[0:10] Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order.
[0:13] This is the hybrid select board meeting. Today is Tuesday, October 6th, 2026.
[0:19] It is a little past 7:00 in the evening.
[0:23] All members are present with the exception of Member Marion. She is online tonight.
[0:28] In person, we have our town administrator, Lisa Long as well. Welcome.
[0:33] We have announcements/public comment.
[0:36] Before we get into that, I have a citation for Sergeant
[0:42] Percy. I believe he's in the crowd. Sergeant, would you like to come up?
[0:50] I would just like to say, this is a certificate of recognition.
[0:54] This certificate is proudly awarded to Sergeant Douglas Percy in recognition of his
[0:59] honorable and dedicated service to the town of South Hadley, given upon his
[1:03] retirement from the South Hadley Police Department this 28th day of September 2026
[1:08] by the South Hadley Select Board, with their deepest appreciation and respect.
[1:17] Actually, can I have you guys come by the flag and just take a quick picture to
[1:21] share with them? Oh.
[1:25] Everybody?
[1:26] Everybody.
[1:27] Okay.
[1:27] Wait. You?
[1:28] Really?
[1:29] Yes.
[1:33] Enjoy it. It better be this. One at a time.
[1:36] Oh.
[1:37] Except this one. We'll bond the medals.
[1:43] Got everything?
[1:47] Think it's up here.
[1:48] Yeah.
[1:48] Okay. All right, thank you.
[1:50] Thank you.
[1:50] I just want to say,
[1:57] Doug was a great member of our police department, gave so much from the last 35
[2:02] years, and a lot of the work that he did was really behind the scenes.
[2:05] He was a great community partner, coach, volunteered at the church, so it was a lot
[2:10] more than just what he did. And he ran the overnight shift for the last five years,
[2:15] so he had the most junior officers, and then he had the most senior officers.
[2:19] So he had a difficult job, and he's really going to be missed.
[2:23] Not easy to fill his shoes. So thank you, Doug.
[2:38] Yay. Okay, now we are on to announcements.
[2:42] Do any members have any announcements this evening?
[2:45] Yes, I do.
[2:45] Renee, please.
[2:47] South Hadley's Historic District Study Committee is having a ribbon cutting for the
[2:51] old Firehouse Museum local historic district.
[2:55] It's going to be Saturday, October 17th.
[2:59] They want you to arrive at 1:30 to mix and mingle, and then there's going to be a
[3:03] ribbon cutting 2:00 to 3:00, and tours, and that is at 4 North Main Street,
[3:09] where the old Firehouse Museum is.
[3:11] And there's going to be a dessert truck there, so get over there.
[3:16] Thank you.
[3:17] Dessert.
[3:19] I have a few announcements, so bear with me.
[3:22] Town Hall is going to be closed on Fridays, starting immediately, except for people
[3:28] who need to do early voting on October 23rd and 30th.
[3:34] The reason that Town Hall is closing on Fridays is to give town employees
[3:40] time to catch up on their work that they
[3:44] have to do without interruptions by the public.
[3:48] It's important work that they do, and we need them to be able to focus on their
[3:53] work to get it done.
[3:56] There is a community needs survey. You can get that information on the website.
[4:00] It's also on lots of social media. We're looking for responses for that.
[4:07] Land waste pickup is now through the 28th, so any
[4:13] leaves and brush from your yard can be put out on your trash day in an open
[4:19] container.
[4:22] And then finally, there's a really cool thing happening.
[4:26] There's a call for artists and creators to create the design for a Welcome to South
[4:32] Hadley sign that's going to go up on the corner of Bridge and Main Street.
[4:37] There's information about that on the town website, and you can
[4:41] get in touch with the town planner, Anne Capra, to get more details about that.
[4:47] Thank you, Carol. Any other announcements?
[4:50] Yeah, I'd like to make an announcement.
[4:52] I'd like to congratulate Sergeant Felix Lingye Perez of the South Hadley Police
[4:56] Department. He received a certification recognition award from the Black and
[5:02] Latino Legislative Caucus in their selection as a 2026 Latino Excellence
[5:08] on the Hill honoree. There were 81 or 82
[5:13] awards, of which two were police officers.
[5:16] I'd like to congratulate Sergeant Perez on that.
[5:19] Very good.
[5:20] Congratulations, Felix.
[5:23] Any other announcements?
[5:26] Okay, is anybody here for public comment?
[5:31] Please.
[5:34] You'll let me know when mic's...
[5:37] Hi, Christian.
[5:38] Good evening.
[5:40] So just identify yourself and where you live, and-
[5:43] Yeah, I'm about to do that.
[5:45] All right, thanks.
[5:46] My name is Barry McPhee. I live at 3 Woodward Street here in South Hadley.
[5:51] I guess I've got a question in terms of how the select board, after
[5:57] the last few years, looking at the budgets and the shortfalls and the cuts in
[6:03] people and this and that, and
[6:06] where are we
[6:09] with looking at what we have for available space within
[6:15] town for businesses to
[6:19] join the town, create a business, and are we pursuing them
[6:25] in any way? Are we advertising globally within the state,
[6:32] or even outside of the state, to try and get new businesses,
[6:38] new developers,
[6:40] whatever we can, to come into town?
[6:44] Maybe even just advise what we can do to try and get more revenue
[6:50] coming into town. And I don't know if Lisa can tell us if
[6:57] you've done this kind of research, and if you could highlight where and who you've
[7:03] talked to, and the status on those
[7:08] endeavors, and let us know what's going on.
[7:12] Sure. I'll be as brief as I can, but we can also discuss this later.
[7:17] The select board has, and it's towards the end, unfortunately, a line agenda item
[7:23] about creating subcommittees, and one of those is an economic development
[7:26] subcommittee, so we are going to talk about it more then.
[7:30] But I will say briefly, in terms of expectations, my very first jobs in government
[7:35] was working in economic development, industrial development, doing that kind of
[7:39] thing. But that involved agencies that we don't have here and staffing that we
[7:44] don't have here. So the kind of comprehensive work that you're talking about, we
[7:49] don't have a lot of internal staff with either the job title or in the job
[7:54] description, and we are losing staff, so that's going to be a challenge.
[7:58] That being said, though, towns will typically advertise publicly owned properties
[8:02] or put out RFPs for availability for projects.
[8:05] The town doesn't have a lot of excess property right now,
[8:09] and there's also not necessarily a lot of private property.
[8:11] But for private property, it's more delicate because you can't just advertise
[8:15] somebody else's property. A lot of the work that we're doing, either through the
[8:19] falls or through grants or a
[8:23] request that we have to try to get money through the economic development bond
[8:26] bill, is to support private landowners by helping them with mini-grants
[8:33] for them to invest in their own property.
[8:35] Because we can't tell property owners what to do with their own property, but we
[8:38] can help incentivize and reach out to them and have meetings.
[8:42] So those are being done by myself and the staff,
[8:47] not on a regular basis, not like I used to when this was my primary job, when
[8:52] opportunities arise. But we've also found that because of the nature of South
[8:57] Hadley having very few properties available, even for private development, that
[9:02] it's a complex nature of brownfield cleanup, potential property acquisition,
[9:08] zoning reform, and zoning changes.
[9:10] So a number of the actions that you've seen before
[9:14] are in that ilk, and you'll see that the town meeting coming up has a lot of those
[9:18] changes to try to incentivize and support businesses.
[9:23] And also, some of the funding sources that you'll see advertised on our website
[9:26] are, again, aimed towards private entities.
[9:29] That being said, though,
[9:31] we still want to bring in businesses and support them here, but bringing in new
[9:35] businesses actually doesn't necessarily increase the tax revenue at all.
[9:38] Right. Thank you.
[9:39] So we do also say we've got to also prioritize ...
[9:43] sustainable revenue sources for just basic operations.
[9:46] So I know it's very brief-
[9:48] Yep
[9:48] ... but it gives you an insight as to some of the conversation where if the Select
[9:53] Board supports something like an economic development committee, we get to talk
[9:57] about this on a regular basis. So the kinds of conversations that I might be having
[10:01] internally with my staff or with business owners or the chamber of state
[10:05] legislators get reported out in a public venue regularly.
[10:08] So folks like you don't feel like we're just sitting around not thinking about it.
[10:12] Yep. Okay.
[10:15] What about, just off the top of my head, the old James River Graphics and
[10:21] Rexon and that property. Is that a brown site? What do you mean by a brown site?
[10:27] Oh, so brown fields just refers to a property that might have a contamination
[10:33] that is preventing a redevelopment.
[10:35] So there's a site where if, for example, there's contamination, then you can't just
[10:40] go and rebuild it or reconstruct it.
[10:42] You have to do the
[10:44] primary work to do an assessment,
[10:48] go through the proper channels, do the proper reporting, things like that.
[10:51] And actually, we do have some of that on our agenda tonight with the Select Board
[10:55] to look at those kinds of sites.
[10:57] Yeah.
[10:57] So we are doing those things, again, not at the pace that I would love to see, but
[11:02] investing in staff would not yield an immediate return on investment.
[11:06] And I think with some of the staff reductions we have, we would have to cut
[11:10] something to make that investment at this point in time.
[11:13] But it's definitely something where existing staff and perhaps the Select Board are
[11:19] thinking about creative ways to move some of those kinds of activities forward.
[11:25] Okay. All right. Thank you so much.
[11:27] Yeah. And I encourage you, if you want to have another conversation or you have
[11:31] some ideas, reach out to me, at my office, reach out to me.
[11:33] Okay. Thank you so much.
[11:34] Thank you.
[11:35] Thank you.
[11:46] My name is Wayne Wetzel, 113 Pinecroft Drive.
[11:50] I'm the pen to the next from a few meetings ago, and I still
[11:55] have serious questions about the jobs you're doing.
[12:00] I don't think that you have a communication problem.
[12:04] I think you're not doing the job correctly.
[12:07] And I have two or three major suggestions for you.
[12:11] One is, there's some of us here that do have some ideas, and when you limit us to
[12:17] three minutes to give you those ideas, and you give our town administrator an hour
[12:22] to respond to them, you don't get any idea that you can work on.
[12:27] All you get is more of the same. And when you put in the paper, you talk about
[12:35] activities at the school,
[12:38] and primarily sports, and you focus on that. And think about it for a second.
[12:44] I don't know the details because I don't know the school budget, but
[12:50] all the sports have a fee. So that's money that's kicking in, and you
[12:56] pay for some minimum stipends to the faculty members to be the
[13:02] coaches, and you buy a few balls, and you buy a few gloves or another equipment,
[13:07] and cutting out sports doesn't solve your problem.
[13:11] But schools is one of the problems, and the school problem relates to the housing.
[13:17] And you've got a thing before you right now concerning a housing project up at the
[13:23] liquor store on 202.
[13:26] Think about it for a second. The worst part of your budget is the school budget.
[13:32] No house payer anywhere in this town pays enough revenue to cover the
[13:39] cost of the students that are in this house.
[13:42] So when you increase housing, especially
[13:46] lower income housing, you're more likely to have less tax revenue and more
[13:52] students, and that's going to blow your budget all up.
[13:56] But you need to think about that a little bit.
[13:59] Third one, and I mentioned it before, and I still haven't heard a single word from
[14:05] anybody about doing anything about it, and that is the biggest landowner in
[14:10] town is a non-paying taxant. I asked before,
[14:17] I haven't done the work. I could do the work if I wanted to, but our town
[14:23] administrator ought to know what percentage of land in the town
[14:28] is the property of our wonderful college.
[14:34] And the way it seems to happen in the past, I've only been in town six or seven
[14:40] years, but the way it seems is the school college comes forward and
[14:45] says, "Well, we have a generous handout here that we're going to give you
[14:51] $50,000 or $100,000." That's not the way to approach it.
[14:57] You need to have a solid plan and go to the school and tell them the
[15:02] benefits that they have for being in this town.
[15:06] Part of the lovely experience their student body has is the town of South Halley,
[15:12] and part of the reason that people give to their colleges is because of their
[15:17] experiences. And you need to have the school step up to the
[15:22] plate with a viable number, and it ought to be one that you ask for and not just
[15:28] accept. And I've got more ideas, but I'm running out of my three minutes.
[15:35] No, you can take my three minutes if you want to keep going.
[15:45] Does anybody at the table know about zero-based budgeting?
[15:51] When is the last time you did it?
[15:56] In my professional career, we do it every year.
[16:00] Every year at my professional career.
[16:02] Every year. It's not just we look at last year's budget and add 5% or
[16:08] 3% or 2% for inflation. I don't believe it, but I accept your
[16:14] answer. Secondly, you've got two fire stations in town.
[16:18] I read an article and it says two fire stations, they were put in because in the
[16:23] horse and buggy dates, you couldn't get from one side of the town to the other side
[16:28] of the town. But we have, I
[16:33] can't think of the word anymore, but community help from our neighboring town if
[16:39] they have a fire station. Has anybody contemplated
[16:44] what you ought to do with two fire stations instead of one?
[16:48] Has anybody asked what you ought to do with two libraries instead of one?
[16:53] There are all sorts of things that could be looked at in this budget, and I don't
[16:58] think it's being done.
[17:05] Carol, if you want to-
[17:06] Lisa, go first.
[17:07] Yeah. I think part of the issue is that a number of the items that you talked about
[17:13] have been talked about. But if I said, well, the first time you talked about was
[17:17] done at three different meetings over the past three years, and you have to go to
[17:21] hour one and a half to get that seven-minute conversation about that, that's really
[17:25] hard. It's very hard for, I think, a lot of people to really follow all the complex
[17:29] discussions with each of those topics.
[17:32] So,
[17:34] one of the ways in which, and I'll speak generally versus addressing any specific
[17:37] thing,
[17:39] we have completely revamped the budgeting process that is in the Select Board
[17:45] financial policies by incorporating the existing appropriations committee to
[17:50] essentially do a zero-based budgeting exercise at a very public and transparent and
[17:56] comprehensive level. So that it's not just staff that are sort of doing things
[18:01] behind the scenes and then presenting something to the boards, and then you ask
[18:05] questions. So, we have sort of deconstructed the budgeting process so that
[18:12] members of the appropriations and perhaps members of the Select Board, we'll talk
[18:15] about that later, would be part of the process to basically help zero-based budget
[18:20] different departments and then bring them all together so that it's looked at
[18:24] comprehensively. And to do that
[18:28] during the fall and winter versus waiting until the late winter, early spring to
[18:33] have the public meetings and the public process.
[18:35] So it's a completely different way of doing things publicly, even though that might
[18:41] happen behind the scenes with staff, it hasn't been as transparent.
[18:47] And I will say briefly that the
[18:50] fire districts are legally and politically not part of the town, so there's a
[18:55] separate election, a separate board, a separate town meeting, but there are
[18:59] residents who are working on those very issues, and Carol can certainly talk about
[19:04] how to get involved or engage in those discussions.
[19:08] In terms of things like
[19:10] two libraries or one library, those
[19:14] have and will continue to be discussed about whether
[19:20] that's actually the budget issue.
[19:23] So for example, if it's really the staffing issue and the funding minimum levels
[19:27] versus A building operations level, then that's a whole different conversation than
[19:32] just saying one building is cheaper than two.
[19:35] So some of it, the conversations that we'll have moving forward, is what's the
[19:39] service delivery and the impact we're looking for? What does that cost?
[19:44] I wish it was that simple. The schools have had a lot of conversations about
[19:48] sports.
[19:50] High school sports or public school sports have to meet estate standards,
[19:56] which means that you have to hire an athletic director, you have to have the
[20:01] trainers, you have to have the training for the coaches, you have to pay them
[20:06] legally, and you have to transport kids, and the
[20:12] cost of that is well beyond the kind of fees.
[20:16] So there's a breakdown, and there's multiple presentations that the superintendent
[20:20] has done. I think one of the things that I'm thinking about is it is just so hard
[20:25] to navigate town information without asking one of us or trying to do a Google
[20:30] search.
[20:32] I think one of the things we'll discuss is if there are the top 10 issues that
[20:35] people ask about, what about the library? What about the districts?
[20:38] What about the sports here? What about this, what about that?
[20:41] Either we figure out how to have a Q&A with topics, and then in addition to the
[20:47] Q&A-- So let's say that the library is a major topic.
[20:50] So you've got the Q&A about commonly asked questions about the library.
[20:54] But then, let's say we talk about the library tonight.
[20:56] What we do is maybe say, "We're going to have a link to tonight's meeting," and say
[21:00] that, "Here's a link to the meeting, and at one hour and 17 minutes, we have a
[21:03] discussion." So you have a link to the meeting under Library, and then you can tell
[21:08] people to Zoom forward to that period where we talked about the library.
[21:11] So it's more work on our end, but these are the kinds of conversations we are
[21:17] actually going to have tonight about communications and public engagement.
[21:22] Because there are so many boards, so many meetings, they're really long, they're
[21:28] not very searchable. It's a complex discussion.
[21:31] We really don't want people to feel like they're left behind, or we're
[21:37] asking you to go figure this out yourself.
[21:40] I think some of this, we definitely need to do a better job with public engagement,
[21:43] which is exactly what we're going to talk about tonight.
[21:45] So these are very timely comments.
[21:48] I think you're illustrating the exact reason why the Selectboard is trying to do
[21:52] things differently tonight. We're going to talk about the retreat we had, which
[21:56] takes, I think, the self sort of
[22:01] critical look that you have of ourselves and I have of ourselves, actually reflects
[22:04] a lot of the same feelings we have about what's been talked about tonight.
[22:08] So I feel like we're on the same page, but we need to sort of roll up our sleeves
[22:12] and make those changes and not just
[22:16] answer a question and move on. Right?
[22:21] I think the questions regarding the districts are great, but it doesn't fall under
[22:24] Selectboard purview. There is a group in town, a volunteer group, that is looking
[22:28] into cost savings with combination, possibly, of the districts.
[22:32] I hate the word merger, but combination's a little cleaner word.
[22:38] So that committee's working on that, and if there's further questions, comments,
[22:44] concerns, then the potential board in District 1 just met tonight.
[22:48] Those are the arenas that those conversations have to be talked about in terms of
[22:54] the possible duplication of service in town.
[22:56] It really doesn't fall under our purview.
[22:59] I mean, it's a constant question every time somebody runs for a Selectboard seat,
[23:03] and the answer is that it doesn't fall under this board itself.
[23:09] But the duplication is definitely there, Carol, if you want to-- Because Carol sits
[23:14] on that volunteer group, and maybe if you want to expand a little bit, Carol.
[23:20] Just that there is a citizens group that's involving, that's going in-depth
[23:26] into the cost of the districts, how they run, and running a number of budget
[23:31] numbers to see
[23:34] if there is some savings possible because of potential
[23:40] duplication of efforts. I'm looking through my notes, trying to remember when our
[23:45] next meeting is at the library.
[23:49] Hold on, I'll get my calendar up.
[23:57] And the public is welcome to attend our meetings.
[24:05] I believe it's the 14th at 4:30 at the South
[24:10] Hadley Public Library, for the citizens group that's working on studying
[24:17] the districts and the cost of the districts.
[24:25] Appreciate the questions very much, though,
[24:29] you and Barry.
[24:35] Yeah. Can you go to the mic, please?
[24:46] It may not be under your purview. It may have been handed down the line.
[24:52] But what
[24:55] power or persuasion or goal or target do
[25:01] you guys give these committees? Because the budget is your concern.
[25:06] I-
[25:06] And we know we have a problem with the budget, as you've seen from three overrides
[25:12] not passing. So there's got to be things done, and
[25:18] I spent 35 years or something like that in town government.
[25:23] I spent 30 of them as the
[25:28] finance committee chair, or appropriate committee, or whatever you call it in town.
[25:34] So I've been doing this for a long time.
[25:36] And if you don't push, then you just push it down the line and nothing
[25:42] happens. And the interesting thing is, nobody
[25:48] spoke specifically to the point of our largest non-taxpayer in
[25:54] town. That is something that you guys got to take on yourself.
[26:00] You can't push it off to a committee
[26:03] because it has to come from you. You're the governing body of this
[26:09] town, and you're the only one that has enough statute to go and demand
[26:15] something or ask politely or however you want to express it from the college,
[26:22] but they need to contribute more.
[26:32] Does anybody want to respond to that? I think we talked about that in the past.
[26:36] So just briefly, the Selectboard did put together a policy after looking at
[26:41] researching all of the non-taxable properties, including Mount Holyoke College,
[26:47] and did request a number,
[26:52] both sort of publicly, but also in very nice ways.
[26:59] It was responded with a smaller number.
[27:02] The town asked again a few times in different ways and tried to look at it
[27:06] creatively, with
[27:10] a response that they were not able to do it at that time.
[27:12] So I think we can keep asking, but
[27:18] that's just like we're done.
[27:24] It's completely voluntary, so
[27:27] there's
[27:29] putting a policy together, being consistent, being clear, asking multiple times,
[27:34] trying to be creative. We are still rolling up our sleeves to see if there is
[27:40] non-cash contributions or in-kind or other significant benefits the
[27:46] college can contribute that they might not, or they're saying they're not able to
[27:51] do with cash as well. And my understanding is that they're also operating with a
[27:56] significant deficit, but I'm not privy to that information.
[28:00] So again, there's
[28:02] many
[28:04] area towns around us have pilot policies in place, but there are
[28:10] actually no real pilots in place with universities because they are resistant to
[28:15] it, so most of that is voluntary contributions.
[28:19] Some of our nearby towns have seen those voluntary contributions go away because
[28:24] universities have unilaterally said they don't have the funding to do that.
[28:27] So,
[28:28] we are not in a dissimilar boat-
[28:33] We're probably in a unique position in that we at least are going to see a greater
[28:38] pilot payment than we did last year, which was zero.
[28:40] But we're going to continue to work with the college and find ways to continue to
[28:46] have this be a relationship that is ongoing and sustainable moving forward.
[28:51] But certainly the Selectboard, if you have other thoughts or ideas,
[28:57] we're being as transparent as we can to the public about when we ask, what we're
[29:00] asking for, how, what the response is.
[29:02] So,
[29:04] I'm not sure there's much more we can do on that front.
[29:11] Barry McPhee, Three Woodbridge Street.
[29:13] I happen to be an alber of Mount Holyoke College,
[29:18] and
[29:21] I see a lot of waste. And if they're in a deficit,
[29:26] a lot of it, I bet, is contributed to that foolish geothermal project that they
[29:32] pursued. And from what I understand now,
[29:36] it's completed.
[29:38] I don't know if that's true or not. Somebody told me it was completed.
[29:43] Besides that, does the town assessor
[29:50] go out and audit and look at properties?
[29:53] A lot of these properties I've looked at, they call them educational.
[29:59] Now, Will A Tollewill, for an example, is called as educational, and it
[30:05] encompasses acres and acres of land that go out to Park Street.
[30:12] That's a business. It's a hotel. It's a restaurant. That's not education.
[30:18] I think the town, whoever, whether it's the assessors, need
[30:24] to reassess the properties at Mount Holyoke. That's just one piece of property.
[30:30] There are a number of empty lots that are potential building lots
[30:36] that should be taxed, and they're not.
[30:39] They've got a group of four buildings, I'm not quite sure if that's Jewett Lane or
[30:44] not, that are listed as one property
[30:49] at a million dollars. Well, they just renovated the first building on that street,
[30:55] and they had to spend $2 million to renovate it, if not more.
[31:01] So I think
[31:03] we've got to do something. There's money out there that we're not going after.
[31:08] Got to go after it. I would agree with this gentleman here.
[31:12] That's a big egg in town that should be contributing, and they're not.
[31:18] Thank you so much.
[31:21] I'll just say briefly that
[31:24] this is a decent start because at least we're getting some positive responses,
[31:30] and I think a desire to do more. I think we just need to, again, pull up our
[31:34] sleeves and work on it. We have the police chief in today, and one of the things we
[31:40] talked about at the retreat was to have our departments come in on a regular basis
[31:45] and talk about this and be accessible to the public.
[31:48] When it comes to our assessing department, I know of no one better that I want on
[31:52] my team or my side. We have just the top team here, who are doing a lot with a
[31:58] little. They're experts. They're sought-after experts in the state.
[32:03] I think they're kind of the ones that are helping to generate all the assessor
[32:07] knowledge in the rest of the state. So we are incredibly lucky.
[32:12] The work they do is,
[32:15] I trust, but they also fight for the town.
[32:18] So, there are state laws, there's appeal processes.
[32:22] There's certainly a lot of people push back, right? They ask for a reassessment.
[32:25] They ask for an appeal. They ask, there is a lot of pushback.
[32:29] They come in with knowledge and facts and research,
[32:33] but they're also working pretty much nonstop and sometimes giving up holidays and
[32:38] weekends and just doing a lot. But I think that
[32:43] I just want the public to know that we just have a top team that is doing
[32:47] incredible work, and that they
[32:51] got their eyes on all of these entities. They know the law.
[32:55] They know what we can do. But certainly we have conversations with our assessing
[33:00] team and the board from time to time because of things that we need to do, things
[33:05] like the tax rate. But I think that's going to be coming up later this year.
[33:09] We're going to be talking about things like exemptions that might be on future
[33:13] agendas. We're talking about,
[33:16] I just completely lost it, but there's a few things that we're talking about with
[33:21] that team. So there'll be opportunities for us to have these discussions and also
[33:27] invite the public to view and to ask questions, too.
[33:33] Any other comments?
[33:36] Any other public comment?
[33:39] Okay, thank you for the input.
[33:44] Okay, next on our agenda, we have the approval of the draft minutes of September
[33:49] 22nd, 2026. Do any members have any questions or comments on those minutes?
[33:58] Hearing seeing none, I believe there's a motion.
[34:01] I move to approve the draft minutes of September 22nd, 2026 as presented.
[34:07] I'll second.
[34:08] Okay. I'm going to roll call. Renee?
[34:10] Aye.
[34:10] Carol?
[34:11] Abstain.
[34:12] Kevin?
[34:13] Aye.
[34:13] Priscilla?
[34:15] Aye.
[34:17] Aye. Okay, four in favor, one abstention. Thank you.
[34:20] The next item is the consent agenda.
[34:22] We have multiple one-day beer and wine licenses requests from Mike McKenna for
[34:28] October 16th at the Equestrian Center at Mohonk, November 13th at Blanchard at
[34:33] Mohonk, and November 13th at the Art Museum at Mohonk College.
[34:38] Do any members have any questions or comments on that?
[34:45] I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.
[34:48] Second.
[34:49] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[34:51] Aye.
[34:52] Carol?
[34:52] Aye.
[34:53] Kevin?
[34:53] Aye.
[34:54] Priscilla?
[34:55] Aye.
[34:56] Aye. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay, we are now onto the listening session
[35:05] portion of our meeting, and our first item is the food truck.
[35:10] So we are-
[35:11] We've had a lot of folks that have opined on both, so if people want to speak, they
[35:16] can certainly, I think, speak to both at the same time.
[35:19] Oh, so you want to do food truck and data center? Okay.
[35:21] Yeah. I feel like most of the emails we've gotten have commented on both and not
[35:26] just one or the other. But the many emails that Selectboard have received
[35:32] have mostly been in favor of
[35:35] eliminating the 14-day restriction per month on food trucks.
[35:40] That being said, I was not around when that restriction was put in place, so I
[35:46] cannot
[35:47] adequately speculate as to why town meeting added that at one point in time.
[35:52] And usually it might be related to a concern from brick-and-mortar restaurants that
[35:58] there might be some competition. I think food trucks are regulated, and actually we
[36:04] see a lot of brick-and-mortar restaurants who do have a food truck component.
[36:07] I haven't heard back, but I did want to maybe see if you've heard some input,
[36:13] or also reach out to the chamber and maybe say, "Hey, can you put this out to your
[36:17] membership and let them know that this is in the works?" I know they work with a
[36:21] lot of restaurants. Just to make sure that they're not surprised and just to
[36:27] get some feedback, and maybe even to proactively reach out.
[36:30] But again, if somebody had that historic knowledge of what the concerns were, that
[36:36] would be helpful for me to figure out if they're still valid concerns.
[36:42] That was a town
[36:45] meeting back when we had Dave Gardner here as a building inspector.
[36:49] He was the one that was speaking
[36:53] to this issue, which is why it was passed at the current 14-day restriction.
[36:58] But I don't remember. I think there was a concern about
[37:04] too many trucks on private property.
[37:07] The public property issue was the main driver for the 14-day restriction.
[37:12] So like if you had a food truck at one of the Mosher schools or the middle schools
[37:16] or something like that. But again, that's just going on limited knowledge that I
[37:19] had at that time. But
[37:22] there is probably archives related to that.
[37:26] Okay. So if I could maybe find out which town meeting that was, I might be able to
[37:30] go back and view the video. Or if folks know, they can send me a quick email and
[37:35] let me know. For data centers In general, there is
[37:41] opposition to what I consider to be the large, disruptive, resource-eating
[37:47] data centers. There are a lot more nuanced conversations, including what's
[37:50] happening internally, because we do have data centers, like the smaller ones.
[37:54] I think South Hadley Electric Light, yeah, the town has a data center
[38:00] for backup. So I think if you lump them all and just ban everything that's
[38:05] considered a data center, you're not getting the nuances of existing things that
[38:09] are very helpful to supporting businesses and government.
[38:13] So,
[38:14] we are internally doing a lot more research to change that quick ban to something
[38:20] that's more nuanced and might look at either a moratorium, might look at size.
[38:25] So we're nowhere near
[38:28] done sort of exploring
[38:31] data centers, but of course, we wanted to make sure that it was a public process.
[38:35] I think on the food truck one, again, where we've talked about it's 14 days.
[38:39] Do we eliminate it? Do we change the number of days?
[38:42] And, right now, our initial recommendation is just to eliminate it.
[38:45] So there isn't a restriction, even if it's 14 to 21 or 14 to 28, just to take out
[38:51] those lines altogether. I don't see any hands up online, but I'm watching. Anybody?
[38:58] So,
[39:00] I think reaching out to the chamber of commerce is a great idea,
[39:06] just to get their input on it. I don't have any recollection of that town meeting
[39:11] about when that was passed and what the conversation was about.
[39:15] As far as data centers, I really appreciated the comment made by resident Megan
[39:19] Bristol
[39:22] suggesting that we do a one-year moratorium while we study the details.
[39:28] So that allays people's concerns that a data center could come in and sneak in,
[39:36] then giving us an opportunity to actually have a thoughtful process
[39:42] for the permitting for something like that.
[39:44] And so we would be able to say, "We need this kind of data center, and this is
[39:50] allowed," versus this kind of data center, which presents a bigger problem than the
[39:56] mega data centers that everybody's talking about right now.
[40:00] And can I just say that people talk about using AI all the time, but if you
[40:05] really hate data centers, you really should try to resist using those AI because
[40:11] it's just feeding the need for those data centers. My side.
[40:16] Just an aside.
[40:17] Understood. So I think the last meeting I was talking about what resources are
[40:22] these consuming. I heard electric, which we have private electric. I heard water.
[40:27] We have plenty of water. So other than that, and we don't have a moratorium on
[40:32] natural gas in South Hadley, unlike other communities around us.
[40:37] So I'm inclined to learn more.
[40:42] Again, we have people here that are worried about or expressing concern regarding
[40:47] budgets and regarding development and things of that nature.
[40:51] Now, I'm not saying data centers are the cure-all, but if we can look at that, take
[40:56] a really hard look at that, because right now we're not getting anything.
[41:01] And I think if we needed to get something smaller, I'll probably get chastised.
[41:06] I'll get 30 emails tonight hating me for this comment, but I think we need to keep
[41:10] our options open. I know that everybody around us is putting moratoriums and
[41:16] Westfield, they're looking at it. They were going to get one.
[41:18] They're looking at it closer. But I think we've really got to take a hard look on
[41:23] what we want to do with this.
[41:34] Barry McPhee, 3 Woodbridge Street. I agree with Jeff.
[41:41] You need to really look at this as well, not just your group, the planning board.
[41:48] I mentioned it last night at their meeting that you guys got to make a big tent
[41:54] of all of you
[41:56] and local businesses and providers of all sorts of materials, and
[42:03] it would be good for the trades. And from what I understand,
[42:09] they have a few employees, but the tax
[42:15] benefits to the town of South Hadley would be immense, and we can drive that train,
[42:20] tell them what they're going to do and what we want and how much they're going to
[42:24] pay.
[42:26] I agree with Barry. I
[42:28] think you brought up Gaylord Street, the old James River.
[42:33] Aeteron, that building
[42:37] is cleaner than my house. It's sitting there doing nothing.
[42:40] Nothing. Right.
[42:41] There's nothing in there.
[42:42] Right.
[42:42] It's got plenty of capacity for parking.
[42:44] I don't care if you had 100 employees, it's still got the same capacity.
[42:47] It's probably-
[42:48] You have 21 Mill right next to it. Across the street, EYENCO at one time was going
[42:53] to build an expansion for there. That's been put on hold.
[42:58] From what I understand, they're trying to figure out what they're doing in terms of
[43:01] their operations because they're in Billerica and they're overseas as well.
[43:07] I personally was excited about that because that would have brought more revenue as
[43:10] well. So-
[43:11] Right
[43:11] ...
[43:13] that property has limitations, but in the meantime, we have 6 Mill that is
[43:18] crumbling within itself.
[43:20] Right.
[43:20] There's a company out of California that purchased it for very little money, and
[43:24] they're just sitting on it. So-
[43:27] And I'm sure it has plenty of power, electricity, because that was a-
[43:31] Yeah, and I meant-
[43:32] It was a plant
[43:33] ... we have private electric, so it's palatable. We're not EverSource driven.
[43:37] We're not-
[43:38] Right.
[43:39] So I think, again, we have to take a really, really hard look at this.
[43:43] Yeah.
[43:43] It's not going to solve our budget woes, but it certainly can contribute-
[43:46] It's going to help. Yeah
[43:46] ... with the right process. And I agree with you on the planning board, and I have
[43:50] total faith in our town planner and our planning board that to propose or to maybe
[43:55] suggest to this board and our residents, mainly town meeting, that
[44:02] we should look at this closely.
[44:04] Absolutely. Thank you.
[44:05] Thank you.
[44:06] And I would agree with Jeff that we need to look at this and be very cautious with
[44:10] it because we did drop the ball with the marijuana,
[44:15] and we relate to the game on that.
[44:21] Anything else on the
[44:24] listening session for food truck and data centers?
[44:28] Nobody online?
[44:30] Nope.
[44:31] Any other comments?
[44:34] Okay, we're going to move on. We are now under new business, and we'll begin with
[44:39] item A, police staffing. I believe we have Chief Gundersen in
[44:45] the room, and I think between Lisa and Chief, we'll kick this off.
[44:52] Oh, and also to be transparent, we have two members of the Appropriations Committee
[44:56] that are sitting,
[44:59] or they are representing the Appropriations Committee for the police budget as
[45:03] well, so I welcome them as well. Chief, welcome.
[45:07] Good evening. Thank you. Lisa, should I start? Would you like to start?
[45:11] I guess we can both start. We'll say that
[45:15] one of the reasons for the chief coming in is that we want to get your input
[45:21] on some of the changes that are happening or some of the decisions we want to make
[45:25] moving forward with the police department.
[45:28] Again, we want to do this regularly with departments so that you are much more
[45:32] aware, and the public's more aware of all the stuff that usually goes on behind the
[45:36] scenes or outside of public meetings.
[45:39] One of the things that we shared in the packet that some of you were here for and
[45:43] some of you weren't was the staffing study that we did a few years ago that did
[45:48] provide some recommendations. We want to make sure that we don't just do those
[45:52] studies and they're sitting on a shelf, but that we return to them and have
[45:55] conversations about them as well.
[45:57] But there are also some updates that she can provide of the issues and
[46:03] the opportunities that we're tackling, and then I'll sort of jump back in and talk
[46:08] about maybe some concrete steps that we can take and decisions I'll need your input
[46:11] on tonight.
[46:13] Sure. Thank you. So for people that don't know me, I'm Jen Gundersen.
[46:17] I'm the police chief. And just by way of history, so the police department has
[46:22] historically been funded for 29 police officers.
[46:26] That's been the same since Bill Shanker was the chief. He left in 1995.
[46:30] With the budget reductions, the police department was reduced to 27 funded
[46:36] positions. We've also closed the dispatch center.
[46:40] We're in the process of doing that.
[46:41] We think we're
[46:43] About 30 days out from having our station go dark.
[46:48] It's been a long process for us to figure out best practices, but I think we're
[46:53] almost there. Going back to the staffing study, so when that was done, they took
[46:58] data from 24, like where did South Hadley, with our 29 police officers,
[47:05] match up with similar and like communities.
[47:09] At that time, South Hadley had less officers per residence than Greenfield,
[47:15] Easthampton, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, Wilbraham, and Palmer.
[47:21] The only like community that we did have more than was Belchertown, but now that
[47:26] we've been reduced to 27, we're certainly lower than Belchertown when we look at
[47:31] our population. We've reduced our staff, and I just want to say that that is not
[47:37] without a pretty large impact
[47:40] to the safety of the community and to the safety of the police officers.
[47:45] So I'm just going to ask for you to give me a few minutes so I can just
[47:50] review some data with you. So our calls for service haven't reduced at all.
[47:55] We're still
[47:57] at the same level of calls for service.
[48:00] Our
[48:01] NIBRS crime and incident reports have not reduced at all.
[48:09] I chose, I made the operational decision when we lost two sworn staff to
[48:14] remove our two officers from the schools. I know that was impactful.
[48:18] It was a great relationship. It is still a strong relationship with the schools,
[48:24] but removing our SROs is very impactful, not just to the schools and the
[48:28] constituents at the schools, but also to our police officers.
[48:33] Because those incidents that we're dealing with juveniles haven't gone away.
[48:37] Now it's just a different officer every single day dealing with that.
[48:41] And I just want to go through a few of those calls that we've had to deal with
[48:47] regarding juveniles in the last three weeks.
[48:52] So we had two runaway juveniles on the 10th of September.
[48:55] We did locate that juvenile and brought them home.
[48:58] On the 12th, five officers responded to a fight in progress between juveniles at a
[49:03] football game at the high school. Two of those officers were working detail.
[49:07] The other three were on shift. We've summonsed a juvenile to court for that.
[49:12] We've since trespassed two juveniles from some youth school events
[49:18] because of that incident. We responded to an eight-year-old who left
[49:24] his home on a motorized bike. His parents couldn't find him.
[49:28] We assisted that juvenile. On the 17th, we had a juvenile seriously injured by
[49:34] three other juveniles when they broke into his house.
[49:38] On the 22nd, we had a parent come to the police department regarding their child, a
[49:44] student dealing with harassment at the school.
[49:48] We also had an officer respond to the high school for an altercation between an
[49:53] employee and a person unrelated to the high school in the parking lot with a road
[49:58] rage incident,
[50:00] where they threatened the person with a gun.
[50:02] They've since been trespassed from the school property.
[50:07] We had four officers respond to an at-risk juvenile who left their home, reported
[50:11] missing. We were able to find that juvenile.
[50:14] We had another student at a school report being assaulted at another game
[50:20] the weekend prior. We were contacted by one of the principals of the school
[50:25] regarding a sexual assault that was reported to them about one of their students.
[50:29] This incident didn't report at the school.
[50:32] They were just the first complaint witness to this.
[50:35] We had three juveniles apprehended as they broke into an apartment to try to take
[50:40] money from another juvenile. We had a seven and eight-year-old that were missing,
[50:46] thought they were playing a game. Just this past weekend, not in my summary, we
[50:51] arrested a juvenile for the fourth time for assault and battery, but we'd been to
[50:57] that house probably seven or eight times previous to this, where we were able to
[51:02] successfully deescalate. We then had to take that juvenile to Clinton and then pick
[51:07] that juvenile up. We deal with a lot of youth in this community, and that is why
[51:12] when there was a federal grant that just recently came up that gave us an
[51:16] opportunity to perhaps fund partially our SRO program again, we
[51:22] were aggressive in applying for that grant.
[51:25] We don't know if we will get that grant, but it would fund 50% of a police officer.
[51:32] Some people may be saying, "Why didn't I apply for that before?" Because this grant
[51:36] is only eligible to us because we are increasing our staffing.
[51:42] We are increasing. We had to provide budget documentations that showed how many
[51:47] sworn personnel were authorized by municipal government. So we were increasing.
[51:52] It is illegal to supplant your budget with federal funds.
[51:57] So the only positive of a funding reduction was it made us
[52:03] actually eligible to apply for this grant that has a 50% match
[52:09] at that time. I've spoken to the two principals, the assistant principal,
[52:14] and the principal of the high school.
[52:17] They're both very much in support of us being able to try to get a position and get
[52:23] that resource back into the school.
[52:27] I've also communicated to the principal at the Michael E. Smith Middle School.
[52:31] He supports the position, having the consistent presence of an officer in there and
[52:36] improving the communication
[52:39] between the schools and the police department is vital, especially at Michael E.
[52:45] Smith. I've got Liz Smith, that the safety and the staff,
[52:51] the safety improvements when having an SRO are instrumental to
[52:57] improving the educational system of the schools.
[53:01] So I bring this to you because this grant does require a 50% match, and that's not
[53:06] something we can take from our existing budget.
[53:09] There's also another grant opportunity.
[53:11] Again, we were ineligible unless we were going to add onto our staff that I
[53:17] also want to apply for, and this is a grant that will allow us to specialize in
[53:23] some work with victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults.
[53:28] I believe right now we probably have six or seven open sexual assault cases going
[53:34] on that haven't come to conclusion.
[53:37] We certainly have a great deal of domestic violence in this community.
[53:43] This is a state grant. It's a four-year grant, and that requires a 25% match for
[53:48] that position. I'd also like us to apply for that.
[53:52] I want to talk a little bit about what reducing our staffing by two personnel and
[53:57] what that has done.
[54:01] Over the last three months, the first quarter of fiscal year '27, so
[54:06] that's July, August, and September, overtime has increased by 17%.
[54:12] And I'm not talking about the money, I'm talking about the amount of hours our
[54:15] officers have had to work. 17% more than the same time last year.
[54:21] That is not sustainable, but that is the necessary staffing levels that we have
[54:27] to ensure the safety of this community.
[54:30] Our officers do so much more than just responding to calls, so the calls are always
[54:35] there, but really it's being proactive.
[54:38] Motor vehicle enforcement in that same period, looking back five months, has
[54:43] reduced 30%. We do not have the time and resources
[54:49] to go out to the streets where people are complaining about speeders or
[54:55] bicyclists that are e-bikes that are on sidewalks, which is against the law, that
[55:01] we have people that are flying by school buses when the safety arms are down.
[55:07] We just do not have the personnel to go out there and do that.
[55:10] But so much more than response to calls, mental health calls.
[55:14] Last month, we had 32 mental health calls that we're dealing with.
[55:18] That was unheard of 25, 30 years ago when I started this job, that we were dealing
[55:24] with people in crisis 32 times, and I bet it's much larger than that,
[55:30] but that's at least those calls that we've assigned to that CAD number.
[55:34] We work with veterans, veterans that are at risk of being unhoused. We do outreach.
[55:40] We have a team of officers that are veterans that follow up on those calls.
[55:44] We have officers that follow up with people that are suffering from substance abuse
[55:49] after overdoses, non-fatal overdoses.
[55:52] They go back, try to encourage To let them know that we're a resource, that it's
[55:57] not just enforcement action, that we can refer them to resources.
[56:02] We provide
[56:04] guidance to their families on how they can get Narcan, how they can help their
[56:08] family member, clean wounds from drug use.
[56:14] It's just so much more.
[56:16] We're seeing more unhoused people in this community, not just down by the river.
[56:21] That's where we would see people occasionally
[56:26] go. We're seeing more of that happening in this community, and I don't think that's
[56:31] going to go away.
[56:33] We treat them with respect and dignity. We try to get them to a shelter.
[56:38] We try to reconnect them with family members.
[56:41] We give them the department's cell phone if they need to make phone calls.
[56:47] We try to do a lot of things proactively to reduce crime and disorder for our
[56:51] community. This committee helped us pass the
[56:57] second ban of cryptocurrency machines in the Commonwealth.
[57:02] We haven't had one since then, so I'm really proud of that.
[57:06] And that was a recommendation that came from the officers that said, "These crimes
[57:10] are out of control. This money can never be recuperated.
[57:15] We're spending so much time. Can we try to do that?" So we looked legislatively,
[57:20] waiting for the state to change the laws. That wasn't going to be possible.
[57:25] The school bus violations, I know this board was spoken to two weeks ago by
[57:29] Lieutenant Barron, he and his team talking about putting cameras on
[57:35] school buses to get violators that risk the safety of our children and their
[57:40] family members that are at those school buses.
[57:44] And it's constant, those violations, and it's really impossible for us to be able
[57:49] to enforce those laws. We just don't have the resources.
[57:52] We work with the schools with internships, and we have students from HCC that do
[57:58] internships with us. We get free labor.
[58:01] We hope we're selling this profession, public safety profession, with these people.
[58:05] Our officers work with interns
[58:08] from high school that also come in.
[58:10] Now they've expanded that program, and we're really excited about the expansion for
[58:15] public safety. I just had that meeting last night as part of the steering
[58:19] committee, so public safety at the high school to strengthen the vocational
[58:23] program. That's going to include not just law enforcement, but dispatching and
[58:29] also fire service and EMS services.
[58:32] But as I'm having this meeting, I'm thinking to myself, we would send officers to
[58:37] teach classes, defensive tactics, canine programs, community outreach, history of
[58:42] policing. It's like, how can I find officers to do that?
[58:46] When I'm contacted by a second-grade teacher at Mosier that
[58:52] wants Officer Figinski to go and talk to five of her classes about leadership and
[58:58] in public safety in our community, and I have to say no, because Officer Figinski
[59:02] works midnights, and I can't take him off his night shift because then I have to
[59:07] force somebody to work overtime on that shift.
[59:10] And then he's working the day shift, and I can't take somebody working the day
[59:14] shift, then I have to force somebody to work overtime to fill that shift.
[59:18] It's just kind of filling gaps. It's been really impactful this overtime.
[59:23] A lot of people think officers like to work overtime, but they've already worked
[59:27] their 40 hours that week. Sure, we have some officers that work their details, but
[59:31] they've already worked their 40 hours. A lot of our overtime is forced.
[59:35] They don't have a choice. They know they have to do it.
[59:38] They have to cover those shifts. It's impacting morale.
[59:42] It's impacting their safety.
[59:45] I've recently had a conversation with one of our sergeants that quite frankly, I
[59:50] envisioned that at some point in his career that he'd be in my seat.
[59:54] He is applying for another job, and it's disheartening for me to hear that,
[1:00:00] and he is doing this solely because of the reduction in staffing, and he is
[1:00:06] concerned of his personal liability and his personal safety when running a shift
[1:00:11] with only two police officers, and he doesn't feel like he has enough to do the
[1:00:16] job. In the last five months, we've called in mutual aid 11 times.
[1:00:21] The same period the previous year, we never called in mutual aid.
[1:00:24] So 11 times we've called other police departments, Holyoke, Granby, Belchertown, I
[1:00:28] think we had Hadley, Amherst, and their canines to come into town.
[1:00:33] We'd never done that before. Right now, we're looking to fill Sergeant Percy's
[1:00:38] vacancy as a sergeant's position, and I was reminded back four years ago, this
[1:00:43] board supported the police department
[1:00:46] getting removed from civil service because I talked about the recruitment
[1:00:50] challenges that I was having. I was literally calling people on the state civil
[1:00:54] service list. I was googling them and trying to find their phone number and calling
[1:00:59] them up. "Will you please apply? Will you apply?" So we were able to get out of
[1:01:03] civil service. We were able to hire five police officers already trained, excellent
[1:01:08] additions to our police department. That saves us $40,000 each.
[1:01:13] Well, I've had a posted vacancy for seven months now, and I can't get
[1:01:19] one trained police officer to apply.
[1:01:21] And I
[1:01:23] don't think, I'm certain it has to do with if somebody's looking to come to South
[1:01:28] Hadley, they live in South Hadley, but they work in a neighboring police
[1:01:31] department, they want to come to this community, they're afraid of layoffs, and
[1:01:35] they're afraid of staffing levels. I digress.
[1:01:39] Talking about
[1:01:41] Sergeant Percy's position,
[1:01:43] I've had to go to officers that I've envisioned in leadership positions like,
[1:01:48] "That's definitely sergeant potential." And they
[1:01:54] haven't signed the list to take the test. So I'm knocking on their cruiser doors.
[1:01:59] They're heading out to calls. I'm like, "Are you taking the sergeant's test?" And
[1:02:03] like, "I don't feel comfortable taking that risk right now. I'm concerned.
[1:02:09] The sergeant's running with two on their shift."
[1:02:13] Morale is suffering over it, and I really think that I need help from this board.
[1:02:19] I need help from the community
[1:02:22] to support the police officers, and we get supported with staffing.
[1:02:26] They're first concerned about not being able to ensure the safety of the community,
[1:02:32] but then also it's themselves, right?
[1:02:34] One of our sergeants, he responded to a mental health call with only one other
[1:02:38] officer. I think he had a second officer working, but two were available at that
[1:02:43] time. He broke his hand. He's been out at work for two months.
[1:02:47] Had it been a normal day when maybe we would have had a sergeant plus three, there
[1:02:51] might have been two officers, and maybe they would have de-escalated that a little
[1:02:54] bit safer.
[1:02:58] Back to the grant. It's a Department of Justice grant.
[1:03:02] It would be for a school resource officer position.
[1:03:05] It would fund
[1:03:07] 50% of the job for the first three years.
[1:03:10] We'd look to hire, bring in a new officer, and take an existing trained officer and
[1:03:16] put them in that position. The state grant that we're looking at, which I also
[1:03:20] think that we'd have a pretty competitive chance to get that grant, it would
[1:03:25] require us to have an officer specialized in domestic violence and sexual
[1:03:31] assaults, which would be excellent for this community to be able to have that.
[1:03:38] The state guidelines on responding to domestic violence tells us that we should be
[1:03:44] going back to those survivors on day two and day three and checking up on them.
[1:03:48] The reality is we're not able to do that.
[1:03:51] If we had this position, we'd be able to do that, and we'd be able to improve the
[1:03:56] safety of this community.
[1:04:00] Was that two minutes?
[1:04:07] So,
[1:04:08] this is not
[1:04:11] an uncommon
[1:04:13] insight into most departments or all departments throughout town.
[1:04:19] So we want to have more discussions like this.
[1:04:23] That's sobering,
[1:04:26] and that there's not necessarily an easy solution to, but we can do things like
[1:04:31] acknowledge, witness, and indicate support, find
[1:04:37] time to be part of strategic thinking, and find time to be a bit more aggressive,
[1:04:44] and take some recommended actions.
[1:04:47] We do have some actions that we are going to ask you today that this is certainly
[1:04:53] short-term,
[1:04:55] and we need a lot more than this But I wanted to
[1:05:00] get your feedback on what the chief has said,
[1:05:06] whether you think the public is even aware that
[1:05:10] staff is shouldering a lot more
[1:05:14] at personal and professional and financial risk,
[1:05:19] whether we need more information like this.
[1:05:22] And then also talking about my recommendation of supporting these grant
[1:05:27] applications and to initially fund the
[1:05:33] matching
[1:05:34] portion of these grants by
[1:05:38] basically not filling the human resources director that was supposed to fill the
[1:05:43] assistant town administrator/human resources director
[1:05:47] by essentially having me take on all three roles
[1:05:51] temporarily. We are going to eliminate this position anyways next year because we
[1:05:57] have a deficit next year. But at least this year, if we don't fill this position,
[1:06:02] then we would have the matching funds to at least apply for and initiate these
[1:06:07] grants. But again, knowing that has consequences, too.
[1:06:11] So you want me to do economic development, but I now have to do human resources
[1:06:15] work. So I think the public really has to understand that it's certainly one thing
[1:06:20] to demand that we be creative, that we roll up our sleeves, but when it comes to
[1:06:25] some of the priorities in this community,
[1:06:28] at the end of the day,
[1:06:31] it's not easy for me because it also means
[1:06:35] less ability to be proactive in other areas.
[1:06:39] But this is one of those critical things where
[1:06:44] we can be like, "Oh, it's zero-based budget," the whole thing right now.
[1:06:47] But there are also things that bubble up to
[1:06:51] what I consider to be
[1:06:56] an immediate priority with huge implications on the community.
[1:07:00] Public safety is one of those things that we take for granted.
[1:07:04] Some people might say they don't take it for granted, but I think as a whole,
[1:07:07] communities often take public safety for granted because you don't see the complex
[1:07:12] work that might be done on one or multiple individuals because we are
[1:07:18] living our lives. So
[1:07:20] this is something that I worry about, I want us to talk more about.
[1:07:24] But at least immediately, the select board needs to indicate that you understand
[1:07:30] what the chief has said, that you are committed to helping to be part of the
[1:07:33] solution, that you support these grants even if you have concerns about that, that
[1:07:38] you understand that we are asking for trade-off in terms of
[1:07:42] not hiring town administration support,
[1:07:47] and that we also need to figure out a couple of other things.
[1:07:50] So there's some recommendations I'll have later on in the budget.
[1:07:53] For example, we have two appropriations of the three appropriations members that
[1:07:58] have voluntarily assigned themselves to the police department, and we'll talk about
[1:08:02] whether the select board wants to either create a liaison position to the
[1:08:06] Appropriations Committee or whether you as individuals want to volunteer and join
[1:08:12] individual appropriation groups that are working with different departments,
[1:08:15] including public safety, including schools, including public works, et cetera.
[1:08:19] So
[1:08:21] again, these are hard conversations, but I think the public wants to hear from the
[1:08:25] executive leadership on where you stand, even if it's a hard discussion.
[1:08:33] Any comments?
[1:08:35] I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask.
[1:08:37] The chief, I feel like the most concerning thing that you talked about, to me at
[1:08:42] least, was the very thin shifts in the force overtime, and I want to understand if
[1:08:47] the grant about hiring an SRO would in any way alleviate either of
[1:08:52] those items.
[1:08:55] Yes, because an SRO position, we at least have three months out of the year, the
[1:09:00] summertime, to be able to cover shifts.
[1:09:02] So when I talked about the 17% increase in overtime, that was one less body to fill
[1:09:08] those shifts. We also had an officer out on military leave and injured on duty, but
[1:09:13] that would give us that officer back for most of June, all of July, and all of
[1:09:19] August.
[1:09:20] Okay. And then the second question that I had was when the motor vehicle
[1:09:24] enforcement had gone down by 30%, did you see any sort of upswing in
[1:09:30] accidents with serious injury or fatalities?
[1:09:35] Last month we had three OUI accidents.
[1:09:39] I don't know how that compares to other-
[1:09:41] That's a lot.
[1:09:42] Yeah.
[1:09:43] Three OUI accidents in a period. Two were on the same night within 30 minutes of
[1:09:49] each other. The other one was about five days away.
[1:09:53] Thank you.
[1:09:54] So, yes.
[1:09:55] Yep.
[1:09:56] Kevin.
[1:09:57] Chief, is the grant, is that the COPS grant?
[1:10:00] That's correct, the COPS hiring grant.
[1:10:01] How many year commitment beyond?
[1:10:03] One year.
[1:10:04] One year.
[1:10:05] So it's a three-year grant, $150,000, which if you figure that-
[1:10:09] And then it's up for renewal
[1:10:10] ... you have to do the fourth year.
[1:10:12] Okay.
[1:10:12] The other grant is the VOWA grant. That is three years, doesn't require a
[1:10:18] fourth-year commitment, so we could reduce the position. Hopefully, we wouldn't.
[1:10:22] Okay. Thank you.
[1:10:27] I just want to say that I'm extremely concerned.
[1:10:30] Chief, you gave us an unbelievable report for just the month of September alone.
[1:10:35] Yeah.
[1:10:36] That's just one month.
[1:10:37] And that's just juveniles. I just gave you the juvenile reports.
[1:10:42] Sure.
[1:10:45] So I guess my question is, is there any sort of contribution
[1:10:51] from schools at all on the extra money we gave them towards this?
[1:10:55] Or does it have to be town budget?
[1:10:58] It has to be town budget. It's the police budget that would need to be supported.
[1:11:03] Even though it's SRO that we're looking to go for or to
[1:11:08] replenish?
[1:11:09] Well, historically, it's come from the town side.
[1:11:11] I haven't asked the schools to commit to this at all.
[1:11:18] I think there are certainly
[1:11:20] consequences there as well, and we certainly have a not very
[1:11:27] elegant temporary solution to this, and then we can have that ongoing
[1:11:32] conversation.
[1:11:34] I think some of the
[1:11:41] math or equation or calculation for the schools is that
[1:11:46] if they could potentially lose hundreds of thousands of dollars more
[1:11:52] without some investments that they're making, so
[1:11:59] it would be a net negative. I would be in a worse position.
[1:12:01] Sure.
[1:12:02] So not just matching the grant, but then putting other positions in danger.
[1:12:06] So we just have to understand how it all fits together.
[1:12:09] I'm definitely deeply concerned, as I mentioned earlier.
[1:12:11] But I think I kind of separate myself from pretty much everyone in this room.
[1:12:17] I interact with pretty much every one of our officers, and I think we're so
[1:12:21] fortunate to have who we have, including our chief.
[1:12:24] Mm-hmm.
[1:12:25] I think that we
[1:12:28] definitely need to support our police department based on what we're being told
[1:12:32] from the chief. And again, it was just juveniles.
[1:12:37] That's just the tip of the iceberg, I guess.
[1:12:39] Mm-hmm.
[1:12:41] Yeah. It's very sobering. I really appreciate the points.
[1:12:45] Mm-hmm.
[1:12:46] I am concerned about,
[1:12:49] and I totally want to figure out if there's a way we can find money.
[1:12:53] This reminds me so much of the conversation we had not but a few months ago about
[1:12:58] our accreditation in the library. Everybody wants it.
[1:13:01] They want what they want, but there's got to be a recognition that there's a price
[1:13:07] we're paying here, and the price will be without a human
[1:13:13] resources director, and how we will work that out and what that will look like in
[1:13:18] one year, in two years, in three years for our administration.
[1:13:22] When you talk about thin staffing, I think I'm seeing that in conversations I've
[1:13:28] had and contact I've had with different department heads that we're seeing this
[1:13:33] across the board. And I don't have an answer for it, but I'm concerned
[1:13:39] about it.
[1:13:42] Yeah, I will say that with the HR position, this was something that we hoped to
[1:13:46] have the fiscal year to figure out. So we don't have that solution.
[1:13:49] So
[1:13:51] we will have to figure it out anyway, so
[1:13:55] I guess hearing the immediate need,
[1:13:59] if we're talking about impact on the community,
[1:14:02] we're talking about life safety, we're talking about staff safety,
[1:14:06] we have to make these choices, so.
[1:14:12] Anyone else?
[1:14:15] Sure.
[1:14:17] Hi. Julie Gentile, Appropriations Committee.
[1:14:20] So Jen,
[1:14:23] sorry, Chief.
[1:14:25] Yeah.
[1:14:27] 27 is our number of officers. You have one out on injured on duty,
[1:14:34] then you just had a retirement. You have one on military leave, and you have an
[1:14:39] opening that's been seven months.
[1:14:42] Does that mean we have 23 officers currently?
[1:14:47] It's always a moving target.
[1:14:50] But roughly.
[1:14:50] I think we're
[1:14:52] paying
[1:14:55] 28 officers right now.
[1:14:58] Okay.
[1:14:59] But we have 24 officers working.
[1:15:03] Okay.
[1:15:05] And then my second question, of course, we'll be meeting later this week, but my
[1:15:09] second question would be if you've had an opening for seven months and no takers-
[1:15:14] Mm-hmm
[1:15:14] ... and we're going to have two positions open, what do we hope to change?
[1:15:20] Should the grant come through and we get to offer those two positions, what
[1:15:25] do you think will change in the-
[1:15:27] The applicant pool?
[1:15:28] ... applicant pool? Yes.
[1:15:29] Because we won't be looking for a trained officer.
[1:15:32] We'll be looking for
[1:15:35] an officer that is untrained, which does take time and expense.
[1:15:39] The academy starts in March, so we really need to start that recruitment now to be
[1:15:44] able to make a job offer in January to see how things shake out
[1:15:51] with these grants.
[1:15:53] If
[1:15:55] we are successful in getting the grants and the funding, we'd be ready to hire a
[1:16:00] new officer and send them to the academy.
[1:16:05] And new officers, untrained officers, are willing to take a risk on a community,
[1:16:10] but you're not willing as much to take a risk to leave a neighboring community when
[1:16:15] you'll be the low officer on the seniority list and
[1:16:20] potentially looking at a layoff.
[1:16:25] Because they know they'll get a job someplace else.
[1:16:33] Any other comments on this?
[1:16:37] I guess my only comment is that, Lisa, I trust you to not offer a trade that you
[1:16:44] can't stand.
[1:16:48] And so if you're supporting this, then I would support you in it.
[1:16:53] Yeah,
[1:16:58] I don't like it, but I don't like what the officers are facing even more.
[1:17:02] Yep.
[1:17:03] And I wish I had
[1:17:07] the ability to do this five times, but I don't .
[1:17:12] So this is just a tip of the iceberg, but it shows you that every
[1:17:19] move like this,
[1:17:21] the impact is significant. Just to comment on what you said, Carol, about
[1:17:27] staff need Fridays to catch up. Well, I've heard from the public, well, if you're
[1:17:32] open to the public one day less, you should receive 20% less pay.
[1:17:36] And when you have departments that have gone from three to two, or four to two, or
[1:17:42] two to one, you literally have people that are doubling their amount of work or
[1:17:47] increasing it by 50% or 30%. So, to say that they're going to get a break
[1:17:53] from customer-facing work on Fridays when their
[1:17:59] customer-facing employees have been eliminated,
[1:18:02] we still have a town to operate. So I do want the public to understand that the
[1:18:08] employees,
[1:18:10] I know it's easy to say, "Oh, give everybody a 20% reduction." Most are facing a
[1:18:16] pretty significant and sizable increase in job duties, which is not feasible.
[1:18:21] People are not working 80 hours a week. They might be working 60.
[1:18:25] They might be working 60 anyways and then having these additional duties.
[1:18:29] So you then have to spend additional time figuring out what can't get done, and you
[1:18:34] also have to figure out ways in which to accommodate those kinds of changes and
[1:18:37] then communicate those changes. So
[1:18:40] again, I don't necessarily know if the public is really seeing-- They're probably
[1:18:44] not seeing the pain that is happening, but there are a lot of implications for not
[1:18:49] operating a community properly and with the police department being one of the top
[1:18:55] huge immediate impacts on the public.
[1:18:58] So,
[1:19:00] I know it's easy to say it's a priority, we want to make these investments, we can
[1:19:03] make these moves, but
[1:19:05] today is just a Band-Aid, and there are certainly ideas, and there
[1:19:11] are actions that we are going to work on.
[1:19:15] There's a commitment that I have to
[1:19:19] not go below the existing staffing for patrol.
[1:19:23] But we have a study that basically says we need to increase it.
[1:19:27] We have comms with other communities that actually say we need to find growth.
[1:19:32] Right now, the day is just to try to restore some of the school resource support.
[1:19:38] But
[1:19:40] I just want to say, it's an indication to the public of where we are, and that at
[1:19:46] points in the future, we are going to need the public to help step up and be part
[1:19:49] of the conversation and to be part of the solution.
[1:19:52] And we also need to show the public because I don't think they really understood
[1:19:57] what we're facing when they also had to make these pretty significant decisions on
[1:20:01] whether they were going to increase their own tax bill.
[1:20:04] So again, important conversations.
[1:20:06] I just want to elevate it,
[1:20:09] and to make sure it's not just something that is happening in silos.
[1:20:14] So
[1:20:16] I don't know how
[1:20:19] because we're still just dealing with the shortfalls from last year to this year.
[1:20:23] We have now additional shortfalls that we're facing this year.
[1:20:26] We're still trying to figure it out.
[1:20:29] And we're also being asked, do this initiative, do that thing. Reach out.
[1:20:33] Have this or that.
[1:20:36] Yeah, we're trying. We're doing our best, I will say.
[1:20:42] Jeff, can I just make a comment?
[1:20:45] Sure.
[1:20:46] So, I really appreciate the chief coming in and giving those stats.
[1:20:51] As scary as they are and
[1:20:55] as alarmed as we all should be about some of those stats, and again, those are, as
[1:20:59] she pointed out, just dealing with the youth in our community.
[1:21:03] I can't imagine what the remainder of the stats and the calls look like that the
[1:21:08] department has to face on a daily basis.
[1:21:12] I appreciate them because I think it allows everybody to really understand what's
[1:21:18] going on in town and what they're seeing.
[1:21:20] I think there is a disconnect from what our officers in town have to see or deal
[1:21:25] with on a daily basis and what we see as residents.
[1:21:28] Just we see them having cars pulled over, some minor traffic stops, but
[1:21:34] the
[1:21:36] calls and the incidents that the chief was describing,
[1:21:41] they're
[1:21:43] a real part of what's going on in our community.
[1:21:46] And again, that's just a portion of what they're seeing.
[1:21:49] So I think that we all should be concerned because not only is it a safety issue
[1:21:54] for the individuals involved in those calls, but it's also a real safety issue
[1:22:00] for the officers who are responding.
[1:22:02] So,
[1:22:03] thank you, Chief, for taking the time to give us all of that information, and I
[1:22:07] think Lisa hearing information like this from different departments really
[1:22:13] paints a real picture of what's going on in town and some of
[1:22:20] the priorities or what we need to figure out of how to move forward and how to
[1:22:24] ensure the safety of our community.
[1:22:34] And I think it's important to just-- I'll just add one more thing that for some
[1:22:39] stability for the next sort of year two, three of the grant,
[1:22:43] we will continue to see savings, significant savings for the next two years because
[1:22:48] of the dispatch change. So, we put in about a quarter of the dispatch
[1:22:54] budget in this year's budget because we're still transitioning But
[1:22:59] we're not going to have that the next two years, so that will help sustain these
[1:23:04] positions. But it also means that we have both the need to sustain
[1:23:09] the DOJ grant and to also figure out, because we're going to have to start paying
[1:23:16] into the Westfield dispatch in year four.
[1:23:20] So I'm just saying, we never solve a problem definitely, but we do have a
[1:23:25] multi-year plan to sustain this. Which is as much for
[1:23:31] you as it is for our police force to kind of know that
[1:23:36] we're not looking at layoffs in the police department unless something crazy
[1:23:40] happens.
[1:23:43] 500% increase in health insurance is a whole another story that we can never know,
[1:23:47] because I can't guarantee everything.
[1:23:48] But we do have plans to look at these grants, to make these significant
[1:23:54] restructuring changes, to look at those
[1:23:58] sustainability over the next few years, so I just want to make sure you know that.
[1:24:06] So do you need a vote from us? Do you need us-
[1:24:09] I have two motions for you.
[1:24:11] I move to support the hiring of an additional officer if the town receives the DOJ
[1:24:17] grant this fall.
[1:24:20] Second.
[1:24:23] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:24:25] Aye.
[1:24:26] Carol?
[1:24:26] Aye.
[1:24:27] Kevin?
[1:24:28] Aye.
[1:24:28] Priscilla?
[1:24:29] Aye.
[1:24:31] Aye. Unanimous. Onto our second motion.
[1:24:34] So I didn't include the domestic violence grant in this motion.
[1:24:39] Can you remind me when we might receive word about that?
[1:24:44] That grant is due in the end of October, so likely we would
[1:24:50] not find out until the end of December on that grant.
[1:24:55] That's one of the Byrne-
[1:24:57] East-
[1:24:57] VAWA. Yep.
[1:25:01] Can I just ask the board to consider whether you want to move to support the VAWA
[1:25:05] grant as well?
[1:25:10] Absolutely. I do.
[1:25:11] Yeah.
[1:25:14] So-
[1:25:15] Okay.
[1:25:16] Okay.
[1:25:18] I move to support the application for the,
[1:25:24] what's the name of the grant?
[1:25:25] State VAWA, Violence Against Women Act grant.
[1:25:30] Violence Against Women Act grant.
[1:25:34] Second.
[1:25:36] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:25:37] Aye.
[1:25:38] Carol?
[1:25:38] Aye.
[1:25:39] Kevin?
[1:25:40] Aye.
[1:25:40] Priscilla?
[1:25:41] Aye.
[1:25:42] Aye. Unanimous. Thank you. Chief, thank you very much.
[1:25:45] Thank you for your support. I'll be having a meeting next week with Appropriations
[1:25:50] and-
[1:25:50] Thank you for everyone who's watching
[1:25:51] ... we'll do another deep dive.
[1:25:53] Yeah. Thank you.
[1:25:54] Okay. Do you want to look at the second motion to be able to fund the match?
[1:25:59] I moved to... Oh.
[1:26:04] No.
[1:26:05] Nope.
[1:26:05] Thank you so much for coming in.
[1:26:09] Yeah. Thank you.
[1:26:11] I move to support holding off on hiring a human resources director in fiscal year
[1:26:16] 2027, and direct the funds to support the match to the DOJ grant.
[1:26:21] And VAWA.
[1:26:22] And the-
[1:26:23] The AWA, VAWA
[1:26:25] ... VAWA grant.
[1:26:26] Second.
[1:26:29] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:26:30] Aye.
[1:26:31] Carol?
[1:26:31] Aye.
[1:26:32] Kevin?
[1:26:32] Aye.
[1:26:33] Priscilla?
[1:26:34] Aye.
[1:26:35] Aye. Unanimous. Thank you.
[1:26:39] Thank you for your clarification, Lisa.
[1:26:41] Okay, next item under new business, we have the town meeting warrant draft.
[1:26:49] Has everybody had a chance to take a look at that?
[1:26:55] Lisa, I'm curious why marijuana hasn't made this.
[1:26:57] Are we waiting for Bylaw Review Committee? Is that why we're doing that?
[1:27:01] So at the last meeting, we discussed holding this off until annual town meeting.
[1:27:04] Oh, right. Thank you.
[1:27:08] I guess the question about that is the board received memos from public safety and
[1:27:13] public health,
[1:27:15] and we haven't discussed it, but at some point in time, there should be a
[1:27:20] discussion about that. You might want to get input about...
[1:27:24] You might want to get further input from the public, do a listening session.
[1:27:29] You might want to recommend or send it to planning, right?
[1:27:32] For them to then draft a bylaw as well.
[1:27:35] So,
[1:27:38] there's a lot of steps when it comes to looking at something like this that-
[1:27:41] Okay
[1:27:42] ... the board should consider. But holding off until town meeting gives us time to
[1:27:47] do that.
[1:27:51] Carol.
[1:27:51] So I had a question about the citizens' initiative,
[1:27:56] to
[1:27:59] the recall petition.
[1:28:03] It's quite lengthy, a lot of legalese here, a couple pages long.
[1:28:10] Should we vote on something like this?
[1:28:12] Do we know that this is something that is legal?
[1:28:18] We
[1:28:20] specifically said-
[1:28:21] Yeah
[1:28:21] ... that our town lawyers couldn't help them draft this
[1:28:27] petition.
[1:28:29] But should it be passed by town meeting, is it something that
[1:28:34] works, that is in-
[1:28:38] Well, the policy was that now that it's been submitted,
[1:28:42] staff and select board can use our best judgment to
[1:28:47] review this. So it's appropriate for us to run this by legal.
[1:28:52] So legal does have this draft here, so this draft has not been vetted.
[1:28:57] Now, legal can come back and say article six or eight, something that we initiated
[1:29:02] has to look like this, or
[1:29:05] here's how you need to amend the wording.
[1:29:08] We cannot change the wording of a citizen petition.
[1:29:13] Mm-hmm.
[1:29:13] But we can get legal advice on
[1:29:17] whatever their comments are, whether it's they feel like it
[1:29:23] is... I don't know what exactly they would say because every petition is different.
[1:29:26] But,
[1:29:28] you know.
[1:29:34] Cool.
[1:29:36] Yeah. Bylaw review's meeting tomorrow.
[1:29:38] I know that they've been working on the last citizen petition that was
[1:29:44] forwarded to them. I don't know if they're going to be commenting specifically on
[1:29:47] this either, but these are all things that
[1:29:51] when this is finalized in two weeks for your review, you'll have more information.
[1:29:55] So this is your opportunity to at least answer some questions, get some clarity.
[1:30:00] Maybe there are certain things that we're missing on here.
[1:30:02] You can just let me know.
[1:30:07] Any comments on this at all?
[1:30:10] I have concerns about Article 10, the data center bylaw.
[1:30:14] Mm-hmm.
[1:30:17] Based on discussion that we've had tonight.
[1:30:18] Right.
[1:30:19] I don't know how other members are feeling about that.
[1:30:21] Well, I
[1:30:23] personally think
[1:30:25] that it needs to go under review. I think we can call it a one-year moratorium, and
[1:30:31] I don't know if that's a town meeting vote or not, but I do think that we have to
[1:30:36] study this further before we just say we banned all data centers because-
[1:30:41] Yeah, we need to look into this
[1:30:42] ... it's not defined.
[1:30:43] Right.
[1:30:44] And I think even the citizen who wrote the letter
[1:30:49] suggested that possibly a wholesale ban puts us in an-
[1:30:55] Mm-hmm
[1:30:55] ... uncomfortable legal position.
[1:30:58] Yeah. The staff isn't ready to make a recommendation.
[1:31:01] The staff doesn't have a draft right now.
[1:31:03] The planning board public hearing is going to happen after you would vote on
[1:31:07] finalizing the warrant, so-
[1:31:09] Mm
[1:31:09] ... this would be the time to make that decision of saying, "Let's take this off
[1:31:15] the warrant." You don't have to say it has to go on the annual town meeting
[1:31:17] warrant, but let's take this off just like we did with marijuana, and study it
[1:31:22] further.
[1:31:22] Mm.
[1:31:23] Great.
[1:31:23] Great. I agree with that, yeah.
[1:31:25] Yeah. Great.
[1:31:26] Yeah.
[1:31:26] Do you want to hold on that?
[1:31:26] I think so.
[1:31:29] No, because-
[1:31:29] So you'll vote on?
[1:31:30] ... you'll vote on the final warrant.
[1:31:31] Okay.
[1:31:31] I think now this is getting feedback, and we'll take it off.
[1:31:35] Priscilla, did you have something to say? I'm sorry.
[1:31:36] I was just going to say I agree with that.
[1:31:38] I think that this shouldn't be on there right now.
[1:31:40] There's too many unknowns, and more information that we need to gather before
[1:31:46] we move forward with that.
[1:31:52] Anything else related to the warrant as presented?
[1:32:00] I don't have any questions.
[1:32:06] Anything else you need from us, Lisa? That's it?
[1:32:08] No, that's it. That was good feedback.
[1:32:10] All right. Thank you.
[1:32:12] Okay, we are now onto One West Main Street, which we are going to push off until
[1:32:17] our October 26th meeting.
[1:32:19] Actually,
[1:32:21] so I'm just bringing Anne over.
[1:32:24] Oh.
[1:32:24] There's a few different nuances to this conversation, one of which does need to be
[1:32:30] discussed tonight.
[1:32:31] Okay.
[1:32:32] We brought this forward to the board various times to keep you informed about the
[1:32:36] status of this property. This is the property that's next to the library that
[1:32:41] had collapsed,
[1:32:43] and Anne had been working on the Brownfields Grant.
[1:32:48] I'm just trying to think of where the memo is.
[1:32:55] There's a memo in the packet that is up for discussion tonight
[1:33:01] that is from our director of planning conservation and our building commissioner,
[1:33:07] recommending that we pursue action under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 143,
[1:33:13] Section 5,
[1:33:15] which is to appoint a three-member board to
[1:33:20] initiate a process of pursuing demolition and cleanup of the site.
[1:33:26] So,
[1:33:29] this particular Massachusetts General Law allows us to
[1:33:33] form this board that would consist of a surveyor, fire chief, and a quote unquote,
[1:33:40] "disinterested person."
[1:33:44] And we would want the board to support this tonight so that we could get the
[1:33:50] ball rolling in case we do have the opportunity to
[1:33:54] help to force or take further stronger legal action to make the building safe and
[1:34:00] hopefully, ultimately usable and viable.
[1:34:05] Do you want to bring Anne over?
[1:34:06] Anne is here. Anne, did I forget anything pertinent?
[1:34:11] No, I think you covered everything perfectly.
[1:34:15] Anne, welcome.
[1:34:16] Hello.
[1:34:20] So that's all you need for us? You need a vote from us on that?
[1:34:24] Yeah. So, the vote would be to create this three-person board.
[1:34:29] Again, that's part of that Massachusetts General Law.
[1:34:31] Folks, we can bring it up if you want to look at it further.
[1:34:33] But, again, fire chief, surveyor, disinterested person appointed by the building
[1:34:37] commissioner to pursue the demolition and cleanup of One West Main Street.
[1:34:41] So there's a motion on the packet to do that.
[1:34:51] It's the one in red, Carol, if you want to.
[1:34:53] Okay. I'm just looking at it, waiting for somebody else. Okay.
[1:34:56] I move to create a three-person board consisting of a fire chief, surveyor, and a
[1:35:00] disinterested person appointed by the building commissioner and to pursue
[1:35:06] demolition and cleanup of One West Main Street.
[1:35:09] Second.
[1:35:12] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:35:14] Aye.
[1:35:14] Carol?
[1:35:15] Aye.
[1:35:16] Priscilla?
[1:35:17] Aye.
[1:35:18] Kevin?
[1:35:18] Aye.
[1:35:19] Aye. It's unanimous.
[1:35:20] I just want to thank Anne and Jason-
[1:35:22] Yeah
[1:35:22] ... for just being so diligent. This is a very complex project, and they have not
[1:35:28] let go. So thank you. Thank you both for that. And more to come on this.
[1:35:31] Thank you, Anne.
[1:35:32] You're welcome.
[1:35:36] Okay.
[1:35:38] So that's all we needed for One West Main?
[1:35:40] Yes.
[1:35:41] Okay.
[1:35:41] Next up is the state election warrant.
[1:35:43] Okay. Next up is the state election warrant.
[1:35:50] I don't know if more needs to be said. We've got an election.
[1:35:53] This is pretty straightforward.
[1:35:54] Thankfully just a state election and not a dual election on the third.
[1:36:00] I move to approve the November 3rd, 2026 state election warrant as presented.
[1:36:05] Second.
[1:36:06] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:36:08] Aye.
[1:36:08] Carol?
[1:36:09] Aye.
[1:36:09] Priscilla?
[1:36:10] Aye.
[1:36:11] Kevin?
[1:36:12] Aye.
[1:36:12] Aye. Unanimous.
[1:36:13] Great.
[1:36:14] You'll need your signatures.
[1:36:15] I do. So because I remember that we need you to sign that red folder.
[1:36:18] I can do that. Okay.
[1:36:21] Town accounting services.
[1:36:26] Our longtime town accountant is retiring at the end of the month.
[1:36:31] We have advertised the position as a finance director/town accountant.
[1:36:36] We
[1:36:38] have not moved anybody beyond the initial
[1:36:43] interviews at this point in time, so I want to go to plan B, which is to make
[1:36:49] sure that we have interim town accountant services on board to make sure that we
[1:36:54] can
[1:36:55] set the tax rate, get the taxes out, et cetera, because there is likely going to be
[1:37:00] a gap between the retirement and getting a suitable person on board.
[1:37:08] I would like the board to just acknowledge that this is--
[1:37:13] I believe the town has done this at least once or twice in the past.
[1:37:18] So this is not an unfamiliar
[1:37:22] procedure for the town or for other towns.
[1:37:25] So I put together some RFPs that I would like to issue tomorrow for
[1:37:31] interim town accounting services.
[1:37:34] We would advertise it. People would have to submit a sealed proposal.
[1:37:38] So both a proposal for qualifications and a sealed price proposal.
[1:37:43] You have to gauge them on their quality responses first and then
[1:37:49] the one you choose, you can then open up the sealed proposal, which is different
[1:37:52] than
[1:37:54] doing-- Like asking three quotes.
[1:37:57] This is something where you don't want to just get the cheapest person.
[1:38:00] You want to make sure that you outline qualifications.
[1:38:02] So that process is a bit more complicated and therefore it takes a little bit more
[1:38:05] time, but I wanted to get your endorsement to do this.
[1:38:11] Questions?
[1:38:13] Carol.
[1:38:14] Is there a contract that we will have to sign that we'll be bound to if we do find
[1:38:19] somebody to hire? How does that work?
[1:38:22] Yeah. The way an RFP would be written is that this is interim services.
[1:38:26] The sealed bid price would be on an hourly basis.
[1:38:29] So we would control the number of hours that are necessary to get the work done.
[1:38:34] We have that over a certain period of time, and then we can have provisions to
[1:38:38] terminate that.
[1:38:43] You're not trying to be the accountant?
[1:38:47] Come on, Lisa.
[1:38:49] Let's try another hat. Give me four more years to
[1:38:54] figure that one out.
[1:38:57] Any other questions or comments on this?
[1:39:01] I think it's a good safety net. Yeah.
[1:39:04] I move to support the hiring of an interim town accountant services.
[1:39:10] Second.
[1:39:13] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[1:39:14] Aye.
[1:39:15] Carol?
[1:39:15] Aye.
[1:39:15] Priscilla?
[1:39:16] Aye.
[1:39:18] Kevin?
[1:39:18] Aye.
[1:39:19] Aye. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay, we are now onto old business.
[1:39:25] We have the retreat recap.
[1:39:32] So I thought that the retreat was pretty productive.
[1:39:35] We held it here, I believe, on September 26th. It was here at the senior center.
[1:39:41] Lots of great discussion,
[1:39:43] mostly centered around what we have ahead of us. A lot of great feedback.
[1:39:49] I don't know if any other member wants to weigh in on what their experience was.
[1:39:53] Yeah. Thought it was positive. Definitely eye-opening on my end, being new to this,
[1:39:59] and definitely opened my eyes to a few things.
[1:40:02] So I think it was good and look forward to doing it again.
[1:40:07] Yeah. Just want to comment. It's nice to be able to see you all tonight, and the
[1:40:12] rearrangement of the tables is something that we talked about because we all
[1:40:16] noticed it was nice that we could see each other while we were talking during the
[1:40:20] retreat.
[1:40:22] So I'm already appreciating that, so thank you.
[1:40:24] Yeah.
[1:40:26] I thought the conversations were really enlightening.
[1:40:29] It was really nice that we had time to go into depth on some of the deeper issues
[1:40:34] that we're struggling with in town.
[1:40:36] But one really
[1:40:38] interesting point that I heard that I had not heard before
[1:40:45] was the comment that in 1982 when Prop 2.5 was
[1:40:51] passed in the state of Massachusetts, South Hadley's budget was already
[1:40:57] probably lean, and that's why we seem to be struggling
[1:41:03] more than some of the other towns that were in a better position.
[1:41:07] I was going to ask you to say something more about that, Lisa.
[1:41:11] Yeah. There are towns that are significantly smaller than us in population that
[1:41:16] have
[1:41:18] Basically a taxable limit that is 15 million or
[1:41:24] more above us. So, and then they have then the ability to raise
[1:41:29] twice as much per year, because basically everybody was kind of frozen in
[1:41:35] place almost 50 years ago. So if we had been like maybe 100 years ago or
[1:41:41] 20 years ago, happened to have a different size tax base, and then it was frozen,
[1:41:46] it would be a different story. So some of it was a little sort of arbitrary and
[1:41:50] capricious when it happened. But I think some folks keep asking, "What's the issue?
[1:41:56] Are we wasting too much money? Are we not bringing enough revenue in?" The
[1:42:02] majority of our budget comes from taxation or tax base, and our tax base is
[1:42:08] more than $10 million smaller, even incorporating the fire districts, than smaller
[1:42:14] communities around us. So I'm not saying there are other communities that aren't
[1:42:17] necessarily comparable, but small tax base.
[1:42:20] We also, in this town, pay less for comparable properties than surrounding
[1:42:26] communities. So that is part of the issue, is that from a revenue standpoint, small
[1:42:31] tax base,
[1:42:33] limitations on increasing it, people do pay less taxes here.
[1:42:37] So we spin some of it as a positive if we can, that you would be paying more
[1:42:42] taxes in other communities if you had comparable property.
[1:42:46] But it's just a structural issue that we're dealing with, and it can only be
[1:42:51] changed with a prop two and a half increase.
[1:42:54] So then if you have communities that start off at the same starting place and one
[1:42:58] community has passed an increase, even if it was once every decade, they would've
[1:43:04] had four or five increases that would've put them at a much better financial
[1:43:08] footing than we would've, too. So, that was also pointed out by the budget task
[1:43:13] force as part of the issue, is
[1:43:17] the law came in at a point where that was not great for the town, limited our
[1:43:21] growth, and then we've also never passed an override.
[1:43:25] But I'd be curious because, and again, '82 was before I really became
[1:43:30] involved with town politics and just town
[1:43:34] entities in general. But-
[1:43:36] You were pretty little in 1982.
[1:43:38] I was, yeah. Sorry. But I'd be curious to hear what new growth numbers were from
[1:43:45] that time period to where we are now.
[1:43:47] Because we all keep talking about new growth, right?
[1:43:49] So new growth, during my tenure at the water department, I can tell you,
[1:43:54] the amount of subdivisions that went in under my tenure was a lot. Was a lot.
[1:43:58] But it
[1:44:00] did have an impact on the schools like we all talk about, for sure.
[1:44:03] The town back in the '70s made a huge investment in the interceptor sewer
[1:44:10] that opened up South Hadley development for a lot of properties that if we didn't
[1:44:14] have that today, we'd be in a worse position. Well, I'm not sure.
[1:44:18] We probably would have less houses and maybe less impact on the schools.
[1:44:22] But there's a lot of occurrences that have happened in South Hadley that I would be
[1:44:26] curious on the numbers.
[1:44:27] Yeah.
[1:44:28] Because there was a time when I first began, either just before select board or on
[1:44:34] the select board, I was questioning the need to actually use new growth.
[1:44:38] Like why did we have to use... And at that time, I'm just going to use a number
[1:44:41] that I think I remember is $800,000 in new growth.
[1:44:45] And I said, "Well, why can't we just tuck that somewhere rather than trying to
[1:44:51] implement it or infuse it into the next year's budget?" And I really never got a
[1:44:57] solid answer, and lo and behold, it was infused and here we are.
[1:45:01] But, those are just conversations that I've had along my way.
[1:45:05] So we have done this analysis before. I just threw it up on the screen.
[1:45:09] You can look at all 361 different towns, and you can look at new growth numbers
[1:45:14] going back to 2003, and you could select comparable community.
[1:45:20] I know you can't see it, but I'm just telling you how to get it.
[1:45:22] So you go to the state page, or you just Google Massachusetts new growth by town,
[1:45:28] and the link will come up, and you can just submit South Hadley all the years.
[1:45:33] So just going back to here,
[1:45:36] new growth applied to levy limit, you can see that it's...
[1:45:41] Let's see. We've got 300 and 305 were in 2005, 312, 304 in
[1:45:47] '27, 2018.
[1:45:50] Again, we're not going back to the '80s or '90s.
[1:45:54] Sure.
[1:45:55] But at least in this
[1:45:57] 25-ish year snapshot, it's been pretty consistently low, very low
[1:46:04] these past few years.
[1:46:07] Okay.
[1:46:08] We did another slide, I think maybe within the last three meetings, where I showed
[1:46:14] new growth in Longmeadow, East Longmeadow,
[1:46:22] East Hampton, maybe one other community.
[1:46:25] And their new growth numbers were double, triple, quadruple ours, and
[1:46:30] consistently so it's per year.
[1:46:36] Hmm.
[1:46:38] I didn't even know we had that. I think it's great info, though.
[1:46:40] I will take a look at that.
[1:46:41] Yeah, you can search.
[1:46:44] If you want to say like what's everybody's meals tax?
[1:46:47] What's everybody's motor vehicle excise tax?
[1:46:49] You can compare all the local receipts for all the years from any community that
[1:46:53] you want. There's a ton of information up here.
[1:46:57] I think we might've done a little primer a couple years ago.
[1:47:01] We can certainly do another one again, just on how to navigate the state website.
[1:47:06] But again, if you kind of want the quick answer to say, well, how's new growth
[1:47:10] been? We might be able to look up numbers beyond this with our own records, but,
[1:47:16] and again, it's
[1:47:19] very superficial or very cursory for me to just say low new growth, low tax levy.
[1:47:25] But the numbers are what the numbers are.
[1:47:27] Sure.
[1:47:28] The equation for revenues and expenses for municipalities in Massachusetts are
[1:47:31] essentially the same. We can have all this information because you can compare and
[1:47:35] contrast, so we definitely have areas in which we just have a fundamentally
[1:47:39] structured, small revenue base that is hard to grow.
[1:47:44] But again, we go back, we had five years of no health insurance increases.
[1:47:48] There's so many different dynamics that contributed to where we are today.
[1:47:53] Yeah.
[1:47:53] So,
[1:47:54] the one thing that I had suggested, and I'm glad it's in the notes, is that to
[1:47:58] possibly based on Lisa's amount of time, I know she's taking on a lot of duties,
[1:48:02] but the
[1:48:04] TA and the select board member, not necessarily the chair, sitting down to have a
[1:48:09] coffee hours periodically with public to kind of fill them in on what's going on.
[1:48:14] I think that... And I was thinking about it when Sarah Edelman was here.
[1:48:17] She had the
[1:48:19] symposium of understanding. She had something like that.
[1:48:22] So I think
[1:48:25] from a transparency standpoint and moving forward, I think if we could energize
[1:48:29] that and if, again, if Lisa's available, great.
[1:48:32] If not, if it's two members of the select board versus that filling in, I think
[1:48:37] that that would be a great
[1:48:40] morale booster for the town-
[1:48:41] Yep
[1:48:42] ... personally. So.
[1:48:43] Yeah, I'm looking to establish my office hours for the rest of the calendar year.
[1:48:48] So once I do that, I will send that out to all of you, and you can
[1:48:52] first come first serve.
[1:48:53] Okay.
[1:48:53] Kind of a quorum, please.
[1:48:58] Yeah. Anything else from the retreat?
[1:49:04] I thought it was great. I
[1:49:07] was thinking when we were listening to the chief, I'm going to jump back a little
[1:49:11] bit. I was listening to the chief, and I was remembering months ago, there was a
[1:49:16] spreadsheet that you did, Lisa, that showed staffing levels going back.
[1:49:22] We're talking about going back in historical records, where we were in town
[1:49:27] government.
[1:49:28] Mm-hmm.
[1:49:28] I can't remember how far back they went, but I would love to pull that forward and
[1:49:33] have a look at that. Because I think that's important for us to recognize, is that,
[1:49:38] consistently over the last 20 years, we have been making cuts along the way.
[1:49:45] And I'm really concerned
[1:49:49] about what that looks like for the employees that we have.
[1:49:52] We have some really excellent, outstanding long-serving people that are now doing
[1:49:58] the jobs of another person and trying to fit it all in.
[1:50:02] And if they retire or they go somewhere else to get more money
[1:50:08] or just burn out,
[1:50:11] I'm not really sure
[1:50:13] how that's going to look.
[1:50:15] Yeah.
[1:50:16] Oh, it wasn't that long ago.
[1:50:19] It feels like a million years ago. But, August 11th, it is attached to
[1:50:24] the August 11th agenda. So here's the PowerPoint where we did a
[1:50:29] 10-year staffing review, proposed changes, and then also we- We did this
[1:50:35] quick comparison with East Hampton, Long Meadow, East Long Meadow.
[1:50:38] So you'll see that the new growth numbers there, ours is 125K in the budget.
[1:50:44] East Hampton is 200, Long Meadow is 350, East Long Meadow is five. We budget 125.
[1:50:50] We have a hard time meeting it. I will say that places like East Long Meadow budget
[1:50:54] five, and they come in at over a million.
[1:50:56] So there's also the budget number, but there's also, in reality, what they actually
[1:50:59] get with the tax base.
[1:51:03] So we're at 34. East Hampton is now more comparable.
[1:51:08] Again, you've got to add in the districts.
[1:51:10] Look at Long Meadow, East Long Meadow.
[1:51:12] Again, their populations are smaller, but their tax base is 60 million and 55
[1:51:16] million. So that's $20 and $25 million more.
[1:51:20] Take off
[1:51:21] that difference to accommodate for our districts.
[1:51:24] That's still a lot more money, right?
[1:51:26] Yeah.
[1:51:26] That's more than what we've asked for, for an override to help us with the next
[1:51:31] five years. So,
[1:51:34] if we had been captured all those years ago and we had a $60 million tax base,
[1:51:40] we wouldn't be asking for an override.
[1:51:43] Again, I'm sure there's significant differences between the two.
[1:51:47] Long Meadow also pays a lot more in taxes per year, and they have other factors as
[1:51:53] well. But, these are all good to understand how things go, because I do feel like
[1:51:58] it's quick to say, "You're doing it wrong. You're not operating correctly.
[1:52:02] You're spending too much money. There's a lot of waste." There's definitely areas
[1:52:06] in which we can make significant reduction.
[1:52:08] There's no way that we can reduce or cut our way to prosperity.
[1:52:13] There's no way that we can cut our way to making sure that we have good governance
[1:52:19] and operations. So,
[1:52:21] folks just have to know how we do operate here.
[1:52:25] And I'm sorry that the two people who were here who were talking about new growth
[1:52:29] have left, because I really think that that is a priority for us.
[1:52:34] Yeah.
[1:52:35] I think we've seen that with the support of town meeting for the Route 202 corridor
[1:52:41] zoning changes. I think, it's hard to make big changes fast.
[1:52:47] But I think, overall, I think our community is looking for ways to increase our
[1:52:53] tax base to help with our new growth. It just takes time.
[1:52:58] Yep.
[1:52:59] So anyways, just a lot of great information, but it's hard for people to find.
[1:53:04] We don't even remember exactly when the meeting was, so-
[1:53:07] Oh, yeah
[1:53:08] ... we want to make it easy to navigate.
[1:53:10] Thank you for that, Lisa. Bringing that up so fast.
[1:53:15] Anything else, retreat?
[1:53:17] Moving on. We are now on to select board subcommittees.
[1:53:24] So a major part of the discussion at the retreat was potentially forming
[1:53:30] subcommittees or at least thinking about additional ways that the select board
[1:53:35] could
[1:53:36] expand their public engagement. So just to,
[1:53:42] I know it's getting to a late hour, but just to go through these one by one.
[1:53:48] I know the school committee has a negotiation subcommittee.
[1:53:51] I don't necessarily think we need that at the moment, but we do, because we're not
[1:53:55] going to have an HR director, I certainly would like to gauge your interest on
[1:54:00] whether a select board member or two would like to join me in the collective
[1:54:04] bargaining negotiations. These often happen during working hours, so I do want to
[1:54:10] know that not everybody can do that. They happen in person. They're not Zoom.
[1:54:16] And then,
[1:54:19] my contract is up at the end of the fiscal year, so,
[1:54:24] I don't know. There's different ways to do it.
[1:54:25] But certainly, you could either assign
[1:54:30] a chair, vice-chair, or both, or you could assign somebody else who might be
[1:54:33] interested in working
[1:54:35] to ensure that town administration services continue
[1:54:39] beyond the fiscal year. So, we'll sort of work one by one.
[1:54:44] We'll work on the people negotiations side right now, and then we can move on to
[1:54:50] other ideas for committees or actions.
[1:54:55] So when is the next collective bargaining? When is that going to be needed?
[1:55:00] Is that something we need to appoint now or in a month, or?
[1:55:04] Yeah, so the Unit A and B is up at the end of this fiscal year.
[1:55:09] So, it would usually be, this would be the time now that we would establish a game
[1:55:14] plan, and then,
[1:55:16] within the next few months, reach out to Unit A and B and begin those negotiations
[1:55:22] at the very latest. So, that's happening now.
[1:55:25] Next year, again, if you want to review the process next year, we would be
[1:55:30] negotiating both DPW and police.
[1:55:36] And then the following year, you get a break.
[1:55:42] But no matter my interest in the subject, I'm about to have a job transition, and
[1:55:46] so I don't think I can commit to in-person meetings during the workday right now.
[1:55:50] I'm really sorry.
[1:55:53] Are you looking to establish those tonight?
[1:55:55] Nope.
[1:55:55] No. Ah.
[1:55:56] I think that input tonight
[1:56:00] or questions, we can discuss those tonight.
[1:56:07] So in terms of ledges, I think I brought this up, and it's probably the wrong time
[1:56:10] to bring it up because there's only one year left on IGM's contract, is that I
[1:56:15] brought up the idea of a revolving fund, much like Watery Brook.
[1:56:19] And what else has a revolving fund in town?
[1:56:23] How is it-
[1:56:24] It's an enterprise, so I don't believe you can have a revolving fund within an
[1:56:27] enterprise.
[1:56:29] I basically was bringing it up because
[1:56:32] the ledge's budget is X amount of dollars, and when they have tournaments, they
[1:56:36] have to purchase product, which basically cuts into that budget,
[1:56:42] and then they get it on the return side of things.
[1:56:44] But,
[1:56:46] and whether or not it makes sense is to have a separate account where they could
[1:56:52] purchase food, beverages, yada, yada, yada.
[1:56:56] So it depends, right? So when we develop the latest RFP, you have the
[1:57:02] ability to change the dynamic of the contract so that they take on the risk.
[1:57:07] Okay.
[1:57:07] So they would choose to pay for it, and then
[1:57:12] receive the income for those services.
[1:57:15] We would have guarantees of minimum expenditures for things like maintenance and
[1:57:19] marketing, things like that.
[1:57:21] Okay.
[1:57:21] So if we want to keep the existing contract, what you're saying would be a
[1:57:26] conversation, but we also need to decide whether we want to shift the risk-
[1:57:29] Understand
[1:57:29] ... and reward.
[1:57:31] For a new contract.
[1:57:32] Yeah.
[1:57:32] Yes. That's why I said I don't know if it was the right time to bring it up, so.
[1:57:35] Yeah. And then separately, but integrated, figure out based on community
[1:57:41] feedback, budgets, political desires, and et cetera, business decisions,
[1:57:47] what investments do we want to support? What changes?
[1:57:52] A lot of stuff at Ledges hasn't been touched since the original investment.
[1:57:57] We've obviously been making a lot of recent improvements, but that is a
[1:58:02] comprehensive conversation. You could, if you want, you could just make
[1:58:08] capital do it, but capital would probably need a subcommittee as well.
[1:58:12] You probably want to have at least one or two of you on that committee because it
[1:58:16] is a big decision.
[1:58:18] Do we want to try to reactivate the golf commission?
[1:58:22] Is that a role that they could play?
[1:58:26] The golf commission didn't make these kinds of decisions.
[1:58:29] No.
[1:58:29] These are pretty...
[1:58:32] It's not the kind of decisions they typically make.
[1:58:34] So you could certainly revive a golf commission, change the
[1:58:41] mission of it.
[1:58:44] Or you could say, like, "If a golf commission is in charge of this, but we need to
[1:58:49] do this quicker," you're just basically saying people will be part of a golf task
[1:58:54] force-
[1:58:55] Yeah
[1:58:55] ... appointed to do this very specific thing that needs to happen within the next
[1:58:59] few years that would be different than their ongoing obligations.
[1:59:02] Yeah.
[1:59:03] And then also figure out whether you want to establish a golf commission on top of
[1:59:06] that.
[1:59:06] Right. Well, I'm just thinking of all these roles.
[1:59:12] I think it would be important for not only for the select board to get involved,
[1:59:16] but also if the public were involved, there could be other eyes and other ears in
[1:59:22] the community.
[1:59:22] Yes.
[1:59:23] Is that a fair-
[1:59:24] Yeah
[1:59:24] ... expectation or plan?
[1:59:27] The ledge subcommittee was envisioned as something similar to a cross between a
[1:59:31] budget task force and the school building committee.
[1:59:36] So it's different than a school committee, right?
[1:59:40] It's different than a golf commission.
[1:59:41] Sure.
[1:59:42] I'm sure ledges gets public input every day.
[1:59:46] No, but this isn't the kind of-
[1:59:48] That's not the kind of-
[1:59:49] Right.
[1:59:50] That like, yeah.
[1:59:52] If we're making decisions, I
[1:59:55] have no problem on the personnel and/or alleges if-
[1:59:59] I think that would be great because I don't feel like personnel or alleges is in my
[2:00:03] wheelhouse.
[2:00:04] Okay. Kevin, do you have any interest in any of the following?
[2:00:09] I can help out with the negotiations personnel.
[2:00:12] Okay.
[2:00:13] That's what I did for 15 years when I was union president.
[2:00:20] And again, we can think about-- I think-
[2:00:23] Yeah
[2:00:23] ... the suggestions are excellent, but we can review this again and have you guys
[2:00:27] think about it if there's anything that you want to...
[2:00:30] Well, I'm interested in public engagement.
[2:00:32] I think that's something that falls into the realm of my skill set.
[2:00:40] So my recommendation for that, because we did look at the Belchertown
[2:00:44] communications model, which I think is a little different than what we talked
[2:00:48] about.
[2:00:48] Mm-hmm.
[2:00:49] So my recommendation would be to direct the town administrator to outline a public
[2:00:53] engagement committee for discussion at our next meeting.
[2:00:56] Okay.
[2:00:57] And make sure that we go over, is this like a task force?
[2:01:02] Is this a full subcommittee?
[2:01:05] Because I think the Belchertown model, they appoint a committee.
[2:01:10] It doesn't necessarily consist of select board members and that therefore it's not
[2:01:14] a true subcommittee.
[2:01:15] Mm-hmm.
[2:01:15] So there's different ways you can do it, but that public engagement conversation,
[2:01:20] it wasn't enough at the retreat. I think we need a fuller discussion.
[2:01:23] Okay. Priscilla, do you have any interest in anything at this time?
[2:01:28] Yeah. I would be interested in the personnel negotiations and the economic
[2:01:32] development.
[2:01:34] So we can't have three members, right?
[2:01:38] Well, I don't think we're going to appoint everybody tonight.
[2:01:41] I think you're indicating your interest.
[2:01:43] Okay. Got it.
[2:01:44] Yeah. And we'll plan it out at the next-
[2:01:47] Sure
[2:01:47] ... the next one.
[2:01:50] If everybody says they want to be interested, and then you've only created two
[2:01:53] committees and you could do more, you suddenly want to create 20 tonight, part of
[2:01:58] it is just figuring out exactly how much you all want to do and what structure that
[2:02:03] is, and then we'll get it as a whole and kind of come up with a game plan, which we
[2:02:07] could do at the next meeting. I'll give you an example.
[2:02:09] So
[2:02:10] again, public engagement is going to be very different if you wanted to make it a
[2:02:13] subcommittee of the board or if you wanted to appoint a committee of interested
[2:02:17] people in which one of you would maybe be a liaison to.
[2:02:20] Different levels of work, which enables you to do something else.
[2:02:25] A finance subcommittee is very different because that is hands-on work versus
[2:02:30] appointing somebody to be a liaison to the appropriations committee-
[2:02:34] Mm-hmm
[2:02:34] ... or changing the appropriations committee to be like capital planning, where you
[2:02:37] appoint somebody to it, but that's a whole larger ballgame.
[2:02:40] Or saying that more informally, we have appropriations committee members
[2:02:46] assigned to different sets of departments. So, and say, "You know what?
[2:02:49] I'm interested in finding out more about the library or planning or..." And then
[2:02:55] you're just letting me know, and I will then include you in the email chain with
[2:02:59] the existing appropriations members and the existing department heads so that you
[2:03:02] can choose to join and be scheduled-
[2:03:06] Sure
[2:03:06] ... as part of the-
[2:03:06] Cool.
[2:03:07] And that's like a 60 to 90 day thing right now. So again, that's more immediate.
[2:03:13] So I don't think, yeah.
[2:03:14] I feel like we're already reinventing the wheel with the finance appropriations
[2:03:17] committee, and it's almost like a liaison is better the way to do it.
[2:03:22] Yeah.
[2:03:24] At this point, maybe we can assess it after a year of doing the work.
[2:03:30] Perfect.
[2:03:33] Well, it's a work in progress, right?
[2:03:34] And economic development, yeah.
[2:03:38] Having a liaison to the committee doesn't preclude any of you from getting involved
[2:03:42] or knowing more or wanting to know. Just letting you know.
[2:03:45] Right.
[2:03:45] If you wanted to.
[2:03:46] You're already a liaison to several committees.
[2:03:53] Well, anything else on this?
[2:03:56] Yeah. The economic development committee.
[2:03:59] Again, we talked about it at the retreat, but we really did define a mission or
[2:04:03] scope of what that would be.
[2:04:05] Mm-hmm.
[2:04:07] So again, if these are of interest, then we would flush this out at the next
[2:04:11] meeting.
[2:04:12] Cool. I'm interested in that one, too. The economic development one.
[2:04:19] Sure. We can all work it out.
[2:04:20] We can work it out.
[2:04:22] Yep.
[2:04:22] It's not a race.
[2:04:23] Yeah. Cool. Okay, I think that brings us to a motion to
[2:04:29] adjourn.
[2:04:31] I move to adjourn.
[2:04:32] Second.
[2:04:33] All those in favor, roll call. Renee?
[2:04:35] I.
[2:04:35] Carol?
[2:04:36] I.
[2:04:36] Priscilla?
[2:04:37] I.
[2:04:38] Kevin?
[2:04:40] I.
[2:04:40] You're unanimous. Thank you, all. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Kristen.
[2:04:44] And thank you, SHCTV. Enjoy your evening.