[Speaker 10] (0:14 - 0:16)
I just heard Peter.

[Speaker 6] (0:16 - 0:16)
Yep.

[Speaker 1] (0:23 - 2:44)
Thumbs up. Perfect. Thank you.

Welcome everyone to the Wednesday, October, 6 2021 Swanscott Select Board meeting if you wouldn't mind rising and joining the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Thanks everyone the first thing we'll start with tonight per usual is public comment which is an opportunity for residents to speak on items not otherwise in the agenda tonight, we asked residents to please limit their comments to a couple of minutes. Please refrain from making political statements, and to the extent there's any questions or comments about town personnel to please reach out to the town administrator or any select board member outside of the public meeting.

Two ways, three ways to comment on public comment one is to come forward to the microphone here at the high school. Two is if you're joining us on zoom to raise your virtual hand on zoom. Three is to send me an email at P, as in Peter last name Spellios the word spell with IOS and Sam at the end of it at Swanscott ma.gov, and I will check my emails and share your comment with the audience. So with that, if you're on zoom would like to speak please feel free to raise your virtual hand. For those that send emails I will monitor my email and share any public comments I get. He has entered the room.

All right, moving on, seeing no hands for public comment tonight and new and old business. I guess so. Our first matter is the void vote to appoint a new Board of Health member.

Why take this moment now to, I believe, are you mind stopping the share for a minute please. Thanks. I think our two remaining Board of Health members are with us and so I want to welcome them and Marianne if you want to call your meeting to order and we can go from there.

[Speaker 6] (2:45 - 3:41)
Sure. Thanks, Peter. So, opening our Board of Health meeting joint meeting with the support to discuss the appointment of a new member since our member Stephanie Goodman has moved on, moved out of town actually out of state.

We're left with an opening. So, we had several candidates who applied actually a bunch of candidates who applied we interviewed, three of them, and all were excellent was very very difficult choice, and ultimately decided on a single candidate and really really hopeful that the other two people that we spoke with will stay involved with with the town in in health field as well.

[Speaker 1] (3:42 - 4:01)
So, so do you mind just sharing a little bit more detail the process who specifically reviewed who interviewed and kind of just bring forward the process in a little bit more detail and then want to give David some space as well. Part of that process to share his thoughts as well.

[Speaker 6] (4:02 - 5:06)
Sure. So we, there was a call for applications that was put out for anyone to send in a resume and letter of interest. I can't remember quite how many we got I want to say five or six maybe six Marianne.

Six. Okay, so there were six. And of that six we reviewed all the resumes myself, and the health director Jeff on Ali Fisk and David Grisham, and we narrowed it down to three candidates that we opted to interview.

And from there, we set up the interviews and over zoom via zoom. We interviewed all three of those, those candidates. So, but it was open to anyone who wanted to, to throw their hat in the ring, so to speak.

David, you want to add anything more to that.

[Speaker 7] (5:06 - 5:47)
Sure, Marianne, I just, I just thought we had, we had six incredible applicants, the resumes were stellar. It was, it was incredibly inspiring to see so many people looking to step up to the Board of Health, and to be involved in the town. You know, many of these were new names.

So we're, you know, I'm personally really excited about this. And, and again I think, you know, I think it was a, it was a definitely a difficult decision but I, you know, I certainly support Marianne and, and Jeff on, and, and others, and the decision that was made tonight.

[Speaker 6] (5:47 - 6:54)
All right, do you want to introduce one other thing, just one other thing Peter and I will say that this is a six month appointment. So, whoever fills the position is only in this for six months, and will if they choose to they can run again in April. And we're in kind of such an unusual time right now with COVID, and that definitely played into the decision for this for this position because so much of our focus right now in in the health department is is on COVID, and if it weren't COVID times and we would be focusing a lot of on other things, but it really definitely played into our decision making for this position because the next six months I'm sure will continue to be focused a lot on COVID. Unfortunately, so that was definitely part of the decision making process. When it came to filling the position.

[Speaker 1] (6:54 - 7:02)
So, thanks. Do you want to go ahead and share your recommendation and background.

[Speaker 6] (7:03 - 8:49)
Sure. So, we chosen Dr. Peter Shackman, who is a disease, and what's the word I'm looking for Emily, he's a specialist in internal medicine and infectious disease. So I was trying to say, he has been he's recently retired, but still active on many boards and active in played a big role in COVID working on different boards and advisories over the past 1820 months.

He has worked in the North Shore area for most of his career. His undergrad actually was in music at Yale, and after that he decided to get involved in medicine and went to leave Columbia Medical School, and tried out in a OB, I think, field for a little while and decided he eventually wanted to go into family practice and settled in practice in London where he worked for most of his career 30 some odd years. So, and recently retired about two years ago.

And has lived in Swampscott for many years. So, very, very knowledgeable, very smart, really genuine person that I've known for a number of years as well and we're really lucky to have to have him on board.

[Speaker 7] (8:52 - 8:56)
Also of note, he's a cellist in the Boston Philharmonic.

[Speaker 6] (8:57 - 9:06)
That's right accomplished cellist for 43 years. And he's not here this evening because he is playing at practice this evening.

[Speaker 1] (9:09 - 9:16)
Great. Any other any questions for Marianne David and the team comments. Emily, please chime in as you would like.

[Speaker 10] (9:20 - 9:36)
I'm perfectly pleased with that decision. So, but I also want to just acknowledge that, you know, some of the other candidates sound like they were amazing. Also, so I hope that they do continue to stay involved and be interested.

[Speaker 1] (9:40 - 10:23)
Other comments, questions, statements. Anyone from the public want to be heard on this matter. Again, if you're on zoom, please raise your virtual hand if you're in person, please come to the microphone.

All right, with that, is there a motion to so just by way of reminder, this is a vote. It's a two part vote by the select board and by the Board of Health jointly vote on this recommendation. And so, for the select board, is there a motion to appoint Peter Schechtman to fill remainder of the vacant term to the April 2022 townwide election for the Board of Health.

So move.

[Speaker 5] (10:24 - 10:24)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (10:25 - 10:31)
Questions or comments. All those in favor. Aye.

Aye. Marianne.

[Speaker 6] (10:32 - 10:42)
Okay, do I have a motion to appoint Peter Schechtman for the vacancy of the Board of Health, the remainder of Emily you're on mute.

[Speaker 17] (10:44 - 10:45)
I make the motion.

[Speaker 6] (10:47 - 10:51)
Okay, and I second it all in favor, Emily. I am also an eye.

[Speaker 1] (10:52 - 11:09)
All right. Thanks very much for your work. Thanks, David.

Thanks to Jeff and Ali as well for their time and effort. In reviewing this and thank you to all those that applied and for Dr. Schechtman for offering his expertise, especially at this point where they are so important for us to have.

[Speaker 6] (11:10 - 11:11)
Thank you, everyone.

[Speaker 1] (11:12 - 11:14)
All right. Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (11:15 - 11:18)
Are we closing our meeting. Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (11:19 - 11:21)
So, and you're making a motion.

[Speaker 17] (11:21 - 11:22)
I make a motion.

[Speaker 6] (11:23 - 11:29)
I will second it, and we will close the meeting of the Board of Health. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (11:30 - 15:08)
All right. Thanks. Bye guys.

Thank you. All right. Our next.

There's two other topics and old new business that we have a public hearing that starting at 630 so we're not quite ready and then there's a discussion potential vote relative to Swampscott Housing Authority and condition of Swampscott Housing Authority properties. Before I move forward I just wanted to take this moment before we get to the public hearing to share an update with the board. I know that there's been a lot of interest relative to the new elementary school, and the upcoming town wide vote but really about the details of the elementary school.

It's really been very impressive the amount of information that people have sought the questions that they're asking about the new elementary school I think it shows a full appreciation for the significance generationally of this decision for the town. One of the many elements that people ask about has to do with the easements that are will be required an access easement and egress easement in particular, over the existing portion of the existing parking lot for the UU church town meeting approved the acquisition of those easements in connection with approving the funding mechanism for the new school. Since town meeting.

I wanted just to share a quick update representatives of the town of Swampscott, and the UU church continue to discuss the easement required as part of the new elementary school. Following the most, excuse me, following the most recent meeting with the town and church last week, the town and church agreed to find agreement on details of the easements with the benefit of a third party mediator. This is progress and an important step towards a fair and equitable resolution for all parties.

We appreciate the church's strong sense of community and their commitment to collaborating with the town on this critically important project. The Neal Duffy has been part of that conversation as well with you, you, I will say. Additionally, I was pleased by the tenor of the conversation that we had with the church last week, and at least one of the task force members for the church went out of her way to express her strong support for the school, and her recognition of the importance.

That the school plays for our families and for our town. And I appreciate that I appreciate that show of goodwill. I appreciate the collaboration and their willingness to sit around a table, and for us to have the benefit of a professional mediator to help us make sure all the concerns are addressed and that we get to a fair and reasonable solution.

So with that, I want to again, I'm going to quickly read the statement and see if the board is comfortable. Instead of it just being a statement of me, since I read it out loud, I just wanted to see if the board is willing to give general consensus that this statement reflects the sentiment of this board. Representatives of the town of Swampscott and the UU continue to discuss the easement required as part of the new elementary school.

Following the most recent meeting with the town and church last week, the town and church agreed to find agreement on the details of the easement with the benefit of a third party mediator. This is progress and an important step towards a fair and equitable resolution for both parties. We appreciate the church's strong sense of community and their commitment to collaborating with the town on this incredibly, sorry, on this critically important project.

Anything you want to add before I?

[Speaker 5] (15:09 - 15:20)
No, I'll just, I agree with everything you said. I think that, you know, we've had good, productive conversations and this is an important step towards progress and resolution.

[Speaker 1] (15:23 - 20:20)
Questions or comments by the board? People comfortable having this statement be reflective of the select board as opposed to individuals? Absolutely.

All right. Thank you. Next, we're going to move on and actually take out of order since we're here.

The discussion about the Swampscott Housing Authority. Last meeting, we had a very brief conversation and discussed putting it as an agenda item. To engage in a more robust conversation about the Swampscott Housing Authority and even more specifically the condition of Swampscott Housing Authority properties and initiatives needed to help bring the Swampscott Housing Authority properties into appropriate condition and certainly work on long-term plans for accessibility.

As outlined in Naomi Dreeben's letter of resignation to the Housing Authority that we shared last week, there are over 2,500 people on the waiting list for units at the Swampscott Housing Authority. While it's not even remotely believable that all of them will ultimately find a place in the Swampscott Housing Authority, it certainly is indicative of the severity of the housing crisis and the need for increased affordable housing in Swampscott. Going back almost five years ago, we created an Affordable Housing Trust, which is staffed with some incredibly intelligent, professional, smart, as qualified affordable housing professionals as you will find.

They're all volunteers. They've been working tirelessly at finding ways to enhance affordability and affordable housing opportunities in Swampscott. I have in particular seconded Naomi Dreeben's concerns about the leadership of the Housing Authority.

It is clear from recent discussions and what we have learned from Naomi is that there are concerns about what has been and how the Swampscott Housing Authority has handled certain decisions. It is our job to not just stop at criticism but to go to the next step of finding opportunities to help and service and to bridge the needs of the Housing Authority so that we can be an asset, that we can bring resources to bear, that we can help make the quality of life of the residents of the Housing Authority better and at the same time identify productive ways in which we can explore increasing the number of affordable units in Swampscott.

So it's in that vein that I wanted to bring this conversation as a full agenda item tonight to begin that conversation. I will say this. The Housing Authority staff was invited to join our meeting and through the staff to the members on Friday afternoon by our Director of Community and Economic Development.

My understanding is that was not shared with board members until Monday. So understandably some board members couldn't be here. Tara Cassidy Driscoll is here.

We're grateful that she's here. This afternoon the Director of the Housing Authority sent a letter saying the Housing Authority would be willing to meet on better notice at a specific time with a specific agenda put forth. And so I wanted to first, I want to just open up the floor a bit for members, but I frankly think this conversation is ultimately going to be more fruitful with the Housing Authority fully engaged.

I do intend that one of the conversation points, and this may be with or without the Housing Authority, is given that our Housing Authority is overseen by the Department of Housing and Community Development, I think we would all benefit from having their involvement into this dialogue to help us get more sensitized about the roles of Housing Authorities, the limited resources of Housing Authority, but also help us bridge resources, bridge talent, bridge communication to make sure that we help the Housing Authority find a productive path to dealing with quality of life and property conditions at the Housing Authority.

So that is something I would like to still talk about tonight, just because I think that's something that has a lead time as well. And I also, since Ms. Cassidy Driscoll is here tonight, also want to invite her. She is the newest member, and so I appreciate her being here.

The Governor appointed her, I think, under 60 days ago? 90 days ago, maybe? May?

Okay, a lot longer. COVID makes everything seem short. So back in May, and I'm really grateful that she stepped up to be involved on it here.

So with that, I guess I throw it open to the Board for any thoughts as to how you would like to proceed.

[Speaker 7] (20:21 - 20:34)
Mr. Chair, has the Housing Authority taken the Select Board up on its offer to utilize Room B-129 for their public meetings?

[Speaker 1] (20:35 - 20:58)
My understanding is the Housing Authority, since they were last here and we made that offer, they've had three meetings. And Allie Fisk has reached out directly to the Chairman, and I've been copied on it. And each of those responses have gone unresponded to, and they've held their meetings continually in the Housing Authority office.

And so they have not taken up on that offer. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (21:01 - 23:50)
I want to hear from you before I share anything of substance. I just want to say I think I agree with your general feeling here that you shared, and the sentiments that Naomi shared. And as I said, I had intended with Naomi to meet with another member of the Board to discuss some of their concerns.

That hasn't happened. I just want to put that out there. I will follow up with that individual, but this might happen sooner.

So I don't know whether Naomi was coordinating that meeting or what, but Cynthia Tennant had reached out to communicate. So I will communicate with her. I just want to put that out there that there was some reach across the aisle, so to speak.

And I also am very concerned about all of the different things that you've mentioned. And I think to be productive, though, really productive, I think I don't know that it will be really helpful to have them sit at a meeting where it's even set up as a versus, or where we just come at, like, you know, with a bunch of questions in a meeting that's just our Board. And I think the DHCD attending is really important, but I think it's important for the town to meet first.

They haven't taken us up on our offer, but we also haven't called a joint meeting, for example, with an agenda item. I think that's reasonable. And if after that point things are not in good faith and progress isn't made and understanding isn't deepened, that there's not things we're missing, I can say that the outcome I'm not happy with.

I can say that the state of affordable housing in our town, I'm not happy with. The low-income housing, I'm not happy with. The lack of accessibility, I don't understand the ins and outs of that.

Maybe I won't get anywhere with a joint meeting, understanding it better, but I certainly won't know if I'd get anywhere without having that first. So I think that would be a good first step. And that doesn't mean that we can't disagree, but I just think that effort before we call in a state agency and then flesh it out a little bit more and be really specific about what we're looking for, you know, like the nuts and bolts as opposed to my policy position.

I'm just speaking for myself. It would be really helpful because it's sort of at a high level of principle for me right now and consequence, but I don't actually know sort of procedurally what hasn't happened and all of that. So it's kind of a vague statement, but hopefully it made some sense.

[Speaker 7] (23:52 - 25:02)
So, I mean, we didn't get here in a few months. We got here over decades of neglect and ignoring the issues. These are residents of Swampscott.

These are residents. They deserve better. They deserve much better.

And we need to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to support them, to help them. I mean, these are people's lives. These are people's homes.

You know, we're talking about residents who are physically handicapped who cannot get to the second floor. The second floor of Doherty Circle may as well be the moon for some of these folks with physical limitations. And to me, we do need to explore this, but we also need there to be an end to our exploration.

We need there to be action. You know, I think we can certainly call a joint meeting with agenda, but we need there to be action. We need there to be movement.

[Speaker 4] (25:03 - 25:19)
Right, but I don't even know what that would be. Like, okay, so I'm going to do this, and then it's like, okay, so who? At the very least, I feel like a meeting, to your point, would at least be like, okay, so we feel this is a priority.

You might not. Who would we call? Like, I don't even have that information.

[Speaker 14] (25:20 - 25:27)
We need there to be communication. We need there to be open lines of communication. Information.

Yes, yes.

[Speaker 4] (25:28 - 25:46)
Just that we can get here. I think it could be more efficient and possibly, hopefully, better faith if we do that. That's where I'm not saying – I was taking it personally.

I deeply care about people who have needs that aren't being met.

[Speaker 13] (25:46 - 25:46)
As do I.

[Speaker 4] (25:46 - 26:05)
I promise you that. So I'm not trying to, like, push it off. I'm just trying to think of something that considers town relations, town board – yeah, relations.

Not pleasing everybody. Just, you know, proper due process, I guess.

[Speaker 1] (26:06 - 26:12)
So can you just – sorry, I want to make sure I got the steps correctly. Your suggestion is the first meeting being what?

[Speaker 4] (26:13 - 26:16)
Just a – A joint meeting with the board.

[Speaker 1] (26:16 - 26:16)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (26:16 - 26:18)
With the housing authority.

[Speaker 13] (26:18 - 26:19)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (26:19 - 27:10)
And us. Yeah. Where we can ask specific – I would like to know more specifics about – just, I need to spend more time with what I would ask board members if they were here.

Why didn't you apply for this? And, you know, that grant. What – why isn't there elevators?

Is this a statewide problem? Because I think part of the complication for me is it's not a private entity. There's a whole – there's a state level involved.

So let's – I don't know the answer. If we had the most progressive, forward-thinking housing authority board, if they would get anywhere, because there's a state agency involved. So I just don't know.

I'm assuming. Not applying for grants is not a good sign. I'm not happy with what I understand.

But I just – So – I think I need that information. No.

[Speaker 5] (27:10 - 27:27)
So I just – because I had the same thought of, you know, whatever meeting happens, perhaps like a meeting between – and I think I want to hear from you.

[Speaker 4] (27:27 - 27:27)
No, I'm like, I have nothing to say.

[Speaker 5] (27:28 - 29:48)
So I think that I had the same thought of, you know, perhaps a meeting prior to having it be a meeting with DHCD would make sense because it would feel less of, you know, like calling someone to the carpet. But at the same time, I think those questions you just asked and you just mentioned it, it's like the reason it would be helpful to have someone from DHCD here is to help us get the context and the clarification on what the roles are. And I think part of my – we can go through the process of having a meeting between us, but it could be a conversation where our expectation of what the role is is different from what the housing authority's expectation is.

And we need to have an understanding of what that actual role is. And we could have that – I think we could have that conversation and then invite the DHCD. So it would just be an extra meeting, which I'm happy to do that if it's – No, I really hear what you're saying.

I'm not saying I don't want to, but I guess so. You're right. If we framed it – if we framed having someone here from the state in that way is to provide us with assistance in understanding the roles and the limitations.

Yeah. Otherwise, I think we could get into what – I mean, I experienced the one meeting you all had remotely, but it felt like the select board as a whole was feeling like this is your role, and folks from the housing authority were saying, you know, we're actually doing a lot, and sort of it's not our role. And I feel like that's part of what the tension is.

And so I think we need to work through that and have a better understanding about what the roles are and are and define them. And so in that way, I would want to sort of cut to the chase and have – try to get to that sooner. But I would really like to, unless someone else wants to say something on the board, if you want to speak, I would like to hear what you have to say, Tara.

[Speaker 4] (29:48 - 30:13)
Just wanting to add to Neil's thing. I think you're getting to – and I'm just – because it will be irrelevant later. I'm sorry.

I agree with what you're saying, and I – you caught the sentiment that I had, which was that I wanted it to feel like we're all there to get clear on things. We don't have to agree on priorities. It might be contentious in that regard, but we're just – it's just a way to save a meeting and cut to a chase.

[Speaker 5] (30:14 - 30:14)
Right.

[Speaker 4] (30:14 - 30:25)
I agree with that. But in terms of the sensitivity I had to the other issue and the – like a feeling of bad blood, that was more my concern. But I think we can accomplish both.

[Speaker 13] (30:25 - 30:25)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (30:26 - 30:28)
So, sorry. Thanks. It's okay.

[Speaker 8] (30:28 - 31:31)
Mr. Chairman, I just want to first start by saying that I'm here as an individual. I'm not here representing the Housing Authority Board. And I'm here to listen, hear your concerns, and be a messenger back to the Board with information that I can provide.

What I am able to share is that the Board is compiling a list, a very comprehensive list, of all of the improvements and grants that have been received and done and that will hopefully – should be available in the near future to share. But as an individual, speaking for myself, I would just like to say that I'm hoping through good communication and working together, we can, you know, open up the lines of communication and we can all move forward together to strengthen the town and the housing – and personally, that's just my – that's my feeling. Mr. Chairman?

[Speaker 1] (31:32 - 37:31)
I appreciate that. I think it's really important to kind of put a little bit more context here. The Housing Authority properties across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are resource starved.

Right? Our community is no different in that regard than every single community. Different communities have decided to handle it in different ways.

They're not all state-controlled. Some of them are federal-based housing authorities. But for the state-controlled ones in particular, they've handled it different ways.

They've taken it upon themselves to be creative in finding opportunities to reposition their assets and to improve their assets and to increase the number in certain circumstances. Sometimes that's a public-private partnership. Sometimes that is a partnership with a municipality that has greater resource depth to help them.

But the conditions themselves and the lack of accessible units is not an anomaly, sadly. Like, really not an anomaly. Like, really sadly as well.

And so I think that's important. Because I don't want it to ‑‑ it's a problem. But it's not, I don't think, grossly disproportionate a Swampscot problem.

Where I think the problem is, frankly, is two things. One, I'm just going to be honest. It's Naomi Dreamy deciding to quit and to leave something and leave a subject matter that she cares about so much.

And tells me that there are some serious problems with the leadership of the housing authority. That I want to understand. You don't need to read her letter too hard to feel as though there was a hostility.

That her efforts in seeking creativity to talking to the affordable housing trust, the only other entity in our entire town with a charge of affordable housing, for her engaging with wind development and Elm Place to understand directly the implications of that project, but also to see the opportunities that that may also create. And the hostility that it seems as though she was met with by the housing authority leadership is not okay. We want volunteers to come forward, whether it's this board or any board, and not feel as though a hostility is okay.

To actually, quite the opposite, to embrace the creativity and create, whether it's intellectual, emotional, or other resources that they bring to the table to do things. And that's really problematic to me. And I think just has no place whatsoever.

Secondly, the housing authority leadership in the last several months has rebuffed external offers of help. And I appreciate that they are busy. Everybody's busy.

We're all busy in doing it. And have rebuffed those offers of help and have, I think, actually taking actions to further isolate themselves, which is quite concerning to me because there technically is no legal obligation for the town to partner with a housing authority. We're doing it out of what I think to be strong moral conviction as to it's the right thing for us to do.

Saying, oh, well, these are state-funded properties. It's not our problem. It's not the right thing to do.

And then I think the last, so that's, to me, a big part of the conversation for us to have. And because I want to understand it. I want to understand, I guess, maybe we have it wrong.

I'm open to us having it wrong. But if we have it right, it needs to change. And whether it's changing or the leadership of the housing authority changing, you know, the voters get to decide that because these are elected positions.

But I do think these meetings need to be in public. I do, and I understand people are going to say the housing authority is public. If you've been in the housing authority room in the time of COVID, no one would feel as though that's a place you'd want to be, just respectfully.

They just wouldn't. And I understand that some residents would not feel comfortable being on TV. And so there are ways for them to join and not be on TV, but still sit in their rooms, sit in their houses and see and experience and understand the discourse.

You know, their meeting on Monday was at 11 o'clock in the morning. I don't know how many people in our world are at 11 o'clock, and I don't know how many residents can make themselves available at 11 o'clock. Our offer still stands to give them this venue and to support them in any way possible.

So I think those, to me, are things I want to know more about and understand more. The property conditions and what we do going forward is something that I think is a real opportunity for collaboration because that is a common theme, unfortunately, across the state. And I think we can put our heads together and try and solve these things.

I just want to get beyond what seems to be some internal and external hostility, for lack of what appears to be internal and external hostility, and I want to make sure that we're helpful in any way possible. Naomi's resignation, her letter was a game changer for me, and that's why we're talking about it publicly and not talking about it privately right now. That tells me everything I need to know.

She is not a quitter, and she doesn't sit now thinking, oh, I just have all this free time now, isn't that great? Right. She sits disappointed that she's decided she couldn't get the respect and the attention inside the tent, and the only way to do it was to get outside the tent and let people understand what was going on, and that's problematic.

So, again, my comments are directed exclusively at the Housing Authority leadership, what I'm going to call the elected leadership of the Housing Authority. Tara, I'm really grateful of you stepping up. I know a resident recently stepped up as well to be kind of the resident appointee, and I do appreciate that, and you and Tom, you guys do so much already, so the fact that you stepped forward to do another thing is just really awesome, and so we're grateful to you guys.

[Speaker 8] (37:31 - 37:52)
I will just add that I am personally sorry to see Naomi resign. She did bring a lot, in my opinion, to the board, and I think that's a loss just in her knowledge, her work experience, and her ability to work, having worked on other boards as well.

[Speaker 1] (37:54 - 38:15)
Thank you. So what do we think about a schedule? I guess in the interest of collaboration, perhaps, if you don't mind, we'll follow if you want to take the lead.

As the liaison, I'm happy to have staff reach out as well, but I think to maybe give them two dates in November. Just realistically, I don't think the end of September here.

[Speaker 5] (38:16 - 38:19)
Like a separate meeting from our regular board.

[Speaker 1] (38:19 - 38:23)
I wasn't thinking a separate meeting. I was just thinking it's a new and more extensive.

[Speaker 4] (38:23 - 38:35)
Why don't we have the first part maybe be joint, like the board? Because I'd rather have this not be, yeah, like we invite you to attend. Yeah, because I want to actually give feedback on what you said.

[Speaker 1] (38:35 - 38:38)
I agree with you. If you think that's important, I'm totally open to it.

[Speaker 4] (38:39 - 38:52)
No, I think, well, can I just respond briefly to what you said? Sorry. I mean, I guess it's not a long agenda anyway.

Gives me a little leeway. No. Open mic.

[Speaker 5] (38:54 - 38:56)
Yeah, I don't think that's the case.

[Speaker 4] (38:56 - 42:05)
So I am happy to reach out. And I will include town staff on this, though, because of something I'll say in a second. But, Peter, I really appreciate the clarification, actually.

Because temporarily, I think just reading the agenda and then how this started. And, God, that's so offensive. But I think, you know, that I was distracted away from Naomi's letter.

And so I just think that the points that you just raised are really important. And I definitely agree that, you know, progress aside, which, of course, we need progress. But feeling that antagonized and, you know, in a way outed or ousted, I should say.

But that's not an okay feeling on any board or any committee. And I just appreciate that comment. And Naomi is independent and strong.

And I don't want to say not tough, but she's not easily, you know, afraid or, you know, that kind of thing. So, I mean, for her, again, to take this step and share what she did, I do trust that it comes from a grounded place and in a practical place. If she knew she was just going to be banging her head against the wall and wasn't being treated how she should be, then that is problematic.

So I will say also that I know that you're here. I don't know why anybody else could not attend. It is unfortunate, to Peter's point, that you're here and will take a message back to the Housing Authority because it just continues that sentiment of, like, we're not going to have a face-to-face conversation and try to continue the dialogue.

I mean, this is better than nothing, and I so appreciate you being here and being a communicator in the meantime, right? But I have to say, I've mentioned this before, reached out as the liaison and was told basically that this person with the chair was not interested in meeting. If I'm interested, come to a meeting and watch what happens.

But I'm not going to talk to you separately. Everything that happens happens with the board kind of thing. I did try to clarify and just say let's build that connection, and it didn't go anywhere.

So I am concerned about that. And again, I appreciate you being here to communicate. It would be great if it didn't feel, like, symbolic somehow.

And so to Peter's point, I will reach out and send a couple of dates, but I will include town staff, and I do want it to be a joint meeting officially, just because then if we can't get people to attend in good faith, then I feel like we have better grounds to kind of go to a different place to get the information we need and perhaps collaboration. Sorry.

[Speaker 3] (42:07 - 44:12)
Paul, I think the sentiments here are really wonderful. I think it's difficult to hear that one of our colleagues, somebody that was celebrated as one of our region's most extraordinary leaders by the Lynn Item just a couple of years ago, did not find a place to serve in a government agency that desperately needs somebody that has compassion, somebody that has wisdom and service as a cornerstone of what they bring to public life. Tara, I know you have some of those same, you know, cornerstones, and I really do appreciate you volunteering, you know, as a citizen of Swansket to try to help address some of the challenges that exist in those 122 units in this town.

I mean, we have 2,500 people looking to share one of those 122 units. I'm wondering, you know, you've been on the board just a few months, so I wouldn't expect that you would know this, but every year the Housing Authority, just like the town, has to approve a budget. I've pulled up that budget.

It's online. DHCD requires every housing authority in the Commonwealth to put their budget online. Can you share with me, just from your limited experience, what process have you been involved in that have helped you understand where those priorities are in the authorities' budget, and more importantly, where the capital improvement plan sits and where the deferred maintenance plan sits, and where's that bigger agenda that helps to ensure that we're really helping to lead that agency?

[Speaker 8] (44:13 - 45:06)
Well, personally, I can speak to, you know, what I've witnessed. I've only been on the board a short time, but I have witnessed multiple grants come forward, be approved, and things that have been done, and I think that, like I mentioned, that the board is compiling a list, a very comprehensive list. It's a very significant list, and, you know, it just was not available for the meeting yet.

They wouldn't have time to prepare it. So I think the list is significant of what's going on, and I think you'll be shocked to see what's on there and the improvements that have been done. That is my, you know, honest feeling.

I just don't have any—there just has no—there was no official information.

[Speaker 3] (45:07 - 45:34)
I understand. I do have the list of the roof repair. I have a list of all the GFIs that have been replaced.

I have a list of a lot of the maintenance work that has been done, and that's typical. What I really wanted to get at was the process for how the board really discusses the annual budget, how it sets policy, how it prioritizes, you know, some of the leadership of the housing authority.

[Speaker 8] (45:35 - 46:02)
I mean, I have personally, you know, witnessed that the board does move through a process, you know, that is typical of the board, and that the—you know, that the chair does, in my opinion, personal opinion, do a good job of moving the board forward and administering the meeting.

[Speaker 13] (46:03 - 46:05)
Okay. Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (46:08 - 47:00)
So let's find the time to do it. You know, I look forward to it. It's not an inquisition.

It really is a joint meeting, and I appreciate the way in which you said that, Polly. I think it's really important. But that being said, I'm not going to shy away from asking, you know, why when a board member asked for tours of the property she was told no, and why when a board member was asked to see information about the residence, striking names and personal stuff just to understand the demographic of the residence, to understand who was there, it wasn't given to her, and why it took months and months and months to get any financial information about the operations and when asking for budgets wasn't being given them, and just instead was expected to show up and vote yes on things. And so I'm just—there's a lot of background as to why Naomi Drieben left, and that's really concerning to me that, you know, this is a committee. This isn't an authority.

This is a, you know, five people. Am I right? Five?

It was five.

[Speaker 8] (47:00 - 47:01)
It's now four. It was five. Cliché.

[Speaker 1] (47:03 - 48:31)
But it's a five-person committee. The chair is one of the five to help administer, but to understand the situation, to understand the problems, like there for some reason was, again, a hesitance to share information, to allow authority members to become versed and knowledgeable and to explore, to attend meetings like you're doing tonight, and to feel like you could attend that meeting. Frankly, the last time the Housing Authority was here, I believe I saw an email where the chair actually told members not to come to a meeting.

And for the chair to dictate what his or her members can and cannot do and what meetings they can go to, I just—it's—something's wrong. Something is—that's just not how we can do committees, and it's certainly not the basis for a partnership, and it's certainly not the basis for solutions. So I really appreciate you being here.

I just—I'm going to ask the questions when we have our joint meeting because I want to understand it, and maybe we understand it totally wrong, you know. I'm open to that, but, man, there's enough bread crumbs out there now that tells me that we're not totally wrong in asking these questions. And it's not about us.

It's about the residents ultimately, and we will do whatever we can do. I know we will, and I know when Polly talks about it, and I know how much it drives her to do it. So I really appreciate you being here.

[Speaker 8] (48:31 - 48:39)
Yeah. I'm just hoping, you know, personally, that through cooperation and communication, we can all move forward together. That's my hope.

[Speaker 1] (48:39 - 48:46)
Agreed. All right. So, Polly, you'll—would staff reach out and then circle back?

I think the last meeting in October, we should avoid just that.

[Speaker 4] (48:46 - 48:46)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (48:46 - 48:59)
Just because I think we— It's also on Zoom. We're going to have—and that's on Zoom. And I think there's one in November as well.

Yeah. Yeah. I think.

I've now forgotten. Right. No, we haven't.

We switched every date six times.

[Speaker 4] (48:59 - 48:59)
I know.

[Speaker 1] (48:59 - 49:04)
So, good. I will do that. All right.

That being said, thank you again. Thanks.

[Speaker 16] (49:04 - 49:04)
Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (49:05 - 49:54)
After 6.30 p.m., is there a motion to open the public hearing for the town of Swampscott as the issuing authority for a cable television license under MGL Chapter 166A to hold a public hearing on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 6.30 p.m.? The purpose of the public hearing will be to determine whether to issue a cable television license to Verizon. All applications, reports, statements, and license drafts to be considered at the hearing that constitute public records under state law are available for public inspection during regular business hours and for reproduction at a reasonable fee. The members of the public are invited to attend and be heard on the topic, A, whether the current cable operator is in full compliance with its current—the existing cable license, and B, what are the town's future community cable-related needs?

Is there a motion to open the public hearing? So moved.

[Speaker 5] (49:54 - 49:55)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (49:56 - 50:12)
All right. All those in favor? Aye.

All right. So, we are now in the public meeting. To put everybody at ease, there is no expectations of any board action tonight.

Board votes. We are going to have a meditative moment with Joe Doulet.

[Speaker 13] (50:13 - 50:14)
It worked, Joe.

[Speaker 1] (50:14 - 50:18)
Thank you. I don't know where Mr. Franklin is, but we probably could use Mr. Franklin right now.

[Speaker 2] (50:18 - 50:19)
Good. Mindful minute.

[Speaker 1] (50:20 - 50:35)
And settle this down. So, let's start with the public hearing, which was advertised as required by law. And I want to turn it over to Joe Doulet, who is the chair of the Swampscot Television Visioning Committee.

[Speaker 2] (50:36 - 56:18)
Thank you very much. And thank you for the time tonight. It's been an exciting several months working with the committee.

David's been on the committee as well, helping me through this. Attorney Huig, is he on, Molly? You don't see him?

All right. So, Attorney Huig is not here tonight, but turn the volume up. Can you turn the speakers up, mic to speakers a little bit?

Sorry. I'll try to speak a little louder. So, you guys have a business plan, which the committee put together.

And this presentation kind of goes over the business plan with a couple other things. I'll go through it relatively quickly, and then allow you guys to dig into whatever points you want to. So, the Television Visioning Committee started meeting in February.

And one of the things that I like to start with is just to make sure everybody understands that we are egg. We've been egg for a long time. We're not peg.

We haven't had public since the beginning. So, when I took over the job from Tom Reed, we were running educational and government access. And according to the Cable TV Act, we, as a town, are able to start a public channel as well if we want to.

We just, as a community, have never pursued that. So, one of the questions the committee wanted to look into, because when Sean came into the town, he's like, the town I came through, we had a very vibrant public access channel as well. I've worked in public access in a couple of other communities as well.

It's an exciting part of peg. It's also can be somewhat controversial at times. It's democracy and it's messy.

And I just want to make sure that communities that dig into this know what they're getting. Just a quick review of what we have in town. We have a government access television on Verizon 41 and Xfinity Channel 22.

Swamp's got access on Channel 40 and 15. We have a website, which everything streams live on with VOD. We started Facebook, basically, when the pandemic hit.

We also have a town YouTube channel, a school YouTube channel, an athletics YouTube channel. And we just started to stream on Roku and Apple TV. So, if you want to watch it on that, you can.

You just download Cablecast ScreenWeave and it finds your community and you can get going. So, there's no lack of ways for people to access. Our committee represented a lot of different constituencies.

We wanted to make sure there was someone in the arts community, which is Sam Attui. Susan Connor represented the library. I was representing cable TV, as well as the school.

Allie Fix came on later. David Grishman was representing the board. Attorney Huig was helping us through some of the contract languages and nuances.

Ron Mendez was involved early. And then Jen Nisbet and Ann Quagrello were representing the seniors. Ethan Runstatler, who's an alum, who's also a part-time employee now, who oversees all the sports broadcasting, had a couple of different perspectives.

And then Amy Saro jumped on after Ron left. Our goals were to consider potential growth and development, to consider the resources necessary to achieve that, and then to submit the recommendation to the negotiating team as we enter into negotiations with Verizon, which is the next step after this public hearing. Some of the things that I think this committee really wanted to focus on were the arts, the senior community, athletics, and then information from our local community.

A lot of interest in town elections and history and culture. You know, what's going on in the business community as well. This is a dense board of growth and development since I started in 2015.

Some of the highlights are in terms of content, developing a school news program, involving cablecasting all of the regulatory boards, starting a forum for the principal at the school, Cohuts Corner. We also now live stream to Facebook and YouTube. There was an exercise program for seniors over the pandemic.

We do all of the varsity athletic events now, and several more community meetings, which is facilitated by everyone now being able to operate Zoom. So I have about 100 technical directors throughout the town now that I can call on to give me content. In terms of technology, we've overhauled this room twice, once in the beginning to bring us the PTZ cameras, these remote cameras, and then when the pandemic hit, we installed the ability for this to be hybrid.

Our VLAN, which I think is an exciting technology thing that we've been developing over the years, is a set fiber video network that links all the municipal buildings so we can plug into any building and have a live video and audio feed. It's currently here at Town Hall at the library, the police department, and we're looking to add that to the senior center and to Bloxidge Field and the fire station and the middle school. Actually, I'm sorry, the senior center in Bloxidge Field already has it.

We're going to add it to the middle school and the fire station. Just quick numbers. I was looking at cablecast and the shows that were produced.

Tom Reed had about 100 shows going on on the cable channels a year. These are new shows. When I came on, that dropped down a little bit as I was trying to pick up speed and figure out how to run this.

When the pandemic hit and we started adding all the community meetings, this popped up to even more, so we're in the upper hundreds now, close to 200, and our goal is to get live content of shows up to 250. I just thought this was an interesting statistic in terms of minutes watched on Facebook as well. We went from 113 minutes viewed total on our Town Facebook channel in 2019 to 289,000 minutes viewed in 2021.

This just demonstrates that people are watching our content in a lot of different ways, and I think it's not just cable TV, it's distribution of media in all the venues that we offer.

[Speaker 1] (56:19 - 56:30)
Before Neil says something, I want to make clear that a very small percentage of those minutes are my responsibility. I know what he was about to say for 2020 and 2021, and I just feel I need to set the record straight first.

[Speaker 2] (56:31 - 56:34)
We could get an algorithm that counts up how many minutes each people talk.

[Speaker 1] (56:34 - 56:37)
I think it's great that you've already budgeted us at 34,000 for 2022.

[Speaker 2] (56:38 - 56:38)
That's already happened.

[Speaker 1] (56:38 - 56:41)
We're capped. Year to date.

[Speaker 5] (56:41 - 56:45)
I think that's known as the Grishman bomb. It can't be year to date.

[Speaker 1] (56:48 - 56:50)
All right, Mr. Dula, keep going.

[Speaker 2] (56:51 - 58:21)
So our committee, one of the things we did was we looked at public access and access around the state and around the country, looked at different examples that we liked and thought about different ways that we could engage more producers and more viewers in Swampscot. We also developed and distributed a survey. The full survey with answers are in the plan that you have.

I just highlighted a few things in the presentation here. One of them was, would you like to see more content? We got about 200, 250 people responding.

So between the yeses and tells me more, we have about 70 percent of the respondents saying, yeah, they want to see more content. So the different types of content people said they wanted to see. You can see that town and school meetings, local sporting events, community conversations, local history, talks with town officials, local news and weather.

I'm looking at the ones that kind of hit higher up. Local music performances, town elections, art and culture. People were interested in seeing more of this stuff.

The next one, would you like to have our peg channels in HD? So this is something that communities are asking for and they're getting at least one HD channel. So if you watch on cable on Comcast or Xfinity right now, it looks junky.

It just looks like old VHS quality. That's because that's all we get from those providers is SD channels. So in this next round, we will ask Verizon for at least one HD channel.

And attorney says we'll get one. I'm going to ask them to ask for three. We'll probably still get one.

But they have been giving communities at least one HD channel. So we're going to ask for that.

[Speaker 1] (58:21 - 58:29)
So is the streaming on things like Roku, Apple TV and whatnot, high HD streaming because it's a different medium? So therefore...

[Speaker 2] (58:29 - 58:55)
Basically, in 2015, our server for education, we upgraded to HD. In 2019 or 18, our server for government, we upgraded to HD. Which meant that at that point, everything is HD.

So wherever we put it, it's HD unless we have to down convert it. The only place we have to do that is for Comcast and Xfinity. So everywhere else you see it, it looks great.

As long as we're...

[Speaker 1] (58:55 - 58:56)
You have to do this for what?

[Speaker 2] (58:57 - 58:58)
For Comcast and Xfinity.

[Speaker 1] (58:58 - 59:00)
Yeah, to the utility providers.

[Speaker 2] (59:01 - 59:03)
We have to give them an SD version of our HD signal.

[Speaker 1] (59:03 - 59:04)
Unbelievable to me.

[Speaker 2] (59:05 - 59:21)
So everyone thought that that would... Well, 50% of the people said that would be great. And I think the no in this represents a lot of the demographic of people answering this survey were in older populations.

So I think there wasn't as much either knowledge of HD or they didn't care too much about it.

[Speaker 1] (59:21 - 59:36)
Do you think it was also because they're getting HD through other mediums so they really don't care about TV? So when they think peg or they think egg, they're not thinking Verizon, Comcast. They're thinking how do I see it and I get to see it in all these other ways.

If I go online, if I go to the Facebook page, if I... I see high def.

[Speaker 2] (59:36 - 59:57)
You see it. Yeah, it's possible. I didn't even think of that.

But maybe people answered that way just because they're already getting it that way. One thing that was interesting was people wanted audio podcasts of the meeting. People wanted that more than HD channels.

So basically taking the meeting and just stripping the audio of it and just throwing it up on a podcast so people can subscribe to it and download it. So when they're on their drive to work, they can listen to a meeting. Not hard to do.

[Speaker 1] (59:58 - 1:00:09)
That actually might be my fault. My face for radio and my length perhaps make me better for podcasts. I will take responsibility for that.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:11 - 1:00:21)
Don't show us anymore. This is an interesting thing. Who wants to produce this?

And this is where public access kind of like takes hold. And at first I was like...

[Speaker 4] (1:00:21 - 1:00:21)
They don't want to produce.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:21 - 1:01:03)
Yeah, and at first I was like, okay. So there's not much of an interest. And then I thought, look, how many residents do we have in Swampscott?

14, 15,000? If 10% of them want to produce, that's a lot of people coming into the public access station that want to produce. I don't think you'd want a community where every single person wanted to come in and produce for the town.

But if you have a core group of people who want to do it and they bring in friends or other neighbors or stuff to produce, this is 10% to 18% saying, yeah, this is something I'd like to participate in. And, again, a big chunk of the demographic of this survey respondent was seniors. And so I don't think that they would be...

Although that's not true because Heidi is sparking some interest at the senior center and doing some content over there. And we're working with them to do that.

[Speaker 4] (1:01:03 - 1:01:10)
Also, these things are so hard because the 10% could be 100% of the 30-year-olds that responded.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:10 - 1:01:18)
Right, right. And I did break that down, and I think it stayed actually pretty even. I broke it down by age just because I thought that.

[Speaker 4] (1:01:18 - 1:01:22)
Oh, I mean, but in terms of who answered yes or no to this question.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:22 - 1:01:28)
I did on this one. I broke it down to people in this age bracket and people in this age bracket. It almost stayed the same.

[Speaker 13] (1:01:28 - 1:01:29)
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:29 - 1:01:31)
I thought it was going to be a big difference, but it wasn't.

[Speaker 13] (1:01:31 - 1:01:31)
That's interesting.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:33 - 1:05:21)
So this is a quick overview of the proposed initiatives that I have outlined in the plan. And I've divided it into a few categories. One is core operational infrastructure.

So with the conversations that the committee had, with the information from the survey, what we propose is to increase content, to add a public channel, to add a permanent staff member, and to open up this studio here as a public access station, as a pilot, one night a week, just to see what the use is, to see what the demand is, to see what that 10% is, and if they walk in the door. And, again, I can go into detail on all these, but I can also just go through it all first and then circle back. Another area is distribution enhancements.

So public access channel, so adding that third channel on Verizon, adding the podcasting, and then expanding the VLAN, which is more coming from these places than going to these places, but it gives us the ability to distribute and take in more signal. Venue improvements, and I'll start with the second one. So adding a town hall meeting room, which is something like the police station's community room, adding a senior center satellite studio, and putting in robotic cameras in the high school gymnasium, like we did at Bloxwich Field, so that that can be operated more easily for athletic events up there.

The top one, the high school auditorium, this kind of rose to the top after we developed this room as a hybrid room, and we realized we needed another room, and you guys are kind of realizing this as we can't fit you in another room. So in talking with Allie, we were thinking that it makes more sense to kind of focus our resources on a room that's used for a lot more things than like B-2-8 upstairs, like why sink $30,000, $40,000 into that room that's not going to be used that often? Why not sink it into a room that could be used for a small meeting if you put them in the front, but could also be used for a town meeting when you have 300, 400, 500 people in there?

So those are the venue improvements that we're proposing as part of the plan. I brought this up because one of the things I also am really excited about is the staffing has gone from 12% of our operating budget to this year about 43% of our operating budget, and it's not because we've increased the operating budget, it's because we're shifting the funds from a lot of the infrastructure that I've been developing over the past seven years to now hiring a lot more students to run a lot more things. Ethan Runstatler has been working 20 to 25 hours a week now, and we're bringing in a lot more students to help with all the different events that we're having.

The recommendation is to make that assistant coordinator a full-time position to oversee the public access component of this, so that would add a full day of work plus whatever is necessary to administer that, and increase the student employees as well. So that would make our operating budget, 60% of it would be salary, which I think is fantastic. So at the end of the business plan, this is my proposed request to Verizon, and I'll follow with Attorney Huig's expectations.

Number one is to increase us from our current subscriber fee with Verizon, which is 2.75 to 5%. That's the limit that we're allowed to ask for subscriber fees. I don't think we'd be able to do that unless we add the public channel, because we have to demonstrate why we need the money.

So this would be a 1.25% increase on subscriber bills. So this money comes directly from the subscribers.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:21 - 1:05:27)
I don't understand that. 5% subscriber fee, 1.25% increase.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:28 - 1:05:28)
It should pass through.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:29 - 1:05:33)
But why aren't the numbers equal? Why aren't the percentages equal?

[Speaker 2] (1:05:33 - 1:05:46)
To each other, I mean. What's that? Right now they're already being charged 2.75%. So we would be adding – oh, I'm sorry. It should be 2.25. It should be 2.25. Sorry, sorry, sorry. My math is off.

[Speaker 5] (1:05:48 - 1:05:50)
It's increasing it to 5.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:53 - 1:05:54)
2.25. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:55 - 1:05:55)
Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:55 - 1:05:58)
No, no, I'm glad that helps.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:59 - 1:06:00)
Yes, there you go.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:00 - 1:06:03)
I still would have had the same question. Now I get it.

[Speaker 7] (1:06:03 - 1:06:07)
Right. So Polly, so if you look at your cable bill.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:07 - 1:06:08)
Which I don't have.

[Speaker 7] (1:06:08 - 1:06:09)
Okay.

[Speaker 13] (1:06:10 - 1:06:11)
Hypothetically, yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:06:11 - 1:06:19)
If you look at your hypothetical Verizon bill, there's a pass-through charge of 2.75% based upon whatever type of service.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:19 - 1:06:20)
I do, yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:06:20 - 1:06:23)
That is for the egg portion.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:24 - 1:06:35)
And this is another slide that just has a difference between Verizon and Comcast right now. So Comcast subscribers are being charged 3.1%, and the Verizon customers are 2.75%. Go ahead.

[Speaker 5] (1:06:35 - 1:06:35)
Do you have a question?

[Speaker 4] (1:06:35 - 1:06:38)
No, no, it would bring us up to the ceiling of what we're allowed to ask. That's all.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:38 - 1:06:39)
Yes. Okay. 5%.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:39 - 1:06:40)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:06:41 - 1:07:33)
Joe, can you just ‑‑ I know we talked about this when this committee got established, but I've always ‑‑ I just remember it when we first talked about it. It's like we're negotiating with Verizon on increasing rates to our subscribers and, like, what we can get for that increase. It's just interesting when you said, like, we're asking for another HD channel from them and, like, we might not get it.

But if we're increasing rates on people, don't we get to dictate what we get? Like, I just ‑‑ maybe it's just semantics, but it seems like it's strange to think of it as negotiation when they're not paying for anything. It's being paid for by the rate payer.

That's what I'm trying to wrap my head around a little bit.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:34 - 1:07:48)
What we would get from them is we would get a third channel and we would get a channel on HD. So that would be the increase of what Verizon would be providing to us. And that is not coming from subscribers.

That's coming from Verizon.

[Speaker 5] (1:07:48 - 1:07:50)
But what's the negotiation with them?

[Speaker 2] (1:07:50 - 1:09:16)
Well, for them, they want to be able to justify a subscriber increase because if subscribers see an increase, then Verizon might actually lose customers because the rates go up, the customer's like, well, what do I get out of this? And they're like, oh, I'm dumping that. So that's part of the negotiation is that we want to be able to say to Verizon, we want more money because we want to provide our community with these things, so we want you to add on your subscriber's bill an extra 2.25% fee. I have actually never been through one of these negotiations, so I think Attorney Hewitt would be able to provide more detail on how that goes back and forth. But he said their hesitation is, well, one of the things he said is line two. He said if we're asking them for capital, they've been paying, I think, $17,000 a year, if they average it out over the course of the last contract, which was 15 years, it was an average of $17,000 a year for capital.

It's a separate line in a subscriber's bill is this capital improvement. So they see two lines for the time that they're getting that capital. So he said they would much rather see you increase the subscriber fee than add capital because they can kind of keep it to one line and the subscribers aren't getting hit twice.

So I think there's part of that.

[Speaker 3] (1:09:16 - 1:13:39)
I've negotiated a few of these, and so I can give you some historical perspective. So about 25 years ago, you really did negotiate with the cable companies, and they would give you investments. They would give you funds to build cable studios, and you would be able to look at local origination and really seek investments.

Over the last ten years, it really did change, and they're really, at this point, only giving you pass-throughs. So that period of time where they were really looking to build out cable and create networks of cable infrastructure really gave cities and towns a chance to really get significant investments in local origination. So we talk about egg, but we've only had egg, and I think that reflects a little bit of a lack of thought about, where does that public component come in?

How do we videotape games? And Swanscape really just didn't have local origination focus that really wanted to see that peg function really build out. So when we sat down and talked about, how are we going to come up with revenue to help continue the progress?

Because, frankly, I think Joe understates the extraordinary leadership that he brings to peg and really this function. We need to generate some revenue, both for operating and capital, because the infrastructure is going to demand investments. Creating studios.

Our cable studio in the high school here is a state-of-the-art facility. It has hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cameras and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lighting, and if we have to emulate that in another facility, it's going to require a significant investment. We're also seeing a feature of the funding change dramatically.

We're losing subscribers with the cable services, and so we're seeing attrition every year. People are cutting the cord, moving to other media, and that's going to create another kind of dynamic, and we have to think about, how do we manage through the changing landscape of financial challenges while we continue to invest in a local origination that really does help people stay connected to democracy, to community, to neighborhoods, to initiatives that everybody should care about, and I think we've got a good plan. I think Joe has his finger on the pulse of things that really are going to make a difference. Thinking about increasing anything is difficult.

Ratepayers feel a lot of pressure, but given the fact that we just came through the pandemic, I think we'd all be hard-pressed to think about how we would have been able to function without local origination on any number of levels would be really difficult. That said, getting back to Neil's initial concern, what are we negotiating? We're actually relicensing, and we're pretty much in it alone, both of our providers.

They're not going to help us really do the kind of things that we need to do. The FCC calls upon them to help us invest in local origination, but under the FCC guidelines, we've seen over decades the compunction diminish, and a lot of these companies are really in a fight for market shares, and their focus is not on helping us with local origination.

[Speaker 7] (1:13:44 - 1:13:59)
Joe, to the point that Sean made about cord cutting and some of the existing legislation that is currently at the Statehouse in Boston, do you happen to have an update as to the progress that is being made?

[Speaker 2] (1:13:59 - 1:15:03)
It was assigned to committee, so there's a bill to kind of recoup some of the money that we're losing from cord cutting, and this is at a state level, to charge streaming services a similar kind of rate that the state would collect and then distribute to communities, so Netflix, Hulu, all those services that generate content and take fees, they would have to, because they use the public rights of way, give some of that back to the community. It's a bill that's been introduced twice. It's in committee now, and there's a letter-writing campaign to get the committee to review it, to get it on the House and Senate floor.

So that's something that David and I have been talking about, how to get this community to be part of that letter-writing campaign. It doesn't seem like there's any reason why it shouldn't. It's not like there's, you know, it's not like when the pandemic hit.

It's just all that legislation went out kind of off-priority. This still has a chance to be heard, and that's about where it's at. So it's still in committee.

Right here, Paul.

[Speaker 13] (1:15:03 - 1:15:04)
No, no. No, thanks.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:05 - 1:17:25)
So just to finish with the business plan, this is the request. So Attorney Huig suggests that we could bank on a 3.1% increase, a 5% increase. He said he's not sure if Verizon would give us that before Comcast did.

He said a lot of things with Verizon might depend on them saying, well, we're going to do it when Comcast does it, and we're not going to do it until they do. So we'll see. That doesn't happen until 2026, and that's part of the conversation.

The third channel for public access, and then ask for all channels in HD, and he said you can expect at least one. The other part that I wanted to bring up was a proposed – this isn't in the business plan, but this is something that if you look through the budgets, and we don't have to look through that in detail, but there's a few budgets in there where I really kind of look at what's going to be happening with our funding. You know, if we get 3%, if we get 5%, and if we see the cord-cutting percentage keep going, what can I have to work with over the next 5 to 10 years with all the initiatives we want?

So one of the things that has come up is the upgrading of this auditorium. And in the budget, I didn't necessarily budget for this, but this has become a priority. So one of the things I wanted to – we don't have to do it tonight, but just spark a conversation about possibly upgrading the auditorium to this hybrid status outside of the PEG funds if it can possibly be argued that COVID-related funds could support this.

I did talk to the principal today, and he has a similar interest in using the auditorium for hybrid opportunities for parents who, for whatever reason, can't get to the auditorium, whether it's because of a health concern. He said it's just a lot of times the parents in Boston just can't make it to Swampscott, and he wants to give them the opportunity to participate like this in conversations. So he listed a number of events that could take advantage of that right away.

And I made the same pitch to him. I said, well, why don't – could you talk to the school department and see is there a way that the town and school might be able to cover this? It's about $80,000 to do what we did in here but in the auditorium, because we'd have to add the cameras, all the sound equipment, as well as some type of screen that allows Zoom participants to participate in a way that's big enough for that room.

But it also gives us a second meeting room for even small meetings because you could just contain it on the floor.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:25 - 1:17:28)
How much is it to do it in a room like this, like half?

[Speaker 2] (1:17:28 - 1:17:49)
Well, we didn't put the cameras up, but I spent about $25,000, $30,000 to upgrade this room so that we could do what we do with Zoom, which seems kind of flawless at times. But it was about $30,000 worth of install and equipment to make that audio portion be seamless. So it's not a huge chunk of money, but it's not insignificant on a budget of my size.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:51 - 1:17:56)
So the size is the reason for the – The size of the room? Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:56 - 1:18:20)
Well, why the auditorium? No, no, the size of the auditorium is the reason for $80,000 as opposed to – No, the size is the cost of both the audio as well as installing cameras like this in there because we don't have those in there yet. So I didn't have to do that in here on this round.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I did that in 2015. We actually put about $100,000 into this room.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:20 - 1:18:49)
So, yeah, that's my question, I guess, is I think upgrading the auditorium is a great idea. But my question is if you were to upgrade a similar room to this one that doesn't have any equipment in it, would it be $80,000 in that? So it's the same amount of – relatively the same if you upgraded the auditorium or another classroom.

Or is the auditorium more of a – Does size matter?

[Speaker 2] (1:18:50 - 1:19:29)
The auditorium would add a little bit because part of my conversation with the school was talking with Mr. Pierce, like if we're going to do this, what makes it work for you in terms of performance? So there was a little bit more audio upgrade so that his performers could have a sound system that – I don't know if you've been to one of the plays in there, but it's just like sometimes it's just like torture trying to listen because the mics are all different kinds and they just don't work that well. So it's like, well, why don't we make it work for you?

And we can use all that equipment for town meeting. We can use all that equipment for other things that we might use that auditorium for. So if we were to go to a smaller room, it might be $10,000, $20,000 less.

It could be that difference.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:32 - 1:19:34)
What was the prior contract? How many years?

[Speaker 2] (1:19:34 - 1:19:44)
It was a 15-year contract with Verizon. And he said that it will be a five-year contract with them now. They're going down to five years.

They're not going out 10 years.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:45 - 1:19:50)
Can you tell me what – so you previously said the capital was at $17,000 a year for that 15-year contract?

[Speaker 2] (1:19:51 - 1:19:55)
And so – It was significant back then, total.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:55 - 1:20:31)
It was a significant total. Right. So I guess I'm just – 20,000, an increase to 20,000 is an 18% increase after 15 years.

I'm just saying that when you really think about it in time value of money, it's no increase. You actually are getting less money with your 20,000 than you did with your 17,000 because of the passage of time, which is very confusing to me. It feels like an increase, but it's not an increase.

Your escalation and your inflation on your products outpaced this twofold, maybe threefold, to be honest with you. So your 20,000 is going to buy you a heck of a lot less than your 17,000 15 years ago bought you.

[Speaker 7] (1:20:32 - 1:20:39)
But, Peter, they're also shedding subscribers too. There's no subscriber growth. There's subscriber – we're in decline.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:40 - 1:21:51)
I understand, but that would require me to care about that element. I don't care about that element. What I'm trying to point out here is I get there's a little bit of Stockholm.

The way this process is set up is everybody has Stockholm syndrome. They're all working towards what, frankly, the FCC is going to allow. The fact that counsel – we're openly discussing how we're going to negotiate just tells you a little bit of how pretextual the negotiation is.

All I'm saying on this is that I find that 20,000 to be – counsel may say, well, that's all you're going to get. But if you did it in 15-year-ago dollars, it's less than they were paying 15 years ago. So that's all I'm saying.

So I'm just – to be clear, that rationalizes why you want outside of PEG funding to help you with some things. And I don't blame you. And I probably could get totally behind it, so I'm not judging it.

I'm just saying that's why the need's there, because this money is significantly less for you now on the capital side. I'm not – I get a point on that. My point, though, is that this is – let me ask you about have our legislators chimed in on this bill that is pending.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:52 - 1:22:23)
Yes. Representative Ehrlich and Senator Creighton both signed on as sponsors of the bill. We actually did a really nice communication with them.

I had one of my classes do some research on the bill and invite Representative Ehrlich to come to the class virtually and talk with her about it and ask her if she would be a cosponsor. And she came to the class and she said, absolutely, I'll do it. And so they're both behind it.

They're not the authors of the bill, but they're sponsoring it.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:24 - 1:23:44)
That's interesting. I mean, these bills, I'm always confused about bills like this. The MMA is – at the end of the day, I'm on the board of it, but it's a lobbying firm, right, effectively, right?

They're a public advocacy firm, and they represent 351 cities and towns and they represent nearly 7 million people. But they can't on bills like this. The challenges are real.

The powers that be, the special interests, it's unbelievable to me how little – they're very good at what they do proportionally, right? They just can't. Let me ask you about the new elementary school.

Is the new elementary school – you're not contemplating it here, but let's contemplate it for a minute, which is, is VLAN something that it's built with? Is the infrastructure then going to be better in place? Are there things that we need to be thinking about?

Just to make sure that this programming also exists within the elementary school, right, and can be as dynamic there as it is here. We are so grateful of having it here because we don't even think about the other schools because we literally can't plug a toaster in in the other schools without shutting down the school for a day because we blew all the fuses, right? So I'm curious about that to make sure that we're contemplating that, either in the context of this or just in the greater vision.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:44 - 1:24:18)
There was a meeting that Latanya hosted with, I think the – I don't know if it was the vendor that would be doing the tech or might be doing the tech in that room, and I attended that and talked about having this functionality in one of the rooms in place when the school gets built. And it seemed like that had been discussed and had been thought of and it just, when it got to that point, that would be planned out. So I just said to make sure to keep me in the conversation as things get specified so that we have it.

But he was talking all the language that I would want him to be talking about when we were talking about what a room would have and how it would function.

[Speaker 3] (1:24:19 - 1:25:04)
Steve, it's a great point, and I think as we get into discussions with Verizon and maybe even Comcast, it's something that we should engage them with because, again, under the FCC, there's language that compels them to help us with PEG. Sometimes it's harder to get them to invest in that. But the technology should be contemplated in the future, and it's hard to believe that we're going to be living in a future without PEG, really.

But some suggest that might be the case. Joe, you met with the President of the Mass State Senate yesterday. Did you share a conversation with her about this?

[Speaker 2] (1:25:05 - 1:25:55)
Yeah, it was fantastic. They all kind of wandered into the TV studio as they were discussing the relationship between the senior center and the school and the town in general. And so we were able to talk about how my class and my students were working with the senior center now to engage in a series of talk shows around community conversations.

So that was kind of an impromptu meeting that we had and was able to really highlight some of the ways that educational access and government access have been able to overlap and create this community building. It's a screen community, but it becomes a physical community when my students go over to the senior center and work with that staff and the members of the senior center to help bring those conversations alive.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:56 - 1:27:05)
Joe, I think there were five senators that heard you talk about the importance of connecting our seniors to local origination, connecting our students to local origination, and they were touring a few communities in the Commonwealth and they wanted to come to Swanscot because they've heard that, frankly, we have a local origination and, frankly, a close connection with our senior center. And really, they were very impressed. They spent quite a bit of time here, longer than they thought they would, and I think the investments that we've made really do reflect the commitment to try to engage the community.

So there's a lot of good things that are happening with these programs. They do help address issues of social isolation, loneliness, all the things that I think are hard to get at with other investments, but certainly the traffic on Facebook, the traffic on YouTube, the traffic that we are seeing escalate helps us at least see that there's engagement opportunity.

[Speaker 4] (1:27:08 - 1:27:38)
Thanks. Okay, so I just feel like that bill in the Statehouse, I could be wrong, but it seems inevitable that it will pass, if not this time around. At some point, it's just so moving in that direction.

But with respect to that, if it does, are we still in this five-year contract? Do we know plus that additional?

[Speaker 2] (1:27:39 - 1:28:04)
So there could be a boon if that hits in the next couple of years, whereas this is going down, this will start here, and will probably start going up in terms of the revenue coming from those streaming services. So if that bill passes, I guess I can't, I don't know, I don't know what level that's going to come in at, because if the money comes to the state, then it will get distributed to the communities based on population, other factors that they're going to have to determine.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:04 - 1:28:06)
So in terms of cost and the?

[Speaker 7] (1:28:08 - 1:28:14)
The state makes most of the money, and the local towns and municipalities get the rest.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:14 - 1:28:27)
Yeah, I do not want to, I feel like I'm going to kill Joe's soul here. No, there's no boons, Joe. There's no windfalls to towns, Joe.

Just so you know that by the time the legislature gets done, I guarantee you there's no windfall to a town.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:29 - 1:28:42)
I guess my question is like, so there would be a windfall in funds, but also isn't that an offset in subscriber fees just from the streaming, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:28:43 - 1:28:55)
Arguably it's not a zero-sum game, right? That's what I'm saying. Arguably the streaming service will increase the size of the pie.

Conventional cable may still keep going down, but I think in the aggregate streaming may actually still get a bigger offset.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:55 - 1:28:56)
Right, so like what they're not?

[Speaker 1] (1:28:56 - 1:28:57)
For example, you stream but don't have cable.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:58 - 1:29:11)
Right, so what they used to not, what they used to make in this charge, right, they're now going to just put in some other, I'm really bad with technology.

[Speaker 2] (1:29:11 - 1:29:15)
It's not with Comcast or Xfinity. It comes actually from the content streaming services.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:16 - 1:29:21)
Right, but either way they would, in effect, it would still be as charge on the consumer, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:29:21 - 1:29:22)
Oh, who, where does it?

[Speaker 4] (1:29:23 - 1:29:45)
So I'm saying residences then would be paying this cable access fee for these five years, and if this bill passes now, and it could be pennies because the pool is so large, but I'm just thinking we're concerned about this 5% ceiling, but then if this bill passes, yes, we'd get some kickback or whatever the proper word would be, term, but then also.

[Speaker 11] (1:29:45 - 1:29:47)
Pretty sure kickback's not it.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:49 - 1:29:57)
Financial benefit. I should really write things down before I open my mouth.

[Speaker 7] (1:29:57 - 1:30:03)
Yeah, so 5% of Netflix at $13.99 would be $0.70. That's what I'm saying, but I'm just.

[Speaker 4] (1:30:05 - 1:30:07)
I'm thinking the cost to the consumer.

[Speaker 5] (1:30:07 - 1:30:14)
They'd be doubly hit. Residents who have cable and stream would be getting hit with another fee.

[Speaker 7] (1:30:15 - 1:30:18)
But this legislation has passed in what, a dozen states?

[Speaker 4] (1:30:18 - 1:30:47)
No, that's what I'm saying. That's why I started saying it's inevitable. So I guess there's that.

Considering that that's one concern, but it sounds like financially on consumers it's not going to be a significant one. But on the other end of that, if that does get passed, and most people do seem to be. I don't know.

I guess I was surprised by how many people had cable. So it would seem that getting the revenue.

[Speaker 5] (1:30:48 - 1:30:49)
Kickback?

[Speaker 4] (1:30:51 - 1:31:02)
The kickbacks from the state, from the surcharge at the state level, would give us more money and opportunity.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:03 - 1:31:17)
At that moment, while you still have subscribers on cable, and you're still getting a significant amount of money, and then whatever money comes from this streaming service bill, when that overlaps and things are still good for cable, there'd be a little.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:18 - 1:31:40)
Right, but it would seem like if it passes, then I'm sorry. I'm going to try to focus better on what I'm. This is not my lingo clearly, so I'm having a really hard time being even somewhat making sense.

If the bill passes, this fee on the streaming services, the surcharge, right? It seems like it would be a lower cost, but still bring more money to the town just because of the number of consumers.

[Speaker 13] (1:31:40 - 1:31:40)
Correct.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:40 - 1:31:45)
Compared to the cable surcharge, which seems more substantial.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:46 - 1:31:46)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:47 - 1:32:07)
On fewer residents. So if it is going to pass, I'm wondering if it makes sense to knowing nothing about this and wanting to be totally supportive of your proposals. If it makes sense to wait, would that possibly happen soon enough and the money be significant enough that.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:07 - 1:32:11)
We wouldn't want to put this burden on the subscribers on cable, is what you're suggesting?

[Speaker 4] (1:32:12 - 1:32:13)
That's what I'm wondering.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:13 - 1:34:02)
I don't think so. The legislative process can take a long time. While it has happened in other states, I do think it has a strong lobby.

What I've tried to lean into is the sense that we've got to really own PEG. Five years ago, four years ago, when I got here, we did not have a budget for the cable coordinator. We just spent the money.

And so we didn't build into the town budget a cable function that actually said this is important to us as a community. And so now that we're building discipline in the budget process, we've got to make room for how this really is prioritized in a municipal budget. Understanding that we're going to see ebbs and flows.

A few years ago, there was federal legislation to abolish the FCC and abolish local origination. There are conversations happening nationally about whether or not this is something that is long-term going to be part of what government regulates. What's important, I think, for us on a local policy level is, hey, is it important to our community?

Does this help us as local government reach pockets of our citizens? Does it help us really build community? Does it help us address any number of priorities?

And I think it does. And I think the facts, the empirical data that we have presented, really help us see that this is doing wonderful things and our young citizens are getting engaged. And there's all sorts of positive benefits.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:02 - 1:34:04)
Yeah, I was certainly not suggesting.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:05 - 1:34:59)
Oh, I know. My comments are really just based on there may be a reality that we actually have to, we may have to weather some ups and downs with revenue that are fluctuating. But I think our budget should prioritize this, and I think you can expect that as a community, we're going to continue to try to advance a budget that really works.

We do have to have careful conversations with every line item in this town budget, but I'm glad to see this in the budget, and I'm glad to see that over the last few years, along with a few of our other budgets that have grown significantly, this continues to be a really exciting opportunity. And I would envision that this will continue to advance.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:59 - 1:35:14)
That makes a lot of sense, what you're saying. I get what you're saying. Being super practical for a second here, the full-time staff, would that be another, like, would that be a health insurance, like a full?

[Speaker 3] (1:35:14 - 1:35:18)
Yeah. You know, anything over 20 hours, we have a.

[Speaker 4] (1:35:19 - 1:35:24)
I just didn't know. So it's an additional body with all the benefits. It's not in a stipend form or outside of some regular.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:26 - 1:35:30)
I'm thinking a full-time position with this much production and this much management.

[Speaker 4] (1:35:30 - 1:35:31)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:31 - 1:36:00)
And that actually is, if we were to go, if we wanted to prioritize opening up the studio this year to pilot this public access, we would need to make that position full. If we wanted to maintain all the other stuff we're doing, we would need to make that position full now. And so that's the other line in this slide, is an additional $20,000 from the PEG reserves to cover that full-time.

Well, it wouldn't be $20,000 because it's not a full year now, but to cover that full-time position.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:00 - 1:36:01)
It's not what, I'm sorry?

[Speaker 2] (1:36:01 - 1:36:05)
It's not a full year now because we're already into October, so it wouldn't be $20,000, but.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:06 - 1:36:08)
Oh, I see. I got it.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:08 - 1:36:42)
I didn't budget for a full-time position, so I'm putting this up as a, if we wanted to prioritize this, there is money in the reserves that we could move from the reserves into the active budget with a town meeting vote, but both of these things I think are things that we would have to decide that this was a priority for us. One is, you know, that auditorium, upgrading it, and two is, hey, let's start, you know, is the time now to start public access and open up that studio and let people get going, and if so, there's a little bit of a staff investment that we need to make this year, which.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:42 - 1:36:47)
So I think, like, another, I'm sorry, I'm so clueless about this.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:47 - 1:36:48)
Please.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:48 - 1:36:49)
I can't even.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:49 - 1:36:49)
Ask away.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:49 - 1:36:55)
Like, the most basic questions here, but the pilot program would be for the fully five years?

[Speaker 2] (1:36:56 - 1:37:19)
For the public access channel? If we ask for a public access channel, they'll give us the channel, and there's really no expectation or requirement for what we do with it or how much we show on it, but in five years, they could come back and say, hey, there's nothing on this. You guys wanted this channel.

There's nothing on it. So the pilot program would be more just for us. We opened up this studio one night a week.

We would track how many people came.

[Speaker 15] (1:37:19 - 1:37:21)
So the pilot part, I got it.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:21 - 1:37:25)
That was my language about opening up a public access station and channel.

[Speaker 15] (1:37:25 - 1:37:26)
That's, like, embarrassing.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:26 - 1:37:31)
The channel is permanent. The public access part of it is really up to us.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:31 - 1:37:41)
I get it. No, thank you. And then in the survey, and I read this.

I did. I just don't remember. I'm getting all my pie charts confused, Joe.

[Speaker 13] (1:37:41 - 1:37:41)
Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:42 - 1:37:51)
So did we ask if people who wanted public, the P in PEG, if they wanted to have their bills go up for it?

[Speaker 2] (1:37:52 - 1:37:54)
We asked if people knew whether or not.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:55 - 1:37:55)
Right.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:56 - 1:37:57)
And most people said no.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:57 - 1:37:59)
Right. So they didn't realize it anyway.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:59 - 1:38:01)
I don't think I asked it that specifically. Right.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:01 - 1:38:08)
Okay. And then, again, it might be, like, it goes up 5%, but that's a dollar. I don't know what the actual amount.

[Speaker 2] (1:38:08 - 1:38:15)
It's like a $3 or $4 fee, I think, right now on the subscriber. Like, it's 2.75% of 150 bucks. Per month.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:15 - 1:38:16)
Yeah. I mean.

[Speaker 2] (1:38:17 - 1:38:22)
For some people, that's a lot. For some other people, they probably don't even look at the bill. So I think it depends.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:22 - 1:38:24)
For some people, it's probably a lot, and they don't look at the bill.

[Speaker 2] (1:38:24 - 1:38:24)
Right. Right.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:27 - 1:38:27)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (1:38:34 - 1:38:49)
Joe, as far as the upgrade to the auditorium is concerned, what kind of timeline would that be if you had the funds? If these funds were advanced, and we said, here you go, how long would that process take?

[Speaker 2] (1:38:49 - 1:39:14)
It wouldn't be before what I was told, January or February, just because there's such a log jam of equipment and parts. You just can't get anything because nothing's flowing, you know, from overseas to here. So, like, I'm waiting for a pair of headsets.

We've been waiting six months for a pair of headsets for blocksage field because they just, you know, Sennheiser's not shipping them. So it wouldn't be before the new year. Got it.

Even if we had the funds.

[Speaker 7] (1:39:14 - 1:39:25)
Got it. And then how many potential uses, you know, would there be for the auditorium in addition to just our regular meetings and town meetings? You know, what do you envision there?

[Speaker 2] (1:39:26 - 1:40:39)
Well, there's two types of occasions in there. One would be one where there's live interaction with people who are not here who want to interact, and then there's just audience-based. So those are all the performances that happen in there for the school, you know, whatever other community groups would want to use it.

They could take advantage of the fact that it could be live-streamed without a big crew. Like now to do – prior to do town meetings, I'd need six to eight students to help me because I'd all have to be on camera. I'd have to physically man all the camera positions, and then all the technical stuff.

There's a lot of people that needs to go in there. With a system like this, you know, I've got two students back there running this, and theoretically the two students could run a theater production because the cameras are all set up, and they're hitting presets on the camera that just zoom in quickly to whatever, and all the mics are automatic. So it becomes a lot easier to do something in there.

As an educator, I would still have the ability to have cameras in there and have students behind them so they learn that. But whether it's because I don't want to or I can't have that crew, I could just get one or two students, or even myself, I could probably run the whole thing by myself if I needed to.

[Speaker 7] (1:40:40 - 1:40:47)
So are there any current community groups using the auditorium before COVID?

[Speaker 2] (1:40:47 - 1:41:02)
There's an orchestra that used it on the weekends, and they always wanted us to film it for them, and I just couldn't get the crew for that. I think the Girl Scouts do like a – or the Scouts do like an award ceremony in there. I don't know all the uses in there.

[Speaker 7] (1:41:02 - 1:41:09)
But there are community groups that are using that today. Got it.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:09 - 1:42:19)
So one question I have about it is just that last use is the second committee meeting room, and that's just – I mean, I remember from like Energy Nerd days, like when we were setting up high school rooms for these meetings and other meetings, discussion about like the way the systems work in this building, you know, there were certain rooms that you could use where you could like shut the building down essentially, and there are certain rooms that to condition the space, you're conditioning a lot of other spaces that you're not using. And so I think there are a ton of reasons to use the auditorium for all of those other purposes, but I just would want to know a little bit more from Max and just maybe have those conversations about if you're having a meeting like this in the auditorium and you're conditioning that giant space, like is it worth doing, and are there other options, and just being strategic about scheduling meetings so we're not scheduling a small number of people in there just because there's nowhere else to go.

[Speaker 13] (1:42:19 - 1:42:20)
Right.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:20 - 1:42:29)
So it's just a – it's more of a comment, not a, you know, just to sort of think about when you're thinking about how to do it, maybe to have conversations with Max about it.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:30 - 1:42:31)
Yeah, it's a good concern.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:34 - 1:43:28)
So can I just – to people that are watching, do you mind actually putting down the screen share, please? Thanks, Molly. If you have any questions or want to make any comments about that, please raise your virtual hand, and happy to share.

If there's any comments, people want to e-mail me at pspellios at slomscottma.gov. I'm happy to read those comments as well. Other further comments, questions? I think we're going to – when do you – I guess when do we think we're having a – there's no action required.

This hearing is a precursor to action. Do we leave the public hearing open? And I think you noticed this.

So if we keep it open, we'd have to extend – continue it to a date certain, or else you'd have to republish again, which I don't think we want to do.

[Speaker 13] (1:43:28 - 1:43:29)
I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:29 - 1:43:32)
I don't know if we're supposed to leave it open. I don't know if we're supposed to close it.

[Speaker 12] (1:43:32 - 1:43:44)
I don't know anything. So I appreciate – I think you could recess it. And if you can't, we'll – But don't I have to do it to a date certain?

Yes, a date certain. Right.

[Speaker 3] (1:43:45 - 1:44:35)
And if that's problematic, we can simply reschedule a hearing. This is a proof-of-performance hearing. Really, there's a technical FCC guideline that really is to ensure that the community and the public can talk about the performance of the contract or the license that we have with Verizon, share perspectives about service, share perspectives about hopes and desires for PEG, really keep the community aware and updated about the goals of the license.

Certainly, I think having this recessed and circling back around and broadening that conversation, I think, would be helpful because – Joe, what's the negotiation schedule?

[Speaker 2] (1:44:36 - 1:44:59)
The contract expires November 19th, and I believe Ali has spoken with Attorney Huig about the next steps in making sure that we meet with them to negotiate in time for the contract to come back to a board meeting prior to the 19th so that there's no lapse. I know she was working out those dates with Attorney Huig.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:59 - 1:45:07)
So at the risk of pointing out that I have no idea what we did at our last meeting, can someone remind me when our second meeting is in November?

[Speaker 5] (1:45:08 - 1:45:10)
November is the 17th.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:10 - 1:45:15)
No, no, October is the 20th. November is my question.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:16 - 1:45:21)
November is the second meeting is the 17th, and the first is the third.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:21 - 1:45:26)
I think what I'm going to suggest is continuing this to November 17th.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:26 - 1:45:36)
We would have the contract that we have negotiated with them, I think, at that point. That would be the expectation.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:36 - 1:45:53)
If everyone's willing, I think what I would do is entertain a motion to continue this public hearing until 6 p.m. on November 17th. Actually, I'm going to say 6.30 p.m. on November 17th.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:54 - 1:46:05)
So it wouldn't allow – I'm not suggesting we would – I wouldn't suggest any changes, but that would just basically be to vote to approve it because at that point there's no time for anything else, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:46:06 - 1:46:28)
I think so. I think the business plan is, like as Sean said, it's really we're required to have a public hearing so that the community was involved. Then the next step for us is just to, I guess with your blessing, that looks like a good plan, go get them.

Then the negotiating team would go talk with Verizon and say, here's what we want, and they'd say, well, this is what we'll give you.

[Speaker 3] (1:46:30 - 1:46:50)
It's typical that we need an extension, a month or two, they'd grant that as well. There's opportunity for us to come back, update the board, and then it's my hope that Attorney Hewitt could perhaps have a conversation with the board as well before we finalize.

[Speaker 7] (1:46:50 - 1:47:03)
So might it make sense to extend this hearing until the 3rd of November where we may or may not have that information, and then we could extend it further if necessary?

[Speaker 2] (1:47:03 - 1:47:22)
If I understand the procedure, it seems like if you extend it to the 3rd, that might give us, you might in the meantime, I guess one question is, do you guys feel comfortable with the request that I've put in here as what we're going to go forward with Verizon?

[Speaker 4] (1:47:22 - 1:47:56)
So I think I only am saying, I'll just say that I think when I reviewed everything, my understanding was we weren't voting on it. But by putting it on the 17th, we are effectively voting on it because at that point there's no time to do anything else. And I'm not saying I have ideas in mind.

I'm just pointing that practical reality out. So that's my only concern with the 17th. Again, not that I have specific thoughts.

It's just essentially then tonight a vote, I think.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:56 - 1:48:04)
And I apologize for not having the details of how this works because Allie and Attorney Hewitt were going back and forth, but neither of them here tonight.

[Speaker 4] (1:48:04 - 1:48:12)
I kind of feel a little uninformed. Whatever anybody else wants to do.

[Speaker 7] (1:48:16 - 1:48:21)
I would like to make a motion to extend until November 3rd.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:21 - 1:48:29)
So a motion to continue the public hearing until 630 on November 3rd. Is November 3rd our hearing date, our meeting date? I just want to make sure.

[Speaker 7] (1:48:30 - 1:48:31)
So moved.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:31 - 1:48:32)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 15] (1:48:33 - 1:48:33)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:34 - 1:48:38)
All those in favor? Aye. Thanks, Joe.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:38 - 1:48:39)
Thank you, Joe.

[Speaker 8] (1:48:40 - 1:48:41)
Thank you, Joe.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:41 - 1:48:41)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:44 - 1:49:15)
Next we're going to move on to approval of the consent agenda. The consent agenda is designed to expedite handling of routine and miscellaneous business of the board. The select board may adopt the entire consent agenda with motion or at the request of any board member.

Any item on the consent agenda may be removed and placed on the regular agenda for discussion tonight. We have two consent agenda items. One is to vote to appoint a new member to the open space and rec planning committee.

Second is to vote to approve a one-day liquor license for Seaglass Village. Let me stop here. Molly, do you want to ask Brian to join?

Yes, he is.

[Speaker 15] (1:49:16 - 1:49:18)
I just made him a panelist. I'm going to ask him to unmute.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:19 - 1:49:19)
Great.

[Speaker 16] (1:49:23 - 1:49:28)
So hi, Brian. Hi.

[Speaker 9] (1:49:28 - 1:49:29)
Good evening, everybody.

[Speaker 16] (1:49:29 - 1:49:31)
Hi. Hi. Evening.

Hello.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:32 - 1:49:50)
So Brian has been recommended as an appointment to the open space and recreation planning committee. So Brian, do you mind just telling a little bit about your background? This is easy.

Trust me. Sure. We're not only going to approve you to this, we're going to actually appoint you to six more committees tonight.

So don't worry about it.

[Speaker 9] (1:49:51 - 1:51:20)
Well, that's the goal and that works for me. No, I'm just looking to get involved and learn and meet some people. I grew up in Marblehead.

Where? In Marblehead, Mass. Where's that?

If you haven't heard of it, it's that pretentious town to the north. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Me too. No, it's a good place. I have a good familiarity with Swampscott.

I've been away from the area for, you know, 10 years or so. I was a Peace Corps volunteer and went to grad school in New York. Now I'm a federal employee who was living in Washington for four or five years before moving to Cambridge.

And then last year my wife and I purchased a house in Swampscott and moved back to the North Shore. So my brother lives in Swampscott. He has three boys all in the elementary system.

And my parents still are in Marblehead. So I think we're pretty much embedding ourselves in the community. And as a person who's, you know, involved with politics and government, this is a big interest of mine.

And I've been looking to get involved and learn about the community and really just a way for me to meet some other people who are participative in the community. So I work at the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Transportation. I work more in risk management than I do in infrastructure.

But I think that kind of covers it.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:21 - 1:51:52)
Thanks, Brian. The Open Space Direct Plan Committee is an incredibly organized and driven committee. So I'm sure they're going to be excited to have your expertise.

Any questions or comments from board members? We really appreciate you stepping up and getting involved and hope that you'll continue to get more and more involved. Yeah, thanks for having me.

That's really great. So with that, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

[Speaker 11] (1:51:53 - 1:52:07)
Bear with me just one second, sorry. Three-year term. This is an appointment to a three-year term.

Give me a second here. If it's a three-year term.

[Speaker 1] (1:52:10 - 1:52:15)
Okay, it's a three-year term. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:16 - 1:52:16)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (1:52:17 - 1:52:20)
Thank you very much. Thanks, Brian. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Brian.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:21 - 1:52:21)
Thanks, Brian.

[Speaker 11] (1:52:23 - 1:52:27)
Good night. Thank you, guys. Good night.

All right, we're going to move on now to the town administrator's report.

[Speaker 3] (1:52:37 - 1:55:58)
So we received some information from the Baker administration regarding House Bill 4118 that is related to re-precincting. We have that with community development, and over the next few weeks we will prepare a presentation for the board. We have ongoing conversations about trash and recycling.

This week I met with Wayne Spritz and Johnny Gold, and we continue to look at ways that we can help improve our recycling efforts. I would hope that at our next meeting we have a conversation about our long-range plan for trash and recycling. This week I will have a final interview with a candidate for the vacancy in the ACO position.

We've gone through an extensive selection process, and I'm confident we have a really outstanding individual for that position. Yesterday we did host a contingent of state senators, including the president of the state senate at our senior center. Both Heidi Weir, our director of all ages, and Joe Doulette and high school principal Dennis Cohut did a fantastic job talking about the dynamic that we have here in Swanscot.

Having a senior center that really connects so well to our high school really offers a best practice. We talked about the MSBA and the importance of recognizing all of the needs that exist in communities to have cross-generational connections, and I think they see a lot of the synergies in place in Swanscot. But it was great to have that contingent here, recognizing some of the investments that we've made, both with our senior center and our schools and local originations.

We continue to invest in pedestrian safety infrastructure, but also enforcement. Chief Kurz has reported that we've really had an uptick in the walk and talk and community policing along Humphrey Street and throughout the community, and I think that serves well. I get a lot of comments from residents that they like to see our officers out along Humphrey Street.

I did send another letter to Mass Court to highlight the town's significant concerns about the proposed flight paths. I've reached out to the EPA and to Mass DEP and invited both the EPA and DEP air quality staff to review the proposed flight path changes and give us whatever support they can to help us understand how these flight paths will impact Swanscot. That's my report.

[Speaker 1] (1:55:59 - 1:56:36)
It would be helpful in the pedestrian safety stuff saying that we issued 100 motor vehicle citations doesn't give us any context, right? If last year, this time, we did 200, that wouldn't be good. If we did two, that maybe sounds like it.

I also don't know what a citation is. I think prior conversations that we've had, there's a very high percentage that citation is actually a euphemism. It doesn't mean a ticket.

It means that they were stopped and either a written warning was given or that, and I believe last I checked, we have an extremely high percentage of warnings, something like 8 in 10 citations are warnings, not tickets.

[Speaker 3] (1:56:36 - 1:56:41)
I've gone over the details with Chief Kurz. We'll get the board a breakdown of the citations.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:41 - 2:02:29)
So I think us having that detail is really important to understand it. And I think separately from me, and I'm open to everyone's input on this here, is I believe for the foreseeable future there needs to be a pedestrian safety item on our agenda. When we left the conversation previously, we were going to reconsider the existing Traffic Study Committee and reformulating it, and we've done neither.

We haven't done anything. We still have a Traffic Study Committee. I don't know that they're meeting.

I don't know that we're utilizing them. And I'm just going to say this. I'm not comfortable having it just delegated to staff and for us not knowing what's happening.

I don't believe that we have good intentions aside. I don't think we have a good enough success rate yet that that's how we should be handling it. It needs to be coming to us, and we need to be explaining publicly what we've done, what we're thinking about doing, and what we haven't done.

I just think it's really important, and I would suggest for the foreseeable future that it be a standing thing here. The board still needs to approve certain things. We haven't been asked to approve but literally two things in 18 months.

Now, I know more than two things have happened, which means things have happened without our approval, but I also know that a lot of things haven't happened, right? And so we've got to figure out the system. The system can't be ad hoc, staff doing it, and we have a committee that's not meeting, not doing something.

If that committee is not where we think the solution lies, then let's come up with a better program. I do appreciate what appears to be increased presence, and the walking talk is great on it. I will say that, you know, and I know I've reached out to you, Sean, and I'm just going to share it.

The line striping happened, which is great to have line striping happen, but the line striping happened in every single space right before a crosswalk was, again, striped for parking, right? Even though we've talked time and time again about crossing those off to make sure that there's clearance before a crosswalk so people coming into crosswalks can be visible to oncoming traffic. We put some temporary protectors down by the Cross for Kings beach, right?

Those have been pushed aside to the curb now going on two weeks. No one can move them back because they're filled with water, and so a car had to have moved them to the curb, but it's now been two weeks that they've been moved to the curb, and they're still sitting next to the curb and not moving out there. So it's that kind of thing so that we can see the global plan to understand how we really are going to make this walkable and solvable.

I appreciate the Jersey barriers in certain places to narrow things, but that's an interim step. What's the long-term plan, right? We're about to enter winter season, and I don't know, are those Jersey barriers staying?

Are they leaving us? Are we looking at curb improvements? And then the last thing I guess I would ask for you to come back to and ask you just to give us an update on, there's a tremendous amount of roadway construction happening in our town.

It's not repaving. That's not the construction I'm talking about. While repaving actually has started in certain parts of town, the roadway construction is mostly National Grid doing gas main and the town doing sewer line and water work.

I think we need a comprehensive list of the streets that are impacted, the streets that are currently bonded streets. For example, Berkshire was paved last year and has been totally dug up. Devons was paved in the last five years, has been totally dug up.

As a matter of fact, they're going on, I think, over a month now of that road being closed during the day for a gas main replacement. My understanding is that Farragut is next on the list. Farragut was paved last year.

And the list goes on and on and on, and I get that stuff happens, that even for bonded streets that we've got to open it up, right, and do these work. I want to make sure that the responsible party is adequately funding and reimbursing the town to completely repave streets, right? Berkshire is a perfect example.

It's unbelievable. It was literally done last summer, I believe, and it's totally dug up. Now, some of it's us because I think some of it has been that, but like we talked about before, the project then needs to account for that, right?

The Stacey Brooke budget that we keep putting money into has to account for roadway improvements, so it's not taking away from our Chapter 90 funds and the other town appropriated funds to do streets because then the other streets aren't getting done because we're doing that. I agree. We need to have just greater clarity on this because we all hear it, and frankly, we all see it, and it's very hard to understand when you have Farragut, which has right now a bunch of 6x6 patches from where the water main, I think, and the Stacey Brooke work was done and has now been marked up, I understand, for the gas main work.

It needs to get done. I get the work needs to get done, but it doesn't. I think with a little bit more information, we'll have increased confidence that we have the funding mechanisms and the schedule so that when we go to Devon's Road, not only do we tell them, hey, we're going to shut your road down during the day for a month, we also tell them, and this is the plan to restore your street, right?

And I know Gina's been very good about letting things settle, right? For example, when we patch, he wants it to settle for several months, right, so that it goes away. That's fine.

But I think it's fair to give residents an expectation about when their streets are going to be brought back to an acceptable condition, and I'm sure there are more streets than the ones I've just stated. Those just happen to be the ones that I pass by quite frequently as well. For a long time, you've been talking about an improved roadway management, paving management plan.

We haven't seen evidence of that yet. So I know you have a vision for it, but if you can bring it forward and advance that conversation, and I think that will integrate nicely with all this, like the roadway improvements.

[Speaker 3] (2:02:29 - 2:03:36)
I think it will. I think you're right, Peter. I think we should carry pedestrian safety on the agenda, and we should show up every week, and we should answer the question, what have we done, what are we doing, and what's the long-range plan?

I've had extensive discussions with Chief Kurz and staff about the committee, and I think I'd like to bring them to the meeting and we can talk about how we can share those responsibilities. I certainly understand the importance of pedestrian safety. It's a huge concern for all of us, and I think there's a lot of good work that we can continue to do, but you're right that we need to have a concert of understanding, and there's important work that we have to outline in terms of how we sequence the work.

It's frustrating to pave a road and then rip it up a year later. That's a frustration that I think we all share, and we can talk a little bit about how we can get a better handle on sequencing.

[Speaker 7] (2:03:38 - 2:04:12)
Sean, about trash and recycling, at our next meeting, are we going to have a reading? Do we have a contract, or have we negotiated an agreement? We do.

So we do, and that will have two readings? It will. Okay, so by the first meeting of November, we will have a contract that we will— By hold.

Okay. That was the first question. The second question was around the new school discussion at the Senior Center.

Is that still happening tomorrow? Hours are— Noon. Noon to 1?

[Speaker 3] (2:04:13 - 2:04:20)
Maybe noon to 2, depends on the— Is that being televised or streamed as well?

[Speaker 7] (2:04:20 - 2:04:20)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:21 - 2:04:23)
Great. It's not live.

[Speaker 7] (2:04:23 - 2:04:32)
It's not live. Not live, but it will be—but we can push that out and make sure that the seniors who are not able to be in the room will have access to that information.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:32 - 2:04:39)
To be clear, my understanding is that this is a question-and-answer forum. This is not an advocacy. It's to answer questions about it.

[Speaker 3] (2:04:39 - 2:04:47)
Town staff are showing up to present information, answer questions. That's all. Okay.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:47 - 2:05:15)
I have one other thing. I would appreciate you—staff is really, really busy, but I would appreciate you reaching out to staff and reinforcing the idea that every inquiry should be responded to within 24 hours, even to say, I've got your inquiry, I've got your complaint, I've got your concern. I'll be back to you.

Silence and delay is not okay, so let's just make sure that we're just reminding staff to do that. It goes a long way.

[Speaker 11] (2:05:15 - 2:05:16)
Agreed.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:16 - 2:05:33)
Just to know that it was received and something's in the works. And, again, I appreciate how busy everybody is, so we may not substantively be able to get to the substance of it, but I think it needs to just help to reinforce that fact.

[Speaker 11] (2:05:37 - 2:05:38)
Other questions or comments for Sean?

[Speaker 5] (2:05:40 - 2:06:46)
On the flight path mass port issue, Sean, I appreciate the initiative that you're taking on this and how proactive you're being in communicating with folks. I think that—I mean, for me personally, I just want to make sure that our communications that go out, this change is actually benefiting a community, even though it's a disparate benefit to us. So I want to make sure that we are not advocating for no benefit to those who are benefiting from this change and just we're asking for, like, why this third way wasn't explored or why there isn't an option such that we wouldn't be feeling, you know, essentially all the benefits.

I appreciate that. I just want to make sure that that's clear. I know that you're saying that in a lot of your communications, but I just want to make sure that you sort of keep saying it and leading that sentiment, at least for me personally, I think that's important.

[Speaker 3] (2:06:47 - 2:08:31)
I just wanted to go off the water a little further. Yeah, I know. And so I get the utilitarian greatest good for the greatest number, but it's not good enough in a 21st century perspective to say, in this day and age, we're going to shift the environmental impact to any human being without a full measure of an understanding of what that is, how we can mitigate it, and how our public safety and public health staff working for the EPA, DEP, and Massport and any other, you know, agency can help us as stakeholders. I don't get why our stakeholders and these critical agencies weren't part of the process. I don't get why Massport didn't include a scope of work for MIT's environmental, you know, department as opposed to all the other technical departments that they've paid money to have produced this report.

Something was missing, and Swampskate residents deserve to know that we are going to demand that they get that advocacy. And I'm not going to equivocate on a sense that we should do the greatest good for the greatest number, but we also should do it in a way that reflects a principle about how we care about human health and human safety. I think this is missing that, and I think we need to work with Massport and other agencies to ensure that they do the right thing.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:33 - 2:08:57)
It is hard after listening to that professor from MIT who made a presentation a few weeks ago, and I appreciate you. I couldn't figure out how to take myself off mute, which is funny. It's hard.

Without being too cynical, it's hard to believe this is... It all seems like they've wrapped an argument around just increasing efficiency.

[Speaker 13] (2:08:58 - 2:08:58)
Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:58 - 2:09:06)
It really does. I tried to be very open-minded and listen to it to be able to say how does this make sense, why does this make sense.

[Speaker 4] (2:09:06 - 2:09:07)
They had a plan, they fit it together.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:07 - 2:09:33)
And it just feels like they've wrapped intellectual rationale and academic rationale around something that allows greater volume and efficiency, economic efficiency, efficiency, cost efficiency. And at the same time, they've tried to balance it in a way to say, well, how do we do that without pissing off the most amount of people. And so it's kind of like redistricting.

We have to move pieces around.

[Speaker 12] (2:09:33 - 2:09:34)
I've done that, too.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:34 - 2:10:22)
And how do they do it? It's very hard to think otherwise. It is.

And I think that we've got to think about, and I think, Sean, you've done a good job and you've taken charge and you're being vocal about it here, but I think about all the things in my six or so years on this board that will have a direct impact on everyone's life. And I'm trying to think of something that will have more of a direct impact. We talk about taxes and we talk about finances.

Yep, that's really important. Those are things. But the volume of flights per day that they're talking about that will now be directly over Swampscot proper is, like, huge.

Right? And it's not insignificant at all. People will be reminded on an every-12-minute basis of what the number is.

[Speaker 3] (2:10:23 - 2:10:26)
It's not just Swampscot, though. It's DCRs, the beaches, everybody.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:27 - 2:11:01)
I appreciate that. But I'm speaking about Swampscot right now. I'm just saying that I want to make sure that we are making sure that they do everything we can to speak to residents to say, make your voice heard.

Maybe we give them a way to make their voice heard. Maybe we do a petition that they can sign on the town website. Right?

That they can add their name to something. Or let's just think about ways to get them activated so they feel that they're part of the solution as well. Right?

Because I think a lot of people don't know about it just because life's busy. And then, secondly, you can only do so much, I think, frankly, power in numbers. Right?

[Speaker 4] (2:11:01 - 2:11:01)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:01 - 2:11:03)
And maybe try and activate our community on this.

[Speaker 4] (2:11:04 - 2:12:43)
I think I totally agree. And really, I'm excited by that idea. And I think, to Neil's point, and I think what Neil's saying, and if it's not, it's what I'm saying, but what I thought you were saying, is that it's not like, hey, do what you were doing before because it was less flights.

We don't really, you know, sure, there's four times more Berlin now, but Swampscot's taken care of. The idea is there's an entire ocean out there. We've got to figure it out that none of us have to, like, suck the fumes that we can, that are literally, you can at times, you can see the, you know, read from the bottom of the plane.

So I think just emphasizing it is environmental. It is quality of life. But I think the larger point I'm trying to make in the advocacy, if it could be shown that it's an absolute necessity in order to fly planes, this has to happen, and it's going to disbenefit Swampscot, but, you know, proportionally Lynn is equally disbenefited, okay.

But to Peter's point, I doubt that's happening. And until that happens, you know, we want to advocate for something that's more equitable, but more so there's really an entire area where nobody lives, and it's vast, and I'm pretty sure they could figure out a way that none of the communities have to suffer as much as they have been. And I just, you know, it's not at the expense of other communities that I want Swampscot not to suffer, I guess, is what I'm adding to.

Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:12:43 - 2:12:54)
It does feel like a big box was checked at their last meeting. Yeah. They checked a box.

Nothing about it felt interesting, dynamic, open.

[Speaker 13] (2:12:54 - 2:12:55)
Were you on it, David?

[Speaker 1] (2:12:55 - 2:13:14)
It was literally a big, I actually would have loved the visual if they just at the end of it, a big sharpie to check the box because I think that would have been awesome. All right, so keep making noise. You've got to let us know where and when and how we are helpful, Sean.

I appreciate that you take these initiatives, and that's really great. But let us know.

[Speaker 3] (2:13:15 - 2:14:11)
Yeah, I think, you know, I agree. I think there will be a time for a lot of these things. Right now, I think it's most important that we put together a group of stakeholders that really can help us get educated about the public health impact and understand more about, you know, ways that we can mitigate.

I really do think that there should be a trial before they do anything. I think we should know exactly what the impact will be so that we can then work with mass support to talk about how we mitigate it. It's hard for me to think that they'll just thrust this upon a community without at least understanding the impact and then having a conversation about ways to mitigate it.

[Speaker 12] (2:14:15 - 2:14:16)
Select board time.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:20 - 2:15:44)
All right, while you're thinking about your profound things you're going to say, early voting, live voting at town hall begins this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. continuing on Tuesday. Monday is a holiday. Tuesday from 9 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. And Friday, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. If that is not enough, you can still, between now and end of business on Wednesday, you still can request a mail-in ballot or an absentee ballot. Just go to the town website and fill out the application to get either a mail-in or an absentee. For mail-in, you need no excuse whatsoever. You can just fill out the application, receive the ballot.

The ballots all need to be received by close of polls on Election Day, which is Tuesday, October 19th. So we hope that people take advantage of these options to do early voting. This is obviously a very important topic, and everyone's voice should be heard on it.

So please take advantage, and thank you to the clerk and all the poll sitters and all the staff for their extra hours and their extra efforts to make this a successful town-wide vote. With that, hearing nothing else, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second. All those in favor?

[Speaker 12] (2:15:44 - 2:15:49)
Aye. Aye. Good night, everyone.

Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you.