[0:04] We've got a pretty good turn already.

[1:39] Hey, folks.

[1:42] Hi, Chris.

[1:44] Hey, Chris.

[1:45] How's it going?

[1:48] Good.

[1:48] How are you?

[1:50] I'm alive.

[1:52] Mm.

[1:52] Just a lot has happened in the past 24 hours, but we're good.

[1:57] What's that little guy behind you?

[2:02] Oh, that's a little decoration we have.

[2:08] We named him Claude. Before, of course, the Claude AI thing really took off.

[2:13] Yeah.

[2:13] And that was kind of an unfortunate name, but-

[2:16] ... he's

[2:18] a... I don't remember where we found this guy.

[2:20] Oh my God.

[2:21] But we found him at some thrift place.

[2:23] There's another one inside.

[2:25] Yeah.

[2:27] There's two Claudes. I think you're rivaling Rich's lava lamp there-

[2:33] Yes.

[2:33] That's right

[2:34] ... for interesting backgrounds.

[2:39] Hmm.

[3:10] Hey, Nate.

[3:15] Hey there, Marina.

[3:30] Is Gary Collins from the Airport Commission?

[3:34] Yes, he's the chair.

[3:35] Okay. I'll let him know then.

[3:39] Is he the only one coming from the Airport Commission or we got some others?

[3:45] There might be another.

[3:47] Okay.

[3:51] So Chris, I'm not seeing the stream at all.

[3:55] Oh, really? I got it started.

[4:00] Let's try again.

[4:07] Yeah, that's weird. Dan says it's live streaming.

[4:12] Maybe I'll stop it and start it again, see if it works any better.

[4:15] And your camera's not blocked or anything?

[4:19] No, I can see-

[4:21] I can see you

[4:21] ... most of us here. Yeah.

[4:28] All right.

[4:28] I think-

[4:28] Try and get it going again. Oh, wait.

[4:30] I still think it says custom live streaming in the top right corner, and it's three

[4:36] bars going up and down.

[4:39] Now it's back again.

[4:53] All right. I just restarted it again, Dan.

[4:54] I don't know if it's made any difference on your end yet.

[5:02] Hmm. No.

[5:05] Ugh.

[5:11] Okay. Well, so you'll have to hit record.

[5:17] Okay.

[5:18] Actually, let me... That reminds me, I should pause it.

[5:20] Everyone, welcome to Monday, September

[5:25] 21st meeting, Selectboard Town of Montague.

[5:28] Meeting is being held remotely via Zoom conferencing.

[5:32] Topics may start earlier than specified unless there is a hearing scheduled.

[5:37] Meeting is being taped and votes may be taken. We'll do a roll call for the board.

[5:42] Marina Goldman?

[5:43] Here.

[5:44] Nate Card?

[5:46] Here.

[5:47] I'm Rich Kuprewicz. We also have Walter Ramsey, town administrator, Chris Nolan

[5:52] Zeller, assistant town administrator, and Brian Camden, airport

[5:58] manager, on as town staff.

[6:03] First item on our agenda is approval of minutes of the 14th.

[6:07] Did everybody get a chance to look those over?

[6:09] Yep.

[6:11] Yep.

[6:12] I'll entertain a motion to approve.

[6:14] So moved.

[6:16] Seconded.

[6:17] Okay. Call for a vote. Marina Goldman?

[6:21] Aye.

[6:22] Nate Card?

[6:23] Aye.

[6:24] And Rich Kuprewicz, aye. So voted unanimous.

[6:27] Next, we have a period of public comments that's limited to two minutes-

[6:31] Okay

[6:31] ... for things that are not on our agenda tonight.

[6:33] Is there anyone that has anything they'd like to bring up? You can raise your hand.

[6:43] Okay. We'll move on to Airport Commission business.

[6:49] Brian Camden's with us, and I think we have a couple of airport commissioners.

[6:55] Tonight is a quarterly check-in. We're going to do these, do similar with

[7:00] Clean Water Facility and other departments.

[7:04] Just to look at how things are going, Walter added some bullet points for things

[7:08] for us to keep us on task of things to discuss and remember.

[7:13] So with that,

[7:15] I'll kick it off and open it up to Walter or Brian, whoever would like to start.

[7:22] I think it'd be great for Brian to start, and then the bullet points are just there

[7:25] to fill in in case he's missing points, but let's hear from the Airport Commission

[7:30] first.

[7:31] Okay.

[7:33] Yeah. So thank you.

[7:36] I should have two airport commissioners, our commission chair, Gary Collins, and

[7:41] Airport Commissioner Josh Lively on the call tonight.

[7:44] So, as Walter mentioned, these are going to hopefully be quarterly.

[7:49] I think last time we met was in the fall time.

[7:53] I wish we were meeting under brighter sky circumstances, but there are some

[7:58] difficult

[8:00] items that we're going to have to cover tonight.

[8:04] As we run down how the last few months have been for us, we had a very successful

[8:09] summer season,

[8:12] almost to the point where our business exceeded where we even projected.

[8:15] Unfortunately, the majority of that was fuel sales driven.

[8:21] So we're still lacking our

[8:24] revenue, our fixed asset revenue, at the facility.

[8:29] So the good news is our operations numbers are up. Very successful summer.

[8:34] We brought a lot of business into the area, a lot of people going into town,

[8:37] spending money.

[8:39] Another

[8:41] feather in our cap would be the grant that we received for the Apron project, which

[8:45] was just a hair over a $5 million grant.

[8:49] So this was awarded a couple of weeks ago, actually probably about a month ago now.

[8:53] So that's going to essentially cover the project to do the apron at the Pioneer

[8:57] Aviation property, as well as

[9:01] A few accessory updates to the property.

[9:04] This was something I'd been working on for a little over a year with our consulting

[9:07] firm in the FAA and Aeronautics. So it was great to finally get a grant award

[9:12] letter for that and get that project going.

[9:15] We'll be breaking ground officially on that in hopefully late March, early April of

[9:20] next year, and we will essentially be wrapping that up within about 60

[9:26] to 65 workdays. Right now, we have it slated for 60. We're five days for weather.

[9:32] So that's the good. As we start to look at where we are financially,

[9:38] roughly

[9:40] 10 months ago, we suffered the loss of a pretty good size long-term tenant in one

[9:45] of our facilities.

[9:48] This tenant was contributing close to $30,000 a year in revenue.

[9:53] And when that particular tenant pulled out,

[9:57] they were on a month-to-month basis, so it was a shock.

[10:01] There was no real notification that they were leaving the facility.

[10:05] Unfortunately, it created a significant revenue deficit for us that we did not

[10:10] project. There was no prior indications that they were going to be vacating the

[10:14] space.

[10:16] In an attempt to get the space more up to industry standard to try to re-lease it,

[10:22] we also had to expend a significant amount of funds to do some necessary upgrades.

[10:27] Some of those included renovating the facility's loading dock, as well as

[10:33] doing some upgrades to the entrance and exit points of the building.

[10:38] We also did a fair amount of work with the security and alarm system, as it was

[10:42] nonexistent in that portion of our facility before.

[10:46] All things that were on our radar for years, but we had hoped to gradually address

[10:52] over three to four years, not address it all at once.

[10:56] And the downside to not only the loss of revenue was the unplanned expenditures

[11:01] associated with getting those spaces up to

[11:06] some sort of a safe industry standard to try to re-lease it.

[11:11] Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we still haven't been able to find a

[11:14] tenant for that space. We've talked with a lot of people.

[11:18] We just haven't found the perfect fit for that space.

[11:23] So this is essentially 4,800 square foot of dry, non-climate controlled

[11:29] warehousing space. It does have its own separate electrical service.

[11:33] However, there are no adequate functioning restrooms at this time, and that's

[11:39] really limited what we can actually do with it.

[11:42] During this period of losing that big tenant, we've also had several smaller

[11:48] storage/business tenants move out as they consolidate their businesses

[11:54] or downsize as they see fit. So we actually have two additional spaces that are

[12:01] in need of new renters at this point.

[12:05] They're both what we consider small office, climate-controlled storage.

[12:11] And we've posted some stuff online for that.

[12:14] I'm going to be posting some photos and advertising on the town website.

[12:18] So anybody that's listening or watching the meeting, if you have any interest,

[12:22] visit the

[12:24] montague-ma.gov and look under the Turners Falls Airport.

[12:28] And by tomorrow, there'll be some information on there.

[12:33] Unfortunately, that loss, that revenue, and the expenditures to try to prepare that

[12:37] space to re-renting it also caused budgetary issues, which it's up to you, Walter,

[12:43] if we want to go over that now or we want to wait for

[12:46] special town meeting articles. I'm happy either way.

[12:54] No, we can get into it now.

[12:57] Yeah. So essentially, as we start to look at the special town meeting, we have an

[13:02] operating deficit of 38,550.27 for FY26.

[13:08] And like I said, that was a combination of a loss of that almost $31,000 in revenue

[13:14] and almost $19,000 in additional expenditures as we tried to prepare that space

[13:20] for a new tenant to make it more desirable.

[13:25] This is the first time in four years that we've had a deficit at the end of the

[13:30] year. Typically, we've always over-expended on the budget.

[13:33] However, our revenues have far exceeded, I think at one year it was 24,000.

[13:39] The year before last, it was almost 9,000.

[13:42] So unfortunately, this is the downside to having a very lean rent record, is we

[13:47] don't have a lot of flexibility. So if we lose one critical tenant,

[13:53] it almost certainly is going to create a revenue deficit on that.

[13:58] And there really is no great solution to that. We've looked it over.

[14:02] I've sat with the commission, we've discussed it at many meetings.

[14:05] And

[14:09] as businesses begin to evaluate how they're operating in the current economy,

[14:15] a lot of them are no longer seeking the bulk storage of commodities.

[14:21] The post-COVID world that we were in there for a few years was great because a lot

[14:27] of companies saw supply chain disruption.

[14:29] So when they were ordering, instead of ordering a month's worth, they were ordering

[14:32] three or four months' worth, and it allowed us to really market our space and get

[14:36] top value for it. As of right now, like I said, we have three spaces that are

[14:41] vacant. Combined annual estimated revenue is $36,000 for those spaces.

[14:47] So the last few months, there's been a diligent effort to try to re-lease

[14:53] the space, even if it's in small areas, and it really hasn't been so successful.

[14:59] We had a couple of potential tenants, and it just didn't work out with what their

[15:03] needs were. So unfortunately, one of the several articles we're looking at for the

[15:08] special town meeting is going to be to fund that operating deficit from FY26.

[15:14] I'm happy to answer any questions on that, or we can continue on with what else we

[15:19] have going on, because unfortunately, the news is not going to get much better from

[15:23] this point forward. I think we have a tough couple of discussions to have here and

[15:30] really evaluate how we're operating, and it's no longer feasible to

[15:36] continue with the same business model.

[15:38] So I don't know if anybody has any questions before we move on on that or not.

[15:42] Any questions on that from the board?

[15:48] Nope.

[15:50] Okay. And I see Angelica put down everything. Okay. All right.

[15:54] Let's move to the next topic.

[15:57] Yeah. So as we start to look at capital and revenue projects,

[16:04] we always have a lingering list of capital projects that are not financially

[16:09] feasible to do with our operating budget.

[16:11] And when it comes time to submit capital projects as a town wide,

[16:17] it's difficult because we're looking at roof repairs for one of our facilities, two

[16:22] of them now,

[16:24] and those are rather costly items for not a lot of return on the investment.

[16:28] And when we look at the town itself has a $10 million, $8 million, $6 million worth

[16:34] of requests,

[16:36] it often doesn't make sense for us to

[16:41] look at a $300,000 roof overhaul on two of our buildings when there are critical

[16:46] infrastructure needs in town. I'm definitely going to have to reevaluate how we

[16:50] view that and how we can approach things like that in the future.

[16:54] But we do have a significant amount of what we have a small capital list internally

[17:00] that continues to grow.

[17:02] As we look at some of our revenue projects, which is the other side of that, so we

[17:06] have a couple opportunities that I'm currently investigating.

[17:11] One of them is going to definitely lead to some additional discussion at another

[17:15] time, hopefully not tonight, but we

[17:18] have a significant amount of interest from the market in general for battery energy

[17:22] storage. So we have a significant amount of property that is not surrounded by

[17:27] residential abutters. The airport is zoned correctly for that.

[17:32] And if the demand is there, I feel like it would be a good opportunity for us to

[17:37] host such a facility as well as the potential revenue.

[17:42] As I mentioned earlier, we have the additional spaces that we need to get

[17:44] re-leased.

[17:47] And there's several other things that we looked at.

[17:49] So we have some mixed zone, mixed use potential property around the facility, and

[17:55] it's time that we start to really push for

[18:00] non-aeronautical revenue sources to offset what we're drawing from the town.

[18:06] So there's a couple things I'll be working to get an RFP together over the next few

[18:10] months. One of them is going to be for either hosting or co-siting

[18:16] cellular communication equipment on one of the two obstruction beacons that the

[18:20] airport owns. There's one off of West Mineral and one next to the water tower that

[18:24] the water department operates. We also have ample property that,

[18:30] as we looked over the market, would be ideal for some type of mixed-use storage,

[18:35] mini-self-storage. They're not ideal.

[18:39] However, it's a good long-term source of fixed revenue, and we're going to need

[18:45] some support as we do this. I've talked with Walter, and I think we're in agreement

[18:49] that this is way beyond my capacity and my knowledge.

[18:56] I'm happy with coming up with the ideas, but overseeing procurement and

[19:02] RFPs and everything that's involved with that, it's way outside of my capacity.

[19:09] So I don't want people to think that we're just sitting on our financial ebbs and

[19:15] flows. We're working the best we can to try to continue to boost our revenue.

[19:21] I think the reality of it is,

[19:24] it's not anything that's going to happen immediately.

[19:30] Where I'm at planning for these RFPs in terms of revenue, I'm looking at FY28,

[19:35] FY29. So I don't foresee anything that's going to save us in the next three to four

[19:40] months. Definitely thinking way outside the box here because we know that we need

[19:46] to continue to grow our budget to handle our internal

[19:51] projects, but we also need to continue to grow our revenue, too.

[19:55] We don't want to continue to put the financial burden

[20:00] solely on the town as we grow. The facility should be growing in line with it.

[20:05] But I do just want to make the statement, again, I made it before that into the

[20:11] next few years, I do not see the request from taxation changing to a

[20:16] significant amount.

[20:19] Right now, if we see a 5% decrease between '27 and '28, that would be

[20:25] what I would expect at most. I think the reality of it is, we've tapped out all of

[20:30] our resources we have now for generation of revenue, and until we can come up with

[20:36] multiple smaller opportunities, we're going to continue where we are, status

[20:42] quo.

[20:44] I'd like to think positively about that, but I've put in hundreds of hours over the

[20:48] last few years, and I haven't come up with one solution.

[20:53] I think everybody's aware of the solar energy storage project, photovoltaic

[20:58] generation energy storage.

[21:02] I feel like that's a project that we're not going to see happen.

[21:04] There's just no movement on Eversource's end.

[21:06] So,

[21:09] we still have all the documents in place. We still have interested companies.

[21:12] But as of right now, I don't foresee that happening.

[21:15] So,

[21:18] one of the other things that is disappointing, but may not necessarily be a bad

[21:23] thing, is one of our largest tenants, New England Natural Bakers, was purchased two

[21:29] years ago by a new company, and they're actually going to be vacating the Northeast

[21:33] at some point between now and December.

[21:36] They're consolidating their operations to the West Coast.

[21:40] So unfortunately, the area's going to lose that business, and we're going to lose

[21:43] that tenant. However, it appears that we potentially have an existing tenant that's

[21:48] going to expand their operations and their footprint right here in Montague with

[21:51] some new jobs and some new machinery that will hopefully release that space from us

[21:57] as soon as it's vacant.

[22:00] But I'm just bringing that up now because there might be a one-month period of

[22:05] limited revenue coming in for that. That's roughly $4,800 a month.

[22:10] We could see a week or two during transition of the businesses.

[22:14] So,

[22:16] we really have a lot going on right now, and

[22:21] I guess what we'll lead into next is our current grant situation.

[22:27] And

[22:34] this is a hard one for me because we have a significant financial

[22:42] blockade, I guess we'll call it right now.

[22:45] And a lot of it is due to an error that I made when I was submitting for our

[22:50] grant. So

[22:52] I think I know it comes as a shock to everybody that I spend way more than 40 hours

[22:57] a week at our facility. I put in quite a bit of time. I take pride in our facility.

[23:04] One of the biggest things for me that I have the most success with is applying for

[23:08] and getting a considerable amount of grants.

[23:12] We received a good chunk of money over the last few years.

[23:17] Unfortunately, when I submitted for reimbursement on a couple of these portions of

[23:21] grants, I made an error that I was not aware of.

[23:25] So the reimbursements did not go through as expected, which led to a delay in

[23:30] getting the reimbursements to the town.

[23:33] And I think Angelica or Walter could fill in the blanks on this, but essentially,

[23:39] it led to a backlog that basically led to a discussion of we need to

[23:46] have some type of funding in place to cover these grants

[23:50] with the, I guess, potentially the effects of the free cash of the town.

[23:55] And I'll let somebody with more details on that get into it.

[24:00] I'm going to own up to the fact that I made a mistake in submitting for the grants.

[24:06] There is no excuse for it other than I'm in the office doing the work of two to two

[24:12] and a half people, and it's been a lot.

[24:16] Between November and February, I spent a lot of time working on snow removal, as

[24:22] well as writing that grant for the apron, as well as

[24:27] gobs of other things.

[24:29] And one of the things I've talked with a few people about, Walter and Angelica, is

[24:33] that

[24:35] there is no excuse for this oversight.

[24:37] And obviously, the repercussions are we're going to have to manage our

[24:43] oversight of grants better.

[24:45] But I want to advocate now, and I'll continue to advocate as we move into the

[24:49] budgeting season in a few months, that we really need some type of minimal

[24:53] five-hour-a-week clerical support at the airport.

[24:57] We're the only department in town, I believe, at this point, that doesn't have at

[25:00] least a part-time office support team.

[25:04] I'm not looking for a full-time benefited position.

[25:07] I think five hours a week is a good place to start to evaluate what needs we have

[25:12] and what capacities are involved with that.

[25:16] We process anywhere between 20 and 30 paper checks a month, between 50

[25:22] and 75 fuel accounts,

[25:26] anywhere between 40 and $80,000 worth of fuel revolving funds.

[25:32] A couple hundred credit card transactions have to get reconciled.

[25:36] So we have a laundry list of stuff that eats up a lot of my time and takes away

[25:41] from being able to do everything I want to do.

[25:43] And as much as I want to be able to handle it all myself, I do 12-hour days, six

[25:47] days a week right now. So it's not fair to me, my home life,

[25:54] and it really

[25:56] kind of came to a head over the last few months when I realized I made a horrible

[26:00] mistake with these grant submissions, and we've already corrected what needs to get

[26:04] corrected. We'll be resubmitting for it, and we'll be issued some new grants to

[26:09] reconcile for the old ones, and we'll get the funds for them.

[26:12] It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when we'll get the funds.

[26:17] But I'm kind of raising my white flag here saying I'm going to need some support,

[26:21] and I think everybody's on board with that.

[26:26] And I don't know if anybody has anything else to add to that.

[26:28] I know that's kind of going to be a discussion point,

[26:32] I imagine, for a few minutes here.

[26:36] Thanks, Brian. I guess I'll ask Walter, and then Angelica's on, has joined us as

[26:41] well to talk about this, and maybe that will lead us into the last

[26:47] bullet item, which is list the town administrator's proposed financial and

[26:52] administrative oversight. I think we have started a discussion tonight on how we

[26:58] might want to look at being able to, as the town, to provide further assistance to

[27:03] the airport so that the Airport Commission and Brian can focus on the important

[27:08] activity of keeping the airport running and viable.

[27:12] And we have expertise in Town Hall that- I think can help supply

[27:18] some support for things that Brian just mentioned, all from grant oversight

[27:24] to processing of

[27:27] credit card apps and so forth like that.

[27:30] So let's kick it over to Walter for a minute and then...

[27:36] Yeah. Thanks, Rich, and thank you, Brian, for putting that

[27:41] presentation together. He covered a lot of ground and a lot of technical terms.

[27:44] Very informal. I apologize. We'll promise with a nice PowerPoint for the next one.

[27:49] Yeah. No, that was great. And I appreciate you kind of setting the expectations for

[27:56] kind of taxation support for the airport moving forward and kind of just setting

[28:02] those expectations and all of the revenue-generating work that you've been doing

[28:06] and keeping my office informed of that. That's been great.

[28:11] So, I put together a memo,

[28:14] I title it in a financial administrative oversight model, but really this is more

[28:19] of a model for support from Town Hall to help you kind

[28:25] of get where we need to be to be at a financially

[28:28] sustainable point. That's the goal for everyone, right?

[28:32] And so this is like the path to help get us on that direction.

[28:37] And the first step involves some course correction.

[28:41] I think the issue with the grant reimbursements, as you kind of rightfully pointed

[28:46] out, speaks out to the point that

[28:49] we found out your limits of your capacity doing so many different jobs and doing

[28:54] grant administrative oversight

[28:57] fell low on the priority list. And now we realize that's a problem that we need to

[29:03] prioritize, and we can help with that between myself and Angelica.

[29:07] So,

[29:09] what we're proposing is immediately we work on getting these outstanding

[29:15] grants reimbursed or closing them out.

[29:17] We're already working-- Really the things that are on this list are things we're

[29:21] already working on. It really just formalizes the relationship a little bit.

[29:24] And to be clear, it's not meant

[29:29] to usurp the role of the airport commission, who has full kind of authority over

[29:34] the airport. It's meant to really provide them with support, allow you to

[29:40] do your operational decisions as an airport commission.

[29:44] But we start by prioritizing, figuring out

[29:49] getting the grants sorted out. One of the articles at town meeting is going to

[29:55] close out a bunch of old grants. So we'll talk about that in a little bit.

[29:59] So we're already working on that, and we'll have a bunch of those cleared up come

[30:02] December. And then

[30:06] as Brian mentioned, the big reimbursement that we were expecting, we figured out a

[30:11] plan to work around that so that the town can-- The reimbursement's going to come

[30:17] later, but we can borrow in anticipation of that so that we can get our free cash

[30:22] in. And I'll let Angelica explain how that works when the time is right.

[30:27] But that's priority number one, figuring out the grants.

[30:31] The other one would be monthly meetings between myself, Brian, and Angelica.

[30:37] We already kind of do this, but now this gets us all in the same room together,

[30:41] talking specifically about the budget. Where are we meeting projections?

[30:45] Where are we falling short?

[30:47] And it's just basically a formal monthly check-in.

[30:53] And then we formalize our reimbursement standards.

[30:56] This relies more about the grants, making sure we're doing that in a standard

[31:00] timeline. Keep track of everything on a spreadsheet.

[31:04] And then

[31:06] basically coming up for some rules about when we do these reimbursements and what

[31:11] type of financial expenses should be brought to our attention.

[31:17] Doing monthly operating reports.

[31:21] That's kind of a collaborative of information being provided by the accountant and

[31:24] for Brian to pull information back to us, just so that we can be able to track

[31:30] how things are going throughout the year.

[31:33] Because as

[31:36] Brian kind of was alluding to, at this special town meeting, we're filling a budget

[31:40] gap from last year, and we're anticipating shortfalls this year.

[31:43] And so we're trying to get ahead of that moving forward.

[31:49] And then capital

[31:52] project review.

[31:55] We already do a pretty good job integrating airport's capital planning into

[32:00] town-wide capital planning. Airport, they already maintain a five-year capital

[32:04] plan. They have to as part of their FAA requirements.

[32:08] But I think this really speaks to the need of grants, better coordination of

[32:14] when Brian applies for grants to do some of these capital things that might not

[32:18] come to the town's radar until later.

[32:21] This would let us know and be intentional and plan for grants moving forward.

[32:30] Obviously monitoring revenue and take a corrective action when there's revenue

[32:34] shortfalls. But I think Brian really summed it up well

[32:39] when we lose a tenant, it's going to hurt.

[32:44] And in this environment, it's hard to fill those spaces sometimes, and so we have

[32:49] to figure out how to plan for vacancies.

[32:53] We can't plan for 100% occupancy all the time.

[33:00] Importantly, annual identification of municipal subsidies.

[33:04] That's figuring out what we're expecting to ask for out of taxation and town

[33:09] support each year. I think it's important to monitor and track that number as we

[33:14] have been doing, and kind of get that number set in the budget and really try to

[33:22] stick to what that is. I think if we just want to budget for what that number

[33:28] is, whatever it is, and not be in a position like we are for this year where we're

[33:34] having to fill a budget gap with

[33:37] taxpayer dollars at the end of the year.

[33:40] I think that's the situation that we try our best to avoid, and I know that Brian

[33:44] has been trying to avoid that. And sometimes this stuff happens, but I think with a

[33:48] little bit more coordination, we can help

[33:52] keep that from happening.

[33:55] Talk about five-year capital plan and quarterly select board review.

[33:59] We're already doing that.

[34:03] So

[34:04] that's pretty much it. So first phase would be reconcile the grants.

[34:08] That's the priority number one. And then we kind of institute this more permanent

[34:14] oversight framework, which I'd like to do.

[34:19] We could go in the direction of doing a memorandum agreement with the airport,

[34:22] eventually. Or we could just kind of try this out as it stands and kind of see how

[34:27] it goes and do our quarterly check-ins.

[34:30] And

[34:33] yeah, I think this will just bring visibility to the airport's financial planning.

[34:39] And I think it brings some accountability that town meeting would be looking for,

[34:44] to help get the airport the resources that it needs.

[34:48] So, and then of course, we mentioned about the staffing capacity.

[34:55] Brian made a clear statement of need for some support for

[35:01] bookkeeping and kind of administrative management there.

[35:06] I think there's a clear case for a need, but definitely a discussion to be had

[35:10] about what that looks like, how that staffing happens.

[35:15] Whether we have existing staffing capacity within the town that could help cover

[35:19] that or whether there needs to be a new position.

[35:22] There's a whole bunch of options to look at, and I welcome that conversation as we

[35:26] move forward. So that's what

[35:29] I'm proposing. Happy to answer questions from the board, or let Brian respond and,

[35:35] Angelica, feel free to fill in if

[35:40] there's any details that I missed.

[35:44] Yeah, I will just say from the airport's perspective, this is a very

[35:50] uncomfortable conversation for me to have.

[35:53] I think everybody knows that when I took on the job 10 years ago now,

[35:59] it was like 17 hours a week, and the place was just not operating to its fullest

[36:05] potential.

[36:09] There's never anything that I've ever done intentionally that would

[36:14] negatively impact the town or the airport.

[36:19] As Walter mentioned, my capacity was

[36:24] Figured out real quick this year.

[36:27] And it was a combination of a perfect storm of selling $40,000 to

[36:33] $50,000 a month worth of avgas, lots of tenants, lots of activity,

[36:40] grant application, grant closeout, as well as a million other little things going

[36:45] on. So,

[36:47] unfortunately we found out the hard way where I, no pun intended, crashed and

[36:52] burned.

[36:55] I have read the memorandum that Walter sent out. I am fine with it.

[37:00] I think it allows for significant additional oversight, which is what I need help

[37:06] with. I want help. I welcome any help with administering grants and

[37:13] reimbursements and oversight of expenditures.

[37:18] Anything like that is going to be beneficial.

[37:20] I don't see a negative, and I've spoken to a couple of the airport commission

[37:24] members about that, and I think we're all in agreement that there's nothing but

[37:28] benefits to us by having that assistance.

[37:33] Thanks, Brian. Okay, Angelica, did you have anything you wanted to add or

[37:39] anything with the current... I guess there's some short-term borrowing or something

[37:43] we might do, but anything that you wanted to add for us?

[37:49] If anybody needs any more details about the process of it, I guess, if anybody has

[37:55] any confusion on why the grants are hitting free cash or anything, I can answer

[37:58] some of that,

[38:01] but I think some of you already know.

[38:04] Okay.

[38:06] Thanks.

[38:08] I guess one comment I'll make, and I see Elizabeth has her hand up.

[38:13] As far as additional support around receipts and so forth, I think that's a good

[38:18] discussion to have, Walter, with staff.

[38:21] And there may be a way that if we can roll that into help from

[38:27] Eileen and her staff, a treasurer collector, or even if we need to get some help,

[38:31] it might be having an office where there's somebody during standard town

[38:37] business hours that can pick up and do that along with other tasks, may give more

[38:43] flexibility. So it's not trying to jam everything into a five or six-hour work

[38:48] week, when some weeks it may be heavy, some weeks it may be lighter.

[38:52] And so, I think a good discussion

[38:55] to move forward with on that one would be

[38:59] helpful, where we have some departments that are set up now to do collecting.

[39:05] I

[39:06] know we've recently looked at doing credit card transactions at the transfer

[39:12] station, so I'm sure somewhere somebody's going to be picking up how to get that

[39:16] all reconciled and everything that needs to happen.

[39:19] So, might just roll into something like that.

[39:23] Any other comments or questions from the board, Marina or Nate?

[39:29] Yeah.

[39:32] Thanks for your candor tonight, Brian.

[39:34] I know it's hard to

[39:37] own up to stuff like that.

[39:40] So I really appreciate you coming forward today and putting it all on the table and

[39:46] owning up to mistakes and taking accountability for stuff. I appreciate that.

[39:52] I think you mentioned working six 12-hour days and that's really...

[39:58] I also appreciate that you're willing to put so much

[40:02] effort into your job and your responsibility for the airport.

[40:06] And I hope that in the discussions with Walter, in this

[40:12] new oversight proposal, that you two are talking about ways to

[40:19] protect your bandwidth because nobody should be working six 12-hour days on the

[40:23] regular.

[40:25] Even if they feel capable of doing so, that's

[40:32] a fast track to burnout and we want you

[40:36] feeling resourced in that position and able to do your best for the long term.

[40:40] So,

[40:43] I hope that we can find some way to

[40:46] give you a little relief there so that you're as resourced as possible for

[40:51] everything else in the job.

[40:54] Well, thanks, Nate. And if you'd like to come on up, we'll show you how to pump

[40:58] fuel on weekends. You can hang out at the airport if you'd like.

[41:04] Marina, anything to add?

[41:04] Let's talk.

[41:06] Yeah. I also just want to thank Brian very much.

[41:10] I know you do the work of at least three people, if not more.

[41:14] And I want to encourage you to ask for what you need and

[41:20] work with-- When you say you want somebody five hours a week, I'm like, "Is that

[41:25] really all you need?"

[41:30] And I guess my question is more for the commissioners.

[41:35] If Gary and Josh would say something, I don't really know what kind of oversight

[41:40] you guys do, how involved you are. I don't know your

[41:46] position and our responsibility to you and your responsibility to Brian and the

[41:51] airport. So if you could just explain a little bit about how you're all thinking

[41:56] about this.

[42:03] Will you let Gary unmute?

[42:07] I think he's a co-host.

[42:10] I think Josh is, too.

[42:13] Yeah, they're both co-hosts.

[42:15] Well, I'm happy to start while we figure out the unmuting thing.

[42:19] Usually the bottom left, Gary. There's a little microphone.

[42:24] Or sometimes just holding the space bar on your computer, if you have a computer,

[42:27] will work.

[42:33] No.

[42:35] Yeah.

[42:36] Well, Commissioner Lively, would you like to start anything with that?

[42:43] There you go. Gary's here.

[42:46] Oh, yeah. I know how to unmute.

[42:53] Yeah. So, as to our oversight of

[42:59] the airport, our oversight really has to do with overseeing Brian

[43:05] insofar as decisions that he makes that he needs a vote from

[43:10] us for. Not everything is required, but some stuff is.

[43:16] Other than that, Brian's kind of a whiz kid at the airport, so we let him do his

[43:21] thing, and he always comes back with these amazing grants and these amazing

[43:27] expansions and hangar doors, and now we're getting a new apron and these upgrades

[43:33] to the facilities. So,

[43:37] it's unfortunate that he made a small clerical error to an email, and it's going to

[43:44] end up costing the town some interest in a short-term loan.

[43:47] But, I'm happy to hear the support from the select board and the administration for

[43:53] Brian because he's such an asset to our airport.

[43:57] As not only a commissioner, but an airport user, it's so refreshing to

[44:03] have a home airport where it's taken care of and the terminal's clean and the

[44:08] lawn's cut and the taxiway lights work and the weather reporting works.

[44:13] And before Brian took over, it was kind of like a flyover airport where

[44:19] it's on the map, and if you really need to stop there, you do, but you kind of know

[44:22] that it's like a deer could jump out, it hasn't been mowed in five years, and

[44:28] the taxiway is all chopped up, and the terminal building smells like cigars, and so

[44:34] don't go there. So now it's like this inviting place and you go, I'll fly all over

[44:37] New England and I'll be like, "Oh, yeah." I see other pilots, they'll be like,

[44:41] "Where are you from?" I go, "We're in Turners." And they go, "Yeah, we're buying

[44:43] fuel there now. And what a great building.

[44:46] Man, they really turned the place around." So,

[44:50] that's kind of my little gist. I hope that covered a lot of it.

[44:54] I don't have a lot of specifics, but we're not there watching Brian with a

[44:58] fine-tooth comb. Thank goodness we don't have to because I heard there was a slew

[45:02] of

[45:03] airport managers or a few before him where things didn't go so well, and they

[45:07] weren't so devoted to

[45:11] the airport and also willing to work so well with the town administration and

[45:17] the select board. So, we got us a really good airport manager.

[45:21] They're few and far between, and it's really great to get the support from the

[45:25] select board.

[45:27] Thanks, Josh. Gary, anything to add? Looks like you're unmuted.

[45:32] Yeah, I pretty much

[45:34] echo what Josh has just said.

[45:39] I'm really proud of Brian, and I want to pat myself on the back.

[45:43] I was instrumental in hiring him. I always tell everybody I'm the guy that hired

[45:48] him.

[45:52] So,

[45:54] and I spend a lot of time at the airport.

[45:56] I'm a

[45:58] user,

[46:00] as Josh is. So we do use the airport. I'm at the airport quite often.

[46:06] I see what Brian goes through, and he gets frustrated, and I don't blame him.

[46:11] He puts a lot of time in, a lot of effort.

[46:14] He's qualified in every aspect of the airport from

[46:22] driving heavy equipment to mowing, to snow plowing,

[46:28] electrical,

[46:30] plumbing. He does

[46:33] numerous work up there that could be hired out, but he does it all himself.

[46:41] And I was the treasurer for a while, well, between Mickey and Brian, and

[46:48] that's a lot of work. And I just had to do with the hangar rentals, and

[46:54] it was a lot of work. So I know what he's going through, and I appreciate

[46:58] everything Brian does up there.

[47:00] How often does the commission meet?

[47:04] Once a month.

[47:05] Oh, okay.

[47:07] Unless we... Occasionally, we skip a month when there's absolutely nothing going

[47:12] on, and there's no point in meeting.

[47:15] And

[47:17] Brian keeps us all informed by email if there's something important.

[47:25] Occasionally, there's something important that we can, and that's the only thing on

[47:30] the agenda. We postpone it for the previous month.

[47:34] So it's not a big deal, but we try to do it once a month.

[47:37] We probably do at least 10 meetings a year.

[47:41] A year. And do you have minutes up on the website?

[47:46] I'm sorry?

[47:47] Do you post your minutes on the website?

[47:49] No, Brian takes care of the minutes.

[47:51] Yeah. So the agenda-

[47:53] Oh. Yeah

[47:53] ... yeah, the agendas and the minutes are up there.

[47:56] I might lag behind by a month or two, like most boards do, because I'm also doing

[48:01] all the agendas, all the minute planning.

[48:03] Yeah.

[48:04] Minute meeting, I'm doing all that, too.

[48:06] So yeah, we typically don't let it get more than three to four months behind it.

[48:10] I'll post everything all up there.

[48:12] But-

[48:13] Mm-hmm

[48:13] ... our hybrid meetings will have recordings.

[48:16] If it's just in person, which most of them are, we'll have the meeting minutes for

[48:19] that.

[48:20] Mm-hmm.

[48:20] And if anybody wants to attend, we do post it on the town's website.

[48:24] It's typically the second Tuesday of the month at 6:30 PM.

[48:29] Yeah.

[48:30] Thanks,

[48:40] guys. Brian, that's a no fun conversation to have.

[48:45] I'm a public school teacher, so I understand what it's like to have goals and a

[48:51] space of resources. I was hoping for a bit of history.

[48:56] I'm wondering, I feel like you used to have some pet interns around the office, and

[49:01] for a hot second, there was a part-time manager.

[49:04] Could you tell me who else is working with you now, and what numbers of folks have

[49:09] helped work with you within the recent memory? Is that a fair question?

[49:14] Absolutely. Anything from you is fair.

[49:16] Oh, you guys hear that? Bring it on.

[49:19] So yeah. So we do have two full-time employees, myself, and then we have someone

[49:24] who actually started as a co-op employee from the tech school years ago, and he

[49:28] stayed on since then. So we do have the two full-time positions.

[49:33] We've been really fortunate with the tech school cooperative education program.

[49:38] At any given point during the year, we have between one and three of those

[49:42] individuals. Now, they work 40 hours a week every other week.

[49:46] So if everything works out as is planned, we'll get a junior, and we'll get a

[49:50] senior. So essentially, it's three full-time individuals.

[49:54] One of the issues that we've had over the last couple of rounds of co-op students

[49:59] is that some of them are not as motivated or as knowledgeable as other ones.

[50:04] So we might not be able to allow a junior co-op student to do as much

[50:09] hands-on by themselves as we'd like them to do, as opposed to in the past where

[50:13] they've been kind of self-motivated.

[50:16] So my position is geared towards the clerical oversight, compliance,

[50:22] state federal regulations,

[50:26] as well as janitorial duties and customer interface.

[50:29] The other full-time position is purely dedicated, I would say 90%, to the outside,

[50:34] the grounds maintenance, the equipment maintenance, lining up with contractors, and

[50:40] then usually one or two of the co-op positions shadows the outside stuff.

[50:44] We really struggled to find someone from the co-op program that would be good

[50:47] inside the office, too. And that's been a struggle.

[50:51] We've tried for a couple of rounds now.

[50:54] I think we've actually had almost 20 co-op kids over the years, and we've never

[50:58] really found one that was... We've had some great mower operators, but not so great

[51:03] in the office, unfortunately.

[51:06] Thanks, Brian.

[51:09] Okay.

[51:10] Ariel, do you have a question? We're running kind of late, so we need to do-

[51:16] I'll try to be short.

[51:17] No problem.

[51:18] I must echo my respect and appreciation for Brian. I'll join everyone else in that.

[51:24] Just a few drop-in-the-bucket possible suggestions, followed by one question.

[51:30] Drops in the bucket are drops, but it's better than an empty bucket.

[51:33] So one question I had had to do with interns, and I'm thinking about business

[51:37] administration or accounting interns from GCC. Okay.

[51:42] Next, as far as roof repairs, I don't know if anyone at the tech school can help

[51:46] with those. But that was a thought.

[51:49] Another thought on the roof repairs would be if there's a crew at the jail, they do

[51:54] great work. I don't know if they do roof repairs, but they might.

[51:58] Also, if you're considering battery storage, get the best fire prevention plan in

[52:02] the universe before we do that. And Eversource should be pushed on the solar.

[52:09] The Department of Public Utilities is appointed by the governor.

[52:12] The governor still insists that she has a very progressive climate plan.

[52:18] We should try to work through her to get Eversource before the DPU on this, because

[52:22] it's important. And then my question, it may have been answered when I had to get

[52:27] out of my car for a minute.

[52:29] Does the grant delay affect that new gigantic federal grant, that town meeting

[52:34] allocated about 5%, to get all the rest of it?

[52:39] Yeah, so great question. And no, it does not.

[52:42] Each grant is a standalone, and the reimbursements will have no effect on the

[52:48] federal grant side for that project.

[52:51] Righto. Thanks, Brian.

[52:52] Thanks, Brian.

[52:53] Thank you.

[52:54] Okay. Thanks everyone for comments.

[52:58] Again, I'll echo, Brian, you do a great job in the airport.

[53:02] As I've said many, many times in the last five to seven to 10 years, it really

[53:08] looks great, and you've really turned it around.

[53:10] So,

[53:11] let's commit to doing these at least every quarter.

[53:15] Walter, please keep working with Brian on the administration and how we can help

[53:20] assist the airport in getting Brian's time freed up to do those things that he's

[53:26] really good at. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Brian.

[53:32] Thank you, Gary and Josh, for coming to tonight's meeting.

[53:34] Appreciate your presence. We're going to move to special town meeting.

[53:37] There's a couple articles around the airport on that as well.

[53:42] So,

[53:44] I think for a special town meeting, it says first reading, but really what this is,

[53:48] I think, is kind of a review. So I'll kind of read the first one

[53:53] just to kind of what it is. And then perhaps, Walter, if you want to give just a

[53:57] five-second kind of overview. If people have questions, we'll stop, but there'll be

[54:02] more to come. But the first one is a request for

[54:06] $1,643.02 for a prior year bill coming

[54:12] out of free cash. It's pretty self-explanatory on that one.

[54:16] Anybody want to talk more on that? Okay.

[54:20] Next, we have the two that Brian already mentioned, the airport deficit of

[54:26] 38,550.27, and then an anticipated shortfall

[54:32] that we're going to look to try to get ahead of, which is $15,000.

[54:37] Any comments on those, Walter?

[54:44] Okay. It looks like the next one is to close out of several different

[54:49] grants.

[54:52] I think there's a

[54:54] list of them, but there's quite a few different grants that need to be cleared up.

[54:59] Angelica, is that something you-

[55:01] Yeah.

[55:01] You put that together?

[55:10] Let me just-

[55:10] Looks like there's a list of a bunch of little ones.

[55:14] Yeah.

[55:14] Wildlife management, lighting.

[55:16] So one of the things the state looks at as they start to review your free cash, and

[55:22] when you get into the tax recap season, is they look at deficits and grants that

[55:26] have been lingering around for a few years.

[55:28] So probably about six months ago, me and Brian started to look through some of the

[55:33] ones that I had noticed had been lingering for the past few years, and there's one

[55:37] on the town side as well. So I think that these grants have probably been around,

[55:43] I'm going to go with around three years, most of them.

[55:46] And so they're what we call structural deficits.

[55:50] We don't expect to ever get refunds for these.

[55:54] These were mostly grant matches that were never journaled over is what me and Brian

[55:58] are assuming, and I think that's what we looked into.

[56:02] And so at this point, funding them for free cash will help take them off the books,

[56:06] close them out, clean them all up, and we can move forward.

[56:10] Great. Any questions on those?

[56:13] Okay. Next one is a cemetery commission request for

[56:19] $12,032 having to do with maintenance

[56:25] and a pretty good description about what's going on.

[56:29] It looks like that's going to be funded from the

[56:33] cemetery sale of plots. Is that right, Walter?

[56:37] Yep.

[56:38] Yep.

[56:38] Yeah, that's correct.

[56:40] Okay.

[56:42] All right. Next one we're going to tackle is a couple of combined

[56:48] items. There were three different ones for non-capital equipment purchases with the

[56:53] parks and the police. There was some painting

[56:59] at the park,

[57:02] an infield grower machine, and a piece of maintenance equipment for the terrazzo

[57:07] floors up at the police station, all totaling just a little over

[57:12] $16,000. Is that anything? Is that close? Okay.

[57:18] Next one is the big one on the list, is a discussion on the elementary

[57:24] school building feasibility study.

[57:26] There's a request for funding a feasibility study.

[57:32] That amount is $1,750,000. Do you want to hit on that just a

[57:38] minute, Walter?

[57:41] Sure. So this was discussed with the board a few weeks ago, I think when the budget

[57:46] was first established. So the elementary school building committee has established

[57:52] the project budget for feasibility study at $1.75 million.

[57:56] That is based on data from other MSBA school projects for this feasibility

[58:02] phase. This is inclusive of the funding for the owner's project manager that

[58:07] oversees the architect.

[58:11] There's a reimbursement component to this.

[58:16] The MSBA does reimburse, although we aren't going to know what that reimbursement

[58:20] rate is until after the town meeting votes it, and the town has

[58:26] formally accepted the MSBA program.

[58:28] We expect that reimbursement to be in the vicinity of 75%, 76%.

[58:35] However, the town is required, as part of its eligibility phase for the MSBA, to

[58:40] appropriate funding for the whole study, knowing that there is a reimbursement

[58:45] coming down the line.

[58:47] So we're proposing to fund that through borrowing, initially, and

[58:53] realistically, it'd be funded by short-term borrowing.

[58:56] It would not require a prop two-and-a-half debt exclusion, because it would be

[59:02] funded by short-term, knowing that we would be getting reimbursements from the

[59:07] state's MSBA program to fund that study.

[59:11] I think it would be a

[59:13] two or three year timeline for that study process.

[59:19] And the MSBA is heavily involved in oversight of that process, and of course, just

[59:25] reminding people that the select board set up the building committee for the

[59:30] elementary school building committee. They've been meeting.

[59:34] And they are planning to present the article at town meeting.

[59:39] They're the ones making the request.

[59:41] And

[59:43] I want to propose to have them come to a select board meeting to talk about the

[59:47] request in two weeks on October 5th.

[59:51] If the board's okay with that, I'd be happy to make some time for them to talk more

[59:56] about the proposal.

[1:00:00] If it fits into-- That's an in-person meeting, so I don't know if you're going to

[1:00:04] want to have them at, I think it's right around October in person.

[1:00:07] If it fits in the agenda, let's have them in, and they

[1:00:13] can get somebody here, that'd be great.

[1:00:17] Otherwise,

[1:00:19] I think it would be important to make sure we do something a couple of weeks before

[1:00:23] a special town meeting, so early October sounds good.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:29] Okay. The next two are non-financial.

[1:00:33] We've been talking about both of these a couple times.

[1:00:36] First one is a senior tax work-off program.

[1:00:40] We review that, and it's a way to try to help folks on

[1:00:46] a limited trial at least to start, to see if we can do some sort of tax

[1:00:52] work-off program. So that's going to be, I think, administered through the senior

[1:00:57] center at this point, and I'm thinking, if you want to add to that, Walter.

[1:01:02] Yeah, just to clarify that the

[1:01:05] request is to seek the authority to establish the program.

[1:01:08] So all of the rules and guidelines are not established.

[1:01:11] Those are yet to be established. It's the authorizing the select board to be able

[1:01:15] to develop those policies. That being said, we have had discussions with council on

[1:01:20] aging, who's willing to administer the program.

[1:01:22] With support from town hall staff, we'll help on the back end on the hiring, make

[1:01:27] sure the Corey checks are done, make sure that the time is properly accounted for

[1:01:31] and that the tax bills are properly

[1:01:35] adjusted. There's a lot that goes into it.

[1:01:38] But we are talking about a very limited rollout of the program, of up to, I think,

[1:01:44] 15,000 total cost to the town to run the program to benefit about 10

[1:01:50] seniors who are willing to work up to,

[1:01:56] I forget how many hours per year. But these are details we'll be figuring out in

[1:02:00] the coming months. But we're looking about benefiting 10 people who can get a

[1:02:03] $1,500 tax break through providing

[1:02:09] services to the town.

[1:02:11] Thanks, Walter. Elizabeth, do you have a comment or question?

[1:02:15] I do have a question. Thanks, Rich.

[1:02:17] At what point during this process would

[1:02:21] townsfolk be able to submit comments and questions and be involved in the process?

[1:02:25] Since that's not now with this vote, when would that be?

[1:02:36] It would be

[1:02:38] when the select board will have to take action to formally adopt the

[1:02:43] program and the policies associated with it.

[1:02:46] That would probably be the best time for

[1:02:49] community

[1:02:51] engagement.

[1:02:53] Okay. So if people want to be involved with this, then they should keep an eye on

[1:02:57] the select board agenda moving forward if this vote passes?

[1:03:01] Yep.

[1:03:01] All right.

[1:03:02] And if people have specific questions about it, they can reach out to my office or

[1:03:06] the Council on Aging.

[1:03:08] Thank you, sir.

[1:03:10] Yeah. Typically, we do at least

[1:03:12] the discussion first reading type meeting before we make a decision one or two

[1:03:18] meetings later, typically.

[1:03:20] I've noticed that-

[1:03:20] Unless-

[1:03:21] People would like to be told when their time is to comment, because it's not always

[1:03:26] obvious to people who don't follow town politics.

[1:03:29] Yep.

[1:03:29] So being really clear about when that input part is.

[1:03:33] Yep. Probably announce it ahead of a meeting, Walter,

[1:03:39] like as an upcoming thing at a meeting.

[1:03:42] So maybe it'll hit the local paper, "Montague Reporter" or something.

[1:03:46] For sure, yeah. And we can work out when we want to roll out this program and work

[1:03:49] back from there and announce the timeline so people can have- Know

[1:03:55] when to engage. So, all right, good point. Let me think about that.

[1:04:00] Thank you. And the last

[1:04:03] item that we have at this point is the lease for 34 Central Street.

[1:04:08] I think that's been

[1:04:11] under lease with Franklin Community Action for a lot of years.

[1:04:17] A few years.

[1:04:18] So let's just extend that, and we've talked a little bit about that.

[1:04:22] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:25] Okay. Looks good. Anything else you see coming as potential articles, Walter?

[1:04:30] Does it seem like it's pretty-

[1:04:31] No.

[1:04:32] Solid?

[1:04:33] This should be the slate that we're looking at.

[1:04:37] This is an opportunity for the board to...

[1:04:42] If you don't want any of these articles on the warrant, now's the time just to tell

[1:04:46] me.

[1:04:48] This is the time to comment on the order of the articles and the grouping

[1:04:54] of them. One comment I did want to make, going back to Article 6, where we grouped

[1:05:00] three different non-capital requests together.

[1:05:03] I just want to make sure that the board is okay with that process rather than

[1:05:08] breaking it out into three separate articles.

[1:05:09] We thought that the requests were small enough that it made sense to put them

[1:05:14] together into one article.

[1:05:17] And yeah. So,

[1:05:21] I just wanted to give the board some time and space to comment on the structure of

[1:05:25] the warrant.

[1:05:28] Any thoughts on those, or comments?

[1:05:30] I think the-

[1:05:33] Yeah, I guess I do have a question. Yeah, so I'm seeing

[1:05:39] park/police. Is that just because of the nature of these two requests, or is

[1:05:45] that a standard-

[1:05:47] That's a good-

[1:05:47] ... grouping? Because it feels like a weird grouping to me.

[1:05:49] Yeah, good question. So, yeah, there's three

[1:05:56] items that are part of that request. Two of them came from the parks department.

[1:06:00] One came from the police department.

[1:06:01] The police department one is the floor cleaning machine, and the parks are the-

[1:06:07] Yeah

[1:06:07] ... the other two items. So that's why it was parks/police. It's a little unusual.

[1:06:11] So, good question.

[1:06:16] I think they can get explanations, and

[1:06:21] I think they'll work okay. They're pretty straightforward items, it seems.

[1:06:25] Yeah.

[1:06:28] I don't know how long the police station's been exactly, because it's always more

[1:06:33] years than I think, but it's probably close to 10 years now, right, Walter?

[1:06:36] 2009.

[1:06:38] Yeah.

[1:06:38] Right.

[1:06:39] And the floor cleaning machine was new when the building was built, and now it is

[1:06:44] broken. So it's broken, it needs to be fixed, hence the mid-year request.

[1:06:50] Yeah.

[1:06:50] Yep. And they have a lot of terrazzo floors up there.

[1:06:52] They need the machinery to take good care of them, so.

[1:06:56] And also to use the-

[1:06:57] Okay

[1:06:57] ... town buildings.

[1:06:59] Yep.

[1:06:59] Okay.

[1:07:00] So it looks like that clears out. I think we have reason to be moving

[1:07:06] forward with the warrant and close in a couple more weeks, right?

[1:07:10] Yep. Yeah, so my next step will be to

[1:07:13] formalize the warrant, send it to counsel for their review.

[1:07:18] Yep.

[1:07:18] And I have to work with the MSBA. They're doing a review of Article 7 as well.

[1:07:24] So, I would expect to come back with a

[1:07:28] final version for your approval on October 5th.

[1:07:31] That is the target date for-

[1:07:33] Okay

[1:07:36] ... voting the warrant.

[1:07:39] All right, so we'll have to read it that night, so we'll have to allow time.

[1:07:42] Yep.

[1:07:42] That'll be one where we'll want to look, because you mentioned the school,

[1:07:45] potentially.

[1:07:46] Yep.

[1:07:47] If it gets to be too long, maybe we can even do a 6:00 start or something if we

[1:07:51] have to.

[1:07:53] Okay.

[1:07:54] One, I'm sorry. One small clarification.

[1:07:58] You said the

[1:08:00] floor cleaner was broken, so replacing it, right?

[1:08:05] Is this a case where the broken one is then auctioned, or is there any

[1:08:11] repair scenario, or

[1:08:14] what happens with equipment in a scenario like this?

[1:08:17] Yeah. So we looked into repair. It wasn't feasible.

[1:08:21] The repairs were going to approach the cost of a new machine.

[1:08:26] And so a broken machine would become surplus property.

[1:08:31] As town manager, I'd make the determination as to whether it has

[1:08:37] value or not. And I don't have enough information to make that determination right

[1:08:41] off the cuff. But, depending on what that determination is will dictate what course

[1:08:46] we do with disposing of the property.

[1:08:49] Understood. Thank you.

[1:08:51] Okay, thanks. All right. Next, we have back on track for good.

[1:08:57] This is to execute the warrants. So, Walter, do these need to be read in their

[1:09:01] entirety, or did what we do last week suffice, or where are we?

[1:09:14] You're muted.

[1:09:15] Yeah.

[1:09:15] Sorry.

[1:09:16] So this is one where you do have to read the warrant,

[1:09:21] at least enough so that people know what is being put on the warrant.

[1:09:27] All right.

[1:09:28] Yeah. It's a lot of reading. This is the three upcoming elections, which include

[1:09:33] obviously the tech school and the sixth town on October 6th.

[1:09:37] But then also the state warrant in

[1:09:43] November was also ready. Now, that's something you could punt to a future meeting,

[1:09:48] because it's not as timely as the October 6th ones, if you want it, but it needs to

[1:09:54] get done at some point. And they are all ready for you.

[1:09:57] I'm going to handle this because Wendy is unable to make it tonight, so I can

[1:10:01] answer any questions that come up under this business.

[1:10:05] Okay. Yeah, let's just do the first two tonight, and we'll do the

[1:10:12] November one next week. Is that okay with the board?

[1:10:16] Yeah.

[1:10:17] If I may.

[1:10:19] Somebody want to volunteer to read them, or otherwise I'll get started here.

[1:10:21] Sure, I'll read it. You read last time.

[1:10:25] Go for it.

[1:10:27] Okay. Election warrant town of Montague, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Franklin

[1:10:31] County Regional Vocational Technical School District, October 6th, 2026.

[1:10:37] Franklin SS. To either of the constables of the town of Montague in the county of

[1:10:41] Franklin, greeting. In the name of the Commonwealth...

[1:10:44] I have to do all this, right?

[1:10:48] Mm-hmm.

[1:10:48] I can't just skip down. Okay.

[1:10:50] Sorry.

[1:10:52] I'm just checking. In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are hereby

[1:10:55] directed to notify and warn the inhabitants of the town of Montague qualified to

[1:11:01] vote in elections and town affairs to meet in their respective polling places

[1:11:05] appointed and designated as follows.

[1:11:08] Precinct number 1, the Montague Center precinct to the Montague Center Fire

[1:11:12] Station, 28 Old Sunderland Road, Montague Center.

[1:11:15] Precinct number 2, the Millers Falls precinct to the Franklin County Technical

[1:11:20] School gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:11:24] Precinct number 3, the Upper Hill section of Turners Falls, the Franklin County

[1:11:28] Technical School gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:11:32] Precinct number 4, the second level of Turners Falls, the Franklin County Technical

[1:11:37] School gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:11:41] Precinct number 5, downtown section of Turners Falls, the Senior Center, 62 Fifth

[1:11:46] Street, Turners Falls. Precinct number 6, the South Edge and Montague City

[1:11:52] precinct to the Franklin County Technical School gymnasium, 82 Industrial

[1:11:56] Boulevard, Turners Falls, on Tuesday, the sixth day of October in the year of our

[1:12:01] Lord, 2026, from 12:00 PM noon to 8:00 PM, to

[1:12:07] bring their votes on one ballot to the election officers for question one.

[1:12:13] Do you approve of the vote of the Regional District School Committee

[1:12:19] of the Franklin County Regional Vocational Technical School District adopted on

[1:12:24] June 10th, 2026, to authorize the borrowing of

[1:12:30] $236,572,983 to pay

[1:12:36] costs of designing, constructing, equipping, and furnishing a new Franklin County

[1:12:41] Regional Vocational Technical School and related facilities to be located at 82

[1:12:46] Industrial Boulevard in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, which vote provides in

[1:12:52] relevant part as follows.

[1:12:56] Voted that the Franklin County Regional Vocational Technical School District, the

[1:13:01] District, hereby appropriates the amount of

[1:13:04] $236,572,983 for the

[1:13:10] purpose of paying costs of designing, constructing, equipping, and furnishing a new

[1:13:16] Franklin County Regional Vocational Technical School and related facilities,

[1:13:21] located at 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls, Massachusetts, including the

[1:13:26] payment of all costs incidental and related thereto the project.

[1:13:31] Which school facility shall have an anticipated useful life as an educational

[1:13:36] facility for the instruction of schoolchildren of at least 50 years, and for which

[1:13:41] the district may be eligible for a school construction grant from the Massachusetts

[1:13:47] School Building Authority, MSBA, said amount to be expended at the district of the

[1:13:53] school building committee. To meet this appropriation, the district is authorized

[1:13:58] to borrow said amount under and pursuant to GL

[1:14:02] C71.16N, and the district agreement as amended, or

[1:14:08] pursuant to any other enabling authority.

[1:14:12] The district acknowledges that the MSBA's grant program is a non-entitlement

[1:14:17] discretionary program based on need as determined by the MSBA, and any

[1:14:22] project cost the district incurs in excess of any grant approval by and

[1:14:28] received from the MSBA shall be the sole responsibility of the district.

[1:14:34] Provided further that any grant that the district may receive from the MSBA shall

[1:14:39] not exceed the lesser of, one,

[1:14:42] 66.27%

[1:14:49] of eligible approved project costs as determined by the MSBA, and two,

[1:14:55] the total maximum grant amount determined by the MSBA, and that the amount of

[1:15:00] borrowing authorized pursuant to this vote shall be reduced by any grant amount set

[1:15:05] forth in the project funding agreement that may be executed between the districts

[1:15:10] and the MSBA. Yes or no.

[1:15:14] Hereof, fail not and make due return of this warrant with your doings thereon to

[1:15:20] the town clerk seven days before said election.

[1:15:23] Given under our hands this day of,

[1:15:28] in the year of our Lord,

[1:15:31] 2026.

[1:15:35] Rich Jakubeitz, Marina D. Goldman, Nick Card, Franklin SS Montague, Mass,

[1:15:41] date blank 2026. Pursuant to the within warrant, I have warned the inhabitants of

[1:15:46] the town of Montague by posting attested copies of the same in a conspicuous place

[1:15:52] in each of the post office, libraries, and town hall of the town of Montague at

[1:15:57] least seven days before said meeting, as within directed.

[1:16:02] Signed by the constable of Montague.

[1:16:05] Thanks, Marina.

[1:16:07] Did I get all those numbers right?

[1:16:09] I think so. All right, so we need a motion to-- I guess Marina read and made the

[1:16:14] motion to approve the tech school warrant. Do I have a second for that?

[1:16:19] Seconded.

[1:16:20] Okay. Any discussion? Call for vote, Marina Goldman.

[1:16:25] Aye.

[1:16:26] Nick Card.

[1:16:27] Aye.

[1:16:28] And Rich Kuklic, aye. Okay. Are you up to the

[1:16:33] Great River Regional School District?

[1:16:35] Sure.

[1:16:36] Okay.

[1:16:37] What did you need?

[1:16:38] Second it? Sure.

[1:16:39] You got it.

[1:16:40] Okay. Got it.

[1:16:43] Election warrant, town of Montague, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[1:16:46] Great River Regional School District, October 6, 2026.

[1:16:50] Franklin SS, to either of the constables of the town of Montague in the county of

[1:16:55] Franklin, greeting. In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are

[1:16:59] hereby directed to notify and warn the inhabitants of the town of Montague

[1:17:02] qualified to vote in elections and town affairs to meet in the respective polling

[1:17:06] places appointed and designated as follows.

[1:17:09] Precinct number one, the Montague Center Precinct, the Montague Center Fire

[1:17:13] Station, 28 Old Sunderland Road, Montague Center.

[1:17:17] Precinct number two, the Miller's Falls Precinct, the Franklin County Technical

[1:17:21] School Gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:17:25] Precinct number three, the Upper Hill section of Turners Falls, the Franklin County

[1:17:29] Technical School Gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:17:34] Precinct number four, the second level of Turners Falls, the Franklin County

[1:17:39] Technical School Gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls.

[1:17:43] Precinct number five, downtown section of Turners Falls, the Senior Center, 62

[1:17:49] Fifth Street, Turners Falls. Precinct number six, the South End and Montague City

[1:17:55] Precinct, the Franklin County Technical School Gymnasium, 82 Industrial Boulevard,

[1:17:59] Turners Falls. On Tuesday the 6th of October, in the year of our Lord

[1:18:05] 2026, from 12:00 p.m. noon to 8:00 p.m., to bring their votes on the ballot to

[1:18:11] the election officers for

[1:18:14] question one, article one. Shall the town accept the provisions of

[1:18:20] Section 16 to 16 (1) , inclusive, of Chapter 71 of the General Laws, providing for

[1:18:25] the establishment of a regional school district that consists of the towns of

[1:18:29] Bernardston, Gill, Leyden, Montague, Northfield, and Warwick, and to be known as

[1:18:34] the Great River Regional School District, the new district?

[1:18:39] The new district should be formed and governed in accordance with the agreement

[1:18:43] filed by the Six Town Regional Planning Board and with the Selectboard.

[1:18:49] Either the Six Town Agreement, the Six Town Regional Agreement, or the Five Town

[1:18:54] Agreement, the Five Town Regional Agreement, depending on the results of this vote

[1:19:00] as described below. Copies of both of which are available for inspection at Town

[1:19:05] Hall and on the website sixtowns.org.

[1:19:10] If a majority of the votes presented and voting in each of the towns of

[1:19:14] Bernardston, Gill, Leyden, Northfield, Warwick, and Montague vote in the

[1:19:18] affirmative, the new district shall be established to include all six towns, and

[1:19:23] the Six Town Regional Agreement shall thereupon become effective and govern the new

[1:19:27] district, subject to approval of the regional agreement by the Commissioner of

[1:19:32] Elementary and Secondary Education.

[1:19:34] Provided, however, that if a majority of the voters of the Town of Warwick present

[1:19:40] and voting on this question does not vote in the affirmative, the new district

[1:19:44] shall instead be established to include only the towns of Bernardston, Gill,

[1:19:50] Leyden, Northfield, and Montague, shall not include the Town of Warwick, and the

[1:19:54] Five Town Regional Agreement shall thereupon become effective and govern the new

[1:19:58] district, subject to approval of the regional agreement by the Commissioner of

[1:20:02] Elementary and Secondary Education.

[1:20:05] Full operation of the new district and dissolution of the Gill-Montague Regional

[1:20:09] School District, the GMRSD, and the Pioneer Valley Regional School District,

[1:20:15] the PVRSD, shall be further subject to enactment of special

[1:20:20] legislation permitting the transfer, A, the transfer of the buildings and other

[1:20:26] assets and liabilities of each of the GMRSD and the PVRSD

[1:20:32] to the new district on the date the new district becomes fully operational at the

[1:20:37] end of the transition period specified in the regional agreement.

[1:20:41] And B, the dissolution of the GMRSD and the PVRSD on the same

[1:20:46] date without further action by any public body.

[1:20:51] Yes or no. Hereof, fail not and make due return of this warrant

[1:20:57] with your doings thereon to the town clerk seven days before said election.

[1:21:02] Given under our hands this blank day of blank in the year of our Lord,

[1:21:09] 2026. Richard J. Kuklic, Marina D.

[1:21:12] Goldman, Nick Card, Franklin SS Montague, Massachusetts

[1:21:18] blank 2026. Pursuant to the within warrant, I have warned the inhabitants

[1:21:24] of the town of Montague by posting attested copies of the same in a conspicuous

[1:21:29] place in each of the post offices, libraries, and the town hall of the town of

[1:21:33] Montague at least seven days before said meeting, as with directed.

[1:21:38] Signed, constable of Montague.

[1:21:41] Thank you, Nate. So that was Nate made the motion. Do I hear a second?

[1:21:46] Second.

[1:21:47] All right. I'll call for a vote. Marina Goldman.

[1:21:50] Aye.

[1:21:51] Nick Card.

[1:21:52] Aye.

[1:21:53] And Rich Kuklic, aye. So we're unanimous

[1:21:56] Well, Walter, we're

[1:21:58] skipping the next one till next week. Vote-by-mail clarification?

[1:22:03] Yeah, I wanted to set the record straight on this, because the board had, a few

[1:22:08] weeks ago, voted

[1:22:11] when you set the date for the sixth town virtualization vote.

[1:22:16] You'd voted to

[1:22:18] opt out of vote-by-mail for that election, with the goal to have consistent

[1:22:24] election rules with the tech school district election that's happening

[1:22:28] simultaneously. Well, it turns out that we weren't allowed to do that

[1:22:34] because that voting's happened 45 days before the election, and because the special

[1:22:38] legislation was only passed

[1:22:41] 40 days before the election, that vote that the board took was nulled.

[1:22:45] Long story short, there will be vote-by-mail for the Great River

[1:22:51] Regional School District election, and we are prepared accordingly to do that.

[1:22:56] Those ballots are in the process of being produced and will be sent out to

[1:23:01] residents.

[1:23:04] But to be clear, the tech school still is not going to have vote-by-mail.

[1:23:07] That is by state law. A regional district election just can't have that.

[1:23:13] And so just wanted to set the record straight that we are doing vote-by-mail for

[1:23:19] that election.

[1:23:21] Okay.

[1:23:23] Thanks, Walter.

[1:23:25] Okay, Chris, you have a couple of announcements and updates.

[1:23:29] Hi, good evening. I'm happy to be able to start with some good news.

[1:23:33] So I wanted to announce that we just found out the town was awarded a loan grant

[1:23:38] combination from the USDA Rural Development Agency.

[1:23:43] As you recall, we have a capital item from 2025 where town meeting

[1:23:49] approved for the authorization to borrow up to 3 million to pay for phase two of

[1:23:54] the sewer rehabilitation and relining project throughout both Turner Falls and

[1:23:59] Miller's Falls. There are several items that were identified that need to be

[1:24:02] addressed in the town's long-term control plan.

[1:24:05] These are all keeping us in compliance with that plan, and I am happy to report

[1:24:11] that the award we got was actually a lot more than we expected.

[1:24:13] We got a grant award of $1,197,000 matched with a loan

[1:24:19] of 1.9 million. That means that the federal government is going to be picking up

[1:24:24] the tab for over a third of this project, which is fantastic news for us.

[1:24:28] And the $1.9 million loan is a very low interest,

[1:24:34] advantageous loan for us that can have a term of up to 40 years.

[1:24:38] So,

[1:24:39] more details on that coming soon. There'll be grant agreements to execute, but I

[1:24:43] wanted to give the good news that we just got last week on that project.

[1:24:49] Great.

[1:24:51] Chris, does that mean that-

[1:24:52] Anything else?

[1:24:53] Yeah. Does that mean that we borrow less than originally intended, or-

[1:24:58] Yes

[1:24:58] ... does that mean we get to do more work? Okay.

[1:25:02] That'll mean we get to do the same amount of work borrowing less than we had

[1:25:04] originally intended. We were prepared to borrow up to the full 3 million, but now

[1:25:09] we only will need to borrow 1.9.

[1:25:12] That's great news. Thanks.

[1:25:13] Sure.

[1:25:17] Next I wanted to give a couple of updates on the library building project.

[1:25:21] I know we have a couple of people from the library building steering committee that

[1:25:24] are here on this meeting too, that I would certainly invite to join me if I miss

[1:25:28] anything. But this is a project that's been making a lot of progress since the vote

[1:25:33] to approve the project happened in June.

[1:25:36] It's been somewhat in the background, I understand, for some folks, so I want to

[1:25:40] make sure that we're shining some light on some of the work that's continued to

[1:25:43] happen with the building steering committee.

[1:25:45] So we've continued to have biweekly meetings with the architect and with the

[1:25:49] owner's project manager.

[1:25:52] We reconvened the library building steering committee, typically about once a

[1:25:55] month, and we've been starting to dive into some of the nitty-gritty details of the

[1:26:01] building. We've talked about lighting, we've talked about flooring, some elements

[1:26:05] of interior design, and most recently, we've engaged Eversource's Mass Save

[1:26:10] consultant for a conversation on how we can take advantage of some of their

[1:26:14] energy-saving rebates. Which is something that we think has potential to have some

[1:26:18] very good cost savings both for the project, but even more so for ongoing

[1:26:22] operations after the facility is built.

[1:26:25] So that's something that we think with a small upfront investment of our time now

[1:26:30] will pay off and then some moving forward.

[1:26:33] So I'll keep you posted on how that goes, but right now we're kind of in the

[1:26:37] exploratory phase of the energy efficiency options.

[1:26:43] Anybody have any library questions though?

[1:26:46] Actually, Chris, somebody questioned me, and I don't know if I'll have any today,

[1:26:51] but maybe while there's some folks on from the library building committee.

[1:26:55] Someone asked if there were bricks that were going to be removed from the

[1:26:58] Strathmore, which is your next item, could they somehow be used as part of the

[1:27:03] library project? So I just think it's one of the-- I thought of it as a

[1:27:09] crazy idea, but just may be feasible.

[1:27:11] So anyway-

[1:27:13] That's a great question

[1:27:14] ... thought I'd throw it out there.

[1:27:15] I see Will just raised his hand. I'll try to give the short answer, but I

[1:27:18] definitely want to make sure Will can speak to this as well.

[1:27:22] We did have a conversation about this with the architect.

[1:27:26] I loved the idea personally. I think it would be great to be able to both pay

[1:27:30] homage to the Strathmore, and to be able to maybe pick up some cost savings of

[1:27:36] brick material that would otherwise be new.

[1:27:39] Unfortunately, the answer is it's probably not feasible, that Strathmore is of an

[1:27:45] advanced enough age that the brick material that's holding that building up isn't

[1:27:49] necessarily able to meet modern standards of structural needs.

[1:27:56] So I think we didn't shut the door on it completely.

[1:27:59] We might find ways to be able to incorporate some ornamental brickwork.

[1:28:04] We don't want to completely shut the door on it, but realistically, I do want to

[1:28:08] make sure we set the expectation that that's not going to be a main component.

[1:28:15] All right. I just wanted to ask on behalf of that person.

[1:28:17] Will, you want to-- anything you might want to add to that?

[1:28:21] Sure. Thank you.

[1:28:23] Agree with Chris, as far as setting expectations.

[1:28:28] I also had high hopes for that, one in conversation with the

[1:28:34] architects, both because these bricks are probably structurally

[1:28:40] not certain, they may not be as uniform as we need to use them in an architectural

[1:28:45] way. They may not be exactly the same size and they

[1:28:49] may need a completely different type of mortar product.

[1:28:53] There were a lot of different cautions we were given.

[1:28:57] I also sat in on a meeting with the historic commission

[1:29:03] where the demolition engineers for the Strathmore project presented and

[1:29:09] talked to them a little bit as well, and they had some different comments.

[1:29:13] One of which was that they do anticipate using a great deal of the volume of

[1:29:19] brick in the course of the fill aspects of that project.

[1:29:23] So they were--

[1:29:24] And some of the bricks that do look good, they have plans for using them on the

[1:29:29] exterior of building nine.

[1:29:32] So they were a little bit

[1:29:37] hesitant or maybe more than hesitant to volunteer that there might be much quantity

[1:29:42] of brick

[1:29:43] that would be useful to us and available.

[1:29:47] So I think in the end, we're probably looking at best at having bricks that we

[1:29:52] might be able to use in a non-architectural capacity,

[1:29:57] ornamenting some outdoor patio spaces or something that might have people's names

[1:30:01] on them. But we really have to wait and see how the projects go, particularly the

[1:30:05] demolition project, I think, to be able to say yes to that.

[1:30:11] Great. Thanks. I just wanted to bring it up so folks could have some hearing on

[1:30:15] that. Okay.

[1:30:16] Thanks.

[1:30:18] Next, Chris.

[1:30:20] Thank you. So yeah, segueing into the Strathmore project.

[1:30:24] We are continuing on the timeline that we last gave an update on, which is bidding

[1:30:30] this fall with the expectation that we will have a demolition contractor on board

[1:30:35] for the spring to be able to start work in time for the 2027 construction season.

[1:30:40] I did want to give the board a heads-up that because of the nuances of

[1:30:44] Massachusetts procurement law, the way that we were initially hoping to bid this

[1:30:49] project, under Chapter 30, Section 39M, we found to not

[1:30:55] necessarily hold up with the amount of structural work that's going to be required.

[1:30:58] Meaning, long story short, we're needing to bid this as a building project rather

[1:31:02] than as a public works project, which necessitates having an OPM, an owner's

[1:31:06] project manager. So that is something that we have a fair amount of flexibility in

[1:31:11] defining the scope for.

[1:31:14] We have solicited responses via an RFQ, a request for qualifications, from

[1:31:18] interested OPM firms. We got a lot of interest,

[1:31:22] and we are working to pare down the scope that that OPM will be doing since we

[1:31:27] already have a very structured, thorough scope with Tie and Bond for

[1:31:32] pre-construction services.

[1:31:35] So we are being very cost-conscious about this project while making sure that we're

[1:31:39] following the law. And you're going to be seeing in the next few weeks, possibly as

[1:31:45] soon as next meeting, if not by the one after that,

[1:31:49] the result of our negotiations with the prospective OPM firm, and what that

[1:31:54] contract might look like.

[1:31:59] Walter, I don't know if you had anything to add on that.

[1:32:01] You were also involved in the conversations.

[1:32:07] Okay. Sorry, I was muted. Any other? Okay. Complete Street.

[1:32:12] Sure. So I'm going to share my screen a little bit.

[1:32:14] The Montague Center Complete Streets project is underway.

[1:32:19] We appreciate everybody's patience during construction.

[1:32:21] We know it's never fun to have construction going on in your neighborhood, but

[1:32:24] we're excited for the final results of this project.

[1:32:28] We know it's been long anticipated by the community.

[1:32:31] I've been taking regular trips up to Montague Center to monitor the construction as

[1:32:35] it happens.

[1:32:37] You can see that they've started to install the raised crosswalk at the northern

[1:32:41] end of the town common in this picture.

[1:32:45] This coming week, they're going to be working largely on drainage, from my

[1:32:48] understanding, and then the following week, beginning to work further southward,

[1:32:53] from the town common down towards the post office area.

[1:32:57] So construction's moving along smoothly there.

[1:32:59] We haven't gotten any concerns or complaints yet.

[1:33:03] I think we are still on track to be able to finish construction by late October.

[1:33:09] So it's a relatively small job of

[1:33:13] six to eight weeks total for the contractor.

[1:33:16] Great. Thanks.

[1:33:18] And the final one, I think you have is Avenue A.

[1:33:22] Yes. So Avenue A is substantially complete.

[1:33:26] We have a punch list that's been prepared for the contractor.

[1:33:29] But for this past year's phase of the streetscape improvements, which are in front

[1:33:34] of the Power Town apartments, and then in front of Harvey's and the Dolan and Dolan

[1:33:38] law offices. We

[1:33:41] are very pleased overall with how the work has come out.

[1:33:43] We just have a couple of small details for the contractor to come back and resolve

[1:33:46] before we issue final payment. But

[1:33:50] we're satisfied with their work. They made quick work of it, and it looks good.

[1:33:56] Okay, any questions on

[1:34:00] any of the projects or anything else for Chris?

[1:34:03] Good. Thanks for that update, Chris.

[1:34:06] Thank you.

[1:34:07] Walter, town administrator business.

[1:34:11] Yeah. So, tonight I'd like to talk about the Ferrin and the request for

[1:34:16] proposals process that I'm proposing here.

[1:34:22] So

[1:34:24] in preparation to

[1:34:27] release a disposition, one of the important steps that the board needs to take is

[1:34:31] to declare the property a surplus.

[1:34:34] So I'm going to be asking you to do that, to declare the Ferrin property a surplus,

[1:34:39] and also, I'm asking for your authority to release an RFP, and I can go over the

[1:34:45] general structure of that,

[1:34:48] how we're proposing to do the RFP, and hopefully get some feedback and consensus

[1:34:53] on how to proceed. We've done a draft of that request for

[1:34:59] proposals. It's been reviewed by

[1:35:02] Mass Housing Partnership, did a peer review of it.

[1:35:06] So we think it's pretty close to being ready for release, but I need to--

[1:35:11] I want you all to agree to the important elements of it.

[1:35:15] So,

[1:35:18] I'm going to

[1:35:20] share the screen. This is the proposed subdivision concept that was worked

[1:35:26] out about

[1:35:29] three or four months ago, and it divides the Ferrin

[1:35:35] parcel into three different properties. So this is how Ferrin is currently.

[1:35:41] There's two parcels, the one with the main hospital and the one with the

[1:35:46] outbuilding on it. What we're proposing for a subdivision is to make it into three

[1:35:51] parcels. One and two would be put out for development.

[1:35:57] Three would be retained by the town as public space.

[1:36:00] In this area you're seeing here, this is a future public roadway.

[1:36:04] And this is what it looks like at a potential kind of maximum build-out scenario.

[1:36:10] So parcel one would be

[1:36:14] the smaller of the two development parcels, and two would be the largest

[1:36:19] development parcel. And again, three would be retained public open space with the

[1:36:24] bike path going through it.

[1:36:27] And the way that I'm proposing the RFP be set up is that

[1:36:32] a proponent can bid on

[1:36:36] either one or two, or one and two together.

[1:36:40] The intent is to hope to get to some small developers who would possibly

[1:36:46] be interested in parcel number one,

[1:36:50] whereas larger developers probably going to be interested in parcel number two.

[1:36:55] We don't really have a good sense of where that actual market is for those, so this

[1:36:59] RFP is going to put it out there, and we'll see where the interest lies.

[1:37:09] Okay.

[1:37:10] Just hold on one second. Let me find my notes again.

[1:37:16] So that's one thing. I'd like you to agree to that strategy of doing RFP.

[1:37:21] You can bid on parcels one and two, or one or two.

[1:37:26] That and

[1:37:28] offering these parcels at below their market rate value.

[1:37:32] So per procurement law, in order to do a disposition, you have to establish the

[1:37:37] fair market value of these properties.

[1:37:39] I worked with our assessing office to do a fair market appraisal.

[1:37:43] And so Adam, the assessor, arrived on the value of these properties to

[1:37:49] be a total of just under half a million dollars,

[1:37:54] $490,000.

[1:37:57] But I'm recommending that we offer these properties at below market rate in

[1:38:01] exchange for the public interest of increasing

[1:38:06] supply of housing in the community.

[1:38:10] And

[1:38:11] the board can do this. You can sell properties below market value if it's achieving

[1:38:15] a public purpose,

[1:38:17] which I am--

[1:38:26] Yeah. So I'm recommending that they be sold for a nominal price of $10,000 for each

[1:38:32] of the two parcels.

[1:38:35] I wanted to do $10,000 so that there's at least some skin in the game for the

[1:38:39] developers, and it at least covers kind of the cost of developing the RFP.

[1:38:44] Still very much below the market value, but it puts a little bit of skin in the

[1:38:47] game.

[1:38:48] I'm open to suggestions if the board wants to increase that amount or keep parcel

[1:38:54] one as a lower amount and possibly the larger parcel a higher amount.

[1:38:58] I'm totally fine with that.

[1:39:01] But the idea is to sell it at a nominal rate in exchange for

[1:39:06] housing production and increasing for workforce housing, and public

[1:39:12] improvements that will come along with this.

[1:39:17] Thanks, Walter.

[1:39:18] Yeah. I think that pretty much covers it.

[1:39:19] Oh, yeah, the other item to talk about was the review process.

[1:39:24] I'm recommending that

[1:39:27] we have staff do the initial vetting of the proposals that come in.

[1:39:32] We will review and score them according with the RFP, and rank them and

[1:39:38] bring a kind of ranked recommendation to the select board for you to decide who a

[1:39:43] preferred development partner would be.

[1:39:45] And of course, in this scenario, there could be two preferred development partners,

[1:39:48] if we get separate proposals for parcel one and two.

[1:39:54] And it would be a public decision by the select board who we work with.

[1:39:59] And there would be

[1:40:03] a whole public kind of component to that. Vetting would be done by town staff.

[1:40:09] I just want to make sure the board would be okay with that situation.

[1:40:14] Okay. So

[1:40:17] I guess we have three decision points.

[1:40:18] The first one I'd ask is, folks

[1:40:21] feel like we should declare this surplus property?

[1:40:27] That's pretty-

[1:40:29] Pretty straightforward.

[1:40:30] Okay.

[1:40:30] Yes.

[1:40:30] Yeah.

[1:40:31] Yeah. The price per parcel, I'll just throw my 10 cents in.

[1:40:35] I thought we should ask,

[1:40:38] as it's a larger parcel, a little bit more for parcel two.

[1:40:42] We're going to probably get larger scale developers.

[1:40:46] We can use that fund toward some of the development in the Frontenac area, for

[1:40:51] instance. Might be a way to go in the general fund, but maybe we'll use a get it

[1:40:56] back at that meeting for that. So I was thinking that we ought to ask either 20 or

[1:41:00] 30,000 for the big parcel. It's a big development.

[1:41:03] It's going to be millions of dollars. So just my thoughts.

[1:41:08] It's not a lot either way, but.

[1:41:10] That's still way under market value.

[1:41:13] Yeah, I think.

[1:41:16] Yeah. Walter, is the idea that offering it at such a low rate means that

[1:41:22] the developer has less money to recoup, and thus,

[1:41:29] property rental prices or purchase prices would be lower?

[1:41:34] Or is it just like, "Oh, this is really cheap.

[1:41:37] Everybody should jump on it,"

[1:41:39] we make it competitive?

[1:41:43] I mean, a little bit of both. We want to generate interest in these sites.

[1:41:49] And we want to keep the construction cost as low as possible.

[1:41:52] I think that's in everyone's interest to do that.

[1:41:56] And rather see them put that money towards

[1:42:01] kind of public

[1:42:03] benefits and public infrastructure.

[1:42:09] Will there be some expectation of the proposer that that is

[1:42:15] the intention of cost savings?

[1:42:19] Because what I would want to be careful of is we give

[1:42:23] this low rate for the property and then a developer

[1:42:29] just takes advantage of that and

[1:42:33] just makes a huge profit and it's no better for us.

[1:42:36] We just lost out on an opportunity to-

[1:42:39] Right

[1:42:40] ... get more money out of the sale.

[1:42:42] Yeah. So this is going to be almost a partnership.

[1:42:47] Because there's going to be this thing called the Land Development Agreement that

[1:42:50] it comes out after you select the preferred developer.

[1:42:55] And before we transfer the land to them, we enter into a Land Development Agreement

[1:42:59] between the town and the developer.

[1:43:01] And as part of that process, we see their whole pro forma and we know

[1:43:07] kind of, we have a close look into their financials.

[1:43:11] And so we'll be able to make that judgment call at that time to make sure that

[1:43:15] we're doing a good deal that's in the interest of the residents of Montague.

[1:43:20] Okay. Is there-

[1:43:21] It's pretty specific, Nate, that-

[1:43:25] Mm-hmm

[1:43:25] ... and they have to follow that, and if they don't execute within a timeframe, we

[1:43:30] move on to somebody else, and so on. So it's not like a speculative thing.

[1:43:37] That's good to hear. With the small parcel, I

[1:43:41] understand this is maybe not a thing you can do by law or anything, but I'm

[1:43:45] wondering if that could be limited to nonprofit developers,

[1:43:50] just as a smaller parcel and

[1:43:54] nonprofit developers are going to wind up with better

[1:43:58] rental rates for those seeking affordable housing.

[1:44:02] Just wondering if that's an option.

[1:44:11] I think

[1:44:13] it might be possible to do. I would recommend that we

[1:44:18] keep it open for now and see what's out there.

[1:44:20] We definitely will be marketing this RFP to nonprofit developers.

[1:44:23] Any nonprofit developer in the area that we know of will get a copy of this RFP and

[1:44:28] be invited to submit a proposal. But I

[1:44:33] think we should just kind of see what level of interest there is, right?

[1:44:36] At this point.

[1:44:37] Okay.

[1:44:37] But yeah.

[1:44:38] Right.

[1:44:41] Okay.

[1:44:42] Okay. So are folks okay with just leaving it at 10,000, or do you want us to do,

[1:44:46] say, 10 and 20, or?

[1:44:49] I'd prefer, like, 30. I think you had mentioned 30.

[1:44:51] 10 and 30. Okay.

[1:44:53] The relative, it's extreme difference in size.

[1:44:56] Yep.

[1:44:56] That's okay for me, yeah.

[1:44:58] Okay.

[1:44:59] 10, 30.

[1:45:00] All right. And then the third one was the makeup of the group all being

[1:45:06] town staff before it comes to us in a kind of a public hearing, public meeting, and

[1:45:12] discussion, and-

[1:45:15] Yeah

[1:45:15] ... And then we don't, again, like usually we've done these in the past where we

[1:45:19] hear the proposals, so we do it kind of as a public hearing.

[1:45:24] We don't make a decision right away.

[1:45:26] We let the public have a chance to kind of weigh in on their thoughts and then

[1:45:31] decide we like it or we want to rework it.

[1:45:33] So I think the professional staff to me makes sense, so.

[1:45:38] Yeah. Let the professionals do-

[1:45:39] All right. Okay, great

[1:45:40] ... their thing.

[1:45:42] Do their work, yeah. Ariel, do you have a question?

[1:45:48] Yes, thanks.

[1:45:50] My hand was up mainly around the same kind of question, but also a certain

[1:45:55] preference if it's legal. Same kind of question that Nate asked, which is

[1:46:02] can we simply issue an RFP that has, for example, a more advantageous purchase

[1:46:07] price for the land for not-for-profits, or just say as a condition in the RFP,

[1:46:13] preference will be given to not-for-profit developers because most of them are

[1:46:17] actually dedicated more to affordability.

[1:46:19] And the other follow-up question to that is can we put affordability

[1:46:24] conditions into our RFP, especially conditions that are tighter than what the state

[1:46:30] has because the state's affordability standards are not affordable for a lot of

[1:46:34] people in Montague.

[1:46:39] Yep, good question. So the affordability standard is one of the criteria for

[1:46:44] reviewing the proposals. We ask what percentage are affordable units.

[1:46:50] The higher the percentage, the more advantageous the proposal.

[1:46:57] And regarding the purchase price,

[1:47:01] I suppose it is possible that we could offer a lower rate for nonprofits.

[1:47:06] It gets a little complicated to try to keep an even playing field, which is why I

[1:47:09] wanted to just keep a low flat fee.

[1:47:13] But

[1:47:15] yeah, we could possibly put on a thing that says nonprofits

[1:47:22] can pay an even lower fee. But I would definitely want to check around before doing

[1:47:27] that, but.

[1:47:29] Understand. Yeah.

[1:47:31] Yeah.

[1:47:31] Thanks.

[1:47:34] That's something they could request as part of their proposal, too, I suppose, so

[1:47:39] we could consider it then. So I'm going to try to get this put together for our

[1:47:43] motion.

[1:47:46] I'd like to recommend a motion that we declare the Farrant

[1:47:52] property surplus, which is located 330 to 340 Montague City Road,

[1:47:58] parcel ID 12-0-044 and

[1:48:04] 356 Montague City Road, parcel ID

[1:48:07] 12.0.044A, and authorize the release for

[1:48:13] development for request for proposals with the change noted that the

[1:48:19] parcel identified on the map as one will be a price of

[1:48:25] $10,000. Parcel identified at two will be a price of $30,000.

[1:48:31] So moved.

[1:48:33] Second it.

[1:48:35] Okay. Any questions? Does that sound okay, Walter and Chris?

[1:48:39] Yep. Sounds good.

[1:48:40] Okay. I'll for a vote. Marie Goldman?

[1:48:43] Aye.

[1:48:44] Nate Carr?

[1:48:45] Aye.

[1:48:46] Rich Roukous. Aye. So voted unanimous. Thanks, Walter. Hope we get some good...

[1:48:51] There's a good timeline here, so a lot of room for us to have discussions and get

[1:48:56] the public involved, and let's hope we get some good proposals.

[1:49:01] So yeah. Proposals won't be due till after the holidays at this point, so the end

[1:49:05] of January is when they'll be due. But we should have an idea of if we're going to

[1:49:10] be getting any proposals in by December.

[1:49:15] Okay.

[1:49:15] And we're also waiting on a big grant application we've got to do the public

[1:49:19] infrastructure design. We're really hoping that we get that announcement, and

[1:49:22] that'll parlay really nice if we can get a development partner on board.

[1:49:27] Mm-hmm.

[1:49:29] I still like the team save that house, Walter.

[1:49:32] I know you do. Yeah. Still possible.

[1:49:38] If I can move on to the Soapbox Derby, John Dobis

[1:49:43] asked us to put in a reminder. The Soapbox Derby is this Sunday,

[1:49:49] and that they are always looking for volunteers

[1:49:54] for that.

[1:49:57] They have 30 racers signed up. The race is from noon to 3:00 PM.

[1:50:01] And so he wants to remind the public that First Street's going to be closed that

[1:50:05] morning between 7:00 AM and 5:00 PM.

[1:50:09] The closure's going to be at the top of that First Street hill around Kostenski's

[1:50:12] Funeral Home, all the way down to L Street during that time.

[1:50:19] They'll be setting up later this week with equipment coming in-

[1:50:24] ... mostly on Friday.

[1:50:27] And John also wanted us to note that Sunday's looking

[1:50:32] pretty rainy, so it's possible that this will need to be

[1:50:38] postponed,

[1:50:40] and he'll come back to the board with a proposed rain date if they have to.

[1:50:47] Yeah.

[1:50:47] Okay. Thanks, Walter.

[1:50:50] Yep. That covers-

[1:50:51] Anything for... Any questions on that?

[1:50:57] Anything for topics not anticipated?

[1:51:01] Yeah. The Gilmanton School District has reopened their superintendent search

[1:51:06] committee, and they're looking to fill a few seats there.

[1:51:10] They're looking for residents,

[1:51:14] people with children in the school, but they're also looking for a resident and/or

[1:51:20] civic representative from Montague, as well as Gil.

[1:51:24] So they've sent an invitation, an open invitation to the board to participate in

[1:51:29] this committee. Otherwise, a general open invitation to the public to participate

[1:51:34] as well.

[1:51:36] Okay.

[1:51:38] Last time they had this committee, the board didn't have anybody on the

[1:51:41] superintendent hiring committee.

[1:51:45] Okay. If there's anybody listening or anybody on the board that's interested, let

[1:51:49] Walter know.

[1:51:50] Yep.

[1:51:51] And we'll make that known to the district.

[1:51:54] Yep.

[1:51:55] Okay.

[1:51:56] And then I learned today that there's a Buddy Bench program to

[1:52:04] establish one of our benches in Peskeomsket Park to become a Buddy Bench.

[1:52:10] This is something that Marina is working on, so I'll let her talk about that.

[1:52:17] Here's my prop.

[1:52:19] So this is an organization that was started in 2019.

[1:52:25] About 150 different organizations

[1:52:31] participate, mostly libraries, civic engagement, community meals,

[1:52:37] Fenway Health,

[1:52:40] Franklin County Y locally, Forbes Library.

[1:52:44] I

[1:52:46] think this particular day, it's called the Happy to Chat Bench,

[1:52:52] and it

[1:52:56] started it was just going to be a day, and then they expanded it to the weekend.

[1:52:59] So it's the last weekend in September.

[1:53:04] So it's a bit of a last-minute request because we didn't know if we were going to

[1:53:08] be able to do it or get the sign, and

[1:53:12] I haven't had that great of communication, but you can look at all sorts of

[1:53:17] information on it nationally if you go to Good Neighbor Day or End

[1:53:23] Loneliness MA, M-A, .com. And it's basically

[1:53:28] putting this sign, which is in Spanish and English,

[1:53:34] just saying, "Rest, relax, chat. Friendship starts here." And

[1:53:40] this sign can go on a bench in Peskeomsket Park.

[1:53:47] It's a wooden bench, so I'm not sure if we need to attach it or if we wanted to do

[1:53:52] something less permanent and, just as for the weekend,

[1:53:59] put it out there, and I think there's certain people that have agreed to come and

[1:54:03] sit on the bench, and we'll see who joins us and what we talk about.

[1:54:13] Do we need any sort of official approval, Walter? It seems pretty straightforward.

[1:54:18] No. At first, I thought they were actually installing a new bench, but they're not.

[1:54:23] They're just putting a sign on a current bench.

[1:54:25] So it's just mostly

[1:54:30] informational since the bench is on Peskeomsket Park, which is under select board

[1:54:35] jurisdiction. I thought it would be appropriate-

[1:54:37] Yeah

[1:54:37] ... to bring to the board so that it at least publicly notified.

[1:54:41] I guess if we end up in...

[1:54:48] I think it'll just go temporarily for the weekend, but maybe if we end up wanting

[1:54:53] to install it permanently, then would we come back to the board

[1:54:59] and ask?

[1:55:03] Or report back after and request to make it permanent?

[1:55:06] Sure. Yeah.

[1:55:07] That would make sense.

[1:55:08] Jenna Wald is spearheading this project.

[1:55:11] I think you might have gotten an email from her.

[1:55:13] And,

[1:55:18] so she's the one responsible sort of reporting it to all the national organizations

[1:55:23] that are supporting it, and she'll probably put a picture up on the

[1:55:28] website.

[1:55:31] Great. Thanks, Marina.

[1:55:32] You're-

[1:55:32] So I'll report back on that

[1:55:34] ... great. Do you know why this bench was chosen in particular?

[1:55:38] No.

[1:55:40] She chose the one at Peskeomsket, I think, just because of visibility.

[1:55:45] Okay.

[1:55:49] Great. I wonder if we can get something in the paper so that there's a lot of

[1:55:52] attention on that, so it has the impact that it is really

[1:55:58] wanting to have.

[1:56:00] Right. I think she has put it out-

[1:56:04] Great

[1:56:04] ... to people. Jenna Wald, she has, and I think she's posted something on Facebook.

[1:56:09] Jeff, can you put it in the paper?

[1:56:13] I can send you a picture.

[1:56:17] That'd be great.

[1:56:18] Yeah.

[1:56:20] Somebody asked me, too, at Peskeomsket Park,

[1:56:24] somebody who lives in the area, walks their dog at home real well, but they were

[1:56:29] concerned because it's kind of dark by where some of the picnic tables are, and the

[1:56:33] band shell in the back area, and there's some pretty good lighting in the front,

[1:56:38] and they asked, "Is there anything the town can do to make lighting a little bit

[1:56:43] more secure in the back?" They feel kind of uncomfortable, they said, and I just

[1:56:47] said I'd bring it up in a meeting, because I know folks are interested.

[1:56:51] I know we've had some

[1:56:55] issues with discarded needles and stuff in that area, too, but it's more about

[1:57:01] some folks were concerned about security, so

[1:57:04] we could ask DPW to do a look at that and maybe-

[1:57:07] Yeah

[1:57:07] ... see if they could make it a little brighter in that area.

[1:57:11] I don't know if you have thoughts on that, or do you want to look next time you're

[1:57:14] by there? But it is, even when I go in the morning, early, I go by there at

[1:57:19] 5:30 in the morning often, and it's pretty dark.

[1:57:25] Yeah. It's not on the agenda, but I'd be happy to put in some inquiries to look and

[1:57:30] see what-

[1:57:31] Okay

[1:57:31] ... options we could do there for better nighttime visibility there.

[1:57:36] Yeah. I just told folks I kind of like asking about the bricks.

[1:57:42] Okay.

[1:57:44] So anything else for regular business? Okay.

[1:57:47] We have an amended agenda this evening.

[1:57:49] Something came up today, so we need to have an executive session.

[1:57:53] That is executive session pursuant to General Law Chapter 30A, Section

[1:58:00] 21A3 to discuss litigation and strategy in the case of Snow, Deborah, et

[1:58:06] al. versus the Town of Montague, Franklin Superior Court,

[1:58:10] docket number

[1:58:12] 2678CV0006X.

[1:58:19] And if discussing this matter in open session will have a detrimental effect on the

[1:58:24] town's litigation position and the chair declares so, which I do, this is ongoing

[1:58:29] litigation. With that, I'll entertain a motion to go into executive session as

[1:58:33] read. We would only come out of executive session to adjourn our regular meeting.

[1:58:39] So moved.

[1:58:41] Seconded.

[1:58:42] Okay, I'll call for vote. Marina Goman?

[1:58:45] Aye.

[1:58:45] Nick Carr?

[1:58:47] Aye.

[1:58:48] And Rich Koukos. Aye. So we'll announce we will start a second meeting for the

[1:58:53] executive session. Talk to you guys in a few minutes. Thanks, everyone.

[1:58:58] Thank you. Chris, can you start that meeting?

[1:59:01] Yep, will do.

[1:59:02] Thank you.

Selectboard Meeting 9/21/26

Transcript