty good about getting those signs up quick. I’ll see what he can do. Make it a little bit more cleaner on the road.

01:11:29,270	You know, basically it’s almost almost every state route that when you enter Wenham, it’s confusing because there’s the 25 and less posted and then you’re. Like. So what is. This? And then you see it. Yeah. All right. Um, so this was a goal that Michelle, um, achieved last year. And we’re continuing it this year.

01:12:00,270	So she was able to significantly increase our subscriber count on our mass notification system through, you know, just doing some public outreach and stuff. Uh, we want to continue down that road. Um, and, but also start to look at. So we pay for this code red service.

01:12:18,400	We don’t use it at all in the Select Board has a policy, actually, that it’s only used for like absolute emergencies. A bomb went off downtown. You know what I mean? You need to get out. So we want to look at maybe dropping that and moving to the civics plus, uh, because it has the same functionality.

01:12:40,270	But instead of operating two because we don’t even push out code red anymore. You know what I mean? So it’s kind of like, um. It’s already. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, that’s something that is going to be a goal this year to kind of figure out if that’s achievable.

01:12:59,300	Like if I’m not, I’m, I’m not missing anything. Like there’s some that code Red does that we can’t replicate. I don’t think there is. But you know kind of figure out if it’s feasible and if it is, start making that move to, um, to the civics plus. So, uh, database, whatever you want to call it. And then.

01:13:19,400	All right. So this is something else. Michelle, uh, handles, um, so our annual technology hardware refresh cycle. So she inventories all our hardware and printers and equipment and laptops and all that stuff, and then places it on a replacement cycle and works with the departments to get them updated

01:13:40,800	and replaced and dispose of the old ones. So it went very well last year. Um, this is actually it’s actually a relatively new process. We hadn’t really done that before, but with Covid we were able to replace almost all the, uh, computers in the entire town.

01:14:04,670	Um, and, um, and then we kind of took advantage of kind of a fresh slate. And now we have this ongoing $10,000 appropriation in the, uh, technology budget that will we try to stay within that 3 to 5 year, uh, replacement cycle.

01:14:21,730	So we’ll see at the end of 4 or 5 years and we’ll see how well we’re able to do. But we think it’s achievable with 10,000 pending any disasters or, you know, a bunch of machines go down and you’re just gonna it doesn’t go very far. Ten grand today. You know, it’s only 4 or 5 laptops. Michelle.

01:14:40,370	Does that take probably a lot of time the first time you set it up? Um, a little bit, but it’s ongoing now. Yeah, it’s not bad. Um. Yeah. So this is something that. Well, Joe’s been working closely with Rich and. Oh, no, this is sorry. This is already done.

01:15:11,670	So we are, um, very sadly, we had a great permanent court coordinator, Maggie, who, um, who had to resign due to some serious health complications and, uh, you know, so it came up very, you know, very unexpectedly. So we had to quickly, uh, post the position and get it hired, which we did.

01:15:31,700	So Joe worked closely with Rich on getting a new person in there and getting them trained and stuff so that we have, um, we have a new individual in there now. She’s been working out really well. And then we also have a major, um, a major retirement.

01:15:51,470	Sheila, in the DPW is leaving after about 12 years with the town, and she is I don’t know how we’re going to replace her because she does the work of two people, for sure. So it’s gonna be, um, pretty big shoes to fill. But luckily we had a lot of we’ve already gone through the interview process. We had a lot of applications. They found who they believe is, you know, is a great candidate.

01:16:07,470	Right. So hopefully that that proves to be true. But they should be starting. Um, Sheila’s last day is is it Halloween? Yeah. She was last day is Halloween. So where the start date is is it September early September.

01:16:29,030	So we’re we’re trying to have like six, seven, eight weeks of overlap because you just have a lot of duties. So there’s a lot of there’s a lot of like little things that she manages. And so it’s going to be it’s going to be quite the learning curve on that job. So yeah, just working on the succession planning of that.

01:16:42,670	We have um, yeah. So Joe’s been good. Rich and Eric have been good. They redrafted the job description, drafted all the different procedures and stuff. So help with the with the training. So that’s going well. Um, and then obviously we have um, the PFAS mitigation, the water treatment.

01:17:08,870	So really the two, the two plans that are really the short term solution, I think ultimately the long term solution for really everybody in this region is going to like a Beverly Salem water board or the MWRA, who just have massive surface water reserves. All the communities that pull from these watersheds, like us. Um, it’s just not it’s not sustainable long term.

01:17:31,800	So, but short term. And when I say short term, it’s not super short. We’ll probably talk in 20–25 years. Short term is probably, from what we can tell right now, the two options are for one of them to build their own treatment facility to filter out the PFAS, or explore.

01:17:54,200	And we are currently exploring with Hamilton a solution where we can utilize their water treatment plant. So they have very poor water as far as sediment content coming out of their wells. And we have very clean water, but we have a little bit of PFAS.

01:18:15,200	So their their treatment facility is very is heavily burdened by the sediment and it can’t efficiently filter the amount of water that it could if it was cleaner. So if they use our water and their treatment center, uh, it could filter enough water to fill both the town’s needs. At least that’s the initial, um, analysis. So that’s what we’re looking at.

01:18:38,770	It’s kind of what it’s boiled down to. Ultimately, it’s really run by the water commissioners. They are an elected board, as you know, and the cost would be picked up in the ratepayers, which they set the rate. So Eric did present to us a few months ago.

01:18:55,730	So he was going to come back once they had looked at the feasibility of actually doing the pipe from Wenham to Hamilton, and they’re still in the process of. That, still in the process. Yeah. Certainly some of this, especially the treatment plant, will have to go to a town meeting type of vote.

01:19:13,770	Yeah, I don’t actually have an answer for that. I mean. But my my point is, I think perhaps sometime during this year, the Water Commission and the select board, especially to get our smart on this because it’s going to be very complicated issue that we need a, a particular meeting on this

01:19:32,100	issue, because, I mean, it’s fundamental to the whole town. The water supply. Yeah, I think once there, once there’s some clarity on whether the pipe can actually be built, because if it can’t, that changes the discussion. Yes. Very much so. I think once we have that data point. And then it’s a negotiation with the Hamilton. Right.

01:19:53,230	Well he talked about the 8 million versus 10 million. I think it was 8 million for the pipe, 10 million for treatment. There was like different options. So we would have to discuss. right the possibilities once we know if the feasibility is there or not. It’s my recollection.

01:20:09,770	Yeah. Once. Yeah. You’re right with with Eric. Yeah. They have to figure out I think really the water exactly what you said the water Commission is figuring out what they think is the best solution, pros and cons. And then they’re going to come back to the Select Board and make the presentation..

01:20:27,400	And we certainly have great expertise on our water commission right now. So yes. Very fortunate. There. Here it is. Finance Committee representation on the Capital Committee. Peter, I knew it was in there somewhere. Yeah.

01:20:52,400	So this is we just this is really just between myself, Ernie and the in the fin com to get them to select an individual that’s willing to put the effort in and, um. What do we know what the effort is. Yeah, it’s about six meetings last year and they’re all during the day. Uh. Challenging. But last year was also the first year. And I wasn’t sure.

01:21:20,800	I’m not sure it was a true representation of the full process. So I don’t know if that can mean more meetings or less because they got a more efficient. But we’ll we’ll see. I’ll talk to Eric and see what things are looking like.

01:21:40,470	So I think was everything pulled forward that’s still in process because what about the community aggregation? Isn’t that still ongoing? Yeah, I guess I could probably go through and prove it. I probably I might have. Yeah, I think I would pull that one forward because it’s still. No right to CC. The CC. Yeah. They all should have if some didn’t.

01:22:06,100	So I do think this is a great list and it’s very comprehensive and it’s a lot. But also I think if any of the board members has input on something that’s not represented, this is the appropriate place to bring that up. I think you had a few things.

01:22:23,700	A couple, yeah. So I think we might, uh, long term take on a look at the how the town provides social services that, uh, it seems to be a just historic add on and pretty fragmented because you have a council on aging that does some core things, like the van service programs and so forth.

01:22:48,270	But then you have a social worker over here, you got the wish committee here. And you know, the justice seems to be a coordination as well as, you know, there’s if you get down to final details, it’s, you know, the select board has its own charity accounts that we haven’t touched for seven years

01:23:07,700	or so, probably because early years there was no interest. But now that, you know, we’re entering, what, 4% or interest or whatever. So, you know, the select board ought to, you know, you know, decide what to do with that.

01:23:24,600	But I think overall long term, you know, we’re going to have a town that is perhaps more and more seniors to look what services we need, whether it’s recreational or, you know, social work type. And then perhaps, you know, we just need to put that on the agenda long term. The other one I had, you know, I’ve been working the in the basement for a long time. Yes. You have.

01:23:46,430	Is the idea of certainly the Diane’s the town clerk has a great grasp on the town records, the legal requirements there. But we know what. We did. Last year, a couple of years ago, we took out 80 box loads of excess paper.

01:24:08,200	So we’ve done the cleanout, but we really don’t have a process to determine where the what’s the end state of papers or how do we get those. So perhaps what we might need is a well that’s volunteer or a tax work off or, you know, a stipend position.

01:24:26,530	I’m thinking something like a town archivist that builds the expertise on what the state retention rules are, and then comes up with a plan either on a monthly or quarterly, whatever basis that that individual would sort through all the papers that flow from the different departments and actually says, okay, this can go today.

01:24:45,730	This is stamped and, you know, get rid of in 2030 or whatever, so that we don’t have the major expense that we did to empty out the basement every 3 or 4 years. Actually, that’s something I forgot to add to this. If I didn’t see it on here. But that is that was a goal last year.

01:25:05,000	It needs to be carried forward. And, um, we were able to secure $100,000 through the CPC for that purpose. Uh, we’ve selected two vendors to work with. We’ve I just signed a contract with one who does basically exactly what Gary was just describing is his specialty is he goes down, we met with them the other day.

01:25:29,000	He goes down into the basement. He’s very he spent his whole career doing this in Massachusetts. And we’ll sort through all the boxes, figure out what’s in there, create a catalog.

01:25:54,730	Um, it’ll in and it will it will basically pair it to the state’s retention schedule, and then it will come back to the select board for as a policy decision to be like, you know, here’s all the records that he’s inventoried in the basement. Here’s the state retention schedule. And based on this schedule, here are all the records that are ready for disposal.

01:26:12,400	And then from a policy standpoint, do you want to dispose of them or do you want to change the retention schedule? Right. Because you don’t have to because the state says keep it five doesn’t mean you can’t keep it ten. Right. Or forever. But I mean, so then. Why would you. Well, exactly.

01:26:25,170	But then you can make the decision to be like, all right. No, those types of records we want to do five years, even though the state says three, or we want to keep them forever because they’re historic. You know, for us, whatever it is, you might want to have no changes. Right? I feel like the state retention schedule is a little bit on the longer side anyways.

01:26:41,600	Personally. Um, but then so once we do that, then we’ll dispose of all those records. And once that’s done, we have a digitization company that digitizing these records. And we’ll make the decision. Well, hey, you got to make the determination what you want. Digitize.

01:27:05,430	It was saying some of the stuff is not worth it because it’s like, um, like the one, 2 or 3 year retentions. It’s not worth scanning them. And you just, you just set up some cataloging rack systems down there. Um, but then some of the longer ones and the forever ones will scan and have, like a searchable document database. Uh, so that’s the that’s the first.

01:27:27,670	So we got $100,000. We don’t think we’re going to be able to do the whole thing with 100 grand. But we do think we get probably 80% of the way there and. We’d be pretty good. That’s great.

01:27:40,330	And we’re gonna hope to, you know, come back to the CPC again this year and ask for a little bit more money. So are you gonna add that? Yeah, that was actually that was in the 26 tab. It’s just got to move it. So that is one that didn’t get moved. So yeah, there are a few that should be.

01:27:53,100	Pulled up. Yeah I’ll double check that to see what I forgot. One more. Keep going. No. Yep. No. We’ve talked before and we had some stuff, but I think perhaps we need to come to some Select Board policy whatever on Pingree Park.

01:28:12,030	You know, we’ve had, uh, during my tenure here, you know, we’ve had advocates, you know, for pickleball, the skate park, you put the garden in. We went through the whole gazebo thing at one time back then. And certainly there is, uh, perhaps a need for, you know, bocce, you know, you got 40 or 50 people on one court.

01:28:29,130	So perhaps, you know, the Select Board or the ask joint rec obviously to come in and DPW as to, you know, within the master plan structure, you know, what do we want the Pingree Park to look at look like, you know, 10 to 20 years.

01:28:50,770	Was Pingree Park mentioned in the master plan? Well, in general, not under recreationally. But in recreation. Yeah. Like, you know, maximizing the resources basically available to the town. We did talk about it.

01:29:13,800	I think the first year I was on the board, because I remember trying to advocate for sort of a master plan for Pingree Park looking into the future, but we didn’t quite get there. And right now, of course, Open Spaces and Rec is focused on the tennis courts, but I still, I agree, I, I still think the bigger picture. Yes, it’s one of those like. Optimization. It’s just it’s been added on to added on to over the years.

01:29:35,170	But you know, we’re getting pretty full there and there’s competing interest as. We say. What’s the optimal use. Yeah it’s sort of the highest and best use question. Again. It is.

01:30:00,200	The last is on this whole process to, you know, are there um, items that the Select board ought to know about that other committees are working on and or, uh, you know, do we need to have the Select board task out some of this work? So certainly we know there’s limitations on how much the staff can do and how much working groups can do.

01:30:19,770	But perhaps are there any issues here that we can task out to individual standing committees? Or, you know, in the past, we’ve created one time committees to take on a one time task.

01:30:35,930	You know, perhaps, you know, the the permitting fees, you know, is that something that we can just say, hey, and we can we get 3 or 5 volunteers, you know, to step up for a year and look at this one issue, or do we have the finance expertise out there? Be on the income that could say, hey, you know, we’ll take on looking at the the regional school district capital budget, you know, so perhaps you know this list.

01:30:56,270	We might look at to see as you know, where can get more help. The on the staff work, which is really great, but is really heavily tasked. Yeah I agree it’s a good exercise.

01:31:16,670	And or you know, are there anything on this thing that individual select board members could take on the five of us? You know, step up for, you know, one issue or whatever, the four of us were the chair. Yes. Agreed. Which is a great segue. If you’re done with your list.

01:31:37,300	Um, because I have one thing that I wanted to bring up, but actually, Ben and Peter, do you have any that you want to add or raise? A lot of good things. Oh, I just want to go back to something with the. Steve was asked about. Okay, well, why. Don’t I. Yeah. Segue from that and then we’ll come back to yours.

01:31:53,830	So the one thing that I would like to add, if we can, um, and I’ve already mentioned this to Steve, but I am also willing to help with and maybe someone else might be as well. Not that I’m looking at you, but but, um, the consideration are trying to bring forward a dark sky bylaw, which I think you’ve also expressed some interest in.

01:32:16,470	Um, but the library, I forget when a few months ago, there was a fantastic presentation by someone from Massachusetts, dark Sky. Um, explaining all of the rationale, the reasons why. And they have resources. So they have boilerplate bylaws.

01:32:39,330	The dark sky has been adopted and, I don’t know, 30 something communities I want to say, although it could be off on that number. Um, so I think it’s doable, but there are decisions that would need to be made around what we would want to put forward. Um, so that’s the one thing that I wanted to bring up. And I’m willing to also work on it.

01:33:00,100	Um, you want to work on that? He’s willing to, but also open to partners. I’m willing to do that, too, because I remember that was a big deal with the high school, uh, football field. The athletic field. Yeah. Yes. But they actually did everything right. Um, yeah. It’s becoming more common that that it’s taken into consideration. So. All right. Deal. Peter.

01:33:26,770	All right. And so I just want to go back to, um, something we touched on way early, which was how much of this stuff do we want to put on the website? How much of this spreadsheet specifically? Uh, no.

01:33:48,870	Or how much of this information? Okay, so I don’t know whether it’s these spreadsheets or we, but I don’t I don’t want to create work. Why not just copy as they are or the proxy that you think would? What? Would you know too much. Are you all right? Yeah. My thought was to.

01:34:06,200	I mean, certainly that would be the easiest way is to put my memo in the up there with this. And like, a little packet and a link. And a little public. , it’s all. Like and and. I yeah, they’re in there on the website now. But we can create a. Link to like Gary said, when it becomes buried in the minutes. Uh.

01:34:25,770	Because I think it would be really helpful. And, you know, your, your cover letter really is good. Um. But you. Know, again, by, by putting stuff like this up here, I mean, it really does. Um, for people in the town or. And what the hell are those people doing? It’s like, well, that’s what they’re doing, all right.

01:34:48,430	Transparency. Yeah, yeah. Agreed. All right. Did we cover everything? Yeah. Ben, you been the only one that. I think Ben’s good? Well, you all said okay. I thought we were going this way. And then Peter just. Oh, no. No. All right. No, I didn’t have any.

01:35:15,800	I think the things that Gary and Deirdre added for 27 goals or I agree with sounds good. One quick question. Did the departments come up with any, uh, new initiatives that they think they need to do to get support on? Well, no, I mean, not formally. There’s you know, we’re talking as part of this and actually it’s. Um.

01:35:40,230	And now I just thought of another one that didn’t make it up here is, um, you know, I’ll add it is we really are working on internal policy. Not so much procedures, although I guess they kind of tie pretty closely.

01:35:58,730	But how? You know, if you take money or if you take checks, what the sign off is on that and just the payroll really just we’ve never really we have a pretty good process now.

01:36:16,770	But just like what is the payroll process? What are the deadlines? And because things come up every once in a while and, you know, so that’s something Ernie has a lot of experience with is internal controls. So that’s something that we are working on. Is that embedded in the financial procedures or. Yeah, it should have been it should have been part it should have been a standalone item for, uh, revenue generating departments. But it extends further.

01:36:34,730	That goal extends further than that into really, you know, everything finance does. We’re trying to work and to actually memorialize what the process is and make some improvements and make it a little safer where we can. Yeah, I can add that. Great. All right. I mean. I go ahead. No, no, go ahead.

01:37:00,370	I mean, I think about where we started like two years ago. Three years ago. Yes. We’ve come a long way. And, um, I, you know, not just in, in all the planning and everything, but I think that, uh, I’d like to think that most of our employees would say that, um, things are going a lot smoother

01:37:23,470	now, and it’s not just putting fires out. I agree. You know, I think that generally folks like it, right? Yeah. I mean. It depends on the day. For the most part, I think. Not to put you on the spot. Yeah. Right. Everyone’s happy. Right. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Fair point. Thank you Steve.

01:37:54,770	Thanks to everyone. That’s really just highlights how little you can do by yourself. Is this when you’re going through it all? You know what I mean. It’s truly a team effort. Yeah. Yeah. We’re very fortunate. All right. Next meeting is September. Eighth or eighth.

01:38:21,000	And the speed limit discussion will be one of the primary items on the agenda. At 6:00 start. Uh, okay. pinning ceremony. The police. Yep. Yeah. Family and friends and stuff. So it’ll be. We’ll do the ceremony first and then the regular meeting at. 630. Motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn the select Board meeting of August 25th at 8:11 p.m.. All right.

01:38:51,370	All in favor? Somebody got a second? Oh, yeah. Second. Sorry. Second. Too quick! All in favor? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you everyone.