[3:29] No. It’s fine. We’ll jump right into it. Okay. Good man, good man. We’re good. You were good. You can start. All right. All right. We will kick off the. Monday, September 14th, 2026 meeting of the Hamilton Select Board. Uh, and we will first, uh, do a call to order.

[3:47] So we have, uh, Lee McCoy in the room. We have Rosie in the room, myself. And then anyone online. Those might. Not not not not not not from the board yet. Okay. And Ben. Both said that they’re going to try to join remotely. Okay. So we may have them join shortly. All right.

[4:07] Uh, we will start with board and committee openings. So we have affordable housing trust one opening for a three year term. The Community Preservation Committee, two openings, one opening for member of historic district commission and one opening for an at large member. We have the Conservation Commission, one opening for a three year term.

[4:26] We have the Council on Aging, one opening for a three year term. We have the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee, 101 opening, um, Council on Aging, one opening for three year term. The Historic District Commission, two openings for three year terms, two openings for two year terms.

[4:47] One must be a resident of the historic district and one must be a resident realtor. We have the Human Rights Commission, two at large openings, three year term and Zoning Board of Appeals, one opening for a three year term. And bills trying to get in. Oh, God. Hey, man. So. Wait a minute. See if we can send it to you right now.

[5:09] I’m going to try to rescind both him. I’m going to try and send it to you right now if you want to keep going. We will. We’ll take a quick pause while we see if we can get more members to join us. Here. Call is important to us. Oh. Okay. How’s everybody at the house and all. Good. Good.

[5:30] School started now. Kids are just biking all around the neighborhood, which is. Great. Moment. We will take public comment for a maximum of 30 minutes. No speaker will be allowed to speak more than three minutes. We’ll start with anyone in the room.

[11:13] If anyone want to give any public comment, you can head up to the microphone. Not seeing anyone there. Yeah, yeah. Public comment. It’s your turn. Come on up. When I saw when Miss Fisher Wills, it gave me your agenda for tonight, I thought, oh, I’m guilty taking me one minute, but here I am. Wow. I’m Marianne Cannon.

[11:36] I live here in town. And I came to invite you to the gala that we are having for the Hamilton-Wenham Public Library’s 25th year celebration. Um, uh, through the friends, uh, and I think you might have gotten something electronically, but maybe you didn’t. Okay. Yeah. I’m old, so I’m still into paper. And I apologize to every tree. With you. Thanks.

[12:12] Anyway. If you haven’t heard of it, we are going to have at First Church. And when I’m on the 13th of November, from 7 to 9, I believe, or 5 to 9, something like that. A gala, refreshments, music. Uh, a silent auction and auction. And I think lots of fun to raise funds for our library.

[12:35] We are the only regional public library in the Commonwealth. As most of you know. Uh, and we hope to do some digitization to raise funds for that for, from the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle. Uh, that, uh, has some historical events. I can’t believe I’m saying that.

[12:56] I’ve read it for years, but it is historical, and we want to preserve that, so that’s expensive. So we hope to do that and then run the many of the other programs. I was shocked to see that they have machines in here that you can take out.

[13:13] I mean, things that you would want for your house or when your grandkids visit or something. It’s amazing. More than just books. So we are actively inviting you to not only know about it, but also to donate something. If you’d like to. Or the Hamilton Select Board can be part of a silent auction or not. Um, or you can just come and you can volunteer and just have fun.

[13:35] Uh, so that’s really all I have to say. And I’m very grateful that you gave me 2 or 3 minutes. Did you say this doesn’t have a time? I don’t see, but you thought 530 or something like that. I think it’s more like, uh, more like six. We’ve been working since January. But you wouldn’t know that by that era.

[13:55] Uh, yeah. On the second page. Yes. November 13th, 6:00 at the first. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Great. It’s just an evening. Big old cocktail party or coke party if you want. That’s what it’s going to be. Oh, thank you so much. Sounds like such a great event. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing.

[14:11] Thank you so much. And good luck tonight. Thank you Mary, and I have you tonight. This is nothing. Yeah. That’s great. Uh, anyone else in the room want to share public comment? There’s nobody online either. Anyone online? And Bill just text that he’s having technical difficulties.

[14:29] Um, he will try again when he gets to his destination. I’m sorry. What was it, Bill? Just try it again. He’s having technical difficulties. He will try again in a short time. Okay, great. All right. Uh, not seeing any public comment online. Uh, we will move to select board committee liaison reports. Um, Rosie, anything you want to. Share? Um. Oh. I went to the ZBA.

[14:49] Last, uh. week at, um. And let’s see, Mr. Green, uh, the newest associate member was elevated to a voting member. Um, they went into, um, so. And that’s good because there was something on the agenda for for them to discuss. And the issue regarding was it.

[15:17] 957 Bay Road yeah, they had, um, um, the negotiations continue and they went into executive session for that. As for anything else, gosh, I forgot, right. Um, Council on the, uh, excuse me, Council on Aging. I miss their meeting this week. I had, um, something else I had to attend to.

[15:40] I can’t, um, very exciting doing the tree project that’s in the final stages of the first phase of it. I’m working with Pete Cobb, who’s the, um, associate director of the DPW, who’s been just wonderful running around and marking out trees and, um, seeing what trees people would like.

[15:59] I’m sure there’ll be some funds available at the end of this fall. Um, planting, so that if people want to get on the list for, uh, tree in the spring, please, um, contact me through the select board, and I’d be happy to have the DPW come over and look and see if your house can accommodate a tree on the town’s right of way.

[16:27] Um, also have started to just preliminarily speak with David Smith. We’ve sort of been missing each other to start talking about. Um, and by by law, I mean, there’s a there’s a lot to work with. There are a lot of concern.

[16:46] And, um, for some reason, we’ve been missing each other this past week, but we sort of have made the preliminary contact. Um, and I think, um, Essex Tech went to. That’s a biggie. Went to a meeting over at their, um, over at their campus to discuss the allocation of seats.

[17:14] And I’m promised a private tour of the facility with the Hamilton representative on the, um, citizen representative to the school. So I’m very much looking forward to that. Um, I think that’s all. Sorry. Boy, that was, like, off the cuff. I usually. Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t give you enough warning there. I forgot to give it right back to you. You know, just catch you right off going. Thank you. Thank you.

[17:27] Jesse, I know Bill Olson has joined us. Oh, and then he dropped off, but he had joined us at 1015. But he’s trying. Season us still. Uh, Lee, what have you got? Can I ask real quick? Rosie, was there, uh, a new proposal for 957 submitted at the ZBA or not? I don’t know yet. It’s, uh.

[17:46] It’s in negotiation, and so there’s not a public, um, comment about that yet. Okay. Excellent. Okay. Um. I’m sorry. Are you ready for me? Yeah. Yeah, you can feel free. Any updates from you? Yes. So, uh Hamilton Dark Sky. Update. Uh, they’re collecting residential impact information for future Select Board presentation.

[18:08] Working towards completing a draft dark sky bylaw, bringing additional town committees into discussion, and beginning to fall to plan fall and winter public events. Although I hear that they are interested in having the Select Board participate in, um, putting those together. Um, also, the HDC met. Uh, there’s Alex Ayala, attended. Um, he’s interested in joining the HDC.

[18:33] Um, his has a background in banking, nonprofits and business development. Um, the suggestion was that he be added as associate member. And then there was an update on the pocket park, which, um, needs some an estimate to determine the path forward. And then the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee postpone their meeting to this week. And.

[18:59] I guess the last thing, which is not a liaison thing, but Wyndham is running an opinion survey about upgrades at Pingree Park. Hamilton residents are able to put in their opinion, and that survey is available online. That’s great. Yeah, I saw that. Thanks, Lee. Thank you. Ben, I see you online.

[19:21] Anything you want to share for reports? Um, nothing too significant, I think. Mostly. Just still working on the, uh, updating the capital planning policy. Um, so we have a draft out there that, uh, did kind of a one directional thing to FinCom with that. So, um, Scott Mattern has reviewed it and sent comments.

[19:45] I need to do the same thing with with the capital Committee as well. So kind of just going one person to one person with this, but, uh, looking to continue to collect feedback over the next couple of weeks and then we’ll circle back with Joe, um, to get it reviewed. And formatted.

[20:04] So that way we can share it with the board and get it into one of our packets. So I think that’s kind of like the big item that affects a couple of committees. I’m on. No other major updates. Great. Thanks, Ben. Uh, not seeing Bill join yet. Um, great. Yeah. Nothing. Um, nothing.

[20:25] No updates for me this week. Uh, so we will move over to the consent agenda. We have approve minutes of August 17th, 2026, white board meeting approved the banner at Council on Aging for fall book sale and then approve the use of Patent Park for Essex County Trail Association annual five K run.

[20:42] So I will either entertain a motion to approve, uh, consent agenda or if there’s any item that you’d like to remove to just further discuss. There’s a I would like to remove the minutes from the consent agenda because I have something I’d like added to it. Sure. Okay.

[21:03] So, uh, we will pull the minutes from August 17th, and then we will leave the remaining two. Um, the Council on Aging fall book sale, patent park. Everyone go with that. Yes, I move that we approve the consent agenda for the two items. I second that. All right. Motion made and seconded. We’ll do a roll call vote. Since we have been online.

[21:21] We’ll start with you, Ben. Ben Galuza I. Lee Lee McCoy a. Rosie.. Rosie Kennedy, I. Am Tom Myers. I, uh, said agenda passes. Uh, and then we’ll move to the minutes. So, Lee, you have an adjustment. Yeah.

[21:43] I just wanted to have it updated to reflect that I’m going to be the liaison to the dark Sky group in the minutes, that’s all. Sure. The decision was made. Any concerns with that from the board? All right. I will then entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda or to approve the minutes of August 17th, 2026, with the addendum that Lee is the liaison to the Dark Skies Committee and that be added to the the the minutes.

[22:07] Lee, we talked about that that that night we did. Okay. So moved okay. Second. All right. Uh, Ben. Ben Galuza I. Lee McCoy I. Rosie Rosie Kennedy I. Tom Myers I passes. Okay. All right. So we’ll move into the agenda and we will start with department head report, uh, from Chief Edward Guy and Captain Matt Donovan.

[22:42] Good evening everyone. Chief, thank you for having me. Um. Edward. Guy Hamilton, police Department chief of police. So, in any community, we always see that, um, traffic is usually the number one problem.

[23:07] Um, for most communities, um, in this community in particular, is one of the major things that we deal with on a day to day basis basis in patrol. A lot of our complaints revolve around, um, speeding complaints or erratic driving, um, as well as other types of behavior when it comes to motor vehicles.

[23:28] And so I think it’s important, um, that we all understand kind of how we work as a police department to ensure that we have safe roads, uh, for, for vehicles, for pedestrians, for bicycles, for horses. Um, those out there who are equestrians. So I just kind of wanted to touch on some of these things about, you know, what we’re focused on.

[23:51] What are some of the our options that we have in the way of enforcement? Uh, but I want to start off by saying that education really is the is the most important thing when it comes to operating motor vehicles within any community. We want to make sure that people understand what the speed limits are.

[24:07] You know, how they operate on our roads, what’s acceptable. Um, as far as the motoring public goes and, um, you know, in that’s one of the things we like to focus on most when it comes to, um, even with enforcement, when you stop motor vehicles, everybody doesn’t deserve a citation a lot of times, just getting them to understand

[24:25] what’s what’s acceptable on our roads is usually a very good way to go. And we have some different ways to do that. So traffic enforcement, education and engineering are elements of an overall traffic safety program to promote the safe, efficient and orderly movement of motor vehicles over the roads and highways in our community.

[24:44] Enforcement and education programs are designed to change illegal and dangerous driving behavior and to promote voluntary compliance with the laws of the Commonwealth. As a component of behavior modification, enforcement must be applied where it can best target the type of driving behavior that needs to be affected through the use of collision statistics.

[25:03] Traffic patterns in volumes. Police can target the times and locations where enforcement resources are most effective. It’s the policy of the Hamilton Police Department to use. Traffic enforcement is one of several methods to reduce traffic collisions, fatalities and injuries. Motor vehicles.

[25:23] Motor vehicle stops based solely on the violations observed and not on the profile of the vehicle’s occupants, and maintain an account for traffic records and citations, which is what we do. The objective of traffic enforcement is to favorably alter the violators future driving behavior, fostering a climate of safe driving throughout the community.

[25:42] Patrol officers are responsible for traffic enforcement efforts through their normal tour of duty and enforce traffic laws at a level sufficient to ensure the safe and expeditious movement of traffic. We also utilize grants from the state to have extra officers out on patrol at certain times of the year.

[26:01] Uh, some of those campaigns are clicking a ticket or operating under the influence of alcohol or, um, some of you may have even seen our officers out targeting the crosswalks, uh, people who would be violating, um, crosswalks.

[26:26] Um, when a traffic complaint or a traffic problem is identified, our traffic supervisor, who’s Sergeant Michael Jerome will identify in the educational and enforcement strategies for each target area, such as speed trailers, radar, unmarked vehicles, enforcement teams, signboards, social media campaigns, which we utilize all of. Uh, he will also coordinate the deployment of patrol officers with shift supervisors, enforcement officers, um, and enforcement officers should target the violations specified by the Selective enforcement assignment.

[26:51] So selective enforcement is how we what we call when we go out. And we’re looking for specific traffic violations. So if we have a complaint, for instance, for speeding, we would make sure that the officers would be selecting speeding is is what they would be focused on.

[27:08] Or if, uh, distracted driving, such as people utilizing, uh, cell phones and such. Um, also all the dangers, uh, or blatant violation should also receive attention by these officers when we when we received these complaints, all officers for our enforcement action, all officers shall exercise their good judgment and discretion in taking appropriate enforcement action for each violation of

[27:29] the law witnessed or reported to them. Traffic enforcement will be taken without regard to such factors as attitude, intent, frivolous excuse, uh, or frivolous excuse, or enforcement actions will be accomplished by using one of the five methods.

[27:51] Uh, so we utilize as everybody in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts utilizes verbal warnings, which is usually going to be the vast majority of when we contact or engage a motorist. Um, typically giving them just a verbal warning is usually enough to suffice, um, getting them to change their behavior and understand what the rules of the road are.

[28:10] We also utilize written warnings, which are logged within the state database when we write them. Civil citations, which is a fine, uh, we like to do that only as a last resort for various reasons. And some of those reasons will be violators.

[28:32] We’ve jeopardized the safe and efficient flow of vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic, hazardous moving violations, multiple violations, operating unsafe and and or and properly equipped vehicles and repeat offenders. Uh, we have a system which, uh, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where we’re able to look up a operator’s driver’s history and be able to make determinations if they’ve received written warnings before, if they’ve been stopped, if they’re a, uh, you

[28:54] know, repeated violator. So we’re able to look that type of information up. We also utilize criminal complaints for individuals who have, say, a suspended license. Revoked registration, uninsured motor vehicle. Um, so things like that.

[29:17] We can also use summonses and on occasion, uh, yes, we have to arrest, especially in the case where we have, um, maybe negligent, uh, operation or you have operating under the influence of liquor or, um, uh, drugs. So for our, for our purposes here in, in Hamilton, uh, we always look at the basis for a stop officer’s observable moving or equipment violation.

[29:42] Um, they receive information from the vehicle’s registration database. So they ran a license plate, and they were looking to determine the compliance with, uh, registration or insurance. Um, also, we’ve received information from another person, such as 901 for erratic driving.

[30:06] Uh, we do get those, uh, especially for one a we get a lot of those types of, uh, calls, vehicles traveling between, uh, communities such as Wenham and or Ipswich. Uh, some of the enforcement options that our officers use, like I said, verbal warnings, written warnings, a civil motor vehicle infraction, which is a fine. So, uh, criminal complaint and arrests and the officers all have discretion. So types of driving behavior, types of the driver history, driver reaction to a violation.

[30:30] Even some economic situation. So the officer has discretion on what type of how they may utilize their enforcement options. The main goal for traffic enforcement is for educational purposes. Uh, here in the town of Hamilton, so we can ensure a safe roads. There are certainly times when the most effective method can be a criminal, rather, uh, a civil violation.

[30:53] And other times of verbal warning may be the best option. It’s up to the officer conducting the motor vehicle enforcement to make that determination based on their discretion. I go here and Hamilton Police Department is to enforce motor vehicle laws to ensure that our roads are safe for everyone.

[31:10] We utilize different methods to ensure this occurs through education, enforcement and traffic studies. We are committed to ensuring safe streets and welcome. Welcome any information that assist the Hamilton Police Department and targeting any problem areas in the community. Um, we do not have quotas. That’s illegal.

[31:29] Um, just in case anybody thinks that that’s how we operate, that is not how we operate, nor will we ever operate like that. But, um, I want to say that anybody in the community who has an issue in regards to traffic within their neighborhood or streets, or they see something that they feel is a concern, we welcome any, any information

[31:49] whatsoever. Sit down. We’ll talk to people within the community to get their perspective, because we want to make sure that our roads are safe. We’re here to do a job. Part of that job is motor vehicle enforcement.

[32:06] And so the more information we have to be able to target a specific area, the better off we are. Uh, we utilize traffic studies to be able to determine a lot of things, such as how speeds, how speeders are in a particular area, the volume of traffic, the size of the vehicles that are going through a particular area, and those those types, that type of information assist

[32:23] us in being able to look at a specific area. If we received a complaint, which is typically why we utilize traffic studies so we can have better information to be able to speak to that citizen and let them know, hey, we’ve noticed these particular trends on your on your street.

[32:41] And you know, once we find if there is a problem, we’re going to go out and utilize enforcement at education. We’ll put up signboards so people know how fast they’re going, but we’ll also utilize enforcement as a technique to be able to slow down people and get them to understand what the what that,

[32:56] um, that there’s a problem for speeding and hit the people that are, um, out there, uh, you know, breaking the, uh, traffic laws, um, but just so you have an idea of just a departmental statistics right now, um, so, you know, we’re we’re doing, um, we’re we’re budgeted for 16 sworn

[33:18] personnel. Um, currently, we have two officers out on medical leave and a recent retirement. So we’re down three officers at this time. Um, so minimum staffing per shift is two officers, though periodically we may have three officers on a day or evening shift when staffing allows for it.

[33:39] Um, currently with, uh, staffing, um, it’s very difficult for that. But we also have an officer that is going to be, um, be he’s going to be deployed in October for 440 days with the Army National Guard. So we’ll be down for officers.

[33:58] We have two, uh, potential candidates at this time that hopefully we’ll be able one we’ll be able to get on hopefully sooner rather than later, and another one will have to be, uh, will sent to the police academy. Um, between January of 2023 and September of 2026, the Hamilton Police Department had 257 arrests. During that same time frame, the Hamilton Police Department, either proactively or reactively, logged 72,417 incidents.

[34:26] Also during that same time period, the Hamilton Police officers had proactively logged selective enforcement. In 2061 times, Hamilton police officers also conducted 5361 motor vehicle stops between January 23rd and September of 2026. Between January of 2023 and September of 2026, Hamilton police officers investigated 274 motor vehicle crashes, with the top locations in Hamilton.

[34:55] I’m sorry the locations within Hamilton, uh, for motor vehicle citations were issued on Bay Road Essex Street, Highland Street, Walnut Road and Asbury Street. Um, so that’s pretty much it for my presentation. Um, you know, it’s a serious matter. We, we we take traffic very seriously because obviously we have a lot of, um, a lot of young families in town.

[35:19] We have schools, we have, uh, obviously students are walking to and from, uh, in the neighborhoods, especially downtown. We have a lot of a lot of pedestrians, um, in and around the schools, the park. And we want to make sure that it’s safe for everybody.

[35:36] And anything we can do to make sure that we, you know, maintain a safe community, uh, with traffic enforcement. We will do that. We just we just ask that people, if they have a complaint or anything like, um, or they have concerns that they do reach out to us so we can we can address those things sooner rather than later.

[35:54] Any questions? Great. Thank you. Chief. That was really helpful. And I really appreciate the statistics. That’s really, really enlightening here to, um, I know both of you raised your hand very quickly, so I can. I can defer if you guys have any questions. Sure. Yeah.

[36:13] I think, um, um, I’m interested to understand the significant decrease in number of stops, um, from 2023 to 2026. I mean, it seems like our roads are so much busier. Um, and not just because of Hamilton folks, but the neighboring communities have increased and their population. So, uh, it’s surprising to me that there are many fewer stops. I mean, almost half. So.

[36:42] Well, the year is not over yet. Denise. Right. So in the reality of it is that that number right there was up until August. So, you know, there’s there’s been you know, we’re in September now. So it’s probably about a month old.

[36:58] It’s it’s been you know, we have some young officers that are out, um, in there. You know, they’re doing their job. They’re out there stopping motor vehicles like they’re supposed to. So that’s why there is a drop there. Only because it was up until August. So, uh, the other the other year is a it’s a full year, right.

[37:13] Okay. So and I just wanted to add that I do see a lot of, um, traffic patrols around which I’m very happy about because we certainly do have a lot of speeders. In fact, I flagged down an office. Some crazy person came up behind me and was honking like a madwoman.

[37:29] And then she, he or she stopped in the middle of the street and then swerved over to the other side of the of the road. That was really scary. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. But I thought, My God, this person is either very angry or impaired. So the police went right after this person.

[37:48] I don’t know ultimately what happened, but. Unfortunately in this, in this day and age, what you see is a lot more aggressive driving.

[38:07] Um, in people in a hurry to get, you know, wherever they’re trying to get to, um, you know, I see it all the time, you know, in the, you know, when I’m out there on, you know, neighboring communities, you know, where I live. I see it all the time. People are impatient. Um, and we do our best to try to address those things. When, when we come in contact with that.

[38:25] And, you know, a lot of times people like, I don’t want to call the police with this. And it’ll we recommend, if you’re behind an erratic operator and people are driving like that, you need to call because the only way it can be addressed is if we’re aware of it and if we’re able to be able to make a motor vehicle stop.

[38:42] And that person then and, you know, investigate it, right? Right. Well, fortunately for for other other motorists on the road, there was a traffic, um, an officer stopped doing traffic duty or something, and I was able to just alert him right away.

[39:03] So that was a fortuitous thing that the police are out as they are all the time, and that he did address it.. Absolutely. No, that’s that’s what we want. You know, we we’re only part of the community. The police are part of the community. And without you, without the community, we’re unable to do our job effectively.

[39:24] So if you’re able to whoever, whoever it is, it sees a problem or it sees some an issue that needs to be addressed. That’s why we’re there. We want you to let us know that you’re not bothering us. That is why we that’s why we get paid. That’s what our job is. That’s what our duty is.

[39:39] And if we don’t know there’s a problem, we can address it. So that’s what we want for people. We want them to let us know when there is they’re seeing an issue, whether it’s actively happening or it’s something that they saw and they just they feel that there’s a need.

[39:53] Maybe, maybe we could do something if it’s in the past. But, you know, we just want to know about it because maybe there is a pattern. Something happened, something else happened that maybe that you don’t. I’m aware of that we are in.

[40:08] Will will have to address it because you might provide information to us that, you know, could be very vital in, in dealing with the particular problem. Right. Well, thank you. And I hope that everybody hears that as well. The importance of calling when there’s. It is extremely important. Unfortunately, what a lot of people think is that they’re bothering the police and they are not.

[40:24] It’s we’ll we’ll investigate whatever it is that comes into us, you know, whether it’s something it’s better to look into something and it’d be nothing than it be something. And we don’t we’re not aware of it, chief. Just a couple of questions. I’m just looking at the. The bullet under, um, total motor vehicle accidents.

[40:40] And I think it’s no surprise. Sort of the streets and intersections you identified where there’s sort of the major crashes. I think we all sort of know that those. Those are pretty, you know, um, you know, we’ve seen it all the time.

[40:55] You know, those like, you know, Bay Road and Bridge and Bay Road and Asbury, um, knowing that, knowing that these sort of intersections are sort of key areas for is there anything that we’re doing wrong or we should be doing differently? Is there any sort of recommendations that come out of that? I know, like at least I’m thinking of like Bay Road and Asbury.

[41:07] I mean, I know we have that flashing light for individuals to kind of cross the street to Winthrop and Patent Park. Like, is there anything else that you’re you’re seeing in either other towns or, or any recommendations where we can sort of. so indicate that. , so on Bay Road. So that’s, that’s actually technically a, that’s a highway state highway.

[41:23] So MassDOT is the one that really if, if there’s an engineering issue. So like I said, enforcement education and engineering and engineering meaning the road what’s going on with the road signage, um lights.

[41:41] Um, the way that it’s constructed, are there things that can be done to that in order to make it safer, make it, you know, make it better for the for pedestrians and, um, vehicular traffic. And the reality of it is, is that we have to deal with the DPW and the MassDOT on those types of things, and then they make determination.

[42:00] They’ll do study their own traffic studies on them, um, to determine what’s the best way to be able to engineer that particular intersection, to make it safer. Um, so those are things that, you know, I can’t necessarily answer that for you as far as what needs to be done.

[42:15] But that’s something that the state would have to look at because it’s one a or if it was a different intersection in town, say it was Asbury and Highland. That’s something that we would look at as a town if there was an issue. As far as, does it need lights or is it, you know, does that I’m just using an example.

[42:29] Does it need a three way stop to be able to control the traffic better? So there’s a lot there’s different ways that that can be that can be targeted. Um, but it’s it’s a longer discussion with, um, you know, the DPW and other consultants maybe to be able to look at that particular area if it’s unsafe or it needs to be changed.

[42:49] Yeah. No, that makes sense. And then I was just looking at you because you had mentioned the traffic studies as well. I know that, you know, obviously in 2026, I think you said just one underway, but we’re at two and maybe another third, but it’s kind of gone down a little bit.

[43:01] Is the going down in traffic studies as a result of just, you know, you know, have a particular thing to study at this moment or is it funding issue or is it just like, I just want to make sure that we’re, you know, everyone. Yeah.

[43:16] So basically when we the reason we do traffic study is because we receive complaints in a particular area. So we have a, a machine that will assist us in being able to determine speeds, uh, amount of vehicles, size of vehicles, uh, times days when, when the, you know, when the vehicles are, um, you know, speeding or whatever.

[43:38] And so basically what we do is we take that data and then to kind of look at the trends and see, okay, are there issues, you know, say that it’s a speed limit of 30. And we’re getting people that are traveling ten, 15 miles over the speed limit.

[43:54] You know, we’ll look at that and say, okay, well what time what time of day is this happening? And let’s go in, in, you know, in do some enforcement or education where we put up signboards notifying people of their speed. So that’s how we would typically target it. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yep. I have one other question.

[44:09] So outside the scope. So I’ll let my other board members, um, ask questions that I might circle back to that. But Lee, did you have a couple? I did real quick. Um, so you have 16 sworn officers and that includes the two on medical leave, one on retirement and one that’s going on to deployment.

[44:25] Right? Yes. Yeah. But I when I said 16, that’s what’s budgeted. But we’re down three right now. But then one being deployed. One of the schools to. So that’s another person okay. And the right. Well yeah. Resource officer so and you talked about hiring two more people are right. Is that an expectation I’m sorry. Sorry.

[44:45] You’re budgeted for 16. Budgeted for 16. Yep. Okay. So is that because you have one retirement. So the other person would be. So they’ll go to the academy. So we have another retirement that’s going to be coming up in December.

[45:01] And so in order to be able to fill that position, we’re going to send them in October. As long as they all their background and everything is is good to go. And that way, by the time they get out, it’s usually it’s six months. Right.

[45:18] So if you go it’s at the end of October that they will go to the academy. So we wouldn’t see them until the end of April. And then from that point in time, then they have another three months of field training. So by the time they ever get on the road, let’s just say it’s next summer, okay. But just to clarify.

[45:33] So we we have made an offer to an officer that’s transit transfer. Yes. In from another department. We have to. But just be coming on, uh, full time. Right. We’re working on his background. Right now, background. But we’ve got an offering that we think is being accepted, and we’re doing the background check to get him in as quickly as possible. Yes.

[45:50] Um, you know, we used to be able to use utilize reserve officers to help with this. And, um, because of police reform, we can’t get anybody to sign up to be reserve officers anymore. So now we don’t have any reserve officers in town. Um. Okay, so that’ll be two in the academy. And then the one that’s.

[46:08] Just one in the academy, and one is going to be a lateral transfer. So they’re fully trained. We just have to complete their background. We’re working on that right now okay. Excellent. Yep. Uh other question is oh approximately what proportion of calls about erratic drivers and end up with a contact with a, with a driver. So.

[46:29] You know, I, I, I’d be speculating at this point in time. Um, but it’s it can happen. I’ll give you a prime example. Um day one day shift we had we had a report of a, um, this happened not that long ago. I want to say it might have been Jake.

[46:48] Um, officer Santorelli, he actually came in contact with the individual. Uh, they were driving 10:00 in the morning down one a. They were right by Patton Park. He made a motor vehicle stop and it was operating under the influence of liquor. So he effected an arrest on that one.

[47:05] You know, it happens, but it’s it’s the the problem with a lot of those is that there’s a time lapse between the when that person’s calling in and saying, okay, well they’re you know, Bay Road at Asbury. Well, by the time the officer was able to catch up to them, there went them. Okay.

[47:23] So but what we’ll do is that dispatch, the regional dispatch will keep that person on the phone as long as they can. So they can be able to ascertain their location. So, you know, that way we know where they’re at. What is the actual boundary.

[47:39] Like if you’re if you start telling the individual in Hamilton, can you, can you and then they go over to one of them or Ipswich or something. Can you pull them over there. Yeah. Yes. Because in Essex County we have a mutual aid agreement with all of the all of the towns. So when an officer is on duty, they’re able to, in effect, a stop and arrest in a neighboring community.

[47:58] You know, and that’s not a problem because of the mutual aid agreement between all of the police departments. Okay, great. That’s good to know. That’s good to know. Yeah. Anything else? Lee? Um.

[48:19] Um, is there sorry, is there any specific information you usually need for, uh, in a call? When someone calls in, you need a for an erratic. The vehicle, you need a license plate. Yeah. The best thing that we. And actually, that helps out a lot.

[48:34] So, uh, people in the community need to understand that if you’re able to get the license plate of the motor vehicle description of the vehicle in a license plate, that’s typically all we need. Because once we run that plate, uh, we’ll be able to figure out usually where they’re, where they’re located, as far as with their addresses. So we’re able to follow up with that.

[48:50] You know, a lot of times some of these erratic operators, we’ve had it where they they were in Hamilton and the officer just went right to their house. And then it ended up coming in contact with them and then determining whether or not, you know, they were intoxicated or what. That’s more or less what we’re concerned about with these erratic operators.

[49:08] Obviously, erratic operators can be problematic anyways, but a lot of times it’s more or less the concern is this person’s intoxicated because they’re all over the road. But, you know, obviously sometimes it could be it could be somebody on their phone, okay. But the officer would need to actually observe that erratic behavior as well. No. That’s actually not true okay.

[49:23] No. As long as we have the information of the person calling that in and they’re able to give us enough information based on the type of driving behavior, we’re able to affect the stop, and then we’ll utilize the information that they gave us.

[49:40] Maybe we’ll do some follow up, get their phone number or whatever, and then be able to, you know, that way we’ll be able to figure out exactly what was going on there. Okay. I’m done. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Ben. I know Ben’s online, and it’s Bill. Bill, no. Okay. So, Ben. Ben, anything from you? Yeah. Um. Thank you. This is fantastic. Very, uh. Thorough.

[49:59] Really appreciate the the data and the information background. Um, I think one of the things that you touched on a little bit, it’s kind of come up through the conversation here around distracted driving in particular, people, you know, with their head down, looking at their phones.

[50:15] I’d say about 50% of the time I go out on the road, there’s somebody, you know, who’s kind of coming over the lines because they’re they’re looking down the phone.

[50:35] Um, are there particular programs or additional outreach things that are happening to help educate drivers, uh, around those risks and the dangers of texting while driving? I was thinking about schools and kind of new drivers, younger drivers and, um, if there’s any additional campaigns with parents or what else might be happening in the community that we don’t have visibility on.

[50:56] So the, um, NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, they usually do pretty regular, uh, pretty frequent campaigns in the way of all types of driving. Um, and they’re actually where we get a lot of the grant funding to be able to go out and do enforcement. So the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does have campaigns.

[51:14] Uh, when we go out and conduct enforcement for distracted driving, um, I don’t recall when the last one was, but that is one of the things that we do. But we try to, you know, make sure that we are putting out educational campaigns either through social media or will utilize sign boards.

[51:30] And just as a reminder to people, um, and then we have Officer Bertelli in the schools and she does have she does some educational campaigns herself within there for various various things, whether it be drugs and alcohol way, uh, bullying or, you know, the way somebody is, um, driving.

[51:50] So we try to do that as much as possible because I think it is important that we keep up on that because I, I see it myself. Uh, we you have people that are, you know, on the phone, they’re texting and driving. They’re not paying attention. Um, and that’s, you know, that’s concerning because that’s where you end up seeing unfortunate things happen and people get seriously hurt because they are too busy.

[52:10] What’s on their phone as opposed to what’s supposed to be going on in front of them while they’re driving a vehicle? Thinks it’s good to know about those programs. Appreciate it. Thank you. Anything else? Ben. Thanks.

[52:28] Uh, the only one other question, sort of a little bit outside of the scope of traffic enforcement, but I just want to do it, since I have you address it. I know I think it was a couple weeks ago, maybe over the summer.

[52:37] I know we had some incidents of, like, break ins and vehicles and things like that. I know there was a message that got put up, I think, by the police department about, you know, locking doors and all that and anything, you know, do we anything come of that? Where was it an isolated incident that we know of? Was it just, uh, you know, anything that we, you know, should I

[52:52] have had some community members reach out concerned, like, you know, that, you know, so for this town. To be. Well, yeah. So here’s the thing. The town of Hamilton is immune to criminal, uh, behavior. It just doesn’t, um, I understand that it is safe. Overall, it is a safe community.

[53:12] But the reality of it is, is that many of these people that are involved with that type of activity breaking into motor vehicles and things of that nature, they’re traveling. They want to come to places such as Hamilton because that people, people have their guard down a little bit less. They leave their cars open, unlocked.

[53:31] Rather, they leave things in their vehicle because they think it’s safe. And the reality of it is that you you can’t do that. People get around all the time. It’s it’s impossible to protect yourself totally from criminal behavior. Um, what I can tell you is that it was, um.

[53:49] Beverly Hamilton and Ipswich. They got hit by the same what appears to be the same crew breaking into cars. So they must have been traveling through. And they were hitting whatever vehicles they could to, you know, they were unlocked, which is typical.

[54:09] What happens in that? Um, in that particular circumstance, that type of, uh, breaking and entering into vehicles, um, they’re looking for an easy and easy score. But what I will tell you is that one of our offices, um, uh, Megan Canaan, uh, was she works the midnight shift about 230 in the morning. She happens to be driving down Asbury, and she.

[54:26] She happens to see a guy dressed. This happened two weeks ago. About two weeks ago. And she sees it 230 in the morning. Guy dressed in all black with a hoodie on and a backpack. He was just standing, hiding behind a tree in front of somebody’s house.

[54:40] Well, when she turned around, he took off, went ran into the woods. Um, they ended up bringing a K-9. The sergeant, Kent Richards, was working. They cordoned off the area and they tried it. They tried to locate the individual. Unfortunately, they didn’t, which they were probably in a vehicle.

[54:55] And that’s why it is they were able to get to the vehicle, uh, when they went and did a canvass of the area that, that following morning, they ended up finding different, uh, houses that had video of ring cameras of the area, and they found that there were three individuals that were out in the neighborhood at

[55:13] that time. At that time of night, and that just goes in. What it looks like is that she interrupted them while they were looking to do that type of activity. And so that’s that’s great. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to catch them.

[55:29] We did we did determine that there were multiple individuals that were in the neighborhood at Ashbury, and that area, like I said, we’re not immune. People need to take they need to take care of their own security. You can’t just leave things in your vehicle. Who knows? You know, these people come around again or whatever.

[55:47] What I initially got here last year, there was a car stolen. It was a stolen car dumped. Uh, and then another car stolen, which ended up in a motor vehicle pursuit with the state police down on down in the Stoughton area. Um, so it happens. It doesn’t happen frequently, but it does happen.

[56:06] But people still need to have situational awareness and understand that they need to protect themselves by locking up their belongings, taking things out of their car and put it in the house. Thank you chief, I really appreciate it. You appreciate all you do and your team and all your service. You give us the town. So thank you.

[56:18] Thank you very much. And, uh, just if I could one last thing. We have Public Safety Day. This coming up. Uh, Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.. We’d love to see everybody there. Uh, we’re going to have a bunch of displays along with the fire department. They get to bring out the big red trucks.

[56:35] Uh, the police department can be jealous of that. And so we’d love to see everybody that is going to have a little barbecue and everything. And so be great for the kids and great community event. What time is it? Uh, 10 a.m. to two on Saturday. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Sneak in there in between soccer. Yeah.

[56:50] That’s actually not for you. Sorry. I have a follow up question just about this in general, because you mentioned the the intersection issues. And, you know. Oh yeah, I think it’s it’s taken Wenham 20 years to get there. Their intersection lights. Coming, going. Yeah.

[57:07] Um, I think it’s I don’t think it’s quite 20. I know they, they, I know the Peter Lombardi was the town administrator there. I think when they made the formal ask that was about four years before I got here. So maybe 12 or 13. Yeah, it’s a long process.

[57:25] If this is a long process, is there should we get started on that? If we would like to see that sort of improvement at Asbury in one A and Bridge Street? Um, I mean, if the, if that’s something the town wants us to do, we can we can look at it with the chief and public works. The worst intersection in town by far.

[57:41] Captain Donovan, folks, for, uh, the traffic enforcement officer for the last 20. Years is Essex and Woodbury. Yeah. Okay. By far, it’s not even close. Probably twice as many. Crashes there as there is. Anyone else anywhere else in town? Obviously it’s route 22. So it’s it’s a state.

[58:03] It’s a state run road. Um, it’s been an issue for a long time. And we’ve had some serious, probably the most serious crashes we’ve had have been at that intersection, and. It’s poor visibility. Yeah. I think it goes to a point that the chief was talking about.

[58:21] It’s more it’s more the construction of the road, the width of the road, the way the fog line falls. It just it’s like an optical illusion. People think they have more room than they have. And what happens is it’s so wide in the intersection, the cars will go around.

[58:36] If someone’s coming from Essex to take a left to go out towards the highway, they’ll come around at 30 miles an hour of the car that’s going to go left. And what happens is a lot of these people will wave the car on to come out. This guy comes around the car and bang, right. It happens the same way.

[58:55] And you think that the cars coming from Wenham into Hamilton, from from Woodbury out of Woodbury, you’d think that’s a safer spot for someone to come. That’s where all the accidents occur. Interesting people coming from Wenham into Hamilton, and they’re always attempting a left hand turn going towards the seminary. I don’t know why, but that’s we.

[59:13] We reached out to the state numerous times and they wanted last time their idea was to put a rotary there. A roundabout. Uh. They do help a lot, but what about. Slow things down? That’s for sure. Yeah. Well, exactly. I think about over in Beverley by the, um, Whole Foods. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[59:34] That has helped a lot. But another thought is, for instance, they did that. The police we did that down to the, the intersection of Walnut and what is what is that road. Uh. Well march. Before March. Yeah. Yeah.

[59:57] That’s so my question is, could there be a four way stop there? I mean, that seems like it might be an easier. Yeah, for sure. And less expensive fix. Unfortunately, it’s not our decision. If it was if it was our decision, we could probably do a little bit more. But anything we do has to be approved through the state because it’s a state road.

[1:00:14] Well, walnut and larch is not a state road. 22 comes in. So they from south of there. So um, down that far, that’s all town owned roads. They’re down there. Okay.

[1:00:27] So how does that process work? Do we do we make a recommendation to the state, or do we just say, hey, we have an issue of this rail. What do you do? You need an engineering study. It’s what what I think you need the state to come in and do an engineering study. I mean, I have my theories on it. Yeah, but I mean, I’m not an engineer, so I can’t.

[1:00:39] Write. Tim and I pushed them last year when they were paving that section of 22. And we Tim thought we had them ready to make some changes there. That meant modest change there that we had suggested. And at the last minute, based on funding, they told us no, they were just all they were doing was paving.

[1:00:59] They weren’t going to add the additional signage and things that we had asked. Them. That didn’t. stop signs. They were they were. The stop the stop signs on Woodbury. Um, there aren’t stop signs on Essex. Anyway. They they. They weren’t making. Any of that change. Is the fast road.

[1:01:12] We added those lights, the flashing stop signs we have, we have two flashing stop signs. They have one on each side of the intersection. Okay. I always just go across Woodbury, so I’ve not. Yeah. You don’t see it during the day as much. But if you’re at night it’s it jumps out.

[1:01:26] Sometimes it’s it’s run by solar. So if you don’t get. So it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t always work. It runs out of charge. But typically it works. Just sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to me.

[1:01:45] A very cost effective way to really help with that concern would be a four way stop, like they did on large and walnut. I mean, it just seems like it’s. So there’s a lot of traffic on that road. Well, there is, right. All the numbers we look at and say, well, the numbers on Essex Street, it was some sorry. Yeah. It was like 20,000, 20,000 cars. Oh yeah.

[1:02:05] Yeah. It was gonna make more traffic and. Yeah. It doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. Whatever it is. Yeah, that would. Be okay too, because people would be forced to slow down. Yeah. Cost wise, that would be a huge cost, presumably over a four way stop. I think a four way stop, way cheaper. I think.

[1:02:22] Personally, my opinion is the road needs to be narrowed. I think the road is too wide. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s the problem. You narrow roads, you slow traffic and that the intersection is Two wide. If you look at it from all angles, it’s wide, it’s wide open.

[1:02:39] You have to close everything down because when you close it down, you slow traffic at the same time. And I just. And that’s something the town could probably do.

[1:02:52] Even if you use, if you rely on the fog line, which is the white line and the edge of the if you rewind it and kind of close the road down and made it look like it was narrower than it really is, and put hash marks and close it down without actually doing a lot of work. I think that.

[1:03:09] Just to be clear, since we’re on a public meeting, you’re not telling anybody to actually do something without talking to state, right? That was that was my question. Could we do that or would we need to? I think. I don’t think I don’t know, I can’t be as town manager. I’ll be clear, I. Don’t I don’t think it would be that big of an issue personally, but I don’t want to speak out of turn. I don’t.

[1:03:23] Think there it’s in a state road. No. Joseph. No, but. It turns into 22. The the part that goes south to Wynnum. Is going across. I’m not not Essex, but Woodbury. If you choose your turn left on the Woodbury going out towards Wenham, that’s that’s still route. 22 comes down from grapevine.

[1:03:41] Yeah. Turns 22. Comes down from grapevine. Down Woodbury. Turns into Wenham. Then it goes to the iron Rail, goes right and then left and goes out. Yeah. That’s crazy. That’s right. I thought it went all the way across. And that’s just Essex Street. Sorry, I stand corrected. You.

[1:03:57] This this has been a debate for 15 years. So it’s it’s been an issue for quite some time. We know it’s an issue. Um, we’ve tried to do different things. Um, but it’s just, it’s it’s a money thing and it’s a state thing. The state’s not going to pay for it.

[1:04:16] So it remember, I think it’s about three years ago now. We tried we we paid for a small traffic study to try to get the state to change the speed limit on the Woodbury side of that intersection from Woodbury, going towards the town line.

[1:04:34] And, uh, Wenham, because it’s posted at 40 on our side, but it’s only posted at 35 on the side in Wenham. And we wanted to change and make it consistent the whole way out. And the state turned it down. They said that they didn’t. They wouldn’t accept the evidence of our, um, the two reasons. One, they didn’t want to accept our traffic study.

[1:04:48] And even though it you could we had two pictures of it’s 40 years, 35 years, 500 yards away. I don’t. Understand the difference. That should be enough. But but they were concerned that the the speed limit on the town side north of Essex, I think, was even lower.

[1:05:06] I think they were concerned the speed limit change three times. Uh, and they didn’t want to do that. So they just thought they’d leave it all the way there. So I was like, so they, we would have to go back and start with them and ask them to do their own study of the whole intersection and that street.

[1:05:21] And then to get any change there. I’m happy to do that. We started to do that. We thought we had some agreement, like I said, when they were doing the pavement last pavement last summer, but. And so who would pay for that traffic? MassDOT. Okay.

[1:05:37] And then they say they don’t have any money and they won’t accept our traffic study. Which we had paid for. Yeah. Of course. Oh my God. Okay. Say anything. It’s frustrating. So I mean and again we’ve been we’ve been dealing with this for quite some time. And it’s, it’s been an issue for a long time.

[1:05:57] And you can talk to the neighbor there. He’ll give you a whole history on it. I’m sure. He’s had his fence taken out 3 or 4 times in the last 15 years. It’s just so. Thank you, captain. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you ma’am. Okay. All right.

[1:06:21] Next on the agenda, we have approve early voting hours through town clerk’s office for November general election. I know there’s a letter in here from Corrine. Do you want me to summarize? Corrine is unfortunately unable to be here this evening. She has a previous engagement. Um, she did submit a letter.

[1:06:36] She’s really only asking for approval of the early voting hours for the week of October 19th to the 23rd. Um, as posted in that letter, it’s amounts to about 4.5 hours each day, except for Friday the 23rd, which is only 2.5 hours, and there will be six hours of early voting on Saturday, October 17th, as required by law.

[1:06:55] The second week of um, early voting is, uh, full time. It’s the whole hours that the clerk’s office would be open that week. This is consistent with what the town has done in prior elections. Uh, particularly the big elections. And, you know, big state elections.

[1:07:11] And, um, she feels that most of the local voters who don’t come on Election Day actually vote by mail. So this has proven to be an effective amount of hours to be available to voters. And you said as required by law. So there’s a certain number of a of hours that are required by the state. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I’d be interested to know if we have a lot of early voting.

[1:07:35] Not really. Most most of our early voters are choose to vote by mail and not in person. And the ones that do generally wait until the last week right before the election. So that’s part of the reason she’s only asking for the 20.

[1:07:51] 5 hours of early voting two weeks out, because they don’t get a lot of foot traffic anyway at that time. Yeah, okay. Okay. This is you said this is consistent with what we’ve done in the past. Yeah. Yep. Um. Let’s. See, I can I have a second, uh, email from her today said the request pertains only the first week of the two weeks. Um. Maybe it’s in the letter. It’s, um. The.

[1:08:15] Same number of hours that they had done in 22 and 24. I believe the other state election years. So, um, it’s the state of law allows it to be 20.5 hours for that week. That that’s what you get. Is that 22.5 hours and, um, that’s exactly what she did in the other timeframes. Okay.

[1:08:39] She does also note that some town halls don’t have any early voting hours. On that Friday the 23rd, but we will will have 2.5 hours of voting, early voting even that Friday. So that’s even more access than some other local towns around us. Oh. Okay. Um, any other comments or questions? Otherwise, I’ll entertain a motion.

[1:09:06] I have no questions. Should I make a motion that we approve the early voting hours, as suggested by clerk Carin Kale? I second that. Okay. Uh, Ben. Ben Galuza, I. Lee McCoy I. Rosie Kennedy, I. Am Tom Meyers, I. All right. And we approve the early voting hours.

[1:09:36] Uh, next we have, um, a point. Ashley serrata as member. Uh, Hamilton, one of them. Cultural council discussion and vote. And I think we have Ashley on the line. Is on line here. She’s waving to you. Okay. Ashley. Ashley. Hello. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. And thank you for interest in in town government.

[1:09:56] It is very exciting. Uh, and we appreciate your willingness to serve. Um, you know, we’d love to to hear a little bit about you and your interest in the in the, um, um, what a cultural puzzle. So, yeah. Yeah. Slow background, the background. Great. Great. Absolutely. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, yes.

[1:10:13] Yes, I. Wonderful. Hi. My name is Ashley Serrata. Uh, my family and I, we just celebrated ten years in Hamilton this summer. I live on Madonna Drive. Um, my, uh, interest was sparked when my son was at Cutler Elementary School, and I was the head of the Cutler Cultural Council.

[1:10:34] Then as a volunteer, um, and submitting, a grant applications to the Cultural Council and seeing the impact of the positive, um, the positive impact that the Cultural Council was having on our community, in particular our children, as as mine was at Cutler and as I was turning a

[1:10:56] corner. And I now have a teen who needs a lot less of me looking for places I could volunteer. And being involved in our own community. Uh, this had sparked my interest, so I reached out, um, and they were open to entertaining new members. And here I am. Great. Yeah, great. Thank you.

[1:11:17] We really appreciate your interest. And, uh, you really got a really, really impressive resume here are going through right now. Right now. Um, um, but any questions board or word or. No, no, no, I think thank you very much. Very much. John, can I ask you can I ask. You what’s up.

[1:11:38] On your on your one? Because because. The I think there’s one. One. On your. On your laptop. You have. A. Laptop on your, on your. Is he on the. I’m not I’m. Not on the meeting. So he has. Has. Actually the talk. And it’s not I don’t know if it’s my. We’re getting feedback. Sorry about that.

[1:12:06] Actually we’re trying to get get rid of the feedback issue. It’s always. All right. Any other questions for the board. Otherwise uh, entertain a motion. Yeah I move that we, um, appoint Ashley Serrata as a member of the Cultural Council. I second that. All right. Uh, and Ben. Ben Galuza. All right. Thank you so much, Ashley.

[1:12:31] I really appreciate you stepping up to help us out. Lee McCoy. Lee McCoy Rosie Kennedy. I and Tom Myers, I. All right, welcome to the, uh, Hamilton-Wenham Cultural Council. We appreciate it. Thank you. Ashley. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Have a good evening. You too. Bye bye. All right. Next agenda item is to appoint a Jean Pagliuca.

[1:12:53] Apologies if I said that incorrectly. Uh, as a member of the Council on Aging to fill the unexpired term of a vacant seat. So thank everybody. Uh, Pagliuca. It’s close. So no one ever gets it right. No worries. Yeah. Apologies. It’s okay. It’s all right. Um.

[1:13:17] I live in Hamilton on Essex Street, so I appreciated the prior conversation. Um, drive through that intersection every day. Um, I have a long history and non-profits. My son is out of the school system, so I thought that, um, the Council on Aging was an opportunity for me to get reconnected.

[1:13:38] I currently work for senior care, so just have a lot of personal and professional experience. So I thought it would be. Hopefully I can be helpful. That’s it. Yeah. No. That’s great. And, uh, work closely with Rosie here. The liaison.

[1:14:02] And so any any questions from you, Rosie? Uh, just a comment that I have seen Jean in action at our meetings, and I think she’s a wonderful addition to the board. And I’m very excited that she wants to join officially as a full board member. Thank you. I’m excited. Moving up from alternate to full time. Hopefully. It’s exciting. Yeah, we really, really appreciate you getting involved.

[1:14:21] And it’s, uh, it’s a it’s a great group and I think you’ll learn a lot and you’ll learn a lot from Rosie. And, uh, we really appreciate you being a part of the town service. Any other comments or questions from the board, Lee or Ben? I do not. All right. I’ll entertain a motion, then. I’ll make a motion to appoint Jean Pagliuca as close.

[1:14:42] Luca was a member of the council husband. And then a second. We’ll perfected in the in the next. Um, to you, Ben. Ben Galuza. I Lee McCoy I. Rosie.. Rosie Kennedy I. And Tom Myers. I thank you. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Have a good night. Thank you so much.

[1:15:12] All right. Moving right along. And we will, um, next agenda item, appoint Elizabeth Ford as an associate member on the Council on Aging for a term of two years. Okay. And being. Liz. Hey, Elizabeth. How are you? If you want to come up and. Feel free to come on up.

[1:15:31] And move to Hamilton. About four years ago, after 40 years in California. But I’m originally from Amesbury, and, uh, one of the first things I did was try to figure out how to get involved in the community.

[1:15:50] And I went into the senior center and met Theresa and, um, she was so welcoming and she helped me find all kinds of resources that I needed. Um, and I was so taken that, uh, the next thing I did was go to a volunteer fair and started volunteering at the Council on Aging, and I’ve been doing that for the past three years.

[1:16:08] On Wednesday mornings, I’ve seen Joe a few times come in, and, um, I’ve just really enjoyed meeting the people in the community and and being involved and, and now with the new leadership there, um, it’s such an underutilized resource in this town. And I think it’s very frustrating. The more people are not utilizing all the services there.

[1:16:27] And I think there’s a great things happening there. And I would just love to be involved. And, uh, so that’s uh. Yeah. No, no. That’s great. I really appreciate your, your willingness to, to stay involved. I mean, you’ve been involved for the past three and a half years.

[1:16:40] It’s fun now wanting to step up. And that’s really great. And and I do agree that the CoA is is underutilized. I do feel like we need to get, you know, more, um, you know, more people involved.

[1:16:53] And actually, my in-laws just started going over to the CoA and sort of getting involved in games there, and I’m just really excited about that. I think we need to make sure that we’re, you know, maximizing the potential over there. So really appreciate you stepping up and being a part of this.

[1:17:11] I mean, there’s such an the board that not only the board, I’m speaking about it broadly, but the, um, the uh, staff over there, um, Melinda and Hannah are just powerhouses of energy, really are. And they’re always thinking about something amazing to do. And there are a lot of amazing programs. I think it just takes time for the word to to get around.

[1:17:31] There’s so many great programs that end up being canceled because nobody comes. Nobody RSVP is, and I think that’s really sad. Well, it’s backgrounds and marketing, so maybe somehow we can figure out a way to to get the word out a little more. Yeah, yeah. Well, they’re wonderful programs over there.

[1:17:51] I’m very impressed with all the work and I think that your marketing expertise will definitely be drawn upon when, when you as a, in the next ten minutes, when you become a member of the of the board. And I wanted to thank you personally for all the volunteer hours that you’ve put in. It’s been fun.

[1:18:14] Um, it’s the, um, Melinda and Hannah are always talking about how reliable you are, and it means a lot to them when they need to be out for some particular reason. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you Rosie Lee. Any comments? Questions? Thank you. Thank you for stepping up. Yeah. Ben, anything from you? Oh thank you. Elizabeth.

[1:18:35] Um, I really appreciate the energy that you’re willing to put into this. And, uh, continuing to serve, um, that’s really special. And glad that it was a welcoming place for you and that, uh, it can be for more, uh, in the future because of your service. So thank you so much. Great.

[1:18:53] And I’ll entertain a motion to appoint Elizabeth Ford as associate member of the CoA for a two year term. Yes. I move that we appoint Elizabeth Ford as an associate member of the CoA for two year term. I second that, all right. All right, Ben, to you. Hi. Lee McCoy. Hi, Rosie Kennedy, I. Am Tom Meyers. I yay, welcome. All right. Congratulations.

[1:19:14] Thank you. Okay. Moving along. Second reading of the revised cemetery plot, uh, purchase policy. All right, Rosemary, you’re up on the cemetery policy. Okay, so after comments, last meeting, um, this is actually draft two for nine, 14, 26.

[1:19:41] I changed the, um, footnote, but I didn’t change the, uh, heading, so I apologize for that. Um, so the two changes, the changes that people were, um, requesting were that, first of all, we will we, um, are referring to, um, the person who wants to buy the plot and a spouse or a significant other.

[1:20:07] So, um, that I edited and then secondly, to just change the, um, uh, criteria for, for resident moves out of town. And I hope that it’s clear enough. Um, maybe I’ll just read that one paragraph and people could tell me if you think it needs to be revised. I really struggle to make it clear.

[1:20:26] But of course, I probably made it less clear. So, um, one of the terms under which, uh, a former resident can, um, purchase a plot is if a resident voluntarily moves out of town, that person and a spouse or a significant other are eligible to purchase a single or two cemetery plots for themselves within the time frame specified

[1:20:50] here. A person who voluntarily, voluntarily leaves may request to purchase the plot or plots no later than the number of years later that are equal to the number of years of residency, in Hamilton.

[1:21:10] For example, if a person resided in Hamilton ten years, they are eligible to purchase a plot or plots within ten years after leaving, and that was thought that was, um, we don’t make it an indefinite, open ended ability for people to come back to town 30 years later. But if somebody lived in town for ten years, they have ten years after they leave to, um, come and purchase a plot or plots.

[1:21:33] So thoughts? Is that still there is mud? The. Yeah, the sentence is, I mean, I get the the concept, which I agree with. The example is perfect. Um, but just that sentence, I’m just trying to wrap my head around. Yeah. And I get you’re an attorney to, uh, Rosie.

[1:21:54] So it’s like a very legally sentence. And I get that. I respect that sentence, but but but, uh, um, but it’s kind of vague in my head. Oh, this is. This is what I’d be calling KP Law. Hey, Tom, walk me through this. What is this? I know I’ve. Read so many sentences like that throughout my life.

[1:22:14] My career, and, you know. So. Yeah, it’s one of those ones where you have to read a few times and like, what is that again? Um. Well, do you want me to still wrestle with it and maybe, um, make it, um, less legally sounding and just. I have a question about this.

[1:22:31] So, um, in this case, we’re mixing both a person and spouse. Um, and it feels like the other ones are sort of specifically focused on single cemetery plot conditions.

[1:22:55] And so this one is a special condition where a resident and a significant other or spouse, um, both can purchase or or do both of them have to meet the criteria? No, I’ve taken out that criteria that they needed to have a significant, um, a substantial connection to Hamilton. So the substantial collection connection will be based solely upon years of residence.

[1:23:15] But but if if, let’s say the husband has 20 years, the wife has ten years, is are they both at 20 or are they both at ten or are they at 20 and ten? Well, however long the person who’s applying for the plot lived in Hamilton.

[1:23:32] Okay, so if the husband’s going to apply for it at 20 years, can he by his wife one as well? Yes, yes. There is not a separate criteria. Um, it’s just the person who is requesting the to buy the plot. Okay. We’ve taken out the substantial connection for. That. And I think this is going in a good direction. It’s just, uh, definitely. I mean. The, um.

[1:24:05] Sorry I missed it, but the significant other, I don’t know if this came up in a previous meeting or not. Yeah. The legal terms for spouse or significant other. Did we want to was there a limitation we were trying to place on, um, like, kind of like recognized partnerships? I don’t know the legal terms for these, uh, or significant other.

[1:24:27] Is that a legal term? Does that cover us? I don’t know if we wanted any limitations on that or significant other. Is a legal term or what our intent is there. Sorry that I’m hung up on that piece, but just trying to remember. Well, it doesn’t have to be a legal spouse.

[1:24:47] I mean, it can be a legal spouse, but I mean a significant others just nomenclature. And it’s no more or less legal than saying partner, right? Okay. Yeah. So I don’t, you know, I don’t I mean, I don’t know, it was just choice of word. Yeah. Arbitrary choice of, of language.

[1:25:07] Yeah. And I get Ben’s point because at what point I mean is it like someone someone’s dating. Well, they’ve. Lived together for five years or ten years or something like that. Yeah. Common law marriage or something, or just like in terms of. Yeah.

[1:25:23] I mean, in other words, you’re you’re I think the intent was to without trying to define marriage, but, but anybody that has a significant other that I mean, it’s it’s yeah. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people, for various reasons, don’t opt for, for marriage, but they’re together for, for many years.

[1:25:46] Uh, I had a and I’m not an attorney, but I did have I did used to write for a living. I had an option maybe for some language that you might be wrestling with. Sure.

[1:26:04] So that sentence that starts up person in the third grade, a person who voluntarily leaves may request to purchase the plots as long as their period of absence is not longer than their period of habitation. Very good Joe. Joe. Simple. That’s why we keep you on board. Thanks for in my pay this week. That was so simple. I was tortured by this sentence. Okay. Yes, that’s that’s great. That’s very simple.

[1:26:28] That would never happen in real life with an attorney, right? Yeah. No, I like it. Yeah. Sometimes you just need, like, a plain language, you know? Yeah. Common sense. Yeah. Thank you. Joe, we just complicate things. Us some attorneys, we don’t. We don’t make things easier. It’s so funny. Okay, so do you.

[1:26:46] Are you jotting that down? And I’ve written it here. Do you want me to without doing a third reading? How about if nobody has any other changes, I’ll put that in and send it all to you, and we’ll have it up for a vote at the next meeting. It’ll be a quick vote. You don’t even have to discuss that. Yep.

[1:26:59] Fair. Can you? You. Standardized. So we former resident we used past residents. Do we just want to make that all former residents or all past residents choose one or the other. You can do that. Well, just tell me what you prefer. I like the former residents personally, but I’m not. I don’t know. Do you know.

[1:27:27] Um, before we just. I’ll make sure Bill Olson, I know he not like, strong, overly strong things, but I think he had some good ideas and I wanted to make sure that he had eyes on it and that he doesn’t feel like he’s holding it up. Um, if we’re meant to vote on it next time.

[1:27:43] Right. That’s. Yeah, that’s what Joe had suggested, and it made a lot of sense. Okay, We’ll just make we’ll just make this edit and it’ll be draft three. Um, if you want, I’ll, I’ll do that and then make it draft three and then we will have it on for final discussion and vote next time.

[1:28:03] Is that sound okay? Um, can I complicate things further? Yes. Sorry. So, resident voluntarily moves out of town? Yeah. Talking about a single resident, they, um. And then skip that next part and it says are eligible to purchase a single or two cemetery plot for themselves.

[1:28:25] So I just want to, to know, does that mean that the like the resident can purchase like one person can purchase two? First, for a spouse or significant other? Yes. Specifically for a spouse or other. Okay, okay. I understand I lost my little tab here that had that draft up. I lost it, but as the plots are, we allowing people to buy two family plots or just.

[1:28:50] Single single plots or or. Choose side by side for a significant. Of okay. Are there any limits? Are we placing any limitation on on family plots? Well, I think that. Was. That was one of the problems that we’ve had.

[1:29:17] Uh, that people coming in from out of town, uh, who were former residents a long time ago requesting family plots for sort of various family members who didn’t have a connection to town. So we talked about that. We we would like to limit the ability of people to buy plots using this criteria.

[1:29:47] And, you know, I think last time I mentioned the reality that we cannot provide cemetery placement for large numbers of family, um, family members. And so this is the way that we thought we would deal with this issue. So do we have family plots anymore, yes or no? We do. We do. I know I’m looking. I’m trying to find it. Is that a separate.

[1:30:18] It’s a four. It’s it’s four for, uh, it’s a plot of four gravesites. Okay. Five for. That. It’s four. Where is. That? Number? Item is four. Sorry. They’re not in. It’s not in this policy because we haven’t had an experience.

[1:30:40] I don’t think we’ve had a lot of where people are coming back later and looking to buy family plots. Generally, what we found is that people who’ve been gone for a number of years, and they’re not feeling any particular connection anywhere else, and they’re just looking for themselves and or spouse.

[1:30:56] They’re not looking for a family plot, right? If they’ve been living away a number of years and they are feeling a connection to another place, that’s where they seek to, they feel that connection, usually because of family. So that’s where they’d seek to buy a family plot. Yeah, yeah. This would exclude them from being able to purchase family. It would. Yeah. Okay. Just because.

[1:31:12] I, I got it now. Sorry I was a little slow on the uptake there. We have not we’ve not made a provision that allows anyone to purchase a family plot if they no longer live in town. That’s basically what we’ve done. Okay. Thanks. Okay. With that. Like that makes sense. Um, okay, so despite.

[1:31:33] All of the small things, thank you very much for putting this together. Yeah. Thank you. Rosie. Yeah, yeah. Pleasure. All right, so it sounds like you’re gonna make the adjustments. We’ll bring it back for a third reading and potential vote. Yeah. Great. Okay, okay. Great. All right. Um, discussion on next policies to be updated with general timeline.

[1:31:58] This is really my request. I know that Rosie and, um, Ben had taken the lead on what kind of policies we were doing, and I’m not sure what what’s coming next and what the general timeline is. So I’m just asking for a little heads up.

[1:32:12] You don’t have to provide that to me today. I just wanted to put it out there that I’m looking to be updated so that we know what we’re focusing on and what we can help you with. Um. Do you have a do you have a general timeline of the next one or.

[1:32:23] I have, well, working on the bylaw with David Smith for the e-bikes, but also, I think the next town policy that I would like to work on. And I talked we had talked about this, um, is the use of facility. So town hall, I think that’s something that should have a fairly tight timeline.

[1:32:46] And I know that there’s a there’s a template out there. And of course, I. If you don’t have it, I can. Get it. Okay. That would. Be great. Yeah. Most recently yeah. But that’s that’s something to to think about. So so for me that’s. That would be that’s a good one. Yeah okay.

[1:33:00] Are there any other ones been any other ones that you can think of that you had on your list. Yeah. Yeah. We prior to the recent case law changes about working in groups, we had started on, um, temporary signage. And then I think we were the case law changer. Kind of.

[1:33:24] We left that one alone, but we haven’t put it back on. Um, anyone’s plate, but we at least did some back and forth on it. Um, but I think it was only one, one round of drafting and, and comments. So far so that that could go on the list. I don’t know that. Um.

[1:33:46] Well, and you said earlier that you were working on a redraft of the capital policy, so. Yeah, that one’s still underway. I just wanted to in addition to that one, I want to note that we also started the temporary signage. One, we’ve had conversation about it as a select board.

[1:34:08] I think in particular, like there were a couple ideas on it around, you know, what about, um, right of way or particular intersections? Um, and in particular around kind of political seasons, you know, are there you know, that’s always a challenge, right? So. Yeah, I think, I.

[1:34:35] Think I don’t think we’d be able to get anything done before, you know, this November, obviously, you know, it’s just a few weeks away now. So what I think I can. Yeah. Yeah, that would be that’s a. Good goal. Before March in the town election. Yeah. Yeah I think that’s a that’s a huge can of worms. That. I am a. It was on the list.

[1:34:59] I think it was one of those ones where if anything I think it does. It is worth our board taking it up to see, you know, if anything needs change. If so, how much are there any, um, carve outs or exceptions that we want to make? Um, you know, sort of, uh, it’s one of those.

[1:35:16] It’s a sticky one. It’s probably like, similar to what we had to go through with our, our public comment policy a year ago. Um, in terms of how to how do we even want to approach it from a process standpoint now that the, the rules have changed a little bit in terms of best practice? So, I mean.

[1:35:38] Not quite putting my hand up to take it on by myself. Um, honestly, I felt more comfortable doing it as a team. So, um, a bit of a loss on on that. Joe, can you reiterate what the guidance was from KP Law again about this? The group’s about working together. Yep.

[1:35:56] You can work in groups as long as you post it as a meeting with an agenda. So if you want to, if you are going to have a conversation and you have to make sure that you have a link that could be posted so that people can link into your

[1:36:09] meeting, you have to have an agenda of what you’re going to talk about and record the minutes of that conversation, whatever they be. So that’s that’s even without. Even without it being a quorum. And that’s the space where people can or you have to have a group.

[1:36:26] Under current currently, under current state law, you can meet virtually in a zoom room or teams meeting space, as long as you share that link publicly and by posting the meeting. So if I have coffee with Ben and we end up talking about work related items, do I have to then invite the entire establishment? I would say I would say that, you know, it.

[1:36:47] Bumping into somebody at the supermarket or having or at Starbucks as you’re both on your way to work and having a quick exchange about things isn’t deliberating toward a decision. It isn’t trying to make. The push an agenda or push the board in the direction that’s going to be. I’m going to say, liberally interpreted.

[1:37:08] But if you’re going to plan to sit down and talk about revising a policy among more than one member of the board, unfortunately you have to post it as a meeting. They’re not saying you can’t do it.

[1:37:23] They’re just saying, say, we’re going to meet at this date and time at this place or this zoom link. This is what we’re going to talk about and then record minutes on it and post the minutes when you’re done. Yeah, okay. Complicates things. It makes it harder. It doesn’t say that you can’t work together. It just says that they want you to work together in public. So this.

[1:37:39] So I know we’re sort of off topic here, but, um, this was guidance from KP Law that came from a ruling from the state. There have been a couple of recent rulings, um, after other people and other towns have challenged um subcommittee work. Interesting. Okay.

[1:38:00] And in particular in the outcome was, you know, basically restart, restart the clock, right. And go back to the beginning and go back through the whole process again. Right. You know, so it’s not like there’s any there’s no like real significant legal action or anything.

[1:38:17] It just basically means, hey, if you’re working on something, um, in the background, it turns out that all those should have been open meetings. Then you have to kind of go back and rerun your your process again. Right? So I think. I, I don’t know. Right.

[1:38:44] So on the, the topic of, you know how like because of the signage in particular around how it relates to, um, First Amendment rights. And I know that we’re, we’re a little bit more, um, we’re not super conservative about that. Like, we don’t want to be overly conservative and always unnecessarily limit people’s speech or about government speech or any of these other forms of speech.

[1:39:08] It felt to me like that that particular policy, you know, maybe deserves more than one mind working on it. Um, not just kind of daisy chaining it together and, you know, through, through our intermittent meetings, it feels like it should be kind of almost more like, debated and deliberated as it’s being formatted, but, um.

[1:39:30] I could have you work at you or any member of the board work directly with someone from town council, from someone from KP Law on the policy that they could help you draft and, you know, talk through you with you what the issues are. Um, that were identified in previous public conversations.

[1:39:47] I know we’ve had a number of them over the last couple of years, and helped by drafting something that you could then bring to the full board and have a more full discussion about before you get into actually refining it.

[1:40:02] You could take a lot of feedback that way on a public meeting, and then have confidence that with the template draft that you had have from council and the input you get from the five board member before other board members, you’d be able to make amendments and then bring it back to start finalizing it. Yeah. One other question. So the the, um, prohibition specifically against select board members, it’s all board. All board and committee planning board would have to follow.

[1:40:27] The same. No, but but it doesn’t it doesn’t mean that that no, a board member can’t work with a small group of people that aren’t on the board. Right. In drafting that part. Right? So, for instance, you’ll work with the Dark Skies Committee, which isn’t even a isn’t even an actual official committee of the town. Anyway.

[1:40:42] That is, that’s that’s fine. That’s you working individually as a member of the light Board with other citizens to bring something to the board. Yeah. There you go, Ben. You just need to find some willing volunteers.

[1:41:01] I think, you know, I think this that’s a pretty tricky policy to to navigate. I think there are a lot of issues. And I, I’m wondering if, per your suggestion, we could. I mean. The maybe, um, think about, um, so like, Ben, as you had said, you’re working on the, um, capital committee, you know, maybe get your feet wet doing doing that.

[1:41:28] So then you might feel more comfortable delving into the, the the sign, um, the temporary sign so that you would have more experience with that is. Does that sound like something that that might work? That’s fine. Because you’ll have the whole capital committee who are not..

[1:41:49] That one feels like it’s kind of, you know, it’s just numbers and spreadsheets. It’s real cut and dry. You know, when it comes to, um, issues of speech and, uh, right of ways and it’s a little bit more legalese to it. So I’m, I’m happy to work with KP Law. I think maybe it’s a spring, a springtime thing.

[1:42:08] You know, we kind of get through, um, budgeting season and, you know, we take it up together as a board and kind of if you all want to give me the green light, you know, around Christmas or something like that, um, I’m happy to volunteer. I also want to make sure that it’s a, an inclusive process.

[1:42:26] You know, that if people have ideas, you know, about, kind of like how to shape the, the framework of the policy if it needs to be completely re crafted, you know, that that feedback is as early as possible. Um, but I’m Joe suggestion as well about working with KP Law. I think that’s a fine one too. I’m open to whatever the board feels is best, honestly.

[1:42:49] So yeah. Um, I was going to say when when you and I started to work on this, I thought we were a good team because you’re the process guys. So it’s the the form and the function. I’m more the function person and you’re the form person. So I thought we were a great team.

[1:43:08] Yeah. Now I need a new I need a new, uh, new function person to fill in the, details. So we’ll, we’ll give KP Law. Try it. That man, and bring it. Bring it back to the board. Um, we’ll pick that up in between Thanksgiving and Christmas timeframe.

[1:43:24] Okay. So I know this was a request from Joe. Joe, I know, would it be helpful if we just got you a list or maybe put together a document that said, here are the top? Yeah. You can send me some. Yeah. Okay. All right.

[1:43:39] So, um, to the extent I can, I will connect with each of you separately to find which policies that you’re working on. We’ll put together a list and we’ll get that over to Joe and get a rough timeline. Okay. Great. Um, and you have something. Else. I just said. Sounds good. Sorry.

[1:44:04] All right, so now we’re on final discussion and vote on the FR 27 Town manager and select board goals. I know this may not be the final discussion. That was just. a gentle request. Yeah. I mean, I know we probably want I know Bill probably wants to participate in any sort of finalize anything. So I’m hesitant to, you know, do tonight. Yeah.

[1:44:21] Um, I just I up on the screen, I think you all got in the packet, uh, copy of kind of where the goals as the areas that we went through, starting with the workshop at the end of June and kind of where they’ve come through a lot of the

[1:44:35] updates and changes here in the reordering were based on feedback that I’ve gotten from one select board member. I have not, unless I missed something, I didn’t get anything else. Um, so I’m happy to reorder these again with more input.

[1:44:54] But this is kind of where the, um, the priority rank, for lack of a better term, stands, um, along with measures of success, timelines, um. Yeah, I’ll say I did review this this ranking and and ordering.

[1:45:20] Um, and that seemed like kind of like the, the, the grouping of these two in terms of, you know, there’s the water, but it’s like that’s like really like, you know, like master plans a goal. Water is a goal, pet homesteads a goal. Can you keep scrolling down here and go. Yep. I like the groupings. Um, I didn’t have any major reordering things. Um, you know, some are bigger and longer duration, right? Um.

[1:45:55] Goals like seven there with the master plan implementation versus goal one. Do those need to get grouped? Seven plan groups with. Yeah. Um, well, I think they’re partly they’re highlighted because I there um, were at that point this didn’t come from any other member of the Select Board. I was looking for additional information.

[1:46:18] Um, you know, it was put out in the, in the meeting, uh, an economic development goal, a planning goal. That’s all that was said. So we’re looking for more definition on that. It’s hard to put a measure of success and a timeline to it without knowing, you know, what it is you’re looking for in that, in that area.

[1:46:36] Um, and, and economic development goal will be a little bit difficult without a lot more information, because community is largely a residential community, um, less than 8% of the community is commercial based. So to create an economic development goal with that small of a footprint, without understanding what it is you want to accomplish, would either require a lot more building of commercial in town.

[1:46:59] And we have struggled at times to endorse more building of any kind. So, um, so we just look for some more information, and that would be from Mark and I to be able to, uh, pick up how we can interact with state agencies, say, hey, look, this

[1:47:15] is what we’re looking for. This is what we want to bring to Hamilton. How can you help us? But without knowing what it is, the board is asking us to do, we probably struggle with those a little bit. Okay. Yeah.

[1:47:31] I put together kind of like a 1 to 2 pager back at the in the spring, you know, which I had emailed. I can go back and look at that again.

[1:47:50] Um, but that was also sort of coincident with, uh, I think Rosie and Bill had been able to attend the meeting over in Ipswich about New England bio labs, and not that we want to go that route, but I think just sort of building on some of that, that creativity as well as then building off of the the master plans, high level kind of vision and goals that they had stated. You know, so it’s sort of, I don’t know that we.

[1:48:13] We don’t have a goal per se, like other than, you know, how if it’s in the master plan that we should grow, um, but if the only growth that we have is, is single family residences, I don’t think it helps us fiscally.

[1:48:34] Right? Like from a lot like when you look at in the packet, you had kind of restated it as well around minimizing the the tax impact. You know, it’s like number one of our like long term sustaining goals is to minimize the tax impact on. On individual households. Right.

[1:48:56] And it’s like, so if all we ever build is more individual households, we don’t change our our financial situation. Right. So I’m trying to what I’m looking for is like how do we go from in the and maybe it’s not a goal.

[1:49:16] Right? I think as a sort of but at some point it’s like we can’t continue like the way the costs are going up and we see this, you know, with our benefits and insurance for um, town staff and things like that, the way that costs are going up, we don’t have additional revenue sources beyond households. It’s it’s really hard to achieve the other kind of like sustaining goals. So I’m going with this.

[1:49:37] I’m, I’m asking a question to at the same time I was like, well, how would we like what would it look like if we wanted to try to achieve some of those other goals that are in the master plan? Um, I don’t have all the answers.

[1:49:52] I kind of try to put something together, but okay. And I can resurface that. That actually helps a lot. Me understanding where you’re coming from helps a lot. I have that can give me and Mark something to talk about and brainstorm on. So, Joe, I have a suggestion.

[1:50:12] We, um, Marnie Crouch from the Planning Board had suggested that we have a joint meeting to discuss implementation of, um, particular aspects of the master plan. So I’m wondering if that could be an action item on on the goal. Absolutely. Yeah. And that might be a good place to start so that we could think about some of the things that we’d like to accomplish.

[1:50:37] And then we could think about how we could accomplish that. Yeah, I agree with that. Great idea. Yeah. Thanks, Rosa. Yeah. I guess I just have a more, I guess, basic question about this document.

[1:51:00] Not necessarily the goals in particular, but I mean, we have this ranking and I know this is from Lee, and I don’t know if you want the remaining members of the board to also submit their ranking, but are you looking for us to narrow this list or are we adopting all of these goals? And the ranking just provides our priority? And if so, what’s the impact of that ranking? Right? I mean, if.

[1:51:16] Well, I mean, the impact is it identifies the priorities for myself and the rest of the staff to to work on. So, you know, yeah, I’m looking there your goals for yourselves and for the town staff and particularly for me and the town staff by extension, I don’t think it’s my place

[1:51:35] necessarily to determine what the priority is. So I think that all of these, all of these things that have been talked about since June are worthy goals to have, uh, we have ideas on how to accomplish some of them and suggested timeframes.

[1:51:50] I would love your feedback on if you think those are appropriate or if we need to make something shorter. Some things longer have, um, you know, and you want to group them differently, but I want to help you guys finalize this so that we have an idea of where we go from here and how to go and what we what we should attack first, because.

[1:52:07] It’s more like a guide for you. Yeah. Because it’s. A great set of goals. And I think we should be doing all of them, but we can’t do all of them all at once. So.

[1:52:20] But I mean, but it’s not like this, you know, concrete, you know, decision where, you know, if funding comes along and we have, you know, something for item, you know, nine we’re not going to say, oh, well that’s number nine on the list. We got to focus on one through eight right. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know this also helps us kind of when when the budget process is talking about where are we going to spend capital money next year.

[1:52:34] Well if you guys are saying repeatedly that Peyton Park is a priority, that’s an area that we’re going to look to try to spend, um, capital money in a given year.

[1:52:49] If you’re saying roads and sidewalks, then that’s and if you’re if I’m getting a mixed message on that, then we’re going to suggest some here and some there so that we meet some of the needs. And both because there’s needs throughout. So I assumed with the rankings that it was going to be a smaller set of those. Um, although I did watch the Wyndham Select Board and they have 43, I think, goals for the coming year. So okay. I’m.

[1:53:08] Really glad I work in Hamilton. But yeah, I assume that we were going to attempt to narrow that down some. But I mean, if we if we need to.

[1:53:25] And I recently went back to my, to the goals that I got at my first, um, my first goal setting with the Select Board and I think it was early November of 2018, uh, things like finish the cell tower behind Town Hall to figure out a way forward with the patent homestead, to find a way to get some kind of revenue out of Gordon-Conwell to, uh, you know, all these things that we’ve been taking off, but they

[1:53:43] take time. So the more thorough conversations we can have now, the more we can prioritize them and get to work on them. But they will take time. Yeah, but we just keep pushing away at it and we’ll get there.

[1:53:58] Like, this year feels great because we’ve gotten so much done, you know, finish town hall, get town hall renovated. We’re getting ready to move in in the next couple weeks. So this really, really feels for me like a great year. But it’s time to like, button down and figure out what we’re going to be doing next. Okay. Right. I know those are huge hurdles. Crushed me.

[1:54:16] My head was spinning walking out of that meeting that Saturday morning. I was really going, how am I going to get this done? Yeah. Just it was that. Yeah, it does feel like we actually accomplished a lot this year. But it’s it’s all been in work for a lot longer than just this year. Exactly. Especially that town hall. Boy, is that looking spiffy.

[1:54:36] Well, Gordon-Conwell I mean, I thought that was I thought that was going to be a real tough one. But we we got it done. Yes we did. Thank you. Thank you. So as far as the overall list, I mean, I think the list looks right.

[1:54:51] I think it’s everything we’ve, you know, identified, you know, back through the workshop and I think, you know, I, I apologize, I didn’t fill out this ranking and, and I think it’s important that we probably all have a ranking. I mean, I think, you know, Lee’s looking at his I think you hit a lot of them that I would probably be on there as well.

[1:55:07] But I might have some tweaks to my own ranking. But maybe what it makes sense for us to sort of commit to the entire board so that we can get everyone’s ranking in here. Yeah. Um, I think we should commit to that, and I will do it.

[1:55:20] Rosie and Ben and I can talk to Bill as well to make sure we all get that in time for next meeting before we’re ready to vote.

[1:55:35] Um, the other thing, and I know I think we talked about this at the annual, um, goal workshop setting, uh, meeting and, um, and I think, I think Ben might have brought it up previously, too, but do we want to think about, like, sort of.

[1:55:48] And this comes out of, like, I think about, like the school situation with, like, you know, the, uh, the elementary schools and sort of like the maintenance issue and like, you know, did we keep up with it, all of that, like, do we want like a facilities assessment of the town of like what we have. As for ownership of town buildings, you know, what we currently own? What what what state they’re in.

[1:56:05] Do we? Is there opportunity to have that in a like a, you know, some sort of I don’t know if it’s like a grant we put in there for like $100,000 consultant to come in or something like that. I mean, to do like a facilities assessment. And maybe we’ve done it in the past.

[1:56:18] And so we, you know, most of our buildings are in pretty good shape. I’ll say that up front. We can always benefit from a facilities assessment. But what is it you want them to assess to building code, to fire code to, um, useful life? Are we assessing the the mechanical systems or are we assessing it to Ada? We already have done that somewhat with

[1:56:39] our set P plan. So do we want to start to make alterations to the buildings based on the set P plan we’ve applied in the past to the Mass Office of Disabilities grant program to try to get money to help with the town hall.

[1:56:49] They kept turning us down. Didn’t matter that we had this at plea set P they kept turning us down, happy to happy to go through that. What we need to know is what you want assessed and the facilities. And the more things you want assessed, the more expensive it’s going to be.

[1:57:05] The other thing is then you then you tie yourself to that report. And if you know, we get a report that says there’s a crazy number of that $7 million worth of alterations at the town should make to these buildings over the next X period of years, and you don’t make progress against that list.

[1:57:24] At some point, somebody will turn around and criticize us for not doing that. I’m not saying you don’t find out what we need to find out, but let’s be realistic in what it is we want out of that kind of assessment.

[1:57:37] The more you are assessing, the more it’s going to cost us, and the more we’re going to spend in the future trying to trying to meet that list. I think that, um, as I said, generally in physical shape, most of our buildings are in pretty good shape now. We’ve done a lot in the last few years through grants and through other programs that we have to to look at.

[1:57:53] Um, the energy needs of the buildings and try to upgrade the buildings in that regard. Uh, we’ve done some roofs in a couple of places. We’ve done some other infrastructure work. Um, there is work that needs to be done, but overall, none of our buildings are falling down. We’re trying to address the the needs as they come up.

[1:58:10] Um, yeah. I mean, it’s a good point, you know, and. Um. Ben. I, I have included some of that language in the draft just for reference, and I know it’s you don’t have it in your hands yet, but I’ll, um. That’s where it’s over for.

[1:58:26] Fast track this over the next, you know, 2 to 4 weeks and get you something that starts to shed some light on what I’ve been envisioning. And, Joe, I think that’s where you know, there’s difference to between, um, doing a facilities condition assessment to identify, you know, remaining useful life or where, when and

[1:58:46] where, you know, upgrades or repairs, um, or replacements might be needed. Um, versus like needing to put, you know, dollar amounts against it. Right. Um that can and again, so we can split that in half to in some cases.

[1:59:04] But I think it will always be to our advantage to have visibility on what needs to be done. Um, because it’s always cheaper to stay ahead of it. And then, um, but not knowing about it. Right.

[1:59:26] You know, and so, um, unless we have a facility that is nearing the end of its useful life and we plan on, on, you know, kind of divesting or running it into the ground, like that’s always an option, too. And sometimes that’s also the the right thing to do or the odd as it may be, um, but that’s sort of my mindset around that as well.

[1:59:44] Tom is kind of just, you know, is to create more, more visibility and to be able to do more, longer range planning to help eliminate surprises so we can plan ahead financially. Um, I do think that that’s important. That’s one of the objectives I have with that, that policy.

[2:00:06] Ben, were you thinking that this would be something that would require us to get professional help, or is this simply documenting the system, the buildings, the systems? And like, age, you know, what’s the age of the roof? What’s the age of the, you know, the furnace? What’s the age of the and what’s their expected life? Or is this would this require someone to come in and actually conduct that survey for us?

[2:00:28] It depends on what level of detail you want to go to. Right. I think that’s, you know, changing, you know, a couple of sentences in an overall policy, if you want it to be to a specific standard and do a true facilities condition assessment, like a net like become and have an FCI

[2:00:47] like against your asset, then yes, you probably need a professional, somebody who’s like certified as a professional to do that kind of work, you know, so that you have that information.

[2:01:08] Um, if it’s as simple as, you know, looking something up based on the nameplate of a piece of equipment. Oh, the thing was installed 30 years ago. Go online, you can say what’s it’s useful, like 30 years, right? It’s like some of the stuff’s obvious.

[2:01:25] I think that, you know, you know, the DPW for a lot of it would be able to fill in the blanks, you know. So I. I don’t know, like how far we need to go with particular elements. But if it’s outside of their area of expertise, if they say, well, I don’t really know how to assess whether a roof needs to be replaced or not.

[2:01:43] Um, and I do need a professional, then it’s like it goes on the list of something to hire a professional for. Tells. Um, so does that answer your question? I mean, it’s kind of just like your home, right? But you’re having to do it across all the facilities.

[2:02:01] So I’ll just make a comment that I think, um, sort of thinking about what are the town facilities, right. It’s the police and fire the town hall. DPW, um, and something else. Center. But the senior center and the library here. Very recreation, recreation library. And, uh, the water, the the town water plant. The water treatment plant. Okay.

[2:02:24] So, um, just just as an observation, it seems that entities within each of those buildings do a very good job of keeping up with the maintenance needs and making you or whomever aware of it. And it’s I can’t remember a time, and maybe I’m just misremembering, but I can’t remember a time when something has come out of the blue as a big problem.

[2:02:51] Um, so and and maybe that’s not by design. Maybe it’s just by the, by the management of the staff in those particular entities. But, you know, thinking about the town spending money to do all this when it seems like we might already have the people on board to to be able to do that.

[2:03:18] And, and so maybe, maybe what we would need to do is sort of formalize that process. Right. And then and then and then put it in the capital plan for, well, what’s more of a priority. And that’s something that the Cap committee has been doing. Right. Yeah. I mean I’m interested to hear what Ben’s and the input of FinCom and Capcom are.

[2:03:40] That’s more or less what we’ve been doing now. The people who manage the different buildings provide into the annual capital plan right? No process. They they provide what they think their building is going to need this year. And over the next five. Yeah.

[2:04:02] And, you know, including that is also improvements to the parks, improvements to roads and streets and improvements to the pool. We haven’t had any lately, fortunately. Um, improvements to uh, vehicles and all of our capital assets are assessed annually by the users, and they try to get them in, but it is not spelled out in the policy. And so I can understand the need to do that.

[2:04:20] They need to do that for, for the policy. But yeah. And but and you know, maybe there is a we’ve been working this plan this way for the last eight years. Uh, I came in September of 18.

[2:04:39] We had talked to the capital policy in the spring of 19, and we’ve been using that policy to manage our budget and our capital planning since then. So. Right. Um, maybe this time to do a facilities needs assessment. Um, you know, I just I just want to. be clear what you guys want. And need one. That’s right.

[2:04:57] I think that’s where, you know, we I wouldn’t imagine that’s not something you need to do every year either, right? I don’t think that’s what anybody is saying here tonight. I think that’s just sort of for any facility that may need one where a, you know, renewal and or replacement like kind of plan does not exist.

[2:05:17] Right? I always, you know, just think back to, you know, an HOA that is in good health, right. Uh, would be saying, okay, we’re every year we’re going to put away, you know, make up a number.

[2:05:35] Right? It’s like we’re going to put away, you know, $10,000 a year because after, you know, x number of years, like, we’re going to have to replace all of the roofs on all of the buildings that, you know, fall under the HOA. So they’ve put that money aside. It’s their 30 years because they know that that’s when when the roof will need replacement. Right. So there. But that’s what you have. The Capital Stabilization Fund. For that.

[2:05:53] Right? I mean isn’t isn’t that what the capital the Capcom is doing now doing uh, this year, then a five year plan. And every year they look at the year they look at all the requests, they order them on the five year plan. Um, usually against a, you know, a.

[2:06:11] Well, against other needs, but also against what we expect that we have available to spend in a given year. Right. So, um, we’ve spent a lot of time building the Capital Stabilization Fund up to where it was. We had it fully funded, and then we used some of it to do the fire engine. Now we’ve refunded it.

[2:06:27] Um, in the years when the Capital Stabilization Fund is not fully funded, we focus on using free cash or grants and, you know, and refunding the Capital Stabilization Fund, the Capital Stabilization Fund I think is refunded.

[2:06:47] Now, um, as we go forward for the next year to five years, what do we want to tackle on that five year plan? What’s coming down the road beyond that five years? Maybe? John, did you want to say something? Yeah. John McGrath FinCom. Um, just just a couple of points. Um, the school committee recently adopted their strategic plan, which is five years. They’re going to be coming to town meeting, asking for funding to do an assessment for the schools. So that’s going to be a warrant article.

[2:07:12] They’re going to ask for money to do that assessment, something you might consider is doing something in parallel with them. If they’re going to bring in somebody. So That’s. Just a point. That I wanted to make. Our next. Agenda item is the budget goals for the upcoming year.

[2:07:31] And there’s an item in there that gets addressed every year. It’s maintain all capital assets at or above current levels. What I would recommend is that we ask the department heads, and I heard a little bit of this.

[2:07:52] Ask the department heads to do the best job that they can for their department relative to their facilities. Probably what? Add an extra couple hours for each of the department heads to talk about their facility, just to get their point of view written down. It would be relatively free of charge, and it gives you folks probably a starting point.

[2:08:11] Um, and at least we’ll have gathered it. Um, and then you could then use that information to feed to a professional if you think you need it. So I do agree what Rosie was saying. Our staff knows what’s going on in their building, and I think it really would be worthwhile to get them to formalize it.

[2:08:29] Every year. We do ask them, is there anything that you didn’t put in your plan as an ask that you probably should, and ask them to look beyond one year. So I think you folks are on some good points. I think the department heads could be a wealth of information. Yeah.

[2:08:49] That’s good. And we’d be happy to put some energy in it as well. So I think Rosie was on to something. There. Thanks, John. Yeah, maybe we can. Maybe we can. I don’t know if we need to put that as a goal.

[2:09:08] Or is that just something that you can talk to the department heads about? But I think that’s a good a good path forward. Yeah. Okay. It’s easy now. Um, that dovetails nicely into what John just brought up. Um, the next related but separate issue is, um. And I’m not asking for a vote tonight. Just a little quick discussion in your packets.

[2:09:25] You should have a copy of this, which was last year’s organization wide goals as outlined in our GFOA budget. And these are goals that we share with the department heads at the start of the budget planning season. Uh, we want to do that in the next couple of weeks.

[2:09:40] And so if you could review the the goals as presented to you tonight, um, and get back to me if you want to make any changes, amendments to it. We’ll ask FinCom, as we always do their recommendations.

[2:09:55] Then we can finalize them either at the meeting on the 28th or the meeting on October 5th, and be able to give budget guidance to the department heads and also establish for the GFOA budget document what our goals in FY 28 will be. Um. Do you have any suggestions? Are there any edits or amendments that you and Wendy would want to make to this document or, um.

[2:10:14] You know, I’ll ask Wendy and I’ll make sure that we provide that feedback to you at the next meeting. I think that I think we feel pretty comfortable that, you know, we have a lot of discussion with the department heads.

[2:10:28] Um, there’s been there can be a couple changes this year, like Melinda, this will be the first year Melinda is on as, uh, um, you know, managing the budget for Health and Human Services. This will be the first year that Dan will be leading the charge for the fire department.

[2:10:39] So it’ll be interesting to have those conversations, but we’ve been trying to work with them over the last several years and make sure they’re letting us know what they need, understanding. They may not get everything that they need, but we tell them that all the time.

[2:10:50] Tell us everything you need so we can figure out what we can give you. Um, but, you know, um, I’ll ask Wendy and money and I’ll have a conversation about and give you some more feedback on that. But I will say that the staff at that helps us put together GFOA budget. The outside consultant said that, you know, you don’t have to have nine goals.

[2:11:09] It can be 6 or 8. You can shrink this if you want to. That was their input. But, um, I, I’ve been comfortable with the goals we’ve had the last couple of years. I think these are this was a great, um, document from last year. So. Yeah.

[2:11:27] No, I agree, I think it’s, um, I think there are some good goals there. I think, um, I think it would be good for us to, you know, for these two goal items to come back. And, you know, from the prior discussion, rank those the actual goals.

[2:11:43] And then from this, you know, maybe review this and come back ready to to vote and maybe add any feedback for Joe on these. Um, these organization wide goals. It sounds good. Yeah. Actually I actually I will say, uh, we’re already working on it on our goals anyway, but a little bit of a goal focused on future financial planning and forecasting for annual budgeting. Not necessarily.

[2:12:07] We’ve been talking a lot about that for capital, but I think we need to incorporate that a little bit more in the in the budget document in our thinking.

[2:12:19] So a little bit more of a little bit longer range 3 to 5 years, trying to look ahead and stating that in the uh, in the budget document, so that the residents who do read it, I don’t know if we get a lot of people to read it, but the information is there. If they want it, they can see what we think is coming, but that very much I get a little leery about doing it.

[2:12:31] More than 1 to 3 years out. I know in the corporate world they tend to look at five and ten year financial strategies, but it’s very much trying to read a crystal ball when you’re in municipal government, because we’re subject to the whims of the greater economy.

[2:12:45] And we are we only have one revenue source. It’s not like I can meet with my sales team and say, how do we drive revenue this year? Um, so it’s a it’s a little bit of a different animal here.

[2:13:06] And but trying to have some idea of, uh, trying to explain to our residents how the economic environment around us shapes what we’re able to forecast out going forward. Yeah. Great. Anything else on that? Um, cool. New business. I did have like two items. I did want to bring up one. I brought up with you, Joe. Um, I think last week.

[2:13:24] Um, but first what? I think if we could get Tim Olson in here at some point, talk about progress on on roads. And I know there’s been some improvements that they’re doing and some plans to do more. Um, I think that’d be helpful to, to hear what we’ve done so far.

[2:13:39] Um, and then the second item, um, and I’m a I’ll admit, I’m a little biased because I work in this industry, but I would love and I don’t know if this would come from you, Joe. Or maybe we pull in, um, um, I forget the gentleman’s name from the North Shore. It could be Cody. Yes. Or Kobe. Colby.

[2:13:55] Um, is there anything I’d love to hear from them or from you? Through them? Like what we’re doing around our, you know, hardening our cybersecurity posture? I think we’re, um, you know, if you read the globe last week, um, you know, there was a number of municipalities, there were suffering cyber attacks. Springfield School District was out.

[2:14:11] Um, you know, with AI, do you see the national news AI accelerating, you know, municipalities in the Commonwealth are seeing a bigger and bigger impact, and there’s a big financial impact to some of these, you know, um, these threat actors doing, uh, ransomware.

[2:14:27] And, you know, Lowell got hit really big about a year and a half ago. Um, so I think there has to be at least some discussion with this board. I think it’s a real risk. I think we can’t ignore it.

[2:14:41] Um, and I think we have to, you know, at least have the conversation of what are we doing and what I know we have the notion of I.T. collaborate, which is great, and I’m glad we’re partnering with them, you know, what are they doing for us? And you know what? What else can we do? Um, to to better protect ourselves.

[2:14:52] Actually planning to try to bring them to one of the next two meetings. Anyway, um, just because we’re getting ready, we’re as a collaborative, talking about, um, kind of the direction of collaborators going in. They’ve just done, uh, they’ve just just now wrapping up, meeting with each of the member communities, trying to understand our future goals and needs and it way.

[2:15:10] So they want to come forward and talk to all of us about that. I wanted them to come in again to the board to kind of update you on, on things that we’re planning for the future.

[2:15:23] I think one of the things that I want to share with people is that I, the, the collaborative has been a great partner for us, for things that we couldn’t handle on our own. Um, but they also are the primary. It infrastructure support resource for some of the towns in the collaborative. We have Andy Wood still on a private contract basis. Um, but Andy and I have talked.

[2:15:40] We renewed his contract. I think he’s got a new two year contract. Um, but he said, like, he doesn’t want to be doing this into his 70s. Um, and I won’t give away his age, but that means we have to have a plan for the future. And he knows. And he works with me.

[2:15:54] When I work with the collaborative, they know that our plan for a future without Andy is involves the IT collaborative coming in and providing the services that Andy and now provides. Um, and they already do that very well for several of the towns Essex and Middleton and obviously they’re located in Danvers.

[2:16:09] So they provide all Danvers it needs. Um, we are I just want to be clear with that, because there are three other communities that are looking to join the collaborative.

[2:16:24] And one of the things that we’re talking about is how much does the collaborative want to be willing to grow, and how much do we want to make sure that we’re serving the members that we have? So, um, I’ve been very clear with them that we we’re happy with Andy, but we’re also happy to partner with them and that I see them as our future.

[2:16:40] Um, because private companies and consulting companies tend to be very expensive. The devil’s in the detail on those things. We know what we’re getting with with, um, the collaborative. And they’d be a partner with us because they already serve municipality. That’s all they do. So that’s great. I remember when we started with them, did we have a grant or Justin? And the entire community.

[2:17:01] Intermunicipal agreement? Yeah. We just I admire that we signed. Oh, and all the towns are signed on, uh, since then. So the towns that are looking to join are Ipswich and Swampscott in the hot. And so. Okay. And so with those would they need to enlarge or if if we came on board.

[2:17:20] Well those towns would have to pay in and all the towns pay proportionately based on the services, the amount of services you receive and how how big your infrastructure is, etc.. So, um, we’re paying a little bit on the low end right now because we do provide some of our resources with Andy.

[2:17:35] But, um, as we move forward, you know, they would take over more of that and we pay them a little bit more and. Said. Do you have any idea of what that would cost to.

[2:17:46] Have them? I don’t want to put a number out there in the ether without talking to Colby. So let’s have Colby come in in the next sometime in the next two meetings, and we can talk about that. With them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, so those are the two items I had, um, Rosie, anything? Nope. Just need to get myself moving on that. Uh.

[2:18:02] By bylaw, that’s important. Um, and. Nope, I don’t think I have anything else. Right now. Okay. Thanks. Rosie. Lee. Anything for you? Yeah. Real quick thing. So, um, one of the master planning implementation actions is to improve the signage and wayfinding in the commercial district with the HTC.

[2:18:22] Um, the downtown businesses. A group has reached out to me asking about better signage on the corner of one a. My question is how to go about assisting them with researching this topic.

[2:18:41] Do we have a thought on who would be? Is HTC the best option for reaching out? To start with HTC? Yeah, I’d start with the HTC, but you know, I, I worked and talk to Rick Mitchell a lot and I’m happy to work with them if they have an idea for how to do it.

[2:19:00] Um, you know, we’re we are working with HTC on the downtown, uh, physical improvements to the railroad and Willow, um, the plans there, we should be getting, um, 70% design plans back from BSI Group, along with cost estimation for our our side of it. Keeping in mind that one A is the other side of it, and that’s up to the state.

[2:19:14] But we can try to work on identifying what it’s going to cost us. And is it possible to phase it? If you do phase it, how do you phase it? Um, but we’re we’re should be getting that from VSC Group. I actually honestly expected it by now. So I’ll tickle them again to try to get it expedited.

[2:19:32] And wayfinding signage was part of that was part of that plan. So um, that might be a thing that we can tug away. From the plan for me to take back to them about what that would. Yeah. When that would. What would happen. Yes. I will try to get you something by the end of the week.

[2:19:48] That’s a timeline by the end of the week. Okay. That’s it for me. Ben. Anything from you? Oh, thank you. Um, I do want to let you know, too, that I did send you all, um, in your packets. I have a hardcover, but I think I also emailed to you at the end of the packet. This is a draft.

[2:20:07] The first draft of a of the annual town meeting and FY 28 budget calendar. Uh, most of the significant dates and boards and committees and stuff are in there. Um, I’m. This will change. It changes every year. But we have to we have to start somewhere. I’m interested in your the board’s feedback.

[2:20:24] I’ll send it to John and get FinCom feedback as well. Um, but, uh, we’re going to be wanting to kind of come to agreement on some dates, like the quintuple board meetings and the five chairs meetings and things that that feed into our local process as well.

[2:20:39] So I just want to call your attention to that. I also wanted to remind folks that, uh, this Thursday at 5:00 is the dedication of the model T of building in front of the Public Safety Building. Um, it’s a nice project, largely funded by the CPC and volunteer gifts and a lot of volunteer effort.

[2:21:01] And it’ll be nice to see that thing kind of capped and and, uh, pay respect to everybody that helped make it happen. Um, also, uh, a couple of meetings ago, the board did vote to make then Sullivan, the official town, uh, fire chief, effective October 1st, subject to a contract agreement.

[2:21:21] And I have a signed contract, so we’ve reached agreement, and he is all. Everything’s all ready to go. Dan will be our fire chief on October 1st. As the board had asked. So. Right. What is the dedication? Was Friday. Thursday, Thursday at 5 p.m. at the. Right there.

[2:21:40] I know, I know, I know, the if I can swing it between soccer’s all the different soccer. Practices. Everyone wants to. Come. So yeah. Why did you hand this out? Those are your they’re gifts from your town clerk. The annual street list, the annual street list of voters is out. Um, folks at home who want one can go to the town hall.

[2:21:58] And I think you folks have to pay $25. But she does give a copy to the select board. So you now have yours. Take a motion. I’ll move that. We adjourn for the night. I second that Ken. Roll call. Vote. And. I’m sorry. I’m awake. I’m awake. Lee McCoy. I want to see Kennedy. I am, I was I.

[2:22:22] Thanks, everybody. Good night.

Hamilton Select Board 9.14.26

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