[0:14] we were
[Music]
[0:28] oh
[1:11] that will go on okay because this bottom
one is on
[1:14] yep okay but that'll go on and then
you'll be live
[1:17] so when you want to go live you press
that there you go okay so we're live
[1:21] now you're live okay just open up the
meeting
[1:25] public meeting to order of march 30th
the first meeting of the
[1:28] town franklin cpa committee
called meeting to order and we only have
[1:33] one agenda item this evening
and it's member training led by stewart
[1:42] you nailed it mr chairman he's the
executive director
[1:46] community preservation coalition
[1:52] he's on there he's muted
[1:56] you're muted yes i was
i was i was trying to get the uh power
[2:01] there to go here
there you go so i'm on here twice it
[2:06] seems like
you are stuart just for just so you're
[2:10] aware um
you're on once on zoom and then you're
[2:14] being um
routed through zoom right on live onto
[2:18] franklin tv
i am very impressed
[2:26] so is your committee um in person
or are they all remote
[2:32] um it looks like everybody's in person
except for
[2:36] uh joe halligan and lisa oxford
gotcha okay um
[2:42] so do you want to begin with just a
quick introduction i'd like to know
[2:46] particularly what committee different
folks represent
[2:51] that would be helpful sure why don't i
have each member uh
[2:55] introduce themselves individually and
they can reference what committee
[2:58] they're from
great you want to start mr chairman sure
[3:03] my name is chris feely and i'm
representing the franklin housing
[3:06] authority
[3:10] well i'm dave mcnail vice chair i'm
citizen of large
[3:15] phyllis malcolm the historical
commission
[3:20] mike giardino at large wayne sumerian
recreation advisory board
[3:27] jeff livingstone conservation
[3:31] uh monique doyle a member at large
and then to zoom joe joe halligan vice
[3:38] planning board and lisa
[3:44] the oxford member at large
hey great so you got all nine
[3:51] i was taking notes quick all right
um so we all set to begin i'll share my
[3:58] screen
we'll get going all right
[4:06] so let me start the show from beginning
all right so how does that look for
[4:15] everybody thank you
that's perfect thank you yes all right
[4:21] great so i'll start by saying that um
i i normally do this presentation in
[4:26] person and i hope to be um
fully vaccinated soon and be back out in
[4:31] person so
you may be the last training session we
[4:34] ever do by zoom
and i'm sorry about that but um we try
[4:39] to do these interactively and i think
it'll still work on
[4:42] zoom so if folks have questions i think
it does make sense since there's a lot
[4:46] of material
to get through that you ask your
[4:48] questions along the way
and i'll stop at certain points certain
[4:52] cadence points when we move from topic
to topic just to make sure
[4:56] that everyone's caught up and and has um
doesn't have any questions
[4:59] and please feel free to ask questions
now because
[5:03] some of the material is complicated and
um
[5:07] you know cpa is a wonderful act but
there's a lot of moving parts to it so
[5:12] um feel free to to chime in at any time
so i'll just quickly tell you about our
[5:17] organization the community preservation
coalition we are
[5:20] a non-profit based in boston but we're
really just a grouping of all these
[5:24] other non-profits
that uh represent the different cpa
[5:28] categories open space housing and
historic
[5:31] preservation and so uh someone from each
of these organizations sits on our
[5:35] steering committee
we also have eight members from cpa
[5:39] communities like yourself
someone on a cpc in a local community um
[5:43] we have eight of those on our steering
committee we have some
[5:46] at-large members and and uh you know a
total of 21 folks sit on our steering
[5:50] committee and and meet a few times a
year to kind of set the agenda for cpa
[5:55] and each of these folks really dig in
and help us
[5:59] run the coalition and represent us at
the state house and at the trade
[6:04] associations and meetings and
conferences and that sort of thing we're
[6:08] a pretty lean
and mean organization we are the three
[6:12] full-time folks
um right now we're two and um going to
[6:16] be
adding back in a replacement for our
[6:19] research director who
left to start her own business very
[6:23] recently
um so we really rely on those 21
[6:26] steering committees to really help us
steering committee members really help
[6:29] us run
our services and what what sort of
[6:32] things do we do well
typical of i guess for lack of a better
[6:36] term a municipal
trade association um we do the things
[6:40] that um
each of you you know in your capacity at
[6:44] the town probably has a statewide
association
[6:47] that represents uh planning boards um uh
town managers town councils there's even
[6:54] a mass moderators association
representing all moderators and towns
[6:58] uh and we're the we're basically the
trade association for cpa committees
[7:03] we do a ton of technical assistance so
i'll show you at the end
[7:07] our technical assistance hotline that
you can call
[7:10] monday through thursday with any
questions you might have on cpa
[7:14] i'm going to introduce you to our
website and show you exactly where
[7:17] you would find information that a
community preservation committee member
[7:21] might need we'll get you all up on our
newsletter list so you can receive
[7:27] information from us we do a newsletter
not
[7:30] too often to spam you we probably do it
every six to eight weeks or so
[7:34] and if there's a bulletin throughout the
year like when the state match is
[7:38] announced and that sort of thing you'll
hear from us
[7:41] probably i think our most valuable
service honestly
[7:45] to cpa communities is the work we do on
beacon hill
[7:48] um you know you're not going to head up
to beacon hill on your own
[7:52] um and start advocating for a decade to
pass a piece of legislation to improve
[7:57] cpa
so we spent a lot of time doing that
[8:01] making changes to the act that
communities feel are beneficial
[8:05] and frankly defending cpa from
legislation that would be harmful and
[8:09] not in the best interests of cpa
communities
[8:13] we also help communities adopt cpa as
well and i saw susan spears had
[8:18] had joined us this evening and worked
very very hard with some of the local
[8:23] advocates to get cpa passed in franklin
and those are the folks who we work with
[8:29] prior to a community
passing cpa to really make sure they
[8:32] have all the tools they need to explain
it to their voters
[8:36] and then trainings like this conferences
i hope we get back to having our
[8:39] in-person conferences again
and those sort of things round out what
[8:43] we do um
people always ask us how we fund
[8:46] ourselves so i actually inserted that
right into the
[8:49] conversation right into the presentation
rather
[8:52] we fund ourselves three ways we have the
traditional requests we make to
[8:57] foundations like any non-profit or
charity would do
[9:00] um our member organizations those six
non-profits also help us
[9:04] in kind and with funding as well but by
far the largest source of our revenue
[9:10] comes from membership dues
that cpa communities pay out of their
[9:14] administrative account
you don't even have to worry about that
[9:17] now you are a complimentary member for
us we want to get you up and running
[9:21] and make sure your cpa program starts
out on good footing
[9:25] at some point next year probably you
will have an administrative account and
[9:30] at that point we'll invite you to join
and hopefully you will it's very much
[9:35] voluntary but we're really honored that
almost every single cpa community in the
[9:39] whole state has seen value in what the
coalition does so don't worry about that
[9:45] for now we'll
we'll revisit that in the future at the
[9:47] point that you have an administrative
budget available
[9:50] to you so this is our website uh
hopefully some of you have been there
[9:54] already
communitypreservation.org and we spent a
[9:58] ton of time on this website i have to
tell you
[10:00] um chase mack our communications
director is
[10:04] adding things and changing things and
posting things every single day
[10:07] so we really try to keep it fresh and
updated with all the news that's
[10:11] happening around the state and
what other communities are doing in
[10:15] particular
the tab that i want to draw your
[10:18] attention to is the one called technical
assistance
[10:21] on the top and when you hover over that
tab it opens up this big super menu in
[10:26] green
um with literally hundreds of articles
[10:30] and information on every single aspect
of
[10:33] of cpa um i you know we've been at this
for 20 years now since
[10:38] uh cpa was passed in 2000 i'm not so
sure we've ever taken anything off our
[10:43] website there is
it looks nice and clean and neat right
[10:46] now but boy when you get in there
there is a lot of information very
[10:51] helpful
uh information particularly for cpa
[10:54] committee members
so i would encourage you to spend a
[10:57] little time as you get up to speed
looking through
[11:00] the technical assistance tab on our
website
[11:05] so um before we dive into the main
meat of the presentation tonight which
[11:10] is what is a community preservation
committee and what do you guys do and
[11:13] what are your
first tasks that you have to tackle in
[11:15] the coming months
i just want to give you a broad
[11:18] perspective of cpa because you are
really part of
[11:22] a really terrific program that is in
more than half the cities and towns
[11:27] in the state over 50 percent of the
communities have cpa
[11:31] but because most of the recent adoptees
like franklin have been cities or city
[11:36] form of government
we now have 65 percent of the
[11:40] massachusetts residents living
in a cpa community so more urbanized
[11:46] communities and the city former
governments have really formed um
[11:50] the backbone of communities that have
adopted in the past
[11:53] decade in the first decade early on it
was more
[11:57] rural towns suburban towns more
wealthier towns
[12:02] cape communities but we made some
changes
[12:05] with the legislature's help in 2012 to
really incentivize
[12:10] more cities to come into the program and
make it more flexible and meaningful for
[12:14] them
and it's worked terrifically one thing
[12:18] we're really proud to say
is no communities have ever revoked cpa
[12:22] once you've had it for five years
you can exit the program and no one ever
[12:27] has
every community that has adopted it has
[12:29] felt that it was really terrific
and um has stayed in the program um
[12:34] it's only even been to the ballot three
times to revoke it
[12:38] um in all three communities i believe it
was um
[12:42] hingham sturbridge and northampton were
the three communities that even went to
[12:46] the ballot
with a revocation vote um and it was
[12:50] like 80
20 uh in all three cases to keep cpa
[12:54] so it's really a terrific program i
don't think we'll be able to say that
[12:58] forever at some point someone's going to
have some other priorities and
[13:02] want um to exit the program um hopefully
it won't be franklin
[13:06] um but uh you know at this point we're
really pleased that
[13:10] none of the communities that you see on
this map um have ever
[13:15] revoked cpa so this is definitely my
favorite map of massachusetts the
[13:20] one that shows all the cpa communities
the green are the towns
[13:24] and the orange yellow depending upon
how it appears on your screen are the
[13:30] city form of governments
so a lot of them are town of like you
[13:35] folks are
but um but have a city council um or a
[13:38] city manager form
of government there were nine new
[13:43] communities
that adopted cpa on election day on the
[13:47] presidential ballot so you were one of
the
[13:49] the class of 2021 um
and um i probably could maybe memorize
[13:56] all of them
um maybe not um but uh
[14:00] the other cities i know we can start
with um
[14:04] greenfield and framingham were the other
cities that adopted cpa
[14:07] on election day you are the first
community that
[14:11] are organized with their community
preservation committee and are going
[14:14] through the training
i have to say um it's really good to
[14:18] have a town manager named jamie helen
who has a tremendous background with cpa
[14:22] and
who um has worked on it for quite a
[14:25] while because
you folks organized faster than any
[14:30] community in the history of cpa i have
been doing this for 15 years i've never
[14:34] done a training
before the program actually begins in
[14:38] the community
so you actually don't start collecting
[14:41] money and officially join the program
um with your surcharge until july 1st
[14:47] i've never done a training before july
1st and
[14:51] it's really terrific you'll find out in
a minute um the value of having been
[14:55] organized earlier
you're going to really have a lot more
[14:58] flexibility next year
than other communities sometimes it
[15:02] takes years
west newbury holds the record took two
[15:05] and a half years after their election
for for west newbury to get organized
[15:09] their terrific cpa community now
but that just for some reason was a
[15:14] little slower in getting out of the gate
[15:18] so the last thing i'll tell you
statewide
[15:21] is to give you a perspective of the
impact of cpa because it really has been
[15:25] a hugely successful program
there have been about 13 000 projects
[15:31] these are these statistics are all as of
the end of last fiscal year so they're
[15:35] almost a year
old at this point and we'll update it
[15:38] this summer after all the communities
report what they did
[15:42] during fy21 but this is through the end
of fy 20.
[15:47] historic preservation is definitely the
most popular category of cpa
[15:51] you can see we've had about 13 000
appropriations and projects and about
[15:55] half of them have been in the historic
preservation category it doesn't roll up
[16:00] that way money-wise
this is just numbers of projects in this
[16:04] case the money is actually pretty even
when you
[16:07] add it up statewide between the
different categories
[16:11] but in terms of number of projects
historic preservation is definitely
[16:15] more most popular we're
closing closing in on 32 000 acres of
[16:20] open space that's been preserved
with cpa either through agricultural
[16:24] preservation restrictions
conservation restrictions or actual fee
[16:28] ownership
by cities and towns outdoor recreation
[16:32] is clearly the most popular
category recently in cpa i mentioned
[16:39] that legislation in 2012 that made a
bunch of changes
[16:43] to cpa one of them made the recreation
category
[16:48] much more flexible than before um
originally with cpa you could only
[16:53] develop new recreational facilities or
buy land
[16:57] for new recreational facilities but you
could not rehabilitate
[17:00] the ones you already owned prior to cpa
and um most communities you know have
[17:06] recreational assets but have found it
very difficult to
[17:09] inject capital funding and and really
bring those up to stan
[17:13] current standards so we worked with the
legislature for about five years to make
[17:18] those changes
and since then the outdoor recreation
[17:22] category has really exploded
which is very rewarding to see
[17:26] communities finally being
able to fix up their parks and their
[17:30] playgrounds and their athletic fields
and then lastly the affordable housing
[17:34] category we've had over 20 000 units
either created
[17:37] or supported in some way with cpa funds
so you add it all up um believe it or
[17:43] not there's been over
2.5 billion dollars raised
[17:47] between the local surcharge and the
state matching money
[17:52] and that's in less than 20 years so cpa
has really
[17:56] um you know been the little engine that
could in terms of getting projects done
[18:00] across the state
and quietly and very efficiently there's
[18:05] no
state agency in charge of cpa the state
[18:08] spends absolutely nothing on
administering the program
[18:11] they consider it to be a local program
and so all the money goes right into um
[18:18] projects so it's really a terrific
funding source and
[18:20] and i think the communities that have it
including mine i live up on the north
[18:24] shore
uh in boxford i was chair of my cpc for
[18:28] five years and before i joined the
coalition and i know my town has had
[18:32] tremendous success with it so i'm pretty
confident you guys will as well
[18:38] so before we jump into a community
preservation committee and what you do
[18:42] and what your responsibilities are
any questions from anyone so far
[18:50] all right so let's yes go ahead
i said it appears not sorry okay all
[18:55] right great and uh jamie just so you
know
[18:58] um you know i can't uh i can't see too
many of you folks i can see a few faces
[19:03] but
most of you i cannot see um let's do
[19:06] with uh
if there's a question we'll uh we'll
[19:08] flag it for you okay great
thank you all right
[19:13] so let's move on um
all right so um you folks now that
[19:20] you've
uh come together and organized and i
[19:22] think you
organized the committee in terms of a
[19:25] chair and vice chair
you're ready to sort of dig in and begin
[19:29] your work
and the cpa legislation gives you a
[19:33] little road map
for your first set of months and maybe
[19:37] even up to a year
in terms of um how long and how deep you
[19:41] want to dive on your
getting yourself set up um the first
[19:45] thing that it requires
us community preservation committee to
[19:49] do
is to write a plan um and this doesn't
[19:53] have to be a plan that you create from
scratch
[19:55] um you're all volunteers and so far you
don't have any administrative help you
[19:59] don't even have an administrative budget
to hire any help
[20:02] um so you um you know you really are
supposed
[20:06] to take into account all the other
planning that
[20:09] that's the city has done um
and and let me ask for a second do you
[20:14] um
object to being called the city should i
[20:16] call it a town
um i i made that mistake once um
[20:21] in braintree they're known as the town
of braintree and they want to be known
[20:24] as a town so
if you want to balance it out stu you
[20:28] can say the city known as the town of
franklin
[20:30] okay i'll well that'll be where you
cover all your bases and you might want
[20:33] to turn
this into purple on your map so we can
[20:35] stick out
[20:38] we support all colors here jamie all
right
[20:42] um so um this cpa plan
um you know the first thing you're going
[20:47] to do is grab all the other planning
documents the
[20:50] the the town slash city has um
and then it requires you to meet with
[20:55] others um
meet with the general public in terms of
[20:58] having a public hearing to get some
input from
[21:01] citizens at large and non-profit groups
in town as to what they want to see
[21:05] out of your cpa program uh meet with
all the other boards and committees that
[21:10] might intersect with cpa in town
and you know after a period of time you
[21:15] roll that together in a written plan
um do not uh be bashful
[21:21] about looking through other plans from
other communities there's been about 175
[21:27] other cpa plans we have six or seven of
them on our website that we've
[21:32] looked through and vetted and make sure
all the information was correct
[21:36] in those plans and accurate um and feel
free we put them up there in a word
[21:41] format so that you could use them
um you know when you when you read
[21:45] through these plans you'll see
tremendous
[21:47] local custom material that folks have
really customized to their communities
[21:51] but there's a lot of information
about the program and about the history
[21:55] of the program and there's no need for
you guys to write
[21:58] that from scratch um if you want to
incorporate in your plan and you like it
[22:01] in someone else's plan
go grab it it's a public document and we
[22:05] encourage you to do that
because like i said you're all
[22:08] volunteers and um
only have a limited amount of bandwidth
[22:12] and time
um to do this we've had a couple
[22:15] communities that have actually hired
outside consultants to do community
[22:19] preservation plans
and that's certainly something that you
[22:21] could consider doing
um we've had a couple communities who've
[22:25] turned to their regional planning
agencies
[22:27] i don't know which one um are you in
serpent's
[22:31] territory mapc and they oh you're in
mbpc's territory okay great
[22:36] i don't think they have written any cpa
plans but they certainly probably could
[22:40] um
you know if they get paid anyone will do
[22:43] anything so that's certainly an option
but by and large the vast majority of
[22:47] communities do it themselves
um with a little help from the folks in
[22:51] in in
town hall um and the volunteers of the
[22:55] committee
so it's really up to you as to how you
[22:58] want to do this
but the key is to really reach out to
[23:02] the community
and find out what is important to the
[23:06] people
and the organizations in franklin in
[23:09] terms of the
four cpa categories
[23:14] so once you get that plan done um you
then have some ongoing responsibilities
[23:20] obviously
throughout throughout the year you do
[23:24] have to repeat that public hearing every
single year
[23:27] and once again solicit the public's
input as to what's important to cpa and
[23:32] what the public might want to see
coming up that year on your cpa projects
[23:38] and then you use that information uh to
do a light refresh
[23:41] on your cpa plan it doesn't have to be
rewritten from scratch certainly
[23:45] but you'll want to you know update it to
any changes that have happened to the
[23:49] law
updated with a list of projects you
[23:51] completed the year before update it with
your financials from the year before
[23:56] and those sort of things um in addition
a cpc kind of acts as a department head
[24:04] in terms of monitoring your account
balances and spending
[24:07] um you know you don't have to do the
actual accounting the the town
[24:11] accountant and the finance director and
whatever you call your different finance
[24:15] people in town
will take care of that for you but they
[24:19] should be providing you with copies
of your budgets on the same schedule
[24:23] that they do for all
city department heads so if the dpw
[24:28] director gets um
you know a monthly report the cpc should
[24:31] as well so they can see
where they're at in terms of their
[24:35] spending in their administrative account
and also the various projects
[24:39] that have been uh had money appropriated
them for cpa
[24:44] and then to the meat of the order the
last two things on this list are really
[24:48] your the very essence of why the cpc
exists it's to
[24:52] make an annual budget and present that
to the city council
[24:56] and then to make recommendations for
spending
[25:00] the money and appropriating money for
projects
[25:04] as you may know and you'll probably hear
me say this about 10 times this evening
[25:08] the cpc can't spend any money itself
except your administrative account and
[25:13] even that has to be
appropriated first by the city council
[25:17] all the final spending decisions are
made by the council
[25:20] but conversely the council can't make
any appropriations from
[25:25] the cpa fund unless your committee first
recommends
[25:29] that spending to the council so there's
kind of a checks and a balance there
[25:33] and it is a very different arrangement
than any other border committee in town
[25:37] um you really you'd be hard-pressed to
find
[25:40] um you know a budget that um has to be
recommended by
[25:44] a committee or else the council
absolutely can't spend that money
[25:49] um so it's a very unique arrangement and
um
[25:52] you know one that comes with a lot of
responsibility
[25:56] for being on a cpc
all right so let's talk about the coming
[26:01] year and what you would do
um you know obviously the first thing
[26:05] you're going to do as we talked about is
to begin working on that plan
[26:09] but here's where you know jamie being
johnny on the spot here and getting you
[26:13] guys organized
ahead of time is really going to pay off
[26:17] because
it's not too late for you folks to
[26:22] recommend and submit a budget to the
city council for
[26:25] fy22 most communities are not
organized in time to do that
[26:32] so this is terrific for you mainly
because
[26:36] it will give you an administrative
budget starting july 1st
[26:40] um and we're going to talk about exactly
what that budget is going to look like
[26:44] in a minute we're going to step through
it and i even have um
[26:47] a format i can send you afterwards of
what the actual
[26:50] order would look like that you would
present to the council with your budget
[26:54] you'll have to fill in your numbers of
course but
[26:56] um we can step you through this this
process and
[26:59] like i said it is going to be beneficial
because the ability to
[27:03] be organized in time to submit a budget
and get it passed by the council before
[27:08] june 30th will give you an
administrative fund
[27:11] starting july 1st to be able to hire
some help to do the plan if you want to
[27:17] to pay for the ads in the newspaper for
the public hearing you're required to
[27:21] advertise it in the newspaper for two
weeks prior to the hearing
[27:24] um maybe even to buy uh you know a
couple boxes of donuts to have at the
[27:28] hearing you know a lot of cpcs
like to um you know attract people
[27:33] through food um
it's a great way to get people to come
[27:36] um to meetings
and give their opinions you know
[27:39] sometimes a public hearing can be a
little sparsely attended unless you
[27:42] generate some excitement about it and
really reach out to people and tell them
[27:46] you really want their opinions and
and food is a great way to do that and
[27:50] you know that's
kind of the kind of thing that the
[27:52] administrative budget is for so
you're in great shape uh to be able to
[27:56] have that
um for this coming fiscal year
[28:01] so you're going to work on the cpa plan
you're going to get that budget together
[28:04] with our help and get it to the council
um and then at some point you know
[28:09] probably by about the fall
um excuse me that's a that's a typo
[28:13] sorry about that um uh
it could be the fall of 20 2022 if you
[28:18] really you know dig into your cpa plan
and want to spend an entire year working
[28:22] on them that's fine
um you know typically i think it takes
[28:26] probably in the six
month range so you may be ready by the
[28:29] fall of 2021
sorry about that typo to um begin
[28:33] accepting applications um or you can
you can wait and you really if you would
[28:38] really want to dig into your plan and it
takes more time
[28:41] certainly the pandemic is going gonna
you know still raging and it's still
[28:44] gonna slow down some things possibly for
you
[28:47] um and then typically you would send
your projects to the city council
[28:52] in the same budget time frame that the
city is doing its regular budget in the
[28:55] spring
um so maybe by the spring of 2022
[28:59] um you know a year from now you'd be
ready to present your first slate of
[29:03] projects
uh to the council um some like i said
[29:06] some communities take longer and really
want to dig in on their plan
[29:10] um and and take their time setting up
all their materials and their procedures
[29:14] and their application and that sort of
thing
[29:16] the timetable is completely up to you
the legislation does not specify
[29:21] uh a timetable for all that all it says
is you have to do a plan
[29:24] and hold a public hearing so this is
just a
[29:28] a suggested timetable and before i send
you a copy of this presentation
[29:32] afterwards tonight i will fix these
dates in here just to give you
[29:36] guys some ideas so any questions on
those beginning steps in the
[29:41] the time frame
[Music]
[29:47] all right let's move along
all right so the next section is um a
[29:53] little denser we're going to get into
the budgeting of cpa
[29:56] and how the money flows and where the
money comes from and and what you have
[30:00] to do to spend
that money with cpa so
[30:04] as i said you do your responsibility is
to prepare
[30:08] an annual budget and present that to the
council it does require
[30:12] your recommendation you have to actually
formally vote at a meeting
[30:16] you know i move to recommend the
following annual cpa budget for fy22 to
[30:20] the city council
and you pass that and you send it along
[30:25] normally communities set up their annual
cycle
[30:28] so that the cpc does their budget
and their project recommendations to the
[30:34] city council at the same time that the
city is doing their regular budget in
[30:38] the spring but that's not universal
i know rockport for example always does
[30:44] their cpa projects in the fall
because spring can be a very busy time
[30:49] it can be a little bit of a crazy time
emotions can be running pretty high
[30:54] about this
the town's budget or the school budget
[30:57] or override votes
or um you know different
[31:03] things that are really controversial so
sometimes cpcs want to
[31:07] pull out of that cycle and and do their
stuff in the fall it's really up to you
[31:11] as to how you set up
um your cycle um but at least for
[31:16] for this year i would definitely suggest
that you
[31:19] send them a budget um this spring at the
same time they're working on the regular
[31:23] budget
now to do a budget you know just like at
[31:28] home when you do a budget
um you need to know how much revenue
[31:31] you're going to have that's the
very first thing in the budget is how
[31:34] much money are we going to have to spend
in the coming year and for right now
[31:38] let's talk about it as if we're doing a
budget for fy22
[31:41] for next fiscal year um so your total
budget for cpa
[31:46] is only based on two numbers um you have
the money you're going to collect
[31:51] locally through that two percent
surcharge
[31:54] which i think jamie correct me if i'm
wrong is going to be somewhere in the
[31:58] range of
1.2 1.3 million is that what you guys
[32:03] are thinking that's correct stu that was
based off
[32:06] um i want to say fy20s numbers
um so that probably will be a little
[32:12] higher probably closer to 1.4 million
right okay great so that's the first
[32:17] part of your budget
um and then you get a distribution from
[32:22] the statewide trust fund
every november so that is the second
[32:26] number
that you need to be able to do your
[32:29] budget now
the fy 22 budget is going to be easier
[32:33] than any budget you're ever going to do
because you don't get a trust fund
[32:38] distribution
during fy22 you will not get a
[32:42] distribution this coming november
the way the trust fund works is you
[32:47] collect your local money for an entire
year
[32:50] and then you get your match after the
end of that year
[32:54] so you're gonna get your first match in
november of 2022
[33:00] and that'll be based on what you
collected in fiscal year 2022.
[33:06] so your estimated local revenue for fy
22
[33:10] is just going to be that 1.3 1.4 million
so that's the only number you need
[33:17] and um you know your municipal officials
probably want to take another look at
[33:20] that based on the current tax data they
have and the current tax rates
[33:24] but that's the number you're going to
need from your finance department
[33:28] or jamie to be able to start working on
your budget
[33:31] what are we expected to collect in our
local surcharge for
[33:36] fy22
all right so let's talk about the trust
[33:39] fund a little bit and then we'll get
back to the
[33:42] to the budget budget because the trust
fund is the best part of cpa
[33:47] um you know you can always raise your
taxes by two percent
[33:50] to pay for projects that you want to do
in town
[33:54] and you could also always have overrides
to pay for projects but
[33:57] none of that would come with a
guaranteed annual state match
[34:01] from a cpa trust fund so it is truly the
magic of cpa i'm not sure
[34:06] any communities on that on that map
would be green or orange or purple
[34:12] if it wasn't for the trust funds frankly
it's the magic it's the engine that
[34:16] makes cpa go
and it is a true trust fund um it is um
[34:22] a trust fund account that the department
of revenue
[34:26] um administers it's the only thing the
state does for cpa they track the trust
[34:30] fund money other than that it's
completely a local program
[34:34] and um unlike every other piece of state
revenue practically
[34:39] the cpa trust fund money
does not come from the state budget
[34:46] it comes from a dedicated fee
that was created in 2000 when the
[34:52] legislature
excuse me first passed cpa and governor
[34:56] celucci
signed the legislation it added a
[35:00] surcharge
onto all documents filed at the registry
[35:04] of deeds in massachusetts
so anywhere in massachusetts when you
[35:08] step up to the window or
at a registry and you file
[35:14] a mortgage or a deed on your property
or trust fund documents or
[35:21] a mortgage discharge a
second mortgage equity line of credit
[35:27] paperwork any piece of paper you're
filing at the registry
[35:31] there's a fee you pay to the state most
of it goes to the state's general fund
[35:35] but on almost all documents at the
registry 50
[35:39] of that fee goes to the cpa trust fund
there's one document that's 25 and
[35:45] that's municipal lean certificates
but everything else has a surcharge of
[35:49] 50 on it and that money
funds the trust fund now the exciting
[35:55] part of this and why your timing on cpa
is spectacular in terms of when you're
[36:00] joining the program
the exciting part is that that fee up
[36:05] until
about one year ago was twenty dollars
[36:09] for most documents
and ten dollars for municipal lean
[36:12] certificates
and it hadn't changed in 20 years and
[36:16] the
the matching money from the state was
[36:19] getting awful thin
because we have 186 miles to feed right
[36:23] there's 186 communities
and they all share that trust fund and
[36:27] that's why you're kind of all in this
together
[36:30] because you're all taking a piece of the
pie out of that
[36:34] trust fund all 186 communities
so the matching money was down into the
[36:40] single digits and when i say a matching
money what i mean is
[36:44] a percentage match against what you
raise locally
[36:48] so last year if you had been in the
program
[36:52] you would have received 28.6
of what you raised locally or 28.6
[36:59] of 1.4 million dollars that would have
been your match
[37:03] last year um before those fees were
raised
[37:07] it was getting darn close to single
digits
[37:10] below 10 percent the match they um
we took i think eight eight years to get
[37:17] the legislature to pass that legislation
it is
[37:20] not easy to pass legislation in
massachusetts
[37:24] and to pass legislation that generates
money
[37:27] is next to impossible especially money
that is
[37:31] outside the regular budget process and
this trust fund
[37:35] is outside the legislature's control
um they cannot grab this money without
[37:42] changing the cpa law the only thing that
can be done with this money
[37:46] is to pay it out to a match every
november to the 186
[37:50] cpa communities so um you know already
last year that match was a lot higher
[37:57] than it was the year before
and this coming year i think it'll even
[38:01] be a little bit higher
of course you don't get your first match
[38:05] until a year from this november
but still we're in a definite upward
[38:10] trend
on the trust fund and it's also doesn't
[38:13] hurt
that the real estate market is going
[38:16] absolutely bonkers
um you know cpa really depends the
[38:21] revenue with the registry of deeds there
are lots of different types of documents
[38:24] that are filed with the registry but it
really depends upon the real estate
[38:27] market
um those are the vast majority of the
[38:30] documents that are filed
so between the increase in the fees uh
[38:35] the surcharge fee at the registry
and the tremendous um you know
[38:40] real estate market right now the trust
fund is really doing well
[38:45] so there's three figures i want to show
you on this chart just to give you an
[38:50] idea of how much money is brought in
to the trust fund so the last year
[38:56] of the old fee structure when the fees
were twenty dollars per document
[39:01] uh the trust fund brought in 23.2
million dollars
[39:07] last year the trust fund brought in 56.9
million dollars
[39:12] and that didn't even have 12 months
versus the new fees it only had 10
[39:17] months with the new fee structure
and two months at the old fee structure
[39:23] so this match this coming match in 2021
in november of 2021
[39:28] is going to be the first match where
we'll have
[39:31] all 12 months at the new higher fees
and we're now four months into that
[39:37] trust fund year
we've collected november december
[39:40] january and february
and the trust fund has already brought
[39:45] in 27.2 million dollars
so in four months it brought in more
[39:51] than the entire year
back in 2019 um it's up 131.7
[39:59] from last year just in those four months
um so it's really a terrific time to be
[40:06] joining cpa
um if you're in terms of the the trust
[40:10] fund
any questions on this state revenue or
[40:14] the statewide trust fund
yes that works yeah uh can you talk
[40:18] about the uh match
the base maps uh it's not 100
[40:24] it's just 28.6 correct
um cpa in its first six years back from
[40:31] 2001 to 2007
um it did match a hundred percent
[40:38] but it was an accident honestly
um the the folks who created cpa never
[40:45] dreamed that it would be a 100
matching fund their goal was to you know
[40:50] be
somewhere in the 30 to 50 percent match
[40:53] and that's what most of the state grant
programs
[40:55] are you know are not a hundred percent
they're they're matching funds
[40:59] um you know sometimes 30 sometimes 50
depending upon the different state
[41:03] programs that are out there
and but in the beginning um it was
[41:08] another go-go
time at the real estate market um number
[41:13] one it was when interest rates were
plummeting so everyone was refinancing
[41:16] sometimes people were refinancing two
three times a year back then when the
[41:20] interest rates were just plummeting
and each of those refinancings created
[41:24] tremendous money for the trust fund
and you heard me say that the initial
[41:28] communities that adopted cpa
were very small and very you know for
[41:32] the most part suburban and rural
um so there was enough money to pay
[41:37] everyone a hundred percent for
for seven years um but it was probably
[41:41] the worst thing honestly that happened
to cpa
[41:44] because it became known as the program
that was 100 matching program and it was
[41:49] never designed that way so
when it finally fell below 100 percent
[41:54] it fell quickly
and then there was a lot of gnashing of
[41:57] teeth of the state has reneged on their
promise
[42:00] or they're not funding it the way they
used to that was not true at all the
[42:04] funding formula has
never changed um it's been the same for
[42:07] all one more question
20 years you see that match going up at
[42:12] all
with the present interest rates on
[42:15] property and so forth
um interest rates on property do you
[42:20] mean um
buying houses right now the interest
[42:23] rates really dropped
okay so you're talking about mortgage
[42:27] interest rates
i mean i'm just saying with people being
[42:32] able to buy homes and so forth i mean do
you see this
[42:35] this in this rate going up at all this
match or just in general do you see the
[42:39] matching
rate percent going up at all um
[42:45] yes i think it's like i said the real
estate market is doing terrific and
[42:49] most of the reason is those low interest
rates um
[42:52] so i do think this year's match in
november is going to be a little bit
[42:56] higher than last year because of that
the department of revenue does all the
[43:00] estimates on the trust fund and they do
it right about now sometime
[43:04] end of november early april they'll put
out their estimate so we'll see what
[43:08] they say
in terms of the projections for this
[43:10] coming november
the long-term trend i think you know
[43:15] this is not going to be a crazy real
estate mark like this forever
[43:18] we're really constrained in inventory in
massachusetts you know
[43:23] prices are great but cpa is not a
percentage of every sale it's a flat
[43:28] fee on every sale so um
you know it's this is only going to take
[43:33] um the hot real estate market is only
going to take the trust fund so far
[43:38] and you know new communities might join
cpa
[43:41] and every year your local surcharge goes
up
[43:44] so your claim on the trust fund goes up
a little bit in each of the 186
[43:48] communities so
um it's definitely not going to you know
[43:52] go much higher um
and it'll even probably you know tick
[43:56] down very very slowly
over the coming decade or so and then
[44:00] we'll have to go back to the legislature
and get them to raise the fee again
[44:03] or find another funding source thank you
all right any other questions on the
[44:09] trust fund
[44:13] all right so let's move along all right
so um
[44:16] so back to your annual budget you've now
gotten a good
[44:20] estimate on what your local surcharge
revenue is going to be
[44:24] and in the future your state revenue
as well coming in every november
[44:29] starting in november of 2022
so cpa really doesn't have many
[44:35] requirements about
how you have to spend that money matter
[44:38] of fact it really only has
one it says in the law
[44:43] that you must spend or reserve
for later spending 10 percent a minimum
[44:50] of 10 percent
in each of the three cpa categories so
[44:54] in fy 22 you're going to have about 1.4
million dollars
[44:58] in total revenue because you just get
your local money in fy 22.
[45:03] so you're going to have to either
recommend a project
[45:07] for a hundred let's see 100 uh 10 140
000 um in the housing category
[45:14] or you're going to much more likely
because you're not ready to do projects
[45:18] yet
you're going to ask the city council to
[45:21] set aside 140 000
in the housing reserve account and 140
[45:28] 000
in the open space and recreation reserve
[45:30] account and a hundred thousand
hundred and forty thousand in the
[45:34] historic accounts
that's the only requirement that cpa
[45:39] places on you
you have to do a little bit in each
[45:42] category you can't ignore
completely a category of cpa
[45:47] you either have to do a project worth
ten percent of your total budget
[45:52] or you have to reserve it for later
spending and once it's reserved into one
[45:55] one of those reserve accounts it has to
be spent on that category
[46:00] and this is why most communities don't
put more than
[46:03] the minimum in there because it
restricts your money it
[46:07] it ties it up you want to keep as much
of your money in that big blue category
[46:12] which is your flexible spending you know
that money can be spent on anything
[46:16] it could be all spent on a housing
project
[46:19] or a series of housing projects all on
open space or typically
[46:23] you know some of each the other thing
that
[46:26] cpa says is you can take a small
part of your annual revenue and use that
[46:32] for
administrative funds for the cpa
[46:34] committee we'll talk a little bit more
about what those administrative funds
[46:38] are used for in a minute
but there is a cap on that it's five
[46:41] percent of your anticipated revenue
so you could have an administrative
[46:46] budget of about seventy thousand dollars
next year five percent of your 1.4
[46:51] million dollar
surcharge when you do the budget for the
[46:55] following year
you're gonna have to add in your state
[46:58] match estimated revenue
to come up with that top figure and then
[47:02] everything will flow from there
does that make sense okay
[47:08] all right so those that's the
requirement with the budget
[47:12] so what does an annual budget actually
look like so
[47:15] this is um a typical cpa yes
[47:21] so with the administrative piece if we
put five percent
[47:26] into that category can we move that to a
different category at a later date
[47:32] from the administrative fund yes yes
you can but this goes back to what you
[47:39] have control over and what you don't
have control over
[47:43] anything that you do has to be
recommended to the city council
[47:47] so you can't do that on your own as a
cpa committee
[47:50] so if you put five percent into your
administrative account
[47:54] and then you later want to grab some of
that back for a project
[47:58] you would have to make a recommendation
to the city council and they would have
[48:01] to vote that
now um i think i hear where you're going
[48:06] with this
um the administrative account you don't
[48:09] want to end up with a lot of money just
sitting there
[48:12] but you won't because the administrative
account
[48:16] is an annual operating account it's the
only annual
[48:20] operating account in cpa meaning when
you set that 70 000 aside
[48:25] it's only good for fy22 and whatever you
don't spend
[48:29] will automatically be put back in your
cpa fund
[48:33] for spending on projects um and your
municipal officials will do that when
[48:37] they close the books at the end of the
year
[48:40] so what's great about it is you know if
jamie doesn't spend his entire legal
[48:45] budget
in fy 22 you know
[48:48] that closes you know to some general
fund account you know he can't carry
[48:54] that forward um
it's a use it or lose it with cpa if you
[48:58] don't spend all the administrative money
it's not gone to you
[49:01] it goes into your general cpa account
and it can be spent on projects the
[49:04] following year
[49:07] um so it's a really um you know you
won't end i have never really
[49:11] actually i don't think i've ever seen
anyone put money in
[49:14] and then before the end of the year take
it out to put it somewhere else in the
[49:18] administrative account because they know
it just is going to
[49:20] be put back into the you know general
cpa account at the end of the year
[49:27] does that help yes thank you i got a
question
[49:30] yeah so how many of the 186 towns and
cities have a
[49:35] a um administrative expense do they take
advantage of that
[49:39] uh i believe probably every community
except
[49:43] for cambridge
cambridge actually they have a small
[49:49] administrative expense
the only thing they do with their
[49:51] administrative budget is they pay they
pay dues to our organization which we're
[49:55] grateful for
um but they have made it a policy of
[49:59] theirs that
their municipal officials are going to
[50:02] do all the work on cpa as part of their
regular job
[50:05] um and they're not going to spend any of
the cpa funds on administration
[50:09] that's incredibly rare almost every
community
[50:13] spends a little bit i don't there is in
terms of
[50:17] another way to ask that question how
many communities spend the full five
[50:20] percent
that's pretty rare um i think newton
[50:23] probably spends the full five percent
because they have a full-time cpa
[50:27] administrator
um somerville probably spends the full
[50:31] five percent
uh most communities spend only a tiny
[50:34] fraction of
the five percent but we do recommend
[50:38] that you put five percent in at the
beginning of the year
[50:41] because you don't know what kind of
things are going to come up throughout
[50:44] the year you don't know when
a piece of land is going to present
[50:48] itself to you
um as a possible acquisition when a
[50:52] farmer passes away and you want to
protect that land
[50:55] and you need to do an appraisal um and
an appraisal costs you know five
[50:59] thousand dollars so
you don't you can't anticipate
[51:02] everything you're going to need so we we
do recommend that communities when they
[51:06] do their budget
that they ask for the full five percent
[51:09] from the city council
and there's no danger in doing that
[51:12] because if you don't spend it it's
just going to go back into your regular
[51:15] cpa account at the end of the year
and the city council will give you a new
[51:19] five percent administrative budget
makes sense i have a question yes
[51:25] um in the cpa law is it defined exactly
what
[51:28] counts as a mixture of expenses and what
the administrative account can be used
[51:32] for
it is not um but my next slide i think
[51:36] um talks about that so it's not defined
in the law
[51:41] but we have seen through um dor
letter rulings over the years um and
[51:46] town council opinions we got a pretty
good handle on what it
[51:49] what it can be spent for and what it
can't be spent for um so i'm going to
[51:53] talk about that in a second
sounds good all right um so
[51:59] let's do let's do a quick annual budget
for you um it's going to be really
[52:02] simple this year um
you know i'm assuming you're not gonna
[52:06] have any projects in the next
you know month or so to recommend to the
[52:10] city council unless something
is really hot that i don't know about um
[52:14] but uh probably not in the next month
anyways
[52:18] so um your budget will probably consist
of
[52:21] um an estimate let's say it's 1.4
million jamie will
[52:24] figure out or the with the municipal
officials exactly what that should be
[52:29] um you're going to take 10 of that for
argument's sake let's say
[52:33] it's 1.4 million in your revenue and
you're going to put 140 000
[52:37] in your housing reserve account 140 000
in your historic reserve account
[52:43] and you're going to ask the city council
put 140 000 in your open space and
[52:46] recreation
reserve account by the way open space
[52:50] and recreation
share a reserve account by open space we
[52:54] mean
conservation land you know buying land
[52:58] for conservation purposes
and by recreation we need active
[53:02] recreation parks
playgrounds athletic fields community
[53:05] gardens trails
those sort of things so it's really kind
[53:08] of passive and active recreation
two different types of projects but they
[53:12] do share one reserve account
all right so i would recommend
[53:19] that you ask for seventy thousand or
five percent
[53:22] in administrative funds um you're
probably not going to have any new
[53:26] projects this year
any projects to recommend so what you're
[53:31] going to do
is ask the city council to put the
[53:35] balance
in what's called a budgeted reserve
[53:38] account
so it's going to be the 1.4 million
[53:42] minus the 140
000 in each of the three reserve
[53:45] accounts minus 70 000. whatever that
number is
[53:48] and my math i usually i usually estimate
a million dollars so i can do it in my
[53:52] head
um but i picked up on your actual of 1.4
[53:55] and i can't do that in my head
but whatever that balance is your budget
[54:00] is going to request that the city
council put that in a
[54:03] budgeted reserve
[54:06] and the reason you do that is a little
piece of complicated municipal
[54:10] accounting
but um let's say that amount is
[54:16] um well let's do it real quick right
um 1.4 million 140 000 times 3
[54:24] is 420 and then the 70. so it's about
half a million dollars between the
[54:29] reserve accounts and the administrative
account
[54:31] so you're going to have about 900 000
that you're not putting into the reserve
[54:36] accounts or the administrative account
the way municipal accounting works in
[54:41] massachusetts
that none 900 000 is considered
[54:45] unbudgeted revenue
and once franklin sets its tax rate with
[54:50] the department of revenue
anything that is not in a budgeted
[54:54] account
you lose access to it until the fiscal
[54:58] year ends
so you do tax billing what four times a
[55:02] year in franklin
yep yeah so you set your tax rate
[55:06] sometime in late november early december
jamie exactly okay so
[55:11] if you don't put that 900 000 in a
budgeted reserve account
[55:16] you're going to lose access to it
between december 1st
[55:20] if that's the date you set your tax rate
and
[55:23] july 30th uh june 30th of 2022.
in fact it's going to be a little longer
[55:29] because technically you don't you don't
get access
[55:31] again to it until the town has closed
the books on fy 22
[55:35] and that can take a couple months
actually towns have four months they can
[55:39] go all the way till october 31st to
close their books
[55:42] so potentially that money could be gone
from you temporarily from december 1st
[55:48] through the following october 31st
but if you include it in your budget in
[55:53] other words you take the entire 1.4
million
[55:55] and tuck it into a different account
you'll have access to that for the full
[56:00] fiscal year
and you're probably going to want to
[56:02] spend that 900 000 next spring
you know if you do your first set of
[56:06] project recommendations to the city
council
[56:09] you're probably going to want that 900
000 to spend
[56:12] and you wouldn't have it unless you put
it in a budgeted reserve
[56:17] so that's a pretty simple budget
honestly
[56:20] for fy22 because you don't have any
projects and you don't have your state
[56:24] matching revenue in fy22
so it's three reserve accounts of 140
[56:30] 000 if if it's 1.4 million that jamie
comes up with
[56:34] 70 000 administrative and the balance in
a budgeted reserve
[56:38] and then you'd be all set um for the
entire year
[56:42] and you would have an administrative
budget starting july 1st
[56:46] if the city council approves this budget
before july 1st
[56:52] any questions on that
[56:57] so this is something i'd recommend that
you put on the agenda maybe
[57:00] your next meeting um and between now and
then you know
[57:04] hopefully the the financial folks can
come up with
[57:07] an actual number for you to use um
whether it's 1 million 410
[57:12] 566 whatever it is um
and then um you know i'll send you a
[57:18] template where you can plug in all the
numbers
[57:21] and then at the next meeting um
hopefully the chair can call for a vote
[57:24] and recommend that budget
to the city council and then they'll
[57:29] have plenty of time between now and
july 1st to get that passed
[57:34] sound good yes thank you all right
okay um so um actually i think i just
[57:42] i just i i jumped ahead of my slide here
this is um
[57:46] talking about what i just what i just
mentioned to prepare that budget for
[57:49] fy22
um and uh it all starts with jamie and
[57:53] the financial
folks coming up with an estimate all
[57:56] right so let's jump to the
administrative account what can you use
[57:59] that for
well the first thing i'll say um and
[58:03] this is where you know jamie will throw
spit balls at me
[58:07] and the nine cpa people will stand up
and applaud
[58:10] this administrative account is an
administrative account
[58:14] for the community preservation committee
it is not an administrative account for
[58:20] franklin's
cpa program so let me say that one more
[58:24] time
it's your administrative account for
[58:27] expenses to run
your committee it is not an account
[58:31] that the town can turn to to run the cpa
program
[58:35] so if the tax collector spends time
processing cpa low-income exemption
[58:41] applications
um you know people applying for the
[58:44] low-income exemption that you folks
adopted
[58:47] that's just part of the tax collector
part of their job
[58:51] if the town clerk or city clerk i don't
know what you call it probably town
[58:56] clerk
you know spends time processing your
[58:59] warrant articles when they're preparing
the warrant if they're the ones that do
[59:03] that um
that's just part of the town clerk's job
[59:07] um
you know if jamie spends some time
[59:10] calculating with the finance folks what
your local revenue is going to be next
[59:13] year
um just part of his job and you can
[59:18] the other city departments cannot get
reimbursed from the cpa
[59:23] fund that's uh against the law and
section six it's called the no
[59:27] supplanting phrase of cpa you can never
have cpa money
[59:31] end up back in the general fund budget
or supplant spending in the budget
[59:35] so it's your expense account to run your
committee and that's why you can see
[59:40] you know a lot of committees don't use
the full um five percent
[59:44] uh and like i said it just goes back to
your
[59:47] and undesignated cpa account at the end
of the year
[59:50] so what do you use it for well the first
thing that
[59:54] um probably about 60 or 65 percent of
the cpa communities do is they hire some
[59:59] administrative help
certainly there's probably not too many
[1:00:02] people at town hall who have a ton of
extra time to help you out
[1:00:07] and um you know sometimes communities
feel that they want to have
[1:00:10] you know a part-time cpa administrator
um i don't see two too many communities
[1:00:16] do that right out of the gate
um because there's probably not enough
[1:00:20] work
you know in that first year let's say
[1:00:23] but maybe there is maybe you do i mean i
somerville
[1:00:26] had someone on board right from the
beginning the
[1:00:29] the point i see that some communities
start to cry uncle
[1:00:33] on the workload and want someone is when
they first start doing their first set
[1:00:36] of projects
and there's things that have to be
[1:00:40] processed paperwork applications
bills you know recommendations
[1:00:45] and that sort of thing it starts to get
to be a little bit much for volunteers
[1:00:49] to handle all on their own
now some communities don't hire
[1:00:53] administrator and they're someone
who's designated as their helper you
[1:00:58] know at town hall
we have a lot of communities that uh
[1:01:01] very often in the planning department
you know someone's job in the planning
[1:01:04] department will be to spend
a couple hours a week assisting the cpc
[1:01:09] um
and and that's just part of the planning
[1:01:11] department's budget
so it's really up to you folks how you
[1:01:14] want to handle that um for now you're
just going to request
[1:01:17] the budget from the city council and
then you can discuss this over the
[1:01:21] coming year
um as to whether you know you do want to
[1:01:24] hire someone to help
be an administrator for the cpc and
[1:01:28] there's a couple ways you can do that
you can hire someone as an independent
[1:01:32] contractor who just works from home
uses um their own resources and you pay
[1:01:37] them hourly
um you can have someone who's a
[1:01:40] part-time employee of the town
who actually has a desk within town hall
[1:01:45] um you know or shares a desk within town
hall you know
[1:01:48] 10 15 hours a week 20 hours a week
or like i said you can have someone
[1:01:54] who's um
already on the payroll at the town
[1:01:57] handle that those duties but they can't
get
[1:02:00] compensated from the cpa fund if they're
already a town employee to do that they
[1:02:03] would just do that as
part of their regular job so those are
[1:02:06] kind of the three ways we see
administrative assistants being applied
[1:02:11] supplied to the cpc
the other thing you can do is you know
[1:02:16] hire consultants and get appraisals on
land if you're thinking of buying land
[1:02:20] if you feel there are some studies that
you need to be done to give you a handle
[1:02:23] on what the cpa needs are of the
community
[1:02:27] um you know basically anything that's
due diligence
[1:02:31] on the project applications you get
going toward town meeting
[1:02:35] so if you get an application from the
cons com to buy a piece of conservation
[1:02:38] land
you're going to need an appraisal on
[1:02:40] that and the const com doesn't have the
budget for that
[1:02:42] so you're going to use that from the
administrative fund if you get a
[1:02:46] historic project
and you want someone to review the plans
[1:02:49] it's a complicated one and you want to
make sure that
[1:02:51] the project is being done to proper
historic standards
[1:02:54] you could hire a historic preservation
consultant to review all the historic
[1:02:58] applications
which is very popular as well um
[1:03:03] you know small things the newspaper ads
for the public hearing
[1:03:07] you know you might want to print a flyer
to hand out to people that explains the
[1:03:11] cpa program
you might want to print a bill stuffer
[1:03:16] for the first set of tax bills that go
out next year
[1:03:21] you know people are going to be seeing
this surcharge on their tax bill for the
[1:03:24] first time
and cpa by law is separately itemized on
[1:03:28] their tax bill so they're gonna see
taxes you know four thousand dollars cpa
[1:03:34] surcharge
seventy five dollars whatever it is um
[1:03:37] and a lot of people say hey
what's this cpa thing i don't know what
[1:03:41] that's about so the first time you send
out tax bills
[1:03:44] um you know it's nice for the cpc to pay
for a little flyer that can be inserted
[1:03:48] in there explaining everything about cpa
[1:03:53] so it's really up to you folks how you
spend this money but it is all
[1:03:57] about the expenses of running your
committee
[1:04:01] and things that you decide on that are
important at your committee
[1:04:04] and once the town council gives you a
budget
[1:04:08] to go with and appropriates that money
then it's just a vote of the majority
[1:04:12] members of the committee you know i move
that we spend five thousand dollars to
[1:04:15] get an appraisal
on farmer johnson's land because the
[1:04:18] const com thinks they might want to buy
it
[1:04:20] and then everyone votes and then you
spend the money
[1:04:24] so did that answer whoever asked the
question about what you use the
[1:04:28] administrative account for
yes thank you that was very informative
[1:04:32] okay any other questions on the admin
account
[1:04:37] all right let's move along so one of the
neat things about cpa
[1:04:42] is that you can borrow against your
future cpa surcharge
[1:04:47] in the same way the town borrows against
its regular tax revenue stream
[1:04:52] you know the town probably doesn't have
four hundred thousand dollars sitting
[1:04:55] around when a fire truck needs replacing
they might bonds that um the town
[1:05:00] doesn't have
seven million dollars around to build a
[1:05:02] new police station they're gonna bond
that
[1:05:04] against future tax revenues of the town
you folks have a two percent revenue
[1:05:10] stream that has been given to you by the
taxpayers
[1:05:13] um and that two percent surcharge will
continue
[1:05:17] until such time as cpa is revoked or
the surcharge is reduced at the ballot
[1:05:22] um which is very rare
so um you have a you know
[1:05:27] a revenue stream that's bondable um and
that is up to you folks as to whether
[1:05:32] you want to tap that revenue stream if
you want to recommend to the city
[1:05:36] council
that a project be bonded that is your
[1:05:39] option
and it can be very useful because you
[1:05:44] know especially let's say a big land
purchase comes up in the next year
[1:05:48] well you know how much money do you have
you only have
[1:05:52] 1.4 million dollars in your first year
and you really don't have 1.4
[1:05:56] because 140 000 is going to have to be
put in the housing reserve
[1:06:00] 140 000 is going to have to be put in
the historic reserve and some of it's
[1:06:04] going to be
in your administrative reserve so you
[1:06:06] actually have a lot less than 1.4
million
[1:06:09] to spend on a piece of open space to buy
it but open space only comes around once
[1:06:13] you know once it's built on it's built
on and i know that's you know um
[1:06:18] you know in the past 20 years a lot of
franklin has been built up
[1:06:21] and built on um you know as have a lot
of communities in that 495 built they've
[1:06:26] been really developed heavily
and cpa um can protect what's left and
[1:06:32] if that comes up and you don't have
enough money this is a very viable
[1:06:36] um thing to do so if you ever get into
the situation where you're considering
[1:06:40] this
i have a whole separate presentation
[1:06:42] just on bonding i call bonding 101 and
i'll come back to one of your meetings
[1:06:47] that one's only a half hour long i
promise it's shorter
[1:06:50] and i'm happy to give you the soup to
nuts on what you need to know
[1:06:53] um to bond the only two things i'll tell
you now
[1:06:57] is give some thought when you bond
because it does ratchet up the vote
[1:07:01] approval that you need at the city
council from a majority vote to
[1:07:04] two-thirds
so consider that we've seen a lot of
[1:07:06] projects die
in that space between majority and
[1:07:10] two-thirds
um and the other thing um again
[1:07:14] jamie's gonna be throwing darts at me
right now again
[1:07:18] um you can't pay the debt service on
bonds that have been issued in the past
[1:07:22] by the by the town even if they've been
issued to buy open space or to rehab a
[1:07:27] historic building
if it wasn't initially bonded under
[1:07:31] authority of chapter 44b
which is cpa then you can't pay the debt
[1:07:36] service on it
no i'm not throwing any darts at you on
[1:07:40] that one all right good
any questions on bonding
[1:07:46] all right super so let me know if that
comes up
[1:07:50] all right so there are two complicated
pieces of tonight's presentation your
[1:07:54] through one
which is the budget now let's talk about
[1:07:58] um how you determine what you can spend
your money on when it comes to projects
[1:08:04] now you'd think it'd be pretty simple
right
[1:08:07] everyone knows the four categories of
cpa you probably already know those by
[1:08:10] heart
open space historic preservation
[1:08:12] recreation and housing
but cpa can't pay for everything you
[1:08:17] could possibly think of in the open
space category
[1:08:19] it can't pay for every historic project
it is a restricted fund
[1:08:24] and it has very definitive rules there
had to be four
[1:08:28] walls around it um and cpa is pretty
flexible but there had to be four walls
[1:08:33] somewhere
or else things would get out of hand a
[1:08:35] little bit so what folks don't realize
is
[1:08:39] in addition to the four categories each
cpa
[1:08:44] project has to be covered under one of
these verbs that you see on the left
[1:08:48] hand side you have to be acquiring
something
[1:08:51] creating something preserving something
supporting something
[1:08:55] and rehabilitating something or
rehabilitating something
[1:08:59] and as you can see not every verb is
available in every category
[1:09:04] so this we call this the cpa allowable
uses chart
[1:09:09] um and it's a very helpful document as a
beginning
[1:09:12] conversation because i guarantee all
nine members of you
[1:09:16] as soon as someone finds out you're on
the cpc you're gonna be stopped
[1:09:19] you know at market basket or shaw's and
uh
[1:09:22] hey mary you're on the cpc i was just
thinking i was at the park the other day
[1:09:26] and boy
the swing sets there you know are 40
[1:09:29] years old can cpa pay for that
i tell folks don't even try to answer
[1:09:35] that unless you have the allowable uses
chart in front of you because it really
[1:09:38] does help
figure out what you can spend it on um
[1:09:42] the this is a simplified version on it
there is on our website in that
[1:09:48] technical assistance section
the first thing you'll see is is our
[1:09:52] project allowable
there's the full version of this chart
[1:09:55] that has all the definitions of all
these words the fill
[1:09:58] the official dor version
[1:10:01] this chart actually has not been around
for all of cpa
[1:10:04] dor came out with this around 2005.
the section of cpa that tells you what
[1:10:09] you can spend your money on
is section 5 b2 and it's this
[1:10:14] gobbledygook
long legalese paragraph that says
[1:10:18] you know cpa funds can be spended for
the acquisition
[1:10:21] creation preservation of open space
and the rehabilitation of open space if
[1:10:26] it was acquired or created with cpa
funds
[1:10:29] and the acquisition preservation and
rehabilitation of historic resources and
[1:10:34] and and honestly no one knew what they
could spend their cpa money on in the
[1:10:39] early years of cpa
um and then this chart came out from dor
[1:10:43] it was like
bing it just really helped quantify
[1:10:47] things and explain them
and for fun go back and read section 5
[1:10:51] b2 and you'll see how this is a much
easier
[1:10:54] way to understand what you can use with
your cpa funds
[1:10:58] the important thing when you just are
looking at a cpa project
[1:11:02] you know the first thing the job of the
community is going to be is figuring out
[1:11:05] whether that project is legal is it
fundable
[1:11:08] sometimes you might need help with your
town council to do that
[1:11:12] sometimes you might need our help to do
that probably the number one question we
[1:11:16] get on our technical assistance hotline
is is this project okay to fund
[1:11:22] but you know by and large you know you
don't want to run up a big bill with
[1:11:25] your town council asking
on every project you know you want to
[1:11:28] kind of try to get familiar with what
are the
[1:11:31] you know what's the sweet spot of cpa
projects what's it really there for
[1:11:35] um and when you accept applications for
cpa projects and we'll talk about
[1:11:39] applications in a minute
you're going to want to budget with
[1:11:42] those applications
to the best of the ability of the
[1:11:46] applicant to give you a budget
because you have to go through that
[1:11:50] budget and look at
each thing that the money is actually
[1:11:53] going to be spent on
and you have to find a box on this chart
[1:11:57] that justifies
that expense line item by line item in
[1:12:01] the project budget
if you can't find a box or boxes
[1:12:06] to stuff an expense into where it says
yes or yes if acquired or created with
[1:12:10] cpa funds
if you can't find a box that says yes
[1:12:14] it's not eligible for funding
um so it's really good to understand
[1:12:20] what these verbs mean there's
definitions of all of them
[1:12:24] and to look at a budget and then see
what box
[1:12:27] the project goes into so if the cons com
comes to you and says
[1:12:32] we want to buy farmer john's property
and protect it as agricultural land
[1:12:37] can we do it let's go to the chart
that's an open space project right open
[1:12:42] space is conservation land you heard me
talk about that
[1:12:45] what are you doing what is that money
being spent on it's being spent on
[1:12:48] acquiring
farmer johnson's land you're good to go
[1:12:53] all right someone comes to you and says
we
[1:12:56] want to create um those little plaques
that you see on historic houses all over
[1:13:02] town you know circa 1776 the
colonel johnson house we want to create
[1:13:08] that for all 200 historic houses in town
we want to make these new signs and put
[1:13:12] them up on all the houses
can we do that all right let's go to the
[1:13:15] chart
in making those signs designing them and
[1:13:20] then
paying someone to fabricate them are you
[1:13:22] acquiring
a historic resource and there's a
[1:13:25] definition of a historic resource
it's a building structure vessel
[1:13:33] real property document or artifact
[1:13:37] are you acquiring real property
documents
[1:13:41] artifacts boats
[Music]
[1:13:45] no you're not are you preserving
protecting from injury harm or
[1:13:50] destruction is the definition of
preservation
[1:13:52] are you preserving real property
documents artifacts
[1:13:56] no um are you rehabilitating them fixing
them up
[1:14:00] bringing them back to their original
glory nope
[1:14:03] not eligible for funding a matter of
fact there actually is a perfect box for
[1:14:08] that to create these new signs
it's that create box in the historic
[1:14:12] category and guess what it says
you can't create something historic
[1:14:17] and i always laugh at that i think you
know the legislature
[1:14:21] sometimes gets things right and
sometimes they don't but in this case
[1:14:26] they were dead on you can't create
something historic with cpa funds
[1:14:30] believe it or not that
was um that's a long story i won't get
[1:14:37] into that
there was a change necessary to cpa to
[1:14:40] fix a little boo-boo
of the legislature on that but they did
[1:14:45] get that one right
you can't create something historic so
[1:14:48] those signs are not eligible to be
funded with cpa
[1:14:53] a question that i always get asked the
last thing i'll tell you about this
[1:14:56] chart is
why is support available only in the
[1:14:59] housing category
very popular question and
[1:15:03] and support even has a very broad
definition too so it really
[1:15:07] allows you to do a lot of things in the
housing category and the reason is
[1:15:11] the legislature knew housing was going
to be tough it is going to be your
[1:15:14] hardest category to implement i
guarantee it housing
[1:15:17] is expensive it's politically charged
it's based on land which is scarce in
[1:15:22] new england
um it's an it's a tough nut to crack and
[1:15:26] so they wanted to give
towns as many resources available as
[1:15:31] possible
to do housing projects so you'll notice
[1:15:34] it has the most verbs available right
of any of the categories and so they
[1:15:39] wanted to allow you to do things if it's
in support of affordable housing like
[1:15:44] doing a housing production plan or
hiring a housing coordinator for the
[1:15:47] town
it's eligible for funding on the other
[1:15:50] hand they didn't want you moving
the entire parks and recs maintenance
[1:15:54] budget over to cpa
so that would have been very dangerous
[1:15:58] to have support in all those categories
i think
[1:16:01] um and clearly they're they're not
so any other questions on the chart
[1:16:11] we are happy we do this a lot with
communities when you get your first
[1:16:16] set of applications the very first time
sometimes we set up a zoom call and we
[1:16:21] go through each application and i help
the towns figure out where they fall on
[1:16:26] this chart and how to make that analysis
and it can be very helpful to to go
[1:16:31] through that thinking of how you make
those decisions
[1:16:34] and i'm happy to do that the first time
around at some point in the next year or
[1:16:38] two when you get to your projects your
first round of projects
[1:16:43] all right it's all downhill from here
those are the the
[1:16:46] two most complicated parts of the the
presentation
[1:16:50] so i wanna maybe get on my soapbox just
a little bit
[1:16:53] and talk about you know what cpa is
truly for
[1:16:56] and what it's really not for um and
um you know by and large when the
[1:17:02] legislature created cpa
um the one thing they had to promise the
[1:17:06] anti-tax advocates in massachusetts the
the prop two and a half lobby if you if
[1:17:11] we if you will
is that cpa was not going to supplement
[1:17:15] the regular city budget
you have a regular city budget you have
[1:17:18] a hundred percent of your tax revenue
that comes in
[1:17:21] and it's available for city spending
um and cpa is not supposed to replace
[1:17:27] that
and it's not supposed to be added to
[1:17:30] that you know the things that are
fundable on your city budget
[1:17:34] um are by and large the same every year
and cpa was designed to fund new things
[1:17:41] and you know it recognized that the
average citizen
[1:17:45] can't have too much impact on a city
budget right
[1:17:48] it's the it's the city manager town
manager
[1:17:51] the finance committee um the city
council
[1:17:55] you know those are the where the real
control is on the city budget the
[1:17:58] average person can't really impact
the city's budget too much other than
[1:18:03] maybe you know
choosing to elect a different city
[1:18:06] councilor if they want to
but cpa is designed to be exactly the
[1:18:10] opposite
it's a grassroots bottom-up process
[1:18:15] it's a voluntary tax that the town has
agreed
[1:18:18] the voters in town agreed to tax
themselves for
[1:18:21] and it's a grassroots effort to get it
passed
[1:18:25] and the projects should the ideas should
come from everyone
[1:18:29] that's why the legislature wants you to
really beat the bushes out in the
[1:18:32] community to see what's important to
them
[1:18:35] everyone should be able to submit an
idea for a monday and
[1:18:38] it goes to the cpc you guys make
recommendation
[1:18:42] and then you send that off to the city
council in the end both of these budgets
[1:18:46] end up in the same place right the city
council makes the final decision
[1:18:49] but the process is really different cpa
really should be
[1:18:53] a bottoms up approach where the
grassroots
[1:18:57] and the different committees in town and
the volunteers and the non-profits
[1:19:01] everyone really gets a say and an access
to this funding the communities that get
[1:19:08] this
that understand cpa is not just supposed
[1:19:11] to supplement
and be co-opted by the by the council
[1:19:15] for
regular old things that that they've
[1:19:18] always paid for the folks who get that
and really
[1:19:20] truly adhere to the no supplanting
phrase in cpa
[1:19:24] they usually have tremendous cpa
programs and
[1:19:27] really terrific support the communities
where there's always pressure to take
[1:19:31] the money from cpa let's get cpa to pay
for that oh can we possibly get cpa
[1:19:36] to pay for that let's see if we can
twist that just a little bit
[1:19:39] so we can get cpa to pay for that with
that kind of
[1:19:42] approach i see programs where there's
constant gnashing of teeth constant
[1:19:48] arguments constant pressure
from people to revoke cpa or reduce the
[1:19:53] surcharge because
it's not being used the way it was
[1:19:56] intended
so it's just something to think about as
[1:19:59] you create your cpa program to know what
kind of cpa program you want to have
[1:20:04] and whether you're going to you know
really maintain the the essence of what
[1:20:07] cpa was all about
in terms of that grassroots approach
[1:20:12] so um how do projects happen you know
how do these ideas get you get
[1:20:18] to you from the committee well you know
over the next year
[1:20:22] while you're creating your cpa plan
you're probably going to want to create
[1:20:26] a cpa application document as well
there's no statewide cpa application
[1:20:33] document there's no state reque excuse
me requirements
[1:20:37] on what information you ask for as a
matter of fact
[1:20:40] the word application does not appear
anywhere in the cpa legislation
[1:20:45] the cpa legislation as far as funding
goes starts at the process where it says
[1:20:49] the cpc shall make recommendations to
the city council for spending
[1:20:53] so anything the entire process of
how you collect applications what you
[1:20:59] ask for what forms you use what
procedures you use
[1:21:03] what timetable you use how many times a
year you're willing to accept
[1:21:07] applications
most do only once a year whether you
[1:21:10] make exceptions for
late breaking emergency projects like a
[1:21:14] land purchase that just was discovered
is important those things are completely
[1:21:19] up to you
in the nine members of this committee
[1:21:23] but you're probably going to want to
come up with an application every
[1:21:26] community does
and we have samples on our website as
[1:21:29] well of sample applications so don't
feel again that you have to reinvent the
[1:21:33] wheel
take a peek at the variety of different
[1:21:36] applications we have
i'd recommend that you really look at
[1:21:39] the two-step application project
process which most communities do
[1:21:46] which is step one is very just a very
simple form that's
[1:21:49] basically says tell us your idea you
know
[1:21:52] and all the cpc does with that is look
through it and determines whether it's
[1:21:56] eligible for funding
and if it is they let the group know
[1:22:01] and they proceed to a full application
step
[1:22:05] the last thing you want to do is have
someone spend
[1:22:08] you know untold amount of hours putting
together a formal application getting
[1:22:12] estimates getting a budget getting
letters of
[1:22:14] testimonial um only for them to approach
you and say
[1:22:18] and you have to say we can't fund that
it's um you know it's a sign project in
[1:22:23] the historic category we can't fund that
um that's when trouble starts you know
[1:22:27] someone calls the city council
and complains writes a letter to the
[1:22:31] editor of the paper
you know you just don't want to have
[1:22:34] someone really invest that much time and
energy into something that's not
[1:22:37] eligible
so this two-step process can be really
[1:22:40] helpful and we have an example of a
two-step
[1:22:42] application on our website so
you set a timetable you have an
[1:22:48] application you have a procedure
folks submit applications to you
[1:22:53] you review them you get input from other
boards you know if it's historic project
[1:22:58] you're probably going to want your
historic rep on the committee to go back
[1:23:00] and talk about it with the rest of the
historic commission get some guidance on
[1:23:04] that
you want to do a lot of due diligence um
[1:23:08] look through the estimates
um you know ask questions of the
[1:23:11] applicant
kick it back to them because some things
[1:23:14] are not complete you know you want to
leave a
[1:23:16] a nice long period of time you know
three four months
[1:23:21] to really do proper due diligence to
have these applicants come in and talk
[1:23:25] to you and answer questions
and really vet these projects your idea
[1:23:30] cpc does not exist
just to determine if a project is legal
[1:23:35] and send it off to the council
that's a misconception with cpa
[1:23:38] sometimes
if your job was only to determine if
[1:23:42] something was legal
the legislature wouldn't have created a
[1:23:45] nine-member diverse cpa committee they
would have just created a position
[1:23:49] called cpa lawyer
and they'd look at the application and
[1:23:52] determine it was legal and send it to
the city council
[1:23:54] you guys really are there to add value
you know to really make these projects
[1:23:59] better to vet the projects to make
suggestions
[1:24:03] to increase the budget if you think some
things are missing to cut the budget if
[1:24:07] you think things are
excessive and to really add value and
[1:24:11] really study and do due diligence
and then finally you get to the point
[1:24:14] where you take a vote on it at the
committee level
[1:24:16] and you send a recommendation to the
city council
[1:24:20] and then at the council they use
whatever process they want to
[1:24:24] some of them have sub-committees where
they assigned it to some don't
[1:24:27] that's up to them and the way they
normally approve appropriations
[1:24:32] but in the end unless it's a bond
or eminent domain or buying land those
[1:24:39] things usually require two thirds
all the other projects would just be a
[1:24:42] majority vote of the council
[1:24:46] any questions on that process i have a
question joe halligan vice chair
[1:24:51] planning law so my question is are we
allowed to spend
[1:24:56] any money without council approval
including appraisals on property
[1:25:00] like we're doing all the behind the
scenes work uh to see if a project is
[1:25:04] viable
so we need appraisals uh have a lawyer
[1:25:07] look into it make sure it's a
clean title property do we need to get
[1:25:12] permission from the council to spend
that money
[1:25:15] no that's the only thing you don't need
permission from
[1:25:18] but they have to appropriate a pot of
money into your administrative account
[1:25:23] at the beginning of the year first
so when you do your budget and you ask
[1:25:28] for
five percent or seventy thousand or if
[1:25:30] you only want to ask for 50 or 35
whatever you guys decide
[1:25:34] when you ask for that money you're
asking the council to appropriate that
[1:25:39] to the cpc and then
you can folks can spend it by a majority
[1:25:44] vote at the committee meeting
so someone can you could be discussing a
[1:25:48] project and joe could say well
you know the cpa legislation says we
[1:25:52] need an appraisal and whenever we're
buying land which it does
[1:25:56] um so um you know jamie got an estimate
from an appraiser for us and it's
[1:26:00] somewhere around five thousand dollars
so
[1:26:02] i move that we appropriate five thousand
dollars from the administrative fund
[1:26:07] um for the cons count to be able to do
an appraisal
[1:26:10] on the farmer johnson's land all in
favor
[1:26:13] and you vote on it um but you first have
to get them that's
[1:26:17] that's the key um and why it's so great
that you guys are organized
[1:26:21] in time is you're going to be able to
get them to
[1:26:25] approve a cpa budget and hopefully they
will appropriate money into your
[1:26:29] administrative fund
and then you'll be able to spend that at
[1:26:32] the committee level next year
okay so i guess i guess my issue is
[1:26:37] we're really behind doing all the
legwork behind the scenes
[1:26:40] for the console itself because we really
don't have the power to buy
[1:26:46] renovate or anything without council
approval now all nine of us
[1:26:50] are all pretty up to date on what's
going on in the town and we all
[1:26:54] feel as though there's a project whether
it's affordable housing or it's a land
[1:26:58] purchase
we put months into the project and it's
[1:27:03] possible it could go to the console
and it's basically a five million bullet
[1:27:08] out of nine members
five people vote no it doesn't happen am
[1:27:12] i correct
absolutely um and that's a choice you
[1:27:15] know franklin made when you switched
from a town meeting former government to
[1:27:19] a council
you know instead of being you know a
[1:27:21] couple hundred people or
500 people making a decision on a
[1:27:25] project at town meeting
you know now you do appropriations by
[1:27:28] the council
and that's how it works in in cities so
[1:27:31] yes um
i will tell you that it is
[1:27:36] pretty rare for cpa projects to be voted
down
[1:27:42] yeah it does happen a little bit more in
cities frankly there seems to just
[1:27:46] be you know cities are a little more
complicated beasts
[1:27:49] um and you know if you have a mayor form
a government and a city or a strong town
[1:27:54] manager former government and a council
you know in a big operation you know
[1:27:59] things can get a little more complicated
so
[1:28:01] i'd say you know cities have a little
less
[1:28:06] a little a little bit more number of cpa
projects that don't get approved
[1:28:11] but by and large cities or towns the
vast majority of projects get approved
[1:28:16] and that's because um you know you have
this cpa committee whose job it is to
[1:28:21] really
vet it and you're making a
[1:28:23] recommendation so
you know what is it saying if the
[1:28:26] council you know you send them
uh 10 projects next year and they reject
[1:28:31] nine
i mean why did they appoint you all to
[1:28:34] the committee you know and ask for your
recommendation
[1:28:37] um so by and large um
not all of you were appointed by the
[1:28:42] council but some of you were
um so by and large you know
[1:28:47] we have very few projects that get
rejected it helps
[1:28:50] that the money is coming out of a
dedicated cpa budget and you don't have
[1:28:54] to raise taxes to do these projects
right i mean that really helps if you go
[1:28:58] to the city council
and ask them to spend a million dollars
[1:29:00] to buy a farm and protect a piece of
farmland
[1:29:04] that's going to be a tougher sell in the
absence of cpa it's
[1:29:09] probably going to need an override vote
you know or a big chunk of the free cash
[1:29:12] available
and it's going to get a lot of scrutiny
[1:29:15] and be very difficult to pass
but that's why you have cpa so if you'll
[1:29:20] notice
cpa is not the nuts and bolts needs of
[1:29:24] the town it's not the roads it's not the
police it's not the fire it's not the
[1:29:28] schools
it's quality of life issues and these
[1:29:32] things
are very difficult to fund for cities
[1:29:35] and towns there's not a lot of extra
money in cities and towns
[1:29:39] so the capital you know budget for the
parks is the first thing to be cut
[1:29:43] in tough times you know buying open
space
[1:29:47] no community that i know of has a budget
every year out of their
[1:29:52] general fund to buy open space it
doesn't happen
[1:29:55] it's it's not there very few communities
have a budget for affordable housing
[1:30:00] cambridge and boston do they might be
the only ones
[1:30:03] um you know these are quality of life
issues
[1:30:06] that by and large you know have a tough
time finding a home in the regular
[1:30:10] budget
and that's what cpa is for and that's
[1:30:13] why you
have a tremendous success ratio when
[1:30:16] projects get to the legislative body
of being passed just just one last
[1:30:21] overall question
in your experience in history
[1:30:25] what seems to be the most favored uh
piece that uh everybody is in favor
[1:30:32] would be housing recreation
is it historic have you seen them sway
[1:30:37] more to one
item more than another um not
[1:30:42] too much i think that um
[1:30:47] you know housing probably brings the
most controversy
[1:30:51] um because housing you know is
development and there's always going to
[1:30:54] be a butters
um and it is you know can be a lightning
[1:30:58] rod
housing development um so that probably
[1:31:02] gets a little more static than the
others
[1:31:04] um but by and large you know these are
all
[1:31:08] quality of life you know really great
things you know they
[1:31:11] they're all fun exciting things that
really make living in franklin a better
[1:31:16] place
and so um you know they they all get a
[1:31:20] lot of love
okay thank you um i guess i guess i'd
[1:31:25] say one more thing to answer that
question the one thing that i think
[1:31:30] stands out a little bit about cpa is the
having a budget to buy open space i mean
[1:31:35] that truly is something that most
communities can never do
[1:31:39] you might be able to scrape together
some capital money for the parks
[1:31:42] every now and then out of the regular
budget um you might be able to apply for
[1:31:47] a bunch of um
you know uh you know uh grants
[1:31:51] to get non-profits or housing developers
to to build things that you the way you
[1:31:55] want it to be built um
but by and large the open space you know
[1:31:59] once it's built on it's gone
it's gone forever um so um
[1:32:04] you know that was the very essence of
cpa excuse me it was actually based on
[1:32:09] the um nantucket and martha's vineyard
land bank
[1:32:12] that's what the essence the genesis of
cpa back in the
[1:32:16] 80s um a gentleman named bob duran who
was a state representative
[1:32:21] who jamie knows very well um uh
you know filed the first cpa legislation
[1:32:26] when he was a state rep and then carried
that with him
[1:32:29] to the senate when he became a state
senator and then carried it with him to
[1:32:33] uh becoming the secretary of environment
where he finally got a passed after a
[1:32:36] decade and a half
um like i said it doesn't get it's not
[1:32:40] easy to get
the state to pass money items um uh
[1:32:44] but it really started as an open space
protection
[1:32:47] um uh uh funding source
and then the other things kind of were
[1:32:52] layered in as time went on
[1:32:57] money if someone were to write a grant
for example
[1:33:01] for historic preservation can that grant
money be incorporated into the cpc funds
[1:33:08] or the cpa funds
um so i think i understood your question
[1:33:12] it's if someone comes to you
um with a hundred thousand dollar
[1:33:16] historic project
and they ask you for 50 000 and then
[1:33:20] they want
a little bit of money to hire a grant
[1:33:23] writer to apply for grants
to get the other 50 000 is that what
[1:33:26] you're asking
uh yeah yes um uh actually that was a
[1:33:32] surprise to us we once asked dor that we
didn't think that grant writing
[1:33:36] would be really an eligible cpa expense
and to our surprise they said they they
[1:33:40] felt it was
um you know because it's it's helping to
[1:33:44] contribute to the success of the project
um you know it's always easy to pay for
[1:33:48] something 100 out of cpa
and and people will come to you when
[1:33:51] they'll ask for you to pay the full
freight but a lot of cpa committees want
[1:33:56] to see some
other fundraising from the groups that
[1:33:59] come to cpa
um you know they want to see some
[1:34:01] private fundraising or
you know some grants from state agencies
[1:34:06] there's a lot of money out there for
in particularly in the open space in the
[1:34:11] housing category
um recreation and historic don't tend to
[1:34:16] have
as many funding sources outside of cpa
[1:34:19] um but yes the short answer to your
question
[1:34:22] um you could you could put a small
budget in there for
[1:34:26] grant writing to be able to supplement
the cpa funds
[1:34:31] so how do the um nonprofits figure into
the uh
[1:34:35] funding how do they help great question
so um i don't think the legislature
[1:34:43] necessarily anticipated this when they
created cpa
[1:34:47] i think in their minds they were
thinking cpa
[1:34:50] was only going to fund municipal
projects they were only going to fund
[1:34:53] things like
rehabilitating province town town hall
[1:34:57] that you see
here on this slide and if you've been to
[1:35:00] provincetown you've seen this
spectacular town hall
[1:35:04] it's the center of activity in
provincetown and it was rehabbed top to
[1:35:08] bottom with with cpa funds i think
most legislators when they were voting
[1:35:12] for cpa thought all the money was going
to be spent in this way on municipal
[1:35:15] assets
it has not turned out that way and in
[1:35:19] fact
a huge part of cpa is supporting
[1:35:23] projects
from non-municipal entities um
[1:35:29] non-profit or even for-profit housing
developers
[1:35:32] um habitat for humanity land trusts
who are protecting land um you know
[1:35:39] neighborhood groups who are the backbone
of trying to rehabilitate
[1:35:44] a park in their neighborhood
[1:35:48] you know boys and girls clubs who
need their historic building
[1:35:54] rehabilitated that's open to the public
every day and is one of the most popular
[1:35:58] places to go in town
so um providing funding for non-profits
[1:36:03] has become a big part of cpa
not in every community there are some
[1:36:07] communities who feel
like they want to keep the spending on
[1:36:11] municipal assets
or the majority of the spending there's
[1:36:14] one community i know of
that spends all their money on um
[1:36:19] non-profit programs that's williamstown
they're the only ones in the state who
[1:36:22] do that most have a mix
you know of maybe 70 percent municipal
[1:36:28] projects and
30 percent roughly um this is anecdotal
[1:36:33] spent on um nonprofit organizations or
private
[1:36:37] there are a whole set of rules about
spending public money
[1:36:41] on private property we don't have time
to get into that tonight
[1:36:45] but there's an article on our website
which is in the technical assistance
[1:36:49] section says it's called can we fund
private projects
[1:36:53] and you'll see some of the additional
things you have to determine there
[1:36:57] basically you can't spend public money
on a private asset
[1:37:02] for private benefit you can spend public
money on a private asset
[1:37:07] for public benefit so there has to be a
public benefit component
[1:37:12] to the project
[1:37:15] i have a this is jeff livingston from
conservation do you have a question
[1:37:18] [Music]
it's about rights rights of the asset
[1:37:22] rights of the
work that's being done so effectively
[1:37:26] what you're saying i'm very shocked at
this actually that you're actually
[1:37:29] able to provide public funds to private
projects or private entities for which
[1:37:35] there's a
benefit but that doesn't necessarily
[1:37:38] convert to
rights that the city or the municipality
[1:37:42] might have
for those rights or for that asset is
[1:37:45] that correct
absolutely yup that's that's something
[1:37:49] that
um you know usually is negotiated
[1:37:53] and outlined in a formal grant agreement
a contract that is signed
[1:37:58] um between the city and the private
entity and we have
[1:38:02] a whole article on grant agreements on
our website and
[1:38:05] samples of different legal contracts
that cities and towns use
[1:38:09] before they give money to a private
entity there is
[1:38:13] a grant agreement a contract that is
signed that details
[1:38:17] you know what are the rights and
responsibilities of each party
[1:38:20] because so so often having done a great
deal of grant writing in the past at the
[1:38:24] federal and state level
are been involved in it you essentially
[1:38:28] give up you know any private rights
to those entities in order to get the
[1:38:32] funding that's part of the that's
usually part of the agreement and that's
[1:38:36] not something that necessary a
municipality would want to do
[1:38:40] or want to agree to if you're if it's
using its own set-aside money
[1:38:44] at least in part or uh majority for that
particular activity
[1:38:49] can you give me an example of of what
you're talking about because i'm not
[1:38:52] sure i understood
the well basically if you if you're
[1:38:56] working with non-profit organizations
and many many times essentially you know
[1:39:02] you cannot reserve
rights for your community only you
[1:39:06] basically have to open it up to
essentially pretty much anyone so let's
[1:39:09] say for example i mean
let's say that we were doing let's say
[1:39:13] that we basically went out and we got
grants for del carte
[1:39:16] for example let's say we let's say for
example just
[1:39:19] throwing out numbers so it was two
million two and a half million dollar
[1:39:22] project and we basically went out and
raised a million dollars of of uh
[1:39:27] non-profit money from the sierra
foundation or something just maybe
[1:39:30] throwing things out right
you know one of the caveats would be
[1:39:33] that basically we would want to open
that up necessary not necessarily if
[1:39:37] we wanted to do that but we were making
private
[1:39:40] a private uh park or something for just
the residents or the citizens of
[1:39:43] franklin who effectively funded the
majority of
[1:39:46] their tax base their taxes we could not
necessarily do that through that funding
[1:39:51] vehicle because
that that program would demand that we
[1:39:54] open it up to essentially everyone
you know we could not that would be that
[1:39:58] we would be restricted
and the rights that we would give that
[1:40:01] that entity would have towards outside
to its citizenry we could not advocate
[1:40:06] only franklin
that's typically how it works for
[1:40:08] non-profits so i could see you're kind
of mixing pools of money
[1:40:12] you know municipal money plus non-profit
money i think that would run into some
[1:40:16] pretty
interesting discussions regarding rights
[1:40:19] of use and rights of
propriety going forward that's just my
[1:40:24] my personal opinion yeah i honestly
i don't see a lot of um difficulties in
[1:40:30] this regard with cpa
but the example you just gave were you
[1:40:35] talking about a project
on municipal property or on the private
[1:40:39] property
[1:40:42] yes in this case it's mental property
yeah okay all right so
[1:40:45] so that's a completely different animal
um um uh
[1:40:49] that's where a private entity is
investing in a municipal project
[1:40:54] right um that's not what we're talking
about with cpa
[1:40:58] we're talking about the public entity
the city
[1:41:01] investing in work at the boys and girls
clubs
[1:41:05] historic building so we're talking about
the opposite of what you're talking
[1:41:08] about
[1:41:12] uh joe halligan vice chair one question
which
[1:41:15] has been a big hot topic in the town of
franklin lake that is affordable housing
[1:41:19] have you seen cpa join the private
sector
[1:41:23] uh in construction of affordable housing
100 of the time i have other than boston
[1:41:32] and cambridge um municipalities don't
usually build affordable housing
[1:41:38] and by the way cpa is for affordable
housing only um
[1:41:41] up to a hundred percent of area-wide
median income is
[1:41:44] is the people who can live in cpa
housing
[1:41:48] but it almost always is
a partnership between the town
[1:41:55] and a developer with cpa
we've had a lot of partnerships with
[1:42:01] for-profit developers
because for-profit developers do build
[1:42:05] affordable housing
and we've seen a lot of partnerships
[1:42:08] with community development corporations
which are quasi governmental
[1:42:12] organizations
and we've seen a lot of partnerships
[1:42:15] with non-profit groups
and faith groups and habitat for
[1:42:18] humanity type organizations and
you know we've had um a lot of
[1:42:23] communities partner with veterans
organizations to build veterans
[1:42:26] affordable housing um so
uh yes it's almost always
[1:42:33] a partnership with most of the work
being done by the other entity not the
[1:42:38] city or town
i'm guessing you don't have a housing
[1:42:40] department in in franklin
uh stewart we we actually uh have a
[1:42:46] municipal affordable housing trust
okay but um does that have a paid staff
[1:42:51] or
well it's generally our planning
[1:42:53] department we're a staff of four there's
a community development director brian
[1:42:57] keviner who's on the call tonight
we have a town planner a conservation
[1:43:01] agent and we have
uh an executive assistant who also has
[1:43:05] been managing our housing portfolio for
about 20
[1:43:09] about 25 years maxine okay so you
you have dipped your toes into it a
[1:43:14] little bit more than than some other
communities
[1:43:16] um um so you know
those sort of things um are projects
[1:43:22] that the planning department's going to
take the lead on probably
[1:43:26] um and um it will probably be
the planning department applying to the
[1:43:32] cpc you know when when other city
departments
[1:43:35] want to use cpa funds they put in an
application you know if the parks and
[1:43:38] recs department
wants to fix up a park they put in an
[1:43:41] application just like
anyone else with the cpc if jamie has an
[1:43:45] idea of
how he'd like to use some cpa money he
[1:43:47] puts in an application he put a
city manager at the top or town manager
[1:43:51] at the top of the application so
a lot of those housing projects are
[1:43:55] probably going to be driven by
the folks who are already doing that
[1:43:59] sort of work with the housing trust
but you may receive an application from
[1:44:03] habitat for humanity to do a project
um or um you know very common the local
[1:44:09] community development corporation
um the metrowest community development
[1:44:13] corporation which i don't think works
down in your area although they did a
[1:44:15] project in medway
not too far from you they applied to cpa
[1:44:19] programs all over
you know metrowest um for
[1:44:24] funding so it'll be a combination
probably of things that come from
[1:44:28] your planning department and then other
outside organizations
[1:44:35] joe helen again uh vice chair so my
question is being on the plane aboard
[1:44:39] we're always talking to people
developers
[1:44:41] and we're trying to get an affordable
component in town
[1:44:45] and a lot of developers are complaining
about the cost of material
[1:44:48] labor uh the the land value
so if someone i'm just gonna throw an
[1:44:53] instance was coming with a 10 unit
downtown building could they apply the
[1:44:58] cpa
to possibly sponsor two three or four
[1:45:02] affordable units within their project
absolutely
[1:45:05] happens all the time and it's a great
way um
[1:45:08] you know to get affordable housing built
in your community because
[1:45:12] the developer is doing all the work and
you're just
[1:45:15] writing a check to you know buy down
some of the units to be affordable
[1:45:20] um it's a tremendous way to get
affordable housing done
[1:45:23] um uh you know and um
bedford has done that a lot where they
[1:45:29] have partnered with
developers and then just bought down you
[1:45:33] know from market rate to affordable rate
some of the units in that development
[1:45:37] right because we're here we're hearing
from developers that
[1:45:40] you know the last 20 of the project is
the profit i cannot afford to build that
[1:45:45] but if the cpa stepped in and bought
those three or four units
[1:45:48] that now makes it viable for the
developer to move forward
[1:45:52] benefits the town benefits affordable
housing
[1:45:55] it's a win-win for everybody that's
exactly it that's exactly i mean those
[1:45:58] are terrific projects
and and very common so let's move on so
[1:46:02] i want to
because we're we're at an hour and three
[1:46:05] quarters already and so
usually we go about two hours and
[1:46:09] everyone's probably getting into a zoom
coma already
[1:46:12] pretty quickly so um let's move on with
um
[1:46:16] the next step we talked about how the
projects happen that they end up at the
[1:46:20] council
and i do want to point out that the
[1:46:22] council's
decision making is a little more
[1:46:26] restricted than normal
these are the four things that the
[1:46:29] council can do when they're presented
with a cpa recommendation they can
[1:46:32] approve it
they can reject it they can approve it
[1:46:36] but with a reduced amount
or they can reject it but then order the
[1:46:41] money
sent to the reserve account and let's
[1:46:44] just kind of rarely use this last one
um you know i could see it being used in
[1:46:49] a case of where
you apply you put in a recommendation
[1:46:53] for a housing project and that project
is a lot of money and that's going to
[1:46:57] represent your 10 spending that year
but the city council rejects it
[1:47:02] therefore you would be out of compliance
because you wouldn't have spent
[1:47:04] or reserved any money on housing so they
could order that money sent to the
[1:47:08] housing reserve
instead the council cannot initiate
[1:47:13] any cpa projects on their own without a
cpc recommendation
[1:47:17] and they cannot raise the amount of the
appropriation
[1:47:21] nor can they make um you know
substantial changes to the project you
[1:47:24] know minor
legalities and things like that they can
[1:47:27] certainly fix
uh in the order but if they change the
[1:47:31] scope of the project
it's not your recommendation anymore and
[1:47:34] the cpa legislation says they can't vote
on something unless it has your
[1:47:37] recommendation
so if you put if you put in an
[1:47:42] application
you know um to partner with the habitat
[1:47:46] for humanity
you know on two houses on johnson street
[1:47:52] you know they can't change that to four
houses on west avenue
[1:47:57] so you know they are much more limited
with cpa because of this checks and
[1:48:03] balances between the cpc and the council
[1:48:08] all right so this is sort of um uh my
last slide before we
[1:48:13] um have a cadence point here we can
check in with everyone and see how they
[1:48:16] feel
um so to review some of we call these
[1:48:20] these
these five things are really kind of
[1:48:22] some of the basic tenants of cpa and
we've touched on some of them but i kind
[1:48:26] of
just like to review them at the end for
[1:48:28] folks um
cpa is never to be mixed
[1:48:33] with general municipal revenue um and by
mix i mean
[1:48:37] cpa money ending up in the general
municipal budget
[1:48:41] or replacing things that were already in
the general municipal budget
[1:48:44] that's the supplanting issue that we
talked about and that's not allowed with
[1:48:47] cpa
you can combine general municipal money
[1:48:51] and cpa money to do a project
but you can't have cpa money end up
[1:48:56] supplanting regular
municipal spending cpa can fund
[1:49:02] capital projects it is not it can never
fund operating expenses
[1:49:07] except maybe a little bit in that
support category in housing
[1:49:10] um if you had a housing office for
example
[1:49:14] and it can never fund maintenance it's a
capital program
[1:49:17] for by and large this is a common
question we get about recreation in cpa
[1:49:24] recreation is actually the definition of
recreation in the cpa
[1:49:29] legislation is actually a subset of the
definition of open space
[1:49:33] so that tells us that recreation
projects in cpa
[1:49:36] are for outdoor use only you can't
invest in any
[1:49:40] buildings or large structures for the
recreation category
[1:49:47] one of the things that you'll do a lot
with cpa most communities do
[1:49:51] is to acquire open space to protect it
or acquire farmland
[1:49:55] or acquire restrictions on on farms
or open space when you do that whenever
[1:50:01] you buy something with cpa funds it has
to be permanently restricted
[1:50:06] to the purpose for which you acquire it
excuse me so
[1:50:10] if the town buys a piece of land with
cpa funds for open space
[1:50:15] they can't change the use 10 years later
to build a new school on it
[1:50:18] for example because there'll be a
permanent restriction on that property
[1:50:22] and then we also talked about kind of
one of the basic tenets of cpa is that
[1:50:27] everything that the city council votes
on has to come from you folks
[1:50:30] in terms of um cpa
so let's take a quick stop here and and
[1:50:37] check in
um we can do two things right now
[1:50:41] um we can just take some general
questions and
[1:50:44] and call it a night i do have about
10 12 slides of
[1:50:51] examples of great projects from other
communities and the different
[1:50:54] categories of what types of things cpa
funds
[1:50:58] um i have done these slides in about
five minutes in record time if i kind of
[1:51:03] give it the express version
if you want to get a peek at what some
[1:51:06] of the other communities are doing with
cpa funds and
[1:51:09] the general themes throughout the
spending but i want to turn it back to
[1:51:12] you because
you know we have been here for quite a
[1:51:15] while and i know folks
might be um getting hungry or maybe
[1:51:19] there's a bruins or celtics game on that
someone wants to get to
[1:51:21] so let me turn it back to you and find
out what you'd like to do for the next
[1:51:25] couple of minutes so i
my opinion would be i think we can look
[1:51:30] at the projects when you send us
your slides here just open it up to
[1:51:35] questions
that people might have
[1:51:40] anything else i just one question
so just roaming around a little bit on
[1:51:46] the
on the site that you have um you have a
[1:51:48] fantastic database of
previous projects by year town etc i was
[1:51:53] just wondering if it's possible
to get details of any of these projects
[1:51:56] do we do we
write to the cities themselves or do we
[1:52:01] actually go through
your organization directly okay so um
[1:52:05] when you were on the project database on
our website
[1:52:09] did you click on the name of the project
and have about a big
[1:52:13] opening a big window that opened with
details on the project
[1:52:17] no i was just looking at the list i was
just trying to search for the
[1:52:20] project's own specific area um and we're
just about to actually
[1:52:24] um overhaul our databases on our website
so
[1:52:28] um one thing that will be more apparent
is when you
[1:52:31] search for projects you know four things
come up the project name
[1:52:34] the date the town and the appropriation
if you click on the project name
[1:52:39] it's it is clickable another window will
open with about 50 data points on that
[1:52:44] project
other than that that that database is
[1:52:49] actually
run by the state unfortunately they
[1:52:53] collect all this data and they don't
display it anywhere on the state's
[1:52:56] website so
we display it on our website because we
[1:52:59] feel like the public should have access
to it
[1:53:02] but we don't collect that data the state
does actually every year and you will
[1:53:05] be required at the end of every fiscal
year the cpc has to file a form with the
[1:53:10] state called the cp3 it's an electronic
form
[1:53:13] to give the details on your projects so
they'll be in that database
[1:53:17] um but if if the details are not in that
expanded view
[1:53:21] then you would have to contact the
community i
[1:53:24] will say that after 15 years of of doing
this i
[1:53:27] you know i don't know all 13 000
projects by any stretch of the
[1:53:30] imagination
um but i do know about a lot of them so
[1:53:34] you can always check with us too
yeah it's a good i mean is a good place
[1:53:38] to start if we're actually looking at
something similar
[1:53:40] to use as a reference if someone has
done something very similar just to look
[1:53:44] at how it was structured the cost etc
so it's really nice to have that as an
[1:53:48] as a tool
great um we're about to launch in the
[1:53:52] next couple weeks
in addition to this project database we
[1:53:57] have crunched
about 25 or 30 different reports that
[1:54:01] you can pull out of the database you
know
[1:54:03] show me a list of all the open space
projects that have been bonded
[1:54:08] in all the communities um and so there's
gonna be a whole new section of our
[1:54:12] website that we're just putting the
finishing touches on
[1:54:15] where you'll be able to dig down into
you know really mine that data for a lot
[1:54:19] of different um
reports we're pretty excited about that
[1:54:22] and
um we'll add you to our newsletter list
[1:54:25] and we'll put out a newsletter as soon
as that
[1:54:27] section is ready just another question
since this is a relatively new um
[1:54:34] program um is there a is there any kind
of process whereby
[1:54:38] uh the state goes back and looks at or
or makes requests of people that have
[1:54:42] done these kinds of projects
through the cva and asked them what work
[1:54:47] what didn't work you know
uh you know basically lessons learned is
[1:54:50] there anything like that that's captured
for
[1:54:52] people like us that are just starting
out to actually review or to access
[1:54:56] um no i there's not um i mean if anyone
was going to do that it would be us like
[1:55:01] i said the state has
no they don't really consider this their
[1:55:05] program um
you know for better or for worse we're
[1:55:08] it and people think we're a state agency
all the time because
[1:55:12] you can search for hours on the state's
website and the only thing you're going
[1:55:16] to find
is one thin little page on dor's uh
[1:55:20] site about the trust fund and that is it
um
[1:55:23] it's it's kind of it's kind of
surprising actually um
[1:55:27] but um um you know we we're
we try to since you guys support us we
[1:55:32] try to run pretty lean and mean
um and that is not something that we've
[1:55:36] really
you know been able to tackle we do have
[1:55:39] a lot of success stories on our website
i think the closest thing we have
[1:55:43] is in each category we probably have 15
or 20 success stories
[1:55:47] where we write a long description of the
project
[1:55:51] and what worked and what didn't work and
we actually give
[1:55:54] links to if it's a building project to
the plans
[1:55:59] you know to photos to documents um
so i think that's the closest thing to
[1:56:03] what we have are these success stories
and and lessons learned
[1:56:07] um but it it could be you're right it
could be a lot more robust if we had a
[1:56:11] bigger staff to be able to do something
like that and one last question i'll
[1:56:15] stop
asking to stop with the questions um for
[1:56:18] conservation
there there is a fantastic organization
[1:56:21] run by the state
that actually brings together all the
[1:56:25] conservation groups of the towns
together at least twice a year
[1:56:28] the big one is in the is in the fall and
um
[1:56:32] again this is pre-coveted of course but
that actually turns out to be an
[1:56:35] incredibly
excellent venue for networking sharing
[1:56:40] again the whole idea about what work
what doesn't stories projects etc etc
[1:56:44] with the different
uh conservation groups and different
[1:56:47] towns is there something like that for
cpa
[1:56:50] or is there something like that
envisioned in the future for cpa
[1:56:53] yes um absolutely we we did we have done
conferences
[1:56:56] many conferences in the past um and as
soon as we bring on our third staffer
[1:57:01] that is going to be
um one of their main jobs is to restart
[1:57:05] those conference against post
postcode um so we usually do them
[1:57:09] regionally so
we have one in the western part of the
[1:57:12] state and then the next year we'll you
know go southeast and then the next
[1:57:15] year we'll go northeast anyone can come
from around the state but we try to move
[1:57:19] the location around so it's not always
in one part of the state thank you
[1:57:24] no problem i have a question
so we have open space housing historic
[1:57:33] are we looking for projects of each one
of those every year
[1:57:37] because we want to have a project
fitting each one of those
[1:57:41] not necessarily no we have um lots of
communities that build up money
[1:57:46] in their reserve accounts um so you are
not required
[1:57:50] matter of fact you're not required to
approve any projects at all um we've had
[1:57:53] some communities
you know take a year off um because they
[1:57:56] had you know so many projects in the
pipeline
[1:57:59] you know the municipality was having a
tough time administering all of them
[1:58:02] um so they take some time off
it is not you are not required to
[1:58:09] to do any projects in any category or do
any projects at all
[1:58:13] each year the only thing you are
required to do is
[1:58:16] is reserve that money in the three
reserve accounts
[1:58:20] um if you don't do a project in that
category
[1:58:24] oftentimes um mike is uh something like
the housing issue would be a great
[1:58:28] example
um you know 140 000 in a year really
[1:58:33] isn't going to buy you a lot of units
um so typically a strategy in the cpa
[1:58:38] plan might be to say
okay the committee feels comfortable
[1:58:42] with this project or this concept
uh maybe we should save up x amount of
[1:58:47] dollars from the ten percent every year
plus an additional five percent
[1:58:51] therefore
in four years five years you'll have x
[1:58:55] you know million dollars
and you can be able to contribute
[1:58:57] towards a project something like that
open space is the same way
[1:59:01] recreation is certainly the same way and
so that's going to be a deliberative
[1:59:05] uh issue i think once we go through all
the presentations over the next several
[1:59:09] months
uh on each of the categories the
[1:59:11] committee's gonna have to decide you
know
[1:59:13] do you want to spend all the money or do
you want to save some of it for larger
[1:59:17] things and
make no mistake they'll definitely be
[1:59:20] there's already
a ton of projects in town that are
[1:59:23] backlogged that
will require multi-million dollar
[1:59:26] investments
you will almost always have more
[1:59:29] applications than you have funding
um so that is the start
[1:59:36] yep absolutely and um there's there is
one downside to being organized so early
[1:59:42] um you know the community like west
newbury that took two and a half years
[1:59:46] to organize
they had a ton of money to spend coming
[1:59:49] out of the gate because they had
the three years that they weren't
[1:59:52] organized to spend and then you can
always spend one year in advance
[1:59:56] just like the city does you know
spending for the next year
[1:59:59] so they had four years worth of funding
coming out of the gate so
[2:00:03] one thing about getting organized so
early is you're only going to have
[2:00:06] you know fy 22 money to spend um you
know over the next year
[2:00:12] so if there's a negative to being on top
of the game that's it but that's
[2:00:16] that's a pretty small negative
[2:00:19] uh joe halligan one last question so i i
thought i heard you correct
[2:00:24] uh if the board uh
discovered there was a 10-acre parcel
[2:00:29] available for sale
we really feel as though that land would
[2:00:33] fit
someday into something that we would be
[2:00:35] interested in doing
maybe the relocation of a historic
[2:00:39] building
a possible park a garden a public garden
[2:00:44] where people can plant their vegetables
like i've seen in other towns
[2:00:47] but we don't know the exact use are we
limited to buying that because we don't
[2:00:52] know what we're going to do
that's one of the great things about cpa
[2:00:57] is that you can buy land for
all cpa purposes
[2:01:04] and this is typically done
you know not necessarily where you have
[2:01:08] no idea what you're going to do for the
land although you certainly could
[2:01:12] um but it's typically done where you
have a
[2:01:15] pretty good idea of some things you want
on that land but you never have time to
[2:01:20] finalize any of those ideas before you
have to go to closing right
[2:01:23] you know usually when land comes on the
market it's not going to stay there very
[2:01:27] long
and folks don't want to you know when
[2:01:30] they decide to sell they want to sell
so you know typically in that situation
[2:01:35] you would
ask the city council to um buy the land
[2:01:39] for all cpa purposes and then a
committee would be appointed
[2:01:44] by the council to study the land and
make recommendations on
[2:01:48] on what to do with that now one thing
about cpa is anytime you buy land you
[2:01:53] have to put the proper restrictions on
there
[2:01:56] so in this case you would wait to put
those restrictions on
[2:01:59] until you determined okay we're going to
use these five acres up front for
[2:02:04] affordable housing
and then we're going to put soccer
[2:02:06] fields in the back and we put a housing
restriction on the five acres and a
[2:02:11] conservation restriction for
recreational purposes on the soccer
[2:02:14] fields
um you know we've had some communities
[2:02:17] do three
um you know my community bought a piece
[2:02:20] of land and there's 50 acres of
conservation land in the back
[2:02:23] with hiking trails and there's 20 acres
of um
[2:02:27] fields multi-purpose fields and there's
a 10 a 12 acre parcel up front that's
[2:02:32] um going to be developed for affordable
housing that's the one piece that's
[2:02:36] still not built yet
okay i guess my last question would be
[2:02:41] being on the planning board and seeing
developers coming forward
[2:02:44] uh is it possible if they were to come
forward with a project
[2:02:49] and there is a lot of land left over can
they
[2:02:52] donate that land to the cpa
[2:02:56] no they would be you can donate money to
the cpa
[2:03:00] account so people can make private
donations
[2:03:03] and say they want that money deposited
in the cpa account
[2:03:07] land would be donated to the town the
cpa
[2:03:10] program doesn't own any land in and of
itself when you use cpa money to buy
[2:03:15] land
it's town land after that um it has a
[2:03:18] restriction on it
um for you know one of the four cpa
[2:03:22] purposes
but the land is all owned by the town
[2:03:25] the cpa doesn't is not an entity that
owns land
[2:03:29] so they'd be donating the land to the
town and they'd probably be
[2:03:33] you know the town every time land is
donated to a town the council has to
[2:03:37] vote to accept that donation you know
you don't want to
[2:03:39] you know someone can't just waste off
their contaminated land on you you have
[2:03:42] to accept that donation
usually you accept it um for a specific
[2:03:47] purpose
so you know the council would pass an
[2:03:51] order to
accept the donation of this land for
[2:03:54] conservation purposes
or for recreational purposes
[2:03:59] you know if the person donating it wants
it to be used in a particular way
[2:04:03] okay thank you
[2:04:08] opportunity if that opportunity comes up
your jamie is your first stop to
[2:04:13] figure out something like that
[2:04:18] thank you anyone else
[2:04:23] great that's awesome is that it mr
chairman yes
[2:04:26] thank you stuart i appreciate it i'm
going to
[2:04:29] um i'm just going to put my um the last
slide here with our
[2:04:33] phone number and um uh encourage you all
to
[2:04:38] you know call or um or email my email
address is on the
[2:04:41] website um and we're happy to answer
questions
[2:04:45] we're happy to help you get up and
running um when you have a draft cpa
[2:04:49] plan we'll
we'll proof it for you make some
[2:04:51] comments and edits and
see if we can um make some suggestions
[2:04:55] for you on the plan we'll
review your projects you know the first
[2:04:59] time around um
you know we definitely want to see you
[2:05:02] guys get up and running and be very
successful we're
[2:05:04] really excited um you know if susan is
still there i don't know if she's still
[2:05:08] on the line but
you know i i've been around long enough
[2:05:11] to have worked on the first franklin
campaign
[2:05:13] and it was very disappointing to to lose
and not get cpa for you know over
[2:05:18] another decade so
it's really exciting to have you guys in
[2:05:22] the program and we want to we want to
help in any way we can
[2:05:26] steward thank you so much for um taking
the time so quickly
[2:05:30] and um you know for uh customizing the
presentation for franklin
[2:05:34] just for the folks at home that are
paying attention
[2:05:38] april 6th which i believe is next week
is the next community preservation
[2:05:43] committee meeting
we're going to be approving a calendar
[2:05:47] of dates at that meeting
but also notably next week we're going
[2:05:52] to give you
the committee and the community an
[2:05:55] update on open space efforts
and then in the months after that we're
[2:06:00] going to tackle each uh meeting
we're going to focus on updates on each
[2:06:04] of the issues before so ryan jetty
is going to come in and do a
[2:06:08] presentation on recreation
um and then we're going to do one on
[2:06:12] affordable housing as well as historic
preservation
[2:06:16] hopefully over the summer i think one of
the other ideas christie and were
[2:06:19] talking about
was to maybe take the committee out on a
[2:06:21] short tour particularly the historic
spots maybe just go to the red brick
[2:06:26] schoolhouse the museum
the washington street church and some of
[2:06:30] the other hot spots that um you know
maybe for consideration down the line so
[2:06:34] i think uh stewart's slide at the
beginning was referencing
[2:06:39] review plans you know some of them are
good to do in this room
[2:06:43] i think some of them are probably better
to do outside as well um
[2:06:47] and so uh you know we hope to spend the
next several months
[2:06:50] uh reviewing kind of the current status
of each topic with the committee and the
[2:06:53] community
uh just to get everybody started
[2:06:59] and with that i think we'll adjourn mr
chairman
[2:07:02] i have one yeah one thing does everyone
agree
[2:07:06] that we should just have our first
budget be that generic
[2:07:09] oops presentation that they made the 10
10 10 and five
[2:07:13] yes and the rest as a reserve budget
sounds good
[2:07:16] perfect so you can take care of that
development we will take care of that mr
[2:07:20] chairman and i think just for clarity on
the administrative expenses
[2:07:23] i mean that list was perfect that stuart
put up i think the most likely expenses
[2:07:28] would be appraisals site
costs i think mr halligan pointed that
[2:07:33] out earlier too
um and so even if that's not used for
[2:07:37] any potential purpose in the future
um having that available i think would
[2:07:41] help the community out a lot
and donuts
[2:07:47] i know stu i owe you a box of donuts for
saying a couple nice things about me
[2:07:51] but uh johnny on the spot or whatever so
i owe you a box of krispy kremes
[2:07:55] no problem and albert i'll return that
jamie i'll send you a
[2:07:58] a budget template that you can use to
prepare for the committee
[2:08:02] excellent thanks dude thank you great
so i'd entertain a motion to adjourn
[2:08:07] second
someone's gonna make a motion i make a
[2:08:10] motion to adjourn a second
all those people say hi hi
[2:08:15] it's gonna be a roll call one zoom is
gonna be a roll call
[2:08:20] why did i knew joe was gonna see i
didn't even say anything because i knew
[2:08:22] joe was gonna say it himself
thank you joe i forgot that okay so
[2:08:27] there's been a
motion made and seconded in the clerical
[2:08:30] call role
uh dave mcneil hi joseph halligan
[2:08:36] yes christopher feeley yes
phyllis malcolm yes wayne marion
[2:08:43] yes jeff levingston yes tony doyle
yes mike uh i don't know how to say your
[2:08:48] last name
and lisa oxford yes
[2:08:54] thank you thank you we're adjourned
thanks everyone
[2:08:57] thanks everybody have a good night all
right
[2:09:01] thank you might be the bottom button