[10:15] Stephen.

[10:16] Kaplan, can you hear me?

[10:19] Yep, how are you, sirs?

[10:21] Go ahead, I love that, stash.

[10:24] Thanks, dude.

[10:27] Oh, oh, yeah.

[10:29] Oh, it's been, uh, it's been busy.

[10:33] Mm-hmm.

[10:35] I've got how you got it, by dog here with me.

[10:37] I've got my dog here with me, come here.

[10:39] She doesn't even know she's on.

[10:41] Amazing.

[10:41] There she is. Yep, so she's she can she can weigh in.

[10:47] Annie.

[10:49] Here, I Carol. Hi, guys, is this Jimmy trying to call me? Let me give me just one second.

[10:58] Yeah, he said he'd be quick.

[11:18] Not Jimmy.

[11:22] And I know Chris is planning on being here. And as I say,

[11:26] that crisp appears. Beautiful. Yes. It's going to rename him.

[11:34] Yes. So for a chase. There he is. Welcome, Chris.

[11:39] What's going on, guys? Hey, what's going on?

[11:43] What's going on? What's going on?

[11:44] What Wednesday on the summer?

[11:46] Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday.

[11:48] Everybody's favorite place. Planning board.

[11:53] Let's jump right in. I have 702. We'll call the meeting to order the August 19th, 2026 meeting of the Hopefield Planning Board. Next agenda item is approval of meeting minutes. We have outstanding meeting minutes for our July 22nd, 2026 meeting Mary who's not on camera at the moment did circulate draft minutes via email.

[12:17] I had a chance to review them.

[12:19] I hope everybody else did, too.

[12:23] I moved to accept the July 20 second minutes.

[12:28] Two seconds.

[12:30] All right, we have a motion to accept and approve.

[12:31] The July 22nd, 2026 meeting minutes,

[12:36] motion by number Hassanalu, second by number Chase,

[12:42] and we have number co-card joining now.

[12:45] I'm going to permit Jimmie, a moment to join.

[12:51] There he is, Jimmie, are you with us?

[12:53] Yes, yes, I am here.

[12:55] Well done.

[12:56] Thank you, sorry.

[12:57] I just got no worries.

[12:59] We've been called the order.

[13:01] And we have had a motion by Kaplan, seconded by Chris to accept

[13:06] and approve the July 22nd, 2026 meeting minutes.

[13:11] to write here any discussion on the motion by member Hassanilu.

[13:17] Hearing no discussion on the motion, we will proceed to a roll call vote.

[13:22] Hassanilu, aye.

[13:25] Deza.

[13:28] Melanai.

[13:30] Koker, aye.

[13:32] Chaplin, aye.

[13:33] The motion passes unanimously five to zero.

[13:36] The July 22nd, 2026 meeting minutes are officially approved.

[13:42] which means we are 100% caught up with our meeting minutes.

[13:49] The next agenda item is a request relative to a performance bond for 75 plain street.

[13:58] I will be recusing myself and have standing from participation in the vote and the conversation

[14:03] and deliberation on that matter.

[14:06] Member Chase is the point person for that matter, so I will turn it over to Member Chase.

[14:12] So, I reached out to Scott Brown on when they talked to his Monday steering, I think.

[14:22] That's Monday.

[14:23] So, I emailed them.

[14:24] I let them know they need to be that they are on the agenda for this meeting.

[14:30] And then I went on vacation and I came back and I just, they sent me an email saying they couldn't make it in person.

[14:38] They didn't realize it was on teams, but I thought I emailed them like 45 minutes ago to tell them it was on teams

[14:46] So I don't know if somebody's gonna jump on right now or if they are not

[14:55] Okay, let's do this. I have a

[15:00] I'll give a little preview of our next meeting. I have, as I think, most everybody on the board knows, some bittersweet news, that come October 1st. I'm not going to be a resident of Hopedale, be a resident of Menden.

[15:15] So I'm going to have to resign my position on the board. So at the next meeting, which would be.

[15:23] typically would be the first Wednesday and September, which is September 2nd,

[15:31] happens to be my brother's birthday.

[15:35] And it's otherwise ringing a bell that I don't see anything on my calendar.

[15:43] Nope, it's September 3rd.

[15:50] So if that meeting date works,

[15:54] We'll have a meeting that evening and there will be a item on the agenda for board reorganization and I will

[16:05] Make any documentary preparations necessary for that. Also reach out to other members of the board to kind of coordinate how that might go.

[16:13] No open meeting law

[16:16] Issues since

[16:17] totally going to be one at a time and it's also not a matter before us that we have to

[16:22] deliberate on and decide. We're just merely talking about the procedure for how the board

[16:27] will operate. We'll be the chair. We'll be the procedures.

[16:33] Probably just formalizing a number of things

[16:36] we've been doing right along, but by formalizing that and maybe even adopting some documents to go

[16:46] for some succession planning and execution of some succession planning down the road.

[17:02] I'm glad everybody's laughing.

[17:07] I'm so happy you're laughing.

[17:10] It's better than crying.

[17:12] So we'll see about that.

[17:16] Can we go back to 75 planes straight in the performance fund issue?

[17:22] Yeah, absolutely.

[17:26] What technically really has to happen?

[17:29] We put this off and put this off and put this off.

[17:32] So basically, can you sort of recap this in our nutshell for us, Chris?

[17:38] So,

[17:41] in a nutshell, when they started this project, they were asked to pull a performance

[17:50] bond, and typically what happens is one statement, meet a substantial completion.

[17:59] They paid monthly for the bond and normally that's how it works, and then when they reach

[18:06] substantial completion, they would normally come in front of us, and we would release the need for the bond, and then they would stop paying the bond payment, and then that's normally how it would go.

[18:27] I think there was confusion on what bonds that they had, you know what bonds they had, what

[18:33] bonds they didn't have, what, and then what the process was for us releasing it.

[18:45] So that's why it's kind of gotten boggled for the past few months.

[18:52] Do we need to know what bonds they have and what bonds they don't have or that's something

[18:57] that it's in their basket.

[18:59] They need to figure that all out come to us and we sign off.

[19:05] So in the holes of the bonds?

[19:07] So I wasn't part of the, I joined the planning bar.

[19:10] I was, I started my planning board assignment.

[19:16] Right, my first meeting was the meeting where they passed the very last approval for this project.

[19:27] So I honestly don't know exactly how they talk through the bond requirements for this project.

[19:35] But at somewhere along the lines, even correct me, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but somewhere along the line they must have said we want you guys to have a bond for A and for B.

[19:44] And one of them was for, I think one of them was for the street and one of them was for the road work and one of them was for the building.

[19:56] So we're holding those bonds. Is it that correct?

[19:59] date no so no no the town doesn't hold the bond that the the gc holds the bond okay

[20:06] so it's not GFI it's it's it's got let's only look at the

[20:13] okay so it's got brown and

[20:20] arco

[20:20] arco national construction that's who actually holds the bond which basically is just like an

[20:29] they're covered if something catastrophic happens. And then once they meet, once they meet the

[20:36] substantial completion, we can release them of that need. How do we know they've met substantial

[20:43] completion? I mean, I don't, I don't know any of this. So by purbite, I would be able to answer

[20:49] any of those questions. So by the, typically it goes by the inspections, right? So our building inspector

[20:58] As gone down there and signed off on all the rough, he went and did all the rough inspections and he did all the final inspections.

[21:06] I believe, I don't know if the road work is done right now or not, I think the road was closed yesterday.

[21:13] Right, so they're doing it right now.

[21:16] So I would say that the building portion, right now they're working on the internal totally different project.

[21:22] I think the building portion has been done for a while, only one second.

[21:30] So, you know, it really, we are, by this being delayed, it definitely does cost money.

[21:37] Real money.

[21:38] So, it sounds good for that.

[21:42] So, you know, I think moving forward, if we ever have another project, I would say,

[21:49] It should be released by the building inspector, not by, I don't think they have to come back in front of the planning board is I think something we should change moving forward.

[22:00] Okay.

[22:02] Just to make it smoother, because it's, I don't think it's necessary for them to come back in front of us to release something that is really just a,

[22:09] it's a standard process, you know.

[22:11] Is the procedure to release the bonds in a group or to release them as each of them each of the infections are completed?

[22:24] I believe there's only one. This is the only one. There was originally going to be two.

[22:30] I think this is just the one time deal. Right. But if it is for the street, the street isn't completed.

[22:51] It's not completed yet right so that so if there's another one that's still open for the street then that's correct

[22:56] It's not ready to be released

[23:00] But I just think move I think

[23:02] You know on another project if we're starting from scratch. I would just say

[23:06] Once you you know the the milestone is once you get final sign off from the building inspector you can release your bond. You don't even

[23:14] I would just put the writing something like that as long as our legal people are cool with that

[23:19] I think that's, I think that makes sense.

[23:22] Just so it doesn't tie everybody up.

[23:25] All right.

[23:31] Well, yeah, that's about it.

[23:32] I don't know, is there anything else you want me to explain?

[23:39] I

[23:42] don't know anything about the interior

[23:44] if I don't part either.

[23:46] Other than what's been said to everybody,

[23:48] you know what I mean?

[24:00] Are they here?

[24:05] Chris?

[24:08] Your muted Chris?

[24:14] No, I'll say anybody.

[24:24] So our options are just to push this back again. Is that the idea?

[24:27] Yeah, so either we can talk through it and we can release it on our I mean if the what I was trying to do was have them come on explain everything to you kind of like I just talked through.

[24:38] But from there from there perspective, you know from there mouse right explain what they did explain what they've done to date and then.

[24:46] And then we talked through it, you know, are we comfortable releasing it?

[24:51] In my opinion, of course, everything, everything is in the building, why is it done?

[24:57] So I don't know why we would want to hold it any longer.

[25:00] I think it's already been too long in my opinion, but...

[25:05] So I don't see why we can.

[25:07] You're not quite clear on what the bond is for, right?

[25:11] performance. The performance bond is for I believe it's for the building. One

[25:17] one second.

[25:19] Crystal is Kevin. There's somebody by the name of Kevin on on this, uh,

[25:27] I don't see her. Okay. Is it not something from Marco?

[25:34] I have no idea. I'm just looking at the participants. It says Kevin. Yeah, I don't know.

[25:40] What a set that they were here.

[25:43] Yeah.

[25:54] The screen through the emails I always found.

[25:56] Thank you for.

[25:58] Yeah, this bond has nothing to do with the intersection.

[26:01] So that's what they wrote in that in the email.

[26:05] It was for I believe it was for the construction of the building itself.

[26:13] We would need to know that before we sign off on anything.

[26:17] I don't know why capital and there's nothing else. Does it building? That's built. There's nothing else.

[26:26] Okay, so you know what I mean, you don't think we need to know why.

[26:31] I don't think, I mean, regardless of what it is, it's not the street.

[26:35] It's not the street. It's definitely something. I don't know if it's the entire building.

[26:39] If it's the water lines, if it's the, I've never seen the bond. I've never physically seen the bond itself.

[26:45] So I don't know if it's a little slow.

[26:48] As long as it's legally okay for us to, you know, vote to release them from the bond

[26:56] where we don't quite know what the, you know what I mean, like if it's, yeah, it's a little

[27:01] slow.

[27:02] I mean, I trust you.

[27:04] I understand what you're saying.

[27:05] I understand what you're saying and legally, I don't want to be legally bound for anything

[27:09] either.

[27:10] But if the building inspector signed off on it and he's allowing them to do another project

[27:14] in this in the same building.

[27:18] I don't think there's any risk here.

[27:25] Let's find me.

[27:26] I mean, do you have a way of

[27:29] formulating emotion?

[27:35] Yeah.

[27:35] Can I make the motion?

[27:38] Or you can say,

[27:40] in Stephen fashion,

[27:41] you can say that you would accept it

[27:43] and that I can say so moved.

[27:44] Okay, I would accept the motion to release the current bond that Arco and Ashmont construction has open for the 75 plane street project.

[28:02] Don't move.

[28:05] Do we have a second?

[28:06] Thank you.

[28:09] All right.

[28:10] So is there any further discussion?

[28:12] Yeah.

[28:13] You absolutely sure that the building inspector has signed up on all of this and there is nothing nothing pending every box is checked every everything. It's fine

[28:26] Because I have no idea what we're putting

[28:28] So I have all all we're all we're doing is releasing the bond

[28:33] Okay, we're not approving anything. We're not approving anything. We're just releasing

[28:38] The need for the bond which is like an insurance policy

[28:43] or a project for a project we've already completed.

[28:46] I have not seen the permit like with the signatures on it,

[28:49] but they wouldn't release another permit until that one was closed.

[28:54] Okay.

[28:55] Okay. You know what I mean?

[28:56] So.

[28:57] No, I don't.

[28:58] But I trust you.

[28:59] That's the way it were.

[29:00] You like.

[29:01] I mean, in a normal,

[29:03] I know hope feels different than a lot of places.

[29:07] So I've never seen them issue a permit.

[29:11] to run, you know, to do an interior fit out, I've never seen them issue the second permit before the first permit was closed.

[29:20] So, can we, can we, would it be fair to say we release the bond as long as the original permit for the building is closed?

[29:37] So I moved to the amendment, amend the emotion as just indicated by.

[29:44] Any second.

[29:48] Any further discussion on that?

[29:51] Nope.

[29:52] I think that pretty much wraps it up.

[29:57] I appreciate it.

[29:58] And this has been a little pain.

[30:00] I'm trying to get it. There's a lot of confusion on what the bonds even, you know.

[30:07] For the first month, the month or two was just trying to figure out what they were asking for.

[30:12] So, thank you for.

[30:15] Well, all right, we got a vote on it.

[30:18] So, I can show it.

[30:21] Back to you, brother.

[30:23] Roll call vote.

[30:25] Yeah.

[30:25] No, bro, I'm sorry.

[30:26] Roll call vote.

[30:27] I'm sorry.

[30:28] A son of a lie.

[30:32] Mala and I.

[30:34] Co-car.

[30:37] Jackson.

[30:39] Four.

[30:40] Zero.

[30:41] One.

[30:42] Four.

[30:43] Yes.

[30:43] Zero.

[30:44] It passes.

[30:47] Excellent.

[30:48] There being no other items on the agenda.

[30:50] I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

[30:53] So before we adjourn, I do want to say.

[30:55] Can we crisp?

[30:56] Is there any way possible?

[30:56] We can get a walk.

[30:57] before Steve is exiting to Menden, for the interior, for the original project, for the original

[31:08] construction.

[31:09] You know, I know Carol has mentioned last time, like possibility of a walk through with

[31:13] all the details.

[31:14] Did it inside?

[31:16] Yeah.

[31:19] So Bill Buckley's been more than, you know, you know what I mean, I can call him, I do

[31:25] probably call him right now and he would pick up the phone.

[31:27] So I, you know, I have no problem asking if you'll meet us to walk through, that's fine.

[31:32] Stephen, are you going to be around for the next couple of weeks, right?

[31:36] Be around for the foreseeable future.

[31:40] And somehow this has to happen in October.

[31:43] I will make the drive from Mended.

[31:46] Okay.

[31:47] I appreciate it.

[31:47] I don't think it will take that.

[31:49] That's good.

[31:50] I will have to pre-plan it.

[31:53] Yeah.

[31:53] Let me let me reach out to him and see when we can go walk through. I'd like to see the wheeler out with the light too.

[32:01] Chris, can you explain something? So the original project are they are there different companies in there or is it all

[32:08] Mars now I don't understand like original versus so the only piece that I know anything about is the original

[32:17] the structure of the building. I don't know. I haven't seen a set of plans. I haven't seen anything

[32:22] on the interior pitot project. So I don't know who's doing it. I don't know anything.

[32:32] But do you

[32:32] assume it's the same company? It's all one company. I wouldn't assume it's the same company. No,

[32:37] I would assume that it's merged. It's merged. And they are whoever they hired to do the interior work

[32:43] could be totally, it most likely is somebody totally different.

[32:49] So there'll be two different companies residing within the facility?

[32:54] No, no.

[32:56] There's one company, two different builders.

[32:59] So there's a thing is GFI hired one general contractor to build the building.

[33:06] And then after the, and to construct the building,

[33:08] and after the building shell was constructed, GFI found a tenant.

[33:13] that tenant requires a significant interior fit-up or build-out, and most likely GFI got a different

[33:21] general contractor to complete the build-out. Thank you. That's what I thought. It's a little

[33:27] confused. Okay. Thank you very much. It's still one tenant that is leasing the property. That's not

[33:35] that it was one time.

[33:39] On, as far as construction goes,

[33:43] Arco is doing the light work.

[33:45] They're completed with the building work that they have,

[33:48] the one that that Arco owns.

[33:50] Besides, this all they have is the light.

[33:52] That's all that they have remaining.

[33:55] The interior fit out work is a completely different project.

[33:59] So, to surely be one company they're working inside the building.

[34:04] As far as a general goes, but the good news is that it requires a separate building permit, which is

[34:12] I'd say the value of the project, so it's good for the town, it's good for everybody, really.

[34:21] So, yeah, I'd like to see where they're at too.

[34:25] Let me reach out to them and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

[34:30] Thank you.

[34:35] And I would still be willing to entertain that motion to adjourn if anybody we're so inclined

[34:42] Who is Kaplan?

[34:45] So moved

[34:47] Second motion remember chase second by member Hassanaloo and discussion on the motion for adjournment hearing none roll call vote

[34:55] Jesus, Hassanaloo, I will car I

[34:59] May I?

[35:00] Chapter 9, 5, 0, unanimous.

[35:02] We are adjourned.

[35:03] Thank you, everybody.

[35:04] We will see everybody on September the 2nd.

[35:07] Thank you.

[35:08] Thank you, everybody.

[35:10] Thank you.

Planning Board

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