[Speaker 2] (0:22 - 0:29)
All right, are we good, Joe, it says start webinar on the, yeah, just click start webinar.

[Speaker 12] (0:33 - 0:34)
Recording in progress.

[Speaker 2] (0:37 - 0:48)
Okay, good. All right, welcome to the June 7th select board meeting. Before we get started, we will do Pledge of Allegiance.

[Speaker 10] (0:51 - 1:06)
To the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 2] (1:09 - 2:08)
Thank you. So to start the meeting, we first will take public comment. If there's any public comment, public comment is a chance for residents to comment on town business.

If you have comments having to do with town staff, we ask you not to make those comments here. And you can reach out to the town administrator. Let me see if there's anyone in the room who has a public comment or anyone on Zoom.

Or you can also submit public comment to me at nduffy at swampscottma.gov. So if you send me an email, I can read your comment. I don't see, Pete, I don't see any hands raised. So I think we're okay there.

Okay, so the first item on our agenda is the town administrator's report.

[Speaker 3] (2:08 - 8:01)
All right. Thank you, Neil. So really excited tonight that we have a new higher recommendation to make to the board, but we'll get to that in just a minute.

I do want to welcome back Pete Kane and just introduce him to the select board. It's great to have you back. Pete, you've been here for a couple weeks and you've already made a huge impact and really excited about all the terrific things that you will do for our staff.

We've been busy. But this past week I did hear from a town resident who would like to donate a statue that he has had on his property for many years. It's of significant value, and I'll be working with Gina to find a location for it, perhaps the library or perhaps another town park, but certainly something that I think would add to the artistic element of our community.

I'm really pleased to announce that we've been added to the Transportation Improvement Program. Our Community and Economic Development Director, Margie Golaska, has worked incredibly hard along with her team to ensure the town has been accepted into this program. This is a grant program that will ensure the town will receive $8.9 million to complete the trail. This is an extraordinary achievement and certainly a reflection of decades' worth of work by citizens of Swampskate to see that trail come to fruition. Lots of work ongoing, but certainly it's getting done. A lot of work in Swampskate.

Our DPW staff is working extremely hard. We hired Derek Pittman last week, and we have a full complement of 16 members, a lot of work on Stacy Brook sewer rehabilitation. This is part of our EPA consent order, and it continues to help us address I&I infiltration and inflow that gets into our drainage system.

A lot of work on Burpee Road and Walker Road. Paving for Walker Road is scheduled for the week of June 20th. Roadway resurfacing on Burpee was completed on May 9th, and we continue to work with MBTA on bus stop improvements.

Appreciate all the work that went into coordinating this year's very special Memorial Day event. Our veterans agent Mike Sweeney and his wife Sarah Sweeney again put up placards of all the soldiers that were lost since 9-11 in front of Town Hall, and certainly a reflection of just the care and the concern that Swampskate has for our veterans. We've been busy with a number of important projects.

We did have a visit from MassDEP for our elementary school project, and they have essentially affirmed a lot of the work that our Conservation Commission has done to really ensure that we meet our environmental diligence. We had a wonderful Pride Day flag raising this past Saturday. It's really terrific to see such a wonderful community come together.

Every year over the last three years it has almost doubled in size. I would expect that next year you might have to sell tickets to it. It really is important for us to understand how events like this save lives.

A number of individuals came up to me and told me that they really were pleased to see our Police Department and Fire Department flying the Pride flag, and it helped them immediately feel safe and feel accepted and feel welcome and at home. I was just thinking, you know, you shouldn't just feel that way at your home, but you should feel that way at your hometown. It's really extraordinary that Swampskate can be that kind of place.

Tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the Gun Violence Proclamation. While it may seem like this issue is a world away, it's right here, and every community has a responsibility to take a step forward and really protect the lives of our citizens. We need action, and we need less talk and more support for common-sense changes.

A lot of wonderful events from our Recreation Department. We had a golf tournament today. We missed it.

Sign up earlier next year because we only have a few slots, but really great to see that this event will raise funds for our fantastic fireworks show. We have a farmers market that will be starting on June 12th. We have a Juneteenth celebration on June 16th.

We have a Harbor and Fishermen's Festival on June 25th. So a lot of no-cost, low-cost events. Strawberry Festival on the 26th, and the start of our summer programs on the 17th.

So that's my report.

[Speaker 2] (8:03 - 8:46)
Thanks, Sean. Anyone have any questions for Sean? Okay, great.

So next we have, as Sean mentioned, we have some proclamations. One is a Pride Month proclamation. As Sean mentioned, we had a great Pride Day event over the weekend, and we just wanted to officially make this proclamation making June Pride Month in Swampscott.

I don't know if anyone would like to read the proclamation on behalf of the board before we pass it.

[Speaker 12] (8:46 - 8:51)
I'm happy to read it aloud. Thanks, Katie. Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (8:51 - 8:52)
All right.

[Speaker 5] (8:53 - 11:51)
Whereas our nation and our community was founded on the principles of equal rights for all Americans, and whereas Swampscott is committed to being an inclusive community and welcoming of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and recognizes that we are a diverse community enriched by this diversity, including those that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning. And whereas the town of Swampscott supports the rights of every citizen to experience equality and freedom from discrimination.

And whereas the movement towards equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender LGBT people took a historic turning point in June 28, 1969 in New York City with the onset of the Stonewall Riot. And whereas we will never forget that 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a college freshman at the University of Wyoming, was brutally attacked in an act of homophobic violence in 1998, where he was abducted, bound, robbed, and pistol whipped by two local men before leaving that for dead after being tied to a fence in a field outside of town in freezing weather for 18 hours. Whereas violence against the LGBTQ plus community continues to be a critical issue in the United States with violence towards transgender and gender non-conforming people facing intensely concerning trends.

And whereas while there has been remarkable progress towards acceptance and equality in recent years, members of the LGBTQ plus community in the United States and around the world still face an unacceptable level of discrimination and violence. This includes LGBTQ plus people who are not safe at home and those who do not have a home in which to stay safe. Whereas we must push back against those who threaten the safety of LGBTQ plus residents and challenge our progress, and we must continue to make the case that all human beings share something fundamental in common.

All of us want to be loved and all of us want to love. Whereas Swampscot celebrates its diverse LGBTQ plus community and is committed to ensuring equality for all of our residents, employees, and visitors. And whereas the people of Swampscot's LGBTQ plus community are a vital part of all fields and professions and contribute to a strong and welcoming Swampscot.

And whereas we have improved attitudes of society by encouraging inclusiveness throughout our community and celebrating Pride Month. And now therefore by virtue of the authority vested in the Town Administrator and the Select Board in the Town of Swampscot, we hereby proclaim the month of June as Pride Month in Swampscot and encourage everyone to treat others with mutual respect and understanding.

[Speaker 2] (11:53 - 12:00)
Thanks Katie. Appreciate it. Do I have a motion to accept the Pride Month proclamation?

[Speaker 4] (12:00 - 12:01)
So moved.

[Speaker 2] (12:01 - 12:02)
Second?

[Speaker 4] (12:03 - 12:04)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (12:05 - 12:07)
Any discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 10] (12:08 - 12:08)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (12:08 - 12:44)
Aye. Okay, now we have another proclamation on gun violence prevention. This was, I thank David for bringing this up over email.

Really important to keep this dialogue front and center and continuously. The proclamation refers to gun violence prevention day, which was last Friday, but of course we didn't have a meeting before then. So there is a reference to a day that has passed, but I think the message is important nonetheless and appreciate David bringing it up.

So David, I'll give you the floor.

[Speaker 6] (12:44 - 16:23)
Thank you, Neil. Yeah, and I think it's incredibly important that we keep this conversation going and we keep this front of mind. Certainly this proclamation recognizes the first Friday in June to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor and remember all victims and survivors of gun violence and to recognize that we as a country must do more to reduce gun violence.

Before I go on with the proclamation, just some incredible statistics, incredibly sad statistics. Since Uvalde, Texas shook us to our core two short weeks ago, there have already been 34 additional mass shootings in the United States. There have been 39 additional deaths.

There have been 162 injuries. And there have been 21 teens killed and children as well under the age of 11 and 13. So I just want to offer a moment of silence for those lost just in the last two weeks.

Whereas every day more than 110 Americans are killed by gun violence alongside more than 200 who are shot and wounded, and on average there are nearly 16,000 gun homicides every year. And whereas Americans are 26 times more likely to die by gun homicide than people in other high-income countries. And whereas communities across the nation, including Swampscot, are working to end the senseless gun violence with evidence-based solutions.

And whereas protecting public safety in the communities they serve is the local government's highest responsibility. And whereas support for the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand in hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous histories. And whereas gun violence prevention is more important than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated gun violence with more than two years of increased gun sales, increased calls to suicide, and domestic violence hotlines, and an increase in community gun violence.

Whereas in January 2013, Hadiya Pendleton was tragically shot and killed at age 15. And on June 3rd, 2022, to recognize the 25th birthday of Hadiya Pendleton, born 1997, people across the United States will recognize National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and wear orange in tribute to Hadiya Pendleton and other victims of gun violence, and to the loved ones of those victims. And whereas the idea of recognizing this day was inspired by a group of Hadiya's friends who asked their classmates to commemorate her life by wearing orange, and they chose this color because hunters wear orange to announce themselves to other hunters when out in the woods.

And orange is a color that symbolizes the value of human life. And whereas by wearing orange on June 3rd, 2022, Americans will raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives of gun violence victims and survivors. And whereas anyone can join this campaign by pledging to wear orange on June 3rd, the first Friday in June, to help raise awareness about gun violence.

And whereas we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to keep our residents safe. Now therefore, be it resolved that the town of Swampscott recognizes the first Friday in June to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

[Speaker 2] (16:25 - 16:29)
Thanks, David. Do I have a motion to accept the proclamation?

[Speaker 4] (16:30 - 16:31)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 2] (16:32 - 17:05)
All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Great. Thanks. All right, moving on.

We have a recommendation for a new library director, which is very exciting. I will. I met with this person, with Sean and P.

Kane earlier this week and had a great conversation. It's really exciting to have him here tonight. I will turn it over to Sean to provide some details and introduce him.

[Speaker 3] (17:05 - 17:48)
Great. Well, before we get to Jonathan Lewis Nichols, I actually want to welcome our library board here tonight and recognize Ellen Winkler. Ellen is a member of our library board, and Ellen is going to share a few updates on the process.

Under the town charter, the library board serves as the screening committee, and so our library board did a commendable job coordinating this process. Ellen, could you share a few insights into that process and perhaps an update for the board but also the community?

[Speaker 7] (17:49 - 21:31)
Of course. Nice to be here tonight. Thank you.

The board of trustees is charged with making recommendations to the town administrator. To make this a meaningful process with a broad scope of search, we wanted to open this position to anyone in the nation. We hired a consultant, Community Paradigm.

They did an excellent job. They're headed by Bernie Lynch, who helped us put together a very comprehensive picture of the type of person we were looking for to lead our library forward. We've been privileged in Swampscot.

We had 25 years of directorship under Alice DeVoe, who did just a phenomenally great job, beloved by the community and everyone related to the library. We wanted to build on that history that we have and move forward through the 21st century with a vision of something very positive for our community because the library holds such an important place here. What we did was we created an initial screening committee that we hoped would give some representative perspective throughout the community.

We invited a member of SURE to be on that committee. We had one of the staff employees at the library. I was there on behalf of the trustees.

We had someone from the Friends of the Library, a typical constituent user of the library, to try to bring in all perspectives. Under the guidance of Community Paradigm, we looked through the applications. We identified those that we thought were most compelling for an initial screening interview with that screening committee.

The committee did a wonderful job. We were able to beat and go through a good list of candidates. We really had an impressive group of people, which delighted us.

We did not know at this time whether our small community could attract. We had candidates from across the country, and we were really thrilled that we were able to come up with this list. We also had internal candidates to consider, which was wonderful as well.

Recommendations were made by the screening committee to the Board of Trustees, who then did further work to interview all of those applicants. We were able to then make recommendations, as were required to do under Charter, to Sean of the three strongest candidates that we met with. We felt that Jonathan would do a wonderful job for us.

We know as trustees that we're looking forward to working with him and supporting him in his efforts going forward. I do want to take a moment just to acknowledge the real strength and commitment of our library staff, who did for a time have an interim person serving as director, but who gave notice early, and has left them without someone in that position for these last weeks and through the end of the fiscal year probably. They've just done a wonderful job.

They've all stepped up, every single one of them, to make sure that that library continues to give the highest quality service it can. We're very proud of that. So I want to thank you for the opportunity to acknowledge that and take this opportunity to say, Jonathan, we are so looking forward to having you here.

Thank you so much.

[Speaker 3] (21:32 - 23:57)
Great. Well, thank you, Ellen, and certainly thank you and your fellow trustees for just the due diligence. I do think that we were well served by Bernie Lynch and Community Paradigm.

I think we did go out and ensure that we had a process that was open and was engaging and gave everybody a chance to put their hat in the ring, so to speak. Really, this is an exciting moment. We've talked long about what really does define a library in a 21st century community.

What is the role of these books or the buildings? Well, libraries aren't just books anymore, right? We're actually constantly evolving this sense of community.

When we think about culture and art and the responsibilities that we have to every cohort of our citizens, our library is the glue that in many ways ties all of these generations together. So with that, it's a real privilege to introduce Jonathan Lewis-Nichols. Jonathan is a professional that has worked hard over the last many years to really demonstrate his commitment to public service.

I think it's important to recognize that we're in a vocation here. We're helping people. You need to be a special kind of person to deal with people every day.

Jonathan really has a lot of those wonderful qualities. He has his bachelor's in English, his master's in Library and Information Systems. He's worked as an assistant director and a community outreach librarian and a head of youth services.

So he's really been somebody that has demonstrated a progressive ability to grow in this unique field. At this point, I'm pleased to recognize Jonathan. Jonathan, why don't you just, before the board asks you a few questions, why don't you just share a little bit about yourself, about who you are, and why Swampskip might be a good fit for you.

Sure.

[Speaker 8] (23:57 - 26:10)
Again, thank you so much, Ellen, and also Sean, for the great introduction. My name is Jonathan Nichols. If you can't tell already, I'm from the South.

You didn't tell me that. I'm a Southern transplant from the great state of Arkansas, and it was there that I actually got the library bug. Once I graduated with my undergraduate degree, I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I thought about law school, being a teacher, kind of waffled, took different exams, started studying for others, and it was during that time of flux that I got my first library job, and it was there that I really saw the true power that libraries can have to transform communities but also transform individuals and give them really the tools they need to pull themselves up out of adversity but also just for entertainment values as well. There's that broad sweeping range, and that's what really excited me about being a librarian. From there, I progressively made my way through different, as Sean said, different jobs, different fields, getting experience, really getting those community connections and really seeing how libraries could grow and be more modern institutions.

That is something that I am very proud of in my career, being able to really help lead libraries in innovative services, both programming but also in just how we connect to the community. That's really important to me is the outreach component to librarianship. It's something that I think a lot of libraries struggle with as well, but it's something that I put at the forefront of all of what I do, and it's been my pleasure to go through this process with the board, with everyone that was on the screening committees, getting to know the staff a little bit, getting to tour the library and really see how the library functions within the town.

I think that it's very exciting. I think there's a lot of great opportunities ahead of the library that I think I'm very excited to be a part of and would love to really help spearhead, especially renovations of the building. I think that's very exciting, something that's within my wheelhouse as well, and I'm really just anxious to get started.

[Speaker 3] (26:12 - 26:19)
Great. Thanks, Jonathan. At this point, I would just turn it over to the board for your questions.

[Speaker 2] (26:20 - 27:17)
Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, I met Jonathan already, so I don't have any more questions for you. I asked plenty when we met before. I just, you know, welcome, thanks for being here.

I'm really excited for you to get started. I was struck in our conversation how much enthusiasm Jonathan has for the job and for the library, but was also just noticed how much not just talking about bringing people into the library, but bringing the library out to the community was a lot of how the way he spoke about the programs were really bringing the library to people and being out in the community. So I think that's a great way to look at it and something I hadn't really thought much about, honestly, until I had that conversation with him.

So I was really excited about that and excited to see what you do in this community and welcome other board members to ask questions.

[Speaker 6] (27:19 - 27:25)
Jonathan, from one transplanted southerner, I grew up in Louisiana, to another, welcome to Swampscot.

[Speaker 8] (27:25 - 27:25)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (27:26 - 27:34)
You know, I don't really have any substantive questions, but, you know, what are you reading today and what are some good recommendations for this group? Sure.

[Speaker 8] (27:34 - 27:38)
Well, my first question would be what genre do you like? Fiction.

[Speaker 3] (27:39 - 27:39)
Science fiction.

[Speaker 8] (27:40 - 27:54)
Science fiction? I love the Name of the Wind series, which is more like high fantasy than true sci-fi, but it has elements of, like, product development, but, yeah.

[Speaker 4] (27:55 - 27:56)
David also wants to ask you if you ski.

[Speaker 8] (27:57 - 27:58)
I do ski.

[Speaker 4] (27:58 - 28:00)
Because you can go with David and his boys to go skiing.

[Speaker 8] (28:00 - 28:07)
Yep, anytime. It was one of the first things I actually learned how to do. I knew how to water ski before, so it was basically leaning forward instead of back.

[Speaker 5] (28:11 - 28:12)
I do have one question.

[Speaker 10] (28:12 - 28:12)
Sure.

[Speaker 5] (28:13 - 28:51)
So my family and I are frequenters of the library, but we're probably your easiest sell because I have little ones and my husband refuses to use an electronic library, so he must hold the book at all times. But I always wonder, when I go to the library, I see my kids and I see an older generation, how we get that gap to join us at the library. And I did notice in your resume you had some ideas or some experience with, like, graphic novels and things like that, which spoke to that group for me.

But any ideas you have regarding that would be fantastic.

[Speaker 8] (28:51 - 29:29)
Sure. So I do think within the first few weeks of being on the job, it would be pretty much taking the pulse of Swampskate and seeing what it is that we could be delivering service-wise or maybe programming-wise to attract that 30 to, you know, 50-ish crowd that is missing in libraries, to be quite frank. A lot of it is because they are, you know, starting families and just are really busy.

So it's about finding those opportunities. Maybe it's we do a lot more late-night programming, such as maybe something like Library After Dark, where it's, like, come for, like, a dance lesson with, you know, your husband. And we'll also have, like, a child care component so that you can fully participate.

[Speaker 12] (29:29 - 29:30)
You hadn't yet child care. Yeah.

[Speaker 8] (29:32 - 29:54)
So, like, finding those opportunities where, you know, we're using also the talents of our staff. Like, maybe there might be a talented photographer or things like that that could help us spearhead some programming and really tapping into that. I know I'm a very crafty individual.

I do everything from welding to knitting. So I could try to bring those skills in and try to attract people in that capacity as well. But those are just some off-the-cuff ideas.

[Speaker 7] (29:55 - 30:03)
And we do have a plan for a makerspace in our library company. For a what? A makerspace.

So, yes.

[Speaker 4] (30:04 - 30:49)
Good. I don't have any questions for you, other than I just want to let you know that you can do welding and knitting. So I'll be sending an email to genocrest.dbw. So don't be surprised if you're missing. And you'll probably be requested to have library hours during select board hours, and Katie will drop the kids off before. But I did read your resume, and I do read resumes, and I do interview, and I do hire people. And I have to tell you, I really enjoyed yours.

Oh, thank you. It was fun to read, and I walked away thinking, oh, I really would hire this guy in a heartbeat. So thank you for coming, and I hope you enjoy it here.

[Speaker 8] (30:50 - 30:51)
Looking forward to it.

[Speaker 1] (30:52 - 31:55)
Jonathan, I have one question, but before that, I think Sean is so right in identifying the library trustees and then the Friends organization for what you guys do, because it's really important to have people that are passionate about these things be the ones vetting, and to be the ones thinking about it, and Tripp, and Ellen, and then John Tripp, who recently stepped down. I really appreciate all his years in being library trustees, but you three in particular, and then Neil, I'm glad that you've joined, and you'll bring your skills to it. But it is a really dynamic group, and the group of librarians that you have on board are really dynamic and interesting people that just have so many diverse things that they want to do, and it's been fun to watch.

So Jonathan, you're getting, I think, a well-fueled vehicle to drive. But I'm curious more about longevity, right? And so I think in a town like us, we want planting seeds takes some time, right?

And then for things to flourish, it takes some time here, and so I just have them, correct?

[Speaker 9] (31:56 - 32:16)
Absolutely correct. And there's substantial debt roll-off in those years. I think you see a natural roll-off as we go out.

But yeah, absolutely. Farther down that point, we can leverage those reserves to the extent that they're available.

[Speaker 1] (32:16 - 33:04)
So my last question is, and I don't sit here, nor will I tell town meeting to rely on this, but in the event that the town was successful in having a state or federal partner decide they want to take part in the acquisition and ownership and funding of a park or whatever this ultimately is, how potentially, or it may not be a good answer, but if the federal government tomorrow said that they wanted to, the National Park Service said they wanted to do something, or DCR said they wanted to do something, and they were willing to contribute towards the land purchase, if we've already bonded these, does that lock out the ability for us to get funding and offset debt, or do we have the flexibility to be able to somehow deal with that influx, if you will?

[Speaker 9] (33:04 - 33:58)
Yeah, we would still have options. There would be two ways that I see. Initially, we could look at it, and there could be more ways that I'm not aware of, but one situation would be to issue callable bonds.

So at a certain point in time, we may be able to recall those bonds, and then that would eliminate the debt going forward after that point to the extent that grant funding was available. We would also be able to receive that grant funding and then rescind the debt authorization in the same amount as the grant funding and allocate the bond proceeds to another project that has a useful life of at least 30 years. So we would be able to essentially take the funds that we raised through an issuance for this project and reallocate those dollars to a project of a similar useful life, and that would be acceptable as well through a town meeting process.

[Speaker 1] (33:58 - 34:46)
Right. And then the last thing I would just say is I've been pleased by the outreach on both the state and federal level to us when they heard the news of this, and both our state senator and our congressman reached out on their own to ask to be part of a partnership and to work and to see where the opportunity is. Now, that being said, next Tuesday we're going to ask town meetings to support the authorization of funds without reliance or promises from a third-party state-federal nonprofit, and I think it's important that town make the commitment to go it alone and show that, but I'm encouraged by the fact that we've had those partners reach out to us, and it speaks well for what in the future we can do here. Thanks, Patrick.

[Speaker 9] (34:47 - 34:48)
You're welcome. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (34:49 - 34:58)
Patrick, I have a couple questions for you. Can you tell me the year that the high school rolls off and the year that the police station rolls off completely?

[Speaker 9] (34:59 - 35:10)
Completely. Completely. I want to say that they are the high school, I think it's 2030-ish, and then the remaining on the police station will be 2030.

[Speaker 4] (35:13 - 35:15)
The police station is what?

[Speaker 1] (35:18 - 35:21)
2037. I think it's what he said.

[Speaker 2] (35:22 - 35:25)
2037. 2037, you think, Patrick?

[Speaker 9] (35:26 - 35:32)
I apologize, Mary Ellen, I don't have that. That's okay. I think that doesn't sound right.

[Speaker 4] (35:32 - 35:52)
And the other question I have is do you have any idea what 25-year notes are trading for around now? Because I'm just wondering on the anticipation on here, on the 4.4% and the 4.34, where that comes in.

[Speaker 9] (35:53 - 35:57)
Yeah, so a 25-year note, I think I have the interest rating.

[Speaker 4] (35:58 - 36:07)
Yeah. As far as what's trading, is trading right now at 4%?

[Speaker 9] (36:07 - 36:17)
4% is what the for a 25-year issue.

[Speaker 4] (36:21 - 36:24)
Okay, so things are trading now at 4%?

[Speaker 9] (36:28 - 36:32)
In October, we projected the rate at 4%, so it could be less now.

[Speaker 1] (36:33 - 36:39)
There's a couple of these that I think you're looking at the right thing. So the first one that you're looking at there I think shows the 4%.

[Speaker 4] (36:39 - 36:43)
Yeah, I understand that, but I'm asking if he knows what the rates are right now.

[Speaker 1] (36:44 - 36:45)
You mean this one?

[Speaker 4] (36:45 - 36:56)
The current rates. Gotcha. Not October.

Great. The current rates today. Would you happen to have any idea what AA's are trading now at?

Selling now at? Not trading, selling now.

[Speaker 9] (36:57 - 36:59)
I would think slightly below the number we have here.

[Speaker 4] (37:29 - 37:30)
Thank you.

[Speaker 11] (37:30 - 37:30)
You all set?

[Speaker 4] (37:31 - 37:31)
Yeah, I'm all set.

[Speaker 11] (37:31 - 37:35)
Okay. Any more questions for Patrick?

[Speaker 3] (37:39 - 38:13)
The only thing I would add is that we've worked with a consultant at Unifirst Bank, a bond consultant that really has helped Patrick pull together some of this analysis. He's in a very unique financial position. Very few communities have the financial footing that Fulmscott has to really support the acquisition of these properties in a manner that really will help us continue to balance the financial priorities for the community.

[Speaker 1] (38:15 - 39:45)
So I agree with that, Sean, but I do want to say, so it allows us to do it without having to offset it somewhere else and to affect operations or to do things. But I mean, and you've been very good at this, and I know you don't mean, the exclusion of these words aren't intended by you, but we're still a really high tax community. And so we are asking town meeting to make a commitment to just like we did last year on education, and we will again on education.

It's been over five decades where we've asked for a meaningful contribution on open space, and it's long overdue. So I think it's important that at town meeting we acknowledge that reality, that it's still money and it's going to impact people here, but that if we didn't think these parcels were significant enough and important enough, and the timing is what it is, right, the market is where it is for us, that we wouldn't be asking town meeting to appropriate that. And you don't even need to acknowledge, I know I'm actually parroting stuff that you've said to me over the years, but I think it's just important for others to hear that, to know that we go to town meeting not saying, look at us, we're flush with cash.

We've saved for these events, and we've slowed tax growth, but we still are a very high tax community, and that probably will be forever just because of the inefficiencies in size and how we've decided to staff certain services in our town, and the likelihood that we're not going to change that are just choices that were made, but just important to acknowledge.

[Speaker 2] (39:51 - 40:50)
All right. Thanks, Peter. So for this article, in terms of the language, there was a conversation at FinCom and there have been conversations, I think, at our last meeting about some of the language in terms of the purpose for which we are acquiring.

The Hawthorne property specifically, and so I'm not sure necessarily that we want to vote because I think there could be some changes to some of this language. Right now it's for general municipal purposes, but there's been a desire I know from FinCom to provide some more flexibility in that language, and I think conversations will be happening and recommendations on some alternative language for that, so I don't know that we want to vote on a recommendation for this article. Peter, I don't know if you want to elaborate on that.

[Speaker 1] (40:50 - 44:15)
Yeah, let me just elaborate really quickly. I think that I've heard questions. I think other of you have heard questions as well from people saying, is it all open space?

Is it going to be partially open space? Is there going to be parking? Is there going to be one building?

Is there going to be a restaurant? And I think this board has, in essence, all supported the idea that open space is the motivating factor here, but we want to explore, and Mary Ellen was explicit about wanting to explore other uses, and I don't think anybody has a problem with that. So I think the language that the chair of the Finance Committee has been in touch with me since the meeting last night, and I think the language that we're thinking about is something that will be a slightly different motion at time meeting floor, but will, first of all, as I've stated before, the Hawthorne Restaurant will continue to operate for at least a year after closing.

The reality is it may go beyond a year, right, if we're not ready for use of the building and we don't have another use or something, we may not want an empty building, we may not want to demolish a building, and so it may go beyond. So I think the language itself has to contemplate making sure that we don't put ourselves in a position where we create an empty building, right, in the short run. But then, secondly, language that really is talking about the current uses while it's being there, but also general municipal purposes, including but not limited to open space, conservation, recreation purposes, and then add a third group, which is such other purposes authorized by a future vote of town meeting, and I think it's worth this board talking a little bit tonight about that last thing, which is the idea that we are, I think it would be helpful for us to, without short of making a recommendation, to be able to give feedback to FinCom to be able to say, and I said as much last night from the idea that we aren't looking to the select boards not looking to take over the final decision making of the future use of this property. What we're doing is making sure that we're acquiring it without triggering Article 97 concerns about open space so that we don't want to have to go back to the legislature, but we also want to keep it flexible enough to make sure that it's occupied if we want it to be occupied while we figure out the final use, but then ultimately do a really in-depth community process like we did for the Greenwood School, like we did for the Michon School, where the select board, with the help of staff, worked to do a community process to solicit ideas to do RFIs and things of that nature to see what the market was thinking, and then we went back to town meeting for final approval as to the future of that property, that town property, and so I foresee a similar process here where we will be back to town meeting ultimately with a final plan for the property, and town meeting will ultimately be the final arbiter of that, but we will, just like the other properties, work through a community process to shape that dialogue and to get feedback from the community, and so I think that having the warrant language reflect that is important, so that's just wanted to throw that out to get your all's feedback on that because I think it's really important for people to know that town meeting, not us, will obviously be an important part of it.

The board will be an important part of the process, but town meeting ultimately will have it presented to them and make the final decision as to exactly what we do there, so I wanted to throw that open for conversation because I think if we have consensus on that point, being able to share that when FinCon next meets I think is helpful to them to give them comfort because I think that's the direction they were going as well, so let me just stop there and open it up.

[Speaker 5] (44:16 - 45:15)
I have had constituents reach out with that exact question, and I fully support the language you have alluded to because my understanding of it is that we're asking everybody to pay a lot of money for a property. I have a best and greatest use for it, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the town agrees, and it should be a conversation, it should be open and transparent, and all community who wants to participate should be able to. I will be a very vocal advocate for a large portion of this being open space, but that's my prerogative, and you all have the same, so I totally agree with adding some sort of language that indicates that we're not unilaterally here to make a decision about the end result of this parcel.

[Speaker 6] (45:16 - 45:56)
I agree with Peter, and I agree with Katie. I think this language in Article 1 should reflect the willingness for this to be an open and a public process. I think that's incredibly important to me.

People have reached out to me as well asking me the same questions. Probably everyone on the board has been fielding these questions since the previous town meeting, but I feel it's incredibly important that we're making the public as part of this process. This isn't a decision that's going to be made by the five of us.

It's a decision that's going to be made by thousands.

[Speaker 2] (46:05 - 47:14)
I'm fine with making those tweaks. I think I would be perfectly other than the fact that we need to make some revisions just to accommodate for the fact that there will be a restaurant there after we own it. I think that I would be okay with the language because I think technically we would be having that process and we would be going back to town meeting.

What this does is just affirms our commitment to using it for municipal purposes, and if that were the use, then that is, I think, what the previous select board and vocally the select board, most of us have said that if it were just open space for municipal use, we would be okay with that, and we think it's worth pursuing because of that. But I think I don't disagree that it's important to have that language in here to reflect that that's the process that we foresee, so I'm happy to accommodate for that language change and make that part of the article.

[Speaker 4] (47:17 - 47:44)
So I'm in agreement with that, too, but the only thing I just want to make clear is what is the recommendation for who makes the final decision on what is going to be used for the property? Will that be town meeting or the select board? I'm personally more inclined that town meeting makes the final decision.

Is that what we're looking at?

[Speaker 1] (47:44 - 49:02)
Yeah, the way it works is, and I'm just going to go back to Greenwood and Moshan as just evidence of the past, right, where we, the select board, did a community engagement process to solicit ideas. In one of those situations in Moshan, we actually did a RFI to go out to the market to say, what do you think the Moshan school can be? And after that, we did a community process where we said, these are the responses we've got.

What do you think about these? And ultimately, the select board then took that information and made a recommendation to town meeting, but town meeting is the one that select board won't be able to do anything on its own. Select board should be expected to make a recommendation.

It's their warrant, but town meeting is going to be the one, just like at Greenwood, down to quite literally the zoning, right, the dimensions. It was a very specific prescribed article for Greenwood, down to the number of units, number of parking spaces, et cetera, and same with Moshan. Moshan, it actually, the final plan on Moshan, Greenwood was just zoning, but on the Moshan school, we actually had the final plans needed to be approved by town meeting.

So there was a very detailed presentation of what's there today to town meeting, so town meeting had that. So I think in all circumstances, town meeting is the final decider, but we will ultimately, after a community process and through a community process, I think be making a recommendation, but that's just a recommendation to town meeting.

[Speaker 4] (49:02 - 49:03)
Okay, I'm good with that.

[Speaker 2] (49:06 - 49:10)
Okay, so I don't, there's no further action required on this article.

[Speaker 1] (49:10 - 50:48)
No, so I think, so hopefully in the next 48 hours or so, we'll be able to share language of what the motion looks like, and I think FinCom's meeting, I think, on Thursday night, and CIC's also meeting on Thursday night, so hopefully the conclusion of that will give us some direction. The other thing, if you don't mind just staying on this article for a second, Neal, is I have mentioned a couple of times because I knew the feeling of the prior board before this most recent April election, but I do want to flesh out tonight because I do think it's helpful, especially as we go into town meeting, and as I talk to FinCom or we talk to FinCom and CIC or to residents to just understand this board's position about all three properties. Previously, the board took a position that no one property was more important than the other and that we supported all three properties, and our recommendation, it was important that all three properties were being recommended because it represents a diverse investment across our community for open space and not an investment in one single part of our town, and so I just want to, it would be helpful if we could hear, particularly from the newer members, but all of us, again, to reaffirm that or just have clarity on that because I think that, for example, on town meeting floor, it's going to be a helpful thing to be able to articulate if that becomes a debate to feel as though I'm not speaking at a school or someone else isn't speaking at a school to be able to say, look, this is an important consideration. The former board had that view, but I don't want to be presumptuous and think it necessarily sits today the same way, so we wouldn't mind spending a minute talking about that.

That just, I think, will help the conversation on town meeting floor.

[Speaker 5] (50:49 - 51:31)
I think I've already said it, but I'm happy to reiterate it, that when I view three parcels, the Archer Street parcels are actually of more financial value to me mentally than the Hawthorne parcel because of what it means to that neighborhood. I think that the money spent on those parcels are money well spent. So I don't view them as more or less important, and I certainly view them all together as one, but I sort of have an opposite of the intuitive Hawthorne parcel being the most important of the list.

[Speaker 4] (51:35 - 52:21)
So I am glad you're not being presumptuous here, and I do share what Katie has to say. I am personally tired of seeing that section of town being developed and being constantly hit with different projects over and over and over, and those two properties on Archer Street are very, very important to me. So I do look at it as a full package.

I also want to make sure that town meeting totally understands what all the risks and rewards are from everything that we're going to be doing here. I just want to make sure we have everything out there as much as possible.

[Speaker 2] (52:24 - 53:40)
Thanks. Yeah, I mean, we've stated it before, but certainly I think this is a package deal, and as we've mentioned in the process when we were talking about these in an executive session with the previous board, I mean, the whole point was not to take action until we could take action on all three, and so I think that was always what we planned on doing. And, you know, Peter's mentioned, I think, because of the advocacy of David and former member of Poly living in that neighborhood, I mean, it really became, the priorities almost flipped in a way that Katie just described where the Archer Street properties became more important in many ways, even though they aren't in the center of town.

So I see this as one article and one acquisition that will be providing a generational change for our town and some much-needed peace for a lot of residents.

[Speaker 6] (53:42 - 53:59)
Again, I'll just reaffirm my support for this all as one article. I view this as, you know, essentially 11 acres of acquisition of open space. So I'm incredibly excited and support that Article I, you know, as one.

[Speaker 1] (54:02 - 56:38)
So I think this, thank you, that's really helpful to have that. So I totally agree with Mary Ellen to make sure that our presentation at town meeting includes discussion about the risk and rewards, because there are risks and there are rewards, and we need to be clear on those. I would say that I do want to just take this a minute to kind of, a question that comes up quite a bit is, well, why are we buying Hawthorne so quickly?

Why are we leasing it back as a restaurant? What happens when they leave? You know, will it go sitting vacant?

And that's going to be one of the risk and rewards, right, that we're going to talk about and just have to talk about, which is at the end of the day, we negotiated a deal that could get done, right? And so would we have liked to be able to have an option for five years and decide that any time over a five-year period or ten-year period, we could just pull the trigger and do that? Absolutely.

Was that discussed? Absolutely. Those ideas were discussed.

But at the end of the day, it needed to be a deal that worked for the owners. And as I've said before, to the Athenas family credit, they stayed at the table with us and were willing to be creative. But it doesn't mean that they just gave things away.

They had to meet their objectives, and timing was certainly a key objective, not just dollars. And so the deal reflects what we had to do to get a deal done with the help of the Athenas'. We're going to have to work through what that looks like.

The restaurant may not stay open for an extra year. We may have a building that's vacant and that we may need to decide what's the best use of it in the interim because it will take us some time to organize. I don't believe this is an ad hoc, let's put some grass down park.

This is a forever waterfront park that I think is going to be very significant. And, again, even if it has other things with it, the open space itself is going to be very significant, and it's not going to be cheap. And I think that's why I'm grateful for the conversations we've had about the federal and state partners and grateful that Marzee and Community Development, Pecane and Sean and everybody are on board because they have proven their ability to succeed in bringing partners into things.

But it's going to be really significant, so it may take some time. So that's one of those risks that I think Mary Ellen talks about, which we just need to be open about. We don't have the answer, but the deal was structured in a way that got us control as a community, so we can now control the future.

But with that control comes the responsibility of the future, and we don't have that perfectly answered at the moment here. And so we're going to have to be nimble as a community as we navigate that.

[Speaker 2] (56:47 - 58:42)
Thanks. I appreciate that point, Peter. I think that I also currently, personally, am focused on the acquisition.

I mean, maybe I'm just not complex enough a thinker on this, but I've shared this with Sean, I think. I look forward to the community forums and the charrettes on how this can be used and what we can do, but I want to be there first. I think I said to David earlier, I think of it just because I'm not a real estate developer, I think of it as like we're buying a house, and I want to talk about what color the walls will be and how we're going to do it, and maybe we rent out the third floor.

But at this point, I want to buy the house, and then we can go to Home Depot and figure that out. So I think that that's where my mind is right now, but I do agree that we do need to embrace that complexity and some of the unknowns and make sure that it's clear to folks that that's all part of the consideration. So I don't think we need to take any action on this tonight.

Look forward to seeing the alternative language in the coming days, and that brings us to Article 2, which is the zoning bylaw in the Glover Multifamily Overlay District. We've talked about this overlay district at a couple of meetings. There's nothing really that's changed.

We do, I suppose, technically we sort of did already, but refer this to the planning board for consideration, but I think that we also, I think, can take a vote on this if you want to.

[Speaker 1] (58:42 - 1:04:14)
Yeah, so the planning board's, I think, having their public hearing on the 13th, so next Monday is their public hearing, which they're required to do under 40A. In your packet tonight, and it's something that I think we should make available to town meeting members and maybe on the town website, is a red line of the zoning language, and I want to just take this moment to explain what the language is redlined off of. So the new Glover Multifamily Overlay District language was modeled after the 40R overlay district that only applies to Glover.

That was approved by town meeting a handful of years ago, and so that language was used because it would be familiar, right? It would be familiar to the planning board. It would be familiar to staff.

It would be familiar to our community since we, as a town meeting, passed this language years ago. So there are some differences, right, and some things, so that red line, I think, just helps you see how this new overlay district will compare to the overlay district that town meeting approved for this exact same parcel, you know, a handful of years ago. One thing that hasn't changed from what town meeting approved years ago and what's in this overlay district is the approval process for the project, right?

Now that approval process for both the 40R and the proposed overlay now is different than the typical approval process in Swampscott, but that was a decision that was made to allow for the 40R district because under a 40R district you have to create a bit more streamlined process which does plan review as opposed to special permits for the project. So the language is very prescriptive as to what is allowed dimensionally, specifically number of units, specifically parking spaces, specifically all the dimensional and use requirements specifically, but assuming you meet those requirements, then it's really effectively design review by the planning board to comment around making sure you've complied with those things, but also things around the edges to mitigate other concerns and design features. So that process, that design review process is administrative, if you will.

It's designed to be a yes, right? It's a yes as long as you meet these requirements. That's what the 40R overlay district was.

That's what this overlay district is as well. I just want to flesh that out that that isn't a change from the 40R district. That language remains the same.

That process is a process that town meeting approved many moons ago for that, and I will tell you that's a very important consideration in approving this warrant article. Town meeting members, I think, I don't know. I shared earlier today with the town moderator copies of the escrow agreement and the purchase and sale agreement for the Hawthorne and a short synopsis of the escrow agreement, and in that I don't know if the town moderator has yet sent it out to town meeting members.

I've asked him to do that. But in that summary is, I think, hopefully easy to understand summary, but the purchase and sale agreement for the Hawthorne property sits in escrow right now, an escrow agreement that the town signed, the owner of the Hawthorne signed, the Boston-based developer that currently has a purchase and sale agreement to buy the Hawthorne signed. And so right now the purchase and sale agreement's in escrow, and the termination of the existing purchase and sale agreement between the Boston-based developer and the owners of the Hawthorne is also in escrow.

Obviously one of the things that we needed to do in the context of this negotiation was negotiate a termination of that purchase and sale agreement because the Hawthorne was already under agreement with a third party here. Approval of these warrants as they're drafted here in our article in substance, Article I and Article II are two of the requirements to fulfill the release conditions under the escrow agreement. So as we proceed with the zoning language as well, we just need to be cognizant of the fact that changes, substantive changes to the zoning agreement is something that we would have to go back and open up negotiations, something that's not entirely in our control.

And so again, that's why we thought it was important to use the 40-R district as the template for the new overlay so that the town is seeing something that they've seen before, slightly different density, slightly different uses, but the exact same process that they've seen before and approved before so that it wasn't as though we were asking to a meeting to see something kind of at first impression, so to speak.

So I just wanted to flesh that out. I do think it's maybe really wonky to share this red line publicly, but I think it's helpful if there are people that look at zoning bylaws and want to see it. I think, Sean, we should figure out a way to – I don't know.

We can ask the moderator if he wants to send it out. Again, I don't know if he sent the other one already, or we can post it on the town website. But I think it's just a helpful comparison to do it.

There may be some technical changes in the floor motion. I believe there's a meeting on Thursday just to go through with everybody just to make sure there aren't some Scribner things and other technical things. So in the motion by planning board, there may be some technical changes, what I'll call non-substantive changes.

Town meeting will get a red line showing them anything that in the floor motion is different than what's in their warrant article tonight, which is not unusual for that to happen. But I just wanted to flag that that non-substantive changes could happen just to make sure that we've dotted our I's and crossed our T's correctly.

[Speaker 3] (1:04:14 - 1:04:20)
So is that something we're thinking about sending out on Friday, for instance, or after the – I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (1:04:20 - 1:04:30)
Let's see how Thursday's discussion goes. I just don't anticipate anything material, so I think we'd probably sell. Yes.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:04:31 - 1:04:43)
But that could be – in terms of some of those possible changes, that could be something that's handed out to town meeting members at town meeting, correct?

[Speaker 1] (1:04:44 - 1:04:57)
Not necessarily something – Yeah, right, but it may be available sooner as well, though, so that we can do it. But yes, it would be in red line form available, and I think the moderator would want it to be on canary-colored stationery or something similar.

[Speaker 11] (1:04:57 - 1:04:59)
We've got that claimed.

[Speaker 6] (1:05:00 - 1:05:07)
I think to the extent that it's ready earlier, I would just want to get that into the hands of town meeting members as soon as possible.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:07 - 1:05:23)
I want to stay away from handouts at the last minute as much as possible, and I don't know what's happening as far as information sessions about this particular – is the planning board offering information?

[Speaker 2] (1:05:24 - 1:06:11)
Well, the planning board is meeting on the 13th. They're having a hearing on this. We had our first information session on the warrant last night.

There's one – Tonight. There was one tonight at 6. Yep.

There's one tomorrow. I'm glad you brought it up. There's one tomorrow night on the 8th at 6.

There's one on Thursday night, the 9th at 7. And there's one on Monday, the 13th at 6. And that will be the moderator and members of the select board, and potentially FinCom at some of those, I think.

So that is for – What about the planning board? The warrant as a whole. The planning board, I don't think – They haven't typically attended the moderator's information sessions.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:11 - 1:06:16)
Well, do we typically – we don't typically – Well, there's zoning on every warrant. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:16 - 1:07:04)
I mean, there's different topics. I think it's what – I think the moderator's invited the select board to the select board's warrant to be able to answer questions, but the moderator was doing these originally without even select board members, right, just to ask questions. So I think people, if they have questions, it would be great to go to these.

The moderator generously does five or six of them for six total hours, and the people that come are great with great questions, but it's remarkably few people come to these information sessions. So to Mary Ellen's point, I will work hard to make sure we get the red line out on Friday. Again, I think it's going to be a question of literally administrative technical changes, nothing substantive, because, again, this is, you know, done, if you will, in terms of that, and we would have to reopen our negotiation if there was any substantive changes.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:05 - 1:07:22)
So to answer your question, just to publicly answer the question, Peter, that the moderator did send out the explanation of the escrow agreement and the purchase and sale and the escrow agreement tonight to the town meeting members with a reminder of these sessions.

[Speaker 1] (1:07:23 - 1:07:23)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:23 - 1:07:46)
And those sessions are Zoom. And thanks for emphasizing the connection of this with the escrow agreement. And I think that's important to keep reminding people of.

It's, again, it's almost, I mean, we just talked about Article I as one article. It's really like Article I and II are all bound together as one.

[Speaker 1] (1:07:46 - 1:08:18)
They are. And in that vein, we might want to think about, and we'll pick it up later, possibly asking to take Article II first, because I think it's really important for people to understand that Article II is not a stepchild to Article I. Article II needs to be a yes, and Article I needs to be a yes for this to happen.

Again, town meeting is the final. We have teed up the decisions, right? A town meeting ultimately gets to decide the path forward here, not us.

But I think it may just be helpful to remind them of that so we might think about that anyways.

[Speaker 12] (1:08:18 - 1:08:24)
Yeah, because it almost seems like that for Article II, if Article II doesn't pass, it's moved, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:08:24 - 1:09:21)
Correct. Yeah, and look, I think that the conversation there is, look, the Glover is significant. I mean, literally we have a ridiculous amount of unpaid fines for a blight on the Glover, and it's a safety issue.

And it's going to get, and that property also was under agreement through the Boston-based developer, and that is going to be developed. Now we're going to know with certainty. And so we are getting certainty out of this, and I think that's a really important consideration.

And we can put to bed, frankly, both these properties, which have been a bit of albatrosses, if you will, for the community, and put them both to bed. So I think there's really great arguments for them, and I hope that town meeting sees the value in doing that. So that one I do think we can make a recommendation tonight.

So I would make a motion to recommend favorable action on Article II. Second.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:22 - 1:09:28)
All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 4] (1:09:28 - 1:09:44)
So I'm going to abstain because I have not read this in detail, and I just don't feel comfortable voting yes without really having really read everything and really understand it and be able to answer questions on it.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:44 - 1:09:51)
Yeah, fair enough. I just want to just point out it is identical to the escrow agreement that you voted yes on and signed, just so you know that.

[Speaker 4] (1:09:51 - 1:09:51)
What's the exact one?

[Speaker 1] (1:09:53 - 1:09:59)
This is a red line comparing to something else, but this is the language that's in here is identical to the escrow agreement.

[Speaker 4] (1:09:59 - 1:10:02)
Okay. Then I'll put my vote back to yes for it was. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:03 - 1:10:11)
No problem. Okay. This is just comparing it to another provision in the zoning bylaw, so it's easier to be able to show how this is the same as the 4ER.

[Speaker 10] (1:10:11 - 1:10:11)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:13 - 1:10:21)
Great. All right. So that brings us to Article 3, which is the capital article.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:23 - 1:10:26)
I know – I have an update for you if you'd like one.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:26 - 1:10:27)
Okay. Yeah, I'd love to hear an update.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:28 - 1:11:57)
So the chair of the CIC sent me a message saying that they voted tonight to approve, recommend favorable action on Article 3. Sorry, I'm trying to get there. I'm looking at the wrong book.

Favorable action on Article 3. Are you with me? I'm getting there.

With one change. Sorry. So to recommend favorable action in Article 3, as shown in the warrant, with one change, reduce line 6 from $465,000 to $415,000, thereby – which is a reduction of $50,000, thereby having the total amount of capital be the same as the number that was in the annual town meeting warrant.

As you may recall, this warrant 3 added two new projects with a total of $50,000. And so CIC voted unanimously to support those new projects, but as I understand it, voted to reduce line item 6, which is from $465,000 to $415,000, so that the total amount of capital projects would remain the same.

[Speaker 11] (1:11:58 - 1:11:59)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:59 - 1:12:09)
And FinCom is meeting tomorrow night, not Thursday night, and I suspect that FinCom will be taking it up then. So FinCom hasn't made their recommendation yet, so I'm not one – I mean, we can decide we want to vote on it or not.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:10 - 1:12:45)
I'm prepared to vote on it regardless, but – Yeah, I know that conversation, having watched the Finance Committee meeting last night, that that was discussed at the end, that idea of reducing that paving item to accommodate for the two other items. That's on the list. So I am open for – to hear what others have to say.

I'm also prepared to vote our recommendation on this.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:46 - 1:13:06)
So why don't I make a motion, and then we'll see if there's a second and have conversation after that. So I would make a motion to recommend favorable passage of Article 3 with the changes that were approved by CIC, which is a reduction of Line 6 from $465,000 down to $415,000.

[Speaker 11] (1:13:06 - 1:13:09)
Do we have another second? Second. Okay, discussion.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:10 - 1:14:44)
So I always prefer to hear what the Town Finance Committee has to say about the spending of money. So I would prefer to wait for them, but you've made a motion. I have made it clear that I am not in support of adding two last-minute projects, and the reason that I'm not in support of the two last-minute projects was, one, the Mid-Balloon improvements did not come from the schools.

It was not a priority. It wasn't listed for them. And I would tend to want to go with what their recommendations are for projects, improvements, and programs in the schools.

On the VFW, I am a super supporter of the VFW, and I think that the fact that the VFW will be receiving $24,000 from the new marijuana shop and the fact that they don't have a lease, they didn't ask for the money. I just feel like this was not detailed. It wasn't clear.

But be that said, I would not support this because it still is the bottom line, but I just wanted to add that these are not things that – this isn't the way, the process in which I like to see things develop.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:53 - 1:18:41)
So I'll speak to it. I support favorable action on this. I think that the dollar amount is the same, which seems to be what everyone's comfortable with.

In terms of process, this is not a normal process. We don't normally table a capital article and call a special town meeting a month after an annual town meeting. Gosh, I hope we don't do it again next year.

I don't expect that we will. I don't see – I think that I completely respect process. I think that there is certainly nuance in gray area.

I totally understand people's concerns about that. At our last meeting, I mentioned that, you know, philosophically it made me a little uncomfortable to be adding these items out of sync of what we normally do, but at the same time, these were not known at the time. And so we have extra time to make changes, and why not take advantage of some of that flexibility?

I think in our role and in municipal government, there are very little opportunities for flexibility and trying to do things somewhat innovatively, and this is one of those opportunities. It is a small dollar amount on items that I think will make a difference this year to people. They're not – I wouldn't say they're emergencies, but they are very important, and they're not just symbolic.

And at our town meeting, there was a veteran who stood up and talked about the want and need for a telehealth room in the veteran center, and also part of that was discussing his optimistic feelings about the future but also expressed some feelings about the way the veterans have been treated in the past. I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind, and if the sacrifice is not paving a couple of roads this year to get these things done, I think it's worth doing, and if the sacrifice is being criticized for not following process to a T, then I think that's okay. I do think this process – I will point out that where this process has been typical is that these were brought to the committees who normally talk about such matters, and they've discussed them, and it wasn't – I think that changes are made to the capital requests in these meetings often.

I mean, the paving article that we just reduced was essentially doubled by the finance committee. Nobody asked for that doubling. They decided to double it.

And so I think that those decisions can get made in this process, and I don't think it's a violation or one that I am going to let myself get hung up on in order to do these small improvements. Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:41 - 1:19:00)
Neil, I appreciate what you're saying on that. I think that the – and I really – honestly, I look back five years, and we would have never talked about process because we didn't have one. I mean, in all seriousness, like, we didn't have a capital process.

There was no five-year looking forward, 10-year looking forward, 30-year looking forward. It truly was made up each year, and we're getting there now. We're trying to get through the ranking system.

[Speaker 10] (1:19:01 - 1:19:01)
I was here for that.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:01 - 1:22:30)
We're trying – we're not there, but we're getting it. So I actually do appreciate the fact that people are focused on process, but process – we cannot become a victim of process. And frankly, I appreciate the fact that the town administrator is nimble enough to say, all right, well, guess what?

A year ago, I wasn't comfortable making a recommendation for the VFW because I didn't feel like I had a counterparty. I didn't feel like I had the leadership there to sit and have the conversation with, but now has said, I do have those counterparties. They've shown up.

They've stepped up. And now I have that counterparty, and this is, you know – I think, Sean, I want to share what you said about the Pride Day event. Quite literally, the Pride event is saving lives.

Something as simple as having an event like that is saving lives. You don't know who's and you don't know where and you don't know when, but things like the VFW telehealth thing is potentially saving lives, and you have counterparties now that you feel comfortable with working with, and to their credit because they are so committed, and I really appreciate people stepping up and really helping and supporting the VFW. But the fact that you bring it forward, and on the METCO program, I've got to say the superintendent has been fantastic.

The school committee has been fantastic and so supportive. So this shouldn't be seen as not being supportive or even anything negative. It should be a positive.

And the fact that the superintendent didn't ask for it is because the superintendent has an endless list of capital needs, and this is one where the town is able to say, hey, we're able to give a little bit more of our capital budget over to the school. We're not choosing between school projects. We're not saying this project over another school project.

What we're saying is, hey, we have a unique situation. We became aware of the fact that you are moving the classroom again out of need. Understandable.

It happens. But it makes it timely to say, well, how can we help and invest in the place that they spend so many hours a day and builds community for them? I appreciate the fact that you are making a recommendation to take something from the town side and showing a further investment to the school.

I have no doubt the superintendent would make MECO a top priority. I also know that her list of capital needs is endless. So I appreciate it, and I just want us to be careful not to become vixens across it.

This town administrator should always be able to insert, because if you just look at what the fiscal year 23 capital plan was, you'll notice it doesn't look just like the capital requests that are in the warrant. It changed. And if we hold ourselves and say the 24, 25, 26, 27 capital plan is what the capital plan is, and we should stay with the capital plan and the town administrator should not be doing it, it creates an inflexibility for us to not assess where we are a year later, two years later, three years later, and just recognize things change.

All of a sudden you have a counterparty, and I think David has made it clear that he wants to bring forward a lease for the VFW, and I think that's in part because we have counterparties. We have someone that feels we're years removed from the violations, the liquor violations and concerns that were there, and it feels like we have a counterparty, and I think that type of nimbleness. I just appreciate, Sean, that you're willing to do it.

And not only that, sit in FinCom, sit at CIC, sit here and defend it and support it, recognizing that you're going to get brushed back a little bit about process and a little bit about notice, but you're still willing to do that, and Mary Ellen's points are well taken, but I just appreciate the fact that we're going to be able to do these needs in a timely fashion.

[Speaker 5] (1:22:30 - 1:23:43)
I think, too, we should just acknowledge that we moved the finish line because this was set, and then we postponed this article. So to just acknowledge that it wasn't sort of like a moving target, we voted to postpone the article for these other things, and so we gave more time, and they should be utilizing it because we provided it. Also, I wanted to just speak very quickly about the VFW, and while Neil said it is not an emergency, I think it is imperative that we are creating a space where veterans feel secure to be able to have telehealth visits, either for physical health or mental health.

Also, the veteran services, a lot of those forms happen online, and right now we don't have the resources available to them to be able to facilitate some of those forms coming to fruition. So I think while it is not an emergency in some folks' eyes, for some of these veterans it might be more imminent than for ourselves. So I just want to acknowledge that.

[Speaker 6] (1:23:44 - 1:25:15)
Just to speak again to the VFW and the facility improvements, we just had a Memorial Day observance, and we talked about veterans who paid the ultimate price, and we reflected on that. I spent time walking around Town Hall and reflecting in the field of heroes and just getting lost in thought and thinking about a number of things. I'm frustrated that we don't have a long-term lease with the Veterans Crossing, but this token investment of $25,000 shows our commitment, shows our continued commitment and our willingness to continue to move forward and to help those who need it within the Veterans Crossing.

I'm looking forward to continued conversations with Mike Sweeney, with Jeff Blonder, and with many others down there. I think this shows that the town is serious and that while we don't have a long-term lease in place, that we are taking those steps. We are taking this extremely seriously, and we do want to be able to help in any way that we can.

So this is just a small down payment on what I hope can be much larger investments in the veterans and the Veterans Crossing in the coming years.

[Speaker 2] (1:25:18 - 1:25:19)
Thanks, everyone.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:20 - 1:27:21)
I just want to thank the board and just reaffirm that these are really partnerships, and relationships that are evolving, and these investments do reflect a community that does care, and those sentiments go beyond good intentions. These dollars actually reflect our investment in people and our values, and so it's important for us to share that incremental approach. I appreciate all of the conversations that are in process.

It's important that we're disciplined financially. It's important that this process has guardrails. We are in a unique situation with a special town meeting, and when these types of issues come to light, we should be affirmatively helpful.

These aren't things that we wait on when it comes to meeting some of the critical needs of these special populations, and I appreciate the fact that we're in a position to really help. Many communities, I think, might think differently or act differently, but in Swampskate, I think we've demonstrated a real commitment to these priorities, so I appreciate the board's support for that, and we'll continue to go back and develop a rigor with the capital plan. That plan will literally start next month, and we'll get this process going in earnest and get it wrapped up a lot earlier this year than we did this past year.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:26 - 1:28:13)
I said it before, but I'll just say I don't just appreciate, but I respect different viewpoints on this matter. I think it's perfectly acceptable. I'm just saying.

I watched the finance committee last night. I think there are a lot of thoughtful people who come down on this differently, and that's perfectly fine, and I absolutely respect that, so I just wanted to make that clear. I'm not offended by that at all, and I think it's important to say.

So with that, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor of favorable action on Article III? Aye.

Opposed?

[Speaker 11] (1:28:15 - 1:28:16)
Okay, motion passes.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:17 - 1:28:20)
So that was unanimous? Unanimous, yeah. Thank you.

[Speaker 11] (1:28:20 - 1:28:20)
Thank you, Mary Ellen.

[Speaker 2] (1:28:25 - 1:28:44)
So that brings us to discussion and vote on select board officers and committee liaisons. So I think we can start with officers and then move our way to the committee liaisons.

[Speaker 6] (1:28:44 - 1:29:08)
Sure. I have a motion. So since our town election was held at the end of April, we've had six select board meetings, and I don't know, three or four executive sessions, and I just want to commend the work of our acting chair, Neil Buffy.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:09 - 1:29:11)
He's not the acting chair.

[Speaker 6] (1:29:12 - 1:29:14)
Well, no, you were pretty much acting.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:14 - 1:29:15)
I've been acting.

[Speaker 6] (1:29:17 - 1:29:29)
But my motion, but after the thank you, I do want to nominate Neil to remove the interim acting moniker and nominate him as the chair of our select board.

[Speaker 2] (1:29:32 - 1:29:33)
Okay, second. Any discussion?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:34 - 1:30:21)
I have a discussion. I want to point out that in the time since April, we have had more meetings per week that have lasted longer in duration than I recall under any of the two prior chairs, and I just feel like it's worthy of mentioning out loud because now I have the floor right now. Remember, I respect and agree with you.

We have had more meetings in the last six weeks than we had in the five months prior to that, and I feel as though I just need to point out that the soon-to-be chair took great pleasure in pointing out the late hour of meetings and has yet to figure out how to make it shorter. But with that, I think Mr. Grishman has nominated the right person.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:22 - 1:30:28)
Thank you for that incredible vote of confidence.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:28 - 1:30:29)
That's going to be on your tombstone.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:31 - 1:30:36)
Anyone else before we vote? All right. All those in favor?

[Speaker 1] (1:30:37 - 1:30:41)
Aye. Unanimous. Congratulations.

Thanks for doing it.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:42 - 1:30:43)
Thank you, everyone.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:43 - 1:30:57)
Mr. Chair, I would like to make a motion to nominate Mr. Grishman to serve as our vice chair. I think that I really appreciate all of David's work and his dedication and his passion on the board.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:58 - 1:31:05)
Okay, and we've got a second from Mary Ellen. Any discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 4] (1:31:06 - 1:31:06)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:07 - 1:31:09)
All right. Congratulations, David.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:09 - 1:32:01)
You know, I do want to say something. The one thing that I've always loved about the select board is you will see them rotate chairs every single year, unless there's a year where somebody doesn't want to be the chair. And I do think other committees in town should start to think about that as well.

So I'm just putting that out there. I think the select board is a great example of how to, you know, how to have change of leadership and have a little bit of change. I mean, the chairman plays a significant role, but they also are the facilitator of the meeting, not the end all and be all, even though it's a very hard job and people do a great job.

But I think committees should look at the select board's example.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:02 - 1:32:44)
I think the good news is the select board handbook, which we were all supposed to sign in return, contains a provision that speaks exactly to the point that you just raised and the board and committee. And, well, I just wasn't sure that everybody had read it because I don't know if it's been signed in return by everybody. Not yet.

But the board and committee handbook also includes similar language advocating and encouraging boards and committees to refresh leadership and bring new ideas and new people forward. So I think, Mary Ellen, you're right on point. And, again, I just want to thank Polly Titcom because she's the one that took the laboring on those.

And I believe they'll be ready to give to committees and boards shortly. They're just going through a technical last review by town council.

[Speaker 11] (1:32:44 - 1:32:45)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:48 - 1:32:52)
Hopefully in a week or two. OK, Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:52 - 1:32:53)
Yeah. Whatever. That's what I've heard.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:55 - 1:35:26)
Just don't shoot the messenger. So that brings us to the liaisons. I thank everyone for their feedback.

I provided you with a list of, you know, draft liaison assignments based on the requests that you all sent me. I tried to balance it and give everyone some of their priority wishes. I think, for the most part, everyone got some priority assignment, liaison assignments, but also maybe not all of them.

I want to reiterate that, you know, I think the liaison, I mean, the liaison role is also in the select board handbook about, like, what we do. And how you are act as a liaison to committees. But I would just want to emphasize that, for the most part, for most of these committees, just because if you're not the liaison doesn't mean you're not working with those committees, I think, is the more important point that you can certainly work with a committee that you're not the liaison to and start initiatives with those committees and work in that area.

The other part of it is, I think, there's not necessarily an expectation that you're going to all of those meetings. Go as you can. I think that once we make this decision tonight, then, you know, just reaching out to these committees and making sure that they know their liaison is the most important part and introduce yourself.

But other than that, you know, it's really just to be the main point of contact to the select board and giving them a path and access to us. The only revision to the list that you have in your packet that I want to mention is that when I was reorganizing this, I forgot that there are two rail trail liaisons and David was one previously and asked to be again. So I would add that.

So he would be the second rail trail and partly because the television visioning committee will likely be no more very soon. So that would be added for David. But other than that, if there's a motion on these liaison assignments, as is, as you see in the packet with that revision or if anyone has any.

[Speaker 11] (1:35:28 - 1:35:29)
OK. Second.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:30 - 1:35:31)
Any further discussion.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:32 - 1:35:33)
Thanks for doing it.

[Speaker 11] (1:35:34 - 1:35:34)
Sure.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:35 - 1:37:51)
I do. I actually I really do. I appreciate what you just said about liaisons.

When you do get involved as a liaison, it's really delicate balance because and I think it's important. And I've been experiencing the last week. That's why I appreciate the conversations tonight about Article 1 so that when I talk, I can stop qualifying things and say, well, this is the board's position.

It's so much easier to do because otherwise I'm saying, well, the board hasn't taken a vote and doing those things. It's really important are in some ways we actually have less autonomy as select board members than we do as residents. When we show up as liaisons, our opinions matter less as opposed to the board opinions on things.

And when we talk about things, you know, if the board voted a certain way and you're a dissenter, the board still voted a certain way. And as the liaison, you know, you got articulate the position of the board and and then just be a conduit of information back and forth. But really, we should be in the shadows of those boards, except for where you are an actual member, like the Affordable Housing Trust, for example, or the school building committee.

Then you play an active role. But otherwise, we should really be in the shadows and just there to help them navigate the strings of government. Because I have truly found out it's really I never would have guessed it.

It's the most common problem is that people just don't know what to do with their ideas. I want to do something and they just don't know how to execute on their ideas. Right.

And they're not looking for permission from you to say, do you think it's a good idea? They're saying our committee thinks it's a good idea as liaison. Just help me introduce me, show me the way, even if I think it's an awful idea as the liaison.

My role is to facilitate what they want to facilitate and point them at least into the direction. I don't have to advocate for them, but I certainly need to say you need to talk to Sean. You talk to Pete Kane.

You talk to whomever it is. And this is this is the deadline for capital articles and yada yada. And I think the difference between that is very important that our role is to facilitate, not advocate.

And then also make sure we're representing our board and the position of our board as opposed to individual opinions as much as possible. And that and that is that is a tough thing to do. And so I appreciate the time you guys spent tonight so that we can come tomorrow night and see I see Thursday night.

It's just easier when we're at town meeting floor. It's easier to speak without feeling as though I'm representing something that we haven't talked about as a board. Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (1:37:52 - 1:38:09)
Great. Thanks. So when I was putting this together, I did notice on the Web site there were like on the bottom of this list.

You'll see there are a number of committees that are on the Web site. I don't know if we can discuss or even disband them tonight. But I thought maybe while we were doing so, I went through these, if you don't mind.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:09 - 1:38:31)
And I can tell you what I what I understand is as fence fence viewers. I don't think we have the ability to do that story. But municipal design turf field advisory television visioning television is still around.

Yeah, but I'm just saying we have the ability to do that because we created it. Article six was created by town meeting. So we don't have the ability to disband.

[Speaker 11] (1:38:31 - 1:38:31)
OK.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:31 - 1:38:41)
And frankly, Article six needs to, you know, probably reconvene itself because it hasn't met Maryland. I don't think we've met. I've been the liaison.

I don't think it's met in a year plus. Right.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:42 - 1:38:43)
No more than that.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:43 - 1:38:43)
Yeah. So.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:43 - 1:38:46)
So almost two and a half.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:46 - 1:39:10)
Yeah, it's probably because it would with COVID. When that conversation is still one of the charitable, the historic district, the historic district study commission is something that's actually created by the bylaw that we created. Meaning it's it's reconvened when they are proposing changes.

So it's just sort of I think it goes away and comes back. Swamp's got overdose redundancy. I just wouldn't support.

I think that's actually still exists. I don't know whether they meet regularly.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:10 - 1:39:14)
I just didn't know the active activity level, the town and then the town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:14 - 1:39:24)
Procedure committee was also something created by town meeting. So I don't think we have the ability to and civil service was as well. Right.

Sorry. And civil service was also created by town meeting, even though I think that one served its function. But.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:26 - 1:40:04)
And the representatives, liaisons, designers and coordinators is just something that was on the Web site. I don't even know how that is. It just needs to be removed.

I think it's just it's just a list of like. Different liaisons and representatives to different committees, not town committees, but like other entities. And it's people that we have no idea.

You know, it's past select board members from 10 years ago. So it's more of a Web site. So, I mean.

If you want to, we could vote to disband the municipal design committee and turf field advisory committee tonight. Because I don't think that there's any reason to keep them.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:05 - 1:40:09)
I think we actually did municipal design previously, but we can do it again just to be sure.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:10 - 1:40:33)
Okay. So, yes, that's a Web site thing, too. So I'd entertain a motion to vote to eliminate, I guess, the turf field advisory committee and the municipal design committee.

Second. All right. Any more discussion.

All those in favor. No, we can eliminate them from the Web site. That would be awesome.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:34 - 1:40:37)
That's a plan for fiscal year 20.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:37 - 1:40:37)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:40:39 - 1:40:46)
That's awesome. Right, Sean. I think we've got the right person on this.

All right.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:49 - 1:41:51)
So last is the consent agenda. Consent agenda. There's only one matter on the consent agenda.

Yeah, it's just the meeting minutes. I provided some minor notes that I believe are incorporated in the minutes that are in your packet. Just on my comments on the March for Our Lives statement, there was just a comment that said that there was a moment of silence when I actually said we're not having a moment of silence.

So I made sure to correct that. And then I just clarify David's comments about his meeting with the Housing Authority. So, David, I don't know if you've got a chance to look at that.

You may want to just take a peek before we decide to accept the minutes. I was going to say, of course, if someone else has other stuff.

[Speaker 4] (1:41:52 - 1:41:54)
Do you want to know my addition?

[Speaker 2] (1:41:54 - 1:41:55)
Yes, please.

[Speaker 4] (1:41:55 - 1:42:07)
If you go to the last page, Ms. Fletcher, third line at the very end, I just want to have Suzanne Wright's name added in there.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:07 - 1:42:08)
Instead of Suzanne.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:09 - 1:42:11)
Yeah, I wanted to say Suzanne. It should be Suzanne Wright.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:12 - 1:42:12)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:14 - 1:42:15)
W-R-I-G-H-T.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:15 - 1:42:16)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:23 - 1:42:32)
Okay. And, David, are you good with that? Yeah, I'm comfortable.

Yep. All right. So do I have a motion to approve the minutes?

I move. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

[Speaker 10] (1:42:32 - 1:42:33)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:35 - 1:44:00)
Okay. Select for time. I actually have a quick two things.

One is that the farmer's market is this weekend, and the farmer's market, they're looking for volunteers for the farmer's market. So it's this Sunday, and they're very light on volunteers for the season, and if anyone's interested in helping work and help with the farmer's market on Sunday mornings or early afternoons, please go to the swampscotfarmersmarket.org website and sign up. So I wanted to make mention of that.

Hopefully people will volunteer, and then along those lines, the farmer's market this weekend, there's also going to be the Renewable Energy Committee is holding an electric vehicle educational sort of event where there will be some, I think some resident electric vehicles will be on hand. I don't know that people will be able to drive them, but at least check them out and learn more about the experience from the Renewable Energy Committee, and that will be during the farmer's market on the Linscott side. So I just wanted to make sure people were aware of that happening this weekend, too.

That's all I had.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:01 - 1:45:00)
I have a couple of things. I know we've already said it multiple times, but I want to acknowledge the Pride celebration this past weekend, which was a wonderful display of support in our community. I also want to congratulate all the graduates from high school on Sunday and acknowledge the Facebook posts that have been happening by For the Love of Swampstack about the seniors in town, not just from Swampstack High, but other high schools, but residents of the town, and just giving us little snippets of their accomplishments and what they hope to accomplish in the future.

It's been really nice to see that and to get to know our seniors a little bit better. Also, Saturday is the town-wide yard sale, so make sure—I think you can still sign up. Is that right?

[Speaker 3] (1:45:00 - 1:45:00)
Yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:00 - 1:45:02)
It's $20 a household to participate.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:04 - 1:45:05)
Get on the map.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:05 - 1:45:12)
Yeah, get on the map, because I'm sure it will be busy in town from 8 to 12. Be aware.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:14 - 1:45:15)
Amazing deals, I hear.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:16 - 1:46:30)
Yeah, stopping and pulling over for all those treasures. And then two more things real fast. Our Stanley School Committee walkthrough is scheduled for the 22nd of June, and I know this came up in a lot of meetings that I have been to involving past Stanley School graduates wanting to go through Stanley School before it has its final goodbye.

So please, the information was posted on Facebook, the Town of Swampstack Facebook page. And then finally, the second annual U.S. Flag Retirement Ceremony is Saturday on Fisherman's Beach. It's at 7 o'clock, and it looks to be a lovely service that the veterans are putting on to retire U.S. flags. And it should be, first of all, very interesting. I've never been to a flag retirement before, but spoiler alert, they're going to burn it. So it should be very touching and encourage you all to attend Fisherman's Beach, 7 p.m. Thanks, Katie.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:31 - 1:47:22)
It was brought to my attention today that the Senior Center in Swampscott had an LGBTQ 101 today in conjunction with Swampscott High School and the organization NAGLI. They had an information session where all topics were on the table, and this was part of a monthly series of the Senior Center called Talk About Town, which aims to educate residents about a variety of topics. And I think this is most appropriate for Pride Month, as we're celebrating all month in Swampscott and around the country, that they had this, and it's a great way of breaking down some of the communication barriers and helping seniors engage and understand in a very safe place.

So I just thought I would share that bit of news.

[Speaker 3] (1:47:24 - 1:47:41)
Thanks, David. Yeah, I'm really thrilled that our all-ages efforts are really touching hearts and minds and really reaching out to stakeholders in all different age groups and demographics.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:43 - 1:47:44)
Mary Ellen, Peter?

[Speaker 4] (1:47:48 - 1:47:52)
Peter, are you going to give the update on the new school, or do you want me to?

[Speaker 1] (1:47:52 - 1:47:56)
Feel free to do it. You've talked to the project manager more recently than I have, so.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:57 - 1:50:07)
So Suzanne Wright, the chair of the school building committee, recommended that the select board give an update at our meeting. So I just wanted to give a little update, because I did speak with Mr. Carroll from Hill International. I'm going to read it.

He said that last week they'd had a meeting with Director Butters. He felt that the meeting went well. There is a small delay with the blasting.

However, the building itself is going to be coming down in the month. He's thinking the very end of July through the month of August. Let's see here.

And then he's anticipating the blasting, and it's called the base construction, will happen in October and November. Overall, even though there are slight delays, overall, the project is still on target, and it's still within budget. Let's see here.

It's also very important that neighbors should know that there will be a representative from Hill International on site all the time, so you should never feel that you have no one you can contact or you're going to be left out. They'll be there all the time. On the 21st from 6.30 to 8.30, there will be a school building committee meeting. That will be in the high school, 208. On the 22nd from 12.30 to 2.30, Stanley is going to be open. On the 22nd from 6.00 to 7.30, there will be a community forum at the middle school, and then again 7.30 to 8.30 at Stanley. That will be open. Please remember that our rabies clinic by Dr. Friedman will be on the 22nd. Please bring your cats in a container, your dogs on a leash.

If you have a certificate, bring the certificate. This way we can give you a three-year vaccine versus a one-year. If you have trouble with that, just let me know.

Peter, you can bring your dog too.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:07 - 1:50:19)
I think the cats in container vision is just unbelievable. I'm just going to be honest with you. Let's be clear.

We're meaning safe, well-ventilated containers. We mean live cats. We mean live cats.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:19 - 1:50:21)
Social media is going wild.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:22 - 1:50:25)
Cats in containers is like a new sitcom we're going to have in Slumdog.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:25 - 1:50:27)
All right, here, here, Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:28 - 1:50:29)
Sorry, sorry. Order. Order.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:30 - 1:52:39)
All right, so you can still e-mail me if you need any help. That's emmy at maryellenfletcher.com. Based on our conversation, I've had a conversation with Sean about this a couple times, but also what you've heard here tonight is how we want veterans to be a priority.

Veterans are a priority to us. So I would really like to see the veterans have a lease in the near future, meaning within the next 30, 60 days, a long-term lease and have that filtered out. If we can't get a lease, just let's get everything out there to understand what the hiccups are around that lease.

On the information that's being sent out to town meeting members, I would really like to see information that's going to town meeting members being sent out so anyone in the town can see this information, not just town meeting members, because how is a regular citizen going to be able to get themselves educated so that they can call their representatives and let them know? So I don't know how to do that. I'm thinking just put things on the website or on Facebook or on both, but if we could just make sure that information is available for everyone to see, I think that's a great idea.

And lastly, I want to say that I was copied on an email this week from a resident who had been requesting information that was public information, and it seemed to be a delay in it, in getting that information. I'm uncomfortable when a resident is asking for public information and they're not getting it. I understand we can make a request to the clerk and then there's a 10-day delay, but I want to see information sent out right away.

I want to make sure that residents are taken care of right away, and I just want to see action, and I hear good words all the time. I hear good intentions, but I'm uncomfortable when I'm getting copied on emails that somebody is not getting information. So that's my request, and that's my update on my stuff.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:42 - 1:53:54)
So on the school building project, I'll just say I know it was a request and it is now present on our home page. There's a link to the school building project page. That page needs to be improved upon, and a lot more information will be forthcoming there, but I think thanks to Pete Kane for sending that out and making that happen.

So, like, any page you're on in the website now, there's a school building project header with a link to the school building page. But, again, the page is still lacking in information, but that will be improved upon soon. I just want to mention that as well.

For updates, and I think that we could have updates as part of the town administrator's report, potentially, just in terms of the type of overview updates like you just gave, and then we could just make that sort of a regular thing at the beginning of meetings. I think that's a good idea. With that, I think I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Peter, I don't know if you don't have anything. So moved.

[Speaker 4] (1:53:55 - 1:53:55)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (1:53:56 - 1:54:01)
All right. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Good night. Good night.

Thanks, everybody.