[0:03] Yeah, I don't think so. All right.
I'm opening the meeting at 6:30 PM on
[0:09] 7/16/2025. This meeting is being recorded.
We have one member remote,
[0:15] so we will be doing roll call vote and we
have two members absent.
[0:21] So please join me in the Pledge of
Allegiance.
[0:25] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
[0:31] Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
[0:36] with liberty and justice for all.
[0:43] Alrighty,
so citizen statements and petitions
[0:47] looking at anybody online or in the room
would like to approach and speak to the
[0:55] board.
[0:57] All right. Seeing no hands,
we'll move on to #3,
[1:01] which is correspondence.
The first one is the request for town
[1:06] assistance that came from Oakland. Yeah,
so another community reached out,
[1:12] asked the town to sign on to a letter
opposing.
[1:16] Energy storage facility in their town.
I talked with Emergency Management,
[1:20] talked to the chair as well and we don't
feel the town should weigh in on such a
[1:25] thing and sign our sign our name to it.
Each each instance of the battery storage
[1:29] facility is is different and we don't
want to tie their fight with anything
[1:34] that we're doing and we wouldn't.
[1:36] Never ask them to sign on a letter for us.
So the letters letters in your packet for
[1:40] you to review,
but it's been Emergency Management and
[1:43] Public Safety's recommendation and mine
as well to tell them thanks,
[1:47] but no thanks.
[1:50] Is there any discussion?
I would tend to agree.
[1:53] There's nothing for us to really do here
just to acknowledge that publicly.
[2:00] All right.
So the other correspondence was from the
[2:03] town clerk with the new open meeting law
guide.
[2:06] And so there are a lot of different
individual documents to go through as
[2:11] well as that large,
there's one large coalesce document.
[2:15] And so tonight there's no vote on this.
[2:20] But tonight the board signed off on
receiving those new updates,
[2:24] as will every member of every committee
and board that meets publicly here in the
[2:30] town.
And so just small adjustments and
[2:33] reminders of how we need to run these
meetings.
[2:37] So hopefully we're doing a good job.
[2:41] Um.
So community events and announcements we
[2:46] have.
[2:48] I'm going to make 635 watching.
We have two community events coming up.
[2:54] We have the 25th Taft Public Library
Cardboard Boat Race,
[2:59] which is July 23rd at 6:30 PM and I
believe the 18th is the last day for you
[3:05] to sign up. You can do that.
[3:08] Uh,
get that link on the library website and.
[3:14] The Mendon Lions Circus is gonna there's
going to be a circus here on the 17th.
[3:19] There'll be one show and on the 18th
there are two shows and you can buy those
[3:24] tickets at the Charles River Bank right
across the street from where it's going
[3:30] to be held up here on the corner.
[3:32] You can search them on Facebook,
Mending Lions on Facebook as well and
[3:38] find the information there.
So and you can see a select board member
[3:44] Mr. Chanel there as well with his.
[3:47] I should have talked a little slower
cause. So yeah,
[3:51] I'll be a judge at the carpool boat race.
So I I hope to see some folks there.
[3:56] I think the select board is going to have
the select board needs to get its act
[4:01] together and build a boat.
We're going to at least try on Saturday
[4:06] to get something.
[4:07] Started. So, uh, Elena, yeah.
[4:12] So I just a little a point of order,
I think just having recently reviewed the
[4:17] open meeting laws, I believe that Jason,
the chair is supposed to say the names of
[4:23] any board members who are attending
remotely, not just the number.
[4:29] OK,
I'm gonna assume I didn't say that
[4:33] because you're telling me that,
but we can't rewind. So yes,
[4:40] Elena Brugos is attending remotely,
so and.
[4:45] Chair Member Maroli and Goddard are
absent. Thank you.
[4:50] Thank you.
[4:51] Thanks.
[4:55] All right,
so it's 6:35 and we have a public hearing
[5:00] to open. And so I will do that now.
The Mendon Select Board will hold a
[5:07] public hearing on Wednesday, July 16th,
2025 at 6:35 PM in the upper.
[5:14] Town Hall located at 20 Main St.
and in Massachusetts to consider the
[5:20] transfer of a package store license for
the sale of wines and malt beverages
[5:26] under NGL Chapter 138, Section 12.
The license is currently held by you can
[5:32] come up.
[5:33] 147 Hartford Ave. Hartford Ave.
Mendon LLC doing business at Savon being
[5:39] transferred to MKG Mendon Incorporated
doing business at Savon and all
[5:45] interested parties are invited to attend
and will be given an opportunity to be
[5:51] heard.
[5:53] And I am making a motion to open this
public hearing second.
[6:00] Discussion. All those in favor.
[6:06] Hooter, aye. All right, motion passes.
So welcome. Thank you.
[6:07] Up.
[6:09] Rugo's eye.
[6:13] We were we are with Savon with MKG and in
case you had any questions,
[6:21] we just wanted to be here.
[6:24] Well, my first question, it's Savon,
not Savon. It's they call it Savon. OK,
[6:30] just want to make sure I pronounce
properly.
[6:34] So I guess the big open question is why
are we transferring this license?
[6:40] Really quickly after you guys have opened.
Yeah.
[6:43] So just I'll start with my spiel and if
you have any follow up questions,
[6:47] could you say your name before you start?
Yes, I'm Sydney Procos.
[6:51] I'm a attorney with VR and DJ and
Philippo. Here's my client,
[6:55] Marcel Georges,
who is the new owner and proposed new
[6:58] manager for this slipper store.
[7:00] So we represent MKG Mendon Inc and we are
seeking your approval to transfer the
[7:06] beer and wine license from 147 to our
client and acknowledging you may be
[7:11] familiar with this license.
It was recently approved to 147 and now
[7:16] it's getting transferred to our client
who is the.
[7:20] The new owner.
So with that new ownership that license
[7:23] needs to be transferred as well and it's
a requirement by a VCC that we go before
[7:28] the town just like we did the first time
and now to to have it be approved to our
[7:33] client Mr. Marcel Georges.
But this is an internal change and I want
[7:37] to highlight that everything that.
[7:39] That you just approved.
None of that changes the location,
[7:43] the hours of operation,
then even the name, like nothing changes.
[7:46] This is just a requirement by ABCC to go
before you guys and approve the transfer
[7:51] of the license itself. OK,
so internally management ownership is
[7:55] changing and therefore we need to update
everything.
[7:58] Nice and officially,
but everything else we've previously
[8:02] talked about in front of the public here
has been the same. No external changes.
[8:08] Yeah,
just the just this one particular
[8:11] location, correct? Yes,
just this one location.
[8:15] Yeah.
[8:16] Right.
So if there's no more comments from the
[8:20] select board,
I would open up comments from the public.
[8:29] And seeing none,
I would just ask the board one more time
[8:34] if they had any more questions or if it's
clear, it's very semantic. OK,
[8:39] so then I would make a motion to close
this 635 public hearing second.
[8:45] Our discussion.
[8:48] Hearing none,
all those in favor Kuder aye.
[8:52] Rugose eye.
[8:55] Motion passes.
So now we would need to then make a
[8:58] another motion.
So I'd be looking for a motion to do the
[9:02] approval.
I move to approve the transfer of the
[9:06] package store license for the sale of
wines and mall beverages to MK MKG Menden
[9:11] Incorporated does business as save on.
[9:15] 2nd.
[9:15] All right. Any discussion?
It's a lot simpler when two of us are
[9:22] missing.
[9:24] Seeing as there's no discussion,
all those in favor Kuder Aye.
[9:32] Brugos eye.
[9:33] All right. So thanks. You're all set.
Congratulations on your new purchase and
[9:40] we look forward to a successful business.
Thank you. All right. Thank you very much.
[9:46] You too.
[9:48] All right,
so we have 5 minutes before the next
[9:51] public hearing.
So we're gonna jump forward and we'll
[9:56] talk about #7,
which is the Mending Cultural Council.
[10:00] They are requesting permission.
[10:03] To host the second annual Scarecrow
contest across town.
[10:06] And I know this went super well last year.
Everybody was super excited to see all
[10:11] those awesome scarecrows around town.
So why don't you tell us more about it
[10:15] and start with your name?
I'm Joanne Lamothe.
[10:18] I'm a member and committee chairperson
for the Mendon Cultural Council.
[10:22] Once again,
the Mendon Cultural Council would like to
[10:25] do in another scarecrow contest.
The contest with registration would be
[10:30] September 1st to the 27th.
They can e-mail the Mendon Cultural
[10:33] Council to register.
I'll be also putting Flyers out through
[10:37] town and.
[10:39] Advertising it through the town website
and Facebook social media.
[10:43] Scarecrows have to be out by October 1st
and October 1st to the to the they can
[10:48] display them October 1st to the 31st.
However, judging will be from October 1st.
[10:53] With the winner announced on the 27th,
which we will do a reception and invite
[10:58] all participants to come and you know,
see,
[11:01] we'll put pictures out of all the
scarecrows and all of that stuff,
[11:05] but at least to be able to see and we can
thank them and they can get to see other
[11:10] the other participants in this contest.
[11:13] As well. And we'll once again,
we'll do trophies and award medallions
[11:18] for people, participation medallions,
the same rules of last year.
[11:22] They can't block the line of sight of
traffic.
[11:25] They can't be in the middle of the road.
[11:28] You know the same exact rules.
The only exchange that we're making this
[11:32] year is when you register,
we will give you a QR code.
[11:35] So people will come and they'll take a
picture of that QR code and that will be
[11:40] their vote when they take that picture.
So it'll go to a website and it will
[11:44] tally the votes and that will be their
vote and that way.
[11:48] We will know and as I did last year,
I will update Facebook all the time to
[11:53] let people know where they stand.
And I hope again the Town Hall Select
[11:57] Board participates in this contest
because it was a fun thing last year.
[12:02] Yeah,
there was a lot of really great
[12:04] department participations last year,
so yeah.
[12:07] So let's do that again.
I'm here just to get your approval on
[12:11] that so that we can move forward with
this cause we'd like to continue to make
[12:16] it an annual event if we to keep it going.
All right.
[12:19] So we have these two points on here.
We have to do 2 separate motions.
[12:24] For the reschedule and one for the annual.
So I'd be looking for a motion to approve
[12:31] the Cultural Council to hold the second
annual scarecrow contest from October 1st
[12:38] through the 31st.
[12:41] 2nd.
[12:43] And do you want to chat?
Because I see that you have your hand up.
[12:46] So I did have a question.
Joanne mentioned the the reception for
[12:49] Yes.
[12:51] like at the end and I wondered if you
could say a little bit more about that.
[12:57] Will that be on town property as well?
[12:58] OK.
[13:01] What we were thinking is we'd have it up
here in the Town Hall.
[13:05] We'd have it on the evening of the Town
Hall on the 27th.
[13:06] OK.
[13:08] When we announced the results,
it would be at the reception here at the
[13:12] Town Hall and we, you know,
serve some beverages and cookies and
[13:16] stuff like that.
But at least that way that everyone would
[13:19] be together.
[13:20] Conflict. So we can reserve sure. Yeah.
OK, so all those in favor.
[13:23] Break.
[13:26] Thank you.
[13:29] Kuter aye. Chanel aye. All right,
so with reception to be held here in Town
[13:31] Rugos eye.
[13:35] Hall.
And then we need to reschedule the
[13:39] scavenger hunt because Oh right,
it's two separate events.
[13:45] Because it was, it was rained out.
We didn't have a rain date.
[13:49] So you'd like to move it to September
21st, I think. Yes, it's a Sunday morning.
[13:54] We do it from 9:00 to 12:00.
It's the same route. Nothing's changed.
[13:58] It'll start at cleft and end at cleft.
It'll be of the old village of Mendon.
[14:02] Same questions, you know,
you get to 1 and.
[14:05] QR codes are there to redirect them to a
conditional website,
[14:09] which would give them more information
and it's just the exact same.
[14:12] The only thing is we just couldn't do it
cause of the right thing.
[14:16] So do we do we want to add a
recommendation?
[14:19] We're gonna do this rain or shine, OK?
[14:21] This is the the the vote we've done.
Rain or shine.
[14:24] It is happening on the 21st.
If it's raining, stick your mud boots on,
[14:28] get the rain gear on. We're doing it.
All right,
[14:30] Right.
[14:30] well then I'd be looking for a motion to
approve this rain or shine event.
[14:35] I move to approve the.
[14:36] Historic scavenger hunt on Sunday,
September 21st,
[14:40] 2025 from 9:12 PM starting 9:00 AM to
12:00 PM starting at Henry Cuff School on
[14:45] North End.
[14:47] 2nd.
[14:49] Are you discussing?
[14:51] Just want to add,
there was a rain date for the the what
[14:52] All.
[14:54] Yes, it was.
[14:55] it's just you may recall like every
Saturday for like 3 years was rainy.
[14:58] I That was one of the 14 stretches. Yeah,
I'm sorry. I did forget because I was.
[15:05] But yes, I I believe, yeah,
there there was a rain date.
[15:06] I was soggy brained.
[15:09] It's just the rain date got rained out as
well.
[15:10] Yes.
[15:12] Yeah. So we're going to try the fall.
All right.
[15:15] Good, good, good strategy to go with rain.
[15:17] So all those in favor of the rain or
shine event, Kuter, Aye.
[15:24] Rugo's eye.
[15:27] All right. Sorry to rush.
We have to start a meeting.
[15:30] Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
All the the Cultural Council does.
[15:35] These events are really awesome.
Thank you. OK,
[15:39] so quickly we're going to go back to #6,
which is the public hearing about PJS.
[15:44] At Miss Mendon Diners.
So just continue it.
[15:47] It says continue to a later date.
I don't even have to read the whole thing.
[15:51] OK,
well then we're going to continue it to a
[15:53] later date and that's that. Yeah,
we'll we'll publish the time that we have
[15:57] it.
They were did not have everything
[15:59] necessary to have hold this hearing.
So we'll continue to a later date and
[16:03] notify the public.
[16:04] All right, I love Russian today.
[16:09] So take a breather.
[16:14] And talk about donations.
So brothers of the brush,
[16:18] see some gentlemen in the audience.
You guys want to come up and talk about
[16:24] the park benches?
[16:26] Good evening. Good evening. Chair,
congratulations. Thank you very much. Mr.
[16:31] Select Board member.
Remote Select Board member greetings.
[16:36] Well,
first off by introducing myself for the
[16:39] general audience. My name is Tom Pickner.
I'm a member of the Brothers of the Brush.
[16:45] I've been for roughly 2021 years.
I currently serve on the Executive Board
[16:50] as Treasurer of the organization.
[16:53] Introduce my wingman here this evening.
We have Mr. Tom Bellen,
[16:57] who's been a member of the Brothers of
the Brush for, excuse me,
[17:01] a period of time, three years. OK.
He also serves on our Scholarship
[17:05] Committee as well. And we also have Mr.
AJ Burn.
[17:08] Who's a member of the Executive Board.
AJ also is our membership coordinator as
[17:13] well and also handles a lot of other
things that you may not formally have a
[17:18] title for, but does many things,
a lot of many things.
[17:22] So we're here tonight.
[17:24] To present a donation to the Town of
Mendon on behalf of the Brothers of the
[17:29] Brush. And I have a letter. Unfortunately,
our president was unable to be here
[17:35] tonight either way. So if I may,
I'd like to read a letter here. Yeah,
[17:40] we'd like to hear. Read that in. OK,
great.
[17:45] Those is to the Men and Select Board,
Town Administrator regarding donation for
[17:50] new tables and benches at Memorial Park.
Greetings to the Select Board and Town
[17:56] Administrator,
the Menham Brush Association,
[17:59] AKA Brothers of the Brush.
[18:01] Would like to present to you the enclosed
donation in the sum in the sum of $4906.
[18:07] 64 for the purchase of new tables and
benches to be installed at Memorial Park.
[18:12] The need for these tables and benches was
brought to the attention of our
[18:17] association by a resident of Mendon.
[18:20] And our membership voted unanimously to
support this worthy cause. Additionally,
[18:25] the Brothers of the Brush are prepared to
offer our services toward the labor
[18:30] aspect of installing these tables and
benches.
[18:33] Just don't make us sweat too much.
[18:35] Since its founding in 1967,
the Manhattan Park Association has
[18:39] operated under two key principles to
support individuals,
[18:42] families and organizations in Mendon and
surrounding towns,
[18:46] and to improve and promote public spirit
and cooperation in our community.
[18:50] Our 40 plus strong membership consists of
individuals dedicated to these principles.
[18:56] We continually strive to improve and
enhance our support for the people in our
[19:01] community. Warmest regards, Chad Lavasty,
Manheim Brush Association President. Well,
[19:06] that's quite generous of your
organization. Can you tell us?
[19:10] A little bit more about the park benches.
You're not talking about the stuff
[19:14] underneath the gazebo.
You're talking about physically installed
[19:18] benches along the paths. Is that?
So as as I understand it,
[19:21] it's not the benches under the in the
pavilion area.
[19:24] There's apparently a couple of benches
that are out in the field.
[19:28] And that I guess in.
[19:32] Tough condition.
And so these are the tables that we're
[19:36] talking about replacing. Specifically,
as I understand it,
[19:40] it's two tables that are handicapped
accessible and I neglected to bring a
[19:45] photograph that I was going to.
[19:47] Show you folks exactly what it is where
there's a bench on one side,
[19:51] it's open on the other, right.
The table kind of extends out so a
[19:55] wheelchair can come underneath, correct?
Yep. And then it's also 5 benches,
[20:00] I believe along with that just benches
that would be positioned in various.
[20:04] Points in the park. Where exactly?
I'm not sure. Yeah,
[20:08] I can kind of take off my brother's hat
as a Parks Commissioner.
[20:12] So Dan and I reviewed the benches
yesterday.
[20:15] So they will be identical to the ones at
the beach for the metal type benches for
[20:21] longevity and they'll be.
[20:23] If you've been up there by the playground
area,
[20:26] those benches are pretty much falling
apart,
[20:29] so they'll be up in there and we're
trying to remove the picnic tables that
[20:34] are again falling apart because they're
all wood up in the park area.
[20:38] We to some extent we were hoping for the
parks.
[20:41] Side of it that the bench,
those will be available for the block
[20:46] party as well.
So we're not sure as it's going to be
[20:50] tight. We probably won't have it,
but fortunately the the park is used a
[20:55] lot, you know, as you may probably know,
so I sat on those benches outside the
[21:00] playground.
[21:01] Yeah.
And I think what happened was the
[21:04] brothers, as you probably know, I mean,
I'm, I'm love being a member,
[21:09] but very generous with and so we had a
golf tournament that was very successful
[21:15] for our first one. So and that was.
[21:18] Part of the discussion at the meeting to
kind of see how we did and we did well
[21:23] enough to be able to provide the benches
and you know it's just it came up.
[21:27] Brothers just said you know let's let's
do this and everybody on like
[21:31] memorializing any of the benches or
they're just going to be benches or yes
[21:35] either way if the brothers don't do it we.
[21:38] Talked about former brothers, possibly.
I know Ellen Barrows is already oralized
[21:45] at a one of the bleachers. If not,
Dan and I talked about looking at maybe
[21:51] doing kind of lean towards veterans a lot,
but it could be.
[21:56] You know, we can talk more about it,
but either way, yes, we'd like to.
[22:00] I'm glad AJ brought it up.
I spoke with Dan Byer,
[22:03] the Parks Recreation Director. This is,
this is something that Parks wants and
[22:08] needs and will use and is appropriate for
a space. So it's not, you know,
[22:12] a donor directing what we should do.
This is something that the.
[22:16] The town needs and they're going.
So administratively we have to make two
[22:21] motions,
one to accept the gift and then one to
[22:25] create an account for it to be placed in
and we're not going to be creating
[22:31] separate.
[22:32] Accounts, correct.
I I spoke with accounting and I said can
[22:35] we create just a Jeff Parks gift fund so
we don't have to do this every time when
[22:39] it something comes in. And they said no,
they want because this is a specific
[22:43] donation,
they want an account specific to that
[22:45] donation.
So that's more work on their end,
[22:47] but they're the one doing it and they're
the one suggesting it.
[22:50] So it's it's too motion.
[22:52] Very specific.
[22:54] All right,
so I'd be looking for that first motion
[22:57] to accept them. Thanks.
I move to accept the funds from the
[23:01] Brothers of the Brush for the
installation of park benches.
[23:05] 2nd.
[23:06] Any discussion?
[23:11] Yeah. Thank you for your generosity. Sure.
All right. All those in favor, Kuter. Aye.
[23:18] Brugos eye.
[23:19] OK.
[23:20] Excellent.
And then the second motion I'd be looking
[23:24] for to create a gift account to hold and
expend the funds that were just accepted
[23:29] from the Brothers Department.
I move to create a gift account to hold
[23:34] and expend the funds for.
[23:36] 2nd.
[23:39] Any discussion?
[23:42] All those in favor, Kuter aye.
[23:45] Rugose I.
[23:47] All right. Motion passes. Gentlemen,
thank you very much.
[23:51] We really appreciate it. As always,
your organization does a lot for our town.
[23:57] Thank you so much.
This is gonna go to this guy right here.
[24:02] Thank you for coming. Thank you.
[24:05] Yeah. Do you guys want to do a picture?
Oh, yeah,
[24:09] we should do a picture for the brothers.
Yeah. We need a picture. Come on up.
[24:16] Hold on, I'll get on my fancy shirt.
I brought a picture.
[24:23] We'll just stand up in a row here,
guys in the middle.
[24:28] Katie will be out in the middle.
[24:35] There's the same time.
[24:40] That's my face. Thank you. OK, yeah, 1/2.
[24:51] All right. Thank you. Awesome. Great.
All right. Thanks. Thanks.
[25:01] Yeah,
how much is that 153 by 10s and 67 by
[25:05] five sizes. Yeah,
we're only doing ornaments this year.
[25:10] Sorry. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
[25:16] All right. And so um.
[25:19] Bye.
[25:25] I'm just going to pause for a minute to
ask Elena how the sound has been this
[25:29] meeting because we're remote and we want
to make sure you can hear us.
[25:33] Thank you. It's been great so far,
so much, much clearer from the beginning.
[25:34] 8.
[25:35] Awesome.
[25:39] So thank you for checking,
although I would have spoken up again.
[25:40] All right. Thank you very much. All right.
So another donation.
[25:45] Thank you. Thank you for checking.
[25:48] Um.
[25:50] So we have an anonymous donor that has
donated a gently used Blackstone Grill to
[25:57] the fire department so that they can get
their cooking on and outside the
[26:03] department there during on-call.
[26:06] Chief, you're here.
Do you want to say anything?
[26:09] This came through the the town minister's
office and it was just a donation that
[26:13] they're looking and they're probably
going to use it for the different events
[26:18] we do in the open house,
public safety type things. Awesome.
[26:22] And once again,
checked with the department.
[26:24] It's not like a milk gel for them, right?
It's something that they want and use.
[26:28] So yeah, the resident have used it once,
said the fire department can get better
[26:32] use out of it and want it to stay
anonymous.
[26:34] So I I just be looking for a motion to
accept the anonymous donation.
[26:38] I move to accept the donation of a gently
used Blackstone grill.
[26:44] 2nd.
[26:46] Any discussion?
[26:48] As always,
our generous residents stepping up to
[26:51] help out. So that's pretty awesome.
All right, all those in favor? Cooter.
[26:55] Aye, Chanel.
[26:57] Brugo's eye.
[26:59] All right. Thank you very much.
Anonymous Blackstone Grill donor.
[27:06] All right.
So #9 special town meeting considerations.
[27:11] Yeah.
So we had talked about the floodplain
[27:15] bylaw not being in its particular.
[27:19] Um.
[27:20] That the specifications didn't comport
with FEMA requirements.
[27:26] There's one person in town who is under
this program.
[27:33] Town planner has without success yet
tried to reach out to this person to see
[27:37] when their renewal date break because if
their renewal dates in February,
[27:40] it doesn't matter whether we pass it in.
So we're trying to get some more
[27:43] information on this individual before we
consider a special town meeting
[27:47] specifically for a revised home plain
model.
[27:49] So working on it.
It'll probably be next meeting.
[27:52] We're trying to reach out to the point.
OK. Thanks.
[27:58] All right. And the Zoning Bylaw Review.
So you received a a list of proposed by
[28:06] Zoning Bylaw Review changes earlier today.
[28:11] Um.
[28:14] I'm reading through the notes there.
[28:18] So we should wait until the next meeting
before we talk about all this or we
[28:23] should talk about it.
This is certainly just an FYI.
[28:26] The point was just to say,
here's what the Zoning Bylaw Review
[28:30] Committee is on certain things.
So I'm sharing on the screen now.
[28:34] A lot of it is grammar changes,
some some clarifying and textual changes,
[28:42] the removing what we think is a
unenforceable and unallowable restriction
[28:49] on marijuana signage.
[28:51] ADU bylaw we passed at the 2024 Fall Town
Meeting, but we got, like I said,
[28:57] a 17 page response from the Attorney
General's office.
[29:01] So the Town Planner is working with Town
Council now to rectify that.
[29:07] That's the large one.
[29:09] And then the number 10 and #11 new
proposed zoning bylaw to allow by special
[29:14] permit a limited number of common
driveways with specific conditions and
[29:20] new proposed zoning bylaw flag lots which
are lots with reduced Rd.
[29:25] frontage and larger.
[29:27] Area behind it looks like flagpole with a
flag on it,
[29:30] subject to special permit specific
conditions.
[29:32] So those are two of the two of the new
ones that are on here. Again,
[29:36] this has been circulated to to the Select
Board and before the Fall Town Meeting
[29:40] warrant is closed and these are placed on
them,
[29:43] we'll have greater discussions with the
board.
[29:46] And then there's also kind of an FYI of
stuff that they're also working on,
[29:50] stuff about photovoltaic facilities,
moving definitions, other small changes,
[29:54] and then organizational changes to the
document.
[29:57] There wasn't a meeting yesterday,
so I was planning on having the planner
[30:00] here today to talk about what happened
yesterday, but they didn't have a form.
[30:05] So we'll have this,
we'll have a update from the Zoning Bylaw
[30:10] Review Committee in in advance of Fall
Town meeting. All right.
[30:14] Thank you for that update. All right.
So building inspection fees.
[30:20] So you also would have received a memo
from the Town Administrator as well as a
[30:27] table of proposed fees that listed off
both new existing fees,
[30:32] new fees and fee schedules from towns in
our area so that you could do a
[30:38] comparison there.
[30:40] And so I see that the Building
Commissioner is online. John,
[30:44] do you want to talk about these proposed
fees and why we think it's a good idea to
[30:50] make these changes for our town?
[30:51] Yes, I would. Thank you. You know,
as the memo says,
[30:55] I've I've had a chance to review the fees
recently.
[30:58] The last time the building department fee,
building permit fees were updated was
[31:03] 2013. Plumbing and gas, plumbing,
gas and electrical fees were last updated
[31:07] and.
[31:08] 2014, you know,
with the building department being a
[31:12] fee-based department,
of course the fees are meant to cover
[31:16] inspector salaries,
direct costs or direct expenses,
[31:20] indirect expenses, et cetera, the the.
[31:23] The adjustments here are pretty basic on
the building permit fees.
[31:27] The major one is just moving the fee for
a commercial occupancy permit into the
[31:32] building permit fee so that it's paid up
front instead of at the end of a project.
[31:37] It just makes it better for all involved.
Along with that,
[31:40] it's what I would consider a nominal.
[31:43] Increase of roughly a dollar per thousand
of the cost of construction across the
[31:48] board, plumbing, gas and wiring fees.
The the structure didn't make a whole lot
[31:53] of sense. We had a lot of or not a lot,
but we had certain types of projects that.
[31:58] Didn't even fall into a category such as,
you know, on electrical solar,
[32:03] which is probably our largest number of
permits in building and iron.
[32:08] So without getting into too much
nitty-gritty,
[32:11] I've given you the current fee schedule,
the proposed.
[32:15] Increases and a list of towns to compare
it to and I'm here for any, you know,
[32:21] try and answer any questions.
[32:25] Yeah, I mean, so from my point of view,
this all looked pretty valid.
[32:29] Nothing really jumped out at me is
extraordinary or and and I really
[32:34] appreciate the the comparison with the
other towns that was bottom line very
[32:39] helpful.
So I I'd open it up to the board like.
[32:42] Is is there anything different you'd like
to see in this fee schedule?
[32:47] Is it confusing?
Do you understand where John's going with
[32:50] all this?
[32:53] Yeah, I agree with you.
I think it's it's relatively clear and
[32:57] the comparison makes it clear that you
know we we have to be in line with
[33:01] surrounding towns and gets us there a
little bit.
[33:05] I want to just reiterate a point that the
Building Commissioner made that you know
[33:09] the the permit fees are a large local
receipt for us,
[33:12] but also our building inspectors are paid
not directly from these fees,
[33:16] but paid out of the general fund which is
then supported by these fees.
[33:21] And having not changed them in over a
decade,
[33:23] the purchasing power for us of those fees
has been drastically reduced.
[33:28] Yeah,
get getting in line without extraordinary
[33:32] measures. I mean, you know,
most of these are not going up a terrible
[33:36] amount. Or if they are going up,
they're going up, you know,
[33:41] because they're so archaically old.
[33:43] So it all seems very reasonable.
This is got a big impact as a whole,
[33:49] right?
But on the individual should be pretty
[33:52] minor.
[33:54] Uh, Elena.
[33:56] Sorry,
I just also glad to see this being
[33:57] Exit.
[33:59] addressed and I don't know if I missed it,
but what is a more appropriate schedule
[34:05] for us to revisit these fees?
Cause clearly 11 years is too long.
[34:10] Did you say like,
did you have advice about how often?
[34:14] Uh, typically these would be addressed.
[34:17] I I haven't really thought about that.
I would say it should be looked at every
[34:22] two to three years. In some sense,
you know there is a an inherent increase
[34:27] because when the cost of construction
which some permit fees are based off of
[34:31] increases.
[34:32] The, you know,
the related permit fee does increase.
[34:36] But on some of them we had something so
archaic that you know a plumbing or I'm
[34:37] Mhm.
[34:41] sorry,
a gas inspection that required 2 permits
[34:44] where we pay our inspector $40 per
inspection was a $48 permit.
[34:48] So that clearly didn't make sense so.
[34:50] I I would, I mean,
I think I should keep an eye on it on an
[34:51] Thank you.
[34:54] ongoing basis, but you know,
every two to three years to just revisit
[34:55] Mhm.
[34:58] Mm.
[34:58] and you know, make minor adjustments.
I don't think there would be any major
[35:02] adjustments needed.
[35:03] Right. Yeah, I think, yeah,
that does seem like a a better strategy
[35:08] to have it be percentage versus a flat
fee.
[35:12] Great. Thank you.
[35:12] And.
[35:13] Yeah,
with the drastic changes in supply costs
[35:16] and whatnot over the last few years
especially.
[35:20] And I was just gonna add it's a it's a
typical structure that most towns use
[35:25] some some types of work is a flat fee and
other is you know a percentage of of the
[35:30] job cost and it's I think we're you know
all towns are using both methods.
[35:35] But I I think,
I think this really tightens it up to
[35:38] what we really should be doing. You know,
considering we don't want to do
[35:43] necessarily what every other town is
doing,
[35:45] but we we want to take some of that into
consideration. But I think,
[35:49] I think this is a a very solid fee
schedule.
[35:53] And John,
this simplifies the electrical permits
[35:57] too, is that correct?
[35:59] Yes,
drastically to the extent that we can now
[36:02] put that into our software system.
So when somebody applies for a permit,
[36:06] it will generate the fee,
whereas in the for the past forever since
[36:10] our online permit came in or even before
that one was paper-based.
[36:16] We have to somehow try and correlate the
the ambiguous fee schedule with the scope
[36:22] of work, which now we can just, you know,
we can set up in the viewpoint software
[36:28] and when somebody.
[36:30] Applies for a certain,
whether it's a solar permit or anything
[36:33] else or a swimming pool,
the fee will be generated and it's going
[36:37] to save time.
So we don't have to wait for the the
[36:40] reaction of of permits applied for.
Then the wire inspector logs in and
[36:43] reviews it,
sets the fee and then it goes back to the
[36:46] contractor. So it's.
[36:48] It's definitely going to expedite things
and make things more convenient.
[36:48] Yeah.
[36:51] Certainly and it it allows folks to know
the cost before it.
[36:55] It took that extra level of staff work
and it wasn't clear to the applicant.
[37:00] So the simplification of the fees
eliminates both of those like operational
[37:05] Lex and that's a slim seat.
[37:08] Network. That's great. OK, so.
[37:15] Think there are no more questions and
there's really no opposition to the
[37:20] proposed fees by the admin or the board.
I'd be looking.
[37:26] To get a motion to approve,
I want to make sure this is covered.
[37:29] This was in the proposal as well that
permit fees are waived by select boards
[37:33] for all by the select board for all
municipal owned properties.
[37:37] So that happened on a case by case basis.
So this proposal is saying the default is
[37:41] for the.
So in those cases we would waive the
[37:44] permit fee. We would still end up.
[37:46] Paying our inspectors,
but it you know it's one pocket versus
[37:49] the other, right? We're still,
we're still submitting the permits.
[37:53] So there are the permits and we're paying
the inspectors,
[37:57] but we're not taking money out of one
pocket, right?
[38:00] Because when we have a contractor do it,
if we require them to pull the permit.
[38:05] In half the case,
they mark that up and then we end up
[38:08] paying more for a thing where we can just
waive it all together, right? Makes sense.
[38:13] So this is in our procurement documents
right now saying fees have been waived
[38:18] for blah blah blah blah blah,
but it takes individual votes.
[38:22] Uh, this would make it.
[38:27] All right.
I move to accept the fee schedule as
[38:31] presented by the Building Commissioner.
[38:37] 2nd.
[38:38] Any discussion?
[38:42] Don,
appreciate all the effort that you put
[38:45] into this. Thank you. Um.
[38:45] If I can just ask for clarification,
that would be in effect immediately
[38:50] Yeah.
[38:50] because we were hoping to do this in June
for July 1st to go into effect on July
[38:56] 1st, but being July 16th or 15th,
whatever it is today,
[38:59] would that be the case?
[39:00] Do we have to change our motion?
All right.
[39:04] So then I'm going to ask you to amend the
motion. Yeah, amend the motion.
[39:10] So I move to approve the schedule of fees
as presented by the Building Commissioner
[39:16] effective date immediately.
[39:21] 2nd.
[39:22] Thank you. All right. Any discussion?
[39:26] Right. Seeing as there's none.
All those in favor, Kuter. Aye.
[39:31] Brugos eye.
[39:33] All right. So the motion passes, John.
Those fees go into effect immediately.
[39:37] And so you can go ahead and make your
updates. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[39:40] Thanks. Thank you all.
[39:45] All right.
[39:47] Um.
[39:49] Is a fire fire before the appointments?
Yeah.
[39:57] What number is that? Um.
[40:02] Okay, number 16.
[40:06] On call fire credit rates. Yeah,
sorry Sir,
[40:09] you got got buried in a very long agenda.
[40:14] So we're going to talk.
We're going to skip forward because Chief
[40:18] is here and we don't want to keep him
waiting to #16 to talk about on-call
[40:22] firefighter rates. Base Banwin,
Fire Chief. Welcome.
[40:25] After the last meeting,
there was some questions regarding the
[40:28] on-call rates.
[40:30] Did a little digging and found that they
haven't been receiving the call up
[40:34] increases that everyone else in town has
been getting.
[40:37] So Jeremy and I got together and figured
out where they should be at.
[40:42] And then streamline the promotional part
of it. They were,
[40:47] they're kind of all over the place with
the percentage increases for each rank.
[40:53] So there's the current proposal and I'm
just going to say that this will get us.
[40:59] To the bottom of the pay scale still for
the area towns for the on call.
[41:05] So this will just be a.
[41:08] For now,
I'd still be looking for the bigger
[41:11] market adjustment in the future to get
them where they future are you looking
[41:17] for? What's your time frame?
I believe when the next fiscal year the
[41:23] compensation study to match what everyone
else receives fiscal.
[41:28] Make sure we're all on the same page.
Yeah, so,
[41:31] so Select Board member Goddard was pretty
adamant about ensuring we knew what we're
[41:37] talking about and the town admin had made
mention that that report is wrapping up.
[41:43] So we should have that meeting on the
23rd to finalize.
[41:47] Imminently,
which means I hope to be talking about
[41:52] this in September. So OK, great.
So we'd be looking to then do these catch
[41:59] up rates as noted here and you're you're
gonna.
[42:04] Keep the recruit rate at 15. Yes,
the recruits are non-trained firefighters.
[42:08] They're just they're learning the job.
Once they become certified firefighters,
[42:13] they will get the bump to the. All right,
so they're gonna get that $3.
[42:17] 81 bump once they complete their training,
their certification.
[42:21] And this keeps the stipends.
So we talked about during the chief's
[42:25] proposal at the last meeting to eliminate
the stipends and bring the hourly rates
[42:30] up to much greater than this.
So this because this is just a COLO,
[42:34] so this this applies the 20 as it says in
the memo,
[42:37] the last one they received was July 21.
[42:40] So this applies the colas that other town
employees have received and then creates
[42:44] this 10%.
It applies that the firefighter then
[42:46] creates this 10% spread between the ranks
and then it keeps their stipend.
[42:50] So as we talk about the 27 budget,
this is all kind of up for up for debate
[42:54] at that point,
removal of the stipends and the market
[42:57] adjustment,
but I want to be very clear that that
[42:59] stipend.
[43:00] This.
[43:01] All right. And is this uh?
[43:05] Clear enough for your on-call fire person.
Like,
[43:08] do they understand what's going on here?
Yes. Yeah, they understand that it's.
[43:12] I don't want to ask if they're OK because
I'm sure they wouldn't be OK.
[43:16] They just don't want to say that.
So that's fine. I get it.
[43:20] But they understand. Yeah. OK.
None of them are there for the money.
[43:24] I I don't think anybody does the civil
job.
[43:27] It's just getting the rate in a better
place will help keep the people we do
[43:32] have, keep them. And I want to reiterate,
you said this just gets us to the bottom
[43:38] of the pay scale.
We really need to go up higher to eat
[43:41] talent.
[43:42] And I just want to point out that the
talent that we're talking about here
[43:47] isn't just firefighters,
but you have to bring in lieutenants,
[43:51] captains and deputy chiefs at a time to
cover these spots.
[43:54] We just don't have enough staff, right?
So this isn't just.
[43:58] Just the operations.
This is the whole right leadership and
[44:02] OPS.
We currently do not have any on call
[44:04] Lieutenants.
The three Lieutenants we have are on
[44:08] career. OK,
so that's just there for the future there
[44:11] for the future and it happens.
[44:13] And you were on call deputy chief before?
I was on call deputy chief for three
[44:19] years,
two or three years before I became chief.
[44:23] So we usually get some pretty good talent
from that poll. We try.
[44:29] Um.
[44:31] Does the board have any discussion on
this?
[44:35] No,
I think we also covered it last time just
[44:38] to make sure that going forward this.
[44:42] Doesn't slip again.
Two points on that definitely won't.
[44:45] He's the department now. And 2nd,
I I'm never in a position to speak for
[44:50] another select board member,
but Select Board Morali called me and
[44:53] expressed his desire that we get these
rates up and do it quickly.
[44:57] So he's not here to vote tonight,
but he was,
[45:00] I can't say about his specific.
[45:02] Civics on these specific rates,
but his desire was to to have this done
[45:06] and done quickly. I mean,
it's only fair and these would be
[45:10] retroactive to preempt the question that
John asked the board.
[45:14] These will be retroactive to July 1st,
one pay period.
[45:18] And they get paid monthly.
So we wouldn't even have to really do
[45:23] that. All right. Well,
I think it's an easy enough thing to
[45:27] understand.
So I don't have any additional questions.
[45:31] I'd be looking for a motion to approve.
[45:36] I move to approve the on call firefighter
rates as presented by the Chief and the
[45:41] Town Administrator.
[45:43] 2nd.
[45:44] Right. Any discussion?
[45:49] So seeing there's no discussion.
All those in favor Hooter. Aye.
[45:55] Rugose I.
[45:56] OK.
[45:57] So the motion's approved.
Thank you so much, Chief.
[46:00] I waiting to get to you a little earlier.
[46:03] Have a great night.
[46:10] All right, I'm going to run through.
I'm going to jump back to 12 and we're
[46:17] going to run through some reappointments
here. And so there's a lot.
[46:25] And they're all gonna be different,
so we're gonna have to go through each
[46:31] one. So the first one is.
[46:35] I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna state the first one and then
[46:39] Brendan's gonna read the motion,
then Elena's gonna 2nd and then we'll go
[46:44] through it, I guess like that. All right.
So we're looking to reappoint Peter
[46:48] Denton to the Agricultural Commission for
a three-year term to expire June 30th,
[46:53] 2028.
[46:56] I move to reappoint Peter Dent to the
Agricultural Commission for a two year
[47:01] term to expire June 30th, 2028.
three-year term. three-year term.
[47:05] It says two, but it's three.
I should think about it.
[47:09] 2nd.
[47:11] Discussion. All those in favor Kuter. Aye,
aye.
[47:17] Brugos eye.
[47:20] Great. So that passes.
The second one would be to appoint Lisa
[47:24] Vandervalk and Kristina Want.
Is that Want or Wante Want to the
[47:29] Agricultural Commission?
I moved to appoint Lisa Vandervalk to the
[47:34] Agricultural Commission for a three-year
term to expire June 30, 2028 ending.
[47:40] Uh, the completely like UF extreme.
[47:43] Thank you. Discussion.
[47:43] 2nd.
[47:49] All those in favor, Hooter aye.
[47:53] Brugos eye.
[47:56] I move to appoint Kristina want to the
Agricultural Commission for a two year
[48:01] term to expire June 30th,
2027 pending issue of the.
[48:05] 2nd.
[48:06] Discussion.
[48:09] All those in favor, Kuter Aye.
[48:13] There goes I.
[48:15] Thank you, Kristina and Lisa.
I just want to be clear on these motions.
[48:20] These are the Select Board had posted
these vacancies for for all these
[48:24] commissions for expiring terms.
So we're going some of these are
[48:28] reappointments for folks who are
interested.
[48:31] But the Agriculture Commission,
those are two new ones in terms of Select
[48:34] Board goal to reinvigorate the
Agricultural Commission.
[48:37] So now we have a we have a quorum there
and we'll be reaching out to those folks
[48:40] shortly to to get that committee back,
back up and running. Yeah, that's great.
[48:44] That's gonna be great.
[48:46] I didn't smile in ear to ear. All right.
[48:48] All right. Um.
[48:51] So we need to reappoint James Thash
Capital Planning to the Capital Planning
[48:57] Committee. That was a very shy,
read it directly. All right,
[49:02] I I move to reappoint James Thash to the
Capital Planning Committee for it to be
[49:08] returned to expire on June.
[49:10] Maybe.
[49:12] 2nd.
[49:14] Discussion.
[49:16] All those in favor, Kuter. Aye.
[49:19] Rucus I.
[49:21] Thank you, James.
And so now we need to reappoint Michael
[49:25] Goddard to the Community Preservation
Commission as the Select Board
[49:31] representative.
[49:33] All right,
I move to reappoint Mike Goddard to the
[49:37] Community Preservation Committee for a
three-way challenge.
[49:44] 2nd.
[49:48] All those in favor Hooter aye.
[49:51] Rugose eye.
[49:53] All right,
we need to reappoint Diane Howell and
[49:58] Donna Sun.
[50:01] To that Council on Aging,
do the same term for the same things you
[50:05] can combine that into one.
That sounds good.
[50:08] I move to reappoint Diane Howell and
Donna Sun to the Council on Aging for a
[50:13] three-year term to expire June 30th, 2020.
[50:17] 2nd.
[50:18] Discussion.
[50:21] All those in favor, Hooter aye. Aye.
[50:24] Rugo's eye.
[50:27] All right. Thank you very much,
Diane and Donna.
[50:30] And now we need to reappoint Tom Merolli
to the Economic Development Committee.
[50:36] I move to reappoint Tom Merolli to the
Economic Development Committee for a
[50:41] three-year term to expire June 30th.
[50:45] 2nd.
[50:45] Sure.
[50:47] Discussion.
[50:50] All those in favor Hooter. Aye.
[50:52] Brugos eye.
[50:55] Thank you very much, Mr. Tom Roli.
All right,
[50:58] now we need to reappoint Jim Stover to
the Cultural Council.
[51:03] I move to reappoint Jim Stover to the
Cultural Council for a three-year term to
[51:08] expire June 30th, 2028.
[51:11] 2nd.
[51:12] Discussion.
This has an MGL which limits the term
[51:15] someone can serve on the Cultural Council
and Elena and I have talked about this
[51:19] before.
I don't know why the Cultural Council is
[51:22] the one subject to term limits,
but it is and but Jim Stover has not
[51:25] reached that.
So he will after this and have to take a
[51:28] year hiatus, but we confirmed that before.
[51:31] Very interesting municipal fact.
Thank you. That is extremely interesting.
[51:36] I would love to know the history of that.
Sounds are tracks this and is cognizant
[51:41] of it and it's good to go.
[51:44] Um.
[51:46] All right. Shoot. Where are we at?
That was discussion. Discussion.
[51:52] Thank you. All right. All those in favor,
Kuter. Aye.
[51:58] Brugos eye.
[51:58] OK.
[51:59] Thank you very much, Jim. All right.
We need to reappoint Kristina Campbell to
[52:06] the Historical Commission and to and to
the Historical District Commission.
[52:12] I move to reappoint Kristina Campbell to
the Historic.
[52:17] Commission and the Historic District
Commission for a three-year term to
[52:23] 2nd.
[52:23] expire June 30th, 2020. Discussion.
All those in favor Kuter. Aye.
[52:29] Rugose eye.
[52:30] Thank you.
[52:32] Thank you very much, Kristina. All right.
We are reappointing Debbie Broe to the
[52:38] Historical Commission. I move to.
I move to reappoint Deborah Broe to the
[52:44] Historical Commission for a three-year
term.
[52:48] 2nd.
[52:50] Discussion. All those in favor, Kuter.
Aye, no aye.
[52:56] Rugose eye.
[52:58] Thank you very much, Deborah.
We need to reappoint Elena Brugos and
[53:04] Anne Mazar to the Land Use Committee.
[53:09] Should we do? OK, that'll be fine.
Is there anything you can do that with
[53:14] two appointing yourself cause she asked
to do we have to pass that to the next
[53:16] Yeah, is this gonna be an issue?
[53:19] one so we can have three or I don't know
those goals.
[53:22] You have a quorum here and you need a
majority of the quorum,
[53:26] so two votes is a legitimate vote, OK?
[53:29] So, so Jason can second.
[53:29] Sounds good.
[53:31] So I will second Anna and then we will.
Yeah, you'll abstain. That'll be good fun.
[53:37] OK, yeah, let's do Anne separately.
That sounds good.
[53:39] Can we do and separately or?
[53:41] I I moved to reappoint Elena Brugos to
the Landies Committee for a three-year
[53:46] term to expire June 30th, 2020.
[53:50] Second discussion.
All those in favor Kuter. Aye.
[53:56] I'll abstain.
[53:58] All right, motion passes. Next,
I move to reappoint Amy's Active Land Use
[54:03] Committee for a three-year term to expire
June 30th.
[54:07] 2nd.
[54:08] Discussion. All those in favor, Kuter.
Aye.
[54:13] Brugos eye.
[54:15] Thank you very much, Elena and Anne.
[54:19] All right,
we need to reappoint Matthew Clark to the
[54:23] Zoning Board of Appeals.
I move to reappoint Matt Clark to the
[54:27] Zoning Board of Appeals for a three-year
term to expire June 30th, 2028.
[54:33] 2nd.
[54:33] Yeah.
[54:35] Discussion.
[54:37] All those in favor hooter aye.
[54:41] Rigose eye.
[54:43] Thank you very much, Matthew. All right,
the next one and the last one is to
[54:48] reappoint Lonnie Tinio as the alternate
Zoning Board of Appeals for a one-year
[54:54] term.
I move to reappoint Lonnie Tinio as an
[54:57] alternate to the Zoning Board of Appeals
for a one-year term to.
[55:05] 2nd.
[55:06] Discussion. Is this the whole thing?
It's always one year. OK,
[55:11] All those in favor, Hoot or aye.
[55:15] Brugos eye.
[55:17] All right. Thank you very much, Lonnie.
And so on the point of appointments,
[55:23] there are two that are not on here,
2 committees.
[55:27] So there's the Conservation Commission
and the Finance Committee,
[55:32] both of which have multiple folks
interested in openings. So with.
[55:37] With the Conservation Commission,
there were two openings with two
[55:41] incumbents.
One incumbent was interested in being
[55:43] reappointed, the other incumbent was not.
And we have Katie,
[55:46] I think there's three other two or three,
there's multiple other people interest.
[55:50] So we've got,
we've got three to four people that the
[55:53] chairs on and can can elaborate a little
bit.
[55:56] Multiple people for for the vacancy.
So in the Finance Committee we have two
[56:00] incumbents who are interested in
reappointment and one new candidate
[56:04] interest in reappointment.
So what the chairs of both committees are
[56:08] looking for is guidance from the Select
Board on how.
[56:11] They should be approaching this.
So ultimately the appointment is the
[56:15] Select Board's appointment. Historically,
when there has been an opening,
[56:19] committees have interviewed interested
parties and come to the Select Board with
[56:23] their recommendation,
it becomes a little more difficult.
[56:27] I shouldn't say that there is less
precedent in recent times when we have
[56:32] incumbents kind of interviewing and
standing for reappointment to their own
[56:37] position against folks who were not
currently on the committee.
[56:41] So both chairs are looking for guidance
on, you know,
[56:45] should we interview everybody.
[56:47] But the folks who are up for
reappointment and interested discussion
[56:50] and votes,
do you want the board to to meet and
[56:53] provide recommendations that the
constituent committees to meet and
[56:56] provide recommendations to the board?
Does the board want to interview people
[57:00] individually?
They're just looking for some guidance on
[57:03] how you think they should, they should.
[57:05] Proceed.
[57:07] This is one that we probably need the
whole board to discuss,
[57:11] but we will get started. Carl,
why don't you, if you got your hand up,
[57:15] why don't you chat about what's going on
and then we'll get next to the board.
[57:17] Right. Well,
my question is what is the current policy?
[57:21] The 2018 policy very clearly states what
should be done in this circumstance,
[57:26] but I've been informed but not seen the
draft proposal that's being reviewed by
[57:32] Town Council.
Does that draft change the process for
[57:36] interviewing?
[57:39] So as I understand it,
the policy is relative to openings on the
[57:44] committee.
So when I had said that there wasn't
[57:47] recent precedent on this,
it was my understanding that we haven't
[57:52] had.
[57:53] Both incumbents and you know, newcomers,
outside folks, whoever you want,
[57:58] new new faces at the same time.
So I think there will be an interview
[58:03] process,
but I I think having specific guidance
[58:06] from the select board is useful.
[58:07] OK,
what I have done with the candidates for
[58:10] the Conservation Commission is that I've
extended them an invitation to attend our
[58:16] next meeting.
We will be interviewing the three new
[58:19] members as well as Peter Coffin,
the incumbent.
[58:23] The incumbent, Peter Coffin,
would not be participating in the
[58:28] deliberations.
After we interview all four candidates,
[58:29] Goodbye.
[58:32] Yes.
[58:32] I would ask the Conservation Commission
to entertain a motion as to whether they
[58:38] wish to make a recommendation or whether
they wish to.
[58:42] HC.
[58:43] Just leave that U for the select board.
[58:49] That's a great way to approach it. Yeah,
I think that's pretty reasonable.
[58:53] I'm just our policy,
the one that's under review right now is
[58:56] is pretty high level in it and it and it
says essentially that it's desired but
[59:01] not mandatory for a board to interview,
yeah.
[59:02] Exactly.
[59:04] So um.
[59:07] Yeah,
I I think it's fair for every person
[59:10] looking for the spot to talk about why
they want that, even if they're incumbent.
[59:16] Yeah, right. And I think.
[59:19] I think I would prefer that the committee
make a choice,
[59:24] but I understand that there are times it
can't so.
[59:27] What we what we did the last time we had
a contested position,
[59:31] we had two candidates and both of them
had strengths and weaknesses.
[59:36] Both of them had different,
very strong backgrounds.
[59:39] And the letter I prepared for the select
board laid out what those were and I left
[59:45] it up to the select.
[59:46] Board to say, OK,
what kind of experience do you want on
[59:50] the the Commission?
[59:53] I remember that one, Carl.
That was extremely helpful and and I
[59:58] think that's a that helpful way to go.
Yeah,
[1:00:01] I think if the board has context to make
the decision and that context is backed
[1:00:06] by the expertise of that board.
[1:00:09] Then we should be able to do that, right?
Like,
[1:00:12] but it's when the it's when the
recommendation doesn't come with any
[1:00:16] context or there's no context and it's,
you know,
[1:00:19] you make the choice when we're not the
experts in that space,
[1:00:22] it makes that pretty difficult.
So that's why I'd like the committee to
[1:00:25] Right.
[1:00:27] provide that context. It sounds.
[1:00:29] Like you're going to. So yeah, that's.
[1:00:30] Yes,
what's happened in the past is after the.
[1:00:35] Commission or the committee appoint does
the interviews.
[1:00:39] The Select Board can then have another
round of interviews and and talk to
[1:00:43] people if and and as I could also appear
as the Con Com chair saying here's what
[1:00:49] the Con Com recommendation is.
[1:00:55] All right, that's fair. And so we'd be,
we'd be looking to have that discussion
[1:01:01] the first if you're going to meet at the
next week. So the first meeting in August,
[1:01:07] right, Elena.
[1:01:09] So I just wanted to add,
I know one one question that comes up
[1:01:11] OK.
[1:01:13] often when potential candidates come to
select board meetings for interviews is
[1:01:18] we ask whether candidates might be
interested in other boards or committees.
[1:01:23] And I know with so many people interested
in serving the town, I would.
[1:01:28] Love to like take the opportunity to see
if any of them might.
[1:01:33] Clearly we can't appoint all of them to
the this one open spot,
[1:01:38] but like consider whether there might be
other openings where these people might
[1:01:44] be able to contribute to the town.
[1:01:46] So just a little planting that seed there.
[1:01:47] Sounds like a good one pager. Yeah,
it sounds like Katie,
[1:01:51] if you could print like a one pager to
hand out.
[1:01:57] Do that. There are plenty of open spots,
so they all come to the next meeting.
[1:02:03] Like all the people who are,
we'll have to wait for Carl to get back
[1:02:08] to us.
[1:02:09] Well,
even even after we interview all four
[1:02:12] candidates,
I would say that the Select Board should
[1:02:15] do the same,
but they would be guided by what our
[1:02:19] recommendation would be.
[1:02:21] Yeah, yeah.
[1:02:22] It's it's your appointment, not ours.
[1:02:25] Yes, thank you.
[1:02:29] Is that enough guidance, Carl,
or do you want more more sustain?
[1:02:35] No, no,
that's that's fine for the Conservation
[1:02:39] Commission.
I will now put on my other hat as someone
[1:02:42] interested in the Fincom and say, Yep,
let me know what the Fincom's doing.
[1:02:49] So yes,
the Todd administrator is memoing our
[1:02:53] statements right now.
So I I think that's fair and I think it's
[1:02:59] clear and it there's precedent for it, so.
[1:03:04] All right. Um.
[1:03:10] So there's nothing we need to
specifically do here.
[1:03:14] We've spoken about what our guidance is.
We just need to follow through on what
[1:03:20] we've said and wish Carl good luck in
both his hats.
[1:03:25] So thanks Kyle for hanging out to you
know an hour and and so into the meeting
[1:03:31] to to ask those questions and get us to
clarify publicly. That's that's good.
[1:03:36] The advantage of attending remotely is
you can multitask.
[1:03:37] All good stuff.
[1:03:41] Yeah.
[1:03:43] All right. Well,
does anybody have anything else to add?
[1:03:46] Otherwise we can move on to the next
agenda.
[1:03:51] All right,
so agenda item number 13 is meeting
[1:03:55] minutes from approval.
You'll remember that one of them was held
[1:03:59] back for amending,
and that amendment has been made and
[1:04:02] approved by Select Board Member Goddard,
so we're ready to move and approve them.
[1:04:09] I move to approve the meeting minutes
from March 18th 2025 and June 18th.
[1:04:15] 2nd.
[1:04:17] Discussion.
[1:04:19] Are we caught up? Yep. Sweet.
That's really awesome.
[1:04:24] I think that's like the first time since
I've been here. Yeah, I want to.
[1:04:33] We had a senior tax abatement worker,
but got all of 2024 done and then caught
[1:04:38] up on 2025 while learning the rest of the
job. So yeah,
[1:04:41] I'm pretty proud of that as well.
That's really exciting news. All right,
[1:04:45] All right. All those in favor, Cooter Aye.
[1:04:49] Brugos eye.
[1:04:51] All right, motion passes. Thank you.
And then item number 14 in your packet
[1:04:56] were minutes for circulation from the
last meeting.
[1:05:00] So make sure that you look at those and
make any updates to get them to Katie.
[1:05:06] Before our next meeting, please.
[1:05:10] The MEC merger update, this is a fun one.
Would you like to give an update on that?
[1:05:15] Yeah, certainly. So MEC,
Metacomet Emergency Communications Center,
[1:05:20] our regional dispatch,
we've been exploring A merger with SEMREC,
[1:05:25] which is.
[1:05:26] Same thing, but with Foxborough,
Mansfield, Easton, Oregon.
[1:05:30] This was based upon getting a state 911
grant to expand the facilities at Semrec.
[1:05:36] Obviously the whole operation moved over
there and we unexpectedly were denied
[1:05:41] that grant from state 911.
[1:05:44] So earlier this month,
the MEC's Interim Executive Director,
[1:05:49] Bill Keegan,
and the Chair of Semrak's Board,
[1:05:52] the Town Administrator from Easton,
the Chair of our Board,
[1:05:57] the Town Administrator from Franklin.
[1:06:00] And then some folks from State 911 and
the Executive Director of SEMRAC all met
[1:06:05] to say what what happened.
So the state just hasn't dealt with this
[1:06:09] before, the merger of two regional,
2 regional entities and what do we do
[1:06:14] with the equipment and everything that
state grants paid for initially?
[1:06:18] How do we you know?
[1:06:20] So it's we're kind of in uncharted waters.
So it's not a no,
[1:06:23] it's a not right now from the state.
So they're looking to initiate a study on
[1:06:28] how regionals will merge and hopefully
clear up the enabling statute stuff
[1:06:32] because the way Mecca is set up,
we have a special act,
[1:06:35] the way SEMRAC is set up,
they have an inter municipal agreement,
[1:06:39] it's.
[1:06:39] I might not think that's right,
but we've got two separate governing
[1:06:43] structures.
So that's been one of the points of
[1:06:45] contention about which governing
structure do we adopt as well as what
[1:06:49] funding structure do we adopt.
Myself and the rent and the TA have been
[1:06:53] tasked with figuring that out.
[1:06:54] So the state's doing a study this fall
and they're looking to have guidance in
[1:07:00] advance of the next round of state 911
funding in fiscal 2027.
[1:07:04] So we may just kind of shift the whole
timeline out a year. So it's not.
[1:07:10] It's it's not it's not dead like I
initially thought it was when we when I
[1:07:13] first talked to to the executive director
interim executive director.
[1:07:16] So they're not just stretching it out
like they really want to know.
[1:07:19] Yeah they're they're trying to they
haven't been there before and they want
[1:07:23] to make sure we do it right.
How do they give like are we going to
[1:07:26] turn into a pilot because there's other
waiting.
[1:07:28] Regional mergers in the wings or I think,
I think grow or die has kind of been the
[1:07:35] mantra of these regional dispatch centers
because there is such efficiency and
[1:07:42] scaling and small communities can't do it
on their own, so.
[1:07:47] There hasn't been one yet.
I think they're trying to set the
[1:07:51] groundwork that there are sometimes
that's beneficial.
[1:07:55] And then,
so I am going to the MEC to meet with the
[1:07:59] interim Executive Director and the
Wrentham TA on Tuesday next week.
[1:08:04] So we'll get an update then and I'll tour
the facility and all that next week.
[1:08:10] So lots more to come on that.
[1:08:14] All right.
That's going to be like a all year
[1:08:17] discussion.
Certainly I will say one of the one of
[1:08:20] the advantages of our of the MEC's
governing structure is that I'm I'm on
[1:08:24] the board of MEC as our representative
and we vote there and that's about the
[1:08:29] TAS,
the board members vote and that's the
[1:08:32] binding resolution.
[1:08:33] And that's the binding outcome for Mac
Semrec's governing structure.
[1:08:37] They have to go back to all their select
boards,
[1:08:39] get votes to the select boards and then
come back to the which is which is pretty
[1:08:43] much, yeah.
So we like ours a lot better because
[1:08:45] we're a board of people who know what
it's like to deal with boards and so we
[1:08:49] move things pretty quickly.
[1:08:50] And we proposed that our structures
survive.
[1:08:55] That makes sense. Bill managed. Yeah,
you would.
[1:08:59] You would hear it from Chief Kerzey and
Chief Bangmap wasn't going.
[1:09:06] Surely you're not talking about our board.
[1:09:10] OK, so we we did 16 already.
17 is the Blackstone Valley Opioid Task
[1:09:16] Force. We talk about this IMA.
This is a yearly approval, correct?
[1:09:21] Correct.
And Chief Kurtz is on if you want to give
[1:09:25] any more context. Yeah. Chief,
do you want to just say anything?
[1:09:30] Thing about how the region uses this
opioid money to to do work across
[1:09:37] departments.
[1:09:41] Sure.
We're looking at clinicians and such.
[1:09:44] This is actually fairly new.
That's why we need you to sign up for it.
[1:09:48] It's several departments that Chief Matt
and me started to put together from
[1:09:53] Oxbridge,
got all the chiefs together and we made
[1:09:56] this task force in order to have all of
our money that comes in.
[1:10:00] From the opioid settlements be matched by
a state grant so we can double the amount
[1:10:04] of money for all the communities and then
put it towards a program that we're going
[1:10:08] to start up in the future.
So once all the agreements are signed
[1:10:12] with all the towns,
I think Uxbridge signed those yesterday.
[1:10:15] A few of the other towns are in line
right now,
[1:10:17] then we're going to get together and.
[1:10:19] Pretty much start the task force and
figure out how the funds going to be used.
[1:10:26] Right. And Jeremy,
you feel comfortable signing on perhaps
[1:10:30] the board and all that good stuff. Yeah,
certainly. So this similar to Mac,
[1:10:35] it's not exactly the same as Mac,
but where?
[1:10:39] Our dollars go a lot further when we
leverage them together and attack
[1:10:43] problems like this regionally,
rather than trying to stop opiate abuse
[1:10:48] and stopping those efforts at our borders.
I think that's not how the problem exists.
[1:10:54] Yeah, I would,
I would like to hear updates on this.
[1:10:59] You know,
this epidemic is one that I don't think
[1:11:02] stops at any time. So yeah,
if we could hear how that's being applied
[1:11:08] across the region, I don't know if it's,
you know, Narcan boxes, it's convenient.
[1:11:14] It stores or whatever it is I'd like to
hear about.
[1:11:17] I think it's good for the community.
[1:11:17] Once it's up,
once everything's up and running and we
[1:11:20] How to?
[1:11:20] start having regular meetings,
I'll make sure I forward that to Jeremy
[1:11:24] and the board.
[1:11:25] Great. And just to be clear,
the Town of Uxbridge is kind of the lead
[1:11:28] municipality on this.
So they do their record keeping and all
[1:11:31] of that.
So we will get periodic reports from
[1:11:34] Uxbridge on the kind of back end, right,
because this there's money coming from a
[1:11:38] settlement which comes through the state,
right.
[1:11:40] So everything needs to be and this IMA
obligates us to contribute to that.
[1:11:44] December, right. That makes sense. OK,
so I'd be looking for a motion to approve.
[1:11:51] I believe that the Select Board approved
the IMA and authorized the Town
[1:11:55] Administrator to sell.
[1:11:57] 2nd.
[1:11:57] All right. Discussion. All those in favor,
Hooter. Aye.
[1:12:05] Rugose eye.
[1:12:07] All right. Thank you, Chief,
for your extended efforts with this type
[1:12:10] of regionalization.
[1:12:15] All right. So, all right,
#18 TA review process discussion.
[1:12:21] We need sound for that. All right.
So when we hired Jeremy a year ago, right?
[1:12:29] Yeah. All right. When we started,
when we hired Jeremy a year ago.
[1:12:35] Part of his contract said that after one
year we would do a review and so a
[1:12:44] performance review and so I talked with.
[1:12:49] HR who is online. Sorry Jen,
you had to wait the whole time about how
[1:12:55] we would do that and she got a template
for us and I just during the middle of
[1:13:02] this meeting sent that template to all of
you and we just adjusted.
[1:13:08] Just a little bit.
This is the first time we're doing this
[1:13:13] and So what I'd be asking you to do,
including the TA,
[1:13:18] would be to fill out this review.
So clearly his will be a self review.
[1:13:24] Those reviews will all go to Jen and
she's.
[1:13:28] Going to go through the efforts of
combining those reviews into a single
[1:13:34] Select Board review document and then we
will have Jeremy's self review document,
[1:13:40] you know to compare that Select Board
document with.
[1:13:44] Going forward, oh,
and so in this review document,
[1:13:48] it talks about, you know,
it's just like every other performance
[1:13:53] review where it talks about goals.
We did not put goals specifically in
[1:13:59] Jeremy's contract when he started.
We did have goals.
[1:14:03] But we didn't write anything down.
So this is like the first time through.
[1:14:08] And so I'm just going to ask all of you,
including Jeremy,
[1:14:12] to just pick five goals a little easier
for us because we're going to combine
[1:14:17] them all and they're going to kind of
look very, you know, similar.
[1:14:22] But your I can share the.
[1:14:23] The ones we did in January,
if you want to use that as that,
[1:14:27] we can do that.
I was worried that we had too many on
[1:14:30] there and that some members might want to
pick their specific goals.
[1:14:34] That was my only thing.
And if we and I would like to make it
[1:14:37] more official next time around so that
you have essentially career objectives
[1:14:42] that then you can write.
[1:14:43] Against next year that you're not kind of
scrambling for that.
[1:14:47] That was the one little piece of this I
wanted to have that discussion about.
[1:14:52] It's like how how all the rest of it is
like you know normal employee stuff that
[1:14:57] we have to capture those metrics of.
But when we talk about your your actual
[1:15:01] you know.
[1:15:02] PA personal goals.
That wasn't something that we, you know,
[1:15:07] we did very generically in your contract.
So yeah,
[1:15:11] the the select work set five goals in
January to be achieved by.
[1:15:17] The end of the fiscal year and they had
like sub points to them.
[1:15:20] It's on the charts. Yeah, there's,
you know,
[1:15:23] maybe half a checked office point.
So my anticipation was that I would be
[1:15:27] measured against those goals.
Because what I really don't want is you
[1:15:30] to write down a goal that you had for me
to do that I didn't know about and then I
[1:15:35] get measured against that goal.
[1:15:37] And so I think that's the perfect piece
of the HR combining.
[1:15:41] I would expect that Jen wouldn't include
set goal if it were completely
[1:15:47] unreasonable and only from a single
individual, but.
[1:15:52] Only issue I have with that.
So you didn't have goals before that
[1:15:56] point,
but that is not your entire career or
[1:15:59] your whole year.
So that's judging you on the performance
[1:16:03] of the last couple months.
The story's a little more so like to.
[1:16:07] Yeah, include those goals,
but also more general job.
[1:16:11] That was my sense is that it wouldn't
like, yes,
[1:16:15] we would love for you to say that you
checked off all those,
[1:16:19] but we also didn't make that up, you know,
while you were being hired.
[1:16:25] That was something that after we had.
[1:16:27] Discussions with you after you work with
departments after after after. So yeah,
[1:16:34] exactly.
I do think we can do it next year.
[1:16:37] I think that we can probably out of the
review process. And so by the way,
[1:16:43] so then legally we have to then present
that summary and.
[1:16:47] Public meetings and discuss it with you
and so that would happen.
[1:16:52] So I I'm giving you guys a month to to
work this out and send that document to
[1:16:58] Jen and then so we'll present this at the
last meeting in August.
[1:17:03] And that way Jeremy knows where he's
going and for the next year and how he's
[1:17:09] done and and maybe we can move this up a
little bit next year and and kind of
[1:17:15] maybe correspond with a goal setting
session so that you can have those
[1:17:20] physical actual goals.
[1:17:23] Which Jeremy will probably mention in his
town administrator notes. So Elena,
[1:17:30] did you have any comments on the process
or or anything else you'd like to see
[1:17:38] added?
[1:17:40] I mean,
I do think it would be nice to have that
[1:17:43] write up at our fingertips of the goals
that we talked about in January.
[1:17:49] And I think also some of the things that
we talked about in, is it September?
[1:17:57] I think just it would be useful to
contextualize.
[1:18:03] Terri and I will do that.
We will go down to the flip chart and get
[1:18:08] that and send it out to you guys.
[1:18:08] And September was that meeting with the
Collins Center.
[1:18:12] I know that we talked about some goals,
but right,
[1:18:16] none of these were formulated at,
you know, at the beginning,
[1:18:20] He has like that call center report is in
our e-mail that they sent,
[1:18:20] but I think they've.
[1:18:24] Mhm.
[1:18:24] but that's it's I've looked and it's yeah,
I didn't feel comfortable.
[1:18:27] It was very sparse when like, sorry,
what I remember seeing from that.
[1:18:36] Yeah, it was a it.
It felt like a summary of of our thoughts.
[1:18:40] Right.
And I think it it would probably also be
[1:18:41] Which we probably can hear.
[1:18:44] helpful for us to review Jeremy's
contract because it's been a while since
[1:18:50] I've read through it.
[1:18:50] I will set now on too, yeah.
[1:18:52] Yeah, I mean, I I know, I I'm,
I know that I have it,
[1:18:56] but it's just something that I'm
realizing would be useful.
[1:18:59] I'll wrap it all up in a nice little
bundle for you. Appreciate that.
[1:19:03] Thank you.
[1:19:04] No problem.
Just writing some notes to myself.
[1:19:15] All right, so um,
I'll get back to you guys by Monday.
[1:19:19] All right. So, Jen,
did you have anything to add?
[1:19:26] Do you want to?
[1:19:29] No, nothing to add. Like like Jason said,
we had met and instead of recreating the
[1:19:35] wheel, sorry,
I'm babysitting and the dogs are barking.
[1:19:39] Instead of recreating the wheel,
I went to MMHR and grabbed a couple of
[1:19:43] templates and sort of merged them
together to make one for Jeremy.
[1:19:48] Yeah.
[1:19:50] It's great.
[1:19:51] And I'd like to say from a corporate side,
it's pretty close to what we do on core,
[1:19:57] at least at my company. So yeah,
it felt very familiar.
[1:20:01] And so I had also sent an e-mail to to
all department heads.
[1:20:05] We'll be having an all staff soon.
[1:20:08] That says, you know,
do some goal setting with your own staff
[1:20:11] because I want to get performance reviews
to be an annual part of kind of all staff
[1:20:16] stuff.
Maybe not as not definitely not as in
[1:20:18] depth as this, but by the same token,
as I talked about, you know, secret goals,
[1:20:22] I I want to make sure that expectations
from supervisors are laid out first.
[1:20:26] And then at the end of the fiscal year
you do a review and then in that meeting
[1:20:31] you said next year's and then then it
becomes a yearly meeting,
[1:20:34] but we haven't quite done that.
So we'd be looking to to get supervisors
[1:20:38] on that yearly performance review cadence
for all staff.
[1:20:42] And just on that note of expectations,
you are not required, but you are.
[1:20:46] Welcome and encouraged to schedule time
with Jeremy to just talk about his,
[1:20:51] you know,
what your statements are going to be on
[1:20:55] your paper.
Like it doesn't have to be a secret and
[1:20:59] it's fine if it is, it doesn't, you know,
either way is is.
[1:21:03] So on that document it says.
[1:21:05] You know,
you're welcome to schedule time to talk
[1:21:09] about this.
Some people are better talking about it
[1:21:12] one-to-one.
If you want to do that before you write
[1:21:16] it,
that that's that's that would be a a
[1:21:19] suggestion of OK.
[1:21:20] But not a requirement.
[1:21:25] OK. So in a month,
then a month and 1/2 or so,
[1:21:30] we'll come back and and talk about what
we thought about Jeremy.
[1:21:38] The best simple.
[1:21:40] I think Jeremy knows we love them.
All right, so.
[1:21:46] Just real quick checking to make sure I
didn't skip over anything. Nope.
[1:21:52] All right, so Tom Administrator report.
[1:22:00] #19 All right,
so like I sent out to to all of you,
[1:22:03] I spent more time out of the office than
typical the last two weeks for a couple
[1:22:09] of reasons.
But so website we we pushed out our roll
[1:22:13] out date to the week of the 21st,
so next week.
[1:22:17] There was a lot of so we had a cut off
date on when stuff was migrated from our
[1:22:22] old to new and then whatever was uploaded
to the website between then and now we
[1:22:27] have to go and duplicate and redo.
That wasn't quite clear to us until.
[1:22:32] Kind of recently.
So there's a lot of a lot of document
[1:22:36] upload that I felt it was kind of unfair
to ask the town clerk to do all of it on
[1:22:40] top of her radio job.
So Civic Plus is doing some of that to us
[1:22:44] now and that pushed out like a week.
So we have a whole press release and
[1:22:49] everything to go and we'll.
[1:22:50] Again, it would be the same domain,
domain name and it'll just click over
[1:22:54] immediately.
Right now we I have all department heads
[1:22:57] going through.
I sent them what the website,
[1:22:59] the new website is right now on the test
side.
[1:23:01] So going through their department
descriptions and this is an opportunity
[1:23:05] to say either it got ported over
incorrectly or in the case of the
[1:23:08] Veterans Services page.
[1:23:10] Which it, you know, gives a history of,
I feel like half the wars the United
[1:23:14] States have been in and that's not really
what folks are navigating there for.
[1:23:18] So the chance to kind of rewrite it as
well. So when it switches over,
[1:23:22] what happens to the old website?
Is it going to archive somewhere if we
[1:23:25] need to go back? Yeah,
so we have three months or something.
[1:23:29] Yeah, six months.
[1:23:30] Three months,
something like that to be able to go back
[1:23:33] and say we missed this sort of thing.
And I said in my e-mail to all staff and
[1:23:37] I want to say in the meeting too.
I've been, you know,
[1:23:40] been on all of the the sessions and and
driving a lot of stuff.
[1:23:44] But really the Yaleman's work on this has
been through Ellen Agro,
[1:23:48] Katie Moxam and Dan.
[1:23:49] And buyer,
they've done a ton of work to get this.
[1:23:54] So thank you to those three. Thank you.
Come class,
[1:23:59] we've study before you move on.
So one thing that's missing that I
[1:24:05] couldn't find on the new website is how
to ask.
[1:24:09] Highway to do to fix something for you
that I saw like on every other website.
[1:24:14] I know I don't know if John's ready to
take Internet work orders yet, like,
[1:24:20] so that's fine.
But if we are ready to do that,
[1:24:23] there should be a button some place.
It's like we bought that software.
[1:24:29] So let's get it working and the the
biggest thing we can because I know that
[1:24:33] a lot of the ways that they get
information is like by people emailing
[1:24:38] and contacting Darlene or like comes from
the Police Department like it just comes
[1:24:43] from all random different spots that we
can get people going into the website to
[1:24:48] make.
[1:24:48] Those requests,
it would take some operational load off.
[1:24:52] Yeah, I totally agree. OK,
that's all I have. Thank you. Thanks.
[1:24:57] Comp class said we've had some reviews,
some feedbacks and edits and I talked
[1:25:02] about last time about the assistant town
administrator not having data.
[1:25:07] Goddard and I had a conversation with
that.
[1:25:10] So based upon my time out and our
consultant's vacation,
[1:25:13] we're meeting on the 23rd to close it out.
So next week we'll close it out and we'll
[1:25:19] just Polish it up from there and we'll
have it shortly after that.
[1:25:23] Presentation or like a document that we
read and then talk about.
[1:25:27] So I will initially it will be a public
document.
[1:25:30] So we but initially I'll schedule an
executive session to go over it with
[1:25:35] Select Board in terms of our negotiation
strategy with the unions.
[1:25:39] So at that point, I want to be very clear,
it will be a public document and everyone
[1:25:44] will see it.
But the first time the board will see it
[1:25:47] will be in the context of of labor
negotiations.
[1:25:49] So we'll schedule an executive session
once we have it and are able to able to,
[1:25:54] you know.
[1:25:54] Do something with it because you can do
everything. You'll have the data there,
[1:25:59] but then it becomes a discussion.
Where do we want to fall in bands and
[1:26:03] it's gonna get very subjective. Yeah,
couple of unions already chomping up a
[1:26:07] bit to sit down his table and kind of
told him to hold off a little bit.
[1:26:12] On goal setting, goal setting meetings.
So in July the date that worked.
[1:26:17] So I I don't think I've heard from
everybody,
[1:26:20] but from who I have the 28th worked for
or for the folks I did hear from.
[1:26:25] I don't think I've heard from Mike Morale.
It's the 28th of Monday.
[1:26:30] And then if we go into August,
I know some folks were still firming up
[1:26:34] their schedule a little bit,
so we don't have any firm dates in August.
[1:26:39] But does I know the 28th worked for Elena
and for Jason and if I got it works for
[1:26:44] you, Brendan.
[1:26:45] 28th All right.
I will confirm with Mike Murali 'cause
[1:26:48] he's not here.
I think it's important that everybody is
[1:26:51] at the goal setting meeting. Yep.
So Monday the 28th.
[1:26:57] I plan to be back in Massachusetts.
[1:27:01] Yes.
[1:27:04] IT So I had a meeting with with our IT
vendor Worldband about.
[1:27:12] And what we pay for about licenses,
how we're consolidating the the license
[1:27:18] periods to get everybody on the same same
cycle.
[1:27:22] So we have you know aligns with our
fiscal year,
[1:27:26] so we're not paying for duplicate
services.
[1:27:30] What are we paying for boards and
committee members?
[1:27:33] Do we have superfluous stuff for them as
opposed to as opposed to staff and also
[1:27:39] doing an inventory of our hardware so we
can come up with A and so capital
[1:27:43] planning can also weigh in on what the
tech refresh.
[1:27:47] Budget and cycle should be.
So I thought that was a really productive
[1:27:50] meeting.
Katie and I both sat in on that and had
[1:27:53] that meeting sat in. Awesome world band.
[1:27:58] That's like we're hang breach because of
the.
[1:28:03] Relationship of the world bands owner
being a former public official.
[1:28:08] I got confirmation from ethics from their
lawyer of the day that there's nothing.
[1:28:14] That conflicts with any ethical provision
or a forever ban on a former selected
[1:28:20] person having a or selecting member at
that point having a contract with the
[1:28:25] town confirm there is not,
but that person can no longer.
[1:28:29] Be who puts together a proposal when we
re procure these services because the
[1:28:34] contracts not at the end of this year.
So he has to have somebody else put
[1:28:38] together the proposal.
He cannot be the one who authors and
[1:28:41] sophisticated proposal.
They have joined a I'm not sure under.
[1:28:45] Under which guys this was procured
initially,
[1:28:48] but they have current vendor has gone on
to a state contract which would make
[1:28:53] procurement a little bit quicker on re
procurement,
[1:28:56] but I don't think it's a state contract
that.
[1:29:00] Explicitly covers what they are providing
to the town.
[1:29:04] So they are trying to get on this other
state contract. In any event,
[1:29:08] we still need to solicit and get 3
proposals.
[1:29:11] So if it's for this type of work,
it's a contract under $250,000 and we use.
[1:29:17] A state contract,
we have to have a written scope and get
[1:29:20] proposals from at least three vendors to
be able to issue a contract.
[1:29:25] So I've met with a couple other vendors
about anticipated re procurement and I
[1:29:29] would want to do this.
[1:29:32] Fall winter time.
So we have a proposal off of which to
[1:29:36] build a fiscal 2027 budget.
So whether it's the same vendor or new
[1:29:40] one,
there will be a new number for fiscal 27
[1:29:43] because this contract only runs through
fiscal 26. So that's good.
[1:29:48] Right now what we have, well,
you're gonna start with what we have.
[1:29:53] Are you gonna expand?
So I have asked other vendors for other
[1:29:58] scopes from other communities of our size
and say what don't I know what?
[1:30:03] What?
What are these things is no one else
[1:30:05] asking for that we are most purposely?
And what other things should we be asking
[1:30:09] for that other folks find useful?
I mean kind of building.
[1:30:13] So it's gonna be a big lift.
I'll circulate it here to the board as
[1:30:18] well,
just because it's it's so central to what
[1:30:21] we to what we do. Yeah,
it's it's nowadays no different than
[1:30:25] electricity or water, so.
[1:30:28] And a lot of what they do is manage our
licenses and then do 24/7 help desk
[1:30:33] support.
That's the that's the two main functions.
[1:30:36] They're not our Internet service provider,
they're not our phone provider or
[1:30:40] anything like that. They are, they are.
[1:30:43] In some sense,
it's like our device provider though,
[1:30:46] right.
So we procure a lot of hardware through
[1:30:48] them,
which like are you separating that part
[1:30:51] out?
So I'm also concerned a little bit about
[1:30:54] that because we're taking a $10,
000 threshold on a particular device and
[1:30:58] we're not competitively procuring that
we're procuring under a we're procuring.
[1:31:02] Goods under a service contract.
So I think best practice is often to
[1:31:07] split those things apart and there are
separate state contracts under which you
[1:31:13] can procure those things.
So thinking about how to manages that
[1:31:17] bring the management back onto the town.
[1:31:20] So I think I would have the.
[1:31:23] The vendor manage the the inventory and
the cycling and the upkeep,
[1:31:27] but we don't necessarily have to purchase
it through that vendor because I'm not
[1:31:32] sure what markup is being being addressed
there.
[1:31:35] Really I want them to function as our IT
director, right?
[1:31:38] We're outsourcing our IT director and if
we had one in house,
[1:31:42] they would go out procure.
[1:31:43] Stuff,
but not necessarily through the same
[1:31:46] person all the time. OK, yeah,
there's certainly at least as many
[1:31:51] questions as I have answers.
[1:31:54] I met with dot twice this week,
once about a small bridge replacement
[1:32:01] program, the for Providence St. Culvert.
[1:32:07] We had been meeting, you know,
we appropriated the town appropriated
[1:32:12] $300,
000 in free cash to to fund a design
[1:32:15] contract.
We then applied for a phase one small
[1:32:19] bridge repair program grant to fund
design work.
[1:32:22] And said in our application,
we've already said what we did and then
[1:32:26] the state said this is an unusual order
of things. Usually people coming,
[1:32:30] coming to us looking for money before
they have,
[1:32:33] before they have anything going on.
So we wanted to show the town at skin of
[1:32:38] the game.
We were serious about this and we're
[1:32:40] doing it and that's what our.
[1:32:42] Our consultants were on board with that.
We talked to dot ahead of time and then
[1:32:46] when it went up a couple levels because
we got approved for the grant and then
[1:32:50] they realized what they did and now I've
waited on approval. So they're trying.
[1:32:54] So what we'll end up doing is kind of
fracturing the contract into task orders
[1:32:58] and saying the state task order is going
to pay for this 100.
[1:33:02] $1000 that is yet to be done because it's
not reimbursable. So we spent 74,
[1:33:05] 000 out of the 300,
so they're not going to pay for anything
[1:33:08] that we've done,
but we're going to pick $100,
[1:33:10] 000 in the middle or at the end that they
can fund.
[1:33:13] It just takes a little bit more
administrative lift than I would have
[1:33:16] anticipated,
but it's largely on the state to comply
[1:33:18] with their reporting stuff.
We're going to do the same thing anyway.
[1:33:22] We likely will get that $100,000,
which is less fell off because of the
[1:33:26] order of operations or they were,
they were confident that they could
[1:33:31] figure it out.
[1:33:34] I asked a lot of questions about phase
two.
[1:33:36] So phase two is the construction grant
that is for $500,
[1:33:39] 000 and about our order of operations and
how we should do it.
[1:33:42] So I've got notes on that and I said I'm
before we do a lick of appropriation or
[1:33:46] debt authorization,
we'll have this follow.
[1:33:48] We'll have a conversation with them ahead
of time because $100,
[1:33:52] 000 it's great to have.
[1:33:53] $500,
000 for construction is kind of like
[1:33:56] almost need to have for us.
[1:33:58] So we'll be cognizant of it on the front
end in ways that we were.
[1:34:02] I thought we were,
but we apparently weren't for.
[1:34:05] There's music playing, right? Yeah,
I hear it too. OK,
[1:34:09] it's been going the whole time,
so I'm just wondering.
[1:34:13] The other dot meeting, Chief Kerzey,
Chief Bangla and John Dudley were also on
[1:34:19] it today. There is Mendon St.
There's a state-owned bridge in
[1:34:23] Northbridge that is being.
[1:34:25] Being replaced and there will be detours
for an indefinite amount of time.
[1:34:30] They didn't even commit to it being done
in a year, which which road is that?
[1:34:36] Mendon St. So off. So Northridge,
Northridge, yeah,
[1:34:40] where comes in the North of there.
So yet to work on the on the.
[1:34:45] On the detail on the details of the.
[1:34:50] I'm meeting with with our stakeholders to
to go over it and we so it's going to be
[1:34:56] disruptive and when we have more
information on how disruptive it will be,
[1:35:02] we're going to share that it starts on
the 25th.
[1:35:06] So it's it's most likely going to be
Parker.
[1:35:09] Yeah, East, right. Up to 16.
It will be up big. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:35:13] We were informed of this on Friday,
Thursday or Friday. That's nice.
[1:35:18] Is there anything that we can do to help
keep the the pressure on to keep moving?
[1:35:24] Yeah, and we can be the squeaky wheel,
but it's it's not an army style. Yeah,
[1:35:28] exactly. It's not other air controls.
Yeah, I mean,
[1:35:31] when we have lights at Hartford at East,
it would be a lot easier to deal with
[1:35:35] that type of traffic,
but I'm sure Chief's ready to.
[1:35:39] Yeah, we're meeting.
I think I got to send an invite,
[1:35:42] but I think we're gonna meet tomorrow.
What kind of communication are we gonna,
[1:35:46] are we gonna take care of any
communication or?
[1:35:50] So we'll put out something on the website
when we have, you know,
[1:35:54] similar to how we do other kind of alerts.
Yeah,
[1:35:57] so I'll use the text my Gov system that
I've used before to push stuff out and
[1:36:02] say check the website for the detour.
Use our Facebook, put it on the.
[1:36:07] And in bulletin board group,
I put it on our website.
[1:36:10] So this is one of those many times where
I wish we had a, you know,
[1:36:14] weekly paper or something where we can do
this kind of stuff.
[1:36:20] And then the last thing on my list,
also schedule an executive session for
[1:36:25] the first meeting in August where the
Town Council will join is about the
[1:36:30] resolution of the life estate at the
Trask property.
[1:36:34] So we received an appraisal.
[1:36:36] Document praising the life estate and the
market value of the property,
[1:36:40] which you know will be a public document
that we can share with the holder of the
[1:36:46] life estate.
But strategizing over procurement of real
[1:36:49] property will hold an executive session
of council.
[1:36:53] Brief us on our options.
The August 2nd meeting, August 6th,
[1:36:59] the first meeting in August. Yeah, sorry.
[1:37:05] All right. So thank you for those up. Yes,
Sir. Before we go on,
[1:37:09] do you have an update on the street
schedule? No,
[1:37:11] we didn't even get our debrief with the
contractor over what's.
[1:37:15] It seems like they stopped doing anything
there. Yeah, so we got a bunch of trees.
[1:37:20] That was just the two day thing.
[1:37:22] I'll I'll endeavour to have one for the
next regular meeting.
[1:37:26] I haven't even seen a big save.
[1:37:30] No, I don't think it's March. I mean,
there are way ways.
[1:37:33] I I said this a couple of times.
They wanted to start in April and then
[1:37:37] they want or they want to start June and
they said it was the first of April and
[1:37:41] then in May and they're like, well,
we don't quite have a date yet.
[1:37:45] So it's been, yeah, I'm just,
I'm worried about for, you know, John.
[1:37:49] On these plans that it's it's also
delaying our our plans.
[1:37:54] So yeah and we wanted to get it done
before June 30th because the we're on a
[1:38:00] collective bid with Milford for the
excavation,
[1:38:04] the milling and then for the paving.
[1:38:07] And Milford extended the bid,
which had the unilateral ability to
[1:38:11] extend the bid for a year on one of those
two, I can get with one,
[1:38:16] but not the other and didn't notify us
until May or June.
[1:38:20] So we are having to go out and procure
one of those services on a competitive
[1:38:25] basis on our own.
[1:38:27] So we're not ready to do it right now
anyway because we don't have a a contract.
[1:38:31] So really you want to do these bids in
February and March,
[1:38:34] so you have them ready to go July 1,
but we were informed pretty late by
[1:38:38] Milford as my understanding. So yeah,
we wanted to line it up and get it done
[1:38:42] before June 30th, so we had everybody,
but.
[1:38:45] Obviously could happen, but yeah,
we're really cognizant of Highway being
[1:38:51] able to tie in. I'm confident.
[1:38:53] I guess at what point do we just say,
I mean,
[1:38:56] but we got to do it at least before the
plants close, right?
[1:39:00] Or otherwise we'll have to get done for
another year, so.
[1:39:04] And we were due.
[1:39:09] We're told of an additional, you know,
Chapter 90 funding additional 200 and
[1:39:14] some $1000 to the bond bill allocated
solely on road miles.
[1:39:17] Bond bill has yet to materialize and with
with the state budget passing
[1:39:21] miraculously nearly on time,
the governor veto has the line item veto
[1:39:25] power and vetoed a lot of slide on
spending in the face of.
[1:39:29] Federal uncertainty. So we're now,
whereas when the bill was filed in
[1:39:33] January,
we're pretty confident this was going to
[1:39:37] go through.
We're less confident in the supplement of
[1:39:40] Chapter 920 right now.
[1:39:44] And we're operating under the assumption
that we want to have.
[1:39:48] That's a big chunk of change,
200 and something $1000, yeah.
[1:39:57] Right.
[1:39:58] Anybody have anything else? All right,
so next meeting.
[1:40:03] So Jeremy had already talked about the
goal setting meeting and he'll check with
[1:40:09] Mr.
Broly and see if he can make that first
[1:40:12] date and then our next meetings in August
would be.
[1:40:18] Wednesday, August 6th and Wednesday,
August 20th. Does that make sense?
[1:40:28] I want to bring up one thing on future
items that I got an e-mail about and
[1:40:34] should be on here planned for the Mendon
Senior Center,
[1:40:39] what our what our goal is going forward.
So I.
[1:40:43] Have two emails from our consultants
Abacus that I, you know,
[1:40:47] I owe them a couple of things to be able
for them to be able to move forward.
[1:40:53] And because one of the proposals is
adjacent to the current library,
[1:40:57] I owe the library trustees.
[1:40:59] A conversation before we,
you know move forward with any real
[1:41:04] efforts on what that looks like.
So it will be we'll add it to the to the
[1:41:09] future agenda items on what we discussing
the advocates report and what the town
[1:41:15] wants to.
[1:41:15] What the board would like to present to
Town Meeting as the future of the Do you
[1:41:20] think we could do that in the first week
of September?
[1:41:23] I want to talk to Abacus first. I mean,
they need to finish their reporting this
[1:41:28] calendar year. I'm confident they will.
Their hold up right now is.
[1:41:33] They're holding up right now.
I want to be really clear too.
[1:41:36] This is like Abacus isn't holding stuff
up. Like I need to get them stuff.
[1:41:40] This is me getting them things.
So I don't want to pin a date on it
[1:41:44] because OK, they'll hit the previous ones.
[1:41:48] All right.
Then we will throw that on the next
[1:41:52] upcoming events thing so that it pokes
you in the eye every week. All right.
[1:41:58] So yeah,
the regular meeting time of the 1st and
[1:42:02] 3rd Wednesday.
Everybody feel OK about that,
[1:42:05] at least in this room.
[1:42:07] All right. All right.
So then I would be looking for a motion
[1:42:13] to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.
[1:42:17] 2nd.
[1:42:18] Discussion. All those in favor Cooter.
Aye.
[1:42:23] Rugose eye.
[1:42:24] All right. Meeting adjourned at 8:12.
Have a great night, everybody.
[1:42:29] Thank you so much. Bye, Elena.
[1:42:31] I.
[1:42:33] See you soon. Have a good trip.
[1:42:35] Thanks.