[Speaker 1] (0:03 - 0:30)
I want to make sure that everyone has been able to pick up a copy of the blue handout and the purplish-pinkish handout. If you have not, now is a good time to go out to the lobby to make sure you have your copies. These will be material during our discussion of some of the articles.

One blue and one purple-pink. Apparently we ran out of purple paper.

[Speaker 19] (1:10 - 1:19)
Good evening.

[Speaker 1] (1:19 - 2:32)
Good evening. If you would all rise and those of you who feel compelled, let's pledge allegiance to our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please before you sit down, I would like to ask the indulgence of the meeting for a brief moment of silence in memory of the shooting victims in Buffalo over the weekend, in memory of those who have to live with the trauma hereafter, and in fact, victims of gun violence throughout our nation. I hope that we as a town can commit ourselves to trying to be a source of peace and love as opposed to violence and hatred. Thank you.

Finally, will you please remain standing and the town clerk will swear you all in.

[Speaker 16] (2:32 - 3:09)
If everyone could please raise your right hand and repeat after me, I, state your name, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform all the duties imposed upon me by my election as town meeting member in the town of Swampscott according to the laws of the Commonwealth and the bylaws of the town of Swampscott.

[Speaker 1] (3:10 - 4:04)
Thank you. Thank you. Please be seated.

We have a couple of announcements. Mr. Burdoff, are you here? Aaron Burdoff, if you are here, please proceed.

Stand by.

[Speaker 28] (4:10 - 4:12)
Thank you, Mr. Gillette.

[Speaker 12] (4:14 - 4:58)
Test? All right. We'd like to start the meeting with a Native Land Acknowledgement, saying we are Native lands.

The land where our town now resides was referred to as Musqueamscott, which is from an eastern Algonquin language meaning at the red rocks. Long before the fish house was built in 1896, Swampscott was host to abundant traditional fishing and hunting grounds, as well as the homes of indigenous people. We acknowledge that every moment we live, work, play, pray, gather, and study in this town of Swampscott, we do so on the lands of indigenous peoples who for millennia prior to European colonization called this place home and are still here.

Thank you, Mr. Burdoff.

[Speaker 1] (4:58 - 5:01)
Ms. Cameron, I believe you have an announcement or two.

[Speaker 34] (5:12 - 6:36)
Janelle Cameron, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 3 now, Chair of the annual 4th of July Parade and Strawberry Festival, Farmers Market Committee, Recreation Commission, Hadley School Secretary. I just wanted to say the parade is back. We finally have the parade again.

It's on Sunday, June 26th, because the following Sunday is July 3rd, and that's the fireworks with Lynn. So it's on Sunday the 26th, and it's also the 170th birthday of the town. So we're trying to think of something different.

If Levin would like to have a special float put in there with maybe some beach painters and easels on it, maybe the elementary trolley car can turn into a birthday cake or something like that. But we'd like to do something special for the 170th birthday, and we'll have the Strawberry Festival afterwards just like always. For the Farmers Market, it starts the second Sunday in June in Town Hall, and the last thing is the golf tournament is full.

A lot of people have been asking about the golf tournament that Janelle has from recreation, and that is already full. So anyone that is interested, please reach out to me, and I'll actually put you in the parade. I'm going to see if we can put the website.

It's fourthjulyfestivities is the website at Gmail, but I will see if we can put that on the town website, too. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (6:36 - 6:50)
Thank you, Ms. Cameron. For the one or two of you that don't know how to get a hold of her, please see me. Now we have a special presentation.

I'd like to ask your indulgence for a few moments for the town administrator.

[Speaker 4] (6:53 - 6:57)
I'm going to recognize the chair of the select board, Neal Duffy.

[Speaker 5] (7:11 - 12:20)
Hi, Neal Duffy, select board, not the chair, vice chair, and precinct 3 town meeting member. Tonight, we have a special presentation for a couple of our former colleagues to recognize their contribution to our town. I think, hopefully, we're going to start with Polly Titcomb.

I don't know. There she is. Come on down, Polly.

You can sit down. You don't have to... So it's my pleasure and honor to share a few words about my former colleague of the select board and good friend, Polly Titcomb.

I first met Polly when she was running for select board in 2019. She called me up to introduce herself, and we spoke for about 45 minutes to an hour. I was struck by how easy the conversation was and how little she talked about herself as a candidate and how genuinely interested she was in hearing what I had to say.

It was the first and last time Polly ever listened to me. This is a joke, of course. Polly listens quite often.

But in that conversation, Polly told me about her five years of experience on the Swampscot Finance Committee, and while she really enjoyed that work, that she wanted to be more involved and she wanted to do more for the town. Polly's election in 2019 to the board of selectmen, as it was called at the time, was historic for our town because it marked the first and still only time that we had a majority female board. Polly, Naomi Dreeben, and Laura Spathanis.

Like these breakthrough moments often are, it was encouraging but also sort of sad. What took us so long to get there? With Naomi and Laura stepping down in 2020, the makeup of the board reverted back to the unfortunate historical norms of a male majority.

David Grishman, I personally think, is largely to blame for that, but I suppose I had something to do with it as well. After the most recent election, it looks like we're at least back trending in the right direction. In my experience, Polly was always more than happy to enter the fray with her four admittedly sometimes stubborn colleagues.

She's never afraid to ask the difficult questions or take on the thorniest of issues. At the risk of sparking yet another debate about trash barrels, I will leave that there. Polly is someone who is equally comfortable diving into the details or addressing the big picture.

She was instrumental in creating and establishing Swampskate's financial policies and guidelines, which were officially adopted last year and serve as both the starting point and the North Star for all of our major budgetary and policy decisions. She pushed the Select Board to set annual goals this year, and up until her very last day in office less than a month ago, she worked doggedly to create and push the adoption of handbooks and a code of conduct for the Select Board and other boards and committees in town. These types of measures are ones that are so challenging to get across the finish line, because there always seems to be something more pressing or urgent that needs to be addressed.

But they are foundational and vital and improve the way we govern, communicate, and function, and Polly recognized the importance of such things, and her perseverance to get them completed is admirable. These are just a few examples of Polly's accomplishments and contributions. Over the last eight plus years, she has spent hours and hours and hours of personal time as a committed volunteer for our town and for us.

Hours that are not easy to come by for a full-time working professional raising young children. Of course, Polly, this night is not about marking the end of your service to our town or our community at large. You did not step down from the Select Board to take a break.

Rather, as was the case in 2019, your desire to do more prompted you to move on. No matter your official title, we all know that you will continue to contribute in so many positive ways for years to come. But tonight is about thanking you for all that you have done so far.

So please join me in thanking Polly for all the personal time she has given and sacrifices she has made to help make Swampscott better for all of us. We are all truly grateful. To my understanding, there may be a token of esteem.

There's also a token of our appreciation as a chair from the town of Swampscott.

[Speaker 10] (12:22 - 12:48)
I appreciate, Neil, your words are very generous and kind.

[Speaker 26] (12:48 - 13:30)
Thank you. Just as I was listening, I always look around in our community and I am constantly struck by how many amazing residents contribute so much of their own time as well. I just want to recognize that.

I feel like so many of you in this room deserve a chair even more than I might or might not. So I appreciate your kind words. We live in an amazing community.

It has been a complete honor to serve you. I thank you for that opportunity very deeply. In one way or another, I will continue to try to serve you as well.

[Speaker 37] (13:30 - 13:31)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (13:48 - 13:49)
Mr. Spellios.

[Speaker 37] (13:50 - 13:50)
Mr. Spellios.

[Speaker 3] (13:51 - 17:38)
All right. Mr. Haas. He's got to be in this room and I assumed that you were going to come running in like with a cape.

And family. I'm sorry. Mr. Haas and family need to come down here. I know. They're kind of saying, really? No, stand.

You guys stand. Just come over here. I'm not going to sit and look at you as I talk about you.

Hi. So I have the honor of speaking a little bit about Dawn. I've been here 20 years.

18 of those years I've served on committees with Dawn, starting with the zoning board and then finishing that with the select board. And what that really means in terms of time is quite literally over 1,100 hours of just meetings. 500 on the select board, 600 on the zoning board.

That's the equivalent of 27 weeks of vacation. I remember years ago when I made the decision not to commute to Boston anymore, it was soon after I did the math, how many hours a year I spent commuting and I realized it was something like 27 weeks of vacation and I decided it wasn't worth it. For someone to dedicate themselves to that amount of time, to give back to something that gives you something but doesn't necessarily give you a lot at times is pretty remarkable.

This is really personal because over those 18 years I've really built quite a relationship with Dawn. And I think many of you know that during the vast majority, portion of his zoning board years and the entirety of his select board years, Dawn has been dealing with health issues. And I say it because it is not in any way what defined him, but it actually highlighted who he was and who he is.

And I'm happy to say that he's sitting here today as someone that's kicked the ass of cancer. So I think that's worth applauding for. The other thing you should know about Dawn if you don't is that he has a rather strange sense of humor.

So reconciling his health with his sense of humor can be very tricky for his colleagues because if they're not ready for it, Dawn is ready for it. So Dawn is more than happy to point out to me that despite multiple rounds of chemotherapy, he has much better hair than I will ever have. You know, we've gotten into some strange conversations when we're talking about health and we're talking about families and we share similarly aged kids and share a lot.

And what's interesting was at one point during this conversation many years ago, Dawn started talking about eulogies. And it was kind of weird, right? I mean, he's going through something, we're talking about eulogies.

It's like in the middle of a select board meeting in between two petitions if you want to know what we're mumbling about, we're mumbling about eulogies. And he just started talking about, wouldn't it be curious of you just to be able to hear your own eulogy, hear what people would have to say about you? It became a point where we literally would laugh because we would keep coming up with things that we would say about the other person.

Now Dawn, it was too easy for Dawn to know what to say about me, so I had to work at it. But this wasn't really about a morbid discussion or a morbid curiosity. It was actually a reflection of his love of life and the way in which Dawn, every meeting he was in, he had a two-thirds vote of his body to do so.

[Speaker 1] (17:39 - 18:45)
That said, when you rise to speak, I ask you to identify yourself as Peter Speleos, town meeting member from Precinct 3, or Mary Ellen Fletcher, town meeting member from Precinct 4. That will help us keep track of where you are and who you are and why you're speaking. Secondly, this is a parliamentary procedure.

This is not a cross-examination. Please direct all your comments through me, and I will do my best to find the answer to it. And I appreciate people sticking to a reasonable level of decorum that sometimes escaped us online, but now that we're in person, I'm sure we'll all be much better behaved.

With that said, I'd like to proceed. I understand there's a pending motion. Mr. Speleos?

Had a motion, a point of order that he wanted to raise before I opened Article 2.

[Speaker 3] (18:55 - 18:58)
Mr. Moderator, I'd like to move to take Article 11 out of order.

[Speaker 1] (19:02 - 19:10)
Is there a second to taking Article 11 out of order? Seeing a second, Mr. Speleos, could you explain to the body why?

[Speaker 3] (19:10 - 19:36)
The Select Board, there's going to be a motion made in a minute by the Finance Committee, but the Select Board has asked the Finance Committee to move for indefinite postponement of Article 11, which is the capital articles for Fiscal Year 23, so the Select Board can introduce a couple of things that are not on the capital expenditure list for Fiscal Year 23 yet, and the intention is to ask town meeting to reconvene after we have a discussion tonight to approve capital articles.

[Speaker 1] (19:37 - 19:58)
Thank you. This requires a simple majority to take up Article 11 out of order. All those in favor of Mr. Speleos' motion?

All those opposed? The motion carries. We come to Article 11, the article for the capital plan.

Ms. McNerney.

[Speaker 23] (19:59 - 20:21)
Senator McNerney, Precinct 4 town meeting member, member of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends that this article be indefinitely postponed and that we would, as Mr. Speleos said, we were asked if we, to do that and the Board of Selectmen are going to speak as to why. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (20:21 - 20:32)
Is there a second? Second. Okay, Ms. McNerney, I understand you would like to yield to Mr. Speleos for the discussion on the purpose of indefinite postponement for the capital article.

[Speaker 24] (20:33 - 20:35)
Hey, Sean. It's coming. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (20:39 - 32:12)
The floor is yours, sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Peter Speleos, Precinct 3, a member of the Select Board.

And in past years, especially when we've been meeting in person, you're, for those that have been with us, have gotten used to, to me or other people in town coming up and talking about our town finances and all the things that were happening over recent years to try and really change the way in which we handled the public finances in Swampscott to achieve better results. Tonight, I don't want to go back in and talk about all the things that we've done. This slide reflects the results of what's happened.

Thanks to the hard work of the Town Administrator, the Treasurer, the Director of Finance, the Finance Committee, the Select Board, and, frankly, the votes of all of you, because the votes of all of you have been necessary every step of the way to support the budgets that are put before town meeting. Without your support, these results don't happen. And these results are really important for three main reasons.

Number one, it slowed tax growth, right, and slowing tax growth matters because we all know that our tax bills are on the high side, but really especially that we have a high population in town that are fixed income, seniors in town who can't afford to keep pace with the tax growth that we had for decades in this town, that want to stay in their homes and have every right to stay in their homes. And so slowing tax growth was important. As you can see on the right-hand side here, since 2015, the average, the median single family tax bill has gone up by only 0.78 percent per year. You will not find another community in Essex County, and I argue you won't find another town in Massachusetts that can tell you that kind of good news. The second reason we did that is because we knew we had some really big investments that we needed to make as a community. And in October of last year, you honored the town leadership and the School Building Committee, the School Committee, the Superintendent by overwhelming approving a new elementary school, a not small investment for a not big town, but one that we had to make.

Even though so few of us actually have kids that go to school, it's paramount, it's the cornerstone of what a community does, which is invest in education and teach our kids and pass on to the next generation that which we had the benefit of ourselves. Tonight I want to talk about the third thing, which is what else do we get from all the hard work that we've done and to prepare ourselves financially and to put ourselves in such better financial condition. Tonight, on behalf of my colleagues on the select board, I want to share some ideas.

If people are familiar with GIS on the town website, it's a wonderful platform where you can find a whole bunch of neat information about different parcels and different things in towns and you could spend hours getting lost in the GIS service here in town. I get lost in some strange things and I don't know if you can see those red squares on that thing. That's the point.

You can't see them because what those are are the last remaining vacant but buildable parcels in Swampscott. That's why you can't see them. You can't see them because it represents a total of 19 acres in our entire town, 1.2% of our remaining developable, buildable lots. 1.2% of our entire town remains as vacant but able to be developed. Over the past year, the select board, planning board, the zoning board has been inundated with petitions. Most recently, this past year, we've had multiple 40B petitions, 40B being the petition that allows a developer, a property owner to seek exemptions from all local regulations, from subdivision regulations, from historic regulations, from earth removal regulations, from zoning regulations and propose a project of a density and a scale that is not contemplated by our master plan, that's not supported by our zoning bylaws. It allows them to come in with the state's blessing to seek one permit from the zoning board and it's a permit that's really, really hard for the zoning board to deny. It was purposely done that way to make sure that communities would support affordable housing and the condition, what the developer or the property owner has to do in return is give somewhere between 20 or 25% of their units to be affordable units.

That's all they have to give in return. Most recently, going back in June, excuse me, in January, we were presented with a petition for 160 units way up in the top. This is going to work for me, I promise.

Try that again. Way up in the top. Way up in the top.

In precincts one and precincts two. The parcel on the right-hand side, the one that looks like a whole bunch of little lots. Again, hard to see because there's not many of these squares in Swampscott for us to talk about here.

But this sits in precinct one and precinct two and if you ever drove up Burpee and you ever drive down Foster and you ever drive any of the streets back there, you understand that it has a concentration of density like no other in Swampscott. Now, I live in a neighborhood where I look out my window and I can see five neighbors. I can look and I can tell you what they're having for breakfast and I can tell you what they're wearing, right?

But that's nothing compared to what a lot of people that are in this area of town experience. They experience a concentration and a density and a road network that has proven itself completely inadequate for the density that's up there. Neil, when he was talking about Polly's contribution, I think actually left out a really important contribution of Polly's.

And that was for the first time, I think in a very long time, we had two members on the select board that represented and lived in precincts one and two and representation matters. Where you come from defines and dictates what you think and how you think. And the fact that as a town we finally had a diversification of elected officials across the town, not just on one side of town, mattered.

For months and months, Polly and David Grishman talked to us, the colleagues, talked to you, your neighbors, heard from you, their neighbors, and expressed concern about what was happening. And we've all heard it. We heard it back when we approved the high school almost 20 years ago, which is that side of town always gets it.

Why is all the density there? Well, that plan kind of tells you a little bit, right? Because those are where the last remaining lots are, right?

But over the days, the weeks, the months of listening to Polly and listening to David and then I think some of you have realized that the dialogue changed on the select board and the highest levels of town government. All of a sudden when we were doing the earth removal permit for aggregate, we were talking about it differently. We weren't rubber stamping something in one night.

We were recognizing that that was a use that had multiple blasts every week going on every week of the year. And so thanks to the counseling and support of Polly and David, we spent more time on that and regulated it to the point where aggregate is not happy with a single thing in that permit, safe to say at the moment, but it's the beginning of a path to be able to address deficiencies that some of our neighbors have to experience. So I want to talk a little bit more about these parcels here.

These parcels represent 50%. Of the remaining undeveloped but buildable lots in the town of Swampscott. That's remarkable.

9.5 acres equals 50% of the remaining undeveloped buildable land in Swampscott. Gets a little blurry when we get up close, but I thought we'd get up close just so you could see them. The separation between those two parcels is actually a paper street.

A paper street is a street that doesn't exist. It exists on paper. It was never built.

It doesn't exist. Although if you were to read the 40B petition from the one that wants to do the 160 units on the 4.5 acre site, you would think that road was there. You would think so the road was designed.

You would think it would be incredibly safe. And nothing in the neighbors that showed up in mass in recent months of select board meetings to say hell no, we're just making it up. They weren't making it up.

Every one of those neighbors that talked about their concerns for this project and other projects, this has been going on since 2013. I was on the zoning board in 2013 and the zoning board approved a 15 unit independent living project for that 4.5 acres. I will tell you and Polly will vouch for me that I've in the confessional told her that I was wrong.

I shouldn't have voted for that project. The zoning board shouldn't have voted for that project. Well, it never got built.

So don't worry about it. Of course, they came back in 2019 and said, well, it didn't get built. So how about you give us 22 units instead of 15.

And we've now bought a single family house on Foster's Road that we're going to tear down and make a new road where our single family house currently is. Our planning board held lengthy meetings and thanks to the leadership of Angelea Bolido and the planning board, they rejected those plans. Fast forward to this year and they proposed 160 units.

Mass housing wouldn't even consider it after they read and heard the comments of people in this community. They withdrew that petition and now are back before us again with, I think, a 44 unit project. So it goes on and on and on.

And that drumbeat is never going to stop. If it's not this project, it will be another project. So over the last several months, the select board has been meeting and talking about what we want to do here.

So tonight I want to talk about three parcels. These parcels are the first two parcels. The select boards will be meeting on Thursday night for a special select board meeting, at which time we will be calling a special town meeting for Wednesday, June 15th, at which time we would seek to address the capital articles, which we indefinitely postpone tonight, but also to ask for town meeting blessing for us to acquire and fund the town's acquisition of both of these parcels for Open Space Forever. I'm happy to report that the parcel on the left hand side, the 5.033 acres, the town of Swampscott and the board of select board have entered into a tentative agreement with the property owner to purchase that property. The 4.5 acre parcel, we do not tonight have an agreement to purchase that. We will do everything we can to achieve a mutual agreement, but nonetheless, we still expect that regardless of the outcome of those negotiations, we're going to come and ask you for the authority to purchase that property and create effectively what will be nine and a half, ten acres of new forests and an area which will forever be left undeveloped for the neighbors, for all of us. There'll be yet another little hideaway for you all to find. Michael, can you go ahead and do the sound, please?

[Speaker 1] (32:17 - 32:20)
Can you put the house sound out of the computer?

[Speaker 3] (32:23 - 35:28)
Oh, just imagine this music right now. So these parcels, if you see that baseball... Oh, there it is.

We'll go actually and do it one more time, because that's fun. If I can do it one more time, I'm going to do it. We're going to watch it one more time.

That baseball field in the bottom left-hand corner is the park playground and land. Right behind home plate is a ledge, a cliff that's about to collapse. It's about 17 to 25 feet tall that is on the property the town of Swampscott hopes to own.

When you look and you stand there, you see the entirety of land and you see the mountains. It is one of the most remarkable views that I've ever seen from a place in Swampscott and something that very few people have seen because we haven't made that available and it hasn't been made publicly available. So I mentioned three parcels.

That's two. And there's no order or priority. These are all, from the select board's benefit and the point of view, all equally important.

All of them are things that we want town meeting to support and our support is dependent upon all of them being done. But for this one, I think I won't use words. I will just instead go back to my map.

It's going to come. Thank you. I will watch it one more time, I promise.

After 18 months of long and tough negotiation, at 3.45 this afternoon, the town of Swampscott's select board entered into a tentative agreement with the Athanas family to purchase Hawthorne by the Sea. Drive safely. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses.

Good night.

[Speaker 28] (35:28 - 35:29)
We're done.

[Speaker 3] (35:38 - 37:35)
These purchases are not small things. This will represent the single biggest purchases of open space that the town of Swampscott has done in at least 50 years. Back when we acquired Herald King Forest and Ewing Woods.

These are not generational. These are forever purchases. These are once-in-a-century purchases.

And I really look forward to the robust conversation this community is going to have starting Thursday. You being part of that conversation is really, really important. Because we have to make decisions about how and when and what.

The Athanas purchase was the byproduct of becoming aware that they had entered into agreements for both this property and the Glover property with a Boston development firm. And that's when the select board decided to, with the council of our town administrator, who I want to say more about in a minute, engage with the Athanas' and talk with the Athanas' about the future of the property. We will go into so much more detail on Thursday.

You'll understand all the details of the transaction, when it's supposed to close, what's supposed to happen, all the details, and have that beginning of that conversation such that we can come back here in mid-June, at which time we will be not only seeking permission for the capital projects that are in your program tonight, your warrant tonight, but we'll also be seeking both the permission and the funding necessary for us to finalize these purchases such that by the end of this year, the town of Swampscott will own these three really important parcels. So, in closing, I want to say one last thing about our town administrator.

It's been a really tough year to be a town administrator in Swampscott, right? You spend a second on social media or you read the papers and you just listen to whatever. You're like, God, why would anybody want that job?

And our town administrator came here many years ago at this point. Sean, how many?

[Speaker 4] (37:37 - 37:38)
A little over five and a half.

[Speaker 3] (37:38 - 39:18)
Feels like 15. A little over five and a half. But going back to that slide where we talked about that financial stuff, the really dry stuff, well, he's the reason I know about it.

He brought that acumen here. He brought that discipline here. And he recognized that that was all coming with not very popular decisions.

If they were easy and popular decisions, we would have made them a long time before Sean Fitzgerald walked into our town. But instead, he came and he said, if you want to do things, I can help you do things. So the financial results are just numbers.

Who cares about numbers? You guys can forget them, right? Sean's not going to forget them.

His director of finance is going to forget them. But we can forget them. What we should be thinking about tonight is the byproduct of those numbers.

The byproduct. There is no way I could, finance committee could, capital improvement could, any of us stand up and ask you to support an acquisition of properties like this without having spent the years doing the financial homework and being oftentimes the skunk at the party when you're having conversations with people. And we have a town administrator who's willing to do the right thing even when it's the hard thing and unpopular thing.

And I just want to take a moment here because my colleagues, current board and past board, I give you so much credit and I'm so grateful to be with you in part of this. But none of us would be able to do this tonight without the leadership of our town administrator. So join us on Thursday night.

We'll be opening the warrant for the town meeting on June 15th. And we can't wait to be back here with you all on June 15th to move to the next step with this process. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (39:20 - 39:35)
Thank you, Mr. Spellios. So we have a motion for an indefinite postponement of Article 11 on the floor. Is there any debate about that?

Ma'am? I apologize for not being able to recognize faces.

[Speaker 30] (39:48 - 41:01)
Yeah, now it's on. Okay. Anita Farber-Robertson, now Precinct 4 because I got redistricted.

I'm not sure where this question belongs but it needs to be out before we do any voting. I think this is very exciting for us to have the capacity to guarantee the open space for which we have been yearning. However, at the risk of being the skunk at the party, we also are needful of affordable housing.

And we have gotten ourselves in some of the difficulties that Peter Spellios spoke about because we didn't address it earlier. And I can't feel comfortable voting for something like this if I don't also have some information about what the plan is to create affordable housing that is acceptable in our town if we're going to take these things off the table. So is the select board working on that?

Who is working on that?

[Speaker 1] (41:02 - 41:23)
Thank you, Reverend Farber-Robertson. That's not entirely germane to postponing the capital article and I'm sure that at the special town meeting on June 15th we will have a full and fair debate of that topic. Any further discussion about the motion to indefinitely postpone?

Mr. Bierman.

[Speaker 14] (41:25 - 42:05)
One moment. Jack Bierman, Precinct 6. Jack Bierman, Precinct 6.

Can you hear me now? Yes, please. I think we ought to hear something about affordable housing now because if we don't indefinitely postpone this, then we vote on the article as stated, which means it takes off our financial ability to do this transaction that is great to these transactions that we've been told about.

So I'd like to hear what the select... Because it seems to me this is another effort to prevent affordable housing in town the way when we bought the Temple property and sold it for development of single-family homes. So I disagree with the moderator on the notion that it's not relevant to hear about affordable housing now.

[Speaker 1] (42:05 - 42:17)
There is no affordable housing in the current capital article. If we decide not to indefinitely postpone and we talk about the current capital article, we will not be doing anything about affordable housing.

[Speaker 14] (42:17 - 42:51)
I understand that, but the reason for indefinitely postponing the capital improvement article, we didn't hear anything about that except we heard that we're going to use our capital money to buy these parcels. And the reason we want to buy these parcels, it was said, is to stop people from buying them to put affordable housing there. So it seems to be totally relevant to what's going on here.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to these purchases. I'm not saying I'm opposed to indefinitely postponing, but I think we ought to hear what the selectmen are planning on for an alternative to affordable housing. If you don't want to tell us about it, you're just going to increase the distrust that a lot of people have for what's going on in the town leadership right now.

[Speaker 1] (42:51 - 42:57)
Thank you. I don't find that germane to the motion to indefinitely postpone. Mr. Lorber.

[Speaker 14] (42:57 - 43:02)
Can I appeal the moderator's rule? Can I get a motion to vote on that?

[Speaker 1] (43:03 - 43:06)
To vote on whether that's germane to this article?

[Speaker 14] (43:06 - 43:11)
I think we have the power as town meeting to override the moderator's decision on a matter of the rules.

[Speaker 1] (43:12 - 43:16)
Mr. Bierman, this is not germane to the motion. I thank you for your argument, and we will have...

[Speaker 14] (43:16 - 43:24)
Can we take a vote on it? I make a motion to overrule the moderator's decision on the rules. That's a matter of...

That's not a proper motion.

[Speaker 1] (43:25 - 43:41)
Fair enough. I will take a sense of the meeting vote. Anybody who feels that we should have a full discussion of affordable housing right now, please raise your hand.

All those opposed? Mr. Lorber, the floor is yours.

[Speaker 31] (43:46 - 44:47)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. My name is Terry Lorber, Precinct 5. I am standing up here to urge you to not indefinitely postpone Article 11.

The work of our Capital Improvement Committee is here before you. I know they've done a lot of work. I haven't attended as many CIC meetings as I have in the past, and I think it would be folly for us to move this out of order and ignore this work.

It is very exciting that we might be purchasing land in the future, but we have infrastructure needs that need to be taken care of, and they need to be taken care of now, not in June. So, again, I think for those... I recognize the desire for...

I also support the desire for affordable housing around town, and I think that is best at a different time. I think for those of you that want to have that discussion, the best thing to do is to consider Article 11 in order. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (44:47 - 44:48)
Mr. Hale.

[Speaker 10] (44:50 - 45:01)
I'm a member of the Capital Improvement Committee and a town meeting member from District 2. I'm also the chair of the Renewable Energy Committee.

[Speaker 1] (45:02 - 45:03)
Can we get...

[Speaker 10] (45:03 - 45:04)
I can speak louder!

[Speaker 1] (45:04 - 45:09)
I want it for the people at home. Can we get the house right front up?

[Speaker 10] (45:12 - 45:37)
I'm Ryan Hale. I'm a Precinct 2 meeting member. I'm representing the Capital Improvement Committee here tonight, and I want to share that the committee is supportive of indefinitely postponing Article 11 tonight so that we can participate in the meetings that were displayed on the slide earlier, and we urge you to also support the motion to indefinitely postpone.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (45:37 - 45:39)
Thank you, Mr. Hale. Ms. McNerney.

[Speaker 23] (45:40 - 46:46)
The Finance Committee was just hearing, at the same time as you all were, about the proposal before us relative to this proposal to indefinitely postpone. From our perspective, it's critical that we hear out that we do indefinitely postpone this and that we understand how the current article for capital improvements that's in the warrant fits in with the whole picture of what's being proposed, and I think that we'll hear that once we hear more details Thursday night and once we have a chance to review all the finances associated with the proposal and how it might affect what's in the warrant.

I think it's critical that we do vote to indefinitely postpone what's in the warrant tonight relative to capital improvements so that we can understand how this fits in and we can all have the facts. The Finance Committee's role is to report to you how the finances of what's being proposed and the finances of what's in the capital improvement article would impact the town, and we can't do that without more facts, so we do support indefinite postponement of the article.

[Speaker 1] (46:47 - 46:51)
Thank you, Ms. McNerney. I think that might be Mr. Iannacone.

[Speaker 24] (46:58 - 47:18)
Steven Iannacone, now Precinct 4. Actually, I have a question I think is more of a point of order. If you indefinitely postpone something rather than simply postpone something, what are the actual differences between the two, and why can't we just postpone instead of indefinitely postpone?

[Speaker 1] (47:19 - 47:57)
Thank you, Mr. Iannacone. Indefinite postponement will conclude action under this article for this town meeting with a stated special town meeting to be called by the Select Board. The intent that I heard them state was to insert in the special town meeting warrant a capital improvements article similar to this one as well as anything else that comes out of the subsequent meetings between now and then.

So simply postponing it means that we couldn't go home because we'd have to deal with it one way or the other. Further discussion about the motion? Yes, Mr. Pielot.

[Speaker 38] (48:03 - 48:27)
Dennis Pielot, now from Precinct 4. Just what is the implications around the overall budget? Usually after we're done town meeting we do a budget.

Obviously capital improvements are a big part of that. So how does that all fit in? And is there anything with the capital improvements that we would have normally been looking at?

Is there anything that has a deadline or anything that would be negatively impacted by postponing it?

[Speaker 1] (48:28 - 48:34)
Understood. Perhaps our finance director could speak to any differences passing this four weeks from now.

[Speaker 7] (48:35 - 49:10)
There are no differences within this budget. And also I would like to say that the capital that is in the warrant is not able to be expended until July 1st. Does this one work?

Yes. Okay. The capital articles are not allowed to be expended until July 1st.

So with the proposed special town meeting in June 15th, these will still be able to be voted to be expended. The difference between now and voting next month makes no difference since we will not be able to spend or proceed with any of those funding beforehand.

[Speaker 1] (49:11 - 49:25)
Thank you, Ms. Sarrow. Further discussion about the motion to indefinitely postpone? Seeing none, all those in favor of Mr. I'm sorry. Who did I miss there? Mr. Berdoff.

[Speaker 12] (49:31 - 50:18)
Thank you. Aaron Berdoff, Precinct 5. I'm actually going to speak in favor of postponing the motion, the article indefinitely, because I do want to have a conversation about affordable housing.

I think we'll have a more robust conversation, especially spending all of the time Thursday would be a great time to start that conversation. But also I would hope that the select board and other committees are considering, though it won't be related to this particular purchase, the Community Preservation Act, which allows us to obtain state funds instead of necessarily using our own tax dollars for these things. So just something to put into my fellow residents' ears.

You might want to start asking for that so we can do more of these things in the future.

[Speaker 1] (50:19 - 50:58)
Thank you, Mr. Berdoff. And for those who can't see, I see a number of the select board nodding their heads in agreement with your remarks. Now, if there is no further debate, all those in favor of Mr. Spalios's motion for indefinite postponement. I'm sorry, Ms. McNerney's motion for indefinite postponement. I apologize. All those opposed?

The motion carries. Moving on to Article 2. Mr. Blonder, do you rise to your point of order?

If you have a point of order, please state it.

[Speaker 8] (50:58 - 51:07)
Jeffrey Blonder, Precinct 2. I requested to speak on Article 1. I sent you an e-mail.

Did you not get the e-mail?

[Speaker 1] (51:07 - 51:19)
Mr. Blonder, you are correct. In the middle of solving the imminent public health crisis, I neglected to include you in the reports section. Could you please briefly address the body?

[Speaker 8] (51:28 - 55:49)
Jeffrey Blonder, town meeting member of Precinct 2. I'm also the commander of the E.F. Gilmore Disabled American Veterans Chapter in Swanscott. I wanted to briefly give the town of Swanscott an update on the various activities the veterans of Swanscott are doing.

We're very fortunate in Swanscott. We have four veterans service organizations. We have the DAV, the VFW, the American Legion, and the Marine Corps League.

Very few cities and towns have four veterans service organizations, and we have them. The past year, the veterans of Swanscott have been very active. In September, we had our first Veterans Resource Fair, which was attended by over 100 Swanscott residents.

We hope to continue that in the near future. We've participated in many veterans activities in Swanscott and the various regions. We've adopted as our charity the Habitat Plus of Lynn, which is a sober house for transitioning veterans, and we will continue to support that organization.

In the near future, the Swanscott veterans are going to have several activities that we hope that you can attend. The most current one is in two weeks is Memorial Day, where we honor those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, and that will be at the Swanscott Cemetery, followed by a coalition at the VFW Post. We hope you can attend.

We also will be having a flag retirement ceremony in June, where we will honorably retire torn and tattered flags, and that will be held at the Fisherman's Beach. I'm very excited to also announce that in cooperation with the Swanscott Recreation Department, we will be having a fireworks festival on the town lawn on July 3rd from 4 to 8.30. There will be music, entertainment, food, and beverages. We hope to raise a lot of money for the veterans of Swanscott, and we hope that you all can attend.

As you know, the four veterans service organizations are rebranding the building on Pine Street. We will be calling it the Veterans Crossing, and we really would like to make a lot of improvements to that building. We'd like to maybe have solar panels added to reduce the cost of our electrical bills.

We'd like to convert the bottom floor of the Veterans Crossing Center into a technology center, bring in computers and two-way communication so veterans who do not have the access to computers can come and use our computers. And more importantly, the VA has really ramped up telehealth and virtual claims, and a lot of veterans do not have the abilities for computers, and we would like to have that done so they can do that. Like I said, the Veterans Center rests on town land.

We do not own the land. The town does. But over two years ago, we lost our lease, and we've been negotiating or urging the town to grant us a lease.

They have not done that, and many of the programs that we'd like to do are on hold because without a lease, we don't really want to do these programs, and it's really hurting some veterans in this town. And we urge the town to really think about the veterans and grant the veterans a long-term lease. In closing, I'd like to thank a lot of people who have come forward and granted the support to the veterans, and I thank them.

Last year I said we were facing headwinds, and while the headwinds are still persistent in town, I feel that the winds of change are upon us. And being an old Navy man, I feel that the fair winds and following seas are to our backs now, and I look forward to a successful year for the veterans of Swamp Squad. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (55:49 - 56:04)
Thank you, Mr. Blonder. Now I'd like to proceed to Article 2. Very good.

Mr. Dorsey.

[Speaker 2] (56:16 - 56:43)
Tim Dorsey, Precinct 4 member of town meeting and chair of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends that the town authorize payment of bills of prior fiscal years totaling $528.21 as printed in the warrant and as funding, therefore, to transfer from free cash said sum of money for such purposes. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (56:44 - 56:47)
Is there a second? Mr. Dorsey.

[Speaker 2] (56:48 - 57:11)
So that first, I guess, discussion was a tough act to follow, so I figured we'd start with a pretty straightforward one. This is bills that are past due. You have to use free cash to pay for them.

These are bills that are owed from past years. They were incurred in past years, and invoices were received late. This is a standard article we have in most years.

[Speaker 1] (57:12 - 57:30)
Thank you, Mr. Dorsey. Is there any discussion of Mr. Dorsey's motion? This, by state law, requires a four-fifths majority.

All those in favor of Mr. Dorsey's motion? All those opposed? It is unanimous.

Moving to Article 3.

[Speaker 2] (57:31 - 59:23)
Mr. Dorsey. Again, Tim Dorsey, Precinct 4 member of the chair of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends adoption of each separate numbered line item as printed in the column entitled Finance Committee Recommended FY23, as found in the printed warrant.

I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee, and further, that the sum of $77,855,147 be raised and appropriated as follows. First, raise and appropriate from taxes and other local receipts and state aid $69,360,257, not including state assessments and offsets in the amount of $1,863,846 that do not require appropriation. Second, sewer rates in the amount of $3,338,949.

Third, water rates in the amount of $4,660,944. Fourth, public educational and governmental cable TV access funds in the amount of $170,487. Fifth, transfer in from public educational and governmental cable TV access enterprise fund retained earnings of $150,560.

And sixth and last, solid waste funds of $173,950. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (59:23 - 59:59)
Is there a second? All right, before I recognize you, Mr. Dorsey, and I understand we have a presentation coming, I just want to lay out how we're going to cover the budget. Each numbered item is its own appropriation.

We will discuss page by page, and I will entertain commentary on anything in there, and we will do whatever we can to answer questions. When we reach the end, I will take one vote on the collected 71 line items, just so you're clear on how this will work procedurally.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:00 - 1:10:48)
Mr. Dorsey, your comments? I do. I have a presentation.

I'm going to start the presentation. Okay. Thanks.

You can go to the first slide, Amy. Thank you. I'm sorry, whoever's in control.

Do you have the clicker? Oh, I do. I do.

I do. Great. Well, I was going to preface this slide here by saying this is, you know, we want to repeat some of the messages we consistently give at town meeting, but then hearing the moderator today indicate that there are a third of the people or so that are new to town meeting, I guess it's sort of for a different purpose.

But just to sort of build on kind of how we got, what guides us as a finance committee as we think about the recommendations that we make to town meeting, these are some of the principles that we've really focused in on over the last several years. Obviously, we're looking to slow the growth of taxes while promoting a reasonable balance of spending priorities. And to do that, the foundation of that has been the financial guidelines that the town passed and the finance committee approved around creating budgets that are based on the assumption of raising the tax levy by 2% and assuming new growth revenue of $425,000.

Those amounts are less than what's permitted by law under prop two and a half and purposefully so to set a budget that will achieve the first goal above. It also, the town as a whole, with support of the finance committee, has focused in on zero-based budgeting. That means we don't just take last year's budget and add 2-plus percent to it.

The town, with the finance committee reviewing and considering as part of our recommendations, looks at each line item of the budget and revisits in each year with the thought of whether the amounts in there are the appropriate balance for that given year. And really, the thing that we've seen on the finance committee that has really been helpful to our efforts and I think to the town as a whole, has been improved financial reporting both at the school and the town on the school and town finance teams. Really, the financial reporting, the analysis that is done, and the forecasting that is done really facilitates the conversations that we have and the debates that we have as we get to our recommendations.

So we're going to continue this way. We don't think it's a time to change. The flexibility that it's given for us to make different decisions are things we want to continue to have moving forward.

So we really believe it's no time to change course and let's hold to these principles moving forward. Next slide, please. So this budget in Article 3, the $68,010,257, which is the amount of the general fund appropriation, so that's the amount of the budget before the enterprise funds, meets our fiscal policy.

It meets the 2% increase in the tax levy limit and the $425,000 of budgeted new growth. It does not use free cash to balance the budget, which is something we, as a town, have set as a foundation as well. So that actually, just so you're aware, the purple sheet you got tonight, the only change, I believe, the only change that happened in that purple sheet versus the revenues that were shown in the warrant is that there had been an error in the entry on the, it reflected that there was $1.25 million of reserves being used in the budget to balance the budget, and that was not the case. Now, it was a wash. There was a plus and a minus of the same amount, but we wanted to make sure that the revenues were properly reflected to be clear that there is no use of reserves, no use of free cash to balance the budget. So a couple of the highlights.

The growth as a whole of the general fund appropriation is 2.77% on a net basis. Now, what does that mean? When you saw the slide previously, let me just show this quickly.

The slide previously on the far right-hand green bar shows a 5.34% increase in the general fund appropriation, which is technically accurate. The drivers of that include the fact that the debt service line item has increased significantly because of the new elementary school and the financing that occurred around the new elementary school. So if you net out that change in last year's budget, you take out the debt service associated with the new school, and you add back in, this is going to get confusing, but stick with me.

If you add back in the solid waste, the cost of the solid waste fund or the solid waste cost is a $1.35 million amount that is now being raised by taxes rather than technically being a general fund contribution. If you net those two things out to try to compare apples to apples to last year, the general fund appropriation growth is 2.77% in this budget. The appropriation of the school increases 2.88%. There was an error in our finance committee letter, which indicated 2.53%. Hopefully you had a chance to read that letter. Everything else in it was accurate. That 2.88% was fortunately facilitated by some recent increases in the state aid that Swanscott received for the portion of state aid that is associated with schools, so we were able to attribute that amount and make the recommendation to increase what the town administrator had recommended for the schools by that amount plus a little bit more. Debt service, as I mentioned, increases because of the new school elementary funding, so just over 3 million of the debt service line is associated with debt funding, 3 million in this FY23 budget.

As we indicated in the finance committee letter, the town was able to go out and raise almost $69 million at a very favorable interest rate before some of the recent increases in interest rates that we've been experiencing as a country. Very fortunate to get out, and really that's really impactful that we were able to get that much funding raised at that interest rate. In terms of highlights from this budget, a few I wanted to highlight.

The hiring and retention goals, there have been some increase in the funding for those. I think we all know in the world as a whole it's affecting municipal governments as well as private companies. The retention of employees and the hiring of employees is a bigger challenge, and so there are a few different line items that are geared in a prudent way, not huge investments, but are geared towards addressing this challenge.

In particular, if you look at there's some funds added for employee assistance programs, and there were funds added to the salary reserve line item, which will allow some flexibility both in the CBA negotiations, the collective bargaining negotiations, as well as other non-union salary decisions, give some flexibility to the town administrator around those issues. And then finally, we did reintroduce, or the town administrator recommended and we're recommending to you that you approve bringing back the performance bonus line item, performance management line item, which was something we as a town meeting had approved a few years back, but during the pandemic we backed it out as we were getting conservative with a few of the different line items just because of our uncertainty as to the revenue impact of the pandemic. So the hiring and retention is a big area of focus in this budget.

And again, these are the types of decisions, the priorities and the challenges that a town faces year over year in trying to balance which areas are the ones for investment, and I think this is one that we agreed upon and are recommending to you. A couple of areas of concern from a cost standpoint are the fairly drastic increase in employee health care costs and the increase in the contributory pension line item for this year. Again, the health care costs, I mean, it's really hard to manage, as we all know, but it does sort of force the conversations around making sure that every hire is needed because health care costs are 8.23% increase when your net general fund appropriation is going up 2.77%. I mentioned before about the solid waste fund, so you may recall at a recent town meeting in 2021, I think it was maybe December, we, the town meeting, approved the creation of a solid waste enterprise fund.

And so this year, instead of it being a general fund line item, what you'll see is, I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as I can, you'll see the total cost of solid waste in the solid waste enterprise fund, which I am going to actually point out, remember, is line item...

[Speaker 1] (1:10:48 - 1:10:51)
It's line 70 or 71.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:53 - 1:15:49)
Where is the line item? Just below line item, it's line item 71. There's a total of $1.5 million associated with solid waste. When I read the 1.35 of that will be raised from taxes, from the taxes we'd be approving tonight. And the remaining revenue source that supports the solid waste fund are the excess baggage charges and the stickers that was, that's in the revenue line at $173,950. So point is, is that our taxes do fund the solid waste enterprise fund and it's $1.35 million impact. And again, on solid waste, it's been a topic of discussion at town meeting over the last several years and heavy management really by the town, really heavily focused on it. And we have some good visibility and certainty as to where the costs are going in the near future. You'll see some of the costs there associated with just the disposal contract.

And with the creation of the solid waste enterprise fund, there's greater visibility into the different programs and efforts that will be ongoing in the town to try to manage those costs going forward. Finally, before I turn it over to the town finance team, associated with the budget are some other financial positions that we just want to highlight at this time. So let me just pull this up here.

Another key principle that's guided our efforts is to ensure that the financial performance is maintained with solid reserves. And so we built the general stabilization reserve fund. Now if you look to the far right-hand side, you see the reserve position.

That is the percentage that we have in funds compared to the budgeted amount for that. So general compared to the budget. So our goal is the reserve range.

Our financial policies say we want to get between 9% and 10% in stabilization. That's our financial policy goal. Right now we're at 10.69%. We're actually above the goal. And that's something we talked about in connection with the school, the new elementary school. That is that there are funds there that we are anticipating will be discussed, that there will be discussions in the fall town meeting to use some of those excess funds for purposes of reducing the tax impact of the financing associated with the new school. You see that the capital stabilization fund is within the financial policy guideline range.

And then finally I'll just point out that the water and sewer retained earnings, which will be discussed in Articles 5 and 6, the use of those funds to mitigate the sewer and water rate increases, that those retained earnings are also at above policy levels, which will give flexibility as we move forward over the years in managing rate increases for water and sewer. Last but not least, before I hand it over to Amy, is just a quick view of where we stand on free cash. So if you recall, and you'll hear tonight in Article 4, there will be a recommendation to use some free cash for one-time purposes typically associated and tonight associated quite a bit with our collective bargaining agreements.

So the long story short here is that we've used free cash to mitigate tax levy increases. We will have that discussion again in the fall town meeting for this year. But after tonight, if Article 4 is passed, the free cash position will be at 3.32%, which is on the lower end of our guideline. Free cash gets certified or recertified in July, and so that amount may go up, but we file in July and we find out in September. And so by the fall, we will know how much is available there for uses such as reducing the impact of our taxes. So I'm going to hand it over to our Director of Finance.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:50 - 1:15:51)
Thank you, Ms. Sero.

[Speaker 20] (1:15:55 - 1:15:56)
Hello, everyone.

[Speaker 7] (1:15:59 - 1:21:44)
So our key planning issues in FY23 were the ongoing pandemic issues from COVID-19. We were budgeting for uncertain times with the war going on, inflation, and supply chain issues that are affecting our capital projects. We are continuing our efforts to embrace principles of inclusion, equity, social justice, and diversity.

We are dealing with the rising utility, gas, and solid waste costs, as well as ongoing facilities and capital needs. This is just an overview of the entire expenditure budget, which includes enterprise funds. We have 41% going to the public schools and 18% going to our employee benefits, which are the two biggest chunks that we have in this budget.

All of this is outlined in the money pages in your board. I just want to go through a high level of the departments and the impacts that they have had. So we've had a 10.85% increase in admin and finance. The bulk of this was in the salary reserve, which is going to be distributed throughout the rest of the budget as the needs arise for the various departments. You'll also see when the Article 4 presentation happens that some of these funds will be moved out relating to those collective bargaining agreements that were made after the budget was set. We've also increased, as Tim had mentioned, the employee recognition line to include an employee assistance program just to deal with all the difficulties that our employees are dealing with through the pandemic.

Our community and economic development has decreased by 2.99%. This was just putting it back in line. We had increased at a previous special town meeting to allow for matching grant funds that are no longer part of our regular operating budget. We've also returned our health department nurse staffing level to pre-pandemic levels and increased the Board of Appeals for legal ads.

Our public services have decreased 42.5%. I would like to note that this is mostly due to collective bargaining that is included in that salary reserve. The 1.35 of that 1.5 is the solid waste enterprise fund. So you're not looking at a true 1.5 in here. It's just moving it out of public services. We've also increased the facilities budget for a number of shared positions between the town and school for maintenance and admin support since our facilities department is shared between both. The enterprise funds, as mentioned, have increased almost $2 million.

The bulk of it is the 1.5234 solid waste enterprise fund. The sewer fund has gone up by 4.21% and 7.98% in the water fund. These are going to be achieved through increases in user fees as well as transfer and retained earnings, which you'll see proposed in Articles 5 and 6 in your warrant.

There is a 2.61% in public safety. This is also not indicative of the recent collective bargaining, which will be handled through salary reserve. We do have considerable savings here because with the removal of minimum manning language, we are able to better control the staffing levels in both departments.

Human services have increased 1.67%. With the senior center budget, we have fully staffed that area. I would also like to note that our senior center budget has gone from a 5-year average of about $90,000 to $233,000 in this budget to better support our aging community. And our proposed library budget continues to support the development of the library-based and community programming.

Our public schools have increased 2.64%, which is inclusive of the Nuhant tuition. And then the increase from general fund is 2.88%, as Mr. Dorsey has said. I am not going to read this whole slide for you.

The biggest changes in our revenue are the community impact and cannabis excise taxes, which we'll have from the current marijuana shop that is here as well as the one that is opening. You'll notice a decrease in the revenue when you look at it for the removal of those solid waste bag fees and any stickers. That is now part of the revenue for the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund, so it is not a true revenue loss.

It's just a shifting of which bucket that money is going into. Our local receipts, while we do have, you know, improved numbers as we're getting out of the pandemic, they are not fully back to their pre-pre-pre-pandemic levels. And our state aid, while it did increase with the House Ways and Means budget, has still not gone back up.

So we are hoping that our reps will continue to fund us at a higher level. This is just an overview of our revenue. As most of you are aware, the bulk of our revenue comes from the tax levy, with 11% coming from Enterprise Fund user charges, Interfund revenue, local receipts, and state aid.

I will turn it over to our town administrator to summarize.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:46 - 1:21:47)
Mr. Fitzgerald.

[Speaker 4] (1:21:52 - 1:26:20)
Thank you, Amy, and good evening. I really want to just recognize, first, all of my colleagues. Thank you for being here.

It's not just been a tough year for town administrators, but everybody in public service. Swansket has some of the most extraordinary, some of the most dedicated public servants that any community could ever ask for. And I'm incredibly proud to have shouldered with you as we have gone through this pandemic, but as we kind of look to the future.

I'm excited about Swansket, and I know that after a few hours of town meeting, it may be hard to get excited, but we truly are working hard to strike a balance. We talked years ago, when I first started, that we had to dig a well before we were thirsty. We built up Swansket's financial position so that we could address some of these issues that seem to be elusive, like how do we build a school?

Or how do we find a way to stabilize our ever-increasing taxes? We do read the master plan. We do think critically about where we are going and how we address all of the responsibilities we have.

We want to build affordable housing in this community. There's not an elected official that I know in Swansket that doesn't understand how critical that issue is, but we want to do it in a way that doesn't erode all of the other things that we care deeply about, like public safety and responsibilities for us to find that balance. And I'm absolutely convinced that we can do it all.

When we look at our responsibilities, we are constantly focused on trying to build a stable and balanced budget, keep a steady hand on how this budget ultimately impacts a community that is getting a little bit older and finding a challenge to see rising taxes that historically have been difficult. We also want to look at environmental challenges. Kings Beach has been a huge focus for us.

We've been able to receive $2.5 million from the state. We're looking for more. We're going to continue to look at ways that we can build that age-friendly community.

Amy had quickly passed over a statistic in our budget that our five-year average for our funding for our seniors was $95,000. Today, as it sits, we're budgeting $230,000 for our seniors. We're not increasing the budget dramatically for that.

We're actually finding efficiencies within the budget to help restructure and balance some of these priorities. As a community, we've got to really think more carefully about land use. We talked a little earlier about some ideas, but we've talked about a land-use board summit.

How do we think about land? Where are the opportunities? How can we really build a stronger swampscape?

When we look at 2009 through 2015, you see that escalation of the median family tax bill. From 2016 to 2022, you see that steady balance. This is what this budget continues to focus on.

How do we just support a steady balance? You know, we've had about a $94 increase over the last five years, 2015 to 22. Prior to that, the way we budgeted, the way we dealt with municipal finance, on average, it was a $400 increase.

I guess in many ways, the conversation about swampscape has been about balance over the last five years. It's not that we're looking to do one thing more than another. We're looking to do it all.

And I really do think it's important that we have tough conversations and we really think critically about where we're going because we have so many opportunities. And it's exciting for me to really look at these realities and think that swampscape can define its future. With that, I look forward to coming back in a month.

I know that that's a lot to ask of folks, but there's a lot here to get into. I'm happy to answer any questions on this budget. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:26:20 - 1:27:32)
Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. Now we'll proceed through the budget, and we will be discussing the far right column, the Finance Committee's recommendation. So I'd like to start with the first page, page 2.

Is there any discussion on the Town Moderator's line, the Finance Committee line, or the Town Administrator? Page 3, with the Town Accountant, the Audit Expense, and the Board of Assessors. Moving to page 4, Treasury, Customer Service, Legal and Insurance, Personnel for Human Resources.

Page 5, we have the Salary Reserve. We have some other personnel items. We have Information Technology and the Parking Clerk.

Yes, sir, Mr. Pastor.

[Speaker 11] (1:27:37 - 1:28:08)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Glenn Pastor, Precinct 2, School Committee member. Just a question on page 5, the first line in line 18, Salary Reserve.

The Town Administrator recommended FY23 budget was $158,531. Finance Committee budget was approved at $182,797. Can anyone shed some light just what those funds are used for?

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:28:09 - 1:30:02)
Mr. Dorsey. So they're used for a couple of different things. Primarily, though, you'll hear about it in Article 4 tonight, is...

Sure, can you hear me? Let me adjust this. Hold on.

How's that? Is that better? You'll hear about it a bit more in Article 4 tonight.

One of the primary uses is you'll see, if you look at the line items for various... Well, various line items that involve union personnel, so perhaps the police or the fire line items, you'll see that it appears that there's no salary increase this year. The money in the Salary Reserve, once those collective bargaining agreements are approved and the associated payments in Article 4 are approved, the adjustments that are needed because of the collective bargaining agreement, the raises, the COLAs, et cetera, the money will be pulled from the Salary Reserve and put into those line items so that in next year's budget, you'll see the actual increases in payment that are being paid as a result of those CBAs. So heavily a CBA-oriented thing. Another use, there is some flexibility built in to address the fact that, while this has changed quite a bit actually during the budget cycle, there were, as we started the budget cycle, there were quite a few vacancies.

There's been quite a few hires in the last month or two, but there are still a few vacancies, and so there's money in the Salary Reserve to make sure that there's a little cushion in case the amount that we budgeted for a certain position isn't sufficient to get that person hired. So those are two of the principal reasons. Thank you, Mr. Dorsey.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:03 - 1:30:35)
Further discussion on page five. Page six includes the Elections and Town Clerk Department, the Administration of Finance, and Community Development. Questions on page six.

No, you're drinking a bottle of water. Couldn't tell back there. Any further questions?

Page seven, the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Building Department, the Health Department. Yes, is that Ms. Cooper?

[Speaker 21] (1:30:42 - 1:30:53)
Gargi Cooper, Precinct 3. I just had a question about the Animal Control Officer and why we... I mean, it looks like we had one in 2021, but then we have a zero there.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:54 - 1:31:01)
Yeah, you will find that under the Police Department now. Oh. If you switch to page 10, you will see it there.

[Speaker 27] (1:31:08 - 1:31:09)
Awesome. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:09 - 1:32:02)
Thank you. Any further discussion on page seven? Now page eight, the Historical Commission, the Rec Department, the Facilities Department, and we begin some of the DPW down at the bottom.

Questions on page eight. Page nine includes the further DPW lines, including the Cemetery, the General, and the Snow and Ice sections. Questions about the DPW?

Page 10, as mentioned, Public Safety. We'll take a look at 10 and 11 together since it includes the Police, the Fire, and the Harbormaster. Any questions there?

Yes, Ms. Zoll?

[Speaker 15] (1:32:09 - 1:32:42)
Thank you, Mr. Rot, moderator. Keiko Zoll, now Precinct 5. Sorry, I had a question about...

These would be sub-items under line item 43 and line item 48. It mentions just training. There's a pretty substantial increase in both budgets, and I'm just curious as to if our police and fire chiefs could just kind of tell us a little bit more about what that training includes coming up in this next fiscal year.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:42 - 1:32:58)
Sure. I note that the asterisk there does point out that there is increased training and testing expense for the non-civil service test and physical abilities test. But, Mr. Fitzgerald, who do you think would be best suited to give some more specifics?

[Speaker 4] (1:32:58 - 1:33:34)
Well, both Chief Archer and Chief Cassata are here, but certainly our police and fire departments do extensive training, and we've talked at length about enhancing that type of training. I think some of the language changes that we've recently negotiated where we can now have a little bit more flexibility with overtime can allow us to really think more about different types of training, but would welcome Chief Cassata or Chief Archer to speak to more specificity.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:36 - 1:33:37)
Sure. Chief Archer. Thank you.

[Speaker 19] (1:33:42 - 1:34:02)
Good evening. Chief Archer of the fire department. So the training line item, as Administrator Fitzgerald and the moderator pointed out, that primarily is driven by the testing for our new hiring screening outside of civil service.

[Speaker 9] (1:34:02 - 1:34:06)
The in-house training budget is just flat.

[Speaker 19] (1:34:07 - 1:34:08)
42?

[Speaker 9] (1:34:08 - 1:34:19)
Which is the other line item that you pointed? 43.

[Speaker 19] (1:34:21 - 1:34:32)
Okay, so that's the explanation for the testing training. I'm sorry, I'm not remembering. What other line item are we training in?

[Speaker 1] (1:34:34 - 1:34:40)
I think you've answered that. Two line items under 43. Also found under 48.

[Speaker 19] (1:34:41 - 1:34:48)
That's our new physical abilities testing we've got to do and our examination and screening. Does that answer your question?

[Speaker 4] (1:34:49 - 1:34:50)
Okay, sure. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:51 - 1:34:54)
Chief Cassata, if you have anything to add, that's fine.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:55 - 1:35:52)
So before I actually ask Chief Cassata to come up and say a few words, I want to introduce him formally to town meeting. Ruben Cassata, Dr. Ruben Cassata, was recently selected as Swamp Street's new police chief and went through an extensive hiring process, and I can't just tell you how proud I am of Chief Cassata. He has really been able to, over just the last few weeks, really step into a really complicated role and bring a whole host of fresh ideas.

Ruben spent his career in the city of Mesa, Arizona, a city of over 500,000 people and in a department that was much larger than the town of Swamp Street, but brings an expertise in public safety that, frankly, is the best in his line of work. So with that, Chief, welcome to Swamp Street.

[Speaker 10] (1:35:58 - 1:37:04)
Thank you. Thank you very much. Again, my name is Ruben Cassata.

I am proud and humbled and honored to be your chief of police. To answer some of your questions, I want to make sure that you hear me okay, the trainings that you're referring to, we have four trainings that are mandatory trainings to keep our certification as police officers. This year, those include our firearms training, which include two trainings a year, our TASER trainings, in-service training through the Massachusetts Police Training Commission, and CPR training.

Just those trainings alone to include all of our officers, and I can give you the number of hours, but it involves about $92,000, several thousand personnel hours involved. So I hope I answered your question. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Any further discussion?

[Speaker 1] (1:37:07 - 1:37:10)
Sir? Mr. Swanstrom?

[Speaker 19] (1:37:10 - 1:37:17)
Dana Swanstrom, Precinct 2. A question on staffing right now with the police department. Do we have any open positions?

[Speaker 2] (1:37:20 - 1:37:22)
I'll let the town administrator speak.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:22 - 1:37:26)
I believe the question was do we have any open positions.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:26 - 1:37:29)
I believe we have three open positions.

[Speaker 19] (1:37:29 - 1:37:35)
Okay, and how long does it take once you hire someone to ramp up and be on the police force?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:37 - 1:37:42)
Depends on how long it takes them to actually get into the academy and get through the academy.

[Speaker 19] (1:37:42 - 1:37:44)
When's the next opening for the academy?

[Speaker 1] (1:37:44 - 1:37:47)
I'm just going to ask, Mr. Swanstrom, this has a bearing on the finances?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:48 - 1:37:55)
The overtime number. Yeah, I'm going to actually have to ask the Chief to answer that.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:56 - 1:37:58)
Sure, we'll defer to the Chief again.

[Speaker 10] (1:38:05 - 1:38:09)
Good evening. Thank you again. The question was the overtime budget.

[Speaker 19] (1:38:09 - 1:38:52)
Well, no, it's more around. I'm trying to understand the relation, so I'll just get right to the point. Last year's overtime budget, or excuse me, expense was 790 actuals.

By my count, it looks like it's going to be 489. So I'm curious to understand how, if we have three open positions, how that's going to work. And I guess built into that question is part of us getting out of civil service, we took the minimum staff requirement out and hoping that we're not going to lower safety based on the civil service requirement that we just got out of.

And I'm just curious overall how the staffing is going to work with such a lower number.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:53 - 1:39:55)
Let me try with that. I mean, we left civil service, and we were able to hire Dr. Ruben Quesada, the most qualified and the most experienced individual that we could have ever hoped to have hired. And we'll continue to look for the most qualified, the most exceptional police officers that we can find.

We're just beginning to think more critically about how we hire for a broader focus on inclusion, but also, without waiver, looking for the most experienced and most qualified. You know, it does take time. It is a very challenging time right now to work in public safety and in public service, but I have every confidence that we will fill those positions, and we will continue to attract men and women who exemplify the finest caliber of public service and public safety.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:55 - 1:40:09)
I appreciate the somewhat of a divergence. If the question is whether the finance committee's recommendation in these line items are sufficient to meet the department's needs, I guess I'd ask the chief to clarify that, and otherwise I think we're done with this topic.

[Speaker 10] (1:40:11 - 1:41:07)
Sure. Right now our overtime is we're projected right now currently at $611,000. Prior year it was $415,000.

Now a lot of that is a big portion of that is due to the vacancies that we've had. We do have the three vacancies, and then we do also have a member that just received retirement who is out on leave, and then we have a couple officers with health issues as well, which has contributed to the increase in overtime. So once we are staffed, we should be able to mitigate the overtime that you might see this year.

So right now we have 17 officers working in patrol. Three of those are vacancies, and so that's where some of the added overtime came in this year.

[Speaker 19] (1:41:08 - 1:41:34)
If I might be permitted, I just want to clarify something. Yes, the budget was $415,000, but if you add up all your actual end of year expenses for overtime, actual spend, not budgeted, was $790,000 versus roughly $49,000. So that's fine, I understand, but I'm just curious you answer the question, but hopefully we can maintain the same public safety by lowering that overtime.

[Speaker 24] (1:41:34 - 1:41:35)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:41:35 - 1:41:36)
Thank you. Mr. Driscoll.

[Speaker 24] (1:41:42 - 1:42:53)
Chief, welcome to the wild world of town government. I've heard nothing but unbelievable things about you, and it's great to have you on board. Thank you.

Now some questions. And you, sir, are? I'm Tom Driscoll, Precinct 6.

Hi. Well, one specific question. I mean, I do think that having gone through the process last year, and there are some specific numbers I need to ask about in here.

We're a year into this new hiring process, and I believe you know David Kurz, who preceded you, was one of the country's leading experts on police training, police hiring. I know he presented, I think it was quoted in the paper, four of the most qualified individuals he's ever presented to a hiring authority, but we still only have one hire. So currently I'm hearing that some of our officers are working 60, 70, 80 hours in a week.

There's forced overtime now. So that when we get this gluttonous feeling police are making a ton of money in overtime, you are actually forcing them to work, aren't you, at this point? Yes.

[Speaker 10] (1:42:54 - 1:44:08)
Right now we are operating under the minimum staffing model that we've had, which is approximately five officers on the street. This past year, in running an analysis, we have – sorry, I'm looking at my numbers here. We have, in order to save our officers from having to work so many extra hours, from January of this year through May 16th today, we have run with four officers on shift, a total of 56 times, to alleviate some of the overwork of our officers, and as well as which led to a savings of about $31,000.

So we are trying to, again, mitigate. One of the things that we need to look at, that we're going to look at, is efficiency on each shift. Do we have enough officers on each shift?

Do we need more or do we need less? And I think that's one of the approaches that we are going to take in terms of a data-informed approach to efficiency to ensure that we continue public safety in our community.

[Speaker 24] (1:44:09 - 1:44:47)
So my specific on the budget is, is this realistically enough for overtime to get us through? As long as we can get officers hired and on the street, we will be able to mitigate that. And the last question is on the reduction in court.

That's one that's kind of personal to me here. Are we not arresting people? How are we dropping to our court number?

There seems to be a fairly consistent number, although arrests are down nationwide. Are you referring to the 3,000? For court overtime?

[Speaker 10] (1:44:52 - 1:45:00)
I'm going to have Angelica Noble, my executive assistant, give that. Since I've only been here six weeks, I probably can't explain that.

[Speaker 24] (1:45:00 - 1:45:05)
There seems like there's been a drop in court overtime, and I don't know if that's a sufficient number.

[Speaker 26] (1:45:06 - 1:45:49)
So the court overtime line is where when an officer has to go to court, they would earn comp time for going to court. It was part of a collective bargaining agreement that maybe Sean might remember. I wasn't here at that time.

And that is the amount that is paid out. Most people take their comp time, but if they don't, that's the number that's paid out. And so that's why it's decreased.

I'm assuming that most people are taking more of their comp time rather than being paid out. So it doesn't really have anything to do with the amount of arrests. It's just the amount of time that people are earning for going to court.

There was also a large decrease because of COVID. The courts were closed down. They weren't having cases in person.

[Speaker 24] (1:45:49 - 1:45:51)
Not in person. We weren't closed.

[Speaker 26] (1:45:51 - 1:45:52)
What was it?

[Speaker 24] (1:45:52 - 1:45:53)
We were not closed, but yes.

[Speaker 26] (1:45:53 - 1:45:57)
Oh, okay. I'm sorry. So the officers were not going in person as much?

[Speaker 24] (1:45:58 - 1:46:02)
Okay. I just wanted to make sure because it seems like we kind of shorted that quite a bit there.

[Speaker 26] (1:46:03 - 1:46:11)
And that number, I believe, and Amy might be able to speak to it more specific, but was actually put into a different line item. It wasn't just taken out.

[Speaker 24] (1:46:12 - 1:46:14)
Okay. Welcome, Chief.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:14 - 1:46:17)
Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. Mr. Spritz.

[Speaker 17] (1:46:26 - 1:47:06)
Hi. Wayne Spritz, Precinct 3. Quick question on line item 41, the snow and ice.

Just back one page, page 9. Sure. So this was a fairly ‑‑ it was not a huge eventful year.

And I'm just kind of curious as to why, if it wasn't that snowy of a year, why we almost spent the entire budget on overtime, and if we were to have a bad year or even a typical year next year, we underspent on the main line. How is that budgeting projecting reality?

[Speaker 1] (1:47:07 - 1:47:22)
So I'll draw your attention to the footnote on the following page, which states that those lines must remain equal to the prior fiscal year. It also reminds town meeting that snow and ice are one of the few expenses that can be appropriated after the fact.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:24 - 1:47:35)
But the overtime is associated with the DPW. Rather than putting it in the DPW line, it associates the DPW overtime with the snow and ice.

[Speaker 17] (1:47:36 - 1:47:59)
I greatly appreciate that. But I guess if there's some better explanation as to why we underspent on the main line that seemed to spend, I don't know, 50% of the entire $129,000 on overtime. Are we efficiently using our manpower, our resources?

That's kind of what it all comes down to, because if we were to have a heavy snow year, we'd blow through that line anyways.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:59 - 1:48:09)
The $180,000 is for the external contractors that come and help, and then the $60,000 is for the DPW overtime for the internal folks.

[Speaker 17] (1:48:10 - 1:48:12)
That is a good clarification. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:12 - 1:48:13)
If Ms. Cerro has anything to add.

[Speaker 7] (1:48:14 - 1:48:58)
Yeah, I would also like to just say in terms of a bad year, 2015 did cost us a little over half a million dollars. But as the moderator said, we do not have to budget for the bad years. We just have to budget for a standard year, and we are able to legally deficit that line if a storm comes that brings us back to 2015.

The reason this was expended as much as it was when it wasn't necessarily a bad year was we had a lot of snow events that did cause slippery roads that we did have to go out and take care of. So it's not always the level of snow that we get and the total accumulation. It's also the number of snow events that cause dangerous road conditions.

[Speaker 17] (1:48:58 - 1:49:08)
But for clarification to what Mr. Dorsey said, the $180,000 is contracted, whereas OT is DPW resources.

[Speaker 7] (1:49:08 - 1:49:17)
The OT is only for our staff, and then the $180,000 is for the SALT as well as the outside contractors. Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:17 - 1:49:22)
Thank you, Mr. Spritz. Further discussion? Sir?

[Speaker 8] (1:49:24 - 1:49:44)
David Verra, Precinct 1. I'm trying to find a line item for street sweeping. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see it in the budget, especially around my area.

I'm not seeing any of them. I actually haven't seen a street sweep in like two years, so just wanted to know if that was actually going to be in the budget for this year or if it's not a DPW line item, where would I be able to find it in the budget?

[Speaker 1] (1:49:44 - 1:49:51)
Understood. So the question, as I understand it, is do we have a line item for street sweeping? If not, is it included in some other?

[Speaker 7] (1:49:53 - 1:50:12)
We currently have our own street sweeper, and it's our own DPW staff that manages it. So it's within the DPW personnel lines, and the street sweeper itself is already purchased through capital. So it's something that we own.

So you wouldn't see it in the expense lines because we don't contract that out at this time.

[Speaker 40] (1:50:13 - 1:50:14)
So that would be a portal for it?

[Speaker 19] (1:50:15 - 1:50:16)
Is there a schedule for that?

[Speaker 7] (1:50:17 - 1:50:19)
Yes, I would defer to our DPW director.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:19 - 1:50:43)
Schedule for street sweeping? I would encourage you to reach out to Gino. No, on the website, thanks.

Gino, that's fine. I think we can encourage Mr. Vera to reach out to you separately. Okay.

Unless anyone is feeling we should change some number somewhere. I'd like to proceed to pages 12 and 13.

[Speaker 8] (1:50:44 - 1:51:31)
Mr. Blonder. Jeffrey Blonder, precinct 2, town meeting member. I have a question on veterans services.

In 2021, we spent $30,000 for veterans agent services. Last year, we spent $33,200. But we gave the veteran agent $30,000, and we had some expenses that added up to $3,200.

This year, we're lumping all of that expenses into the veterans agent services. Are we paying the veteran agent $33,200 this year? And I have a follow-up question on that.

[Speaker 7] (1:51:31 - 1:51:48)
It was the request of the service agent, because they are through LHIN, and they purchase all of their expenses together. Administratively, it was easier for them to not break out those expenses separately. So we just pay the flat fee to them, and we will still receive the same level of service.

[Speaker 8] (1:51:49 - 1:52:52)
My follow-up question is, for those that don't, like I mentioned earlier that Swanscott has four veterans service organizations. Some towns and cities don't have any. There's no requirement that you have a VFW or a DAV in your town.

There is a statutory requirement that every city and town in Massachusetts has to have a veterans service officer. Several years ago, we decided to go into partnership with LHIN. Personally, I've received a lot of questions about the service, and I'd like to at this time ask if someone could tell me how many hours does the veterans service officer spend in Swanscott?

What are his office hours, and where is his office located? How many Swanscott veterans has he served the past week, month, or year? There's been a lot of discussion about that.

I get a lot of calls about people saying they're not getting the services, and I'm concerned.

[Speaker 4] (1:52:54 - 1:53:24)
I just want to say our veterans agent is here tonight. His name is Michael Sweeney. He's an absolutely incredible public servant.

He's a veteran, and frankly, Mr. Blunder, if you have a concern about that, I would respectfully ask you to come in and talk with me privately. Certainly, Mr. Sweeney, if you want to come up and talk about the work you do on behalf of the veterans in Swanscott, I'd like to give you that opportunity, Mr. Moderator, but certainly, you know.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:25 - 1:53:28)
I think if we can keep it concise. Yes, Mr. Sweeney.

[Speaker 9] (1:53:34 - 1:58:20)
I will be, as they say, mercifully brief. Thank you. The money that's in that budget, I just want to point out that the state law says every town has to have a veterans agent.

Any town over 12,000 has to have a full-time veterans agent or enter into an intermunicipal agreement or a district with another community. So the town of Swanscott has entered into that agreement with the city of Lynn. That 30,000 provides three full-time staff, and I was in town for about four hours today.

I was speaking with Patrick Burke, who's the soon-to-be incoming commander of the VFW. I was in the cemetery. I met with a member of the police force.

I spoke with Gino Cresta today. And not to be defensive, I just think that we're always here to work. I do think that one thing that we haven't probably done a good enough job of is selling ourselves and what we do, and I appreciate that.

What we've done in the last couple years under COVID is what a lot of people have had to do. We've had to really find different ways to do the same things, whether that, and I said this at the select board meeting, whether we've had to go to people's homes and drop off forms and come back and pick them up and sign them. It's very difficult because many of the people we serve are, in fact, the most at risk for COVID.

So I do appreciate it. And as a fellow Afghanistan veteran, I appreciate what you're saying. I really do.

I wish I could be a little more generous about what my staff does. We have three people. They work really hard.

And today, as a matter of fact, before I came to town, Mary Cronin from my office was on the phone with another person from the town of Swampsgate trying to make sure they get the benefits they deserve from the state. If you look in that line item, there's also $50,000 for assistance. The state of Massachusetts across the board has seen a decrease in what's called Chapter 115 benefits.

You haven't seen that in the town of Swampsgate because we've hustled and we've made sure people get the benefits they deserve. Also, according to the VA in the last year, we actually brought in not just us but other veteran service officers, national service organizations. The town of Swampsgate received about $180,000 in direct disability benefits from the VA last year.

We're proud of what we do. I'd love to sit down and talk with you some more about it. You know I'm down the post.

I was down the post last weekend. I just want to make sure that people know, and one of the things we're going to do when I'm talking about this with Sean, we're going to start probably communicating a little better about what we do. I think we thought maybe just put your nose to the grindstone and do some work.

So if we're not getting the word out enough, that's on us as well. While I have the microphone, before I get the hook, I do want to invite everyone down. Again, as was mentioned on May 30th on Memorial Day, 10 a.m. in the Swampsgate Cemetery. Actually, that was one of the things I was talking about with Gino today. Next week, we're going to have a big community thing. We want people to come down and engage in flagging of the graves.

That's what I was talking to your colleagues about down the post. One thing is, too, on the 29th, I was talking with Alex Panos, who's a good friend of Ray Harris, works really well with Ray all the time with Ray. There's going to be a ceremony up the street from Ray's house.

They're going to recognize Captain Jennifer Harris. With that, again, we're always here to help. We're always here to do more.

I'm very proud of what my office has done over the last couple years in here. One thing I forgot to mention, and I probably will get the hook, does anyone remember the Field of Heroes that we put in front of Town Hall last year? We're going to be doing that again.

That's going to be within the Memorial Day weekend. Around Thanksgiving, we gave what they called Hero Meals. Did anyone see that program going on down on Humphrey Street?

My better half has a nonprofit that has an office on Humphrey Street, the Military Friends Foundation through Tough Rock. Actually, last year, we had members of the Swanscot Police Department take part in it. I will end with this.

One of the things, and this is where people overuse the word synergy or people working together. Forgive me for using a buzzword like that. But one of the things we're really proud of is the work we've done with the Swanscot Police Department.

You should be very proud of that mental health task force that Ted Delano runs. Really, they've come together, and it isn't a veteran-centered organization or group. They just want to get everyone together.

They have mental health people, people there from senior centers, senior services, and that's where we can really get out and help people, frankly, before they're in crisis. So with that, thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (1:58:20 - 1:58:51)
Thank you, Mr. Sperling. Thank you. I think that pretty well dispenses with the necessary debate of lines 53 and 54.

But anything else on pages 12 or 13? Is that Ms. DiCillo? Not yet.

House right front.

[Speaker 18] (1:58:53 - 2:02:11)
Can you hear me now? I'm Mary DiCillo from Precinct 4. I would just like to make a comment in support of Jeff Blonder.

I honestly believe that people here should know that every town, it is by statute under the state, that every town of over 12,000 can have their own veteran service officer. My concern is that people ‑‑ there's two messages being sent out here, I think, by some of the town officials. One is a couple years ago about to sell off the FW property with no real plan for the vets.

And they're prodding the vets to get going and doing stuff. And now they're homegrown folks that are getting together. Four of these veteran service organizations are now coming together with programming.

I would be in support of having, you know, Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Blonder to get together and all the vets to get together. But I think that it should be centered in that facility with the idea that there's an office there for veterans to come to, not just for computers, but to access veteran services. The role of the veteran service officer is to help veterans access the VA services, which is a very complicated system.

And what I also, in terms of being a veterans advocate myself, having worked with veterans up at Salem State, what you need to know is most veterans are the most self‑effacing, I would call it. They're not the most people that are going to speak the loudest and yell and scream on their own behalf. So I do think there's a pending.

I watched the Board of Selectmen meeting recently. And the contract with Lynn is pending, I think, until November of this year. I would urge the Board of Selectmen and the town administrator, with the veterans, sitting down and looking at those contracts and to bring that contract back to Swab Scott.

There are veterans out there that can serve the community here and that people can access it instead of having to go to Lynn and do it that way. When we say, you know, thank you for your service, we have to make it accessible. And I think that's the thing that we forget.

It's very easy to let things drift. So I implore the people that have an ability to act and advocate for veterans to do so. And everybody maybe has somebody in their family that is a distant relative or even a current relative.

It's not just the veterans but their families as well that have access to the VSO officer. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:02:11 - 2:02:35)
Thank you, Ms. Achillo. I am going to ask us to please focus on the current operating year budget. Any further discussion of Pages 12 and 13?

Sorry, yes, before I call on you, Mr. Pastor, I'm going to look and see if someone hasn't spoken yet. Okay, Mr. Pastor.

[Speaker 11] (2:02:43 - 2:04:14)
Good evening. Glenn Pastor, Precinct 2, school committee member. First and foremost, congratulations to everyone, especially the town administrator on the Hawthorne property.

I don't know about you guys, but someone who's lived here a long time, that's just a phenomenal thing. That's great. I also want to thank the town administrator and the finance committee for working with the school department on our budget.

The interesting thing is when you are elected to school committee, you go to school committee school. And the second interesting thing about being elected to school committee is that you have very little power. Really, you have a couple jobs.

One is to oversee the superintendent, and the main one is to oversee the budget. The third interesting thing is that the budget pretty much is spoken for. Salaries, building, maintenance, books, technology, et cetera.

I stand for you today and ask line 59, $39,222,719. I'm making a motion to increase that by $180,000 for a total of $30,402,917. And if you would indulge me, Mr. Moderator. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:14 - 2:04:16)
You have that amendment for me in writing?

[Speaker 11] (2:04:17 - 2:04:19)
Yeah, it's a little not neat, but I will write it a little here.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:19 - 2:04:24)
Okay, and you would, we do need to balance our budget. Absolutely.

[Speaker 11] (2:04:24 - 2:04:31)
Yes, sir. So that, just quickly, the 180 will come from various light items. Do you want me to read the light items?

[Speaker 1] (2:04:32 - 2:04:32)
Yes, please.

[Speaker 11] (2:04:32 - 2:05:00)
Okay. Excuse me. Six, town administrator.

Eight, town accountant. 13, 14, treasury customer service. 15, legal insurance.

16, and 18, human resources. 19, IT. 22, 23, town clerk.

25, community development. 28, building department. 35 through 37, public service.

39, DPW, and library 55.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:01 - 2:05:03)
And the amounts of each of those?

[Speaker 11] (2:05:03 - 2:05:08)
It would be equidistant to their portion of the budget. But again, I can write this all up for you.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:08 - 2:05:11)
But it would be equal. I would need that in writing for the clerk to submit it. Absolutely, yes.

[Speaker 11] (2:05:12 - 2:07:21)
I stand before you. And $180,000 on a $30.2 million budget may not seem a lot. The other challenge is we, at the schools, will run with really whatever you give us.

Our job is to present the budget. Town administrator, finance committee's job is to talk about, negotiate, and approve the budget. And our job is to spend your money.

So the challenge that we're a little bit running into is a couple things. One, the school budget has no wiggle room. It is what it is.

We get X dollars. We spend Y dollars. And that's it.

That's all it is. The challenge that we're having is, in the past, the school department technology needs were covered under capital improvement. And as you can imagine, with the pandemic, and, you know, yes, there certainly were some challenges for every school district in the commonwealth.

Technology played a really large part in that. The secondary challenge that we have is technology doesn't stop just because we happen to buy a computer. That computer has a shelf life.

And so we always need to upgrade those computers. And so the challenge we are running into is now we have to find some extra budget money that we really don't have. So I stand before you and ask you to please approve by amendment to add $180,000 to the budget.

However, that said, I do want to let you know that the staff on the school side, superintendent, the budget director, are amazing at what they do. And I appreciate them as a school committee member. I would ask that you guys also appreciate them as town meeting members.

But, again, Mr. Moderator, I'm asking us to amend line 59 to increase that by $180,000. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:22 - 2:07:27)
Okay. We will stand recessed for a brief moment as I review this amendment.

[Speaker 7] (2:07:58 - 2:07:59)
I can just leave lunch.

[Speaker 11] (2:08:25 - 2:08:25)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 4] (2:08:26 - 2:08:34)
Are you from Precinct 1? I had to come late. So I want to read Precinct 1.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:46 - 2:09:18)
The meeting will return to order, please. The meeting will return to order, please. Mr. Pastor's proposed amendment seems to me to be in order. He is finishing writing up the specifics of it. Is there a second? Hearing a second.

As Mr. Pastor finishes that documentation, Mr. Dorsey.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:19 - 2:15:14)
Sure. Well, obviously, I can't speak to the specifics of the various line items that I think are being proposed. So I won't speak to the specifics of the budget items that Mr. Pastor is proposing to cut. But what I can do is talk about how we got to the recommendation that we have made to town meeting. Mr. Pastor pointed out after this was a line item that we spent a lot of time in this budget cycle, as you would expect. But it was a lot of time in part because of the differences in views, the view that Mr. Pastor just provided. The town administrator, the school committee passed the number that Mr. Pastor mentioned, which is a number that's above the amount that the school department had recommended to the school committee. And then so the higher amount from the school committee went to the town administrator, who reduced that amount even below what the school department had recommended. So it came to us with the amount recommended by the town administrator.

That's what you see in the warrant under the town administrator recommendation. His recommendation tried to factor in what we talked about a little bit before, which is the increasing health care costs. He proposed to reduce the school budget a small amount, a hundred and not a small amount.

It's never a small amount, but $103,000 compared to what the school department had recommended because he wanted to follow up on some conversations around whether and when and to what extent health care costs would be shared more by the school. I think it is important to note that the health care line is fully in the quote town side of the budget. But obviously it covers about 75% of the cost comes from the schools.

Now, I'm going to get back to how we got to the point. But one thing I want to point out to town meeting is I don't like standing here talking about school versus town, like the town budget and the school budget. We're one town, and we're invested in our education, and the finance committee's recommendations to town meeting we think continue strong investments in education.

I'll get into that in a bit. And we are looking forward to some commitments we received in this budget cycle that the finance team from the school and the finance team from the town are working together to think about different ways of budgeting next year to address this issue of some of the shared costs that are fixed costs that currently sit on the town side of the budget, but are heavily influenced by school operations, health care being the most obvious one. So we are supportive and optimistic, but we don't know what that answer is.

But we're supportive and optimistic about hearing about how there may be new ways to budget in a way that we don't talk school versus town. But in terms of our recommendation, we were pleased that, as I mentioned in my presentation, that the state aid numbers came in a bit higher than expected during the course of the budget cycle review. And the town administrator and the superintendent talked about those increases and agreed that we would apply all of those increases to the school budget.

We needed an extra $6,000 on top of that state aid to ultimately get the recommendation that we're making to you to the same level of what the school department had recommended to the school committee. I understand Mr. Pastor is on the school committee, and that's not what they voted. And what they voted is what went to the town administrator.

I understand that. But I'm pointing out that we felt like there was a reasonable balance struck by getting to and increasing the recommendation to get to the level that, while they may not have been sort of happy about it, they, the town, the superintendent, and I don't want to speak for the superintendent, but the superintendent and the director of finance for the schools had recommended as doable for the year. So we felt like it was a prudent balance.

And I do think it's important to recognize that, again, the school budget is not being cut. It's going up 2.88%. And that doesn't even factor in, as we talked about, the health care cost impact. That is heavily a school-related cost.

So, again, we think the town should invest in education. We're trying to recommend levels that the town meeting should approve, and we will continue to support and appreciate, really, the work that the school has done to look at their costs and to analyze their finances, like I said before, on both the town and the school sides. The last five or six years has seen vast improvement in terms of diving deeper into the details of their costs and being able to really think about the different levers.

And, you know, you've got to come to these choices at some point and decisions. But we felt like getting, from finance committee perspective, we felt like the 2.88% increase, again, more than the overall general fund appropriation increase, coupled with the fact that there's a lot of costs beyond what's in the school line item that are school-related, was a fair outcome, and that's how we got to our recommendation. But, again, we look forward to, hopefully, in next year's town meeting, having a bit more of a town conversation that's not town versus school from a budget perspective.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:15 - 2:16:10)
Thank you, Mr. Dorsey. Mr. Spelios, you have a point of order. Mr. Spelios's point of order is whether Mr. Pastor is rising as a member of the school committee and has the school committee's backing or just as an individual meeting member. I heard Mr. Pastor state that he's just representing himself, not the school committee. Does that satisfy your point of order? Before we proceed, I also have an anonymous point of privilege has been raised, and, frankly, I feel it important enough that I'm just going to take it as a personal privilege for myself.

Thank you to everyone who is continuing to stay masked. We do ask you to keep your mask over your nose and your mouth through this entire session. Thank you very much.

Further discussion about Mr. Pastor's amendment? Ms. Zoll?

[Speaker 15] (2:16:13 - 2:16:28)
Switch sides, wanted a better view. Okay. So, Keiko Zoll, Precinct 5.

I have a question, Mr. Moderator. The amount that was proposed, first, just to confirm, it was $180,000, just ballpark thereabouts?

[Speaker 1] (2:16:28 - 2:16:29)
That is the bottom line, yes.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:29 - 2:18:27)
Okay. Thank you. So, the question I have, and it seems to be that the rationale that was proposed by Mr. Pastor is that it's in sustaining technology for our school district. I noticed in our districts, hold on. So, this is the, I can't find it off the top, I'm so tired, sorry. In our district's application for the elementary and secondary school emergency relief grant, this is something that was provided by, just to give some folks some context, this was provided by the federal government to help public schools recover from the pandemic.

Part of what, and it was, right now it's been phased into three grant cycles through the state. So, I have not seen our district's third grant cycle application for the third grant, but just looking at the most recent data that I have from the second grant, it looks like we have $150,343 budgeted for acquiring educational technology for students to facilitate remote learning. The budget detail includes 200 Chromebooks, 60 MacBook Airs, and software licensing, including whatever, and it gets cut off from there, based on what I'm looking at the grant application.

So, I'm just curious if this $180,000 is, if any of that is being looked at for the ESSER Part 3 that's coming out for the next disbursement from the state. And then my second question is, if it's in sustaining technology, I know there are a number of grant programs within the state through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and that if our school district has investigated pursuing any of those grant opportunities to fund this gap. Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:28 - 2:18:44)
So, that's a complicated one to put back to Mr. Pasterson, since it really has to do with the school finance team. Do I take the gist of your comment to be, are there other sources that have not yet materialized that may substitute for this $180,000?

[Speaker 15] (2:18:45 - 2:18:45)
That is correct.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:46 - 2:18:51)
Thank you. Do we have Ms. Seibert? I can speak to it, Mr. Moderator, if you'd like, a little bit.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:51 - 2:18:52)
Yes, please.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:54 - 2:18:58)
If you need to defer to Ms. Seibert, please feel free to, but go ahead.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:58 - 2:20:28)
Yeah, I mean, I think the school did present to us and talk to us about the ESSER grants that they've received over the last couple years through the pandemic. And right now in the FY23 budget, and Martha, if you want to correct me if I get any of these numbers wrong, feel free to, but the FY23 budget is using approximately $226,000 from ESSER II. And also $897,000 from ESSER III.

There will be still some ESSER III monies left over for FY24. So we've been fortunate. It's been needed as a community.

We've been fortunate to receive very significant federal grants that have supported the extra work needed to support the pandemic. We can all debate whether it's enough, but those funds are significant. And my understanding is last year, those ESSER funds were used for this purpose as a bridge.

And so I think there is a question mark and maybe decisions that need to be made in terms of whether they can be used this year for that $180,000 purpose or not. That's not a decision for us to make necessarily. So that's the information I have on the ESSER grants.

I'm glad to be corrected if I got any of that.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:29 - 2:20:37)
Unless the school finance team feels the need to clarify, I feel like that's, I believe, is that Ms. Winkler in the back?

[Speaker 27] (2:20:42 - 2:22:44)
Ellen Winkler, Precinct 4 Library Trustee. In considering this request for $180,000, Mr. Pastor rattled off very quickly all of the departments that would have to participate in cuts in order to fund that money. My ears went up when I heard library.

We have a particular challenge for the library in our budget cycle because we have something called a municipal appropriation requirement. Where our numbers have to hit a certain level every year in order for the library to remain accredited. Which translates for citizens in Swampscott to the ability to go into our library in Swampscott and have access to materials throughout the Commonwealth.

It's a shared system that we participate in and losing that accreditation would be a big hit for us. We're in a bit of a vulnerable spot right now. We've been without a permanent director since last October.

We've had an interim who just left on short notice on the 10th of this month. And we don't yet have a new person in place. So I'm giving you information that I'm not an expert in.

But my concern is only that I'm sure every department that would have to sacrifice some funds has a story to tell about how difficult that would be. And this is the kind of process that we rely on the town to orchestrate with a lot of careful consideration going into every single appropriation for every item. And to have it come up in town meeting this way at the last minute without an opportunity to consider what the impact is going to be on the departments that are going to get less is really not okay.

And in the case of the library could lead to a very unintended result. So I would encourage people not to accept this amendment at this time. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:44 - 2:22:53)
Thank you, Ms. Winkler. Further discussion? Gentleman in the back.

[Speaker 16] (2:22:54 - 2:24:56)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Jantas, Precinct 4, also a member of the school committee. I just want to say a couple words about Glenn's proposal.

I think it has some merit for support here. And I understand some of the concerns that have been raised here. But I think a lot of the context here I'm not sure has been quite presented.

My understanding, and this predates my time on the school committee, was that this $180,000 was removed because we didn't know what we were going to get because of when COVID first broke out. We didn't know what we were going to get for state aid. And the school committee or the school department was asked to trim the budget by the $180,000, which it was.

And here we are today. That $180,000 was never put back into the budget was my understanding. And, yes, the budget's going up 2.88, but that's on the lower amount, not with the $180,000 in it. So I think Glenn's point is that to be able to do what we're now being asked to do with technology being the spend here, whereas outside of the school budget before, it's a lot more difficult without the starting point being the $180,000 we had in previous fiscal years. So I think that context is important to keep in mind here. I understand the concerns that have been raised about how we get there, but I think having that certainty versus relying on grants that might go away at some future point, having that certainty is worth having this discussion.

So, again, I think Glenn's motion does have some merit that we should be considering here. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:56 - 2:25:05)
Thank you, Mr. Chantis. Ms. Serra, can you? Thank you.

I'd like to ask Ms. Serra to clarify.

[Speaker 7] (2:25:05 - 2:25:42)
I would just like to speak to the $180,000 from the budget. That was a reduction in state aid on education-related items, of which $96,242 was restored through state aid this year, which was given back to the school. The remainder of that other $80,000 or so has not been restored from state aid, so that is simply revenue that we don't have.

And in order to give that to the school, we would have to cut more on the town side in order to give more to the school. So that wasn't a cut from the town. That was a cut from the state on education items.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:47 - 2:26:02)
Further commentary. Ms. O'Connor, we haven't heard from you yet. Ms. O'Connor. And I will get to you, but I want to make sure people who have not had a chance to speak are heard.

[Speaker 21] (2:26:04 - 2:28:30)
Amy O'Connor, precinct 6, chair of the school committee. I feel very strange standing here talking about this because part of my job is to advocate for as much money as we possibly can for our schools. But I need to address something that I'm concerned about.

While Ms. Saro is correct about the cuts that were made, the response, the vote that we took in, I believe it was March, for the additional $180,000 was specifically because of not just one year, but three years of where our funds were cut for various different reasons. But most importantly, the piece of it being that our technology had been funded through the capital improvements, and the decision was made not to go that route. And that was something that I completely appreciate in terms of how the town chooses to fund.

But that money was never restored into our operating budget. So while over the last, I'd say, I think it's two years. Forgive me because I'm kind of nervous talking.

Over the last two years, we were able to make up that money using these ESSER grants, and using the money that the federal government has given us. However, my concern, and I don't know if this is the place to solve this, my concern is that we have a structural deficit. And when these grants, these federal grants go away, which they will at the end of next year, we are still without a way that we are consistently funding technology because it was removed from capital improvements, and the cost of technology is going to continue in perpetuity.

So without that, two years from now, when these funds dry up, which is also coincidentally the year that we're going to be hit with school costs for our building, is when people are going to say, well, what's happening, and why is there such a huge jump in the school budget? Because we haven't been funding that all along. So I don't ask to rob Peter to pay Paul, and I don't know what the solution is, but we do need that $180,000 in order to maintain our budget.

[Speaker 1] (2:28:34 - 2:28:37)
Mr. Spellios, then Mr. Iannacone, and then Ms. Zoll.

[Speaker 3] (2:28:41 - 2:30:47)
Thank you. Peter Spellios, Precinct 3, member of the Select Board, and I speak in my individual capacity about this. A couple of things that Ms. O'Connor just raised I think are really important things. I appreciate the acknowledgment that there's structural deficits in the school budget. To me, that is not just the beginning, but it's probably the end of the conversation. The town has structural deficits as well and problems that we are forced, and we come to town meeting every year and we say we cannot continue pretending we don't have structural deficits.

So I appreciate, well, there's been a lot of grants to sustain during hard times, and there's been much less grants for the town side, but the structural deficit is difficult and technology is important, but the truth is technology is becoming a structural deficit on the school side, and that can't be the case, and only the school department can really, and school superintendent and the school committee are the ones to really solve it at the end of the day.

Laptops now are more akin to pencils or textbooks than not, right? And we know that we're going to have the constant evolving of having to redo and buy new laptops regularly. And so the decision to not treat them as capital is completely prudent to be able to say it needs to be in the operating budget.

It needs to be in the town's operating budget for us to be able to fund computers and technology here. We appreciate that there's structural deficits. I also appreciate that there's a process that the budget goes through, an exhausting one, and I can't remember any time in my almost 20 years of being at town meeting where the superintendent has recommended one budget, the school committee has recommended a second budget, the FinCom has come up with another budget, and then individual members of the school committee have decided outside of the budget process to suggest a town meeting to the chair of the library trustees' point to arbitrarily reduce funds is unfortunately just an unfortunate way to do this, and I look forward to the conversations getting back to a place of productivity because this is not productive because it doesn't allow anyone to really find a solution. They may feel good that they're finding a solution, but we can't find a solution on a town meeting floor, and so I would appreciate town meeting rejecting this amendment.

[Speaker 1] (2:30:49 - 2:31:02)
Thank you, Mr. Spellios. Mr. Iannacone, do you still wish to speak? I didn't want to recall the question.

I want people at home to hear what's going on.

[Speaker 24] (2:31:03 - 2:31:08)
I did want to say that I would suggest that we call the question.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:09 - 2:33:53)
Thank you. Mr. Iannacone is moving the previous question or calling the question, which means to end debate for our first-time town meeting members. This requires a two-thirds vote.

The motion itself is not debatable, and if it succeeds with a two-thirds vote of the House, we will move directly to a vote on Mr. Pastor's amendment. Do I have a second for calling the question? Hearing a second, all those in favor of now ending debate and moving directly to a vote on Mr. Pastor's amendment?

All those opposed? It is unanimous. All those in favor of Mr. Pastor's amendment, which would debit each of the following lines by a pro rata amount of the percent that they make up of the entire operating budget?

Six, town administrator. Eight, town accountant. Thirteen, treasury and customer service.

Fifteen, legal and insurance. Sixteen, HR. Eighteen, salary reserve.

Nineteen, information technology. Twenty-two and twenty-three, clerk and elections. Twenty-five, community development.

Twenty-eight, the building department. Thirty-five and thirty-six, facilities. Thirty-seven, the cemetery.

Thirty-nine and forty, DPW and fifty-five, the library. All those in favor of his motion to reduce those items and transfer $180,000 to the school budget, signify by raising your hands. All those opposed?

The amendment is defeated. We now return to discussion of the budget as a whole. Is there further discussion on pages 12 to 13?

Moving on to 14.15, which includes employee benefits, the enterprise funds themselves. Discussion on 14.15. Moving on to 16, which includes the rest of water enterprise, the public access enterprise fund, and the new solid waste enterprise fund. Any discussion on page 16?

Seeing none. All those in favor of Mr. Dorsey's motion, which will adopt all of the numbered line items printed in the budget, one through 71, signify by raising your hand. All those opposed?

The motion carries. Before I move to Article 4, I believe Ms. Vasiliu, you had a motion of order.

[Speaker 29] (2:33:57 - 2:34:16)
I'm ready for that. Hi, Laura Goodman, Precinct 5. Tasia had a plumbing emergency, so she had to leave.

So Tasia is also in Precinct 5, but I'm speaking on her behalf. So she would like to move to take Article 12 out of order.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:18 - 2:34:29)
Okay. I understood she could definitely not be here tomorrow night, and that was one of the reasons to advance it. Am I correct in assuming you are one of the petitioners also?

You are not correct.

[Speaker 29] (2:34:31 - 2:34:42)
Do we have a petitioner then who ---- I have what she wrote that she was going to say that I was just going to read out for her.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:43 - 2:35:11)
With the indulgence of the meeting, I will allow this as in proper order. So she would like to advance Article 12. Is there a second to advancing Article 12?

Second. All those in favor of advancing Article 12 to this point, please raise your hands. All those opposed?

The motion carries.

[Speaker 29] (2:35:12 - 2:35:12)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:13 - 2:35:22)
I would like to hear a motion. You are a town meeting member. You can make a motion under this.

It's unusual to have a non-petitioner, but please proceed.

[Speaker 29] (2:35:23 - 2:35:28)
I would like to move to indefinitely postpone Article 12, or to see it would like to.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:30 - 2:35:32)
I will take it as the motion by Ms. Goodman.

[Speaker 29] (2:35:32 - 2:35:34)
Is there a second? Second.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:35 - 2:35:49)
Is there discussion of indefinite postponement on the citizen's petition Article 12? Seeing none, all those in favor of indefinite postponement? All those opposed?

Article 12 has been indefinitely postponed.

[Speaker 29] (2:35:50 - 2:35:53)
May I read what she asks me to read for her?

[Speaker 1] (2:35:55 - 2:35:57)
Is it terribly long?

[Speaker 29] (2:35:57 - 2:35:59)
It is germane. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:02 - 2:36:04)
That's an excellent use of the word.

[Speaker 7] (2:36:09 - 2:36:10)
Sorry.

[Speaker 29] (2:36:16 - 2:37:23)
For many years, our middle school roof has leaked. Many of the windows in that building also leak. The roof has been repaired.

The windows, however, have not been. On several occasions, the question about repairing the windows has been asked in various town forums and committee meetings. The response was usually that it is planned as part of a larger renovation project to the middle school, which is several years down the road.

All of our town buildings should be watertight and should receive the same attention to urgent matters. That is why I brought forth this citizen's petition. I am very happy to say that shortly after this petition was filed, a repair project began at the middle school for the windows.

While we are not fully clear on whether or not this repair project is successful, I am thrilled to see that the town took steps to solve this problem. With those repairs underway, I'd like to indefinitely postpone this article in the hopes that these remediation steps are sufficient to stop the windows leaking. Should they not be, we can revisit it at our next town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:23 - 2:37:24)
Very good.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:24 - 2:37:24)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:28 - 2:37:31)
Mr. Duffy, I believe you have a similar motion.

[Speaker 5] (2:37:41 - 2:38:21)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Neil Duffy, Precinct 3, member of the Select Board. I'd like to, for a point of order, propose that we take Article 15 out of order.

Is there a second? Mr. Duffy, briefly describe the reason. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. For Article 15, I have some guests here, students of Swampscott High School, who have been kind enough to join me in presenting on this article, and I'd like to be respectful of their time, and hopefully town meeting will allow us to do that, and we can speak to this article now and then get on with the business of town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:22 - 2:38:31)
If there is no discussion, all those in favor of Mr. Duffy's motion? All those opposed? Okay, we now begin the discussion of Article 15.

[Speaker 5] (2:38:36 - 2:39:19)
Mr. Duffy. Thank you. So the Select Board recommends that the town adopt the Climate Action Plan Resolution included in Appendix D, which is developed by the Swampscott Climate Action Resilience Coalition, a citizen-led group of volunteers that establishes goals to achieve zero carbon energy and further to authorize the Select Board to enter into any agreements upon such terms and conditions as the Board deems appropriate related to such resolution, including but not limited to any grant agreements with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources or any other funding agency to achieve the resolution's goals or take any action relative thereto.

I move the recommendation of the Select Board.

[Speaker 1] (2:39:19 - 2:39:22)
Is there a second? Go ahead, Mr. Duffy.

[Speaker 5] (2:39:24 - 2:45:50)
Yeah, I'd like to invite the two high school students I had mentioned. They can come join me at the podium, and anyone else from the Climate Action and Resilience Coalition who would like to join me down here is more than welcome to. There is a PowerPoint that will be very brief, I promise, if you can put it up.

While they're figuring that out, you guys can sit in the chairs. Put them to good use, you know. So as I mentioned, I'm here to speak on Article 15, the Climate Action Plan Resolution.

This resolution and the beginning of this action plan are the product of the work of the Climate Action and Resilience Coalition. It's not an official appointed town committee, but rather a group of resident volunteers concerned about climate change and taking action to do something about it. I'm not the chair of that coalition or the leader of that coalition.

I'm just a member. This coalition doesn't actually require town meeting approval to work on a climate action plan, but we think a strong public statement of support in this effort by town leaders is a vital first step to ensuring the creation of a comprehensive and thoughtful plan and full community engagement. This resolution has been endorsed to date by the Swampscot Conservancy, Open Space and Recreation Committee, Swampscot High School's Outdoor Adventure and Conservation, Outdoor Adventure and Conservation Club, the Planning Board, the Renewable Energy Committee, the Select Board, and the Swampscot Tree Committee.

Next slide, please. So I'm not a scientist, and I'm not here to provide a lecture on climate change. I do just want to make the point that climate change is happening now.

The two graphs you see were provided to me by Steven Young, a professor at Salem State University and a Swampscot resident. The one on the left is from his own research. It shows decadal temperature changes, which really illustrates, you know, climate change is impacting the entire globe, but certain regions are experiencing its impacts at different levels.

What this graph is showing is that New England, compared to the world, seems to be warming at a more extreme rate, and then Massachusetts is experiencing an overall warming that is greater than New England as a region. The image on the right is a visualization of ocean warming that Professor Young provided from the University of Maine. It's not a projection.

It's historical data, and it's showing that the ocean as a whole is warming, but it also shows that the warming occurring in the Gulf of Maine is even more extreme. This does not just have sea level rise implications, but impacts the ecology and ecosystems off of our shores, ecosystems which provide important life-sustaining services to us, such as some of the air that we breathe. Next slide, please.

Of course, climate is not weather, and no single weather event can be directly attributed to climate change, but as has been predicted, we are experiencing more frequent and more extreme storms, and we will continue to do so. So I'm just sharing some images here that were provided to me from our Director of Public Works and Assistant Town Administrator, Gino Cresta, of some events over the past few years. Next slide, please.

So what can we do about it? We need to put a plan together that will not only allow us to address and mitigate the emissions we are responsible for here in Swampscot, but will also help us to create a more sustainable and healthier community that will better support our surrounding natural resources and biodiversity. We're just at the beginning stages of putting this together, and it starts with a vote of support from you tonight.

There are many details about this Climate Action and Resilience Plan that need to be worked through, but what we do know is it will align with the Commonwealth's Net Zero by 2050 goals, which were signed into law by Governor Baker last year. We know that it will align with the Swampscot 2025 Master Plan goals and actions. We know that it will require and include input and participation from the whole community, including and especially those who are historically most marginalized.

We know that it will better prepare us not just for extreme weather events, but also better prepare us for funding and technical support opportunities offered by the federal and state governments. We know that we can leverage existing resources, such as the Metropolitan Area Planning Council's Net Zero Playbook and Climate Action Plans completed by other municipalities in the area and throughout the state. We also know that it will set specific measurable goals and targets, and it will address mitigation, resilience, and adaptation.

Next slide, please. So, one of the members of the coalition, using MAPC's resources, as mentioned, did put together a baseline emissions inventory of Swampscot for 2017. I just wanted to share this snapshot to explain the importance of why this can't just be about municipal operations.

It needs to be about the whole town. As you can see, our residential buildings make up almost 42% of our total emissions. Passenger vehicles are almost 35%, and commercial and industrial buildings are nearly 15%.

So, we really need to think about the whole town. Next slide, please. This is just a timeline of how the coalition sees this happening tonight.

We would hope for town meetings' support in working on this plan over the next year. Hopefully, there will be a draft plan by the turn of the year in 2023, and we hope to be back here at Springtown meeting in 2023 for your approval of this plan. And now, you've certainly heard enough from me.

I would like to invite two climate leaders from Swampscot High School to speak on this topic.

[Speaker 25] (2:46:01 - 2:48:26)
Before I start, I just want to say thank you to all the staff that have been helpful in getting the program I'm about to speak about in a minute get started. So, to Max Casper, who's right there, I want to say thank you. He's been instrumental in getting this program started.

And, of course, all the other staff. Mr. Arrington, Mr. Koha, Mr. Norkin, and Superintendent Angelakis. So, my name is Sam Snakowski.

I'm a sophomore at the high school, and I founded our school's composting program. And, I currently run the club in charge of it. I also started our student council's annual cleanup of Fisherman's Beach.

Throughout my experience in Swampscot public schools and our town in general, I've seen the incredible dedication and much of our community has to keeping this town clean and environmentally sound. I would like to briefly inform those watching this meeting that the cleanup of Fisherman's Beach will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 12th this year, and encourage everyone who can attend to do so. But, today, I'm here to speak on the Swampscot Climate Action Plan Resolution.

The resolution's central goal is to reduce our town's emissions. Working with students and our schools is a vital part of achieving the benchmarks ahead. For example, our composting program diverts 3.2 tons of methane from entering the atmosphere each school year. The Baker-Polito administration has set the target of net zero to be reached by 2050. From the 2022 to 2023 school year to the 2049 to 2050 school year, our composting program, and bear in mind this is just one school in Swampscot having a program like this, will stop 89.6 tons of methane from entering the atmosphere. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, describes how, quote, methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

By supporting initiatives like the Swampscot Climate Action Plan Resolution, an initiative that will get the process going to make a plan that will increase the amount of programs similar to the composting program at the high school, we can all be part of the fight to reduce the amount of heat-trapping gases in the world. Beyond smaller individual projects like composting, though, significant town policy will also have a great effect on our community and our overall emissions. Speaking on that, I've got Yaroslava Pidi-Sharivia here with me tonight.

She's a fellow sophomore at the high school and is a proud supporter of this resolution. She is also currently a member of the OACC, which was on the first slide, and that's the environmental club at the high school that overwhelmingly voted to endorse the Swampscot Climate Action Plan Resolution. Thank you.

[Speaker 28] (2:48:33 - 2:50:31)
Hello, my name is Yaroslava Sharivia, and like Sam, I'm currently a sophomore at Swampscot High School. As Sam mentioned, I am part of the OACC, or Outdoor Adventure and Conservation Club at the high school. I am also a volunteer with Swampscot's Open Space and Recreation Committee, and I'm an active member of many climate organizations, most prominently Citizens Climate Lobby and its National Youth Action Team and FXP Climate Advocates.

Through these programs and through my own research and experience, I have concluded that the most meaningful way to see climate solutions is through enacting climate policy. As a climate advocate, I have worked on promoting such legislation as the Green Future Act, the Massachusetts Climate Policy Roadmap Bill, and the Energy Innovation Act. It is my personal belief that the central ideas contained in these bills, as well as support from the community, can have tremendous effects on reducing our carbon emissions.

The Climate Action Plan is a blueprint for town policy moving forward to incorporate community needs to generate meaningful and long-lasting solutions. It is for this reason that I am eager to be involved in the Climate Action and Resiliency Coalition's formation and implementation of a Climate Action Plan. As a member of the OACC, I think that I speak on behalf of the group when I say that I hope to see this plan move forward.

Our club aims to provide a platform for student input and discussion of climate problems and solutions in our community, and many of our members are excited about providing feedback and input to this plan. We believe that this plan aligns with our goals in community and youth-driven solutions to the climate crisis and is an essential step towards ensuring an equitable, sustainable, and just transition towards net zero emissions by 2050 for businesses and residents alike. From both a personal stance and as a representative of the students of the Environmental Club, I would like to express my support of the Climate Action Plan and encourage the town members here today to pass a Climate Action Plan resolution enabling the development of this plan.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:50:32 - 2:50:52)
Applause Mr. Duffy's initial motion is on the floor, and I'm looking to see if there needs to be any discussion after those two eloquent statements. Ma'am.

[Speaker 33] (2:51:06 - 2:52:31)
I'm Judy Bevis. Is this on here? Hello.

Not on yet? I'm Judy Bevis, a precinct sick town meeting member. I think the presentation is wonderful, and I'm really glad that we have people in the town working on these important issues, but I also think that the town meeting, the purpose of it is to deal with the fiscal issues in the town and zoning, and this strikes me as a political issue, and I've been a town meeting member for probably 10 years, and I haven't seen us vote resolutions or proclamations that are strictly political.

And when I hear one-third of the people are new members, I think introducing something like this as a town meeting resolution takes us in a completely different area, and for that reason I think I would like to move to indefinitely postpone it. I also think that this is an incredibly complicated issue, and if we're going to talk about it, it could go on and on with a real discussion of it. When I hear that there are things both municipal and non-municipal and residential, I think it's a very complicated issue that should be discussed in the committees they're putting forth and citizens' efforts, but not have the town meeting put resolutions which are strictly political rather than the primary purpose of our meeting.

And that's all I have to say.

[Speaker 1] (2:52:32 - 2:52:38)
Thank you. I understand you move to amend the motion to indefinitely postpone it.

[Speaker 33] (2:52:38 - 2:52:39)
Indefinitely postpone it.

[Speaker 1] (2:52:39 - 2:52:55)
Is there a second? Is there a second? Moving on instead.

Further discussion? I'm not sure who could follow up to those two, but perhaps Ms. Zoll is up to it, and Mr. Pielot next.

[Speaker 15] (2:52:57 - 2:54:03)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I just wanted to thank the two students. I'm sorry, I don't remember your names.

I'm very tired at this point. I just want to thank you both for coming out here. I know it's a late night.

I know it's a school night for both of you. I've got my own son here. I just really thank you for all of your efforts that you're doing to get the students and the youth in the town involved in this, because obviously this impacts you and your future, which is why I would like to rise and stand in support of this amendment.

And I would just like to kind of respond to the previous comment that, yes, it is a very complicated issue, and it's an issue that's going to affect all of our kids here. And as much as I love living in a waterfront town, I don't need that waterfront coming up to my backyard when I'm a mile from the beach right now. So whatever we can do as a town to demonstrate our commitment to combating climate change and preparing for it accordingly, I think we should move full steam ahead with that, and I'd like to call the question.

[Speaker 1] (2:54:04 - 2:54:13)
I'm going to not recognize that motion for a moment because Mr. Pielot I had recognized, but I think we are very close to a vote here.

[Speaker 38] (2:54:16 - 2:54:45)
Dennis Pielot, I'll be very short. Just, again, great job, guys. Your enthusiasm, your passion for this, I think there is a place in this body for folks who want to put in this kind of effort and really make a statement from this town in what we believe in and what we value.

Not everyone may agree, but the fact that you voiced your voice is important. I just wanted to kind of make a technical point that I don't know if it matters or not, but the way the warrant was written, it's Appendix D, where I think it should be Appendix C. I don't know if that will have any major bearing on anything, but.

[Speaker 1] (2:54:46 - 2:55:35)
We'll treat that as a scrivener's error in the motion. Seeing no further debate, all those in favor of Mr. Duffy's motion? All those opposed?

It passes unanimously. Thank you. That would bring us back to Article 4.

I am going to suggest for the meeting that we have enough stamina within ourselves to get through 45678 tonight. They look to be fairly simple articles. Mr. Hartman on Article 4.

[Speaker 13] (2:55:38 - 2:56:44)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Eric Hartman, Precinct 1, town meeting member, member of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends that the town appropriate 55,148 from free cash and $310,645 from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, to fund the cost contained in the Memoranda of Agreements, amending the collective bargaining agreements between the Town of Swampscott and the DPW Union, the Town Hall Administrative Assistant Union, the Massachusetts Coalition of Police, Local 417, the Library Union, and the Swampscott Firefighters Union, Local 1459, respectively, which were ratified by the Select Board.

The amounts are DPW $76,151, Administrative Union $21,248, Library $12,750, Police $175,644, and Fire $80,000. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (2:56:45 - 2:56:45)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 13] (2:56:46 - 2:58:31)
Mr. Hartman. So the point of this article is to approve funding for costs associated with the collective bargaining agreements. And as town meeting may be aware, some of these agreements had expired.

And as part of the negotiations, there are certain costs, including retroactive cost of living adjustments and other negotiated payments that will be funded through the use of free cash as well as through the ARPA funds. So the Finance Committee had good discussions on the financial elements of the agreements with the Town Administrator, and we were generally pleased with the financial impact of the agreements, especially considering the gains and concessions that the Town received in return from the unions. From a dollar's perspective, we were also happy the Town could cover a significant component of these costs with ARPA funds, which limits the need for using free cash.

There's just two other items I wanted to mention before I turn it over to the Town Administrator to discuss things in more detail. First is that the budget that we just approved in Article 3 includes $93,810 in the salary reserve line item that relate to these agreements for fiscal 2023 costs. And the second is that in approving Article 4, we would be approving the funding for the second round of payments to police and fire that were agreed to as part of the decision to leave civil service.

Last year, the first round of these payments was $157,500, and we did fund those through free cash. But this year, the payments amount to $155,000, and they'll be funded using the ARPA grant. So I'll defer to the Town Administrator for any further discussion.

[Speaker 1] (2:58:31 - 2:58:33)
Thank you, Mr. Hartman. Mr. Fitzgerald?

[Speaker 4] (2:58:38 - 3:04:11)
Thank you, Eric. Can you just pull up the bargaining? So these contracts really continue the Town's good faith bargaining.

They do follow that ethic of give and get. You know, we have some tremendous employees, and each of these unions really, you know, have bargained in good faith, and these contracts outline, you know, a cost of contract. For the Department of Public Works, let's see if we can get this.

We have 16 full-time members. The cost of living for FY23, 24, and 25 is 3, 2, and 2.5, a total cost of $97,630. We also increased stipends for some of the licenses.

Mr. Cresta had talked extensively about the importance of really providing a professional track for a number of the employees, and this gives us a chance to incentivize the individuals that get licensed for water and really get some additional compensation for those positions. We also awarded a $2,500 bonus at a cost of $40,000 in consideration for some management rights, and that's automated time clocks and GPS devices in all the vehicles. The next contract was the Administrative Assistance Union.

This is a former clerical union. It's six members, five full-time, one part-time, cost of living of 2, 2, and 2 for a total of $18,000. We added a stipend for a notary public.

We looked at the wage table. Again, we wanted to find some steps and some lanes that really would recognize the importance of the administrative assistant positions at Town Hall. It's a small union, but they're critically important.

We did include a $1,500 bonus upon ratification or approval at town meeting and a $1,000 bonus on July 1st for a $15,000 total cost. The management enhancements or management rights, we eliminated a sick incentive, I think, after the pandemic. We looked at every sick incentive in the town budget, and we eliminated it.

We don't want folks coming to work sick. We actually reallocated some of those dollars for employee benefits and training. We eliminated a personal day incentive for a savings of $7,500.

We eliminated a seven-and-a-half-hour holiday for the admin union and eliminated a fourth personal day. We really wanted to get town employees all down to three personal days. We do have some generous benefits, and we just wanted to ensure that we had parity across a number of unions.

The next was the library union. We have four full-time and 12 part-time employees, a cost of living of 2, 2, and 2 over the next three years, improved wage tables and step increases for employees. We also had a $750 bonus upon ratification.

And on July 1st, we also had some management rights enhancements, elimination of sick incentives, elimination of a fourth personal day. And we wanted to ensure that all library employees received the same vacation and longevity schedule as town employees. The last contract, largest of these contracts, was the police department contract, 33 full-time members, cost of living of 2.75, 2.5, and 2.5, total cost of $252,000. We added an annual stipend for body cameras. This was $1,000 per member per year. Added a one-time bonus for non-union positions.

This is a deputy chief position, and that would be $500 per member. We added $1,500 for a pandemic response bonus. We added $1,200 to $5,300 for improved stipend pays for various positions within the department.

And we added a $250 increase for each step of a baby Quinn. This is an educational incentive that ensures that officers that get an associate's bachelor's or master's all receive an additional allotment. In consideration for these benefits, we were able to negotiate a performance evaluation system.

And again, the creation of a non-deputy chief. I do want to mention in the Warren article we're also appropriating funds to finish off the second fiscal year of payments for some of the concessions that we were able to negotiate with the police and fire. We currently still are negotiating a contract with the fire department, and I fully expect that we will have an agreement hopefully for our next special town meeting.

Happy to answer any questions.

[Speaker 1] (3:04:11 - 3:04:34)
Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. Discussion about Mr. Hartman's motion. I'm sorry, Mr. Lorber. House right rear.

[Speaker 31] (3:04:39 - 3:05:18)
Terry Lorber, precinct 5. I recall a collective bargaining agreement at our last special town meeting in December, and I was wondering if those unions that we voted to fund through free cash, I think, collective bargaining agreements back in December were actually, those agreements were completed, are now completed, if these are new unions we're talking about, or if you could help me understand the timeline here and if the amount that was approved in December is more or less than the amount that's being asked for now. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lorber. Mr. Fitzgerald.

[Speaker 4] (3:05:18 - 3:05:28)
Sure. The two contracts that we approved at the special town meeting were for the police and fire unions, 3%? I'm sorry.

[Speaker 7] (3:05:29 - 3:05:58)
The special town meeting in December was for the DPW, the admin, and the library. The library was a one-year deal, and the DPW and admin was still in negotiation at the time. The vote was to put the money forth from free cash, assuming that those agreements were reached, which they were.

So those fundings were already taken into account for the retro payments of those unions. These are for the future funds that are needed, if that answers your question, Mr. Lorber.

[Speaker 1] (3:05:58 - 3:06:02)
Thank you, Ms. Serra. Yes, is that Ms. Lau?

[Speaker 35] (3:06:08 - 3:06:14)
It's more of a comment. Mr. Fitzgerald, can we go back to the slide for the library, please?

[Speaker 1] (3:06:18 - 3:06:19)
Stand by.

[Speaker 35] (3:06:24 - 3:07:25)
My point of concern is when you look at the library, it appears that a day, a personal day, was taken away from 16 employees for $8,000. You know, they're getting a two-two and two. There's very little money being made at the library.

Outside of the school buildings in our town, the library is the most used building. And I brought this up the last time. Thank you, Terry.

And it's just not given the support that is needed. And it sounds like, you know, our temporary Alistair Voe, and there's no Alistair Voe that can be replaced, is not there. And I know that money was used to find that position.

That's money from the Friends of the Library, and that just seems like the town should be paying for that without question. So that's upsetting, and I'd like the library to get a little bit more credit than it's been getting.

[Speaker 40] (3:07:25 - 3:07:26)
Okay.

[Speaker 35] (3:07:26 - 3:07:37)
And just lastly, you know, Sandy Moult's passed away, and I think that that's an important thing to keep in mind. Okay? Sure.

[Speaker 1] (3:07:38 - 3:07:39)
Thank you, Ms. Lau.

[Speaker 4] (3:07:42 - 3:08:53)
Mr. Moderator, if I could just share a comment. You know, I appreciate those comments. It's important for us to also recognize that the library is a union of all women, so is the Administrative Assistance Union, and I am mindful when I sit down with those unions that they don't make as much as the other unions.

And I spend time really thinking about how to add structure to those contracts, adding steps and lanes that add not just the cost of living, but a 3% or 4% step that helps us improve remuneration. And there's more for us to do, and I'm going to commit to continue to be mindful and thoughtful about some of those times. But I do keep a focus on the town budget, and I'm trying to find a baseline with benefits that really ensure that all of our employees have some level of parity.

This is going to take us years to try to negotiate with all these different unions in good faith, and I've just tried to be careful about that. With that said, I certainly appreciate those points.

[Speaker 1] (3:08:54 - 3:09:12)
Further discussion on Mr. Hartman's motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion to appropriate this money to satisfy these collective bargaining agreements, all those opposed? It carries unanimously.

We move now to Article V, Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 13] (3:09:13 - 3:09:16)
I move that Article V and VI be taken up together.

[Speaker 1] (3:09:17 - 3:09:36)
Is there a second? This motion would allow us to debate and vote on both of these articles at the same time. Unless there's discussion, all those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion to take these up together, all those opposed?

The motion carries. Okay, Articles V and VI are on the table. Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 13] (3:09:37 - 3:10:08)
The Finance Committee recommends the town transfer from the retained earnings of the Water Enterprise Fund to the account of current revenue, the sum of $20,000, to be used and applied by the Select Board to mitigate increases in the water rate. And the Finance Committee recommends the town transfers from the retained earnings of the Sewer Enterprise Fund to the account of current revenue, the sum of $63,000, to be used and applied by the Select Board to mitigate increases in the sewer rate. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (3:10:08 - 3:10:11)
Is there a second? Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 13] (3:10:12 - 3:10:36)
For both of the Water and Sewer Enterprise Funds, the town has guidelines on how much we want to carry in retained earnings, and typically that's about 20% of operating expenses. Currently, each of these funds has anywhere from 28% to 30% in their respective retained earnings accounts. So the request is to use these amounts in this year's fiscal budget to help moderate the increases in the water rates that might otherwise be necessary.

[Speaker 1] (3:10:37 - 3:10:53)
Thank you, Mr. Hartman. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion?

All those opposed? The motion carries. This brings us to Article VII, Transportation Infrastructure Fund.

Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 13] (3:10:54 - 3:11:18)
The Finance Committee recommends that the town vote to appropriate the sum of $4,509 from the Transportation Infrastructure Enhancement Fund, a receipt reserved for appropriation account, to be expended by the Select Board for improvements to the town's road and transportation infrastructure, including any incidental or related costs. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee. Is there a second?

[Speaker 1] (3:11:19 - 3:11:20)
Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 13] (3:11:20 - 3:11:31)
This is a standard article in which town meeting approves the use of monies that the town receives from rideshare programs like Uber and Lyft to use the monies in support of the town's road and transportation infrastructure.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:34 - 3:11:50)
Any discussion? All those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion? All those opposed?

The motion carries. This brings us to Article VIII, Ms. Dreeben, Foster Care Transportation Reimbursement.

[Speaker 20] (3:11:58 - 3:12:43)
Naomi Dreeben, Precinct III member of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends that the town authorize the Swampscott Public Schools to enter into contracts to seek federal reimbursement for foster care transportation activities being carried out by the town, and to provide that payments for services under such contracts be made from the reimbursements or revenues recovered as a result of the services performed without appropriation of such revenues in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law, Chapter 44, Section 70. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (3:12:43 - 3:12:46)
Is there a second? Ms. Dreeben.

[Speaker 20] (3:12:47 - 3:13:17)
Some children in our schools are living with foster families. Sometimes the children get moved. Children in foster care are required to remain in their school of origin as long as it benefits the child.

So this is not an appropriation. This is a request to get reimbursement for the costs that we pay to transport those children even when they move around.

[Speaker 1] (3:13:19 - 3:14:16)
Thank you, Ms. Dreeben. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of Ms. Dreeben's motion?

All those opposed? The motion carries. We now have before us five more articles.

It is 1035. I am open to stay here as long as the body has the willingness. I will take a sense of the meeting at this point whether we should attempt to continue.

All those in favor of powering on, raise your hands. All those opposed who would like to leave, I'm going to say we will still have a quorum with those if you do decide to leave, so I'm going to continue with article 9, Ms. Dreeben. This is a general bylaw regarding a revolving fund.

[Speaker 20] (3:14:27 - 3:15:25)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Naomi Dreeben, precinct 3, finance committee. The finance committee recommends the town vote to amend general bylaws article 21, section 2, to establish the annual spending limit for the recreation department revolving fund in accordance with general law chapter 44, section 53e and a half at $300,000 with such updated expenditure limit to be applicable for each fiscal year until such time as town meeting votes prior to July 1st in any year to increase the same for the ensuing fiscal year provided, however, that at the request of the entity authorized to expend such funds, the select board with the approval of the finance committee may increase such limit for that fiscal year only, all as set forth in the printed warrant.

I move the recommendation of the finance committee.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:25 - 3:15:29)
Is there a second? Ms. Dreeben.

[Speaker 20] (3:15:30 - 3:15:56)
This is just increasing the spending limit for our recreation department for the programming that they are creating for the town from $275,000 to $300,000 so that we can provide more programming. We have also, the town has hired an assistant for the recreation director as well, so that will help to increase the programming opportunities for the rest of the town.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:58 - 3:16:39)
Thank you, Ms. Dreeben. Are there questions or debate on Ms. Dreeben's motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of Ms. Dreeben's motion?

All those opposed? The motion carries. Article 10, chapter 90, roadway improvements, Ms. Dreeben. Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. McNerney. I have an older copy here. Yes, Ms. McNerney, please.

[Speaker 23] (3:16:39 - 3:17:15)
Sorry. Article 10, to see if the town will vote to accept and appropriate the sum of $300,000 or such other amount as is made available to repair, construct, or reconstruct streets together with all necessary work incidental thereto, including engineering, in conjunction with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, under general laws chapter 90 or otherwise, and to transfer for this purpose any unexpended balance of appropriations voted for this purpose at prior town meetings or take any other action relative thereto.

I move favorable action on this article.

[Speaker 1] (3:17:16 - 3:17:18)
And that's the recommendation of the Finance Committee?

[Speaker 23] (3:17:18 - 3:17:20)
And that's the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 1] (3:17:20 - 3:17:24)
Is there a second? Ms. McNerney.

[Speaker 23] (3:17:24 - 3:17:42)
This is an article that you've seen year after year. For those of you that have been town meeting members, it's straightforward. It's just allowing us to spend state aid that we receive to repair roads.

It's an annual repeat article.

[Speaker 1] (3:17:43 - 3:18:17)
Thank you, Ms. McNerney. Is there any discussion on Ms. McNerney's motion? All those in favor?

All those opposed? The motion carries. This would bring us to Article 13.

I want to see if Ms. Newman is in attendance. There she is. Before I bring up Article 13, I'm going to ask Mr. Burke to serve as moderator pro tem since this does have a bearing on the office that I currently hold.

[Speaker 16] (3:18:36 - 3:18:49)
Hi, Scott Burke. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear.

[Speaker 4] (3:18:49 - 3:18:53)
That I will faithfully and impartially perform. I will faithfully execute.

[Speaker 16] (3:18:54 - 3:19:15)
That I will faithfully and impartially perform. Faithfully and impartially perform. All the duties imposed upon me.

All the duties imposed upon me. The duties imposed upon me. By my appointment as.

By my appointment as moderator pro tem. In the town of Swampscott. In the town of Swampscott.

According to the laws of the Commonwealth.

[Speaker 17] (3:19:16 - 3:19:17)
According to the laws of the Commonwealth.

[Speaker 16] (3:19:17 - 3:19:19)
And the bylaws of the town of Swampscott.

[Speaker 1] (3:19:19 - 3:19:28)
And the bylaws of the town of Swampscott. Thank you. Thank you for the confidence, Mr. McClung. So this is a citizen's petition.

[Speaker 2] (3:19:29 - 3:19:31)
I recognize you, Ms. Newman.

[Speaker 36] (3:19:39 - 3:19:50)
I'd rather not. Okay. Deborah Newman, Precinct 1.

I'm making a motion to indefinitely postpone Article 13.

[Speaker 1] (3:19:51 - 3:19:52)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 4] (3:19:55 - 3:19:56)
Any discussion?

[Speaker 1] (3:19:58 - 3:19:59)
Seeing no discussion.

[Speaker 17] (3:19:59 - 3:20:07)
All those in favor of indefinitely postponing Article 13. Anyone opposed? Passes unanimously.

[Speaker 16] (3:20:08 - 3:20:10)
Do I get the record for this?

[Speaker 1] (3:20:10 - 3:20:38)
Thank you, Mr. Burke. Excellently, ably done. I had no doubt.

This would bring us to the zoning article. Seeing everybody eager to perhaps end this in one evening. I will recognize Ms. Ippolito.

[Speaker 6] (3:20:39 - 3:21:38)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm going to call the meeting to order. And I'm going to call the meeting to order.

Angela Ippolito. Precinct five. Chair of the planning board.

Town meeting member. The planning board recommends that the town vote to amend the town of Swampscott zoning bylaw by making changes to the table of principal uses. use, section 2.2.3.0e, regarding commercial uses, Humphrey street overlay district, section 4.7.3.0 regarding permitted uses and review process, and the special permit criteria in section 5.3.2.0 as set forth in the revised blue handout provided this evening entitled appendix B, article number 14, with the deletions shown in strikethrough and additions underlined. I move the recommendation of the planning board.

[Speaker 1] (3:21:39 - 3:21:43)
And is there a second? And Ms. Zippolito, was this heard at a public hearing?

[Speaker 6] (3:21:45 - 3:21:54)
I'm sorry? This was aired at a public Oh, yes, we had a public hearing on this at our last planning board meeting.

[Speaker 1] (3:21:55 - 3:21:56)
Thank you. Please proceed.

[Speaker 6] (3:21:58 - 3:30:14)
This article proposes updates to the use, making amendments to the table of uses for changes to the use table that appears in our zoning bylaw, which is this chart that you have on your blue sheet. The use table essentially tells anyone who's building a home or a building or moving a business in some place whether or not that particular use is allowed in a particular zoning district. Tonight, for the purpose of this article, we're going to be talking about commercial uses.

There are three kinds of uses. The use is either allowed, it's allowed by special permit, which means that the petitioner has to go in front of the zoning board of appeals and the zoning board of appeals gets to evaluate whether or not the use and the proposed use is in the best interest of the town and meets all the other zoning criteria, or it's not allowed. Recently, we had been reviewing our use chart.

We had noticed that the changes that we're, first of all, the changes that we're proposing apply only to our business districts. It's in the B1, B2, B3, B4, which also includes several locations in the Humphrey Street overlay district. So the amendments proposed tonight would change the status of certain uses from being allowed by right to being allowed only by special permit, which means that the zoning board of appeals would be able to decide if that use was in the best interest of the town.

Specifically, how the proposed use contributes to the variety of goods and services, dining options, et cetera, and how that variety would create a more desirable commercial district, attracting more shoppers and ultimately attracting other types of businesses to want to include themselves in our commercial districts. Some of the reasons we decided to approach these changes was because of our concern for a real flattening out of some of our commercial districts, whereby there were, we started to lose any kind of variety on the types of businesses that were there. We noticed that the more and more similar businesses that go in, such as banks, sort of create a dead zone, and we lose interest in the shopping centers.

You go by and think it just doesn't look very appealing anymore. And so, yes, this was in large part triggered by the addition of a seventh bank to the fin and square area. Nothing against banks.

The point is that it just, what once was kind of a popular shopping area with a variety of different uses, restaurants, products and services that created some interest, you know, that becomes an attraction for a bank, and certainly the landlord thinks, oh, a bank is a great, you know, that's a great lessee to have because, you know, they're long-term, they're long-term lessees and tenants and they, you know, they kind of pay all the time, they're not much to manage, and we really don't have to think about it.

It's kind of an easy one and done sort of thing. And of course, and the bank is just happy to be there to sort of compete with their competitors. So you might hear some people say that, oh, you know, we shouldn't be trying to control this kind of thing, we have to let the market decide.

Well, if the market decides, we end up with seven banks in Vinton Square, and what was once sort of a thriving, more interesting area becomes, loses its luster and is no longer what they would refer to as 100% location or anything that attracts people to go there. You don't sort of get excited to go shopping somewhere where you kind of, you just don't have much interest. So, again, not nothing against banks.

This wouldn't prohibit a bank, certainly. They would just have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals to get a special permit. And that's why we added certain criteria to this proposed amendment as well.

That criteria gives the Zoning Board of Appeals something to base their decision on. So if you look at the very end of the blue sheets that you have at the bottom of that page, you'll see a whole area where it's just some red strikeout, and then the copy below printed in blue and underlined would be the criteria that the ZBA would use if and when they had a use special permit that was once allowed by right and is now allowed only by special permit. So this was applied to business, medical, professional offices of any size on the ground floor of a building.

Personal service establishments containing less than 2,000 square feet of gross floor area on the ground floor of a building. It goes on to have personal service establishments of different sizes, again, on the ground floor of a building. So if there were more than one floor of a building, it would not apply to anything on the upper floors.

Bank or financial institution containing less than 2,000 square feet of gross floor area on the ground floor of a building. And, again, you know, as we go up in size with the banks, 2,000 to 5,000 square feet or over 5,000 square feet on the ground floor of a building. It does not require a special permit for any of those types of businesses on a second floor or above.

And, again, this does not disallow any of these uses. It just requires the petitioner to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals so that they can explain why this particular business contributes to the liveliness and the interest in our shopping areas. In addition to those changes, if you move ahead down the list to item number 43, it also now allows outdoor seating by right where before you had to get a special permit for outdoor seating.

So this is not on town property. Zoning can't control any use on town property. So this is not the same as the outdoor seating on sidewalks that you see.

That goes through the town, and that has been extended by the state for another year. So we are not dealing with that issue tonight. This is just for businesses in the vineyard square area, and there are a couple along Humphrey Street that also have private outdoor space.

This would allow outdoor seating and outdoor dining by right. Let's see. I think that about covers everything.

The only difference between what was printed in the warrant and what's in this blue sheet is there was items number... There was just an omission of two of the item number... Item number 32 and 34 had just inadvertently been omitted, and we also made some minor edits to the criteria language on the last page.

[Speaker 1] (3:30:16 - 3:30:31)
Thank you, Ms. Zippolito. Your continuing grasp of these matters astounds me, because I can't follow half of it. Is there discussion?

Are there questions? Yes, sir, Mr. Bierman, and then Mr. Birdoff.

[Speaker 14] (3:30:35 - 3:31:54)
Jack Bierman, precinct 6. I want to say that I'm sort of philosophically opposed to having town officials decide what kind of business can go somewhere. I think if there's a question of parking and traffic and noise and that sort of thing, that's a function that the town zoning authorities ought to perform, but I think that whatever...

It's not such a terrible thing to do this, whatever the majority votes, that's fine with me, but I just think we shouldn't be doing that, but I do have a specific question. You said that this wouldn't prohibit anything, but in the special permit requirements that are on the last page of the blue sheet, it says that the use does not create a multiple of more than three of the same variety of any category of business within one quarter mile area, so I assume that that language would actually have the effect of prohibiting like an additional bank in some areas of fin and square, so I think that as a more accurate thing, it wouldn't outright prohibit it anywhere in town, but it might actually prohibit the particular bank that we're talking about.

Am I correct that it might actually prohibit a bank from going in there? Based on if it's within one quarter mile of three others?

[Speaker 6] (3:31:54 - 3:32:27)
The bank essentially, if the petitioner were to go in front of the zoning board and ask for a special use permit, they would have to convince the zoning board of appeals that there was a reason, there was a compelling reason to allow an eighth bank, and if the zoning board of appeals could be convinced that it was in the best interest of the town to do so, to have another bank at that location, then of course they could grant a special permit.

It's asked them to consider that it must be considered.

[Speaker 14] (3:32:27 - 3:32:34)
So if that's the intent that I think you need to amend the language, because the language says shall be granted only under the following conditions.

[Speaker 6] (3:32:34 - 3:32:34)
Right.

[Speaker 14] (3:32:35 - 3:33:08)
And one of the conditions is that it does not create a multiple of more than three of the same variety. That's not a discretionary decision based on compelling need or something, that's a prohibition. So it seems to me that the language that you're, what you're saying makes more sense, the language here seems to be prohibitory.

So, I mean, you can make it a motion to amend it or I can make it a motion to amend it, but if you want that to be the intent, I think you need to use the language you just used rather than the language that's in here, which creates a prohibition. Unless I'm misreading it. Do you want me to make the motion to amend or do you want to do it?

[Speaker 6] (3:33:09 - 3:33:18)
Sure. If you'd like to. Okay, can you repeat what you said, I'll write it down.

What I'd like you to explain to me is exactly what you'd like to hear change.

[Speaker 14] (3:33:19 - 3:33:50)
No, just what you said was It sounded good that they have the opportunity to convince the zoning board that there's compelling reason to grant it. So maybe just add to the end of what you have on the last page, maybe add the language that you said, unless the zoning board finds compelling reason to grant it despite the following, despite these, despite the factors listed above.

[Speaker 6] (3:33:50 - 3:33:52)
Excuse me one moment, Mr. Behrman.

[Speaker 14] (3:33:52 - 3:33:53)
I'm just using your language.

[Speaker 6] (3:33:54 - 3:33:54)
No, it's fine.

[Speaker 22] (3:33:55 - 3:33:56)
We're going to modify it.

[Speaker 39] (3:33:56 - 3:33:58)
We're going to do a friendly and after considering.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:01 - 3:34:22)
Thank you, Mr. Behrman. I believe I understand the planning board by way of the chair to be proposing a friendly amendment to rectify some of the language.

[Speaker 6] (3:34:23 - 3:34:35)
I just wanted to be sure that the reason I asked Mr. Behrman to propose his language, I didn't want to put words in your mouth, but if you're happy with what I said before, then that's what we'll do.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:35 - 3:34:37)
I was happy with your words.

[Speaker 6] (3:34:38 - 3:34:41)
That's fine. I just didn't want to, yeah, I just wanted to give you that option.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:42 - 3:34:54)
I appreciate the meeting's indulgence here for another moment. So we have that in writing, Mr. Klein.

[Speaker 30] (3:34:55 - 3:34:56)
We do.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:58 - 3:35:03)
Yes, could you please read it and submit a written version to the clerk. Yes, I will.

[Speaker 6] (3:35:04 - 3:35:51)
In addition, use special permit for item numbers 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, and 33 in the table of principal uses in the b1, b2, b3, b4, b5, b6, b7, b8, b9, b10, b11, b12, b13, b14, b15, b16, b17, b18, Humphrey Street overlay districts, with the exception of outdoor dining and outdoor seating without alcohol, shall be granted only after consideration of the following factors. That the proposed use adds to the retail diversity and interest of the surrounding area and two i's, I guess it is, one or two, that the proposed use does not create a multiple of more than three of the same variety of any category of business within a quarter-mile area.

[Speaker 14] (3:35:56 - 3:36:01)
And so I'm going to have to write out what I'm looking for, because that's not what you said.

[Speaker 1] (3:36:02 - 3:36:14)
Okay, Mr. Bierman, I'll await your written amendment. In the meantime, I'm going to recognize a few persons with comments. Okay, starting all the way in the back, the gentleman in the dark blue shirt.

[Speaker 22] (3:36:24 - 3:36:26)
Peter Brown, Precinct 6.

[Speaker 1] (3:36:38 - 3:36:39)
Mr. Brown, please.

[Speaker 22] (3:36:39 - 3:38:43)
Thank you. I would move to strike the entire paragraph written in blue. I think the request is to put this within a special permit and bring these types of developments before the ZBA.

The criteria that's specified in 5.3.2.1 through 2.6 would give the ZBA the ability to address the concerns that have been raised by the proponent of this motion. They'd be able to consider the benefit to the town and whether it outweighs the adverse effects of the proposed use. This would include, but not be limited, to the social, economic, or community needs which are served by the proposal, the neighborhood character, and the social structures.

I think we can trust the ZBA to do its job. We can trust members of the planning board and other members of the community to come and testify at a hearing as a proponent or opponent if they feel there is not enough retail diversity in the particular area. The language that is before town meeting right now is not only restrictive, but prohibitive of the ZBA.

It tells the ZBA only what it can grant and what it can't. And so I think putting it before a special permit is fine. I think that the ZBA is highly qualified and can do its job and we don't need to restrict their discretion and their process by including that additional paragraph.

So my motion would be to start to strike from in addition to ending within a three-quarter mile area.

[Speaker 1] (3:38:44 - 3:38:58)
Thank you, Mr. Brown. I'm just going to check, so there's a, I need to understand whether there's already a motion to amend on the floor or not. So Mr. Bierman, would that?

I'm sorry.

[Speaker 14] (3:38:59 - 3:39:05)
I wouldn't recall, I don't recall my motion being seconded so I'm happy to defer to this motion because if this one passes, then mine becomes irrelevant.

[Speaker 1] (3:39:05 - 3:39:35)
I'm still trying to understand if yours would be in order, but I don't think mine was seconded. If that would satisfy, I think we can move on, withdraw Mr. Bierman's suggestion and Mr. Brown, you've made a motion to amend to strike the paragraph shown in blue. Is there a second?

I hear a second. Is there further discussion, Mr. Kraft, on the amendment? And then Ms. Martinez.

[Speaker 37] (3:39:36 - 3:40:25)
Rick Kraft, Precinct 3. I oppose the amendment. I believe we should have some direction to guide the ZBA as the principles that should be used.

I agree with Mr. Bierman that as it's written now, it is prohibitive. I think we should add to the language here at the end something to the effect of, along with the things that they said here, or if the ZBA finds a compelling reason to grant the special permit. So something to that effect I think would better accomplish both what Ms. Ippolito is trying to do and also address the concern. Basically, let the ZBA decide whether it's a good thing or not.

[Speaker 1] (3:40:26 - 3:40:27)
Are you so moving?

[Speaker 37] (3:40:28 - 3:40:32)
If that's in order, yes, I would do that, but I'm not sure that it is.

[Speaker 1] (3:40:32 - 3:41:21)
I can take one amendment to an amendment, but I need it in writing. Okay. There's a form with the town clerk.

Is there a second to a motion to add language substantially to the effect of, or unless the Zoning Board of Appeals finds a compelling reason. There's a second. We are now discussing Mr. Craft's motion to amend Mr. Brown's motion, which would reinstate the paragraph in blue, but add language that's about to be completed. Point of order. I'll take the point of order, sir. Mr. Beaupre.

[Speaker 22] (3:41:28 - 3:41:41)
If there's a motion, Larry Beaupre, Precinct 6, there's a motion on the floor to remove a paragraph. How can you entertain a motion to amend that to put it back in?

[Speaker 1] (3:41:42 - 3:41:53)
It's possible to have one amendment and an amendment to an amendment, and that second amendment is in order to amend the original amended motion.

[Speaker 22] (3:41:53 - 3:41:58)
So if we want the paragraph struck, we then would vote no on these amendments?

[Speaker 1] (3:41:58 - 3:42:30)
I will make sure everybody knows all. Yes. You are correct, and I will reinforce that before we vote.

I just need this language. Mr. Spritz. Do you have a point of order?

Could you please use the microphone? Could you please use the microphone so people at home can hear you?

[Speaker 17] (3:42:31 - 3:42:36)
Hi, Wayne Spritz, Precinct 3. Thank you. Mr. Moderator, do we still have a quorum?

[Speaker 1] (3:42:38 - 3:42:43)
At my last count, we had over 149, which is the number that we are required to have.

[Speaker 17] (3:42:43 - 3:42:48)
I've seen a lot of people leave, so that, I mean, as, even from that first count, I'm still seeing people leave, so.

[Speaker 1] (3:42:50 - 3:44:12)
Are you making a point of no quorum? Yes. That's the half of the duly elected members plus one.

All right, we are now discussing Mr. Kraft's amendment to Mr. Brown's motion, which would leave the blue paragraph in place, but add at the end of the blue paragraph, item III, the ZBA or the ZBA finds a compelling reason to grant the special permit. There's also a minor scrivener's change by the quarter mile area, should read quarter mile radius area. Is there discussion about Mr. Kraft's amendment, which would leave the blue paragraph in place as amended?

Reverend Farber-Robinson. I'm sorry, Mr. Burdoff, I will come back to you. That is an or, not an ant, an or.

[Speaker 30] (3:44:14 - 3:44:47)
Anita Farber-Robinson, Precinct 4. I think that we can just trust the judgment of the Zoning Board at this point that this was micromanaging to a level that we didn't need. I think removing the blue gives the flexibility, because we don't know what kinds of businesses in the future are going to come forward, and to me, it's foolishness to create that kind of specificity in this kind of document.

[Speaker 1] (3:44:50 - 3:45:00)
Is there further discussion of Mr. Kraft's amendment? A positive vote on this amendment would leave the, I'm sorry, Ms. Martin-Epstein, go ahead. I believe that's who, yes.

[Speaker 36] (3:45:01 - 3:46:02)
Kim Martin-Epstein, Precinct 3, town meeting member. I was just going to say I support what Mr. Kraft said, but I think it's also really important to understand that the Zoning Board has to have specific direction. They can't have full-blown discretion.

If you've ever appeared in front of the ZBA, they can only grant permits and variances within the bounds of the zoning by-law if they have wide variety. You may like what they have to say today, but you might not like what they have to say the next time. So it's really important to have a certain amount of specificity in a zoning by-law so that they have direction.

I mean, even with Rick's amendment, I think there's a lot of discretion, and you never really know what business is going to come up in front of the ZBA at any given time. But at least there's some four walls around what kinds of decision making they can make. If you take it out completely, today it's one thing and tomorrow it would be something else.

I don't think that's the appropriate role for the ZBA. Thank you, Kim.

[Speaker 1] (3:46:03 - 3:47:11)
Thank you, Ms. Martin-Epstein. Further discussion to Mr. Kraft's amendment. Mr., you're just scratching your head. Okay. Further discussion. Okay, that would bring us to a vote on Mr. Kraft's amendment. This will change Mr. Brown's motion to instead insert both the blue paragraph plus the language at the end, stating or the ZBA finds a compelling reason to grant the special permit and clarifies that the quarter mile area is a quarter mile radius area. All those in favor of Mr. Kraft's amendment. All those opposed.

The amendment carries. We now, by dispensing with Mr. Brown's amendment in this fashion, we now return to the main motion as amended. Further discussion on Ms. Ippolito's motion. Mr. Spritz. As amended is what I was going to add. And then Mr. Berdoff, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 17] (3:47:11 - 3:47:15)
So this is a comment relative to the original motion as amended, correct?

[Speaker 1] (3:47:15 - 3:47:16)
Correct.

[Speaker 17] (3:47:16 - 3:48:58)
Okay. So, Wayne Spritz, Precinct 2. I am sorry.

I know you have, there's been a lot of thought that has gone into this, and I appreciate the work, but I fully have to dissent. I really believe that free markets dictate the interest of the population, not a committee. And to extend that level of control over what will be in a business district that's already zoned as a business district, right?

With the full intent of basically accommodating and compartmentalizing what we know already as a business to determine what can go on the first floor without a special permit versus the second floor without a special permit, it just feels disingenuous to me. And I really feel that if a bank wants to spend, and God knows I don't want another bank there, but if a bank wants to spend a couple million dollars to put a piece of property there, there must be an interest for that. And that's not up to, unfortunately, I don't believe that's up to a committee to really decide, whether it's a medical office or any other type of business.

Today it's a bank, tomorrow it could be another thing. I think the free market really deserves to have that choice. If you've established and compartmentalized the business district, let it be, unless it's something else that is outside the bounds that have already existed for many, many years.

I'll let that be. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (3:48:58 - 3:49:05)
Thank you, Mr. Spritz. Mr. Berdoff, thank you for waiting patiently. House right front.

[Speaker 12] (3:49:15 - 3:50:56)
Mike, there we go. Aaron Berdoff, Precinct 5. I actually agree with a lot of what Wayne Spritz just said, but I'm going to be voting in favor of this article tonight.

I like outdoor dining, so I could work on that aspect of moving that to the buy right aspect. However, I did do sort of an informal survey of the places you're describing, the kind of places you want to create, vibrant, walkable, commercial districts. And none of them have language this specific.

None of them try to cut out. None of them try to disincentivize places from going in. It's more about incentivizing places to go in.

And I'm voting for this because I think the scope of this is just so narrow that the effects of it are pretty limited, and I understand why this is going in the first place. But one thing I do think will happen is there is a risk that local businesses may be dissuaded by going through that special permit process. And so I would just encourage the town to make sure that there are special programs to walk them through the ZBA process.

Or there are pathways, even just little flags that say, hey, we would welcome a small business, a local business, we would definitely support that. That's definitely what we consider as part of this special permit, so we'll make that process expedited for you. So just one thing to consider moving forward, but I will vote in favor of this.

[Speaker 1] (3:50:57 - 3:51:09)
Thank you, Mr. Murdoff. Yes, ma'am in the middle. Yeah, you.

Yes, please.

[Speaker 39] (3:51:17 - 3:51:28)
I'll bring it down as opposed to raising it up. Hi, thank you. I'm Barry Atkin, precinct six.

A new member, and I've broken the microphone.

[Speaker 1] (3:51:32 - 3:51:33)
It's all right, please proceed.

[Speaker 39] (3:51:33 - 3:52:11)
I agree with a lot of the comments made previously that support more diversity. I am concerned, however, about the complexity of this proposed new article. And also the ramifications of having to explain to businesses that they should come in here.

My suggestion is to vote this down and work on, as the previous speaker said, creating incentives rather than dissuasions.

[Speaker 1] (3:52:14 - 3:52:19)
Thank you, Ms. Atkin. Mr. Spellios? Mr. Spellios?

[Speaker 3] (3:52:24 - 3:54:30)
Hello, Peter Spellios, Select Board, Precinct 3. I actually want to commend, first of all, the amendment by Mr. Kraft, but also Ms. Belito's and the planning board's efforts on this. This is actually, while the conversation, especially at 11 o'clock, seems really complicated, the surgical amendments in this bylaw are actually very simple and, frankly, very easy to understand.

And so, as someone that was pretty instrumental in drafting the bylaw back in 09, I'd like to think I speak with a little bit of authority on this. Really what I want to do, though, is illustrate what this is really going to do. When Pizzeria Uno's closed, and Chase Bank says they want to tear down that building, build a building half the size, how many more Pizzeria Unos do you want to have closed?

And I agree with you about the free market, but I'm going to tell you the truth. No one's going to pay more rent than a bank. Today, tomorrow, next week, the week after, that's going to be it.

Now, zoning all the time tells you what should be in what districts. We don't allow tattoo parlors. We don't allow used car dealerships in certain districts.

We don't allow self-storage in certain districts. We don't allow body piercings in certain districts. We don't allow adult bookstores in certain districts.

The zoning code is exactly that. The zoning code exactly tells you what should go in what district. Another example, on Humphrey Street, if you go to Lincoln's Landing, you say, this is really nice, it's active, people are outside.

You go two doors down, you have the same size as Lincoln Landing, and what do you see? You see a desk, a chair, and a potted plant. That's a mortgage broker.

That one space accounts for literally 15% of the total street front retail on Humphrey Street. Is that what you guys want from a planning objective? Zoning is all about planning.

And I applaud the planning board for the fact that they realize this and they say, you know what? We want there to be mortgage brokers, but you can be on the second floor. We'll give you signage, be on the second floor.

We just don't want you on the first floor. Why? Because that's not the downtown that we want.

Or that's not the business where we want. So, again, I think the planning board is doing exactly what they should do. They're planning.

And they're using the tools they have to be able to say, these are the uses that we should have in these areas. And I have every confidence that the zoning board and the applicants are gonna be able to understand it. So I urge passage of this Warren article.

[Speaker 1] (3:54:30 - 3:54:40)
Thank you, Mr. Svelios. In the back, I'm sorry. With your hand up, yes.

[Speaker 32] (3:54:43 - 3:56:12)
I'll take that as me. Jared Germa, District 3 town meeting member. I really support this with the amendment.

One of the things that's very important to realize in the town of Swampskate, from a planning standpoint, is that there are structural limitations that occur both on Paradise Road and Vinton Square and on Humphrey Street. And we really need strong planning to make up for those. We have a single loaded main street in Humphrey Street, meaning all of the businesses on one side, the other side except for two restaurants, is all residential.

This is the kind of planning we need so that there is a common thread down the street. That you're walking from things that are really oriented to being used by pedestrians and by people coming through. These tools are very important.

Vinton Square is zoned as a standard strip mall location. Again, what happens block by block is very, very important. So having the town involved in the planning is incredibly important for its vibrancy.

And the last thing that I would say on that too is the fact that this is the way that we can build these environments. In a larger urban setting, there is much more room for variety. There's lots more options.

We have very limited amounts of properties to bring in businesses that are vibrant. So I do applaud this and I hope it does pass. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (3:56:12 - 3:57:06)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is there any further debate? I think we are ready to, in fact, move to a vote.

This does require a two-thirds vote to adopt. All those in favor of Ms. Ippolito's motion as amended, which would adopt the entire language in the blue handout with the addition of the language or the ZBA finds a compelling reason to grant the special permit, including the correction of area to be radius area. All those in favor?

All those opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Moving, finally, to Article 16.

Making sure I got the right one here. Mr. Grishman.

[Speaker 24] (3:57:15 - 3:57:16)
We'll be very quick.

[Speaker 1] (3:57:17 - 3:57:20)
I will assume a quorum until one is proven otherwise.

[Speaker 19] (3:57:21 - 3:57:53)
David Grishman, precinct one, town meeting number, select board. We're here today to talk about indigenous people day proclamation to see if the town will vote to adopt the official. Indigenous people's day proclamation set forth in appendix D, proclaiming that the second Monday in October shall be known as indigenous people's day.

In the town of Swampscott, or take any action thereto. The select board recommends favorable action on this article at town meeting, and I move the action of the select board.

[Speaker 1] (3:57:53 - 3:58:04)
Is there a second? Mr. Grishman. Do I understand Mr. Grishman, you'd like to cede to your fellow select board member?

[Speaker 26] (3:58:04 - 3:58:39)
Thank you, Katie Peele on select board. As noted in the warrants, the select board recommends favorable action on article 16, the adoption of the indigenous people's day. As a marker of growth and education in our community, it's imperative we take the time to reflect on the traditions we have upheld in the past, and to consider reflection on whether those traditions still uphold the values and ideals the community wishes to prioritize for the future.

It's our responsibility to continually be striving towards the goal of a community that is inclusive enough to include everybody. And by adopting this article, Swampscott is taking another step in that direction. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (3:58:40 - 3:58:54)
Thank you, Ms. Phelan. Is there discussion or debate? Yes, Mr. Burdoff. House right, front.

[Speaker 12] (3:58:55 - 3:59:18)
Test. This is Aaron Burdoff, Precinct 5. I would just like to move to amend the article slightly.

I have sensed just some technical corrections, just in terms of capitalizing indigenous. The state effort also does not include the apostrophe, and then there is some language change in paragraph three. Happy to read that.

That's the only.

[Speaker 1] (3:59:19 - 4:00:20)
Okay, I will dispense with the Scrivener's errors, but if you could read and then submit in writing your amendment. So, Mr. Burdoff, I understand you want to offer an amendment to the third paragraph?

[Speaker 12] (4:00:22 - 4:00:26)
Correct, in addition to the technical corrections throughout.

[Speaker 1] (4:00:26 - 4:00:28)
The typographical errors, yes.

[Speaker 12] (4:00:28 - 4:01:19)
Correct. Paragraph three, whereas the town of Swampscott recognizes the indigenous peoples of the lands, later known as the Americas, have lived on these lands since time immemorial and still live here, period, we honor the fact that Swampscott has built upon the traditional and ancestral homelands of many groups of Native Americans and known in Eastern Algonquin language as Musqueamskit, meaning at the Red Rocks. And the reason for those changes is consulting with a local historian, A, honoring the multitude of indigenous groups that live in this land, not just the Pawtuckets, who were led by Massachusetts at the time.

But anyway, just offering the multiple number of tribes that actually lived here, the multiple number of people, and recognizing that they also still live here today.

[Speaker 1] (4:01:19 - 4:02:01)
Thank you, Mr. Burdoff. Mr. Grishman, would you accept this as a friendly amendment? Yes.

Okay, so we can proceed to any further discussion on the main motion as amended. Seeing none, all those in favor of Mr. Grishman's motion as amended? All those opposed?

Passes unanimously. I will accept the motion to adjourn the 2022 Annual Town Meeting. Is there a second?

All in favor? Thank you very much for your patience and your diligence.