[Speaker 1] (0:29 - 3:26)
Good evening everyone, welcome to the November 3rd, 2021 Select Board meeting. Tonight, we have not too heavy of an agenda. I wanted to say that first of all, thank everybody in advance for bearing with me while I figure out how to navigate chairing these meetings, even though I have it practically memorized when other people do it.

It's a little different doing it myself. So tonight, we are here live at the high school. The meeting is also being recorded for online viewing on Zoom and also Facebook, and also on government access TV.

So if you're watching virtually on Zoom, you can raise your virtual hand if you have a question or comment. And you can, obviously, if you're here, we'll have a public comment session. And you're welcome to also email me if you prefer to do that instead, and I will try my best to check my email and make sure that I catch any questions or comments that come that way.

And my email is ptickham, which is my letter of my first name and then my last name at swanscottma.gov. So thanks. As I said, tonight, we have a meeting, we're going to start with public comment. Is anyone here to comment about anything other than the protests?

Just raise your hand if you are. Okay. All right.

So I think what we'll do is we'll just take public comment. If there were other comments on other subjects, yeah, I would take those first and then we could address that at the time that we take up that issue. But we'll start with public comment.

We also then have a discussion on the protests for the board, a discussion with the Swanscott Housing Authority. We have a joint meeting, an update on the Human Resources Department, a review and discussion of the draft warrant for special fall town meeting, and a second reading of the solid waste policy. Before we get into the substance of the agenda, I'd like us to stand and pledge allegiance.

Thanks everyone. So I guess without further ado, we can start taking public comment. If you are comfortable coming up to the microphone and stating your name and address, that would be helpful.

And then if you would prefer to sit, we can bring a microphone over to you instead.

[Speaker 2] (3:29 - 3:33)
Just raise your hand if you want to speak. We can bring the microphone to you or you can come on down.

[Speaker 11] (3:45 - 4:18)
I'm Ann Gold. I live on Phillips Ave. I just have concerns with the protesters, with the languages being used, with the threats that are being screamed at members of our community. And it's on a weekly basis, sometimes more than twice a week.

And I just don't think it's fair that the town has to, no matter what side you're on, has to be subject to that all the time with the level of hostility that is happening down there. It's just not right. That's not what our town is about.

So I appreciate you taking some attention to this.

[Speaker 1] (4:26 - 4:28)
Can anyone else? Sure.

[Speaker 10] (4:35 - 4:41)
Hi, my name is Krista Bonaduce and I have the same, I'm in agreement with the previous thoughts.

[Speaker 7] (4:42 - 5:29)
And this has just been going on way too long. My son is at Hadley School and I don't know what they are protesting now at the monument, but there are people there actually now. And the things that were said a couple of Saturdays ago weren't on the level of just bad language.

It was beyond that. And it's very disturbing to be near a school and to have police there constantly. My son came home saying they were filming him.

And I just don't know what's going on in their heads as they're sitting in the class. Is there protection for me, you know, as a child? And it's concerning and I'm here to speak up for the kids.

[Speaker 14] (5:30 - 5:31)
Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (5:31 - 5:31)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (5:41 - 6:03)
I'll try not to blow it already with checking my email. Let's see. Anyone else in the room?

Oh, there's some hands raised as well. Anyone else here would like to share? Okay.

So I guess Aaron Burdoff is online and we want to unmute him. Thank you.

[Speaker 12] (6:04 - 9:11)
Hello. This is Aaron Burdoff. Thank you for taking my comment and still allowing virtual attendance of these meetings.

Much appreciated. I just wanted to comment, piggybacking a little off of Chris's comments here about how it feels like we're repeating a show that happened last year where we have these wild buffoons stand at the monorail. Let's call them what they are.

They're hate rallies. They're not protests. They, you know, spew hate speech, wild conspiracy theories.

They harass people. They make threats against people. And then, you know, town leadership goes and confers with town council and they say you can't really do anything because it's First Amendment.

The police ask for more tools to be used, but again, town council says, well, we can't really give you anything. And then all the while, you know, members of our LGBT community, our Black community, our Latino community, our Asian community are wondering, you know, like, who has their backs? Like Chris has said, who has the kids' backs as well?

And who's going to step up while they're actively being told they are not wanted here, they're not safe here? So I know a lot of people want punitive things to happen to this group and I understand the difficulty in doing that. But I do want to encourage the board to think about positive action we can take moving forward.

You know, things like announcing the pride flag, the Juneteenth flag will stay up year round. That's a positive step forward and that's a direct contradiction to what these people at the monument, let's say their names, Annalisa, Mary Beth, there's Skip O'Neill, Chris Guy. We can vote to rename Columbus State as Indigenous People's State.

You can do that in five minutes right now. Ask Sean to change the calendar on that. We can put out a denouncement of those that are using our town as a platform for hate speech and conspiracy theories and also provide free counseling services to those affected for this or feel negatively impacted by this through the public health department.

We could ask the school committee to press the superintendent to stop sending the uniformed police officers to student of color's houses for administrative tasks. You know, just little things that we can take in positive action to move our community forward, to make it more inclusive, be more welcoming, while we, on the side, try to figure out this big legal question as to what can be done. And again, I know there's difficulty in figuring that out.

But I just want to encourage the board to make sure they are appropriately reaching out to people who are potentially affected by these things because we can't expect people to always show up at this particular venue and be vulnerable, you know, in the public face in this particular setting. I think we need to create some sort of form, some sort of avenue that is more conducive to making sure the right people are voicing their concerns with this. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (9:13 - 9:37)
Thank you, Aaron. Okay. Michael Picard.

Oh, I apologize. Mr. Picard, we have unmuted you.

[Speaker 13] (9:37 - 9:38)
Can you hear me now?

[Speaker 1] (9:38 - 9:39)
Yes. Thank you.

[Speaker 13] (9:39 - 9:40)
Okay. Sorry about that.

[Speaker 1] (9:40 - 9:41)
No, no, don't worry.

[Speaker 13] (9:42 - 11:25)
Good evening, Select Board. My name is Michael Picard, and George Soros paid me $50 to be here. As I'm sure you are well aware, a woman named Annalisa Gentile has graced this town with her wonderful presence.

Among many other notable appearances in Swampstat, she has expressed concern with the LGBTQ flag hanging at the town hall. I, too, have some concerns. Annalisa and I are shocked, outraged, that there is only one LGBTQ flag hanging in town, in a town that claims to support the LGBTQ community.

That is why, in honor of Annalisa, and as a fitting tribute to her boundless bravery and courage in coming forward to right a wrong of historic proportions, and because she has given to us, George Soros and I propose that this Board commit right now to erecting even more LGBTQ flags around town. I'd say one every 10 feet or so, but we're willing to consider 20 feet as well. We would ask, nay, we would demand, that this Board establish the Annalisa Gentile Center to Enhance LGBTQ Rights, where elementary schoolers can be re-educated.

Together, we can turn every man, woman, child, furry friend, and frog gay, thanks to Annalisa's progressive vision for Swampstat. Thank you, and I'll take any questions you may have.

[Speaker 1] (11:27 - 11:45)
Thank you, Mr. Picard. Mr. Rowan, I apologize for probably misspeaking your last name. Yep, there you go.

[Speaker 16] (11:45 - 11:46)
You can hear me okay?

[Speaker 1] (11:46 - 11:47)
Yes, thank you.

[Speaker 16] (11:48 - 13:12)
Okay, thank you, and thanks for, I know I just emailed, I've never done this before, so I appreciate your responding. So, my issue with this situation, I noticed on the agenda it was written as protests, and we've described these people as protesters, and I don't actually think that is necessarily the main issue, because I think most of us are okay with protests, and even if people are protesting things that we don't agree with, we still respect everyone's right to protest. The thing that I am concerned with is that, and this is with my own ears, I've heard, they are saying very sexually inappropriate things to children, and that to me is a different kind of a red flag than just, you know, we don't like what you're protesting.

When they say things like, you know, they're yelling at kids that the president is a pedophile, and the president wants to have sex with kids, and all other kind of horrible things, to me having that in front of a school seems just, it seems like a wrong that could be easily righted. I'm not sure how you guys would do it, but yeah, to me that seems different than just protesting. It seems more of a behavior that is harmful, or is harmful to children.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (13:12 - 13:21)
Thank you. Okay, any other comments that you see?

[Speaker 2] (13:22 - 14:07)
I know that this will be an agenda item. I did want to just point out that this past year we did have the pride flag in front of town hall, but also in front of the police department, fire department, and EPW, and I actually like Mr. Picard's suggestions and certainly we can follow up on a few of those. Aaron also suggested that we look at renaming Columbus Day.

Proclamation has already been drafted, and it's anticipated that we will discuss that at this year's annual town meeting. So I think, you know, there's some great positive steps that we can take. It's on our agenda, so we'll get into the substance of that conversation a little later in the meeting.

[Speaker 1] (14:09 - 14:28)
Great. Okay, so thank you everyone for your comments, and they're timely on the agenda as well. The first item up on new business is a discussion of the weekly protests in Swampscott, and we did ask, we have Chief Kurz here, correct?

He was here?

[Speaker 2] (14:28 - 14:28)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (14:29 - 15:39)
And Captain Joe Cable. Thank you both for joining us, for the police department, of course. And we did, unfortunately, we tried very hard to have town council attend the meeting tonight.

No one who was specializing in the First Amendment was available for our meeting, but we, to the extent that we still have questions, which I wouldn't be surprised if we did, we can ask them to attend a future meeting and give us more of a summary to fill in any gaps that we're still seeing from questions from residents and the board as well. So for now, I just, I want to turn it over to either Sean or either of you, Chief or Captain, to kind of just, I think it'd be helpful to give a summary, although I know that we've all been through it, that have been involved in recent years at these meetings and attending, that we've had the summaries before of basic First Amendment rights. It is, they are strikingly broad, you know, at first blush, so I think that would just help as a baseline, and then we can get more specific about the laws from there.

[Speaker 2] (15:39 - 15:39)
Sure.

[Speaker 17] (15:39 - 15:40)
Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (15:40 - 18:58)
Thanks, Polly. I think, you know, what's important for everybody to understand is that many of us feel the same way about the vulgarity and indecency of some of the comments and behaviors. I don't want to have this conversation mirror the conversation we had about a year ago, where we, again, had the same conversation about protests that were inciting hate and inciting, you know, bigotry and intolerance.

Those aren't values of Swanscot. In fact, we've made it clear we're a community that's welcoming and inclusive, and we're taking steps to really build a generation that sees Swanscot as a place where wonderful things happen. Unfortunately, you know, I wish we had the ability to protect everybody from some of these vulgarities.

Town Council has advised us that we cannot curb free speech, and even if it's uncomfortable, it becomes really upsetting. You know, I've asked Chief Kurz and, frankly, Chief Madigan a number of times to work with Town Council to come up with strategies to protect pedestrian safety, to look at traffic safety. We have a very dangerous road there.

We know that we have pedestrians that like to walk along the waterfront, and when we have a convergence of a protest with high traffic, pedestrian traffic, it creates a nexus that is, quite frankly, just dangerous, and, you know, we continue to explore strategies for how we can work cooperatively with protesters or folks that would want an assembly there, but it's very difficult to, you know, relocate individuals. You know, they have to be willing to move. With that, Chief Kurz has been in touch with the ACLU to really look at, you know, strategies for how we can work with, in our rights to have common sense discussions about how we protect our young citizens that are going to school.

You know, the language that is being shouted off loudspeakers is offensive and is disturbing, and it bumps up against common sense guidelines for decency. With that, Chief, could you share a few perspectives from the police department's responsibilities and perhaps, you know, where we can make some changes that would help us continue to manage carefully a balance between our rights to peace and happiness and individuals' rights to free speech?

[Speaker 5] (18:59 - 22:31)
Yes, thank you, Sean, and thank you for allowing me to be here tonight, and Board of Selectmen. You know, my discussion with you starts off with, it comes on the heading of frustration, because that's what we are feeling now at the police department, and trying to balance the, you know, the right of free speech with what is considered to be obscene, and that, again, is a moving target. I presented town legal counsel with a permit system that was being used in other cities so that we could try to control this in some fashion.

It's used in other communities and other states, and there was a deep concern from legal counsel. Now, that being said, legal counsel is designed to give us just that, legal counsel, and we can certainly decide to listen to it and then make other decisions, but obviously we ask them for the best advice so that we can protect, you know, the risk of the community, the town specifically, from litigation. And as many people may know, and I don't want to make assumptions, many of these freedom of speech lawsuits comes under what they call a 1983, which means that if they sue the community and prevail, that the town would not only be responsible for the damages, for whatever that would be, but also for all the legal fees associated with that, which would be, in some cases, pretty staggering.

So that's one point that we made upon my arrival here, to try to put, as Aaron pointed out, a tool on our belt so that we could manage this. The other thing is that it seemed logical to me to, everyone kept talking about the ACLU will sue in about five minutes if you do this, so I contacted them. And I said, well, you know, I know you serve everyone, I'm the interim police chief in Swanscar, can you help serve us so that we can figure out how we can work collaboratively to ensure that people have free speech, yet protected from this, what many consider obscene language, and now is nearing our schools and upsetting parents, children, with some of the things that most of us believe to be obscene.

So I've had that discussion with them, they've committed to get back to me, they're pondering if they want to have a discussion, they were very actually uniquely surprised that a municipality was calling them to ask them above being preempted. So we're also thinking outside the box in that capacity. I do want to, you know, turn this over a little bit, I do want to turn this over to Joe, so that he can talk about some Massachusetts laws and the nuances that affect it.

And then we've just had a development today and he can articulate that also, and then I'll come back.

[Speaker 17] (22:32 - 22:33)
Thanks, Chief.

[Speaker 9] (22:34 - 24:04)
Thank you, Chief, thank you to the board for having us here tonight. Yeah, so as the Chief outlined, it's a constitutional issue, it affects the whole country, but in Massachusetts, our Declaration of Rights is usually interpreted even more strictly than the U.S. Constitution. So even what is unacceptable in other parts of the country, unfortunately, Massachusetts receives a higher level of protection, generally, without speech.

The tool that is most often cited is an option for this kind of behavior and would be in context outside of a First Amendment is some sort of disorderly conduct charge or disturbing the peace charge. The law is very specific in that, that it doesn't constitute a useful purpose to the person that's doing it, and the courts have determined that protest is a useful purpose. And therefore, generally, it is not a tool that we can use on the language.

On the vulgarities and the talking to children, we do have some laws that we can implement there, but we have had to have an identified and willing victim in a previous case that mirrored the one that was recently referenced in front of the Hadley School. We were not able to get the parents and the children to be willing to come forward and identify themselves as victims. That's a little different in the recent case that's come up, and I can say, as the chief mentioned, that we do have charges pending, and we expect those to be processed through the court in the very near future.

[Speaker 1] (24:06 - 24:22)
Thanks, Captain. If you, um... Since you shared it publicly, I'm assuming that you're okay just giving a little more context?

I'm not actually aware. This is referring to an incident where...

[Speaker 9] (24:23 - 24:48)
Without getting into the details, I'm referring to the incident the gentleman brought up about the sexualized language being directed at children near the school. Certainly that can fall outside of the protest. It's not...

The children aren't a part of the protest, and it doesn't serve a reasonable purpose, and we haven't been able to identify a law that we can apply there, and we have actually filed charges in the courts.

[Speaker 17] (24:49 - 24:49)
Okay, great.

[Speaker 9] (24:50 - 25:01)
Can you articulate what the charges are for them, Joe? So it will be annoying and accosting, a person of the opposite sex, and disturbing the peace.

[Speaker 1] (25:04 - 25:25)
Thanks. Okay, and then along those lines, could you just... I'm sorry that I didn't catch it.

Could you just quickly summarize again? The town or towns are able to come up with regulations if they're able to identify, um... and a willing victim?

Could you just explain...

[Speaker 9] (25:25 - 25:43)
I was referring to the idea of charging people over the sexualized language. I know that it's... Okay.

People are brought to the board that it's happened previously. In that case, we did not have a victim or families that were willing to have their children be identified as victims. In this case, we do, which has allowed us to proceed with charges in this particular case.

[Speaker 1] (25:44 - 25:46)
Thanks for clarifying. Sorry, I misheard that.

[Speaker 7] (25:46 - 26:09)
Captain Cable, just a quick question there. If a child and or a parent is to come forward and this is to happen again, I mean, is the child's identity protected? Since he or she would be a minor?

Would certainly be protected from being released by the police department.

[Speaker 9] (26:09 - 26:28)
We would not release any report that would include that child's name. Depending on the accommodations of the court, they would likely have to appear and testify in court and then the protection of their identity would rest there. But they're absolutely protected by the Swampscott Police Department and they would not be released.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Speaker 1] (26:31 - 28:19)
So, there's a, I'm missing the word right now, but it's a key case from the Supreme Court that just, it's just to summarize as a basis of some further questions that I have and maybe others have as well. It's from Snyder V. Phelps.

Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community or when it is a subject of legitimate news interest, that is, a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public. The arguably inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern. And then, and then a different case, oh no, this might be later in the same case, I'm sorry, yes.

That speech is entitled to special protection, we all, I think, know that by now, but such speech cannot be restricted simply because it's upsetting or arouses contempt or prohibits the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. And so, even if it's misguided or even hurtful. And I'm just reading those excerpts because you know, I think we are, of course, working within that framework, but I'm wondering how that applies to, you know, being within earshot, I guess it's just the most basic question, but being within earshot of children or a school and if that changes the application of that law, the parameters of that foundational principle at all, if there's any legal authority or enforcement in that respect.

[Speaker 9] (28:21 - 28:23)
Is that directed to me?

[Speaker 1] (28:23 - 29:06)
Any, I guess either of you, and I'm sorry that town council couldn't be here for this meeting, I'm frustrated by that, but they couldn't attend, so if you don't have the answer, that's fine, and maybe, I don't know, I don't know if Sean would, but you know, it does seem like the level of concern, it isn't just I think we all, I don't want to hear it, but you know, I can choose to go a different way, or I'm an adult, it's not going to shape my thinking, whatever, but you know, I am a parent of young children, and if I had to, if I had no other way of getting there, or my child had to learn in the building where they were hearing it on a megaphone all day, you know, I think that's very different, and so I just don't know if that changes the analysis at all.

[Speaker 9] (29:07 - 29:49)
So that came up a number of times over the past year, some of the things that the town administrator was talking about, the location with the traffic, the pedestrians that want to get by, the proximity to the schools, and a couple of daycares in the area, the fact that it's one of the major egresses for our fire department to reach that side of town, and the people were spilling into the street, and we brought those concerns to town council to see if they felt that that changed the dynamics, and none of those things did in their opinion at the time. They advised us to request people move voluntarily, which we've done many times, and unfortunately we were not successful with that.

[Speaker 1] (29:50 - 30:34)
Sorry. I guess more specifically too, then, you know, from what I've seen on what's been recorded and shared on social media, I guess, is almost the, you know, it's more than just saying out loud things I don't want to hear, it's, you know, I wouldn't want to hear, others don't want to hear, not everybody would, but also speaking directly to individuals who are young children, and so I guess if that's considered speech, or if that crosses the line into something in like a harassment area, or how it might affect being an adult versus a child, just that, just...

[Speaker 9] (30:34 - 30:54)
It does have, it is a factor, and that is a factor in why we were able to bring charges in this case where so many times before we have that has not been an option on the table. The fact that they were children clearly not engaged in the protest, and the speech clearly had no seeming political purpose that we could identify.

[Speaker 6] (30:54 - 31:43)
Okay. Makes sense. So, Captain Cable, just like along those lines, I mean, I was struck that the charges don't have anything to do with children.

I mean, it sounded like it's annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex and disturbing the peace. And so, I mean, I think it's just interesting that it's a person of the opposite sex, for one. Like, I don't know why that matters.

But also, it sounds like that could be a relevant charge whether they're children or not, so if there's a passerby, and they're folks accosting them, whether they're children or not, that's a charge that could be brought to some of these people? Is that reasonable to think?

[Speaker 9] (31:43 - 32:09)
Certainly, we've had similar complaints to that, and we've sought advice as to whether or not that would be appropriate, and the answers that we have received are they or not. The fact that they're children and clearly not engaged in the protest and not engaged in the back and forth and can't really be expected to understand the nuances of what's going on is absolutely a factor in the change.

[Speaker 5] (32:12 - 33:49)
I think this is an appropriate time to talk about a little bit of the oftentimes the law and common sense go in different directions, and this is clearly one of them. I can only assure you that every member of the police department is as frustrated with our inability to do something for what is just we all recognize as being bad, and in this case, as the captain has pointed out, we were not only able to have children that were the victim of this grossness, but we were also able to have the parents support the charges going forward, which are then reviewed by the district attorney who really ultimately decides whether the charges are going, and that's not a statement to do a Pontius Pilate wash our hands of any responsibility here. It's just that there are things that govern us as police to move forward with the criminal prosecution, and clearly we can see all these matters, and I can be sent film after film after film of people being engaged in this obscenities, but no one seems to want to come forward to say they were offended, upset, threatened, those kinds of things which are clearly an element of the law, and it's incredibly frustrating for us

[Speaker 17] (33:49 - 33:49)
too.

[Speaker 1] (33:50 - 35:03)
So, that's a really interesting point, Chief, and I guess I don't want to argue the law with you. I don't mean it how do I say this? I agree with your interpretation of the law.

That's not where I'm disagreeing. I don't want to disagree in principle with the law to you. You're just reporting the law, right?

I guess a question is, it just seems so ironic that a child and a family who is not doing anything to provoke attention, it's like a victim having to come forward knowing they're going to be further victimized, and a trauma person coming forward knowing that they have to be further traumatized in order to, you know, for some principle for future people, and it's, I guess I'm just wondering does the reasonable efforts, or the reasonable person standard, I guess, doesn't apply in this situation where if it's on video, you can see that it's an eight-year-old who's, I won't even say, like, I can't get my mouth to say, you know, a reasonable child or reasonable person would be upset by...

[Speaker 5] (35:03 - 35:40)
We love the video, believe me. It's wonderful for court purposes, you know, and this group seems to readily post things of them engaging this behavior. The problem is that the police are not allowed to be offended, period.

But we need someone other than the police to be offended, and when we go, when we get these videos and we go identify the people and go talk to them, that's the point where the case either goes forward or it doesn't. Anything to add to that, Joe? No, I think you said that well.

[Speaker 1] (35:41 - 35:51)
No, you're right. I mean, it does make a lot of sense that that would be the step that needs to be taken. It's just, it is unfortunate, I guess.

But I totally understand what you're saying.

[Speaker 5] (35:51 - 36:24)
It's incredibly frustrating because we can see it, we know it, but it does hamper us, there's no question about it. I don't like excuses. We want to problem-solve this, and we are really, you know, to a certain extent, I suppose it's come to a head, and now that motivation is existing for us to be able to make that happen once and for all.

But the whining and what we can't do is not what I love saying.

[Speaker 17] (36:25 - 36:26)
Right.

[Speaker 7] (36:27 - 37:28)
So, I mean, other communities have dealt with this. They have dealt with protests. They have relocated protesters.

They have done things that we have been told by our town council that we cannot or should not do. We keep asking town council the same questions, and town council keeps giving us the same answers. So, doing nothing is probably not an option.

So, can we talk to other town council, can we talk to someone outside of KP Law, Sean, so that we can try to take different actions that other communities within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been able to accomplish? I mean, we're kind of continuing to do the same thing. We're on the hamster wheel here.

So, let's do something different. Thoughts? So, I appreciate that.

[Speaker 2] (37:28 - 42:02)
I think it's been frustrating. I hear a lot that just call the town administrator. There's got to be a different Supreme Court that we can talk to.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has emphasized that government cannot silence messages simply because they cause discomfort, fear, or even anger. Even those messages that are causing disruption, traffic hazards, and safety concerns are allowable. It goes on to just read, with respect to demonstrations near schools, they cite the case, schools and government officials had to order protesters to remove their trucks from an area adjacent to the school as protesters engaged in disruptive chants and displayed graphic images that were distracting, upsetting, and causing safety hazards to the school children.

School officials therefore ordered the protesters to remove, pursuant to a statute prohibiting the disruption of the school. The courts, however, held that regulation to be unconstitutional restriction on the protesters' freedom of speech. These are pretty broadly defined rights.

And what town council has shared with us again and again is we have sought to try to find a context sensitive way to deal with the legitimate concerns where our concerns about the safety of our youth bump into the First Amendment. I think Cathy Cable and Chief Kurz have really nuanced this, where behaviors are really being policed. We have officers down at these protests every week observing and looking at behaviors to ensure that we protect our youth and protect individuals' rights.

But I'm happy to go get a different legal opinion. I'm not sure it will say anything different about the Supreme Court. And I think what we want to do today is really think about are there other tools?

Could we advance a noise ordinance that would get rid of the amplified speakers that would continue to provide disruption to not only our school, but to every building, every home in that neighborhood. We had an employee, one of our police officers, complain of hearing damage because of these amplified speakers from these protests. Can we find better ways to engage the public when they're down there in terms of how we deal with these complexities?

There's a lot of discussion about instead of looking to censor some of these conversations, let's find ways to amplify a different conversation. We heard earlier, let's double down on our values. Let's look at ways that we actually bring a better conversation about inclusivity, better conversation about why Swampskate stands opposed to these conversations of hate.

And really support principles that build a sense that we are all in this together. I do think this is unique and different. Communities across the Commonwealth have different protests.

For instance, the city of Boston. When you have mass demonstrations to 300 people, there's a different litmus for how you can regulate those events. I, too, shared a permit with town council last week and asked them, geez, could we schedule these protests during non-school hours?

The standard was, well, how many individuals are going to be there? They wanted to know that it was going to be a massive protest. Frankly, the number of individuals just doesn't rise to that level of complexity.

That's a standard that... What's the number? The number was in the hundreds.

Hundreds. And so, you know, to spot censor of protest would likely just bring a civil rights lawsuit against the town that we were trying to quiet free speech.

[Speaker 6] (42:02 - 42:40)
So can you, Chief, chime in, too? Is the permit systems that you had introduced, are they similar in that it's requiring sort of more mass demonstrations, bigger groups? Because, I mean, certainly we could get back to something like what we had experienced, which were bigger groups, and hopefully not.

But, you know, these aren't large groups, but sort of disturbing nonetheless. Were any of the permit systems that you had seen from other communities, was the size of the group irrelevant?

[Speaker 5] (42:41 - 43:50)
Well, I presented one that was originating in Charleston, South Carolina, but I asked the question of legal counsel to explore that more relevant, more closely in Massachusetts, and she did, and reported back to me a week later. But there's a variety of... I thought it would make sense, you know, the location.

We're talking about this being somewhat of an important pivot point within the community, where not only is the school there, but the fire department utilizes that area. There's a lot of traffic turning and that it's just not a convenient place. Plus, there's some sanctity with the monument.

You know, so there was all these reasonableness, I thought, and again, not to throw them under the bus because they're not here, but the legal counsel, in fairness to them, was just making recommendations to safeguard the community from litigation, and that was their concern.

[Speaker 1] (43:51 - 44:45)
A couple follow-ups on that, if I may. So, with respect to the videotaping, it just seems like... I don't know, this might be as...

Maybe I'm just out of date, but it would seem like if you're videotaping other people and, like, zooming in on children as your audience, that that would be some kind of violation in terms of having to give consent to be videoed and then shared on YouTube or whatever, and I'm sure there's something really obvious that everyone's like, oh my god, you're showing your age, but I don't actually... I don't know, so it seems helpful that if there was any way to regulate what could be even published to protect people's privacy.

[Speaker 5] (44:45 - 45:22)
There's no expectation of privacy in a public place, so if you're walking on a sidewalk, you just have no expectation, period, of privacy. When you're filming children, it now becomes another matter that we'd have to review and understand, and then as part of the element of a crime is to articulate the purpose for that filming, and that has a little more substance to it than not. Captain, would you want to assist me in that with Massachusetts nuances?

[Speaker 9] (45:23 - 46:02)
Yeah, there's... In Massachusetts, the courts have been very clear. Everybody that walks down the street, you're on video a dozen times walking a block, but as the chief said, there is no expectation of privacy.

In filming children in public, it would require something more, perhaps like we talked about, that would suggest that there was some sort of desire to entice or do something like that with the children that would allow us to take the charge out like we did with this speech, but there's no law that on its face in any way regulates videotaping people in public.

[Speaker 1] (46:02 - 46:08)
And would that apply to adults who were targeted on the street, just hanging out on a bench or something?

[Speaker 9] (46:10 - 46:24)
It could, but I mean, you would be talking something really specific like upskirting or something like that, if you're familiar with the term, which they had to pass a special law for to even make that illegal in Massachusetts.

[Speaker 1] (46:30 - 47:23)
Okay, so with respect to, Sean, something that you mentioned, noise ordinances. So, you know, I was even trying to have a meeting the other day in town hall. I was talking to someone and I just kind of like kept checking, like, is my phone playing?

What is that? And it was so distracting and then I realized what it was. So, I mean, I don't know whether that you know, my example doesn't qualify, I'm sure.

But I do wonder if something about the noise and the amplification systems, I know we talked about that, we touched base before, but then things kind of settled down before, but given the content that's happening now in the proximity to the schools, I'm wondering if we can revisit that conversation and opinion from you guys, Sean and the chief, in the police department.

[Speaker 2] (47:25 - 48:36)
Yeah, Polly, I think I've noticed it, it's not just one day a week now, it's several and it is disruption, you know, there is a significant amount of disruption and you know, we've also had employees that have been impacted, so I think it's important for us to really look at a draft, I've shared a draft with the board, but certainly we've discussed this for a number of years, noise ordinances can be difficult to enforce, but if we list decibel levels that would be consistent with what generally would be ambient noise along the corridor and have some tolerance for some reasonable accommodation, I think we can you know, protect the neighborhood and impact of these evolving protests. What we want to do is, we've seen trucks roll in with significant amplification systems and we want to avoid seeing any kind of further exacerbation of these assemblies and protests on the quality of life in Swanstead.

[Speaker 1] (48:38 - 48:47)
So people, so free speech extends to just like blaring speakers? Anyone could go on a lawn anywhere and just crank a radio?

[Speaker 2] (48:49 - 49:12)
Yes, anybody could do that. You know, they might bump into it, disturbing the peace at some point, but generally, political speech is protected speech. You know, there's, if somebody is protesting, that all has a different case law that protects that type of speech.

[Speaker 6] (49:19 - 51:19)
I appreciate you both being here, Chief and Captain. I know you're frustrated and share your frustrations and it's, I agree with the earlier comments, like it is, it does feel like we're watching the same show and having the same conversations. I'm sure you feel the same way.

I don't see that as a reason to stop trying, though. So I think we just have to keep plugging at it. I agree with you, Chief, like we can't just say we can't do anything.

I'm obviously always would be concerned about potential lawsuits, but I think my concern is more about how effective something would be than it is for the potential lawsuit and does it help mitigate or make the problem go away or does it make it get worse. And so I'm trying to be mindful of that as we try to think about solutions too, is like are we creating more of a problem than we already have. So I don't really have any potential solution other than what's been mentioned.

Other than some of the options that have been proposed, I'm glad to hear that there was you were able to take some action. I shouldn't say I'm glad to hear that because that means something happened that required action, but I'm hoping that that may help, but we'll see, I guess. I guess I would just say for myself and I think for the rest of the board too, I mean if there's anything that we can do to provide guidance or tools to you that we don't seem to, if any of your frustration is coming from us and something that we're not doing, I want to know what that is and what we can do to help.

[Speaker 1] (51:20 - 51:22)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad Neal said that.

[Speaker 5] (51:23 - 51:26)
And we appreciate you saying it very much.

[Speaker 1] (51:26 - 51:27)
Hopefully you don't have a list already.

[Speaker 5] (51:31 - 52:04)
No, no, it wasn't a drum roll. But I think Sean is correct. I would suggest allow us to work on this noise ordinance to get it as solid as possible and bring it back to you for consideration and that would be the demonstration of working collaboratively to figure out this challenge that we're faced with that is certainly perplexing and frustrating to us all.

[Speaker 17] (52:05 - 52:05)
Great.

[Speaker 2] (52:06 - 53:41)
I also just want to share that it's unfair on some level that folks would direct the concerns about what we should do at these protests to the select board. We have professional staff, we have public safety folks, and every day we go to work to try to protect the interest of our citizens. We have an outstanding police department, we have legal teams that are looking at this and we're going to do everything we can to keep Swampskate safe.

These are evolving issues. They're happening around the country and we have to continually be vigilant about how we protect our citizens but also how we deal with the evolving nature of these protests. Swampskate is a busy spot.

We're the epicenter of the universe for some folks and we're going to continue to garner some attention. I do want folks to feel comfortable though. If they're concerned about their safety, they should contact our police department.

They're concerned about behavior. If they see things, if they're concerned about things that are happening in Swampskate, please reach out and communicate to our police department and certainly you can communicate things to me as town administrator but please understand we're here to serve and protect and to find a path forward here that makes sense for everybody.

[Speaker 1] (53:43 - 54:31)
Thanks. Thank you everyone. Thanks Chief and Captain for joining us and everyone for sharing your thoughts and opinions and feelings and just personally I'm confident that others sitting here tonight would feel the same but I'm personally sorry for anyone in town who's been impacted, afraid, psychologically, emotionally hurt by some of the really I think just nasty things that have been said and I just am sorry that there's more we can't do to protect your dignity and of anyone else who's been negatively impacted by the free speech. Just want to put that out there and we will continue to keep an eye on this.

Thanks again.

[Speaker 5] (54:32 - 54:34)
Thank you. Good night. Thank you Chief.

[Speaker 7] (54:34 - 54:36)
Thank you Captain. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (54:38 - 55:07)
And okay so thank you to the housing authorities here with us tonight for a joint meeting and despite my best efforts here we are not in a circle by no fault of our wonderful cable guy. Sorry Joe. What's his technical title?

Joe Cable.

[Speaker 6] (55:07 - 55:08)
I like that.

[Speaker 1] (55:08 - 55:24)
That's right. Joe Cable. Hey that's good.

Capital E. So I don't know if you feel comfortable there. If you want to at least I mean I don't want to get you to be to disrupt your comfort but if you wanted to move up you're welcome to do that.

[Speaker 4] (55:25 - 55:27)
I think we're fine here. I don't want to thank you. You're fine there.

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (55:29 - 55:58)
So anyway. So the joint meeting I don't know I think we can just is there anything you do at the beginning of your meetings that you need to do before you call the meeting to order? If you could just because I feel terrible that I'm not I know you've been here.

Thank you all for coming again. If you can just kind of just tell us your names how long you've been on the housing authority that would be just helpful to start and hopefully we can put the camera on you guys as well.

[Speaker 11] (55:58 - 56:04)
I'm Catherine Esteverina. I've been on the housing board for just over three years.

[Speaker 1] (56:04 - 56:04)
Great.

[Speaker 11] (56:07 - 56:11)
Tara Cassidy Driscoll. I've been on the housing board since May.

[Speaker 4] (56:12 - 56:20)
Richard Callahan. I've been on the housing authority for several years but I've only been chairman for approximately six months.

[Speaker 8] (56:22 - 56:29)
Carmichael is the director of Swampscot Housing Authority. I have been at Swampscot Housing Authority for a year and six months now.

[Speaker 1] (56:30 - 56:35)
Great. All right. Well, thank you so much.

So, Polly, just so you know, Cynthia Tennant is also she's on Zoom.

[Speaker 8] (56:36 - 56:36)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (56:37 - 57:05)
Oh, okay. Great. Hi, Cynthia.

Thanks for joining. I'll promote her. Yeah, that'd be great.

Okay. So, I just I know that several members expressed interest in having you come back. I definitely was one of them.

Hi, Cynthia. How are you?

[Speaker 14] (57:05 - 57:07)
I'm fine, Polly. How are you?

[Speaker 1] (57:07 - 57:14)
Great. Good, thanks. Just do you want to introduce yourself and say how long you've been on the board?

On the housing authority?

[Speaker 14] (57:15 - 57:23)
I am Cynthia Tennant. I have been a resident commissioner since June. Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (57:24 - 58:12)
Okay. So, I'm just looking one thing. I'm sorry.

So, I wanted to just start off with if you would and if everyone else is okay with this, just sort of, you guys provided some really great material for us to review. I did do that a teensy bit before the meeting, but if you can just kind of, there's this statute regulation guidelines like inverse triangle that you shared, and obviously you don't have to go through it exactly, but can you just share with us the funneling down of authority for the housing authority and how each level sort of whatever you feel is important to describe about the various levels and how they impact each other and limit or don't what you're able to do.

[Speaker 4] (58:12 - 1:00:26)
Well, Madam Chair, I would ask that these exhibits be accepted as part of the minutes of the meeting, but also the state regulations that Governor Swamp's housing authority and mission statement are in there. That exhibit is a compilation of relative to federal and law of the commonwealth regulations. There's two levels.

The triangle shows that it starts at the federal level and it comes down to the state level and it does not encompass the local level at all. We are completely independent and have to rely and respond to the commonwealth. They control us, the first strings, the expenditures, the improvements, all of it, and that's in there.

If you could go through it on your own time and just kind of understand where we're from and how little control we have relative to dealing with the town or that the town has to dealing with us. We're totally independent. We are not part of affordable housing.

By law, we can't be part of affordable housing. We've raised that issue to several people before and it fell on deaf ears. What we do is we represent our tenants and their living places.

This is their homes. These homes constitute their neighborhoods and we do what we can to keep them safe and to protect them, keep them healthy, and we maintain the property to a standard that's acceptable by the state. We've had inspections of Doherty and everything come back without any problems whatsoever.

That is Exhibit 1. Exhibit 2 is the monthly meeting agenda. We meet every second Tuesday at 530 and it's at the Housing Authority office and it is handicapped accessible.

There is a ramp that can be used. I guess I'm just going through the details that you requested.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:26 - 1:00:28)
No, I appreciate it.

[Speaker 4] (1:00:29 - 1:02:57)
Details about your regularly scheduled meetings, examples of your meetings, agendas, and the rest of that. Doherty meets the second Tuesday every month at 530 and our meetings last as long as necessary and we go through the monthly expenses, previous minutes, previous motions, and we go into new business, typical as you would go through Robert's Rules of Order is what we run by. There's a list of upgrades and improvements and in that what we provided for exhibits, there's a fold that says be a local hero and save public housing with APA funds.

We've forwarded a video of that to the board previously and we've forwarded this to the board. This is what we need for support. It's public support.

You'll see the mayor from Brockton. You'll see some other public figures in there who are very concerned about public housing. The exhibit five shows the Swanscot office as being handicapped successful, accessible, I'm sorry.

Exhibit six is 12 Ryan Place complete ADA compliance and it's leased out to Northeast ARC. Interaction with other town committees and groups et cetera is limited. We have minimal reaction working with this board and daily we interact with our residents.

The Swanscot Police Department and Fire Department are always available and interact with the housing authority. The is evidenced by the picture of the Halloween party that we held down at Cherry. It was just unbelievable.

I'm telling you those kids could have had a Christmas tree out there and they wouldn't have been any happier. And that goes to Officer Caruso he's our liaison. I'm sorry.

I thought someone said something.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:57 - 1:02:59)
I think it was a technical glitch.

[Speaker 17] (1:03:00 - 1:03:00)
Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (1:03:00 - 1:05:44)
Officer Caruso he's an outstanding member of the Swanscot PD. He's always helpful and attentive to our residents. He promptly answers our requests and deals with any concerns we have.

Fire Department Chief Archer is always responsive and addresses any issues we have either as an authority or any of our residents' concerns. The senior center we'd be happy to note just donated a bench to Doherty Circle. Apparently it was a surplus and we gladly accepted it.

The support we feel that we need regarding the select board is we believe that the select board should be more open with communications with us. I mean a great example is Elm Street. We knew nothing about it.

Anything at all. And we've had more conversation with Wynn regarding the building than any of the board has. And I just know that it's been said that someone on the board requested that the bike trail be added in and do this and this and take the housing authority property and Wynn said no.

We never requested that. That came from the town. And that was denied here when we were here previously.

I just think that this type of you know, you guys don't count. Board doesn't count. I just think it's just it's got to stop.

We're here because we want to work with you people. These are our residents. These are our clients.

These people live here. They pay their dues. They pay taxes.

They need to be part of the public. Right now they're hidden. You don't know they're there.

They're all next to the railroad tracks that are over near Wynn. These are town residents. They've grown up here.

They've done things here. And I don't think that they've been treated appropriately. And I really don't think that this board ought to denigrate us publicly if there's a complaint or a problem that someone makes for a resignation or whatever.

The public letter's right here. The letter's right here publicly. No one talked to us.

No one called to say hey, what's going on? Nobody cared. So I just think those things are totally inappropriate.

And you're asking what you can do for us. Don't badmouth us in the paper. You got an issue, something happens, come to us.

Ask what happened. Ask what's going on. Don't just let it go like that.

And I guess that brings us to number six. And that's on you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:46 - 1:05:53)
Thank you. So I don't know if... I'll look up number six right now.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:54 - 1:06:00)
I'll read it to you. What are the board's priorities and expectations of the Housing Authority?

[Speaker 1] (1:06:01 - 1:06:16)
Oh, oh. Okay. I thought...

Okay. I'm sorry. I was like not understanding exactly which one you were referencing.

I didn't realize I numbered them. Okay, so does anyone have any initial questions?

[Speaker 7] (1:06:16 - 1:06:46)
Just some general questions. Mr. Chair, thank you for the time today. I'm just curious, how many units do we have in town?

How many residences? How many residents do we have? And in a perfect world, how many what's the...

I think Ms. Shea during one of our last meetings had mentioned there was an extensive wait list as well. So I think just some of that primer information would be helpful to me and helpful to the public.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:47 - 1:06:50)
Over 2,000 people, but it's a statewide list.

[Speaker 7] (1:06:51 - 1:06:51)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:51 - 1:07:07)
And you know veterans go to the top. Wives of deceased veterans move up a little bit. We try and go with town residents when possible, but it's a statewide list.

So somebody could be coming in from anywhere. Anywhere within the Commonwealth.

[Speaker 1] (1:07:11 - 1:07:13)
So I guess...

[Speaker 7] (1:07:13 - 1:07:22)
And then how many units do we have and how many residents are currently within Doherty, Duncan, and Cherry Street?

[Speaker 8] (1:07:23 - 1:08:09)
We have about 136 units altogether and 12 Ryan Place. We can't forget 12 Ryan Place. We overused that property to Northeast Arc.

They lease it from us. 12 Ryan Place. Oh, really?

And I also have 7 MRBPs where they are mobile vouchers as well. I oversee 7 of them as well. Can you just repeat that?

I'm sorry. I wasn't... 7 MRBPs, mobile vouchers.

Okay, I see. They can leave anywhere. I actually have 2 that leave within this town and we oversee the voucher.

We pay the landlord direct on a monthly basis.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:10 - 1:08:15)
Okay, that's interesting. Now, does the state... That's funding from the state, right?

[Speaker 8] (1:08:15 - 1:08:17)
All of them are funded from the state, correct.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:17 - 1:08:29)
And is there like a proportional representation? Like, is it... Is this size so they get this number of vouchers?

Do you know how the state sort of...

[Speaker 8] (1:08:29 - 1:08:48)
There's not a lot of vouchers right now. I am on a wait list. As I had mentioned, I've been here a year and a half and that was one of the things that I had, you know, request from DHED.

Whenever there's more vouchers available, I would like to oversee them as well so we can provide more vouchers to those in need.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:49 - 1:08:56)
Do you know how many, like for example a community like Melrose has or, you know, do you know if everybody gets 7 or...

[Speaker 8] (1:08:56 - 1:09:01)
No, it depends. It also depends on the size of the housing authority.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:01 - 1:09:03)
And the staff.

[Speaker 8] (1:09:03 - 1:09:16)
I'm a part-time ED. I have a part-time administrative assistant and two full-time maintenance guys. So it depends on the size of the housing authority.

And again, we're just funded by the state. We do not have any federal funds coming our way.

[Speaker 7] (1:09:16 - 1:09:30)
Right. So... So Mr. Chair, I'm looking at the list of upgrades and improvements. Do we have a time frame as to when these were made? Was this done in the last 12 months?

[Speaker 8] (1:09:30 - 1:09:31)
Pretty much.

[Speaker 7] (1:09:31 - 1:09:32)
A year and a half.

[Speaker 8] (1:09:35 - 1:09:37)
Since my tenure there, a year and a half.

[Speaker 7] (1:09:38 - 1:09:40)
Thank you for clarifying.

[Speaker 4] (1:09:41 - 1:09:44)
Excuse me if I may. We have a member that has to leave. I apologize.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:45 - 1:09:48)
I have to... It's just running a little bit later than I thought. I apologize.

[Speaker 6] (1:09:51 - 1:09:52)
Thank you. Thanks for coming.

[Speaker 7] (1:09:54 - 1:10:01)
Okay. So we have this list of upgrades and improvements that have been made. Do we also have a list of improvements that have yet to be made?

[Speaker 8] (1:10:03 - 1:10:36)
They're not there. But we do have annual plans on a yearly basis. And we discuss capital needs.

There will be some storm doors coming. Some balconies for Duncan Terrace as well. We were waiting for CDBG funding.

I know Marcy had applied for them back in March of 2020. They were $98,000. Two buildings, a dirty circle, are still in need of windows.

So we're hoping that next time around she can apply for the CDBG funds and we can get those funds. And so that's, again, that's on the works. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:37 - 1:11:11)
I'm sorry, just while I... Go ahead. On the ADA, you know how any building that invests a certain...

I think it's $50,000. Peter probably knows. But a certain amount of money into a building upgrade, it triggers ADA compliance for that building.

Does that not apply? I would find this terribly ironic, but not surprised. Does that apply to public buildings so that if you replace $50,000 worth of windows, you need to make the building ADA compliant type of thing?

[Speaker 4] (1:11:12 - 1:11:34)
Madam Chair, it's our belief that the... where these are two-story buildings, that they don't fall under that ruling for upgrades. And that's why there's no elevators, there's no fire escape, it's just...

it's unnecessary. I'm sure if you put $100,000 into a unit after a fire, they're going to want upgrades.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:35 - 1:11:41)
It's unnecessary? Pardon me? I didn't hear you.

Did you say an elevator's unnecessary in a... In a two-story building.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:42 - 1:11:46)
I think he's reporting the ADA law, not his opinion.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:46 - 1:11:47)
Understood.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:50 - 1:12:08)
Okay. And so you apply to the state... I'm sorry, I have no idea, that's why I was going to ask very basic questions that are probably revealing.

So do you apply to the state every year like you said about the capital items? How does this work financially? You have a budget, and then you apply for...

[Speaker 2] (1:12:08 - 1:12:13)
Financial plan. Annually you submit a financial plan to DHCD? Yep.

[Speaker 4] (1:12:14 - 1:12:43)
What we would like to do, where we go, they allot X amount of funds they send out. Engineers, they send everybody out to architects, make sure we can do it within the money, and make sure it's appropriate in design and all of that. And then they get back to us, and it could take anywhere from six months to who knows.

It's all part of the process, and we can't do anything major other than basic maintenance or yard work without going through the Commonwealth.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:43 - 1:12:50)
So in terms of your financial plan that you submit every year, you have to, I imagine, submit capital items, capital requests with that?

[Speaker 4] (1:12:51 - 1:13:05)
Yes, everything. Yep. Payroll, what we did, what we would like to do, we had to hire somebody.

Capital improvements, just everything. Nothing other than something routine do we have any real control over. Everything goes through the Commonwealth.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:05 - 1:13:17)
And how much of your routine, your financial plan, the regular operating costs, whatever ongoing maintenance costs, and capital costs get approved every year? Is it 90%? Is it 10%?

Does it depend?

[Speaker 4] (1:13:17 - 1:13:29)
It varies. Other times it'll be 110%. It just depends on the year and what the capital improvements are.

And how generous the governor wants to be.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:30 - 1:13:30)
Sorry, David.

[Speaker 7] (1:13:31 - 1:13:45)
No, no, no. So I watched the video, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

To save I guess the figure that was quoted was right around $10,000 per unit.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:45 - 1:13:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (1:13:46 - 1:13:58)
So my question is, my question to you, Mr. Chair, is $10,000 sufficient to upgrade and improve the 136 units within Swampscott?

[Speaker 4] (1:13:59 - 1:14:24)
I really, truly do not have an answer for that. I know if you do more than basic maintenance and paint and new windows, then that could run up to $10,000 fairly easily. With all of these we'll put in with the heat pumps and new boilers and all of that, clearly that's over that amount for that building.

I just, but the impact that you're looking for, I don't know.

[Speaker 7] (1:14:25 - 1:14:51)
And then as far as moving forward and trying to trying to put our hands around this situation to help these residents, to help these 136 units within the town, I mean, what are the next steps? Would the next steps involve, you know, the technical assistance through the state to kind of figure out what those capital what the capital needs are?

[Speaker 4] (1:14:53 - 1:15:21)
It would be. It's the only way we could do it, is have to go through the state. Absolutely the only way.

You know, we put this plan together. In fact, we just had a get together last Saturday on a projecting one year, two years, five and ten years. And we went through all of that.

We don't have any real numbers for it right now. In fact, ironically, we're at the police station. They have a lovely room up there we could use.

I just don't have an answer for that.

[Speaker 6] (1:15:27 - 1:18:02)
So, I mean, I I'll probably be brief. I appreciate the overview of, you know, the hierarchy. I did a little research on some of the Mass General Law and Housing Authorities as well, just to get a sense, because I don't, you know, frankly know a lot about it.

I think what what is interesting to me in one of the laws that's in in that diagram that you presented, which is I think it's I'm not a lawyer. Chapter 121B is that there are certain sections that talk about the town or city that authorities are in, and what the relationship is. Like, for instance, in Section 7, it says, so far as practicable, a housing or redevelopment authority shall make use of the services of the agencies, officers, and employees of the city or town in which such authority is organized.

And in Section 26, it talks about some of the powers given to the housing authority, such as to make studies of housing needs in markets, including data with respect to population and family groups and their distribution according to income groups, the amount and quality of available housing and its distribution according to rentals and sales prices, and it goes on. So I think my point is that I think that it's open to interpretation obviously, but I think your scope is maybe not as limited as you say, and I think that the real point is that we are available, you know, the law allows you to request help from the town. And so you're the services of the town are at your disposal, and I think that's the point of why these conversations happen in the first place, is to try to I think we all want to do more and improve conditions for the residents, as you mentioned, so I think that I just want to say that I don't I don't necessarily agree that it's we're all working on islands towards the same goal, I think we're all part of the same goal in that we should be working collaboratively together to find better solutions.

[Speaker 4] (1:18:03 - 1:18:23)
To your point, there are community block grants that come out and it's directly, I believe, directed toward the elderly, and we've never been included in any of that money that could have been used for different things for the residents. What were the grants? Community block grants.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:26 - 1:19:25)
Yeah, along those lines, and I'm asking this as an open question, you know, sort of like with the select board, it's not always clear that's why I'm writing, trying to help with the handbook, but we know if we have a question or we have a need, like okay, we contact, you know, through Sean this department, and there's kind of like this order of operations to try to get something done through the town that's not necessarily directly in our purview, so I guess to that point, and integrating Neil's point a bit, do you you know, who would be tracking some of these grant opportunities on the board or in town that could inform you or you know, other needs that you might have that you feel like you are in a silo, but it would be help to have more communication, so who do you communicate with now, it sounds like Marzi, and then who's tracking these opportunities with or for you?

[Speaker 4] (1:19:26 - 1:20:09)
Well, our director certainly does, and she's done an incredible job. She has reached out to Marzi and they've talked. I'll go through community development, any of the funds that we could use would be through community development, all the grants that we should, not grants, the applications for additional funding, and there's one that was around, it was 100 pages, that's not the issue, it's that if we had gotten that it would have meant that the property was taken over by a affordable housing company, they would go through, rebuild it, do it all, and they would own it for 99 years, and the housing authority would have nothing to do with it, so that was another side issue that came out after we

[Speaker 2] (1:20:09 - 1:24:22)
really dug into it. I just want to go back to your original comments about working together, I think we're having these conversations because it's been difficult for us to really have that partnership, and I want to recognize, Erma, and just how easy you are to work with. I know our police department, fire department, and frankly our community development department really enjoy working with you.

We actually, you know, you talk about your residents, they're Swanscot citizens, we have as much responsibility for their needs as you do, and when we share these conversations, we truly can do anything to help lift them up. It bothers me greatly, and it has bothered me since I began, that those neighborhoods and those properties have been in decline for the better part of the last 30 years, and when I walked through there, my first week of taking this job almost five years ago, I left my business card on the door not once, not twice, but a few times, seeking to partner with the former executive director and really think about ways that those neighborhoods could really be part of a broader concert of effort. We have a capital plan as a town. We have a housing production, you know, plan.

We have an affordable housing trust committee that is excited to meet some of the broader needs of our most vulnerable residents, and when we came and knocked on your door a few months ago, we were told that you weren't open for business and you weren't ready to help work with the town, and again, we were going to apply for a grant, we were going to continue that partnership, and so I want to make sure that both, and Irma, this is not a question about you, it's about having the board ready to work with us as we try to advance Swanscot's broader goals. Like, this is, these are complicated projects and complicated initiatives, and we need your leadership, we need your partnership.

Like, from my perspective, you know, you're the board that's directing those properties, and we haven't built a new unit in for forever. Like, and that to me, when I look at your annual finance plan, and I look at your deferred maintenance, or your capital plan, there's no new building in there. There's no new units.

We have 122 units, and we have a couple of vouchers for a town that has over 2,000 people on a waiting list. That waiting list is only going to get longer. It's only going to become more of a pressing issue for folks that are hoping to, you know, live in Swanscot, and we need a vision for how these properties are going to continue to thrive, not just, you know, continue to languish in terms of their inability to support ADA investments, or inability to really meet, you know, some of the modern improvements that folks deserve.

Those are the kind of challenges that really we are here to try to figure out. To me, this doesn't have to be a tick-and-tack conversation. It has to be, hey, how do we all get our oars going in the right direction?

How do we all seize the moment and really find the way to lead? It does frustrate me a little bit that somehow, you know, it seems as though our ability to communicate is focused on this conflict. The conflict is real, and it's about really having a heart-to-heart, and really coming here and having a public conversation about one of our most critical needs in our most critical neighborhoods.

The only way we have been able to have this conversation is by identifying a conflict, and that conflict has been communication. It has been our inability to really work together.

[Speaker 4] (1:24:23 - 1:24:48)
Well, if I may, I think you hit the nail on the head in that this is the breath of fresh air, and that I think we're better able to communicate now. I know that anything directed to the Housing Authority should go to Irma, and we'll deal with it through the meeting process, or if it's important, we'll get to the special meeting. I would really like to know who was working that day that you showed up, and they said we're not open because they won't be working there.

[Speaker 3] (1:24:54 - 1:25:37)
Thanks for being here. I appreciate you being here. I want to go a different direction here with the conversation.

I'm interested in understanding what you all believe is the ideal qualification set of a Housing Authority member to be most helpful to you all in executing Housing Authority responsibilities. So if you were to build up the ideal Housing Authority candidate, we currently have a vacancy that we have to fill with an appointment. I wonder what you believe is the ideal skill set.

What do you think the Housing Authority needs on its board to support a successful execution?

[Speaker 4] (1:25:37 - 1:26:09)
I believe we need someone who's caring and concerned about our residents, our tenants, all of them. I believe they need to be willing to accept a challenge to figure something out and to be willing to work with others in a group, in meetings, and if there's a to be able to assist in research or to compromise or to come up with plans or other thoughts or ideas. Someone who wants to work with people.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:10 - 1:26:17)
Any specific skill sets? Technical skill sets, backgrounds, educational, professional backgrounds, licenses, things of that nature that are helpful?

[Speaker 4] (1:26:20 - 1:26:40)
That's something I haven't thought of. Certainly someone with a license in community health or community well-being. Just someone who's willing to work with people to recognize a problem and assist in getting it resolved.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:44 - 1:27:37)
I'll get back to the vacancy and how we successfully filled that vacancy to give you a fifth member. That can really add a lot. I'm curious as to the training and the introduction that housing authority members get when they come on the board.

Can you share with us what happens when a new housing authority member comes on the board and what kind of training, specifically about the housing authority, housing authority function, and specifically about our housing authority. How do they get to know the residents? How do they get to understand the background of the residents?

How do they get to understand the condition of the units? If you could maybe walk us through what a typical member goes through both generally in terms of housing authorities and training and then specifically how do they get to understand Swampscot and Swampscot's properties and Swampscot's residents.

[Speaker 4] (1:27:38 - 1:29:05)
Typically there are Swampscot residents. The only exceptions were when there was a medical person, a nurse, appointed by the governor. That's been gone for years, but other than that, when a new member comes, everybody's elected or appointed by you.

They'll do a walkthrough, go to the different places, see them. They're allowed to go through the minutes from previous meetings and what's happened. We talk about the goals and where we're going.

We talk about how the financing is through the Commonwealth. We ask if they want any questions. Typically, everybody's involved in discussion, and someone will say, okay, I'll research that.

I'll do that. We'll bring it up the next meeting under old business. If they have a question, we'll bring something that's different.

We'll bring it up on a new business. It's discussed. As to training, there's nothing really to train for.

We have an accountant who handles the books. Everything is done professionally. There's nothing to really train a new member on.

Typically, they're invested, are interested in being there. They have a concept of what's going on, other than recruited by somebody within a resident in the authority. That's pretty much it.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:05 - 1:29:08)
Does DHCD do training for new housing authority members?

[Speaker 11] (1:29:09 - 1:29:58)
Yes, the DHCD does extensive mandatory training. In addition to what you have to do for town committees, there's conflict of interest, ethics, open meeting laws, but then there's extensive online training that could take you up to two weeks to go through. In addition, there's training provided by Narrow, and there's also training provided by a tenant organization, which I sat through one of their classes the other day on capital funding, which was excellent.

You're expected to continue to do training. While we're offered training, the housing authority pays for it for us to go. All board members are expected to do that training.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:58 - 1:30:04)
Mr. Chairman, you didn't mention the mandatory training. Were you not aware that there's mandatory training by DHCD for housing authority members?

[Speaker 4] (1:30:05 - 1:30:05)
Yes, I am.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:06 - 1:30:19)
I've been part of it. Fair enough. I think that's an important thing to do.

How do people get to understand the properties here? If I'm a new housing authority member and I call up and I say I want to tour units, how long will it take until I am able to go tour units?

[Speaker 4] (1:30:19 - 1:30:23)
It would take until either Irma or myself were available.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:23 - 1:30:29)
Would it surprise you to know that there's a housing authority member that's not on the housing authority member that took months and months and months?

[Speaker 8] (1:30:29 - 1:30:32)
She visited it with me along with board members.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:32 - 1:30:34)
It took several months to get a tour.

[Speaker 8] (1:30:34 - 1:30:35)
No, it took two months.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:36 - 1:30:37)
I'm sorry, how many months?

[Speaker 8] (1:30:37 - 1:30:44)
Two months, because she requested it a month after she joined. I know who you're referring to. She did tour all of our properties.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:45 - 1:30:56)
Great. Let me ask you about if they wanted to understand financial information. Besides the financial plan, if they wanted to understand the books of the housing authority, would they have access to the financial information beyond the financial plan?

[Speaker 11] (1:30:57 - 1:30:59)
Yes. It gives us financial reports for every single meeting.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:59 - 1:31:15)
If they ask for a rent roll or background of demographics, not person specific, not names, but if they wanted to understand the demographics of who lives in the property, what their income levels are, what their disability condition is, or age conditions, things that you would know that are not self-identifying, would they have access to that?

[Speaker 8] (1:31:15 - 1:31:22)
No. There's confidentiality. There's confidentiality on the residents that live at Swampscott Housing Authority.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:23 - 1:31:31)
Right. So, again, like I said, without including names or addresses, would the demographics of the makeup of the Swampscott Housing Authority be known to the housing authority members if they asked?

[Speaker 11] (1:31:32 - 1:31:33)
What do you mean by demographics?

[Speaker 3] (1:31:33 - 1:32:04)
What percentage of housing authority residents have a disability? Which percentage of housing authority residents with a disability live in a second floor unit? For example, which percentage of housing authority residents are over the age of 65?

Which percentage of housing authority residents have a visual or audio impairment? If the housing authority member wanted to understand that, could they get it without saying it's Bob Jones Unit 2C? Could they find out the statistics to understand the census of the housing authority property?

[Speaker 4] (1:32:05 - 1:32:06)
That's not records we keep.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:07 - 1:32:15)
So, you're not aware of how many residents in the Swampscott Housing Authority have a disability or how many residents in the Swampscott Housing Authority have a visual impairment?

[Speaker 8] (1:32:15 - 1:32:24)
If that board member would have requested it, yes, I would have. But that particular member had requested a rent roll. A rent roll includes names of residents.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:24 - 1:32:28)
Ms. Chas, you actually don't know which member I'm talking about, so don't assume that.

[Speaker 8] (1:32:28 - 1:32:29)
I do know.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:29 - 1:32:35)
You expressed it clearly. But a minute ago, I was told that you couldn't give out information, so I just want to know what information we can give out.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:37 - 1:32:38)
I'd rather not.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:39 - 1:32:56)
I'm sorry, Madam Chair. We put up with this last time we were here. We've got 30 minutes of lecture.

What have you been doing for 60 years? All of that. We're not here for that.

Sean had a great conversation going. We're not going to get lamb-fested and hung out to dry again in another ambush.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:56 - 1:33:00)
You're not being hung out, but these are questions where I want to understand.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:01 - 1:33:03)
We've got responsibilities here to people. I understand.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:04 - 1:33:18)
Work through this conflict. I agree to work through the conflict and I would just request we don't I think we need to give a little more space to have them actually provide answers that are answers.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:18 - 1:33:24)
These are good conversations. Don't hear them as an attack. We're trying to help people here.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:24 - 1:33:48)
It's the same source as the last one. Same source as the last attack. It was an ambush.

This is records we can provide. But I'm referring to a certain member who really did not understand our concept. A brilliant woman who has incredible ideas, but we're not into affordable housing.

I'm sorry.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:48 - 1:33:51)
What was the last comment, Mr. Chairman? She wasn't into affordable housing?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:51 - 1:33:54)
I said we are not. She was into affordable housing.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:54 - 1:34:03)
No, we're not. I just wanted to make sure I heard that. That was good.

Thank you. I'll slow down and give you a chance to respond.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:04 - 1:34:09)
Let's work through this. It starts with staying together. Let's go.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:12 - 1:34:46)
Does anybody else have questions for now? I know Peter has a few other questions. I know Margie, speaking of which, was on the line and I really wanted to hear from her.

Oh, good. Sorry. You didn't show up when your camera was off.

I didn't know if you were off. Thanks, Margie. Thanks for joining us.

I'm sorry I didn't realize you were going to be on, but I just want to give you a chance to share whatever. If you're here just to listen, that's fine too.

[Speaker 10] (1:34:46 - 1:35:44)
Yes, no. No worries. I am happy to contribute in any way that I can.

Thank you for recognizing me. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to go back and really talk about the community development grant process and just the fact that I am here and I'm available to work with the Housing Authority. Unfortunately, today I have not received a lot of support or maybe collaboration from the Housing Authority.

I know that recently I did have a discussion with Cynthia in regards to new grant applications that will be coming up hopefully within the next year. We did discuss to work together on some applications. I just wanted to say that.

I know in the past I did reach out to the Housing Authority, to the chair, and unfortunately earlier this year as well as last year, the Housing Authority was not interested in working in collaboration.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:45 - 1:36:08)
Margie, can you I'm sorry since you offered it I wouldn't put you on the spot, but I'm putting you further on the spot. Can you say more about what you how you reached out and was it just a lack of email response or a definitive we don't want assistance? I'm just trying to understand the context of it better.

[Speaker 10] (1:36:09 - 1:37:46)
No, absolutely. At the onset of mid-COVID there were some grant opportunities that we were able to apply for. I had reached out to the Housing Authority.

We had a great meeting. I should say I attended two board meetings and the Housing Authority was very positive in a collaboration to work together really seek funding to really look at a feasibility study to see if there are other options on the redevelopment of the Housing Authority properties. I was very excited to work on it and after the second meeting I received a notice that the Housing Authority is no longer interested that their agenda is full and I think unfortunately it was also around the time that the Executive Director was scheduled to take a vacation and unfortunately the timeline for the grant did not work for the Housing Authority.

Earlier this year September this year the Clean Development Block Grants were due. In June I had reached out to the Housing Authority to find out if there's an opportunity for us to collaborate, if there are outstanding projects that they would want to focus on and once again I don't think the timeline worked or if there were not projects that were identified. So again I just want to restate that you know Community Development Block Grant funding is an amazing opportunity to repair Housing Authority properties and I just want to extend the Town's willingness to work with the Housing Authority because it's a great way to really rehab Housing Authority units.

[Speaker 17] (1:37:47 - 1:37:48)
Thanks Margie.

[Speaker 7] (1:37:50 - 1:38:10)
Now Margie, quick question about the Community Block Grants. I mean is this on a rolling time frame? Is this a calendar year?

What's the timing here? How do we get on the calendar? How do we work collaboratively with the Housing Authority and Community Block Grants in the Town of Swabscott?

[Speaker 10] (1:38:10 - 1:40:10)
The Town of Swabscott being a town and not being an entitlement community such as Lynn or Salem or being a mini-entitlement community such as you know Revere perhaps or Marlboro or other communities we are unable to just receive a formula grant. We need to submit our application to the Department of Housing and Community Development. Prior to COVID all of the Community Development Block Grant applications would do early in the springtime.

So historically the deadlines were anytime from February to March either of those times. This year because of COVID the grants were delayed and they were due in September. I'm not sure what is going to happen in regards to next year.

We have not heard. As you know the applications were just submitted on September 9th. So I, like I said I am going to look to my colleagues at DHCD to find out about the timeline for 2022 and I'll make sure to give everybody a rest of the deadlines.

Also one thing that we really need to work on is that before the grant applications are due we really need to talk about projects. What are the priorities? What are the needs that we have?

And really look at budgeting as well. We can't just say okay give us a grant because we want X amount of funding. We really need to be specific in regards to what is the ask?

Who are the beneficiaries? What are our goals for the Housing Authority? What are the goals for the Town?

So these are all the components of a successful grant application. And it's really important to really have a good budget and also a project that has been documented as a need and it's something that has been identified as in any of our planning tools or has been identified through the Housing Authority.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:11 - 1:40:37)
Thanks Marcie. Just in fairness because I would want a chance to respond. I want to just keep it direct and factual.

I just if you seemed like you were really disagreeing with the reach out, obviously I have feelings on the expectation that the Authority would collaborate with the Town but I want to understand from you first, is that your understanding that she reached out and you didn't get back?

[Speaker 8] (1:40:37 - 1:42:28)
That you said that anyone said that they were no longer interested in working? Regarding the NOFA grant I know that's what she's referring to. There was two weeks notice to the Housing Authority.

Marcie and I had a conversation with another member of DHED. He clearly stated that the Housing Authority would have to ride the bus. I'm a part-time AD.

I have a part-time administrator. He also mentioned that if we were looking into redeveloping, the Housing Authority would be responsible to relocate 44 residents whom are elderly and disabled. So, this information was given to us really quickly.

Not enough time for the rest of the board members to understand it completely. After we had the meeting with Marcie and this particular person from DHED, I brought the information back to the board. And certainly, we didn't have enough time and it takes a lot.

With that being said, as our chair said, last Saturday we had a retreat. Board members, myself, we talked, discussed, 2-year, 5-year, 10-year plan. That's a start for us.

We never had that opportunity. And I know as I stated, we have not been at the Housing Authority that long. And also I do want to say to what Marcie stated, I was not going on vacation during that time.

It was we didn't have enough time to get all the information together. And we were not aware of how big the project was and what was asking of myself and the board members, including our residents, who we didn't know where they would go if that process ever went through. That's clearly what happened.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:28 - 1:42:30)
So I can understand timing being an issue.

[Speaker 8] (1:42:30 - 1:42:31)
It was two weeks.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:31 - 1:42:39)
Yeah, everybody needs to address. What about the idea that the board was, that the Housing Authority wasn't interested in working with the town any longer?

[Speaker 8] (1:42:40 - 1:43:48)
That's not true. I do have an email back in March of 2020. Marcie had applied for a grant, a CDBG grant for $98,000 as I stated in the beginning of our meeting.

It was for Windows for Dirty Circle. I follow up with her. She said she was going to check back with DHCD.

It was during COVID. I never heard anything back from her regarding the $98,000 that she claimed she had applied for, for Dirty Circle property. I've never heard anything again.

I'm more than willing to continue to work with her and try to get this grant. But I think what's the pressing matter right now is for all of you to help us with the initiative. Be a local hero and save public housing.

Public housing is a precious resource for those in need and we cannot afford to lose it. And there are funding out there. Maybe call Senator Craig and help us.

Be the voice. You can do it. That's why I forwarded the video to all of you so you guys can help us and call our senators.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:49 - 1:44:27)
I understand that. So I just want to kind of summarize here. So I think I'm hearing that obviously Margie's really looking forward to working with the Housing Authority and expects that you're all agreeable to working with the town.

You're asking for support from the town and we're here kind of telling you guys that we're here to support you and want to do that. In terms of how this goal gets achieved, I think it would help to have some internal conversations. I mean, do whatever you guys need to do, but obviously Margie and Sean, maybe you guys can...

[Speaker 8] (1:44:27 - 1:44:28)
We can go for coffee with Sean anytime.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:29 - 1:45:02)
But I think we need definitive issues that we've identified. I need help getting... When you give me a grant funding, I'm just giving examples of what I'm thinking about.

We need this much time. When it comes to getting the word out, I do appreciate and I watch the videos, but that to me isn't a direct ask. Like, hey, we're trying to get this passed.

We need this funding. We're calling the Senator. Here's the spiel.

You know, can you guys help and make the calls or get some people to make the calls? Like a direct, definitive action item that we can kind of help with.

[Speaker 8] (1:45:02 - 1:45:24)
We're looking to modernize the units, Madam Chair. As you can see the pictures there, we already have new boilers, so we don't need funding for that. We have new air heat pumps.

We don't need funding for that. We had weatherization. We don't need funding for that.

We had LED lighting. We don't need funding for that. So we're just concerned with the units, modernization.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:24 - 1:45:27)
Elevators, you have ADA accessible, you know.

[Speaker 8] (1:45:27 - 1:45:28)
They were built before 1991.

[Speaker 2] (1:45:28 - 1:45:29)
I know.

[Speaker 8] (1:45:29 - 1:45:30)
They're two stories.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:30 - 1:46:15)
I think we all need to... One thing I think we all need to put to bed in every direction is that we all care. You care and we care about the people in those units.

There's not a person here who isn't talking about this because we don't care. We might disagree on execution, but I think... I mean, I think everyone would want to see an elevator.

We might disagree on whether that's possible or not, but I just... Those type of things, I think... I just want to be very specific.

I think it will avoid unnecessary conflict and be very specific with what you need from the board, from the town, and how you need us to communicate. And I want to let everybody else talk. I think, though, that I do expect...

[Speaker 3] (1:46:17 - 1:46:18)
I'm waiting.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:18 - 1:46:28)
I do expect that there is collaboration. That's my personal expectation. Peter's waiting to talk and finish his questions.

[Speaker 3] (1:46:29 - 1:48:48)
I'm done with the questions. I'll actually just close by saying this is uncomfortable, and I'm glad it's uncomfortable. I really am.

And I apologize if my passion comes across as unfounded criticism, but I actually think it's founded criticism. And it is passion. And I am passionate about affordable housing.

And to hear the Chair respectfully say that you don't... This is not about affordable housing is... I'm sure not holistically what you meant.

You care about public housing, but public housing is affordable housing. And my concern now is... You're right.

There is more we can do, but I'm letting you know, sitting here today, I don't believe I see a commitment enough that it leaves me feeling on hold relative to feeling like we have a partner with it. I believe that we now need to go out and recruit another member. Because we do.

We need to recruit a member to fill a position. And that member has to exist and thrive. And I frankly don't at the moment know anybody when we, for boards and committees, actively recruit all the time.

And we recruit really talented, smart people that know DHCD inside and out, for example. Our affordable housing trust is filled with some of the most remarkable professionals. Women in affordable housing and whatnot that you could experience.

But we recruited them. We asked them when we created that to do it. Our zoning board is filled with very knowledgeable professionals and we asked them.

We just recruited a retired doctor, an internist, to be on our board of health. We recruited. And I'm telling you right now that I personally don't feel like I can recruit and ask someone to spend time on a housing authority.

That I just don't yet see the commitment such that I would extend and ask a favor of someone in my network to do this. And I think that needs to change. And I think there needs to be some reflection.

And I ask you to take it back and give thought to what is it about the housing authority right now that doesn't feel like a place someone wants to be? Why are residents going to the affordable housing trust meetings to talk about the conditions there and saying they don't feel welcome coming?

[Speaker 13] (1:48:49 - 1:48:50)
Now, there are residents that certainly do.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:51 - 1:51:35)
There certainly are residents that do feel comfortable coming. Why we have affordable housing trusts? And so I ask you to give a lot of thought about it.

And it should be uncomfortable. There is something askew here. I ask questions and admittedly, Mr. Chairman, I didn't give you a lot of time to answer. I apologize. But you would answer one way and then Irma would say, no, actually, we do have that information. Or Catherine would say, actually, there is mandatory training.

And you didn't share that information. And I just ask you guys just to please, we will be there. We will support.

We're really good at it. We are really good at bringing resources to bear. And in part because we're really good at supporting staff like Margie and Sean who are really, really good at bringing resources to bear to actually address the problems.

Not just check off lists and give me photocopies of what your office looks like. We want to make you thriving and successful. We want your residents to be thriving and successful.

And we have so many things to talk about in this town. So many things to talk about in this town. That spending more time in this is a sacrifice.

And we're choosing this over something else because this is so important. But I'm telling you, we'll be there. You shouldn't doubt it because there's proof all around this town of places where each one of us collectively and individually have been when people have needed to be there.

When we feel like we have a partner. And I'm letting you know as one member, and I'm only one member, that I don't feel like we have a partner yet. I don't feel like I would extend myself and go out and recruit someone else.

And with that being said, I'm going to let you know that when Naomi Driven left the Select Board, I'm the one that called her and asked her to consider running for the Housing Authority because of her background. That skill set. That skill set that she has in geriatrics, in social work, in skills that are so essential, especially in a housing authority when you have such a high population of disabled and elderly residents.

That skill set. I extended myself to that person. And that person, after spending six years of not just having a monthly meeting, but hundreds of hours a month, stepped up and said that she was willing to do it.

She was tired and she needed to go do some other things in her life, but I asked her to do it because she's a gifted, talented person. And I'm just letting you know that where we sit today, I don't feel like I am, I'm just being honest with you about it, I don't feel like I am willing to again extend myself to someone else to ask them to do it at the moment. And that's a shame because I think that there are some really wonderful people in this town and we've got to go do it, but I think we'll be there, but I just ask you all to spend time together and say, what aren't we doing that we can do better?

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:35 - 1:52:33)
Madam Chair, may I respond? Sure. First of all, I don't think I appreciate your characterization of the board or myself individually and personally.

You're focused on one person, brilliant person, absolutely correct. The focus that always came across was affordable housing. Our bylaws, the way the state sets it up, we go to affordable housing, then we have to give up what we have for public housing, and there's a difference between the two.

If you want to get 44 people or 45 people into the new place that's being built, we tear the other place down and build a new place, fine, but right now we don't have that ability. I know you've got whatever your dreams are, and you don't hesitate to speak out, and you've lectured us several times now, we are there for our tenants. Affordable housing is a money maker.

We don't make money.

[Speaker 3] (1:52:35 - 1:52:47)
Mr. Chairman, I just, I'm going to leave you with this. For a second, please, whether you're alone or wherever you are, please look inward and just hear what you just responded with.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:49 - 1:52:52)
What did I say that was incorrect? What did I say that was incorrect?

[Speaker 3] (1:52:54 - 1:53:14)
I'm asking you to please explore what your authority, as the chairman, and I know earlier you said that you've been on for a while, you've been on for quite a while, so you have the most experience by virtue of how many years are we on it now? So you know the housing authority better than every member, so we are looking to you, because you have been there for a decade, more than a decade.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:14 - 1:53:30)
Peter, can you clarify just for my sake, sorry, what you're, I'm curious about the answer, but what you're saying you wanted, what your question was for them. You're saying that there's not a difference between, I just want to clarify, because it got kind of out of hand.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:30 - 1:53:32)
I didn't ask a question, so I'm not sure which question.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:32 - 1:53:38)
Oh, I thought you were talking about the difference between, you said you want him to reflect on something.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:38 - 1:54:01)
Yeah, I want you to, on what it is about the current environment and the housing authority that, frankly, comes up short. I think it is coming up short. I think, respectfully, it's not just about one member.

It's about the fact that our current chair reached out and rebuffed 18 months, 2 months, 2 years ago, by you, and said you can come to any meeting you want to come to.

[Speaker 17] (1:54:01 - 1:54:02)
Not by me, brother.

[Speaker 3] (1:54:02 - 1:54:50)
Sorry, the former chair. Sorry, fair enough. Okay, but the former chair.

But that pattern seems to continue. So I'm letting you know that I'm asking you just to realize that I think there is a cultural thing with the housing authority right now, and it has been isolated for so many decades, and for whatever reason, I have no idea why, but we're here. I'm letting you know as one member, though, at present, that to hear your response being, well, that member just wanted to talk about affordable housing.

No, that member wanted to recognize that if a project was going in your backyard, if a project was going in your backyard to make sure that you had an audience with them and had an influence with them is what that member was trying to do. And that member is right.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:51 - 1:54:55)
We did meet with them several times. In fact, we met with them a week ago.

[Speaker 3] (1:54:55 - 1:54:58)
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that you did a week ago, and I know you did a week ago.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:58 - 1:55:00)
With the Affordable Housing Trust?

[Speaker 3] (1:55:00 - 1:56:37)
No, with the own place developers. So, I'm just... It is not easy enough to just discount that situation by saying she cared about something that wasn't your jurisdiction.

Respectfully, that's just not true. She cared about affordable housing, and she wanted more affordable housing, but she also recognized that you had residents that were living in units that, frankly, she wouldn't live in, nor would she advocate other people to live in, and she wanted to improve them. And she recognized the tools that DHED currently uses are the NOFA for technical assistance to give housing authorities all the support they need to go through a process that dozens of municipalities have done.

This was not going to be novel to Swampscott. She recognized that. She is the one that championed those things.

She is the one that was urging Margie to do these things. She was the one bothering Sean about these things, and I'm just asking you to recognize, I appreciate, none of us are going to be perfect housing authority members, but something has to change in my view for someone like me to want to go out like I did last time and recruit someone that has talent that is just going to be asked not to just attend meetings, because no good person just wants to attend meetings.

The good person actually wants to effectuate change, and that change happens in between meetings. That change happens when you break a sweat. That change happens when Ms. Chess says, I'm busy. Can someone help me? And that person says, I'm there, just like Sean or Margie say to us. And I just ask you to please think about that and help us, because I think that's going to be necessary for success, and if you don't think you can, then think about what that is as well, and then give space for those that can help us.

That's all I ask. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:38 - 1:56:40)
I'm really excited to see character assassinations.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:41 - 1:57:45)
I just will, you know, obviously, if we zoom out a little bit, I think the concern that Peter's expressing and other members of the board is just, we of course, and I'm sure your intention is as well, to have cooperation and respect between board members and among board members, and I'm not making any accusations, you know, but I'm just, I think that's the larger point, and I think if just, when a concern comes to us, we're just generally wanting to make sure that there's checks and balances in place that these type of things don't repeat themselves, and I'm just trying to summarize kind of the larger concern for this board, but boards and committees generally, the baseline level of communication and respect, and I see that Cynthia Tennant has her hand raised. I don't know if it was still up from last time, but I just want to give you the chance to say something.

[Speaker 14] (1:57:45 - 1:57:46)
Yeah. Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1] (1:57:46 - 1:57:47)
Yes.

[Speaker 14] (1:57:48 - 1:59:07)
Yeah. I would just like to say, I reached out to you, Polly, four different times, and Naomi, trying to get the two of you to come together and sit down and discuss how the housing authority operated, because when I came onto the board, I realized Naomi did not have a full grasp of how the housing authority operated. She wanted change.

She had good ideas, and that's wonderful, but she didn't fully grasp the DHCD has two separate sections. One section for new construction, and one section for maintaining and repairing what they already have. I didn't get any response from you at all.

I reached out email, I called, twice through Naomi I invited you, and just as you're saying, and as Sean's saying, he got no response from the housing authority, I got no response from the select board.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:08 - 2:00:51)
I'm chuckling because it's a good point, however, I just want to say in my defense, I did get an email and I did get a phone call from you. I did get a call from Naomi the same time, and then a second call from Naomi. I did speak with her, and we actually were in the process of setting up a meeting.

We were going to do it one of the mornings of the week, and then that was the week that she resigned. You are correct that there wasn't immediate communication with you, and I do apologize. It sometimes takes me a while to get back.

I do appreciate the reaching out, and just so you know, if you weren't in attendance, and I'm not saying this defensively, I'm saying this because it's important to me that you know this personally. I had acknowledged that twice at previous meetings, just so in fairness, that you had reached across the aisle, so to speak. I don't want to personally be specific about any board members or board members for either of us.

I think that's not helpful for right now, and I'm not saying that was your larger point. I will do better to communicate when I'm reached out to, or more immediately anyway, but we definitely do have the interest in collaborating, and to that point, actually, I do think that we need a liaison to the housing authority that used to be me, and I don't think I have the time. Speaking of which, Ms. Tennant, I don't know if anyone has any ideas, David Grishman, about who might be interested in or Mr. Svelios being a liaison, or Neil, to the housing authority?

[Speaker 6] (2:00:51 - 2:01:22)
It makes sense to me that the person who's the liaison to the Affordable Housing Trust is also the liaison to the housing authority, because that's the realm, even though they're not the same thing, but I would recommend and be happy to make a motion that David become the liaison to the housing authority in your place, I think, because you are officially the liaison now, so I'm happy to make that recommendation or motion.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:23 - 2:01:31)
And we can table it. We will be doing a larger you know, a re-evaluation of all the different liaisons.

[Speaker 16] (2:01:31 - 2:01:31)
Do you have an alternate?

[Speaker 1] (2:01:34 - 2:01:34)
Do you want to table it?

[Speaker 3] (2:01:35 - 2:02:59)
No, I just, again, I think that we have to, I think having that conversation at the same time as talking about the posting for the housing authority member and how we post that, and I don't, I didn't hear anything tonight that told me what a posting would look like for a housing authority person. So I think what we need to do then is to, I'd hope to hear something, and I think someone who cares about people is important, but I think there's skill sets. There's clear skill sets that could benefit here, and I think just like we did the Board of Health member, there went through a process with the Board of Health and the Select Board, representatives work, and with the town staff worked on a posting to make sure that we were identifying and prioritizing things in doing that, but I think that's the next step, and then I think through that we can also deal with liaison. Unless someone's willing, wanting to step up right now and do that, that's awesome, but I think there's a bigger conversation to be had here. That position's a really important position, and I know it may seem like we are muddying the waters sort of bit in terms of finding a volunteer, but I think actually through the mud is where the clarity sits, and I think we have to get through this mud to get to the clarity so that we set this up successfully for whoever the next appointee is going to be, and anybody in the future going to serve on this Board.

[Speaker 17] (2:02:59 - 2:03:01)
Okay. All right.

[Speaker 7] (2:03:01 - 2:03:15)
And just for clarity, I am willing to serve. I am also willing to work through this process so that there is clarity so we can move forward in a most productive manner as well.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:15 - 2:03:15)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (2:03:15 - 2:03:17)
Well, the heck then. I second Neal's motion.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:18 - 2:03:34)
All in favor. I'm not kidding. Any further discussion?

Aye. One nay. Any nays?

Abstentions? Oh, you seconded the motion. You don't have to vote on it.

[Speaker 3] (2:03:34 - 2:03:36)
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I not say aye?

[Speaker 1] (2:03:36 - 2:03:40)
Okay. Just want to get the record. We don't want to muddy the record.

[Speaker 6] (2:03:40 - 2:03:41)
You're on the other end of it.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:41 - 2:03:46)
Okay. So, and then I'm sorry to keep you waiting. That's okay.

[Speaker 11] (2:03:47 - 2:06:02)
I really feel, first of all, there's a bit of a misunderstanding about the role of the Board and the Executive Director. The Board is responsible for, you know, fiscal oversight and for setting policies with the Director. But we're not to be involved in any day-to-day activities in the housing, and we are not to look up records of tenants or to involve ourselves with the residents.

That's a no-no from DHCD's point of view. I'd like to say that as a Board member who's been on the Board for three years, over three years, I've seen many positive changes in that time. Starting with the fact that we have a new Executive Director.

Uh everybody on the Board is fairly new except for Richard. Um we have a new resident Board member, which is a huge plus for us to have somebody who's a resident who's on the Board, and we also now have a resident association. So, and that's something that's encouraged, is to have a tenant organization and they attend our meetings and participate.

So I see all of this as very positive. We've made if you look at the list of upgrades that Irma has managed to achieve in the short amount of time that she's been at the Housing Authority, you cannot say that she has not done some amazing things. If you look at the the new heating systems, the heat pumps, the gas boilers, etc.

from the Lane Program, there are many ways that we can get funds. There are many different ways of getting grants of the town, in fact, could give us money and we could do matching, and DHCD would do matching funds. So there are a lot of different ways to look at adding funds to our housing.

But I think it's important to understand that yes, there is a difference of roles here.

[Speaker 1] (2:06:03 - 2:06:22)
Yeah, I think that is helpful and I think it's part of at least why we wanted to have the conversation was because I think there is confusion and I don't mean that in any way other than I had, I personally wasn't aware of the specifics, for example. So I think that's really helpful. I think, I'll continue.

[Speaker 11] (2:06:22 - 2:06:43)
I will also say, last February I sent an email to Peter Sibelius basically objecting to the fact that he described our housing as dilapidated on at least two occasions in public meetings. Our housing is not dilapidated. And I never got a response from him to my email.

[Speaker 1] (2:06:44 - 2:06:55)
So in terms of I want to kind of just shape up the end of this meeting with something concrete, but I think, Sean, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 2] (2:06:55 - 2:07:15)
Yeah, I actually wanted to kind of wrap it up too. I do want to just recognize that, you know, as a board, you know, you have leadership responsibilities on the day-to-day level. Irma, you know, I think we all recognize that she's done an admirable job, you know, putting the pieces together and really being the face of the authority.

[Speaker 11] (2:07:16 - 2:07:18)
And it's a part-time position.

[Speaker 2] (2:07:18 - 2:09:11)
And we recognize that too. And maybe, you know, there are policy discussions about how that position really continues to grow. We've got a great community development department.

Richard, I know that this conversation's been frustrating for you, and I'm glad that you stayed. I think that shows a sense that somehow we have responsibilities that are bigger than any of us individually. We have a responsibility to hundreds of residents that live in inadequate public housing.

Anybody that thinks that that housing, as it sits today, should stay the way it is really doesn't understand what we're building today, what we're renovating today for public housing. And I want people in Swampstead, whether you live in those 122 units or live in any house in this town to believe that we are going to build adequate 21st century housing, and we're going to renovate housing in ways that really untap the potential of those neighborhoods. We can do that.

Other housing authorities across the Commonwealth compete successfully for grants to really build 21st century housing, and we want to do that. That should not be heard in any way as frustrating or upsetting. We are going to be part of a team that supports the needs of our residents, whether they live in that neighborhood or any other neighborhood, and we need this relationship to work.

Let's figure it out. It begins with difficult, sometimes frustrating conversations, but if it ends in teamwork, if it ends in partnerships where we compete successfully for grants that we have strict timelines to apply for, then that's going to be success. But certainly we've got to have a few more heart-to-hearts here, because something's not working.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:13 - 2:09:16)
So I think if I... Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (2:09:17 - 2:09:25)
You're right, and I agree as I stated. I agree with you the minute it hit the fan, and I totally disagree the way this turn took.

[Speaker 17] (2:09:25 - 2:09:26)
Just stay at the table.

[Speaker 4] (2:09:27 - 2:09:36)
I did get to a point where it's insulting and it's nasty, and it's unnecessary to public meeting. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:36 - 2:10:37)
Yeah, I really appreciate all of you coming, and I would say, kind of in closing, certainly not the last conversation, hopefully an ongoing conversation, and not just with you. I mean, we hope to bring in boards and everything periodically anyway, but I think now we have a liaison who will answer emails timely, and also, Marzia, if you're still there, you're still there. Perhaps, I think, if I may be so bold as to overstep, which I'm doing even if I'm asking permission, is for you and David and the Chair to maybe just communicate by email, schedule a time to meet and see what first steps could be taken to start that collaborative process and help with the financial guidance and such that you've expressed you're in need of assistance of, and we're more than happy to try to help.

[Speaker 5] (2:10:37 - 2:10:38)
Yep, me too.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:39 - 2:10:48)
So, you guys will have each other's contact information, and we can go from there, hopefully. And, David, you can provide updates if you guys want to come back. Of course.

[Speaker 17] (2:10:49 - 2:10:49)
Yeah, let's talk.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:50 - 2:10:50)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:52 - 2:10:55)
All right. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:55 - 2:10:56)
Have a good night.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:56 - 2:10:57)
I'm sorry it ran so late.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:57 - 2:10:58)
Cynthia, good night.

[Speaker 13] (2:10:59 - 2:11:00)
Thank you, Cynthia.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:01 - 2:11:03)
It's a public meeting, so you need to adjourn.

[Speaker 4] (2:11:03 - 2:11:06)
All right. Motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:06 - 2:11:09)
Second. All in favor? Aye.

[Speaker 4] (2:11:12 - 2:11:13)
Good night.

[Speaker 17] (2:11:13 - 2:11:19)
Thank you. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:21 - 2:13:52)
So much for my little timeline I had going here. Okay. This portion will be quick, I hope.

Okay, now it feels funny to talk to a totally empty room, other than my dearest colleagues here. Okay. So, recently, we all saw a newspaper publication from the former temporary, very short-lived HR director, and just as a board, we wanted to provide a statement that I'm just going to read.

We've all read it and approved it, including the town administrator, and I just want to say how open and receptive and understanding and patient Sean has been through this process, and I had moments during some of our conversations where I just thought, man, we think volunteering on a board is thankless. It is a job, I think, that very, very rarely gets thanked in any way, never mind an appropriate way. So, I just want to highlight that before, it's not a damning memo by any means, but I just want to highlight that before we read, because I think it's something that, unless we point out, just goes unrecognized, and I think you deserve credit for that.

So, I'm just going to read the board statement regarding the Human Resources Department. The Swampscot Select Board would like to take this opportunity to update the community on the status of our Human Resources Department. Last week, a social media outlet published a news article describing an internal memo from a former employee that included claims of, quote, mistakes and neglect at Town Hall.

This article, along with turnover in the Human Resources Department, understandably have raised concerns, and it's our responsibility to provide context and, to the extent necessary, assurances about what action is being taken to resolve any legitimate issues. Please understand that many of the claims made involve past and present personnel, and to protect their rights and confidentiality, we are limited to the extent and type of information we can publicly share. I'm just going to pause for one second.

[Speaker 6] (2:13:55 - 2:13:57)
I think so. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:00 - 2:17:59)
Sorry, Chair. Not dig myself. Okay.

Sorry about that. Primary focus in the memo relates to discrepancies and reconciliations for employee benefits and the potential negative impact this may have had on the Town's finances. In response to this concern, the Town Administrator directed staff to immediately address issues that were brought to our attention and engaged an independent CPA firm to perform an outside audit of the Town's current employee benefits to ensure that reconciliations had been completed.

Reconciliations have been completed. In summary, the auditors confirmed that while some errors did occur, there were not any material variances in the Town's health care benefits coverage, and that the identified differences, quote, are believed to be timing issues or otherwise financially immaterial. To provide some additional context, the Town Administrator hired an independent accounting firm to conduct a complete audit of Swamscott's benefits systems in 2018.

The Town Administrator issued this audit because shortly after he was hired, he quickly identified numerous significant concerns that had long since been neglected. The results of this audit prompted the Town Administrator to reconcile errors that dated back several years and to establish a new monthly internal control system designed to identify and avoid such errors going forward. Until recently, these systems were functioning well.

Benefits reconciliation is an essential task for any organization. It is also a notoriously finicky one, especially with a large benefit program like Swamscott's. Constantly changing factors such as employee transitions, changes in benefits, contract updates, and timing of payments are just a few examples of the types of challenges that present themselves in this practice.

For this reason, the need for reconciliations are somewhat commonplace. With that said, since reviewing the memo, the Select Board has been engaging in ongoing conversations with the Town Administrator to ensure that we gain a full understanding of the accuracy of the claims made and what actions will be taken to remedy any legitimate ongoing concerns. The Town Administrator has recognized that various factors, the most notable of which is the transition of key personnel, have led to a breakdown in the system he established for monthly reconciliations.

Toward that end, the Town Administrator and financial team have already taken the following steps to avoid such errors in the future. Identified and reconciled material outstanding issues, including ensuring complete coverage of and payment for all enrolled employees, hired a full-time Human Resources Generalist whose duties will include assisting our financial team with ongoing benefits reconciliations, and revised the previously established internal reconciliation system with sufficient checks and balances to ensure consistent compliance going forward.

In addition, the Town Administrator is moving forward with hiring a Human Resources Consultant to help with the search for a permanent Human Resources Director as well as to conduct an organizational assessment of the Town's evolving HR function. Although the Board was initially surprised and concerned to learn about these issues with reconciliations, we have since come to understand that any such issues were relatively minor and do not have a material effect on the Town's financial condition. The Board believes in and trusts Swanscott's highly talented Town Administrator and financial team, and we're confident that any outstanding issues are being addressed efficiently and appropriately.

So thanks for letting me read that. Does anyone, including Sean, I feel like you need to, want to add anything? No.

Great. Thanks again. Okay, the next item on the agenda is a review and discussion of the draft warrant for Fall Special Town Meeting.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:02 - 2:18:06)
Do we need to approve that statement at all? Or vote on it? No.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:07 - 2:18:13)
I don't think so, but... Sorry.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:13 - 2:18:14)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:15 - 2:18:48)
I was just introducing the next item. I wasn't. So...

I guess I should say something about it. So in our packets, we have the table of contents for the most recent version. The most recent version of the table of contents for the Special Fall Town Meeting.

I just, I guess, want to turn it over to Sean to discuss the timeline here that we should expect.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:50 - 2:20:30)
So, you know, as we begin to really think about a Fall, another Special Town Meeting, this will be the first time in years we've had two Special Town Meetings in the Fall. We've identified December 13th as the date of a Special Town Meeting. So...

In order to really meet the timelines, we'd have to close the warrant on Wednesday, November 17th, or Monday, November 22nd at the latest. We have to, you know, have all collective bargaining contracts that we're looking to have approved at this Special Town Meeting filed with Town Clerk on Friday, November 19th. And Wednesday, November 24th is the date where the warrant will have to be mailed 14 days prior to a Special Town Meeting on Monday, December 13th.

So that gives you kind of a sense of the timeline. We do have a Thanksgiving holiday in there, so it's a busy time of year, but again this is not going to be a robust agenda, but there are a number of articles that we're contemplating for a Special Town Meeting. This will be another likely Zoom meeting, so these can be tricky to coordinate given some of the challenges with the Delta variant and public health.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:31 - 2:20:40)
Sorry, which just reminds me. Great. Okay.

The Town Moderator's on. Do you want to? Okay.

Hi, Michael.

[Speaker 15] (2:20:41 - 2:20:43)
I am on, Madam Chairman. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:43 - 2:20:46)
Sorry to stall on promoting you there.

[Speaker 15] (2:20:47 - 2:20:57)
I am in communication with both Ms. Fiske and Mr. Dulett, and we are working on the contingency plans for a one- and or two-night Virtual Town Meeting.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:58 - 2:21:04)
Okay, great. So it's definitely virtual, right? Yeah.

[Speaker 15] (2:21:04 - 2:21:27)
At this point, given the fact that the emergency order will still be in effect in the special legislation, and given that I've had no indication from the Board of Health that conditions have changed sufficiently, it's my expectation that this will be a Virtual Town Meeting. I see no necessity to drag Town Meeting members out to a football field, even if that were possible, in the midst of December.

[Speaker 17] (2:21:28 - 2:21:29)
Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:31 - 2:21:45)
Just because I don't know better, and I want to just make sure that is there anything right now that you want, other than other, that you want to add right now, Mr. Moderator? Or do you want to just kind of see where the conversation is?

[Speaker 15] (2:21:45 - 2:21:56)
I'm anxious to see what is proposed for the warrants, and that will help me advise Town Hall staff on the likelihood of a one- or two-night meeting.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:56 - 2:22:01)
Great. Okay. So I guess we just go through the articles?

[Speaker 7] (2:22:02 - 2:22:05)
I mean, do we have anything other than a table of contents? We don't.

[Speaker 2] (2:22:05 - 2:22:59)
At this point, you know, we have, you know, right now, the Town Finance team is going through bills of a prior year to see if we had any bills that came in after the close of the fiscal year. Typically, there are a few ministerial bills that the Town typically handles at an annual Town meeting from a prior year. We're currently finalizing negotiations for a number of collective bargaining contracts.

That includes DPW, the Library Union, Town Hall Administrative Assistance. Those are all close to substantially complete, but I expect that over the next week, we'll have those cost items you know, ready to share with the Finance Committee and the Select Board.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:59 - 2:23:04)
Okay, hang on. So Article 2 is just the outstanding bills?

[Speaker 7] (2:23:04 - 2:23:05)
That's right.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:05 - 2:23:05)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (2:23:05 - 2:23:15)
Is there a reason we can't handle this in the normal course as we would in May? Is there a reason that we would want to do this in December? You know, we could put it off in May.

[Speaker 2] (2:23:15 - 2:23:28)
It's always best practice, assuming you can clean those bills up, the better. These are bills that the Town owes, you know, and it's generally just cleaning it up.

[Speaker 17] (2:23:28 - 2:23:28)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:29 - 2:23:36)
And so then, the Transfer of Free Cash Collective Bargaining Agreements, it sounds like you anticipate that's Article 3?

[Speaker 2] (2:23:36 - 2:23:36)
That's right.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:36 - 2:23:44)
That you anticipate that we'll have numbers by the time we even have to come back to...

[Speaker 2] (2:23:44 - 2:23:45)
On the 17th?

[Speaker 1] (2:23:45 - 2:23:46)
That's right. On the 17th.

[Speaker 2] (2:23:46 - 2:24:09)
It's my hope that we will have a cost of contract for a number of these unions that I can share with the Board. There may be a need to have a non-public just to review that with the Board at some point between that meeting and that town meeting.

[Speaker 17] (2:24:10 - 2:24:10)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:11 - 2:24:12)
So, do you mind if I...

[Speaker 17] (2:24:12 - 2:24:12)
No, no. Please.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:13 - 2:25:06)
Help me understand the logistics of how we're going to get from here to there if Finance Committee and us haven't heard anything about these contracts yet and we don't know the free cash and you have to give notice by the 19th. Right? I think it's what you said.

You need to give notice 21 days in advance? That's right. How do we get all those ducks in line for that?

Because you've got to be able to say we've got to deal with the unions 21 days in advance of town meeting, but we haven't. So, I just... So, Peter, just like...

It may be a little rhetorical, which is you may need to think about a schedule that's different than meeting on the 17th. Because the 17th gives us a moment to say yes or no to something and doesn't leave any room for us to ask for additional analysis or have questions that you may not be able to immediately answer. So, I just want to set up success for that.

But at this point, we just don't have anything.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:12 - 2:25:21)
So, it sounds like at worst, we'll schedule another meeting. But we can always weigh in after the...

[Speaker 3] (2:25:21 - 2:25:33)
It sounds like maybe an executive session. Probably the next best move to talk about contract negotiations so that we understand that. That we can probably do virtually and we can do it next week with a lot of flexibility.

[Speaker 17] (2:25:34 - 2:25:35)
Can we do it with the finance committee?

[Speaker 3] (2:25:37 - 2:25:41)
Yeah. Awesome. We've gone down this road.

[Speaker 17] (2:25:41 - 2:25:42)
Yes, we have.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:42 - 2:25:57)
It's our executive session. We can invite the finance committee if we want to invite the finance committee. My suggestion is that we don't even know what we're inviting them to because we don't even know what it is.

My suggestion is that we have an executive session and...

[Speaker 17] (2:25:57 - 2:25:58)
Yeah, I understand.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:59 - 2:26:09)
And I know you're also prioritizing that. I was just trying to be fair in terms of how much time they're going to want to. But I understand your point.

[Speaker 3] (2:26:09 - 2:26:19)
I think once we have an executive session and if we give John direction enough, John can immediately then go schedule something with FinCom in a public session. But FinCom should be able to talk about it publicly.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:23 - 2:26:27)
Can you talk about Article 4 in any more detail? Sure.

[Speaker 2] (2:26:27 - 2:26:28)
Over the last...

[Speaker 1] (2:26:28 - 2:26:31)
Sorry, it's Approved Transfer of Free Cash, Adjusted Tax Rate.

[Speaker 2] (2:26:31 - 2:27:41)
So over the last several years, we've used some free cash to help offset the impact of our annual tax levy. And as we've done in prior years, I would anticipate that this is a placeholder in the event that the select board would choose to offset the tax levy with the use of free cash. That just helps us manage, really, the impact to Swanscot taxpayers.

We haven't had an increase in our average single family tax bill in four years. And we've used free cash to try to help manage setting the tax rate. I think that's the appropriate time to look at using free cash.

It does create a little bit of a policy conversation because you don't have free cash as one-time funds, and there are a lot of strategic opportunities to use one-time dollars. So that's a conversation the board needs to have and really weigh the pros and cons of where we want to place our focus.

[Speaker 3] (2:27:44 - 2:28:20)
Can I just suggest that you draft that reading a certain sum of money and not specify a number that will go in the printed warrant because the likelihood is that between our committee and the finance committee it will take more time than the date when you're printing the warrant to complete that discussion since we haven't started that conversation yet. So I don't want to set expectations. If you print a number, which is your recommendation, and none of us have vetted it, it increases the chances of changing it, and it makes it harder.

Just say a certain sum, and then we can do the motion on the floor. We'll specify a number, assuming the decision is to go forward with it.

[Speaker 1] (2:28:21 - 2:28:36)
And to clarify about the policy stuff, though. It might be obvious to some people, but this is different than our financial guideline policy that we do not use free cash to balance the budget. This is just to offset the income.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:36 - 2:29:12)
So years ago, if you looked at the town budget, it would have a revenue identified as free cash. So you'd have all your local receipts, and then they'd be free cash. So you'd plug your budget with a healthy use of free cash, and you'd create a structural deficit with how you're funding your operating budget.

We haven't done that. What we've done is, at the end of the year, we collect revenues, and then we offset whatever that tax increase would be with free cash to try to help ensure that we protect the taxpayers.

[Speaker 1] (2:29:13 - 2:29:18)
And to clarify, we have to do this now because of... I'm not going to remember the...

[Speaker 2] (2:29:18 - 2:29:19)
We have to do the tax recap.

[Speaker 3] (2:29:19 - 2:30:14)
We're actually late with the tax recap this year. So I think the bigger structural thing that Sean's talking about, and correct me if I'm wrong, Sean, is by using free cash, the cumulative effect of free cash creates an inherent structural imbalance in our budget. If we don't use free cash this year, we have to make up for the $1.5 million of free cash we used last year. And so it's a snowball. Unless you grow revenue. Unless revenue outpaces.

And we haven't seen the reforecast on revenue, we haven't seen the reforecast on expenses yet, so we don't actually know where that all sits. But there is a point in time where using free cash isn't going to make sense because we're creating too much of a structural imbalance such that we can't confidentially predict that we will have enough free cash in the intervening years to maintain it. We just don't.

We probably can, but we just don't know what that number is.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:16 - 2:30:29)
There's a policy conversation. I think that's a big conversation that the board has to have. When we set our taxes, we've got to weigh what's the balance.

Everything is about balance.

[Speaker 1] (2:30:29 - 2:30:42)
Well, isn't part of the financial guidelines, though, that we should have free cash within a certain percentage? It's not self-regulating, but it has boundaries on both sides.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:42 - 2:31:17)
That's a policy document, too. We should think about the reality of every year, every situation, what the economy is like, how that ideal is setting our compass. At the end of the day, I would think that you'd look at all of your financial indices and figure out, are you in a position to strike a balance with a number of priorities?

I think you might be.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:18 - 2:31:35)
Someone on the financial team will present the pros and cons of that, because I couldn't tell you that analysis without introduction. Article 5, any other questions on that one? Article 5, appropriation from transportation infrastructure fund.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:35 - 2:31:59)
That's the Uber and the Lyft. It's a ministerial appropriation. It's probably less than $6,000.

A percentage change for everybody in Swanscot that's ride sharing. It specifically needs to go to a transportation enhancer.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:59 - 2:32:07)
Article 6 and 7, which have been dealt with together at times, approved transfer of water and sewer enterprise fund retained earnings.

[Speaker 2] (2:32:07 - 2:32:27)
Similar to the article 4, that's simply to reduce the rate for water and sewer fees. We had discussed utilization of retained earnings when we talked about the rate setting.

[Speaker 3] (2:32:29 - 2:32:54)
Unlike the pre-tax or tax levy, we've had a prolonged conversation about retained earnings. Has anything changed in the forecasting for water and sewer that requires you to change what we talked about previously in terms of retained use of retained earnings? Neil is still in therapy.

Trying to recover from his experience with that.

[Speaker 2] (2:32:55 - 2:33:14)
We will take another close look. At this point, I don't have anything to share with the board. We will take another close look at expenses and whether or not there have been additional water breaks or water repairs that have thrown cost assumptions askew.

[Speaker 3] (2:33:15 - 2:33:36)
If I can foreshadow, change would not be good. Things that change would have to have been truly of a magnitude and truly unforeseeable. That budget is the one that more than one board member has the greatest concern about that we don't have as good a handle as we do on the operating budget.

Understood.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:40 - 2:34:20)
I'm going to ask. In my naivete. We got an email from I don't know where, one of the state agencies about a grant opportunity for sewer relief.

I don't know if that has anything to do with I know it doesn't have to do with this article, but maybe we can talk about that at some point with the, I don't know. We did an in-depth analysis before. I'm assuming we're going to have some summary again before we have to decide on this.

Maybe we can just talk about if there is a concern that Peter's raising, possible support for relief for that. Does that make sense?

[Speaker 2] (2:34:20 - 2:35:06)
Absolutely. We've been looking at additional funding strategies. There's some opera funds that the state is identifying for different cities and towns across the Commonwealth and I believe that we'll be receiving some funds for our infrastructure.

There are some other grant opportunities. We were able to get a grant last year to do a complete status of good repair for our entire water and wastewater system. Once we get some of those studies in, we're going to have a much clearer idea of some of those short and long term cost items.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:10 - 2:35:14)
Article 8, establish a solid waste enterprise fund.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:16 - 2:35:56)
So that is a wonderful recommendation coming from our solid waste advisory committee and this will help ensure that we have revenue to support some of the responsibilities we have to better support Swampskate as we lean into the state's 2030 solid waste plan. They will be closing landfills in the Commonwealth and we need to have a better handle on how we're going to manage our solid waste responsibilities.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:57 - 2:36:13)
I admit I pushed this, not pushed it, but it was something I had wanted to as part of the waste reduction. I'm glad it's on here but obviously want to hear when we have more information possibly. Just in concept anyway.

Others thoughts on this?

[Speaker 2] (2:36:13 - 2:36:28)
Again, I think seeding this is helpful. I think keeping as much some revenue in your general fund is most helpful.

[Speaker 7] (2:36:30 - 2:37:14)
Maybe there's a balance for how we start to seed this type of enterprise fund. As far as this revenue is concerned, we're going to need revenue to be able to enact some of the recommendations and suggestions of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. I thought they had some great ideas for revenue generating and for removal of items out of the trash stream and out of the recycling stream because corrugated cardboard has value.

There may be the opportunity for the town to be multiplicative.

[Speaker 2] (2:37:16 - 2:37:43)
Yes, maybe. I think the big picture is we have a big number in the operating budget that continues to place a lot of pressure on every other line and to take revenue out of the sale of bags or whatever revenue that we're generating for this special purpose is not there to offset the general fund.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:44 - 2:39:18)
I think to that point, I'm not saying it in defense, but I think I'm coming from the idea is that we did create the waste reduction efforts to offset the cost. Whether that was meant to be so literal or not, I guess is a different question because it's all in the wash I get what you're saying and flexibility has its value in the operating budget. At the same time, I think the reality is when you, I think with the town that when you have certain circumstances where there's reliable sources of it's not revenue, right?

Revenue and expenses. I think it does make sense to create a separate fund. We have to produce the bags, pay for those, reproduce, but then we also receive the income from those and that can offset, we can use that to help with the metal recycling days, the overtime that comes from the DPW budget.

These things are costing the town no matter what, but just to, again, to your point, it comes out in the wash, but at the same time to really kind of be able to take a closer look at that solid waste system supporting itself, the efforts to reduce waste supporting themselves and then using whatever is left to reduce that line item. Is that realistic? Because that's the goal.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:19 - 2:40:52)
It is, and so as I look at this, I'm like if the intent here is to incentivize getting more organics out of our waste stream, this might be actually a very strategic fund to support subsidizing organics and give, let's see what we can do to kind of get more citizens engaged in reducing a significant function of weight that we pay a tonnage charge for and generate a savings in the operating budget by strategically investing a portion of some revenue that incentivize changes in behavior. Changing behavior is difficult, and we're not going to be able to do that all at once. If we're going to try to incentivize this as opposed to just regulate it, I think that would work better and I think you'd get a chance to get more and more citizens to help us reduce the overall tonnage cost and as it looks like we're going to be paying a lot more for garbage than recycling, there's going to be a cost benefit there.

So those are the kind of things that I think if you see this and see that it's producing behaviors that are empirically demonstrable, I think you can then start to kind of figure out, alright, that's an investment strategy that makes sense.

[Speaker 6] (2:40:53 - 2:41:05)
So for the purposes of the warrant, are we going to have details or the mechanics of this fund when we close the warrant? Or is this a conversation we're having after we close the warrant?

[Speaker 3] (2:41:05 - 2:42:35)
I suspect we're talking about more than the warrant here. So the warrant is going to take a specific set of dollars from a certain source and say those dollars are now going to be put into this fund. We'll have to decide what we do.

We'll have to decide if we're going to have it be starting next fiscal year or this fiscal year so that will then transfer dollars. I can see the benefit to having it start next fiscal year just because you're in the middle of a fiscal year and you hadn't counted on that. And so we're balancing.

But I think the concept, the construct shouldn't be hard. It's more the what are the priorities of when you're taking money out of the enterprise fund which is kind of how do you, what's the guidelines or the policy of when you're taking money out of the fund? Is it first to keep future solid waste line item increases under 3%?

Then to initiative one, initiative two, initiative three. Or what it is. It needs something to help get the money back out.

Putting the money in is easy. We just don't want to put it there and then trap it and then not be able to agree as to what the best financial decision is and policy decision because there's initiatives like David talked about but then there's also cost escalation concerns. So I think long winded way of saying that warrant article is going to be the easy part.

The policy that ultimately dictates opening the account essentially. Yeah, I mean I know what you mean. I mean there is a school of thought that says we should have that all answered before we even start the fund.

But I do see the benefit of the fund because the fund creates the discipline.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:36 - 2:42:37)
Do you support?

[Speaker 3] (2:42:38 - 2:43:11)
No, I do. I think you've been on this from day one and I think you've been right on this. As long as we are recognizing that cost overruns of a line item have to be prioritized over new initiatives just because that's what we talked to residents about which was this is a way for us to subsidize future increases and I think we have to be true to that.

Assuming we create parameters there then I think there is going to be opportunity for us and thanks to your negotiations like with JRM I think there's going to be opportunities for us to then pursue those initiatives and make some investments which is exciting. So I totally support it. I just don't think it's going to be as complicated.

[Speaker 6] (2:43:11 - 2:43:17)
So those parameters don't need to be established? No. That's what I was asking.

This is the next step.

[Speaker 2] (2:43:18 - 2:43:46)
You've got a committee too and I think you might want to go back to your committee and say hey look we've got the fund what actually would be the best strategic way to take a little bit of funds to help address the punnage but also we've got a priority with stabilizing this line item and we've got to kind of figure out where we balance both of those needs.

[Speaker 1] (2:43:46 - 2:43:55)
Does it make sense then to your point I could see it making sense to wait then if we're not funding it until next year or to establish it now so we have the time to make it detailed?

[Speaker 2] (2:43:55 - 2:43:58)
You can establish it and then we can fund it in the annual.

[Speaker 3] (2:43:58 - 2:44:26)
I think right now let's keep it and then we can make a decision before a town meeting to say hey we're just going to table it because there's more conversation. It could be something where a town meeting wants to know all the details exactly where the money's going to be and we're not going to be able to give clarity and that may argue to let's table it because we don't need it but that being said Sean should assume it in the creation of the fiscal year Well that's why I say 22 budget.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:27 - 2:44:30)
Also it would be a lot of work to come up with all the details.

[Speaker 3] (2:44:30 - 2:45:03)
So I think that you should assume it's going to happen Sean for that purposes and staff should be the first ones to give us the parameter to say this is what we think we should be doing which is I can support a 3% annual look at what you just negotiated as a baseline and say we can support a 3%. Don't want a 3% but we can support a 3% under the general fund. Anything above a 3% though I need subsidy from the enterprise fund or create some parameter so we can keep it in the warrant now and just foreshadow what's coming maybe do it if we have everything together but we have so many other things going on.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:04 - 2:46:03)
It's a lot of work to know if it doesn't pass I can see both ways but in concept it's not opposed by anybody Article 9 and 10 are placeholders right now miscellaneous articles and amendments to zoning Article 11 is placeholder for change to town charter I would like to change the name of the board to select board and I think from the research I've done and the response from town council I think we just have to hold a public meeting of the board I'm sorry a public hearing the board has to hold a public hearing and then when we approve that it has to pass town meeting by a two thirds vote which would mean we'd have to put it on next week's agenda but I understand we had wanted to wait to change the name officially

[Speaker 3] (2:46:03 - 2:46:47)
I think it's great I'm sorry that when we just spontaneously changed our reference we didn't do anything officially so I think it's great I think it would be great to do it and let's have that public meeting it's a home rule petition and that can take its normal course but I do think at some point we should revisit the charter review which I think we're close we're not quite ready to do but I'm glad you're thinking about the name because I think the name is really important and it's something that we should make official because I'm tired of changing it back in documents because people are changing our legal documents to say select board and then we have to cross it off and say no we're staying on selectmen but I think it's more than symbolic it is really important

[Speaker 1] (2:46:47 - 2:47:14)
I appreciate that and then from town council today I got a response and he suggested while we do that to change the bylaws like just have another article that changes the bylaw the name of the board and the bylaws as well and so you just kind of so to avoid that same inconsistency like to not just keep butting up against it so that's that one and then earth removal bylaw revision article 12 I'm not seeing

[Speaker 17] (2:47:15 - 2:47:16)
this one

[Speaker 2] (2:47:16 - 2:47:57)
so this is you know we've had a number of meetings over the last year to talk about the importance for establishing a different regulatory standard for the ERAC bylaw changing the bylaw actually makes it stronger than just the annual permit and our ERAC committee has worked diligently to hire a consultant to really look at the regulatory process for managing earth removal and blasting and other important elements of this bylaw

[Speaker 1] (2:47:57 - 2:48:10)
so should we just wait to talk I'm just looking to so basically I think this is the so ERAC is proposing my understanding is one

[Speaker 3] (2:48:10 - 2:48:18)
not yet so I think they are discussing they haven't met and they haven't formed consensus yet but they are discussing that so just sorry

[Speaker 1] (2:48:18 - 2:48:22)
no no that's why I was looking to you to explain because I knew I would not get it right

[Speaker 2] (2:48:23 - 2:48:33)
there's a thought that you know getting this done sooner could be advantageous there's another thought that this is such a substantive change that it could be an annual

[Speaker 1] (2:48:34 - 2:48:36)
so this is a tentative

[Speaker 2] (2:48:36 - 2:48:38)
so yeah so I think that

[Speaker 3] (2:48:38 - 2:50:38)
so the permit that we did this year was a very different permit for AI most of the changes in the bylaw proposed change of bylaw relates to quarrying there are some other changes that don't relate to quarrying that are material important but the majority of the changes that relate to quarrying I know everybody wants to move forward with it and I do too because I want to codify it I want to take what we did in the permit and put it into the bylaw because I think it's important we can still do that in time for next year's earth removal permit or the AI permit with town meeting in May my concern is we don't yet have enough feedback and what's going on this year with the permit I know that I think a letter has actually been sent to AI a non-compliance outlining some things that they need to get into compliance with like there's some good learning tools I think we're going to see in the next several months to say hey this worked this didn't work and some of the ideas just might have been bad ideas that didn't make sense so I think there's some benefit to just using this time to monitor what's going on and it's no more strict than AI's permit itself so AI already has the stricture put upon them in their permit so we're not delaying that by any means it's more I think giving it a little bit more time to mature and see what kind of feedback in that vein though I would ask that town staff please please work on getting that complaint system that we talked about the online complaint system that we could tie in to geo mapping as well to be able to identify this is where you were that system needs to be in place now the good news is I think we think that there's less complaints this year so far but we just need that system because I think that it's anecdotal but it helps us combine the anecdotal with the increased data that we're going to have this year to look at and information and without that it's very hard to decipher perception and reality and to really understand where we really need to focus our efforts so if we can please

[Speaker 17] (2:50:39 - 2:50:41)
get that that would be helpful yeah

[Speaker 1] (2:50:42 - 2:50:52)
ok affordable anything else on that article 13 affordable housing trust membership increase

[Speaker 3] (2:50:53 - 2:51:31)
so I think the affordable housing trust is asked to increase membership I think we just need to through David ask the trust to come back to us with a number as to what number they think is the right number for them to not be too big that they create a quorum problem for themselves because the bigger you are the bigger number you need to show up at your meetings just to have a quorum there's a balance there so town council has drafted something I think you have it if not I'll make sure you have it town council did draft the article so I know it's out there it just doesn't have a number in it because none of us know what number so I'm sure Kim has something in mind I'll reach out to her tomorrow I think it's a great idea she wants more support and I think that's great

[Speaker 1] (2:51:32 - 2:51:34)
there's certainly not past 9

[Speaker 7] (2:51:34 - 2:51:41)
I think it might be 5 or 6 is it 5

[Speaker 3] (2:51:41 - 2:51:50)
I think it's 5 with an alternate yeah so we're well within reasonable with an alternate or something like that if that makes sense

[Speaker 1] (2:51:51 - 2:52:01)
that's good and then article 14 is placeholder and that's that any other comments things I missed

[Speaker 3] (2:52:03 - 2:52:11)
so is the expectation that we are reviewing articles and closing the warrant on the 17th

[Speaker 2] (2:52:11 - 2:52:28)
that is the expectation there is a little bit of wiggle room where you know the board needed to schedule another meeting the absolute latest would be November 22nd

[Speaker 1] (2:52:28 - 2:52:42)
so what is the looking at this in terms of what we would what we might want more time to review than just that one meeting because there's many of these are somewhat non contentious

[Speaker 7] (2:52:42 - 2:52:47)
the collective bargaining agreements the financial implications there

[Speaker 1] (2:52:48 - 2:52:53)
free cash articles 3 and 4 right we're going to want some kind of

[Speaker 3] (2:52:53 - 2:53:12)
can we differentiate things needed to close the warrant versus things needed to know how we're going to recommend for example the free cash if we don't put a number and say a certain sum that's just simple legal language for us to see and then we can close the warrant and then we can do it retained earnings frankly we can do the exact same thing

[Speaker 1] (2:53:12 - 2:53:13)
right right

[Speaker 3] (2:53:13 - 2:53:23)
so I think the tougher ones are the ones that are more meaty like the solid waste enterprise fund if it has a lot of stuff in it or the earth removal bylaw for example

[Speaker 1] (2:53:24 - 2:53:24)
right

[Speaker 3] (2:53:25 - 2:53:27)
my gut is that's not going to be ready

[Speaker 1] (2:53:28 - 2:53:58)
yeah so there's a difference between those are I think there's both the ones that might not be ready and the ones that might be iffy and then the ones that we think that can just be in there articles 3 and 4 that we might weigh in on after the warrant closes right so with that in mind do you think we it doesn't seem like that would be too much to do on the 17th maybe it would be do you want to schedule a meeting in the meantime I guess is what I'm asking and then do the 17th or 17th and see if we need another

[Speaker 3] (2:53:58 - 2:54:40)
no I think just be open to the fact that we may not if we decide to pursue earth removal and pursue solid waste enterprise fund my guess is those will take more time and we can put something in the warrant but then I think it's hard for town meetings especially virtually that all of a sudden we do a motion on the floor that's substantively different than what they had a chance to review there's no realistic easy way in the virtual platform for them to it's not like in past town meetings the moderator hands out the goldenrod color of paper and says you know this article's been amended by what's on the goldenrod paper or the salmon colored paper and it gives people a chance to actually just sit there during town meeting and do it in the virtual platform it doesn't

[Speaker 1] (2:54:40 - 2:54:42)
and that's not ideal anyway

[Speaker 3] (2:54:42 - 2:54:48)
so I think we just gotta be ready on the 17th to decide you know what these aren't ready

[Speaker 1] (2:54:48 - 2:54:49)
or it's too much

[Speaker 3] (2:54:50 - 2:54:59)
but the rest of them Sean you should be able to get to us this week I would assume general boilerplate language like we've done these many years ago so we have the language

[Speaker 2] (2:54:59 - 2:55:16)
I have a draft of the warrant with stock language in there so we can certainly advance them as as far as we can and just put some plugs in there for the actual financial data that we're gonna be reviewing on the 17th

[Speaker 1] (2:55:17 - 2:55:30)
I'm sorry that I'm like dense here but we think the 17th is sufficient because frankly I don't know that one additional meeting's gonna get me on board with a bylaw that's overwhelming anyway

[Speaker 3] (2:55:31 - 2:55:47)
or an enterprise fund my gut is we're going down the path the 17th is gonna be sufficient because I think I'm hearing that these other two the solid waste and the earth removal are probably annual town meeting is what I'm hearing

[Speaker 1] (2:55:47 - 2:55:52)
and if the solid waste isn't it's the bare bones version which won't take time ok

[Speaker 6] (2:55:53 - 2:56:09)
that's aside from a likely executive session between the 17th on the CDA and the finance committee having some sort of meeting that's not our problem because that's the 19th is when you have to that's your deadline

[Speaker 2] (2:56:09 - 2:56:21)
I'm also thinking sometime between the 19th and the 13th that'll give her one way for the finance committee to have a few careful conversations not if you've already given notice of a

[Speaker 3] (2:56:23 - 2:56:40)
you have to give notice to the unions by the 19th I think giving notice and then asking what they think is probably not the order I would suggest I think as though we should be letting the chair of the finance committee know that they should expect that there's gonna be a need for them to meet before the 19th just out of respect

[Speaker 1] (2:56:40 - 2:56:42)
I think we do need to let them know that

[Speaker 3] (2:56:44 - 2:56:52)
again by then we're gonna have our recommendations so you know but we can talk more about it in an executive session yep

[Speaker 1] (2:56:53 - 2:56:58)
Mr. Moderator do you have any questions or comments since you're here still

[Speaker 15] (2:56:59 - 2:57:40)
no I don't I believe the board is correct I think that the divergence occurs when you all make a recommendation post printing the warrant and the finance committee then has to make its own recommendation you know if you guys are at odds you guys are at odds but the opportunity to spend some time with the finance committee to bring them around to why you're thinking what you're thinking and it's totally fine for them to report at town meeting on something like that just want you all to have a chance to understand what their thinking is before we get within you know a few days of town meeting

[Speaker 1] (2:57:41 - 2:57:49)
right okay thank you alright then I'm totally blowing this meeting time here

[Speaker 3] (2:57:49 - 2:58:01)
oh well thank you though well you blew it by assuming that you could actually keep a meeting time you failed in just the assumption to begin with I'm sure your plan was a very good plan

[Speaker 1] (2:58:01 - 2:58:14)
at least it was in pen this time so okay second reading of the solid waste policy a thorough reading right now everyone

[Speaker 2] (2:58:16 - 3:02:25)
there are no it's actually you know we had an extensive discussion last week at this point I'm asking the boards approval and authorization to execute a five year contract with Jerem for the presentation it would be based on a July 22nd letter with a list of cost items annually for the town of Swampship and it will help us ensure that we stabilize solid waste cost over the next two years as we kind of lean into a really challenging market we talked at our last meeting that I would meet with Wayne Spritz and Johnny Gold members of our solid waste advisory committee and the principles of Jerem that meeting happened yesterday we had a fruitful discussion we did agree that we would change the proposal and add a sentence that would allow the town to renegotiate with Jerem if there was a significant change in legislation or the market you know and that would simply just be a re-opener but it gives the town an opportunity to continue to have a strong partnership with a solid waste provider and would ensure that Jerem will work with the town in the event that we see significant regulatory change for an evolving solid waste and recycling market Wayne Spritz and Johnny Gold were particularly interested in recycling and the contamination of recycling right now the town does not pay for any contamination in our recycling stream and right now the town collects glass in our recycling stream that frankly in many occasions doesn't make its way to a renewable market winds up in a landfill and so there are bills pending right now that will require companies like Jerem that have recycling MRFs or manufacturing businesses to report out their contamination and charge municipalities additional costs associated with that I've been focused on avoiding baking that language into a contract because frankly it's an extraordinary increase and these costs are only going up Swansgate actually has a pretty fair deal I wouldn't say it's something that's that attractive because we look back just a couple years ago we were paying 600 thousand dollars a year for solid waste services this has grown dramatically and I anticipate that we're only going to see significant increases for the solid waste function the recycling commodities continue to fluctuate you have good years and bad years right now we're seeing a better time and you know the one conversation that Johnny Gold just kept pressing was why can't we see a piece of the positive market and you know the rejoiner was well if you want the upside you have to take the downside and that's not just you know we're not in a business that can afford the downside we have too many small line items too many other pressing priorities to play the international markets

[Speaker 1] (3:02:27 - 3:02:34)
so that one extra clause can that go both ways or is it just that the town can open if the markets

[Speaker 2] (3:02:34 - 3:02:40)
change it's just the town the town you know has J.R.M. agreed to it they have

[Speaker 7] (3:02:41 - 3:02:42)
is the language in here

[Speaker 2] (3:02:42 - 3:02:45)
it's not in there but I anticipate that I'll have it tomorrow

[Speaker 1] (3:02:46 - 3:02:48)
so it's go ahead

[Speaker 3] (3:02:48 - 3:02:53)
that's fine I would just ask that a vote tonight just have a designated member just to do that language

[Speaker 1] (3:02:54 - 3:03:05)
just to put it on the record though and not to pressure you but we want to really be I don't want to come back to this it's significant legislative change or market change that's right both

[Speaker 2] (3:03:05 - 3:03:06)
that's right

[Speaker 1] (3:03:08 - 3:03:17)
so is there a motion to approve the solid waste any okay is there a motion to approve the solid waste contract with that additional language

[Speaker 7] (3:03:18 - 3:03:21)
included so moved second

[Speaker 1] (3:03:21 - 3:03:32)
any additional comments questions who is volunteering to be the reviewer of that language

[Speaker 3] (3:03:36 - 3:03:39)
the person asking cannot possibly nominate themselves

[Speaker 1] (3:03:40 - 3:03:44)
thank you Peter all in favor

[Speaker 5] (3:03:44 - 3:03:45)
aye

[Speaker 1] (3:03:46 - 3:03:49)
Peter okay

[Speaker 6] (3:03:50 - 3:03:55)
thanks for following up on that I want to thank

[Speaker 2] (3:03:55 - 3:04:16)
Wayne Spritz and Johnny Gold and members of our solid waste advisory committee I really do think that they have rolled up their sleeves quite literally Wayne has agreed to head over to JRM sometime in the next couple weeks and put a jumpsuit on and go dig through

[Speaker 1] (3:04:16 - 3:04:18)
I can picture this actually

[Speaker 2] (3:04:18 - 3:04:44)
the recycling stream dumpster diving I'm going to try to get Mr. Dulette to videotape that and ensure that posterity can really get a clear idea of what's contaminated in the recycling stream Mr. Gold actually went and picked up a couple of recycling bins and literally picked it apart that to me is

[Speaker 1] (3:04:44 - 3:04:45)
commitment

[Speaker 2] (3:04:45 - 3:04:49)
it's good citizens trying to help

[Speaker 1] (3:04:50 - 3:06:10)
we're lucky to have them alright votes of the board the approval of the consent agenda the consent agenda is designed to expedite the handling of routine and miscellaneous business of the board the select board may adopt the entire consent agenda with one motion at the request of any board member any item may be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda for discussion the consent agenda someone has to talk for me now are the vote to approve meeting minutes from September 1, September 20 September 28 and October 6 all 2021 any further comments on the meeting minutes that Ali took and did such a good job with and others Molly too all in favor aye all right comment first I think we're going to try doing it at the beginning of the meetings in the future so that we're not all like we're even more actively listening to you Sean and then maybe they will inform or shorten some of the conversations that happened after that we'll see how it goes

[Speaker 2] (3:06:10 - 3:10:05)
all right I'm happy to give this at the beginning middle or end all right so we are continuing to monitor our COVID cases we continue to see some positive cases among folks that are vaccinated we did get information that the CDC will now begin allowing vaccinations for individuals that are 5 to 12 so that's going to be helpful but again we want folks to just practice common sense this past week I did meet with Alice Stein to review recent correspondence from Massport I shared that with the board they did respond to a number of questions that I had presented to them I went through those questions with Alice we are seeking meetings with mass officials that deal with air quality and with EPA region one air quality experts we wanted to go through the questions and make sure that we actually understood the impact that these new flight paths would have on swamps I've shared with the board some information about our 2021 valuations we've seen some dramatic increases in valuation I think anybody that has watched the market understands that Swampskid is a very busy residential real estate market but also commercial valuations have grown significantly so we've seen an increase in over 10% of our valuation that's a strong robust economy last week I had a meeting with Dave Peterson and Gino Cressida to review the II regulations we had discussed that back over the summer and I anticipate providing the board with an update on November 17 and a recommendation we have looked through a fee and a model and we're working with KPLR just trying to figure out what the right key structure will be Chief Kurz has been following up with the MassPAC police accreditation for the police department they've gone through the police department we also have a number of had a number of strength, weaknesses, opportunity and threats for the police department a number of 120 residents participated in that exercise he has been working with Chief Archer to address an ongoing communications challenge that has affected just a few neighborhoods in Swampskip so we have a new mattress recycling program which will help the town reduce solid waste in our solid waste nothing worse than a wet, soggy mattress in a trash truck we pay for the water in that so it makes it five times more expensive we also have a pumpkin recycling event so if you have some pumpkins on November 13th from 9am to 12pm you can drop your old pumpkins off and have them composted by black earth compost a number of upcoming events for the town we have a holiday parade on December 11th and our senior center has a number of really fun wine tasting events and veterans day breakfast and thanksgiving inspired lunch our farmers market is on November 21st holiday festival December 11th and a turkey hunt on November 21st

[Speaker 1] (3:10:05 - 3:10:06)
that's fun

[Speaker 2] (3:10:07 - 3:10:08)
it is fun

[Speaker 1] (3:10:09 - 3:10:13)
thank you Sean select board time

[Speaker 2] (3:10:17 - 3:10:18)
one second

[Speaker 7] (3:10:23 - 3:10:53)
yes for those parents who are most interested in getting rid of all of your Halloween candy all of your excess Halloween candy that you haven't inhaled yet Spur is doing a pick up at their Spur office at 6 Anderson street Marblehead and the volunteers will bag it to include grab and go meals for neighbors and it looks like the last drop off day is Saturday November 6th from 9 a.m. to 4 30 p.m. yep

[Speaker 6] (3:10:57 - 3:11:39)
I just wanted to quickly mention I've noticed that Deb Newman has been making lunches for the seniors weekly at the senior center and it just from all reports it just sounds like a vast improvement to what was there before and I just really appreciate the work she's doing and the senior center's doing and the town's doing to improve that I think that's fantastic and just look forward to seeing it getting better and better so I just want to give kudos to Deb and the senior center and I'm really excited to see that moving forward in a positive way you don't need

[Speaker 3] (3:11:39 - 3:12:02)
the validation but I feel it's important to say that we're in really good hands with you being chair and I've seen like just what you've been doing this past week and even if you did a fraction of it in weeks ahead we are in really good shape and so I really appreciate you stepping up because I know you're choosing to do this over other really important things because the day isn't longer it's just more packed filled so we're grateful

[Speaker 10] (3:12:02 - 3:12:02)
thank you

[Speaker 6] (3:12:06 - 3:12:07)
very nice

[Speaker 1] (3:12:09 - 3:12:13)
the only thing I'll add is I'm so glad you mentioned that Peter because that's Neil

[Speaker 3] (3:12:14 - 3:12:20)
but she's also glad that Peter mentioned what he mentioned too I don't know which one of you should be more flattered

[Speaker 2] (3:12:21 - 3:12:22)
I'm pretty sure I know

[Speaker 1] (3:12:22 - 3:12:42)
I think I'm just used to saying I'm glad you mentioned that Peter because that's what I say every meeting five times but anyway I'm glad you mentioned that Neil because Deb is doing amazing things and I know that food was a huge complaint it might make sense to have another meeting

[Speaker 2] (3:12:42 - 3:12:54)
down at the senior center and maybe have one of those meals and have a conversation with some of the seniors it's been a while since we've had that conversation

[Speaker 1] (3:12:57 - 3:13:22)
yeah and also along those lines I know the housing authority mentioned it but I do think it was really cool they did the trick or treat thing sorry I don't remember the name of the officer that was in attendance but it sounded like a really huge success I'm sure it was really important to the kids and a great mini community event so I just want to recognize that and thank them for doing that and for the officers who joined and that's it

[Speaker 6] (3:13:25 - 3:13:26)
alright

[Speaker 1] (3:13:27 - 3:13:29)
ok a motion to adjourn

[Speaker 6] (3:13:29 - 3:13:31)
so moved second

[Speaker 1] (3:13:31 - 3:13:32)
all in favor

[Speaker 6] (3:13:32 - 3:13:33)
aye aye

[Speaker 1] (3:13:35 - 3:13:36)
thank you everyone

[Speaker 17] (3:13:36 - 3:13:38)
thanks for your patience