[Speaker 2] (0:10 - 0:15)
Alright, we can get going. Are we ready? Yep.

[Speaker 12] (0:23 - 0:24)
Recording in progress.

[Speaker 9] (0:25 - 0:52)
Well, David, you know you have a letter?

[Speaker 4] (0:55 - 0:56)
Getting a mail here now?

[Speaker 2] (1:21 - 1:38)
Are we good? Alright, thanks everybody. Welcome to the November 2nd Select Board Meeting.

Before we get started, if you would all join us in rising for the presentations.

[Speaker 11] (1:42 - 1:55)
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 2] (2:14 - 4:25)
Alright, here we go. Okay, so we have figured out our technical difficulties. So first, to start the meeting, we have public comment.

Public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions on items both on and not on the official agenda. Public comment is not intended to be a discussion, debate, or dialogue between or among the Select Board and residents. And we have some additional guidelines before sharing substantive comments.

We ask residents to 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 residents, groups, or individuals. And we request that residents refrain from making comments that contain political statements or include commentary, criticisms, or other statements about any town staff.

Individuals may speak at the discretion of the chair. And I believe we have Mary DiCillo is here and has public comment. And I'll just mention if you want to submit public comment through email you can do so at nduffy at swampscottma.gov or you can raise your hand on Zoom as well. Ms. DiCillo.

[Speaker 6] (4:26 - 12:14)
Thank you. Select Board, I'm happy to be here. I'm happy that you take my comment tonight.

I'm Mary DiCillo. I live at 7 Rockland Street. I am a precinct town, precinct 4 town meeting member as well.

I'm coming tonight just to, because I found some pictures from last year's Veterans Day celebration that I would like to submit for the archive. And just to remind people that the Veterans Celebration is held every Veterans Day at the Memorial Day at the monument area. And it's really always very powerful because we have veterans that come from all the different wars and people who served in peacetime and family members and the Boy Scouts are there and the Girl Scouts and I just am encouraging fellow citizens like myself I get very inspired by it.

So I'm hoping that all of you will join in. I come tonight just to talk about just very briefly what I have taught at Salem State and worked with veterans at Salem State on is increasing what's called in the parlance military cultural competence. And I'm urging that all public officials here, particularly the select board and town administrator when considering any kind of policy decisions and financial decisions and service decisions that a framework of military cultural competence be used.

And that means that military is actually people who serve in the military become part of a different culture than civilian culture and it has its own unique language, its own unique values, its own unique ways of looking at things and sometimes that can get lost in a civilian population that hasn't served. So I am urging everyone including me, myself and others that residents to do that. So in that vein I just have some suggestions and I've given the board of select select board members in the old parlance, see my language hasn't changed either some suggestions about ways that the town could maybe move forward in this direction using this framework.

So the two things that are still pending that again would remind the board that it's really important to be paying attention to is the role of the veteran service officer in a town like Swampscott and the services that they provide it's really important that people have access to that in a very way. And the other issue that's still pending as far as I know is the to veterans crossing to the BFW hall, the lease and I don't know the status of that I'm not here to talk about that tonight but I just want to remind those that are involved in that decision that it's really important for veterans to have a place that they can come to and be part of. So the thing that I'm most encouraging people to think about is conducting a needs assessment of veterans so that the town engage in a very formal outreach to veterans in a written way so that veterans can create a tool and there are tools out there that we can assess what the specific needs of the veterans in Swampscott are which are going to be somewhat the same as other vet towns it may be different than other towns but we should really be hearing from veterans and their families because it also includes family, service members families and veteran people who are survivors of veterans as well access to services military families and military members, veterans level of need statistics from other towns the service provided by the veteran services office and also assess what kind of services we're getting currently and making sure that we're getting the appropriate level of service in our town because veterans in my work with veterans at Salem State specifically they're not going to make any noise because they're used to taking orders, I've said this out loud publicly and they are used to sort of getting by and kind of toughing it out sometimes and we all know with the suicide rate sometimes currently it's not all bad but in terms of what veterans are facing, not everybody has been in contact, not in combat not everybody is suffering from invisible wounds of combat but there are needs out there and as the aging population goes forward, particularly Vietnam veterans who really never access services until many of them now in their early 70s are really important and so some positive things, again listing a veterans service committee on the website, I didn't see anything on the website, having a veterans committee advisory committee, I don't know if that's happening, but I think having a place for veterans to sort of gather together, they put they can, they're used to working in groups and getting them working as a group in terms of creating public policy, collaborating with public policy makers so that the right services are put in, particularly around technology so there's some money that has been granted for technology, I would urge very strongly that working with capital improvements committee to be able to make sure that that money is veteran driven so that it's an appropriate use of the money for the needs that they have and another thing that we did up at Salem State is an oral history project which I think would be a wonderful way of getting veterans engaged the senior center engaged, the high school engaged where up at Salem State their archive of people can come in and tell their story about being in the military not just combat veterans but veterans of all different wars also getting the library involved having a library section about war, peace veterans having a book club, having a veteran civilian book club one of the most amazing things that happened when I taught up at Salem State is that have people in a classroom together that are veterans and non-veterans you learn a lot civilians and people from the military can really teach a lot to each other and the last thing is to all the committees that are in town should always be mindful of the role that veterans can and should play in terms of creating services within the town so making sure that it's an integrative model and that it's a military culturally competent model where people know about the military I will be forwarding to you a bibliography that I've put together, I have a whole book list and websites and things like that that I'm going to give to the library as well so that people can access some work that I've done at Salem State that I'm happy to share and also having just a presence having a visual you know, this is a population in our town that are strengths and have lots to offer.

[Speaker 2] (12:15 - 14:15)
Thank you very much Thank you Mr. Shillo Any more public comment? Okay Thanks I don't see any hands raised on Zoom so that brings us to our main agenda items We do have on the agenda a discussion and possible vote on accepting some sculptures as a gift but the person making that donation is not here tonight so I think we're going to table that discussion until hopefully he can be present The next item I think we will try to do, we have a public hearing at 6 30 but we have the deed signing for the Haas property. The Haas property is on Archer Street it's an approximately 10 acre parcel no, 5 acre parcel, excuse me on Archer Street that was town meeting authorized the town to acquire a special town meeting over the summer and we are finally at a point of closing that transaction with the owners the Haas family and so tonight we need to accept that deed in order to close I think by the end of the week. I'll mention that town staff P.

Cain and Marzy Golaska I think are working on the conservation restriction for that parcel so hopefully we'll be putting a conservation restriction on that land over the next few weeks or a month so with that we can move to discussion about the deed does anyone have any questions or comments on this?

[Speaker 7] (14:17 - 14:48)
I just think this is an incredible acquisition of open space one of the largest acquisitions of open space that the town has seen in decades so incredibly excited for the entire town, incredibly excited for those neighbors in Precinct 1 and really look forward to working with the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and other volunteers in town to blaze some paths, some trails and get lost in the woods for a little bit

[Speaker 2] (14:52 - 17:37)
Comments, questions? Okay so I can't make a motion but I'll read the motion language that was provided by town staff it would be a motion that the select board approve the deed from Joyce M. Hollis for property located on Archer Street and further execute the acceptance of the select board to said deed Is there a second?

Second Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye Great Great So with that I think being six why don't we sign this deed and then we can open this public hearing Okay so I think why don't we I'm always trying to make the best use of time Mike what can we do for the next two minutes?

Maybe we can move on to some of these committee appointments We have four committee appointments tonight Why don't we just start down the list and see where we can get for the Andrews Chapel committee Sean I don't know if you want to speak to this

[Speaker 1] (17:37 - 20:53)
We have to renovate the chapel That chapel is on our National Historic Register Last week I held a staff meeting there and I would suggest this board hold a meeting there at some point and really appreciate the architectural significance of that building but also the individuals that really helped to restore it. It was at a point of potentially losing that so there's no question that Elizabeth will keep that legacy of constant gardening and care for that building and would recommend that she be appointed to that committee Also Jonathan Davis for the Renewable Energies Committee.

Jonathan has a passion for renewable energy The chair of the Renewable Energies Committee strongly recommend Jonathan for this committee like many of the board members. Jonathan can probably serve on a dozen different committees but certainly I think his passion is to really help the town think about ways where we can be more reliant on resilient energy solutions We have Susan Bishop and Jody Watts both for our War Memorial Scholarship Fund. Susan has done so many wonderful things for our veterans Susan is working with our Veterans Crossing.

She attends monthly meetings of our veterans service organizations and has worked with veterans groups to really reboot the connection that all of these different veterans service organizations bring to different groups of veterans in Swampstead I'm really impressed with Jody Watts as well. Jody cares about our veterans, certainly wants to be involved in supporting some of these initiatives and I think they will do a fantastic job integrating some of these scholarship funds with our school district and lastly the ZBA Mark Kaninsky and Heather Roman Mark and Heather both have served our ZBA for many years. Heather recently served as chair of Task Force to Explore Leaving Civil Service She has been working on our Solid Waste Committee and I think her judgment, her discretion leadership would serve our ZBA extraordinarily well Mark is one of the most foremost real estate attorneys in the region and certainly has experience second to none.

[Speaker 2] (20:54 - 21:17)
So the ZBA, just for clarification, is one that we did with Heather Roman at a previous meeting but Heather was an associate member and we made her a full member and Mark was a full member and we needed to make Mark an associate member so he's stepping down as chair and will be an associate member and Heather's stepping in for full membership.

[Speaker 4] (21:18 - 21:23)
There aren't enough members He's just listed as a regular member, not as a full member.

[Speaker 2] (21:23 - 21:29)
Right, so this is a misprint on the memo but that's my understanding right Dan?

[Speaker 7] (21:29 - 21:29)
That's correct.

[Speaker 2] (21:30 - 21:40)
Mark will be appointed as an associate member and Heather will be a full member which we did vote on last time but we needed to do that switch which we didn't do.

[Speaker 4] (21:41 - 21:46)
I just have a quick question on the War Memorial Scholarship Fund is that a scholarship that's given out every year?

[Speaker 1] (21:48 - 21:56)
It should be given out every year it has not always been given out every year What? It has.

[Speaker 4] (21:57 - 22:01)
It has been given out every year? Yes. Through the high school?

Yes.

[Speaker 7] (22:03 - 22:29)
So motion to approve Elizabeth Gallo to the Andrews Chapel Oversight Committee Jonathan Davids to the Renewable Energy Committee Jody Watts and Susan Bishop to the War Memorial Scholarship Fund Committee and Heather Roman as a full member and Mark Korninski as an associate member to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

[Speaker 10] (22:29 - 22:30)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (22:32 - 22:34)
Any more further discussion?

[Speaker 4] (22:34 - 22:41)
Oh wait there was one I'm so sorry but there were no terms listed for um Oh there are terms. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (22:45 - 23:33)
All those in favor? Aye. Great.

Good. Alright. Thank you.

And with that we will move on to our public hearing. This is a public hearing for a liquor license application for Cafe Avellino located at 242 Humphrey Street and it's an application to extend liquor service to the street. So if there is any Do we have a motion to open the public hearing?

So moved. Further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (23:33 - 23:50)
So I think um Angelica you're going to lead us through this or I can't get the PowerPoint on my computer so if it's possible to pull it up here For the BYOB Right?

[Speaker 10] (23:50 - 23:53)
Oh Oh okay.

[Speaker 3] (23:53 - 23:54)
Sorry.

[Speaker 2] (23:54 - 23:56)
Oh no. Sorry. Yeah yeah.

Sorry.

[Speaker 3] (23:57 - 25:11)
I think you covered most of it. If there's any questions? I was saying I think that you covered most of it but if there's any questions I can answer.

But the summary is that during the pandemic the governor had an executive order that allowed businesses, restaurants to serve alcohol outside either on the street or on the sidewalk. Teresa from Cafe Avellino found that this was a great success for her and she just wants to extend this permanent. So the temporary order will expire in April and the ABC is requesting that we submit formal applications to make this permanent and tied to their liquor license now.

That way once the order expires in April there will be no overlap and I think it's in the packet but at the town meeting in May it was approved at town meeting to allow outdoor seating with the liquor license included so there's no zoning issue and she does have permission from her landlord to have the 12 tables out front. Is there any questions?

[Speaker 2] (25:13 - 25:44)
Any questions? It's a public hearing so is there any public comment on this issue? I don't know what the status is of the other establishments that have outdoor seating that serve liquor on that street.

Do we expect that we're going to have a influx of these if that's expiring? Is this a requirement to have that?

[Speaker 3] (25:44 - 26:23)
So if they want to continue outdoor service they do have to apply for this but there's only two other businesses who would qualify to or who have been serving outside who should apply for it but none of them are on Humphrey Street. The other two are I believe in the Vinden Square area so I don't think that we will see an influx. I can say that it's like Pomona Tyrific Cafe Avellino if she's approved.

Nordhaven and Zest Friends they're a lot of the businesses who already have this tied to their license.

[Speaker 2] (26:23 - 26:23)
Got it.

[Speaker 4] (26:24 - 26:25)
This is already tied to their license already?

[Speaker 3] (26:26 - 27:13)
For the businesses who I just said Teresa is wanting to add it to her license. The reason it worked out kind of perfectly that there was two transfers during COVID so the ABC said being proactive if they want to extend this let's just add it to their license now during their initial application that way we don't have to go back and amend it whenever this executive order might expire. Teresa kind of waited it out to see how long because the order kept getting extended and extended but now that they're finally saying it's most likely going to end on April 1st this is why she's submitting this application now.

But I think she's probably the last one unless of course we have a new business come in.

[Speaker 11] (27:13 - 27:13)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (27:14 - 27:30)
What about Little G? Oh I'm sorry yeah Little G G-Bar yes they have it too. Exactly sorry I missed that.

So they're all covered? They're all covered. Yep.

G-Bar submitted an alteration of promise and the other ones were during their initial application whether it be the new application or transfer. Okay great.

[Speaker 8] (27:31 - 27:36)
For the two that have not have we been proactive to reach out to them to let them know it's available?

[Speaker 3] (27:36 - 27:51)
We have. Yep. Margie and I both reached out to them and I sent out the annual renewal packets for the fiscal 2023 license and I put that executive order in there and highlighted it and also put it in an email so that they have all that information.

[Speaker 2] (27:54 - 28:04)
Great. Great. Okay.

So there's no public comment so with that I think if there's a motion to close the public hearing and then we can vote on this.

[Speaker 4] (28:04 - 28:06)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 2] (28:06 - 28:08)
All right all those in favor?

[Speaker 4] (28:08 - 28:08)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (28:08 - 28:22)
Aye. Okay. Any further discussion outside of public hearing?

Okay is there a motion to approve the Cafe Avelino liquor license for outdoor service? So moved.

[Speaker 8] (28:23 - 28:23)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (28:24 - 28:27)
Further discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 8] (28:28 - 28:28)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 2] (28:29 - 30:29)
All right thanks. So moving on I think there is if people are following our printed agenda there is an item for the new elementary school contractor bids. We are planning on having a discussion about the contractor bids that were opened this week by the school building committee.

They have postponed their discussion. They were to meet on it last night but they're meeting on it tomorrow night so we are going to table our discussion until the school building committee has theirs and then we will likely take this up on November 16th. So and we just did our committee appointments so I think we're moving we're sticking with Angelica and the BYOB brown bag license policy so this came to us a little background is there's interest from some establishments to be able to provide BYOB to their customers and Angelica correct me when I make a mistake and you have a presentation so I'll stop talking soon but it turns out that we don't have a policy for BYOB and that the way the law works is that it's essentially allowed you know sort of by right if you will so if you have a common VIX license I guess so we Angelica and Marzi and other staff have been doing research on other community policies and putting together a basic policy that we can have so that we can accommodate this want from some of the places in town to be able to offer this service so that's what we're reviewing and potentially voting on tonight

[Speaker 3] (30:29 - 30:32)
I think you covered it all

[Speaker 2] (30:32 - 30:35)
Angelica what kind of drink

[Speaker 1] (30:35 - 30:36)
is that?

[Speaker 3] (30:36 - 30:39)
So the BYOB Oh that?

[Speaker 1] (30:40 - 30:41)
No no on the slide

[Speaker 3] (30:43 - 30:45)
Is that like

[Speaker 1] (30:46 - 30:46)
smoothie

[Speaker 3] (30:48 - 32:11)
It's only beer and wine So it's exactly what Neal said we had a business who came forward to ask if we could offer BYOB and we found out that we did not have a policy and in Massachusetts it is completely legal and it's unregulated unless the select board or the town city decides to regulate it so I'll just go over a quick overview of the license that we have now just as a reminder this is not off premise this is just on premise because obviously that would be what BYOB is so for all alcohol we have 17 allowed and we've issued 13 for wines and malts we're allowed 5 and we've issued 1 and then special legislation so I find it easiest to keep special legislation separate from the total count special legislation is we so at some point in time we went to the legislature and asked them for additional license on in the Humphrey street like overlay district I believe and we were approved for 8 and out of those we've used 2 so if you're looking technically technically we have 15 all alcoholic beverage license and 1 wines malts and cordials and I hope that clears it up

[Speaker 1] (32:11 - 32:34)
we actually got those licenses in 2018 and I know that we have a reporter here from Linita and it would be awesome if they reminded everybody that we have 6 licenses available we really want businesses to come and ask to have one of those licenses

[Speaker 3] (32:35 - 37:08)
I think we should I believe it's B1 B2 B3 is that there's 3 different areas but every time there is a new license that comes in I always do work with Marzi and Marissa to see if they're within that area and to see if we can fulfill those licenses because the special legislation gives us the opportunity to offer more licenses obviously than what's allowed by our quota is there any questions about the license do they all expire at the same time they do so they're for one calendar year they all expire on the 31st so this is I don't want to read the whole powerpoint but this is just the overview that the swamps got select for it as a local licensing authority would be adopting this policy and for purpose of this policy and establishment shall mean a full service commercial food service enterprise that holds a common victualers license so if they don't have that common vic license they wouldn't be eligible for the BYOB and then full service would be a full wait staff with sit down dining services this is some of the general requirements for the license so I can't even see that far so the BYOB requesting approval to serve alcohol under this policy agrees to abide by the legal standards and ensure safe and proper service to patrons in accordance with mass general law as well as the laws put forth by the ABCC and the rules and regulations of swamp spot thank you any BYOB shall sorry BYOB approval is at the sole discretion of the select board so it is completely up to the select board as the LLA to approve this policy so there's we put together what we did was we reached out to 11 different surrounding communities both cities and towns and we put together a policy that kind of encompassed a lot of what other cities and towns offered but kind of what we thought was best for the town of swamp spot so instead of reading all of these I put together a couple of notes just as highlights what we think might be the most important so all servers who will be serving alcohol, serving food must be TIP certified or trained they have to be trained, the managers also have to be trained this would be limited to beer and wine only there will be no like alcohol vodka or anything like that coming in it would just be beer and wine the wine must be unopened when they come to the premises and it has to be consumed with food we did do you mind switching to the next slide we did put in there that alcoholic beverages may only be consumed between the hours of 11am and 11pm but we'd actually like to change that to say that the hours of consumption have to follow that of their common victualer's license that way you don't have somebody ordering food until 9 and then they're still sitting there at midnight drinking alcohol or 11pm whatever the select board decides to to agree upon but I think following the common vic is probably the most beneficial and the safest for everybody we also decided to put in that there would not be a corking fee so that would be like each business offering this would charge $5 per person we spoke with KP Law and they just suggested that once you start charging it kind of gets a little gray because you're charging for a service involving alcohol so it wasn't like the best to take money for that and then another is that the premise cannot sell alcohol you can't walk in and say oh here buy this bottle of wine but you can serve it yourself it has to be from a liquor store and then again the business has to agree to follow all the rules and regulations of the ABC they have to follow any town rules and regulations and they must allow compliance checks so each November and throughout the year the police department works and we do inspections make sure people have proper signage so the establishments applying for these BYOB permits must allow them to come in and do compliance checks are there any questions

[Speaker 7] (37:10 - 37:14)
I did have a couple questions I'll try and answer

[Speaker 3] (37:14 - 37:16)
to the best of my ability not all research

[Speaker 7] (37:16 - 37:45)
that's all we can do I did have a there was some language that talked about I guess no more than 750 milliliters of wine for every one or two patrons I just thought that was just kind of is it one or is it two that just kind of was a question that I had there was a limit of no more than five permits annually is that just something is that a number that we just came up with

[Speaker 3] (37:45 - 38:18)
these were just other guidelines and other rules and regulations from it was I looked at like Marblehead who was close to us Winthrop Boston and we kind of just decided what might be most beneficial for Swampscott but that's definitely language that can be changed and I would think like you can change it to have unlimited BYOB but I didn't know if the select board wanted to put a restriction like some other towns just so that not everybody goes to BYOB or you can have like some sort of regulation for that but it's completely

[Speaker 7] (38:18 - 38:30)
up to you I mean I would prefer if they purchased a full liquor license if there was one available we have six available want to make sure the reporter

[Speaker 3] (38:30 - 38:32)
the regular ones available too

[Speaker 7] (38:32 - 38:54)
so as part of the proposed policy there was also enforcement we talk about civil penalties of $100 for the first offense $200 for the second offense $300 for the third and subsequent offenses is that commensurate with you know the I guess the fines or the enforcement of a regular full license

[Speaker 3] (38:54 - 39:29)
I am not sure but I can get back to you on that that particular section that section the quarry section as well as the proof of liquor liability those are three areas that we did reach out to our insurance company and we're still kind of waiting for an answer but I can double check with I can't get my files when I'm not on my work wifi so I can't pull up the penalties for a regular liquor license but I can certainly make sure that they do kind of coincide with

[Speaker 7] (39:29 - 39:33)
those I just wouldn't want to have something that's more onerous here

[Speaker 3] (39:33 - 39:35)
no that makes sense

[Speaker 7] (39:35 - 39:42)
and I guess the other question that I had was is there a charge to the business owner or a proposed charge

[Speaker 3] (39:42 - 40:26)
yeah so we wanted to leave that up to the select board to decide I know that before we had possibly had $1,000 in SwampScot but it's really up to the select board I did out of the 11 towns who I reached out to I was able to find four policies and those policies the annual fee range from $400 to $450 so I don't know if we want to be more in line with them or if you want me to reach out to additional towns to see there was one it was like $400 for the or $450 for the initial and $400 each year after so they decide to keep it but that was there wasn't really anything that was too far above that price point

[Speaker 4] (40:27 - 40:28)
how much was the liquor license

[Speaker 3] (40:28 - 42:15)
the all alcohol liquor license would be $2,400 and then the beer and wine license is $2,100 so it would be like significantly cheaper but it's also not like they don't it's kind of more like a benefit they're not always going to have people who bring alcohol it's a benefit that the small business might be able to bring in more people but we could keep it at the $1,000 I know that that was I just want to leave it blank so that they decide how many businesses have asked for this only one we did have two two businesses before Cafe Evelino had a BYOB permit before they had their all alcohol license and then Cafe Paulina was where the business who Andrea's is who is side note that's who is asking for one and I heard from several residents that they used to go to Cafe Paulina and when they came into Andrea's they said oh they used to have a BYOB can we still do that and that's kind of what sparked the owner to look into it to ask us is there any other for the number 12 patrons are allowed to carry in only so that was also like guidance from another policy but we can certainly change that I just think that it was kind of suggested to have a limit on it that way one person isn't bringing in like 30 beers and they're finishing it it kind of just gives some it gives like some restrictions as to what they can and can't bring that way you kind of limit the people who might be leaving intoxicated

[Speaker 2] (42:16 - 42:22)
yeah I think the I think the question on that was just the one or two oh okay

[Speaker 8] (42:23 - 42:37)
I think the distinction there is that if you are by yourself and brought a bottle of wine you could still open it but then if there are two of you you shouldn't bring two bottles that's how I read it as well it's not one bottle per person

[Speaker 2] (42:39 - 42:41)
so if two of you go in you can't bring two

[Speaker 8] (42:41 - 42:45)
right but if one of you came in you wouldn't be in violation if you brought a regular sized bottle

[Speaker 12] (42:46 - 42:49)
but if you had three you could bring two

[Speaker 8] (42:49 - 42:49)
bottles

[Speaker 3] (42:49 - 43:38)
and then one other thing that I just wanted to point out is we did put in here just for you to decide a quarry check KP law said that it's because the business is not serving the alcohol they're not providing the alcohol it's not necessary it's not required that the manager has a quarry check but I wasn't sure if that was something that the select board wanted to keep in just because we do fingerprinting for like the regular license I didn't know but KP law did suggest that not that we take it out but they said it's not necessary so if we were to take it out that would be totally fine.

Did they have a recommendation? He basically just said that we can leave it in if we want but it's not necessary

[Speaker 8] (43:40 - 44:16)
I think the idea here is if we have liquor licenses available and they're not being utilized and then we make another avenue for BYOB we should make it as similar to a liquor license so that the liquor licenses get utilized so I think if the parallel is that we require it under the liquor license and therefore we should require it here I understand that sort of idea so that folks are looking at this as synonymous to a liquor license type ability for their business without the cost of having liquor in their business

[Speaker 4] (44:18 - 44:22)
so you're saying to have it as a quarry or yeah to keep it that way

[Speaker 8] (44:22 - 44:48)
to almost have it be the same the same requirements that you would have under a traditional liquor license under the BYOB so that the incentive is only not to purchase all the liquor to have in their facility but have somebody bring it in that way they're still going through all the same steps maybe then to say it might be worth it for them to take the next step in their business and have a full liquor license

[Speaker 4] (44:48 - 45:17)
some people can't get a liquor license for different citizenship reasons there's reasons why companies can't pursue it I'd like to see it as easy as possible but I am good with having pretty much the same rules I just want to keep in mind that the reason they're not taking on a liquor license there are extenuating circumstances for companies especially like Pauline's

[Speaker 2] (45:20 - 45:42)
yeah I think I agree like with Mary Ellen I think we I think we do want to have that balance right like you don't want it to be so easy that everybody wants to do it but you also want to acknowledge that there's reasons to pursue this other than affordability but affordability being one of them

[Speaker 7] (45:42 - 45:49)
it seems that it's already easy right it already exists you could theoretically walk in

[Speaker 2] (45:49 - 46:05)
no yeah we need to have some guidelines yeah and so one question I had Angelica was I thought I think you had mentioned tip certification but I don't think I see that on the draft is that in the policy that we're we

[Speaker 3] (46:05 - 46:39)
have number three the establishment is is responsible for training all managers and staff that serves patrons in the correct procedures pertaining to this policy so I think that we left it we didn't specifically say tips because there are different types of training it's not you can do like I don't know that companies off the top of my head but they're not all like called tip certification that could be like the American certification a lot of the one day liquor license they take part in different types of training but if you want us to specify what type of training we we could

[Speaker 2] (46:40 - 46:44)
well I guess I just I just wonder like how

[Speaker 3] (46:45 - 46:45)
we

[Speaker 2] (46:45 - 46:49)
would how one would document the training otherwise

[Speaker 3] (46:49 - 47:13)
like yeah so they would they would have to go through a training either tip certification or something similar and we would require them to provide us with that documentation so that would be similar to a one day license where if you request a special permit for a one day liquor license each person who is serving they have to provide their tip certification so this would be very similar

[Speaker 4] (47:13 - 47:23)
to that but in a situation like this nobody is serving so with the tips would that certification just teach people how to deal with somebody who's I think so getting out of control or how to

[Speaker 3] (47:23 - 47:45)
identify exactly and they also have to check their IDs and if someone who is 18 yeah exactly maybe someone who's 18 they're not 21 they're not familiar with like what a real ID looks like they're not familiar with an out of state ID the tip certification or like training would train them in in doing so

[Speaker 2] (47:47 - 47:57)
are there other sorry are there other courses or you know are there other ways to document that training other than tips did you just say there are like other

[Speaker 3] (47:57 - 48:18)
ways to there's online courses that people can take I know that I can't think of the company off the top of my head but I know there's other certification training courses online we might be able to research like the most effective training courses and put that in here saying that it has to be one of these like accredited training courses if that's what you're

[Speaker 2] (48:18 - 49:00)
yeah I think maybe if there were you could say like I'm not a lawyer but like something like including but not but not limited to tips some you know other ones and like and other documentation for training like you could leave it open so that there are other ways to document their training I think that the generic language makes me worry about like how do we confirm that these people have been trained if it's just the manager saying yeah I told them about the policy like it needs I think should be more than that probably so that's all I think I think I would like to see something more specific there no that

[Speaker 8] (49:00 - 49:08)
makes sense even if it's just tips or industry like an industry equivalent standard right something I don't

[Speaker 2] (49:08 - 49:18)
want to limit it to one I want it to be open to other ways to do it but just so there's a way in that we're asking for something that way

[Speaker 3] (49:18 - 49:25)
it's not just the manager having like a 20 minute training thing this is what you yeah here read this yeah that makes sense yeah we can do that yeah

[Speaker 2] (49:26 - 49:50)
so I think I think that would be great and then as far as the fee goes I guess along the lines of not making it so easy or cheap to do that it is competing with liquor licenses and maybe the 400 dollars makes sense I suppose yeah I would

[Speaker 4] (49:50 - 49:59)
say 400 just to make it a little easier easier access you know not to put a burden right in the business

[Speaker 12] (50:00 - 50:05)
and we could reevaluate in a year yeah setting this policy forever

[Speaker 1] (50:08 - 50:23)
yeah I would think you you might have some civic and social organizations looking to utilize this you know or have it you know be part of a non commercial

[Speaker 4] (50:25 - 50:31)
use you mean like select board meetings at the restaurant we have a BYOB select board meeting

[Speaker 1] (50:32 - 50:36)
that is a very interesting point I wonder if the reporter heard that

[Speaker 8] (50:36 - 50:42)
do you want me to ask them maybe you could look into it drinking at the high school is highly

[Speaker 1] (50:42 - 51:51)
you know I do think you know as as the market changes look we want to make sure that Humphrey Street and Square and MBTA neighborhood if there are small businesses that can get started and use this BYOB as a way to really venture into a business that is challenging you know this makes a lot of sense having this as part of our regulatory offerings what's interesting is that you know we do have a number of other licenses and you know having six all alcohol licenses is really attractive there have been times where these have been unavailable and so you know I just would urge folks to get the word out we have a lot of properties in Swamson in these areas that really could be very attractive for a commercial venture and you know I never want to lose an opportunity to talk about that

[Speaker 3] (51:52 - 52:52)
the other thing that I don't know if we would be open to doing this but since it's a new policy if we wanted to word it in a way that the annual fee for the BYOB permit shall be like yearly maybe that it's determined yearly by the select board at like an annual meeting that way if you decide to do it at a like a higher cost now and then you feel like oh maybe it should be lower or vice versa you would have the ability to change it that would be good I don't I would that be like a better way to list this just to say that it's to the discretion of select board at X meeting but it would have to be determined like at this time each year because these would go from the calendar date so if someone were to apply like in November they would obviously only have it till December 31st and they would have to reapply again it would be similar to the regular the other liquor license

[Speaker 4] (52:54 - 53:05)
right we don't have the ability to prorate it right it wouldn't get prorated so it would be foolish to take out a permit like in November just be better just wait till January okay

[Speaker 2] (53:07 - 53:12)
so you're saying the language would say something like the annual fee for BYOB permit shall be determined by the select board

[Speaker 3] (53:12 - 53:23)
on such date yeah maybe if there's whatever date you vote on other fees maybe we could add it in at that same time

[Speaker 2] (53:24 - 53:28)
I'm worried about that getting lost I think the board

[Speaker 8] (53:28 - 53:30)
the board has the ability

[Speaker 1] (53:30 - 53:32)
to determine the fees

[Speaker 2] (53:32 - 53:34)
we can do it anyways right

[Speaker 1] (53:34 - 54:11)
I think it's just understood that as the licensing authority they have the discretionary judgment to establish the fees and I think we can just we can just leave that out there generally the board from time to time does look at these fees and try to ensure that we are staying consistent with the market the market is just the communities you listed when you began your presentation it's Marbleheads, Winthrop, it's peer communities that we compete with when folks are looking to open up a small business

[Speaker 2] (54:13 - 55:01)
yeah so I think maybe we would stick with the 400 so I think that it sounds like with the comments in additions that we just discussed that maybe we would we can vote on this at our next meeting to adopt the policy just to make sure we're we do all that all those language changes does that make sense to everybody I know that you know there's anxious business people that want to start doing this but I think that it probably makes most sense to just have the language as close as we can to adopt it with that and then if there are any small changes we can probably adopt it with those small changes next time does that make sense

[Speaker 3] (55:02 - 55:16)
if there's any other changes if you think of after the meeting if you want to email me then I can make sure that they're put into this policy and maybe send a rough draft first that way when we come back to the next meeting it's confirmed

[Speaker 2] (55:17 - 55:37)
perfect that's great yeah I would say you know once you when the small changes that we made once those are incorporated you can send them off to Diane and she can provide them to us and we can review and we should have plenty of time to take a look and make sure we don't see anything else

[Speaker 8] (55:37 - 55:46)
David going back to your enforcement question I just want to make sure you're saying you want it neither more burdensome nor less burdensome than

[Speaker 7] (55:47 - 55:50)
just an even playing field

[Speaker 8] (55:50 - 55:56)
the enforcement whatever typical on the fees

[Speaker 2] (55:56 - 55:58)
on the penalties

[Speaker 3] (55:58 - 56:20)
and I'll have the information about the liability for the next meeting I don't think that we would be like the town of Swampscott would be listed like on the one day liquor license but it would just be enforcing that the person has liability insurance should there be an incident we're making sure that the community is safe and that they do have the liability

[Speaker 4] (56:20 - 56:26)
insurance oh I did have a question on liability insurance it seemed like the limits are very low is that

[Speaker 3] (56:26 - 57:09)
typical that is that was typical for the other policies that we looked at but that was one of our questions is do we need to add this should we add it and what numbers should we be putting in and what numbers should we be I know nothing about insurance but I assume like the higher the coverage the higher the cost so if a small business is not investing in a liquor license because maybe it's too expensive then forcing them to have a liability insurance policy that's so expensive like maybe we just want to be with the industry whatever the standard is but I should have the answers hopefully soon Amy reached out to them on Monday

[Speaker 1] (57:09 - 57:15)
if you worried about the select board we have a million dollar liability policy

[Speaker 4] (57:15 - 57:17)
that seems a little low too

[Speaker 2] (57:21 - 57:23)
alright great also I just

[Speaker 8] (57:23 - 57:28)
like calling it brown bag let's not call it that let's just call it BYOB let's take brown bag off the table

[Speaker 3] (57:28 - 57:42)
brown bag we can a lot of people call it a carry in policy carry in carry in policy carry in but brown bag is what the ABC refers to it as it is odd

[Speaker 1] (57:42 - 57:45)
sounds like elementary school lunch

[Speaker 8] (57:45 - 57:50)
yeah it's meant to be childlike and wonderful and not related to

[Speaker 2] (57:52 - 58:58)
thanks Angelica this is great thanks alright so moving on we have the special town meeting warrant so a couple actions for us tonight are to open special town meeting warrant and I believe we have to set the date and then we can discuss to the extent that we can we can discuss the articles in their current form as they are but if we have a motion to open the special town meeting warrant and to set the date for special town meeting for December 5th 7pm 7pm yep so moved is there a second

[Speaker 8] (58:59 - 58:59)
second

[Speaker 2] (59:00 - 1:02:09)
all those in favor great and then yeah so I guess before we'll just go maybe we'll go article by article I will say not sure if anyone has watched any finance committee meetings lately but there is they've discussed some of this in their recent meetings and into these one important item to keep in mind is that the free cash certification from the state we still don't have our free cash certification and the state has informed Amy that they will have it to us by our December 5th town meeting but whether we will have it by the time we need to actually vote on these make any recommendations on these articles or send out the warrant is still unknown and I don't think not sure how optimistic anyone is that that will happen because that would be probably November 14th but we are hopeful Amy sent it in a week before the deadline to send in all the materials for that certification which I think the deadline was September 30th so certainly we had expected I think to have that number in a reasonable amount of time the chair of the finance committee and I wrote a letter to DOR just urging them to do what they can do to try to get it to us by we said the 14th so that hopefully that the finance committee and that we could at least have one meeting where we have actual figures I think that there's potential for some variance on what it could be it sounds like because of COVID and so it's harder sounds like it's harder for staff to predict how DOR will treat certain amounts and whether that is part of free cash or not so we need to wait for that number so that and that impacts you know currently we have well I think there are there are really five articles not including capital and four four of them involve free cash so right now it's it's a bit of a blank slate but we can we can go through these I think and just talk about what they are and certainly I think especially Sean I think the like article five we can talk about what that is and the purpose and everything so I think if you guys if you want we can just go through each article and discuss the purpose of them.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:10 - 1:03:09)
Sure. I'm happy to just kind of step through the article one is amend appropriation for fiscal year 23 operating budget that's this fiscal year's operating budget typically this is housekeeping but generally at the end of our annual town meeting in May typically we get a number of charges from the state either through charter schools or various bills that we have to adjust either at a special town meeting or the annual town meeting we always kind of carry that amendment to the FY 23 or whatever fiscal year we're in as a housekeeping line we do have some charter school numbers that are different so we want to address those and there are a couple of other lines that we want to address as part of the FY 23 budget article two is transfer of free

[Speaker 2] (1:03:09 - 1:03:17)
cash to Sean so on that do we think at our next meeting we'll have that we will I met with

[Speaker 1] (1:03:17 - 1:07:01)
the finance team today and they're putting together finalizing a small table of budget adjustments that I will be able to send out to the board early next week okay the next is article two approve transfer of free cash this is over the last few years we've looked at the town's financial position as we've looked at setting the tax rate this gives us a chance to ensure that we're balancing the impact of a number of the capital projects with how our budget impacts the median and average single family taxpayers prior to the approval of the new school in September of last year we had a number of public meetings and presentations where we modeled the use of stabilization funds that we've put together over the last five years to help build up the town's financial reserves this was done strategically with the intent of using it to pay down a portion of the debt service for the new school so that we would really meter the impact of that debt service on Swansgate taxpayers we talked about putting rainy day funds aside or digging the well before you're thirsty this was generally part of that long range financial planning so we're currently modeling our tax classification hearing that we have annually our assessors have our board of assessors approved values last week and I'm working with our assessor and our finance team to really look at what amount of free cash or what amount of stabilization we've used to try to ensure that we're keeping a steady hand on what impact it will be for Swansgate taxpayers Article 3 is the approval of free cash and transfers to our other post employment and benefit funds or OPEB funds in a meeting today with the town finance team we are going to be recommending that we remove that article we haven't made a deposit into the OPEB funds over the last year but we actually have a reasonable amount in the OPEB funds and this is something I think we can better address at the annual town meeting this is when we typically make these types of deposits into the town reserve funds and given that this is a special town meeting I don't think it would be prudent to be making that deposit at this time I think we can look at all the other financial priorities that we have as we build out the entire fiscal 24 budget and we can then come back and make a decision about whether or not we make a smaller or larger deposit into this fund certainly it's something that we're mindful of our position with our OPEB funds is really what holds us back from that triple A bond rating and while there's a small change in the interest rates as the interest rates continue to ramp up it continues to concern me that we're not recognized as we should be as a triple A community and it may require us to kind of take a stronger look but I don't think we should do that at this special town meeting

[Speaker 4] (1:07:03 - 1:07:12)
so wait so you're saying that we should be you would prefer that we're doing it at annual town meeting but we didn't do it at the annual town meeting we didn't and then how

[Speaker 1] (1:07:12 - 1:07:33)
does this we were trying to approve a new school and I think our focus was really laser on how do we keep the budget tight how do we you know ensure that our financial position is as strong as it could be as we went out to market for bonding for this school and and all those other fiduciary responsibilities that we have are there

[Speaker 4] (1:07:33 - 1:07:41)
any negative ramifications as far as our ratings go if it shows that we are not we're not showing intent on putting something in

[Speaker 1] (1:07:41 - 1:08:23)
I think the I think it's always something that the rating agencies look at and I think what's important is that we have OPEB trust fund I think that shows our intent to actually address this and I think they'll be they'll be looking at our commitment to actually paying that down and addressing this as a priority and I think it's clear Swanscott has made it a priority and we are going to continue to make it a priority and we're going to continue to discuss it both as a town finance team and as a finance committee and as a community but

[Speaker 4] (1:08:24 - 1:08:35)
I hear what you're saying but I'm just a little concerned not putting anything in here but I'm not kicking and screaming I would just have to think about it more there is a concern

[Speaker 7] (1:08:35 - 1:08:54)
Sean do we have any I know we typically have actuaries to review this liability do we have a schedule as to when that is going to occur and what the interest rate changes will do to this to this number?

[Speaker 1] (1:08:55 - 1:11:38)
Every time the Fed changes the interest rates it changes our actuaries assumption so we do have a report we typically you know get that annually I can get a copy of that to the board and we can talk about what those assumptions are I don't have it off the top of my head but certainly happy to follow up at the next meeting with our director of finance administration our town treasurer and dial into some of those assumptions I will say just as a town administrator that has to balance all of these sophistries I'll say you could probably find any actuary to kind of give you the worst case and best case assumptions we spend a lot of money paying for these other post employment benefits we pay as we go and to somehow have the town penalized for not you know paying it all off right now it's unfair for this generation it's unfair for the next 10 years or 15 years of Swanscot residents that deserve better parks deserve better infrastructure and better public amenities to have to pay for the OPEB liabilities for the last 50 years that somehow we just you know didn't keep up with you know we've got to try to find a balance with addressing these in a very strategic way without you know losing our focus on some of those current investments that we should be making it's frustrating and we're in a better position than most but it's still frustrating article 4 is the approval of or the approve a transfer of free cash for collective bargaining agreements this is to address the one union that we actually haven't settled with I actually had a productive discussion with the fire department union yesterday it's never you know clear as to whether or not we will be able to reach an agreement by budget submission for this special town meeting but I do believe the parties are in good faith and we are both working back and forth with proposals to truly try to get a contract before the select board and ultimately before this special town meeting

[Speaker 7] (1:11:38 - 1:11:47)
and Sean what is the pencil down date as to when that would need to happen for this to be on the warrant on December 5th

[Speaker 1] (1:11:47 - 1:11:58)
it has to be 21 days before town meeting so it's essentially I believe it's November 14th or 15th

[Speaker 4] (1:11:58 - 1:12:04)
so you have to have an agreement in place before like November 14th or 15th for

[Speaker 1] (1:12:04 - 1:12:14)
this to it's advisory and not mandatory the answer from town council is sort of

[Speaker 4] (1:12:15 - 1:12:23)
okay so we could keep this in the warrant and go right down to the date and fill it in at the last minute that's what we've done

[Speaker 1] (1:12:23 - 1:12:45)
in the past my experience is that a lot of these contracts ultimately just go to the as they say the courthouse steps and you know these contracts are challenging you know we certainly we schedule some time every week over the next few weeks to just try to work it out

[Speaker 4] (1:12:45 - 1:12:48)
when was this contract up

[Speaker 1] (1:12:49 - 1:12:53)
it was up on July 1st of 2022

[Speaker 4] (1:12:55 - 1:12:57)
and these are three year contracts

[Speaker 1] (1:12:57 - 1:13:08)
typically they're three year contracts they have been one year but typically they're three year contracts

[Speaker 2] (1:13:08 - 1:13:27)
they have been one year so it's not it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a

[Speaker 1] (1:13:28 - 1:15:24)
it's a it's a Go ahead. Article 5 is the establishment of a compensated absences reserve fund. I've met with the superintendent.

And over the last few years, we've talked about the impact of a midstream retirement that we haven't planned for, for one police officer, one firefighter, teacher, long-serving employee. It can be as much as $50,000 to $60,000. And so when we kind of think about some of our smaller budgets, and we think about how these retirements can impact our operating budget, we've discussed, how can we avoid that kind of disruption?

How can we be a little bit more careful with how we budget for these anomalies? And having a reserve fund that deals with these typical annual retirements, some of them happen earlier because of medical reasons. Sometimes they happen because of unplanned reasons.

But having that compensated absent reserve fund is a best practice. It helps us ensure the integrity of our operating budget appropriations. When we have unanticipated end of employments that happen earlier than we anticipate, typically still have to manage to budget.

And that will put pressure on other operating line items. It puts a lot more pressure on the town side of the ledger than the schools, because we pay out the end of employment typically on the town side. And so if it's unanticipated, it can be an unwelcomed impact.

[Speaker 7] (1:15:25 - 1:15:33)
So Sean, I'm assuming you've looked at five to 10 years of data, and 250 is the number based upon a high, a low, or an average?

[Speaker 1] (1:15:37 - 1:16:36)
250 generally is about five employees. And I think that gives us the ability to, if we need two or three in a year, I think it buys us some time before we replenish it. And I think if we benchmark 250, I think that's a reasonable allocation that would help us get through a fiscal year in a worst case kind of scenario.

And then we could circle back around and we can use the average of three years. Typically with snowstorms, we budget the average of five years worth of snowfall. But you never know how many you're going to get one year.

It could be four, it could be three, it could be one. But it's a good number that I think helps us all feel like it's a good insurance.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:36 - 1:16:45)
But you're saying you actually have, you've looked at the last minimum of five years what the average is that you're paying out, just on the town side. I'm not talking about school side.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:48 - 1:16:52)
It's typically town and school, because you know.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:52 - 1:17:06)
School, they have to ask in advance who's going to retire. Then there's a line item in the budget for that amount. So are you asking for 250, and then is the school going to be giving back their line item?

[Speaker 1] (1:17:07 - 1:17:25)
It's my anticipation that they're going to still budget for the anticipated retirements or anticipated end of employments. And this is going to cover the unanticipated end of employment.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:27 - 1:17:50)
That was my understanding, having watched the finance committee, that this, on either side, wouldn't be replacing the budgeted amounts for the known retirements. It's more for the unexpected, if you have an unexpected wave, which can happen, to have that fund so it doesn't throw you upside down.

[Speaker 1] (1:17:52 - 1:18:24)
That's the way I understood it. Just to give you an example, I've incentivized. I've tried to incentivize early retirements for a number of employees.

And I've had to split their payment from one fiscal year to another, just because we were trying to manage to budget. I wouldn't be able to fund their end of employment without creating a budget issue. And so this gives us a little bit more flexibility.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:24 - 1:18:56)
Would the idea be that the number is $250,000 now, but would the idea be that it's sort of funded at $250,000, and then if you have to dip into it, we try to replenish it to get back to $250,000 at some time, if it's $250,000 or $250,000. But the idea isn't that necessarily that we're contributing $250,000 annually to this fund.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:56 - 1:19:19)
It's really a one time, we're going to leave it at $250,000. And if it drops down to $200,000 next year, or if it stays at $250,000, we just leave it. And then when we have a year where it can be strategically advantageous, we rely on it.

Because it will protect your operating budget.

[Speaker 8] (1:19:21 - 1:19:34)
So is it a fund for which, if you have unexpected retirement either at school or town, the expectation is you will automatically utilize it, or is it discretionary?

[Speaker 1] (1:19:34 - 1:20:00)
I'd say it would be discretionary. And I'd like to think that we'd all use our judgment to ensure that we're keeping that as a reserve, as a strategic way to balance the budget, and keep the line items in the operating budget.

[Speaker 4] (1:20:01 - 1:20:08)
But why would it be discretionary if somebody's retiring? Are you saying it's all about the money?

[Speaker 1] (1:20:09 - 1:20:11)
Well, no, it's not.

[Speaker 8] (1:20:11 - 1:20:16)
This ensures that the school or town take out from their budget, then, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:20:16 - 1:22:40)
Yeah, I was thinking this would be just on the town side. The town would be making these decisions. I frankly would recommend that, frankly, this be the responsibility of the town administrator to make these decisions.

Because I wouldn't want a retirement to come up before a five member fragmented board and have it become a political conversation, as opposed to an administrative conversation, where we make decisions about whether or not it is in the town's best interest to incentivize early retirements, or try to find a way to address the financial impact of a early end of employment. We get those situations that really can cause a significant impact to the town's operating budget. And so we're anticipating that we may have some of these issues.

And we're trying to establish a reserve fund to help address that. We've talked about similar stabilization funds. These are stabilization funds to stabilize your operating budget.

We talk about energy. We talk about the impact of the energy markets. If energy goes up by 14%, 15%, gas goes up by that, our operating budgets take a hit.

And it would be helpful to have some energy stabilization fund to just offset whatever exceedance there is so that small budgets. We have departments that have less than $200,000 line items. Our senior center is $220,000.

And you get four retirements, you might hit $200,000. And we have to go and make deep cuts and small budgets that really make a huge difference in the quality of life of the community. And I'm trying to put some structural change into the town fiduciary tools to just ensure we don't have those types of problems.

The easiest thing to cut are community programs or initiatives. And those are the things that matter most. And I'm trying to ensure those initiatives don't pay the price if we have an unexpected end of employment.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:43 - 1:22:58)
And this is a fund that is established through mass general law. So clearly, these reserve funds could only be used for that purpose under that law.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:58 - 1:23:07)
KP Law has reviewed this. They've provided the language for that. Compensated Absences Reserve Fund, they can only be used for end of employment.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:10 - 1:23:29)
My understanding, too, on the town side is that there are certain contractually on retirements, there are certain provisions where whether it's sick days or vacation days. That can be a massive number.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:30 - 1:23:50)
For our teachers, for our police officers, for our firefighters, it's incredible. The ceiling is high, right? It's like, I thought, over the years, we've tried to prove that through negotiations.

But frankly, it's one of the harder things to kind of claw back.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:51 - 1:23:58)
OK. So this is also free cash? Yes.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:01 - 1:24:54)
Article 6 is appropriation for capital projects. The Capital Improvement Committee has met. They've reviewed these projects.

I do have an update. I did meet with Max Casper, our Facilities Director, today. And we are going to withdraw the elevator modifications.

He has met with the elevator vendor, and they do not believe that we need these modifications. At this point, there's a lower cost solution to the project that they were proposing. So it's another absolutely extraordinary contribution of Max Casper and our Facilities Director.

He brought another vendor in and was able to learn a few things. So we're sure about that? We're sure about that.

[Speaker 2] (1:24:55 - 1:25:07)
Yes, we are sure about that. This is an elevator we're talking about. We are sure about that.

If it needs to be modified. Let's not keep out on the elevator, please. Not even a laughing matter, but I think, yeah, I mean, that's good news, I suppose.

[Speaker 4] (1:25:07 - 1:25:14)
The police system, Max will operate. So can I just ask you a question? On the rehabilitation of Abbott Park, that's the park in front of Clark?

[Speaker 10] (1:25:16 - 1:25:16)
That's right.

[Speaker 4] (1:25:16 - 1:25:30)
And that looks like it's going to be just short of $209,000. Half of it's a grant. Is that $100,000 will be reimbursed in this current year?

Or how does that work?

[Speaker 1] (1:25:31 - 1:26:05)
It's my understanding that that will be $100,000 in this fiscal year. But I can get some clarification from Margie Glaska for our next meeting. There's some paperwork with that grant that will outline when we will be reimbursed if that extends beyond the construction closure of the project.

I'm sure that there's a date in there that will determine when final disbursement will be. And I don't know if that will be in next fiscal year or this fiscal year.

[Speaker 2] (1:26:06 - 1:26:15)
It's probably... Well, Margie will have the answer. I don't want to necessarily speculate, but it's probably just dependent on when we finish the project.

[Speaker 4] (1:26:15 - 1:26:30)
I also sent her an email that Republic, I copied you on that, Republic, our trash removal company, has a special grant program for parks and things like that. She said she was going to look into that.

[Speaker 1] (1:26:31 - 1:26:31)
Great.

[Speaker 4] (1:26:32 - 1:26:43)
So my next question is repairs to Town Hall Garage. Is this where there was a beer fest and the...

[Speaker 1] (1:26:43 - 1:26:44)
Swamptoberfest.

[Speaker 4] (1:26:44 - 1:27:07)
Swamptoberfest, and the forklift went through. So that was the Swampscot Yacht Club, and the town entered into an event. The thing went through the garage floor.

So is there a reason why this is $100,000? Wouldn't insurance cover that? Wouldn't insurance from Swampscot Yacht Club and the town cover that?

[Speaker 1] (1:27:07 - 1:27:31)
Yes, we are getting funds from insurance, but we have two garage bays, and we're going to fix both of them. So it's roughly $100,000 for both sides, and we are assuming insurance will pay for one side, and the $100,000 will pay for the other side.

[Speaker 4] (1:27:32 - 1:27:36)
Is this totally on the town's insurance? Is Swampscot Yacht Club involved in this?

[Speaker 1] (1:27:36 - 1:27:37)
It's on the town's insurance.

[Speaker 4] (1:27:38 - 1:27:52)
Is there a reason why the other program that was involved? I mean, my understanding was this was a combined program. The profits were split.

It was a group thing. I'm just wondering why this is completely on the town.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:53 - 1:28:07)
You know, I'll go back and look to see if we can subrogate against the Swampscot Yacht Club if you would like. It's a small non-profit. I'm certainly happy to see if they will pay a portion.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:07 - 1:28:11)
Well, it's not that they would pay. I'm wondering if their insurance company picks it up.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:12 - 1:28:29)
And I'm assuming that their premium will... I'll go back and see if we can subrogate part of the claim on behalf of our insurance company. I would assume that our insurance company would chase them down if they thought they wanted to subrogate.

But I'll look into that if you'd like.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:30 - 1:28:35)
Well, I would like. I mean, I would just like to know what's out there.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:36 - 1:29:44)
Understood. I did ask Max to look into a few different options. Right now, the plan is to fill in the void under the floor of the carriage house.

It was built as literally a carriage house for horse and buggy. And the risk that we would have another incident in the future would be there. Although, we're looking at some structural steel that perhaps we could put in that would continue to keep the space.

The bottom floor or the space underneath the floor was a workshop for Elihu Thompson. And so he was one of our country's greatest engineers. His home's on the National Historic Register.

It is the town hall. And to just simply fill that up seems like we might miss a piece of history.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:45 - 1:29:56)
Have you contacted, has there been any attempt for getting a loan from, not a loan, but getting a grant from the historic, the state historic?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:56 - 1:30:35)
We haven't reached out to the state historic. At this point, we're just trying to repair that and fix it. We're looking at two different strategies.

One will be to fill it and just bring the carriage house back to productive use. And the other would be to construct some underground storage and help bring that back to some existing condition prior to the forklift falling through the floor.

[Speaker 8] (1:30:35 - 1:30:37)
What do we use it for prior to the forklift?

[Speaker 1] (1:30:39 - 1:31:12)
We actually store a bunch of plaques for the trees that we have around town hall. And it was just basically lost to time. There were some pieces of electronic equipment that I have no doubt that Elihu worked on down there.

It was part of just, it looked like it was an old root cellar. And so it looked like there was some material that was just left in the turn of the century.

[Speaker 8] (1:31:12 - 1:31:17)
What is the plan if we bring it back to usable space? What is the plan for it?

[Speaker 1] (1:31:18 - 1:31:36)
Roughly, we talked about using one half for storage for the rec department. And the other half would be for a space that highlighted some of Elihu's inventions and his workshop.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:36 - 1:31:40)
Are we talking about a space that you can walk down in and stand there? You can stand up in there?

[Speaker 1] (1:31:40 - 1:31:46)
Yes. Want to schedule a meeting in the basement?

[Speaker 4] (1:31:46 - 1:31:48)
Unless we get our BYOB.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:48 - 1:31:49)
All right.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:51 - 1:31:53)
I mean, headlamps, maybe. Headlamps.

[Speaker 10] (1:31:54 - 1:31:55)
Headlamps.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:57 - 1:32:46)
The sailboats and the stand-up paddle boards, this is falling into, the sailboats have fallen into disrepair. They have reached their life cycle. And this is an attempt to kind of get ahead of the season.

I think we had an extraordinary summer season with the stand-up paddle boards. The thought was we'd go out and we'd actually get some additional boards. And we'd continue to make this a lower cost and more available resource for the community.

And certainly want to just get ahead of the summer season.

[Speaker 7] (1:32:46 - 1:32:57)
Well, and for the sailboats specifically, I mean, we need to have those ordered right now. Otherwise, if we wait until regular town meeting, there won't be any.

[Speaker 10] (1:32:57 - 1:32:57)
It won't be any.

[Speaker 8] (1:32:58 - 1:33:01)
Is it upkeep on the sailboats or additional sailboats?

[Speaker 1] (1:33:01 - 1:33:02)
Additional sailboats.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:04 - 1:33:27)
Well, the sailboats that are in inventory right now have They're beyond reserve? We capitalized, well, I don't know about the condition. I can just tell you we capitalized it maybe 12, 15 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a necessary upgrade. Are any funds out of the revolving account being used for this?

[Speaker 1] (1:33:30 - 1:33:40)
We're looking for a general fund. But I'm happy to look at using some of the funds out of the revolving account. I think we have some funds available there.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:41 - 1:33:58)
I think that question came up at finance committee. And I thought they had mentioned that the revolving fund is for programs and not capital items. So I don't know the answer to that.

But I know they discussed it.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:00 - 1:34:03)
No, the revolving fund can be used for equipment, too.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:06 - 1:34:39)
We can look into that. All right. Next article is Article 7.

This is acceptance of a public way. We had discussed this at our last meeting. This is before the planning board.

And I expect that this will be presented to town meeting by the planning board and our director for our Department of Public Works.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:41 - 1:34:50)
So we should have the final language for this. There's no reason we won't on the 16th, right? That's correct.

OK.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:53 - 1:35:09)
Can I ask a quick question? Are there laws? What about sponsoring?

This just goes back to the lesson, sponsoring a fleet. What about if North Shore Bank or someone like that wants to sponsor an entire fleet of sailboats? Do you have to send that out to an RFP?

[Speaker 1] (1:35:09 - 1:35:39)
We would. Generally, any type of public use of town property would have to have a public process to bid on. I can check into the thresholds.

I think there are financial thresholds in terms of what the basis is.

[Speaker 8] (1:35:40 - 1:35:49)
Like the Friends of the Swampscot. What is it? Friends of Swampscot Sailing.

Wanted to have a fundraiser where you would sponsor a boat, maybe?

[Speaker 4] (1:35:50 - 1:35:51)
Well, they do a lot.

[Speaker 8] (1:35:52 - 1:35:53)
No, I know what you're saying.

[Speaker 4] (1:35:53 - 1:36:00)
But I'm just, you know, if there is a company that wants to sponsor a boat, I'm just thinking different.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:01 - 1:36:01)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:03 - 1:36:03)
Creatively.

[Speaker 8] (1:36:04 - 1:36:05)
Yeah, you want a company.

[Speaker 10] (1:36:05 - 1:36:07)
You're going to sponsor it? You never know.

[Speaker 8] (1:36:10 - 1:36:11)
Only if it's got a dog sail.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:15 - 1:36:35)
All right. I think that's it for the warrant for now, right? I think everyone is hopeful that we'll have as many details as possible within the next two weeks.

And we'll keep you posted on the free cash.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:37 - 1:36:39)
Yeah. You know what, we have just one more question here.

[Speaker 2] (1:36:40 - 1:36:40)
Sure.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:41 - 1:37:02)
Did we have, you know, last year, from the Springtown meeting, we had Joe Dulette put in a request for capital. And then I thought it was going out, we were going to address it in the fall, for equipment, for Zoom equipment?

[Speaker 8] (1:37:02 - 1:37:08)
Yeah, Zoom upgrades or upgrades related to COVID and AV equipment. Something like that.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:08 - 1:38:13)
For the auditorium. I've met with Joe about the auditorium. We've talked about putting together a capital, a couple of capital projects.

And you know, I just, you know, I've always kind of gone into the special town meeting with the, this is a special town meeting and it should be special projects. You know, some of the improvements for the cable public educational and government programs, I think should, you know, can be part of the annual capital projects. And you know, with our licensing conversation that we're getting into, we're actually recommending that we generate some additional revenue from this license and perhaps future licenses with Comcast and maybe a way for us to get some of the revenue for some of these projects through the cable providers.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:14 - 1:38:22)
So the only reason we're bringing it up is that it was left open at the annual town meeting. So yeah.

[Speaker 8] (1:38:22 - 1:38:44)
And perhaps it could be special because it falls into the category of being warranted by COVID. And so unfortunately, it's necessary now. And if we wait another period of time, months, then we could be missing an opportunity to be helping kids and Joe out now.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:45 - 1:38:52)
I certainly am happy to meet back with Joe and talk to him about some of those priorities.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:52 - 1:39:02)
You know, I did listen to a state meeting and I do know that they're putting money on the side for grants for communities to apply for grants for this type of stuff.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:02 - 1:39:05)
I'm a big fan of getting those grants.

[Speaker 4] (1:39:06 - 1:39:07)
Maybe even Republic wants to.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:08 - 1:40:00)
Republic, yes. Let's get as many grants out of Republic as possible. All right.

Sometimes getting projects into the capital improvement program and having them sit there for a year or two gives us the ability to go out and get these grants. I think we've made tremendous improvements in our public education and government access. In fact, if we look at the budget over the last five years, it has been extraordinary.

But Joe is certainly doing a tremendous job. And I'm happy to kind of see the auditorium at the high school really get that audiovisual upgrade because we've talked about just bringing more events and music and culture into that space.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:04 - 1:40:16)
So Joe is a panelist on Zoom for our next agenda item. So we can, Joe, I don't know if you can continue to talk about us listening to this conversation or not.

[Speaker 10] (1:40:16 - 1:40:17)
I have a question. Can you hear me?

[Speaker 4] (1:40:18 - 1:40:19)
Yes, we can. Where are you?

[Speaker 2] (1:40:20 - 1:40:20)
I'm at home.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:20 - 1:40:22)
I have COVID, so I'm at home.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:22 - 1:40:25)
Joe, are you safe? You look like you're in a basement. I mean.

[Speaker 5] (1:40:25 - 1:40:41)
Yeah, I've got a tiger over my head here. All right. I'm good.

I'm good. Our whole family got it, so we're all quarantined together. So emotionally, a little drained.

Feel better. I'm saying this on a public meeting. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 4] (1:40:43 - 1:40:45)
Hope your family's not upstairs watching.

[Speaker 2] (1:40:45 - 1:41:10)
Yeah. So I don't know, Joe. We're about to launch into the television visioning committee update, but Mary Ellen and Katie were asking about a capital request from last spring annual town meeting for some upgrades that may have been postponed, that conversation.

I don't have, I don't recall. So I don't know.

[Speaker 5] (1:41:10 - 1:43:26)
Yeah, I actually brought it up again. With Sean and I talked about it in front of being more strategic about bringing this to the capital approval committee. Sean said it was OK for me to bring it up again.

Max, Casper, and I were kind of co-presenting this as an upgrade to facilities project, because the use of the auditorium is not solely for public access. In fact, the times that it's a public access venue are probably less than when it is used for other things, be they school or community events. But it is used for public access events, including town meeting.

And so it's kind of a combined thing. So my latest presentation to the capital approval committee acknowledged that. They were supportive of it, and they asked me to do a couple of things.

One was to kind of check back with the school committee on some of their feelings about it possibly being a space where if there were events, could we have like a single day beer and wine license so those events could bring in some money? The other thing they asked me to do was to talk to Jamie Marsh, who runs the Lynn Auditorium. And I actually had him come in and look at the space and give me some really good ideas about what we could think about using it for.

And then one last thing I needed to do was really have a conversation with Jim Pierce, who runs the theater program here at the high school, so that any efforts that we might consider for the space don't really trump his use of the space as an education environment. So there's a lot of good thought on it. It was on the capital approval committee for last year.

We talked about it, discussed it, thought about it even more. So I think it's, as Sean says, it sits there for a year or two. Not only can we think about some grant opportunities, but we also can think about more, I think, appropriately, what the ultimate use will be of this.

But ultimately, it's an 18-year-old space that needs a lot of upgrades. The lights and the sound are in tough shape. So in some way, it needs to get upgraded.

I'd just like to do it a little bit better, if possible, so that we can make a space that could be used for community events that includes some nice sound aspects.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:28 - 1:43:48)
Do we have the ability to name the auditorium if we wanted to, say, have the feeling auditorium and the feeling family wanted to put x amount of dollars out for this auditorium? Do things like that, are things like that in the public sector? How does that work?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:48 - 1:44:17)
Yeah, there are communities that have set up boards and they've allowed businesses and sponsors to buy sponsorship. And so we could look at a policy that would help the town generate revenue. You've got to think, do you want your public places and spaces named after businesses?

And yes, I'm just saying.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:17 - 1:44:18)
That's a good question.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:19 - 1:44:32)
As a policy, we have to think about that. Because all of a sudden, you'll have brand names on everything. You can travel around and see communities that do that.

Worth the conversation.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:33 - 1:45:43)
One thing we did in the high school was there's a gallery that was named after the class of 1965 because they donated a chunk of money to redo that gallery. Mike McClellan and I have made it a goal for ourselves to raise money from our respective classes, class of 79 and class of 89. So I think that conversation could be had for the auditorium.

If we do raise enough, how could we make sure that those classes get at least noted in there is a chart on the wall when we walk in. It has seats named after people that don't go to the theater. But the theater itself is just called the Auditorium.

So I think it's an ongoing conversation. I'm supposed to report back to the Capital Improvement Committee, and it's a two, three phase project. I also did talk to Margie Velasco about getting some community, some grant support as a way to upgrade the audio for audiences that are hard of hearing.

To think of it that way, she said it could be creatively a way to raise some money for that space because the acoustics in that room are just horrible. So it's sometimes hard to hear a lot of that and just a lot of people.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:44 - 1:46:59)
So Joe, I don't know if you heard what I had shared, but when Joe first brought this issue or this project to me, my first inclination was like, well, all new capital projects have to sit and wait. We don't fund things in the first year. We actually have a 30-year capital.

We've got to build some discipline in it so we can actually chase grants. It helps everybody prioritize and really get the ideas set so that we can allow these projects to mature. It's a great idea.

It's a great project. It's a needed project. But are we ready to move forward?

We're going to talk about a contract with Verizon that talks about brand new revenue streams to the town. It might be targeted for potentially some of these uses. I do think what Joe said was important.

It's not going to be exclusively pegged. And so there is a public component to this. There's an educational component.

There's a general government component. And so we should figure out what's the amalgamation and how do we pull that scope together that really makes sense.

[Speaker 8] (1:47:01 - 1:47:06)
I just wanted to make sure the conversation was still ongoing. That's all. And I'm glad to hear it is.

[Speaker 2] (1:47:07 - 1:47:12)
OK, I think we're going to move on. Can I just make one comment? Yeah, sure.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:14 - 1:49:32)
I just want to remind the history of the school. I was on the school building committee as an ex officio member. When we designed the school here, there was a deliberate, it was designed so that this part of the school was all public access and that the school could be closed down at night where the classrooms are.

And the intent always was to have events and to have music from outside and dance and have, and there was also talk at some point of, and some policies, I think if you look back, around how to contract with outside people to rental. There was a whole rental policy that I don't know where that ended up. So I think that the intent, at least in the terms of how this was planned and designed and all of that, and from the very beginning, the acoustics, Joe was right, the acoustics have not been great because it started becoming like, well, what's the best we can do with trying to keep within the budget?

But I think this is an area that can get very touchy, that I think that school public government kind of balance, I think it, I don't think it should go into that kind of territory. And I think that the more that we can make it so that we have work around everybody's needs, the town side and the school side, is going to be important. But the acoustics are terrible.

If anybody goes to town meeting, it can be really, really hard. And I think this is where relying on someone like Joe's experience, we're very fortunate to have him. I've been totally impressed with the kinds of work that he does.

And I just, as somebody who has historic memory, and my memory is not great on this, but Joe Markarian would be a good person to tap into because he was the chair of that committee, and he has a mind like a, he can remember all these details. But please review that when you're looking.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:32 - 1:49:39)
Joe just got appointed to the Earth Removal Committee, so we'll reach out to him. Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (1:49:39 - 1:49:48)
Thank you for that. That's actually, I was trying to be in touch with someone from the original kind of government as to really understand what the mission was of the space so that we could make sure we were honoring it.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:48 - 1:50:03)
So Joe, I just wanted to make sure that I heard you correctly. Did you say that you could actually buy a seat in the auditorium and name, so somebody by the name of Fletcher could actually buy one of those seats?

[Speaker 11] (1:50:03 - 1:50:06)
And yeah, that's what we did.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:06 - 1:50:07)
Yeah, that's what we did.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:08 - 1:50:08)
On the left door.

[Speaker 11] (1:50:08 - 1:50:11)
So there is, awesome.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:12 - 1:50:35)
All right, so in keeping with the theme of the great work that Joe's been doing, we're going to move on to the Small Scott Television Visioning Committee update on the Verizon contract negotiations, and I think a potential vote on this contract. So am I turning it over to Joe on this one?

[Speaker 1] (1:50:35 - 1:51:34)
Yes, I was just going to just frame it. Joe has been working really with Attorney Hewig from KP Law to just go through the contract renewal. This is a process that is heavily regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.

It's a pretty standard process. Every community that has a cable subscriber has to go through a FCC ascertainment hearing process that involves public hearings, and Ethan has actually done a terrific job working with Joe in helping us just negotiate and navigate this contract. There are a number of really important improvements to our Verizon contract that Joe will go over, and I'm really pleased with the end result of their terrific work.

[Speaker 2] (1:51:34 - 1:51:44)
And I'll just point out that David's been our point of contact and member of this visioning committee, so he's also been heavily involved in this work with Joe.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:46 - 1:51:58)
And Ethan is here also, and I asked him to prepare a short presentation of what his work is. So I don't know if you want him to go after we talk about the contract, or do you want him to start?

[Speaker 2] (1:51:58 - 1:52:16)
Why don't we talk to Ethan now, and then we'll talk about the contract? Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense.

It'd be easy to go with that. Ethan's, yeah, he's made his way down to the front row. All right.

I don't think I need to tell you to use the microphone. Yeah, Ethan, if you don't speak loud enough. Although, now that you're in front of the camera.

[Speaker 9] (1:52:16 - 1:53:35)
If you don't speak loud enough, I'm already. People are going to get deterred. You have to speak loud.

Yep, thank you. So I know some of you I haven't really met before. I'm Ethan Runstadler.

I've worked in the television program for a while now. I actually moved to Swampscott about a little over 10 years ago now, and I've been working with Joe throughout my time I was at the high school. I graduated in 2019, and then when I came back from school after the pandemic started, I started working on developing some new programs with Joe.

And recently, I went full time over the summer in June as the assistant cable TV coordinator. So I just made a little short presentation here just to show sort of what we've done throughout the pandemic and sort of what some of our plans moving forward are for especially the public access channel, which is what the Verizon contract is about. So first thing we've, major thing we've done is during the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of requests for sports to be covered for the high school teams.

So we started, I started working on that program in the fall of 2020.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:36 - 1:53:42)
I'm not seeing your presentation. I'm seeing the television vision in creating one. I don't know if it's the wrong screen to share.

[Speaker 9] (1:53:43 - 1:53:50)
If you go to the other Chrome tab. One to the left there.

[Speaker 10] (1:53:51 - 1:53:51)
This one?

[Speaker 9] (1:53:51 - 1:53:55)
Yep. And present in the bottom.

[Speaker 10] (1:53:55 - 1:53:56)
There we go.

[Speaker 9] (1:53:56 - 1:56:55)
Thanks. Cool. So we have, so it was really sort of fueled by the need that the pandemic created.

And since we've started it, we've sort of expanded our ability. We now have a satellite studio down at Bloxwich Field that we use to produce the events down there, as well as the football games, which we like to do a little bit more production. And this all involves, this is all fueled by the students.

Right now we have approximately about 30 active student employees who take part in the sports production, as well as the meetings like tonight. And over the past two years, we've done about 150 broadcasts total of sports. The next thing we've done is sort of throughout the pandemic, we've obviously needed to improve our meeting broadcast and sort of our ability to do hybrid meetings.

So we live streamed the select board, school committee, zoning board, and planning board meetings all from here, usually. But we've also developed some more hybrid spaces over that time. So we now have the senior center is a fully hybrid space with four cameras similar to this room.

And then the town hall and the police station are at a lesser capacity. But we're piloting some new options right now to get some more hybrid spaces throughout the town. And then finally, the public access is sort of the main thing that I'm diving into now.

So what we're hoping to do is really sort of involve the community in the coming year as we get this new Verizon channel, which will be sort of up and running by the summer, we hope. And so our goal with that is to sort of work in some community workshops where we can sort of educate community members on how to use the vast amount of equipment we have for production. And to sort of put that to use to create some more locally originated content for the public channel.

And so that will be the main focus of what we're producing for the public access channel that the Verizon contract will give us. And then the last thing, the most recent thing is we have a new website, which I've been working on. Diane, if you wanted to click on that, we can take a quick look.

So it's swampscottma.tv, similar to the government website, just .tv instead of .gov. And here you can access all of our YouTube channels, as well as the live feeds from the government and educational access channels.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:58 - 1:58:31)
Ethan, it's awesome. It's amazing for me to kind of just see where we've come over the last just few years. I think through the pandemic, covering those additional games was so critically important.

You actually brought so many people to these events that they never would have been able to see. And it really, really helped assuage a lot of the loneliness and a lot of the disconnect that I think a lot of people were feeling during the pandemic. Joe and, frankly, you both took on an enormous amount of additional work.

Like, that was not part of our regular routine. And to think about ways that we use this public educational and government access. We've done a pretty good job with the educational.

But the public and government, we're starting to videotape so many more of the government. Memorial Day, Veterans Day. All the events that folks really want to see that may not be able to get to is making a huge difference in helping Swampskip not be as lonely and as disconnected.

And that's a huge benefit. I know sometimes people think, oh, it's local origination. It's just cable.

It's not. It actually is vitally important.

[Speaker 9] (1:58:31 - 1:58:47)
Yep. And I'll just put out there, for anyone listening, we are really trying to push forward with the local origination stuff. So we want to hear from community members about their ideas and what they'd like to see on cable channel.

We did a survey as part of our cooking shows.

[Speaker 1] (1:58:47 - 1:58:54)
Cooking shows. Anybody got a special talent? Anybody know how to yodel?

We need all those. All of them. We want to hear them.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:54 - 1:58:56)
Do you have that link on the town website?

[Speaker 9] (1:58:57 - 1:58:59)
For the new website? We do not yet, actually.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:59 - 1:59:01)
When do you think we could have that on the?

[Speaker 9] (1:59:02 - 1:59:17)
I'm not sure. I will send an email to the tech people at town and get that up there as soon as possible. And there's contact forms on that website that you can send us an email with.

[Speaker 10] (1:59:17 - 1:59:19)
So yeah. Great job.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:20 - 1:59:54)
Thanks, Ethan. Thanks, Ethan. It's a long time coming to say congratulations on being full time.

We're really happy that you're officially full time and that we have that support. And I echo what Sean said. I mean, you guys kept the town running over the pandemic.

And it's really appreciated. And we certainly take the work that you guys do for granted and just sort of assume that these things work. But we all do know how much work it takes behind the scenes.

So thanks a lot. Thank you, Neil. I appreciate that.

[Speaker 9] (1:59:56 - 2:00:04)
Anyone have any other questions for me? OK. Nope.

You can go to Joe's presentation now.

[Speaker 10] (2:00:06 - 2:00:07)
All right, Joe.

[Speaker 5] (2:00:08 - 2:03:08)
Thanks, Ethan. Thanks, Joe. So the Small Spec Television Visiting Committee is really kind of wrapping things up, possibly tonight.

It's been a long process. And the whole process really gives the town a chance to look at its contract with Verizon and think about, is it serving the community needs? We reach out to different faces of this.

Ascertainment is an opportunity for us to really kind of make sure that what we're doing with our cable providers is serving the needs of the community. It's kind of funny because at the time, a lot of people were kind of cutting the cord on cable. And we did find out through our survey that a lot of people were doing that.

They stopped paying for it because it was too expensive. But that's something that we have to consider as we move forward as a town over the next 5, 10, 15 years. So phase one was kind of doing the community survey.

Phase two was a negotiation. If we go to the next slide, that's really the introduction of all the phases. I'm just seeing a blank.

Oh, I see. There's fancy information on that. Nice job, Sean.

So I do want to thank David for being the liaison to this committee and helping me through this. And Attorney Hewitt is just a master at this stuff. He's negotiated so many of these.

So his work, if he couldn't be here tonight, he's sorry he couldn't be here tonight. But his work is so invaluable to make this run smoothly. His understanding of the process is fantastic.

The next slide just talks us through ascertainment, which is the process that wrapped up really last October, where we did solicit input from the community. We did a survey. It gives us the opportunity to meet with community organizations, review complaints, look at our service area.

But our service area, we're pretty densely populated. So it's not hard for the cable providers to get to all the people in town and then to look at other cable licenses. We did a lot of comparing between the Verizon and the Comcast one.

And that comes up later in the presentation. If you go to the next slide. I'll move it.

Maybe there's more fancy animation coming up. I'll talk about it while we wait for it to go. But the ascertainment, which was phase one, was to make sure that we reached out to the community and make sure that we had some evidence-based feedback from our community, which was primarily a survey.

We got 223 responses back. And the number one request was more local programs. But that was not matched by the number of people who wanted to create the programming.

But that's OK, because you want your audience to be bigger than the number of people that are creating it.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:08 - 2:03:09)
Excellent point. Excellent point.

[Speaker 5] (2:03:10 - 2:07:15)
We felt like we got enough people who said they wanted to create programming that we thought it was realistic to start a public access station to get people in. Because the number of people said, yeah, I would make programming. And then the number of people that said they'd watch it, like, this makes sense.

Let's give this a shot. So we did have a meeting. We all communicated.

I think many of you guys were in attendance to that one. So we can go to the next slide. That kind of satisfied our requirements for the ascertainment phase of the negotiations.

Just some things to note. There are some things that we can negotiate, and there are some things we can't. We can't negotiate the service or the fees or the programming itself.

That's the cable providers can dictate that. But we can negotiate the capital and operational funding. And we can compare licenses with our community to other communities.

And so we did do that. We can go on to the next slide. So the negotiations have been going on for about a year.

And this was really Attorney Hewitt's expertise in going back and forth with Verizon's attorney. This was about 10 months. And our license ran out in November of 2021.

So we're beyond the term of that. But the contract continues. So we've been getting paid the same as we had in the previous one.

And we believe what we have tonight is the best cable TV renewal license that we could get. So we can move on to the next slide. We did ask for 5%.

So we were at 2.7% with Verizon, and we wanted to get to 5%. We are unique, I think, in a way that we didn't have a public access channel. So we said, well, we want 5% because we want to have public.

We also asked for an extra channel, and we wanted that to be an HD. Attorney Hewitt said that that's standard for Verizon to be giving out now. And we wanted a five-year renewal license term because that's pretty much what they're giving.

So what we ended up getting, you can go to the next slide. We ended up getting a five-year contract. We ended up getting 3.1%, and that matches what Comcast is giving us. Verizon was very much about, well, we'll give you what Comcast gives you. And so when we start to negotiate with Comcast, which we'll start right after this, we're going to ask them for 5%. And Verizon said that we will increase or decrease the amount that we give you based on what you get from Comcast.

So if we can get five from Comcast, Verizon will give us five as well at that point. We also asked for 17,000-a-year capital. We ended up getting, I think, 13,500 every year for capital.

So that will give us about $600,000 over the course of the five years for, I think, what will now be probably maintenance because we've added so much new equipment over the past five, six, seven years that we're going to need money to obtain this fleet of gear. And we did get the 1HD channel, which we have to request right after the contract is signed. And then they'll give it to us in 270 days.

So that gives Ethan a chunk of time to get everything ready and get programming ready to go. Next slide, please. So that's basically it.

Things to note is that we feel the best that we could in the market now. We do need to make sure that we understand that people cut the cord daily and that that revenue that we get, which totals right now about $180,000 between Comcast and Verizon annually, is decreasing by 5% each year is what I'm estimating. Phase two actually will end tonight if the contract is signed.

And if you guys have any questions, I am happy to answer. And Sean is also a wealth of information on this. He's done so many of these in so many times.

This is actually my first time going through one of those. So Sean, I appreciate the support on this.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:16 - 2:08:22)
Joe, I really think that you've done better than I've done on any of them. And you should do the Comcast one as soon as possible. I would encourage you to reach out to Comcast next week.

You don't have to wait until it expires. You can just bring them to the table. The work that you're doing is extraordinary.

And frankly, I agree with your assumption that this is the best deal that we can get because the landscape with telecommunication is completely changing. And locking in a contract with Verizon today, I think does give us the ability, at least over the next five years, to have something secure. It's the bird in the hand.

And Joe's point about the people cutting the cord, that's the future of telecommunication. There will be no more landline cable companies in the future that, frankly, I see And we're going to likely be doing away with these types of contracts.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:23 - 2:09:16)
Joe? Joe, I just wanted to thank you and thank Ethan and thank the other members of the Television Visioning Committee for their service and for their input. I did have a question about other funding sources because as we had talked about this as a committee and I believe in front of the select board several months ago, you had mentioned there was a bill, a piece of legislation that was maybe getting some traction at the state house regarding streaming services.

And that could essentially be a plug or additional funding for public access as we move forward, as we move forward into a streaming world of 5G. And I just wanted to see if there was an update that you had for us there with that particular piece of legislation.

[Speaker 5] (2:09:17 - 2:09:48)
I don't have the most updated information on that. I know it got out of committee. I'm not totally certain, but I'm pretty sure it got out of committee, which means that it could be going in front of the full legislature.

But some other stuff came up that was related to cable issues that I think kind of took the fire from that one. But I can get more information on that. I don't have the most updated.

I apologize for that.

[Speaker 10] (2:09:48 - 2:09:48)
I don't know if there is.

[Speaker 5] (2:09:49 - 2:10:22)
It's a bill that would require entertainment streaming services to provide revenue to the state as a direct response to the loss of cable revenue. And this has been kind of pushed a couple of times through the legislature and it hasn't gotten out of committee. But then the state would kind of divvy it up to communities as a way to supplement what they're losing from the cable revenue.

There was a lot of traction before. And I'll get the latest information and I will update it. I apologize.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:24 - 2:10:53)
I have a quick question. So you have an offer from, my understanding is you have an offer from Verizon and now you're going to go and negotiate with Comcast. Is there a reason you just don't put out a needs page to both of them and say, what's your best deal?

Because if Verizon is saying, OK, we'll give you what Comcast is going to give you, why not just give it all to Comcast? I mean, whoever's going to ante up first.

[Speaker 1] (2:10:54 - 2:10:57)
I don't think we should discuss strategy openly in a public meeting.

[Speaker 4] (2:10:57 - 2:11:02)
You know, you're right. You're right. But I was just interested.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:02 - 2:11:04)
There is a reason. And I'm happy to share it with you.

[Speaker 4] (2:11:04 - 2:11:05)
All right, good.

[Speaker 8] (2:11:05 - 2:11:19)
Later. I have a question about the public access channel. Is there a way to access it if you do not have Verizon or Comcast?

Or is that the issue, one of the issues?

[Speaker 5] (2:11:21 - 2:11:42)
All of our channels are online. So you can access our channels. And they actually look better online because our channels at Comcast and Verizon, we only have SV channels on their feeds.

So you can watch all of our programming through our TV website, which you can access through Ethern's easy-to-find responsibility. Our TV website.

[Speaker 8] (2:11:42 - 2:11:47)
And I'll be able to access Mary Ellen's yodeling program on there as well when it comes to fruition?

[Speaker 1] (2:11:48 - 2:11:49)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 8] (2:11:49 - 2:11:49)
Perfect.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:50 - 2:11:54)
Delighted to be going there. That is quite a nice website, by the way.

[Speaker 8] (2:11:54 - 2:11:55)
Beautiful. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:57 - 2:12:05)
Joe, what's the, I'm just curious, what's the breakdown between Verizon and Comcast and SwampScript?

[Speaker 5] (2:12:06 - 2:12:28)
That's a great question. I know we have 2,000 Verizon subscribers. I think it's pretty even because we get similar checks from each one.

And it kind of breaks down the same way. So I think it's split. OK.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:29 - 2:12:54)
And so this, that's fine. I thought it might be like a 50-50 thing. I just was curious if one was proportionally significantly more than the other.

This capital, this 69,000 in capital over the next five years, that's coming from the Verizon contract, right?

[Speaker 5] (2:12:54 - 2:12:55)
Yeah.

[Speaker 10] (2:12:55 - 2:12:58)
I mean, ultimately the subscribers pay for it, which is standard.

[Speaker 5] (2:12:59 - 2:13:07)
And I did just find the numbers. It looks like we've got about 600 Comcast subscribers and about 950 Verizon subscribers.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:07 - 2:13:07)
Oh, OK.

[Speaker 5] (2:13:08 - 2:13:09)
Even more on the Verizon side.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:09 - 2:13:10)
OK.

[Speaker 5] (2:13:11 - 2:13:43)
But yeah, so the capital money would come in three installments, one in about a month and a half after the contract signed, and then a year after, and then three years after. So it kind of just dispersed over the term of the contract. OK.

And we have a reserve, it's an enterprise account, so that just kind of goes in there. And then when I submit my budget, I use the revenue that we get to try to cover all my operating expenses, and then I use the capital for any new equipment or projects or maintenance.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:44 - 2:13:58)
Got it. It's staggering to me that the idea that they're providing an HD channel is like, is that supposed to be?

[Speaker 8] (2:13:59 - 2:14:00)
A big give.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:01 - 2:14:15)
Is that? Really? Really?

One is like nine months? Thanks. But no, I appreciate all the work you guys have been doing.

I mean, I feel like the first time you presented on this was like? A year ago.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:15 - 2:14:18)
Yeah, at least. Longer. Yeah, longer.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:18 - 2:14:29)
I feel like it was like, it feels like when we first got on the select board, but maybe it wasn't that long ago. But I know it's been a long process, so thanks for all the work you guys have been doing.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:29 - 2:14:36)
Absolutely. I'm proud of you because a lot of it has been his back and forth with Verizon during the last six, seven months.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:40 - 2:14:41)
OK, so I think?

[Speaker 8] (2:14:41 - 2:14:45)
Is the request that we approve the contract?

[Speaker 2] (2:14:45 - 2:14:49)
Yeah, the request is that we approve this contract tonight, correct?

[Speaker 5] (2:14:51 - 2:15:01)
Yeah. I mean, Sean, you had mentioned the possibility of it happening tonight or happening if they wanted to do a second read.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:01 - 2:15:29)
Yeah, I had originally been under the impression that we would do a second read. But if somebody wanted to move to the select board, grant the town cable television renewal license to Verizon, New England Incorporated on the terms contained in the November 2, 2022 copy provided to the board, that would approve the contract. And we would send it off to Verizon for their signatures as well.

[Speaker 7] (2:15:30 - 2:15:31)
I would make such a motion.

[Speaker 8] (2:15:31 - 2:15:32)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:33 - 2:15:38)
OK, any further discussion on this? All those in favor?

[Speaker 8] (2:15:38 - 2:15:38)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:40 - 2:15:40)
Great.

[Speaker 10] (2:15:41 - 2:15:42)
Yay, thank you guys.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:42 - 2:15:43)
Thanks, Joe.

[Speaker 4] (2:15:43 - 2:15:43)
Congratulations.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:44 - 2:15:47)
We'll be feel better. Yeah. Thank you.

Get out of the bunker.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:49 - 2:15:52)
I'm up tomorrow with a mask, so I'm getting out finally.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:52 - 2:15:56)
Joe, thank you for shepherding this all along.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:57 - 2:15:58)
Absolutely. It's been a pleasure.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:58 - 2:16:02)
Happy to do it. Looking forward to the next one. All right.

Reach out to them tomorrow.

[Speaker 10] (2:16:03 - 2:16:03)
I will.

[Speaker 2] (2:16:05 - 2:16:06)
Good night, guys.

[Speaker 10] (2:16:06 - 2:16:07)
Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (2:16:07 - 2:16:47)
Thanks, Joe. Thank you, Joe. OK, next is the consent agenda.

Consent agenda is routine, miscellaneous items that the board can approve all at once. And tonight, we have the approval of minutes from our June 16, 2021 and September 13, 2021 meetings as well as our last meeting of October 19, 2022. I don't know why these 2021 meetings weren't approved.

I'm not sure. I think it just.

[Speaker 8] (2:16:48 - 2:16:49)
I didn't work yesterday.

[Speaker 2] (2:16:49 - 2:17:18)
Yeah, I know. I don't know. Diane brought it up, so I'm not sure why they slipped through the cracks.

And I know the question often arises of, I do know that you can approve minutes even if you weren't on the board or at the meeting, which is strange, but it's true. I don't know if anyone had any questions about any of the minutes that we have in our packet or any changes.

[Speaker 4] (2:17:19 - 2:17:30)
I have a question on one of them. It's under aggregate industries. It says Mr. Spillios reiterated the need to have a portal to collect information within 45 days. Do we have that portal?

[Speaker 1] (2:17:34 - 2:17:39)
We have a CCLIX system, but I don't believe that's the system that Peter was looking for.

[Speaker 4] (2:17:44 - 2:17:54)
So I guess he's looking for some type of a vehicle to collect information.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:56 - 2:18:27)
Yeah, I did discuss that with town staff. They felt like having a redundant software system would be confusing and difficult for a number of residents. We have a CCLIX fix.

People do use it. We have emails for town staff. And frankly, we want people to go, if they have a complaint, and file a complaint with the fire department if it really is a serious issue with their property.

[Speaker 7] (2:18:28 - 2:18:38)
So should they be filing a complaint with the fire department or filing a complaint using CCLIX fix? I mean, this is the whole confusing aspect of this.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:38 - 2:19:12)
With the fire department, if there's damage to the property under the state laws regarding blasting, that's really where the complaint should go. We do collect information on CCLIX fix. So if people do say, hey, there was a blast.

I have damage to my house. We will have the fire department contact them. And so it's a good tool to help ensure that we collect complaints from residents that are impacted by blasting.

[Speaker 7] (2:19:13 - 2:19:17)
And Diane, is it possible that we could include that information in future newsletters?

[Speaker 4] (2:19:18 - 2:19:43)
Yep. Please. So it appears that Mr. Spellios was looking for information to get out there. Would that box be checked off? Is that information getting out there? He's saying, reiterate the need to have a portal to collect information within 45 days.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:49 - 2:20:14)
You know, we didn't go out and buy a different software portal for that. I do think that we presented some information about the CCLIX fix. But I can go back and look into this and see.

I know Margie had done some work to try to do some outreach to the community about reporting complaints about the blasting.

[Speaker 4] (2:20:14 - 2:20:16)
Yeah, that would be great.

[Speaker 2] (2:20:16 - 2:20:32)
I don't want to try to characterize what Peter was trying to say at that meeting. Oh, I didn't want to do that either. But I think that I would agree that what he's requesting hasn't been, it hasn't changed.

So I don't think what it was.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:33 - 2:21:05)
We did have meetings. We did meet with staff. I met with the fire chief and a number of department heads.

And frankly, it was their recommendation that we continue to use CCLIX because that has been widely used and a software system that the town pays for to help collect complaints on any number of issues that residents have concerns with. And we wanted to continue to use that as a software system to be responsive to residents' concerns on any number of issues.

[Speaker 4] (2:21:07 - 2:21:40)
OK. And I have something to add on to Diane on October 19, 2022. Would you just add under number two, town administrators FY22, Ms. Fletcher commented that her evaluation was based on eight weeks, and she's looking forward to next year's. And that part of that sentence should have been tackling opportunities for next year. Tackling opportunity for next year.

[Speaker 2] (2:21:47 - 2:21:48)
Anything else?

[Speaker 7] (2:21:49 - 2:21:51)
Motion to approve the consent agenda.

[Speaker 2] (2:21:51 - 2:22:37)
Hold on. I have one little change, Diane, on October 19. It's just on item seven.

On land acquisitions updates, the last line, it's not David. It's me. It's Pecain.

It says Pecain, David Grishman, and Peter Speleos are working to hire a design firm to help. And it should be Pecain, Neil Duffy, and Peter Speleos. That's all.

But other than that, I'm good. Sorry. So is there a motion to approve the consent agenda with the changes discussed?

So moved.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:37 - 2:22:38)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (2:22:38 - 2:22:49)
Any further discussion on this? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Great. All right.

Moving on to the town administrator's report.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:58 - 2:27:42)
So last week, I did speak with Attorney Sims to schedule additional discussions with aggregate industries. We have been tracking blasts for aggregate, and they're really approaching their 50 blast limit, so we will be sending them a notice that that is the extent of what they're allowed to blast under our existing permit. Last week, we received a proposal to develop the General Glover site.

I met with a number of the department heads and historic commission to tour the property, along with the planning board, this past Thursday. Marzi has also been working on an update to our housing production plan and our climate action plan. Our master plan expires in 2025, and that is next up on a list of important reports to update.

It's really impressive to me that over the last few months, we've filled over 30 vacancies, and we've made over 40 reappointments to committees. I want to thank Diane for shepherding a lot of these appointments. I have interviewed every one of the individuals, and I really can't say enough about the extraordinary citizens that volunteer their time to serve the town of Swampskip.

This is a democracy. Without them, this government does not work, and it's important for us to really continue to reach out to younger citizens and older citizens and everybody in between that want to contribute to Swampskip. Again, I mentioned this last meeting, but really thrilled about the work to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Recognition Month.

We have a number of speakers, and we have a historic commission is bringing author Emerson Baker to the library on Sunday, November 12th at 1130 to talk about Indigenous peoples that inhabited Swampskip and Essex County a millennia ago. Our library has been busy making promotions and hiring. We recently made a conditional offer to a Ukrainian immigrant and certainly looking to continue to work to build a more inclusive workforce for Swampskip.

Our building department has taken in a permit for aggregate industries in the amount of $344,000 to replace aging equipment with modern, efficient equipment. Expect another few checks for developments that are sizable that will add to the town's revenue this year. We won't see that until next year, but certainly these are significant payments.

Our town clerk is busy coordinating early voting in anticipation for the general election next Tuesday, November 8th at the high school. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Certainly, we mentioned earlier, we did receive news that the Attorney General has approved the bylaw for the rezoning of the Glover site. That allows us to move forward with the purchase and sale of the Hawthorne.

Our recreation department is busy running a number of fun and inclusive programs for our community. We had a wonderful town hall toddler trick-or-treat. We haven't had that for two years, but it was just great to see our citizens five and under running through town hall, getting as much candy as they could grab ahold of.

It was really impressive to see how many of our town hall employees dressed up in costumes to ensure that we actually had such a magical day. Perhaps next year, a few of my select board colleagues could join us for a few hours in a costume or two. I would love to.

[Speaker 8] (2:27:43 - 2:27:47)
I sent my representative, Stella, down. She was there for me.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:47 - 2:31:53)
That's great. Our Department of Public Works has been busy doing a lot of cleanup around town properties. Last week, I did take a drive around town with our DPW Director and Assistant Town Administrator, Gina Acresta.

We looked at the conditions of the town's fields and roads and public places. We did identify that we had some benches that were in need of maintenance. I've mentioned to Gina I want to be on these monthly inspections, just be out and about.

I just want to let folks know, if you see something that needs to be repaired, please reach out to us. We want to make sure we have a status of good repair. We especially want to make sure that the parks are kept in good repair.

We have a lot of people visiting swamps, but we don't want them to be sitting on benches that are broken or things that we could just maintain. Gina was busy coordinating improvements to Kings Beach and repairs to our seawalls. Certainly, we have a busy schedule of spring paving that we are pulling together.

We are working on a presentation for the select board to see in advance of the spring paving so that we can publicly present on which roads that we will be paving, and we can talk a little more about our road surface management system that allows us to empirically look at the condition of each road. So we're not paving the worst roads first. We're actually paving the roads that folks drive on most, and we're looking to get the maximum value out of that pavement preservation.

So it's a little bit of a different methodology, and I realize that there are folks that have some roads that need to be paved, but we don't go with the worst first methodology. We go to how do we pave roads that most residents drive on and maintain those roads so that we can maintain everybody's cars. So we don't lose the value of those dollars.

Last week, as I mentioned, we had a staff meeting at Andrews Chapel. We are moving around with staff meetings. We're just going to different town buildings, police station, fire station, Andrews Chapel, and library.

I would recommend at some point the select board do the same. It's helpful to just be out and about. I know we can't do that for every one of our meetings, but once a year we should be at each of the town properties, including the fire station, police station, and library.

I do want to just recognize the men and women of the Swamps Police Department and those on the North Shore who took part in the major drug bust on Tuesday morning along the North Shore. Swamps had had a number of residents that were swept up in that event, and it is important for us to just recognize we have drugs in our community. We have dangers in our community.

We have threats to safety, and the men and women for the police department do an outstanding job keeping us safe, but we should all be vigilant, and we should just make sure that if we see something, we say something. We have a lot of individuals that unfortunately have been swept up in drugs and prescription drugs and alcohol, and all of that is a tragic combination, and we don't want to lose anybody that is caught up in those types of addictions.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:54 - 2:32:00)
Is that the one in the paper that said $2 million worth of drugs?

[Speaker 1] (2:32:00 - 2:35:28)
That's right. It's alarming, and it's worth talking about. We've got to be more vigilant as a community.

Really pleased with the work of our Solid Waste Committee. They are truly as busy as bees. They're trash-talking everywhere.

It's actually exciting to see a group of individuals so passionate about really getting ahead of the curve when it comes to our environmental responsibilities. We've had some tough conversations with Solid Waste, but these are really positive. They're doing a Take the Trash survey.

I would encourage folks to go to the town website and look for the survey or look at the QR code that we have up on our website and attend the farmer's market and really contribute to the Solid Waste Committee's efforts to really think cleaner and greener. Change is never easy, but these kinds of best practices will help Swampskate really lead the way. We're already ahead of the curve as we've come to understand in terms of getting to our waste thresholds.

I think as we pivot to the future, I think we can do even more that would help identify some of those best practices. Our Assistant Town Administrator and Director of Human Resources has been very busy filling vacancies at public works and library and a number of town departments. We have a busy month of veterans programs.

I have met with our veterans agent, Mike Sweeney, yesterday, and we've talked about a celebration of life for Captain Jennifer Harris. It will be this weekend, Saturday, November 6th at 11 a.m. There's a Heroes Meal for Thanksgiving that we will be bringing to Swampskate veterans, and we continue to have monthly meetings with the Veterans Council or crossing organizations. I'm really pleased with the work and the collaboration.

It's hard to keep some of these groups together, but they're staying together, and I want to just recognize that when they stay together, they start working together. When they start working together, they start to really make a huge difference in impacting lives of some of our veterans that we have yet to really connect with. Just like our senior center, it's important to kind of understand less than 20% of Swampskate senior citizens have ever been in the senior center, and so 80% of our seniors have never been down to really get the benefit of meals or the programs or the individuals that are down there.

It's similar with our veterans. We have 600 veterans, and we likely have not seen hundreds of them at our VFW. We've got to find a way to get to them and get them engaged.

First, we need them. We need them to help us with other programs and issues, but we want to make sure that they do not feel isolated or underappreciated.

[Speaker 4] (2:35:29 - 2:35:34)
Is it possible to get the town nurse on a regular schedule down there?

[Speaker 1] (2:35:34 - 2:36:28)
It is. And the veterans agent? The veterans agent has been going down there.

I got a report that he had one of the best attended events that they've had down there two weeks ago. I have always been, since I started, I've been an advocate of having our nurse go down there. The first year I was here, I asked our nurse to have an office down there, and I was told that there was no space.

I've been very pleased that our new full-time director has said she will make space for the nurse. The nurse right now is busy giving flu shots. Once we get through the flu shot season, she will schedule regular hours at the senior center because, as I believe since I started this job, it's important to have a nurse available to some of our residents that most need a nurse to help advise, guide, and support them.

[Speaker 4] (2:36:29 - 2:36:35)
Right. So what I'm requesting is the nurse be there two days a week, two hours, on a regular schedule.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:35 - 2:36:53)
I'm going to work with my department head and my public health nurse to kind of figure out what makes best sense for them right now, and then I'll report back and let you know what they may be able to do. But certainly they will be able to do something.

[Speaker 4] (2:36:53 - 2:36:57)
And the veterans agent, I'm talking about a regularly scheduled time, like lunch, whatever.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:57 - 2:36:58)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 4] (2:36:58 - 2:37:03)
But people knowing that every week they could go down, and the veterans agent is going to be down there.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:03 - 2:37:14)
Every week residents will know that they will be able to speak to a veterans agent and a nurse. That's absolutely going to be a standard.

[Speaker 7] (2:37:18 - 2:37:33)
Sean, I had two questions for you. One comment, one question. So I think it's fantastic that we're moving forward with the Hawthorne.

Do we have a closing date as of today that we can update, share with the public?

[Speaker 1] (2:37:34 - 2:37:47)
We don't have one yet. My guess is we'll have one tomorrow. We want to schedule that ASAP.

I have to work with the Athanases. We have to make sure that we line up schedules, but certainly that's coming together.

[Speaker 7] (2:37:47 - 2:38:07)
Okay. No, fair enough. And then I see that aggregate filed a permit, and there's a $344,000 permit fee.

I would love to have further conversations and discussions about a portion of these fees, above and beyond a certain threshold, be invested in affordable housing and affordable housing projects. I think that's a fantastic idea.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:07 - 2:38:20)
I think once we get our free cash certified, I think as a board we should sit down and talk about how do we allocate something to affordable housing.

[Speaker 7] (2:38:20 - 2:38:21)
There has to be a recurring.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:21 - 2:39:08)
These funds will trickle back into next year's free cash, and so I think we can start to think about we're budgeting $425,000 of new growth into the budget, but maybe there needs to be an update to the financial policy that we have that says every year maybe we should establish a deposit into the affordable housing trust fund. What are our values as a community? And let's think about ways that we get beyond the rhetoric with affordable housing, put some of our financial resources to the priorities that I believe we all share.

[Speaker 7] (2:39:08 - 2:39:10)
It's called putting your money where your mouth is. That's right.

[Speaker 4] (2:39:10 - 2:39:18)
I think there needs to be some serious education about really what is affordable housing, all the different categories.

[Speaker 1] (2:39:20 - 2:40:34)
I agree with you, but I think we've got to get busy. I think we've talked a lot about affordable housing, and I think we have to do both. I think we have to start building, and we need to be driving some of the projects.

We work with too many adverse developers, and we're going to continue to work with too many adverse developers unless we get a handle on how we become leaders in driving the friendly affordable housing projects that make sense for Swampskate. And so we need that land use board summit to really kind of think about where does it make most sense. Where does an affordable housing investment make sense for a number of neighborhoods that have yet to share in the responsibility for building a more inclusive and more affordable housing option for Swampskate.

It can't just be a neighborhood that's behind the tracks, or neighborhoods that chronically and historically have had to bear the burden of some of these developments.

[Speaker 7] (2:40:35 - 2:41:02)
But I think Mary Ellen makes a good point, is let's educate. And there are some incredible resources that were put together by our new colleague on the Affordable Housing Trust, Aaron Berdoff. And I'm happy to share those with you, and we can get that information out to the public as well.

So that is there, and I'll get that in the next couple of days.

[Speaker 4] (2:41:02 - 2:41:44)
For example, I remember listening to the Affordable Housing Trust when Wynn Properties was coming in. And the Affordable Housing Trust offered Wynn Properties, a very large corporation, very profitable corporation. They offered them $50,000.

That was pretty confusing. Why would you be offering $50,000 to a profitable organization that's going to come in and be making profits? So these are things that I think people need.

I could say I need to get educated on the difference between what is affordable housing, what is senior housing, affordable senior housing, things like that.

[Speaker 7] (2:41:45 - 2:42:17)
I think they made that investment to back the project, to make sure that they were the first ones in. So they said, absolutely, we're in. We're going to back you.

Here's $50,000. We want you to create as many units of affordable housing as possible. So I think what came out of it was 114 units, which will be added to the subsidized housing inventory.

So when you look at the return, the $50,000 received 114 units. That's a pretty good return.

[Speaker 4] (2:42:18 - 2:42:20)
Is there 114?

[Speaker 7] (2:42:20 - 2:42:34)
There will be 114 units that will be counted towards our subsidized housing inventory. I think 25% of those will actually be at 80% or less. I'm going off of memory, so I don't know.

But yeah.

[Speaker 4] (2:42:34 - 2:42:36)
Right, but this is just my point.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:38 - 2:43:15)
Maybe we can have a joint meeting of the Select Board and the Affordable Housing Committee and our Community Development Committee. And we can come up with a presentation that really just starts to frame maybe the type of land use board summit conversation that I think we would want to have as a piece of that. But I do think we should be talking about this more.

And I think it should be part of a formal agenda item for the board and perhaps our Affordable Housing Trust Fund Committee.

[Speaker 2] (2:43:18 - 2:43:26)
Okay. Any more questions for Sean on the report? Okay.

Select Board time.

[Speaker 9] (2:43:26 - 2:43:37)
Could I make a comment on something Sean said? Sure. The event on the 12th by Emerson Baker at the library will be live streamed on the Town of Swanska YouTube channel.

[Speaker 1] (2:43:37 - 2:43:39)
Oh, that's great. Ethan, thank you.

[Speaker 4] (2:43:39 - 2:43:41)
Ethan's thrown in commercials. Nice.

[Speaker 2] (2:43:44 - 2:43:51)
Thanks, Ethan. Okay. Select Board time.

Anyone?

[Speaker 8] (2:43:51 - 2:43:52)
I have a couple things.

[Speaker 2] (2:43:52 - 2:43:52)
Okay.

[Speaker 8] (2:43:53 - 2:44:39)
The first being that I can only speak for myself and my family, but Halloween this year in Swanska was fantastic. There were so many events from the week of Halloween up into the day of, whether it was trunk retreat from the elementary schools, the town hall trick-or-treat, or whether you were trick-or-treating day of, some of the streets were closed. There was just such a sense of community around town involving all sorts of age groups.

And it was just a wonderful time to be part of the community. And I just want to commend everybody that participated in all of those events and the folks who put them on. It is very much appreciated.

My kids are well stocked until Easter with all the candy.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:40 - 2:44:53)
Wait until next year. We're buying all the clearance Halloween decorations. We're going to have a haunted town hall.

Sounds lovely. It's going to get even. Haunted Hawthorne.

That's right.

[Speaker 8] (2:44:53 - 2:45:18)
Yeah. I also saw it in your report, but I didn't hear you say that there is a town-wide turkey hunt on November 20th, which ends at the indoor farmer's market, which I think is the last market of the season. Right.

So for those of you who don't know, last year's winners will be participating and expect more of a challenge this year. So come out and try.

[Speaker 4] (2:45:18 - 2:45:26)
I think there needs to be a little bit more disclosure here. Select person Phelan. Who happened to win that last year?

[Speaker 8] (2:45:26 - 2:45:31)
The Phelan family won the turkey hunt last year. It was extremely fun.

[Speaker 2] (2:45:31 - 2:45:32)
Do you want to clarify what the turkey hunt is?

[Speaker 8] (2:45:32 - 2:45:37)
Oh, yes. It's a scavenger hunt around town put on by the rec department. Right.

It's really cool.

[Speaker 2] (2:45:37 - 2:45:38)
We're not hunting turkeys.

[Speaker 8] (2:45:38 - 2:46:16)
No, we're not actually hunting turkeys, although we're not. It's a scavenger hunt. My kids had a wonderful time.

I hope that more people participate this year. It was just great fun, and it ended at the indoor farmer's market, and we proudly display our trophy on the piano in the foyer. Also, I had a thought, Ethan, for your first installment of Public Access Television, maybe the trash talk becomes a show.

Again, I'm offering up my recycle bins for somebody to come and critique how well we recycle.

[Speaker 4] (2:46:16 - 2:46:23)
Actually, Joe Doulet has members of his class that are entertaining how to put that together.

[Speaker 8] (2:46:23 - 2:46:43)
Okay. I did speak to somebody at the farmer's market offering my recycle bins again, and I did get a copy of the trash survey. If you have not, please access the QR code and take the trash survey because lots of people have thoughts about trash.

I've heard them. I get emails about them, but now is your chance to tell everybody else.

[Speaker 7] (2:46:46 - 2:47:01)
Sunday, I was lucky and fortunate to participate in the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research race. In and around Swampscot, I was the only person in a costume.

I thought it was going to be more Halloween-focused.

[Speaker 10] (2:47:02 - 2:47:04)
Did you read the fine print correctly?

[Speaker 7] (2:47:04 - 2:47:37)
I did not, but it was fun. It was a great event. There were probably 500 or 600 people in attendance.

This was the Boston event, and I want to say that the Michael J. Fox Foundation has already raised well over a billion dollars for Parkinson's Research. I think that was incredible, and just a big thanks to all the local organizers as well as Bound Water Brewing for coming out and being a part of it.

I look forward to bigger and better turnout next year and in future years.

[Speaker 1] (2:47:38 - 2:47:49)
Awesome. Such an important charity, but it makes a huge difference in a number of families' lives that are dealing with Parkinson's.

[Speaker 4] (2:47:52 - 2:51:37)
I have a couple things here. I am the liaison to the Solid Waste Committee, and they just are an unbelievable committee as far as the hard work that they put in. Please, if people could take just a moment to fill out that survey, it would be much appreciated.

At the last meeting, they had Republic, our solid waste remover, in there, and it was a very interesting conversation. We talked about how the trash is picked up, the customer service issue on it. Republic is really working hard.

The goal is to be able to get it so that everyone has their own account with Republic. If your trash has been picked up or you're upset with something, you just immediately contact them, and then they take care of it. It would be like one-stop shopping with Republic, whereas you don't have to call the Board of Health and then wait.

It would just help eliminate the town having to shoulder any customer service issues. They also said that they had the grant program. I contacted Margie about that.

They work hard at everything. It was kind of shocking to hear them. Believe it or not, our trash is picked up, and it's sent out by train to Minnesota.

Who would know? I'm not reporting on all my committees tonight, just a couple. On the Board of Assessors, I want to thank our elected officials on the Board of Assessors, Neal Sheehan, Laura Goodman, and Taseya El-Siliou.

These people worked really hard. The role of the assessors, for those of you who don't know, is to ensure that personal property and real property is fairly and equally valued and classified for tax purposes. I also don't want to forget Mr. Richard Simmons, who is our acting assessor, and Patriot Properties, who was involved. Every five years, we have a reclassification where all of our property is revalued. They're tasked with preparing the annual recap so that tax rate can be set. They determine which piece of the levy we all get to share and get to have some responsibility for.

When I say this year, that's based on 2021. They saw astronomical increases in the value of your real estate. The market average was 17%.

Now, don't panic. That doesn't mean your taxes are going up 17%. That just means values as an average went up 17%.

They did a thorough job on values and identified opportunities for next year. They've already set up a preliminary schedule on how they're going to work to even improve that. I was really impressed on how they weren't the typical committee that just did the committee wave.

I think they caused Sean a little stress, but they all worked it out. They worked it out, and everybody worked hard. All the evaluations have gone to DOR.

DOR has sent it back out. The one concern that I have is that I would really like to see on the website people knowing that they can go and look at their values. You have a 10-day window to look at your values and to make comments to the assessor on your values.

If you miss that 10-day window, that's fine. You can go for an abatement in January. I really want to see that information out there for residents as soon as possible.

[Speaker 1] (2:51:37 - 2:51:38)
It will be on the website.

[Speaker 4] (2:51:38 - 2:51:42)
I looked at the website at 5 o'clock, and I didn't see it.

[Speaker 1] (2:51:43 - 2:51:49)
I met with Richard today, and I thought it was up. I'll double-check that.

[Speaker 4] (2:51:49 - 2:53:54)
That would be great. At the last meeting, we went over Sean's evaluation. I'm just wondering at what point, when do we start to talk about next year's evaluation as far as goals?

We were asked to evaluate whether or not goals were attained. I just want to know if we can get that onto the schedule on what we see for goals for next year so that we can get those met. Lastly, I look at the financials because I have a background from the Finance Committee.

I'm concerned about the overtime for the police and fire and where it's looking. I would like to see the police chief come back in here within the month. I'd like to know a number of things.

I want to know about what's happening with the overtime costs, what's happening with hiring, what's happening with training, and what's happening with speeding in the community. Last week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I took my lunch break, and I sat on Pine Street in front of the speeding board. We have a speeding problem on there.

The reason I sat there on my own is because people call me all the time. Going to the Traffic Advisory Committee, I can tell you from living on Puritan Road, which is like Puritan Highway, the Traffic Advisory Committee hasn't had much success in getting a grip on what's going on with speeding. It's a public hazard.

It's unnerving. I can tell you on Pine Street, I was there from work. I was in a white van with no letters on it.

People were coming and looking, and I told them who I was. There are a lot of families, a lot of young families living there on both sides of the street. I would like to have the police chief in here.

I'd like to hear what he has to say.

[Speaker 1] (2:53:56 - 2:53:56)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (2:53:59 - 2:54:01)
And that's all I have to say for tonight.

[Speaker 2] (2:54:05 - 2:54:41)
I don't have a lot. I'll just, on the Halloween theme, just remind people. The town just sent out a message.

If you still have Halloween pumpkins, DPW's hosting a pumpkin drop-off on Saturday the 12th from 9 to 11 to compost your pumpkins. So hang on to them if you can. Put them in yard waste bags if they're getting rotten, and bring them on over to the DPW yard, and don't put them in your trash.

Other than that, I don't have anything else.

[Speaker 4] (2:54:42 - 2:54:43)
Somebody's hand up?

[Speaker 2] (2:54:45 - 2:54:50)
Yeah, it's okay. Motion to adjourn? So moved.

[Speaker 8] (2:54:51 - 2:54:51)
Second.

[Speaker 2] (2:54:53 - 2:54:59)
All in favor? Aye. Good night.

Thanks, Ethan.