[4:04] Now, a quick reminder, this meeting is

[4:08] our friend's sterling-line capture community.

[4:16] We're going to see her. Mr. Gifford is not, although he has made a clear due to a health-related issue that he wouldn't be here in person, but may or may not be on line.

[4:30] So at the record reflect, President is Jason Ellison, Steve Kerrigan, absent is Ralph Gifford. Okay. We will begin. First item on the agenda is approval of meeting minutes.

[4:43] We have meeting minutes of September 4th and July 15th.

[4:53] Second,

[4:58] those. Any discussion?

[5:06] I'm going to task you to keep an eye out for our flag-a-feet joints.

[5:11] Very

[5:14] exciting scheduled appearance, which we are thrilled to be joined today by the Mortimer family.

[5:23] And do I introduce the chief or the commissioner first and then commission?

[5:30] This is for the purpose of ratifying the promotional appointment for Patrick Mortimer to the rank of police with them.

[5:37] Commissioner, floor June's.

[5:39] If I could just start out by thanking Kate Hodges, members of the FY-24 Finance Committee in the select board,

[5:45] along with the residents of Lancaster for their support during the process of bringing back this all important intended position.

[5:50] This position sets a path forward for our department, strengthening officer accountability,

[5:56] adding opportunities for additional budgetary review and administrative oversight.

[6:01] These regulations will be increasingly important as we progress our policies towards the goal

[6:05] of departmental accreditation.

[6:08] For Patrick, this sums up 13 years of service as a full-time police officer in seven years'

[6:14] prior experience as a dispatcher.

[6:16] His reputation for excellence is only matched by his outstanding departmental dedication.

[6:21] After being appointed to full time, he quickly advanced to the detective role assisting with

[6:26] some of the largest stroke seizure cases to date.

[6:30] He was appointed to Sergeant in 2016 and has been a leader on the four to twelve ship since

[6:35] that time.

[6:36] He has proven himself as a valued asset to our department, and it is with my strongest

[6:41] recommendation that I ask the board to appoint Sergeant Warner to the rank of

[6:45] lieutenant. Thank you, Commissioner.

[6:47] This is the board. I would invite his wife, Sergeant Moore Murray,

[6:51] ask the panel for it. If once we ratify his promotion, it pleases us greatly.

[6:57] Give us a chance to say yes. Do you have any questions for the Commissioner at this time?

[7:02] No. Okay. I neither do I. It's our motion to ratify the promotion to move.

[7:06] Second that. Any discussion on the motion? No discussion. Okay. Great.

[7:10] All those in favor say I'm going to say aye.

[7:12] Mr. Allen.

[7:13] Aye.

[7:13] Mr. Carrigan, aye.

[7:15] Mr. Gifford.

[7:15] It's not present.

[7:17] Congratulations.

[7:25] We invite the town clerk to come forward.

[7:30] Why don't you do it in front of the podium?

[7:33] You can step this way.

[7:34] We're at the perfect.

[7:35] Just so that the owl gets plenty of you.

[7:37] All right.

[7:38] Here's your raise.

[7:39] Do you solemnly swear that you will bear true faith and allegiance

[7:42] to the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

[7:45] and we'll support the Constitution and laws thereof.

[7:48] Do you solemnly swear that you will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duty and incumbent upon you as Lieutenant for the Town of the Lancaster and you will obey and be bound by such laws, rules, and regulations as are or may be from time to time and laid down for the government of Lancaster?

[8:05] And do you hereby accept the position of Lieutenant for the Town of the Lancaster?

[8:34] We have two EMTs here in case there's blood.

[8:44] Do

[9:02] I need to move anything?

[9:32] I hope you're taking your family out for a nice meal.

[9:40] The burden of the badge.

[9:45] All right, next item on the agenda, Kate, how do you want to handle it on the table?

[10:08] I'm sorry, I should have been in the office.

[10:11] Oh, this is for the early morning?

[10:13] Oh, I see, yeah.

[10:16] For this and that.

[10:20] Well, first of all, I'm going to move on to the next item.

[10:21] I do want to take a moment also to acknowledge the retirement

[10:25] of Officer Gary Henderson, who served this town for 25 years on the Lancaster Police Force.

[10:34] Although he retired from the municipal force, it's currently a public-shaped officer for

[10:38] college of paper starting today.

[10:42] This particular retirement, we're incredibly grateful for, but it makes me feel very old

[10:45] because I think I was on the board when we hired him 25 years ago, but we thank him and

[10:53] Please commissioner pass along to he and his family are thanks for his twenty five years of service.

[10:59] All right, other notices before we get on to the membership town staff who would like to speak.

[11:09] Advanced, sorry, the early voting will once again be offered and is open to the public.

[11:14] I'll remind people at the end of this meeting as well.

[11:16] The last day to register to vote in the election for November 5th is Saturday, October 26th between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

[11:22] early voting, which begins on Saturday, October 19, will take place on the Prescott Billion

[11:30] of the First Floor and offered starting Saturday the 19th between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

[11:35] The week of the 21st of October, Monday through Thursday, 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Friday

[11:41] between 8.30 a.m. and noon, and Saturday the 26th between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the week of

[11:47] the 28th Monday through Thursday between 8.30 and 4.30 p.m. and the last day to vote early

[11:56] will be Friday and November 1st between the hours 8.30 a.m. and new. All of this, I nailed

[12:02] it. I was looking at Mandy the entire time, nailed that. It helps have it written down, probably

[12:07] by you. So that's helpful. I'm sure all of this will be available online as well. But I encourage

[12:14] folks to make a plan about tomorrow is national voter registration day. Also the

[12:20] anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Also my birthday. So all kinds

[12:24] of things but the other two things are much more important than my birthday. But

[12:29] if you have not registered about please do so. Okay next. So next item on the

[12:38] agenda is members of the town staff. I have asked myself for an opportunity to

[12:44] address the board and so I will go to whoever wishes to begin.

[12:57] Most of you know I'm the town clerk here in Lancaster but what many may not

[13:02] know is that I live here as well. Five generations of my family in fact have

[13:06] or or do you call Lancaster home. In my time I've seen overheads fail I've seen

[13:11] businesses turn away. The current administration however presents progress. With

[13:16] Kate at the helm this town has come together to support an overhead for new

[13:20] school that was desperately needed for the children in our town, rezoning to

[13:24] finally, finally allowing the economic growth opportunities in our town. Kate

[13:29] has led this town through these votes. She's empowered town staff to be seen

[13:33] and be heard. Her door is always open to both staff and residents in our town. She

[13:38] leads us openly and she leads us honestly and is always there for support when

[13:41] needed. We're lucky enough now to also have a great addition to this leadership

[13:45] with Kelly as our new assistant town administrator. Kelly and much like Kate

[13:49] leads openly and honestly and truly has the best interest of our residents in

[13:54] mind always. Under this administration we have a lean budget and a budget book

[13:59] like one-line testers I've ever seen before. At the last select board

[14:03] meaning, saddening and disappointing comments were made. The message that I took home

[14:08] was that staff is disposable, unappreciated, and now subject to unfounded

[14:13] accusations and disrespect in a public meeting. This meeting has had the most

[14:17] for a found effect on staff, possibly even greater than all the meetings during our overhead

[14:21] conversations. Some individuals came to work the next day feeling like a target had been

[14:26] placed on them, and all the hard work they do is disregarded and viewed as unimportant.

[14:31] We are a team here. When someone feels that, we all feel it. Our goals are voted down by a member

[14:38] of the board. The staff here has worked long and hard on those goals, giving great consideration

[14:43] to each and every item.

[14:45] Goals are what drive us throughout the year

[14:46] to keep us moving in the right direction.

[14:49] The only answer given as to why our goals were voted against

[14:52] was asking if we looked at the hard choices needed

[14:57] and what we can cut.

[15:00] We are currently operating on the trimmest budget possible without losing services. The underlying message received from last week's meeting is that cuts are the answer. With the lean budget, the only cuts possible are jobs. Departments don't have room to make deeper cuts and still provide the same service. So to suggest cuts, the hard choices, you're very simply suggesting we cut staffing, but at what cost and what savings for our residents. When I started working here, it was my understanding that we worked as a team with the select board.

[15:29] understanding that when I started working here it was my understanding that we

[15:38] worked as a team with the select board. Understanding that we wouldn't necessarily always

[15:42] agreed but expecting respect and civility. What I saw as we wasn't that and I believe staff

[15:47] here deserve better. The only actual example given was a complaint regarding an email about

[15:53] a cake decorating class. Implying that services like this and or staff that run these

[15:58] services are unnecessary or frivolous. Speaking from when I see firsthand

[16:03] every day and outside my window, is that those services are important to our

[16:07] community members, to our voters. The committee center is bustling every day.

[16:12] Not only seniors but residents of all ages are finding activities to be a part of

[16:16] here. When persons grieving, grievance about receiving informational emails about

[16:20] town happenings does not and should not affect the importance of the activity

[16:24] themself. Emils can be unsubscribed from or deleted without a second thought. What can't be deleted

[16:30] or dismissed is the importance these activities hold for members of our community. For some people

[16:35] attending a cake decorating class, a game of pickleball or coffee on the patio, maybe their only

[16:41] opportunity to leave their home and interact with people. The center provides a safe place for residents

[16:46] to participate in, an activity, a couple coffee with a friend, and most importantly, to seek help

[16:52] when needed. There are many citizens who are fortunate enough to not require help or services

[16:58] in terms of heating oil, food, shelter, medical care. But I'm sure I'm happy that those

[17:02] that do need the assistance have a place to turn. The services and activities run by the

[17:07] community center are something we should be proud of and absolutely make like us a better

[17:11] and more attractive place to live. In closing, we have a professional staff here doing their very best

[17:17] every day day in and day out to improve the town. I see engaging positive interactions with

[17:23] our residents every day of every week. The staff here in their work deserve better. The

[17:27] success of Lancaster truly is a success to each and every one of us.

[17:41] Be mindful of the hour. I'm sorrow. I apologize. I understand these words of power whether they're

[17:52] spoken or unspoken. They represent empathy, compassion, recognition, and they are all

[17:58] signs of good leadership. Okay, I am sorry for the statements made at the last meeting,

[18:04] questioning the potential conflict of interest. If having a friend involved in the equation

[18:10] as a standard of a conflict, then no police officer would be able to work in his or her hometown.

[18:15] I know how the comments affected myself and other staff. I can only imagine how it made

[18:20] of feel. I have never known you to be anything less than professional. I respect and value you,

[18:26] your guidance, and I believe Lancaster's future is better because of you. Kelly, I apologize

[18:33] for how the citizens comments and questions about your new role have impacted you and members of your

[18:38] team. I appreciate the partnerships you have brought to Lancaster. You continue to be a positive

[18:43] of like for Lancaster's most vulnerable residents.

[18:48] To staff, I understand how house-broken residents' concerns

[18:52] over inflation, taxes, and anticipated financial increases

[18:56] related to the school have made many worry

[18:59] about job security and potential budget cuts.

[19:02] It is understanding how unsettling this can be

[19:05] in the absence of a plan to generate more revenue,

[19:08] tax reductions are recognized as budget cuts.

[19:11] and I'll be honest, it's scary.

[19:14] To the residents of Lancaster, as a staff member

[19:17] and fellow resident, I get it.

[19:19] I'll be blunt, taxes suck.

[19:22] The staff's only desire is to bring the highest quality

[19:25] of life to Lancaster residents within our respective

[19:28] departments, and at times that will require requests

[19:31] that have budgetary impacts.

[19:33] It is our job to ask for what we need

[19:37] so that we may succeed in our goals.

[19:39] and I do not know a single staff member that asks without justification, but we

[19:44] get it without industrial tax relief on our residents. Our residential tax

[19:50] dollars are only form of funding to the board. I'm sorry, I apologize, I

[19:58] understand. But the idea of how Lancaster treats staff and our residents starts in

[20:04] this room. Each of you are an elected voice of the community and I would ask the

[20:09] If you recognize the impact of the tone you set in every meeting, what you say and how

[20:15] you say it matters.

[20:17] I appreciate your willingness to volunteer and your time for Lancaster, and I recognize

[20:22] that we all want the best for our town, and at times we're going to disagree on the path

[20:26] forward.

[20:27] And that's okay.

[20:29] There are different ways to get to the same destination, and Lancaster's healthiest future

[20:33] depends on your voice thank you thank you

[20:52] thank you thank you and we know many

[21:04] members of your many of your colleagues around we want to speak for Jason but I

[21:13] I also echo the Chiefs, commissioners, comments, and you know, be apologizing for the tone

[21:21] that was set in the previous meeting and for the comments made.

[21:25] And I, for one, will work hard, and I think I could speak with you.

[21:29] And on this one, we will work hard together to continue to do the best job we can to leave

[21:34] the town the best, but we know how and to work with all of you.

[21:38] We are incredibly grateful to the time employees and the elected and appointed leadership who work hard each and every day

[21:48] with a singular goal of making this town a better place to live, work and raise a family.

[21:55] And we welcome anybody who is willing to be a part of that endeavor and that great cause

[22:01] and those who wish to not be a constructive part of that, we understand there will be

[22:08] a participant in our democracy because that's the way it works, but just know that there

[22:14] are those of us who will fight hard to make sure that the positive voices and the, frankly,

[22:20] the result of the positive work is what wins up in the end.

[22:23] So I agree with what you said, Mandy, that we are on a great path because we should

[22:30] and the work that you all have done to unite as a team and I'm grateful to all of you for whatever.

[22:38] No, thank you.

[22:41] All right, thank you.

[22:44] We'll now move on to public comment. Those of you unfamiliar with public comment.

[22:50] In the room, you can make a podium, you get two minutes to speak.

[22:56] If you're like us resident, also if you're online,

[22:58] I will go to you next, please throw up your digital hand and we will recognize you after that point.

[23:06] I will set the timer, I see you at the point in the right hand.

[23:13] Go.

[23:14] That would be even one minute mark.

[23:16] Sure.

[23:16] I'm Roy Reesack, 125 Harvard Road.

[23:20] Speaking as a private citizen, though occasionally I will be talking about the issues that affect

[23:25] the Finance Committee and some information that came to me because I'm on the Finance Committee,

[23:29] but I am not authorized to speak for the Finance Committee tonight, so I speak as private as this.

[23:36] I want to read the duties of the Finance Committee for our bylaws, which say that

[23:43] shall be duty of Finance Committee to investigate reports of the town and its recommendations

[23:47] and all pertinent facts relating to any articles and any awards. Subject matter of which pertains

[23:54] to the appropriation of expenditure of money, the creation of debt, or the disposition of

[24:00] down property. For this purpose, the commissional access to all books, vouchers, etc. I notice

[24:06] that tonight we have a finance committee meeting joint meeting with the select board. I notice

[24:11] that before that the select board is moving to close the ward. I ask that the select board

[24:16] not close the ward until you meet with the finance committee, because the finance committee

[24:21] may have questions, may have ions, may have issues, that may change your thoughts and

[24:25] position on a warrant article. I think the citizens of the town would ask that you wait

[24:30] until you've heard the input of the finance committee before closing the warrant.

[24:36] Anybody else?

[24:41] There's nobody else in the room. Sheila, you are up for two minutes, so you're going to meet

[24:45] yourself.

[24:47] Sheila, on the left, 2748, North 8th Street, here in Line Caster. You know, we all know

[24:53] Texas, Ohio, here in Lancaster because we don't have this

[24:59] one-select word

[25:00] no

[25:14] goals, he mentioned a conversation with a resident regarding

[25:16] the cake decorating as a waste of town resources

[25:20] because he chose not to share his true thoughts on where key things Lancaster

[25:24] could turn the budget, I guess so he must agree.

[25:26] So how does this statement get translated to the public as a financial goal?

[25:30] I hear a

[25:34] community center or a cut staff from the community center

[25:37] believe the health and human service department.

[25:39] Can you imagine our talent without a community center now?

[25:44] Maybe some of you listening can.

[25:46] However, for some residents, the Community Center is a lifeline.

[25:49] Not everyone is able to enjoy the same opportunities

[25:52] in Lancaster due to their age, health, mobility, and finances.

[25:56] Programming and events at the Community Center offer residents

[25:59] affordable outlets for their physical, social, and emotional health.

[26:02] The Community Center offers a place of the learning.

[26:05] So I asked before, are we spending too much money on the community center, the staff overpaying, are we spending too much time and money on the health and human services department, are we spending too much on public safety, how about the library, post-COVID and with current inflation, I think the staff involuntary is of my past or kept on an excellent job, and I want to thank

[26:31] you.

[26:35] There's a drama. I don't know if it's Mr. or Mrs.

[26:41] Debrao, one of the things

[26:45] committed. I noticed tonight's

[26:48] have had some applications for

[26:51] Halloween on the green, which is a

[26:53] great thing. I hope you approve that.

[26:56] I didn't notice at the bar that

[26:58] being set up runs an hour and a half

[27:00] for you on Halloween on the green

[27:02] and I didn't grow, you know,

[27:04] Senate 30 seems sufficient.

[27:06] I don't know why

[27:07] that we need to go to nine

[27:14] persons

[27:14] about people texting during board meetings.

[27:18] It seems a distraction and inappropriate.

[27:23] And the state said, you know,

[27:24] there's not much they can do about it,

[27:26] but, you know, just suggesting towards

[27:28] that putting down phones, during meetings,

[27:32] the quality of good idea,

[27:33] definitely be there for emergencies

[27:35] with people texting during meetings.

[27:39] And then the other thing I want to mention is

[27:41] I can't believe we're continuing to sue our own historical society.

[27:47] People that are trying to do good for the town, preserve our history,

[27:52] and we're wasting out of it in money, going out for these people.

[27:58] It's just ridiculous.

[28:00] And I hope other town members will speak up as well, and just stop it.

[28:04] I come to a resolution and move forward.

[28:10] Wasting our money, our tax money on lawyers is ridiculous.

[28:17] Thank you.

[28:18] Anybody else?

[28:24] Sorry.

[28:26] It's in the React thing where it was always this.

[28:30] But would you like to say something?

[28:32] Yeah.

[28:33] OK.

[28:33] I was clicking the button.

[28:36] That's what I'm going to see there.

[28:37] It's fine.

[28:38] You can go ahead.

[28:43] I'm in 1996, Grantway.

[28:51] People that are in the

[28:58] speaker for act

[29:02] very difficult.

[29:16] I don't know if there's anything that we looked into more deeply about that, I appreciate it.

[29:22] Thank you.

[29:23] Anyone else?

[29:30] Thanks, everyone.

[29:33] Next on the agenda administration budget and policy we have a few items prior to our driving

[29:42] me in the finance committee. Number one is vote to close the special town meeting warrant

[29:47] for October 7th, 2024. And then sign set warrant. And then we have before we can get, we have

[29:54] a few that I'm assuming, well, hasn't emerged as he. Okay. So.

[30:00] We're going to table two of the items that Ralph wanted us to talk about in previous meetings, but has table prior to today. So is our motion to close the special time meeting warrant for October 7, 2024? It's a good second. Any debate discussion?

[30:28] So, I don't know what sort of time frame is necessary to close the warrant, I know it is a timely matter, so I'm asking if there is an opportunity and if there's not, then we close the warrant.

[30:41] So, typically the least of my experience on a finance committee and on the board is the

[30:47] finance committee weighs in whether or not they would like to recommend positive consideration

[30:53] or negative consideration at the time meeting.

[30:56] We do the same as a board after the warrant is closed, but we open the warrant.

[31:01] People can submit things to the warrant, and then at certain point we close the warrant

[31:05] and then we then as a board, once the warrant is set, just as the finance committee has done

[31:09] time and memoriam will then on appropriate measures weigh in if they wish to

[31:15] recommend positive or negative or no action consideration for the townspeople

[31:20] of the Special Army. So it sounds like there's ample opportunity for the

[31:23] finance community to be able to get the feedback necessary.

[31:25] One of the things right now and October 7th and oftentimes, sometimes those

[31:28] decisions and sometimes even for the SLIC board, although I think the last few we've

[31:32] done in advance would be printed on the board. Sometimes those recommendations

[31:35] and terminations are made at the meeting just immediately prior to the special time meeting because members can't get together or whatever it is.

[31:42] No harm, no foul, as long as at the meeting the recommendation if there is one is made very clear.

[31:47] Perfect, thank you. Thank you.

[31:49] Also, we hope the requirement that it has to be posted five days prior to and so we're running it close in terms of at least two articles they were sent to the finance committee for comment whether or not they made it onto an agenda.

[32:05] I mean, I'm at most of the meeting, so I can't say.

[32:11] Well, we're just in the middle of a vote, so we won't.

[32:14] Oh, no.

[32:16] All was in favor.

[32:17] Hi.

[32:19] And I'm

[32:22] going to give her this.

[32:24] He was not here.

[32:26] Next, a man ran of understanding.

[32:28] I know that Ralph asked for this update.

[32:32] He had questions.

[32:33] He had earlier in the summer.

[32:34] We're also meeting about $300,000 that was mostly come as a result of the MOU that was

[32:42] negotiated from the New York Lancaster project.

[32:46] As I thought was made clear, the money came in already and I know the town administrator

[32:52] had circulated a memo to that effect early in the summer, at least to this board and I

[32:58] a number of others and so I'm again this was at the request of Mr. Giver who is not here.

[33:07] So if he's watching on the start of the line cash television the money came in a bit ago and there is a memo in your inbox that outlines and starting furthering into it.

[33:16] It's in the packet as well.

[33:18] There's some items in it that needs to be used for by this board and hopefully the finance committee in the coming months for how to utilize those dogs.

[33:27] Correct. Yes. Sounds good. Okay, so now that gets us speaking of the Finance Committee to our joint meeting with the Finance Committee.

[33:34] I wouldn't invite any members of the Finance Committee to join us up here in these fine seats.

[33:39] I see at least two of you and then some of you on the internets.

[33:47] Chair is on. I'm trying to see if there are other members on.

[33:52] I do not see. You do have a quorum now because you have tick, Emily. He is online. Yeah.

[34:06] So I yield to you, Mr. Trussle, to open your finance committee meeting at 6.31 p.m.

[34:18] I'm not going to open it.

[34:21] Is that what you're asking?

[34:22] Yes, yes.

[34:23] Yes, you should call your main door.

[34:31] So it's meeting in the corner yesterday,

[34:34] the junkyard for Latin.

[34:37] You want to buy a call room?

[34:58] Royce here, Dick.

[35:07] So you've got Emily and Roy sitting in this room

[35:11] and you're sitting in your room.

[35:15] Yes, you do everybody who's speaking in this room to try to speak at roughly this tone,

[35:24] so that people can hear on line, all right, Miss Hodges,

[35:39] Dick, can you hear Kate?

[35:51] In fairness, I was mumbling.

[35:55] In the interest of full disclosure, Dick, she was actually mumbling.

[35:58] I wasn't wondering. You did hear what you said.

[36:01] Well, I didn't really say anything.

[36:03] Nothing of something.

[36:05] OK, can everybody who is not in the room see the screen?

[36:10] And hopefully those in the room.

[36:12] Yeah, that's what.

[36:13] Can you guys write the live screen?

[36:15] OK, thank you.

[36:19] So this evening, there are several parts

[36:23] of the presentation.

[36:24] and rather than go through it the way we did in the last two years, which was sort of a marathon of we talking.

[36:33] And then if there were questions about the initial things, sometimes we had gotten so far past that that people didn't know.

[36:39] So I'd rather go through everything kind of subject matter at a time.

[36:45] So the topics that we're looking to go through tonight, a very quick initial review of the key terms and the difference between the types of capital.

[36:53] some questions and requests from the administration, myself, Kelly, and Cheryl,

[37:00] Airbnb regarding some policy and management needs that we need for the

[37:05] finance committee now that we're in a position where we have put money into

[37:13] a stabilization account and where I hope that we will continue to at least

[37:17] recommend doing so as we move forward and then the board can have a discussion about

[37:24] next steps on that if any. Then I'll go over the outlay requests and get any

[37:29] questions for outlay. Then we have members of the library, Joan Mule and

[37:35] Miss Emily Rose who are here to discuss the proposed library project which is on the

[37:43] debt plan as a placeholder, and then review other debt projects.

[37:48] Now, this is just an exercise today in letting folks know what the entire debt would be if

[37:56] we were to finance everything that we need in the upcoming five years.

[38:00] That is not to say that that is a good idea, and it is not to say that we are proposing that.

[38:04] But I think when people start talking about we need to do this, and we need to do this,

[38:09] It's helpful to at least put a price tag to it, even if it's in $2,024.

[38:16] Then we have you all can deliberate on determinations and

[38:21] discussions for certain projects, if any.

[38:25] And then the staff would be looking for direction for

[38:28] next steps, because what we have in capital helps to inform not only our budget process,

[38:34] but we're going to be going into general fund requests in the upcoming couple of weeks.

[38:38] and then any other capital related business.

[38:41] So in terms of capital, there are two types of capital plans.

[38:46] All different types of communities call them different things,

[38:49] but for art purposes we have a capital outlay plan,

[38:53] which describes projects or acquisitions

[38:57] that are in the certain criteria that are listed here

[39:00] and have an average cost that is dictated by the community.

[39:04] So, for laycaster, when we began this process about three years ago, we had our capital

[39:09] outlay at about a $10,000 average.

[39:12] It's helpful to know that the state's average for outlay is about $25,000, but the average

[39:18] of course takes into account very large cities and communities with far more robust budgets

[39:23] who can allocate $20,000 for IT, for example, within the levy.

[39:29] So we chose 10 because we thought that that meant, you know, something that was out of the ordinary,

[39:36] potentially at one time, or at the very least would have a useful life of more than five years.

[39:42] The biggest difference in capital outlay and debt is projects or acquisitions that are paid by cash.

[39:51] So again, outlay is cash capital and...

[40:07] I'm going to

[40:19] try to go out and go back.

[40:21] I'm just going to get a little bit of a big crash.

[40:23] No, that was it.

[40:24] It had me like in a different browser.

[40:27] And it's been happening all day.

[40:28] I don't know why.

[40:41] Doing this crazy use of my cell phone.

[40:43] I did reach out to the applicant for the Halloween on the green pouring license.

[40:47] And they always put in extra time at the beginning and the end for setup breakdown and cleanup.

[40:52] I just wanted to, people, real time updates on what's going on here in town government.

[41:11] And no, you're not missing anything, we're not saying anything.

[41:16] Okay, so here's the agenda slide, but I probably don't need to go back through that.

[41:22] Here's where we were.

[41:23] So okay.

[41:24] That's right.

[41:26] So, again, cash capital is outlay and then debt is clearly things that are bothered and borrowed.

[41:35] As far as debt, we have our financing threshold cards at $100,000 with a useful life of at least five years if not more.

[41:46] We right now have an internal policy that long-term debt should not exceed the life of the asset.

[41:52] But although interestingly, we're still paying for the small portion of the high school

[41:58] that is going to be demolished, so well, that is an inlay castor.

[42:02] We are in violation of that, but only for one year, so I think that needs to be revisited.

[42:09] And debt should be hopefully managed under 20 years.

[42:14] Again, large scale projects like the school that wouldn't be necessarily doable, but

[42:19] But again, those are different when they're at the district wide.

[42:22] So our ask of the finance committee and the select board is to consider creating debt policies to ensure that major projects are planned over a 20 year period.

[42:34] And that the impact to the general fund stays relatively the same.

[42:39] And of course, this is independent of the school.

[42:43] So I don't know is if we can take a position that you're not going to incur any debt for the next 30 years while the school is being paid

[42:51] But I think if we have a way to spread that out in

[42:54] Manageable payments as debt comes off. We can put others on I understand that doesn't

[42:59] Excuse me reduce anybody's taxes and so that probably wouldn't be met with great joy

[43:05] But it it tries to even it out a little bit. So if we're paying

[43:09] $500,000 in debt as something falls off, something else can come in to equal that level.

[43:15] But I think that's a policy decision that the boards need to determine.

[43:18] So I'm also looking for plans to consider for non-excluded debt.

[43:22] So for short term periods, rapid debt repayment.

[43:27] So for example, we take out a loan and we say that we're going to do a 15-year loan, but

[43:34] we want to pre-pay it such that we're taking money from stabilization and

[43:39] pre-paying it over five years so that the last payments are much smaller.

[43:44] That will help us take on a few more projects, again not multi-million dollar

[43:48] projects, but projects like similar to what the library is going to be

[43:51] discussing. We need threshold for free cash transfers, so one of the things that

[43:56] I had suggested last year and we did start talking about it at the finance

[44:01] community level is some kind of general policy and, again, these are subjective policies

[44:07] that, of course, the boards can decide not to go by if there's extenuating circumstances.

[44:12] But for example, if we get our free cash balance certified and it's somewhere between 3%

[44:17] to 5% of our overall operating budget, it would be a best practice to take some portion

[44:22] of that and put it into a capital stabilization.

[44:25] It yields more interest and it also is able to sort of spend down the debt.

[44:29] But that would be very much in keeping with having a rapid debt repayment where we're

[44:33] just paying it from some type of stabilization rather than the tax revenues.

[44:38] And then a plan to consider for outside living limits.

[44:41] So what kind of percentage is the town willing to take on, again, outside of the school, but

[44:47] just generally, how much of a percentage of the debt do we want to incur?

[44:52] It can't be zero, but it certainly shouldn't be 50% because we can't afford to make those

[44:56] payments.

[44:56] So somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot and I think it yeah

[45:00] We have a policy decision for the boards. We also would like a policy to show an impact on property tax, a requirement that we have to show the impact on property taxes before the vote is made. And, well, I know that that's been good practice, and we've tried very hard to do it. There's been times where that hasn't happened in the past, and I think if we have that as a must-do, people might feel more comfortable about voting for something for or against, at least they know a snapshot in time.

[45:28] And some idea about whether the debt should be always general obligation, or whether there's a few others, and what committee oversees enterprise debt.

[45:38] This is coming to the forefront because the water department who I'm hopeful that Scott is still on here is asking for a pretty considerable amount of debt, which understandably they're going to pay for from the enterprise account, but in the interest of flow disclosure,

[45:56] We have been questioning whether the water department has the capacity to pay the premiums on the amount of debt

[46:03] This many years out and you'll see that a little bit later. So who oversees that is that just the board of public works that brings that forward to town meeting

[46:11] Which has been in the past or is there some integration that not can be I don't know if it can be required because they're a separately elected board

[46:19] But you know highly encouraged or something at the finance and flood board level

[46:24] So we're looking at our total debt picture because regardless of where we're paying

[46:28] the premiums from, it impacts our bond rating and it also impacts our cash stability.

[46:36] So I think that those are important pieces as we try to enter into year three of this

[46:41] budget process.

[46:43] So as promised, I'm going to be quiet now, except for now it won't move forward.

[46:48] So I don't even know.

[46:49] Do

[46:53] you have that fun?

[46:54] I think so.

[46:56] Thank you so much.

[46:57] So it is too much that I love questions.

[47:03] I think it was great for this portion.

[47:06] Mr. Trussle, do you have any questions?

[47:08] Or does your committee have any questions?

[47:11] I'll ask about committee members.

[47:15] I do not have any questions.

[47:18] I do not have any questions.

[47:21] Just maybe a quick comment and a question.

[47:25] Yes.

[47:26] Dick, I do have a question and a comment first.

[47:29] First of all, thank you very much for laying this out.

[47:33] It would be helpful because of the rapid way in which you could speak if you could give us a hard copy of this.

[47:41] Absolutely, and I actually have a memo to go along with it.

[47:45] I just didn't want to spoil the fun.

[47:48] Shocking news.

[47:50] I guess I would agree with many of your comments in terms of the needs for policies here.

[47:56] I would say that relative to the question about the enterprise groups, I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, that if an enterprise organization connected with the town in some way fails to pay its debt obligations.

[48:15] The town is then responsible for those debt obligations, correct?

[48:20] Okay, given that, I would say that the finance committee on the select board do have the responsibility and indeed the requirement from our taxpayers to oversee that and make good judgments and vote, yes, we recommend or no, we do not recommend because it could have significant impact on us.

[48:40] So I would answer that question that way, given your answer to my question.

[48:46] Great.

[48:47] No.

[48:50] I'm answer yourself.

[48:51] Who has thought it was that we expressed it before?

[49:11] Nick.

[49:12] Ah.

[49:26] The reference to, like, a policy about transferring into stabilization when free cash is at a percentage?

[49:37] The

[49:48] question was, was that about a policy, a particular policy, a recommendation to create a particular policy?

[49:56] about creating thresholds for stabilization funds, etc.

[50:00] Or is that a particular project that you thought

[50:02] we didn't have the resources now?

[50:07] Still can't get it, I'm sorry.

[50:09] All right.

[50:09] I can't do it, I should have,

[50:11] that we're dealing with, that's all.

[50:37] Before we get to resignations.

[50:39] Thank you.

[50:40] So, first of all, if you resigned right now,

[50:43] you wouldn't have a forum and then we'd be in a real.

[50:46] We could vote the other meeting.

[50:47] Right.

[50:47] Yeah, yeah, if they'd have to keep the meeting going forever

[50:50] Can we just pause for one second while we try to troubleshoot? We sure can we're gonna we're gonna try to troubleshoot

[50:57] This

[51:01] Circumstance

[51:09] Well because you're you're in a closed loop with them on the computer so we're relying on a microphone that's

[51:16] that's hopefully not we just moved into closer to us well can you hear me

[51:32] can you hear me okay yeah can you hear me now

[51:48] okay

[51:52] complete

[51:56] fit right here

[51:57] please ask your clarifying question of this question the question dick was I was

[52:02] I was wondering if when you said that it didn't allow enough flexibility, if you were referencing

[52:09] my question about developing a policy whereby if our free cash is a certain percentage

[52:17] that we would allocate some stabilization.

[53:31] I'm going to ask if Jason has any comments and then we can yeah so so real real quick. I think I agree with Dick

[53:39] But I want to say that like policy is not law and I think of policy as guidelines and there may be situations for any policy that we need to make an intelligent decision.

[53:53] So I'm all for the policies and the guidelines and then we got to go be leaders after that point. So did I agree with you? I'm more worried about not doing anything and kind of being in just some sort of circular.

[54:17] I would suggest that relative to the policies, always a good thing to do is to put into the policy, what board, what person, what elevation level can override this policy or food exceptions.

[54:34] So I think that's an important criteria to put them in there and Dick, I think it will help with the issues you're bringing up.

[54:42] So, Mike, sorry Dick, go ahead.

[54:47] I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

[55:19] Yeah, those are all really good questions.

[55:21] We'll have Katie answer them and then if we can move on to end

[55:26] this portion of the meeting with asking for draft policies to be written up for us to consider and for us to hold.

[55:34] I think it's a help, first of all, the process of writing the draft policies, I think, is going to be helpful.

[55:40] I would be shocked if there weren't already drafts somewhere in the world.

[55:44] And so I don't think it's, I don't suspect it'll take very long for us to see copies in advance of another joint meeting where we can really maybe even focus solely on these questions.

[55:54] So I think there's a lot of good nuance in there that's important for us to cover in both the flags that you and Roy have raised.

[56:09] So I'm going to answer your question and then we'll move on to get each board to vote

[56:15] to authorize Kate to draft some policies and get back to us.

[56:19] Yeah, so the quick answer to the question, Dick, is that any transfer from the stabilization

[56:27] for any purpose requires a town meeting vote?

[56:30] And so what will happen is that we're essentially going to be having a town meeting vote a whole year ahead of time

[56:38] Give or take

[56:40] Before we need to spend it and then

[56:43] Whatever is not spent we can either transfer back

[56:49] Or you know, you could red line it and put it into

[56:53] Another budgetary category, but but you are right that it doesn't allow the flexibility because of the town meeting

[56:59] But it's not like it's going to be taken out necessarily in one fiscal year use the next month and then just sit around floating.

[57:06] It all remains part of the general fund until we move it back for the accounting principles.

[57:10] So that's sort of the short answer to it, but I understand and you are right that it does limit the ability to just have it for any other purpose.

[57:20] and in my opinion that was the point right is to say we're going to take this

[57:26] free cash and use it to reduce it effectively reduces the tax rate because

[57:31] we're already allocating money to debt that we know we're going to owe. So for

[57:37] this fiscal year it would have gone up two dollars and 19 cents and now it's

[57:40] only going to go up a dollar give or take because we already have a million

[57:45] then allocated an FY26 to a $1.97 million bill.

[57:52] I understand.

[57:55] Thank you.

[57:56] Thank you.

[57:57] All right.

[57:57] Dick, do you want to request a motion from your committee

[58:02] to join the select board in tasking the Title Administrator

[58:06] to draft policies for our consideration on a future date?

[58:12] Or consideration on a future date?

[58:19] We're voting so that she knows she has the authority to draft up some policies that

[58:24] we've just talked about.

[58:26] It doesn't mean we agree to them, that drafts them and we can go look through them in

[58:29] detail.

[58:30] But these are concepts, those will be written up.

[58:42] Yes, Dick. I'll move to authorize Kate to work with the Finance Committee and with the Select Board to provide a draft of the policies, financial policies that she discussed here tonight and it needs to be determined.

[59:20] Thank you, sir. All right. It's our motion to do the same. So, Luke, second, any discussion?

[59:29] You're not always in favor.

[59:34] All right.

[59:35] Fourth and draft.

[59:35] All right.

[59:36] The board is in direct.

[59:37] There's no right now.

[59:38] No.

[59:40] We have all the things to do.

[59:41] They're the clarity.

[59:42] Go run out of the room and draft.

[59:45] All right, so we have...

[59:46] That was the...

[59:48] Part one.

[59:50] Sorry.

[59:51] Part two.

[59:52] We have to get to this here.

[59:54] So, I've got FY 26 Cavalier Quest draft.

[59:57] Craft Debt Plan, which is what we're just...

[1:00:00] So I'm moving on to outlay now. Other capital outlay matters. Yeah, you know, there's nothing on the agenda. This is all one agenda item. Okay. So I was wondering where part two was. Okay. I made it up. Take it away. So we're going through the outlay request here. So remember, this is cash capital. That's a big sticker item right there with $898.5. But please understand that that had a recommendation of at least 250 in stabilization.

[1:00:27] if that is off the table, then we're down to $6.48.

[1:00:39] If he drops over, we're not going to have the forum.

[1:00:41] So one of the things we talked about last year,

[1:00:46] are these reoccurring expenses that, in theory,

[1:00:50] have been happening for years and years,

[1:00:52] and I will use the replacement of at least one cruiser every year.

[1:00:58] That has been happening,

[1:01:00] But I think memorializing and it's sort of an annual allocation has been helpful.

[1:01:06] So this is the first year that the capital plan contemplates that and sort of calls it out.

[1:01:13] So in terms of technology, this is for computer replacements, phone replacements,

[1:01:17] deadline replacements, all of the things in all of the different town buildings and organizations.

[1:01:23] So that is a little bit less than maybe seven computers a year, and understand that we have, you know, well over a hundred and something which are it's on the inventory plan that I gave everybody.

[1:01:36] How long does those computers expect to the last?

[1:01:38] I mean, our tech monitors say somewhere in the neighborhood of five years, but we have built it out for seven to eight.

[1:01:47] So we have others that have, it depends on the use, you know, I don't think so.

[1:01:59] So some of them have lasted a lot, if you leave them in a box, they'll last forever.

[1:02:03] It has not been particularly affordable to do a five-year replacement with the volume.

[1:02:08] That doesn't mean we can't get there when we catch up, but we have some computers.

[1:02:12] There's this is actually one in the library that is 13 years old.

[1:02:16] So congratulations.

[1:02:17] Is that the old one?

[1:02:18] Is it in the museum, part of the museum?

[1:02:21] In the Civil War Museum, or what?

[1:02:24] So in terms of records retention, this is for birth records, death records, things like

[1:02:29] that.

[1:02:29] And for a very long time, there was shoe boxes or pieces of paper and I think digitizing things

[1:02:36] has been helpful.

[1:02:36] We've started that Mandy Cannon has been great in doing that over the past couple of years

[1:02:42] and so that's to continue with that. Planning studies, obviously these are for peer reviews for things that the

[1:02:49] Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Appeals wants to do that's independent of what the applicant is going to ask for.

[1:02:55] So these are questions about setbacks, conservation, those kind of things. So these are the things that projects are coming forward.

[1:03:02] And they want to get somebody's opinion outside of the required peer review from the developer.

[1:03:09] This is the ability to do that.

[1:03:11] Human services, $10,000 for printing.

[1:03:13] They want to send a newsletter and we'd really like to start doing that.

[1:03:17] That was what we did started this year, 5,000 for disability commission.

[1:03:21] The last couple of years, they used it for the resource guide.

[1:03:25] That's for that commission to decide not a great deal of money, but

[1:03:28] it's something that they can do impactfully.

[1:03:30] historical commission $10,000 for, you know, their use,

[1:03:35] either programmatic, you know, general maintenance, grant matches.

[1:03:39] So I think the historical commission will talk a little bit more about that

[1:03:44] at their general meetings, 25,000 for facilities in general.

[1:03:48] So that's all facilities, a window, breaks.

[1:03:51] One of the solar panels, well, actually, that would be enterprise.

[1:03:54] But, you know, anything happens.

[1:03:55] That sprinkler head gets damaged, anything like that, key, new keys, facilities, parks and

[1:04:02] ADA, there's money in there and then the police, I'm sorry, the public safety equipment is for

[1:04:07] the systematic replacement of the self-contained breathing apparatus for the fire and EMTs

[1:04:12] and then obviously the police vehicle is last, which is something that's been happening for years.

[1:04:16] And that's about $200,000.

[1:04:18] The nice thing about the annual allocation is that if we don't,

[1:04:24] I'm sorry, was someone saying something?

[1:04:31] Dick, but you didn't, I'm sorry.

[1:04:33] Okay, so if we don't use the entirety,

[1:04:36] it will just remain in free cash.

[1:04:38] So there's a sort of a pay as you go.

[1:04:40] It wouldn't be any more than this,

[1:04:41] but depending on if we have a relatively good year facilities

[1:04:45] wise and things don't break, then we might not use this.

[1:04:48] What

[1:05:11] in this?

[1:05:13] Oh, in this.

[1:05:14] This is a systematic replacement every year.

[1:05:16] We take the oldest cruiser and replace it with a new one.

[1:05:19] So you would see the way I built it out in the overall plan is I increased it by about a thousand every year.

[1:05:26] Just I

[1:05:54] think I'm hearing who say is that is that you believe that when we started shifting the fleet to electric that you would be able to extend their replacement time by a year.

[1:06:06] Is that what you're saying exactly

[1:06:12] so the one and the ones we're buying are replacing older ones that are internal combustion engine vehicles.

[1:06:19] They may be the case, Dick, and I'm just speaking, I'm looking at the committee, so he'll tell me when I'm wrong, that when we have an all-electric fleet, that we will be able to stretch out the replacement time frame longer, but while we're still dealing with replacing some internal combustion engine vehicles, they still have to be replaced earlier, even if we do end up replacing them with an electric vehicle.

[1:07:12] Let me tell you, I joined the Finance Committee in 1996 and we had this very conversation

[1:07:20] 28 years ago because we would get to a crisis point where we needed to replace a cruiser

[1:07:27] and we eventually realized we replaced one on average every year because of the mileage

[1:07:32] that ran up, it is sure if there's a vehicle, I know there's oftentimes, or at least

[1:07:39] in the past, I don't want to assume, where we've transferred a vehicle from an active

[1:07:43] cruiser part of the fleet to another use for the town, so we don't necessarily get rid

[1:07:47] of it, but it's useful life as a cruiser has a useful life that is relatively by route,

[1:07:56] right?

[1:07:56] There's very few exceptions that a cruiser is going to be used less than another one,

[1:08:01] And so, this is not a new practice, whether it's a policy or not, it's not a new practice,

[1:08:10] but I do think it is good policy.

[1:08:21] Actually, replaced the administrative fire vehicle that was no longer working, and then we sold that on municipal.

[1:08:37] No, it was, yeah, it was an issue.

[1:08:37] They have three cars.

[1:08:44] Yes, it was.

[1:08:45] Yes, it was.

[1:08:45] But I don't want us to get too far a field on them.

[1:08:57] So these were non-reoccurring and there in no particular order was the community center

[1:09:05] HVAC changes or maintenance to the Prescott parking lot, budget software, expansion in

[1:09:16] all-terrain vehicle for the fire department, highway truck replacement, highway barn, oil

[1:09:22] furnace and a highway bar and roof replacement. So in terms of the community center HVAC and

[1:09:30] keeping with the town's green initiatives highlighted throughout the updated master plan.

[1:09:34] HVAC mini splits have been proposed for each of the rooms in the community center where people gather

[1:09:40] including the gymnasium, the cafe and the first floor activities room. These will replace standalone

[1:09:46] window units, which are costly to run, inefficient and subject to failures often.

[1:09:52] Particularly when folks are in the rooms and they turn them on and off or they

[1:09:55] adjust them up and down. You can see some of those in this picture and obviously

[1:09:59] the leaking one on the left hand side. The second request is for $35,000 to purchase

[1:10:08] paving materials and asphalt needed to repair the back parking lot area outside of

[1:10:14] press caught and the lower ADA parking lot at the community center.

[1:10:20] When you say the suggestion is to replace the current air conditions with a mini-slit

[1:10:25] in each room.

[1:10:26] You have someone doing engineering study, fine.

[1:10:28] Thank you.

[1:10:28] Yes.

[1:10:30] The question was do we have someone doing engineering study relative to replace in the current

[1:10:34] units with the mini-slit's the answer was yes.

[1:10:42] Thanks.

[1:10:42] Quite $25 capital plan and the general fund budget the town proposed an expensive about $7,000 to purchase

[1:10:52] Interacting budgeting software. So I included a link and a QR code on the slides

[1:10:57] So when I give it to everybody you can go to the actual website and check it out

[1:11:01] It's probably the same video that you might have seen last year, but for those who may have forgotten it. I was hoping to

[1:11:13] She stopped talking to him

[1:11:15] You didn't trail off. She just stopped talking mid-sentence. Is

[1:11:24] this the same software?

[1:11:26] Mm-hmm, it was currently known. You know, we don't have any software.

[1:11:29] Or, I thought we'd do it. You have projects where?

[1:11:31] No.

[1:11:31] Okay.

[1:11:34] It's never failed.

[1:11:34] Which is not very good.

[1:11:36] It was proposed last year.

[1:11:37] Oh, that's right.

[1:11:39] Okay.

[1:11:40] Are you, what are you attempting to do? You're

[1:11:46] just, you know, sharing a different story.

[1:11:48] It's going to happen.

[1:11:55] You're not missing anything.

[1:11:57] Sorry.

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[1:13:13] filling out a few fields and pointing the tool to the specific content you want to

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[1:13:20] Not really.

[1:13:20] The only child is a table.

[1:13:22] OK, well, I guess the general idea.

[1:13:26] So I was there.

[1:13:28] You could unmute that.

[1:13:29] Yeah, why not?

[1:13:30] Yes, just.

[1:13:31] There's a QR code you could see.

[1:13:33] Yeah.

[1:13:34] For our friends online, there's a QR code we'll throw up

[1:13:39] and folks in the room can scan it as well.

[1:13:43] And what's presentation?

[1:13:45] So in addition to what the budget book does,

[1:13:48] There is also a capital personnel enterprise operating and other budget which the finance

[1:13:56] director Cheryl Garvey has proposed.

[1:14:00] It is not inexpensive as it's about $19,000 a year.

[1:14:06] That would include the budget, the budget book right now, the budget book portion of that

[1:14:11] is $5,500.

[1:14:13] So certainly go to the QR code we can talk about it a little bit more in depth and definitely at the finance committee meeting we'll do a presentation of that.

[1:14:23] And if the committee is interested we can have the folks from Cleargov come in with a much better presentation than my YouTube.

[1:14:34] But it is worthwhile, when you go to other communities that have it, you're able to build

[1:14:40] the report based on the data that you want to see as the residents.

[1:14:44] So if you're interested in how your home taxes and houses equate to that of your neighbors,

[1:14:51] that's one thing.

[1:14:52] If you want to look at it based on square footage, that's another thing.

[1:14:55] if you want to look at how much of your personal tax dollars goes to.

[1:15:00] The police commissioner versus the title administrator, you can do that. So there's a lot to do. It's a lot of data input that goes in. But with the new software program that was purchased right prior to when I started, which is beta, we have the ability to constantly put in these sheets into it. So it would stay updated and I think would be helpful. And certainly people can use it or not. But I think it's a pretty robust system. So it's neat.

[1:15:30] That said, it might not be $20,000 neat.

[1:15:35] Right, right.

[1:15:36] I mean, primary benefit of this would be to the residents, to the taxpayers to answer questions.

[1:15:42] Would it help with the preparation of budgets?

[1:15:45] Yes.

[1:15:46] So, as you may know, we had a budgeting person that worked here and she has sensed left.

[1:15:52] And so in the wake of that person leaving, Cheryl and I tried to investigate how it was

[1:16:01] that we could perhaps use technology, not that I think technology replaces human beings

[1:16:06] but just to try to supplement it a little bit.

[1:16:09] And there is something to be said about what it can do.

[1:16:14] This is going to be an interesting year because it's a bit hybrid because we're starting to

[1:16:18] to build it and putting all of the data in it.

[1:16:21] And I'm already starting the budget book.

[1:16:23] So I think we're gonna get a bit of a half and a half

[1:16:26] this year, but certainly the following year,

[1:16:30] it would all be automated and on lockup,

[1:16:32] which is, you know, really the goal.

[1:16:35] Okay, so the fire altering vehicle,

[1:16:41] so project three relates to the acquisition

[1:16:45] of an altering vehicle for public safety.

[1:16:47] So just anecdotally, some months ago, a gentleman was walking in the woods with a family member when he would got fatigued and could not walk out on his own.

[1:16:56] It took police and fire nearly an hour to locate him more than a mile back on the trail and then the commissioner and Lieutenant Aldrich.

[1:17:05] Han carried him out of the woods on a stretcher and it was 90 something degrees, but they did a good job doing it.

[1:17:12] So this situation happens more often than people realize, and so the ability to get a vehicle

[1:17:20] in and around safely in our trail system without damaging a lot of the trails even if it's

[1:17:26] only halfway down I think would have helped that particular situation.

[1:17:30] So I offer that just as a more recent example, but there's-

[1:17:33] Can I ask, what's the average lifespan of not a human being of an all-fire all-terrain vehicle?

[1:17:42] It's about $35,000.

[1:17:46] So it's about $35,000.

[1:17:46] About three.

[1:17:47] Three tons of dollars.

[1:17:49] Yeah.

[1:17:49] When it comes time to discuss this more, I would love to know how many calls this would have

[1:17:54] helped.

[1:17:55] Is it one or is it like a hundred?

[1:17:57] I just want to understand that.

[1:17:58] Good question.

[1:17:59] We've been looking out there for a little bit of a purpose,

[1:18:01] so I don't really for obviously purpose,

[1:18:03] but also to be able to put something

[1:18:05] in a brush compatible,

[1:18:07] small contained for water,

[1:18:10] to deliver water and to put out brush fires

[1:18:12] in our forest. That is something that happens

[1:18:14] far more often than the other.

[1:18:16] But both are equally important to our trail system.

[1:18:19] I just want to make sure we're differentiating

[1:18:21] between like a nice to have,

[1:18:22] versus a really should have.

[1:18:23] That would be my point.

[1:18:25] Thank you.

[1:18:25] We'll have a really good presentation.

[1:18:26] Thank you.

[1:18:30] Is Scott McDonald on?

[1:18:32] I did not see him on track together.

[1:18:36] Yes, I'm here.

[1:18:37] Did you want to talk about the highway replacement?

[1:18:45] I'm not quite sure which one let's wait in three places.

[1:18:48] But we've got a few that need to be in three places.

[1:18:53] So any purpose, welcome.

[1:18:57] We've been waiting and I know on our equipment three places

[1:19:09] This is a replacement of a 2011 Chevy C-2500, which has 105,000 miles and rust on the body.

[1:19:18] This is not a picture of that.

[1:19:20] I would hope so.

[1:19:22] There is another truck in there that has the blown engine.

[1:19:28] Is that being replaced here or that's not being replaced with this truck?

[1:19:31] That is not at this time.

[1:19:32] Okay. Okay. No. It's not the one with people on the table.

[1:19:37] I don't know what to get. You know what you're doing as

[1:19:42] well.

[1:19:43] I mentioned today.

[1:19:48] Any other questions from Scott?

[1:19:49] I have one that's not related to replacement of the truck that could go to Scott Arcade.

[1:19:54] It's related to the paving and the press got parking lot in the back of the community centers.

[1:19:59] Are there any way we can see cost reduction by working with DPW on any excess asphalt or materials that they may have to?

[1:20:08] We're just buying. That's the price to buy the asphalt and then they would do the work other than that

[1:20:15] It would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000. But there's no

[1:20:19] Commune skills by

[1:20:21] By him and they buy all the asphalt that they buy

[1:20:24] Four roads patching things like that. I mean the answer can be no. I just I don't I don't I don't I don't know

[1:20:31] We can all of the ways to make

[1:20:36] and then there's two projects that are proposed for the DPW facilities. Scott, did you want

[1:20:43] to mention the $100,000 to replace the 25-year-old roof? Yeah, roof for the highway building in 15,000

[1:20:53] to replace the waste oil furnace in the highway barn. Yeah, the roof of the highway barn and

[1:21:05] pretty good

[1:21:06] I've been working with these, uh, during that,

[1:21:10] with this buzz on structural damage, the building itself, that, uh, the longer it goes, uh, um,

[1:21:19] in a garage like that,

[1:21:23] it's everything in the ceiling, so it's getting ruined.

[1:21:28] And, uh, with these little furnaces, I've been reading these 15 years old, and it has some deficiencies in the glass chamber where the sexual fraction, and then you can see the flames.

[1:21:48] Yeah, yes, yes, take.

[1:21:52] Is this out?

[1:21:58] Which one the truck?

[1:22:00] The trunk.

[1:22:19] You must bring out money.

[1:22:23] Excuse me.

[1:22:23] I don't know.

[1:22:27] I mean, there is our equipment.

[1:22:28] The sun's bad, checkers.

[1:22:29] It just won't be rentary.

[1:22:37] We can't be rentary.

[1:22:50] Confused folks, Scott.

[1:22:51] We're not talking about replacing that one.

[1:22:52] I don't want to confuse folks.

[1:22:54] No,

[1:22:57] no.

[1:22:58] Any

[1:23:00] other questions, Scott?

[1:23:04] Okay.

[1:23:11] Before she wraps up, I've got two quick questions.

[1:23:14] As you can see, this is not a wrap up.

[1:23:16] Okay,

[1:23:19] I got two quick questions, we're talking about new trucks and vehicles.

[1:23:24] There are two on the inventory that I'm bringing up a question in terms of should be looked

[1:23:28] at for possible because they're very likely used and we may not, I'm wondering if we need

[1:23:33] them.

[1:23:34] There is a, in facilities and buildings, there's a 2023 Ford Explorer that appears less

[1:23:40] than 50 miles a year if the mileage is correct.

[1:23:43] My question is why do we need that and we backfill some other way for that usage.

[1:23:49] And the second thing is there's also a Nissan LEAF 2018 that's used for less than 700 miles a year.

[1:23:55] Could we look to replace that one and replace it with some other way?

[1:24:02] I don't know what it's neat uses for.

[1:24:04] So the Ford Explorer is the building commissioners administrative truck.

[1:24:10] And that is to cover him for insurance when he's out on inspections.

[1:24:15] He uses it obviously in town so it doesn't get high mileage but he absolutely needs it.

[1:24:20] He uses it every day.

[1:24:22] And the leaf is the staff vehicle that's used primarily by the assessors when they go out and

[1:24:31] do assessments and inspections on properties.

[1:24:34] But it's also used by every other staff member including those in health and

[1:24:38] services when they have to go down to pick up food at the food bank or when they're doing so again also around town low

[1:24:44] mileage fully electric but utilize every day even if it's just for a mile or two so you know that would not okay good

[1:24:53] question so again this is the same slide that you already saw this is the outlay draft plan and of course we

[1:25:04] We haven't received anything from the school yet.

[1:25:07] So this is the municipal side of the draft, sorry, draft, the draft, outlight plan.

[1:25:16] Okay.

[1:25:18] Any,

[1:25:22] Dick?

[1:25:33] I have a quick comment, I would have a quick comment.

[1:25:35] While I agree with the general principle of allocating a certain amount for these annual

[1:25:40] outlates as you identify, I would also ask that you periodically review them.

[1:25:45] and look at how, what was spent and have the managers review each year to decide do we still need that amount of money and

[1:25:55] ensure that there are some less than appropriate ways of managing budgets where people can come in, you know.

[1:26:05] Well, I won't go into a lot of details, but just review the use of the budget and have managers look at it and say, yes, I still need it or

[1:26:12] I could do a little bit better by doing this and this and I just asked them to look at it periodically so just in response to that

[1:26:19] This is year one. Yeah, so we use last year's amounts. So they're based in fact, but we

[1:26:25] That can't happen until year two and great. We'll go back and say we we did implement the annual so I think you're absolutely right

[1:26:33] I'm looking to the future with and we love it.

[1:26:38] Wait

[1:26:39] I'm all set. Thanks.

[1:26:43] Thank you. We're all sounds like we're okay. So we are now going to turn to the proposed debt projects and I am going

[1:27:00] to ask the library folks to come up. I have their presentation and I'm going to share

[1:27:11] And

[1:27:15] yeah, can I just make a quick suggestion. I think we can take the podium out of the equation.

[1:27:21] Okay. No, yeah, I was going to suggest either Emily, you go sit next to Roy and you two sit as close to this as possible.

[1:27:29] Close to what? To the power. Right next to me.

[1:27:36] You go over there in case you have to.

[1:27:38] Yeah, you can't get out of here.

[1:27:39] I'm great.

[1:27:41] Good effort Emily, but I'm different Emily, you got to go there that way.

[1:27:47] Yeah.

[1:27:48] Where can I hit it?

[1:27:49] All right.

[1:27:52] Right here.

[1:27:53] I'm a dick.

[1:27:55] We're going to do a voice test.

[1:27:56] Jomila is going to talk.

[1:27:57] I'll say one, two, three and we'll have happy growth there.

[1:28:00] Richard Russell.

[1:28:03] I'll take it away.

[1:28:04] Okay.

[1:28:05] Take it away.

[1:28:05] What's the fun?

[1:28:06] So,

[1:28:15] so this is a presentation of the capital building, building capital project that we've

[1:28:22] been working on for, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years and it's kind of come

[1:28:30] to a head in some some ways.

[1:28:32] So the information that I've derived to make this presentation are from three reports and

[1:28:41] And since 2015, we've known a lot about the problems and the roof, Spencer Sullivan started

[1:28:50] working on our building and the property in 2020, and finally, most recently earlier

[1:28:57] this year, they created a master plan.

[1:29:02] So there is no fluffy stuff in this.

[1:29:05] There is just medical things that need to be improved,

[1:29:11] things of that nature, yeah, it's kind of neat.

[1:29:17] But that's the project scope.

[1:29:19] There's no furniture, there's no new additions,

[1:29:24] there's no anything to create new services.

[1:29:29] So what is deferred maintenance?

[1:29:31] Deferred maintenance is basically you have something

[1:29:35] and you use it until it breaks. At least that's been the strategy the town has had with the library in particular with HVAC units.

[1:29:45] We've been writing on move problems ever since I got here in 2001 but we've kind of reached a moment right now where we just can't wait too much longer.

[1:30:00] Before these really become problematic. So those are a couple of divisions that we're looking to improve.

[1:30:10] So Jason, what if we didn't do anything? Firstly, don't blame the messenger. You know, the information that's coming next isn't pretty. So this is a projection of what the cost of doing the entire project is from last year.

[1:30:32] 2024 early to 2030 and so you could see from 2024 to 2026 it's a little less

[1:30:45] than a million dollars more and these will continue but actually it's a

[1:30:52] little bit more like 50 million 500 thousand dollars more but these prices will

[1:30:58] will go up, right now the prices are based on an 8% increase that's on all the divisions

[1:31:04] and all the professional work that needs to be doing. It's a number and it was recommended

[1:31:09] by our architects.

[1:31:13] So what if we don't do anything with the roof of Masonry?

[1:31:19] So Masonry

[1:31:20] helps the building hold itself steady. So the building has to have way equally distributed

[1:31:28] it amongst it otherwise you get problems like leaks, mold, pests, damaged paintwork, damaged

[1:31:38] walls and brick, as well as damaged books. So with poor masonry everything else follows in

[1:31:48] terms of the problems you're going to have with your infrastructure and maintaining your building.

[1:31:54] So, this is another chart showing you in the kind of orangeish, I don't know, rosish,

[1:32:04] where that price was in $24, and where we are now in $26, as well as if we continue

[1:32:10] to wait.

[1:32:13] What if we don't do anything heating, ventilation, and air conditioning?

[1:32:18] This is scary guys.

[1:32:20] So the library's best unit is over 30 years old, and we had a renovation in 1999.

[1:32:27] Why is the, we didn't update the HVAC 25 years ago?

[1:32:32] Well, actually we didn't update it. We installed new units in the new parts of the building during the renovation.

[1:32:39] We didn't touch the old stuff to save money. And considering how well some of the units were, it made sense.

[1:32:46] So our 30-year unit is still our best unit.

[1:32:51] I want that one.

[1:32:52] Terrific.

[1:32:53] Can I take it off the wall?

[1:32:54] Please.

[1:32:54] Great.

[1:32:56] So three units are down, including the museum,

[1:33:00] which is supposed to have an environmentally controlled effect.

[1:33:03] That was blown up during a snowstorm in fiscal year 2014.

[1:33:08] Most recently, it's the Nathaniel Dexter meeting room

[1:33:11] and the director's office hasn't had an air conditioner

[1:33:16] in 10 years. My board has urgently tried to address it, but I'm holding them back. Please

[1:33:24] don't do it yet.

[1:33:27] So the other really important thing is, is that the coolant we're using

[1:33:32] is grossly out of date. And the reasons, of course, are principally because of the high

[1:33:44] rule that we have to stop using our 22 coolant. And the new coolant begins in

[1:33:51] calendar 2025 which is going to be more efficient and it's also going to be

[1:33:57] much fewer hydrocarbons for a couple. So the HVAC even in the better days of

[1:34:05] 2024 was going to be real money. We have 14 zones, we have a boiler which

[1:34:12] which isn't going to be replaced, and it's not simple as just adding split systems.

[1:34:19] And we have rooms with incredibly high ceilings that right now are hard to keep warm.

[1:34:27] So engineers have the ideas of putting something together in the feasibility study.

[1:34:34] It has some details.

[1:34:35] Now I provided Kate copies of these reports that can be distributed to all of you and I'll try to get them on the website too for anybody who's watching who might want to see them.

[1:34:47] All of this is, these numbers are recalculated so they're actually a little bit lower than where they may have given you Kate.

[1:34:56] So this is another big one, the carpeting.

[1:35:01] So, to replace the carpeting, the building is 20,000 square feet.

[1:35:06] The most economical way is to use tiles.

[1:35:10] Because if a tile goes bad, you just put it in a new tile.

[1:35:14] But more than that, all of the collections have to be moved or a good portion of them.

[1:35:20] And they generally will have to be held off site.

[1:35:23] So there's a lot of labor in this, plus you have to junk stuff.

[1:35:29] It's not as simple as just saying, well, wait a minute, the carpet only costs $100,000.

[1:35:33] There's a lot of moving parts.

[1:35:36] And this includes the vendors, the architects, profit, and fully overhead that goes into something.

[1:35:43] So as reliable as these numbers may be, it includes everything of the project,

[1:35:51] key takeaways.

[1:35:53] So there is a question, was there any question on carpet to stage over time?

[1:36:03] Where's the salt stage over time?

[1:36:05] I only give you the final cost. Can you talk to me?

[1:36:12] Well, you could be talking to the finance committee.

[1:36:16] They don't know about the carpet.

[1:36:17] So no, this is all at once the carpet, that's the cost I'm giving you if you did the project as it's represented.

[1:36:25] How the town determines to finance it?

[1:36:28] No, I just don't want to be getting yelled at by a future of me in 25 years for why we replace all the carpet at once and then we have to replace all the carpet once again.

[1:36:38] Okay, 25 years. We'll allow more than 1.2 months.

[1:36:40] We'll add all got replaced in 25 years ago.

[1:36:44] And we've been declaimed many times and it's a lot of good things that we care about.

[1:36:51] We remember as a newer building and they've already replaced their carpet.

[1:36:55] Well, don't blame us for their bad decisions.

[1:36:57] That's true. And they've made quite a few.

[1:37:01] Right. As the Finance Committee rep, as asking maybe the hard question,

[1:37:06] Yeah, sure. Why do we replace putting carpeting when we know that's going to have to go out?

[1:37:11] Why don't we use some of the new tile or wood sets of things and that kind of stuff?

[1:37:16] I can all one of the answers comes to me as well. It's a library. You don't want something that

[1:37:21] reflects noise. That's right on the floor. Okay. If that's the answer, okay, but I had to ask the

[1:37:26] question. Sure. Because it seems like putting carpeting in less than 25 years ago to rip it out and

[1:37:32] put a new, whereas, you know, the more engineered surfaces they have nowadays would last a long time.

[1:37:39] So Roy, some of the parts of the carpet wear quicker than others.

[1:37:44] Sure, I traffic her.

[1:37:45] So if you use tiles, you might not necessarily have to replace an entire carpet.

[1:37:50] Like this carpet is like that, isn't it?

[1:37:53] You mean squares?

[1:37:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:37:56] So you might be able to improve it as you go along on those high traffic areas.

[1:38:02] I grew up in a house with carpet tiles, we had a lot of discolored, oh yeah, yeah, really?

[1:38:10] It was the 70s, so yeah, the 70s, the band's worn replacing a whole carpet, we just had

[1:38:18] little squares that weren't darker blue than the other squares.

[1:38:22] We're going to close it down here, so I'm going to make a big face.

[1:38:26] Okay, carpet squares are the best one, probably the best one to go.

[1:38:29] You don't want to be in a children's room with that's a glitch, but, you know, I need to ask to make sure I look forward to questions actually.

[1:38:39] So here are some key takeaways.

[1:38:42] So there's the cycle we've always been in, maybe with other town departments, as well, is that the project is scary, expensive, and we delay.

[1:38:52] More of the systems fail, and then the project gets costlier.

[1:38:55] So,

[1:38:59] what is the library and the town done to help itself?

[1:39:02] So right now, if you have noticed, all the windows and doors have been improved, restored.

[1:39:09] And that was from ARPA, CPA, which has already taken out of people's taxes.

[1:39:14] It's earmarked for certain things, and we did $27,000 worth of fundraising.

[1:39:20] So, for the reporting, we're getting $70,000 in CPA, a $10,000 appropriation and the library is kicking in $10,000.

[1:39:33] So, in both of those cases, the library has its own skin in the game.

[1:39:39] People might want to say, hey, there's an NBSC building grant and there is, it built our building back in 2021.

[1:39:46] one. If we were to get it, you know, 1999, he won't, yeah.

[1:39:52] It's okay. Yeah, how are through?

[1:39:55] You're doing good. We know what you're meant. Ha, so long. So if we were to get the grant,

[1:40:01] it would only cover 60,000,000, 60% of it, but NBLC is not interested in covering projects that

[1:40:07] don't offer services in and only deferred maintenance. And if you consider, they won't,

[1:40:13] Well, they have a budget and they will pick you.

[1:40:17] Yeah, I can apply, but right now, the 20 libraries that are qualified,

[1:40:23] that they only choose 10, none of them are deferred maintenance.

[1:40:27] So we would be 21.

[1:40:28] We're very lucky town.

[1:40:29] Yeah.

[1:40:31] I just want to be clear, like you will apply.

[1:40:34] I don't like people that are just assuming they're never going to get you can still apply.

[1:40:38] Sure.

[1:40:39] We can't tell the taxpayers there's a chance even though it's a chance.

[1:40:42] actually. Is there a grant application available? I don't know if we can get a grant on this.

[1:40:48] I was saying we can't get one, but you understand if we say the taxpayers would

[1:40:51] even try to get an eligible grant that we're ineligible for. You didn't tell

[1:40:56] it you said it there unlikely to. No, it's an eligible. It says it in my slide.

[1:41:01] No,

[1:41:04] I understand that and I'm going to take a word back and just use the word in the slide.

[1:41:08] It's incredible. I can still apply for the grant if you would. Thank you.

[1:41:15] Green communities, I'm looking into it with Brian and the most we're going to get for an HVAC system

[1:41:23] is $500,000 and the town requires a town match. So presumably if we were to get money we already have

[1:41:33] That's a match.

[1:41:34] Well, yeah, it's a match.

[1:41:36] Boom.

[1:41:37] But I mean, if it's not a million dollar credit,

[1:41:39] but if we got half a million dollars,

[1:41:42] if somebody else are matched,

[1:41:44] it's half of what we were going to allocate for it, yes?

[1:41:47] That match would be half, yes.

[1:41:50] So we'll go for that, too.

[1:41:52] That's amazing.

[1:41:53] That's amazing.

[1:41:54] That's fantastic.

[1:41:55] That's amazing.

[1:41:56] This is amazing.

[1:41:56] We're already stacking up all the grand opportunities.

[1:41:58] close remarks.

[1:42:03] Listen the library doesn't make any decisions that has an outlay

[1:42:07] without thinking about the tax bills people get and we understand that there

[1:42:15] was an override and a school project approved but this is the oldest civil

[1:42:24] memorial in the country. It's it's important on a historical as a historical

[1:42:29] note. It's next to the Bullfins Church. It's on the historic registers both

[1:42:35] federally and in Massachusetts but and it stands I mean we can get money but

[1:42:43] the lion's share of this has to be paid for by the residents of town.

[1:42:55] But that doesn't mean we're not going to try. Emily right now is trying to get a fundraising committee together. I understand the quills have a foundation that they might just put them on the last right now.

[1:43:09] to see how I did that. You didn't need to say it was there so yeah we're

[1:43:18] gonna always have skin in the game. We're always gonna have our own skin in the

[1:43:22] game and I appreciate that. Can I ask you a question about and I don't want to go back to the

[1:43:38] what deferred maintenance, but it would, I can't measure the only library that has deferred

[1:43:42] maintenance issues and the commonwealth.

[1:43:46] I would say that libraries that have significant deferred maintenance are getting NBLC grants

[1:43:53] that include an addition and more services as part of.

[1:43:58] So the libraries that might, it's probably part of what we did when we got our grant last

[1:44:07] time.

[1:44:07] When we did last year, 80% of our collection was like, you could reach it.

[1:44:12] That was a big part of the pitch.

[1:44:13] But now it's just, you know, I can...

[1:44:16] I was just asking this, is it a common case for us to make to the legislature or to others

[1:44:21] to give them different marching orders or different resources?

[1:44:24] I got to say Steve, I don't know the answer.

[1:44:27] Yeah.

[1:44:28] I appreciate and value your question, but I don't think it matters.

[1:44:32] Because we have stuff that's...

[1:44:35] But my best HVAC unit is from...

[1:44:37] No, I'm not suggesting that I'm just asking you as a professional in library sciences

[1:44:42] if you think it's something that warrants raising it up through policy makers

[1:44:46] because it seems to me as a New England state with a lot of aging libraries

[1:44:51] to rule out deferred, and by the way, difficult financial times across the Commonwealth

[1:44:58] to rule out deferred maintenance.

[1:45:00] As an eligible, it seems like a bad criteria. I'm not suggesting it's by any way it's going to get changed. In time to fix the problems we have, I'm just glad that you flagged it. Yeah, I would say this is a very attractive to legislators earmark because of the historical nature of what and landcast not give up on that. And by the way, as a card carrying member of the.

[1:45:26] It does seem that for energy, mass, save, all that stuff is targeted to residential.

[1:45:34] You know, the heating system proposed is heat pump system, you know, all the latest energy

[1:45:44] efficient, etc. But you know, there's no, you can get maybe 500,000 out of a

[1:45:54] two and a half million. So you still got to come up with two million, yeah.

[1:46:00] Well, there you go, and there are programs for municipal buildings for

[1:46:03] greening. That's the same. To the National Grid, and we would probably have

[1:46:11] somebody who would help us through that. I know I'm working with Brian right now to get

[1:46:16] answers to a lot of questions about our qualifications for the grant.

[1:46:19] I see Mr. Trussle's digital hand up. Dick, do you have questions?

[1:46:25] Yes.

[1:46:59] Actually was out of compliance a long time ago. We're actually using a new coolant right now that

[1:47:06] is also getting replaced. So the new coolant is already expired and they're moving to

[1:47:12] that I believe in January. So we're at least two generations behind on the

[1:47:16] cooling.

[1:47:36] Problems are generally with cooling and not heat.

[1:47:50] I understand the

[1:47:51] question to

[1:47:57] try

[1:48:15] to fix whatever we can't

[1:48:24] infrastructure the building inside

[1:48:26] and outside. One of the CPA grants would

[1:48:42] absolutely say the HVAC and the

[1:48:45] pointing and all of that work.

[1:48:49] Not the HVAC, I'm sorry, the roof definitely and

[1:48:54] and the re-pointing of the building,

[1:48:56] some of that's already happening with the CPA grant.

[1:48:59] So that's, we have beams that are cut,

[1:49:02] that we have to fix.

[1:49:05] Yeah, so I mean, if I could go into my head,

[1:49:07] that's where I would go.

[1:49:08] We're trying to cut it up into manageable projects,

[1:49:12] but the HVAC is a biggie.

[1:49:20] I don't know, my next step is set.

[1:49:22] Who's a water gun anyway?

[1:49:27] So one last thing I want to say to you, Mr. Chair,

[1:49:30] is that we are work, huh?

[1:49:33] Nevermind.

[1:49:34] Here's the chair.

[1:49:35] Here's the chair.

[1:49:37] You could take it.

[1:49:39] You're prolonging this, Steve.

[1:49:41] Don't get on me.

[1:49:43] You really?

[1:49:44] You've done.

[1:49:46] So, you know, we are working with our architects.

[1:49:48] We're going to meet with our building committee

[1:49:50] and then hopefully soon we're going to meet with our building

[1:49:52] architects to see if we can break this project down

[1:49:55] and to sizeable pieces.

[1:49:57] But then again, it goes back to,

[1:50:03] you know, so understand.

[1:50:06] Yeah.

[1:50:07] Look, I think, I mean, you all have done a lot with a little for a long time.

[1:50:14] And I'm grateful to you for the analysis and work.

[1:50:19] Thank you.

[1:50:20] You're trying to keep a treasure, not just for the town but for the nation together, so I appreciate that.

[1:50:24] That's right.

[1:50:25] So we will definitely work with you to the best we can.

[1:50:31] Roy, I'll let Dick, do you have anything?

[1:50:38] No questions.

[1:50:40] Are you okay by calling your members?

[1:50:42] A

[1:50:45] question.

[1:50:47] And thinking of this as a way of possibly getting some more help to deal with the cost of this,

[1:50:53] it sounds like the museum is a unique collection of Civil War items.

[1:50:58] Yes.

[1:51:00] Have you given thought to possibly having some kind of program and

[1:51:06] who's through get the benefit of charging for this?

[1:51:11] Well, let's put it this way.

[1:51:13] I understand the first reaction, but I've got to ask to take the second step and say,

[1:51:18] you can see what the cost is.

[1:51:20] We've got to find a way to defer this cost or spread this cost out to more users.

[1:51:29] I'm thinking outside the box and I recognize I have to be brought down on the earth, but could

[1:51:36] we do something like we have school children come through, we charge, I don't know, so much

[1:51:42] a child and that kind of thing.

[1:51:43] You do something where we can bring in some revenue, would it make any sense, would it help

[1:51:48] with this?

[1:51:49] It's a question, it's a thought question, I don't know the answer, you probably don't know

[1:51:52] My first response is that the taxpayers have already paid for these services and so then to charge them again

[1:51:59] Okay, didn't we charge only those outside landcasters but we advertise it and tried to bring people in

[1:52:04] Look, we've got to think I'm not a verse to the idea

[1:52:08] It's just that I'm careful with the the residents that we would charge

[1:52:12] Something and I hear you and we shouldn't charge the Lancaster folks. I mean whether who's a card carry member

[1:52:18] It's in free. I'm also okay

[1:52:20] But we should look to expand this if it's as valuable and unique.

[1:52:26] Okay, then we should think about can we expand this and bring in some ribbon?

[1:52:29] Yes, just a thought.

[1:52:31] It's a good thought because we've already contemplated for instance selling images of some of our rare books,

[1:52:37] pages of them that we can photograph and they become something nice you could put on your wall.

[1:52:42] People do that and we already have a policy that charges a person if they wish to have that service.

[1:52:47] So that's an example.

[1:52:48] Just charge the first person two and a half million dollars. And the next person a little less

[1:52:53] than you're going out there. Yeah, it's up and down. Yeah, Emily, do you have a?

[1:52:58] No, thank you. And not to, not to rain on your parade, right? I do think we need to separate these.

[1:53:04] Right. There's Yarniol raised $37,000. Fundraising?

[1:53:10] Yeah, 27, 27. There's no chance. I'll call it now. No chance. The paid students walk through

[1:53:18] was going to be anywhere near that. So the answer to your question, yes, of course, we

[1:53:22] should try to monetize all of the value of the library. But at the same time, it's not

[1:53:27] even going to be dropping a bucket to the challenges that we had. So Joe, I have so much

[1:53:32] I want to say.

[1:53:35] I can't think of worst timing for your presentation. Right? And I say that

[1:53:41] I say that humor and I say that as I feel really bad because you mentioned in 0.3 right we pass it over

[1:53:50] And then now we have the high school like I can't think of what literally worst timing I can't think of anything worse and that

[1:53:59] Stakes I want to mention that we started on this feasibility project me 15 to 16 I think no

[1:54:06] So later than that, but at the suggestion of a pre-limit good former town

[1:54:13] administrator who pointed out that soon something would be coming off the

[1:54:19] debt before the new high school came in, would be the perfect time to put this

[1:54:25] in. So it didn't happen. Yeah, you're doing everything right.

[1:54:30] You've done studying and you've created a master plan and everything is laid out

[1:54:35] and it's all right there, everything that any resident could offer.

[1:54:38] I do want to make a joke, probably not the best timing,

[1:54:42] but it's, me the library doesn't pay for itself.

[1:54:45] I mean, it's not a profitable business.

[1:54:47] No, it's not a business at all.

[1:54:49] Okay. I just want to make sure, although the residents realize that the stuff isn't free.

[1:54:53] Right? I'm talking decked just a minute.

[1:54:56] So I want to make sure that every resident hears me say

[1:55:00] that this isn't free in a cost money.

[1:55:02] So on one hand, we want to lower taxes, that's great, and the other hand, if we want to have amazing services like our library, it costs money.

[1:55:11] You can't have all of that.

[1:55:13] I'll also say that I go, what did I miss?

[1:55:18] What's the joke?

[1:55:20] I don't know what happened when I come to a table, but I always see what happened.

[1:55:25] So the next part, I want to go, I want to go really macro.

[1:55:29] and Steve and to the finance committees I go back to our meetings about the

[1:55:36] town master plan. And the town master plan is all about the great things we want

[1:55:41] for the town. Our reality is we can't afford any of them. We cannot afford any of

[1:55:47] them without raising taxes. And Thair Memorial Library is probably ahead of the

[1:55:54] the old town hall, right?

[1:55:56] Which I think is being, who knows what's going on?

[1:56:00] I don't want to assume this down there.

[1:56:02] So I get that we want to create a master plan

[1:56:05] that talks about really nice things that we want.

[1:56:08] Our reality is we need to raise,

[1:56:12] or we need to increase commercial industrial development

[1:56:14] in the town period, where we will have none of it, right?

[1:56:18] I'm talking to you all right now.

[1:56:20] Talking more to the Finance Committee, right?

[1:56:21] Like it's, I'll say, it's my opinion

[1:56:24] unless otherwise noted, there are no cuts to be made to pay for these things.

[1:56:27] There are no cuts to be made to pay for these things, so we have to figure out something else.

[1:56:32] And the only other thing, unless a resident comes up with a plan that we're not aware of,

[1:56:37] is industrial, commercial development.

[1:56:40] Thank you.

[1:56:42] Yes.

[1:56:43] Go ahead.

[1:56:44] Go ahead.

[1:56:45] Good.

[1:56:46] Check

[1:58:01] is five

[1:58:06] is if we decided that each fact was the most important because that's where

[1:58:11] you're going to get that $500,000.

[1:58:13] But because you asked me, previously, what I think is the most important project, it was the roof, and that's 900 and something thousand, in 2026.

[1:58:27] Yeah, so, for

[1:58:31] HVAC,

[1:58:36] I

[1:58:39] also want to say that I can only advocate Jason, and that's my job, to advocate for the needs of the library on behalf of the residents.

[1:58:50] It's what the residents can do, it's not up to me, if they can't vote for this, that's

[1:58:59] their business.

[1:59:00] We can't complain about that.

[1:59:01] And it's funny, because that's exactly what I'm advocating, because when it comes

[1:59:07] to votes in the town for rezoning, bringing in businesses, same thing, it's down to the

[1:59:14] residents what they want.

[1:59:15] So I cannot agree more with you.

[1:59:17] So, we'll be disappointed, but we understand that people have their own household problems.

[1:59:25] So that's important because even though it's a town's responsibility, it's not the responsibility

[1:59:32] to pay their tax, it's more of a responsibility that paid for their tax bill than to think

[1:59:38] about some other building, but, on the other hand, you have that building and the school

[1:59:45] with serious issues and how many buildings on your town and green campus do you

[1:59:51] want to have those problems? I don't know if I'm hiring you, I wouldn't bring up other buildings.

[1:59:57] I'd stay in your building.

[2:00:00] I'm going to say, don't be pointless in other directions. Well, does anybody have any other questions for Joe? I didn't mention the people. No, you did not know. That was a blip. I thought I heard you. You went by nine hundred and something thousand and twenty. Let me just make sure. Yeah, it's twenty twenty six. It's nine eleven forty sixty two. That's including masonry. They go hand in hand.

[2:01:02] Are you talking to Kate?

[2:01:09] I think it's a question, but it's actually to you, but it's to you, because Joe, I can't tell the town that you don't have to finance something.

[2:01:20] That's not in my willhouse.

[2:01:22] I think the question is, were we to do the entire project of $5.5 million, or Mason or whatever?

[2:01:29] I believe I'm asking a question right, Dick and you, you're asking for how would the

[2:01:36] town, if we all said, wow, what a fantastic idea, what's the next step, and how would you

[2:01:42] do it?

[2:01:44] I mean, I'm just asking the answer, I'm asking this question, right,

[2:01:51] so if you do 9-11-462.

[2:01:54] Well, off the top of my head, and I am not advocating for any one of these yet, because

[2:02:01] I have to actually do the math.

[2:02:03] But this

[2:02:09] is to raise taxes by a million dollars, which we have in levy capacity, I hate

[2:02:18] that idea.

[2:02:37] You could take the money from the stabilization account, the capital stabilization, which with

[2:02:49] the million that we put in already, which was for the school, we would have with this

[2:02:56] year's free cash if you went with some of that, we'd have somewhere in the neighborhood

[2:03:00] of maybe 236,000 left in stabilization, so I sort of hate that idea, like almost as much

[2:03:09] as the taxes idea.

[2:03:11] So it's raising appropriate use savings or we could look at financing

[2:03:21] it, but I'm telling you right now

[2:03:23] and we ran the numbers at 3% and that was being very generous. I think we're probably close to 5 maybe 4 and a half.

[2:03:32] And by that point, if you're going to finance a million, you need to be good now.

[2:03:37] you do the whole margilla because we're not going to get enough people, we're not going to get enough agencies to want to

[2:03:44] want to get on a million. They want something that's more secure.

[2:03:48] Right. And you'll get a better rate. Or you could do nothing. So those are the four that are off the top of my head.

[2:03:53] All right. Which are equally hateful.

[2:04:13] The

[2:04:17] actual numbers, I guess I just need to know what do you want us to run the numbers on?

[2:04:24] Do you want to split it so you're doing a million? Do you want to put two projects together?

[2:04:29] So we're talking about like two and a half.

[2:04:31] So let me ask you a question. You said you were working with somebody who can look at segmenting out the project.

[2:04:36] Yeah, the architect who wrote the feasibility. When will they have a suggestion on the segments?

[2:04:41] Um, hold on two seconds, I just took it. There's a question on the table.

[2:04:48] You, you, you, like, screamed at the table.

[2:04:51] Hold on two seconds, please. Go ahead.

[2:04:54] We plan on meeting with them sometime in October, could you come

[2:05:02] on as early as

[2:05:02] Pinley possible? October is like in a week. Yeah, it's in June, it's June. That's

[2:05:08] pretty, that's okay. He said in October, so it'll be six weeks from now, or just

[2:05:13] watch what I say, because it's gonna be just a slam, but every word you say, I know,

[2:05:18] he's the one that out there. Oh my god. I just want to encourage you to have it

[2:05:28] It's been a blessing every day. I think once we get that, if you can run those numbers in the different service, then we might think we have more permission.

[2:05:35] Let me just reiterate, we're looking to break the project down, and that's what this meeting is for.

[2:05:43] And so prioritization is what the building committee is going to be. We're hearing roof, we're hearing roof, so I think you're going roof.

[2:05:50] and we are to your point we are trying to look anywhere possible for a grant

[2:05:59] that might be available yes and I think grants appropriations other things

[2:06:04] can be used to supplant what we plan to cover yeah all right is there anything

[2:06:09] more you need from us for guidance Kate tonight or Joe you know I don't know are

[2:06:14] you. I'm done. Fantastic presentation by the way. There's more. It's about the black.

[2:06:20] No, but I'm just playing it. I'm really excited. I am. Now I step we get closer to it. Thank you.

[2:06:27] Thank you. You look like me. Steve, thank you, Joe. Steve, you're remarkable. When you start

[2:06:34] returning your late book as I was disparaging, as disparaging, all I do is donate books for that

[2:06:44] That's a fail.

[2:06:45] The Star-A-J.

[2:06:48] Today the staff meeting he said some people were here.

[2:06:51] I really don't think in the group,

[2:06:52] with all of the other staff members here.

[2:06:55] We were like, what?

[2:06:57] What do you know? I was in your camp,

[2:07:00] and then you just had Zinger, and now I don't know.

[2:07:02] I'll see.

[2:07:05] Go away. Have a good day.

[2:07:08] Okay, keep going.

[2:07:11] Okay.

[2:07:11] I see you feel you have sufficient marching orders on the library? Yes? Perfect.

[2:07:22] Yes, sir.

[2:07:31] Oh, okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll do it.

[2:07:57] Was hopeful that in my

[2:08:00] transmittal email that it was clear that these two projects are not being

[2:08:04] proposed right now. But I think the idea of looking at them in tandem with what it

[2:08:12] will cost for the library and other things like that is an important

[2:08:16] of realization for a number of reasons,

[2:08:18] the first is that the updated master plan

[2:08:22] specifically calls out the community's desire

[2:08:25] to have a reuse plan for that building.

[2:08:29] And while...

[2:08:30] That building made me old, huh?

[2:08:32] I'm sorry, the old town hall.

[2:08:33] And while I understand and appreciate that,

[2:08:36] I also wanna be clear on the goals and objectives

[2:08:39] that I think we can meet

[2:08:42] and ones that are gonna be more difficult.

[2:08:43] So this is the beginning of my plan to look at alternatives for how to use the building

[2:08:54] that might allow for people to have a partnership agreement similar to what we have with DICAM,

[2:09:01] where we have nonprofits, we have other state and federal agencies like I know that we get things

[2:09:07] from the state that are looking for offices and so we explore those and in lieu of rent

[2:09:16] those community groups those whatever you know either contribute money and we fix it up or they

[2:09:23] fix it up the best thing in a building fund that has been pretty successful in other communities

[2:09:28] it is slow but it also is not at a cost to the taxpayer that said most of the buildings that

[2:09:37] those things have been successful on.

[2:09:39] It's 100% exclusive use for whatever that purpose is

[2:09:44] that someone's going to be renting it.

[2:09:46] And of course, we need this one very large room for voting.

[2:09:53] And so it'll be interesting to see how we can try to market that.

[2:09:58] But regardless, I think it's important.

[2:10:01] Commissioner Moody took these three of these videos.

[2:10:05] So this is the first that you can just see. We have some asphalt situation and there's a step there.

[2:10:14] Obviously that's an ADA issue, so we are working on that currently with the DPW

[2:10:21] to remedy that situation definitely before the election in November.

[2:10:31] here here this we are working on running although it isn't permanent so that

[2:10:41] supposed to be attached to the building you get out of the building quicker

[2:10:54] kind of way. No one was harmed in the making of this video.

[2:11:07] Also not connected to the ground.

[2:11:11] I'm going to go into the ground. I'm going to make sense. Really take my life. Mr. Trustley

[2:11:16] overhand up.

[2:12:25] Couple slides and then I kind of go into that. So this is the last one. But the answer,

[2:12:32] I don't remember which number question it was, but this is the basement slash ground floor level

[2:12:38] of the Old Town Hall. We are storing some materials in there but not as much as we used to.

[2:12:44] We used some grant money that we received to digitize all of the plans and maps that were

[2:12:50] stored in here. They were the equivalent of about half of this room floor to ceiling. A company came

[2:12:57] and picked them all up in a big moving van and scanned all of them so they're all digitized and so

[2:13:03] we were able to get rid of those because they're all covered in mold and other things like that.

[2:13:08] So these facilities, as you can see,

[2:13:11] have been cleaned out as much as possible.

[2:13:13] We're exploring a grant with the state,

[2:13:16] which is a one-stop building readiness grant,

[2:13:18] to remove all of the other items that are down here.

[2:13:21] This floor is completely closed off to the public,

[2:13:26] and frankly, staff doesn't even really go down there.

[2:13:29] There are some items that are stored

[2:13:31] in the historical spaces at the end of this corridor,

[2:13:34] to the left that we're going to need to hire a remediation specialist for, Joe has been

[2:13:40] working with the chair of the Historical Committee for that, a commission for that.

[2:13:47] Other than that, the rest of this is really their surplus or it's so badly soiled that it can't

[2:13:53] be used. In terms of shutting the building down, we

[2:14:03] have scheduled replacement for the exit

[2:14:05] lights that don't work, so that will bring us up to code compliance. We've shut down the area

[2:14:12] that's here, that's going into the bottom floor, so these things become sort of a move point

[2:14:18] although they're aesthetically not great. And we're going to spend a small amount of money

[2:14:23] working with DPW to fix the fire escape. That should allow for the November election to take place

[2:14:29] in a relatively safe environment and then from there we're going to have to have an actual

[2:14:36] inspection on some of the other structures that are there and from there we'll bring

[2:14:42] the report forward to the select board for a decision about whether it's used or not.

[2:14:47] Our goal is to have the first floor where we do elections which it currently is safe with

[2:14:55] Egress fully accessible, and we certainly will have that.

[2:15:01] The last project that has been talked about prior to is the rehabilitation of the memorial school. So in January of 23, the reuse committee came forward with a design concept and a recommendation to demolish the building and make a large outdoor per billion. We had allocated about $100,000 in the capital budget.

[2:15:30] to begin the construction drawings for that project,

[2:15:33] but then those funds are reallocated

[2:15:35] by the Select Board to the Forest Legacy Grant Program,

[2:15:38] partially because that was a matching grant program

[2:15:40] that was sort of once in a lifetime deal.

[2:15:42] But the other part of that is,

[2:15:44] we didn't have the money to bring construction drawings

[2:15:46] through to fruition, so to spend $100,000

[2:15:50] to push a lovely construction drawings on a shelf,

[2:15:53] only to expire, didn't seem prudent.

[2:15:56] So, but even that, the money that was present from the capital budget, it was from, it was

[2:16:04] capital.

[2:16:05] So it was in our book.

[2:16:06] It was not our book.

[2:16:07] Thank you.

[2:16:09] So, for the debt plan, just specifically, what I just showed you in the, between the

[2:16:17] library and the three budgets, I just, we captured here, Cheryl and I, and effectively,

[2:16:21] Again, anything that you see in red is literally just a placeholder at an estimate, we're just trying to show the totality of this type of thing.

[2:16:30] If the town were to pursue all of these endeavors, we would be at a place where we would have more than a million and a half in debt payments.

[2:16:44] And that's based again on a 3% rate which I think as we are right now is very unlikely.

[2:16:50] And so, you know, I understand and believe me, you know, I want to be able to say that we can do all of this, but I think, you know, going back to the initial slides, we really need a way to build this out over many more years.

[2:17:07] And figure out how to, as payments drop off similar to what Ms. Rose was talking about, as payments come off, other ones go on.

[2:17:15] And then when we get to those years where we say we're going to do something we need to do it

[2:17:20] We need to not find a new project or a new initiative

[2:17:25] And again, that's a policy decision by the policy making boards

[2:17:29] Now if Scott is still on the line, these are the water enterprise projects and phases. Scott, are you still there?

[2:17:36] which

[2:17:49] are still our projects and phases

[2:17:55] okay so McDonald and members of the

[2:18:04] DPW Commission are far better to speak about this because all we received was

[2:18:09] the request but when Cheryl and I cost it out what they were proposing for

[2:18:16] borrowing what you would see here in water it has right about a

[2:18:23] Crescendo effects starting in FY 30 that is at a rate for these particular

[2:18:29] repayment schedules that the fund cannot sustain.

[2:18:36] I thought they were going to be here, so that's about all I can tell you.

[2:18:39] We can talk more about that when they can judge.

[2:18:47] Could you just provide a total sub-total for

[2:18:49] that category there when you update this?

[2:18:54] Subtotal for sure. For the water enterprise kind of?

[2:18:56] Yeah, for the water enterprise stuff.

[2:19:01] No,

[2:19:06] I don't think so. I mean, this will be the plan that is for you. You're all purpose. This is not the actual debt plan because, again, this assumes things that we don't have. But the proposed in FY26 is really what we're focused on.

[2:19:22] and again the blue just shows debt falling off.

[2:19:25] We don't really have a very good pattern

[2:19:27] of debt falling off and then equal debt coming on.

[2:19:30] So if that's something that we could decide

[2:19:33] to start a pattern on, that would be preferred.

[2:19:37] Any questions for Kate?

[2:19:39] Dick?

[2:19:42] Thank you.

[2:19:44] Yeah.

[2:19:45] So I'm all the projects, the library,

[2:19:51] the memorial school, Old Town Hall.

[2:19:56] I mean, memorial school, I don't think anything's actionable today.

[2:20:00] The library is a very tough situation and we will have to navigate that, but I think

[2:20:06] the biggest risk is tell home.

[2:20:09] It's the biggest risk because I think it's the most debilitated and it is in moments of

[2:20:17] high value.

[2:20:18] And I don't think we have any plan over the next number of years to correct it.

[2:20:25] It would be more to keep it afloat.

[2:20:27] And I would like us the select board to start thinking about without a plan in place,

[2:20:33] closing down Old Town Hall.

[2:20:35] And the reason for that is because it holds our elections, and we need a plan for that.

[2:20:40] What we can't have is October rolls around and something catastrophic happens and we can't

[2:20:46] have our elections there. Now all of a sudden we have no plan. I think we need to prepare for that.

[2:20:52] Thank you.

[2:20:54] Thank you.

[2:20:55] Okay, thanks.

[2:20:57] Okay, thank you.

[2:20:58] I mean I think what Kate just articulated is a plan for us to be able to have elections.

[2:21:03] I think if we...

[2:21:04] Is there that right?

[2:21:05] Yes, I suppose it will look close to the paper.

[2:21:07] I give you a chance. I give you a chance. Now I get my chance.

[2:21:10] to have the election this November, it envisions cleaning out the basement level so we never

[2:21:17] have to go down there.

[2:21:18] There's no reason to go to the second floor.

[2:21:20] So if we've secured the first floor for elections, yes, there's foundational issues, things

[2:21:26] like that that need to be addressed, but unless barring someone saying it's going to fall

[2:21:31] down around our ears in the next three years, I don't see this as big a concern.

[2:21:36] and borrowing. We do those things that we've talked about. For that building I do think the library,

[2:21:45] at least the shell of it and the root distribution is really important.

[2:21:51] That McDonald's is on the call.

[2:21:53] Is on. No, okay. But we're going to, we're now in other questions.

[2:21:57] We'll go back to you in a second. Dick, you had a question and then Roy has a question.

[2:22:08] Sorry. Go ahead, yep.

[2:23:34] Multiple choice question to,

[2:24:15] I don't disagree that if we're going

[2:24:19] to be making a massive debt decision, what not, we need to include a larger conversation

[2:24:44] There's a larger conversation about representative democracy and our responsibilities in it, but we can have that at a later time.

[2:24:52] We're nearing, select board, quorum emergency, so we'll move on to any other, given anything.

[2:25:01] I hear you, Jason, about, we face some tough decisions relative to the old town hall.

[2:25:07] Old town hall is iconic and emblematic of Lancaster.

[2:25:13] I'm concerned about, can we really fund the important things we need to do as a town?

[2:25:20] the school. It seems like we're studying the school number one to the library. Do

[2:25:26] we have the financial capacity to deal with what the old town hall is going to

[2:25:32] cost? And I'm wondering somewhat like it seems to you like your question. If it's

[2:25:38] clear that we're not going to be able to do it, we should stop that now and make it

[2:25:42] clear. All right, and not throw good money after bad. So that's the question that

[2:25:50] I'd like to point out there's not a massive project for the old town hall on the list.

[2:25:55] For this year, but it's $8 million.

[2:25:59] It's $8 million.

[2:26:01] Just to reiterate the fear, again, the fear isn't about having a perfect building.

[2:26:07] I can tell you the risk that I think we need to manage.

[2:26:09] And it sounds like case managing isn't managing it.

[2:26:12] Like, mold is sound, and we have no plan to recover before an election.

[2:26:16] That is our Dean's day scenario, and that's what we have to mitigate that risk

[2:26:23] Would

[2:26:29] you like me to go back to the water slides the slides on

[2:26:57] Sorry, you

[2:27:09] can start talking anytime Scott when we'll get to the slide

[2:27:14] The question is for you to present on the water enterprise projects

[2:27:18] This

[2:27:56] was waterline phase one completed.

[2:28:00] It says the borrowing ends 2023.

[2:28:03] Yes, yes.

[2:28:04] Phase one and

[2:28:09] phase two was 2017.

[2:28:15] Over another 10 years.

[2:28:18] And your problem.

[2:28:20] Phase three is more or more than a month.

[2:28:30] We'll piece the same bridge.

[2:28:32] That's a great second bridge.

[2:28:36] But that's

[2:28:45] roughly 61 hundred feet of pipe rigging.

[2:28:55] This is phase three.

[2:28:59] Yeah.

[2:29:00] Where?

[2:29:01] One in two hundred in the neck room.

[2:29:04] And it's the

[2:29:07] proposal then that...

[2:29:13] I'm trying to help you land a plan on what this proposal is.

[2:29:57] This is what you should do.

[2:30:01] The authorization for them to borrow $4 million is on the table. But the second part of that is... There won't be money to pay it off. What rate are they borrowing? What is the payback? Who approves the schedule of what's borrowed? And is there enough money in their balance to pay whatever the premium is?

[2:30:26] So we did this just pro forma based on 3% because that's what we're doing the other ones

[2:30:33] but Cheryl and I are not a securities like industry and so if in fact they're going to move forward

[2:30:41] Scott knows that he's going to have to reach out to like hilltop securities or one of the other bonding agencies

[2:30:46] and there was also a myriad of things that bond council wanted regarding the 4 million

[2:30:52] and all of that comes after Tom Meade's vote.

[2:30:56] So those are the things that need to happen.

[2:31:00] Exactly.

[2:31:01] And the board wants to work with it.

[2:31:02] And it's like, boy, I can't find any committee on that.

[2:31:06] And following the steps and proceed just correctly.

[2:31:10] Let's go in.

[2:31:12] Reason and race is one of the steps to go along with that.

[2:31:16] In the past, the problem ran in the process

[2:31:20] to raise the rates yearly based on inflation.

[2:31:23] There's something we haven't been doing.

[2:31:26] We went over that on the right here.

[2:31:30] Which is an accurate business practice.

[2:31:32] In the future, that is a plan to raise the rate yearly

[2:31:36] to coincide with inflation,

[2:31:40] and to coincide with the needed projects

[2:31:43] we need to keep the water system upgraded

[2:31:49] And if there is a projection of raised rates and early K. I haven't seen it.

[2:31:56] All right, so it seems like we have some work to do before we can move this.

[2:32:05] To be very clear, it seems you guys have work to do.

[2:32:08] It's got not us.

[2:32:11] All right, so Kate will give you a list of all the things that we need, but we need you to drill down on it.

[2:32:19] Roy, a different question.

[2:32:20] Just a quick comment here.

[2:32:21] It seems to me the fundamental question is here.

[2:32:24] What rates does the Enterprise Water Commission need to have to be able to fund this?

[2:32:30] Right, and is that reasonable?

[2:32:32] Those two questions.

[2:32:34] That's fundamental, and then we can, if those make sense, the rest of it can be done.

[2:32:38] But if those two don't make sense, we stop.

[2:32:41] Agreed.

[2:32:44] Which is where Eddie is working with some finance

[2:32:47] in the select pool, and she comes in very handy.

[2:32:50] Right, so great.

[2:32:53] Thanks, Scott.

[2:32:55] Thank you.

[2:32:57] Anything else?

[2:32:58] No, sir.

[2:32:59] That's the end.

[2:33:00] Now you can get excited.

[2:33:01] Any action we need to take beyond.

[2:33:03] This was a sort of brain conversation.

[2:33:06] Yes.

[2:33:07] OK.

[2:33:08] Sorry.

[2:33:09] I know.

[2:33:09] Thank you.

[2:33:10] Well, are you all prepared to give some measure feedback

[2:33:15] on the actual cash capital?

[2:33:18] The $898,000?

[2:33:20] Well, it's really six because the other is $250,000.

[2:33:25] Right.

[2:33:27] I mean, to me, all of those projects

[2:33:29] seemed we needed to do.

[2:33:32] So I am inclined to support them.

[2:33:36] So given that, the next steps would be for us.

[2:33:39] I'm just telling you so so you don't have to think you're citing on the dot of mine here the next steps would be for us to build that out and actually

[2:33:47] Have that as the capital outlay for you all

[2:33:51] Build away

[2:33:53] Dick you have any problem about

[2:34:00] Yeah, just we're gonna ask Kate to build out

[2:34:04] that

[2:34:05] 800 really 650,000 and

[2:34:12] Projects we discussed at the very beginning

[2:34:14] For us to consider

[2:34:21] Give me one second we

[2:34:26] get

[2:34:27] so we're just asking her to give us more information yeah

[2:34:34] we're just

[2:34:39] no I

[2:34:40] know I hit I'll like I'm

[2:34:46] sorry yeah that's

[2:35:00] it that's it that's it

[2:35:07] that's it

[2:35:14] So at this point, our joint meeting has come to an end sadly for all of us, so we ask the

[2:35:20] Finance Committee to adjourn your meeting.

[2:35:22] I will make a motion to adjourn the Finance Committee meeting, 832, yeah.

[2:35:28] Second.

[2:35:43] Yes.

[2:35:45] Yes.

[2:35:45] Thank you very much.

[2:35:46] Thank you.

[2:35:47] Thank you very much.

[2:35:50] Whatever.

[2:35:51] Thanks for having us.

[2:35:52] It's plenty.

[2:35:54] I've never putting up with you. I always love and enjoy our time together. So no worries. Thank you, sir.

[2:36:03] We're going to take a brief five minute recess.

[2:36:09] So

[2:39:21] the first one, Lancaster Affordable Housing Trust's open nine-spire term, the

[2:39:27] candidates, Kristen Reiner, for a term to expire 630-26. The term actually expires 630-25.

[2:39:35] is there a motion?

[2:39:37] The two-point person, Brian, are determined to expire 630-25

[2:39:40] for the delay in Caster 4.

[2:39:42] Second, any discussion?

[2:39:46] Olden favorite.

[2:39:47] Hi.

[2:39:49] Next, Community Preservation Committee member,

[2:39:51] large-term to expire 630-2024.

[2:39:55] Two candidates, Michael King, Linneal, Lincoln, and Survey.

[2:39:58] The two-point, Michael King, Community Preservation Committee,

[2:40:01] a member of large-term to expire 630-2024.

[2:40:04] Second, any discussion?

[2:40:07] Hearing none, all is in favor.

[2:40:09] Next is the Stanley Lancaster Community Television Lancaster representative John Ladou to

[2:40:14] the Board of Directors, termed to expire September 27th.

[2:40:17] This is a reappointment.

[2:40:18] Yes, moved to reappoints, starting Lancaster Community Television Lancaster representative John

[2:40:23] Ladou to the Board of Directors, termed to expire September 27th.

[2:40:27] Second, all on discussion.

[2:40:29] All is in favor.

[2:40:32] license is in permits. I move to allow special one-day liquor license application

[2:40:38] for your line.

[2:40:39] Application name is Jesse Tarbel, organization's Sterling Street Brewery, event address

[2:40:43] one, three, two, four pond in road Lancaster, event purpose, bicycles, battling cancer, event

[2:40:49] date nine, 22, 24, event hours, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

[2:40:55] second discussion on favor I moved to approve application for use of town

[2:41:02] green gazebo activity annual PTSD walk for awareness sponsor American

[2:41:07] lesion post 96 Lancaster MA date and time Saturday September 28th 2024 from

[2:41:13] 2 to 4 p.m. Second I was in favor I moved to approve the application for use of

[2:41:20] of Town, Dream, Casibo, Activity, Halloween, and Green.

[2:41:22] 2024, Responsor, Lancaster Recreation Committee.

[2:41:26] Dayton Time, Sunday, October 27th, 2024,

[2:41:30] from 4.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

[2:41:32] Second.

[2:41:33] I'll ask a question on paper.

[2:41:35] Hi.

[2:41:35] I move to approve application for Town License

[2:41:38] for Entertainment on Sundays, name of concern.

[2:41:42] Lancaster Recreation Committee,

[2:41:43] Street Address of Concern, 39 Harbour Moon Lancaster,

[2:41:46] Contact Person Thomas Wood, Chair,

[2:41:48] event Halloween on the green 2024 dates and times Sunday October 27th 2024 from 4.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

[2:41:56] Second, any discussion, all in favor?

[2:41:58] I move to approve special one-day liquor license application. Be your mind. Applicants name Jesse Tarball,

[2:42:05] organizations to entry brewery, event address of 7.01 Main Street Lancaster, event purpose, Halloween on the green,

[2:42:11] event day, 10, 27, 20, 24, event hours, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

[2:42:17] Second, an instructional endeavor.

[2:42:19] I have time.

[2:42:20] I move to approve the application for town license

[2:42:23] or entertainment on weekdays and Sundays.

[2:42:25] Name of concern.

[2:42:26] Fiesta shows street address of concern.

[2:42:28] 318, 7 bridge road, contact person.

[2:42:32] EJ Dean, Rose Darden, event 5th.

[2:42:35] Holiday, holiday, light show, drive through

[2:42:38] and then cast your fairgrounds, operating dates November 29th, 2024 to January 5th, 2024.

[2:42:46] 5.

[2:42:46] I'm assuming.

[2:42:47] January 5th, 2025.

[2:42:48] Thank you.

[2:42:49] We'll share operating hours Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, Sunday, and holidays, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

[2:42:58] Second, any discussion?

[2:42:59] All in favor?

[2:43:00] All right.

[2:43:01] Communications.

[2:43:02] There will be a special time meeting to be held on Monday, October 7th, 2024.

[2:43:06] four, starting at 7 p.m. at Mary Rollins Elementary School Auditorium, town offices will

[2:43:10] be closed on Monday, October 14th, 2024, in terms of Indigenous Peoples' Day slash

[2:43:15] Columbus Day.

[2:43:16] The next select board meeting will actually take place, I believe, at 6 p.m. just before

[2:43:20] the special time meeting, yes?

[2:43:22] Yes.

[2:43:23] Yes.

[2:43:23] And then the one after that will be Monday, October 21st.

[2:43:26] So the next one will be Monday, October 7th at 6 p.m. in the Mary Rollins Elementary School

[2:43:32] Auditorium, and the one after that will be held on Monday, October 24th.

[2:43:38] We are going to move into executive session and not convene an open session thereafter for, I believe, just the first.

[2:43:47] Okay, so I move to enter executive session.

[2:43:50] The select order will meet in executive session, pursuant to MGL, chapter 3A, 21A.

[2:43:54] Prophecy is I, purpose three, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation in the matter of town of Lancaster plaintiff.

[2:44:01] First, Heather Lennon, Richard Belinger, and Lancaster Historical Society Defendants.

[2:44:06] First, Lancaster Historical Society, Counterclaim Plaintiffs, versus Steve Carrigan and Jason Allison.

[2:44:12] Counterclaim Defendants, as the chair has determined a discussion and open session, would have a detrimental effect of the town's litigation position, and not to reconvene in open session that happened.

[2:44:23] Second.

[2:44:24] I'll listen to a favour of convening.

[2:44:26] Moving into executive session.

[2:44:27] Second, we'll have to say hi.

[2:44:28] Hi.

[2:44:29] We are going to executive session.

[2:44:31] Thank you all very much.

Lancaster Select Board September 16 2024

Transcript