[Speaker 4] (0:00 - 4:12)
One of our concerns is the litter that we see on Humphrey Street, and particularly the sometimes, especially as we're coming towards the fall, recycling that gets blown around on Humphrey Street, especially in environmentally sensitive areas like the ocean, the beach, as well as other open space areas around town. So we're trying to come up with a plan to try to help that. Last, or second to last, is the boat wrap and thin film recycling.

We initiated a program this last summer to collect boat wrap to get that out of the waste stream. That was semi-successful. We're hoping...it was a pilot program. It was semi-successful. Part of that is also getting the word out and working with the Yacht Club and other points of focus that can get people to contribute to work with that. This last year was free.

We didn't charge anything. The goal is the fact is that Marblehead Transfer Station actually takes the... They actually have a boat wrap recycling facility, a dumpster, basically.

And then it goes, actually, and gets truly recycled. And so we were literally just going to pay the couple dollars a pound to be able to dump it with them and those getting out of the waste stream. So last I will bring up to you is the regional cooperation efforts.

And this is where Sean and I have been talking for a while about trying to utilize... Let's back up for a second. Swampscott's a small town, clearly compared to some of the other towns that utilize JRM and Republic.

The key to change is to be able to have favorable conditions for both the vendor and for the town. And we're looking whether or not we have things in common with other communities that we can have certain request requirements from our vendor. It also helps from a contractual standpoint to understand what other communities are doing.

That is moving forward from the end of this year, moving into the next year, that will be a important point of facilitation. So some of the challenges that we come up against are glass diversion. And I don't want to belabor that here at this meeting, but glass is really a frustrating topic in the fact that it is the most dense, the most weight in our recycling stream.

And we pay, the town of Swampscott pays for both recycling and for its trash. And so it's a fiscal impact to us. There are not a lot of excellent choices out there.

It will take some regionalization of cooperation in terms of being able to possibly reuse that glass for backfill, for aggregate, things like this. But it takes a cooperative effort for all parties involved. It is not just a one town demands something to happen.

It takes an investment in infrastructure and an investment in cooperation of who wants to take the final product. But if we can really move forward on that, that is a big deal. We talked about styrofoam, polyline carton recycling we talked about, food waste diversion at the schools, improving.

So one of the things that I would ask the town administrator is that it would be, you know, we have access to data, but getting that access is challenging sometimes. It's only because we have to talk to this person, talk to that person. I'd like to enter into a conversation where your staff can actually start putting that information in one shared area on a regular basis so we can better track this, particularly as we're going to hopefully be getting more regular.

[Speaker 1] (4:12 - 5:39)
Wayne, happy to help you with that. I mean, you know, the town has collected all of this data. We have, you know, 15 years' worth of data.

I love the idea that we have an inspired committee that wants to talk about trash and wants to talk about, you know, how this data can drive behaviors. You know, there's good news in this data, but there's also some really tremendous opportunity. When we have talked about, you know, having a symposium to really help other communities appreciate, Swanscot's actually, we've made changes that are going to get us to that 30-30.

And there are a lot of other communities that haven't made these changes. They're waiting for that shoe to drop, and it's going to be abrupt, and if we could use some of the lessons that we've learned and help other communities really focus on organics or focus on glass and really think carefully about, would it be, is it inconceivable that we could create a market for an aggregate in a community that actually has a pretty big plant that has a lot of aggregate? I mean, to me, it may sound fantastic or fantastical, but, you know, we've got to come up with a solution.

So, you know, I want you to have that data. I'll work with our finance team to ensure that we get it to a shared folder. Yeah.

And that'd be great. And we can just look at that and analyze it.

[Speaker 4] (5:39 - 5:44)
It's not a hard thing to do. It's just more of a action from an administrative standpoint that would be helpful.

[Speaker 1] (5:44 - 5:57)
That's all. I think, you know, we've got to, you know, and we just want to make sure if there are names or other things on it, we just have to, you know, use appropriate, you know, judgment about what we're going to redact if we need to at all.

[Speaker 4] (5:58 - 6:38)
I don't think there's any, yeah, I don't think there's anything redactable. Redactable one way or the other, right? So, that really is, that's really it.

We do have a social media presence run by Emily. She's doing a great job. We do monitor Facebook for comments.

The town has a very active Facebook presence. And so, yeah, we're around. We're trying to have the heartbeat of the community and get feedback as needed.

And then be able to, of course, promote good practices and policy moving forward. So, I'll take any questions you guys have.

[Speaker 2] (6:42 - 7:17)
Is the, I have a question about the mandate. Is it a mandate for every town or is it for the state? Which one?

Overall, the 30 by 30. Statewide. So, the state needs to reduce its solid waste by 30%.

So, our goal is to be in line with the state goal. Yeah. But if, I'm just trying to understand it, if by, if by, are there consequences in 2030 if Swampscott as a town has not reduced our solid waste by 30%?

[Speaker 4] (7:17 - 7:20)
The DEP has not put out any consequences per se.

[Speaker 2] (7:20 - 7:28)
Okay. That I'm aware of. So, they're encouraging towns to align with the state goals essentially at this point.

But there's not.

[Speaker 4] (7:28 - 8:51)
I'll tell you one of the pieces that we wish the DEP would move more quickly on, which is requiring the material sorting facilities, the MRFs, to actually report on how much contamination that they toss. So, for every ton, so for every, for every thousand pounds that you give to them, what, how many pounds are actually rejected from the recycling that go back to the solid waste stream that we think that we're doing the right job, right? There are also areas of, on a month by month basis, depending upon what markets do, sometimes the plastics may have, a certain plastic may not have value.

And they may have to hold on to that. Or eventually, they may actually have to discard it, right? If it has no value, it has no takers.

So, we're really, it's really fascinating from a business standpoint to understand this. It is a material supplier supply chain, right? What we throw out has value to somebody else at all times.

And it's really about managing that supply chain from all levels that we are just on one end. But we have influence, right? We have influence to push throughout that chain.

And by having more communities, right, that are kind of aligned and aggregated together, that influence grows.

[Speaker 11] (8:52 - 9:05)
I sort of have a comment to that end, which is, I'm not sure the catalyst for how it came to be, but the rec department encouraging the town-wide yard sale, I thought sort of fell right in line with, you know, we have your reduction.

[Speaker 16] (9:06 - 9:06)
Yes.

[Speaker 11] (9:06 - 9:14)
We have the recycling. Well, now we have reuse too. And so, my trash is another person's treasure.

And now you can come get it on a special day in town. And that's fantastic.

[Speaker 4] (9:14 - 9:59)
Yes, it is. In fact, there are multiple different committees in this town. There's 20, almost 25 different operating committees.

Some operate more than others. We happen to be one of the regular monthly ones that meet. We would certainly encourage cooperation with other committees.

I think there is a lot of synergy that could occur. And I would like to, you know, begin to add to the chair, you and I have actually had this conversation in the past. And it would be really, we would be well off to be able to have those committees talk to each other, to learn more about what they do so that we can co-sponsor events like that to make them as successful as possible.

[Speaker 1] (9:59 - 10:15)
Yes. We're looking to have, you know, a few of the monthly town-wide yard sales because it really does help us reduce the impact on our solid waste stream. These are good behaviors.

And it's a good environmental factor, so.

[Speaker 13] (10:16 - 10:48)
Can I make one more comment to the reuse? So, absolutely, it's huge. We should promote that.

And I know I've spoken to some of you regarding Big Blue Bargain. We definitely want to bring that back. We want to keep that up, awareness.

It is just the best way to keep things reusable and also even, you know, making some money on it that, you know, goes back to the town or the schools or whoever. But, you know, we definitely have to keep that in mind to bring that back. It's, it just makes a lot of sense.

[Speaker 7] (10:49 - 11:17)
Yeah. I think, yeah, Emily, we talked about that a few times. And I think, I couldn't agree more.

I think it's something that is, that was incredible. And it's a missed opportunity that we don't have the space right now. So, it's my hope that, you know, once the new elementary school comes online that we can find Big Blue Bargain's, it's forever home, somewhere within the town.

And we can start, we can continue that diversion.

[Speaker 13] (11:17 - 11:36)
We have to be creative with the thinking there, probably. Because obviously it's not obvious that there's a room here or the middle school or something. But we just have to keep it going.

Yeah, no, I- It makes a lot of sense, you know, for anybody who's got kids in the system. You know, you're throwing it out and you would like to donate it somewhere, really, and somebody else is going to take it, so.

[Speaker 7] (11:36 - 12:26)
Yeah, no, I just want to let you and the public know that we've been evaluating all different types of locations around town. We've reached, I've reached out regularly to the school committee, to the chair, as well as to the superintendent. We're looking for space.

We just don't have it right now. But I'm continuing to ask, and I'm continuing to have that conversation, because I know that it's incredibly important. One of the questions that I had, about the 30 for 30, Wayne, Emily, Alex, is how does this take into account the private, the condos, the large condo buildings that are not part of our solid waste stream?

What are they doing? Do you have any insight or information into what they're doing from a trash or a recycling perspective?

[Speaker 4] (12:27 - 14:00)
That is an excellent question. Because the committee was really formed to oversee the town municipal side, we really haven't been privy to that information or data. So the most transparent answer to that is I don't know, I don't have a good answer for you.

That was long before our time in terms of what those agreements were. I do know there was talk and some things have been brought up in the meeting whether or not they can jump back onto, and I'll be speaking out of place, I don't know for a fact whether or not these conversations have occurred, but I don't know if there's been inquiries whether or not they want to rejoin the Swampscot solid waste services. I just, I don't know.

And it would be an interesting question to continue to ask. I don't know because they're individually serviced by different organizations. I don't know who they contract with.

I don't, do you know, do you know whether or not Jeff would know that information? Yeah, we can certainly look into it, David. We'll start with Jeff because I think he has the primary data.

Sean, do you know as a high level answer? I'm sorry. Just as a high level answer, do you know?

[Speaker 1] (14:01 - 14:11)
I don't. I think we can look into it and get back to you. But certainly, you know, as David had said, you know, these are opportunities for us to really do more.

[Speaker 4] (14:11 - 14:47)
The same goes for the businesses in town. We don't track that data either, right? So some businesses, like on Humphrey Street, and I'm not sure if there's one other district that actually gets covered through Swampscot municipal coverage.

And then the rest of the businesses, like the large businesses within the square, those are all privately held. You know, I know that the Board of Health has some oversight in terms of how the trash is stored, right? In terms of, you know, litter, animal control, things like that, in terms of animals getting into the trash.

And I know that was discussed last month at one of their meetings.

[Speaker 7] (14:48 - 15:00)
But in terms of the contracts, or just in terms of just what they're throwing away, recycling, I'm just more curious as to what the trend is. Yeah.

[Speaker 13] (15:01 - 15:05)
I don't think they're mandated to recycle. I don't have to.

[Speaker 4] (15:07 - 15:09)
That's my understanding as well. Yeah.

[Speaker 13] (15:10 - 15:10)
Which is bad.

[Speaker 4] (15:12 - 15:14)
Yeah. Any other questions?

[Speaker 3] (15:15 - 15:35)
Yeah, can I ask two different categories? One being contaminated recycling. And that's going to be thrust upon us pretty shortly, I think, under contract.

I can't remember, Sean, what you were able to negotiate. But we're going to have that coming on us. Regardless of coming on us as an expense load or not, it's a problem.

And so I'm wondering, kind of...

[Speaker 1] (15:35 - 15:40)
Contract doesn't require it, but the state will. And so we're going to have to...

[Speaker 3] (15:40 - 15:56)
Yeah, but there was a lot of pressure put on you during that negotiation to actually agree to a provision that actually, after a certain period of time, we would start getting charged a premium for recycling. For recycling, $75 a ton. Contaminated recycling comes back at $95 a ton, or something.

I'm making up figures.

[Speaker 4] (15:56 - 16:05)
Well, it was actually kind of somewhat the inverse, which was, we try to get a better rate if we could control our contamination in the future.

[Speaker 3] (16:05 - 16:05)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (16:05 - 16:07)
I didn't want to have budget uncertainty.

[Speaker 3] (16:07 - 16:08)
Fair enough.

[Speaker 4] (16:08 - 16:09)
Fair enough.

[Speaker 3] (16:09 - 16:10)
That is the other way of doing it.

[Speaker 4] (16:10 - 16:13)
But either way, there's a budget certainty. Right.

[Speaker 1] (16:13 - 16:15)
And so I resisted, you know...

[Speaker 3] (16:15 - 16:41)
Yeah, yeah. So, but I'm just... Again, I'm all for...

Again, we've got a finances matter here. But we have to, I think, just start the education. And at some point, start ramping up that.

But only because the enforcement is going to... It's only a matter of time. And we are so...

I'm guessing we are so... We just don't... We're not educated enough to know that what we're putting in our recycling barrels is ultimately just taking the whole truckload and making it trash.

[Speaker 4] (16:42 - 17:44)
So one of the frustration levels with previously over the last couple of years, and if you look at the raw data, it's always officially reported that our contamination level is 30%. I mean, I'm not saying 30%. I mean, 30.000%. It's not a real number. It's a plug. It's a total plug. So it's really disheartening not to know what that is.

And I did have a conversation with the public recycling coordinator for the region about this problem. And it will be brought up tomorrow as well to try to really understand, like, how are we doing? Because we're not getting reported back.

And some of the promises of getting audits to actually report. And what they have to do is they come and they do a dump on the ground. And they look and say what's recyclable, what's not.

And by volume and by tonnage. And they give a report back. It's not automatic.

Those facilities, when they come in and they just dump it, it goes into a process line, right? So it has to be discreet. You have to shut the line down to do that.

And it's really important that we get a handle on what those numbers are.

[Speaker 3] (17:44 - 17:59)
Yeah. So it's getting a handle on the numbers, though. But I think you don't question, though, that we have a high rate.

Whatever high is, a high rate of contamination in recycling. I mean, again, I drive around and I look at recycling. And every family looks a bit different than my recycling.

And mine could be, I could be the wrong one, right? I mean.

[Speaker 4] (18:00 - 18:57)
There's two parallel pieces of that, Peter. One is, yeah, are you throwing trash out in your recycling? That's a big issue.

Or are you throwing something that may not have value, which is, let's say, black clamshell number two plastics. Technically, our MRF doesn't recycle those. It's horrible.

But they don't recycle them, believe it or not. We still get to throw it in our recycling. But it ends up, because the scanners can't read them, they don't get recycled.

And we really are looking to push back against that. That is one of the things where the power of multiple communities can say, this isn't okay, right? It's just a matter of infrastructure and technology on the sorting side that it's not as clean as everyone wants it to be.

And I'll use that word proverbially, right? It's just, there's complexities there that we're beholden to that we don't really have a choice in. We're beholden to the level to which our vendors can.

[Speaker 3] (18:57 - 20:01)
Yeah, yeah, no, I totally get that. I was thinking more on the consumer. My question was going more to the consumer side.

But your point about the vendor side is really important. So I appreciate you taking us there. And the consumer side, knowing it's coming down the pike, the more, and this is not just to you guys.

This is, you just happen to be the ones we're looking at at the moment. Yeah, but John, to staff, to health departments, et cetera, the education that goes behind this. Because it's, at some point, going to be thrust.

We're not going to have the luxury of not doing it. And we will be beholden to what the vendor will recycle or not. But my second question has to do with, and Sean, this is probably a long, the other thing.

Previously was, and I don't see it in here, the analysis as to overthrow stickers. And helping us quantify whether or not our original projections back in, whatever, three years ago now, two years ago now, I think it was roughly about 15%. But what our sticker purchases versus what our projections were, just to understand how behavior is.

Because I think it's important to constantly go back to those things to say this was our assumption at the time we put in a policy. Has that worked? Has it not worked?

And if so, why? If not, why not?

[Speaker 4] (20:01 - 22:18)
So can I address that before you jump in, Sean? To know whether or not it's worked or not is one of the harrowing difficulties of looking at this. And we've discussed this in our committee before, is because they get bought in bulk between the five different outlets within town.

We don't know necessarily on a monthly level as to how many are being sold. Those numbers are potentially available, but it takes resources for someone to actually contact every month or every period of time. And to me, that would be a duty of someone on town staff that could be delegated to, but it's doable.

Yep. But the purchases of the bulk of the bag provider is not helpful to determine, unless you're looking at a very, very broad scale. Because they could go and buy 10,000 bags and then parse them out slowly.

But that doesn't tell us anything in terms of useful data, in terms of, are we picking them up? Who's picking them up? What we did do to address that in terms of behavior analysis is we have done surveys in the town.

We have done street surveys. And Gino, when he gets a summer crew, actually is able to go through, we've done this last year, and count and ask the questions of, do they have overage? Are they recycling?

Right? Are they full? Are, you know, do they have trash at all?

And be able to answer these questions. One of the things I can do, I have done, and at the next meeting I can kind of show you this, is I was able to kind of parse that through and say by neighborhood, right? And by amount of residents in that.

And it's not personally identifiable information, but, you know, is this residence that has seven people consuming more than a person, a residence that has one or two people living there? And that's helpful to know, right? And some of the information that we got back was fairly interesting.

But we didn't have a big enough sample size to really be able to tell what that means. And so we're looking really to work with Gino and crew and to have the technology available where we'd like to see someone on a smartphone and GPS being able to go and say, yep, yep, yep, and make it easy as opposed to having a long paper count of, you know, 5,000 residences. So we're hoping that...

No, that feeds right back. Yeah, no, I get that.

[Speaker 3] (22:19 - 23:19)
That makes perfect sense. I think that over time, as we collect more data, though, we can sensitize the data, right? And once in a couple more years as we do it, it's still important not to forget kind of where the policy objective was and our quantification of that at the time we created the policy.

And there's two reasons for that. One, to say something working, not working. Number two is also to validate the process that led to the policy in the first instance.

And I think that's a really important element of things, which is if the things that were the underpinnings of the policy to begin with and the projections didn't hold true, that's important to know so that we make sure that we fix that. But if they were also right, it's also important to know because that is validation for the system working quite well and doing it. And I think the preliminary feedback in the first 24 months, I think, was pretty close to what the collaboration of Select Women, Titcom and DEP worked on was really close.

And so I just... I'm constantly curious about that just because if it's off, something's changing. It may not because they were off back when they did the formula.

Something doesn't change now in our stream that's causing a different behavior.

[Speaker 4] (23:19 - 23:25)
And that's why we try to track this every couple of months to really say, hey, are there any aberrations? Are we within... No, that's great.

Yeah.

[Speaker 13] (23:25 - 23:37)
But what you do have is the financial numbers, the bag purchases. It just doesn't relate to whether those bags have been used, whether they're stored in the basement for the next 10 years, whether one bought 100.

[Speaker 3] (23:37 - 23:52)
Yeah, but I think it's... Over time, though, I think when you take a bigger swath of time, though, you're going to be able to sensitize that data to be able to say, yeah, you can extrapolate off of it. It's not perfect.

If you looked over 24 months, could you say whether or not?

[Speaker 1] (23:52 - 26:26)
I think you need probably 36 months. At least. So I agree.

Our town treasurer said, Patrick, I don't want to put you on the spot because you've got a big show coming up. But do you recall offhand what we took in for revenue for the bags or? The overflow bag.

The overflow bag. It was, I want to say, six figures. We used them.

It was, I think, 110.5. So those are, you know, we actually took in some pretty healthy numbers. That said, I think, you know, one of the things that we learned about the overflow bags is you're going to see a heavy use that first year or 18 months where folks are acclimatizing. They're getting used to that change in thresholds for solid waste and recycling.

And they're shifting their behaviors. Public education, information is helping to make them aware of diversion. You know, bring it to Salvation Army.

Bring it to Savers. Bring it to a secondhand store. You know, get rid of, you know, your organics.

Find a better way. You know, we've started to walk down this path. It's difficult changing behavior.

But, you know, frankly, the work that we have going on with our Solid Waste Committee and with all the other committees, it's all part of an effort to just be a little cleaner and greener. We didn't talk about lawn and leaf. You know, we're about to enter the fall, not for a couple more weeks, but a big part of our solid waste cost as well.

And at some point, we should really come back and talk about the environmental impact of taking all those leaves away and what that means to other environmental responsibilities. Perhaps a conversation between the CONCOMM and our Solid Waste Committee could help us think more carefully about whether or not our policy is intact in terms of, you know, all the other goals that we're trying to achieve. We can report back, though, and just provide some more clarity on the blue bags.

I do think, you know, the first couple years, you know, folks did buy in bulk. I think at some point over a year, three, four, and five, it will normalize. And you'll see demographics, young families buying more bags, some folks that have larger families buying more bags.

And we'll be able to kind of figure out how to have that predictable model.

[Speaker 4] (26:26 - 26:36)
So Sean, what I would ask is whether or not we can have town staff support to be able to contact those five vendors to be able to look at their monthly numbers, and maybe not on an every month basis, but every two months, right?

[Speaker 1] (26:37 - 26:48)
Wayne, yes, absolutely. I feel a little guilty that you're not a town employee, but, you know, I'm happy to have you do some of that work on our behalf. That would be great.

[Speaker 4] (26:48 - 26:48)
I do.

[Speaker 1] (26:49 - 26:49)
You do.

[Speaker 4] (26:50 - 26:56)
Yes, I do. But that's one of those regular reporting numbers, I think, that would be appropriate for town staff to be able to manage.

[Speaker 2] (27:00 - 27:11)
Well, any other questions? This is clearly fascinating. Amazingly so, and...

[Speaker 4] (27:11 - 27:13)
I'm glad all of 12 minutes was...

[Speaker 2] (27:13 - 27:50)
Yeah, exactly. 12 minutes. I knew it would be 12 minutes.

No, but really appreciate all the work that you've all been doing. Thank you. It's an incredible amount of information and a service that you're doing for everybody.

So thanks so much for coming and sharing it with us tonight. I would encourage you to put some of these, you know, trend slides, like on your page on the town website, too, just because I think it'd be interesting to have some of that available for people. And yeah, we will be looking forward to continue to work together and have another update soon.

[Speaker 4] (27:51 - 27:53)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Thanks, Wayne.

[Speaker 2] (27:53 - 27:55)
Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (27:55 - 27:56)
Thanks, Alex. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (27:58 - 28:40)
So next on the agenda is Traffic Advisory Committee updates and some recommendations, I believe. Is this Gino, maybe? I think we have.

Or is our Margie online? I will actually mention, too, just to remind people, if anyone's online for the Solon Scott for All Ages Committee appointments, we are not doing those tonight. So if there are people online waiting for that, then that's not happening.

Neither is the swearing-in of firefighters. Margie. There she is.

[Speaker 8] (29:02 - 29:03)
Good evening.

[Speaker 2] (29:04 - 29:05)
Hi, Margie. Hi.

[Speaker 8] (29:08 - 29:15)
We do have a presentation, but I believe that, Sean, is that something that we still wanted to present?

[Speaker 1] (29:16 - 29:39)
Yeah, I think we can go through the presentation. We're going to hold off on making the recommendations. We did get some information in yesterday from the Swampsville Police Department, and they want a little bit more time to review those recommendations so we can circle back around at the next meeting and we can make some recommendations based on some of that feedback.

[Speaker 3] (29:39 - 30:57)
So, Sean, I want to chime in on that. We purposely have a member of the Police Department as a member of the Traffic Advisory Committee. They get this stuff in advance.

They get to attend the meetings, have opinions. It's frustrating, and then the neighbors know how the Traffic Committee recommended to hear after a meeting happens, all of a sudden, the Police Department has feedback on something that they could have come to the meeting with feedback on. And so, in one of these particular, the neighbors tonight are watching, expecting that they're going to get a vote on something because the Traffic Study Committee recommended favorable action unanimously.

It's not like the police, the representative on the committee, abstained or wasn't there. It was unanimous. And if so, so I guess my only point is if the representative to the Traffic Study Committee is not able to assess individually or talk to everybody in the department beforehand, then I would just ask that maybe we entertain reinforcing that just because we have residents tonight who have waited a very long time.

I understand. It's one of the things that I just don't understand. It's not this Traffic Study Committee's problem at all.

It's just historical here that when neighbors have concerns about traffic issues in their neighborhood, it seems to be one of the hardest things for them to feel like they're being addressed. And it continues. And so this neighborhood in particular has been coming to us for years, if not decades, talking about the street and the problem.

[Speaker 1] (30:57 - 31:35)
Understood. Peter, I hear those concerns. And frankly, this was not typical.

But when these concerns do come to light, I do feel as though it's important for us to give the police department a chance to really work through those concerns and give the traffic committee a chance to really come back with perhaps a more strategic recommendation. That said, certainly if the board wants to entertain something, we can. You know, it's your prerogative to.

[Speaker 12] (31:36 - 31:46)
The only thing I'd like to add is that was the first meeting of the new police officers liaisons meeting. And he's new to the committee.

[Speaker 1] (31:46 - 32:07)
And again, I started as taking some initiative, but I also think, you know, I get the concern for this neighborhood. You know, this neighborhood is a busy neighborhood. They do need some additional support.

And we're here tonight to talk about some of those concerns and try to figure out how we can be helpful.

[Speaker 2] (32:11 - 32:15)
OK, so do we have a present? Should we have a presentation for Margie?

[Speaker 8] (32:16 - 32:21)
Yes, we have. This should be a PowerPoint presentation. Diane, do you have it?

[Speaker 2] (32:26 - 32:29)
That's the solid waste.

[Speaker 8] (32:33 - 36:14)
So as Diane brings up the presentation, maybe I can just begin to talk about the Traffic Study Advisory Committee. As Sean had mentioned, the Traffic Study Advisory Committee met this past Thursday on September 1st. And one of the items or the recommendations out of the meeting was regarding traffic coming and on Pine Street.

At issue is speeding. Oh, thank you, Diane. OK, if you could just advance the next minute.

So as you can see, just to kind of sort of update you in regards to the makeup of the membership of the Traffic Study Advisory Committee, there is a representative from the Police Department, the Fire Department, DPW, Community Development, Disability Commission. Right now we don't have a member and there are three residents who make up the committee. Next.

Next slide, Diane, please. Thank you. So as I stated, the recommendation from the Traffic Study Advisory Committee was to place signage on Pine Street for resident only parking.

There is one segment of the street along the VFW from VFW to Erie Street that there is no signage regarding parking. So the request is to make that segment be in conformity with the rest of the street and to have resident parking on the entire length of Pine Street. The other recommendation is to install two stop signs.

One would be at the intersection of Pine Street and Erie and the second one would be at the intersection of Pine Street and Superior Street. And the third recommendation was to place, to install a stop sign at the intersection of Plymouth Ave. If we go to the next slide, Diane, you will see an image so you can see this is actually the segment of Pine Street. You are looking down from New Ocean Street towards the railroad station.

And you can see the utility poles or the light poles on the left-hand side is where the Traffic Study Advisory Committee recommends to place resident parking only signage. And again, this would be in compliance or sort of similar like the rest of the street that there is signage on it stating that this street is resident parking only. Next slide, please.

And these are two additional images in regards to the stop sign. The image on the left, you'll see there is a, that's Pine Street at the intersection of Erie Street. And then the second image of the image on the right is Pine Street, this time looking down towards New Ocean Street at the intersection of Superior Street.

Next slide. And the other request was in regards to Plymouth Ave and is to place a stop sign at this fairly busy intersection at Marymount, Plymouth, and Plymouth Ave. Those are the recommendations of the request from the Traffic Study Advisory Committee. Take any questions.

[Speaker 3] (36:16 - 37:12)
So, you know, mine. Go ahead. I actually don't think the Pine Street recommendation was comprehensive.

I believe it's the accumulative of four stop signs, right? And I think my other suggestion is going to be, and I think you guys did this at the Traffic Study meeting. I think using aerials and using Google Map aerials to show intersections and what intersections you're talking about and what streets you're talking about is so much more helpful than Street View doing these because it's Street View is just a snippet of whatever building or area you're at.

But I think by going to the aerials, you really can just be highlighting exactly what intersections, exactly where the stop sign, not exactly where, but on what sides. For example, on Erie and Superior, it's on both sides, right? Going whether you're going towards the train station or from the train station.

So it basically creates in both of those situations a three-way stop, right? Two-way stop on Pine Street for each of the intersections and a one-way on Erie, one-way or one stop on Erie and one stop on Superior.

[Speaker 8] (37:13 - 37:13)
That's correct.

[Speaker 3] (37:13 - 39:56)
Right, OK. So the recommendation actually for a stop sign. So I think that what they're saying, the police department came back and I appreciate the clarity that someone knew was on the board, but it's not the first time that we've heard the feedback, which is increased parking, just increased stop signs are not something that seem to be favored.

And it's people are going to roll through them. It's hard to enforce them and things of that nature. And I appreciate that.

But in the absence of someone else coming up with another way to control speeding on what clearly is a pass-through street, we tried to correct it with requiring a fixing of the way in which Pine Street met New Ocean in conjunction with the Calix construction that I've witnessed it. It frankly maybe slows them as they're turning on, but including the shuttle buses that are taking you from the commuter rail station in the absence of commuter rail, even the shuttle buses are going down Pine Street at a high speed. I mean, it's without question.

So I think the police department just want to come back and suggest maybe alternative locations on Pine Street or something to make sure because Boynton is a street on the other side and Boynton's not gonna have a stop sign. It's a little bit further down from Erie. And then I get it.

I personally don't see it. I would like to have us act on this, but if they're asking for time, I'm fine. They can have time.

I just I'm expressing my frustration again. This neighborhood has literally been years. And the second thing I would just ask is we've I've regularly asked for, I think when this committee was appointed, we asked that not just recommendations, but a complete list of what's before them, who put it before them and what their recommendations are for or against or no action comes to us so that we have a sense of what we're not seeing as recommendations.

So, for example, we may in an off chance, I think it's very unlikely, though, that we may see something that didn't. We may be hearing a lot about something in that we'll find out it's not even before the Traffic Study Committee or it's before the Traffic Study Committee. It's been there for six months and it just helps us understand why it's been there for six months or what's being studied.

And again, understanding that you need time to do these things, Margie, and to the committee, you guys need time to do these things. So it's not at all to to say something's wrong. It just helps us understand also what things are you not recommending?

Just because that gives us some context, because we don't see we haven't been seeing anything except for what you recommend. And that's a very limited, very infrequent thing. And so if I if when we have these presentations, we can just get that data as to kind of all the petitions that have come before you and what the status of those are.

That would be helpful.

[Speaker 5] (39:57 - 40:06)
I have a question. Margie, is the issue with you have so many stop signs going on. The issue is with speeding.

Is that what the issue is here?

[Speaker 8] (40:06 - 40:10)
That's correct. Speeding and the request was for traffic calming.

[Speaker 5] (40:10 - 40:18)
Is there a recommendation to for a specific amount of time to increase a police car there? Law enforcement?

[Speaker 8] (40:20 - 40:34)
Well, that we have not requested that. I think the police department was something that something that that they actually looked at and they drove the site. But I mean, we don't have a recommend.

There was not no recommendation from the committee.

[Speaker 3] (40:34 - 41:08)
There is no shortage. I will I can speak up from the neighbors. There is no shortage of calls to the Swampscott Police Department from Pine Street, period.

Hard stop about speeding, about other issues in the neighborhood. No stop. And they have done speed things there.

Just realistically, I'm again, if they want to station someone there and station and the speeding issue goes away, that's great. It historically hasn't. This is not a this is not a one year problem.

This is a decades problem for the neighbors. But my guess is there's probably no street in Swampscott that has more phone calls to the police department than Pine Street.

[Speaker 5] (41:09 - 42:01)
So maybe there needs to be a recommendation of having more police presence right there and to start writing some tickets. The only reason I bring that up is every year I have to travel south and I have to do a number of visits to different locations. And there is one location in South Carolina.

There is a town in the middle of nowhere that it's 20 miles an hour. And if you go 20, 21 miles an hour, a cop comes out from nowhere. And I know about 200 vendors that have to go to that town every year.

And I can guarantee you every vendor knows when they hit that town line, they have to hit the brakes. So I'm just recommending that maybe there should be a conversation as far as really implementing some penalties for speeding down there. Maybe that'll help.

[Speaker 14] (42:02 - 42:11)
I believe the police department does have a plan to to deploy one of their speed boards. You've seen this little trailer. It shows you your speed, but it also collects data.

[Speaker 5] (42:12 - 42:12)
Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (42:12 - 42:14)
So they want to start with that.

[Speaker 5] (42:14 - 42:46)
So you know what? I can relate to that because I live on Puritan Road and I personally haven't had a great experience with those speed boards when people get to see how far they're speeding. But I'm just going to recommend here that perhaps there should be a conversation about literally starting to write some tickets instead of educational things.

Just write a ticket. And if you give me a ticket, there's a good chance I'm going to look at my speedometer next time. Now, I don't speed in town, but if I were speeding, I would double check.

[Speaker 3] (42:46 - 42:51)
All right. So I just want to take this moment. Thank you.

You and I totally agree about the need for doing that.

[Speaker 5] (42:51 - 42:53)
And we don't have a defibrillator here.

[Speaker 3] (42:54 - 44:56)
I think that I think that you and I are a completely age. But I again, I think that's the select board. You know, we don't oversee the police department.

So maybe someone that does oversee the police department listening and here's what you're saying, Mary Ellen. But I do. I do still.

Again, respectfully, this is not a new problem in Swampy. The enforcement, the speeding, everything is not new. We're not going to.

And I think, frankly, we'd be doing a disservice to the neighbors for them. I appreciate we're saying we're going to put a speed board and start there. This started decades ago.

So Peter, I mean, this is literally been coming to the town for. I'm telling you, for me, I'm on eight years. Right.

So I can vouch for eight years of it. But the neighbors who have been living there, it's longer and so obvious. And I just feel like this is emblematic of so many streets that just feel for some reason when it comes to street safety, they just feel like no one's home.

And I get it, which we want to make sure we don't put things out that we can't force. And we want to make sure that we're not being unsafe. And sometimes putting stop signs in the wrong place is the wrong place.

And it can create a false sense of security. I get all that. And I get that we're a small community.

And I get that we would rather educate than enforce. And I get the themes of these things. But there is no shortage of I probably get more inquiries or phone calls about their street, about their daily existence outside their house than any other topic in town, not taxes, not water rates.

I know we talk about that stuff, but that's not really what I get calls on. And I get calls from people who, you know, this is the thing. And they just feel like no one's home.

And it's not anybody in the traffic study committee. You guys are really working it and ramping it up. And really, you really are.

So it's not that. This is a legacy thing that just goes, I think, into our DNA. And I just want to empower more and more often on this one, because I just think people and I agree with them.

Their feeling is legitimate of that there's not a responsiveness by the town. And so Pine Street's just an example, a very good example, I think. But if you want to table it, we'll table it.

And we'll come back in two weeks and whenever we're meeting again.

[Speaker 1] (44:56 - 45:19)
And I just wanted to share, you know, I did ask the chief of police to get me information on tickets, on enforcement. And, you know, I have the numbers of enforcement for 2022 and 2021. You know, we've had 11 traffic enforcement activities in 2022 to date.

And we had 38.

[Speaker 3] (45:19 - 45:22)
And what's traffic enforcement activities?

[Speaker 1] (45:22 - 45:25)
I'm sorry, post. I don't know exactly what the activity was.

[Speaker 3] (45:25 - 45:27)
What do you mean, that they stationed someone somewhere?

[Speaker 1] (45:27 - 46:11)
That's right. And so, you know, we've had some activity. I do hear from Pine Street residents as well.

And certainly, I don't want folks to get a sense that we're pushing this off so that we can avoid making some changes. We do need to make some changes. But it should include not just signage, but enforcement.

And it should include a context for making some of these changes. That said, you know, at our next meeting, I will ensure that we have Chief Casada and Officer Lloyd, who is our traffic officer here so that they can speak to their recommendations and we can have a more detailed discussion about.

[Speaker 3] (46:12 - 47:52)
But it's not their recommendations. We've created a committee to funnel information here so that we don't need to then look behind the recommendation unless we have some special concern here. Sean, I just want to be clear.

I wasn't asking for you to parade out a chief and other people in uniforms here and have them spend their night times with us. No one needs to do that, like in my view, which is there's this great committee. And again, I really appreciate you talking about how Officer Lloyd's first meeting is that.

I mean, no disrespect at all to Officer Lloyd. But we have this great committee to do this and bring recommendations to us. And they voted, right?

And now it sounds like they have a reconsideration or one member said, hey, wait a minute, time out. I maybe didn't vote the way I, I need to do a little bit of homework. OK, fine.

That's great. That's new. We'll get that.

But I'm not, I'm not asking you to bring the chief if others want that. And but I'm not looking I want to respect the people that are spending so much time. I sat and listened to it and the dialogue is really good.

The questions that Chief Arbiter and Gino and Margie and everybody and the chairwoman ask are all good questions. I mean, like it's good dialogue and they're really working hard to hear neighbors and figure out when it's conflict, maybe. And they have to see, help just some neighbors work some things out and when it's safety.

And I really appreciate that. And I'm sure there is moments that it takes patience on their part and whatnot. But I think they're doing a really good job.

And they're, it's great. It's just now what comes to us and how it comes to us. And so I'm not personally asking for anything more.

I'm asking for, you know, the recommendation to come back to us. And frankly, I just don't want the recommendation is we put a speed board. And this one in particular, this is so long.

And I'm not saying that's what you're saying. The recommendation was, I'm just saying, I don't want it to seem like we're starting with that. I appreciate that as a suggestion.

[Speaker 14] (47:53 - 48:48)
But I just think that, you know, the committee, the police department subsequent to the meeting raised a safety concern about the placement of the stop signs and people stopping. And so we just, the committee wants to maybe modify the recommendation. I absolutely, we absolutely don't want to have a committee that has residents bring their concerns to us and we don't act on them.

It's easy to see how that becomes very frustrating. In this case, the committee did move an action to do it. So we don't want to table it for long, but we just want to take a look at it.

And it might just need to be tweaked a little bit. The police, there are a lot of places on the road you could, well, there are several places on Pine Street. You could put a traffic calming measure and we just want to make sure it's the safest, most effective place.

So it was a safety concern. Yeah, I appreciate that. We thought, all right, maybe we need to tap the brakes and maybe just tweak it a little bit.

[Speaker 3] (48:48 - 49:25)
I really appreciate that, Chief. And totally get it, which is why we should wait the two weeks and have you guys come back with a revised thing, if that's what you need to do. I would also say, Gino, you got to block yours for this.

There are other safety, speed calming tools that we can use in town besides stop signs. And some of them, you know, it may feel like a bump in the road, but we can, we can explore some other tools than stop signs. And so maybe someone can see how our DPW director feels about those.

But there are some other tools as well that, you know, maybe we can start employing those. So thank you. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 2] (49:25 - 49:37)
So are we, I mean, there's a stop sign on Plymouth Ave that's being recommended. There's also a permit parking on Pine Street. Do we want to just table all of the Pine Street recommendations?

[Speaker 3] (49:37 - 49:43)
I would make a, I'm happy if I make a motion to approve the recommendation on Plymouth and the parking restriction recommendation on Pine Street.

[Speaker 2] (49:44 - 49:50)
Okay, is there a second? Any second? That was me.

[Speaker 16] (49:51 - 49:51)
Okay, sorry.

[Speaker 2] (49:51 - 50:07)
I heard a murmur. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor?

Okay, great. Thanks, Margie. Thanks, Margie.

[Speaker 3] (50:07 - 50:07)
Thanks, everybody.

[Speaker 2] (50:08 - 50:18)
Okay, next is water and sewer rates presentation with Patrick Luddy and Sean.

[Speaker 1] (50:19 - 51:10)
Yes, Patrick. Patrick has been working with Gino and our finance team to go over a preliminary presentation on our water and sewer rates. We intend to just give the board and frankly the public a primer and circle back at our next meeting and ask the board to take up some of the recommendations.

We do have a water and sewer committee that has worked with us over the last year and we anticipate that we'll work with the committee over the next week and refine some of the recommendations and analysis. But with that, I'll turn it over to Patrick.

[Speaker 6] (51:11 - 56:26)
Thanks, Sean. So I do have a presentation that I'm gonna go through. I'm gonna highlight the water and sewer rate setting process that we do annually and I'm gonna present a staff recommendation for water and sewer rates.

Next slide. All right, so just a little background. The select board is the rate setting authority for water and sewer charges in the town.

That's mass general law. That's the water and sewer rates annually, typically in the summer at the start of the fiscal year. And the goal of the process is to set rates each year that are equitable and will raise sufficient revenues to support the water and sewer utility operations.

Next slide. A little bit of background on equity and rates. The select board established the water sewer rate advisory committee a few years ago to study the rate structure in town and also look at how other towns structure their water and sewer rates to compare and see if there were any actions we could take to increase equity and rates amongst the users.

The committee ultimately recommended that the town adopt a tiered rate structure for basin consumption rates and the select board voted to adopt that structure last summer. So we've had that in place for a year now. Next slide.

Just to recap what our tiers look like currently. We have consumption charges, which is the main charge on your bill. That's the charge you receive based on how much water you use.

There's three tiers that have been established for that. Tier one goes up to 2,500 cubic feet of use. For context, a cubic foot is a little over seven gallons.

So that's a substantial amount of water. And about 73% of users, their entire use on their bill is going to fall in tier one. And that's got a standard rate associated with it.

And then tier two, additional use beyond that 2,500 cubic feet is charged at a slightly premium rate. And usage above 25,000 cubic feet in tier three is charged again at a premium rate beyond that. And there's 26% of people with usage that will creep into tier two.

And there's a small population that will have usage in tier three as well. And for base rate, which is the flat charge you receive under quarterly water bill, there's three tiers as well. Tier one is slightly different.

It only covers up to 1,000 cubic feet of usage. And that is at a standard rate. And then tiers two and three are again at a premium rate.

About 80% of users are going to be in tier two for the base rate. Next slide. Budget highlights.

We have to talk about budget before we talk about revenue. The water and sewer budgets were voted at town meeting in May. The water budget increased about 8%, which is substantial.

And sewer budget increased 4%. The largest line items in these budget are the assessments from our water authority that supplies water and Flint Water Sewer Commission, which treats our sewage that is our outflow. The driver for the budget increase in the water budget was simply the MWRA assessment.

The estimate was 10% higher than the year prior. And in the sewer budget, the main driver was debt service that came online through our sewer rehab projects that have been ongoing. Next slide.

So some interesting and good news. Now that we're in September, we have a better understanding of what our final assessments are going to be from both the MWRA and Flint Water Sewer. And we're looking at substantial reduction to what was estimated during budget season in MWRA.

We're seeing our total proportional share of usage in that system compared to the other communities in that system. There's about 45 of them. It's declining.

Right now we're at 0.88% share of the total system. So our assessment is correspondingly being reduced. And then Flint Water Sewer, we're seeing a reduction in our outflows and in my discussions with Gino Presta, that's partially attributable to the sewer rehab work we've been doing through the capital plan.

We're preventing a lot of storm water from flowing into the sewer lines. And ultimately, we were paying to get that treated. And that's now been largely remedied.

So that's an improving condition. And we're seeing savings there now. So I've talked to Sean and the finance director, and we're recommending a $190,000 reduction in the assessment budget in the water fund and a $250,000 reduction in the assessment in the sewer fund.

[Speaker 2] (56:27 - 57:00)
Can I ask a question? Yep. And Gino, you may know this too, but I feel like our share increased partially because of the closure of the river, right?

So is there something else happening that's decreased our share like proportionally? Is there something that's replaced guerrilla essentially that is it the new, like those new presidential buildings maybe? Or I think so.

Okay. So is that partly why our share has declined?

[Speaker 12] (57:00 - 57:05)
Partly. But I think the major part of it is relying on the sewer mains. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (57:06 - 58:15)
Or all the organics that Wayne has helped us get rid of. Right. No, I think, you know, this is probably worth spending just a minute on just because, yeah, yeah.

You know, when we have a major storm event, you know, we would have millions of gallons of storm water entering into the sewer system that would be treated at a cost. And even though I think wind water and sewer during those storm events, you know, processes quite a lot of waste, we would be charged for a lot of that. And over the ensuing days too, you know, we'd still see impact.

And by lining a number of these cracked clay sewer pipes, you know, we've been able to prevent that infiltration. And so that I&I that we talk about, you know, this important work of protecting the separated storm and waste water system is really having an appreciable enhancement to our budget.

[Speaker 7] (58:15 - 58:20)
So, Sean, to that effect, do we have a quantifiable return on investment?

[Speaker 1] (58:20 - 59:25)
We could isolate the variance and flow. We could look at the over the last five years what the flow has been and what over the last two years what the flow is. But it's on rain.

It's so many variables. It would be hard to kind of exactly, you know, define what it is. But if we can look at some of that number.

So it's possible just with? With a lot of asterisks. You know, because, you know, if we have like this year, we're in a drought.

So we don't have as much rain and we don't have enough. We don't have that same weather pattern. So we're going to see ratios that will be different.

That said, we can pull some of that data. We have talked to Kleinfelder, Dave Peterson, a PE from Kleinfelder, has also indicated that, you know, there likely is some significant enhancement as it relates to, you know, sleeving all of these pipes. Gino, do you know offhand what the linear feet of pipes that we've sleeved over the last five years?

[Speaker 12] (59:26 - 59:46)
Yeah. Out of the 97, 90,000 minnow feet in that catchment area, we've done half of it. So roughly around 45,000.

Still a significant way to go. But some of the areas that we've taken care of, Norfolk, Berkshire, Handon, that's where we have the high water table. A lot of that.

That's where they have the underdrains there.

[Speaker 2] (59:47 - 59:59)
So that, but that work impacts our share in our assessment with Linn Water and Sewer. But the MWRA assessment is based on how much water is coming to us, correct?

[Speaker 12] (1:00:00 - 1:00:03)
That is measured. Yep. Coming on to New Ocean Street, Linn, we have that flowing.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:03 - 1:00:05)
So that share has gone down.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:05 - 1:00:05)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:06 - 1:00:13)
And that's likely more to do with increased share in Linn rather than necessarily.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:13 - 1:00:17)
Well, not necessarily. There's all the other communities, as Patrick said, there's 45 other communities.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:17 - 1:00:18)
Oh, right. Right.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:19 - 1:00:21)
But I have a feeling this year it's going to go up.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:21 - 1:00:26)
Doesn't mean that we're necessarily using less water. It just means that proportionally, we're... I see you're losing...

[Speaker 12] (1:00:26 - 1:00:48)
So I receive a report every month from the MWRA and in July of FY, of calendar year 22, we use 33% more water than we did in calendar year 21 in July, just in July. And that's a tribute to... We had the wettest July in history last year and the driest one this year.

So you're going to see an increase in that number next year.

[Speaker 16] (1:00:48 - 1:00:49)
Right.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:50 - 1:00:55)
Right. Okay. Most of the irrigation, yes.

Yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:00:57 - 1:01:23)
And then Patrick, we had talked... I think on a previous slide you had mentioned it was like a 7.9% increase with the water in four or so on the sewer. So with these reductions, what does the overall all-in increase to water and sewer bills?

Because that's really what matters to the resident, to John Q and Jane Q public is, how much is my water and sewer bill going to rise?

[Speaker 6] (1:01:23 - 1:01:26)
Yep. That should be addressed in another slide.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:26 - 1:01:27)
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:29 - 1:01:36)
There's more good news right Patrick? I think he's trying to get at like the... Yep.

[Speaker 6] (1:01:38 - 1:09:03)
So we talked about the budget and the changes in the assessments. Now we'll talk on the revenue side a little bit. We did have an instance, the first you may have noticed you got your water bill on August 15th.

So the first commitment did go out before the new rates were set. That was an administrative logistic oversight. So there was a little bit of exposure there for, if we had a higher rate, we would have collected a little bit more revenue on that first commitment for the year.

And we've set in place some internal controls to prevent that type of occurrence from happening again in the future. So we learned from that. And we've had a very dry summer.

We've not had a lot of rainfall. So I've been monitoring the MWRA reports, just like Gino alluded to. We get those every month.

And compared to last year, over the period May to July, which would have been what your August bill was for, the water use this year is up 6.5% compared to last year. So that could be attributable to lawn watering or other discretionary use that happens when we have very dry conditions outside. So that's something that's been observed.

We're certainly anticipating that irrigation use, which gets billed over the winter, is going to be at a higher level, more comparable to what we had in 2020. And we're expecting the August to October period, which would be what will be on the November bill, to also be slightly elevated just due to the continued dry conditions other than the last two days we've had. So those are just some other observations and things we're watching in terms of revenue.

Next slide. This is an overview of retained earnings. So in annual town meeting, we appropriated a certain amount of retained earnings, 20,000 from the water fund and 63,000 from the sewer fund to mitigate rate increases.

So we did that at annual town meeting. I think the year before we did it at special. So it was a little out of sequence.

We should be doing that at annual. And then we have an estimated FY22 retained earnings figure of approximately a million dollars in water. 889,000 in sewer.

And there's the guideline there that's 23% of budget for water and 26% for sewer. So we are above our guideline and we have six figure surplus to apply strategically as needed. Next slide.

This is an overview of what the budget that annual town meeting approved in May looks like. So again, we have a water budget coming in at 4.6 million. You can see the assessments figure is the largest line there followed by debt service and similar in sewer.

Next slide. These are the proposed revisions to the budget, just kind of aggregated together so you can see the bottom line. So original budget was 7.9% higher for water, 4.2% higher for sewer compared to last year. After we apply the proposed adjustments, we're looking at a year-over-year increase in the water budget of 3.5%. And the sewer budget actually declining 3.6% because of this correction to the assessment, which is unusual. But again, good news. This is the budget assumption we were using for rates.

So when we set the budget and we were trying to noodle retained earnings number for town meeting, this is what we assumed for rate increases at the time, which was a 3% increase across the board in water and a 2.75% increase across the board in sewer. Obviously, our conditions have changed now. So I'm going to walk you through the revised options for rates.

Next slide. And this is the original revenue projection. So this balances out to the original budget and the consumption revenue and base revenue is based on the rates and the consumption assumptions at the time.

Next slide. So this is one rate option. This applies a 2.5% increase across the board for all of our tiers and a nominal increase on the tier two and three base rate. On the bottom, this would be a modest increase. It would level increase each tier and it would balance the budget after the proposed revisions. So this is improved from what you saw in the previous slide, which was a 3% and a 2.75. And that's reflective of the reductions in the budget that we're proposing. Next slide. And this is side by side, the original revenue estimate and the revised revenue estimate under this option. So you can see the consumption charge revenue is reduced and that's reflective of lower rate increases and the base charges.

Those are increasing because of a mathematical error when we were going back in our initial analysis. So that's just reflective of that. And here we have option two.

This is what I've discussed with Sean and Amy and we're ultimately recommending to you today, which is a staggered increase to each tier. So tier one, we get a 2.5% increase. Tier two, we'd see a 2.75. Tier three, we'd see a 3% and then the same nominal increase on the tier two and three base rate. And what this accomplishes is it encourages conservation and this is a scarce resource. We see all the things in the news about all the communities across the country that are in dire straits with their water supply and we're very lucky to not be in that situation here. But this does keep in line with that kind of prerogative.

Next slide. And again, this is just the side-by-side revenue. So you can see we generate sufficient revenues with that rate to cover the revised budget.

And then this is our community comparison. So it's a little bit hard to see because of all of our comparable communities, but in green are rates, combined rates for water and sewer for other communities in MWRA. And in blue are our current tiered rates and in purple are the proposed tiered rates.

So you can see, and in communities that have a tiered rate, I've only shown their lowest rate here. So you can see even our highest rate is middle ground. So we're in a good spot compared to our peers that are getting their water supplied from the same authority.

And this is just a drafted motion for our recommendation. We can go to the next slide. These are just next steps.

So we're having our discussion tonight, our initial kind of review of this process and the recommendations. Two weeks from now, we could potentially vote on rates and then the public works would implement the new rates and we'd have to do budget amendment at a special town meeting.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:04 - 1:09:11)
Patrick, can I ask a quick question here? So the recommendations on these rates are coming from you and Sean?

[Speaker 16] (1:09:12 - 1:09:12)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:12 - 1:09:19)
And what about, and what about the committee that has residents? Is there a committee that has residents on it?

[Speaker 6] (1:09:20 - 1:09:25)
Yes. So the water sewer advisory committee still exists. We have a member here.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:25 - 1:09:26)
What's their recommendation?

[Speaker 6] (1:09:27 - 1:09:42)
So we haven't convened a meeting and if the select board wants us to convene a meeting, we were looking at doing one next week to have a conversation with them and get further input. So this is just a first reading, but we do plan to have a meeting.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:44 - 1:09:52)
Okay. I mean, I would, I would, not that anybody's asked me, but I hope we do have a meeting.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:52 - 1:10:59)
We will. The plan was to meet prior to the select board receiving this presentation, then learning that the rates had not been set and the bills went out. It was, you know, decided let's do the presentation.

I invited the members of the water and sewer rate advisory committee to come to this initial presentation to go over all the information and then we'll revisit it and then it'll come back to the board for a vote. But to have all the information and I'll just say that advisory committee was really established to advise on the structure, the rate structure, but it's still in existence and certainly will weigh in on the rate setting, but it was really a much more comprehensive process that started in late winter, early spring last year, where it was a discussion about changing the rate structure that Patrick talked about earlier in the presentation, going from just straight consumption and base rates across the board to what we have now.

[Speaker 5] (1:10:59 - 1:11:07)
Okay. So at what point will we be, at what point do you want to discuss the rate structure? After they have a meeting and when you come back next time?

[Speaker 2] (1:11:07 - 1:11:12)
Yeah. I mean, there's no recommend, I don't, I don't plan on making any recommendation to change the structure of the rates.

[Speaker 5] (1:11:13 - 1:11:18)
I'm sorry, not the structure, but the actual, the discount rates. Yeah. The actual rates.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:18 - 1:11:32)
Yeah. I think at our next meeting, the idea would be, there'd be a recommendation, you know, potentially the same recommendation that you're seeing here tonight and then we would discuss and vote. I mean, we can discuss tonight too.

If there are questions for sure.

[Speaker 5] (1:11:32 - 1:11:59)
The other question I have is, is there, so we did this tier system for this year and is this going to be revisited to find out whether or not this tier system really is a good idea? Because I always, one thing that I always want to understand really is, I don't understand why we just don't have a cost of water. Like why isn't, you know, cost of goods, what is the actual cost of water?

Why, why can't all these numbers just be factored in and there's actual, just one cost of water, whatever.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:00 - 1:15:57)
Yeah. So, so one answer to that question is, which we found out last year is that there is, by statute, we're required to have tiered rates. It doesn't mean that you have to have tiered base rates, but you have to have tiered rates.

So we do have to do it. The way that we approached it last year and looked at it after the rates changed is, is really by this, per unit cost, like all in, right? Like per gallon or per cubic foot or however you want to say it.

Like what is each account paying per cubic foot, let's say. And prior to this, because of the way the base rates work, you can imagine like, you have a base rate going to a large consumer, say it's going to a building with 200 units. That's the base rate that's split up amongst all of those units, as opposed to a base rate that goes to one person who lives alone.

So the base rate plays a much more significant role for the lower users. And so we try to, so when you look at the cost per unit, the way it used to be, it was the more you used, the more reduced your rate was. So like it got to the point where once you got over the average consumer and the higher users, they were paying like under 13 cents per cubic foot as opposed to like 15 cents per cubic foot.

Right, because the base rate wasn't being factored in for all the different- Right, so then when you tiered it, so then we tiered it, so it leveled off such that now essentially everybody's paying, it's not perfect, but everybody's paying between essentially 14 cents and 15 cents per cubic foot, which is much closer to level. And it's sort of as close as you can get when you're tiering things. I shouldn't say as close as you can get, we can probably keep tweaking.

So that was the idea. I think one of the reasons Patrick's recommendation on keeping the base rate for tier one level is one conversation I've had with him and I don't know everything about it now, but it is inherently regressive to have a base rate because people who don't use a lot, that base rate always is going to play more of a factor in. So there's a certain point always where if someone's using very little water and they're paying a base rate, then what they're paying per cubic foot is just substantially more.

So the idea being maybe we can have a little, create a little bit more separation in the tier one base rate and the other base rate essentially, such that it'll be less regressive for those users, but they're still paying in that base rate just to be providing some revenue stability, but also just for, to be part of the system. So that's what, that's sort of what the thinking was last year. And that's, so to your question, is it working?

When we looked at the first couple quarters last year, looking at different profiles of users, it certainly seemed to be working exactly as the model showed, which wasn't surprising because Patrick modeled it and Ron before him based on actual use. So we sort of knew, you know, if it didn't come out the same way, it would have been like something was wrong, you know, math was off, you know?

[Speaker 16] (1:15:58 - 1:15:58)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:00 - 1:16:58)
But I would encourage, you know, I mean, more questions tonight, but also like send questions as those conversations are happening. And I think the other thing that is on this slide, I think I'd like to have a conversation about that next time. And maybe when we're setting the rates, it's just the idea of potentially establishing the rates at a different time for a couple of reasons.

One is, you know, not getting into the situation we're in right now where we didn't set the rates, but also we've traditionally set the rates after the first quarter. And so you're changing and increasing rates essentially after people have used their water. So it makes sense.

And I think other towns do it that way. It does, you know, it does disturb sort of a natural cycle of how we do things. So it's a conversation.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:58 - 1:18:43)
I think we tried to get ahead of that with town meeting by using assumptions for retained earnings. So we could actually put ourselves in a position to set that rate earlier so that we can get ahead of this. And I do think the data is helpful.

I think we, you know, Patrick has done a fine job tracking this data and trying to analyze it so that we can be careful about using a judicious amount of that retained earnings to keep the increase steady. We know that we have a status of good repair for our wastewater pipes and our water system. And we've got to stay on that, but we can do it in a way that doesn't disrupt, you know, the personal finances of our residents.

I, you know, we, you know, if you pick up the local papers, you'll see just a couple of weeks ago, North Shore community increased their water and sewer rates at seven and 8%, you know, these rates do fluctuate significantly, a lot more than your annual budget. It's just the nature of the weather. It's the nature of, you know, smaller enterprise funds.

And so what we've tried to do is build stability into the model. That's why having not just a balanced budget, but, you know, trying to have a careful amount of retained earnings that are part of our model gives us the ability to tether the rate in a way that balances the financial impact to the rate payers.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:43 - 1:18:45)
We have a policy on retained earnings, don't we?

[Speaker 1] (1:18:45 - 1:18:46)
We do.

[Speaker 5] (1:18:46 - 1:19:05)
All right, so we have a specific number. One concern I just don't want to see, we have a specific number that we like to keep retained earnings. I just don't want to see that number go higher, higher, higher.

If we're going higher, I just like to see no matter what the rates are, money going back to people. I agree with that.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:05 - 1:19:13)
Can you go back to the pie chart that said the residents in which tiers? Would you mind doing that, please? No, there was one.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:13 - 1:19:14)
The pie chart.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:15 - 1:19:21)
Thank you. The percentage of residents in which tier?

[Speaker 2] (1:19:22 - 1:19:22)
Keep going.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:23 - 1:19:24)
It was somewhere.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:25 - 1:19:30)
Keep going. Oh, sorry.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:30 - 1:19:34)
So she's trying to tell you relax. This is David's chart.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:34 - 1:19:35)
There it is.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:36 - 1:19:39)
Yeah, would you mind just moving us out of the top of the screen so I could just see?

[Speaker 1] (1:19:39 - 1:19:40)
That's your chart, yeah.

[Speaker 11] (1:19:49 - 1:19:50)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:20:05 - 1:20:13)
So what this is actually saying is how many people are... Tell me what this is saying here. If there's a consumption, these...

[Speaker 2] (1:20:13 - 1:20:15)
This is the distribution of...

[Speaker 11] (1:20:15 - 1:20:21)
Right, basically if the increases are happening proportionately, these are the percentages that are being affected.

[Speaker 5] (1:20:29 - 1:20:58)
You know, I'm just gonna say up front, you know, I'm not a fan of tiered increases on the rates. I feel like if the rates are going up, you know, without hearing other comments, which I would like to hear what the committee has to say. You know, I'm inclined to say just make it a flat fair increase and not different increases for different tiers.

I would have to hear the pluses and negatives. Just right off the top, I would just think, just make it equal.

[Speaker 7] (1:21:01 - 1:21:01)
Okay.

[Speaker 11] (1:21:01 - 1:21:06)
Well, I think there's something to be said for those who are conserving more than others, right?

[Speaker 7] (1:21:07 - 1:21:39)
I think you have 1% of folks in tier three with the 25,000 plus cubic feet. So yeah, I mean, I think the tiered increase is the 3% increase is for a very small population that is using considerable quantities of water. And I think if you're using more, you should pay a little bit more.

And really a little bit more isn't very much different from tier one or tier two, in my opinion.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:40 - 1:22:25)
You still wanna think about the impact of the water on our system. You know, you use more water. It's a wear and tear.

And having folks that use more, pay more, it's sort of like a utility. This is a water utility. If you use more electricity, you pay a little bit more.

And so for me, it helps us generate revenue, but also supports that ethic of being environmental stewards. This is a scarce water resource. And if you use a lot of it, you should understand that that's putting a burden on everybody.

We should all be more mindful about it.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:26 - 1:22:43)
So- Yeah, I think that, I mean, just quickly, I think we talked about this a lot last year. I mean, the challenge of that is they're in tier three are big multi-unit buildings. And so with, you know, two meters.

[Speaker 16] (1:22:43 - 1:22:43)
Right.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:44 - 1:23:02)
And so if you live there, you can conserve all the water you want, but your water rates for that account, that account is the user. So that's what's challenging. So not everyone in tier three is equal, but we treat them as accounts.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:03 - 1:23:31)
Right, so I guess- Something to consider. So I'm looking at that. And if I'm at one of the buildings that has a number of residents, I might be somebody who, chances are I'm going to be somebody who's living in there.

And so I'm getting hit with a higher cost because I'm in tier three anyway. And then I'm going to get hit with a higher cost because if we don't do it equally, and yet my real penalty is that I happen to live in a condominium or an apartment.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:31 - 1:23:33)
Yeah. Am I right on that? So it's challenging.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:34 - 1:23:51)
Right, so I guess that's my point. Why am I going to hit people that live in these larger buildings with more money versus somebody who's just in one house doing the same thing?

[Speaker 7] (1:23:51 - 1:23:56)
But are those individuals paying a base rate, Neil?

[Speaker 2] (1:23:57 - 1:24:52)
Well, no, that account's paying the base rate. So right now, essentially, the way the rates are structured, everyone is paying basically the same amount per cubic foot. And that wasn't what was happening prior to.

All of the accounts that were using more, talk about it like accounts, were paying a lot less per cubic foot. So every other account was essentially subsidizing that. So now it's been leveled off and the idea is is there more tweaking to do or is it across the board?

And I think that's a fair question and that's the conversation we have to have. It's challenging. I don't know.

There's no...

[Speaker 5] (1:24:55 - 1:25:16)
I just don't think that tier three means that this is more consumption of water. I think it's just the way water is coming into the facility. And if that's the case, which that is the case, why should those individuals, those consumers have to pay more than me in my one location?

[Speaker 7] (1:25:16 - 1:25:23)
But they're not paying less. No, they're paying equal. For a base rate.

Remember, there's only however many...

[Speaker 5] (1:25:23 - 1:25:27)
That's been changed though. With the way these tiering systems...

[Speaker 2] (1:25:27 - 1:25:31)
Right now, everyone's basically paying the same per cubic foot.

[Speaker 5] (1:25:31 - 1:25:31)
Right.

[Speaker 2] (1:25:32 - 1:27:34)
Because of the way we've tiered the consumption rates, that levels off the fact that the... Whatever it is, $35 base rate for 200 units being spread out is made up for in the fact that the tier three consumption rate... And it's important to remember, it's over that amount.

So the amount when you use between zero and 2,500 cubic feet, that's what you're charged, the tier one rate. When you get to 25,000 cubic feet in between 2,500 and 25,000, you're charged tier two, anything over 25,000. So the accounts that are the tier three accounts aren't being charged the tier three rate for all of their use.

They're being charged the tier three rate for everything above that 25,000. So it's not only multi-unit residential buildings that we're talking about. There also are restaurants, grocery stores.

There are other users that are big users. But I appreciate your point, and it's a challenging... It's challenging.

I think what we've corrected for is that prior to the rate change last year is that the users that were using much less were subsidizing those users to the point of that was just not fair, where you have an individual living in a single family home paying 20 cents per cubic foot or 18 cents per cubic foot where those other accounts are paying 12 cents per cubic foot. So that wasn't fair. So we've leveled it off.

And I think the question is, do we stagger rates to do a better job of that? Do we have a conversation about if an account is using more, should it pay more? I mean, that's the reason the law...

[Speaker 1] (1:27:34 - 1:28:55)
So it's the reason we put the three options on. Look, this is a policy decision for the board. I do think it was a dramatic change last year to kind of introduce the three tiers.

We had to do that. As Neil had mentioned, statutorily, we were just not compliant. We've put the change in.

It may be a year to kind of sit and keep it steady. Or maybe we want to continue to think about ways that we incentivize water conservation and have a tiered structure that actually focuses on trying to ensure that we're trying to be progressive when it comes to these rates. We had talked about maybe having five, six, seven tiers, being that much, being really strategic about this.

But I do think it's important for us to settle in and get comfortable with the tiered structure and then kind of think about where we go from here. All these are good conversations. I do think having a committee to have this conversation offline and really kick the tires and come back to the board in two weeks and really present a consensus recommendation, I think will be helpful.

Sounds good.

[Speaker 2] (1:28:57 - 1:29:33)
So Charlie Patios is on the advisory committee. Charlie, I don't know if I'm welcome you to comment. I don't see a mic on your, unless you don't want to comment.

Okay, all right. And I don't think, Diane, can you just show the participants? I just want to make sure Ralph isn't on the, just the participants in the Zoom meeting.

Oh, sorry. That's okay. I just want to make sure.

Yeah, he's not. I didn't think he was here. Okay.

So if there aren't any other questions.

[Speaker 11] (1:29:33 - 1:29:52)
I do have one other one. Just historically, has there been ever a discussion on rebates for reduction in consumption? So if a particular user has been very high consuming and they commit to conservation, have there been, have we ever talked about giving them some sort of tiered rebate back for lessening their consumption?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:53 - 1:30:01)
I think if they did not use the volume of water, they would not be charged for it. So they would.

[Speaker 11] (1:30:01 - 1:30:09)
No, I understand. But a rebate for reducing. You mean like a bonus?

Their consumption. Yeah. So if we're looking at, I mean, I understand it's backwards.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:10 - 1:30:10)
Incentivizing.

[Speaker 11] (1:30:11 - 1:30:15)
Incentivizing. Yeah, yeah, yep.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:16 - 1:30:23)
We haven't. I'm happy to work with Gino and see if there's a way for us to incentivize.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:23 - 1:30:33)
Some of those best practices. You're saying like, if your consumption is 10% less than it was the prior year.

[Speaker 11] (1:30:34 - 1:30:34)
Right.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:34 - 1:30:36)
Then we give you some sort of discount.

[Speaker 11] (1:30:37 - 1:30:53)
I mean, not have the annual year, like not over multiple years, but maybe just in order to get people to think about consumption and sort of change the thought process and change a lifestyle, incentivizing them to think that way.

[Speaker 12] (1:30:54 - 1:31:09)
So we were doing something similar up until a few years ago, was if you were of a certain age, and I don't know the exact age, but it may have been 75, and you were using under a certain amount, we were waiving the base charge for the FYR. So it's something we could consider going back.

[Speaker 16] (1:31:09 - 1:31:09)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:31:10 - 1:31:14)
Well, you can have a thing if you stop watering your lawn, like whoever has the ugliest lawn.

[Speaker 12] (1:31:15 - 1:31:15)
I'm not.

[Speaker 5] (1:31:16 - 1:31:18)
She doesn't have any. Be proud of your lawn.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:19 - 1:31:26)
Yeah, I'm so sorry. That might be a hostile work environment.

[Speaker 5] (1:31:27 - 1:31:31)
Swamp's got the home of the ugly lawns, but we can sort it.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:31 - 1:31:42)
Okay, well, Patrick, thanks so much for putting this together to you and everyone else who worked on it. And we'll work on getting the advisory committee meeting set up. Yep.

Thanks, Charlie, for coming.

[Speaker 5] (1:31:42 - 1:31:44)
Patrick, you do a great job. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 12] (1:31:44 - 1:31:46)
I second that. Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:46 - 1:32:06)
All right. Next is the consent agenda. Consent agenda is designed to expedite the handling of routine and miscellaneous business of the board.

We can adopt the entire consent agenda with one motion at the request of any board member. We can remove items from the consent agenda.

[Speaker 5] (1:32:06 - 1:32:11)
I need you to remove. I need to remove almost every item on here. I'm so sorry.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:12 - 1:32:13)
Every item?

[Speaker 5] (1:32:13 - 1:32:14)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:14 - 1:32:17)
Okay. Which, what do you want to remove?

[Speaker 5] (1:32:17 - 1:32:35)
Also, I have a question on, so if you go to the first item, vote for permission on the fox, the fox trot run. I just have a question. This is, is this for the liquor license or?

Oh, no. So letting two more down is the liquor license. So I'm fine with, I'm fine with that one.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:37 - 1:32:38)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:32:38 - 1:33:22)
So it's, but I have a question on the liquor license for that. And my question on the liquor license is why, why are we writing liquor licenses for, this is an event that goes, this is a morning event. And the only question I have about writing liquor license that I'm not opposed to this because it looks like it's already been in motion and everybody's getting ready.

But in the future, if we have restaurants that are right there, like a Ponoma, is that the name? Ponoma. They have a liquor license and they're right there.

And then we're going to issue a liquor license right there in the backyard. Is that going to take away from their business? And we also, do we pay for police details and things like that for whenever there's a liquor?

[Speaker 1] (1:33:22 - 1:33:39)
We wouldn't pay. We'd ask them to pay if it got to a point where the police chief or the fire chief felt as though it was a public safety impact, then we would have them pay for the detail. I did ask about the time, but it was odd that they would want it from nine.

[Speaker 5] (1:33:40 - 1:33:42)
I mean, they're going to make bloody merits.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:42 - 1:34:18)
Yeah, I was thinking mimosas or what I was kind of curious. These are community events. I had mentioned, are they willing to hire a band?

Are they willing to have it later in the afternoon? How do we create this into a little bit more of a community experience instead of just a narrow focus? It's a good organization.

They certainly are doing some good work to raise money for a very successful organization. We've tried to think more creatively about how can we be more of a community partner?

[Speaker 5] (1:34:19 - 1:34:29)
I understand that. My concern though is the community business that's right there and taking away business from that business and the one across the street, Mission on the Bay.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:30 - 1:34:58)
There may be a way for us to work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and integrate a few of our businesses into the program, but we can certainly reach out and see how we can support our small business. We do think about our small businesses.

We often have community events. Last week, I was at a town event at one of our small businesses because we want them to be successful and certainly I appreciate those concerns.

[Speaker 5] (1:34:59 - 1:35:16)
So on the next one, I am planning on voting yes on all this, but on the next one, can you just walk me through financially what happens with the Yacht Club, with that event? What is that event called again? Swamp Toba Foba Fest.

How does that work financially?

[Speaker 1] (1:35:17 - 1:35:35)
The Yacht Club provides their staff and they serve the alcohol and we have an agreement with them where we split the revenue.

[Speaker 5] (1:35:36 - 1:35:59)
Okay. All right, good. And then I just have some changes on minutes.

So if you just go to the minutes and I did talk to Diane on our minutes, you know, we need to include and I'm gonna actually just remind you, we need to include any type of handouts or attachments or presentations in our...

[Speaker 2] (1:36:00 - 1:36:01)
I don't think that's true.

[Speaker 5] (1:36:02 - 1:36:03)
For open meeting law?

[Speaker 2] (1:36:03 - 1:36:05)
Yeah, I don't think that's true.

[Speaker 5] (1:36:05 - 1:36:06)
All right, I'll follow up on that because I...

[Speaker 2] (1:36:06 - 1:36:15)
I think we have to have those presentations available, but I don't think it has to be part of the minutes. We can check, we can check.

[Speaker 5] (1:36:15 - 1:36:15)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:15 - 1:36:21)
But I don't think it has to be actually included in the minutes itself as long as those documents are available.

[Speaker 5] (1:36:22 - 1:36:39)
All right, so just in case tonight when we're approving, can we just say we're also including to add? Sure. Yeah, I'm fine with that, yeah.

So on the July 20th, 22, I just wanna make sure that Gina Bush, she had sent in an email and a letter. I just wanna make sure that that letter is included.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:40 - 1:36:44)
That's in the revised minutes, I think. Diane sent a... She sent a separate...

[Speaker 5] (1:36:44 - 1:36:44)
She sent some today?

[Speaker 2] (1:36:44 - 1:36:46)
I think she sent it yesterday.

[Speaker 5] (1:36:48 - 1:36:56)
It's not in... Oh, is that this thing you gave me tonight? Yeah.

Yes. Anything passed yesterday?

[Speaker 2] (1:36:56 - 1:37:00)
Yeah, it came in dribbles yesterday. Yes, she said it is in there.

[Speaker 5] (1:37:00 - 1:39:02)
Once we... All right, so on... Also include the letter from DCR on that...

On 7-20, yeah, on 7-20, that would include the letter from DCR. On the next page, you have line six, then you go to the next page. The last sentence on the next page is, Ms. Fletcher also discussed the commission on disability, which currently requires nine members. She asked to reduce five. I wrote, if you could ask five or seven. Okay, you turn the page.

That's it. If you go to the August 3rd, again, add the presentation. Add presentation on public safety.

Skip page. And then on Ms. Karen Bonner, her letter, add that in the presentation. She had sent the letter in that David read on August 17th.

Let me just add... Add that... I don't know, do you have to add a liquor license?

We have to find out if we have to add a liquor license onto the minutes. On August 24th, at least, it's under committee appointments. Oh, so if you look under here, commission on disability, Ms. Fletcher asked that the appointments for the commission on disability be tabled until a board can discuss the member requirements and the number of members. It says here at least one member. What I said was at least half of the members.

[Speaker 16] (1:39:03 - 1:39:03)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:39:03 - 1:40:33)
That's what I had said, at least half the members. Right. If you go to the next page, again, it's just a presentation under Kings Beach.

If you go to the following page under Mr. Chris Mancini, if you could add the sentence at the very end there that Sean will address this. What happened is Mr. Spellios asked why the outflow pipe isn't screened. Two people had to be rescued from, and Sean said he was going to take care of that.

And if you go further down on four, upon motion duly made by Peter Spellios, seconded by Marilyn Fletcher. It wasn't seconded by Marilyn Fletcher, it was seconded by David Grishman. And if you turn the page under select board time, section two, if you go, Ms. Fletcher, I gave the rundown. If you go past four, she would like to request a full building committee on Zoom meetings, recorded residents would like to have the opportunity. If you go down, it says chair, superintendent, and Suzanne Wright. If you have there Peter Spellios, you just say Suzanne Wright, the chair of the school building committee.

And that is it. And I did talk to Diane. If she sends these out in PDFs a little in advance, you know, we could just make tweets and just send them back rather than take up anybody's time.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:33 - 1:40:34)
I would appreciate that.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:34 - 1:40:37)
I'm sorry to take the time, but these are legal documents.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:37 - 1:40:42)
Diane, I think you do a perfect job with these, but I do, You do a great job. Yep. It is tedious.

[Speaker 7] (1:40:43 - 1:42:01)
And I just had a couple of comments about the Michael J. Fox Foundation Run-Walk series. So the event that's happening on Sunday, October 30th is the Boston regional event.

And I know one of the reasons that Bentwater wanted to get involved is they've launched an ale called Common Hope. It's a nationwide collaborative initiative to raise funds and awareness for Parkinson's disease. And Bentwater and other breweries across the country are partnering with the Michael J.

Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. And they're donating a portion of the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research.

So I encourage all of my fellow board members and those watching at home on TV and Facebook to join me, sign up for the race, and really support an incredible cause. I've been in touch with one of the local organizers, Anna Westrom-Wolf. And I think this is year four or five in Swamp Sky.

And each one's been bigger than the last. So hopefully this will set the bar much, much higher. So I encourage everybody to sign up and I'll be putting information out on social media.

And hopefully the town will be including that in newsletters.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:01 - 1:42:19)
Absolutely. Yeah, I actually, I think this is a wonderful event. The only thing I would hope to do is make it into as much of a celebration as possible.

Fantastic. That's great.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:20 - 1:42:23)
So do we need to motion to approve the consent agenda as amended?

[Speaker 2] (1:42:23 - 1:42:24)
As modified, yeah.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:24 - 1:42:25)
As modified.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:25 - 1:42:26)
Is that a motion?

[Speaker 11] (1:42:27 - 1:42:27)
Sure.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:27 - 1:42:29)
Do I have a second? Second.

[Speaker 11] (1:42:29 - 1:42:33)
Oh, a motion to approve the consent agenda as modified.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:35 - 1:44:16)
And there was a second, right? Second. Any further discussion?

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.

All right. We are moving on to public comment. Yeah, hold on.

So our new, just a reminder from the guidelines from our committee handbook that we have established public comments and opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions on items both on and not on the agenda. Public comments not intended to be a discussion, debate, or dialogue between or among the select board of residents. Before sharing substantive comments, residents should state their names, addresses, and if known, voting precinct.

Each speaker will be limited to speaking once for a maximum of three minutes. Residents may raise new issues, identify community problems, and comment on past, present, or future board agendas. Absent extraordinary circumstances, the board will not respond or react to the issues raised and they should not be discussed or debated at the time.

We request residents speak respectfully and refrain from criticizing or disparaging individual committee members, town staff, or other resident groups or individuals. And we request residents refrain from making comments that contain political statements or include commentary, criticisms, or other statements about any town staff. Individuals may speak only at the discretion of the chair.

And with that, I invite, Charlie, you have a public comment? And people on Zoom can raise their hand if they have public comment, or you can also email me at nduffy, d-u-f-f-y, at swampscotma.gov. Go ahead, Charlie.

[Speaker 9] (1:44:16 - 1:47:26)
Thank you. Charles Patz, US 130 Atlantic Avenue here in Swampscot, and I am now Precinct 5. The reason I want to address everyone here this evening has to do with, I think, something that we all care about, which is taking care of our seniors and people with different types of challenges when it comes to housing in the community.

We all know that study after study has told us that we don't have enough housing in the community, in the town of Swampscot, especially when it comes to senior housing and affordability. Some of you might know that in the past, I owned a property at 12 through 24 Pine Street. I sold that over a year ago, I believe, and the developer that I sold it to was able to permit 21 residential units on the site, and it has been recorded at the Registry of Deeds.

In a conversation that I recently had with them, I asked them if they would sell the property back to me if that were a condition or a possibility. I believe that they're in negotiations with someone else, but also that that opportunity could possibly come our way. I did that not because I wanted to purchase the property myself, but I wanted to bring it to the town's attention that a property such as this, adjacent to the VFW facility parking that the town already owns, we're in a unique position to actually walk the walk that we've talked about many times in the past, and I believe that we have the ability to do more than, and I'm not speaking against the Athanas property, I'm merely pointing out the fact that if we can take a property such as waterfront land that the Athanas family has, the Hawthorne, we can take a property like Pine Street next to the VFW and possibly work with the VFW maybe in relocation, a more suitable location for them that they could own in the future, and that we could combine those parcels and the town, the cooperation with the Affordable Housing Trust could develop something that meets the needs of the community that we so desperately, now with higher inflation and other conditions that are beyond most all of our control, we desperately need this housing, and I believe that the town has the ability to do many things that we've proven we can do, a new school and things of that nature. We can create the housing that our most vulnerable need, and I'm more than asking, I'm strongly urging that the select board accelerate the possibility of the town acquiring this parcel and working with the developer for a fair market value and then to be able to do something that would benefit the most vulnerable in our community. I think it's time that we do it.

I think we have the capability to do it. We have the financial resources to do it. I think we have the obligation to do it.

I thank you for your time.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:27 - 1:47:31)
Thank you, Charlie. Yep, Catherine.

[Speaker 15] (1:47:39 - 1:48:28)
Hi, I'm Liz Smith, 18 Hardy Road, Precinct 3, and I wanted to go back to the discussion you guys just had about what's required in the minutes. I think it is true that you don't have to include all the documents, but I think that if you check the open meeting law, you'll see that it does require that there be a list of all documents and exhibits that are used at the meeting and that those documents and exhibits then need to be made available if there's a request for them. I guess it would have to be a FOIA request, and I think the list is really important because having attended a number of meetings and read through a lot of minutes, it's impossible to know what you guys are looking at.

Sometimes it's shown on the screen, but many times you're just looking at it and we have no idea what it is that you're looking at. So I think that list should really become part of the public record for the meetings.

[Speaker 2] (1:48:28 - 1:48:44)
Okay, thank you. Any other public comment? I don't have any emails.

Cindy Cavallaro, can you unmute Cindy Cavallaro, please?

[Speaker 10] (1:48:49 - 1:51:33)
Hi, good morning. Pine Street, Precinct 3, town meeting member. As a resident of Pine Street, I grew up here, moved out in my early 20s, bought my house that I grew up in when I was 27.

So this traffic issue of the speeding has been going on for more than decades. With Mary Ellen Fletcher and Peter Spellios, I couldn't agree more. We need enforcement.

I mean, the only way people are going to slow down on this street, and now you've got the development that just got approved, so there'll be more traffic coming on it. To have a billboard, I mean, there's no penalty. There's got to be, you know, for every action, it's got to be a consequence.

I know certain roads that if you're ticketed, like Mary Ellen said, you're going to slow down because you're not going to want to pay the fine. People fly down this street. And as Mr. Spellios said, those shuttle buses, they come by so often. And if people who are parking in front of their homes on both sides, there's not enough room for two-way traffic. This was never zoned for business. So to have shuttle buses that are the size of some of these commercial trucks coming up and down this street, I don't know how stop signs are going to alleviate any of that.

They may help deter a little bit, but I think you need enforcement. And I think you need the enforcement out there during the traffic times, you know, the flow, when people are coming home, when they're going to work, or even talking to the, who's ever got the, I don't know how the, it works with the shuttle bus people, that they are the biggest offenders. And you can't even see on the other side of the street when they go by.

If there's a little kid or a pet that gets loose, they're history. So I think in terms of the traffic, it needs to be enforced. And in terms of the water regulations that we went through, I learned so much tonight.

I think the same thing with usage. I mean, if you use less, you should pay less. I think for years, the people that were paying the base that we're working under, and demographically, Swampscots becoming larger in senior citizens and single family, single people living there.

So I think the usage in that demographic area shouldn't have to subsidize those that are using more. So I don't agree with incentives of giving someone a rebate or a discount. The rebate should be, guess what?

You use less, you pay less. And getting back to Pine Street, you speed, you get a ticket. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 2] (1:51:33 - 1:51:33)
Thank you, Cindy.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:34 - 1:51:35)
I have t-shirts made.

[Speaker 2] (1:51:38 - 1:51:47)
Okay. So with that, I think we will move on to Town Administrator's Report.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:48 - 1:58:01)
Okay, I'll keep it brief. You know, we've had a lot of discussions about our housing production plan. We're updating the town's housing production plan.

And we had a virtual meeting last week facilitated by Marzi Alaska, our Community Economic Development Director, along with a consultant. We presented a draft plan. We talked a little bit about some of the critical needs that we have.

We heard tonight, you know, we do have a crisis with affordable senior housing. And the town has struggled with adverse development over the last few decades. And the thought is that we can really come up with some good ideas about how we can be better.

I encourage folks to look at the draft housing production plan and continue to work with our community and economic development department to get some feedback. And share some ideas about how we can meet these important needs. Last week, I went down to Newport, Rhode Island with a group of stakeholders as part of our efforts to really explore alternatives to address the impairment to King's Beach.

Assistant Town Administrator and DPW Director, Gino Cresta, joined me for that. We did talk a lot about the challenges. We were given a firsthand look at a very fascinating ultraviolet light system that treats the bacteria and E.

coli that is in the stormwater in Newport, Rhode Island. We went through the entire treatment plant in Newport. And it was a fascinating use of technology.

This system has been in operations for, you know, over a decade and has done a good job treating not only the sewerage but some of the stormwater. We have planned to tour South Essex Sewer District. They have an outfall pipe that goes out to Salem Harbor.

That is a lower tech type of investment but certainly one that we want to evaluate as well. I want to thank our Police Department and Chief Cassata and Chief Archer and Gino Cresta who worked closely with Brian Wilson, our SRO, for really putting together a very safe traffic pattern for our new school year. I want to thank the parents who took time to walk your children to school.

This made a huge difference in terms of reducing the number of cars. These are the type of efforts that really the PTOs and the community public safety departments can really be proud of. Last week I met with our veterans agent, a number of our veterans down at a small business in Swampskate.

We had a good conversation with our sheriff and we talked a lot about, you know, some of the improvements that we need to make. It was great to have the proprietor for Cafe Avellino join us and offer to provide coffee and pastry and just support. Sheriff Coppinger did stop by and we agreed to meet over the next few weeks about how to get the sheriff's office more involved in our veterans support.

A lot of busy work with our DPW department. Gino is busy with, you know, ensuring that we have shock creep applied to Kings Beach. We have a free tire collection event on Saturday, September 4th from 8 a.m. to noon. Tires are very difficult to get rid of so we want passenger tires only, no rims. And as we heard about earlier, we have a free metal and recycling styrofoam collection on the last Saturday of the month through October. A full schedule is on our website in the newsletter.

I'm really pleased with our new library director, Jonathan Nichols. We had a meet and greet last week. Jonathan has hit the ground running.

We have a new program rolling out where if you have a library card, you can sign up to get benefits and discounts in Swampskate. So go find your library card and check out the library website. You'll have some great discounts and you can help encourage literacy and programs.

Library is selling their annual flower bub sale through October 15th and you can contact the library for more information. Family Day was extraordinary. I want to thank Danielle Strauss in our rec department.

We have a lot of absolutely wonderful events. This is the second annual Swamptoberfest this weekend. Saturday, September 10th.

Gonna be a beer garden and a really wonderful low cost, no cost event. We encourage a lot of folks to really just get out and enjoy the day. We have Castleberry Fair at Linscott Park on Saturday and Sunday as well on September 10th.

And we have a town-wide yard sale Saturday, September 17th. So all of these efforts are part of being a little cleaner and greener. Last thing I just want to remind everybody, September 11th is a commemoration of a very tragic day in our nation, but one that we should never forget.

We have a commemoration at 9.30 a.m. at the Swampskate Fire Department. Would encourage Swampskate residents to join us for a solemn commemoration of that important day. That's my report.

[Speaker 7] (1:58:02 - 1:58:55)
Hey, Sean, a few things. I just, for the first annual family day that we had at Fisherman's Beach, I just want to give a special shout out and thank you to John Allen and his wife, Caroline, and a number of volunteers. They did an incredible job.

And I think it was an awesome event. And we're looking to meet probably the end of September to really make it bigger, better, more successful. So yeah, Swamptoberfest, I will be having office hours between 6 and 6.30 on Saturday, September 10th. I'll be in the dunk tank. So bring your $5 and come duck me if you can. And then, Sean, I also wanted to see if you had any update on the letter to DCR regarding Kings Beach.

[Speaker 1] (1:58:56 - 1:59:02)
Yeah, I don't, but I'll report out at the next meeting. I'll make sure that we get some feedback on that. Great.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:02 - 1:59:08)
That letter went to, it didn't go to DCR, though. That went to Creighton's office.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:08 - 1:59:09)
That's right.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:09 - 1:59:12)
All right, so should we be sending a letter to DCR?

[Speaker 1] (1:59:14 - 1:59:22)
I will check with Senator Creighton. My past practice has been to work with Senator Creighton on state agencies.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:25 - 1:59:27)
I'm not really sure.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:31 - 1:59:41)
Anyone else? Any other questions for Sean? It's like board time.

Anything?

[Speaker 11] (1:59:42 - 1:59:46)
I, like David, will also be dunked at Swamptoberfest.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:46 - 1:59:49)
So you might want to read that after that call.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:49 - 1:59:50)
You'll be in the dunk tank.

[Speaker 11] (1:59:50 - 2:00:04)
I mean, I'll be in the dunk tank. Hopefully, I'll be dunked because you'll be spending all your money supporting the PTO and our fundraising efforts. So hopefully, I'll be constantly in the water because that'll be more money for our kids and our schools.

[Speaker 3] (2:00:06 - 2:00:15)
All right, I'm going to go on the bandwagon. If people want to dunk me, they've got to let me know how much they're willing to pay to do it to the PTO is to make sure the schools do it. And there is a price that you can dunk me.

[Speaker 5] (2:00:15 - 2:00:16)
Well, you heard it here first.

[Speaker 3] (2:00:16 - 2:00:18)
Charlie Patsy is here. Maybe Charlie will do that.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:18 - 2:00:18)
If people?

[Speaker 3] (2:00:19 - 2:01:00)
Charlie might actually pay handsomely for it. So I am, I am, I am, I can contribute as well. But in all seriousness, two things.

To the school building committee, the superintendent, to the school resource officer, Wilson, your preparation and what you did for the first day of school made all the difference. And it was crazy going around town just seeing how it worked, right? And the expertise that you brought to the table with the traffic engineer and the amount of hours that you all spent, Gene Acresta's here and DPW setting things up.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:00 - 2:01:00)
Max Casper.

[Speaker 3] (2:01:01 - 2:03:41)
The Max Casper, on and on and on, the amount of work that went into it and the preparation. And despite all the, as I like to call it, the Facebook apocalypse that comes out in anticipation of these things, the apocalypse didn't happen. It actually was one of the smoothest flowing days that we've had.

And it's all because of the preparation, which takes me to the, to the second thing, which is it's a great reminder of all the stuff in this age of social media and immediacy and everyone feeling that they're having a comment on everything immediately is to take a moment to recognize all the stuff that does happen behind the scenes. And again, the town administrator is the perfect example of it. He sits here and he has to be accountable and report and he gets instant feedback from us and what's going well, what's not going well.

But when you listen to his town report, when his town administrator's report and when you see the stuff that we get to see and when you see the things like traffic, the traffic is literally one thing of dozens that happen in any given day. And I think it's just really appropriate to take note of the fact that there is so much and Sean is just one staff member, but all the staff members in the town and things that they're working on on a daily basis here in the town. And Sean does these updates and he just did an update where he's talking about how he's meeting with the veterans group about the VFW.

He's meeting with the library director. He's talking about blighted buildings. He's having meetings about the animal control officers and other things that happen.

And with Chief Casada to talk about new positions that are being created and HR needs and collective bargaining needs. And he's talking to the traffic committee and helping staff get ready for the traffic committee. And he's meeting with the chief of the fire department about the ambulance contract and on and on and on.

And he is just one person. Everybody behind him doing the exact same thing. If I had Gino's calendar here, I could go through Gino's daily day, right?

Which is just crazy. And Marzi Golaska and the town treasurer, but it's so much work that you guys are all doing. And I just think it's great in this climate where it seems the criticism gets heard way too much.

For you guys all to hear that what you're doing, the number of initiatives we have going on in this town is crazy good. And it's because of you all doing it. And you do it all despite, at times, a very unhealthy negative energy.

And so the school building committee and the traffic was just something that flushed it out so clearly to me, like how good you guys are and the effort you guys put on things. And we're all very grateful.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:42 - 2:04:21)
I appreciate that, Peter. I really, I do think it's important for us every once in a while just to think, you know, we're in this blue bubble and sometimes we get focused on all these little pieces of minutiae, but there are so many wonderful things going on in Swampskate. It just show up to the event on Saturday and try not to have an awesome time.

Just try not to really think you live in the most special little town on the North Shore. It will be absolutely awesome. And it takes a lot of work to make it like that.

Yep.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:24 - 2:04:27)
Are you going? I'm done, just the dunk part.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:27 - 2:04:28)
I'm done. Just getting dunked.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:29 - 2:06:19)
I just wanted to recognize a citizen, Mr. Ted Dooley. He has been appointed to the DCR. That's a really big deal.

You don't just sign up and jump on DCR. You go through an extensive screening process and has to turn over a lot of documents, go through interviews, and he's a really great guy. He's a great asset to our community.

He's an elected official on the planning board and he is now on the DCR. So that's a great thing. So thank you, Ted.

Last week, I made a comment and I requested that the building committee, if they would start to please make an effort of getting meetings televised, a $90 million project. I think we need to have a little bit more or a lot more transparency on that just to make it easier for people to see. And I did receive an email back from the chair, Suzanne Wright.

She's really helpful and Suzanne is working towards finding a solution to that. And she thinks that she'll have more information next week, but they're going to test it on, I think it was 9-13 or 9-17. So I appreciate that.

And last but not least, I just want to congratulate all the primary winners and especially to the six candidates that had the courage to go out there and run six candidates for one district. I think that was incredibly impressive. And congratulations to Jenny Armini.

And I think that Jenny will do great things for us. And I think it's our responsibility as a board to invite Jenny in and have some conversations about what she can help for the district and how we can help her get what we need from the state house. So, and that's it.

[Speaker 2] (2:06:19 - 2:08:21)
Thanks, Mary Ellen. I just have one thing I wanted to mention. You all may remember, and this is along the lines somewhat of what Peter was saying, but you remember the Climate Action Plan resolution from the spring town meeting.

So the Climate Action Resilience Committee has been working hard on that, which is challenging in the summertime. But of course, not to anyone's surprise, but also just to everybody's amazement, Mars Eagle Aska identified and got a grant for us to receive technical assistance to put that action plan together. So we have a $50,000 grant that is going to help us with that.

So we have professional help, which is very much needed and appreciated. So I just wanted to publicly thank Margie for all her work on that and also the members of the Climate Action Resilience Coalition for working on that. And just let people know that there's a preliminary survey that I think was just posted today that the coalition put together for people to take to help for feedback on the early stages of the plan, which is really just asking people about sort of how they behave.

It's not anything to do with the draft plan at this point. So that's on the town website. And I think it will be posted on the Swampscott Conservancy website and just encourage people to spread the word.

And hopefully we can get that to folks that may not maybe have challenges technologically to get it in their hands as well. So that's it. If there's nothing else, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second. All those in favor?

[Speaker 16] (2:08:21 - 2:08:21)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (2:08:23 - 2:08:24)
Thank you, everybody. Thanks, everyone.

[Speaker 16] (2:08:24 - 2:08:24)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:08:24 - 2:08:26)
Have a good night. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Joe.